When cast in a relationship with another player, — meaning any kind of relationship, such as family, friendship, enmity etc., as well as romantic/sexual relationships — it is customary (but usually not mandatory) to reach out and calibrate before the larp. At times like these, there are a few questions I usually ask my co-player. A friend recently mentioned that she found my questions very helpful, and always used them when calibrating. At first I thought that they were nothing special, probably everyone used questions more or less the same? But, pre-game calibration definitely is a skill that can be developed and refined, just like most other parts of larp. So, perhaps in this text you can find some tool that will help you in your pre-game calibrations.
These questions are based on a larp designed with a Nordic, collaborative playstyle, prewritten characters and prewritten relationships. Usually, characters are available for all players to read, and it is common to read at least parts of your co-players’ character descriptions. The questions work for other design choices as well, but may have to be adapted accordingly.
It is of course not necessary or expected that you always ask all of these questions every time you do pre-game calibrations with someone. They are to be considered as a tool-box, and you yourself will notice which ones will seem most useful, depending what larp you are going to, what kind of relationship you have been cast in, and what you know about your co-player beforehand.
Question: How much time and energy do you have for calibration, and what methods of communicating work best for you?
Why it is useful to ask: Some people have very busy lives, and many larps lined up. Others have a lot of time, and want to spend weeks or months planning and discussing play. Calibrate this first, and try to find what works for both of you. If there is less time and energy, you might have to focus on only the most important questions.
Question: What are your hopes and wishes for this larp?
Why it is useful to ask: This will give you the chance to understand your co-player better: their playstyle, why they signed up for this particular larp and what kinds of scenes they enjoy. It may also offer insights into how you can create rewarding play for them within the character relationship.
Question: What is your understanding of the relationship between our characters?
Why it is useful to ask: An important early step is to have a shared idea of what kind of relationship you are going to be portraying. This is especially relevant if you have not been reading the same texts (e.g. if you have only been reading your own character descriptions, and the relationship described from their point of view). But even reading exactly the same texts, interpretations may vary. If you do not have the same idea about what the characters’ relationship is (at least at the start of the larp), it may make things much more frustrating, both to calibrate and play.
Question: What themes and aspects of this relationship are most interesting to you?
Why it is useful to ask: Partially, this question allows you to delve deeper into the relationship, to analyse it deeper. But, more importantly, it is how you start to make the relationship your own, focusing on the things that appeal to you both. Hopefully, you have shared interests, and want the same things – but if not, this is also a good time in the discussion to politely tell your co-player if you are uninterested or uncomfortable with certain areas of the relationship. This can be hard, but hopefully you will be able to create something that appeals to you both, and fits in the framework of the larp and relationship.
Question: What are your worries and fears going into this larp?
Why it is useful to ask: Playing together is also taking a level of responsibility for one another. If you know what your co-player worries about, you might help make sure that their fears do not come true – especially if this relates to the relationship between your characters. And, if doing anything about them is out of your power, then it can sometimes be good to just share your fears with someone.
Question: Do you have any triggers, or anything else I should be mindful of?
Why it is useful to ask: This one is self-explanatory. We do not want to distress our co-players off-game, if it can be avoided.
Question: What level of physical play are you generally comfortable with?
Why it is useful to ask: If there is a possibility that we might play scenes with violence, romantic/sexual intimacy or platonic closeness, having a rough idea of what to expect is a good thing. However, this reply is not about how you will be playing (see below).
Why it is good to ask in this particular way: We usually know what level of physical play we are normally comfortable with, and if we have any boundaries that we never cross. However, I do not think it is good practice to decide beforehand, days or weeks before the larp and with someone you have not played with before, what is ok and what is not. What might have felt good when planning, might not seem at all good when the larp is about to start. It might be due to how you are feeling on the day, how it feels when you actually meet your co-player, or some other reason. I therefore think it is best to not commit to anything, but rather talk about what usually works, and then do more calibration on the day of the larp.
How not to respond: If your co-player says ”I don’t have any boundaries, you can do anything!”, I think it is fully reasonable to say ”Oh, okay, so can I break your arm?” We all have boundaries of some sort. Some people who do not state boundaries simply have not considered things that might happen at the larp. Personally, I only feel safe with co-players who state some sort of boundaries – at the very least, ”Don’t do anything that leaves lasting damage on my body”. You might think, ”But this is obvious, you shouldn’t have to say that!”, but that’s just the thing. There are very different cultures and norms in different larp communities. To some, it may be just as ”obvious” that you would never play out a realistic-looking sex-scene, or do things that are actually painful to others; those are common elements of some larps. So, try to be explicit, think about what your boundaries are, and be comfortable communicating them.
Question: What level of emotional intensity do you generally prefer?
Why it is useful to ask: Some larpers want to feel deeply when larping, and feel that larp is best when it breaks their heart, and they can immerse deeply into feelings for the entire larp. Others have a playstyle focused more on cool scenes, interesting plots, or simulating an alternate reality, and are not very interested in having their hearts roughed up in the process. Although it can be difficult to specify what is a high or low level of emotional intensity, it might be relevant to calibrate if you are unsure.
Why it is good to ask in this particular way: Just as with physical play, we can never know for certain what we want or need during an upcoming larp. It is also not always possible to plan how intensely you are going to feel during the larp.
Question: What is your preference when it comes to transparency?
Why it is useful to ask: Transparency refers tolearning the other characters’ thoughts and motivations, or possible things that might happen at the larp. Since it is part of the tradition I larp in, I think transparency is a very good thing. Lack of transparency usually just makes it more difficult to pick up on things. The transparency of reading others’ characters is generally very useful. However, I do love a good curveball from time to time. If my co-player springs an unexpected scene on me, or reveals a hidden corner of their character’s mind, it can be a very impactful experience. However, not everyone enjoys this. So, discuss with your co-player what level of transparency you prefer.
When to ask: This question might be one you want to ask very early in the conversation, or it might only feel relevant later on. This, of course, depends on how many non-transparent secrets there are that might become relevant, and you should be able to assess this based on the information you have. Ask before disclosing in-game information that is most likely unknown to your co-player!
Question: What are your preferences on if/when/how to be off-game?
Why it is useful to ask: We have very different needs in this regard. Some players want to be in-game all through a larp, while others have a need for little breaks to decompress, laugh a bit, or rest. If larping in very close proximity with someone (for example, sharing a room) and having very different styles, this can prove problematic – especially if unaware of your different needs beforehand. If you find that you have differing needs, discuss how to deal with this.
There are of course countless more questions that can be asked, focusing on the specifics of the characters and how they relate to each other, and it is probably neither possible nor useful to try to list them all here. These questions usually tend to arise as the conversation continues, and your shared understanding deepens.
Why do pre-game calibrations?
Do you have to do pre-game calibrations? No, you don’t. Some people do not have any need or desire for it – others simply don’t have time. Usually, it works out alright. However, pre-game calibrations have many potential benefits.
Building trust: Having talked to someone, getting an idea of them as a player and person before diving into the larp and your characters, makes it easier to feel comfortable and trust them. You have an idea about the person behind the character, and have established an atmosphere of wanting to collaborate for a good experience.
Being careful: It happens from time to time that one is cast in a relationship with a person we don’t click with, or whose style of communicating, larping, or similar is incompatible with our own. Sad as it is, it happens, and it is better to notice this before the larp, than in the middle of it. You can then decide how to work around it, or if you need help dealing with it.
Less stumbling in the dark: Without calibration, the risk is greater that we spend valuable larp time not quite feeling like we’re getting our money’s worth. We might spend time doing small-talk, not quite knowing where the scene is going, or be brought out of immersion because we are confused about important parts of the characters’ shared story. Good calibration means that we are more likely to know how to engage with the relationship from the beginning, and what to focus on for an enjoyable and impactful experience.
Get to know your own character: Talking about the relationship isn’t only about the relationship. It also gives you plenty of opportunity to think about your own character – how they think and feel, how they behave in various situations, and so on. Getting to know and understand your character makes it more likely that you will feel connected to it during the larp.
A final word on responsibility (and feminism)
Many women larpers of my acquaintance mention that they are usually the ones who initiate calibrations with male co-players, and that they are the ones that take responsibility for asking questions and directing the conversation. This is an experience I definitely share. Although there are of course many great and responsible male larpers, the trend is there. I would like to encourage men to take on more of the responsibility, to take initiative and to be the ones asking questions. With the toolbox provided in this text, perhaps it might be slightly easier.
Cover photo: Players at Fairweather Manor: The Titanic Prelude (2024). Photo by Nadina Dobrowolska.
At Knudepunkt in 2019 I attended a panel discussion, You Look Like I Want To Play With You, hosted by Karijn van der Heij, where participants shared their experiences of co-players refusing to play on pre-written relations. According to the participants, the excuse often used by said co-players was them feeling “a lack of chemistry”. Disregarding the problematic nature of such a judgement, the argument inherently states that chemistry is something which either exists or doesn’t between people, even though we have multiple examples of the opposite being true. Just take something as common and widely discussed as relational bleed: You might never have met the person playing your best friend or one true love before, but after a larp weekend of holding hands and/or gazing into each other’s eyes, they seem awfully nice. Or look to Hollywood and the number of romantic leads ending up in real-life relationships after having starred in a movie together, no matter their relationship status going into it.
All in all, chemistry is not something that either exists or doesn’t, it is something that can be built between people, doing certain things together. Which also means it can be workshopped.
While it took a few years, some research and testing, I created a workshop method aimed to do exactly that: Building player chemistry.
The goals for the method are:
Building trust and a feeling of safety between participants.
Having participants tune in on each other, becoming aware of their workshop partner.
Having participants model behavior that creates closeness, attention, and appreciation between them.
The method is based on 6 steps, continuously adding degrees of interaction ranging from being distant to touching and from non-verbal to verbal. It can either be run as a workshop by organizers before a larp, to help support players with intimate relations, or used by players portraying intimate relations before the start of the larp (or during the larp if your relation play just doesn’t work out). In this context, intimate relations refer to relations where love, romance, or simply physical and emotional closeness is one of the primary forces. This includes romantic partners, lovers, close friends, and family members, as well as abusive relationships based on the perception of love or closeness.
The method is based on, and inspired by, elements from:
Studies of the effects of eye gazing and related exercises
The Meisner and Lucid Body drama schools/techniques
Ars Rego (created by Maria and Jeppe Bergman Hamming for Spellbound, 2018)
Ars Amandi (created by Eliot Wieslander for Mellan Himmel och hav, 2003)
Disclaimer: The workshop includes both extended eye contact and touch, which the participants must be comfortable with.
Running the workshop:
Total runtime of the workshop is approximately 40 minutes, not including exercise instructions. Start by dividing the participants into pairs. Instruct them on all steps of the workshop, prior to starting the exercises, so that the workshop can be run as one continuous flow, facilitated only verbally by the organizer.
Step 1:Eye contact
Time: Approx. 5 minutes
This step consists of four rounds. Participants sit in front of each other with some distance between them (1-1.5 meters), eyes closed. On cue, they look into each other’s eyes, for a set amount of time, then close their eyes again and rest for a moment. Every round has an extended duration of eye contact:
1: 5 seconds
2: 10 seconds
3: 30 seconds
4: 2.5 minutes
Remember to give the participants breaks with their eyes closed, between the rounds, as this kind of prolonged eye contact can feel overwhelming at first.
Step 2: Coordinated breathing
Time: Approx. 5 minutes
Participants stay seated and keep eye contact throughout this step. This step combines coordinated breathing and movement. One participant starts, stretches their arms out in front of them and draws in breath, simultaneously moving their arms towards their body (as if drawing in their breath with their arms), and then exhales while moving their arms back towards stretched (as if pushing out the air with their arms). The other participant continues this movement, drawing in their breath, while moving their arms towards their body, followed by exhaling, while stretching their arms out – returning the breath and movement to the first participant, who then continues.
This will create a circular movement and breath, from one participant to the other and back.
Let the pairs find a rhythm, without verbally communicating it.
Throughout this exercise, create variation by asking the pairs to slow their coordinated breathing/movement down together, let them then go back to normal, ask them to speed it up, and end this exercise by letting them go back to normal again.
Step 3: Ars Rego Movement
Time: Approx. 15 minutes
This exercise is based on the method Ars Rego by Maria and Jeppe Bergman Hamming.
Short description of the mechanic: Ars Rego is a Nordic larp mechanic created for simulating magical physical control. With this mechanic a “leader” controls one or more “followers” by using hand signals. A connection between leader and follower is created by participants establishing eye contact and raising their hand(s). The follower must now follow the leader’s hand at a distance and be led around the room, while keeping their hand up and the connection intact. They are to mirror the leader’s hand movements (e.g. The leader “pushing” them down, “lifting” them up, making them move to the side, spin, etc. by using hand gestures). The leader is always responsible for the follower’s safety and comfort, while moving them around the room.
Note: This exercise does not use touch at any point, and doesn’t include the hand movement to signal to your partner to get closer, as demonstrated in the link above.
The pairs split up (momentarily) and all participants start moving around the room, walking amongst each other. Let the participants get comfortable moving around on their own, before asking them to start noticing their partner: Where they are in the room, how they are moving, their expression, etc.
Ask participants to make eye contact with their partner and at their own pace establish the touch-free “connection” with their hand. The pairs should continue to keep some distance between themselves, moving around between other participants in the room.
The participants are allowed to break off the contact and reestablish it, getting used to the “connection”, before they are encouraged to “lock in” and slowly get closer to each other, without ever touching. Let the participants play around with the connection for a while, trying out changing hands, using both hands, moving their partner around, both from side to side, down towards the floor and up again.
Important note: The participants are responsible for their partner. It is their responsibility to make sure their partner doesn’t bump into furniture, walls, or other people. Make that responsibility very clear to the participants – It is necessary to keep eye contact during the exercise, but at the same time be aware of the other’s surroundings.
Throughout the exercise, create some variation in the participants’ movements. Ask one person in the pair (e.g.: the person who started the breathing exercise) to take control of the other, then change the roles. It is also possible to add elements from your larp design, like asking participants to move as their character and interact with each other based on their ingame relation. Consider how this could potentially affect the building of chemistry – If the relation is not inherently positive, this could interfere with the result of the workshop itself.
For the final approx. 5 minutes of the exercise, ask the pairs to get close to each other, if they haven’t already. Invite them to move together as if dancing in a ballroom setting (or if something else fits your larp better).
As the final step, ask participants to use both hands in their movement together, so that the transition to the next exercise happens fluently.
Step 4: Shared Moment
Time: Approx. 3 minutes
Ask the participants to stop in their movement, still with their hands held up “connected” to each other. The participants then move closer together, so close they can feel the heat from their partner’s hands, without touching. Ask them to close their eyes, take a deep breath and focus on the feeling they have in that moment. Ask them to visualize something, it could be an image, a thought or emotion, and keep their focus on what they are visualizing. Give them a few moments to get grounded, then ask them to open their eyes and at the same moment let their hands touch.
The pairs now get a minute to share what they thought of and visualized.
Step 5: Touch
Time: Approx. 7 minutes
This exercise is based on the method Ars Amandi by Eliot Wieslander.
Short description of the mechanic: Ars Amandi is a Nordic larp mechanic used for simulating romance or sex in larp. The mechanic uses touch of permitted zones (often hands, arms, and shoulders) between two or multiple participants. The touch is often in the form of stroking, massaging, grabbing, or exploring with one’s fingers/hands.
The pairs sit down in front of each other again, this time knee to knee. They establish eye contact and slowly start touching both of each other’s hands. The area of touch slowly increases, as the participants have time to get comfortable, by first moving the touch up to the lower part of the arms, stopping at the elbows, then the upper part of the arms, stopping at the shoulders. The participants should be allowed to tap out, if increasing the area of touch is not wanted, thereby keeping the touch to the previous level (e.g.: hands or lower arms).
The participants can play around with this touch, either by expressing the kind of relation their characters have, or by the organizer creating variation in the types of touch (e.g.: asking participants to change their touch to portray siblings, parent-child, lovers, etc.)
Again, be aware how portraying ingame relations can potentially affect the building of chemistry if the relation is not inherently positive.
Step 6: Appreciation
Time: Approx. 5 minutes
Continuing the touch exercise from step 5, the participants simultaneously start verbal appreciation of each other. They take turns commenting on facts they appreciate about the other, using the following sentence form: “I like… XXX” (e.g.: “I like your curly hair”). The receiving participant continues with: “You like… XXX” (e.g.: “You like my curly hair”) and adds their own comment (e.g.: “I like your blue shirt”), returning the appreciation and continuing the exercise.
Important note: No derogatory or hurtful comments are allowed. Clearly instruct participants to only state objective and neutral facts about each other (e.g.: colors of eyes, hair, etc.), chosen aspects of their appearance (e.g.: choice of clothes, jewelry, tattoos, etc.), or experienced behavior during the exercises (e.g.: their movement, smile, eye contact).
Wrapping up
The workshop can either end with step 6 or with a repeat of a moment of silent eye contact.
Either way, it is encouraged to give participants a few minutes after the workshop to talk with their partner about the experience and how they are feeling.
Final notes on the workshop design
As mentioned, the workshop can be run either by organizers or used by players themselves. Especially in the case of organizers running the workshop, it is important to consider the impact it can have on the participating players. As the workshop aims at modelling participants’ behavior to create closeness and build player chemistry, the risk of relational bleed can increase. It is the responsibility of the organizers to consider the ethics of using this or similar methods, as well as making sure the participating players are consenting.
The workshop was first run and tested in its entirety at Knutpunkt 2022 in Linköping, Sweden. Thank you to everyone who participated and gave their feedback, as well as everyone who checked the workshop description for read- and run-ability.
From the Heliconian Muses let us begin to sing, who hold the great and holy mount of Helicon, and dance on soft feet about the deep-blue spring and the altar of the almighty son of Cronos… — Hesiod’s Theogony
Helicon is a larp by Katrine Wind and Maria Pettersson. The first run was held January 5-7, 2024 in Broholm Castle, Denmark, with a second run scheduled for February 16-18. The larp focuses upon a group of artists, leaders, and scientists in the early twentieth century with various specialties who have discovered and enacted an occult ritual in their university years together. This ritual enables them to call forth the Muses of Greek antiquity, children of Zeus and Mnemosyne, goddess of Memory. The artists ensnare the Muses into servitude such that the Muses are spiritually bound into conferring their Inspiration to the artist who summoned them (their “Inspired”) and are not allowed to Inspire others without a direct order. They are also no longer free to leave the vicinity in which their Inspired has ordered them to stay; through the course of the larp, this vicinity was Helicon Manor, a far cry from the Mount Helicon of antiquity where they normally go for replenishment. Helicon deals explicitly with themes of artistic inspiration, addiction, emotional turmoil, power, restrictions on freedom, and dysfunctional relationship dynamics.
If you are planning to play a future run, please be mindful that this article will share spoilers about the details of the design and the ending.
Thalia, the Muse of Comedy. Photo by Bjørn-Morten Gundersen.
Urania, the Muse of Philosophy. Photo by Bjørn-Morten Gundersen.
Physical and Spiritual Subjugation
And, when they have washed their tender bodies in Permessus or in the Horse’s Spring or Olmeius, make their fair, lovely dances upon highest Helicon and move with vigorous feet…
— Hesiod’s Theogony
In Helicon, each Muse has a specific theme that infuses their Inspiration and guides play: Comedy, Dance, Epic poetry, History, Love poetry, Music, Painting, Philosophy, Politics, Psychology, Sculpture, Song, Spiritual inspiration, and Tragedy. While the power dynamics within the dyads (and in one case, triad) are complex, the Muses are essentially enslaved to their Inspired. They can be drained dry of Inspiration, which the Inspired can use to fuel great deeds or waste as they wish. They can be separated from their siblings: the only beings who can truly understand their divine nature and the millennia of memories they share. They can be physically, emotionally, and spiritually abused by their captors. Even in the kindest of pairings, they must endure the renewal ritual of binding every year, witnessing all of their siblings undergo the process of losing their free will once more. Muses are required to wear only white and gold, with their clothing chosen by their Inspired.
Omorfia and Philip Frost, Muse and Inspired of Painting. Photo by Bjørn-Morten Gundersen.
The Muses can also exert influence over their human captors. When their captors experience their Inspiration, whether given consensually or forcibly taken by the Inspired, the experience is akin to being high on drugs and vulnerable to the Muse emotionally such that promises can be extracted. However, whether or not the Inspired chooses to honor those promises depends entirely on their own integrity: not a common trait written within these characters. While the Inspired have different attitudes toward the binding ritual and its problematic ethics, they still willingly or grudgingly participate in subjugating the Muses each year for their own gain.
This subjugation is particularly painful within the context of the epic setting. Because the Muses are forced to give Inspiration only to one (or two) humans, the rest of the world is starving and wasting away. For millennia, the Muses were deities that evoked worship and vulnerable surrender in order to receive their blessings. They could freely give Inspiration and leave at will as befits their nature; now, they were forced into servitude. At the center of this dynamic is the frailty of the human ego: how even the “best” in the world still struggle with needing to feel recognized and important, and how such insecurities lead people to cause brutal harm to others in order to extract their vital energy and love.
The larp is a mixture of the mundane and the extraordinary, with the interactions taking on a significance not only within these interpersonal dynamics, but upon the world stage and even within the realm of gods. For this reason, I classify the experience as epic play, not only because of the context of Greek epic poetry from which it emerges, but also due to the heightened significance of these actions and the strong emphasis on great artistic production arising out of pain. To subjugate a person in order to extract their vital energy is tragic; to subjugate the Muse of Tragedy is tragic on an epic level.
Melpomene (standing), Taylor Montgomery (left), and Thomas Montgomery (right), Muse and Inspired of Tragedy. Photo by Bjørn-Morten Gundersen.
The white and gold attire worn by the Muses gave them an ethereal, otherworldly quality that contrasted sharply with the Vintage Era clothing of the artists. The website describes the Vintage Era as encompassing “any time from the late 19th century to the middle of the 20th century” (Wind and Pettersson 2023). In contrast to this vaguely modern era, diegetically, the Muses have existed for millennia. Despite this eternal quality, however, the Muses tend to “live in the present.” This meant in practice that we may have fragments of memories from bygone eras of having inspiring historical or legendary mythic figures at will, but such memories would be less important than the present moment experience. For me, this awareness led to a strange contrast between being trapped in a mundane human experience of time and its day-to-day concerns, while also mentally leaping to other times and places, adding to the eerie and unnatural nature of the Muses’ servitude. Such elements added a sense of epicness to play.
The concept of epic play is not intended to reduce the importance of larps focusing on oppression, intimacy, and other dynamics occurring amongst “mere” humans, but rather to describe an aesthetic quality about the larp that sets it apart from larps about the mundane world. To be captured as a Muse meant we could not Inspire others, such that our lack of involvement due to our enslavement was creating ripples in reality not only inside Helicon Manor, but outside of it. The Inspired could trade or even gamble away the Muses’ Inspiration, which can be seen as a mixture of their vital essence and their labor the Muses no longer had liberty to use as they wished.
This epic aesthetic quality can also be ascribed to certain storylines within fantasy larps and themes in other games that feature a supernatural component. Epicness relies upon the ensemble of players committing to underscore the epic significance of the actions performed within play. I have had epic play experiences in other settings, such as at the Vampire: the Masquerade (1991) larp Convention of Thorns (2017) as well as within chamber larps and tabletop RPGs of various genres; indeed, this epic quality is likely what draws many people again and again to Dungeons & Dragons (1974-), which is still the most popular tabletop setting in the world.
What made Helicon exemplary in this respect was the care put into the communication, design, structure, and safety surrounding the experience such that this epic quality — and the tragic predicament within which these characters were ensnared — was emphasized. This article will focus on these design and implementation practices, providing theoretical context from my perspective as a player-researcher enacting a Muse character where appropriate.
Calliope and Edmund Wright, Inspired and Muse of Epic Poetry. Photo by Bjørn-Morten Gundersen.
Lawrence Black and Erato, Inspired and Muse of Love Poetry. Photo by Bjørn-Morten Gundersen.
Circles of Trust and Betrayal
Thence they arise and go abroad by night, veiled in thick mist, and utter their song with lovely voice, praising…
— Hesiod’s Theogony
The larp designers fostered trust among the player base in a variety of ways. The website clearly communicated not only the themes of the larp, but also its structure and which sorts of experiences the players were encouraged and discouraged to enact. Players were not expected to demonstrate expertise in their respective arts or to perform during the larp, which lowered the perceived barrier to entry of performance anxiety. Despite the intimate nature of many of the relationships, the designers detailed that this larp is not intended to be an erotic larp in which public displays of sexuality are encouraged and are often a central design feature (Grasmo and Stenros 2022). While such larps can be experienced as liberating for participants (Juhana Pettersson 2021b), explicit sexuality can distract from the more subtle relationship dynamics and interactions that this larp sought to foster. Regardless of the chosen themes, expectation setting is important in creating a shared culture before signup even begins (Koljonen 2016a), provided of course that the players adhere to this established social contract.
Similarly, the website described the structure of scenes that would occur, which included a form of fateplay (Fatland 2000) of certain scenes framing each act. It described the pre-larp scene of the Muses attempting and failing at escape, only to be dragged back to Helicon Manor: in achingly strong contrast to the real Mount Helicon, where they would gather for connection and renewal as siblings before their enslavement.
Stella Wilson, Inspired of Spiritual Inspiration, led the rituals. Photo by Bjørn-Morten Gundersen.
The larp was framed with a beautifully epic theme song composed by Anni Tolvanen, which ushered us in and out of play. Tolvanen also curated a soundscape of dramatic music that echoed through the halls during the larp. The first Act began with a ritualized Punishment scene while standing in a circle, in which the Inspired enacted consequences on their Muses for their escape attempt, also forcing the Muses to punish each other. I have also utilized this technique of starting the larp by dropping characters directly into ritual space when co-designing Immerton (2017) and Epiphany (2018). I find it a particularly helpful practice to emphasize the core themes of the game, help players quickly get past the awkwardness of the first hour of the larp, and create intensely meaningful role-play moments from the beginning that can feed play later. (For further reading on these larps, see Jones 2017; Brown et al. 2018; Kim, Nuncio, and Wong 2018).
In our discussions after the larp, Wind referred to this design technique as part of a concept she calls frontloading, which she will further describe in an upcoming article. For Katrine, this term referred to the structure and pacing in terms of intensity, which puts a lot of structured and tense content earlier in the larp. This term also resonated with Maria, who described frontloading as designing extensive and complex character relations with focus on high playability in the larp itself, a common strategy in Finnish design. Wind explained:
This combination gives players something to immediately play on and react to that has specific relevance for their character and gives them “something to talk about immediately.” It also provides alibi to jump right into relations that might take a lot of time to ramp up and cause everything in the larp to culminate at the same time in the last few hours. . .
If there is one or more crescendos in the beginning of the larp itself, culminations and intensity [are] spread out over the whole playtime because you can be sure that some things will only culminate in the last hours of the larp anyway.
In the next group scene, we were then instructed to go to the dining hall. The multi-course dinners and lunches were catered and high quality. What made these dining scenes particularly epic were the statues and bas reliefs decorating the room that portrayed scenes from Greek mythology. The metatechnique that guided play in these scenes was dinner warfare, also featured in Wind’s larp Daemon (2021-). Unlike the intensely visible brutality in the Punishment ritual, we sat in circles masterminded by assigned seating to maximize drama. We pretended to be members of polite society while delivering passive aggressive verbal barbs, whether about art, the Muses’ confinement, class, or any number of other dynamics. (Gender, sexuality, and race/ethnic discrimination was explicitly forbidden in the larp, but class was very much embedded in the character design). This juxtaposition of high boiling intensity in the beginning directly to a low simmer punctuated the themes of the larp quite sharply: the epic alongside the banal, the fragility of human egos, the need to control in order to feel important, the subtle bids for freedom within enforced servitude, etc. According to the designers, traditions such as arranged seating were diegetically upheld as necessary, both due to affiliation to the Inspired’s prestigious university and the necessity to keep the ritual intact. Wind told me,
Alibi for the seats being like this was provided by the diegetic fact that the Inspired needed the repetition to make sure they could renew the Binding year after year, so they didn’t dare change the seating. It was simply, and naturally, a tradition. This meant that divorced couples and former friends were awkwardly seated close to each other for hours.
Danielle Lafontaine, Inspired of Dance, and Christian Schönburg, Inspired of Comedy, engaged in dinner warfare. Photo by Bjørn-Morten Gundersen.
The first Act ended for Muses with a touching final circle: a purification ritual. Diegetically, the Muses would return to Mount Helicon every 15 years to reconnect through this ritual; since we were not permitted to return to Mount Helicon or see one another at will for the last 15 years, we made do in the Manor with these stolen moments. We huddled for warmth in the dark attic, gently comforting one another through touch as we did throughout the larp. We each took water from a bowl and cleansing the Muse next to us, which felt like a ritual blessing. Then, we each shared a Secret — some revealed shameful feelings or actions, such as taking someone else’s Inspired as a lover or alerting one’s Inspired of the escape plans. While we all witnessed these admissions, the purification ritual added an element of forgiveness to the circle. At least for my character, the understanding that we were taking action under complicated situations of duress made it easy to let such admissions go, although others did hold resentments.
The Inspired awaiting the arrival of the Muses in the first Binding, the beginning of Act 2. Photo by Bjørn-Morten Gundersen. Image has been cropped.
The second Act began with a flashback scene in which we enacted the initial binding ritual. This ritual also occurred in a circle within the same room, imbuing the physical space with a certain repeated significance. This scene was particularly effective because we already had the experience of being subjugated by these relationships the night before. We then began play with a brief experience of freedom, worship, and a pure desire to Inspire outside of such subjugation, only to be bound and betrayed. This worship was especially desired by the Muses because of its unusualness in the modern world, where few still prayed to the old gods; thus the pain of betrayal was manifold.
At the end of Act 2, the characters engaged in another important informal ritual called the Party, which was also upheld every year due to tradition. In the Party, the artists drained their Muses of all Inspiration in a moment of selfish gluttonous intoxication, doing absolutely nothing of worth with these gifts. The Muses were expected to participate in the Party as celebrants as well, which we interpreted in various ways. This sort of peer pressure to maintain appearances was present in all of the rituals, with Inspired and Muse characters alike having various degrees of internal and external conflict around these traditions.
Henry Wilson and Clio, Inspired and Muse of History. Photo by Bjørn-Morten Gundersen.
Close to the end of Act 3 was the yearly renewal of the binding ritual, with a twist: the ritual was disrupted afterward by a scroll that contained a sort of counter spell, in which the Muses were offered the opportunity to make a “Choice.” The Muses could choose to stay with their captors in servitude, or leave, which would entail them to become mortal, losing their supernatural abilities, and eventually dying. The design allowed for us to spend quite a bit of in-game time focused on this Choice and its ramifications. The power dynamics were suddenly flipped: the Muses could now decide to freely go (albeit with twisted ramifications and not at all prepared for human life), or stay within the dysfunctional dynamic of enslavement, lending to the air of tragedy.
I was cast as Clio, the Muse of History, who had a comparatively consensual dynamic with her Inspired, historian Henry Wilson, in part due to intense Stockholm Syndrome. Though Clio’s entrapment was relatively kind, she was appalled at the indignities forced upon her siblings. During the Choice, Henry wanted Clio to stay to help him uncover lost cities like Troy, which had earned him great fame with her Inspiration as an impetus. However, he had chosen to marry another human Inspired, which reinforced to Clio this sense of indignity.
The other dyads and triad had similarly complex interpersonal dynamics, which led to the Choice being difficult to make; certain characters, who experienced some of the worst oppression in the larp chose to remain enslaved. This choice mirrors human dysfunctional relationships, but was intensified by the epic quality of the larp; the Choice had far-reaching ramifications, not only to the characters present, but the world at large. In Henry and Clio’s case, they chose a third option, presented to them by Erato, the Muse of Love Poetry, and her Inspired: the artists would publicly release us from our binding, assert our independence to leave at will, and permit us to Inspire others. The questions then became: Would Clio return of her own free will to Inspire Henry, even though he was now engaged to a mortal woman? Could Henry retract this declaration at will, leaving her to be bound again? Thus, even this “easier” third option was still riddled with emotional complexity.
The Choice. Photo by Bjørn-Morten Gundersen.
Circles of Safety and Calibration
Come thou, let us begin with the Muses who gladden the great spirit of their father Zeus in Olympus with their songs, telling of things that are and that shall be and that were aforetime with consenting voice…
— Hesiod’s Theogony
The larp featured a pre-game call a month before the larp and extensive workshopping before the game in which we were briefed on aspects of the world and practiced specific play techniques. Most of us signed up in pairs (or triads), meaning that we likely already had developed a certain degree of trust with our main co-player(s) in the Inspired/Muse dynamic. We were instructed that we must calibrate with these co-players at least before the game, and ideally also the other relations mentioned in our character sheets. We were also instructed to check-in with our dyad or triad players after the larp. These instructions emphasized the need for emotional care for co-players, acknowledging the intensity of the experience and making it part of the shared culture of the game to tend to one another. On the other hand, we were also reminded that we are responsible for our own experience, meaning we should communicate if needs arrive and do what is necessary to care for ourselves.
Calliope, Muse of Epic Poetry, and Thalia, Muse of Comedy. Photo by Bjørn-Morten Gundersen.
Pre-game workshops are often quite awkward experiences, especially whenpreparing to play larps of this nature. Players often feel a certain degree of social anxiety about their own role-playing abilities and their skills at interpersonal interaction (Algayres 2019). They may feel worried about costuming, physical touch, their own attractiveness, or any other number of insecurities and uncertainties. To establish trust early on, we were instructed to sit closely with our dyad or triad and touch in some way during the briefing, such as a casual touch on the arm, cuddling, holding hands, etc. Physical touch can release oxytocin (Zak 2011) and provide an experience of trust between players, although it can also backfire for participants who feel hypervigilant or triggered when touched. The website communicated that players needed to be willing to experience casual touch: “A good baseline of what you should be okay with could be a stranger touching your arm, shouting at you, holding your hand or kissing you on the cheek” (Helicon website, n.d). We also workshopped eye gazing between Muses and Inspired, which deepened the connection and helped relieve a bit of the awkwardness. Eye gazing is a simple, yet quick and effective technique for people to see others beyond the masks each of us wear in social life, as well as to feel truly seen in a short amount of time.
We also had times within the workshop to calibrate with many of our written relationships, which from my perspective provided a solid groundwork of a “home base” between player-characters within play. In my view, creating time for such calibration is critical to the success of such larps. Many players do not have the time or inclination to reach out before the larp and find it difficult to remember names, faces, and the specifics of written dynamics during play. Creating contact before the game and encouraging players to discuss what each person wants (and doesn’t want) from the dynamic is very helpful.
Danielle Lafontaine after draining Terpsichore at the Party (Inspired and Muse of Dancing). Photo by Bjørn-Morten Gundersen.
We also workshopped a scene involving the drawing of Inspiration. The metatechnique involved a white and gold sash with the Muse’s name written upon it, which we would use in some way to signify giving Inspiration. The sash could be used in many ways ranging from gentle and consensual to violent and non-consensual. We were instructed to hand over one of our three precious Inspiration ribbons placed on our name tags and transfer them to the Inspired’s name tag. The ribbons were a non-diegetic way to communicate how full or empty of Inspiration each character was, as well as who had drawn Inspiration from whom, as each Muse had different colored ribbons. We could decide to act upon this extra-diegetic information as a form of steering (Montola, Stenros, and Saitta 2015). The designers explained that they did not want Inspiration to turn into a statistic like in other role-playing games, but it still influenced play for some of the larpers.
Another workshop emphasized playing to lift (Vejdemo 2018), meaning we took turns boosting the importance of the other characters in terms of their personality or accomplishments using “Yes, And” to build upon what others were improvising. For example, a character could say, “My recent art work has received quite a lot of positive reviews…” which we would then reinforce with added comments. Since the larp also dealt with the fragility of artists’ egos, we also practiced playing each other down, which would be initiated by the person wanting that sort of play, for example, “Lately, I’ve really been struggling to get critics to care about my work…” The co-players would then “Yes, And” to make the character feel even worse about their artistic block or lack of public recognition. This metatechnique was particularly interesting as it provided an impetus for drawing Inspiration and seeking validation from others through dysfunctional means.
We were instructed to use “off-game” in order to quickly calibrate and negotiate consent during play or leave the space for more extensive discussion. We went off-game between acts and the default for sleeping quarters was off-game as well. Right before the larp began, we workshopped violence, including tapping out when we wanted a certain interaction to slow down or stop, as well as escalating slowly through bullet-time consent (Koljonen 2016b) to give other players a chance to opt-in or out. This practice ended up important for the first Punishment scene that we were soon to play.
Omorfia and Philip Frost, Muse and Inspired of Painting in the first Binding. Photo by Bjørn-Morten Gundersen.
Maximillian Stern worshipping Euterpe at the first Binding. Photo by Bjørn-Morten Gundersen.
Christian Schönburg binding Thalia, the Muse of Comedy. Photo by Bjørn-Morten Gundersen.
Calibration was also emphasized in the workshops between acts in effective ways. We were given time for one-on-one discussions, but we also circled up with each player sharing a short sentence of what they would like to experience within this Act. Then, other players could raise their hand and volunteer to deliver that sort of play, which added an element of accountability to one another. Following Juhana Pettersson’s (2021a) assertion that players are engines of desire, being able to openly express one’s wishes in a group without shame is a powerful experience. For example, I tend to prefer subtle scenes and was drawn to the larp due to the emphasis on discussions of art and the creative process; through this process, I was able to ask others to approach me with those kinds of discussions if desired. It was remarkable to me the way a briefly stated request could redirect the flow of play for individual players, and thus the ensemble: a form of group steering.
Epic Dyadic Play as a Genre
Unwearying flows the sweet sound from their lips, and the house of their father Zeus the loud-thunderer is glad at the lily-like voice of the goddesses as it spreads abroad, and the peaks of snowy Olympus resound, and the homes of the immortals…
— Hesiod’s Theogony
At times in Helicon, I felt like I was experiencing something quite new, but I could not put my finger on why. Oppression dynamics and dysfunctional relationships are hardly new themes; indeed they are the bread and butter of many Nordic or Nordic-inspired larps. Epic storylines and supernatural abilities are hardly new either, as RPGs as a medium have featured those elements from their inception.
Euterpe and Maximillian Stern, Muse and Inspired of Music, attempting to compose. Photo by Bjørn-Morten Gundersen.
At one point, I looked around the room during dinner warfare, surveying the artists with their Muses, thinking, “Oh! We are in a really good Toreador larp” — the Toreador being the artistic clan in Vampire: the Masquerade. In Vampire, the undead take “retainers” who are bloodbound to them, meaning supernaturally addicted to their blood and compelled to obey. Retainers bound by Toreador are often highly talented in their own right, ensnared by the vampire’s wish to keep their retainer’s talents for themselves — an especially potent theme considering many vampires lose the potency of their own talents when turned to the undead. This larp was different in many ways, of course, especially considering the retainers were mystical eternal beings. The emphasis on artistic creation as an important theme of the larp led to a depth of discussion that I often craved as a long-time Toreador player, enhanced by the setting of the beautiful castle and its art.
The initial binding ritual was initiated by Henry Wilson, Inspired of History, and Stella Wilson, Inspired of Spiritual Inspiration. Photo by Bjørn-Morten Gundersen.
At another point, I saw characters huddled in corners trying to solve various plots related to the occult rituals: the Inspired were trying to figure out ways to stop the Muses from being able to flee, whereas the Muses were trying to figure out a way for the Escape ritual to work. I thought to myself, “Oh, we’re in a Call of Cthulhu larp and those are the occult researcher characters.” As with Cthulhu (1981), Helicon’s setting is clearly playing to lose on some level; whether freedom is attained or the Muses continue to be bound, loss is embedded. But the sense of supernatural horror that pervades Cthulhu was not the emphasis here; instead, we focused on the interpersonal dramas inherent to these characters being locked in this non-consensual pact. Indeed, the occult components felt like an aberration, while the “natural” state would be to let the Muses free to choose who to Inspire. The occult components did not seem to be a goal to attain or a puzzle to solve. Rather, they were elements calling to mind the Spiritualism of the early twentieth century, as well as storytelling devices providing alibi to engage in intense rituals, which tend to amplify play. From my perspective, these spells were more of a conceit than a quest, although I steered away from play involving them so cannot speak for other players.
The final Binding ritual. Photo by Bjørn-Morten Gundersen.
I keep returning to this emphasis on dyadic (or triadic) play, which is also not new. The Nordic larp Delirium (2010), about oppression within a mental institution, relied on players signing up as couples and used dyadic play to explore themes of love and failed attempts at resistance (Pedersen 2010; Andreasen 2011). Personally, I have had particularly strong experiences playing Here is My Power Button (2017), an American freeform about users purchasing an android from a company as part of a scientific experiment. What made Power Button potent was a toggling back and forth between one-on-one user/android scenes in the same room and group scenes, in which all users would interact in one room and all androids in the other. Helicon had a similar structure: we had large group scenes that were also one-on-one scenes, giving a sense of collective experience along with intimacy. We also had activities such as the Muse ritual in which we were all together and able to share about our paired experience.
Phren, Muse of Psychology, and Athanasia, Muse of Sculpture. Photo by Bjørn-Morten Gundersen.
This epic dyadic structure is also present in Linda Udby and Bjarke Pedersen’s PAN (2013-) and BAPHOMET (2015-), which feature occult storylines and supernatural content in the form of possession from godlike entities (Pedersen and Udby 2017; Nordic Larp Wiki 2019). Another dyadic larp is Wind’s Daemon (2021-), which is based upon Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials (1995-2000) series. In Daemon, characters have animal entities attached to them that represent their souls enacted by other players. I have not yet played Daemon, but have read many play accounts that have emphasized the powerful nature of this dyadic setup. In practice, the structure at Daemon meant that characters are instructed to stay physically close to one another at all times (Wind 2021): not exactly the same as our experience in Helicon, but was a clear inspiration.
Melpomene and Taylor Montgomery, Muse and Inspired of Tragedy. Photo by Bjørn-Morten Gundersen.
In reflecting upon the larp, I am now considering the combination of epic play and a dyadic (or triadic) structure as a particularly potent combination: perhaps an emerging genre of play as more and more larps are produced in this format. Helicon required a strong degree of trust between players in dyads (and triads), as well as a degree of commitment: we were expected to continue to role-play and check-in with our co-players and not abandon them, even if we wanted to steer the story into a new direction. Most characters had several other interesting and playable character relations, which helped interweave the larp into more of an ensemble (Tolvanen and MacDonald 2020), rather than incentivizing isolated play between groups of 2-3. While players may have differing experiences of the larp, my perception is that this dyadic epic play combined with emphasis on the ensemble led to a special magic of interconnectedness not always present at larps.
I finally settled on, “Oh, we’re in a Neil Gaiman larp,” at least thematically; we were epically-infused characters with all-to-human quirks engaged in interpersonally meaningful play tinged with sadness about humanity’s flaws. Gaiman’s (2018) words describe his work well:
A world in which there are monsters, and ghosts, and things that want to steal your heart is a world in which there are angels, and dreams and a world in which there is hope.
However, from discussions of the designers, “Calliope” was not a primary inspiration, so to speak, and the character relations were meant to be far more nuanced, which I definitely experienced. I look forward to seeing what larps are spawned as this type of design and experimentation continues to evolve.
Polyhymnia, Muse of Spiritual Inspiration, and Helica, Muse of Architecture (Wind). Photo by Bjørn-Morten Gundersen.
Acknowledgements
My deepest gratitude to Katrine Wind, Maria Pettersson, Elina Gouliou, Mo Holkar, and Mike Pohjola for giving feedback on this article.
Helicon
Designers: Katrine Wind and Maria Pettersson, Narrators, Inc.
Participation Fee: €630
Players: 29
First Run: January 5-7, 2024
Second Run: February 16-18, 2024 (upcoming)
Location: Broholm Castle, Gudme, Denmark
Music: Anni Tolvanen
Photography: Bjørn-Morten Vang Gundersen
Safety: Anna Werge Bønnelycke (Jan. 5-7) and Klara Rotvig (Feb. 16-18)
Website: Katrine Kavli
Graphics: Maria Manner
Sparring and Ideas: Emil Greve, Elina Gouliou, and Markus Montola
Brown, Maury, Sarah Lynne Bowman, Quinn D, Kat Jones and Orli Nativ. 2018. “Immerton: A Society of Women.” In Shuffling the Deck: The Knutpunkt 2018 Color Printed Companion, edited by Annika Waern and Johannes Axner, 41-52. ETC Press.
Davis, G., et al., 1991. Vampire: the Masquerade. Stone Mountain, GA: White Wolf.
Montola, Markus, Jaakko Stenros, and Eleanor Saitta. 2015. “The Art of Steering: Bringing the Player and the Character Back Together.” Nordiclarp.org, March 29.
Nordic Larp Wiki. 2019. “Playing to Lose.” Nordic Larp Wiki, September 3.
Nordic Larp Wiki. 2019. “Pan.” Nordic Larp Wiki, April 2.
Pedersen, Bjarke. 2010. “Delirium: Insanity and Love Bleeding from Larp to Life.” In Nordic Larp, edited by Jaakko Stenros and Markus Montola, 288-297.
Pettersson, Juhana. 2021b. “Terror and Warmth.” In Book of Magic: Vibrant Fragments of Larp Practices, edited by Kari Kvittingen Djukastein, Marcus Irgens, Nadja Lipsyc, and Lars Kristian Løveng Sunde Oslo, Norway: Knutepunkt.
Pullman, Philip. 2000. His Dark Materials Complete Trilogy. Ted Smart.
Tolvanen, Anni, and James Lórien MacDonald. 2020. “Ensemble Play.” In What Do We Do When We Play?, edited by edited by Eleanor Saitta, Johanna Koljonen, Jukka Särkijärvi, Anne Serup Grove, Pauliina Männistö, and Mia Makkonen. Helsinki: Solmukohta.
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 is first in a series on Larping Intimacy and Relationships.
From October 28-29, 2023, I participated in Listen 2 Your Heart Season 8 (L2YH), an online larp (or LAOG, Reininghaus 2019) based on the Netflix show Love is Blind (2020-). The game was organized by JD Lade and took place on Discord between Saturday evening and Sunday evening, with enforced off-game sleep hours. We played 8 characters, plus the robot-voiced “Production” who gave us instructions at each stage of the larp.
The following article describes the reality show genre within which this adaptation was placed, addressing its fascinating but also problematic nature, as well as its similarities and differences with larp. I then discuss the potency of playing romantic relationships as vulnerable and potentially transformative experiences, as well as the pitfalls that can arise. I briefly discuss Oliver Nøglebæk’s (2016, 2023) “4 Cs of Larping Love”: context, consent, communication, and chemistry. Finally, I explore how a larp’s design can impact player experiences of romance, situating Listen to Your Heart’s game design and my play experience as a case study. I discuss the surprise twist of this particular run and consider it with regard to safety and consent.
Is Love Really Blind?
As a binge-watcher of many shows related to intimacy, relationships and marriage, Love is Blind is one of my favorite concepts. Single people are invited to take part in an experiment to see if love truly is blind. An equal number of cis-het men and women who all ostensibly are ready to get married are grouped in living quarters according to gender. Then, they take turns dating each person from the other group with a twist: they cannot see each other and can only communicate through a thin partition between them. They spend hours on end in these rooms called “pods” and they can choose to share or not share aspects of their physicality to the person on the other end. However, most avoid such talk, as the premise of the show is to date people without judging them immediately based on looks alone. Of course, some of the cast are there to get on TV and get famous, but some earnestly want to find a life partner through the show.
If one of the cast proposes to another — always heterosexual pairings, with usually the cis man proposing in the traditional fashion — and the woman accepts, they prepare for The Reveal. The two are placed on opposite sides of a room with the partitions slowly rising. The anticipation is intense — will they be attracted to this person who they only knew by voice, and vice versa? After they propose, they rush to the center of the room, where they embrace, and if he still wants to propose, the man drops to a knee and asks again.
They are then thrown into a honeymoon with the other newly engaged couples, which can be intensely romantic or disastrous depending on the couple’s compatibility and each partner’s ability to handle insecurities or shallow habits, such as focusing overmuch on physical traits that are not their usual “type.” If they make it past the honeymoon, they have three weeks to live together back in the “real world,” then have a wedding with their friends and family watching. At the altar, they find out if the other person will actually marry them, which makes for high-stakes and intense television. A year later, they come back to the show for the reunion, sharing how life has unfolded for them since they made this big decision.
Emotional Extreme Sports and Consent
I have seen many seasons of the show, as well as its spiritual predecessor, Married at First Sight (2014-), which is made by the same production company. In Married at First Sight, the cast members are matchmade by experts (a sexologist, a pastor, and a sociologist) and are subject to extensive questionnaires and interviews before, during, and after meeting their spouse at the altar. The experiment in this show is to see if love can grow over time. At times, these experts intervene in times of conflict, which is viewed as inevitable, and guide the couples through marriage counseling. The experiment is predicated on research developed at the Gottman Institute (2023), where psychologists have studied the formula for long-lasting relationships. The show emphasizes how love can grow through moments of intimacy and connection, even if attraction is not present, as attraction can fade, while intimacy needs tending over time. In this way, Married at First Sight is educational, and my view is these counselors deeply want these couples to be happy and have healthy marriages.
The Love is Blind experience has little to none of that concern. No one intervenes on camera, although occasionally the fourth wall breaks and you can see a producer or camera person trying to persuade the person to stay in the relationship. Cast members have recently revealed shocking filming conditions, including being abandoned with no food, sleep-deprived, and forced to stay on set for 20 hours straight at a time (Hogg 2022). As a larper, this makes total sense to me: of course you would deprive people of their basic needs in order to push for intense emotional reactions (Leonard and Thurman 2018) — and many larpers willingly push these limits regardless of the game’s design, and some larps consider such deprivation a feature, not a bug. Larpers who enjoy this type of intense experience or even edge play (Poremba 2007; Montola 2010) often refer to their play activities as emotional extreme sports. Furthermore, such extreme experiences, especially when paired with romantic play, often do lead to romantic feelings between players, as they experience the catalytic container of the liminal space of the larp and the altered, paradoxical state of being themselves-yet-a-character.
However, although these cast members signed a contract and receive the benefits of being on the show, such as instant fame, they clearly are not privy to the kind of consent and safety mechanics we encourage in the international larp community. That contract also states that they must stay legally married for one year and can only get divorced after the reunion is filmed, which is a surefire way to ensure psychological damage if the relationship is dysfunctional. They risk the humiliation of being turned down at the altar not only in front of their friends and family, but the world. It’s exploitative, problematic, hetero-, mono-normative, although not necessarily more so than other Hollywood products sadly.
Nonetheless, I can’t help watching and being fascinated by the human struggle to relate to one another playing out in all these different dynamics. What is remarkable about these shows is the way in which cast members open their relationships to be inspected and consumed by millions of people. Relationships are the places in which our deepest insecurities can be revealed, including any prior wounds or attachment trauma, such as a tendency to fear abandonment (anxious attachment) or engulfment (avoidant attachment) (Levine and Heller 2011). As the show airs, fans around the world watch every (edited) moment of their relationships at their ecstatic best and excruciating worst. Furthermore, the edits they receive tell a narrative that is more of what the producers want to portray, which may not accurately reflect the actual dynamics and happenings between the participants. Many have difficulties dating non semi-famous people after the show airs, instead dating other people from the show or from other reality TV shows, especially if fame was indeed their objective. However, it’s clear that being on the show changes their lives forever; one cast member recently claimed he has been turned down for jobs in his profession due to his participation on Love is Blind, although other cast members have found these claims dubious (Brathwaite 2023).
I think what fascinates me most about this show in particular is the idea of only knowing someone by voice and spending many hours with them, learning all about them, without the distraction of examining their physicality or the anxiety of them examining yours. When I think about concepts that would be appealing to larp, a Love is Blind-themed game was on the top of my list. Could “the experiment” be replicated in a serious way in larp form, or would it devolve into the familiar (and safe) realm of satire, as in The Upgrade (2004) a jeepform larp by Tobias Wrigstad, Thorbiörn Fritzon, and Olle Jonsson about couples deciding whether or not to “trade up” for a different partner? Would players experience emotional bleed (Montola 2010; Bowman 2015) or relationship bleed (Harder 2018) they find triggering or exposing? Or perhaps have a breakthrough as a result of playing out a trial relationship under these circumstances? As a result of this fascination, when JD Lade posted in Larpers BFF that late spots were open to Listen 2 Your Heart Season 8, I jumped right into playing that evening.
One of the things that interests me most about romantic play is the way it can open opportunities for players to explore relationship dynamics that are unfamiliar, but might reveal parts of themselves, their desires, and their patterns that were less clear to them before. They can experience hypercolor moments of relationship intensity that they may never have felt safe, worthy, or brave enough to try to achieve before. They can play characters that are more sexually or romantically confident and experience what that feels like; alternatively, they can play deeply insecure people who employ manipulative tactics in order to gain power over one another. They can watch in horror as their character takes their own attachment trauma into dysfunctional extremes, or practice playing out a more healthy relationship dynamic. They can experience what true love is — for their characters, at least. What happens to the relationship between the players and any lingering feelings afterward, i.e. the larp crush (Harder 2018), is an often taboo, but necessary topic to openly discuss within larp circles and between players. Ultimately, such experiences can be spaces for healing, learning, personal, and interpersonal growth if handled with care (Baird, Bowman, and Hugaas 2022).
Aware of the vulnerable space that romantic play can open, I am always curious how larps will handle issues of attraction, consent negotiations, storylines, and relationship dynamics. A tendency in role-playing game design in general and romantic games specifically is to design for conflict and tension — the more explosive, the better, especially in communities like Nordic larp that emphasize playing to lose or playing for drama. I am often dubious and even bored of such dynamics — beginning play at the height of conflict means next to nothing if there was no relationship developed between the characters beforehand, no embodied sense of what being “in love” with that person might feel like. For that reason, I have often favored preparatory scenes (Holkar 2021), also called backstory play, in which the basic dynamics of the relationship, including the excitement, the tenderness, and the passion can be experienced, therefore making any drama that unfolds meaningful.
Furthermore, the idea of trying to play out functional relationship dynamics can be equally fascinating, as conflict often arises in human interaction whether we pre-plan it or not. Being asked by the larp’s design or by organizers to overperform drama in order to keep things exciting for other players has often annoyed me, as sometimes the best play in my view is in the quiet, gentle moments of subtle intimacy. I am also careful about bleed, as I am aware that angry or shaming words said in-character when in such a vulnerable state can often reach us as players, especially if the dynamics we are exploring are relatable to our own lives.
The Four C’s: Context, Consent, Communication, and Chemistry
Of particular sensitivity are matters of chemistry and attraction. According to Oliver Nøglebæk (2016; 2023), “four Cs” are important to consider when larping romance (and, arguably, when engaging in relationships in general):
Context: Considering the context of the larp as a whole, its themes, and the experiences of other players when approaching romantic play;
Consent: Making sure all players enthusiastically consent to play within stated boundaries;
Communication: Directly, openly, and regularly communicating what types of experiences each player would like to have;
Chemistry: The inexplicable spark of connection that can be instantaneous or cultivated over time.
Regarding this last point of chemistry, many larpers will understandably lean more into in-game relationships with people to whom they are emotionally, intellectually, physically, or spiritually attracted; that sort of bleed can be experienced as pleasurable and may even lead to relationships with the other player in daily life (Bowman 2013). Chemistry from this perspective need not be rooted in sexual desire. On the other hand, if one only plays for chemistry, one might end up rejecting play from others, which can emotionally impact other players, especially if they consider themselves outside the bounds of conventional attractiveness, or as Karijn van der Heij (2021) calls it, appearance-based prejudice. Rejecting such connections can also negatively impact the larp, e.g., in larps with a strongly narrativist structure like Fortune & Felicity (Harder 2017; Kemper 2017), where a specific arc is meant to be played out over time with one’s assigned co-players. However, when considering the importance of consent, we arrive at a conundrum: should we force players to engage with one another in romantic play at all if they are not enthusiastically consenting? When considering the ethics of larp, this sort of peer pressure to perform romance can be a bit murky. In such cases, trying to find mutually satisfying ways to adjust the narrative through larp hacking might be kinder for everyone involved. Larp hacking involves subverting the game’s parameters such that it is more playable or enjoyable for participants but does not “break the game” completely (Svanevik and Brind 2020).
Nøglebæk’s (2016, 2023) view on chemistry is “You can’t force it. But you can grow it, if both of you are willing to open up – it takes a little work and communication to build up mutual trust and connection.” This philosophy is quite similar to the stance taken by the Gottman Institute and, by extension, Married at First Sight and Love is Blind. Laura Wood (2022) has given a Nordic Larp Talk on the topic, advising much the same, discussing the way larpers can cultivate chemistry through “emotional bids,” as Gottman describes. It is certainly possible to foster such connection in a startlingly short amount of time in larp through workshop activities such as eye gazing; ars amandi, a technique developed by Eliot Wieslander for playing out sexuality through touching arms (Nordic Larp Wiki); or asking each other 36 Questions intended to help you fall in love (Aron et al. 1997).
Listen 2 Your Heart: Salem Edition
The run I experienced of Listen 2 Your Heart was called Season 8 diegetically and was the eighth iteration of the larp non-diegetically. The title of the larp refers to the Roxette song by the same name; the Glee (2009-2015) version of the song (2015) was played at the beginning of the larp, ostensibly as the theme song for the show. The setting was realistic in principle: all characters were given their own apartment and were communicating through chat rooms, audio, and video conferencing. This practice made it easier to immerse through the interface, which can be challenging in online larps. Furthermore, the online format took any anxieties around physical touch or intimacy off the table, which was a nice change of pace from physically embodied larp.
By this point in the larp’s evolution, certain rules were in place in order to try to avoid the pitfalls of larp romance described above, which was a pleasant surprise. I am particularly sensitive to issues of chemistry; people’s feelings can get hurt if romantic gestures are not reciprocated or they can feel violated if forced to play out relationship dynamics without the option of opting out. Such issues can lead to larp ghosting, in which players drop their pre-arranged relations to seek out more fulfilling play.
Listen 2 Your Heart dealt with this conundrum in several ways. Most importantly, it broke with the cis hetero-normative formula endemic to many of these mainstream shows. The setting document states, “All characters are some flavor of bisexual / pansexual. They may have preferences, but none of the characters are to be played as straight or homosexual with only one gender preference” (“L2YH Schedule and Rules”). This rule tries to solve issues that can emerge in larps, such as queer players being forced to play straight romances (Paisley 2015; Stenros and Sihvonen 2019; Wood and D 2021), players steering away from players that their off-game self would not normally consider “their type,” etc. However, the rules also explicitly state that this world is mono-normative and that the dilemmas inherent to dating in groups cannot be solved through polyamory or dating outside of the pods. Such solutions break the premise of the game. In addition, the setting document states that all characters want to be on television and consented to the possibility of marrying someone.
I played Melaina, a young adult Fantasy author who believed she could do magic. The last part was a tweak I added to the original pre-written character concept when I started noticing the twist (see below). The in-game experience toggled between playing in the pods in a series of dates with members of the other group (audio only), in my case, Group B, then communicating with one’s group about what unfolded (audio and video), in my case, Group A. Though the larp was fairly long for the online format at approximately 13-14 hours of play over a 28 hour period, the pacing was such that while we were asked to interact with co-players through these “pod dates” played out in a series of Discord channels with camera off, we were not interacting with any one person for more than 20-30 minutes at a time. This kept the pace going and the format allowed for players to make any choice with regard to their character’s romantic storyline, although they were not allowed to unalive themselves, as that kind of choice can negatively hijack the narrative for everyone.
Group meetings featured different stimuli in addition to talking, such as prompts for us to go to the “confessional camera,” prompts to vote on characters in specific ways, e.g., “Most Likely to Receive the ‘Hero Edit’,” “Least Favorite Date.” This input was gathered in practice in Google Forms, then the larp adjusted in some way. For example, characters could request all the confessional quotes from a particular character, or were given anonymous confessional quotes to decipher. Votes were tabulated and winners (even in “losing” categories), were sometimes invited to choose the next series of dates, including to benefit themselves and either thwart or assist others. This practice kept us always on our toes and the game flowing nicely. Consistently shifting between interactions ensured that even if the setting was mono-normative, the play was more a collective negotiation.
Many larps these days have rules against larping rejection of someone based on personal appearance for the reasons van der Heij (2021) described. L2YH had a particularly interesting approach to this rule, stating: “Don’t play negatively on someone’s OFF-GAME looks / age / etc. Everybody is hot, that’s the fun of the show, right? Somebody might not be your character’s type, but they are still objectively hot (“L2YH Schedule and Rules”). In practice, this was quite lovely after Reveal scenes, in which each of us were sent on dates where the camera suddenly came on, like the barrier lifting in Love is Blind. Cast members on Love is Blind often comment on how jarring it is to finally connect this new face with the voice they fell in love with and the physicality they imagined, which I found to be true as well, but still a pleasant surprise. In fact, these scenes were even more potent for me perhaps than the several of the other players, who seemed to play the larp together often I presume as new characters each time; I only know one of the players previously so I had an authentic experience of curiosity and surprise.
When Group A would reconvene to gossip after these Reveals, we would play to lift (Vejdemo 2018) the other players, talking about how hot they were and how confusing it made everything, which we would then also sometimes reveal to characters in Group B. This practice can potentially lead to positive experiences of bleed that might counteract feelings of insecurity present in the player.
The game encouraged players to amp up the interpersonal drama, which I sometimes struggle with being forced to do considering my preferred playstyle of keeping intensity growing at a slow boil rather than exploding for the sake of narrative drama. However, off-game calibration with other players in terms of boundaries and the direction of storylines was strongly encouraged. In practice, this worked quite well, especially when communicating with experienced larpers who are conscientious of other player’s experience.
However, from my perspective, a major issue with such calibration occurred due to in-game secrets embedded in this particular run of the larp. While most runs focus on the traditional relationship trajectory storyline, this run of L2YH had a twist due to its proximity to Halloween: all the characters in Group B were actually vampires. Furthermore, it was revealed through play that if anyone in Group A does not choose to get married, they will be hunted and killed on the vampire television network on which the show now airs. Furthermore, they would then be forced to become a vampire themselves or die, thus becoming the monster themselves, now implying an additional meaning to the word “bleed.” This plot was hinted at in our briefing, in which the facilitator alluded to spooky things being afoot due to the game running close to Halloween and placed in Salem, Massachusetts, the location of the famous witch trials in colonial America that were unfortunately all too common in Europe.
In terms of a plot, it was intriguing and my character figured out some of what was going on fairly early, but the secrecy of the game led to some cognitive dissonance around genre. On Love is Blind, you might end up with someone with narcissistic or abusive tendencies, but on this show, you would most certainly end up with a serial murderer, which is a steep escalation. Players in Group B were instructed to try not to reveal the secret until the Reveal, ostensibly to stir up the aforementioned drama. However, as it leaked early, I had to make a choice as a player: I could lean into the premise as horror or as the aforementioned satire/mockumentary style of play, similar to What We Do in the Shadows (2014, 2019-). I ended up doing what my characters often try to do when playing romance in larp: attempting to redeem or save the “troubled, misguided” abuser. My storyline started off fairly seriously, as I wanted my character to be earnestly looking for her life partner, as befits the genre of the show, but ended up in a dysfunctional love triangle between murderous psychopaths in order to amp up the drama for the finale. Furthermore, as Vampire fiction is often considered a metaphor for sexual violence, this twist did not entirely line up with the rule, “Do not play upon child- / sexual abuse / non consensual sexual encounters” (“L2YH Schedule and Rules”).
I decided to lean into the absurdity and still had a good experience. However, this example illustrates the problems with secrecy in larps in terms of player consent (Torner 2013), as I may have declined playing upon such themes or negotiated a less severe storyline through calibration if I had known ahead of time. My understanding is that the next runs of this larp will revert to the typical Love is Blind format and will therefore likely not have such issues.
A further hiccup revolved around the opt-out mechanic, a semi in-game phrase, “I’d rather not…” We were instructed to say or chat the phrase and use the X-arms to the camera if we wanted to take the scene in a different direction. “I’d rather not…” could also be used to indicate a desire to change the topic of conversation, similar to an X-card (Stavropoulos n.d.), meaning that topic was off-limits. In practice, remembering such phrases during play can be quite difficult, as can remembering to signal, or remembering to check the chat to see if someone had sent an off-game message. These issues are ongoing with regard to safety. Cues can be missed whether in-person or virtual play, and in-game phrases meant to be immersive can sometimes be missed. In future runs, I would recommend workshopping such techniques to make sure all players had some embodied experience with them before play rather than only receiving them in the rules document and having them explained at a briefing.
A Successful Experiment
Despite this narrative twist at the end, overall Listen to Your Heart Season 8 provided an authentic-feeling experience that strikes me as similar to what it might feel like to be in the pods of Love is Blind. I very much enjoyed being able to focus only on the voice as a means of communicating, whether the topics were flirtatious or deeply metaphysical, which is where my play tends to go. The experience of listening to the character’s voice on headphones strikes me as particularly intimate, as well as the pressure of attuning to every nuance the person was communicating explicitly or implicitly in order to ascertain in a short amount of time whether or not the relationship would work. Overall, I think the designer made smart choices in terms of the parameters of the larp.
References
Aron, et al. 1997. “The Experimental Generation of Interpersonal Closeness: A Procedure and Some Preliminary Findings.” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 23, no. 4: 363-377.
Baird, Josephine, Sarah Lynne Bowman, and Kjell Hedgard Hugaas. 2022. “Liminal Intimacy: Role-playing Games as Catalysts for Interpersonal Growth and Relating.” In The Magic of Games, edited by Nikolaus Koenig, Natalie Denk, Alexander Pfeiffer, and Thomas Wernbacher, 169-171. Edition Donau-Universität Krems.
Bowman, Sarah Lynne. 2013. “Social Conflict in Role-playing Communities: An Exploratory Qualitative Study.” International Journal of Role-Playing 4: 17-18. https://doi.org/10.33063/ijrp.vi4.183
Holkar, Mo. 2021. “Larping Before the Larp: The Magic of Preparatory Scenes.” In Book of Magic: Vibrant Fragments of Larp Practices, edited by Kari Kvittingen Djukastein, Marcus Irgens, Nadja Lipsyc, and Lars Kristian Løveng Sunde. Oslo, Norway: Knutepunkt, 2021.
Paisley, Erik Winther, 2015. “Play the Gay Away: Confessions of a Queer Larper.” In Larp Politics: Systems, Theory, and Gender in Action, edited by Kaisa Kangas, Mika Loponen, and Jukka Särkijärvi, 170-177. Helsinki, Finland: Solmukohta 2016, Ropecon ry.
Svanevik, Martine, and Simon Brind. 2020. “Larp Hacking.” Nordiclarp.org, February 2.
Torner, Evan. 2013. “Transparency and Safety in Role-playing Games.” In The Wyrd Con Companion Book 2013, edited by Sarah Lynne Bowman and Aaron Vanek, 14-17. Los Angeles, CA: Wyrd Con, 2013.
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.
As we stood
there by the vine-covered
tree, solemn,
tangible forest around
intangible, skin-covered words, created
in our own image, we left behind
our cocoon, the forest was real
and so were we, in this moment
where the seed was
planted in our name
and we watered it.
Second Element
Was there a wall here
sometime before and have we
forgotten it or torn it down
because it limited our view
of who we could be?
The roofs are gone as well and we
drenched as we are, is it rain
that has wetted our faces and
our backs, is it us, are we
the ones whose silhouettes
suspended in a silent narrative
still stain the stone?
Third Element
I don’t remember who
among us did the melting; you
or me, or both, but here we are
liquid as ever, marbling together
forgetting our own colours; if
they were yours or mine
or never ours to begin with as
the heat of the moment forges us
together and forces us
to think as we never
thought before it –
behind this line that someone
drew in the scorched earth
blood may run thicker than
water, but we run thin
into each other.
Fourth Element
I opened up my veins
to let you in, to let you breathe your life
into me as my aspirations filled
your lungs so full of warmth that we took flight
of fancy; our parts multiplied
by more than one and less than two, a fraction
of who I was before you became me
like fragments of a language that connects us
unspoken to the voices in our mind
of all the ones that we have been before
tomorrow someone else will flow
through you.
Fifth Element
What are the parts that make up
the sum of what we can be and more –
when we subtract ourselves and don’t lose
count, something still is left
that wasn’t there when we began
to take root inside our own bodies
to sculpt our own river clay
to harden in the fire of our dreams
to breathe the air we occupied
and open its mouth to sing;
what strange new songs will it begin
to make of us?
Cover photo: Image by EchoGrid on Unsplash. Photo has been cropped.
This article is published in the companion book Book of Magic: Vibrant Fragments of Larp Practices and is published here with permission. Please cite this text as:
Wierda, Berber. “Elements of Larp.” In Book of Magic: Vibrant Fragments of Larp Practices, edited by Kari Kvittingen Djukastein, Marcus Irgens, Nadja Lipsyc, and Lars Kristian Løveng Sunde. Oslo, Norway: Knutepunkt, 2021.
