theory AND practice

[Petter Sandelin]

Despite being a Finn I haven't been that in to LARPs, recently my only experience was a quite booring vampire game and I haven't read a single word of LARP theory. But a while ago people started talking to me about organising a small scale LARP. We played yesterday and I wanted to post about it because the game drew a lot on the theory I've learned here.

The premise of the game was, what happens with people during crises. Players made up realistic but interesting characters in a very freeform way. As a side note, this was done separate and I was surprised at the huge pile of possible conflicts between different characters.

These six characters we're now put into a room with no memory of how they got there. Clues pointed first at some kind of psychopath scenario but the real story was that they with their own accepteance appeared in a reality TV show.

All players were told how stances work and that they should jump between them to help build a story, experience incharacter moments etc. I took the role of a GM like player and spent a lot of time in director stance but still enjoyed going deep in character at times.

Bang-like clues and events were inserted mainly by me, and used as a basis for interaction between the characters.

All in all it was great fun, and afterwards I realized that my more-conservative-than-healthy-priest had answered the premise by making up fantasies about the situation and other stuff that I never thought I would have time to do, spending that much time in director stance.

-Petter

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Petter,

What system or procedures did the group follow to resolve things during play? This sounds like it would be a good companion thread to the several Freeform debates we had in the RPG Theory thread.

Best,
Ron

[Petter Sandelin]

Hi,

Well, the situation makes a lot of resolution unnecessary. I've been discussing with participants how we find this kind of freeform social LARPs very satisfying and easy. What is left is to explain where I, as a semi-GM, has authority and let the players mess around with the rest.

Here is a list of all rules and agreements:

Everyone gets four matches, which indicates their physical and mental health. Rules for breaking these are loose, but the owner or I can do it, it's also the result when someone wants violence.

I signal offgame by turning the lights off, which actually makes the characters unconsciuos. Other players can request this. In an emergency, just shout "offgame". In a way there isn't really any offgame.

The door cannot be opened, use common sense regarding the treatment (breaking) of props etc.

Use different stances to support the game.

Actual events.
We had some violations of the total ingame agreement but on the other hand, maybe these are necessary. If I run anything similar again I think it would be fun try out a midgame break. One player hinted that we needed offgame, to see if a plan worked out, by saying "so, we just have to wait until the lights go out". We also had a fun improvised combat (throwing punches in the air).

Petter