Literary and Performative Imaginaries – Where Characters Come From
Character sheets are an important part of a roleplaying game's "text", but how are they constructed, and how do they operate? Evan Torner investigates.
Theory
Pre-production in larps – A Practical Guide
This article on larp pre-production is based on my experience as both a video game designer and larp designer. The concepts described are based on good practices in the video game industry, but are definitely applicable to larps and other…
Creating a Culture of Trust through Safety and Calibration Larp Mechanics
When Ben Morrow and I decided to offer a College of Wizardry-like experience in North America in April 2015, we knew we had our work cut out for us. Not only did we need to form a larp production company,…
Love, Sex, Death, and Liminality: Ritual in Just a Little Lovin’
Just a Little Lovin' is commonly touted as one of the best Nordic larps ever designed by those who have played it. Originally written in 2011 by Tor Kjetil Edland and Hanne Grasmo, the larp explores the lives of people…
The D-M Creative Agenda Model – An Axis Instead of a Pyramid
In an RPG or larp context, the term creative agenda refers to the reason for engaging in the playful activity. That different players (and the same players at different times) have a wide variety of creative agendas is well established,…
The Blockbuster Formula – Brute Force Design in The Monitor Celestra and College of Wizardry
2013 and 2014 may be remembered as the conception of the Nordic blockbuster larp. Two ambitious larps – The Monitor Celestra in Sweden and College of Wizardry in Poland – succeeded in attracting an unprecedented level of international attention from…
You’re in Charge of You
Let me tell you about how you can game master yourself in a larp. In a tabletop role-playing game it’s easy for the actual game master to work on pacing and theme and mood and so on, because she sees…
The Art of Steering – Bringing the Player and the Character Back Together
The rhetorics of Nordic larp often imply that role-players play in an intuitive fashion guided by the character, rarely or never contemplating their actions during the game. In reality, however, we are often keenly aware of what we are doing…
Steering for Immersion in Five Nordic Larps – A New Understanding of Eläytyminen
The concept of character immersion has been a cornerstone of Nordic larp discussion for fifteen years. I was surprised by how much the concept of steering introduced last year brought to my understanding of character immersion (“eläytyminen”). In this essay…
Safe Words and How to Use Them
Many larps have adopted safe words, as a form of meta-communication between players (rather than between characters). While in normal interaction it is sometimes possible to read non-verbal clues of fear or distress, the embodied nature of larp means there…