Game Design – Shoshana Kessock

Your Game Is Not A Nordic Larp – And That’s Okay!

July 1, 2019 by Shoshana, posted in Criticism, Game Design, LARP Discussion and Theory, Not Ready To Make Nice

[Please note: This article was written in 2018 during the height of a debate about Nordic Larp and American Larp. I hesitated at the time to get involved in the debate due to health issues, but now think I’d like to contribute this follow up to the question. Please read with the understanding the information is a little dated, and updates may occur.]

Nordic Larp. What does that even mean?

I had the same question myself when I headed over to Europe for the first time six years ago for Knutpunkt, the large Nordic Larp conference held once a year in either Norway, Sweden, Denmark, or Finland. I had the opportunity to drop myself into the middle of a larp discourse already in progress there, at the crossroads of many countries all discussing the different aspects of the art form/hobby of live action games. While there I learned that the Nordic larp tradition was spreading in a big way, fostered by outreach from the Nordic countries to other larp traditions across the world.

Since that outreach began, Nordic larp and its design ethos and ideology has become a part of many local larp communities, its influence offering tools to designers outside of their normal design choices. This exchange is, at its very heart, a fantastic way to grow larp as a discourse and a design practice and art form, inspiring new creations across the pond. But things haven’t been entirely… smooth in this cultural and design exchange. Not by a longshot.

For the last few years, a growing rift has begun between the centralized (as it is) Nordic larp community and the American community, driven by the way in which certain conversations have been going between the two groups and certain ideological differences. At the core of that discussion is a single idea: Nordic Larp and the ideas it espouses are rooted in a specific tradition, and to take that name and brand your larp that way outside of the community can be a problem.

More plainly: hey, people on the outside, Nordic Larp is not necessarily yours, and taking the name for your own buzz and hype is maybe not okay.

And you know what? For a number of reasons, that’s a really good point.

Your game probably isn’t Nordic Larp – and that’s okay too! Here’s why.

I opened this article with a question: what does the term Nordic Larp even mean?

There’s a lot of answers to that question. And if you think that makes the arguments about the appropriation of the term difficult, you’re absolutely right. Ask Larpers in the movement there what Nordic larp means, and you will probably get a lot of answers that seem hand-wavy and unspecific. However, there are certain key ideas behind Nordic Larp you can point to as being “very Nordic.”

This definition (which is a little long) comes from the NordicLarp.org, a website which focuses on collecting articles, videos, and documentation all about the evolving Nordic Larp tradition and discourse.

Nordic-style larp, or Nordic larp, is a term used to describe a school of larp game design that emerged in the Nordic countries. Nordic-style larp is dramatically different from larp in other parts of the world – here are a few examples of aims and ideals that are typical for this unique gaming scene:

Immersion. Nordic larpers want to feel like they are “really there”. This includes creating a truly convincing illusion of physically being in a medieval village/on a space ship/WWII bunker, playing a character that is very close to your own physical appearance, as well as focusing on getting under the character’s skin to “feel their feelings”. Dreaming in character at night is seen by some nordic larpers as a sign of an appropriate level of immersion.

Collaboration. Nordic-style larp is about creating an exciting and emotionally affecting story together, not measuring your strength. There is no winning, and many players intentionally let their characters fail in their objectives to create more interesting stories.

Artistic vision. Many Nordic games are intended as more than entertainment – they make artistic or even political statements. The goal in these games is to affect the players long term, to perhaps change the way they see themselves or how they act in society.

We’ll come back to some of the elements in this description in a moment, but keep in mind as we go forward the following descriptions: Nordic Larp is focused on Immersion, Collaboration, and Artistic Vision.

Alternatively, Jaakko Stenros, a well-known researcher, academic, and speaker gave a lecture at the Nordic Larp Talks in 2013 about just what is Nordic Larp, a talk that’s been shared the world over. I’d encourage everyone to give it a look before going any further (it’s not that long).

Stenros points out that early on in the Nordic larp scene, those within the community would label a larp Nordic when they thought it was a Nordic Larp – using the “I know it when I see it” method to build a body of work that helped define the later discourse. (And if you think that’s round-about, you’re not wrong). Yet within a few short years, the definitions of what is Nordic larp, while still widely debated, were solidifying to provide a larger context for those outside the culture and within.

During Stenros’ talk, he defines contributing elements to the definition of Nordic Larp. Some of them include:

Larps coming from the Nordic countries (Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland)
A social phenomenon and an ongoing discourse focused on playing styles and design ideals, rather than just geography, inspired and informed by other scenes originally such as Fastival, improv theater, and larps from other countries which helped build the basis of the Nordic tradition.
Other elements to consider in this social phenomenon is the migration of influences, social situations that created the creation ground for the tradition, key works which influenced the discourse, social network structures within the key communities, and the people involved.

His stricter definition (influenced by the work done by Markus Montola and Bjarke Pedersen) is (at minute 10:19 in the video):

“A larp that is influenced by the Nordic Larp Tradition and contributes to the Nordic Larp discourse.”

Yup. A definition which is defined by itself. As my mother would say: Oy. Vey.

Please note that Stenros’ entire first ten minutes of the talk or so is about how his definition is not “the answer, but an answer” which he’s sure will be disagreed with, dissected, and transformed within a short period of time. What does that tell us? That Nordic larp was and still remains a shifting creature which is an all-encompassing term for a larger community, often defined less by what it is and more by where it comes from, what basic artistic principles created the initial cornerstone, and then set against the context of what it actually is not.

It’s also important to note that this definition, though I’m using it as the basis of a good deal of my discussion here, is also five years old. And as Jaakko notes, the tradition is ever-evolving. So by looking at the definition listed above from NordicLarp.org and then looking at Jaakko’s definition, the terms have evolved and narrowed down to identify specific design factors as key to the Nordic larp experience. There are also plenty of different introduction videos as well by thinkers and designers like Petter Karlson and others within the scene trying to define and identify what has become a slippery monster of a catch-all design ethos.

“[Nordic Larp is] a great term to describe a wide-cast net,” says Johannes Axner, editor-in-chief of NordicLarp.org and Swedish larper, “it’s pretty useless to describe individual larps.”

It’s that ambiguity, that wide net, which stands at the heart of this controversy. Nordic larp itself is a shifting mirage, defined by all those involved in the process over and over, grinding down the ambiguity to try and distill the essence. That essence is then interpreted, delineated, and slapped on games which run the gamut from block-buster big-ticket events to black box, small-scale experiences. And perhaps that defining and attributing is for more than just design reasons.

“Five years ago, no one cared what the exact definition [of Nordic larp] would be,” says Stenros. “This has changed. The term has now brand value. It is worth something.” This worth is at the heart of much of the argument going on within the larp communities, a brand value which, when attached to a game, evokes a certain response in players looking for that ‘Nordic Experience’ (capital N, capital E) they’ve heard so much about. The brand value, when added to the advertisement for a larp, interests those who have heard about games like College of Wizardry and Just A Little Lovin’ in Europe, who’ve seen documentation about games on battleships and in castles and yearn for something bigger than perhaps what they’re used to.

Similarly, organizers have deployed the branding of “Nordic Larp” or “Nordic Inspired” to evoke the specific school of design Stenros has described in his talk – and perhaps rightly so. These games can be said to have been heavily influenced by the Nordic larp design elements learned by engaging in spaces like Knutpunkt or online groups, or even by those who have hopped the Atlantic to play the Nordic larps themselves.

“If you brand something Nordic Larp, you might get cool indie cred in the US, or you might get some players who wouldn’t have considered going to your game.” Is that really what we’re doing when using the term in the United States? Relying on the branding of Nordic larp to bring in players who might be looking for that indie cred, or else looking for a new hotness they’ve only heard of and not seen elsewhere? I think (in part) the answer is yes. Stenros may have been writing about this in 2013 but in the years that followed, we’ve seen an uptick in games in the US using the term, and those games have been very high profile and considered en vogue right now. And that attracts attendees.

And that isn’t bad. In fact, for larp designers bringing in players from across traditions, having the brand recognition of Nordic Larp can spread a new tradition of ideas to audiences which might never have had access to it before. This especially works for those American larpers who can’t hop the pond or spend the money to attend Knutpunkt, whose finances don’t allow European trips, or whose mental bandwidth doesn’t allow them to engage with ongoing (and often complex and heated) debates in online spaces. Nordic larps or “Nordic inspired” games coming to the US allows people to see just what the (rightly created) fuss is all about.

However, in deploying that brand name, not only are organizers evoking an entire larp culture’s identity, but sometimes imposing their own outsider’s opinion on what exactly makes that culture tick.

It’s coming into someone’s home and asking for a recipe, then going home to make the thing and say their food is the same as the authentic cultural cuisine. That’s been happening for generations, as Americans recreate food (which is a cultural medium by the way) and define what it is and how it should be prepared based on their own internal design/creative choices. Or else they create food fusions, taking traditions and smashing them together to make new and interesting takes on traditional recipes.

And that’s what’s happening here. “Nordic-inspired” games are the fusion food of the larp world, considered pretty trendy, attention-grabbing and fun. Fusion is sexy, it’s mysterious: what can this combination create, bringing together the best of both worlds for something we’ve never seen before. And you know what? Fusion is AWESOME. Fusion dishes are exciting and innovative and create new and fabulous tastes based on cultural exchange. Fusion is a valid and impressive form of food evolution.

Where it can become a problem is where people misidentify or else co-opt food origins altogether for their own ends without giving credence to where it came from, or considering just how they may be erasing traditions from BOTH cultures to create this newly created dish… game…

This analogy has gotten away from me here. But I digress. Let’s look at some of the factors involved in this erasure.

We’ve looked a lot at the Nordic larp tradition across the pond and how it developed, but looking at the other side of this potential appropriation debate, we must also look at the development of larp cultures across the United States. Plenty of research has gone into the myriad traditions and groups which have deep cultural roots across the US, work done by academic powerhouses like Jonaya Kemper and journalists like Lizzie Stark. The United States has decades-long histories going back to the days of the evolution of simulationist gaming into live action spaces, and non-nerd community organizations like Model UN or murder mystery weekends.

These traditions are vast and wide-spread and often developed in tandem with one another over the years. Due to geographic isolation, lack of communication between groups, and schisms splitting communities over the years, different larp traditions have evolved to create design tools that can be both similar to those from other communities and also flavored with their own experiences and innovations. And due to how massive the United States are, that decades-long artistic growth from untold separate communities has created a tapestry of American larp culture which reflects the diversity which makes America what it is today: a complicated, culturally diverse, and often fraught hotbed of inter-community cooperation and friction.

It’s because of that complexity that United States larp doesn’t have a centralized definition, even though many from the outside have struggled and often erroneously attributed one to the scene (if there can be said to be a single scene). “American Larp” is often defined as “a form of roleplaying game where participants physically portray their characters” (Wikipedia) while engaging in competitive play, sometimes involving heavily controlled plotlines, live combat with contact safe (boffer) weapons, and “crunchy”, number-based systems which rely heavily on chance and competition rather than negotiation. American larp is also sometimes split in definition in an attempt to encompass those many traditions by putting them into several sub-categories: live combat (boffer) games, theater style games with no physical contact (like the far-reaching Camarilla Club or Mind’s Eye Society for White Wolf games), and the emerging and ever-growing freeform scene, with smaller and more personal games and less scenography or 360-degree immersion involved.

As you can imagine, these definitions are almost just as broad as the term Nordic Larp, even in their broken down form, and contribute to a generalization of what “American Larp” really is that does no one any favors. One could then instead go in and deconstruct just what design practices are employed by these American traditions, and you do come down (in my opinion) to some important cultural touch points which are pervasive in many designs, specifically:

a reliance on chance rather than negotiation,
a competitive spirit between players and therefore their characters,
a focus on secrets kept by characters rather than open sharing of plots beforehand or during play, and
stories heavily driven by centralized storyteller authority rather than created cooperatively and predominantly by players.

Yet even with these pinpointed overlaps in communities, these elements barely touch the complexities developed in US larps over the years. And many of the games being created defy these elements, operating outside of the definition traditionally ascribed to much of the American larp scene. These games instead incorporate perhaps some of these element – or none at all – and instead employ design choices we might more closely attribute to Nordic Larp games. This includes design ideological choices like cooperative narrative development, culturally important thematics, emotional roleplay focus over story and simulation, and strip-down of mechanics to more freeform design.

In that way, these games have more in common perhaps with Nordic design than with their American counterparts. But that does not make them any less a product of the American larp system. And to say these tools haven’t been employed by American larpers for years now is to erase literally generations of work by talented designers and powerful communities in favor of claiming techniques to a single community. Everyone in larp has been reinventing the wheel for years, but in the end a lot of our wheels ended up looking very much the same, and all doing the same job: rolling the hell along.

But then we come back to branding. And though a game might be incorporating elements which are recognized now during international discourse as “so Nordic,” the use of the term serves to attract players while largely undermining the complexity of the larp development in the United States and the world over. It appropriates the ever-evolving and often ephemeral Nordic Larp label for the sake of defining a game against the ‘American larp scene’ while still employing some of the techniques shared by both communities. And usually for the sake of creating distinction between what has come before, and the new hotness now.

In fact, many of the games being created are not Nordic Larps. They’re games which share design elements with Nordic Larps, elements which have been in use in the United States larp scene forever. And so the distinction belittles American larp while taking the brand of another community for our own. Essentially, it’s causing erasure on BOTH sides and causing further friction between American and Nordic larp communities.

Nordic Larpers express frustration about their culture being taken for profit here.

American Larpers feel under-appreciated, their traditions slighted and ignored in favor of the European import.

And so the fight has simmered, and recently exploded, and here we are.

But we’re missing a fundamental answer to this discussion altogether: games in the United States don’t need to be Nordic Larps to have the same elements. We’ve had those elements all along! We just didn’t have a brand, a label, and certainly not one with as much recognition as the hip Nordic Larp brand. (And I’m sorry for those who bristle under the use of such a capitalistic terminology for an art movement, but it is a brand today, used to sell experiences. And that class/political/economic issue is an internal debate for the Nordic community which has complicated the problem of tensions even further.)

American larpers don’t need to label their games as Nordic for them to be cool, and immersive, and emotionally intense, and freeform. We’ve had those for the longest time. In communities, for example, like Intercon and the Double Exposure communities, larps like these have been evolving for years now. Across the country, we’ve had people discovering these changes on their own. But because we’re not united in a single art scene, we needed a lable. And I believe for that reason, and for branding power, Nordic Larp was borrowed, the tradition imported, the ideology embraced.

Unless these games are run by Nordic teams in the US, even working with American larp designers (such as the teams running Just A Little Lovin’ in the US in 2017 or the newly merged Turtle House, made up of US company Imagine Nation and Dziobak Studios from Denmark), these games remain strongly American.

And I repeat. That’s okay. We can have our own hotness too.

In fact, I believe it is VITAL to the health of American larp and our pride as a larp culture that we embrace having our own hotness. That we work together in the spirit of growing national community connections to create discussions of commonality, and even perhaps create a term for our own adaptations of what traditions people are calling Nordic. “Nordic Inspired” doesn’t really hack it anymore and evokes that erasure again.

We’ve got our own thing going here. Why not find a name that serves to both give credit to the American developing scene and also detach ourselves from the appropriation of Nordic Larp? We don’t need to borrow anything when we’ve got our own sexy fusion going on, ready to evolve our larp communities to a bigger and better tomorrow.

On the opposite side of this argument is perhaps a valid point brought up by Jaakko Stenros within his above video, a point which sits strong in my mind when I feel a sense of irritation at the idea that Nordic Larp has been appropriated. As Stenros says:

“No one owns Nordic larp,” says Stenros in the introduction to his definition. “Not the designers, not the larpwrites, not the organizers. Not the journalists, not the experts, not the academics not the researchers, not the event organizers, or popularizers. Not the web service providers or the editors in chief, not the people who are working to import larp or export larp, not even the players.

“For we all own Nordic larp. There simply is no central bureau of Nordic Larp. And if there was, I can promise you that splinter groups would surface faster than you can say “Fucking fascists trying to limit my imagination to copyright my reality hacking tools, to steal my status and funding, and to take away my fun and misery.”

Nordic Larp in itself not only evolved, as mentioned above, by its creators and trend setters attending other larp traditions and creative communities to borrow techniques, but the community is defined by an ideology which does not belong to any individual group. It in and of itself is built around dozens of smaller communities, each networked together to define their games based on a shifting rubric. So then how can the Nordic Larp community claim ownership of this brand – simply because it’s Nordic? If the idea was to share ideas and continue to evolve Nordic Larp as a tradition, as it has continued to do over the years, then why invite outside input from (for example) Americans only to become upset when that input is given and swapped back to the US. Sharing ideas doesn’t necessarily happen the way one wants, nor produce some sanitized results. Cultural exchange is messy, and getting your peanut butter in your hummus can make some weird results that change the context of both ingredients for mixed results.

If you can’t own Nordic Larp, then is it fair to say you own or control the overall discourse? Especially when that discourse invited in the very voices now being criticized for appropriation? Is it appropriation or a cultural sharing, a blending? Or is it a one-way theft of ideas? That is at its heart the essence of a lot of discussions of what is appropriation in the first place in all media and art forms, and is now being reflected in the larp world, underpinned by a current of fear about American cultural colonization which has existed the world over since America rose to super-power and international media influencer status.

But is that what this is? Is this appropriation or exchange? The debate goes on.

While we fight about the issue, however, are there any solutions to positively influence this contentious debate?

I believe there are three major solutions.

We as American larpers have a vested interest in discovering a new definition for what is coming out of the new evolution of larp right now, influenced as it is heavily by these ideas which appear parallel to Nordic Larp design. Nordic-inspired doesn’t cut it and does little for either us American Larpers or the Nordic community. Whatever we come up with, I’m sure we’ll fight about constantly. But having a brand new hotness all our own to reflect the hard work and in-house evolution we’ve done here in America would let us define ourselves a little more based on American ethos and make us look a little less like we’re blatantly ripping off another culture (which in fact we are not).
American and Nordic larp communities must have conversations, both internally and between one another, about the manner by which people are sharing information, and whether or not it feels appropriative or acting as an exchange. A two-way street is an important start to making the cultural discourse feel mutual rather than either appropriative or elitist, depending on the interpretation of the side of the argument. Americans aren’t coming over to steal ideas and just be prescriptive about their ideas, and Nordic larpers aren’t demeaning all American larp as lesser and imposing their European ways on American larp communities. And if it feels that way, we should talk about why and try to mend those fences, for the sake of larp development and community relations.
Last but not least (and perhaps harder still) is a revisiting of the way conversations about these issues are happening. Individuals are not only becoming burnt out, but there is very little benefit of the doubt happening. Instead, battle lines are becoming highly contentious, leading to many great designers and thinkers checking out of the conversation and perhaps even communities. We are imploding in on ourselves in an effort to preserve what we feel is vital to our identities, and a lot of that is based on the tensions rising and no assumption of positive intent. I believe that positive intent exists, and where it does not, it needs to be fostered to explore our commonalities and embrace our growing future as an international community. The alternative is cultural schism once more, something which has plagued larp communities everywhere forever.

I believe we are on the cusp of a very important turning point in international larp discourse, where the decisions we make now will cement either a continually evolving design exchange which could improve everyone’s games and communities. Or else we’re going to continue fracturing under the weight of our factionalism and concerns about appropriation and political/ideological entrenchment. And if that happens, what we will lose is the chance at a brilliant future of creation together that could be wonderful, if allowed to flourish and survive.

The decision on how to proceed is largely in our hands. We just have to communicate and do the (often) hard work to get us all there together.

I’m Not Too Fat For Your Larp

July 1, 2019 by Shoshana, posted in Body Positivity, Criticism, Game Design, LARP Discussion and Theory, Not Ready To Make Nice, Speaking Out

I’ve got a pretty lousy memory, but I remember a lot of firsts in my life.

I remember the first time I got a solo in a choir performance. I was so excited, I could hardly stand it. I remember going in to get fitted for my costume and the seamstress frowning. “She can’t be up front,” she said, “what’s that going to look like? Put her in the back row.” I didn’t realize then she meant because I was fatter than the other girls. I didn’t figure that out until a bully in my class made it abundantly, loudly clear at recess the very next day.

I remember trying out for the role of Ms. Hannigan in Annie. I told the drama teacher I wanted to be on Broadway when I got older. “You’ll need to lose weight for that,” she said, “being heavy doesn’t work on Broadway.” I didn’t learn until later she, herself overweight, had tried to be on Broadway once. Learned from experience, I guess.

I remember the first time I got up the nerve to ask a guy out in college. It was at a sorority party at a bar. He was a little drunk. We’d been hanging out for weeks. I’d been over his house, we’d talked video games, I thought he was wonderful. When I asked him, out in the rain, I’ll never forget what he said. “Sorry. But you know how some people don’t like some kinds of porn? I don’t like fat people porn.” I never spoke to him again.

I remember. I might not remember what I ate for lunch two days ago or where I left my bag some days, but I remember every damn comment. Every doctor who never took me seriously and told me I just needed to lose weight. I remember every comment, every time I got laughed at in the street. Stories like those are memories worn into my mind. I won’t forget them any time soon.

But there are good memories too.

I’m going to tell a story here about a poignant fat-related story. And then I’ll get to my point. I was at an event where a number of small larps were being showcased. I signed up for one game because it abstracted emotions and events using music, which I thought was cool. Little did I know until too late that the game was about relationships, people falling in and out of love. I panicked. I was afraid of seeing the disgust in someone’s eyes knowing they’d have to date a fat girl in character. I was so cautious and scared it almost made me leave the game. But I stuck it out. And in that game, a guy I didn’t know at all played my love interest with such care it made me glow. When he stood up and asked me to slow dance, I nearly burst into tears. It was all I was able to do not to step on his toes. I’d never slow danced with a man before. I’d never had the chance.

Larps have given me experiences that escaped me in my life because of a lot of social anxiety due to weight. I experienced what it was like to be a woman in a position of power, confident and powerful, when before I would hide. I got a chance to be on the arm of the most handsome men and women at a game. I’ve had the chance to play out love stories, stories of triumph. To lead battles and armies. To learn to be confident in my own skin.

20045353_1553789684686565_1252021450300716629_o — To play a badass teacher at Wizard School (Photo: New World Magischola)

I’ve also had a guy at a convention game look at me and then go to a game organizer and say he needed to trade characters because “I would never date THAT.” He was meant to play my husband.

I’ve had a guy meant to be an enemy of mine in a game say, “I’d feel bad beating you up, I can run rings around your fat ass.”

I had a woman tell me I wasn’t allowed to play a sidhe in a Changeling: the Dreaming larp because “there aren’t any fat sidhe.” (Jokes on her who helped put THAT change in the 20th-anniversary edition, but hey…)

I remember a lot of stories about what it’s like to be fat in this world. And to be fat in the larp world too. And I have only one thing to say about it after all these years:

I’m not too fat for your larp.

10644554_10100384372745893_4077298588222454517_o — Because screw you, I’m a goddamn badass. (Photo: Dystopia Rising NJ)

You heard me. Larp is a fantastic place, a blank canvas upon which to build whole new worlds, worlds where you decide the structures, the rules, the norms. And as the designers, writers, organizers, and producers of games, it is in your power to challenge the status quo of how fat people are treated in your games. You have the power to make the decisions about how people are treated in your community and in play based on the atmosphere you cultivate and the games you design. So why do so many games still have atmospheres where people who are fat are mistreated? Where being fat marginalizes the positions you’re allowed to have? Or the fun you’re allowed to enjoy?

The simple matter is being fatphobic and hurtful against fat people is the last socially accepted bigotry enacted by almost every single group anywhere. Otherwise progressive communities and marginalized populations will still turn inward on fat members and harass, shame, ostracize, or minimize them when they would never consider letting that treatment go unchallenged to their own group. We as a society celebrate striving for tolerance in much of our media, giving us feel-good messages about love and kindness and acceptance with one hand, and making awful fat jokes with the other. And this same process happens everywhere, in every subculture group. Including larp.

58374297_10100971248537103_4590840368886448128_n — Don’t be that person. Just don’t.

The problem is universal and yet hits different groups disproportionately. For example, it’s no secret that fatphobia affects women disproportionately more than men (although mistreatment of fat men is absolutely a thing). Women are put under the lens, pulled apart by people of every gender for the way they look, and their fat pointed out at every turn. Yet in a medium where we create our worlds, why is this still the case? Because we bring our bigotries with us. And in a real world where we can’t imagine not picking everyone apart for that stray pound, why the hell would you not do it in your games?

Because it’s not right. And by continuing to do so, you’re creating hostile larp environments. Even if your game purports to be progressive, if you don’t consider fat bigotry in your events and designs, you’re not making progressive environments that are equal for all. You’ve failed in your inclusivity.

Here’s a handy dandy list of how you might mess up at including size discrimination in your larp. We’ll call it the “If You ________ Then Your Game Might Be Fat Phobic.”

If you don’t have any fat people playing characters of social status or power.
If you don’t cast fat players in romantic roles.
If you design costume requirements for games which won’t allow fat people to participate comfortably (such as providing costumes for the event and make the sizes inaccessible to fat people).
If you use fat-phobic language in your game descriptions of characters (associating fat with evil, slovenly, lazy, disgusting, etc.)
If you encourage social stratification based on appearance in your games.
If you do not use people of all sizes in your larp promotion, instead relying on people who represent only the status quo in your advertisements and documentation.
If you make being fat an accommodation one must ask for when participating rather than considering people of all sizes from the beginning.
If you allow fatphobic comments or mistreatment to continue on in your game, either from other players or from your staff. (Bonus points on this one if you accept “being fat is unhealthy” as an excuse).
If you adjust the power dynamic of a character being played by a fat player once they’ve been cast because they’re fat.
If you accept bullying in character based on someone being fat and accept that as just the status quo (bonus points if you make a whole game about this, or try to subvert it and fail miserably *ahemFatManDownahem*).

Okay. So here we are at the end of this rather scathing list. And you might be asking: so what do I do to make sure my game isn’t fat phobic? Well, take a look at that handy dandy list and don’t do those things. Work hard to make sure people who are plus size, people who are fat, are in positions of power. Fight back against fatphobic jokes. Make sure you recognize the power dynamics being played out against fat players and their characters and help adjust the narrative so they are not pushed out by those who equate fat with things like laziness, slovenliness, lack of power, etc. Do the work to represent the life of fat people accurately and do not focus your games on the life of fat people and their challenges unless you know just what you’re doing.

As for me, I know that the world isn’t going to change overnight. I’m aware that there are plenty of places which will never shift the way they think about fat bodies (the clothing industry, for example…) But I solidly believe with a little conscious work we can make larp spaces more accessible and friendly towards body types of all kinds. By making sure people of all sizes fell comfortable coming to your game, you’ll enrich your game by bringing new experiences and new voices into your space. And you’ll prove that you recognize that fat people need not and should not be erased from your stories.

Embrace a new way of thinking. Or join in fatphobia as a phenomenon. There is no middle ground. And if you’re about bringing fatphobia into your games, just tell me so. Because then you get from me a big old…

A New Home At Meow Wolf

February 7, 2019 by Shoshana, posted in Chronic Illness, Game Design, Personal

I’ve been quieter lately than usual on both social media and here on my website. That’s for a lot of reasons. The first is I was head-down for most of September-November developing and running games, including the blockbuster 1878: Welcome to Salvation (which will have its post mortem post on this blog). However after that, a curious thing happened: I got a job.

As many people might know by now, I was freelancing full time after being laid off from John Wick Presents and 7th Sea. That was a long stretch of me going from check to check and paying for private health insurance to stay alive. Trust me, it was a lean time and a very stressful one. So I started looking for full-time work again. I never expected to get the job that I eventually landed.

After returning from Texas from running 1878, I packed up all my things and moved across the country from New Jersey to Santa Fe, New Mexico to work at one of the coolest places in the world…

cHhT0tOv_400x400 — Photos by: Meow Wolf website

I am now a Santa Fe resident, working as a Narrative Lead with some of the most creative people I’ve ever met in my life at the immersive art installation Meow Wolf. I will admit, it was a difficult move, and I would not have survived it without the help of so many good friends. There are too many to note, but Craig, Nico, Josh, Abigail, Ariella, Ennis, Katie, Allie, Abby, MayaBe, Travis, Sean, Gia, Megan, Alex, my father, and our rockstar Sean Foster were primary to this adventure. I was also scammed by movers, drove five days across the country with Nico, slept for nearly ten days in a scary motel and then on a couch in an empty apartment, ended up getting super sick from the altitude here and battled chronic health issues upon arrival. But here I am, with a new home, far from my old original home, under glorious blue skies in Santa Fe.

Meow Wolf itself is amazing. I get to write and ideate and create all day. And that is the dream of so many artists and writers that I feel so blessed to be here. I want to thank Danielle Harper, Jeff Gomez and Ryan Hart for pushing me to apply for this job when my confidence wasn’t there. I wouldn’t be at this great job without their support. And the support of so many others who nudged me along until I did the thing, posted the thing. (Also Nico for pushing me to finish my writing sample even when I was in the hospital – written with an IV in my arm!).

maxresdefault-16 — I was never much for day-glo paint until I came here. Now it’s all up in my head.

Life-wise, things have stayed a little rocky. Those health issues I mentioned are still in play, which has kept me from doing a lot of things I wanted to do. I thought I’d land right on my feet here, but I’ve been in and out of the hospital constantly since arrival. I can’t tell you all how many times I’ve been writing or online lately with an IV in my arm in a hospital bed (or how much my hospital bills have become – $40,000!). But it also means I’ve had to be very serious about what I do with my spare time… Which is why, for now, I’ve taken a break from writing tabletop RPG content. I want to thank so many people who have contacted me recently with work, but with being so ill and still recovering from the move, I’ve had to take a hiatus. Because sometimes, you need to admit when you have to take care of yourself first.

My move has also made me have to recenter my larp design. I’m now far from the East Coast and far from the people I’ve worked with for so long. That doesn’t mean I’m done with larp design by far (or tabletop for that matter!). But it means I won’t be able to come back to the East Coast for every event… which makes me sad. But it also means maybe designing things on the West Coast…? I’m excited.

So what am I saying? I’m not done doing games just because I’m working here:

491055DB-9C76-451A-B935-2AE1820FAADC — I’m not being egotistical or showing off, I promise. I’m showcasing this gorgeous place.

It just means I’ve got to take it easier and make sure I take care of my health, so I can continue to make creative things both for my day job and for myself. Projects like Arksong, Immortal Flight, Affinity, my writing, and my comic book are still going on, plus some things you’ve never seen or heard of yet. But they’re going to take some time to pull off now as things change. As life often does.

So I’m not done.

And I need to accept that slowing down is the right thing to do, while still telling myself:

Instead I’ll say this: life changes. And I’m going with those changes. And I hope you’ll come with me. Thanks everyone, and thank you to Meow Wolf for this opportunity.

The Emotional Ledge and Larp

January 14, 2019 by Shoshana, posted in Game Design, LARP Discussion and Theory

It’s been a long time since I wrote something on this blog, and there’s good reason for that, which I’ll be getting into in another post. However, after attending the Midwinter Gaming Convention this weekend, I had some rambling thoughts about live action games I wanted to put together before they all slipped away.

Let’s talk about those squishy things you don’t like speaking about at parties. Let’s open up and talk about feelings.

A group of players stood in a circle in the middle of a fake party. One held a tiny green container full of viable human embryos. Well, not really. They held a tiny vial of green liquid stuffed full of tiny plastic baby dolls whose legs had been cut off (the funny things we make for larp). The player stood in a circle and discussed just what they should do with these embryos. Some wanted to take them, bring them to maturity, and raise them as their own. Others wanted to destroy them. And still others wanted to turn them over to the highest bidder. It was an emotional conversation among the most unlikely of custodians of these future babies. You see, each of the players in the conversation were playing robots recently brought to sentience who had become the inheritors of mankind’s future.

These players were the first to ever try my newest game AFFINITY, a game about sentient robots inheriting humanity’s legacy when the human race is dying out. Think CHILDREN OF MEN meets AI. It’s been a passion project of mine for several years to see this live action event come to fruition and finally we had a chance.

I listened in on the conversation as a Non-Agency Character, a character played by a staff member meant to steer the story a little and keep the plot moving if necessary. But really, I didn’t need to do much during this game. The players had embraced their new Mechanica characters with both hands. They stood and discussed humanity’s future while outside they knew a human’s first hate group was closing in on their location to murder them. They had to escape.

And as I listened, one character named Cassandra gave an impassioned plea for keeping humans alive, because how could they truly learn and understand feelings and emotions if the originators of that sensation were to die out.

Just as Cassandra gave her speech, the music for our fictional party changed. The Beatle’s “Hey Jude” started to play. As Cassandra made her plea, two of the other Mechanica named Joy and Watt took each other’s hands and began to slow dance. And I sat in wonder at a small moment that touched me down to my core. Because all I could think was, “You can’t write spontaneity like that. And you can’t write emotion that comes from nowhere.”

There was only one word I could find in that moment: profound. It was profound.

True emotional moments in live action games are a gift. And they are a gift given by the spontaneous expressions of one factor bouncing off another, of the improvisation + character immersion + opportunity. That’s always been my formula for seeing real deeply beautiful, powerful moments come together in a larp. However I’m now starting to understand there is another piece of the puzzle we must have to make it all come together: feeling. And now just the surface level emotion we throw out for games. I’m talking about the kind of emotion that makes us vulnerable, the kind we save for our most precious moments or unexpected outpourings.

These emotions aren’t always expected. We may come into a game believing we are going to keep our emotions to ourselves, just play the game, and leave without getting too embroiled. But many times we find ourselves embracing those offered opportunities and something strikes just the right nerve, and we’re off to the emotional races. Other people come in expecting emotion, seeking it, and when the chance comes grasping it with two hands. It’s that kind of emotional preparation that can provide the opportunity as well and the character immersion into emotion that offers up chances for profound moments. But in many cases, those long preparations into character or bracing one’s self and stating in advance that one is seeking emotional role-play (saying things like “I can’t wait to cry all weekend” or calling one’s character a suffer puppet) sets expectations about the emotional weight of a game that might not be filled.

I have a suggestion inspired by what I saw this weekend: radical vulnerability. Instead of preparing for the emotional expectations of the game, or the character’s emotional journey to begin, or even planning your character’s plot trajectory, prepare yourself instead to step out into the space and just open up your emotions. Be ready to feel whatever comes and roll with the experiences that come with it. And in the process, be ready to feel things you may not have expected, good and bad. Be ready to be touched by those emotions and have them leave marks.

Experience them together with others or alone in the quiet moments. Experience them in combat scenes or dinner parties, long walks in a forest or in a wizard classroom. Because larp still is about improvisation + character immersion + opportunity. But now embrace a frightening fourth, a hot potato that asks you to unlock parts of yourself you might not be entirely comfortable with, or even entirely explored. Here you are, and you have a chance to tap into that place when at game.

There are caveats and concerns for radical vulnerability as a process when at larps. First, there is a chance you might encounter some serious emotional bleed when pursuing this kind of openness. Bleed meaning the emotional conveyance of either your real life emotions in character or your in character emotions out of character. Radical vulnerability makes the chance of of bleed very high and so players must consider this before engaging this practice. I’d say it is necessary even to embrace metatechniques which help to deroll (deconstruct the experience) afterwards in a safe and comfortable environment.

Another consideration is the idea that larp is not therapy. There is a great deal of a difference between coming into a larp with an open emotional slate for experiences and coming to a game aiming to explore one’s deepest emotional traumas with your fellow players as part of your attempt to exorcise your demons. There are a lot of discussions going on about whether it is fair to other players to come into a game to attempt therapeutic catharsis if other players have not opted into being part of that kind of experience. But for the sake of the idea of radical emotional vulnerability, that is not the intent of this experience.

That being said as well, this kind of vulnerability might not be for everyone. People who already feel as though they are in an emotionally shaky place (either for temporary reasons or due to neuroatypical or emotional/mental issues) may find this kind of vulnerability uncomfortable or even destabilizing. This technique is not, repeat not, suggested for everyone. There are those who might simply find this kind of vulnerability too uncomfortable. Choosing not to engage in it does not in any way invalidate any other kind of engagement with larps. It’s just a suggested tool and nothing else.

The last issue is this kind of vulnerability might bring up emotions previously unexpected during play. There are techniques which allow players to check on one another during play if someone seems in distress, as well as allowing yourself to leave the game if needed to reassess, take care of one’s self emotionally, or just leave if things become too overwhelming. This kind of self-check in and community care becomes vital the more open and emotionally vulnerable one allows themselves to become.

I believe this concept of radical emotional vulnerability is not new. It has been spoken about by other blog posts and larpers for ages. But as live action events pass more into various forms, including forms like immersive theater, I believe the chance for emotional vulnerability on this scale (with the proper safeguards) can open up experiences as vehicles for all kinds of unexpected emotions created not by the spectacle provided by the event’s creators, but the players themselves thanks to their willingness to step off an emotional ledge.

Welcome to Salvation: A Wild West Larp

May 8, 2018 by Shoshana, posted in Game Design

Tumbleweeds rolling across a buckboard-lined street. The wide open prairies baking under a hot sun. A shot of whiskey at a rowdy bar. Cowboys riding across the range on beautiful horses. Gunfights at high noon.

The Wild West frontier, as we know it from legend and Hollywood, is the backdrop of a brand new project by Dziobak Studios and Imagine Nation Collective. It’s called 1878: Welcome to Salvation and it’s a four-day larp experience set in a fictitious town outside of Austin, Texas. For one weekend in November, guests will descend on the J. Lorraine Ghost Town under the hot Texas sun and play the citizens and visitors to Salvation, a town on the edge of the ever-shrinking western frontier. And I’ve had the pleasure of being the project lead for this immersive historic-ish event.

Taking on a project like 1878: Welcome to Salvation has been a monumental experience so far. Though I’ve been running larps for quite some time, the scope of a blockbuster larp like this has been a learning experience every step of the way. Backed by the phenomenal people in Dziobak Studios and Imagine Nation Collective, I’ve been supported so I can take the reins and take this event from the original concept phase to the eventual staging in November. It’s honestly been my humble pleasure to be given the space to create as widely as I have been, especially in a space as dynamic, complicated, and exciting as the Wild West. And in this post, I want to talk a little bit about the process going into the creation of 1878: Welcome to Salvation and some of those choices.

How The West Was (Not Really) Won

It’s no secret that the Wild West setting comes fraught with a lot of problematic content. The history of western expansion is laden with horrific historical events, such as the genocide of the First Nation people of the North American continent, the discrimination against people of color, and the exploitation of the less fortunate by wealthy expansionists. Many of those events were later white-washed away in the media representations of the Wild West, out to create a thrilling backdrop for cowboy-and-Indian stories made popular in propaganda stories as early as the push west in the 1800’s and continuing down to modern day Hollywood representations. Television shows of the mid-twentieth century showcased heroic cowboys and lawmen rescuing damsels from marauding ‘savages’ and desperados, all the while brandishing their guns to protect the good folks of the west from danger. Even as media evolved and stories about the dark side of the west began to leak into more progressive television shows or movies, there was still a glamorous sheen on the Wild West ignoring the most difficult events for the most part in favor of adventure.

And that is the fiction of the Wild West, just like much of the history of the United States is full of its own fictions. The War of Independence. The story of Pocahontas and the early settlement of the Puritans and the first Thanksgiving. The legend of Alexander Hamilton made popular in the Broadway play. The heroic grandeur of the greatest generation in World War II. Each well-known story has created the majestic tapestry of American history when, in fact, most of these stories have been mistold, the darker truths massaged away to create more palatable tales to make up the American identity.

History is complicated and full of dark spots. So when tackling a larp like Salvation, it was important to look at the history of the Wild West and recognize just what we were trying to accomplish in our design. Was Salvation going to be a game tackling the darker parts of the Western experience head on? Was it a game about post-slavery bigotry in a Western town, or the tensions between Texans and Mexicans over territory and culture? Was it about the First Nation genocide and loss of land?

These issues loomed large over the design, dictating we question just how we were going to design everything from the town of Salvation to the backstory of the area around to the characters players could take up for the weekend. It would be too easy to handwave the harder parts of the history of the Wild West in favor of the cleaner Hollywood version. Yet we as a team wanted to create something different, a play space between the Hollywood adventure and the reality of the historic Wild West.

What we’ve come up with is what we’re calling a historic-ish representation of a fictional Wild West town, complete with space for all kinds of iconic western characters and adventures. We’ve acknowledged the game space is not equipped and not supposed to be a place where the complex history of the Wild West will be interrogated as core thematics, though they’ll serve as part of the backdrop and influence for the development of our fictional town.

We also made a conscious effort to look at the way certain groups – women, queer people, immigrants, people of color, people of different religions, the disabled and more – were treated in the 1800’s. Our goal was to find a way to design a way for players to not only play whatever they’d like within the town, but to have in and out of character issues of race, gender, sexuality, origin, and ability to hold back the in-game adventures. We certainly couldn’t go back in time to fix the bigotries of the past, but we didn’t have to allow them to plague our setting or our out of character space.

The design of this game presented some serious challenges, and a catch-22 many designers face when setting their game in time periods beset by horrific inequality and dark historical events. On the one hand, a game can focus on these events and make them a part of the game design. Yet often that means derailing more light-hearted adventures as the more intense thematics take center stage. This was certainly not the intent of Salvation, as we were aiming for a more thrilling, Hollywood Westworld influenced day-in-the-life adventure game.

Yet there is no way to ‘sanitize’ away the darker parts of the history without being unfair to the groups whose suffering were endemic to those time periods. Go one way, and you’re white-washing. Go another, and you can create a setting where dark content can drive away players due to triggering material. That material can end up forcing people whose backgrounds include ancestry related to the historical events to be pigeon-holed into characters they might not wish to play. If a woman comes to a game and wishes to play something outside the gender norm for the time period, there needs to be a place for that in the game, even though it breaks from historical precedent.

And so, a delicate balance has to be struck between history and fictional ‘adjustment’ for the sake of play.

In the end, the design and writing team tread that delicate balance and ended up with the setting we’ve created for 1878: Welcome to Salvation. With a backdrop of historical events and a town created to be a more tolerant and open location than other places during that time period, I believe we’ve found a fun and respectful middle ground that will make Salvation a weekend players won’t forget.

Wild West Adventures For All

So what does this mean for Salvation? With the work we’ve done, we’ve weaved a little Wild West town bringing together card sharps and law dogs, sex workers and desperados, undertakers and homesteaders, all centered around their proud little piece of the frontier and out to survive in an ever-evolving and shrinking West. For one weekend in November, players from around the world will don the spurs and hats (black and white) to bring Salvation to life. And as I said before, it’s been my honor to work for Dziobak and Imagine Nation to bring Salvation to all of you.

The next few months will be full of character creation and player communication, larp practicality planning and finally my first trip to Texas for the main event. And I really hope to see some of you there as we bring the town of Salvation to life.

[[All graphics and photos are courtesy of Dziobak Studios and Imagine Nation Collective.]]

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Declaration of Larp Independence

March 16, 2018 by Shoshana, posted in Criticism, Game Design, LARP Discussion and Theory

Okay, let’s face it everyone: America is kind of a terrifying place right now. It’s a country full of political infighting, awful rhetoric about nuclear proliferation, with a… severely problematic person in the White House. Every day as an American is an exercise in maintaining calm in the face of catastrophic governmental change.

Yet in the face of such horror, there are people who are standing up against such forces. They remember the idea that was America, the ideology that sparked a revolution to turn a group of British colonies into their own nation. And as problematic as that history is (and it really, really is), there are some ideas in the documents of the founding fathers of America that have some great ideas.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

– Thomas Jefferson, Declaration of Independence

The Nordic larp world is known for its manifestos. From the serious to the tongue-in-cheek, manifestos provoke thought, even anger and irritation, among communities. They’re the voice of an idea given documented form, meant to share and debate and spark creative thought. The Nordic Larp scene has a lot of these manifestos. But I hadn’t seen that many which were very, very American.

So I decided to write one.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident-

That all men, women, and otherwise are created equal in the sight of the community of play.

That no man, woman, or otherwise is less or more than another, but stand shoulder to shoulder in the state of play that we enter to enjoy live action games. From player to organizer to business person and crafter, from the newest member to the longest-lived antediluvian of a group, we stand as a community at play, at once equal to one another in value and worth. By action alone does a member earn further respect, and yet this remains not to set them above or apart but to better the community as a whole. For without the community of play, the individual can achieve nothing alone.”

Welcome to the Declaration of Larp Independence (downloadable here). Based on ideas many larpers would call “very American,” it tackles the issues of equality in the larp community, responsibility towards said community, and more. May there be more American manifestos in the future. After all, we can’t let down the red-white-and-blue, can we?

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Go Away: Imposed Debriefs And Social Pressure

March 4, 2018 by Shoshana, posted in Criticism, Game Design, LARP Discussion and Theory, Not Ready To Make Nice, Personal, Speaking Out

[Note: This article was meant to be included in my submissions for the Knutpunkt 2018 companion books. However, due to being short on time, I ended up only submitting this article about personal games instead. I figured this is a topic I still wanted to explore, and so here we are. Please enjoy.]

I didn’t want to cry after the game.

We sat around in a circle, everyone still breathing a little heavy from the last few minutes of the game we’d played. We were testing out a new live-action roleplaying game at a convention, a serious subject black box game where we played political prisoners about to be executed and experiencing the last hour of their lives with their comrades. The very end of the game is a harrowing experience (which I won’t ruin for anyone) but I had a very strong emotional reaction. I’d played very tough during the game, but once the last few minutes before the end happened, I turned into a panicked, weepy mess. Then game off was called and I had a lot of feelings to unpack, and I wanted nothing more than to be on my own.

Too bad that wasn’t really an option.

You wouldn’t know it, but I’m a pretty private person sometimes. I can talk forever about topics that interest me, but when it comes to my feelings I am very self-protective. Being vulnerable around people takes time for me, and certainly can’t be turned on and off like a switch. It’s only through the alibi provided by a larp that I feel comfortable enough to open up and show vulnerability in character, exploring deeper emotions in front of others and even feeling comfortable enough to cry in public.

But once the game is over and the alibi is stripped away, I am often not interested in sharing my personal feelings with others. However, the recent trend of mandatory debriefs has provided me with a serious conundrum after a game.

There have been many articles written about the importance of debriefs or de-rolling exercises. In the perfect practice, these post-game sessions allow people to separate from their characters and seek an understanding of their own emotions provoked in game for the purposes of managing bleed. (Quoted from the Nordiclarp Wiki: “Bleed is experienced by a player when her thoughts and feelings are influenced by those of her character, or vice versa.”)

Debriefs manage the closure players allegedly ought to have before returning to their regular lives and begin a process of uncoupling from the intense emotional experiences one can have during a larp. They also serve as a way to reconcile the often deeply personal relationships developed between player characters during the game and allow players to resolve any potential serious feelings (both negative and positive) they’ve had during interactions with others in play.

Debriefs may take the form of a workshop at the end, a roundtable, or even a series of steps begun after the game and spread out over the weeks (or even months) post game. These steps are meant to be put in place to help players not only go back to normal life, but get the most out of the game experience by resolving negative feelings, solidifying positive ones, and offering the best possible emotional resolution for everyone involved.

And on paper, in theory, that all sounds perfectly fine. And when these debriefings are optional, they remain a positive addition to any game design.

The problem becomes when they’re mandatory.

I have been to several games which have instituted mandatory debriefs, or debriefs which have been ‘strongly suggested.’ In the latter, members of the game staff have gone around and pressured people into going to the debriefs if they seemed uninterested in attending. The premise behind their pressure was simple: as a participant in the game, you not only owe yourself the experience of a debrief, but you are responsible for giving others a chance to share their feelings with you as well. If you participated in the game and impacted someone else, you need to give them an equal chance to share with you and hear what you have to say in return. To be part of the community of play you entered into, you must complete the game experience with this sharing to honor the spirit of the social contract you agreed upon when coming to the game.

But what if debriefings and the open emotional sharing in public are not good for you? What if the very idea of such a public airing of feelings is nigh on horrifying to you, or even traumatic?

In other words, what if all you want to say to the mandatory briefing is:

I sat in a debriefing after a game, and my heart was in my throat.

Everyone was going around the circle, speaking about their feelings, and I knew it was almost my turn. I knew I was going to have to talk about the experience, and the moment I did, I’d start to cry. The game was very intense for me and had tapped into some very fundamental, dark and difficult feelings I hadn’t expected to experience. There were elements of past trauma uncovered during the game, deep feelings I needed to process. And as I looked around the circle, I didn’t see a single face I trusted enough to want to unburden to that moment. I needed time. I needed people I trusted. I needed to get out of that room.

But the peer pressure was on. Everyone had been told it was best if we stayed and it wouldn’t be fair to others if you left when everyone was sharing. So I stayed. And the moment they got to me, I did start to cry. I felt instantly ashamed, on the spot, and betrayed by the organizers and myself. I kept my explanation short and sweet. My fingers knotted in my sweater as I tried and failed not to cry. I felt dirty and embarrassed and I wanted to flee.

I wanted to say:

Afterward, while everyone else went to a party and drank and laughed, I sat in a corner and tried to shake the feelings of intense unease at how badly I felt. I’d been peer pressured into sitting in a room and sharing my feelings with people I didn’t trust, all for the sake of being a good player. I felt raw and furious.

A person’s emotional experiences are their own and are myriad in the way they are expressed. Expecting everyone to respond to intense feelings the same way or to homogenize their way of processing their feelings ignores the fundamental issue of the complexity of human emotions. Moreover, forcing people to be involved in debriefings which require speaking about those emotions publicly as a matter of rote, prepared only one way and presented as a must for all players, raises the possibility of inflicting emotional harm on your players.

Moreover, it presents a serious question: just who are the debriefs for anyway?

I’ve seen a lot of reasons people put forward for the importance of debriefing. Emotional safety and the management of uncoupling from alibi for a return to the real world, as mentioned above, is one. Allowing people to air their feelings about one another before they go their separate ways, as I also already mentioned, is another. There’s a third, which is the opportunity for organizers to hear feedback about their game, as well as letting the staff open up emotionally about their experience as well.

But all of these reasons come back to a single underpinning idea, an underlying message of, “this is what I need.” Whether it be the players involved needing to unburden their feelings or the staff members needing to process, the feelings involved in a debriefing are, in many ways, inherently selfish. They reflect an individual’s needs, or the expectation and assumption of what players need, to de-roll their feelings and experiences.

“I need to share how I feel with others.”

“I need the players to do this so I can mitigate liability if they get lost in bleed.”

“I as a staff member need to hear the players’ feedback, or make sure they’re okay for my peace of mind (and liability).”

“I need to air my grievances to the other player and confront them about our interactions, both positive and negative.”

I and I and I. Debriefing is about the consideration of what an individual or a group feels is necessary for others at the end of the game.

But what if what they believe is necessary or what they’d like to see happen is wrong?

What if, by insisting on a mandatory airing of feelings, you’re spoiling the game experience and opening up the player to negative feelings that can create temporary or even lasting distress?

I’d had an incredible weekend. One of the best larps of my life, in fact. I packed up my gear and was ready to head home when someone reminded me of the thing I dreaded the most: the debrief. I tried to beg off, say I had some things to finish before getting into my car. And yet I got the stern look. Other people should have the chance to talk to you. You’ll feel better if you go. It’s part of the game, it’s mandatory.

And all I could think was: No, I don’t want to talk to people. No, I won’t feel better if I go. And it wasn’t part of my game experience. I’d left that behind before putting my character away in my suitcase when I got out of the game. I knew what I planned on doing to debrief my way. I had a car ride home and my friends to talk out my feelings, the people I trusted.

Instead, I ended up at a table, sitting around with others I’d gotten to know over the weekend. And they weren’t bad. I didn’t cry. I didn’t feel vulnerable or awkward. Except when the facilitator came around. Staring at us at the table, making sure we were ‘getting along okay,’ and prying. Prying with their questions, with their ‘guiding’ by leading us towards speaking about our feelings. In the moments before we’d been joking around about war stories from the game and I felt happy, lighter, and safe. The next moment we were being reminded this was not about telling funny stories and joking around, but sharing how we felt.

This was about what others expected we should feel, and not my emotions at all.

I clammed up. I was furious. Because the interference wasn’t about my feelings or even the people around the table. It was about the facilitator’s expectations of what we needed, their job to steer us towards being vulnerable. And again, all I thought looking at the facilitator was the underpinning behind their words: I need you to have these expected emotional experiences now. Otherwise, you’re doing it wrong.

And all I wanted to say was:

It was about them, not me. They wanted us to come out saying we had some kind of emotional catharsis, lead by their expert hand. It was about ‘positive guidance’ towards exploring your feelings, even if the feeling we had might not be positive at all. There was no room for real emotional exploration, I knew, but the measured sharing of polite company. Crying was allowed. Being angry, being negative, would have to be mitigated by ‘I’ statements and rephrasing into words of encouragement and mutual support.

What if that wasn’t what I was feeling? What if my unburdening of feelings involved telling another player their roleplay made me feel awful about myself, or I felt they’d been selfish and treated me or another person like crap during the game? Would that honest emotional response be allowed, or would I have to find some calming I statement to make everyone feel safe?

I didn’t feel safe. I didn’t feel positive, perhaps, not entirely. I didn’t know what I felt because I had complicated feelings, as any person can. But we had our guidance, and it was based on the ‘learned’ experience of our facilitators, most of which I knew were not mental health professionals. They had taken on the responsibility of helping guide people on their emotional journey back from alibi to reality without any professional training and only based on what they perceived as the proper way to handle strong emotions. All packaged and prepared and homogenized to work for a large group of people, rather than the individual.

I know how to run this debrief. I know how to help you handle your bleed.

How? You barely know me. And you probably don’t have the training to know how to handle the complexities of multiple human beings’ mental health. So why should I trust you with mine?

I had intense feelings. I wanted to get them out. But as I looked around the circle, I wondered if there were others who didn’t have intense feelings that were both negative and positive to be dealt with. But someone around the table must have just the opposite. Someone’s feelings might just be ‘meh’ and not be in need of the complex debrief and airing of emotion. But here we were, being watched closely for proper responses. Here we were, being molded and shaped into a single narrow ditch of express your feelings now. And I wondered if we’d all know what we were feeling later at all when we were being pressured into needing an outlet for strong feelings at all.

I wondered what the facilitators’ intentions were and what they were feeling. At the end of the day, they’d go home after the game to their lives, having completed their task of guiding their players towards game’s completion. And I would go home with my feelings, still convoluted and complex and ready for unpacking in a positive form of my own choosing. I’d go home to my Monday morning after game and all the responsibilities therein. Only I’d be adding all the tangled emotions a mandatory debrief added, feelings of forced vulnerability and emotional flaying, being put on the spot and feeling shame and distrust and imposition. Feeling as though my emotions were not respected.

Mandatory debriefs have an undercurrent of inherent selfishness. By requiring people to open up and speak about their in-game experiences, those who are doing the requiring are putting their emotional needs ahead of those whose mental and emotional processes don’t need or even sometimes allow for public unburdening. It says everyone, no matter their own individual mental health and emotional status, is inherently required to set aside their own processes for the sake of being part of a community of play, no matter if it isn’t what they need. This is a selfish action on the part of those doing the requiring, and can even reach the level of victimizing another for the sake of that selfishness.

But for the sake of safety, and managing intense emotions brought to the surface by larp, we put our fear of players having a negative reaction after game ahead of individual needs. For the sake of the many, the few are sacrificed to the altar of peer pressure and concerns of liability.

I sat on the internet a month after a game. My hands shook as I typed.

A month before I’d had a terrible experience in a game. I’d had a very public confrontation with a male player who was larger than me, and who humiliated me in character in front of nearly fifty people. When I lost the confrontation and sat on my knees on the ground in front of him, the player in question mimicked unzipping his pants right above me and urinating on my character.

I sat on my knees on the ground, my body shaking. My good friends rushed to my side in character and carried me off the field. The moment we were out of sight of the group, they checked in on me out of character. I was in a daze. I told them I was just tired. I told them I was okay, that the shake in my hands was just adrenaline. I jabbered, stammered, my eyes far away. I was in shock and didn’t even know it.

I made it through the end of game, but I was out of sorts, jumpy. When game was over, there was no debrief. I left with my friends and went to a diner, where the player of the character in question sat a few tables away with his friends. It took all my courage to get up and head for the table. I joined his conversation and jokingly asked what he thought about what had happened. He responded by defending his character’s actions, saying my character “deserved it.” My hands kept shaking. I tried to joke about it too, then tried to say how screwed up the whole thing was. I tried to talk about it with him. And he blew me off with jokes, unwilling to let me tell him what I needed to say. I walked away from the table and within two weeks wanted to quit the ongoing game.

It took me three months of dreading going to game, of ducking out of events and making excuses, for me to figure out what was going on. It took a friend talking to me on Facebook Messenger about it and pointing out I was having serious negative bleed that I fully accepted how traumatized I was by the in character events. That the very act of this man standing over me when I was vulnerable in character, winded out of character, and on my knees in supplication, triggered awful things for me. That when he unzipped his pants and pretended to urinate on me, humiliated me further, it triggered issues of past sexual assault buried deep in my head. I had bleed and after game, I’d tried to talk to the player in question. And his saying my character “deserved it” only made the shock and trauma of the experience all the worse.

At that moment, I needed a debrief. I needed someplace to take those emotions and unpack them, to uncork the bottle and get those feelings out before they started to fester. But for three months, because of a lack of debriefing, those feelings did fester and nearly ruined the whole game for me. Every time the player in question came near in the subsequent games, my hands started to shake. It took him cornering me again in the game for me to realize I needed to get through the feelings once and for all. A friend of mine had to drive the player away from me as I had an anxiety attack. I was not okay. And I didn’t feel I had an emotional outlet or recourse to help deal with the way I felt.

There are instances when sharing is imperative. When having the resources to unpack serious emotional experiences after game are not only important but essential to a healthy resolution of intense in character events. But what if those same events had occurred and I’d instead been forced immediately to confront this other player in a mandatory setting, rather than in a manner more comfortable and my speed? If at the very end of game we were required to sit across from each other, led by someone who was not a mental health professional? What if in that setting I’d been told I “deserved it” and was forced to speak to this person in front of others, triggered as I was, feeling unsafe and in shock?

I needed a debrief. But I needed options. Not a one-size-fits-all approach.

For debriefs to work as positive experiences for all, it’s my opinion they need to be a toolbox rather than a list of steps, not linear exploration with a single means and an expected end. Instead, having multiple options for unpacking one’s feelings, without a forced time and place expectation takes the weight off the individual to perform emotionally on the spot, but gives them the chance to tailor their needs towards closure with the tools provided.

Optional roundtables, optional discussions with staff members at a time and place that is equitable to both parties (because forcing staff into mandatory interactions is equally as unfair to the staff who just went through running a game, their own emotional labor extended and often taxed), and later-date de-rolling with other players are all tools available for inclusion. And should those needs require further and more serious emotional unpacking, one of the tools offered should be the suggestion to seek out more professional mental health resources rather than (often) well-meaning laypeople.

In the end, I’ve had a lot of different experiences with debriefings but as yet I have never had a mandatory debriefing that hasn’t left me feeling uneasy when forced to express emotions. Those which are simply checking in or offering optional chances to speak aloud, or else those used only to offer the toolbox of debriefing choices have provided ample safety for me to choose my own path to closure. But the more popular choice of mandatory debriefs remains a terror for me attending games and, in my opinion, one of the least healthy choices made in the name of creating safety in our larps.

Reconsideration of the techniques used and the personnel employed is paramount, I believe, in truly making sure the needs of players and organizers are tailored to provide actual emotional support in games to come.

Otherwise, I will have to continue my own practice of simply (sometimes) saying:

Integrating History In Your Game With Respect

May 19, 2017 by Shoshana, posted in Game Design, LARP Discussion and Theory, Uncategorized

Recently, I gave a lecture at the first ever World of Darkness convention in Berlin, run by the fantastic people at Participatory Design and the team behind World of Darkness. And I was fortunate enough to be featured in a post on White Wolf’s Facebook feed with a couple of my slides. Since then a lot of folks have contacted me wanting to know if my talk was recorded. Sadly, the answer is no. However, I decided to not only make my slides available online, but to do a post here outlining the talk a little more. So, without further ado, a little post on what I call Integrating History In Your Game With Respect. ( You can download and follow along with the slides here.) Enjoy!

Back in 2004, I joined the New York Larp community. Until then, I’d only done roleplaying online, where I’d participated in online chat RPG games since as early as 1994. And like most RPGs, there was an element of incorporating historical events into the history of those games and characters. I’d played vampires who lived through the American revolution, or else explored steampunk settings with plenty of historical baggage (a favorite was the Hindenburg explosion). But it wasn’t until after 9-11 that I encountered a personally difficult historical event that intersected directly with my own background.

In The Shadow of 9-11

Before 9-11, a lot of the larps in New York City used a location called the Winter Garden, which sits just across the street from what used to be the Twin Towers. It was a beautiful building with a glass atrium that gave fantastic views of both the waterfront on one side and the World Trade on the other. But, like many buildings, it sustained heavy damage when the towers fell. In the wake of the terror attacks, the larp community of New York not only had to face the psychic and emotional trauma of a heinous terrorist attack on their city, but on a smaller level had to face losing a larp space they considered welcoming, available, and safe.

This almost symbolic violation of the Winter Garden represented an equally difficult question facing the gamers of New York, who often used the city as a backdrop for their games: how do they incorporate a major current event like 9-11 into the settings of their games? And more importantly, should they?

As I said above, I didn’t join the larp community in NYC until three years later. Yet even then the ripples of 9-11 were felt. Every game I joined had made the same decision: 9-11 was not to be made the focus of the game, and the event itself was not to be considered a supernatural event in its origins. Though there were repercussions to, for example, Changelings in the New York area due to psychic trauma, the event itself was respectfully left to be an example of very human monstrosity and inhumanity.

More than years later, I recently checked in with a friend of mine regarding games being run in the area, only to be told that 9-11 was a major part of the plot line of a local game starting up. And they were including 9-11 as a plot point, supernaturally motivated and part of a greater conspiracy of monstrous darkness. I made it a point to say I’d never go to that game, no matter what.

Today, the Winter Garden has been rebuilt and I’ve visited to run scenes there when I ran larps in New York City. But only once. The place stands in the shadow now of the Freedom Tower, but its proximity to the 9-11 memorial and the ground where so much pain happened in September 2001 leaves a scar I, as a New Yorker, can’t face on a regular basis. And that same scar haunts any game I know that includes 9-11 as a plot point. For me, there is not enough distance, not enough time. I don’t know if there ever will be.

It’s this situation that made me consider the historical events of the past and the ways in which we include them in our games. There is an inherent question to fictionalizing events that challenges us as creators and writers: how do we respect the immensity of tragedies gone by, of wars and genocides and monumental losses across history, enough to include them in our work while still giving weight to their historical importance? We can’t tiptoe through art, but how do we avoid using history as a convenient plot point, without acknowledging the very real scars these events have carved through history?

History As Set Piece, Plot Point, And Setting

There’s no question art and specifically fiction has been made about historical time periods forever. Shakespeare wrote pieces set in the time of previous monarchs. Folklore is chock full of retellings of wars long past, starting as early as the stories of Troy. Art has been as much about capturing sentiment and idea as it has about recording the events going on in our cultures. When writing, history is the backdrop of the stories we want to create, whether serving as the framework for a period piece or acting as inciting incidents to other stories. We fictionalize historical events to explore them further, to put them in new contexts, and to give them new life in our memories.

When including historical events in games, however, we are taking that fictionalization one step further. We’re asking our players to inhabit those time periods, or to directly reflect on the historical events in question as they relate to the characters they’ll be inhabiting for a time. Using the example of World of Darkness games, immortal monsters like the vampires in Vampire: the Masquerade and the New WoD Vampire: the Requiem have existed for hundreds of years and bore witness to countless horrific, cruel events. Some of them, the game books posit, were even influenced and made worse due to the machinations of these inhuman beings. Even the slightly brighter settings of Mage: the Ascension and Changeling: the Dreaming have deep historical ties, reframing historic events like the first nuclear tests or the moon landing as part of a tapestry of events influencing the game setting as a whole and player characters on a microcosm.

While including those historical events is a very typical artistic and game design choice, a difficult problem occurs when facing the enormity of context in connecting to a historical time period and its events.

For example, three games in the White Wolf catalogue are setting books directly framed by historical time periods with deeply troubling events going on within. Games like Vampire: Dark Ages, Werewolf: The Wild West, and Victorian Age Vampire provide settings with rich, engaging, and honestly just fun time periods to explore. I mean, who wouldn’t want to play a werewolf in the Wild West, or a vampire sweeping through the salons of England during the Victorian era? But each of those time periods carries with it burdens of difficult historical context, some of which lies outside of what many deign to include in their retellings of the past.

A setting like Vampire: Dark Ages carries with it not only the historical complexity of Dark Ages Europe, but the weight of hundreds of years of mass religious persecution and violence. Werewolf: the Wild West exists in the shadow of American expansion and the genocide of the native populations of North America. And let’s not even get started on the horrors of colonialism, sexual and gender repression, and economic disparity often ignored when exploring the ‘glorious’ time of Queen Victoria.

It’s easy to gloss over hard truths about what went on in a time period in favor of just engaging with the fun parts for our games. But in doing so we are washing away the trauma for watered-down, stereotypical, lionized history. There is no separating the hard truths about the past without making a tacit choice to ignore them in favor of your fun. And while that may be a choice you as a designer and a player, it is just that: a choice. And every choice has implications, and says something about the ethos you’re backing with your design.

How To Integrate With Context

So looking at this enormous question, how does one integrate historical events with respect?

The first step, in my eyes, has already been mentioned: provide context. When creating your game setting or your game, acknowledge the difficult historical events and societal troubles, explore the complexity of them from more angles than just the dominant narrative, and reflect on how those tragedies affect people not only in the setting but perhaps even around your game table.

I’m a particular fan of using examples for things, so let’s explore one of my favorite time periods to pick on…

tabulariy-2 — Look at our columned buildings! Come play your games here! We’re all cool and stuff.

…ancient Rome!

Now, as a setting, ancient Rome is a pretty cool place to set any piece of fiction and especially games. I mean, you get to explore some fun material. There’s Politics! Intrigue! Polytheism! Conquest! Sexual politics! Cool robes! Murder on the senate floor! Caligula! (I mean who doesn’t love Caligula?) There’s so many things to draw players into rich, complicated stories in an exotic and appealing time period and locale.

But historically, Rome was also kind of a shitty, horrible place.

article-0-020810DC00000578-604_468x365 — Hey dude, cool toga. Also, nice genocide there.

Rome as an empire was built on the back of the conquest and near extermination of so many other cultures. The Romans rolled into other countries, slaughtered thousands, murdered religious leaders, raped and pillaged, and then subjugated the conquered people to be ruled and controlled by them. They systematically interrupted the course of cultural evolution of entire civilizations to expand their empire. Because really, that’s kind of how empires work and have worked since maybe the dawn of time. This stands true for the Mongolians, the British, and the ancient Egyptians. Check out non-fictional stories about those time periods any time and you see, beyond the glitz of the beautiful centers of power, you get the story of the categorical destruction of millions of people’s lives.

Now one might say ancient Rome is far enough back in history, you’re certainly not going to run across someone who was directly involved in the horrors of ancient Rome enough to be offended or hurt by the white-washing of the follies of the Roman Empire. (Unless you have a real immortal at your table, in which case my next advice is even more important). But what you might have at your table is someone whose family and culture was directly influenced by the slaughter the Roman’s perpetrated during their marauding conquests. While many can look at the Romans and laud them for their efficiency in bringing new evolutions to society as a whole, others are descendants of those whose people were massacred in the name of that progress, who still have stories passed down about the losses their people suffered. And the history of those events is still deeply felt.

A good example, honestly, comes from Jewish history. While lots of people think the Romans are pretty cool, Jews have an entirely different context for Romans. For anyone who hasn’t read Jewish history or watched Ben Hur, The Passion of the Christ, or Jesus Christ Superstar, the Romans were utter dicks to the Jews. They occupied and ruled Judea from the sacking of Jerusalem in 63 BCE all the way thru the reported life and death of Jesus until about 313 CE. The Romans sacked Jerusalem, destroyed the Jewish Temple, the center of Jewish spiritual and political life, and massacred not only huge parts of the population, but systematically tortured the greatest thinkers and leaders as an example to the population to make sure they wouldn’t revolt. For nearly four hundred years, the Romans committed atrocities to suppress the population and put down revolts, many of whose stories are now largely ignored. And Judea was only one of the many provinces conquered. Countless cultures, religions, and countries had their histories forever negatively impacted by the Romans. But when have you explored all this in your tabletop or larp campaign?

Remember: one person’s ‘cool setting’ is another person’s ancestral horror story. And sensitivity to that fact provides a cornerstone of looking at respectful representation in your game’s narrative design.

How Hollywood Is Just Messing With Us

Another great example is the fun parts of Roman society people love to lionize. Specifically…

sHg0lJLtfTuGQxUz3Yie5AGW4v0-large_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqNJjoeBT78QIaYdkJdEY4CnGTJFJS74MYhNY6w3GNbO8 — Are you not entertained (by my blog post)?!

…gladiators!

What isn’t fun about gladiators? You’ve got tough guys in armor fighting each other for the evil leaders of Rome, all decked out in armor, facing the chance of death for the glory of the crowd and the slim chance of surviving long enough to be freed. It’s glitzy, sexy. It’s full of half-naked people running around, chopping off heads. It’s basically a sexier version of a dungeon crawl in D&D, only with the kind of raucous audiences that’d make today’s WWE fans look like polite little lambs. It’s dueling with a ten drink minimum and a TV-MA rating. Basically, to look at it in modern media, it’s hella sexy and fun. And whatever parts of it are considered wrong are framed in the typical two-dimensional good-and-evil questions. The rich Romans are WRONG, the gladiators are GOOD, and that’s about it. There is no complexity involved.

In other words, even the more complicated stories about gladiators (such as the Spartacus revolt) often get washed down to their most basic, uncomplicated components. Which often look a whole lot like this…

Spartacus; Episode — RAAAR! We’re sweaty and good looking! RAAAAAR!

Yet below the surface, gladiatorial combat in Rome was part of the systematic oppression of marginalized and conquered people from across the Empire. Slavery was in fact a major part of Roman life, and along with servitude, forced military service, and systematic sexual coercion, violence as a means of entertainment was a way for the Romans to require slaves to integrate violent behavior into their lives while turning their anger and aggression at their enslavement towards one another instead of at their captors. It was a brutal, horrifying practice, used to at once pacify both the slave population and the larger ‘free’ people of the Empire, keeping them distracted from the inequity and corruption of the higher classes on the backs of the lower. (Man, sounds familiar, huh…?)

It’s too easy to include gladiators in a game as a fun, sexy setting event by focusing only on their most well-known portrayals from the media. When including historical context in your games, you run the risk of relying on the Hollywood History Treatment, where the events of history are retold through the streamlined, white-washed narrative developed for ease of filmmaking and in the name of good television.

(A fun note: the above photo is from the Spartacus TV series from Starz. And while it is effectively a visual orgy of blood, violence and, well, orgies, the show also has a surprisingly nuanced take on the complexities of slave life. It takes great pains to show the horrors of sexual violence, lack of consent, slavery, and coerced violence that existed as part of Roman life. While it includes a stunning amount of sex and some of the most glamorized gore I’ve seen in a show, it has a surprising amount of heart. Just take its historical accuracy with a grain of salt. This is Hollywood History at its most over-the-top).

A great example of this is the Wild West, which as a time period has perhaps suffered the most in terms of being reshaped in public perception thanks to Hollywood’s influence.

Thanks to Hollywood, the Wild West has gone from looking like this…

the-genuine-cow-boy-captured-alive — Real cowboys, looking awkward in a photo.

…to this.

11f38wayne1-469761 — That’s right, pilgram. I’m the real cowboy round these parts. Thanks to my charm and a little Hollywood magic.

A recent episode of Adam Ruins Everything was dedicated to debunking many of the ‘facts’ people know about the Wild West. Apparently, most of what we actually think of as fact about this time period is just what we’ve been programmed to think by Hollywood’s representation. And man, a lot of that representation just glosses over a lot of things, like the financial strength many women had in western towns, the complexity of native life before, during, and after the invasion of white settlers, and the damage done by white encroachment to immigrants such as the Chinese, or locals like the native Mexican populations. The West has been rewritten as the domain of the rugged white man, the lone cowboy or law man who rides into town and rescues the poor settlers, besieged by lawlessness and terror. Sounds like a great game setting! Too bad much of it is wrong, paving over the real difficulties and complexities of a fraught time period.

So when integrating historical events into your game settings, it’s key to recognize and communicate whether you’ve provided your players (or consumers) with the Hollywood History or a well-researched version of history. What research have you done? Does your experience with the time period only involve films, not documentaries? (It’s important to recognize also that many documentaries have very specific slants they put on historical events too, so be careful for bias even in non-fictional accounts).

Bear in mind, the Hollywood History of a time period can be a fun way to set a game. It’s just important to remember that much of that Hollywood-izing (a new term!) is very two-dimensional and can be disrespectful in terms of portraying difficult issues of the time. If you intend to use it as the basis of your game, it might be helpful to be up front about the kind of history you’re going to use. Listing the sources for your game up front can help let players know just how accurate you’re going to be to the time period versus utilizing Hollywood History instead. A great example of this is Vikings. If you were to use the TV show Vikings as the influence for a game, you’ll get a very different experience than if you do actual research. And, as many of my larper friends from Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland will tell you, nothing makes many of them grind their teeth more than the conflation of Hollywood Vikings with the real history of Vikings from their cultures.

But hey, some things can be sacrificed on the altar of fun… right?

Historical Figures In Games (or, No More Hitler Please)

Another place where games can run into difficult territory is the integration of historical figures as part of the game’s history or narrative. While many folks won’t have too much of a problem should you use a two-dimensional portrayal of the guy playing the violin while the Titanic sank (though that story is largely considered apocryphal by the way, sorry to burst THAT bubble), other historical people carry far more weight by their actions and legacies. Many games include mention or inclusion of some of histories greatest monsters as antagonists, contacts, or just cool little side bits. And while they can be great adversaries and evocative figures in your game, consider the real historical toll these folks had on real human lives when integrating them into your game.

Figures like Charles Manson, Jim Jones, tons of Roman historical rulers (sorry, can’t help picking on the Romans) all committed heinous acts that destroyed real people’s lives. Their inhumanity can provide a very tactile, grim narrative element to your games, given further weight by the fact that they actually committed these crimes. They are real nightmares for your players to face, not made-up villains with fictitious crimes. Yet it’s for that reason we ought to make sure to play out their involvement in fictional stories with the most respect as possible. Because in the end, they murdered and terrorized and tormented real people, whose memory we’re messing with in our fictional worlds.

A good example of characters with terrifying historical backgrounds is one of America’s very first serial killers, Albert Fish. Hamilton Howard “Albert” Fish lived from 1870 to 1936 and during his time he committed some of the worst murders this country has ever seen, specifically targeting little boys for assault, murder, and eventual cannibalism. Reports speculate Fish killed anywhere from five to one hundred children in his lifetime before he was caught. When asked why he committed the unspeakable crimes, he is allegedly reported to have said…

maxresdefault-2 — Probably one of the epitomes of holyshitwhatthehelldude in history.

It takes a special level of horrifying to imagine a man like Albert Fish for inclusion in your fictional stories, but history has provided you the blueprint for that horror in a real man, who committed real crimes against real children. Including a figure like Fish, or any number of other human criminals who perpetrated acts of depravity and slaughter, means recognizing these are people who harmed a real someone’s family member or child, not just a fictionalized person. And the historical weight of their crimes then becomes the backdrop for your game’s exploration.

To be respectful when including these historical figures, an important question to ask yourself is why. Why is it important to use this historical figure? What do they add to your story that a fictional character cannot? Are they integral to the plot or are they being utilized for the name recognition and shock value their crimes provide? If it’s the latter, then perhaps a long, hard look should be given towards why your game needs such a sensationalized pop provided by these figures. And if they are included, a strong eye should be put towards how these characters are being portrayed.

The universal example of this is Adolf Hitler. Hitler has appeared in so many media representations from Marvel Comics where he was punched out by Captain America (and recently by the maybe more awesome America Chavez) to his comedic performance in satirical shows like Look Who’s Back. While many use media representations of Hitler to jeer at and lampoon the genocidal dictator, the games world seems obsessed with including the Nazis and their leader as the ultimate bad guys, a two-dimensional representation of the ultimate evil. Yet most of those very games never address the real complex horrors of the atrocities committed, instead focusing their energy on the angry little man behind the awful mustache. Adolf Hitler’s very presence creates a titular evil to face without providing the human story of the suffering he created. He is the figurehead, an unexplained nightmare from our collective consciousness, a shorthand for Evil with a capital E.

For people like me, however, with a huge history of family members suffering in the Holocaust, the constant inclusion of Hitler and Nazis in games is a grating reminder of family tragedies not long passed. The same could be said for the inclusion of people like Osama Bin Laden, Joseph McCarthy, or Joseph Stalin in a game either as a figure. In a way, the historical figure question is almost a catch 22. When creating a game set in history, to exclude these figures would be to perpetrate the very white-washing I’m speaking against. But we shouldn’t be afraid to look at how much room and prominence these figures are being given, and how they are being represented.

But Shoshana, It’s Just A Game

While having these conversations, I inevitably run up against the same response from a section of people. “But Shoshana, it’s just a game. We’re just out to have a little fun. Don’t be such a party pooper. I like beating up Nazis without having a deep conversations about the Holocaust around the table. That sounds like the opposite of fun for my characters.” And yeah, I’d say it sure does. Players are coming to your table to enjoy themselves, not get into a deeply damaging exploration of the horrors of the Holocaust. They want to punch Nazis and feel satisfied by punching the worst evil humanity can imagine. Right? Sure.

But there are ways to acknowledge the evil done while still providing the experience you’re looking for in a fun game. A narrative can frame the context of events to take into account the difficulties, horrors, and complex social/cultural/religious issues by acknowledging their existence, and then place the game, its characters and its players on their path in contrast to and contextual relationship with these complicated events. One can still explore play the Inglorious Basterds going off to take Nazi scalps while acknowledging in the narrative the horrors that drove these Jewish soldiers to feel the need to fly all the way into Axis territory and commit some serious violence.

A Deeply Personal Favorite Example

It’s hard to consider the following example as a favorite of mine without acknowledging how difficult it is for me to even look at or read this book. When I heard White Wolf was putting out a book about the Holocaust as a sourcebook for their game Wraith: the Oblivion, I remember being outraged on a deep level in the first place. I thought there was no way anyone could have gotten a game book set during the Holocaust, not just World War II overall but the genocide of the Holocaust, correct in any meaningful way.

Then, I read Shoah: Charnel Houses of Europe.

charnel-houses-1 — If any book had a two-drink minimum, it’s this one.

Published under White Wolf’s Black Dog mature material label, Charnel Houses of Europe is a well-researched, thoughtful, respectful portrayal of the Holocaust in a game. I remember picking it up, ready to be angry, and instead read the book in shocked silence. I knew reading the book that the creators got it. They understood the enormity of the subject they were tackling and put back into their work their immense feelings in the shadow of such a horrifying tragedy. I remember coming across a single piece of art that cemented this feeling for me too.

In one picture, this book was sealed into my memory as the one of the best portrayal of the Holocaust in art that I’d ever seen. And as always, my hat’s off to the creative team.

This book highlights the importance of creating a good game as an element of being respectful. Many of the worst examples of disrespectful representation of difficult subject matter comes down to the fact that the material produce is just BAD. And by the inability of the artist or writer to do a good job tackling the enormity of a subject, their bad portrayal becomes disrespectful simply by clumsy handling. So when tackling rough issues in your work, it’s important to make sure you can jump the hurdle of being good too so your work has the chops to represent the material with the complexity needed.

Reflecting On Lost History

The last element of respectful representation lies in reflecting on the dominant narrative presented by both history and the Hollywood History provided by media, and delving deep into how that representation is either accurate or not. This is especially important when considering issues of marginalized populations or non-western cultures. For better or worse, western narratives have dominated the media landscape, and western bias has twisted the retelling of history in everything from academic research to our education systems. Yet we know from important research going on that history is far more complicated in terms of the lives of those outside the dominant narrative than previously provided to mainstream audiences.

Common statements that come up due to dominant narrative bias include:

“But women didn’t have jobs in _______ era!”
“But there were no people of color in _________!”
“But there were no queer people out of the closet in _______!”

These are all byproducts of dominant narrative bias, as told thru the lens of history controlled by hetero-cis-white-male patriarchal views. Fact is, history is always way more interesting than we think and full of surprises for those who think women didn’t have freedom before the suffragette movement, or who believe there were no Jews or prominent people of color in Europe before the twentieth century.

With just a little Google-fu you can come up with examples of prominent people of color all across Europe and the United States, moving through white society in defiance of expectation. We see queer relationships reflected in historical figures, such as Alexander the Great, who conquered what many saw as the ‘known world’ at the time (another super western-centric idea back during Greek times) with his spouse and multiple lovers of multiple genders at his side. And I won’t even get started on where Jews have lived and what they’ve done, because to paraphrase the song, we’ve been everywhere, man, from China to Africa, across Middle Eastern countries to the wild west. And thanks to amazing people doing fantastic research these days, we don’t have to just rely on the dominant narrative or biased educational institutions to teach us how things really were. We have the internet to give us more information.

(Of course one ought to check their sources to make sure they’re reliable. There are way too many ‘alternative facts’ out there to just accept things without verification. Always check to make sure your sources are reliable or risk spreading the virus of rewritten history).

In short, do not just swallow the dominant narrative and regurgitate it into your games. History is way more interesting than you might think. And by doing a little research, you can provide a more realistic portrayal of not only dominant groups, but marginalized groups as well, such as women, queer people, people of color, disabled people, and people of different genders, ethnicities, religious and cultural groups.

Why Is All This Important?

So after all this exploring of respectful history representation we come down to the last and maybe most important question: why is this important? Why is it important to represent history well in your games? There’s a few simple answers.

By providing a respectful historical context for your game, you acknowledge the enormity of historical tragedies and events gone by.
You acknowledge and respect the fact that those historical events might have a serious impact on people playing your game based on their own background or else just sensitivity to the subject matter.
You explore more complicated historical narratives and help bring forth those lost narratives into the media eye by representing them in your stories.
You provide richer narrative portrayals of characters for your players to inhabit, giving room for different stories especially for marginalized people in the game space.

But if you want to put aside all of this, here’s the one major reason to keep in mind:

You’ll just tell better stories.

If you spend all your time retreading the same historical ground done by the two-dimensional historic representations of the dominant narrative, your game will be limited to only those standard representations. By expanding the field of your representation of history, and by exploring the complexity of history in a more contextualized and nuanced light, you’ll be able to tell new and richer stories with your games and set yourself on a path to making better art in the long run.

So in closing, go make better art thanks to proper historical context. It might open up worlds of stories you never expected.

You’re Breaking My Immersion! Or, How To Inadvertently Enable Ableism

March 4, 2016 by Shoshana, posted in Body Positivity, Game Design, LARP Discussion and Theory, Speaking Out

SupernaturalLARPdisability — Image from: Supernatural, Season 8 Episode 11, “LARP and the Real Girl”

In just a few days, I’ll be shipping over to Europe to get on a boat and join the hundreds of other LARPers heading to this year’s Nordic LARP conference, Solmukohta. This is my fourth year in attendance, completing my first progression of attending the conferences in all four Nordic LARP countries – Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland. It’s been my pleasure to get a chance to meet LARPers from all over and spend time learning about LARP practices not only from around the United States, but from across the world.

As I’m preparing for the conference, and a couple of talks I’ll be giving there, I ran across an article on LARPING.org that gave me pause. I’m preparing a talk on exclusionary practices in LARP, and this article highlighted one of my pet peeves when discussing LARP accessibility. I’m a big proponent of games being as accessible to people of all kinds, and finding design choices that can enable a game to be more open to everyone. Challenges to accessibility include tackling difficult social issues, economic inequalities and class differences, LARP culture barriers between communities, or even issues of physical accessibility. It’s that last one that I’d like to talk about briefly today.

The article in question that brought this issue up is called LARP Rules! A Mechanics Spotlight, which attempts to deconstruct the mechanization of actions within LARPs and how complex large-scale rules systems can become. The thesis of this article is that there is a tension between the narrative that is being developed in LARPs and the rules sets, since the narratives develop through the diegetic interactions between players while they are immersed in scene. The more complex the rules set, the article suggests, the more difficult it becomes to remain immersed in the narrative and the more disruptive the rules are to play. The article states this idea in what it’s calling the LARP Core Tenants, which looks startlingly like yet another definition of what is a LARP, ala the ad nauseum discussions of ‘what is a game’ that plague game studies conversations the world over.

Meaningful, consequential role-play and immersion is the means and the end. The story is secondary and is the organic, waste byproduct of interactions between players, be it through combat, in game skills, social mechanics, or otherwise. As such, any rules system, being that which defines and dictates actions in a game, should seek to put up as low a barrier as possible to this end, it being understood that a rule designed to represent an action is not the action. This represents a departure from play, and therefore to immersion. This departure is anathema to this end and as such should be as limited in scope as possible.

Aside from the fact that I find the reference to narrative developed by players as a “waste byproduct” a little distasteful, the last part is where I mean to put my focus. Namely, the idea that anything that breaks immersion is “anathema” to play and immersive narrative development between players because, as the quote states, “a rule designed to represent an action is not the action.”

This is further explained later in the article when an example is provided from the NERO rulebook. The article cites a skill called Parry, which is often included in many boffer/live combat rules systems that have skill calls. The text of Parry states that it allows a player to block an oncoming attack by vocalizing the word “Parry” and then goes on to lay out and explain the exact ways in which Parry is used (what kinds of attacks can be blocked by Parry, in what circumstances, etc). In critiquing the skill Parry, the article states that constant vocalization of unneeded skills which can simply be accomplished by physical action breaks immersion further. The article goes on to say:

Parry, on the other hand is one of those effects plaguing LARP rules systems that seek to reproduce an action people are able to safely execute themselves. Remember, the goal here is to impede immersion as little as possible, so in effect, you’re telling someone you dodged an attack that you didn’t actually dodge.

The idea then is that since people can simply dodge an attack with their physical weapon, a skill like Parry is then superfluous. And here is where I disagree, because this is not the first time I have heard this argument against skill calls within live combat/boffer games. The argument goes that if you’re playing a game where immersion is the intent, then using vocalizations to simply say you’re doing something instead of actually doing it breaks the believability of the world. If you’re following this line of logic, as stated above, and “a rule designed to represent an action is not the action” then simply calling out Parry impedes play and should be removed.

Except games with skill calls provide a vital resource to people who do not come out to games prepared to let their entire play experience depend on their actual physical capability. Skill calls allow, through representational game design, for players of different ability levels and physical capabilities to play characters that may be more physically capable then they are in the real world. To put it plainly: skill calls level the playing field and give those who are differently abled the chance to still play the kickass warrior, the powerful paladin, at a comparable capability as a player who comes in more physically able.

This representational aspect of the game, while it does require players to exert their imagination to count a vocalized word the same way they might a whack on the arm, allows the game that includes them to be more accessible to more players. This includes people who might not be as physically fit as the most active, agile, powerful warriors in the game. It compensates for nearly every ability and capability level (barring those who lack the ability or have difficulty speaking). And for those who are disabled, it allows for a game that uses the human body in what is considered its “normal, physically whole state” as the game vector by which you engage with the play space to enter play with simulated tools to put them on the same level as more physically able players.

I find the discussions of how skill can be disruptive a disturbing double standard in the discussion of what is or is not immersion breaking. In a game medium that requires me to look at a person wearing plastic costume elf ears and accept that they are, indeed, elven royalty, or expects me to acknowledge that a human dressed in a nice suit is a vampire prince, others are unwilling to acknowledge that a word spoken is the same as an action taken. Apparently a word is one step too far to stretch the imagination, even if it allows the game to include more people fairly.

Now, the entirety of the article’s discussion about rules being disruptive to narrative play, is not a new one. Game studies thinkers have been publishing articles about this in regards to video games for years (see: Patrick Crogan’s “Blade Runners: Speculation on Narrative and Interactivity”* or Jesper Juul’s “Games Telling Stories? A Brief Note on Games and Narratives“** for further reading). Yet the conversation takes on an entirely more insidious direction when we discuss that tension in regards to representational actions and skills in LARPs. While a narrative may suffer for the limitations and intrusions of mechanics within a video game, the game itself is presumably still playable and the player still capable of interacting with the play space if they are differently abled (the difficulty of controller use and video game medium usage for the disabled aside, as that is an entirely different topic). Yet in the race to provide more immersive, WYSIWYG narrative experiences for LARPs, it seems the proponents for skill-less systems are willing to sacrifice accessibility on the altar of some purist notion of seamless play rather than consider what representational rules do provide for players.

Full disclosure: I am a disabled LARPer who plays in the game mentioned in the article, Dystopia Rising. And thanks to skill calls within that game, I am capable as a disabled woman (who alternates between having difficulty walking and using a wheelchair) to attend game and still participate in combat situations. I utilize skill calls to augment my physical differences to allow me to be an effective combatant, capable of being a part of the play just like any able-bodied player. It’s for this reason that I speak from a perspective informed by experience, and concern for the future of my favorite game medium.

The above article (though in a rather arched and unforgiving tone) offers forth the notion that early LARP design suffered from a complexity born of simulationist roots that should have been outgrown in the race for new and better ways to embrace immersive live play. Yet in the process of advocating for stripped-down systems, this argument and those like it postulate play spaces that restrict interaction rather than make it more available to all, and that are prejudicial to those more physically capable than others. If that is the evolution of LARP, the vaulted future so often lauded, I’m afraid that LARP will not gain more players or become more open to a wider audience (an aim lauded by the article as a much-needed community goal). Instead it will become an even more rarified space, accessible to fewer based on the physical capability of the LARPers medium of play: their human body.

* Crogan, Patrick. “Blade Runners: Speculation on Narrative and Interactivity.” The South Atlantic Quarterly. 101.3 (2002): 639-57.

** Juul, Jesper “Games Telling Stories? A Brief Note on Games and Narratives.” Game Studies 1.1 (2001).

Video: “LARP Is Indie: Live Action Game Design”

June 1, 2014 by Shoshana, posted in Game Design, LARP, LARP Discussion and Theory, Videos

Time for another video from earlier this year! This one is from a short talk I did at IndieCade East 2014 at the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens, New York. The talk is all about what indie video game design and LARP have in common and what we can learn from one another. This is a topic I’m hoping to expand into a longer essay this summer, but for now here’s the short version.