Crying at LARP

Last weekend, while enjoying some post-game coffee and cake, I noted to the organiser and his wife (the organiser of my other favourite LARP) that they were three for three on making me cry at their events.  Hopefully I got across that this is a good thing.

I've cried at LARP before, but it's not always a good thing.  I remember crying once because lot of people were shouting angrily.  My mental health is generally good and the kind of content that requires a content warning isn't something I need to avoid, but angry shouting upsets me pretty badly, and I was in a position when I couldn't just walk away.  I'm very grateful to the person who spotted something was up and got me out of the room.

But at these two LARPs it was different.

Two characters having an argument.
So obviously there was an aspect of the angry shouting mentioned above, but this time there was also my character's reaction.  This was her new home.  She'd only been there a few hours.  And it was the first time she'd ever felt something resembling hope, to the point where she didn't even know what she was feeling.  Into this last and first desperate hope came this sudden note of discord, and it terrified her without her even knowing why.

A room with natural light.
My character had not seen natural light in months, maybe longer.  We found our way into a room where a light well brought brilliant sunlight down into the darkness of the undercity.  Those who had lived all their lives in the undercity covered their eyes, blinded by the light.  My character stared at the sunlight, shedding tears of joy and regret.

Inflicting pain.
Touching the bones was bringing back a memory related to his missing eye, but it was causing him pain and he kept snatching his hand away.  He told my character to hold his hand down so that he couldn't let go.  She did so, and he began screaming.  She wanted to let go and make it stop, but he'd told her not to.  She held on.  And then he collapsed, unconscious and bleeding.  She'd done that to him.  She should have let go.

So the difference is that it's not really me crying - it's the character.  But the game is so immersive, and the moment so powerful, that I'm not just roleplaying my character's emotions.  I'm feeling them.

This happens a lot at these two games, but it's when I start to cry a fictional character's tears for them that it's most obvious.