Article Display

Amtgard live action role-play at Shaw

  • Published
  • By Senior Airman Tabatha Zarrella
  • 20th Fighter Wing Public Affairs
SHAW AIR FORCE BASE, S.C. --  Once a week, Amtgard live action role playing (LARP) is held near the F-16 CJ Fighting Falcon static display at Memorial Park here, for anyone at least 14 years old and interested in participating.

"I've done Amtgard LARPing for a couple years at different locations," said U.S. Air Force Master Sgt. Arasin Staubly, Air Force Central Command program manager, and point of contact for LARPing. "My role for Amtgard is a knight for service."

Amtgard is a battle gaming and live-action fantasy role playing and boffer combat game focused on the sword and sorcery, medieval, and ancient genres based mainly in the U.S., but can be found in other countries as well.

"We're the first group at Shaw to do LARPing," said Rayanne McClellan-Staubly. "We started this past March getting a group together to meet once a week and we hope to get more people so we can move our group to a location to downtown Sumter, S.C."

Amtgard participants use foam-padded replicas of different medieval weaponry as well as foam-padded shields.

"The purpose of LARPing is to teach the participants how to fight with different weapons and learn to work with different teams," Staubly said.

The physical activities included in the weekly meets promote a fun way of exercising and teaching better situational awareness, according to Staubly.

"So far our group has taken off and we have more people coming out every week," said Staubly. "We hope to get other groups in the surrounding areas to join or to battle against."