What I Think About When I Think About Larp Design, Part II: The Disciplines

In my previous post, I wrote about viewing the designable parts of your larp as not just the event’s run-time, but also pretty much everything leading up to it, and also everything that happens after, potentially for ever. (No, really). Here are some of the things I mean in my mind when I think about larp design. (I drew the diagram with my finger again!) … Continue reading What I Think About When I Think About Larp Design, Part II: The Disciplines

Johanna KoljonenLeave a comment

What I Think About When I Think About Larp Design, Part I: The Total Larp

The experience of your larp is shaped just as much by what happens before and after the event itself as by your game mechanics Since live-action role-playing was invented, our focus for how to make larps better has been about optimizing game design: creating a “rules machine” that given the input of players and player choices will output the kind of experience you are aiming … Continue reading What I Think About When I Think About Larp Design, Part I: The Total Larp

Johanna KoljonenLeave a comment

Narrative Experience Design Basics

Larpmaking is not just game design. This is actually not a very strange proposition. For instance, producing video games also involves other disciplines than game design (like music composition, film direction and community management), since the gameplay is embedded in audiovisual storytelling and takes place in a wider entertainment context. Similarly, the game design aspect of larp design is only one of at least four … Continue reading Narrative Experience Design Basics

Johanna KoljonenLeave a comment

“What Do You Do Know About Debriefs?”

How my obsession with “Larp Safety” started, and why I use that term in quotation marks I’ve looked back through the oceans of stuff on my computer but I can’t put a date on where my obsession started: possibly 2011? I know exactly where it happened though: in the big lobby area of the Swedish larp convention Prolog. My great (and then relatively new) friend … Continue reading “What Do You Do Know About Debriefs?”

Johanna KoljonenLeave a comment