The Knudepunkt 2015 Companion Book Edited by Charles Bo Nielsen & Claus Raasted The Knudepunkt 2015 Companion Book Edited by Charles Bo Nielsen & Claus Raasted Formalia Table of contents Foreword 6 The Knudepunkt 2015 Companion Book Claus Raasted First Edition, 2015 ISBN 978-87-92507-24-2 6 levels of substitution: The Behaviour Substitution Model 8 Lauri Lukka Editors Behind the larp census: 29.751 larpers can’t (all) be wrong 16 Charles Bo Nielsen, Claus Raasted Aaron Vanek Four Backstory Building Games You Can Play Anywhere!: Simple and effective 24 Editorial Assistants Peter Woodworth Mo Holkar, Karete Jacobsen Meland Infinite Firing Squads: The evolution of The Tribunal 30 J.Tuomas Harviainen Proofreaders Stefan Deutsch, Erlend Eidsem Hansen, Elisabeth Solbjerg Kaalund Keller, Dominika Ingame or offgame?: Towards a typology of frame switching 34 Kovacova, Elin Nilsen between in-character and out-of-character Olga Vorobyeva Layout Learning by playing: Larp as a teaching metod 42 Claus Raasted Myriel Balzer & Julia Kurz Looking at you: Larp, documentation and being watched 56 Cover Image Juhana Pettersson magicalhobo via sketchport.com under CC-BY. Now That We’ve Walked The Walk…: Some new additions to the larp vocabulary 62 Text Bjørn Flindt Temte Myriel Balzer, Whitney “Strix” Beltrán, Emily Care Boss, Stefan Deutsch, Eirik Fatland, On Publicity and Privacy: Or “How do you do your documentation?” 70 J.Tuomas Harviainen, Mo Holkar, Nathan Hook, Kaisa Kangas, Julia Kurz, Lauri Lukka, Jamie MacDonald Jamie MacDonald, Markus Montola, Jason Morningstar, Jacob Nielsen, Juhana Pettersson, Painting larp: Using art terms for clarity 78 Mike Pohjola, Claus Raasted, Eleanor Saitta, Jaakko Stenros, Bjørn Flindt Temte, Evan Jacob Nielsen Torner, Aaron Vanek, Olga Vorobyeva, Peter Woodworth Processing political larps: Framing larp experiences with strong agendas 82 Kaisa Kangas Publishing House Rollespilsakademiet, Copenhagen, Denmark Safe words: And how to use them 88 Published in conjunction with the Knudepunkt 2015 conference Nathan Hook Steering For Immersion in Five Nordic larps: A new understanding of eläytyminen 94 Free PDF version Mike Pohjola rollespilsakademiet.dk/webshop/kp2015companionbook.pdf The Art of Steering: Bringing the Player and the Character Back Together 106 Markus Montola, Jaakko Stenros & Eleanor Saitta The Blockbuster Formula: Brute Force Design in 118 The Monitor Celestra and College of Wizardry Eirik Fatland & Markus Montola The D-M creative agenda model: An axis instead of a pyramid 132 Nathan Hook The Golden Cobra Challenge: Amateur-Friendly Pervasive Freeform Design 138 Evan Torner, Whitney “Strix” Beltrán, Emily Care Boss & Jason Morningstar There is no Nordic larp: And yet we all know what it means 142 Stefan Deutsch Workshop practice: A functional workshop structure method 148 Mo Holkar Ending: The larper’s burden 156 Claus Raasted The Knudepunkt 2015 Companion Book Balzer: Learning by playing Foreword “I sat there for an hour or so, immersing in my backstory, imagining how my life was before I become a Nazi Zombie. It was quite a powerful experience, even though there were no other players around. It was a bit of a Turku moment, I guess.” Dracan Dembinski Larp is a strange beast, as the quote above In the Swedish tradition of the time, If one was a bit hip and pretentious, one And believe me, we’ve come a LONG from this Polish larper shows. There are characters were often created by the could refer to Holger Jacobsen’s Developing way. In my day job I work with larp people who will read those words and players, and some characters were even re- Character from The Book (2001), which professionally - mainly doing larps for think “I have nothing in common with this used in different fictional worlds. was published by the Norwegian KP2001 non-larpers. I can’t just tell some potential guy.” and others who will feel kinship. organizers. customers that we’re going to run a mafia The Finns had thought it sounded larp that’s 360, dramatist-oriented, heavy And that’s what this book is about. crazy when the Swedes talked of larps Now fast-forward ten years and we’re in on alibi and which uses Ars Amandi, Kinship. At the heart, larp theory and with hundreds of players, and didn’t see 2015. If I’m discussing larp, I can casually runtime gamemastering and non-diegetic analysis is about creating bridges so we can character creation as a major task. The drop references to GNS theory, talk about music. Inspired by The Executive Game. visit each others’ islands of imagination. Swedes didn’t understand why the Finns the virtues of bleed or shake my head at liked the small games. the new, fancy concept of steering (I love Sure, I could say those words, but they Does this sound a bit bizarre to you? Let steering, since it gives something I’ve done wouldn’t make sense to the people who me explain. After all, that’s what a foreword And all of this due to the fact that there for many years an easily explainable term). want to hire us. But to you and me, some is for, right? Setting the stage. wasn’t any clear agreement on what a (if not all) of these words mean a lot. character was, how one was created or who Oh, you don’t know about steering? Well, When and where the first larps were held was in charge of that process. luckily for you, there are two excellent And the reason the words mean a lot is is a heavily debated subject. One thing is articles on just that in this book! because someone went to the trouble of certain, though. When we started meeting This was back in 1999, before there were using them in certain ways, and defined each other, we started talking. And in the any KP books - and almost before there And while you might also be unfamiliar what was meant by them - sometimes beginning, some of those talks were fraught was any Knudepunkt at all. with GNS theory (it’s a bit old school these taking thorough verbal beatings along the with misunderstandings, because we didn’t days), I can point you to places where you way for not having thought things through. have the same frames of reference. Five years later, people talking about can learn about it. And if you think bleed characters could have referred to Petri is an idiotic term, we can discuss it without In the end, expanding not only our toolbox One of my favorite larp culture stories Lankoski’s Character Design Fundamentals having to discuss what it means first. but also our vocabulary is an important is about how it took the first three for Role-Playing Games (2004) or maybe Ari- part of growing as a hobby, art form, form Knudepunkts before a couple of my Pekka Lappi’s The Character Interpretation Many larpers feel that the Nordic of media and whatever else we call larp. Finnish and Swedish friends understood (2004). community is theory-obsessed and should that they had vastly different ideas of how do more larps instead of discussing so That doesn’t mean you can’t have fun characters were created. Both were in Beyond Role and Play - Tools, Toys much. I couldn’t disagree more. slaying orcs in the woods. It just means that and Theory for Harnessing the Imagination, when I tell you at dinner that even orcs can In the Finnish tradition of the late 90’s the KP book of 2004. The fact that some people are willing to have bleed, you can nod knowingly instead of characters were ALWAYS created by the discussions means that we can establish a thinking that I’m a bit of a psycho. organizers - much like today, though the common language, and that language means “always” has become a “almost always”. we can communicate with each other. Claus Raasted, January 2015 6 7 6 levels of substitution The Behaviour Substitution Model Lauri Lukka The Knudepunkt 2015 Companion Book Lukka: The Behaviour Substitution Model Introduction You are gliding over the parquet, in a In order for these interpretations to be constant battle over who’s in charge. You valid, we must understand how big a lock eyes and tighten your grip pulling difference there is between the behaviour your partner just a bit closer. Your posture we observe and that of the character. This and precise footwork radiate confidence. article proposes a model of behaviour Other players are holding their breath to substitution by which the difference see which one gives up the battle first. between the behaviours in- and outside of Actually, there is much more at stake: the the game can be described hierarchically. dance is a metaphor for a duel. The game Level Description An Example In Fair Verona, held in Stockholm in 2012, In other words, the model can be used to used dancing to simulate aggression and assess whether a behaviour is simulated, No Substitution The behaviour is nearly equal Fighting is real passion. and in what way. The model proposes in the game world and outside six categories whose implications are of it There are many things that cannot be discussed. Finally, it is suggested that this acted out in a game – and for this reason model can also be applied to other genres Adaptation The behaviour is slightly Fighting slowly using safe the behaviours acted out by the player in which there is a fictional reality. adapted, yet it clearly resembles techniques cannot be identical to the behaviour of the one intended their character in the game world. The Behaviour Substitution Model Grotesque The behaviour is changed Fighting with grossly Firstly, the behaviours may be illicit, moderately, it requires effort to exaggerated movements unethical or dangerous to perform.