Nordic LARP Talks just got a bunch of video updates, and I’m making my way through them, but I wanted to flag one up quickly, as it’s a very important topic. One of the nicest bits of feedback I have ever been given about a game I ran is that players could be confident that they wouldn’t come across racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia or anything like that in my games – or at the very least, they could be 99.9% sure that the obnoxious attitude was an entirely IC one. I was delighted to hear that, because I am absolutely determined that my games should be as much of a safe space as I can make them. I have what I hope are clear policies about harassment and unacceptable behaviour at the time in, and in game-related matters, and it seems to have more or less worked. I definitely feel the responsibility to make my LARP space as safe as I can pretty keenly.
At the same time, I like what you might call “mature themes”. I like my LARPs to explore real issues, and that means that they have to deal in a “real” world that isn’t all hugs and puppies. Violence, as I’ve mentioned, is a feature of these games, often quite extreme violence. We’ve had abuse victims, and abusers, as characters. So I am very interested in anyone’s thoughts on ways to manage things so as to be able to include this sort of thing, and still remain a reasonably safe space, so I was immediately drawn to this talk:
This is a talk titled “Ethical Content Management and the Freedom to Create” by Shoshana Kessock. In it she concludes (among other things) that the maintenance of a “safe” space is a community responsibility, rather than just that of the organisers, and further, that by its very nature, LARP cannot ever be considered a 100% safe space.
I think that’s probably true. But this talk has got me thinking about what to do to improve for next time. My mental list is roughly as follows:
- An “unsafe space” warning – clear notifications of what kind of content may or may not feature in the LARP, to serve both as a warning and a rough code of conduct.
- Clearer signposting of the harassment policy – in the last game I ran, I had a couple of players not realise it existed.
- A general reminder to everyone that we’re all collectively responsible for the space.
- Formally implementing “Brake”, “Cut” and “Hold” as techniques – we haven’t needed them yet, but I’d like my players to know they are there.
- I’m contemplating a “no IC sexism/racism/homophobia/transphobia/etc” rule, to go along with the OOC rules.
Can anyone suggest anything else I could add?
Rabalias
6th June 2014 — 12:28 pm
I was going to suggest person-specific lines-not-to-cross. In other words, if someone wants to they can mandate that they not be the target of specific IC behaviours. But that might not work if your game has more than half a dozen or so people or any churn in membership.
It might be better, therefore, to have person-specific lines-to-cross. In other words, unless someone has specifically said it’s ok, certain IC behaviours (to be defined by you the GM, perhaps in consultation with your player base) are banned. And maybe also discussion of the said behaviours also banned, since that too could be triggering.
So: I decide I want to play an abuser, and I want someone to partner up with who I can explore this theme with. You (the GM) already know who, if anyone, has said they’re comfortable with that theme, so you can suggest people who I might approach OOC to discuss it. They still have the option to say “woah, that’s actually crossing a line for me, so no thanks”. Only when they’ve agreed the broad parameters of the IC relationship/behaviours that will be explored is it ok to go ahead, and then only in a way that doesn’t impinge on other people’s space.
Of course, if someone decides they want to have been abused, they can still allude to it, just in a sufficiently vague way that it doesn’t push anyone’s buttons.
You might find that’s overengineered or too restrictive; it would certainly enable some people to explore very dark themes while protecting others, but it does mean a bit of work to get it right.
alasdair
6th June 2014 — 2:28 pm
That’s a great thought, thanks! I think it would have to come with a caveat that specifying a line didn’t mean you’d never hear about something like that, if only because as you note, the admin overhead in ensuring that everyone knew exactly which topics it was OK to mention around a given player would be quite hard, but it would mean that people knew not to actively involve certain players in some strands of the game.
Gordon McDonald
9th June 2014 — 6:40 pm
Rather than banning IC sexism etc as an ooc action, I much prefer the method of stating clearly in the setting docs that this sort of prejudice does not exist and write in a stigma attached to exhibiting those sorts of prejudices.
I also read a great article about establishing clear boundaries on touching other players at the game (even if you are dating each other) in order to allow people to feel more comfortable while representing relationships with people you are not actually in a relationship. I can’t find it now. But, the idea was that you could only make skin to skin contact using the arms below the elbow, hands and cheeks. But, I’m sure it would depend on what your group is comfortable with.
This may also be interesting.
http://www.gamingaswomen.com/posts/2013/08/pearls-or-a-way-to-question-and-explore-norms-through-cultural-play/
alasdair
9th June 2014 — 7:06 pm
Re: writing sexism etc into the setting docs as unacceptable: that’s more or less what I had in mind – with an additional dose of “look guys, if you want to suggest that your character is a bit of a dick, there’s plenty of fictional prejudice in the setting, use that instead”.
The touching only on the arms sounds like it’s an adaption of the ars amandi method that some LARPs use for simulating sex between two PCs, and yeah, the pearls thing does sound interesting – I’m thinking about a how I might want to bring various fictional cultures into the next game, and I’m definitely going to want to think about their cultural norms with regard to sex and relationships, and how those can be surfaced.
Gordon McDonald
9th June 2014 — 7:56 pm
“look guys, if you want to suggest that your character is a bit of a dick, there’s plenty of fictional prejudice in the setting, use that instead”
I do love a bit of IC bigotry. All of my favourite characters have had strong IC prejudices 🙂 Asking people to focus on in game ones sounds like a really good plan as often they get glossed over in the whole “can we not all just get along” mentality of low CvC larps.
Yeah it was ars amandi. I think I probably expanded it in my head to cover general touching because I’m not comfortable with strangers touching me without my explicit permision and this seemed like a good solution.
The pearls thing was emergent RP from a mention in the setting doc. I’d be interested to hear how putting anything deliberate like that into a setting might work. Although I get the feeling Empire have done a good job at cultural briefs (Or longs as I hear they are becoming) and generated a lot of this sort of stuff.