The Problem Everyone Wants to Have

Generally, in larps, the problem of too few npcs plagues weekends: despite heartfelt recruitment efforts and promises from potential monsters, the fates conspire against you, and you find yourself, at 11pm on Friday night, with no npcs. Most people have probably felt the ramifications of a low-npc weekend-- mods are cut or downsized, pc-to-npc ratios are bad, and npc fatigue hits all-time highs. Accordingly, a lot of effort has been put into bolstering npc numbers, and helping people drive up monster camp attendance.

However, "too many npcs" can also be a problem, albeit one of the champagne problems of the larp world. Recently, probably because of the increased popularity of larping in my area, I've been on the staff side of massive influxes of npcs-- seemingly out of the woodwork, I've seen monster camps filled with 30+ non-staff npcs, of whom about half are new to, if not larping, at least the Accelerant system.

This is, in many ways, a wonderful problem. However, it's still a problem: with that many people, it can be hard to find meaningful things for everyone to do-- especially if the new npcs really want to do RP parts. The combination of lack of preparation, and potential lack of comfort with brand-new npcs (especially if they arrive unexpected), can make it difficult to fully plan for npcs. Accordingly, in an over-staffed monster camp, it becomes harder to give volunteers as good an experience as possible-- this is really detrimental to the game as a whole. If people have a negative experience, not only will they be less likely to come back, but they'll be more likely to encourage friends to npc. An over-abundance of npcs, handled poorly, can quickly turn into npc shortage.

How do you deal with huge influxes of npcs (especially if those npcs include non-combat/rp-preferred people)? What are good ways to combat boredom, while simultaneously making sure that everyone is as well-briefed and prepared as possible?

Talkative Monsters

In New England, LARPing season is in full swing-- like many of my comrades, for the last few weekends and until it gets really cold, I've been packing my totes and zipping off to the event-of-the-weekend. It's been tiring, but grand. On these many rides to-and-from LARPs, conversations, unsurprisingly, drift towards LARP. One thing that's been popping up a lot for me is the issue of RP-active combat NPCs.

To be clear, these are the crunchies-- the little ones who pop up until you take down the bigger one(s). They are often played by tireless NPCs who have been thugging for most of the weekend. They probably don't have a backstory, and they may or may not have a particularly good briefing. They are there to fight PCs, to be a body, and to amp up the danger of an encounter. This brings me to the problems of role-play with these NPCs.

As a PC, I dislike completely lifeless, uninteresting crunchies. Even if you're only out for an hour, endlessly recycling, I really appreciate when people put in the extra effort to breathe life (or unlife) into Random Zombie 5. Monster-appropriate grunts, movements, and, when appropriate, strategies go a long way for me. With that being said, as a PC, there is nothing more obnoxious than a random monster who is distracting, through over-acting, from the real focus of the fight-- to me, it's like a chorus member constantly upstaging the lead.

So how do you strike a balance in crunchy RP roles? Personally, I think it has a lot to do with monster camp briefing-- as an NPC, I enjoy it when I'm given simple and clear instructions, which include motivations (this can come from a stat card or, ideally, a person). The monster master at Aralis is particularly good at doing this: rousing speeches, funny and wonderfully delivered, provide motivation and meaning for even the smallest roles. I'm curious as to other people's opinions and experiences regarding "RP-active crunchies"? Do you like them? Hate them? Notice them? If you staff games, how do you brief crunchies relative to RP? If you NPC, do you attempt to characterize even the most "inconsequential" monsters? How?

Theory Thursday: LARP Workshops

So, a mainstay of both conventions, faires, and Nordic Larp is workshops, lectures, and other "how-to's" concerning all things LARP. Activities can range from make-up to combat workshops to panels on game design. Following some conversations with similar-minded friends, I've been wondering how workshops might be applied to a smaller LARP setting. I think a one-day event, run by people within a singular system, would be a) a good way to bring people together, and b) a way to improve people's game. In my professional life, I workshop all the time: conferences are ways to listen to innovative thinkers (in my field), and learn valuable techniques. LARP is such an applied art form, that I think workshopping different things would be really beneficial. Here are some of the things I envision as being useful to the games I play:

- Durable Fantasy Make-up: I often see people at LARPs who not only sport fantastic make-up, but seem to apply make-up in a way that prevents smudges and runny streaks (even after a 3-hour grinder in light rain). Slowly learning through trial, error, and youtube videos has been my way-- it would be great to have a workshop on how to apply a range of make-up.

- Costuming Basics: I am not a sewer, nor do I have gobs of money to spend on costuming. I would love to learn where to look for cheap, functional, and attractive clothing. I think this would be especially beneficial for newer people, who may not want to invest lots of time and money into costume-finding.

- Acting Workshops: We all know the LARPer who does five phenomenal accents per event, has perfected the art of gesture, and can play any character, from heinous to pitiful. It would improve everybody's game if we could all learn some tricks-of-the-trade.

- Traps: I've always wanted to learn how to assemble traps and trap modules, but, as a hands-on person, videos don't really do it for me. There are some great trappers out there, and I, personally, would love to learn from them. And maybe even have a test module of a trapping event.

- Music Workshops: I'm always looking for short, accessible songs well-suited to a LARP. Also, as someone who loves to sing with others, I'm into this sort of thing.

- A Panel on Running a Monster Camp: If you've NPCed, you've probably been in excellent MCs and terrible ones. Getting together a group of staffers, all with Monster Camp experience, and asking them to share organizational tactics might be beneficial for everyone.

Alright, enough of my rambling...

Would you be interested in a one-day event geared totally towards LARP workshops relevant to your community? Have you ever participated in one? What sort of things would you want to see workshopped?

NPCing: The Ins and Outs

Contributor: Zoe
Submission: How I have successfully crafted NPCs
System: Accelerant, 2 years
Email: collabnarration@gmail.com

Beth wrote a great post on the art of talking with a "Big NPC." Similarly, J.J. wrote a really useful piece on character development from a PC-perspective. However, what do you do when you are the Big NPC-- or one of her talkative minions? As much as I love PCing, I think NPCing really gives you the opportunity to play with character, depth (or lack thereof), physical representation, and game system interactions. So, here is my novice approach to character design. LARPcast, LARPOhio, and Beth (in livejournal and elsewhere) have all published much more on this, so go give it a look. For my take, read on...

Media and Technology: Representing People in "Documentary" Film

Hello readers! No apologies for the break, as you have more than enough material to read. Inspired by M and B's LARPcast post, I have been working-- for quite a bit--, on the documentary film representation of LARP players. カンタンではないね！(It's not simple, is it? Sorry, I have a placement exam today, and Japanese is on the brain.) Although the good gentlemen of LARPcast reference both fictive and non-fictive cinema, my interest is, mainly, in documentary style approaches. Why? I find it much more interesting. Irregardless of your feelings on The Wild Hunt or Role Models, they, ultimately, exploit the LARP universe in order to tell an unrelated narrative. (In the first example, this film uses LARP to tell the story of a Lord of the Flies type drama; Role Models is a comedy, and LARP is used to facilitate a story of nerdy-rags to geeky-riches via role-playing games. Both have merits and disadvantages.) Ultimately, the fictive narration of any drama relies on appropriation of a genre. This involves much simplification and over-generalization. And so? To documentaries we move.

As any viewer knows, documentaries are farm from objective. Documentaries are a painstakingly edited product that, like their fictive kin, attempt to tell a story. While they may hide behind the moniker of "Non-Fiction," most readers and watchers understand that, despite nons, the lines between the two are blurry.

I start my inquiry with Monster Camp and Darkon. For whatever reason, the latter has been more or less heralded by those within and outside the LARP community. While individuals argue its specific flaws, it has been congratulated as a decent non-fiction film. This is, perhaps, because it more closely resembles narrative coming from mainstream Hollywood. However, Monster Camp has been universally panned as "milktoast dimdram abyssal sludge." While it is admittedly low-budget (and features, problematically, an almost entirely male cast that adheres to tired stereotypes), it is far from a simple piece of drivel. And so, I invite you, frequent and infrequent readers, to start commentary on Monster Camp. This is, of course, part of a much larger project about characterization. Staying safe, I have actually started with Darkon's Becca Thurmond, a single mother who plays an "Amazon," but I encourage you to start elsewhere. This is very nascent, and merely provides fuel for the fire-- so to speak. So, get going! Leave comments below.