Nordic Larp

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  • Open Book: A Roadmap for Peer Editing

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    Open Book: A Roadmap for Peer Editing

    By

    Nadja Lipsyc

    How to initiate and coordinate a community publication on your own

    Introduction

    This chapter summarises the tools and lessons learned from working on the peer-edited Knutepunkt Conference Book ’25 Anatomy of Larp Thoughts: A Breathing Corpus. For this 500-page book, 33 chapters were edited, laid out and printed thanks to the combined efforts of 67 individual contributors. There was no harmonization process between editors, authors, and no rejection based on content or skills.

    Most years, the Knutepunkt/Solmukohta Nordic larp event releases one or more books in connection to the conference. For the 2025 Knutepunkt book, we needed to rethink the publication process, as no one had enough availability or mana to fully carry out such a demanding project. In line with the wishes of the general Knutepunkt conference organising team, this experience forms the basis for displacing responsibility from a tight team of volunteers to the wider community. Although successful, this first iteration had its shortcomings, and this document is intended to help future teams set up and refine their community-edited publications.

    By sharing our tools, I wish to advocate for balance, collaboration and transparency in that collective process, to prevent volunteer burnout but also to paint a less mediated picture of our community’s voice.

    In this document, you will find the core tools needed to start a peer-editing process on your own: from recruitment and coordination to editorial expectations and means of communication. It is based on my own conclusions, but also on previous KP/SK book documentation and implicit knowledge, and on countless hours of discussion with the fantastically knowledgeable and skilled Anne Serup Grove, who has worked on five different KP/SK books and was graphics and print coordinator for the KP Book ’25.

    An overview of the process

    To print or not to print

    If you want your publication to be printed and sent to an event (such as the Knutepunkt conference), your final file needs to be ready about 1.5 months in advance.((This can be adjusted according to cover type and delivery times.)) The rest of your deadlines should therefore be worked backwards from this final red line.

    If you want to give your editorial contributors at least 6 months to write and edit, and your graphic contributors 1 month to layout, this means that a comfortable timeframe would be to start about 9 months in advance.(( Longer writing times can be particularly suited to volunteer publications, where most contributors juggle their chapter with unrelated full-time activities.))

    Anatomy of Larp Thoughts: A Breathing Corpus -- chapter illustration Anatomy of Larp Thoughts: A Breathing Corpus — chapter illustration. Yanina Zaichanka (illustrations), Kirsten van Werven (edits), and Maren Wolf and Anne Serup Grove (layout design)

    When the end goal is a digital publication, deadlines and editorial expectations can be much more flexible. Removing all tasks related to online payment, printing and postage also removes a lot of the extra work that piles up at the end of the process.

    Here is a potential progression:

    1. Send-out role descriptions and enrolling form / Get in touch with printers

    This is the recruitment phase, where you get an overview of who is interested in getting involved and in what capacity. You will also receive pitches and get a first (raw and wrong) idea of the topics, tonality and length of the publication.

    If someone volunteers to set up the printing during your recruitment phase, they should start immediately: contacting printers, comparing prices to find the best deals, and setting budgets based on number of pages, colour options, paper quality and postage.

    Ideally, and this is something we did not achieve for the KP Book ’25, this recruitment phase should also clarify the general timeline so that volunteers are aware of the length and rhythm of their commitment.

    1. Forming editorial groups and setting-up your work platform

    Based on the answers to the enrolling form, the editorial coordinators create editorial groups for each chapter and set up a digital platform for the collective work. For the KP Book ’25, we used a Discord server. Star Hope Percival volunteered to be our Discord wizard and made it infinitely more readable and inviting, which is extremely important when such a large group needs to work with it.

    Knutepunkt book teams often decide that authors and artists retain all copyrights to their contributions, with an informal exclusivity right for the KP publication until it is launched. If you wish to rethink copyrights/Creative Commons, this is probably the time to do it.

    Here is a linked template for a contributor list/editorial group setup.

    When you start, you should provide a style guide that goes beyond the reference style to include details such as line spacing and headline levels (and any other relevant formatting) – this will help the graphics team enormously, and informing them before the first draft is written will make it much easier for them to incorporate it from the outset.

    1. Writing draft 1, starting graphic research, setting-up a tracking sheet

    Unless you deliberately want contributors to write only short chapters, you will probably need to allow at least 2 months for this first phase. During this time you should send out editorial guidelines to your contributors, especially if you have less experienced writers. The graphics team can also have a meeting and start playing with ideas for the layout and setting up their own process.

    Similarly, the book coordinators can meet and set up a tracking sheet. Here is a linked template for a tracking sheet.

    1. Deadline draft 1 and graphic coordination

    Authors send their first draft to their editorial group according to the expectations listed in the guidelines. The graphics team has an online meeting to discuss which tasks they would like to take on.

    1. Deadline reviews on draft 1

    The editors and reviewers send their comments back to the authors. At this point, authors should flag inactive members of the editorial group to the coordinators, who will then contact them to ensure that they are still on board, or alternatively, to find replacements.

    1. Writing draft 2 and developing the layout

    About a third of the way through the general timeline, the authors start working on a second draft. During this time, the graphics team works with the editorial coordinators to define a style that fits the emerging theme of the publication.

    1. Deadline draft 2

    Authors send a second draft to their editorial group. This should also be at least two months later, especially if there is a winter break in the middle. This is when most of the dropouts occur, and when you can start to crystallise the identity of the book and get an idea of its length. This is also a good time for authors and editors to seek additional help with reviewing or editing, if needed.

    1. Deadline reviews on draft 2, recruiting more proofreaders

    Editors send their final edits to the authors. This is a good time to check with the proofreaders who have responded to the call for contributors to see if they still have the time and energy to work on the articles, and in any case to send out an extra call to recruit more.

    1. Setting-up pre-orders

    If the book is to be printed, pre-ordering well in advance will help to ensure that copies are delivered to the event and that free copies are available to the contributors. Traditionally, Knutepunkt in Norway offers a copy to each contributor and also to the Nordic National Libraries.

    1. Final draft deadline, table of contents and foreword deadline

    Authors finalise their chapter and bibliography. The editorial coordinators write the preface and the table of contents. 

    1. Proofreading, layout, credits

    Proofreaders review the chapters and send them to layout staff. Editorial and graphics coordinators work on the credits and any additional information (ISBN number, publisher’s address, acknowledgements, copyrights, etc.).

    1. Final layout and graphic revisions

    The graphics team compiles, refines and checks all the graphic elements and layout of the entire publication, including ensuring that the table of contents matches the actual page numbers.

    1. Send to print and cross your fingers

    Print responsibles follow up with printers, including shipping and invoicing. There may also be work involved in setting up print-on-demand, uploading PDFs, working with online platforms, etc.

    Note: There are clear advantages to a digital-only publication. It reduces the workload for graphic designers, removes the need for a print manager, removes any budgeting or online sales work, is more environmentally friendly and allows for more flexible deadlines and more time for writing or creative content. If the organisation’s priority is to have a smooth process and focus on the quality of the content and the convenience of the schedule, I would recommend opting for a digital publication.

    That being said, Anne Serup Grove writes in the foreword of the KP book ’25:

    “Printing a book is important. It solidifies the huge amount of intellectual work they’ve put into it. You can feel it — its weight, its format. You can interact with it differently than you can with a digital publication.”

    Anatomy of Larp Thoughts: A Breathing Corpus – the finished book Anatomy of Larp Thoughts: A Breathing Corpus – the finished book. Yanina Zaichanka (illustrations) and Kirsten van Werven (edits)

    In 2025, the physical copies of the book were again happily handed over, sniffed and perhaps even tasted, but I would recommend further digital-only explorations.

    Recruiting for peer-editing: role descriptions & casting

    The basis of this peer-editing process is that all authors are required to take on the role of editor or reviewer as a condition of publication in the book. This requirement ensures a basic share of the general load, although it has its own drawbacks: it requires more work from authors, it doesn’t ensure the willingness to engage with someone else’s work that one might expect from someone who has signed up directly as an editor or reviewer, and it potentially leads to very heterogeneous collaborations. However, when presented as a necessary part of producing our publication and ensuring its quality and existence, the idea and task can be normalised beyond being an extra chore.

    This basic peer-editing structure is then complemented by the participation of other non-author contributors, who sign up directly as editors and reviewers, choosing any number of papers they are willing to work on.

    Each chapter is thus the responsibility of a core “editorial group” consisting of: the author(s), 1 editor, and 1-3 reviewers. Coordinators may be called in to help find substitutes, extra help, or to mediate, but the responsibility for the content rests with the editorial group.

    Larp organisers are no strangers to creating groups from a long list of people with different interests, skills and energy levels, and peer editing can work in the same way. This process therefore borrows the same tools as casting in larp: role descriptions and casting form/casting.

    1. Role descriptions

    Role descriptions should allow contributors to understand the expectations around each role: what they should do, at which time of the process they should be available, on which platforms they are expected to communicate, etc.

    These are some basic role description suggestions. Role descriptions should allow contributors to understand the expectations of each role: what they are expected to do, at what point in the process they should be available, on what platforms they are expected to communicate, etc.

    These are some basic suggestions for role descriptions:

    • Author: An author writes a chapter or creates other content for the publication. An author may also be asked to edit two chapters or review four chapters based on their areas of interest/comfort/experience. Co-authors may also share these other tasks. They report editorial difficulties to the editorial coordinators.
    • Editor: An editor looks closely at an author’s contribution and makes suggestions to help them achieve clarity and coherence, sometimes providing assistance with style. They help authors to meet deadlines and report editorial difficulties to the editorial coordinators.
    • Reviewer: A reviewer is a secondary editor who goes through several chapters, highlighting potential problems and encouraging the development of interesting ideas without going into detail. They usually only review the first draft of the chapter, but may be recruited later in the process to provide fresh insights.
    • Proofreader: A proofreader looks for typos, language errors that compromise the integrity of the text, and flags up formatting/layout issues. They are only involved with the final draft.
    • Graphic Designer and Layout Helper: A graphic designer designs the layout and layouts the finished articles. A layout helper ensures that each article uses the chosen font/layout/bibliography style. They don’t have to be the same people but some overlap is normal. (Suggestion: at least 3 per journal)
    • Graphic artist: A graphic artist creates illustrations, textures, or image editing (Suggestion: 2-3 per book)
    • Print responsible: A print responsible researches printers, negotiates printing and shipping on behalf of the team, and oversees the overall process. (Suggestion: 1-2 per book)
    • Editorial coordinator: An editorial coordinator sets up the editorial groups (author-editor-reviewer, and later proofreader), communicates the guidelines and the general editorial process, and supports the editorial groups – especially when making difficult decisions. They write the table of contents and the preface. (Suggestion: 3 coordinators per book or 1 per ~10 chapters)
    • Graphics coordinator: A graphics coordinator sets up the graphics research process with the other graphics contributors. They supervise the general progress, deciding on layout, cover, possible illustrations, possible harmonisation of diagrams, etc. In the case of printing, they work with the editorial coordinator to set editorial deadlines and with the printer to decide on paper quality, format and other graphic constraints. (Suggestion: 1-2 coordinators per book)

    In 2025 we ended up with this distribution: 36 authors, 21 editors, 43 reviewers, 15 proofreaders, 1 editorial coordinator (not enough), 1 graphic coordinator (not enough), 2 illustrators, 3 graphic designers, 2 print coordinators, 1 Discord wizard.

    Although a few people (the coordinators and a few editors) were still overworked, balance seemed within reach.

    1. Casting form, and casting in groups

    The call for contributors is a form designed to gather the information needed to create editorial groups (a team of authors, editors and reviewers working together on a chapter).

    It is therefore important to ask contributors to situate themselves in the editorial landscape: are they comfortable engaging with academic, artistic or personal pieces? How experienced are they in writing or editing? If they are authors, do they want an editor with a particular background to support them?

    It may not be possible (or desirable) to create perfect editorial groups, but these questions will allow coordinators to balance the desires of some contributors and limit potentially destructive group frictions. Our community is heterogeneous, and while bringing different affinities together may be the most valuable option here, exposure to other perspectives is unlikely to be well received unless it comes from the author’s initiative.

    One way to balance editorial groups could be to assign an editor from the desired background (academia, arts, humour, ecology, etc.) and reviewers with different perspectives. In particular, aiming for different cultural backgrounds to meet in editorial groups allows for a higher international readability, as niche cultural concepts are more likely to be spotted and pointed out. We learned in the process of the KP Book ’25 that this should be communicated clearly and upfront.

    As a community practice, the creation of editorial groups is subject to the same constraints as the creation of social groups in a larp, especially in terms of forced proximity.

    Before setting up the editorial groups, the coordinators can therefore send out the list of all volunteers, allowing contributors to indicate whether there are people they do not want to work with.

    Anatomy of Larp Thoughts: A Breathing Corpus -- chapter illustration Anatomy of Larp Thoughts: A Breathing Corpus — chapter illustration. Yanina Zaichanka (illustrations), Kirsten van Werven (edits), and Maren Wolf and Anne Serup Grove (layout design)

    Editorial guidelines and expectations

    1. Style & content expectations

    A peer-edited publication, where the responsibility rests primarily with the judgement of independent editorial groups, will by its very nature be disparate.

    There is, however, a way to ensure a degree of editorial harmony or quality by having pre-established guidelines to which reference can be made.

    These guidelines are the main authority that allows editors to set boundaries, ask for more effort or even step out of the general process. Detailed and progressive guidelines can also be a reassuring beacon for authors to follow and an instructive landmark for newer editors.

    Therefore, I recommend setting clear expectations for each draft, which editorial groups can then readjust if they have the need and capacity to do so. As an example, these are the expectations set for the KP book ’25, some of which are inspired by previous KP book guidelines.

    1. Drafts expectations

    Editorial expectations of the KP ’25 book were phrased as follows:

    What is expected of a first draft

    • The chapter should be close to its final length.
    • The chapter should cover most of the points necessary to its argument.
    • The chapter’s argument should be roughly understandable.

    What is NOT expected from a 1st Draft

    • Style: The chapter does not need to be fluid or well phrased.
    • Transitions: Vague and rough transitions are to be expected.
    • References: Although it’s encouraged to start referencing/quoting early on, you do not need to have all your references, or have them sorted and formatted.
    • Potential illustrations: This can also wait.

    What is expected of a second draft

    The chapter should be in its final form. Meaning:

    • The argument should be understandable.
    • The style should allow your group to have a fluid reading of your piece.
    • The author should have corrected their chapter to the best of their abilities (typos, grammar, etc.). We understand that this varies greatly from person to person.
    • The references, quotes and bibliography should be formatted using Chicago style.
    • Possible illustrations should be collected, named (e.g. fig 1, fig 2) and accompanied by a short description (e.g. “Diagram of the overlap between larp and a normal family dinner”).
    • The chapter should be available as a Google document.

    What is NOT expected from a second draft

    • That your chapter is up to academic standards.
    • That your group agrees with your argument.
    • That your group likes your style.
    • That there are no language mistakes/typos.

    If the paper does not meet the progress expectations, editorial groups can (and should) decide to:

    • Ask for more help by posting on the editors’ and reviewers’ communication channels, ideally before the deadlines have passed.
    • Withdraw from publication: In this case, editors and reviewers are also asked to post a call for editors/reviewers on the general communication channel to find potential replacements. If no help or replacement can be found, the chapter will not be published.

    Expectations and cuts

    If you read the KP book ’25, you will see that the chapters vary in style, genre, length, clarity, etc. Some of them would probably not make the cut if it had been a curated publication, but their compilation is true to a community-edited process. The process described above resulted in several authors withdrawing their publications and some editors leaving their editorial groups. In total, 14 chapters were shelved.

    This general process, involving group discussions, transparency and collaboration on other pieces, is already a great filter. Conversely, facing the troubles of trying to lift a piece we wouldn’t have chosen ourselves, of having to reach out for more reviewers and help, can challenge our prejudices and make us take a second look at what we otherwise have discarded. In this way, a couple of chapters have been rescued and then championed by initially uncertain editors.

    An open platform for communication and collaboration

    This collaborative process depends on creating an open platform that allows the community of contributors to discuss, meet, question and help each other.

    We used Discord. Each category of contributor (authors, editors, reviewers, etc.) and each chapter had its own private channel.

    A public channel called “Ask for more eyes” allowed authors and editors alike to seek extra help on their chapters, which was probably one of the most successful experiments of the whole process.

    The public channel “Questions” allowed all contributors to clarify the process, sometimes expressing dissatisfaction or confusion. This allowed everyone to potentially provide answers (rather than just relying on the coordinators), but also to have more difficult discussions publicly, which increased the transparency of our collaborative process.

    Discord server setup for Anatomy of Larp Thoughts: A Breathing Corpus
    Discord server setup for Anatomy of Larp Thoughts: A Breathing Corpus. Screenshot by Nadja Lipsyc

    Discord is overwhelming for many people, which was a barrier for some contributors who weren’t able to be active on their channels. However, it allowed the coordinators to have a very clear overview of the editorial groups, and the progress of different chapters, it allowed for compartmentalised storage of images and documents, and contributors knew exactly where to reach their editorial groups and discuss their work.

    Final thoughts

    The process around KP 2025 was imperfect, but the bumps we have encountered are easy to avoid. They include:

    • Either starting early or renouncing printing the book
    • Involving more coordinators
    • Writing more detailed and appealing “role descriptions” and guidelines

    It is possible that we were lucky with our contributors’ reactivity and in recruiting 5 volunteers for the graphic team, which may not be realistic to expect every year, or might not be robust enough to shifting life circumstances. This process still needs a lot more reflection and tools to encourage autonomy and responsibility, especially in meeting deadlines without prompting, in reading and researching the information available, and in communicating drop-outs.

    I hope that future teams will iterate on similar systems, and keep sharing their notes afterwards, towards more balanced, autonomous, manageable and transparent collective work. By further experimenting on peer-edition, we are training individuals in our community to take more initiative and better share the burden of volunteering.

    Cover image: Anatomy of Larp Thoughts: A Breathing Corpus – the cover. Yanina Zaichanka (illustrations) and Kirsten van Werven (edits)

  • Improv Larp: How to Organize a Larp with the Least Amount of Effort

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    Improv Larp: How to Organize a Larp with the Least Amount of Effort

    By

    Rumo Wehrli

    After the world started opening up post-pandemic, many of us were eager to reconnect and larp together again. But when restrictions allowed us to meet in small groups, we faced a dilemma: no one had designed a larp ready to be played. With many pre-COVID games cancelled and organizers burnt out from the uncertainty of future lockdowns, we decided to improvise—a full weekend of larping, made up on the spot. It sounds like a wild idea, but surprisingly it worked better than expected. Since then, nine different improv larps have been organized in various countries with more coming up. But what exactly is an improv larp, and why should you consider running or playing one?

    The improv larps we’ve run were for a small group of about a dozen people. This small size made the experience adaptable and accessible for the individual needs. Who are we? Rumo played one of the international runs and made this article happen. Gijs thought of the idea 4 years ago and has participated in 10 improv larps so far. 

    What is an improv larp?

    An improv larp is a live-action role-playing event that’s designed and played within the same weekend. There’s no months of pre-planning, intricate world-building, or character sheets written in advance. Everything is created in the moment and on location. This method was purposefully invented to be easy to organize, removing the pressure of long-term preparation. It’s a collaboratively built experience co-created by all the participants together.

    While improv larps are designed to minimize effort, they do come with some compromises: Everyone has their own preferences, so naturally, expectation management is very important. There is no thoroughly pre-designed game, so there is a risk that the larp will fail. This process can lead to wonderful experiences full of unexpected larp magic but is no guarantee for it. Sometimes, things don’t go exactly as hoped.  

    With the tendency of bigger, more thought out designs and the professionalisation of larp organising, improv larp is a way to go the opposite direction (and quite possibly away from orga-burnout): minimal effort, no scripts, no huge logistics, just a group of people with a shared desire to play. While the logistics need to be facilitated, everybody gets to play the game equally. As soon as the larp starts, there is no organiser role. 

    Photo of people gathered together
    Photo from Guardians of the Dawn.

    All the improv larps so far

    There have been 11 improv larps so far. 7 of them were initiated by Gijs van Bilsen, with a small returning group of Dutch players. 2 of them were initiated by Miriam Dik, recruited from a large group of players. And 2 were international events, in Germany and Denmark, initiated by Gijs and with a changing cast of players. These are the names and short descriptions of the events.

    Dutch, initiated by Gijs 

    1. For the Order!: About a failed mission by a secret society of eco-activists.
    2. Everybody Happy?!: About a start-up that has to test its own relationship matching algorithm.
    3. The Union: About a correctional facility in a collectivistic society, aimed to get rid of individualistic tendencies of the inmates.
    4. Joa: About a family of flamboyant refugees from the big city, in hiding at a very traditional farmers family in the second world war.
    5. The Film Crew: About the making of a movie in 80’s Hollywood.
    6. Guardians of the Dawn: About two families who have been kept apart from society by their fanatical father. The larp started with the father introducing the two families and then disappearing, forcing these two families to live together.
    7. Dittlinger’s Glory: About the last days of a dictatorial family. They know it is their last day alive, as the rebellious masses will find them in the morning. Only, the masses never come and the family has to deal with all the things they said and did when they thought it was their last day.

    Dutch, initiated by Miriam

    1. 8 days, 8 months, 8 years: About a group of astronauts who were supposed to spend 8 days in the international space station, but ended up spending 8 months. Now, 8 years later there is a reunion for a Netflix documentary, where all the old secrets surface.
    2. Immortals: A group of immortals needs to pull off a heist in order to decide who gets to be immortal. 

    International, initiated by Gijs

    1. The Gay-triarchy: What if there actually was queer revolution? A queer utopia turned dystopia by a government that now oppresses straightness.
    2. What about Maria: A wholesome larp about strangers who inherit a lovely house together, bonded by their respect and love for the former owner, Maria.

    How to facilitate an improv larp

    In the following 10 steps we explain how the improv larps have been successfully run.

    On Trust and Collaboration

    Here are some basics about improv larps that you should keep in mind for it to work: It’s a collaborative process. The whole game is co-created and a lot of decisions are based on compromises. For this to work, you need trust among the players. They don’t necessarily have to know each other before but focus on building trust in the group from the very beginning. It also helps to have a shared vision of the type of larp you want to play. It’s best to have some idea of the type of game you want early on and communicate this to everyone so the group has a common base to start off on. 

    Proposed schedule

      Step   Time estimate
      STEP 1: Invite the people for the game you want   2-6 months before
      STEP 2: Preparation   1 month before
      STEP 3: Pre-meeting   2 weeks before
      STEP 4: Coming up with setting   Day 1, 16.00h
      STEP 5: Deciding on game techniques & safety   Day 1, 21.00h
      STEP 6: Coming up with characters   Day 1, 23.00h
      STEP 7: Character relations   Day 2, 10.00h
      STEP 8: Get dressed and go play   Day 2, 13.00h
      STEP 9: Half-game calibration   Day 3, 10.00h
      STEP 10: How it ends   Day 3, 19.00h

    Step 1:  Invite the people for the game you want

    An improv larp works best with 8-12 people. That’s big enough to have several stories going on at the same time and small enough to do the brainstorming session effectively. You want to invite people who like the same kind of game. You decide if it’s going to be a modern day larp in a luxury villa or a fantasy setting in tents. However, the kind of story that works best is one where the dynamics within the group are interesting enough. Improvising a larp where the problems come from ‘outside’ (such as the horde of orcs that invade a village) will not work as well.

    Other types of play such as puzzle plots or rituals that you want to be guided by a game master are not ideal, but possible. In that case, there must also be people who like to take on that facilitating role and can come up with it on the fly.

    In terms of which players to invite, aim for herd competence (see Lundqvist 2015): meaning that in the group as a whole, you need to have enough people who bring skills with them that are useful for improvising a larp. Skills like: 

    • Being able to generate play for others
    • Pacing the story
    • Knowing what a scene needs
    • Play to lift (see Vejdemo 2018).

    You can invite people you think are a good addition to the group or let the people who are joining also invite one or more players. In this way, more people already have a relationship of trust with at least one of the participants. Doing this with an established group of friends also works very well.

    Photo of people in historical clothing
    Photo from Joa.

    Step 2: Preparation

    The logistical arrangements — date, location, food, clothing and props — are all made together as much as possible. 

    You first decide on a date with the people you have invited in Step 1. Then you can decide on a location together that fits the financial and geographical needs of all participants. Because it is a small group, many cottages or small group locations are possible. Keep in mind that a good larp location needs some privacy from non-participants such as neighbours. 

    The chores for the weekend get divided: Everyone who wants to cook prepares a meal, someone does the grocery shopping, and the rest take care of the other tasks such as washing dishes and cleaning up. Cooking or doing the dishes can be done in- or out-of-game, depending on setting and characters. 

    Instruct everyone to take as many clothes and props as they can manage (especially the people who come with their own car). It’s best to loosely agree on a time period to play in, so that everyone can bring costume pieces accordingly. 

    Step 3: Pre-meeting

    If the people in the group do not know each other well, do an (online) meeting beforehand. People can introduce themselves; they can talk about what kind of game they would like to play and what they are hoping to get out of it. If the expectations are too far apart, you can already pick a direction, so people can get used to the idea or make the conscious choice to drop out.  For example, if some people want ‘feel good’, Type 1 fun and others are hoping for more darker Type 2 fun (Nordic Larp Wiki 2023), pick one of those. In the pre-meeting, you can already come up with some ideas for settings, but these meetings are just to get the creative juices flowing. Do not choose the setting yet; leave that to the weekend.

    If you have enough time during the weekend, you can also do this on the first day together, but we’ve found a pre-meeting to be very fun and helpful.

    Step 4: Coming up with a setting

    Take some time for everyone to arrive on the first day. After the group has settled, start a brainstorm session to come up with a setting. Start with wishes and boundaries, e.g., what types of play would you want and what type of play do you absolutely not want? Then start brainstorming. Settings can be short, one sentence larp ideas, like:

    • A group of terrorists meet after a failed attack, 
    • Hippies try to live together unsuccessfully, or 
    • Astronauts stuck together on a spaceship. 

    A good brainstorming technique is brainwriting. Write down different ideas for a setting on a piece of paper for a couple of minutes. Then pass around the paper so you can read another person’s ideas and associate more ideas from that. Repeat until you’ve passed all papers around once. This technique works because people have already read most ideas and it doesn’t depend on all participants being verbally quick and spontaneous. 

    You can also use other creative methods to generate even more ideas. You then select the ideas with the most interest with green stickers for the best and red/orange for a veto/preferably not. Pick the three most popular ideas and have three smaller groups each work out the details of one of these different one sentence ideas into a longer format of what the larp could look like. Include at least:

    • Who will be playing, 
    • Where will the game take place, and 
    • What is the central conflict of the larp.

    Pitch these longer settings to each other. After this process, choose the best one and try to incorporate ideas from other popular ideas to create the full larp you are going to play, e.g., what do you like about this idea?

    This process can take 1.5 – 2.5 hours and will probably have a moment where you think, ‘We’ll never get out of this,’ but eventually you’ll get there. Being open to each other and trusting in an idea, even if you don’t quite understand it yet, are important qualities to have. It is good to have someone who is experienced in facilitating group meetings or brainstorming sessions. Having one person keep an eye on time and group dynamics, as well as being able to make decisions, is good.

    Step 5: Decide on game techniques and safety

    Once you have chosen the setting, you can start detailing it out and think about game techniques. Game techniques that are important are ways to give in-game and off-game input. This can be anything that suits your game, e.g.,  a flip chart at the toilet for off-game questions and requests, a laptop with in-game news messages on it about how close the police got to the terrorists, or on which emails come in from the investor behind the start-up. You can use anything you know from previously played larps or come up with new mechanics. 

    Finally, safety in the group is very important. You are even more dependent on your fellow players to make something of the story than in a pre-designed larp. And where you can avoid another player within a larger group, it is much more difficult in a smaller game. 

    Fortunately, safety in a smaller group is also easier to achieve, especially if you agree in advance what kind of game you want. Talk about what safety mechanics you want to use in your game and adjust them accordingly; as with other techniques it’s easiest to use mechanics from other larps the participants have already played. 

    Calibrating on the emotional and physical intensity you are aiming for and sharing personal boundaries in the group is important. Talk about how intimate you want the larp to get — especially in regard to sexuality and violence — and what tools you want to use to steer this in-game. For us, the safety discussions also gave us the space to look for more intense play than is possible in many other larps. This is one of the reasons why these larps meant so much to a lot of us. 

    Photo of people in colorful clothes
    Photo from The Gaytriarchy.

    Step 6: Coming up with characters

    After this, you’re going to think about the characters that each would like to play in the setting. As it’s probably late in the evening now, some people will go to bed and others will stay up. People can think about who they want to play on their own or brainstorm together, but it’s important to not decide on any relationships between characters if not everyone is present. For the first ideas of who you want to play, you don’t have write anything down, as the idea might evolve over time. Everybody thinks about characters until after breakfast on the next day, when we move to relations.

    Step 7: Character relations

    Start with everyone together and have them describe their ideas about their characters. After this you can either do an unstructured period of time where people will develop their mutual relationships in groups of two or three, or you can do a structured exercise. This could for example be standing in a circle of people who point to others to indicate they have an idea about a potential relationship with that person, throwing a ball of yarn to make the relationships visual (see Hernø 2019), writing the relationships down or doing a ‘Hot Seat’ where every person is asked questions about their character.

    One example of a structured exercise that we use is based on ‘systemic constellations’ or ‘family constellations’, inspired by the work of Sandy Stiles Andersen (‘Storyweave workshop, Knudepunkt 2023), in which, without speaking, we make a visual representation of the relationships between characters in the room. In short, it goes like this:

    1. Everyone stands to the side of the room.
    2. One person steps into the middle of the room. Possibly a character who might be central to the group such as ‘the mother’ or ‘the leader’.
    3. The next person joins in and determines how they will stand in relation to the first person. Will they stand close by or far off? Facing the other or with their back towards them? Touching or not? Standing up or sitting down, etc. 
    4. After every new person, the people already standing in the middle or the room get a chance to move slightly, if they prefer.
    5. Continue doing this until everyone is in the middle of the room. This can take quite some time and that’s okay. In the original ‘systemic constellation’ moving around is based on intuition (‘Do I feel like moving?’), but this can also be done based on thoughts like ‘where would my character sit in relation to the others’).
    6. After everyone is in the middle, have everyone explain why they are there in that specific position and what the main relationships are. 
    7. Then move into talking in twos and threes to flesh out these relationships.

    Step 8: Get dressed and go play

    You put all the costumes everyone brought in one room and use them to dress up as characters. If everybody takes some things, you end up with heaps of stuff that people can sift through. Usually this leads to fun, communal dressing up, with people getting clothes for each other, using each other as mirror, and getting costume advice.

    And then? Then you play! Let your imagination go wild, go with the flow and most of all: have fun! 

    Step 9: Half-game calibration

    About halfway through the game — in our time schedule, just after breakfast on Day 3 — take a moment for off-game calibration. Pause the game and do a quick round: How do you feel about the game? What do you still need today? During the calibration, you also agree on what seems to be a logical moment for the end — before or after dinner — and how you will announce it. We use music that lasts half an hour and builds up to crescendo, so that we know that the final phase has begun. After this process, continue with the game.

    Step 10: How it ends

    End the game in the way you agreed on in Step 9. Take some time to come down, have some food, maybe debrief however you feel the need to. Have a nice off-game evening together and clean the house together before leaving the next day. 

    References

    Hernø, Nór. 2019. “Your Alternate Relation Narrative (YARN).” Nordiclarp.org, March 29.

    Lundqvist, Miriam. 2015. “Making Mandatory Larps for Non Players – Miriam Lundqvist.” Nordic Larp Talks, February 12.

    Nordic Larp Wiki. 2023. “Type 2 Fun.” January 26.

    Vejdemo, Susanne. 2018. “Play to Lift, not Just to Lose.” In Shuffling the Deck: The Knutpunkt 2018 Color Printed Companion, edited by Annika Waern and Johannes Axner, 143-146. Pittsburgh, PA: Carnegie Mellon University: ETC Press.

    This article will also be published in German on teilzeithelden.de and in Dutch on larpplatform.nl.

    Cover photo: Photo from For the Order.

  • The Emotional Core

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    The Emotional Core

    By

    Anneli Friedner

    Sometimes in larps – and I suspect this happens to most of us – I get bored and disconnected. When this happens, I’ve noticed what I need is usually not more to do, but to get better in touch with what I feel about the game. Before I start looking for something to happen – I need to start by looking for something to care about. 

    This has led me to the idea of the emotional core. I think of it as something that makes me as a player care, which helps to emotionally connect my character to the story. With a clear emotional core in place, my character has something that matters to them. It can provide a sense of purpose or a feeling of connectedness with the game – both for my character and for myself as a player.

    In rhetorics, the presence of an emotional core would be part of the art of pathos – appealing to the audience’s emotions. Of course, there are many ways to do this. Some people tend to go there with a more-is-more approach and find it through heavy themes and big drama – dragons, disasters, damsels in distress. Some go for a less-is-more approach, where intense emotions are built around mundane themes, like conflicts in your friend group or intensely hoping your crush likes you back. Either approach can create deeply meaningful stories, because they matter to the players and the characters present.

    Without an emotional core, though, it is easy as a player to simply not care, but to feel bored and disconnected. Then, an intense pressure-cooker story turns into boring “dry-larping”, and a truly epic story ends up feeling like telenovela-style melodrama.

    Emotional core – the who, what and where

    Compared to other designable surfaces of a game, what I find interesting about the emotional core is that it is internal to the players, and thus something the designers have limited control over. This is one thing that separates it from the theme, setting and plot of a game. As emotions are inside our heads, emotional core content is usually found in the internal conflicts of a larp, while a plot more often focuses on external conflicts.

    When I write a speech and consider how to use pathos to appeal to the audience’s emotions, I can make assumptions about what will make these specific listeners care about what I’m saying (loud or silent, overdramatic or understated), as well as decide what emotions I want to invoke in my audience (guilt, fear, hope, trust, anger etc). In the same way, larp designers can give conditions for an emotional core to appear in a number of ways – by themes, plot, conflicts, the characters and their relationship to each other, and by making sure every character has something meaningful to do that connects them to the story of the larp. But just like I as a speaker can’t control which emotions (if any) my audience feel while listening to me, larp designers can’t fully control what emotionally connects each player to the story of their larp.

    The emotional core doesn’t necessarily have to be the same for all players of the same larp. 

    Sometimes, this varies between players in the same game, and that is fine. It can however also be an area where players get very out of sync with each other in frustrating or unintentionally comical ways – like someone dying from an overdose while their friends have a serious argument about the benefits of different kitchen appliances.

    This is where the emotional content grid comes in. The idea of it is to provide a tool for understanding the emotional core in a game. In this article, I use it to analyse how different larp designs can provide different kinds of emotional core content. It might also be used by designers to communicate what kind of larp you’re making, or by players to figure out your preferred playstyle and find others with similar preferences. 

    The content axis – what is going on?

    The content axis is about how light or heavy the emotional core content of the larp is. Will the internal conflicts of this larp centre around things like “does my crush like me back?” or “how do we deal with slavery and torture?”. 

    The emotional core content is not the same as the setting, theme or external conflict of a larp. Different larps can have the same theme (eg. a search for love) and external conflicts (eg. who will end up with who?), but different positions on the emotional core content axis will decide if these are played out as a dark dystopian fight for survival, a social realist critique of the patriarchy or a lighthearted romantic comedy where everyone gets a happy ending.

    Contrasting the emotional core content with the setting or theme can also be a really interesting design choice, like in Our Last Year where I spent the last hour on earth mending my character’s sore relationship with her teenage daughter. Here, lighter emotional core content (human connections and search for meaning) became more powerful when combined with the heavy setting (waiting for the pending apocalypse). 

    Different positions on this axis will likely appeal to different players, just as different rhetorical strategies appeal to different audiences. As a designer it is, however, good to communicate to your players where your larp is placed on this scale.

    The emotional realism axis – how does it feel?

    This axis is about what level of realism the emotional themes are handled with. Is the violence frightening and realistic like in a Nordic noir tv drama, or symbolic and theatrical like in an action movie? A position on this axis can be created through communicating an intended degree of realism – like if “my whole family were killed by orcs” will be treated as a character alibi for being alone and carrying a sword, or a source of deep trauma.

    Emotional realism can be approached using both a high degree of realism, and wysiwyg (What You See Is What You Get) aesthetics, or by using meta-techniques and mechanics. This is not about how a larp looks, but about how it feels to play it. And while some players might find these to be connected (like having an easier time to immerse in a character if they’re in a 360 environment), they are not the same thing.

    The emotional realism axis connects to what Andie Nordgren describes as high/low resolution larping, which is defined by the detail level of the interactions. In a high resolution playstyle, we can use subtle gestures like looks, pauses and small shifts in tone to enact a conflict in an emotionally realistic manner. A low resolution playstyle requires conflicts to be acted out with bigger brushstrokes and more theatrical gestures, like obviously snide remarks or a full blown bar fight, in order to be recognised as a conflict by the co-players. It subsequently requires less realistic simulation mechanics, so that the bar fight can be enacted without anyone getting hurt.

    This is, once again, an area where different design choices will be suitable for different games, and where players have different preferences.  In this article, Mo Holkar and Monica Hjort Traxl discuss the “sexiness-level” of different sex mechanics, and their consequences when it comes to different aspects (feelings, looks, accessibility) of the larp. A game with high emotional realism is more likely to contain some degree of unsimulated physicality and simulation mechanics chosen to feel real. On the other hand, a game with low emotional realism might have simulation mechanics chosen based on whether they look good, or which are completely symbolic.

    To me, this also seems to be a somewhat common source of conflict between players, like when more realism-oriented players accuse theatrical-oriented co-players of “over-acting” or treating emotional scenes as slapstick, while more theatrical-oriented players might find it uncomfortable to immerse in realistic feelings like sadness, anger, affection or arousal.

    Many ways to make it work

    Sometimes, the axes of the grid are directly connected to each other – the heavier and darker the content, the more immersive and realistic the violence. But they certainly don’t have to be, and it seems possible to make intensely emotional games in all the different quadrants. Let me give some examples:

    A classic genre of larping – the boffer fest larp – is one good example of heavy content, theatrical playstyle. These battle larps are usually centered around wars and battles, but the main appeal of them is that it is fun to play war with your friends. This works because they generally treat heavy content like wars in a low-realism way, where battles are played out as joyful boffer fights with lots of abstraction mechanics involved.

    Larp campaigns like Krigshjärta or Granlandskampanjen have tried to bring more Nordic-style elements like higher realism, heavier content and more grimdark oppression into this genre – but to get the players onboard they still have to compromise with the idea that while war is awful, it should also be entertaining to play. My friends’ war stories from these games are usually adrenaline-filled anecdotes from fights, or happy retellings like “I cried in mud a lot and had an epic death scene” – the emotional core is usually about getting to be an action hero, or antihero.

    Hurt soldier getting help away from the battlefield at Krigshjärta 9 Hurt soldier getting help away from the battlefield at Krigshjärta 9. Photo by Johan Nylin.

    Another category of larps that would fall into this category are the high-abstraction ones. At Beasts We Fight Against, we played hospitalised children, who had learnt to talk about their cancer as a beast within themselves. While the narrative of this larp was about children battling cancer – what we did in practice was to switch between the beasts doing abstract representational dancing, and the children painting with crayons and exchanging small talk. In this way, we could find the emotional core in a story about a heavy theme, without it turning realistic or melodramatic.

    Many Nordic-style larps seem to fall in the category of heavy content, high emotional realism. These might be games like Nocturne, The Circle or Snapphaneland, combining heavy themes like sexual violence, manipulative cults, oppression and racism with high-realism mechanics. Players of this kind of larps often seem to talk about “type two fun”, and the emotional core often seems to be around the catharsis of feeling strong negative emotions within a safe framework. 

    I am personally very fond of light content games, and had an eye-opening experience at Klassefesten when it ran at Prolog in 2012. The game is about teenagers forming cliques, having popularity contests and making out. I ended the larp comforting the crying birthday girl, feeling lonely and left out as all my friends were hooking up on the dance floor. This opened my eyes to the power of light content larps, and not having to turn the heavy content level up to max to get an emotionally fulfilling experience.

    The scenario format lends itself well to meta-techniques and mechanics which could make the game more abstract and symbolic, but simultaneously create alibi which helps the players immerse more in their characters’ feelings and thus get a stronger emotional realism. For example To the Bitter End, which follows a couple through their cycle of meeting, falling in love and breaking up, does this by giving the players action-cards (like “give your partner a pet name” or “make unreasonable demands”) to play out. I’ve played it a few times with results ranging over a spectrum from low-realism romantic comedy to heart-wrenching realistic drama. 

    My own scenario As Long as We Don’t Tell Anyone is even more mechanics-heavy and abstract, with the GM giving the players new and limiting instructions every few minutes. The content of the game is light and mundane – two people with a complicated relationship that they can’t really talk honestly about. The abstract mechanics however seem to help the players focus on the emotional core of the game by exploring a lot of different aspects of this relationship (casual flirting, deep talks, restrained longing, rejection, dreams and fears), which often creates vulnerable and intense stories. 

    I recently played Fragment of a Novel, which deliberately placed itself high up in the far left corner of the grid, as a light content, high realism game. It centered around a group of young people celebrating a school break together, and was designed as a very wysiwyg game with close-to-zero simulation or off-game calibration techniques. It was so lifelike that it was an almost meditative experience, which built immersion and a strong connection to the characters slowly over multiple days. This provided me with a mundane, yet intense, emotional core in moments like the satisfaction of finishing a drawing, the love felt while peeling potatoes together, or the adrenaline rush of a first slow dance.

    Fragment of a Novel, polaroid photo taken in-game by Carl Nordblom. Fragment of a Novel, polaroid photo taken in-game by Carl Nordblom.

    Melodrama and hyperbole – when it doesn’t really work

    Sometimes, being out of sync with co-players or the design in regards to this grid, seems to create negative experiences. I’ve for example at multiple occasions heard players complain about others taking serious or heavy content (rape, war, drug addiction etc.) too lightly, creating an understated effect. This can on the one hand become hyperbolic and silly, like the sandbox fantasy games of my early teenage years which were full of orphans threatened with being married off to old men, demon cultists performing ritual sacrifices, murderous orcs, happy hookers and sexy slaves. On the other hand,it might also become hurtful and offensive, as when some players’ real life trauma becomes entertainment or misery-tourism for others. 

    I’ve – unfortunately on a few different occasions – had other characters subjecting my character to sexual violence by quickly initiating it without checking for consent first. This seems like something that happens much easier in games with a theatrical playstyle or low degree of emotional realism – as it is easier to introduce a scene like this if your emotions don’t step on the brakes. I definitely suspect that if violence felt more like violence and sex felt more like sex, my co-players would have gotten the feeling that “wait, stop, this is really icky” and been better at slow escalation and checking for consent. 

    I’ve also experienced pretty bad cognitive dissonance at larps where player groups have different ideas on where to place themselves on the theatrical-realistic scale, or on how heavy and gritty the violence should be. Like a disturbing public execution scene right before the troops are about to leave for boffer o’clock – Are we still the heroes? Or the villains? Are we supposed to react negatively to this or cheer? Or similarly, a few co-players barging in, throwing someone on the table and shouting for medical help in the middle of some simmering low-key emotional drama.

    Conclusion

    I believe that the emotional core of a game is an important designable surface, and something to consider for both players and designers. Just like when building pathos in general, there are many ways to achieve it, and the “best practice” will depend a lot on the larp and the target audience. Hopefully, the grid could help provide a bit of an explanation to why some will find a scene deeply meaningful, while it will look bleak and boring to co-players, or why one player’s satisfying emotional drama feels hyperbolic and over-dramatic to others. At least, I’ve discovered that finding my own personal preferences on the grid is helpful to find which larps and co-players I will easily vibe with, and which ones I won’t.

    References

    Holkar, Mo and Monica Hjort Traxl. 2017. “What does it mean when sex is sexy?“ Nordiclarp.org 2017-02-03.

    Nordgren, Andie. 2008. “High Resolution Larping – Enabling subtlety at Totem and beyond“. In Stenros and Montola (red) Playground Worlds, Solmukohta 2008.

    Ludography

    Angelico, Adrian, Anne Marie Stamnestrø (2019), Emilia Korhonen, Petra Katarina (2022). Nocturne.

    Fragment of a Novel. Atropos. 2024.

    Friedner, Anneli. As Long as We Don’t Tell Anyone. 2021.

    Granlandskampanjen (campaign, 2008 – 2018)

    Grasmo, Tyra, Frida Sofie Jansen, Trine Lise Lindahl. Klassefesten. 2012.

    Göthberg, Rosalind, Mimmi Lundqvist, Alma Elofsson-Edgar. Snapphaneland. 2022.

    Karachun, Masja, Zhenja Karachun, Olga Rudak, Nastassia Sinitsyna. Beasts we fight against. 2017.

    Krigshjärta (campaign, 2006 – present)

    Our Last Year (Reflections larp studio, 2019)

    Skriver Lægteskov, Louise, Stefan Skriver Lægteskov, Jofrid Regitzesdatter and Troels Barkholt-Spangsbo. The Circle. 2024.

    Stark, Lizzie and Bjarke Pedersen. To the Bitter End. 2019.

    Cover image: Image by Pexels from Pixabay.

     

  • Workshop Design: A Guide

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    Workshop Design: A Guide

    By

    Nór Hernø

    Workshops are a staple of many Nordic larps, playing a crucial role in preparing participants to step into their roles, engage with the narrative, and collaborate effectively. While learning is a central aspect, workshops are more than just an educational prelude to the game; they are spaces where boundaries are negotiated, skills are honed, and the magic circle of the larp begins to take shape. 

    Designing a workshop, however, requires a different set of tools than those used in larp design. Here, the focus is on learning outcomes rather than narrative, and on facilitating participants’ transition into the fiction of the larp. 

    This article serves as a guide for designers, outlining a series of steps that will take you from the initial idea to the final plan for a learning design. While the focus is on workshops, a complete learning design often incorporates other formats, such as briefings and exercises (see “WEB: Workshop – Exercise – Briefing“). The steps described here can be applied to the entire learning design process. They are, however, particularly useful for workshops, which require more intensive design effort and work. In this context, a workshop is defined as: 

    “An interactive and co-creative session focused on participants’ hands-on interactions” 

     Step 1: Examining the participants’ needs 

    The first step in creating a learning design that aligns with your vision and the narrative framework of your larp is to consider what the participants need in order to play it.

    To guide the process of identifying these essential elements, there are three key aspects to focus on:

    • What participants need to know
    • What participants need to create
    • What participants need to do
    The key aspects
    The key aspects– diagram by Nór Hernø

    Knowing: 

    The knowledge you require the participants to have needs to match the learning outcome of your design. Is there any foundational knowledge they must have to engage meaningfully with the larp? This could include everything from safety mechanics to character memories, or the social dynamics of the setting. 

    Creating: 

    Consider what aspects of the larp you want the participants to contribute to and have ownership over. Creating together fosters co-ownership, and by allowing the participants to generate elements of the larp, there is a good chance they will be more personally invested and have an easier time remembering those design elements.  

    However, be mindful of the limitations: There are things that you may not want the participants to create. For example, they may design aspects of their characters and relationships, but you might want to ensure that the framework and key narrative elements remain under your control to maintain coherence with your larp design. 

    Doing: 

    You can facilitate how the participants start to larp, work together, act and interact with each other, and feel safe doing so, through your learning design. This can be both explicit and implied: 

    Explicit: You might need the participants to have specific skills or take certain actions. For example, if your larp includes tasks or jobs, you can create a learning design that explicitly teaches the participants to do it. 

    Implicit: You might want the participants to have a certain behavior, for example if your larp emphasizes a specific form of interaction or mood, you can model the participants’ behavior implicitly through your design, by having them do the workshops in a certain way or by implementing themed tools like music, photos, directed movement patterns, etc. 

     Create a list, mind map, or whatever feels right for you, of the elements necessary for the participants to play your larp. If you already have specific ideas you want to include in your learning design, add them to this brainstorm too. 

    Step 2: Sorting your ideas 

    The next step is to start sorting through the brainstorm and ideas, considering the relevancy of the elements, determining if they can be combined, and identifying which formats best support the learning outcome you want from your design. The article “WEB: Workshop – Exercise – Briefing” covers the three learning formats, as well as a model for visualizing the balance between them. 

    Do this sorting however you prefer. For example, if you have created a list, underline the most important elements and add their relevant learning formats. Alternatively, if you have done a mind map, grab some coloured pens and start circling. 

    Sorting your brainstorm, focusing on synergies and learning formats
    Sorting your brainstorm, focusing on synergies and learning formats– diagram by Nór Hernø

    “Know” might be better supported with a briefing, “do” may play a greater role in exercises and workshops, and “create” is often a central element of workshops. However, this is not always the case. You might be able to integrate several elements of knowing into a workshop – for example, knowing the social dynamics of the setting, a shared cultural action, and so on – if it overlaps with what the participants need to create and do. 

    When you have finished this sorting process, you will know what needs to be planned (briefings and exercises) and what needs to be designed (workshops). 

    Step 3: Finding inspiration 

    When you are aware of what kind of workshops you need to support your larp, you can start designing them. Luckily, you don’t have to start from scratch, as there are countless places you can draw inspiration from, including: 

    • Other workshops: Examine workshops, both for larps and not, you have experienced, which have been successful in similar contexts. Think about what they consisted of, how they facilitated learning, and what kind of atmosphere they created. 
    • Other people: Conversations with other larp designers, facilitators, or participants can be a valuable source of inspiration. Ask others how they design specific workshops, what their favorite workshops and -tools are, and what they have learned from experience. 
    • Educational materials and exercise books: Look to educational resources such as teaching guides and manuals, or the many books on physical and team-building exercises. While these might not be directly related to larping, they often offer valuable inspiration, you can build on. 
    • Online sources: The internet is an endless resource – Also when it comes to workshop ideas. From the specialized articles found at Nordic Larp to a simple Google search, type in keywords relating to your workshop needs and you get more ideas than you have time to read. 

    While inspiration can come from many sources, it’s crucial to tailor it to the specific needs of your larp. You should never attempt a 1:1 replication of a workshop. Every larp is unique in its narrative, setting, and participant dynamics, and your workshops need to reflect that uniqueness. What worked in one context may not be directly applicable in another. 

    Step 4: Adapting, designing, and describing 

    After gathering inspiration and ideas, you need to start adapting and designing the workshop, transforming your ideas into a concrete plan. Start describing the workshop step by step and let the following questions guide you in this process, adapting the workshop to the participants’ needs and your larp design: 

    • Does it align with the larp? Do not use a workshop just because it is fun or interesting. It needs to align with the required learning outcome, so be prepared to kill your darlings. 
    • Does it fit with the mood and setting of the larp? If your larp is light-hearted and fun, you want different workshops than if it is dark or emotionally intense. Aligning your workshops with the mood of the larp helps participants immerse themselves. 
    • Does it support the desired participant behavior? The workshop should foster behavior and interactions that align with your previously defined “doing” elements. If the participants’ behavior during the workshop can mimic how they are expected to behave during the larp, you can help facilitate their transition into the fiction of the larp. 
    • Can it be adjusted for practicality? Not all exercises are suitable for every group or available time and space. Ensure that the workshop is feasible for the available space, time, and the size and composition of the group. 

    Considering these questions when describing the workshop can help guide your design process. A well-designed workshop supports your game by guiding participants toward engagement with the narrative and their roles within it. By designing and adapting with that in mind, you can create a workshop that is both unique to your larp and effective in helping participants immerse themselves in the experience. 

    Step 5: Structuring your learning design 

    The final step to creating a learning plan is structuring all the learning formats and sessions. This includes both the briefings, exercises, and workshops you have planned. Establishing a structure helps you organize the content and further develop it by uncovering oversights or additional potentials. 

    To guide this step, use the 6W-Structure: 

    • When 
    • Where 
    • Who 
    • What 
    • How 
    • Why 
    The 6W-Structure to develop and organize your learning plan
    The 6W-Structure to develop and organize your learning plan– diagram by Nór Hernø

    The first three Ws cover the practical information you need for running the learning plan: When and where will the learning session be held, and who is involved (both facilitator and participant group). This will help you map out the plan and identify most logistical issues, such as whether the schedule works (remember everything takes more time than you think) or if the location fits the planned session. This is especially necessary for more complicated learning plans with several locations and facilitators but is also useful as a framework for simple plans. 

    The next three Ws cover the content, descriptions, and your design choices: What is the headline of the session and what materials are needed, how is the session is conducted (described step by step), and most importantly – why it is done. Asking why you are doing said learning session helps you reflect on your design choices and easily share these reflections with others. It also helps you discover if you have overlooked something in step 4, such as whether your chosen workshop aligns with the larp or if something in the workshop actively works against your design. 

    As a rule of thumb, always ask “why” 3 times to get from the surface descriptive level to the conscious design level. Through this process, you might discover a flaw in your design and fix it before the plan meets the participants, or realize that, by changing a few elements, you can achieve an even better outcome. An example could be the following workshop:

    Ask Why three times
    Ask Why three times– diagram by Nór Hernø

    This difference in the reason behind the workshop can help you design for that specific purpose. In the first example, you might want to instruct the participants to collaborate during the ritual, aiming for impressive and empowering aesthetics, whereas the second example might shift the workshop’s focus to clearly define the individual participants’ tasks and how they can fail.

    The final result can be presented in table as the following (short) example: 

    The finished learning plan
    The finished learning plan – diagram by Nór Hernø

    This table functions not just as your finished design overview, but also as a runtime plan ready to use.

    By following the steps outlined in this guide – examining participant needs, sorting ideas, finding inspiration, adapting designs, and structuring them – you have the tools to create a purposeful learning plan with workshops tailored to your specific larp. By aligning your learning design with not only the learning needs, but also the narrative, mood, and desired behavior, you ensure that every element of the workshop contributes meaningfully to the overall experience of workshop as well as larp.

    Cover image: Panopticon workshop, photo by Christian Kierans

  • WEB: Workshop – Exercise – Briefing

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    WEB: Workshop – Exercise – Briefing

    By

    Nór Hernø

    “This workshop could have been an email” 

    This is a statement I have encountered in the larp community quite a few times by now, which is rather tragic to someone who has worked professionally with learning design for years and has a deep passion for it.  

    Designing and organizing a larp requires skill. The same applies to designing the learning experience required to play said larp: It necessitates a distinct focus on learning output and the methods required to achieve that goal. Creating a learning design equal to that of our larp design will help us facilitate the participants’ transition into the fiction of the larp, as well as better their recollection of important information.  

    The first step of creating a learning design is to consider what the participants require to play your larp. The next step is to take the available learning formats into account, figuring out what format will best allow that to happen. Often, everything we facilitate for the participants prior to the start of the larp (and sometimes during) is referred to as “workshops”. The problem with using “workshop” as a blanket term is that workshops are a specific kind of learning format, and this term does not encompass everything we do prior to a larp. This can cause a clash of expectations, making the participants feel like expressing the opening sentence of this article. After all, the worst workshops are those that aren’t actually workshops. 

    Instead of using “workshops” to describe the time before a larp set aside for the participants’ learning experience, I suggest using a more neutral term like “larp preparations” or, as I prefer appreciating alliteration, “pre-play-prep”. 

    The most common learning formats used for the pre-play-prep before a larp are: workshop, exercise, and briefing. The WEB model described below is a visual tool in two parts, created to define, distinguish, and summarize these three types of learning sessions. In this context, the three formats are defined as follows: 

    Workshop: An interactive and co-creative session focused on participants’ hands-on interactions. 

    Exercise: An activity where participants, individually or in groups, practice a given technique or skill. 

    Briefing: An orientation session that informs and instructs participants before they are to do something. 

    Each type is suited to specific learning goals and participant engagement levels, and understanding these differences can help create better experiences for the participants. 

    The WEB Model: Definitions
    The WEB Model: Definitions – diagram by Nór Hernø

    The WEB Model: Spectrum 

    The three types of learning sessions can be positioned on a spectrum indicating the participants’ level of activity, agency, and degree of co-creation.”

    The WEB Model: Spectrum
    The WEB Model: Spectrum – diagram by Nór Hernø

    The learning sessions have a shared purpose, which defines their focus and design – Learning – Although they approach learning in different ways, using different tools and techniques to facilitate the process. 

    It is important to note that the model is a spectrum and not a scale. The spectrum does not indicate value or learning output, as none of the learning sessions is inherently better than the others. Each one is best for different purposes: 

    • Workshops can give participants co-ownership of a given project, as participants co-create the content. They are ideal for creating shared narratives, culture, and routines, which are not previously defined by the larp designer.
      Examples: Creating (fully or in parts) characters and relationships, developing rituals, establishing the cultural customs of the group, etc.
    • Exercises give participants the opportunity to practice and train a given technique or skill, making them comfortable repeating and reproducing it in another context.
      Examples: Practicing meta-techniques and game mechanics, rehearsing a ritual, practicing specific interactions and behaviors, etc.
    • Briefings are good for clear and direct distribution of information, where every participant or participant group need the same instructions necessary to participate in the larp or a different activity.
      Examples: Giving the participants practical information, explaining setting, rules, meta-techniques, game mechanics, etc.

    In some cases, it can be impossible to distinguish clearly between the three types of learning sessions, as they might overlap or mix different approaches, e.g., when the participants rehearse the ritual they just created together, when the explanation of a meta-technique transitions to practicing it, or when participants practice specific interactions and behaviors by embodying their characters while co-creating the scene in which these interactions occur. 

    In other cases, the difference between the three types of learning sessions is clear to the point it can be comical to imagine using the wrong one: You would not workshop the location of the toilets or the schedule of the larp. 

    The reason why it is important to be aware of the type of learning session is two-fold: 

    1. It helps you be aware of your pre-play-prep design choices and what kind of learning output you might want for a given session. Do you want your participants to co-create something new? Do you want them to repeat something you have created? Or do you want them to listen to and understand a set of instructions?
    2. It helps you and the participants manage expectations, such as energy levels and the type of engagement required.

    The WEB Model: Pre-Play-Prep Sum 

    In a learning design consisting of multiple learning sessions, the sum of the sessions can be represented in the following figure:

    The WEB Model: Pre-Play-Prep Sum
    The WEB Model: Pre-Play-Prep Sum – diagram by Nór Hernø

    For example, if your learning design consists primarily of briefings combined with a few exercises, the sum of the sessions might be represented as follows in the figure:

    The WEB Model: Pre-Play-Prep Sum, example 1
    The WEB Model: Pre-Play-Prep Sum, example 1 – diagram by Nór Hernø

    The sum of learning sessions is again not an indication of value or learning output but solely a depiction of variation in the pre-play-prep. If there is a strong tendency toward placement in a corner of the triangle, as in this example, consider whether this aligns with the desired learning design or if more variation is needed. 

    For example, if greater participant activity and agency are required, one or more suitable workshops can be added to the pre-play-prep, altering the figure:  

    The WEB Model: Pre-Play-Prep Sum, example 2
    The WEB Model: Pre-Play-Prep Sum, example 2 – diagram by Nór Hernø

    This approach to pre-play-prep provides a structured framework for designing larp learning experiences and helps visualize the balance of learning sessions. This can support the designer in making informed choices about how to engage participants effectively and ensure the desired learning outcomes. A clear understanding of the different learning formats allows both designers and participants to manage expectations about the level of participation and the type of engagement required in each session, leading to a more enjoyable and cohesive experience – and fewer workshops that could have been an email. 

    Footnote/anecdote regarding the model: 

    The WEB Model was created on the final night of the 2023 Danish Larp Designers’ Summer School in response to participants repeatedly asking me about the difference between a workshop and an exercise – a situation prompted by a dare. The finishing touches and the English translation of the model (originally titled “BØW” in Danish) were completed in preparation for my 2024 Solmukohta talk and workshop on the subject. Subsequently, the model was reintroduced to the Danish Larp Designers’ Summer School as part of my workshop design class in 2024.

    Cover image: Panopticon workshop, photo by Christian Kierans

  • Savoring Sameness: Hamburger larps

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    Savoring Sameness: Hamburger larps

    By

    Shan Lind

    I offer you a new term, a new definition in the ever-expanding lexicon of larp gaming and design. Necessary because as the hobby expands around us into genres and culturally-defined practices, new language creates definitions around these expressions and allows us to capture and discuss what otherwise might drift into obscurity uncommented on. Anyways – I’m calling it Hamburger larp. 🍔

    Why am I calling it hamburger larp?

    Well, everyone wants a hamburger sometimes. It’s tasty, it’s filling and it’s familiar. Maybe you want cheese, or pickles, maybe sometimes you want fantasy, and sometimes you want the post-apocalypse, but at the end of the meal you want to pat your belly, sigh in relief and say “wow, what a great hamburger that was” and go home.

    Am I making sense yet?

    Larp is big; inasmuch as it is difficult to pin down definitionally, so we’ve invented words like “Nordic”, “parlor” and “blockbuster” to describe particular kinds of experiences provided under particular circumstances. So what’s the definition of the experience I’m trying to evoke when I call it, of all things, a hamburger larp? Well, simply put, something routine and enjoyable, like a hamburger.

    Recurring festivals like Drachenfest, or Neotropolis, weekly combat larps like Amtgard, monthly Dystopia Rising games and Vampire: the Masquerade yearly national events; these are all hamburger larps in their own right. Every event has the same premise, and every time you go – you’re ordering a hamburger, made by whichever organizer is in the kitchen that month, but according to a logic that’s cultural and shared.

    Hamburger larps are community-building machines. Every time the players come back for another serving, they return with their previous experience and expectations, and those enhance the experience of new participants. Often this can be observed in the form of physical reinvestment (props, costumes etc.) or emotional reinvestment (mentorship, networking, community aid etc.). By their very nature, that they recur at frequent intervals with low barriers for entry, hamburger larps become natural third places, which are physical spaces where people can connect with their community not unlike a coffee shop or a library, for low and middle income players.

    The result of the proximity and consistency of the hamburger larp itself, is often the development of a large and complex community of players whose mutual interest in the larp create the foundation for their relationship as friends and peers. This can, occasionally, put the gamerunner in a position where they must manage both the complex design and production process of a recurring event, while governing a population of players while not necessarily having the education or credentials to do it well. I compare this phenomenon to the local and bustling hamburger restaurant; wherein regardless of the restaurant’s purpose to sell burgers, the living human beings that pass through will inevitably create community. And that community, sooner or later, will experience conflict.

    Like the aforementioned restaurant, a hamburger larp relies on its location. Likely the players have a relationship not just with the characters they play, but with the locale and trappings of a recurring event. In the case of some weekend-long games, many hamburger larp communities have held a monthly event at the same scout camp for over a decade. To the same point, other evening-long events held at the same hotel every year generate the same sense of continuity. By providing the players the same backdrop upon which to perform at each event, the gamerunner creates a canon setting in which immersion, pre-scripted scenes and complex modules can more effortlessly take place.

    On the flip side, when a hamburger larp’s ability to perform at their preferred location is disrupted, it is my experience that event sales and ratings plummet. This is demonstrated effectively by my experiences organizing the American larp; Dystopia Rising. Successful chapters of this national-scale organization depend on running their events at the same location every month. When changing location, either temporarily or permanently, the drop-off in players has been proportional to the change in routine. The safety and consistency that the players of a hamburger larp crave, simultaneously makes them resistant to change in procedure. Expectation, and expectation fulfillment over and over, is baked into hamburger larp, where the consistency of the recipe is a major selling point.

    As a final note on hamburger larps, they’re universally cheaper than one-time blockbuster style games. As monthly events, the player expectations around props, costumes and location should be lower. As community is a natural expression of the hamburger larp model, prioritizing it creates a self-sustaining system wherein the attention and effort of the player base uplifts the value of the game far beyond what the financial model would otherwise allow. Hamburger larps are, at their core, folk art – and always expressions of a local scene, even at their highest level of production value.

    Whereas a blockbuster larp might be compared to attending a Broadway show one time, a hamburger larp is the pub you go to after work, or the community center at which you meet your friends on weekends. The expectation for transcendence and performance at a hamburger larp, while offered as an implicit function of the roleplaying experience, is diluted by the surety that the opportunity will come again, and again.

    In conclusion, “hamburger larp” encapsulates a recurring, familiar, and community-centered experience. Its framework thrives on consistency, and offers players a sense of comfort and belonging, much like their favorite burger joint. The draw of a hamburger larp isn’t in grand, one-time experiences but in the steady, ongoing opportunities to engage, build relationships, and create memories in a familiar setting. It’s illustrative of how the simple, routine pleasures in gaming can be just as fulfilling as the most elaborate productions. And like a well-made burger, it’s something players can savor again and again.

    Cover image: Illustration by Ester Pérez Ribada from Pixabay

  • Dinner Warfare

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    Dinner Warfare

    By

    Katrine Wind

    Jesus did it. So why don’t you? Create drama during dinner, that is. Saying that one of your best friends will betray you while you are having your last meal is a pretty dramatic way to create pressure in an eating situation. The Danish Dogme 95 film The Celebration (1998) is another example of great drama happening at a dinner. Many of our favorite stories can make it work, so let’s do that in larp as well. We waste so much time eating during longer form larps. At least, that was my experience for a very long time, until I figured out a solution that worked for me both as a player and designer. Food and food design in larps is in and of itself an interesting subject. But more than the actual food, I very much enjoy larps that make something special of meal situations.

    Examples of larps where specific meals have been well thought into the design are the last dinner at the Atropos larp Libertines (2019-2020) and the meals at House of Craving (2019-). At Libertines, the last meal is a culmination of building pressure within the group of characters, and it seems completely normalized that there isn’t any cutlery, plates or cups, and people are not properly dressed while the food is served so it becomes messy and very physical.

    At House of Craving, meals become more and more absurd; some players portray a representation of “The House” (so your character doesn’t see these people) and they will move around the food and your cutlery in a haunting way, making you start to question why things are not in the places you put them. The further into the meals you get, you feel more and more like you are going insane while the House starts to interact more directly with you. 

    These examples contain wonderful scenes designed to enhance an atmosphere and specific actions that connect to the larps’ themes in their own way. 

    A way I most often utilize meals to become an actual Dinner Warfare situation, is by creating subtle but strong emotional pressure based on specific relations instead of mostly atmosphere in designing eating situations.

    Photo of two characters, one with animal ears seated far away with arms folded while the other speaks.
    From Daemon (2023): Katrine Wind. Photo: Bjørn-Morten Vang Gundersen.

    Dinner Warfare

    Dinner Warfare is, primarily, a tool to design meal situations that contain emotional relevance for the players individually and, secondarily, a way of underlining the atmosphere and themes of the larp. As an organizer, I most often utilize Dinner Warfare to enhance conflict, but it can also be meaningful in positive relations between characters. 

    Putting each other under pressure as well as subtly poking in polite circumstances gives another dimension to a personal relation than when you are not forced to spend time together. It can both kickstart a conflict and help decide the pacing of a larp. This tool can also provide much longer scenes than usual. It’s not often that you get to spend hours together with the same characters at a larp, which has at least the potential to deeper and more layered conversations and therefore relations. In the best cases, this ignites embers that can burst into a fire later in the larp as well. 

    An important lesson in larp design is that we can’t teach everyone everything during workshops, but we can “train” our players and provide them with new player skills. A way of doing this regarding Dinner Warfare is simply stating that they have the obligation as players to sit in a place that is meaningful to your character and where it might create the most play during one or more meals. Putting the responsibility with the players is the first step on the “The table of Dinner Warfare.” If you want to take more responsibility as a designer, you can ensure organized meals, make seating plans or even dynamic seating plans.

    Drawing of a dinner table with notes reading: dynamic seating plan, seating plan, organized meals, and brief players
    Illustration of “The table of Dinner Warfare” by Iris van Blijderveen (2024).

    Brief players and make organized meals 

    The table above (or figure as it rightfully is) makes it possible for anyone to point out that they want dinner warfare at their larp no matter their resources. If your players eat in-game, give them the responsibility to be meaningful. If you want to help them even further, you can make specific mealtimes. Then you ensure that they are all gathered and that they then have an easier time finding people to sit with that are meaningful. There you go — you already completed two courses on the “Table of Dinner Warfare.” 

    The next part of the article is about how you as a designer can enhance and help the players use this tool, if you want to do more. 

    Seating plan

    A seating plan is essential in the Dinner Warfare concept if you as a designer want to heavily affect the pressure this tool can put in a larp. People who have problematic relations as well as terrible secrets together make very good Dinner Warfare seating partners. To actually utilize Dinner Warfare effectively as an organizer, you have to know the characters very well and I can imagine that it takes clear and strong (as well as well-written) relations. You have to have an idea of the intricacies of why it would be terrible for these two characters to be forced to eat a three course meal together.

    A helpful set-up is a setting including very strong social norms like nobility adhering to old-timey table-manners or creating families with harsh social structures. In these settings, there is an expected air of at least surface-level civility. So while there might for example be a threat of violence, it is kept under wraps, leading to tension (and possibly even better scenes that couldn’t have been happening without these external circumstances). 

    It is important to have an alibi for why you have to stay in your seat and not leave the person you are put next to. This is something I often combine with some of the elements that Karijn van der Heij and I described in the article “Playing an Engaging Victim” (2020). In this article, we argue that it can be tempting for victim players to simply run away or physically hide from their oppressor, but with Dinner Warfare, you can actually provide both parties with an alibi to spend extensive time together. 

    In Spoils of War (2019-2024), I utilize this by having the winning and losing side of a war celebrate the sacred Feast of Life together: one day a year where you have to celebrate Life no matter the circumstances. Thus, the queen of the side that will lose the war later in the game will invite everybody who is in the siege camp outside into the castle for a long meal. The written characters are long and the relations complex, so the seating plan is made off-game by me, while in-game it is Her Majesty’s. Prisoners of war sit with their captors and the family that is desperate to have them back. Former lovers sit next to the one that broke their heart — you get the sentiment. The cultural and religious agreement that we don’t attack each other during a meal provides the alibi here. 

    Photo of person in white clothes sitting on the floor of a dining room writing.
    The author creating a seating chart in Helicon Run 1 (2024): Katrine Wind and Maria Petterson. Photo: Anna Katrine Werge Bønnelycke.

    Daemon

    In my larp Daemon (2021), Dinner Warfare is a core design element. The larp is inspired by the His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman (1995-2000) where humans have their soul outside of their body in the form of an animal. Daemons are the expression of the inner lives of the characters and can either underline what the human players are portraying or show what is really going on between the two humans. In the larp, this is represented by two people playing the same character (human and daemon, respectively) and that they can’t go more than two meters from each other. 

    The larp takes place in the aftermath of a war in which many of the characters helped kill the God of this world. The characters have gathered at the mansion to celebrate the victory. But not everyone wants to be there. Not all of the heroes see themselves as that and because of a last attack from the losing side, even adversaries from the war have had to flee to this exact place. The war has brought together people from all classes. Class differences are an important part of the experience. Everybody present experiences the pressure of social norms because of the nobility present — and we kick that off very early into the game with a three course dinner. 

    In this particular setup, the hostess is setting the table and forces the seating arrangements on the guests. This is usually an organizer controlled character. A player can absolutely be the host in-game like in Spoils of War, but it is important to be willing to keep the pressure on the other players and have a lot of insight into the characters and relations as there are only 30 people in this larp. You also have to consider that it can be time consuming for a player the more responsibility they have, possibly taking them out of the game. 

    In-game enemies or problematic relations can be placed together because of malicious intent or unknowingly. For example, the hostess at Daemon purposefully doesn’t put her own sister at the high table because they have a conflict; instead she is placed with the lowest classes. This provides tension for all. The hostess’ greatest enemy, who she has always been very jealous of, is, on the other hand, placed beside her former fiancée who has publicly denounced her and had her put in house arrest. 

    Photo of a character confronting another character over a dinner table.
    Daemon (Belgium 2023): Katrine Wind. Photo: Ork De Rooij.

    Another option is that the pressure is unintentional in-game but intentional off-game. An example of this is the high table, where the hostess Lady Philippa Blackett has placed her best friend Lord Richard Wiltshire, whom she has always dined with and who is a hero of the war and their daemons of course. The nobles are chummy, making others uncomfortable by familiarity, obvious privilege, and status. At that table is also placed Richard’s younger sister Evelyn, who was engaged to Philippa’s deceased brother. Richard and Philippa pity her, try to make her mourn as much as possible for the lost fiancée, and feel guilty for his death as a war hero. The last person at the table is Professor Rowan, whom Richard has been sponsoring for years. What Richard doesn’t know is that the professor has a long running affair with Evelyn, who doesn’t mourn her fiancée at all. The daemons of Evelyn and Rowan are placed next to each other. They will then play out the romance as subtly as they can under the dangerous attention of Philippa and Richard while the daemons often choose to telegraph more visibly the feelings that the humans are trying to keep quiet. I often find that transparency helps here — if the players know what is at stake between Evelyn and Rowan, it is easier to pick up the hints. 

    All of this emotional, meaningful drama can make it a very “pressure cooker”-like experience, which for some larps is completely fine. That the characters are not exploding on each other and mostly suffering internally while being prodded and provoked by the people they sit together with. If you want to avoid this atmosphere, you can choose to encourage a more rowdy atmosphere with e.g. toasts or speeches. This mostly works if it is briefed or workshopped; not many will make toasts if they aren’t suggested to do so.

    Photo of a person holding another person at a dinner table Daemon (Belgium 2023): Katrine Wind. Photo: Ork De Rooij.

    The last example from Daemon to create more pressure, is an element where the hostess wants to get the conversation going. By each seat, there is an envelope titled “A little game.” When the guests open it, there are really hard questions like: “How do you think you are going to die?” and “If you could change one thing about how you grew up, what would you change?” This makes it easier to start the conversations and everybody can see the inappropriateness of the questions — especially across classes. But no one can protest this early in the game because of polite society. 

    So, where religious and cultural norms offer the alibi in Spoils of War, class differences are the kicker in Daemon.

    Player wishes

    If you want to make it more difficult for yourself (why wouldn’t you? Organizing is so easy, right?), take player wishes into account. That is the last course on the “Dinner Warfare table”. If someone enjoys the Dinner Warfare situations, it can for some be interesting further into the game to have some influence over who it would make sense for their game to be placed next to. There might be someone that your character would want to avoid, but that would enhance your experience to be pressed by social norms to spend time with.  

    Helicon

    For Helicon (2024) by myself and Maria Pettersson, a larp about the Muses of old being trapped by humans (the Inspired), class differences can’t be much of a pressure point for Dinner Warfare, as the Inspired are pretty much equal with a few exceptions. Class differences are utilized for other kinds of conflicts. Instead, we use traditions as an alibi for the seating plan (for play accounts of Helicon, see Bowman 2024; Nøglebæk 2024; Pettersson 2024).

    The social dynamics in this larp are complex and layered and are utilized and enhanced by the Dinner Warfare by physically putting one’s Muse next to one’s ex-wife and love interests while the Muses are former lovers/close friends. The Muses are connected to their Inspired and can’t go more than 100 m away from them. The ritual of keeping them with the human will have to be renewed every year, making ritualistic content an important part of the design. The first ritual is directly followed by a three course dinner, so that there has just been a dramatic escape and punishment scene and then we go directly to the traditional welcome dinner. We also make the larp feel a bit like a time warp by making characters going back to the same dynamics over and over during the larp — and this doesn’t only include the seating plans. 

    We put people who have been divorced next to each other with the alibi that they used to sit like this 15 years ago, and if we change anything — even the seating — the sealing of the capture of the Muses might not work. With so much pressure, sometimes the atmosphere can be very serious, strained and quiet unless you workshop it not to be and give tools to change it.

    Toasts are great tools for setting the mood and getting more active meal situations during Dinner Warfare but as mentioned earlier, people will not necessarily do that in-game unless encouraged. Maria Pettersson and I use a tool called “Please stand up” to overcome the possible hesitation. It is basically just the very known game “Never have I ever…” A character can at any point stand up and say: “Please stand up if…” and often it will be used to either celebrate good qualities in oneself or slander another character. An example could be: “Please stand up if you also hate your Muse.” This way the players can affect if the atmosphere should be more vicious, cruel, or maybe celebratory.

    For this larp it is also much more beneficial that people can actually walk around and switch seats during the meals as they are all old friends, lovers, and enemies and dramatic interactions are encouraged.

    People in fancy clothes standing up to confront on another at a dinner party Helicon (2024): Katrine Wind and Maria Pettersson. Photo: Bjørn-Morten Vang Gundersen.

    Downsides to Dinner Warfare

    Anecdotally, quite a lot of larpers have difficulty eating at larps. I don’t personally prefer for people to not have eaten at the larps I design, as I find hungry people in many situations to be worse larpers. The kind of pressure that Dinner Warfare provides can make it difficult for some to eat and I acknowledge that. One of the antidotes to that on my behalf, is making the dinners very long. If you have to sit for 2½ hours and are served three different courses, almost anyone will have eaten something at the end. 

    Serving the food buffet style takes away the pressure as well. When people have to get up to grab their choice of food, they will spend more time away from each other and experience relief of pressure. The disadvantage of serving by the plate or family style on the tables, which I would argue gives the best physical circumstances for Dinner Warfare, is that it takes a lot of extra effort from the kitchen and serving staff. Servers can also raise the cost of a larp, making it even more financially inaccessible. However, bearing these possible disadvantages in mind, I highly recommend Dinner Warfare as a design tool

    In summary, meals don’t have to be empty design spaces in a larp or something you just have to get over and done with to get on with the real larp. Real larping can happen while eating. Bon appetit!

    References

    Bowman, Sarah Lynne. 2024. “Helicon: An Epic Larp about Love, Beauty, and Brutality.” Nordiclarp.org, January 26.

    Nøglebæk, Oliver. 2024. “A Visit to Mount Helicon.” Nordic Larper, March 1.

    Pettersson, Juhana. 2024. “Out of Nothing, Something.” Nordiclarp.org, April 25.

    Wind, Katrine, and Karijn van der Heij. 2020. “Playing an Engaging Victim.” In What Do We Do When We Play? Solmukohta 2020, edited by edited by Eleanor Saitta, Johanna Koljonen, Jukka Särkijärvi, Anne Serup Grove, Pauliina Männistö, and Mia Makkonen, 244–53. Helsinki: Solmukohta.

    Ludography

    Daemon (2021): Denmark, Belgium, USA, UK. Katrine Wind.

    Helicon (2024): Denmark. Maria Pettersson and Katrine Wind.

    Spoils of War (2019-2024). Denmark. Katrine Wind.

    Libertines (2019-2020): Denmark. Atropos and Julie Greip.

    House of Craving (2019-2023): Denmark. Tor Kjetil Edland, Danny Wilson, Frida Sofie Jansen, and Bjarke Pedersen.

     Cover photo: From Spoils of War (2022): Katrine Wind. Photo by Elvinas Rokas. 

  • Debauchery: Fantastic

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    Debauchery: Fantastic

    By

    Abbie Wolfe

    Recently an article was republished from this year’s Solmukohta book, “Debauchery: Meh” (Anonymous 2024), that caused quite a stir in the community, on the subject of “erotic larps”, that is larps with sex as a central theme. Plenty of people within our community have made their own assessments over this week, but I’d like to take the time to offer up some thoughts. And naturally, the shorter the original comment, the more I have to say about it.

    So, why do we larp?

    A simple question to be sure, and perhaps a bit pretentious for the start of an essay talking mostly about filthy sex, though as anyone who has played a larp can say, the answers are broad and complex. No shortage of ink has been shed across this very outlet on the topic, and yet my anonymous friend in the original comment has surmised that in the case of “erotic larps” that the principal, and perhaps even sole, driver for people attending is sexual gratification. 

    Whilst it is no surprise that many people had some quite robust criticisms of this idea, I think it’s worth exploring not just why this is wrong, but the range and diversity of why these larps may appeal to people.

    A Confession

    Here is the point though where I need to make a confession: I haven’t actually ever been to an “erotic larp”. I have played sexually-charged characters and stories in other larps, such as being the paramour of a doomed warrior and part of her polyamorous entourage, to playing the latest “acquisition” to a sexy vampire cult, amongst others; but I have never been to a larp where sexual or kink themes were central to the design.

    So I should probably stop writing now then, eh? I don’t know the genre in question intimately (heh), I haven’t experienced the plotlines, the events, the hype; I don’t know what I’m talking about. Well, perhaps, and if that is your opinion then I bid you a good day. But I feel whilst I haven’t had much to do with “erotic larp”, I am both (in my own humble opinion) a fairly experienced larper across a range of genres, and would like to share some credentials in a vain attempt to restore some credibility.

    Hi there, my name is Abbie, and I have been at various times in my adult life: a sex worker, both escort and porn, a volunteer at a sexual health service, a trans and disability sexual liberation activist, an organizer and host of a series of sex parties, and a sex & kink communicator, including getting to be on radio to talk about the Sex Without Shame campaign we ran some years ago. I’ve also happily had no shortage of romantic and sexual experiences in my life, so when it comes to that topic, I think I am broadly qualified.

    Exploring Ourselves

    But it’s my time with the Sex Without Shame campaign that I’d like to talk about most here. This was, as the name suggests, a campaign set up to encourage people, mostly queer and LGBTQ+ people, to explore their sexuality freely, and hopefully feel more comfortable and confident in experiencing sex and kink. My part of it (aside from doing a sexy photoshoot with a lovely Leather-Daddy named Frank, where we both admitted that it was to us the most heterosexual thing either had done in a long time) was mostly presenting seminars and workshops as part of the women’s programme. These workshops covered all sorts of topics, from sexual health and contraception to exploring sexual attraction and alternative relationships, but one important one was the ‘Wall of Kinks.’

    In this exercise, everyone would anonymously write a kink, fetish, sexual fantasy, or anything similar onto a post-it note, and place them into a bag at the start of the session. I would then empty out the notes, and put them up on the wall, and we’d discuss them. Part of the exercise was to break the taboo a bit, both personally and as a group, to show that these are the things the people in this room are into, and how that’s okay, natural, and can be explored and experienced safely and confidently. It was often a highlight of the series for me, as it was often the most transformative bit for participants.

    So this is a bit of a long personal ramble before I get to how-to-make the lasagne, but I think it’s important. Because the biggest point I wanted to make before getting to the other topics is this: if you use larp as a place to explore your own sexuality, in whatever form that takes, then that’s absolutely fine. If you communicate and are open about what you’re looking for, then you go right ahead. Because I know from the experience of running those workshops, that there aren’t a whole heap of places to safely explore parts of who you are, and sexuality is absolutely a core part of ourselves. So if you’re communicating, seeking consent, and being honest, then you’re doing larp right, and I don’t want anyone telling you otherwise. 

    And I don’t really think my anonymous friend would disagree, but I really wanted to make that part clear.

    Exploring Others

    Okay, so that’s one reason people might play “erotic larps”, to explore themselves and their own feelings in a safe environment. So what are the others? Well, they’re as myriad as the reasons people play any other sort of larp. And for that I’d like to share about why I don’t, or more accurately haven’t, been to any “erotic larps”. Because from reading my little CV up there you might well say “these larps look like they’re right up your street, Abbie,” and in some ways you’d be right. But that’s sort of the point isn’t it.

    A common reason for why we larp is to get to experience the lives of others. I will never forget, to my dying breath, the fear and loneliness of being a WW1 nurse, or the righteous fury of being a maniacal paladin, or the crushing loss of being a cursed raider doomed to be hunted for eternity through the forests. These experiences, these emotions, these deep and resonant lives of people I’ve lived, even for a short while, will stay with me forever, just as I know they do in the minds of fellow larpers. I will probably never in my life get to really experience the anxiety and love of shepherding a gaggle of nurses across Siberia, or the confidence and bravery of charging into a battle I know will kill me. That’s a big part of larping: to experience things from lives we will never see ourselves.

    Now this is also a big part of why I don’t often play disabled characters at larps. I live that, every day of my life. Whilst playing a disabled person in a very different context to my own is neat, and I’ve done that on occasion, on the whole, playing what I experience (and usually a bad experience) in life isn’t all that fun. Just for the same reason I don’t often play trans or non-binary characters at larp, a sentiment I have heard echoed by other larpers from those demographics. However, I do pretty much always play gay or bisexual characters, because that part of my life is pretty damn great, and so getting to be that in different contexts and in new and exciting ways is brilliant.

    But sexual liberation falls somewhere between the two. It’s certainly not a bad experience whatsoever for me, far from it, but it’s also not really much of a departure from who I already am. There wouldn’t be tremendous appeal to me in playing a character that was about being sexually confident, liberated, and getting to experience those feelings. But to someone for whom that isn’t a part of their everyday, I can see how that would be an especially enticing premise, just as getting to live any other life beyond our own is in larp. Experiencing the deep empathy of living another person’s life is one of the most amazing things about this medium, and I’m sure this can be a real draw to people to play “erotic larps”.

    Experiencing the life and perspective of others with a vastly different outlook from us, perhaps an outlook we admire, or one we are glad we don’t share, allows us to reframe how we see the world and the people in it. And whether that is seeing social interactions, positive and negative, through the mind of someone with a different outlook on sex and sexuality, can be a hugely moving adventure.

    So people might want to explore their own lives through “erotic larp”, they might want to explore lives of others… what else? Well you’ll notice that I didn’t actually give a proper answer in that section as to why I haven’t been to any “erotic larps”, and you might surmise that it was that they don’t differ from my own life enough to be appealing. But you may also recall me saying earlier that I have played sexual and romantic characters and stories in larps, so there must be something there that interests me?

    Well that’s because the honest answer is that I haven’t been to any “erotic larps” because of the very usual reasons: expense and travel. Most of the ones have been overseas, and my budget for international larp is limited, and none of them have ever broken the threshold of interest to make me want to commit my precious time and money to them when other priorities existed. Except one.

    Exploring Power

    I did in fact, some years ago, try to go to an “erotic larp”. This being Nocturne (2022) by Atropos Studios, a historical larp set in a brothel during the American Revolutionary War. In the end I didn’t get a place as numbers were quite tight, but I’d like to talk about what appealed to me in this larp over others. Firstly, for anyone who knows me, I am an absolute slut for a historical larp. They’re the main genre I play, write, and work on, and as a historian by background it’s fairly obvious why. So that alone already moved it up above the threshold of interest, but it wasn’t all of it.

    And I think this is where I make my biggest departure from the thoughts of my anonymous friend, because now we’re getting into the territory of “what does sex mean?” And that is a very interesting question that I think larp is an exceptional medium to explore. In the two cases I outlined at the start where I played a sexual story at a larp (there are others naturally, but these two I think best exemplify my point) the meanings they each had were quite different.

    For the romance with the doomed warrior, myself and the other members of their entourage were engaged in the traditional hedonistic lifestyle. The warrior knew she was bound to die soon, as did most of us around her, and so the sex there was about attraction, living for today, and the platonic ideal of hedonism. In the other, the being an “acquisition” to the vampires, that was much more about power, dominance, the symbolic expression of sex in possession and control. And my interest in Nocturne, skewed towards the latter.

    Now I want to reiterate, I didn’t end up playing the game, and beyond signing up and reading the provisional material for the first run I have no knowledge of the design or the actual content of the game, so I don’t really have anything to say on the game itself. But I do want to talk about what it was that appealed to me in the premise.

    It was specifically one character, the sister of one of the soldiers. So in the outline, the players are split into two cohorts, the brothel workers, being women, and the soldiers, being men. But there was one woman amongst the soldiers, being the sister of one of them who I presumed would be something of an assistant to the soldiers, what we would call a “camp-follower”. And reading that made me go “Oooh, that’s interesting”. 

    I am sure I would’ve had a plenty good time playing amongst the women of the brothel, as there’s a whole range of personalities and stories you could explore in that setting. You’ll perhaps notice that the two cases I’ve mentioned had me playing in a more submissive role, which to someone who is more often on the dominant side of the dichotomy has its own appeal, that would be present here. But that one character, the woman who would be split in loyalty between fellow women and the soldiers to whom she was bound, that would make for one compelling plotline.

    And of course there’s many ways one could play such a character and I didn’t get any more information on how she was written or eventually played by anyone. But for me, my intention was (if I was successful in getting a ticket and then in getting that character, neither of which came true) was to take the character in quite a dark direction, to be a willing, perhaps even slightly sadistic participant in the oppressive play that would no doubt have been central to the content of the game. And that exploration of themes, in a historical setting was very enticing to me. Everything after all, to get my obligatory pretentious quote in for the article, is about sex; except sex. Sex is about power.

    And maybe my anonymous friend agrees, maybe they feel that the “erotic larps” should be about so much more, that they could explore themes of dominance, power-structures, the leveraging of sex as a means of social control both in limiting and embracing it. Larps could give players a window into what sex means, exploring the deeper questions of morality and power, and let them live the lives of both those elevated and those crushed by sex. Whether they do or not alas lies out of my experience to say.

    Sex Sells

    Yet they still seem to feel that despite these important and meaningful topics to explore, “erotic larps” remain an “overrated” genre.

    Whilst I must admit, in my own circles I haven’t experienced much of this rating, as I don’t find “erotic larps” to be held with the sanctity they appear to be in other circles, there certainly is a perception from parts of the community that this is so. Where the prestige and prominence these types of larps seem to hold comes from is an important topic, but perhaps best explored by someone from those corners.

    Though I might offer a simple thought at least on the point of popularity, rather than prestige, and it is the evergreen notion that sex sells. From working in marketing on a few occasions, I can say from personal anecdote, that depictions or even mere implications of sex sell products, whether that be films like I was selling, or larps as here.

    I think it would be arrogant for me to claim that larpers are somehow not susceptible to those same hooks in our monkey-brains as everybody else. And whilst I absolutely do not believe that any larp producer is using sex as a marketing hook to sell tickets, it’s hardly outside the realm of possibility that in a sea of available larps, for some of us, those that light up the horny neuron in our brain might subconsciously seem a little more appealing. And in the current environment, where budgets are tight, and so many larps are struggling to make ends meet, it may only take a little bit of a marketing bump to take a larp from the edge of feasibility into safe territory, where other larps struggle to get exposure.

    So between this appearance of popularity, real or imagined, and the prestige they carry in certain circles, I can at least begin to understand why my anonymous friend might feel upset at these productions, even whilst I profoundly disagree with their assessments. Times are hard, and we all want to elevate the sort of experiences we enjoy and cherish, and it is demoralizing seeing projects you care for fall by the wayside to productions you’re not enthused by. 

    Though, it seems there are at least a fair few reasons besides sexual gratification that someone might want to play a larp with sex as a central theme, and no shortage of stories, meanings, and levels of emotion to explore through them. So I hope if it is your thing, or think it might be, that you’ll give them a go, and I have no doubt that those producing them will continue to improve their craft, as we all do.

    And to my anonymous friend: I hope you find forms of larp, and people to experience them with, that speak to you, and get to enjoy your favourite flavours with joy and abandon. I could wish nothing more for any of us.

    References

    Anonymous. 2024. “Debauchery: Meh.” Nordiclarp.org, August 7.

    Cover photo: Photo by Emojibater and Rosie Simmons on Unsplash. Image has been cropped.

  • Nordic Larp is not ”International Larp”: What is KP for?

    Published on

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    Nordic Larp is not ”International Larp”: What is KP for?

    By

    Anonymous

    Editorial note: Any views expressed in an article published in Nordiclarp.org do not necessarily represent the views of the editors or an endorsement of the article.

    This anonymous article was originally published in the Knudepunkt 2023 underground book larp truths ready to see the light (editors unknown). It was then republished in the Solmukohta 2024 book, and has been reprinted from there with the editors’ permission. It has not been edited by Nordiclarp.org.

    * * *

    Forward by editor Kaisa Kangas for the 2024 Solmukohta book: It has been a tradition to publish a book like this one in connection with SK/KP – a tradition so honored that the lack of an official book last year caused a small outrage (see Pettersson 2023). Even then, there was an underground pdf book known as The Secret Book of Butterflies that consisted of short essays by anonymous writers. I have decided to republish some of them here.

    * * *

    Some years ago, a wonderful thing happened.

    Larpers in the four Nordic countries developed a remarkable community and discourse around this phenomenon called ”Nordic larp.” At KP/SK, they met each year, to talk about it and to share thoughts and experiences with each other.

    Over time, larpers in other countries heard about this: they read the Nordic larp writings, and imported some of what they found there into their own domestic larping scenes.

    Some of them attended KP, and made their own contributions to the developing conversation. They were made welcome by the regulars, who were (mostly) glad that their ideas were being shared more widely. Now, as a result of this, we have a scene that might be called Nordic-inspired international larp.

    All over Europe, in the USA, and perhaps elsewhere too: larps are being run for people from a wide range of countries, in the English language, incorporating design and practice elements that were originally developed in Nordic larp.

    Who takes part in these ‘international larp’ events?

    Usually, a mix of people from the local larping scene, and cosmopolitan types who enjoy larping in other lands.

    These include some people from the original Nordic core.

    Meanwhile, ”Nordic larps” in the traditional sense are still taking place in the Nordic countries. But they are dwarfed, in number and in coverage, by this new international scene.

    The child is devouring the parent.

    The same thing can be seen at KP. Not so long ago, it was a 200- 300 person event that was 80% Nordic: now, it’s a 500-600 person event that’s majority non-Nordic.

    And, although the superstar system ensures that keynotes and other high-visibility items are still in Nordic hands, the bulk of the programme is provided and presented by international larpers, for an international audience. Is this good or is it bad?

    All we can really say is: it’s different.

    But is it time to recognize that international larp is its own thing, and deserves its own annual get-together – rather than progressively cannibalizing KP?

    Why not a conference that rotates around the countries where international larps take place – or that’s at one fixed location centrally within Europe?

    It would probably be cheaper to hire a suitable venue and accommodation in a non-Nordic country, for one thing. And it would probably be easier for most internationals to get to.
    And then, what might it mean for KP to get back to being focused on Nordic larp, in the Nordic countries?

    Of course, it shouldn’t be oblivious to the rest of the larping world.

    But nor should it be dominated by it.

    International larp is a tremendous thing, and it deserves to thrive and grow. But not at the expense of the Nordic larp that it borrows so heavily from.

    And perhaps KP should not be facilitating such a takeover.

    References

    Pettersson, Juhana. 2023. “The Wisdom of the Community.” Nordic Larp Talks. YouTube, May 28.

    Please cite as:

    Anonymous. 2024. “Nordic Larp is not ”International Larp”: What is KP for?” In Liminal Encounters: Evolving Discourse in Nordic and Nordic Inspired Larp, edited by Kaisa Kangas, Jonne Arjoranta, and Ruska Kevätkoski. Helsinki, Finland: Ropecon ry.

    Cover photo: Image by Kelly on Pexels.

  • Debauchery: Meh

    Published on

    in

    Debauchery: Meh

    By

    Anonymous

    Editorial note: Any views expressed in an article published in Nordiclarp.org do not necessarily represent the views of the editors or an endorsement of the article.

    This anonymous article was originally published in the Knudepunkt 2023 underground book larp truths ready to see the light (editors unknown). It was then republished in the Solmukohta 2024 book, and has been reprinted from there with the editors’ permission. It has not been edited by Nordiclarp.org.

    * * *

    Forward by editor Kaisa Kangas for the 2024 Solmukohta book: It has been a tradition to publish a book like this one in connection with SK/KP – a tradition so honored that the lack of an official book last year caused a small outrage (see Pettersson 2023). Even then, there was an underground pdf book known as The Secret Book of Butterflies that consisted of short essays by anonymous writers. I have decided to republish some of them here.

    * * *

    There’s a longstanding tradition of larps that foreground sexually-transgressive behaviour in play: from Hamlet to Pan to BAPHOMET to Nocturne to Redemption to House of Craving to…

    We might call these ‘debauchery larps’, because it seems that the main selling point is ‘you will get to do cool degenerate sexy stuff in this larp, where conventional morality has been subverted within the fictional play space’.

    It probably is in theory possible to design, and to participate in, this kind of larp from the purest of motives: to seriously investigate what happens to human values and feelings, when the moral structure that we take for granted in the real world is removed – and so on. This is usually the official pitch.

    But that’s not, in general, why people do it. For most participants, it’s seen simply as fun to take advantage of the opportunity provided, and to use character alibi to do things that offgame would be socially difficult or impossible. Be it nudity, diegetic sex, kink play around D/s and consent, or whatever.

    Which is fine! – if everyone has that understanding, then great, let’s not judge or shame anyone.

    It’s just that it seems like debauchery larp is accorded an unearned status within the hobby – portrayed as the ultimate kind of larp experience, edgy, boundary-breaking, redefining what larp is, are you even a real larper if you don’t dare to try it, etc. When really from a more objective point of view, it’s just a bunch of people getting their jollies, in the most predictable way.

    Anyone can come up with an excuse to put a bunch of people in a house to lust after each other, and call it a larp: and they will not be short of applicants. It’s a pity that debauchery larp takes the spotlight away from other larps that are genuinely interesting.

    References

    Pettersson, Juhana. 2023. “The Wisdom of the Community.” Nordic Larp Talks. YouTube, May 28.

    Please cite as:

    Anonymous. 2024. “Debauchery: Meh.” In Liminal Encounters: Evolving Discourse in Nordic and Nordic Inspired Larp, edited by Kaisa Kangas, Jonne Arjoranta, and Ruska Kevätkoski. Helsinki, Finland: Ropecon ry.

    Cover photo: Image by Engin Akyurt from Pixabay