What Goes Into Running an Ongoing LARP

It takes a lot of time, planning, effort and bureaucracy to run an Ongoing LARP.  Over the years, I have seen many LARPs wither and die for various reasons, some of my own LARPs have died noble or ignoble deaths for various reasons.  In my experience, there are five general categories of labor necessary to run an Ongoing LARP.  Not all of these have to be done in the same way or by a single person, but missing any of these can be a problem.

Logistics
One of the most evident aspects of running a LARP involves the management of the logistics of game.  While the most evident, this can be complicated, depending on the context of running the game.  The most important aspect of this is creating a sustainable bureaucracy.  Making sure that all the materials for game are prepared properly and that there is a workflow that means the work always gets done.

Site Management and Liaison. All games require locations.  Sometimes, this is as simple as the basement of the Storyteller's house, but regardless, all locations require some degree of arrangement.  This can mean the arrangement of payment for using the site, the reservation of the site in advance, regular communication with site managers, walking the space before and afterwards to make sure the site is not damaged, arranging payment if the site is damaged.  A LARP without a site quickly stops being tenable.

Budget. It is the responsibility of the Storytellers to make sure the budget of the game is workable.  Games have expenses.  Site fees, printing, sets and props, food and drink, etc.  Most Storytellers are not compensated for their work, even though they put in a lot of time for every game.  Storytellers who do not make their budget generally have to pay for things out of pocket, which can really sink a game.

Setup. Storytellers are responsible for all of the elements of setup in gamespace.  I usually arrive to the gamespace at least an hour before players are told to arrive so that I can put together the set and set up food and drink and check-in before they arrive.  At the end of game, I have to pack up everything and transport it home.

Materials. Most games have some sort of required materials, whether it's character sheets, nametags, arm bands, beads and safety pins, etc.  As the Storyteller, it is your responsibility to make sure those are there and available.  This often requires printing things ahead of time, purchasing materials from stores,and at the very least, transporting materials to the gamesite.  This can mean creating props that need to be present, or arranging for food if a game includes it.

Teamwork
One of the major responsibilities as a Head Storyteller is arranging for the collaborative work of the Storytelling staff.  A storytelling staff that does not have a good collaborative relationship can end up creating additional work for the Head Storyteller and disrupt the workflow of the game.  While there are methods of smoothing these processes, all of them require additional work at the outset.

Staff Selection.  One of the biggest responsibilities as a Head Storyteller is choosing a staff to work with.  My personal belief is that it is important to create a culture of collaboration, finding a staff whose methods of creative collaboration match yours.  If you want people filling very different roles with absolute authority over their territory, then choose staff accordingly.  If you want a collaborative group that meets and follows a 'yes, and...' strategy of idea development, then choose staff accordingly.  One of the big obstacles that can obstruct a game is a mismatch of collaborative styles and it can make more work for all involved rather than less.  This is one of the most important aspects of running a game and one of the easiest ways to make the game harder to run.

Staff Meetings.  All staffs need to meet in some way.  It is very important for information sharing, so that every member of the storytelling staff knows about every character and every potential plot development.  My personal philosophy is broadly shared narrative responsibility, where everyone is familiar with every narrative thread, which requires work at a meeting to share information.  Overall, I would not say that there is a prescribed number of meetings between games, but establishing a regular meeting schedule that works for collaboration is more or less required and is the responsibility of the Storytelling staff.  Staff meetings allow for discussion of game topics in a way that gets everyone on the same page and prevents contradictions.

Collaborative Materials Management.  A Storytelling staff needs shared materials.  There are all sorts of materials that are important for collaboration, from plot outlines to character sheets to metaphysical notes.  Most television shows have something called a show bible, it outlines the different aspects of the world as they have been defined.  Collaborative materials can be the equivalent of a show bible, allowing easy reference and discussion.  I've seen Storytelling staffs use wikis for this purpose, but I love google drive, myself.  It allows a lot of selective permissions, so information can be selectively shared with players.  For instance, if there were a secret document, writing it ahead of time for planning purposes is useful, so the Storytellers can refer back if necessary, but then a player who found a copy could get access to the document itself.  This is also important for sharing general information with players.  You can write 10,000 pages of backstory, but if nobody has access to it, it won't influence their play.

Supervising the Narrative
You might think to yourself, what trouble can an unsupervised narrative get up to?  And the answer is "none" and that's the problem.  One of the most important roles of the Storyteller is the holistic approach to the game narrative, finding ways to make sure the narrative stays coherent, that things mesh in some way, that there is a reason for being.  In my experience, this is best achievable by setting the context for interaction before people create characters.  It's hard to run a comedy of manners when everyone has created hard-bitten police detectives.  Setting up the narrative context at the beginning allows for easier narrative supervision in the long run, because it sets up straightforward boundaries.

Interweaving Stories. So, the main aspect of this is interweaving stories.  Players will come up with all manner of ideas, and it's part of the job of the Storyteller to find ways to fit those ideas into a single world.  Part of the responsibility is finding ways that the suggestions and ideas of players can fit into the larger context.  Sometimes, this means adding specifics to general ideas.  When someone says they want to have a corrupt mentor, the Storyteller can say, "Yes, Lord Refa was your mentor!" and add the specific.  Sometimes, this means changing details to fit the game world.  When someone says they want to live on the Upper East Side of Chicago, you say "There isn't actually a North East side of Chicago, but the Gold Coast is probably the equivalent in terms of income."  Some of the best examples involve tying two unrelated characters together, or say, noting that two people spying on the bus station might run into each other as well as into their quarry.  Regardless, interwoven stories are some of the best kind of stories.

Pacing a Story. Stories don't pace themselves and having just the right amount of story for a given session/season/game is an art form.  It's very possible to have too much story in a session, where everything is happening and things are so chaotic nobody knows what's going on.  It's also possible to have too little, where the narrative stakes for a given session are resolved so quickly that the rest of the game is idle.  Or that there simply isn't enough to engage the number of people present.  I personally use two main tools for this.  I have an overarching spreadsheet that tracks plots over time, making sure that things happen in order but not too quickly or slowly, and I have a beat sheet that I write up for every game, which details the events of the evening in 30 minute chunks.  Overall, pacing a story is a way of maintaining stable momentum.  A game must always have movement or it will stagnate, but too much movement and it can shake itself to pieces.

Information Sharing.  One of the important specific aspects of running a game is sharing information in game.  On the one hand, this can be a matter of setting up the world.  Making sure that everyone is on the same page regarding things can be as easy as setting up a basic website to share basic information.  But this also involves introducing new information to game.  Clues or hints have to come from somewhere, and it can be hard to work in information without being too obvious or too obtuse.  One of the rules of thumb I personally follow is to share information in at least two places, rather than giving it to only one person.  Overall, making sure that information makes its way into game is a Storyteller responsibility, because generally speaking, the Storyteller should know all the game's secrets better than the players.

Player Management
So, the ideas that players need management may seem odd, and I want to be clear, this is primarily a matter of working with channels of information.  Being a Storyteller isn't being some sort of puppet master, manipulating everyone, but the Storyteller is often the only person who is in contact with absolutely everybody in game.  For larger games, this is often a matter of several people sharing the role, but generally, every player should have at least one contact point within the staff.

Sustaining Communication.  This is useful just to maintain lines of communication.  Whether it's creating and maintaining a mailing list, a message board, facebook group or just a list of email addresses for contacting people, it is the role of the Storyteller to maintain communications with all participants, making sure they know when and where game is and details like game fee.

Player Encouragement.  Sometimes, players might become disengaged from game, not feel like their efforts are being noted.  Communication between game can help re-engage a player with the game.  It is part of the Storyteller job to do that encouragement.  I like to do emails leading up to game with some players, to give them a sense of motion coming into game.  This can be a good way of encouraging participation and giving them some energy to bring into game.

Walking the Space. One of the key skills for running a LARP is being able to influence the session on the fly.  Adding or subtracting narrative momentum by giving emotional feedback or adding new information can make a better game.  During game, it's important to walk the space, see what's going on, know who is involved in things and who isn't. That way, nudges can be made, players can be given hooks to follow.

Community Support
Being a Storyteller makes you a community leader, whether you intend to become one or not.  It's not the only community where the ability to tell a good story and organize a bunch of people serves as qualification for leadership, but it's more direct than most in that way.

Attending to Player Problems.  Sometimes players present problems.  They may be interacting with other players in a way that makes them uncomfortable.  They may be bullies or they may be constantly complaining in a way that makes the game not fun for other participants.  As a Storyteller, it is your job to deal with these problems.  Ideally, it is your job to notice potential problems and try to prevent them from becoming game breaking.  I have seen games fall apart over a single player unknowingly acting in a way that offended others.  Additionally, sometimes this is a matter of identifying potential problems such as inappropriate narrative actions.  For instance, I don't allow rape in games that I run.  Period.  As a narrative theme it always causes problems.  If someone indicates that their character would do such a thing, I would tell them no before it could possibly become the massive problem that it would become.

Keeping Lines of Communication Open.  One of the keys to community support is making sure that the lines of communication are open and known to be open.  Players should always be free to let Storytellers know if they are having problems.  Any situation where a player is having issues and doesn't speak to a Storyteller because they don't feel they can is a failure in my mind.

Being the Bigger Person. Along with that, however, is the responsibility to be fair, to be calm and to listen.  Being in a position of authority within a community means being the bigger person sometimes, not letting your own feelings or reactions cloud your actions.  Don't play favorites.  Don't take issues too personally.  Don't let your own relationships with players get in the way of running the game in front of you.  I'm not saying to ignore your own feelings or reactions, but the power of Storytelling comes with strings attached.  With power comes responsibility and within a game, the power of an ST can be nigh absolute, with few checks and balances.

What to Take Away?
So, what do I want people to take away from this article.  Ultimately, I want you to know that Storytelling is a lot of work.  There are a lot of aspects of the job that I didn't know about until I started doing it myself and there are aspects of it that I learn as i continue to run games.  This isn't meant to be the sum total of all responsibilities.  I've done things like buy event insurance and get people medical attention as a Storyteller.  I've been a relationship counselor, a social skills educator and an electronics repairman all as part of the general role of Storyteller. But do keep in mind that your Storytellers do all of these things, generally on a volunteer basis.

The Relationship Between Storyteller and Player(s)

In response to my earlier post about Long Form Storytelling, is was suggested by a reader that I talk about my opinions on the role of the Storyteller in crafting player stories. This overall ties into my thoughts about the general relationship between Storyteller and Players, both on the individual and group levels, and furthermore into some of my opinions about the nature of planning PC stories out ahead of time.

Generally speaking, I think that the role of the Storyteller is very similar to that of a combination Writer/ Producer/ Director in a theatrical production.  Within the context of the performance, they don't play the characters, they don't appear on stage, but they help elicit performances from actors, they help set the stage for scenes, they create scenarios that allow characters to reach apotheosis.  It is the role of the Storyteller to work behind the scenes to provide what players need to make the story of game.  When it is done right, it is virtually invisible.  But it's still a vital part of game.  

The Relationship between Storyteller and Players

One way of looking at the relationship between Storytellers and Players is looking at the collective relationship.  In the collective, the role of the Storyteller is kind of like the role of the shepherd, keeping the group together and providing for the safety of the flock.  This collective role is at its basic level merely encouraging mixing.  It can be a matter of creating a safe and supportive environment, maintaining the liminoid ritual structure of the game event(check-in, game, wrap is a ritual structure that defines appropriate actions within the context in a way that creates a Turnerian theatrical play space that breaks down barriers), adjudicating disputes that arise using any agreed upon systems.  On an advanced level, it is context creation.  Many of the efforts of a Storyteller are devoted to crafting a context in which players can play characters that interact with each other.  That context needs to have stakes, so that the actions of characters matter in relation to each other.  That context needs to be mutable, so that the actions of characters matter in relation to the context.  That context needs to be understandable, so that the players can understand how their characters fit in the context.  A big part of the work of the Storyteller in relation to the players is simply creating a context that allows for player action to be meaningful and encourages players as a group to engage with the context together.  

The Relationship between Storyteller and a Player

There is a different relationship in some ways between Storytellers and individual players.  My favorite way of phrasing it is creating conditions for apotheosis.  Within the context of a story, every protagonist should reach a moment of apotheosis, a moment of the purest expression of the characters essence.  This generally happens at the climax of a story, but it effectively boils down to all of the events of the story leading to a single moment.  This can be a glorious moment, running through the field to embrace your long lost love.  This can be a terrible moment, standing in the ruins of your life as your villainous plans finally catch up with you.  This can be a moment full of existential dread, the dire realization that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy. It can even be a moment of hubris, "Evacuate? In our moment of triumph? I think you overestimate their chances." But every character should have a chance in some way to reach apotheosis.  

Because in the Role Playing Game all characters are to a certain degree the protagonist, there is a balancing act that must occur in a game to allow for multiple apotheoses.  This involves storytellers working with individual players to understand their desires, their play styles, what represents satisfaction for that player.  Storytellers can help craft contextual events that help a character move towards narrative resolution.  

Too Much Planning! A Word to Players

If I had one piece of advice I'd give to players related to my conception of the relationship between Storytellers and Players(and indirectly between Players and Players) it would be to not plan your character's arc too tightly.  I have been in a number of games, as Player and as Storyteller, where a Player had a very tight conception of where their character's arc was going and would not accept any alteration or doubt in that path.  And I have seen situations like that get in the way of collaborative storytelling, because the players' iron clad plans don't have room to connect with other characters' journeys.  It becomes a lonely road if you have to walk it alone.  I'm not saying don't plan, but incorporate some narrative doubt.  Saying I am destined to be a divine champion leaves open a number of possibilities that can make a more fulfilling story for you and others.

If I had a second piece of advice to players, it would be simple.  Engage the context.  Most contextual aspects of a game are there for a reason.  If there is a system of noble rank and privilege, buy in to it, engage with your place in the system and be part of the world.  Engaging the context allows the Storytellers to use it to help you tell your character's story, so treat the stakes of the narrative as serious.  

Final Note

One thing that is important to understand is that being the Storyteller is resigning yourself to a supporting role.  Storytelling, when done right, is very hard to see.  The art of it is in doing things that are undetectable.  There are a lot of parallels in movie and theater creation.  The work of the director in helping actors find their characters is generally invisible, but if you look at the Star Wars Prequels, you see how bad it can be without that as part of the artistic process.  Storytelling is often a thankless role, because it works best when it's done to put the focus of the story elsewhere.  I'm not saying that everyone should go buy their Storytellers a present, but don't minimize their role in the creation of a game.  The game where you saw the hand of the storyteller the least but still had a good time is probably the game where they worked the hardest behind the scenes for your enjoyment.

Bounded Long Form Storytelling in Games

I've had a bit of radio silence here for personal gaming reasons(I didn't want the situations that I'm dealing with in my ongoing games to appear here and I couldn't quite keep them out of my thoughts).  However, I'm returning with a bit of an examination of meta-narrative philosophies and my own approach to things.  I've recently been revisiting the work of two of my greatest influences, Chris Claremont and J. Michael Straczynski.  Looking at how these two different writers used methods of long form storytelling [one strictly bounded, one hurt by unboundedness] has helped me reflect on my own approach to writing games and my philosophy of stories.
First off, this is going to contain spoilers, admittedly, they are for a television series that went off the air when I was in college and a run of comics that I first picked up in middle school, but spoilers nonetheless.  Especially for Babylon 5.  If you haven't watched it, go do so.  I'll wait.  No.  Go back, the first season is a little light and the special effects budget for the entire season was less than one episode of NextGen, go finish the series.  Great, I'll continue.

Long Form Story
Reflecting on these naratives, I see exactly where I get a lot of my preferences for stories.  My love of ensemble casts, my enjoyment of material being teased before being introduced, my occasional love of overblown monologues.  But I especially see my own love for serial storytelling.  The reason that I love ongoing games and ongoing media is that there are certain types of stories that tell much better in that form.  If you look at the development of a character like Storm, from naive 'goddess' to team conscience to team leader to hard edged pragmatist to hero struggling to retain identity without powers to ultimate redemption/restoration, you can't fit that into a non-serialized story.  It's impossible to tell that story without time passing and single episode stories are generally very bad at portraying the passage of time.  The same is true for nearly every character in Babylon 5.  The character arc of G'Kar from sleazy warmonger to reluctant prophet, the journey of Franklin through his addiction and recovery, the change between Lennier's humble beginnings and tragic ending.  All of these can only occur in a story that includes time.
In long form storytelling, there is a chance to stretch out, to allow character aspects to mature, to age, to settle before being shaken up again.  That freedom to stretch out and develop characters means that as you get to the climax of the story, the characters are more fully realized and thus the stakes of the narrative are much higher.

Bounded vs. Unbounded
However, not all Long Form Storytelling is quite the same.  One of the aspects of my re-read of Marvel's back catalog has reminded me of are the perils of unbounded long form storytelling.  So, when I call a story bounded, I mean that it has a pre-defined beginning middle and end.  There is a sense of when the story starts being told and when it stops.  In non-serial storytelling, this is generally fairly simple.  The movie goes for 2 hours and then is done, maybe with room for a sequel.  In the case of most Long Form Storytelling, there is no expected end.  This is the soap opera model, the idea that so long as the good will of the network exists, that there should never be an end.  As Gordie says in Stand by Me "Wagon Train's a really cool show, but did you notice they never get anywhere? They just keep wagon training."
This sort of unbounded storytelling, where there is no defined end point to the story almost always breaks down at some point.  It's so common and well known that there is a quick cultural shorthand for it, jumping the shark.  Marvel and D.C. comics are among the worst for this, with characters first introduced in the 1960's still bumming around as if they haven't aged more than a decade.  And every story decision has been undone by the needs of later stories.  Right now, I have to do extensive research to figure out if there are any of the X-men who haven't died and been reborn(I count four out of the thirteen X-Men from the end of Giant-Size X-Men #1's "What are we going to do with thirteen X Men?").  This sort of backtracking is more or less required for unbounded storytelling, because what made sense 3 years ago may not fit with the needs of the present.
Instead, I prefer my stories Bounded.  Part of this comes from my experience in improv theater.  One of the biggest rules we followed in improv was that every scene should have a beginning, middle and end.  By sticking with a Bounded story, one can easily plan towards an end rather than plan for forever.

Retaining Interactivity and Momentum
However, planning a long form game provides some of its own issues.  First, how do you plan a game, where one of the major attractions is interactivity, to have a bounded story?  Second, how do you maintain momentum in a game with a bounded story, not allowing things to happen too slowly or too quickly?  Third, how do you write a story compelling enough to attract Neil Gaiman(Day of the Dead) or Joss Whedon(Astonishing X-Men) to write an episode/run for you?
Well, as to the first, one of the philosophies I tend to write around is "not if, but how".  In games I run, there are events that will happen, elements of change to the status quo that are in motion regardless of how the players act.  The key to writing such stories is to make sure that the players are in a position where their actions influence how the status quo changes.  At the same time, never make a story element completely contingent, as in, if nobody ever tells you they investigate, then nobody influences anything.  Sometimes, this requires literally handing decisions to individuals or groups. Sometimes, it's just about reminding players of the stakes and giving them the necessary information.
As to the second, "The avalanche has already started, it is too late for the pebbles to vote."  Events need to be in motion, but not so quickly that they overtake everything.  Part of this is looking at the arc as a whole.  I use a spreadsheet that has the entire arc written out, every game from beginning to end.  That spreadsheet helps me set the pace and know that I have time remaining and can keep on a pace to finish.  It helps me know when I have time to stretch things out, and when I have to push things forward.  It also allows me to plan when to introduce elements that add to the momentum or create new wrinkles.  However, remember to draw maps but leave gaps.  The spreadsheet should be more or less complete for the session that is coming up next, partially filled in for the next handful, and then more broadly outlined for those beyond.  Allow for the ways that changes will change plans. I will write more about this when I write about memorable antagonists, but villains should make plans of action, not simply have things happen regardless of surrounding events.  Knowing how an antagonist adapts is part of writing a good bounded story/
As to the third, I'm still trying.

The Beginning in the End, the End in the Beginning
The central philosophy of a Bounded Long Form Story is simple.  In retrospect, you should be able to see the End in the Beginning and the Beginning in the End.  There should be elements of what happens right at the outset that set the course for how things proceed and conclude.  And there should be elements of how things conclude that connect back to the beginning of the story.  And in the end, you should be able to point to the places along the way that things were different because the player characters were present.
I return again to Babylon 5.  Londo's entire character arc, from decadent political outcast to secretive warmonger to corrupted emperor is entirely driven by the presence of his nephew on Ragesh III, invaded by the Narns in the first episode of the first season.  His fall from grace all stemmed from that one simple thing.
Stories that fit together and have a clear sense of direction can achieve the best of what serial storytelling has to offer.

What is Player Engagement? or 'Guys, There's a Panther in the Kitchen!"

One of my favorite moments in years of running games came in the form of a momentary slip in reality.  At the climax of a game session, in the aftermath of a truly dramatic scene, I entered portraying a panther.  I walked into the kitchen area slowly, remembering my acting exercises about embodying animals (thank you, abortive production of Animal Farm the Musical in college) as one of the players came in.  She looked at me quizzically, and I indicated "a panther has slowly entered the building."  She called out to the other players, "Guys, there's a panther in the kitchen!"  And they came to see.  And there was a surprising air of disappointment in the moment.  I heard later from my friend Jeffry that at the time, he had been so engaged in the moment that he had expected there to be a real panther, and that seeing it was just me, there was a moment of let down, and then a moment of amusement at the fact that he had expected an actual panther.  I viewed that as a success, a moment of engagement so deep that a player got caught up it it.

But what is engagement?  What does it mean in a game for a player to be engaged?  And are there truly different types of player to engage with? And what are some methods for engagement?  Let's pick one of these to start, and let's start with the hardest one.  What is engagement?

In my experience, engagement ties into what performance studies scholars call a flow state.  The basic idea is that when performing an activity, one can reach a state in the performance of an activity to the point where it is engaged with automatically.  Essentially, you stop thinking about doing something and simply do it.  Reaching a flow state can be linked to things like the phrase "time flies when you're having fun."  Engagement is essentially reaching a state of flow within the game space, losing the distance between self and character, between action and game.  To give a pair of contrasting examples, a character experiences a moment of loss.  A player who is not in a flow state (aka disengaged) would think about the situation, think about how the character would react, think about how to manifest that, and then take character actions to represent that.  A player who is in a flow state (aka engaged), would react directly to the situation as the character.

So, essentially, engagement is about getting into the headspace of game.  In a game that is running smoothly, the players are moving between thought and action without having to think about it too much.  As a note, the idea of a flow state is often used in athletics, with better athletes able to enter a flow state where action comes without need for thought.  I think that divide exists in the world of LARP as well, with better play coming from greater engagement.

Engagement for Players
As a player, it is generally desireable to reach a state of deeper engagement with the game. When engaged, game becomes more immanent, more direct, more emotionally investing.  Here are a few tips for how to get better engaged as a player in game.
1. Find something to do physically.  Many modern acting techniques use physical action as a way of breaking down the overthinking process of acting.  Because as humans we can't fully multitask, if we're thinking about some physical action our character is doing, we aren't thinking about words or emotional reactions.
2. Take some time to get into the headspace of the character before entering game space.  I've had a lot of success with music as a way of getting into a character's headspace, but taking a moment to pull yourself out of your everyday mode and into your character's headspace can work wonders.
3. Take time between game to do character work.  Think about how your character approaches problems in life and how they would approach them in game.  Spend some time monologuing in character, having pretend conversations can help when you have actual conversations.
4. Give careful consideration beforehand to your characters goals and the stakes of their involvement in action.  Knowing what counts as winning and losing to them within their framework can make engaging in problem solving or strategic action much more fluid and easy.
5. Costume.  How many times am I going to tell you to costume?  As many as it takes.  Wearing what your character is wearing helps other players not have to think about what your character is doing.
Overall, engagement strategies should be about finding your way into the characters ways of doing things.

Engagement for Storytellers
So, how does one actually encourage engagement?  Well, engagement happens on the player level.  While there are things a Storyteller can do to facilitate that, an important thing to remember when thinking about engagement is that it can't happen without the complicity of players involved.  That said, there are some things that can help set the stage for player engagement.

1. Pre-Gaming. Engagement in game starts before the game itself begins.  While it is important to have the important action on stage, there is a place for action that happens before game.  This is especially true of action whose main purpose is to set a character in motion.  Sometimes, leading into game it's good to establish some contact to set context to help a character enter game in narrative motion.  Characters in motion are more likely to be engaged.

2. Opening Rituals.  Some games start gradually and in fits and starts.  Game begins and some people are in character, some people are out of character.  I don't like doing that.  I feel that really hurts engagement.  In my games, I like to start with some sort of opening moment, whether it's showing opening credits, setting the stage of events, playing some music and doing a short character exercise or something similar.  This puts a border between real world and game world and helps people begin the process of engagement.  After that, I like to have people enter the space in character, symbolicly arriving to the event.  Overall, a hard open like that primes the game for engagement.

3. Setting the Space.  It's easier to pretend you're on a ship in the middle of the ocean if you are standing on a stage set from a pirate movie rather than in a hotel conference room.  I don't think anyone will argue that.  But we don't always have that luxury.  However, by setting up the space of a game, even with minor things like defining what section is what part of the fictional space.  Make sure that people aren't standing in the game space but not in the game space, having to ignore those who aren't actually in the game makes things harder.  For an ongoing game, getting a space that can be used as is can go a long way to helping things.

4. Walking the Space.  This is the skill that is one of the most important for running a game, being able to walk around the space and get a sense of moments of disengagement.  Realizing who is sitting in the corner bored and checking their phone.  Noting who is having an out of character conversation out on the patio.  And then figuring out ways to potentially put those characters back into motion.  Finding ways to nudge the game to keep things going is a subtle art, but phone calls with information, the arrival of relevant NPCs, or just the 'you notice this thing' gambit all work to help draw someone back into the action in some way.

5. Story Pacing.  Keep your game world in motion.  One thing that can slow down a game is if the players do not have a sense that things are moving forward.  If the world around them seems content to not change until they get around to changing it, then complacency can set in.  Additionally, on a session by session basis, space out the action of a session so that not everything is happening at once.  Let events play out so that there is always at least one thing going on rather than ten at once.

6. How to End a Session.  The energy of a game will wind down.  It may be that game starts at 7 and ends at 10:45, but if it's 10:15 and everything seems do be drawing to a close, then call game wrap.  On the other hand, if it's 10:45 and everything is still at its height, wait 10-15 and wrap at 11.  Either way, never let the energy of a game completely wind down by the end of a session.  Leave them wanting more.

Is There a Triad?
One theory of engagement postulates that there are Actors, Immersives and Gamers and that you engage with them differently.  I don't quite agree with this.  I think that it is better to think of Acting, Immersing and Gaming as methods of engagement.  Acting is engaging with the game as a performance, Immersing is engaging with the game as an experience, Gaming is engaging with the game as a set of challenges.  Now, it is true that certain players take to certain experiences more easily.  But I feel it is limiting as a player to only attempt to engage on the game at one level.  At its best, these methods of engagement can feed into each other, as one immerses one's self in a character's perspective to approach an in-game challenge, one creates an engaging scene.  To that end, I don't necessarily plan for different styles of people, but try to make sure there are multiple levels of engagement available at each event in order to facilitate multi-level engagement.

Overall, engagement is a tricky thing.  Players ultimately choose whether to engage themselves in game, Storytellers can only make it easier for them to do so.  But by recognizing methods of engagement and providing easy avenues for involvement in the action of the story, it is possible to set up a game that is more engaging.  A game that allows multi-level engagement is the holy grail of gaming, only not.  Because it's totally achievable.

Avoiding the MurderHobo: An Argument for Crafting Context

A short one this morning, inspired partially by my recent acquisition of the first graphic novel of Rat Queens.  This is primarily a tabletop issue, but is one that has implications in LARP as well.  One of my favorite critique terms for the genre of Dungeons and Dragons is the term MurderHobo.  The idea behind the critique is that many D&D parties simply wander aimlessly through the world and kill things, some of which are arguably sentient and innocent.  I am not here to argue that this doesn't happen.  One might even say that the Murderhobo is a kind of natural savagery that D&D parties devolve into without guidance.  But I say that it is ultimately a failure of context crafting, a part of worldbuilding that is often ignored.

So, what do I mean by context crafting and how does it fit into gaming in general and the MurderHobo in particular.  Part of crafting a game is crafting a game world, the fictional universe in which the game takes place.  Part of this is imagining the way in which different elements interact, how do the elves feel about the dwarves? Who lives in the old swamp? How does interstellar travel work? Was there an ancient empire who left ruins everywhere? These questions create a world, but one aspect that escapes many people in the process of worldbuilding is creating a context for the action of the story.  It's all well and good to have a war between the halflings and the gnomes, but where do the PCs fit into that context.

Crafting Contexts for Action
This is part of why I recommend a degree of working backwards when it comes to worldbuilding and methods for avoiding the MurderHobo problem demonstrate this very well.  So, at the heart of the MurderHobo issue is the idea of unmotivated travel and a default attitude of violence.  Adventure stories tend to be about travel, so the story tends to move from place to place, and characters built for violence, as I would argue D&D PCs tend to be, tend to look for opportunities to use their abilities.  The way to avoid a game devolving into a MurderHobo Jamboree is to create a context for the game that incorporates travel and violence(or investigation or social politicking, or whatever your specific game is about) and build that into the world.  Think about what type of people historically travel from place to place and what kind of contexts freelancers are acceptable in(note, the term freelance actually comes from historical mercenaries a Free Lance refers to a knight that does not have a lord). And think about what the stakes are for which the characters are willing to use violence.

Here are some examples.

• A game about a merchant caravan, where different character classes represent different roles within the caravan.  The characters are willing to use violence to defend themselves from raiders or to help people along the way based on the 'Caravan Code' which governs how different caravans interact.

• A game about a judge travelling a circuit.  The characters are attendant on that judge and act as bailiffs, summoners, even executioners.  They may help with investigations or have to defend prisoners from mob justice.  They are authorized to use violence in accordance with serving the law.

• A game about an exiled lord and his household.  The characters are the last loyal servants of a lord who have to try and find a new home after a failed coup against the evil(?) king.  They wander from place to place looking for a new home, sometimes taking freelance work to pay the bills.  They use violence to defend themselves and to earn a living.

• A game that takes place in a country with no standing army, where all military operations are sourced to privateer style adventuring companies.  Strong intercompany rivalries exist, but direct conflicts are rare.  Instead, adventuring companies are sent to deal with catastrophies normally handled by the military.  

• A game set in the aftermath of a catastrophe, where people are isolated in small communities.  Adventuring groups travel to ruins to salvage valuable materials and sell them to the communities that produce food and allow them to survive the winter, but those ruins are inhabited by the lingering monsters that were the root of the catastrophe.  

All of these contexts provide a stage on which the action of the story can take place.  They may be the action of the story all by themselves.  They are all contexts that incorporate the fundamentals of the D&D adventuring per the MurderHobo paradigm, travel and violence, while giving potential reasons that the populace doesn't just rise up and kill these people who wander from town to town and create trouble.

Creating Eventfulness in LARP
This is more applicable to LARP than it might appear at first blush.  While the type of context being created is very different, many LARPs fail because they do not create a context in which it makes sense for the action to take place.  In a LARP, the question is less about what sort of people travel, but more of a question of what sort of events draw people together and provide for the sort of politicking that makes up LARP.  This is especially true in ongoing LARPs, because the excuse of , we hang around every second Saturday makes less sense when the city as a whole hates each other.

I find that in a LARP, the creation of a ritual calendar, or sense of regular eventfulness can be an action driving context.  Even the idea of a leader holding court on a regular basis can be relevant context for disparate groups and individuals to gather and interact.  Part of this is the creation of stakes.  If there is something in the gamespace that cannot be gained by characters in other ways(if gamespace is the only time territory is handed out, or if gamespace is the only time that one can gain social status, or if gamespace is the only time that a secret society can meet unobtrusively), then characters have a context for game attendance.

This problem actually has a player component as well.  While the Wolverine character may feel like an interesting choice, being a grumpy loner almost never works for a LARP.  Such characters seek out ways of being alone, and coming to a social gathering, no matter how mandatory, is anathema to their ways of being.  In this case, part of context creation falls to players, creating characters that fit the context.

Altogether, by crafting a context for the action of the story, Storytellers can make better games.  When thinking about the world that is made, think about how that world creates opportunities for the story of game to include the characters.  Because otherwise, they'll wander off and you'll be stuck running a MurderHobo Jamboree!

Five Sense Storytelling in LARP

One of the reasons that I love gaming, especially LARPing, is that at its best, it is a form of Storytelling that is deeply immersive.  In the climactic moments of games, I can be totally overwhelmed by the rational and emotional reality of the scene in a way that is greater than in books, or television, or movies, or any other form of story.  And as a Storyteller, one of my goals is to help players achieve that immersion, to experience the story more deeply.

One of the methods that I've come to use over the years(in fits and starts) is what I call Five Sense Storytelling, trying to find ways of using sensation to deepen immersion.  Different circumstances call for different methodes, but each of the senses can be engaged for game.  More importantly, I have found that the more senses are engaged in a given game setting, the deeper the overall immersion.  Here are some of the ways that I've found useful for deepening immersion.

Sight
Sight is probably the most important of the senses to engage and the one that is also the hardest to fully engage.  It is inevitable that in game situations there will be some difference between what you see and what is represented in game.  However, there are a few things that can be done to help narrow the gap between reality and experience.
Lighting-Lighting is one of the most underutilized methods of space transformation.  While a lot can be achieved by choosing the time of day(horror is harder on summer weekend afternoons), there is a lot that can be done with lighting tools like colored light bulbs and simple lighting equipment(I use Hampsters).  Just changing the way a room is lit will change people's experience of that room.  Done correctly, it can take a boring conference room and transform it to a creepy conference room.
Decoration-That's where decorating comes in.  Props and added decorations can help make that conference room into a truly different space.  Things that interrupt the way people interact with space or that change the sight lines of a room are especially good in this regard.
Costuming-This is one of the most important things.  Require some degree of costuming.  DO NOT ALLOW NAMETAG COSTUMES.  If someone wants to play a high powered business deer, then either require that they wear a suit and antlers, or talk to them about playing a high powered business deer who wears jeans and a t shirt and a human mask.  As a player, make character choices based on what you can costume, if you only have red tunics, don't make your house colors blue.

Touch
Touch is one of the more complicated senses to engage in LARP, but also one of the easiest.  For instance, Costuming and Decoration often invoke tactile responses, either through the feel of the material or the weight of the costume.  Beyond the side effects however, Touch can be very important.
Props- The most important way to engage touch is through the use of reasonably convincing props.  The weight of a briefcase with ten thousand dollars in it(lighter than you think) or a million dollars in it(only barely possible).  The feel of a sword at your belt.  The visceral creepiness of a human heart sticky with blood(or honey). Props can really invoke reactions based on touching them.

Hearing
Despite being relatively easy to use in game, Hearing is more rarely invoked.  However, Hearing can be very helpful for filling in gaps, adding to the general background of a gamespace by creating a pervasive soundscape.  Music can also be used as a pre-game exercise, a way of setting a scene, and music is not the only way of using Hearing.
Music In Game-One difficulty in running games set before 1877 is that there is no ability to have sourced music unless you pretend to have hired musicians.  However, you don't need a source for music in game to have music in game.  Ambient music can help set the scene as a musical score does in a film or television series.  Having special music for climactic moments can make those moments even more climactic.
Music Pre Game- I am also a big fan of music being used out of game as well.  I make soundtracks for characters, soundtracks for games, soundtracks for factions, I make soundtracks for thematic elements.  These can be very useful for getting into the headspace of game, establishing the mood of a game in your mind before doing game planning or other game work.
Sound Effects- And don't forget sound effects.  It's one thing to tell characters that a terrible rain storm is happening outside.  It's another to have the sound of rain pervading the entire space.  If you're running a game on a starship, have the sound of a warp core idling.  Soundscapes can make environments more immersive.

Taste
This is not the first, nor will it be the last time that I advocate having food at game.  Not only does food help ease people in to social interaction, but different foods can help set the mood in interesting ways.  Tea and cakes set an easy genteel atmosphere, while meat cooked over a fire well befits a postapocalyptic showdown.  This is also where I recommend wine at game.  Make sure that your players don't over indulge and that the presence of drink does not lead to recklessness(man, I sound like a temperance crusader), but having some wine can make players feel more refined and if there is a Trader Joe's near you, a case of two buck chuck is only 36 dollars.

Smell
Finally, the least utilized sense in terms of game creation, smell.  I mean, if you've been to the fourth day of a four day gaming convention, you may have experienced the use of smell in game, but I'm talking about positive usage.  The repeated use of small amounts of burned herbs or incense or of a specific perfume or odor spray can invoke sense memory, helping people return to the headspace of a game.  Alternatively, using a specific scent as a specific character can help you enter the headspace of that character.

Regardless of how you choose to do it.  Engaging the senses in game can go a long way towards immersion.  And immersion is the fast track to engagement.

What is the Point of System?

This is the first in an open ended series of posts titled "What is the Point..." where I dissect some aspect of gaming and discuss my feelings on the subject, the good, the bad, etc.  While I have two others planned (Experience Points and Plot), I am open to suggestions for things that you want to hear my thoughts on.  Please leave a comment if you have something you'd like to hear about.

So, today's topic is "What is the point of System?" Why should (or shouldn't) we use systems within games?  A game system can be an enabling tool, a ridiculous straitjacket for descriptive action, a way of splitting narrative focus, a tool for in-character bullying or all of the above at the same time.  I'm not necessarily going to advocate one system over another, but talk about some of the general potentials that systems offer and potentially the circumstances under which a system is not a good idea.

But to take a step back, what is a system within the context of game?  Does a system have to include miniatures and dice, charts and tables, THAC0 and hit locations in order to be considered a game system?  For the purposes of this discussion, a system must have at least one of the following characteristics, but with the exception of very experimental games, usually contains all three.
1. A system must be a way in which narrative disputes are resolved.  When two participants describe different possible outcomes of the narrative, the system has a way of indicating which outcome happens.
2. A system must include some way of describing the world and its participants.
3. A system must define the boundaries of the game space and dictates what types of player action affect the direction of the narrative.

Each of these characteristics opens up multiple possibilities for greater understanding of system in game and different answers to the question what is the point.  At the same time, I think it's important to point out that by my definition, there is no such thing as a systemless game.  Even a game where characters have no sheets and all disputes are discussed between participants has a system, just one based on description and consensus.

So what are some of the opportunities that system opens up?  What should one consider when deciding how system incorporates into a given game?

I. Deferred Responsibility and Neutrality
A system that includes a method of narrative resolution has a significant advantage.  Basically, it allows the energy of the Storyteller(and players) to be directed towards creative work rather than devoted to narrative arbitration.  In a system where resolution is primarily negotiated between participants, including systems where there is significant negotiable variation(equipment bonuses, situational penalties, variable difficulty numbers) a lot of time and energy goes into the negotiation of resolution.  This time and energy could theoretically be devoted elsewhere if the system deferred that responsibility.
This is also useful because it allows a greater degree of neutrality.  Nobody can achieve true neutrality.  Bias exists in every single decision that is made.  A system allows the Storyteller to defer decisions to a theoretically neutral arbitration system that does not have the same biases(it may have its own).  Additionally, I have found as a Storyteller that systems and randomness can make it easier to say no(which can be a very important skill in running games).  If the system does not indicate that something is possible, it is a lot easier to justify saying no.[another future post will determine whether saying no is a good or bad thing in game].
Overall, by taking decision making out of the hands of storytellers, more of the storyteller's energy can be devoted to creative aspects of running the game rather than arbitrative aspects.

II. Matching System to Narrative
One important aspect to system is that different systems match different underlying worldviews.  Choosing a system that matches the general tenor of the world of game or at least hits on themes present within game is important.  This can be very well shown by example.  I was once playing in a game that used the same system for two very different linked worlds.  One was set in the universe of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, one in the world of Lovecraft's Chthulu mythos.  The system was identical for character creation and resolution, but one simple decision differentiated the narrative feel of the universes.  When the results of a roll indicated a tie, final results varied by universe.  In the Buffyverse, where plucky heroes defy insurmountable odds, the heroes won on ties.  In the Chthuluverse, where the very fabric of the universe conspired against the protagonists, the heroes lost on ties.  This minor variation defined the difference between the two universes.
A system choice can be even more defining.  In the dramasystem used in Hillfolk, the system defines the emotional and practical stakes of every interaction and defines a system of resolution based on those stakes.  Because the story is essentially about the differing agendas of people in society together, the system is about the ways in which those agendas interact.  While there is no randomness to the system, the inherent political economy of it emerges in the interaction.
Finally, a system choice can go beyond just the ways in which conflicts are resolved.  Some systems are very heavily weighted in the description of the universe to certain types of player interaction.  These can be leveraged well in narrative creation if engaged with.  So, for instance, in the classic dungeons and dragons system, there are different character roles that engage with different narrative challenges.  In story planning, this can be used to naturally shift focus between characters as different sorts of challenges come up.  Alternatively, systems may encourage different methods of resolution that shift play style.  The game Grimm, where the characters are children stuck in a dark fairytale world, makes challenges significantly easier if characters work together and thus makes challenges about how the characters use their abilities synergistically rather than individually.

III. Randomness as Epiphanic
So, here is where I make a case for randomness.  Many contemporary story games do away with random elements, sometimes entirely. While I think that can be useful for telling certain types of stories, I think that randomness has a place as an epiphanic element of storytelling.  Randomness has the chance of pulling you out of your comfort zone, forcing you to sometimes find narrative justifications for the unlikely.  This can drastically and memorably alter the shape of the story, and that, ultimately, is why gaming is different from writing, because there are parts of the story that pull in different directions.  If the dice tell me that David scores a critical hit on Goliath, then that story ends differently from the pre-determined series of events.  Epic success and Epic failure push the participant out of the ordained narrative path is the way an epiphany takes you out of your humdrum life.

Overall, system should be a choice.  There are a lot of parts and when planning a game, you should take into account the things that your system does to the story.  But you should also remember that there is no such thing as a game without a system.  Even 'systemless' games have some form of arbitration.  By making system an active choice, Storytellers have an opportunity to make system work for them, not against them.

Ambiverts and GNS: Heuristics of Player Needs

It seems inevitable that in a blog about gaming that I should address one of the biggest theoretical frameworks in the scholarship of the role-playing game: GNS.  This theory has proven controversial and useful, and while I have significant problems with it, I think it does provide a useful potential heuristic device for examining game design.  

So, What is GNS? The idea of GNS is that there is a division between gaming styles, effectively that different people play games for different reasons.  The theory divides those reasons into thress separate styles: Gamism, Narrativism and Simulationism.  Different games meet those styles in different ways, some addressing individual styles more than others.  Gamist style play focuses on the overcoming of obstacles and challenges, the solving of puzzles, the meeting of strategic challenges.  Narrativist style play focuses on being part of a story, serving out a narrative role.  Simulationist style play focuses on experiential parts of game, playing out a set of experiences in a fictional context.  

Now, I call this a heuristic.  What do I mean by that?  I mean that such a division is artificial and meaningless outside of its own parameters.  These styles are a way of analyzing aspects of game design, but are not pure categories.  You can't really say something is a gamist game, per se.  It is more or less a meaningless category, but I think that it can be a useful meaningless category.  

Gamism, Narrativism and Simulationism are best seen as linked aspects of a game.  What narrative exists where the characters do not have to overcome some form of challenge to achieve resolution? Can a story exist where people don't engage with the experience of the character? Doesn't an understanding of internal perspective enrich the experience of playing a game in a way that goes beyond the mere challenge?  These things are inherently linked.  An experience might engage one dimension more extensively than others, but they can't be truly separated and that does, to a certain extent, render them meaningless outside of context.

But that doesn't mean they aren't potentially useful.  I get pleasure from engaging each of these categories, whether its playing a tactical simulation, telling a grand narrative or delving into the subjective experience of a different person.  Not everyone has the same level of ambiversion that permits them to get pleasure from all three, and understanding how different players engage with the same game material can help you design games that appeal to all three experiential styles and can do so mindfully.  

Mindful experience design allows for a number of options.   First, because these different styles can be engaged in different ways, you can choose how you engage those styles.  For instance, the gamist style of play and experience can be engaged by the inclusion of puzzles or riddles or breaks within narrative necessitating problem solving.  It could also be engaged by a robust system and the opportunity for tactical challenges.  By choosing one of those styles for an individual game, the Storyteller can be more mindful of the styles of engagement being provided within the game.  They can better plan for how to provide those experiences and include increased transparency as to what players can expect. 

Ultimately, this ties into two upcoming posts.  First, the potential for transparency in game.  By making mindful decisions, you can be transparent about those decisions and help your players engage with game.  Second, the potential for selective gaming.  Not every game needs to be for every player.  By being transparent about experiential styles, players can make choices as to whether a game will meet their needs for participation.  While I will address these ideas in later posts, they are extremely relevant to the idea of using GNS.  GNS is best used as a form of mindful design.  It is not a useful way of describing a game, but it can be a way of thinking about a game in aspects.  In essence, it is a perfect heuristic; useful, but pointless out of context.

The Importance of Afters in LARP

What are Afters? So, the term Afters is a non-universal term for what is done after a gaming session.  There are a few different types of afters that all work somewhat differently, but I would argue that what happens after a game is nearly as important as what happens in the game itself.  Gaming, by its very nature, is retrospective storytelling.  The way in which challenges are resolved after the fact means that the shape of the story isn't evident until after the fact.  In LARPs, this is compounded by the scale, with nobody able to see everything that happened within the game.  These linked problems are why 'Afters' are one of the most important parts of any LARP and I will discuss that here.

So, backstory. When I started grad school, I moved into a new town where I knew absolutely nobody.  Wandering around town, I came across a game flyer and ended up participating in a LARP that I would be part of for nearly seven years.  However, I found that I wasn't really a part of the LARP, a part of the community that made up the LARP, until I started going out to Denny's after game.  It was my participation in the Afters ritual that ended up building my ties to the community and helped me become more connected to the game.

Session Closing Rituals
One type of Afters comes in the form of session closing rituals.  The time between the wrap of the action of game and the departure of participants from the game space is handled differently among different groups.  Some games simply call a stop and have everybody leave, but in my experience, an organized game wrap ritual can be an important form of Afters.  By having an organized game wrap, the Storyteller can help provide players a greater context for the events of the evening within the game.  Here's how I handle the game wrap ritual in my current game.
1. 10 minutes before game, I let everyone know that the game is about to end.  This allows people to wrap up individual scenes and such.
2. I try, if it makes sense within the context of game, to have an event at game wrap, essentially, the last scene of the night.  That scene may set the stage for later games, may encapsulate the action of the night or simply be a cool and dramatic end point.
3. After play has concluded, I gather everyone together in the main game space.  I start by thanking them for coming and stating any contextual information about game wrap (i.e. everyone now has a harder time finding silver bullets in the city, but hey, fewer werewolves).
4. We then do "Nods".  This is a practice in which people have a chance to call out those who made their game better in some way.  While this can take some time, about 15-20 minutes in a game of ~25-30 people, I feel it is time well spent.  In my mind, at its best it serves two purposes.  First, it is a way of saying thank you and indicating a personal connection between participants.  It feels good to be appreciated and this is a form of appreciation that can help fuel connections on a personal or small group level.  Second, it can give non-involved people a sense of the greater context, even without specific details.  Knowing that dramatic interactions are happening within certain groups and dashing adventure is happening within others can allow more selective engagement within the game context.(i.e. I want to get involved in more adventure plot, I should steer myself towards that group of people).  Sure, there are occasional self-indulgent moments, but in the right context, I find that "Nods" provide interesting opportunities for context building, allowing people to have a greater sense of the game beyond their own personal experience.
5. Clean-up.  Now, this seems like a weird thing to include here, but I think it's helpful to have a few tasks people can specifically help with in cleaning up a game space.  Many people like to pitch in in some way and having a context in which they are able to do that helps give them a greater sense of investment in the work being done at game.  Plus, many hands make light work.

After Session Rituals
So, those are the end of session rituals, but there are other rituals that go beyond game.  One thing that I've seen in many games is a tradition of going out for food after game, generally to whatever nearby eating establishment can handle a large number of people right after game.  I have seen in some cases a traditional after-party, sometimes on a monthly basis, sometimes every few months to a year.  These out of game traditions are, in my opinion, every bit as important as what happens within game-space for a few reasons.
1. As I said in the opening, gaming is retrospective storytelling.  Afters provide a handy context for the processing of what happened within a group environment.  Afters can be a forum for discussion of what happened in a less public context, as it is much easier to get someone one on one at an after party or restaurant.
2. Afters is the context where people can learn each other's real names.  And of course, more than just that.  I think community building in a LARP should be a priority and Afters is a context in which deeper connections can be made.  Part of this comes from how people are socialized.  In the context of before and after game, when people are rushing around and preparing for an event, it can be hard to break the ice with other people.  But we are all more or less socialized to interact over food and at parties, so they provide a context that eases those processes.

Things that are Important!
So, there are two things that are very important when it comes to Afters.
1. Make sure you have a good relationship with the venue in which you have Afters.  This takes a few forms.  It can be a matter of arranging reservations, or at least checking to see if they are too busy to handle a large group.  Also, tip very well.  Handling a group of 20 people who want split checks is a lot of difficult additional work for a server and bad relationships with servers can make it difficult to get a table at a restaurant.  Also, make sure that everyone pays.  It seems like a no-brainer, but I've seen enough examples where someone failed to pay that I feel it's necessary to call out.
2. Try to avoid excessive cliquishness.  What I think is more important about Afters is that it is a chance to break down social barriers.  When there is a 'cool kid's table', that just erects more social barriers.  Afters should not be the high school cafeteria.

Overall, I think that LARPs build communities when done right.  Afters is an important part of that community building ritual and is not without precedent in greater culture.  Think about cultural rituals that you know.  Weddings, Funerals, Bar/Bat Mitzvahs, Sweat Lodges, etc.  What all these rituals have in common is that you generally have food afterwards.  If you think of the cultural process at the heart of a LARP, Afters just make sense.

LARPing and the Penelope Effect

So, this blog is not just about D&D5, though I will probably return to that once I start actually playing some.

Today, instead, I would like to talk about the Penelope Effect, which I consider to be a huge problem in LARP design and ways that I try to circumvent it.  The Penelope Effect is my name for what happens in a LARP when a portion of a game 'leaves' the game location to investigate some plot point and the rest of the game is left with minimal Storyteller attention to wait for the others to return.  This is something I have encountered in many games, both as a player and as a Storyteller, and there are a few ways that I have developed to deal with it, some of which I've picked up from other games.

But first, why is it a problem?  As far as I've seen, it appears to be standard operating procedure for most LARPs, how can something that everybody seems to do be a problem.  Well, let's talk a little about the Penelope metaphor.  In the Odyssey, Odysseus is making his way home, having adventures and sleeping with all the mystically inclined women he seems to come across.  Meanwhile, Penelope was stuck at home, and had so little to do that she had to weave and unweave the same tapestry.  And while she is a cunning character, tricking her suitors while keeping the home fires burning, she is given very little story time.  And that is ultimately why Penelope is a good metaphor for this effect.  The people left behind are simply not getting story time.

Let's assume that in a game of 24 people, you have 3 Storytellers.  While everyone is on site, there is effectively an 8:1 ratio of Storyteller to player and story attention can be divided fairly easily.  Then let's assume that a group of 4 people leave on a mission.  Now they have a 4:1 ratio and the remainder of the game has a 10:1 ratio, less potential Storyteller attention available for each of the remaining players.  Another group of 4 pulls another Storyteller away and then the remainder has a 16:1 ratio of Storyteller to player and chances are multiple people may want the Storyteller at once.  If another group of 4 then pulls off Storyteller number three, then half of the game is literally sitting at home without a Storyteller to run things.  They've been Penelope'd.

As a Player, I've been Penelope'd many times.  Sometimes it's people going off site, sometimes it's 'important' meetings with NPCs that only a few characters are allowed to join.  Regardless, I've been left behind in the main game space with nothing to do.  I've dealt with this in multiple ways.

Player Strategies for Avoiding the Full Penelope Effect
1. I've had many a philosophical discussion, waiting for adventurers to return, playing the simulationist game while others are off doing the narrativist thing.[I'll talk about my feelings on GNS in a later post].  But in my experience, that can only get you so far.  In most cases, save narrative attention that places a great deal of attention on moral choices or transformational moments, you can only really have that conversation once between characters.  Anything more is unweaving the tapestry, covering the same ground again.  Generally speaking, I like these conversations.  I think the chance to discuss character perspectives is a real joy of gaming.  But unweaving the tapestry and then reweaving it gets dull after a while.

2. I will give myself things to do.  I have taken to playing bards in LARPs, mainly because during down moments, I can pick up the guitar and strum a few bars while I wait.  I've played characters who've done crossword puzzles, or played on their computers in character or done any number of things that fill downtime.  I once brought a copy of the old Basic D&D to a Vampire game in character and tried to get other characters to play it in character[one day, I'll succeed at game within a game].  This passes time, but isn't always the most fun thing.

3. Inserting myself into Meetings/Adventures.  I have gotten good about inserting myself into things.  Barging into meetings, tagging along on adventures, etc.  Sometimes, it's a dramatic insertion into a meeting.  Sometimes it's a stealthy tag along.  Sometimes it's a 'you should bring along a bard to tell the story of what happened'.  Regardless, it's a skill I've had to develop to avoid being Penelope'd.

Really though, the Penelope Effect should be a Storyteller Problem.  Storyteller planning and effort can reduce the Penelope Effect.  And Storytellers should do this, because Penelope'd players are disengaged players.  Being left behind is not particularly fun and as a Storyteller, your goal should be to make an event that is the most fun for the most people.

ST Strategies to Prevent the Penelope Effect
1. Unity of Place and WYSIWYG: More and more, in games I run, I try to follow the concept of Unity of Place and WYSIWYG[What You See is What You Get].  Making it so that characters have incentive not to leave the game space, either through external danger or internal reward means that people are not left behind.  I roll the WYSIWYG effect into this in that by having the game space be the same as the physical space, you disallow a common Penelopeing strategy I call the 'not findable'.  In this, if you want to be hard to find, you need to find space within the space that is hard to find and if people find you, they find you.

2. Eventfulness: This is a larger point and may get its own blog post at some point, but every LARP session should have a reason why the characters are gathering.  If people don't have a reason to be in the space, then they will wander off.  Part of eventfulness involves having things for people to do within the space either on a group or individual level.  These activities do not have to consume the entire game, but they should provide a fallback.  One quick way to do this is to provide food and drink.  People are used to food and drink at events.  And people are culturally conditioned to socialize over food and drink.  This helps people interact.

3. In-Between Investigation: One major obstacle to a "no offsite investigations during game" policy is that there still needs to be a robust mechanism for information entering game.  This is best served by  an active in between action system.  I've seen this done well in a number of ways.  One method is the non-event game session, which I've seen called a downtime session or an interlude.  At these sessions, there is no event programming, just a chance to have off site or other conversations/meetings.  Part of the art of this process is making sure to prime expectations, so people don't show up expecting another game, but it can be effective.  The other method I've seen be effective are structured downtime actions.  Every player receives and email asking for in between actions and there is a hard deadline for completion of those emails so that actions can be considered. Theoretically, this allows characters to do things off-site and bring information back to game to be shared.

4. Minimal Storyteller as NonPlayerCharacter activity: This is probably my most controversial suggestion, but one thing I've found is that having the Storytellers focus on being accessible rather than having them play characters within the game allows for much more Storyteller attention to be spread through the game, making it easier to respond to anything and notice areas of concern that might be helped by an infusion of eventfulness.  Generally speaking, if an NPC is planned and intended to be more than a single scene, then I recommend using a dedicated player rather than having an ST portray them.

Overall, I've seen many Penelope Effects in game.  One of my worst LARPing experiences involved a 2 hour window where players sat around and made the same joke [a riff on the Insane Clown Posse "Magnets, how do they work?" lyric] over and over, because we'd all been Penelope'd.  It was such a dreadful experience that I never returned to that game.  Please, don't Penelope people.  

Party Roles: Joining the Five Man Band

One thing that I am very passionate about in the context of the RPG in general is a sense of the role in role-playing.  In short, I believe in the context of the role-playing game that every character should have a story role that they can fill and no other character can.  This can vary from context to context, in some games this is class balance, in others it is a variety of character backgrounds, in others, it is a matter of ensuring that all necessary skills are represented.  Regardless of methods, I believe that it is important for a game.  Today, I'd like to talk about why I find party balance important, a few observed methods that do it well and then talk about an experiment I want to run using TVTropes as a game resource.

I come to gaming with skills from a lot of places.  My passion for party balance comes from my experience in improv theater.  In improv, one of the most important facets is focus sharing, making sure that scenes shift between participants, allowing different people to be the center of attention for different parts of a scene.  This not only ensures investment on the part of all participants, but is also good for the progress of a scene. Shifts in focus allow shifts in power between character, which allows different character objectives to be resolved consecutively until the scene resolves. In the RPG, I feel that this is partially met by a sense of party balance, ensuring that shifts in narrative focus allow everyone to participate.  

I've seen this done in a number of different ways.  The classic version is the D&D class system, in which the four classes fill different roles within narratives and meet different challenges.  Got Undead?  Bring up the Cleric.  Got a Trap? Bring up the Thief.  This works reasonably well, but is terribly limiting in the kinds of stories that you can tell.  Other systems have taken very different approaches that I find interesting.  In Werewolf the apocalypse, the auspice system divides characters into social roles with the understanding that a given pack of werewolves is best served with one from each auspice, a warrior, a bard, a judge, a mystic and a trickster.  

One system I find interesting comes from Mongoose's version of Traveller.  In their system, at the end of character creation, depending on the kind of story that the game is going to be, the players get to divide up a suite of skills that are relevant to the story.  For a game that's about piloting a ship around, you get to make sure you have a navigator, a pilot, an engineer, a sensors person, etc.  It's useful, because it recognizes that these are frequent story challenges that different party members need to be able to complete.  In the system, you go around the table and pick skills one by one until all the skills have been divided.  It aims for minimal overlap while making sure that every challenge is meetable.  

Now, while I'm a big fan of it, I don't think that respecting party balance means that you can't have some degree of overlap.  I think that in systems that are open ended enough, you can engineer party balance in other ways.  I've threatened to run the all bard game(and D&D5's bard mechanics make that much more possible) of D&D for quite some time.  Similarity and difference can be relative between games.  The most important thing is that everyone feels they have a place at the table.  That there are ways to share focus that mean everyone gets to participate.

So, my experiment.  The next game I run, I am going to encourage people not just to choose a character class, etc.  But to actually choose a role in the TVTropes Five Man Band.  Having a sense of not just how the character fits into game challenges but into the party's social roles may help.  Or it may go completely off the rails.  It wouldn't be an experiment if I knew exactly how it would go.  But I think it's worth a try.

D&Deconstruction Part V: Specific Beats General

One of the design principles that seems to be at the heart of D&D is summed up in one of the rules they present: Specific Beats General.  Within the rule system, if a specific power, spell or ability says to do things one way and the general rule says to do things another way, the specific power is correct.  While this seems simple, it points to something that brings me pretty high hopes for D&D5 in the longer term: Expandability.  

There are a lot of built in ways that D&D5 can add content to the game that provides specific variations on the simple general themes.  Classes have archetypes that can be expanded in a fairly unlimited fashion.  Why not a rogue-acrobat archetype, or a rogue-duelist archetype.  New Backgrounds can easily be created by combining any two skills.  Intimidation and Investigation?  You were in law enforcement. Animal Handling and Arcana?  Your parents ran an owlbear farm.  Deception and Survival? You were in the hunger games.  Any combination can become a new background.  Existing backgrounds have variants that allow extra expandability.

This increased possibility of variation means that D&D5 will hopefully take a lot longer to get to the point of publishing pointless new classes or prestige classes that have no point.  And the principle of specific beats general has allowed for the creation of some variations that already break the mold in interesting ways.  The Paladin class is one of my favorites so far.  They've added two significant Paladin variations, neither of which is lawful good, but both of which are definitely holy warriors.  One is a paladin in service to the druidic religion, focused on doing good within nature.  One is a paladin in service to vengeance, driven by revenge to remove the greater evil.  These variations represent a focus on the specific over the general in a way that betokens the possibility of actual adaptability when it comes to the game.  And that says to me that there is room to grow.  D&D5 can add variation without making the existing obsolete.

Like the rule philosophy as stated, this is more than simply the introduction of new material, it seems to be a change in how things are being written.  Specific exceptions are no longer being written into general rules.  Specific exceptions are written into specific rules, with the general rules kept general and straightforward.  This should hopefully alleviate some of the issue of colliding specifics that can cause significant confusion and represents a significant change in design philosophy that I find refreshing.

I could go on about all the different things I find interesting in the new edition.  Short rests.  Changes in movement rules and attacks of opportunity.  Sneak attack.  Variable Magic Systems.  But all of them come down to this.  D&D5 feels like a lot of thought and care went into it.  From what I have heard about the playtesting, significant changes happened over the course of development that led to the game that was released.  Truly, only playing the game will tell how these changes really work, but I am hopeful, and that is refreshing.

D&Deconstruction Part IV: Advantage In

D&D has always been a very precise game.  Being blind gives you an exactly 50% miss chance.  Being behind cover adds exactly +4 to your AC, unless it's only partial cover, which adds only +2.  The Total defense action adds +4 to your AC, unless you have more than 5 ranks in tumble, in which case it adds +6 to your AC.  Dropping prone means a -4 to your AC, except against ranged attacks, where it's a +4 to your AC. All of these bonuses and penalties are very precise and fiddly and while they are generally balanced, they are really hard to run on the fly without years of experience.  And they are often hard to explain to new players why exactly they should stand exactly here and act in exactly this way to help achieve results.

D&D5 has replaced most of these nitpicky bonuses and penalties with advantage and disadvantage.  For advantage and disadvantage, the rule is simple.  You roll two twenty sided dice instead of one.  If you have advantage, then you pick the better one.  If you have disadvantage, you pick the worse one.  If you have things that grant both advantage and disadvantage, you roll as normal.  

This development simplifies a lot of things and while I could definitely have talked about this in relation to my first point about randomness, I think this has the most potential impact when it comes to running games.  No longer do you have to pore over books to find what the balanced level of benefit or penalty for a given situation is, you can instead simply give advantage or disadvantage based on a given change in circumstances.  

One of the biggest problems with D&D has always been that it's been hard to justify situational modifiers because of the strictly balanced set of bonuses and penalties at the heart of the game.  The addition of advantage and disadvantage changes that.  And what's great is that advantage doesn't let character exceed their current ability, it just smooths out the bell curve of success, making them less likely to fail.  

D&Deconstruction Part III: The Third Kind of Heat

Backgrounds are a game changer.  Literally.  They allow a much wider variation in character than nearly any other aspect of D&D5.  While they may seem to be merely an addition of flavor to characters, they actually add something incredibly significant to the creation of the adventuring parties.

So, in 3.X, there was really only one way to gain proficiency with a given skill, to have it 'in class'.  Some skills were specific to a single class, some available to a select few, some fairly broadly available, but nearly every skill had limited access of some sort.   The most egregious example of this was trapfinding.  Not only was disable device only available to rogues, but trapfinding dictated that even if other classes took levels of disable device, they couldn't use it on magical traps.  This led to the problem of every party essentially needing a rogue.  So even if nobody really wanted to play one, in order to have a party that could meet all available challenges, one person would be forced to play a rogue.  Pathfinder got around this a little bit with traits, but those were an optional, underpowered system that also suffered from excessive specificity(I want the extra bump in Knowledge(history), but I'm not a scholar of ruins).

Backgrounds make skills much more adaptable.  Backgrounds exist that include many different skills, allowing the selection of skill proficiencies that match the character not the character class.  Plus, they are not limited by character class.  A soldier background can be used to make a wizard, a bard or a monk, not just a fighter.  An entertainer background gives an intersting spin on a warlock or a cleric.  By selecting a background and a class, a player can choose what skills their character has.  This means that challenges are no longer just focused on what the character class is, but on who the character is.

In Mongoose's traveller, at the end of character creation, there's a point where players divvy up a set of relevant skills, making sure that they aren't deficient in the required tasks to run their chosen spaceship(You mean nobody knows how to navigate?!).  D&D allows that to be done as part of character creation in a more free-flowing way.  It's easy to tweak a background or skill choice in order to make sure the regular bases are covered without forcing players into undesired classes in order to fill a party need.

And ultimately, it's an orthogonal system.  A pair of axes along which a character can be built where neither depends on the other for their value.  A soldier wizard will be different from a hermit wizard will be different from a charlatan wizard, both mechanically and in terms of personality.  It takes away the "standard fighter" option and allows for much greater variation.  In short.  I love it.

D&Deconstruction Part II: Personality Goes a Long Way

One of my favorite nitpicks about 4th edition was the weird simplification of the alignment system.  Instead of a two axis system of law vs. chaos, good vs. evil that allowed for nine alignments, they reduced the total to five: good, evil, lawful good, chaotic evil, neutral.  I've gone through thoughts about this.  Does that mean that evil is inherently lawful or inherently chaotic?  Is this supposed to be on a single scale?   Regardless of whatever they were thinking when they made that choice, I hated it.

Now, this isn't my love song to the alignment system.  I think it's far too limited a system and one that is far too reified within the world.  To quote Barley Stonemug when he was accused by a Paladin of being evil "What does that even mean?"  No, while I've made my peace with the alignment system as a heuristic system that can guide character choices, this entry is about the inclusion of personality.

D&D5 adds a number of specific personality aspects to the game.  Every character has a number of specific characteristics tied to who they are.  Personality traits are behavioral quirks the character might have. "And there was Jimmy Two Times, who got that nickname because he said everything twice."  Ideals are higher or lower purposes, a refinement of the alignment system that says more specifically what the character is out to achieve.  "For as long as I can remember I always wanted to be a gangster...To be a gangster was to own the world." Bonds are ties a character has to individuals and organizations that drive them. " I know there are women, like my best friends, who would have gotten out of there the minute their boyfriend gave them a gun to hide. But I didn't."  Flaws are things that get a character in trouble. "You mean, let me understand this cause, ya know maybe it's me, I'm a little fucked up maybe, but I'm funny how, I mean funny like I'm a clown, I amuse you? I make you laugh, I'm here to fuckin' amuse you? What do you mean funny, funny how? How am I funny?"

Now, these aren't new to role playing.  You've always had characters with personalities.  But putting that on the character sheet, making space for it is new to D&D.  And they've gone further than that.  These personality aspects are tied to a new system, Inspiration!  You can get inspiration for good role-playing, forwarding the story by playing out your character.  Then later on, you can spend that inspiration to gain advantage on a roll.  It's a sort of limited drama point system, but importantly, it's based on actually playing a character.

In my mind, this owes a lot to Dungeon World.  One flippant way of expressing my interest in D&D5 is that it takes the parts of D&D that Pathfinder and Dungeon World improved and recombines them.  Dungeon World spent a lot of energy on defining the role playing aspects of your character, including goals and bonds, and D&D5 seems to have taken that and run with it.  Here's hoping it works. Of course, that's not the biggest thing they've done to add character to the game.  Next time, I'll talk about backgrounds.

D&Deconstruction Part I: So That's a Total of +13?

The question of numerical representation and randomness is one that is deeply embedded in gaming. Gary Gygax worked for an insurance company before writing D&D, reviewing actuarial tables and that sense of both the need to calculate an individual's relevant statistics and a sense of the chance of random occurrence are easily visible from the first RPG to the present day.

And D&D has often been the worst.  Sometimes, it's just a weird way in which they choose to represent the math.  The THAC0 tables from Advanced Dungeons and Dragons are the butt of many jokes, but they're just a pivot table away from being the same as base attack bonus.  Sometimes, it's a lot of fiddly bonuses that when put together allow a distinct unbalancing.

This became very bad indeed in the 3.X versions of the game. The perceived need for continuous improvement and potential advantage made it so that the optimizing of characters left a significant gulf between the specialist and the non-specialist.  Additionally, the continuous improvement meant that encounter levels were drastically important to design because encounters much above the party's level were impossible in the best circumstances and encounters much below the party's level were laughable.  There even developed folklore around the issue "There's a 20 on every die" indicates the common 5% chance of success in a task for which a character is not optimized.

D&D5 has a much smaller window of proficiency.  The least competent character at a given task will have at worst a -1(level 1 character, no proficiency, ability score of 8).  The most competent character will have at best a +17 for a skill(expertise multiplier of +6 proficiency bonus, ability score of 20) or +11 for an attack (max +6 proficiency, max 20 ability).  An Ooze has an AC of 8  An Adult Red Dragon has an AC of 19.  So, even the least competent character with an unfamiliar weapon can hit the most intimidating monster with enough luck.  Most first level characters will have at least a +2 to hit using the weapon in their starting equipment.  Which gives a 15 percent chance to hit that Red Dragon.  But there's a chance for even the most competent character has only a 60 percent chance of hitting with a specific attack against an adult red dragon(probably more, given the possibility of a magic weapon, but assuming they max out at +5, even then, there's only an 85 percent chance).

This has a lot of possible implications for running D&D5.  In the past, I've run into encounter design issues based on scalability.  An encounter that is challenging to the skill of one character is impossible for any other. At the other end of the scale, once characters reach a certain level, earlier challenges simply do not register on their radar.  With the narrowed proficiency window, encounters are more challenging and doable at the same time.

Finally, the lack of higher math necessary to calculate bonuses and penalties for a given attack mean things will run more smoothly.  I've seen people resort to using makeshift spreadsheets to calculate their attacks in Pathfinder.  The 10-15 seconds of calculation really add up in game time, so losing that is in my mind a good thing.

Overall, we'll see, but at the very least, I can see where they were going with this and hopefully the design intention will show through.