LARP is alot of things to alot of people. A chance to fight, to drink with your friends, to be a hero, to be a peasant, to politic or to relax. What I get out of a game will be different from every other larper out there, and I guarantee the same is true of everyone one in our glorious hobby. If everyone wants something different from their games though, that begs the question how do you make everyone happy. There is a very easy answer. You Donât. Marmite, for those of you who arenât in the UK is a thick, tar like spread. Some people think its amazing, and others think it should be nuked from orbit. Almost no one has a middle ground opinion. Iâm of the opinion that the most enjoyable games take the marmite approach.
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 isnât 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 wonât really be able to follow through on any one thing. Â 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 donât jell with your system itâs 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 donât want to play it. Personally with the games I run I try to have a âYou Will Like This Game Ifâ 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.).
Donât 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 arenât 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 thatâs awesome, but donât over reach yourself and make sure you have thought about how each element will work with the others. Donât 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
Trying to run games that please everybody ends up pleasing nobody.
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This post is going to cover how to run games in cities, I donât mean pub games but rather games that use the urban landscape itself as site. City Larps offer a unique game experience. Because you are larping in the real world, they create a level of immersion that is difficult in other games, and they allow for the integration of real world places.Â
City games lend themselves very well to investigation and social games but very poorly to combat.
 City games need to be handled carefully though, because they take place in public spaces there are a lot of things that need to be considered that arenât necessarily a problem in other types of games.Â
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.Â
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 doesnât look like combat from the outside. For instance trying to get stickers or clothes pegs  on people without them seeing.Â
An Open World and What This Means for Planing
City games donât 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.Â
 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 doesnât have to be something very big, but it should be noticeable.Â
A Final Note on the Importance of Briefing your Players
I would always argue for briefing your players on OC things before games, no matter what sort of game you are running, but it is doubly important when you are running city games. Players need to understand that they are playing in public spaces, and as such some behaviors are unacceptable. It is very important that everyone is on the same page and that players know how to contact a ref.Â
A friend introduced me to firewood theory when we were discussing different play styles and it has been an important part of my approach to game design since. I would like to get this out of the way now, no one of these categories is better than any of the others, they are simply different. Firewood theory is based on what people do when presented with plot, and can give you guidance for how to create groups in the case of games with pre-generated characters or how to target plot hooks in the case of games with player-generated characters.Â
Firewood theory goes like this: peoples approach to plot can be broken down into three groups
Kindling: These are the people who take plot and explode, getting their plot all over everyone else. If they have a problem its *everybodys* problem.Â
Example: Player A falls in love with an enemy commander. They decide they shall run off with the commander consequences be damned. There is tons of falloutÂ
Logs: These are the people who get their plot and get on with it. They tend to be proactive but donât necessarily involve everyone or make a big noise about chasing their plot.
Example: Player A falls in love with an enemy commander. They broker piece between the two nations and take sensible actions to resolve the situation. There is minimal fallout.Â
Wet Logs:These are the people who need a little bit of a push to get involved in plot. They tend to favor internal roleplay and be quieter players. Often new players fall into this category as well.
Example:Player A falls in love with an enemy commander. They decide that it is a doomed love and that they should not act on it. They have a lot of angst as a result but there is no fallout for the player base as a whole.
How Firewood Theory Can Help You
These three groups of people interact with each other. If you are running a game with pre-generated characters you can combine them they way you would a fire (small amount bit of kindling, some logs, some wet wood) Â you get dramatic, tense situations that can play out without burning out too quickly. Kindling often create situations with *very* little provocation. Logs react and give the kindling something to bounce off of, and similarly wet logs get drawn in to the action without having to initiate. Its also useful when designing characters so their playstyle lines up with that of their player.
Example: Player A falls in love with an enemy commander and runs off betraying the nation (Kindling). Player B swears revenge and decides to take out Player A (Log). Player C is suddenly worried about the extremity of Player Bâs response and tries to find a better solution (Wet Log).Â
In terms of games in which you donât have the luxury of being able to arrange groups as a ref, firewood theory can still be helpful. different types of player react to different types and strengths of plot hooks. If you want to target different players knowing what type of thing they will react to, or how strong a hook you need is useful.Â
Or course firewood theory is dependent on you knowing your players, which means it might be difficult to apply in large games or games in which you donât know pretty much everyone. But its still useful to think about if only to make sure you are not assuming players will react the way *you* would react to any given situation.
Snake Oil: On Advertising and Managing Expectations for Your Game
Iâve said it before, and I will say it again. No matter how amazing your game is, not everybody is going to like it. This is not your fault, different people enjoy different types of game, and there is nothing wrong with that. But it does mean that you, as an organizer, have a responsibility to know what sort of game you are running and to advertise accordingly.
A common complaint after events is âThat wasnât the event I thought I was going toâ. And its a legitimate complaint. If Player A shows up to a game with a character designed around PvP and combat to a game that is designed around diplomacy, nonviolent solutions and trust, they are not going to have a great time. And chances are their character, through no fault of their own, will be very jarring for the other people in the game, because it doesnât fit with the tone and setting other players have established.  So as an organizer how can you avoid this.
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 donât 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 donât 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 âI am running a high risk horror larp with themes of guilt and redemptionâ and saying âI am running a lap in which it turns out the half the player base have been mind controlled by the big bad wolfâ. The first talks about general themes, and game style. The second about plot.Â
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.Â
TL:DR
Be honest about what sort of game you are running, both with yourself and your player base.
Actions have consequences. That is a basic rule of both physics and larp. If players do things the world should react in someway even if its something small. Now not all actions have negative consequences, but many do. I sort of touched on this with the right to fail post, but designing consequences for your game is important and takes thought. Players will ultimately have play with whatever consequences they have acquired, so its worth making sure that even if everything goes to hell the game will still be fun.
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 isnât 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, donât 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 Aâs 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 donât 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. Donât punish people OC for IC things
Make sure your consequences donât make characters unplayable. It is better to flat out kill characters than to put them in a position where they are no longer playable.
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Some Days You Just Canât Get Rid of A Bomb: The Right to Fail
The right to fail is a very simple concept: It is in a word letting your players fuck up. Players, as discussed in the last post, have a habit of doing stupid things, and as tempting as it is to rig the game so that they always win, the right to fail is essential to good games.
There are a couple of reasons I would argue that the right to fail is important. Both are pretty tied up with the concept of player agency.
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 wasnât nearly as cool. Iâm not saying that you shouldnât run games that are low stress or low risk, but donât lie about it. Donât sell your game as high risk if failure isnât 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 shouldnât be fights into fights and drains the party resources. Because of this the final encounter is far too difficult for the party.
Player Aâs 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 donât 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 donât 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 isnât 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
