RPG Theory Glossary: L

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LARP

Acronym for "Live-Action Role-Playing". This label typically includes a wide variety of games -- including "boffer" games which allow contact with padded weapons, as well as verbal LARPs such as Mind's Eye Theater which have no touching but allow players to move about freely. These generally have more players and are spread over a wider area than tabletop games. The action is primarily in real time and the location of the player represents the location of the character. The players are able to interact in real time with each other without having a moderator present (although a moderator may be called in for certain exceptional functions).
References:
LARPs
Comedic Narrativism and the Arabian Nights LARP
Team creation / social contract questions
LARP and GNS: Narrativist techniques?

 

Lasersharking

A tongue-in-cheek term on the Forge for the presence of over-the-top cool powers or other extreme features to game elements. From a comment and subsequent discussion on the Forge, "If a gamer had made Jaws it would not have been a shark but a shark with a laser on its head." (a reference to the movie, Austin Powers).
References:
Sharks With Lasers On Their Heads!!

 

Layering

The relationship between the initial numbers derived for a character (e.g. attributes) to the numbers eventually used most commonly in play (Effectiveness Values; e.g. combat to-hit values). The more steps of derivation, the more the system is said to be layered. A term coined by Ron Edwards.
References:
Character currency
Traits + Skills
Simulationism: The Right to Dream

 

The Lumpley Principle

"System (including but not limited to 'the rules') is defined as the means by which the group agrees to imagined events during play." The author of the principle is Vincent Baker, whose Forge username is "Lumpley".
References:
Vincent's standard rant: power, credibility, and assent
Player power abuse

 

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John H. Kim <jhkim@darkshire.net>

Last modified: Tue Mar 18 15:19:07 2008