Maxicon XII

[essentialsaltes]

Once again I announce: "All hail popepat!" And Mrs. Pope and Minipope. They once again opened up their house for (can it be?) the 12th Maxicon (which is still ongoing, but I moderated my participation to Saturday only... stretching into Sunday).

First up for me was Garrett's Dead Space RPG. I had played the demo, which made me the most knowledgeable about the source material I think. Which is not a problem, since the whole point is to scare the pants off you with the unexpected. It went well: fast-paced, high tension, limited resources, stressful timing deadlines. If there was any problem, it was that the gods of luck smiled on us too much in the final showdown. Good scary fun.

Next up, aaronjv ran The Tribunal, an award-winning LARP created by jiituomas. The 12 players play soldiers in a totalitarian state, faced with a difficult decision: whether to value honesty over expediency. I'm torn about how much I should or shouldn't reveal. One part of me says it doesn't matter since whatever happens is almost entirely the product of the players; the other part says that hearing the rationalizations or bullshit produced by one set of players might affect future players who read about it, and thus color whatever they would ultimately produce. I'll err on the side of caution and step back a bit.
I enjoyed the experience. This is perhaps controversial. Some people (named Aaron) have denigrated the idea that LARP is merely (?) an enjoyable pastime. It is Art with a capital A. I don't have a problem with that, except that in its extreme form Art becomes Pollock and Rothko. You're a rube if you expect to enjoy it, it's Art fer crissakes. Art!
I had my doubts about whether I would enjoy being an ant in a totalitarian army. But I came in to the game with not only an open mind, but a willingness and readiness to do it right. And the other participants probably saw me red-faced and shouting more in those couple hours than in the rest of their experience of me. Anyway, my awesome role-playing (relatively speaking) is beside the point; the point is that I enjoyed the experience. But am I supposed to enjoy my Brussels Sprouts?
My answer is that I don't care. LARP for me is an enjoyable pastime, and as long as I enjoy it I will continue to participate. It may also be Art; it may also be therapy; it may also be escapism; I don't care: Philistine that I am, I'm only interested in doing it if I enjoy it.
Anyway, stepping back in. I liked the way that character names instantly invoked associations that helped to establish character, and aided others in remembering same. I liked the way that the game was essentially entirely created by the players rather than directed from outside. The game relies on the players being willing to play, and I'm glad we had a group up to the challenge.

Following that was an impromptu meeting of the Live Game Labs & other interested parties, wherein we plotted the future of American LARP while simultaneously solving the problem of monetizing LARP and trading juicy gossip.

Comments

[britgeekgrrl.livejournal.com]

LARP as entertainment vs. LARP as performance art (and the permutations in between) has been on my mind quite a bit lately, but I'm short on folks who can listen to me burble on about the topic without their eyes glazing over...

Short version: Different games suit different situations. Some days, I just want to dress up and be a bit silly, other days, I want something else... ;)

[essentialsaltes.livejournal.com]

Yes, certainly LARP is broad enough an artform to cover a lot of styles, cover a lot of goals. And it is a shame that some people put LARP in a very small and confining box and never stray outside those limits. (Or worse yet, put it in a small and confining box and never try one.)

But aaronjv tipped me off about LARPs like "Fat Man Down" and "Gang Rape", and though I may hypocritically be knocking something before I've tried it, I have to say I think I would not enjoy these (nor would I become a better person). So, although these are LARPs, I would deem them bad LARPs.

[britgeekgrrl.livejournal.com]

Just based on the *titles* my skin is crawling.

*steels self to click the links*

WHOA, NELLY!

Um, yeah. I'm all for pushing some boundaries - with mutual consent all 'round and stuff - but goodness me. That just goes way beyond anything I'd want to do for fun. And, indeed, far beyond anything I'd consider in the realm of good taste.

(Yeah, yeah, art doesn't have to be tasteful, but whether I treat it as performance art or momentary diversion, my first rule of LARPing is "Always have fun", so...)

[aaronjv.livejournal.com]

So much to say on this topic.

My main one is "What is fun?"
Fun for whom? The GMs? All players?

What is fun for me might not be fun for you. Also, I don't think the purpose of all larps is to have fun. For example, I started a company that uses larp for education. The primary purpose is to teach, NOT to have fun. Do we want fun games? Yes, but that is not the primary rule. Same, too, with the military larps.

Anyway, much more to say on this topic. Also, on Gang Rape and Fat Man Down larps: the titles alone scare people off and they won't look at what they are. Gang Rape was written to examine how the rape laws in Denmark (think it was Denmark) are very lax, with a heavy burden on the victim to prove that there was a crime. It was written to incite political action AGAINST the laws regarding the crime.

and....oh well, have to eat dinner

[aaronjv.livejournal.com]

PS- I recommend Marks Montola's "The Positive - Negative Experience In Extreme Role Playing" available for free here (http://www.digra.org/dl/db/10343.56524.pdf).

Also, subscribe to Playground magazine (http://playgroundroleplayingmagazine.wordpress.com/) for more articles about larping.

[britgeekgrrl.livejournal.com]

Indeed, my definition of fun might not match someone else's and that's an inescapable fact of the world.

Ditto the purpose of various LARPs - although I think one can be forgiven for using the term in the most common sense of the word. Most gamers, in my experience, aren't thinking of educational events or military exercises when I say "LARP".

That said, I still would regard the extreme LARPs mentioned in The Positive Negative Experience of Extreme Roleplaying* with utmost wariness.

*Yes, I read through the whole thing, so I had more than just the title to go on regarding "Gang Rape". It still struck me as shudderingly unpleasant and potentially unsafe.

[britgeekgrrl.livejournal.com]

Read the former already, will check out the latter.

[britgeekgrrl.livejournal.com]

And as for "What is fun", well, that is a question that doesn't have a single, pat answer, as you know.

But a player can generally articulate what is fun for them and, based on a game's writeup, judge whether or not an event will provide whatever kind of enjoyment they're looking for. Similarly, a GM with their act together will choose carefully as to what sort of event to run at what sort of venue.

Mind you "What does a GM get out of running a game" is no doubt subject for thousands and thousands of words.

[ian-tiberius.livejournal.com]

With the caveat that I have neither played any of these games nor read much more than the article you linked above, it sounds as though some of these LARPs are what a different crowd would simply call acting exercises or dramatic long-form improvisation, rather than some totally new and never-before-seen art form.

I played in my first sitdown session of "Final Girl" yesterday, and had a related thought about that. It's experimental, and different, and I definitely had fun. But it's billed as an RPG, and while it may be Role-Playing it's not really a Game. It's more of a storytelling exercise. (Super-condensed description: you portray characters in a slasher movie, but there is no GM and the players all collaboratively decide who/what the killer is and which characters die. I enjoyed it, but there's no "game" per se; the players' only goal is to have fun and tell a good story. As such, I'm not sure it really belongs in the same phylum with traditional RPGs.)

Not that there's anything wrong with any of that, of course, and there's no reason that the word LARP must encompass certain things and not others. But I wonder if it's at all useful to continue using a word so broad that it encompasses both boffer-fests and "Fat Man Down".

[aaronjv.livejournal.com]

And as for "What is fun", well, that is a question that doesn't have a single, pat answer, as you know.

Right, absolutely. I think I am one of the few people in America deranged enough to consider my golden rule of larp to be "Take it seriously and give it your all." Whether that's as a player or a GM, whether it's larp for entertainment or education, to change the world or to change yourself. But I have yet to find someone in the States who doesn't think that the purpose of larp is to have fun, whatever "fun" is. What if "having fun" means making sure everyone else does NOT have fun?

As to "what a GM gets out of running a game", that hasn't been explored much to my knowledge. I know Rob McDiarmid wrote an essay on the motivations of players, and that has been discussed a lot, but rarely are the intents of the GMs. Would you be interested in writing an essay on that topic for an academic book I am going to edit for later this year? Or, if not for that, for Playground? (No pay on either one, alas.)

The main point I make in larps is "full disclosure", that is, let everyone know what the social contract is between GM and players. The type of game and intentions should be clear from the GM, and, ideally, what players are going to bring to the table should be understood. For example, when I ran "The Tribunal" that Mike talks about, I asked that they take it seriously. This worked well, as there was very little humor in the game, and, with a bunch of nerds, it's almost impossible for them to refrain from the MST3K commentary, yet they did. Expectations were set and met.

One of the new debates in the Nordic larps is the term "alibi". For Gang Rape, all players will have read the rules and voluntarily agree to them. They go in as willing participants. In Fat Man Down, however, there's a GM that alters some things, asking the players to do things they may not want to do. In some circles, Fat Man Down has alibi--"The GM made me do it"--which allows for a deeper experience. They suggest, I think, that anyone who agrees to participate in Gang Rape is a sick, twisted individual. But isn't it worse when you place responsibility (and blame) for your actions on someone else, as you do in Fat Man Down? Personally, I feel that Fat Man Down is a worse, darker larp than Gang Rape. That all being said, I don't know if I could participate in either. But I love to bring them up as a thought exercise.

My main point to American audiences is that I think both of those are larps are not fun. But they are still larps. And depending on your definition of good/bad, I won't say that they are "bad" larps. They are daring and provocative and controversial, and they are also well-constructed. I disagree with Mike, I don't think they are bad larps, I think they are dangerous larps. That's not the same thing. The Stanford Prison Experience is a "good" larp in terms of design and production, but it's a dangerous larp.

And realizing that larps can be dangerous begins to recognize the power of live action role playing has. It moves it out of the realm of hobby into art, which is how I would like it to be.

[aaronjv.livejournal.com]

it sounds as though some of these LARPs are what a different crowd would simply call acting exercises or dramatic long-form improvisation, rather than some totally new and never-before-seen art form.

Some would call them that, but they are still larps. The designers call them that, the critics call them that, the participants do. My big argument against the stereotype of larps is that the content of a larp does not define the form of the larp. Just because it's about gang rape doesn't make it a larp.

But I wonder if it's at all useful to continue using a word so broad that it encompasses both boffer-fests and "Fat Man Down".
I talk about briefly in my essay: "Cooler Than You Think: Understanding Live Action Role Playing" (http://www.scribd.com/doc/33955116/Understanding-Live-Action-Role-Playing-LARP-Cooler-Than-You-Think). Other people smarter than me do as well. Personally, I don't like the word "larp", but I have resigned myself to it. Here's why:
it's too entrenched
content does not dictate form, and larp has a form that's different than acting exercises and long form improv
coming up with a different term will be waaaaay too difficult to get others to rally behind

I recommend watching Claus Raasted's recent Nordic Larp Talk on Larpification (http://youtu.be/T25RTNZjG90) (it's short).

I think it is useful to continue using a word that encompasses both boffer-fests and "Fat Man Down" because words like "literature" encompasses both Fifty Shades of Gray and The Great Gatsby. Or words like "music" encompasses Beethoven's 9th, Jimi Hendrix's "Star-Spangled Banner" and "My Humps". Or words like "game" encompasses beer pong, tic-tac-toe, and cricket.

As to The Final Girl, which I also played a week or so ago. There's a huge indie game movement going on right now with tabletop and video games. I am trying to introduce them to larp, and vice versa. There are MANY definition of game being batted about right now. It's a hot topic (yay!). One of the most common is Salen and Zimmerman's, from The Rules of Play: "A game is a system in which players engage in an artificial conflict, defined by rules, that results in a quantifiable outcome."

By that definition, why is The Final Girl NOT a game?

Also, what about Train (http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2009/06/24/can-you-make-a-board-game-about-the-holocaust-meet-train/), is that a game?

Are Viola Spolin's games theater, games, or larp?

A broad, nebulous definition is, IMHO, much better than a strict, rigid one. I drove myself nuts with a strict definition of larp when writing my essay, going back and forth with things like paintball or DungeonMaster the play. Once I freed myself of the chains of exactitude, I was able to continue and appreciate things that are larp as well as larp-like. FYI, I have three criteria for determining if something is a larp or not:
1. No audience, all are participants, and all participants have some degree of say in the narrative.
2. Actions are performed, not narrated.
3. All participants must agree on the bubble (or magic circle) within which everything is not necessarily what it really is, including you. This bubble must be continuously maintained via the actions and interactions of the participants.

Lastly, also in my essay, I don't think all larps are games, nor should they be.

[aaronjv.livejournal.com]

Some people (named Aaron) have denigrated the idea that LARP is merely (?) an enjoyable pastime. It is Art with a capital A. I don't have a problem with that, except that in its extreme form Art becomes Pollock and Rothko. You're a rube if you expect to enjoy it, it's Art fer crissakes. Art!

I think larp as art. I also think that art can be an enjoyable pastime. What I rant against is the idea is that larp is ONLY a hobby, ONLY an enjoyable entertaining pastime. It's that and more. The gravity of a work is, to me, not the measure of it being art or not. Furthermore, there's good art and bad art, good larps and bad larps, but they're still art, they're still larps.

And it doesn't matter what you think of it, you don't have to agree with me, nor should you. If you only play larps because you want an enjoyable pastime, huzzah! There's nothing wrong with that. But if you say that I can't play or run a larp that's more than an enjoyable pastime, or that larp can't be used for something besides entertainment, or that if it is any of those things it's no longer a larp, then I am going to disagree.

Finally, I was very impressed with the quality of the group's role playing, yours included. Yes, I saw you screaming red faced more than I think I ever have. And I saw Christian be MEAN! I was impressed all over.

[aaronjv.livejournal.com]

PS-The Nordics are now heavily discussing safety issues in larps. Emotional safety issues. There's an article in one ish of Playground on de-fucking (after the larp), and here's one of the panels at the Solmukohta conference (http://www.solmukohta.org/). I was at the con, but not at this panel.

The Great Player Safety Controversy Panel
Fri 15.00 – Fri 16.30, Auditorium, Panel
Organizers: Johanna Koljonen, Bjarke Pedersen, Jaakko Stenros
Playing close to home, grownup gaming, thin characters, interaction alibis, defucking for bleed… In the last few years the Nordic design community has made giant leaps in game intensity, particularly by systematically steering players towards using personal and painful experiences as in-game intensifiers. New words, phrases and concepts relating to player safety have popped up too, signaling the need for a serious conversation on risks and responsibilities. While the games are very cool, they also throw all of our old ideas of player safety out the window (and reveal that many we used to trust never actually worked at all).
How do these games affect us? To what extent can larpmakers be absolved of responsibility if a player gets broken? Can a player – especially a new player – ever have a realistic idea of what the larp experience will entail? Is it even ethical to invite people with no larp experience to play extreme games?
This panel brings together some of the people giving separate talks on safety and ethics at Solmukohta for a spirited overview of what, if anything, we as a community know about taking care of each other before, during and after larps designed for extreme experiences. A premise of the conversation is that grown-ups should generally speaking be allowed to make dangerous or destructive choices for themselves within the limits of the law. Nobody is looking to outlaw extreme experiences – but we should be able to have a sane conversation about designing parameters around them.

[britgeekgrrl.livejournal.com]

I'm glad the issue is under discussion.

I must admit that if I want an experience using personal and painful experiences as in-game intensifiers, then I'd just get more serious about being an actor, cos that's almost directly out of the Stanislavsky/Meissner playbook. ;)

[britgeekgrrl.livejournal.com]

it sounds as though some of these LARPs are what a different crowd would simply call acting exercises or dramatic long-form improvisation, rather than some totally new and never-before-seen art form.

Indeed. I've been returning to some of my sadly dusty acting textbooks and it is apparent to me that the closer LARP moves to this "extreme" model, the closer it is to dramatic improv. This isn't a bad thing - I'm constantly proselytizing various improv techniques to LARPers - but, yeah, it's not new overall... Then again, what is? ;)

[essentialsaltes.livejournal.com]

I may have spoken (or written) a little too quickly, or left out some steps.

If you only play larps because you want an enjoyable pastime, huzzah!

I think this does correctly express my motivation for larping.
I don't deny that it's an artform.
My motivation to achieve fun (a concept that is, as britgeekgrrl mentioned, complicated. Ordinarily, I don't *want* to be scared out of my wits) colors my perception of what is good larp and bad larp.
I don't assume that my aesthetic sense is the only one in the world, but it is the only one I've got.
So when I say that Rothko is bad art (to me), I know there will be people so willing to disagree with my judgment that they will pay millions of dollars for one of his paintings.
And the same would go for FMD or GR... despite not even having had the experience, I am pretty sure I would not enjoy them, and so they would be bad larps (to me). I can see there can be utilitarian justifications for larp as well, such as edu-LARP. I might not enjoy a larp that teaches longhand division, but I can still see its utility and it might be good for its intended audience, so I would hesitate to call it bad, just because I wouldn't like it.

[britgeekgrrl.livejournal.com]

(I feel like we've hijacked the journal - sorry, essentialsaltes! Going to respond to a few points you've made up and down to the thread to try to minimize the clutter/fraying)

"Take it seriously and give it your all." - I'm surprised you think you're in the minority with that mantra. For me, it's more like something that's so built into the process that it's a given. A pack of strangers are counting on you for several hours of *something* - if you're not going to take it seriously, gtfo, y'know? I've not yet met a (successful) GM who didn't work by that philosophy...

re: throwing some words together for you, I'd have to have a think about that to see if I've got anything honestly meaningful to say. Most of my LARP writings have been pretty light and basic stuff, possibly too light for your intended audience.

Interesting point re: social contract between GM and players. Again, I see it touched on in a lighter way in most events I've participated in/ran - terms ranging from the GM agreeing to provide a coherent event to the players agreeing to not touch each other without mutual consent, etc. Again, I've touched on it a *bit* on my LARP page in GM and Player Responsibilities to a LARP (again, at the link, above)

I agree with the idea that a LARP can be emotionally intense and not fit the definition of "good" but can still be "fun" for the participant - but that brings us right back to what the meaning of "fun" is.

(resists temptation to draw parallels to the kink scene and how one masochist's idea of a hell of an afternoon probably violates some tenets of the Geneva convention and therefore could hardly be considered "fun" in the traditional sense of the word...)

My *specific* objection to the event "Gang Rape" is borne of several factors, not the least of which being the danger to the participants' mental health. But I'll save the rest of that for my own soapbox.

I suppose part of the resistance/reaction you see to the proposal of terming a larp as art is borne of intimidation. Anyone can be a hobbyist. Not everyone can be an artist.

I've been trying to parlay 15+ years of LARP running into some employable skills (I know, good luck!) and I know that even the term "role playing" makes some recruiters shudder, so I've resorted to using the term "Interactive Fiction". So far, it seems to work...

Going to go check out some of the links you've posted here and there. Cheers.

[ian-tiberius.livejournal.com]

First of all, I don't disagree with any of your larger points (LARPs can be art, content doesn't define form, etc.) But enough friendly agreement - on to the quibbling around the edges!

I think it is useful to continue using a word that encompasses both boffer-fests and "Fat Man Down" because words like "literature" encompasses both Fifty Shades of Gray and The Great Gatsby. Or words like "music" encompasses Beethoven's 9th, Jimi Hendrix's "Star-Spangled Banner" and "My Humps".

Sure. But if I ask you "What do you like to listen to?", then "music" is not a useful answer. I didn't say that LARP couldn't be an all-encompassing word, just that when it becomes that broad I'm not sure it serves as a useful indicator of what you are actually interested in. And, it may be even less useful when the ever-broadening definition of LARP starts to overlap with other fields, as in...

larp has a form that's different than acting exercises and long form improv

Always? The "Gang Rape" and "Fat Man Down" LARPs read to me (again, from a very brief summary, so there could be points I'm missing) like acting exercises. Aside from the extreme content (and we've already agreed that content doesn't define form) I can easily see these being performed in an acting class. So what attributes distinguish them as LARP?

One of the most common is Salen and Zimmerman's, from The Rules of Play: "A game is a system in which players engage in an artificial conflict, defined by rules, that results in a quantifiable outcome."

By that definition, why is The Final Girl NOT a game?

Simple - there's no conflict (nor quantifiable outcome, for that matter.)

There's a pretense of conflict, in that the characters in the game presumably wish to live while the killer wishes them to die. But no player has goals that differ from those from another player - you don't have a particular character you want to preserve, or a particular outcome you want to make happen. You're just telling a story. And there's nothing wrong with that at all, but it's not a "game", any more than it would be a "game" if you sat down with a collaborator to write a movie script. It's just storytelling.

(Since you bring up Viola Spolin: obviously words can have more than one meaning, especially in different contexts, and improvisers use the word "game" to mean something else entirely. Most improv games are what I would term "exercises", were I to be pedantic. Like "Final Girl" or "Fat Man Down", there may be rules, but the players all have the same goals.)

[ian-tiberius.livejournal.com]

I'm constantly proselytizing various improv techniques to LARPers

Same here. I periodically run sit-down games based entirely on long-form improv techniques, actually, and it's amazing what can happen when you ask gamers (even people with zero theatrical/improv training) to apply simple rules like "yes, and".

britgeekgrrl, you seem familiar - did you run a Cthulhu game set in a Nazi research facility back at the first WyrdCon?

[britgeekgrrl.livejournal.com]

Yep, that was me. And I'd like to apologize for the train wreck that was that instance of "Black Sun, White Light" - I had something like 2/3 of the bare minimum playership, but Ira gave me big puppy eyes and begged that I try to pull the thing off otherwise. *sigh*

[essentialsaltes.livejournal.com]

sorry, essentialsaltes

No way, I love this. It's almost as though LJ were relevant again!

[britgeekgrrl.livejournal.com]

PS have you checked out Dan Diggles' Improv for Actors? I've stolen whole chapters out of there to share w/players. And since it's only $3.47 for the e-book, it's also something I can recommend to curious players without wincing at the price.

[britgeekgrrl.livejournal.com]

Damn it, why is everyone so much more eloquent than I am.

(Fwiw, this. With bells on)

[ian-tiberius.livejournal.com]

No apology necessary! I'll acknowledge that it probably could have benefitted from a full cast, but I had a fine time, even if I spent a significant portion of the game cowering behind pieces of furniture.

[ian-tiberius.livejournal.com]

I think so. I moved a few months ago and my books are in total disarray, but I believe that was given to me in one of the classes I took. (Hard to be sure, I have several books on the subject and they all blend together.) Is it one you particularly recommend over similar texts?