LARP Archives - Keep on the Heathlands

Serious Game Industry 17$ Billion By 2023

We’ll be involved in running HLG Con in Atlantic City in October. Please buy tickets and come hang-out with us! Then learn about the Serious Game industry below.

And now, for something completely different.

A few months ago we were invited to participate in the Serious Play Conference as press. When we received this invitation I almost exploded with joy. I had wanted to attend the event and couldn’t quite afford the cost this year. Then, I had a minor health crisis that required some surgery. AND, that surgery was scheduled right in the middle of the Serious Play Conference, so we had to miss this amazing event. Which was a shame.

So, what is this event, why is important to Keep, and why would you want to know about them and some of the information that came out of the event? Well, the Serious Play Conference is about those organizations that create simulations and ‘games’ that focus on real world issues. These games might be Military Simulations, training programs, and educational gamification. There were dozens of panels in 2018 that look at gaming from angles that we touch on here but often don’t dive deeply into. The biggest news to come out of the event is that there is evidence to suggest that the industry of serious games will be valued at $17 Billion dollars by 2023, which is a serious bit of business.

What is unclear in the METAARI Report is if the use of the types of games we cover on this blog most frequently are an element in the impact of that market. To be clear, reports indicate that the TT RPG and Larp only constitute a minor fraction of the Hobby Games Industry per year, as little as $50 million per year is likely close to accurate for 2017. So, if the METAARI Report does include the small amount of the industry using D&D and other ttrpgs as art and recreational therapy and other cognitive behavioral support, they are likely a very small fraction of the total impact that the report focuses upon.

Does this mean anything for us as creators of analog games in the long-run? Potentially. If the serious impact potential of analog games can be tapped, this creates a potential for large investment unseen previously. However, the largest issue is that the market that takes games seriously are not looking at analog games, but frequently, are looking at ways to digitize, and incorporate AR and VR into their work. There are oppourtunities but also challenges in explaining why analog gaming can be a force for social change, and the METARRI Report and the Serious Play Conference are not focused on looking at how our games fit into that large pie. When they do, then there could be increased investment and growth in our industry in ways that work to create social impact.

The other side of the coin is, does the RPG industry want to be seen as “Serious” and that’s a hard question to answer. The large majority of RPG gamers play these games as a form of entertainment. Yes, entertainment has all the layers of ‘deep media’ etc, but escapism and pure entertainment are the focuses of RPGs for most people. The fraction of companies, organizations, and practitioners utilizing analog gaming for purpose is dramatically small. On top of that, the majority of conversations on social media about games are focused on the fun elements. Of course, Larp creators and players are more focused on the academic import of their part of the hobby. See Living Games Conference as an example of the academic focuses larp creators dive head first into.

The future of games is bright and the future of analog gaming is brighter than I would ever have anticipated back in the 90s. This is the time to invest heavily into this small segment of the entertainment and ‘Play’ communities. The impact of gaming on all fronts is going to increase. The question will be: Does this medium survives the transition in a way that we all feel is healthy in the long-term?

Josh is the owner of this blog and his opinion may not be the opinion of others that have posted articles here.

The Night In Question Interview – Matthew Webb

No one familiar with Keep should be shocked that this Blockbuster LARP caught our attention. In fact, if I wasn’t involved in running a Convention in Atlantic City the month prior, I’d be all over the event. The Night In Question is a Sabbat focused Vampire LARP experience in the Nordic Style. That’s a lot of jargon words slapped together in a sentence. So, we wanted to ask the creators of the event, especially Matthew Webb, to describe the game and describe how they are creating an immersive horror experience while ensuring player safety and consent are central to the experience. Mr. Webb and Jackalope Live Action Studios were involved with the amazing War of Our Own Charity LARP Event that happened in February 2018. These folks know how to work with heavy material.

1 – Can you tell us a little bit about the premise of the game?

The Night In Question is set at an illegal rave outside of Austin, Texas during the late 1990s. Most of the characters will begin the night as mortals attending the party, but as the night goes on, it is revealed that the rave was a lure created by the Sabbat, for a mass embrace and blood feast as a prelude to an assault on the Camarilla in Austin. We’re calling the general style “Texas splatterpunk”, where we are emphasizing a visceral high-quality horror experience full of great props, buckets of fake blood and great physicality that really emphasizes the monstrous nature of the sect. It’s something that we don’t get to see typically in Vampire LARP – even those games which feature the Sabbat don’t usually have the location or the resources to do a huge bloody experience.

It will run the night of November 17th, 2018 at a concert site outside of Austin, TX.

2) Why the Sabbat? Why Vampire?

I love the setting and the sect. I’ve loved Vampire: the Masquerade since my introduction to it in 1999, and I have been playing in Sabbat games since 2001. It is actually my favorite form of Vampire LARP, though I love playing Camarilla and Anarch games as well. The ritualism, the playing with shadows, the anti-hero aspects of the sect have always appealed to me. And how they served as a counter-weight to the Camarilla’s hypocrisy by embracing their dark natures, and how they showed the problems that come from that.

It remains one of the most evocative and powerful role-playing settings, and it has influenced so many LARPers that it is really exciting to be working on something truly unique and new for a company whose products I grew up with.

3) How did getting an official license from White Wolf Entertainment to do this come about?

After playing and advising on End of the Line in New Orleans, the first bespoke-style Vampire LARP licensed by White Wolf, I became more involved with White Wolf’s efforts to support these new blockbuster-style big games that took lessons from the Nordic and immersive style. I ended up developing the online tool Larpweaver for the amazing Enlightenment in Blood LARP at World of Darkness Berlin, and became good friends with several of the White Wolf staff. And that began the conversation that eventually led to The Night In Question.

White Wolf gave us the license because they loved the idea and the energy we brought to the table. They saw us as a group of American creators who loved their setting and had learned the lessons of the Nordic-style games, but also liked how we were bringing our own energy, and dare I say, swagger to the ideas. And when we said, we wanted to do Sabbat, they really leaned forward and wanted to know what we had to say.

I have to say, White Wolf has been incredibly supportive, and they took a chance with us as a young studio. It’s going to be an amazing event.

4) Considering the source material, ensuring player safety and consent seems difficult. The Sabbat are a visceral horrific sect of vampires. Tell us about how you are creating an environment that allows you to tackle that material while ensuring all of your players are taken care of out-of-character? You’ve got a great list of dos and don’ts on the site, but how do you ensure players internalize these rules?

Safety is our number one priority. If players do not feel safe at our event, we cannot achieve what we want to achieve. We want a visceral physical event where people are immersed in the monstrosity of these creatures; not where they are worried that anyone is in real danger. This goes for being safe from physical harm, and being safe from harassment and violation of consent.

The event starts at noon, though the actual game does not start until sundown, because we will being doing player preparation and workshopping. We have a large conference space reserved near the game site, and attendance is required at our safety and consent workshopping. We’re partnering with Participation Design Agency, who created both Enlightenment in Blood and End of the Line, to workshop and structure consent training.

5) You’ve focused on the early edition version of the Sect, where the horror of what they are is more present. Are you tying in the religiosity elements of the sect from Revised at all?

Where we are planting ourselves with the Sabbat has been a very lengthy discussion. We actually ended up publishing two blog posts, the first outlining all the changes that the Sabbat have gone through and the second outlining our vision for them in our particular game. That was just to give our players a baseline, so we could all understand why so many people have so many different visions for the Sabbat. I have even called the sect the single most revised and constantly altered part of the World of Darkness.

The Sabbat always had a religious aspect, and the Revised Guide to the Sabbat struck an excellent balance. But as I spoke about in the blog, the trend became they were more and more religious fanatics and less reckless rebels and anti-heroes pursuing their own form of freedom. But the Sabbat always revered Caine as the founder of their sect, the Dark Father; but our Sabbat will see him as a role model, a hero, not as a god. But there will be dark rites and praises being said to him.

The phrase we are encouraging among our Sabbat will not be “Praise Caine”, but “May Caine guide you.” It’s a subtle change, but an important one. Caine will be treated as a figure that guides a vampire to their pinnacle, like a guiding but harsh parent or a role model; not as a figure who wishes to be worshipped in the same manner as the Abrahamic God.

The Sabbat are ultimately ancestor worshippers. It’s important to note that.

6) Talk to us more about calibration mechanics, physicality in LARP, and how your team is building out methods to do this well?

We have our official Jackalope signal guide up on our site (http://jackalope-larp.com/how-to-larp-hard-and-safe/), outlining the calibration methods we are using, but we will be going over them extensively before the game. In addition, we also have physical safety workshopping, including how to safely stage-fight and the like. Our special effects and environment teams are all veterans of haunted houses or similar events, so they know how to produce safe but terrifying experiences.

During the actual game, we have a team of safety monitors who will not be participating who will be patrolling the site constantly, who will be trained to spot situations, enforce the consent and safety rules, and are empowered to end situations at any time. I would not want to be on their bad side – they include two professional bouncers and an off-duty police officer – and they have zero tolerance for anyone messing with anyone else. In addition, we have a safety team with a dedicated email and contacts that can be contacted before or after the game with concerns at safety@jackalope-larp.com.

We want a physical experience. Once the night throws into high gear, I want to hear screaming, I want mortals falling to the ground being fed on in a frenzy. But I also want to know this is all safe play-acting by people who have been empowered with the tools to do it right.

7) I’ve seen you describe this as an “American World of Darkness Immersive-Style LARP”. What do you mean by that? What separates this from games like Convention of Thorns or End of the Line?

The joke among our staff is that the relationship between this game and the European Vampire Nordic LARPs is like someone with a revving chainsaw kicking down the door of a nice cocktail party and screaming, “Let’s do this!” And there’s some truth in that.

We are foregoing the term Nordic, if only because it means too many things to too many people. and has a lot of baggage attached to it. Instead, we’re using the terms bespoke and immersive, because it says clearly what we are going for. We owe a lot to the Nordic tradition, but the term has a jumbled history that makes us want to go for something more exact and less loaded.

Saying we’re American, we’re the first completely American studio to do a World of Darkness bespoke LARP. And there’s the setting, an illegal rave set among oil pumps in the backwoods , which is such a great image in American horror. There’s this idea of rural America, especially Texas, being so large that you can be in the backwoods under the big Texas night sky where no one is around to hear you scream.

But beyond even that, The Night In Question is written with an outlaw cowboy in-your-face attitude. It is going to be loud, it’s going to be unashamed and a little over the top. We’re determined to have a lot of fun and make a mess while doing so. We’re going to paint the walls red. And we’re taking a bunch of different traditions and putting them together to make something unique and great that is truly our own. There’s something quintessentially American about that approach to art and creativity, and it’s a great part of our artistic tradition.

8) What is the goal of The Night In Question? Who are you trying to reach? What experience do you want your players to tell stories about for the next twenty years?

I want new players who’ve never seen the World of Darkness before to walk out having the most fun and blood-soaked night of their lives. I want veterans of the World of Darkness to walk away saying and thinking they’ve never understood the Sabbat truly until now. I want anyone to come – experienced or not knowing anything – and have a complete blast. I want there to be stories about blood-filled rituals, fire-ringed duels, savage double-crosses, sinister betrayals and hideous indoctrination.

I want everyone who was there, when they play Vampire from now on, to know exactly what makes these vampires scary and also, what makes them awesome.

9) How do you make an event like this inclusive? Who do you have on your design staff that brings diverse world experience to this game?

You make it inclusive by rolling up your sleeves and doing it! It’s not hard! You recognize talent comes from everywhere; you treat people like adults and don’t patronize them; and you recognize everyone’s input has value. You focus on being fair, circumspect and unwavering on the idea that no one should feel like a target at your games or in your community. And when you see anyone making anyone else into a target, a punchline or a punching bag – you put an end to it, right there and right then.

I don’t need any toxic people dumping their sewage into my water supply. No amount of money is worth that. Any one person’s well-being is more important than my LARP.

All three of our primary teams – safety, writing and art – are led by women or gender-fluid people. We recognized talent and we put them in charge. Each are one of the most talented, driven and incredible people I have ever met. Our contributors have backgrounds including LGBT, African American, Hispanic, Asian, Native American and more. Our team ranges in age from 20 to 62 years old. We’re very fortunate to have amazing people working with us, and it’s all the better by the variety of voices and backgrounds that have become involved.

We’ve also removed themes that would do little to enhance our experience that would result in people of color or women feeling unsafe or uncomfortable. Sexual assault, homophobia, transphobia, sexism, racism, etc. are not allowed themes in the game. We’re not making a game about those, and they add nothing, so they are out. We are already asking people to deal with a lot with the visceral and physical nature of this game. I’m not going to act like it doesn’t add an additional burden to already underrepresented people in our hobby to allow those topics to be used as a cheap shock.

And I can’t emphasize how much stock we put in our safety team and methods to make sure those who do not have the privilege of feeling safe by default – e.g. women, trans individuals and people of color – feel safe at our events.

10) What’s next for Jackalope?

Bigger and better. We’re already planning our games for 2019, and there are going to be some cool announcements on the horizon. This is certainly not going to be the last World of Darkness project for us. I want to do Werewolf, I want to do Mage, and I want to do other cool things with Vampire. But I can’t tell you any distinct plans yet.

But our interest goes beyond that. We’re fans of horror games, of science fiction, of historical drama and even just parlor art games. We have a dream team doing The Night In Question, and we want to keep doing more and pushing the envelope. We want Texas to be one of the hot spots for LARP in America and the world.

Please check out the Vampire products created by Joshua Heath on the ST Vault, he was the interviewer for this article.

Against the Darkness

Once upon a time, when the sun fell, we knew only darkness. We sat huddled against the cold in trees and caves imagining the hunters that sought us in the night. Every so often, often enough to justify our fears, they would come. When this happened we would lose someone, sometimes more than one someone. Death and darkness became synonymous.

Over time, all this imagining did us some good. We imagined whether there could be food on the other side of the hill we had never seen. We imagined there were predators where there may or may have been. Those who imagined better survived longer, and bore children who carried the spark of imagination within them.

That spark eventually manifested as fire itself, born from our hands, but first created in our minds. No longer were we bound to spend each night trapped in fear and exhaustion. We brought the sun to earth, and those that once hunted us learned to keep their distance from the flames that lit the night.

Huge Discounts on your Favorite RPGs @ DriveThruRPG.com “
Our imaginations never ceased. Instead, we began to envision things that had never existed, events that had never happened, and places no one had ever seen We had become aware of ourselves as individual minds, but more than that, we realized that we could see ourselves as things we had never been. We carved masks and wore paints, and in the light of the flames (which had burned away the darkness of death) we took on the roles of spirits, heroes, and gods. We danced and we sang because we were free not only from fear, but from the boundaries of our physical forms.

Now the world is lit by light so great that in many places you cannot see the stars. Many still live in fear and darkness, but every day those who live in fear number less than ever before. The stories we tell reach across time and distance to affect lives in ways we will never know. Radio, television, and the internet reach numbers that would take years for any single person to count aloud.

Roleplaying games as we know them are largely a modern invention, created and developed in the last fifty years. As a skill and as an artform we have only begun to scratch the surface of what is possible with this medium. The roots of our hobby run deep, to one of the cores that define us as a species: the power of our imagination.

These games we play show us that we can see ourselves in others. We can take on the personas of other people and see ourselves through them as the hero or the monster, as the villain or the victim. We imagine these other selves of ours enduring experiences we will never have in our mundane lives, the sweet taste of victories we will never win, the utter agony of pains that will never touch us, joys and despairs freed from the chains of physical reality that bind us.

I would never suggest that imagining something is the same as experiencing it. I would say that it can give us an idea of that experience, whatever it is. Imagination can broaden our perception of the world around us and allow us to see more than we have before. It can let us more easily understand the successes and plights of others and try to put ourselves in our (their?) place.

If we are careful not to let this turn to arrogance, our ability to empathize and sympathize grows. We can see our selves in others more clearly, and envision a world that is better than the one in which we live. The stories we tell have origins in one of the collection of traits that allowed us to evolve. If we are compassionate and brave, the stories we tell can help us to go further still.

Escapism and entertainment are not the only uses or purposes of roleplaying games. When we pursue them with the goal of playing to explore, we can touch the first spark of the flames which freed us from death and darkness once more. Just as with fire, this power can burn, and we must treat it with all due care and respect. Every time we do this, we take one powerful step closer to becoming whatever it is we desire to be.

JP Bauer is a gamer who currently lives in the southeastern United States. He thinks roleplaying games are pretty special and wants to play them with you.

A War Of Our Own Interview

First, give me a moment to gush on the idea of A War of Our Own. How do we explain war to those who haven’t faced it? How do we understand the challenges, the decisions, the choices service members have to make? How do we understand the challenges that the civilians on the sidelines face? We can’t send everyone to war, and I’d never want to. We can provide them a glimpse into the realities of war through various forms of media. Movies, TV, music, books, all of these help to convey the Hell of War, but they fail to capture the thinking behind the eyes. What does it mean to carry the M16 and pull the trigger? What does it mean to be a civilian in a war zone with foreign troops ‘invading’ your town? What does it mean to see a conflict unfold before you in a way you cannot stop? LARP allows us to get closer than other media forms, and for that it offers something only VR might be able to eventually capture. So, I’m on board with this idea. I had the chance to shoot Matthew Webb from Jackalope Live Action Studios some questions about A War of Our Own, and he graciously has answered them below.

Matthew, thanks for your time. Tell us a little bit about why you decided to do this project? What are your core goals and expectations?

First off, it’s great to hear about your excitement about the project. Ultimately, this game is not about the soldiers because so many games are about the soldiers. But the people who have to live in the worlds that war, politicians and armies create. What happens to the civilians caught in the middle.

I have been a huge fan of This War of Mine since it was first introduced 3 years ago. I have immense respect for it as showing the messages and realities that a game can convey, while still being a game. Earlier this year, my partner Steve Metze and I decided we wanted to start a live action event studio, to explore the art form and hobby with high-value and high-production one shot events. Steve was a veteran of the Bosnian and Iraq conflicts; and I mentioned This War of Mine as a possibility. It went from there; and really took off when 11-Bit Studios agreed to sponsor us; and when Temple Airsoft was so generous in offering their support and partnership.

It’s impossible to truly convey the cruelty and hardship of living in a war zone unless you actually have experienced it. But our intent with A War of Our Own is to make a LARP that makes people think about the decisions people are having to make around the world right now in places ravaged by war; the choices you have to make about how you are going to survive; and how senseless the world becomes in the shadow of conflict. We want to build empathy for an experience that as safe and secure Westerners, we are so unlikely to experience. We can’t expect anyone to come out of this feeling like they really experienced what it is like to be in a war zone, but we can expect them to come out of it learning about those who have.

There is growing academic literature around simulation of real events and its value as a teaching tool. With that in mind, what made you choose a fictional setting for this game? Does the fictional setting of Calbia allow for something in particular that you wanted to capture?

One of our key principles in this project is respect and being constructive about the cultures and people affected by war. We owe that to them, to act in an educated and honest way. But in a live action game, we have to get dozens of players from a wide variety of backgrounds to play in the same world. We don’t feel comfortable taking 50 or 60 people, mostly Americans with little experience with these parts of the world, and expecting to train them in a few days or hours how to be authentic Ukrainians, Syrians, Croatians, Georgians, Serbs or Bosnians; or anyone else. We don’t want to satirize or simplify the cultures of proud and courageous real people.

A fictional setting frees us from that constraint, and allows us to focus on the core message of the game. Calbia is going to be inspired by several nations and their history, but not a copy of any of them. A fictional setting means we can avoid divisive and contentious politics revolving around these real world places, and hone in on our message without distraction. This is a long-standing tradition in art, especially in the context of war and its realities. One of my favorite classic novels is The Moon is Down by John Steinbeck, which is about the local resistance to an occupying power, but the nations involved are never named; and in short stories like The Upturned Face by Stephen Crane or The Prisoners by Nicolas Travers. Even in This War of Mine, while the situation is modeled after the Siege of Sarajevo, it is set in the fictional city of Pogoren, Graznavia. We don’t want to take sides, but present the universal truths of these sorts of situations. So we’re following this tradition by fictionalizing the setting.

Tell us about the physical props you will be using. I’m guessing you’ll be using airsoft weapons, based on the site? And I see some trailers and other set pieces in your website pictures. Are you going to be using military surplus Humvees and other vehicles as well?

While we are going to be using an airsoft field, the game is not going to use any airsoft weapons. We will be using a collaborative system, so when there is violence, it’s not really a test of skill so much as a dramatic moment playing out. We will be using blank-firing weapons and some prop tools and clubs, but these are props to use when acting out violence you have already agreed upon the outcome of. But very few of the participants will be armed with guns, bullets will be scarce and the situation desperate. A single working loaded gun in this game is a huge deal. And the soldiers on either side will be a force of nature, like a tornado or a flood. There’s no negotiation with the winds of war, only getting out of the path. And sometimes, you just get unlucky and are in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Temple Airsoft has been a great help to us when it comes to props and other effects. They have a collection of military vehicles and converted civilian vehicles which will really help sell the idea of being in a war zone; and they are graciously letting us use them. Along with helping with special effects and pyrotechnics. They do this all the time as a part of their recreational wargaming, and are being wonderful by bringing that skill and experience to creating our immersive experience.

You’ve got a great team; can you tell us a little bit more about them?

We are very lucky to have the expertise we have; and we’re already getting interest from others interested in joining the team.

Steve Metze is one of the sources of creativity and passion behind the project. He’s an officer in the National Guard, and This War of Mine struck a huge chord with him. He’s long wanted to convey the often surreal and heart-breaking realities of countries that are steeped in civil conflict. He’s also an excellent filmmaker, having made a war documentary called Year at Danger about his experiences in Iraq. And a remarkable and imaginative game designer. His latest book is a provocative reversal of the Lovecraft mythos called Unwanted.

Angella Seaman is our wonderful community safety coordinator. She’s had years of experience with managing healthy game communities. And given the subject matter, we want all of our players to be emotionally and physically safe during the event, before and after. She’s a veteran LARPer as well.

Myself, I’ve been running and writing LARPs for over a decade now. I have written several free-form LARP games, one of which I published called Shades. I’m also the lead developer at Incognita Limited, a software company that makes software specifically for supporting live action gaming. I am the creator of the world’s first augmented reality LARP Planetfall and am collaborating on software projects with several other companies in the LARP community, including Ford Ivey’s Legacy Game Systems and Participation Design Agency in Sweden. We will be announcing more team members soon.

Why War Child? What about this particular organization led you to choose to donate to them in particular?

War Child is the charity supported by This War of Mine in their recent DLC, The Little Ones. So it is a great fit for our event. We wanted to run this event, but we weren’t comfortable profiting off the subject matter; and War Child is an incredible charity doing a lot of good in a imperfect world. They provide education and safety to children and families torn apart by war. It is hard to think of a more worthy cause than that. We know that the money we raise will be going to some of the most vulnerable people in this world who really need our help. I’m just hoping we can raise enough to make a difference in their lives.

Are there any final thoughts you’d like to share about the event?

We are floored here at Jackalope at the reaction A War of Our Own has gotten. People are talking about flying from around the country and as far as Sweden to attend. Academic experts on the Balkans and civil strife have offered their input; experienced writers have asked to be involved in the project; and survivors and their families of the Bosnian conflict have even reached out to us. We are hoping to keep the momentum strong and make this a great event that we can repeat. War and refugees, especially children, are a huge issue right now; and we want to help both by encouraging people to think and debate these issues in an informed way; and by giving help those who desperately need it.

I encourage everyone who wants to help to follow us on Facebook or Twitter; or sign up for our mailing list, so we can get the word out and keep growing what is already turning into a vibrant and great community.

How LARP Made Me a Badass at Work

Guest Post from Tara Clapper of The Geek Initiative and Mythbuilders

Few professionals emerge from high school, trade school, or college with the badassery required to act fully confident in their respective field. In any job, you grow as you learn – but you can enhance your confidence and other work-related skills through the magic of LARPing.

Here’s a look at how it’s worked out for me.

LARP Kindled My Interest in Marketing

Following college, I got my professional start in publishing – which was an uncertain field due to its not-so-smooth transition from print to digital. Moonlighting as a freelance writer, I also learned about SEO (search engine optimized) writing and its constant state of evolution.

What tied it together was the opportunity to be a marketer for a LARP. The duct tape budget was mandatory; the marketing budget was meager (and by that I mean $0). I bartered talent and content for tables at conventions and even recruited LARPers on Freecycle.

Most other games didn’t have someone who knew how to seed a new blog and dominate keyword opportunities, but like a veritable marketing badass, I made it happen and began my official journey into a marketing career.

LARP Got Me Hired Four Times

What differentiates me from almost every other job candidate? I’m an avid LARPer, and I’m not afraid to talk about it during my job interviews. In digital marketing and publishing, the right kind of creativity really helps me distinguish myself.

Additionally, my knowledge and enthusiasm about LARP shows that I’m able to speak clearly about what I do. Four prospective employers felt that their team needed my passion – and every time I described LARP and what I learned from it, I got hired.

LARP shows several desirable traits to employers:

Improvisational ability: I’m able to think on my feet
Ongoing desire to learn: I take lessons from LARP and apply them to real life
Continual creativity: LARP’s a vehicle for creative thinking
Problem-solving skills: As my character, I often have to overcome challenges, and I take pleasure in doing so
Team player: Collaboration is the name of the game in LARP, as it’s a necessity for the media’s format as well as character development and progression

LARP also serves as a backup for those pesky interview questions. “Can you remember a time when you handled an emergency?” Not in real life, but one time I totally helped a pregnant dwarf get to the midwife on time.

LARP Makes Me a Badass Leader

Minerva had only a moment to think about the years of preparation under the guidance of her mentor. Presently, she was a mage enrolled in her second year of wizard college. Refusing to hand over the coveted letter, she defied her professor openly before the entire class. In that moment – in doing what was right even though it was against the rules – she knew that the decision to pursue law enforcement was right. This wasn’t only justice, it was leadership.

…And I took that experience to work with me.

This is the narrative of my most immersive and impactful LARP experience to date. As a woman in marketing who often interfaces with people in the tech industry, leadership and confidence are essential – and not always easy to maintain. Through LARP experiences like the one described above, I deliberately practice embodying confident and decisive actions.

This allows me to speak up and lead confidently, whether I’m working with a team of writers or leading a client through the buying process.

Success in this endeavor comes through repetition. That’s how to make a good habit stick.

LARP Makes Me a Badass Marketer

I’m a more effective marketer thanks to LARPing. In marketing, telling a brand’s story and appealing to prospective customers through genuine passion for your work is all the rage. (And for all those people who said an English degree wouldn’t help my career: you were wrong.)

LARP is all about collaborative storytelling, a skill I constantly practice at work and on game. This also means I’m used to reacting to what others give me to work with, and I’m not going to stick to the conventional beginning-middle-end format with every story. LARP helps me help brands stand out.

LARP Makes Me a Badass Colleague

In addition to the collaborative nature of LARPs, these games have helped me focus my passion for advocacy. Often in LARPs, I’ll have to take a stand on a position and convince others of its value. Through my career, I’ve used these skills to advocate for team members, customers, and even fair wages.

Forget Toastmasters: I LARP

Public speaking is an important skill in every field. Like most writers, I’m far more confident in crafting written words than delivering speeches, but public speaking is also a necessity for many marketers. Whether I’m on a podcast, webinar, or speaking live at an event, I lean on my LARP experience to engage the audience effectively.

Specifically, I grew more confident in public speaking by portraying a bard in a monthly fantasy campaign LARP over the course of five years. The bard began as a passive fairy princess and retired as a respected and battle-ready political leader.

Remember that time the inn got attacked in the middle of the bard’s song? That taught me how to deal with the unexpected when there was a technical glitch in my webinar presentation.

I still have a long way to go when it comes to nasty glitches and surprises, and work life doesn’t always go as planned. But thanks to LARP, I’m able to handle it like a badass.

Tara M. Clapper is Managing Editor at Mythbuilders, a game designer, a fan of Marvel’s Thor, and a forever LARPer. She is the founder and senior editor of The Geek Initiative, an online community focused on women in geek culture.

A Review of Mind’s Eye Theater – Immersion Secrets

There comes a time in any hobby where, if you spend enough time involved, you reach a point where you have to either accept that you have reached the pinnacle of what you want/are able to achieve, or to continuously strive forward for an elusive perfection (I’m looking at you, Toreador). This struggle for elusive perfection can be maddening, and any help along the way is generally welcome.

MES: Immersion Secrets will undoubtedly help those who are beginning their journey towards perfection – its audience is clearly new-ish or uncertain storytellers, or advanced players who are leaning towards storytelling – but if you are a good way down the path towards your ideal, there’s a good chance you’re not going to find anything mind-blowing here. If you’ll indulge me –

You are making a dish you love for dinner. You’ve made it a hundred times, and you know just how to tweak it to your preferences. You’re idly scrolling through Facebook, and one of those recipe hack videos catches your eye. You watch, and you see something that makes you think, “huh, I never would have thought to try that”, and you try it. Either it works (great!) or it doesn’t (oh well, you tried something new).

There’s no earthshaking denouement or keys to the magical kingdom of The Perfect LARP here, but there’s a good deal of very solid material. If you don’t find a new pearl of wisdom, perhaps you will be reminded of some forgotten truths, or inspired to think about a situation in a new way.

Of the fourteen essays included here, I think my philosophical favorite is actually the first one, “Buy the Ticket, Take the Ride”, by Jason Andrew. It contains what I find to be the truest and most valuable philosophical takeaway of the entire collection, and something that could easily be a meditation on the game theory of Mind’s Eye Theater as a whole, regardless of setting. Without spoiling it, let us say that it encourages storytellers and advanced players alike to reconsider their mental definition of the game itself, and in a very positive way.

I respectfully disagree with some of the points that are raised within this book, but as is pointed out in Andrew’s essay, “The subtle choices are nearly infinite, and they can be made to tailor the experience desired.” My choices are not your choices, and vice versa.

The essay that I think has the greatest utility, and in this case, I am using “utility” in the sense that it would be something that would be either seamlessly incorporated or frequently reached for, is the second essay, “Strategies for Improving Communication Between Players and Game Staff”, by Jessica Karels.

This one rings most true, because I’ve experienced the situations described therein from both sides of the fence. This is the essay that I would recommend ALL storytellers, of all levels, to read and re-read at least once a year. It has a brilliant subsection within the Creating a Safer Space section that will undoubtedly cause an appropriate amount of consternation and spark much-needed discussion.

The essay included that I found both helpful and distastefully clinical (a strange juxtaposition) is “Ritualizing the LARP Experience” by Dr. Sarah Lynne Bowman. It reads less like an essay and more like a scholarly paper – which is understandable given Dr. Bowman’s extensive research into the art and science of roleplaying games and game theory. This extensive research is made obvious by the bewildering addition of nearly a full page of Dr. Bowman’s bibliography at the end of her essay; a questionable design choice in a 56-page PDF.

While Dr. Bowman’s article contains some excellent information, particularly addressing the liminality process, its tone is vastly different from the more conversational style of the other essays. Some might find its scholarly formality frosty or difficult to assimilate, which could easily detract from the value of the information contained therein. In addition, it is far more geared, in my opinion, towards games and storytellers that are seeking a more Nordic-type LARP experience – a trend that I approve wholeheartedly, but is decidedly not for everyone.

My absolute favorite essay – and one that I think could be sadly overlooked if a reader is looking for easily actionable items to apply quickly – is “Silently Encouraging Immersion” by Michael Pucci, someone who I would like to buy several drinks for after reading this essay. (Don’t mind the split infinitive there – that should show you how excited I am about this essay.) The line that grabbed me by my perfectionist heartstrings is this: “If a participant needs to use a higher degree of suspension of disbelief in order to be invested in the setting and scenario, then there is a reduced sense of immersion level in the experience.”

My favorite Bradstreet Art – Check out his website

I served as a Logistics AST for a local Vampire troupe for a year or so, and I can’t tell you how often I ripped out my hair trying to find a site that would truly encourage immersion by the atmosphere it created (a process that was incredibly hard to achieve in public library meeting rooms). PLEASE, for the love of spice, READ THIS ESSAY. It is worth the $10 purchase price on its own. There’s no earth-shaking revelations, but different eyes see clearly, and Pucci’s suggestions are solid ones.

Simple does not always mean easy, nor does it always mean cheap. We ALL wish we could rent out a house in a swank neighborhood, require our players to dress to the nines, and have immediate and total immersion from the moment people get on site. That’s not going to happen, and it makes me sad, but this essay will give frustrated storytellers and their staff a glimmer of hope that, just once, the magic will work. Yes, you can get together and play Vampire or Werewolf or Changeling in a library meeting room, but simple site synergy, as Pucci terms it, adds a level of authenticity that most players won’t even realize is there, but they will respond to it in a positive way, deeping their immersion and improving the experience for all.

In conclusion, allow me to reiterate: this is not a book aimed at average players. This is a book aimed at Storytellers and their staff, or advanced players looking to take on the mantle of Storyteller on their own (or those wanting to assist their ST in more concrete ways). Is it a worthy addition to your MET library? Possibly, especially if you are inclined to want insight into what goes into making Mind’s Eye Theater games what they are – but it would be out of place among the collection of someone who generally appreciates the flavor or splat books. At the very least, frustrated and singed-around-the-edges Storytellers and their staff will be reassured that they are not alone in their struggles, and they may find a little something extra within the pages to give their games a special pop.

Georgia is a writer, editor, gamer, and mad culinary priestess who masquerades as an ordinary office employee who holds vehement opinions about Oxford commas and extraneous hyphens. She is a regular columnist and editor for the High Level Games blog. She lives in Tacoma, Washington, with her husband and Feline Overlords. She can be reached through Facebook at In Exquisite Detail or on Twitter at @feraldruidftw.

Sidereal Sanctuaries – New Modern Urban Fantasy LARP

We are in the golden age of gaming, and if you ask me, we are on the cusp of a LARP explosion. Blockbuster LARP like New World Magischola, Convention of Thorns, and new moves by Disney to create immersive experiences offer a chance to LARP to almost every person and interest level. And of course, the great LARP systems and game communities that have existed for the last few decades haven’t really gone anywhere either. If you want to LARP, there are more options than ever to do so. Sidereal Sanctuaries is a new modern urban fantasy LARP created by Jessica Karels (founder, Hidden Parlor) and Jason Kobett. Both are LARP veterans and they are bringing a lot of amazing experience with them to their new creation.

Before we discuss the game, I want to highlight they are running an Alpha Playtest in Minnesota on August 6th, and they will be running Alpha play-tests throughout the rest of the year in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area.

Here are 5 key points about the setting and rules.

Technology is broken – something happened at the end of 2012 that forever broke the Internet / digital data transfer / networking. The machines that continue to work aren’t always reliable.

Social progress stagnates (and in some cases goes backwards) – Without the Internet, civil rights activists have a harder time organizing and drawing attention to non-local issues. Most mainstream people, already frazzled by their lives changing, put up blinders towards the problems of those who fall outside their immediate social sphere. Corporations gain a tighter hold on media channels and dictate the narrative (the one that makes the most $).

It’s revealed just how much “history” has been altered – In the fictional setting of Sidereal Sanctuaries, it’s revealed that technology and establishing reality are the results of a deal mankind made with various cosmic forces eons ago. Part of that deal included a clause that said cosmic forces would send out enforcers in the event that mankind didn’t fulfill their end of the bargain. These enforcers (called Remnants) have attempted to fix humanity’s mistakes throughout history. Their reward? – The ones who look most human get remembered/elevated in history and the ones who don’t get hunted and their stories are turned into myths and stories about “monsters”.

The “monsters” are protagonists who just want to exist – In Sidereal Sanctuaries, player-characters are Remnants (the supernatural enforcers I mentioned) who are hunted from the moment that their supernatural side manifests. They congregate in places that are supernaturally protected from non-Remnants (called Sanctuaries) where they learn how to work together (mostly) and how to deal with a mix of both supernatural and mundane issues.

Tethers: This is a concept inspired by Infection from DR, which gives you a certain # of lives, and Humanity from VtM which makes a character appear less “human” as their Humanity rating decreases. In the system being designed, Tether is your lives + merit pool. You can create a plain character and endure more lethal situations, or you can buy up merits and go down in a blaze of glory sooner.

Representation matters to the creators of Sideral Sanctuaries, and they’ve written a great blog post on the topic. This design from the beginning will hopefully encourage players to participate and build the shared experience in an inclusive and holistic way. This idea as a core element is encouraging, and we are going to keep close eyes on this project as it gains legs. Let us know what you think about the concepts presented here!

Five Hidden Benefits of LARP: Creative Outlets

Ask people why they LARP, and they usually answer roughly the same. The most common answer is their own form of “because it’s fun” or “because my friends do it” and both of those answers are great. Did you know there are actual benefits to LARPing in addition? Examining LARP shows there are many benefits to it that are hidden just beneath the surface. In this series of articles five of these hidden benefits will be expanded upon and detailed. For more information check out the other articles on Education, Networking, Health, and Social Skills.

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LARP can help you express your creativity and help foster creativity in others. By putting together your costume, you learn ways to express yourself through clothing and makeup. LARP can inspire art and creative writing about your character’s situation. LARP can even inspire creativity in people who don’t LARP!

Creative Expression Through Costume

Credit: Anna Sharpton — Four of my own characters, all very different!

In the above picture, the common theme is that I am the player, and that is it. Each character has their own style of dress, makeup, hair and accessories. Different characters let me experience the different styles I present for a few hours in a non permanent way. Through these characters I have a creative outlet for trying new styles. I can get brave and try new styles and figure out what I like. Before I started playing the character in the bottom right, I couldn’t draw a good cat eye. Now I can do one well enough that I would wear it out in public. I’ve been able to creatively experiment with my appearance and enjoy myself because of LARP. Never in my life would I wear something like the bottom left or top right in public, but I can play with it at LARP and enjoy myself.

Sometimes I will even experiment at home with my look for LARP if I’m feeling creative. The expression has even gained me new topics to talk about with friends who also like makeup and body paint. It can even help spread creativity outside of LARP too! By commissioning costumes and asking friends for makeup help, you spread the creative process around. The artist or friend you ask for help may even end up liking the style you request and exploring it more on their own, which is a win for everyone.

Creative Expression Through Art

LARP also offers many creative outlets to be found in the creation of art, props, and writing. Those guns (lovingly painted for me) were just regular NERF guns that were painted to match the style and aesthetic of my character in that game. Many artistic friends of mine will draw their characters for fun. Through commissions they will also draw other’s characters and that can really help to get the creative juice flowing. I (and many of my friends) also write small fictional works involving our characters.

They focus on many subject matters and can be either dramatic retelling of game events or ‘off-screen’ events. Many of them are of stories that work best on paper, such as dream sequences, internal monologues, or backstory reveals. Having the expression outlet of creative writing is one of the things that inspired me to begin writing for KotH, so I can certainly say it is a benefit.

Final Thoughts

This series of articles has been extremely fun for me to write. I’ve touched on so many things that LARP can help you do, and there is still so much more that I haven’t even covered. From educating yourself, to gaining valuable contacts, to improving your health, to gaining social skills, to exercising your creativity, there are so many wonderful things that LARP can help you with. I hope you all have had as much fun reading this series as I have had writing it. Now if you’ll excuse me I’m going to take a break from writing about LARP to actually go do it. See you in character!

Be sure to check out the other articles on Education, Networking, Health, and Social Skills for more ways that LARP can benefit you!

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Anna uses she/her pronouns, is an avid LARPer, and on weekend when she isn’t being a vampire or werewolf she treks out to the woods to beat up her friends with assorted plumbing supplies and birdseed. Outside of LARP Anna is a feminist and part of the LGBTQ* community, console gamer, and is the proud owner of two loving cats with three eyes between them. She can be found on Twitter and on Facebook.

Five Hidden Benefits of LARP: Social Skills

Have you ever heard the phrase “fake it til you make it?” That phrase is more true than you may think. Many social skills can be gained through role-playing as a character who is more socially adept than you are. You will become more confident and more empathic through your characters. We’ll be exploring exactly what that means below.

“You Talkin’ To Me?”

Credit to ryanmcguire on PIXABAY — Not what I was originally going to put here, but I couldn’t keep this picture to myself after I found it.

While talking to yourself in a mirror (ala the scene Taxi Driver) is good practice, nothing beats real human interaction for practicing talking to people. When you play a character or NPC that exudes confidence, it will start rubbing off on you. Interacting as the super confident Sept Alpha will help you the next time you have a business meeting or job interview. Giving out orders as the Seneschal of the city can help you be in charge of others at your job. Mediation in a scene can help you learn to accept less than perfect situations that arise.

Leading in character at LARP with no out of game risks is great practice for leading in real life. You won’t get fired from LARP for making risky choices in game, so you can try them out in a safe environment. It helps you gain confidence in your decision making, and learn what you need to improve. Having to speak during a scene that is focused on you helps you improve your ability to do so outside of game. It also helps you learn to withstand the pressure of having all eyes on you. Entering into mediation to resolve a scene faster helps you learn to do it in real life. It helps you learn to negotiate for things in real life and accept that you’re coming out relatively equal instead of completely on top.

It also helps you cope with losing. In a safe environment like this you can learn to cope with losses and be ready to cope with them in real life. Losing in LARP has basically no real life consequence whatsoever. Losing things or people in real life hurts, but learning to cope with it can greatly help you heal and move on.

I Feel You

Feels Guy from Know Your Meme — Feels Guy feels you too

LARPing can also make you more empathic and supportive of your friends. By slipping into another role it allows you to get a glimpse of a different worldview. Maybe you played a Catiff in a Camarilla city and got a taste of discrimination based on nothing but how you were born (or made in this case). Maybe you played a male Black Fury and you experienced some gender-based discrimination. While playing one of these will not give you exact mirrors of real issues, you will start to understand the discrimination some of your friends face.

By taking on these differing personas, you can begin to understand the people around you. Maybe that Catiff is angry and protests her treatment by the Camarilla around her. Maybe that Black Fury rails against the system, or breaks ties with it entirely. Through these experiences you grow more sympathetic to their real world parallels. The expansion of world view through LARP has changed many people. Some of my best friends self-admitted to being homophobic, sexist, racist, misogynistic awful people. Through LARP (and actual education, LARP isn’t a miracle worker) they gained a better sense of others and viewed them as people too.

LARP not only makes you more empathic, but also more supportive, which helps you and the people around you. When your friends have a bad time, you’re more aware and able to help them because you’re more empathetic. This works both ways too, because your friends will also be more empathetic. The support network that LARP provides can be crucial for some people. While LARP is NOT a replacement for professional therapy and medication, it can help to have friends to talk to.

What LARP Can’t Do

Credit to tnamd on PIXABAY — Dressing as Sweeny Todd doesn’t give you a cosmetology degree, or make you into Johnny Depp.

LARP is not a cure-all, a magical confidence machine, or a replacement for therapy. While you can become more socially skilled, it doesn’t mean you don’t have to try to become those things. It does not just magically happen nor does LARP ‘fix’ actual mental or social disorders. The benefit involving LARP however is it makes trying take less effort. You’re put in the shoes of different people more often, and you hear stories of other players and characters. You become exposed to 100% risk-free chances to step up, speak out, and change your mind. Through these scenes and chances, you can become more confident or more empathic if you try.

Be sure to check out the other articles on Education, Networking, Health, and Creative Outlets for more ways that LARP can benefit you!

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Five Hidden Benefits of LARP: Health

While this article focuses primarily on Boffer style LARPs, being healthy is good for you in general!

Uh-oh…RUN!

In the dark of the cave Mal, Lucy, and Virginia blew the computer, allowing Capillary to escape the cave. Everything began to rumble and shake as the cave began to fall around them. The three hackers ran back to the main group as everyone ran for their lives.

The above scenario happened at a Boffer LARP I play called After the End (which you should come play if you’re in the Tennessee/Georgia area!). If it were a parlor LARP we may not need to physically run in real life. In Boffer style LARPs however there are situations where you’re going to need to actually run. Most people are going to be able to run some without being winded too badly. However if the person chasing you is much more fit, you get caught. If it is a long chase, you might run out of stamina. For people who aren’t very fit the running may prove difficult. Sometimes I even have trouble with running up and down stairs a lot, which can make LARPing out in the woods super tiring.

Many of my friends (and myself to a lesser extent) have begun simple or complex exercise routines in order to combat LARP fatigue. LARP itself can be it’s own form of exercise as well, and exercise can be incorporated into your LARP routine. We’ll be going over those topics below.

Exercise For LARP

A lot of people that I know have begun hitting the gym to be in top shape for their Boffer LARP experience. They range from beginners at Couch to 5K to regular gym attendees to ones who have started their own podcast for more broad health topics (shout out to Ty and Sky!) and everywhere in between. Even something as simple as walking outside once a day can help you keep up your endurance for a LARP weekend. Many of the people I know exercising have already started seeing benefits in the relatively short time they have been exercising. They are less tired after intense weekends and are eating better and noticing muscle gain and fat loss. Exercising for LARP has begun helping improve the non-LARP life of many of my friends, and I think (if able) everyone should give it a try.

Exercise As LARP

With the popularity of apps like Zombies, Run and plenty of other augmented reality exercise games, exercise is easily made into a game. Go out walking and catch Pokemon or capture bases for the Enlightened. Run from zombies, aliens, spies, ghosts and tour virtual facilities all while exercising. There is little stopping a group of friends from turning their progress in these apps into a LARP game. The Ingress and Pokemon Go communities are massive and global, and people take their teams very seriously sometimes!

Exercise In LARP

Anthem, Irving, and Vitez (characters at After the End) discuss the meaning of “feather in your cap.”

This picture illustrates a very easy way to incorporate a small amount of exercise into your LARP routine. Did you notice it? Did you know standing burns roughly your body weight in calories per hour that you do it? Anthem and Irving (who work out separate from LARP) are resting in the photo. Vitez, however, remains standing and does a small amount of exercise while having an in-character chat. Patrolling the borders of the site is another good way to add a little exercise to your routine. It also has in-character benefits too, because you help keep your town area safe.

For Parlor LARPs, you can walk around site while having a private chat.

LARPing can be tiring, but with some dedication it doesn’t have to always be. By choosing to exercise for, at, or by LARPing you will begin to see some serious benefits. Eventually you will look back on old character photos and be proud of how far you have come. Be sure to check out the other articles on Education, Networking, Social Skills, and Creative Outlets for more ways that LARP can benefit you!

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