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.
I think of safety work in larp as having two different aspects. One is safety from unpleasant or triggering experiences. But, for larp to be this transformative, amazing, brilliant artform we know it as, another aspect is just as important. As players we also need safety to lean in, to be brave, and to get the play we crave.
So a safe space is not enough. For larp to be amazing, we also need to create brave spaces.
Safety From Culture and Why It Is Not Enough
I am dead scared of rollercoasters. I have never actually gone on one, but my mother has kept me safe from them my entire upbringing by telling me that they are hideously scary and that I really do not have to try them. I had a similar experience when I met the safety from discourse at full scale at a larp for the first time. And it baffled me.
So, I had opted in by signing up to a challenging larp. I was scared and uncomfortable, but I wanted to do it. But even if I want to do something ever so badly, I will probably get intimidated if the safety workshops preparing me for it are all focused on the right to opt out; to not take risks or challenge myself. After a day of workshops and safety talks, I was more scared than I had ever been of a larp before.
This is an inherent risk with the safety from discourse. I define it as an approach to safety where the focus is to create a safe space by saving players from triggering experiences. It may contain policies like “no touching without consent in advance” or “all play on intimacy or violence should be pre-negotiated before the game.” Other parts of it are thinking about safewords as something used only to break play, sometimes completed with the idea that one should never have to tell why one safewords or withdraws from the game; and safety rooms where players can get away from the game and talk with a third-party safety host. Another common feature is a flag system to prevent predators and unsafe players from participating in games. Maury Brown’s (2017a, 2017b) articleson community safety here at Nordiclarp.org contains a good example of this discourse.
Person jumping across a gap (Photo, Lennart Wittstock)
We need safety from unsafe experiences at larps. However, without the feeling that we all lean in, create a good experience together, and care about each other, I will feel insecure and hold back a lot. Knowing that my mother will keep me safe from the rollercoaster is nice, but it will not make me dare to ride. And knowing that I can seek out a safety host if I need it will not make me trust my co-players and be brave enough to get the play I signed up for.
Creating a Brave Space
The idea of the brave space is pretty simple. It is a space where the players feel safe enough to lean in and get the play we really crave. It is an environment where players dare to open up and be vulnerable. This requires trust and a sense of caring for each other, both during the game and after it.
Creating a brave space cannot come from above, with a code of conduct or a set of safety mechanics. As Mo Turkington and Troels Ken Pedersen (2015) point out in this article, the most important thing with those is to signal to the participants that here we take care of each other.
As a game master or larp designer you can do wonders by creating an environment where the participants dare to lean in and be brave and vulnerable. Make sure your players get to meet. Create opportunities for them to start talking with and caring about each other. But the big job is our shared responsibility as players. We are the player culture, and we are responsible for giving each other a good experience.
Yes Means Yes
I want to borrow some feminist terminology here and say that a brave space requires a consent culture. This means that to play together we need enthusiastic consent. No means no. And “err… maybe later?” generally also means no. Always give your participants the possibility to opt out of play they do not want.
But also remember that yes means yes. Make it easy for your players to opt in, and to help each other get the play they crave even if it does not come easily to them. Normalize the scary things and set the tone. If you treat your challenging content as normal and expected, the players are more likely to do so as well. And workshopping content like oppression or sex mechanics is not just to make the participants know how to use them, but also a way to let them try with guidance, and discover that they dare doing so.
For yes-means-yes reasons, I really like check-in words like the traffic light as a complement to safewords. This mechanic uses the colours of a traffic light to calibrate consent during play, and I specifically like it for the opportunity to signal what you want to do (e.g. hold a bucket of water as if you were to throw it over a co-player), ask “green?” and if you get a “green!” back, go ahead and do it. The OK check-in is a similar mechanic.
Traffic lights (Photo, Jos van Ouwerkerk)
If you are unsure if a co-player wants to do something, it is better to check in and get that enthusiastic consent, than to just-to-be-sure refrain from doing it.
The Pre-negotiation Problem
Informed consent is a tricky one at larps though. It is easier to feel secure when you know in advance what you are signing up for. Some designers talk about expectation management – when we know that a larp will handle challenging themes, we can give informed consent to play them (Svanevik & Brind 2018).
Designers can use ingredients lists or make explicit rules against content they do not want in a larp. But they can not control what the players bring into the game, and therefore we can not expect consent in larp to work with pre-negotiation only.
Larp is like sex in this regard. Most people would call it impossible to pre-negotiate everything we want to do in a sex scene. The same applies to larp. Often we are not aware of all our limits in advance. Something might seem like a thing you would never do, but when you try, you end up loving it. Something might be fun for a little while, but not what you want to spend the entire night on. And some things seem like amazing play in advance but end up awkward or horrible. Consent is dynamic and can be given or taken back at any time. There are many mechanics to make this work during runtime: for example, Johanna Koljonen’s Safety in larp blog (2016) is a veritable goldmine of these.
The risk with the idea of pre-negotiating so that uncomfortable or triggering things should never happen in the first place is that players get ill-prepared for actually calibrating and finding their limits during play. And then we risk players holding back and not getting the play they crave, because there is too little space to calibrate and check in for consent.
Finding One’s Limits
This leads me to another key aspect of the brave space. It is easier to achieve it when we practise to actually find our limits – soft and hard ones – and know how to set them.
Rock climbers (Photo, Joshua Tree National Park Licensing)
In this context, I find it very useful to separate between different kinds of limits. There are hard limits that should not be crossed. And then there are soft limits that we can push when we feel brave and comfortable enough to get new and exciting experiences. Many of my best larps are those where I have learned new things about myself, love, or life by stepping out of my comfort zone. Those where I have been able to let go, embrace the uncertain, and let other people affect me. The ones where I have felt safe enough to push my limits and see where I end up.
When one is playing with pushing limits, one always risks hitting them. And this is good. The goal is not to never have to use a safeword, but to know that you are able to. And what happens after you safeword or get safeworded at, and that it is gonna be okay.
I actually consider fake safeword workshops a harmful feature in larps. It is very common in pre-game workshops for players to be told to practise using safewords in an artificial setting where no-one is actually close to their limits. This teaches players to lie with safewords, but not to recognize their boundaries and experience how to actually use them.
In contrast, I learned a really good safeword workshop technique at the Atropos game Reborn (2018). There, we were told to practise the sex mechanic of the game and to escalate it until we felt a need to say “this is comfortable but don’t go further,” – or to use the safeword “off-game” followed by the information we wanted the co-player to have, e.g. “off-game, no touching my face please.” This was a chance to actually feel where our limits were, to experience authentically using safewords, and to get a good experience when they were respected.
Hurting and Aftercare
The last part of the brave space that I will explain here is what to do when we hurt someone. This is important, because the key to make players safe enough to be brave is making them care about each other. I will only dare to push my limits and to do amazing transformative things at a larp if I trust my co-players to care for me when it hurts. And it will.
If someone ever promised that they would never hurt you, they lied. Because one cannot know that. Sometimes we hurt each other. And an important part of building consent culture is realising that not only Bad and Unsafe people do this.
When we allow larp to affect us, and get emotionally vulnerable together, we sometimes make other players uncomfortable. We fail to communicate, we transgress boundaries, or we do not realize until afterwards that someone else has transgressed our own. But that is a natural part of life. The important thing is what happens afterwards. If I hurt someone during a larp, I have a responsibility to try to help them feel okay again.
Cliff jumping (Photo, Jacub Gomez
This is where I start worrying when I hear thoughts like “you never have to explain why you safeworded” and when this responsibility between players gets replaced with flagging systems and third-party safety hosts. I have spoken with too many players who fear that they will make someone feel unsafe at a larp and will not get to know about it until the harm is already done, someone is hurt, and they are red-flagged from further activities. I have also seen too many players become defensive and claim to have done nothing wrong because only Bad and Unsafe people do that. And when a safety discourse makes players react with defensiveness and mistrust, feeling that the threat of being labelled a Bad Person is too great for them to admit to their mistakes, it does not build safety. It destroys it.
I honestly think that a responsibility we have as players is to make amends and try to correct our mistakes. We cannot promise to never hurt a co-player, but we can promise to do our best to help them feel okay again. Sometimes, they do not want that help, and the best thing can be to give a little space before we try to solve something. But in order to not leave conflicts hanging, we must get to know what has gone wrong and take responsibility for it. I think a third-party safety host can be a great asset here to help solve conflicts between players or between players and organizers. But I find it important that the safety host is a support and not a shield. Solutions like red-flagging or letting a safety host remove a player from a larp are there for when the trust between the players is irreversibly broken – but when creating a brave space, it is important to not let them replace communication between players before that happens.
For larp to actually be safe, we need to be safe with each other instead of away from each other.
We need to build spaces where we as players can grow together, learn together, and have intense, emotional, vulnerable, and unexpected experiences. We need to talk about how to make mistakes and then correct them. How to lose trust, but also how to regain it. How to feel bad after a larp and how to care for each other in it. How to lean in, explore difficult topics, and learn to fly.
Description of role-played and simulated rape scenes. Graphic or suggestive images of rape, assault, and trauma. Minor spoilers for some French-speaking games.
Foreword
This article is the amended translation of a piece that was originally published in French within the context of internal discussions within the French-speaking larp scene regarding emotional safety tools and calibration. I have since come to consider that it could be of interest to a wider audience. However, It should be noted that many of the examples that I will present may only be understood within the context of the French local scene. Furthermore, this article will only focus on rape depiction and simulation within the game’s fiction, not off-game incidents of assault.
Introduction
Why is rape such a specific issue in larp?
Depicting rape in larp is often used as a prime example to demonstrate the importance of organizer communication and emotional safety in larp. When we role-play violence in larp, physical violence can be more easily dissociated and put at a distance. As horrible as the perspective of murder can be, it is rare enough in most of our daily lives that we can accept it as part of the fiction and, in most cases, without thinking that it might happen to us.
Rape or sexual assault, however, remains a very real risk to women. We might discuss specific numbers and statistics, but it can be said with certainty that among the participants of a larp, there will be former victims of rape or sexual assault. Most women have been confronted with the fear of sexual assault, including a whole series of measures meant to prevent it, from the way they dress to thinking about how they will manage returning home in the evening. And this is not limited to women either: men, trans, and non-binary people may also have lived through sexual assaults in their past or have reasons to fear assault in the present.
Consequently, depictions of rape in fiction — and for the purpose of this article, I will consider larp as a form of media — can be more impactful to a significant part of the audience than other forms of violence. As such, choosing to depict or allow role-playing rape scenes inevitably has a stronger impact, and will often fall under close scrutiny, owing to the fact that it is still an issue that impacts a lot of people.
I have found it interesting to observe the way that organizers and participants have handled allowing — or not allowing — role-playing rape scenes in larp. I have found these decisions to be emblematic of cultural changes both in larp writing and social perceptions surrounding rape. I will try in this article to present an overview of this evolution, and how, in my opinion, it can inform us of the interconnection between larp, media, and cultural representations. However, this article will only represent my own experience as a larper and creator, and does not aim at being exhaustive or impartial.
Jacques Stella, The Rape of the Sabines, mid-17th century.
Trivializing Rape
During my second larp, back in October 2001, which was part of a now-terminated Drow campaign, my character was knocked out by two other characters and robbed. Fair enough. That situation was written in the rules, and, as a beginner, I hadn’t learnt to walk with my back against the wall at all times. After that scene, right before leaving, one of the two participants in the scene added, “And before leaving, we rape you.”
As in many games of the time, there were no simulation rules for sexuality. In campaign games such as this one, sexuality was mostly managed off-game to produce offspring that could become playable characters if your own character died. Games that offered rules for sexual simulation usually used mechanical rules: dice; cards; marbles, oftentimes with some random draw that would determine the quality of the relation; and sometimes a “pillow talk” mechanic, in which sharing intimacy could lead a character to share an important secret to their partner. However, the issue of sexual violence or coercion was rarely broached explicitly — except in rare cases of complete prohibition, more on that later — and was considered, therefore, possible.
Here is another emblematic example. In the mass larp campaign La Faille (or The Rift, which ended in 2007), the orc faction would organize fictionalized rape of female characters. They would mark the victims’ clothes with green at the buttocks to signify what had happened to the character. While some of these scenes might have been discussed beforehand, it is certain that negotiation and consent was neither written into the rules nor systematic.
In the context of these early games around 2000–2005, integrating sexuality rules was an answer to the objective of creating a 360° realistic representation and mostly “sandbox”-type game. In this style of game, players had to be able to do any action they wanted. Rules only came into play when an action was considered impossible (e.g. magic) or dangerous (e.g. fighting). Physical contact was completely prohibited. In that context, depictions of rape simply represented something “that could happen,” just like in real life. The practice was acceptable because there was no physical contact and because rape was usually only mentioned verbally.
Rape scenes were usually performed by characters that could, in this manner, display their violence and could establish their role-play as a “villain.” Rape usually had no consequence in-game.
Rape as a Narrative Device
Meanwhile, we could also observe games that, while prohibiting rape in-game, used it as a narrative device in the game’s backstory. Rape, in this case, has consequences that take the form of in-game conflicts and dramatic outcomes. As illustrations, I will mention three examples from the so-called romanesque style. I played witness to the plot in the first game and the rape victim in the last two.
In Greenaway’s Feeling (played in 2007), a Victorian-era game, I played as the governess to a wealthy family. One of the secrets of the family is that the lady of the house was raped before her wedding by a friend of the family. The game ended with the rapist being killed in a duel. In the second game, Spirits (started in 2008, played in 2013) I played as Maggie, a girl from the working class falling in love with an upper class aristocrat. Maggie was then raped by her lover’s cousin in what constituted clearly a punitive action on the rapist’s part. This storyline was lifted directly from the novel that inspired the game, A Dangerous Fortune by Ken Fowlett, published in 1993. In the run I took part in, the rapist also got killed in a duel. The final game, Noces de Cendres (The Ashen Wedding, 2012), was set in Argentina in the years following World War II. My character was a famous socialite, raped as a young woman by her wealthy patron, and bent on getting revenge. The game invites a resolution where she poisons her rapist. In my run, he was shot to death by another of his enemies.
It must be noted that, in two out of these three cases, the resolution of the storyline resulted in a duel between two male protagonists, taking away the agency from the female victims, and that the “rape-and-revenge” trope was invoked in the last one. Furthermore, due to the historical context, a significant part of the story revolved around the victim being shamed and forced into secrecy.
Important note: I still consider these games to be good and I generally had strong experiences playing them. However, these games are a reflection of the fictions that inspired them – sometimes picking plots directly from books used as inspiration. In these stories, rape is the traumatic inciting event that kickstarts the narrative arc for the female characters or drives the conflict. However, It feels important to point out that, in spite of their qualities, these games reproduced some of the stereotypes around rape that also can be found in certain media.
Conscience 2.0. Photo by Stefano Kewan Lee.
The Criticism and Rape Prohibition
I think that criticism and changes in the way rape is depicted in larp appeared in conjunction with criticism regarding the depiction of rape in media and fiction, as well as demands for changes in that regard. The subject is regularly broached in the media, mostly regarding the use of rape as “shock value.” Regarding larps, two arguments were at the forefront of discussions: imposing rape scenes without the participants’ consent and using sexual assault as a cheap plot device.
First and foremost, some members of the community argued that imposing rape in the storyline was neither agreeable nor fun for many participants for the reasons already mentioned in the introduction. In cases where the possibility of rape was left open on the grounds of realism and 360° immersion, some argued that even a larp with an ambition for immersion has to enforce limitations on its players and some degree of abstraction, if only to accept, for example, that fake weapons will be real and wound the characters. Some participants claimed that letting players impose rape scenes upon others went against their own enjoyment of the game and sense of safety. Even a competitive player vs. player game could find ways for players to act against one another, including violence, without making rape part of the arsenal. Of course, in real life, rape is indeed a tool for humiliation and a weapon of war. Larp, however, remained a fiction, and even the most historically accurate larp makes choices in terms of what it can represent. Therefore, it was possible to contend that taking away rape from the larp wouldn’t change the narration in most cases, but would make the game experience safer and better for all.
The second argument criticized rape as a cheap and somewhat overused plot device. That critique was not as severe, but pointed out the fact that rape was too often used as a cliché, either to justify a dramatic conflict or to illustrate the cruelty of a character or the world. So it was not so much the existence of rape narration that was at stake as its treatment and recurring aspect, e.g. making it a staple of most pre-written female characters. These critics underlined that there should be other ways to establish the unforgiving quality of a world or set up a character as an antagonist. Additionally, it was important to diversify female narratives using other angles than rape. The use of rape as a “shock factor” to show how dark a situation is, if not used to bring an interesting narrative, tell a good story, or deconstruct prejudices, can simply become derivative; these stories can contribute to trivializing rape; perpetuating stereotypes about rape and sexual assault; or invisibilizing survivors’ experiences.
Because of these issues, larp design choices and communication surrounding rape depiction has significantly changed in the 2010s, with an acceleration in the wake of the #metoo movement. Sexual assault is frequently forbidden in games, with some games even banning any role-play around sexuality at all. If rape appears in the backstory, it will be explicitly communicated and only played with the participants’ consent.
Due to these changes, communication and participant consent have improved. Most organizations now present a design document stating which themes and issues can be expected in their games, explicitly asking participants to write down issues they don’t want to play. It must be noted that, when I have handled participants’ sign-ups as an organizer and what they didn’t want to play, I had many male players requesting not to play a rapist. I also know many people who prefer to pass on any game mentioning rape, which in my opinion is a perfectly valid position.
Can Rape Be Responsibly Depicted in Larp?
This last question will of course be open to debate. Many people state that rape should be forbidden in larp altogether, which is a very understandable position. However, I would like to give a couple examples of games that, in my opinion, use rape in their scenarios in such a manner that it brings a real narrative depth, avoiding the issues that I addressed previously.
The Swedish gameLast Will (2014) presents a not-so-distant dystopian future in which big corporations have re-established legal slavery. The game fiction takes place in a modern gladiators’ arena and depicts teams of fighters and the arena personnel. One of the categories represented in game is the Pleasers: sex slaves whose purpose is to exclusively serve the needs of the fighters. This game is a Nordic larp with clear expectations in terms of safety: the themes are clearly communicated well in advance, the character distribution is done according to participants’ requests, violent scenes must be negotiated, and any scene can be interrupted with safe words. Arsamandi was used to simulate sex and was practised beforehand during workshops.
My character was a fighter called Sol. She was forced to perform sexual acts in front of the medical examiners charged to evaluate her. As a reaction, she became in turn abusive to her own Pleaser, Eden. She was then forced to witness Eden’s rape by one of the guards as a punishment for her repeated insolence and transgression. In this game, the presence of sex slaves and the possibility to play rape scenes was part of the construction of a dehumanizing environment for the characters. After the game, discussions among participants and the viewing of a documentary on modern slavery were used to contextualize the whole experience.
My own gameFlowers of Maytakes place in a Parisian brothel in 1910. One of the prostitutes, Violette, is there against her own will. She has been locked up and blackmailed into accepting it before the beginning of the game. The game doesn’t allow the depiction of rape with violence, but the character being threatened and coerced means that she undergoes at least one rape scene over the course of the game. Using inspiration from Last Will, the game also uses ars amandi and follows along the same lines in terms of safety and communication. Sexuality and sexual violence are a central theme of the game. This character is used to show that rape happens any time there is coercion, not only through direct threat and physical violence. The game in general explores the interconnection between sexuality and power.
Finally, Conscience 2.0(2018, created by NotOnlyLarp in Spain, is another recent example. The game was inspired by the TV series Westworld and is set in a Western theme park populated by extremely realistic robots. Sexual violence and nudity were possible, but only in certain predetermined spaces, also called zoning. This practice has been recently introduced as a means to set up boundaries and allow players to steer towards or away the most intensive forms of role-playing (more examples in “The Larp Domino Effect”). As always, communication was extremely explicit about sensitive themes, with workshops and safe words. Participants who wanted to play on physical or sexual violence had to signal it by wearing a small white (physical) and/or red (sexual) ribbon over their costume. Sexual scenes were simulated in full clothing, while real intercourse was explicitly prohibited. Any scene of sexual violence had to be negotiated following a pre-scripted discussion. Here again, integrating sexual violence against robots sets up the action within an abusive context and, the more the robots were gaining consciousness, to question what makes a human being. Between characters who treated the robots as literal objects and those who wanted to defend their humanity and rights, the visible and brutal depiction of sexual violence could be a catalyst in these conflicts.
In that larp, I played an abusive character who was intended to enable others in engaging in violent interactions. My characters very routinely organized collective rapes and torture sessions. The strict safety rules of the game allowed me to constantly check the well-being of the players who performed as my victims. Playing as an oppressor was way out of my comfort zone; it was indispensable to me to know that playing these violent scenes improved the game experience of other players and was not only there to show my character’s menace and physical superiority.
I cited these examples because they have, in my opinion, common aspects. They all use sexual violence to show how the environment dehumanizes the victims of violence. They all try to deconstruct the way this violence operates, in particular how it can be trivialized. I believe that an essential difference from the examples I treated in the first paragraph is there: the rapists in these examples don’t see themselves as the “villains” and the characters themselves are not written as such. They simply consider using other human beings’ bodies as their right, whether as a client or simply from their position of privilege. Rape is not used for the mere “shock factor,” but to serve as a discussion about the type of society that renders the banalization of rape possible. I believe that the stories created in this context are all the more poignant for that.
In-game photo of the author’s character in Conscience 2.0 (2018).
Discussion
I originally wrote all of the above in a French context as a means to promote the importance of safety rules and mechanisms. My goal was to underline the necessity of building a culture of explicit consent whenever sensitive issues are portrayed. I especially wanted to debunk the all too common notion in my local community that implementation of emotional safety structures would condemn any game depicting violence or abuse by highlighting some games that treated such issues while putting participants’ well-being first.
However, the discussion surrounding that piece of writing and the general handling of controversial themes have also led me to the following reflections:
1. Larp doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Larp, among other things, exists as a medium and is therefore inspired by societal representations and the media we consume, sometimes explicitly by directly using existing franchises as a setting (e.g Wizarding World, Vampire, etc.) Even with a small audience, a larp will be part of the construction of a certain discourse and representation and should be analysed as such. The criticism that was levied against the abusive use and representation of rape in French larp stemmed from such media criticism approaches.
2. Change takes time. The evolution that I present in this article stretched over years. I can also personally recount how I deconstructed my own internalized prejudices over those years before taking a more active role in promoting emotional safety rules, creating guidance for prevention of harassment, and defending a culture of consent. Increased global exchanges and digital communication may accelerate some of this process of acculturation, media criticism, and change of opinion, but they still take time nonetheless.
3. Managing resistance. The cultural shift that is described in this article took time, and was met with quite a lot of resistant comments, one of the most frequent being that depicting rape was just “realistic.” In fact, I have yet to see any safety technique or communication that wasn’t met with some form of resistance. In this instance, change was brought about by a combination of communicating about the subject (e.g arguing why trivialized depictions of rape are problematic), valuing good practices (e.g organizing or promoting games with a clear safety policy), and, in some cases, avoiding games that do not have clear communication on these issues. I also believe that the issue with rape depiction was a good example and gateway to discuss safety issues, since the line between organizers’ freedom of creation and players’ safety was pretty clear in that case: trivialization of rape led players to feel uncomfortable or unsafe in the game, or even to avoid larping entirely. Taking the subject away didn’t hurt the structure of most games. Creators who wanted to handle rape as a sensitive issue could still do it, only with a better knowledge of the kind of communication and careful management that it requires.
Conclusion
By writing about the depiction of rape in larp, I hoped to highlight some important cultural changes that occurred in the media around these issues and subsequently in larps as well. Through these examples, I tried to show that you can absolutely handle sensitive issues in larps, but that a clear communication and safety policy is necessary. I used the example of depiction of rape to show how a design choice (or lack of consideration of it) could create a disagreeable, or even hostile environment for some players. Additionally, changes in communication and techniques have made the practice safer and more inclusive. Finally, I opened the discussion by affirming my belief that there are probably other issues and techniques that are still to be explored. My hope is that discussion on these issues will continue.
Bowman, Sarah Lynne. 2018. “The Larp Domino Effect.” In Shuffling the Deck: The Knutpunkt 2018 Companion Book. Edited by Annika Waern and Johannes Axner. 161-169. ETC Press. https://nordiclarp.org/2018/02/14/larp-domino-effect/
It can be used as both a check-list for organizers to remember which important issues to consider in relation to emotional safety – additionally, you can use this manifesto as an organizer to communicate your approach to your players and participants.
I/we declare that when organizing a larp or larp-conference I/we have considered how we approach and/or resolve the following issues:
1. Definition of Safety
We are going to define what we mean by “emotional safety” – and we will communicate this clearly to our players.
Background: Often different cultures have different words and understandings of safety work.
2. Inclusivity
We promise to have a discussion about how we make everyone feel included in our larp.
Background: We want to be an inclusive community which acknowledges diversity.
3. Communication
We want to communicate in a clear, open and compassionate way.
Background: We have discussed how to deal with critique and misunderstandings both on social media and face to face.
4. Priority
We promise to have a discussion about how we approach the balance between immersion and need for safety.
Background: Safety work can be down-prioritized or difficult to find time for.
5. Hard Choices
We promise that we have made a procedure for dealing with difficult situations and exclusions (both before and during the larp) – and to follow this plan regardless of who is involved in the situation. This procedure will be clearly communicated before the larp.
Background: It can be difficult to deal with bad situations, especially if friends are involved.
6. Responsibility for Players
We promise to have a discussion about how to empower players to set and communicate boundaries.
Background: It can be difficult to use safety mechanisms if we do not have a culture for doing so. We want to encourage self-care.
7. Organizer Care
We promise to have a discussion about how we take care of our organizers, employees and volunteers.
Background: It can be difficult to be an organizer in a high-demanding larp community and still focus on putting your own selfcare as a high priority.
8. Failure
We promise to assume the best in other people and expect to be treated likewise in return.
Background: We all fail. This is a process.
This is a self-certification manifesto and a work in progress. This is the first version and it will be discussed, improved and updated in this Facebook-group:
If you want to refer to and use this manifesto please just copy and use it. You can refer to it by using the name “Emotional Safety Manifesto” and this website:
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.
Immersive experience designers have been inspired by Ida Benedetto’s 2017 design reference work Patterns of Transformation (Benedetto 2017). The multi-part essay is the result of Benedetto’s personal involvement creating transgressive events such as The Night Heron (Sextant Works, 2013) coupled with her research on sex parties, wilderness survival treks, and unconventional funerals. She discovered similarities within all of these endeavors, and suggests these patterns catalyze personal transformation. She states in her introduction:
In previous eras, social gatherings and ritual experiences were the domain of religious institutions, cultural organizations, or the state. Now, they increasingly fall within the realm of design as it expands to address challenges of human emotion and connection. Experience design offers a possible solution to our very human craving for connection and meaning in the face of increased isolation and diminishing social cooperation.
Benedetto, 2017
Undergoing a risky experience can be personally rewarding on a fundamental level far beyond an amusing narrative or fostering a friendship. For experience designers, there may be no higher calling than the possibility of healing humanity through one self-improved person at a time. Oftentimes government and business interests regulate our interactions with the world and other people. It may befall the artists and craftspeople who, through unpredictable experiences such as larp, break the artificial restrictions continuously plastered over us and allow our spirit to breathe again. But transformative experiences are both delicate and wild, easy to ruin and inherently uncontrollable. Like fire that can devastate a city or fuel a moonshot, risk is a powerful instrument that should not be bound and buried in the creative tool box. We hope this essay will cultivate a respect for risk and reveal the possibilities for healthy individual growth through intentionally risky adventures.
What is Risk?
All of life is risk. Living without taking risks is not really living. That would be half-living, under a spiritual anesthesia. This high-security society that is developing sees in risk a declared enemy, but in doing so, allows a sort of gangrene to develop. The idea that we can achieve zero risk is not only collectively harmful, but also toxic for individuals.
Anne Dufourmantelle interview in Le Monde
According to Benedetto, “risk is any threat to one’s current state that offers the potential to destabilize the way things are. Higher order risks can include financial, political, and legal risks. Primal risks threaten our emotional, social, or physical well-being.” (Benedetto, 2017). We will concentrate on the primal risks.
An emotional risk jeopardizes one’s sense of self, a deeply-held belief, motivation, confidence, or one’s composure. Harm to your emotional state can lead to depression, anger, or compulsive thinking. It can leave psychological scars that can impact a person’s quality of life. The concept of bleed is a strong indicator of emotional changes, but change is not inherently negative. Benedetto suggests that facing risks can strengthen “one’s emotional range and resilience.” (Benedetto, 2017). Like physical exercise, we can use designed experiences to toughen our “ego muscles” through stressful exertion.
Benedetto’s explanation of a social risk is “a threat to one’s standing with a group. A social risk could damage one’s image, sever one’s connections with others, or bruise one’s sense of self-worth. Confronting social risks can give someone new tools for creating and maintaining connections with others.” (Benedetto, 2017).
A social risk can for example mean being judged and found guilty of something by peers. In larp, this can come from role-playing a character close to your real self. You can potentially reveal truths about yourself to others who may not accept them, resulting in ostracization and, thanks to social media and whisper networks, banishment from other events. Playing a villainous character may also be a social risk, even if that character was pre-generated. People might mistake the player for the character, and be negatively biased against the player. This risk increases if you play the same character or type of character repeatedly. You may also be judged for the actions your character takes, as others may ascribe “poor” choices to the player. Social risk often appears in larp communities that create and enforce a code of conduct. The energy and impetus that causes the community to form is also the energy that creates a social risk of exile from the group. When someone causes harm to another—intentionally or not—they may be banned from the community. Benedetto researched a sex party curated by The Dirty Gentleman (TDG), or Mr. Gentleman, containing high social risk. This excerpt may sound familiar to campaign larpers:
When it comes to sexually permissive events, the risk is not only in being hurt but in doing the hurting. Enacting harmful behavior creates the social risk of shame and ostracization. “There is a term for deciding certain people are good or bad which is ‘Voting People off the Island’,” says Mr. Gentleman. “The idea is that you can be in this world until you do something wrong, and then you are dangerous and bad and need to go away.” The severity of a ‘Voting People Off the Island’ model is exactly what The Dirty Gentleman is designed to counter. The gathering focuses on social etiquette so that behaviors, rather than the individual participants, are the focus of potential improvement.
Benedetto, 2017
A physical risk is harm to one’s body. In the most extreme case, this results in death. Taking physical risks is common in mainstream activities such as skydiving, bungee-jumping, and most sports. Boffer larps feature physical risk and utilize many rules to mitigate it, e.g., no head or groin shots, maximum bow draw weight, weapon checks, etc. Benedetto writes “Confronting physical risk can reframe one’s sense of vulnerability in day-to-day life and change our relationship to the constructed environments we inhabit every day.” (Benedetto, 2017)
It must be acknowledged that Benedetto stresses that any risk should be roughly equal between the participants, especially social risk. Reacting to a recent Vanity Fair article about Silicon Valley sex parties that enable stereotypical heterosexual male fantasies, she opines “If all participants do not need to risk rejection equally, and those least empowered to leverage their personal boundaries are those most likely to suffer consequences outside the party, you have a recipe for coercion and abuse.” (Benedetto, 2018). Further inquiry into the effects of imbalanced risk among participants is needed. For our purposes, we assume that any risk is generally the same for all involved, possibly including the designers and organizers.
Each of these three types of risk can be actual or imagined, and this is not a duality but a spectrum. Our subjective perception can deceive participants into thinking risk
exists when it does not or is minimal, e.g., afraid of embarrassing oneself with “poor” role-playing among a group of supportive larpers.
is greater than it actually is, e.g., touching another person on the shoulder without their consent.
is less than it actually is, e.g., shooting an old padded arrow from a bow with 30-pound weight at 28” draw at a person when they aren’t looking (LARP Haven Facebook group query, based on over 60 responses, 2018).
does not exist when it does, e.g., getting food poisoning from a novice food preparer, or being unaware of the presence of bees and whether or not you are allergic to their sting.
Unknown actual risks are the most perilous, and discovering the risk after the fact can be exhilarating or traumatic; the danger was unnoticed, survived by someone unprepared for the challenge.
It is critical that experience designers understand the difference between actual and imagined or mis-perceived risk. This difference is particular to each participant as well—someone with an acute nut allergy has a greater actual risk in eating unidentified foods compared to someone who does not. Following a recommended transparency of expectation (Torner, 2013) the designers have a moral and possibly even legal obligation to inform the participants about the experience before undertaking it, whether it involves illegal trespassing, like Benedetto’s The Night Heron, or violence, like the Blackout Experience (Josh Randall and Kristjan Thor, 2009). Both events were up front in their marketing; The Night Heron was an intimate experience in a building’s empty water tower (without authorization to be there), and Blackout involves a single participant going through a series of scenes where they are grabbed, shoved, and choked by the actors (NPCs). Keeping actual risk hidden from participants means the designers are taking on their own undue risk, which may not be the purpose of the activity.
There is considerable opportunity, however, in playing off the perceptions or misperceptions of the participants. Benedetto describes risk perception as “Relying on our unconscious to steer us away from risks makes life manageable, as long as we can trust our unconscious to properly identify the risks. Occasionally waking up from our unconscious steering can put us back in touch with something enriching and transformative.” (Benedetto, 2017). Competition, for example, is an easy method of suggesting risk—the characters might lose the battle and die—while controlling the actual amount of danger faced by adjusting the power level of the opponents. In a controlled, specific manner, duplicity can be quite effective in setting up the conditions for a transformation. More about deception is in the tips section.
What is Transformation?
Risk is a kairos, in the Greek sense of the decisive moment. And what it determines is not only the future, but also the past, behind our horizon of waiting, in which it reveals an unsuspected reserve of freedom.
Éloge du risque, Anne Dufourmantelle
Benedetto defines transformation as:
A transformation is a fundamental change. The change can be big or small, but what makes it transformational is how close the change is to what makes someone who they are. Not all transformations are equal, and not all transformations come about in the same way. Transformation is hard if not impossible to measure because most measurements track the effects of the transformation, not the transformation itself. Sometimes whatever is worth measuring about the transformation isn’t evident until the transformation is well under way.
Benedetto, 2017
The main criteria for transformation is that it is personal. It is an interior redecorating of your psyche. Although any immersive, interactive experience can change your social circle, hobbies, discretionary income or vacation destination, those are not part of personal transformation. A personal transformation converts the human being through the process of the human doing. It can shatter parts of the previous self, and reconstruction takes time. Benedetto reminds us:
If the experience is successful in delivering transformative potential, the participant cannot fully wrap their mind around what has happened; they cannot satisfactorily tame the splendor of the experience with serious judgment about what happened to them. Leaving an experience in a state of disoriented awe allows for the participant to reorder their world view and sense of self in order to make meaning out of what they went through. Transformation is an unraveling, followed by a slow and sometimes prolonged stitching back together.
Benedetto, 2017
Benedetto describes three ways that we can be transformed via a designed experience: acute, repetitive, and dramatic.
Acute transformation is produced by a change that is imposed on someone without warning, against their will, or otherwise beyond their control. In this case, the purpose of the experience is to help the participants adjust to the change that has happened in their world and get past the shock of the change. Not transforming would mean being stuck as the world leaves them behind, often to their detriment.
Benedetto, 2017
Avant-garde funeral directors specialize in acute transformation because they design a ceremony unique to the aggrieved. Acute transformational larps are a minority of larps—possibly, too, of designed experiences in general. This is because of the time and care necessary to create something meaningful for a specific audience who already encountered something overpowering. Other people, especially strangers, may not understand or want to participate in something so personal to one or a few. Nevertheless, experiences have been designed as a reaction to an unexpected event, and it may be the creator who seeks transformation themselves. Siobahn O’Loughlin’s Broken Bone Bathtub (2015) is “an immersive theatre project taking place inside a bathtub, in an actual home. After a serious bike accident [the acute catalyst], a young woman musters up the courage to ask for help, and shares her story, exploring themes of trauma, suffering, human generosity, vulnerability, and connection. The audience takes on the role of Siobhan’s close friends; not only in listening but sharing in their experiences, and assisting the cast-clad artist in the actual ritual of taking a bath.” In this 2018 Knutpunkt Companion, larpwright Shoshanna Kessock describes her larp scenario, Keeping the Candles Lit, which became tied to an acute experience, the loss of her mother. Even as the creator, this fabricated experience (scenario) provided Kessock with a lifeboat to weather an unexpected tragedy. (Kessock, 2018)
Repetitive transformation happens through repeat exposure to something over a series of experiences. The shift in the participant may be gradual or sudden but it comes about through habituating an experience that incrementally moves the transformation forward.
Benedetto, 2017
Benedetto refers to The Dirty Gentleman’s quarterly escapades as an example of repetitive transformation. For larps, clearly, these are our episodic events. There are many examples of people who have changed, often for the better, through recurring larp campaigns; enough that we assume this is prima facie.
Benedetto defines the third type of transformation:
Dramatic transformation happens at the end of a dramatic arc that has built the participants up to a change. A dramatic transformation happens as a result of an intense and concentrated experience. While dramatic arcs are often associated with fiction, they can happen in experiences of a profound confrontation with reality, too.
Benedetto, 2017
The likeliest larp candidate for this type of change is a weekend-long, one-shot event. Yet designed experiences can reach profound intensity within hours or even minutes, depending on the design and the participants. For example, Tobias Wrigstad’s formidable and transgressive larp Gang Rape (2008), which uses the fiat system wherein consenting participants (the rapists) verbally describe the physical act of rape to the victim, who verbally describes the emotions the rapist is feeling, lasts 45-90 minutes. By putting players in a highly-relevant, high-stakes, high-risk and pre-defined arc, it reduces the opportunity to escape from the serious subject matter of sexual assault, creating opportunity for dramatic transformation.
Following the analogy of an ego gymnasium, acute transformation is like physical therapy after an injury, repetitive transformation would be daily jogging, and dramatic transformation would be a short but intense training regimen before a race or triathlon. Akin to what physical exercise can do for your body, so designed experiences can do for your soul.
Experience
Risk Type
Risk Veracity
Structure
Transformation
Just a Little Lovin’
Emotional
Actual, depending on history with subject
Exploratory
Acute
Vampire: The Masquerade (campaign)
Social
variable
variable
Repetitive
Legion: A Siberian Story
Physical
Actual
Progressive
Dramatic
Examples of different larps and their risk/transformative categories.
Why Design a Risky Experience?
In an interview with Kathryn Yu for the No Proscenium podcast #130, Benedetto states that “transformation requires risk. And real risk. And that it’s only in having the supportive structure of an experience, especially if it involves other people that you can go through it with, that you can even approach [a] risk that is too chaotic and too threatening to deal with outside the context of that experience. But by confronting that risk, some part of you reconfigures itself or becomes more alive.” (Nelson-Yu, 2017)
This may be overstating the case. Transformation, at least an intentional transformation, i.e., change consciously desired by the individual, is possible without risk, real or imagined. Overcoming alcohol or nicotine addiction, for example, carries less risk, in most cases, than maintaining your dependence. However, Patterns of Transformation presents a strong case for using risk to make personal transformation easier. Her quote suggests that it is a shared experience that an intentional personal transformation requires, not necessarily a risky one—though that helps.
The power of designed experiences, and larps especially, is their ability to create a space for the mind, body, and emotional self to work out in a controlled manner. Experience designers are like weight trainers and spotters for our spirit. They are there to help us better our ability to operate in a tumultuous era, and, consequently, better the world for everyone. This is a noble endeavor. Benedetto calls this “human enrichment.” (Benedetto, 2017)
It is also probable that the designer will benefit from creating these experiences for others, either physically, mentally, emotionally, and financially. They, too, take a risk in the act of creation.
Why Play a potentially Transformative Experience?
Benedetto says “A lot of the transformation I looked at, where the transformation’s desirable in some way, is because we have been estranged from something, somehow […] I think the transformation gets you back in touch with something that you’ve been estranged [from], and that changes your relationship to the world in your everyday life. That can be super enriching.” (Nelson-Yu, 2017)
An intense designed experience can create the psychological state known as “flow,” coined in 1975 by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi. It refers to a mental point in which a person undertakes a challenge that they understand and lies within their skill competency. When someone reaches this state, they become fully immersed and focused on the experience, losing their sense of space and time. It is innately enjoyable and yields long-lasting and positive after effects. He writes “the experience itself is so enjoyable that people will do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it.” (Csíkszentmihályi, 1990)
Designed experiences just outside one’s comfort or skill level, too, are the basis for Lev Vygotsky’s (1896-1934) zone of proximal development and scaffolding pedagogy. By presenting a risk that seems insurmountable, yet including the tools or people in the experience that helps the individual complete the task fosters deep cognitive and emotional learning.
According to one of the first attendees of the Blackout Experience, Allison F., “it was almost like they were tailoring every scene towards some type of issue to trigger somebody.” (personal interview, 2018) Going through Blackout by yourself, a participant can expect to experience abuse, torture, and sexual assault—depending on your perspective.
Yet Russell E., also a repeat attendee, explains how repetitive visits affected him:
Since Blackout is a show that adapts to each audience members’ emotional response, the shows became more intense each time I went. In my opinion, the creators and cast were able to recognize patrons who were “getting it” and sometimes altered a scene’s pacing or content to personalize the event and make it even more affecting… I often found myself contemplating my own emotional responses in real life to scenarios explored within Blackout scenes. It seemed to me I was discovering more compassion and more strength within myself than I had previously realized. By exploring heavy, troubling scenarios within an intense theatrical presentation, I found myself approaching everyday turmoil from a stronger foundation…I became [a] stronger person as a result of this exploration.
Personal interview, 2018
Allison shares the same sentiment: “…it’s extremely empowering for me to know that I still have that survival instinct or, for lack of better terms, I have it in me to survive…” (personal interview, 2018)
It is important to note that transformative experiences are not for everyone, and not at every point in their lives. Benedetto says “Constantly being in transformation [makes] you lose sense of who you are, and it’s hard to establish things or gain momentum.” (Nelson-Yu, 2017) Although there should be a larp or designed experience for everyone, not every larp is for everyone, nor should they be. Not everyone always wants or needs to undergo a risky interactive or immersive experience. It is also true that not everyone always wants or needs to participate in a safety-stuffed event.
It is beneficial, every once in a while, to reconnect with our estranged passions, to transform through a risky, designed experience.
Guidelines for Designing Risky and Transformative Experiences
Here are some tips on managing risk in a designed experience to create favorable conditions for personal transformation. Ida Benedetto outlined the first seven design steps in Patterns of Transformation. Due to space considerations, they are not reprinted here in full. It is strongly recommended you read these in detail on the Patterns website. We have included some examples from larping that we felt matched Benedetto’s terms and ideas. Following are our additional thoughts and ideas on the topic.
For our purposes, a “designed experience” is any kind of planned real-world experience involving participant interactivity and engagement—things like alternate reality games (ARGs), immersive theater, escape rooms, extreme haunts and, of course, larps. Note that all three of the experiences Benedetto researched do not have a fictional component, i.e., at the sex party, funeral, or survival adventure you are YOU, really doing that real action in the real world. Yet the patterns Benedetto identified can also be applied to experiences that rely on fiction and role-playing.
Before the experience (planning):
Identify the Risk – “Drill deep and get as specific as possible about the risk facing the people you are designing for.”(Benedetto, 2017)
Distill what is worthwhile in the Risk – “Be mindful of cultural mores, life stages, and personal agendas (yours and theirs) when taking this step.” (Benedetto, 2017)
Commit to an Experience Structure (see below, with larp equivalent terms)
Exploratory – freeform, sandbox, undefined goals
Progressive – linear, railroad, pre-defined goals
Cyclical – repetitive scenes, rituals, or actions, like boffer combat in battle larps (Benedetto, 2017)
During the experience (runtime):
Construct the Magic Circle (two types) – The “Magic Circle” is a concept inspired by Johan Huizinga’s (1872-1945) book Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture (1938) and popularized by Katie Salen and Ryan Zimmerman in Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals (2003). A magic circle is a shared space and time mutually created by participants where things and people bounded by that time and space are not necessarily what they really are; it a sacred liminal space where play, and change, can happen. Benedetto describes two types:
Conditioned – this type of Magic Circle includes the majority of larps where we learn rules, character backgrounds, etc. The Magic Circle comes into being due to our willing imposition of belief, e.g., a birdseed-filled packet is really a lightning bolt. (Benedetto, 2017)
Embraced – “A Magic Circle is embraced when it is drawn around an existing reality that is too overwhelming to engage without the supportive structure of a designed experience. The magic circle helps participants embrace a reality they otherwise avoid or are estranged from.” (Benedetto, 2017). This type of Magic Circle, although rare, appears in response larps that address a difficult concept such as GR (2008), Active Shooter (Tim Hutchings, 2014), or A Mother’s Heart (Christina Christensen & Eirik Fatland, 2010). Here, a slight fiction (the larp, the Magic Circle) is imposed over a troubling reality. Embraced magic circles can also occasionally appear in immersive theater, flash mobs, 1960s Happenings, and Benedetto’s primary example, bespoke funeral ceremonies. Dublin2 (JP Kaljonen, Johanna Raekallio & Haidi Montola, 2011), a pervasive larp reaction to EU’s asylum seekers policy, was held in one of Helsinki’s main plazas where real people sometimes interacted with the participants. Interestingly, an embraced Magic Circle coupled with an acute transformation is largely unexplored territory for experience designers, or at least larp designers. Imagine designing a bespoke larp for someone who was recently laid off that directly addresses that issue using few fictional elements.
Hold the space for transformation – Organizers need to respectfully maintain the liminal space to allow the time for transformation, recognize when more time is needed, when it is time to close, and when something is going wrong and it needs to close.
Close the Magic Circle – There are many examples of rituals and symbolic actions from larps that represent the closing of the Magic Circle. In some respects, a debrief after a larp can be considered part of this closing. Running debriefs the same day as the end of the larp should accept, though, that if it was a transformational experience, participants might be confused and shaken, their sense of self, tattered. They might not have the words or ability to join or participate in the meeting.
After the experience:
Check in – This should happen days or even weeks after the event, and this is where the effects of the transformation can be identified, after the individual has had time to process the experience.
From a larp design perspective, we propose the following additions to Benedetto’s seven design steps. We believe these techniques, some for designers, some for participants, heighten the transformative potential of an experience.
Identify the type of transformation desired “The first step with figuring out your strategy for care is to identify what the nature of the transformation is. How are you going to about it? That helps you construct the Magic Circle, that helps you figure out what the experience structure is.” (Nelson-Yu, 2017). Besides identifying the risk, decide if the conditions for transformation should be acute, dramatic or repetitive. A typical dramatic larp is a one-shot, and repetitive usually indicates an ongoing event. Consider flipping those so a campaign leads to one final intense conclusion, and a one-shot repeats the same action or scene in its limited time.
Once the risk is identified (tip #1) and the worthwhile part of risk determined (tip #2), minimize or eliminate all other risks. If you design towards a dramatic transformation through emotional risk, ensure that participants are shielded from social and physical risks. These other elements can detract from the power of transformational risk.
Promote ideal conditions and encourage participants to transform themselves (tip #5), but do not force players into a transformational state, nor dictate to them what their new “self” should be. The more emphasis a designer imposes on participants to become or behave a certain way, the more the experience resembles a cult. The movie and book Fight Club (Chuck Palahniuk, novel, 1996, David Fincher, director, movie, 1999) is a fictive example of how physical risk presented as a transformative experience is deliberately used as a vehicle for creating an anarchist army. Organizers should only extrinsically set the conditions for transformation to occur; the actual act of transformation must be intrinsically activated.
When marketing the experience, do not claim that it is or will be transformational. Let others do that for you with testimonials. It is hubris to think that your daring design will work every time for everyone. If you label it transformational in your marketing, someone may go in demanding that, and become upset if the experience fails to deliver. But do let people know about the risk (see point below on deception).
Establish trust. “Trust is a prerequisite for enabling transformation.” (Benedetto, 2017). Constructing trust between participants, designers and facilitators is rightfully difficult. Once you have it and a community surrounds the experience, the bonds are often hard to break (Douglas, 2016). Additionally, greater trust facilitates the use of greater risk in the experience—though not necessarily greater transformative potential. To achieve the trust of participants before an experience has run, use different levels of transparency. For example, if participants sign waivers, have a “spoiler” and a “no spoiler” version for them to choose to read and sign. The spoiler waiver would include detailed descriptions of the risk, such as “you will unexpectedly have a cloth hood thrown over your head.” The no spoiler version would only mention physical contact, darkness, helplessness.
If you have designed previous experiences, mention those. Be honest about the use of risk in the experience, but not necessarily exactly what the risk is, for some people are attracted to chancy, mysterious events. If there is some kind of independent group that can vouch for your experience (Southern California has a nascent organization called LEIA: League of Experiential & Immersive Artists that may do just this), contact them and let them know about your production; perhaps applying a seal of approval. This may be unwise if it’s a government entity; would The Night Heron have been as profound an experience if everyone had permission to be in the water tower? Benedetto suggests it would not. Conversely, funeral directors, even avant-garde ones, cannot legally operate without license. This is where your previous decisions about the worthwhile risk and transformative type are relevant—is it worth being an underground, unlawful experience, or would the imprimatur of officiality allow attendees easy access into and a lengthy stay within the Magic Circle?
The H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society (HPLHS), an informal collective that created a number of legendary larps, made a point to let all participants know that nothing the organizers asked the players to do the designers had not done themselves. In his Master’s thesis, J. Michael Bestul describes The Mistress of Nyarlathotep (The H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society, Andrew Leman, 1991), a larp run by the HPLHS where players had to jump off a roof through a fabricated temporal gate not knowing what, if anything, would catch them on the other side.
Only when a keeper can earn the trust of players are events like this possible. Under normal, everyday circumstances, a person would not jump off a roof into a prop time portal. They would most likely consider it an insane proposition. But, in a game setting, where the keepers have earned the players’ trust, that insane option is now a likely choice. The investigators, properly motivated, would jump in; the players, knowing the keeper would never ask them to do something exceedingly dangerous, can jump in.
Bestul, 2006
As an experience creator, too, you have to trust your players that they will engage to the best of their abilities. In larps, organizers entrust their players to carry out a plot and to role-play their characters as best they can. If you are designing for transformation, you also have to trust that the players will make themselves open and vulnerable.
Paying the designers/organizers money can alter the risk and transformative power. One of the keys to The Night Heron was its exclusivity and price point: “The Night Heron was very much inspired by a design principle that we had hit on in doing our previous events, which was this notion of generosity. We looked at what we were doing as a gift to the guests or the participants. We never charged for tickets because we were doing this all illegally […] as soon as we had a ticket relationship with the guests, it felt like we were going to be in nebulous legal territory. The positive byproduct of doing that is that people were even more over the moon that this was this weird thing they got invited to and was spectacular. Because it had such a profound emotional effect, it ended up informing how people got to The Night Heron […] you could only come as a gift of somebody who had already been.” (Nelson-Yu, 2017)
Similarly, the HPLHS usually did not charge their players money to play in their larps. “On the whole the Cthulhu Lives games [larps] we produced were never staged as for-profit enterprises and the Keeper would generally bear the cost of producing his/her own event. It’s possible that there may have been a couple of games where a Keeper asked players to chip in a few bucks to help defray expenses, but that usually wasn’t the case. Most of our Keepers would design their LARPs so they could be executed within the resources available to the Keeper.” (personal correspondence with Sean Branney of the HPLHS, 2018)
Asking for money alters the relationship between organizer and participant. It does not eliminate the risk or transformative nature, but gaining the trust of others might be easier if the organizers also take a financial risk. Conversely, paying a higher fee could also prime people towards personal transformation; they are already taking a financial risk. The immersive play YOU by Hall & Mirrors costs $5000 for one night of bespoke performance and interaction. The high cost can influence our reaction (“Britt”, 2008). The monetary cost of a transformative experience should not be treated lightly. Benedetto says one of the core questions to consider is “What’s the risk, and what’s the gift?” (Nelson-Yu, 2017)
Deceiving the participants: How much information do participants really need to know? Can you obfuscate parts of the adventure? In most experiences, certainly larps, there is a chaos factor that even the best-prepared organizers cannot expect. Since participants are by nature unpredictable, and more so in a risky, potentially transformative state, all variables cannot be accounted for and stated up front. But organizers owe it to their participants to inform them of at least the generalities expected in the experience. Do not forget that for first iterations or first-time participants, no precedent has been set, no foreknowledge provided, and that itself indicates a risk. Use this to your design advantage. An example from an immersive theater experience playing with transparency comes from Annie Lesser’s A(partment 8) (2016), the first chapter of The ABC Project. Although the waiver mentions nudity, physical contact, and darkness it did not put those together to say (spoiler alert) “participants with shut eyes will be kissed by a naked woman.” You can lose trust if you deceive too much, but if you have trust from the participants, there is a level of mendacity that you can use to a transformative advantage. Even with deception, any opt-out rules such as safe words should be apparent and honest; although this dictum has already been challenged by Frederik Berg Østergaard’s Fat Man Down (2009), which has a fake safe word and a real safe word. Where and when the safe words are usable should be carefully considered. How many positive personal transformations were ruined because someone took an early exit instead of breaking through to the other side? And of course, in some experiences it might be too late, e.g., using a safe word after you jumped out of the airplane.
Give up control. As an organizer, you need to loosen the bonds of any agenda or plan that you have made. But be ready to intervene if a crisis occurs. Being prepared to interrupt might be enough, too. Some participants, knowing safety rules are in place, may be more willing to push themselves further than if they do not know where the line lies between reckless endangerment and regulated hazard. Others may not push themselves far enough.
As a participant, you may need to relinquish control over your social, emotional, or physical safety to either the organizers, your own subconscious, or random chance. The latter two might be the most frightening of all. Be vulnerable.
Lack of epiphany does not mean failure. It may come to pass that after everything a participant has gone through, they have not been altered in any demonstrable fashion. That is OK. Maybe they were not fully committed to the event. Maybe they were not the right person for this particular experience. Maybe the Magic Circle could not wait for one last person. It could be a design flaw. Hopefully the participant still had a satisfactory or enjoyable experience. Keep the discussion channels between designers and participants open, be honest, and compare the reflections of all attendees. If you followed the tip about marketing, you never promised a metamorphosis.
For participants, avoid major decisions for approximately a month. Assuming the experience was transformative, you are different. The way things were in your former life will probably seem strange when viewed with a new perspective—and you might not like the way they look. While you put your pieces back together, refrain from making other major changes or decisions. You could lose a connection you may, years later, have wanted to keep. This sound advice is given at the end of Legion: A Siberian Story (Rolling, 2016), a Czech larp based on the historical past of Czechoslovakia’s army trapped in the Russian Revolution.
Limitations on Safety and Consent
The most stunning commonality among these experiences is that the risk posed to the participant also poses a chaotic and uncontrollable element to the guide that, if fully tamed, destroys the transformative potential of the experience.
Safety and risk are obviously related. Risk can be increased simply by decreasing safety, but without corresponding conscious decisions regarding the risk, participants can be unintentionally hurt. Even if safety is elevated, serious risk can still lurk in an experience. In this section we explore some of the limits of safety and some conditions where safety inhibits the experience and its potential. For more information on safety techniques and calibration, read this manifesto, this article, these four posts, or thesetwo entries from the 2018 Knutpunkt Companion. All qualities of larp safety techniques should be considered when deciding which mechanisms to adopt or eschew.
Consent-Based Play Reshuffling
While the word “consent” suggests that anything else is “non-consensual”, it is instead one of many social contracts that can be adopted by a group of people. Consent-based play moves the cognitive overhead of coordinating playstyle from the design and planning stage by the organizers to the players during run-time. This removes the possibility of errors in calibration, but it requires more work to be done during the larp itself.
This is an approach many people enjoy and find freeing, but it is not a universal response. Communication and coordination take effort. We do not often think of emotional effort the way we count walking far or carrying heavy items, but it is work. In low-coordination, high-calibration larps where the rules of engagement and interaction are pre-set, this work is not undertaken, and playing takes less emotional effort. For example, larps that have established no-touch policies remove player deliberation during the larp on whether or not a particular instance of touch is comfortable: the pre-larp external calibration replaces run-time player coordination.
Alliance, a New England sports larp organization, encourages players to be invested in their characters and play the same persona in many different games, with little to no preparation or specific connections. It is possible to travel across America to another chapter and drop in to play on a whim. This is supported because all Alliance events share a common rules system and constraints on the level of risk and reward, topics that are out-of-bounds, and elements of world design. Players who choose to play are opting in to a set of understood external requirements, and so dozens of strangers can play without so much as an introduction. Run-time calibration between players and a lengthy pre-larp workshop is not required.
Calibration and Coordination Issues
Although some people enjoy or find it easier to participate in run-time coordination rather than playing larps with a risk of mis-calibration, expecting players to be skilled in this effort limits the potential pool of players. If a game is designed such that one can play with people one wouldn’t trust to communicate accurately and effectively in the game (IG), there are far more people you can play with. Casual low-trust events are especially useful for reaching audiences who otherwise wouldn’t be exposed to larp at all. Adding mechanics and categories of interactions raises the barrier of entry for participation, and few non-larpers or untrained improvisation actors are used to an ongoing negotiation of play.
Consent and safety mechanisms are sometimes presented as a matter of accessibility. Instead, they are a question of competing access needs: there is no design that will accommodate and enable everyone to play. Some people with mental health or physical concerns find that consent-based play enables them to safely participate. For other people who struggle with communication and coordination, consent-based play can require forms of interaction they find difficult or impossible, making the events inaccessible. Often consent mechanisms are built to serve those with the emotional intelligence to recognize when, for example, check-ins should happen, and who are able to easily swap from in-character (IC) and out-of-character (OOC) considerations.
Someone with a nonverbal learning disability may have trouble interpreting facial expressions and body language (Petti et al., 2003). The expectation that they are responsible for successfully negotiating playstyle on the fly can be anxiety-provoking. This can be especially true with mechanisms such as the OK check-in that are exclusively visual, rather than audio and visual combined. Since this is an invisible disability, it is possible that someone who flashed a missed signal might think that the other person was unsafe to play with, even though they could safely play in systems that rely on expectations or verbal game interrupts to negotiate playstyle.
Additionally, slipping in and out of a check-in is much easier for people with strong working memories and executive processing. People with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder can be easily distracted and find interruptions or context-switching more disruptive than neurotypical people (King et al., 2007). Requiring coordination or task switching can reduce the probability of flow and the general enjoyment of players with ADHD. According to Pattern Language for Larp Design by J Li and Jason Morningstar (2016), “A typical person can only keep track of 5-6 unrelated things at a time, with concentration. Without concentration, that number is closer to 3-4. When trying to keep track of a set of potentially complex dynamics, a typical person will get lost if the set has more than 4 elements.” Combining consent-based play, where interactions are negotiated outside the Magic Circle, plus a litany of safety mechanics such as OK check, look-down, tap-out, cut, brake/largo, and pronouns can be overwhelming even for neurotypical individuals. These memorizations are layered atop your character’s life, your IC relations, the world setting, and real world considerations such as who the GMs are and where the bathroom is.
This does not necessarily exclude neuroatypical players from playing emotionally risky larps where consent mechanisms mitigate risk, but such experiences may be less appealing or more challenging for such people. On the other hand, physically risky games that minimize the kind of work they find difficult may make transformative experiences more accessible to players with such difficulties. Remember to identify the worthwhile risk and eliminate or reduce the others. There is no single answer for “the most accessible” experience.
Safety Mechanics and Play Styles
Are we truly increasing safety by using risk-reducing mechanics? As described in Target Risk 3 by Gerald J.S. Wilde, humans tend to maintain “risk homeostasis”. He says
…in any activity, people accept a certain level of subjectively estimated risk to their health, safety, and other things they value, in exchange for the benefits they hope to receive from that activity […] In any ongoing activity, people continuously check the amount of risk they feel they are exposed to. They compare this with the amount of risk they are willing to accept, and try to reduce any difference between the two to zero. Thus, if the level of subjectively experienced risk is lower than is felt acceptable, people tend to engage in actions that increase their exposure to risk. If, however, the level of subjectively experienced risk is higher than is acceptable, they make an attempt to exercise greater caution.
This means that simply adding safety mechanisms does not inherently change the level of risk in a game. If a mechanic makes an experience safer, people are likely to adjust the level of risk they take to compensate.
Calling these “safety mechanics” can suggest that larps with them are safer than those without, but that is not necessarily true. If a larp is not designed for risky play that would be padded by safety mechanics, adding unnecessary safety mechanisms can push people to adopt more risky play than the game as a whole supports. The context in which safety mechanics are seen as universally appropriate and universally adopted is one in which the riskiest possible play is seen as a goal, and every experience is expected to support such play.
It can be disappointing for players if they are prepared to experience risky play that safety mechanisms inherently advertise and instead find themselves in low-risk play where the mechanisms were not needed. This could encourage players to circumvent or ignore safety mechanics, reducing their effectiveness when they would be useful.
Additionally, with a consent-based larp where no consequence befalls a participant unless they agree to it, there is reduced possibility for growth because there is no conflict, struggle, or resistance. Our muscles grow due to tissue rebuilding after experiencing micro-tears (Goussetis, 2015). Emotions, like muscles, may need to be damaged in order for personal growth.
Although designers usually desire a safe experience, safety mechanics and consent conflict resolution are not the only nor necessarily the best tools to use in all instances for all people. For example, using instead deception to suggest, or to actually include a risk higher than one participants feel comfortable with may make the experience safer—as participants adjust their role-playing to their acceptable risk tolerance—without an undue burden of excessive safety mechanics.
As the philosopher Anne Dufourmantelle says, “We want intensity without risk. That’s impossible. Intensity is jumping into the unknown, that which was previously unseen, which has not yet been written, yet which is however attainable within us.” (Dufourmantelle, 2011)
Caveats to Using Risk and Designing for Transformation
The element of risk we discussed relates to that which is specifically embedded into the design. Risk outside the experience, such as the potential for harm to or from an experience or negative contact betwixt players and organizers between episodes, was not addressed.
Designing an experience to be risky when the participants only expect entertainment can be extremely hazardous and should be avoided.
Risk does not guarantee a transformative experience. Great peril can be faced, yet the person walks away unfazed.
A risk-based transformation may not always end positively. It could cause trauma and lead to a stress disorder, anxiety, physical injury, even death.
Not all larps should be made for personal transformation. It is infeasible and impractical to plan every one of your designed experiences to rewire every participant. For players, it is a fool’s errand to expect every experience you participate in be created with the purpose of transformation.
Greater risk does not always correlate with greater transformation. Although the prospect certainly exists for “more risk means more change,” it is not a guaranteed formula.
Transformative experiences are no substitute for psychological therapy, and should not be used as such nor made with that intent. They can be palliative, cathartic, eye-opening, self-consciousness expanding and perception shifting, but they cannot replace a licensed therapist or medically-trained psychiatrist.
Objectively, risk-laden larps are no better nor no worse than risk-averse larps. The enjoyment, appreciation, or qualitative transformative benefit is purely subjective.
Conclusion
Risk scares people. It is a natural human response to perceived danger. But avoiding or blocking all risk in a designed experience, as in life, is like chasing rainbows, an uncatchable illusion. Designing to limit risk through safety mechanisms can exclude some people and overwhelm others. Reducing risk curbs the participants’ ability to attempt personal transformation in the experience. While risky endeavors and personal revelations are not and should not be the norm of designed experiences, it behooves all creators to not only look at safety mechanisms but also risk, and to use both in their creative vision. Ida Benedetto’s landmark work, Patterns of Transformation, provides an excellent guide for these bold, daring adventurers.
In the first essay of the landmark Nordic Larp book (2010), “The Paradox of Nordic Larp Culture,” Jaakko Stenros and Markus Montola list four ways that larp can be used: to escape, to explore, to expose, to impose. Perhaps a fifth way should be added: to transform.
Benedetto, Ida. 2018. “Patterns of Transformation Q&A 6: What about those f’ed up parties in Silicon Valley?” Group email, accessed January 24, 2018.
Bestul, J. Michael. 2006. “Cthulhu Lives!: A Descriptive Study of the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society”. Thesis. Graduate College of Bowling Green State University
Kessock, Shoshanna. 2018. “Keeping the Candles Lit, When the Light Has Gone Out.” Knutpunkt 2018 Companion. Johannes Axner and Annika Waern, editors. (Accessed February 8, 2018).
King, Joseph A., et al. “Inefficient cognitive control in adult ADHD: evidence from trial-by-trial Stroop test and cued task switching performance.” Behavioral and Brain Functions 3.1 (2007): 42.
Lesser, Anne Katherine. 2016. A(partment 8). Immersive experience. Part of the ABC Project. http://annielesser.com/abc (Accessed February 1, 2018). Run: Los Angeles, 2016
Li, J and Morningstar, Jason. 2016. Pattern Language for Larp Design. http://www.larppatterns.org/ (Accessed February 1, 2018)
Lovecraft Historical Society, The H.P. (1991). Cthulhu Lives!: The Mistress of Nyarlathotep (a.k.a. “The Epic”). Larp. http://www.hplhs.org. (Accessed February 1, 2018). Run: Urbana-Champaign and other locations in Illinois, 1991.
Randall, Josh and Thor, Kristjan. (2009) Blackout. Extreme horror experience. http://www.theblackoutexperience.com/ (Accessed February 1, 2018). Run: New York City, 2009.
Salen, Katie and Zimmerman, Ryan. 2003. Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals. MIT Press
Sextant Works. (2013) The Night Heron. Speakeasy. http://nightheronspeakeasy.com/ (Accessed February 1, 2018) Run: New York City, 2013.
Stenros, Jaakko and Montola, Markus, eds. Nordic Larp. (2010). Published by Fëa Livia.
Torner, Evan. 2013. “Transparency and Safety in Role-Playing Games”. Wyrd Con Companion Book 2013. Edited by Sarah Lynne Bowman, PhD. and Aaron Vanek.
Wilde, Gerald JS. 2014. “Target Risk 3.” Risk Homeostasis in Everyday Life. Complimentary copy, web-version
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.
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.
If someone is unable to breathe, that is an emergency. After three minutes without air, there is risk of brain damage. After somewhere between six to eight minutes without air, the person will typically die if breathing is not restored.
That is why, when someone seems to be choking or having difficulties breathing at a larp, you should always assume the situation is real and go to their immediate aid. You have to act fast. With just three minutes to potential brain damage, there is no time to wait and figure out if the player is just acting or if it is the “real deal.” On top of that, someone having difficulties breathing cannot shout “Hold,” “Cut,” or anything else to show that it is a real emergency. Often, due to panic, the person who cannot breathe can’t use any non-verbal signals either.
Therefore, you should never, ever design larp mechanics that require participants to role-play that their characters have breathing difficulties or are, indeed, choking. In particular, you should never design plagues, poisons and other maladies which would affect a lot of characters and thus create spontaneous choking scenes.((A larp blog isn’t the best place to give medical advice, but there are lot of great first aid videos on the subject, made by professionals, which you could easily check out. For example, this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccr4lKZjHks))
When players expect to see other players role-playing characters with breathing difficulties, there is great risk that someone will mistake a real emergency for an in-character role-play, and not act on it. Especially, if everyone is pretending to wheeze and have a hard time inhaling. Having some sort of a non-verbal signal to show that you are okay can be good, but it actually only helps if you are okay. If no one rushes over to you in a real emergency because they assume you are role-playing, an okay-signal isn’t any help. As time is of the essence in such emergencies, even a delayed reaction can have serious consequences.
Role-playing heart attacks or strokes poses the same risks as role-playing breathing problems, as they, too, are time critical life-threatening emergencies. For that reason, I advise people to avoid role-playing them as well.
Of course, we can design larps in which characters get poisoned or fall ill. I just recommend that the designers choose symptoms that do not look exactly like a real emergency that must be resolved within minutes. For example, you can use vomiting, skin lesions, screaming in pain, writhing on the floor, bleeding from the eyes, numbness spreading in the body, or anything else you can come up with as long as it isn’t easily mistaken for a very common, time-critical emergency.
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
