The Grand Duke of 18th-century Little Siskington has convened a council of lords, ladies and bishops to find solutions to his many problems.

What is the duchy to do about the upstart ‘middle class’ of commoners? How to raise revenues without taxing grain, a move which could lead to a revolt? What is to be the diplomatic policy towards the French, currently in the throes of revolution?
This is the premise for a live action role play (LARP), taking place in a function room of a Dublin hotel. The 25 or so adult participants are all determinedly in character; dodgy German accents and faux-Regency language are de rigueur. Everyone wears nametags with things like Lord Pimperninkel and Lord Jaeger-Landky written on them. A few people have gone for the “formal dress” recommended in the game’s blurb – one guy even has a pretty convincing powdered wig – but many are just wearing jeans and t-shirts. There are a handful of female participants, elegantly fluttering fans made of folded-up printer paper.
Meanwhile, in the corridor outside, a group of five or six guys, ranging in age from 11 or so to mid-30s, are dressed in what look like red, oversized papier-mâché shoulder pads. They’re space marines, apparently, and their mission involves infiltrating the upstairs of the hotel.
Having just been beaten back by their alien enemies, the space marines are regrouping, loading up nerf guns for the next battle. Passers-by are solicitous (“Well, how are the space marines? Get upstairs yet?”).
At the shout of “space marines, go!” the attack is launched and, as the last foam bullet falls to the carpet, it’s clear that the aliens have lost this round. The aliens themselves seem pretty blasé about it; they come back to life and requisition an armchair to shelter behind. It, em, looks like this could go on for a while.

PLASTIC FARMYARD ANIMALS
Gaelcon is the biggest gaming convention in Ireland devoted to non-electronic gaming, and on Saturday, October 23, it’s thronged. The cavernous ballroom of the hotel is mostly given over to rows of tables peopled by inch-high Warhammer figurines. Men (yes, they’re all men) are busy rolling dice and pondering their next move. There are scores of other tables hosting everything from high fantasy down to Scrabble, as well as one inscrutable set-up that involves plastic farmyard animals.
Over the course of the weekend, eight or so LARPs will be held around the hotel, as well as 20 or so other role-playing games.
“Escapism is a big part of the appeal. It’s nice to get away from the real world,” says Ciarán ‘Sarky’ O’Brien, the mild-mannered bloke who organises the role-play side of Gaelcon.
“It’s taking childhood make-believe and growing it to a more mature level,” he adds. “At the most basic level, it’s interactive story-telling. People tend to throw themselves into character and hilarity ensues or, at the very least, a good story. It’s fantastic fun. Some people take it very seriously and pre-book their character and go off and make a costume. Some people just turn up.”
Online role-play game World of Warcraft recently reached 12 million subscribers internationally. That’s well over twice the population of Ireland pretending to be dwarfs and druids under cover of online anonymity. You’d think increasingly sophisticated computer games would have rendered acting out an elf or an alien obsolete?
Cian O’Sullivan, deputy chair of Gaelcon, has heard that one before.
“Yeah, you’ll have someone who sits down and puts their headphones on and plays Halo all weekend look at someone at a table pretending to be a dwarf and say ‘nerd!’ But the main reason people are here is the social aspect. This hobby is extremely social,” he says.
And it’s true. There’s an open, friendly atmosphere at Gaelcon, and though there are hundreds of people here, everyone apparently knows everyone else. From an outsider’s perspective, gaming seems like a nice scene.
Meanwhile, back in Little Siskington, the LARP is in full swing. The ‘nobles’ are milling about, arguing over the best course of action and the German accents are becoming increasingly outlandish.
The Grand Duke’s ‘chamberlain’ (the guy running the game) explains to Hot Press that the players are trying to negotiate an outcome to the Duchy’s diplomatic problems that will benefit their character. So, for example, if a solution is reached whereby a land tax is introduced, the players whose characters have agricultural interests will lose points. Anyone who isn’t married to another character by the end of the game will also finish further down the score-sheet.
“Essentially it’s a game of silly names and shouting,” the ‘chamberlain’ summarises.
This is what’s likeable about LARPing – unlike your common or garden Warcraft enthusiast, no-one here is taking themselves too seriously.

RUBBER SWORDS
There are regular LARP meet-ups in most major Irish cities and towns – Galway, Cork, Limerick, Drogheda and Maynooth all have groups.
Some hardcore LARPers convene on Sunday afternoons in St Anne’s Park in Dublin to train (their word) for weekend-long outdoor events in Britain. If you’ve ever seen people running around Raheny with rubber swords, well, now you know why.
This gang are the Irish members of the Lorien Trust, an international LARP organisation. Lorien LARPs, of which there are 30 or 40 each year, are mostly held in British forests. They all take place within one coherent world, a fantasy version of the Middle Ages governed by particular rules. It’s the full shebang, with chainmail and cloaks and Lord of the Rings-style weaponry. The participants, of which there are anything up to 2,500 at an event, stay in character for 14 hours at a stretch.
Oisín Creanor is chair of the Irish Gaming Association and a keen LARPer. In real life he’s finishing a PhD in astrophysics.
Creanor explains that a large part of the game is staying alive. A certain number of people will play “monsters” – enemies whose job is to try and kill the other characters. In Raheny, the Irish contingent rehearses the rules of the game’s system, and practices using their weapons.
“If you’ve got armour on, you can take more than one hit. A guy I know plays a werewolf. Werewolves are really tough so he can take a lot of hits. My character is a healer. I do wear some armour but not a lot so I can take hits – but again not a lot,” says Creanor.
“You get into it and you tend to care about your character. It isn’t the end of the world, but people do get upset if their character dies. That can happen after someone’s been playing a character for 18 years. At an event with 1,000 people, about 20 would die.”
Most of the Irish group are students and graduates, many working in the technology sector. The group has been going for years, but it’s beginning to take off now – there’s been an influx of new players in the last year.
Creanor reckons that, as with the “theatre” LARPs played at Gaelcon, part of the attraction of the Lorien Trust game is the social dimension – although after 14 hours of play, things can get a bit weird.
“One of the things that gets confusing is that you might know a character’s name, or their real name, or a face – but not all three. There’s time-out at 2am so you get to know people then but there’s a lot of people you only ever see as an elf or a dwarf,” Creanor jokes.
But for many, the real allure of LARPing is the creative, fantastical element.
“Some people are in it for the escapism, some people like getting into character and being the creator of a character. You’ve got amateur dramatics and politics and fantasy and it’s all free-form,” says Creanor.
“It’s fun – you get to live in a different world for a while. It’s a simple and more primitive world, where the solution to a problem is no further away than a sword. The real world is not that simple.”
Sadly.