The seven ages of larp…

A little doggerel by Sarah Clelland and me, after William Shakespeare, “As You Like It”, Act II, Scene VII.

All the world’s a stage,
And all the varied people merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances;
One larper in their time plays many parts,
Their acts being seven ages. At first the boffer,
Fighting and shouting in the prickly woods
And then the whining vampire, with their fangs
And shining pale face, creeping in shadows
With secret politics. And praps the Nordic,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
check’d in calibration. Then to the fest,
Full of strange calls, and bloody pvp,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the plotline’s mouth. And then blockbuster,
In fair castle, or equal venue found,
With content stuffed and metatechnique set,
Full of workshops and modern instances;
And so they play their part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean, undetailed crew-spun brief,
With agency on hold and role to give;
Their players’ play; to save the world again,
To win the day; and their past agency,
Turning again toward childish questing path,
encounters in a line. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
They take the chalice of the orga’s place;
Sans mind, sans will, sans play, sans everything.