My thought was to first do an intro to LARPing that would run about a half hour and basically go over the LARPing FAQ: What is a LARP? Why do people do this? Are there any safety rules or guidelines? Is there any LARPing ettiquette? What do all those LARPing “gang-signs” mean?

After that, the fun part.  A one hour “micro-Larp” where the newbs can try LARPing with other newbs in a safe and guided environment.  I will try to have one or two extra people there to help out guiding the newbies if they feel lost or disoriented.  Encourage them to ask questions like “uhm…what should I do now?”

Finally a half-hour cool down and Q&A period.

The micro-LARP is the part that I am most excited about.  I’ve got a few thoughts on how that would go.  I think the name of the scenario will be “Who’s got the thingie?”.  The goal  of all the players will revolve around the “thingie”.  The thingie will need to change hands; some people will want it, some won’t, etc.  Maybe some people will want parts of it.

For characters, I am thinking of providing something very simple: A simple name: “Susan”, a contact list of no more than a couple people: “You like John, you hate George”, a couple personality traits: “melancholy, melodramatic, eager to please”, and a simple goal: “get the thingie”.

Another thought that just occured to me is to do something a bit “Whose Line is it Anyway” and give the new players personality traits and then the main goal is for everyone to guess who has  which traits.  Or goals whatever.  Each player will get “points” if other people can guess their traits.

Ooh: Yet another idea!  A “parlor” room scene like from a mystery story.  The GM plays the detective and interviews all the characters about the role they had in the murder.  This has the advantage that it can be run in a short amount of time, and it gives a very communal type role-playing environment, but on the other hand people get to interact less one on one with each other.  But maybe that’s ok for this kind of thing.

Some exciting ideas.  Not sure which way I’ll go yet.  Suggestions and opinions are much appreciated!