Potato chips, chocolate chips and poker chips: Dreamation in Morristown

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No winter is complete without a visit to Dreamation, the annual LARP-fest at the Hyatt Morristown.

Organizers said about 1,000 people came to the four-day festival for live-action role playing, board games, poker and anime, fueled by potato chips, chocolate chips and assorted carbonated beverages.

“I was terrified the first time. I love it now,” said Paige Pinckney, 22, who spent three days LARPing as Oryx, a green-skinned Dryad, circa 1212, in the game Knight Realms.

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It took the Brooklyn resident about 90 minutes to paint her body a shade of Morristown green that would make the Incredible Hulk envious.

MORRISTOWN GREEN: Paige Pinckney paints the town green--literally--at Dreamation gamefest in Morristown. Photo by Kevin Coughlin
MORRISTOWN GREEN: Paige Pinckney paints the town green--literally--at Dreamation gamefest in Morristown. Photo by Kevin Coughlin

Paige said she was a shy creature until a friend talked her into LARPing a couple of years ago. Now she’s a regular at outdoor LARP weekends in Sparta. At the Hyatt, she said, “you are in character every single moment for three days.”

This involves lots of acting and “a fantastic amount of narcissism,” which doesn’t bother Paige–she works in the theater. Her specialty is props, a talent that comes in handy when it’s time to make boffers. Those are the harmless weapons LARPers use to thwack each other into imaginary oblivion.

“This is how nerds exercise,” she joked, as a hooded Rogue suddenly appeared.

Curt Pantuso of Harmony is pursuing environmental studies at Warren County Community College when he’s not chasing green-skinned girls around hotels.

“I was a kind of nerd already. I fell in love with this,” Curt said.  To him LARPing is about “good food, and good friends.”

For Dave Morris, who traveled from Allentown, Pa., to play a pointy-eared “high elf,” it’s all about escapism.

“Other people go out, you may play a card game,” he said. “We do this.”

If LARPing sounds intriguing, you’ll have another chance on the Fourth of July when Dreamation’s creators, Double Exposure Inc., return to Morristown with Dexcon 15.

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