Perhaps my impression of LARPs and Freeforms are skewed but here are my impressions. It'd be great if people like GB Steve and Matt could clarify things for me.

Maybe it was Matt who flagged up similarities between UK Freeform and Jeepform for me in Finland?

LARPs of this kind share a strong sense of story. There is a situation, which is more than just about a character. That is, your character has a definite place in the situation rather than being a character in and of itself (which you might get in say a WOD LARP? And even when WOD LARPs have "stories" they are constructed around the characters rather than the other way about).

There is a GM (or GMs) and a system. This is not just dialogue and negotiation with no system or support.

It seems that scenes are arranged and almost directed, though inter-character dialogue and behaviour are left entirely up to the players.

It's interesting for me in that almost all the LARPs I have played or participated in have been at conventions in Ireland. There have been games there where essentially the players act out their character and "give" when there is a conflict with another character, to push along a story. I remember John Wilson getting married in one of these LARPs and it was all down to the players walking in with the attitude of "going with the flow" and "giving" to other players to help the story. That seemed very "open" to me, though there was a lot of preparation in creating the characters beforehand and prompting scenes throughout play.

seems a bit more stage managed than UK freeform by my reading, though that being said some UK Freeforms I've been in have been fairly stage managed too... Jeepform is smaller groups by and large though, from what I've heard, some UK-style freeforms run to 50+ people.

Basically it depends on who's running it though. What's true of one scenario won;t be true in another.

I mean, a lot of freeforms are pre-written characters and situations. Whereas a WOD-larp often assumes you'll bring along whatever character you like and somehow it'll fit into the situation. But then, that's not always true either...

There's certainly often the "give" thing you talk about, although what that often ends up being is "the ego wins", whereby alpha players browbeat other players by roleplaying at them until they capitulate.

-Matt

Realms Publishing

Jeepform is about delivering a (generally) small scale but intense experience, exploring real issues generally and producing drama. It's also a form of dogma inasmuch as props and so on have to be real. Player can take the roles of internal monologues. It's very actorly and there's no resolution system as such. It's more like improvisational drama than any other form of gaming. Initial conditions and characters tend to be fairly constrained. It's about exploring a situation.

Freeforming, or non-boffer larping, is not often small scale but generally medium to large. It's more often than not farce or comedy, sometimes horror or soap opera, rarely drama. It's about fulfilling your character's goals. Players play characters and there is mostly some kind of resolution system, involving a GM if necessary. Players are often in costume and use props, sometime representational, sometimes just pieces of paper.

Of course, these are only rough definitions. There are always exceptions or cross-overs.

Thanks guys.

The use of that word is really confusing. It implies lots of connections that aren't really there.

Graham

What works for me is to ignore any implications that the words "free" and "form", or even "freeform", might have and just accept that is the name that has historically become ingrained in that culture. It does have meaning to those in the UK freeforming community as "that activity that we do".

I guess it's a loaded term like role-playing!