And another project starts to get very real

[jducoeur]

Two days until Intercon O signups open (if you don't have a membership yet, get it now). That's going to become more and more a focus for me, since I'm finally diving back into LARP writing, after several years away from it.

This year's game is "experimental" for me -- that is to say, it is weirdly normal and down-to-earth. I've mentioned it before here (indeed, I mentioned it the day after I thought it up, a year or so ago): A Respectful Calm is going to be a somewhat dark, very real-world story, set in the aftermath of a mass shooting at a company downtown. Instead of being a game of violence, it's a game about the repercussions of violence, and the ways our society reacts to it. (It says something that the four major groupings of characters in the Factions list are "Employees", "Police", "Media" and "Politicians".)

It's an unusual game for me in many ways. One is the complete lack of fantastical elements: I think this is the first time I've ever written a game that wasn't at *least* satirical, and nearly all of my games have been fantasy or science fiction. Aside from a little bit of high-tech speculation in the background, this one is totally down-to-earth, with normal people dealing with an abnormal situation.

Maybe even weirder for me is the lack of uber-plot: for better or worse, my games usually have The Big Thing that takes precedence over everything else. I try not to let that overwhelm everyones' individual stories, but it's always there. Not in this case, though: The Big Thing has already happened, and we wind up with something of a fractal of reactions, as everyones' lives spin off of that in different directions.

I'm also trying my hand at writing gender-neutral characters, after having treated gender quite casually in all my previous ones. The topic of gender bias in games has come up a lot in recent years, and I've decided to run at it quite deliberately. I'm allowing myself to write gendered characters in the cases where it is seriously relevant to the character, but that's only a modest number; most are written gender-neutral, to the extent that the underlying Querki database has both male and female names for each one, and I'm planning on writing a few functions so that pronouns get adjusted automatically after casting. (I allowed myself ten specifically-gendered characters when I bid the game, but it currently looks like I'm coming out with four, out of thirty.) It's being an interesting exercise in challenging my own assumptions about how relevant gender is to character.

And of course, it's all written in Querki. This kind of brings the Querki project full circle: it started as a LARP-design system about ten years ago (I believe I originally built the prototype for Girl Genius: Agatha Heterodyne and the Hidden Castle). This time, I'm planning on not just writing the game in Querki, but doing the printing and casting through it as well. I expect it'll be a learning experience, as usual.

For those who care, I will admit that the game is not fully written yet: at this point, I have the character list, the major plots and a lot of the interaction web, but I'm still fleshing it out. I've never failed to have a game ready well before gametime, though, and I don't intend to start here.

It should be an interesting game, and I look forward to seeing where the players take the stories. I hope you'll consider signing up; it's scheduled for Friday at 8pm...

Comments

[goldsquare.livejournal.com]

[Part 1 of 2]
You ask some good, and challenging questions - to which I do not have a final reply. They deserve some thought. Hence, I'm trying to make conversation here.

My first thought was to ask myself "is this a topic on which my mind is changeable", because if my opinion isn't mutable, I don't want to rant. I admit to myself that it is hard to change, because what I'm having here is a powerful emotional response, and not an intellectually formed response. (I think I hinted at such in my first reply.)

Striving for the intellectual...

It is certainly NOT the case that this is a general topic which cannot be explored through the arts. All topics can be explored through the arts - and arts is a very generic term. It is a topic that *I* don't want to explore, in hardly any art. But that was not my point, and doesn't obviate yours.

(I'm reminded a little of the old joke that made fun of Feminist's lack of perspective and humor: "How many feminists does it take to change a light bulb?" "That's NOT FUNNY!")

Taking your observation at face value (that LARP is similar to other forms of creative expression, because why not?) - I look at whether there is anything special about LARP that makes my feelings of unease justified.

Digression: I understand your comment about "this medium is inappropriate to this topic". I take a somewhat Mcluhan-esque view of the matter. The combination of medium and message become entwined, and the resulting construct needs to be judged on what it is, what it means, and what its overall effect becomes. In that sense, while no medium is inappropriate for all topics, some media combinations with some topics make it particularly hard to thread the needle. Maus is so amazing, in part, because it works well AND because it was a tremendous achievement of medium and message. I won't say "never the two together", but I think I am trying to say that "some combinations are exponentially harder than others". End Digression.

As I continue to think about it, I'm clarifying in my mind more about what my objection was, and I'm finding (perhaps stubbornly) that it still remains.

LARP is not the same as a novel, book or movie. Sure, aspects are similar, but it is in the very differences that I find my concerns lay.

1. Mass media are different than small private media.

There is not just a difference in degree (I feel) but a difference in kind, when an experience is small, unique, and non-repeatable. A play, movie or book is an experience that can be shared, can be referred back to, and is intended to be a reference. I feel as if that makes them more accountable - the author/director/actor is going to remain personally responsible for the quality and perception of the result.

The consequences of a bad result in mass and more permanent media help restrain the behaviors of the creators and participants in ways that private and personal media do not.

The benefits of a quality attempt are also wider.

2. Dynamically created media are more diffuse than static media.

For all your attempts and desires for sensitivity (I know you: there is never going to be an accusation of bad faith from me), the resulting experience is unpredictable, and there is little guarantee of sensitivity from the participants.

This goes back, a little, to my accountability point above. But it also goes to whether your intentions can be reliably and predictably expressed.

Of course, if it goes badly, the harm is limited.

This can only end up in differing opinions: I know that. You will weight the risk of it going badly as very low, while I am much less sure, and you will weight the harm if it goes badly as relatively small, and I'm not necessarily in agreement about that either. When people guess about the future, they guess with their existing opinions.

[End part 1 of 2]

[jducoeur]

As you say, we're not likely to come to consensus here, but your points are valid. "Small" artforms are much more varied, for better and worse -- for instance, these objections are often leveled at performance art, and for many of the same reasons: it's often *very* challenging, varies a lot from instance to instance, and is more likely to cross subjective lines of good taste.

As for unpredictability: absolutely true, you're right that I can't control what the players will do. I hope that, by being clear with folks that this is a down-to-earth, serious game, I'll get players who treat it in that spirit -- frankly, it makes for a better run when the players are sympatico with the intent of the author. But that trick sometimes works and sometimes doesn't. (It's worth noting that the same is true of theater as well, albeit usually to a considerably lesser degree.)

I should note, BTW, that all of this is why we (in this case, the Bid Committee that evaluates proposals for the con) pay a fair amount of attention to whether a game has appropriate trigger warnings, and gives a clear sense of what it's about. The sort of reaction you're having is *not* unusual, although it is more frequently a reaction to sexual or gender-identity issues than violence ones. We try fairly hard to make sure that players can judge whether they will find a game personally unpleasant. (Fortunately, having ten tracks at Intercon means that it's usually easy to avoid a game that is a bad fit.)