The Peckforton Papers Essays from Four Decades of UK Larp the Peckforton Papers

The Peckforton Papers Essays from four decades of UK larp The Peckforton Papers Essays from four decades of live action roleplaying in the UK The Peckforton Papers Edited by Simon Brind, Juliet Brind, EmmyLou Laird, John Shockley, and Martine Svanevik Cover photograph: Oliver facey © Respective authors 2018. All rights reserved. Published by Wychwood End in London, England ISBN 978-0-244-35867-9 in association with AVALONLARP.STUDIO CONTENTS Introduction to the Peckforton Papers. Simon Brind 1 All Our Yesterdays - British Larp. Charlie Ashby 3 Peaky writing weekends. Steve Hatherley 22 Who is responsible for what at a larp event? Stephen Gibson 32 All games for all people - the integration of accessibility. Robin Tynan 50 Playing “let’s try not to kill or permanently damage someone unnecessarily.” Ben Mars 56 The blurring of social norms connected to live action role-play. Marilyn Massingham 62 How indie tabletop games have grown into larps, and what you can steal from them. Joanna Piancastelli 68 Genre and feeling: a contrast between writing horror and fantasy larp. Laura Mitchell 80 Fear loves this place. Alan Morgan 90 From book to field: Adapting tabletop for larp while retaining a feel of personal horror. Ellie Williams and Joe Rooney 102 Making larp like movies. Leah Tardivel, Mark Nichols, and Thomas E Hancocks Don’t let the vampire get away - designing linear games and mistakes I’ve made when doing so. Ben Mars 134 A process for writing freeforms Steve Hatherley 155 I am the author of my fate: Some thoughts on player agency and its interaction with narrative. Ellen Green 172 The campaign for LRP not larp Leah Tardivel, Mark Nichols, and Thomas E Hancocks 179 Immersive, interactive, in-character: larp edges into the mainstream. Harry Harrold 184 Glossary of larp terms 192 Ludography 198 Biographies 203 Afterword 209 Introduction 1 Introduction Simon Brind Hello, Adventurer! UK larp (or even LRP) is not the same as larp in America. It is not Nor- dic larp, nor is it Romanesque or The Southern Way. In 2018 it is frag- mented, emergent, conservative, and yet still managing (here and there) to explore the cutting edge. But most of the things that are written about larp originate from outside of the UK. There are larp scholars who have researched this hobby inside and out and who understand how it works, the psychological and physiological effects it has on the human mind and body and why we care so much about what is essentially a grown-up version of a kid’s playtime. When I meet these people I like to open the conversation with “Well, when we invented larp, in the UK …” They put up with me gently trolling them because I am a slightly intimidating middle-aged man with a shaved head, but also because many of them know that this is sort-of true. Larp was invented in Wand- sworth, in London in 1598. It was not called larp then, nor LRP, nor ‘real life role-playing’, but it was the birth of the classic form of the hobby. So I explain that the first larper was Queen Elizabeth the First and that—in- cidentally—this was also the first instance of the plot not surviving first contact with the player. The Queen used to tour the country, visiting her subjects, keeping the barons in check, and playing the game of Tudor court politics. During Introduction 2 her ‘progression’ the Lords used to lay on lavish entertainments across their lands and estates. The Queen often featured in these stories, her very presence would calm monstrous beasts or turn back the tides. In 1598 they tried something different. In this particular entertainment — The Lady of May — a character could not choose between her two suitors, and so she asked the Queen to help her pick. It may be that the suitors represented real life suitors to the Queen. What is interesting is the inclu- sion of agency. The Queen was meant to decide. If I can get a bit click- baity here: What happened next was ‘a surprising fiasco’; ‘an audacious experiment which went wrong.’ The Queen, royally pissed off at the obvious attempt to manipulate her, deliberately chose the ‘wrong’ suitor. The end of the play was clearly written with one winner in mind; but Queen Elizabeth went with the other. Unfortunately, we do not really know what happened next ... What we do know is that the modern version of UK larp started in 1982 with a Castle larp, a dungeon crawl called Treasure Trap. We also know that we have four decades of history and experience of writing, running, and playing larps in the UK and—on the whole—we do not write about it. This means that experiences of organisers are not shared. Details and innovations get lost. People who were a part of making larp history are forgotten. It also means that the rest of the world does not know what we do here, or what we have done, because we do not write it down. It is time to change that. The Peckforton Papers is a collection of essays, ideas, memories, and guides to the last 36 years of larp in the UK. They range from personal recollections of the early days at Peckforton Castle, how to guides for writing and running larps, to academic papers looking at how larp affects group dynamics. It is also our first attempt at writing about what we did, what we do, and how we do it. As some of the terms used in these papers are either UK larp specific, or are either unheard of, or have a slightly different meaning in the UK, we have added a glossary at the end of the book. I commend this text to the larperverse and trust that you will find some small joy and interest in the words contained herein. Simon Brind London, December 2017 All our yesterdays 3 All our yesterdays- British larp Charlie Ashby We do not have much of a culture of game documentation in British LRP/larp. The history of the early days of larp exist mostly in people’s heads. On one hand, larp itself resists documentation, there is no script, there is no score, there is no master-narrative to follow, larp is the indi- vidual experience of each participant. On the other hand, this pastime that has meant and means so much to so many people deserves a record. As larp evolves and expands in new directions this section takes a mo- ment to look back at where this all came from. The memories that follow have no pretension to being an author- itative History of British Live Roleplay, but they capture something of the magic of the scenes that emerged around the Treasure Trap game at Peckforton Castle (est. 1982) and the parallel development of the Free- form tradition at the York University Fantasy Party events (est. 1988).1 There are some common threads that bind the different stories together, such as the connection back to tabletop-based roleplaying games and the desire to take those further. Both forms emerged in the 1980s, where many who did not subscribe to Thatcher’s vision felt pretty mar- ginalised and bleak about the future. The world of larp was more than simple escapism. The memories here allude to the opening of a door into other worlds and other ways of being. What also comes across powerful- ly - at a time where it was argued that there was no such thing as soci- 1 For a timeline of British larp events see: http://www.grandtribunal.org/2015/UK_LARP_history All our yesterdays 4 ety, only individuals and families2 - is the importance of community. In larp people found themselves thrown into adventures with strangers who soon became close friends and a cooperative and inclusive community they felt instantly part of. I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to all the contributors here who shared their stories. Andy Kitchingman - Treasure Trap We were a group of friends from Wakefield who had all been to school together. The school had had a policy of encouraging hobbies and one of the last lessons on a Thursday was labelled Activities. We had all been part of the Wargames Society where we were first introduced to Dungeons & Dragons. One of our friends saw an advert in White Dwarf Magazine for Treasure Trap – the live roleplaying society at Peckforton Castle. We jumped in a car and drove to Tarporley/Tarvin – I cannot re- member which. Unable to find the castle we stopped in one of the town centres and made a call from the telephone box in the in the middle of the town. The phone call was answered by Rob Donaldson who claimed that he could see us packed into the phone box from his front room and we agreed to meet up in the local pub. Over a pint he explained the Society wasn’t up and running yet but we were welcome to come up to the Castle with him to have a look around. An opportunity we could not afford to miss. We signed up there and then and our Treasure Trap experience began. We started with the Basic Dungeon, which was the introductory adventure for new-comers, in which the adventuring party, led by a wiz- ard-guide searched for a lost treasure and were harried by Orcs. We were kitted out in green shirts and bullet type helmets along with a spear and shield. The Dungeon consisted of a long corridor with rooms off either side culminating in ‘The Gargoyle Room’, followed by the Round Room and then a run out through the main doors and across the grass courtyard to safety.

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