If you ask ten people what larp is for them and why they do larp, you will probably get at least eleven different answers. For me, it is all about meeting my dearest friends. I recently turned 30, and all the people I invited to my party were people I met through larping. Unfortunately (or fortunately) due to how global our hobby is, a lot of those people live all over the world, and I only see them at larps. However, when I go to a typical weekend larp, though I get to enjoy an amazing larp, I never have enough time to talk to all the awesome people.
That’s one of the main reasons why I love an iFoL. IFoL, standing for “Its Full of Larps”, is typically a long weekend from Thursdays to Sunday, dedicated to short form larps (1-6 hours) played at a rented large house. Between the larps, there is lots of talking, cooking, board games, sometimes a sauna – in general, just having a good time together. It is like only experiencing the big moments of a larp while spending most of the time as yourself, not as a character. Or like being at one of the KP/SK conferences, but without panels and in a way smaller venue. This gives the participants more time to really get to know each other and spend time together between the games – instead of only having a short time for socialising at an after party after a larp.
Apart from the social aspect, the organisational design of iFoLs is quite different compared to a lot of larps these days. Since a couple of years ago, we have seen quite a big trend of commodification in larps (see Seregina 2019): the larper is more of an attendee than a participant, and larps are often more about buying experiences – not co-creating them. At an iFoL, the opposite applies: everyone is part of the organising team. This is emphasised in the design: an iFoL usually begins with the people who organised the venue and registration saying the iconic phrase: “Our part is over – now everyone is organising.” This shows the importance of co-creation at an iFoL.
This also means that the participants must be ready to volunteer to guide larps, to organise time schedules, to cook, to help with the logistics, and so on. And everyone must be involved in keeping the space clean. If you want something to happen, you must organise it yourself.
Usually, these roles are not appointed up front. Instead, people volunteer on the location. Apart from a food plan (due to needing to buy the groceries before), the final schedule of the event is decided spontaneously. Most of organising is done ad hoc; for example, to sign up for larps, participants may stand in a line after dinner to get a spot at a larp, or room corners may be reserved for different larps, with people gathering at specific corners to sign up for specific larps. These on-the-fly mechanisms make it easy to find out which larps still have open spots and which are full. Signups tend to be organised just a few hours before the games to allow people to arrive and organise their schedules flexibly.
The system of self-organising and co-creating works surprisingly well, though there are also some challenges. In an ideal world where responsibilities would be shared equally, the main tasks that need to be done before the event would be shared between all participants. However, in our non-ideal world, this does not work. To make the events happen reliably, there usually must be a smaller organising team that decides to facilitate an iFoL. This team manages the preliminary tasks such as booking the venue, handling participant registration, and organising the food for the event.
Additionally, there are always small things that require coordination – an ingredient missing from a meal, a participant needing to be picked up from the train station, or a person feeling lost at the event. The goal is to share these responsibilities between everyone, but usually the main organisers tend to be the first who are asked to provide help. They can then coordinate with the other participants and ask them to help with the tasks.
The events do not work well with too few or too many people. If there are less than 25 people, experience has shown that this leads to not many games being played, and people get disappointed for not being able to larp. Not everyone wants to play all the time, and if there is already a bigger larp with maybe 15 people attending, there might not be enough willing participants to play another larp simultaneously. Likewise, with over 35 people attending, self-organising does not work as well. In larger groups, people tend to rely on other people doing the required tasks and no longer feel responsible for the co-creation.
The participation fees of iFoLs are divided equally between everyone. Since iFoLs started, the tradition has been that everyone pays the same amount to participate, and this includes the main organisers. This was based on mutual co-creation – even the main organisers are just participants, and all participants are equal organisers. The main organisers have tasks before the event, but ideally they would not have to do anything anymore once at the location (though as said before, this ideal does not fully hold). However, equality is not the same as equity, and having everyone pay the same amount of money does not give everyone the same chance to participate. Thus subsidised and sponsor tickets have become available during the past years.
What I have written above have been my experiences on participating in iFoLs – and organising one. Even though the main idea is written down in the iFoL manifesto (Deutch & Kasper 2015), at the end iFoLs are about creating an experience together. They are not about attending as consumers – they are about co-creation and organising together. They are about spending time with old and new friends in a safe and welcoming environment to play larps, to talk, and to have fun together.
To have an iFoL work out well for all, you need to trust your fellow larpers. There are enough of us who want to co-create events together instead of buying experiences, and enough of us who are ready to take the responsibility. Over all my years of attending iFoLs, this mentality of co-creation and co-organising has permeated the events – and it is the main reason why I love iFoLs. In the end, this is what our community is about at its best: friendship.
This article has been reprinted with permission from the Solmukohta 2024 book. Please cite as:
Kramer, Katharina. 2024. “On Co-creating Experiences – iFoL.” In Liminal Encounters: Evolving Discourse in Nordic and Nordic Inspired Larp, edited by Kaisa Kangas, Jonne Arjoranta, and Ruska Kevätkoski. Helsinki, Finland: Ropecon ry.
For larps [Non-Player Characters] (…) exist at the service of the larp, and their existence and agency are secondary to those of the player characters (Brind 2020).
In many larps, Non-Player Characters (NPCs) are diegetic tools for larp designers and runtime gamemasters to set specific events in motion, to convey important messages and to anchor story beats in the timeline of the larp. Their psychology is often simplified compared to other characters, and they are single-minded in their pursuit of the given task. NPCs are a bridge between the plot and the player characters, and their primary goal is to serve the story.
Sometimes, however, the game benefits from the presence of Non-Player Characters with more complex personalities and agendas; characters who must remain on the runtime gamemasters’ strings, but who can no longer be on rails. For convenience, I call them supporting characters, and I separate them from the NPCs, even though there may be various degrees of overlap in their design.
Where NPCs serve the story, supporting characters serve the players. Their interactions with player characters are paramount to their personal agendas, and they are often used as a litmus paper for how the game is going and what aspects of it need to be tweaked on the go. Supporting characters bring out the internal struggles in player characters, draw them deeper into the story; not for the story’s sake, but for the characters’.
The Polish larp Fallout: Xanai’s Revenge (Poland 2023) used both NPCs and supporting characters with great success. The larp’s plot centred around a small village that drew in travellers from various conflicted factions, and with them – all sorts of trouble. NPCs were the overt antagonists who made the other characters’ lives difficult – they were thugs on the roads, raiders attacking the village, one-dimensional villains with straightforward agendas and one simple task: to pose a challenge to the players. They set the tone for the game, and their actions clearly communicated the level of danger facing player characters.
Simultaneously, each faction at the larp contained a supporting character, some openly introduced as such, some hidden among the players. Their role was more complex: they were expected to provide play to their respective factions, to incentivise players to develop their personal stories, and to provide a living and breathing world where the players could feel at home. Those supporting characters had their own allegiances and agendas, but they were allowed to change them and even switch sides if they bonded with the player characters, or if the direction in which the game was progressing didn’t seem to appeal to the players.
They were still on the larp designer’s strings – the potential change of their goals was written into the design and had to be consulted with the designer, but the freedom of action set them apart from the single-minded NPCs whose actions and goals were set in stone.
An important trait separating NPCs from supporting characters is their “screen time”. NPCs are typically one-off appearances. They serve a specific role and then they disappear, or in the case of random encounters, they respawn into equally one-dimensional roles to repeat the same task. Meanwhile, supporting characters are either present throughout the game, or recurring at specific times. Since their role is that of supporting the players’ stories, their availability is crucial for the formation of emotional bonds, the building of stakes, and the escalation of conflicts. Supporting characters are there to encourage players, to create spotlight for them, and to weave the player characters’ personal stories into the overarching story of the larp. They are the manipulative antagonist who tempts the heroes with the promise of power and glory; they are the vulnerable rookie who needs guidance and protection; they are the dying elder who brings out the worst in the relatives fighting for their inheritance.
Sometimes, all the larp needs are one-off NPCs. The larp Paler Shade of Black (Poland 2013) introduced NPCs whose only job was to incite riots and let themselves be captured by the palace guards to be made an example of. The game focused on a small kingdom surrounded by inhospitable lands, whose survival depended on the absolute trust in the ruthless but effective rulers. Civil disobedience was a major theme there, and the NPCs served as both its enablers and primary victims. Their off-game goal was to provide play to the guards and play up their authority, but because their “screen time” was so short, they didn’t require extensive backgrounds or personalities. Despite this, the cast of the NPCs decided to add flavour to their roles. With the runtime gamemaster’s approval, they wrote quasi-backstories for their characters, weaving them into letters and pages from diaries that could be found on them once they’d been captured.
These props didn’t turn the NPCs into supporting characters, but they sprinkled their one-dimensional roles with a little more personality, providing the guards with something new to engage with. Had the NPCs survived and used their backstories as alibi to interact with the personal stories of the player characters, their conversion to full-fledged supporting characters would have been complete.
When designing a larp, it is crucial to decide which of the roles will be needed, and to clearly communicate it to the cast who will be playing them. While NPCs mostly stay on rails and depend on the runtime gamemasters to direct them, supporting characters require thinking on their feet and a level of selflessness that allows them to cater to the players’ needs while keeping the overarching plot in peripheral vision. Due to their recurring nature, full-fledged personalities, and often complex backstories, supporting characters carry an emotional investment that needs to be recognised and approached with proper care. The supporting cast may experience bleed just like the players, which means that regular check-ins and a thorough debriefing is just as important for them as the pre-game briefing.
NPCs and supporting characters set an example of generosity, serving the plot and the players alongside the gamemasters. Distinguishing between the roles we perform in larp and the implications they carry is just another step to creating a safe, generous, and wholesome experience for everyone involved.
Bibliography
Brind, Simon. 2020. “Learning from NPCs“. In Eleanor Saitta & al. (eds.). What Do We Do When We Play? Helsinki; Solmukohta 2020.
This article has been reprinted with permission from the Solmukohta 2024 book. Please cite as:
Fido-Fairfax, Karolina. 2024. “Strings and Rails: NPCs vs. supporting characters.” In Liminal Encounters: Evolving Discourse in Nordic and Nordic Inspired Larp, edited by Kaisa Kangas, Jonne Arjoranta, and Ruska Kevätkoski. Helsinki, Finland: Ropecon ry.
“Everything is a designable surface”, as the larp designer, writer and theorist Johanna Koljonen (2019) says. This means that every single aspect of larp can be designed for particular effect: scenography, characters, workshops, communications, costumes… Even the absence of design can be designed. You can make the conscious design choice to leave a particular aspect of the larp open to the chaos of emergent play.
In many larp productions, the designer of the larp is visible to the participants. Perhaps they post about the larp on Facebook, run workshops or chat with players arriving at the venue.
If we take Koljonen’s maxim seriously, we have to conclude that the person of the designer is also a designable surface: how they dress, talk, come across. Is the designer stressed and angry or relaxed and reassuring?
The Second Run
In 2021, we made two runs of the larp Redemption (Finland 2021) and in 2022 we did two runs of another larp, 3 AM Forever (Denmark 2022). I was working with different teams but there was a subtle yet noticeable phenomenon in both larps: the first run had a nervous edge and the second run was more relaxed. This is one of those qualities that’s hard to quantify but when you run a lot of larps, you learn how to read the energy of the crowd. Running the larp twice back to back makes it possible to subjectively compare the vibe of two sets of players.
So what could cause such a difference?
For the players, the run they played was their first experience of the larp. Although there were minor adjustments, neither larp underwent substantial revision between runs. It was just the same larp, played twice.
However, one thing was different. Me. Us. The organizers. Talking with participants preparing to play the first run of both larps, I was nervous. We’d never run the larp before! Would it work? Of course I tried to keep cool but humans are often very good at picking up subtle social cues, especially in groups undergoing an intense process of socialization.
At the workshop of the second run of both larps, I felt relaxed, buoyed by the knowledge and experience gained from already running the event once before.
I started to wonder: was the nervous edge of the first run caused by the nervousness felt by us, the organizers? Did the players pick up on our emotional state and mirror it, the way humans often do?
Designable Surfaces
What are the different areas that can be designed for in terms of how the participant interacts with and experiences the designer?
Examples are social media, workshops and runtime, and discussing the larp after the event, for example at conventions or on messaging apps. There’s also a difference whether the organizer who’s interacting with a participant is someone tasked to do that, or a team member whose main function is something else.
Social media. In many larp productions, the first interactions are online. Social media posts, answering questions on Discord and Facebook. Maintaining a friendly persona is easier when communications are not immediate. If a prospective participant gets on your nerves, you can take a break, breathe, and then respond instead of going with your first reflexive take.
It’s a good idea to agree in advance who speaks with the voice of the larp in public, online spaces. This can be done by one person only, or several, depending on your chosen communications strategy. What matters is that everyone who speaks to participants projects a friendly persona and knows what they’re talking about. You should avoid disagreeing with each other in public as that damages the credibility of all communications very quickly.
The tone of online communications also matters. Going full corporate can backfire because it makes the larp feel sterile and unfriendly, not the communal experience so many larps strive to be. The question of the right tone varies by the individual but I usually try to go for a personable but somewhat official persona.
To be official, it helps not to reply to messages late at night and to keep the language and syntax correct instead of casual. You should avoid sharing personal emotions unless they’re positive ones related to organizing the larp: “I’m so excited to meet you all on site!”
To be personable, you can share carefully curated personal emotions related to the running of the larp: “I love seeing player creativity bring the larp to life!” You can empathize with individual players in a positive way and share updates from the larp team’s process: “We’re meeting with the team today!”
You have to find a way to use your own personality in a manner that feels natural to you, otherwise you risk sounding fake and alienating. If your communication feels forced to you, it might be a good idea to re-evaluate it.
On location. I recently played in the larp Gothic (Denmark 2023). The venue was a mansion in the Danish countryside and each run had only ten players. t. When we came to the venue, there were organizers busy making the larp run but always also someone whose job it was to talk to us. To sit down with us in a relaxed manner, asking after how the journey to the larp went. The workshops all followed this pattern, leveraging the larp’s limited number of players to make each interaction friendly.
This is an example of designing the designer.
When players arrive, they often feel nervous and jittery. They haven’t yet settled into the flow of the larp and they’re worried about all kinds of things, from their own play to food or accommodations. It’s enormously helpful if there are relaxed organizers present.
Chatting with the players is an organizer task. It should fall on those team members who have slept properly and maybe even enjoy talking to players. Meanwhile, the stressed-out scenographer should be allowed to build in peace.
Workshops are an obvious area where organizer presentation matters a lot. The energy projected by those running the workshop carries over to the larp. It’s important to feel that the experience is in safe hands, that you can trust the people you’re with and that everyone is friends here.
In situations like that, designing the designer means sending out the team member who can put on the most convincing facade of reassurance to talk to the players.
After runtime. The period after the larp event is the trickiest one in terms of designing the designer because of the question of how to set boundaries. When does the responsibility of the larp designer end?
Excess
It’s easy to be idealistic when designing the designer: we should always be accessible to participants, respond to every need and be available for emotional support forever even after the larp has ended.
The problem with this approach is the limited nature of the human being. If we demand everything of ourselves, we risk exhaustion and burnout. Because of this, part of the process of designing how you come across is about boundaries.
Before the larp, perhaps you’re only reachable via a specified channel, such as an organizer email address. You won’t do larp business on Messenger in the middle of the night.
During the larp, perhaps issues related to the wellbeing of individual participants are handled by a dedicated safety person. This way, the stresses of running the larp won’t cloud handling the needs of individual participants.
All of these design choices are about the wellbeing of the organizer. That too is part of how to design the designer. The best way to appear relaxed and cool in front of the players is not when you learn to fake it, but when you’re genuinely not suffering from intense stress. When you feel good, your participants feel good.
Bibliography
Johanna Koljonen (2019): Essay: An Introduction to Bespoke Larp Design. In Larp Design, edited by Johanna Koljonen, et al. Bifrost.
Ludography
3 AM Forever (2022): Denmark. Juhana Pettersson, Bjarke Pedersen, Troels Barkholt-Spangsbo & Johanna Koljonen.
Gothic (2023): Denmark. Avalon Larp Studios.
Redemption (2021): Finland. Maria Pettersson, Juhana Pettersson & Massi Hannula.
This article has been reprinted with permission from the Solmukohta 2024 book. Please cite as:
Pettersson, Juhana. 2024. “Designing the Designer.” In Liminal Encounters: Evolving Discourse in Nordic and Nordic Inspired Larp, edited by Kaisa Kangas, Jonne Arjoranta, and Ruska Kevätkoski. Helsinki, Finland: Ropecon ry.
Cover photo: Photo by John Hain. Image has been compressed.
If you are a larper with any kind of limitations that affect your ability to play, the first thing you may think of when you see a listing for a new larp is not whether it is exactly your kind of thing, but whether you would be able to participate in it at all. Not for reasons of schedule clashes, but because of these other limitations.
Players with limitations, be these physical, mental, psychological, or something else entirely, will often feel like they are missing out on the full experience of the larp they are attending. Many larps – even larp as a hobby in general – are known to be physically, mentally, and psychologically demanding, and players need to know in advance if they will be able to engage with the larp to the same extent as everyone else, or to an extent that they are happy with. Transparency in larp design is what makes it possible for players to judge these things, which is why, for us, it is one of the most important tools for accessibility.
Accessibility is about looking out for people. Players come to your larp because it looks interesting and they want to have a good time. Thinking about accessibility and disability from the very beginning of your larp design, as well as communicating it clearly from the beginning, signals to players that they are explicitly included and that the designer has put thought into the wide range of people who might want to play it. Accessibility is about showing responsibility for players and the player experience as much as you can and should as a designer. Of course, you can never be wholly responsible for everything that might happen within a game, but to paraphrase Maury Brown (2016), you have power over what your larp allows, prohibits, and encourages. You control what the larp expects from players and whether this is reasonable for everyone who might want to play.
Ideally, accessibility should be proactive, not reactive. Disabled players often have to do the work themselves to figure out whether a larp will be accessible to them, rather than being able to rely on clear accessibility information from the organisers. This can be very draining and can make disabled players feel discouraged from larping at all. When accessibility information is not included, disabled players can feel that they haven’t been considered and that their experience at the larp is bound to be lesser than their abled co-players. Implementing accessibility proactively into your larp means that you consider what is and is not absolutely essential to how your larp is run, and you consider what you need to implement to make sure people with varying levels of ability and different limitations can participate in the larp to the greatest extent that is possible. A side-effect of this, as an organiser, is that your vision for the larp becomes much clearer.
Accessibility in larp is (and isn’t!) many things, depending on what your larp is about. If your larp’s foundation is about players being in the dark and all unable to see, lack of light would not factor into your larp’s accessibility in the same way as it would if the larp was not based on physical darkness. However, if a fantasy larp is set in a fairy glade with dim lighting, and if this would pose a problem for larpers with reduced vision, the lighting could be increased since this is not essential for the larp’s vision.
When you design a larp, it does not have to be accessible to absolutely everyone. For example, Legion (Czech Republic 2014), a Czech larp, takes place over a 25-kilometer hike over two winter days and, according to the larp’s website, hunger and tiredness are at times an “inevitable” part of the larp. This means that someone who uses a wheelchair, or someone with a chronic illness, would very much struggle with the essential parts of the larp and would not necessarily be able to participate. This does not make Legion a bad larp or brand it “inaccessible.” No larp can be accessible to absolutely everyone, whether that be due to themes of trauma, the amount of physical activity it requires, or something else. But designers should be intentional about their design. It is ok to exclude people if the heart and goal of the larp simply would not ever be able to accommodate people with certain limitations – such as someone with severe asthma trying to play Luminescence (Finland 2004), a larp in a room full of flour. But if designers are able to open up their larps to people without compromising what the larp is actually about, they should bake that accessibility into their design.
You should be able to explain the state of your larp’s accessibility to yourself – what is it about the heart and soul of your larp that means some people will not be able to play it? Ideally, the people that your larp excludes are the same people who would not want to participate in your larp anyway and would agree that the larp would always be inaccessible to them, such as how Legion necessarily requires walking 25 kilometers as an intrinsic part of its design. Accessibility in larp is not about making every larp accessible for every person, but making them as accessible as their designers’ intrinsic visions allow them to be.
Of course, navigating player limitations takes different forms depending on the medium of the larp, whether it is played in person or online. Some people may experience severe concentration fatigue when larping over video chat, meaning that live-action online games are inaccessible to them due to the nature of the medium. Others have a much better experience larping online in the comfort of their own home, and find that they are less able to concentrate or larp “well” when attending an in person event.
We would be remiss to not also explicitly acknowledge psychological safety in this article. Accessibility is also about what a player can expect to experience during a larp, which becomes difficult if the larp has hidden features. In our opinion, knowing a secret beforehand will not diminish the ingame experience of keeping it or having it exposed. At Høstspillet (Denmark 2023, Eng. The Autumn Game), every character’s background and all lore material was open to everyone – their secrets, traumas, deals, alliances, ambitions, relations and topics. During sign-up, people could tick off boxes with what topics they didn’t want to play on. At the briefing, the organisers emphasized that “a safe larper is a good larper.” We believe that by helping players manage their expectations and giving them the agency of playing within the framework but also around individual pitfalls, you create not only safer larps but better larpers too.
There are as many limitation combinations as there are larpers. Ultimately, the decision on whether the larp is not accessible for someone comes down to the individual larpers themselves. People love knowing exactly what level of control and agency they do and do not have, and transparency in design choices will help each larper decide if a larp is accessible to them. Accessibility is not binary, even for one person. People can have different limitations at different times, and they have to make the choice on whether they can or cannot participate in a larp for themselves. Players want to be able to get everything that they can out of the larp experience, and satisfying play is achieved by having the access and agency you need to get the play you want, within the constraints of a larp that could allow for that play. Disabilities complicate this, but if the organisers have given thought to accessibility and how to support players in different ways, it will be much easier for all players to participate in the larp to the extent they wish to.
As a larp designer, it is not your responsibility to make your larp accessible to absolutely everyone. But you should try to make it as accessible as its core vision allows it to be. If the larp excludes someone, it should be because the heart of the larp truly cannot be realised in a way that allows them to participate, not because their needs were not thought about at all in the design process. Hopefully, the future of larp is one where the only reason someone would forgo a larp is because they simply wouldn’t want to participate in it in the first place.
Legion (2014): Czech Republic. Rolling o. s. et al.
Luminescence (2004): Finland. Juhana Pettersson, Mike Pohjola, & Mikko Pervilä.
This article has been reprinted with permission from the Solmukohta 2024 book. Please cite as:
Livesey-Stephens, Beatrix & Gundersen, Bjørn-Morten Vang. 2024. “Player Limitations and Accessibility in Larp.” In Liminal Encounters: Evolving Discourse in Nordic and Nordic Inspired Larp, edited by Kaisa Kangas, Jonne Arjoranta, and Ruska Kevätkoski. Helsinki, Finland: Ropecon ry.
So, you have found yourself on the verge of a burnout, or already in one, without the tools to stop repeating the cycle. In this text I will, as a newly working occupational therapist, larper, larp creator and two-time burnout survivor, give you some real-life tips and tools to fight back.
Many of us think that burnout is something that only happens at work, when we are doing too much in a stressful environment. But burnout can also happen when we do something we love so much that it consumes us. This is called Passion Burnout. While burnout can happen to anyone, people working with things they love are at higher risk. When we do what we love, we risk thinking that we are not really working. We risk thinking that because we love the work so much, we should actually do more, that because we do what we love we don’t need to rest. When our passion peaks we become full of energy, and that can make us unable to detach from work enough to focus on the things we need to do in order to avoid exhaustion.
Many larp organizers are in danger of experiencing Passion Burnout, because we love what we do. But if we acknowledge the risk we can work together to prevent it. We can learn to spot the symptoms of burnout, both in ourselves and others: feeling helpless, trapped, defeated or overwhelmed, as well as lack of joy, fatigue, changes in sleep and/or appetite. We can encourage each other by setting an example by taking care of ourselves, setting boundaries, offering help and lowering our expectations. Together we can build a more caring and nurturing community.
Now for the tips and tools.
Burnout is not your fault
You, like everyone else, are a victim of this capitalistic society that lives from our work. In this system you get rewarded, praised, and judged by the work you do, with larps just as much as with every other pursuit. In the capitalist world you don’t get more money or respect by doing less. But if you manage your time better, if you prioritize yourself instead of the work you are doing, if you stop sacrificing your own well-being, your family, your friends, your relationships and your mental and physical health, there is at least one person who will respect you more: You.
Know where your time goes
Use a time management circle or a similar tool to find out how you spend your time and how you would ideally spend it. Writing things down will help you notice where the time actually goes, and with this knowledge, you can start making adjustments to your daily routine to better fit your needs. When organizing a larp, it can help you to write down larp organizing time into your day so that it doesn’t take over your whole free time.
Draw two circles and divide them each into 24 slices. The first circle is your everyday life: how you actually spend your time. Think of the last few months or the last time you organized a larp and fill the circle with your everyday occupations such as sleep, work, taking care of yourself, cleaning, cooking, down time, relaxing, hobbies, etc. You can be as specific or as vague as you like, you can fill it hour by hour, or more approximately. Use color coding if that helps.
Now fill out your second circle. Think of your perfect life and fill your dream circle with what your everyday life would look like if by some magic all your hopes and dreams had come true.
Then look at your two circles side by side. Visualizing the differences can help you find the things you can control. Maybe you need more time for sleep, or more time with your loved ones, maybe less work and more time for self-care. See the differences, but remember that you are not a wizard but a mere mortal. So start small, just one change towards your ideal life. Set yourself a goal that is realistic and achievable. The goal can be as simple as “I want to have an hour a week for myself to go outside” or “I need half an hour more sleep a day”. State that goal to yourself and start to find your way towards it by sharing it with a friend – or a stranger at Solmukohta – and asking for help along the way.
Write things down
The following tool is useful while working on a larp project. The version pictured is called the Time Management Matrix. It can help you see what needs to be done in order to manage a project and help avoid burnout by giving you a clearer idea on how to spend your time and where you can cut yourself some slack.
Urgent
Not urgent
Important
crises
deadline driven
emergencies
etc.
preparation
prevention
planning
etc.
Not important
interruptions
some emails or social media activity
some meetings you don’t need to attend
etc.
busy work (work that adds a little value, like searching for theme songs for characters)
something someone else should be doing
etc.
Fill the matrix with the things you need to do for the larp. Fill it with your responsibilities and burdens. After you have things written down, you can see the actual amount of work that needs to be done and spot the things that are less important. Which are the things you don’t like to do, and which things give you joy? What could you delegate to others? Are there things you don’t have to do at all? To help avoid burnout, I would suggest focusing on the things you like and delegating the ones you don’t.
Look at the amount of work ahead and estimate how much time it would take to complete it. Set boundaries: look at your time management circle and be realistic. When are you going to do this work? Make a schedule and add in breaks and off-time. And if the work feels like too much, ask for help.
Ask for help
Hard and shameful? For me at least it is. Many of us think we need to be able to do everything ourselves, because we value ourselves mainly through the amount of work we do, be it professional or artistic or passionate work. But try to think of what it feels like when someone asks you for help. Most of us would feel appreciated, and that it would be an honor to be a part of your project. Asking for help is giving an opportunity for others to feel good by supporting you.
Find a way to connect with yourself
This tool is a Green Care exercise. You can do it even in the middle of running a larp, you only need ten minutes. The goal is to find a way to regulate your emotions and ground yourself.
Go outside, to nature if possible. If you can’t go outside, find a picture of nature that speaks to you, or try to remember a nice view of a landscape. Start by observing your surroundings. What does it look like, what do you hear, feel or smell? Look at the big picture first, then some smaller details. If it’s hard for you to stand still, move. If you find yourself thinking about other stuff, notice that thought and then let it go, shifting your focus back to your surroundings.
After a few minutes, when it feels good to you, start shifting your focus to yourself. With the same attitude of observation, without judgment or evaluation, try to feel yourself. Listen to your breathing. How does your skin feel, where in your body can you feel your heartbeat? If you feel like moving your body, do so. Move in a way your body wants to move. If you feel an emotion, let it in and try to look at it with a sense of wonder.
When you feel ready, slowly wrap your hands around yourself. Hug yourself and thank yourself for this exercise. Do this exercise when you feel disconnected, overwhelmed or when you need a moment for yourself.
Calendar some Me Time
When I’m in the middle of organizing a larp I tend to view that time as my free time, which has led me to overworking myself. It’s really easy to cut time away from rest and self-care, but taking care of yourself is necessary to avoid getting burned out. This is difficult, I know, but scheduling some Me Time while working on a larp project really helps. How much you need depends on you. If this is hard you can start small? Mark this time in your calendar and make sure not to book anything else over it. Even if larp organizing is your hobby, don’t do that work in this time, make this time your haven, for resting and enjoying yourself.
The change needs to happen with you
Lastly, I must give you the bad news: I can help you with tips and tools, but you have both the power and the heavy burden of actually using them. This is the hard part. You must take responsibility for your time management and set up the boundaries to protect your well-being. And please, for your own sake and for the sake of the whole community: ask for help when you need it.
Don’t be afraid of the amount of tips and tools presented here, these are not “one size fits all.” Pick and choose those that feel doable for you. If something doesn’t work, try something else.
And don’t forget that the community is here: the people who can help you with tools, support and labor. If we reach out and admit that we cannot do everything alone, we can lift each other up. With community, care and support we can achieve magic.
This article has been reprinted with permission from the Solmukohta 2024 book. Please cite as:
Friman, Taro. 2024. “Please Stop – an Occupational Therapist’s Advice on How to Avoid Burnout.” In Liminal Encounters: Evolving Discourse in Nordic and Nordic Inspired Larp, edited by Kaisa Kangas, Jonne Arjoranta, and Ruska Kevätkoski. Helsinki, Finland: Ropecon ry.
Cover photo: Photo by Manfred Hofferer from Pexels
Sometimes, when participating in a larp, things just go wrong. But where is the problem? How can you fix it? This article provides a quick guide that condenses the international larp community’s knowledge on techniques to remedy a larp gone wrong, and to fix it during the event.
The core of larp, perhaps the concept of larp itself, is co-creation. It is collective and improvised, often based on an emergent narrative with a strong experiential impact. All of these aspects make larps unique and powerful, but also open to potential risks. Their performative nature makes it difficult for participants to stop for a moment, analyze, and fix what is going wrong for them.
Larp as a triangle
A larp can be divided into various elements, and these elements can be adjusted on the go. But one important thing to keep in mind is that a larp is always bigger than the sum of its parts. There is something difficult to understand: a ghost, a hidden melody. That’s why when things don’t go so well, it’s not always easy to figure out exactly why. For the purposes of this article let’s imagine the larp as a triangle formed by the larp itself, the community, and you, the player. Usually a larp goes wrong when one or more of the sides of this triangle do not work.
What can go wrong
Following our triangle-based model, here is a list of possible issues:
The larp: unclear communication, poor game design, wrong logistics, temperature, insufficient or inadequate food, hard sleeping conditions and accessibility in general. Lack of meaningful plot and narrative, unclear larp structure.
Community: different play styles, lack of chemistry with the players or the community, lack of in-game connections with other characters, lack of things to do or meaningful actions, or a sense of being left out.
The player: your personal state, your expectations, difficulties in feeling/portraying your character, social anxiety, your commitment to the game.
How to fix your larp on the go
Rather than a comprehensive guide, I collected a series of practical tips from my own experience and the collective knowledge of the international larp community. I read articles, asked for opinions, and listened to stories. Then I tried to synthesize it into a set of tips and tricks, aimed at a quick resolution and getting the larp back on track in a decisive, though not always elegant, way.
Not all of these techniques can work for everyone. Use them as you see fit. Put them into practice as soon as possible, as soon as you begin to realize that things are not working for you.
The goal is always to relocate. This is because the experience does not work when we are out of place. Following our tripartite scheme, we can be out of place regarding the larp, the community, or ourselves.
The tool to relocate in all of these three aspects is communication: nothing can be fixed without talking with the right person. Whenever the problem is about the larp itself, the person to speak with is the designer or the runtime crew, in order to relocate yourself within larp dynamics that better fit your needs. Here are some possibilities to calibrate your expectations with the organizers’ design goals. If possible do this during breaks, in order to have more time.
Ask for advice and how to fix plots and relationships.
Ask about the core of the larp, the dos and don’ts.
Ask how the game will continue.
Ask about the play style they had in mind for the larp.
Offer your help to organizers (as an NPC or other roles)
When the problem lies with the community, the people to speak with are the other players, in order to relocate yourself within more positive social dynamics. Here are some possibilities in and out of the fiction, all meant to stimulate a quick change in your – and other people’s – character’s beliefs, social status, behavior. Here are some possibilities (see also Grønvik Müller 2020) :
Offer someone a favor
Ask for a favor
Get in trouble
Make bad choices
Spread your secrets
Show your character’s vulnerability
Make up and confess a deep love for someone
Change your mind on something
Remember something
Die!
Create things or situations (draw, write songs, start a cult)
Take the details you like in the game, and make a storyline out of this.
Involve more interested players
Sit down and let the game come to you (other lost players are searching for people to play with)
Search for some “lost player” and interact with them
Get involved in situations you want as a player, don’t worry about character consistency (see Nielsen 2017)
Go and play with the people you know/like to play with
Do your favorite/relaxing hobby
Stop your game and go calibrate with other players
When the problem is with your experience, the player to consider is yourself. The aim is to relocate yourself within your own personal dynamics. These techniques tend to affect other players less than the previous ones. It’s more about working on your personal experience, and tricking yourself a bit, in a good way. Here are some possibilities:
Calmly plan your return to the game
Play more with themes and elements within your comfort zone
Reset your expectations: accept the larp for what it is NOW, not what you wanted it to be
Do self-care
Take distance from the game for the time you need
Reduce the sense of failure
These tricks have to be used wisely. They can save your experience, but destroy the experience for other players and/or organizers in a sort of butterfly effect. For this reason it’s always good to talk with players and organizers before using them, if they involve other people. Some hacks (Brind & Svanevik 2020) and steering (Montola & al. 2015, see also Kemper & al. 2020) choices can blur the line between organizers and participants. A larp and your experience of it are not the same thing, so sometimes saving the experience means killing the larp.
Possible perspectives
From this brief guide we can draw some useful suggestions for the future, in order to make the best use of these correctives, while being mindful not to damage the social contract that underlies every larp. Designers, for example, could make space in their design for steering and hacking, clearly communicating which parts of the larp can be modified and which parts can not: possibly in the pregame communications, in player materials, and game guides or design documents. It would also be possible to workshop this.
On the other hand, as participants, we can train ourselves to reframe our expectations in a quicker way, trying to reduce the sense of a larp “being wrong”, since in most cases this is just a matter of our perception. We are not out of place at a larp: we are the larp, we are exactly where we want to be, where we belong. Larp is interaction: it’s a collective work we can do only together, as a community. And we will.
Bibliography
Simon Brind, Martine Svanevik (2020): Larp Hacking. In What we do when we play, edited by Eleanor Saitta, Jukka Särkijärvi, Johanna Koljonen. Solmukohta 2020.
Magnar Grønvik Müller (2020): Heuristics for larp. In What we do when we play, edited by Eleanor Saitta, Jukka Särkijärvi, Johanna Koljonen.Solmukotha 2020.
Jonaya Kemper, Johanna Koljonen, Eleanor Saitta (2020): Steering for survival. In What we do when we play, edited by Eleanor Saitta, Jukka Särkijärvi, Johanna Koljonen. Solmukotha 2020.
Markus Montola, Eleanor Saitta, Jaakko Stenros (2015): The Art of Steering: Bringing the Player and the Character Back Together. In The Knudepunkt 2015 Companion Book, edited by Charles Bo Nielsen and Claus Raasted. Rollespilsakademiet.
Charles Bo Nielsen (2017): Loyalty to Character. In Once upon a nordic larp…twenty years of playing stories, edited by Martine Svanevik, Linn Carin Andreassen, Simon Brind, Elin Nilsen, Grethe Sofie Bulterud Strand. Knutepunkt 2017
Acknowledgements
Thank you to: Sarah Lynn Bowman, Bjarke Pedersen and Juhana Pettersson for private conversations, and to all the participants in the thread that I opened in the Larpers BFF facebook group
This article has been reprinted with permission from the Solmukohta 2024 book. Please cite as:
Giovannucci, Alessandro. 2024. “A Short Guide to Fix Your Larp Experience.” In Liminal Encounters: Evolving Discourse in Nordic and Nordic Inspired Larp, edited by Kaisa Kangas, Jonne Arjoranta, and Ruska Kevätkoski. Helsinki, Finland: Ropecon ry.
One of the big problems for organizers of larp festivals – particularly those that bring together larps and larpers from different cultures, and/or people with little or no larping experience – is: how to describe the larps in ways that will be meaningful to participants who may come from a different larping background, or from no larping background at all?
This is something that the organizing team of The Smoke: London’s International Larp Festival tried to tackle. At The Smoke we always had a huge variety of content and an even huger variety of participants. We found quite quickly that asking designers and GMs to write descriptions of their larps, while essential, was sometimes of limited value to people who either didn’t understand the terms being used, or who understood them to mean different things to what was actually intended.
We decided to add a requirement that people submitting larps to the programme should, as well as describing the larp discursively, answer a set of questions that sought to establish firm and unambiguous statements about what taking part in the larp would involve. Asking this at submission allowed us to ensure a mix of larps on the programme, as well as making them clear to prospective participants.
Hopefully this will not only be useful for festival organizers. It may also be helpful to anyone who’s organizing a run of a chamber larp for their friends, or seeking to recruit participants for one: and perhaps also for participants who want to examine a little what it is that they do and don’t enjoy doing in larps, etc.
An example
This is taken from the website of the 2022 edition of the festival, for the larp 4–3 (Alessandro Giovannucci and Oscar Biffi):
ABOUT THE LARP
The city stops, gathered around the stadium. The derby splits it in two. In the locker room, eleven players prepare for so much more than just another game. On the other side of the wall, their long-time rivals. A ritual, a sacred space for the length of the match, only extinguished by the referee’s final blow on the whistle. And in between, some sublime moments and many ridiculous episodes.
In a word, football.
4–3 is all about teamplay and the match is a non verbal ritual of gestures and movement. But the result is determined by what happens in the locker room. As the athletes prepare to face yet another epic challenge, their stories and decisions interweave like a web of passes. Will they miss or score a goal?
PARAMETERS
Physical contact
Not relevant for this larp; e.g. just standing in a room and talking
Romance and intimacy
Not relevant for the larp
Conflict and violence
Shouting and other intimidating actions not involving contact
Communication style
Half of the game is verbal, half non-verbal
Movement style
Jogging on the spot at your own pace and pass a ball
Characters
Players play facets of a personality, or something else that is human but less than a full character
Narrative control
There are random mechanics to establish the final score of the match
Transparency
Fully transparent – players will, or at least can, know absolutely everything in advance
Representation
The fictional space looks very unlike the play space, but players will use their imaginations
Play culture
Players are collaborating to achieve joint aims
Tone
Moderate
Not the Mixing Desk
This approach is related to that of the Mixing Desk of Larp (Martin Nielsen and Martin Eckhoff Andresen), which uses a set of sliders to describe a larp design in terms of various properties.
The Mixing Desk itself was conceived as a design tool; and although it also has value in communicating the nature of the larp to prospective participants, this is not what it was designed to achieve. Also, the Mixing Desk is aimed at people who already have some understanding of the Nordic larp design space: the sliders are not necessarily going to be meaningful to people from other communities, or to newcomers.
We considered preparing a ‘mixing desk of submitting larps to international festivals’ or something like that, using a similar model but with sliders that were chosen to be clear and meaningful for our specific explanatory purpose. We decided not to go down this route, because we felt that a choice of textual parameters was more useful in this situation than a numeric/visual position on a slider.
This was partly in order to gain clarity – the difference between 4 and 6 out of 10 on a slider is not obvious, while the difference between ‘walking’ and ‘running’ is more so.
And it was partly because it allows possibilities that aren’t just along one linear direction. If there was a slider for ‘Level of physical activity’, should a larp that involves dancing set the slider higher or lower than one that involves running? Perhaps they are similar enough that the slider would be the same: but they are sufficiently different as experiences that we wanted to represent them separately.
Participants at The Smoke 2022, photo by Oliver Facey
The parameters
The questions asked, and the options offered for each, have evolved somewhat over the years that The Smoke has run, as we gradually refined the initially-crude system in the direction of being clearer and more helpful. No doubt there is still a lot of room for improvement, and perhaps readers will have thoughts of their own about what they might like to see changed, added, or removed.
We always took into consideration that we didn’t want to put too heavy a burden on the people who were submitting these forms. Otherwise, one could add any number of questions… There has to be a balance between usability for submitters, and usefulness for eventual participants. We don’t know if we’ve struck that balance in the right place.
Here are the 11 parameterized questions that were asked for The Smoke 2022, the explanatory text that accompanied each, and the options available. All include an ‘Other…’ option, to allow the submitter to write in something that’s not covered by the available options.
Of course, if your audience is different to The Smoke’s audience, some of these options (or even some of the questions) may not be applicable to you: or some may be missing. We’re explaining this here as our particular approach for this event; we’re not trying to say that it should be universal.
Physical contact
If relevant, the level of physical contact participants should generally be comfortable with to play the larp.
Not relevant for this larp; eg. just standing in a room and talking
Moving in contact; eg. rolling around on the floor together, contact improv, very close dancing
Intense contact; intimate or forceful
Other:
Romance and intimacy
How the larp handles themes of romance and intimacy. Put the level participants should generally be comfortable with to play the larp.
Not relevant for the larp
Romantic themes but no player contact; eg. discussion of romance, illicit glances
Demonstrations of affection; eg. hugging, holding hands
Symbolic kissing or sex; eg. stage kisses, abstractly representing sex
Actual kissing or simulated sex; eg. dry humping
Other:
Conflict and violence
How the larp handles conflict and forceful play, if relevant. Put the level participants should be generally comfortable with to play the larp.
Not relevant for this larp
Themes of conflict, but not enacted by players; eg. quiet threats and vengeful stares
Shouting and other intimidating actions not involving contact
Pushing, grabbing, latex weapons, or other safe physically-forceful actions
Other:
Communication style
How will participants be communicating with each other during play? If it’s a mix, choose ‘Other’ and explain.
Silent
Non-verbal sounds
Minimal speech
Lots of speech
Singing or chanting
Other:
Movement style
Choose the minimum level required, ie. participants can run but also it’s ok to walk, choose ‘Walking’. If it’s too complex for one choice, choose ‘Other’ and explain – this is primarily to gauge how accessible your larp is to people with restricted movement.
Sitting or lying
Walking
Dancing
Running or other vigorous movement
Other:
Characters
Who creates the characters, and what are they like? Choose the nearest; or If it’s too complex for one choice, choose ‘Other’ and explain.
There are no actual characters; participants play abstract entities, or similar
Participants play facets of a personality, or something else that is human but less than a full character
Participants create their own characters, in a workshop
Participants build their characters around a predesigned skeleton or archetype
Characters are fully predesigned
Other:
Narrative control
Who is responsible for the direction of story? Choose the nearest; or If it’s too complex for one choice, choose ‘Other’ and explain.
There is no story as such, it’s more like abstract activity
The shape and direction of the story is entirely, or almost entirely, determined by participant choice
Participants have some influence over story, but there is basically a script or structure that they’re within
Intensely plotted and designed, but participants have freedom as to how to achieve their goals
Heavily scripted, perhaps with predefined scenes whose outcomes are known
Other:
Transparency
How important are secrets? Choose the nearest; or If it’s too complex for one choice, choose ‘Other’ and explain.
Fully transparent – participants will, or at least can, know absolutely everything in advance
Transparent design, but participants can create secrets during play and keep them from each other / reveal them when wished
There are predesigned secrets that participants will have from each other
There are predesigned secrets that the organizers will have from the participants
There are predesigned secrets the organizers have from the participants , and also that the participants will have from each other
Other:
Representation level
How does the physical reality of the room relate to the fiction? Choose the nearest; or If it’s too complex for one choice, choose ‘Other’ and explain.
What you see is what you get: the space and fixtures etc are exactly as they seem
The fictional space is pretty similar to the play space
Scenery and props will be used to make the play space look something like the fictional space
The fictional space looks very unlike the play space, but participants will use their imaginations
The fictional space is so abstract that its physical representation isn’t important
Other:
Play culture
How will participants be playing together? Almost all larps are collaborative to some extent, so take that as a given. Choose the nearest; or If it’s too complex for one choice, choose ‘Other’ and explain.
Players are in direct opposition, p vs p
Players are individually trying to achieve goals, such that not all can succeed
Players are in rival factions, teams, etc, which are in some sort of competition for success
Players are collaborating to achieve joint aims
The concept of rivalry or cooperation between players doesn’t really apply
Other:
Tone
What is the general tone of the larp and of the themes it covers? An ‘Intense’ larp might not be misery all the time, but will require participants to engage with serious or heavy material. Choose the nearest; or If it’s too complex for one choice, choose ‘Other’ and explain.
Comedic
Light-hearted
Moderate
Dramatic
Intense
Other:
In review
The Smoke’s organizing team built up the current set of parameters, as described here, over time, as we discovered what it was that people wanted to know about a larp. For example, the initial set of parameters didn’t include physical contact, romance and intimacy, or conflict and violence: these were added later, after feedback from festival participants and reflection from the organizers.
It is unavoidable that there is still an amount of subjectivity in the answers, based on the designer’s own larp experience. The difference between a moderate, dramatic, and intense tone is a matter of perspective: and the tone of the design doesn’t necessarily indicate the nature of the experience. If there is bleed-in, a relatively low key larp can feel intense. Similarly, quiet threats with a feeling of realism can feel more violent than an abstract fight with latex weapons: and whether this is the case might not always be in the control of the designers.
As a compromise between not asking for too much labor from people submitting larps (and indeed from those reading the resultant descriptions), and allowing participants to get a clear understanding of what they were likely to experience, our perception is that this system has been largely effective.
The larp is over and, although you had a good time at some points, you think there are some flaws in the design. You don’t want to become the person who annoys the organizers at the end-of-game party or who writes bitter posts in the players’ Facebook group. We’ve all experienced this at some point. Your players also feel this way sometimes.
When a larp doesn’t go well for us as players, there is an emotional part in which we need a “repair.” In the end, we have invested a lot of time, money and excitement in a collaborative narrative that doesn’t quite match what we expected. That’s why many players expect an apology or at least to be heard about what didn’t go as well as expected. In addition to this, some of them also want to contribute their points of view in order to help improve the design.
Just after you have finished organizing a weekend event, after many sleepless hours, it may not be the best time to get feedback, because you may not be able to listen very empathetically and constructively. This comes into contradiction with the players’ need to express their frustration with what may not have gone well. In the end, within a process of creation, development, implementation and iteration, the feedback process is necessary for both players and designers. Establishing a structured critique channel, with clear deadlines, helps players know that their opinion will be heard and organizers can listen to learn at a time when they are not exhausted. You can use a form, player interviews, or conversations with the team and other designers or several posts in the player communication group to add what worked and what didn’t work.
The forms can be anonymous and allow us to reach out to many more people than just our friends. They also help us with the players’ need to tell us what went well or badly and to give organizers some time, doing a delayed reading. The form should cover all aspects of the larp, including pre-larp and post-larp. Knowing that your workshops don’t work as they should(()) or that the bus route should include a bathroom stop(()) matters as much as discovering problems with a certain meta technique. Separate by sections those points you want to get detailed information on. The questions “What would you change and how?” and “What did you like about the event?” also allows you to get an assessment of what is most important to the player.
At NotOnlyLarp, we started with a more quantitative-focused form and have evolved to one where we also ask why they give that rating or how they would improve the problems. My advice is to prepare the form before going to the larp if you know you’re going to be exhausted when it ends. And even leave the form with scheduled submission dates.
Read the forms when you are ready, which sometimes involves taking your distance from the event. When reading the results, leave your ego out of the equation. Don’t blame yourself for the mistakes, but try to focus on concrete actions to improve your life and your organization. You will find mistakes that you knew about and others that you had a blind spot for. All larps have errors. There are no criticisms that are not true even if you do not agree with them.
The quantitative reading can guide you to know in a better way which of the sections have the worst score, that is to say, what you must urgently improve. If from the blocks Transportation, Food, Workshops, Design, Character Sheets, Sleeping Logistics, Location, and Safety you have lower scores in Workshops and Character Sheets, I would look for more information to read why and what the players would change. Probably the full answer is not even in the questionnaires, but you may want to talk to players who you know, the team itself, or even other designers who can help you find the best solutions to the problems raised. There are certain sections, such as safety, that should be thoroughly analysed regardless of the overall score and, depending on your safety process, maybe even within a specific team.
Photo by athree23 on Pixabay.
Other organizers prefer to consult with friends and third-party designers. Cooperative learning not only helps the organizer of the live event, but also the other people involved in the critique and resolution process. That’s why platforms like EntreRevs in Spain or Knutepunkt/Knutpunkt/Knudepunkt/Solmukohta are so important for the community.
Finally, establishing a conversation in the communication channels with players and organizers also works. Some organizers make “What went wrong” and “What went right” posts. This allows for a conversation that provides insight into what went wrong and can adjust a collaborative response to problems. It serves to give value to the responses given by the players, which are not only read but also responded to and appreciated publicly. In contrast, many people may prefer not to give public feedback, especially if it is negative. In some cultures it is common to give private criticism without giving the option to learn to those who we think are wrong, so I think an anonymous form can allow us to know those opinions.
In the Nordic larp culture, there is a courtesy period of one week, in which players only give positive opinions, to leave a margin for the organizers to recover from the live role-playing. This is called the Week of Stories. Remember that no matter your culture, you can set the deadlines for positive and negative reviews to suit your specific needs, as long as you communicate them properly((Some examples of total failure in NOL larps. I want to thank the players who made us aware of them.)) and also respect that players need to give feedback without waiting too long after the event.
In NotOnlyLarp, we work with a process of iterating, designing/writing, running the larp, and learning from our mistakes, so we believe getting feedback is a very important part to learn. If your larp work uses iteration as a way of learning, structuring feedback from your team and players can help you learn and improve designs and organizational processes. How do you get feedback and integrate it into your design process?
Rules for larps have traditionally been framed as having two purposes; safety and simulation. It is time to move beyond that. Rules are magic.
In this essay, we argue that rules are an essential design element that can be used to fuel player experience rather than define its limits. We will do this by analyzing the design of pen and paper role-playing games (RPGs) that put story rather than simulation at their core, and exemplify how these games frame in-game interactions in terms of rules. We will explore how RPGs use rules to drive particular narratives, and promote specific emotional experiences, and compare and contrast this to how similar effects are achieved in classical larp design.
We conclude that the application of simple rules, such as those found in narrative RPGs, can be used to create the emergent narratives and the emotional experiences many seek in larp. Finally, we propose a design tool for creating larp rules with this focus.
The Narrative Revolution
Traditionally in RPGs, the game master invents a story to lead the players through. They will adapt underway to respond to player actions but, in essence, a so-called ‘adventure’ is planned out ahead of time. This way of thinking about narratives is challenged by RPGs emerging from the American indie scene, such as the ones we will highlight below: Apocalypse World,((Baker, D. Vincent, and Meguey Baker. 2016. Apocalypse World 2nd Edition. Lumpley Games.)) My Life with Master,((Czege, Paul. 2003. My Life with Master. Half Meme Press.)) and Ten Candles.((Dewey, Stephen. 2015. Ten Candles. Cavalry Games.)) These games shine a light on the way rules can be used to support and create narratives. Collectively we will call them narrative RPGs.
The traditions of RPGs and larps have developed side by side, and we believe that by studying narrative RPGs, we can gain insights into how to design experience-centric rules and meta techniques for Nordic larp, where the rules themselves are fundamental in forming the player experience. Narrative RPGs furthermore form a lens through which rules may be more easily studied: firstly, the rules are written down and explained in a way that a person previously unfamiliar with the game can understand. Secondly, since the designer is, in general, not present to explain how the game is played, they lean less on culture and more on the written rules themselves; in laying the groundwork for the experiences they aim to create.
What is a Rule?
We need rules in order to find beauty in playing together, as “they provide a framework for moments of delight to emerge.”((Stenros, Jaakko, and James Lórien MacDonald. 2020. “Beauty in Larp.” In What Do We Do When We Play?, edited by In Eleanor Saitta, Johanna Koljonen, Jukka Särkijärvi, Anne Serup Grove, Pauliina Männistö, and Mia Makkonen, 296–307. Solmukohta.)) Stenros and MacDonald make the analogy of football. The rules of football do not call for specific acts of athleticism, but they provide the context in which those acts can occur. In the same way, rules structure play in larp, to a degree where without explicit or implicit rules, play would not be possible.
We need rules for a number of reasons. One, is to know what the boundaries of play are, rules for physical, emotional, or psychological safety. A typical rule of physical safety is that you are not allowed to hit your co-player in the head with your boffer sword. These types of rules will not be discussed in this essay. The second type of rules forms the foundation for how we play together. They can often be boiled down to statements of, when A, then do B. For example, when you have been hit two times with a boffer then act as if you are injured or dying. Or, when you touch hands with someone in front of the face, then interpret the action as kissing. Making conscious decisions about these types of rules are crucial to a good larp design.
This is especially true because, not only do rules dictate what should happen when a particular event occurs, they also make these things happen by forming affordances for interaction. That is, guiding the players into which actions are possible, and expected to be taken within the game. Rules may be diegetic or non-diegetic, the consequences of which have previously been explored by e.g. Nordgren((Nordgren, Andie. 2008. “High Resolution Larping: Enabling Subtlety at Totem and Beyond.” In Playground Worlds: Creating and Evaluating Experiences of Role-Playing Games, edited by Jaakko Stenros and Markus Montola, 91–101. Ropecon ry.)) and Dahlberg.((Dahlberg, Johan. 2019. “High Resolution Larp Revisited.” August 28, 2019. https://nordiclarp.org/2019/08/28/high-resolution-larp-revisited/))
In this essay we focus on rules that are intended to create particular narratives and promote emotional experiences. Rules have been discussed in the context of larp before, but under different headlines. A snapshot of the current understanding of rules from a larp design perspective is gleaned in Larp Design: Creating Role-Play Experiences.((Koljonen, Johanna, Jaakko Stenros, Anne Serup Grove, Aina D. Skjønsfjell, and Elin Nilsen, eds. 2019. Larp Design: Creating Role-Play Experiences. Landsforeningen Bifrost.)) Two chapters in this book are of particular interest: “Designing the Mechanics You Need”((Wilson, Danny. 2019. “Designing the Mechanics You Need.” In Larp Design: Creating Role-Play Experiences, edited by Johanna Koljonen, Jaakko Stenros, Anne Serup Grove, Aina D. Skjønsfjell, and Elin Nilsen. Landsforeningen Bifrost.)) and “Meta-Techniques.”((Westerling, Anna, and Anders Hultman. 2019. “Meta-Techniques.” In Larp Design: Creating Role-Play Experiences, edited by Johanna Koljonen, Jaakko Stenros, Anne Serup Grove, Aina D. Skjønsfjell, and Elin Nilsen, 262–68. Landsforeningen Bifrost.)) Both these texts take a practical perspective on rules, and see rules as a part of the design. We are interested in how rules can form the core of the design. “Being a game designer is painting with rules and with causality to limit the possible choices that the players and their characters can make.”((Koljonen, Johanna. 2011. “On Games: Painting Life With Rules.” Nordic Larp Talks Copenhagen. March 1, 2011. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOVf06NCBGQ.)) This quote by Johanna Koljonen goes to the heart of the scope of rules as we explore them in this essay. Following Koljonen’s painting metaphor we might say that we are interested in how motifs emerge depending on the colors and tools used by the painter.
We do not aim to provide a definitive definition or theory of rules as they apply to larp. Rather, we will explore the topic and conclude with a method of rule design that can be used as part of the larp designers’ toolbox.
Rules and Meta-techniques
To a large extent, the foundation of rules as they are used in larps can be found in RPGs. These, in turn, emerged from strategy games simulating military combat. The goal of this type of rule set is to simulate a set of circumstances (to a degree deemed pleasurable by the designer). This provides a form of ‘physics engine’ for the fictional world. In a larp context, rules initially served roughly the same purpose: to simulate that which was not possible to be fully enacted by the players, in particular, combat. From there, they have evolved to serve a wide number of functions.
Historically, many larps in the Nordic tradition have opted for a rules-light approach, relying on a shared cultural understanding of ‘the way the game is played’ to dictate the activities possible within the game. There are however exceptions to this; in particular, games based on the popular RPG Vampire: the Masquerade((Rein•Hagen, Mark, Guy Davis, Jason Felix, and Leif Jones. 1998. Vampire: The Masquerade. White Wolf Game Studio.)) and its derivatives, have (at least in a Swedish context) integrated RPG-like character sheets with attributes, skills and powers marked down.
In this essay we will consider rules as a term both for what has traditionally been presented as rules (e.g. combat rules), and what Nordic larp calls meta-techniques. The difference between the two is mostly one of context.
The term meta-techniques was introduced around 2007.((“Nordic Larp Wiki – Meta-Technique.” n.d. Nordiclarp.org. Accessed August 28, 2020. https://nordiclarp.org/wiki/Meta-technique.)) There is no generally agreed upon definition, in the Nordic larp community, of what a meta-technique is. In general, it refers to any action in a game that is not fully present inside the diegesis. The widespread adoption of meta-techniques leads to an understanding in the larp community that this type of construct could be an essential design element. Much of the innovation of rules as a vehicle of narrative has happened in this space.
One reason that the term meta-technique gained such popularity, over the more general term rule, might be that it felt less “gamey.” This allowed larps with higher artistic ambitions to set themselves apart from their lowbrow cousins in both larp and RPG. Thus, the term rule has mostly been reserved for things like combat simulation. The presentation of certain types of rules in conjunction with the presentation of the larp, for example, the presence of meta-techniques or extensive combat rules, sends a strong cultural signal of what type of larp is being presented and consequently which players it tries to attract.
Building Narratives through Rules
Many different types of stories can be told in both larps and RPGs. While these narratives can emerge from pre-game materials, active runtime game-mastering, and player actions; rules in themselves can be made to shape the character actions and thereby create the narratives.
Apocalypse World (AW) is a narrative RPG that takes place in a largely undefined post-apocalyptic setting, leaning on the player’s shared understanding of post-apocalyptic tropes to set the scene. It is a world inhabited by characters such as the Angel, the Hardholder, and the Gunlugger. The general feeling conveyed by the game is that of high octane post-apocalyptic drama in the vein of Mad Max.
Rules Directing Fiction
The rule set of AW is centered around the concept of “moves.” These are made by the game master (GM) as well as the players. Moves are rules that are triggered when certain narrative conditions are met. They focus on fictional outcomes, as opposed to the simulation of the success or failure of a particular action. An example of what a move might look like is: if you meet the wasteland prophet, they will tell you an uncomfortable truth about you or someone you love.
Cover of Apocalypse World 2nd Edition. Photo courtesy of D. Vincent Baker and Meguey Baker.
The role-playing conversation thus flows back and forth between the players and the GM, mediated by the rules. The type of narratives that emerge from this conversation comes from the players’ shared understanding of the tropes of the genre, as well as from the way the rules are written. An example of a player move that steers the fiction is the one associated with the character archetype “the battlebabe” and is called “visions of death.” The rules state that, when they enter battle they have to roll the dice, and, on a success, they get to name one non-player character who will live and one non-player character who will die. Note that this rule puts constraints on the fiction: the player that has rolled successfully does not get to choose to not have someone die, nor can the GM overrule the decision on who lives and who dies. When the battlebabe fights, there is always a risk that people will die. In this way, the rules show us that in the fiction of AW, life is cheap.
In current Nordic larp design, rules are sometimes used to direct narratives, or enact a particular storyline. The most direct way being to use a script; having a specific set of scenes that are played out, one after the other. Another way of achieving this, meanwhile hiding the script from the player, is through the concept of Fate.((“Nordic Larp Wiki – Fate.” n.d. Nordiclarp.org. Accessed August 19, 2020. https://nordiclarp.org/wiki/Fate.)) The fate mechanic involves providing players with instructions for what their characters should do at certain points in the fiction, for example, “when you meet your arch-enemy, you will challenge them to a duel.” These fates can be interconnected into a fate web, where one fate depends on the previous activation of a fate, in an effort to shape a specific storyline.
A similar effect is found in the larp A Nice Evening with the Family (2007), in which a number of theater plays are re-interpreted in larp form. Here, players read the play’s manuscript before the game starts, and decide together on how to play out the story. However, no explicit rules are in place here other than the instruction to interpret the original play: the larp leans on the players’ shared improvisation to ensure that the story is enacted in the spirit of the original play. How far from the original manuscript this deviates is up to the player’s decisions prior to, and during, the game.
The reason why it is interesting to compare the fate mechanic, A Nice Evening with the Family, and AW, is because of their different approaches to the concept of story. Fate mechanics try to steer play in a particular direction without revealing the big picture to the players beforehand. In A Nice Evening with the Family the narrative is firmly directed by the scripts, in such a way that players can roughly know beforehand what will happen, and can help each other steer in that direction. In AW, neither players, nor the GM, knows beforehand what the story will be. Still, the rules allow the player to make some probable assessments of what components the narrative will contain.
Co-Creation through Rules
In fact, AW goes beyond the moves detailed in the previous section, when it comes to not planning a particular storyline. The game master is specifically instructed not to plan neither a world nor a storyline, but to let it emerge from the characters’ in-game actions, and from the rules. A core concept of the game is presented as part of the GMs “agenda,” and that is to “play to find out what happens.” This tenet of the game separates it from many other RPGs, and indeed also from many larps, as it expressly states not to use the game as a way of telling a set story, but to let the narrative emerge from playing the game.
One way this agenda is enacted is through game rules. Part of these rules are the GM “principles”, including things such as:
“Barf forth apocalyptica”
“Name everyone, make everyone human”
“Look through the cross-hairs”
These rules have different functions. For example “barf forth apocalyptica”, is an aesthetic instruction formulated not as a suggestion, but as a rule. The game should be filled with the stuff of apocalyptic imagination. Barren landscapes, grotesque cults, and broken souls.
Other rules take a more direct role in shaping the narratives. Let’s for example consider the interplay of “name everyone, make everyone human” and “look through the cross-hairs. The first rule instructs the GM that every NPC should be a human of flesh and blood, with motivations of their own and a name. The second instructs the GM that nothing is permanent in the world of AW. Places and people should perish, and the GM should be liberal with letting them go down in flames. These two rules, together, create narratives where there is a real sense of loss when the characters eventually lose those that they desperately try to hold on to. Note again that these are presented as rules. This way, decisions are transferred from the GM to the rules. It pushes the GM clearly into a certain narrative style, while still allowing them to “play to find out what happens.” This way, the rules even out the co-creative balance between players and GM.
In larp, co-creation outside of the actions of the characters has mostly been seen either in allowing players to create their own characters or factions within the game world, or by directed workshops prior to the game. The first approach is common in sandbox larps, where the designer only aims to provide a canvas for the players to fill with their own ideas. This is for example the case in the Swedish madmaxian post-apocalyptic larp campaign Blodsband Reloaded.((Blodsband (2014-).)) The second approach has been used by games such as Turings Fråga (2013-) (eng. Turing’s Question), a game about what it means to be human, centered around the exercise of distinguishing humans from artificial intelligence proposed by Alan Turing.((Turing, A. M. 1950. “I.—Computing Machinery and Intelligence.” Mind: a Quarterly Review of Psychology and Philosophy LIX (236): 433–60.))
Some close larp-cousins to the principles of AW, where narrative co-creation is framed in a rule-like manner, can be found in general play-style instructions such as play to lose((Piironen, Willer, and Kristoffer Thurøe. 2014. “An Introduction to the Nordic Player Culture.” In The Foundation Stone of Nordic Larp, edited by Eleanor Saitta, Marie Holm-Andersen, and Jon Back, 33–36. Knutpunkt.)) and play to lift.((Vejdemo, Susanne. 2017. “Play to Lift, Not Just to Lose.” In Shuffling the Deck, edited by Annika Waern and Johannes Axner, 143–46. Carnegie Mellon University: ETC Press.)) While sometimes these are explicitly presented as part of the instructions provided to players prior to a larp, they are often taken more as an implicit part of Nordic larp culture.
This approach to stories in narrative RPGs questions the GMs role as the main director of the game. Instead, it encourages all participants (GM and players alike) to be equal contributors to the activity. A similar view does exist in larp: the designers may set the implicit and explicit boundaries of the game, but the players themselves are equally important – if not more- informing the actual experience.
By understanding the role rules play in forming fiction, we can both turn players into more active co-creators within the narrative framework, and form a bridge between ‘anything goes style’ sandbox games and the more tightly controlled “scripted” larps. The affordances provided by explicit rules make the narrative direction of the game clearer, and might be a way to fulfil the agenda of “play to find out what happens” in the context of larp design.
Rules Deconstructing Genre
Cover of My Life with Master. Photo courtesy of Paul Czege.
One way of understanding the role of the RPG or larp designer is as an interpreter of genre. By deconstructing the type of narrative they want to create, they may use this understanding to make rules from which the desired type of stories emerge.
In the RPG My Life With Master,((Czege, Paul. 2003. My Life with Master. Half Meme Press.)) the players take on the roles of minions to an evil mastermind, in a Victorian horror setting. The game is intended to play out as a story of gothic horror, as understood by the movie genre.((Costikyan, Greg. 2003. “My Life with Master.” Internet Archive. September 22, 2003. https://web.archive.org/web/20120716191105/http://costik.com/weblog/2003_09_01_blogchive.html#106427832498370748)) The minions live a life of fear and self-loathing, and because of that instill fear in the town folk, until one day they, through their love for the people in town, find the courage to overthrow and kill their master.
Instead of using the rules to simulate a realistic world, the attributes and rules are based around a literary deconstruction and understanding of gothic horror narratives. Each game begins by creating the “master,” an evil mastermind that everybody fears.((Darlington, Steve. 2003. “Review of My Life with Master – RPGnet RPG Game Index.” September 8, 2003. https://www.RPG.net/reviews/archive/9/9681.phtml)) The master is created through a step-by-step system, and once the master is created, the player characters and local townspeople can be created in a similar fashion and in relation to the master.
The player characters are torn between their fear for their master, and their love of the townspeople. This is mirrored in game, through the main character attributes: the only attribute of the master is the ‘fear’ they cause, while the townspeople are represented by the single attribute of “reason.” Meanwhile, the players use the three attributes of “self-loathing,” “weariness,” and “love” in different combinations, depending on whether they try to resist their master, follow through on their commands, or seek out the love of someone in town. These attributes fluctuate during the game depending on successful or failed dice rolls, naturally climbing towards a situation where the player’s character can finally dare to oppose and kill their master, thereby ending the game. The game attributes thus become a representation for the feelings of the player’s character, and the rules work to naturally create a narrative that follows the genre format.
While it is common for larps to replicate literary or movie genres (e.g. Fortune & Felicity (2017), College of Wizardry (2014-)), this is usually accomplished through written larp visions, descriptions of the inspiring genre, and suggested inspirational reading and movies. This can often lead to a lot of reading for the players, while still risking to be ambiguous in how the players interpret the material. Even though it is often non-explicit, and arguably often non-intentional, these suggestions are mirrored in the game through rules, with different degrees of success. One successful example can be seen in how the deliberately short healing time and impossibility to die in the post-apocalyptic Blodsband Reloaded.((Blodsband (2014-).)) leads to fast and fierce pulp-battles where it’s easy to choose the violent solution.
A more explicit deconstruction of literature, and reinterpretation as rules can be found in Inside Hamlet (2014-), where the game wanted to recreate a classic revenge-tragedy, beginning slowly but where a majority of players die at the end. The rule system for making this happen was quite simple: The game was separated into three acts, where different levels of violence were acceptable. In the first act guns could not be drawn, and violence would not happen in public. In the second act guns could be drawn but not fired, and violence would lead to injury but not death. In the third act all conflict needed to end in at least one death. This explanation through rules leads to an understanding of risk for all players, and also to an understanding of the intended pacing of the game. Even if you would not pick up on the intentions, the rules forced all players into pacing their life-death choices according to the designers’ intention.
While the examples above discussed re-implementations of older rules, a new rule system can open up completely new forms of play, sometimes echoing well beyond their original use case. While not explicated as rules, the development of Ars Amandi((Wieslander, Emma. 2004. “Rules of Engagement.” In Beyond Role and Play: Tools, Toys and Theory for Harnessing the Imagination, edited by Markus Montala and Jaakko Stenros, 181–86. Ropecon ry.)) for the larp Mellan Himmel och Hav (2003) was an important part in opening up the game to romantic and sexual narratives. Previously, these types of scenes had been performed mainly as off game discussions or awkward semi-out-of-character roleplaying. In making and presenting a rule system for romantic touch and sex in a way that could be agreed on beforehand by all players, the game made it possible to use this as a central theme of the larp. In this way, a rule created the possibility to play in genres such as explorations of gender roles and Jane Austine romance, and also opening up the larp design discussion more broadly to topics such as romance, sexuality, and gender.
Emotional Experiences through Rules
Both RPGs and larps aim to create powerful emotional experiences. There is no silver bullet to achieve this, but rules can form a crucial part in enabling these experiences. While the rules themselves do not create the experiences, they can actively set the stage to coax them forth.
Rules that create a feeling of tension are found in most RPGs, where the outcome of a dice-roll can determine if the dragon is slain or not. What about rules that conjure up other emotions? One example of a rule set that in itself creates a sense of tragedy, horror, and hopelessness is found in the narrative RPG Ten Candles.
Cover of Ten Candles. Photo courtesy of Stephen Dewey.
Ten Candles is a tragic horror RPG meant to be played in one session in a dark room around ten tea candles lit by the players at the beginning of the session.((Dewey, Stephen. 2015. Ten Candles. Cavalry Games.)) The world has been bereft of light, and some time ago “they” arrived out of the darkness. This is a game without any hope of survival.
A simple dice mechanic determines the outcome of challenging and oppositional situations. Anytime a dice-roll is failed, one of the candles are darkened, and the game moves on to the next scene. Additionally, if a candle is darkened accidentally, the scene also ends. This continues until there is only one candle left and the characters meet their final fate. At character creation, players write down traits associated with the characters on index cards. These are then literally burned in order to allow for the re-rolling of dice. At that point, the trait in question is to be played out in the scene, for good or ill.
This connection between dice-roll mechanics and the physical manifestation of the encroaching darkness serves to create a very strong feeling of tragedy and horror. The random element creates a sense of agency for the player, even if the odds are stacked against them in the long run. Establishing this sense of control over the situation is crucial in building to the final end of the mechanic, namely gradually removing agency as the situation becomes more grim.
In larp, an example of coupling a randomness mechanic to an activity with the potential for great emotional impact is the “lottery of death mechanic” used in Just a Little Lovin’ (2011-).((Waern, Annika. 2012. “Just a Little Lovin’, and Techniques for Telling Stories in Larp.” June 12, 2012. https://annikawaern.wordpress.com/2012/06/16/just-a-little-lovin-and-techniques-for-telling-stories-in-larp/)) This larp builds its narrative around the impact of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the 1980’s New York LGBTQ+ community. In the lottery of death players get to pick a number of tickets to place into the lottery based on the sexual risk taking of their characters. The more risk they perceive that their character has taken, the more tickets. Waern (2012) describes the meta-scenes in which the lottery takes place as “among the most emotional in the game.”
Why is the emotional impact of this scene so great? From a rules point of view, the agency of the players (deciding how many tickets to pick) coupled with the chance element in who lives and who dies creates a strong emotional engagement in the scene. Had the outcome been pre-planned, it is possible that it would have been easier for the players to anticipate it and prepare for it emotionally, thus limiting its emotional impact.
A game using similar rules when it comes to character creation as those seen in Ten Candles, and that couples this to a gradual loss of humanity in crisis, is The South Will Rise Again (2018). This is a larp based on the tropes of zombie-survival; the characters struggle with each other, putting them at peril to the outside zombie threat. In this larp, the characters are created by writing down things like the names of friends, things you love, and your connections to other players on index cards. In the rules, the players are instructed how to write this down in a way that imbues each thing with backstory and emotions. Throughout the game, these are then used as betting chips to win conflicts and survive the zombie threat. The player(s) with the most cards wins the conflict, but all betted cards are lost. In a meta-scene, each lost card is read, and in quiet contemplation, dropped to the floor. That way, all characters gradually lose their humanity in order to survive, and the rules drive the feeling of loss in the game.
These examples highlight how rules can be used to elicit specific emotional responses. The excitement that randomness mechanics elicit is one that we see in many RPGs. The quintessential moment of, “will we slay the dragon or not?” But the examples above show how other emotions, such as sorrow, horror or loss of one’s humanity can also be targeted. Where the rules guide play towards inevitable defeat but create emotionally resonant narratives along the way. A stronger understanding of how rules and emotions interact should prove a worthwhile effort for the entire larp community.
A Design Tool for Narrative Rules
In this essay we have discussed how rules go beyond simulation and safety in Nordic larp. They can direct narratives and enable emotional experiences. We have done so through the lens of three narrative RPGs, with which we have exemplified different aspects of this topic. We have shown how the rules of Apocalypse World direct the game towards particular types of narratives. With the example of My Life With Master we have explored how its rules deconstruct genre and provide a framework for the construction of novel emergent narratives of the same type. Finally, we have demonstrated how the rules of Ten Candles give rise to specific emotional experiences of horror and tragedy.
We believe this understanding of rules as a narrative device can be useful for making larps. One suggestion for how to design larp rules is the following method:
Decide on the type of story you wish to tell with your larp. Then deconstruct it into its basic elements. Focus on how and why things happen, not on where and when: avoid thinking in terms of set scenes that should occur during the course of the game.
For every element of the deconstruction, make sure to connect it to at least one rule. Try to make the basic assumptions of how the game is played explicitly instead of leaning on a shared cultural understanding.
Iterate, polish and minimize the rule set to only contain that which actually drives the narrative. While at the same time taking care not to place an unnecessary cognitive load on the players in remembering and following the rules.
Let us apply this method to a small example. Let us say that we want to make a two-person game about a background checker interviewing a political candidate to find out if they have any skeletons in the closet (which of course they have). We want to create a sense of tension and a feeling of playing a game of cat and mouse.
The elements that we find in deconstructing this situation are:
an increasingly tense conversation
Secrets being laid bare, one by one
An emotionally escalating situation for both parties: for the interviewer a sense of revelation, for the interviewee shame and a fear of being found out
What rules may we construct that connect to the things we describe above? We may decide to set the following rules. Which element they connect to is denoted in parenthesis.
The game is played sitting on opposite sides of a table, and takes place as a conversation. (A)
Before the start of the game, decide who is the interviewer and the interviewee. The interviewee decides on three secrets for their character. They write them down on index cards, and place them face down on the table. (B)
Anytime your character lies during the game, you must cross your fingers in a way clearly visible to the other player. (B)
When you lock eyes, a staring contest is initiated (C). Whoever looks away first loses. If the interviewer wins, a card is revealed (B). If the interviewee wins, a card is torn, and the secret will consequently not be revealed.
The game ends when every secret has been revealed or torn.
Our intention here is not to give you a fully playable game, but to illustrate the method described above. Using this method, and the example, we encourage you to experiment with larp rules and invent your own methods for creating them!
Rules, Rituals, and Magic
While rules can certainly constitute almost the entire design of a game, of course, there are many other factors that also play a part. For the sake of argument, in this text we strip things down to their base components. In reality, a complete and enjoyable game, most often, needs more than rules.
When Stenros and MacDonald discuss beauty in larp, they highlight that the larp as played is “emergent play” arising in the present, and how “larp magic” often arises from serendipitous moments. This magic cannot be decided on in advance. In fact, we argue that it is counterproductive to do so. The role of the designer is more akin to that of a gardener than that of a playwright. A key part of growing the garden of larp is putting its rules into place. Can you walk on the lawns of this garden? Are you allowed to eat the fruit? Is it mandatory to take your shoes off and walk in the stream?
Conjuring up larp magic is not an easy task. Like a ritual, it requires the chalk circles to be drawn just right. The right words need to be spoken precisely at the stroke of midnight. If you follow those rules, then, finally, you might just get a glimpse of it.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank our editor Nadja Lipsyc for her helpful feedback in the development of this text, and Sara Engström for reading early and late versions of the manuscript and suggesting improvements.
References
Baker, D. Vincent, and Meguey Baker. 2016. Apocalypse World 2nd Edition. Lumpley Games.
Koljonen, Johanna, Jaakko Stenros, Anne Serup Grove, Aina D. Skjønsfjell, and Elin Nilsen, eds. 2019. Larp Design: Creating Role-Play Experiences. Landsforeningen Bifrost.
Nordgren, Andie. 2008. “High Resolution Larping: Enabling Subtlety at Totem and Beyond.” In Playground Worlds: Creating and Evaluating Experiences of Role-Playing Games, edited by Jaakko Stenros and Markus Montola, 91–101. Ropecon ry.
Piironen, Willer, and Kristoffer Thurøe. 2014. “An Introduction to the Nordic Player Culture.” In The Foundation Stone of Nordic Larp, edited by Eleanor Saitta, Marie Holm-Andersen, and Jon Back, 33–36. Knutpunkt.
Rein•Hagen, Mark, Guy Davis, Jason Felix, and Leif Jones. 1998. Vampire: The Masquerade. White Wolf Game Studio.
Stenros, Jaakko, and James Lórien MacDonald. 2020. “Beauty in Larp.” In What Do We Do When We Play?, edited by In Eleanor Saitta, Johanna Koljonen, Jukka Särkijärvi, Anne Serup Grove, Pauliina Männistö, and Mia Makkonen, 296–307. Solmukohta.
Turing, A. M. 1950. “I.—Computing Machinery and Intelligence.” Mind: a Quarterly Review of Psychology and Philosophy LIX (236): 433–60.
Vejdemo, Susanne. 2017. “Play to Lift, Not Just to Lose.” In Shuffling the Deck, edited by Annika Waern and Johannes Axner, 143–46. Carnegie Mellon University: ETC Press.
Westerling, Anna, and Anders Hultman. 2019. “Meta-Techniques.” In Larp Design: Creating Role-Play Experiences, edited by Johanna Koljonen, Jaakko Stenros, Anne Serup Grove, Aina D. Skjønsfjell, and Elin Nilsen, 262–68. Landsforeningen Bifrost.
Wieslander, Emma. 2004. “Rules of Engagement.” In Beyond Role and Play: Tools, Toys and Theory for Harnessing the Imagination, edited by Markus Montala and Jaakko Stenros, 181–86. Ropecon ry.
Wilson, Danny. 2019. “Designing the Mechanics You Need.” In Larp Design: Creating Role-Play Experiences, edited by Johanna Koljonen, Jaakko Stenros, Anne Serup Grove, Aina D. Skjønsfjell, and Elin Nilsen. Landsforeningen Bifrost.
This article will be published in the upcoming companion book Book of Magic and is published here with permission. Please cite this text as:
Dahlberg, Johan, and Jon Back. 2021. “Rules are Magic: What Larp can Learn From Narrative RPGs.” In Book of Magic, edited by Kari Kvittingen Djukastein, Marcus Irgens, Nadja Lipsyc, and Lars Kristian Løveng Sunde. Oslo, Norway: Knutepunkt, 2021. (In press).
A version of this article was originally published by Pelgrane Press, in the Honey & Hot Wax anthology edited by Lucian Kahn and Sharang Biswas.(more…)
