So you wanna try a larp, eh? Awesome! Welcome to the wide world of live-action roleplaying! This serving of BLT – that’s Badass Larp Talk if you’re new to this particular roundup – covers the simultaneously amazing and intimidating experience of preparing for your first game. There’s a tremendous amount of advice out there for people just starting out in larp, and while a lot of it is great and really thorough, it can also become pretty overwhelming in a hurry. So in hopes of passing on the essentials without overloading new people with information, here are ten quick pieces of advice for how to create a character and enjoy your first event:

10) Don’t try to make a “perfect” character. Those are boring! Make a character you’d want to watch in a movie or read about in a book – someone you want to learn more about.

9) Don’t worry about having a huge backstory. Try one paragraph to start. You don’t need to know everything about your character right off – otherwise how can they grow during game?

8) For a quick way to get a handle on playing your character, come up with two positive personality traits (“kind, patient”) and one negative one (“overly trusting”), and use them as guides.+

7) “Making an effort” is the most important part of making your first costume. Don’t worry if it’s “perfect” or if it’s a little basic – like characters, costumes also evolve over time.

6) Don’t be afraid to ask questions, in or out of character. It’s better to find out than work on bad assumptions, and pursuing a mystery is often an adventure in itself.

5) Try to come up with at least one short term goal for each game session, like introducing yourself to five new people, or learning a new skill. If you meet it, make another!

4) Talk to people! Larp is a social activity. Remember, everyone was a new character once, and making friends (and enemies) will help you develop your character too.*

3) When in doubt, diving in is better than standing back, and risk is better than caution. Very few great stories involve hanging back in a safe place avoiding risk. Get involved!

2) Try to stay in character. Larp is a skill that gets easier with practice. If you need to take breaks, though, do so! Just do it away from the action so you don’t break game for others.

1) It’s not about winning or losing, living or dying, it’s about having fun and telling a good story together. Don’t worry about how it ends – just enjoy the ride!

There’s a lot more to learn, of course, but hopefully that should help dispel some of the fear and anxiety that can accompany trying your first few games.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep, my sweets.
And we all got started somewhere.

+ Wanna play a badass anti-hero? Just reverse the ratio – two negative and one positive. Voila! Instant Han Solo.
*Follow up: Get to know people out of game as well – go to the diner with folks after a session, talk to people on forums and Facebook, etc. If someone’s play really blows you away, let them know! Most people are happy to talk about their process and give advice to new folks.

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Badass LARP Talk is a semi-regular advice series for gamers who enjoy being other people as a hobby. Like what you read? Click on the BLT or Badass LARP Talk tag on this entry to find others in the series, follow me on Twitter @WriterPete, or subscribe to the blog for future updates! 

Welcome back, everyone! This week’s Badass Larp Trick is another “by request” feature, where I’ll talk a little about what makes a good NPC. There’s a tremendous variety of rules and settings out there, but system variations aside, there are a few basic rules that I’ve seen apply to most good NPCs no matter what game they come from. So, with no further ado, I give you the five most important NPC commandments:

NPC Commandment #1: You Are Not the Star

Let’s get this out of the way early. A dear friend of mine had a speech he liked to give to his NPC crew before they kicked off one of his weekends, which went something like this: You are not a hero. You are a lamp. You are a painted backdrop. You are a rubber sword from the prop department. You are not here to beat the PCs, or fall down for them, you are here to entertain them. Not the other way around. A simple notion, really, and yet you would not believe how many people get this one wrong either by accident or design. So let’s restate it a bit more directly – if you want to NPC because you want to beat down PCs, to show how badass you are, or most of all to “win”, you’re doing it wrong. Period. End of story. I know I usually say there aren’t many “wrong” ways to larp, but this in fact is one of them, and if you catch yourself doing it, take yourself out of the mix until you get your priorities right again. When you play an NPC role, whether it’s the main villain of a weekend or Faceless Zombie #457, your top priority at all times is entertaining the players. Not winning. Not showing how clever you are. Not beating them down. Entertaining them. Say it until it’s like a meditative mantra: An NPC is there to entertain the PCs. 

NPC Commandment #2: Don’t Drop Character

Think about how much a player’s imagination has to work to keep themselves immersed in game – they have to accept the reality of being in another world, as another person, and that all these other people around them are different people too, and that all those weapons are real and dangerous instead of foam and plumbing supplies, and so on. That’s really hard. Dropping character is like rolling a reality grenade at their feet on top of it all. It blows a big damn hole in the middle of the pretend world we’re all creating, and it affects everyone who sees it happening. That’s right – you might think that dropping character is just between you and one other person, but it’s not. Everyone who sees you put your hand to your forehead or hears you say “Out of character” gets a big ol’ shock of reality right in the middle of their roleplaying experience. Avoid it at all costs. Even if you really want to tell someone how badass that combat was, save it for the diner after game. If it’s good, it’ll keep; if not, it wasn’t worth breaking game anyway.

NPC Commandment #3: Stay On Script

Improvisation is the core of larp, but as an NPC, you have to be careful about the details you add to make sure they don’t inadvertently lead the plot off-track. When you get an NPC role, chances are that you’re getting a sketch of a person – after all, you might only need to exist for an hour or two. However, it’s inevitable that sooner or later players will ask you questions that weren’t covered in your briefing, but which you feel are necessary to answer. Here’s where the balancing act comes in – you want to add details to the character that flesh them out realistically so that the PCs don’t run into the invisible wall of “Uh, no, I don’t know where I was born”, but at the same time you have to be careful not to create problems for the story or connections where none are supposed to exist. My advice for making this work? Improvise on a small scale. Don’t create sweeping backstories that leave a lot open for the players to make connections; give little answers that are entertaining but still don’t volunteer much beyond what the players asked. If the players seem to be asking questions about a plot your NPC isn’t involved in – usually indicated by a persistent line of questioning –  don’t  make connections you weren’t explicitly told to make. Remember, most of the time PCs accept what NPCs say as gospel – they have to or a lot of the reality of the game really starts to break down as they question each and every thing they’re told. So even if you think it’s just funny to make up some crazy stories that “obviously” aren’t true from your perspective, remember that PCs will generally assume what you’re saying is true. Use that power very carefully, and when in doubt, stay on script.

NPC Commandment #4: Don’t Argue With the PCs

This is another facet of not playing to win – don’t argue with the PCs. If the rules are unclear, and it’s not a vital rules call – and by vital I mean “a character’s life and/or the outcome of a major story arc is hanging in the balance” – let the tie go to the PC and figure it out later. Note carefully that I’m not saying that you should let the PCs use rules you know are incorrect, just that if the situation seems unclear rules-wise, don’t let the game stall out in rules argument and speculation – let it fall in favor of the PCs and get an official ruling later. When in doubt, always try to err in the PCs’ favor. If you’re wrong, it’s a lot easier to come back to them later and say “Hey, you know how that worked out for you back there? We got it wrong, so this time you’re good, but in the future it wouldn’t go that way” rather than saying “Hey, sorry you guys got screwed, turns out I was wrong.” Small but important distinction. If you do know that a rule is being used incorrectly, point it out calmly and directly (off to the side if possible), and avoid being confrontational, sarcastic or condescending. Even good players can get caught up in an intense moment and be a little hot-blooded, so you need to keep your cool and keep the situation calm and respectful. If a player insists on being confrontational, as an NPC it is your job to take the high road and be the bigger person – walk away and get a marshal, storyteller or director to handle it from there. I’m not saying you need to suffer their abuse – if they’re breaking the rules and showing poor sportsmanship, absolutely report them! But getting into shouting matches in the middle of a scene never ends well for anyone.

Remember, an NPC should never have to argue rules with a player. Either you’re a storyteller/marshal/director, and players have no authority to argue with your decisions (at least in the field), or you’re not a staff member authorized to make rulings, in which case you have no authority to argue with the players. Either way, there’s no argument! 

NPC Commandment #5: Build Up, Don’t Tear Down

Be a fan of the players, and always look for chances to let them shine. One reason gamers play games is because they love what their characters can do, so it’s always awesome to give them a chance to show off those skills. If your NPC is a humble farmer with no fighting ability and some glowering badass in head to toe armor and weapons growls at you to move aside, don’t act like you don’t care – give a frightened little yelp as you get out of their way! That little extra detail takes nothing for you but it will absolutely make their day. Not that you have to let them win – that gets boring fast, and easy victories make for terrible stories as a rule. But if you beat down the PCs, or take their items, or spill their secrets, or otherwise shake up their world, it should never be just because you can. Of course you can. You’re an NPC. You can make up powers, give yourself amazing items, call on infinite backup and otherwise cheat with both hands if all you want to do is trounce the players. (You shouldn’t do any of those things, by the way, I’m just saying they’re possible if you’re a jerk with no sportsmanship and an over-developed need to “win” at games with no actual win condition.) No, if you hurt them, if you take from them, it should be because it makes for a great story. Some of my favorite larp events were times my characters were completely defeated or even killed – but I loved them because those losses and setbacks weren’t arbitrary, they were part of a great story. I lost fair and square, and I loved it. 

I still remember an adventure a long time back where the NPC guide refused to let the players use their own tracking and knowledge skills as we investigated the mysterious trail in the forest, forcing us to sit back and watch as this super NPC pulled us along down a pre-written path. He even ran to the forefront in fights and took down monsters, his assistance unasked for and very anticlimactic. He was having a great time, completely oblivious to the fact that we were bored out of our minds as we waited for the plot train to pull into the next station. It was one of the worst, longest adventures I’ve ever been on, and probably the worst part about it was that he had no idea he was boring us. Why would he? He got to be a badass! Which would be fine, except that it took all our fun for himself.

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Addendum #1: It might seem like some of these rules encourage NPCs to let the PCs walk all over them. That’s not the case at all. But there is a bit of judo to being an NPC. You put the plot out there, true, but then you have to take what the PCs throw at you and redirect it in ways that keep them off balance, ways that surprise, challenge, engage and entertain them. Remember, they don’t have access to the big picture like you do, so sometimes their actions and reactions will seem rash or inexplicable. Be patient, stay in character, tell the story you’ve been told to tell and remember you can always came back with another face and another approach if this one’s  not working. Or if the players decide to lure you in the woods and eat you, or teleport you to the surface of the moon, or re-write your mind so that you’re convinced you’re an opera singer from the 1920s (all of which have been done to NPCs of mine for no reason I ever really determined in any of those games).  That’s the blessing of an NPC, after all – an NPC has a thousand lives, while the PC has but one. (Ish).

Addendum #2 (thanks Reddit!): It has been pointed out that I don’t really mention NPCs having fun, which is a pretty glaring oversight. Of course you should be having fun! A crew that isn’t having much fun often isn’t making much fun either. But the key is remembering that as an NPC, your fun is going to be a bit different from the PC definition, at least sometimes: You may be asked to fail, to fall, to screw up, to be tricked or trapped, to enter situations where you know you probably won’t win and have fun doing it. (PCs can and in fact do all of these things as well, but the difference is that you might be basically ordered to, whereas they do it naturally.) One old maxim of great game runners I know is that “If you’re entertaining others, you’ll have fun yourself” and it is pretty much dead on. When you play only to entertain yourself, chances are that’s the only audience who will appreciate it. Which is fine as a PC – after all, you paid your money, it’s your time in game to do with as you like. As an NPC, though, you can’t afford the luxury of self-indulgence – while you’re on-shift you need to think about entertaining everyone you come across. So don’t hide from it – embrace it! Throw yourself out there and be the best possible, um, whatever the hell you are at the moment. Play it up, dive in, really commit – and I guarantee you’ll not only entertain the players, you’ll have a hell of a lot of fun yourself.

So next time you go on your NPC shift, remember that the woods the players walk are lovely, dark and deep, my sweets.

And that you are the “who” when they call “Who’s there?”

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Badass LARP Talk is a semi-regular advice series for gamers who enjoy being other people as a hobby. Like what you read? Click on the BLT or Badass LARP Talk tag on this entry to find others in the series, follow me on Twitter @WriterPete, or subscribe to the blog for future updates! 

There are three subjects you’re not really supposed to raise in polite conversation, universally speaking: money, politics, and religion. Mostly because unless everyone goes out of their way to be funny and light-hearted about it, before long they’re going to wind up throwing insults if not punches. In this post, the first “by request” column in the Badass Larp Talk series, we’re going to bend that rule just a little and talk about religion from a purely roleplaying perspective. Specifically, how do you portray a character with faith in a way that is fun and engaging for you and everyone around you?

Before we get too much further, however, let’s make a clear distinction between playing real world faiths and purely imaginary ones. For instance, the difference between portraying, say, a Jehovah’s Witness and a follower of Paladine from Dragonlance. We’ll start by talking about the real world faiths, since it’s a bit shorter and more to the point:

Do your research, start small, and be respectful.

Now, that’s true of a lot of things in larp, but here’s what I mean in particular. The research part is easy – if you’re going to be portraying a member of a real world faith, chances are you can draw on hundreds if not thousands of years of material. I’m not saying that you must learn enough to earn your doctorate in that faith’s theology, but at the very least you should get beyond the common stereotypes and generalizations of that faith (if any). It’s kind of sad to see a fiery “born again Baptist preacher” character who doesn’t know anything about what it actually means to be born again or Baptist. Likewise, I remember feeling a little dumbstruck when I met a character who cheerfully gave their faith as “Native American!” and then looked blank when I asked what specific belief system they practiced. It’s not a matter of judgment as much as it is a sense of loss in missed opportunities – with just a little more research, those players could make their character a lot more compelling and three dimensional.

If you’re portraying a real world belief that’s not familiar to you, the best bet is to start small and build up to it more as you go along. Running in and talking constantly about how it’s awesome to be Catholic, how you totally love the saints and the Pope and can’t believe you got such a good deal on this bitchin’ rosary is, ah, strained, to say the least. Start with small touches and add more as you are more comfortable. It’s also good to find out if there are other players who know more about the faith and get their take on it, or at least make sure you’re not out to offend anyone. Yes, larp is a game and it’s all imaginary, but it’s also a social activity, and if you can avoid offending your fellow players that’s good for the flow of the game as a whole. Quite often they’ll be more than happy to let you know what’s good and what’s crossing the line. Done well, however, portraying a different real world faith can yield a fascinating take on a whole different perspective that you never imagined.

Purely Imaginary Faith

When it comes to purely imaginary faiths, one of the big factors to consider is the impact of faith in your setting. Many game settings, for example, feature characters touched by the divine who openly and frequently manifest the power of their faith to heal wounds, smite heathens and even raise the dead. Step back a minute and consider the implications of that sort of divine presence in everyday life. Many people in our world struggle to come to terms with their faith in the absence of direct, miraculous proof – but what happens when divine power is an everyday occurrence, where the gods are an obvious, accepted fact of life? So much of the average 21^st century outlook on religion is colored by a sense of uncertainty and skepticism that just would not belong in a setting where evidence of the divine is commonplace. It’s pretty hard to be an agnostic, much less an outright atheist, when gods manifest themselves on a daily basis.

And that’s not even considering the fact that outright evil deities exist in many of these settings, making “the Devil made me do it” not just a legitimate possibility but a serious concern.

So what does that mean for your roleplaying experience? I think it’s important to peel away a lot of our modern ambivalence and uncertainty and dive into the mindset of someone who has never doubted the existence of the divine. Even if you have a strong personal faith in real life, that is often contrasted by contact with a secular culture, which simply doesn’t exist in these settings in a meaningful way. Rather than subtracting ambivalence and uncertainty, then, a believer must consider the implications of everyone in society acknowledging that their god exists, and what a society built on that foundation would really be like. Especially when you factor in that many of these societies have multiple deities, some with competing agendas or spheres of influence.

That doesn’t mean you have to be a simple-minded goof or a frothing zealot, by the way. For one thing, knowing that the divine exists doesn’t guarantee that you’ll be happy with it – a once-zealous character may abandon their faith in the god of battle after some of his friends die in combat, for instance, feeling that his prayers and devotion have been betrayed. In this case, though, it’s not a question of the god’s existence, but a repudiation of their action (or inaction), which is a subtle but very important distinction from a roleplaying perspective. That your character acknowledges that a particular god exists, but has chosen to reject them anyway, is very different from wondering if there is a god at all, and adds good subtext to your roleplaying experience. The ancient Greeks believed in their gods, but not because those gods were especially kind or loving as a rule. The gods were powerful and eternal, and respecting that was just good sense to them. Besides, the love of a divine being can be as dangerous as their animosity, so it was best to avoid any attention if possible and make sure you were on their good side if it wasn’t.

Likewise, the ability to call down miracles on-demand has its own implications – if priests can raise a dead hero who falls in battle, why don’t they also raise a poor farmer who falls in his fields? (And if they do, what does a revolving door to the afterlife do to attitudes about life and death?) Do miracles have a cost – in money, in time, in exhaustion? If so, who determines who receives them and who is left wanting? What does your character’s deity ask of her? How does she uphold her creed? Where does she feel that she falls short? Is she part of an organized group of believers (very likely in a divine-positive world)? What are they like? What parts of her faith do they stress, and what parts do they marginalize? Has she ever sinned, and if so, did she atone? Does anyone else know about it? Is there another deity or faith she just cannot stand? Why not? All of these are just a start, but they should inspire some good character backstory and attitudes.

Of course, faith is in the details too. Some games mandate specific prayers or ceremonies, but many others leave the details wide open for player interpretation. Prayer, in particular, is a hugely telling thing. I can still remember some of the simple prayers and chants I heard at the first fantasy boffer larp I ever played, because they were so emblematic of the characters repeating them and helped set the tone for their faith in my mind. Most were very short and to the point, but that’s OK – it’s hard to remember the really long prayers in the heat of battle! What’s your character’s most common prayer? What was her “baptism” into her faith like? What symbols of her faith does she wear/carry? (If she doesn’t display her faith, why not?) What are her faith’s colors, icons, prohibitions? What religious rituals are her favorite, and why? Which ones does she avoid, or participate in only grudgingly? Are there any holidays she considers especially dear? Why?

If the answers to any of these are “I don’t know” or “I don’t think those exist in game”, that’s fine too, no worries – that just means you get to make them up yourself! Or perhaps better yet, gather a few more faithful and develop them together. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised by the results. Larp is a social activity, after all, and ritual is one of the most powerful binding agents that brings people together. Even years after we left our first fantasy boffer larp, we found out that some of other followers of the faith we had started there were still doing the same prayers and the same rituals that we had created. Many of the people doing them had no idea who we were, either – the rites had been passed down to them by other players. That’s an incredible sort of roleplaying connection to foster, when you think about it, and one reason of many to explore playing a character with a powerful devotion to the divine.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep, my sweets.

Don’t forget to bring a light to find the way.

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Badass LARP Talk is a semi-regular advice series for gamers who enjoy being other people as a hobby. Like what you read? Click on the BLT or Badass LARP Talk tag on this entry to find others in the series, follow me on Twitter @WriterPete, or subscribe to the blog for future updates! 

Let’s talk a moment about secrets.

Secrets are cool. Secrets are mysterious. Secrets are powerful. Lots of characters have secrets – in their backstories, in their relationships, sometimes even in their day-to-day lives. I have no doubt that, regardless of what town you call home, there are characters walking around whose closet skeletons could rip the community apart if they got loose. And that’s pretty damn awesome, no matter how you slice it. Here’s something else about secrets, though:

Hoarding them sucks.

One thing that I hate to hear, after a character dies or is retired, is the player declare “Nobody ever found out about X!”, which was some really cool character detail or vital piece of backstory that never made it into play. Or worse yet, the same declaration from a villain, talking about some really awesome detail the players never managed to dig up. What’s worse is that these declarations are often made proudly, like the player managed to hoodwink everyone else or something, when all I can think is: “Man, what a waste of all that dramatic potential.” Because that’s the thing with secrets in a game environment – at game, having a secret you never tell ANYONE is to good drama what masturbation is to good sex. As in technically there are similarities, and they’re both fun I guess, but really, I wouldn’t put them in the same league in pretty much any other way that counts.

“But my character wouldn’t confide in anyone!” some might cry. “Why would they tell anyone about their worst deeds or darkest moments?” To which I respond: BULLSHIT. In my regular life I tell my closest friends lots of things, including dark secrets and weak moments, and we haven’t even suffered through a zombie apocalypse together, much less your everyday dungeon crawl or vampire society party. What the hell do you think the bond between friends in that sort of harsh world would be like, where literally any moment might be your last? That kind of stress needs a release, and guess what, that release is pretty much always someone else, whether it’s a friend, a lover, a bartender or a battle brother. Even the most hardened, jaded, cynical characters I’ve seen have at least one buddy they hang around with, and most of them have a whole gang. Sooner or later, something’s going to come out. Everyone is still human, and humans are social creatures. We can’t help it. Even when we know it’s dangerous to share a secret – hell, sometimes especially because it’s dangerous – we have to share because the sharing validates something about us, brings others closer and lets us share a bit of the strain of carrying it.+

And if you’re still thinking, “But! But! But my character is a Lone Wolf who rides alone, wolfishly! He doesn’t need anyone and never gets close to anyone and can’t trust anyone but himself and his sweet Desert Eagle/katana gunblade that he made from the melted metal of his old village and the ashes of his family”, well, I’ve got a whole other speech about what’s wrong with total lone wolves in gaming, especiallyLARP. We’ll save it for another time, though. (Short version: Playing a genuine, absolute loner in a social gaming environment is a bad strategy vis a vis entertainment, and I mean yours and everyone else’s at the game.)

Also, just for the record? Sharing a secret is awesome for drama. Previously you had all the power over this knowledge, which is safe but boring. But now? Someone else has a key to your skeleton closet, and even if you’re super BFFs, now there’s always the chance that they’ll slip and let it out, or be captured and interrogated, or turn against you, or any number of other things. And guess what? That excitement, that tension, is likely far cooler and has far more potential to entertain you than sitting on that secret alone would have been. It also adds a great power dynamic to your relationship that you didn’t have before, not to mention possibly inspire you to get some dirt on them too – you know, just in case.

I should add that I’m not just talking about sharing dangerous secrets either, though that’s what I’ve focused on so far. I’m also talking about things like backstory, inner thoughts and relationship dynamics. So many characters have rich, detailed inner lives that nobody else ever gets to know about, because the player never shares it. For some people, that’s fine – they like being the only one to know certain things about their character, and hey, it IS their character. So if it works for them, great. But for those of you that spend so much time and energy writing those backstories and developing those in-game relationships, I urge you with all my heart: Get it out there! Let other people know about it! Even if it’s just a little bit, you’d be amazed how it changes the way you play; when whole games start doing it, a whole new level of story, trust and betrayal opens up that will blow your mind.

Let me be clear, I’m not saying that there is no place for FOIG (Find Out In Game). There is. After all, you probably would tell your best friend what you got them for the holidays if they really REALLY wanted to know, but generally speaking it’s more fun for both of you to surprise them, otherwise you wind up with a pretty dull present exchange down the road. Game secrets can be the same way – sure, I would probably tell you what Doc Rowe, my Dystopia Rising character, been plotting to do to the rest of the town since taking his first death drove him a little bit crazy, but that wouldn’t be nearly as much fun as finding out when it happens. (Especially for you DR players who will find out about it when the first symptoms begin to surface.) And I’m not saying there won’t be repercussions for sharing certain things either – if your character is in a secret assassin’s guild, for instance, and decides to start posting the names of members around town, you can bet there will be some retaliation, and quickly. Some secrets really are best kept that way, at least for a while, in order to preserve mystery, paranoia and tension. It’s sitting on them forever that’s the real problem.

I’m also certainly not saying that meta-gaming – using out of character knowledge in-game, like using diner conversation after an event to prompt an in-game response your characters would have no reason to carry out otherwise – is acceptable either. Not only is it against the rules, but it’s also what holds a lot of players back from doing this in the first place – they worry that other people will use what they learn out of game against them in game. There not much else to say about it except that it’s poor form, it’s poor sportsmanship, and poor drama besides. It’s not even like cheating at a video game, it’s like cheating at having lunch with your friends – it’s rude, you don’t win anything really and it makes little goddamn sense besides. Respect the divide between player and character, therefore, and just don’t metagame.

Last but not least, sometimes you just never get a chance to share a secret. Maybe your character dies before the right moment arises to reveal their love for that person they’ve been hopelessly taken with for ages; maybe they retire or are forced into exile before they ever get a chance to tell people about what they saw that terrible time during the war. That’s OK, too. That’s what they call “being true to the fiction” in the writing biz, which is another way to say that sometimes not everything goes the way characters plan, but so long as it makes sense in the context of the world it holds up. It’s its own special kind of drama, knowing that you waited just a little too long and now the chance passed you by for good. I call this the “Adama Effect”, and if you’re not familiar with why that title’s relevant, go and watch all of the new Battlestar Galactica. It’s cool – I’ll wait. (Seriously, it’s totally worth it.) OK, OK, for those without the time, let’s just say that – no spoilers – a major character waits the entire series to spill a very important secret, when he finally does, it’s literally seconds too late. The utter joy of the reveal and the utter devastation at the timing is one of the most effective instances of a secret reveal I’ve ever seen. The point is, though, that it was still revealed – just a few moments too late.

That said, I’m not asking you to go around telling other characters things you thought your character never would reveal – except maybe I am, a little bit. Whether it’s a little bit of personal history you’ve never shared, a motivation you never revealed, thoughts on a relationship your character was afraid to voice, or even a dangerous secret that might land you in a whole lot of trouble if I became widespread knowledge, I’m challenging you to find a way to share one secret thing about your character at the next game you play. And the game after that. And the game after that. Your character, telling another character. (None of this “I told them in the parking lot!” or “I whispered it while everyone was eating pizza, not my fault if no one heard” nonsense.) Not enough secrets, you say? That’s not a problem, really. Indeed, it’s challenge of its own – go and find some.

After all, the woods are lovely, dark and deep, my sweets.
Lovely, dark, and deep … and full of secrets too.

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Badass LARP Talk is a semi-regular advice series for gamers who enjoy being other people as a hobby. Like what you read? Click on the BLT or Badass LARP Talk tag on this entry to find others in the series, follow me on Twitter @WriterPete, or subscribe to the blog for future updates! 

Play to fail.

Gamers are a wonderful group of people, but there’s no denying that there is a strong core of competitiveness in what our hobby as well. These are *games*, after all, not pancake socials, and even though we all know that there aren’t “winners” in larp in any traditional sense, some play habits die hard. There’s a real temptation to look at larp like tabletop or console RPGs, where min-maxing your skills and equipment is essential to playing the game and where players are encouraged to work their hardest to avoid weaknesses and failures whenever possible. And to be fair, there’s nothing wrong with playing a character who’s awesome at something, or many things. You want to be a badass gunfighter? Go for it! World’s greatest doctor? Amazing, we could use someone like you. Political mastermind? Dive right in, there’s always plenty to do.

Just don’t forget to build in weaknesses too.

Would you want to read a book or watch a movie about a character who was awesome at everything they did, who never made any mistakes, who never lost at anything, who never once found themselves at a loss – for words, for bullets, for love? No, you wouldn’t, and you know why? Because that character is BORING. No losses, no failures and no mistakes makes for one dull protagonist, and in larp, guess what – that’s you. So what do you do to avoid falling prey to the dreaded Mary/Gary Sue problem? You build weaknesses into your character, pressure points that the staff and the other players and occasionally even you yourself can use to knock your character on their ass and force them to deal with things they can’t handle so well. And then you play them no matter where they take you, even if – especially if! – that means they’re going to land your character in serious trouble at times. Make them NEED, and find out just how far they’ll go to get it.

What can you do to encourage this sort of character? Build characters who hate things. Or love them, no matter what. Make your character afraid of something, or utterly unafraid of something that should terrify them. Give them a history, not just full of enemies out to get them, but of loved ones that the world might take away at any moment. (Enemies are easy to figure; family’s damn near impossible.) Give them money troubles, addictions, obsessions, self-deceptions. Give them codes of honor, noble promises, lofty ideals and pure intentions. (Pound for pound, few things screw up your life worse than pure intentions.) Put them in charge of a group or a project that you *know* will end up breaking their heart, or at the bottom of a ladder that will take an awful lot of blood to climb. Give them a dream they’ll do anything to realize, even if it means sacrificing everything they have now to do it.

I’m not saying that your character should suck at everything, or that they must make suicidally foolish decisions just because, or that they must be some sort of whining emo mess in order to be “real.” It’s a balance – too few problems and a character is dull, too many and they quickly become an unplayable caricature. So don’t be afraid of being good at things, or making the right decision when called for. That’s part of characters too. I’m also not saying that you should deliberately screw up your character’s life on a regular basis – well, OK, I kind of am, really. Staff will do their level best to make your life difficult and complicated, but just as it’s difficult for them to scare you if you the player refuse to feel fear, it’s difficult to really challenge your character if you the player refuse to embrace the idea that not only can you fail from time to time, but that failure can actually be a much better story than success.

If you don’t believe me, well, let me pose a scenario for all you Bond movie fans. (Well, it works for all kinds of different movies, but I like Bond and so we’ll go with that.) You know how the villain always gets one over on Bond and the rest of the good guys in the early stages of the film – captures him, kills someone vital, gets away clean to continue their nefarious schemes? Now imagine what the story would be like if Bond just captured them right off and defeated their scheme, with no problems and no complications. Be pretty damn dull, right? Yeah. It’s like that. When everything goes wrong on every conceivable level, it’s rough on the protagonists – and it can be the finest, most brutal, most amazing stories you ever experienced. That is the heart of playing to fail – realizing that some of best stories come from our very darkest hours.

So try it out, ladies and gentlemen. Find a weakness and play to fail, just to see where it takes you.

I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

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Badass LARP Talk is a semi-regular advice series for gamers who enjoy being other people as a hobby. Like what you read? Click on the BLT or Badass LARP Talk tag on this entry to find others in the series, follow me on Twitter @WriterPete, or subscribe to the blog for future updates!