An honest review of Reckoning LARP 

It’s interesting to me how different people are responding to this video. People who went to Reckoning seem to focus on the gameplay experience, while people who didn’t go are more worried about how the staff were treated. Not any kind of judgement, just an observation I’ve noticed.

The real winning faction was the ticks.

I've never in my life been interested in LARP, but whenever Davvy has a LARP story I'm suddenly *very invested*.

Thank you for telling a very accurate story of what went town. I used to be staff and will not be returning.

Dude, I was Vadurkin at the event and let me tell you, there was a random LARP friend group who completely sabotaged our Faction. they wouldn't take any directions from the Faction Leader and attacked out allies ( The Hadrians) they were even worse to deal with in camp. That said, I really enjoyed the night hunts and hanging out with the Hadrians. So much so that when we were gonna give it another shot this year we decided to switch factions. ended up not getting the time off

Wow, so this was Davvy's own Fire Island experience. But with 40% more ticks and less salt water poisoning.

14:41 "I just looked them in the eyes and said: you die" That would have been amazing if they were from an opposing faction (I'm guessing that wasn't the case, since you picked them back up afterwards); it's DM-like power 😈 This was interesting, I didn't even know faction-oriented LARPs were a thing (too bad the Vadurkin didn't keep their part of the deal; it would have made that battle much better). Thanks for sharing your experience!

LOL! I'm in your video. Upper right hand corner of the Bicolline photo. Brown Hat, black leather scale armor, silver gorget.

Workers get paid. That's it. Im doing a deep dive into LARP and how they run. You could make a meta-changing LARP by just 1. Paying everyone. Staff, NPC's, Everyone. 2. Not role-locking every player? Let players just, I don't know, Play and have fun. Sure offer discounts for playing roles and offer "archetypes" and "IC jobs" .. You... YOU CAN PAY FOR XP. This is a money pit. I wonder how LARPs in countries where it is illegal to not pay employees do it.

Something similar happened to me at the first blockbuster larp I went to, Dragon Thrones. The faction I was sorted into was not spelled out before game to be the bad guys, but all of the other characters' sheets they were given pointed to us as the big bad evil guys, when we had no clue that was even the role we were meant to play. Top that off with the sexism that was rampant within that game amounted to just an awful event but at least we didn't sleep with the ticks.

This has been really eye opening. Could you possibly make a video on list of things that need to be considered/need to get done for running our own LARP?

I have been looking to get into larp for a few years but haven't had the courage to try. More larp content PLEASE

I remember when you told this story on stream and I was flabbergasted then. Now I'm even more stunned with more info

100% honesty here Lord Davvy that bad cam actually works pretty well in my opinion. It kind of gives you an ethereal/wizardly kind of look or vibe, especially because you're being extra knowledgeable on a topic kind of like a wizard. 🤔

Thanks for you honest opinion man, appreciate it -Theseus

This was fascinating. I've never been to a LARP but hopefully will one day. Thanks for the vid 😁

imagine being told you're not allowed to use your tent because you've fastened it down. "Are you going to supply me with stakes? No. Then fuck off." Jesus 200 dollar ticket price. my larp of choice had to raise their prices to 65 quid.. or 80 dollars. For a full camp event, providing effectively the same opportunities you've got. "Thanks for getting to the halfway point! Game over! Have fun!" yeesh As for the ticks, is there even a way to solve that? Spraying the field..? I used to go to a convention that would have scheduled events/talks/games/etc and after a few years, it became a bit of a joke with what little they were providing. So we would joke as a community; we were having fun DESPITE the venue, not because of it. And it died shortly thereafter. With only a days worth of plot, a half dozen enemies, portaloo rental and field costs.. They must've made bank on player tickets. So, with that.. hopefully they can provide more in future? Really disappointing they didn't have proper discounts on crew tickets.

19:31 Almost cried Thanks Davvy for the memories

4:34 the fact that you used an image from one of my favorite movies made me sub LOL good content as well

The belkinus image left me feeling raw. It put you on my map to learn more about all the cool stuff you do.

I am running the first D&D type medieval fantasy larp in my country (Argentina) and we don't have other larps to learn from. I would to see more larp content since there are not that many channels that do that and speccially a video about your good experiences in larps and what made them good. Kind of the oposite of this video. We kind of understand what makes a terrible larp, like things you mention (over expensive tickets, not providing much structures, not clear goals, pointless battles, etc) but it would be awesome to see what makes a great larp from your perspective. What i love about your channel is that is not just story time, but you always provide your inside on how that thing that happened feels and why does it feel that why, not to mention that you clearly consider things that other channels dismiss .For instance, and im not bashing their channel, i personally love skill tree and watch all their videos, but they never mentioned what you got for the ticket price in comparison t other larps. And yeah your experience can be great, but if you pay over 200 dollars for a ticket you should expect and demand certain level of organization and quality. Great video, lets grow the larping community, my dream is that one day, thanks of people who got a lot of influence like you, can be as big as the TTRPG community.

This is prettt wild. I've been interested in getting into LARP because of you so I've been looking up Reckoning LARP since it's near my home town. Starting looking it up yesterday and continued looking it up today just to find this video posted 5 hours ago. Wild.

Hopefully something good comes of this whole debacle and situations improve going forward. I want to say I'm shocked that staff were being treated and managed so poorly in addition to being completely unpaid, except a pitiful "discount," but that would be a lie. Volunteer work is still work and needs to be fairly compensated, and it sucks to see people very passionate about what they do being taken advantage of. This was an incredibly cool video and I'd love to hear you talk more about your experiences and such LARPing, whether that be more reviews, stories, or even just your thoughts on the various aspects of it. I've never LARPed or known anyone who has, but as bad as your experience with Reckoning was I'm certainly more interested in it now!

Interesting video. I started looking into this event after watching Living Anachronism's and Skill Tree's videos. One thing that put me off at first was how a lot of the text on their website is very similar to what is on Weekend Warrior's website. I thought maybe that's a common thing for Larps and maybe everyone uses similar templates, but if you look under the rules and under costuming, for example, this stuff is basically word for word. I do admire the type of Larp that is trying to be created and think it has potential. And it's totally understandable to have some fumbles and kinks to work out in the beginning. I just hope the people involved in this creation process are able to give themselves the space and time neccessary to develop this in a manner worth respecting. And I hope they are able to recieve, consider, and apply their feedback with humility and grace. And I hope they realize, the first thing we want to do is support. We want awesome events too. And feedback is support and is part of the process of making the original intention of this creation, more and more of a reality.

It's nice to see some other videos talking about the LARP, it was very interesting watching your honest review after Skill Tree's video showing the other side. (Where your character was mentioned quite a few times lol)

Thanks for the insight, Davvy!

My biggest concern is the field of poison ivy and ticks.

Fantastic video

i would love a vid on how LARP works. I know almost nothing about it besides memes, and would rly like to understand it better to both appreciated it, and get more into it :) rly hope u get more vids about it anyways

I had no idea what this even was but I definitely enjoyed the content! This would definitely be something I'd come back and watch more of

An interesting video with lots of food for thought. Several interesting points about agency and railroaded plot as well as costuming/world building. No surprise that with that background the Hadrians ended up looking like villains. Thanks for sharing your take on it all.

I've larped for years and this honestly sounds like a shit larp that robbed players. To take $200 from people and have cheap party tents is ridiculous. To ask players to come in high quality garb and provide little staff driven content is terrible. I get it's the first game but there are a lot of games I will try out before this one. Thanks for the honest review.

Some friends went and have chosen to remain silent about Reckoning. Choosing to say nothing good nor bad. And now I know why. Thank you!

I've never even larped before but this sounds like a lot of fun, either way love hearing you talk

Thank you for your insight. I hope they fix the staff issue and organization issues

I see that Belkinus art. ❤❤❤

Woop Woop the chap is back

Blurry Chappie joined the party.

Davvy ur video retrospect was awesome thank u for sharing it with us viewers. 😁💯 Myself, having run several big larping events exceeding 150 ppl & participating in countless more as a player, there r many hiccups that can happen. That being said; it all starts with organization! If u r not all together before hand, sure the event will still run itself because the community base wants to see it succeed. But that's it. The thin veneer that hides all the debacle behind the curtain WILL NOT help create an environment that will see players return, especially with a price tag that huge. Amtgard (the larp I participate in) does way more than this one at ¼ the price tag. So my only hope is the event runner has learned from his mistakes & @ the very least realizes that one person cannot b everywhere & run everything so breaking down the lead roles & separating into several lead people all on the same page works much much smoother. Larp safely, my friends

God damn I feel your pain about the odd man out faction. Here in Australia I was part of a team that got 3vs1 murdered at 4/5 events that ran with the faction system.

Absolutely freaking out! Watching Skill Tree's video months ago he mentioned the doctor!! I didn't realize that was you!

Found you through Living Anachronism. Adding you to my subscription list.

Would love to hear stories about other larps

19:40 Happy to see the these four again.

Lol, I added this video to my watch later list because I always wanted to know more about LARP, I've never done it before. As soon as you started talking I thought "man this guy sounds a lot like DavvyChappy" and then I saw because you are lol

That event definitely sounded interesting. I don't think $200 was too much for an all weekend event. I've competed in half marathons that were almost $200, and that's the only about two hour race for me 🙂.

I hope in the future we can get some more videos about your better experiences with LARP. I really wanna try it, but i'm not exactly sure where to start.

That thumbnail is terrifying lmao

Well well, if it isn't the bearded hunk who's after my heart

Right, this video aged well :p Coming here from the LA review of Reckoning S2

I have never larped before. But I live one state away from Michigan and I would love to go to a Davvy chappy event.

a video like this could either be to throw someone under the bus or to hold someone up to a standard. Glad you went with the latter, hope to see you at Reckoning III

I run a LARP company and when I go to conventions or other events (We do mostly Theatre LARPs), the main condition is that myself and staff get in for free and we get a room to sleep in. If a convention wanted us to pay to work, it's an instant no-go.

This is a great primer as well for newer LARP goers and event attendees to bear an open mind, respect the illusion but notice the lies, be respectful but don't blindly fawn, be accountable, and know when others need to be held accountable, and how to do so appropriately. Also, apropos of nothing, don't fly paper airplanes over campfires. Trust me.

Even though none of this applies to me cuz I don’t live in America. This was still a very interesting and enlightening video, much appreciated!

Very interesting review. I had only seen some very positive reviews before, and then from one of those creators the surprise revelation that season 2 was so bad they had no plans to go to season 3. I have since seen a fairly bad review of season 2. I have no experience with this LARP setting so I don't know all the logistics involved but have done LARPs set in futuristic sci-fi settings.

listening to you explain your experience LARPing really makes me want to give it a go for the first time. is there any no brainer ways to find LARPing communities?

right when i get interested in larp u make a larp vid >:3

I've never tried LARP, but I've always wanted to go to at least one.

I am 150% down for LARP vids dude.

I find it fasinating that you say you were happily surprised there was non combat roles in this larp. Im a swede and have been in several small scale larps in sweden (10-40 players) and been to one particular large medieval larp 3 or 4 times (100-250 players) and ive helped organise one medium scale medieval larp. Out of these, all had non combat based roles and most focused much more heavily on political, emotional and artistic themes than on combat or similar.. I guess it comes down to the fact that all the larps ive been to and organised with friends have been based more in the nordic larping model than other models.

At some point you start to consider that maybe running your own LARP event might be a better option.

100% reckoning was unorganized and was in desperate need of help. The price tag wasn’t to terrible after looking at the numbers the event runner paid for things and comparing it to similar games. As for talking down on volunteers not a good idea but at the same time it is appropriate to weed out the ones who didn’t do their share if they are going to start compensating for their next event.

LARP is the superior robot

geming

As someone from KY who would love to attend Reckoning, sounds like the organizers need to focus on improving their own game rather than the players’.

i can agree the price for the event and location was probably shitty but that was their first time running the event? im going this year and i heard the location was changed and more structures would be put in, i cant wait. hopefully the ticks wont be as bad in the new area

I used to do larp at uni, we had a 6 hour game every saturday which I think was a crucible of fire of our GMs, you either wrote something good or you had no players or npcs. It kind of ruined every larp I did after and I've stopped going for some time now. What you described kind of happens more than it doesn't and that just isn't much fun sadly. Some of the oldest larps here in Europe have mostly player driven plot with the organisers focusing on logistics and meta plot which really works, but it makes it tricky to get into in my experience.

Its wild to me to hear about "blockbuster immersive" larps with $100+ price tags that sound way less fun than a Boffer Battle-game event with $40 entry. Of course the boffer games are not trying to feed you all weekend on that. But still, when I go to a large Belegarth event I pay sub $50 to get in. Of course that doesn't (usually) include an open bar.

It's a shame the 2nd event was so badly planned. I expect poor first events due to inexperience, but a whole year of planning and it turned out the way it did. oof.

I'm sure with the feedback they got it'll be better this time or the next.

#WEWON

To be honest the fact they can't disable medics in a pvp combat situation is what turns me off of the rp. And the ticks being mentioned. I really thought about doing it but atm it's a bit much... there needs to be a little more perma death and or things to give death meaning and counters to healers

Thanks for the great review :). Are you going to US drachenfest??

Hey Davy,you ever going to review any of the Palladium games?

I've played Amptguarde back in college

I think this is a good example of why I just don't like PvP in LARP, either combat or political. It usually ends up unbalanced like this. If PvP is going to be involved, I'd rather be in some kind of battlegame with more of an eye for balance between either teams or individuals.

I feel for the staff, I used to work at a vendor at KC Renfest. Ask my friends that worked for other vendors got $15/hr. I worked at the most expensive place and sold 4 things ranging from $400-$1600 along with dozens of cloaks. I only got $3.50/hr and i had to buy my own food. Never again.

Davvy-run larp when?

Ngl, the first time I saw this twink I didn't think he'd ever get the ability to grow facial hair. But I'm impressed, it looks good. I feel like he could be a villain.

ye ok i'm 100% stealing that medic bad blood idea tho.

Anyone happen to know about how many acres the event was? Including parking and everything? Also about how many people were there? I’m trying to get an idea of how big the event really was.

I know part of what happened with that severed hand because of Skill Tree!

Were you allowed to pick your character class, was it assigned, or random?

I've only played a few different LARPs, but from talking to other players who have played more other games, staff NEVER is paid.

Baffled. Why would staff pay?

This doesntt sound like it should be like 2* more expensive than a ticket to empire LARP

2:35 Davvy Chappy gay???? Let’s fucking goooooo

Thumbs up for the gods stolen rainbow. Especially good if you know that bow in rainbow is the arrow shooting kind and that it was an ancient prejewish slang term for male genitalia.

I mean, for 5 bucks it's decent camera quality lol

Interesting, I am a UK Larper with 30 years experience, and have staffed all of the 'Big Three' fest events, Your experiance sounds like some of the smaller events that we ran and played back in the 90's. If you can make it to Europe, I would be happy to introduce you to players and games in the UK, from Green cloaks (scify nerf game), Beyond Ragnarok (Post ragnarok norse) to 2 of the big fest games Profound decisions and Curious Pastime, If you want to visit the Lorian Trust I can introduce you to players who do go. As a general rule even the big events do not pay staff, but do give free or discount tickets, as well as being fed.

Not a LARP fan, but it’s Davvy, so worth listening… Hearing that the Asian-inspired faction was the “yellow team” is… already problematic.

Okie dokie just a casual impression I think that $200 is vastly inflated for basically telling people to go play in a field somewhere maybe someone owns land or something but considering there were ticks and poison ivy everywhere it doesn't seem like there was a lot of forethought going on although as you said probably an amazing community and as someone of Nordic Heritage taking a bunch of money from Roman Invaders and then reneging is possibly the most Viking thing I've ever heard of basically it seems like the people were the only thing making the experience the experience itself sounds like $200 out of pocket to go be cold and miserable but hey at least free booze which is about the 6th or 7th most Viking thing I've ever heard of I'm sorry you and a bunch of amazing people got soaked for that amount of money

Yikes. Wrath upon exploiters.

Regarding paying, it depends on the larp. If no one is getting paid and the money all goes into props, food, drink, construction, hiring, renting, etc., etc. then... yeah everyone on both sides putting money in is understandable if bad but the discount they got here is baaaaaaad. First point should be that npcs don't pay to be there since without them there is no event, if anyone walked away from the event with money then that's a huge red flag. Starting it as a business is different to doing it as a hobby and if it's a business you pay the npcs and and staff without question.

Anyone else think Davvy should do ASMR...? ^_^

Is that expensive? For a weekend with camping and food that not bad. Saying that I think the things you were irked by would have infuriated me.

I admit I did not consider the bad side of Reckoning LARP. Hopefully, this gets rectified.

Rivlan sounds like Wat Tyler's Peasant Rebellion.

While larping isnt really my thing, your story was pretty intreasting.