A while back, I mentioned that I had been working on a boffer Larp concept called Kensei. The premise was that it was a Larp set at a World Martial Arts Tournament, with combatants, managers, trainers, merchants and reporters all running around and making deals and drama. The real drama was what happened outside of the ring. Life being what it is, Kensei hit a bit of a snag and has been on the back burner, but gamer friends of mine have expressed interest and it makes me want to explore more options.
One thing I was thinking of during the planning would be the 'where' this would take place. The actual, physical location that people would meet and put on this personal theatre for a weekend. In my mind, I thought of using the same grounds that Dystopia Rising's New Jersey game uses: Camp Sacajawea. The Camp rents itself out to Larps almost exclusively and I know of two or three that use the site regularly.
I imagined a game of Kensei to playout through the campground, with the main building being used as the central hub for the players and the managers to receive their match times and locations, the barn next door to be the medical pavillion where the medics worked and slept. I imagined the wagons and tents in the far distance of the grounds to be Merchant Mile, and have almost a Carnival/Travelling wagon flare to selling as people used the wagons and heavy tents to sell their stuff. And throughout the grounds would be designated rings, where matches would take place to the PCs attending. It would almost be a village unto itself at times, a zone where people could fight and battles could be won.
But, in discussing certain points with my friends, they were put off by the location. Camping isn't for everyone, and it would bar a lot of my friends opposed to the idea. The suggested possibly holding it at a hotel, almost as if it were a convention or conference. In an odd way, this made a sort of sense, especially when considering that that was what it was, effectively, and even more so when you consider that a major thing I wanted to take place in: The Media. Hotels have more available internet access and are more readily tech friendly. It makes sense that this is where it would take place...
But I liked the concept of the game taking place at the campground, because it was a fixed location that could be familiar and lead to a lot of fun activities out in the wild. In a hotel though, there could be more intimate roleplay, more connection. But having it in a hotel is a tenuous situation, and wouldn't be good for regular events unless we made a lot of money/donations to make it worth it to the Hotel to let us keep coming back and to reschedule, while the camp would require rent and upkeep, but as long as the checks cleared and everything remains copacetic, then we could use the place indefinitely.
This brings me to where I am now: Do I want this game to be a one off/seasonal/annual game? Or a game played on regular intervals? One location makes it very easier to do the former and the other makes it easier to do that and the latter. And this got me to thinking of something that I discussed a lot in the past few months:
Drama doesn't happen in a vacuum. You're operating in some form and space that helps bring context to your actions. I mentioned this to the actors during our run of Jedi MacBeth (you heard me!) in a black box theater. The key to acting was to make it feel like you were in a location. You weren't just walking on and walking off the stage, you were in the fields of Dunsinane/Dathomir or of the various other places. You had to pretend you were in a castle or hallway or on the field of battle and act accordingly or else your audience's suspension of disbelief dies a very short lived death.
Actors have it both harder and easier than a larper, when you consider that we are our own audiences. We have to collaboratively keep the veil of disbelief suspended for each other to maintain the performance, otherwise we're just standing there, reciting lines and not experiencing anything, and not giving our audience/fellow performers, material to work with. Not having anything to react to kills any performance dead in it's tracks. This was one of the things I was stressing to people I was working with in scenes, if you just say something, I can't respond. Give me something to work with, an emotion, a touch or a look. Let me work off of you if I can't work off of the environment.
Most of the games I've played have been in black box situations. Most games happen in studios, where we have to remind ourselves that we're doing this game in a bar, or a castle, or an apartment somewhere. Sometime, we CAN do a game at a bar or apartment, and it adds to the flavor and depth (or at the very least cuts out a lot of the work on imagining it). Then you've got some of these games, mostly the Nordic games, that take place on world war two ships to simulate retro-like battlestars in space, or in corporate offices to simulate an advertising agencies corporate headquarters. These games are all about Immersion, about the deep dive into environment, which in turn leads into a deep dive into character. Then you have the folks at Sleep No More, who are just going for the anal retentive 'everything is in character' attire where the books, notes, and tools are all able to be looked at and manipulated.
Speaking of Sleep No More, they do location and it's role in performance right. Several warehouses mashed into one superstructure with various rooms. The only way to enter the space is through a darkened, smoky tunnel where you are greeted by music from the 1930's. Suddenly you find yourself in a dive bar and you realize that the show starts now. Of course, this is the point. And the producers of SNM have made the site as much an attraction as the performance. The principle of it, however, makes all the bloody difference in the world.
Which brings me to another point, Locations help designate the Magic Circle, that area where we've designated for our roleplay. Like any good Ritual Circle, the boundaries are prepared and delineated through special (if not symbolic) tools to give us space to work in. Working in a space that is just arbitrarily declared game space takes a lot more work, and leads to ambiguous game play. This is especially true when you are in a space that could potentially overlap with the public. Where do the lines of games begin and end, locations help set that.
In a camp like Sacajawea, the boundaries are clear and the character play is solid. In a Hotel, depending on how much area control we have and how we plan it, the magic circle could be pervasive and persist throughout the whole building or just in designated areas. The former would make things awkward and possibly problematic when witnessed by those not in the game and viewing things out of context. The latter option of playing in designated areas limits the options of what players can and can't do.
In the end, I'm siding with a Hotel for the inaugural game...if of course I can get the world and mechanics ready. If the game can go a weekend, and people wish to make it a regular event, then we'd discuss other options. Meanwhile, I'll plan for the world in my head, and deal with the world outside when it's time for that.
Later, Liches.
C
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