Development 10 - LARPing with the Land

Happy birthday me! Yesterday was my birthday, and I'm finding that it's very hard to get articles out on Friday with the current summer schedule. Expect articles on Saturday from here on out, like how I've been doing it the past several weeks (but official now). 

Last week, I made a lot of jokes about the idea of playing games with non-human participants. The more I think about it, however, the more on-board I am with that idea. Perhaps LARPing doesn't actually have much to do with the people playing it, as much as it does with the construction of a LARP mindset - creating an environment (not necessarily a closed one) which allows for LARPing to occur. Once something (or someone) is in that space, they may engage with the LARP as diagetic props within the world. Let's break that down, and also quickly define a word for discussing this further. 

Diagetic - An object which exists within the fiction. When making soundtracks, a diagetic sound is something that is happening within the fiction (Legolas talking about elves) and a non-diagetic sound is something outside the fiction (the soaring violins that make your heart wrench). In LARP, a diagetic object is something which can be a part of the game (a sword, a chalice, a costume) while a non-diagetic object is something outside the game (a power outlet or a laptop in a fantasy setting). 

One of the (many, many) cool things Apocalypse World does is the creation of Threats. NPCs are given certain threat roles, which involves certain drives and challenges to the players. But also objects and landscapes can be Threats. Building a location involves the same kind of character creation as building a person, which is completely apt, because in my opinion the landscape is a character in the game. To me, it's one of the most important characters - my games are always about the locations they're set in, and the influence the players have on those locations. I think the players in one of my campaigns have spent more time looking out at the endless fields of grass, seeing the distant mountain ranges and smelling the warm summer air, than they have spent shopping for weapons. I love locations. When I write LARPs, this carries with me.

This summer I'm going to get to run at least one LARP at one of my favorite places - the Center for Symbolic Studies in Newpaltz, NY. It's a stunningly beautiful location. Rolling fields, thick woods, strange paths, tall rocks, lakes, bushes of berries, wildflowers, and a couple of abandoned buildings to use for interior scenes. The game I'm running (Endless Lights, which is available for all of my backers to read) is going to need to be modified heavily to take advantage of the space. Because running a game in a location is more than just plopping the game onto the land - it's about working the land into the game. You need to cast each location in the land as a player in the game. 

When I think of the most beautiful LARP experiences I've had at the Farm (as it's known), I think about the places I was in. Sitting on a large rock overlooking a field, picking flowers to give to the players to honor their summer festival, dancing around a fire, sitting on a tall cliff looking up at the stars and screaming at the top of my lungs. The games there are beautiful because of the space they live in. 

The land is a character, and has a player. Before I LARP somewhere, I thank the land for playing with us, and hope it treats us well. The objects we bring into games are playing with us. We carry them with us, allowing them to shape our games, and they have games of their own. I'm not a big believer in Immersion, or rather, I'm not a believer in Immersion as the ultimate goal of LARPing. I believe that LARP is about experiences that provoke transformative moments (as I've mentioned before). Immersion allows for these experiences to occur, but I don't care whether the land I'm on tricks me into believing it's real. I care that it's beautiful, and that it can be a crucible for the experiences I wish to provide. 

I never want to run another game in a world of short grass and distant trees. I want games in rocky terrains, winding paths, and mysterious surprises. I want the land to interact with us, and foster us, and teach us how to move through it. I want games where I have to learn how to move with the land. 

I've got a dream of writing a LARP for 200+ people on a huge piece of land, and creating a huge variety of play experiences across a vast expanse. One of my favorite ideas for that is to give everyone pieces of chalk that are environment-friendly, and encourage people to draw on everything. Cover the world in animals and symbols, so that you are speaking with the land and the land is speaking with you.