What does LARP mean?

L.A.R.P. stands for Live Action Role-Play.

The 'Live Action' in L.A.R.P. is much the same as it is in a 'Live Action' movie, meaning that it's done with real people and not with cartoons or anamatronics or any such thing. L.A.R.P. is played with real people who come to Game to make thier characters real, unlike a Table Top game where most people sit around a table playing the game, those who come to a L.A.R.P. actually act out and portray the characters they represent.

The 'Role-Play' in L.A.R.P. speaks to the purpose a Player holds in the grand scheme of the story being told. A Player comes to play the 'Role'... the essence of what it is to be the person, the character, that they have chosen for themselves. It requires an understanding of how the character themselves would see the world as it is presented to them, and works best when the Player knows how to seperate what happenes In-Character (IC) from what happens Out of Character (OOC)