What has LRP ever done for me... by D.A. Lascelles
It is, I suppose, time that I came clean. I have a terrible secret. I am a Live Roleplayer. or a Live Action Roleplayer, or a LRPer or a LARPer or, as it
is often described in a tongue in cheek way, a 'Cross Country Pantominer'. There are several names for it and as many abbreviations but they all amount to the same basic thing: dressing up as characters from fantasy or science fiction settings, running around hitting each other with latex weapons and having a grand old time doing so.
Yes, there is a stigma attached to it. Even tabletop RPGers consider LRP a bit 'weird' sometimes and it lacks the sexy cool cachet of Cosplay despite being largely the same thing but with added imagination (cos LRPers often portray characters of their own design not those others have come up with), more plot (cos the old 'characters from different manga series all happen to meet at a conference and have a drink' plot is a little overused in Cosplay) and roleplaying. However, as the rise of the geek continues so too does the rise of LRP and there are many interesting things occuring all over the world - from the strange and obscurely abstract games being run in parts of Scandanavia to games where you can spend the weekend being sleep deprived while your mates are killed by aliens on a distant space station.
As a long term LRPer (I hesitate to say how long ago it was I first started, let us just say it was during the *last* Conservative government in the UK and hope you don't go to Wikipedia to look it up...) I recently started thinking about how LRP has helped me in my writing and this is what I want to talk to you about today. So, here are a number of ways in which LRP has helped me become a better writer.
1) World design: The devil is in the details
[caption id="attachment_12177" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Just a walk in the park..."]
[/caption]
I have been involved in the design of a number of worlds for LRP ranging from those involving the basic fantasy tropes of elves and dwarves through historic settings such as Victorian steampunk right up to entire galaxies of science fiction planets. The process for designing worlds for LRP is not much different to designing worlds for fantasy or science fiction novels. You ask the same sorts of questions such as: Does this make sense? Is it an engaging world? What makes this different from every other fantasy world out there?
Where LRP differs from novel writing is in the expectations of your readers and the role your readers have in helping you in the process. Your average novel reader expects a detailed and interesting world to explore but they don't necessarily want to have all the details presented to them all at once. In fact, it is considered bad writing to 'info dump' all your world building data onto the page. Instead you leak the details slowly and carefully into the prose, building up a sketch of the world which the readers fill in with their imaginations. This can mean that writers can get away with not necessarily deciding all the details up front. You can make up the details as and when you need them. The plot demands that there is an obscure law in that Kingdom which forbids actors from entering the Palace during official royal audiences? Well, even though you only just thought of it, that rule has suddenly now been in force for hundreds of years and your actor MC is left outside, exactly where you want him to be.
In LRP, however, you have to have more details down on paper for your players to read before they decide to even start playing your game. You don't necessarily need all of the details in place but you do have to have something substantial. Also, you have to write it all out in a form that is readable and entertaining. This forces you to organise your world in more detail in advance and if you take this habit into designing worlds for novels it increases the depth and character of the world.
2) Testing your creations
[caption id="attachment_12178" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Some minor repair work..."]
[/caption]
Just as no plan survives contact with the enemy it is also a truism in LRP that no plot survives contact with the players. When writing a plot for a novel you have absolute control over that plot - you know what the characters are going to do. In LRP you can often be surprised at what the players do with your carefully crafted plotlines. Sometimes they can be quite brutal.
Oddly enough, I have noticed a vague trend in LRP which is counter intuitive. Sometimes simple things can confuse players. Things that you consider to be obvious are missed or take ages for them to solve. Conversely, the most elaborate and convoluted schemes can be stomped through with consumate ease due to some minor loophole that you failed to spot when planning it. The lesson here is that people are not predictable and they can sometimes do things that are unexpected. As a writer, you might have to ask yourself: Is this response by this character appropriate? Is this response too predictable? Am I driving the plot in this direction because it is how the character would react or simply because that is what I think serves the story best? Surprising outcomes to plotlines have to be the goal you are aiming for at least some of the time otherwise you risk falling into patterns that can make your work staid. With this goal in mind, it might sometimes be worthwhile a writer setting up a roleplay session with friends in order to test out situations and see how these friends react when they are playing those characters. In fact, I recently heard a rumour which suggested that the Wild Cards series was actually based on the exploits of a gaming group George RR Martin was involved in. It obviously worked for him...
3) Visualisation
[caption id="attachment_12173" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="The Arena built for PD's Odyssey event"]
[/caption]
How many authors get to see their creations brought to life? Not all that many, really. Unless you are lucky enough to be picked up by Hollywood or HBO, there is little chance of seeing what your characters and worlds look like save in your imagination. LRP writers on the other hand do see their worlds realised in the flesh. OK, said visualisation may lack something in terms of special effects and big budget action (though some are very high quality) but LRPers more than make up for that in enthusiasm and creativity. Besides, the days of cloaks made from curtains and swords made from gaffer tape are long gone. Modern LRP has a lot of talent involved in creating costume, make up and prosthetics and some larger events are investing in massive set piece items such as arenas and pyramids.
I have on a number of occasions been approached by players keen to point out to me the cool things they have done based on setting information I have written. These have included making special jewellry (using circuit boards for a post apocalyptic tribe who saw them as a fashion item), designing computer fonts to represent alien languages and making banners and similar with heraldic devices or logos. There is a lot of pleasure in seeing that someone else has clearly read what you have written and totally got it - enough to recreate your vision in a physical form.
There is also the matter of players adding a lot of detail to your creation. By playing in your world they will inevitably embellish on what you have written. Cities that are described in terms of name, physical location and a list of important buildings or inhabitants suddenly acquire street names, accents and other minor details. For example, in one game a player made up the name of their tailor off the top of their head because someone asked them where they acquired their clothes. Before long a form of social osmosis had occured which meant that the tailor in question was renowned as 'the best in the city' and absolutely anyone worth their salt used him for all their clothing needs despite needing to pay a higher price. In a way, this process is similar to what an author will do when highlighting an area of their world important to the plot but it happens in a more organic manner. The effect on the atmosphere of the world can be astonishing.
4) Discipline
[caption id="attachment_12180" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Pulling an all nighter to save the world..."]
[/caption]
Writers sometimes seem obsessed with word counts. Many log their word counts obsessively, some even report them on twitter as they are writing*. Many people follow the advice that in order to be a successful writer you have to write a certain number of words per day. In the build up to a recent event, the writing team (of which I was a member) examined the number of words they had written between them in the past few weeks. We were surprised as the amount was well over 100,000 words. Ok, this was between about 4 of us and most of those words were aimed at administration and other less creative goals but it was still an impressive amount and I don't think any of us truly realised how much work was actually going into it. My own contribution to the above was relatively minor (less than 10K at my last count) but in other games it has been more substantial.
Rules and background information can often be novel sized enterprises in their own right - clocking up 50K or more words between them. Then there are plot documents, non player character briefs, player character briefs, in character documents such as letters to be delivered to characters during the game, out of character documents detailing how to get to the site... the list goes on and on and these are not small pieces of work. The amount of work involved in writing Player briefs, for example, is often phenomenal. In most games these days, each player expects to receive a document detailing what their character has been doing in the time since the last game, including results of any actions they have taken. Each of these amounts to pieces of flash fiction which can be up to 1000 words each and more in some cases. In an event of about 50 players (not unusual, the last event I was involved in had that many) that relates to a lot of writing in what is often a very short period of time. A lot of my time at university, when I should have been doing more academic things, was spent staying up until the early hours on the day of an event desperately trying to get the final player briefs written. On several occasions, I would start in the morning and finish sometime in the early hours - around 3 or 4am - only to have to get up at 8am to carry out the more practical and physical aspects of game organisation such as set dressing or photocopying sheets. This is why your average LRP referee often looks harrassed and spaced out.
Therefore, LRP writers get used to short deadlines and a lot of words to get through with limited time for editing or review of what is produced. This is not a bad thng for a writer to learn and is probably also why many journalists also make reasonably good novel writers because they too often have to write to ludicrous deadlines. It is a case of become disciplined and get the bloody thing written no matter how badly written it is or don't bother.
So, there you have it. A few of the ways in which I think LRP has helped me to become a better writer. I am not saying that all writers should explore LRP as a hobby but I think it is certainly worth considering strapping on your armour and getting out into some fantasy world or other to hit things with lumps of foam and latex...
Finally, here is a link to a photovideo with voice over recorded for a steampunk event. The photos are mine, the words belong to Mr Mikey Smith and the voice belongs to Mr R. McBride. I add it purely for interest.
*Yeah, ok, I am guilty of this too...
is often described in a tongue in cheek way, a 'Cross Country Pantominer'. There are several names for it and as many abbreviations but they all amount to the same basic thing: dressing up as characters from fantasy or science fiction settings, running around hitting each other with latex weapons and having a grand old time doing so.Yes, there is a stigma attached to it. Even tabletop RPGers consider LRP a bit 'weird' sometimes and it lacks the sexy cool cachet of Cosplay despite being largely the same thing but with added imagination (cos LRPers often portray characters of their own design not those others have come up with), more plot (cos the old 'characters from different manga series all happen to meet at a conference and have a drink' plot is a little overused in Cosplay) and roleplaying. However, as the rise of the geek continues so too does the rise of LRP and there are many interesting things occuring all over the world - from the strange and obscurely abstract games being run in parts of Scandanavia to games where you can spend the weekend being sleep deprived while your mates are killed by aliens on a distant space station.
As a long term LRPer (I hesitate to say how long ago it was I first started, let us just say it was during the *last* Conservative government in the UK and hope you don't go to Wikipedia to look it up...) I recently started thinking about how LRP has helped me in my writing and this is what I want to talk to you about today. So, here are a number of ways in which LRP has helped me become a better writer.
1) World design: The devil is in the details
[caption id="attachment_12177" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Just a walk in the park..."]
[/caption]I have been involved in the design of a number of worlds for LRP ranging from those involving the basic fantasy tropes of elves and dwarves through historic settings such as Victorian steampunk right up to entire galaxies of science fiction planets. The process for designing worlds for LRP is not much different to designing worlds for fantasy or science fiction novels. You ask the same sorts of questions such as: Does this make sense? Is it an engaging world? What makes this different from every other fantasy world out there?
Where LRP differs from novel writing is in the expectations of your readers and the role your readers have in helping you in the process. Your average novel reader expects a detailed and interesting world to explore but they don't necessarily want to have all the details presented to them all at once. In fact, it is considered bad writing to 'info dump' all your world building data onto the page. Instead you leak the details slowly and carefully into the prose, building up a sketch of the world which the readers fill in with their imaginations. This can mean that writers can get away with not necessarily deciding all the details up front. You can make up the details as and when you need them. The plot demands that there is an obscure law in that Kingdom which forbids actors from entering the Palace during official royal audiences? Well, even though you only just thought of it, that rule has suddenly now been in force for hundreds of years and your actor MC is left outside, exactly where you want him to be.
In LRP, however, you have to have more details down on paper for your players to read before they decide to even start playing your game. You don't necessarily need all of the details in place but you do have to have something substantial. Also, you have to write it all out in a form that is readable and entertaining. This forces you to organise your world in more detail in advance and if you take this habit into designing worlds for novels it increases the depth and character of the world.
2) Testing your creations
[caption id="attachment_12178" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Some minor repair work..."]
[/caption]Just as no plan survives contact with the enemy it is also a truism in LRP that no plot survives contact with the players. When writing a plot for a novel you have absolute control over that plot - you know what the characters are going to do. In LRP you can often be surprised at what the players do with your carefully crafted plotlines. Sometimes they can be quite brutal.
Oddly enough, I have noticed a vague trend in LRP which is counter intuitive. Sometimes simple things can confuse players. Things that you consider to be obvious are missed or take ages for them to solve. Conversely, the most elaborate and convoluted schemes can be stomped through with consumate ease due to some minor loophole that you failed to spot when planning it. The lesson here is that people are not predictable and they can sometimes do things that are unexpected. As a writer, you might have to ask yourself: Is this response by this character appropriate? Is this response too predictable? Am I driving the plot in this direction because it is how the character would react or simply because that is what I think serves the story best? Surprising outcomes to plotlines have to be the goal you are aiming for at least some of the time otherwise you risk falling into patterns that can make your work staid. With this goal in mind, it might sometimes be worthwhile a writer setting up a roleplay session with friends in order to test out situations and see how these friends react when they are playing those characters. In fact, I recently heard a rumour which suggested that the Wild Cards series was actually based on the exploits of a gaming group George RR Martin was involved in. It obviously worked for him...
3) Visualisation
[caption id="attachment_12173" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="The Arena built for PD's Odyssey event"]
[/caption]How many authors get to see their creations brought to life? Not all that many, really. Unless you are lucky enough to be picked up by Hollywood or HBO, there is little chance of seeing what your characters and worlds look like save in your imagination. LRP writers on the other hand do see their worlds realised in the flesh. OK, said visualisation may lack something in terms of special effects and big budget action (though some are very high quality) but LRPers more than make up for that in enthusiasm and creativity. Besides, the days of cloaks made from curtains and swords made from gaffer tape are long gone. Modern LRP has a lot of talent involved in creating costume, make up and prosthetics and some larger events are investing in massive set piece items such as arenas and pyramids.
I have on a number of occasions been approached by players keen to point out to me the cool things they have done based on setting information I have written. These have included making special jewellry (using circuit boards for a post apocalyptic tribe who saw them as a fashion item), designing computer fonts to represent alien languages and making banners and similar with heraldic devices or logos. There is a lot of pleasure in seeing that someone else has clearly read what you have written and totally got it - enough to recreate your vision in a physical form.
There is also the matter of players adding a lot of detail to your creation. By playing in your world they will inevitably embellish on what you have written. Cities that are described in terms of name, physical location and a list of important buildings or inhabitants suddenly acquire street names, accents and other minor details. For example, in one game a player made up the name of their tailor off the top of their head because someone asked them where they acquired their clothes. Before long a form of social osmosis had occured which meant that the tailor in question was renowned as 'the best in the city' and absolutely anyone worth their salt used him for all their clothing needs despite needing to pay a higher price. In a way, this process is similar to what an author will do when highlighting an area of their world important to the plot but it happens in a more organic manner. The effect on the atmosphere of the world can be astonishing.
4) Discipline
[caption id="attachment_12180" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Pulling an all nighter to save the world..."]
[/caption]Writers sometimes seem obsessed with word counts. Many log their word counts obsessively, some even report them on twitter as they are writing*. Many people follow the advice that in order to be a successful writer you have to write a certain number of words per day. In the build up to a recent event, the writing team (of which I was a member) examined the number of words they had written between them in the past few weeks. We were surprised as the amount was well over 100,000 words. Ok, this was between about 4 of us and most of those words were aimed at administration and other less creative goals but it was still an impressive amount and I don't think any of us truly realised how much work was actually going into it. My own contribution to the above was relatively minor (less than 10K at my last count) but in other games it has been more substantial.
Rules and background information can often be novel sized enterprises in their own right - clocking up 50K or more words between them. Then there are plot documents, non player character briefs, player character briefs, in character documents such as letters to be delivered to characters during the game, out of character documents detailing how to get to the site... the list goes on and on and these are not small pieces of work. The amount of work involved in writing Player briefs, for example, is often phenomenal. In most games these days, each player expects to receive a document detailing what their character has been doing in the time since the last game, including results of any actions they have taken. Each of these amounts to pieces of flash fiction which can be up to 1000 words each and more in some cases. In an event of about 50 players (not unusual, the last event I was involved in had that many) that relates to a lot of writing in what is often a very short period of time. A lot of my time at university, when I should have been doing more academic things, was spent staying up until the early hours on the day of an event desperately trying to get the final player briefs written. On several occasions, I would start in the morning and finish sometime in the early hours - around 3 or 4am - only to have to get up at 8am to carry out the more practical and physical aspects of game organisation such as set dressing or photocopying sheets. This is why your average LRP referee often looks harrassed and spaced out.
Therefore, LRP writers get used to short deadlines and a lot of words to get through with limited time for editing or review of what is produced. This is not a bad thng for a writer to learn and is probably also why many journalists also make reasonably good novel writers because they too often have to write to ludicrous deadlines. It is a case of become disciplined and get the bloody thing written no matter how badly written it is or don't bother.
So, there you have it. A few of the ways in which I think LRP has helped me to become a better writer. I am not saying that all writers should explore LRP as a hobby but I think it is certainly worth considering strapping on your armour and getting out into some fantasy world or other to hit things with lumps of foam and latex...
Finally, here is a link to a photovideo with voice over recorded for a steampunk event. The photos are mine, the words belong to Mr Mikey Smith and the voice belongs to Mr R. McBride. I add it purely for interest.
*Yeah, ok, I am guilty of this too...
