Changes

'''''The Mixing Desk of Larp''' is a framework for organizing your thoughts about larp design. Look at it as a pedagogical tool more than a theory of larp design – it is an aid in visualizing the most important design choices a larpwright makes.''

How does your larp look? Do you aim for a [[360º]], where everything the players see around them is part of the larp? Or do you use a minimalist approach, where you only pay attention to the

==Character Creation Responsibility==

Who creates the characters? Do the organizers write them? Do the players? Or maybe they are created together during a pre-game workshop? Combinations of these are also possible; for example, where the organizers create the characters, but the players develop them during a workshop before the larp. Player-created characters might make the players more attached to the characters and relieves the organizers of some of the work. On the other hand, organizer-created characters might make it easier to create a setting and fiction coherent with your vision.

Do you use elements from the players’ real lives in the game (close to home), or do you deliberately try to create a barrier or distance (differentiation) between the character and player? Using the players’ own experiences or background might create a stronger emotional experience, but also has its downsides: making the game less larp and more reality. It can divert focus from the story and the emotions the story creates to the emotions the players bring with them into the game. Taken to the extreme, you might have the players play themselves, just in an alternative setting. Are you willing to lessen the player-character divide?

[[Meta-technique]]s are techniques for giving information to the players, but not the characters, during the game. Examples can be “inner” [[monologues]] that are played out during the larp. The players can hear these, the characters cannot, but nonetheless, they can be an aid for creating stronger drama. If meta-techniques are used in a game, they might be intrusive or discrete. Examples of intrusive meta-techniques are techniques that force all other players to stop while it happens, while a more discrete technique might be, for example, having access to a special room where players can go to act out scenes from the past or the future. This fader illustrates the combination of the amount of meta-techniques used and their degree of intrusiveness.

==Player Pressure==

There are some things in larp that are difficult to play out. Hunger, violence, sleep deprivation, drinking, sex and drug use might be examples. If you want to include these elements in your game, how do you do it? Do you put the pressure on the players as well as the characters by using with hardcore methods such as real alcohol, real food deprivation, and waking people at night? Do you shelter the players from the pressure on the characters by using replacements like boffer swords, fake alcohol, and telling the players to pretend to be hungry or sleep deprived? Hungry players will, of course, feel what it is like to be hungry, but their ability to role-play and enjoy other aspects of the game might be hampered.

The Mixing Desk of Larp is a work in progress. It's a pedagogical tool aimed for presenting and structuring some of the most important design choices of larp in a convenient form. There are plenty of other faders that could be part of the Mixing Desk, and the framework is open to extensions.

Some possible faders that have been discussed, for example in the Knutepunkt 2013 book article is

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