[weswilson]

Most of us here probably think of LARPing as fantasy-genre LARPing, but I think this is more pointed toward Mil-Sim LARPing.

These are hardcore airsoft guys who go buy comms, night-vision, IR, with airsoft weapons that function like real weapons. There are multi-day events with NATO vs RUS forces. Look up "milsim west" on Youtube and you can get a sense of it.

There's a good amount of folks that just like to have fun, but there is a subset that use it as a type of militia-esque training.

[hutzlibu]

Yeah, I participated in some events in germany and here it is probably especially in a grey zone, because normally in germany everything militia like is strictly forbidden. Paintball is not allowed with camouflage or red paint. And then you can legally go to an event on a former military hangar with bunkers and then there is an actual tank and only people in camouflage and realistic looking weapons..

So if you would want to create a stealth militia in germany, this would probably be the way to go.

And in the events I participated, I knew the orga and I knew they were clearly into LARPing - but with some of the other people who attended, I was not so sure.

So I really hope it stays legal as it is a lot of fun, but I also hope it does not go out of hand, as increasingly with covid, there has been some radicalisation in certain groups ...

edit: to share an anecdote of why it is interesting to me, aside from the shooting:

There was a big event last year, with an apocalyptic setting. Killervirus and Zombies, Military and Civilians. I happened to be on the military side, which was (by design) better organised and equipped. And during the game, it turned out, that our side was the evil side, who originally released the zombie virus. But what to do? Everyone else was potentially an enemy, who maybe wanted to shoot you and the people around you, your trusted comrades. So you stick with them for survival. As I have never been to the military, this was an interesting inside into how conflict and war crimes works and why people stay in line, despite they distance themself from what they are representing.

[lyjackal]

This is another fascinating flavor of LARPing: a Polish group larping modern American 4th of July

Their Facebook group: https://m.facebook.com/profile.php/?id=100075824776496

There’sa few articles with pictures floating around. This one’s from Vice: https://www.vice.com/en/article/g5vpbx/poland-larp-america-o...

[kramerger]

The crazy/normal ratio among milsim larpers is EXTREMLY high. Just listen to the language they use in YT videos to describe other participants and general public

There is this odd thing about the human brain that as soon as it is in a group and have tools of violence at hand it will often start planing to take over the society

[H8crilA]

Luckily individual soldiers without heavy equipment (at least some artillery) are more or less useless in a proper military showdown. Has been the case at least since WW2.

ISIS was a good example, they were being quickly defeated by pretty much everyone involved in the Syrian conflict.