Month: September 2020
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Larp-Related Stress
Larping is a recreational activity, and larps are positive life events. However, larps can be more demanding than the player expects, and thus create stress.
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Playing an Engaging Victim
We draw from our experiences to give you tools as a victim player. What can you do to help tell the story of the relationship? How can you support the perpetrator’s game or have agency even when your character doesn’t?
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Playing a Sex Worker
The way we portray sex work can reproduce harmful biases in the world, and can also alienate and isolate your co-players — more of whom than you expect may have themselves done sex work.
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Your Body Is Your Body
This piece tries to provide a practical tool for overcoming machismo, internalized norms, and other patterns that can lead to physical injury to the player’s body.
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Sketch Comedy Characters
As a player, I build my larp characters using the tools of sketch comedy. The style may be different, but the toolbox is the same. The crude basics offered by sketch comedy provide a functional basis on which to build more nuanced play during the larp.
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Together Forever: A Larp about Dating in a Dystopian World
This documentation piece explores Together Forever, an online larp focusing on romantic relationships and dating in a near-future dystopia.
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Performing Dominant
Dominant characters come in different forms: authority figures (benevolent or not), antagonists, or outright villains. However, each of these figures presents the same challenges: establishing and displaying dominance in a credible manner, managing interactions with dominated characters, and balancing character domination with respect for player agency.
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Learning from NPCs
Supporting characters tend to accept invitations to play more easily than some player characters (or some players.) This is the most important lesson we can learn from supporting characters: to always find a reason to engage, to initiate play, and to offer other players alibi to engage with you.
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Beyond the Funny Hat
When larping, players don’t always wear costumes, and even when costumed, a character ought to be more than a funny hat. Here, we offer practical ways to flesh out how a character moves and speaks, in the hope of making it easier for you to do so.