LARP: Scene-Framing within the flow of the LARP

[phasmaphobic]

I've posted this elsewhere, but I think I might be able to get some good input from you folks here.  My major experiences with playing in LARPs leads me to believe that outside of a handful of pre-scripted scenes, most of them follow a very free flow, with the story moving around fluidly as the players do what they want.

Have any of you experimented with more aspects of scene-framing within a LARP? I'm curious to know how a LARP might play out if instead of the natural flow of things, the game play was broken down into set scenes, with each scene's beginning being determined by the outcome of the previous scene.

I can see this being fairly easy in a game where all the basic scenes are planned from the beginning - Murder Mysteries, for example, and convention demo sessions. But what about a more player-driven game? How would players and STs work together to jump from scene to scene, cutting out all the in-between and yet still managing to keep the focus on characters and a story that are not railroaded?

I ask because I'm looking to incorporate this into my working ideas for a new LARP system.  I'd like to have some aspects of the system built around using the scene as a tool for live-action story creation.  My hope is that I can devise a way for this work work well both within convention and private games.

[Matt Machell]

I once had an idea for a small-scale LARP with heavy improv overtones which used scene framing quite aggressively. I seem to remember it involved one person per scene being given the right to shout "cut!" at a juncture they thought was appropriate.

I think it's something that generally works better in smaller groups or with less free roaming. Largely because numbers and being spread out require communication as to the change, which can become an annoying exercise even when sending out updates in a single scenario.

That said, lots of LARPs use scene modification rules, by such calls as "time stop" with its "close your eyes while we change things" approach.

-Matt

[David Artman]

You could always apportion credibility in the game world, with "Fate Points" or similar. Basically, give players the power to assert facts about the world, up to and including establishing follow-up or future scenes that requirwe other players to be present (at least, at the beginning).

Another approach would be GMs "embedded" with player groups (folks who will tend to stick together 90% of the time), and all players being required to be in a group (90% of the time). As the players do things and establish world facts, they are communicated to the other embedded GMs via radio or whatever (cell phone e-mail to a list; Blackberry?). A given group of players could call for a "merger" with another group, essentially asserting that the two groups need to come together for a scene which impacts them both.

But I must ask why you don't think player-driven emergent plots are sufficient? It seems like you want to "force" "good" narrative, but avoid railroading, and so you need to somehow have a collaboration method whereby everyone playing can shape the drama. Having collaborated on fiction before, I can assure you that it's hard enough to get two people pulling in the same direction, for the same themes. Getting 20 or 50 or 100? I can't imagine how, short of having regular (i.e. every couple of hours), long (i.e. major discussions and voting) meetings out of character.

All that said, it's not a tough job to "skip over" the dull bits, so long as you have fairly firm scene separation (i.e. players can't just wander into a scene at will). SO a party of folks are hiking to the Evil Wizard's castle? OK, then skip the dull hike (with the dull random encounters) and just walk to a new area and establish that "OK, you're there." This causes some "time slipping," but that's not really relevant in the grand scheme of things--it's only a problem if you have to use areas that are close enough to each other that an uninvolved player might notice and want to join in on something happening "many miles away." GM just says, "No, you don't see this scene; go away."

Or am I misunderstanding your objective?
David

[phasmaphobic]

You could always apportion credibility in the game world, with "Fate Points" or similar. Basically, give players the power to assert facts about the world, up to and including establishing follow-up or future scenes that requirwe other players to be present (at least, at the beginning).

Another approach would be GMs "embedded" with player groups (folks who will tend to stick together 90% of the time), and all players being required to be in a group (90% of the time). As the players do things and establish world facts, they are communicated to the other embedded GMs via radio or whatever (cell phone e-mail to a list; Blackberry?). A given group of players could call for a "merger" with another group, essentially asserting that the two groups need to come together for a scene which impacts them both.

What about the idea of making a LARP ultimately GM-less?  Instating a way for the players to, by consensus, end and begin scenes?

But I must ask why you don't think player-driven emergent plots are sufficient? It seems like you want to "force" "good" narrative, but avoid railroading, and so you need to somehow have a collaboration method whereby everyone playing can shape the drama. Having collaborated on fiction before, I can assure you that it's hard enough to get two people pulling in the same direction, for the same themes. Getting 20 or 50 or 100? I can't imagine how, short of having regular (i.e. every couple of hours), long (i.e. major discussions and voting) meetings out of character.

Hmmm.  I don't believe I've ever said anything about anything being insufficient, or trying to force anything at all.  I'm exploring some ideas for different approaches to LARP scene flow, as a means to possibly making a LARP feel more like a book, or a TV show.  Just ideas here, and a quest for insight.

All that said, it's not a tough job to "skip over" the dull bits, so long as you have fairly firm scene separation (i.e. players can't just wander into a scene at will). SO a party of folks are hiking to the Evil Wizard's castle? OK, then skip the dull hike (with the dull random encounters) and just walk to a new area and establish that "OK, you're there." This causes some "time slipping," but that's not really relevant in the grand scheme of things--it's only a problem if you have to use areas that are close enough to each other that an uninvolved player might notice and want to join in on something happening "many miles away." GM just says, "No, you don't see this scene; go away."

Or am I misunderstanding your objective?
David

What I'm contemplating is the idea of a convention scenario set in a small area - say, a game that takes place on a train voyage, or a LARP-style murder mystery at a remote house.  I've got an idea to try to run a game that only focused on certain major moments of the story, so as to compress a large amount of time and story into a short amount of actual game time.

Another avenue I'm exploring is the ability to use such a technique in a very small recurring game, maybe 3-10 players.

[newsalor]

You should check out Swedish Jeepform -larps. I've ran one of my own and it worked pretty well. Techiques from impro-theatre in general have some utility in some kind of larps.

[Moreno R.]

Hi, Nathaniel!

This live, "Nero come il cuore" ("black like the heart") won the "teatro della mente" prize as the most innovative live at last year's ModCon (in Modena, Italy), and features very aggressive scene-framing from the two GM.

That page I linked contain only the logo and the presentation of the game. As far as I know there isn't a web page dedicated to the game, nor a downloable file, but I know that at least one of the authors (Paolo Albini e Michele Bellinzona) sometimes reads The Forge and maybe if he will read this message, he will chime in.

I played it last year, but I can give only my impression as a player, not the "behind the curtain view" that you could get from the authors. Briefly, the game was inspired by an Italian film based on a novel based on the true history of a notorious roman gang of very violent gangsters active in the '70, with political connections. It took the characters from the book/movie (the characters were the boss, his two most loyal lieutenants, the two women of his lieutenants (one of the woman, a housewife married to another man, didn't know about his partner criminal activities. The other was a high-paid prostitute with the police commissar between her clients), the most vicious killer of the gang (my character), a right-wing terrorist con connections both with the gang and with politicians, a low-level junkie dealer and snitch, and the police commissar who investigated the gang (played by one of the GM)

The GMs would frame the scene telling the characters involved and what were the situation (i.e.: "the boss is at the night club with his lieutenants, you (my character) has discovered that xxxx is talking with the police", letting me decide if tell it, and to whom), and letting them free to react how they wanted, and they accepted suggestion on the next scene framing from the players

"act" was the right word because the play was very, very acted. The players in the "scene" positioned themselves in front of everybody, like on a stage, with the face always to the public, while all the others sit and watch (until they are called in scene, or sent there by one master to move a situation stalling).  There was a very noticeable effort to act as on a theatre, maybe because of the presence of a audience (the other players sitting around) that created a kind of illusionistic play where the players tried to follow the GMs cues and "recreate" the original characters, but that was maybe caused by the background and inclination of many of the players, the GMs told me that in other occasions other players changed the story quite a bit and were more interested in creating their story than to act the original.

The game presented some very violent scenes (it ended with the police commissioner played by the GM kidnapped, tortured and killed, and two other characters were killed. One was one of the girls - the prostitute-  who left one of the lieutenants escaping in Venezuela, but she was discovered, followed and killed. This particular scene it's a good example of the mixture of illusionism and players choice in the game: the woman was found by GM's fiat (they simply framed the scene where his old partner showed up at her door), the two players talked (and acted) in characters, each one explaining why he had to to what they did, and after that they (only these two players) decided if he would shoot her or leave her alive. It was the woman's player who asked for the scene to end with her murder. Then they did the second part of the scene where they acted the shooting. (we had an (harmless but very realistic) gun replica as a game prop)

[fantang7]

I've run a few large (80+ players) LARPS using the Mind's Eye System, and in both of them I and the other STs experimented with having actual scenes - more like what we were used to with table-top games.  Most of the action was free-flow as you mentioned, but we found that it was possible to break down some aspects of the game into discrete scenes, but we had to collude with some of the main player-characters.  For example, one discrete scene might be a conclave or other gathering where particular things would happen, or would at least very likely happen.  These are easy to set up - the word gets out that at X time Y people are to gather at Z location, etc.  This could be to plan an attack, work out a conflict between two PCs, do some politicking, etc.

Particularly in bigger LARPs, I would think it'd be difficult to control the flow enough to have scenes without some time spent working with PCs - particularly if you want to include everyone in the LARP in the same scene.  We had a lot of smaller scenes that were pretty discrete involving certain groups or factions, but those were mostly improvised.  It was our experience that we could have a few scenes that worked pretty well, but that they were almost always bordered by free-flowing interactions as the scene broke down into smaller groups or individuals RPing.  There could be a rhythm of sorts, of scenes and then breakdown leading up to another scene, which would be interesting.  I'd definitely make it clear that this was your goal before the LARP started so that players could do little things to facilitate this.  Otherwise, it'll be a lot like herding cats...

[Moreno R.]

I add my recommendation of "Jeepform" games to the one written by newsalor. Two days ago two of Jeepen authors (Swedish Tobias Wrigstad and danish Frederik Berg Olsen ) demonstrated some of their techniques at the Italian AmberCon at Modena, and I was blown away.  Their use of system and rules in "jeepform games" is much more advanced that believed until trying them myself.

They are really the "Larp" equivalent of the Forge. (they even theorize the necessity of the Premise in narrativist play) They use aggressive framing, total transparency, metagame, "interior voices" of the characters, director's and author's stance, theorize the superiority of the story over character immersion, and definitely consider character ownership NOT inviolable. (both their games I played had other players adding "thoughts" in my character's head, or playing flashbacks)

You should check, for example, the scenario "The Upgrade", available here, that use aggressive scene framing by both players and GM, character distributed ownership, a locational system to indicate what is happening in the past and what in the future, director's stance and a logical resolution system IN CHARACTER build around the premise

I believe that if you like narrativist tabletop games, you'll love jeepform ones!

[Moreno R.]

I noticed that link given by newsalor has errors, the real link to the English page of Jeepen is this