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Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser – The Blockbuster to End All Blockbusters

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2025-06-20

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Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser – The Blockbuster to End All Blockbusters

Written by

Adrian Hon

Editorial note: This article was originally published in the Knutepunkt 2025 book Anatomy of Larp Thoughts, a breathing corpus. It has been reprinted from there with the editors’ and authors’ permission. It has not been edited by Nordiclarp.org.

The Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser, popularly known as the “Star Wars hotel”, was a live action experience in Walt Disney World, Florida. Over the course of 40 hours, hundreds of guests (Disney’s term for visitors or players) picked sides between the heroic Resistance and the evil First Order, taking on missions from spies, smugglers, and soldiers. Basically, it’s a romantic drama – Casablanca in space.

The Starcruiser opened to great fanfare in March 2022 as one of the most ambitious permanent “immersive” experiences ever made. Initial reviews were generally positive, but coverage was dominated by its price – as much as $6000 for a cabin holding up to four or five people, far more than traditional cruises or theme park stays. Many people couldn’t understand how it could justify such a high price. Eighteen months later, the Starcruiser closed for reasons that are still not fully known. In 2024, after the closure, YouTuber Jenny Nicholson described her poor experience in a four hour video((Jenny Nicholson, “The Spectacular Failure of the Star Wars Hotel,” May 19, 2024, Jenny Nicholson, YouTube, 4:05:38, https://youtu.be/T0CpOYZZZW4.)) that attracted over ten million views. The video and the closure established a widespread narrative of the Starcruiser as a cynical, unmitigated disaster.

When I learned of the Starcruiser’s impending closure, I rushed to book a ticket for one of the final “sailings” in the summer of 2023. As an augmented reality and alternate reality game designer, I was keen to see it with my own eyes. Based on that visit and my subsequent research, I believe the Starcruiser is more interesting than a simple folly. It has many parallels to larps – especially high price, deeply immersive 360º((Johanna Koljonen, “eye-witness to the illusion: an essay on the impossibility of 360° role-playing,” in Lifelike (Knudepunkt 2007), ed. Jesper Donnis, Morten Gade, Line Thorup (Knudepunkt 2007, 2007), 175.)) blockbuster larps such as Odysseus (inspired by Battlestar Galactica), Conscience (Westworld), and Eclipse (Arrival/Interstellar) – with many innovative and impressive aspects that are worth studying. At the same time, its confusing marketing raised unrealistic expectations and exacerbated flaws like poor onboarding.

This article explores the contrasts between the Starcruiser and larps, such as its lack of workshops and training; highly realistic player tasks; spaces for relaxation and guest-to-guest interaction; app-based NPC interactions; and its profit-based commercial nature. This will include observations of the experience, its technical achievements, and my encounters with other players. Finally, it will explore the Starcruiser’s financials, confusing marketing, and the circumstances surrounding its closure. The Starcruiser represents a harbinger of the future for all blockbuster larps, whether made by volunteers or billion dollar corporations.

Disney has long experimented with role playing. Early Disneyland rides were designed from the perspective of protagonists, meaning guests on the Snow White attraction or Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride saw neither Snow White nor Mr. Toad – they were the characters.((Leslie Iwerks, “Chapter 2: The Happiest Place on Earth,” in The Imagineering Story: The Official Biography of Walt Disney Imagineering (Disney Editions, 2022).)) This was later changed due to the confusion it caused, but the interest in role play remained. The cancelled Disney’s America theme park, intended to open in 1998, would have included Civil War battle re-enactments;((Iwerks, “Chapter 16: The Battle of Disney’s America,” The Imagineering Story.)) Bob Weis, Senior Vice President, said, “We want to make you a Civil War soldier. We want to make you feel what it was like to be a slave or what it was like to escape through the Underground Railroad,” arguing the park couldn’t present a rose-tinted view of America.

Less controversially, guests would later be chosen to play roles in a re-enactment of Beauty and the Beast, and new Star Wars and Marvel attractions in the parks have emphasised making guests “part of the stories being told, to give them a role other than passive view”, such as using web slingers to fight alongside Spider-Man. These examples afford comparatively little agency to guests, but the direction of travel is clear.

Along with researching escape rooms and immersive theatre, senior Disney Imagineers – the workers responsible for the company’s theme parks and attractions – have been playing Nordic Larp for years. A number of Imagineers were on the Monitor Celestra in 2013, and Sara Thacher, a senior Imagineer who worked on the Starcruiser, attended the College of Wizardry twice. “A big ‘Aha!’ moment for me there was just being in a castle, in a wizard robe, having a cup of tea, and having this alibi, this reason to be there,” she told The New Yorker.((Neima Jahromi, “LARPing Goes to Disney World,” New Yorker, May 23, 2022, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/05/30/larping-goes-to-disney-world.)) In the Starcruiser, guests have a full schedule of classes and activities and optional quests, but the Sublight Lounge bar also provides an alibi to relax with a card game of Sabacc.

Playing Sabacc in the Sublight lounge bar, photo by Adrian Hon

These explicit links make it possible to view the Starcruiser through the lens of larp. Given the Starcruiser’s use of schedules and NPCs and its lack of boffer-style combat, the best parallel may be Eastern European larp like the College of Wizardry. Scott Trowbridge, another senior Imagineer, noted that some larps “can be intense experiences, and that is probably not what we want to offer to our mainstream audience,” indicating a reluctance to give players the intense emotional experiences that often characterise Nordic larp.

The biggest argument against the Starcruiser being a larp, let alone a Nordic Larp, is that it provides precisely zero training or workshops for guests in how to role play. Guests are not given or suggested characters or character archetypes to play; instead, they arrive on the Starcruiser – a cruise ship for interstellar tourists – as naive passengers from Earth, playing themselves, with their own alibi to ask basic questions about the Star Wars universe. Some guests did create their own characters and backstory, and performers would play along, within reason: claiming to be Darth Vader wouldn’t work.

Rather than train guests how to participate, I’ve been told that the Starcruiser’s professional “NPC” performers were trained to “meet people where they are”, which is to say, interact with guests and encourage them to participate to the extent they appear comfortable to do so, whether simply through eye contact or by dialogue. No doubt there are financial and practical reasons behind this, too: workshops were not automatically welcomed in Nordic Larp and it’s safe to assume the Starcruiser’s guests would be similarly sceptical toward a multi-hour introductory workshop.

During my visit to the Starcruiser in July 2023, I noticed two problems with the zero-training philosophy. The first was that for some guests, “where they are” was in their cabin, away from any opportunity for anyone to engage them. The second was that despite the impressive number of performers, there were too few to engage every guest in the first few hours.

While loitering in the lobby shortly after boarding on the first day, I saw two young guests watching as others talked to a First Order performer. They were wearing impressive, custom-made costumes and were clearly keen to participate, but didn’t know how. Even a brief workshop might have given them the confidence, but their approach to the dark side would have to wait.

Given how its designers evidently steered away from Nordic Larp’s fundamental tenets, it’s wrong to view the Starcruiser as a literal larp. Rather, it’s better to view it as a hybrid form, at the far end of larp, not merely at the far (less involved) end of role playing, but also at the far end of physical scale and technological complexity. No imagination was necessary on the Starcruiser: the engineering bay was packed with ducts and pipes and cables to be fixed, the bridge bordered by a vast panoramic view of space, and the Sublight Lounge’s bar atmosphere was suffused in the perfect combination of luxury and intrigue. All views of outer space on the bridge and through cabin “portholes” were synchronised in real time. In formal terms, every effort was made to make appearances and tasks indexical((Jaakko Stenros, Eleanor Saitta, Markus Montola, “The General Problem of Indexicality in Larp Design,” in Liminal Encounters: Evolving Discourse in Nordic and Nordic Inspired Larp, ed. Kaisa Kangas, Jonne Arjoranta, Ruska Kevätkoski (Ropecon ry, 2024), 64.)) rather than iconic or symbolic.

The Starcruiser was presented to guests as an interstellar luxury cruise. The idea of a cruise felt discordant with how the Star Wars universe has been popularly depicted – we don’t see Luke Skywalker embark on a cruise, but we do see Harry Potter going to classes in Hogwarts – but it provided a reason to structure guests’ time like a real cruise; one hour might be dedicated to lightsaber training, and another to Sabacc lessons. This is not unusual amongst Nordic Larp; Odysseus has been described as a “clockwork larp”, running on a strict schedule of hyperspace jumps, and the College of Wizardry and various magic schools have scheduled classes. The Content Larp Manifesto((“Content larp manifesto”, accessed December 19, 2024, https://manifest.larpy.cz/en/)) also describes Czech larps (e.g. Legion)((“Legion: Siberian Story – LARP by Rolling,” accessed December 19, 2024, https://legion.rolling.cz.)) that use timed and pre-written scenes in the service of dramatic stories. Indeed, a planned and predictable experience is what some larpers desire,((Anni Tolvanen, “A Full House Trumps a Dance Card,” lecture, September 9, 2022, posted September 11, 2022, by Nordic Larp Talks, YouTube, 24:01, https://youtu.be/SPWCXf_LrSs.)) perhaps at the cost of openness and serendipity.

Performer movements were, if anything, even more tightly scheduled. Earpieces conveyed timing cues so they knew when to move on for an “accidental” confrontation in a hallway. In retrospect, performers’ ability to improvise dialogue with guests to fill the precise amount of time before their next move was remarkable.

Where the Starcruiser appears to depart from Nordic Larp is that guests were incapable of influencing the major beats and ultimate outcome of the story. No matter what guests did, there was always a confrontation between the ship’s captain and a First Order officer during dinner. Chewbacca always escaped from confinement, and Rey always made it on board – and yet guests felt crucial to the story because we were actively relaying secret messages and distracting Stormtroopers.

Caught up in the excitement, it was easy to forget our lack of agency to dramatically change events. This was not surprising given the source material’s spectacular nature. Odysseus’ play instructions also elevated discipline over agency: the larp was “designed to be a tunnel not a sandbox… this is not a game to be hacked, won or overachieved.” However, the absence of meaningful deliberation was most notable during the conclusion, which reminded everyone that in the final analysis, the Star Wars universe remains dominated by superpowered Force users – in this case, Rey and Kylo Ren battling on a balcony – rather than one where passengers gets a vote.

Talking to other guests wasn’t a necessary part of the Starcruiser experience. It was encouraged, but the endless scheduled activities and optional quests (see below) meant it was less of a priority in terms of creating entertainment and drama. I quickly abandoned my attempts at role playing a morally ambiguous scientist after a couple of conversations went nowhere. However, NPC performers worked hard to engage guests. A lovelorn musician who needed relationship advice would ask children for help writing songs, while a Han Solo-esque scoundrel NPC recounted his exploits to guests in the bar. Some guests played along, talking about their own exploits or poking holes in his stories. One guest demonstrated his homemade droid collection in the lobby. Many had become friends on previous voyages or via forums, which inevitably felt a touch exclusionary, but their costuming and role playing-adjacent attitude helped enrich the Starcruiser’s atmosphere.

None of these activities “mattered” in terms of changing the plot or ultimate fate of characters, but they were enjoyable and gave meaning to guests’ own stories. It was as if the sheer quantity of performers and length of the experience partly made up for the lack of workshops – most guests who didn’t know how to interact at the beginning could learn by watching, their initial discomfort long forgotten by the end. Since performers were trained to memorise guests’ names, it was common to be asked for an update on your activities by Resistance or First Order agents while on your way to dinner.

What many accounts fail to convey is how much of the Starcruiser experience was driven digitally. Every guest had access to a Datapad smartphone app with which they could talk to NPCs – the very same NPCs walking around the ship. In classic video game RPG fashion, guests could respond to messages with 1-3 prewritten options of varying levels of curiosity and enthusiasm. More unusually, not only could you lie to NPCs by giving them incorrect information, you could outright betray them.

Lt. Croy, flanked by stormtroopers, photo by Adrian Hon

On my first mission for Lt. Croy, a First Order officer, I was tasked with hacking into a physical console to find the ship’s logs. I discovered the Starcruiser had diverted its itinerary on previous cruises to supply Resistance bases with weapons; I was able to copy the logs to my Datapad, but I could have deleted or overwritten them. Because I am a boring role player, I sent the logs to Croy, but I don’t doubt that betraying him would’ve had lasting consequences through the branching story, perhaps introducing me to Resistance members.

As more NPCs introduced themselves on the Datapad, barely a moment passed between invitations to sabotage the ship’s systems, hack the computers, search for contraband, or smuggle on board an agent – all of which involved physically walking to the engineering bay or cargo hold to connecting wires and scan codes, with NPCs instantly “knowing” when I’d completed my task. It was deeply impressive technology that worked flawlessly for me, a gold-plated version of the busywork seen in other sci-fi blockbuster larps like Odysseus’ RFID-powered HANSCA((James Bloodworth, “Odysseus 2024 / A Retrospective,” Critical Path, September 2, 2024, https://criticalpathsite.wordpress.com/2024/09/02/odysseus-2024-a-retrospective/.)) smartphone app. Another digital experience was delivered by the video comm link in my cabin, where droids would periodically call asking for help to aid or stymie the resistance. This worked wholly via voice recognition and was surprisingly funny. It goes without saying that all of these tasks and experiences were fundamentally “single player”, in the sense that co-operating with other guests was unnecessary – a marked difference to Odysseus.

A highly indexical puzzle in the engineering bay, photo by Adrian Hon

The technical complexity of the Starcruiser is likely the reason why some guests suffered major issues around the launch period in early 2022 wherein their Datapad didn’t steer them toward interesting activities. Other accounts suggest these problems were largely fixed within weeks or months, but the damage had been done: critics((Charlie Hall, “Disney’s Star Wars hotel Galactic Starcruiser was torpedoed by bad app design,” Polygon, May 28, 2024, https://www.polygon.com/star-wars/24166456/disney-star-wars-hotel-video-galactic-starcruiser-jenny-nicholson-bad-app.)) then and now incorrectly believed the technical issues were permanent, like a rollercoaster whose tracks couldn’t be moved rather than a video game that could be updated over time.

The cost of tickets to the Starcruiser also fuelled the notion that it was a cynical ploy to rip off guests. Depending on the timing of a visit, it was possible to spend as much as $6000 (€5500) for single person staying in their own cabin – an astronomical amount compared to other attractions. However, if four people shared a cabin, as is common in larps and on cruises, each person might only $1200 (€1100). There is no way to make €1100 sound cheap, but it’s comparable to the cost of blockbuster larps; my ticket to Eclipse this year will cost €875 (including a shared room in a 3 star hotel). The fact that I met so many repeat visitors, most of whom were staying three or four to a cabin, indicated they felt it was good value. Caro Murphy, Immersive Experience Director for the Starcruiser, revealed((Caro Murphy, “Reacting to a reaction,” Caro Murphy, May 30, 2024, https://www.polygon.com/star-wars/24166456/disney-star-wars-hotel-video-galactic-starcruiser-jenny-nicholson-bad-app.)) it achieved a 91% guest satisfaction score, supposedly the highest rating in the history of any Disney attraction. Starcruiser fans have organised conventions,((“Halcy-Con | A 2-Day Galactic Starcruiser Superfans Event,” Halcy-Con, archived September 12, 2024, https://web.archive.org/web/20240912154545/https://halcy-con.com/.)) created podcasts, and made movies.

The closure of the Starcruiser may seem to contradict this argument, or at least suggest it was not popular or profitable enough. It’s too soon to know Disney’s real reasons, but Kathryn Yu has noted that most analyses fail to take into account wider corporate circumstances. In 2023, Disney faced an activist shareholder battle; in a bid to raise free cash, returning CEO Bob Iger promised to cut $5.5 billion in costs, quickly selling off TV shows and eliminating 7000 jobs.((“Disney Completes 7,000 Job Cuts,” Variety, May 31, 2023, https://variety.com/2023/tv/news/disney-layoffs-end-7000-1235629809/.)) Closing the Starcruiser effectively unlocked hundreds of millions of dollars via accelerated depreciation,((Suzanne Rowan Kelleher, “The High-Flying Death Of Disney’s Star Wars Hotel,” Forbes, May 28, 2023, https://www.forbes.com/sites/suzannerowankelleher/2023/05/28/why-disney-closed-star-wars-hotel-galactic-starcruiser/.)) a move that may have been hastened by the imminent phasing out of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act’s “bonus depreciation”.

Regardless, it’s undeniable that the Starcruiser had an uneven launch and was poorly understood. I can’t help but think the Starcruiser would have been more successful, or at least made more sense as an expensive multi-day attraction, had the setup been that guests were secret agents merely pretending to be guests on an interstellar cruise. As much as the conceit of being naive cruise passengers provided structure and alibi in the absence of a workshop, it also made the entire experience appear deeply boring from the outside – a sample “itinerary”((Shannen Ace, “Disney Releases Sample 3-Day Itinerary of Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser Hotel Experience,” WDW News Today, August 4, 2021, https://wdwnt.com/2021/08/disney-releases-sample-itinerary-for-star-wars-galactic-starcruiser-experience/.)) revealed in 2021 suggested that these opportunities to sabotage the ship would be few and far between, rather than the bulk of the experience. It’s tantamount to marketing malpractice that these more adventurous aspects were omitted in favour of a focus on “luxury” – misleading, since the Starcruiser’s cabins and amenities were not luxurious in a conventional sense.

Disney’s position at the top of the entertainment world comes with increased expectations and a lack of willingness for customers to accept problems. Larps, as largely co-created, volunteer-run, non-profit experiences with little to no marketing budgets, attract players who are more experienced and tolerant of problems, creating a reservoir of goodwill understandably absent for a multi-billion dollar corporation. Larp promotion also tends to be more transparent about the details of player experience, helping avoid problems. This is no doubt borne out of decades of experience throughout the larp community – something the Starcruiser’s marketers and customers lacked.

Goodwill is essential with larp-like experiences becoming as technically complex as video games – and growing the chances for things to go catastrophically wrong. Game developers have adapted by instituting lengthy beta testing and “early access” periods. A similar strategy may have helped the Starcruiser’s launch; failing that, proactively offering full refunds for major technical issues would have restored some goodwill. Other blockbuster larps could manage technical risk by pooling resources on open source projects, as Odysseus did with the open source EmptyEpsilon “bridge simulator” game engine. This was probably not an option for Disney given the highly specific needs of a Star Wars-based experience and their desire to maintain a technical advantage over competitors.

An undercover agent beside Chewbacca, photo by Adrian Hon

The Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser was an admirable foray into creating a larp-like experience for mass audiences on a gargantuan scale. It was not perfect, but it was far from a disaster.

One can imagine a different outcome. If the Starcruiser had been marketed better and had launched with more robust technology, it could have attracted more guests; if Disney hadn’t been subject to a shareholder battle, there would have been less incentive to close it. The Starcruiser might be expanding around the world, employing hundreds of people to entertain hundreds of thousands of guests per year. It almost got there. Regardless, the Starcruiser highlights a growing appetite for larp, and a growing willingness to pay for blockbuster experiences. Some of its fans have moved on to larping as a way to continue their hobby.

It’s impossible to say when Disney or other theme parks will create another blockbuster larp-like experience given the negative sentiment now surrounding the Starcruiser. But this demonstrates the strength of the decentralised, non-profit, volunteer-run international larp community – it can withstand failures and misunderstandings, learn from them, and keep going.

Design for young adult players: The relevance of designing for hope, agency and inclusion

Written by

Frederikke S. B. Høyer

Editorial note: This article was originally published in the Knutepunkt 2025 book Anatomy of Larp Thoughts, a breathing corpus. It has been reprinted from there with the editors’ and authors’ permission. It has not been edited by Nordiclarp.org.

As larp communities evolve, it becomes increasingly important to consider how we include young adults (12-18 years old) in our communities and at our larps. This article explores how larp designers can design larps that span generations and include young adults as co-creators and peers in the design and play processes. The article’s approach is practice-based, utilized at Østerskov Efterskole as well as at our mythical fantasy larp campaign Fladlandssagaen (Denmark 2006-, Eng. The Flatland Saga), which means that its tools and insights are created in a Danish context. The article touches upon themes such as accessibility, connections, workshops, hopeful narratives, and presents practical strategies to empower young adult (and new) players and provide safe spaces for self-exploration. It emphasizes the relevance of designing for hope, agency, and inclusion for young adult players as well as integrating and respecting popular young adult tropes and themes.

A young adult-only scenario or an intergenerational larp

The first step in the process is to determine whether the larp you are designing is targeted towards young adult players only, targeted to young adult players with the possibility for other age groups to participate, or if it is intended as part of an intergenerational larp, for example including children, teens, and adults. Different formats offer different advantages, and all have merit – being aware of this from the outset will clarify your needs as an organizer.

Larps for young adults only can be comforting and empowering. To play alongside peers at a similar level creates a safe space wherein they can explore and be braver than they would normally be. In addition it builds a strong bond with peers they can mirror. Playing in an intergenerational larp can help build relationships across age groups, expand one’s perspectives on life and forge an understanding of hopes and dreams for the future no matter what the participant’s age is. Regardless of the format, when designing a larp with young adult participants in mind it can be an advantage to include a co-organizer or consultant who is a young adult themselves to make sure their experiences and perspectives are included in the design of the larp. Your format and the age gap among players will need to be considered when you help your players calibrate, understanding their responsibility in relation to each other, together with your larp’s themes and meta-techniques.

Off-game accessibility

We The Lost (2024). Photo by Luka Safira Søndergaard.

When you have chosen your format, it is important to reflect upon how to make it possible for youths to

participate in your larp, both economically and practically; young adults typically have less spending power than adults with stable income and they usually have less experience with the practical aspects of attending a larp, such as coordinating transport and costume. If possible, try to find ways to make the larp accessible for low-income players. This could for example take the form of lower ticket prices for specific target groups, or easily accessible (or low requirement) costumes. You can also have a designated person who is visible and easy to contact if they have any practical questions or problems, or design your larp so that every group has an experienced player who has the offgame responsibility to coordinate the group and its members; just make sure they know how to give space and agency to the group’s young adults.

You should also take the implicit knowledge one gains from earlier larp experiences into account when designing and communicating with young adults. Some in the target group might be just entering the community, and it can be challenging to find information and navigate the scene without connections who have knowledge of how larps are structured. Here it can be beneficial to consider whether you communicate on the appropriate social platforms, whether there are social connections you can engage with to help spread information about the larp, and whether the materials you develop are presented in language that is both accessible and relevant to young adults.

If you have an age limit for the larp, make it clear why the limit is set where it is, whether exceptions or accommodation are possible, and what expectations exist for the young adults in relation to other age groups. For instance, do they have additional responsibilities toward children in the game, or are there types of play they are not allowed to join because they are intended for adults?

Familiarise yourself with the player group

When designing a larp aimed at young adults, especially if you are not part of that age group, it is often beneficial to immerse yourself in media, stories, and life experiences that resonate with them. This helps you to understand the narrative conventions, themes, and tropes they are familiar with. If you are unsure where to begin, the best step is to find someone within the age group and ask for their guidance to get started. This could be a family member, a student, a friend’s child, or someone from your local community. Ask them questions about which media they consume, which social media they are on (and how they work) and how they prefer to be part of a story when they larp, and let them provide examples from their own life.

Creating meaningful narratives

An essential part of developing a young adult larp is crafting the narratives so that it is clear and transparent what the stories are about, which outcomes the players can experience when they interact with them, and how they can follow the plotlines. Surprises and unexpected revelations are of course welcome, but it is crucial that players feel they can trust the designers – that they will not be tricked or exposed if they fail to understand something, especially when the designers are from outside the target audience. This is particularly important because designers often hold greater social power and influence within our communities.

Some designers favor larps that teach young adults about life’s darker sides: about the political challenges of our world, injustice, and how one can do everything right and still lose. While it is undoubtedly important to engage with and learn about the realities of our world – especially issues like the climate crisis, famine, wars, and systemic injustices, most of the young adults I design with and for are already acutely aware of how much darkness exists. Many of them feel a profound sense of helplessness, believing there is little they can do to make a difference. As designers, it is not enough to simply highlight the darkness. We have a responsibility to design in a way that conveys hope, that creates spaces of possibility, that demonstrates how even small actions can hold value in a larger context, especially when we design with and for young adults. Of course, we can use dark narratives and themes in our designs, but then we should balance it with aspects and plotlines that show that factors like age, gender, or background need not be barriers to making an impact, give the young adults self-confidence, teach them how to handle real-life situations and give them trust that they can make a real change in the real world. Therefore, we have a duty to design for hope and agency.

Themes, characters and relations through workshops

Often, our larps end up revolving around themes such as identity, self-discovery, tension between duty and freedom, relationships and responsibilities, together with social and ethical dilemmas. Essentially these are all themes involving choices and changes that the young adults in our community like to explore. These themes challenge players to reflect on morality and consequences, allowing their characters to win or lose something meaningful without any real-world repercussions for the player. For some, larps with these themes become a mirror, a transformative experience in which they can see themselves more clearly, and then use their experiences as guidelines for the direction of their lives. Especially if you include a debriefing wherein the players can reflect, by themselves and collectively, upon the shared experience of the larp.

When we use these themes, one of our recurring tropes involves young adult characters who see the world as it really is, not as they are told it is, and who strive to challenge authorities to change the status quo or the adults’ pessimistic worldview. This provides an alibi to practice speaking up, standing one’s ground, collaborating, and forging paths forward.

In addition, we write characters for young adults in which they act as protectors, leaders, explorers, healers, teachers, or gatherers; the characters have clear goals and believe they can influence the world around them together. These characters are connected to qualities like empathy, wisdom, strength, ingenuity, courage, and hope, giving players agency and opportunity to influence the larp and its outcomes without being hindered by their age or existing knowledge. We give their characters something to stand up for, even when all seems dark. This gives them an alibi for action, something to fight for.

To support this, we focus heavily on workshops aimed at building strong relationships between the player characters. Every character is integrated into multiple group dynamics to ensure they have several connections if one set of relationships fails to generate meaningful play. Furthermore, we typically create four core relationships: one with a best friend, one with a nemesis, one sharing a common dream, and one sharing a common fear. This layered approach ensures characters are deeply embedded in the world, with clear, impactful roles that empower young players to explore and affect the story meaningfully.

Thoughtful use of clichés in your design

Some seasoned larpers speak negatively about clichés and stereotypes, not because they did not at first enjoy them, but because they have seen them repeated across numerous larps and therefore end up dismissing them as a sign of “lazy design”. While the frustration of encountering a trope or narrative element you have experienced many times before is understandable, I find that clichés hold value and have their merit as design tools. I’m not advocating for their exclusive use, but thoughtful clichés that are incorporated and embedded in your design do have their worth. Why?

Clichés create an accessible and recognizable entry point for players to step into and explore the larp, by making it easy to decode the structure, story, and roles through shared cultural references among designers and players (even though there are different clichés in different cultures and age groups). They can work like a gateway into the larp and immersion by giving players predetermined patterns of actions, role developments and opportunity spaces that players know from other media. They can use these in the larp without doubting whether they are playing “correctly” or fearing being judged by the rest of the players.

Through the familiarity of the cliché, players have a safe platform from which they can choose to follow, challenge, or even break the stereotype when they feel ready. Overall, clichés can help free up the player’s mental energy so they can use it on engaging with the larp and getting to know the rest of the players, as well as working on being confident in the medium itself. When designed right, clichés give new players access while older players can be reminded of their first encounter with them and experience the bittersweet nostalgia of reunion. Clichés you use should be empowering, intriguing, slightly quirky, or familiar, and used to develop the characters, narratives, and experiences you offer. Avoid those that do not align with the larp’s ideals and values, ensuring you do not compromise your vision by recycling harmful stereotypes that maintain toxic beliefs and behaviours.

We The Lost (2024). Photo by Helle Zink.

Clear activities, groups, and functions

Clear activities with tangible consequences and rewards serve as fallback options for those inexperienced players who may feel less confident, are overwhelmed by choices, or lack energy to take active initiative in the larp. These could include puzzles, smaller quests, brief blackbox scenes, or other elements that still support the goals of their groups and characters but require less initiative and larp know-how. We use this in our designs because many experience fluctuating energy levels and even though they deeply want to be part of the play, they have not yet developed larp endurance to play a full day of larp without breaks. Well-defined activities make it easier to navigate those situations, since they are just as meaningful and helpful for the rest of the team if one decides to influence the plots, develop relationships with others, immerse themselves in their character’s inner emotions or to take a break. To support this, when a player has an in-game responsibility, they share it with at least one other player. This way, one can take a break without feeling guilty about the possibility that it hinders the rest of the play. Important responsibilities often have an non-player character (often shortened as NPC) attached, in case both players need to take a break or need to reflect upon what the next right move is, so the players know that someone has their backs if they find themselves in deep water.

In some larps it can be a great option to use role models as clear examples of how to play and portray roles, showing the players what to do. If you have two or more opposing factions, it works well when the adult role models clearly show how one could choose to play. This works best if you train the role models to switch between standing behind the participants, giving them the confidence to take center stage, and taking center stage themselves to drive the story forward when the players need guidance. It is often interesting to let the role models disappear during the larp, losing their power or giving the important positions to the players. For example, the mayor could be forced by the players to arrange a new election and lose, or the leader of one clan could die in an attack from another, so the young ones need to step up and take charge.

To make sure that the young adult players feel real freedom to choose their larp experience and take needed breaks, we articulate clear expectations, objectives and success criteria as a framework for them to play and navigate in. We measure success in initiative and participation, based on the good enough attempt rather than focusing on the perfect performance with the right in-game outcome. For example, it would be enough to take part in a ritual, opposed to running one, or to dare to act politically in front of the others, as opposed to ending up as the mayor.

To emphasize this, we design our stories so that the characters only face consequences in-game that their players understand off-game. If the players somehow do not understand the consequences when played out, we make time, space and alibi to reflect and to help them with what they can do next, if needed. These framings are crucial, as without them some feel pressured to prove themselves to others to feel validated, or out of fear of not being welcome at a larp again.

The best way to help the participants when their energy levels fluctuate and they need a break, is to not make a big deal out of it and just give them time to get to a place where they are able to rejoin the larp. A designated break room is a good way to explicitly communicate that it is okay to take a break during the larp. Players may, rightfully or not, worry that taking too many or long breaks can result in them losing touch with the narrative of the larp. To remedy this problem it may be beneficial to structure the larp in acts with clear endings and beginnings, possibly with planned breaks in between so that players as well as organizers can recharge. These bookend scenes can then be used to summarize the act, and ensure that everyone is on the same page, as well as provide a natural point at which to rejoin the action!

Let us start the talk

There is a gap between children’s and adult larps. To bridge this gap and seriously work on the integration of young adults in larp communities, it is crucial to take their experiences seriously and make them feel involved as teenagers. To do so, we must take active steps to include the next generation by initiating dialogue, and that includes having some difficult discussions about the communities we have built. Some of the questions we should ask ourselves and each other are:

Could we lower the age limit of an event from 18 to 16?
Could our larp events include less alcohol?
Is it necessary to include this adult-oriented theme?
How do we talk to and about young larpers?
How do we address the topics, themes, and narratives that captivate younger audiences without ridiculing them or being dismissive of their fascination?
Which themes can young adults and adults explore together? Which are adult only themes, and which themes can youth play on without adults?
How do you communicate with young adults so they feel involved, being at eye level with the rest of the play and being respected as human beings?

Healthy, growing, and stable communities require ongoing integration of young and new people who, with passion and vibrant energy, feel at home among the older and more experienced players, and who dare to both be a part of the communities and to challenge the pre-existing canon so we can evolve together.

We have a responsibility to make it easy and safe for young (and new) people to become part of our community, and we have the power to make it happen. To include these new larpers we must design for hope and agency, using larp to tell stories that make them confident that they have a voice to be heard and choices to make in this world.

Ludography

Fladlandssagaen (2024): Denmark. The organizer team of Fladlandssaga.

Tin Soldiers (2024): Denmark. The Blackbox Project Liminal.

We The Lost (2024). Denmark. Østerskov Efterskole’s study trip scenario.

Østerskov Efterskole (2024): Denmark. The Larp School, Østerskov Efterskole.

Editor

Elin Dalstål.

Reviewers

Gijs van Bilsen, Laura op de Beke, Maya B. Hindsberg, Mathias Oliver Lykke Christensen, Paul Sinding, and Rasmus Lyngkjær.

Young consultants

Asta Hansen, Artemis Torfing, Eva Fernandes, Frida I. L. Grøfte, Nicolai Lindh, and Sam Hvolris.

This article is republished from the Knutepunkt 2025 book. Please cite it as:
Høyer, Frederikke S. B. 2025. “Design for young adult players: The relevance of designing for hope, agency and inclusion.” In Anatomy of Larp Thoughts, a breathing corpus: Knutepunkt Conference 2025. Oslo. Fantasiforbundet.

Cover image: Larp photo from the blackbox larp Tin Soldiers, played during Project Liminal (2024). Photo by Kalle Hunnerup. Photo has been cropped.

Published on

2025-04-11

in

Documentation

Open Book: A Roadmap for Peer Editing

Written 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

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:

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.).

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Editorial guidelines and expectations

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.

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)

The Use of Music as a Magical Element for the Larp Experience

Published on

2022-05-26

in

Knutepunkt 2021, Techniques

The Use of Music as a Magical Element for the Larp Experience

Written by

Leandro Godoy

This article describes how Confraria das Ideias (a larp group from Brazil) uses music as a game design element. The text is based on own experiences and learning, especially in the larps Blind, Deaf and Dumb (2017) and The Last Night (2019), with practical examples, future ideas, and sharing different ways to use music in the larp.

Since the late 1990s, the group has been making free-style and one-shot larps, each with different themes, proposals and stories. The games are held in public spaces such as libraries, cultural centers and theaters, all free of charge to participants and funded by public and private funds earmarked for cultural projects. (see Falcão 2014)

Over the years, Confraria das Ideias has utilized music in larps in different ways, recognizing its importance in the trajectories of the larps produced.

Music is able to bring old memories to the fore and make you experience feelings such as passion, sadness, anger and joy. It is present in the performing arts and derived from its earliest movements, from Greek tragedy to modern cinema, passing through the most artistic expressions and – also – in larp.

“Music, more than any other art, has an extensive neuropsychological representation, with direct access to affectivity, impulse control, emotions and motivation. It can stimulate non-verbal memory through secondary associative areas which allow direct access to the system of integrated perceptions linked to associative areas of cerebral confluence that unify the various sensations.” (Weigsding 2015)

Since the first larps, the group realized that the soundtrack had great influence on immersion and, with some scenography, served as a foundation for the stories proposed in the characters and in the plot to manifest themselves in a more fluid way. But, over the years, this use of music in larp grew and started to gain important space in the stages of creation and execution of larp.

When the Magic Begins: Music as a Soundtrack in Larp

It all starts with an idea for a new larp. It is discussed by the group, improved gradually. Characters are written, while the scenographic proposal is created along with the plot. Design elements, mechanics and props are developed. The larp is publicized and people express an interest in participating. The day arrives, the scenography is set up for a few hours; costumes are distributed, and the entire reception is prepared.

Then, the participants begin to arrive and prepare. Once everyone are together, the guidelines for the game are communicated.

After this the proposed immersion for larp takes place, and the participants are positioned on the stage – waiting for the combined signal to start. Until that moment, the larp does not yet exist.

And that is when, as if by magic, larp manifests itself. A song appears in the room, especially selected for the moment. It is the trigger indicating to everyone that the veil of reality, of everyday life, is on the ground and that from there their characters come to life for a new world of discovery, mystery, drama and adventure.

It is magic! For a spectator, it seems that everything prepared up to that moment comes to life instantly, with the first chords of the intro music. As a kind of trance, characters take on the bodies of the players, moving them through space.

Music works not only as an initial snap, but as a catalyst for this proposed new world. It plays a dramatic role, sometimes as a diegetic element, sometimes not. It helps to set the tone of the story, to break the limiting personal barriers that block actions: it frees action and imagination, aware that they will find support and reinforcement in other participants.

The control of the songs happens in a prepared sound table, and basic equipment comprised of a notebook and sound output, strategically placed at the scene.

The complexity depends on the design of the larp, which may require constant changes in music and sound effects or just a single track throughout the game.

Paulo Renault, one of the founding members of the Confraria, producer and responsible for preparing and conducting the sound mixer, uses the Virtual DJ software to conduct the tracks during larps, says:

“Among the ways of giving rhythm to the larp, the sound, through music or sound effects, is something that plays in deep layers of the player. The use of equipment such as a mixer allows mixing effects and sounds, creating an immersive outdoor atmosphere for the game.”

As in the larp State of Grace (1997, 2011) where the soundtrack is composed of Gregorian chants in a constant loop, helping to transform the atmosphere of a traditional São Paulo mansion into a French monastery of the Middle Ages.

Or as in the larp Neon Dragon Express (2018, 2019), where the theme is a cyberpunk adventure. The soundtrack is composed of electronic and industrial songs that are played interspersed with pre-recorded ads and various reports that are inserted by the organizers according to the narrative of the game.

In both cases, music exerts a strong power in the participants’ imagination, quickly placing their minds and hearts on the theme planned for the larp.

In the larp Extraordinary Stories (2009, 2014, 2015, 2020), inspired by the tales of Edgar Allan Poe and set in a masquerade ball in the 19th century, the soundtrack also has the mission of helping the sensation the passage of time. In addition it marks important moments such as dancing in the main hall with the waltzes of Johann Strauss II: The Blue Danube Waltz, Kaiser-Walzer and Rathausball-Tänze in addition to using a dramatic and apotheotic melody for the final moments of history, with Lux Aeterna by Clint Mansell (soundtrack by Requiem for a Dream, version with violins).

Photo by Thomaz Barbeiro, larp Extraordinary Stories (2020)

The choice of songs to compose the track are contextualized and planned in the production stages; but it is important to pay close attention to the operation of the sound board. After all, the execution of the tracks ends up directly reflecting on the game’s actions, but it can also be influenced by them.

When the design of the larp requires this type of complexity in the operation, the organization needs to keep an eye on the larp’s events. From this perspective, they decide to change the pre-selected tracks and sound effects, in search of a better immersion and correspondence with the game, and also end up influencing the rhythm of the larp.

One might say that the music helps materialize the larp, with its execution bringing in the concepts of the game planned previously.

It is closely linked to the design of the game not only in its content and sequence of execution, but also in the format that it presents itself. One example is the larp Club D (2016) which has as its setting a mansion of the highest society, where it was decided to replace the sound table with a pair of professional guitarists, thus seeking the atmosphere of refinement that live classical music provides.

Photo by Thomaz Barbeiro, larp Club D (2016)

A New Trick, Another View

As a larp designer you can propose an experience that uses, as a tool, or a collection of songs where the lyrics provide insights for the players during the larp session.

The idea is to use the songs to evoke emotions, memories and feelings in the participants, as a way to employ bleed to create larps with more introspective themes.

“At its most positive, bleed experiences can produce moments of catharsis: when the player and character emotions are synced in a powerful moment of emotional expression. Most often, these experiences manifest in great displays of joy, love, anger, or grief; in-game crying is often associated with bleed.” (Bowman 2015)

The first larp with this perspective sought to capture the aura of the album Tommy (1969) of the band The Who and create a game that was born from a very personal reflection on the album.

This became the larp Blind, Deaf and Dumb, about a group of young people who over the years need to deal with the frustration, trauma, disenchantment and misunderstandings of adult life.

This time, the songs came to have a direct influence on the larp’s narrative. As a designer, it was necessary to dissect track by track of the disc, and from this analysis make the content reflect on the dynamics of larp.

This is not a literal transcription of the album into larp, even though it is present all the time from production to the execution of the game, but rather a source of inspiration for something new.

Photo by Thomaz Barbeiro, larp Blind, Deaf and Dumb (2017)

The larp was divided into acts, which represented the passage of the years. The players were workshopped to interpret music as part of the mechanics indicating not only the beginning and the end of each act, but also insights for the characters, who had plots created from excerpts of the lyrics of the songs.

This way, a character that had in his background, an abuse suffered by his uncle, would be impacted immediately upon hearing the song “Uncle Earn” where the theme was addressed.

This type of approach with music bringing emotional issues to the characters ends up also dealing with the affective memory that the songs exercise in the players. It has more impact on those who already knew the disc, but is capable of promoting different sensations in all the participants regardless.

“Recursively, the proposal sought to make the players’ experiences affect the sensations of the characters. The idea of a group of friends who, in the midst of disagreements, meet some times in the 47-year period was a metaphor for friendships that are absent due to setbacks in everyday life. A recurring finding by the players was that, even within the fictional environment of the larp, it was friendships distanced from the daily reality of the players that caused feelings to emerge on the characters.” (Iuama and Miklos 2019)

The larp starts with a group of friends gathered in 1969 to celebrate their last year in high school. When playing the “Tommy” album and lighting a candle, the mechanics of time travel, marked by music, begin.

The larp was set up on a theater stage. Therefore, the participants were instructed to address the backstage whenever they heard the music play, naturally, each in their own time, as if they were saying goodbye. There, they received a change of clothes and a card indicating when the next act will take place and some relevant facts about what happened in the character’s life. In addition, pre-recorded audio about events in the history of Brazil that were emblematic for the period. For example, the track Do You Think It’s Alright? was used to introduce the act where the characters returned from the “Diretas Já” marches – a movement that sought the end of the violent Military Dictatorship that devastated Brazil.

The return to the play was marked by the next song on the album, with the participants instructed to gradually return to the stage, which contained some updates of scenography to match the time.

The track We’re not gonna take it comes as a refusal to this whole trajectory full of secrets and annoyances, and the characters are invited by the stanza “See me, Feel me”, to look at themselves and return to the initial moment of larp, in 1969, with the same costumes and initial positions, and the provocation that their experience was a future that could still be changed, leading the participants to smiles and tears.

The choice to use the music to structure the larp brought the need for a guide sheet to help operating the sound table:

Sound desk guide sheet, by Leandro Godoy

The Materiality of Music as a Magical Element

The materiality of the music can be used in its design, bringing benefits to the player’s immersion.

The digital format and streaming allowed the distribution of music in quantity and speed never imagined, but the relationship of object with the music, the album, the touch to feel the vinyl records or the huge inserts that exhibited art were lost representing the songs.

“(…) materiality (and ‘possibilities’) are realities that are always perceived – mediated, therefore – by human actors, as social and cultural subjects. Thus, there is a complex dialectical interaction between the cultural dimension and the properties of objects (here, specifically, the musical material), which conditions the way in which a subject and an object interact, in a given context.” (Boia 2008)

Imbued with this nostalgic feeling, a larp was imagined where players had the opportunity to experience these sensations.

With the larp The Last Night, the Confraria das Ideias proposed to create a game about nostalgia, conflict between generations and the different ways in which these generations dealt with music.

The idea of having an old radio station as a scenario sought to allow participants to discover a little bit of this tangibility of music. Immerse yourself in an era: from the touch when handling vinyl records, discovering their sounds and shape; to occupy the space of the stage, use microphones, play out the script and perform radio soap operas; bring the programme to life.

Thus, the participants had control of the larp’s own soundtrack in real time.

Photo by Thomaz Barbeiro, larp The Last Night (2019)

In the main plot, half of the participants received characters who, in 2019, discover an old radio station that was destroyed in the early 1960s by a terrible fire. The rest received characters who were the ghosts of the people who worked at the radio station, and who were stuck reliving the last night, in an eternal loop.

For the idea to work, the sound table was set up inside the radio station itself, so that the participants themselves could operate it, including releasing the microphones for live musical numbers. The players were able to choose to sing live or use playback.

The audio was broadcast live across the larp venue (stage, aisle and dressing rooms), as well as being broadcast live to YouTube to simulate the radio.

Everything that the participants chose to put on the program also became the larp’s soundtrack.

With the characters in charge of the programming, they were given the power to command the tone of the larp, alternating moments that went from comic to dramatic, allowing musical discoveries and sharing their own repertoire.

Thomaz Barbeiro, professor of history and member of Confraria das Ideias, was one of those responsible for researching the material:

“For me, as a historian and passionate about culture, the search for vinyls for the composition of “The Last Night” is, above all, an instigating work with sources and, consequently, the satisfaction of being able to take some of the critical work of historical science into a larp, a game that adds fun and learning about you, the other, about the present time and the past you want”.

Some players used the vinyl record player for the first time in their life during the larp. The touch made the experience more real, contributing to the immersion.

With fun and memorable moments, the larp came to an end, but the magic remained present: the participants did not leave the scene even after the game ended, extending the fun for a few more hours in improvised sessions of songs, novels and new random fictitious commercials.

To transfer this experience to other larps, the designer needs to plan the technical part carefully (in-game equipment connected to the sound system) and provide the material (discs, CDs, musical instruments) for the players to use. Imagine a larp where a character can put a song in a dramatic moment, and it reverberates throughout the scene? Allowing players to directly interfere with the soundtrack can benefit your larp.

Is it Possible to Use this Magic of the Musical Larp to Change the World?

By tradition and intention, Confraria das Ideias does not abstain from speaking in its work on important social issues, always seeking a dialogue for reflection and learning. And social inequality is one of the most challenging problems in Brazil (and in the rest of the world), amplified by the rise of the extreme right with an oppressive, homophobic, ultranationalist discourse, causing serious social damage and disruption in the name of its perverse economic agenda.

In this context, art through larp comes to question this model, launch a discussion and shed light on the subject.

Thinking about these issues, the idea arose of using music in a larp in order to represent social conflicts, and provoke an empathic vision.

Rhapsody Paulistana is a larp currently in production in which the players will investigate using the format of the great musicals in game mechanics, in order to engage with the genre and still provoke the participants to leave the comfort zone.

Luiz Prado, producer of larps – with a repertoire of immersive games – and a member of the Confraria das Ideias has for some time been investigating how to encourage participants to use their whole body more when composing and representing their characters in larps:

“A song can grab us by the hand and offer trips to infinite lands. We all already feel that when we hear a song that really gets us. When the song is used in larp, it is a kind of turbo for the transformation in the character and the arrival at the game world. The right music, added to the right disposition, throws the head player into a somersault without any protection in the experience”.

Rhapsody Paulistana goes in that direction, by provoking the senses further, by the observation and support in the game of the neighbor, and in how well-defined movements can be powerful communication tools in the larp.

Can magic create a safe environment that allows people to risk trying something? What tools will the organization need to bring to make this experience enjoyable and unforgettable for everyone? In addition to the obvious challenge of creating the game mechanics, one of the biggest desires is to keep larp accessible to all people, even those who don’t know how to sing or dance.

The idea is to use songs and dances as these tools, as part of the mechanics to obtain narrative turns, in addition to developing the game’s plot.

A pre-larp workshop will probably be needed to help participants to naturally utilize the mechanics throughout the larp.

It is a provocation, seeking to challenge the limits of each one, and yet collaboratively build a dense narrative.

Music comes in as a magical element to unite differences. From the erudite to the popular, create a plot that confronts social issues, put the conflicts in focus by the musical style and promote a strong reflection of social inclusion. The players can do this with a strong emotional charge, as well as a repertoire that provokes a discussion that can go beyond the larp itself.

From Magician to Magician

A larp is an open work, which is built collectively. Regardless of how you choose for music to affect your game, it is important that not only the organizational team is fully prepared and involved with the game’s proposal. Communicating the intention of the work well is a way for everyone to contribute to the game.

Music plays a strong role in immersion, in the dramatic load and in the rhythm of the larps. It will invariably affect people emotionally, so take the time to discuss at the end of each larp. Hosting well is key to ending the game well.

While designing your larp, take time to reflect on these issues. And more: What is the best alternative to strengthen the experience you are proposing with larp? Make music part of the game? Live music? Loop soundtrack? Sounds that are mixed, controlled and played in real time according to the moment of the game? Having no music at all, and using only noise and sound effects?

Photo by Leonardo França, larp The Night of Love, Smile and Flower (2013)

Whether present in the game diegetically, pre-recorded or live, do not underestimate the power of using music in the design of your larp. Songs – popular or classical – have an influence on participants (including organizers). Being aware of this and recognizing this magic that surrounds us is quite enriching.

These choices should be made while you are designing your larp, when you have a more mature idea of how you want your larp to be. There is no ready formula for right or wrong, but different ways of interacting with music.

There are a few clichés: larps with a medieval theme using live folk music, larps that take place in a bar using a pre-recorded track from the time the story takes place, etc. We encourage larp designers to use the examples provided to extrapolate the use of music, think of alternatives, create soundtracks in which the lyrics appear as an insight to players, soundtracks that have markings during the larp, or deliver to participants a way for them to make their own larp soundtrack. You might also make a mix of all this. After all, there are no ready-made rules, just good ideas to enhance your larp’s emotions and experiences.

And, at the end of the larp when the music stops, each one will leave behind those fantastic characters, but never the lived experience, which will warmly perpetuate itself in their hearts.

Bibliography

Boia, Pedro dos Santos. 2008. Capturing the Materiality of Music in Sociological Analysis. Institute of Sociology, Faculty of Arts, University of Porto, Jun 2008.

Bowman, Sarah Lynne. 2015. “Bleed: The Spillover Between Player and Character.” Nordiclarp.org. Last modified March 2, 2015.

Falcão, Luiz. 2014. “New tastes in Brazilian larp”. The Cutting Edge of Nordic Larp.

Iuama, Tadeu, and Jorge Miklos. 2019. “Citizen and ecological communication: Experience of contemporary cultural resistance based on the performance of larp at the Youth Cultural Center of São Paulo”. Electronic journal of the Master’s Program in Communication at College Cásper Líbero Jun, 2019.

Weigsding, Jessica Adriane. 2015. “The influence of music on human behavior.” MUDI files v 18, n 2, p 47–62. State University of Maringá.

Audial Media

Mansell, Clint. 2000. ‘Lux Aeterna’. Nonesuch Records.

Strauss, Johann II. 1866, ‘The Blue Danube’, Op. 314.

Strauss, Johann II. 1889. ‘Kaiser-Walzer’, Op. 437.

Strauss, Johann II. 1890. ‘Rathausball-Tänze’, Op. 438.

The Who. 1969. Tommy. Recorded 19 September 1968 – 7 March 1969, Track / Decca.

Cover photo: Photo by Thomaz Barbeiro, larp Club D (2016)

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:

Godoy, Leandro. “The Use of Music as a Magical Element for the Larp Experience.” 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.

Magic To Fight Monsters: Larp as a spell for claiming my spaces

Published on

2022-05-04

in

Knutepunkt 2021, Techniques

Magic To Fight Monsters: Larp as a spell for claiming my spaces

Written by

Rei England

Monsters

There are monsters under my bed. When I was a child, I could sense them in every half-seen shadow, feel their breath on my neck. I knew monsters were imaginary. But I was still afraid.

I am a non-binary larper. Time and again, I find that larps are framed to create those shadowy spaces and summon monsters. Monsters hiding under the bed and in the closet, but much more real and able to harm me.

Most of my fellow larpers are lovely people who don’t intend their games to include monsters. They are happy to fight the big and dangerous monsters. But many of the monsters I fight are sneakier; they keep themselves invisible to well-meaning allies.

This is a guide to some of the monsters that non-binary adventurers encounter when they larp. If you are non-binary, you might recognise them and know you are not alone in your fight. If you are not, then I hope you can use this as a spotter’s guide to help you check your games to see if you might be creating fertile ground for monsters to spawn.

Basilisk: This snake-like creature can petrify or kill with a glance. It is common in larps to find that a Basilisk has wiped all non-binary people from the game world. Non-binary adventurers risk petrification from the discomfort and dysphoria of being forced to play a binary gender. Even the reflection of a Basilisk’s gaze can kill: larps based on highly gendered media often mimic source material and exclude non-binary characters, unintentionally perpetuating a problem. The danger can be reduced to a painful skin condition by allowing non-binary characters who are perceived as binary, but beware; this opens you up to a Bogeyman attack.

Kelpie: These river spirits take the shape of a horse, trying to entice would-be riders up onto their back. At larp events, they appeal to players by offering the promise that people can sign up as their own gender – because that’s important to many people. When the non-binary adventurer mounts the Kelpie, it becomes clear that this was a ploy; the Kelpie attempts to drown them in the river by forcing them to sign up as Male or Female. Kelpies can also attack adventurers of sexual or romantic minorities, manifesting as a promise of romance plots that turn out to only be compatible with the sexuality of straight players.

Goblin: These monsters taunt and harry writers, whispering in their ears until they are afraid to include non-binary characters in their game “in case they get it wrong” – even though their larp contains no plots about the characters’ internal sense of gender. Gripped by fear, the writer does not notice that they have written many characters outside their experience, such as androids, giant insects, and humans with a binary gender not their own. While the Goblin’s attack seems subtle, the results are indistinguishable from the attack of a Basilisk. Fooled by the Goblin, the writer does not even think to consult a non-binary adventurer for advice.

Bogeyman: This monster lurks in the closet, ready to pull adventurers inside at any sign of gender-transgressing ‘bad behaviour’. If you attend a gendered game and decide to play in a gender non-conforming outfit, such as a woman in trousers – a common armour against dysphoria and often an adventurer’s only clothing – then watch out for this monster causing in-character hostility. This monster exists in larps, but also in many other contexts, and fighting too many becomes exhausting. It is often necessary to make a choice: hide from this monster and suffer the wounds in silence, or face it for yet another painful battle?

Dragon: Like Goblins, Dragons attack imaginations, destroying even the idea of better alternatives. There are numerous types; the non-binary and sexism Dragons like to team up, setting fire to whole cities of imagination so writers see only barren ground. Bereft of inspiration, the writer uses their own world and again chooses gender as the basis for the division of character roles and social dynamics. The resulting highly-gendered game harms AFAB people, but causes extra damage to a non-binary adventurer. The Dragon’s work also causes the GM to almost always cast non-binary adventurers as the gender they were assigned at birth, even when there is a better fitting character in another gender.

Changeling: This monster exists in disguise, often using words like ‘inclusivity’ and ‘feminism’ to create what seems like a welcoming space. Once inside their lair, they reveal their fangs and attack any trans person who enters. These monsters are so insidious because any enticing larp could be a Changeling lair; as a result, their very existence ensures that many an adventurer must distrust any game unless they clearly display support of transgender and non-binary inclusion, behaviour that Changelings usually struggle to mimic.

Minotaur: These monsters like to hide inside a labyrinth. These can be subtle constructions, taking a while for an adventurer to realise they have been drawn in. While the game contains nothing openly problematic, it also contains no non-binary characters or suggestions for replacement gender dynamics written into the background. This allows the Minotaur to gradually fill in the gaps with its labyrinth, reproducing existing social dynamics and player biases. The adventurer experiences a gradual realisation that they are becoming more lost with every turn, as the distant roaring sound grows ever closer.

Ghost: An adventurer possessed by this monster, becomes invisible. They can wear pronoun badges, deliberately mix gendered clothing and other markers, and correct people’s misuse of their pronouns, but it won’t help – they are treated as binary despite all evidence to the contrary. The more this happens, the tighter the grip of the Ghost. If you are haunted by a Ghost, your only hope is that there are enough psychic players in the game to affirm your characters’ gender until the influence of this monster has been overcome.

Zombie: Zombies are slow and would not be very threatening on their own, but they can destroy an adventurer through sheer relentless numbers. Phrases like ‘ladies and gentlemen’, ‘he or she’, ‘this is a game for women but men are also welcome’, lack of gender-neutral toilets at a venue – these things permeate out of character interactions and they build up until the adventurer becomes worn down from a thousand small wounds.

Nessie: Nessies are mysterious beasts that lurk under the surface of your game. They manifest as social pressure not to make a fuss or drop out of a game, taking advantage of people’s reasonable desire for commitment and natural wish not to spoil things for others. When a Nessie emerges, a person suffering other monster attacks finds their escape cut off by sinewy scales, causing them social damage and increased exclusion if they try to flee. Nessies do not limit their prey; they often attack disabled adventurers or those with mental health conditions to manage.

Counterspells

There are monsters under my bed. When I was a child, I learned to use magic to fire lightning and create a shield. I reasoned this should work because the monsters were also imaginary.

Larps are spells. Larp is where we take our own stories and build new cultures and visions for how the world might be. Through this ritual we take them one step closer to reality.

This is a guide to some counterspells that can arm non-binary adventurers. If you are non-binary, I hope this gives you light and hope. If you are not, I hope you can use this guide to help you write, play, and run larps in ways that help combat the monsters we face daily.

Horn of Plenty, illustration by Marcus Irgens

Horn of Plenty: Just as some monsters team up, so can different adventurers, generating a nurturing feedback loop. Including other queer characters, having non-normative relationships, and combating sexism monsters in larps can invoke the Horn of Plenty, causing a feast of nourishment to flow for all. This effect is enhanced by placing these characters in positions of power; write non-binary heads of house, trans woman ruler in a polyamorous triad, and a pansexual and aromantic Grand Vizier.

Circle of Protection: An adventurer equipped with this spell possesses a magic shield that encircles them and holds back monsters. The Circle of Protection is invoked on the spot using safety words or prior to an adventure by writing a list of lines, and its use empowers an adventurer by offering them control over participating in certain themes and topics.

As Above, So Below: Sympathetic magic makes use of the way that ‘like produces like’, enacting changes in a representation that will also affect the real thing. In a larp, this can be invoked by writing explicitly non-binary or gender non-conforming characters into setting and character backgrounds in ways that deliberately offer new social dynamics and non-gendered roles. This spell can be boosted with subtle details in set dressing: costumes that mess with traditional gendered clothing, feminine motifs in the warrior enclave, masculine motifs at the woolmaking hearth, background music from queer subcultures.

Walking the Ways: An experienced adventurer can learn to slip between the cracks and into the Wild Ways, allowing them to traverse large distances quickly and avoid the monsters lurking there. You can enable this in a larp by calling down some essence of the Ways into your game. Write a game where gender neutrality is the norm; where queerness and gender fluidity is the default assumption; where gender weirdness is celebrated; where characters have different genders or no genders or extra genders.

Talisman of Sky, illustration by Marcus Irgens

Talisman of Sky: Air is a powerful element, one which fuels our breath and is associated with the mind and communication. Allow players to commune with their characters in whatever way their breath and connection takes them. You can invoke this in a larp by writing all characters as gender neutral and allowing players to choose their gender and pronouns. Many writers find this spell difficult to invoke; their minds want to impose their own gender habits, which hampers the Talisman. Think carefully before you gender a character, as almost no plots really require a specific gender identity.

Sigil of Earth: This element of growth and strength can be invoked if Sky is not possible. When writing a larp with pre-set character genders, plant the seeds for this spell by deliberately writing against cultural gender roles and including explicitly non-binary or intersex characters. Gender roles are very ingrained, and writers tend to use their culture’s ideas if they let their feet carry them without conscious intervention. (Try rolling a die after writing each character: 1-4, female; 5, intersex; 6, non-binary; 7-10, male.) When you cast, allow for players willing to play any gender, and do your first pass without knowing their identity and thus name or presentation.

Shadow Dancing: An adventurer can use movement mirroring a monster’s symbolic representation to form a spell that will strip them of their power. At your event, you can dance this by ensuring that procedures are the same for all genders: if game writers must specify the number of male or female characters, also ask how many characters are explicitly non-binary. If players can sign-up as male or female, allow them to sign-up explicitly as non-binary. If your venue has toilets that are provided specifically for men and for women, select one set and make them gender neutral (labelled with urinals or with sanitary bins).

Ritual of Transmutation: No adventurer steps out with immediate mastery of monster hunting skills. This ritual is best reinforced frequently, gradually allowing your powers to grow. This spell is invoked by using non-binary inclusive phrases at least three times in the mirror, with increasing intensity until you feel the spell begin to settle in your bones. Practice turns of phrase, pronouns, and forms of address. Check your writing, and if you’re not sure the spell is working, ask a friendly non-binary adventurer if they have time to look over your work – though adventurers may need to conserve energy for fighting monsters.

True Naming: Knowing someone’s true name grants power – knowing your own, more so. In a larp, you invoke this spell by building norms to always check pronouns, either visually (if there are badges) or verbally. When players sign up, don’t ask what their gender is; ask them instead what gender they would like to play and what pronouns their character should have. In your game, specify that the default pronoun is ‘they’ unless you have checked on a particular character’s pronouns. Use a clear and simple pronoun correction procedure, and have players practice it in a game workshop as they would any other mechanics.

Healing potion, illustration by Marcus Irgens

Healing Potion: This spell is created in advance, combining sacred herbs and hidden fruit in a potion to restore lost vitality. You can create one by taking the time to include Queer histories and media in your source material, supporting non-binary and transgender writers, uplifting LGBTQIA+ players in your community and giving them a voice – and importantly, listening to what they say. Sometimes people feel a shadow of the pain when they encounter a wounded adventurer speaking of their battles, and can unknowingly lash out at the adventurer instead of helping to fight the monster. The best response for you both is to offer the wounded adventurer a healing potion instead

Adventuring

There will always be monsters under the bed. Some of these will be of my own making.

I write and run games. I, too, inadvertently create monsters. As a wizard, I must research the side effects of my choices and try to modify my spellmaking accordingly. If we make an effort, we can perhaps band together as fellow adventurers of all kinds. We can share our spells and our vitality, and create a better fantasy land for all of us.

Will you come adventuring with me, and fight them together?

Cover photo: Image by OpenClipart-Vectors on Pixabay.

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:

England, Rei. “Magic To Fight Monsters: Larp as a spell for claiming my spaces.” 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.

Published on

2022-04-25

in

Knutepunkt 2021, Techniques

Le Jean-Michel Douchebag Technique

Written by

Michael Freudenthal

Living is tough, especially when your identities are marginalised. Fortunately, we larpers are good at pretending we are the oppressors. Sometimes a bit too convincingly. This essay is for people who want to be confident at larp, or are struggling with impostor syndrome outside of larp: do not embrace your inner douchebag – let’s call him Jean-Michel((Please accept my humblest of apologies if your name is Jean-Michel.)) – but harness your inner Jean-Michel.

Warnings: mention of oppressions, cringe humor, impostor syndrome, thought-provoking

Le Jean-Michel Douchebag technique((As you can read, I am French.)) is the ultimate secret weapon to develop confidence, which is a concept I coined and can share with you at my exclusive immersive party for a keyholder discount of 57.99€ (about 1 or 2 Norwegian krones or whatnot). This is what my inner Jean-Michel would say. But I am not Jean-Michel, and you are not either. All the credit actually goes to writer Sarah Hagi’s tweet “God, give me the confidence of a mediocre white dude”. I added a twist.

“Fake it until you make it” is what you would read in personal development techniques, method acting, or pick-up artists’ twisted frameworks to ignore a woman’s consent. But all of these life rules seem to bend over backward, which seems just a tad counter-productive. If productivity is your concern for finding a way to express yourself, wouldn’t you rather directly explore who you are, what you like, or who you like? Yes? Then stop reading right now and go be yourself, don’t learn about le Jean-Michel Technique, do it for the sake of the utmost sacred neo-liberalist productivity!

Le Technique((It becomes obvious now I use footnotes for no logical reason whatsoever.))

Most cis-gender men are people. They are perceived and feel like men since they were born. Most artists I’ve worked with were not cisgender men, have a tendency to overperform while undermining themselves and unsurprisingly, have anxiety issues. They also have a common point: they all know someone who is the complete opposite, a cis-gender man of a someone, who does the same work they do but seems so entitled to everything that he gets infinitely more recognition. And he is not even that good.

Step 1: Think about someone that fits. Picture them as a character named Jean-Michel: he does exactly what you do, he is not better at your craft, but gets all the recognition, so what is it about him? Is it his hair? Is it confidence?

It is more than confidence, isn’t it? He is not an alpha dog,((Which is obvious, since the alpha dog theory is scientifically inaccurate.)) he is no Brad Pitt, he does not even know why people give fucks. He is spontaneous, reckless, a bit dumb: he is Jean-Michel, an ignorant douchebag, this era’s hero. Jean-Michel feels he is your friend. Everybody’s friend. And one does not ask his friends for permission.

Step 2: Push forward: Jean-Michel gets his inspiration from you. He takes your thing, and produces a half-baked bland version without a soul, but gets thousands of recognition likes for it.((We are not even in the realm of caricature yet, unfortunately.)) What belief allows him to firmly assert he came up with it? Why does anyone believe him?

“You can do absolutely anything”, said his parents to Jean-Michel. And he did not only believe it for himself, but also for everyone else. So he took your work and changed a detail or two? If he is even aware it originated from you, he thinks it is some kind of hommage, a win-win situation, you know.((In French we have a saying: “Idiots are daring; that’s how you notice them.” (Michel Audiard).))

Step 3: Act like it. In every matter small or large, think: what would Jean-Michel do? If you did not care about someone’s reaction, how would you phrase your e-mail? If you did not care whether your essay is good or not, would you submit it?

Finding your inner douchebag is easy. Making them as realistic as a Jean-Michel may be a bit trickier. Now that you can dramatically be horrible to others by your mere daring presence, you can choose to take things a bit further. You can choose to ask yourself how this could help transform your life.

Step 4: Who would want to be a Jean-Michel? Dig into what makes him different from you. Be specific. What does he dare to do or to say? What does he believe? And most importantly: what is his relation to others?

Jean-Michel is a hero. He has immense bravery, faith in his values, and he triumphs alone despite all the haters. Let’s not be Jean-Michel. Let’s embrace our insecurities, keep open hearts and minds, and share with others. This is a dialogue.

Step 5: Why are you apologising for rejecting this amazing free work opportunity? Would Jean-Michel be sorry? No, he would print that e-mail, shit on it, and send it baked in girl scout cookies. You won’t do that, but you won’t apologise either.

In summary, harnessing your inner Jean-Michel is doing an inner voice larping, a dialogue between a douchebag inspired by someone you know of and yourself, a kind of devil on your shoulder. It can be liberating yourself from Western society’s imposed self-censorship, self-doubt, and impostor syndrome amongst marginalised people.

Too Cringe, Didn’t Read: Please Be Explicit

What inspired me is being socially awkward my entire life. Passing for a cisgender white heterosexual guy, I have tried to be that at work, to be Jean-Michel. I have purposefully learned how to show confidence during a job interview, and to invade people’s personal spaces to assert virility. These were the rules. But faking it does not make it. I remained queer and later, I got quite the opposite advice. It was unfortunately the most practical and useful one I ever got: if you want to blend in at work, act like you are scared, all the time. Sadly, fear is always the safest answer.

You can read this essay as a workshop for larp, a thought-provoking provoking manifesto against heroism, or a practical exercise for marginalised people to foster discussion about privilege and oppression. Or just as my inner Jean-Michel’s production, because if I have been able to publish this, you can do anything.

Bibliography

Jonaya Kemper “Wyrding the Self.” In What Do We Do When We Play?, edited by Eleanor Saitta, Jukka Särkijärvi, and Johanna Koljonen. Helsinki, Finland: Solmukohta, 2020.

Muriel Algayres “Not good enough: on larp and systemic anxiety”, at Nordic Larp Talks, 2019 URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHPfZyLLEOI

Sarah Hagi’s writer website: https://sarahhagi.contently.com/

Thanks to:

Axelle Cazeneuve, Mélanie Dorey, Lars Kristian Løveng Sunde, Dorothée Lambert. And to all the douchebags out there.

Cover photo: Image by Gregory Hayes on Pexels.

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:

Freudenthal, Michael. “Le Jean-Michel Douchebag Technique.” 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.

Published on

2022-02-21

in

Techniques

Creating Magical Romance Play

Written by

Sandy Bailly

Discovering that you will be having romantic play in your larp, is something that almost always causes a certain reaction amongst larpers. One of panic, stress, worry, joy, relief, or anything else not mentioned here. It is clear that having romance in your character and relations is something that can be very impactful for your entire larp. So, how do we take this romantic play and feel safe to run with it? How do we turn something that so often is frightening for a lot of players into something that establishes and deepens a character? How do we create an engaging story about emotions that enriches play for all parties involved, without it having to go further than that? How do we play on romance without it becoming play on sexuality? How do we bring the magic into our romantic play in a larp?

Creating a safe framework

Having the right safe space is an essential component to romantic play. It allows you as well as your co-player(s) to dive deep into your romantic relationship, regardless of whether it’s a prewritten one or one that you have created yourself. Especially as romance play tends to often go deeper and become more emotional than a lot of other relations in a larp, it is key to make sure that everyone involved feels that it’s safe enough to jump into this play and trust each other to build a beautiful story.

Discuss your boundaries before the larp

Having a discussion on boundaries before the larp will help in creating a safer environment for everyone involved in a prewritten or pre-negotiated romance. Make sure this talk isn’t just about physical boundaries, but also about emotional and narrative ones. It’s important not to stay overly superficial or get stuck in generalisations; it pays off to go into specifics. This doesn’t just provide a wider area to play in once you rule out the specifics, but also gives you a sense of security, because you have trusted each other with these specifics. If, e.g., you don’t like being tickled on your right thigh, or hate your nose being touched because of insecurities, this is the moment to mention it. If there are any emotions you do not like to play on, like grief, if there are any stories you prefer not to tell, or if you have any important triggers that might come out during play, these are also worth mentioning to someone you will be sharing intense and deep play with. Don’t be afraid to be vulnerable towards each other, and don’t be judgemental about each other’s boundaries. Creating a safe space starts here, by creating a safe and trusting atmosphere in which to discuss your boundaries together.

Manage everyone’s expectations

Along with a talk about your boundaries, it is equally important to also discuss expectations, and to manage them. There are as many expectations from a larp as there are participants in it, and it is important to make sure your expectations aren’t completely opposite to those of your co-player(s) for your romantic play when you step into the game. Before starting up this conversation, remind yourself that you will probably have different expectations, and that it will mainly be a question of communicating and getting your expectations aligned with each other, so that you can flow from there.

You can start up this conversation by stating the type of (romantic) play you like and dislike, and what you are or are not willing to play on. Also think about your preferred directions for the story and state them, but be open for the story to go differently, or for your co-player(s) to have completely different ideas or intentions. This is also a good moment to discuss potential conflicts for your romantic relationship. You can talk about whether or not and how much of it you would like. Additionally, you can also come up with some potential sources of conflict beforehand, which makes it easier to play them up during the larp. Furthermore, make sure to be clear on how much or how little play you would like to get out of your romance. And, above all: be flexible in your expectations, and if needed, make it clear to your co-player(s) that they should be, too. In case you notice that your expectations and those of your co-player(s) are very far apart, don’t hesitate to start up the conversation on how to bring them closer to each other. It’s better to do this before the larp than to be disappointed during play.

Be open for calibration during play

We all know larp is unpredictable, and so is your romantic relation in it. Which is why it’s better not to stick to one outcome, but to be ready for whatever is thrown in your direction instead. This also means it’s good to be ready to check up off-game with your co-player(s) whenever things seem to be going in a very different direction than originally planned or expected. If, for example, you feel like you are not getting a lot of play from your romantic relationship, or not the type of play you had expected, it is worth it to have a quick calibration about this situation. Your co-player(s) may have been unaware, or they may have been stuck with the same issue as well. However, always keep in mind that your co-player(s) can say no to your requests, as you can to theirs. In the end, a short calibration in case of play going into a direction that you would like to see differently will at least help you to know what to do next or what to expect, instead of possibly heading towards disappointment.

Similarly, boundaries may change during a larp, too. This can happen for many reasons, which you do not need to state to your co-player(s). However, do inform them about these changes if this is important for the situation or for possible future situations you may find yourself in. For example, if you have become more comfortable with your co-player and you do not mind them kissing you on the forehead while this would have crossed a boundary before, do not hesitate to quickly tell them about this off-game.

Furthermore, romantic play can at times happen spontaneously during a larp, without it having been preplanned or prewritten. For these spontaneous romances, it is equally important to be open for calibration, if you want to allow for this kind of play to flow. Look for a moment to go off-game and discuss boundaries if you feel the need for it, and make it clear to your co-player(s) that you are open for them to communicate their boundaries to you as well. Even with people who know each other well, it is important to make it clear that the door is always open for this conversation, so that you are sure to create that space of safety and trust despite not having had any negotiations before the larp. Lastly, if you feel the direction you want to take the story in is unclear, or you’re all steering in different directions, make sure to calibrate together, so that this spontaneous story doesn’t fall through or burn up halfway through the larp – unless this is exactly what you want to happen.

Check up on each other after the larp

After the larp ends, it is also important to end your story together and to manage your bleed together. Find a moment when you and your co-player(s) feel alright to talk through the larp and the story together. This can be right after an event, or a week after. Just make sure you find a moment you agree on. During this conversation, take care to give each other compliments and positive feedback: state what elements you liked that the other(s) brought to your story, what you think they did amazingly, which moments you particularly enjoyed, etc. Then, carry on to differentiate yourself from your character. Ask each other about differences and similarities between the player(s) and the character(s). Be there for each other and be supportive for each other. Remain open to talk about bleed to each other, as you may have different moments or different ways of experiencing it. Also embrace the idea that it is equally fine if there is no bleed at all. And last but not least: do not become stuck in going through and drawing each other into bleed over and over again. Keep an eye open for warning signs, such as: starting a conversation over and over again about specific in-character memories; continuing to send each other messages/files/… that remind you of your character’s emotions or their story together; steering conversations to be about the larp more often than not; ending up in a long lasting, time absorbing post play; etc. When you notice warning signs for lasting bleed, take care to take breaks, to do things that distract you from the bleed. Talk about it to your co-player and be honest about the lingering bleed, but also consider taking distance if they are facing the same issue. Working through bleed together is ok, but make sure you also end your story together and move on from there. Keeping your memories and talking about them is a good thing, but clinging to them and to the emotions involved can become problematic.

Making the romance part of your entire story

Just like other relationship dynamics can influence your character and be part of their story, you can allow your romance to shape your character, without necessarily having your entire story and play become exclusively about the romance. This means that you can make the romance meaningful while also making sure your character is still interesting enough without the romance. A romance can be impactful to your character’s story without being their only story: it can be a character’s biggest internal motivator, their largest driver for change, their biggest setback, etc. Romantic play can influence a character, it can push and pull their narrative in a lot of ways, and you can even pace a romantic story along with the rest of your narrative to create a whole. If you manage to find a middle ground between being too dependent or too independent of your romantic story, it can become a beautiful and meaningful part of your story in its entirety.

Having your romantic play and your other relations interact

A first step for making sure your larp romance isn’t just a loose part of your character’s story is having your romantic interest(s) interact with your character’s other relationships. This can happen both directly and indirectly.
Direct interactions are the interactions that take place directly between two characters, without a middle man. A very straightforward example of this is an actual spoken conversation between two characters, but it can also be an exchange of letters or notes, a brief exchange of glances, etc. The most straightforward way to establish this is by introducing your romantic co-player(s) to your other relationships. Any excuse can serve to this end, and you can even go as far as to literally introduce them as the person(s) you fancy. There are obviously less straightforward ways to establish this as well: your character can ask their best friend or servant to deliver a note to their romantic interest, you can suggest to your sibling to ask your romantic interest for advice in a certain matter, etc. The idea here is that you get your romantic interest(s) to interact directly with other characters that hold a relationship to your character and story.

Lastly, you can also establish indirect interactions between your romantic connection and your other relationships, which can obviously turn into direct ones over the course of the larp. With indirect interactions, I refer to interactions where the characters interact and know about each other without talking to each other directly. This is, for example, established by having characters gossip about each other, by having your character confide in their relationships about their romantic feelings, by having them complain, ask for help, or anything else you come up with. Similarly, your character can also talk to their romantic interest(s) about their other relationships, about their friends, their enemies, and their family, and state their opinion about them to their romantic partner(s). This way, you establish a good basis for these characters to look out for each other, or to just talk about each other and establish a certain relationship in this way.

Be open to possible consequences of all of these interactions catching up with your character in the course of the game, and be ready to interact with those as well. It often works well to have different types of direct and indirect interactions going on, as these can all help shape your romantic story.

Pacing a romance along with your character story arc

Tying into the above, next to having your different relations interact with your larp romance, you can also have your romance interact with your character story arc, and vice versa. In essence, pacing your romance and the rest of your story together is a case of allowing them to affect and bleed into each other.

Whenever a part of your general story affects your character and accelerates or slows down your story, or moves it in a new direction, this change of pace can equally be reflected in your romantic story. Use that momentum to create a similar change in your romantic relationship – either internalised or externalised. If your character is, for example, rapidly becoming more independent because of certain events in the game, have them rethink their dependence on or independence of their romantic relationship as well, and show it in their behaviour, or bring it up in conversation, or simply use it as an internal motivator. What matters is that a change in your story arc also affects your romantic story. Changes in pace have a bigger impact if they cause ripples in other stories your character is living through as well, and having these changes influence your romantic play often makes the relationship more realistic as well as more meaningful.

In the same way, impactful changes in your character’s romantic relationship(s) can equally influence the pacing of the rest of their arc. For example, if your romantic interest is slowly changing your character’s opinion on certain matters, take these subtle changes of opinion and reflect them in conversations or opinions you share with other relationships. Act upon the changes your romantic relationship(s) install in your character, and allow them to flow slowly and subtly, instead of having a sudden change of heart from one extreme to the other with no in between. A gradual change in worldview paced along with a gradual evolution in a romantic relationship is a beautiful example of how the whole of a story can be paced and have an impact. Having changes of rhythm in your romantic story affect your other stories, and then having the consequences of these changes in their turn impact your romantic relationship, makes for a better paced whole.

Keeping the romance small yet impactful

A misconception I often find is that in order for a romantic relationship to matter, it needs to be big and visible. I would argue for exactly the contrary. In order for your romance to be impactful, it often works better if it’s small. As so often in larp, it isn’t the big gestures, the big declarations or speeches that leave an impact. It’s the small gestures, the hidden conversations and the stolen moments that affect your character’s world.

As building small, meaningful moments together makes for a more realistic romantic relationship than only having a few grand gestures as shared memories, it is worth looking for them in your larp. You can achieve this in a lot of ways, going from a quick exchange of glances or a slight touch every time you and your romantic interest(s) encounter each other, to actively seeking them out whenever you need a short conversation with them about what’s happening to your character, and asking for their advice. Actively create small moments of togetherness: have your characters check up on each other every so often, share little jokes, send each other small notes, be supportive of each other in moments shared with a group, go and have a drink together and talk about random things … Find small shared interactions that work in your romantic relationship and play on them, repeatedly if you like. Creating small, tender, genuine moments will make your romantic relationship feel a lot more real than only relying on big gestures and declarations of love.

Keeping an open story and an open romance

As with any other larp story or relationship, keeping your romantic play open makes for a more versatile and often more interesting experience. If you want to be able to weave your romantic story into your overall story, both need to be flexible and open enough to be influenced by each other. It does not serve your play to stick rigidly to a desired outcome, and even less so when it no longer makes sense in the given reality of your story. If you are open to not sticking to one fixed goal or storyline, you allow for your different stories and relationships to influence each other even more, thus resulting in a more coherent whole that shapes all of your character. Being open for all the elements in your story, both the expected and the unexpected ones, to influence and shape your character and their story will more likely result in a wholesome and realistic narrative arc for your character to go through.

Having romantic play without it becoming play on sexuality

Romantic play becomes powerful by being small and intimate, and hence, it can be so much more meaningful and rewarding to play exactly on these romantic feelings and this (physical and/or emotional) intimacy for the entirety of your larp. Intimacy comes in many forms and can thus also be achieved in many ways through play, none of which need involve play on sexuality or even physicality. On the contrary, an actual romantic relationship isn’t necessarily shaped by its sexuality, so a romantic relationship in a larp shouldn’t be, either.

Setting boundaries and discussing intimacy

As I’ve argued before, discussing your boundaries with your romantic co-player(s) is an important part of making romantic play work in a larp, as it helps create that vital safe space for us as players to jump into. As a part of this discussion, setting boundaries for not having sexual play with your co-player is equally important. Dare to state this boundary, and be accepting if you ever have a co-player stating this boundary.

When stating this hard limit for sexuality, make it clear that while you are less or not interested in sexual play, you are more so in intimate play. It’s important to make it clear to your co-player that a hard boundary on play on sexuality does not mean there can be no interesting play on the relationship, but rather the contrary. Make it clear that instead of sexual play, you want to play on a romance in which the feelings and/or the small gestures themselves become the focal point.

When shifting your focus from sexuality to intimacy, you should also be ready to discuss what kind of intimate play you desire most. Think about whether you are open for play on intimate physicality, like eg. holding hands, accidental touches, gently brushing each other’s face… or whether you would rather only play on emotional intimacy, e.g. having deep conversations, supporting each other, seeking each other out for advice, having a lot of small one on one talks… Any option or anything in between can create a lot of play and closeness, so don’t be afraid to discuss it and go into detail if needed.

When you trust each other in stating these boundaries, a whole range of other interactions opens up. With the hard limit of no play on sexuality, you can explore which types of intimacy you would like to play on together.

Being open for different types of love and relationships

When talking about romantic play in larp, we often assume this is centred around a certain normative type of romantic attraction and interaction. However, there are many different kinds of love and attraction, so it’s important to also be open to discuss and play on this variety of possible relationships.

It is worthwhile starting this conversation when negotiating your romantic relationship, either before play or during. If you have a desire to play out your relationship more as a platonic love relationship, or if you would like for your character to be asexual and/or aromantic, state this to your coplayer. Be open for other players to inform you about their preferences as well. If during this talk, any clarification is needed – ranging from “what is ace?” to “how would you like us to express our platonic love in a non-physical way?” – be open and willing to ask as well as to offer an explanation. Additionally, normalise these different types of love and relationships, both in your negotiations about them as well as in your play during the larp. Be accepting when a co-player asks not to play on certain types of attraction, or if they suggest a non-romantic kind of love relationship, and don’t lose yourself in assumed problems for this type of play, but think of ways it can enrich your larp experience instead. Being in a polyamorous relationship or feeling a deep love for an aromantic character should, for example, not be the main source of conflict in these relationships. Be willing to talk about and jump into different types of romantic play without making this matter the focal point of your conversation or your play together.

Reinforcing the importance of the relationship

If you make every interaction count, I am also convinced there is less need for play on sexuality. If you treat a romantic relationship less like a romance bound for sexuality and more like a meaningful, character shaping relationship, then every moment has an impact. By keeping it small, you also allow for everything to be meaningful and impactful. A small conversation, a short glance, a desire to help them out,… all of this can motivate your character to do things, to evolve, to take actions outside of the romantic relationship that then again reflect back into the relationship.

A lot of play can happen on an evolving relationship, on words and gestures, on interpretations, on characters growing closer or apart, on characters changing and their dynamics changing along with them, but also on physical intimacy – a touch, a glance, a gentle stroke of the cheek, a smile… As I discussed before, you can create very intimate and important moments with very little. Create moments where you give all your attention to your romantic interest. Have stolen moments, hidden conversations no one else noticed or knows about, ask them for their opinion often and follow their advice (or not), granting each other influence on your stories. Always save some extra kindness, some extra time, a brief glance, a short moment of attention (e.g. asking them specifically for their opinion when talking with a group…) for your romantic interest. Show them they are special and meaningful in the small, unnoticed (by others) moments. Be aware that this kind of play between just the two of you creates a wonderful and deep level of intimacy, and embrace that.

Relationships can become a lot deeper and more important if you dive into the mindset that your characters can inspire each other, that their presence and interactions can influence and forward each others’ stories. A romantic story isn’t necessarily only about one character meeting another and them falling head over heels in love. It can be a story about unwavering support for each other, about being an inspiration for each other to change, to realise their own strength, etc. It takes away from a relationship to only focus on the aspect of romantic attraction when it can be about so much more. Be open to give each other leverage and impact in your stories, and be ready to build a fuller and richer story from there.

Postponing the words “I love you”

It is, however, also perfectly fine to have (part of) your story revolve around the romance. If you choose to go for this type of play, there is a lot to gain from building an arc of evolving towards each other in conversation, not immediately admitting your feelings but showing them in small actions, to then eventually evolve to some (sometimes reluctant) confessions, or finally daring to give in to feelings towards the end of a game, with a simple holding of each other’s hand, an intimate hug, or stating “I love you”. It is worth having a think about the different possible positive or negative resolutions of your romantic relationship, but even more so, it is worth postponing getting to that resolution and focusing on the way you get there. There is more play in getting to that final stage of knowing where the romantic relationship is at, than there is in already reaching that point early on in the event – unless you then play on conflict or a change of the status quo.

At first glance, this seems to be a course of action that mainly works well for new and/or young romances. However, I would like to put forward that this type of play on postponing confessions works for any type of romantic play. You can have an established romantic relationship drift on the same longing for a confession, on the same unspoken (positive or negative) feelings. Your character can, for example, find it problematic that their partner never states their love for them, and have your entire play together evolve around their pushing and longing for those words, or around their wanting to leave for a lack of them. The evolution of the story doesn’t necessarily have to be towards each other, it can also be away from each other, striving for postponing the words “I don’t love you (anymore).” Whichever the case, and whichever the romantic relationship(s), it’s clear that postponing the resolution and playing on the journey there, and the possible (interpretations of the) feelings involved is another way to steer more for play on the relationship, the feelings and the intimacy, and less on the sexuality.

Conclusion

In this article, I hope to have established a good basis for people to turn to when their larp takes them into romantic play. While my own focus was on emotional safety, on making the romance part of your story, and on non-sexual play, throughout all this it remains clear that communication and openness are two key components for any type of play on romance in larp. I hope this article helps players to realise that play on romance doesn’t need to be scary, or forced, or negative, as long as you step into it with an open mindset, ready to communicate, and willing to see it flow within your story in whichever way works for everyone involved.

Cover photo: Image by truthseeker08 on Pixabay. 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:

Bailly, Sandy. “Creating Magical Romance Play.” 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.

Published on

2022-02-18

in

Opinion

Recipe for a Magical Larp Experience

Written by

Torun Hegre

One handful of larpers
Two spoons of diversity (feel free to add as much as you want, it will only make the result that much more exciting)
Three pinches of dialogue
Four shots of open minds
Five cups of awareness

Five splashes of understanding
Four drops of respect
Three sprinkles of tolerance
Two dashes of love
One sprig of community

Mix all the ingredients in a venue of your choice. You can add them in any order you would like; one at a time or all at once. When all the ingredients have been thoroughly mixed; let it set for a while and have a cup of coffee (or whisky if you like). Enjoy your magical larp experience and remember to share with your co-players. The recipe can be scaled up or down as need be.

Cover photo: Image by Borkia on Pixabay. 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:

Hegre, Torun. “Recipe for a Magical Larp Experience.” 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.

[1] No privilege needed in this recipe.

Published on

2021-02-02

in

Solmukohta 2020

Larp Hacking

Written by

Martine Svanevik

There is no right or wrong, only fun and boring

Hackers, 1995

When players of older characters at a Jane Austen inspired larp realise they are little more than NPCs for the younger characters, they go off piste and engineer their own romance plot. Through extremes of in-character behaviour, they force the younger characters to take on the roles of antagonists for them, thus inverting the power dynamics of the piece. This is done in a way that does not adversely affect the play of others.

Larp hacking is when players subvert or change the design of a larp while the larp is running. At its most gentle, hacking a larp is when players find ways to push the limits of the design, or use the design of the larp in ways that the original designers did not expect. At the far end of the scale it is a revolt by players to rescue a larp from abject failure. When done for constructive reasons, subverting the design of the larp can be a useful way to improve or save an experience. Hacking a larp involves changing the overall play experience rather than simply tweaking a character. It is the output of calibration rather than gentle steering.((Steering is a conscious decision to change the character within the auspices of the design of the larp, whereas larp hacking plays with the structure. See Stenros, Jaakko. Playfulness, play, and games: A constructionist ludology approach. (2015).)) Larp hacking is called hacking because it involves changing a part of the design or structure of a larp without the designers’ involvement or consent, pushing the limits of the design, or using the design of the larp in ways that the original designers did not expect.

How to hack a larp

There is no single way to hack a larp, but it is useful to think about larp hacking as a three step process with little opportunity for testing and iterating.

Step 1 – Analysis

The approaches you take to hack will differ depending on why you’re doing it. It is more or less impossible to hack a larp successfully if you don’t understand what is not working, and why. This calls for some reflection.

Here are some of the reasons you might need to hack:

The larp is not working for me
The larp is not working for a small group of (identified) players
The larp is not working for anyone
The larp is working, but I want to push the limits

Imagine that a player has identified that the bulk of the larp seems to be taking place in the secure laboratory building, but as a mere janitor they are not allowed inside. The larp design imagined that there would be enough people outside of the laboratory for play to exist there as well, but for whatever reason, one player with a broom is now left sweeping up in the dark. Our imagined player is not a Turkuist,((Someone who follows the tenets of the Turku Manifesto.)) so they are not entirely happy with the situation.

Just saying “the larp is not working for me” or “I am not enjoying myself” is not enough. “I am not enjoying this larp because I am unable to complete this particular function that the larp is supposed to offer, but does not” is better. Most constructive would be an analysis with an implicit solution: “If my character had access to the laboratory and the players there, this larp would be fun.”

As a part of the analysis it is really useful to check in with other players. It is significantly easier to change a larp with a group. Often we’ll assume that we are the only player who is struggling, only to discover after the larp is over that we were one of many silently wishing there was someone to talk to.

Step 2 – Design

Larp hacking is arguably a form of larp design, except it is done by players, typically during the run-time of the larp. It uses many of the same skills and approaches as larp design. Once you understand what problem you are trying to fix, it is possible to come up with solutions. It might be possible to change part of the offgame structures of the larp. Our janitor player may, for example, create a security clearance badge to allow them passage into the lab. It may also be possible to hack from within the diegesis, e.g. by sneaking into the lab without the clearance and (when asked) state that janitors have always had access.

Suggested approaches:

Creatively use or subvert the limits of the playing space. For example, climb through the air vents instead of facing the guards.
Introduce another element consistent with the setting, which hasn’t been used in the design. For example introducing feminism to a historical larp, which does not already have it.
Creatively use / subvert the rules set by the designers. For example by breaking ingame rules in ways you do not think were intended to happen.
Create new sub-groups or interactions between sets of players on the fly, or invent reasons for groups that are meant to compete to collaborate, if competition is blocking play. For example by creating an excuse for members of two warring factions to be trapped alone together without their weapons and work out how to escape.
Take the story of the larp in a direction that the designers had not considered. For example by crafting a new plotline for yourself and other players interested in getting involved.
Insert background material that was not in the larp from the start. For example by introducing new objects and giving them traditional or magical importance, or creating a new religion.

Step 3 – Analysis (again)

Your proposed hack is constrained by time, by impact, and by agency. It is like tuning the engine of a bus driving down the main road carrying 150 passengers. Stop the bus. Sit down. Think. Consider your solution carefully.

Time

Hacking a larp is done against the clock. The earlier in the game you are, the more likely you are to succeed. As a running experience the larp is fluid and your opportunity to implement a change tends to come with a narrow time window. Much like the fictional cyberspace cowboy trying to crack through black ICE,((Intrusion Countermeasures Electronics (ICE) is a term used in cyberpunk literature to refer to security programs which protect computerised data from being accessed by hackers. Black ICE refers to ICE that are capable of killing the intruder.)) if you leave it too long, the chance will be lost.

Agency and Opportunity

Your agency in-game is limited to what you can either do as your character, or what you can negotiate with players you can get hold of and get enthusiastic about your idea. You might have a great plan but if you lack the in-game agency to execute it, you need the off-game support from other players to make it happen.

Impact

Larp hacking is a creative use of space, but it is a shared space. Before you subvert it, consider your co-players. If the impact of your hack is significant and widespread,((See Sarah Lynne Bowman, The Larp Domino Effect)) it runs the risk of adversely affecting the experience of others. It could ruin their immersion, spoil their fun, or break their larp. Consider: Will your hack shut down play for others? Will it derail the plot? Will it break parts of the design that are working? We owe it to our fellow players to ask these questions before implementing a hack.

Step 4 – Implementation

You have a hack, you have thought it through, and now it is time to put it into action. Usually the method of implementation is baked into the design of the hack. In most cases it is a case of JFDI (“Just Do it.”), although sometimes the pace and timing is important. An elegant hack can be a beautiful piece of design, made all the more clever because it is done from within the larp itself.

Conclusion

Sometimes a larp does not work, either for us as individual players or for a number of participants. When a larp goes off-rail, it is not necessarily anybody’s fault, not the designers and not any particular players – it just happens because larps are prone to emergent chaos. For various reasons we may not want to rely on organisers to resolve these issues. Perhaps they are unable or unwilling to compromise their design. Perhaps we don’t want to discuss it with them, either through a lack of trust, or more likely because we see them as fellow larpers under an inordinate amount of pressure and choose not to burden them with our faux-world problems.

There are plenty of strategies available for larpers when things are not working but most of these approaches are techniques that work within the structures of the larp. Sometimes that is not enough. Sometimes in order to play the game, you need to change the rules.

Published on

2021-01-28

in

Solmukohta 2020

Just Breathe

Written by

Jojjon Hamrén

Feeling tired, though you have slept well, stayed hydrated and eaten? Having a hard time concentrating, but you do not want to take a rest?

Though mindfulness is a bit of a trendy word to use right now, I find that we should learn to use mindfulness as a way to steer our own play and to be more aware of here and now. Because here and now is really more what it is about. Some of us have easier to keep our minds focused on one thing at a time, while others might feel their thoughts wander away, and then maybe not always going the positive way. Using exercises to keep one’s mind on track is a way I personally have tried at larps ever since a friend (non-larper) once asked “Isn’t larp like mindfulness all the time?”. That one curious question has followed me since then, which is also why I wanted to share this with you as a reader.

There are many different exercises out there, and many working very different from person to person. You will probably find a difference in learning exercises in your native language compared to for example English, which is why I will encourage you to search around the web for something that will work for yourself.

The examples of exercises I will provide here are some I have tried at larps myself. The breathing stair I personally find to be easy to use even when being among a lot of other people, and I don’t necessarily need to be still or to have to close my eyes. It’s more about being aware of your breathing than to actually have to go through with the whole exercise. Depending on the larp genre, the focus exercise is easy to put in many different situations, since you don’t actually have to go through all of your senses if you don’t want to. For example, If there’s a ritual with chanting/singing/music I find perfect to just close my eyes for a while and listen.

Maybe reloading should be a better word than mindfulness? I have found myself feeling both more into my immersion and focused at whatever I’m doing after a quick exercise. And if I have felt that I am not in control of my own experience, I have also felt that taking that short break and allowing myself to be here and now, have helped me create a better larp for myself.

The Breathing Stair

If possible and if you want to, close your eyes. Imagine that you are supposed to (slowly) walk up a stair with ten steps, but you have to count your breaths while doing so. You count in “in one” and “out one”, focusing on the breathing and the counting.

In, one
Out, one
In, two
Out, two…

When coming to the top of the stairs at ten, you can, if you want to, stop there for a while and just mentally stand on that top platform. And when you are ready, you turn and walk down, doing the same thing, but going from ten down to one.

If you lose count anytime during the exercise, it’s fine. Instead of stopping and starting over, compliment yourself for noticing that you lost your count or focus, and just go on from the step that you think that you were on before.

Focus

This is about very consciously choosing what you wish to focus on with your senses. If possible, close your eyes and pause what you are doing. Try not to value any of the impressions you get. You don’t necessarily have to focus on all of the senses, and you can stop any time you want, it’s not an exercise where you have to wait or do something special to stop with it.

Start with listening.

What are you hearing when listening to your left? What are you hearing when listening to your right? What do you hear when listening to sounds coming from behind you? Are any sounds louder? Do you hear sounds from very nearby or from far away? Is there sounds suddenly appearing?

Then shift your focus to what you see. The things around you. Look at one thing at a time. Are there any special colours? Reflections in the light? Any shifts in the texture of things? Then move on to focus on what you feel. Let your koncentration go through your body. How does your clothes feel against your skin? If you are sitting down, how does what you sit on feel? Can you feel the air against the skin on the top of your hands?

And finally try to notice if there’s any special smell around where you are. How does that smell? From what? Do you recognise any of the smells?

Bibliography

Bernd Hesslinger, Alexandra Philipsen and Harald Richter (2016). Psykoterapi för vuxna med ADHD: En arbetsbok. Hogrefe Psykologiförlaget.

Tag: Knutepunkt-books

Further Reading

A young adult-only scenario or an intergenerational larp

Off-game accessibility

Familiarise yourself with the player group

Creating meaningful narratives

Themes, characters and relations through workshops

Thoughtful use of clichés in your design

Clear activities, groups, and functions

Let us start the talk

Ludography

How to initiate and coordinate a community publication on your own

Introduction

An overview of the process

Recruiting for peer-editing: role descriptions & casting

Editorial guidelines and expectations

Expectations and cuts

An open platform for communication and collaboration

Final thoughts

When the Magic Begins: Music as a Soundtrack in Larp

A New Trick, Another View

The Materiality of Music as a Magical Element

Is it Possible to Use this Magic of the Musical Larp to Change the World?

From Magician to Magician

Bibliography

Audial Media

Monsters

Counterspells

Adventuring

Le Technique((It becomes obvious now I use footnotes for no logical reason whatsoever.))

Too Cringe, Didn’t Read: Please Be Explicit

Bibliography

Thanks to:

Creating a safe framework

Discuss your boundaries before the larp

Manage everyone’s expectations

Be open for calibration during play

Check up on each other after the larp

Making the romance part of your entire story

Having your romantic play and your other relations interact

Pacing a romance along with your character story arc

Keeping the romance small yet impactful

Keeping an open story and an open romance

Having romantic play without it becoming play on sexuality

Setting boundaries and discussing intimacy

Being open for different types of love and relationships

Reinforcing the importance of the relationship

Postponing the words “I love you”

Conclusion

How to hack a larp

Step 1 – Analysis

Step 2 – Design

Step 3 – Analysis (again)

Time

Agency and Opportunity

Impact

Step 4 – Implementation

Conclusion

The Breathing Stair

Focus

Bibliography