Internet Wall

The internet wall (also known as Social Media Wall, Message Wall, etc.) is a meta-technique where digital communication between characters is visible to the players in the physical space.

Usage

Players and/or game masters can post information and messages to a wall or notice board that all other players can see. It can be direct messages between characters, such as mobile phone text messages, or open messages such as a Twitter feed, blog posts or news stories. This let's game masters affect the game and let's the internet be factor without having the players using real computers and phones.

Variants

Non-diegetic

A wall can be used out of the fiction for most characters. In the Norwegian game Klassefesten text messages between characters are posted to a notice board so all players can see them and use them as playing tools. This demands a high level av transparency in the game.

Semi-diegetic

Another way to use the wall is to have everything on it be public information. Then it acts as an abstraction of computer screens. At the larp Halat hisar there was a wall that represented the internet with news websites, blogs, twitter and such. All the characters are privy to the information on the wall and can discuss it freely.

Video presentation

Talk at Knutepunkt 2014 by Rasmus Høgdall and Petter Karlsson - Social media in larps.

Social media in larps at Nordiclarp.org