Styles of larp

At Alleged Entertainment, we've written larps in several different styles in the past.  By "style," I mean a basic game design template upon which many games can be built.  For example, in the video game world, point-and-click adventure games, platform games, and first-person shooters would be examples of styles.  Similarly, we have many different styles of game in the larp world.

I've been thinking lately that we need better terminology to talk about these styles, and this in this post, I'll attempt to work out some of that terminology.

Whenever possible, I'd like to use terms that are already well-known and understood in the larp communities we're active in.  When that's not possible, I want to find terms that are descriptive, so that people unfamiliar with the term can understand what it means, and non-judgmental, so that larpers who identify with these forms of larp won't feel as if the term denigrates the style they love.

Above all, I think it's important that larpers be able to talk about their games in ways other larpers understand.  I'm under no illusion that we'll ever get to one standard set of terminology, and this isn't an attempt to get everyone to talk about larps the way I do.  Instead, I hope this can serve as a reference point for one (incomplete) set of terms that I plan to use in the future.

It's also worth noting here that I don't think these terms are mutually exclusive.  A larp can draw influences from multiple traditions, and indeed, I'll mention a few of ours below that I think could be defined multiple ways.

Secrets and powers larps

"Secrets and powers" larp is one of the oldest styles of larp in existence, dating back at least to the 1970s.  It's what people at Intercon usually think of as a "normal" or "traditional" larp.  It's the form we started out writing, and it's still what we mostly play today.

The term "secrets and powers larp" comes from an article by Evan Torner and Katherine Castiello Jones in the 2014 Wyrd Con Companion Book, although in that article they mention that it's not originally their term; they were just the first to write about it on the Internet.  (James Stuart may have been the one who invented the term; that's what some people have told him anyhow!)

For a rigorous academic definition of the term, you can read the Torner and Jones article, but I'll loosely and informally define it here as "exactly what it sounds like."  In a secrets and powers larp, characters are mostly working to achieve some set of goals, which may or may not conflict with the goals of other characters, and goals can be accomplished by some combination of obtaining secrets and using powers (along with, possibly, other means, such as solving puzzles or convincing other characters through social interaction).

Alleged Entertainment's first two larps, Snaf University and Welcome to Scearbridge University definitely fall within this style, and so do several later ones, such as Fire on High, The Trial of the Big Bad Wolf, and Also Sprach Übermensch.

Horde larps

A horde larp is one in which the players are split into two groups.  There is a small set of players called the "cast" who receive a character at the start of the game and play that character throughout.  A second set of players, called the "horde," pick up tiny character sheets - usually one or two paragraphs - from a table, play that character for a short period of time, and then when they're done, go get another one repeatedly until the game is over.

All the horde larps I'm aware of are comedies.  In theory, writing a non-comedic horde larp is possible, and I'd personally love to see it done; however, I think the format works against seriousness, for reasons I'll probably write about at some later date.  (UPDATE: J. Walton on Google+ tells me that there is a zombie horror larp called Shelter in Place that's substantially similar to a horde larp in its structure, and which is not a comedy.  Thanks very much!  I haven't read it myself, but thinking further about it, I could see this format working well for horror as well as comedy.)

I have it on good authority that the first horde larp was Buses Welcome, which was written in 1995, although the term "horde larp" wasn't invented until later.  This term has the advantage of already being in widespread use and well-understood.

Alleged Entertainment has written four horde larps: Time Travel Review Board, City Council of Hound's Teeth, Harmony at Last, and Her Eternal Majesty's Privy Council for the Continual Funding of the Mad Arts & Sciences.

Tale-telling larps

A tale-telling larp starts out much like a secrets and powers larp, but from time to time, the action pauses and players go into a "tale."  This is a short scene in which they receive new character sheets.  The scenes may represent a character in the frame story telling a literal tale, or they might be a flashback, or something else related.

The original tale-telling larp was called Tales of the Arabian Nights, which debuted in 1988.  Another term people have used for this style of game is "storytelling larps," but that term has become a bit muddled by the fact that others use it to mean a game in which the players, in character, tell stories to one another, so I'm going to stick with "tale-telling larps."

Alleged Entertainment has written three tale-telling larps: The Last Seder, Resonance, and A Garden of Forking Paths.  However, one could also argue that these games fall under another term...

American Freeform

Of all of these terms, American Freeform is the one for which I can actually link to a more-or-less official definition.  Lizzie Stark introduced the term in this blog post, and she does a much better job defining it than I intend to attempt here.  If you don't already know what an American Freeform larp is, please go read that post.

After that post, Lizzie Stark wrote The Pocket Guide to American Freeform, and in that book she says that as a designer, if you feel like what you're writing is American Freeform, then feel free to use the term.  (Thanks Lizzie, don't mind if I do!)  The book also explicitly names our tale-telling larps as American Freeforms, in addition to the 10 Bad LARPs games, and that's what I'm going to do here.

In addition to our three tale-telling games, I also think it's fair to classify Harmony Quest, In the Jungle, and Spring River in this style.

Okay, Nat, so what's the point?

I'm reorganizing our games list, and I thought a long-winded blog post would be the best way to tell you all.

More seriously, there has been a fair bit of academic writing about different styles of larp.  Nordic freeforms and jeepforms have, of course, received a great deal of attention over the years, and since the introduction of the term American Freeform in 2013, several essays have appeared on that style.  But as far as I can tell, some of the other styles are far less studied.  Secrets and powers larps and horde larps, in particular, have almost nothing written about them from the point of view of studying the form.  

There have been quite a few pieces of writing about these styles from the point of view of how to produce it well.  I'd recommend Mike Young's The Book of LARP and Jeff Diewald's So You Want to Write a LARP in particular, but that's far from all that's out there.  However, almost without exception, these works tend to describe what they're talking about as either simply "LARP" or, at best, "theatre-style LARP."  Thinking about (usually) secrets and powers games in these terms is limiting in terms of analyzing these games explicitly.

I don't believe that secrets and powers larps are worse, or less intellectual, or a lower form of larp, than any other style I've played.  I've had transcendent play experiences in secrets and powers larps, and I'm proud to have co-written some decent ones.  The form holds both incredible challenges and great potential rewards for a designer.

Further, I expect that the next few years will bring some major innovations to the world of secrets and powers larps, as other styles of play percolate and spread.  It's happening already, and I for one can't wait to see it.

Role Playing Game Axes (and not the foam kind)

 In recent years, there have been several attempts to categorize LARPs in ways that would help players understand what they’re getting into and help writers and researchers talk about different game styles. I’m strongly in favor of anything that provides more clarity of expectation, but I think that there are several different scales on which LARPs can differ, some of which correlate well with particular style divisions. This really struck me when I saw Freeform placed between Tabletop and LARP, when instinctively, I tend to think of Freeform as further from Tabletop than Secrets and Powers LARPs are, headed more towards straight theater in many ways. Here are several axes that occurred to me. Let me know if you think of others that are important to you.

EDIT: I wanted to clarify my intent with this post. There have been several attempts to do similar things from the player experience perspective. However, a lot of the conversations I have about LARP are comparing game structure from the writing and running perspective. This is focused more on structure and approach and less on experience. 

Verisimilitude: How much of the game is narrated and/or imagined, vs WYSIWYG? At the low end of this scale is a classic tabletop, where all action and setting, and many conversations are described rather than shown. At the high end are 360° physical immersion games and boffer games, where—as much as possible—the action is acted out and the setting is WYSIWYG.

Mechanics: When it is not possible (or desired) for the action in game and out of game to be the same, how complex are the mechanics that are used to resolve it? At the low end are games where the action is simply described and happens as described, or negotiated among players and/or GMs. At the high end are very “crunchy” tabletop games, like early D&D or Hackmaster, where there are very detailed calculations to determine exactly what happens.

Scope: How big is the narrative effect of character actions in game? At the low end, this focuses on small, mundane interactions in their lives and has little to no impact outside the characters. At the high end, the game is about the interactions of worlds or nations, or about saving the world from some greater force.

Secrecy: How much game information is kept secret from the players? At the low end, the players have access to all game materials and use this information to collaboratively create the story. At the high end, not only is all character information for other characters secret, fundamental features about the game world may also be secret, and character secrets are extremely important for plot. In the middle are games where players don’t get the sheets for other characters, but the game meets the set expectations and secrets are not the main focus of in game plots.

Continuity: Does the game occupy one consistent spatial location and have temporal continuity? At the low end are scene-based games, where scenes may go backward and forward in time and take place in a variety of locations. At the high end a game takes place in one location or set of connected locations and time goes forward in real time. One hour after game start in player time is also one hour after game start in character time.

Persistence: Do players play the same roles the whole time? At the low end of this are horde games or some scene-based games in which players embody a variety of roles over the course of the game. At the high end are games where players continue with one role throughout the entire game, particularly in campaign games, where roles may persist over many game sessions.

Obviously games can differ in many of these axes, and I’m not particularly intending these axes to be used to score games. I’m hoping that talking about high vs. low secrecy or scope might be useful in setting expectations for a wide variety of LARPs.

_________________
For a slightly different take on this, see the Mixing desk of LARP, which is doing something similar. My goal here is to use few enough terms that they might actually get used that seem to focus on some of the big differences I see come up in LARP styles.

Resonance is now free to download and run!

I'm extremely pleased to announce today that we've released our science fiction amnesia larp, Resonance, for free.  We've run Resonance half a dozen times since we first wrote it between 2010-2011, and it's become one of our favorite larps to share with people.

Without further ado, you can download it at the game's page on our web site.

A great many people have been invaluable in this process.  In particular, I'd like to thank Michael Snowden, AJ Smith, and Cat Tobin, who beta tested the public release of this game.  Without their feedback, our GM manual would be a mere unintelligible scribble.  I also want to give shout-outs to the people who helped this game form.  Jesse Cox and Danielle Reese helped brainstorm the original ideas that eventually became Resonance, and also worked on the runtime team for several early runs.

And, of course, my co-writers: Phoebe Roberts, Vito D'Agosta, and Susan Weiner.  I'm incredibly privileged to get to work with them.

For those who care about such things, Resonance is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.  That means you can feel free to run it, with your own customizations if you like.  All we ask is that if you change the game, you offer your changes back to the community under the same terms we offer the original game.

Again, you can download Resonance here.

Time Travel Review Board at 6Pi-Con

It's finally happening. The LARP I've been wanting to bring to Pi-Con for three years.

Alleged Entertainment is proud to bring our multi-award-winning sci-fi comedy horde LARP Time Travel Review Board to 6Pi-Con, the Pioneer Valley's geekiest annual convention.  The game will run from 8:00-10:00 PM on Friday, August 26.  (That's conveniently right after the LARP 101 panel, which I'm moderating.)

When Kate Farb-Johnson first asked me if I wanted to run LARPs at Pi-Con two years ago, I immediately thought of Time Travel Review Board.  It's easy for both experienced LARPers and total newbies to get into, and it's low-commitment: horde players don't need to spend the entire time there if they don't want to.  Thus, it's very well-suited to a diverse convention like Pi-Con.

Unfortunately, we weren't able to make TTRB happen due to hotel restrictions about taping things to the wall.  This year, those restrictions have been relaxed to an extent that will finally allow this game to run.

So if you'd like to play Time Travel Review Board, please come check it out at 6Pi-Con!

Resonance and Stars Over Atlantis on Saturday July 23!

Everybody knows that summertime is the dead season for larp. But it’s tough to go through all those months without a single packet to open. That, friends, is why Alleged Entertainment and Paranoid and Crotchety are teaming up to bring you Dia de los Sobres, or the Day of the Envelopes, a doubleheader production offering you two great packet-packed larps on the same day! Alleged’s RESONANCE and P&C’s STARS OVER ATLANTIS will run one after the other on Saturday, July 23rd in Fitchburg, MA.

If you’d like to sign up for one or both of these great larps, click on over to sign up at:
http://journeysurveys.com/answer/312

RESONANCE
By Nat Budin, Susan Weiner, Vito D’Agosta, and Phoebe Roberts
An amnesia and storytelling larp about tragedy, desperation, and the apocalypse.
11AM to 4PM

STARS OVER ATLANTIS
By Liliya Benderskaya and Tory Root
An amnesia LARP about tragedy, sacrifice, death, guilt, karma, love, sex, gender, and forgiveness.
5PM to 10PM

Stepping Stones: Scene-Based Games at Alleged Entertainment

Alleged Entertainment (or, at any rate, a certain subset of it) debuted our new game Resonance back in March.  We've also recently started work on our next big project, A Garden of Forking Paths.  In order to tell their respective stories, both of these games use very unconventional, scene-based structures¹.

For the purposes of this essay, I'll define a scene-based LARP as one in which gameplay is split up into a series of short scenes.  There are many different types of scene-based LARPs out there, and we have written in a few of those styles.

First off: why use an unusual structure in a LARP at all?  Why not stick with well-tested best practices that we know work?  Well, because it's fun to experiment!  Perhaps a better reason, however, is that unusual structures are helpful for telling types of stories that would be difficult to express in the LARP medium otherwise.  We've been on a track of experimentation involving scene-based games for a few years now.

At the beginning of my LARPing career, it would have been difficult for me to imagine playing in a game like Resonance, let alone writing one.  Thus, it's interesting to take a look back at how we got here, and where we're hoping to go now.  Along the way, I'll explain how the scene-based structures help serve the narrative ends of each game.

Better Casting Through Science (?)

Casting is a very important part of running one-shot pregenerated LARPs.  Making the wrong decision about which player should play which character can result in unhappy players and make the game worse.  On the other hand, if you can find that perfect player for a role, they can bring up the level of the entire LARP.

If you ask five LARP GMs for the best way to cast games, you're likely to get ten answers.  Some notable ones include:

• Just give brief descriptions of all the characters and let players pick their top five.
• Casting is an art, not a science.  Ask open-ended questions and go with your gut.
• Everything players write is significant, including margin doodles, handwriting, and when they got the questionnaire response back to you.
• Interview them on the phone or in person.
• We've developed a complex Excel spreadsheet that tells us how to cast people.

At Alleged Entertainment, we've developed a complex Excel spreadsheet that tells us how to cast people.  What follows is a trip into the dark recesses of that spreadsheet.

Next Labor Wars run

Now that we've had some time to recover and think about the last run, we're ready to start planning another run of Labor Wars. This means we are looking for a house to host it in. We are planning for some weekend in November. The exact weekend can be worked out with our hosts. If you think you might be interested in hosting, leave a comment on this post or email me at gothiklezmer@gmail.com.

Benefits of hosting:

• You get guaranteed slots in the run.
• We cook a feast in your kitchen. With warning, you are welcome to eat even if not playing.
• We will coordinate run dates with you, so we can guarantee a weekend you will be able to play.

Requirements:

• A place we can host dinner for 17 people. We can probably arrange for extra folding tables, chairs, etc, but we do need a room big enough to set them up.
• A room in which 17 people can sit relatively comfortably, while not at tables. Preferably this is not the same space as the dinner location.
• At least two (and preferably 3 or 4) other rooms that can be used for separate conferences. These can include walk-in closets, basement space, enclosed porches, etc. Anywhere that is big enough for 2-5 people to have a private discussion. At least two of these should fit 5 people in relative comfort. Bedrooms are fine if you are willing to have people LARPing in your bedroom.
• A kitchen in which two people can work in relative comfort, with a fair amount of fridge space (if you can, for example clear us 1/3-1/2 of a normal full sized fridge, this would be fine, as would be providing a dorm fridge). It does not need to be well-stocked: we can bring cookware and spices, we'll just coordinate with you about what we need to bring.
• We have a strong preference for locations near one of the LARPer concentrations: Somerville, Waltham, and Worcester regions are all open for consideration. If someone in the RPI crowd wants to convince us to run there, we're also willing to talk about that. Anywhere on the T or a good and consistent bus line is also probably fine.

Intereste in hosting?  Leave a comment on this post, or email me at gothiklezmer@gmail.com.

Blog moved!

As you might have noticed from the black bar across the top of the screen, I've moved this blog from being hosted on aegames.org proper to being hosted by Blogger.  This means a few things, none of them particularly major:

1. The address is no longer http://www.aegames.org/blog, it's now http://blog.aegames.org.  I'm putting up a message at http://www.aegames.org/blog to direct people to the right place.
2. Comments should work again.  Please God.
3. Now that it's no longer a huge pain in the ass to make new posts, we'll hopefully be doing it more often.
4. RSS subscribers will have to change their feed URL.  I'm going to be putting up a message on the feed that will let them know that.
5. The LiveJournal feed is probably broken now.  I can't remember who set it up to begin with, but I'm emailing a couple of likely candidates to try and get it pointed at the new URL.

So, why the move?  Details after the jump.

Quote

My thing with plot is that I don't have fun just talking to people who are pretending to be other people. I need a reason for it, some goal, something I'm trying to get out of the conversation that is different from normal interactions with that person.

- Nyren Knapp

Upcoming Games

Written by Susan Weiner

So, Alleged Entertainment has an awful lot of games coming up (including some awful ones).

3/19-21 WPI Gaming Weekend.
Foam Brain is running 10 Bad LARPs: C-Section

3/26-28 PAX East
At PAX, we will be running both of our horde LARPs. If you plan to be there, and haven’t yet played (or heck, have played and really want to play again), sign up!
Friday at 7pm – Time Travel Review Board – Sign up here
Saturday at 5pm – City Council of Hound’s Teeth Sign up here

4/16-18 V for Vestival (Festival of the LARPs 2010) at Brandeis University
The schedule is not completely finalized, but we will be running:
Welcome to Scearbridge
and 10 Bad LARPs: C-Section
Also running: City Council of Hound’s Teeth

6/11-13 Wyrd Con in Costa Mesa, California
Friday at 11pm Welcome to Scearbridge
Saturday at 1am 10 Bad LARPs: Remix

6/18-20 The Labor Wars in Belmont, MA
This will be Alleged Entertainment’s first weekend long game. If you are interested, we encourage you to sign up using the form available on the website. This is a small game. In the likely event that we have more sign-ups than we have slots, we will have a lottery to fill the available slots. The deadline for signing up for the lottery is 4/11/10. We will notify players shortly after that date.

A Little Slice of History

Written by Joshua "Steve" Rachlin

I’m here to tell a story. Some time ago, a group of people who for the purposes of this entry shall remain anonymous wrote a highly successful LARP which shall not be mentioned here. That is not the story I tell today. Today, I tell the story of the LARP they almost wrote. The LARP that should never have been considered. The LARP that should never be spoken of, for fear of angering the elder gods ofLARP.

I take great personal risk in writing even this much, so I apologize for the lack of detail in what follows. But I have recently come into possession of an artifact that should not exist, from where I cannot say. In fact, many will claim that it cannot exist. All records of the LARP in question were burned in purifying fire; we know that. All of the authors are under a magically enforced geas to never speak or write of it again. And yet, somehow, this exists:

Character Goals versus Player Goals

Written by Joshua "Steve" Rachlin

I want to talk briefly about a vocabulary term that I think a lot of players and GMs could do well to think more about. A common question on apps is "Are you ok with being screwed?" or "Will you have fun if you don't achieve your character's goals?" Those are useful questions, but they are attempting to determine something without a full understanding of the concept. The second question gets very close when it discusses character goals.

The Cancer of Comedy?

Not a full entry, just a quick thought. There’s a seemingly widespread view within the LARP community that nothing kills a game faster than comedy. Phrases like “mood-killer” and “breaking feel” get thrown around a lot. I’m not sure where people get this idea. Take it from me, as someone who gets asked to play the comic relief a lot – being funny for stretches of time is hard work!

Comments are back!

After comments broke on this blog awhile back (probably due to my custom comments additions not being compatible with Radiant 0.8.x), I disabled them and replaced them with a message to email me if you wanted to comment. That’s obviously less than ideal, because part of the point of blog comments is to enable a group discussion.

Since I’ve been unable to figure out how to fix the comments plugin, I’ve replaced it with DISQUSComments, which seems like a reasonably good solution for third-party hosted comments. I’ve imported all the previous comments into DISQUS for your perusal. Enjoy, and please let me know if you run into any issues commenting!

Creating Passionate Players

“I played in your last game, and when I saw that signups were open for this one, I just had to get in.”

It’s every LARP writer’s dream, right? The moment when you can get an answer like that on your casting questionnaire.

There are some LARP groups that people get absolutely fanatical about. Today, I’d like to share a few thoughts on how those groups got to be that way.

Time Travel Review Board this Friday at Brandeis!

Alleged Entertainment is proud to present Brandeis’s first LARP of the 2009-2010 school year: Time Travel Review Board. We’ll be running the game THIS FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, from 7:00-9:00 PM in Shiffman 125.

“Time Travel Review Board” is a multi-award-winning comedy horde LARP set in 22nd century. It’s a great game for newbies and experienced LARPers alike, so if you’ve never LARPed before and want to try it out, we encourage you to sign up!

To sign up for Time Travel Review Board, go to the casting questionnaire and fill it out. Since this game will be running THIS COMING FRIDAY, we’re hoping to get people to sign up as quickly as possible.

For more information about Time Travel Review Board, see our game page about it.

2009: The Year that LARPing Came to Pi-Con

As previously kind-of-announced, Alleged Entertainment went to 4Pi-Con to run several LARPs. In addition, Susan and I appeared on two panels about LARP, and together, Alleged Entertainment,Intercon J, and Foam Brain Games held a room party on Saturday night.

I should mention first and foremost that everyone’s favorite SMOF, Kate Farb-Johnson, served as Pi-Con’s first LARP coordinator ever. She wrote a con report of her own, which is long, informative, and a great read. Many thanks to her for making this possible, and for all the hard work she put in on the convention.

First of hopefully several announcements

As alluded to in a previous post, we bid 10 Bad LARPs: C-Section and an extended, six-hour version ofThe Last Seder for Intercon J. According to their web site, Intercon has accepted those bids, so we will be running them on the weekend of March 12-14 in Chelmsford, Massachusetts!

World of Blurbcraft

What’s the single most important thing you’re going to write for your LARP?

It’s not the world description. It’s not the game system. It’s not the character sheet for the villain, or the main hero. It’s not even the GM manual.

The single most important thing you will be writing is a 2-3 paragraph description of the game for prospective players. The irony of the situation is that in almost all LARPs, the blurb either gets written first thing, before the writers really know what the game will be like, or last thing, when they’re rushing to get it out the door.

In this article, I’m going to try to convince you that that’s a big mistake, and discuss some ideas about Building a Better Blurb™.