With a new LARP coming up, it's inevitable that I return here. Today, it is to talk about worldbuilding. Worldbuilding for a LARP is different than worldbuilding for a tabletop game. While a number of the principles that I use are the same, LARPs require an extra level of collaborative development. But over the years, I've developed some methods for building a LARP world that help promote player investment and involvement.
Why So Collaborative
The main goal in LARP worldbuilding is establishing collaborative investment in the world. In a tabletop game, ownership of the world is pretty squarely in the hands of the Game Master/Storyteller. While good tabletop games provide avenues for player input into the world, the world is always constructed with the consent of the GM.
This is much more possible in tabletop than in LARP. In tabletop, the GM is theoretically present for every interaction and can fill in gaps of information, even reminding people of established facts of the world should they forget them. But LARPs do not generally have that luxury. STs cannot be present to reinforce the world all the time.
But how to approach this problem? The way that I try and do this is to make a collaboratively built world. One where players help build out the world so they know its corners and nuances. And the way I approach that is to build a world not as a fully nuanced set of details, but as a framework, an open sandbox where things can be built. But there are tricks to it.
Building a Framework
One of my favorite principles of game design is "draw maps, leave gaps". Make a world adaptable to the needs of the participants and of the moment. In the context of building a LARP world, I like to construct a framework of fundamental truths. These are the borders of the Sandbox, the immutable aspects of the world.
This framework establishes the ground on which people can build. On the one hand, this needs to be tight. You want to make sure that the characters all exist in the same context where the action takes place. Part of framework creation involves who the characters can be. Some of this often comes from a game system. If you are running Vampire, then your framework includes being vampires. But this also involves things like where the characters live and work.
On the other hand, the framework should be loose. You want to make sure that the context doesn't excessively limit students and encourages variation. LARPs are best with a variety of characters and the framework can be important to encourage that variety. Some of this can be creating a variety of categories or character types that are part of the world.
Sample Framework
So what does a framework look like? I am in the process of preparing for a character creation session for my upcoming game and I considered what to write on one of my numerous whiteboards around the apartment and came up with the following.
There is a Prison in Chicago.
This Prison Holds Monsters.
This Prison is Guarded by Heroes.
These Heroes are descended from different Gods.
These Heroes are Destined to guard this Prison.
These Heroes are joined together in a Conclave.
This framework is a collection of open ended fundamental truths. They define where the game takes place(Chicago), who the characters are(Heroes), what brings them together(Destiny). Many of those terms are deliberately undefined. Some of these are thematic. But they exist as a set of frameworks, of borders into which characters should fit. What these aren't are details. There are a number of details beyond this, but they are not the fundamental framework.
And within this framework, players will create characters. Characters that define their own versions of these framework statements. What does it mean for them to be a Hero? How do they guard the prison? How do they live in Chicago? These characters will create a lot of the fundamental details. The map is filled in by characters.
Knitting Things Together
What then is the role of the Storyteller in such a system? If the Storyteller isn't creating the world, what is their role? Well, part of it is allowing the creation of details while maintaining a veil of ignorance. Part of being a player is maintaining a limited perspective. You want to be part of the world, not overseeing it, but tying your details to other people's details requires that overview. The Storyteller is that overview in this method. They provide the general perspective that allows them to tie characters together.
This is an important aspect to Worldbuilding because it allows for more organic and multi-perspective character building. So, there's a study about brainstorming that is relevant to this process. In the study, open brainstorming sessions were found to be dominated by early ideas rather than actually bringing in multiple foundational ideas. When brainstorming included an initial phase of separate silent brainstorming by individuals, more foundational ideas were brought in.
This is part of what the framework method of Worldbuilding allows. When characters are created separately, characters are more unique and diverse. A feedback process allows those characters to then be tied together and allows the Storyteller to build on these unique details to create a full world out of the different character ideas. This increases player investment in the world because they explicitly helped create it.
Conclusion
Overall, there's still a lot of complexity to the Framework method of worldbuilding that isn't included here. There are plenty of details that need to go into the world, definitions that get expanded. You need to make sure that there are resonant structures that people actually can invest in. But this is a general view of the method I use.
