Nordic Larp

Month: October 2014

  • Larp Report: Clockbottom

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    Larp Report: Clockbottom

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    A journey through horror, steampunk and mystery

    Clockbottom was a larp set in America during the Civil War, with a steampunk twist and elements of horror. About 120 participants from seven different countries gathered during one weekend of September to act out the mysteries in the mining town of Clockbottom. Myself, I played the village’s protestant preacher. It was a role that enabled me to mix with dusty miners, fancy bankers, and everything in between. I liked this a lot, since it allowed me to pursue plots across groups and status levels.

    This was my first larp of both the era (1800s) and genre (steampunk/horror). There were both experienced and first-time-larpers among the players, as well as a variety of backgrounds (reenactment, larping, steampunk-nerds, and so on). Since there were participants from all over Europe, the entire larp was played in English with the exception of some characters with Swedish or Danish ancestry (they could therefore speak those respective languages as well).

    There is much to say about this larp, not the least regarding the impressive amount of detail in props or the awe-inspiring generosity and inclusiveness in gameplay. I will try to highlight a few phenomenons that stood out in my eyes.

    Prologue and the Mine

    It is the first time she has had reason to travel down into one of the mines since her arrival in Clockbottom. The air is cold, damp, dark. Yes, it is as if the air itself is dark down there. She cannot help but wonder if this is what being buried alive feels like. The kind woman’s voice instructing them in safety matters upon entering the mine is reassuring though, as is the attentive presence of the timekeepers. She stays close to Witte, knows he will look out for her here as he does in the village. The miners are unrestful, uncertain. What awaits them in here is not only a return to God’s honest work, but a return to the loss of beloved ones. Will there be bodies? A new kind of stench?

    One thing that the Clockbottom larp presented, that I have not seen done before, was a prologue. This was a 1-2 hour scene available for those who so desired it, meant to set the tone for the later opening of the larp as well as offering nearly all characters a chance to partake in a common scene no matter their alignments or statuses.

    ClockbottomThe prologue took place in the mine that was later used in-game. The organizers struck a good deal with the mine company, in which the larp had the use of the mine for free in return for some real work done in there (shovelling gravel, mostly). To have an actual mine to play in was extraordinary what with feeling, immersion and understanding. Unfortunately the mine itself was located about half an hour by car from the larp village, so travelling between the two meant some off game time for those with characters there.

    I initially signed up for the prologue to get to see the mine, as my preacher would not spend in-game time there. However, it soon turned out that it was a magnificent way of trying out your character, build some spontaneous relations and plots, and to bring back a shared experience to the actual larp. It is a concept I would love to see more of at other events, perhaps incorporated among pre-larp workshops like this one was.

    A Multitude of Larps in One

    They have not yet reached the true conclusion of the cipher when she is presented with two sheets of paper. Apparently they have been found inside the propeller resting by the piano in the bar. She is perplexed, cannot fathom how something so secret can be hidden in plain sight and yet remain unfound until now. The content of the papers shocks her to the core, however, quite unprepared as she is for such truths to unravel after all this time. It is the last will of her predecessor, Reverend Smith. She has found no facts regarding his life before, has been met only with silent tongues and shifting eyes when inquiring among the townsfolk. And apparently there was much more she did not know.

    Something that to me speaks of a well-planned or well-played out larp, is when there are “many larps within the larp”. Not only as in different plotlines, but when there are actually different types of stories or sub-larps amongst different parts of the player pool. Clockbottom had this multitude of larps to a great extent. For example, the workers had gang- and poverty-related play, the soldiers had skirmishes and soldier-play, the villagers had everyday village life (intercepted by mysteries), the preachers had a lot of religious play and the scientists had their research and experiments. The company administration even found themselves in a spontaneous meta-larp “by telegraph” (which the organizers ran) around selling and buying company stocks. Naturally, this also becomes a believable backdrop for players not currently participating in a certain sub-story.

    ClockbottomWhat connected everything more than other plotlines, however, was the great mystery plot of Clockbottom’s darker secrets. I do enjoy mystery solving in a larp, and have played many such roles over the years. One problem that too often arises, is when players figure out the solution “too soon” and are left spending the last day of the larp in some kind of waiting state. I was concerned that this would happen here as well, since we solved a lot of the clues during the first day. Alas, I should not have worried.

    It is the most extensive mystery plot I have encountered, and with such detail in props and clues. Altogether, there were ciphers and codes in Latin, ancient Greek, hieroglyphs, numbers, Cherokee, Bible references and music, apart from the regular notes, diaries, letters and articles in English. There was a copper tablet inscribed with hieroglyphs, there was a full research journal in a multitude of languages and there was an alluring cryptex. Initially, we were three or four people trying to investigate. On the last day of the larp, we were more like twenty I would say. Also, an aspect that furthered the game was that many characters (pre-written by the organizers) held tiny pieces of the puzzle that only made sense together, thus encouraging those pursuing the truth to inquire amongst any and all in the village.

    Horror Effects

    The crystal clear notes of the eerie tune will haunt her to the end of her days, she knows it even as she hears it there, for the first time. It holds her in place stronger than the fiercest of chains, marks her mind for insanity as surely as water flows downwards. Not yet perhaps, but it will come. The utter terror that fills her veins makes her simultaneously unable to move and acting on impulse. Her voice sounds strangely strangled as she once more calls out, and no one could ever pretend that her words appear intimidating anymore. It is more of a croak, more of a pointless motion to be gone through. Then a pause, a held breath awaiting an answer while frozen lips pray to a God that is far away, too far away, that none such will come.

    But it does. Oh, it does.

    ClockbottomApart from the steampunk-Civil War genre, Clockbottom was most definitely a horror larp. Several elements aided in this, not the least the full moon and lingering mist that adorned the village every night. However, there were items and events presented by the organizers that truly laid the base for this feeling of terror. Some were more easily achieved, like the melody that became the tune connected with madness, ghosts and devilry, or the use of “shadows” -a meta-technique where certain “non visible” players whisper, coax or otherwise interact with the character players of the larp in a -during this larp – eerie manner.

    Other elements needed more planning. There were tiny sound devices placed around the village, playing five different tracks of “scary sounds” (ie whispers, child’s laughter or scraping noises) at random time intervals. These were really efficient in upping the feel of utter terror, I can confess to that. I must also mention the full-size, very realistic skeleton that was buried in the village graveyard months before the larp. She was unearthed twice during the weekend, and each time it was equally unnerving to find the meter-deep grave gaping open, the nailed-shut coffin lid thrown aside, and the skeleton grinning at us from its grave.

    Inter-player Communication

    That she has held sermons on top of children’s remains for three years… The thought is unbearable. At last they are gathered; preachers and townsfolk brave enough to take on this gruesome task. Walsh is there, silent and watching. Gibson and Mr Sommer are sturdy and clear-eyed, mayhap they have known about this, or about the murder. The miner who so bravely spoke of crawling in under the church to secure the box is found, and they are ready. Almost – she calls for more lanterns, they must have light. Oh, if they could but have done this in daylight.

    Inclusion and playing to lose are two terms that invite you to play generously and humbly (even though your character can be quite the opposite) in order to involve others in your play. The players of Clockbottom did this to such a degree that I was genuinely taken aback. I have not previously seen such generosity and inclusion at any larp I’ve been to, nor how quickly it became a game structure rather than something individual players did.

    Taking the great mystery plot as an example, there was never a question of stepping into a closed house with a select few to try and translate the codes. Instead, anyone who curiously lingered by the open table on the main street was invited to share their view on the current matter. Secret notes were shown to any and all who might hold the slightest clue; be it a miner or the company director. When embarking upon tasks in the night or to places we were not supposed to go, there was no real sneaking about. Anyone who happened by was warned about the gravity of the task, but not turned away. What with the plot clues spread all across the board, we probably couldn’t have solved the mystery without including as many people as possible either.

    ClockbottomWhat the cause for this high level of inclusion is, I don’t really know. Perhaps it was the instruction from the organizers on playing to lose. Perhaps it was a positive outcome from the mixing of larp cultures. Perhaps it was a standard set by in-game decision makers that others followed. Either way, I definitely hope to see more of this inclusive larping at future events I go to (and will of course try to do my part).

    One thing that I found strangely lacking regarding interplayer communication however, was the lack of just that prior to the larp. There was a forum, but only a few people posted there. I know that there were facebook groups for in-game gangs and groups, but as far as I saw they were not announced too clearly on the main event page. Shout-outs on the main event page rendered few replies from players. Since my character did not really belong to any groups, and since I didn’t activate myself in creating groups for, for example, the “holy folks”, I barely had any communication with others before the larp.

    I must confess that this silence amongst players made me a bit worried, and it felt rather unusual what with the plot planning and relation building that today counts as standard preparation for any Swedish larp. Now, based on the prologue and in-game initiatives this was not a problem during the larp at all. However, I must think that this could have presented a considerable threshold for people new to larping, or to people more shy or otherwise unsure of how to make contact with other players (unless they were in active groups already).

    Final Words

    While there have been smaller 1800s/steampunk larps, I think this was the first larger one that catered to a wider community of players. Although a possible cause for hesitation, it turned out that the gear for this setting was not too hard to come about, perhaps even easier than for earlier historical periods. Combined with the enjoyable aspect of meeting people from other larp cultures (nation wise as well as playing style-wise), I heard many express afterwards that this was a style of larping they’d definitely look into more. And I must say, I think there will be a lot more steampunk in the years to come.

    A note regarding things not addressed in this article:
    There was some discussion prior to Clockbottom, on the topic of the Cherokee being a part of the larp setting and the risks of cultural appropriation. As I neither played a Cherokee character, nor am of an ethnic group exposed to appropriation or negative prejudices, I did not feel best suited to present that here. There are other players much more eligible for that, and I might just miss the right angles due to my own lack of experience in the matter.

    All photos in this article are by Ida Mary Walker Larsen.

    You can find an in-game short story from Clockbottom by the author of this article, Emma Ström, here:
    http://goo.gl/8IfJX5

  • The Cure for the Stuffed Beast

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    The Cure for the Stuffed Beast

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    The unexpected problems of a game stuffed  with themes and plots and their working solutions.

    113_9714We made the most expensive game in Czech larp history, we had worked hard on it for a year and we had prepared almost 100 detailed pre-written characters. After the first two runs of the larp a lot of people said “It was alright.” This article is about searching for changes which would make the game better than “alright”.
    De la Bête was a larp inspired by the French legend about the Beast of Gévaudan. It captures 97 characters of hunters, prisoners, soldiers, merchants, scientists and nobles in 18th century France. Our goal as the authors was to make a  two-day-long dramatic larp with minimum downtimes, a game with interesting plots, twists and dilemmas for each character. To assure this will indeed take place, we decided to use pre-written characters and design almost only personal plots, few group plots and no global plot  with impact on all characters in the game. As a result we have written 110 plots, each directly involving on average four characters .
    Pre-written characters and game filled  with personal plots is in the Czech Republic a usual game design for chamber larps and is also quite common for dramatic larps up to 40 players. But it has never been consistently used for a game of such scale. The chosen design approach and the amount of content brought about several unexpected problems. We knew, that the number of personal plots will let us to a multi-thematic and also multi-genre game. In De la Bête you could find horror plots about the  price for knowledge and secret societies, adventure haunting plots about friendship and rivalry as well as a romantic storyline about a young noble love triangle. We thought that the game is big enough to hold all the genres if all the players walk down the same (purely dramatic) road of the three way model. Well, basically we were right about the ability to hold the genres, but not about the way how to do it.

    The Unexpected Complications

    After the first two runs of the game we decided for a massive redesign. But firstly we had to analyse what were the weak spots of De la Bête. Among others, we found these problems to appear during the game.

    Incoherent Plots

    Each character was involved in app. 5 plots. Couple of players considered the plots and the character itself as incoherent. All motivations of character were clear for us, because we spent a lot of time sharpening them. But we hadn’t been able to communicate them correctly to all the players. And they didn’t ask. This lead to omitting of a few plots which players found unfitting. Of course, the character’s input to the plot was missing to other players.

    Shallow Play

    Few players had more plots than they were able to play. They ignored some of them as in previous case. But more often this lead the players to shallow play. They were more “doing” and less “acting and feeling”: Declare love, checked. Business meeting, checked. Confront the rival in love, checked. Break up, checked…

    Inconsistent Subjective World

    The design based on  a huge number of plots resulted in inconsistent subjective game worlds. Basically, the players were overwhelmed by topics they came across during the game. Players thought: “It is fine that there is a haunted castle and night hunts, but a society of Freemasons? Come on… This is too much.” We didn’t realize during the game development how many personal plots will go public and that the players will have a problem to incorporate them to their subjective diegesis.

    Out of Context

    Even the scenes in the best movies could look stupid without proper introduction and when you don’t know the context. It is the same in a larp.

    A short personal story follows: Once, I was watching O’Connor’s Warrior and I was moved by the final fight scene. Suddenly, my wife came and she started laughing because she found the scene cheesy. She couldn’t get how emotional it is when Joel Edgerton strangles Tom Hardy while saying “It’s alright. I love you.” Even the scenes (or the whole topic) in the best movies could look stupid without proper introduction and when you don’t know the context. It is the same in a larp. We found how big problem this is when the end of the game was coming and most plots were going through catharsis. The players were shouting at each other, duelling, declaring love and dying. Everything in public as is expected from dramatic players. It led to over-escalated scenes without context, feeling of deaths inflation and no time to feel the impact of anything. This would not happen in a design with a global plot, where the catharsis touches every character.

    New Game Style

    113_3858Most of the problems rose from the unfitting game approach. At the beginning of the game development we thought that the game style of De la Bête would be the same as for drama larps for 40 players. Honestly, we didn’t think a lot about it, we considered it as a clear thing. In Czech a “typical” drama player is someone who tends to : 1) play to lose, 2) tell the character’s secret to as many other players as possible, 3) play the tense scenes in front of as many other players as possible and 4) whose goal is to make each separate scene as dramatic as possible. It works very well in most larps, especially chamber ones.

    We didn’t notice during the development that the approach wasn’t suitable for De la Bête and that it would cause the complications mentioned above. So we grabbed the chance to change it for the third run. The new approach was our guiding principle for all pre-game documents and workshops and we did an extensive review of all game content because of it.The new idea was that De la Bête should be played as a novel. More specifically a big French historical novel such Dumas, Balzac or Hugo wrote. Every player is telling the story of the main character through the game. There will be a number of subplots and supporting characters, but the player shall focus on the development of the character’s overall story,  where the character’s main theme plays  a crucial role.

    Main Theme

    The theme was in some form a part of the characters from the beginning, but we decided to formulate it explicitly. This is an actual in-game example of a character’s theme:

    Her main theme is the clash between responsibility to the community and personal happiness. She has to cope with the role of a moral authority, which is a new deal for her. New responsibilities and  expectations are brought in her life. What it means to be the chosen one? How could she combine  the responsibilities, which are arising from her position, and ordinary human happiness? And is it possible to love every creature of God and be fully committed to only one man at the same time?

    The theme unified the character’s plots and brought depth to the game. The players were guided to think about the overall character’s story all the time: What my character did and how is it connected to my theme? How is my theme developing and where is my character aiming? The overall storyline of a character in De la Bête was more important than separate scenes. Therefore, the scene itself can be less intense and dramatic, but the overall feeling will be way more coherent and impressive (and also immersive). A part of this game approach was also the ability to incorporate everything in the game to one´s own personal story (and theme) or discard it as useless for the character’s storyline. It can be labelled as subjective narrativism, which would be a subset of dramatical approach.

    The players were guided to think about the overall character’s story all the time.

    In the first two runs there were free organizers in the field ready to deal with players’ queries. For the third run we encouraged the players to talk about the story development with the organizers a couple times per day or at least to find the time to think about it. More frequent consultations were beneficial in several ways: 1) the players thought over their character story and theme, 2) we knew what was happening in the game, 3) we were able to discover  mistakes (i.e.  wrong times of meetings), 4) we had a chance to identify bored players in time and 5) we partially oversaw  the psychological comfort of players. After a day of the game we named the consult room as the Heaven (because the organizers were in contact with thrilled and excited player) and the backstage as the Hell (where the organizers had to deal with problems).

    In the pregame documents and workshops we tried to teach the players when, where and most importantly with / for whom they should play the catharsis of a character’s storyline. It should be the players who know the context and know what preceded the tense scene. During the 3rd run significantly less scenes took place in public and for example, deaths took place in family circles.

    Outcome

    113_3971According to the post-game questionnaire there were in the first two runs 32 % of excited players, 40 % of satisfied ones, 13 % of players who considered the game average, 11 % below average and 1 % as a bad one. The third run has much better rates : 71 % of excited players, 27 % of satisfied players with only 2 % of players considering  the game as average.  Nobody labelled the game below average or bad. Of course, there are more aspects than the redesigning itself, but we believe that these changes significantly helped the game and solved the “unexpected complications”. The theme connected character’s plots and pointed out interesting thoughts in individual storylines. The “novel approach” helped the players recognise what, when and with whom should the game be played and it brought about a strong feeling of game integrity to them.

    The problems raised in the first two runs are obvious to  us now, but we had to work hard to discover them. And even if the “novel approach” originated as a secondary solution for this specific game, I believe that it could be successfully used in other larps.

    All photos in this article by Lukáš Makovička.

    De la Bête

    Used Concepts: Pay and Play, Pre-written characters, traces of Fateplay, Act Structure, Persistent play, Aspiring to 360º illusion
    Credits: Adam Pešta (chief of production); David František Wagner (chief of game design and writing); Kamil Buchtík, Ondřej Hartvich, Lucie Chlumská, Mikuláš Pešta, Petr Turoň (game design and writing); Alice Ďurčatová, Slaven Elčić, Iva Vávrová (PR); Tomáš Bazala, Eva Mlejnková (costumes); Vít Filipovský (website); Alena Kučerová (accounting); Michal Olbert (pre-game photos); Rosenthal o.s., Rolling and another 30 people.
    Date:: 25–29 September 2013 1st run; 2–6 October 2013 2nd run;  28–31 May 2014 3rd run
    Location: Valeč Castle, Czech Republic
    Length: 2 days + 1 day of paralarp
    Players: 97 per game
    Budget: 1,000,000 CZK (36,000 €) for 3 runs
    Participation Fee:: 1,800 – 2,600 CZK (65 – 95 €)
    Website: www.delabete.cz
    Photos: http://makovicka.net/galerie.php?lang=cs&g=140709 and http://makovicka.net/galerie.php?lang=cs&g=131025 and http://pwx.rajce.idnes.cz/De_La_Bete/

  • Larp Census 2014

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    Larp Census 2014

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    The international larp census of 2014 has been launched, this is what the authors have to say about why you should answer it:

    Although some countries have rough estimates of their larp population, there has not been a comprehensive global census taken of self-identifying larpers on this scale. We really want to count everyone who larps, has larped, and wants to larp.

    The information we acquire will be publicly shared so scholars can analyze the data and make conclusions that will, hopefully, increase both the quantity and quality of larps around the globe.

    Check out and take the census here:
    http://www.larpcensus.org/