Applying Kink Perspective for Top Drop and Aftercare in Larp
Editorial note: This article was originally published in the Knutpunkt 2026 book Seasons of Larp. It has been reprinted from there with the editors’ and authors’ permission. It has not been edited by Nordiclarp.org.
José Esteban Muñoz writes in Cruising Utopia that Queerness is an ideality, a “structuring and educated mode of desiring that allows us to see and feel beyond the present.” Larp communities share this communal desire; we come together – using the magic circle to carve out alternative realities as we cruise utopic and dystopic lifetimes, transported to alternative identities through roleplay. Muñoz argues in ‘Stages: Queers, Punks, and the Utopian Performative’ (2006) that “queer performance” is defined by “a refusal of mastery and an insistence on process and becoming” (15). This prioritizing of process and becoming infuses both kink and larp spaces, distinguishing these performance forms from others which establish repli-cable products to be sold under the banner of mastery for the consumption of audiences. Larp, then, as well as kink, are inherently queer performances, centered on the creation of alternative realities through shared emergent narratives and process-centered (rather than rehearsed) roleplay. Sometimes, however, in both the queer performances of kink and of larp, the roleplay in which we engage can create a need for additional care.
This chapter responds to Hernø’s (2024) article highlighting self-care practices for players engaging in transgressive or villainous play and the Solmukohta pre-sentation ‘Fears and Tears’ (Villarreal and Norwood 2024) which focuses on the concept of expanding larp cultures of care through the lens of Muñoz’s call for those engaged in queer performance to strive towards utopic visions for our performance communities. As cousins in queer performance, we identify ways in which larp facilitation can benefit from considering kink concepts. We use an educated mode of desiring to see beyond the present moment towards a future of larp design which embraces radical transparency in workshops, building off Hernø‘s suggestions of individual caretaking, to craft communal supports informed by top drop.
Kink and larp are infinitely variable; there is no one “correct” way to engage with either, and both are interpreted differently in disparate communities. The definitions and guidelines used throughout this document are grounded in the authors’ autoethnographic research, building upon scholarship in Queer Theory, Performance Studies, and Larp Studies. While we stress that there is no one way to participate in larp or kink, we must clarify the terms and concepts upon which we are building. Throughout this chapter, we refer to ”kink” as an umbrella term to describe activities that involve BDSM (the paired concepts of Bondage and Discipline, Dominance and Submission, and Sadism and Masochism) and fetishes. Although the popular perception of kink is an act that includes sexual arousal or sex acts, we acknowledge that this umbrella covers nonsexual acts, including other forms of pleasure outside of sexual: euphoria, catharsis, satisfaction, or things that escape definition.
Larpers and kinksters alike are familiar with the concept of drop – the emotional and physical low that begins anywhere from a few hours to a few days after the emotional and endorphin high experienced during a larp or kink scene. The overlap between these communities and concepts has been well-established in larp scholarship (Montola 2018, Stenros and Bowman 2018, Villarreal and Norwood 2024). Multiple types of drop exist: the phenomenological experience, onset time, duration, and emotional and behavioral impact of drop are shaped by biochemical and hormonal variations, as well as by our unique cognitive and behavioral patterns. An individual’s unique physiology shapes their experience of drop promptly after a scene (Sagarin et al. 2009; Sprott and Randall 2016), as their own brain chemistry, life experiences, and processing patterns impact the experience of drop.
As well as individualized differences in the experience of drop generally, there are multiple types of drop which activate distinct emotional responses. Generally, when drop is mentioned, larpers are most likely referring to the “Post-Larp Depression” examined by Bowman and Torner as an alienating experience that combines emotional bleed with the difficult experience during which “the mind must divest itself from the vivid social reality of the larp” while recovering from hormonal fluctuations caused by roleplay (158). Scholars have identified that this sort of drop, is shared among both larp and kink play (Harviainen 2011, Bowman and Torner 2016).
The kink community identifies sub drop – that experienced by the receiver of action – as separate experience from top drop, which is experienced by the doer of the action. Both parties undergo an intense experience together and similarly experience intense levels of drop, and both types of drop require aftercare. However, top drop is a unique experience, which has been identified by Sexualities researchers as “relatively independent of the cascade of hormones that are implicated in the more immediate experience” of general event drop (Sprott and Randall 2016) although both forms of drop can occur simultaneously, becoming a layered psycho-emotional experience. Top drop infuses self-doubt and guilt into the experience, as illustrated by Hernø (2024). Especially for those raised in cultures which eschew violence, we may find ourselves shocked, appalled by, or feeling guilty or ashamed of the actions taken in character. Perpetration-linked shame increases psychological distress and makes psychological healing more difficult and complicated (Canivet et al 2025); therefore, top drop layers onto general larp drop to make recovery more difficult for larpers of villainous players by negatively impacting our mind’s capacity to divest itself from the larp.
Following a 2020 run of Velvet Noir (2019, United States), a player recalled a non-playing character (NPC) role where they’d agreed to play the oppressor per another player’s request. The other player asked for a specific brand of anti-Semitism, listing specific slurs she wanted used against her. While the person playing the NPC felt uneasy, they agreed. During the scene, they provided the requested interaction, though they struggled with the extreme nature of some of the content and could not use some of the language requested. The room rushed to the oppressed character’s aid, rallied together to berate the NPC and physically remove them from the gameplay area, leaving them alone. The NPC player was shaken and disturbed, both berating themselves for the aggression they portrayed and for not having done enough as the oppressor. Feeling unable to reach out for support, they struggled to recover and reintegrate into play.
Sub drop tends to be somewhat alleviated by in-game aftercare; as in the above example, other characters often rally around the injured character and against the antagonist, providing care and support to the victimized character. This eases the immediate chemical responses to the heightened scene in ways that serve the player behind the character, as well, allowing the player who received in-game care to feel that their scene ended well, fueling “reductions in physiological stress (cortisol) and increases in relationship closeness” while participants who feel that their scene did not end with reconnection and support – typically the villain – do not have this same positive physiological response (Sagarin et al 2008). When the aggressor is punished or retaliated against in character, the player’s experience of self-doubt, shame, or guilt for even pre-negotiated aggressiveness is exacerbated. This leads to top drop following the scene which, if left unaddressed, can then complicate the player’s experience of larp drop following the event. Because the experience of top drop increases physiological stress through hormones – including, per Sagarin et al, both cortisol and testosterone, regardless of the player’s gender – the hormonal fluctuation compounds the already difficult experience of post-larp drop by changing the brain chemistry further, leaving the player with more to overcome.
Furthermore, many workshops introduce safety mechanics in a way that implicitly prioritizes the needs of the player who is receiving transgressive roleplay. For example: during Solmukohta’s 2024 Violence and The Feeling of Violence workshop, participants were paired and told to slowly escalate to increasingly violent acts “until tap out was needed.” This helped participants identify their boundaries when receiving violence; however, it unintentionally pressured participants committing violence to continue escalating until the participant receiving violence tapped out. If tap out was not reached, aggressors felt they were not giving their fellow participant “the full experience.” Because it was not directly mentioned that both sides could tap out, at least one participant needed to be told by their partner that they could tap out and set boundaries even as the “top” in this situation.
This method of receiver-focused practice is commonplace. In the larp Conscience’s (Spain, 2018) intimacy workshops, players were paired and instructed to practice the “tap out” mechanic by initiating slowly escalating actions upon their companion until the person receiving the actions tapped out. The players were then instructed to switch roles and repeat the practice – again with instruction reinforcing that the tap out would be done by the receiver of the action. Similar receiver-focused practice with swapping roles is used in many larp workshops, such as Helicon (Denmark 2024), Lord of Lies (Sweden 2021), and Velvet Noir. This practice is informed by the best of intentions: we want to protect the person we perceive to be most vulnerable and to ensure that transgressive play is not forced upon unwilling participants. But this fails to acknowledge that the person playing the villain’s boundaries may not perfectly align with the receiver’s boundaries. And desiring to play to lift, the villain-player can feel pressure to ignore their own boundaries, persisting until told to stop, as illustrated in the Solmukohta example above.
Receiver-focused training of consent mecha-nics subconsciously trains players not to prioritize the needs of those playing villains – and trains players of villains not to expect or seek care. Thus, both in role and out of role, the person perceived as victim often receives support by design, while players of villains’ experiences of multiple types of drop are compounded by the experience of other characters reacting negatively to, punishing, or ostracizing the villainous character in response to the villainy portrayed, while these players are often incidentally left without support out of role, as well. Hernø (2024) autoethnographically describes this experience: “during the larp, I started feeling increasingly bad. And after the larp concluded, I became riddled with guilt. I felt physically sick from what I had done to people I cared about, being the manipulative and scheming horror of a person behind many of the transgressive actions of the larp.”
Larps establish a Magic Circle – a “social frame, that has social rules of its own,” which together with alibi, invites participants into activities that they avoid in the mundane world (Järvelä 2019), although characters’ emotions and actions are real experiences which impact the participants (Burgoyne Dieckman 1991; Leonard and Thurman 2018; Stenros and Bowman 2018; Hedgard Hugaas 2019; Järvelä 2019). Similarly, kink scenes – encapsulated by predetermined space, time, expectations, and rules of engagement – exist within unique social frames, inviting performances that foster very real psycho-physiological responses for participants. While larping, continued role-play creates an emergent narrative which links scenes to one another without clear breaks, creating a durational experience in which the cultural expectation is to stay in character for the entire larp, limiting use of out of role spaces to “emergencies.” This often leads to situations where players of oppressor roles have little real opportunity for immediate out-of-role aftercare. As previously discussed, in-role aftercare can mitigate sub drop, but we invite larp communities to embrace tools informed by the kink community to better provide care for those playing villainous characters, so that they are not left entirely to fend for themselves as described by Hernø.
While Hernø calls upon antagonistic players to “make sure you at least have the support off-game,” these individual transports can be insufficient – especially for larpers who have not yet developed their own self-care practices or discovered those suggested by Hernø. Designers, however, can help mitigate the impacts of top drop by infusing a few simple shifts into workshop facilitation, implementing tools from the queer performance of kink practices into our own play. We offer the following tools larpers can incorporate into current practices: Radical Teaching Transparency, Training for Failure, and Multi-tool Approaches.
The kink community offers the concept of RACK – Risk Aware Consensual Kink (Switch 1999; Wignall 2020). The term encapsulates the process of acknowledging that every environment and action incorporates some level of risk; directly assessing the reality of risks which are likely to arise during play; and ensuring that participants are fully informed and capable of processing and consenting to these risks without coercion. This parallels theatre artists Villarreal and Rikard’s concept of Spaces of Acceptable Risk (2023), who acknowledge that the concept of “safe spaces” has been misappropriated from the queer community and invite organisers of creative processes such as larps to:
“acknowledge that no space is truly ‘safe’ due to the power imbalances that are ever-present and can acknowledge that being asked to remain ‘brave’ is a difficult task that requires more effort from those whose identities have been historically marginalized. […to] provide time, space, and actionable tools that can facilitate the process of caring for the needs of those who are concerned about their safety or about what might be emotionally triggering or emotionally activating. And […] ensure that these tools are practiced, modeled, and used. By using these tools, we support those who need care in asking for it without fear of retaliation.” (8)
Both the concepts of RACK and Spaces of Acceptable Risk (SOAR) maintain the importance of clearly communicating the risks inherent to specific scenes or collaborative activities, ensuring participants are not only fully informed but that they have the time and space to process what is being asked and to fully consider whether the risks inherent are acceptable based upon their boundaries in the moment. This, for larpers, is a step beyond negotiating the content of a scene. Playing to SOAR would include naming the risks inherent in the negotiated content, to ensure that both players understand and choose to accept these risks, a la RACK. Villarreal and Shively (2025) take SOAR a step further, calling for “Radical Teaching Transparency” which is already being applied in North American larp spaces effectively.
Radical Teaching Transparency, as introdu-ced by Villarreal and Shively (2025), places transparency at the root of facilitating collaborative processes and creative com-munities. The authors, both Intimacy Choreographers and faculty of Theatrical Intimacy Education, call upon organisers to “communicate with clarity our intentions and expectations, both to establish trust (rather than demanding it) and to ease anxiety for [participants] who enter our spaces carrying a lifetime of experiences that have taught them not to trust us as leaders” (11, emphasis original). Villarreal and Shively further emphasize the need to establish “the expectation for discomfort and offering strategies for working through those moments […] explicitly and purposefully naming expectations that go against socially normalized concepts” (11). The authors offer that facilitating through the lens of Radical Teaching Transparency includes clearly stating:
- “How participants will be invited to engage,” or for larpers, what participants should expect to do or encounter while playing;
- “How participants will be expected to step out or disengage if needed,” which many larp designers already do well;
- “What participants should do once they have stepped out or disengaged”; as well as
- “How they can re-engage when ready” (11).
Larp designers can improve existing practices to support top drop by teaching participants to form care-centered communities by focusing on these final points. Explicitly state that when someone stops a scene because a boundary is reached, this communication – and responding to it – are not shameful, but are, in fact, integral parts of the trust-risk cycle which defines consensual risky play (Pennick 2017). In-game, when someone who receives violence is supported by other characters, they rebuild trust to continue positively. However, the villainous actor may not receive this support, thus finding it more difficult or emotionally exhausting to re-engage with the type of play that they are responsible for in the storytelling. This can be especially true for the players of characters whose villainous acts are needed to facilitate the overarching narrative of a larp: “black hat” guests and hosts in Conscience (Spain, 2018), the Inspired in Helicon (Denmark, 2024), the House in House of Craving (Denmark, 2019). One player of a black hat guest in the larp Conscience described the feelings he had after playing a depraved abuser for the duration of a multi-day larp as leaving him feeling “numb,” “raw,” and “drained, wrung out.” These experiences of emotional and mental exhaustion are often exacerbated by the feelings that if the player’s character does not provide the necessary antagonism to the narrative, that other players will have a less enjoyable game, often causing an internal pressure to push past mental and emotional boundaries for those in the roles of villains.
The recent Monstrosity (United States, 2025) larp leans into Radical Teaching Transparency’s last two steps. In workshops, organisers frequently repeat the phrase: “just because you’ve been given permission to do something doesn’t mean you have to; your boundaries are perfect exactly where they are,” which normalizes that both the participants behind villainous and behind potentially victimized characters have boundaries that are equally deserving of respect. Furthermore, players are trained how to respond when someone uses the consent mechanic to disengage and to offer support while focusing on ensuring that both participants can safely return to play. This further mitigates top drop by reminding all players to support the storytelling in specific, actionable ways while always upholding all players’ boundaries.
Generations of larp designers have established and implemented a variety of tools, policies, and procedures to support players in engaging with risky, transgressive play without encountering nonconsensual or “real” violence, that which “transgresses physical, social, emotional, and ethical boundaries between actors” (Newmahr 2011, 175-176). In that time, larp communities with regional understandings and shared larp vernaculars have emerged, as well. This has led to our current reality, in which the best intentions of designers and larpers are sometimes rendered inadequate, because different players’ contrasting interpretations of concepts like “playing to lift” lead to misaligned expectations for one another which can yield a sense of violations of trust in the face of what is actually incomplete communication.
Radical Teaching Transparency invites organisers to precisely state the intended meanings behind colloquialisms commonly relied upon (Villarreal and Shively 2023, 10-13). Brief, unelaborated phrases such as “play to lift” – which are well understood to those who have engaged in larp research – may be interpreted differently by new players from different countries and cultures. Vejdemo (2018) identifies that this phrase is “fed by a social contract to co-create the best narrative” while acknowledging that play to lift fails when players have misaligned expectations for what the “best narrative” is.
Simple adjustments such as stating “playing to lift means responding to others’ play in a way that supports both the story and your own boundaries” so that players don’t assume we mean “endure and agree with everything, regardless of your boundaries” clarify designers’ intentions. It seems obvious – this is what designers have always meant – but with a transparent acknowledgement that mitigates misunderstandings that can lead to undue harm.
Discussions of boundaries can also often lack transparency in larp. In kink com-munities, boundaries (or ”limits”) are directly discussed with specificity and detail prior to scenes; communicating a clear boundary facilitates play by informing kinksters what they can do. Knowing that a participant is assured in their self-knowledge and confident in communicating their “no” enables a greater trust that their “yes” is rooted in an understanding of and commitment to upholding their own boundaries, which empowers emboldened play.
However, the self-imposed pressure to be a “good” larper or to be “easy to play with” may push players to say that they have no boundaries. When we say this, we rely upon social contracts, presuming others understand that we really mean something along the lines of: “I have the ‘normal’ boundaries that I assume that you assume that I have.” This ambiguity drives miscommunication. Misaligned cultural or social assumptions can end in unintentional violations of unstated boundaries, even between the most well-intended players.
Responsible players don’t want to violate someone else’s boundaries, of course; most players have the unspoken boundary of ”I am not okay with violating other players’ boundaries.” Therefore, a player who clarifies and enforces their boundaries upholds the unspoken boundaries of fellow participants. Communicating boundaries is not a hindrance to play, but an invitation to the types of play that do work for players’ boundaries.
By communicating the types of experiences and engagement players should anticipate, as well as the types of play that lie outside of the designers’ boundaries, we establish a clear framework that boundaries are normal and useful. We can then invite players to communicate their boundaries, and if they feel they do not need to list additional boundaries, use the phrase “my boundaries are covered by the boundaries of this larp.”
This further mitigates top drop, as the players of villainous characters aren’t left wondering what boundaries were unsaid, or whether the player with whom they have prenegotiated a scene simply felt uncomfortable naming boundaries. During play, those playing villainous characters sometimes invest emotional energy into self-policing, doubting their actions because they are uncertain what the boundaries actually are and they fear unintentional boundary crossings. Clearly acknowledging that the larp’s boundaries meet the player’s needs encourages other participants to play within those boundaries, rather than holding back from engaging with that individual out of the fear of crossing an uncommunicated line.
Stating that boundaries are individualised and may fluctuate over time also mitigates top drop. This prepares players for boundaries to arise or change as a natural part of the collaborative communication that facilitates play, rather than as a punitive response to some unknown wrong. During workshops, if encouraging prenegotiation, remind players that these conversations are not promises. Boundaries change based on our emotional state, those in the room, the previous moments and their impact upon us, even what we’ve eaten recently. We should remind players that they do not need to explain – they may not even know – why boundaries changed, and repeat that shifting boundaries should be communicated and respected. Reinforcing this supports players of villains by normalizing boundary communication and pre-loading the understanding that respecting changing boundaries is a good thing, rather than an indicator that they have somehow failed to be a “good larper.” Because larpers are keenly creative, we can always find ways to massage the narrative to continue in new directions that uphold boundaries as they arise. But if we as designers do not prepare players for changing boundaries, they may feel as though completing prenegotiated scenes – things they agreed to hours previously in an entirely different context – overrides their current boundaries and needs. By providing players tools to implement when managing shifting boundaries, we prepare them to respond in ways that support their needs, counteracting the socialized pressure to silently endure harm and to self-shame for their boundaries shifting. These intentions are not new; wanting all players to advocate for themselves and have their boundaries upheld during play has been at the forefront of the minds of generations of larp designers. By adopting transparency that is radically thorough in pursuit of teaching each cast to create a community of care, we shift the paradigm from self-care as individualized labour towards a communal materializing of that goal.
Tools for creating communities of care have long been established in the kink community, where consensual violence is not considered particularly taboo. How-ever, many tops or doms still feel guilt or fear that they’ve harmed the other person in ways that weren’t wanted. This is natural; we’re taught that hurting others, especially when others put their trust in us, is bad. Even though everything is done with consent, the feelings of guilt and fear of harm are deeply, socially ingrained in us. Therefore, the doer of the action – the top in kink or the villainous character in larp – often needs reassurance and care once the durational play of the larp ends, especially when such care is not available during play as scenes progress and the narrative continues evolving in ways that do not provide aftercare.
Like in kink, the player behind an anta-gonist is taking actions that were agreed to. Without those characters, many larps wouldn’t have the catharsis or conflict they’re looking for. Players who portray victims may receive comfort after their larp or scene, while those who played aggressors may not receive the same aftercare. The aggressor player might experience guilt, recrimination, and an off-game accumu-lation of all their violent scenes, but the social conditioning that aggressors who seek care from those they harmed are manipulative may convince the player they cannot ask for help. Furthermore, the player may not identify the feeling of top drop. Thus, they are unable to ask for help. As well as utilizing the concepts of RACK, SOAR, and Radical Teaching Transparency, designers can communicate with players that the distinct – but often layering – experiences of general larp drop and top drop are normal occurrences, as well as providing tools for players to recover from each.
How do we help players understand that they’re experiencing top drop? Part of this comes back to transparency: communicate what off-game deroling supports will be made available. Every larp has different ways of having in-game vs off-game time; some run unbroken in-game throughout and will only call off game at the end; others have breaks. For those that contain breaks within the game, safety workshops can encourage those who have been in intense scenes of oppression or victimization to talk to each other off game and reinforce that they are feeling comfortable with their in-game play. Providing tools to facilitate this communication can further mitigate top drop. This is massively helpful for people who may be feeling distress or guilt at playing antagonists. For games without built-in off-game time, communicate this ahead of time so that participants can prepare for selfcare throughout the game time as prompted by Hernø; additionally, remind people preparing to play oppressors that their needs and boundaries are as valid as everyone else’s. Deroling takes many forms; so designers should offer a variety of tools and options for players, rather than mandating one specific approach and leaving players to assume that if the one approach did not work for them, they are in the wrong, which may exacerbate drop rather than providing care.
Everyone’s needs are different; some individuals need socializing to recharge, while others need a quiet moment alone. There are no universal guidelines as to what ”has” to be done for aftercare. The end goal of aftercare is to communicate and ensure everyone is taken care of. There are a variety of ways to accomplish this. Some partners enjoy cuddling, nourishment, sharing stories and validation after going through a heavy and intense experience. Other participants may wish to process the experience alone, and need the space and tools to do so. Different options should be available to serve participants’ diverse needs. If two people have polar opposite needs for aftercare, such as one person needing affirmation and cuddles and the other needing time alone to process, this is important to learn before the heightened emotions from a scene complicate communication. If people are aware they have incompatible aftercare needs, they can organise so that both their needs are met. This neatly translates to larp, as larp designers can offer multiple avenues for aftercare and deroleing, allowing each member of the cast to engage in the form of care that supports them best. When many designers spend time trying to determine what is “best,” it may in fact be most effective to merely offer transparency around the options available and encourage individuals to make choices that work best for them. As Muñoz reminds us, queer performance should center on collective care while reinforcing process and resisting mastery or correct ways of being. Leaning into transparency and RACK, acknowledging and informing participants about top drop, and providing options so that participants know what is available and can make decisions to meet their own needs – rather than forcing one ‘masterful’ method onto everyone and leaving those for whom that method is insufficient to fend for themselves – can increase our collective care and help mitigate the multiple, complex, layered forms of drops that players experience.
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Ludography
Conscience (2018) Montero, E., Cano, E. E., Seaweed, S. M., Diz, M., Más, E. N., Verzeletti, M., Codognotto, M., Díaz, J. R., and Brind, S., Spain., Not Only Larp
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Monstrosity (2025) Schønheyder, K. and Hart, R., United States
Velvet Noir (2019) United States, Entropic Endeavors
This article is republished from the Knutpunkt 2026 book. Please cite it as:
Norwood, I. and Villareal, A. R. 2026. ‘The Devil’s Advocate.’ In Seasons of Larp eds. Erlandsson, A., Svanevik, M., Holkar, M., and Brind, S. Gothenburg. Knutpunkt.
