Fitness and Exercise in Live-action Roleplaying Games

At Renaissance Adventures, our live-action roleplaying games focus on the development of what we call "21st century skills." These are the kinds of skills that are important for kids to know in this day and age, and in fact are often unsupported in the school system or other institutions. The 21st century skills we are talking about are: ethical reasoning, fitness, fun, self-esteem, critical thinking, teamwork, and social skills. The acronym is: EFFECTS.

One of these EFFECTS outcomes is fitness, and I ran across a great blog entry by Matthew Squire: by a roleplaying gamer that understands the crucial need for fitness in today's youth. Here is a snippet:

What does it mean to be fit? Is it being able to peddle on an exercise bike or walk on a tread mill? Is it being able to run 10 miles? We often forget what fitness meant in the days of old... 

Still more in this day and age one doesn’t have to do any physical activity at all. We drive to work, drive to the grocery store, and then home again. Sit in front of the computer or around a gaming table with friends and imagine doing physical activity. We make our characters jump and run (all while doing the most complex of gymnastic back flips) to their goal. The goal is always some item or power that makes our characters stronger.  

We, the supposed masters of our characters, get weaker as our characters get stronger. It’s as if we are giving our life energy to them one sugary game table snack at a time...

Furthermore, in another blog entry, he goes on to describe how a live-action roleplaying game such as ours might be able to integrate exercise as a game mechanic in the quest. 

Here are his two blog articles. Enjoy!

http://swordsoflean.blogspot.com/p/battle-for-middle-girth.html

http://swordsoflean.blogspot.com/p/how-would-game-be-played.html

Thanks to BoulderSource.com for a great article on our quests!

Here's an excerpt from the article (click here for the full article):

Usually if a Kraken is about to gobble you up, you’re pretty much a goner. Everybody knows there is little defense against a giant octopus-type tentacle-covered thing with a big mouth.

Not even a five-foot swasher helps.

It’s pretty hopeless. Unless you’re lucky enough to see a troll lurking nearby and you happen to know troll blood is explosive (from previous experience with trolls, of course). And—this is a big AND—you’re clever enough to convince the troll to, well, explode right then and there on your behalf.

Then, maybe you have a chance.

Fortunately for Adventure Quest Leader Katt’s group of six enthusiastic Questers, through their deft negotiations and strategic thinking, this particular troll did their bidding that brilliant June-in-Boulder morning and the entire group—even the troll—lived to solve another quest.

And so it goes, quest after quest, summer after summer, forRenaissance Adventures Director Mark Hoge’s merry band of Quest Leaders and Questers.

Questing Camp Rooted in Experiential Education

Hoge kicked-off his first summer of questing in 1995. Since then, thousands of lucky children ages 6-16 have banded together in teams of six or so to be heroes and adventurers in mythic quests each summer and in year-round events.

Now, Renaissance Adventures is a mainstay of Boulder summer camps—voted Best of the West by readers of local online publication Yellow Scene—and a leader in the growing enthusiasm for educationally focused Live Action Role Playing, aka LARPing.