Summer Camp Guide

LARPING CAMP: Story & Photo by Noah Caldwell

Picture this: You’re in the middle of a battle with a two-headed Scorpion Wizard, and you start to get thirsty. Over the clamor of swords you call to your dire wolf, who comes bounding across the sand dunes—tongue bobbing out of his mouth—and delivers you your blue Power Rangers water bottle. You drink it, even though it’s the only water left for the rest of the afterschool program—er, I mean, epic quest.

Let’s back up.

In reality, the sand dune is the playground at Boulder’s Friends’ School, and the Scorpion Wizard is an animated man named Eric, from Renaissance Adventures who comes each week to hold afterschool programs. Eric is surrounded by seven kids armed with bright styrofoam swords, all of whom have created this imaginary world, with a little help from their quest leader-Scorpion King.

The technical term for this activity is “LARPing,” an acronym for “Live Action Role Playing.” It has become a worldwide phenomenon with LARPers in the million, in over 100 countries (a broader geographical reach than Starbucks). In essence, LARPing coaxes the imaginary into the real world to breath and grow, instead of festering as fantasy in the recesses of our minds. Accordingly, quests are never the same, since they take on forms as diverse as the imaginations of those involved.

Renaissance Adventures uses this model as a basis for LARPing-based experiential education. “We put all sorts of challenges into the quest—social challenges, moral dilemmas,” says director Mark Hoge. “Underneath it all we get to help them learn.” It’s like Mary Poppins’ spoonful of sugar, except you get to fight dragons and don’t have to take any medicine.

A quest is worth seeing, or doing, in one of Renaissance Adventures summer camps. First, safety is addressed. The most important rule? “Tag” lightly with the sword (known as a “swasher”), preventing bruising and making the striker quicker and more agile, naturally.

Next, each of the questers creates a character: “I wanna be an eagle!” “Can I be a French Fry?” “How about a foxling?”

Mark beams at the ideas. “As an eagle, you can glide. French Fry? Why not? And foxlings have a keen sense of smell.”

As we migrate outside for a warmup battle, I enter the melee, testing out my swasher technique (or lack thereof). The kids are quick, and I promptly lose an arm and one of my legs below the knee—I’m a newcomer in their world, my imagination as slow and rusty as my swasher.

The horde splits, and one half regroups in a tiny playground house. Mark asks each kid what he or she wants from the quest. “Battling a huge orc” and “hot dogs” are great answers, but the most memorable is “ginormous hamburger monster.” Mark says, “Hmmm, those are rare—unless you want it well done.” He gives me a smile, knowing that the kids completely missed what might be the best LARPing pun ever uttered.

During the quest, kids fought scarab beetles, forded a raging river, and for all the fun no one noticed the plunging temperature. But to get the full force of a day with Renaissance Adventures you’ll have to jump into one of their many weeklong camps. The beauty is that, unlike most activities, by definition the action differs from quest to quest, evolving until campers complete their mission—or until it’s time to get picked up by parents and return to the default world.