“Darkon” examines idea of role-playing
From Friday’s “The Oklahoman”:
By Matthew Price
Assistant Features Editor
Live-action role-playing — in which adults act out often fantasy-based scenarios involving battle and adventure — is, if it’s considered at all by the general public, often seen to be an odd hobby. “Darkon” co- Luke Meyer wanted to examine the behavior of role-playing in the context of these games — and he was determined that his film wouldn’t be a vehicle to make fun of the live-action role-players featured in the film.
But he and Andrew Neel first had to convince the Darkon Wargaming Club of their intentions.
“It’s an outsider hobby, it’s not part of mainstream culture, and it’s often pretty widely ridiculed,” Meyer said in a phone interview with The Oklahoman. “They’re all aware of that, and it was definitely on their mind that us, a group of filmmakers coming in, they didn’t know where we were coming from. And it was something that they were concerned about.”
“Darkon,” recently released on DVD, explores the adventures of the Darkon Wargaming Club, a group of live-action role-players, or LARPers.
The film follows the players’ in-game storyline and their personal lives, during a time in the game in which the nation of Laconia led an alliance against the Mordomian empire.
“Initially, when we showed up with cameras, we were just shooting battle stuff and talking to some people on the sidelines. The initial presence was light, and they didn’t mind their battles being photographed,” Meyer said. “As we stuck around, we went through a period of really trying to gain their trust, that we were going to make something that would represent them properly, and they wouldn’t feel like we were making fun of them or anything like that.”
In addition to meeting with the game’s ruling body, Meyer said the filmmakers won over players by simply being at the events on a regular basis.
“Eventually, they felt comfortable with us being there. We came down over and over again, and hung out, and would shoot more footage, and our presence became more of a normal thing,” Meyer said. “They got to know us, and got used to who we were and what we were doing there.”
“Darkon” is different than many live-action role-playing games, as there is an in-game map representing squares of land. It’s for these fictional squares of land that the players battle, using padded weapons.
“That adds a whole lot of depth to people battling it out on the field, which is what goes on in most LARP games,” Meyer said.
While most LARP games are fantasy-based with some type of live-action combat, other types also exist, Meyer said.
“There’s one called ‘Vampire the Masquerade,’ which is about vampires, and there’s no actual battling. The contests in that are decided by rock-paper-scissors,” Meyer said. Other live-action role playing games take place in science-fiction worlds, among others.
Meyer said part of the appeal of the film is the examination of the idea of role-playing, something everyone does to a degree in life.
“We all have a role we play at work, a role we play with our friends. And it’s not to say that there’s not a true self in there somewhere, but we’re always adapting ourselves to an environment so that things fit as best as possible,” Meyer said. “And it was really interesting to us to look at a hobby group that was taking that part of human behavior and really going far with it, and having fun with it.”
Report: “Dungeons & Dragons” creator Gary Gygax has died
Gary Gygax, who created “Dungeons & Dragons” and by extension the entire role-playing genre of games, died Tuesday, as reported by his publisher, Troll Lord Games. Gygax was 69.
Gygax adapted miniature war gaming to a fantasy setting, when he and Dave Arneson created “Dungeons & Dragons” in 1974. In a 2004 interview with GameSpy, Gygax said his main inspirations were fantasy writers Robert E. Howard, L. Sprague DeCamp and Fritz Lieber.
Gygax was four times named “Game Inventor of the Year” by the U.K.-based Games Day and founded GenCon, the long-running hobby convention, in 1968. He helped to create nine other games and was a producer on the “Dungeons & Dragons” cartoon series.
“Dungeons & Dragons” was in the news in the 1980s as some groups blamed the game for suicides and linked it with the occult.
“I mean, there wasn’t a shred of evidence or veracity in any of those claims,” Gygax told GameSpy. “I knew it, and a lot of people told me that, including mothers of two of the children who had committed suicide.”
In the GameSpy interview, Gygax told the interviewer how he hoped to be remembered:
“I would like the world to remember me as the guy who really enjoyed playing games and sharing his knowledge and his fun pastimes with everybody else.”
– Matt Price
