I just watched a video explaining what ‘full contact LARP’ is. …I guess us Europeans work differently? Basically everything we do is full-contact, unless the people involved decide otherwise. Our LARP events are 18+, so when we heal people, we actually put bandages on them, or place our hands on the wounded spot (intimate locations don’t count as actual locations anyway) to heal them.
That said, my roleplay wouldn’t be as intense as it is now if we didn’t do full contact; I play a character that works with both flirting as well as intimidation. If people don’t like what my character does and need me to back off, they tell me.
But, for example, after intensive roleplay, our GMs gave me a special berserker skill, that only triggers on one specific occasion, namely when someone attempts to hurt my character’s kid. Keeping that in mind, let’s zoom in on one of my most epic moments of last Aragnes LARP:
While my larp is technically no/minimal contact, there is still that element of trust among larpers who have larped together for a while. Things like hugs, touch healing, and other contact do happen, but generally by older larpers who know that they and the other person are comfortable with it. I’ve seen a cast member physically drag a player across a field. I know somebody who basically holds people down as he sacrifices them. I have grabbed people’s shirts before and pulled them to me, normally to make a point and threaten them. But all of these things were done between people who had some level of OOG trust between them and who knew each other.
I have been to a 18+ larp where contact was fully allowed and while I found the healing to be a much cooler roleplaying experience I witnessed a lot of excessive touching healing. Interestingly enough, it was my male friends who said the girl healers overdo it. It’s really just about levels of comfort.
