by Tara M. Clapper | Jan 26, 2020 | Featured, LARP Running, Logistics
For over two years, I was warned. I’ve been designing and talking about running a substantial in-person live action role play event for a while. More experienced designers said it would take double the time I planned for it and warned me about a lot of unexpected expenses, hang-ups, and potential legal/liability issues.
Fortunately, I listened to them, and was largely prepared to plan an event almost a year out. In a few instances, I got lucky with my planning—and in other aspects, I totally missed the mark but gave myself enough lead time to troubleshoot.
I’m still several months out from CHARIOT, but have already learned some lessons I’d like to pass on to larp organizers looking to plan their first event.
Clearly Define Staff Roles (and Pay)
I have one staff member who has been helping me run larps from nearly the beginning. It’s the world of gaming, and while I try to pay them $15-$20/hour to come close to a living wage, they always go above and beyond because they care so much about keeping larp accessible, which is what my digital format does.
They are the best. They organize everything and wrangle me, but I can see it’s stressful, and I can’t afford to pay for all that they do. That’s not fair.
So I bartered with another friend who is good at admin tasks and I got them an assistant. Now they’re able to focus on more high-level stuff and direct the admin. Clearly defining roles is preventing burnout—not just for them, and for me. And now my admin will get her husband’s sci-fi novel edited in exchange for her time.
You Can’t Buy Hype, But You Can Buy Marketing Expertise
I launched ticket sales. And waited. And hoped. My team didn’t do or say much. A few people hyped things for me, but it was a one and done situation.
Then I found my superfans! These are participants and team members who randomly post about costuming for my larp, and continually lift my spirits (and get other people interested in it). The value of an engaged larper, even if they’re new, is extremely high. Aside from lifting my morale, they keep me inspired—and keep bringing people into the larp.
I also have a few players who offered to answer a few questions, or provide props or expertise. I draw a hard line when it comes to labor, but a few offhand questions about subject areas that will make my larp unique? I’ll take it.
I chose to go with LARPed for marketing help. I quickly learned that one person cannot design, organize, and promote a larp. I’m not the most organized person. I’m kind of brilliant when it comes to the vision. I’m a solid marketer, but it’s much easier to do when it’s someone else’s larp you’re marketing. Now I know the LARPed team has my back, and they’re truly hyped about being there.
Publish a Public Timeline, Keep a Private Timeline
Big mistake: I’m behind on my public timeline about when I’m doing what. It’s not the worst, since it’s early on, but I really want to instill trust and confidence in my community. What I should have done was keep a private “ideal” timeline and a much more public worst-case scenario timeline.
That said, I’ve kept everyone updated on progress. They know I haven’t forgotten about them, and I’ve offered them opportunities to be active in developing the game world, and that means something. I also did something else right: I started planning very early, which means there’s room in the schedule for learning.
Ticket Sales Slumps Happen
Some days I sell multiple tickets. Most days I sell none. It evens out, but let me tell you—it caused quite a panic when I launched and sold just two tickets. I’m fine disclosing that now (since I am on a solid trajectory for at least breaking even and having enough players to make the larp engaging), but it was scary at first.
Once I got the marketing engine rolling and was able to have someone else make “the ask” for me, it became a lot easier. As it turns out, some of my community members had been waiting on a personal invitation—and here I was afraid I was being too pushy.
This is only the beginning of what I’ve learned. Check back for Part II in this series to learn about game balance issues, and not being able to please everyone.
Tara M. Clapper (she/her) is creator of CHARIOT Larp and The Geek Initiative, an overall content powerhouse celebrating women in geek culture, with an expanded mission of inclusion. Tara holds a BA in English from McDaniel College and works in publishing and marketing. She’s the co-playwright of The Poe Project (2015), a one-man play examining the death and life of Edgar Allan Poe.
Additionally, Tara is a celebrated writer, editor, and character creator in the game design space. She’s worked in a game master capacity for multiple larps including Seventh Kingdom IGE (New Jersey) and Dragon Thrones (Pennsylvania), and is a frequently sought consultant, editor, and writer in game design. She’s appeared as press, guest, and game master at multiple conventions including Gen Con, Metatopia, Dreamation, Wizard World Philadelphia, Pax Unplugged, and New York Comic Con. She is based in the Washington, DC area.
by Danara Alexandrei | Jan 25, 2020 | LARP Running, LARPs
I’ve noticed a lot of LARP startups here in the Pacific Northwest, and with a brand new LARP-dedicated host site opening up, people are getting even more excited as 2020 comes down upon us. Here are some nifty ideas you might incorporate into your LARP Design that can help–from communication to running
It’s a bug, not a feature!
If you have to change the rules on someone negatively mid game or mid negotiation, you should reward them in proportion with the change you’re implementing. This discourages a staff member from making frivolous changes or not considering the impact, but also eases the discomfort and hurt of having something you invested in shift dramatically out from under you. Also, it reframes the conversation to feel like the player is helping you find issues you’ve not yet addressed, acknowledging the emotional effort.
The story is the First Priority.
Make sure you have the setting laid out in a way that everyone can get immersed and know what they are doing. Curious players will want to know ‘day in the life of’ kind of questions, and how your mechanics help them approach the setting as a whole. A big setting with a large world is great, but make sure you can take on that kind of task–it’s more important that the players understand your setting than it is for your setting to expand the whole world. If you want to focus on one culture in a whole social structure, then make sure that culture is fully expounded upon for the players to sink their teeth into. A good setting allows for players to get good ideas and make your game come to life.
Mechanics, Good or Bad, should support your story.
I’ve seen LARPs run on what I’d consider terrible mechanical bones. Turns out, if a player enjoys your game, they’ll stick around regardless of jumping your mechanics, but what I’ve seen drive players out of a game fast is expectations being unmet. If you tell a story about a class of monster hunters, make sure you take the time to make their mechanics feel like what you said the setting supported. Even if they are bad mechanics, your players chose that class for the flavor, and having their expectations shift can drive a wedge between you and the people you are trying to run a game for.
It’s okay to run some Betas.
Beta games are great ways to test your system, and a tested system is more steeled against the rigors of running it. Your system doesn’t need to just appeal to players–you need to be able to run it. A beta event will tell you if it’s going to rip your left arm off to do so. A lot of LARPs suffer from mechanics bloat that overextend their staff, and an overextended staff loses patience and burns out, like a beautiful star falling from Heaven. it’s not good for you or your players if you break yourself over some mechanics, and testing them in a few full-run, full-immersion games is the best way to test that out, and also tell your players ‘everything can change, so don’t get comfortable yet!‘
by Danara Alexandrei | Jan 25, 2020 | LARP Civics, LARPs
Bigotry in our LARP is inevitable in many forms, but sexism is one of the more pervasive things that we deal with. As a female presenting human being, I exhaustively deal with microaggressions of this sort every day. A lot of LARP runners hope to minimize this by writing into their setting that it’s egalitarian or that sexism hasn’t ever existed, but in this one person’s humble opinion, that approach isn’t the only good approach.
Now I must stress the opinion part. Every human being is going to have a different take on how microaggressions and more serious aggressions affect us.
I’ve played in plenty of LARPs that both acknowledged and featured sexism and many who insisted it wasn’t a part of the setting at all, and I found in the latter that I personally felt less heard. Let me explain why. Sexism, whether we like it or not, exists in our day to day lives. Male and male presenting transfolk (non-binary. A trans male is just a male.) have certain privileges in society that females and femme-presenting transfolk do not. I personally enjoy rising above that challenge in a fantasy setting, but think there should be avenues for females to ignore those aggressions built in. You should have a matriarchal society somewhere in your setting, for example, or a matriarchal group.
What breaks down for me when you say that your world is egalitarian is that your players, by nature of their society, are not egalitarian. They just aren’t–it’s not that they do not try, but they will, unfortunately, frequently slip up. By acknowledging sexism in your setting, you give us a voice where others would silence us. Taking this very real issue and putting it on the fantasy palate, acknowledging it, forces the players on both sides to know it is real. In a society that frequently claims that a woman’s voice is hysterical, telling a woman she is not experiencing sexism because this world doesn’t have it, when you cannot truly remove it from the play sphere, is often extremely alienating.
“We must strive for the best version of ourselves,” I can hear you say. That’s noble, and I’m not saying that my opinion is every woman’s opinion. What I can tell you is that in a world that takes my oppression and pretends it does not exist in any meaningful way just because it’s uncomfortable for you to grapple with, I feel incredibly silenced. Some others will feel freed, and so I am not saying it is wrong, but I am saying that if you think you are taking the moral high ground, you are not thinking about the issue with nuance.
Opting to remove a horrible experience from discussion and the roleplay of the world is not a moral win in any circumstance. It’s perhaps an easier stance, and a more comfortable one, but it has its own consequences and fallout–and the victims are often the ones put underfoot. This applies to many topics that are uncomfortable in our society.
by Danara Alexandrei | Jan 24, 2020 | LARP Civics, LARPs, Newcomers
LARPing is, at its core, a whole bunch of geeks getting together in one space to do something they love.
Unfortunately, that comes with a lot of logistical issues. Not everyone wants the same thing from a LARP, and it’s a game of compromise and care for your fellow humans. Here’s a few suggestions on how to be your best self at LARP, and help others have a great time.
Know what you want and what you need.
As you are prepared to compromise, you have to make sure you are aware of your boundaries. A lot of people will be falling into roles and enjoying a setting to its fullest that may have themes that you don’t care for. Make sure you know where the line is so you can get out before you’re actually hurt. These guys are your friends, some of them, but a lot of them are strangers. Nobody wants to accidentally hurt you, but nobody here is psychic either. If you have a hard line against a topic that will come up in game, make a plan for how you will personally avoid it. If you can’t figure out a good way to avoid a hard line for you, don’t put yourself in that situation. If you can’t stand feudalism and will get upset whenever it comes up, don’t join a feudal game. If you just sorta don’t care for it, join and make plans for how to not participate in it as much as you can.
Don’t blame others for you not having fun.
Other people can’t make you have fun. Only you can. While sometimes missing stairs are a thing, most times, another LARPer accidentally getting in the way of your fun is just that–an accident. Not everyone knows what is fun for you, but you do! You can’t force yourself to always have fun, and sometimes things just won’t work out, but I can tell you that even in the crummiest most boring of games, if you desire to have fun, you can have it. This isn’t saying you can’t discuss how to fix issues, or address a certain player’s fun being opposite your own, but blaming another human being who is not targeting you for taking your fun away isn’t the way to fix your game–it’s a crab pot mentality, where you are trying to spread your misery.
Be Considerate.
Be willing to listen if someone else says something isn’t working for them. If something you are doing is intrinsically unhelpful and stressful for them, try and work it out. Don’t force yourself to bend over backwards to the point that you can’t have fun, but be cautious and courteous. If that person doesn’t like being bullied in character and your character is just a bully, implement the old forum strategy: try not to run into them. When your fun and their fun is completely opposite one another, it’s best to give them space if you can’t add positives to their game. You’ll find there are a lot of players who love strife and conflict–it’s better when it’s done with someone you are comfortable with and it’s entirely in character.
by Danara Alexandrei | Jan 24, 2020 | LARP Running, LARPs, Logistics
In the Pacific Northwest, we have an abundance of LARPs. They span the setting spectrum to catch the attention of whomever wants to immerse themselves in the great unknown. From Science Fiction to Fantasy, we have your choice, but all the LARPs I have gone to so far seem to overlook a very important feature in their staff: a communications manager.
Running a LARP is a nightmare. Trust me, I’ve helped with several and been close to people who have done more. It’s an exhausting job with no thanks, and frequently no pay. For that reason, I fully encourage patience and compassion for every runner of a LARP. They are working to create a fun environment for you without much in the way of compensation. Like running a social website or an event that doesn’t bring in an actual salary, it’s a labor of love, but as a player, there are some expectations that I think should be prioritized a little higher than they currently are.
Community management is a skill, and one that almost no LARP runner I’ve met has. Sorry, guys. You are all passionate geeks with the best of intentions, but your ability to communicate in a way that isn’t obfuscated, discouraging, or downright alienating is hit and miss. Your lack of expertise is not helped along by the exhaustion and frustration of running a LARP–you get tired, you get burnt out, and you snap.
A communications manager is a person on your staff whose primary purpose is to interface with your player community. Their job isn’t actually to do a lot of work behind the scenes (unless they want to!), but to manage your responses to emails, your facebooks, your forums or reddits. They take the information you all discuss and tell them and they answer the questions the player asks; they talk to you about whether it’s a good idea to post that scathing critique of your player base’s mistakes right in the middle of the hype train, or if you should wait a few weeks. They know how to put their finger on the pulse of the game and use surgical accuracy to make sure it doesn’t die of bitter miscommunication over little things. You’re frustrated with that power player? The Communications manager knows how not to show it, and how to put the critique of a certain type of play in terms that don’t carry your personal bias.
You’re not bad for having personal biases! Everybody has them. But if you respond to a player in the heat of the moment and tell them you think they are a cheater? Over half of the time, you’ll regret the decision, and it will do you no favors. A communications manager helps you choose when it’s time to actually make an accusation, because it’s something you want to follow up on, rather than alienating players because you got tired that day.
You’d probably think this is obvious, but I’ve been to a lot of Pacific Northwest LARPs and a primary breakdown of joy in the game seems to come from communications between staff and players. If you don’t have the skills for that part of the job, then don’t force yourself to try while you’re already breaking your back for your player base–find someone who can help with that skillset. Sometimes you can’t manage that, but, I think that a lot of LARPs don’t care to even try, and that hurts them over time.
