Embiggening the hobby of LARP
In order to hit a home run with your villain you need to make your players love to hate them. In order to get your players shaking their fists focus on opportunities for distinctness. Bob the villain who dresses in flannel and doesn’t talk much is anti-climactic. Instead make certain that you use the precious moments where the player characters are exposed to your villains to make their malevolence memorable.
If your antagonists aren’t connected to the goings on of your characters there’s a pretty good chance that they are going to be ignored. If you want your players to really hate your antagonists and really want to engage with them you have to perform a bit of meta-psychology and connect your antagonists to chronicle and make it personal. Deduce what is important to the players and go after it to trigger an emotional response and leverage the chronicle history to attach your antagonist to the present. Continue reading →
Way too much has been written about concocting motivations and a sob story to give your villain purpose, but I believe that time devoted to these elements should play second fiddle to the conflict that that these characters create. In the same vain that I believe players are better served devoting their efforts towards character goals, a storyteller’s time is better spent adding nuance and texture to how their chronicle’s characters (protagonists and antagonists) interact. Continue reading →
Providing opportunities for your players to make meaningful choices should be your primary objective when creating stories. In order for a choice to be meaningful it must allow for expression of character and chronicle themes, impact the motivations of characters, confront and define the morality and values of characters, offer a risk/reward matrix, present potential consequences as well as mix in the illusion of choice. Continue reading →
One of the bigger challenges I find in running a LARP that is fair and fun is managing time dilation during sessions. It’s my belief that by establishing precedents you can create a culture where players know what they can and cannot get away with regarding time in your game, and ultimately reduce the amount of problems that can crop up when different characters are progressing temporally at differing speeds.
Since I’m trying to dust off my blog and get it going again I thought I’d write a little something about taking a character that’s been out of play for a while and finding new purpose for it. A little while ago @AKnightofCups asked “I’m going to play my main, SUPER SERIOUS character after a long hiatus. Any tips to help me reassess her personality/goals?” I find that when time passes old plots get stale and in character relationships move on; often there are big chunks of your character’s past that you don’t even remember. Here are a few things that I’d suggest to bring your character back in a meaningful way. Continue reading →
Given how close improvisational theatre is to LARP there are bound to be some lessons to be learned from it. Whether it’s how we approach the choices we make with our characters, how we contribute to a shared experience or how we portray our characters while not actively speaking, improv offers a host of advice that a LARPer can use to improve their Expression skill. Continue reading →
I don’t know if you noticed, but a little while ago I stopped updating drLARP. I wanted to ensure all of you that I haven’t been abducted by aliens or gotten myself hurt or anything like that; what actually happened was I lost my muse. That however has started to change, and I’ll be back to posting twice weekly starting next week. Continue reading →
I watch Once Upon a Time. It’s a good show in my mind for a lot of different reasons, but the one I like best is how the show has created an environment where favours and contracts are a really big deal. Favours are a great social mechanism for a LARP, as well, as it promotes an in-game economy that results in player engagement and social conflict. Implement favours into your game at a base level and you’ll see many good, unexpected moments. Continue reading →
If you decided to get involved in storytelling for the first time it can be pretty daunting. You’ve got multiple players depending on you to guide them through your world who have wildly different definitions of what entertains them. While I could write thousands and thousands of words about how to run a game I thought I’d present a Cole’s Notes edition to get your ball rolling. Continue reading →
