#running larp

Accepting Limitations As a ref you will not know everything that is happening in uptime. Its not actually possible. Players will have meaningful interactions and do things where you can not see or hear them. As such, you need to make sure that nothing in the game *requires* you as a ref to know these things. 

There are lots of really cool troupes that use omniscience that work really well narrative. Gods, AIs. Psychics ect. Unfortunately physreping these things is almost impossible. Having an all knowing god that will hunt players if they sin is great, but ultimately players can easily sin where the refs cant see them. Similarly an AI with a an algorithm to see the future would be epic, but unless you are running a very tightly narrativistic (and low agency) game, you aren't going to know the future to tell the players. 

Workarounds So there are a couple of ways to increase information flow to the refs. I’m not convinced all of these are *good* ideas mind, but they are possible if you have a resources.  The best way to get more information is to debrief crew as they come back. You will that way get snippets of what is going on. Keep in mind you will still not be getting a full picture from this.

You can have refs always around the IC area, either IC or OC. Not a bad solution, but you need to make sure you still have a ref dealing with crew. Again, this wont let you see everything, but you will get more information this way then scattered monster reports.

If you have enough crew, crew plants can be a very useful thing. But they will need to be careful not to reveal themselves.

Bugging the players. Expensive, and I’ve only ever actually seen this done at a game which was designed as a business venture rather than true larp, but it will let you keep an eye on things. 

Self Reffing. This works well if you trust your players, and for certain things is a necessity. If your god will strike you down if you break a rule for instance, its best to let the players handle that themselves. After all, they will know if they are breaking the rules far better than you as a ref will.

Dead Wood Lice The dead wood louse test was something that was often bandied about my university larp society. The idea is any encounter must be simple enough that three dead wood lice would be able to navigate it. Now it has been pointed out to me that this is quite insulting to players. They are not as dumb as all that.

 However, it does communicate something important, you should make sure things are kept simple. It is very easy to underestimate how difficult an encounter is when you have all the information and you are sitting comfortably rather than under pressure. But it is important to remember

1) Players are almost always working with incomplete and biased information.

2) Players are almost always working under some form of pressure, be it from external (plot or monsters) or internal (other players) sources. 

Information dissemination Refs often have a different view of games from players. This didn’t really hit me until I discussed an event with my housemate who had crewed. We had blown something up, which he had been under the impression we were trying to fix. We at no point had wanted to fix this thing, but the refs and crew thought that this was our goal, and thought that we had failed badly. We thought we had had a marvelous success. 

We had several very well reasoned arguments for blowing this thing up. But the refs had taken a very different approach. Both were valid. But I think it illustrates a very good point. People act on the information they are given. And the information (which starts in an imperfect form anyway) has invariably passed through NPCs, cryptic writing, PCs and various assumptions and biases have been added. 

So how do you as a game runner control for this? The first thing it so accept its going to happen. There is to some extent nothing you can do. Players and refs will always be operating on different sets of assumptions. The best thing you can do is roll with it. You can however do things to try and make it better. You can make sure any bit of information has several points of entry. You can run bits of your plot by people who are not playing your game (sanity checking is big and clever). You can try to make sure things are not overly complicated. If you can not explain it to a crew member there is no way the players will get all that information. 

TL:DR

Refs are not all knowing

As such you should avoid running plots or using mechanics that require refs to know what is going on at all times

The trick to running a good game is to know what you are running. Who are you trying to appeal to? What is the core of your game play? Are you focusing on story? Puzzles? Combat? A mix? What is the risk and leathality level? Are you focusing on hard or soft skills? Is the game fast paced or slower and more relaxed? It is impossible to run a game that is all things to all people. You can try, but what you will produce is something that isn’t very good all around because it is physically impossible to keep everyone happy. If you spend all your energy trying to be all things to all people you won’t really be able to follow through on any one thing.  But Encounter21 it *is* possible to have a game with lots of different game play, you say. This is true, and a game that is *all* combat without story is certainly not ideal. All games are a mix of things, but those ratios change from game to game. Somethings are contradictory. You will never keep the pvp and the safe field crowds both happy for instance. Similarly the same game will never manage to be both relaxing and high risk.

The first step of anything is deciding what you want from the game. It can be scary admitting your larp is not for everyone, I understand. You want to share your cool thing with as many people as possible. But ultimately if you get players who don’t jell with your system it’s not fun for anyone. Your advertising should always be truthful but it should also be written in such a way to attract the people who will enjoy your game and put off the people who don’t want to play it. Personally with the games I run I try to have a “You Will Like This Game If” Page. I try to be upfront about the mechanics, what the core gameplay will be and what sort of game it will be (Swanning around the ballroom, hiding in ditches, being shiny knights ect.).

Don’t be afraid to run something niche. There might be more people thank you think who are into that particular type of game. And if there aren’t then there is no shame in running a small game.

Do what you want to do, and give it 110%. If you want to run a ballgowning game then spend your energy making it the most ballgown-y ballgown game you can rather than trying to shoehorn in grim dark survival horror combat. If you want to mix and match concepts that’s awesome, but don’t over reach yourself and make sure you have thought about how each element will work with the others. Don’t simply add things because you think it will be popular.

TL:DR

Its ok if not everyone likes your game

Its better to have a smaller and happier playerbase than a large unsatisfied player base

What is a Refs Job?

To Provide Plot- No matter how freeform your game is, players *need* something to bounce off of. There are a very small number of players that you can lock in a closet with no stimuli and they will have a good event, the rest of us need alittle more structure. Plot can take 101 forms, but at its core it means presenting some form of conflict for the players to resolve/angst about/discuss. 

While I think its fair to expect players to provide some of their own fun, you need to give them the framework to do so. At bigger games providing enough plot for all your players can be difficult (Fest Events are a very good example of this problem) in which case you really need to manufacture a setting which allows players to create their own conflict (factions with really differing values is a great way to do this). 

To Make Sure the Game Actually Runs- There is alot of OC work that goes into running events. You need a site first and formost but there are a whole host of considuerations: food, shelter, insurance, having a first aider on site, making sure you have crew ect. Logistics are boring, but they do need to be done.

To Make Sure all the Players are in a Safe and Fair* Environment - This is probably the most unpleasant bit of being a ref. Sometimes people break rules, this is not on. One of the jobs as a ref is to deal with this. More important than dealing with cheating however is dealing with things that are actively OC harmful to your players, such as: (OC) Sexism, homophobia, racism, transphobia, theft, sexual assault, unsafe fighting. My personal advice is to not be afraid of the Ban Hammer, but opinions vary. But if you are in charge, you absolutely must deal with these problems, letting them go creates an actively toxic environment for your game.

*fair in this context means within the confines of the game. Your game can be horrifically unfair and that’s fine, but there will most likely be something that’s still cheating within your system (not taking hits for example)

To Run the Game- Quite straightforward this one. You are a ref, go ref things. What this actually entails will depend on what your running, but it can range from determining the outcome of rituals, to answering rules questions, to making sure encounters actually go out. 

There are however some caveats to this, which I will cover more later, but you have to remember YOU ARE A REF NOT CREW, refs monstering is a thing, but you should make sure all the good roles go to crew and that you are around to actually ref things. 

To Make Sure Players Can Have Fun - So I have somewhat conflicted opinions on this one. You are not responsible for all of your players haveing fun. Not everyone will have will have fun at any given event. Note that I have said Can have fun not Are having fun. Larp is meant to be fun, and there are things as a ref you *can* do increase the amounts of fun people can have. 

A very smart man once told me that you should always say yes to the maximum number of players. This often means saying no to individuals. 

Example: Player A asks the refs to be invulnerable to damage. Saying Yes to this one person means saying No to the rest of the player base, as they can no longer damage player A. Therefore the best call would be to say no. 

I really like this way of thinking about your game, it is not about making sure individuals have fun, but rather there is the greatest potential for fun for the largest number of players. This means you should set up a game that will have fun situations rather than focusing on an individual’s fun 

Look After your Crew- This is deserving of a post on its own, but taking care of your crew is massivly important. They have given up their weekend to help you, the least you can do is make sure they have a good time. Give them stuff to do, make sure they are not board. Always give them the good roles. Talk to them, make sure they are having fun. Also be careful not to run them into the ground. 

Communicate with the other refs and make sure everyone is on the same page- There is nothing more frustrating as a player two different calls from two different refs on the same things. Even if it means defering a call or keeping a running white board in the ref room, trying to keep calls as consistent as possible is a good idea.

Things that ARE NOT a Refs Job

Making sure the players win- Right to fail is important. It is never a refs job to make sure the players win. You should make sure they *can* win, but if they screw up let them.

Make sure the story runs the way you want it to - Player agency is super important. If they don’t have a choice then you might as well write a play and get all your friends in it. If players deviate from what you expect roll with it. It is not your job to determine how the story ends, just how it begins and what problems the players face.

OC Logistics

The first major consideration when running a city larp is not causing any sort of incident with the police. You must let them know that you are planning on running something and you need to consider how your system will interact with normal people. Give the police a time frame (we will be running from 10am to 5pm) and a way of recognizing the people in your game (everyone involved will have circuit board tattoos on their face) and a brief idea of what people will be doing (if your local police department is unfamiliar with larp it might be easier to describe your game as a costumed scavenger hunt or something of that ilk).

It is also worth asking permission of anywhere that you think will be used a lot over the day. Make sure they are ok with you using their space. Try to be as non-disruptive as possible. If its a coffee shop or the like make sure you are spending money while you are in there so they are not losing business. 

Combat

City games take place in public. In the interest of not getting in trouble or causing incidents with the police combat either needs to be heavily scaled down or not part of your game. DO NOT ALLOW THE USE OF ANY WEAPONS THAT LOOK REAL. Seriously. Make sure your players understand the importance of not causing public disturbances. It is perfectly valid to run city games with no combat system, in fact I would recommend it. But if you *do* want combat in your system there are a couple ways to integrate it which minimize problems with the public

1) At risk of being repetitive. Make sure any weapons are obviously fake. Brightly colored nerf guns are what I would recommend.

2) Adding rules about where and when combat can be used is worthwhile. For instance combat can only be used in places where there are no witnesses. This makes combat difficult, but retains the threat of it. It also makes sense in the context of setting a game in a city, because murder is not something you would commit in a public setting

3) Consider having a non standard combat system that doesn’t look like combat from the outside. For instance trying to get stickers or clothes pegs  on people without them seeing. 

An Open World and What This Means for Planing

City games don’t have a set location per-say. When your site is a large area with lots of people this means that finding players can be very difficult, especially since the entire point of a city game is to integrate the real world urban setting into your game. In practical terms this means you need to integrate modern technology such as phones into your system and that realistically you need to use pre-written characters with minimal (re:no) crew.

If players are comfortable with the idea I would suggest having a database of mobile phone numbers so any character can get in contact with any other character. At the very least players should ALL be able to get ahold of refs who should be able to get ahold of any single player. This means players can set up meetings with one another and pass information.

In terms of crew, since you will almost never know where any of the players are at any given time it is best to set it up so that almost all of the plot enters play with the players, and that they are in competition with each other so that you do not need to provide monsters or antagonists of any sort. Reffing city games is a relatively hands off affair consisting mostly of making sure you can answer your phone and setting up the occasional drop of information.

Do think about hiring out a small amount of space if you want to create any sets (a fake crime scene or a lab full of dubious materials for example). Just because a city game takes place over a wide space doesn't mean you cant have important locations

Plot

Obviously the specifics of plot will be down to whatever sort of game you decide to run, but city games do lend themselves to specific sorts of plot. The first question you should ask yourself is What will the players be doing in uptime? Each player should have at least three things to be involved in and do in uptime. Plot should interweave so they involve multiple players and players should have a mix of shared goals and mutually exclusive goals inorder to foster both teamwork and conflict. Making sure there is enough plot is vital in city games because it is almost impossible to add anything in after the game has started. However, since your game *is* going to run in a public space its worth making sure that your plots do not lend themselves to extreme reactions which may cause a public disturbance (this a mistake I have made in the past).

Plots which work well in city games:

Investigation: clues can be scattered both in players backgrounds and props such as newspapers or pen drives as well as sets (fake crime scenes or notes left in books in the library). Subsets of investigation can include: Blackmail, what really happened?, professional investigation

Hiding the Truth: The other side of investigation plots. For evey secret someone wants to find out there should be someone whos main interest is hiding it.

Social: Awkward reunions, enemies forced to work together and close friends in need. There is alot of mileage to be had out of social situations in city games. 

 An example of a character background and accompanying plots from a film noir based city game can be found here (Written by Ellen Green and William Thorley)

Costuming

It is important to have some element of costuming that sets your players apart from the population. This is firstly so they can recognize who is and is not part of the game and also so that outside bodies (such as the police or any cafes or shops that you have gotten permission to run in) can recognize your players. It doesn’t have to be something very big, but it should be noticeable. 

A Final Note on the Importance of Briefing your Players

Step 1: Know what sort of game you are running. Being self aware is big and clever. I know this step sounds self explanatory, but people often don’t stop to think about their games critically. Good questions to ask (but by no mean an exhaustive list):

What is the main type of game being offered by your larp? (Action? Social? Political? Puzzle? while most games offer a mix of these, there is normally an emphasis on one or two of them in particular.)

Is it competitive or collaborative? Do you expect violent PvP? Social PvP?

What level of lethality and risk do you expect if any?

Step 2: Be really really clear about what you are running when you sell the game to people. Honesty is key here. I know it is tempting if you want a friend to attend your event to sell it to them based on the things they enjoy, but if you give them a skewed view of the event its not going to end well.

When other people sell your event things understandably get distorted somewhat. This is fine, but make sure all official websites/facebook groups/ect. are correct. When you talk to people don’t be afraid to politely correct them.

If there is something you are worried people might object to, you must include it in your pitch, even if its just as a disclaimer. You might lose some bookings, but its better than having upset players after the event.

Its also worth noting that is is perfectly possible to be honest about your event and still have floor-drop plot or dramatic twists. There is a difference between saying “I am running a high risk horror larp with themes of guilt and redemption” and saying “I am running a lap in which it turns out the half the player base have been mind controlled by the big bad wolf”. The first talks about general themes, and game style. The second about plot. 

Step 3: Run the game you want to run. As long as you are not hurting anyone OC there is no such thing as *bad* larp. Just be clear about what you are running so people can opt in or out. 

TL:DR

The golden rule of consequences is this: Punish the character, not the player.

Example:

Player A has been bitten by a warerabbit. As well as getting stat bonuses the player also receives a slap, lycanthropy is still a curse after all.

Option one: One event a month Player A can not player their character. The explanation for this is that their character is off rampaging as a rabbit.

Option two: One event a month Player A has an insatiable urge to eat carrots, is very irritable, and will attack anyone who wears green.

Both options contain a negative consequence of becoming a warerabbit. However, option one really only hurts the player on an OC level. Not getting to play your character sucks, and in terms of things that make game, its not very interesting. Other players might remark that Player A is always gone around the full moon, but that is sort of the extent of it. While it works really well from a story point of view, its not fun for anyone involved. Option two is still a slap. The roleplay effects will make it hard for Player A to achieve their goals once a month. However from an OC perspective, there really isn’t a punishment. Player A can still engage with the game. From the perspective of the game as a whole, the consequences Player A faces will help create game for other people.

Which brings me to my next point. Consequences should be playable, and create game. This means first and foremost, don’t leave characters crippled and unplayable. At that point it is better just to kill the character. Death, in games which are set up to have lethalty, can be a very effective consequence. Character death can create game for the survivors (oh the ANGST), and the person who has died can simply gen another character and get back into the game.

This Example was stolen from real-life-lucanite who introduced me to the whole playable consequence theory in the first place (hopefully will mug her for a guest post at some point).

Player A has messed with an eldritch abomination. As a result their perceptions of reality become fragmented.

Option one: Player A is a gibbering wreck, they are unable to distinguish reality from their nightmares.

Option two: Player A see a figure standing behind them every  time they see their reflection.

The difference in these two options is that option one is really only sustainable for five minutes. After a short time, gibbering gets old, there is no where to go. Other players run out of ways to interact. The character might be alive, but it cant really engage with the game anymore. Similarly, other players have the same problem, there is only a limited number of interactions they can have with Player A. Option two has similar themes (distortion of reality), a similar outcome (paranoia) but on a much more manageable scope. Because its a reactive effect (every time player A sees their reflection) it wont disrupt their game to the extent that they feel they can no longer play their character. Additional game is made via player A’s reactions, other players can engage with the paranoia in a much wider spectrum of ways then option one.

My final word on consequences is this: They are one of my favorite things about larp, so don’t be afraid to hand them out. They give weight to player actions and add fun complications. Just make sure you think about how they will interact with with the game, and not just what sounds cool.

TL:DR

Consequences are awesome, and an important part of right to fail and game design.

Its important that consequences target characters not players. Don’t punish people OC for IC things

The rule of 3 is your best friend. By which I mean any point of information you want your players to have should have at least 3 points of entry into the game. The advantage of this is that there is  greater chance of the information getting past any players who want to sit on it. In terms of agency the rule of 3 is a useful bench mark because very dedicated players can still block that information if they make an effort, thus they still have the chance to keep things secret if they really really want to, but its not easy and they wont do it as a matter of course. Its also worth doing these plot drops at different times, in different places, to try and maximize their spread. Examples of different ways to get information into the player base

NPC comes with the information (NPCs can deliver information in a variety of ways, so having 3 different NPCs is a valid choice, though it is best to make sure they all have a slightly different take on things to avoid the problem of signpost NPCs)

IC documents (again 3 different documents is a valid choice, but its best to have 3 different documents rather than 3 copies of the same thing)

Props which contain information (pen drives in modern games, puzzle boxes in lower tech settings)

Writing information into character backgrounds if they are ref generated. As a note, you do not need to sign post this information or make it blindingly obvious. As long as its somewhere there, your good.

So now you are sure your information is accessible, there is still the problem of uptime actions. Linears  are fun, and can add alot to games but can realistically only run for a small number of players.  Occasionally this means that certain players will go on lots of linears and others will feel left out. This can be mitigated a couple of ways

1) Set OC limits on how many/ what type of linear quests players can go on. You can dress this up with IC reasoning, which is often useful for integration. 

Example: Players can only go on one quest because going through the magic portal to Questopia will kill you if you do it more than once in a set period of time.

2) Try to aim quests at people who are not engaging. If your system has levels, a mix of high and low level quests are a good way to make sure new players have a chance to get involved without the higher level characters stepping in. This works better in small games, where the refs have the time to personalize plot

Example: Player A has not gone on any quests, but have told a ref they would like to be more involved. Since the refs know player A is playing a priest of the god of fluffy bunnies, they design a quest to retrieve the holy carrot and send some  NPCs to tell the priest about this sacred mission.

3) Remember to run plot for the players who stay at home. Running linears takes a fair amount of crew, but its important to remember the people who stayed home. If not going on a linear means nothing is going to happen for and three hours while people are questing its understandable people might feel a bit left out. Even if its something small which only requires one or two crew members, its worth making sure something is going on in camp.

Example: Half the players have gone off to recover the holy carrot. While they are gone a couple of peasants wander in arguing over what came first, the divine chicken or the egg of heaven. They ask the players remaining in camp to settle the dispute.

4) If you can, write plots that require several different people, from different factions to solve.

Example: The Players were cursed by the pantheon of cuteness when they went to retrieve the holy carrot. The only way to undo the curse is a ritual which requires at least one follower from each of the gods.

As a final point, flooding the market is an excellent way to help mitigate plot hoarding. There should always be more than one plot happening at a game (they do not all need to be earth shattering, but there should be more than one thing going on). Having more plots not only makes sure that a handful of players don’t end up with all of the game while others end up with nothing, but it means if there are plots which players are not interested in for whatever reason, there is something else for them to poke.  

*Rule 7 is Don’t Take the Piss

TL:DR

Players sometimes hoard plot. This overall makes your game less fun, but there are things you can do to fix it.

1) Make sure any information you want the playerbase to have is dropped *at least* 3 times, preferably by different means, at different times and in different places.

2) Run lots of plots, make sure there is always something going on

3) Run plots that require lots of different types/factions/groups of characters to solve

The first I already mentioned in my post about agency. Victory without a risk of defeat is meaningless and really unfulfilling as a player. Why bother fighting if you know you will always win no matter what? And if your just going to win anyway then that clever thing you did wasn’t nearly as cool. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t run games that are low stress or low risk, but don’t lie about it. Don’t sell your game as high risk if failure isn’t an option. Even if you help the players out occasionally, you have to let them work things out on their own sometimes. If you constantly bail them out, your game will become stagnant and start to feel pointless and any illusion of agency you had will go out the window.

The second big reason to respect the players right to fail is that sometimes the players are actively *trying* to fail. As odd as this sounds there are lots of reasons players might try to get themselves killed or sabotage certain plots, and screwing things up can be a legitimate form of PvP. Their character might have a reason they want something to fail, or it might be a roleplay choice (death by heroic last stand is a personal favorite of mine)

Example:

There is a linear adventure for the players to retrieve an artifact of the god of fluffy bunnies. Player A worships the god of snuggly ducks (the sworn enemy of the god of fluffy bunnies) and wants the expedition to fail. To that end Player A makes encounters that shouldn’t be fights into fights and drains the party resources. Because of this the final encounter is far too difficult for the party.

Player A’s actions in the example are legitimate, it is their choice. By making sure the adventure succeeds no matter what you are removing the agency of Player A completly. There is nothing more frustrating that having a character goal that *should* be doable except the refs have decided its not legit. Again I don’t mean to say that all things should be possible, it is ok for refs to say no to things, but this should be explicit. If your system has a no PvP rule, then of course PvP is not legit. Same goes for all sorts of actions.

It is worth thinking about what if the players fail at X when you write an event. The best option is to make sure failure has *playable* consequences.

Example:

The players are all infected with a virus and have 2 hours to find the cure.

Option A: If the players fail to get the cure they go mad and die

Option B: If the players fail they get progressively worse roleplay effects which at the end of the event culminate in death.

The players will most likely find the cure. But if they don’t option B ensures you still have a game. The players will have consequences, and it will effect their game but they will ultimately still be able to play.

This is not to say death isn’t an appropriate consequence of failure, but when players failing at a certain task breaks your game, its time to rethink what the consequences should be. Always assume the players might screw up. Players do that. Allow them to. They will thank you for it TL:DR