In 1937 all members of The Hermetic Order of Ardor disappeared without a trace. The Order was gathered to motivate its members to ascend to a higher plane of existence. Notes found at their estate suggest that, during one of the summonings run by the Lady Templar, two deities slipped through the cracks in the aether and slowly condemned the members to hell. The larp BAPHOMET was the story of what happened.
The Idea, Story and Setting
BAPHOMET was a larp about personal horror with the themes terror, lust, desire, power and loss of control. The story was about what happens when a group descends into madness together. During the larp, the two deities Pan and Baphomet possessed the characters, and their aspects filled the characters and slowly consumed them.
Drawing done after the larp by Freja Gyldenstrøm
We wanted to explore a horror-themed larp where the basis of the horror was not external monsters, but how we as human beings are capable of doing horrible things if we are pushed just a little. A larp with nearly no special effects and with a focus on loss of self-control though the use of meta-techniques.
The Hermetic Order of Ardor that the characters were members of was based on a mix of real hermetic orders from the turn of the 19th century. Teachings of Madame Blavatsky, Aleister Crowley and Danish couple Michael and Johanne Agerskov formed the basis of the world view of the order. The tome mediated by Johanne and written by Michael Agerskov, Vandrer mod Lyset(Walking towards the Light), was used as the main inspiration.
Rituals were performed in the order to heighten the mental state of the members and initiate them in the next level. It was during one of these rituals that the two supernatural powers of the larp came into the world by mistake and started to corrupt the characters.
The outcome of the larp was locked from the beginning: Everyone would die at the end as they followed either Pan or Baphomet to their realms. The interesting part was not whether you died, but how your character would get to that horrific end: how a secret order would leave all sense of reason and mental illumination, give in to temptation and dive into madness.
The larp was set in what we called The Vintage Era. The vintage era looks and feels like somewhere in between 1910 and 1950. We wanted the visual style of the period more than re-enactment. So as long as the player’s outfits, hair and makeup looked and felt vintage, we were happy.
Sign-up and Characters
BAPHOMET had three different kinds of characters: Knights of the East and West (regular characters), staff and a chef. Everyone was a member of the order. The ticket prices were different for the three types: 210 € for members of the order, 60 € for staff and the chef participated for free. This was because the staff participants had off-game duties, needed to help with various happenings during runtime, and could not expect to play the larp uninterrupted. The chef had so many duties during the larp preparing the food that time playing was limited.
Room interior, photo by Andreas Ingefjord
If you wanted to participate as a member of the order, you had to sign up with a partner. The reason for this was that in the larp you would have a very close relationship with another character, and the larp demands a lot of trust between the two.
We also had a questionnaire you needed to fill in during the signup. The information requested was designed to help us understand the motivations of the player to participate, and to decide what character we would like to cast the player as.
“When signing up for Baphomet we were asked what we wanted out of the experience. I specified ‘exploring the topic of madness in a safe environment’, and this is one of the most valuable experiences I had during the larp.” – Player feedback
A secret agenda for the couple’s sign up and the questionnaire was to raise the threshold for participation. A larp like BAPHOMET demands a lot from its players, and by making the threshold for participation high we wanted to make sure the participants really wanted to participate, and not sign up and then later drop out. We also assumed that if you had signed up with a partner, the chances for you to drop out would be much lower since the partner also couldn’t participate if you cancelled.
Production and Location
Since we were only two people in the production team we wanted the production to be as easy as possible.
Lungholm Slot, photo by Andreas Ingefjord
We rented the amazing Lungholm Castle, a pristine estate located in an isolated spot of the countryside and filled with antiques, old paintings and a grand piano. The quality of the location was one of the key elements for the larp to work and the larp was partially written for the location.
“In my eyes the fantastic location was both the reason that the larp was a splendid experience but also the fault that it wasn’t amazing. Due to the cost of the castle, the amount of participants had to be doubled compared to earlier runs of PAN. This meant that the relation drama-driven design was packed with secrets and intrigues, to a point where it became trivial that someone screamed and cried in the hallway every half hour. It ended up being ten parallel explosions that dimmed each other, instead of five intertwined escalations that fuelled one another.”
– Player feedback
The runtime of the larp was done by the organizers from within the larp with big help from the staff and chef characters. To control the flow of the larp the organisers played the leaders (High Templars) of the order and could to some degree control the character’s actions.
The Game Mechanics
Since BAPHOMET was about possession and loss of control, we used a modified version of the possession mechanics used for PAN.
A possession was symbolized by a necklace; one for each god. When the necklace was placed around your neck, your character’s morals and ethics would fade and only the immediate needs and wants of the deity were present. You would be possessed, for the other players to notice and interact with, until you passed the necklace onto another player. The necklaces would move from player to player and leave a trail of intense, frightening and character-altering experiences.
Glass containers with beads, photo by Andreas Ingefjord
To keep track of where the characters were on their path down into insanity, each player had a glass container placed on a small altar in the ritual room of the estate. Each time you had been possessed, you went and put a bead in the container. A black bead for Baphomet and a white for Pan. The more beads, the more you were in the deity’s control; and your actions would be controlled even when you weren’t wearing a necklace. We would also in some cases increase the amount of beads in a player’s container if they forgot to do it themselves due to immersion in the game. This was also sometimes done to align the bead-visualisation of the progressing state of possession with the actual pace of the possession in the game.
To underline the mood of the larp, non-diegetic music played throughout the estate day and night. The music became more and more disturbing as time passed. This was also used at PAN and has shown to be very effective and highly recommendable.
The Safety Features
A larp like BAPHOMET, which is very physical and intimate, demands a lot of trust between players. We have to be absolutely sure that players are free to explore the themes of the larp and that they can opt in or opt out of a scene or interaction at any time.
First we all agreed on not disclosing what happened at the larp to anybody not playing it. This was not done to stop people from discussing or criticizing the larp; it was done to give the participants full freedom to do whatever they felt their character should, or should not do. To remove the element of competition of e.g. who larped the most intensely.
We then all agreed that the recipient of an interaction was responsible for steering the scene in a direction that was comfortable for them. This was done to remove some of the difficult nonverbal or verbal negotiations you always see in intense scenes. This works very well but needs to be workshopped before play
We also used the Tap Out mechanic, as a last resort if you were in a situation where you felt your boundaries were met and you didn’t want to play the scene any more. You simply double-tapped the other player with your hand and the scene would stop.
“The combination of unsettling sound effects, extreme emotional play, and topics that were a little too close for comfort left me close to having to “tap out” on several occasions, but at every turn I was surrounded by caring, experienced players who made it possible for me to deal and explore, rather than fold and admit defeat.”
– Player feedback
The Experience
The larp experience at BAPHOMET was a very intense and unsettling experience. Several participants have reported weird and terrifying dreams many weeks after the larp. When the possessions started the feeling of time and space slowly crumbled and you went from one interaction to the next without any time to rest. This was both good and bad, since the attrition pushed you further, but also diminished the individual experience.
“BAPHOMET was truly something else. The setting was magnificent, and as I felt that everyone shared this total suspension of disbelief, we trod down the spiral stairway into madness together. To the increasing presence of two malevolent entities possessing us in shifts. Constant immersion. Liberal amounts of champagne. Altogether overwhelming.
The intense play between the couples was full of tragedy, insanity and heartbreak. And the envisioned horror was very much present throughout. This is one nightmare I long for…” – Player feedback
BAPHOMET will be run again in 2018.
BAPHOMET
Credits: Linda Udby (design, production), Bjarke Pedersen (design, production).
Date: October 5–8 and 8–11, 2015
Location: Lungholm Gods – Rødby – Denmark
Duration: 3 days (2 in character)
Participants: 26 at Run 1 and 28 at Run 2. Players from Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Germany, England, Ireland, Poland and the US.
Budget: €4,750
Participation Fee: €210
Game Mechanics: Possession mechanics, non-diegetic sound, tap out safety rule.
I knew as soon as I heard about Immerton that I wanted to go. I’d been to one other women-only larp — the U.S. run of Mad About the Boy (2012) — and while it was some of what I wanted from the experience, it wasn’t quite all of it. Immerton sounded closer to what I was hoping for — a game focused on a community of women, with all of the intimacy and conflict that implies. Immerton was that, but in the end, it was so much more than I could have imagined.
Pre-game: Players surveying the Joshua Tree, California landscape. Photo by Sarah Lynne Bowman for Learn Larp, LLC.
Immerton, produced by Learn Larp, LLC,centers on a community of women, each devoted to one of four goddesses. Each goddess focused on different elements, energy, and aspects: Innara, the goddess of creation; Rahdira, the goddess of fortification; Ellishara, the goddess of destruction; and Tohtma, the goddess of reclamation. The community of Immerton was in crisis, all of us drawn together by and hoping to find a resolution to that crisis. The larp was held at the Joshua Tree Retreat Center in the California desert on the full moon weekend of October 5-8, 2017.
I played Candra Franklin, host and producer of a paranormal reality show and devotee of Ellishara, goddess of destruction and fire. Each of the four goddesses has empowered aspects and shadow aspects, and Ellishara’s empowered aspects of shedding of burdens, righteous indignation, and fighting oppression all appealed to me and resonate with some of the themes of my own life. Like me, Candra works in a male-dominated entertainment industry and, also like me, has trauma in her background, although in her case it’s the loss of her sister when they were children.
The author as Candra Franklin, devotee of Ellishara and, later, of Axia. Photo by Sarah Lynne Bowman for Learn Larp, LLC.
In addition to choosing a goddess devotion, we each chose a vocation. I chose seer for Candra – I thought with her career choice and the lost sister, the ability to see beyond and see the dead made sense, and also opened up the possibility of roleplaying visions during the course of play.
After character creation, we were given access to each other’s character sheets. Each of us was given ties to the other characters, including the assignment of a pillar and a crowbar. These reciprocal relationships were meant to either support and encourage — in the case of the pillar — or, challenge and confront — in the case of the crowbar.
We arrived Thursday afternoon and went through some workshops to introduce ourselves and our characters. We learned about and practiced some aspects of play like the OK Check-in and the Goddess Chamber (black box). Then we had dinner, during which we were encouraged to write invocations on notecards; I wrote “Take up SPACE.” After dinner, we got into costume and play started.
The women of Immerton often gathered in a circle to discuss community matters near the sacred scroll. Photo by Sarah Lynne Bowman for Learn Larp, LLC.
We sat in a circle and discussed the crisis briefly. Immerton was cut off, we were told, and we were all stuck there, the passages to the worlds closed to us. One of our sisters was lost in between her world and Immerton as well. The scroll, which contained all of the history of Immerton, had been erased somehow. We were guided to meditate on what each of us held within us that could be tying Immerton to a fixed location in time and space and something we desired that would set us free. We were asked to write both of those down on pieces of paper. I wrote “my grief” down as the thing I was holding on to that was tying Immerton in place, but could not think of a desire.
In silence, we took candles and walked side by side with our pillars outside and into the darkness, ending our short journey outside the labyrinth. Within the labyrinth stood four devotees of Immerton, each wearing a different goddess mask, signaling that they were channeling that goddess (referred to as aspecting). Holding my candle in the darkness, waiting for my turn to walk the labyrinth and greet the goddesses, I worried that my candle would go out and I would be a failure in Ellishara’s eyes. Despite my fears, somehow I managed to keep my flame alive throughout the entire ritual.
The women of Immerton walk the labyrinth and meet the four Goddesses. Photo by Learn Larp, LLC.
Each goddess in turn asked a question. I recall that Innara asked how I expressed myself creatively and Ellishara asked how I maintained boundaries. “Not well,” I replied. “I push people away.” She chided me and I was terrified for a moment that she would cast me out of the labyrinth, but she stepped aside and permitted me to continue. I don’t remember what Rahdira asked; I think I was too worried about Ellishara to concentrate on her words. Tohtma spoke to me about how I was allowing grief over my lost sister to define me and it shook me so much I forgot what she asked me too.
After the labyrinth, we walked further into the desert and started a bonfire. We cast our blocks and desires into the fire so that Ellishara could release and transmute them. I realized as I cast the paper with “my grief” written on it into the fire that it was a lie. Candra had never accepted that her sister was gone, never allowed herself to even feel her grief enough for it to be a block. We stood around the fire and offered up a song to Ellishara and then howled into the night sky. Some coyotes returned our call.
These rituals and the labyrinth were an incredibly powerful way to begin the larp. I don’t think I’ve ever been so fully and so quickly jolted into immersion before. I didn’t know what to expect of the next few days, but I could already see how different and how powerful it might be.
The women of Immerton gather around the bonfire for the destruction ritual. Photo by Sarah Lynne Bowman for Learn Larp, LLC.
Most of the rest of our time at Immerton was spent in a similar pattern — conversing and socializing over meals, followed by the planning and performance of rituals. Most rituals focused on a specific goddess or vocation and each reflected in form and tone the nature of that focus. There was a reflective and heartfelt Tohtma ritual in the pool, a joyful and spiritual mask ritual led by a devotee of Innara, an intense and emotional Ellishara ritual involving fire and destruction, a quiet and contemplative guided meditation for the seers.
Over time, through our communion with the goddesses, we learned the source of Immerton’s crisis. There was a fifth goddess, Axia: the trickster goddess, she who controls portals and the between spaces, the shapeshifter goddess. She had been banished by her sisters long before because she was too destructive, too like a five-year-old girl who did not understand the consequences of her power. Each of us responded to this revelation in a way that clearly reflected our characters’ own experiences. Candra saw in Axia the sister that she had lost so long ago and the joy of sisters reuniting. Others saw in Axia an abusive family member or problematic person in their community and wanted her to stay cast out. The discussions grew incredibly heated. Some of us were also angry with the goddesses to which we had devoted ourselves for hiding the truth from us for so long.
A devotee aspecting Axia during the rite of passage ritual on the final day. Photo by Sarah Lynne Bowman for Learn Larp, LLC.
The devotees of Ellishara gathered together and consulted on the questions that we wanted to ask her. We were angry that our history had been erased, that Ellishara had withheld the truth from us. She had a sister! None of us knew about her! Had Axia had her own devotees? What happened to them when Axia was banished?
We went to the Goddess Chamber and we called on Ellishara to speak with us. Our sister Igne took on her aspect and faced our hostility and our sense of betrayal, our many questions and accusations. It was not easy, Ellishara told us, for the goddesses to banish their sister. They did love her, but she had done too much harm to reality and had no sense of consequences. They could not teach her, so they needed to put her out of harm’s reach.
“How could you?” I asked. “She is your sister!” Thinking of Candra’s own sister, gone for many years, her whereabouts unknown, an open question like a wound on her heart.
“Your grief has hollowed you out,” Ellishara said, telling me that I would find her eventually. I wept.
Ellishara guiding the resolution of a conflict between two of her devotees in the Goddess Chamber. Photo by Sarah Lynne Bowman for Learn Larp, LLC.
It quickly became clear that consensus about what to do about Axia — bring her back? leave her banished? — was going to be unattainable. Despite the conflict and some reservations I had, I felt that my character was drawn to her and wished to become her devotee. It was interesting to realize how I struggled with this decision a bit. I think I had internalized some lessons from other larps and elsewhere, an injunction against pursuing the “new shiny” for the sake of the drama and not in a way that is “realistic” for the character and the setting. Remembering the exhortation to “Take up SPACE” that I’d written on the notecard at the beginning of the larp helped nudge me towards embracing the more dramatic storyline. I think it also made for a more satisfying resolution to Candra’s character arc. She had upended her career and had a blowup with her best friend because she felt conflicted about the show they were creating together. As a Seer who could commune with the dead, she struggled with working on a TV show where they frequently “enhanced” the truth to create drama. Embracing the trickster goddess would allow her to make peace with this conflict: Her show could be a trick played on the audience in a way that helped them find peace and reassurance.
Thinking about the ways Candra was drawn to Axia prompted me to also think about the ways in which I’m drawn to trickster figures. As a game designer, I create fictions that are a kind of “trick”: that hide within them truths about the world and about humanity (or at least I hope so).
Since consensus was impossible, the potential devotees of Axia agreed to have a private ceremony to invoke her, express our devotion to her, and welcome her to Immerton, apart from those who opposed her presence there. We would wear her mask and share with her what she meant to us and why we welcomed her. We thereby defined a new role for her in Immerton — a less destructive one — a role that respected boundaries and limits.
Candra aspecting as Axia in the invocation ritual. Photo by Sarah Lynne Bowman for Learn Larp, LLC.
It is so hard to talk about Immerton without speaking in detail about the many rituals we performed in the course of play. For me, these rituals were transformative. The bleed enabled me to think about myself in the context of my character and focus my energy on the ways in which we both needed to grow. Both of us had experienced trauma, had dealt with sexism and harassment in our careers, had worked to make ourselves numb in order to cope with both. I’ve done a lot of therapy work, so I think I’m a bit further along on these issues than Candra, but I still struggle with letting myself be courageous and authentic in ways that allow me to connect. I also found myself frequently thinking how much therapy had made me a better role-player, as I was accessing my emotions so much more easily than in previous larps. With each ritual, we meditated upon a different task, an emotional blockage, a creative desire, a personal goal — and each of these aspects of my character mirrored my own life.
On the final day, I participated in two last rituals. The first was a revocation: Hertha, a new friend and a Vigilant in service to Rahdira, wished to leave Immerton and give up her service to Rahdira. She asked me and a few others to witness. As she spoke to Rahdira, she told her how so many of us have been in communities where we have spoken up about abuse and warned about a predator, only to have our communities ignore our warnings and turn away from us. I felt this emotion so keenly and yet, I was torn. Each of us there witnessing spoke our support of Hertha.
A devotee aspecting as Rahdira. Photo by Sarah Lynne Bowman for Learn Larp, LLC.
“I have known you just a short time, but in that time I have come to love you,” I said. “I understand if my choice of devotion means there must be space between us.”
Here Hertha shook her head, “No, not that. But you will always hold a place in my heart.” I was sobbing. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so intensely in a larp before, but there were so many of these moments in Immerton.
Then we closed with a rite of passage ritual, in which nearly all of Immerton stood with all five of the goddesses proclaiming their gifts for us. We proclaimed for ourselves something we had become or were becoming. I was connection, which to me meant a willingness to be open, authentic, and vulnerable with others. We embraced each other and shared with one another what we had proclaimed. Many of us wept and also laughed in recognition of the many things that we had learned together.
In the end, the players talked about what community meant to us. Every one of us shared some extremely heartfelt significance that we had brought to Immerton. I said that after many years of trying very hard to be “one of the boys,” to my detriment, I had begun to seek out community with women who shared my interests. Immerton was a place where I found it, flawed in all of the ways any community of women is flawed. But Immerton was a space that felt safer and richer in some ways for being free of men and the kinds of competition that their presence can introduce. I find myself wanting to take home with me not only that sense of community and belonging, but also the rituals and transformation of Immerton. Perhaps I will create an altar to Axia in my home. Or perhaps an altar to all of the goddesses.
The Immerton scroll, which evolved throughout the weekend as women added information and inspiration. Photo by Sarah Lynne Bowman for Learn Larp, LLC.
Immerton
Dates: October 5-8, 2017
Location: Joshua Tree Retreat Center, California
Production and Design Lead: Maury Brown for Learn Larp, LLC
Players: 23
Design: Maury Brown, Sarah Lynne Bowman, Tara Clapper, Quinn D, Caille Elizabeth Jensen, Kat Jones, Orli Nativ
Characters: Sarah Lynne Bowman, Tara Clapper, Quinn D, Caille Elizabeth Jensen, Kat Jones
Run Time Facilitation: Maury Brown, Sarah Lynne Bowman, Quinn D, Kat Jones, Orli Nativ
Art: Orli Nativ, Jess Comstock, Dagmara Gąska
Costumes and set design: Orli Nativ
Food Coordinator: Emily Rose
Photos: Sarah Lynne Bowman
Cover photo: A devotee of Tohtma at Immerton. Photo by Sarah Lynne Bowman for Learn Larp, LLC.
An honest, possibly scrambled, and very emotional review and critique.
Trigger warning: Contains coarse language and depictions of violent acts.
In September 15-17, 2017, I attended the larp Freakshow by Nina Teerilahti, Alessandro Giovannucci, Dominika Cembala, Martin Olsson, Morgan Kollin, and Simon Brind. The larp was held in Vaasa, Finland.
Pre-game painting of Charlie “Edge” by Aarni Korpela.
This was a larp about Otherness. About what it means to be different inside a community where different becomes the new normal. We were a travelling freakshow consisting of real freaks and “carny” folk. We had conjoined twins, a bearded lady, a birdman, an albino, a mermaid… and there was a lot of supernatural stuff going on. Actual magic. An alien queen, the Paraca, who had been worshipped like a Goddess by an indigenous tribe in Peru many years ago. And an immortal badass — yours truly — spiced up our experience quite well.
What caught my attention very early on was the prospect of playing on a real life abandoned amusement park. And we did. It was grand; it was eerie. We had a huge circus tent and a lot of run-down places to explore. Of course, off-game we had to be very careful, since there had been actual destruction and chaos on the site. Most of the garbage laying around were not props, although there were a lot of easter eggs to be found. I loved this little touch; we could find plush animals, clothes, photographs, letters, and even in-game money just casually scattered over the huge site. This led to something happening in the game that I would not have expected or even dreamed of.
Five minutes into the game, the hermaphrodite Vic came up to me, holding a small teddy bear in a clown costume. They gave me the teddy bear. I named them Fuckface. And from that moment on, my character carried Fuckface around everywhere, introduced them to everyone, and even held a baptism for them on Sunday. It gave me so much unexpected play and hilarity. I loved it and I’m very sad that Fuckface was gone on Sunday evening when everything ended. Haven’t seen the little fucker since.
Pre-game painting of Vic by Aarni Korpela.
But let’s start from the beginning. How did I end up there?
In a larp group on Facebook, I noticed the trailer and website for Freakshow and I was immediately intrigued. I read the brief character descriptions and fell in love. I wanted to see them come alive. I wanted to be them. On the website, there were really short summaries of who the characters are, their powers, their dilemmas. Interested players would then have to sign up and fill in a form, providing information about how they felt they could fulfill the role they chose. I’ve never seen this method before, but I found it interesting, although it fed into my anxiety quite a bit.
After a while of contemplating, I decided to actually sign up, although I knew there could be issues arising from me possibly starting a new job exactly around that time.
Drawing of Birdie by Vira Takinada.
At first, I was in love with the character called Birdie. They were described as a dark, tortured soul, suffering from feathers growing on their body and seeking relief in drugs, which they would take but also distribute.
But there were already three people who had applied for that role, so I chose to refrain from it and rethink my choice.
Then, I stumbled upon Zombie. Zombie, the undead, was described to be a person who is numb to any form of touch or physical pain, with a full-body skeleton tattoo to stretch that point. But on the inside, they are very much alive and have a great deal of feelings.
Pre-game painting of Zombie by Aarni Korpela.
In the application, we were asked to describe what we were going to do with the role, and I said that I would not do the huge tattoo for various reasons. One of those reasons was that I have a bunch of colorful tattoos myself and I didn’t see myself capable of pulling something like that off, having to cover my own ink and then creating something of that scale. I was sure I wouldn’t get the part, because I basically shut down a major design idea. Also, the prospects of having six people who have never even met me evaluate my “worthiness” of playing a certain role bothered me for quite a while. Who are these people? What gives them the right to judge me based on what I wrote on a form based on what I wrote in a language that is not my first, not even my second language?
I took issue with wording like “evaluating,” because that for me added pressure to the situation, and I’m very perceptive to pressure.
But I got the part. I was ecstatic to say the least. I got to play Zombie the Undead. I had a Hangout session with my character designer. All of the players were assigned one of the GMs to help us create our characters and their background stories. Yet again, this was something I had never encountered in a larp before and I found it fascinating. For me, it went very smoothly, beautifully. We created something intense. Something real, despite all the supernatural that was going on within the concept. It was actually me who created this story of Zombie being immortal when subjected to physical violence. Not even a bullet to the head could kill her. This led to a frustration within the character — a frustration with herself, with death, with the world. Ultimately, it led to her decision never to kill a person. Because why would she grant anybody the satisfaction of dying when she can’t? “Fuck em, I’m not helping.”
Painting of Rocky by Vira Takinada.
I made connections with a handful of players way before the game and I am forever grateful for those friendships that grew out of this process. They made my experience all the more magical.
During preparations, I set Zombie up to be a reckless, loud mouthed danger to society and first and foremost: herself. She would blindly run into any kind of fight or even harm herself deliberately to prove a point. Also, I described her to be kind of a comic relief, to stretch the point of her being illiterate and thoughtless.
When the date of the larp came closer, my anxiety started to take hold of me again. I have that, it happens. I thought things like… what if nobody likes me? What if nobody enjoys my kind of play. What if they find me to be annoying or unapproachable or just unworthy of their time? What if I do everything wrong? What if I don’t do enough? What if I cannot provide them with good play, which I so desperately want to do more than anything else?
And then I went there. And it was wonderful. It was an atmosphere of immediate love, support, and understanding. Family. I got to know people in the Helsinki airport and the bus from Helsinki to Vaasa. We talked about what we could do with our characters. We tried to catch each other’s vibes to find out how to approach each other in- and off-game. I liked that. I needed that. After the game, I received beautiful feedback, saying that my portrayal of Zombie made her seem like an actual person, not like a one trick pony caricature with no depth. I hold this compliment very dear to my heart.
Painting of Ilmarinen by Toon Vugts.
In the workshops before the larp, I feel that one thing was missing. Beforehand in the Facebook group, we had established “shared memories,” which were situations in which we could choose to have our characters participate and show the others how everyone would react to them. I think it would have been very beneficial to the game if we had repeated at least some of the shared memories, just to refresh common knowledge within the group. This practice could be helpful for other games that use this method as well.
There is one shared memory in particular I feel the group should have refreshed: What does your character do when the big bad police come? Do they hide? Do they approach? Because the police did indeed show up at the site. And Zombie, who I had established to be a fucker-upper of the everything, could approach them without anyone batting an eye. In the shared memory, I had written that Zombie wouldn’t hide from the police, but needs to BE HIDDEN from them, which meant physical removal of her from the sight of the police. But nobody remembered that and everybody was so overly nice and considerate of everybody’s game, so nothing happened in that direction. And when a local (NPC) priest showed up, I even took it up a notch and was the first one to greet him and “show him around,” spewing typical Zombie bullshit while at it, and in the end, making that poor Reverend very, very uncomfortable by showing off what the Zombie do.
Pre-game painting of Scales by Aarni Korpela.
Being nice and considerate is not a bad thing. At all. I just think that the overall niceness and the uncertainty about physical boundaries amongst players (and NPCs) prevented some intense play which would have totally been possible and necessary. Maybe it would have been beneficial to do an overall round of “Who is okay with physically intense play, being touched, grabbed, held, etc.” at the workshops, so that we would have gained an overview and more certainty. Because my personal physical boundaries are at an estimated radius of -1. Grab me. Do it. Meanwhile, others need more space and/or are easily intimidated, which is absolutely fine and to be respected. So yes, more clarification on that would have helped.
The meals were something that didn’t give me much play, personally. I was very out of it for the most part. I felt confused and also I was forced to stop scenes, because we needed to go to the restaurant, which was about 1km away and we had to walk there. It felt unnatural to me, to see these people who just ten minutes before were arguing, crying, doing rituals or what have you, stand in line for lasagna in a cantine. I personally lost scenes, because we were interrupted by someone telling us to come to dinner or lunch. A set timeframe for meals and an open invitation to go and have the meals when it actually fit into play organically would have been better for me. Especially since we were instructed to be completely in-game for the meals as well.
Painting of Ophelia by Vira Takinada.
One thing that fascinated me from the first time it was announced was that there will be no photos of the game. Only drawings. A group of phenomenal artists was invited to come to the game and draw us. On Saturday evening, they played NPC town folk who came to the sideshow. That was really cool and I enjoyed them a lot. They gave my character a push towards a kind of inner development I would’ve never expected. Other players brought up the point that the town folk should have played in a more antagonistic manner, which does make sense. But I think this played into the issue of everyone being too nice in- and off-game, so there was no escalation at the sideshows except for the police threatening Big Sister. But that was in her “office,” pretty secluded and out of sight for the people who were doing the sideshows, so most of us had none of that play.
On Sunday, the real action for the artists started. They were playing “watcher spirits,” wearing black veils, walking around the site and drawing us. We were instructed to see them as an invitation for an inner (or outer) monologue and to feel the presence of either God or the Devil. A sense of impending doom. A very neat idea, of course. But in the actual game, it was a bit much. There were 11 watcher spirits roaming around the whole day and I felt that the players were not willing or able to play 8 hours worth of depression. That one of the spirits came up to me and hugged me in-game added to my confusion as to what to play on here, but I later on learned that they weren’t supposed to touch us and the person playing the spirit just thought I looked so sad. Which I was. I mean, Zombie was. And it’s totally fine, I had a fun story to tell off-game and chose to not play on it in-game. Overall, I think a lot of us were overwhelmed by the amount of dark creatures watching us and also we felt that we needed to play on constantly growing despair and misery. That was a bit much. I made the decision for my character to try and get people in a good mood again and it kinda worked out in the end.
Later on I had the pleasure of meeting the artists off-game and talk to them. It was glorious and I adore them all to bits.
Drawing of Charlie (top), Tick (left), and Yin (right) by Kaspar Tamsalu.
At the game itself, I had a blast. I have this thing where I very quickly create catchphrases for my character once I start playing them. This is a sign of me really being in there. So apart from calling everybody “motherfuckers” or just plain “fuckers,” Zombie had a choice of catchphrases and I really punched in the point of her being illiterate. She couldn’t read, write, count, or even read a clock. She approached someone to ask them what the money that she had just been given was worth. It was a fiver. It was big money. She also started to title everybody with “the.” The Rocky. The Scales. The Charlie. The Mabel. It was kind of a unique thing for her and her way of speaking and I highly enjoyed it.
Very quickly, I found Zombie to be a character who was incredibly — and inexplicably — trusted within the freakshow family. She could approach any group at any time and would’ve been told what’s going on. She learned secrets, theories, and a whole bunch of nonsense she then took and spread all over the place. “Have you heard?” was one of the most spoken sentences.
This trust that I received cemented Zombie’s loyalty towards what she perceived to be her family. She called Big Sister — the second owner of the Norman Sister’s Freakshow — “Momma”; she referred to Atlas — the strongman who now worked as the janitor for the show and had a marriage-esque relationship with Big Sister — as “Daddy.” This started out as an off-game joke. I just took it and ran with it. It worked out beautifully and gave me so much emotional play.
Pre-game painting of Oracle by Aarni Korpela.
Zombie cried. She was angry. Frustrated. Hurt. Desperate. Hopeless. Sad. It was a pleasure to play. She was a pleasure to play. The triggering moment for Zombie’s crying happened on Sunday morning. It was truly a sight to behold: Zombie leaning on the Oracle — who was stone-faced like always — and sobbing desperately in grief and anger. The Oracle was a character who could see the future, but had no power to influence it in any way. He firmly believed that nobody could escape fate. Zombie got into an argument with him over the death of Hope, the teenage son of the Freakshow owner, Little Sister. Hope was bludgeoned by townsfolk on Saturday night and the whole group was to discover his body at the gates of the amusement park on Sunday morning. No character was unfazed by this. Everyone of us had some kind of reaction and started their own way of mourning.
Also, Zombie’s story of not having killed anyone came full circle. I made sure everybody knew this for a fact, as well as the reason for it. Zombie even said it to the police officer who kind of interrogated her. “Nah, I haven’t killed nobody.” And the Oracle said, “Yet.”
At the last performance, Zombie and the Paraca planned to outsmart the Gods with a human sacrifice that won’t die. They wanted to perform a protection ritual to benefit the show and save them all. Because Zombie was known to be immortal to some extent, the two of them agreed to sacrifice her on stage. But of course, that plan failed horribly.The Paraca noticed that the ritual wouldn’t work without anyone actually dying and begged Zombie — who she had stabbed and partially gutted with a knife right before as part of the ritual — to kill her.
Painting of Paraca by Vira Takinada.
“Don’t make me. Please don’t make me. I can’t. Don’t make me. Don’t make me.”
“Do it for the family!”
Zombie turned her face towards the audience in the circus tent.
“I love you.”
And stabbed the Paraca in the heart.
After that, Zombie was eventually taken off stage and given a blanket… and sat somewhere on the side. That led to me not being able to enjoy the ending fully, because my perspective didn’t allow it. That’s something I regret dearly. But everything happened quickly, so I guess it slipped all of our minds to seat the Zombie and her gut — a piece of intestine I made for the show and carried around with me after being sliced open in game — somewhere more convenient.
Painting of Zombie by Vira Takinada.
I want to end this review by elaborating on something that I said during the debrief:
I learned from Zombie to let people love me. Because I usually don’t. I tend to try and be strong for everybody yet push people away when it would be my turn to show vulnerability. Zombie was loved. She had a family. She also had to learn to let people in and let them care about her. That is something Jasmin needs as well. I thank you all for this experience. For the enlightenment. For giving me a good giggle when we were told at the debrief to find a character we hated, to talk the experience over with them… and I actually stood there alone for a minute because there was no real hate for Zombie.
Thank you for everything.
For the baptism of The Fuckface Charlielover von Ballsack I, the teddybear in a clown costume. That fucker got his soul saved.
And I bid you all goodbye.
Fuck-cerely yours,
Grace Boleyn, Zombie the Undead
Cover Photo: Painting of the Freakshow larp set by Toon Vugts. Image has been cropped.
Road Trip was like no other larp I’ve ever done. I felt like I’d fallen down the rabbit hole, with a constant interweaving of fiction and reality.
Road Trip, a joint production of Dzobiak Larp Studios and Imagine Nation Collective, was a 7-day Nordic larp held in July 2017 in which a rock band and its entourage went on a road trip on Route 66 from Chicago to Santa Monica. In most larps, a group of people decide to mutually support each other in creating a fantasy world, isolated from the real world as much as possible. But for Road Trip, we were larp characters existing in the real world and interfacing with people who didn’t know we were larping. The characters were assumed, but the interactions were all honest and real. We weren’t pretending to be a band — we were a band. In particular, we were The Runaway Sound and its entourage on our first US tour. Our band was little known in the US, but had made a radio hit that went viral in Romania and Bulgaria. This trip was in preparation for our US tour. (And helped explain why so many in our entourage were European).
The band and entourage of Road Trip on the first day. Photo by Nadina Dobrowolska from Dziobak Larp Studios.
But we were a band that was to play in real venues, without the audience knowing we were anything other than a real band. This led to an unusual amount of insecurity for me in the lead up to Road Trip. I’ve played a variety of characters in larps and enjoy playing against type. My larp friends might not even know what I am like in real life — a (gulp) middle-aged single mom of two amazing and challenging young adult children. I am a pediatric radiologist who has held leadership positions in my practice, a choir director, and performer in community theater. Responsible, caregiver — these are the kinds of descriptions I get in real life. Oh, and physically I am just under 5 feet tall with the energy of someone much larger. When I do theater, the roles I am cast in are determined by how I look and sound — usually a comic or quirky character. I am never the ingenue, never the evil witch queen, never the leading lady. Which is why I love larp. I get to take a vacation from my life and become someone different of my own choosing, not governed by my age, stature, or real life skills. Younger or older, different strengths or weaknesses, often capable of things I wouldn’t feel capable of in real life. And the magic of larp is that my fellow players honor my choices and treat me as my character would be treated.
But in this case, my character was to be a singer in a rock band, performing in real venues in front of audiences who were not part of the mutual contract of larp. I knew I could handle the singing and the performing — but it was the real life physical stuff that scared me: going against type on stage.
Valentina, the author’s character’s stage persona. Photo by Nadina Dobrowolska from Dziobak Larp Studios.
I incorporated these fears and how to respond to them into my character design. Valerie Saunders was the daughter of an unwed teen mother from Bridgeport, CT who had a difficult childhood, often pushed into being the responsible one. She was drawn to rock music from an early age, but was hampered by her insecurities. At the age of 20, she went to an open mic night but was unable to overcome her stage fright. That’s when she created an alternate persona for herself — Valentina Sunder. Valentina was uninhibited and fearless, a creature of impulse and energy. Valentina had no problems performing on stage, and soon began to build a reputation as a singer. While initially an intentional construct, over time, Valentina became more of an alterego who fought with Valerie for control: a form of dissociative identity disorder. Valerie was the responsible one, all superego. Never having gone to college, she worked as a receptionist and was the one who paid the bills. In her spare time, she dreamed and wrote songs. Valentina was pure id; offstage, she was equally uninhibited, drinking, drugging, sexually promiscuous. She often ended up in trouble with which Valerie had to deal.
Valerie, the author’s character’s primary persona. Photo by Nadina Dobrowolska from Dziobak Larp Studios.
My intention in playing this character was to give myself permission to use the Valentina persona as a way to overcome my fears of being seen as an impostor. She was a goth through and through, wearing black or purple wigs, heavy makeup, black leather, fishnet stockings, and platform boots. Wearing these clothes gave me the courage to BE Valentina. But I didn’t want to be forced to dress and act like this for the entire trip. That’s where Valerie came in. I could wear my real hair and more comfortable clothes a good deal of the time. At first, Valerie was more like me in real life, but I intentionally found ways for her to be different. More insecure, less educated, never left the northeast. And she dressed like a hippie, wearing bright colors.
I intended lots of drama between the 2 personas. Valentina throwing tantrums before shows, major dysfunction, a breakdown that might lead to the integration of the two personas into one.
And then the larp started and it all changed. The 4 members of the band in the US had rehearsed twice prior to the start, and we hoped to rehearse with our European based lead guitar player on the Sunday, but it never happened. I was Valerie the first day while traveling, and then changed into Valentina once we hit St. Louis. So far so good. But then Monday night, we ended up onstage in an amazing venue in St. Louis — and let’s just say it didn’t go well. I remember all the details why, believe me, but don’t need to belabor them.
The band’s first performance. Photo by Nadina Dobrowolska from Dziobak Larp Studios.
The band members talked the next morning at breakfast — mostly out-of-character — and asked to speak with the organizers before we started on the day’s plans. We told them they had two choices. It was clear to us that, if we were to succeed as a performing band, we needed some things. We needed significant dedicated rehearsal time in one of the vans, with no band members driving. We also needed real support from our entourage. Everyone had “jobs” as part of the role-play, but with a few exceptions, it felt like that first night it was the band members doing all the (literal) heavy lifting while everyone else was just having fun. That would have to change.
Audience members for the first gig. Photo by Nadina Dobrowolska from Dziobak Larp Studios.
Or, if they didn’t feel that could happen, we wouldn’t perform live again. We would play and sing at times we were just with the other larpers, could do some video footage, and spend our energy being our larp characters rather than being musicians.
The organizers agreed to try option one — in fact, we had a long rehearsal in the van that day and followed that by recording footage for a rock video. But something happened with my intentions for the character along the way. You see, I’ve been a singer and musician far longer than I’ve been a larper. And the music took priority for me.
The entourage enjoys an outdoor performance on the first night. Photo by Nadina Dobrowolska from Dziobak Larp Studios.
While I didn’t stop playing Valerie/Valentina, a lot of the intensity got dialed back. Neither of them had both the discipline and assertiveness to aid in helping a group of musicians in become a band. And it was more important to me to rehearse and give/get honest feedback about the music and performances than to create drama. And truthfully, for me that was the drama. Were we going to be able to pull off a successful gig? Make the video we wanted to have made? Make our potential fans into real fans?
Meanwhile, the band members bonded. Kelsey, our guitar player/lead singer, with a voice like an angel and an attitude of making the best of tragedy in his past. Tony, our lead guitar player, who led impromptu jam sessions in the van. Lily, our singer who realized partway through the tour that she loved the journey, but didn’t want to perform — and then got an unexpected inheritance allowing her to sponsor the band’s further journeys. And Cholly “Thunderlizard” Skolnik, our larger-than-life drummer. The Thunderlizard’s original heavy metal band, Vermithrax Pejorative, was still a legend. His hobby was joining cults. He regaled us with endless stories of his adventures on the road, making every van ride with him a treat. I still intend to write a song entitled “The Legend of the Thunderlizard,” lyrics completely comprised of quotations.
The band performs their second gig. Photo by Nadina Dobrowolska from Dziobak Larp Studios.
Audience members. Photo by Nadina Dobrowolska from Dziobak Larp Studios.
The other thing that led me to dial back the drama was that there was plenty of potential conflict in what we were doing already. Moving 22 people plus luggage plus band equipment in 3 vans, driving 4-6 hours a day, getting unpacked each night, sharing hotel rooms with various other characters. Hotels varied from pretty nice to very sketchy. One night we stayed in an Airbnb, which had its own private pool. However, it also had one bathroom for all of the guests, who slept in rooms with up to 14 bunk beds. None of this sounds exciting, but it needed doing — and throwing a tantrum as Valentina during the process didn’t seem like a good idea.
Photo by Nadina Dobrowolska from Dziobak Larp Studios.
And there were the exciting parts too. One part, about which I can’t overstate the amazingness, was exploring a whole chunk of America, and even better with a bunch of Europeans who had never been here before. Seeing the country and landscape through their eyes. In Missouri, there was a gun shop, which was the first time many of them had ever seen a real gun. Several players took the opportunity to use one at the shooting range, sparking a whole range of reactions. Noting how many churches we passed. Noting how many cows we passed. Their amazement at the landscape especially as we got into Texas and further west.
Sightseeing. Photo by Nadina Dobrowolska from Dziobak Larp Studios.
All of our conversations with locals. And many, many conversations in the vans about politics, religion, economics, and philosophy. This was another place I found myself modifying how I was playing Valerie. As originally designed, she had a limited fund of knowledge or experience, and I found I wanted to dive deeper into the conversations. Stories about my kids in real life morphed into stories about my niece and nephew.
There was also the pleasure of interacting with the other characters as we traveled. Keith, our spiritual adviser, really ended up as a therapist and guide for many of us. Sarah, a fundamentalist Christian widow, got on the wrong tour by accident — she meant to travel with a Christian band — and was transformed into Cadillac, the best drum tech ever. Dickie, another religious type, was our roadie and gofer, entangled in a crazy relationship with the sister of a band member. Nico and Eliza, our videographers, fell in love during the trip.
The entourage at a venue on the second night of the trip. Photo by Nadina Dobrowolska from Dziobak Larp Studios.
More about Nico and Eliza. The real life players of these characters are a couple from Poland who are videographers that are part of Dziobak. On Thursday, during our gig in Albuquerque, Nico got on the stage and asked Eliza to marry him. Eliza said yes — if they could be married in Las Vegas.
Talk about the blur between real life and fantasy… The organizers looked at each other and said “I guess we need to change plans and head to Vegas.” Of course, in real life, this was planned ahead of time, but none but a few knew that, and it -felt- spontaneous. After a stop in Winslow, Arizona (of course), we made it to Las Vegas. The characters AND the players were married by Elvis at the Graceland Wedding Chapel. The ceremony used their real names — yes, they were really married. Wow.
The Road Trip entourage standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona, a pilgrimage made famous by “Take It Easy” by the Eagles. Photo by Nadina Dobrowolska from Dziobak Larp Studios.
The organizers also did a great job of planning stops. The Uranus Fudge factory, where we filmed a segment of our video, was a glorious hodgepodge of western memes. Aside from the General Store that sold fudge and souvenirs, there was saloon, a gun store, shooting range, a tattoo parlor, a giant rocket ship, a double decker bus, and a dinosaur. We shot our video on the porch of one of the buildings. I was on the roof in blistering heat, plus the wig and all. What we sacrifice for our art!
There was also the Route 66 museum in Oklahoma, which helped provide a historical backdrop to our trip. As usual, we struck up conversations with people there, including a photographer for Playboy and Penthouse who was taking a vacation from his job, traveling Route 66 with his wife and son and photographing families on the way. He photographed our whole group, and he and his family made it to our gig in Amarillo that night. But an impromptu stop for a picnic lunch in a neighborhood of cookie cutter tan brick ranch houses made an impact as well. So bleak and colorless…
Photo by Nadina Dobrowolska from Dziobak Larp Studios.
Our stop at the Blue Whale of Catoosa in Oklahoma was surprisingly spiritual for a monument to kitsch. Keith, our spiritual adviser, explained about the legend of Jonah and the Whale and encouraged us to come out of the belly of the whale open to change in our lives.
The band had video shoots and photo ops, and I got to experience in a very small way what it’s like being a celebrity. There were curious glances from passers-by as I strode out into the Texas desert in my black platform boots and fishnets for our video shoot at Cadillac ranch. Having a group of 20-somethings in Amarillo ask to have a photo taken with me once they knew I was in the band. And being part of a podcast for The Future is Virtual on Altspace VR, half in- and half out-of-character.
The entourage dancing on the second day. Photo by Nadina Dobrowolska from Dziobak Larp Studios.
Our next gig — open mic night in Amarillo — went much better. In fact, a couple of the locals came back to the hotel and partied with us. Which presented me with a conundrum — they had met Valentina, but I really wanted to get out of her whole getup. And the dual personality part… at the spur of the moment, Val decided to explain herself as twins. I ran up to my room and changed, and came down and asked everyone how the show had gone. We talked one of the local guys into coming with us the next morning to Cadillac Ranch to be part of our video. He walked up to me as Valentina prior to the video shoot and asked whether my purple hair was a wig. I grudgingly agreed that it was, but that it allowed me to change my hair color whenever I wanted. He came to the shoot and played the tambourine. And as far as we could tell, he never knew that I, or the rest of us, were anything but what we claimed to be.
But so much of the experience was the ordinary stuff. Conversations with locals, conversations with each other, jamming and singing in the vans. A beautiful desert rainstorm. Watching the scenery change.
The entourage relaxing during the trip. Members of The Runaway Sound, the in-character band for the larp Road Trip. Image has been cropped. Photo by Nadina Dobrowolska from Dziobak Larp Studios.
The fact that it was a larp meant that glitches along the way were seen as opportunities for role-play rather than annoyances. And there were glitches. One major event was that Tony, our lead guitar player and his two friends decided to leave the tour while we were in Texas. In real life, we respected their decision and wished them well. Meanwhile, the band members were fuming and panicky, and Thunderlizard was plotting to have his biker gang friends abduct Tony and bring him back. Also, the gig in Albuquerque was in a real venue, but there was a misunderstanding between the booker, the venue and us. We thought that the venue was publicizing and selling tickets for our performance, the venue thought we were doing that. So beautiful venue, no audience. Rick, our film director, solved that. He instructed the group to head out into the streets and recruit an audience for a rock video that we were filming. Twenty minutes later, there was a respectable crowd for our show.
The band’s gig on the fourth day. Photo by Nadina Dobrowolska from Dziobak Larp Studios.
The audience for the gig on the 4th day. Photo by Nadina Dobrowolska from Dziobak Larp Studios.
Vegas was and always is surreal. It was 114 degrees F/45 C. We left there and drove through the Mojave desert — the most barren place I’ve ever been to. We passed the Ivanpah Solar Power plant — the largest in the world — which looked for all the world like an alien installation from another planet. We drove through the mountains and then we arrived at our ultimate destination, the Santa Monica pier.
We all walked down to the Pacific Ocean. Keith, our spiritual adviser, told us that this journey had changed us, and that it was up to us to decide how the changes would look in the future. He took us each of us into the water for a private conversation and baptism, and brought us back, introducing us to the group by our real names. This was the most beautiful and effective de-roling process I’ve ever been through.
Keith, the band’s spiritual advisor, baptizing Thunderlizard. Photo by Nadina Dobrowolska from Dziobak Larp Studios.
I’m sure the organizers are evaluating how it went and how they might change things in the future. There is video footage for a rock video as well as documentary footage to process. They discussed the idea of getting a pre-existing band for a future tour, but to me, the coolest thing was creating a band on the fly. However, if I were designing future runs, I would carefully audition potential band members and schedule a couple of extra days at the beginning for rehearsal. That way the band could hit the ground running in performance. Would I like to do the European tour as Valerie/Valentina? Tell me where I can sign up!
The author at the conclusion of Road Trip. Photo by Nadina Dobrowolska from Dziobak Larp Studios.
Cover Photo: Members of The Runaway Sound, the in-character band for the larp Road Trip. Image has been cropped. Photo by Nadina Dobrowolska from Dziobak Larp Studios.
Entertainment. Escape room. Larp. Map-based MegaGame. Boasting so many features, Dragon Thrones was an ambitious and collaborative production.
Produced by The Game Theatre and fully funded on Kickstarter in January of 2017, this game came onto the U.S. larp scene as ambiguous and expensive, and its presence and success were not necessarily anticipated by members of the larp community.
Even on day one, players were nervous about its success.
How did this three-day game turn most dubious ticket holders into loyal fans ready to buy another ticket?
Dragon Thrones provided a surprising amount of immersion and engagement, especially for a game involving so many other elements not always present in a larp.
I participated in Dragon Thrones as a game master (GM), assisting House Ardmore, one of ten houses (teams) in the game. Going into Dragon Thrones, I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect or whether the game would suit my roleplay style (I enjoy intensely exploring themes of loyalty, conflict, grief, and romance in larp so long as there are rules for engaging in consensual roleplay).
Also contributing to some apprehension on my part: I was one of two women on the GM team, the other being a more experienced GM than me. Being not so great with numbers, I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to advocate for my house or even manage the MegaGame (see below section) properly. However, The Game Theatre worked closely with all the GMs so that they were able to learn, collaborate, support each other as well as the players.
Regarding group leadership and supporting our player character (PC) group leader, I felt more confident, having experience in American fantasy boffer games such as Seventh Kingdom IGE and in the Nordic-inspired New World Magischola. In Dragon Thrones, GMs assumed responsibility for MegaGame management, resource distribution, and supporting their assigned house through roleplay.
Like the players expressed in post-game comments on Facebook, immersion carried my GM experience to a high degree, and from the beginning, I was encouraged to be an embedded character within my assigned house. The level of immersion I experienced makes me enthusiastic about the prospect of returning to Dragon Thrones.
Photo courtesy of The Game Theatre, LLC.
In addition to immersion creating fantastic game play, assuming the role of a character beloved by her house allowed me to handle the otherwise overwhelming or unknown aspects of the game more confidently than I would have otherwise.
What is a MegaGame?
Most MegaGames involve strategy, problem solving, negotiation, and diplomacy. There are typically set rules, rounds, and resource trading involved, as well as light roleplaying.
While I didn’t define it as a MegaGame at the time, the first MegaGame I participated in was in the 1990s. It was a UN-type roleplaying scenario run at my high school. I took on the role of a diplomat of Israel. Though I was a theatrical person, I was new to improvisation, shy, and talked over by the other students. I was impressed with the game, but ineffective.
I have always enjoyed strategic elements in the games I play. When I play games like Risk or Civilization V, involving troop movements and resources, I tend to internalize the role of the leader more than others who play the game, sometimes as a deliberate, immersive way to explore decisiveness and to employ strategies that I as the player might not normally choose.
Since the high school game, Dragon Thrones was my first MegaGame. Due to the technical elements, I predicted a low level immersion and had some serious concerns about how the MegaGame element would integrate with immersive larp – in addition to doubts about my own abilities in GMing a MegaGame.
The Game Theatre included the MegaGame element to resolve character versus character (CvC) actions without the type of combat (and even more rules) typically found in American fantasy boffer combat larps. Due to the magic of the setting (see “Castle as a Character” below), characters were safe at Bryn Mawr. The MegaGame allowed them to make moves against other groups, which in turn escalated tensions, highly positioned the importance of diplomacy, and created high immersion in the roleplay following the MegaGame rounds.
Neither my doubts about the game nor the integrated structure of gaming variety prevented immersion to a high degree.
Game Structure and Schedule
Photo courtesy of The Game Theatre, LLC.
Dragon Thrones had an ambitious schedule, and it seemed that most players were never bored. The schedule included:
Scheduled meals (most in cafeteria, one in great hall – most of my house chose to eat primarily in character and with our house).
Mead and beer tastings and Catered Meal Cocktail Hour (also served during the dinner).
High council meetings (two representatives from each house vote on global issues).
Escape room (sign up for a time slot).
Side Quests (can complete at any time).
MegaGame (scheduled rounds).
Entertainment in the main hall, including music and dance.
Scripted entertainment (modules, including a finale scene).
Night missions (at GM discretion when there were 45+ minutes of time).
As in many games (especially in the first run), the schedule changed as needed, but there was always something to do.
Introduction and Group Exercises
The first run of Dragon Thrones did not feature any exercises relating to the introduction of larp, bleed, or how to communicate things in game versus out of game. This was handled by each GM at their own discretion. (With the help of the larp community, I expect this will be added in following runs.)
There was time for the GMs to meet with their individual houses, so I put together a quick workshop based on what I discuss in my salon larps and what I have seen used successfully in other games such as New World Magischola. I introduced the players – to addressing concerns in game versus out of game (to each other, game staff, and me as the GM) and warned them about the potential emotional intensity involved in an intentionally competitive game. I was assigned to a roleplay-oriented group of players with varying amounts of larp experience.
I also allowed each player time to introduce themselves and talk about their characters as well as form some quick relationship history between their characters and others.
Lastly, I did a quick ‘lines of play’ exercise, asking players to line up based on how their characters feel about certain world events and issues and what attitudes they have. By the end of this exercise, players were suggesting items to scale on, and I was pleased to see this level of engagement.
Photo courtesy of The Game Theatre, LLC.
I could have provided a bit more detail about bleed. I also heard that other GMs focused on instruction about the MegaGame component. Instead of focusing on the MegaGame, I opted to ensure that a few of the house members would attend the workshop on the MegaGame with me.
Each house initially convened in its war room, which served as home base for the house. The war room location promoted a sense of fellowship.
University Workshops
Prior to game, the organizers ran “university,” during which players could learn about an area of interest to them. The classes were out of character and the options included:
MegaGame
Draconian lore and magic
Diplomacy and Espionage
Houses were encouraged to split up to cover each class. These workshops were pretty efficient and there was plenty of time for the staff to address questions about game mechanics.
Immersion and GM Role
As the GM, I understood that much of my role would be out of game. (I consider this to also be the case when holding leadership positions in other larps traditionally billed as more immersive.)
With the MegaGame elements, I had to wrangle a computer (and sometimes my cell phone) and GM chat, all while handling the needs of my house and the in-game concerns of other houses’ diplomats and spies – they had functions requiring GM approval for use of game mechanics.
As expected:
The mechanical elements of the MegaGame did break immersion, though this was largely limited to MegaGame rounds.
The MegaGame got easier with practice.
While the attention to out-out-of-game mechanics required a lot of immersion breaking for myself and most of the players in the war room, there were also gains in the level of immersion.
The MegaGame prompted diplomacy and spying (which also engaged characters not otherwise interested in the MegaGame) and resulted in rapidly escalating tension and camaraderie between kingdoms.
Multiple MegaGame rounds were played over the course of three days. Length of round decreased with player experience as the weekend continued, which caused a bit of a thrill as things began moving fast towards the climactic ending.
Players also interacted with the MegaGame, dumping resources into purchasing and enhancing forces using clear game mechanics provided on printed worksheets: it wasn’t clear to me as the GM how immersion-breaking or immersion-enhancing this activity was for them.
Immersive Setting: Castle as Character
Photo courtesy of The Game Theatre, LLC.
As is the case with many blockbuster larps, the setting is integral to the immersion of the game. In the case of Castle Bryn Mawr, the castle felt like its own character and played a specific role in the story. To create further immersion and realism, Castle Bryn Mawr was “The Citadel of Mirrors,” establishing peaceful dialogue between houses and kingdoms, the ability to travel through magical mirrors on covert missions, and providing characters a reason to have wounds healed or for assassinations to fail.
The magic of the Citadel of Mirrors prevented (or warned of the danger of) attacking players in-game. The lore states that “those who attack others while under the magic of the Citadel (of Mirrors) attack only themselves. As if you’re attacking your own reflection.”
This preemptively addressed issues like griefing (unrelenting kills) and grave camping (standing by a deceased character, waiting for a respawn so that the character can be killed repeatedly) sometimes encountered in rules-heavy American boffer combat larp settings.
Immersive Entertainment
Prior to arriving at Dragon Thrones, I saw many posts in the Facebook group about all the dancers, knights, professional actors, and alcohol distributors who would be at the event. I became concerned that it was going to be more like spectator theater or at best a renaissance faire than a game with larp elements.
In this respect, I was delightfully wrong. Every entertainer I saw interacted with the player in-game which helped enhance the immersion rather than reduce it. This included the bard who ate with my team on Saturday night and the dancers who added story elements through their art and interactions.
The most amusing example of this level of immersion involved a champion (knight) who represented our house. This actor who portrayed the knight, along with his group, was hired to perform a choreographed fight. Following the fight, each champion came to meet with his house in game.
Photo courtesy of The Game Theatre, LLC.
As a GM integrated with my house in a roleplay sense, my character’s king pointed out that he was interested in marrying her to their house’s champion. I consented to this attempt (and let him know that I was okay with it on an out of game level), but obviously this was not a scene we had prepared with our champion. When the knight came in to greet us, the king introduced my character as his ‘future wife.’
I did an out of game check-in with the actor to make sure he was comfortable with it – it turns out he was, and that he was an actor with roleplay experience. He rolled with the scene, his character being quite kind and receptive to mine, and within five minutes, the high priest character had wed the pair.
Consent Negotiation
The consent negotiation I initiated, as well as the scene itself, was every bit as immersive as it might have been in a Nordic-inspired larp setting and it created a bonding moment for our entire house.
With more workshopping related to consent negotiation, it is possible that players will take more risks and initiate such interactions rather than limiting access to veteran roleplayers and actors.
Agile Gameplay versus Scripted Plot
From a GM perspective, I was impressed at how many details of the scripted plot were up for alteration.
For example, when the aforementioned Ardmore champion arrived, we were informed that he was a hero from our citadel who had become draconian as the result of another house’s actions in game (House Ardmore is a human house). Not only did this affect house and personal plot, but it was a reason for his victories as a champion. These details mattered and increased our level of immersion.
Large displays and the need for a conclusion did provide the feeling of being steered from time to time, but I appreciated how the details changed significantly depending on in-game actions.
Some of these actions were up to GM discretion, particularly the night missions. The Game Theatre team made story changes in an agile fashion, based upon player character choices in roleplay in multiple aspects of the game. Whether a player made a roleplay decision affecting another player character or non-player character or a large-scale action like troop movement affecting the game world, behind-the-scenes adjustments were often made to the story.
Night Missions: Surprisingly Immersive
Night missions consisted of a narrative session. During the session, the GM allowed the players to embark on an adventure, exactly like the story-oriented part of most tabletop games.
Whenever the players had to make a huge choice or attempt something risky, the GM asked them to pull a Jenga block. This represented the elements of risk in the game, and they’d receive certain rewards (or consequences) based on their result. In my adventures, I let the players select a location on the game map and used that as a starting point. The players chose to:
Explore a temple
Retrieve golems from a volcanic area
Poison an enemy’s water supply
The player feedback indicated that night missions were one of their most beloved parts of the game. What really surprised me is how immersive these missions were, even for me as the storyteller. I imagine this is due to multiple reasons:
The storytelling and narration came naturally to the players, already immersed in roleplaying these characters in a larp sense. There were no awkward ‘new group meets in a tavern’ scenes; the adventurers know each other before the missions begin.
Night missions were supposed to be an hour or less. There were no long, boring stretches, and we sometimes squeezed these in between other scheduled events.
The MegaGame and some of the larp elements were extremely serious in tone, and night missions allowed for a bit of levity based on storytelling style and the potentially late hour of the mission.
The MegaGame allowed for tangible rewards in the form of gems (player resources) or additional army strength. MacGuffins and roleplay items could be represented by props. Having a goal that can make a difference in army strength, for example, caused the players to remain focused and invested in night missions.
The Night Mission’s rule set was extremely streamlined and other than pulling a block from Jenga, all of the roleplaying and storytelling was up to the GM and the players. This was a contrast to the structured MegaGame rules and allowed for more player interaction and character development.
GMs were permitted to exercise a high level of discretion regarding Night Missions. This is overall the case for all of Dragon Thrones, which is part of what allowed for a game with multiple different rulesets to feel so immersive and rewarding.
Overall, the night missions created immersion due to pre-established character relationships, brevity, and tangible goals.
Photo courtesy of The Game Theatre, LLC.
I was initially skeptical of night missions (and my ability to run them), but found them to be one of the more immersive parts of the game. As a larper preferring WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) interactions even in a magical world, I was pleasantly surprised.
I was also asked to provide summaries of night missions to the event organizers. In two instances concerning my house, the night missions affected armies in the MegaGame. This was to be recorded in the lexicon of Dragon Thrones to be used for future story elements per the discretion of The Game Theatre.
Final Scene: Narration
The closing scene of the game also involved a great deal of narration. After a tense MegaGame round, the divided kingdoms and houses had to face an elder dragon together. The high king (played by the game’s co-creator, Chris Batarlis of The Game Theatre) set the scene via narration and then called each GM forth to narrate the actions of their house.
I found the storytelling opportunity immersive and I think most players felt that this scene provided us with a great deal of closure (not always – or often – found at Nordic and Nordic inspired-larps). This type of closure may be more conducive to softening negative bleed, and it’s something that may work better for a more competitive game and larp culture.
Evidence of Immersion, Transformative Roleplay and Larp Drop
As an experienced larper, I’m typically aware of what immersion is and when it affects me. As a GM, I was particularly aware of this because I prefer to maintain more out-of-game awareness than I would as a player because I am responsible for providing certain elements and guidance.
Photo courtesy of The Game Theatre, LLC.
While I had to focus in an out-of-game context during MegaGame rounds, there were long periods of roleplay-only activities. I disliked breaking immersion, but also found that I wandered back into an immersive state relatively naturally due to several reasons:
It was clearly that my in-game friendships with other characters were heralding out of game friendships. In the MegaGame, we had to work together out-of-game to a degree, and we fortunately discovered that most of us got along well in character, too.
There were long portions of time without the MegaGame, and I was matched with a group who wanted to focus on roleplay.
Mead. There was a lot of mead, and we consumed it responsibly.
Dining together helped us immerse and come together as a group.
My character’s role as a trusted advisor to the King of Ardmore guided me into an immersive state. In and out of game, king players and characters knew that the GMs and their characters were there to help them, and would not be traitors.
The writers had given me a character who had been fostered with the king and his family. Aside from making my job as a GM easier, the unquestioning loyalty my character felt towards the king created an endless amount of roleplay opportunities and encouraged other characters to further explore themes of loyalty and betrayal. How far would these characters follow their king when his decisions deviated from their desires? My character would speak her mind, but would follow him to victory or ruin.
Throughout the event, my character consulted a deck of archetype cards (similar to tarot in purpose) for help in advising their king. As a prop, it also helped me play an outgoing and flirtatious character who could easily converse with others and facilitate connections.
In a tender scene, walking from war room to the great hall, my character advised the king on an important matter, then told him, “That counsel is not from my cards…it is how I feel.” He responded that such advice meant the most, and that he trusted it.
That’s when the transformative nature of the immersive roleplay occurred.
Having lost my job less than a month prior to the event, my real life was filled with stress and pressure. I wasn’t entirely sure whether I could pull off the MegaGame aspect of GMing, but I had found that the GM team worked well together and that I was paired with a really compatible group in the game.
How many times have I given in to imposter syndrome or second guessed my own intuition? Far too often – but not nearly as often as other people have brushed it off.
As GM and Karinna, I worked hard to provide the best advice – to guide the king as player and character, but to leave the choices up to him. To find this rewarded with an acceptance of my own intuition was a very powerful takeaway from this game, and not one that would have sunk in without the roleplay.
This also resulted in lasting friendships with many of the players on my team. We’ve already made plans to play and run games together in the future, at Dragon Thrones and beyond. I’ve heard that this experience is not unique to my team.
The most compelling piece of evidence of immersion and enjoyment is the larp drop experienced by many of the players involved. This refers to feelings of loneliness upon returning to the real world. For me, larp drop manifests most intensely not after playing specific relationship types with individuals, but with the type of team dynamic present at Dragon Thrones. I feel this type of larp drop pretty strongly, and weeks after the game I am still experiencing it.
Above all, it felt fulfilling to work with a house that valued me and my intuition and judgment in and out of game, and that feeling also extends to the organizers, GMs, writers, and full player base. That sort of self-development is not something I achieve without immersive and transformative roleplay.
Unique Selling Proposition (USP) as Related to Immersion
Every larp needs its own hook. What makes it different from every other game?
For Dragon Thrones, it’s clearly a combination of setting, entertainment, MegaGame, and immersive larp. Describing the setting (Bryn Mawr College, outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is the easiest way to convey the immersive nature of the game format, though the latest trailer solves Dragon Thrones’ pre-game issue about expectations and game identity (it was so many different things in one) and also emphasizes the avenues towards immersion a player can experience in the game:
Setting and discovery (“an entire castle for you to explore”)
War game strategy (“masterfully control the MegaGame”)
Agency, decision making and collaborative storytelling (“choose your own path; your actions shape the story”)
Bonds of loyalty and duty to kingdom (“be the hero for your kingdom”)
Conflict and competition (“crush your enemies”)
Leadership and the hero’s call (“lead your kingdom to victory”)
Destiny and influence (“the fate of the realm is in your hands”)
Social decisions and choices (“what decisions will you make?”)
Dragon Thrones 2 and Beyond
The notes and feedback surrounding Dragon Thrones were significant, particularly concerning the MegaGame rules. A second run of the game certainly needs to address these issues (I understand this is in progress) and this will enhance immersion to an even greater degree.
The other necessary improvement involves workshopping and debrief. Now that there is a clearer sense of what Dragon Thrones is and the type of immersion players were able to accomplish, I imagine the next run will be even more spectacular and hope to remain involved.
Following the first run, I would define Dragon Thrones as a larp with strategic elements and fully integrated professional entertainment. A new or experienced larper aiming for immersion has the potential to meet their goals at this larp.
The companion publication for the Knutpunkt 2018 international larp conference wants your contribution! We are now accepting submissions for all kinds of digital content. In this announcement you can find details on what kinds of content we are looking for, what the themes are for the 2018 companion, and how to learn more about contributing to the Companion publication.
Concept
The Companion will first and foremost be a digital publication, including all kinds of media. We have no limits on what kind of content we accept, as long as it’s technically possible to be published online. A text, a video, a podcast, a computer game, a piece of music…? Send us your suggestions! We cannot promise to publish all submitted content, but we will consider everything.
Content will be published on Nordiclarp.org, on a weekly basis over the months leading up to Knutpunkt 2018. The idea is to let the community digest and discuss the companion content even before Knutpunkt. We hope this can inspire the conference participants, as well as create interesting conversations and exchanges in other spaces before, during and after the conference.
There will also be a print on demand book available with a selection of articles. We aim to have this ready so that it can be ordered around the time that content is beginning to come out online. Only magazine style texts will be considered for the printed book, you can read more about this format further down.
Themes
The theme of the Knutpunkt 2018 conference is “Shuffling the Deck”. We have chosen to interpret that as highlighting the diverse nature of larp, wanting to showcase a multitude of themes in a variety of formats. We especially want to lift the scenes that have been less visible in previous Knutpunkt publications.
The publication will have five main themes, roughly mirroring the five tracks of the conference. We encourage you to use them as starting points for your contributions and be as creative as possible!
♠️ Spades
Larp analysis, discussion and reflection.
♦️ Diamonds
Larp design tools, tips and tricks.
♣️ Clubs
The practicalities of organizing larp.
♥️ Hearts
Participant stories and designers’ post-mortems.
🃏 Joker
Discussion and reflections on issues within and opportunities for the (Nordic) larp community.
Contributing
To contribute to the publication, please read the full Call for Content on the Knutpunkt 2018 website.
Johannes Axner is the founder and Editor in Chief of Nordiclarp.org, an online magazine and knowledge portal about larp.
Annika Waern is a professor in the field of Human–computer interaction at the department of Informatics and Media at Uppsala University, Sweden. She is an established and seasoned researcher and author on the topic of games in general and larp specifically.
Editing Team
Besides the main editors, the talented editors of Nordiclarp.org will help edit the content.
Contact
Any questions, ideas or feedback can be sent by email to:
We are all at war, and I fear that only I am hard enough to know it. We send out our children as troops into battle, and they fight for land, money and affection. They murder hearts, minds, and bodies.
Do these dancing masters even understand? They fill our children with frippery, and we dress for battle. Ostrich feathers, silk, shined boots…uniforms for war. Cannons shoot words, and dances are formations.
Even greenery is battle.
We were instructed to bring greenery to the spring monument, and young ladies carried flowers and hope. Things I’ve long left behind.
General Whiteford, who was serious as sin, carried a nettle. When I remarked that he even held his flower seriously, he responded with perhaps the most intense gaze I have ever received. “It is a nettle, Madam.”
And so it was…perhaps he has the right idea. Nettles. Greenery that fights back.
Dorothy’s game ephemera.
I was eight years old when I first read Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. I stole my older sister’s copy and brought it to school, stealthily placing it inside the easy reader the rest of the class was supposed to be looking at. I was thoroughly engrossed in the romance and the social dynamics of it all. I was advanced for my age by quite a bit, but our failing school system didn’t really want to give up a gifted child.
So I sat with the book, and was eventually caught by my teacher who thought it a comic. She was shocked that I not only was reading it and comprehending it, but that I was enjoying myself. I was left alone to consume Austen, while the other children moved on with more age-appropriate books.
This is a fundamental moment in my childhood, one I have told many times at many parties. Indeed, Austen’s work and world has intrigued not only me but millions over generations. It is no wonder why I in particular wanted to attend Fortune & Felicity, a truly spectacularly produced 360 degree illusion larp set during the Regency time period and inspired by all of Austen’s works.
The game itself was billed as a way for players to live in their very own Austen novel, with carefully crafted meta techniques that push gameplay and intensify emotions. Romance, fortune, emotions, and a truly spectacular setting were combined with an intensely detailed system to make sure each person was given a role in the game that not only connected to other players, but to the world.
For me, Fortune & Felicity seemed a perfect opportunity to not only immerse myself in a unique world with which I had been enamored since I was a child, but to explore my academic interests and add to my fieldwork. Currently, I am embarking on a visual autoethnography studying larp and the phenomenon of emancipatory bleed at New York University’s Gallatin School. In slightly less academic terms, I am using myself and my experiences in a community I am a part of to study the idea that bleed can be steered and used for emancipatory purposes by players who live with complex marginalizations. I believe that players who live with a double consciousness or a fractured identity due to other marginalizations can use larp and the resulting bleed to mitigate the negative aspects if steered with pre-game measures, in-game steering and post-game evaluation.
Emancipatory Bleed
The theory of double consciousness was coined by Black American scholar and civil rights activist W. E. B. Du Bois. Du Bois believed that due to the severe history of slavery and constant oppression, Black Americans live with not one self, but many. In his turn of the 20th century ethnography The Souls of Black Folk, he says,
It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his two-ness, an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder. The history of the American Negro is the history of this strife- this longing to attain self-conscious manhood, to merge his double self into a better and truer self. In this merging he wishes neither of the older selves to be lost. He does not wish to Africanize America, for America has too much to teach the world and Africa. He wouldn’t bleach his Negro blood in a flood of white Americanism, for he knows that Negro blood has a message for the world. He simply wishes to make it possible for a man to be both a Negro and an American without being cursed and spit upon by his fellows, without having the doors of opportunity closed roughly in his face.
To be a Black American means that one separates their identity to both protect themselves and to nurture themselves, but these two selves remain divided. Everyday choices become about survival, and any interaction is flavored with historical context. It is a near invisible and quite heavy load to carry, and one I believe can be lessened and enhanced through the use of larp and the resulting bleed.
The Process
As an autoethnographer, my own experience within the larp community is used as research. This means I must create a set of strict techniques that will allow me to both record my experience, steer in the way I think will provide the liberation, and allow myself to analyze it later. My technique in encouraging this type of bleed involves elaborate character development, and immersive steering. Before attending, I would create a playlist of songs to build ideas about the character, create a costume that was heavily tied to the character, and keep diaries to form a thought process that was unique to the character, fleshing out their mental space and state. During the game, I would keep thorough diaries from the character’s perspective, retain ephemera collected — letters given, tokens found etc. — and steer towards those themes from which I wanted to receive bleed while trying to be as deeply immersed as possible. Afterwards, I would complete a thorough living document including visuals and catalogue the physical objects to be later used in a final thesis exhibit.
But Why Begin With Fortune & Felicity?
Mrs. Long (Aina Skjønsfjell Lakou) and Mrs. Smith (Jonaya Kemper). Photo by Aina Skjønsfjell Lakou.
As a child and young adult, I very much wished to have a hero much like Elizabeth Bennet represent me. I wanted to see myself in that world of quips, balls, and intrigue. Her heroines seemed smart, witty, and uniquely feminist in ways I found empowering. However, as a Black woman, I always felt slightly disjointed from the fiction, as most people are unaware that Austen’s work includes at least one woman of color.((Miss Lambe can be found in an unfinished novel called Sanditon.))
Though Fortune & Felicity did not include or play on race in any way, I myself knew incoming that intrinsically most larp characters I play are an extension of self. Others did not need to see my character Mrs. Smith as a Black woman during the larp, as her race was not significant to the game, but my race was significant to me as a person. Playing in Fortune & Felicity allowed me to give myself the representation my sister and I did not have as children. Though historically people of color were not only around England in the period, but around and wealthy, one does not see them represented in any media outside of narratives involving slavery. Fortune & Felicity seemed to promise a light and airy experience in which I could explore themes of love, class, and romance in a period where my face is seldom seen.
Except the experience was less like consuming a light and fragile macaroon at the refreshment table of a ball, and more like Battenburg cake at 3pm in the muggy afternoon heat while you prepare for an intense emotional war.
Both are enjoyable, but I simply wasn’t expecting the latter.
Playing the Cards You’re Dealt
During the casting process, which I was not exactly a part of since I signed up for the waitlist, you could list where to play young or old. I did not particularly care about playing either as I just wanted to experience the larp and see how I could steer myself towards emancipatory bleed. I figured that every character would be dealing with the same themes as everyone else anyway, so it did not matter whether I played young or old.
I received a last minute drop-out spot, and discovered I would be playing the part of Mrs. Dorothy Smith: a poor, very recent widow, with two grown children in need of spouses. While I was still upsettingly excited for the larp, this casting sent me into a slight panic. Reading the character description, I was unsure if the organizers knew just how oppressive the experience of a Regency-era widow was let alone a Regency-era poor widow with a wealthy sister. How was I supposed to play a light breezy larp about romance and family when my character seemed to be on the very outskirts of the society into which she was born? In addition to this, she was written to be charming, filled with folly, and ridiculously cheerful at all times while having to quickly find matches for her children with a Sword of Damocles hanging over her head.
Many of the characters had been written to be directly inspired from Austen’s works. I, a deep-cut Austen fan, could not find my character in a single book I read. When I was told who she was, I realized I didn’t even remember her being in a book. As such, this gave me even more of a desire to give her a fuller richer life, rather than a supporting role.
Despite my nervousness with the character, I did not decline the spot. For one, I trusted the organizers and their track record with impunity. Secondly, I took a look at the cast list, and found that I would be playing with some people who were good friends at this point and others who I was looking forward to knowing better. Thirdly, it was an experience you couldn’t really pass up if you love Jane Austen. The venue is like living in the book. If I was going to be oppressed by accident, by George, I would do it in style with good company.
With this in mind, I shifted what I wanted from the larp. This was a perfect excuse to explore the feminist undertones in Austen’s era. I myself dealt with several of the issues Dorothy Smith was having. Though I was not a mother originally born to wealth, I did have to deal with expectations of feminine roles in a strict community, I am aging in a society that idolizes youth, and I know very well what it is like to have to keep up appearances while being rather poor. If I steered her into a narrative about living her best life, could I free myself from the fractured parts of me?
I wasn’t sure, but I was willing to try.
Dorothy’s poetry journal, written in pen and ink. Photo by Jonaya Kemper.
When Good Intentions Go Awry
In my opinion, Fortune & Felicity is an expertly designed larp that was hamstrung by our current society. Due to a gender imbalance and bleed-in regarding romance, I believe Fortune & Felicity was not as strong in a few places as it was in others. As far as I can tell, the designers did not intend to create a larp in which older characters would be playing a radically different larp than younger players. The pre-larp workshops were lovingly crafted with dancing, gender roles, and relations to society done in Romance and Family groups, but players portraying older characters were not given specialized tools.
In our Family groups, we talked and discussed our role to our Families and what kind of play we might need. It was here that we created a family identity and each person fleshed out their role collaboratively. The families seemed to be a solid bond that moved well together despite age differences. Here is where Dorothy first changed from what was written. The family required a fixer in addition to the strong matriarch, and Dorothy just fell into the role.
It was when Romance was added that we began to see cracks. As a young character, you of course dealt with social pressures and issues, but game mechanics were skewed heavily in your favor. You were simply able to do more. This lead to the older players in my romance group to wonder why we were in fact called a romance group. The gender lines were: two men, one of them married, to seven women, two of whom had characters as young as players in the young romance groups. Within twenty minutes of our first workshop, several of us expressed the fact that we felt left out, and like we were NPCs there to move the younger players’ stories along without any story of our own. Many of our characters were not written with romance in mind at all, which was expected from some and came as a disappointment to others.
In a larp that stressed heteronormativity and the perfection of the Regency era, it was uncomfortable to go through mechanics of intimacy when your group was largely made up of players playing your family. Also, it is hard to practice gender rules when there are only two male characters. I, as a player who was trying to immerse myself as Dorothy, found that the character had to fundamentally change. Frequently, I subbed in for the male roles in dancing, talking, and intimacy exercises. This meant that the character I was playing felt far more bold. This worked out to my advantage, but I can easily see how someone who wanted to play upon stereotypically femininity might feel left out.
Once play began in earnest, the disparities between age, wealth, and gender only became deeper as we all wore name badges that told everyone our marital status and income. Wearing your worth on your chest for a weekend, is heavier than one might think.
It’s All in the Dance
Spring Ball: Primrose, 1800s
Balls were not nearly so boring when I was a girl. I imagine that I never sat down for more than a minute. My reputation for dancing and conversation was impeccable. Now I look at us in our silks and feathers or, in my case, lawns and pearls. Here we are, surveying the floor in an illusion of choice.
If it weren’t for the company of Mrs. Long, I would have been utterly likely to have left the children with Frances and spent my evening with a book. Her good cheer and good friendship is the only thing that stops me from constantly screaming.
If it were up to me, I would show these young girls how free they are. I was weighed down in twice what they wear, in corsets that pinched into my flesh, and large enough skirts that I could have hidden several people under them.
And the shoes. Oh, those pinching satin mules that clopped everywhere so that we all resembled a military parade.
Here they are in their satin and silk and flat-bottomed slippers. Try a dance in my youthful shoes and see if you still smirk as you pass the line of widows, my dear.
We know more about your future than you do. You are just a pawn in this delightful campaign. We are your commanding officers. Lady Creamhill can deny you anything with a smirk. Frances can do the same. Even I, with my limited standing, need only whisper and you will be destroyed.
Monstrous.
Husbands may wear the titles, but it is the wives and the widows who wage the real domestic war. And these children don’t even know. They just continue their dance, continue their love.
The poor fools.
Opening Ball at Primrose. Photo by Anders Hultman.
Dancing was a major point in Fortune & Felicity. The larp started and ended with dance. There were not enough partners of mixed genders for everyone to be able to enter the larp with the dance, which is a true shame as I cite it as one of its most defining moments. Fortune & Felicity simply did not have enough men — whether they identified as men or willing to crossplay as such — to fit their mechanics. This issue led to what could have been a slight jostling oppression to be a heavy locked-in feeling for both player and character.
Every evening ended in a massive ball with live music after we had a sit down dinner. We learned how to dance and convey emotion with the barest ability to touch. Dancing was a way to show interest and allow yourself to be immersed as fully as you can. Our workshops were pleasant and intense. They included live music, and plenty of in-depth instruction. However, when we got to the final workshop, we found that we were not going to be allowed to dance with the same gender. This meant that if you were older and a woman, your opportunities to do anything other than talk at the balls were limited. You could not ask anyone to dance. You were essentially relegated to the sidelines unless a relative asked you, or you had enough status to bully a young man into standing up with you. I had neither youth nor fortune, and as such spent a large part of that evening with a co-player being surprisingly bored until we took play into our own hands.
Ageism and Romance
Primrose: Summer, 1800s
Never had such eyes been set upon me in the dark.
The lights of the teahouse illuminated his fine form, his dark face. General Whiteford is a dangerous man, and yet… I am now sure I am unafraid of hm or anything else.
We have shared jests about battle plans and we both agree that Primrose is a War in which we both command troops. He respects me. I know this in the way he looks at me across the young bodies who beg and plead for love and fortune. We have already done this, he and I. We have survived triumphantly, and now I believe we are trying to decide whether we shall enter the fray once more.
But I think we shall.
It has been a long time since I looked for anyone in a ballroom, and a longer time since anyone has looked for me. Standing across from him, I realized that everything had fallen away. The strains of the hornpipe seemed distant and I was unsure whether I heard the same strains as I did the first time I was at Primrose, glutted on youth.
I found myself short of breath, but the dance had not begun. His face was not his usual scowl; he looked pleased. I was stuck for words, and his face disarmed me further. “Why General Whiteford, you look almost pleased.”
I could have died for my own foolish volley.
But he not only smiled, her nearly clicked his heels. The young man next to him looked terrified. “Me, Madame?” He could make the term Madame seem as personal as my own God given name despite it’s crisp clipped tone. “I’m positively jolly.
And then we were off.
The familiar steps leading us through bodies we never paid attention to. I remembered easily what it was like to float through a world of being seen and wanted.
No one batted an eye at our fingertips touching. Why pay attention to us? We are but ghosts in these living halls. But as we moved down the line, I felt our bones reconnect, and by the time we had his hand in mind gently leading me to the last set, I felt full of flesh.
He has defeated me with a dance, and never have I been happier to lose.
General Norman Whiteford (Simon Brind) sitting alone. Photo by Kalle Lantz & Frida Selvén.
The fact that my character had a romance was a fluke, and yet I charge it and her female friendships along with her family play to be the reason why the larp was such a smashing success for me. Most romances written in Fortune & Felicity gave you the option of two partners within your group, but it was not implied or encouraged by all gamemasters to make play outside of that. Many people felt obligated to play out the story rather than forging their own path.
The game structure was very rigid, with each day starting with church and ending in a ball. In between, there were workshops in structured groups, and several choices for meta games. The schedule provided us with hours of constant activity, but for adults, it meant a flurry of activity with no time for ourselves. As a player, I felt like I had to follow the arc of the larp even though the larp wasn’t necessarily following mine. In the first act, we were all speaking of romantic perfection; in the second, we were supposed to have reality smash down upon us; and in the third act, we were supposed to find some sort of redemption. This was to be spread over a course of days.
The second day workshops made it clear that as an older person, we were not exactly having the same game opportunities. We talked to our personal gamemasters, and it was all discussed amongst staff. I cannot say enough that they tried very hard to listen and respond immediately to the feedback from players who were playing older characters. Some of these responses worked better — such as making sure older characters got more dancing — than others — such as wearing a red ribbon on your name badge, which made attractive widows accidental pariahs. Only when a few of us banded together to follow our character’s agency and really steer did I feel like I was truly immersed at Primrose.
And that’s when the magic of the mechanics; the unintentional intense social, gendered, and classist oppression; and meta techniques really shined. For me, character agency was the missing puzzle piece.
Once I, as a player, felt like I could have true agency to choose my own path rather than what was prewritten, I was not only deeply immersed; I was having one of the best larp experiences of my life. Instead of focusing only on romance, I could follow up with a rewarding relationship with my character’s older sister, support my character’s children, and foster a deep meaningful friendship with a newfound female friend. Those supportive relationships we created on site together were the best moments of my game. Dorothy didn’t become a character on page 222 that you easily forgot. She became the star of her own novel, while showing up in others to share richer game play, provide pressure, and bring Primrose to life.
Just Because It’s Oppressive Doesn’t Mean It Isn’t Fun
Late Autumn: 1800s
They did not know what they asked.
Family never does.
I have never asked much from life and it seems the least life could do was allow me to live in love. I have sacrificed everything for my family. I have humbled myself, I have groveled, I have gone hungry, and I have smiled when all I wanted to do was break into a million peices. I have held the line.
And now they ask me to go to war with Norman just to prove that I can still be loyal. That I can still fix everything. So I dueled the one man at Primrose who never misses.
He knew it would come, I think. Perhaps it was his last chance to escape redemption.
Either way, we sat across from each other, our eyes never leaving the other’s face. Our masks were savage and beautiful, a lifetime of practice. I was vaguely aware of Judith behind me, and I squared my shoulders. She is strength, and so am I.
“You cannot disinherit your sons, my dear.”
“But I have set them free, Madame.”
I understood what he meant. They were free from the very tethers that wrapped me to this chair in this sweltering salon with perfectly sliced battenburg cake in front of me. I kept his gaze while moving a particularly large tray of sweets that separated us and let violence drip on my tongue, “It’s heavy…”
I let the threat linger, knowing he’d understand.
I was not his first wife, but I would certainly be his last.
“Shall we do battle over tea, my dear?”
If I knew better, I think he nearly smiled.
For me as a player, exploring oppression through play is a pleasure. If done within the confines of a safe game environment with people you trust, you can explore yourself and have an excellent time. As an academic, Fortune & Felicity’s light oppression mechanics and unintentional deep oppression path for older women provided exactly the type of experience I needed to reach a sense of emancipatory bleed.
The character fought societal pressure, familial pressure, sexism, ageism and class identity in order to find her way in the world. She overcame every obstacle, and ended up being the exact type of heroine I wanted to read about as a child. The bleed from Dorothy has been overwhelmingly positive, not because she succeeded in love, but because she succeeded in finding herself. Dorothy stepped out of an Austen novel, and into her own universe. Through her own liberation, I felt some semblance of my own. Liberation through larp.
After Fortune & Felicity, I found that I was more confident, less worried about my own mortality and more likely to stand up for myself. Even the way I looked at my own body positivity changed for the better. All direct outcomes from the deep immersion I felt while playing Dorothy.
Dorothy’s ball attire. Photo by Jonaya Kemper.
Late Autumn: The Last Service at Primrose
The couples have filled the church to bursting. There are so many that the pews seem empty. I see our children standing among the the crowd, happily engaged and waiting to be blessed by God.
I see no reason for us to stand among them, the casualties of war. Let their parents preen over them and their ceremony.
We sit with Judith, who is too good and true for this space. Her love has yet to be found at Primrose, but it is only because her worth is more than her fortune.
And of course Norman and I sit with each other, as close as wool and bonnets allow in the Lord’s house. I pretend to follow the Vicar, but the truth is that I have never followed the Vicar. Percy is a Vicar and I’ve never followed him either.
Instead of being a good Christian woman, I let the feeling of the nettles in my bare right hand and the feeling of Norman’s hand on my left pin me to the moment.
I smile at him like a cat with a bowl of cream, and we recite the vows the Vicar instructs everyone to abide by.
The season is over, but the war isn’t. As a family we shall head to other battlefields, in other places in other times. We will win, and we will lose, but we shall always serve together.
Fortune & Felicity was an incredibly immersive experience that taught me a lot about myself as a larper, and as an academic studying larp. My theory about emancipatory bleed and the ability to steer immersion towards healing self-identified issues will continue to be honed and crafted as I continue my studies. Due the initial design setbacks, I learned how to ask for the play I want instead of sacrificing myself, and I learned how to work in a cohesive group to create amazing deeply emotional play for others in wide varieties.
By steering for emancipatory bleed, Dorothy Elizabeth Whiteford truly became the heroine I dreamed of all those years when I hid a battered copy of Pride and Prejudice in an early reader. I can only hope the larp is run again so that others can find their own personal Austen as well.
Cover photo: Mrs. Long (Aina Skjønsfjell Lakou) and Mrs. Smith (Jonaya Kemper) became best friends who were a force to be reckoned with. Photo by Kalle Lantz & Frida Selvén.
It is spring. Tonight there is a ball on. The women have gone back to the parlors to change out of their day dresses and into their extravagant silk gowns. A pair of soldiers are loitering outside the clock tower, discussing race horses, and paying little mind to the rather exquisite sunset in the background.
As the young ladies emerge on the porches, the soldiers click their heels together and emit simultaneous “Ah!”s of admiration.
And these virginal rose buds of spring certainly are a sight for sore eyes: Long, gloved fingers wrapped about their father’s arms. Faces half hidden behind the shades of the bonnets. Silk slippered feet on the gravel path. In the evocative words of the poet, “She walks in beauty, like the night.”
And off they all go — to dance the night away at the ballroom. Surely tonight they will meet that certain someone.
I wish you could have been there. My description does not do it justice.
The author in costume for Fortune & Felicity. Photo by Sanne Harder.
Fortune & Felicity was a larp held at the beautiful spa village of Medevi Brunn in Sweden. The larp lasted from May 25-28, 2017. It was based on the works of classic writer Jane Austen and set somewhere around 1810. The idea was to create a Nordic larp with a 360 degree illusion setting and strong plot lines that were inspired by Jane Austen’s literary works.
It’s been over a week since I got back from Fortune & Felicity and the dust is finally settling.
I’m sure we can agree that there are different kinds of larp experiences: There are the plain awful ones, where you have no chemistry with the other players and you never manage to connect with either the narrative or your character. You wind up feeling like the other players are having all the fun.
There are the OK ones and there are the good, but not that memorable experiences. Those will be part of your future reference sheet when you meet other larpers, but they are not exactly mind-altering.
Finally, there are the mind-blowing experiences that leave you euphoric for weeks on end. My experience with Fortune & Felicity was one of the latter. So asking me to write anything objective is rather a tall order. I think of this article as more of an attempt to order my thoughts, hopefully making some valuable deductions and recommendations for organizers and players to consider.
Pushing the Boundaries for Larp
Ten years ago, a larp like Fortune & Felicity would have been pretty much unthinkable. The sheer level of ambition would have seemed unrealistic. However, since then, we have seen Nordic larps play out at castles, submarines, and similarly ambitious settings, which would previously have seemed to be one-off experiences negotiated by organizers with special connections and budgets. Larpers are maturing and with student loans now payed off and full-time jobs, we are able to afford more expensive settings.
In addition to that, “chamber larping” has bridged the previous gap between intricately designed freeform games and the hitherto more brute force designs of larps.While the later years have offered the kind of settings that dreams are made of, Fortune & Felicity is one of the first larps of its size to draw upon the kind of metatechniques that you otherwise mostly encounter at a Blackbox festival. These are techniques that enable players to tell stories that are more intricate than the usual straightforward chronological ones that larpers are used to. I would like to summarize some of the metatechniques the larpwrights of Fortune & Felicity utilized.
Dramatic Monologue Poetry
Photo by Kalle Lantz & Frida Selvén.
Fortune & Felicity was a very subtle game. Usually, larping is about broadcasting your intentions as loudly as possible so that other players can pick up on them. But in this larp, everything had to be read as a subtext. This posed a challenge for the players; if the lady I am trying to impress is hiding her face behind her fan, does it mean that she is embarrassed or does it mean that she does not want people to see her blush with delight?
In order to help players interpret each other’s intentions correctly, the larpwrights gave us a metatechnique that I have dubbed dramatic monologue poetry. The tool was incredibly simple, yet very effective. At any point in the larp, it was considered comme il faut to recite poetry. The poem could be learned by heart or it could be read aloud from a book. Poems were also distributed at poetry workshops. After reading a few lines of the poem, the reader would start revealing the character’s internal dialogue, thus giving the audience an insight into character motivation and intentions.
This metatechnique worked extremely well. Specifically, I had the opportunity to recite a poem by Shakespeare in front of my fiancée’s family. Since his family were neither as rich nor as accomplished as the one my character came from, I took the opportunity to give them my opinion in full. The stiff smiles on the players’ faces were priceless!
Amusingly, one of the players picked up on the insult and confirmed my character’s opinion by acting exactly according to my prejudices. This created great play for us both.In other words, the technique was an excellent solution for helping players to read between the lines.
Subtle Courting
Before the larp, all players were instructed thoroughly in how to behave when in the company of the other sex. No touching except between family members. No being alone unless if you were engaged. And no eye contact.
So how does one flirt under those circumstances?
For the ladies, the answer was simple: you do not. But basically you could assume that if a gentleman was giving you attention, it was because you had caught his interest. There were three sure signs that a gentleman was serious about courting you; if you were receiving flowers, found yourself witnessing poetry readings, or got asked to dance repeatedly, then a proposal was probably afoot.
However, as in Jane Austen’s books, there were gentlemen out there who did not play by the rules. Those gentlemen would lead you astray just for sport!
One of the lead designers, Anna Westerling, discussing the intersections between freeform and larp at the Nordic Larp Talks 2014.
The Fortune Teller
At Fortune & Felicity, there was a fortune teller. The fortune teller was in fact a team of talented game masters who took interested players off to a Blackbox room to play alternative scenes.
The Blackbox larp is the direct opposite of the 360 degree illusion larp. There is no setting other than the blackness of the room and usually participants are dressed in neutral clothing. Blackbox larps have no physical restrictions. You can play achronological sequences. The scene can take place on a space station, during the Jurassic times, or anywhere else your imagination might take you — much like with any pen and paper RPG. In that sense, it is a hybrid form of role-playing.
At Fortune & Felicity, the blackbox was used to elaborate character relationships. Personally, I played out several scenes with my fiancée that showed us much of our future. Among other things, I found out that if I were to go ahead and marry my true love, we would most likely end up rather impoverished. Obviously, this knowledge added much to my “present day” play.
Blackbox defies physical space and time — and therefore makes it possible to garnish the larp with the kind of literary tricks that we usually only encounter in books and films.
The Art of Mansplaining
In Fortune & Felicity, the responsibility of carrying on a conversation lay with the gentlemen. This major obstacle was not really a metatechnique, but it still deserves mentioning because it was a very elegant way of emphasizing the gender disparity of that time.
Some gentlemen found it difficult, while others enjoyed taking the lead. As someone who was playing a women, I found it somewhat frustrating, but only in the sense that it helped me imagine what life would have been like for my gender in 1810.
Luckily, the game masters offered the women a possible out: when conversation got too boring, the woman could signal to the player of the male character by mentioning her journey to Primrose. “Oh, the roads are rather muddy this time of year,” for example. I used this trick a few times, but generally found that the male characters around me were quite apt at carrying on an interesting conversation!
Photo by Kalle Lantz & Frida Selvén
Based on Established Literature
All the stories in Fortune & Felicity were directly inspired by Jane Austen’s works. The most visible way in which the writers had incorporated this inspiration was in the character descriptions and relationships.
The larp had pre-written characters. The characters were long enough for people with knowledge of Austen’s works to recognize them as characters from her books, but short enough that the players could easily build on the written material and make them their own.
For me, it was immediately clear that my character was inspired by Miss Marianne Dashwood from the novel Sense and Sensibility. She is a somewhat melodramatic and rather naïve girl, who falls deeply in love with one of the more memorable Austen villains, Mr. John Willoughby. At first, I actually found the task of portraying her a bit daunting, but after having watched Ang Lee’s film from 1995, I found that I could draw on actress Kate Winslet’s brilliant performance. Having her version of Marianne in the back of my head, I felt like there was a richness of inspiration I could access that I have seldom experienced otherwise.
Although many of the participants knew Jane Austen’s works, other did not. I believe being a fan of Jane Austen added to the experience, but I do not have the impression that not having these references subtracted anything from the game. I love how classically Austenesque the different plots played out, but on the other hand, they could certainly stand alone too.
Photo by Anders Hultman.
Setting the Bar High
Sunday morning in Primrose. The young couples are gathering outside the village church. They are waiting to declare their engagements in front of the congregation. As the doors open, they file inside in pairs — clasping each other’s hands and sharing shy sidewards glances. The parents and the rivals sitting in the pews bear witness as the vicar proclaims the engagements.
And then, abruptly, the larp comes to an end. Anna and Anders in their pristine Regency outfits reap their accolades. We clap and clap. For the game masters, for the live band. For each other, even.
I return to the 21st century. Shell shocked. Elated. The way you feel when you have had one of those really strong larp experiences.
But also deeply grateful to be home. To be me, and not Miss Marianne. Quite frankly, Miss Marianne would never even dream of a life such as mine. It would have been beyond her otherwise vivid imagination.
My hope for the future of the larp scene is to see more ambitious scenarios like Fortune & Felicity, where organizers and larpwrights become more aware of developing game design that supports the content and theme of the larp. Like previous vessels of fiction have done it, I hope that larp has a future where we can explore not just genres, but also more advanced forms of storytelling.
For now, we’ve only just begun.
Photo by Kalle Lantz & Frida Selvén.
Fortune & Felicity
Production and design: Anna Westerling & Anders Hultman
Design: Jennie Borgström, Susanne Gräslund, Elsa Helin, Anders Hultman, Frida Karlsson Lindgren, Gustav Nilsson, Martin Rother-Schirren, Anna Westerling & Joel Grimm with Jeppe Bergmann Hamming & Maria Bergmann Hamming.
Characters:
Overall design: Jennie Borgström, Sabina Sonning and Anna Westerling
Clubs: Rosalind Göthberg & Mimmi Lundkvist
Hearts: Jeppe Bergmann Hamming & Maria Bergmann Hammingg
Diamonds: Ylva Berry, Jennie Borgström & Jacob Ordeberg
Spades: Susanne Gräslund & Daniel Linder Krauklis
Game Masters: Alex K Uth, Anders Hultman, Anna Westerling, Arvid Björklund, Elin Gissén, Elina Andersson, Elsa Helin, Frida Karlsson Lindgren, Frida Selvén, Gustav Nilsson, Jakob Jacob Ordeberg, Jennie Borgström, Joel Grimm, Kalle Lantz, Lizzie Stark, Martin Rother-Schirren, Mimmi Lundkvist, Peter Edgar & Ylva Berry
Orchestra: Elsa Helin, Henrik Summanen, Niclas Hell & Susanne Gräslund
Soundtrack composed by: Henrik Summanen
Trailer: Sara Fritzon
Costume: Anders Hultman & Mikaela Lindh
Photo: Kalle Lantz & Frida Selvén
Design and illustration: Anna Westerling, Janetta Nyberg & Lotta Westholm
PR: Mia Häggström & Anna Westerling
Editing: Lizzie Stark, Jason Morningstar & Sarah Lynne Bowman
Cover photo: Photo by Kalle Lantz & Frida Selvén. Photo has been cropped.
Anarch catchphrase during Enlightenment in Blood Enlightenment in Blood was a night of celebration for many vampires in the setting. Photo by Tuomas Hakkarainen.
Enlightenment in Blood was an official White Wolf larp in the Nordic style spanning 10 locations for approximately 200 players in the city of Berlin. The larp lasted five hours and took place in the Friedrichshain district on May 12, 2017. Developed by Participant Design Agency for the World of Darkness Berlin convention, Enlightenment in Blood was created primarily by Juhana Pettersson with help from a team of writers. Tickets were available for convention participants and some local players.
While a few locations were kept private by security, this game is considered a pervasive street larp in that play takes place in public locations and, in many cases, around non-larpers. In this respect, Enlightenment in Blood is similar to previous city larps, including Prosopopeia Bardo 2: Momentum in Stockholm, Sweden; The Spiral, an ARG-larp hybrid that spanned many European cities; and Neonhämärä (Neon Twilight) in Helsinki, Finland.((See Andie Nordgren, “Prosopopeia Bardo 2: Momentum,” in Nordic Larp, edited by Jaakko Stenros and Markus Montola (Stockholm, Sweden: Fëa Livia, 2010; Bardo AB Facebook Group https://www.facebook.com/bardoab/posts/266925533406299; Jaakko Stenros, “Nordic Larp: Theatre, Art, and Game,” in Nordic Larp, edited by Jaakko Stenros and Markus Montola (Stockholm, Sweden: Fëa Livia, 2010). For more information on pervasive larps, see Markus Montola, Jaakko Stenros, and Annika Waern, Pervasive Games: Theory and Design (CRC Press, 2009).))
The primary narrative of the larp focused upon the celebratory first night of a successful vampiric Anarch revolution over the traditional Camarilla. However, the larp was cross-genre, meaning players could choose from an array of character types: Camarilla, Anarch, and Sabbat vampires; Technocracy and Tradition mages; changelings; werewolves; kinfolk; ghouls; and mortals. Players were expected to uphold “the Masquerade” both in-character and out-of-character in order to preserve the surprise. Some groups featured supernaturals and mortals of many types, whereas others, such as the Church of Caine, were vampire-specific. These features contributed to an authentic-feeling World of Darkness larp, where characters walked through the streets of Berlin as if denizens of the city and encountered an array of different creatures with unique agendas.
Though the overall tenor was one of aggression and adrenaline, the larp felt like a large sandbox with multiple locations throughout the city. To reflect this multiplicity of experiences, in addition to my personal account, I collected informal data from 40 participants of the larp, who shared brief descriptions of their experiences. This article will contain some of this information in a consolidated form. For other examples of the variety of experiences, check out Ivan Žalac’s blog post about playing a Gangrel Anarch and the Darker Days podcast, where Mike and Chris discuss playing Technocracy Syndicate mages.((Ivan Žalac, “World of Darkness Berlin and Enlightenment in Blood,” Diary of a Croatian Larper, last modified May 20, 2017. http://www.crolarper.com/2017/05/world-of-darkness-berlin-and.html; “Darker Days Radio Episode #78,” Darker Days Podcast, last modified May 21, 2017. http://podcast.darker-days.org/e/darker-days-radio-episode-78/))
Members of the Church of Caine. Right-hand photo by Tuomas Hakkarainen.
A Tech-Heavy Larp Experience
We were the Chosen of Caine and that night we took to the streets. Beset by enemies at all sides, we stood strong and took care of each other.
Bastian Retzlaff, Malkavian Anarch, Shepherds (Church of Caine), Losers Club
Enlightenment in Blood featured digital components that enhanced the modern feel of the larp. All character creation took place on an online app called Larpweaver, developed by Matthew Webb from Incognita Ltd. Players selected aspects from a limited list of characteristics: primary groups, secondary groups, short backstory seeds, supernatural types, factions, memories, goals, and basic powers where applicable. In this way, character creation was streamlined by offering the player a limited number of options based upon their previous selections. In many cases, the most important selection players made was their Primary group, as all characters started play with this faction at a particular location.
Enlightenment in Blood primary groups.
The majority of the plot was seeded through the Larpweaver platform, as the character affiliations with their groups, their stories, and their goals were the primary drivers for interaction within the larp. However, the organizers also offered some major plot points at various times in the evening. Players could choose to chase these plots or instead decide to focus upon their personal interactions.
While Larpweaver offered character connections through the groups and factions, players were expected to establish independently personal ties such as romances, childe-sire relationships, etc. through Facebook before game. Other players were able to establish these connections at the convention leading up to the event. As with many larps in the collaborative style, this practice meant that players who engaged in extensive pre-play by establishing connections and playing out scenes tended to have more extensive personal interactions within the larp than those who did not.
Description of the Shadow Enlightenment primary group in Larpweaver.
In addition, during the few days leading up to the larp, during play, and for a week afterward, the organizers activated an online social media network called Undernet. Undernet was based upon the Kin framework used for the College of Wizardry larps. The platform had a main channel for all players, private channels for specific groups, and private messaging. While online engagement during a larp can sometimes detract from the in-person interactions, Undernet provided a fast way to spread information to players scattered in 10+ locations. However, some players relied on Facebook for coordination as well, as Undernet access could be spotty in places.
As the furthest locations were a fifteen-minute walk from one another, having an online means to coordinate proved important for the flow of the game. Players could find out where certain groups were headed and where key plot points were unfolding. Characters also used the Undernet platform to post in-game photos and provide running commentary. As one Brujah Anarch player explained, “Glued to my phone, I managed to network my way through the evening, surprisingly up-to-date on everything happening in the city. I didn’t feel lost at all.” Players were encouraged to take in-game photos, as the documentation team could not reach all locations of the larp. However, the organizers placed strong limitations on the sharing of photos and emphasized the need for consent.
Anarchs celebrate the death of the Camarilla sheriff by taking a selfie. Photo by Tuomas Hakkarainen.
Revolution Comes in Many Forms
They may have hurt us before. They may have controlled us. But in this moment, we are free. We are beings of love. We are one with the universe.
Numina, Malkavian Anarch, Shadow Enlightenment, Immanentize the Eschaton
I played a Malkavian Anarch tantrika named Numina who was part of two groups: the Shadow Enlightenment, who sought ways to cope with the Kindred condition through spiritual means; and Immanentize the Eschaton, a group who believed that spiritual transcendence could occur on earth. Interestingly, while the Shadow Enlightenment opposed the Church of Caine — a hierarchical Anarch religious faction gaining power in the area — Immanentize also contained Church of Caine and other members, so we had some crossover in connections through these groups. In this regard, for some pockets of the larp, the themes of enlightenment and revolution focused primarily on the metaphysical aspects of existence rather than physical revolt.
Alaric, a Cult of Ecstasy mage, and Numina, a Malkavian Anarch tantrika. at the Camarilla bar. Photo by Suvi Korhonen.
A trauma survivor, Numina believed in trying to reclaim her Humanity through meditation and connection with others, leading her to run tantra workshops for Kindred and anyone else interested. Her form of anarchy led her to feel vehemently opposed to hierarchies and power structures, believing strongly in personal autonomy and freedom. My larp consisted mainly of trying to extract “misguided” friends from the Church of Caine, leading an in-game tantra workshop to help center other characters in the midst of chaos, and engaging in metaphysical discussions with members of the Shadow Enlightenment and other spiritual seekers. Numina was particularly concerned with saving Metatron, an autistic Malkavian boy with suicidal tendencies who she was worried had been bloodbound by the Church. Her most consistent companions throughout the night were two Cult of Ecstasy mages: Sabine, her mentee posing as her childe, and Alaric, the love of her life for several decades. Alaric was a member of the primary group the Relationship Anarchists, who believed in pursuing non-traditional relationship structures, genders, and sexualities.
As a writer for the larp, I was able to contribute the two primary groups of the Shadow Enlightenment and the Relationship Anarchists. I was pleased to see these groups unfold in game. Much of the “action” of the larp focused upon the violent uprising against the Camarilla, along with the other supernaturals taking advantage of the chaos, including werewolves and changeling Redcaps. I wanted to provide a space in the sandbox for more philosophical, metaphysical, and romantic play to unfold should players choose those options.
Members of the Shadow Enlightenment. Photo by Sarah Lynne Bowman.
Stripped Down Mechanics, Increased Safety Tools
The insurrection is finally here and freedom beckons. We are the merciful bullet to the head of the malignancy that is the Camarilla.
Viktor Keller, Toreador Anarch, Stirner Group, Berlin Intelligentsia
The organizers explained game mechanics in emailed preparatory materials and mandatory pre-game briefings held at the convention. While the larp did not have workshops, play started with a pre-game poem and list of questions that players were asked to read ritually at their respective starting locations in order to gradually phase into character.
Starting ritual and poem for Enlightenment in Blood.
As the larp was in the Nordic style, the designers stripped down the mechanics to incentivize basic, low-level, playable actions that would enhance role-play. For example, my Malkavian character was able to use a stripped-down version of the Dementation power by touching a character’s clothing and saying “You really, really feel everything intensely” or “You really, really want to make someone happy.” Used in both End of the Line and Convention of Thorns, the “really, really” mechanic signals the enactment of a discipline to co-players in a subtle way. The recipient of the power decides the effect on their character, which should last no more than ten minutes. Larpweaver offered a few options from which to choose among these powers, which allowed us to customize our characters based upon the play we aimed to experience. In practice, we negotiated additional types of powers typical to our particular supernaturals in smaller collaborative groups. However, the system gave us a basic understanding of the limits of our power levels and what aspects we could enact during play.
Combat skills were similarly minimized to a small score between 1 and 5, with supernatural powers enhancing this number slightly. No combat scores could exceed 5. In the Nordic style, players are encouraged to collaboratively plan the outcome of scenes rather compete. However, if players wished to have a competitive combat, the larp provided a barebone framework for them to determine the winner. The only exception was the Prince of the city, who could be held by five characters, but could only be defeated by ten. These rules were in place in order to demonstrate his superior power level compared to the rest of these low-level denizens of the World of Darkness. While combat was possible at any point, character death was only permissible in the last hour, although presumably players could arrange consensually for character death before that time. Regardless of these combat mechanics, players were still expected to negotiate consent out-of-game for the content of such scenes and make agreements regarding physical enactment.
Bjarke Pedersen explaining the combat rules in the briefing. Photo by Sarah Lynne Bowman.
Safety and calibration were also emphasized in pre-game briefings with Johanna Koljonen. The larp featured three tools: the Tap-out, a non-verbal means of leaving a scene by communicating through physical touch; the See-No-Evil hand gesture over the eyes, which allows players to bow in and out of scenes without comment; and the Okay Check-In, a way to make sure other players are emotionally comfortable out-of-game.((For more information about these tools and other aspects of larp safety and calibration, see Johanna Koljonen’s blog at https://participationsafety.wordpress.com/)) Players were also asked to step out of game and negotiate physical boundaries in a consensual manner. As the participants came from a large range of larp cultures — those quite familiar with negotiation in the Nordic style, those from a very physically rough play style, and those where touch is not acceptable — workshopping these techniques would have helped standardize their use. Unfortunately, time was limited due to the busy convention schedule.
Johanna Koljonen explaining the safety tools in the briefing. Photo by Sarah Lynne Bowman.
Pervasiveness and Engagement
Walking around in a neighborhood that seems almost immune to Masquerade breaches…
Ludwig Müller, Toreador Anarch Stirner Group, Losers Club
As with many larps, player experiences varied depending on location, cohesion of the groups, and interactions with co-players. All primary groups started game in the same location, e.g. a bathroom stall after a Diablerie, a willing ritual sacrifice at the Church of Caine, etc.. Our group, the Shadow Enlightenment, started play at a restaurant, where we discussed matters of metaphysical philosophy, as well as our concerns around the Church of Caine, which would surely rise in power during the revolution. Because we ate together before play and engaged in the starting ritual together, then launching into serious discussion, our group cohesion was strong. Many of us walked together to confront the Church of Caine directly afterward, attempting to extract members about whom we worried. Others splintered off to pursue their own plots, experiencing varying degrees of intensity.
The Shadow Enlightenment at their starting location. Photos by Sarah Lynne Bowman.
Anecdotes suggest that the cohesion of the primary group was central to this larp, especially for players who did not establish other ties ahead of time or who could not find their other connections in the city. The secondary groups came into play far less frequently. Players were instructed to stick together during play for safety reasons and in order to remain connected to the larp. While some players were frustrated by the distances between locations or felt like they just missed the action, others remarked that role-playing while walking was an exceptionally immersive experience. Ultimately, the degree of engagement depended upon interactions with co-players, as main plot points were few and far between.
Members of the Shadow Enlightenment walking to the Church of Caine. Photos by Sarah Lynne Bowman.
While the larp had 10 locations, the three central play areas were: Zwinglihaus, the Church of Caine location in an actual church; Raumklang, the low-key and fancy Camarilla Bar; and Jägerhutte, the gritty Anarch Bar where the game ended, located in the RAW-Gelände arts district. Regarding the atmospheres of the different locations, a Nosferatu Anarch player said, “Loved the Camarilla bar and giving the finger to a few of them, but nothing could match the energy, fear, threat and violence of the Anarch bar.” Despite the fact that many groups had starting locations in more intimate spaces, most participants reported flowing between these three main places during play. Some players suggested that a tour of the various locations would have helped players know their other play options and see more of the sprawl of the larp.
A Bone Gnawer Ahroun from the pack After the Wall, Trash Fuckers, Life in Filth. Photo by Tuomas Hakkarainen.
The pacing was also variable. One Anarch player from the Red Liberation, an anti-Camarilla gang, explained, “The game, for me, was long lulls of uncertainty and cacophony, punctuated by an occasional (and strong) sense of urgency and purpose. But when they came, those moments were very powerful.” Alternately, another player from the Church of Caine faction felt engaged the entire time, stating, “The flow was great, swept me away from the starting ritual onwards right to the end. Complete illusion, full immersion.” A Toreador Anarch player summed up her experience by saying, “I managed to always be in the wrong place at the wrong time to take part in the action. But it’s okay, it was fun roaming the streets.” Larp flow varies from player to player in any game, but the pervasive nature of Enlightenment in Blood made these lulls more punctuated due to travel times and fear of missing out on the “action.” Some players wished the larp was longer in order to explore more of their desired connections.
Metatrron with another Anarch vampire. Photo by Tuomas Hakkarainen.
Finally, the pervasive nature of the larp was immersive for some players, but jarring for others. The Friedrichshain district of Berlin is full of colorful nightlife, which meant that roaming gangs of costumed larpers did not draw much attention overall. As one Virtual Adept mage player explained, “It felt very immersive and engaging. Berlin felt like the World of Darkness that night.”
However, the larp did pique the curiosity of outsiders, particularly in the private location for the Anarch bar, where physicality around feeding and violence was more prominent. We were instructed to keep physically aggressive or transgressive actions limited to these private locations and explain to anyone asking that we were a theatre troupe. While the ambiance of the environment helped some players feel engaged, others were uncomfortable. A Toreador Anarch player shared, “The environment was too rough for me to play; too many players in the same spot and I was afraid of non-players’ reactions to our play.” Another player reported waiting outside an in-game billiard hall, feeling “a little uncomfortable surrounded by non-players.” While this area of Berlin provided an ideal location for the themes, costuming, and atmosphere, not everyone felt at ease with the pervasive qualities of the larp.
A Changeling Redacap. Photo by Tuomas Hakkarainen.
Little Pockets of Story
As mentioned above, although much of play took place at the three central locations, the bulk of the story was distributed throughout the characters through Larpweaver and established through pre-game negotiations between players. As overarching narratives, the Camarilla Sheriff and Prince were killed by Anarchs, the Church of Caine rose to prominence, only to become mostly destroyed at the end, etc. However, the smaller stories ended up providing much of the drama of the larp for players. Therefore, I have included a selection of brief summaries of these stories in order to demonstrate the variety of character experiences. Character names, supernatural types, factions, primary, and secondary groups are listed as identifiers.
Total devotion for the Church powered by rituals thinning hour by hour as Elijah observed [a failure] in leadership. An attempt to find his place through fighting and aggression aimed at [the] Church’s attackers. Broken blood bonds and a search for a new group to belong to now.
Elijah Stern, Brujah Anarch, Bene Elohim (Church of Caine), Cryptoanarchists
Leeches started to kill themselves. We got a bit closer to each other, but stayed and waited for the actual slaughter to start.
White Spirit, Garou Bone Gnawer Ragabash without a pack, Anticapitalist Culture Center, Life in Filth
The vampire uprising was a dangerous time for a mage to go out and play, but you gotta take risks to shape your fate! Friends helped her in her quest for Ascension: vampires and mages by coming together in a tantra session and an old Satyr by taking her momentarily to Dreaming in the toilet of a concrete shack.
Sabine Riedel, Cult of Ecstasy mage, Shadow Enlightenment, Exquisite Agony
Arguments about whether Marx is German or Russian and other activist banter. Uncertainty when hooking up with the Red Lib, an imposing group of real vampire rebels. Ecstatic about getting to drain the Prince.
Ron, Brujah Anarch, Anticapitalist Cultural Center, The Prince’s Dogs Raelyn, Elijah Stern, both Brujah Anarchs; Myra Redford, a Changeling.
Going from ‘I’m on top of the world and life is great’ to despair when Nichole realized that it’s not going to stop with the sheriff. Loneliness and fear when her world collided. Realization of the consequences of how she had treated others and diving into emotions locked away.
Nichole, Ventrue, Camarilla Orthodoxy, Queen Machine Records
Investigative, observer, looking for the chance to invest in the city. A [larp] that started out focusing primarily on a very human part of the game, but which rapidly spiralled out as the lid was blown off the vampire and werewolf politics.
Alexander Hurst, Technocracy Syndicate mage, Integral Solutions, Green Action Force
Woke up, had plans to change things, but saw butterflies and got carried away by distractions. (Satyr life…)
Hallam Jung, Changeling Satyr, Total Party Explosion, Cryptoanarchists
I was a hub for information. I was communicating across the city and sowing chaos, leading crazy fae partiers from one chaotic fight to the next. I was one of the Enlightened, breaking something more and more just to see how it fell apart, with no regard for the consequences.
Sinistar, Virtual Adept mage, Total Party Explosion, Berlin Intelligentsia Hallam Jung, Changeling Satyr; Katherine “Kat” Meridian, Brujah Anarch, photo by Rick Boeve; Bastian Retzlaff, Malkavian Anarch.
It’s not a revolution, it’s an insurrection and I enjoyed every moment of it. Omg we diablerized my Sire who I tried to find for decades! Wait…I have a blood brother and he is with the Church of Caine?
Dana van Rijckevorsel, Malkavian Anarch, Stirner Group, The Rabbits
Mahler had a good time watching his kin fighting the night away. Got some good scares out of people, including one vampire starting to believe he was a true nightmare. It was completely chaotic but good for a Redcap.
Dirk Mahler, Changeling Redcap, Total Party Explosion, Animal Trainers
As the Camarilla collapsed, he fought a lone and valiant fight to uphold order and everything he believed in. Was beaten to near final death in front of his siress Katharina Kornfeld, [who] had given up on him, the Camarilla, and the clan (phantastic scene!). Broke his chains and in the end lost everything but his humanity and his personal honor.
Hamid Mansour, Ventrue, Camarilla Orthodoxy, Berlin Wine Tasting Society
Fear, fascination, horror, then chaos at the church. Changing locations, making alliances and choosing a way forward. At the Anarch bar, a high of emotions, a flurry of bodies (fighting, loving, conspiring), a Vaulderie of three, drinking liquid sun through the veins of a satyr, and finally being set free from three decades of tyranny by the arranged death of her sire.
Luise Siegel, Toreador Anarch, Blood Gardeners (Church of Caine), Voice of Reason
In addition, participants provided three word descriptions of their game, which are summarized in the below word cloud. When viewed together, these emotions help construct a more cohesive amalgam of the chaotic experience of Enlightenment in Blood.
Emotions and themes collected from Enlightenment in Blood players.
A Revolution for White Wolf Larp
Revolution is not an economic and social cause, but an act of free will.
Isabella Chiaromonte, Malkavian Anarch, Mortal Lovers, The Ethics Committee
Organizers have run pervasive White Wolf larps from their inception in the ‘90s, playing in public locations such as bars and restaurants. The idea of upholding the Masquerade while among “kine” or “sleepers” resonates well with the themes of the World of Darkness, which emphasize how supernaturals influence reality from behind the scenes and must remain secret to protect themselves. What Enlightenment in Blood did for White Wolf larp was to demonstrate that a high budget pervasive larp spanning multiple locations and utilizing mobile technology is a viable format. Additionally, with mechanics stripped down to their minimum, the physicality of walking between locations and enacting character moves in a collaborative manner helped increase immersion for many players. As a result, Enlightenment in Blood was an ambitious fusion of the World of Darkness content with the aesthetic principles of Nordic larp, creating a truly unique experience for players.
Pre-game photo of Anarchs. Photo by Sarah Lynne Bowman.
This piece is written by Niclas Hell, and recounts his and Johan Fors’ common experiences. Johan and Niclas are Swedish edu-larp designers who visited the Portal 5 convention in Zagreb, Croatia, held March 03-05, 2017. Portal is a larp convention organized in Eastern Europe each year. So far, Portal has been held in Croatia and Hungary.In 2018, it is scheduled for Bulgaria. Johan and Niclas are booked to give lectures at Portal 6.
Matija picked me up at the airport. He smiled and waved with a sign saying ”NICLAS HELL & MADS LUNAU” among the taxi drivers picking people up from the Amsterdam arrivals. After rearranging the sword in his back seat (”HEMA is my hobby”), we were off to the convention in a Zagreb about 15 precious degrees warmer than Stockholm.
”About four years ago, our larp scene was basically dead,” Matija explains during the ride. ”In the 90’s, we had about a hundred people coming to a large event each year, and then for a while, we had a bunch of events with fifty, seventy people each year, all fantasy larp. It went downhill. A few years ago, we had only one or two smaller events and some vampire larpers, but those keep to themselves.” He contextualizes the situation of the larp scene in Croatia with the economic crisis. Larp isn’t necessarily expensive — a standard Croatian fantasy larp costs the equivalent of 10-25 Euros — but people started moving out. Even some of the new Croatian larpwrights moved to Ireland to find jobs. These factors might have added to the larp decline some years ago.
”So we decided to change that,” he adds with a grin.
Johan and Niclas at Portal 5. Photo by Irena Hartmann.
Terrible Croatians Terrible Creations
Portal 5 was mainly hosted by the Terrible Creations team. This larp design collective made their first game a few years ago: the Famiglia Bonifacio. This larp awakened something in Croatia. It’s a mafia game running for three hours for 30 people about violence, crime, and backstabbing. Every Croatian larper I meet has played this larp, and the general consensus is that it is a great game. It’s the Croatian blockbuster if there ever was one, inspired by Nordic larp themes and game design. It has let dozens — maybe hundreds — of people in Croatia try larp, or reevaluate what larp can be.
The success of the Famiglia Bonifacio with newbies and seasoned fantasy larpers alike made the organizers realize there was a market for this kind of product. They are currently in the process of starting a business, after a few successful corporate jobs and lots of playtesting of party larp and edu-larp products. They paid a large portion of the cost for Portal 5, including my plane ticket, from their own pockets.((Niclas’ plane tickets and accommodation were paid for by Portal, because they invited him to speak about edu-larp at the conference. However, this article was spontaneously thought out and written without hints or nudges from the people at Portal. The quotes have been cleared with the quoted, and the people depicted have been asked beforehand. Nothing else has been communicated between Niclas, Johan, and the Portal people about this text.))
”We brought you guys here so that we can learn from you, talk to you, befriend you, and know what we’ve missed. Where we can improve,” says Miroslav Wranka, one of the Terrible Creations people. The goals seem to be creating an active dialogue with other parts of the larp world; educating and inspiring the local larpers; and hosting a quality larp convention. ”Hopefully, you’ll learn some things too,” Wranka tells me. I don’t know who he thinks we are, but we surely did.
Terrible Creations in full regalia. Photo by Matej Čelar.
The Larps
We decide to ditch the idea of playing a teaser version of the Famiglia Bonifacio in a black box for six people, since we want to do the real thing some day. Instead, we play a party larp for bachelorette parties called Witches! It’s a simple, fun piece based on a Zagreb legend about the evil Black Queen, a historical person accused of being an actual witch. ”That’s what you get for being an assertive woman in the Middle Ages.” The goal is to find the right potion, and the only way to find it is through trial and error – by mixing drinking them. Needless to say, a considerable amount of the “witch apothecary” consists of off-game alcoholic drinks.
The game slots did not have the focus of giving participants a digest of the best chamber larps, but rather to playtest Terrible Creations games intended for sale. To put it another way, we played most of the Croatian chamber larps made over the last few years, as Terrible Creations are the only active and the most prolific chamber larp designers in Croatia so far.
After the games, I expected a little debrief, but we had a longer discussion about the game design. The Witches game ended with a discussion about how to resolve specific game issues for target groups, with Lucija and Matija listening and apparently taking mental notes for the future. I adhere to the “No criticism after the game” principle, but this was quite obviously a game test, and the designers asked for all kinds of comments. The whole convention seemed fitted to give Terrible Creations the maximum outcome of knowledge, game testing, networking, and advertising. I can’t help but admire their dedication to the cause.
Balkan Style and the Politics of Identity
Chris Panagiotopoulos speaking at Portal 5. Photo by Miroslav Wranka.
A short time before Portal, some lecture slots were still open. That’s when they found Chris Panagiotopoulos, the Balkan revolutionary of larp. He took the remaining slots and hosted a number of different program points from his Greek point of view. His gospel of larp was about what he calls Balkan-style larp. Chris claims that the Balkans make a unique form of larp, coherent throughout the peninsula. He tries to rally the other countries for common larp campaigns or at least better exchange opportunities.
Most of us went to the bar Valhalla after the lectures, with us Nordics swallowing the blatant cultural appropriation. It seemed to be a joint where larpers often gathered for a beer in Zagreb. A participant even wore a Valhalla shirt every day to the convention. One night at Valhalla, I ask Chris about his theories:
NH:So, if Nordic style is relationships, 360, and play to lose, and American larp is gamism, symbolic environments, and rules… What is Balkan larp?
CP: We have a unique model for organizing our larp community. Most of your larps are “one shots.”’ Almost all of our larps are campaign-style fantasy larps. You play the same character every larp and develop it, kind of like a tabletop campaign. And everyone works with that in mind. There are rules for reviving your wounded characters, and actually killing a character is very uncommon. Instead, what you try to do is gain long-term control of the others’ camp or resources. Becoming more powerful in the campaign is the goal; it’s all about power play. You may even go to other organizers’ larps and play the same character. It’s all part of the Balkan contract of how we do larp.
NH: You’re talking about a German style of larp, too. I haven’t considered German larp to be a specific style before. How do you mean?
CP: The Germans’ most visible larps are the large larps organized more like a framework for creating your own experience than the Nordic-style individual drama directed by the game texts. The Germans make large fantasy festival-style games where you go to create an interesting story about your group. You wouldn’t go alone to that kind of larp; it wouldn’t make as much sense. The same thing goes for the Balkans.
NH: You could say that American and Nordic larp focuses on the individual drama, while German and Balkan larp focuses on groups and common experiences, then?
CP: Exactly.
NH: So what’s the difference between German style and Balkan style larp, then?
CP: The strong focus on campaign play, and that you might even play basically the same group in other settings. It might even work in post-apocalyptic larp, which is also organized in several Balkan countries. You’d go to different countries and keep playing the same character in all post-apocalyptic larps.
NH: As a Nordic larp designer, I’d argue we’ve had that kind of fantasy campaign play for about 25 years in the Nordic countries. To me, it seems like your definition of Balkan larp is more a question of community than actual game design, and I’m inclined to think that game design is what decides what style your larp is. How does your community make your larp style different?
CP: It affects the whole larp. I’m arguing that we should enable all Balkan larpers to go to each others’ larps. In some Balkan countries, there is only a single middle-size larp every year, and some people in Serbia, FYROM, and other partially-inactive countries are starting to spill over to our larp campaigns. I think that’s a good thing, since our larps are very common – and hence the Balkan style. If I could go from Greece to Bulgaria and develop my character at their larps, the number of available larps would rise from a couple a year into a dozen in a bunch of different countries. The fact that this is even possible, rather than the very diverse scene of the Nordics, makes it a unique way of doing larp at every level.
Come for the Lectures. Stay for the Fizzy Powder Lemonade
One of the invited lecturers was the Czech consultant Lujza Kotryová. Her company went from two people designing larps and struggling to get by, to a consulting firm of ten people. I talked to Lujza over a fizzy lemonade drink made by mixing some chemical powder with water, which was offered by the organizers during the conference. I chose the green powder for this particular occasion.
Lujza Kotryová at Portal 5. Photo by Irena Hartmann.
NH: So, how come you could grow from two to ten people?
LK: We developed a business model where, instead of offering a fixed product, we consider what the company actually needs. Sometimes, that’s a larp. Sometimes, that’s gamification. Sometimes, it’s just [consultation] services for development work. Sometimes, they ask us for gamification because it’s cool to do gamification now, but after meeting with them, we get them to realize that’s not what they actually need at this time.
NH: That sounds like a great idea. Your lecture was kind of an eye-opener for me. I’ve seldom really thought about what the companies I work for actually need, as crazy as it sounds. But wasn’t the point from the start to make larps? Have you abandoned that dream?
LK: No! But as we realized larps was not actually what everyone needed all the time, we also started making much more money. Now we can afford to pay around 10 full-time employees and also to invest into development of new products. So we are still doing it, although larps are not the most lucrative part of our business. Gamification and other playful solutions are the main part of our work.
This kind of personal reflection around people’s own professional situation is significant for the lecture schedule. The people invited are professionals working with larp and games from different angles. Professional insights at larp conventions are usually passed over a cup of coffee, while lectures often take a formal, theoretical tone at other conventions and conferences. All the talks by designers, bosses, principals, and teachers gave insights to the different worlds of larp. My own talk was among the most theoretical, quoting philosophers and Eirik Fatland. Though I enjoy gaining that kind of knowledge, the personal touch was a nice middle road between practical sewing workshops and Aristotle and Larp: a New Perspective on The Poetics. Questions were plentiful after most lectures simply because participants became genuinely interested in the people talking.
So They Have This Little Convention in Croatia. So What?
First of all, larp is growing. Perhaps it’s not growing as a grassroots movement in Scandinavia anymore, but it is widening, claiming new areas. In a few years’ time, the center of larp may not be firmly based in the communities we know. We’ve seen the Czech and the Polish go global. We’ve seen the Italians make some extremely interesting games, and the Russians are breaking up the prejudice about metal-swords-and-Vikings as we speak. And that’s just naming a few. The Balkan scene(s) has the embryo of a common community: they are developing their larp, they are growing, and they are reaching out for partners.
The next time your friends are talking about some larp happening in Bulgaria, you will know a few things about the larp scene in Bulgaria. It’s a shame you didn’t already, because you sure knew about that rerun in Denmark. These people are doing original stuff. And you ought to know about that.
Cover photo: Boffer axes, witches, and metatechniques. Photo by Johan Fors.
Enlightenment in Blood primary groups.
