List to this episode here.
In a lot of tabletop rpgs, to do something in the fictional world, we engage with abstraction: to pick someone’s pocket, we describe picking their pocket, or we roll a die to see how well we pick it. But in larp, sometimes the action is the action. I pick your pocket... by picking your pocket.
This embodiment of play, where my real life actions equal my fictional character's actions, might be what many people understand as the core difference between larp and tabletop games. Today, Kate Hill and I get into the good, the bad, the ugly, and the beautiful of embodied play.
Further Reading
Playing to Lift, Not Just to Lose by Susanne Vejdemo
Chasing Bleed – An American Fantasy Larper at Wizard School by Tara M. Clapper
Find Larp Shack on Facebook!
Two Hand Path and the Dice Exploder episode about it
Ad Links
We Three Shall Meet Again by Sam Dunnewold
Socials
Kate on Bluesky.
Kate’s actual play Path of Glory on twitch.
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Transcript
Sam: Hello, and welcome to another episode of Dice Exploder. Each week we take one mechanic and try on its clothes for a while, see how they feel. My name is Sam Dunnewold, and my co host today is Kate Hill. It's the second episode of the Dice Exploder series on LARP.
And after last week's intro episode, I wanted to get into the mechanic, or concept, whatever you want to call it, that I think many people understand as the core difference between tabletop games and LARP. And that is embodiment. Actually stepping up into your character's shoes. And not just talking the talk, cause we do that all the time in Dungeons and Dragons. But walking the walk, moving through real space, putting on a costume.
Or another way to put it, In a lot of games, to do something in the fictional world, you engage with abstraction. To pick someone's pocket, you describe picking their pocket, or you roll a die to see how well you pick it. But in a LARP, sometimes the action is the action. I pick your pocket by picking your pocket. And actually doing the thing completely changes how it feels to play.
And to get into those changes, I am so pleased I got to talk with Kate Hill. Kate is a LARP designer and player. She helps organize the LARP Shack group in North Carolina. She was a judge for last year's Golden Cobra Challenge, and she's running games at Tapestries a new Bay Area LRP convention coming up this April. She's also got an actual play, Path of Glory hosted on the Twitch Stream life in Neon. she's not just a very smart and experienced LARPer. She's so infectiously enthusiastic, so great at the project of building community around games.
And in this episode, we talked about how embodiment makes play feel emotionally, Bigger. More real. For better and for worse. and we're already seeing my LARP series fail at being about LARP because we also spent a lot of time talking about embodiment in tabletop games. There's so much of it there. We're just not talking about it. That's the secret LARP and RPGs, they're not so different after all.
One last thing before we dive in. Kate and I talk about a concept in here that I didn't properly explain in the moment, so I'm just going to do it right now. Playing to lift. This is the idea that if I play to support your character's story, and you play to support mine, we're both going to have a better time, because we're both lifting each other up and focusing on collaboration and the whole group having a good time.
Okay, let's get into it. Here is Kate Hill with physical embodiment.
kate Hill, thanks so much for being hera
Kate: Thanks for having me.
Sam: it's an absolute pleasure. Normally on this show, I like just have done the introduction and now we're like diving into whatever mechanic we're fucking talking about today. But in the LARP series here, I feel like I have had a little bit less context for the games in the medium. And so I've been more interested in kind of like, digging into the background of interviewees.
And so I'd love to start with like, for you, in your own words, what is your background as it pertains to LARP and gaming?
Kate: Yeah. So I've been doing, tabletop RPGs for a very long time. Started at Macalester College and the Twin Cities, shout out to Minnesota, and Minnesota forever, and ended up just, like, falling in love with games of all kind there. We actually did a few LARPs that we didn't know were LARPs at Macalester.
Sam: Like what?
Kate: so, my first ever LARP was My friend Macalester being like, I have this idea that we're all going to be famous 1950s icons at a costume party. And we don't know who each other is, and we're gonna be like, figuring out weird Cold War stuff. It's like 15 of us, and I don't really know what we're doing, but I had this idea, let's, let's do it.
It was basically, it was absolutely a LARP. We just. Didn't know what we were doing.
Sam: It's bleeding The line between party theme and LARP in an exciting way. Yeah
Kate: so we did a few of those, and they were basically what I would call, kind of like Golden Cobra uh, freeform style LARPs uh, except none of us had vocabulary for that. And then I stopped doing it.
For a while. But then I dove back in with New World Magischola, which is, it was kind of one of the first big blockbuster LARPs in the United States in 2016, and I just completely, like I had been TTRPG ing and doing indie gaming, I had gotten really into indie RPGs at that point It just hit me real hard. I was completely enraptured with the medium and kind of just dove in headfirst.
I was really fortunate that I was already in a gaming group with Jason Morningstar and John Boulding and Clinton Dreisbach and a few other like really great early indie designers and Jason and I kind of got really into LARPs around the same time and so we were able to kind of work with each other build up a little bit of a community here, so that's kind of how I got my start,
Sam: and is that LARP shack
Kate: that is LARP Shack,
Sam: I want to hear about LARP shack as an institution
Kate: wow, yeah, so I wish it was more of one at the moment, let's just say that so LARP Shack started right after that, like 2016. It is a group which we basically try to meet once a month, and we get together to play LARPs, and we don't always know what we're gonna play. We tend to have different members come and bring things to pitch and then we'll see how we're feeling at that time and kind of all talk together and choose a game.
Therefore it is very much games that you, you might think of, like, LARPs as, like, these big costumey events in which you're, like, really in a location and it's, like, going for a weekend. but it's very much, like, here's a game that runs an hour and a half to two hours and it requires no costuming and no prep. Jump right in.
Use it a lot as a playtesting space, so we like to help folks playtest their games that they're writing. And yeah, it's free. That's one of our biggest important parts about it, is that we try to make it as low barrier as possible.
And it's been, was doing really, really well before the pandemic, we went online for a few years, but a lot of small LARP groups like this have suffered a lot during the pandemic. And I think we are actually the only one, one of the very few in this style currently standing.
Sam: Yeah, what size was it in January of 2020?
Kate: we would be regularly pulling in 15 to 20 people a month.
Sam: Mm hmm. And how many people do you have now?
Kate: Eight? Eight?
to ten? So,
Sam: It's like a large gaming group now.
Kate: yeah we're trying to rebuild it. We're holding our first event that we've had since the pandemic in which people are coming out from out of town to play some games in a few weeks. I think we're going to hit 16 or 17 for that.
So kind of getting us back there, but
Sam: Yeah. Yeah. I, myself have in the past year Started going to this story games meet up in Burbank, California, that is really wonderful. It's like at a gaming store, people show up, then you pitch games, we fire maybe three games or whatever at a time, and in the past like 4 months, 5 months maybe, it has finally started to pick back up from like a pretty small number of people.
And it is clear that It's such a valuable institution, the work of keeping it going has been really hard, and the growth is just really, really hard to facilitate too, and so Yeah, I can't recommend trying to make a group like this yourself, listeners, and also like, boy, will it probably be hard.
Kate: It's gonna be hard, y'all. Folks, if you're out there listening and you're in the North Carolina area, feel free to come on down,
Sam: having regular RPG community that is larger than a single gaming group is something I didn't know could exist and is so beautiful and more people should be trying to build that out.
I want to get into our main topic for today which, are we calling this embodiment? I think we're calling this embodiment, but maybe we're calling maybe we're calling it props and costumes.
Kate: Props, I'm talking a bit, I, I was looking at your questions, I've got some embodiment, I've got some props costumes, I yeah,
Sam: I think basically what I want to talk about today is the main difference I see between tabletop and larp and that is that this is something Caro Murphy said to me in an email while setting up an interview with them coming up.
But like, in tabletop RPGs, mechanics are often representative of action. But in live experiences, often action represents action.
And like, that's the idea that I want to dig into here. Like, what happens to games when there's a one, like the mechanic is you literally do the thing.
So I don't know, like what How do you think about this idea? What is exciting about this to you relative to tabletop games?
Kate: So I think that one of the areas that is exciting to me about it is that I do agree with you that, I think that the factor of embodiment, physically acting out a thing and having that be the representation of what you're doing, is a pretty important distinction between the two.
But I don't know if I would consider that like the full definition of what makes a larp. And I definitely find it interesting to think about where did those lines blur,
Sam: Mm hmm.
Kate: and what does embodiment bring to the experience, what does that experience of, be it whether you're acting out a role, or doing an action to actually do it, or putting on a costume, What does that bring to scenario or a game, and is that even something possible that we would want to bring into a TTRPG, right? Like, is that like, nope, that's dumb, or is that actually like a fruitful area of thought?
And so I think that's what's most interesting to me about it is thinking what that can bring to an experience and why somebody would want to do that and bring that to an experience.
Sam: So why would someone want to bring that to an
Kate: yeah, well, I think for me anyway, so one, I'd say that a lot of RPG folks are already bringing some embodiment to their experience and action.
like, as somehow I've entered into the world of actual play. And the group I'm doing is a bunch of LARPers and an actor, so we might be weird, but we like have special occasions in which we all fully costume for the Dungeons Dragons game.
And, I don't think you need to do that for every tabletop game, but what it does bring is that feeling of more embodiment and focus on what does this character actually exist like in this world? It helps you, I think, break into a more intense and visceral space.
There's the idea of the magic circle in which you kind of can let go of what's happening around you and enter into this shared narrative. And I think that embodiment, in whatever way you want to talk about it, is a kind of a shortcut
Sam: Yeah.
Kate: into it.
Sam: for me, whenever I get my body involved in doing a thing, I feel the thing harder, I learn the thing more easily, like it becomes more real because it is real not just for my brain, but for my body.
Kate: Right, like, when your body is doing something, the mind doesn't really know that that's a different thing. You're still doing those actions, and so it's basically a trick to make you start thinking uh, as your character so, and I think that I think games have done, been doing this, like, TTRPGs, there's no mechanics necessarily for it. Like, most people are not like, here's the mechanic of embodiment.
Sam: Right.
Kate: But, when I ran a dungeon, maybe it's just because I'm a LARPer. But I didn't, I wasn't at the time, so who knows. But when I was like running D&D in college, there was this incredibly intense scene that we were doing, and everyone just, we were in person, and we just all stood up and started doing it embodied.
Sam: yeah,
Kate: And that made it so much more powerful, and that was just, that was a Dungeons & Dragons game. Like, and then we went back, and we, ran around the table, and it was fine, but we had that like short period of time. And so I think that a lot of table RPGers already do it, at least from the head up,
you know,
and I think that encouraging it, providing a space for it to actually take place in a tabletop RPG game, building in some of that space of embodiment, even if it's in a very segmented way, can help, especially if you're doing a kind of game that does want to focus on inter character, personal character development, first person character experience.
Like, it's not a thing you want to do for Microscope,
or, you know,
Sam: who would you even dress up as or act as in a game like that?
Kate: There's very much like those styles of games, you're like, no, but,
Sam: and it is it's also, you know in a more like elf game dungeon crawly kind of style of play, like I often compare that style of play to like doing an escape room where it is so much like your character is just sort of an avatar for yourself. And in that way, you know, I would get it if you showed up to an escape room in costume, but that would feel more out of place than showing up to a D& D game in costume, right? Because the sort of fundamental activity that you're doing is different.
Yeah. Is the goal of the game to get in touch with the characters feelings of the, like, physical process of what's going on, or is it to, like, solve a little puzzle
Kate: right. So, it's like, always again, thinking about, like, what is my purpose here that I'm trying to, to facilitate. But if you're a designer or a person thinking about that, I think that the idea of looking at embodiment or props or costumes, honestly, I'd say you don't, costumes are kind of, I love them, but I feel like that is a big ask for a lot of people. Um, but even just like a small prop or something like that, how can that help make everything feel a little bit more visceral, intense experience?
Sam: Because as you said, then you're doing an action as an action. And that's gonna connect to your brain, and that's gonna just kind of make everything a little bit more focused in on the experience that you're doing.
Yeah, so, here's an interesting example. Have you played Morningstar's game Huldu? Do you know about the Gnome Hats
Kate: Yes, I was the original playtester of Huldu.
Sam: incredible. Uh, I believe I was the second, so here we are. Let's talk about Huldu Because I found the gnome hats mechanic in this game to be a really, really interesting way to kind of walk the line between traditional RPG mechanic and the kind of embodiment that we're talking about.
So the way these gnome hats work is you get the game and the first thing you do in the game is you sew together a bunch of gnome hats. Like, that's first step of playing the game, Arts and Crafts time. And then, everyone is playing these ancient gnomes from, various point in history who have woken up and found that the world has changed around them and they're magical and doing gnome stuff.
And the rule of the game is that you are only allowed to wear the gnome hats when you are doing gnome magic, which always gets you into trouble, or when you're talking to the human world, which always gets you into trouble.
And so, the thing that Jason wants you to do is get into trouble. And you are desperate to put on the gnome hat, because it's a cool little hat that you made. Yeah, yeah, you just love your little gnome hat, you want to put it on. And so, you go out of your way to get into trouble so that you can put the gnome hat on.
And it is like, a mechanic that takes embodiment, like this costume, and like, once you put it on, you feel more like a gnome, right? It's exactly the same thing that we're talking about. Like, oh, here we are, I get to do my little gnome guy stuff now, blah blah blah. And it's using the carrot of that embodiment as a, like, game mechanic to push you in the direction he wants to lead you in.
Kate: Yeah, that is one of the games that I was thinking of, of like, an incredible example of the bleed of embodiment and how we can bring embodiment in as a mechanic. And I think that it's, it's so clever to push you in a very specific direction, because as you said, like, one, everyone gnome hat, but in general, like, if there's a cool prop, if there's a cool thing, you're gonna want to engage with that, right?
Sam: Yeah.
Kate: And so if you have to do something to engage with that cool thing, you're going to want to go after it. It's going to encourage that kind of play.
Now this is more of a turn taking mechanism, but I think it's another interesting example of embodiment. in the game Bluebeard's Bride, there's the ring, and the ring gets passed between players when they want to be the embodied person.
And I like to play it with a ring that you can resize, so that people can actually put the ring on when they're playing the character. And I like to make the ring look really cool, because then it really encourages you. Again, I want to put that ring on. That's a cool prop. I want to take that control. It gets people flowing it, the ring, around more easily.
And also you're feeling that weight of a person who is, you know, the bluebeard's bride who has just gone into this horrible marriage and is exploring her terrifying husband's house, that weight of that new commitment is now on you. you. can't ignore it.
Sam: and it's also the responsibility of it because that's a game where like all the players at the table are playing one character, the bride, all different aspects of her personality, and when you get the ring, you're in control.
And yeah, and when you physically represent that, like, you can physically feel the weight in your hand even if it is slight of a ring in the same way that you can feel everyone else looking at you because you're in the driver's seat.
Kate: So I think that, like, those are some of my favorite examples of it, like, of just even small things that you can do with that carrot, as you said,
and that also gives you that feeling of, oh, now I am more connected to whatever type of feeling that you are trying to, As a designer, evoke, right?
Sam: Yeah. Bluebeard's Bride, I thought you were gonna go for a different example from that game, actually, of the shiver and fear move,
Kate: yeah, that one's great, too.
Sam: Yeah, which is a move where the like actual trigger for the move is you, as a player in real life shiver in fear. And then like some mechanical stuff happens. That instead of the carrot being the physical embodiment at the end of the mechanic the embodiment is there at the front, it's the trigger. It's not something you're sort of actively pursuing or dealing with. It's, it's pushing the rules forward. And that's a really interesting way to think about embodiment too.
Kate: Yeah, absolutely. I do think that there's actually quite a few games that have been exploring using a proper embodiment in some way not as much, some of them are not carrots. Like, I don't know if you know the game's Threaded. I don't think it's out yet. It's been like in development for like 20, since 2018.
Sam: Much
Kate: Uh, but Threaded is a it's a one shot game about the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire.
Sam: Oh, yeah.
Kate: And you are playing members of the people who are talking about if you should unionize and the different steps.
And part of the game is that as you're doing that, you are sewing little scraps of fabric together and building something as you're working. And someone can give you a scrap as basically like, tell me more about what you want and then you have to sew that into it.
And that's also like a really beautiful example of embodiment, because as you're playing these characters, like, sure, some of it's out of game, right, with that, like, here's a piece of fabric, now we'll tell a scene. But a lot of it is that feeling of sewing. It's bringing you so into the space of that is what these people were doing day in and day out. and it's very visceral and powerful.
Sam: I'm thinking about a lot of things. You know, I started this season of Dice Exploder on physical artifacts of play. And one of those episodes was about Two Hand Path, which is a game by Mikey Hamm in which you are a wizard running around in a post apocalyptic landscape just sort of killing demons and you play the game by alternating between doing Yahtzee you're just rolling dice and then sometimes it'll ask you to pause and your character sheet is a pair of hands that you color in. So you'll color in tattoos or whatever like our scars on the hands very cool
Kate: that's awesome.
Sam: But it has this, you know feeling of embodiment even there in the act of drawing, right?
You're creating this physical artifact of play. It, feels, you know, it's a solo game. It's pretty low stakes. It's supposed to be a pretty like cartoony kind of game, but you still. It really changes how you feel as you play the game when the physical activity in front of you plays, right? When you get into drawing, you slow down, you start thinking about the past. It's like we've entered bullet time because we're in the middle of this, like, big fight, but now we're, like, doing this contemplative drawing.
And similarly, like, shaking them bones, like, just throwing dice around feels kind of action y, right? Like, it feels like, pop, pop, pop, let's, like, fight the bad guys.
And, even D& D, without all the costumes and props, just like rolling dice around has an aspect of embodiment to it that, you know, you should be aware of as a designer as you're doing it. Like, what does it feel like to physically do the thing of just rolling dice,
Kate: Yeah, I mean, we're always in our bodies, so, you know, we kind of have to consistently think about what that feels like. And I think that, you know, the big difference between, like, those kinds of things and in LARP is, as you said, is like, the actions are all what you would be doing in character. Because LARP is really all about, action is action.
My thought about it was also more like, LARP is going to be just much more focused on first person than third person, right?
Sam: hmm. Totally, totally.
Kate: it's like almost like a, in RPGs, you're gonna be mostly in third person unless unless you're me, and then you're gonna be like at least half and half unless you're playing with a bunch of LARPers, or actors, which is pretty much what I do but.
In LARP, you definitely can go into third person, so like, a lot of people think like, oh, that's not allowed. There's a lot of LARPs in which you will pop back out to explain something you can't actually do in real life.
Sam: I did this last weekend, we were like on a yacht and I went up to a guy and I said I'm throwing you overboard and he was like no, like, he responded like I had, as a character, just said to him, I'm throwing you overboard. And I was like, no, no, no, no, no. My character is attempting to bull rush you overboard. What do you think happens? And yeah, you, can't, even in a game where you're 90%, 99 percent in person, some things you just can't do that with.
Kate: Yeah, you can't physically throw someone overboard. I mean, you probably could in some LARPs, but I feel like that would need to,
Sam: You'd want to talk about, you'd workshop that
one a lot in
advance. Yeah.
Kate: I'm sure there have been those. And there's a whole spectrum of LARPs, in which this is like, what is a tabletop and what is a LARP?
Like I think the action is, action is a really good idea, part of it. I think that it's more first person than third person usually. But you're still gonna have those moments, and there's gonna be examples of games that honestly kind of bleed almost like 50 50 and people call them a LARP.
Sam: Totally. Yeah. I'm thinking about how the, one to one action thing isn't sufficient in the other direction, too. Because I, I was thinking about this game, The Plastic Cup, which is
Kate: I know the plastic cup.
Sam: Yeah, which is a game in which my understanding of this game is that it's like a dysfunctional family at a will reading and You're mostly just doing the LARP thing of sitting around talking to each other But each player is also given ten ceramic mugs that when they are feeling a strong emotion they throw on the ground and smash.
And that is like, hyper embodiment, right? That, like, because that's not a tabletop mechanic. Like, if on the one hand, we have, like, you're rolling dice, and that feels a certain way, but that's not the thing that your character is doing, feels very rules, and then you come out to, like, the action is the thing in LARP.
It feels like pushing past that is, like, we're doing a thing that is, like, the melodrama heightened version of the one to one action that we're doing in LARP when we're smashing the cup on the ground.
Kate: Yeah,
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So we've listed a ton
Kate: we've gone way off,
Sam: mechanics, and it, well no, I think that that's great, like, I love a specific example, but I, I'm curious to get to more examples of the feeling that all these kinds of mechanics are producing.
So would you describe for me a time when you felt really embodied because of a LARP experience? And like, what that feeling felt like for you?
Kate: Oh, absolutely. Yeah, so, I mean, some people will call this immersion and if you ever look into a LARP world just note that everyone will have their own definition of what immersion is, and embodiment, and they will fight you over it.
Sam: yeah, this is the does system matters of LARP,
Kate: this is the dust as it matters of LARP. A hundred percent.
But one of the big ones that stands out in my mind is it was actually the first ever big LARP I played, New World Magiskola. And my character who was a professor. Of jurisprudence had reunited as with another professor who was her long lost love, who she had actually gotten turned into a werewolf and like a bunch of stuff going on there. And their whole game was like kind of trying to figure out if they still had feelings for each other and what was going to happen and all of that.
But, there was, it was late at night, I had was coming out of a class I was teaching.
And I come down around and I see the character, the player who is playing my lover, doing a ritual in which he is trying to tame the wolf inside of him and like make balance with it. And the students are around him and he's on the ground writhing and all this chanting and I to see this and just run.
As fast as I can. And out of the corner of my eye I see the other guy just standing watching who has been our enemy the whole time. just watching this, shaking his head. And I felt, at that moment, just so fully in that character. So fully embodied in this scene in which all of these pieces were fitting together, to create like I felt that rush of fear that rush of I don't know if this is going to work out. Oh, no, our enemy has seen us. What are we going to do? I need to be with my love. What's happening? It was all right there absorbing you into that moment.
And then actually, we had another moment afterwards in which we all went to the woods and hunted some actual werewolves who were being bad and we all became besties. And that was also a really, really excellent moment of embodiment that whole evening.
And I think that that was like what sold me on LARP. Just that first experience of, Oh my gosh, this is something that I have felt a lot of. I'm an actor. I do a lot of tabletop. I've felt that kind of stuff before. But I have never felt it to this degree. Right? This level of intensity.
Sam: It is really, really hard to convey to people who have not LARPed before just how real and strong the feelings that show up in LARP can be.
Kate: And I got hooked. I was like, absolutely. I love this, you can't, it's hard to describe, but it really is, as I said, that like, breaking through into this other headspace. Temporarily, you never lose yourself, or as I certainly try not to. But it is something very special that is very hard to find in other ways of, of being and playing.
Sam: What about it other than the degree is special to you? I
Kate: So I, that's a really good question. Um.
There's a few things. One is the connections uh, I like to call, a lot of people call LARP, and I agree a shortcut to intimacy. And I am a person who doesn't like small talk.
I like friends. I like having community. Um, LARP is when you play with a group of LARPers. You feel like you have formed connections that are maybe deeper than they actually are but it is a, like, ext like a, a connection builder almost faster, it has made people better friends, it just creates community in that way, and connection, almost more than I've ever ever seen.
Sam: Yeah. but it is also very special.
Yeah. I just want to call out that like, for me, I completely agree. I think that it's because the act of LARPing requires such a big leap of trust right away. And the reason it can go so south is because people can abuse that trust.
Kate: Absolutely. You can abuse trust in any kind of situation. Obviously. I feel like a lot of people are like, oh, LARP so has so much community issues and things like that. And I don't know, , I'm involved in leftist communities. And let me tell you,
But I do think that's true. It is a huge act of trust that I am going to embody and be this person, and we are going to engage in this world together. And there is so much less alibi that you can't just jump back out and create some distance as much as you can in a tabletop game, right? Even if you're doing a first person scene in a tabletop game, it's pretty easy to go, okay, we're going to pull back now.
Sam: Mm hmm.
Kate: We're gonna get out of this headspace, and we're just gonna move into a third person narration, or, pull out a little bit.
Whereas in LARP, you can do that, and I actually highly recommend doing it, if you are feeling overwhelmed, and you need to talk about things. That's good, that's safety. But it is not as much built into the process.
so.
Sam: Maybe that's an interesting place to talk about what I see as one of the other risks of, like, too much immersion which maybe means too much embodiment. I feel like the strength of the experience sometimes can mean that you track of yourself, or more likely, I think, lose track of the other players in the game.
Like, for me, I think it is rare that I'm losing track of Sam, but it has happened that I lose track of Kate, right?
whereas I'm, I'm very still, aware of whoever Kate's character is, but like, I stop playing to lift, right? I stop sort of thinking about what might other people want out of this experience and how can I support them and get so wrapped up in like, my own thing.
And I think there are ways where like sometimes everyone else is playing to lift you into that perfect moment of, immersion for you, right? Or sometimes, like, two people are really immersed in a scene and, like, that's kind of the dream, I feel like, is, like, we get to both be there together and almost, like, lose ourselves and just be the characters and, like, see what happens with that.
But yeah, I think that that losing that awareness is a risk here.
Kate: So, for me, I think that one of the good things to remember about chasing immersion or that type of experience is that it should always be temporary.
Sam: hmm.
Kate: it's that, like, highlight, but that's not something you should be sustaining even for the whole game.
And I think that in LARP it's also way easier to do exactly what you're saying because you are just focused on one character. And LARPs LARPs, some LARPs are small. Some LARPs are four to five players, and it's like a tabletop in that size. Some LARPs are a hundred people. It's really easy to, like, not know the person beforehand that you even interact with and just see them as their character. And so it's, it is much easier I think To kind of get focused in on yourself. And your experience and not thinking about as much other people's experiences.
And I think that this is why there's kind of that debate, right? Some people are saying, play for immersion and that is what I want to do. Or I play for embodiment. I play for those intense feelings. I totally get that. I want to jump into that magic circle. I love that. Like, that's one of the things that brought me to LARP.
But there's also the saying in a lot of LARP communities that I'm in, immersion is a false god.
Sam: Mm hmm.
Kate: And I think that's exactly because of what you are saying there. Is that if you don't pay attention to what you are doing, if you don't come in with the thought of I need to pull myself out occasionally.
I need to check in with my own mind and with other people.
Sam: Mm hmm.
Kate: you can get into that space. And I think that's why that statement exists. And that's sometimes why I say that statement is because immersion is great. But not immersion to the point of hurting other people's play. Hurting people's safety.
Or gatekeeping, right? that's kind of the, key there is,
Sam: Yeah.
Kate: and it's hard. Like, you get rolling. I'm a person who prides myself, I admit, on kind of always being able to kind of separate those things and, and focusing. I think I probably get immersed less than a lot of other LARPers, maybe, because I started games facilitating slash playing.
Sam: Yeah.
Kate: And so I've just never, I'm always in that, like, weird facilitator mindset, even when I'm playing. It's, it's a tricky thing to, to balance.
And I think that if you're LARPing, it's very good to take time and pull yourself back. Like, allow yourself to enjoy that moment, but then take a step back, breathe, and think.
Sam: I think you don't have to agree with this, and I hope people take this in the most generous possible read of it. but I think that there is a selfishness in that pursuit of immersion, right? It is about your experience, not about the collective's experience.
And I think that, like, sometimes selfish things are good, right? Like, I do think that there is value and beauty in having that experience. But I think when you are playing exclusively for that, and not playing for the chance for everyone here to get to have that experience, right? Like, when you're locking in entirely on your own immersion and not doing what you're saying of coming out sometimes and coming out often, then you're not thinking about your fellow human beings in the same way and taking care of people
Kate: players before game, always, right? Players before characters, always. And, maybe people will, again, I don't know, I might get in a flame war now. Um, but, uh, I can say you said it first. I do think it's fine to be selfish and chase a little bit of that high. Often you're chasing it with others and that's great if you can build that together. You said, like, that ideal in which, like, you're all experiencing it in this space together. That's like the ideal, right?
But I feel like people will sometimes chase it to the, exclusion of story or, to me, I guess it's similar to tabletop with larp, but. I think maybe because you're in a space that people can move around a bit more, you can create a little bit more side conversations.
There's also a thing that happens in LARP that it's often a little bit more serendipitous than tabletop. but we want to pay attention to that serendipity and that collective storytelling, and that's, to me, one of the beauties of LARP, is creating all those little moments that we then build together into this cohesive whole. And we only can do that if we're paying attention to what other people need and how they're playing and weaving those things together into a whole.
So, basically, I agree with you, even though I might be thrown out of Nordic LARP forever. I don't know. I will say, I do think
Sam: LARP cancelled.
Kate: I will say, like, I've known players who are much more on that, like, this is what I want to chase. And they're still great. Like, they manage to do it. I don't want to be like if you play for Immersion, you're a bad person. Cause that's, that is not, not the case.
Sam: Yeah, it's the playing for immersion at the exclusion of everything else. Um,
Another framing that sort of came to mind here while we were talking in there is we talk a lot about safety and calibration, and like, making sure that everyone is not having a bad time. And I think maybe what we're talking about here is trying to take that further to, like, make sure everyone is actively having a good time.
You know, like, that like, when you're just focused on your immersion and you're not focused on, like supporting everyone. It's playing the Lyft.
It's just
Kate: Yeah, play to lift. Y'all, play to lift. I think that the key also is, with playing to lift there, is that it's about taking turns, right?
And so, there's this game that I adore, and this is, I'm going to give this a plug to if anyone's interested in doing a big blockbuster LARP check out Grimoire Productions in the Midwest. They do some of the best games that I have ever played in.
And their whole way that they build things is that every character has one or two plots that they are the main character in. And then they have three to four others that they're the secondary supporting character in. And then a few others that they're the information, can possibly get pulled in character in.
And they do a beautiful job balancing this. They ran Lies and Liability, which was a, Jane Austen style game. And, the way they even build that and create the idea explicitly that you are the main character in your story but you are also there to support the other main characters in the story and the way they build that into the way they write and tell and plot. Really helps you recognize that you are taking turns in that experience of being that main character, having that immersion, having that experience and then you pull back, and then you give it to someone else, right, and then you support them in having that experience.
And I think that's one of the things we can think about, like, even as design, like, how do we design games in which we recognize and build that in to how we are writing, of that everyone gets their moment to shine and then has that very explicit, but then I'm also here to support you and support you.
Even in character, I am here to support you.
Sam: Yeah. Totally. As we kind of head into the homestretch here of this episode I really want to hear more from you about New World Magischola. Cause I feel like this is sort of a foundational event in American LARP. And I read a lot about it, sort of in the lead up to this series and researching it.
And it also feels like it really connects to this topic. Like, curious about the, like, What happens to everything that we're talking about when it is everywhere around you, you are like, in the magic school. It's not just like, I'm waving my wand around to cast the spells and embodying that way.
Kate: Yeah, and so New World Magischola, as I said, was just for folks who are not as aware of it. It came over from College of Wizardry, which is a LARP in Poland. And it really is taking a style of what's called Blockbuster LARPs that are very popular and were very popular for a while in Europe, which is exactly what you said. 360 immersion or at least attempting to be 360.
And it's, it itself, unfortunately, had some problems and had ignoble death. but in existing and really bringing it to the United States, it spawned, like, I, if I ever had time, I would love to write an article about the level of connection that that coming to the United States did and how that has spawned a new generation and connection LARP across the United States. You really see its tendrils everywhere.
But what does happen, I'd say, is it's kind of a two edged sword, I'd say. If you are going for that feeling of immersion, like, being surrounded by everyone's in costume, right you're at a school, or in the case of, like, Lies and Liability, we were at this beautiful manor home, or, like, a lot of these things in Europe, you're at a f ing castle, right? Let's just be in a castle and do a castle game! Cause they've got castles there.
It's even more of a shortcut into that embodiment because it takes a lot less effort for your mind to jump there. For your mind to feel caught in a space, enter that circle. There's a lot less work that you have to do. And so it is a really kind of powerful experience if you really do want to feel part of a world.
I think it can go a little too intense. Some people feel like that is what you need in order to create this feeling. There are people who are like, that's the only way to really to do LARP, is to have that 360 immersion. It's extremely intense. I love it, but like,
I will go to bed and stop being unable to stop shaking because of the amount of adrenaline and emotional intensity and overwhelm from being in a brand new world and all this space and navigating it that you experience and then you're like suddenly yourself again and you're like shit. That was a lot
Sam: my partner once said to me that I think you really enjoy emotional skydiving. And LARP and big box LARP like that in particular feels like it is the just how close to the ground can we get before we open that parachute version.
Kate: an incredible Wow, I'm stealing that Because I I too deeply enjoy emotional skydiving
Sam: Yeah, and it's sort of a thing where it's like, you know, sometimes when I'm playing a tabletop RPG, I just want to hang glide out of an airplane, right? And like, slowly get back down safely to the ground, but like, yeah, sometimes, I don't know, I just want to like, throw myself on the ground and see what happens,
Kate: hmm Mm hmm, and you're just like let's roll.
So I think they're beautiful, I love these games. I think that the, again, they always have the danger then of people becoming so caught up in that either this is the only way to do it, this is the only way to feel immersed, this is the only way to LARP or getting very upset if people have the barrier of entry is high, right?
Because these games are not cheap. Like, they're incredible, you know? experiences. You got, you've got a huge team of people putting these games on. I've been on the running side of them before. It's like 20 of us, right? 15, 20 of us running, writing, designing, buying fancy spaces. People are always like, oh my God, 900, how did you, how could you do that? And it's like, trust me, none of us are getting paid. So I think that it's a gatekeeping, can also be a kind of a gatekeeping thing. Like, can you afford 900 to play this LARP?
And is your, is your costume good enough? And
Sam: Yeah.
Kate: all of that. And we don't, I don't want to ever say like, this is the one way to LARP. Because that's just going to cut a lot of people out of a hobby. I've seen games, unfortunately, that are so focused on getting all that 360 right, that they're like, you can't wear glasses because they aren't period.
Sam: Whoa! Whoa!
Kate: Yep.
Sam: Well I feel like that's maybe a nice transition into the last thing that I want to say, which is We've been kind of like talking for quite a while here about like some the scary side of all of
this, right? I'd like
Kate: Trust me guys, LARP rules! I'm sorry!
Sam: Yeah, that's well I'm and like LARP rules and every other episode this series is about how much LARP rules and I think people will like get that I think it's important to be aware of like, you know, what happens when you take some of these things too far I think it's interesting to talk about that.
But I also think to bring it back to the tabletop audience I am expecting for this series like there's so much room in what we were talking about up top with the gnome hats of like taking a really small dose of this stuff, hooking it to a tabletop game mechanic, and really reaping the rewards from that, that is not going to get you anywhere near any of the rest of this stuff and I don't know, I'm just really excited about That, and doing more of that.
I wanna see more people explore in this huge pond we've been talking about with all of the highs and lows of it. And to take pieces back home to their games,
Kate: think it would be I would super encourage folks to think, like, what would it be like to just have, like, a shared diary that's all in character and then you pass that to each other and that's part of the game, right? That you hold that experience in your hand.
What would it mean to base a mechanic around actually, like, there are some games that have people actually physically giving each other letters. That, even there, is so powerful to just have those, and I think there's so many other places we can go with a small bit of costume, a small bit of prop, a small bit of action or emotion that you can use to convey something
Sam: yeah,
Kate: is really exciting.
The other thing I was going to say is, if you're designing, like, if you want to play around with embodiment a little bit, like actually standing up and acting a scene out, there's a thing in LARP we call, glass box. Which is, or framing, in which you basically will have two people stand up and do a scene while the rest of the people watch. And it's usually reserved for kind of, some kind of a special experience that we want to set it aside.
And I was just thinking, maybe there games out there that do this. But thinking about how you could use even those small, little sta And they have to probably be in person, but stand up, do that kind of embodiment for a scene as a mechanic in an RPG, in which that is there to create this sense of, this is something different. This is something intense or distinct from the regular gameplay.
Because as you said, when you do that, it does become a little bit more real. It does become a little bit more focused. So you're telling a game about dreams, or you're saying, and people go into the dream world and anytime that they're in that dream world, they'll stand up and do a little scene that's embodied or a flashback or something like that, that if
Now I was just thinking now I want people to embody the heist planning scenes from Blade in the Dark. So everyone work on that.
But just even playing around. In that way, if you want to go a little bit further, how we can use that embodiment versus not embodiment to create these junctures and breaks in experience and levels.
Sam: Totally. That feels like a good place to end to me But is there anything else that you want to make sure that we get to talk about that we haven't gotten to?
Kate: No, really, LARPers, I think you're great, and I love LARP. That's my thing. And if you're interested in trying LARP, or even, like, playing around with this as tabletop designers, there's a lot of great ones to start that are pretty easy, and you can just pull off a line and play around with it.
And I'd highly encourage you all to just try a little bit of embodiment and see where it goes.
Sam: Kate, thank you so much for being on Dice Exploder.
Kate: Thank you so much for having me!
Sam: Alright, fellow students, our homework today is, for your next RPG session, bring a little bit of a costume. You don't have to wear a whole outfit, just like a ring, or a hat, or a scarf. You know, if you're playing Yazeba's Bed and Breakfast, bring a mask and take Gertrude, I don't know, get a witch hat, play Yazeba.
Just a little something your character would wear, then report back. How's it feel? Thanks again to Kate for being here. You can find her on BlueSky at KatePlaysGames. She's got some great Golden Cobra games in the archives there, and her actual play is Path of Glory on the Twitch stream Life in Neon. As always, you can find me on BlueSky at DiceExploder or on the DiceExploder Discord. You can find my games at sdunnewold.itch. Io, including We Three Shall Meet Again, my new witchy asynchronous journaling game. Our logo is designed by Sporgory, our theme song is Sunset Bridge by PurelyGrey, and our ad music is Lilypads by my boy, Travis Tessmer.
And thanks to you for listening. I will see you next time!