Category: Diamonds

What is your player’s state of mind when they arrive at the location of the game?

What state of mind do you want your players to be in when the game begins?

How do you get them from the first to the second?

My design background is Fastaval, and in recent years the Danish black box scene. Fastaval is a roleplay convention with about 30 new games each year, each for about four to six players. You sign up for games beforehand. At Fastaval you gather in a room with all the other players. When people have arrived, an organizer divides people into groups, and each group is assigned a GM who then takes their group to another room to play the game.

The black box scene works very much the same way. Again, it’s mostly centered on festivals with several short larps, the main difference being that the larps often have more players, around 10 to 20, so that everybody plays the same larp rather than being divided into groups. But both types of festival have a span of time before the game starts, where you wait for all players to arrive, perhaps for people from a reserve que to be found, or for the last preparations of the playspace to be done.

You will mostly be waiting together with a mix of strangers and friends. People spend this time in very different ways. As player, I have experienced most of the thing you can do: joking with friends, being half asleep from an exhausting convention, being nervous about the coming game, the “Am I good enough?” feeling, aching to get on with it, giddy, fidgety, bored, impatient and so on. Suffice to say: players will be in many different states of mind while they wait for the game to begin.

Designing the waiting time

For the last three games I have designed, I decided that this waiting time could also be part of the experience. I have tried to design the waiting time just as I design the rest of the game. I do this by asking the three questions that I posed at the start of this article: where are my players? Where do I want them to be? And how do I get them there?

For the first two games, Creatures (Pettitt, Simon J., 2015), and …And that’s it (Pettitt, Simon J., 2017), the solution to those questions were the same, so I will only describe one of them: …And that’s it.

…And that’s it was my larp for Fastaval 2017. In this game, the characters face their own imminent death and the death of all their friends as a plague wipes out the last of humanity. This is a quiet larp about loss and death, about friendship and community. It’s uses drawing as a way of communicating and reflecting. The playstyle is very slow and meditative with the focus of creating together in silence.

Fastaval on the other hand is a very busy place. Lots of things to do, lots of people to see. Very noisy, not much calm. At Fastaval you want to get as much as possible out of your time there, so often your program is packed. So, to answer the first two questions:

The players are some degree of: busy, hectic, tired, full of noise and thoughts about what has happened and what will come.

And I want them to be: calm, slow, meditative and silent.

In an attempt to bring them from one to the other, the players, when they arrived, were given a piece of paper with a short presentation of the larp and this text:

Dear player, welcome to …And that’s it

Please read this, as you wait.

From now on please don’t speak unless we ask you to.

This game is about communicating and reflecting through drawings, so if there’s some waiting time, spend it drawing. It can be anything, it doesn’t have to be good.

At the same time relax, and let all your tensions and worries slip to the back of your mind. This is a slow and dwelling game, so use this time to slowly sink into that mindset.

This is a very simple low tech solution, but the result seemed to achieve my goals. When it came time to divide the players into groups I had a big group of absolutely quiet and attentive players. It was almost unsettling how loyally they had followed the instructions. I asked some of the players how it had been, and their response fit my experience:

“It really help to get into the mood of the game. It was very calming to just sit and be quiet and think, and that gave a good look into how the game would be.”

Bo Hjælm

“As I remember it, we got a piece of paper, where we were asked to pick an object, that appealed to us. We were also asked to not speak any more until told that we could. It was very effective to be silent for so long. It really got me into the mood, to a degree where it even felt all wrong when we were allowed to talk during the workshop.”

Anne Vinter Ratzer

For both games where this preparation was used, the instruction to sit in silence and relax made sense in relation to the intended game experience. But in general, being relaxed and focused before a game starts is a good thing. So, what is yet to be tested is what to do if your game is different? What if it’s a comedy or an action piece? It will be interesting to see if this tool is just for this kind of game or if it can enhance the experience of all kinds of games.

Getting into Different States of Mind

I plan to test this at Fastaval 2018, where I will try to do the same but with a game that offers a slightly different experience. For Fastaval 2018 I’m designing Uledsaget (Pettitt, Simon J., 2018), a game about children fleeing from a civil war. It will be a dark fairytale rather than social realism. The players will be playing children that are thrown into extreme conditions. So the mood I want them to be in is a childlike state, but a bit apprehensive about the experience to come.

This presents a new answer to the second question: I want them to feel childish but apprehensive. So far in the design process, my idea is to make the room feel like the waiting room of an official institution. Like the doctor or in a hospital. Stale, impersonal, silent, but with some toys and coloring pens for children. The players will be instructed, as they arrive, to wait while playing or drawing by themselves, as if they are children waiting for something, feeling nervous but still being a playful child.

Whether or not this achieves the goal remains to be seen. Designing the waiting time for a larp is still new for me. And I would be very interested in hearing from others, who have tried to work with this waiting time as well. As designers, we need to design the whole experience from start to end, as we are by now designing experiences and not just the larps themselves.

An important point to remember is, that this is not meant to be a compulsory activity. The whole point is, that any waiting time often works against the mood and play experience as we get nervous, impatient or just bored. But by designing the waiting time, by making it part of the experience, we alleviate this and even help the players get ready for the game.

Getting into Mood vs. Getting into Character

An important distinction to make here, is that this is not about getting into character. This is about getting into the mood of the game. Many larps have a ritual or transitioning phase where the players move from the real world and into the larp.

The larps Just a Little Lovin’ (Edland, Tor Kjetil and Hanne Grasmo 2011) and Brudpris (Linder, Anna-Karin and Caroliona Dahlberg 2013) both had a theme song that played before game start,((I used these two examples because they are the two longer larps I have so far played.)) during which the players could get into character. The end of the song signal game start. Black box larps have worked a lot with transition using the tools of theatre. Both light and sound have been used help the players get into character and start the game.

But this is about the mood of the game and should happen before any such ritualistic transition. Before the workshop for shorter games, and before the transition into role for longer larps. Both tools could be used in the same game.

The Waiting Time before Longer Larps

When I posted the original blog post in Larpers BFF((See the post and comment here (requires membership of Larpers BFF on Facebook: https://goo.gl/T4i7eo)), Karijn van der Heij made a good comment about how this might work in a longer larp:

”At longer games, in my experience, people will need a certain amount of time to greet friends, catch up, fool around, share the pepp etc.”

This is like when I worked for an efterskole in Denmark. We had a yearly open house, where former students came and showed potential students around the school. We had to ask the old students to arrive an hour early, because they needed to spend the first hour reconnecting with old friends.

So, I think what Karijn is saying is true. But it only enhances my point. We need to be aware of where our players are when they arrive, and how we get them to where we need them to be when the larp starts. That might mean creating a meditative atmosphere before a game at a stressful convention or remembering to ad in catch up time before a long larp.

For the longer larps I have tried the start has been like this:

1. Arrival with hang out and catch up.
2. Workshop.
3. Costume and character prep before gamestart.
4. Game start.

But between prep and gamestart there is always a span of time where more and more players are just waiting for the game to start. In my experience this is the point where people are the most nervous and you need them to feel the most ready, relaxed and confident.

I think this period is equivalent to the waiting time at conventions, and you can design it too. Perhaps, you could create a space where players can go to when they are ready, where the setting and soundscape matches the feeling you want to set for the larp.

For a larp like Just a Little Lovin you could make a disco where people could dance their nerves away, maybe even make it a silent disco so people can listen to whatever music they need to hear to connect to their particular character. For a larp like Brudpris a game about a stoic honor based patriarchal society, you could create a meeting area where players could sit in contemplative silence slowly letting the weight of this strangling society build up until everyone are ready.

If you don’t do this, the state of mind your players are in when the game starts are out of your hands. Yes, some players will do this on their own anyway. But some will be rife with nerves or joking around perhaps due to being nervous. I believe if you create a space before a game starts that matches the state of mind you want your players to be in when the game starts, you can help alleviate that first difficult hour of play where you are still getting into character and finding your way into the magical circle that is a larp.

References

Pettitt, Simon James (2015) Creatures. https://alexandria.dk/data?scenarie=4582. Blackbox Cph V 2015.

Pettitt, Simon James (2017) …And That’s It. https://alexandria.dk/data?scenarie=4958. Fastaval 2017.

Pettitt. Simon James (2018) Uledsaget (Unaccompanied). https://alexandria.dk/data?scenarie=5324. Fastaval 2018.

Edland, Tor Kjetil and Hanne Grasmo, (2011) Just a Little Lovin’ https://nordiclarp.org/wiki/Just_a_Little_Lovin’

Linder, Anna-Karin and Carolina Dahlberg (2013) Brudpris https://nordiclarp.org/wiki/Brudpris

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This article is part of Re-Shuffling the Deck, the companion journal for Knutepunkt 2018.

All articles from the companion can be found on the Knutpunkt 2018 category.

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Cover photo: Playtest of “…And that’s it” at Østerskov Efterskole. Photo: Simon J. Pettitt.

During Knutepunkt 2017 I followed a debate that was of particular interest to me. Volunteering was presented by some as something evil; a way to make people work for free without any reimbursement. However, as a community which constantly talks about creating experiences I believe we should start treating volunteering as an experience in itself, which we can design and market in itself, not just as a way to get into a larp that is full or too expensive.’

In this article, I would like to propose alternate ways of looking at volunteer work, and how these can help our community, our volunteers, and our businesses to grow.

Volunteering as a learning experience

There are several skills a volunteer may pick up at a larp. From leadership to game running and from costume design to writing, there are many valuable learning experiences available.

If you market your volunteer experience as a learning experience, make sure you can actually make learning happen! Firstly, this means that you will not always have the most effective and experienced people on your crew. Although it is tempting to let the volunteer who is a tailor by trade do all the costume fittings, it might benefit the less experienced volunteers if that professional can coach them while they learn how to do it themselves.

Secondly, people do grow more from being told the theory and thought behind the job they are doing. This takes a little more time than it would to just tell them where in the room they need to put every single prop. But it will help fuel their own creativity and understanding of why things are done a certain way.

Thirdly, people learn by making mistakes. When you give responsibility to volunteers who are learning new skills it might mean that it takes a couple of tries to get it right. This costs time but will teach valuable lessons, especially if you take the time to assess the results together with your learners and explain where and how they can improve.

Offering well-tailored learning experiences will benefit the entire larp scene in the long run. You will be contributing to raising a new generation of organizers; be it those coming of age or those bringing larp to new areas of the world. If we invest more in offering our knowledge, skills and experience to others. It might be a little faster to have the job done by someone more experienced, but when learners have completed their learning objective you will have another capable volunteer on your team.

Volunteering as a payment for the player experience

With prices of larps rising, volunteering spots are often given to players who otherwise could not attend the larp. In this case, the volunteering experience must be the same or at least similar to the player experience. There are two ways volunteering like this most often works out in practice:

• A volunteer spends a certain number of hours before or after the game on tasks either from home or on location. When the game starts the volunteer is no longer considered a volunteer but is treated as a player.
• A volunteer does a certain number of shifts during the game (for example npc or tavern work.) Outside of those scheduled tasks, the volunteer is treated as a player.

Off course a combination of these two is also possible.

Volunteering as an alternative to paying can make a volunteer feel included in a community where he or she would otherwise not be able to participate. The emphasis lies on providing a player experience as a reward for the volunteer work done. This is a classic case of providing extrinsic motivation; behavior that is driven by external rewards such as money, fame, grades, and praise (Ryan, and Deci 2000) and especially the first type is very similar to a paid player experience.

The second type relies on a similar extrinsic motivation but still requires the volunteer to step out of their player experience in order to do some work. It is suggested that labor which is in conflict with the experience a player desires or expects from the larp may make the event less rewarding (Jones, Koulu, and Torner 2016, 125-134) This is especially relevant for larps with a high level of secrecy. In many cases volunteer work before or during the larp might take away some of the games secrets and surprises, in practise this might heavily impact the player experience. It is therefore important to negotiate the volunteers’ tasks and time in order to reach a balance between the work done and the reward received. In many cases, it is also reasonable to sign a contract between volunteer and organiser containing the amount of work (in tasks and/or hours) and the reward applicable.

Volunteering as an alternative to the player experience

This case differs drastically from the one above in the fact that the volunteer participates as a full-time crew member, and does not get the same experience as a player at any point during the game. In this case, the volunteer is a part of the design- or production team community but most often serves as an npc or practical helper during the game.

When this is done, it may cause confusion as to the role of volunteers during the game. Are they there to be solely in service of the game and its players, or are their experiences completely their own in the same way as the players?

In this case, clear communication before sign-up is key. It saves a lot of problems on location and before the larp if all parties involved know what is expected of them. When marketing these type of volunteer experiences, it is key to emphasize the differences between the volunteer and player experience. But a lot can be won by emphasizing the similarities as well!

Volunteering as free labor

When volunteers are recruited to commercial production companies, they are sometimes held to the standard of the paid crewmembers. They do however hold a different position on the status ladder of a larp organization, and need to be treated differently.

It is completely fair to have expectations of your volunteers, if they know what they signed up for. It is super important to clearly communicate anything they MUST or MUST NOT do, be it before during or after their volunteer engagement. If there is some kind of reimbursement scheme in place, they should be aware of its requirements. If the reimbursement scheme differs per person or job, this should be known beforehand. It is advisable to have transparency in place, when it comes to reimbursements in order to make sure everyone is reimbursed based on their contribution, and not based on their relationship with the person who decides on the reimbursements.

A well-informed volunteer who consciously signs up to volunteer within a business structure, who is treated well and has all their basic needs met will be more likely to be happy with their experience (Swistak 2017).

This is especially important for specialist volunteers. Volunteers who get brought on board due to a particular set of skills are often put to work on just that one task. It is not uncommon to recruit volunteers foreshadowing an all-round experience, so if you want to bring in a volunteer due to their specialist skills (like sewing or cooking) be communicative about that. Check if your expectations are the same as theirs, and see if you can reach a consensus with them before they get to the location and are taken by surprise.

When working with volunteers and paid employees in one team there might be some friction between these two parties. Where volunteers are usually brought in for a short period of time during a peak period in production they can focus their energy on that serie of tasks. Paid employees are often spending longer periods of time on a project and therefore have less peak moments. Paid employees are often more secure in their skills being up to the desired level needed for the larp and do not necessary need to bring extra time, labor or energy to the table. This difference in approach can lead to friction within a crew and needs to be addressed as soon as noticed by the responsible organizers both with volunteer and paid crew members. After all during the production of the larp they will work as one team.

Part of this friction might be prevented by clearly dividing responsibilities in a way that is visible for both volunteers and paid employees. When dividing tasks both volunteers and paid employees need to be aware of a clear baseline that is established for the task at hand and be made aware of the fact that everything above that baseline is optional and therefore every individual’s own responsibility. This might still mean that some volunteers will put a lot of extra work in specific aspects, but it will also mean that they can be pointed at the desired baseline which was reached by the paid employees as well. However, any work above that baseline should be praised and if possible rewarded making it more tempting to put in extra work for all parties involved.

Volunteering for fun

Beside hard work, volunteering is a fun and social activity and can definitely be marketed as such. Don’t be afraid to emphasize social activities, free time and amenities the location might have. Designing for fun is definitely a thing when organizing our volunteers’ free time, lunch, dinner or social activities. By becoming more aware of these and using these as a tool to build a dedicated and enthusiastic volunteer team, chances are they will return, and next time they might bring a friend.

I think we can conclude that there are several ways of designing the experiences for our volunteers. I have certainly not covered all of the options and I dare anyone to come up with new creative solutions. Just make sure that you know what you have to offer and be honest and clear about communicating it to those people interested in working with you.

I am aware of the fact that designing volunteer experiences is yet another job for an organizer crew who are chiefly concerned with designing the larp. But I strongly believe it pays off in the long run, both through happy (and thus returning) volunteers, as well as in more experienced and better skilled volunteers.

References

Jones, Katherine C., Sanna Koulu, and Evan Torner. 2016. “Playing at Work.” In Larp Politics – Systems, Theory, and Gender in Action, edited by Kaisa Kangas, Mika Loponen, and Jukka Särkijärvi, 125–134. Helsinki: Ropecon ry.

Ryan, Richard M., and Edward L. Deci. 2000. Intrinsic and extrinsic motivations: classic definitions and new directions. Contemporary educational psychology 25.1 (2000): 54-67.

Swistak, Agatha. 2017. “Keeping volunteers alive.” In Once upon a Nordic Larp… Twenty Years of Playing Stories, edited by Martine Svanerik, Linn Carin Andreassen, Simon Brind, Elin Nilsen, Grethe Sofie Bulterud Strand, 102–105. Oslo: Knutepunkt 2017.

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This article is part of Re-Shuffling the Deck, the companion journal for Knutepunkt 2018.

All articles from the companion can be found on the Knutpunkt 2018 category.

I have been a larper for over 20 years. Yet before I discovered the international larp community, I had no clue such experience was in demand. Thanks to that fateful meeting, people encouraged me to go farther with larp. I forever will be thankful to the team of edu center POST for opening those doors for me.

Now, as an internationally known larp scholar and the owner of a larp company, I would like to share some further encouragement. How larp can become part of your life without distracting from it.

Larp’s future looks brighter than ever. As larpers, we often do not want to stop larping. Many of us feel that, as larp adepts, we should “spread the gospel” and with that, hopefully, make everyone’s life better, easier, and more fun.  A fascinating number of amazing projects and new forms of larp have blossomed throughout the world as a result. And larp as a business as well.

Having my own share of endeavors in this area, I considered that some of this accumulated experience could actually be of use to few other curious larp practitioners.((Most of this essay is based on lectures: “Faces of Larp” read at Palac Krobielowice in Poland on the 2nd of September at the Larp Design Conference 2016 and “Going Pro in Larp: how and where we can use it” read on Gniales 2016 “Passerelles”  on the 30th of October that year in Paris.)) In Belarus, I own a larp company that has many ongoing projects. As a dedicated larper since 1996, it was only a dozen years ago when moral encouragement from J. Tuomas Harvianien prompted me to shove larp into every corner of my life. In time, I began to earn some money with it.

Here are some bits of lore I have accumulated as a professional larpwright and organizer.

Ethics

Going from being a regular larper to a professional larper, I had to change my approach toward larp design. In some larp cultures, these are normal everyday principles, but moving from larping with friends to larping with clientele reminds one of some basics. Our workers, the NPCs, need to know them too.

Respect: First and foremost, the cornerstone: respect.  One should respect the clients and treat all accordingly. Lack of it demonstrates a lack of professionalism as much as disrespectful communication does.

Obligation and Responsibility: These two words should become part of your core. They should not be feared or avoided. They should be embraced and worked with.  No one should go pro without as from now on you have obligation before you clientele and responsible for than at your event.

Pro-Growth: Never stop learning. Much of what we call “larp” actually borders many practical disciplines. Learning more about them is essential to evolve and get better. The world’s specialists in all fields never stop growing and changing –– why should larpers?

Distance: Keep a professional distance from your clients, the players. This is informed by many generations of professionals and their own introspection about their mistakes. It is important to present a clear message about the nature of your relations with others on a specific project in order to avoid misunderstandings in the future and frustration on all sides. All should be clear and explicit.

Subculture

In most cases, your own larp subculture should never be considered your primary or only market. The larp subculture is our family, where we were born and nurtured as future larp professionals, and we should treat it accordingly. In having business relationships with larpers, you should already be at a somewhat higher niveau in your work in a way that they cannot immediately compete with you. To put it simply: to transcend the subculture and go professional, you should already act as a professional out of the gate and be a tough pro larp organizer with which to compete. Larp society can form one source of income, but shouldn’t be the only one.

Here are some categories related to the subculture and pro larp profits.

Larpers

Larpers are the source of most of your value: specialists, partners, laborers, NPCs. Yet my own experience and those of other organizers from around the world tell me that larpers are very difficult to work with on a professional level.

Events

Any larper will gladly pay for high-quality events such as festivals, conventions, balls, tournaments, competitions, larps, etc. Such events are always in demand and may attract quite a crowd if appropriately packaged.

Products and Services

Owning a larp company, you might have your own products you could sell or rent such as crafts, costumes, scripts, scenography and other things. Your larp company might even gather specialists who would want to offer services to larpers and larp designers: classes in fencing, kung fu, dancing, acting, costume making and other fields, for example. One can make objects, costumes, and other artwork that then could be packaged and sold.

Entertainment

The most popular area where larpers are starting to go pro is the entertainment industry. Yet it is very different from doing larps for fellow larpers. Once you get the hang of it, there are different types of income with different approaches and demands in this industry.

Corporate

You are invited to sell your larp project to a company as entertainment. Well done, if that is the case! If you attract desirable clientele and do well, it might just get better and better from there. But if you do not do well, it might have consequences difficult to recover from. So before going this route, ask yourself if your larp company is mature enough to play in that league.

Regular

This means the regular events which you promote and to which you sell tickets. The principle is comparable to concerts in clubs or movie theaters. You need to find, groom, and manage your customer. The good thing is that it often can form a form of subculture community which, if you “feed the flames”, will guarantee you will not go out of demand.

Popular

If you become known and form good connections, you might get invited to a festival, convention, birthday party, concert or some other event where you will be one of the many activities. It also may be something you haven’t done before, so you will have to think of how to format your larp in a way that makes it  quick and easy to get into. Such events are not only good for advertising and promoting your company, but, with a proper approach, could also be a good source of income.

Elite

In this category, I consider irregular events for which you prepare a long time. It could be a big larp, festival, convention and your main efforts are focused on maintaining a high quality to make your mark.

Education

From my perspective, education is the noblest area for larp. It is also the most demanding, and the sphere in which larp has been used for the longest time and has thus the most theory behind it. Working in edu-larp is not profitable, but it does grant us the tentative understanding of many powers and effects of larp.

Clientele

There are three systems I had to develop to describe difference in approaches required for specific larp projects. One system means dividing up the audience by target group, while the others are the target clientele and target educational goals.

While designing a larp, it is important to keep in mind who is this larp for:

Children

Larp business for children is one of the most high-demand areas and good for the professional growth of the larp company. But if you think dealing with children is an easy feat, think again. Cuddly, smiling, fun kids are also the most legally protected group in any country. If you cause any kind of harm to any of them, their legal guardians may eat you alive. All the more if you, for some reason, decide that documentation of procedures are unnecessary, safety measures are for “softies” and amateurs, and the quality of the larp may vary. Here, we need to understand that we are responsible for every single effect on children our larp has experienced as a result of the larp –– not only legally responsible, but as a decent human being. And if you are not willing to accept that level of responsibility –– both good and bad –– then perhaps the professional larp and edu-larp industry are not for you. Stay in your comfort zone, larping for and with friends.

Teenagers

In many legal respects, teenagers are similar to children. But on a larp level, one can do more complicated plots, expect higher quality from the larp, and go to more interesting property. With older teenagers, one can go further and deeper with storylines and communication, among other things.

College Students

Educational larp for students should have definite and specific goals they can “grasp” by the end. Such games can be more complex, challenging, and informative. But one also has to make lengthier and more thorough workshops and debriefs, as much of the lesson depends on those working well. Often such larps emphasize knowledge already acquired during lectures or through homework.

Adult

Adult educational larps I usually use when working with clientele such as parents of kids in school, seniors in business schools and during some business projects.

Special

Larps can also be made for people with special needs as the target audience. These larps pay the least perhaps, but yield the most moral satisfaction.

Among the target clientele inviting our company to do larp projects, the approaches differ among them.

Educational System

By this, I mean the educational establishment, part of institutionalized public educational system. In some countries, everything incorporated into the curriculum could be regulated by norms and rules of many sorts. It is best to have an official representative of the institution look through one’s larp plans to avoid undesirable misunderstandings.

Private Educational: Some education takes place outside of the establishment. Here, one has more freedom and it is less regulated.

Business Educational: What I mean by “business educational” is reminding oneself of the fact that, for business-oriented clients, a certain degree of slick packaging is preferable.

All larps, whether the organizers comprehend it or not, have many dimensions of personal development. For my own convenience, I have divided these into three emphasis areas:

• Moral: The social and moral education of values and psychological pursuits of self-consciousness and self-awareness is a sphere of development.
• Intellectual: Information and knowledge and mental skills can also be developed.
• Physical: Athletic and action learning are also potentially developed.

Psychology

As a practicing psychologist, I provide the following services through larp: Diagnostic, Therapy, Prevention, Correction, Development.

Corporate

Larp could be used within different companies, frequently proving effective at fulfilling company goals. Even within such serious institutions as the Investigative Committee of the Republic of Belarus, larp can be used. To acquire corporate clientele, or even work inside a company, one might want to look into following areas where I found larp very applicable: HR, Simulations, Skills, Knowledge, Athletics.

Theatre

Many useful skills for larpers and larp designers come from the infinite rich and beautiful world of theatre. Larp communities have lost so many to this world. They crossed to other side and, engulfed by the theatre world, could not cross back into larp. Many professionals one could not even imagine are found here, and they can bring your company, and perhaps the whole community, to a whole new level. Larp and theatre are different. However, theatre skills as stage fencing, acting, public speaking, playwriting, character development, actor management, stage management, deroling, etc. are there to enhance the arsenal of tools at your disposal.

Art

At some point, larp manifests the many creative impulses of all participating in it, and reaches the level of art. Admittedly, not right away. Admittedly, not with most larps. But when organizers and NPCs, like music conductors or movie directors, manage emotions and experiences in people, then it creates a certain picture and transfers experience. Many larp projects I have worked on are nowhere close to being called “art,” and I am aware the medium is still evolving. But I can vouch for the fact that going professional with one’s larp activities is the best way to get on the art track.

Research

Finally, one essential area for larp to develop is the preservation of all knowledge and theory accumulated. No other field preserves it beyond those who do larp research.  Thanks to this field, I started my ascension into the professional larp world in the first place. One joins this conversation through Conferences (academic, gaming conventions, etc.), Publications (articles and periodicals mostly), and Projects (international and local research, etc.)

Thank you

and

Larp On

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This article is part of Re-Shuffling the Deck, the companion journal for Knutepunkt 2018.

All articles from the companion can be found on the Knutpunkt 2018 category.

 

When designing Devil in our sins, I strived to create the experience of telling a profound group story through a key tool: player characters’ scripts.

It’s common in larps to prioritize players’ freedom to take decisions. However, in this larp I wanted to remove that freedom so players could enjoy being part of a film or a theater play as both protagonists and spectators. That way they could live the story’s meaning, plot, twists and emotions as imagined by the author. That way, players would become Ani Bezzerides or Rust Cohle, True Detective (Pizzolatto, Nic, 2014) TV series’ characters from season 1 and 2, and live inside them throughout all their chapters just as in the series. My intention was not only to respect the story as written but also to have players feel like both spectators and characters in a movie.

As this was a larp, I wanted my players to be able to take some decisions that would differ from the series original characters’ ones, but still maintaining the story that the script writer (Nic Pizzolatto in our True Detective example) created for them to enjoy. The satisfaction of this experience comes from players submerging in a simple yet transcendent emotion: becoming their novels and TV series heroes, as they could have wished when they started playing larps or reading books.

That’s what I humbly tried with my neo-Noir scripted chamber larp, and after three runs it seemed to result satisfactory for everyone.

Devil In Our Sins, a Neo-Noir style Scripted Larp

Devil in our sins is a neo-Noir larp about crimes and guilt. It tells the story of a serial killer that has been strangling victims for three years in Duluth, Minnesota, during long winter snow nights. But, more importantly, it tells the story of people that are trying to stop him while suffering the effects of their own pasts.

It’s a 3 hour scene-based and scripted chamber larp for 7 players, with preceding workshops about how to dramatically enact a scene and to represent physical violence (pretty much necessary for this larp). It has been run three times in Spain, always with highly emotional and positive feedback from players. Thematically, its inspiration comes from the TV series True Detective, Broadchurch (Chibnall, Chris, 2013) and Hannibal (Fuller, Bryan, 2013), and from the song and video Where the wild roses grow with Kylie Minogue and Nick Cave (1995).

But What Are Scripted Larps?

What I call here a “scripted larp” is a larp that uses a pre-defined script that must be followed by the players. It can have a more or less theatrical, TV series o filmic appearance, depending on the creator’s taste. The level of detail concerning music, staging etc. can vary, as can its length and structure, but the script should focus on a common story that is constructed through the combination of individual character stories.

The scene structure is defined by an overall script used by the organizer, who follows it to guide the scenes’ start and end and prepare the stage (furniture, lights, objects, etc.). To add, each player is provided with a character script that instructs her about the scene’s goal and her character’s own directions to follow, including suggestions on how to play them out. Devil in our sins also uses music and light in each scene to help set the mood.

In my scripted larps, only two or three characters are present in each scene. With more people present, the scene could become chaotic, so this helps to maintain focus on one conversation or one flow of events. With more people present, the scene could become chaotic. This also means that the rest of the players become an audience. The result is a theatrical experience in which the acting players are the protagonists.

The Origins: Scene-Based Larps.

But where did this interest for scripting larps come from? First, I am a professional novel writer and I love to tell deep and intense stories. This has been my obsession since I started as a larper and a tabletop RPG game master about 25 years ago. When I came to Nordic style for larping I felt that it offered me a way to express the kind of stories that standard chamber larping didn’t allow me to do. The experimental structures, the emotional approach… all of that was exciting, but there was still something missing. Then I discovered the scene-based larps, which gave me what a narrativist like myself was looking for. I was particularly inspired by the following authors.

Pablo Valcárcel was a finalist in the 2017 Berlin World of Darkness Convention with his The Other Voice at the Back of Your Head (Valcárcel, Pablo, 2017) vampire-themed larp. He introduced me to the scene-based larps, but also showed me how to masterfully mix music, colored lights and passion in their design. His larps combine emotional intensity with poetical scenes in fascinating sci-fi/fantasy/horror plots.

Nast Marrero gave me the purest view of how post-modern theater can be transformed into larp. Among other larps, he created really interesting adaptation of the Requiem for a Dream film (Aronofsky, Darren, 2000). It was run in Spain and also in 2015 at the Oslo chamber larp festival Grenselandet (Marrero, Nast, 2015). As a theater expert himself, Nast makes skillful use of several meta-technics that one could expect in a contemporary stage play.

Marina de Santiago experiments with personal stories in fantasy settings. Currently, she is heading a gigantic project based on the Nobilis tabletop RPG (Moran, Jenna K., 2002) involving dozens of people. In 2015 she ran a half-scripted larp called Ragnarok (de Santiago, Marina, 2015) full of Nordic myth, tragic stories, fated Gods and mortal Vikings in a theatrical style, and even made another run in an amphitheater. To me, her larps present a perfect mix of fantasy, tragedy and larping.

Fredrik Åkerlind’s beautiful, tough and intense jeepform scene-based larp The Journey (Åkerlind, Fredrik, 2010), inspired by Cormac McCarthy’s (2006) novel The Road, gave me the idea of player’s scripts. While this larp encourages playing each scene as chained monologues, the final intention is theatrical, as his author states in the director’s guide. The result: I loved the larp as much as I already loved the novel.

Given these influences and merged with my own authorial vision, in the latest years I’ve being experimenting with my own larps using scenes, music, lights, stage building and, finally, scripts. For example, I’ve made an Ars Magica larp, Hades (Espinosa, Daniel P., 2015), I’ve co-written a gothic horror larp with Ana López Gómez, Our most fearful shadows (López Gómez, Ana, and Espinosa, Daniel P. 2015), and I’ve written Devil in our sins.

Now, let’s delve more deeply into scripted larps.

Spectators of Their Own Story

In scene-based scripted larps, when players are not present in a scene they become spectators and observe what’s happening in places where their own characters are not. They acquire information that their characters don’t know, something that is necessary for them to enjoy and understand the story as a whole.

But what happens if the killer’s identity is revealed but no one should know? Even if players don’t use that information in their scenes, knowing it could influence their behavior. Though we cannot completely avoid that influence to alter their acting, it should have a limited effect because their scripts tell them what their characters know or don’t know, what happened before, what they can do and can talk about… Thus, due to the script’s safeguarding, players can relax and enjoy spoilers.

You may think that just watching other players to act in a scene could be boring, but after three runs, and based on the aforementioned larps, experience said it’s not. One reason is that the scenes function as a meta-technique that forces players to think differently from the very instant the larp started. Immediately they found themselves trying to give the best of themselves in their scenes, and resting and enjoying watching during the other players’. Some even said they only missed popcorn.

Caged and Enjoyed

Definitely, in my experience a scripted larp experience is enjoyable in spite of  players having their agency restricted. How do they enjoy it? Besides from acting it out and watching it, as stated, they can also find interesting to progressively discover a story written for them, with its carefully plotted webs that maintain coherence no matter what players do, and in becoming aware that they are truly part of it. Besides, though character scripts tell players what they have to do, they also give them freedom about how to do it. This is critical for the emotional development of characters.

The only thing the organizer must care about is to inform the players beforehand about this particularity—the tight scripting—to make sure they don’t feel disappointed for not having “freedom” to act during the larp. The organizer—and the players—must understand that this experience is not for everyone, just as theater is not for everyone. Before each run of Devil in our sins, I warned very clearly the interested players, so that those who signed up knew what they were in for. They were both curious or anxious to play a larp from a different mindset, one that was a mix of that of a larp player, a theater actor, and a spectator, but finally they loved the experience. It allowed them to focus on emotions and interpretation, without worrying about making wrong decisions or about shouldering the responsibility of the story’s final coherence.

Anatomy and Life of a Script

In Devil in our sins, each player is given a small booklet with the name and location of every scene in the larp. It is only the ones in which the player participates that are detailed, each describing the current situation and posing several questions about how the character feels. This way, I as scriptwriter can guide the character’s mood while leaving the player a margin to decide how she is going to handle the scene emotionally. For example, after a big revelation the script may pose questions if the character would be sad or furious, and how the character would feel if the “enemy” appeared again.

In the “scripted” part of the scene, there is first a synopsis for the scene. For example: “Take revenge revealing what you did in the past”. This phrase is crucial because it enables the player to keep the scene’s goal in mind and maintain focus. It was an addition after early playtests, as players reported that it was difficult to remember the scene’s objective when on stage. It really helped in the third run.

After that, the script details actions step by step. For example: “Enter the apartment. Think about what you did. Wait for your lover to wake up. Talk with him/her. Reveal your dark past”.

An important constraint is that players are allowed to read their scripts only once the larp is started, and that they only read the scenes one by one—at most two by two. This is to avoid spoilers, since the gradual unfolding of the plot is an important part of the experience.

In addition, players are encouraged to act out only that which is scripted, contributing with their own vision of the character but being careful not to do something different to what is written. Since players are unaware of the scripted story, their improvisations could become inconsistent with later scenes.

Finally, if a scene is going out of control the organizer has the option to intervene, as a theater prompter. This allows her to discreetly—without interrupting the scene—tell the players what to do. Harsh as it sounds, this is better than creating a scene that invalidates the rest of the plot.

The Scripted and the Unexpected

There’s a lie in all this emphasis on scripting, in that some unscripted events DO exist. They present a point of interest for players, and allow the players to improvise and react like in a non-scripted larp.

When I decided to make closed stories, I also wanted to add a feeling from when we watch a film or read a book: the suspense, the unexpected. Consider the following example scene, where the police sergeant returns home to face her daughter, who is being threatened by a serial killer. The sergeant has a drinking problem, and regrets some immoral things she has done for years. The sergeant’s player script says: “Go back home. Take a bottle and decide if you drink or throw it to the trash. Have a discussion with your daughter. Strive for reconciliation. Perhaps forget all about the investigation”. And that’s what the player expects. However, when she enters stage and while she is struggling with the bottle, she will discover her daughter dying at her room, strangled by the killer. So here we have it; we have broken the player’s expectations, just as in a novel—or in real life.

Thus we can build an intensely emotional and scripted scene, but still surprise and gratify players with some improvisation that will delve even deeper into their emotions.

Of course, those scenes must be carefully crafted so that improvisation don’t break the whole story, using guidelines like “Don’t kill anybody in this scene”. Just in case.

Action Scenes

A scripted larp allows players to represent action scenes in spectacular ways since these are guided. In Devil in our sins, there’s a scene when the sergeant and the detective have to chase down someone in a dark place, equipped with flashlights and guns. Every time I’ve run this scene, the result has been intensely cinematic. With lights off and the song Somewhat damaged from Nine Inch Nails (1999) playing loud, the suspect, chased, hides in an unknown room. Seconds later, the sergeant and the detective enter the building, guns in hand and looking for the suspect. The other players, as moving spectators, enter behind them to watch the scene from backstage.

This scene and similar scenes become spectacular through the way they can be choreographed. Just as a movie director, as the author you can tell the players if they must fight, be hurt, run, kill or be killed, etc., and provide details. You can control the scenography, the place, the lights, the music… Besides you can—and must—heighten characters’ passions in the script so that the action has a deep meaning for them.

Still, a scene like this can still be unpredictable, to make it enjoyable the players mustn’t know what exactly is going to happen. To keep the plot under control you need to use brief and precise instructions. For example: “You can be hurt but you won’t die during this scene”. Or: “Don’t run. Fight”. Or: “You will lose but don’t give up easily”. And, important, be clear about how each character must end their scene.

An Open Final

Despite being scripted, scripted larp leave can allow players to make plot-changing decisions. In Devil in our sins, each character has a scene in which she can decide how to conclude her story. These final scenes are designed in a plot-meaningful way, so that they bring together characters who have unresolved plots between them. The script tells the players it’s their final scene and that they have to make decisions to create a shared ending. They know they have nothing to lose and they are encouraged to take wild decisions. This is the time to die, flee, reveal and create a huge emotional climax. It’s time to make this their own story.

All Devil in our sins’ runs have ended differently. One was dramatic and dark. Other was emotive and sad. Another one yet was tough and ruthless. The best was that this was the players’ decision.

Breaking Space, Time and Action

In scripted larps—and scene-based larps in general—you can use space and time as narrative tools.

Regarding space, playing out scenes allows to easily change location between them to tell wider stories. Time is easily changed also—not only with flashbacks or flashforwards, but moving action through different days or even years—without breaking the flow of action. Each scene could happen in a different time, for example.

Talking about action, it’s important that we involve all characters in our global story, and one easy way to do it is dividing that story into multiple ones. But for me there’s one key requirement: there must be only one action at a time during a scene. That way, spectators can focus on one thing and understand the whole story, and we can keep narrative tension and rhythm. After all, this is theater larp.

Writing a Scripted Larp

A scripted larp like this requires careful writing, at least the way I see it. It took me several months to develop both story—with all the twists and crimes—and script for Devil in our sins. Much work went into maintaining a balance between all characters, so that everyone could be protagonist of their own story and have the same number of scenes.

After that, I had to write each scene in a concise and clear way. Each one must describe how the character got there, what has happened right before, what is the scene’s main aim for the character and when to leave or end it. It may also suggest ways to act out the scene and contain questions about emotions. The description still has to be brief, ideally one A5 page maximum.

Apart from that you have to work with the rhythm, interest and suspense within the scenes, and over the entire larp. Scenes must be interesting not only to be played but also to be watched. Finally you are writing an interactive novel. This is not a metaphor, because after the first run of Devil in our sins I decided to also write it as a novel that I’m finishing right now. Why not? I had already done all the preceding work: the plot, the mystery, the characters, the structure, etc. That’s how with these larps we can tell stories like they were novels or films.

Conclusions

With this article, I wanted to spread the word about scene-based larps and scripted larps, and give some insight into what is happening at the Spanish larping scene.

I have presented my personal vision of what scripts can do when you apply them to a larp to tell a story in a theatrical style. Of course, there are most likely other approaches that are more or less scripted or just scripted in a different way. I’d really love to know about them.

For me, the experience of designing and staging scripted scenarios have demonstrated that scripted larps can make their players enjoy every moment, make story-changing decisions and ask themselves about deep emotional subjects while enjoying a carefully crafted story.

Because we all love stories, and because we all also love to act and to be part of them.

References

Aronofsky, Darren, Requiem for a Dream (Thousand Words, 2000).

Cave, Nick & The Bad Seeds and Kylie Minogue, Where the wild roses grow (Mute Records, 1995).

Chibnall, Chris, Broadchurch TV series (BBC, 2013-2017).

Espinosa, Daniel P., Devil in our sins (Madrid, Spain: March 25, 2017; Madrid, Spain: June 30, 2017; Alicante, Spain: EntreReVs Larp Convention, November 11, 2017). http://entrerevs.wixsite.com/entrerevs/actividades-2017

Espinosa, Daniel P., Hades (Madrid, Spain: 2015; Málaga, Spain: Rolea Convention, November 2015).

Fuller, Bryan, Hannibal TV series (NBC, 2013–2015).

López Gómez, Ana and Daniel P. Espinosa, Our most fearful shadows/Nuestras más temibles sombras (Madrid, Spain: 2015; Málaga, Spain: Rolea Convention, November 2015; Murcia, Spain: EntreReVs Larp Convention, October, 2016. http://entrerevs.wixsite.com/entrerevs/activities-2016).

Marrero, Nast, Requiem for a Dream larp (Málaga, Spain: TdN Convention, August 7, 2015; Oslo, Norway: Grenselandet chamber larp convention, October, 2015. http://www.grenselandet.net/2015/09/requiem-for-dream-es-by-nast-marrero-is.html )

McCarthy, Cormac, The Road (Alfred A. Knopf ed., 2006).

Moran, Jenna K., Nobilis RPG 2nd edition (Hogshead Publishing, 2002).

Nine Inch Nails, Somewhat damaged (Nothing Records, 1999)

Pizzolatto, Nic, True Detective TV series (HBO, 2014-2015).

de Santiago, Marina, Ragnarok (Yebes-Valdeluz, Guadalajara: December 17, 2015). http://thebiggame.despertalia.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Flyer-TBG-16-2.pdf

Valcárcel, Pablo, The Other Voice at the Back of Your Head (Madrid, Spain: April 7, 2017; Berlin, Germany: May 13, 2017). https://www.worldofdarkness.berlin/single-post/2017/05/13/Scenario-Competition-Finalists-Announced

Åkerlind, Fredrik, The Journey (Århus, Denmark: Fastaval 2010). http://jeepen.org/games/thejourney/

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This article is part of Re-Shuffling the Deck, the companion journal for Knutepunkt 2018.

All articles from the companion can be found on the Knutpunkt 2018 category.

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Cover photo: Sergeant Joanne Keller (left) and Detective Tom Reigh (right) wake up after sharing nightmares. 1st run. In-game photo by Enrique Esturillo Cano.