LARPers: Your Opinion Is Wanted!

[pezzonovante]

I don't have the ability to create polls, but I want input from people on this question

Comments

[londo]

I think that the former allows them to become their own concepts more easily, and the latter allows new players to make assumptions more easily.

There is probably something to be said for a hybrid "A foojzot, which is sort of like a soldier."

[mariaklob]

Plain English. Or at least something derived from a real language - Indian castes would work as well.

The advantage of "merchant," "laborer," "landowner" and so on is that they have a sense of place and of function built in. Plus they're easy to remember.

[lightgamer]

I think that made-up terms are better, but require more work to be put in. Effort should be made to marry the term to the setting in such a way that the caste (or whatever) could not possibly be called anything else. Saying "Well, Torpaq is Mooninese for Fighter and so the Fighter Caste are called Torpaq" feels arbitrary and doesn't add to immersion in my mind.

For example, any feudal Japanese peasant could learn to fight with sword and spear and call themselves a "warrior," regardless of their social standing, but to call someone a Samurai implied that the person was a masterful fighter who lived by the code of bushido in addition to implying a certain level of socioeconomic standing. These words are not English, but we understand what Samurai means and see it as a valuable distinction from "warrior" because it is closely tied to a lot of "setting-specific" features and assumptions. As long as your nonsense words have a similar level of detail behind them, I think they will be meaningful and add flavor to the game.

[acousticshadow2]

Maybe use words that make sense, but aren't the traditional... as in for landowner say...
"I am a possesor of estate"

For fighter
"I am patron of the sword"

for slave
"I am a bonded domestic"

for ruler
"I am dynastically born"

Each is easy enough to identify as what they are, but they aren't the usual words we use for it.

If you want to add nonsense then you make up "house names" so someone would say... "I am dynastically born to the house of Portix" or "I am a bonded domestic to the house of Portix" or "I am a possessor of estate allied with the house of Portix" or "I am a patron of the sword blood oathed to the house of Portix" or more colorfully... "I am a patron of the sword blood oathed to the house of Portix and enemy to the house of Ballarst."

[baniszew]

It depends whether you want to carry around the cultural and historical associations of the english words, or whether you want to create new cultural implications. But mostly, I agree with lightgamer.