Comfort Levels

Hello everyone,
Thanks for being patient with me. Here in the archipelago, I've been hiking until I can't really stand anymore, which leave me with very little brain for LARP. However, in my lonely mountain retreat, I was mulling over something that has come up a couple times for me in conversation, writing, and playing... comfort zones.

(Please excuse the awkward English-- I haven't been using it at length or in any sort of formal context.)

Firstly, what is a comfort zone (and I'm sorry for the lack of a better term)? Within LARP, I'm operatively defining it as an individual player's tolerance and willingness to participate in any number of IG/OoG scenarios. For instance, PC Jenny Jones may have a comfort zone that allows her to enjoy emotional conversations with fellow PCs, political intrigue, and one-on-one combat. However, PC Jenny Jones may have a comfort zone that does not include any sort of PvP nor romantic relationships with other players (PCs or otherwise). Moreover, devoutly religious OoG, Jenny Jones may feel intensely uncomfortable if required to engage in IG religion. Superficially, this situation is easy enough-- don't send Jenny Jones any potential suitors, and make sure she gets in on any juicy usurpation plot (but avoid church stuff, or forewarn her). Seemingly, Jenny should have a fun and comfortable game.

However, when Jenny is one of 60+ players, all of whom have individual comfort zones, this can get complicated. How can the player base, including staff and non-staff, successfully navigate and address the comfort zones of every single player? Admittedly, this is a difficult question into which a lot of thought has been poured-- pregame surveys, post-event letters, and experiential learning have all contributed to helping us learn how to deal with the comfort zones of our fellow players. After all, LARP is, if nothing else, a fundamentally prosocial experience. So, some questions on comfort zones...answer any, all, or none.

What is your comfort zone? How do you make sure it is respected? Have you ever run into problems with your comfort zone/tolerance levels on an OoG level? How did you deal with the incident?

How do you mitigate your OoG comfort zone with the expectations of the IG world?

As a staff member or NPC, how do you deal with varying PC comfort levels in a game?

Are there ground rules for player interaction that facilitate an environment of mutual respect?

Are there ever times when pushing a player out of their comfort zone is ok-- even desirable? Why or why not?

Willing Suspension of Disbelief: Of Horses, Carriages, and Other Impossibilities

One of the greatest challenges of a LARP is reconciling the Out-of-Game realities that effect the IG experience. Every LARP, of course, has to deal with a standard set of these (many of which are inevitable parts of campsite structure): cars become carriages, camp cabins are villages, taverns, or ruins, and some features, such as electrical wire, are just ignored entirely. Generally, this requires players to accept the "willing suspension of disbelief." But what about other things, especially creatures, that are standard parts of daily life? I'll give you one example: horses.

As any fantasy lover or historian will know, horses are integral parts of classic fantasy repertoire and actual historical maneuvers. Cavalry were essential to military development, and horse husbandry facilitated human complexity. Clearly, though, horses are not feasible for a LARP. While we may be able to forgive giants, dragons, and unicorns (all of which I've seen at a LARP), the absence of horses is a bit jarring. Horses are part of idiomatic parlance ("I could eat a horse/beat a dead horse/horsing around"), and, for many people, a day to day reality that is hard to ignore. So, in a LARP, it's reasonable to a) phys-rep some horses (difficult) or b) make an IG excuse for the dearth of equines. I know Madrigal has some excuse-- they were lost in a series of wars, or something similar, and I'm sure other games have encountered this. Mirror, Mirror has the very nifty and tidy "refraction" mechanic: things don't appear in the gameworld as they would elsewhere-- this is due to mirrorways and "refraction" through these mirrorways. (There is, in fact, a horse IG-- he has been refracted as a small mouse.)

What OoG/IG problems have you run into-- either as a PC, NPC, or plot staff? How have you dealt with these OoG realities that effect IG play?

LARPcast!

This blog is primarily about PCs, and LARPcast centers around staff and game-design. However, it's important not to forget the NPCs that make a game run. The LARPcast team answers some questions has a good post about how to effectively play an NPC. Check it out!

http://larpcast.podbean.com/2012/03/14/larpcast-25-npc-questions/

What are your experiences, good, bad, and ugly, with NPCing? Consider, especially, character development. Have you ever had a character that should have been boring but was absolutely fantastic? What about a character that was beautifully written, but fell flat?

Back in Town: Getting into Game after a Leave

Contributor: Zoe
Submission: non-fiction considerations about leaving a LARP temporarily
Years LARPing: 2
E-mail: collabnarration@gmail.com

     Due to research pursuits and travel, chances are that I won't be participating in my usual LARPs this season. While I'll try to make a few of them, I'm facing a LARPless summer wherein I'll miss 2-3 events per game. In the games I play, I'm in the fuzzy limbo of new-relative-to-others/establish-plot. Accordingly, while my absence won't significantly impact the game, I don't want to lose the nascent plot-seeds I'm planting. While I'm not too concerned, I wonder the best way to exit the game, and, perhaps more importantly, re-insert myself into the gameworld.
     This problem, it would seem, would be of large concern to many others-- especially those who are more established in the gameworld. Real life happens: weddings, funerals, pregnancies, illness, military leave, exams, business trips, and vacations. Sometimes, as has happened with a few friends, people just need a break.
     So, what are the best ways to leave and enter a game? What experiences have people had that have been successful or disappointing? To start, I think communication is key. If the absence is planned, communicate with your team, plotstaff, and perhaps key NPCs. In game, mention how "due to the wedding of a relative, I won't be adventuring for the next few gathers-- is there a way I can contact you to stay in touch?" Touch base, again, OoG via an email, post-event letter, or in-person. Plot-staff, especially, may help you ease out of game. When you get back to playing, your team can help make special accommodations to get you up-to-speed on any changes.
     In the event of an unplanned absence, use contact emails to let people know the circumstances. Generally, people want to make LARPing fun, familiar, and comfortable for you. While you may not want to disclose all of the details, it can be useful to have a "safe harbor" when you return from an illness or family emergency. Also, in many cases, remember that you're part of a larger community-- people may miss you, want to help, or stay in touch with you. Perhaps this sort of contact isn't your cup of tea-- if it is, however, it can be nice to let people know.
     What suggestions do you have for leaving and entering a game in which you've been a long-time player?

Character Design/Development

Contributor: JJ
Submission/Title: Character Design/Development

     I like hearing about the processes through which other people come up with their characters.  Not stats, so much, as the concept for the character itself, mostly because I've seen a great number of different ways that people approach character building, and I'm hoping a few other people might be willing to share how they do it.  I'll stick with PC characters, because the process of creating NPCs is an entirely different beast.

     For me, I find that I tend to pick a couple of base concepts that I need/want to start with for OOG reasons, and build from that, coming up for IG reasons why the OOG things I want to happen have happened, and how my character got to where she is now, and that aside from 'I will be a healer' 'I want to hit things', tend to leave statting for the end of the process. 

     Omi, a human healer, was the first character I'd come up with for any game whatsoever.  I didn't really know how to do this larp thing; I was familiar with roleplaying, but only playing characters that had been given to me, I had pretty mediocre costuming (and was terrified at the idea of trying to paint anything on my face), and I certainly didn't know anything about the game world.  The OOG concept for her was pretty much "I'm not sure I understand this, so I'm not even going to try to pretend that I do".  So she became an ignorant farmgirl who'd been dragged into adventuring by a combination of coincidence and bad/good luck, with no sense of fashion and a fair amount of curiosity about nearly everything.  I ended up filling in some minor details (like, oh, what country she was from) years later, but by then, she was pretty well established, personality-wise.

     Fathom was my first attempt at making a character that was part of an established group.  OOG concept was pretty much 'try new things'.  I'd been larping for a while at that point, and wanted to do a bunch of things I'd seen from the plot side but never gotten to do myself.  I'd never been part of an established team before (my first team that Omi was part of literally met each other on the road a few days before we hit game); I really wanted to play someone who got to fight with a weapon; I wanted to try playing a non-human and I got excited to explore religion in the game, since the first game I played doesn't do religion.  So I ended up with an Adelith (water-aligned race) priest of the god of the oceans who ran around with a mercenary company hitting things with a polearm.  Working all of that into one character history was a bit challenging, but fun, and I did have fun with all the new stuff.

  

     Mary, a human doctor/pirate, was created entirely in response to a request from some friends that I come play a healer for their pirate crew, because there were too many of them and only one healer, and because they were having a ton of fun with the game.  Somewhat amusingly, the OOG concept for her was 'Not Omi!'.  I was worried that me playing an OSG ('one sword guy') healer would end up with me automatically reprising Omi, so a lot of Mary was designed to guide me away from accidentally acting like Omi.  Omi was pretty goodly, Mary ended up a half-step away from sociopath.  Omi had a good childhood and a big family, Mary was an orphan with a traumatic past, and a chip the size of a ship on her shoulder.  Omi nearly always used her sword for defense only, Mary ran around the battlefield (somewhat stupidly) chasing things with her sword.  It was fun, but definitely a challenge.  One other thing that I think probably strongly influenced the design of that character was the knowledge that it was a short-term game, so I was free to try some things that I wasn't sure I'd be able to pull off/enjoy (like giving her a damaged voice that I continually had to remind myself of), because I knew I wouldn't have to keep it up very long. 

 

How about other people?

Simple to follow, and honest. Please leave comments below.

To see a developed character history, read Zephyr or Terra!