Hello blog readers! It’s your old friend Shoshana Kessock returned to her website from a long hiatus away from blog writing. I’ve had a lot of projects on my plate keeping me away (which I’ll cover in another post) but right now I’m debuting this brand new idea I’ve had for organizing the thoughts that I toss out there into the internet-world.
A while back I came up with a heading system for the blog, with a series of posts called Not Ready To Make Nice about issues I wanted to speak about. Well, here’s the second heading, called LARP Traveller Diaries. Here I’ll toss out some ideas about LARPing and experiences I’ve had at conventions and games wherever I find them. I’ll share thoughts on individual games, experiences, and larp theory that comes up in my head.
We’re going to start right off the bat with my first post of the series. Let’s dive in!
“I can schedule a freak-out five days from Sunday.”
I have a crazy looking calendar. These days with a lot going on, I schedule my life down to the hour sometimes. 8AM wake-up, groan for ten minutes about waking up, medication self-care time, up to breakfast, on to work, etc. As someone who used to be very willy-nilly about their time management, I learned the uses of scheduling and it’s improved my appreciation for my time and everyone else’s. Scheduling taught me the value of a little preparation giving me the jump on all the things I want to do in my life.
So it’s a little surprising even to me that when it comes to going to LARP events, I like to approach things completely the opposite.
I enjoy going to big event LARPs, the Nordic or Nordic-inspired LARPs that provide big budget experiences for one weekend. They’re the equivalent to me of going to a five-star restaurant as opposed to going to a favorite joint or cooking at home. With these big-budget LARPs costing a pretty penny, most people will only go to one or two in a long while, and the LARP becomes a major experience. It becomes an event that I look forward to on my calendar, the weekend when I go and immerse myself in a weekend of BIG LARP FUN. And of course, other folks start to get excited too. Months in advance people online are talking about the game, getting hype for the fun we’ll have.
And then… then for me comes the anxiety. See, for me, hype can go over the line from fun to anxiety.
I recently signed up to play New World Magischola, the wizards-and-wands Harry Potter-inspired American LARP created after the monumental success of College of Wizardry in Europe. The company behind NWM, Learn LARP, has worked diligently to create a hell of an experience, and for months in advance there’s been Facebook groups, applications to fill out, and character connections to make. There’s not a single day I’m not waking up to a new message about the event on Facebook, especially as the game date approaches. At first, the messages helped build up excitement in me. Everyone else is so into this, I said, it’s going to be great! I saw players I knew from LARP communities around the world were signed up for my weekend, and I started to read more about the setting, the costumes. I got picked to play a professor, and I was jazzed to bring my brand of Magical Ethics class to the unsuspecting students, mwahahahaha.
Not this evil. I promise. Really. Don’t be afraid.
But as time went on, and there were more and more posts, I found myself falling behind. I’d recently got a new job with John Wick Presents writing full-time and I was working on a myriad of other creative projects including my own LARPs. I cut down on the time I spent on Facebook and focused on work and friends. Then, when I had time, I’d check in on the NWM prep, only to find so much information I’d already missed. People were playing scenes online, plotting previous character relationships that lasted years. I started to get a creeping feeling in my stomach: was I going to be unprepared for game? Was I going to come in at a disadvantage?
I started to feel like I was actually a kid heading to a new school for the first time.
Nobody wants to be the kid who forgets their homework, or the kid who doesn’t have a place to sit at lunch because everyone’s already with their friends. And nobody wants to be the LARPer who travels to a brand new game only to find everyone’s already buddies and you’re on the outside, looking in at the fun. As time went on, the New LARP Butterflies started to kick in.
It’s about then that I instituted my handy-dandy anxiety-busting New LARP rule list.
Was I excited about the game? Yes.
Did I like the premise? Yes.
Did I have any concerns about the safety of the game? No.
Was the game accessible to me? Yes.
Did I have any other conflicts that would make me concerned about my experience? No.
With these questions answered, I instituted Emergency Anti-Larp-Anxieties Answer #1:
Just Fly.
The quote comes from the first Christopher Reeves movie, when Superman catches a distressed plane in his very first heroic act. The co-pilot is freaking out trying to figure out what’s going on, how they’re not crashing, wants to know all the details. The pilot, who spotted Superman under the wing, can barely believe what’s going on. But he’s not going to look a gift flying-man in the mouth and tells the co-pilot, “Fly. Just… fly.”
Repeat after me: I do not have to be a perfect LARPer person.
LARP anxiety, especially in new groups, I believe is rooted in the old performance anxiety with a dash of first day at a new school-itis. You don’t know what to expect, not only from the game setting and mechanics or from your own roleplay, but you don’t know how you’ll interact with those around you. Will they accept me? Will I have a good time in this new place? Is it going to be worth all the work I’ve put in? Will I be disappointed?
It’s been my experience that disappointment usually occurs when reality and expectations don’t meet. When the hopes I’ve had about a LARP experience don’t mesh with what actually goes on in game, I walk out with a sense that something was missing. Except perhaps there was nothing missing at all! Maybe I just wanted one thing and got something that was equally awesome, but I was so busy worrying about what I wanted that I didn’t embrace what I had. Planning before a LARP for me then becomes a series of ways to set expectations which then distract me from what happens, right then, in the moment. It makes the game about what will be, instead of what is during play.
I had this issue during College of Wizardry and I wrote a lot about it in my article about how LARP can turn you into an asshole. A lot of my difficulty with College of Wizardry is because the adventure of the weekend didn’t meet my rosy-cheeked optimism of playing in a Harry Potter world. I wanted to be the plucky heroine, and ended up playing the kid who got picked last for dodgeball. Instead of embracing the play right then, I got stuck on what I’d prepared for and thought of and worked for before game. I questioned whether if I’d prepped more, played more scenes with others, built more relationships, if I wouldn’t have had a better time. In the end, I recognized that it was expectation that had soured my experience, and that’s where my rules of New LARP were born.
It’s understandable. I mean, admit it: we all want to be Harry Potter. Above: The minute you realize you are not the LARP protagonist.
I’m going to New World Magischola with just enough prep in place to be comfortable. I have to prep lesson plans, sure, because I’m faculty. I’m going to talk to a few people about how we know one another in advance. But that’s about it. I’m going to read the game document. I’m going to chat online a little. But otherwise I’m approaching play with a “Just Fly” attitude. I’m shucking any comparisons to College of Wizardry because this game is its own creature, and I don’t want to set false expectations by equating the two falsely.
I’m just going to go to New World Magischola and be Thessaly Kane, professor. I’ll show up and I have no idea what’s going to happen. None at all!
And that’s okay. In fact, that’s great for me.
Because otherwise, I turn into THIS.
Except maybe a little less put together.
Now for some people, the “Just Fly” attitude makes them anxious. Showing up this way makes them feel unprepared and nervous, so prep helps them. That’s cool. As a friend says, you do you, boo. As long as there’s room for both our prep styles, we can both have a kickass time at the game. As long as there’s no expectation that you HAVE TO prepare so much in advance. That one is better than the other. And nowhere have I encountered anyone saying you have to do tons of preparation for New World Magischola. When we arrive game day, we’re all equal in the eyes of the LARP gods, ready to have a kickass weekend.
New World Magischola is coming up in June, and I’m ready to fly. But in the meantime, I got other stuff to do. I’ll pack my bags maybe a day before I get in the car. I ordered a couple of new props and read the rules. And I’m chatting online a little. But otherwise, game will happen for me at game. I’ll come in a blank slate, ready for whatever comes. And that’s what makes me a happy LARPer. Everyone else should do what makes them happy LARPers too, and it’s going to be a great game. As long as we all remember: nobody’s way is better. We all prep for our fun in different ways.
Besides, we all have one worry we can all agree on anyway: how am I going to pack all this stuff for game?!
“Just one more bag, guys, I promise!”
Ah well, some LARP worries can’t be solved by cool movie quotes. But one problem at a time.
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.
Can’t run from a bad guy because I’m physically disabled, a skill in Dystopia Rising allow me to call “Escape!” and take steps away from combat unimpeded to simulate what I cannot do. (Photo by Katherine Chartier, Dystopia Rising: New Jersey).
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).
The Great Hall was packed with people from one wall to another. Everyone was gathered around the long tables where we took our meals, under the banners of the Houses that made up the Czocha School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. We waited in our robes as the teachers gathered, then called up all the first years to stand in front of the student body to be Sorted. I went up with my fellows, an uncertain grin fixed nervously in place.
We first year students had spent the better part of time since our arrival trying to impress the older students in the various Houses, so they’d give recommendations to recruit us into the House we wanted. I had angled myself towards House Molin, the quiet, serious, studious House, whose symbol the Golem was taken from my own real-life Jewish background. I even made friends with a couple of Libussa, a house that seemed high energy, creative and friendly. I went before the whole school and thought, much like Harry Potter: Just not Faust. Don’t put me into Faust.
Names got read off. My friend Josh, playing Clorian Lockhart, got sorted into Libussa, where my friend Abigail was already playing an upperclassman. A new friend got sorted into Molin, and when he went over I was sure I’d be following. Then came my turn.
“Durentius!”
I stood for a moment, struck dumb. Durentius? I hadn’t really even considered Durentius. I had met two girls who were cool from their House, but I hadn’t interacted with anyone else. I looked towards the other tables as Durentius cheered and I hesitantly went over to their side while the rest of the Sorting went on. A weird look was stuck on my face, I was sure, as I tried to keep my expression from conveying my disappointment. It would be insulting to my new House to look disappointed. I had to give them a chance, didn’t I? But I was failing. My expression was frozen, there were tears in my eyes, and when we went off to our initiation, I dragged my feet. I didn’t understand it. Why didn’t the other Houses wanted me?
I could explain the rest of the evening in detail: the awesome initiation ritual, the great opportunity to get to know new people who were part of House Durentius. Over the next twenty-four hours, I would come to love the House as fiercely as I identified with any Harry Potter house. I came to appreciate my fellow Roosters, even if I felt a little out of place. That was sort of normal for me. I had never been to a regular high school growing up, one with co-ed classrooms and social occasions like balls, or even the ubiquitous experience of asking someone out on a date. I felt painfully awkward, shy, and nervous, and I translated that well into my character, so much that the experience of playing Katarina Iguanis at College of Wizardry was a great exploration of first few days of a terribly neurotic, socially unprepared young woman’s time at college.
It was also a perfect lesson for how I, as a player and maybe as a person, was kind of an asshole.
One of the greatest parts about going into a new live action roleplaying game for me is creating a character. I take a lot of time to craft the inner workings of a character, connecting their personality to the experiences and events that have shaped their lives. I work with the established fiction provided by the game staff and the setting, as well as connect with other players when I can to make backstory connections so we might come into play knowing one another in character. When I step into the game, I might tweak things in terms of backstory or personality if I encounter a particular trait that isn’t working. But for the most part, I come in with a largely developed idea of how my character existed previous to the events of the game.
I also ask myself a single question while creating a character: what does this character express from my own personality? This question is an important one, even though it might sound a little precious. A friend of mine once called me a method LARPer early on when I started up in the hobby, and it’s absolutely true. I use real life experiences and feelings to connect to my characters in an effort to give a better roleplaying performance. In the process, the experience of playing these characters often gives me a chance to explore those very same feelings, reflected back at me in the events of a LARP, in the consequences a character faces. Sometimes, what is reflected back can give me a startling glimpse at my own personality, my privilege, and my life.
And like with the example above, it’s not always a pretty sight.
Going back to my first night at Czocha. I had spent the whole day immersed in the life of Katarina Iguanis, a first year witch at a new school, with all the terrors that first day at a boarding school might bring. She had exams to study for (which I actually had to study for before going to bed), rumors of Death Eaters and monsters on the grounds (there were and it was terrifying), a future career to decide on, and a dance to secure a date for, all while trying to make new friends and navigate a giant, confusing castle. So, typical for a Harry Potter game. But when I went back to my room, I lay awake in the dark after chatting with my roommate Clorian about the exciting day. I felt myself slipping out of character as I thought about what had gone on. I put down Katarina’s mindset and instead inspected the day’s events with the eye of Shoshana, the LARPer. And what I saw about my own behavior gave me a twist of my stomach.
The fact that I’d been disappointed to get into Durentius bothered me. The emotions it raised in me had been intense. Why hadn’t House Molin wanted me? Had I come off as too needy, not smart enough? Was I annoying when I came to talk to them? Or maybe too cocky when I sat down at their table? And what about Libussa, was I too serious or nervous? Was I, as so many kids have worried in their lifetimes, just not cool enough?
These were all pretty typical responses for a student facing disappointment, but the feelings that arose from the Sorting had resonated with me as a player as much as me the character. I had felt disappointed, but more than that, slighted. I felt a roaring sense of anger that I couldn’t have the experience I wanted, because I had been put in a House I hadn’t chosen, nor really considered. I’d seen one or two Durentius running around and wrote them off as frat boys, behavior that I often find irritating in my real life, and so I stayed away from the whole House. This was not the experience I wanted from my LARP. I’d flown from the United States, across an ocean, to Poland to be a part of this once in a lifetime opportunity game. I certainly didn’t want to spend it in a House that felt uncomfortable to me, where I felt out of place. Wasn’t I certainly entitled to the experience I wanted out of such a pricey unique game?
As I lay in the dark, I felt those same feelings rise back up and I got a chance to examine them for what they were: really, really shitty.
It sometimes takes a reflection of yourself, held up in front of you, to smack you in the face about the person you are and what you believe. In the experience of being Sorted into House Durentius, I was forced to face down as a person my own feelings about being rejected, about how I judged people, and the expectations I had about what I should and shouldn’t ‘get’ out of life. I was struck first by the fact that I have always believed that we shouldn’t judge the worth of people as good or bad, but only identify actions that may be harmful. I always believed that gave me the chance to be fairer to people, to not judge too harshly.
Instead I was faced with the fact that I had pretty much written off the Durentius members as not worth my time or consideration because of their boisterous nature. I wrote off in fact the entire group after only seeing one or two of their members! And I also realized, and this was the part that stuck me, that I had snubbed them because I thought their mascot wasn’t as cool as the others. Who wants to stand up and sing a song about a rooster, rather than a lion, a dragon, a golem or a phoenix? This one aesthetic choice had led me to turn away from people who could be new friends, all because I didn’t like their symbol.
I had forgotten my respect for the mighty rooster. This is the face of a mighty mascot. MIGHTY.
What struck me next was my sense of entitlement. My anger at not getting my way, not getting what I wanted, had been staggering to me. First, I’d presupposed that the people making the decisions had known what I wanted, like they could read my mind. And furthermore, I had just blatantly assumed that I should get what I wanted, automatically. I had come all this way, after all, I was owed something. That was what my feelings were saying, even when my higher brain was screaming what I know for a fact: that in this life, we are owed nothing by anyone.
I had forgotten the rule of being grateful, grateful for what I had been given. I was at a Harry Potter LARP in Poland, experiencing something few LARPers were able to do. I’d traveled there thanks to a generous graduation gift from my parents, and had recovered enough from a brain surgery earlier in the year so I could even be there. I was at the game with three of my good friends from the United States, who had embarked on this epic adventure with me at my cajoling. And we were roleplaying with some of the most awesome Nordic LARPers I knew, making new friends from across several countries. I was in such a privileged position, so lucky to be where I was, and yet I was unsatisfied because I had been rejected from the in character houses I wanted. More so, I had been kind of shitty about it to the other players in my new House, stand-offish and dismissive, when they’d tried to be kind and welcoming.
I was, essentially, being an asshole.
I wanted to be all of this:
Because who doesn’t want to be more like Hermoine ‘I’m Really The Protagonist Here’ Granger?
When really I had turned into a hell of a lot of this:
Except without perving on boys in the Prefect’s bathroom. Because ew.
It took me some time to untangle all my feelings and realize where they came from. I lay in the dark, knowing I should sleep because I had exams the next day, but I wanted to get these feeling sorted. I’d gotten a good look at myself reflected in a mirror, darkly (or maybe a mirror, LARPly) and I didn’t exactly like what I saw. I was intent on trying to address the issues before continuing play the next day.
I can’t in good conscience say that it worked. College of Wizardry was a very intense LARP, full of a lot of character bleed and personal revelation. By the end of the event, I’d cried over being rejected for a date for the ball, had a near anxiety attack over the peer pressure about having to have a date in the first place, shouted down fellow students about dark magic coming to destroy us all, and felt the terror of hiding in the woods from Death Eaters out to resurrect an ancient evil.
Made by the amazing Liselle!
By the end of the game I had been through an emotional rollercoaster. But thanks to that night of lying in the dark, considering how I’d acted, I spent the rest of the game thereafter letting down my guard to the rest of House Durentius and trying not to be such a shitty new friend. I embraced my fellow roosters in my own socially awkward Katarina Iguanis way, and out of character came to love the House, enough to order a patch of the crest to stick on my bag back home a year after the game. That patch is there to remind me of the lessons I learned playing Katarina Iguanis, lessons that went far deeper than herbology or defense against the dark arts. I’d gotten a good look at myself as a person thanks to that LARP, and I was committed to changing what I saw, for the better.
A year later, I still carry those lessons with me. As I do the lessons of playing every single character I have in the past, and every one I do now. Through LARPing I’ve learned what it felt like to betray a lover, to watch a friend commit suicide, to rig political elections, and to commit murder in righteous fury. With each of these in character experiences, separated from the ‘real me’ by a wall of alibi provided by the game, I have also been given a glimpse into my own feelings and myself. And the look hasn’t always been pretty. But I think that’s one of the reasons I keep going back to LARPing. I’m a big believer that life in all its darkest places, in all the messy and unreasonable and negative spaces, can also be a source of learning. You can’t make an omelet without cracking a few eggs, and maybe (if it’s me who’s cooking) throwing some egg all over the counter and dropping the bowl a few times. Life and learning can be messy. But doing so in a game, where there are barriers between you and your character, where there is the alibi of saying “this is not entirely me who did this” can also give you the perspective to step back and say: “wait a minute, how much of that really was me?” And it’s that lesson that, to me, is an invaluable tool for growth as a person, as well as in character.
LARP can show you, through your characters actions, that out of character you might be a little bit of an asshole. But maybe, it can also show you a path to explore that inner asshole, and reflect on whether that’s where you want to be.
In my case, I embraced my inner Rooster. I sang the song, I loved my House, and I learned that spot judgements about people suck. And I learned a great theme song. I shouted “Valor! Diligence!” at that game and aspired to maybe having those qualities in my life a little more, if only when looking into myself.
I’m excited to announce that the video of my short TED-talk like Nordic Larp Talk in Gothenburg 2014 has gone up. The topic is “Ethical Content Creation and The Freedom to Create” which was based on my research for my article on ethical content creation in the WyrdCon Companion Book for 2013. I’m really proud to have been included in this brilliant event, and encourage folks to check out the other Nordic Larp Talks for this and year’s past.
Every time I feel like I have to say ‘it’s been a while’ when I start a blog post here. Fact is, I fell out of the practice of posting at least once a week because of the amount of work I’ve been doing lately. I don’t mind saying it’s been a lot, so posting on my own blog about what’s up has fallen by the wayside. I want that to change, even if it’s just some basic updates.
So, what have I been working on? Let’s talk about it all. Let’s talk about all of the things.
Living Games Conference
The Living Games Conference is my graduate thesis project at the NYU Game Center. It is a live action role-play academic conference being hosted at the Magnet Center in Brooklyn March 14-16th. We are the very first Tickets are on sale as the event is one month away. We are looking to have talks and workshops by designers from around the world come together in NYC to talk about the future of LARP and innovation in the field. The schedule includes keynotes from Lizzie Stark and Aaron Vanek with our third keynote soon to be announced (hint: it may be on the poster already, but shhhh)! Plus, we’ll be hosting a showcase of games on Saturday night that will let people get a look at the kind of games there are out in the world.
Part of doing this conference has involved getting funding together for various things, including and especially documentation of the panels. For that reason we’ve reached out on IndieGoGo to help with getting equipment and such. If you can, we’d appreciate any donations you might be able to make – every little bit helps. Plus there are some fun perks.
It has been a real pleasure working on this conference. I’ve learned a lot about event organization as well as the things I believe are most vital to the LARP community going forward. You’ll hear more about the conference as we approach the date in the next few weeks, but meanwhile check out the website for more info, buy tickets here, donate or follow us on Twitter @LivingGamesNYC.
Dangers Untold: The Kickstarter
Dangers Untold is a project I am so happy I got to work on, and now it’s live on Kickstarter! The game is a freeform LARP out to give folks a chance to tell the stories of the Heroine’s Journey. Like Labyrinth or Alice in Wonderland? Ever wanted to fall down the rabbit hole and explore adventures as a heroine out with her friends, Dorothy on the road through Oz? This game is for you. The goal was to create a game that could be played with people 12 and up, a game parents could play with their kids and kids could play with their friends. I designed the LARP based on my experiences with alternative, mechanics-light games with the intent on it being accessible to non-LARPers and seasoned vets alike. Mostly, I just kept in mind an experience I had running my LARP with the pre-teen daughter of a friend. I remember watching her eyes light up at the experience and realized not many games are accessible for younger audiences. Plus, how many times in games do you get to play with a girl protagonist squarely in mind? That was the aim of this game.
Produced by Josh Jordan and Ginger Goat Games based on Josh’s fantastic tabletop game Heroine, we’re looking to produce a beautiful book with photos by J.R. Blackwell and layout by Daniel Solis. The Kickstarter is up and running so come by and give us some love and help us make this great game possible.
Bundle of Holding – American Freeform
It has arrived! Bundle of Holding has put together a collection of fantastic freeform games and I am so honored to have my first freeform, SERVICE, available among them! My game is alongside work by fantastic folks like Jason Morningstar, Lizzie Stark, Evan Torner, Meguey Baker, Emily Care Boss and more. These games are amazing introductions to LARP for those who want to give the form a try but were concerned about long, complicated rules or ongoing campaigns that require a lot of gear. Freeform gives you a chance to create experiences that are personal, smaller, and easier to jump right into.
This is the first time that SERVICE is available to the public since it was produced initially earlier this year, and I’m excited to see it played elsewhere. Meanwhile, you’ve got a week to get your hands on this fantastic Bundle of Holding!
Whew, told you I was busy! Between that and some other projects, it’s been a busy winter so far. I’ll also be talking in another post about places you’re going to see me working with others on some fantastic LARPs and panels soon, including IndieCade East which is this weekend! So stay tuned to more about the work going on and check out the IndieGoGo, Kickstarter, and Bundle of Holding above!
It’s been a while since I was able to give an update here about what I’ve been working on. That’s probably because I’ve been busy working and traveling! Here are some of the highlights:
I was a guest down at Escapist Expo in Durham, North Carolina, and had the pleasure of being on the ‘You Game Like A Girl’ panel there with my compatriots in feminist discourse, Anja Keister, Iris Explosion and Stella Chuu. (The panel video is up online here to check out!) Along with the fantastic ZP Keister, they did their amazing D20 Burlesque show for the Escapist crowd, and I got the opportunity to hang with the gentlemen of Evil Hat Productions, Rob Donoghue and Fred Hicks, as well as Daniel Solis. We played games, we had fun, and it was an honest to goodness blast. I really recommend Escapist if you are a fan of their site, if you’re a fan of a nicely sized convention with great people, and if you’re a fan of a friendly city for a visit.
I attended New York Comic Con and did some reporting on it for Tor.com – you can see my coverage of the Marvel Television panel, the Dracula Screening and the Cosplay over at Tor. I also got a chance to see the Defiance panel and ask the cast my question, plus got a great chance to see the Welcome to Night Vale panel. Had a fantastic blast, with much thanks to my friend Justin Reyes for helping me with my camera gear. I also was a convert to the Pokemon nation that weekend – Pokemon X for me! It’s my new relaxation helper. Highlights were getting a chance to shake hands with Kelly Sue DeConnick, the Marvel writer of Captain Marvel and the Avengers. I’m a huge fan of her work and her constant contribution to the discourse about women in the geek world.
Not long after I was on the road again to head to GeekGirlCon out in Seattle. It was an absolute pleasure to meet up with folks out there. I had the pleasure of being on panels about creating safe spaces at conventions with brilliant folks like Jennifer Stuller, burlesque performer and organizer Jo Jo Stilletto, fiction writer and safe space advocate K.T. Bradford, pop culture scholar Rob Salkowitz. The second panel was about Female Characters in Video Game Design and was sat by some fantastic folks like Kimberly Voll, Elsa Sjunneson-Henry and Anita Sarkeesian. It was my honest pleasure to be a part of both, as they gave me a chance to talk about my two favorite things – how to create convention space for all and how women are represented in video games. Later I got the chance to do a panel/workshop on LARP 101 and then presented the Nordic game LIMBO to a crew of players. (I’ll have a full write-up of that shortly). It seemed the game really touched everyone very deeply. I was floored by how well people did with the material and how deeply they threw themselves into the roleplay. Overall it was an incredible weekend – I found the entire community to be welcoming and fantastic, and I was loathe to miss the whole Sunday program to fly home. But family vacation in Orlando called!
Shortly thereafter I was out at Dystopia Rising‘s big season ender for New Jersey known as DeathCon! Every October we throw a big four-day zombie apocalypse adventure and this year all the stops were pulled out, folks. My shift with fellow storyteller Liam Neery created a cacophony of in-game screams as we unleashed terrifying raiders on the fictional town of Hayven, and madness and fun was had by all. As a player I enjoyed myself a great deal, but it was my pleasure getting a chance to once again rain storyteller heck down on the player base. Special shout out to the Unholy Sideshow and D20 Burlesque for performing at the game- it was overall a hell of a weekend.
So now I’m back in the workflow of things, my traveling having been completed for the season. Well, almost. Because next week is… Metatopia! I’m very excited to say that I’ll not only be attending Metatopia but I’ll be sitting on a couple of panels, as well as running a few playtests. I’m planning on doing a playtest for my RPG Wanderlust plus doing a run of my freeform game Service as well. It did well being tested on my NYU Game Center friends, now let’s see how it holds up against other gamers. This Metatopia has so much on the schedule that I’m excited to just get a chance to sit in on panels and talk to people. It’s going to be pretty packed. So check me out at the following:
Friday 11AM – Translating Tabletop to LARP
Friday 2PM – How to Manage Adult Content
Friday 3PM-5PM WANDERLUST RPG Discussion
Saturday 4PM – Inclusivity: Inviting Women to the Table
And after that… well, it’s just work time. The con season will officially be over until February, when Dreamation 2014 has me plotting LARP fun. Until then, I’ve got some projects to do – including all the stuff to prepare for my thesis at the Game Center. There’s going to be a full article on here about that very shortly, so stay tuned!
So the travel season is over, and I’m glad to be home. In truth, traveling is fantastic but it does take away from work time. I have lots of projects coming up in the near future and I’m excited to buckle down and get to work. Meanwhile, my bleary-eyed self is getting to bed so I can get up for class tomorrow. And so it continues!
It is no secret that I am a huge Dresden Files nerd. If you haven’t read the amazing book series by Jim Butcher, you are missing out on some of the best urban fantasy around. If you watched the TV show, you’re nearly there – now go to Kindle or the library or your local bookseller and make your eyeballs do the walking across those amazing pages. Ahem. So, as I said, huge Dresden nerd. (I even cosplayed as a female Harry Dresden at last year’s NYCC – no joke).
So when I thought a few years back about what LARP I would love to run, the Dresden Files came to mind. I was a huge fan of the tabletop RPG created by Evil Hat Productions and once i got my hands on the book, we were off to the races. Now, two and a half years later and three versions of the rules (at least!) gone by, my team and I run The Unofficial Dresden Files LARP out of the Double Exposure conventions in Morristown, New Jersey. Over the July 4th weekend, my team and I ran our fourth Dresden Files game to the tune of forty-five people. The game, entitled “Final Frost” was the culmination of our very first chronicle. And it has been a wild ride. Here’s how it all went down.
The cast of the Unofficial Dresden Files game “Final Frost”
The Unofficial Dresden Files LARP
Design Team: Shoshana Kessock, John Adamus, Josh Harrison, Kat Schoynheder
Production Assistants: Justin Reyes, Abigail Corfman, Andrea Vasilescu
Location: Double Exposure Conventions (New Jersey, USA)
How This Happened: As I said before, I’m a huge Dresden Files fan. After running a few tabletop sessions of the Evil Hat tabletop RPG, I came upon the idea that Dresden Files would make a great LARP. Why? It has all the factors that make supernatural theater LARP great – a multitude of different supernatural creatures, a decent balance between human characters and the things that go bump in the night, and a world that ties everything together so perfectly. The fact that the world has such a fan following and such a strong intellectual property made it a perfect level of buy-in for players. Moreover, I felt that Dresden was a supernatural world with all the moral ambiguity and personal choice play that people could get with World of Darkness games without a lot of the darker, sometimes depressing overtones that WoD games can bring. Dresden is a rollicking adventure world where people take their adventure in their hands and go for broke, and that’s the kind of games I love. So I got together a team and we began planning. Now, two and half years later, most of the original team have gone on to other projects but the passionate players of this convention game experience have stayed. The result is a growing player base who have come back four times in a row to see what we can offer.
The Premise: The world of the Dresden Files is a supernatural playground of wizards, vampires, were-creatures, fae and their changeling children, and every flavor of supernatural whozamawhutzits that might come in between. These characters try to coexist in a world that, for the most part, doesn’t know they’re around. Dark powers wriggle around in the background of course and those ‘in the know’ try to figure out how to stay afloat in a constantly shifting supernatural world. The main themes of the game are personal choice between power and humanity and we tried to keep very close to those themes when designing our very first chronicle. We began with “Trouble Signs” in which a powerful CEO tried to jumpstart his career in the supernatural world by signing onto what are known as the Unseelie Accords. His idea? Host a massive auction where he would sell off some of his prized magical items for support. Of course nothing goes correctly and he causes everyone to get in dutch with the Queen of the Winter Fae, Mab herself. By the time game four rolled around, the characters had to travel into the very heart of Winter to the stronghold of Arctus Tor to ask Queen Mab not to explode a huge section of New York City with Mordite. In between there were Denarians, dominance battles by werewolves, possessions and corrupt cops, reconstituted faerie courts and wizards risen from the dead.
Yeah, it kind of went like that.
A wizard back from the dead.
The player briefing before game.
Players learning the new mass combat rules.
Dresden Files: Empire State Chronicles
Players learning the new mass combat rules.
The Preparation: This chronicle, as I mentioned, has been two and half years of work in the making. From concept to final execution it has had literally hundreds of hours of work by multiple people. For the sake of brevity, however, I’ll focus on the prep for Final Frost, our most recent game.
The player briefing before game.
Final Frost was perhaps easier than the previous games in that we had been through the process several times before. In between games two and three we had junked our entire rules system for a brand new adaptation of the brilliant tabletop Fate Core system (also by Evil Hat Productions). Fate is the engine that drives the Dresden Files RPG and the newest version gave us a lot of the agile storytelling options that we wanted to focus on for the LARP. I was lucky enough to team up with John Adamus, who worked as editor on Fate Core, and we schemed ways to adapt Fate Core into a system for the LARP. The results from John was a brilliant adaptation of the Fate numbers system for a card-pull based mechanic that kept the core of Fate games – the Aspect system- intact. The Stunts and Powers for each player were individually crafted to suit the player character’s needs and skills were stripped wholesale from the tabletop in a simple adaptation. The mechanics were tailored to make the resolution systems more narrative focused and quick, as our intent was to foster games where player agency was key. The Dresdenverse is driven by characters that take chances, do amazing things and step out on the edge and that’s what we wanted to support in our players.
Power versus humanity – bargains being made.
For the actual game session we relied on very bare-bones theater-style setting with rooms set up with sparse lighting. We relied heavily on narrators setting the scene and describing what was seen since, to be frank, we didn’t have the budget to build a giant ice castle. Relying on the players imagination and the judicious application of props, we lead players through everything from a Queens warehouse under siege by Black Court vampires, darkened roads through the Nevernever, and the heart of Queen Mab’s territory itself. We relied heavily on small props as well, cleaning out local stores for props that could represent magic and transformations in game. For example: were-forms were a big part of our campaign. Yet transformations into werewolves always bugged me in games. So to indicate transformation we handed out little plastic face masks that went over the nose and mouth. Whenever a were-form would transform, they would pop on the nose and presto, insta-werewolf!
The characters for the campaign had always been pre-generated since the beginning of the chronicle. Players however began to get so attached to their characters that they would register with us before the convention in the hopes of reprising their previous characters, so much so that we had almost a 75% retention rate for players coming back by game four. Each player was provided with a character sheet with stats and a full backstory. Though these backstories originally topped out at over a page long, by game four the necessity for that much information had decreased since players knew their characters well and we managed to get down to one paragraph. That dramatically shortened the workload for me considering I was writing most of those backstories (that’s a lot of typing). And that was predominantly the workload for this game – story ideation, character management, system building and iteration, and sheet generation. Paperwork. Lots of paperwork.
A wizard back from the dead.
The Game: When Final Frost started, the players were headed into the Nevernever to confront Queen Mab over what might become the destruction of everything on Earth. They had opened up a trapped box that held Mordite, an anti-magical substance that would have exploded and eradicated most of New York. The reason for Mab’s ire? The players had managed to help reconstitute the Autumn and Spring courts of the fae, causing upheaval in the fae realms. To that end, she started a near war in New York and the players were out to stop it. The game before had seen some players escape into the Nevernever to find Mab while the others stayed behind to guard the Mordite trap from being stolen by the Black Court vampires. They too however escaped into the Nevernever by wrenching open a gateway using the power of some faeries and the sacrifice of two were-forms (they lived but lost their ability to shapeshift). Once inside the magical Nevernever they were reunited with their friends and headed for Artcus Tor. There they fought Mab’s guards until she stopped the battle and issued a challenge – break the Autumn and Spring Courts and she would stop the box. Pretty straight forward? It’s never that easy! The players were forced to track down the sword of Spring and bargain for the lost magic of a wizard (a player character) to be able to take on the power of the Spring Queen, whose life Mab demanded be forfeit.
Its funny as a storyteller when you set out events before players what happens. The end results might be the same but nobody ever gets there the way that you expect. I had the honor of playing both Queen Mab and the Mother of the Winter Court, Mother Winter, and throughout the night it was fae bargains left and right. Souls were sold, deals were brokered and power changed hands. In the end, however, the Spring Queen was eradicated and the power of the courts broken when the players were given some insight into what would happen if they didn’t do what Mab said. The Mordite box was removed and plenty of people ended up owing Mab their lives when the destruction of the Spring Queen nearly killed everyone involved. For the most part, however, the players returned from the Nevernever in one piece – all except for a lone wizard who had stayed alive long enough to do his job. Then he was taken away by Mab, after sharing a last meal of burgers and fries with his apprentice and their fellow wizards.
The part of this game that was so satisfying was watching the character arcs for so many players come to a (temporary) close after “Final Frost.” It would be impossible to talk about all the great events that went on for the characters but I’ll give some highlights of my favorite story lines:
Changelings hiding from the madness outside.
A rookie New York City discovers he has a magical past that goes back further than he knows. He gains tremendous power, transferred to him by his dying relative, whose violent murder at the hands of a Denarian sends the cop on a mission of vengeance. In the end he found new wizards to learn from, others who share his vengeance, and maybe a girlfriend?
A young woman tries to escape from her bargain with Queen Mab and talks her way into becoming the Queen of Autumn. Yet everything comes with a price and while she’s trying to understand what being a fae Queen is all about, she has to try and save her people from Mab’s wrath. In the end she sacrifices her new power to end the Spring Queen’s life before she can cause calamity.
A charismatic White Court Vampire tries to lead his family through the turbulent times in New York and ends up making deals that drive him in the middle of a war with the fae. When he’s trapped in a warehouse, trying to find a way to rescue himself and his cousin from destruction, he is killed fighting when thrown into the Mordite trap.
A wizard of the White Council comes up from New Orleans to track down the Denarian that murdered his mentor. Upon arrival he’s pushed into the middle of a war, ends up with an apprentice after watching a Warden killed in front of him, and sacrifices his own magic. By the end however he was returned to his power and even found himself the oddest of ladies to fall for, all before watching the Warden rise from the dead to help battle Mab’s trials.
A young werewolf tries to keep his pack together after most of them were slaughtered, including his father, by Red Court vampires. Along with his sister, they long to find protection from anyone who would hurt them. Too bad it was his actions that caused the Red Court to come after his family in the first place- and all over the love of a blood-addicted girl! Reunited with the girl, he ends up forsaking his pack and following her into the Nevernever to end up a servant of the fae Queen of Autumn who rescued her, sworn together as true lovers and leaving his de-powered were-form sister behind.
The list of stories go on and on. And they’re not done yet! This chronicle may be over, but the game will continue. After the success of the last few games, the team decided that we wanted to continue running the game…. with a few changes.
Change Is Coming: There were some things we wanted to change from the original chronicle in response to player feedback and our own experiences running the game. First of all, we wanted to hand over control of characters to the players. Convention games often breed pregenerated characters, but that requires a lot of work on the staff’s part and also is a hell of a pre-game casting process. Moreover, we felt that to create a personal experience for players, we wanted them to be able to have their own characters that could travel with them from game to game. New players would be able to create their own characters as well going forward. Those who played the game in the past would be able to continue playing the characters from the first chronicle – with a few adjustments.
Players learning the new mass combat rules.
As said before, the game was kind of high powered. We had faerie queens. We had Denarians. We had dragons for goodness sake. The game, much like the tabletop, is meant to focus on a lower power scale so as to emphasize the notion of power versus humanity, a staple of the Dresden Files books. This chronicle stepped up that power level to make the events of the game earth shaking. After all that, we decided that we wanted to take the game back down to street level, where players would be dealing with less world-changing problems and instead focus more on manageable power scales. This answered feedback from some of our players who felt that their characters were just not scaled to fit some of the threats showing up in the game.
That said, we also took a look at some of our mechanics that were and were not working. We’ve taken the feedback given to us and gone after our stress system (which is the damage system for Fate) and how it adapts in a faster-paced LARP session. Mass combat was also tested and, for the most part, held up – yet there were a few considerations that needed looking at that we’re taking back to the drawing board. In the end, the stress test of high powered combat worked to give us the data we needed to work on polishing up the system.
A Special Shout-Out: We also had a wonderful experience hosting a LARP guest at the game. RPG editor Amanda Valentine, who worked on the Dresden Files tabletop as well as a host of other games for companies like Evil Hat and Margaret Weiss Productions, came by to watch the game. Specifically she came because her daughter, Mary Rose, wanted to see the game in action. Instead of watching, Mary Rose got to join us by playing the guest star for the evening, the twelve-year-old Archive Ivy. The Archive is a favorite character of mine from the Dresden books and it was a pleasure hosting Mary Rose to play the character. It was her first time LARPing and she took to the whole thing like a champ, which made her a lot of fans among the players. We hope to have her back sometime soon!
The Final Analysis: In the end, the final analysis of the first chronicle of the Unofficial Dresden Files LARP is that its a labor of love for us. I’ve had such a great time working with John, Josh, Kat and everyone else to get this game off the ground. Now that we’ve come this far, there’s no chance we’re going to stop now and with the amazing support of the Double Exposure convention organizers, we’ll be back at Dreamation 2013 with the beginning of the next chronicle. In between now and then, we’ll also be taking our show on the road to present a game at WyrdCon 2013 in California, where the special guest for the weekend at the convention is going to be none other than Dresden Files author Jim Butcher himself. Between now and then we have a lot to do but it’s been a pleasure working on this project so far.
So tune in next time, Dresden Files fans, because we’re just getting started.
UPDATE 7/23/13: Holy cow folks! Only a few hours after I put up this post and people are sending me so many suggestions to add to the list. As I said in the post, this was not a comprehensive list but MAN the list is longer now. I might turn this into a perm-link on my blog and just keep updating but for now, thank you to everyone on Facebook for the suggestions (and spelling corrections – sorry bout that to those I misspelled or mis-linked). Updates ahoy!
A few days ago, RPG writer and all around awesome designer Josh Jordan asked me what I might put on a reading list for someone who wanted to get into learning more about LARP. It occurred to me that I couldn’t find many lists that had many of the texts that I drew on when growing up in the LARP community. So I put together a long list of the books I considered important reading for myself. Note: THIS IS NOT A COMPREHENSIVE LIST. There are dozens of other blogs, articles, books and magazines that are important and relevant and I urge folks to share at the bottom. This is just a reading list that has impacted me and my design. With that in mind, on we go!
Theater LARP
The two biggest subsections of LARP in the US have got to be theater style-games and boffer or live combat games. Theater games have got their history going back ages but there are a number of books that seriously impacted the growth of the hobby.
So there’s a lot of these.
One such game system was the Mind’s Eye Theatre system created by White Wolf as the live-action version of their very popular World of Darkness tabletop series. Created in the 90’s, Mind’s Eye Theatre became the staple for live-action theatre games like Vampire: The Masquerade, Mage: The Ascension, Changeling: The Dreaming and half a dozen more. With easily over thirty books put out in the first line alone, Mind’s Eye Theatre became the originator for the often discussed rock-paper-scissor resolution mechanic in LARP, as well as a good example of the ups and downs of translating a tabletop RPG into a LARP format. The MET books became the basis for the live-action Camarilla Club, an international organization that united MET enthusiasts that still exists to this day. Since I’m a big fan of some of these supplement books, I’ll call out Mage: The Ascension and Changeling: the Dreaming as two of the better ones, as well as the Wraith book Oblivion. These books aren’t just well-done, they’re interesting when compared to their tabletop brethren and often beautifully laid out and designed. I’ll also toss in that a number of them were written by the amazing Peter Woodworth, whose blog will be linked later for sheer LARP advice awesomeness.
Mind’s Eye Theater books went through a number of revisions over the years. The second major revision after the 90’s version (known as Old White Wolf or OWoD) came when White Wolf reset its World of Darkness setting in the early 2000’s. This reset spawned a new set of books with new adaptations from the tabletop rules. These books changed one factor: like the tabletop, they had a core book with basic rules that could then be adapted to any of the World of Darkness core sets like Vampire or Mage or Changeling. The core book bears looking at for the rules adaptation alone, but if you’re not into the individual creature settings the later books are unnecessary (but decent reads).
Recently, Mind’s Eye Theatre has seen its third revamping when it was purchased by another company known as By Night Productions. This new version of the game will be taking the old rules system through a serious set of revamps and recently held a Kickstarter that was extremely successful. Though hints about the changes have been dropped, we’ll have to wait and see what that looks like.
Cover appropriately creepy
So now that we’ve gone through Mind’s Eye, what else is out there for theater LARPs that we can talk about? How about my second love Cthulhu Live! Based on the works of HP Lovecraft, Cthulhu Live takes all the fun you have in those Call of Cthulhu tabletop games, puts you in a room and tries to scare the living pants off of you. This game had three editions and I can site both of them as great reads for different reasons. The second edition, while I’m more meh on the rules system, has a fantastic section in the back about staging games and how to create fantastic monsters and sets for your events. The third edition of this game however is what has my heart as a go-to for simple, intuitive game design that works fast and well no matter where you play. I was introduced to this game at the Double Exposure conventions by the fantastic PST Productions, picked up this book and never looked back. After playing nearly thirty of these scenarios, I’ve always felt this book and its system are a gem that not enough people appreciate for fluid game design and excellent intellectual property adaptation.
And speaking of excellent adaptation and hidden gems, how about Passion Play. Passion Play is the LARP adaptation of the Fading Suns tabletop RPG. Haven’t heard of it? Its not that popular out there and it takes a hell of a lot to find the books these days, but Fading Suns is a fascinating space opera setting that dances over a lot of lines. Its parts Cowboy Bebop, parts Firefly and a lot of space baronies and weird interplanetary politics. Sound like fun? I thought so! I was introduced to the game as a LARP at a convention and worked my butt off to track down the LARP book. While it focuses a great deal on showcasing the setting, the book is a great read about how to translate an existing complex world into a LARP text and also how to adapt that property’s mechanics in a recognizable way. See if you can track it down – it’s not the easiest book to find!
To say that this is the short list of theater style games is absolutely the case. Other books suggested include:
Cyberworld, a Cyberpunk LARP by Dark Ages Games (Older but worthwhile)
Also I’m going to plug an upcoming project that’s now in the works for theater style games – Chronos! Made by Eschaton Media, who incidentally created the Dystopia Rising tabletop books, Chronos is a card-based theatrical LARP system that will be publishing multiple skein worlds for players to enjoy. I’m particularly proud of this project because I’m one of the writers involved, with work done on the corebook as well as for a skein about animal spirits in a noir world. Check out the Facebook group for Chronos for more information or Eschaton Media’s website.
There’s also a ton of theatrical scenarios that are great to take a look at, such as “Voyage of the Mary Celeste” and “Marin County New Age Society Cocktail Party” both by Interactivities Ink (thanks to Christopher Amherst for the suggestion!), but they can be found individually in locations online. (A link is provided to one such resource later in this post).
Another game I want to call out for awesomeness straddles the line between theatrical LARP and, well… more team building exercis – Shelter In Place. This Ennie Award winner is part party game, part zombie apocalypse LARP written by the fantastic JR Blackwell. I’m a huge fan of this simple, fun game. The book itself is gorgeously done and its a perfect example of how a LARP does not need to be complicated, but rather can be played anytime, anywhere, if its the right game.
Boffer/Live Combat Games
Jumping over from theater games, we’re going to talk about a reading list for boffer games! This list is a little more difficult to compile as many boffer LARPs don’t have physical books that have come out and rely on rules systems put out in PDF form. Still, we’re electronic savvy so let’s take a look at what I could dig up and put together.
First will go the one nearest and dearest to my heart: Dystopia Rising. Its no secret that I’m a huge supporter of this fast growing franchise (I work for Dystopia’s flagship game in New Jersey as a full-time storyteller!) but part of the reason for that support comes down to the amazing rules system and LARP book put out by the game. First available in PDF form to players and now released in physical form, called the Dystopia Rising Survivor’s Guide, this rules system is a fluid bit of live combat gaming that combines melee combat and nerf gun ranged shooting into one zombie apocalypse mix. The book is also a great example of a great mix of world setting material, rules information and practical advice and rules for how to play in one of the games across the country. Its easily available to players off the website too and has a beautiful book now for those who want a home edition.
There are other boffer games out there of course. In fact, there are literally hundreds. The well-known names that I could mention include NERO and LAIRE, which are known for their branches across the country and their long history. A working list of these games would start with:
But this is by no means comprehensive. LARPing.org has a fantastic list on their site for games that is listed in the website links below that would do more justice to the vast number of these games then I could possible begin to. Sufficed to say, if there’s a flavor of boffer game out there you want to look into, that’s a good place to start looking.
Nordic Larp
One can’t have a conversation about LARP right now without discussing Nordic Larp. The tradition is so huge in the art house style gaming sector in Europe that it has come over to spread its intense live-action joy over in the US. What’s Nordic Larp about? A great place to start learning more is in the Nordic Larp book, a whopping beautiful full-color textbook of a read by Jaakko Stenros and Markus Montola. This book breaks down the ideas behind the Nordic Larp movement as well as discusses the important games that have been done over the years. Recently the book was recognized for excellence by winning the 2012 Diana Jones Awards at GenCon. While this book is difficult to get your hands on in the US, it is worth what you need to do to get a copy. (I carried mine back all the way from Norway!)
Other resources on Nordic Larp include the journals for the Nordic Larp conference Knutepunkt. Well, its called Knutepunkt when its in Norway. Otherwise it is called Solmokohta in Finland, Knutpunkt in Sweden and Knudepunkt in Denmark . But the journals from these amazing conferences have some fantastic writing about Nordic Larp including theory discussions, game breakdowns and insightful essays. The physical copies are hard to track down except in Europe but they are available in PDF format. The easiest place to find them all? Linked to this Wiki entry! (Thank you to Nathan Hook for pointing me in this direction).
If that doesn’t give you something to start with, some more links to blogs and websites below will supplement all the Nordic Larp reading madness.
Freeform Games
Want games with a little less crunch that employ a lot of the techniques of Nordic LARP? Look no further than the freeform or jeepform games being developed the world over. This style of games is focused largely around the Fastival conference out of Denmark and a great blog post by Lizzie Stark can give you the lowdown more on what this kind of games are all about. A great example of a game like this would be lots of work done by Emily Care Boss, like her relationship game Under My Skin. I’m still dipping my toes into this kind of LARP form but its influence has certainly unburdened me of the notion that system is a rigid form for storytelling in the hobby.
LARP Scenarios
Not all LARPs come in books of course, or even giant PDFs. Sometimes people write LARP games that come in single PDFs that are easy to access, print out, and play with your friends. These are often scattered all across the internet but a few locations have them all compiled for your downloading pleasure. I put these here because each of these LARPs is almost a unique book in their own right, and having a location to find them all is brilliant.
The first location is this LARP Scenarios posting on RPGnet’s Wiki. It’s got, no joke, more scenarios linked then I know what to do with, and each of them could be a fun encounter or event planned for your group. Special thanks to Nathan Hook for passing this along to me, I’d completely forgotten.
From here we go over to books about LARPs themselves, specifically books that chronicle specific LARPs and document the events. This documentation is a very European concept in games but has been imported by folks like Lizzie Stark and Sarah Lynne Bowman to capture the ephemeral nature of LARP games. While there are bunches of these books, two stand out in my mind in particular as impactful of my understanding of other LARPs and how they work.
The first is The Book of Kapo, edited by Claus Raasted. This book chronicles the Nordic game Kapo, which allowed players to experience simulated life in a ruthlessly bleak prison camp. The game was extremely well documented with extensive interviews with players and many photos and the book goes full color to showcase the full impact of the event. This book is also a little difficult to put your hands on as its availability seems to be mostly in Europe, but there are PDF versions available online.
A second book is a US creation this time. The book of the US run of the game Mad About the Boy, edited by Sarah Lynne Bowman with layout by Claus Raastad, chronicles the work done to bring over the amazing Nordic game about a world where all the men have died and society is run by women. Inspired by Y: The Last Man this game has been impactful in gender discourse in games and the book spends a lot of time documenting in detail the experiences of the all-female cast of this one-shot American run of the game. The book is available in PDF format here.
Speaking of Claus Rasstad, another book for calling out is 100.000 Swords Can’t Be Silenced. This gorgeous PDF book, also by Rollespils Akademiet, is a short introduction to LARP with some amazing full color photography. Its intended to be an intro for kids but this book could be an example for all new LARPers. Its got some interesting things to say about framing violence in games too as presented to children that can apply to the discussion about violence in games in general.
Another of note, suggested to me by larp writer and fellow American visitor to KP Christopher Amherst is The White War, the documentation of a well-known game “about culture clash in an occupied land.” I have JUST gotten my hands on this PDF thanks to the Rollespilsakademiet website (to which we owe much for many PDFs listed here) but I’m fascinated to give it a read. And kind of sad I didn’t grab the physical text while I was in Europe. (My suitcase was only so big!)
Books About LARP (Non-Fiction)
So now we head away from game books themselves and start talking about books that talk ABOUT LARP. These non-fiction books are not exactly entirely academic and so they get their own category away from the textbook section (see below). There are two that I would put forward as great examples of this category.
The first is the well-known Leaving Mundania by Lizzie Stark. A well-known writer and journalist, Lizzie spent time immersing herself in the world of LARP to research for this book, throwing herself into a boffer game for months and traveling all over the country to speak to gamers at conventions and events. The result is an intimate portrait of the hobby from the people who play it in many different ways told from the inside. The book’s widely available and is supplemented by articles on Lizzie’s blog.
The second is a collection of essays called Immersive Gameplay, by Evan Torner and William J. White. This book has a collection of discussions about roleplaying and the importance of immersive games in media in general. While not only discussing LARP, this book bears mentioning as well for great input on the conversation.
Another I’ll mention but that’s a little dated is The Book of LARPby Mike Young. This book has been around for a while and is an easy in for early discussions about what is LARP. It includes some basics and deserves a look for those who want to know more early discussion about the hobby. It’s not that easy to find these days either however.
I’m also going to include here Ethan Gilsdorf’s Fantasy Freaks and Gamer Geeks, the biographical exploration of one man’s journey to reconcile his geekiness. As a long time nerd who has mixed feelings about the hesitation lots of nerds feel about embracing the hobby, I found the book difficult starting off but thoroughly enjoyed it overall.
Then there’s Hamlet’s Hit Points, a fantastic resource about writing games by game design legend Robin Laws. This book is an essential tool for writing good roleplaying games, focusing on the traditional act structures of theater and film to instruct GMs how to craft better narratives. I almost hesitated to include this only because there are many writing books about roleplaying that I might do a separate post about but for now it deserves a place. (UPDATE: Do to the large number of just roleplaying and writing suggestions, I will be doing another post about this after all).
Perodicals
While magazines about LARP are not as common, there is one in particular that I collected with some happiness. Playground was a LARP magazine collecting essays about Nordic LARP experiences and techniques, commentary and controversy. It is my infinite sadness that the magazine has unfortunately stopped being published, but there are still some issues out there to be tracked down (predominantly in Europe).
I’ve been looking for more magazines also but I believe most of them are in Europe and I’ve not found as many so far. Also, honestly, the age of the blogsphere seems to be putting these magazines to bed. But if anyone knows of any more, toss them my way!
Academic Texts
So here’s where the rubber meets the road. You want more on LARP and you want to go Academic, there are a few books you can look at. Pervasive Games by Annika Waern, Jaakko Stenros and Markus Montola is an immediate go-to for me. The book not only talks about LARP but other pervasive (also known as big) games, such as ARGs. The book digs into the nuts and bolts of what makes these off the table and off the screen games work and the section on LARP is very well done.
Another book is called Functions of Role-Playing Games by Sarah Lynne Bowman. This book, while not just broken down to talking about LARP, discusses the psychological and sociological functions that role-playing games fill in society. A great piece of work by an amazing academic in the field!
An online academic resource to be found is the International Journal of Role-playing which acts as a gathering place for papers regarding roleplaying in all forms. Though not strictly about LARP, this resource is fundamental for anyone who wants to really get into the crunchy discussions about what makes roleplaying tick on a theory level.
There are many individual papers, doctoral theses and articles that could be included as well. However one particular one, On The Edge of the Magic Circle: Understanding Pervasive Games and Role-Playing by Markus Montola is, in my opinion, an important work on incorporating and understanding the construction of roleplaying games in relation to game design theory (such as the magic circle concept). Montola stands as one of the voices on pervasive games (as his above credit on the textbook shows) and his doctoral thesis stands as another example of why.
Blogs and Websites
And now the hard part. Blogs. There are LOTS of blogs that talk about LARP from across the world and tons of websites too. However here I’m going to list just the ones that I can think of off the top of my head that I read on a regular basis. These blogs have articles that discuss LARP events, theory and discourse that can provide great insight into the hobby. Take ’em as they come.
LARPing.org – This beautiful website has articles that cross the spectrum of games across the country. I highly recommend it for an eyeful of beautiful photos and thought provoking discussion. One of their best resources is also a list of games in all parts of the world, but especially by state in the US so check that out. (Also: support their visit to ComicCon!)
Nordiclarp.org – Want to know more about the Nordic scene, events and talks going on about the form? Check out this website. Its constantly being updated and has tons to say. They have a wiki too which is fantastic and a forum! Most of it is in English!
Dymaxion: A Nordic LARP Discourse – Want still more on Nordic LARP? This extensive breakdown on the Nordic LARP tradition includes videos and information about just what is Nordic LARP (a conversation and discussion that has been going on for a long time).
LARP Doctor – This website is completely new to me but its been suggested by a number of folks for great LARP articles. I’m really digging the discussions about great storyteller habits. (Also: support their visit to ComicCon!)
Confessions of a Wrathful LARPER – This blog run by Craig Page of the tri-state area LARP scene has many great articles about issues and ideas in LARP. I’d check it out for easy, fun and thoughtful reading.
Peter Woodworth’s Blog – You can’t get much better than Peter Woodworth’s writing on LARP. His discussion on play tactics are some of the best around and his advice on how to be a great player can inform designers on how to encourage such gameplay.
Lizzie Stark’s Blog – Informed by her experiences researching Leaving Mundania, Lizzie Stark has become one of the leading US voices in LARP, especially as an advocate for the Nordic tradition. Her advice about LARP on the blog and cross-posts about other great things going on in the hobby are fantastic for keeping track of the art-larp scene overseas and here in the states.
Nathan Hook’s Blog – Nathan Hook is a fantastic LARP academic from England whose articles have appeared in numerous publications over the years. His continued work on his blog is a worthwhile addition to any reading list.
The Larpwright – Eirik Fatland’s blog has multiple articles about LARP that highlight why he’s such a crucial figure in discussions about LARP theory overseas. I highly suggest his blog to anyone interested in technique discussion focusing on Nordic traditions, but his talks in general about how LARP can help us understand things like war are fascinating.
I am forgetting things. There’s no way I’m not. But this is a great start for a reading list that is very, very long. There are more projects in development which I’m looking forward to, including an upcoming book on writing LARP scripts and an encyclopedia of roleplay that will have tons of information on the history of LARP. But for now, this is the list that I’ve got. I hope you find something that fits your fancy.
Updates on 11/23 include: Additions such as the Larp Scenarios wiki page from RPGnet, Nathan Hook’s blog, spelling errors and link problems, 100.000 Swords by Claus Raastad, Shelter in Place, new boffer games added, Markus Montola’s doctoral thesis, Hamlet’s Hit Points, and a few more.
This is the first of a few articles writing up my experiences regarding running games at this year’s DexCon 2013. The reason this one convention is broken down into several articles? My team ran three LARPs this year. That’s right, we took on the monumental task of working on three games at once over the last few months and presented those games within a single twenty-four hour period. It was an exhausting, exhilarating experience and I’m going to break it down from my perspective in my post-convention recovery period. (And there is a recovery – I am one exhausted game designer).
Please note: this post is meant to be as extensive a documentation of the game from a design perspective as I can get. When possible, pictures and other evidence of design are included. All photos unless otherwise indicated were taken by Matt Yanega or me, Shoshana Kessock.
Game Name: Battlestar Galactica – Tales of the Rising Star (Game 1 – “Straight On Til Morning”)
Created By: Phoenix Outlaw and Last Minute Productions
Design Team: Shoshana Kessock, Michael Maleki, John Adamus, Josh Harrison, Kat Schoynheder, and Ericka Skirpan
Technical Production Crew: Matt Yanega, Joe Auriemma, Abigail Corfman, Justin Reyes, Ashley Teel
Location: A Double Exposure DexCon 2013 Signature Event (Hyatt Morristown, New Jersey)
How This Happened: Both myself and my team, Phoenix Outlaw Productions, have been running games at the Double Exposure conventions for several years now. After Dreamation in February of this year, I had a conversation with Michael Maleki, who heads up Last Minute Productions. He and I talked about the idea of a Battlestar Galactica game on Friday night of the convention. Apparently on Saturday he mentioned it to Vincent Salzillo, the head of the convention, and Vinny approached me the very same day. He said that he would like to see Battlestar Galactica made into a signature event at DexCon. That meant that we would be producing bigger than we normally did in parlor/theater style games. We’d have to pull out all the stops. I agreed and Mike and I brought our teams together to produce “Straight On Til Morning.”
The Premise:Tales of the Rising Star was an ambitious idea inspired by the amazing work done by the Monitor Celestra team overseas and fantastic full-immersion games like PST Productions Terrorwerks. The notion was trying to design a convention game inside the confines of a ballroom setting that would harken to the Celestra’s immersive atmosphere through prop-building and a focus on more freeform roleplaying styles. Players would get the chance to play one of five groups of characters aboard the Rising Star, a medical ship in the Colonial Fleet, as it escapes from the devastating nuclear attack on the Twelve Colonies of Kobol. Officers, Marines, Engineers, Medical Officers, Scientists and Civilians would work together to keep the ship from being destroyed as they dodged Cylon ships, tricky jumps, and of course internal pressure as they try to decide if they’ll join the ragtag fleet of Commander Adama or go their own way.
The Preparation: The game preparation began months before DexCon between myself and the team. We realized that this was a game on a scope that was new to almost all of us: a seventy person game with more prop building and system development than we had handled before. Most of us were used to dealing with games that either a) had lower physical build, b) less players or c) an already established game system. As it was, we were creating a great deal of set design for the game for a max of 75 players and were building an entirely new system to boot. So we broke down the portions of the design, split the work load, and rolled into production.
Build-wise, Mike and his team spent 20+ hour weeks building a nice sized engine prop with working lights and switches for the Engineers, painted nerf guns for use and designed simple mechanisms like cat litter buckets to hide items in. At the same time he coordinated with Abigail Corfman, our computer technical director, who created an interactive DRADIS system to detect Cylons, as well as a system to show characters how much fuel, oxygen and power the ship had. This system was controlled by Abigail herself during the game, hidden behind a screen where she could directly respond to things like jump coordinates that were input into the system.
On the game mechanics side, John Adamus worked with Mike Maleki and Josh Harrison to create the actual system. It drew upon the idea that we wanted the game to be very role-play heavy versus skill-check focused. To that end, all players had three stats to differentiate their strengths and weaknesses from one another. They also had two professions that gave them special abilities they could call upon during game. All challenges were time based. A character would need to stay and repair or heal or calculate for a certain amount of time to accomplish their task, where abilities could cut down on time to use their skills. The currency of the game was Mental Energy (ME) that was expended to do tasks. Items in game, such as drinks or food could bring back Mental Energy. So could spending time with Civilians, which kept them integral to more technical characters. That, then, was pretty much it – the system was meant to support a simple ‘yes, and-‘ improvisational role-play model that encouraged players to support and carry along the story with their actions. This system development was extensive, going through nine drafts before it was codified.
Storyteller Ericka Skirpan in character as the pregnant Minister of Health and rival for Laura Roslin’s presidency.
Then came the characters. We were creating pre-generated characters for all the players, which meant that there had to be 75 individual characters created and available to players. In the past, I had focused on writing extensive backstories for players that interwove them not only into the plot but into each other’s backstories. However with a group this large, that amount of writing for one person would be prohibitive. Instead, we chose to focus on creating short but concise backstories that included: a) a few lines regarding the characters backstory, b) personality traits and c) how they reached the Rising Star in the wake of the Cylon attack. Then we looked at the colonies themselves as inspiration for ways to give roleplaying hints to players. Each character was told their colony and given some suggestions as to the stereotypes for that colony. Additionally we integrated a mechanic I heard about from the Monitor Celestra team, which were roleplaying suggestions at the bottom of a character sheet. For example, a Raptor pilot who had lost his whole family on Picon might be ‘a burnt out stim jockey looking for his next score’, or else ‘a haunted survivor intent to help out his fellow crew’. We provided three options and let players take inspirations from these ‘might be’ hints, giving them the agency to select their own character motivations and goals.
The characters were also split up between their profession groups – Civilian, Officers, Marines, Engineers, Scientists, Medical- and each section was assigned to a storyteller. That storyteller was responsible for not only writing the characters but organizing their backstory ties to other characters, as well as taking charge of the plot lines that would be seeded into each of the groups. Puzzles, challenges and plot goals were designed by each of these storytellers.
So we went. And we wrote. And we built. And printed sheets again and again. And finally we came to game.
The Game: Right off the bat there were challenges. First, massive printer snafus caused paperwork mayhem at game check-in. Characters that were assigned were not where they were supposed to be. Then came the build. It began at noon with the build team going straight on until right before game on at 6PM. At six, we gathered the players outside in the hallway in their self-selected profession group and gave them a chance to look over their sheets. Then at 6:30 came the system briefing. Just before 7PM we went in character and so it all began.
The Civilians debate the future of the Colonial government.
Players dove in to their characters with gusto. Engineers raced around the ship to keep the Rising Star flying against missile attacks, shrapnel issues, and various failures and shortages. The bridge crew stayed at their stations and monitored situations thrown at them by Abigail, as well as monitoring communications with other ships (including guest communications from ships left behind by the Galactica due to no FTL and a discussion over the comms with Colonial One towards the end). The Marines secured the halls and lead sortees into space depots where they encountered toasters (of course) that shot them all to hell. The Civilians politicked in the bar while dealing with a mysterious illness that the Scientists and Medics had to try and counteract, or else see the entire ship wiped out by illness.
Meanwhile, storytellers and out of character techs for the game moved around the space wearing white masks. Players were instructed that if they saw anyone in a white mask, they were invisible… Until they touched a player on the shoulder. At that point the player would be able to see and hear everything they said. This was inspired of course by the Cylon projections in the series, specifically the proclivity of the Six Cylon to touch Baltar on the shoulder. This technique for play was inspired (nay, nearly lifted directly) from one used in the Monitor Celestra game in which staff wearing red would do exactly the same thing. Cylon projections spent their time poking at the buttons built into the characters and helping provoke, terrify and inspire them.
It would be impossible to tell all the stories from that five hour game, but some highlights included:
A Virgon reporter getting her foot shot off for trying to make a run past the Marines to confront the Captain.
A lost Viper pilot lands aboard the ship and finds himself unsure if he’s hallucinating or receiving visions.
An opportunistic Engineer decides to frak stealing supplies and instead saves his commanding officer, throwing him over his shoulder as he escaped a Cylon attack aboard a supply depot.
A Priest of the Lords of Kobol begins receiving visitations from an apparition that promises to lead him to the One True God, and throws him into a crisis of faith under a hail of nuclear missiles.
A lone engineer braves a decompressing airlock to help repair the ship, only to be accidentally vented into space when her crew vents a discovered Cylon device without checking if the airlock is empty first. Her inconsolable brother tries to get the captain to send a Raptor out to get her body, but is refused. Despondent over the loss, he chooses to commit suicide out of the very same airlock.
The civilians decide that they do not accept Roslin’s ascension to the Presidency and decide to challenge it based on their own delegates aboard. The discussion of whether they were committing a military coup against Roslin was put on hold as a base star appeared and they joined to Ragnar Anchorage to join the fleet, and potentially a very tense political situation.
Brace for impact!
An engineer rescues his compatriot from a Cylon attack at the supply depot.
The military versus the ‘secured’ civilians.
A lost Viper pilot rescued by the Rising Star.
“Throw the frakin’ thing out the airlock!” They just didn’t check if someone was inside before they vented…
The Marines debate their control over the Rising Star.
As can be seen by anyone who watched BSG, the events in the game were following the miniseries plot but did not necessarily follow the canon exactly. The Rising Star is a canon ship that is mentioned in the series several times, but events aboard the ship in our game are now in the hands of the players. The game ended with the ship joining the fleet at Ragnar (or at least executing the jump to get there!) but from there, who knows what will happen?
The Wins: The success of this game truly came down to the fluid storytelling style we designed for the game. The team created instances we would put into play around a looser framework of events we would throw at the players. However, for the most part the events were being written by the players themselves. The events in game are completely created by the players and whatever happens from here will be set by the characters in game. (And yes, that means that a sequel game is already in the works for next year). I would also say that the game could not have succeeded had the players not embraced the notion of cooperating to create the best story. To use a Nordic term, these players truly embraced playing to lose often. Who could have imagined a player choosing to throw himself out the airlock in despondency over his sister? That moment set the tone for the story for the evening and drove home the sadness of Battlestar so hard, all because a player chose to let himself (and his character) go.
The Not-So-Wins: Every game has its issues and this one did as well. One thing we discovered was the difficulty of integrating the profession groups together within the game play. The military, of course, was interested in locking down their ship and keeping the non-military characters isolated. That lead to a number of characters trapped inside either the ward room (which became the bar very quickly) and the medical bay. While some players were able to talk their way out into the rest of the ship, that left a number of people left inside one room or another for a large part of the game. It took a more active player to get themselves out into the rest of the plot, and some frustration was felt by players who didn’t know what was going on because of their isolation. This came down to a mix of the profession set up and the proficiency of the military characters at locking down the ship, but it was definitely something the team looked at for the future.
Then there were the technical issues. We had aimed large for the game and had lots of issues with our build, from lights that didn’t always work correctly, expensive lighting bulbs that broke in transit, speakers that shorted out the day before the game, and walkie-talkies for an intercom system that were unusable days before. We won’t even get into the printing and paperwork problems brought on by a complete failure of Staples to print things correctly. All were logistical issues behind the scenes that gave us roadblocks. In the end, myself and Mike Maleki as team heads agreed that we would have to scale back from what we originally intended based upon one simple problem: economic constraints.
The Final Analysis: The game seems to have been a glorious success. Players overall responded positively both in person and online on the Facebook group. The feedback we received as well from the convention organizers said that they would like to have us back for next year, and we’ve already agreed that we’ll probably continue the story of the Rising Star. We have some technical and storytelling lessons we’ve learned, but now we have one year to grow our design.
For now, however, we get to sit back with a glass raised to a great bunch of frakin’ players, the games that inspired us before (all hail the Monitor Celestra and her amazing team!), the convention that hosted us, and the people that came together to make this happen. So Say We All!
Players of ‘Tales of the Rising Star’ – DexCon 2013
When I was accepted into NYU’s first MFA class for Game Design, I knew I was going to want to do my graduate thesis on LARP. Despite the possibility of doing anything else related to games, I was sure that live action role-playing games were going to remain my focus throughout the program. That obviously hasn’t changed. I’m still a die-hard LARP enthusiast and I believe that there is so much to be talked about and written about and explored when it comes to the game medium. Recently, I was asked to put together my thesis proposal in preparation for my second year at the Game Center. Now that it has been accepted, I’m very pleased to introduce my thesis project to you.
My project is tentatively called Living Games, and I will be organizing and running a LARP conference at NYU in 2014.
Sounds ambitious? It is. The conference will (potentially) bring together LARP designers, enthusiasts, academics and professionals from across the world to spend two days talking about live action games. The conference is meant to bring together people from all forms of LARP, from theater/parlor games to boffer and Nordic and freeform traditions as well. Attendees will get to listen to lectures, sit in on discussion breakout groups, challenge themselves in a LARP game jam and then participate in games featured by attending designers.
Additionally, LARP scholars will be able to submit papers to a journal that will be curated alongside the conference by yours truly. A call for papers will be put out at the beginning of the fall semester with a physical journal to be released along with the conference, tentatively to be scheduled for April or May.
Like I said, ambitious.
Folks have asked me why I wanted to make this my project. I could have done anything. I was first of a mind to write a book on LARP, inspired by great writers like Jaakos Stenros, Markos Montola, Sarah Lynne Bowman, Evan Torner and Lizzie Stark. I could also have run a LARP or a set of LARPs and then reported on my work with documentation and perhaps an academic analysis of my work. Yet the fact of the matter is, I do plan on writing a book about LARP but I think the project would be much longer than a graduate thesis. And I run LARPs already on a regular basis, as well as work on writing experimental ones in my spare time. So that would not be a new experience for me. Moreover, while those are worthwhile, they don’t fill my one burning interest right now.
I really want to bring together folks who love LARP as much as I do to talk about why LARP matters.
LARP as a game design form gets a bad wrap. It has a public relations problem, it has an inter-geek community relations problem, and it has an inter-tradition problem between different branches of the hobby. It doesn’t have a ton of bodies of work to pull on for those inside and outside the community, and it often gets folded into other forms of roleplaying games when the design challenges and opportunities in LARP are often unique to the medium. Still, LARP stands as a performative games medium that can not only be a force for artistic expression all its own, but can serve to teach and inspire other forms of game design and collective storytelling… if its merits can be heard.
Moreover, if there were more places within the community to discuss and share ideas, the form could grow and evolve even further than it already has. There are great places already doing this around the world, like Knutepunkt, Intercon, Wyrdcon, Fastival, the Double Exposure conventions and more. Hell, I’m sure there’s plenty I’m not even aware of out there (but I’m dedicated to finding out about). Now, I’d like there to be one in New York, under the auspices of a great university like NYU with a history of supporting innovative artistic endeavors.
So that’s why I’m doing what I’m doing. In the coming months you’ll hear more about the project as it evolves. There will be a lot of learning curve for me – fact is, I’ve never run a conference before. There’s plenty to consider and not as much time as I’d like to do it in, but I’m going to get there. I’ll be reaching out into the community to find people who want to attend and especially people who might be able to help. There’s got to be other people out there like me, who’d love to see another meeting place for LARP minds springing up on the East Coast, and I’m going to do my best to find those folks and get us together to make it happen. The details? Well, the devil’s in ’em and I’m going to wrestle with that as we go along.
For now, this is the course I’m on. Let’s get it started.
