Development 15 - Embracing Moments of Contemplation

This has been sitting in my drafts for a week. It felt good to finally sit down and finish it up. 

All week, I've had Monet on my mind. Maybe it's because I feel disconnected from nature, caught up in the first few weeks of work and school. Or maybe I just got caught by the pattern of the clouds on the water. Regardless, my mind keeps coming back to Monet, as I sit in class or drive to my dorm.  Walking from class to class, I passed a lake surrounded by yellow and purple flowers, with a golden field and a baby blue sky. I felt like a damn weirdo, almost crying on the side of the path. But I was also struck by a familiar question - how can I recreate this experience for others? 

Not everyone enjoys sitting somewhere and thinking about the wonder of the world around them. However, when playing games in beautiful locations, those locations invite us to contemplate the space they've created. One of the best moments of roleplay I've ever experienced was as a ghost, sitting with another ghost in a side field, waiting for the PCs to show up. We were looking up at the stars, talking about how those stars related to our own history, our own memories. We wondered what it would be like to join the stars. Games are made more powerful in stunning locations, and these locations, when playing with us, can give us moments of profound beauty. 

Unfortunately, not everyone has access to beautiful spaces. However, I think it's important to figure out how to make your own beautiful spaces for contemplation, when running a game - arguably any game. Board game and tabletop designers do this in interesting and unique ways. I wonder if a connection can be made between aesthetically satisfying board game pieces and the emotional reaction of looking at a beautiful place in a Larp. In a similar way, the illustrations in a tabletop guide are there to capture the imagination, and transport you to a new space. Unfortunately, neither board games nor tabletop often make space for thinking about or contemplating the beauty within the objects themselves. 

I use music in my tabletop games, specifically for the purpose of creating space for appreciation. Hearing someone talk with music behind them, or even just the pause where the music can be heard, adds a dimension to the environment that allows it to feel a lot more cinematic. Music transforms the spaces you're in, much like a capable Sets & Props department. You can even use music in a Larp, as I'm sure many of you are aware of. But that's only one aspect of the process. I'm even more interested in game mechanical structures that encourage and reward contemplation and appreciation.

Chuubo's Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine features some fascinating mechanics. Perhaps one of my favorites is the Transition mechanic. This occurs when the players are confronting with something fundamentally incomprehensible, or just a moment of beauty and awe that they can't really wrap their minds around. In that instance, you pause the game, read a bit of poetry that you think is appropriate, and then move on. This gives everyone a mechanism for contemplating the beauty of the game world in a systematized way, to allow their imagination to interact with sensory experiences to paint a picture. 

In games at the Wayfinder Experience, we use rituals for a variety of purposes, but an important aspect of it lies in the creation of immersive landscapes. As the ritual generates ambient sound, it also creates an internal world of beauty and contemplation. I've watched candlelight flicker over a lake, while my friends chant in ancient languages, chasing away dark gods. There's a lot of power in this ambient creative power. 

I encourage you to appreciate moments of beauty at all times, but especially to consider what you can do to inspire it in others. Do things in your life that create beauty in the world around you, for other people to experience and marvel at. I'd like to think that moments of transformation and contemplation that can occur from these actions are capturing the essence of Larp.