#crewing

LARPHacks, my friends have convinced me to try LARP and I’ve decided to crew my first event so I can get a feel for the game before diving in as a character. How do I make sure it’s a good experience?

Glad you asked! This is geared primarily at people crewing small-medium “minifest”/large-linear games, about 40-100 people, based at sites like scout camps in the UK; but I think and hope plenty of the advice will be applicable more widely.

1. PACK YOUR STUFF

Crewing starts a week before the event. Check with other crew what you should be packing and make sure it's together. There's an example generic LARP packing list here, but as a bare minimum you should pack:

Comfortable footwear with ankle support

Sleeping gear, unless you are SURE the site has bedding

Warm & waterproof clothing sufficient to comfortably stand still in the rain in winter at night for >30 minutes

Washkit, including any medications and a towel

Plain dark trousers and top

Phone charger and power bank

List of emergency phone numbers (partners/friends/relatives) in case you damage your phone or get stuck out of signal

2. READ THE BRIEFS

Crewing starts a week before the event! There should be some material available to help crew understand the backstory to the event, roughly how it will run, what the PCs are trying to achieve and what obstacles they will encounter. You may have the opportunity to volunteer to play NPCs in advance, and those NPCs may have briefs. You should revise the rules so you understand what calls and mechanisms you'll encounter in play.

Sometimes you'll find there is too much of this material and it's overwhelming. If that happens, you should ask for a one-page summary, or a priority order of stuff you "must" read vs "could/should" read.

Sometimes you'll find there isn't enough of this stuff and you don't really understand what you're meant to be doing. If that happens, you should find a member of the game team or a more experienced crew member and ask them questions!

The rhino has a complex and intricate set of character motivations which the player was revising for weeks in advance.

3. LISTEN TO THE REFS

When you get to site, the refs/game team become your bosses. You should keep an ear out for when they're trying to talk. Good crew rooms are noisy, chaotic places, full of people enthusing about the encounter they've just come back from, or revising their brief for the one they're going out on next - all while trying to put on a chainmail shirt and find an appropriate weapon in the pile and glue the extremely important cardboard crown prop back together. This is fine - embrace the chaos! Get excited! But keep one eye on the refs and shut up when they start talking.

It's always okay to say "no" if the refs ask you to do something, but try to make it "no but":

"No, I don't think I can manage to fight again right now, but I could go in again as one of the non-combat restless ghosts we had earlier."

"No, I'm not ready for another role now, but I'll be good in 30 minutes, I’ll wait here until then."

"No, I don't have the brains to absorb a complex brief, but I'm happy to go in as something like a thug or bodyguard if someone else plays the Prince."

4. ASK THE REFS

At the same time, while the refs are busy, they would rather know if you're having a problem or don't understand something. Don't suffer in silence. There are always lulls in game time, so if you need help, collar a ref and ask them. Even better, ask a more experienced crew member - they'll be able to read the room and find you the right moment to speak to someone; they might even be able to fix the problem themselves.

If you're really keen to do something, make sure you communicate that to the refs - ideally before the event - so they have the chance to find something. Whether it's making kit, wearing a particular costume, playing a particular type of role - always worth asking!

A crew tent with all the essentials: bottled water, electric light, queer pride.

4. THROW YOURSELF IN

No matter how well organised the game LOOKS, it will have gone off the rails approximately two hours after time in. This is normal and expected. You will end up being asked to play roles you didn't prepare for: this is also fine and expected.

Try to play as many different roles as possible within your physical, mental and emotional capacity. Expect a big variety of different things to do. Throw yourself into the world and have a go at everything. You will not enjoy it all equally and that's fine - you're here to learn what works for you

Even if you have been given a single "big name" NPC with an important plot role, be prepared for them to arrive on screen late, leave early, or fall down a flight of stairs onto some PC knives thirty seconds after they appear. Getting keen for an NPC is great - getting overinvested in one is a recipe for disappointment and bad feeling (on your part or the players’).

Look around you at what the other crew are doing. If a role looks like fun, join in! If a ref asks for volunteers, stick your hand up! The louder, more interesting roles will go to more experienced LARPers who are "known quantities" unless you volunteer for them. Often those more experienced LARPers are itching for someone else to volunteer and will be delighted to coach you through being a squad leader, an evil magician, an angry space knight or whatever else comes up.

If you feel anxious in a complex or high energy role, ask if you can have a more experienced crew member as an IC servant, second-in-command or bodyguard. This gives them an excuse to stick close to you and whisper in your ear if you stray off track.

5. YOU ARE NOT A PLAYER

You are at this LARP to help create a living world for the PCs - the protagonists - to inhabit and affect. You may have a very important NPC with complex motivations and great kit - and you should immerse yourself and play them to the hilt! - but their concerns and goals must come secondary to the players.

Here are a few ways to reinforce that:

No NPC-on-NPC Action. NPCs should talk to each other as little as possible, only ever with players present, and ideally only ever at player instigation. If the players have worked all night to get the Margrave and the Duchess to negotiate a peace treaty, then of course they can negotiate. (Though it would be better if they each empowered a PC legate to negotiate on their behalf....). But it should be a big public negotiation with lots of opportunities for the players to observe and interject. If you find yourself talking to another NPC in private, then stop, walk away, find a PC and do your business in a way which includes and centres them instead. NPCs talking to NPCs with no player engagement is sometimes called “Facewank”, and is one of the three cardinal sins of bad LARP design.

Fight Generously. In combat roles, try to "sell" every blow the players make by flinching, rolling away, shouting in pain. It's good to give the players a challenge, but it's even better to challenge them AND make them feel heroic and badass when they defeat you.

Spot the Quiet Ones. Every time you go in as a “talky” NPC, look for the players who aren’t running to greet you, playing leadership roles, or pushing themselves forward. Give them an opportunity to engage with your role.

So, tell me about... It’s great to deliver your brief; it’s even cooler to give the players a chance to deliver their unique stories. Ask players about their kit, their customs, their names and deeds. There’s no quicker way to create the sense of a living world and culture than to have a fully IC reaction - and it can be anything! Approval, disgust, awe, curiosity - to something you already knew OC about a PC.

An NPC is there to fulfill a function - note briefing notes tucked into belt!

6. LOOK AFTER YOU

Self care is important for two reasons: you’re at a physically, mentally and emotionally demanding hobby, and you want to keep yourself safe; and if you don’t look after yourself, then it’s going to be one of the other crew or ref team taking time out of running the game to look after you. It isn’t big or hard or clever to forget to drink water or fight so hard you feel faint. It isn’t cool to wear uncomfortable kit (no matter how great it looks) which exhausts you to the point you’re incapable of participating in the game, or to keep banging your head against a role you’re really not enjoying.

Ask for help before you need it, not after; make your accessibility needs and limitations clear to the game team in advance; give yourself enough food, water, sleep and decompression time between intense roles. Looking after yourself isn’t selfish, it’s part of being a responsible crewmember.

A social role can make a great break between more physically active roles.

7. LOOK AFTER YOUR BUDDIES

Even if you’re new, you can still keep an eye on your fellow crewmembers. Check in on them if they seem down or subdued, and make sure they’re remembering to drink enough water and get some rest. A great way to cheer someone up is asking them what their favourite moment of the event has been so far, or to ask them to tell you about a highlight of a previous LARP experience - getting people to tell war stories is a good way to get perspective on the game.

And what friendly souls all of these crew seem to be!

8. IMPROVE YOUR FOXHOLE

Crew rooms are always chaos, particularly crew rooms for medium-sized combat games. Work out where things are meant to live and anytime there’s a break, gently tidy things up. Wash out cups, put the swords back where the swords live, throw rubbish away.

Go one better and improve the conditions - are people unsure of where the costume/weapons get stored? Grab a Sharpie and some paper and duct tape, and start making signs. Is there an obvious trip hazard? Tape it down or move it. Refs have left radios scattered over the desks? Put the spare ones on to charge.

If you don’t keep the crew room tidy, you’ll be left wearing the chicken wig.

9. PACK DOWN

Everyone is very excited and frothy at the end of an event, and it can be really compelling to catch up with the players you’ve only ever seen IC all weekend! But there is plenty of work to do to get the site collapsed, kit packed away, and everything cleaned and tidied. Make sure you leave enough energy to pack down your own and the event kit, and if you can’t see anything obvious to do, grab a mop or a cloth and start cleaning part of the site.

10. FROTH AND SELF CARE

Be prepared to look after yourself in the days after the event. Take a day off to recover.  Sleep, eat and rehydrate. You will be more drained than you realise. Carefully clean and disinfect any little cuts or grazes you picked up - the outside is dirty and they will infect quickly.

If it’s gone well, you’ll be on a big emotional high! If it hasn’t, you may feel a bit rotten. In either case, engaging in after-game froth on social media can be a great way to maintain the good memories of the event, as long as you’re sensible. Try to be generous with your engagement - give other people compliments on cool stuff you saw them do, tell them their kit looked cool, and try to think of something nice to say at least once for every time you’re complimented.

You may get a bit of low mood ("event drop") after a day or two. That's okay. It will pass. Write down the good frothy memories now while you're hyped about it and re-read them when you're low.

If some things didn't go so well, it's absolutely OK to talk and vent about them, but it’s courteous do it in a place the game team can't see it (e.g. personal Facebook, on a filter) for the first week.

Write down what worked well (roles/interactions you enjoyed, kit you liked) and not so well (things you should have packed, things you'd have liked to do but missed the chance) while it's fresh in your mind. Review the list next time.

I liked the bit where I died!

Broken Brain

Imagine being stuck with a brain you can’t explain. After thirty years, the dots finally start to connect. Penny expresses her emotional journey after coming to terms with her recent diagnoses. You don’t always see what you’re not looking for.

Dir. Hayley Repton

Crewing experience: I worked as a pre-production runner for this project. Hayley Repton was a Level 6 (third year) while I was a Level 4 (first year) who allowed me to gain some work experience by working with her as a pre-production runner. We meet at a networking session at university and found that we both loved completing the paperwork part of film projects. I offered my help to Hayley for any time she needed and she contacted me while she was working on her final year film, Broken Brain. I helped with the paperwork part of the film and I’m so grateful to be able to work with her and gain work experience with her.  

As a pre-production runner I worked on a few pieces of pre-production paperwork. These included transcripting interview recordings, prop designing of a newspaper, and searching and listing possible film festivals that were available to submit the film into. I worked hard trying to show my professional level and gain any type of work experience that I could. I found Hayley was very easy to work for; she was straight to the point about what she wanted and how she wanted it which made the job for me much easier to do. I really wish I could have worked more with Hayley, she is such a great film maker and I learnt a lot for working with her even on such a small scale but I am just glad to help in any way that I could and happy to have worked with her and met her. I hope that we can work together a lot more in the future. 

The film is beautiful. I am completely blown away and inspired by the cinematography, sound and editing for this film. The hard work that is quite clearly seen put into this film is incredible and excites me to work on more film projects and create my own films on such a high professional level like this. It’s such an interesting piece, informing anyone who watches it about the mental illness that is ADHD that people may have not known before or been misinformed about. It’s such a powerful piece that blows my mind every time I watch it.  

The film has been given a lot of praise, deserving so. It was selected for the end of year class screening, and has been an official selection 2018 of the BFI London Southback IMIS event, official selection 2018 of the Aesthetica Film Festival Nahemi, and an official selection 2018 in Roots to Shoots. The film has even had Stormzy realising the greatness of this film and saying it’s “very sick and insightful”. 

Hayley deserves all the praise she is getting for this film and her talent as a film maker. She had now finished University with a First Class BA (Hons) in Media (Film) Production and is off working in the industry. Her work is something to keep an eye out for because you know it’s going to be incredible. I wish her all the luck and hope to stay in touch and possibly work together in the future. 

I have previously wrote about crew welfare from a organiser’s perspective. Here is a guide to being the best crew member you can be.