This is especially true for cyberpunk settings. Cyberpunk fiction takes place in a world much like ours, but with advancing technology and decaying morality. Political chaos, societal collapse, and bio-cybernetic tech give you lots of creative elbow room. Widespread violence and limited law enforcement give you that life-on-the-edge adrenaline rush.

There are a couple of important things to remember about LARPs. One, they're games. The point of games is to have fun. Some people go into it with the focused intensity of a trial lawyer playing raquetball. Repeat to yourself, "It's just a game" -- you really should relax.

Two, this is escapist fantasy. This is what you do to forget your weekday existence as a wage slave in some soul-crushing corporate machine, surrounded by spiteful, back-biting, petty bureaucrats. Cyberpunk holds up a particularly blackened and tarnished mirror to the soul, so its no surprise that many people take this as an opportunity to become successful spiteful, back-biting, petty bureaucrats. But, hey, if it works for you . . .

Costuming is especially fun for a cyberpunk game. You have two basic style options. There's the street look -- warpaint, chains, spiked body armor covered with menacing slogans, etc -- which can make it fun to stand in a hotel check-in line, surrounded by herds of G-d-fearing Middle America. The corporate look is also surprisingly fun, especially for those of us who don't have to do it 9 to 5. Go in dressed to the nines, and just see how much better service you get from the hotel staff.

Some people are like, "Well, yeah . . . I game. But I have the decency not to do it in public." Spineless wankers, I say! Hell, that's half the fun of it! This is the best excuse for socially unacceptable behavior and clothing that Western civilization has come up with yet. In fact, the truest measure of success is if the mundanes don't realize that you're playing a game, and think you're a real-life psychopathic, gun-toting, sex-Ogre. Bonus points if you successfully mug them with a toy weapon.

And work up a personality to go with the sharp duds. Be creative. Role-play. Any character should be more than just game stats. I've played a character who's a drunken, self-indulgent rock star. He doesn't really even have game stats - no real weapons, skills, or special powers. He's supposed to spend the whole game staggering drunk, chasing women, picking fights (which his bodyguards then have to finish), and causing trouble. What makes this interesting (rather than just wildly fun) is that he's internationally notorious for this. He has to be bad in a bigger, louder, crazier way than anyone else in the game.

I do my humble best to live up to this great role, and scorn the small-minded nay-sayers who claim that playing this character is like coming dressed as a Gothic for Halloween.