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If you LARP, sooner or later you're going to have to resort to in-game violence (or somebody else will) and you'll find yourself in the middle of a combat. Now what? In the real world, you poke or smack (and get poked or smacked by) your enemy until one of you either runs away, surrenders, or is rendered incapable of resisting. In a LARP, though, it's more complicated than that.

The no-fighting LARPs (like Mind's Eye Theater™) are by far the safest ones. If you want to be absolutely certain that you won't be sporting a black eye at work on Monday, these are the LARPs for you. Also, these LARPs are very consistent. Your fighting ability is defined entirely by your character sheet, and no actual physical blows will be exchanged. If you throw rock and the other vampire throws scissors, you conquer. It's cut and dried. You'll never have an I-got-you-no-you-didn't argument at a no-combat LARP.

This is boring.

Well, no, it can be a lot of fun, and these LARPs are meant to be mostly combat-free anyhow, so they can get away with having a relatively boring (if fair) way of resolving combat. But LARPing is also about getting your hands dirty and actually doing stuff. You can kill a goblin without breaking a sweat at home. Why bother getting all dressed up and driving for hours if you won't have the opportunity to physically kick some goblin butt?

Unfortunately, NPCs are not your only potential foe on the LARP field. You may also end up fighting other PCs. Y'know how protective tabletoppers can be of their long-running PCs? Well, multiply that by about a bazillion, and you'll get how most LARPers feel about theirs (with good reason-costumes cost more than character sheets). When you get into a fight with a LARP PC, chances are that the player of that PC will do anything they can to keep their PC alive. Sometimes, sadly, this includes *gasp* cheating-the player will engage in "drumrolling" (raining unrealistically quick blows on the opponent) or "rhinohiding" (ignoring damage). When this happens (sooner or later it will), there's not much you can do about it but complain to the staff after the fact. If you're in a well-run game, the cheater will be politely invited not to return. If you're not in a well-run game, vote with your feet.

But there are other ways LARPers preserve the lives of their precious PCs that do not break the letter of the rules. Technically, these things are not cheating, but the people who do these sorts of things are not my favorite type of LARPer. (Email me for an explicit description of such people.) For those of you who want a list of what NOT to do, or who want to be able to recognize a cheese-weenie when you see one, here's a list of tactics that will keep your character alive and keep you in the game (even if it's only on a technicality).

Light Hits: Most LARP rules say that if you touch your opponent with your weapon, that's a hit. This is for safety reasons; nobody wants to get whacked with a full strength swing. It's not much fun. The good part about this rule is that most people still tend to put a bit of force behind their blows, which puts the attacker slightly off balance. At the very least, they'll need to spend a bit of time to recover. Not you, though. You know that a feather touch does the same amount of damage as a good solid thwap, so you ever-so-lightly tap your opponents and never need to recover. In the meantime, the bad guys are putting some energy into their fighting. You can take advantage of the time it takes for them to ready their weapons for another strike and deliver a couple more butterfly kisses. The best part about this is you can accuse your opponents of rhinohiding if you lose anyway.

Overblading: What's the best way not to get hit in a fight? Keep the enemy as far away as possible. If they can't reach you, they can't kill you. What's the maximum legal sword length for your LARP? Make one that long. (If you're less than ethical, go an inch or two beyond the maximum. Chances are nobody will measure. Note-this is actual cheating, and if you're caught, you might get booted. You've been warned.) But it's not enough just to have a long weapon-you've got to use it in the most unrealistic way possible to keep your enemies at bay. Hold it out, point first, waaaaay in front of you, and keep that point between you and the bad guys. Never mind that an actual sword is made of metal and would feel much heavier than your PVC or rattan boffer. The rules say you can have a six-foot sword, and by gum, you're going to use one. Oh, and if someone gets inside your guard? Well, the rules say that a two-handed sword does five points of damage, right? They don't say what part of the sword you need to hit with. Hit the goblin for five with the ricasso, the quillons, or the hilt. (You probably won't be able to get away with using your sword's pommel; many LARPs have rules about that.)

Anklebiting: Swing low! A realistic fighter will concentrate on protecting his arms and torso because realistic fighters know that leg strikes tend to leave the attacker pretty vulnerable. BUT! The vulnerable area is the head and neck-illegal targets! So attack your enemy's shins. You'll almost certainly score a hit. So will your enemy, but it will almost certainly be in an illegal area and you won't have to take the damage. Pretty cool, huh? Be advised, though, that if you keep leading with your head, you may get hurt. But what's a little physical pain compared to losing a PC, right? Also, anklebiting is most effective when coupled with 'special' skills that let you do catastrophic damage on your next hit. Nothing's cheesier than a deathstrike to the big toe, but hey, it's technically legal. That brings us to:

Min/Max: You remember how you tweaked your characters on the tabletop, right? Pumped all your character points into combat skills at the expense of things like literacy and being able to dress oneself? You can do the same thing in most LARPs. Buy damage bonuses. Buy extra Hit Points. Ignore skills like cooking, heraldry, literacy, lore, and languages (who needs to talk to it if you can kill it, right?). Some LARPs even have special skills with names like Deathstrike or Slay or Turbokill-o-matic. Buy as many of these as you possibly can. Then (and this is real cheating, but ever so hard to prove) "forget" how many Instacorpse slots you have. If you're in trouble, use the one you've been "saving." If you get caught, say you "lost track."

Headhunting: You're in a fight, and you're losing. You've got no 'Blazing Blades O'Doom' slots left, no friends are in sight, and your opponent is a superior fighter. What do you do? Swing as hard as you can for your opponent's head, of course. Headshots never count for damage purposes (be wary of any LARP that allows them), but a good solid smack to the noggin will discombobulate pretty much anybody. It may even mess them up enough that you can go on to win this fight with only legitimate blows from this point forward. Your opponent may even have to disengage and go lie down for a while. Either way, the combat is over and your PC survived. If somebody calls you on it later, you can claim "it was the adrenaline." You might get a warning, but you probably won't get kicked out. The only cost of this tactic will be the goodwill of the player you clocked. You may even do your opponent a real injury. If you care more about your PC than about your fellow LARPers, this is the way to go. One caution, though-if you do this too often, you will invite retaliation from your fellows, and you'll deserve it.

Do the Numbers: This is related to Min/Maxing in that it relies entirely on game mechanics at the expense of believable combat. Say you're fighting against someone who's just plain better at boffer combat than you are. What number is he calling when he hits you? Is it higher than the number you call? If so, you'll probably need to use one of the other techniques. If his number is lower, though, you might just be able to soak his hits while you whale on him without trying to protect yourself. Two people just hacking each other without defending looks really friggin' lame, but if you can call enough high numbers fast enough (don't drumroll) you'll probably still be standing when the fight's over. That's what it's all about, isn't it?

Now, I don't mean to say that all LARPers are unscrupulous point munchers. Far from it. In fact, in my experience there are probably fewer munchkins on the LARP field than in the basement. It's just that munchkins on the LARP field can cause more trouble for the honest majority. LARPs tend to run largely on the honor system. GMs aren't always there to witness these questionable activities. And often, a munchkin will get his rocks off by turning his questionable tactics on his fellow players. So what can you do about it? Several things.

You can avoid the munchkins. If you want to keep your own character alive, try not to roleplay with known munchkins. It isn't much fun anyway.

You can talk to them. Munchkins like to brag about their characters to feel better about themselves. After the event, when someone tells you about how they won a fight and you know they munched it, say so. Let them know that it isn't cool. They might just stop out of embarrassment.

Finally, you can tell on them. Seriously. People get away with this kind of thing because nobody says anything to the LARP staff. After a bunch of people make the same complaint about the same person, the staff will look into it. If they don't, you might want to find a different LARP.