Belegarth: LARP or SPORT

Belegarth: LARP or SPORT

Many people have been debating as of late as to if Belegarth Medieval Combat Society is a LARP or a Sport. I have been playing Belegarth for a decade now and I have heard both sides of the argument. I think that it should be written down as to how we can look at this question and perhaps come to an answer as a community.

The one thing that really stands out in Belegarth on both sides of this aisle is that the fighting is intense and highly skilled. I would say that the average fighter in Belegarth is better than the average in some other foam fighting games. We value skill and experience as a community over min-maxing gear.  The style of fighting changes depending on geographical location. Shots are faster or slower. Line fighting or skirmishing type fighting differs from realm to realm.  You can find fighters from both the RP side and sport side that enjoy both types of fighting.

The Sport side of Belegarth see’s different teams competing with regulated and checked equipment against each other in differing uniforms.  They are absolutely correct. Belegarth is a combat sport, if you suck at combat; you do not get a magic armored cod piece that can absorb the first 15 blue strikes.  LARPing tends to have skills that augment your character with abilities that you as a person may lack…..like magic.  Belegarth as an official sport is a bit of a stretch. Most sports have a regulated field size, dedicated referees, specific equipment regulations, and team size brackets.  Belegarth could be played inside a church basketball court or a state park meadow. If it were a sport, there would also be limited members on a field during a unit battle. Instead you have 10 man units on the field with 50 man units in a free for all.  They don’t have 10 teams in the Superball all smashing into each other……which would be cool actually. But, that is what Belegarth units do. Also, we have weapons check, for safety, but if Belegarth were a sport, all weapons would have to be exactly the same.  Not that everyone had to use Sword and Board, but if two opposing fighters both wanted to Sword and Board, they should be identical equipment. I could see that if team size could be controlled by hosting tournaments with different number limit. 2v2, 4v4, 25v25.  I am not sure if I would continue to play if all Belegarth was tournaments and that was all.

From the LARP side of Belegarth, people see opportunity to act out something that they cannot be in their mundane life.  If you want to paint yourself green, and talk with a  funny accent, there is nothing to stop you from doing that AND hitting people with padded sticks.  The great thing about Belegarth is that it gives a set of rules that you can change for any situation that you want to play.  Some realms have RED rocks that can break shields. They write down rules for adding it to the system. RED rocks are house rules for the realm. If a smaller team is supposed to be a group of hardened veterans, but they do not have the skill to play that out, you can simply give the less skilled fighters extra armored hits to a location.  You don’t have to call it anything but that. BUT, you could say that the veterans picked up some villagers along the way, and that they gained a moral bonus from seeing the veteran’s last stand.  Role Players within Belegarth have an understanding that they should not force it on others to be in character.  The simplest way to RP within Belegarth is to have a great costume, refer to their weapons as swords, or spears, not blues or green. 

The great thing about Belegarth is that it can be both. Sport and LARP.  The flexibility of the system is what makes it so perfect for both outlooks. If it were a Sport, Knights would not take on Squires. It would be the Varsity mentoring the Junior-Varsity.  If it were a LARP the Knights and Squires would have extra hits and shield breaking blues to award their service to the game.  The healthy blend of Sport and Larp is what makes Belegarth a great battlegame and community.