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  • Maps, Loops and Larp

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    Maps, Loops and Larp

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    Should I reveal the secret now, or wait? Should I say something, or stay silent? Should I go somewhere, or stay where I am?

    Questions like these are running through the heads and guts of players all the time when larping. Often, players don’t even think of them actively as questions, but are subconsciously making choices nevertheless. The actions of a player during runtime are consequences of a series of decisions. In this article, we will outline a framework for analyzing how the players decide on their actions moment to moment, as well as on longer time scales throughout the larp. To help understand how these choices are arrived at and structured, we will introduce the concepts map and loop.

    The map is the structure in the players’ minds of the current status of the fictional reality and their place inside it((While we are speaking about something larp-specific, humans use these types of structures all the time; for more information, look up cognitive maps or mental maps (Cognitive Map, Wikipedia, 2020).)). The map’s content can be spatial information, character relationships, the characters’ understanding of past events, and the kinds of actions the player sees as possible in the larp. The map also stores projections of event outcomes, and the schedule of acts, known predetermined events, and the end of play.

    Players often start to sketch their map before playing begins, for example gathering information in a pre-larp workshop or reading written materials. At the start of play, players are focused on coloring in((The initial printing of this essay used “warming up” as the metaphor here; on reflection, “coloring in” was clearly the better terminology choice.)) their maps and filling in enough detail that play flows easily and actions become self-sustaining.

    The other concept we will work with in this piece is the action loop. During a larp, participants are running at least one action loop — often a few, at different time scales. An action loop moves the participant through four steps: observing and understanding the situation, planning and assessing the possible actions they could take, deciding on a course of action, and performance. We call the process of repeatedly cycling through this set of steps as you make decisions and take actions “running a loop.” The loop is a metaphor for the player’s decision process((Loops are a common conceptual and practical tool in systems thinking and computer science. Credit for the decision loop metaphor goes originally to Col. John Boyd’s “OODA” loop (OODA Loop, Wikipedia, 2020)).

    A player might be running one loop as their character talks to another, interpreting the other character’s responses, seeing the conversational openings, and steering their responses toward the direction they find interesting for the scene. In another, higher-level loop they might be looking at how the scene is evolving, seeing the possibilities it opens up for future scenes, evaluating them with respect to their goals, and then changing the steering input in the shorter-term loop. The player might also have a much longer-term loop, where they reflect upon the arc of their experience thus far, and set strategic goals for how to shape that arc going forward. Especially on this level, they might also be thinking about their own life and how it is mirrored in the themes of the larp, and using that as input for their loop. This is called metareflection, and as you can read more about it in Hilda Levin’s chapter Metareflection elsewhere in this book, we will not go into it in depth here.

    As a player runs their loops, they refer to their mental map to interpret and understand what is happening in the larp. The players continuously update their maps, connecting new observations to existing information. Those connections are where players find possibilities for action, and provide the field for player creativity.

    Agency Regulation and Motivation

    To understand player decisions, we need to look at the concepts of player and character agency, and player motivations. Agency measures how much or little a person can affect a specific situation, how they can act, and whether they can change outcomes.

    The player’s agency is separate from the character’s agency. It is restricted by aspects such as what information the larp has given the players, which skills you have, legal restrictions, and play culture. Furthermore, agency is subject to social factors, such as body shape, performance skills, or status among your co-players. Aspects of the world that regulate player actions are constraints. To be specific, the constraint is not the aspect of the world itself — rather, the constraint is the relationship of the group of players with that aspect.

    Hard constraints cannot be changed by participants and are shared by all of them. For example, even if you play a character that can fly, humans cannot fly, so you are not able to represent the action directly. Hard constraints can be set by laws and common sense (not killing your co-players in combat), or by choices made by the designer and expressed through rules (“this is a non-verbal larp”). In the latter case the constraint is hard if the consequence of breaking the rule is that others will not view the action as part of the fiction (for example, talking when the fiction says you cannot talk).

    Soft constraints are different from player to player — for example, if your character wants to take off their clothes, but you hold back because you are afraid of others’ reactions or because you will feel ashamed. A constraint like this can limit your agency just as powerfully as a hard constraint. It can, however, be addressed in different ways both through the design of the event (for instance, of the player culture or the rules of the fiction), through adjustments during play (like changing the lighting in the space) or internally by the player (for instance, if your fears diminish as the co-players earn your trust).

    The constraints limit the affordances of the situation — what you as a player can do. However, within the constraints there are usually many options. While different players may see the same options as possible, there will not necessarily be the same cost or risk involved for all players. Agency-regulating constraints determine the perceived cost or risk of taking an action.

    Player motivations are the goals that direct player actions and shape which of the available options the player will view as most interesting.

    Motivations can be individual or communal, and have to do with either the larp experience itself or with factors outside the larp. Examples of individual motivations can be experiencing powerful emotions, wanting to win, or temporarily escaping into another world. Motivations outside of the play situation could be increasing one’s social status, understanding something better, or making new friends. Communal goals could be making experiences better for others, helping to build a community with certain values, or exploring and developing a genre or fiction together. Characters will also have goals for their actions, but player and character goals will not always coincide. It can, however, be a player goal to stay loyal to their character.

    The constraints regulate the agency of the player and the character. The actions that exist inside the constraints are — for you — the possible actions. Actions that are constrained are impossible, either literally, or because the player currently perceives them as such.

    The player’s decision of which action to pick among those that seem to be available is based on a cost/benefit analysis, taking into consideration motivation and constraints. We will examine this analysis below, as we explore different stages of the loop.

    Stages of the Loop

    Keeping the affordances determined by agency and motivations in mind, it is now time to describe the steps of the loop in more detail. The processes described are mostly automatic, which is to say you might be only vaguely aware of them as you larp (just as you are almost never aware of similar processes occurring continuously as you move through your daily life). Even at your first larp, you will perform the steps of the loop successfully, and as you larp more, you will become more skilled at different aspects of the process, such as identifying play opportunities or reading the emotional states of other players.

    Let’s go over the four stages of the loop in more detail.

    Observation and Understanding

    Your loop starts by observing yourself and the world around you (using all of your senses, not just vision), attempting to understand what you’re seeing in view of your map, and comparing what you see to the information in your map of the larp — and then possibly updating your map.

    In this phase, you’ll note things like your own emotional and physical state, where players are and what actions their characters are taking, the reactions of other players and characters to what you did in the previous loop, the emotional state of other players and/or the emotional state their characters are projecting, etc. You’ll evaluate these observations for offered play opportunities, power structures, the emotional reaction they bring up in you, their significance in the fiction, their resonance with the larp’s themes, the metatechnical meaning of actions (if metatechniques are used in the larp), etc. Drawing understanding out of what you observe in a larp is what we call literacy — things like your ability to recognize play offers from others, or check in with yourself to understand your own emotional state separate from the state you’re portraying with your character.

    Planning and Assessment

    Planning and assessing actions is a process where the player has to take into account what kind of agency they have, what motivation they have, how the rest of the larp will react, how much time is available, what restrictions are placed on the player by their own physical and mental state, and what the likely outcomes of the actions will be. The player will evaluate what actions are possible, desired, acceptable, and achievable.

    Possible actions: In theory, the list of possible actions is more or less endless. In practice, the player does not think about most of these — only a small number of possible actions will come to mind. The list of actions is composed based on the situation the player is already in. Often, a player will navigate the larp in order to get into a situation where more actions are possible. For example, if you are alone and want to interact with others, you first need to take actions to get together with other people.

    Because players aren’t just recording raw data about the world, but are actively reading the environment, the planning and assessment process in practice often occurs at least in part contemporaneously with observation and understanding. In particular, players will often not even consider actions they know aren’t possible, like flying down from a building. This is efficient, as considering those options would be a waste of time.

    Social rules can be internalised to a degree that the player might also not consider actions that are literally possible — these are what we refer to as soft constraints. Most players will, for example, rule out actually injuring another player as an action that is not possible; this is a soft constraint that is helpful. Unfortunately, social rules can also make a player see an action as impossible even when it is something that the larp offers, or even encourages. For example, if they have learned in the outside world that the kind of person they are perceived as, or perceive themselves as, will be socially or physically punished for some actions, the player may view those actions as impossible — for more on this, see Kemper, Saitta, and Koljonen’s Steering for Survival elsewhere in this book.

    In short, an action is possible if the player is conscious of it and feels able to pursue it.

    Desired actions: From the list of possible actions that the player is conscious of, they will identify which ones are desirable. In the previous step, we only took into account the agency regulating constraints. In this step, as well as the subsequent ones, the constraints still matter, but we also take motivation into account. Whether the action is desirable is dependent on player motivation as well as on soft constraints. Based on the player’s motivation, they will filter out actions that they deem will not support their goals. For example, a player wanting to be loyal to their character will not act in a way that goes against the character motivation — unless other player goals overshadow the desire to be loyal to the character. This leaves the player with a selection of actions that are both possible and desirable.

    Acceptable actions: The other players (and the organizers) of the larp will expect actions that maintain the coherence of the fiction and support content, events, and actions that are in line with what they want to experience or create. Usually, co-players will expect everybody to avoid actions that ruin the play for others, and to play their character as intended by the designers. In many play cultures it is also considered poor form to choose actions that significantly limit the agency of other players. Which kinds of actions have that effect varies between different kinds of larps and play cultures, making this a common cause of friction at international events.

    While players differ in how much they care about the acceptance of their co-players, all players take these norms of acceptable play into account. The play culture’s influence on which actions are acceptable shapes how a player’s agency is regulated by constraints, as does the player’s knowledge and understanding of this culture. The player’s motivation will affect the degree to which a player cares about how their choices are received by others. A player who is indifferent to how others view them will have a wider range of options at the planning and assessment stage, although social consequences are then likely to limit their possible actions later, for example if they become isolated in play.

    At this stage, the character’s agency becomes part of the decision even if the player isn’t motivated by being loyal to their character. If you are supposed to play an old and weak character, it doesn’t make sense to lift a heavy table above your head, even if you as a player are strong enough to do so and doing so could help take your larp where you want to go. The choice could be ruled out by your personal adherence to the coherence of the overall fiction, or by an understanding that breaking it is not socially acceptable.

    Achievable actions: Most actions will cost the player time and energy. As these are limited resources, it’s necessary to take them into account. Some actions (for example resting) may give you more energy for later play. When deciding between a couple of actions that are all possible, desirable, and acceptable, a player will take time and energy into account. Doing something always means you are not doing something else. For example, staging a big scene in front of everybody might drain your energy, and joining a group that will go away for a few hours means you will miss a lot of other play while being away. Sometimes you have to select an action which by itself is not the most desirable, in order to save time and energy, or because you do not have the capacity to carry out another behaviour right now.

    Outcome evaluation: Once you’ve got a set of possible, desirable, acceptable actions that you have the bandwidth to perform, you need to project forward to understand their likely outcomes. An action that may be desirable in the moment may not look desirable when you consider how it may shape player actions over time, or you may realize that it doesn’t make sense in the context of your goals in an action loop running on a longer timescale — for instance that it would make a great scene, but not support a good character arc.

    In practice, the planning and assessment phase will be compressed, and it’s rare that you’ll do all of these steps explicitly or even consciously. However, we believe that all of these factors are evaluated at some level in this phase, unless a heuristic — a mental rule — is used to skip over assessment and planning entirely. For more on this, see Magnar Grønvik Müller’s Introduction to Heuristics elsewhere in this book.

    Decision Point

    Once you have one or more viable plans, you need to decide between them, or commit to the one you have. At this point, you’ve likely already thought through the possible outcomes and their likelihoods for the plans, especially if you have more than one. The decision point is often subconscious or very fast, particularly if you’ve identified one obvious plan. In the case of multiple plans with significant consequences for your experience, you may spend some time in deliberation.

    Some players use heuristics to skip from observation to decision. They will have learned from experience that some situations lead to play they do or don’t want, and have established an internal rule that they will always take a specific type of action in a certain type of situation.

    The choices might have high stakes, or there may be too many viable options without a way to decide between them — or seem to be no options at all — or you may realize that you’re uncomfortable with what looks like the obvious choice on the basis of how it feels when it comes time to commit to it. In these situations, you might experience choice paralysis, and decide instead to to go back and replan, to take some time out of character to figure out what decision to make, or just make up your mind to passively follow some random external impulse (like listening to another character’s suggested course of action).

    Performance

    This is the phase where you act out whatever plan you’ve decided on. Some of your actions can be fully internal and visible only to yourself, but generally as you perform your actions, you will be observed by others. The other players will read you based on their maps, and update them. As you play out your plan, you’ll be noting their reactions and observing your own performance and evaluating whether your actions have interesting or meaningful consequences. This will lead you into the next iteration of the loop.

    A single loop is fairly straightforward. However, players run several loops simultaneously, which makes the concept a bit more complex.

    Multiple Loops: Working Across Timescales

    In any given larp, you will be running simultaneous action loops at different timescales.

    At the finest time scale, you run a loop that lets you manage your performance inside a scene; this is the performative loop. Here, you are for instance deciding what you’ll say next, or how long you should drag out these death groans, or how much of your character’s feelings you will allow your facial expressions and body language to reflect.

    If it’s useful, you can think of every scene as being composed of a series of phrases for each character, with each phrase corresponding to one iteration — repetition — of the loop, whether they’re verbal phrases, physical movements, etc. This is the loop where you evaluate situations and emotional reactions in the highest detail, and is generally what will take up most of your focus in a larp. If you are a player who prioritises character immersion, the mental state where you (pretend to) feel, act, and be as your character, this is the level where you will perform the emotion-following part of immersion.

    The next timescale is the inter-scene scale, where you think about the scene that you want to play next and how the scenes will stitch together. This is the tactical loop. In a very short larp, like some blackbox larps, this will be the highest timescale, since you can plan for the whole duration of the larp on this level. This is often the level where steering choices are made.

    Iterations of this loop are scenes. Depending on your play style, you may engage this loop more or less consciously. The evaluation process can be just as fast as in the mostly subconscious performative loop, but this level is more likely to slow down to a reflection you can become aware of. In the tactical loop, you will often focus on your intention as a player and your intention as a character for a given scene; these become the goals that you evaluate actions against in the faster performative loop.

    The largest timescale is the whole-larp, or strategic loop timescale; iterations of this loop are acts. Here, you evaluate your goals as a player for the entire larp (or the series of larps, if you’re playing a campaign), the dramatic arc of your character, etc. Having decided on the direction you want your arc to take, you are likely to stay on that course, but you might be sensitive to new input that would trigger reevaluation of that direction — like a better opportunity or a sign your chosen path might not work. While you may think about your arc frequently, consciously changing course is a less common occurrence.

    Different players have different strategies for playing larps, which may shape how they use their strategic loop. Some players will optimize for emotional intensity, some for narrative coherence, or some (in competitive play cultures) for winning the larp. If you are an immersionist player, this is the level where you make strategic choices to enable immersive play.

    If the larp you are playing is split up into acts by the designer, you will run at least one iteration of this loop per act, although if acts are long, you might step out of play mid-act (either internally or physically) to re-evaluate. Like the other loops, the strategic loop runs throughout the larp. But as this loop is more symbolic and goal-centric, and requires zooming out of the immediate situation, it can be useful to reserve dedicated time in the design of the larp itself for out-of-character strategic reflection.

    Bandwidth

    In this model, bandwidth is the term for how many things a player can think about, decide on, remember, and do at the same time — their capacity to process information and make decisions, or in other words, to work with their map and loops.((Simon Brind, in his piece Blue Valkyrie Needs Food, Badly! elsewhere in this book, talks about the various kinds of energy we use in play. Bandwidth here corresponds roughly to the categories of “social energy” he describes. As we’re primarily concerned with information processing here, we use a metaphor from that space, in part because we believe it makes clear the ways different activities can trade of a shared resource.)) When you are feeling overwhelmed during play, that is often the experience of being low on bandwidth.

    As players become more experienced, they build more efficient cognitive skills for managing information in their maps, and more efficient ways of processing their loops, including heuristics. They will also develop more fluency at jumping between the diegetic, real-world, and metareflective frames, and between different time-scales in the larp, meaning they spend less time on context switches. All this increasing efficiency adds up to more bandwidth to process nuanced information. Consciously developing your map or assessing your decision loops early in a larp may take up a bit of your bandwidth, but can be an investment that pays back in terms of more bandwidth later.

    Bandwidth is a resource that players can spend in different ways, and different actions are more or less costly for different players. Bandwidth also affects things like recall of less-salient parts of a player’s map, or cross-referencing between pieces of information, noticing available play opportunities, portraying emotional nuance when playing close to another character, maintaining an accent or physical habits, or language or physical skills. Better larp literacy skills also improve bandwidth, as relevant information will jump out at the player without time-consuming introspection or analysis.

    While experience can grant additional bandwidth, any number of things can reduce it. Players who are stressed or otherwise in vulnerable emotional states, cold, hungry, tired, handling social oppression, or dealing with disabilities often experience reduced bandwidth. Players who are not playing in their first language or their own play culture often become more fluent as play progresses, but still tire faster as they keep having to spend extra bandwidth on the effort of translation.

    Bandwidth limitations can have different effects: passive and reactive play, disconnecting from the fiction or the social dynamics of play for a while, or even needing to step out of or leave play entirely. Design choices can require more or less bandwidth, and cost or provide different amounts of energy. Designers should consider how their decisions will impact the available energy and bandwidth of different players through the larp. A design that inflicts player fatigue, for example through lack of sleep or food, might leave players more open to emotional impact — but it will also reduce their bandwidth. On the other hand, offering physical comfort even though the fiction is stressful, for example by providing an offgame space with coffee and sweets, may help players regenerate their energy and free up bandwidth.

    Your available bandwidth affects the choices you make during play. You might abstain from a desired action to save energy for complex play later, or rule out actions as impossible due to lack of bandwidth.

    Steering and Collective Decision-Making

    In The Art of Steering (Montola, Stenros, and Saitta 2015), steering is defined as “the process in which a player influences the behavior of her character for non-diegetic reasons”. In the context of action loops, steering can be viewed as a process of deciding which goals to bring into play — evaluating possible actions on the basis of which ones are desirable with respect to your personal goals.

    Steering is defined as something players do alone, on the basis of their own goals. Steering is both the act of identifying a goal (often on the whole-larp or inter-scene level) and the successive loops that the player performs to attempt to satisfy those goals (often on the scene level). It is possible for two players to agree that they both have goals that align, and for the two players to then steer their play in a coordinated fashion. However, the communication and collective decision-making whereby the players discover they have aligned goals and decide to act on them are just that — collaboration in their action loops, not steering.

    Players rarely execute their action loops alone. While solipsistically we may all be alone in our heads, each thinking in isolation, in practical terms larp is defined by collaboration at an extradiegetic((Communication that’s within the collective set of social norms that exists during runtime, but which is outside the diegesis, or shared fiction.)) level — the players are always collaborating, at minimum to maintain the fiction, regardless of what happens inside it. Explicit collaboration between the players may be done via some combination of body language and speech intended to carry meaning at both the diegetic and metadiegetic levels; via specific metatechniques; or even stepping out of play to negotiate or plan together. These collaborations often shape each player’s action loops at the strategic level, as they verbally negotiate the broad arcs they’re interested in playing out and loosely coordinate some of their goals.

    Often, the players informally calibrate how their desired paths of action are compatible at the tactical or inter-scene level to shape those loops. In some play cultures, this goes even further, with explicit extradiegetic planning overriding player and character improvisation down to the scene level. For instance, two players might decide not just that their characters will both vie for the favour of the prince, but that one character will call the other’s mother a hamster, leading to a duel that they will lose. As this playing style transfers creativity from the play situation to out-of-character coordination between players, it allows the players to shortcut decision loops on what to do, and significantly reduce the need for a map. It leaves the player to only make runtime decisions on details regarding how to enact the scene. This approach saves the player a lot of bandwidth, and may allow players to play many more dramatic scenes than without pre-planning. However, critics of this playing style would argue that one also risks undermining the emotional connection between player and character, and that it makes the player unreceptive to alternative play bids, which from another co-player’s point of view may be experienced as blocking play.

    Character Immersion as a Tactic Versus a Strategy

    This new model for looking at what kinds of decisions are made at what kinds of timescales in play can help provide a more nuanced understanding of immersion.

    When players talk about preferring to be immersed, they’re often talking about an experience that happens at the scene level, of emotional flow and an absence of thoughts readily identifiable as coming from the player. Intentionally achieving this state requires either luck or, often, conscious acts at the strategic level to set themselves up for immersive play. For some players, these choices will happen as a set of heuristics that they’ve learned over time. While a heuristic may allow them to shortcut the strategic loop evaluation, the loop does still occur.

    Even though immersion at the tactical level — within each scene — is desirable for many players, an overemphasis on it can cause problems. In the steering paper (Montola, Stenros, and Saitta 2015), it was raised that playing a larp often requires a certain amount of steering work from each player as they bring the experience into a coherent whole with a collectively desired arc. A player who only steers for immersion requires other players to do the work of steering for the good of the overall larp. That is, the player makes choices in their strategic loop to enable immersion, and then acts in their inter-scene and tactical loops to maintain flow above all else.

    Loop Failure Modes

    Thinking about how a player’s execution of steps in the loop can lead to unexpected or undesirable experiences helps us understand some of those experiences more clearly.

    The first set of failure modes in the loop is in the observation and understanding phase. There are any number of reading errors that can occur. The risk of reading errors depends on the player’s larp literacy. Issues here can include failures to recognize play opportunities being given to you, misreading the emotions of others, etc. Observation or literacy failures around misunderstanding are often sorted out in play, (or at least after the larp), but the failure to realize there was something to see at all is more likely to just lead to missed play opportunities. Players misreading the larp can lead to equifinality((Often, players have different understandings of parts of the diegesis. Two perspectives (or here, maps) are said to be equifinal if the consequences of players acting on them are indistinguishable enough that material conflicts in their interpretations do not derail play. (Montola, 2012))) problems (more on this below), and in some cases conflict between players.

    A number of failures come up during the planning and assessment phase of the loop, commonly either cost or risk estimation failures, where a player embarks on play that will either be too expensive (in terms of e.g. their available bandwidth or emotional energy) for them to follow through with, or that may fall flat with other players, not be seen as acceptable play (e.g. they have failed at assessing acceptable options), or not lead to the experience they were hoping for, or that they projected would evolve from their action. Risk estimation failures can go both ways, of course, as players can also avoid actions they would have been able to accomplish, or not do things from fear of social censure or out of a misreading of the social contract of the larp.

    Another failure mode, at the decision point of the loop, is choice paralysis, where a player has either too many possibilities to choose from or a small number of high-stakes options with uncertain outcomes and insufficient information to decide with.

    Most of the remaining failure modes are performance failures, which encompass most of what we traditionally think of as failures in play.

    The Map

    Maps have a life-cycle that mirrors that of the larp, from sketching before the larp begins to coloring in the map as the game starts, through flow during the bulk of play, and then narrativization after the larp ends.

    Sketching

    Sketching your map might mean reading background material from the organizers, getting a sense of the world you’ll be playing in and of the logic of that world — of how to think of and within the fiction. It might mean doing non-diegetic research, like watching documentaries about the history of AIDS before playing Just a Little Lovin’, or engaging with source documents, like reading a novel or playing a computer game before playing Witcher School. Such preparation can give you emotional touchstones to shape how you read events during play, or to fill in gaps in your understanding of relevant history that you can draw on in play.

    Genre and references to existing works are a fast way to sketch in the rough outlines of a map. “This game is Donna Tartt plus Dead Poets’ Society plus Cruel Intentions” provides a huge amount of information to a player who understands the references. So does “This is a satirical post-apocalyptic larp with 70’s leather gay aesthetics”. Being familiar with the design tradition the larp builds on can also provide such outlines, for example if you have played larps by the same designers before. This information provides starting points for the map, but is less likely to be relevant during play — and indeed, players who hold too tightly to their interpretation of genre and source material may find their maps in conflict with the larp as actually played.

    For many players, the process of sketching starts for real when you get (or create, depending on the design) your character. If you talk to your co-players before the larp, you may start layering in some initial information about your chemistry with that player and their play style, and also start collaborative decision-making around your intent for how to play your character relationship.

    During pre-larp workshops, the players are mapping the larp under the facilitation of the organizers. Often, this is when the possibilities for play become clear. Particularly if the larp content hasn’t been well-communicated beforehand, seeing what’s talked about in workshops, which mechanics are practiced, and what safety lines are drawn helps you evaluate what actions will be possible and desirable in play.

    Much map data is sensory — recognizing a person, knowing how characters move, knowing the layout of the play space, or building associations between colors and factions — and it’s hard to put this data into your map until you’re on site.

    Coloring In

    When play begins, your map is alive; now things can actually happen. This is the map proper — reactive terrain, not a static store of information and instead something you can use. During the coloring period, several things are happening — usually subconsciously. First, you’re getting comfortable with the rhythm of play and finding your character. Second, you’re figuring out which of the information you sketched into your map matters, what is irrelevant, and what is now incorrect for the larp-as-played. Third, you’re starting to try out play offers and see what is actually possible, what gets a response from your co-players, and what is interesting to you. Some things introduced in the pre-larp workshop or reading material before the larp may stand out as important, while others prove less viable. Fourth, you’re looking for, evaluating, responding to, and building up a library of social bids, or play offers from other players. As the map is colored in, you also start running one or more loops, making decisions and updating the map based on the new information you gather.

    Much of the awkwardness many players feel at the beginning of a larp comes from everyone coloring in their maps at the same time. Every action taken by each participant is a test: is this a reasonable action in this situation, culture, world? If it is, which players around me might be interested in the directions I’m suggesting, and for which characters would the actions be relevant? After playing a while, you will increasingly both offer and receive social bids that you can actually act on (see Edman 2019; Westborg and Nordblom 2017 for more on this). When you have enough character-specific possibilities that are established as playable for play to flow smoothly, your map is functional. With a functional map, it’s easier to play, and should you need to step out of character for a bit, it’s then easier to get back in compared to when you had to color in the map initially.

    Flow and Communication

    During play, players are constantly sharing parts of their maps with each other. This can be explicit, such as when characters tell each other things that they’ve seen happen, describe where to find things or people, or talk about things they might do together. This is only a small part of the sharing that goes on. While there are many other layers to the interaction, every time you see a character react to something you’ve done, that player is also (intentionally or not) sharing data about their map. When you do work to shape the emotional reaction you want to present to others, especially when you’re regulating player emotions to be able to portray character emotions, this is also intentional sharing of information.

    Conflicts between players driven by different understandings of the shared world (i.e. equifinality conflicts) are map conflicts. Two maps of a larp are equifinal if the players working from those maps can agree on the shape of the world where it matters to their choices. During map conflicts, player communication about their maps is likely to become more competitive, as each player tries to push the version of diegetic reality that they prefer. Charismatic players sometimes do this accidentally, shaping the diegetic world around them. This isn’t always bad, but can cause problems if they haven’t thought about how their map may affect the experiences of other players. Serious map conflicts can be hard for players to resolve at runtime. Stepping out of play to negotiate is sometimes the answer, but especially if players are low on bandwidth and the play style allows for less narrative coherency the players might also just split into groups, each with their own understanding.

    Narrativization

    When the runtime ends, the map changes again. A lot of what was being kept in the map — the emotional state of your and other characters, predictions about things that might happen, an understanding of the options for what you can do — becomes irrelevant, as you are no longer making choices about what to do. For some players, this shift in information processing can be disorienting. It can also happen simultaneously with an emotional reaction (often grief) to no longer having access to the social world where their performances as their characters are reflected back to them, and to the other characters they cared about. Depending on the larp and the player, all of this can be overshadowed by post-game celebrations and collective congratulations among the ensemble, but some players will still feel both grief and disorientation intensely.

    Once the map is no longer living, you can’t act upon it, but the meaning of what happened can still change. The process of turning a live map where stories exist as collections of events and action-possibilities into chronologies that have a specific meaning and interpretation is narrativization.

    Narrativization is a collective process. For a player’s narrative to have social meaning, it needs to be shared and reflected back to them by the other players who are part of it; this too is a kind of negotiation. In this stage, players are still sharing information from their maps, sometimes with the goal of persuading each other that their version of the map is the most correct; often to provide more high-resolution nuance for each other. Some players prefer to reflect on the meaning and experience of their larps in private, and some types of larps, like very abstract or poetic ones, generate maps that differ so significantly from each other that a collective narrativization process has no relevance for the experience of the piece (although comparing experiences might still be interesting).

    Epilogues, or short stories that some players write about what happened to their characters after the game ended, occupy an interesting place in narrativization. This contested practice((There are both larp cultures and individuals that consider epilogue-writing a forced imposition of one set of outcomes and meanings upon one’s co-players; the epilogue writers would argue no one is forced to read them.)) provides players with one last chance to exercise agency within the game world, often as a way to find emotional closure for where the game ended, or to resolve emotional complexity that springs from the way narrativization shifted the meaning of their individual story. Epilogues are sometimes shared as an explicit part of the collective process by players who engage in this practice; some of their co-players will engage with their epilogues, while others will not.

    Things to Put in Your Map

    Every player will focus on different things in their maps, but some things are likely to be in the maps of most players. The categories are a rough guide, as many larps will sequence things differently.

    Before a larp, you might think about the following:

    • Pre-larp motivations: Why am I at this larp, what kind of play experiences am I looking for?
    • Information about players: What are their names? How do they play, if you’ve played with them before? Do you like them, want to get to know them better, or want to avoid them?
    • Information about characters: What are their names, their group allegiances (if relevant) or general dispositions? How can you recognize this character if you don’t know their player already? What is your characters’ relationship, and is it likely to be important?
    • Diegetic information: What’s the historical era and specific fiction of the larp? What fictional information looks like it will be core to your ability to understand the actions of others? What do you know about the setting?
    • Metadiegetic information: Themes of the larp, what genre you’re expecting to play in, and your understanding of the culture of the larp and its players. Experiences from other works by the same designers.
    • Planned play progression: Acts, schedule, expected play flow, etc.
    • Practical concerns: Food, bathrooms, temperature/weather, first-aid, access to power or communications, coffee, sleeping, hazards, and your own planning around these.
    • Costuming: What am I planning on bringing? What are the affordances of these objects and clothes? How do they relate to the fiction?
    • Skills: Are there particular skills needed to play this (e.g. a particular dance, fencing or a reading a rune alphabet)? If there are, do you have these skills?
    • Out of character concerns: Are there things you already know about that will require you to plan around during play, like times you will need to step out of character, etc.

    Once you’re on site, you’re likely to change and re-evaluate many of your answers to the previous section, and also start adding some new things:

    • More information about the players: What faces belong to what names? What groups or cliques do you see among the players? What kind of chemistry do you have with people you’ll be playing with? What kind of emotional space do they seem to be in? Are there players who you think may need extra support whom you might be able to help?
    • The space: Recognizing places. How long it takes to get around, what’s expected in different spaces in and out of game, what’s visible from where, what spaces afford which actions, who is likely to be in which spaces, where you are comfortable.
    • Costuming: What did you end up taking with you? How does your costume look compared to others? What does that tell you about players and characters? Will your costume constrain your actions in the space? Is there anything you should change before the larp starts?
    • Rules: What are they? How do they work? What are your options if they don’t?
    • Calibration: What tools does this larp offer to calibrate interactions with others? How does what you’re hearing in the workshops or before the larp starts change your understanding of what you expect to happen in play? What does it look like the play style will be? Which intentions are expressed by players you’re calibrating with?
    • Movement: Once you’re in costume, how does your character move? How do other characters move?
    • Agency regulating constraints: What actions feel like they’ll be acceptable here? Especially if you’re a gender or sexual minority, how might other players identify? Does the room feel like it’s likely to be racist or sexist, etc., or to tolerate those actions?
    • Self-knowledge: What is your motivation right now? Your goals, and your physical and emotional state?

    When play starts, the map kicks into high gear, first during coloring, and then in flow. You’ll re-evaluate things above again, or confirm your judgements, and start adding things like:

    • Actions: What has happened so far, and what does it mean?
    • Character state: What mood is your character in, what are their goals right now, and what are they thinking about? Does this feel right, or do you need to adjust it?
    • Story: What arc is your character on and where are you trying to steer it?
    • Engagement and energy levels: To what degree do others seem to be immersed in play? What’s the mood in the room? Which way is it going?
    • Projections: How are players and characters likely to react to your potential actions? How would an action change the arc of your character, affect your group of characters, or the larp as a whole? Are players likely to accept your social bid, and what if anything will it cost you, socially or emotionally? Are there problems this action may cause or help resolve?
    • Knowledge level: What do you know you don’t know? What might you be wrong about? Where are places where you think your map may differ from that of other players, and will this cause problems?

    Conclusion

    How players manage information and how they make decisions during runtime was becoming an increasingly prominent blindspot in larp theory. The two questions are inseparable. The two questions are inseparable. The decision process of the loops must be informed by mapped information about the world, and the lifecycle of that information is shaped both by the experience of that world in play and by the decision process itself. The idea of maps and loops provides a sketch of a cognitive model with the affordances we need to talk about and reflect on the way we think in play.

    There are a number of secondary concepts and explorations in this piece — player bandwidth, extradiegetic collaboration as the collective partner to steering, understanding how immersion works at the tactical versus strategic level, and the rhythmic split of a larp into phrases, scenes, and acts as something native to the medium, not just a design structure present in some larps. These are subjects we have been in need of more conceptual tools to tackle.

    Larp literacy in particular, touched on in passing here, is ripe for more work, as are agency-regulating frames. Both of those ideas, along with maps and loops, came from the Player Skills Retreat held in Helsinki in May 2019; credit for them is owed to everyone in that room.

    Bibliography

    Markus Montola, Jaakko Stenros, and Eleanor Saitta (2015): The Art of Steering. Knudepunkt. The Knudepunkt 2015 Companion Book.

    Markus Montola (2012): On the Edge of the Magic Circle. Understanding Role-Playing and Pervasive Games. Doctoral Dissertation, University of Tampere.

    Hilda Levin (2020): Metareflection. Solmukohta. What Do We Do When We Play?

    Karin Edman (2019): “Social bid”-method of playing on oppression in larp. WonderKarin, ref February 5th, 2020.

    Josefin Westborg and Carl Nordblom (2017): Do You Want to Play Ball? Knutepunkt. Once Upon a Nordic Larp… Twenty Years of Playing Stories.

    Jonaya Kemper, Eleanor Saitta, and Johanna Koljonen (2020): Steering for Survival. Solmukohta. What Do We Do When We Play?

    Simon Brind (2020): Blue Valkyrie Needs Food, Badly! Solmukohta. What Do We Do When We Play?

    Wikipedia (2020): Cognitive map. Wikipedia, ref. Jan 1st, 2020.

    Wikipedia (2020): OODA loop. Wikipedia, ref. Jan 1st, 2020.

  • Solmukohta 2020 Summary

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    Solmukohta 2020 Summary

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    Solmukohta 2020 is over and you can find all the talks here! This years Finnish edition of the Nordic larp conference Knutepunkt was held online, as the Covid-19 pandemic made physically meeting up impossible.

    The program was streamed as video and we’ve gathered all recordings of talks here, together with transcripts and slides where available.

    If you want to talk to others about the program content we suggest joining the Facebook groups Nordic Larp Community and Larpers BFF, as well as the #solmukohta2020 hashtag on Twitter.

    Keynotes

    Solmukohta 2020 Keynote speakers: Kjell Hedgard Hugaas, Sarah Lynne Bowman, Usva Seregina and Jonaya Kemper.

    Sarah Lynne Bowman – Integrating Larp Experiences

    In this keynote, Dr. Sarah Lynne Bowman will discuss the importance of integration practices for concretizing and completing transformative processes after larps end and daily life resumes. She will present different techniques for integrating transformative experiences into our off-game lives, including creative expression, intellectual analysis, emotional processing, mindful transitioning to daily life, interpersonal processing, and community building.

    Transcript:
    https://nordiclarp.org/2020/04/10/solmukohta-2020-keynote-sarah-lynne-bowman-integrating-larp-experiences

    Article associated with the talk:
    https://nordiclarp.org/2019/12/10/transformative-role-play-design-implementation-and-integration/

    Kjell Hedgard Hugaas – Designing for Transformative Impacts

    In this keynote, Kjell Hedgard Hugaas will make the case for why we should design larps that invite the potential for transformative impacts on players. He will discuss the importance of transparency and intentionality when designing for impacts in domains such as emotional processing, social cohesion, educational goals, and political aims.

    Transcript:
    https://nordiclarp.org/2020/04/10/solmukohta-2020-keynote-designing-for-transformative-impacts

    Slides:
    Designing for Transformative Impacts — Kjelll Hedgard Hugaas (Solmukohta 2020)

    Link to article mentioned in talk:
    https://nordiclarp.org/2019/12/10/transformative-role-play-design-implementation-and-integration/

    Usva Seregina – The Future of Larp as a Commodity

    Jonaya Kemper – Building on Our Own Ashes: Larp as a Decolonization Tool

    Futurespectives

    It’s a retrospective – from the year 2040! Six speakers tell us what’s happened in their world of larp “in the past 10 years”.

    Solmukohta 2020 Futurespective speakers: Erik Winther Paisley, Eleanor Saitta, Eirik Fatland, Johanna Koljonen, Sharon Underberg and Karolina Fedyk.

    Futurespective: Eirik Fatland

    Futurespective: Johanna Koljonen

    Futurespective: Karolina Fedyk

    Futurespective: Sharon Underberg

    Transcript:
    https://nordiclarp.org/2020/04/10/solmukohta-2020-futurespective-sharon-underberg

    Futurespective: Eleanor Saitta

    Futurespective: Erik Winther Paisley

    Other

    Janina Kahela – The Inbetweeners – Teens in Larps

    Larps and larp related events have started to become more common for children, but there’s a gap between ages 12 and 18. They’re not children anymore, yet not old enough to attend adult-themed larps. We are at risk of losing this age group if there are no games for them, when there’s often no big reason to exclude them. Janina Kahela has organized several larps for children and separately for teens as participants of “grown up larps”. After a short intro the program will host open discussion in the comment section on the subject.

    Kaisa Kangas – Seaside Prison – Designing Larp for Wider Cultural Audiences

    Seaside Prison is a blackbox larp financially supported by Finnish Cultural Foundation, about life in Gaza. Lately, art and entertainment in general have been going towards interactive and immersive dimensions, and there has been interest towards the larp toolbox among, for example, performance artists. However, wider cultural audiences often find traditional larps hard to approach since they take a lot of time and require preparation. One of the ideas behind Seaside Prison is to create a package that is easier to approach. The larp is run in a theatre environment and employs sound, light, and video projection. Could this be a joint future for larp and theatre? In this talk we discuss how the larp was created, its aims, and the possible futures for larp in the culture establishment.

    Q&A from the original viewing at Solmukohta 2020 Online event:
    https://nordiclarp.org/2020/04/10/solmukohta-2020-kaisa-kangas-seaside-prison-designing-larp-for-wider-cultural-audiences

    Mátyás Hartyándi – Larp – Oddity, Hypernym or what?

    A talk about the future and self-definition of larps for those who are interested in overlapping activities and/or multidisciplinary cooperations. As the meaning and praxis of Nordic larps evolved and expanded during the last two decades, some of its larps became nearly indistinguishable from other established forms of role-playing (e.g. process drama or socio drama). Is this a bug or a feature? What type of relations can enrich larp? And (how) should we react to these changes? Larp has the potential to become a new, inclusive, and all-encompassing umbrella movement, but inbred ignorance in its circles might also limit its recognition in favor of more established forms. How can the larp movement stay geniune yet be open to change? And what kind of role should larping take in the eyes of outsiders?

    Slides:
    Larp_ Oddity, Hypernym or What_ (SK2020)

    Q&A from the original viewing at Solmukohta 2020 Online event:
    https://nordiclarp.org/2020/04/10/solmukohta-2020-matyas-hartyandi-larp-oddity-hypernym-or-what

    Julia Greip – Safewords for Brave Spaces

    Content warning: sexual assault

    In this talk, the speaker will offer an overview and typology of different kinds of safewords and gestures currently in use, a consideration of what requirements and parameters need to be taken into account in choosing safewords for a larp, and an evaluation of benefits, risks and problems that might arise with different types of safewords.

    The focus is on finding safewords that contribute to the creation of a “brave space”.

    Alessandro G. – Designing Nostalgia – Techniques for Larp about Memory and Ageing

    In this talk we will explore how larp design can deal with memory, past, and ageing. Is it possible to use those factors to enhance our larp experience? Are there specific techniques? Can we use nostalgia as a design tool? We will explore these themes and present design solutions and case studies based on sound, non-linear timelines, smell, objects, character writing and transpartent design. Expect a dynamic and enaging talk, open to questions.

    Charles Bo Nielsen – Bad Romance

    Content warning: sexual assault, violence

    How to use bad romance to play more comfortably with people you have less chemistry with. It can often be easier to play romance that doesn’t work out well, because it gives a good excuse to keep intimacy to a minimum while still having a lot of meaningful relational play. This talk will also include more non-binary examples, after some well founded critisism of that lacking in an earlier talk on romance. Expect lots of awkward romance memes!

    Jost L. Hansen – Solmukohta TV

    Solmukohta TV (also SKTV, KPTV, or SK-KPTV) is a sketch show about larpers, made by larpers. SK/KPTV is a tradition that started at Knudepunkt 2015 in Denmark. The show used to involve just the four host countries, but last year we opened up so any country can submit their videos to include even more people in the fun. This new tradition will continue at SK20. Come and watch whatever madness participants have come up with!

    Usva S. – Living or Larping Consumer Culture? Exploring the Commodification of Larp

    In the recent years, we have witnessed a definitive growth of the larp community and a growth in recognition of larp in wider culture as a legitimised activity. As larp begins to be more present in society, the wider culture also penetrates the social structures of larp as a community and an activity, one of the central outcomes of which is the commodification of larp. In this talk, I discuss how larp is becoming commodified, what that means, and what the repercussions of this development are for specific events as well as the community at large.

    Q&A from the original viewing at Solmukohta 2020 Online event:
    https://nordiclarp.org/2020/04/10/solmukohta-2020-living-or-larping-consumer-culture-exploring-the-commodification-of-larp

    Asya Volodina, Elena Ashmarina – Russian Roulette

    Content warning: loud noises

    Russians love mechanics and philosophy. In this talk, we’ll tell you about some best practices in Russian larp mechanics, and also explain how they work to enlighten these larps’ ideas or to move the story forward.

    Using music for fighting, origami for science, duct tape for flashbacks, pins for sex… we can continue this list forever!

    Mikko Heimola, Nino Hynninen, Jukka Seppänen – Shearing Sheep and Holding Ballots – Community Building in a Post-Apocalyptic Campaign

    Content warning: pandemic

    Second Year (Toinen vuosi) was a 4-part larp campaign about building a community of survivors immediately following an apocalyptic pandemic. The larp focused on community building and practical aspects of survival – how a group of strangers coordinates their interests, how norms and institutions develop over time, and how consultants build a chicken coop. The presentation discusses pros and cons of this setting for a larp and what aspects should be given special attention in larp design.

    Q&A from the original viewing at Solmukohta 2020 Online event:
    https://nordiclarp.org/2020/04/10/solmukohta-2020-shearing-sheep-and-holding-ballots-community-building-in-a-post-apocalyptic-campaign

    Eleanor Saitta, Johanna Koljonen, Martin Nielsen – Maps, Loops, and Larps

    Have you ever thought about what you actually do when you larp? How you understand the game around you and decide what to do next? Have you thought about that awkward period at the start of a game where nothing connects yet? In this talk, Johanna, Martin, and Eleanor will try to make sense of the way we manage information and make decisions during play.

    Slides:
    Maps, Loops, and Larps

    Q&A from the original viewing at Solmukohta 2020 Online event:
    https://nordiclarp.org/2020/04/10/solmukohta-2020-eleanor-saitta-johanna-koljonen-martin-nielsen-maps-loops-and-larps

    Elzbieta Glowacka, Karolina Fedyk – Never Prepared, Always Ready

    Numerous larps, particularly sandbox larps, give the players the opportunity to engage in preplay – be it short scenes in the form of play-by-forum rpg, memes, quizzes, or letters to and from the characters. Not all playing styles are conducive for preplay. While such tools can improve the experience, they are not for everyone, and in certain rare cases they might even affect the larp negatively. In our talk, we’d like to share our thoughts on how to recognise such situations and approach preplay, or lack thereof, in ways that will be beneficial for all the larp participants.

    This presentation aims to address alternative approaches to sandbox larp preparations and techniques of getting in character for people who can’t or don’t want to engage preplay in forms mentioned above, and more. It covers both exploration of one’s role and outward-oriented means of getting to know your character through costume, practical tools to approach character creation and designing character arcs. Finally, it addresses FOMO and ways of alleviating it, to make the game as enjoyable and memorable as possible. Might also contain topics of attention and focus, simple mnemotechniques, tools for relation building like mind maps, and onions.

    Lindsay Wolgel – Larp/Theatre Crossover in NYC

    This is a talk about the larp/theatre crossover work currently emerging in NYC, based on the projects Lindsay has been a part of in the past year as a professional actor in New York. Productions include Sinking Ship Creations’ Off-Off Broadway show The Mortality Machine, Calculations by Caroline Murphy of Incantrix Productions, OASIS Travel Agency (an immersive theatre/nightlife/alternate reality game blend with participatory elements by Silver Dream Factory) and more! Discussion includes the experience of being a hired facilitator/actor in these pieces as well as the trend of commercial “immersive experiences” in NYC.

    Read more: www.TheMortalityMachine.com

    Q&A from the original viewing at Solmukohta 2020 Online event:
    https://nordiclarp.org/2020/04/10/solmukohta-2020-lindsay-wolgel-larp-theatre-crossover-in-nyc

    Eevi Korhonen – Using Social Media in Larps

    From Twitter and Facebook to custom-created platforms, social media has been used in larp both in- and off-game. This talk looks at the various social media platforms, their pros and cons, and how they have been employed or faked in various larps. We also take a peek at the future of social media in larp.

    Kol Ford – Mind the Gap: Barriers to larping for people from backgrounds of structural poverty

    Larpers that come from a background of structural poverty face significant barriers when attempting to fully participate in larps. This talk looks at the challenges faced by such individuals both as participants and as organisers as well as presents the strategies developed by poorer larpers. By looking at the strategies that are already being adopted, we can see what we can all do as a community. Existing larp structures, such as subsidised tickets and crewing, work really well, but a lot more can be done!

    The talk is aimed at larpers who are interested in doing what they can to help larpers from poor backgrounds to participate. The goal is to open a discussion about what we can do to help more people feel welcome and included in our hobby. We will talk openly and frankly about the difficulties that we face as participants and organisers, as well as explore ways in which larpers are already addressing the above described problems. We will further explore common barriers faced by the various types of poverty, the unique problems faced by their different circumstances, and the benefits of widening participation to include people from poor backgrounds.

    Josefin Westborg, Anders Berned, Kol Ford, Mike Pohjola – 500 Magic Schools for Children and Youth

    This programme item brings together the NGOs, companies and other entities that run magic schools for kids and youth. Each organisation will be presented with a focus on what they have in common, what they do differently and why, and how they can inspire each other. The aim is to create knowledge exchange and inspire others to start up magic schools. One goal in the programme is to agree on when we would like to have 500 magic schools for kids in Europe (and how to get the funds to start it up).

    Q&A from the original viewing at Solmukohta 2020 Online event:
    https://nordiclarp.org/2020/04/10/solmukohta-2020-500-magic-schools-for-children-and-youth

    Mika Loponen – Turku Manifesto 20 Year Memorial Burnin’

    20 years after the first Solmukohta of the Millennium, we gather to celebrate the first great political act of Finnish larp: the publishing of The Turku Manifesto – and it’s subsequent burning as an act of political vandalism. Loved and loathed for two decades, the proponents and the opponents of the manifesto agree on one thing: no larp related work prior to the manifesto has affected the art form as deeply – nor has been discussed as heatedly and widely. At the 20 year memorial burning, we delve deeply into the uncompromising vision of the publication – and then burn the hell out of it. Hosted by Mika Loponen, the original arsonist, with A VERY SURPRISING SURPRISE GUEST!

    Chris Bergstresser – Peacock – a Global Larp Clearinghouse

    Getting information about larps in the hands of players is an ongoing struggle for organizers. And finding out what larps are being run is equally challenging for players. I have a proposal — and a prototype — for a larp clearinghouse named Peacock. It includes standards for larp data and a website to share that information.

    This talk will show the basic features of the system, along with the design decisions, to be followed by a discussion about the remaining steps to reach a public beta.

    Q&A from the original viewing at Solmukohta 2020 Online event:
    https://nordiclarp.org/2020/04/10/solmukohta-2020-chris-bergstresser-peacock-a-global-larp-clearinghouse

    Thomas B., Mélanie Dorey, Michael Freudenthal – Is Immersive Theatre the Future of Larp?

    Content warning: sexual assault

    Thomas B. is an opinionated connoisseur of larp, dilettante larpwright, and immersive theatre debutante. While repeatedly ranting about the word “immersive”, Thomas will cover highlights of larp-ish events such as Assassin’s Creed in Napoléon’s mausoleum, costume parties in Versailles, a murder mystery in the prison cell of the Marquis de Sade, physically chasing the plot train in NYC, and larping with unprepared actors in theatre basements. Mélanie & Michael co-wrote The Lost Generation, an immersive theatre party focused on seamless narrative design. They will present a vision from the field as well as examples from their design. All attendees welcome, no prior experience necessary.

    Q&A from the original viewing at Solmukohta 2020 Online event:
    https://nordiclarp.org/2020/04/10/solmukohta-2020-is-immersive-theatre-the-future-of-larp

    Herwig Kopp – Life As Bad Larp Design

    Content warning: loud noises, violence

    Late contribution. This video was not part of Solmukohta 2020 online programme.

    Let’s take a larp design perspective on our current (Western) life/culture, analysing the roles we get offered to play in our contemporary societies as if it were a Nordic Larp. What world design are we exposed to? Which factions, which campaigns can we choose? What conditions, items, and degrees of freedom are we given? Can we influence the narrative, goals, or ending? Through a game design perspective we might gain a deeper understanding of our agency, rewards, and challenges.

    All Talks

    You can also fin all talks in this YouTube playlist:


    Update 2020-05-01: Added “Life As Bad Larp Design” by Herwig Kopp.

  • Solmukohta 2020: Is Immersive Theatre the Future of Larp?

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    Solmukohta 2020: Is Immersive Theatre the Future of Larp?

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    Thomas B. is an opinionated connoisseur of larp, dilettante larpwright, and immersive theatre debutante. While repeatedly ranting about the word “immersive”, Thomas will cover highlights of larp-ish events such as Assassin’s Creed in Napoléon’s mausoleum, costume parties in Versailles, a murder mystery in the prison cell of the Marquis de Sade, physically chasing the plot train in NYC, and larping with unprepared actors in theatre basements. Mélanie & Michael co-wrote The Lost Generation, an immersive theatre party focused on seamless narrative design. They will present a vision from the field as well as examples from their design. All attendees welcome, no prior experience necessary.

    Thomas B., Mélanie Dorey, Michael Freudenthal

    [CW] sexual assault

    Q&A from the original viewing at Solmukohta 2020 Online event

    PART 1:

    Anonymous 1:n OK, what /is/ eläytim… Something?

    Thomas B: immersion in character

     

    Anonymous 2: What’s an example of a non-immersive party?

    Michael F: Smoking outside? (Nah, that’s still peripheral participation)

     

    PART 2:

    Anonymous 3: Looks fascinating! i imagine it’s played in French?

    Melanie Dorey: Yes it’s played in French for now but we are thinking about opening an English speaking version 🙂

     

    Anonymous 4: plateauwriting I would call “devicing”

    Melanie Dorey: Oh okay thanks !

     

    Anonymous 5: I like this production process overview timeline but what happens after Showtime 😀 #experiencedesign

    Melanie Dorey: We’re not covering in so much in the talk but can talk about it after in the live chat if you are interested 😀

    Michael F: Pretty much it’s a party. People are talking about themselves, about each others views on fun things like war or artistic creation, then later yelling at each other, or supporting each other. Just a party. But Melanie will put it differently!

     

    Melanie Dorey That allowed the cast to differentiate participants and for the actors to know what interaction to do with the participants

     

    Melanie Dorey Note : all types of interaction are the same price

     

    ANON5: I wonder how this would work with my aversion to larping with NPC:s? I always experence them as being “empty” because they aren’t played by a fellow player who wants things for themselves and that they should stop wasting time on me and go play with someone who appreciates them.

     

    Thomas B: you could avoid talking to them and talk to the other guests instead

     

    Thomas B: some other attendees were basically larping, others more shy and just an

     

    Anon6: Would love the name of the book and the auther about queer games and degamification

     

    Anon7: I believe it is this one:

    Ruberg, Bonnie, and Adrienne Shaw, eds. Queer game studies. U of Minnesota Press, 2017.‏

    Michael Gyr Yes and Video-Games Have Always Been Queer!

     

    Anon8: A very mudane question to this amazing project: What did the tickets cost? Did you get support/sponsing from other sources?

     

    Melanie Dorey We don’t really cover that in the talk but can talk about it after in the live chat

     

    Melanie Dorey Very briefly : all the costs were covered by tickets

     

    Melanie Dorey And we didn’t have any support or sponsoring

     

    Michael Gyr The tickets were 55€ (early bird) to 65€ but the next production budget needed more to cover the cost and make a small margin, and got to 68€ – 78€.

     

    Hanne Grasmo Michael Gyr OK, that is not much: I paid like 290 dollars for similar experience in NYC.

     

    Michael Gyr The Paris immersive scene is just starting. Also, we would like to be as accessible as possible and it’s a bummer because the production costs a lot. Kol Ford’s talk this year was inspiring in that light.

     

    Jenny M. Nordfalk The definition of being a professional is that you get paid, I guess? maybe there should be a third group in between the actors and the audience? We went to an immersive interactive murder mystery last year and I had a lot of guests coming up to me after and thanking me along with the actors..

     

    Michael Gyr We had people mistook for actors AND actors mistook for audience. That was the intent of blurring the lines alright 🙂

     

    Anon9: Who’s your photographer? This all looks gorgeous.

     

    Melanie Dorey It’s Les Garçonnes Studio !

     

    Anon10: How many hours did the actors use for preparations? Where they paid for all of that???

     

    Melanie Dorey We had about 10 full days of workshops and rehearsals with the actors (which is not a lot), we didn’t have the budget unfortunately for the rehearsals but all the show nights were paid

     

    Anon11: What were the buzz words given to the most interactive participants, and hiow did they work?

     

    Melanie Dorey They were secret phrases about the characters personal lives (like something you would know if you were an acquaintance)

     

    Melanie Dorey Like “How was summer in the Riviera, Zelda ?”

     

    Anon12: Were they different for different players and towards different characters, was it like giving the players relationships with the actors characters?

     

    Melanie Dorey Players had different characters but each character had only one secret code

     

    Anon12: Did the actors then take extra responsibility for those players? making them part of their group?

     

    Melanie Dorey Yes those participants were part of their “crew” for the night

     

    Anon12: Perfect, how many players did every actor have in their crew? and as it only the most intersctive feathers or did all players take part in a crew?

     

    Melanie Dorey Yes it was for the most interactive feathers only (as it included more intense interactions), and each character had from 5 to 7 members of the “crew”

     

    Anon14: Was it possible for the participants to change their feather during the performance?

     

    Michael Gyr Very good one. No it was not. But if you were to talk with the cast while wearing a “I don’t want direct interaction” feather, they would adapt their behaviour towards you, and talk with you (with a little caution). Also, all feathers all looked nice (golden, black with a golden tip, red with a golden tip).

     

    Anon13: If possible would you implement that feature for a rerun or was it best as it was?

     

    Melanie Dorey I think it could be a possibility to include that feature in our out of game safe zone !

     

    Anon15: What was the number of involved people in the team overall? Light, sound, production design, actors, concierges etc. On your team and from the rented location if any

     

    Melanie Dorey We had overall a team of 15 people for the staff (production, filming, venue, bar,…)

     

    Melanie Dorey 2 people from the venue

     

    Anon12: How many actors?

     

    Melanie Dorey 7 actors, 3 musicians, 2 bartenders, 3 people from production

     

    Anon16: What major things did you change from run 1 to run 2?

     

    Melanie Dorey We changed : set design (moved furniture), lighting, acting direction (by prepping to better answers to participants and implementing yesterday’s successes and mistakes)

     

    Melanie Dorey Mostly the change of the set design was a huge improvement because it allowed participants to feel more legitimate in the space

     

    Anon16: Did you as designers had a vision for content (not only aestetics) before you started researching and designing?

     

    Melanie Dorey We wanted something that was truly interactive and felt like a legitimate party for everyone (cast AND participants) : we didn’t want to have a frontal story with pieces of interaction but really a sandbox for everyone.

     

    Melanie Dorey That determined the party format before anything else.

     

    Anon17: Thank you so much, it was super-interesting!! 2 Questions: Was there a mechanism to step interaction up or down during runtime? Did you use safe-words or tap out to signal something is too much?

     

    Michael Gyr Good question, thanks! Besides training with the actors (which was not enough, considering errors have been made), there were three levels of “human safety nets” for audience participants. All were on the production side.

    The opener was the person to go to if you needed something during the show (they wandered around and checked up with people, in character), the bar was the place you go if there was any kind of problem or behaviour to report, and there was a saf(er), more quiet place where we would check up on the audience, or bring them if needed.

     

    Anon18: What info did participants get beforehand? Did they get a 30 second rules brief at the door or a document with the ticket or website?

     

    Michael Gyr Hi! By mail they got information on what was expected of them in terms of dressing up and more importantly, a quite short and explicit “accepted behaviour”. Thomas pointed out it looked inspired by SK/KP, which it was. There we mentioned, among other things, that racist or sexist historical (or not) talk will not be accepted by audience participants, with examples.

     

    Michael Gyr The onboarding was quite thought of and showed the rules of interaction for the evening, to make the audience participant understand they can role play, talk to us, laugh with us and so on. The process could be another 30mn talk.

     

    Anon18: Did you bring them in in groups you briefed or a short one-by-one thing?

     

    Michael Gyr Haha as I said, a whole new talk. The briefing was short and simple, with a very small group (4-5 people). It was more of an in-character scene including practicalities, setting the tone and announcing the ending (like Thomas said about opening and closing the “magic circle”, the blurry boundaries of play).

     

    Thomas Be Also, importantly the emails were sent well in advance, so you had time to prep, as opposed to most other immersive experiences that really send info last minute. I’m all for last-minute reminders, but the ground rules should be laid early on, a bit how we do in larps with design documents etc.

     

    Anon18: What made you decide on theme? Location or story or something else?

    I see both negative and positive aspects of the 20’s aesthetic as it has been done (at least in Sweden) as Great Gatsby parties that seem very directed to a non-interactive crowd.

     

    Melanie Dorey A few things made us decide on the theme :

    – We always create site-specific work, and we were inspired by this particular historical location.

    – We used on purpose the 20’s aesthetic to go in the opposite direction that is generally portrayed in “Gatsby parties”, and therefore to write about : femininity, masculinity, post-war trauma, abusive relationships, closeted queerness… All these themes portrayed by the characters we chose.

    – This “twist” (in the expectations) was something we wanted for participants experience, even though we did a lot of disclaimers about themes addressed in the experience.

    – We didn’t notice any negative effects coming from the audience because the party format and the types of interaction were giving the choices to everyone of how they wanted to live the experience. So you could have a nice themed party with your friends or chose to dive in the heart of the story and influence it.

    – Globally, we thinks that the Roaring Twenties are such an interesting period to write about because it can be layered so much in writing and is reflective in many ways of the times we live today.

     

    Thomas Be Also stuff I had to cut down due to time: check out the binaural-audio-in-the-dark work of Darkfield http://www.darkfield.org/ , I attended “Play” in Edinburgh and “Flight” in Melbourne and both are super interesting. No agency, but amazing audio/installation work.

     

    Thomas Be For another “glorified treasure hunt in a cool location”, check out Inside Opéra, in Paris’ Opéra Garnier: https://www.inside-infos.fr/opera/en/index.php

     

    Thomas Be And for another immersive theatre play, this time set in a fictitious Parisian brothel with various design issues (pay to play, favouring the loud, and super uncomfortable masks) check out Close: https://www.bigdrama.fr/

     

    Thomas Be For an immersive theatre version of Hamlet, clearly inspired by Sleep No More but with Shakespearean text (in French) instead of dancing, check out out Helsingor: https://chateauhamlet.jimdofree.com/

     

    Thomas Be And thanks to Le Musée du Fake for the reminder, other things I cut out due to time: if you’re wondering about what an immersive poetry event could look like, check your local Poetry Brothel, or Le Bordel de la Poésie in Paris, by L’assaut des poètes: https://www.lassautdespoetes.com/

     

    Anon19: I like this slider. Do/did you have in France what’s sometimes called “environmental theatre”? It’s perhaps a cousin of what is now usually described as “immersive”, and started in the 1960s with a movement to consciously minimise the role between actor and audience. In the 90s “environmental theatre” also sometimes referred to theatre where you as the audience walked around the space, like shows where you go from room to room to see different scenes and put it all together.

    I’m just wondering because I suspect this slider has even more words between these ones.

    Oh heck I just realised this is a talk that should be done.

     

    Michael Gyr A talk that should be done, yes! Anna & I put together a spreadsheet to gather examples (but that can be improved)

     

    Thomas Be There’s a lot of other types of participatory thingies “proper theatre” from theatre of the oppressed to I-cant-remember, no idea how much was done in France. I know a French larper who wrote a paper about it long time ago

     

    Thomas Be the article (unpublished so far I think) by is by Saetta Des CanonsdelaButte (not part of group), a larper and proper academic, about theatre of the oppressed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augusto_Boal , we actually have one in Paris: http://www.theatredelopprime.com/


    This was part of the Solmukohta 2020 online program. https://solmukohta.eu/

  • Solmukohta 2020: Chris Bergstresser – Peacock – a Global Larp Clearinghouse

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    Solmukohta 2020: Chris Bergstresser – Peacock – a Global Larp Clearinghouse

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    Getting information about larps in the hands of players is an ongoing struggle for organizers. And finding out what larps are being run is equally challenging for players. I have a proposal — and a prototype — for a larp clearinghouse named Peacock. It includes standards for larp data and a website to share that information. This talk will show the basic features of the system, along with the design decisions, to be followed by a discussion about the remaining steps to reach a public beta.

    Q&A from the original viewing at Solmukohta 2020 Online event

    Anonymous 1: I suppose you just need a system like the escape rooms or the delievery-fooderies have (BOX, Escapeall, E-food, Walt, etc), with a small % if you get your players from there.

    Problem is, do you want your larp to exist in a platform with another 100/200/500 “competitive” larps?

     

    Anonymous 2: I would like is one very useful feature for producers and designers: A call for last minute participants, when there is people jumping off – with info on if it is paid for or not etc. And participants could have profiles where they list if they are “a last minute player”. This feature would maybe make larps wanna be on the site.

     

    Anonymous 3: Are there many other services that work like this?

    Chris Bergstresser: Federated services are fairly common in computing.

    Anonymous 3: Uhm, I am not aware of any public service like this one. Everything I’ve used or seen requires logging into the central interface to modify data. This rocks.

     

    Anonymous 4: Ah, automatic currency conversion, that’s convenient (and prevents using free-form text fields for prices, but I see that multiple prices are allowed). One suggestion though: Annotate prices with a description (e.g. “Player”, “NPC”, etc.) to make it a bit clearer?

    Chris Bergstresser: Great ideas, but it’s part of the complexity of offering more than one price. The more complicated, the harder to understand. Fairly simple technical problem, somewhat less so UI/UX problem.

     

    Anonymous 5: Looks really useful! One suggestion is to have the Location on the filter show the country instead of the address

     

    Anonymous 6: What’s your code sharing model? Will this be a GitHub thing?

    Chris Bergstresser It’s on GitHub. I’m willing to open source it, but we need to think through licensing.

    Chris Bergstresser I’m more concerned the API is well-documented, so it can be replicated by others without needing the code.

     

    Anonymous 7: Chris Bergstresser I am not sure how much and in which way I can contribute, but this looks interesting. How should I contact you to get involved?

    Chris Bergstresser Chat on Facebook is probably easiest to get started.

     

    Anonymous 8: I also have some ideas and feedback already based on the talk and the documentation online, what would be the best place for that? Here in the comments allows others to react, but it is easy to lose it, of course.

    Chris Bergstresser I’ve created this Google Form to sign up to contribute: https://forms.gle/AB1sMG1XWAaMQmPZ8

    For feedback, I think here is an okay place to start the discussion. Better to start than wait for the right place, I’ve found.

     

    Chris Bergstresser I created a Google form to sign up if you’re interested in contributing: https://forms.gle/AB1sMG1XWAaMQmPZ8

     

    Sindre Punsvik Thank you! Sounds very interesting, in particular as an UX designer. Not sure if I will have capacity to help more than bouncing ideas

     

    Anonymous 9: I saw the idea is to put YAML in `<script>` tags in webpages. I’m all for YAML, but I’m not sure a `<script>` tag is the right place. Doesn’t HTML have something more semantically applicable for this?

    Also, it is nice to just put it into an event website (probably easy enough for novice webmasters too), but at first glance that would mean that each event must be registered in the system separately. It would be interesting to have just a single URL to be polled for an organization that can list all events (though I guess the current design could actually do that).

    ALso, isn’t there some kind of existing annotation system (RDF springs into my mind) from the “semantic web” corner that could be used as a base for annotations?

    Chris Bergstresser: The initial idea would be to register a root domain, and spider all the pages to gather all the larps for a given organization. That’s a little complicated, though, which is why it’s not in the initial prototype.

    As for a better HTML container for this data, I’m not aware of one. <script> tags have the advantage there’s all sorts of special coding around them (since they have to be able to handle Javascript, which contains < and & characters) so they’re safe in all browsers for embedding the information.

    I stole the idea from Mustache, which does things like:

    <script id="template" type="x-tmpl-mustache">
    
    Hello {{ name }}!
    
    </script>

    Anonymous 9: Spidering could indeed work, but does make things more complicated maybe. Thinking from our own organisation, we have a single registration system (which is *almost* ready) that knows about all our events and could easily export all needed into on a single URL. I guess both single-URL and spidering approaches could co-exist, of course.

    As for the script tags, I’m slightly worried that browsers will try to execute javascript as a fallback if they do not know the type (not sure if that happens in practice, maybe only with ancient browsers) and that all kinds of systems might end up stripping script tags.

    OTOH, I guess that stripping script tags can be a feature: If someone can publish script tags on a domain, they will have some authority on this domain (e.g. you will not be able to fake event data using a comment on a website since script tags will usually be stripped). Another approach could be to only look at the <head> tags and not the <body>, but that could complicate publishing data in typicaly CMS’s mayb e.

    Anonymous 9: The proposed YAML format does not list a format version number, which is probably good to add to facilitate format changes in the future (and think a bit on how that would work as well).

    Chris Bergstresser: There is one coded, but if it’s missing we assume it’s version “1”. I’m hoping most changes can be accomodated in a backwards-compatible fashion, but we’re safe if it can’t be.

    Anonymous 9: In my experience, requiring (or at least encouraging) an explicit version number is always a good idea, since it leaves less room for interpretation. But indeed, a default of 1 could work as well.

    Anonymous 9: One thing to think about is how to *remove* an event from the list. Removing it from the original webpage could work, but that means that normally events should be listed there indefinitely (which might not happen in practice as people clean up their websites or websites go offline, without any intention of being removed from the archive).

    Chris Bergstresser: We need to think through how events age through the system. If events disappear before they happen we assume they were canceled (you took down the web page before it happened, must not be happening) but after that point I think we assume they ran.

    But there’s weirdness there. What if people reuse the id? Do we allow people to remove events after the fact? What if people say they attended a canceled larp?

    Anonymous 9: I also think that the list of URLs to scrape metadata from might be one of the biggest assets in this system and might need to be separately managed and published (e.g. a github repo with URL lists per country maybe?). Making this list separate makes i…See

    Chris Bergstresser: One of the eventual things should be a way for federated systems to share routes to poll with each other, so you can register a route with any given aggregator and they’ll all learn about it. Seems overkill at this point in the design.

    Google avoids the problem by just indexing every web page in the universe. Which must be nice.

    Anonymous 9: Using Google to find these tags could be nice (maybe require including some unique string in the metadata), but that also opens up a lot of possibilities of dataset poisoning because it removes the step of explicitly adding routes to the dataset and thus also the implicit review process in that.

    Chris Bergstresser: Oh, I wasn’t suggesting using Google to find them. Just that, if we were Google, this problem is solved through brute force.

    Anonymous 9: I know, but your comment made me realize that Google *could* be used to find them, which is interesting in itself.

     

    Anonymous 10: Is there a status field? For signup open, cloSed, waitlist, in design

    Chris Bergstresser: Yes. By default it’s “active” which is why it’s left off many of the examples.


    This was part of the Solmukohta 2020 online program. https://solmukohta.eu/

  • Solmukohta 2020: 500 Magic Schools for Children and Youth

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    Solmukohta 2020: 500 Magic Schools for Children and Youth

    Written by

    Josefin Westborg, Anders Berned, Kol Ford, Mike Pohjola

    This programme item brings together the NGOs, companies and other entities that run magic schools for kids and youth. Each organisation will be presented with a focus on what they have in common, what they do differently and why, and how they can inspire each other. The aim is to create knowledge exchange and inspire others to start up magic schools. One goal in the programme is to agree on when we would like to have 500 magic schools for kids in Europe (and how to get the funds to start it up).

    Q&A from the original viewing at Solmukohta 2020 Online event

    Anon 1: I love the idea to create your own IP for the magic school based on the local culture, folk tales and myths. I’d love to know more about the Finnish magic school.

     

    Anon 2: Agree! I run an ‘edularp’ for 4 Hungarian students weekly which is set in the HP universe and it uses the Hungarian Pálos rend (Order of Saint Paul the First Hermit) as a background

     

    Anders Gredal Berner Anon 2: Sound awesome! What age group is the students?

     

    Anon 2: 11-12yo. One of them already had tabletop RPG experience .

     

    Mike Pohjola We’ve used local customs and beliefs when applicable. Like using an Easter tradition to create monsters (trulli) and a way to defeat them (Easter whips) for a larp played in Easter.

    The school Houses are loosely inspired by different parts of heritage of this area, but that’s not something we’ve explained to the kids yet. Mostly they’re based on different personality traits.

    Then many of the words we’ve created based on really old Finnish words, like marto (=dead) for a non-wizard. (Just to be different than Potterverse.)

     

    Anon 4: Would be interesting to do a magic school intirely based on folklore

     

    Anon 5: In magic school you can play out your wildest fantasy of going to school where the classes aren’t boring

     

    Anon 6: I just listened to some of the interviews from last autumn about Finnish Velhokoulu, and some of the kids love stealing candy while invisible and teasing the teachers, so basically making things happen with “magic” in a very simple way

     

    Anon 7: I would love to throw on (I work in a non profit association as game facilitator and children educator) but truly I don’t know where to begin. I have children from 6 to 15

     

    Anders Gredal Berner Anon 7: Sound awesome. We had a long discussion after the recording, also touching on how to help others to starting up. Im sure the rest of the panel is also up for helping -And your very welcome to get our materiales, guides ect.

     

    Anon 7: I would love that if it’s ok with you. :O

    :

    Anon 3: Anders I would like that very much.

     

    Anon 6: And kids love adults reacting to the magic the students perform

     

    Anon 2: Do you think its ‘just’ the power of empowerment or is there something else in it?

     

    Anon 6: I think it’s both: it’s also immersion, and having adults play with them in this imaginary world that to some feels very real and they keep playing their characters even at home with friends and family

     

    Anon 2: They keep playing at home? THAT sounds interesting!

     

    Mike Pohjola Essentially we teach them new children’s games. Like if you put your hands like this you’re invisible. Or this is a new version of catch-me-if-you-can that is the magical effect of the monster.

     

    Anon 6: Velhokoulu.fi is the Finnish website, it’s all in Finnish at the moment but you can find a description and pictures of our houses there. Also video links and Instagram was recently added

     

    Anon 5: magic schools have no homework

     

    Anon 8: A side note, Josefin’s outfit is a blast <3

     

    Anon 9: also yay for gender-neutral terms!

     

    Anon 6: In general I like to use the work “taikoja” so a “magic user”, since I feel velho is more a boy term still but that’s mainly because in the books Harry Potter is a velho/wizard and Hermione is a noita/witch.

     

    Mike Pohjola Yeah, that’s an Anglicism. In Finnish tradition they’re both gender neutral.

     

    Anon 10: The adults keeps the world more real for the children, being a part of the immersion and magic. It’s easier for the children to be a part and take a part of the game as their characters when the adults encourages them in their characters. The younger the player, the more important it is.

     

    Anon 7: It’s cool that things happen in the magic world. Like it’s not just a background and can be played anywhere

     

    Anon 6: We have 40min class then 20min break where they can invade the teachers’ lounge, talk to creatures and explore.

     

    Anon 6: Classes usually have handcrafts or taming magical creatures or spell tag

     

    Anon 10: Not sure if I missed this, but (about) how many players you have in one game? Since we have about 50players a game in Velhokoulu.

     

    Anon 6: Good question!

     

    Anders Gredal Berner Our magic school is up to 50 participant + teachers, helpers, monsters.

     

    Josefin Westborg In the library larp we have they meet famous children story characters from books that they need to help. One of them are Loki the Norse god. Last time we had a child that asked who I was when I showed up as Loki. I didn’t answer but mumbled something about that I needed to get back at my brother Thor. Then he looked at me and got wide eyes and said: Oh, no. I know who you are. You are Loki! I’m not gonna help you, I’m on your brothers side”. And then he walked away.

     

    Anon 6: I like this test idea :OOO we could have that too in Ropecon etc!

     

    Mike Pohjola Totally stealing it! 😀

     

    Anon 5: does anyone ever fail anything in schools of magic?

     

    Anon 6: If I understood correctly, I’d say the characters are not perfect in what they do, so the teacher will assist them during class and they will get better during the class

     

    Anders Gredal Berner Anon 5: Yes 🙂 both on a personal level and plotlines – you can fail at our magic schools. But its a kids activities for 8 to 13 years and with a visions about producing better humans – so there is somethimes the PC takes over 😉

     

    Anon 11: I remember a kid from my latest Velhokoulu who had a character who failed all the spells they tried until the end when they finally suceeded, they seemed to enjoy it a great deal

     

    Mike Pohjola The most common failure is being too shy to participate or scared of our monster. Then we try to help them overcome this.

    But of course they can also fail in, for example, translating ancient runes into modern alphabet.

     

    Josefin Westborg Anon 10:: In the shortest little drop in larp we can run it with just 1 player but max 12. For the libraries, we have 1-16 and for the school one we take around 30. We have made a special version where we do it as a pleasure larp and not an edularp and then we can have up to 40 players.

     

    Anon 6: We raised the prices since our expenses have risen, storage and book keeper have come into the picture. Also the locations are tricky to find within a reasonable price range as we need to run two games in one weekend for it to be financially smarter.

     

    Anon 12: Hope you get City funding Mike. The entrance fee is a lot of money for many people. Not for what they get (a long, wonderful experience) but as a sum. The threshold for many people for applying for free admittance is high I think. Hope you reach that group of people, too. Perhaps channels/contacts with for example some children’s organisations might help in this?

    Velhokoulu’s rock! <3

     

    Anon 6: I’m envious of your cheap prices as I fear we’ll be unreachable for some players soon, even if we have the “discount ticket” of 10€ available as we can’t give it to everyone (so far we have managed to take everyone in who needs the discount ticket though)

     

    Anon 2: Thats interesting because only 1 of my students from 4 wanted to have wizard parents!

     

    Anon 2: I think you have a larger sample size, Josefin. I have to ask my students why do they like muggle parents 🙂

     

    Josefin Westborg This is mainly in the school larps. It’s not as much with the slightly older students when we do it for leisure. The school larps are mandatory for the students. So that might be part of it. That the kids who come to magic school larps out of free will have another relation to it.

     

    Anon 6: Our kids have an option to be part creature too. So far we’ve had one half-dragon, one son of Zeus (allegedly, he had no proof) and one half-Pigglet.

     

    Mike Pohjola Oh yeah, I forgot to mention this! We added this option because so many wanted to be NPCs since then they could be magical creatures. But we didn’t want random 8-year olds as NPCs. 😀

     

    Anon 6: We started a YouTube channel, we’re hoping to create content there that will amuse our players and will hopefully reach new players too.

     

    Anon 3: Mike, is it possible to pool resources somehow?

     

    Mike Pohjola I’m sure it would be!

     

    Mike Pohjola I mean, yes! That’s one of the points of having this talk. In physical Solmukohta we would have had a bigger gathering after it.

     

    Anon 6: I feel that after this presentation I’m actually feeling the real disappointment of not being able to see you all and discuss face to face :((((

     

    Anon 6: Oh well, next time then!

     

    Anders Gredal Berner We are creating a network of magic schools – both to inspire each others and especial to help others to start up their own magic schools for kids and youth.

    Why to start a magic school for kids:

    – Give the kids a good xp and change the world one step at the time

    – Create stabel income for your larp NGO

    – Create jobs for young larpers as instructors and larp runners

    You can contact us at Orker@rollespilsfabrikken.dk or you can write here at FB :).

    All Love

    Anders Berner

    Project Coordinator

    Rollespilsfabrikken

    +4550573390


    This was part of the Solmukohta 2020 online program. https://solmukohta.eu/

  • Solmukohta 2020: Lindsay Wolgel – Larp/Theatre Crossover in NYC

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    Solmukohta 2020: Lindsay Wolgel – Larp/Theatre Crossover in NYC

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    This is a talk about the larp/theatre crossover work currently emerging in NYC, based on the projects Lindsay has been a part of in the past year as a professional actor in New York. Productions include Sinking Ship Creations’ Off-Off Broadway show The Mortality Machine, Calculations by Caroline Murphy of Incantrix Productions, OASIS Travel Agency (an immersive theatre/nightlife/alternate reality game blend with participatory elements by Silver Dream Factory) and more! Discussion includes the experience of being a hired facilitator/actor in these pieces as well as the trend of commercial “immersive experiences” in NYC.

    www.TheMortalityMachine.com

    Q&A from the original viewing at Solmukohta 2020 Online event

    Q, Anon1: My question on all participatory theater is: How much agency do you think counts as agency? I’ve only been to something like three pieces, and none of them gave me any. (Sleep No More gave me the least.)

    A, Lindsay Wolgel: So I wouldn’t consider Sleep No More participatory theatre! I would only call that Immersive theatre, but I agree, I felt the same way when I saw it!

    Anon2: I think that’s evolving in a lot of different ways – some companies like PunchDrunk have their own audience literacy, but at the same time it’s no longer the only participatory company out there

    Anon3: I would say punchdrunk is mostly interactive, while our pieces are more participative 🙂

    Anon1: Whats… the difference, Anon3?

    Lindsay Wolgel: In sleep no more, your choices don’t affect the show at all!

    Anon4: And not even all that interactive honestly, at least based on Sleep no More and the Drowned Man

    Anon5: Be Agreed, in SNM you move the camera and sometimes get easter egg, but you don’t create or influence anything

    Anon6: The Camera Anon5 is talking is about – its to my understanding what the broader fin art scene – see as interaction and interactive art

     

    Lindsay Wolgel: Reacting would be living in the given circumstances of your character – aka acting! Yes anding is more of an improv term- where you accept a piece of story someone is offering and you say okay and build on it!

    Anon9: Yeah, if I remember, reacting is where you as the actor are able to behave as though this is happening for the first time, because you are attentive to the other actors around you, and the circumstances of the play. It’s a way to get actors to get out of the habit of pre-planning all of their feelings and how they will say things, to try to be reactive in the moment even though you know what the text is. Otherwise you’re just painting by numbers.

    Yes and is more of a tool to prevent people from shutting down ideas, so instead of saying no, I don’t want to, you say yes, and I will add THIS to make it mine, too.

    Ryan Hart: Anon9 really did a good job with it.

    I don’t remember if Lindsay got into it, but when we talked for this piece, I mentioned we really go for a presentational style of acting and roleplay, as I think it’s very accessible to our audience. Which means we want people going through “as if” they were in that situation (usually with an “alibi” in the form of a character) and reacting as they would using their lifetime of experience.

    What *I* (not speaking for anyone else here) is that people have to come in and co-create. These experiences are expensive, and run pretty quick, and need to accommodate all experience levels, so I don’t want people to get in there have to make up a story or context. They still have agency in how they deal with the situation, and they still have to take advantage of the opportunity to enjoy the experience, but I don’t want someone to come in and have to do the beginning of an improv class to enjoy the experience.

    “Yes, and…” is a great technique, but there’s more to improv, and this particular technique tends to get heavy into content creation. We also lose sight of it’s purpose (again, as Anon9 pointed out) which is to get past the “no” response.

    All of this ties into the difference between a facilitator and a participant.

    Lindsay Wolgel: Ryan Hart I didn’t – I ran out of time to go into everything, so that was a piece that didn’t make it in! I love this extended response

    Ryan Hart: So, i’m going to speak for how I use the terms, and I use them very specifically. It’s not like this carries any weight

    First, I don’t use the term “player” in theatrical larp. I use the verb “to play” because a “player” can “play” a game, and an “actor” can “play” a role, but a player doesn’t really play a role and an actor doesn’t really play a game. This isn’t a statement about larp, it’s about how I, as a native English speaker, construct those sentences. “Player” implies “Game.” For a variety of reasons (focused mostly on win/lose) conditions, I don’t use the term player, I use the term “participant.” So if a person is playing in the larp, they’re a participant.

    *SOME* participants are paid to be there, and involved in the design. They’re still playing a role, but they have to bring the design to the participants on whom the experience is focused. If some is a facilitator, they’re there exclusively for other people. I hope they have a good time, and I’m obligated to treat them well, but I’m not asking them “how did you like it.” I call those individuals “facilitators.”

    From a design perspective, there’s two big things:

    1. Not all participants are facilitators, but all facilitators are participants. So things like safety, code of conduct, and character design (see below) all apply to the facilitators.
    2. Specific beats general. Certain things apply directly to facilitators that don’t apply directly to participants. So the design has to be parsed out with that in mind.

    When you have that split: a group of people who are all playing characters, and some of those people are professionals who are there to express the design to the others, the facilitator / participant terminology works very well.

    Ryan Hart: With all that said, we don’t have NPCs… because we don’t have “Non-Participants.” An NPC refers to a character, and all our character design has to be fundamentally similar… we can alter the method of delivery (a facilitator does not need the same materials as other participants) but the character played by a facilitator should be indistinguishable in interaction from other participants (this is part of our 360 design). For example, for Scapegoat, a 4 day, 120 participant larp that happened all over NYC, about 20 of those participants were facilitators, and with two exceptions, none of them changed characters.

    So we don’t have “PCs” or “NPCs” in this design, we just have “characters.” The people who play them are participants, and some facilitators.

    Anon10: It sounds like facilitator covers more or less the original intent of an NPC, i.e. a character in place to influence the experience of the non-facilitating participants, but that the updated nomenclature is more descriptive of the current situation.

    Anon11: With a non-larper audience it’s really important how you name things for the participants, too. They take what they’re called and run with it, not having that much information to build on. So it’s a big difference if you call them players/participants/audience/characters/initiates/whatever. Usually – don’t let them know what you’re calling them behind the scenes!

    Ryan Hart: Anon11 That’s exactly why we stopped using the term player.

    We also had to, after our first review, explicitly tell people “this is not an escape room.”

    Tommy Honton did a great design on TMM, and did exactly what we asked, but if I could make one change it would have been to remove the biggest “puzzle.” We were worried people wouldn’t have enough to do, and so we literally locked up elements of the narrative, and then prominently placed those locks in front of people. They always got the locks open, and generally loved the way they accessed the narrative, but it did put some people into problem solving mode.

    Q, Anon12: But Lindsay Wolgel wasn’t the 1 on 2 expereince much less taxing? In my exp the 1 on 1 mean I’m included in everything, there’s no breaks.

    Lindsay Wolgel: I couldn’t say! I’ve never done a 1 on 1 larp experience! It was hard in some ways to split my attention between the two participants but there were definitely times where they would be dealing with each other more than me. Two groups actually asked me to give them some privacy while they sussed out what to do 😅

    Ryan Hart: I think the 1 on 2 is less taxing, except if one of the 2 is a child. Then it’s my personal version of hell.

    It also depends on the phase. Something we’ve gotten really good at is onboarding in role (it’s why I want to take the smaller version of TMM to KP). It’s very hard, when you have a list of bullets in your head you have to hit, in order, with specific phrases, to manage that and a three or four way conversation. It’s much easier to onboard 1 person.

    The conflict management and resolution? Easier with multiple people, because if you get a “fish” (a person who just isn’t doing anything, just flopping around) you have other people to play off of. Plus if you get someone who gets the design, it’s really pleasureable.

    I actually instruct facilitators to avoid talking to one person for more than five minutes without a “reason.” That’s because actors love people who give them good responses, and if left to their own devices, facilitators will gravitate towards strong roleplayers and have amazing scenes. But I’m not paying for them to give amazing scenes to experienced people who can probably get there on their own… I need them to work with the entire group.

     

    Q, Anon13: Hey, thanks again for this. I watched it again with better concentration. In the title you speak of “Larp/Theatre crossovers.”

    Content-wise, these seem like 100% larps to me. Would that be correct?

    (I understand that for marketing you might says they are “Participatory Theatre” or “Immersive Theatre” or something.)

    Anon14: From what I’ve gathered, it’s rather low on roleplay component.

    Lindsay Wolgel: Yes! Calculations was written as a larp where the only thing changed when it became a commercial theatre experience was the addition of one audience member and it being set in a hotel room. The content of the larp is exactly the same! And The Mortality Machine belongs in the genre which Ryan is naming Theatre Larp! So yes, I think participatory theatre is just a naming device that can place these in the theatre world. And to me, they are so much more than immersive theatre so I would never name them immersive theatre alone.. I’d probably add more descriptives to the title!


    This was part of the Solmukohta 2020 online program. https://solmukohta.eu/

  • Solmukohta 2020: Eleanor Saitta, Johanna Koljonen, Martin Nielsen – Maps, Loops, and Larps

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    Solmukohta 2020: Eleanor Saitta, Johanna Koljonen, Martin Nielsen – Maps, Loops, and Larps

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    Have you ever thought about what you actually do when you larp? How you understand the game around you and decide what to do next? Have you thought about that awkward period at the start of a game where nothing connects yet? In this talk, Johanna, Martin, and Eleanor will try to make sense of the way we manage information and make decisions during play.

    Slides: Maps, Loops, and Larps

    Q&A from the original viewing at Solmukohta 2020 Online event

    Anon 1: I love it that some people joined hearing Joc just ask random questions: “Where am I? Am I hungry?”

     

    Anon 2: Very important questions.

     

    Johanna Koljonen Essential to larp! 😀

     

    Anon 3: The map is not the territory 🙂

     

    Anon 4: That’s basically the OODA loop, right?

     

    Johanna Koljonen Anon 4: yes, exactly

     

    Eleanor Saitta Yes.

     

    Anon 4: Cool!

     

    Eleanor Saitta Like most OODA-loop versions applied to practice, we tweak ours for the task at hand

     

    Anon 5: If you don’t know much about OODA loop, yes. If you know a lot, then no. 🙂

     

    Anon 6: as a cognitive neuroscientist, I’m very happy with the concepts of map and loop <3

     

    Anon 7: Enjoying this a lot so far.

     

    Eleanor Saitta Infinite love to Anon 8: for doing a huge amount of work editing this video for us. <3

     

    Anon 8: Part of the hyper-realistic SK experience of panic-finishing a talk an hour before it goes live <3

     

    Anon 1: I think Anon 9: might know what you’re talking about.

     

    Anon 9: Hey, I’m now rendering the final version, 1min50sec to go, and then uploading, still 56 minutes of ample time left! 😀

     

    Anon 1: What could possibly go wrong?

     

    Anon 10: Yes, Im just playing w changing the word larp to life? so curious of it there are differences

     

    Johanna Koljonen not very much difference, if I remember my cognitive semiotics classes correctly 🙂

     

    Johanna Koljonen But the fact that these are temporary and categorized as fictional is a big difference of course!

     

    Anon 10: i use the kind of similar concept to describe some art experiences, and then the differences are about framing or just what you pay notice to. larping as a way of paying attention to life Johanna Koljonen

     

    Johanna Koljonen Yes! Of course this has the difference that the art form typically relies on our building equifinal maps, since we’re also co-creators.

     

    Anon 10: Johanna Koljonen what do you mean by equifinal maps? do it together?

     

    Anon 5: Equifinal = leading to equal (indistinguishable) outcomes.

     

    Johanna Koljonen Sorry I forgot I cut it from the talk! Equifinal maps are close enough that the differences don’t matter in practice

     

    Anon 10: So the art form relies on the players ability to build maps thy can be shared, and make actions, makes it different from other art forms.

     

    Anon 11: Okay, this is excellent. Thank you for giving me words for what I think, again <3

     

    Anon 12: Finally some larp theory that me the geographer feel a bit “in” on. 😛

     

    Anon 13: I’m so glad i’m watching this <3

     

    Anon 14: This is so cool! As a psychology student currently studying cognitition, this is so relevant to my interests.

     

    Eleanor Saitta There’s an 8400 word version of it coming your way soon, if you want it in much, much, much more detail 🙂

     

    Anon 15: I’m autistic, and thinking about how that influences how my map is (re)created.

     

    Anon 2: Oooooh, now I understand heuristics!

     

    Johanna Koljonen I am so relieved that you recognize your play in this! 😂 Otherwise we would have worked so many hours for nothing.

     

    Anon 16: I’m really looking forward to the article in the book to learn more about this 🙂

     

    Johanna Koljonen Looking forward to talking about it and your challenging it too! 😀

     

    Anon 17: might be language differences, but the ‘you’ format in most of this makes me not as good at listening to the content 😮

     

    Eleanor Saitta It’s because in the book, we address “you” as a player throughout; we kept the same framing here without even really thinking about it

     

    Anon 17: ok. Sitting alone at home at watching this, i think the effekt is probably different then when ill read it

     

    Anon 18: If you kill another player, co-players will perceive you stepping outside of the fiction. 😀

     

    Anon 19: Important point about affordances there

     

    Anon 5: One thing I hope we’ll have a LOT of conversation afterwards is this:

    Htf is it so hard to make a map out of a larp before you are on-site, compared to how easy it is during the first 10 minutes of the larp.

    That gap is a source of 95% of my stress prior to larp. I don’t know how this is going to work. But ten minutes into it, it all always clicks together (although not necessarily in a way I’d like.)

     

    Johanna Koljonen So true

     

    Anon 17: percieved reality versus reality?

     

    Eleanor Saitta So we didn’t write the design paper about this, but I think we haven’t been designing for map warmups

     

    Eleanor Saitta or for pre-game map sketching

     

    Eleanor Saitta I don’t know that we can totally fix it, but

     

    Anon 20: Sometimes it feels like the map gets a major revision 10 minutes after the larp ends.

    Let’s go again, now I know how to do this!

     

    Anon 13: Remind me to get back, I have ideas I can’t articulate now

     

    Anon 5: When you enter a space, physically, you immediately figure out most of its constraints and affordances.

    When an organiser says “characters will live in a camp”, you still have NO IDEA of anything.

     

    Anon 17: NAME i would love to – at some point- dive into what things you (and others) persieve as the important information needed before the larp. My guess is that there is something in how many ppl prep that gives them a somewhat useless luggage to bring

     

    Anon 21: Designing for this could both be 1) giving the players a better picture of the map before the larp (but we are already trying to do that and it’s difficult, and besides some of the on-site larp that will happen is as as much a mystery to the organisers as the players before the larp) and 2) designing time/space to do this mapping after the larp has started and you have some real observations to do the mapping from.

     

    Anon 5: I suspect most larp organisers (51%+) don’t understand their own maps before they start physically building on-site.

    If even then.

    Also note: Map is also temporal. So issues of space and affordance is not all there is to it; also “what should I be expect to be doing 11pm Friday night”.

     

    Anon 21: Anon 5:. During runtime of House of Craving I thought about this more than I have previously when running larps. Very significant parts of this larp is a mystery to me and it’s as much an exploration for me to try to map this as for the players.

     

    Anon 20: On the other end of that, a 100% accurate map would be immediately hacked.

    When I think of pregame frustrations they are often very basic: What will be doing when we are idle?

    How will this idea work when everyone has so many layers of clothes?

    Etc.

     

    Anon 7: Great work all, I’m going to have to watch this many times

     

    Anon 1: Thank you! Tactical loop and strategic loop… Do these terms come from some field of science? Or did you develop them specifically for this?

     

    Eleanor Saitta So, “strategic” as the top-level timescale, and “tactical” as a finer-grain time scale is a standard construction in military doctrine, which is also where the OODA loop comes from. Adding the “performative” loop as the finest timeframe, and the “act”, “scene”, and “phrase” as names for iterations of the loops are from larp/my head.

     

    Anon 1: Right!

    Cause I come from a fairly different background, and would have maybe used words like dramaturgical or structural. Depends on where you look at it from, I guess.

    To me those words sounded slightly gamist as in, you are trying to make the best choice strategically. (The explanations didn’t carry this stigma.)

     

    Anon 10: I read tactical and strategical more as in the moment vs making plans ahead

     

    Eleanor Saitta Sure — I guess in part because the loop model came from OODA, we took other bits of that language with us. But you can substitute “act-scale” for strategic, “scene-scale” for tactical, and “phrase-scale” for performative. Basically, each one is an increasingly short-term set of thoughts, where you also think about things more practically and in more detail.

     

    Anon 20: These words are also prevalent in company lingo, the tactical scale being about our immediate operations, running teams, etc, and the strategic being about larger business choices.

    I’m not a fan but it’s readily understandable from that vocabulary as well, which I am sure also comes from military doctrine.

     

    Anon 4: I’ve recently come across this quote from Gerald Abrahams, a chess player: “The tactician knows what to do when there is something to do; whereas the strategian knows what to do when there is nothing to do”.

    Which gives me the idea for the following distinction in larp: strategy is about deciding what goals you want to achieve, while tactics is about doing things to achieve these goals.

    Goals, in this case, can either be something like “take over the rival kingdom” in a political larp, or it can be things like “explore how I handle a painful breakup”.

    (Just a half-baked thought.)

     

    Anon 19: I now really really want the book.

     

    Anon 22: Thank you so much for this wonderful and thought provoking talk. I have so many questions, in the best possible way.

     

    Anon 23: My takeaway:

    In a competitive game, “In order to win, we should operate at a faster tempo or rhythm than our adversaries—or, better yet, get inside [the] adversary’s Observation-Orientation-Decision-Action time cycle or loop.” (Boyd)

    In a cooperative game, we need to make our loops accessible to other players on all levels, especially on the performative level.

     

    Johanna Koljonen interesting!

     

    Eleanor Saitta This is a super-useful comment, thank you.

     

    Anon 17: So where did this version of Affordance theory come from? Within my field of tool/human interaction the concept is more narrow.

     

    Eleanor Saitta It is late and I am probably not being entirely clear, but can you expand on the difference? Like, yes, I think we’re using it broadly, but not in a way which is outside the spirit of the meaning.

     

    Anon 17: To me there is a diffence between actions ‘ affordances are the actions you can do’ and affordances as something that happens in relation to something. To me, affordances is something _something_ has/is percieved to offer.

     

    Johanna Koljonen I can’t answer this late but e use affordance as a design term and I’m pretty sure design theory is where constraints comes from as well.

     

    Anon 17: no need to reply this late but it would be lovely to get it elaborated at some point

     

    Anon 20: I understand the use of affordance here to be the conventional use in interaction design, i.e. what does the environment (in this case the larp situation as a whole) offer that I perceive as possible.

    And likewise, constraints are then limitations on these affordances, for example game mechanics or social convention.

    I think constraint is used somewhat broadly here. In interaction design, constraints guide the user to useful actions. As I understand them used here they also provide outer bounds.

    In this way of laying it out, a constraint will always be a boundary (“do not go past the red building” tells you not to bother the neighbours) and will sometimes be a guide (“secrets may only be discussed in places where you are likely to be overheard” tells you that this is a larp where we spill our beans).

    Says Joc: “Affordances is what you can do and what are the costs and risks for you of doing that thing”

    I would nitpick that affordance is cost/risk-agnostic. If something is perceived possible, it is afforded.

    In these terms I see risk/cost as a factor in mapping affordance to agency, making them soft constraints.

    Agree? Disagree? Am I misunderstanding something?

     

    Anon 18: I’ve read the article this talk is based on and I seem to recall that the concept of affordable used there is compatible with Gibson’s formulation, although obviously, since this is dedign-adjecent, Norman is also an influence.

     

    Anon 17: Anon 18-> Super! Then it is just the quick use in the video that ended up being a bit off? 🙂 – I think the important part of the concept of affordance is that it is something that something has. Not the person experiencing it (or not if designissue) but the thing itself. That the perception of an affordance makes me able to take an action makes it easy to say that it is all about me, but that – as i know it- is not the point with the concept.

     

    Anon 18: Hm. My understanding is that affordance is a relationship between an object and an organism in a specific ecology. It varies depending the thing, the user, and the site.

     

    Anon 17: Anon 18- > Im happy with that definition 🙂

     

    Anon 24: I thought the use of “affordance” was a bit different from the way it’s normally used, but it was a useful stretch of the definition.

    There’s a very interesting question about what the “affordance of a LARP” is: that is, if we import the term “affordance” into LARP, what would that mean? The classic use of “affordance” applies to a tool like a hammer: it “affords its use”, because the design makes it clear that you pick it up using the handle and hit with the head. The idea of a LARP “affording its use” must be different, because it’s not a physical object, so the definition needs to stretch.

    (Just to be clear, I know that there has been work on “affordance” within LARP before, and I’m not forgetting that. I’m really just making the point that the definition of “affordance” needs to stretch if we bring it into LARP.)

     

    Anon 17: Anon 24: i think that stretching the term is…counter productive compared to importing it. Talking about a character texts persieved affordances would be a good investigation for example. The same goes for the setting and the physical setting of a larp

     

    Anon 24: Anon 17: I think that’s a fair argument: I often think that “affordance” is used in a way that stretches the term beyond usefulness. For me, I liked the way it was used in this video: that was a useful stretch for me. (Although maybe not for you!)


    This was part of the Solmukohta 2020 online program. https://solmukohta.eu/

  • Solmukohta 2020: Shearing Sheep and Holding Ballots – Community Building in a Post-Apocalyptic Campaign

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    Solmukohta 2020: Shearing Sheep and Holding Ballots – Community Building in a Post-Apocalyptic Campaign

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    Second Year (Toinen vuosi) was a 4-part larp campaign about building a community of survivors immediately following an apocalyptic pandemic. The larp focused on community building and practical aspects of survival – how a group of strangers coordinates their interests, how norms and institutions develop over time, and how consultants build a chicken coop. The presentation discusses pros and cons of this setting for a larp and what aspects should be given special attention in larp design.

    Mikko Heimola, Nino Hynninen, Jukka Seppänen

    [CW] pandemic

    Q&A from the original viewing at Solmukohta 2020 Online event

    Jukka Seppänen We had sheep, a goat and chickens.

     

    Jukka Seppänen We wanted the community to kinda be the main, shared character of all players.

     

    Anon 1: How fast would anyone be ready to run a campaign like this again because of the pandemic topic?

     

    Anon 2: I think there will probably be hoards of pandemia larps once the corona epidemic is over. People will use larps to process it.

     

    Anon 8: One constantly ESCAPING goat

     

    Mikko Heimola Well, pandemic and apocalypse has been a stable of literature, games, movies etc. for past few years, it will be interesting to see whether the current pandemic will boost or smother it

     

    Anon 9: I can’t imagine apocalypse as a theme will ever go completely away, but I guess it will change.

     

    Anon 7: I see a large potential for using the current crisis for larps both creatively and as a way to deal with it. For a long time most if not al post apocalypse larps will be heavily affected by the corona crisis, so i think it will affect it allot but not diminish it.

     

    Anon 5: I’m the one in the red t-shirt. This is one of the many many votes my character lost. 😀

     

    Anon 2: Many people don’t like playing situations that are common for them in real life, but close to home has its upsides, too! 😉 #vasemmistoliitto

     

    Anon 3: Anon 5:, sorry about that 😀

     

    Anon 6: I came on as an additional character from the second game onward and the feeling of an existing community with its own norms and social structures was very strong <3

     

    Anon 1: Realized I had never larped in a sauna before :O

     

    Anon 2: Did I hear correctly that two characters were shot during the game? Would like to hear more about that, like why and how it happened in-game.

     

    Anon 7: Same!

     

    Anon 1: GM Characters but it was unplanned and interesting.

     

    Anon 2: But why, what was the motivation and social process behind it (in the in-game community)?

     

    Anon 6: If I remember correctly, the characters wanted to leave the community in a way some people felt would endanger everyone.

     

    Jukka Seppänen Anon 2: That happened, unplanned, to two gm characters. That became a large element of the following games as their friends remained and mourned, demanding for justice, whatever it may be. Also not everyone agreed to that decision.

     

    Anon 4: The characters were apparently wanting to join the regional robbery gang and some felt they would betray or seriously endanger the community by doing so

     

    Jukka Seppänen Even more interestingly the players had somewhat clouded memories of the situation and who shot first etc. Highlighting stress reaction in a simulated threat.

     

    Anon 8: There were also big questions: did they mean what they said they were going to do? Was it a just a “running execution” as in who shot first? Who actually was present and who could comment on the situation?

     

    Anon 1: Super interesting experience and really happy how it turned out (I was one of three player characters at the groove when the shooting happened, more arrived at the aftermath). Could have felt like trivializing violence but this time it was taken seriously by all.

     

    Anon 1: This is the first photo of the aftermath. Photographer didn’t get there on time for the action https://www.flickr.com/…/in/album-72157697231608902/

     

    Anon 10: I think the post apocalypse genre became popular especially during the cold war, when a nuclear apocalypse was a very real possibility. Based on that, chances are the current situation will give the genre a boost

     

    Anon 3: Their death became one of the most important disagreements imho

     

    Anon 2: I’d love to hear more about the dynamics in this!

     

    Mikko Heimola The gm characters had announced their intention to leave the community with their resources and hinted they might join a pirate group. A group of players decided to stop them, and it turned violent.

     

    Anon 2: So they were more or less spontaneously killed? Like no communal decision or verdict about it?

     

    Anon 3: Things escalated quickly and there was no consensus

     

    Mikko Heimola That’s a prime example of players creating unexpected outcomes that create lots of play. I don’t think we would ever have planned such an event. It was in a sense a very dumb death for them.

     

    Mikko Heimola Which probably made it feel more genuine in the game. It was stupid. It just happened. You cannot rewind it.

     

    Anon 2: Sounds like super interesting content!

     

    Anon 3: That was me! Never chopped wood before.

     

    Anon 4: Same 😀

     

    Jukka Seppänen Key learning: consultants cant build chicken coops without help.

     

    Anon 4: And shearing sheep is hard work!

     

    Mikko Heimola Nino has escaped to the community site to make it ready for the rest of us, and cannot participate currently!

     

    Anon 2: Jukka is promoting team building exercises: shearing sheep & gardening!

     

    Anon 1: There were also “really useful” tasks, like building the watch tower xD

     

    Mikko Heimola Depends on sheep… in the next larp we had different sheep. They didn’t just stand and let you cut the wool 😛

     

    Anon 4: And the method we used for shearing the sheep in that game was way too meticulous! Later I (and lots of other players) watched heaps of sheep shearing videos, and a more relaxed shear would have been much faster and good enough 😀

     

    Anon 3: I was really stressed over not having covered carrot seeds carefully enough while planting (but they did sprout)

     

    Anon 6: With practical tasks, sometimes player skills and character skills can be at odds, when skillfull players play unskilled characters and cannot help the unskilled players without breaking immersion. Detailed instructions from the GMs help with this.

     

    Anon 2: What kind of instructions were there?

     

    Anon 1: I have deep dislike for skiing but did that anyway because the watch duty kinda expected it.

     

    Anon 2: Okay, so you meant detailed instructions on how to do the task! 😀

    I thought you were talking about some sort of mechanics on how to play more skilled than you are.

     

    Anon 6: Exactly, instructions on how to actually do the tasks.

     

    Anon 8: Slacking from tasks? Who would do that?

     

    Mikko Heimola This covers the other game I mentioned and also discusses ingame work, but onlyin Finnish: https://roolipeliloki.com/…/ennen-vedenpaisumusta-ei…/

     

    Jukka Seppänen All pics available here: https://www.flickr.com/…/albums/with/72157696573152925

     

    Jukka Seppänen Separated into four albums

     

    Jukka Seppänen Sheep shearing ingame: https://flic.kr/p/28Ue1Zn

     

    Anon 11: Thanks! I wanted to do something like that but set in the 7th century. Nice to see it might be feasible.


    This was part of the Solmukohta 2020 online program. https://solmukohta.eu/

  • Solmukohta 2020: Living or Larping Consumer Culture? Exploring the Commodification of Larp

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    Solmukohta 2020: Living or Larping Consumer Culture? Exploring the Commodification of Larp

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    In the recent years, we have witnessed a definitive growth of the larp community and a growth in recognition of larp in wider culture as a legitimised activity. As larp begins to be more present in society, the wider culture also penetrates the social structures of larp as a community and an activity, one of the central outcomes of which is the commodification of larp. In this talk, I discuss how larp is becoming commodified, what that means, and what the repercussions of this development are for specific events as well as the community at large.

    Usva Seregina

    Q&A from the original viewing at Solmukohta 2020 Online event

    Anon1 Can’t we also say that professionalization of larp practices makes it harder for new organizers to step in?

    Anon2 Probably very much this! Ironically probably lessening the available larps and making the ones acessible even more scares 😮

    Usva Seregina: yep, definitely agree with you on this

     

    Anon3 also socioeconomic class starts playing even a bigger role within professionalized

    Usva Seregina yes! exactly!! i talk about this a bit later :

     

    Anon4 It’s interesting how that does not affect at all TTRPG? Or does it? Being much more “intimate” people just dare to play whatever, or what is it?

    Anon5 I feel TTRPGs are commodified in different terms? the commodity is the physical product, the miniatures, the swag?

    Anon6 There are professional DMs in a TTRPG context. Fewer, though, because the profit structure is tough

    Usva Seregina: I’m not very familiar with TTRPG unfortunately, but I would agree with Sanna that there are potentially other ways it emerges?

     

    Anon3 I feel the Nordic NGO organizational culture, based on a lot of grassroots volunteer work, is a model of organizing that has traditionally resisted commodification with some success

     

    Anon3 Question: what models of engagement and organization do we have that are not based on consumption? Art, kinda maybe? Are there ways for larp to be legible and credible without being commodified?

     

    Anon7 Isn’t a lot of art (mainstream theatre, movies, books, etc) quite commodified?

     

    Anon5 Different kinds of community based practices that are mostly present in anarchist circles etc?

     

    Anon8 Art outside the “established art world”

    Usva Seregina: I have no direct answer to this, but my main aim was to ask this question 😀 For me, I think it is mainly in the form that we continue to be reflexive about how we do things, continue to include and engage people, and do not fall into normative consumption-based patterns.

     

    Anon9 I’m surprised not to have heard the word ” Disney” yet (unless i missed it) The new star wars attraction essentially is a commercial commoditized LARP.

     

    Anon10 Not just essentially, actually. We’ve seen Disney Imageneers on VP levels and up at Nordic events for years. And a bunch of us have worked or interacted with them in different ways. Sometimes, I now believe, rather naively,

    Usva Seregina: I steered away from examples intentionally in the talk, but I do mention Disney in the paper that I wrote for Nordic Larp 😀

     

    Anon11 As a view from the Balkans, LARPS never really get the chance to cover their costs, and even rarer can afford to pay the organizers anything that comes close to the time, experience and effort they placed in the table.

    Really interesting subject but just keep in mind that there are areas that just don’t have the base to run any actual pay-to-enter serious larp, and thus work as a balancing factor with community models and free games/for some volunteer work.

    Usva Seregina: Absolutely, I think this a very contextual issue. Costs are very different in different parts of the world.

    To reiterate from the talk, I don’t think that money is the biggest issue here, but rather how we approach larp.

     

    Anon13 Have we ever see artificial scarcity in larp?

    Usva Seregina: Artificial scarcity easily comes with hype and marketing

     

    Anon14 This is a hard one. We need to have more people making larps, and if the new people come in through the big easily approachable blockbuster larps, then it is very hard to tell them that they, too, can make a larp from scratch.

    We need more coverage and appreciaton inside our scene of small larps, unprofessional larps, larps that invent the wheel again, larps that anyone could make. This is not easy, as I recognize the tendency to look down on those because I’ve been through that myself a long time ago. And also, because I am ambitious with this art form.

    There are no easy answers.

     

    Usva Seregina: That’s true that the larp scene has mainly operated on a sort of word-of-mouth type of communication before. And I do agree that this has major issues in terms of being able to get into larp (which I also remember experiencing when I first started larping). And hence commodification and marketing are actually extremely good for allowing larp to be more accessible.

    Perhaps it is about thinking how to communicate without falling into the traps of marketing?

    And I agree with NAME that looking into and appreciating different forms larping is extremely important. We need to make room for all levels of skill and engagement.

     


    This was part of the Solmukohta 2020 online program. https://solmukohta.eu/

  • Solmukohta 2020 Keynote: Sarah Lynne Bowman – Integrating Larp Experiences

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    Solmukohta 2020 Keynote: Sarah Lynne Bowman – Integrating Larp Experiences

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    Sarah Lynne Bowman, Ph.D. is a professor. scholar, game designer, and event organizer. In this keynote, Dr. Sarah Lynne Bowman will discuss the importance of integration practices for concretizing and completing transformative processes after larps end and daily life resumes. She will present different techniques for integrating transformative experiences into our off-game lives, including creative expression, intellectual analysis, emotional processing, interpersonal processing, and community building.

    Article associated with the talk: https://nordiclarp.org/2019/12/10/transformative-role-play-design-implementation-and-integration/

    Solmukohta 2020 Keynote speakers: Kjell Hedgard Hugaas, Sarah Lynne Bowman, Usva Seregina, Jonaya Kemper.

    Transcript

    Hello, I am Sarah Lynne Bowman. I am a professor, scholar, game designer, and event organizer. Today I am going to discuss the concept of Integration with you as an important part of the process of personal transformation.

    As role-players, it’s no surprise to many of us that we are deeply fragmented in our identities. There are parts of us that are only able to be seen by certain people in specific contexts. Some parts get left behind, discarded, or buried when we are out in the world.

    When we role-play, we are allowed to bring these aspects from the shadows into the light. Now, some of these parts are undesirable; we might want to disavow them completely and pretend they don’t exist. Often, though, role-playing reveals parts of ourselves that we wish were more in the light, more seen by others. Sometimes we discover parts of ourselves that surprise us, that we didn’t even know were there: aptitudes that we might have, courage that we didn’t know existed, or abilities to connect with others in ways we had not before experienced.

    In many cases, we have powerful experiences within larping communities that are not replicable in other frames of reality. We may have extremely altering experiences, ones that change us and transform us, whether in dramatic ways or in more subtle ways. Regardless of the degree of change that we undergo, after a powerful larp experience, we are never quite the same. And we have to find ways to make sense of these experiences after they conclude.

    Unfortunately, it can be difficult to talk about these experiences with people who have not taken part in them, especially people who don’t regularly shift their identity and inhabit fictional worlds in their spare time. Often, we might feel even more fragmented than we did before, as pieces of ourselves feel trapped or lost or ephemeral in this fictional reality that technically no longer exists after the larp is over.

    But, what I have come to understand is that, for many of us, those bits of fiction, those pieces of self, still exist and they still may need to be integrated into the daily self in some way and into our understanding of reality. This integration may mean acknowledging, but further distancing ourselves from those parts It may mean finding ways to bring those parts into the light in our daily lives. Integration may even mean fundamentally changing our self-concept.

    Through role-playing, I have discovered some of my deepest spiritual understandings. I have discovered my deepest fears, my deepest desires for love and connection. I have discovered what community can actually feel like when it’s supportive, nurturing, and permissive of different ways of being. I have discovered what creativity and play can do in terms of understanding who we are and who we deeply desire to be.

    For us to really maximize the potential of role-playing, I think that we need to remove the stigma around personal identification with the character. Around playing parts of ourselves that were perhaps quite vulnerable and we are afraid others will see out here. We need to step into our desires. We need to step into our dreams and our hopes. Not hide them away solely in play as things that are frivolous or that can only exist in leisure or in some bounded reality that is not this one.

    Now, this all may seem obvious to some of you, but the truth is, a lot of us still hold shame around our play experiences. We are taught at a very young age that play is for children and that what we experience when we role-play isn’t real. And therefore, we shouldn’t take it seriously as something that transfers to this world. And as artists, academics, journalists, many of us have been working very hard to dispel that shame. To validate that this artform is useful. That it has educational purposes. That it can change lives. But I would argue that even in our communities, we still carry that shame at times.

    A common example is the larp crush, as Sanne Harder discusses in Nordiclarp.org. The larp crush is the experience of falling in love or becoming infatuated with a co-player after sharing a powerfully intimate larp experience with them. And this is an area that is still extremely taboo for a lot of people, especially people who have very clear, bounded relationship agreements outside of the frame of the larp. Because it’s play, we have alibi to explore our fantasies, our romantic needs. We may touch into parts of ourselves that were dormant before or maybe we didn’t know existed. And then all of a sudden, the larp is over, and we don’t know what to do with these emotions. Those places that still need to be seen and loved. And we think maybe that other person is the answer. And sometimes they are. But often, the larp has merely revealed to us our deeper needs for intimacy.

    Another example is larp drop, sometimes called post-larp depression, when a peak experience that was so intense and so powerful is over. Players may wonder if the sense of community they felt at the larp still exists, where those parts of themselves they explored in the larp still exist, where those stories exist. It may feel like these things have evaporated or dissipated, which may feel intensely painful.

    In transformational language, this is what we call a contraction, meaning that after a period of expansion — of stretching ourselves past our normal comfort zones — it’s natural that we will also then contract. That we will need time to come back into ourselves, to perhaps grieve, to perhaps rest, to process, to think, to feel.

    Integration processes help validate that need for contraction. We can validate that it is understandable and also perhaps necessary to come back into ourselves and make sense of these experiences, so that we don’t continue to feel even more fragmented and incoherent. We have a tremendous opportunity here to alchemize: to take lead and make it into gold. To find within ourselves the things that are perhaps unfinished, are not in the form that we would like. To learn how to transmute and transform ourselves.
    Integration processes can take many forms. They can be artistic in nature; we can create new works. We can create pieces of art. We can create stories. We can create new larps. Often, creativity begets creativity, so it makes sense that some of us would process in this way. Usva Seregina has centered their academic work on the creation of art as a means of making sense of larp experiences. Jonaya Kemper’s beautiful post-game autoethnographies help her articulate the ways in which larp experiences have felt emancipatory for her, how she has grown as the result of embodying her characters.

    We can also emotionally process. We can debrief. We can write journals. We can write letters to our characters and vice versa, which is a beautiful way to integrate and dialogue with these parts of ourselves.

    We can intellectually process. We can write theories and research. We can document experiences in larps for others, making them comprehensible to the outside world. We can discuss our experiences in groups, innovating our field of design, improving our implementation strategies, and expanding our consideration of the diverse perspectives of members of our communities.

    We can engage in group processes where people tell stories about their experiences. We can create new communities after larps so those feelings of connectedness and shared imagination can move forward. We can envision and build the future that we would like to see together rather than feeling so overwhelmed by the way the world is as we see it now. Through our shared imagination, we can envision new ways to move through the challenges that we face. We can transform conflict through play by envisioning new futures, new ways of being, and new selves.

    Each player has their own needs with regard to preferred integration practices. Larp designers such as Martin Nielsen and Johanna Koljonen have worked hard to establish methods where, after a larp, there are multiple areas of the space where people can get their various needs met, such as a place for hugs, a place for game design discussions, a place to debrief, a place to talk about life moving forward. Regardless of our individual needs, it is clear that creating means to more easily transition from the fictional frame to everyday life is beneficial, and may even strengthen the potential for personal transformation.

    In order to concretize these shifts, I am advocating for a greater awareness and more deliberate practices around integration. As players, as designers, as organizers, we see the world from the meta perspective due to our experiences with larp. We inhabit characters, we experience, we feel. But we also analyze and we can see the systems that underlie social reality. We can learn the lessons that came out of these group experiences and we can use them to shape the world that we’re in on a daily basis. Larp allows us to create new realities with new frames of reference, with new rules for reality. And it allows us to experiment with new ways of being, with new ways of interacting and organizing. It allows us to explore existing ways of interacting with others and figure out what aspects of those patterns we want to keep and what aspects we want to leave behind.

    So my questions to you are: how do we move forward with these understandings? How do we move forward with helping this transfer between this world and those worlds? How do we value and honor those lessons that we learn inside of these larps and help each other to make them more concrete in this life, in this world? It may be more important now than it ever was as the world becomes more and more bifurcated, fragmented, and polarized. How can we find alignment with one another and with ourselves? And how can we build the future that we want to see?


    This was part of the Solmukohta 2020 online program. https://solmukohta.eu/