darkSpyro

I would much rather do medieval re-enactment, and there are a many of reasons why I would prefer that over LARPing (I'm not actively doing either, there are no LARP/re-enactment communities anywhere nearby). I'll tell you about them right now.

First off, LARPing.
In it's core, LARPing is a social event, basically just acting without a script. Usually you're given a character by the organizer of the game, and you roleplay as that character. It's not always that immersive, most of it is not fighting, and the social circles of a LARP community can be pretty toxic. I'll elaborate on that later.

At it's best LARPing can be very immersive, which makes it easy to focus and relate to the ingame characters. The location is secluded, far away from wandering strangers and might have impressive props like medieval houses, palisades with moats, camps etc. The people are dressed in a realistic (for a fantasy setting) manner and are all good/decent actors, and there are loads of them. Enough that you can't possibly know everyone. This is the kinda LARP that most people imagine when they hear the description. A good LARP might look something like this, though I stress this again, the majorty of LARPing does not consist of fighting: http://www.electro-larp.com/wp...h-mass-larp.jpg

At it's worst (and let me tell you, most of it is not done by experienced, skilled LARPers) LARPing is just a bunch of people, usually teenagers, gathering at someone's backyard or the local woods to role play and swing at each other with huge dickswords (see: boffer weapons). There might not even be any real props of costumes involved. This is what most of the small LARP groups who don't have the resources to form massive settings for LARP events are doing, and it is what people new to LARPing are usually first introduced to.
So yeah, while "live action role playing" might sound all cool and interesting, the description that LARPer's provide you doesn't always convey how damn awkward it might feel and look like. Sure, it might be fun to a lot of people, but I think it's still a bit misleading. Think something like this: http://www.gutscheinsammler.de...12/05/LARP1.jpg

And lastly, the social stuff. The stuff that is really keeping me away from LARPing.
LARP communities, especially the ones of the latter type, are usually pretty tight-knit. A dozen or so people, maybe a couple of girls introduced to the hobby by their guy-friends or boyfriends, which mainly consists of a few groups of people who already knew each other before joining the community. If you're a newcomer to a community like this, and fail to form friendships with the rest of them (and they're not always nice and non-awkward people to begin with) you'll most likely face jealousy and rivalry from among them. Unless you're a girl, in which case, you will be the object that causes the said jealousy and rivalry.
Simply put, it's a power struggle. In a community so small you might be expected to familiarize yourself with the other players IRL, and you'll quickly find that there is a certain hierarchy present in the group. If you ignore this fact, the community will spit you out with the consensus of it's "inner circle" very fast. LARPing with the guys turns into ****, and you'll feel like you're in the wrong place all the time.
Also, there is a common fact that LARPers usually recognize, that the fastest way to make enemies in a LARP community is to have sex with a girl who is a part of it. Very often such a deed will attract a lot of attention and jealousy.
All of these social problems are, of course, largely negated in larger groups where people simply don't know each other.

Next off, medieval re-enactment.
When people (americans especially) hear the word "re-enactment" what first comes to their mind might be civil war re-enactment. This is essentially the same deal, but in a different "setting"

Firstly, what makes re-enactment so superior in my opinion, is that there is little role-playing involved. People don't usually have characters of their own, and even if they do, they don't have any specific "roles" in any event, unless maybe they're a leader of a group or something.
Re-enactment is done in large groups consisting of primarily adult men, and is generally considered to be a more "real", more organized hobby when compared to LARPing, which is often compare to playing.
The whole point of re-enactment is the authenticity of it. It is always done with good props, which may or may not be completely authentic by their materials and how they were manufactured, but you will not see a re-enactor running around with blue jeans and sneakers along with his breastplate. Also, re-enactment usually focuses on strictly on battles, either scripted or not, which makes it a much better hobby for those who are looking for action specifically. For those that don't want elves and orcs everywhere, re-enactment is also better because it's based on real, historical settings.
Re-enactment is also used for educational purposes; Events which are open to public and might have some mock battles to demonstrate how people fought during those times.

Large-scale medieval re-enactment might look like this, though in reality there wouldn't be this much plate armor to go around, as soldiers had to buy their own gear those days, and armor was very, very expensive. Comparable to what a new sports car or a house would cost today. http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media...009822278-1.jpg
http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media...009822471-1.jpg
https://evemuseografia.files.w.../2014/08/73.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wi...kings_fight.JPG

I don't want to discourage anyone from trying LARPing though. From what I've seen it can be very fun, but you have to have the feel for it. I would very much like to try a more combat-oriented LARP, maybe focused around a battle fought by two armies with some neutral characters in the midst of it, but such things are pretty rare here because there just aren't enough players around.