This piece tries to provide a practical tool for overcoming machismo, internalized norms, and other patterns that can lead to physical injury to the player’s body.
I have injured myself larping, and I know several other larpers, often men who have hurt themselves during larps. Often, this was due to taking physical risks and then downplaying the severity of the injury or hiding it altogether. Using the tools described here will help you both make more risk-aware decisions and overcome any learned response you have to downplay or to hide injury. Accidents can still happen, but we can decrease their likelihood by not creating circumstances that contribute to them.
Preventing Injury
Preventing injury is about both taking an internal stock of your body’s weak points and being honest with yourself. This means not looking at your body as you wish it was, but at the way it is when the larp starts. If the larp is some time away you might even have time to lessen your injury risk through training, if you decide it’s both important and possible for you. The other part is taking external stock of what risks will be present at the larp site or the way the larp is organized.
Is my body at the start of the larp in worse shape than I am used to? Do I have an old injury that hasn’t healed yet? Do I have chronic issues like weak ankles or night blindness? Will these be an issue at the venue?
Are there reasonable, easy to use assistive devices I need at the time of the larp? Use them. My experience as a player and designer has shown me that everyone has a better experience when they’re used, larp cultures notwithstanding, and that the impact on the game is minimal. Examples can be CPAP machines or glasses, braces or walking sticks.
Do the activities my character performs during the larp have inherent risk? Fighting, heavy lifting, roaming the forest at night? Will you work tools which are unfamiliar to you? If you have time before the larp, you can manage these risks by training for these activities.
Make a plan. If you know there is a possibility you might hurt yourself, making a plan can work like a promise to yourself. If you are going with a group you can share the plan with the group. It can be something like this: “I will use my knee brace to prevent injury and I will ask the group to remind me in the mornings to put it on.” or “If I hit my head I will go to Martin and have it checked out”. Plans also make it more likely that we’ll do the right thing in the moments right after an injury.
Reacting to Injury
So an injury has happened. First comes the pain, and then you may get overwhelmed by feelings of anger, disappointment, or even shame. Will you be able to stay in character? Will you be able to even stay at the game? Maybe the organizer team will force you to go home? For some people in this moment it can be a reflex to pretend as if nothing happened, that they are “fine”, or to downplay the injury and refuse to accept help. I’ve also seen the reaction to immediately spring into action and run for the first aid station. This can make a concussion or a foot injury worse because the player didn’t want to be the one to disturb other players or a scene. Here are some things you can do instead:
Remind yourself your real body was just damaged. Your body is your body and self care comes first. That means that the larp can pause for a few seconds, or longer. You taking a few seconds to check how you were hurt might not even disrupt the game. Questions to ask:
Are your airways affected?
Are you bleeding anywhere?
Is there intense pain or numbness anywhere, especially in joints?
Are you going into shock? Rapid breaths, cold hands, high heart rate, nausea.
How is your head?
If you need help and there are people around, be brave enough to ask for it. It’s very unlikely that anyone will think less of you for this. Accept help from those who come to you and say they want to help. There may be a voice in your head that tells you that shouldn’t burden other people, but please remind yourself that they are here to help.
If the larp has a designated first aid area, or a designated first aid person, make your way there, with assistance if needed. For some injuries it’s best if someone walks with you.
If you can’t walk then don’t force yourself as that can make an injury worse. Wait for the first aid person responder to come to you. Many sprains will heal faster if secured tightly as soon as possible after they happen.
If the event has a first aid person and they want to take you to an emergency room off-site, just let them((We’re assuming you’re in Europe, where sane medical care is normal.)). If it’s not a problem, you will come back to the larp.
Pain is the body’s way of telling you that something is wrong. Many of you live with chronic pain, but if you do, you know when there is extra, uncommon pain. Even if some injuries will heal better if you “walk it off”, this first acute moment is not when you do that. Assess the injury properly first, with help if needed.
If you made a plan in the first step that applies to the injury you sustained, follow the plan. You promised yourself, and maybe your group.
Happy larping — with less time lost to avoidable injuries or unnecessarily prolonged recovery.
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)
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)
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).
Every time the bandwagon “tell me about a strong memory we shared” runs through my Facebook feed, a big amount of the memories told are from larps. Strong immersive larp experiences stay with us. Lending out our physical bodies and our real emotions to tell stories will of course make these stories stay with us players, as memories integrate with our own pasts, tying us together as a community.
Because this transition from larp to everyday life can be messy sometimes, it may require aftercare. And because larp is what brings our community together, I think more of aftercare as a collective than an individual issue.
The term aftercare is borrowed from the BDSM community, and basically means taking some time after a BDSM scene to recover, transition from intense play back to normal, and take care of each other’s physical and emotional needs. Larpers sometimes talk about the same thing as defucking (Bindslet and Schultz, 2011) or debriefing.
The idea to use the term aftercare in a larp context is hardly new (Grasmo 2011), but after listening to two related talks at Solmukohta 2020: Sarah Lynne Bowman’s keynote on integration and Julia Greip’s talk on safewords for brave spaces, I came to think about it again and wanted to write something on it. So in this text I will share some thoughts on aftercare in a larp context: how to do it and why.
When we larp together, we are responsible for each other’s experience. We have the capacity to give each other very strong positive emotional experiences and to mess each other up quite badly. In my opinion we can absolutely apply the Campsite Rule to larping: “You should leave your co-players in the same, or better, condition than you met them in.”
I learnt the Campsite Rule from sex advice columnist Dan Savage, who coined it about relationships with big age or power differences, as a responsibility the older person has towards the younger. This aspect of it can be meaningful in a larp context as well. Differences in age, larp experience or social status can create power imbalances when we larp, and we have to take them into account whenever we talk about safety and consent. This is perhaps extra important towards young or new players, or players from marginalized groups.
Any participant that leaves a larp disappointed, traumatized, or hurt will have an impact. Both personally — these feelings can be hard to get over and haunt someone for a long time — and for the community as a whole, since these things often end up as inflamed conflicts, or with players leaving the hobby.
Another important aspect to me is that this care primarily is a player responsibility — nothing we should demand as a service from the organizers. They will have their own aftercare needs. Take care of your organizers and prevent them from burnout, and we will get even more amazing games.
Photo by @thiszun from Pexels. Photo has been cropped.
Designing for Leaving the Magic Circle
But when do we actually leave a larp? We enter a magic circle and establish a social contract when we larp together, and for successful aftercare, we need to find common expectations of how far this social contract extends.
I don’t know about you, but I’ve been through “the train station scene” after multiple larps: the larp is over, the venue is cleaned out, and the participants are about to scatter off to their respective travels home. And we pretty often just end up standing aimlessly and confusedly in a big group of people, reluctant to leave. Most larpers are used to ritually leaving the first layer of the magic circle — going from characters back into players. But I still haven’t been to one larp where leaving this second layer of the magic circle has been smooth or thought out. Transitioning from a player group sharing trust and care for each other into our everyday selves at many different places is often really confusing. And this is one area where many aftercare needs could be acknowledged and handled better if we knew when and how our social contract ends. When do we actually leave the magic circle?
I have experienced a multitude of ways this social contract confusion makes people feel bad after a larp. I have been the player who desperately wants to talk more with my bleedy larp crush, but feels too needy and clingy to ask them. I have been annoyed that my co-player wants to talk with me much more afterwards than I do with them. I have felt bad for not wanting to engage in post-game group hugs, meetups, and lovebombing, and I have felt really alone and believed no one wanted to hang out with me after larps.
I know I’m not alone in having had these kinds of feelings. And I think we could save ourselves a whole lot of trouble if we talked more often and more openly about aftercare needs and where to go from here before we leave the magic circle of a game.
Photo by Anna Shvets from Pexels. Photo has been cropped.
Aftercare Needs: There is No One-Size-Fits-All
So, ok. Aftercare is important. But how do we implement it? Well, unfortunately there is no one-size-fits-all for aftercare. But predicting one’s own aftercare needs and being able to communicate about them is a great player skill to have. And it is a skill that we can get better at with more experience and practice.
Most importantly: Yes. Some larps will require aftercare. Sometimes predictably and sometimes in unpredictable ways. This is normal and this is ok. There is a great deal of useful further reading about different aftercare needs and moods. Some people get post-larp drop, feeling intensely sad after leaving a game (Bowman and Torner 2015). Sometimes it’s post-larp charisma — being filled up with intense positive feelings after a larp, maybe getting braver, bolder, or filled with self-confidence. Many of us have experienced bleedy larp crushes on our co-players, great love and sense of community with people we just met and shared a larp with, the Knudeblues when we have to leave our new amazing friends, or strong feelings of rejection and alienation when “everyone else had a great larp and I didn’t” (Harder 2018; Nilsen 2015).
Over the last 16 years of larping, I have learned a few things about my own general aftercare needs and patterns. Preparing for aftercare beforehand makes me feel better and more safe when I larp.
I know that I usually have a strong need to write down my thoughts or story after the larp, so I make sure I’ll have time and equipment to do that. I also know that I often want to be alone or choose my company very selectively right after a game, so I usually book train tickets in the silent compartment where I won’t feel forced to talk with anyone. Even though I enjoy international larps, another need I usually have after an English larp is to speak my native Swedish, so another comfort is the ability to do that with other players or friends.
Back home, I often make post-game playlists where I mix music related to the game experience with my own soundtrack, as a way to integrate the larp feelings in my own memory. I also generally have a need to indulge in the story told afterwards. For example, I spend lots of time in the participant Facebook group, starting lots of threads and sharing memories and experiences. It does help me to feel safe and really engage during a larp if I know there will be a possibility for me to have these aftercare needs met after the game is over.
Most texts I’ve read on the subject of taking care of oneself emotionally after a larp naturally has a self-care focus. And while self-care comes first, and also is much more predictable and valuable to learn to do than waiting for someone else to take care of us (Dalstål 2020), I also want to share some thoughts about how to aftercare as a player ensemble.
Here, once again, although many good articles have been written on post-play activities and debriefing, there is no one-size-fits-all. Cry it out, do physical labor, tell epic stories, cuddle pile, get drunk together, or dance the night away — any one strategy might be what someone needs and someone else really doesn’t. I assume the keys to good post-play is to base the activities on consent and opting-in, and not try to cast all players’ aftercare needs or wants into the same mould.
One thing I want to advocate for, though, is to communicate about how we want the social contract to extend afterwards before we leave the game site. Maybe decide with co-players when and how we will talk the next time, and try to be open about it. For example, tell your co-players if you feel a need for some distance and to go back to your everyday life without engaging in post-larp discussions. Tell them if you are likely to be very emotional and want to connect a lot. It could be a good idea to talk with people you will be playing close with about your aftercare needs even before the game.
I like the idea of sharing hopes and fears with one’s closest co-players or group before the game. A central part of building a safety to culture is finding trust to be honest and open about what we want to experience in a game and part of that is also communicating about what we fear will happen (Friedner 2019). Talking through the experience afterwards and reviewing those hopes and fears might also be a good debriefing exercise. Many of my larping friends have mentioned this in the context of playing evil or antagonistic characters. A common fear is that people will be afraid of or hurt by you out-of-character, and then it becomes even more important to get picked up and aftercared by co-players.
Also remember that for many players the aftercare needs doesn’t come only two hours after the game, but two days or weeks later. For this reason I like the idea of assigning everyone debrief buddies, because they are a predictable extension of the social contract after the larp has ended that doesn’t depend solely on one’s own ability to reach out and ask for a check in.
To summarize, I think aftercare is a collective, not just an individual issue. Leave the magic circle consciously and honor the Campsite Rule. If we make some shared efforts to make sure larp experiences integrate with the players in a positive and meaningful way, we build trust in the community and get more chances to be bold, brave, safe, and wonderful together. Let’s do that.
Photo by Arthur Brognoli from Pexels. Photo has been cropped.
This article is partially a complement to the recent ”The Brave Space” opinion piece, but is more generally fueled by long standing discussions regarding status and social dynamics in larp communities, both at the local and wider international scale. It represents my opinion alone and does not mean to establish a universal truth regarding these issues. I will first present a definition of safety and expand it using the notion of zone of proximal development, an education theory proposed by Lev Vygotsky. I will then reintroduce the notion of social capital to argue why imbalances of power between participants should be taken into account while discussing safety and player negotiation of boundaries. I conclude with the idea that you can’t discuss a culture of trust without addressing social capital and the imbalances of power between all people involved.
The Ideal Purpose of Safety
Safety techniques as they exist at the time of this writing provide means to both opt-out of sensitive issues of scenes or to opt-in to certain types of play. Furthermore, communication around safety has become essential to establish the role and positioning of the larp organization on safety and inclusion of all players. We can admit that talk of safety mostly focuses on opting out mechanics, such as clear author statements with explicit trigger warnings, safewords, white zones, stating boundaries, etc. However, opt-in mechanics also exist, such as the signal light colors (red/yellow/green), okay check-in, pre-scene negotiations, opt-in color ribbons, and the more recent zoning, which creates opt-in spaces within the physical space of the larp. While the possibility to calibrate opt-out and opt-in is obviously central to giving participants the opportunity to experiment and step out of their comfort zone, each participant has different needs and boundaries in that regard.
Photo: Laflor for Getty Images/iStockphoto.
In education, Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development (Harland 2003) is considered the ideal space to learn. The zone refers to the space between the comfort zone of what you already know and a yet unattainable zone where the difficulty would discourage or overwhelm you (see Figure 1). We can apply this frame to understand how players can develop skills in larp, such as speaking in public, brawling, handling sensitive issues or emotionally charged conflicts, and even intimacy or sexual scenes.
Let’s keep in mind that the zone of proximal development is unique to each individual, in the same way as triggers and boundaries are (Brown 2014). As in education, if a player stays too much in their comfort zone, they might miss the opportunity to grow, experiment, and learn. And in larp, some people explicitly prefer to stay within their comfort zone for a variety of reasons, such as escapism, socialization, or love of a certain genre, all of which are absolutely valid. Furthermore, pushing someone out of their zone of proximal development too quickly can be damaging to the players’ development by forcing them to engage with problems that they are not ready for or that could be triggering for them. Brown (2014) especially underlines how triggers exist on a wide spectrum, and how they can be detrimental to their player’s whole experience and impact the player’s agency.
Therefore, the core idea is that you need a solid comfort zone before you can expand it. The scope of your zone of proximal development is completely personal and calls for personalized handling. Another educational parallel can be drawn here with the notion of scaffolding in education, where progress is built through progressive steps, support from educators, and interactions with other learners. Applied to larp, in order for a person to feel brave and explore out of their comfort zone, they need to feel safe and supported by their environment, which is not a given in larp communities for many players.
Figure 1: The Zone of Proximal Development. Figure by Dcoetzee (CC0).
There is no denying that larp can provide powerful transformative experiences. Jonaya Kemper (2017) coined the term emancipatory bleed to reflect on the process of steering towards a specific type of play that would reflect one’s own life experience of oppression. Players should be allowed the opportunity to steer towards that kind of play, and designers can support emergent play along those lines. However, how can we support transformative play and exploration while still ensuring safety for those players who most need it? This question usually brings up issues of consent, pre-game or in-game negotiation, and personal boundaries.
We are Not Equal in Setting Boundaries and Tone
In the international larp community, we usually remind participants that the players are more important than the game, make sure that enthusiastic content is given and can be revoked at all times, and support negotiation and opt-in mechanisms. Our goal is to build a collective culture of trust. However, to build such a culture, we need to be able to negotiate it as equal participants. I don’t believe that every negotiation and every discussion is carried on an equal footing.
Games going through reruns and several iterations can sometimes be played more violently or intensely from one session to another. Framing the game experience with hard limits or requirements for consent negotiations in such a way that it sets up cohesive boundaries for the whole experience remains an organizers’ prerogative. However, I would contend that the collective level of intensity is also influenced by the players through their collective interactions. Since we tend to take cues and ideas from other players, I believe that participants are unequal in influencing the tone and intensity. Outspoken participants with a wider comfort zone can influence the game atmosphere more, sometimes for the better, by inspiring others and creating unexpected interactions.
On the other hand, a single or small group of participants who decide to play for their own agency and to disregard the collective buildup of the game can just as easily derail the tone and cohesion for the whole larp. These are rare occurrences where the domino effect can negatively impact the experience of many players (Bowman 2017). My previous article (2019) on the depiction of rape scenes in larps showed how the introduction of scenes featuring sexual violence used to be the province of a dominant group who used it for power play. Only the introduction of restrictions and safety regulations enabled the minority group — women players in this instance — to refuse playing these scenes if they were not negotiated. Further down the line, we found women participants were willing to play rape scenes for dramatic purposes or to support intense narratives because they feel empowered to choose to do so. This empowerment, though, was entirely contingent upon a corrective intervention upon the social imbalance that had originally prevented these players from voicing their discontent. Thus, safety culture was the crucial thing that allowed these women to feel comfortable to play this content.
Social Capital in Larp
Social capital is a notion popularized among others by Pierre Bourdieu as the product of resources conferred due to integration into a certain network and the capacity to act in society (Siisiainen 2003). The chart below illustrates social capital as an aggregate of these resources that allows an individual access to favors or greater resources.
Figure 2: A synthetic representation of social capital (Algayres 2019).
Since larp groups or organizations are part of society, they are also prone to the same biases that affect us in daily life. Although efforts have been made to support the integration of minority or marginalized groups in larps, some players still accrue social capital by virtue of being or passing for white, straight, cis-, or because of their class and education level. Another major point in the international context is their mastery of English, which will confer advantages to native English speakers and players from countries where English proficiency is especially high, as well as highly educated and internationally-integrated professionals. Finally, social capital as we will discuss it is also dependent on larp-specific criteria: being geographically anchored as Nordic, clout as an organizer and/or larp theorist, visibility on social media, participation at international larp conferences and conventions, playing high status characters, and involvement in high-profile games with a lot of hype.
I would claim that larpers with higher social capital are in a position to influence their co-players’ choices or leverage their own desires when boundaries are negotiated. Has anyone ever been accidentally pushed out of their comfort zone for fear of missing out certain parts of the game or the opportunity to hang out with this cool larper they’d read a lot about? Could peer pressure and “hardcore larp culture” ever push some people to willfully step out of their zone of proximal development because that’s what a “good larper” would do? I would contend that this can happen, and that it is very easy to be blind to your own social capital, as it can intersect with other forms of oppression. For example, as a woman, I have to contend with sexism and have even been the subject of sexual violence. However, since I hit almost every other marker of status, I have often been in situations where I benefited from my higher social capital and I was sometimes blind to it to my own detriment. I believe it is important for us to acknowledge our own degree of social capital and how it may influence our relative abilities to push play in our desired direction. It is also important for us to listen to people with lower social capital when they request greater safety culture around sensitive topics.
Regarding the Creation of Safe Spaces and Trust Culture
I think that safety must be used both as a way to opt-out and opt-in of specific themes and scenes. However, safety also has been used to protect minority groups and players with specific triggers and limits from play that would be oppressive to them, and is especially beneficial to players with lower social capital (Kemper 2017). In larp scenes where safety was introduced more recently, resistance to safety techniques usually comes from the more dominant and entitled groups of players. These groups sometimes feel that safety techniques are not necessary because they feel safe enough not to need them. They may have sufficient trust and familiarity within their local communities of play to feel safe without negotiation, which is a form of privilege that is not afforded to many in the international larp community, who may enter larps without the benefits of established group trust. Only active communication by the organizers compensates for this imbalance of power between groups that feel confident to play without safety rules and those who need to be sure of the implementation of safety structures before they will even sign up for the larp. In other words, players with this social capital privilege may not realize that lack of safety culture in a larp may be actively dissuading players from marginalized backgrounds from ever signing up, which further contributes to issues of inclusion in the international larp community.
I don’t believe we can discuss expanding our boundaries, reducing the need for scene negotiations, or exploring out of our comfort zones without taking into account imbalances of social capital, influence, and power. Discussion around opt-out safety was once framed around the protection and benefit of marginalized groups and players most in need of it. I would therefore wish for discussions around trust culture to be built around this issue: how can we build a trust culture that will above all benefit players with the lowest social capital and the greatest need for it?
I hope that we will develop tools that can enable players to explore and expand their comfort zone. However, when we develop these tools, we should measure their value on how much they actually empower those with the lowest social capital and facilitate a sense of psychological safety. I believe that our capacity to build a collective sense of trust will only be as big as our capacity to compensate for these imbalances and support all players to feel safe doing so.
Larp counseling is a unique personal / professional relationship
that empowers diverse individuals and groups to pursue their own conceptions of
mental health, wellness, exploration, and fun through play. Larp counseling is
the practice of dedicating a staff member to overseeing participant well-being
at a live-action role-play (larp) event. We defend the title as evocative of a
camp counselor: a supervisory role meant to connect the player with the
intended fun of an event, rather than suggesting therapeutic intent. Ideally,
the event should financially support individuals in these roles, who operate
outside of the logistical organizational staff.
Larp counselors have a unique definition of and relationship to
professionalism. Firstly, play is usually not the intended mode of player
interaction and most conceptions of professionalism do not account for it as
setting or mode. Conceptions of professionalism shared across various helping
professions do not account for scenarios in which, within the lifetime of the player-counselor
relationship, multiple personas / realities exist, and diegetic role reversal
is expected. Classic conceptions of professionalism also fail us by assuming
the nature of the counselor / player relationship is purely professional and
not of a different foundation that is more likely to be fostered in organized
play. Due to the privilege and authority inherent to the larp counselor role,
there are still strict standards to which to adhere and lines which never
should be crossed.
Standardized values are an important way of living out an ethical commitment. The following are core values of larp counseling:
1. enhancing human development;
2. honoring diversity and embracing a multicultural approach in support of the worth, dignity, potential, and uniqueness of people within their social and cultural contexts;
3. promoting social justice;
4. safeguarding the integrity of the counselor–player relationship; and
5. practicing in a competent and ethical manner.
These values provide a conceptual basis for the ethical principles enumerated below. These principles are the foundation for ethical behavior and decision making. The fundamental principles of ethical behavior are:
• autonomy, or fostering the right to control the direction
of one’s life;
• nonmaleficence, or avoiding actions that cause harm;
• beneficence, or working for the good of the individual
and society by promoting mental health and well-being;
• justice, or treating individuals equitably and fostering fairness
and equality;
• fidelity, or honoring commitments and keeping promises,
including fulfilling one’s responsibilities of trust in our ethical
relationships; and
• veracity, or dealing truthfully with individuals with whom counselors come into professional contact.
1. The Code sets forth the ethical obligations of larp
counselors and provides guidance intended to inform the ethical practice of
larp counselors.
2. The Code identifies ethical considerations relevant to
larp counselors and larp counselors-in-training.
3. The Code enables the community to clarify for current
and prospective counselors, and for those served by the community, the nature of the ethical responsibilities held
in common by its members.
4. The Code serves as an ethical guide designed to assist
the larp counselors in constructing a course of action that best serves those
utilizing counseling services and establishes expectations of conduct with a
primary emphasis on the role of the larp counselor.
5. The Code helps to support the mission of fighting for
social justice and fostering safe play.
I. Professional Conduct
a. It is always necessary to act in good faith, and without coercion or misrepresentation. Larp counselors must know and stay within the laws of the country in which they are practicing.
b. It is good, ethical practice for larp counselors to be clear with players about their professional status and training.
c. Larp counselors must be aware at all times that they are not mental health professionals and should NEVER to attempt to perform psychotherapeutic interventions beyond valuable micro-skills.
d. Larp counselors use their professional work to benefit players and not primarily to satisfy their own needs.
e. Larp counselors seek ways of increasing their personal and professional awareness and development.
f. Larp counselors must maintain standards of practice by monitoring and reviewing their work alone, with peers, and by seeking supervision when necessary.
g. Larp counselors must openly and clearly explain the possible presence of observers, recorders, and auxiliary-ego co-therapists. They must make any limits of confidentially aware to the players being helped.
h. It is not the decision of a larp counselor to decide if players are (i) fit to play and (ii) fit for the specific group in which it is proposed to place them. If they are perceived as not fit, the counselor must indicate that to the player and may suggest alternative courses of action, but they must not prevent someone from engaging in play for this reason.
i. In order to be fit to practice, larp counselors should maintain an adequate balance of emotional and physical health. This standard should be maintained as a model for other colleagues and trainees. They should not knowingly practice if their mental or physical poor health is liable to have a detrimental effect on their players. This includes the misuse of substances that may be detrimental to professional practice. Notions of health are both personal and cultural, and such connotations should be heavily weighted in this assessment.
j. Larp counselors should be aware of and respect the cultural expectations of the community in which they work.
k. Larp counselors should be aware of and respect the cultural mores of their players, trainees, and colleagues.
a. Counselors’ guarantees on confidentially extend as far as themselves. While counselors should always be expected to maintain confidentiality in almost all cases, if other players, organizers, or bystanders are present for counseling, there can be no guarantee of privacy. It is a larp counselor’s duty to inform all parties of any limitations to confidentiality. Diegetic encounters between counselor and player character-selves are assumed to be part of play and thus have no promise of confidentiality or privacy.
b. Larp counselors shall treat as private all information received from the player whether this is during a session or during other situations when they might be communicating delicate non-diegetic information; unless the player specifically agrees that this information is generally communicable. Comment: For best practices please see the Reporting chapter.
c. Larp counselors must not use information received in the course of their relationship with players or trainees for personal gain.
d. Larp counselors undertake to set out clearly and without prejudice a verbal contract with players before play begins and to reiterate relevant facets (i.e., confidentiality or the limits thereof) during play. They must almost remember that consent is an ongoing process.
e. Larp counselors will give attention to the physical environment in which they work with players in order to provide a safe and secure space for play.
f. Larp counselors should be aware of the professional boundaries with players and trainees. Larp counselors should be aware of the possibilities of role confusion, which can damage the interpersonal and/or training relationship. It is the duty of the counselor to maintain an understanding of the power dynamic, from their own point of view, as well as the players, both diegetically and out-of-character.
g. At no time should a larp counselor enter into a sexual and or romantic relationship with a player or organizer during the course of play. Pre-existing relationships of this kind between counselors and players/ organizers should be bracketed. If possible, counselors should avoid moderating conflicts or engaging in sessions with these individuals, but not at the expense of anyone’s safety. Comment: For best practices, please see the Dual Relationships/Conflicts of Interest Section in our forthcoming guide book.
h. Larp counselors should inform players of the use of videotape or other recording systems, where it is possible such a factor could upset the nature of the confidential relationship. At all times, the counselor is obliged to obtain clear, informed consent from all participants involved in any recording and to inform them that they have a right to withdraw their consent at any time.
a. When dealing with sensitive intimate issues that arise in play, larp counselors should treat them with appropriate caution. The use of diegetic techniques should be carefully considered in order to minimize the possibility of compounding the abuse.
b. When approached by organizers for work or consultation, larp counselors should present a clear unambiguous statement of intention of the services they offer.
c. Larp counselors have the responsibility to acknowledge research undertaken during an event and, where appropriate, initiate, assist, or participate in the process of informing and seeking the consent of players when they are involved. Players used as research subjects should give informed consent to participating in the nature of the research being undertaken.
d. Larp counselors have an educative role in the larp community as well as a helping one and should seek to continue their own education. Larp counselors have the responsibility to continue their own development by being an active member of the larp safety community.
e. Larp counselors subscribe to the principles of anti-discriminatory practice, freedom of speech, and human rights; they should take positive steps to promote them.
IV. Relationship with Play
a. Character immersion should never be prioritized over the counselor’s vigilance. Counselors acknowledge that their embedded role is explicitly for the benefit of players and always follow the Prime Directive. Counselors forgo intensive immersion in favor of a perspective that prioritizes their ability to vigilantly perform their duties. Comment: The Prime Directive refers to the counselor’s responsibility to the well-being of players, and the limitations of their involvement within the diegesis: No intentional interference with the development of plot. No protracted relationship with a player-character.
b. A larp counselor’s character self should exhibit characteristics and behavior becoming of a counselor. Players should always feel comfortable engaging with counselor characters.
c. Larp counselors only disrupt another’s immersion for the express purpose of resolving issues relevant to their position.
d. Larp counselors always consider the culture of play in which they exist before acting. However, such considerations should never jeopardize the well-being of players. Counselors are always assessing and reassessing their notions of “well-being” in the context of the players and environment.
e. Larp counselors should always reserve the ability to stop/ start and relocate play as well as declare in-game areas as temporarily out-of-game to facilitate their duties. Caution should be used when exercising these abilities; counselors should consider the impact upon player experience as well as the urgency of the situation.
f. If organizers have agreed to allow counselors the authority to use diegetic devices, counselors may do so within the context of the Prime Directive (i.e., directive abilities should never affect the plot beyond a single or small group of characters).
g. Diegetic devices are to be used only when the counselor believes they will have a positive impact on the player’s experience and well-being.
h. If a larp counselor’s character-self is a psychotherapist or an adjacent position, they may role-play psychological interventions. Caution should be taken to ensure these interactions stay within the realm of fiction and fulfill the needs of play.
i. Counselors should take care to explicitly articulate when play ends and begins.
Safety & Calibration techniques are important design tools that help diverse players access your larp and create stories together. They are fundamental to building Cultures of Care and Trust, which are essential for encouraging community members to take the risks and vulnerabilities inherent in role-play. Care and Trust allow players to be open to the epiphanies and intense emotions that lead to transformative experiences.
While Safety & Calibration techniques are an essential design consideration, no single set of tools works for every larp, nor should any tool be used in a larp without consideration for its unique design goals and community norms. This is the fundamental principle of bespoke design, where every larp design should be customized for its players and the experience you want to provide.
Careful implementation of Safety & Calibration techniques allows designers to accommodate a diverse player group and establish a baseline Culture of Care and Trust that then allows each participant to exercise their own autonomy and boundaries.
The Culture of Care and Trust through Safety & Calibration Tools
Overall, Safety & Calibration tools help create Cultures of Care and Trust by overtly signifying that participants take priority over the event. They model the expectations for how community members should behave toward one another. Safety and calibration mechanics actualize formerly implicit norms and empower players to make their own choices about what to participate in. Because they provide a method for quick player-player calibration, their use leads to more satisfying and safer role-play. A participant who feels safe, seen, and acknowledged feels more trust toward other participants and more willingness to engage in the shared experience.
Safety & Calibration techniques (Koljonen 2016) allow participants to advocate for their own self-care by setting the expectation that one should speak up about one’s needs, lowering the burden of asking for help from others. They also establish an expectation for how players will treat each other in the community — with respect, compassion, and recognition. For example, encouraging players to check-in on each other and commit to using correct pronouns demonstrates care for other players. These tools flatten the community hierarchy and help new, inexperienced, or unconnected players feel less isolated and unsupported, making it easier for them to become a part of the group. They help prevent participants from becoming emotionally overwhelmed and encourage others to aid those who require support. As a result, they help players feel safer and more connected.
This article offers three Safety & Calibration Tools that have been in use since June 2016 and are now used internationally in a variety of larps, conventions, and even in some workplace and social situations. This article will examine the origins, practicality, and benefits of the OK Check-In, the Lookdown, and the Pronoun Correction tools. These tools can be adapted for various contexts, and are useful and flexible elements for larp or convention organization or design.
The OK Check-In Safety Tool
Origin: Early iterations: 2010-2015 in various US larps. Current standardized mechanic: 2016, Maury Brown for New World Magischola (Brown & Morrow, 2016), as part of system of safety mechanics designed by Maury Brown, Sarah Lynne Bowman, and Harrison Greene.
Using the OK gesture to check with a fellow participant emerged spontaneously in several US larp groups between 2010-2015. In this early format, a player made the OK symbol at chest height to see if a fellow player was all right. The Player would return the OK sign if all was well. It was particularly used in boffer combat after a tough hit, and among subgroups within a larp community who were looking out for each other. Some larps that included this early version include Melodramatic Mysteries organized by Aaron Vanek and Kirsten Hageleit, larps organized around 2010 by Rob McDiarmid, and boffer larps in the New England area.
The difference between these early iterations of the OK Check-In and the mechanic presented here and being adopted in many larps is four-fold: 1) this mechanic is systematized as a formal game and community rule, modeled and expected of all participants; 2) it has been standardized with a three-tier response that requires active reflection; 3) it includes specific responses that players should use when they receive the “not okay” response; and 4) it is created purposefully to promote a culture of care and inclusion. The name of the tool evokes the skill check nomenclature of tabletop gaming, of “checking” and also “checking in”: the informal usage (typically in the US) meaning to brie y talk with someone to determine progress or obtain new information.
How to Perform the OK Check-In
Like its use in SCUBA, the OK Check-In is a “demand-response signal”, meaning that the other person needs to give a response; the lack of a response indicates trouble or distress. Since some physical role-play is extremely convincing, this is a useful tool to separate role-play from reality in situations such as acting out drunkenness, a physical injury, or a seizure. The technique is used when a person notices another person who appears distressed, sad, upset, lonely, etc. Person 1 may be unsure whether Person 2 needs assistance, or whether their distress is role-play or real. Person 1 uses the Check-In to determine if assistance is needed and to show that they care about the other person’s well-being.
The technique itself is a call and response comprised of the discreet gesture of establishing eye-contact and directing the “OK” symbol toward another player. The gesture asks the question: “Are you okay?” The other player then considers how they are doing, and responds in one of three ways: thumbs up, thumbs down, or a wavy flat hand. Thumbs-up means “Doing fine, no need for follow-up;” Thumbs-down means “I am not okay.” Wavy Flat hand means “I am not sure.” If the response is anything other than a thumbs-up (i.e. no response, thumbs-down, or wavy hand), Person 1 responds by dropping character and offering assistance in the preferred method for the specific larp/ event, e.g. “Can I take you to the off-game room?” An important part of this technique is that the individual event must make known what the person should do in the case of a negative response. For further explanation of the mechanic, see Creating Cultures of Trust through Safety & Calibration Mechanics, the Imagine Nation description, and Johanna Koljonen’s Toolkit: The OK Check-In.
Larp issues this tool addresses / How it is Useful
Knowing whether a co-player is role-playing or in distress (physically or emotionally).
Alleviating anxiety and uncertainty about whether a fellow player needs help.
Deliberating about whether to interrupt a person if you are concerned.
Clarifying whether someone is/was feeling alienated, upset, or in need.
Alleviating the anxiety of not knowing if something applies to a player or their character.
Modeling a go-to script to help players connect in times of need.
Contributing to actual safety as players who are hurt emotionally or physically are quickly attended to.
Crowdsourcing and dispersing emotional care and safety (especially useful in larger larps).
Requiring players to periodically self-assess their own needs and well-being.
Reducing incidences of players becoming overwhelmed as they reffect and self-monitor.
Updates and Adaptations of the Mechanic
Enthusiastic Thumbs-Up: This adaptation was created by Johanna Koljonen to use at End of the Line (Pedersen, Pettersson, & Ericsson 2016) in New Orleans. Proactively using the thumbs-up sign during a scene became a subtle calibration tool that could be ashed to another player, indicating that the player is not only comfortable with, but enjoying the intensity level of the scene. Akin to the calibration mechanic “Harder”, the enthusiastic thumbs-up tells a co-player they can intensify the scene without requiring a verbal utterance.
Proactive OK. This adaptation resulted from a player wanting to pre-empt a check-in. A player who recognizes that their behavior or demeanor may cause concern for fellow players proactively ashes the “thumbs-up” signal to indicate they do not need assistance.
Proactive Not-OK/Thumbs Down. Some players began using thumbs-down as a nonverbal way to ask for assistance, rather than waiting for another player to check-in with them. Some people have difficulty articulating when they are angered or upset, especially those who are neurodiverse.
Concerns
These gestures are not universal across the world, and if you are using them in a larp context, you will need to consider your audience. It is perfectly fine to state that you are aware the symbol is offensive in some places, but that in the context of your larp, it will mean something different. For example, the “OK” symbol is offensive in Brazil, Germany, Russia, and other countries around the world, because it is used to depict a private bodily orifice. In Australia, Greece, or the Middle East, the thumbs-up gesture means essentially “Up yours!” or “Sit on this!” and is considered offensive.
Graceful Exits and Calibration using “Lookdown”
The “Lookdown” technique is a “bow-out” mechanic that allows a participant to disengage, leave a scene, or indicate a lack of interest in interaction. Adding the tool to your game increases player comfort with choosing what scenes they want to be a part of. In turn, this helps players calibrate the type and intensity level of play they desire.
The Lookdown gives players an alibi to leave a scene without requiring an in-game or off-game explanation. Most importantly, the technique gives players a way to set a boundary and take care of themselves without making a disturbance, interrupting a scene, or requiring that others get involved. This tool empowers players to choose their own experiences, and makes opt-in/opt-out design more tangible.
The Lookdown enacts a model of continuous consent for players. A player may consent to a scene that they regret or their consent may change as a result of emergent play. The Lookdown provides a tool to exercise that change of consent, no questions asked. It also allows players to more quickly get off-game to tend to their needs (vs. trying to find a good opening to make an announced exit), and it helps players take care of themselves by signalling that they do not want to be stopped by others. Finally, Lookdown ensures a player will not receive any in-game repercussions due to an off-game reason, more clearly separating player and character.
Origin: The “Lookdown” technique was invented in spring 2016 in a bar in Oslo, Norway during a conversation between Johanna Koljonen and Trine Lise Lindahl, who suggested the gesture. At the Living Games Conference in May 2016, Koljonen mentioned the technique in her keynote. The Lookdown was piloted in New World Magischola in June 2016 and has since been picked up by other games, including End of the Line, where it was known as See No Evil.
How to Perform the Lookdown
The Lookdown is a Calibration Technique for exiting a scene or conversation without causing disruption. It consists of placing one’s open hand across one’s forehead, as if shading one’s eyes from the sun, then stepping back and walking away. An important part of the technique that makes it a safety and calibration tool is how other players react when someone uses the Lookdown. Since it is used by the player for off-game reasons to exit a scene, there should be no questions asked, no explanation needed or demanded, and no consequences given — in-game or off — for using the tool. This helps the player feel that their needs and choices are valid and valued, and allows them to choose their level of experience and engagement.
To perform the Lookdown: Person 1 shields their eyes and walks away. Person 2 (and all other people in the scene or immediate area) ignore Person 1’s exit and continue as usual.
Larp issues this tool addresses / How it is useful:
Player realization that the topic or scene isn’t going in the direction they want and they want or need to opt-out safely.
When making up a reason to exit a scene is too difficult (e.g. because the player is too distressed or triggered) or would be too disruptive (e.g. would break up the ow of the scene and point the attention to the person attempting to leave).
Exercising self-care when a sudden trauma trigger overwhelms or distresses a player.
When a player’s biological or personal needs require them to leave, but the player doesn’t want to explain or disclose them.
Moving from one place to another without being stopped by another player; quickly signals that a player does not wish to be interacted with.
When staying in or “pushing through” a scene makes a player uncomfortable, and increases the risk of becoming overwhelmed or distressed.
Alleviating feelings of anxiety or FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) for wanting to make a different choice but not knowing how to extricate oneself from a scene or space.
Preventing feeling trapped in a situation, scene, or space.
Assisting neurodiverse players, who more often than neurotypical players have difficulty voicing plausible reasons to leave a scene.
Signaling the difference between a character leaving a scene (which invites commentary from other characters) and a player leaving a scene (which should go unnoticed).
Pronoun Markers and Pronoun Correction
Pronouns matter. A continually misgendered player experiences immersion breaks in their role-play at best and gender dysphoria at worst. Assuming pronouns for a player or a character can lead to trouble. To avoid pronoun assumption, the triggering effects of misgendering, and the sometimes difficult process of correcting a misused pronoun, the pronoun markers and correction mechanics were developed. They have been in use in certain larps and communities since 2016.
Origin: Created in 2016 for New World Magischola by Maury Brown, Sarah Lynne Bowman, and Harrison Greene, with help from Sara Williamson and Liz Gorinsky, co-authors of the larp See Me Now, which explores queer identities. Brodie Atwater contributed to later workshop adaptations.
Pronouns on Display: Two Methods
There are two main procedures regarding using pronouns on name badges at larps or conventions. The first approach displays pronouns on all name badges as an expectation or norm; and the second allows participants to add their pronouns to their badges (or wear a separate badge or patch) if they choose. In both cases, players determine their own pronouns, and upon seeing the displayed pronoun, other members of the community are expected to make every effort to refer to each person by the pronoun they have displayed. Read more about how the two methods work in Larp Tools: Pronoun Markers and Correction Mechanics.
Pronoun Correction Procedure
All players should assume that their co-players are making their best efforts to use the correct pronouns. All players should also know that the expectation of the community is that those who use the incorrect pronouns will be corrected, and that the responsibility for correcting is shared across the community. The overriding principle for the pronoun correction procedure is: “If you make a mistake and use the wrong pronoun in spite of your good intentions, the best response is to acknowledge the mistake, correct, and continue the conversation.” Over-apologizing and making a big deal out of the mistake derails role-play, making both the person who was misgendered and the person who did the misgendering uncomfortable. This situation can lead the person who was misgendered to feel compelled to reassure the player who made the mistake, which can heighten feelings of dysphoria or alienation. Thus, a simple “thank you” after a correction is considered preferred etiquette and is least anxiety-producing for everyone involved.
If a misgendering occurs, participants are asked to use a quick, non-judgmental pronoun correction mechanic. This technique is used for both in-game and off-game interactions:
Person 1 uses the incorrect pronoun to refer to someone. The person who was misgendered can be the person you are speaking to or someone you are speaking about.
Person 2 notices the incorrect pronoun and says the word “Pronouns” and shows the P hand signal. This can be one of two signals: the British sign language symbol for the letter P (which requires two hands) or the American Sign Language symbol for P (right hand only). If the player does not have one or both hands available, or chooses to, they can simply use the verbal cue “Pronouns”.
Person 2 follows the verbal cue and/or hand signal with the correct pronoun Player 1 should use. e.g. “Pronouns. They.”
Person 1 repeats the correct pronoun and says “Thank you” for the reminder. Play or conversation resumes.
This procedure can be repeated as often as necessary if the misgendering continues. Sometimes, it is genuinely difficult to change one’s speech habits and use a different pronoun, especially when one is already under the cognitive load of role-play. A person may need several reminders. The expectation is that one is corrected each time, both to help someone pay attention to their language use, and to encourage not letting a misgendering pass without correction. In each case, the response is the same. The person correcting uses the mechanic and simply states the correct pronoun; the person being corrected acknowledges with “thank you.” Needing several reminders can be frustrating for everyone, but repetition is often needed as people learn new habits. If it appears that someone is intentionally misgendering or refusing to abide by stated pronouns, an organizer or member of the safety team should become involved.
What the Pronoun Correction Mechanic Does / How it is Useful:
Sends a clear message that your community is inclusive to people of all genders.
Formalizes how pronouns are handled in your community.
Reduces the amount of misgendering that occurs for players and characters.
Gives a simple and quick correction procedure that is expected and minimally intrusive.
Opens community members’ eyes to perspectives beyond a gender binary.
Teaches participants how to get better at recognizing and using different pronouns.
Helps trans and nonbinary participants feel more respected and safer.
Allows role-play to continue quickly after a correction, rather than allowing a conversation to derail into obsequies and discomfort.
Shares the responsibility for ensuring that people are called by their proper pronouns to everyone in the community, not just those who use non-gender-binary pronouns.
Opens larps to multiple gender expressions.
Conclusion
Because there is a more mobile and international larp community attending games outside of local larp groups, these design tools and mechanics are cross-populating into other larp cultures more readily than before. In some cases, a critical mass of players can introduce a mechanic into a game that the designers or organizers did not officially add to their design. This can be both good and bad. It’s good in that the players found the technique to be useful in solving one or more of the common larp issues it is intended to address and they want to add it to their game to experience those benefits. It can be bad if they do not have the support of the game organizers, who may view the mechanic with suspicion or even derision. Adding a mechanic informally can fracture a larping community into those who use or support it, and those who do not. This division can create community strife and call for a ruling from the organizers about whether to officially adopt the mechanic, which would change the play-style and/or community norms.
No design tool is universal for every larp, and the same goes with safety and calibration techniques. Larp designers need to evaluate their design goals, their community, and their players to decide which tools will work well for them and that specific larp. A basis of a culture of care and trust is needed to a certain extent for role-play to happen and to be welcoming to a variety of players. Safety and Calibration tools help to establish that culture of care and trust, making for more meaningful and intense role-play. No tool will be one hundred percent perfect one hundred percent of the time for one hundred percent of your players, but designers need to consider the good that the tools do on balance with the annoyance or resistance to change they may encounter. The OK Check-In, Lookdown, and Pronoun Correction tools are useful together or alone in many larp situations, especially ones that bring together diverse players. They are an important addition to the larp designer’s toolbox and can be used when they help you solve the problems in your community or meet your design goals.
Koljonen, Johanna. “Opt In/Opt Out Safety System,” Keynote at Living Games Conference 2016. YouTube, last modi ed June 10, 2016, https://youtu.be/7bFdrV3nJA8
In the last 12 months, a number of high profile articles and discussions about safety in Nordic larp have been published((From high profile articles explaining how to deal with harassment and sexual predators, proposed approaches to safety by committee to the appointment of semi-diegetic counsellors. There were lengthy (and sometimes heated) discussions about the effects of alcohol, threads about physical intimacy, and some disparaging comments about the so-called ‘cult of hardcore’.)). We were interested to find out if this represented a turning point for the community. Is safety the primary concern now and has this come at the expense of the ‘edge’ that the form once had? Or are new approaches to safety actually allowing Nordic larp to push the limits further and to explore the extremes of the human condition?
To answer these questions, we conducted a series of email and video interviews with current designers, some who are associated with safety in larp and others who design extreme or challenging larps. This article is a summary of these interviews.
We have tried to give equal space to different opinions, but have discovered a significant overlap in the approach to larp design and safety in larp design between what we assumed were diametrically opposed camps.
Where our respondents have used larp specific jargon or terminology we have given a brief definition or explanation in the footnotes.
Is larp dangerous?
Simon Svensson
The normal world is more dangerous than nearly any larp. I think that going out on a Friday night is almost in every way more dangerous than going to a larp. So of course, I don’t really think that larps are psychologically or socially dangerous in any way that normal life isn’t.
Maury Brown
Dealing with other people creates dangers, and pretending to play a character is also a radically dangerous activity. We give in to emotions that we may repress in our daily lives, and we allow the character to bleed into our ego.((Bleed refers to something that passes from player to character or vice versa. In larp this is often (but not always) an emotional response or an emotional memory.)) This is fundamentally dangerous and this is not a bad thing. It’s a core part of larp. The harm from this danger can come, however, if we are not prepared to experience things like bleed, or cathartic emotions, or the tearing away of communal bonds built through the collaborative storytelling.
Johanna Koljonen
In my design practice, we talk very much about the distinction of being safe versus feeling safe. If you are not safe, you are in danger. But if you do not feel safe, you certainly might be in danger, but many other conditions also produce that feeling–for instance, being socially uncomfortable, or not knowing what to do next. And those things are not dangerous at all per se, but they do prevent one from engaging with the larp fully. A core challenge when we talk about larp safety is that maybe 80 % of what we refer to is about feeling safe to play rather than being safe from harm.
Peter Munthe-Kaas
Dangerous is a heavy word to use. Dangerous for what exactly? And compared to what? It is definitely less dangerous physically than many sports. Psychologically, I guess that you can consider larp to be dangerous, as it potentially can change what you believe to be you and how you see the world around you.
Charles Bo Nielsen
It is a bit naive to claim that experiencing hardship for a day, on the level with what others survive a lifetime of without dying, should break you as a person. Where you even know that this hardship is temporary of a day or a weekend and is fake or an experiment. To be honest, I believe that the human mind to be stronger than that. As I see it, larp can trigger traumas, not develop them.
Are there limits to the themes you can explore through larp? Should there be?
Maury Brown
The crux of the issue is not whether the theme should be explored, but whether it is explored with respect and honesty. We have to be very careful that we don’t trivialize or reduce complex human beings and complicated situations into playable elements or caricatures, and that we don’t reinforce harmful tropes. And we do have to be careful about co-opting identities that are not our own and allowing role-play to perpetuate stereotypes and opinions that continue to marginalize, oppress, and other individuals and groups.
Johanna Koljonen
It’s very weird to assume that any theme would be unsuitable for any medium. Just like all the others, the larp medium is better at some things and worse at others. Factors such as the skill of the designers, the play culture of the participants, and what kind of larp we’re talking about also play a big part–just like they would with lm, comics, or anything else.
In larp cultures which have a collaborative baseline and are focused on ‘play’ rather than ‘competition’, larp is often conceptualised as closer to theatre and other arts, and both players and the people around them are more willing to accept that it’s possible to create appropriate frames for difficult topics.
Simon Svensson
I don’t think it is a good thing to explore themes like bullying each other for our real life looks or using racist stereotyping without exploring it as an active or discussed part of the larp. But almost any theme can be explored in respectful ways. The limits are context dependent. If you make a larp specifically about the tradition of using blackface as a racist stereotype then absolutely it can be included in that game, but the limit to most games would be, for example, to use blackface as a way of signifying that you were of a different ethnicity. If a game is specifically about our real life bodies and that is what we explore, then maybe a larp can be made with that.
With safety in mind, how do you design larps that let you push your boundaries in interesting ways?
Peter Munthe-Kaas
I try to make sure that my players feel that they have agency to stop an interaction if they don’t want it; work extensively with workshopping((Workshopping: tools for informing players, developing in-game relations, or practicing techniques used in the larp, usually occurring right before play starts. A workshop can help you find your character and show you how to play within the game.)) to create a co-creative atmosphere where everyone agrees on how the larp should be played, and try to create a safe space to land in after the larp has ended, so there is time for taking in the experience.
Johanna Koljonen
Be super clear about the types of experiences players will encounter. Be very coherent, reliable, professional, respectful and courteous in all your communications with your players to demonstrate that you can be trusted.
Sanity check your larp content with other people, especially if your organiser group is very homogeneous – someone I know just came back from a larp with a lot of dead baby plots and I think that’s a topic that looks very different to players of an age where they or people close to them are trying to have kids than to, say, a single 25-year old who has never been in a committed relationship. They can be a great writer and just not realize how personally painful a story like that can be to a couple in their forties.
You need to design the process whereby the players start to trust each other enough to be able to play at all, let alone anything heavy.
If you start by picking safety mechanics((Safety mechanics: The methods, techniques, and rules that are put into a larp by the designers in order to keep the participants from doing actual long term harm to themselves or one another.)) off you’re doing it ass backwards. The OK check-in((OK Check-in: A specific technique to check with another player that they are enthusiastically okay with what is going on right now. Any response other than thumbs up means the player needs help. See further Brown, this volume.)) will not make your larp safe. An off-game room((Off-game room: A place to go to rest, recover, or just to centre yourself prior to returning to the larp. Some offer a quiet space for reflection, other support, hot drinks and a hug.)) won’t make your larp safe. Larps are complex systems and the tools interact with everything else in the system. If the design elements are not aligned in support of the goals of the work, then a consent mechanism((Consent mechanism: A way of confirming prior to an interaction or scene that the other participants want to run with it. Sometimes an off-game negotiation, sometimes a meta technique.)) can actually create a false sense of security, through signalling that you take safety seriously when in fact you don’t even understand how it works.
Caroline Sjövall
Make a larp about pushing boundaries. Be clear about it. Don’t mix it or cover it up with something else.
Simon Svensson
The most important part is expectation management. Make sure that people know what they are signing up for. Don’t try to make it sound cooler or less serious or more serious than it is. Try to find a clear vision to describe what kind of play is available at this larp.
Charles Bo Nielsen
The first and most important part is communication. You need to be honest to your potential players what kind of experience you want to make. Is the larp about pushing the envelope of what is possible in a physical or psychological matter? Then label it with trigger warnings and designed intentions of pushing people’s limits.
Do your research if your physical conditions are risky. Your players will play down your content for their own safety–so make sure that the conditions are safe enough to actually be able to push yourself. Making a mortal combat fighting larp on a huge hilltop with limited space to move around without being plunged to certain actual death, will result in players making very fake punches and getting less injured than in a fight club larp in a basement.
Is it morally acceptable to create a space for players to break themselves?
Maury Brown
Yes, but. It is only morally acceptable if you have the systems in place to allow them to calibrate((Calibration: the process by which larpers discuss the uncertainties between their expectation of a larp and that which is actually happening. That which is calibrated can intersect with safety, for example calibrating the intensity of physical interactions between players, ‘I am happy for you to go harder’. We argue that calibration is a meta-technique rather than a safety technique because it is often used in act breaks as a method for calibrating story and character interaction as well as player safety. See)) the level of breaking, to assist them as they break and begin to repair, and to respect their privacy about their own experiences.
Johanna Koljonen
Here’s the thing about larps in which people can break themselves: I think all larps have that potential. Let’s say I run a concert venue instead of a larp. Some people will come in and drink very heavily and then listen to a band they loved during a particularly difficult breakup. I don’t think it’s reasonable to ask the venue’s designer or manager or the band’s promoter to stop people from doing this–but sometimes it will happen, and they will be a wreck, and may require some help.
I will say, however, that I find it morally dubious for players to use larps to break themselves. Or even to explore how far they can go before they break. I think you should aim for a level where you won’t break, and then if you overshoot by accident and have a strong reaction, then that is within the normal range of What Larp Does.
Simon Svensson
I think it is absolutely fair to design larps that could break people as long as you tell people about them and say exactly what they will entail. Then people going there are saying: ‘Okay, I am willing to do this and if it ends badly then that is on me.’
Should some larps come with a ‘strong content’ advisory sticker?
Charles Bo Nielsen
I would say ‘could’ instead of ‘should’, but if you don’t make simple trigger warnings, you should be quite open and frank about the actual content, so that people can decide for themselves if it becomes too strong for them.
Maury Brown
People should know what themes and content a larp is designed to explore. They should know how the larp organisers will handle emergent play and content and themes the players bring in. They should know that they are safe at the experience, that organisers have guidelines and procedures in place to ensure that participants handle the content responsibly and respect the rules of the community. They should know what physical and emotional demands will be made of them. In short, they need information to decide if this larp is for them at this time.
Simon Svensson
Absolutely. And a very specific one. Not just that this larp could contain offensive material, no, ‘if you go to this larp you are likely to play out acts of sexual abuse’ for example.
Caroline Sjövall
Better with a clear vision instead. Information: this is what we want to have in our larp. You will be naked at this larp. You will not have coffee.
Do you think there is still a space for risk in larp design?
Maury Brown
Absolutely. Larping itself is risky–you’re taking on a persona that is not your own, you’re engaging in new activities with new people, and in some cases, you’re participating in an activity that dominant society may marginalize. It’s important to note that safety is not the absence of risk. Safety (and by that we mean a broad category of physical, psychological and emotional safety) is definitely about considering how to mitigate risk, but no amount of safety procedures and tools will ever fully remove all risks.
Safety and calibration tools are more about being transparent about the risk–letting participants know the dangers that might happen and giving them the choice to take those risks and to consider what level of risk they are ready for. Part of the fun and thrill of many activities, including some larps, is about taking a risk and overcoming it. But you want that sweet spot of knowing the risks, wanting to confront them, and feeling capable of dealing with them, and you want the support system in place to be prepared to help participants for whom the risks are too great, and they require assistance. I would never advocate removing risk from design (nor do I believe it is possible). In fact, I believe that transparent safety and calibration tools allow larp design and larping to tackle even greater risks, because they are critical to creating spaces of trust, agency, and autonomy.
Johanna Koljonen
Yes of course; that is why I do this work. I don’t want games to be bland, I want them to be stronger. This always implies an element of risk, in the sense of social risk, or the risk of learning something about yourself, or the risk of experiencing something painful as part of a learning process. We can’t do that kind of role-playing if we’re not safe as well.
Where does safety feature in your design process?
Charles Bo Nielsen
I aim to include my players in the safety process as much as possible, since they are the ones who have to go through the experience. Some designers like to test their design extensively until they feel safe, I like to engage in dialogue with my players about what they are okay with and build the larp around that.
Johanna Koljonen
Everywhere. Not every second of design time of course, but in each iteration of each element it’s there. It’s one of the basic questions–just like we ask ‘how does this serve the intention of the piece and how does it produce or inspire the player actions we want to see?’, we also ask ‘how does this affect the interaction system between the players?’
Simon Svensson
We usually start off with a ‘fuck safety’ perspective, just in order to get the wild ideas out there. We want to design interesting larps; we want to make something cool for our own sake but then afterwards we sort of ad-lib safety onto the larp to see what we need to change to realize our vision, to get players in, and to be able to communicate our vision in a sound way.
I think that sometimes, people are too wary or careful with their own experiences and that people too often use safety valves and like going off-game instead of experiencing a larp the way they could have. Their experiences would have been deeper and more meaningful if they had not gone off-game, or if they had not laughed it away or taken breaks.
Peter Munthe-Kaas
I think it is usually an ad-on that comes after the core experience design has been made. It is more based on ‘what could potentially be unsafe/ uncomfortable’ for the players and then figuring out some ways of dealing with that.
Where is the sweet spot between responsible design and danger?
Johanna Koljonen
The sweet spot is zero danger but enough social and emotional risk that you have to be a little brave to engage. As a designer, you enable that bravery through taking care of real safety and designing player culture, calibration and consent mechanics right.
Peter Munthe-Kaas
I think transparency((Transparency: Some larps have no secrets. For players who are interested, everything that could happen or will happen in the larp is made available to them in advance. Simply put, there are no surprises and participants are fully aware of what they are getting into.)) is a very important part of any ‘extreme’ larp design. The ability to describe the experience that the players are going to have (or at least what you as an organiser are designing for) in an open and honest way, makes it easier for potential players to choose if this is an experience they want.
Simon Svensson
I don’t think every larp should be super hardcore nor that everyone should always push themselves to the limit in every larp they play, but if we are making a larp where they are supposed to push themselves then I think the sweet spot is the moment when they can start trusting that other people want them to do these things to each other.
There is a sweet spot when the safety techniques put the responsibility on the one who thinks they cannot handle more, not the person who is doing things and is still comfortable with them. In my personal opinion, I do not want to design or play larps that constantly force you to check in with people to make sure what you are doing is good, because it won’t be good larping.
Conclusion
Safety plays a part in every larp design process, even though the focus on safety might differ from designer to designer.
All the designers we interviewed believed that an important part of designing for safety is about expectation management and clear communication. Telling the players what the game is about, which boundaries they were going to push, and how far they would be expected to go, is key. Players need to know what the larp is about to see if it is for them.
One other interesting finding was that vocal proponents of safety in larp design still want to make larps that explore difficult and potentially painful themes. And, as importantly, vocal proponents of larps that do push the limits of the form still care about safety and still consider it a key element in their larp design. As long as the themes and tools are clearly communicated up front, everyone agreed that larp could, and even should, explore themes that are uncomfortable.
There is still room to explore the darker and more difficult aspects of the world through larp. We can legitimately explore the extremes of the human condition, as long as we do it with informed consent from all participants, and to do that we must clearly communicate what each larp is about.
The larp designers interviewed for this article
Maury Brown has navigated the legal labyrinth of bringing large-scale Nordic larp to the famously litigious North America as the author and lead organizer of New World Magischola, Immerton, and Beat Generation. She regular publishes and speaks about safety in larp and roleplay, and believes that safety systems are a prerequisite for these inherently emotionally risky activities.
Johanna Koljonen is behind the most significant work and writing on safety in larp. She coined the term calibration and has contributed safety design to intense larps such as Inside Hamlet.
Peter Munthe-Kaas is one of the minds behind KAPO, a larp that did not so much as play on the edge as redefine what the edge actually meant.
Charles Bo Nielsen has a reputation for designing and playing hardcore larps. The most famous being What Are You Worth, which featured on a Discovery Channel documentary about Nordic larp. During the larp participants were told that events would continue to escalate until they called cut; this led to both rectal examinations and mock executions.
Caroline Sjövall is a larp designer whose work includes the 2017 game Gården (The Farm), a larp about a religious re-education centre where no meta techniques were used to simulate violence, sex or any other type of interaction.
Simon Svensson is behind larps such as The Solution, Do Androids Dream? and Echo Chamber, all of which explore dark themes and have a reputation for pushing the limits of players emotionally and psychologically.
References
Maury Brown. Safety & Calibration Design Tools & Their Uses: OK Check-In, Lookdown, Pronoun Correction. 2018. In “Re-shuffling the Deck” Edited by Annika Waern and Johannes Axner. ETC Press.
Alex Rowland and Brodie Atwater as counselors Watson and Whipple, New World Magischola 7.
The counselor role is considered both diegetic and non-diegetic. In other words, a safety team member is embedded in the fiction as a character. Depending on the type of fiction, this role may be called a “counselor” — as in New World Magischola, Event Horizon, — or may be renamed something else appropriate to the fiction, such as “bartender” or “goddess.” Similar to a Storyteller or non-player character (NPC), while these individuals are immersed in the story, the counselor can also step out of their role in order to tend to the emotional needs of players in distress and help with calibration of play styles. They can help overwhelmed players find the off-game room, Sanctuary Space, or other members of the safety team on staff. Therefore, the counselor role requires a strong degree of sensitivity to the needs of others, flexibility to switch in- and out-of-character with ease, deescalation skills, and willingness to perform emotional labor for the player base and other organizers.
Counselors are especially useful at bigger larps that are spread over a large area. While the role is present in other larps, such as Lindängen International BoardingSchool, we are describing the counseling role that we first developed for Run 1 of New World Magischola (2016), where 160+ players were spread over 100+ acres. Since then, Magischola has featured embedded counselors for all eight runs, as well as two Yule episodes. Event Horizon (2016) adopted the role, as has the U.S. run of Just a Little Lovin’ (2017). Ideally, the counselor job is compensated if the larp budget allows, e.g. expenses, lodging, food, and/or stipends for travel.
Optimally, counselors serve other roles on the safety team such as leading workshops, de-roling, and debriefing sessions. The staff should introduce costumed counselors at the opening of the game if possible. That way, players can easily identify them as trained safety team members in play. Embedded counselors make safety both visible and pervasive in a larp culture. However, counselors are only one part of the safety culture of the larp. Ultimately, we hope to encourage a community of care, where other players feel motivated to provide support for one another, rather than relying on staff to handle all problems that arise.
Distinctions from Traditional Therapy
While we use the generic term “counselor,” we would like to make clear several core distinctions between this member of the safety team and a traditional therapist. While counselors may provide advice for players in- or out-of-character, they do not perform therapy as a psychologist would in an office setting. The counselor’s job is more akin to crisis management than therapy. In a therapeutic setting, a client enters into a relationship with their psychologist in which trust is built over time and personal information is revealed in order to produce meaningful change in the client’s life. In a larp, that relationship has not been established, and neither the space nor time needed for traditional therapy are present. Indeed, such intensive analysis of a player’s psychology could work against the goals of individuals in this role.
Instead, a larp counselor’s role is to provide players and organizers in need with the following:
Immediate support when distressed, triggered, alienated, or overwhelmed
Help in re-establishing a feeling of safety
Problem solving for emotional difficulties arising from the larp itself, such as plot-related issues and social conflicts
Calibrating play in order to help players adjust to one another’s comfort levels
Snacks, water, a quiet place to relax, and any other basic comforts
In extreme cases, crisis management for abuse, harassment, mental illness episodes, and other serious issues.
Thomas Whipple (Harrison Greene) in New World Magischola 1.
Thus, the counselor’s primary goal is to help establish a sense of emotional well-being in the hopes that the participant can re-engage with the larp and social environment with minimal disruption to their experience. Unlike a therapeutic session, where upsetting or traumatizing personal information is often unearthed, the larp counselor only engages with such content if the player spontaneously discloses personal information.
In this regard, while having trained psychologists on staff is desirable in larp settings, we recognize that emotional distress and even crisis can arise in any social situation. Larp can be particularly intense and place emotional demands upon players in terms of focused attention and intensity. In some cases, larpers experience physical strain, lack of sleep, or insufficient food or water, whether by personal choice or the event’s design. These demands can lead to powerful larp experiences, but can also add psychological strain. These issues can arise even in larps with presumably light-hearted content. In our experience, having a system in place to aid in these situations is important, as other players may not be able to provide care and organizers may be overwhelmed. The counselor serves as a safety net to help player’s process this strain and receive immediate help.
Thus, while we advocate for counselors to obtain professional development around emotional safety, crisis treatment certifications, and psychological training, we recognize that these requirements are not always practical. We believe the primary skills needed for a larp counselor are empathy, active listening, patience, and the willingness to help others through immediate emotional issues. Counselors should also work well in a team with other safety committee members and organizers, reporting often about the events occurring in the larp and any emotional difficulties that arise in the player base.
While counselors should strive toward confidentiality, they may need to report serious issues that arise to the larger team, especially if action needs to be taken to stop problematic behaviors such as harassment. Counselors are not subject to the same strict rules of confidentiality that a licensed professional may be, as they are working in service to the larp organizers. However, ethically, restricting who is exposed to sensitive information is extremely important. In issues of alleged harassment, legal repercussions could ensue if counselors reveal the details of a claim. Retaliation against reporters is also a possibility, which reinforces the need for discretion. Counselors should make clear to participants who they will inform about safety issues, particularly in the case of violations, before participants reveal personal details. Counselors can also disclose potential actions the safety team might take. Ideally, such information is contained in their Code of Conduct, Internal Procedures, or other design documents. If your larp needs help developing these procedures, we encourage you to borrow with attribution from the Living Games Conference safety documentation, which also includes professional development exercises for crisis management and empathy training.
Psychic twin sister counselors Winnie (Alex Rowland) and Raindrinker (Sarah Lynne Bowman) in Event Horizon. Photo courtesy of Event Horizon.
Ultimately, counselors work to try to resolve issues that happen during the larp, as well as keeping their fingers on the proverbial pulse of the events unfolding, often reporting back to the rest of the staff. We believe that dedicated counselors whose only role in the larp is to provide in-character and out-of-character assistance can not only assist players in need, but can relieve some of the pressure from other organizers, who are often overtaxed by logistical concerns. Thus, safety members in this role should also offer support to other members of staff in need, including each other, in the case of a larp with multiple embedded counselors. While counselors can double as physical safety staff trained in CPR and first aid, the skills required for these two jobs are often different and should not be conflated. Unless a larp is seriously understaffed, we suggest another organizer handle physical safety issues.
Advantages to Embedded Counselors
Having a member of the safety team embedded in the larp has several advantages. They are involved in the fiction and can better understand the references made by the characters and players. Counselors may even be present for key scenes and know which events have unfolded. This practice makes it less alienating for the counselor when hearing about larp events, as they understand the context.
Counselor Whipple (Brodie Atwater) with the Dean (Maury Brown) in New World Magischola 7.
For example, in New World Magischola, counselors are part of the staff of the school. They have in-character reasons to run administrative events, connect with faculty, and be available for students to express their career or personal issues. In the fiction of Event Horizon, counselors were hired by the corporation hosting the event. These counselors were telepathic twins with empathy powers. In both cases, magic can enhance the in-game counseling role, e.g. by providing flashbacks or future sequences, as one would in a black box, to help process character emotions. Embedded counselors can also work in a socially realistic setting. In the 2017 run of Just a Little Lovin’ in the United States, Joani, a New Age self-help guru character, was adapted to have counseling training.
The fiction influences the way counseling is portrayed, but provides a convenient reason for players to steer toward emotional processing or a satisfying resolution without breaking immersion. We term these strategies diegetic interventions, or ways to solve in-game problems through magic, psychic powers, role-played therapy sessions, or other creative solutions. Diegetic interventions are powerful because they redirect players to the fiction and that resolution becomes canonical, not just imagined. Players feel like they are getting a special scene, which can raise spirits and help them reconnect with the larp.
Additionally, embedded counselors can:
Monitor the emotional well-being of a person, e.g. with the Okay Check-in System. For example, if a character is crying alone, the counselor can clandestinely check-in and help if needed.
Remove a distressed person from play and take them to a safer space, e.g. another in-game location or an off-game room. Ideally, a larger larp has a Sanctuary Space for such a purpose, while small games may have an off-game room.
Model checking-in for other players in order to encourage a community of care, such as using the Okay Check-In System, Lookdown, Pronoun Corrections, Largo/Break, Cut, and any other safety mechanics. While players can bring distressed participants to a counselor as needed, we want to encourage participants to care for one another.
Serve as the eyes and ears on the ground to help the lead organizers calibrate the game.
Coordinate with the team when dispersed over a large play area.
Make story adjustments as embedded NPCs with in-character reasons for doing so.
Guide players back into character when needed.
Help players solve larp-related issues while in play when possible, such as overstimulation, difficulties engaging with plot, uncertainty how to move forward with a storyline, boredom, etc.
Offer emotional care while in the fiction, which may allow enough of a release valve that the player need not break in order to regroup.
Allows player alibi to seek help, particularly in play cultures where breaking immersion is discouraged.
Ideally, each larp has at least two counselors, which enables them to tap out if necessary, as well as to emotionally process with one another. Sometimes, counselors may need to check with one another to figure out a course of action. If a participant feels comfortable, having both counselors present to address an issue can be helpful, although some players prefer one-on-one private interactions.
In the most recent runs of New World Magischola, all counselors were coordinated through the use of walkie talkies, so that they could communicate regardless of their location in play. The Sanctuary Space also had a walkie talkie, which allowed players to page a counselor if needed. Counselors listed their schedule on the door of the Sanctuary Space to identify their approximate location. Sanctuary Spaces also feature water, snacks, blankets, soft music, and coloring books when possible. Ideally, Sanctuary Spaces have a door that can close for privacy. These logistics allow embedded counselors to slip smoothly in and out of play to address issues as they arise.
Drawbacks to Embedded Counselors
Embedding counselors into the fiction does have some drawbacks, which we will address in turn. They are:Active counselors in the play space are not always easy to find.
Active counselors in the play space are not always easy to find.
Walkie talkies and other forms of communication such as text may help, assuming the technology is working and counselors regularly monitor these devices.
Counselors can serve in shifts, where some are in-character while others remain in the Sanctuary Space or off-game room. Downtime may be necessary when performing emotional care, although boredom and alienation may arise if off-game shifts are too long.
Counselors can become involved in major stories or plots through emergent play as part of the fiction.
Counselors can become central figures to the play of others due to the emotional bonds formed through the act of sharing, which can lend to player comfort.
This engagement can also become negative, if players associate the counselor with a particular plot, player, or social clique that they find undesirable or alienating.
Counselors should strive to maintain neutrality and objectivity in plots and social groups when possible as a best practice. Non-embedded members of safety teams are less biased in general, so counselors may direct players to these individuals in specific situations.
When immersed, counselors may show a range of emotions outside of their “professional” role.
Counselors should strive to play characters who have a pleasant, welcoming, and empathic demeanor. Preferably, the characters’ default personalities are both engaging and emotionally available. However, these traits are not always possible to maintain when engaged in intense stories or moments.
Players should not be afraid to show other ranges of emotions during role-play, but when interactions focus on counseling, this default personality should predominate.
Counselors Raynar and Traquility Whipple explore a mystery with a Divination professor in Magischola 4. Photo courtesy of Learn Larp LLC.
Counseling and Self-Care
Counselors are not superheroes. They cannot help every player or be emotionally available at all times. Just like any member of the safety team, counselors should maintain boundaries with regard to their time and energy. A good rule of thumb is to help a person for a maximum of one hour. Players should not feel that they have unrestricted access to the emotional labor of counselors, so good boundary and expectation setting are necessary. Ideally, these boundaries are mentioned in workshops and enforced by the organizer team.
Counselors must be extremely vigilant about their own self-care regimen, including getting enough sleep and food. If necessary, a co-counselor, another member of the safety team, or another organizer can relieve them of their duties if self-care is needed. Counselors should feel enabled to self-advocate. For example, they can say,
“I feel that I have addressed your issue as best I can. I’m not sure how to proceed from here. Can we figure out a way to help you get back into play together?”
“I wish I could help right now, but I am going to need to get something to eat. Do you mind if I introduce you to our other counselor, who may be able to help?”
Note that while two counselors may decide to help the same player at once, they should avoid enabling players to monopolize their emotional resources by coming to different counselors with the same issue.
Divination Professor Ziegler (Kat Jones) and Ethics Professor Hassinger (Evan Torner) also served as counselors at Magischola Yule.
Additionally, counselors should also remain vigilant of their own emotional capabilities throughout play. Some counselors have their own mental health challenges or trauma triggers. They should make sure that they feel sufficiently rested and comfortable addressing certain issues before engaging. They should also be upfront about their own limitations. For example, a counselor can say,
“I don’t deal well with angry people. Do you mind handling this situation? I don’t think I can be of help.”
“I just helped six people in a row and am emotionally depleted. Can you take over while I take a nap?”
“I am having anxiety today. I should probably avoid crowded rooms. Do you mind covering for me while I eat outside of the main play space?”
Counselors should not feel responsible for players during off-duty hours. Therefore, it is preferable to set boundaries around when counseling shifts are, e.g. 8am-1am, with breaks in between. The exception to this guideline is in cases of harassment or other serious mental health issues, where counselors may be needed when off-duty.
Finally, counselors may wish to make themselves available before and after the larp over social media and personal message. Sharing links about bleed, post-larp depression/blues/drop, debriefing, and other resources is helpful, especially the during 72 hours after the larp, or the bleed window, where players are often still transitioning back to their default lives. However, counselors should not feel required to perform additional emotional labor above and beyond their role in the larp unless they wish to do so. Again, boundary setting is necessary. Counselors are not community managers. They should decide upon how much post-larp emotional labor they are willing to provide. Some suggestions:
Allowing a player the opportunity to share a bleed issue, but limiting communication to one conversation.
Only discussing issues during the bleed window and declining overtures for conversation that occur more than 72 hours after the larp.
Redirecting participants to Facebook groups or their co-players for assistance, further reinforcing a culture of care.
Common Counseling Issues
Counselors Tullamore and Tranquility Whipple attempt to guide a student away from a dark path in New World Magischola 5.
In our experience, these problems arise in larp settings, although some are far more common than others:
A player needs help figuring out what to do next in-game, due to boredom, frustration, or a character dilemma.
A player has anxiety about their own play ability, their own plots, whether they are doing it right, or being good enough.
A player feels overwhelmed by the amount of plots or emotional content happening and has trouble deciding which thread to pursue.
A player feels shut out of play from other groups due to an exclusive plot, a social clique, or another participant refusing to play upon an established connection. The important thing here is to listen, empathize, and figure out solutions. Embedded counselors can provide play for the person if needed, or introduce them to other possible social groups/plots.
A player feels emotionally overwhelmed due to the intensity of a particular scene, be it romantic, violent, embarrassing, etc. The important thing is for the player to be able to express their feelings without feeling judged. Embedded counselors may have been present for the scene and/or able to offer some additional context, advice, etc. Reframing the event together through a more favorable perspective can sometimes be helpful. Note that, later, players might view these scenes as the best parts of their larp when properly reframed and put into context.
A player feels uncomfortable with another person’s playstyle, attention toward them, or level of aggression. Focusing on how to help the player feel most comfortable is optimal here. The counselors may want to suggest ways to remove the two people from proximity if possible and suggest in-game reasons for such a change.
A player is experiencing bleed due to the fiction connecting to real-life emotions or events. Allowing the person to express themselves without judgment is key. Sometimes, the bleed can be used for positive growth, but a player should not feel obligated to continue to play on a theme or relationship that they find distressing. Give options.
A player feels personally harassed by another player or staff member. These issues should be handled on a case-by-case basis according to the Code of Conduct and Internal Safety Procedures. If a larp does not have these resources, the counselor should follow the guidelines established informally in their local larp culture, although we highly suggest establishing a Code of Conduct and set of Internal Procedures. Confidentiality is extremely important in these situations. The player may not want to report the harasser officially and their comfort should be respected as tantamount. Ask questions and offer options, but do not pressure them to make a decision or take action.
A player is unable to fulfill personal goals, gain closure, or steer toward their desired trajectory. This problem does not usually led to an agitated state, but rather a deep sense of disappointment or loss. In this case, the goal is not to deescalate, but rather deflate the issue by doing solution-based counseling or introducing a diegetic intervention.
Diegetic Interventions
The structure of New World Magischola, with its player-driven scene requests and consent-based play, meant that counselors could take the tools available to players and use them with proficiency. Diegetic interventions allowed players not only to return to the larp, but to resolve their issues through play. Counselors could cancel scenes, make new ones, plan for plot events, or encourage negotiation with other players about closing or opening up storylines. They could use freeform scenes to create canonical content that could have happened in a story in order to justify a new character direction. While anyone can create this content, an embedded counselor can demonstrate proficiency in how a player might use it to transform their play.
Counselor Winnie at Event Horizon
Some example diegetic interventions are:
Scene requests
Player: “I had a lot of ambitions for this storyline about my family, but the person playing my sibling brought a bunch of people to the scene and took most of the spotlight.”
Counselor: “Well, what if we put in a scene request for your character to meet one of their family members again, but on their own this time?”
Player: “Can I do that?”
Counselor: “Of course, and you can also talk to that other player to see what they’re trying to get from the plotline, so you can discuss expectations of where the play should lead.”
Freeform
Player: “I was really hoping that my character would get arrested before the ball so they could break out of prison to see their date. But there won’t be much play after dinner.”
Counselor: “What if we checked with the NPCs to see if we can make that scene? If not, we can take some time to act out the scene together, with us playing the marshals who arrested them.”
Plot Knowledge
Player: “I’m feeling exhausted by being around so many people.”
Counselor: “There’s going to be a big scene that draws everyone out into the forest in about an hour. What if you just focused on being in the common room or resting, then looked for other quiet people who weren’t out at the scene, and tried to play with them? There will be someone drawing people to your character’s common room about an hour after they get back, so you can make plans to be gone by then.”
Future Steps
While not all larps may require a counselor, we believe that they provide communities with a distinct advantage. For this reason, Brodie Atwater and Alex Rowland — experienced larp counselors, academics, and therapists-in-training — are developing a guide for counselors. This manual will serve as a touchstone for people who want to begin contracting and training counselor roles for their game. Starting from a standardized crisis counseling model, this work will also examine ACA Compliance in order to start synthesizing larp communal wisdom with wider psychological standards. Ultimately, we hope that this work will serve as a foundation for increased professional development and more nuanced safety team design in larps.
As we continue our discussion about how to apply principles of Community Design to our gaming and larping communities, we have advocated for the creation of a Safety Coordinator and/or Safety Team for your Community. The need for a Safety Coordinator or Team arises out of the recognition that games can make people feel unsafe through their content or mechanics, through other players’ behavior (in- or off-game), and that gaming communities are not safe for all people. In addition, we recognize that creating a safe and inclusive environment is done by design, and a Safety Team or Coordinator is part of these overall strategies. This article will define a Safety Team and its role, look at principles of what makes for a good Safety Team, and offer some advice for creating and maintaining one for your Community.
What is a Safety Coordinator and a Safety Team?
In smaller larps or communities, a single member of the organizer team can be designated the Safety Coordinator, and be the point person for safety duties. In larger larps (a good estimate is 30-40 people or more), it is generally better to share the duties among a Safety Team. A Safety Team is comprised of more than one person (three is often a good number), is diverse, and has authority from the other organizers and in the Community.
A Safety Team is a group of people who are tasked with paying attention to the safety of the community. The Safety Team is an executive level team, with the leader of the team as a members of the main organizer team. The Safety Coordinator/Safety Team Lead should have ready and immediate access to the main organizer(s), and be part of design and logistics decisions. They will voice how other decisions such as game theme, mechanics, location, duration, size, content, etc. will affect community safety.
Consult with the Organizers about calibration mechanics such as intensifying or decreasing the level of play, levels of access for play (e.g. touching, violence), or leaving a scene and assist with these design decisions.
Collaborate with main organizers to gain and maintain participant trust in order to maximize the feelings of inclusion and safety from participants.
Create an Off-Game Space or Sanctuary for participants to use during the event, particularly after emotionally intense scenes. Responsible for staffing it with team members or other volunteers, and designing the space for comfort. In larger larps, a separate and private room is preferred; in smaller larps it may be designated area.
Design bespoke safety workshops or briefings for participants before the event which include the chosen safety & calibration mechanics, whom to contact, and what to do in the event of a safety concern. The workshops should align with the design decisions for the individual larp.
Design bespoke debrief workshops and/or game-off transitions to be conducted with participants after the event. This may include establishing a buddy system to assist with larp blues, making an online community available, or on-site debriefs, formal and informal, among other strategies.
Write, revise, and communicate a game’s Conduct Guidelines and Harassment Policy, with the main organizers. These include actions taken by the Safety Coordinator or Team when violations occur. These guidelines and policies should be available to all participants.
Is the established contact for participants who have a safety concern. Reports are made to the Safety Coordinator, or, in the case of a Team, to the Team as a whole. Reports made to a single Safety Team member will be shared with the remainder of the team.
Establish channels, such as a Safety Team email, for participants to make contact about safety issues before, during, and after the event.
Staff the Off-Game Space or Sanctuary during an event. Is known to the Community as the people to contact if they have a safety need. May wear a badge or other indicator. Is distinct from medics or those who handle physical injuries and triage.
Write and enforce a reporting procedure for safety concerns, in consultation with organizers.
Convene quickly when a safety concern is received. Interview, investigate, and discuss the presented information, and vote to take an action commensurate with the violation.
Communicate a Safety Decision to the reporter and the community.
May deliver the Safety Decision and action to the accused, in consultation with main organizers, or give the recommendation for the action to be taken to the main organizer, who delivers it to the accused. An action may be a counseling, a change of assignment or duty within the event, or a removal from the event.
Maintain the confidentiality of those who have come forward with concerns, unless the person(s) has given explicit consent to talk with the accused or have their names revealed.
Report trends and findings to the main organizers and recommend additional changes to the policies, mechanics and procedures to continually improve the community feeling of trust.
Why Should a Community Have a Safety Coordinator or Safety Team?
You may be asking yourself, why does my larp need a designated Safety Coordinator or Safety Team? Many times, organizers feel that a Safety Coordinator or Safety Team is not needed, or is redundant, since there is already an organizer team. Other times they feel that their community is already safe and there is no need to draw attention to potential problems, or to make people feel unsafe by acknowledging that safety concerns or violations can occur. Sometimes organizers feel that their larp is too small to warrant a designated Safety Coordinator, or that their community is well-established enough that everyone already trusts each other or knows what to do.
There are good intentions behind these sentiments, but all of them contribute to marginalizing certain voices who may have experienced harassment, abuse, assault, stalking, or other emotional trauma at a game. In addition, these assumptions make it more difficult to understand and communicate appropriate behavior and for participants to report instances of inappropriate behavior. Here are some reasons why a larp should consider having a Safety Coordinator or Safety Team.
Designating someone or a team to be in charge of Community Safety means it gets done. Organizing a larp is a huge undertaking that requires many skills and has a lot of moving parts. It is easy for Community Safety to seem less urgent that other decisions such as how to make the site work, writing characters, or what special effects to use. Community Safety can seem to be in the background, until a violation occurs that brings it to the forefront.
It ensures that someone with Community Safety skills has the job. Not everyone has the training, reputation, emotional stability, empathy, and communication skills to do Community Safety work. Choosing a Safety Coordinator means that you’ll have someone who is able to do the job.
It gives a designated point of contact for community members. Community members feel safer and more comfortable if they know who to go to and what to do in the event of a problem with another player, or if they should find themselves emotionally overwhelmed. When faced with a crisis situation, clear and consistent processes help everyone involved.
It makes for a more streamlined process at the event. Without a designated Safety Coordinator or Team, participants who feel overwhelmed or experience troublesome behavior will be asking around for what to do, leaning on fellow participants and breaking immersion for others, or coming to already very busy organizers, or worse, not coming at all because they don’t want to make trouble for organizers. A clear point of contact makes it easier for everyone.
Having a Safety Coordinator or Team ensures consistency. A single point of contact (whether Coordinator or Team) means that all reports are coming through the same person(s). That means that the Coordinator or Team will be aware of all problems in the Community, and can understand trends and what is working and isn’t working. They can then feel confident that their understanding of the Community’s pulse is truly representative of the Community. Without a Safety Coordinator or Team, some reports may go to different people, and never be shared with other organizers.
A Safety Coordinator or Team ensures equitable treatment. Without a designated contact, different members of the organizing team, or even the same person may respond to safety concerns differently each time. With a Safety Coordinator or Team, the policies and actions are taken fairly, objectively, and transparently each time.
A Safety Coordinator or Team ensures accountability. When the sole job of the Safety Coordinator or Team is to create and maintain Community Safety, then they focus on ensuring that reports are taken seriously, followed up on, and action is taken. Having a Safety Coordinator or Team ensures that your policies or guidelines are not mere lip service.
A Safety Coordinator or Team ensures transparency. Rather than mysterious back-room deals, or sweeping things under the rug, a Safety Coordinator or Team works within the view of the Community, while also keeping details confidential. Numbers of reports received, decisions made, and actions taken are archived, creating important community knowledge. Participants feel better knowing that there is a process, that they can inquire about it, that their inquiries will be answered and that confidentiality will be maintained.
The presence of a Safety Leader shows that your Community values inclusivity and safety. By naming a Safety Coordinator or Team, it shows your participants that you take the issue seriously. It demonstrates that your game or larp design is conscious and that your team is committed to making the space inclusive, safe, and accessible.
It shows that you are aware that Communities are not safe for everyone. Like it or not, geek communities are not safe for everyone, all the time. Women, transgender participants, players of color, young people, and other marginalized identities have been speaking up about the harassment, abuse, assault, racism, sexism, and discrimination they have experienced in larp, game, and geek communities. Declaring that your Community is safe doesn’t make it safe, and in fact can make you lose the trust of your participants, whose personal lived experience is at odds with your declaration. Designating a Safety Coordinator or Team shows that you recognize that different people experience a Community differently, and what may be safe to some participants who hold various kinds of privilege may indeed not be safe to others.
What Makes a Good Safety Coordinator and Safety Team:
Here are some characteristics that a Safety Coordinator or Safety Team needs in order to be successful in their mission:
Respected. A Safety Coordinator or Team needs to have the respect of the community, and known to be fair, approachable, impartial, and deliberate. A Safety Coordinator must be able to rise above personal feelings toward particular participants, and take an objective appraisal and decision that considers the good of the Community.
Full Faith & Authority. A Safety Coordinator or Team must have the full faith and authority of the other organizers and the Community. A main organizer or other member of the team should never undermine the efforts of the Safety Coordinator, and the Safety Team should always be working in concert with the values and goals of the particular larp, game, or community they are in.
Heterogeneous. A Safety Team is a mixed group, with different genders, as well as different ages, and experience. People from marginalized groups often have a harder time coming forward to speak about their experience with people who will have a harder time understanding their experience or perspective. For example, a woman who has been sexually harassed may feel more comfortable speaking to another woman, rather than a man, about what happened. Try to populate a Safety Team with members who come from different social circles so that people feeling unsafe can turn to someone who is not close to the person with a problematic behavior.
Capable. The Safety Team should have the knowledge, social skills and emotional stability (at least as a group) to talk to both the person voicing a safety issue as well as the person who might be the safety issue.
Credible. A Safety Coordinator or Team must be able to be trusted. Members must be beyond reproach. Do not include people on your Safety Team who have had reports made against them in the past. Participants may not feel comfortable with the Safety Team at all if they perceive that one of the members is compromised.
Action-oriented. Participants must be able to trust that reports will be taken seriously and action taken. Do not include people on your Safety Team who have a reputation for not addressing problems sufficiently.
Aligned. The Coordinator or Team’s views of safety issues need to be aligned with those of the organizer team, and the larp, so they can do their task and enforce the policies as intended. Organizers need to trust the Safety Coordinator, and back up their decisions.
Objective. Safety Coordinators need to be prepared to handle a situation where someone tells them about problematic behavior coming from one of their friends, or someone whom they have past personal experience with. They need to be able to recuse themselves from such a report, or be able to set aside personal feelings.
Flexible. Safety personnel need to recognize that their work isn’t always predictable. When there is a need, they will be very busy. When things are going smoothly, they may have spare time. In addition, Safety Team members need to recognize that what is called for on their part differs with every situation. They may simply need to give clarification or reassurance, sit quietly with someone, or they may need to confront someone about their problematic behavior.
Resources: The Safety Coordinator or Team must be given authority and resources by the Organizer team to be able to deliver what is stated in the Safety Plan and other policies. They need to have the time, capacity, space, energy, and resources to do their job when someone comes to them with a safety concern, no matter if it is small question about the rules, or a crisis situation of a serious violation.
Down Time. The work of emotional labor is serious work, and takes a toll on members of a Safety Team. They have to remain calm when others are upset, aggressive, or hysterical. Make sure you have enough Safety Team members to not overwhelm them. They need breaks, too, especially after a tense situation. It’s often a good practice to work in pairs if a Safety Coordinator must confront a problematic person, both to guarantee their own safety as well as to obtain a better collective understanding of what was said, and to corroborate evidence, if needed. After a stressful situation, it is helpful to have others available to allow the Safety Coordinator or Team to have someone to vent with or process their own feelings.
Bowman, Sarah Lynne. 2013. “Social Conflict in Role-Playing Communities: An Exploratory Qualitative Study.” International Journal of Role-playing 4. http://www.ijrp.subcultures.nl/wp-content/issue4/IJRPissue4bowman.pdf
Game to Grow Webisode Project: Episode 2. “Emotionally Intense Play, Calibration, and Community Safety.” With Maury Brown, Johanna Koljonen, Lizzie Stark, and John Stavropoulos. Hosted by Sarah Lynne Bowman. Game to Grow. September 1, 2016. https://youtu.be/3YtRJd5CR2I
Game to Grow Webisode Project: Episode 6. “Consent-Based Play.” With Maury Brown, Azzurra Crispino, Johanna Koljonen, Lizzie Stark, and John Stavropoulos. Hosted by Sarah Lynne Bowman. Game to Grow. March 24, 2017. https://youtu.be/P4NbFI3hRj0
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Nordiclarp.org or any larp community at large.
This article presents a Series of Truths about harassment, missing stairs, and community safety that exist in larp communities around the world. Following each statement and explanation is a “Take Action” section, which provides a pledge of encouraged behavior that larpers can make to help stop harassment, abuse, and tolerating missing stairs in their communities.
To begin, let’s start with the definitions of the three concepts under discussion: harassment, missing stairs (aka broken stairs), and community safety.
Harassment: systematic and/or continued unwanted and annoying actions of one party or a group, including threats and demands based on racial prejudice, sexual objectification, advances or obscene remarks, or personal malice as an attempt to force someone to do something, to grant sexual favors, gain power, or cause someone to feel fearful or anxious. May be done in person, online, via text or email, or by proxy (by others).
In the case of larp or role-play, off-game feelings may bleed into the game, and a player may use their character, the game’s mechanics, or their friendship with the organizer or plot team to further off-game harassment in in-game situations. Example: player A is interested in player B off-game, and chooses to have player A’s character stalk, corner, and make rude advances to player B’s character during the game without player B’s consent or despite player B’s wishes.
Missing Stair (Broken Stair): A term coined in 2012 by Cliff Pervocracy that is used to describe a sexual predator who many people know cannot be trusted, but rather than shunning, they respond by trying to quietly warn others. Communities respond to a “missing stair” by worry, warning, watching, and working around, rather than taking action to “fix the stair” by removing the person from the community or scene. The term can also be used to talk about harassment and abuse in addition to predator behavior.
In the case of larp communities, a missing stair could be someone who uses their in-game or off-game power or social capital to coerce other players, especially new ones, to provide sexual favors in exchange for in- or off-game gain (similar to the concept of the Hollywood Casting Couch, whereby someone obtains a better role, plot, or esteem if they agree to give sexual favors to a person in charge). It may also be those players who troll for “new blood” on the scene, and experienced members of the scene attempt to warn those new players about the person(s) who see them as a conquest. The missing stair problem compounds as the larp scene internationalizes, is that missing stairs can move from one community to another, where no one in the new community is aware of their predatory, harassing, or abusive behavior, until someone gets hurt.
Community Safety: An umbrella term that means not only the physical safety of participants, but especially the sense of trust in fellow members of the community to behave responsibly, ethically, and consensually toward other community members. Community Safety is designed and created through community norms, conduct policies, workshops, mentoring systems, and other strategies to welcome participants, help them understand what behaviors are prohibited, tolerated, and encouraged in the community, and to regulate participant behavior when the norms or expected behaviors are breached. Community Safety is an ongoing and dynamic process among community members, organizers, and outsiders.
An example from a larp community is the creation of a Code of Conduct which explicitly bans harassment, abuse and predatory behavior, and requires mutual consent between two adults before a player-to-player interaction can occur. A player sexually assaults another player, and then is defensive when confronted about it, claiming the victim is exaggerating, or that it was an in-character interaction that wasn’t intended to be to the player. Unapologetic and unrepentant, the player is removed from the game for violating the community norms against sexual assault, obtaining consent, and learning from one’s mistakes. This action is taken to keep the community of trust for all participants and to remove the person who violates the social contract for play established in the community.
With those background definitions and examples established, here are the 19 Inconvenient and Uncomfortable Truths about Harassment, Missing Stairs, and Community Safety in our larp communities.
1. Off-game Norms Seep into Our Games
Many people don’t want to think about this radical truth. People want to believe that games are fictional realms that exist separately from the cultures that exists in society. However, games are products of culture, and are played by people who bring their beliefs and norms into them. Unless we very consciously and actively design our games and our communities against these norms, they will be a significant part of our games and communities. Even with design and community norming, the effects of outside cultural norms are still felt. In international larps, we also have people from significantly different cultures meeting and playing together in intimate spaces. We must consider these inevitabilities in our design and do more than merely accept them. Games and gaming communities need to establish their own norms, and communicate, model, and enforce them.
Take action: I pledge to be aware of how off-game norms affect my design and play, and to actively steer against off-game norms that replicate oppression.
2. Harassment Is a Problem in Geek Culture. Harassment Is a Problem in Larp Communities
We may not like to admit it, especially if we were bullied or harassed for being geeks or nerds, but inside geek culture there exists ongoing harassment. We often excuse harassing behavior as being socially awkward, and we have empathy for those who appear to simply not know how to behave toward others, particularly those they may feel attracted to. Sometimes it is a case of education. Other times the disbelief and shock and saying they are unaware is part of a strategy to continue doing harm.
In addition, people are vulnerable at larps. Strong emotions, close proximity, the presence of alcohol, and the potential lack of authoritative oversight are factors that can increase harassment.
Take Action: I pledge to not harass others, to report harassment whenever I see it, and to stand up for those who have been harassed.
3. We Live in a Culture of Toxic Masculinity, Toxic Masculinity and Female Socialization Makes This More Difficult
Men are typically socialized in ways that make it difficult for them to understand that their own behavior may be problematic to others. Toxic masculinity requires that they defend themselves and not appear weak. It may also make it more difficult for them to speak up on behalf of women or victims of abusers, because of fear of losing credibility with their peers, who are also performing masculinity. Many men are taught that displays of dominance, aggression, and overt sexuality are appropriate displays of their virility, maleness, and desirability.
Asking men to examine or change those behaviors can be difficult and painful, particularly since doing so may play directly into a toxic narrative that they are no longer displaying strong, heroic, autonomous male-defined behavior. For many of us who are not prisoners of toxic masculinity, the call to speak up or to adjust behavior seems simple, but we need to recognize that these decisions are fraught within the performance of masculinity and that making these changes requires courage and comes at a cost. Until the masculine code itself is changed or thrown off, applauding the efforts of men who make changes and speak up will help them gain credibility that they may lose among male peers as well as encourage them to support calls to change behavior.
Women are also often socialized not to show sexual desire, or are slutshamed if they do. Therefore, they may be taught to say no, which encourages men to read no’s as yes’s. At the same time, a woman is also typically conditioned not to say no outright, because of pressure to let men down easy or not reject them harshly. This confusing language sends mixed signals and contributes to miscommunication as well as harassment and assault. Clear communication about consent helps break down this system, but that must be taught, modeled, expected, and enforced in communities.
I pledge to be aware of how men and women are socialized, and how these performances of gender can contribute to harassment and abuse. I pledge to resist toxic culture whenever I can.
4. Organizers Are Sometimes Complicit in the Harassment, Either Overtly or Covertly
Some organizers simply do not have the time nor the training to deal with the issues of harassment complaints. Many do not want to get in the middle of player disputes, and many feel both overwhelmed and ineffectual in dealing with the situations. Rather than getting embroiled in “drama” or trying to arbitrate a “he said/she said” dispute, many organizers simply fall back on involving the law as the only option. If a player feels they were wronged, then they are told to go to the police for recourse. However, going to the police can be incredibly difficult to do and may reinforce the trauma and contribute to victim blaming. Not only is going to the police the wrong option for many, it also is a convenient abdication for the organizers.
Larps are private functions and the organizers of those functions have not only the right but the duty to “police” their own function by setting the norms and expecting their guests to follow them. Many behaviors that are wrong, uncomfortable, and harassing may not rise to the level of criminal harassment, nor should an organizer attempt to make the hard choice of going through a formal criminal complaint for someone else. Furthermore, we only contribute to an overly legalistic and litigious society if the only recourse is to involve the police.
Take Action: As an organizer, I pledge my commitment against harassment and abuse in my communities, to learn how to deal with it effectively, and to actively implement policies to prevent it and address it.
Take Action:As a player, I will hold larp organizers responsible for dealing with issues of harassment and abuse in their communities.
5. The Composition of an Organizer Team Matters
Who is on the organizer team of your larp always matters, but the team composition has particular relevance in matters of community safety. If an organizer is known to have crossed boundaries before, used their position of power to gain sexual attention or favors, or harbored or turned a blind eye when players or friends have displayed abusive or harassing behaviors, then a member of your community will not feel able to come forward to the organizers on these matters. If your organizing team is composed entirely of men, people of all genders may not feel comfortable reporting abuse and assault. This sad fact isn’t a personal impression of specific men, but relates to social norms, gender performance, and toxic masculinity.
At the same time, women should not be responsible for handling all “emotional” or “safety” issues that arise. The responsibility for safety should be shared among all organizers and community members. We should not delegate safety to one person, least of all a woman who can then be “thrown under the bus” for speaking out about safety while the men gather and state that “those women” have to be placated, so simply do this for now, and then let’s continue as before. Ideally, an organizer team and/or safety committee will have a cross-section of different genders, sexualities, races, religions, classes, etc. Special attention should be paid to how these intersectionalities affect both the incidences of reporting and the responses.
Take Action:As an organizer, I pledge to be sensitive to the composition of the organizer team, and to strive for diversity among the leaders of the larp community. I pledge to hold other members of the organizer team accountable for their behavior. I pledge not to collaborate with organizers who use their power to harass or abuse others, or who continue to tolerate abusers and harassers in their communities.
Take Action:As a player, I pledge to hold organizer teams accountable for a lack of diversity and for a lack of designated safety policies, mechanics, and committees.
6. Some Games Lead Themselves to Harassment More Easily, by Design
Games with mechanics like seduction, presence, or power can incentivize harassing behaviors that may cross the line from consent by the character to unwanted advances by the player. Games without Codes of Conduct, safety mechanics, or that have a culture of hard core (in which speaking up about feelings, harassment, or individual needs can be frowned upon) can also be more accessible to predatory or harassing behavior. Furthermore, larps that allow alcohol during the event or after-party have increased risks. Manystudies have shown a correlation between the presence of alcohol and increased sexual harassment and assault for both psychological and pharmacological reasons. Organizers or players in games like these should be aware of the greater risk and consider taking steps to mitigate it.
Take Action:I pledge to be more aware and considerate of how a game’s design may encourage harassment and abuse and to steer away from those behaviors even if they are incentivized in the game.
The alibi of roleplay separates a player from a character, and sets up a social contract whereby two or more characters may interact consensually through acting or roleplay. It is understood that the feelings, behaviors, vocal accent, affectations, etc. are not “real” but are being portrayed as character performance. Predators, however, see alibi as a legitimized way to push and breech boundaries, being able to claim afterward that it was simply in the course of roleplay. Whether roleplaying or not, if a person does something repeatedly and nonconsensually that makes another person uncomfortable or in danger, that is harassment or assault. When someone approached about their behavior uses the alibi of roleplay as an alibi for their behavior, it is cause for concern. People who are not trying to harm others tend to be reflective, upset, and apologetic if they are confronted about having done something that another person disliked enough to report. These same traits are seldom demonstrated by those who either have intentional motives, or who realize they have been caught. These people tend to deflect, defend, re-accuse the victim, split hairs, display shock and outrage at having been suspected, and to fall back on the alibi of roleplay: “that wasn’t me, that was my character.”
Take Action:I pledge not to use my character to cause another player to feel off-game uncomfortable.
8. False Reports Are Very Very Rare
Severalstudies of false accusations to reporting agencies have shown the percentage of false accusations to be 7% or less. Think about that for a moment: 93% or more of accusations are in fact founded. Not only does the law require giving the benefit of the doubt to the accuser in each case, but the evidence backs up the fact that the vast majority of people do not make false allegations.
A fear of false allegations is perpetuated by those who want to keep decision makers so worried about making the mistake of sanctioning an innocent person that they take no action at all when facts may be disputed. In addition, the rhetoric behind false accusations is a classic blame-shifting technique, to garner empathy for the accused and to distract the focus of an investigation or conversation. Furthermore, the accused may also attempt to create solidarity with a false “what if” scenario? It goes like this: “Hey, you’re a person who is like me. You’re (tall, white, handsome, charismatic, a good roleplayer, etc.). This situation of a false accusation and being treated poorly by the organizers can just as easily happen to you. This community is unsafe for people like us.” Once again, this is a tactic to distract from the issue at hand: that the community is unsafe for others who have come forward with accusations, and to make the “real” or “true” victim those who have been falsely accused and have been aggrieved by the organizers’ actions to remedy it. Because the fear of false accusations can be very real, especially the more it is repeated, a predator can tend to garner some measure of support from others by using this tactic.
Take Action:I pledge to believe people who come forward with stories of being harassed or abused. I pledge to give the benefit of the doubt to the victim and to act in good faith on their report.
9. Fear of Reporting and Fear of Reprisal Are Real
It is very difficult to report harassment or assault. There is tremendous social pressure not to do so, especially in insular communities such as larp groups, or even geek culture as a whole. Many vulnerable players do not want to “rock the boat” or “cause problems.” Some blame themselves when they have been victimized. Some are afraid of being made fun of for appearing weak, or not able to handle it themselves. Many fear that they will be the target of gossip, or be ostracized by the organizers or other members of the community. In some cases, especially if the person they are accusing is someone with a great deal of social capital, they are afraid of blowback or further harassment. Studies have shown that the way people react to someone who comes forward with reports of abuse or harassment has an impact on their recovery from the trauma.
Some people with a history of harassment are also known to retaliate against those who speak up against them or those who support the person or people who came forward. That retaliation can be during the game, on social media, in off-game social interactions, or a combination. Some game organizers or storytellers have been known to actively punish people they dislike by keeping plot from them, sending negative plot after them, or adjudicating against their character, sometimes even to the point of killing a character. It is difficult to speak up. Believe and support those who do and have empathy for those who have not because they made a calculation that it was not worth the likely hits to their safety, sanity, or social circles.
Take Action: I pledge to support those who wish to report abuse or harassment, and to actively resist those who would attempt to retaliate against them.
10. Your Experience Is Not Everyone’s Experience
If your only interactions with the accused have been positive, or at least not-problematic, learning of an accusation or action taken against that person will cause you to experience cognitive dissonance. Your own experience doesn’t match up to the reports of another person’s experience. You may feel incredulous, in shock, or even betrayed. You may find it especially difficult to process or believe that:
Your opinion of the accused could be wrong or in need of revision;
The accused could be multi-faceted and display one type of behavior to one person and a different type to another;
That you could have misjudged the accused’s character, or
That you could have been, or continue to be in danger.
People tend to defend their own experience, and to want to believe any plausible explanation other than that they may be wrong. It is somehow far easier to believe that until-now reasonable organizers have suddenly become overzealous and discriminatory than to believe that they made a necessary decision based on credible information. Steadfastly holding to your own preconception and blaming the organizers or the victims relieves the cognitive dissonance but does not require reflection, examination, or trust. Accepting that you may have made an error of judgment is not only difficult, but requires further action to relieve the feeling of betrayal and hurt. It is far easier for someone to believe your personal experience than the experience of another, and far easier for you to dismiss experiences that do not negatively affect you, especially if that gives you a net positive gain from the accused or from the community.
When you hold your own experience as more “true” or “real” than those who have come forward with reports, it continues to harm those who were already harmed. By insisting that your experience is the only possible one, you discount or negate the victim’s experience, and contribute to their fears of reprisal and the exaggerations of false allegations.
Take Action:I pledge to accept that my personal experience is not universal, and to understand and accept another’s experience as true and valid, even if it contradicts my own experience.
11. There Is Some Information You Will Never Know
Much to an organizer’s dismay, the information they will have to act on will likely be imperfect. This is the same as in workplace harassment situations, which dictate that in cases of confusion, one must believe the accuser and act upon that information. Organizers should consider the reports they receive, corroborate them with other evidence from other players, from feedback surveys, from facts in the report, from their own conversation with the accused, from their own knowledge of and history with the accuser and accused, and their general experience dealing with these situations. They may consult with others for advice, and rely on policies in place, but the decision is ultimately that of the organizer(s). Unless it is a situation where an organizer witnessed something first-hand, the wish for more information will always be present, since the desire to make the right call is so strong.
Players or potential players of the larp who learn about an action taken against someone, are likely going to want more information than the organizer can or will provide. You will have a strong desire to know for sure, in order to both deal with your own cognitive dissonance but also to make a judgement about the organizers’ actions. Players must accept that they will not likely get the information they seek, due to privacy concerns for the accused, but especially due to confidentiality for those making the reports. Organizers have both a legal and a moral responsibility to maintain confidentiality, since those who made a report can become the target of ostracization or retaliation.
Take Action:I pledge to protect the privacy of those who have come forward with stories of abuse or harassment and not to engage in public speculation that may compromise the victim’s safety or well-being.
A larp organizer is not a judge or an attorney. Bringing forward a report of harassment, abuse, or assault does not mean that the accusation must be “proven” “beyond a reasonable doubt.” A larp organizer is the host of a private function, and can remove anyone at any time for any reason. In many places, a staff member of a larp is employed or volunteers at-will, meaning they may be fired or removed at the discretion of the organization, who does not have to provide a reason. Victims should not fall into the trap of feeling that since something cannot be proven without a reasonable doubt, they should not bother to come forward. Likewise, organizers should not feel that because something can never be determined with absolute certainty they should take no action at all. The existence of another possible explanation does not make the action taken by the organizers wrong. As an organizer, it is easy to become paralyzed by the fear of making a mistake, or the worry about the fallout your action will have on the community. Abusers and predators will try to call for the standard of beyond a reasonable doubt as a way to deflect the focus from themselves and create the paralyzing or contentious situations that they can exploit.
Take Action: I pledge to accept decisions that are made by organizers and not to contribute to a culture of victim blaming or inaction by demanding irrefutable proof of allegations.
13. Some People Cannot Be Reformed
We all want to believe in the human capacity for change. We all want to believe that someone who does harm would change if they could. It is much easier for us to rationalize harassing and abusive behavior to think that the person simply needed to understand or be given an opportunity to grow and do better. In addition, many of us in the gaming or larping communities were made fun of, ostracized, or bullied in our youth or in our daily lives, and we do not want to do that to another. This creates a Geek Fallacy: that to be inclusive you must include everyone, even those whose behavior is ongoing and harmful. This is patently false.
Inclusivity does not mean harming the community for the sake of including a single person, or a small group. Consider this: we would feel less shame in removing someone who punched another or who stole from the community than we would removing someone who has engaged in stalking, verbal harassment, inappropriate touching, or repeated intimidation. Some of these missing stairs have years, even two decades of reports against them. That confluence of information is important. If these behaviors have lasted this long, and continue to be reported, that is strong evidence of an unwillingness or inability to be reformed. Multiple reports about the same person over time creates a pattern of behavior that is a red flag to be addressed.
Take Action: I pledge to recognize when a person does not want to, or is not able to change their behavior, to set a hard boundary of acceptable behavior, and to take action to remove them from the group when that standard is not met.
14. The Right of the Community to Be Unharmed Outweighs the Right of One Person to Play
No one wants to ban someone. No one wants to believe that a person they have known and maybe even trusted is harmful. Everyone wants to give second and third and fourth chances. Everyone hopes that the person has finally learned their lesson. However, we can easily fall into a trap of appeasement, giving more concessions to the predator or abuser in order to keep them from doing more harm. The problem with appeasement, as nations in Europe learned leading to World War II as one example, is that the person (or nation) being appeased gains more and more power, and those appeasing lose theirs. In addition, the longer a behavior goes on, the more normalized it gets, and the harder it is to change.
Ultimately, you have to decide who is more important: the one person whom a lot of people may like, who may be a great role player, who may be an integral part of the group, or those who have been harmed by that one person in the past, along with all those who are at risk for further harm by this person’s continued presence. Removing a person is hard. Letting them stay to harm others continues to enable them, devalues others, and makes you complicit in the future harm.
Take Action:I pledge to value the safety of the community over an individual who has done harm.
15. Lip Service Is Not Enough
Saying you are going to do something is not the same as doing something. Listening to and even hearing the complaints of others is a step, but it leaves the problem in place. Policies which clearly state that this larp community will not tolerate sexual harassment are not enough if the organizers do not enforce those policies. Applying policies variably if someone has more social capital is also a form of lip service. Furthermore, it is far too easy for organizers and community members to excuse problematic behavior as merely a product of culture. Larp communities must state the behavior expected, make it known that participants are responsible for complying, and then act if those expected behaviors are ignored. The excuse that they didn’t understand the local culture needs to stop. The culture needs to be defined, communicated, expected, and regulated.
Take Action:I pledge to set the behavior standard, model and teach it to community members, to hold everyone in the community accountable for meeting the expected behaviors, and to take meaningful action when the standards are violated.
16. Missing Stairs Resist Fixing and Have Supporters
The way someone has become a missing or broken stair is by being very, very good at diverting attention from the need to have the stair fixed (e.g. have action, especially banning, taken against them). When confronted with an allegation or concern, the missing stair often responds by giving something to the community — a prop, scene, volunteer time, or duty. This is a way to distract from the concern you have brought forward, attempt to ostensibly make amends, but it does not actually address the behaviors you raised. It sets up a false equivalence whereby they make themselves even more entrenched and valued in the community, social capital they will call on should you take action regarding allegations or concerns . Missing Stairs not only choose victims, they also choose allies to defend them staunchly when accused. They tend to be polarizing figures whom people either love or hate, depending on what behavior of theirs you have encountered and what role you play in their narrative.
When you remove a broken stair, your community will suffer initially. There will be shock and outrage. There may be some defectors, who find it easier to believe that the organizers have lost their minds than that their friend is in any way culpable. People may form splinter groups, and discuss on backchannels. It is important to the Missing Stair that they appear to have been unfairly attacked, so that they may marshal their armies of defenders.
Take Action:I pledge my strength, solidarity, and support to the organizers and community when an action must be taken against a person who has harassed or abused a community member.
17. By Taking Action, You Will Become a Target
It is critical to the narrative of a missing stair that they are blameless, and the target of persecution. They will almost always state that they would have been happy to have changed their behavior if they had only known. They may try to state that they were never informed of wrongdoing, knowing that the organizers will not be able to give proof as they are protecting the privacy of those who came forward. They will complain that the decisionmakers were too harsh, they will state that the community is actually not safe for cis/het/white/males or some combination. They may call you a feminazi. They may tell others not to go to your games because you are aggressive and overzealous in your harassment policy. They will cite their own awesomeness as proof of your persecution. They will position you as hurting the community and position themselves as defenders of it. They will seek attention for the pain you have caused them. They may make accusations about you personally, or claim that you harassed them with your decision. They may make a public spectacle on social media. They may cost you players, money, and mental health. It is their goal to make this so difficult that you will wish you hadn’t taken the decision and that maybe others would think twice before doing so in the future.
Take Action:I will support organizers who have taken tough action against predators to keep their communities safe. I will stand up for them against persecution and retaliation.
18. The Charismatic Predators Are the Hardest Ones
They are very, very good at what they do. They are also very good at roleplaying. These things go hand-in-hand. They groom supporters. They make people feel special. They put themselves at the core of many scenes and draw attention to themselves. They show everyone how concerned they are about others. They may even stand up for others in a public demonstration of their graciousness. Then, the choose their targets, those who are vulnerable, or new, or don’t have a strong support system, or lack confidence, or are overly tired, or whom they have given a lot of alcohol. And those people see a different side. A charismatic predator can quickly switch from magnanimous to abrasive, from encouraging to abusive, from safe to unsafe, from protecting boundaries to aggressively crossing them, from being a friend to using their power for their own gain, from building someone up to tearing them down, from friendly to shaming and manipulative, from consensual to coercive. If a person who has been victimized by a charismatic predator’s abusive side then speaks up about it, their story and personal experience will be counter to so many others’ experiences that they will be often be discredited. It’s insidious. And it is very real. Nonetheless, no matter how charismatic, handsome, popular, or great at roleplay a person is, no one has the right to buy themselves access to victims for predatory behavior, abuse, harassment, or assault.
Take Action:I pledge to pay attention to the inconsistent and manipulative behaviors that charismatic predators display, and to recognize that wildly different reports of a person’s behavior among a group is a sign of something wrong.
19. This Isn’t over, It Is a Recurrent Ongoing Problem
I am disheartened that I continue to hear stories from people within geek communities around the world who share these problems. It isn’t one community, it isn’t one type of geek, it isn’t a particular region or country. It’s everywhere. Geek culture is rife with it. It may be because the norms inside of geek culture strive to be inclusive. Acceptable behavior tends to be a wider spectrum, and while that can be liberating, it can also open avenues for predation and abuse. Whatever the reason for it, we have to acknowledge the elephant in the room: harassment, abuse, and missing stairs are a problem in larp communities and the large geek culture.
Take Action:I pledge to continue to work to make our communities safe from predators and abusers, and to support others who are committed to this goal.
This is a real problem. There is no easy solution. There is no single solution. But there are solutions. First we have to acknowledge the problem and commit to working together to fix it. Let’s take that first step, and then talk about solutions. And then not just talk. But do it. The follow-up article to this piece will contain some suggested things to look for and actions to take.
Each larp community is different and will take a localized approach to this problem. This is encouraged! But the baseline that predators should not be given harbor in a larp community must remain if we value the safety and trust of our players, and wish to open our communities to more diverse participants.
Abbey, Antonia, Zawacki, Tina, Buck, Philip O., Clinton, A. Monique, and Pam McAuslan, May-June 2004. Sexual assault and alcohol consumption: what do we know about their relationship and what types of research are still needed? Aggression and Violent Behavior. Vol. 9, Issue 3. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1359178903000119
Dunmore, Emma, Clark, David M. and Anke Ehlers. 2001. A prospective investigation of the role of cognitive factors in persistent Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) after physical or sexual assault. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 39.
Lisak, D, Gardinier, L, Nicksa, SC, and AM Cote, Dec. 16, 2010. False allegations of sexual assault: an analysis of ten years of reported cases. Violence Against Women. Thousand Oaks, CA : Sage Publications. http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1077801210387747
Figure 1: The Zone of Proximal Development. Figure by Dcoetzee (CC0).
