LARPA

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The Live Action Roleplayers Association or LARPA is a non-profit organization that was founded in 2000 exclusively to promote live roleplaying LARP around the world. It replaced the former Interactive Literature Foundation or ILF.

By intent, LARPA does not run LARP events, except as promotional events, and does not exist to promote any one system, group, or type of event. According to its basic charter, LARPA treats all groups interested in the hobby as equally valid. The founding intent of LARPA was to support and promotes all live roleplaying, and LARPA members come from many different groups, backgrounds, and types of event.

The principal activities of the group since its foundation in 2000 have been networking, and licensure of the INTERCON name for LARP Conventions.

LARPA was founded after the dissolution of the Board of Directors of the Interactive Literature Foundation at the end of 1999, by the same Directors. This amounted to a change of name, but also involved moving the corporation from one state to another. The Directors also noted at the time that the term "Interactive Literature" had become uncommon, and that the term LARP had emerged as a more nationally and internationally recognized term for live roleplay. The Bylaws and Mission Statement of LARPA were identical to those of the predecessor ILF.

[edit] LARPA Mission Statement and Definition of LARP

The following statement was approved by the Board of Directors Jan 1, 2000, and is largely identical to a previous Mission Statement written by the leadership of the ILF at a conference in Reston, Virginia, in the U.S., in 1995:

LIVE ROLEPLAYING is an enormously difficult thing to produce because it requires so many different skills. A typical live roleplaying might require writing, proofreading, desktop publishing and design, costuming, makeup, special effects, sound, light, site arrangements, transportation and logistical arrangements, and even catering and food prep. While not every group does this every time they produce a live roleplaying event, there are many disparate skills required. LARPA provides a place to learn how others have tackled the problems you are just now facing, and to have a sounding board for new ideas by discussing them with peers who do the same sorts of things you do.

LARPA is dedicated to the concept that trying to "invent live roleplay" alone is a difficult and usually thankless prospect. While each group or individual will have their own style and hallmarks, productions are nearly always vitalized when the people responsible come into contact with others with different backgrounds and bodies of learning. LARPA is dedicated to making that something that happens by design, not a lucky accident.

LARPA also seeks ways to inform the public about Live Roleplaying in three ways: First, we seek opportunities to make creative individuals who are disposed toward hobbies, or arts like live roleplaying to find groups or players in their area, so that it is easier to find an existing group or start a new one.

Second, we seek to educate the general public on the concept that live roleplaying is a perfectly safe, sane and normal activity, and to combat "scare stories" in the media and false information promulgated by a small number of irresponsible and opinionated religious groups. Our goal is for all of us who are live roleplayers to feel that we have the same rights as those who pursue any other art, hobby or sport, and to insure that we do not see ourselves as, and are not treated as, "second class citizens."

Third, we look for opportunities to open dialogs to interest the general public in LARP, and to interest LARPers in their own future. We see live roleplaying not as something which has reached a final static form, but as a young, growing, and vital field. As new technology and industry becomes available, we seek to interest the entertainment and arts fields in the special qualities of live roleplaying, and to make live roleplayers aware of new opportunities in the various industries which relate to storytelling.

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