Nordic Larp

Tag: Bleed

  • Larp Crush: The What, When and How

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    Larp Crush: The What, When and How

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    [This article is also available in Spanish, at: http://vivologia.es/larp-crush-el-que-el-cuando-y-el-como/
    Thank you to Vivologia for translating it!]

    This article is based on a presentation I made at the Nordic larp conference Knutpunkt 2018 in Lund, Sweden. It is based on my own experiences as well as conversations with larp crushed people.

    There must be more to it. That’s what I’ve always thought.

    Larpers generally agree that what happens in-game stays in-game. This idea is known as an alibi — as described by e.g. Markus Montola (2010). Just because your larp character is a sadistic tyrant does not mean that you are. The same goes for relationships: Your sister is not your actual sister, your friend is not your actual friend, and your lover is not your actual lover.

    Right?

    But then there’s the larp crush. It sounds like a little blip on your romantic radar — something you laugh at and quickly shrug off. But as it turns out, that is often a misconception. In the words of a young lady who approached me after my talk at Knutpunkt: “It’s called larp crush because your heart is crushed afterwards.”

    Defining the Larp Crush

    What is a larp crush? If you are not sure whether you have had one, you can rest assured: You have not. It is not the kind of experience that goes unnoticed.

    A larp crush is a condition where you and your character get your wires crossed, so to speak.

    It is a close relative to larp bleed, which Sarah Lynne Bowman (2015) defines as “moments where […] real life feelings, thoughts, relationships, and physical states spill over into [the players’] characters’ and vice versa.”

    However, larp crushes are known to be potentially more intense than pretty much any other experience of bleed.

    In order to examine the larp crush, I have been looking into how actors deal with the equivalent of bleed. According to professor of media psychology Dr. Elly A. Konijn, actors rarely get confused about their identity (Konijn 2000). In my experience, the same goes for role-players. However, they do get affected by their character’s emotions and behaviour. Just like actor Jim Carrey was affected by portraying Andy Kaufman in the biopic Man on the Moon, so do role-players get affected by their character’s emotions.

    This is my definition of a larp crush:

    • A larp crush is a variant of bleed, which means that you are having trouble separating your real world emotions from your character’s.
    • You know that you have a larp crush when you feel an inexplicable desire to spend time staring into another person’s eyes for unreasonable amounts of time.
    • It is only a larp crush if you felt no prior attraction to the person in question. You might have thought they looked nice, but you didn’t see them in a romantic light. If you did, it’s not a larp crush — it is a regular crush!
    • It is only a larp crush if it was triggered by your in-game relationship. Finding out at an afterparty that you really like each other is not a larp crush — it is a regular crush.
    Painting of a woman gazing longingly at a man staring at himself in a lake Echo and Narcissus (1903) by John William Waterhouse.

    Immersion into Character

    In Nordic larp as well as in most Hollywood films, realism is by far the most prevalent genre. This means that being able to reproduce realistic emotions is considered “good role-playing.”

    Our approach is much like that of actor and theatre practitioner Konstantin Stanislavski’s work.

    Early Stanislawski method acting claims that the actor should give themselves up, and become one with the role. Furthermore, you should use emotional recall to create believability.

    Recalling genuine emotions not only creates the expression of those emotions; it also makes you relive them. Because of the potential danger of this method, Stanislawski later distanced himself from it. However, it was too late: Hollywood had already embraced it. Some of the most famous actors, from Dustin Hoffman to Heath Ledger, used this method.

    When larping, so do I.

    Becoming emotional or being moved by a performance appears to be one of the most important criteria an audience uses to judge the impact of a performance. The same is the case for participants larping in the Nordic style (Bowman 2017).

    Unless we get emotionally involved, we do not get the catharsis feeling that the ancient Greeks used to describe the feeling of being emotionally purged — of having gone through a great ordeal, and coming out on the other side.

    As a side note: For some larpers, emotional identification with the character never happens. However, many people are able to create an emotional bond with their character some of the time, although not always. Because Nordic larpers often see character immersion as an indicator of success, larp without immersion into character is often considered a failure and a disappointment.

    Actors agree that the ticket to an emotional bond with your character is preparation. You must know all about your character — where she comes from, her status, her character, her habits, her life goals or lack thereof. You must know enough that you are able to build “an inner model,” or as psychologists describe it, a theory of mind.

    Limerence

    Larp crushes feel like falling in love. They consist of a mixture of obsession and compulsion. You are constantly thinking about the object of desire, and you can’t help but interpret everything he or she says or does and what that means for your relationship.

    While doing research for this article, I stumbled on the term limerence. It was coined by psychologist Dorothy Tennov in 1979. It is an often involuntary state in which you are emotionally attached to another person to the point of obsession. Although it involves physical attraction, it goes much further than just the wish to have sex. You might call it an extreme version of romantic love. As Tennov (1979) describes, “Limerence is first and foremost a condition of cognitive obsession.”

    According to Tennov, never experiencing limerence is just as natural a state as experiencing it. However, people who have never gone through limerence are prone to think it is a myth. It is not, but it is a bit of a unicorn that some people go their entire life without ever seeing. Larping is excellent at inducing this state.

    The limerent person — that is, the person experiencing a full-on crush — becomes extremely attentive to little signals, such as body language, wording, or actions.

    Being limerent is like that moment in The Wizard of Oz when the doors open, and you step out of Kansas and into Oz. It is like an awakening. You are high on energy, and everything is doubly intense.

    Dorothy with Toto staring in wonder at Oz The Wizard of Oz (1939). Photo by Insomnia Cured Here on Flickr. CC BY-SA 2.0.

    According to scientists, an MRI brain scan of a person in love looks a lot like the brain of a person under the influence of cocaine (Fisher, Aron, Brown 2018). Over the years, it has in fact been debated whether being in love should be classified as a mental disorder (Tennov 1979). There is no doubt that limerence is a very powerful physical condition as well as a state of mind. Also, while you are going through it, you have as little power over the chemical reactions that are going on in your brain as if you were on drugs.

    Limerence is not the product of human decision: It is something that happens to us. Its intrusive cognitive components, the obsessional quality that may feel voluntary at the moment but that defies control, seem to be the aspect of limerence in which it differs most from other states. (Tennov 1979)

    Larp crushes make you feel alive. Everything is coated in meaning. For better or worse, whether you are drowning in misery or over the moon with joy, you are incredibly tuned into the world around you.

    We all have a generalized longing for union with the beautiful and the excellent. Limerence is a pure manifestation of that longing.

    Are Larp Crushes “Real?”

    The answer I have currently arrived at is: Yes and no.

    Larp crushes are definitely real experiences of being in love. Larp crushes are real in the sense that the barrier between you and your character’s emotions are eroded to the point where you really, truly are going through limerence.

    However, larp crushes are “created” because you deliberately place yourself in a situation where you are balancing between hope and uncertainty. Placing yourself in a state where you are constantly balancing hope and uncertainty feeds the limerence. That is what is referred to as The Bungee Method in Charles Bo Nielsen’s (2017) article “Playing in Love,” which is intended as a guide to playing romantic relationships in Nordic larps.

    Often, when you experience a larp crush, you have no idea about the person behind the character. But actually, that lack of knowledge does not set larp crushes apart from other kinds of crushes: There is no need to know the person who becomes the object of limerence. People often describe falling in love at first sight.

    A knight in armor and a lady in a veil Tristan and Isolde Sharing the Potion (1916) by John William Waterhouse.

    According to Tennov, the best way of getting rid of limerence is if it is revealed that the limerent object is highly undesirable. However, since most people are decent enough, this approach is not very reliable.

    Tennov estimates that the average limerent reaction lasts approximately from 18 months to 3 years. However, a few may last a lifetime, while others might wear off more quickly. There seems to be a connection between exposure and duration.

    There are three efficient ways of getting rid of limerence:

    • Consummation: you get together and have a relationship. (No, sex is not enough)!
    • Starvation: you never see this person again.
    • Transference: you somehow manage to transfer your feelings to a third person.

    Staying in touch is most certainly not the way to go, if you want to get rid of unwanted feelings. However, Tennov believes that the person who is at the receiving end has an ethical obligation to help diminish the pain that the limerent person is undergoing.

    Also, if the limerence is not reciprocated, the suffocating attention from the limerent person can be an unpleasant experience, which needs to be dealt with. What both parties need is a very clear statement from the object of limerence (the person whom the limerent person is in love with) that they are not interested. Otherwise the limerent person will continue to nurse the embers of hope.

    Can you Make Your Body Fall in Love?

    According to Konijn, there is only slight evidence that performing specific physical exercises, such as staring into each other’s eyes, will make you fall in love (Konijn 2000). However, separating the character’s feelings from your own is a different story.

    Konijn explains how it is rare that even method actors become affected by a character’s emotions while actually acting. It is during rehearsal and while preparing for the character that they wind up being affected. However, larpers are in a different situation — our performance is significantly more immersive, if not for any other reason, then because we do not have to remember lines, and we are not standing on a stage.

    Scientists Arthur Aron et al. (1997) wanted to find out if intimacy between strangers can be accelerated by carrying out “self-disclosing” and relationship-building tasks. The tasks would gradually escalate in intensity. Indeed, self-disclosure turns out to be linked to establishing intimacy and feeling close. The conclusion was that under the right conditions, and with the right pairings, intimacy can be accelerated.

    In my experience, larping has a similar effect: Having lived through strong emotions together, you feel intimate afterwards. However, while I don’t doubt the sincerity of the feelings, the idea that you truly get to know a stranger on a deep level after spending a few days together, I find dubious at best.

    The emotional “shortcut” to feeling intimate with strangers that larp provides is perhaps best considered a stepping stone to get to know each other. You may have opened the door, but the actual relationship building comes after — and needs to be done, so that you do not wind up in a relationship with someone with whom you are not compatible.

    Still, larp crushes are not that different from falling in love at first sight. While most people are most likely to be nice, you may be falling in love with someone with whom you cannot connect long-term.

    Have I Fallen for a Real Person, or for a Fictional Character?

    You have fallen for a fictional character. However, there is nothing new about this. People do it all the time, when they fall in love with Mr. Darcy, John Snow, or Lara Croft. Just because the object of your desire is fiction, your feelings are not.

    Woman and man about to kiss
    Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy in Pride and Prejudice (2005). Photo by Peter Pham on Flickr. CC BY 2.0.

    Limerence is very often built on fiction. When people talk about “falling in love at first sight,” what they fall for is obviously not a deep knowledge of each other’s character, but rather a fantasy of who they assume this person might be.

    According to sexologist John Money, everyone carries a blueprint for our ideal partner. Love maps are fairly complex — they both have to do with fulfillment and upbringing. When you fall in love at first sight, what happens is that you find someone onto whom you are able to project your lovemap. Money (1986) continues, “That is to say, the person projects onto the partner an idealized and highly idiosyncratic image that diverges from the image of the partner as perceived by other people.”

    Of course, that projection is in itself a fictitious character.

    The question you need to ask yourself is not whether your feelings are real — of course they are — but rather: Do I want this? Depending on the degree of compulsion/obsession, a larp crush can disrupt your everyday life to a degree where it becomes destructive. Tennov (1979) explains, “Limerence for someone other than one’s spouse can cause major disruption to the family, and when frustrated, limerence may produce such severe distress as to be life threatening.”

    However, limerence can also be a positive, transformative experience that helps you reevaluate your life in a constructive manner.

    Controlling Your Larp Experience

    According to psychology professors Thalia Goldstein and Ellen Winner (2012), there are three psychological skills that help an actor create a strong characterization: theory of mind, affective empathy, and emotion regulation.

    Theory of mind is the ability to understand what others are thinking, feeling, believing, and desiring. Being able to see through someone’s actions and understanding their intentions is integral to creating a strong character, because those are the skills that character creation require. Some people have strong theory of mind, while others find it difficult. Reading fiction, and — of course — larping, trains this skill.

    Affective empathy — as opposed to cognitive empathy — is the feeling you get in response to someone else’s emotion. It is sometimes referred to as “emotional contagion.” It could be sadness for someone’s grief, joy for someone’s happiness, etc. Being happy and shedding tears of joy at someone else’s wedding counts as affective empathy. Letting yourself be affected by your character’s emotions does too.

    Finally, a good larper needs emotional regulation skills. You need to be able to decide whether you want to feel the emotions of your character or not, or to what extent. This is not just a skill for when you are larping; from an early age, we all learn to regulate our feelings, because sometimes it’s inappropriate or inconvenient to show them.

    To be able to control your larping experience, you need emotional regulation skills. Being able to play a romantic relation without getting larp crushed — or the opposite, deliberately getting larp crushed — all comes down to this particular skill.

    Juliet kissing Romeo on a balcony
    Detail of Romeo and Juliet (1884) by Frank Dicksee.

    Tools for Emotion Regulation

    Emotion regulation is currently not something that is emphasized in the Nordic larp vocabulary. Interestingly, though, in other larp scenes the idea of being fully immersed in your character is seen as stigmatizing.

    This stigmatization is something that Tennov (1979) also describes in relation to limerence, stating, “Many societies have attempted to prevent love or, more often, to control it in some way.“

    She even describes how Stendhal, a 19th century author who is often quoted for his philosophical thoughts on love and beauty, was embarrassed at the thought of being discovered as someone who could be taken over by feelings of passion. She ascribes this reaction to society generally being more inclined to reward rational behaviour than emotional.

    While Nordic larp generally praises character immersion, larp crushes seem to be trivialized. The idea that we need tools for handling too much immersion does not seem to have taken root.

    Larp crushes are not trivial fiction. They are real emotions, and they should be treated as such. With regard to finding the tools that will help us get better at creating the experiences we want, we still have far to go. Becoming aware of these emotional responses, and admitting their impact on us, is a first step.

    References

    Aron, Arthur, Edward Melinat, Elaine N. Aron, Robert Darrin Valone, Renee J. Bator, et al. 1997. “The Experimental Generation of Emotional Closeness: A Procedure and Some Preliminary Findings.” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 23, no. 4 (April): 363-377.

    Bowman, Sarah Lynne. 2015. “Bleed: The Spillover Between Player and Character.” Nordiclarp.org, March 3.

    Bowman, Sarah Lynne. 2017. “Immersion into Larp: Theories of Embodied Narrative Experience.” First Person Scholar, March 4.

    Fisher, Helen E., Arthur Aron, Lucy L. Brown. 2006. “Romantic Love: A Mammalian Brain System for Mate Choice.” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 361, no. 1473 (December): 2173–2186.

    Goldstein, Thalia R., and Ellen Winner. 2012. “Enhancing Empathy and Theory of Mind.” Journal of Cognition and Development 13, no 1: 19-37.

    Konijn, Elly A. 2000. Acting Emotions, Shaping Emotions on Stage. Amsterdam, NL: Amsterdam University Press.

    Money, John. 1986. Lovemaps: Clinical Concepts of Sexual/Erotic Health and Pathology, Paraphilia, and Gender Transposition in Childhood, Adolescence, and Maturity. New York: Irvington Publishers Inc.

    Montola, Markus. 2010. “The Positive Negative Experience in Extreme Role-playing.” Proceedings of DiGRA Nordic 2010: Experiencing Games: Games, Play, and Players, 2010.

    Nielsen, Charles Bo. 2017. “Playing in Love.” In Once Upon a Nordic Time, edited by Martine Svanevik, Linn Carin Andreassen, Simon Brind, Elin Nilsen, and Grethe Sofie Bulterud Strand, 176-184. Oslo, Norway: Knutepunkt.

    Tennov, Dorothy. 1979. Love and Limerence: The Experience of Being in Love. Lanham, Maryland: Scarborough House.

    Cover photo: Psyche Revived by Cupid’s Kiss (1777) by Antonio Canova in the Louvre Museum, Paris, France.

  • The Battle of Primrose Park: Playing for Emancipatory Bleed in Fortune & Felicity

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    The Battle of Primrose Park: Playing for Emancipatory Bleed in Fortune & Felicity

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    Early Spring: Primrose Park, 1800s

    We are all at war, and I fear that only I am hard enough to know it. We send out our children as troops into battle, and they fight for land, money and affection. They murder hearts, minds, and bodies.

    Do these dancing masters even understand? They fill our children with frippery, and we dress for battle. Ostrich feathers, silk, shined boots…uniforms for war. Cannons shoot words, and dances are formations.

    Even greenery is battle.

    We were instructed to bring greenery to the spring monument, and young ladies carried flowers and hope. Things I’ve long left behind.

    General Whiteford, who was serious as sin, carried a nettle. When I remarked that he even held his flower seriously, he responded with perhaps the most intense gaze I have ever received. “It is a nettle, Madam.”

    And so it was…perhaps he has the right idea. Nettles. Greenery that fights back.

    a fan, book, and Fortune & Felicity poster
    Dorothy’s game ephemera.

    I was eight years old when I first read Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. I stole my older sister’s copy and brought it to school, stealthily placing it inside the easy reader the rest of the class was supposed to be looking at. I was thoroughly engrossed in the romance and the social dynamics of it all. I was advanced for my age by quite a bit, but our failing school system didn’t really want to give up a gifted child.

    So I sat with the book, and was eventually caught by my teacher who thought it a comic. She was shocked that I not only was reading it and comprehending it, but that I was enjoying myself. I was left alone to consume Austen, while the other children moved on with more age-appropriate books.

    This is a fundamental moment in my childhood, one I have told many times at many parties. Indeed, Austen’s work and world has intrigued not only me but millions over generations. It is no wonder why I in particular wanted to attend Fortune & Felicity, a truly spectacularly produced 360 degree illusion larp set during the Regency time period and inspired by all of Austen’s works.

    The game itself was billed as a way for players to live in their very own Austen novel, with carefully crafted meta techniques that push gameplay and intensify emotions. Romance, fortune, emotions, and a truly spectacular setting were combined with an intensely detailed system to make sure each person was given a role in the game that not only connected to other players, but to the world.

    For me, Fortune & Felicity seemed a perfect opportunity to not only immerse myself in a unique world with which I had been enamored since I was a child, but to explore my academic interests and add to my fieldwork. Currently, I am embarking on a visual autoethnography studying larp and the phenomenon of emancipatory bleed at New York University’s Gallatin School. In slightly less academic terms, I am using myself and my experiences in a community I am a part of to study the idea that bleed can be steered and used for emancipatory purposes by players who live with complex marginalizations. I believe that players who live with a double consciousness or a fractured identity due to other marginalizations can use larp and the resulting bleed to mitigate the negative aspects if steered with pre-game measures, in-game steering and post-game evaluation.

    Emancipatory Bleed

    The theory of double consciousness was coined by Black American scholar and civil rights activist W. E. B. Du Bois. Du Bois believed that due to the severe history of slavery and constant oppression, Black Americans live with not one self, but many. In his turn of the 20th century ethnography The Souls of Black Folk, he says,

    It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his two-ness, an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder. The history of the American Negro is the history of this strife- this longing to attain self-conscious manhood, to merge his double self into a better and truer self. In this merging he wishes neither of the older selves to be lost. He does not wish to Africanize America, for America has too much to teach the world and Africa. He wouldn’t bleach his Negro blood in a flood of white Americanism, for he knows that Negro blood has a message for the world. He simply wishes to make it possible for a man to be both a Negro and an American without being cursed and spit upon by his fellows, without having the doors of opportunity closed roughly in his face.

    W. E. B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk (New York: Dover, 2015)

    To be a Black American means that one separates their identity to both protect themselves and to nurture themselves, but these two selves remain divided. Everyday choices become about survival, and any interaction is flavored with historical context. It is a near invisible and quite heavy load to carry, and one I believe can be lessened and enhanced through the use of larp and the resulting bleed.

    The Process

    As an autoethnographer, my own experience within the larp community is used as research. This means I must create a set of strict techniques that will allow me to both record my experience, steer in the way I think will provide the liberation, and allow myself to analyze it later. My technique in encouraging this type of bleed involves elaborate character development, and immersive steering. Before attending, I would create a playlist of songs to build ideas about the character, create a costume that was heavily tied to the character, and keep diaries to form a thought process that was unique to the character, fleshing out their mental space and state. During the game, I would keep thorough diaries from the character’s perspective, retain ephemera collected — letters given, tokens found etc. — and steer towards those themes from which I wanted to receive bleed while trying to be as deeply immersed as possible. Afterwards, I would complete a thorough living document including visuals and catalogue the physical objects to be later used in a final thesis exhibit.

    But Why Begin With Fortune & Felicity?

    Mrs. Long (Aina Skjønsfjell Lakou) and Mrs. Smith (Jonaya Kemper). Photo by Aina Skjønsfjell Lakou.

    As a child and young adult, I very much wished to have a hero much like Elizabeth Bennet represent me. I wanted to see myself in that world of quips, balls, and intrigue. Her heroines seemed smart, witty, and uniquely feminist in ways I found empowering. However, as a Black woman, I always felt slightly disjointed from the fiction, as most people are unaware that Austen’s work includes at least one woman of color.((Miss Lambe can be found in an unfinished novel called Sanditon.))

    Though Fortune & Felicity did not include or play on race in any way, I myself knew incoming that intrinsically most larp characters I play are an extension of self. Others did not need to see my character Mrs. Smith as a Black woman during the larp, as her race was not significant to the game, but my race was significant to me as a person. Playing in Fortune & Felicity allowed me to give myself the representation my sister and I did not have as children. Though historically people of color were not only around England in the period, but around and wealthy, one does not see them represented in any media outside of narratives involving slavery. Fortune & Felicity seemed to promise a light and airy experience in which I could explore themes of love, class, and romance in a period where my face is seldom seen.

    Except the experience was less like consuming a light and fragile macaroon at the refreshment table of a ball, and more like Battenburg cake at 3pm in the muggy afternoon heat while you prepare for an intense emotional war.

    Both are enjoyable, but I simply wasn’t expecting the latter.

    Playing the Cards You’re Dealt

    During the casting process, which I was not exactly a part of since I signed up for the waitlist, you could list where to play young or old. I did not particularly care about playing either as I just wanted to experience the larp and see how I could steer myself towards emancipatory bleed. I figured that every character would be dealing with the same themes as everyone else anyway, so it did not matter whether I played young or old.

    I received a last minute drop-out spot, and discovered I would be playing the part of Mrs. Dorothy Smith: a poor, very recent widow, with two grown children in need of spouses.  While I was still upsettingly excited for the larp, this casting sent me into a slight panic. Reading the character description, I was unsure if the organizers knew just how oppressive the experience of a Regency-era widow was let alone a Regency-era poor widow with a wealthy sister. How was I supposed to play a light breezy larp about romance and family when my character seemed to be on the very outskirts of the society into which she was born? In addition to this, she was written to be charming, filled with folly, and ridiculously cheerful at all times while having to quickly find matches for her children with a Sword of Damocles hanging over her head.

    Many of the characters had been written to be directly inspired from Austen’s works. I, a deep-cut Austen fan, could not find my character in a single book I read. When I was told who she was, I realized I didn’t even remember her being in a book. As such, this gave me even more of a desire to give her a fuller richer life, rather than a supporting role.

    Despite my nervousness with the character, I did not decline the spot. For one, I trusted the organizers and their track record with impunity. Secondly, I took a look at the cast list, and found that I would be playing with some people who were good friends at this point and others who I was looking forward to knowing better. Thirdly, it was an experience you couldn’t really pass up if you love Jane Austen. The venue is like living in the book. If I was going to be oppressed by accident, by George, I would do it in style with good company.

    With this in mind, I shifted what I wanted from the larp. This was a perfect excuse to explore the feminist undertones in Austen’s era. I myself dealt with several of the issues Dorothy Smith was having. Though I was not a mother originally born to wealth, I did have to deal with expectations of feminine roles in a strict community, I am aging in a society that idolizes youth, and I know very well what it is like to have to keep up appearances while being rather poor. If I steered her into a narrative about living her best life, could I free myself from the fractured parts of me?

    I wasn’t sure, but I was willing to try.

    fan and book
    Dorothy’s poetry journal, written in pen and ink. Photo by Jonaya Kemper.

    When Good Intentions Go Awry

    In my opinion, Fortune & Felicity is an expertly designed larp that was hamstrung by our current society. Due to a gender imbalance and bleed-in regarding romance, I believe Fortune & Felicity was not as strong in a few places as it was in others. As far as I can tell, the designers did not intend to create a larp in which older characters would be playing a radically different larp than younger players. The pre-larp workshops were lovingly crafted with dancing, gender roles, and relations to society done in Romance and Family groups, but players portraying older characters were not given specialized tools.

    In our Family groups, we talked and discussed our role to our Families and what kind of play we might need. It was here that we created a family identity and each person fleshed out their role collaboratively.  The families seemed to be a solid bond that moved well together despite age differences. Here is where Dorothy first changed from what was written. The family required a fixer in addition to the strong matriarch, and Dorothy just fell into the role.

    It was when Romance was added that we began to see cracks.  As a young character, you of course dealt with social pressures and issues, but game mechanics were skewed heavily in your favor. You were simply able to do more.  This lead to the older players in my romance group to wonder why we were in fact called a romance group. The gender lines were: two men, one of them married, to seven women, two of whom had characters as young as players in the young romance groups. Within twenty minutes of our first workshop, several of us expressed the fact that we felt left out, and like we were NPCs there to move the younger players’ stories along without any story of our own. Many of our characters were not written with romance in mind at all, which was expected from some and came as a disappointment to others.

    In a larp that stressed heteronormativity and the perfection of the Regency era, it was uncomfortable to go through mechanics of intimacy when your group was largely made up of players playing your family. Also, it is hard to practice gender rules when there are only two male characters. I, as a player who was trying to immerse myself as Dorothy, found that the character had to fundamentally change. Frequently, I subbed in for the male roles in dancing, talking, and intimacy exercises. This meant that the character I was playing felt far more bold. This worked out to my advantage, but I can easily see how someone who wanted to play upon stereotypically femininity might feel left out.

    Once play began in earnest, the disparities between age, wealth, and gender only became deeper as we all wore name badges that told everyone our marital status and income. Wearing your worth on your chest for a weekend, is heavier than one might think.

    It’s All in the Dance

    Spring Ball: Primrose, 1800s

    Balls were not nearly so boring when I was a girl. I imagine that I never sat down for more than a minute. My reputation for dancing and conversation was impeccable. Now I look at us in our silks and feathers or, in my case, lawns and pearls. Here we are, surveying the floor in an illusion of choice.

    If it weren’t for the company of Mrs. Long, I would have been utterly likely to have left the children with Frances and spent my evening with a book. Her good cheer and good friendship is the only thing that stops me from constantly screaming.

    If it were up to me, I would show these young girls how free they are. I was weighed down in twice what they wear, in corsets that pinched into my flesh, and large enough skirts that I could have hidden several people under them.

    And the shoes. Oh, those pinching satin mules that clopped everywhere so that we all resembled a military parade.

    Here they are in their satin and silk and flat-bottomed slippers. Try a dance in my youthful shoes and see if you still smirk as you pass the line of widows, my dear.

    We know more about your future than you do. You are just a pawn in this delightful campaign. We are your commanding officers. Lady Creamhill can deny you anything with a smirk. Frances can do the same. Even I, with my limited standing, need only whisper and you will be destroyed.

    Monstrous.

    Husbands may wear the titles, but it is the wives and the widows who wage the real domestic war. And these children don’t even know. They just continue their dance, continue their love.

    The poor fools.

    Lines of dancing characters in Regency attire.
    Opening Ball at Primrose. Photo by Anders Hultman.

    Dancing was a major point in Fortune & Felicity. The larp started and ended with dance. There were not enough partners of mixed genders for everyone to be able to enter the larp with the dance, which is a true shame as I cite it as one of its most defining moments. Fortune & Felicity simply did not have enough men — whether they identified as men or willing to crossplay as such — to fit their mechanics. This issue led to what could have been a slight jostling oppression to be a heavy locked-in feeling for both player and character.

    Every evening ended in a massive ball with live music after we had a sit down dinner. We learned how to dance and convey emotion with the barest ability to touch. Dancing was a way to show interest and allow yourself to be immersed as fully as you can. Our workshops were pleasant and intense. They included live music, and plenty of in-depth instruction. However, when we got to the final workshop, we found that we were not going to be allowed to dance with the same gender. This meant that if you were older and a woman, your opportunities to do anything other than talk at the balls were limited. You could not ask anyone to dance. You were essentially relegated to the sidelines unless a relative asked you, or you had enough status to bully a young man into standing up with you. I had neither youth nor fortune, and as such spent a large part of that evening with a co-player being surprisingly bored until we took play into our own hands.

    Ageism and Romance

    Primrose: Summer, 1800s

    Never had such eyes been set upon me in the dark.

    The lights of the teahouse illuminated his fine form, his dark face. General Whiteford is a dangerous man, and yet… I am now sure I am unafraid of hm or anything else.

    We have shared jests about battle plans and we both agree that Primrose is a War in which we both command troops. He respects me. I know this in the way he looks at me across the young bodies who beg and plead for love and fortune. We have already done this, he and I. We have survived triumphantly, and now I believe we are trying to decide whether we shall enter the fray once more.

    But I think we shall.

    It has been a long time since I looked for anyone in a ballroom, and a longer time since anyone has looked for me. Standing across from him, I realized that everything had fallen away. The strains of the hornpipe seemed distant and I was unsure whether I heard the same strains as I did the first time I was at Primrose, glutted on youth.

    I found myself short of breath, but the dance had not begun. His face was not his usual scowl; he looked pleased. I was stuck for words, and his face disarmed me further. “Why General Whiteford, you look almost pleased.”

    I could have died for my own foolish volley.

    But he not only smiled, her nearly clicked his heels. The young man next to him looked terrified.  “Me, Madame?” He could make the term Madame seem as personal as my own God given name despite it’s crisp clipped tone.  “I’m positively jolly.

    And then we were off.

    The familiar steps leading us through bodies we never paid attention to. I remembered easily what it was like to float through a world of being seen and wanted.

    No one batted an eye at our fingertips touching. Why pay attention to us? We are but ghosts in these living halls. But as we moved down the line, I felt our bones reconnect, and by the time we had his hand in mind gently leading me to the last set, I felt full of flesh.

    He has defeated me with a dance, and never have I been happier to lose.

    Man in Regency-era military uniform
    General Norman Whiteford (Simon Brind) sitting alone. Photo by Kalle Lantz & Frida Selvén.

    The fact that my character had a romance was a fluke, and yet I charge it and her female friendships along with her family play to be the reason why the larp was such a smashing success for me. Most romances written in Fortune & Felicity gave you the option of two partners within your group, but it was not implied or encouraged by all gamemasters to make play outside of that. Many people felt obligated to play out the story rather than forging their own path.

    The game structure was very rigid, with each day starting with church and ending in a ball. In between, there were workshops in structured groups, and several choices for meta games. The schedule provided us with hours of constant activity, but for adults, it meant a flurry of activity with no time for ourselves. As a player, I felt like I had to follow the arc of the larp even though the larp wasn’t necessarily following mine. In the first act, we were all speaking of romantic perfection; in the second, we were supposed to have reality smash down upon us; and in the third act, we were supposed to find some sort of redemption. This was to be spread over a course of days.

    The second day workshops made it clear that as an older person, we were not exactly having the same game opportunities. We talked to our personal gamemasters, and it was all discussed amongst staff. I cannot say enough that they tried very hard to listen and respond immediately to the feedback from players who were playing older characters. Some of these responses worked better — such as making sure older characters got more dancing — than others — such as wearing a red ribbon on your name badge, which made attractive widows accidental pariahs. Only when a few of us banded together to follow our character’s agency and really steer did I feel like I was truly immersed at Primrose.

    And that’s when the magic of the mechanics; the unintentional intense social, gendered, and classist oppression; and meta techniques really shined. For me, character agency was the missing puzzle piece.

    Once I, as a player, felt like I could have true agency to choose my own path rather than what was prewritten, I was not only deeply immersed; I was having one of the best larp experiences of my life. Instead of focusing only on romance, I could follow up with a rewarding relationship with my character’s older sister, support my character’s children, and foster a deep meaningful friendship with a newfound female friend. Those supportive relationships we created on site together were the best moments of my game. Dorothy didn’t become a character on page 222 that you easily forgot. She became the star of her own novel, while showing up in others to share richer game play, provide pressure, and bring Primrose to life.

    Just Because It’s Oppressive Doesn’t Mean It Isn’t Fun

    Late Autumn: 1800s

    They did not know what they asked.

    Family never does.

    I have never asked much from life and it seems the least life could do was allow me to live in love. I have sacrificed everything for my family. I have humbled myself, I have groveled, I have gone hungry, and I have smiled when all I wanted to do was break into a million peices. I have held the line.

    And now they ask me to go to war with Norman just to prove that I can still be loyal. That I can still fix everything. So I dueled the one man at Primrose who never misses.

    He knew it would come, I think. Perhaps it was his last chance to escape redemption.

    Either way, we sat across from each other, our eyes never leaving the other’s face. Our masks were savage and beautiful, a lifetime of practice. I was vaguely aware of Judith behind me, and I squared my shoulders. She is strength, and so am I.

    “You cannot disinherit your sons, my dear.”

    “But I have set them free, Madame.”

    I understood what he meant. They were free from the very tethers that wrapped me to this chair in this sweltering salon with perfectly sliced battenburg cake in front of me. I kept his gaze while moving a particularly large tray of sweets that separated us and let violence drip on my tongue, “It’s heavy…”

    I let the threat linger, knowing he’d understand.

    I was not his first wife, but I would certainly be his last.

    “Shall we do battle over tea, my dear?”

    If I knew better, I think he nearly smiled.

    For me as a player, exploring oppression through play is a pleasure. If done within the confines of a safe game environment with people you trust, you can explore yourself and have an excellent time. As an academic, Fortune & Felicity’s light oppression mechanics and unintentional deep oppression path for older women provided exactly the type of experience I needed to reach a sense of emancipatory bleed.

    The character fought societal pressure, familial pressure, sexism, ageism and class identity in order to find her way in the world. She overcame every obstacle, and ended up being the exact type of heroine I wanted to read about as a child. The bleed from Dorothy has been overwhelmingly positive, not because she succeeded in love, but because she succeeded in finding herself. Dorothy stepped out of an Austen novel, and into her own universe. Through her own liberation, I felt some semblance of my own. Liberation through larp.

    After Fortune & Felicity, I found that I was more confident, less worried about my own mortality and more likely to stand up for myself. Even the way I looked at my own body positivity changed for the better. All direct outcomes from the deep immersion I felt while playing Dorothy.

    gloves, ball dress, and booklet
    Dorothy’s ball attire. Photo by Jonaya Kemper.

    Late Autumn: The Last Service at Primrose

    The couples have filled the church to bursting. There are so many that the pews seem empty. I see our children standing among the the crowd, happily engaged and waiting to be blessed by God.

    I see no reason for us to stand among them, the casualties of war. Let their parents preen over them and their ceremony.

    We sit with Judith, who is too good and true for this space. Her love has yet to be found at Primrose, but it is only because her worth is more than her fortune.

    And of course Norman and I sit with each other, as close as wool and bonnets allow in the Lord’s house. I pretend to follow the Vicar, but the truth is that I have never followed the Vicar. Percy is a Vicar and I’ve never followed him either.

    Instead of being a good Christian woman, I let the feeling of the nettles in my bare right hand and the feeling of Norman’s hand on my left pin me to the moment.

    I smile at him like a cat with a bowl of cream, and we recite the vows the Vicar instructs everyone to abide by.

    The season is over, but the war isn’t.  As a family we shall head to other battlefields, in other places in other times. We will win, and we will lose, but we shall always serve together.

    Fortune & Felicity was an incredibly immersive experience that taught me a lot about myself as a larper, and as an academic studying larp. My theory about emancipatory bleed and the ability to steer immersion towards healing self-identified issues will continue to be honed and crafted as I continue my studies. Due the initial design setbacks, I learned how to ask for the play I want instead of sacrificing myself, and I learned how to work in a cohesive group to create amazing deeply emotional play for others in wide varieties.

    By steering for emancipatory bleed, Dorothy Elizabeth Whiteford truly became the heroine I dreamed of all those years when I hid a battered copy of Pride and Prejudice in an early reader. I can only hope the larp is run again so that others can find their own personal Austen as well.

    Cover photo: Mrs. Long (Aina Skjønsfjell Lakou) and Mrs. Smith (Jonaya Kemper) became best friends who were a force to be reckoned with. Photo by Kalle Lantz & Frida Selvén.

  • Pre-Bleed is Totally a Thing

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    Pre-Bleed is Totally a Thing

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    Pre-bleed is the experience of emotional bleed – usually but not exclusively from character to player – prior to ever playing the character in a larp setting. This paper considers multiple instances of pre-bleed experienced by players of College of Wizardry 5 (“CoW5”).((Charles Bo Nielsen, Dracan Dembinski, and Claus Raasted, et al., College of Wizardry 5 (Poland: Liveform and Rollespilsfabrikken, 2014).))

    In the months before CoW5 a number of players used a mixture of prolonged online role-playing, Google Hangouts, co-authored documents, and an in-game Facebook-inspired social media platform called Czochabook to build their characters and create a shared backstory. This allowed players to stay continuously in-game for a prolonged period, which led to a heightened level of character engagement and deeper player and character relations. However, the intensity of emotions experienced was unexpected, particularly for larpers who were yet to play their characters in a physical setting.

    For this study, we’ve chosen a mixture of research methods: a survey, semi-structured ethnographic interviews with a cross-section of respondents and autoethnographic pieces. The paper is a mixture of interviews with experienced larpers and first time players, with autoethnographic analysis of player-generated pre-game documentation. The paper presents initial conclusions regarding causes of pre-bleed and identifies similarities between preparation for larp and method acting. It concludes that intense emotional role-play without a means of releasing stress can be traumatic((By traumatic, we mean causing emotional responses that exceed the player’s ability to cope.)) for players.

    This is a condensed version of the 2015 article published in Larp Realia.

    Introduction

    In the run up to CoW5, players were invited to develop their characters online by building character relations, shared memories and plot for the game. Two months before the start of the game, these players started to notice bleed. Some had already begun role-playing their characters, but others had done little more than form tentative relations and writing backstory. This paper documents instances of what we called pre-bleed((As referenced by the Facebook hashtag #prebleedistotallyathing.)) and considers to what extent intense emotional role-play without a means of releasing stress can be traumatic for players.

    We argue that the continuous connection between a player and a character they have yet to play can cause a particular form of bleed. The juxtaposition of connection and distance is interesting. Much like Todorov’s((Tzvetan Todorov, The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre (Cornell University Press), 1975.)) concept of hesitation where, at “the frontier between the uncanny and the marvellous,” a reader asks herself the question “can this be real?”, here the player asks “is this the character or is it me?”

    Most important though is the word remember. In the pre-game before CoW5, players were not only pretending to remember, they were creating memories in connection with other players in real time. And yet, typing a story is not the same as playing it out. The pre-bleed experience is closer to what a writer feels when they see a character on the page come to life. It is powerful because of the distance between the player and the character they are creating because they are not playing it yet.

    College of Wizardry

    “Imagine our world, just as it is today. Except that magic is real.”
    College of Wizardry Design Document((Claus Raasted, Charles Bo Nielsen, Dracan Dembinski, College of Wizardry Design Document, 2014. http://www.rollespilsfabrikken.dk/cow/dd/designdocument.pdf, ref. December 19th 2015.))

    CoW is structured as a sandbox game. There are a lot of plotlines and potential for play but these are all opt-in rather than opt-out. The focus of the game is on immersion and character drama. Players are encouraged to create their own stories. They have access to the NPC team whom they can ask to help with scenes. This approach can make for a very intense game experience.

    Characters

    CoW5 had pre-written characters. Some aspects of the characters were fixed (year, path, house). Players were told they could change any other part of their character.

    This freedom was key because it effectively put character creation in the hands of the players. Very few pre-written character relations were provided. Players were encouraged to connect to other players and create shared memories and backgrounds together.

    During the time leading up to CoW5, we (the authors of this paper) began experiencing emotional spillover from our characters, and we were not the only ones.

    Interviews

    After the game we interviewed eight players including ourselves. Six of these had experienced pre-bleed, two had not. Out of the players who did not experience pre-bleed, one had spent several hours on Czochabook but had done no other preparations, the other started preparing for the larp later. The ones who reported pre-bleed all spent over 40 hours preparing for the larp.

    We have anonymised the interviewees, giving their reported gender, age and larp experience. In some instances we have removed character names in order to preserve this anonymity.

    Microphone (photo, public domain)
    Photo by Gavin Whitner (source).

    We have used samples from the interviews throughout this paper to illustrate a number of points; we have tried to select single examples rather than repeating similar statements from interviewees.

    Our own, autoethnographic observations are indented and begin with the author’s name.

    The process of character creation

    The players used a Facebook group set up by the organisers to build relationships. Players could give a brief description of their character and what sorts of relations they were looking for.

    BRIND: Thomas was the youngest of seven dysfunctional siblings. He was a young man with no moral compass from a highly privileged background. One of the first things I wanted for him was one or more ex-partners to represent his failure to form any kind of meaningful relationship.

    Ksenia and Thomas’ original relationship was as a couple who had recently split up. Somewhere along the line we decided they still had feelings for one another and this formed the basis of much of the larp for me.

    SVANEVIK: Ksenia started as a pretty rough concept. A Russian fighter from an old family with no money or inherited status, someone whose merits were based on their fists rather than their blood or bank account. As we prepared for the game, a lot of her identity ended up being shaped by her relationship with Simon’s character. I think this was because we spent time describing the same scenes from different perspectives. In these shared documents, Simon and I figured out who our characters were together.

    For example, here is the same scene from different character viewpoints((The pieces were written in separate documents. The scene has been edited together for this article. Different viewpoint shown in italics.)):

    “Thomas was talking to one of the society girls. They went on and on about things that didn’t matter; something to do with a favour owed. Favours are important; you pay your debts, you repay your gifts. That is the way of things. She wanted him to let her friend off? Ain’t gonna happen.

    Thomas was whispering with some girl at the back. Their conversation seeped into her ears, distracting her from the teacher’s long-winded rant about the soul of magic.

    The words didn’t make much sense to her, but Ksenia didn’t have time for distractions. She marched over to their desks and slammed her book down.

    “Shut your fuck mouth!” she exclaimed, calmly.

    It was one of the angry ones. Russian? Eastern European? Whatever. Grey eyes, vodka, barely suppressed rage. Thomas raised an eyebrow and put one finger on his lips as if to say ‘shhh.’”

    BRIND: I am not a pen and paper role-player. I steer clear of online role-playing and downtimes((UK LRP systems often provide a formal process for characters to take actions between events.)),  and am intrinsically uncomfortable with larp over instant messenger. I need the feedback of real world interactions to be able to feel my character. My pre-game preparation was almost exclusively limited to the creation of shared documents. I made some posts on Czochabook, but these were more like blog updates. I was writing fiction in the past tense, rather than role-playing in the here and now.

    Between August 5th and November 17th 2015 we co-wrote around 20,000 words of fiction which covered how the characters first interacted, their romance, and their breakup. We also described many of the events that took place after this traumatic event.

    SVANEVIK: My approach to the Ksenia and Thomas story was the same one I have used for romantic relations in other larps; imagine the powerful moments and shared memories that will make the characters and their interactions feel real. This took a couple of weeks of emails, chats and a few shared documents. Once that was done, Simon wanted to keep building the relation continuously towards the larp. I think that continuous connection between the characters and the players is one of the key reasons for the emotional spillover effect I had between my character’s feelings and my own.

    Setting some narrative rules

    Pre-game, we decided that we would not let the characters speak to each other between the moment of their breakup and the start of the larp. This decision had a significant impact on our pre-bleed experience.

    SVANEVIK: We did not want the plot to finish before the game. The result was a surprisingly powerful dramatic and emotional tension where my character so desperately wanted to see Simon’s that I felt guilty for keeping him from her.

    Instead we wrote scenes happening to the characters at the same time in different places. This shaped the characters in relation to each other. Where are you now? What are you doing? How are you feeling?

    “Ksenia stood, watching the world burn, knowing there was only one thing she should be doing and only one person in the world she wanted to be next to.”

    “Finn had gone, and Thomas sat alone in front of his teacher’s tomb, and listened to the wind howl around the tower like a wolf in a storm.”

    BRIND: Reading the two stories side-by-side surfaced the tragic romance of the two characters. Despite their differences their emotional responses were almost the same.

    As a writer of long form fiction I often fall in love with my characters. The surprise, for me at least, was that Ksenia and Martine started to conflate in my mind. I was feeling Thomas’ love for Ksenia, but this was projected onto Martine.

    Blood (photo, public domain)

    Pre-Game Experiences

    Waern states “the bleed concept thus capitalizes on the (table-top and role-playing) design ideal of a fictional character in a fictional context, as this creates an alibi – safe zone – for exploring emotionally complex or difficult subjects.”((Annika Waern, “I’m in love with someone that doesn’t exist!’ Bleed in the context of a computer game”, in Game Love: Essays on Play and Affection, ed. Jessica Enevold and Esther MacCallum-Stewart (McFarland & Company, 2011).)) We were able to apply this to a romance plot; here the player and the character became confused, but before play had begun. This was pre-bleed in its most intense form.

    SVANEVIK: As we got closer to the game, I found myself contacting Simon more and more to ask how Thomas was, where he was, if he was OK. Somehow, letting me know how he was doing soothed some of the tension I was feeling from my character, despite the fact that she would not be allowed to know the answers I got from Simon.

    We were not alone in creating this type of shared continuous build leading up to this larp. A relatively large group of participants for the game played out their character’s life from the moment the online forum opened till the larp started. Several of the players interviewed reported moments when the pre-bleed became too much.

    “I felt the hurt that [my character] felt. I just felt it even though I knew it was coming. When it was actual reality, it became crushing.” (Cis male, 23, experienced larper)

    When co-writing fiction, each writer only controls their part of the narrative. The act of creating a story together adds tension and excitement. Waiting for the response of someone else can be a cause for pre-bleed. Several players felt the need to take breaks from the pre-game; this was a clear indicator that the emotional stress was intense.

    BRIND: The most intensity of pre-bleed I had came through the co-writing of fiction rather than role-playing the character. There is a distance between writer and character and that is where the bleed comes from.

    SVANEVIK: Most of the pre-game felt distinctly different from larping to me. The divide between player and character was much more pronounced when role-playing or writing before the larp. There was always a part of me that guided the interactions and managed the dramatic tension of each scene. As time progressed and the word count mounted, however, I started feeling like this character lived inside my head. I was constantly aware of how she was feeling.

    “Well, I certainly found myself, like, writing things that I wouldn’t, well I, like getting, feeling like I got input from my character when I was writing things on Facebook and on Czochabook […] so it influenced my actions.” (Cis male, 18, experienced role-player)

    Foucault states that “Writing unfolds like a game that inevitably moves beyond its own rules and finally leaves them behind.”((Michel Foucault, Language, Counter-Memory, Practice: Selected Essays and Interviews (Cornell University Press, 1977).)) When we are writing fiction, we may not be playing characters but we are – by necessity of creating a cogent and meaningful fiction – getting right inside their head. The semantic position may be different, but the outcome is the same. But is it role-playing?

    “I would say the Google Docs were not role-playing, at least not for me because most of the time I had a parallel Facebook chat with the other people on it and we talked about how the scene could go on at some points or reflected on what we had just written – even if it was just ‘oh my God, oh my God what is happening now,’ – but there was still some distance between what is happening and me.” (Cis female, 29, experienced role-player.)

    Notebook (photo, public domain)

    Harviainen writes that it is not until “the moment when a game begins, [that] the play-space becomes a temporary pseudo-autonomous reality that is isolated by three factors: authority, language and the larp sign-interpretation state”.((J. Tuomas Harviainen, “Information, Immersion, Identity: The Interplay of Multiple Selves During Live-Action Role-Play”, Journal of Interactive Drama 1 (2006), 2.)) Before that moment, still in the pre-game, information flows differently; characters are in a different state, not in costume, not in person, not fully immersed in the ritual space of the game. The rules of the pre-game are different – it is possible to talk in-game and off-game at once, the scenes are played out remotely, not in person nor in real time.

    In the game, most players navigated between a narrativist approach and immersion, weighing whether something is better for the story against how it fits with the character’s state of mind and traits. We would argue that the pre-game was more narrativist than the larp event precisely because of the in-game/off-game simultaneous talk. It allowed for the time to craft the reactions right, and may have led to different or perhaps even truer character interpretations.

    “We met, planned the scene, keynotes and then wrote it out together. This meant that I ‘played my character’ better than I managed at the larp.” (Cis male, 23, experienced larper.)

    “I wasn’t really role-playing. I was me. [My character] was talking through me.” (Cis female, 29, experienced larper.)

    Whether it was pre-play or play, for those players who reported bleed prior to the larp the intensity of the experience was striking.

    “I was chatting to another player and she shared part of a co-authored scene between her character and the character playing my brother. I was overcome with a feeling of betrayal and jealousy when I saw what he had told her. I tried to step back from the fiction, and I could, but the feeling persisted.” (Cis female, 31, experienced larper)

    Lieberoth talks about immersion as “an aspect of decoupling ability, where players try to ignore the scope-syntactical tags placed on the remembered present, that tell us ‘this isn’t real!’”((Andreas Lieberoth, “With Role-Playing in Mind. A Cognitive Account of Decoupled Reality, Identity and Experience”, in Role, Play, Art, ed. Thorbiörn Fritzon and Tobias Wrigstad (Föreningen Knutpunkt, 2006).)) This is interesting; it is hard to immerse while sitting in front of a computer keyboard unless you are in a diegesis that involves a character who is creating a character. To what extent can an immersionist experience any kind of bleed pre-game?

    The answer to that question lies in the distance between player and character, and in the act of creating something together. The player may be sitting behind their screen, but they are not alone. They are sharing the experience of telling stories with others. Although it is not larping, it is a shared experience between players which elicits an emotional response, and that emotional response makes the memory feel real and vice versa.((Hamann states “that emotional stimuli engage specific cognitive and neural mechanisms that enhance explicit memory. Stephen Hamann, “Cognitive and neural mechanisms of emotional memory”, Trends in Cognitive Sciences 5 (2001), 9.))

    Before the larp Dragonbane,((Dragonbane was a large international larp project. The game itself took place from July 27th to August 4th, 2006 in Sweden. Timo Multamäki, et al., Dragonbane (Älvdalen, Sweden: 2006).)) the players spent a day workshopping their characters together through what they called if-games. We understand the term if-game to mean when players have an opportunity to play their way into their characters and develop common memories for them. This is important because as we can learn from 19th and 20th century drama theory, memory is very powerful.

    Affective Memory

    One of the pervasive myths about the early incarnations of Stanislavsky’s affective memory was that memories needed to derive from the actor’s real life experiences. “He never advances the actor’s personal memories as the sole source of emotions. Beyond the actor’s lived experience, Stanislavsky asserts the validity of whetting the emotion memory through empathy with the character’s situation, observation of other’s experiences, imagination, and immersion in the actual onstage experience.”((Cheryl McFarren, Acknowledging Trauma/Rethinking Affective Memory: Background, Method, and Challenge for Contemporary Actor Training (University of Colorado, 2003), 111.))

    Lee Strasberg’s development of Stanislavsky’s work, which formed the basis for the American Method, invited the actor to explore the physical space of a memory. To put themselves into the time and place they wanted to (re)experience and to consider what they could see, hear, smell, taste, and feel, their balance and their relationship to the world around them.

    BRIND: This is very close to my approach to the writing of fiction; for example a lot of scenes in the shared Google Docs started or ended with sensory descriptions.

    “If he closed my eyes he could remember the taste of blood and the sensation of swallowing one of his own teeth, of the loving embrace of oblivion as the cold ground came up to meet him; Avalon taught him his first lesson; he learned it the hard way.”

    Several players spent considerable time describing body language and physical reactions in their co-written scenes. We suggest this was an attempt to mitigate the lack of physical cues that they use to communicate during a larp, but it had the added effect of the author writing themselves into the time and space of the memory they were creating.

    Using affective memory and intense pre-larp preparations to create characters that draw on our own memories and traits can be particularly powerful.

    SVANEVIK: About six weeks before the larp, I noticed that I was looking for my ex-fiancée everywhere. I realized that a lot of the pain I was pouring into my character came from that breakup. I borrowed from my past experiences to create a more believable emotional response. I was reframing and rethinking my own heartache.

    Affective memory, in any form, has risks. Even Stanislavsky recognised this when his student, Michael Chekhov, had a nervous breakdown. This led to Stanislavsky “focussing on the actor’s imagination rather than personal memory”((Fintan Walsh, Theatre & Therapy (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013).)) as a means to evoke an emotional response.

    “The bleed. It’s all about running after someone to whose standards I cannot live up to. About not being loved back. Someone who treats my character/me with a weird mixture of kindness and refusal. Always at risk that there is some girl else who can offer what I cannot. That is the essence of a long relationship I had in my early twenties. I don’t know why this found its way into CoW.” (Female, 29, experienced larper)

    Seton coins the term post-dramatic stress, he admits this is a deliberate provocation but believes the risks associated with some of the techniques of method acting are “a significant area of neglect and culpability for stakeholders in Western performance contexts.” Most telling is his belief that “the enactment and witnessing of trauma in the context of rehearsal and subsequent performance can also leave its imprint on the actors’ lives, even if they had never experienced the trauma prior to performing the role.”((Mark Cariston Seton, “‘Post-Dramatic’ Stress: Negotiating Vulnerability for Performance”, in Proceedings of the 2006 Annual Conference of the Australasian Association for Drama, Theatre and Performance Studies (2006). Emphasis added.))

    Burgoyne has similar concerns, “it occurred to me that my theatre training not only had not prepared me to deal with the psychological fallout my actors were experiencing, but that no one had seriously warned me that I might encounter such a phenomenon.”((Suzanne Burgoyne, “A Crucible for Actors: Questions of Directorial Ethics”, Theatre Topics 1 (1991), 1.))

    “The intensity of all the scenes in the game also stick with me more than it would if I hadn’t been that much into character. Yeah, so I keep like being overwhelmed by memories that feel so real, because they are real, right?” (Cis female, 31, experienced larper)

    For larpers playing with bleed we would argue that they are operating at the edges of aesthetic distance; “When an individual can return to a troubling, unresolved experience without either becoming overwhelmed by it (too little distance) or disconnecting from it (too much distance), s/he achieves aesthetic distance in the cathartic, intrapsychic sense of the concept.”((Cheryl McFarren (2003), 206.))

    “[The] first meeting between [our characters] was really intense. I had this difference between my feelings and [my character]’s. Like you’re writing a book and you’re experiencing first hand what’s happening and it’s exciting but you’re not the character you’re reading about.” (Cis female, 29, new larper)

    Some forms of dramatic and narrative stress exist because there is no opportunity for catharsis, no opportunity for release. As we described above we had deliberately prevented our characters from talking. This simple in-game action would have started the resolution that allowed the characters to progress, but this could not happen until the larp started. We were not alone.

    “I did not want to carry these feeling around day to day and that, especially in the context of a relationship that is known to be doomed but that cannot be played through until play officially starts, there was a very uncomfortable frozen effect of being stuck in the plummeting moment of dawning horror/sense of rejection/denial without the possibility of processing or resolving this moment through play. In fact of actively rejecting the processing of this moment in order to preserve it for live play-through.” (Cis female, 36, new larper)

    We agree with Bowman: “if-game thinking can become detrimental when players have difficulty letting go of character and story motivations.”((Sarah Lynne Bowman, “Social Conflict in Role-Playing Communities: An Exploratory Qualitative Study”, International Journal of Role-Playing 4 (2013).)) Combined with intense bleed and an inability to resolve the emotion through play, this difficulty becomes traumatic. Glenn((Marti Glenn, “Trauma, Attachment, And Stress Disorders: Developmental Issues”, Healingresources.info (2015). http://www.healingresources.info/trauma_attachment_stress_disorders.htm, ref December 19th 2015.)) defines “traumatization” as “stress frozen in place – locked into a pattern of neurological distress that doesn’t go away by returning to a state of equilibrium.”((Tzvetan Todorov and Arnold Weinstein, “Structural Analysis of Narrative”, NOVEL: A Forum on Fiction 3 (1969), 1: “The minimal complete plot can be seen as the shift from one equilibrium to another. This term “equilibrium,” which I am borrowing from genetic psychology, means the existence of a stable but not static relation between the members of a society; it is a social law, a rule of the game, a particular system of exchange. The two moments of equilibrium, similar and different, are separated by a period of imbalance, which is composed of a process of degeneration and a process of improvement.”)) Thus without the ability to relieve the stress, there was no way to return to that point of balance. We believe there is a clear parallel here between the experience of some larpers’ pre-play and trauma.

    Conclusions

    There appears to be some correlation between the methods used by players during the pre-game and some affective memory techniques. We did not investigate whether those players explored real (traumatic) memories or simply used their imagination to get close to their characters,((We would suggest that such a study if it took place, should consider the emotional safety of the participants as a priority.)) but overall the cases of bleed were higher than we would have expected and – in the reported cases – more intense. We identified that in some cases the players did not consider they were role-playing during this period.

    The pre-game at CoW5 was powerful and important to create emotional connections and shared memories between characters and between players and their characters. It lessened the time players spent getting into character once the larp started and in several cases led to deeper immersion.

    The pre-game is not a larp, however. The creation of shared memories causes a distinct form of bleed that is different because of the distance between the player and their character. In the pre-game, the players are telling stories rather than living them.

    For some of the pre-game players, CoW5 became the finale to a long game where most of the story had already played out. The last chapter in a novel, the last act of a play. For the ones who managed to – deliberately or unconsciously – keep key plot strands from resolving before the game, however, the larp became an emotional roller coaster of epic proportions.

    If we create shared memories and stressful situations, prior to the opening of the magic circle, our options appear to be to disconnect entirely from the character, or to feel emotions over which we have little control. CoW is a powerful game. It has been very intense before, during and after. We would argue that we have some tools and techniques to make the space emotionally safer, but to what extent are we re-discovering things that the theatre already knows?

    This is not the last CoW larp or the last larp with a dedicated player base that will have an intense pre-game. We suggest that larp should look to the theatre to find effective tools for managing the bleed and/or pre-bleed that will occur when players create powerful memories together. The rush of the pre-game and the intensity it brings to a larp is amazing and powerful, and intense experiences are part of the reason we play.

    Žižek, when talking about the relationship between (video) games and reality, states “Because I think it’s only a game, it’s only a persona, a self-image I adopt in virtual space, I can be there much more truthful. I can enact there an identity which is much closer to my true self.”((Slavoj Žižek, Sophie Fiennes, Brian Eno, and Tony Myers, The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema, (P Guide, 2006).)) But he is wrong. It is not only a game, it is never only a game; as larpers we should remember that.

    Interviewer: Did you enjoy the pre-bleed?

    Cis male, 45, experienced larper: Yeah. Fuck yeah. I’m not sorry, I’d do it again.

    Cover photo: A Death Eater’s mask with a dagger through it (photo, John-Paul Bichard).

  • Tears and the New Norm

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    Tears and the New Norm

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    In recent years, we — the Nordic/International progressive role-playing scene, both tabletop and larp((I’ve been in on the tabletop/freeform side of things for many years; on the larp side, I got going with a splash with Just a Little Lovin’ in 2015. The otherwise admirable and magnificent Just a Little Lovin’ probably did a lot of messing with my head, but I was thoroughly softened up long before then.))– have produced games that can bring out powerful emotions in the players, and empower the players to engage with powerful emotions. This process has significantly extended the artistic reach of the role-playing medium, and also given a lot of people (myself among them) some great experiences. In this context, some design and cultural elements have been developed to help handle difficult topics and emotions. Of particular importance has been the widespread acceptance of the notion that it’s actually alright to feel a lot of feelings and not be too tough or hard to shed a tear or ten. Bleed is here to stay, and it’s OK to be concerned with the comfort and safety of yourself and your fellow players.

    This is excellent! I’ve been a part of this movement as it regards play, design, and culture. Although I’m not personally inclined to weep over role-playing games, I’m happy with my part in all this. In those of my own games that deal with difficult subjects, I’ve included a debriefing: one containing the line that it’s OK to feel a lot of powerful or strange things, and it’s also OK to feel nothing much at all.

    The New Norm

    Last year, I discovered a surprising dark side to this new, accepting culture around strong feelings about role-playing games. Even though it’s a pretty standard disclaimer that it’s OK to not bleed all over the place, not just in my games, but in most games that come with debriefing instructions attached, somehow strong and care/space-requiring emotions have become not just normal (fine!) but also normative.((NORMAL = within the range of commonly occurring phenomena in a given category and commonly accepted as such. NORMATIVE = in accordance with social norms determining what is socially acceptable.)) It’s the norm for how you do demanding and artistically ambitious role-play; it’s how you demonstrate that you’re a good role-player. If you don’t feel all of the feelings, passionately, you’re not quite alright.

    It’s a subtle thing, and certainly not the result of conspiracies and subversion, just the cumulative effect of a lot of usually enthusiastic conversations about earth-shaking, personally transformative experiences that have made the tears flow.

    the #feminism anthology cover
    The #feminism nanogame anthology indicates the intensity of each larp with ratings of teardrops from 1-5.

    Comparing Notes

    It was rather by accident that I found out that there’s a problem that might be a bit larger than just me. Some time last year, after having witnessed (mostly online but also off) exchanges between people who had had earth-shaking experiences – even a year later, that one song brought tears to their eyes – I found that I was actually downright worried about how little I felt. As in, I seriously entertained the notion that I might be on the outskirts of some sort of personality disorder. And it’s not quite the first time that role-playing games and role-playing culture have had me wondering why I was reacting off — and below — the norm. Anyway, I struggled a bit with it, and after a couple of uncomfortable months, I arrived at the conclusion that the rest of my life doesn’t support the theory that I’m under-endowed with emotions and the capacity for authentic human relations. Probably.

    At some point, I opened up and told my friend Anne Vinkel about my concerns. Her reaction was powerful and telling:

    “Oh God, I thought it was just me!”

    Then, I started considering whether there might be more at stake here than just my own discomfort: if we might have a cultural problem on our hands. When people are wondering whether they have real psychopathology (that they don’t), simply because the standards of this role-playing subculture for what “we” feel around games has become so extreme, it’s not great.

    I know several role-players with real, honest-to-goodness personality disorders. They’re fine people that I care about both in and out of role-playing games. This is in no way a criticism or rejection of them. But neither Anne nor myself are in their situation! Diagnoses are a thing to approach soberly.

    Person cowering in a prison with the Kapo logo
    Promotional photo for KAPO, a 2012 Danish larp about imprisonment

    Shame! Blame! Disgrace!

    So whose fault is this? At whom should we point the finger of condemnation? When I put it like this, the observant reader might suspect that I’m about to say ”no one” and this is 98% true. This is a question of culture, and as is usually the case with such things, the responsibility is vague and diffuse. If, during the following, you feel personally accused, please dial down the feeling by 98%.

    It started out with a desire to explore challenging subjects through roleplaying without falling into The Cult of Hardcore, which was quite prominent back in the early and middle 2000s. The standard was that WE as Good Roleplayers were too cool to bellyache over the Very Edgy games that we played. The revolt against The Cult of Hardcore that the role-playing culture around safety mechanics, debriefings, etc. represents was sorely needed.

    In connection with debriefings — and war stories in a wider sense — the conversation focused on the extreme experiences that made safety mechanics and debriefings relevant. It’s natural enough to talk more about those players with issues — players in active need of inclusion — than about those who are just fine. But, as is the case in any (sub-)culture, it became a matter of prestige. Culture works like that; even in the most self-consciously egalitarian culture, there will be actions, objects, and stories that attract more positive attention than others. In this case, the tales of earth-shaking, transformative experiences became prestigious. There’s nothing weird about this; it’s a logical consequence of the inclusion and centering of the extreme emotions that had previously been marginalized. And on a very basic level, “I wept like I’d been whipped and I’m a new person now” is just a better story than “I had slightly moist eyes at one point in the second act, and I have some interesting things about sibling relationships to reflect on.” If both stories are tellable, the former is more likely to be told, shared, and remembered.

    All of it is very human, understandable, and largely even sympathetic. It still resulted in myself and Anne — and who knows how many others? — separately and secretly worrying and wondering if we were sociopaths, schizoid, or otherwise emotionally under-endowed. Which is not cool.

    Performative Emotions

    It’s not that I see the powerful emotions as in any way fake. This is worth saying and worth repeating. I believe that, in the vast majority of cases, they are authentic enough. However, they are in many cases also performative, not just as in players theatrically performing the feelings of their characters — with a bit of player spillover through bleed — but also between players, outside of games, but inside the subculture. Because the intensity of emotions is a source of authority, prestige, and bonding, all the nice social goods are out of reach if others can’t clearly perceive that you have the valuable emotions. And then it makes sense to make a good show out of the things you feel. Conspicuous emotion is a gainful social strategy in this context.

    And the more people are performing their emotions loudly, the harder it is to gain recognition for quieter thoughts and feelings, and so we have a tendency towards inflation.

    a drawing of a person with their hand behind their back and details for a 2012 run of Just a Little Lovin'
    Promotional information for the 2012 run of Just a Little Lovin’, a larp about desire, fear of death, and friendship during the early days of the AIDS crisis.

    What Now?

    This is a tough one. I have no interest in bringing back the hardcore culture that the new, more sensitive culture has dethroned. Emotion- and safety-accepting role-playing culture has a WHOLE lot of babies that it would be bad to throw out with the bathwater. It’s great that we have created spaces of safety and recognition where we can be, as Moyra Turkington memorably put it to me in a private conversation, ”deliciously vulnerable,” and we should preserve this. But if we want to think up something to do anyway?

    TALKING ABOUT IT. Both in public and in private. A bit of consciousness-raising can go a long way, and is precisely the point of this post.

    DEBRIEFINGS ARE NOT ABOUT TRAUMA. While gathering pace for writing this post I had an excellent discussion with Sarah Lynne Bowman about what debriefings are and aren’t good for. A lot of people, myself included, have absorbed from the general conversation the idea that debriefings are about after-treatment of trauma, and this is not the case at all. What they do is reestablish normal social relations between players after the shakeup of the game, and create a space for recognizing feelings — not necessarily, indeed probably not, traumatic — for later reflection and digestion. If players have been actually traumatized, it is rather psychological first aid that’s called for, which is an entirely different beast that should be fielded as soon as the crisis is seen as such and absolutely should NOT wait until after the game. At any debriefing, it should be clear that debriefing =/= trauma treatment.

    UPGRADING THE STANDARD DISCLAIMER. I and quite a lot of others have our standard disclaimer, typically fired off in connection with debriefings, that it’s OK to feel a lot of weird feelings, and it’s also OK to not feel that much. I’ve been saying that myself for years, and yet I let myself be quite viscerally convinced that it wasn’t the case. I’m thinking that it might be an idea to simply reverse the order so you start out by saying that it’s normal and OK if it’s not that wild, but if it’s wild, that’s cool too. Thus, the non-violent reactions are pulled back into the range of the normal, rather than remaining an afterthought. In situations where we’re on the outskirts of the sensitive culture — where it doesn’t define the standards — I’d use the traditional order instead. And I’d write this in my debriefing instructions!

    MOVING UP THE STANDARD DISCLAIMER. Right before the debriefing is awfully late in the game to establish that the acceptable range of responses is quite wide. How about before the game proper starts?

    TEMPERATE USE OF DANGER SIGNALS. Warnings about harsh subject matter is a fine idea, and ambushing people with bad stuff is not cool, but as I see it, we could show a little more restraint in communicating HOW traumatized players are ”supposed” to be by a given game. I suspect that strongly framing games as dangerous contributes to the inflation of conspicuous emotion. I also suspect that it doesn’t really contribute much to actual safety.

    I’m aware that the above is not terribly impressive. So if you have ideas for what to do that aren’t too harsh on the babies in the bath, I’m all ears!

    Cover photo: “Don’t Cry My Love” by Axel Naud on Flickr. Photo has been cropped. CC BY 2.0.

  • Chasing Bleed – An American Fantasy Larper at Wizard School

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    Chasing Bleed – An American Fantasy Larper at Wizard School

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    In June of 2016, I went to wizard school.

    I’m a larper, so that’s kind of an expected thing. But this wasn’t just any larp experience: this was New World Magischola, a Nordic-inspired game on American soil. Like many Americans who participated in the game, I was equal parts excited and intimidated.

    I knew I’d have a once-in-a-lifetime experience, but I wasn’t prepared for the loving and supporting community that would stick with me weeks after the event.

    This article describes how I felt about my experience as someone who comes from an American campaign boffer fantasy larp background.

    My Background as a Larper

    I’ve been participating in live action role playing games for about eight years. I entered the hobby when I attended a PvP (player vs. player) boffer larp called Vanguard (initially Portal II), the sequel to a popular game located in South Jersey in the Northeastern United States.

    After sampling a few other games in similar play style, I joined the staff of Seventh Kingdom IGE to handle the out-of-game responsibility of marketing for the first few years of its run. I marketed the game as more immersive((In a US context immersion usually means something external to the player, what is more often called 360 degree illusion in the Nordic countries. Immersion is mostly understood to be an internal state in the Nordic traditions.)) than other local games. I still play there as a PC (player character).

    Years later, I began attending larps in other genres, such as the sci-fi Mercenaries of the Galactic Frontier Campaign in the Mystic Realms Multiverse, as well as games within the fantasy genre. Most significantly, I began larping at conventions and played freeform games such as those in #Feminism: A Nano-Games Anthology.

    As I started to expand my interest in larps beyond those played primarily in my region, I felt and acted upon a strong desire to blend the styles. When I started attending Double Exposure events and played in This Miracle, a freeform larp by Lizzie Stark and Nick Fortugno focusing on religion and rituals, I asked the other players for permission to take back one of the rituals we’d created and use it as a ritual to an existing god at my home larp.

    When I portrayed my established character in the ritual setting, I brought a more aggressive character and play style more commonly used in American fantasy boffer combat games. It’s my hope that both games benefited from this blend and small exchange, and it’s this satisfaction in doing so that led me to snag a ticket for New World Magischola.

    New World Magischola is a larp all about attending college as a wizard. It relies on North American lore and traditions and is inspired by the massively successful College of Wizardry, which is run in a castle in Poland.

    My Goals at New World Magischola

    Nordic larpers played alongside American larpers at New World Magischola
    Nordic larpers played alongside American larpers at New World Magischola

    Having experienced immersion and bleed((Bleed is when emotions bleed over between player or character, in either direction.)) at my regular game, I looked for an enhanced version of this experience at New World Magischola. So often, American larpers in my region see bleed primarily as a negative consequence of immersion and over-committed role-play, but I enjoy it as a way to learn more about an aspect of myself.

    After I got to know the experienced role-players I’d interact with at New World Magischola via online conversations and Google Hangout sessions prior to the game, I let them know that I was going for some emotionally driven roleplay centered around certain themes.

    This type of play is far from impossible to obtain at my usual fantasy games, I should note – one time I experienced missing someone in character and found the scene a cathartic way for me and others to process the real life sudden loss of a beloved member of our larp community. While this type of play is hesitantly accepted in my usual larp community, it is not the norm. Additionally, other real-life societal expectations sometimes endure in the community. For example, the community may more readily accept a woman crying than a man.

    Goal 1: Immersion

    “Full immersion is dangerous,” one of my friends had told me previously. And he has a point: if you become the character to the point of losing track of the rules in a game involving combat or if you fail to recognize safety words and others’ triggers, immersion could be very dangerous. However, internalizing rules systems – no matter the complexity – has been a safe, useful strategy for me in the past. (This does require either a pre-existing familiarity of the rules system or a game without too many rules).

    Having some experience with immersion, feeling comfortable with other participants, and trusting in the organizers, I decided to play as immersively as possible, even opting for an in-game sleeping space. (At New World Magischola, dorm rooms are considered off-game by default.)

    The character I played at New World Magischola — Minerva — was stern and often angry. She was rarely effusive with positive emotions. This is a stringent contrast to My Seventh Kingdom IGE character (Ceara) – she’s one of the bubblier characters in game. Minerva hid her expressive vocal talent; Ceara thrives on self-expression. I wanted to play a markedly different character and felt that in a Nordic-style game, my character development would be less hindered (as compared to the American fantasy setting) if I chose to play a character who wasn’t inherently happy.

    In real life, I always encounter articles about finding happiness or avoiding negativity. However, life has negative moments. I need to deal with them, not shove them aside. Playing Minerva allowed me to explore this thematically and as a process in a way that the real world does not allow.

    Result of Immersion at New World Magischola:

    I was out-of-game for less than an hour between game on and game off. I began to feel fully immersed less than an hour into the game. I felt or actively went out of game only for:

    • Cut scenes (for emotional safety)
    • To access my phone to check in with my dog sitters
    • Experiencing anxiety about getting lost (I’m horrible with maps and the campus is large)
    • A few selfies to document my experience, which I did off-game only because I smile and my character generally doesn’t
    • Self-care – I had to pause and take a nap; I had to take medication

    Immersion helped me expose and confront many negative behaviors – and play up qualities of myself I wish to show to the world more often. Since the game’s end, I have pursued active bleed for the following positive habits once I noticed them forming as a result of the game experience:

    • Reduction of negative self-talk (“I’m so stupid; I can’t figure out where to find my keys, how can I possibly do anything of significance?”)
    • Asking for help when I need it: I had a support network in-game. We’re in an out-of-game Facebook group together. Today I asked them for support with a trying situation and I got it.
    • Being myself instead of what the world expects of me: Sometimes I’m not happy, and that’s okay. Not going to fake it until I make it – I’d rather just avoid wasting my time worrying about the approval of people who don’t matter.
    • Creative problem-solving: I often feel a loss of control when there is no immediate answer to the problem. How can I use the resources I have to work around that helplessness?
    • Only apologize when necessary: Apologies are more meaningful when they are rare and reserved for sincerity. I’m not going to apologize to someone if they’re standing in my way or talking over me – but I will apologize if I stand in their way or talk over them.
    • Respect for proper pronouns: As an editor of subject matter in different fields and subcultures, I can make an active impact regarding this change. I will not wait for a style book to change the way “they” is used. I’ll just make the change. Small policy, large impact.

    When the game ended, the debriefing materials and counselors asked us to focus on what we’d like to take away and what we’d like to leave behind. I was surprised to find that I wanted to take away so many things.

    Goal 2: Explore Minerva’s Themes: Grief and Loyalty

    Having had a positive, cathartic experience exploring grief among trusted friends at a fantasy game, I elected to explore the topic again here. In everyday life, I feel a pressure to “be strong,” especially since other women in geek culture have confessed to looking at me as an influencer.

    However, I understand that being strong also means being real about strong emotions and coping with them. New World Magischola provided me with an opportunity to explore and resolve issues that were holding me back.

    Grief

    I miss my grandfather a lot. He passed away in 2014. When I received my character sheet for New World Magischola, I noticed that her grandfather was a mundane country musician. When I later had the opportunity to request a scene, I asked that the grandfather’s ghost come to find Minerva at school.

    I noted on the request form that I was going for some closure and intentional bleed here to keep all parties informed for emotional safety. I was confident that the people handling this would have good judgment, and they did.

    The scene created was extremely touching. My character sang to her grandfather and the scene pushed her to accept and process her emotions more readily. I’m extremely grateful to those who helped with the scene, knowing what it meant, and that no one questioned my ability to determine what level of intentional bleed was appropriate for me.

    This scene was part of the reason I felt so much peace after I came home from game.

    Some people, even in the larp scene, find this whole experience weird or think that bleed is only something negative. While I’ve experienced negative effects of bleed, I more commonly utilize it as a very powerful tool for self-discovery and self-improvement. However, I struggle with a lack of validation for that strategy in my usual larp scene.

    Loyalty

    I enjoy being valued. Unfortunately, this can manifest in negative attention-seeking behaviors in the real world, like wanting to be noticed by people who mean to harm or manipulate me and others. I used the game as an opportunity to explore loyalty to an entire group of people (my character’s House).

    Although Minerva had more personal connections with some than others (and although some of those people weren’t necessarily doing things for the good of the world), this was a much healthier way for my character (and myself) to seek positive reinforcement, approval, and loyalty.. As Minerva, I was able to turn that constant approval into positive actions, like making new spells or mentoring a new House initiate with confidence.

    This process is an exemplary one for me to internalize. I don’t want to waste energy on the wrong people, but there are some people in my life who deserve my loyalty. Roleplaying Minerva helped me learn how to differentiate between the two.

    Both Minerva and Ceara are extremely loyal characters. This is one of the more rewarding traits for me to play and makes me feel like I can seek and give approval to others in both settings in an emotionally healthy way.

    New World Magischola

    Exploring a World Without ‘-isms’

    The week before I went to New World Magischola, my website about women in geek culture was hacked. This happened as my site hosted a series of panels about women in geek culture, representation in films, and communities of color and safe spaces at Wizard World Philly, an annual fan convention in Philadelphia.

    The hack may or may not have been coincidental, but the effects were very real: I felt angry, unsafe, and, defeated.

    Going into the game, especially after this, was the challenge of playing in a world without “isms.” I’m white, cisgender, and heterosexual, and I’m aware that I likely project many microaggressions unintentionally towards marginalized people.

    Additionally, as illustrated by the website hack example, I feel disadvantaged as a woman living in a patriarchal society. I wasn’t sure how I could even begin to pretend to live in something else, so I made it a personal challenge to recognize equality as part of the Magimundi: the magical world in New World Magischola.

    I was somewhat accustomed to this in my home larp as my character represents a “might makes right” society. While power matters more than gender in the game setting and the real-world game culture, there are still occasionally some gender dynamics in play (and I willfully explore some of those in-game relationships).

    Without the existence of sexism holding me (the player) back at New World Magischola, I found that my character did not question herself very often, and that other characters challenged her on ideas and associations rather than physical characteristics, appearance, or clothing.

    Being Perceived as Capable

    Minerva was seen as capable as most others in the world because the roleplay mattered more than a preconceived notion of what it meant to be “able.” While I do suffer from chronic pain, it’s usually not visible. I am, however, short in height and frequently talked over by men. Yet within the world, I did not experience this negativity and I was not held back by it.

    From a place of privilege, I also found it immersively easier to think person-first: “they’re a Marshal” or “she’s a member of Dan Obeah” versus seeing differences and disabilities as a primary identifying characteristic. It’s not about defining someone else, but being very aware of how they prefer to be identified and defined (or not). It’s important to recognize how someone else wants to be thought of: is this part of who they are? Do they identify this way as a primary means of definition? New World Magischola caused me to think about these things and have enlightening conversations about them later.

    The game world is all about what you can do, not your real or perceived limitations – and your abilities are based on magical prowess and how you interact with the world, not a character sheet with hit points and skills.

    I found my real-world biases exposed and as a result, I commit to fighting them post-game.

    I also wish to note that the players of the game did explore themes of inclusion allegorically. I made the choice to downplay my character’s biases in certain instances, especially following the recent shooting in Orlando. As my character felt especially close to a vampire hater, I learned that sometimes hate originates from a pain in someone who feels they can’t be healed.

    For further analysis on these themes, please read a queer perspective.

    Game Format and Timing

    The most significant adjustments I had to make in going from an American fantasy campaign boffer larp to New World Magischola involved game format and timing. In most of the games I’ve played, the climax of the story occurs towards the end of the game in a “main mod,” during which the main characters and their NPC (non-player character) allies take on the big bad villain of the month.

    What Is a Larp Module?

    Modules, or “mods.” typically involve planned scenes during which PCs are presented with opportunities to interact with NPCs and environments in a battle and/or roleplay context. An example: a known friendly NPC acts as a “hook,” asking for adventurers to help him get to another location safely. On the way, the group is attacked by waiting monsters (NPCs). While this is typical of American fantasy campaign style, mods can involve only two people and a high level of emotional intensity. The “main mod” is typically inclusive of the entire group and may involve grand melee combat.

    At a game like New World Magischola, this isn’t necessarily the case. The big event at the end is the formal ball. Like classes and meals, it’s built into the schedule of the game. It’s a protected space with wards, so nothing bad can happen there; I got the impression from some College of Wizardry veterans that you should even have your plot wrapped up before the ball.

    Emotionally, I was pleasantly surprised at the way the event worked for me and some members of my character’s House. The game got more emotional for me over time. At one point, my character was upset and there were tears. One of the counselors (who are brilliantly counselors in game, but will also talk to you out of game if necessary) came over to check on me. In the last twenty minutes of the game, I managed to wrap up my plot in a way that prevented too much negative bleed.

    Competition: Playing to Win, Playing to Lose, and the “Magic” Combination

    New World MagischolaIt’s often assumed that:

    • American larpers play to win: competitive play in which the game can be “won;”
    • Nordic larpers play to lose: making choices to create the most interesting or moving scene even if that has negative consequences for their character.

    While I love competitive elements, I’ve also seen them create a destructive or win-focused environment in some games and gaming cultures.

    At New World Magischola, much of the in-game competition was enhanced by personal rivalry. This especially makes sense due to the elaborate pre-game relationship building some wished to partake in.

    In both gaming environments, I have noticed in-game competition taken a little too far — teasing on Facebook about one culture or House being better than another, chants disparaging one group instead of simply promoting one’s own. Overall, I felt like the spirit at New World Magischola was more welcoming, but that could also be due to a “grass is always greener” or honeymoon effect.

    Immersion was prevalent in both styles, though I found myself more frequently and more fully immersed in the Nordic style game. This was due to several reasons:

    • I didn’t have to do math to think about how many hit points I had
    • The setting, while magical, was modern, so things like “mundane cars” didn’t have to be “dragons”
    • Most out-of-game communication took place before the game, very briefly, or through non-invasive hand signals (as opposed to narration or describing things that weren’t actually there)

    Immersion Versus Playing to Lose

    That said, I didn’t embrace “play to lose” as much as some Nordic style gamers do. This is because of immersion. I was always conscious of safety and ensuring others’ comfort as players, but I wasn’t thinking “what will make a more interesting story?” or even “what would my character do?” Instead, I had chosen to play a reactive character and I did.

    In retrospect, there were things I could have done to make more interesting scenes. There were also actions other players took to ensure better scenes for me, but for the most part, I’m glad I stuck to simply being my character and setting her up in a way that encouraged kindness to other players, involving others (not hoarding information), and dramatic, decisive involvement.

    What Others Said: Too Nordic or Not Nordic Enough?

    I have not played a larp in Europe, but I did hear some College of Wizardry vets describe some differences between the two games. I got the impression that there is less hand-holding at College of Wizardry and less attention to various sensitivities.

    As a player, safety is important to me. I need to feel physically and emotionally safe before I can experience immersion, and the rules set in place at New World Magischola made that possible.

    Effects of Bleed: Expected and Unexpected

    Having experienced bleed before in campaign games, I did expect some lasting effects. I’ve had players treat me poorly because they did not agree with or understand something my character did. Some of them did this unintentionally or they would simply not admit to bleed — since it’s such a forbidden thing in some American larp.

    I found that the intentional bleed I sought at New World Magischola was there and it was transformative. Weeks later, I feel like I really dove into the grieving process and gave myself closure by experiencing grief in game.

    What I did not expect was such a strong bond with the other players. Prior to the game, I’d been going through a great deal of personal difficulty and hadn’t been able to connect with other players to the degree I’d wanted, mostly due to real world strain and time limitations. Plus, I thought I’d only be playing this character for a few days: why was it worth it to invest so much time and money into character creation and relationships?

    As I mentioned previously, I did spend time on Google Hangouts with the players of my character’s House presidents and other members of our House before game. I was pretty comfortable with everyone in the Hangouts, so this made me able to hop right into character once we were in game.

    They seemed like cool people and once we started talking about character development, I could tell that they were all very talented and creative.

    What I was not expecting was the out-of-game attachment I’d feel to other players I interacted with in-game. It’s been more than a week since the game has ended and it feels really weird if I don’t talk to the player of my character’s roommate every other day or so.

    There’s also the shared experience: it helps me to know that other people miss me. I feel very validated in all of my emotions and actions surrounding the game.

    I did find that my return to “normal life” happened a bit faster than that of others. This was likely due to:

    • Short travel time (6 hours) and little time spent “in transit” (airports, etc.)
    • Formal and informal debriefing following the game
    • Immediate return to work
    • My own expectations for intentional bleed
    • Being accustomed to returning to work immediately after an intense RP weekend

    The need to remain connected with other players was so intense it was surprising. I found that others in the community were experiencing similar feelings, and once I realized that my feelings were typical for the experience, I accepted them. Now I have New World Magischola friends I’ve already seen in person again and many more that I speak to on Facebook regularly. Aside from the positive bleed (particularly less negative self-talk) I took away from the game, my new friends are the greatest benefit of having played in this community.

    Blending Traditions: Reconciliation and Deliberate Infusions

    Moving forward, I’m prepared to blend styles as much as existing games will allow. I find the “main mod” in campaign larps irresistible — but in Nordic style games, players are empowered to create plot themselves. Having emotional scenes at the end of the New World Magischola game was a highlight for me. There’s no reason I couldn’t have also had a big duel as well.

    I have to accept the fact that there isn’t a big finale, necessarily, in the Nordic style, but that doesn’t mean I can’t work within the format to create something satisfying for myself and others.

    Player empowerment is something I want to bring back with me into Seventh Kingdom. As I play a character in a leadership position, I’m already empowered and expected to do some things for the players and characters in my group. While I don’t want to push the limits of what I’m permitted to do — there’s no making up spells on the fly when there’s a 300 page rulebook —  I realize that I can create customs and traditions for my character’s kingdom, get them staff approved if necessary, and run rituals and other events within the player group.

    During a run of This Miracle at Dreamation in 2014, I wasn’t sure about freeform and Nordic style games. It felt more comfortable for me to play a familiar character, so I played Ceara from Seventh Kingdom. There were not too many character limitations and playing a developed character seemed to help other players as well.

    During the game, we created rituals together. One of the rituals we created reminded my character very much of her culture in Seventh Kingdom. With the players’ permission, I took the ritual back to my home larp and involved them in it at the game. The ritual helped to engage new players by providing them with something to do. In this way, I’ve been blending games and styles naturally and the biggest benefits are:

    • How increasingly comfortable I become in multiple styles
    • How I provide engaging content that helps other players and enhances the storylines of other characters.

    Financial Privilege and Accessibility

    Prior to playing New World Magischola, I had been a bit put off by some players in the Nordic scene. While I was open-minded, some of them didn’t believe that I had achieved immersion in “just a boffer larp.” That’s hurtful, because I’m proud of the intense roleplay that happens at Seventh Kingdom and I work very hard as a player to foster that aspect of the culture at the larp.

    Additionally, there are comments like “you need to play a game in Europe.” That implies a lot of financial privilege. Like most American larpers, I can’t simply afford to fly to Poland on a whim and play in a castle (even though I would love to play College of Wizardry). At best, for most campaign larpers, that would involve sacrificing their home game for a once per year experience. And when your social community revolves around larp and you enjoy larp, that’s a depressing thought.

    Attending New World Magischola was a privilege for me. I made sacrifices to go, as did other members of my household. I’m eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for dinner this week because I wanted to have the right props for the game two weeks ago. That’s not the worst thing ever, but it goes to show that not everyone can easily afford to attend. I was only able to go because I snagged a lightning round ticket during the New World Magischola Kickstarter.

    It was worth the equivalent of copay for 19 sessions of therapy that it cost, and was at least as cathartic, providing me with a vehicle for self-affirmation, inclusion, and positivity supported by a loving community.

    Maison DuBois
    House Maison DuBois.

    American Larpers: A Note on Superiority, Elitism, and Guilt

    New World Magischola fell on the same weekend of my beloved Seventh Kingdom IGE. I had no small amount of guilt over heading to another game instead of one I’ve played every month (with one exception, when I was in a car accident) for years.

    I lessened this guilt by taking the opportunity to make sure my kingdom group at Seventh Kingdom had everything they needed, to send in my monthly reports and character letters, and to let the game’s staff know I wouldn’t be around.

    I had major FOMO (fear of missing out) regarding Seventh Kingdom the whole way down to New World Magischola. By the time the game was over, I was so overtaken with the immersive experience and intentional bleed of New World Magischola that I didn’t even think about Seventh Kingdom until my friend asked – and then I checked the phone to make sure my kingdom still existed in the game and that the king still lived!

    The general perception in some international larp communities is that American fantasy boffer larping is pretty low-brow and that Nordic larp experiences are intense, emotional, have less rules, and therefore better. Following New World Magischola, players originating from both styles admitted to these perceptions on Facebook and confessed concern and regret over how it could have affected their play. Most had positive experiences and were so grateful to find that the stereotypes were not entirely true.

    Coming back from my first large-scale Nordic-style game and going back to my core group of friends who larp here, I wasn’t sure how to discuss my experiences with them. It was clear I had fallen in love with the new game and the play style; I harbored guilt that I developed a familial relationship in three days akin to one that had taken three years to develop in a campaign setting. This also extended to my non-larp geek friends. “You had to be there” doesn’t sound welcoming. I’m still trying to think of a way to express my appreciation for both styles without sounding superior in either social group.

    I tried discussing my experiences with a few close friends from the American larp scene. I called Seventh Kingdom a “boffer game” like Nordic larpers do and got an immediate scowl from my friend. I see myself as continuing to enjoy both styles, but expecting different things out of them:

    • Games like Seventh Kingdom let you work over time to earn big achievements, which is extremely rewarding. You can’t just “make yourself” a diplomat in that game, but there are avenues to earn it, for example. I like having to earn something over time.
    • The triumphant feeling of fighting “the Big Bad” at the main mod at the end of the game is exhilarating. I prefer this format of action.
    • Less rules (like at New World Magischola) promotes immersion and prevents rules lawyering.
    • Relationship-building is a crucial aspect of both types of games, so long as they involve collaborative storytelling.
    • Open discussion of bleed, lack of shame, and the unabashed acceptance of the game culture at New World Magischola is refreshing. It’s more than a honeymoon phase, but the fact that it’s new to me only enhances my feelings.

    I’m not going to hide the fact that New World Magischola made me a better larper and a stronger, more confident, and more empathetic person. I want to carry those positive traits over to all of my larping experiences.

    Recommendations for American Larpers

    American larpers attending Nordic games in general and New World Magischola in particular should keep the following in mind:

    • You won’t get accused of being a “special snowflake.” Make a scene request. Enhance a scene. Do something dramatic. It only makes the collaborative storytelling experience better.
    • Some preplanned relationships and player interaction helps, especially if you want to feel more comfortable. There’s no need to put an excessive amount of time into it, though. You can do this online, but connecting in person and at the workshops at the beginning of the game is especially recommended.
    • Wear or do something iconic that is specific only to your character. For me, it was a hat.
    • In some scenes, you’re a supporting character. In other scenes, you’re the star.
    • If you need help improvising or can’t figure out a solution to something, ask in-character. Minerva asked her mentor and professors for help with a spell, which made sense in game.

    These experiences and comparisons are only mine. Given their own backgrounds and individual larp experiences, each player will have different feelings regarding what it’s like to play at New World Magischola. For me, the game was an unforgettable, life-changing, shared experience.

    In the American games I play in the northeastern U.S., admitting to bleed comes with a stigma. At New World Magischola, it comes with the territory. I’d like to see American games adapt a healthier mentality here: it potentially makes role-play and combat more meaningful. New World Magischola wasn’t afraid of empowering players to affect the game world; I’d love to see some of these restrictions similarly lifted in American games. Some do that to a degree — at Seventh Kingdom IGE, characters are encouraged to spend “patronage points” to influence politics behind the scenes. More of that, maybe not dependent on mechanics, would benefit these games.

    At New World Magischola, people were focused on the experience. We were told there is no “world plot” like there often is in American games, and there was no guaranteed awesome “main mod” moment towards the end of the game. New World Magischola could meet more American larpers’ expectations by making a slight adaptation to them. The announcement of the house cup winners did provide some closure to the event and players seemed to understand that it was important to tie up plots if possible, but a final, definitive and dramatic surprise scene involving combat might have improved the closure.

    Going forward, I aim to willfully contribute to the blending of these styles, especially as games and systems allow. As long as safety is considered, I’m not going to hold back the emotional depth of my roleplay at American games; as long as there is the opportunity to create more final and decisive action, I’ll work on initiating larger scenes in Nordic style games.

    My combined experiences in multiple styles and my interactions with game designers have inspired me to pursue larp development. In all styles I’ve experienced, I’ve witnessed sincere community development largely aimed at supporting and caring for other players and the game. I’m inspired – and if I can provide this to others even for a few hours, I will be able to make a positive contribution to the larp community which has changed me for the better.

    Cover photo: Wizards posing for a photo before the student ball (play, courtesy of Learn Larp LLC). All other photos used with permission from Learn Larp LLC.

    New World Magischola

    Date: June 16-19, June 23-26, July 21-24 and July 28-31, 2016

    Location: University of Richmond in Richmond, Virginia, United States

    Duration: 4 days including workshops, play, and debriefing

    Participants: 140-165 per run

    Participation Fee: $375 to $895, $450 for a regular ticket

    Website: https://magischola.com/

    Credits

    Producers: Maury Brown and Ben Morrow, Learn Larp LLC.

    Make-up Lead: Katherine Kira “Tall Kat” McConnell. Prosthetics by Mark Mensch

    Costuming Lead: Derek Herrera.

    Stitchers: Jenny Underwood, Robin Jendryaszek, Jennifer WinterRose, Amber Feldman, Summer Donovan, Michele Mountain, Nancy Calvert-Warren, Jennifer Klettke, Kristen Moutry, Caryn Johnson, Datura Matel

    Music: Original songs (lyrics and music) by Austin Nuckols (Maison DuBois, Lakay Laveau, Casa Calisaylá and House Croatan) and Leah K. Blue (Dan Obeah), lyrics to New World Magischola Anthem by Maury Brown and Ben Morrow, music by Austin Nuckols. Other music and sound by Evan Torner and Austin Shepherd

    Props: Mike Young, Carrie Matteoli, Indiana Thomas, Summer Donovan, Kevin Donovan, Gordon Olmstead-Dean, Jason Morningstar, Matt Taylor, Molly Ellen Miller, Michael Boyd, Moira Parham, Martin John Manco, Ken Brown, Dale, Laura Young, Harry Lewis, Mark Daniels, Michael Pucci, Terry Smith of Stagecoach Theater Productions, Yvonne and Dirk Parham, Jen Wong, Caryn Johnson, Jess Pestlin, Orli Nativ, Kaitlin Smith, The Center for the Arts of Greater Manassas at the Candy Factory, Melissa Danielle Penner, Jess Sole, Liselle Awwal, Nathan Love.

    Helpers and advisors: Anders Berner, Claus Raasted, Christopher Sandberg, Mike Pohjola, Bjarke Pedersen, Johanna Koljonen, Anne Serup Grove, Mikolaj Wicher, Jamie MacDonald, Eevi Korhonen, Markus Montola, Jaakko Stenros, Staffan Rosenberg, Anna Westerling, Michael Pucci, Ashley Zdeb, Emily Care Boss, Daniel Hocutt, Charles Bo Nielsen, Joe Ennis, Kristin Bezio, Rob Balder, Kat Jones, Sarah Lynne Bowman, Harrison Greene.

    Assistance with writing, editing, graphic design, music, art: Frank Beres, Claus Raasted, Richard Wetzel, Bethy Winkopp, Oriana Almquist, Craig Anderson, Zach Shaffer, Erica Schoonmaker, Madeleine Wodjak, Toivo Voll, Marie DelRio, Mike Young, Laura Young, Anna Yardney, Lee Parmenter, Stephanie Simmons, Nancy Calvert-Warren, Jessica Acker, Jason Woodland, Jason Arne, Harrison Greene, Sarah Lynne Bowman, Kristi Kalis, Quinn Milton, Anna Kovatcheva, Browning Porter, Orli Nativ, Rhiannon Chiacchiaro, Miranda Chadbourne, Lars Bundvad, Ffion Evans, David Horsh, Dani Castillo, Frank Caffran Castillo, Dayna Lanza, Sarah Brand, Tara Clapper, Suzy Pop, David Neubauer, Chris Bergstresser, Jason Morningstar, Evan Torner, Peter Woodworth, Peter Svensson, Daniel Abraham, Harry Lewis, Alexis Moisand, Alissa Erin Murray, Jennifer Klettke, Kathryn Sarah, Elsa Sjunneson-Henry, Austin Nuckols, Leah Blue, Joelle Scarnati, Dan Luxenberg, Chad Brinkley, David Clements, Niels Ull Harremoës, Adria Kyne, Emily Heflin.

    Production and logistics: Austin Shepherd, Claus Raasted, Olivia Anderson, Kristin Bezio, Shayna Alley, Mike Young, Zach Shaffer, Dayna Lanza, Derek Herrera, Kristin Moutrey, Jenny Underwood, Jennifer WinterRose, Caryn Johnson, Amber Feldman, Michele Mountain, Summer Donovan, Robin Jendryaszek, Jennifer Klettke, Datura Metel, Amanda Schoen, Mark Mensch, Katherine McConnell, Chris Bergstresser, Christopher Amherst, Holly Butterfield, Uriah Brown, Kyle Lian, Evan Torner, Jeff Moxley, Ashley Zdeb, Thomas Haynes, Mikolaj Wicher, David Donaldson, Brandy Dilworth and the staff of the University of Richmond Summer Conference Services office.

  • Bleed: The Spillover Between Player and Character

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    Bleed: The Spillover Between Player and Character

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    Participants often engage in role-playing in order to step inside the shoes of another person in a fictional reality that they consider “consequence-free.” However, role-players sometimes experience moments where their real life feelings, thoughts, relationships, and physical states spill over into their characters’ and vice versa. In role-playing studies, we call this phenomenon bleed.((Markus Montola, “The Positive Negative Experience in Extreme Role-playing.” Proceedings of DiGRA Nordic 2010: Experiencing Games: Games, Play, and Players, 2010; Sarah Lynne Bowman, “Social Conflict in Role-playing Communities: An Exploratory Qualitative Study,” International Journal of Role-Playing 4, 2013, pp.17-18.))

    Bleed is neither inherently negative nor positive. Some players erect strong mental boundaries between themselves and their characters in order to avoid bleed. Others consciously seek bleed experiences by “playing close to home.”((Jeepform Dictionary, “Bleed,” Jeepen.org.)) Similarly, some games are designed with the intention of drawing people as far outside of their normal lives as possible through fantastic elements or improbable circumstances. Others are built with the specific goal of inducing a strong emotional reaction in the players and encouraging them to contemplate how the fiction relates to their own lives.

    Bleed: How Emotions Affect Role-Playing Experiences – Sarah Lynne Bowman

    Regardless of player or designer motivations, sometimes bleed occurs without prompting. These experiences can often come as a surprise, especially when the players are unprepared and have no tools for how to discuss about or manage bleed. This article will explain the phenomenon from a theoretical perspective, detail some of the types of bleed, examine the debates surrounding the concept, and suggest some strategies for managing bleed experiences.

    The Phenomenon of Bleed

    Explaining the phenomenon of bleed first requires establishing some basic vocabulary to help understand the role-playing experience as a whole. First, when we enter the game from the outside, we adopt a new set of social rules, both implicit and explicit.((Markus Montola, “Social Reality in Role-playing Games,” in The Foundation Stone of Nordic Larp, edited by Eleanor Saitta, Marie Holm-Andersen, and Jon Back (Toptryk Grafisk, Denmark: Knutpunkt, 2014), 103-112.)) These social rules function on an in-character level, e.g., this former warship is actually a spaceship; when a character throws a packet, it symbolizes a fireball; when a player speaks, they are portraying a noblewoman, not their real world profession; etc. Out-of-game social rules also apply, e.g., we will stay in-character for the duration of the experience; we will avoid touching without permission; we will observe safe words when used; etc. Collectively, these rules make up the social contract of the game.((Shoshana Kessock, “Ethical Content Management and the Gaming Social Contract,” in The Wyrd Con Companion Book 2013, edited by Sarah Lynne Bowman and Aaron Vanek (Los Angeles, CA: Wyrd Con), 102-111.)) When the social contract is established, players can enter safety the magic circle, a poetic term describing the rules, identities, and occurrences within the game space.((Johan Huizinga, Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1958); Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman, Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2004); Markus Montola, On the Edge of the Magic Circle. Understanding Role-Playing and Pervasive Games, Doctoral Dissertation (Tampere, Finland: Tampere University Press, 2012).))

    Diagram of role-playing studies terminology, including the relationship between bleed and alibi. Image by Mat Walker.
    Diagram of role-playing studies terminology, including the relationship between bleed and alibi. Image by Mat Auryn. Design by Sarah Lynne Bowman.

    Perhaps the most important facet of the social contract is the alibi, in which players accept the premise that any actions in the game are taken by the character, not by the player.((Markus Montola and Jussi Holopainen, “First Person Audience and Painful Role-playing,” in Immersive Gameplay, edited by Evan Torner and William J. White (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2012).)) Phrases like, “It wasn’t me, it was my character” and “It’s what my character would have done” are a direct result of the benefit of alibi. In principle, no individual is responsible for their actions in-character if those events could unfold plausibly within the fiction.

    Alibi has a direct correlation with bleed: the stronger the alibi, the weaker the bleed. Alternately, playing close to home provides an inherently weaker alibi. For example, if a player has children in real life, playing a parent in a game will likely produce greater bleed and lesser alibi. The player might strengthen the alibi by establishing very different relationship dynamics between the character and the fictional children, thereby affording added distance. Alternately, the player can choose to push toward a greater degree of bleed by using the real names of his or her real life children in-game.

    None of these choices will ensure the participant will experience greater or lesser bleed, however. Bleed is not a factor players can necessarily control. In fact, bleed is largely an unconscious process when it occurs, whereas a conscious choice on the part of the player to alter the course of the character is known as steering.((Markus Montola, Jaakko Stenros, and Eleanor Saitta, “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 (Copenhagen, Denmark: Rollespilsakademiet, 2015), 10-117.)) Therefore, a player can steer toward greater bleed by pushing factors that are likely to cause a bleed response, but bleed is not guaranteed.((Mike Pohjola, “Steering for Immersion in Five Nordic Larps: A New Understanding of Eläytyminen,” in The Knudepunkt 2015 Companion Book, edited by Charles Bo Nielsen and Claus Raasted (Copenhagen, Denmark: Rollespilsakademiet, 2015), 10-117.)) Alternately, players can steer away from potentially emotionally impacting factors, but end up affected by them nonetheless.

    A character at the post-apocalyptic game Dystopia Rising: Lone Star in Texas mourns the death of his in-game wife, an event that took months to emotionally process. A character at the post-apocalyptic game Dystopia Rising: Lone Star in Texas mourns the death of his in-game wife, an event that took months to emotionally process. (Play, Sarah Lynne Bowman)
    Characters at DR Lone Star comfort someone after she finds out her in-game family member just died. All photos by Sarah Lynne Bowman. Characters at DR Lone Star comfort someone after she finds out her in-game family member just died. All photos by Sarah Lynne Bowman. (Play, Sarah Lynne Bowman)

    Types of Bleed

    Bleed comes in two major forms: bleed-in – when the emotions, thoughts, relationship dynamics, and physical states of the player affect the character – and bleed-out, the opposite process.((Montola, “Positive Negative”; Bowman, “Social Conflict.”)) A bleed feedback loop is also observable, when it becomes difficult to tell where the player begins and the character ends, especially in emotionally overwhelming situations. For example, in games where players experience sleep deprivation and constant attacks from enemies, the exhausted mind may have difficulty distinguishing between a “fake” attack and a “real” one. This phenomenon does not mean that the player is incapable of upholding the magic circle, but rather that the intensity of emotion has become overwhelming to the mind, causing confusion and difficulties with immediate processing and distancing.

    Bleed is most often described in terms of emotional experiences, as emotions are the least conscious and most spontaneous aspects of enactment. However, other factors are connected with emotional reactions. Out-of-game thoughts are often interwoven with emotional responses, e.g. “I can’t believe Johnny is insulting my character. He always acts this way when we play together,” which may later induce an angry outburst in-character. Also, relationship dynamics can affect bleed. If two players are best friends out-of-game, they may unconsciously replicate that dynamic within the magic circle.

    Physical states can also produce bleed, especially sleep deprivation or exhaustion, which weaken the mental defenses of the players and makes them more susceptible to impulsive emotional responses. Many games, such as high-immersion combat larps, are built upon this principle, though the designers may not realize that they are creating a game designed to produce a bleed effect.

    Another type of bleed is termed ego bleed by Whitney “Strix” Beltrán.((Whitney “Strix” Beltran, “Yearning for the Hero Within: Live Action Role-Playing as Engagement with Mythical Archetypes,” in Wyrd Con Companion 2012, edited by Sarah Lynne Bowman and Aaron Vanek (Los Angeles, CA: Wyrd Con, 2012), 91-98.)) Ego bleed occurs when the contents of the player’s personality spillover into the character’s and vice versa. This effect is most measurable when players claim to have learned skills from their in-game experiences that become useful in reality, such as leadership, seduction, etc. However, prolonged immersion into antisocial characteristics such as violent plotting and social backstabbing may impact negatively the participants’ personalities, affecting their relationships with other players out-of-game.((Whitney “Strix” Beltran, “Shadow Work: A Jungian Perspective on the Underside of Live Action Role-Play in the United States,” in The Wyrd Con Companion Book 2013, edited by Sarah Lynne Bowman and Aaron Vanek (Los Angeles, CA: Wyrd Con, 2013), 94-101.)) This issue is particularly problematic in campaign play, where long-term immersion into a particular character or fiction without distinct stopping points can produce what Gary Alan Fine calls overinvolvement, a phenomenon in which the players do not sufficiently shed the role and fail to fully reintegrate into their mundane lives.((Gary Alan Fine, Shared Fantasy: Role-playing Games as Social Worlds (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1983).))

    At its most positive, bleed experiences can produce moments of catharsis: when the player and character emotions are synced in a powerful moment of emotional expression. Most often, these experiences manifest in great displays of joy, love, anger, or grief; in-game crying is often associated with bleed.((Sarah Lynne Bowman, “Bleed: How Emotions Affect Role-playing Experiences,” Nordic Larp Talks Oslo, 2013.)) Regardless of their original intentions for alibi, players often call these cathartic experiences their Golden Moments, perhaps because the alibi of the game is still strong enough to allow them the opportunity to express emotions they might otherwise feel inhibited to share in real life.

    A character in DR Lone Star experiences a cathartic moment, crying for the death of his mother during his baptism scene into a new religion. A character in DR Lone Star experiences a cathartic moment, crying for the death of his mother during his baptism scene into a new religion. (Play, Sarah Lynne Bowman)
    Other characters comfort him, letting him know he has friends and is not alone. In-character support can help lessen the negative impact of bleed. Other characters comfort him, letting him know he has friends and is not alone. In-character support can help lessen the negative impact of bleed. (Play, Sarah Lynne Bowman)

    However, not all bleed experiences are considered positive.((Bowman, “Social Conflict”)) Players may, for example, feel lasting aggression toward someone who acted antagonistically toward their character in-game. Such feelings may do damage to their out-of-game relationships. Intimate love connections can also form in games as the result of bleed. While some of these relationships may translate well to the outside world, with happy couples forming as a result, in-game relationships also run the risk of damaging existing intimate bonds by complicating established boundaries or invoking jealousy.((Gordon Olmstead-Dean, “Impact of Relationships on Games,” in Lifelike, edited by Jesper Donnis, Morten Gade and Line Thorup (Copenhagen: Projektgruppen KP07, 2007), 195-210; Bowman, “Social Conflict.”))

    In-game wedding at DR Lone Star after a year of in-character courtship. The characters are romantically involved, but the players are not. In-game wedding at DR Lone Star after a year of in-character courtship. The characters are romantically involved, but the players are not. (Play, Sarah Lynne Bowman)
    In-game wedding at DR Lone Star after a year of in-character courtship. The characters are romantically involved, but the players are not. In-game wedding at DR Lone Star after a year of in-character courtship. The characters are romantically involved, but the players are not. (Play, Sarah Lynne Bowman)

    Finally, distinguishing between bleed and psychological triggers is important. As Maury Brown explains, psychological triggers in role-playing occur when some sort of stimuli activates a previous traumatic memory and induces a response.((Maury Brown, “Pulling the Trigger on Player Agency: How Psychological Intrusion in Larps Affect Game Play,” in The Wyrd Con Companion Book 2014, edited by Sarah Lynne Bowman (Los Angeles, CA: Wyrd Con), 96-111.)) Trigger responses can range from mild to severe. While triggers are a form of bleed-in, as they represent aspects of the player’s psychology affecting the character experience, not all bleed moments are “triggers.” Safety precautions such as in-game signaling and safe words can help community members distinguish between a player having a cathartic bleed moment and reliving the disruptive triggering of previous trauma.

    Debates Surrounding Bleed

    Some role-playing communities consider bleed a taboo subject. Because of the so-called Satanic Panic((Stark, Lizzie. Leaving Mundania: Inside the Transformative World of Live Action Role-playing Games. Chicago, IL: Chicago Review Press, 2012.)) and other alarmist outside perceptions of the dangers of role-playing – e.g., Mazes and Monsters, The Wild Hunt, Knights of Badassdom – many participants have endured decades of stigma. Fears around role-playing center upon the assumption that immersion into another person and fictional world will make the individual lose touch with reality and forget who they are. On the extreme end, religious conservatives fear that role-players will become involved in the occult and start using magic “for real” (see the Chick Tracts, recently dramatized in the film Dark Dungeons).

    Therefore, role-players are extremely sensitive to these allegations and often wish to distance themselves as much as possible from the perception of becoming “too close” to the character. Individuals who experience bleed and suffer negative consequences, such as players who feel long-term grief as the result of losing a character, might get shamed or otherwise ostracized from certain gaming groups. Some role-players refuse to admit that bleed exists and become defensive at the concept itself, wishing to reinforce the alibi at all costs. Often, these individuals do not wish to be held personally responsible for anything that their character does in-game, which is understandable. However, an airtight alibi can promote a dismissive attitude toward communal problems such as in-game bullying by individuals and cliques. Denying that participants can become personally impacted by game events erases the experience of many players and silences their ability to ask for help.

    Ultimately, I believe that denying the existence of the real phenomenon of bleed is not an effective strategy to manage it in role-playing communities. Instead, I suggest that groups adopt a common terminology and a set of techniques to help people experience greater emotional depths in-character and return back to their lives with minimal negative impact.

    Strategies to Manage Bleed

    Whether or not participants intend to play for bleed, the impact of bleed experiences can become quite intense for some individuals. Players with a strong distance between self and character may find themselves mystified when another participant feels long-lasting emotional devastation at the loss of an in-game companion, for example. I believe that we should acknowledge that the perspectives of both of these types of players are valid: those who experience strong bleed and those who do not. Furthermore, as a community, we can learn strategies to help individuals recover who feel emotionally overwhelmed or confused after a game is done.((Johanna Koljonen, Peter Munthe-Kaas, Bjarke Pedersen, and Jaakko Stenros, “The Great Player Safety Controversy,” Panel at Solmukohta 2012,  Nurmijärvi, Finland, April 13, 2012; Johanna Koljonen, “The Second Great Player Safety Controversy,” Presentation at Knutepunkt 2013, Haraldvangen, Norway, April 19, 2013; Johanna Koljonen, “Safety in Larp,” Presentation at the Larpwriter Summer School 2013, Vilnius, Lithuania, last modified Aug. 1, 2013, YouTube, Fantasiforbundet, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qho9O_EMG34; Johanna Koljonen, “Emotional and Physical Safety in Larp – Larpwriter Summer School 2014,” Presentation at the Larpwriter Summer School 2014, Vilnius, Lithuania, last modified Aug. 3, 2014, YouTube, Fantasiforbundet, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-cPmM2bDcU.))

    One such strategy is called in-game signaling. During role-playing, in-game signaling techniques help players communicate to one another if bleed has become too intense. Games may employ hand gestures, safe words, “okay” symbols, written check marks, or other methods that enable players to indicate to one another whether or not they are overwhelmed or in need of a break. In order for these signals to be effective, the organizers and role-playing community must reinforce and encourage their use. In other words, players should feel safe to opt-out of a scene at any time and should not feel pressured to continue in order to avoid “ruining” the game for others.

    At a briefing before the Planetfall larp in Austin, Texas, organizers explain how to signal backing away from a scene by placing a hand behind the neck. (Play, Sarah Lynne Bowman) At a briefing before the Planetfall larp in Austin, Texas, organizers explain how to signal backing away from a scene by placing a hand behind the neck. (Play, Sarah Lynne Bowman)
    In DR Lone Star, an NPC player signals being off-game with a hand over her head and a whooshing sound, to be interpreted by characters as “the wind.” In DR Lone Star, an NPC player signals being off-game with a hand over her head and a whooshing sound, to be interpreted by characters as “the wind.” (Play, Sarah Lynne Bowman)

    An important post-game strategy is creating rituals of de-roleing. De-roleing is a method by which the player ritually casts aside the role and re-enters their former identity. Some strategies for de-roleing include: players removing an article of their characters’ clothing and placing it before them in the circle; participants stating what they want to take with them from the character and what they want to leave behind; organizers leading players through a guided meditation to ease their transition; etc. These symbolic actions allow players to switch from the frame of the character to the player in a manner that is less jarring than a hard stop.

    Debriefing is another useful strategy to help players process their emotions. Creating a formal space after the game for players to express their feelings and share stories in a serious manner often helps contextualize bleed. Additionally, assigning a “debriefing buddy” provides players with a safety net for private communication after the larp with another participant. Positive, out-of-character communication with other players who were part of intense scenes may help alleviate lasting negative feelings, e.g. “I’m sorry that my character was so cruel to you in-game. Would you like to talk about it?” For a more extensive discussion on debriefing, refer to my article in this series, “Returning to the Real World.”((Sarah Lynne Bowman, “Returning to the Real World: Debriefing After Role-playing Games,” Nordiclarp.org, Dec. 8, 2014.))

    Informally, players also can engage in out-of-game socializing, such as dinners, afterparties, charity events, etc. These events help players feel connected to the community outside of the context of the fiction and their characters. Social events reinforce the co-creative nature of the role-playing experience and open up spaces for dialogue about the game, allowing for greater communication. Online forums and social media can also work toward this aim if used with the intention of building out-of-game community.

    Some players find writing a useful strategy for managing bleed. Examples include journaling in- or out-of-character, writing a letter to one’s character, creating new stories around that persona, sharing written game memories with other participants, etc. Telling war stories to each other is another popular method of sharing. Externalizing the experiences in a linear fashion, whether verbally or on paper, seems to help immensely by allowing players the chance to reframe their story in a manageable way.

    Further strategies include becoming immersed in other experiences. Some people can easily throw themselves into their work, while others have difficulty returning back to daily life. Often, the first 48 hours after a weekend-long game can prove difficult in terms of adjustment. Playing video games, another role-playing game, or immersing into another fictional reality like a television show can help ease this transition. Most importantly, adequate sleep, eating, and hygiene can help reset a player’s psychological state to some semblance of normality. For more information, see my article with Evan Torner on “Post-Larp Depression.”((Sarah Lynne Bowman and Evan Torner, “Post-Larp Depression,” Analog Game Studies 1, no. 1. (1 Aug 2014).))

    A Collective Experience

    Regardless of the degree of immersion or bleed each player feels, ultimately the role-playing experience is a co-creative and collective one. Understanding bleed and developing tools for compassionately managing intense emotional reactions can help role-playing communities reach deeper levels of trust and collaboration. Recognizing that each individual contributes an important part to the whole is an important step in this process. A healthy community is made up of individuals who feel safe and able to openly communicate with one another about their experiences.

    Cover photo: Characters at DR Lone Star attend an in-game funeral to mourn their lost friends. In-game ceremonies are one way of coping with strong emotions within the frame of the magic circle (Play, Sarah Lynne Bowman).

  • Nordic Larp Talks: Bleed: How Emotions Affect Role-Playing Experiences


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    Nordic Larp Talks: Bleed: How Emotions Affect Role-Playing Experiences


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    This talk will explain the phenomenon of bleed in role-playing games and advocate for greater awareness of the phenomenon and increased discussion surrounding the emotional content of role-playing games.

    Sarah Lynne Bowman (Ph.D.) teaches as adjunct faculty in English and Communication for several institutions including The University of Texas at Dallas. McFarland Press published her dissertation in 2010 as The Functions of Role-playing Games: How Participants Create Community, Solve Problems, and Explore Identity. Together with Aaron Vanek, Bowman co-edited The Wyrd Con Companion 2012, a collection of essays on larp and related phenomena. Her current researchinterests include examining social conflict and bleed within role-playing communities, applying Jungian theory to role-playing studies, studying the benefits of edu-larp, and comparing the enactment of role-playing characters with other creative phenomena such as drag performance.

    Sarah’s website:
    Sarah Lynne Bowman

    Via Nordic Larp Talks.