Nordic Larp

Year: 2021

  • Building a Fail-Safe

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    Building a Fail-Safe

    By

    Anne Serup Grove

    This is a tool to give yourself a place to rest but do so in character rather than leave the game. You can use this tool if you are going to a game where your character will take you out of your comfort zone or you will portray a heavy theme. This tool works for both prewritten and self-written characters.

    A fail-safe in the context of larp can be anything from a state of mind to a physical placement to a method where you can balance the intensity of your game. It’s a means to allow you to stay ingame at times when you are stressed and otherwise might need to go off game. To boil it down, it is about creating room for you while you explore the embodiment of your character.

    Questions to ask yourself:

    • What do you need to relax?
    • What helps you become centered?
    • What does your physical and mental safe space look like?
      • Is it introspective or extrospective?
      • Is it shared or alone?
    • What do you need in situations where you are under pressure?
      • Solitude or company?
      • Guidance or to lead or control?
      • Structure or freedom?

    Identifying Your Fail-Safes

    Here you find the five core personality types known as OCEAN, which is an abbreviation of the five core traits openness, conscientious, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism. We are seldom purely one of these types, but we can still use OCEAN to build an understanding of what kinds of spaces and fail safes we can design our game experience around.

    Personality type Type of space Possible fail-safes
    Open

    You are very creative and open to trying new things. You focus on tackling new challenges and are happy to think about abstract concepts.

    		 Social Gravitate towards close relationships where one can share experiences, be it with one carefully selected character/player or in a wider context e.g. where gossip is shared. If you cope well with a distraction (this requires knowledge about what you want/need to avoid) this is an option too.
    Conscientious

    You spend time preparing and are good at finishing important tasks first. You pay attention to detail and enjoy having a set schedule.

    		 Controlled Go into relations or scenes that have been negotiated. Focus on making sure you have agency in your relations, i.e. avoid relations where you are dependent on the other players to initiate play. You can also gravitate towards a location when you need to “touch base” with yourself or your group.
    Extravert

    You enjoy meeting new people and feel energized when you are around people. You may talk before you think. You enjoy being the center of attention, to start conversations and include others.

    		 Public Thriving in very social and public spaces, you might have a need to go all in and take center stage, be it a literal stage or in dramatic scenes. Being extravert you might also have a need for the opposite: solitude or extra calm places/mindsets. A close (intense)
    — not necessarily romantic — relation can be a good place to rest.
    Agreeable

    You have a great deal of interest in other people and care about others. You strongly feel concern and empathy. You enjoy helping, contributing and assisting others.

    		 Contemplative As you might tend to be a people-pleaser, make sure you create fail-safes that give you time to reflect on whether or not it’s your needs that are met or your need to accommodate others. You might find enjoyment in having characters that support others — this can be a safe space too.
    Neurotic

    You worry about many things and you find yourself getting stressed quicker than others. You can experience dramatic shifts in moods. It can take you a while to bounce back from a stressful event.

    		 Familiar Make sure you have players around you who know you. They can help you stay grounded. Ahead of the game, you should start deciding on physical places you can gravitate towards. If you relax well in contemplation, create fail-safes where you write letters, draw, or read. If contemplation makes you anxious, close relations with whom you can share your (ingame) feelings can help you relax.

    The chart offers an overview of the five personality types, what type of space they tend to gravitate towards, and ideas for fail-safes. Use the questions above to start the process of figuring out what safety is for you. Here are a couple of examples.

    Example 1 — offgame personality

    A player who wants to push their boundaries and play an extraverted character when they are far from one themselves. To accommodate their offgame personality and allow for them to stay in the game the character is designed around several different ways to be at center stage without being in the spotlight. This could be by: always introducing and including new people into conversations (open chair policy). Often seek out new conversation partners and get them to talk by showing deep interest in them. Rarely talk about themselves. And when needed, they could re-treat into a broody and closed mental space alone amidst it all. All these are ways of being deflective: Being in focus but not with attention on them.

    Example 2 — offgame energy management

    A character at a historic larp has two major themes 1) war trauma, violent, public outbursts of PTSD and 2) homosexuality in an era where this is punishable by death. Both themes have the potential to be extraordinarily heavy and the player is afraid they will end up spending more energy on this portrayal than they have or want to. To balance this out the player put the two themes on each end of a scale, where at each end the intensity are a volatile trauma and overt gayness.

    War trauma
    Volatile    		 ↔ Homosexuality
    Gayness

    This allows the player to balance one heavy theme by playing on the other and vice versa, creating room for both in their game experience. Ingame this scale functions as a coping method with two very different life circumstances.

  • After an Overstep

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    After an Overstep

    By

    Anne Serup Grove

    Humans — all of us — are often bad at being constructive when we’ve hurt others. Luckily, there are skills here we can train and improve. Everyone makes mistakes, but how we handle ourselves afterwards is what matters. This piece focuses on effective apologizing and personal growth, as opposed to ‘just saying sorry’. It examines what you can do in situations where you have been the transgressor and how to achieve a complete apology, including acceptance, knowledge and understanding.

    We’ll assume in this article that you don’t mean to cross anyone’s boundaries. If you do, though, your initial reaction may be to withdraw and exclude yourself from larp to keep yourself and those around you safe. You may also recognise a loss of trust, and feel shame accompanying it. What you need,, though, is to recover, heal, and move forward with confidence and trust in yourself. First we’ll look at rebuilding trust in yourself, and then at what it will take from you for co-players to rebuild trust in you.

    Where to Start

    Accountability and Responsibility

    It’s a personal call where a boundary is and when it has been pushed or crossed. Regardless of whether you share that boundary, it’s not your place to decide which boundaries should be respected. This type of accountability can feel like an attack, but it isn’t. Accountability is acknowledging that a line was crossed, and accepting how your behavior has harmed others. To start rebuilding trust you need to first process what has happened and then demonstrate responsibility with changed behavior.

    Taking responsibility as an adult doesn’t mean blurting out that you’re sorry immediately when you’ve caused serious harm. This isn’t how a real apology works and is likely more about you seeking relief from shame — and it can also put pressure on the person you’ve harmed, making things worse (especially if it’s a big public production of an apology) Instead, direct the focus away from yourself and onto the situation at hand. Show remorse by making it clear you understand that something has happened and that you take responsibility for doing something in response. Accountability will come as you process what happened and demonstrate that you have changed in ways that will help it not happen again. This may take time and work.

    Knowing as a Prerequisite for Change

    If you don’t know what you did, you won’t be able to change your behavior. If you know what you did (either because you were told or from your own processing) but don’t understand it yet, you have something you can work on. Intangible knowledge like “you made someone feel unsafe” isn’t enough to work with. You can reach out to the event organizers or the safety team and ask them to help you get the knowledge you need. This isn’t about getting them to solve the situation for you, but rather helping you get the knowledge you need to resolve things yourself. Remember to say this out loud — you know this is your goal but they might not.

    A Plan for Change

    You need a plan for how to change. Change lets you build trust in yourself. This is where isolation might feel right. Only do this with specific intent, after real consideration, and don’t isolate yourself from people who can help you. Use isolation as a meditative space where you can process what has happened. if you’re doing the work, you will either come to understand what happened, or conclude that you can’t yet, on your own — and this is where you should break your isolation, even though shame will tell you to keep handling it alone. You need feedback and help from others. Reach out to a friend, a safety person, a professional therapist, or all three. For larger or more serious transgressions, you’re likely to need more resources and more time.

    How to Apologize

    It is hard not to focus on ourselves when we apologize. We mean well, but it comes across as dismissive or explanatory and doesn’t rebuild trust. Here are two tools to help you apologize: the elements of a sincere apology, and the types of apology different recipients may need.

    1. Permission: Ask permission to apologise. Respect it if they are not in a place to receive your apology.
    2. Remorse: Show that you understand you hurt them. Directly say that you are sorry for what you did. We try to say this in many ways but often we are not good at saying it directly.
    3. Understanding: Show that you understand the impact of your transgression. This is about empathy, putting yourself in someone else’s shoes. This may be hard and it’s okay to say you don’t fully understand it yet.
    4. Change: Show what you have done and are doing to change. This is the promise you make on how to avoid this in the future.
    5. Forgiveness: Ask for forgiveness. It is not up to you if you are forgiven or not. Know that it might take time — you may not get it at this point.

    We have different temperaments, but Chapman and Thomas (2006) theorised we can be put into five categories when it comes to our preferred apologies. Considering what type or combination of types you would need yourself can help you understand what other people need. If you can understand what the person you’ve hurt needs from you, you’ll be better able to communicate a sincere apology.

    The Five Languages of Apology

    Expressing regret
    Is best done by verbalising your “sorry”. Those who fall into this category want to hear that you understand how you hurt them and that you regret what you have done. This is about acknowledging how you’ve affected them emotionally.
    Accepting responsibility
    Drop the excuses. Those who fall into this category don’t want to know why you did what you did, they want you to own up to the impact of it. Your intention doesn’t matter at this point. Explaining will not do you any good.
    Making restitution
    People in this category want to know how you plan to change your behavior so it doesn’t happen again. This is about being action-oriented and committed to the change. Words don’t mean much unless there’s a plan and action behind them.
    Genuinely repenting
    Why did you do it and do you still care? These people want to understand what happened, and whether you’re willing to do what they need to show that you repent.
    Requesting forgiveness
    This isn’t you being entitled to forgiveness but about you asking for it respecting their agency and the time it takes for them to grant it or not. Ask, give room, and pull away until they are ready to answer.

    Bibliography

    Gary Chapman & Jennifer Thomas (2006): The Five Languages of Apology. Gale Thompson.

  • Rituals of Being

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    Rituals of Being

    By

    Anne Serup Grove

    Routines and rituals define much of our lives. A routine, or an everyday ritual, is a reiterated, habitual or mechanical way of behaving. Regardless of whether you’re going to a larp with an everyday or an extraordinary storyline, they can be used as a tool to get a feel of your character before the game and to get or stay in tune with them during the game. Routines can serve several purposes:

    • Structuring an (ingame) day
    • Structuring the entirety of the larp
    • Strengthening the feeling of everyday, or alternatively,
    • Strengthening the feeling of an abnormal day when broken

    When you follow or break your rituals you can steer your experience towards the vision of the game or the game you want. If you have shared your routines with your co-players ahead of the game, they will know what you’re doing and be able to play into it too.

    To start forming routines, here are some questions:

    Situations Questions
    Waking up When and how does the character get out of bed?
    Morning routine What do they do before they start their day?
    Mealtimes How do they eat their meals? Are they different from each other – in what ways?
    Personal grooming What do they do before going to bed?
    Bedtime routine How do they get into bed?
    Ways around co-workers/formal relations What does a normal work/activity day consist of?
    Leisure time activities What do breaks from everyday activity look like? What would disrupt/ruin their routine?
    Ways around friends
    Ways around family / Alone time    		 How do they prefer to spend time with close relations/
    family? Do they like doing this at all?

    Example 1: Laura the Maid-of-all-work at Fairweather Manor

    In a game designed around work-related activities, the routines of everyday work may come to mind first, but your character will still have their own personal routines. The maid-of-all-work wakes up all other servants, but she gets up even earlier to savour the moment when she has the manor to herself. She spends that time sitting on the big staircase reading. She skips down the hallways knocking on doors — because no one is up to tell her not to do so. Then she goes down to the servants hall to first turn on the coffee and tea pots and she starts the cleaning of the servants quarters. She hums when she works. Her short and sporadic breaks are spent walking outside dreaming of dancing at a ball, and if she has the time she will write a letter home to the family on the farm.

    Example 2: Badger of the Machine Dogs at Blodsband Reloaded

    Badger wakes up and puts on the clothes and makeup that are specific to the Machine Dogs, a band of engine worshipping road warriors in a post apocalyptic world. She grabs coffee and finds a quiet spot in the sun, angrily staring at everyone before the coffee soothes her mood. Badger needs her coffee and the rest of the group knows to stay away. The rest of the meals are different, eaten while lounging on top of the cars. Whenever Badger has downtime or a quiet spot, she returns to the cars, half asleep on the hood she can feel connected to the engine — and her player can reconnect to the character´s core. Badger doesn’t have a need for personal space, so whenever she sits with other dogs, she’s always touching or sitting close to them.