Debriefing Intense Larps 101

Safety

Debriefing is a structured conversation amongst players about their larp experience, usually held immediately after a larp.

Debriefs have rules. They often have a facilitator. They have a different purpose than the usual post-larp venting, sharing, bragging, joking and celebrating.

Debriefs are used for many different purposes, and there are several different styles. Edu-larp designers, for example, often use long debriefs to facilitate a learning process, bridging the personal experience with the subject matter. My home community in Oslo used “debrief” to mean a speach where the organisers tell players what REALLY happened. I’m not writing about that kind of debrief.
Continue reading Debriefing Intense Larps 101 →

Dogma 99 – preface to the Italian edition

Larp History

I’d like to use this opportunity to dispel a common misunderstanding, and reveal a well-kept secret, both regarding a certain manifesto published in Oslo on the 3rd of December, 1999.
Dogma 99
The misunderstanding first: that the Dogma 99 Vow Of Chastity should be a statement about how all larps – and especially those designed by the signatories – should be made, everywhere, in perpetuity.

It was not. How could it be? Continue reading Dogma 99 – preface to the Italian edition →

The Play of Fate – preface to the Italian edition

Larp History

I first started writing about “fateplay” in 1996, the stone age of role-playing theory. This was before John Kim’s “Threefold Model FAQ” (1998), when “dramatism” was identified as a possible player agenda, before the birth of the online indie-rpgs community at “the Forge” (2001), before the first Knutepunkt conference (1997) where Nordic arthaus larpers would begin formalizing their ideas.

During the 90s, both in Scandinavia and the English-speaking world, the claim was commonly put forth that role-playing was somehow about “storytelling”. White Wolf, producers of the most influential larp & tabletop games of the day, even called their game mechanics for the “Storyteller System”, while local larpers often used the phrase “experiencing a story together” as a way to explain the point of it all.

My key insight was they they were lying. Continue reading The Play of Fate – preface to the Italian edition →

Notes on Kutt, Brems and Emotional Safety

Safety

So, there is a fairly standardized pair of safewords used at a lot of larps around here – “kutt” which means “Cut! Stop!” and “brems”, which literally translates as “brake!” and means “slow down, buddy – don’t stop roleplaying but do less of whatever it is you’re doing to me”. These safety rules are exposed to constant scrutiny, and it is frequently claimed (for example at the player safety debate at Solmukohta 2012) that they “don’t work”.

My five rambling cents:

Continue reading Notes on Kutt, Brems and Emotional Safety →

Does your larp have a zombie?

Design process, Methods, Theory

Does your larp have one of these?

Imagine two larps: the first one is about angsty teenagers figuring out the meaning of life in a remote mountain cabin. The second one is exactly the same, except those teenagers are being atacked by zombies. Which larp do you think will attract more players?

In “Talk Larp”, one of the three downloadable anthologies published at the 2011 Knudepunkt conference, Juhana Pettersson’s contribution “The Necessary Zombie” contains two very useful observations:
Continue reading Does your larp have a zombie? →

2011 Knutebooks on-line

Case studies, Larp History, Uncategorized

The 2011 Knudepunkt Books are now dribbling onto the web. At the time of writing, two of the three books can be downloaded as PDFs:

2011 Knudebook Covers

The three books are devoted to respectively academic research (“Think Larp”), organizer write-ups (“Do Larp”) and rants & opinions (“Talk Larp”). The last volume, rumours have it, is bound to cause some controversy.
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Also: if you, dear reader, have lived under a rock the last couple of months, you might have missed the monumental publication of the monumental book “Nordic Larp”, which documents 30 historically significant larps in text and pictures. It’s not on-line, and it anyway shouldn’t be read on a screen – this is a beautiful “art book”, which sits nicely on your coffee table or in the library of your neighbourhood art istitution. Buy it here or read the editors blog. I have contributed text on the larp “1942 – noen å stole på”.

Cover of "Nordic Larp"

The Other Us : a larp for a small group of close friends

Case studies, Uncategorized

1. One player is the host, who invites the others. As host, you should invite people you know really well – and preferably who know each other really well. Apart from this, no GM is needed.

2. The larp begins with a timer or alarm clock set for four hours. It ends when the timer rings.

3. Before role-playing begins, each player should carefully examine their own life, looking back to the single biggest decision that has led them to where they are today. The player should imagine what would have happened had that decision been taken differently (for good or for bad), and if so: who would the player be today? That person is the character.

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5. The host decides where and why the characters meet.

6. Plan at least two hours for debrief.

Tips & Traps

Methods, Theory

I came across this excellent gathering of advice in Swedish on Gabriel Widings blog, and impulsively translated it into English. Gabriel is one of the authors of the book-slash-provocation deltagarkultur (“participatory culture”) and has spent as much time working with ARGs, collaborative writing and other kinds of participatory culture as he has with larp. So the list below includes but is not limited to the design of live-roleplaying events.

I think it pinpoints precisely how to avoid the mistakes that are usually comitted by people in the Established Arts (theatre, cinema, performance etc.) who try to engage their “audiences” in interactivity or participation, and it also offers up some eternal larpwriting truths. As with most holy text, there is space here for both interpretation and heresy.

The author, Gabriel Widing, in front of the whiteboard busily making culture
The author, Gabriel Widing, in front of the whiteboard busily making culture

Tips and traps when making participatory culture

By Gabriel Widing

Tips:
  • Communicate the agreement clearly and explicitly. Only when the participant knows the rules of play, that is: how communication and participation are meant to be done, is she confident enough to act.
  • Consider banning passive spectators and documentation. The external, critical, view is not always productive. It may in some cases prevent participatory action. People do not behave the same way in front of a camera as they do in front of confidantes. Documentation usually fails at capturing the qualities of a participatory work, but easily pushes participants from dialogic action to simple performance.

    • Continue reading Tips & Traps →

Self-Realization! Conspiracies! The Last Man On Earth!

Case studies, Larp History, Uncategorized

Do you like larp documentation? I do, and so far 2010 is making me very happy.

First up: “Mad About The Boy” (website), the Nordic arthaus larp about a world where all men are dead and a group of women are competing for the privilege of artificial insemination until * suddenly * the last man alive appears. Li Xin took some excellent photos: Mad About The Boy, First Run.

Mad About The Boy - photo by Li Xin
Mad About The Boy - photo by Li Xin

These pictures were taken in-character, and some of them ended up as plot devices on the larp. But there’s more! Here’s Anna-Karin‘s video documentation from the same event:
Continue reading Self-Realization! Conspiracies! The Last Man On Earth! →