At Knudepunkt in 2019 I attended a panel discussion, You Look Like I Want To Play With You, hosted by Karijn van der Heij, where participants shared their experiences of co-players refusing to play on pre-written relations. According to the participants, the excuse often used by said co-players was them feeling “a lack of chemistry”. Disregarding the problematic nature of such a judgement, the argument inherently states that chemistry is something which either exists or doesn’t between people, even though we have multiple examples of the opposite being true. Just take something as common and widely discussed as relational bleed: You might never have met the person playing your best friend or one true love before, but after a larp weekend of holding hands and/or gazing into each other’s eyes, they seem awfully nice. Or look to Hollywood and the number of romantic leads ending up in real-life relationships after having starred in a movie together, no matter their relationship status going into it.
All in all, chemistry is not something that either exists or doesn’t, it is something that can be built between people, doing certain things together. Which also means it can be workshopped.
While it took a few years, some research and testing, I created a workshop method aimed to do exactly that: Building player chemistry.
The goals for the method are:
- Building trust and a feeling of safety between participants.
- Having participants tune in on each other, becoming aware of their workshop partner.
- Having participants model behavior that creates closeness, attention, and appreciation between them.
The method is based on 6 steps, continuously adding degrees of interaction ranging from being distant to touching and from non-verbal to verbal. It can either be run as a workshop by organizers before a larp, to help support players with intimate relations, or used by players portraying intimate relations before the start of the larp (or during the larp if your relation play just doesn’t work out). In this context, intimate relations refer to relations where love, romance, or simply physical and emotional closeness is one of the primary forces. This includes romantic partners, lovers, close friends, and family members, as well as abusive relationships based on the perception of love or closeness.
The method is based on, and inspired by, elements from:
- Studies of the effects of eye gazing and related exercises
- The Meisner and Lucid Body drama schools/techniques
- Ars Rego (created by Maria and Jeppe Bergman Hamming for Spellbound, 2018)
- Ars Amandi (created by Eliot Wieslander for Mellan Himmel och hav, 2003)
Disclaimer: The workshop includes both extended eye contact and touch, which the participants must be comfortable with.
Running the workshop:
Total runtime of the workshop is approximately 40 minutes, not including exercise instructions. Start by dividing the participants into pairs. Instruct them on all steps of the workshop, prior to starting the exercises, so that the workshop can be run as one continuous flow, facilitated only verbally by the organizer.
Step 1: Eye contact
Time: Approx. 5 minutes
This step consists of four rounds. Participants sit in front of each other with some distance between them (1-1.5 meters), eyes closed. On cue, they look into each other’s eyes, for a set amount of time, then close their eyes again and rest for a moment. Every round has an extended duration of eye contact:
1: 5 seconds
2: 10 seconds
3: 30 seconds
4: 2.5 minutes
Remember to give the participants breaks with their eyes closed, between the rounds, as this kind of prolonged eye contact can feel overwhelming at first.
Step 2: Coordinated breathing
Time: Approx. 5 minutes
Participants stay seated and keep eye contact throughout this step. This step combines coordinated breathing and movement. One participant starts, stretches their arms out in front of them and draws in breath, simultaneously moving their arms towards their body (as if drawing in their breath with their arms), and then exhales while moving their arms back towards stretched (as if pushing out the air with their arms). The other participant continues this movement, drawing in their breath, while moving their arms towards their body, followed by exhaling, while stretching their arms out – returning the breath and movement to the first participant, who then continues.
This will create a circular movement and breath, from one participant to the other and back.
Let the pairs find a rhythm, without verbally communicating it.
Throughout this exercise, create variation by asking the pairs to slow their coordinated breathing/movement down together, let them then go back to normal, ask them to speed it up, and end this exercise by letting them go back to normal again.
Step 3: Ars Rego Movement
Time: Approx. 15 minutes
This exercise is based on the method Ars Rego by Maria and Jeppe Bergman Hamming.
Short description of the mechanic: Ars Rego is a Nordic larp mechanic created for simulating magical physical control. With this mechanic a “leader” controls one or more “followers” by using hand signals. A connection between leader and follower is created by participants establishing eye contact and raising their hand(s). The follower must now follow the leader’s hand at a distance and be led around the room, while keeping their hand up and the connection intact. They are to mirror the leader’s hand movements (e.g. The leader “pushing” them down, “lifting” them up, making them move to the side, spin, etc. by using hand gestures). The leader is always responsible for the follower’s safety and comfort, while moving them around the room.
Note: This exercise does not use touch at any point, and doesn’t include the hand movement to signal to your partner to get closer, as demonstrated in the link above.
The pairs split up (momentarily) and all participants start moving around the room, walking amongst each other. Let the participants get comfortable moving around on their own, before asking them to start noticing their partner: Where they are in the room, how they are moving, their expression, etc.
Ask participants to make eye contact with their partner and at their own pace establish the touch-free “connection” with their hand. The pairs should continue to keep some distance between themselves, moving around between other participants in the room.
The participants are allowed to break off the contact and reestablish it, getting used to the “connection”, before they are encouraged to “lock in” and slowly get closer to each other, without ever touching. Let the participants play around with the connection for a while, trying out changing hands, using both hands, moving their partner around, both from side to side, down towards the floor and up again.
Important note: The participants are responsible for their partner. It is their responsibility to make sure their partner doesn’t bump into furniture, walls, or other people. Make that responsibility very clear to the participants – It is necessary to keep eye contact during the exercise, but at the same time be aware of the other’s surroundings.
Throughout the exercise, create some variation in the participants’ movements. Ask one person in the pair (e.g.: the person who started the breathing exercise) to take control of the other, then change the roles. It is also possible to add elements from your larp design, like asking participants to move as their character and interact with each other based on their ingame relation. Consider how this could potentially affect the building of chemistry – If the relation is not inherently positive, this could interfere with the result of the workshop itself.
For the final approx. 5 minutes of the exercise, ask the pairs to get close to each other, if they haven’t already. Invite them to move together as if dancing in a ballroom setting (or if something else fits your larp better).
As the final step, ask participants to use both hands in their movement together, so that the transition to the next exercise happens fluently.
Step 4: Shared Moment
Time: Approx. 3 minutes
Ask the participants to stop in their movement, still with their hands held up “connected” to each other. The participants then move closer together, so close they can feel the heat from their partner’s hands, without touching. Ask them to close their eyes, take a deep breath and focus on the feeling they have in that moment. Ask them to visualize something, it could be an image, a thought or emotion, and keep their focus on what they are visualizing. Give them a few moments to get grounded, then ask them to open their eyes and at the same moment let their hands touch.
The pairs now get a minute to share what they thought of and visualized.
Step 5: Touch
Time: Approx. 7 minutes
This exercise is based on the method Ars Amandi by Eliot Wieslander.
Short description of the mechanic: Ars Amandi is a Nordic larp mechanic used for simulating romance or sex in larp. The mechanic uses touch of permitted zones (often hands, arms, and shoulders) between two or multiple participants. The touch is often in the form of stroking, massaging, grabbing, or exploring with one’s fingers/hands.
The pairs sit down in front of each other again, this time knee to knee. They establish eye contact and slowly start touching both of each other’s hands. The area of touch slowly increases, as the participants have time to get comfortable, by first moving the touch up to the lower part of the arms, stopping at the elbows, then the upper part of the arms, stopping at the shoulders. The participants should be allowed to tap out, if increasing the area of touch is not wanted, thereby keeping the touch to the previous level (e.g.: hands or lower arms).
The participants can play around with this touch, either by expressing the kind of relation their characters have, or by the organizer creating variation in the types of touch (e.g.: asking participants to change their touch to portray siblings, parent-child, lovers, etc.)
Again, be aware how portraying ingame relations can potentially affect the building of chemistry if the relation is not inherently positive.
Step 6: Appreciation
Time: Approx. 5 minutes
Continuing the touch exercise from step 5, the participants simultaneously start verbal appreciation of each other. They take turns commenting on facts they appreciate about the other, using the following sentence form: “I like… XXX” (e.g.: “I like your curly hair”). The receiving participant continues with: “You like… XXX” (e.g.: “You like my curly hair”) and adds their own comment (e.g.: “I like your blue shirt”), returning the appreciation and continuing the exercise.
Important note: No derogatory or hurtful comments are allowed. Clearly instruct participants to only state objective and neutral facts about each other (e.g.: colors of eyes, hair, etc.), chosen aspects of their appearance (e.g.: choice of clothes, jewelry, tattoos, etc.), or experienced behavior during the exercises (e.g.: their movement, smile, eye contact).
Wrapping up
The workshop can either end with step 6 or with a repeat of a moment of silent eye contact.
Either way, it is encouraged to give participants a few minutes after the workshop to talk with their partner about the experience and how they are feeling.
Final notes on the workshop design
As mentioned, the workshop can be run either by organizers or used by players themselves. Especially in the case of organizers running the workshop, it is important to consider the impact it can have on the participating players. As the workshop aims at modelling participants’ behavior to create closeness and build player chemistry, the risk of relational bleed can increase. It is the responsibility of the organizers to consider the ethics of using this or similar methods, as well as making sure the participating players are consenting.
The workshop was first run and tested in its entirety at Knutpunkt 2022 in Linköping, Sweden. Thank you to everyone who participated and gave their feedback, as well as everyone who checked the workshop description for read- and run-ability.
Cover photo: Photo by Bjørn-Morten Vang Gundersen. Image has been cropped.
