Costume trials and tribulations by Matt Pennington

I have an confession to make. It's sort of an embarrassing condition for a LRPer, and doubly so for someone who runs LRP games that extol the virtues of good costume.

I hate costume.

I don't mean the physical thing of course, I don't have an actual hatred for bits of material and props and stuff. No, what I really absolutely 

the kit of terror -All rights Ian Heath

loathe with a passion is the process of getting a costume together.

The hatred is visceral and deep seated. I very nearly cancelled a ticket for a LRP event for which I had paid £200 because when faced with the prospect of having to get a costume together for it - I just couldn't bear the thought of having to go through that awful experience. In the end I did go, but "work avoidance" hit so bad, that I put off the need to sort costume for nine months... getting steadily more desperate with every passing day as I did literally anything other than sort my costume. In the end I threw myself on the tender mercy of a friend who doesn't LRP - and they helped me sort a costume. Sort of the one-eyed man leading the wilfully blind.

I accept I could be wrong, but I think there are some people in our hobby who enjoy sorting costume. In my head this is a bit like enjoying the prospect of root canal treatment without anaesthetic. How can anyone enjoy something so agonizingly painful, so unpleasant? I don't actually spend much time wondering how they do enjoy it, what I find more interesting is why I hate it so much. I have a sneaking suspicion that while I might be something of a caricature on the subject, for once I represent normal.

For me, for something to be this painful, two conditions need to be met. (1) it needs to be something I'm really bad at and (2) it needs to be something that is very important. I'm really bad at cooking - I mean desperately bad at cooking, but I never give that a moments thought because it's just food so it doesn't really matter - at least it doesn't in our house. I'm really bad at loads of things, but most of the time they're just not important.

What I consider important can change over time. Like many LRPers, I'm desperately bad at football. At school I was only saved the embarrassment of being picked last each day by the presence of a little crippled midget lesbian boy. Being good at football was the basic requirement for social acceptance, being unable to dribble, shoot, or pass meant bullying and isolation. I responded in my usual **** you manner by refusing to participate - which was a problem when the law mandates regular physical bullying at schools. The result was frequent detentions and an enduring hated for our "national sport".

After university came an epiphany. I was suddenly part of a social group that played football for exercise and for fun, rather than as a means for identifying targets for bullying and social ostracism. Suddenly football was FUN! I mean I was still hillariously awful - we would all laugh at my utter inability to do *anything* other than a frantic waddle. I play football like a penguin being chased over snow by a polar bear - but now it didn't matter anymore. And once it didn't matter.... it stopped being painful and immediately became fun.

I'm bad at sorting costume. Making it is not a problem. Making things is a technical thing - I'm not very good at it, but really any idiot can thread a sewing machine and push the pedal. You just follow the instructions. Anyone can thread a needle and push it through some material. Of course I'm a bit cack handed and I struggle with any pattern more complicated than a cloak - but I've made lots of kit, the making of it is just a thing.

It's *thinking* about costume that I hate. Trying to work out what it should look like. Trying to decide what colour it should be, what shape, what material. I'm desperately bad at this. Which bits of costume to put with which. It's not a technical matter - what looks right, what looks good - it's a matter of taste. And I don't have any. As a result I find the entire process excruciatingly difficult. It's like trying to think in five dimensions, or trying to imagine what a new colour looks like. My five year old daughter already exhibits far more clothes sense than I will ever have. My brain just can't do it.

Yeah, yeah, whine, whine, who gives a shit? I'm bad at lots of things - they don't cause me pain like this one - why is this one so important to me that it is capable of tormenting me like this? That's what is I find fascinating - why is this such a big deal? LRP's just a game, it's just for fun.

I didn't use to care. When I first started LRPing I was part of a club which made leather armour using brown furniture leatherette. If we wanted studded leather armour... we put paperclips through the leatherette. Kit standards were not great, but you wore armour so that you could get Armour Class 17 - it didn't matter what it looked like!

Then I went to my first national LRP event and suddenly I met LRPers who had great looking kit. Briefly I experienced some of the old familiar anxiety. Was my kit good enough? Would I look stupid? But my friends assured me that my leatherette armour with 8,000 curtain rings sewed to it and a shield made of cardboard was good enough and off I went. I soon discovered there were people with gaffa-tape weapons and karrimat armour - whew... I was ok.

In the years that followed, kit standards steadily improved - but I learned to freeload. If I was going to an event then I'd get myself in a group with friends going - we'd agree the kit together (they would agree, I would nod). Without realizing it, I was making two mistakes - I was seeking out events where kit standards were promoted - because I enjoyed them more. But I was also getting to know an awful lot of people - this is a great hobby full of great people. As I got to know them... I became friends with them... and suddenly I cared what they thought.

And then the worst mistake of all, I started running events - professionally - that stressed the benefits of good costume. And what that means is that if I don't have at least bearable costume... then I don't just look stupid - I also look like a fraud and a hypocrite in front of my friends. So suddenly I care immensely about something I know I'm horrendously bad at. And that means that preparing for an event suddenly becomes unbearably painful - at least it does if I have to make my own costume choices.

Now I imagine that most folks don't have to worry about their professional reputation when considering their LRP costume, (although I suspect that is a problem for some LRP traders), but I know from talking to LRPers over the years that I'm not the only one who suffers from this anxiety. The truth is that it's a lot more common in our hobby than we think and by and large we don't talk about it.

Why? Why on earth would we care? I mean seriously, this is a game, we do it for FUN. How could it possibly be important what we look like when we're dressing up as elves and goblins and pretending to cast spells at each other? Get a grip right?

To look at it differently for a moment, why wouldn't we care? In the real world people are obsessed with their image. Maybe it's cultural, a product of society, maybe it's genetic and we're all just peacocks dragging round enormous tails. Whatever the reason, few people would coherently argue that human beings are disinterested in their appearance. We don't have a global fashion industry worth billions because appearance is just silly and nobody really cares. Our sense of our self, of who we are, is intimately wrapped up in our appearance. I'm not concerned here with the ethics of why our self-esteem is so tightly wrapped up with our appearance - I'm simply pointing out the blatant truism that it is.

If there are deep-rooted psychological or genetic reasons why our appearance is massively important to us - then it seems to me that it would be incredible if that didn't bleed into LRP. Sure, this is "just for fun"... but actually most of life is "just for fun". When teenagers go nightclubbing, it's just for fun - but judging from the time and money invested, when we socialize is precisely when our concerns about our appearance are most powerful.

The moment we start to make an issue of costume, encouraging each other to make an effort with our kit then I'd expect to see some negative responses in terms of people feeling anxious, awkward, or concerned. The plural of anecdote is not data, but talking to LRPers -and to other organizers I've accumulated scores of war-stories that expose exactly this kind of concern, expressed in many different ways.

Up to now that's always been an intellectual concern to me, albeit one that impacts my games heavily. I desperately want players to make an effort with their kit - the more effort they make the better the game is. But nobody wants their players to be intimidated, anxious, or upset by the thought of joining the game. What surprised me this year, having gone to play an event which had high kit aspirations and for which I had no existing costume - was how visceral my own response to those fears was. I'm normally an incredibly confident person - I wouldn't argue with the word "arrogant" - but I was at my wit's end here doing something I knew I was bad at because I hadn't realized how important the end results were to me.

Going fowards, I hope we see costume standards improve over the next decade the way they have over the last. But to make that happen with as little pain as possible, I think it would be valuable to find ways to encourage people to want better costume that don't provoke our anxieties that we will be judged by our appearance and found wanting. Maybe we won't manage that - but if we do then I think the starting point is probably the realization that our appearance in front of our peers is as important in LRP as it is in the real world.

Great kit (from an unknown hero)? -all rights Tom Garnett

Don't fear personal plot

by Martin Gill

What’s your favourite film?

Is it the one with the awesome special effects where the heroes spend the entire time scratching their heads, wondering why people they've never met before are attacking them? The one where the heroes have deep, complex back-stories involving the lust for revenge, unrequited love, long-lost friends and deep, dark secrets, but none of that is ever referenced in the movie and the whole thing is shallow and lacks motivation? Or maybe the one where none of the heroes have any emotional link to the villain, and really don’t care one way or another whether their evil plan works or fails?

No?

You wouldn't watch those movies, they’d be boring. The characters wouldn't tie into the plot and there’d be no emotional investment in either the hero or the villain living or dying, winning or losing.

So why do so many LARP events play out like this?

I'm constantly stunned when I hear (and I have done frequently) experienced, established event organisers make comments like “I don’t want personal plot, it gets in the way.” To me, that’s a ridiculous position to take. It shows a fundamental misunderstanding of what engages audiences. It’s a flawed and even arrogant assumption to assume that just because you've written an uber-complex backstory and a wicked plot with some cool set-piece encounters, anyone is actually going to give a crap about it in- or out of character. 

Not every event has to be deeply interactive, but every event should be engaging, and the players should feel linked to the plot and able to impact its outcome in some way. Otherwise, it’s just fancy-dress sport. The best props, set dressing and combats in the world mean nothing if none of the players care why they are there, and worse still, often unfathomable plots and uber-NPCs mean that the players are unable to influence the outcome of events, so feel even more disenfranchised. Amy Farrah Fowler eloquently describes this phenomenon in Big Bang Theory…

“Indiana Jones plays no role in the outcome of the story. If he weren't in the film, it would turn out exactly the same… If he weren't in the movie, the Nazis would still have found the Ark, taken it to the island, opened it up, and all died, just like they did.”

Personal plot doesn't have to mean that every player has a set of richly described and acted NPCs. It can, and often that makes the experience even richer for the player, but it can be as simple as tying players into the main events of the weekend so they feel as if they can influence the outcome of the story in some way. You don’t have to re-write your entire plot – just tweak it so that it’s personally relevant to your players. Orcs killed someone’s family? Well then make the orc baddies members of that very clan, not another random bunch of orcs. Give the chieftain a one line, throwaway comment at the start of one of the combats as he points at said player and yells “Ha, I killed your father, now you die.” It doesn't take much, but that minor change suddenly makes that entire plot ABOUT that character, rather than it HAPPENING TO a bunch of characters that are really neither here-nor-there about it. 

Personally, I believe in going a hell of a lot further when it comes to immersion and personalization of the LARP experience to your players. I’ll write more on that in the future. But for now, here’s my rallying call to event organisers everywhere.

Don’t fear personal plot.

Plot and brief writing - finding the perfect formula by Martin Gill

All Rights Martin Gill

How to write an awesome character background that refs will love

“Grythor the Ranger was born in the remote village of Oldbridge in the northern territories. He wandered the woods as a child, learning the secret paths of the forests and even at times, the very tongues of the animals. He was taught the old ways by Harborth the druid, who died leaving no other apprentices. But one day, on the morn of his sixteenth birthday, he returned to his village to find naught but charred ruin. His mother and father lay dead, as did all of the villagers. Grythor’s superlative tracking skills allowed him to follow the trail through the forests. There he found orcs, a tribe of them. For the next five years, Grythor waged bloody war upon the Severed Hand tribe, slaying every last one of them. Dead. Now, his revenge complete, he has become an adventurer.”

Sound depressingly familiar?

I’ve been running LARP in one form or another for more than 20 years now. I’ve lost count of the number of backgrounds I’ve read which enter into excruciating detail about their characters favorite food, the cities they visited while they were on their gap year or the shade of autumnal gold their dead girlfriend’s hair shimmered under the light of the setting sun.

Who cares?

OK, so maybe you do as a player, because it adds richness to the way you portray your character, which is all good. But as an event organizer, this often doesn’t help me. Here’s why. Far too many character backgrounds are either way too long, masking important detail amidst needless ephemera, or are so short as to contain almost no useful hooks an organizer can work with. Worse still, they outline a plot hook (orcs killed my parents…) then close all possibility of that story continuing (…and I slew every last one of them), forcing organizers to dream up ghosts, long-lost orcs and such to persist what was obviously a pivotal moment in your character’s development. But the biggest crime most backgrounds commit is they tell us nothing about how you see your ongoing story arc progressing.

They look backwards, not forwards.

So how can you change this? Well, here’s three simple things you can do to write a background that event organizers can have fun with, and in turn provide fun for you…

Be clear on what’s important and what isn’t. Sure, dream up tons of detail on the names of your four cousins, their dogs and cats and what flavor cake they all like. But if it’s minor detail, leave it out, or at least provide a summary of the critical components to help the refs (who are reading dozens of these things).  For instance, “My wife has been kidnapped, I’m searching for her”. Additional details include, I’m Catholic, I was educated at Oxford, I have a BA in History, I admire the poetry of Yeats, I have a sister who lives in San Francisco who owns a book shop. All interesting things that your refs can riff on, but not the main point, and presented in 10 pages of wordy prose, mask what’s actually important.

Be open and leave hooks. We are back to the “…and I slew every last one of them” vibe. Invent enemies, foils, problems, things you haven’t solved, weaknesses. What’s going to haunt you? What do you need to resolve? “I’m a space smuggler with a broken down old ship that’s prone to conking out, a price on my head that every bounty-hunter this side of Ord Mantell wants to collect and a penchant for princesses.” Which leads us to…

Tell us what you want to happen to you. What’s you character’s story? Revenge? Finding love? Hitting it big? A descent into madness? Finding his kidnapped wife? Focusing on what you want to happen next is a much more direct way of telling the organisers what you will enjoy at the event, rather than forcing them to try and interpret what you want form the detail of your background. Sometimes, your story might not fit, in which case the organisers can be honest and let you know you might need to think of a different approach. But you reduce the risk of coming away form an event saying “well, my character really wanted to find his kidnaped wife, but she never showed up” because the organisers lost that critical hook in the morass of other information.

Think about what you want to happen to your character, not what has happened, and remember that your event organisers aren’t psychic. Be concise, be open, tell them what you want form the event and sure, invent tons of detail, but leave that for your own characterization.

Your background makes your character who she is today. It’s what you do on events that makes LARP fun. Make it easy for organisers to give you what you want.

Typical crew! - all rights Martin Gill

LRP Catering diary - a humorous portrait

A year to go you agree to make food for a planned event.

6 months to go you send in a proposed menu and ask for £15 a head, it is haggled down to £10, you adjust the menu accordingly, then are encouraged to do the original one.... For £10 a head.

3 months to go - there is a discussion about making in-character food, that looks bad, but tastes good. You explain that they asked you to do it because you like making nice food. If they wanted prison food they could just buy tins. They discuss adding dye to make your good food look bad. You politely decline.

2 months to go - a picnic, tea, coffee, baby food, loo roll, washing up liquid, bin bags, milk and in character pizza oven are requested as part of the budget.

1 month to go - you are asked what roles you can also "do" to help. They say crew will wash up to help you. The least you can do is have a character name and background, you think this up and send it in.

3 weeks to go - they think about moving the location of the dining and ask if you could deliver it by rickshaw. Still no numbers or cash.

Two weeks to go, you celebrate the coming of cash... you mourn as the numbers have increased. You ask whether anyone has allergies to be aware of and are bombarded by requests to avoid foods they dislike. You work out you have to make 6 different meals per serving. One of the party only appears to imbibe dust and water.

One week to go - you go to the warehouse after work and buy a car full of food.  The whole week you return home from work to cook until 11 pm and then wash up. Your work clothes, bed etc. all smell of roast pork. You scrape together 2 unmatched socks and a pair of pants as you haven't managed to do laundry in 2 weeks.

Friday morning - you pack car and drive a long way through the worst weather and hold ups. A 4 hour trip is made infinitely more jolly by the addition of 3 hours.

Friday night - you arrive late, unpack in a rainstorm, carry it all to site and get food on to heat. Then get into kit so as not to ruin the atmosphere. All the players queue up with plates from the moment they smell food and bay like ravenous hounds until fed. You then get the scraps and wash and clean up for an hour. You have a vague notion you will stay up for a while - then remember the breakfast preparation and go to set up your tent in a hailstorm and fall into a damp cold bed.

Saturday morning - you are up at 7 to get breakfast going. This is made more difficult by the night owls having trashed the place. The early birds also constantly enquire over hot drinks. Everyone wants all the food asap. Despite saying you will finish breakfast at 10, you have folks asking what's left at 11.30.

Saturday lunch - after a restful 30 minutes sitting down where you nodded and smiled to some folks whilst mentally going through the prep for lunch - you prep for lunch. Once started you are invariably asked when it will be ready by the refs- there never seems to be an answer that will NOT result in the request for it to be an hour later. Guess what? - still no washing up help...

Enjoy the 2 hour sojourn - perhaps get some sun on you while you walk to the toilet or wash your face. True masters often enjoy a penny-lean snooze. On field events you enjoy the second walk to the tap for a gallon of fresh water and on your way carry 3 bin bags mostly full of cans and empty bottles.

Saturday dinner- only 3 of the planned 8 vegetarians turn up, but they seem to have been replaced by another 6 "I want all meat and won't eat vegetables" types. You think you are nearly finished but are asked feed some folks that were busy running encounters - at 10pm. You eventually clean and wash up. You fall into bed exhausted.

Sunday morning - alarm fails and you run ragged trying to get breakfast done asap. Portion sizes on previous must have been wrong or you catered for an extra 6 without realising. Items run out before service ends. Sad faces and grumps make you miserable.

Begin clean of catering kitchen - it has not been cleaned thoroughly for about a year...filters on cooker produce a crude oil that could run the gennie. On field events you disassemble your kitchen and have to carry it back to the car as everyone else is busy.

You only make enough to cover going to the event.
You work for about 6 hours every day, standing up.

So why does anyone do it?! ....for the appreciation and recognition. Seeing folks enjoy their food is a massive buzz. Knowing you add to an event for your friends is great too. 

So let us love larp caterers! Show appreciation, and if you have complaints, don't share them, because they are not running a business, instead they just worked a whole week AND weekend to try and make your event better.

Birthing monsters

This is a great site from a German larper who is kind enough to show pictures and explain how he constructed various "big baddies." Most of the pages are translated to English, and the construction pictures are very useful. Most are constructed simply with foam and glue and latex, so no expensive materials. He also includes tips on what can go wrong and how to fix it - such as trying helmets on with armour to see if they fit! well worth a look.
http://larp-monsterbau.de/html/english.html

all rights Alexander Beseke

Buccaneers of the Damned : Review by Georgie Urchin

all rights: Oscar Plummer

Buccaneers of the Damned: part 1: The Ship or Once Upon a Time…

Gather round lads and lasses, gather round!

So I’ll tell you a tale, as best as I can Though it beggars belief both in God and of Man

Of a shipwreck and strangers left in a far land, Of those who would aid them and those with other plans…

Of mystery, adventure and a little romance, Of loss, life and choices made by the seat of our pants!

Of friendship and brotherhood, terror, rum and gold But first we should look to our players some fold:

Of Jack the dual hearted; one coin with two sides A sweet natured simpleton and the fiend that he hides

Of Hans the librarian and writer; The Clerk, With a wealth of all knowledge to light up the dark

Of Alfie whose warnings we heard far to late, Decades rescuing souls for far worse a fate

Of Harry a hero and loon of a hound Without whom our company would not have been found

Of the Man known as Hook and a lady called Pip And this tale of adventure begins and ends with a Ship…

Or more precisely a ship wreck! Which saw us as players dressed in the barest minimum of character kit with which we had escaped the disaster and swum to shore. Given that this was a weekend in mid October after one of the wettest weeks of the year and I was in bloomers and an 18th Century nightgown, the whole thing might have been daunting. Except that what followed has to be the most intense, exciting, frightening and emotionally charged event I have ever played! I've been Larping for 13 years and role-playing for much longer but hands down this has to be my Best. Event. Ever!

The song is about you! EyeLARP or FilmSim is very different to anything I've played before. For a start from the moment you arrive you feel like the story is about you! And not in a lime light hugging prima donna way but through all sorts of subtle and ingenious interactions with characters and situations whether heroic or terrifying. This is partly down to genius writing and high production value hosting (its VERY pretty, more of that later), partly down to the player cap of 100 and partly down to the fact that the EyeLARP crew are integrated seamlessly within the player base. While some characters are obviously NPCs, they all felt real and accessible to anyone. We honestly had no idea we had crew in with us until much later, what we would term IC as “too late!”

Production values or ‘oh my gods they’ve built a shanty town!’ And a fort and a gypsy camp and a fishing village and tavern and, and and…The advantage to having a dedicated site is that you can do many cool things and in the 65 acres of Eversely, cool things have indeed happened! The moment we pulled back the curtain on EyeLarp (it IS actually a canvas curtain separating the car park from the rest of the site, I’m not waxing lyrical here!) we were instantly in 1718. There were shops and the ability to buy food, a Governor’s building with maps, writing paraphernalia, pictures and a stab at civilisation, IC cooking, drinking, gaming or simply sitting enjoying the sunshine/evening ambience with a glass or two of something straight from Morpheus’ own cellar! Even without an amazing adventure going on it is an incredible place just to hang out and be in character. Although quite how they arranged the super spooky, atmospheric mist covering the trees Sunday morning I’m still not sure! Dressed to kill… Initially we had been worried about costume requirements, as no one had 1700s specific kit and we've found some systems to be bullyingly fascistic about this sort of thing. We needn't have worried. While all the kit looked like a very high standard and a few people certainly seemed to have spent some cash on it, you could see the small cheats and nods to comfort and not dying OOC, all of which was accepted and encouraged by EyeLARP. The game had such great variety of characters and people that pretty much anything IC looking was acceptable. Though initially ship wrecked and raggedy in attire, due to the fast forward in game time on the Saturday, we were also able to show our finery or at least a better set of rags as the case may be. All the while the cast and crew looked the absolute picture of red coats, fine ladies, assorted gentlemen, ruffians and scoundrels (some of whom turned out to be the same people!), a surprisingly large number of Celtic types and for my part a little French.

Shivering our timbers! Another difference with FilmSim is the care they take of their players. It was October and while we were exceptionally lucky with the weather, the evenings were chilly. Fires were lit in barrels in the streets, candles and lanterns lined the buildings and tables providing both amazing ambience and also warmth. Hot soup and bread was available the first evening along with a mighty fire pit for when we were running about in our undercrackers. It was all IC and all very much appreciated, and a light port and amaretto booze jacket helped a little too

It’s the world against us and us against the world! And the world was clearly laid out at the player briefing Friday night, and each morning to make sure everyone was good with what was going on and understood everything. This meant there was not the usual Friday rush to try and get IC for one specific time but a gentle insertion of people into the environment, which worked really well and was much more believable. It also encouraged people to be there at time in, there were other IC motivations too but I digress.

More like Guidelines! The rules are simple: there are no hard rules, just guidelines. You have 3 skills, yes 3, which NO ONE will ever really call you on as they are guidelines for your character not a rod for your back. You MUST react to things, being hit, hitting others etc. so it is all as cinematic as possible. Trust me, this is dead easy after what happened at this event! And you have one hit…global. One. Count it! Now hold onto it because your life literally depends upon it! I’m not really a crunch or system buff, but my friends are and they found this concept scary initially but then utterly liberating the moment we started playing because the game was all about what you can do and how you affect what is round you. And boy does it encourage team work! Especially when the player base is so small, you have to survive together. Guidelines can influence and change and as a result everything we did felt like it had an impact and not just because you were the best fighter or the loudest voice but because you had a role to play, were part of the story and adventure and covered in peril!

Adventure! Or be careful what you wish for… And then of course there was the specific plot…Which…I’m not going to tell you, because let’s face it; you’d never believe me anyway! And you never know if you happen to be washed ashore here then I’ll let you experience this first hand…anything I say will lead you to make assumptions and the choices in this one should all be your own and on your own soul be the consequences!

There’ll be no living with her after this…. And currently there really isn’t! I’ve frothed like a loon at my nearest and dearest, at my work colleagues, at my friends, at my pilates instructor (its cool she helped sort my bloomers!) I’ve even written poetry for crying out loud! And I’m not alone! The insane bond that this event has forged is incredible! There are people who I didn’t know Friday morning and who I don’t really know now, but I’d help save them, defend them, die for them even and certainly follow them into whatever crazy is planned for next May! It’s a LARP for goodness sake, how have we all got this much keen?! We played for 2 days and an evening and now we’ve created groups and plots and plans on social media, we’ve got a meet up at the beginning on November, we may even try and run the next 3 years (which is when the next event is set) as a table top game so we know our new backstory.

What’s our heading Captain? And all of this is because of EyeLarp/FilmSim awesomeness and a good friend who said “D’ya wanna come and be pirates?!” So people, if someone asks you that, then you damn well make sure you turn pirate, find a Captain and we’ll see how you fare. After all, to LARP is an awfully big adventure…

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To be part of the next "film-sim" adventure join the facebook group - Norsemen Saga

Flying Lead

Continuing our western LRP theme here are some great pictures from Gunman Airsoft and Wyvern Airsoft - Flying Lead

Interestingly these events authentic western period airsoft guns for battles, so if you are hit you are hit! This is why you can see eye protection in these shots - 

All photos are rights of Oscar Plummer

flying-lead---black-briar

They have also got a really nice authentic looking camp developing as the site owners allow them to build upon the site.

Looking great guys! If y'all fancy playing these there is a Facebook site or website you can contact -

Facebook link

website

Hellish Wheels in Deadwood?

Hell on Wheels LRP ( in Czech Republic)

We are thinking about all things western and wild west in the next few posts as we will be attending the last instalment of the Hillers Ridge trilogy run by Denise Piggin, Martin Gill, Paul Tamlyn and a glittering cast of foul mouthed naer-do-wells.

Here is a link to a rather impressive western LRP in the Czech Republic.

LARP Census

You will just have to forgive them the extra A (because action is a given!) we will publish the results once they are in. Should be interesting to see if rule based systems are becoming less popular, but of course its an international survey, so the results could be heavily swayed in favour of the US due to them having more larpers there.... LARP CENSUS

Anachronisms in Live Roleplaying

By James Tweedie

 An anachronism is a thing from another time which does not belong in the present, or in the setting of a story (or a live role-playing game). A wind-up gramophone record player on the sound desk at a nightclub is an anachronism, as is a mobile phone in a Victorian period drama on TV. The question for Live Role-Players is how many, if any, anachronisms should be tolerated? Some obviously ruin the atmosphere of an event, but ironically others are necessary.

Whilst nowadays we are used to 'lavish' and 'sumptuous' period dramas in the cinema and on film, it is only relatively recently (in the 19^th century) that period costume came to be used in the theatre. Shakespeare's histories, from Richard III to Julius Caesar, were originally performed by actors in the fashions of the day. It's also worth noting that many of Shakespeare's tragedies and comedies were contemporary pieces, and so there's no particular reason why they have to be staged in late 16th – early 17th-century costume.

Anachronisms can also be found in the other arts. The renaissance painter Caravaggio portrayed his biblical subjects in the clothes of his time. Derek Jarman's 1986 biopic of the artist plays on this by including 20^th century objects and sounds in some of its scenes. Alex Cox's 1987 film Walker, based on historical events but a metaphor for the civil war then waging in Nicaragua, is also full of intentional anachronisms.

More commonly, anachronisms stem from a desire not to let the facts get in the way of a good story, or just out of laziness when it comes to research. Many Western films set during or just after the American Civil War show characters carrying Colt 'Peacemakers' – not produced until 1873 – and Winchester model 1892 rifles (not even Winchester '73s!). But who cares? It doesn't get in the way of the story. Only pedant would worry about such things.

While a great film,  El Cid (1961) plays fast and loose with both history and fashion: costumes, scenery, weapons and armour are all in a generic high medieval style, when the real Cid lived in the 11^th century and was a contemporary of William the Conqueror. The Moors wield curved scimitars, which in reality they didn't adopt until hundreds of years later – but then audiences would have complained that straight swords were 'unrealistic'. El Cid is shown dying in the successful defence of Valencia from the Moorish king Yusuf ibn Tashfin (who is himself killed), when in fact the two never fought: El Cid passed away a year before Yusuf successfully besieged and captured the city.

Closer to home for most LRPers perhaps, our idea of the legend of King Arthur is largely shaped by Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, first published in 1485. Malory's version is anachronistic: Arthur and his late classical/early dark-age Celtic Briton followers are portrayed as medieval knights in shining plate armour, jousting with lances on horseback.

LRP is not re-enactment, which is concerned with maximising historical reality. LRP is more about free-form storytelling. However, although most LRP games are set in fictional fantasy worlds, these settings draw a lot of inspiration from history. Many games are set in real-world historical periods or close allegories of them.

The worst kind of most anachronism is obvious modern items in a medieval or other historical or fantasy game. Watches, trainers and hiking boots, beer cans and the like all spoil the suspension of disbelief necessary for immersion in the game world. They're an obvious no-no and shouldn't be tolerated by organisers or players.

Language is a more complicated problem. How should your character speak? Can you stop yourself from using modern phrases like 'OK'? Again, historical accuracy is nigh-on impossible. Modern Greeks may be able to claim to speak the language of Homer, but ancient Romans spoke Latin, a dead language. The contemporary peoples of the British isles spoke a family of languages from which modern Welsh, Irish and Scots Gaelic are descended, but which were probably very different. Elizabethan English is easy to understand, but the Medieval form is much more difficult and Old English is a completely different language. A common fudge is to pepper your sentences with archaic words, or to talk in Ye Olde Mocke Byblycalle Speecheth. But since you'll never sound like the real thing, why bother?

Is swearing OK? Apart from the question of whether you're at a 'family friendly' event, you might want to consider whether dark-age barbarians turned the air blue in the same terms you use at the dinner table. An attempt at using real Old Norse words at a Dumnonni Chronicles event a few years ago rapidly degenerated into a Viking swearing dictionary, but at least we could claim authenticity!

Comfort and human necessities mean a few anachronisms are unavoidable. You probably don't want to spend hours boiling dried beans or unrolled oats over a wood fire for your dinner, or wipe your arse with a manky rag on a stick. Quite a few LRPers have reproductions of historical tents for in-character camping, but they say you have to be quite brave and hardy to sleep out in them in bad weather.

However, the area where anachronism is really necessary is in social structure. The hobby is just as popular among women as men, and it wouldn't be much fun for the ladies if their character and role-playing choices were limited by a historically-accurate portrayal of women's rights and prevailing attitudes. Similarly, a faithful recreation of the class system might add great depth to the setting, but it might also turn a lot of people off. Feudal serfs were their aristocratic masters' property as much as ancient and dark-age slaves were.

Apologies if this sounds like an essay in the bleedin' obvious, but it bears thinking about. If you crave realism and authenticity, how far are you prepared to go? At what point do the returns start to diminish and the inconveniences mount up? The answer always lies with you and the games you play.

LRP Art - Myke Slater

Myke Slater

Myke Slaters LRP Comic Strips are really funny and extremely well drawn. Myke has given the new scribe permission to show his fine work here.





Enjoy !

Art by Myke Slater

New Old Scribe Magazine Images added to our Archive Section ! Go take a look at a younger version of our very beautiful Editor Sam and the some might say ever prettier Steve Emmott !

Does LRP need rules to work?

With thanks to Larpers Bazaar for the great blog post which got me thinking!

When I first started live roleplay , at the Keep there were a hella lotta RULES for everything, you had points to spend on skills, very limited at first and these written onto your character sheet; after every fight a man (invariably) would write things down on a clipboard and tell you whether to fall over or not. Now as all of this was new to me and I saw it as an extension of tabletop roleplay it made sense at the time. I imagine in much the same way that it felt perfectly reasonable that the first cars needed a man in front with a flag to prevent all hell breaking loose and our brains bleeding at astonishing speeds of 30 miles an hour plus.

But as time has moved on we learn new things, experiment, gain confidence and make the hobby better. Thankfully no-one battleboards any more (or do they?!) but we still have rules, and some events have waaay more than others. Some in fact have rules which have no actual bearing on whether it makes sense in character, or have any impact in game. Some rules are for skills you not only have no chance of doing "live" but you have no chance of effectively roleplaying either.

We have hits and armour points to give people an indication of how to react in a fight...why?

We have skill points to show what you can do...why?

art by Myke Slater

Ok so I am being contrary there, but honestly what is roleplaying about for you? If it is about winning and being the best - even amongst other players then it's competitive...oh yeah you need rules and lots of them.

But if it's about entertainment, being part of a spectacle, acting a part and in turn adding to the enjoyment of the event for others by you playing that role...why do you need rules that make it a board, wargame or tabletop rp game?

As you may have gathered I don't like rules.


Larpers Bazaar blog

Just how important IS the kit in lrp?

Brilliant article by Caz on his blog - Larpers Bazaar
larpers bazaar

I have to concur about the importance of kit and background scenes for my immersion. It does NOT have to be expensive kit though, learn to use a sewing machine and get some patterns off the web and you have all you need to be believable. 

I am sometimes dismayed when I see that a player has spent a lot of money on bad taste black studded armour (my opinion of course) and then pairs this with black jeans a bad shirt and the latest bad kit - a "faux fur" waistcoat. The overall impression of being in character could have been more cheaply gained by skipping the pricey armour and buying a good tunic trews and belt and maybe a hood...but the shinies of armour and weapons must bear a terrible lure!

I applaud Dumnonni for being the first to produce a guide to what you could and could not wear at their events, this was years ago now. It has led to their dark ages village scene looking exactly as it should. Some events have never limited kit in any way,  very much to their detriment I think.

I am reminded of a recent discussion board where a new player posted a pic of his mainly good kit and a "dysabone" jacket on. When folks asked why he insisted he loved the coat, despite many voices to the contrary. And I actually saw him at the event In that very coat! Takes all sorts in LRP  and thankfully there are events for all of us

Rights Roy Smallpage -  Caz =GOOD KIT

See page 11 here for BAD kit in the form of Damien the Destroyer! Dumnonni Crew Guide

Can you have too many photographers at events?

Charlotte the photographer for PD Empire events has written this thought provoking article -
Charlotte Sometimes blog

A Little Bit of Evil

To make a sweeping generalisation - in our hobby crew/monsters are bad-guys and players are heroes. But I bet I am not the only one that gets a kick out of being a real unpredictable/odd or nasty piece of work.

Crewing at events where NPC parts are detailed and can be serialised is a lot of fun, but this can come with some pressure to attend further events and keep up the characterisation over a longer time, you also miss out on chances to play those systems. When you do a one off baddy and given the opportunity to develop a character and perhaps costume choices or make-up, you can really let rip with the melodrama and it's marvelously enjoyable.

all rights Adam Pulman

But what about fests? The baddies may be few and far between and only really meet you on the battle field, which does not give much time for characterisation. Disappointing for crew who want some real meaty roleplay. This can also lead to a lack of plot or politics to keep people occupied outside of the fighting. Is it in these circumstances OK to play a bad-un? To be the foil for those other heroes to rail against? Are you a mug for paying to help entertain others - or in fact is the reciprocal entertainment the point of good roleplay...should we in fact be thinking about payment for events in a new way? Would people come to an event if they paid less but had to crew part of the time? This seems to have worked (in part) at P.D. events where players must crew a battle if they play a battle, but they still offer free places for those that play NPCs only.

What about secreting eeebil NPCs in with players at events? Has this worked for you in the past?

Do you enjoy playing the dark side? Share your megalomaniac moments with us all!

This article comes to you in the evil appropriate colour of purple and illustration via the sinister skills of L.T.

illustration by L.T.

Images for in-character documents

Most people would go straight to Google image search but not all images online are indexed, and more importantly you are likely to be breaking copyright to use them without permission. The fact you freely found it is NO INDICATION of the legality of your re-using it without permission. You could rely on your documentation never being seen outside of a small circle of players and crew - but a more sensible option is to find copyright free images to use, especially if those documents will be online at any stage. Copyright law is very clear that a lack of knowledge is not a defence and this has been demonstrated in many prosecutions.

Do not be mislead by the concept of "Fair use or fair dealings" this is a mainly US law and related to you only if you are using the images for non-profit or educational purposes. You also have to reference the images appropriately.

The above images, and at the bottom of the post, are part of the British Library flickr page, which are (on the whole) copyright free due to age, this is why there are no required references attached. You have to go to the page and browse though as they are indexed by the books they came out of and no metadata on the image topic is stored. The age of many removes any copyright worries and you may reuse.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/britishlibrary

The National Archives have a flickr page and most of the images are way older than any copyright law - these you can use without accrediting the source. It will say clearly if there is any copyright restriction.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/nationalarchives/

The following resources are not all old and out of copyright law, but the authors are allowing your to reproduce them with a suitable credit to them! A credit should include the author/creator and the website or location it was found plus a date it was accessed - obviously this is less useful if you want all of your documentation to be "I.C."

Creative commons search tool is very useful in finding free-to-use images BUT you must still reference the source/owner-
http://search.creativecommons.org/ 

Europeana is a growing collection of images from galleries around Europe -
http://www.europeana.eu/

National Library of Scotland work on a copyright free basis unless otherwise specified -
http://digital.nls.uk/gallery.cfm

Internet archive of Book images on Flickr
https://www.flickr.com/photos/internetarchivebookimages/with/14784850762

The Price is Right?

Kit - some make their own but many rely on others to make costume for them; either off the shelf or custom designed. But costume varies so greatly in cost - why is that? A bit of research was a real eye opener.
 
Much "off the shelf" kit is mass produced overseas. A design or item is sent and they copy it with astonishing efficiency in countries where overheads in terms of taxes, materials and labour are vastly less than the UK. So, sale prices are low, but individuals all get the same design.
 
What if you want something more bespoke? Then you would likely use word-of-mouth and recommendation to choose a UK based producer of costume. Some of these individuals or companies also produce items in bulk to sell at fests, so you get a more unique item but at less than the cost to design a piece for you.
 
Say you really do want something made just for you that you cannot buy ready made though...then the UK based artists we spoke of would consult with you, get measurements, choose materials and colours, maybe even fit the finished article to you. How do they price these items?
 
According to my research a good rule for pricing something made by hand is to divide the cost of materials by 0.35, this in no way ever covers the precise amount of labour or time though...but using this method lets have an example-
 
Glenda the Barbarian (who has mighty thews) wants trews, in real wool, with a comfy liner!
Her artist Sandra the Seamstress has to source 4 yards of good wool, a spool of thread, 4 yards of cotton- and ignoring buttons or time the cost of these is £55 divided by .35 = £157
 
I BET you have rarely had to pay this much for Sandra the Seamstressesesss(I don't know when to stop that word) trews though! So as a hobby are our creative folks under-selling their time? Is this what the pressure of cheap imports is doing to them? I for one worry that eventually they will find more lucrative pay per the hour (maybe a paper round) leaving imports, or making your own as the only options.
 
If you are a kit maker in the UK, how is your business faring?