Nordic Larp

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  • Dinner Warfare

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    Dinner Warfare

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Dinner Warfare

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

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

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

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

    Brief players and make organized meals 

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

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

    Seating plan

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

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

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

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

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

    Daemon

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Player wishes

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

    Helicon

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Downsides to Dinner Warfare

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

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

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

    References

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

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

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

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

    Ludography

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • A Ramble in Five Scenes

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    A Ramble in Five Scenes

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    She strode down the stairs, purpose forgotten in the new surroundings. She had done what she had never expected to do: signed up for the kind of event she had never been part of before, and travelled to Poland on her own. Until now it had been an amazing experience, perhaps the first of many.

    I have always thought of my body as my own, not something other people could own. Often it seems that I have more control of my body than my mind. Maybe that is why I have marked it with wolves and birds, lines and symbols. But the body is a canvas that can be filled out. At the time I played my first larp it almost was.

    Being part of a larp is an exhilarating experience. For a few days of your life you can be a queen or a pauper, a whore or a nun. But as you play more games you start to realize there is a price to pay, rules you must follow, parts you must play. As time passes you learn, and you start to make choices. And when you become as old as I am, your life’s experience and the knowledge you have achieved will be part of your game.

    And so, it begins.

    The author at Fairweather Manor 4 (2018). Photo by Dziobak Studios.

    Memory

    They came for us in the early evening. We were hurled into a bus; they only gave us time to collect the most necessary things. We were not told where we were going, why this was happening to us. After some time, the bus stopped, and we were unloaded. The officials processed us and led us into the stadium. I am here now, looking at faces I have seen before and faces I do not recognize; waiting for the next move, the next atrocity.

    I remember the real faces of the refugees from Pinochet’s Chile and the coup d’etat in 1973. I met them in 1978 just after I had moved to Copenhagen, young and without even the trace of an idea of what they had been through. I lived at Øresundskollegiet with the guy I would later marry. Just down the hall from us lived a famous Chilean harpist. We could hear her play when we came home.

    As time passed some of the refugees stayed. Others went to other countries or back home when it became possible. But their memory stayed with me. A memory, something that is part of your personal life or history, can be the trigger that allows you to realize the true horror of being lost in a situation you cannot control, whether it is a detention center on the Welsh border or a prisoner in Villa Grimaldi in Chile. You start to recognize the same patterns in society today. This is part of the magic.

    Larping can be an incredibly self-indulgent experience, even the very unpleasant scenarios.  Fulfilling my dreams and desires has never been enough for me. Hugaas and Bowman (2019) write in their “Butterfly Effect Manifesto” that bringing a personal experience into your character can have a profound effect on your game. You may think that being an older person also means that this transformative experience is no longer possible. You are wrong. No matter how old you are, it is never too late. So use your experience to create change in your life and your community.

    People huddled in coats and hats on arena chairs
    The author in Desaparecidos by Terre Spezzate (2019).

    Weakness

    She had failed them all, her husband, her daughters, her family. For years she had been silent, never complaining, always supportive of her husband, even when they had to leave their grand home in the country to live in this shoddy apartment in the city.  Why had she let it come to this? Why had she not said ‘no’ a long time ago? Now everything was gone, everyone had left her.

    Families are perhaps the most complex organism to use as the background for a larp. That complexity also makes them the perfect place for murder and mayhem, either symbolic or real. I have met and recognized parts of me that are different from how I normally perceive myself. I have met and played with amazing sons and daughters. Not just as the maternal figure who always supports her family, but sometimes also the monster. Sometimes you meet your own bad personal choices, your weakness in personal relationships, your failures in connection with your children or your family. I certainly did when I met this character.

    I always wish for an older character given the choice. I larp because I want to learn about myself and maybe change the person I am now, warts and all – not the person I was a long time ago.  Some of your choices in life may be wrong. As a human being, you constantly lie to yourself about your life and your relationships. In larps, you are sometimes forced to confront the bad choices and the lies. Often they will bleed into your character and be part of how you react to your “family.” You may not realize it until later, but they will come back to haunt you.

    Photo of a seated woman in a dress in a room with floral wallpaper
    The author at A Nice Evening With the Family (2018) by Anders Hultman and Anna Westerling. Photo by Caroline Holgersson.

    Choices

    My dear daughters,

    I think this will be the last letter I write to you. As you have probably already seen, I am now part of the Countdown Show, waiting to be killed. There is only one survivor and I very much doubt that it will be me at the moment. We are slowly being decimated person by person, but the violence has been hidden away, only visible in short outbursts. But enough about me – how are you doing? I hope my mother is looking after you both. If I am lucky, you now have her fame and are living in a nicer neighborhood. So, this will be my final goodbye. I hope you may have a better life than me and make better choices. — Your always loving Mum.

    In this game I am a woman who is caught in a reality show from hell. Her every move is seen by a whole nation, including her mother and her children. Every move she makes is on a knife’s edge. She is incredibly lonely even in the crowd. Every choice she makes will be recorded; the future of her children will depend on these choices.

    Children are important and having children is a joy.  Even when you reach my age you will still be apprehensive. As time goes by you will also learn the fear of losing them, of not being a good enough parent. And you will make mistakes. I used this knowledge to give strength to my character, to make her into a fighter. Love is often part of larps, but mostly as romantic love. The love between parents and children is different. It can be strong or weak, and is often accompanied by loss and misery on both sides. It is dangerous territory but if you want to dive deep into your character it is an interesting place to explore. You can dive into the magic of fairy tales and mythology and be a good mother, a bad stepmother, or a fairy Godmother – your choice. But when you meet someone like me – remember that being old also means that I have been all of these and more.

    Gluttony and Greed

    Menu for the summer party at a country estate around 1800

    Lunch

    Vegetable soup

    Salad

    Pie (meat, vegetable)

    Cold meat and fish (ham etc.)

    Bread and butter

    She was up early because the bread had to be prepared for the guests. Next she had to prepare the vegetable soup that his Lordship always insisted had to be served at lunch. An old friend had told him that it was good for the stamina required for the excesses experienced during the evenings and nights. This was the best time of the day. She enjoyed the quiet, the music and the occasional guest coming down for a cup of coffee. 

    Sometimes you can use personal work experience and knowledge collected through a lifetime as part of a larp. I know a lot about historic food. I was the cook at the summer party of Lord Mander at his country estate for the two runs of Libertines. The food had to be solid country fare, appropriate for keeping up the stamina of the house guests, something required of a true Libertine. The food was based on recipes from the era and served a la francaise, with all the dishes on the table at the same time. Luckily, I was blessed with a great kitchen staff, without whom this would not have been possible. But this was a larp, not reenactment,((As an old reenactor I agree with Harviainen (2011) in his differentiation between larp and reenactment.)) the food was not the center of the play and I was the cook, not a player – or was I? An old woman will have a certain role in this scenario: the undesired but all-knowing procuress or mother.((Angela Carter writes about this in The Sadeian Woman (1979).)) As the days went by, the line blurred.

    I used my experience to create the meals, but not the play around the dinner table. Still, the meals were part of the different acts of this play, almost like a ritual. The outcome is prewritten, but the participants create their own story using their own knowledge and experience just as I used mine. It created a special and safe magic circle, where you can take risks. Libertines did just that – and I like to play with fire.((More about this in Bettina Beck and Aaron Vanek’s (2018) “Let’s Play with Fire! Using Risk and its Power for Personal Transformation.”))

    Photo of a person chopping potatoes in 1700s clothing with others behind them, their hands to their faces
    The author at Libertines (2019) by Atropos Studio. Photo by Carl Nordblom.

    Age

    Love was easy for you; you had always known that you were beautiful in the eyes of others. When you looked in the mirror you saw what others saw. But now you are beginning to see another person in the cracked mirror, a skinny and haggard woman hiding beneath the doll’s face and dress. Will you always be loved even when you are no longer beautiful? And will you be able to connect and love anyone but yourself – and who are you?

    (Trial for a larp character in a larp not yet written)

    Larp is magic. If you dare to invest yourself and use your knowledge you can be part of the magic no matter how old you are, how broken your body.((But there is a physical limit that you must respect.)) I have presented you with ephemera from some of the larps I have attended since I started in 2016. Each piece represents an aspect of my journey, a piece to the puzzle. Together they represent aspects of what I already am, what I already know. They are also tools to be used in a personal journey. Jonaya Kemper (2020) talks about “wyrding the self.” She describes it like this: “When one does wyrd the self, they seek out emancipatory bleed, steer for liberation and investigate themselves through the lens of play.” But you can not do this by yourself.

    I am one of the wyrd sisters, forever toiling, forever looking for trouble.

    Come play with me!

    References

    Beck, Bettina, and Aaron Vanek. 2018. “Let’s Play with Fire! Using Risk and its Power for Personal Transformation.” Nordiclarp.org, March 1.

    Carter, Angela. 2015. The Sadeian Woman and the Ideology of Pornography. Virago, November 5.

    Harviainen, J. Tuomas. 2011. ”The Larping that is Not Larp.” In Think Larp: Academic Writings from KP2011, edited by Thomas D. Henriksen, Christian Bierlich, Kasper Friis Hansen, and Valdemar Kølle. Copenhagen, Denmark: Rollespilsakademiet.

    Hugaas, Kjell Hedgard, and Sarah Lynne Bowman. 2019. “The Butterfly Effect Manifesto.” Nordiclarp.org, August 20.

    Kemper, Jonaya. 2020. “Wyrding the Self.” In What Do We Do When We Play?, edited by Eleanor Saitta, Jukka Särkijärvi, and Johanna Koljonen. Helsinki, Finland: Solmukohta. Available at: https://nordiclarp.org/2020/05/18/wyrding-the-self/

    Cover photo: Photo of the author at Countdown (2019) by Not Only Larp. Photo by Martin Østlie Lindelien. Photo has been cropped.

    This article will be published in the upcoming companion book Book of Magic and is published here with permission. Please cite this text as:

    Petersen, Inge-Mette. 2021. “A Ramble in Five Scenes.” In Book of Magic, edited by Kari Kvittingen Djukastein, Marcus Irgens, Nadja Lipsyc, and Lars Kristian Løveng Sunde. Oslo, Norway: Knutepunkt, 2021. (In press).

     

  • Sleeping Areas, Off-Game Areas, and the Black/White Ribbon Metatechnique

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    Sleeping Areas, Off-Game Areas, and the Black/White Ribbon Metatechnique

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    In this article, I will present the black/white ribbon metatechnique, created by myself for the re-run of Libertines (2020). Put very simply, this technique is used to signal if you want play in your sleeping area or not, and can be changed according to your current wishes. Before presenting this technique in full, however, it is necessary to present the background, and to create a tool for discussing different kinds of sleeping area design choices. Therefore, I will start by introducing the mixing desk of sleeping areas, and will discuss the pros and cons of having a separate off-game room, before arriving on the design of Libertines, and the black/white ribbon technique itself.

    The Sleeping Area

    When it comes to the place where you sleep (usually a bedroom, dorm or tent), there are a few different approaches a larp can have. I first set out doing a list of different categories of sleeping areas, but soon realized that it was rather a question of different sliders, akin to those of the mixing desk of larp.((Jaakko Stenroos, Martin Eckhoff Andersen, and Martin Nielsen (2016). The Mixing Desk of Larp: History and Current State of a Design Theory. Analog Game Studies. Accessible at: http://analoggamestudies.org/2016/11/the-mixing-desk-of-larp-history-and-current-state-of-a-design-theory/)) The mixing desk of sleeping areas instead has the following sliders:

    • Aesthetic: This about how the sleeping area looks. If it is 360°, everything in the sleeping area looks as it would within the reality of the game. If it is off-game, it does not correspond to the reality of the game at all. If the slider is somewhere in the middle, that is comparable to a medieval larp where sleeping bags are allowed if hidden under blankets.
    • Playability: Whether you are meant to be playing your characters in the sleeping area or not. Some larps have very intense play in the sleeping areas; marital arguments, sex scenes or interactions with servants. At other larps, play should be dialed down or completely avoided, for example in dorms where you risk waking people up.
    • Availability: This slider refers to who is allowed to enter the sleeping area. When the slider is at max, anyone can come into the sleeping area, without an invitation, at any time. This can be interesting for example in games where there are secrets between the characters, or when invasions of privacy are part of the experience. When the slider is at its lowest, only the occupant(s) of that sleeping area may enter. If the slider is in the middle, people might be allowed to enter if invited, or if they have a close relationship with the occupant(s). These rules of course stand in relationship to the diegetic rules of the larp, but are not necessarily the same. For example, in a Regency game it is of course unthinkable that a young woman receive visitors in her bedroom, other than family and close friends. That is the diegetic rule. The non-diegetic rules can still allow for anyone to barge into her room, and face the in-game consequences.
    • Sleep: At some larps, it is a part of the design that you cannot rest easy, and have no guarantee of getting a full night’s sleep. At other larps, you want your participants well rested. When the slider is at max, having people woken up during the night is allowed, perhaps even an important part of the design. When the slider is at its lowest, it is not allowed to wake people up, and noise should not be made anywhere close to the sleeping area.
    • Sharing: Who you share a sleeping area with makes a lot of difference to the game. If you for example have been assigned to a room together with your character’s spouse, then there is a lot of potential for play. If you share a sleeping area with off-game friends that have no strong relation to your character, then you might be less inclined to be actively in-character while in the sleeping area.
    • Safety: This slider concerns how safe your character should be able to feel in the sleeping area. In many ways, this slider correlates to many of the other sliders. If, for example, anyone can enter your room at any time, and if you might be woken up during the night, then the sleeping area will not be a safe space for your character. And if you are sharing your room with someone your character has a negative relationship with in-game, that creates unsafety for your character as well.
    The mixing desk of sleeping areas (diagram, Julia Greip)
    The mixing desk of sleeping areas (diagram, Julia Greip)

    An example of a game with most of the sliders relatively high is Baphomet. The rooms are overall in-game, playable areas, which are shared with your character’s partner. While social conventions on whose room you may enter are in place during the beginning, these crumble away during the game, and entering anyone’s room becomes feasible. The only slider that is relatively low is that of sleep, as off-game sleep deprivation is not part of the design, and loud craziness after midnight is discouraged. Overall, there is great potential for the characters to feel unsafe in their rooms, especially if their relationship to their partners turns sour during the larp.

    Examples of larps that have all sliders on minimum are of course those where the players do not sleep in-game, as is the case with Inside Hamlet and the Androids larps. This solution is suitable if the characters would sleep in conditions that are unfeasible for the players, or if the venue of the larp does not have places to sleep. It also works well if during the night there is an act break where a longer time period passes in-game.

    When it is not clearly stated what settings a larp has on this mixing desk, one of three things will happen. People will decide amongst themselves for each sleeping area, they will try to guess what is appropriate, or they will decide themselves based on their own preferences. That people decide themselves is preferable here, and generally works well as long as they are in agreement, and if there is no need or interest for players to enter the sleeping areas of others. If people guess, things might also work out fine, provided they come from similar larping cultures. There is, however, a risk that the sliders end up somewhere in the middle, and that the settings are not optimal for the experience that the larpwright intended. Finally, if people just go with their own preferences, there is great risk of frustration between larpers, especially if they come from different larping cultures. For example, I’ve shared a room where I anticipated intense, pressure-cooker play and complete immersion, but my roommate felt that it was a place to rest and check their phone. 

    The Off-Game Room

    As part of creating safe larps, many larps provide an off-game area, where the players are welcome to go during the game. Sometimes the room is staffed, so that there is always someone available to provide support for larpers. This can be either because they feel unsafe out of character, or because they’ve experienced intense play that they need to process with someone. Other times, the off-game rooms are unstaffed. They then serve mainly as a place to either go by yourself to get a breather, or with a co-player to talk things through.

    Although there are benefits of having an off-game room open to participants, there are also some potential risks and problems with it:

    • Staffing: The most obvious and practical problem with having a staffed off-game room is of course that you will need staff enough to do so. Larps that do not have a big budget or hordes of willing helpers will have a hard time doing so.
    • Reproducing negativity: Sometimes, off-game rooms become places where the participants ventilate about things that do not work well with the larp design. Sometimes, it is a good thing to be able to vent your frustrations and then go back to trying to have an enjoyable experience. However, there is also a risk of a negative feedback loop, where the participants feed each other’s negative view of the game. This risks leading to a lessened readiness to try to make the game an enjoyable experience. There is also a higher risk that the participants do not turn to an organizer to share their concerns (particularly if the area is unstaffed), so that the flaws in the game can be remedied.
    • The fragility of the magic circle: It’s fun to laugh and chat with your friends off-game, especially since they are usually people you do not see that often. During outdoor larps in uncomfortable weather, it is also nice to be warm, dry, and perhaps have a snack. This means that even though you might enjoy the game, it is sometimes hard to tear yourself away from an inviting off-game room. And the longer you stay, the longer it takes to get back into the intensity of the feelings within the game. Having the chance to chat and laugh about the game is a way to release tension – tension that is often an important part of the game.

    However, intense games where there are no off-game areas whatsoever, and where sleeping berths are not off-limits, can get a bit too intense. Some larpers have no problem with this level of intensity, and even prefer it. Others might need a place where they can feel safe and know that they will not be bothered for a while.

    The Black and White Ribbons

    During the first two runs of Libertines, in 2019, we had no off-game room. Instead, we had the space outside the front door as an off-game area. This was both due to the reasons listed above, and that the venue did not have any indoor space that we deemed appropriate. By having a space that was not overly comfortable and inviting, we hoped to limit off-game time to necessary calibrations. The players were also free to enter each other’s rooms uninvited. This rule was in place to allow for oppression and threatening behavior, to create a sensation of having nowhere that was completely safe. It also meant that the rooms were in-game at all times, and not spaces for being out of character.

    A bedroom scene at Fairweather Manor (photo, Karel Křemel)
    A bedroom scene at Fairweather Manor (photo, Karel Křemel)

    Overall, this worked well. However, a few participants expressed that they would have liked a space that felt safe; a place to rest or calm down. A few others expressed that they would have liked more people to come uninvited into their room, to feel even more unsafe. Since we had no way to indicate who wanted what, however, the oppressors often played it safe and did not barge into rooms unnecessarily.

    For the second two runs of Libertines, played 2020, this was one of the main changes I wanted to make. I wanted a system where people could signal both when they did not want to be disturbed, and when they welcomed people barging in. I was inspired by the common practice of putting a sock on a door handle when you do not want someone to enter (usually because you’re having sex). Instead of socks, I thought colored ribbons suitable. At first, I thought green and red most appropriate, since the colors are strongly connected to “yes” and “no”. Then, however, I realized that color-blindness is often linked to these exact colors, and that they are harder to make out in a dark corridor. Therefore, I ended up on choosing black and white ribbons instead.

    The ribbons were non-diegetic, and so were only visible to the players, not the characters. Each room had a black and a white ribbon available, and the players put them on the outside door handles depending on their needs. Their meanings were the following:

    • White ribbon: Please enter! This was used when an interesting scene was happening in the room, that would become more interesting by someone walking in on it. It was also used when you wanted someone to come in and interact with you.
    • Black ribbon: Don’t enter! This was used when someone needed to take a break and rest. Only roommates were allowed to enter the room at this time, but would do so quietly.
    • No ribbon: Neutral. This was neither an invitation or a dismissal. People were still allowed to come into your room, but would usually not do so unless they had a reason to do so.

    It is very important to note that the black ribbon was not for wanting to chat off-game in your room – this was still discouraged, and off-game conversations were relegated to the off-game area outside the house. There were two reasons for this. Firstly, we wanted to avoid the effects of the off-game room mentioned above. The second was that the walls of the venue are relatively thin, and people somehow usually talk a bit louder when they go off-game and relax. Allowing people to be off-game in their rooms would simply be audible outside the room, with a high risk of breaking immersion for their neighbors. However, we did allow and encourage a quick check-in in a hushed voice if your roommate had put up a black ribbon. This way, if someone was not feeling okay and needed to talk to the organizers, it had a greater chance of coming to our attention.

    The effect of the ribbons, in essence, is giving the players the power over some of the sliders on the mixing desk of sleeping areas. While the Aesthetics and Sharing sliders remain the same throughout the game, the ribbons offer control over the Playability, Availability, Sleep, and Safety sliders. The white ribbon sets these sliders to maximum, the black sets them to minimum, and leaving the door handle with no ribbon sets the sliders to medium.

    Overall, the ribbon system worked really well: all the participants who answered the evaluation form after the larp liked it. There were comments of both black and white ribbons being used with their intended effect, and especially of scenes being enhanced by the effects of the white ribbon. The only negative comments received were that when it was dark in the corridors, it was sometimes harder to see the ribbons. This can be avoided by using wider ribbons (ours were only about 1 cm wide) and not skimping on the length, allowing for a big bow tie.

    One critique I did not find, but that could happen at some point, is the problem of disagreeing with your roommate’s use of ribbons. If they want the white ribbon up at most times, but you would prefer having no ribbon up or even want lots of breaks with the black ribbon up, that could be a small source of tension. In Libertines, it probably contributed that there were only two people in each bedroom. Furthermore, most of the characters shared a room with their spouse, and those who were unmarried shared a room with someone whom they had a lot of play with. If the rooms were shared by several people, who did not have a lot of play together, this system would not have worked as well.

    By having this system in place, it seemed as if the players grew both more courageous, and also felt safer. Knowing that there was always a simple way to get some alone time, it was easier to lean into the cruel and oppressive aspects of the game, and be more courageous as a player. Similarly, having ways to dial things up and invite play into your room, made it easier creating the narrative arc you wanted, and give interesting play to your co-players. I recommend it for larps where you want intense play and oppression to happen in the sleeping areas, but also want the players to be able to use the sleeping areas as a safe-haven from time to time.

    Ludography

    Atropos Studios and Julia Greip, Libertines (Rødby, Denmark: Atropos Studios, April 22–28, 2019 and Jan 27–Feb 2, 2020)

    Bjarke Pedersen and Linda Udby, Baphomet (Participation Design Agency)

    Bjarke Pedersen, Johanna Koljonen and Martin Ericsson, Inside Hamlet (Participation Design Agency)

    Simon Svensson, Do Androids Dream? (Ariadne’s Red Thread)

    Atropos Studios, Where Androids Die (Atropos Studios)

    Atropos Studios, When Androids Pray (Atropos Studios)

    Cover photo: A black ribbon in use (photo, Julia Greip).