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.
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.
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?
Kjell Hedgard Hugaas is a game designer, activist, politician, event organizer, and trained actor. 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.
I am a game designer, activist, politician, event organizer, and trained actor, and I am here to make the case for why we should design larps that invite the potential for transformative impacts on players.
In doing so, I 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.
(The Why)
In a world that seems to turn ever more difficult to make sense of by every passing day, where do we, the role-players, fit in? What is our mission? Our task? Are we artists? Are we entertainers? Coaches maybe? Or trainers? Maybe we are just passing time and using role-playing as another way to socialize and connect with our friends?
In short: Why do we do the things we do?
Before I give my answer to that, I want to make it clear that people participate in play for a variety of reasons, and most any reason is valid. The following is merely my opinion on what role-playing could be used for and what we could benefit if we followed this particular path.
I believe that almost everything we do in life can be done in ways that can add value to our own lives, the lives of others in our communities and the world in general. Role-playing is in no way an exception to this and it is my own hope that we as a collection of communities can rise to the challenge and help a world that needs healing now more than ever.
I believe that we as skilled and curious role-players are in the possession of a powerful tool, that if used with intention can, and indeed almost certainly will, change the world for the better. On the other side of the coin, if we choose to not address or comment on important issues, facilitate for expansion and understanding, lay down frameworks for growth, or help participants make sense of the world that exists outside of the magic circle, we are letting important and potentially very powerful opportunities pass us by.
My vision for the future of larp is that we explore the limits of our craft, learn to use it to the extent of it’s potential, and then wield it to enact the change we want to see in the world.
I know that it is a tall order. Maybe even painfully naive to believe in. But are we not people who are used to dreaming big and making the seemingly fantastical come true? Are we not inventors and designers of our own worlds? Is it too much to think that at least some of the things we create within the magic circle might seep out into the world in general?
Some might say that this is all just a dream.. But am I the only dreamer out there? Maybe one of a happy few? Or maybe, just maybe is the future of role-playing more potently world changing than any of us can even dare to imagine?
(The Potential)
The potential for role-playing to have profound transformative impacts on participants should be quite obvious by now. It can facilitate dramatic expansion in their worldview, their understanding of others, and their ability to affect change in the world around them. As Sarah Lynne Bowman noted in 2014; The sheer number of people interested in implementing role-playing and simulation as tools for education, empathy-building, and skill training attests to the methods’ potential potency.
In my own years of playing I can certainly point to several role-playing experiences that have been transformative to a point where they have altered the course of my life, and judging by the hundreds of stories I and others have gathered over the years, I am far from alone in this experience. For many players, these transformative effects might occur—and certainly do occur—by chance or as a result of intuitive choices that designers and participants make. But, imagine for a moment if you will, what our communities might look like if we actively sought to maximize the potential of such impacts through intentional design, implementation, and post-event integration.
Well, In my opinion, there is only one way to find out. And I invite you all to join in on this adventure.
(The How)
Before we proceed, we should note that even the most skilled and careful consideration and implementation of these ideas and thoughts will not ensure that transformative impacts undoubtedly will take place. Experiences will always vary from person to person and from event to event. To put it bluntly; we are not dealing with an exact science here.
When seeking to design for transformation, the first step should be establishing a clear vision carefully detailing the desired impacts we want to experience. Sarah Lynne Bowman and I have previously proposed four broad groups of impacts, in order to establish a system. These lists are not exhaustive and in the future we expect that the need for further categorization might also present itself. But for now, we have the following groups: Emotional Processing, Social Cohesion, Educational Goals, and Political Aims.
A disclaimer here: Designing for certain types of impacts—such as therapeutic aims—may require advanced training, consultation with experts, or increased safety measures.
As you can see; on these two slides I have listed the groups that we proposed. As you can see, there is a lot of different concepts and themes here and I will not go into them in any detail in this short talk. For those of you who are interested in a deeper dive, there is an article on nordiclarp.org with more details. It also contains a reference list with suggestions for further reading. I will link it in the comments.
Be it through virtual play, tabletop, or larp, role-playing can arguably change people’s lives for the better. But, in order to maximize this potential, we as participants need to be open to it. In order to be as open as possibly to transformative impacts, we need to feel safe and held. For this reason, I cannot stress enough how principles of informed consent and safety need to be at the forefront of this design philosophy.
We need to create a container that is strong enough for players to feel that they have the freedom to judge or themselves the extent to which they feel comfortable leaning into certain types of content or experiences based on their own emotional, psychological, and physical thresholds. The freedom of choice is important, since although growth often involves facing our own resistance to change, pushing participants beyond their limits can have the exact opposite effect to what they are seeking for themselves.
Therefore, while it is my strong belief that transformative impacts should always be at the forefront of design and implementation choices, concerns about safety and consent are inextricably linked to creating a secure-enough container for such experiences to take place.
So.. why should we design for transformative impacts?
If 25 years of activism and political engagement have taught me anything, it is that change is not something that is handed to us. Women were not given the right to vote.. it was won by the many that fought for it. Workers were not given the 5 day work-week because the factory owners decided to be kind. It was made into law because they fought for it. Apartheid was not ended out of the good hearts of the oppressors. It was ended because the people of the world made it so.
In other words.. we cannot allow ourselves to sit and wait for the change we want to see in the world. We need to make it so.
We need more compassion and empathy.
We need more peaceful solutions to conflict.
We need progressive social change.
We need to raise the voices the disenfranchised and oppressed.
We need to heal our own wounds.
We need to heal the wounds of the many.
And so on and so on…
The needs are many and the time is now.
Let us add our skills and knowledge to the efforts and help make it so.
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.
Transcript
Thanks for the invitation to speak about the state of larp from 2030 through the present. It’s really been an exciting time. Oh, and since it’s not very interesting watching my face as I speak, I’ll share some photos and drawings #of fellow larpers.
I will admit I had my worries. I remember all the talks we had back when the term “older larpers” referred to players in their 40’s and 50’s. Many of us were juggling work and family responsibilities.
We often had more money than the younger larpers, but less time. There were certainly trade offs–
the more experienced players, especially those identifying as male, had a lot of social capital, and were often given leadership roles in larps.
But back then, players identifying as female had a bit harder time–more likely to be typecast as mothers or witches, often defined by their relationships with other players.
And already there was awareness of the physical challenges of aging.
At that time in my life, I thought of the future with some trepidation. As we progressed from “older” to–I don’t know–”old”? Ancient?– a lot of things would change.
I’d anticipated that those of us now in our 60s and 70’s would largely be retired, with more spare time but less spare cash.
What many of us hopefully would have gained in wisdom and experience would be intermixed with losses–of partners, of mobility, of eyesight or hearing, other health challenges.
I had hopes that assistive technology would ameliorate some of the physical challenges, but still–.I was acutely aware.
Even without those losses, the old are often perceived differently by the young. As more frail, more needy, less authoritative, And no longer a peer. Imagine larping with someone like THAT?
But things have turned out way better than I anticipated. One major factor, I think, is that there was a whole cohort of us who were aging at the same time, and many of those people were already pioneers and leaders in the larp community. .
But even those of us who were just players put out the challenge to larp designers. First, give us physical designs that can accommodate our aging bodies, as well as our differently abled younger peers.
A comfortable place to sleep, options for those with physical challenges.
The changes in response to this didn’t happen all at once, nor did they happen universally.
It took time, especially for younger designers and organizers, to really get what we were asking. To do more than pay lip service to the needs of older players.
Some were unwilling or unable to make those changes, sometimes for reasons beyond their control.
There are still ancient castles with winding stairs, still larps centered around physical combat, or running across difficult terrain,
Not all larps are for everyone, but more and more I’ve seen that decision made consciously rather than by inadvertently excluding some players in the design process.
And then there’s the expanding genre of virtual reality larps, where our physical abilities and appearances can morph at will. Talk about empowering….!
But having the physical ability to participate in a larp was only a starting place. Far more important was full inclusion in the story without artificial limits based on age.
This is what we demanded: Design interesting characters for those of us who are older–without the preconceptions and prejudices about what an older player can feel or do.
Give us agency, give us passions and flaws and conflicts. And remember, there is no age limit on either romance or sexuality.
At first it was the older and more experienced designers who responded to this, but once the younger designers saw this modeled, and saw the full breadth of character that someone with six or seven decades of life experience could achieve, many of them followed suit. Not all, but that’s okay.
Because of course, not all larps are for everyone. As there are some designed for younger players, there have been more larps developed specifically for more mature players.
Which only makes sense, because as we have aged, many of us have found ourselves interested in exploring new questions and aspects of larp.
Personally I find myself alternating between escape-from-reality larping and those that explore some of the less comfortable aspects of aging, including memory loss, disability and death.
Let me tell you about my last few larps.
Bjarke Pedersen’s latest larp, The Number of the Beast, featured a satanic cult in which the members are powerless until they reach the age of 66 and 6 months. Taking place at a secluded manor house, the mysterious cult leader hosted a “coming of age” ritual for those finally attaining the ranks of elder. As you can imagine,decadence and madness ensued.
Mythical Fools premiered Navarca, a larp taking place on a generation ship where the inhabitants have lost all knowledge of how to maintain the ship. The lights have been gradually going out, and the larp begins as they are about to be left in total darkness. I played Shim, an elder and hereditary ”Pusher-of-the-keys” who evolved from traditionalist to heretic.
The latest College of Wizardry spinoff, Squaring Seven, takes place in a world where you only gain magic once your seventh child has given birth to their seventh child. During that last pregnancy, the incipient Witchards come together at college to learn about the skills they are about to acquire.. The larp prides itself on being equally accessible as even younger players are allowed to play the students and professors despite the age discrepancy.
Kathy Amende’s latest larp, Retreat, is an intimate parlor larp for 6 characters, in which each character starts with fully fleshed memories, skills and complex relationships with the other players. Through a randomized process, memories and skills are gradually lost, affecting some characters more than others. The powerful evolution of interaction was particularly moving–I’m still processing and dealing with significant bleed..
Meanwhile, Ryan Hart’s latest in his cyberpunk series, Touchstone, uses VR mixed with live action. In a future in which half of humanity has been uploaded to the Cathedral, a giant computer, there are conflicts for rights between the virtual and physical worlds.I greatly enjoyed playing EIGHTBALL, avatar of a powerful Master of Loci who had claimed the Cathedral itself.
On the post apocalyptic front, Chaos League’s Many Mothers was an ecological fable played out in the Sahara Desert. The matriarchal inhabitants of the last oasis are forced to make difficult decisions when their ecosystem is found to be shrinking. Who will stay and who will leave to join the roving motorcycle gangs warring for dominance in the desert?
I was privileged to attend the 20th anniversary rerun of The Rites of Spring, run by an experienced team led by John Shockley. This folk horror larp took place on a remote island off the English coast, where ancient traditions become horrifyingly real both for islanders and visitors. As one of the elders, our roles were central to the plot.
And one more. Avalon Larp Studio’s latest, The Immortal Dilemma, was a thought provoking political larp based on Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels. In the land of Luggnagg, the Struldbrugs are born with a red mark above one eye which indicates they have the blessing–or curse–of living forever, but without the gift of eternal youth. The players are some of the first cohort of struldbruggs, who have been alive and in power long enough that they now own and control everything. Having come to realize that their descendants are suffering under their regime, the Struldbrugs are meeting as a congress to make a consequential decision: either keeping the status quo or giving up all legal rights once they turn 80,remaining powerless for all of their subsequent days. Would removing themselves from society be the solution to give their descendants a chance to have a future of their own? Is it too much of a sacrifice to spend eternity without power or possessions?
So in summary it’s been an amazing ten years of larp, and especially as we age, larp has progressed right with us and given us more and more opportunities. Please, as we come into the future, remember those who are older are the ones who make magic.
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
Anon 1: Theater as a familiar environment: So true! But does it involves expectations of stage-acting?
Kaisa Kangas No, we do not advertise it in that way, and we have workshop where we go into what larp is 🙂
Anon 2: Though the building itself carries its own expectations – some people will go to a theatre simply expecting to sit and watch, and even if they know it’s a larp, they have to be onboarded in a way that takes into account the theatre environment’s expectations.
Kaisa Kangas Sure!
Kaisa Kangas But we don’t really have a stage or seats for audience, we start the workshop with people walking around. And advertise it as larp. 🙂
Anon 1: I’m just wondering if you know any kind of (public?) space which is more neutral in expectations than theater but still a familiar (playful?) environment?
Kaisa Kangas I’m sure there are spaces that are more neutral. We use the theatre environment also because it is practical for us: theatres have the light and sound technique that we need, so we don’t have to install everything separately.
Anon 3: We’ve got our own black box room in Zagreb, if it helps.
Anon 2: I found the careful mapping of “alternate Finland” with “similar to real-world Gaza experience” really successful in Halat hisar; especially while people are very wary about appropriation or misusing suffering for “games”, I find this work to be really deeply rooted in an understanding of its source and of its limitations
Anon 4: The parallels to The Quota are really interesting – re setting it “at home” rather than appropriating.
Anon 5: The advantages of the setting being in your country also make is a lot easier for larp newbies for whom it can be daunting to prepare a lot in advance and on the other hand hard to get into character with too little context. 😉
Anon 6: If anyone wants to do these kind of things in Gothenburg I most often have free of charge venue, but if you are selling tickets I need money for the venue (the money will go back to gaming culture) We have sound systems, but only old school lighting,
Anon 6: We also have several projectors and movable screens
Kaisa Kangas We sell tickets for two reasons:
– They cover part of the costs (tech and the spaces can be expensive);
– People feel more committed to come when they have paid (even a nominal) fee.
Anon 6: Kaisa Agree on the committed thing.
Anon 7: You don’t see it in the video, but we were literally blinded by bright light.
Anon 7: As in, couldn’t keep eyes open bright.
Anon 7: No need to cry out of emotion when your eyes well up from the photons. 🙂
Anon 6: Crying now.
Anon 4: Welling up too. Wow.
Anon 1: There is a similar participatory theater in Hungary which is called the Escape and you play blindly as a refugee childen from a fictional country trying to get into Europe. Very chilling!
Anon 6: I’ve played something like that when I was a teen.
Anon 1: Can you elaborate? I’m interested!
Anon 3: Damn! I want to play this!
Anon 10: The lamps also produce a heatwave, which I think was a powerful and unusual addition to the visual effects.
Anon 8: I was in that test run and hearing the music and sounds again made me unexpectedly emotional <3
Anon 3: Anon 8: Haven’t been there but it got me too.
Anon 4: Inviting politicians would be a great idea too
Anon 7: Yes, the heat was real!
Anon 9: I have one tangential question – I’ve heard about a larp on similar theme (fleeing a war zone) which gave people this fake sense that now they know exactly how it is to be a refugee and they equate the larp experience with real, lived experiences. How to communicate with players to avoid this kind of… emotional appropriation, for the lack of better phrase?
Anon 6: I wouldn’t. They feel what they feel. They might be factually wrong, but experience over time will inform them. 🙂
Anon 6: I mean, larp is something that does happen to your physical body and larping it will increase you emotional understanding of something much more than many other cultural forms.
Saying its the same experience will be a overstatement, but that is the way some people speak. I don’t think they will belittle people who have had the real experience after going to such a larp, instead they will have more empathy, which is a good thing.
Anon 9: I’m worried that it may lead to belittling though – and for some it might. While as a designer I’m not responsible for how people interpret my larps, I want to make sure I don’t encourage responses that are harmful or dismissive towards other people’s lived experiences.
Kaisa Kangas I think that when you have someone present who actually has that experience and whom they can discuss with at the debrief/ contextualisation, it usually puts things into perspective. At least I felt that was the effect in Halat hisar, when players could ask Palestinians questions about their lives. You kind of realise that you had your own experience but this other person is living it in real life and there’s a difference.
Anon 6: Anon 9: I’m thinking if I tell they “feel wrong” then I am guilty of belitteling the right there and then.
I don’t know Everything about my players, and why their inner World works that way or why they use language that way.
Anon 10: I think you get quite far as an organizer by just avoiding equating the larp with a real life experience when you introduce the larp. I would say the risk is quite insignificant when doing a larp in a black box theater with an adult player group.
But I do think the risk is real if doing a 360 degree simulation with say, teenagers, and organizers who want to exaggerate the impact of what they do.
Anon 9: Anon 6: that is a very good point and I need to let it sink in for me. Thank you!
Anon 6: Anon 9: I Always tro to make like a risk assesment and Think that the person in front of me also Counts. I know I’m super sensitive if someone tells me my feeling is wrong or my language (English isnt my mother tongue) is wrong.
And my level of what is “harm” is quite high. I see a difference between offence and harm.
Anon 11: Thank you <3 This is a great and important project, I’m looking forward to maybe getting to play it. I would loveto continue the discussion about larps for a wider audience, also in connection to yesterday’s talk about the commodification of larp and how we navigate all this.
Kaisa Kangas It’s a super-interesting topic!
I have to yet watch the commodification talk (yesterday, I was still busy editing video…)
Anon 8: My big question with this project is, how does it change the larp as an experience if/when a large part of the participants come with no or little background information on larping, and when the setting guides their perceptions and expectations towards theatre?
Kaisa Kangas That’s a good question! Our aim is to have some people with larp experience in all the runs so there would be some herd competence. And we spend a lot of time workshopping things. Originally, I planned to talk a bit more about stuff like this, but that was before the Tuesday run got cancelled, and it’s hard to talk about it when you don’t have the experience on how it worked.
Anon 8: I’m looking forward to your future talk about the things you learned from Seaside Prison <3
Anon 2: This was something [X] and I started with in 2009 – we came from theatre and knew we were advertising to a theatre audience, and we also designed very much with theatricality in mind. But there were so, so many things to be learned about a) getting your audience to actually buy a ticket in the first place, b) getting them all on the same page before the piece, c) getting them all on the same page once they’re in the room, d) hand-holding and making sure that they feel confident enough to keep playing until the end. A turn-key larp is an interesting product but does require massive amounts of excellent PR.
Anon 1: I’m quite interested in your best practices and tips in a) and b)!!!
Anon 8: Is “turn-key larp” the term for a larp where you just buy the ticket and show up, no preparations needed?
Kaisa Kangas We use a really long time for the workshop in our time slot. And we hope to have a right mix of people with larp experience and people with no larp experience in the run, so there is some herd competence. Also, having a clear structure helps.
Kaisa Kangas Also, was originally hoping to talk more about these aspects at SK, but can’t really talk about them without the experience of running the larp.
Anon 12: Anon 1: Maybe we should write a summary of out experiences some time, but maybe the most important thing (I think) was that the process of getting ready to take part in the piece was the piece itself – that it’s built in that in the beginning the engagement level is different and then it’s deepened through the process.
Anon 5:Low threshold larping is something I think is currently an underused medium of larp. Here, the Seaside Prison team has taken into account and removed or shrunk many obstacles that prevent new people from larping even in super interesting projects like this. I especially appreciate the fact that no preparation is needed yet you get a proper, sufficient background for the larp (due to a familiar setting and the extensive workshop.) It is also a significant advantage that the game can be played in the course of one evening, even after work. The fact that it is cheap is really important, too.
Kaisa Kangas Here’s a link to our webpage in case you want more information on future runs, etc! (Will be updated when we know that it will be possible to run the larp.)
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?
Bibliodrama, called Bibliolog in much of Europe, is a form of role playing or improvisational theatre using Bible stories.
Mátyás Harpgándi To my best knowledge there are at least 2 different lineages of Bibliodrama/log. One is more of a version of sociodrama (structured activities which includes a lot of improv and role-play) and the other is more of an interactive meditation on holy texts.
Mátyás Harpgándi Also something important: Bibliodrama is mostly about the Bible but not only! That is actually a subgroup called Bibledrama. Bibliodrama means drama of texts and could use any kind of (holy) script for comtemplation. Beside Christian sources I regularly use ancient Chinese and Indian text.
Anon 2: Hard disagree that thin roles are not role-play… sorry Jiituomas <3
Mátyás Harpgándi I think he says its role-play but not strictly ‘larping’
Anon 2: How do we determine what makes a role deep?
Anon 2: Not weird… super cool!
Anon 3: Interesting – something I have also wondered about i edularps
Anon 1: Playing “the drunk” or “the elf” is enough of a role to make it larping, imho.
Anon 4: Super interesting, need to look at Leveleki
Anon 5: Not sure if there’s anything about Eszter Leveleki in English. It might be a good idea to change that.
Anon 1: Hungarians always mention these fantasy camps. I want to know more!
Anon 7: While I stayed in Hungary I met some people who run one of them. They described it as a larp game where they use three days to represent each year and encouraged the children there to roleplay while structuring the events in such a way that they tought them social, political and management skills.
Anon 7: Their typical event runs for about two weeks over the summer holidays and they use the ‘three days makes the year’ structure to look at a much longer period of time than most larps manage.
Anon 8: So many shortforms rely on characters based on one word, if that. I would still call it larping.
Mátyás Harpgándi You can, but then larp becomes nearly synonymous with any kind of embodied role-playing. Do you agree?
Anon 2: I think a lot of these distinctions are silos honestly where independent groups think they invented something and have their own term for it. It’s more useful to compare individual larps and their content with these other exercises, as well as their go…See More
Anon 9: While I encountered this less in larp, tabletop rpgs have a whole category of games where you’re playing yourself in some imaginary situation. (There’s a zombie apocalypse, but you are literally yourself)
Anon 4: For a long time I tried to design larps where there wasn’t really a “character” as much as a “social role” and a “situation” – if you get it and design it really well, it totally works, but it’s really hard to get people around “what do you mean there’s no character”
Anon 2: There’s still alibi of fiction, so you are still technically a character. Just a character nearly identical to the self.
Anon 9: Anon 2: You’re absolutely right, of course. But it is the “thinnest” role I can think of, and it is also harder to justify actions with an alibi in such circumstances. Sure, you would only kill your friend in a zombie apocalypse, but… do you mean you would actually kill your friend in a zombie apocalypse?
Anon 10: I think it would be impossible to be play your authentic self because there is a wide gap between an actual crisis situation and a larp/rpg context in terms of real-world consequences. This is, I think, what makes it “a character based on you” rather than “you as a character”
Anon 9: By the way, probably the most popular incarnation of this idea is this line of games: https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/…/the-end-of-the-world/
Anon 2: I play a lot of extremely close to home roleplaying where basically we are versions of ourselves. The narratives and actions often can diverge wildly from everyday life due to fiction and people have alibi due to the setting to speak about things they normally wouldn’t in polite conversation. It adds new affordances that daily life does not.
Anon 11: It might sound like a very silly question, but can someone please clarify to me what does the term “authentic self” mean? Isn’t there some saying that identity is a taking of roles? And if so, and I am highly speculating here, can’t we strive towards the goal of making the players identify more with their characters than with their “real” selves?
Mátyás Harpgándi ‘Role-shaming’ 😀
Anon 1: Mátyás Harpgándi Great stuff!
Anon 10: I’ve been using the definition of larp by Tuomas Harviainen from the 2011 book where he says that the characters should be more than social roles 🙂
Mátyás Harpgándi This is a serious misconception in Hungary. Harviainen talked about the key criteria of larping (the activity), not about the definition of larps (the events). His whole writing is about this separation.
Anon 10: Thanks for the clarification!
I’m looking forward to having your article to quote from too in the future 🙂
Anon 1: There are no set definitions of larp and larping, it’s an ongoing discussion. That you are now a part of! 🙂
Anon 2: I usually just simplify as “playing a character in a fictional environment and some degree of physical enactment of character.” Pretty close, without the “deep role” specification.
Anon 12: I think that as long as it doesn’t result in flat characters (because playing a trope is just boring) any form of characterization should be valid
Anon 12: …although there are, of course, even interesting ways to play a trope 😉
Anon 8: But how do we determine what a “flat” character is? That’s the part I’m struggling with, what’s the bar here? When is it a deep character?
Anon 12: I’m going with the definition of flat character I was taught as a lit studies student at uni — a character that consists of nothing but stereotypical definitions, with only a single point of view and no form of development or insight.
Anon 2: ^^ this. I also worry that it stigmatizes less skilled or experienced role-players. (“How do we determine a flat character?”)
Anon 1: A character description may be super short and flat, but the character interpretation can still be deep and nuanced. There’s really no way to know except for the player.
Anon 12: I respectfully disagree with that, Anon 2, as I don’t think a less experienced or skilled player would necessarily gravitate towards playing a flat character — to me, it seems more likely that they would play an aspect of themselves as a character (‘me as the king’), which by definition wouldn’t be a flat character.
Anon 8: Anon 12: That still feels really vague to me. Like Anon 2, I worry it will stigmatize people.
I think there’s already a high barrier of entry for larp, and newer players often talk about not being good enough for various roles or responsibilities. How do we work with this definition without telling people their characters are too flat?
Anon 2: Me as the king would fall under “just a social role” in Harviainen’s definition.
Mátyás Harpgándi Anon 2: they might start as social roles but these kings & queens can organically became nuanced and unique personalities during the long process… thus larping? 🙂
Anon 12: Which is why I said that I believe any form of characterization should be valid — that we should not be using too narrow a definition. Perhaps the ‘flat character’ caveat is just my own preference, though, I do admit that. I would never tell anyone that their character is too flat or that they can’t play a certain way.
Anon 2: Mátyás Harpgándi social roles are still larping to me 🙂
Mátyás Harpgándi Anon 2: But then larp becomes nearly synonymous with any kind of embodied role-playing. Is that good? Why do we need a second, hobbist jargon (larp) for a general phenomenon? Because we are larpers who like their hobby? 👿
Anon 2: Mátyás Harpgándi I discussed this in my comment to your paper, but one of the things I think that makes edu-larp unique is it arises from leisure play. So some of the techniques and experiences of leisure play may apply to it (say, experience points, o…See
Anon 13: We (Terrible Creations) cater most of our games to non-players. We don’t use the acronym larp at all because we found it was confusing them.
Anon 2: Anon 13: I tell my students they will be larpers by the end of the session when we edu-larp. They are nervous at first, but then have no trouble using the word larp afterward. (They span several decades for age groups). I think it’s okay for them to be confused at first.
Anon 13: Anon 2:D Good approach! We usually congratulate adult newcomers afterwards on losing their larp virginity. 😉
Anon 2: Haha not sure that would fly in American schools but intriguing approach 😉
Anon 13: Anon 2: Emphasis was on “adult”. Wouldn’t do it with a bunch of teenagers. 😀 But it tends to work well with grown-ups.
Anon 2: Adults too…. Americans tend to be very sensitive about sexualizing language. Which is probably for good reason considering power dynamics of teacher-student 🙂 but also religious students may be actually saving their virginity for marriage
Anon 13: Anon 2: Cultural differences may apply, of course. And should. We do stress it’s a larp virginity, though. But I can see how it might not sit well with some audiences.
Anon 13: Also, we avoid comparisons to theatre if we can help it because people tend to freeze when they think they have to act.
Mátyás Harpgándi I think using the term ‘deep’ roles was misleading. I’m not neccesarily talking about the quality of role-taking or the depth of immersion. Would you like to see an English infographic about the different stages of role-shaping?
Anon 11: I would love to, while I didn’t agree with everything, I would really like to read some more. 🙂
Anon 2: Absolutely!
Anon 2: I think what Harviainen means is not just playing a function or social role, but a personality, a more complex ego structure with additional motivations and characteristics. I think these things can evolve in role-playing even with thin characters depending on player choice, but a larper is still role-playing if the role remains thin and they are engaged.
Mátyás Harpgándi So as a summary, I dont really have any problem with our larp jargon, people talk the way they talk. But I think some of those words are so biased that we should avoid them and use more neutral terms when dealing with outsider specialist (especially if they are from a related sibling field like other forms of role-play)
Anon 4: That was something I encountered a LOT coming from theatre. I felt like larpers were using words that had a whole heckton of meaning and context behind them, in ways that were sometimes accurate and sometimes perversions of what they’d borrowed. But! Getting deeper into larp (or, in my experience, any field at all) you always seem to end up with these terminologies that have limited application outside that field, and the challenge is simply to be able to become familiar with the depths in other people’s fields and learn how to bridge between them.
Mátyás Harpgándi If I identify as a larper, everything I borrow from Drama in Education could be considered a part of edularp. If I identify with process drama, every technique from Nordic larps could fit into my DiE practice as a new convention. But is there a neutral language to communicate between fields? I think we who work with applied larp should work toward that if we want to avoid terminology wars.
A WARNING: This might be a bit more casual than the other essays in this book. From start to finish, my whole journey of success, I have been in way over my head. I have been surrounded by intelligent, capable people that know exactly what they are doing. If you would like to hear from them, check out literally any of the other pages. If you would like to hear my rambling about how I accidentally became a pseudo YouTube celebrity, keep reading and enjoy the ride.
My dungeons and dragons group made fun of me for going larping. I remember being so excited and talking to them all about the character I was making, and the game I had found, and how much fun I was going to have, and they went to YouTube. I began larping in an age when larp on YouTube was videos of lighting bolt packet throwers and fake looking fight scenes. They went on a marathon to show me how stupid I was going to look, and then we continued to roll dice and describe fighting magic orcs.
My name is Mo Mo O’Brien, and if there’s one thing you need to know about me it’s that I don’t care what people think, so despite the mockery from my tabletop group, I went larping anyway. It was everything I knew it would be, and so much more. I instantly knew this was going to take over my entire life. I went to more events, and uploaded more pictures to my social media, and more people started asking me questions.
I had recently started a YouTube channel, and I thought I’d answer all the questions in a video. I called the video “The Basics of larp” and it covered everything from the definition of larp, to the different genres, to what you needed to start playing. That was the video that began it all. My channel now has over 70,000 subscribers, that video now has almost 400,000 views, the comments are flooded with requests for more larp videos, and I can no longer go to any larp without at least one person coming up to me and telling me they were there because of me. My YouTube channel has even taken me to places like panelling at San Diego comic con and being in a popular candy commercial. Since then, larping YouTube channels have been exponentially growing, and are still growing. So, I thought I’d give people some tips for larp YouTube Channels!
1. Speak to Non-larpers
You don’t have to tell larpers why larp is awesome. They already know. If you see someone with a t-shirt for a band you like, you don’t walk over to them and try and convince them why that band is awesome. They’re already wearing the shirt. If a larper sees ANYTHING larp related, good chance is they’re probably going to like it regardless of content. Don’t limit your audience. Any video where I talk about larp, I always explain what it is as fast and as simply as I can within the first 20 seconds. How I describe it is “an adult game of make believe.” That seems to cover any genre of larp, no matter how experimental, and everyone can picture it since everyone knows what “make believe” is. Then I proceed to talk about it as if i’m explaining it to a group of veteran larpers, and noobies.((Slang on newbies, for beginners or people without any pre existing knowledge and experience.)) People are all secretly narcissistic and love seeing themselves in things. So, try to make videos that non-larpers could see themselves in. In every video I never assume the viewer knows what larp is, and then explain it in a way that could appeal to everyone. Larp is so broad and so many things, there is always something someone will like about it; costume designing, prop designing, writing, acting, combat. There are styles of larp that incorporate more sport, more tears, more competition, more costume showcasing, more set dressing. There’s a aspect and style of larp for everyone, so make sure everyone knows that. Which means….
2. Learn How to Tell a Larp Story
My friend Jamie who runs my main larp campaign once gave me a very long, slightly drunk, speech on how to tell a larp story to non-larpers. First of all: non-larpers do not care about mechanics, skills, or rules. Not at first anyway. When people ask “what was the last book you read?,” their first question will usually always be “What was it about?”, not whether it fit into the three act structure or took a more experimental approach. Do not tell non-larpers that you have a level four fire spell that allows you to hit a monster with 30 health for 10 flame damage. Say “I hit a monster with a fireball.” One of those stories sounds WAY more exciting than the other. Sell your larp adventures for the adventures you had, not the numbers it gave your character sheet. When you’re larping, the emotions are real, so tell the story as if you were ACTUALLY THERE because that’s what larp feels like. Not everyone likes numbers or behind the scenes information, but everyone loves a good story.
3. Sell Yourself
This is not as skeezy as it sounds. What i mean by this is just find all the best parts about yourself, and showcase them. YouTubers compared to a lot of other “celebrities” is that we are a far more personal art medium. We do “question and answers” where viewers can learn all about us, vlogs((Video blogs.)) where they can spend the day with us, and it’s a lot less “glitz and glamour” than other beings of well known status. People watch a video for the content, but they stick around and subscribe for the YouTuber. This doesn’t mean invent a new personality. This means find the parts of your personality people like, and electrify them. That goes for your characters as well.
To expand on this idea, you should check out another YouTuber that’s NOT a larper, but pretty close: Miranda Sings. Miranda is a fictional character with a YouTube channel, created by comedian and singer Colleen Ballinger. In 2008 Colleen started uploading purposefully bad song covers to YouTube as a joke, and Miranda has gained over 7 million subscribers since. As she developed the character of “Miranda” she says she just read her YouTube comments, took note of what viewers found weird or obnoxious, and started to do it even more. Take note of what aspects of your characters and yourself your viewers like, and do it more.
4. Make It Look Nice
Sit in front of a lit window or bright light source. Make sure any fans, or air conditioners, or any other machinery making noise is turned off. Make sure your camera isn’t making you look too orange or too blue (you can change this by adjusting your lighting. Natural light gives off a blue tint, unnatural gives off an orange.) Make sure your background looks tidy and nice.
For a while, I thought none of this really mattered…until I went back and watched my old videos. All these technical things are like the bass line of a song. You don’t notice when it’s there, but OH BOY do you notice when it’s not. So make sure you’re well lit, your sound is good, and your shot is set up nice. Which also means, pay attention to your background. If you want people to pay attention to nothing but your words, consider a blank wall behind you. Talking about costuming? Maybe display some of your pieces behind you. Want people to have a glimpse of your personality? Show your whole bedroom. Let your background tell a story.
5. Get That Larp Footage
Just talking to a camera is fine, but when you cut to something else, it makes sure the audience is paying attention, because it gives them some new to look at. Also it saves you the time and effort of trying to do your awesome larp justice. You can just show your audience so they don’t have to imagine it.
One of the biggest rules in visual storytelling: show, don’t tell.
Hide your camera, stay out of game for a while, ask for filming privileges in exchange for some pictures of the event, ask the organiser if they can make the camera cannon in the game.
Even if it’s just pictures someone else took, ask them if you may use the pictures.
6. Be Picky
Larp is really hard to translate to video because, a lot of the times it’s not a spectator sport. Its meant to be experienced, not watched for entertainment. So, try and pick the footage that portrays what larp FEELS like, not looks like. Add some music or sound effects to fight scenes, so it doesn’t just sound like latex hitting latex matched with grunting. Pick those intense scenes with dramatic lighting. Remember to market to non-larpers. People don’t want to see a larp, they want to feel it. Choose the footage, and edit it accordingly, that portrays how that moment felt when you were in it.
When you larp, a lot of the emotions and adrenaline is real, but this is a little harder to translate to film. When you watch a movie, a scene could have a completely different feel or intensity based on the cinematography, the editing, the music, the lighting. Picture a shot of a few kids splashing in the water. Now picture it with happy, upbeat, ukulele music. It’s a fun day at the beach! Viewers are content, and calm, and are reminded of carefree summer days. Now, picture the exact same shot, but with the jaws theme song underneath. Not a carefree beach day anymore is it? Footage provides what the larp looks like, but what you do with it determines how your viewers feel about it.
I tried to put together all of these things into one of my videos which I called “Lock Stock & Barrel: a five minute larp.” I was dared by another YouTube channel to create a larp that would last 5 minutes, and film it. So I created a simple life or death scenario; 6 people locked in a post apocalyptic shelter that was running out of air, and the maximum inhabitant capacity would drop by 1 every 1 minute. Meaning, in order to survive, one person had to be eliminated or evacuated every minute. They were given items like: booze, poison, water, a gun, bullets, cookies, and other items designed to kill each other. There was an also an exit to the shelter with a 30% chance of survival in the wasteland. This was apparently fun for the players, and they wished it was a little longer. For the sake of a youtube video though, it was the perfect length. Because it was such a short amount of time, it was high energy, panicked, and 5 minutes of intensity. There was no time for spaced out improvised beautiful dialogue. It worked better, because it was messy and all over the place, like the real situation would have been if it was filmed for an audience. I also held it in my own home so I set up my filming lights, I got to set the scene the way I wanted, all with filming this in mind. Like it was an improvised movie.
But the biggest tip I can give, not just to larp YouTubers, but all YouTubers in general: Just do it! Don’t worry about messing up, or having the right equipment, or not being ready. We all had to start somewhere. Watch the videos you make, figure out what you liked, and what you didn’t, and adjust accordingly. Just figure it out as you go along. Fall into your place. So get going!
As an addendum to this piece, Simon Brind conducted a brief interview with Mo Mo O’Brien; edited highlights are included here:
Simon Brind: Would you tell us a little more about the design for the five minute larp? Do the people have characters? Did you pre-write them or did the players do it? Was there a set?
Mo Mo O’Brien: It was very light rules, basically if they wanted to do anything physically, they just asked out loud and I told them if it went ok. They had characters they decided on themselves. Formed their own relationships and backstories. All the knowledge they were given was they had been in this bunker for almost a year. We made up the characters on the spot in a workshop before the game. The set, was my living room, with a spotlight in the middle. You can watch the whole thing here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgQFuLhe-ks
SB: Are there ways that larp could become a spectator sport? or a spectator event? Would it still be larp?
O’B: If larp was a spectator sport, it would be called improv theatre. If all the mechanics and techniques were designed to entertain an audience and not the player, it would be an episode of whose line is it anyway. Even if there was an audience to an actual larp event, by my definition, it would become improv theatre. Though I’m sure there’s 40 essays out there by people much smarter than me with different theories about it.
SB: How else could YouTube be used in larp? Could one be played out using YouTube videos and responses do you think? Or as a part of a game?
O’B: What I would love to see is YouTube being used as a tool in larp. We have all this new technology that I feel could be utilised better. I recently did a game called As we know it that took place entirely, on my own, sitting in a closet, and all the interactions were over text. It was a game about isolation and through technology, perfect isolation was able to be achieved. There’s so much people can do with video, I think it could be used in larp a lot more.
SB: Can you tell the story of a larp in video? Could the 5 minute experiment scale up to 30 minutes, 3 hours or even 3 days?
O’B: Could I tell the story of a 3 day larp in a 10 minute video? Absolutely. Especially when it comes to internet media, it is typically more likely to hold someone’s attention. It’s important to find the right balance between rambling, and cutting it short. Say what you NEED to say. Sometimes you need to cut what you WANT to say, which is the most heartbreaking thing about good editing. Take notes before you film. It helps you formulate your thoughts, keeps you from forgetting anything, and will help eliminate nonsense and rambling.
SB: Nordic larps have done a great job of documenting their games and they are producing some great promotional videos((Promotional videos for Fairweather Manor, Black Friday and the like.)) too. But what else would you like to see from game organisers? How could they improve?
O’B: Blockbuster nordic larps are EASILY the simplest kind of larp to film, because it is so close to improvised theatre. They usually have the best costumes, props, sets, and scenes since it’s more about characters, than character sheets. Since it’s typically more aesthetically pleasing than a lot of boffer larps, it’s easier to share, and easier to relate to, because you have to worry less about portraying how the experience feels, because it looks so nice from the outside. So I think what the western larp media needs, is to focus on what the western larp community HAS. Focus more on the competitive and self improving nature of western sport style larps, and learn how to translate that feeling of adrenaline and action to film.
In our never ending quest to be a resource to the larp scene we have gathered some humble equipment to help video production for larp. If you want to make a production diary, larp promo, interviews, larp report or anything else larp related we’ll lend you the gear free of charge.
You can read more about what equipment we have and how to borrow it on our new video equipment page.
Cover photo: A plush figure photographed using the simplest lights from our video equipment collection.
The larp is set in the beautiful Polish Czocha Castle and the first run was helt in November 2014 with follow-ups planned for April 2015.
Cosmic Joke, known for their larp documentary Treasure Trapped, was on location for the Harry Potter themed larp to film a documentary at the event. The film has now been released and can be viewed in it’s entirety on their Youtube channel:
Larp out of Character is an American blog with video interviews of larpers and larp designers. Here is they’re own description of the blog:
As a LARPer for about 20 years now, I have probably been in more LARP theory discussions than in actual games. I have tried a lot of LARP styles, and in my experience the people matter as much as any other aspect of a LARP. Who I play with, who I write with, and who I run with has as much impact on the final product as all the mechanics, acting tricks, plot brilliance, and set design. This project – LARP Out Of Character – will focus on those people and their experiences.
We will talk to LARPers out-of-character and hopefully see how the character of those LARPers makes LARP what it is.
