You're listening to Imaginary Worlds.

I show about how we create them and why we suspend our disbelief.

I'm Eric Mollinsky.

I often get recommendations from listeners for episode ideas.

And one of the most common ones is to do an episode on LARP's.

And if you just said an episode on what?

LARP stands for Live Action Roll Play.

And if you do know what a LARP is,

probably the first thing that popped into your head

where a bunch of nerdy guys dressed in medieval armor

whacking each other with foam swords in a park.

Those swords are called buffers, by the way,

which doesn't help their cause.

And the funny thing is, in the world of nerds and geeks

where I live quite comfortably,

LARPing is often considered too nerdy and too geeky.

Like I was recently at a game shop playing D&D.

And this guy was bragging about all the other role playing games

that he does.

And then he said, yeah, but I draw the line at LARPing.

Caroline Murphy is not surprised.

Buffer fighting looks nerdy.

...