The truth is out there?In a word: No!
There are multiple interpretations of events, histories and objects in the larp. These will be meaningful in different ways to different characters. Things are left deliberately ambiguous and open so that conflicts might arise between those holding different points of view. It is expected that your character might argue with their spouse or neighbour about whether it is aliens or the Old Gods that caused your fence to collapse. |
StructureEvents.
There will be a number of opt-in events which happen within certain groups which will help to structure play. These are expected to be mostly player-led rather than prescripted by the designers. These might include meetings of the Parish Council, rituals conducted by the cult, a book group or film club, etc. Players are invited to play on the events included on their character sheets (where applicable) as well as suggest ones of their own. On the final day there will also be the village fête, where there will be stalls with produce for sale and games. Activities. There will also be play on the activities of daily life in the village. This will include work for the small businesses and the GCHQ staff, normal family life, the daily routines of the village. |
Metatechniques |
The Red Room
This will function as a flexible blackbox space which can be used to play out a variety of scenes. It can be used to play events from characters’ pasts. It can be used for character transformations and for having psychedelic trips or supernatural experiences. It can also be used to encounter Doppelgangers (like the tulpa from Twin Peaks or the maza and dohta from Murakami’s 1Q84). If there is something you want to play that doesn’t fit into ‘normal’ village life, play it here. |
Time and space
Time and space anomalies can be used to facilitate the play experiences you want. The village operates on its own logic. People arrive but never seem able to leave. Even when people intend to go, the road just leads them directly back. Is life here just so good? Or is something more unusual happening? Who can say for sure? Certainly the villagers don’t seem too perturbed by it. Then there’s the fact that nothing seems to change, or at least things seem to go in cycles. The blow-up rows of one day might seem all but forgotten the next. Are people here more forgetful? Or is there something in the air? |
Safety |
The larp features some heavy themes in the backstories of many of the characters, and they will be played upon during the larp. Some examples are: bereavement, alcoholism, drug addiction, physical illness, mental illness, suicide, suicidal ideation, financial precarity, religion, death of a child, pregnancy, bullying, toxic relationships, childhood abuse or neglect, sexism, homophobia. During sign-up, you will be able to specify which themes you don't want to have in your character backstory or in your pre-scripted relationships; we will ensure you will be cast according to these preferences. However, there is no guarantee that an unrelated character will not e.g. confide to you during the game about these themes; if this happens, you will be responsible for ensuring your own psychological safety and using safewords to de-escalate, opt-out or stop the scene.
There will be no play on sexual abuse. |
Safety techniques.
We will be using well-established safewords and signs to escalate/de-escalate/opt-out/stop the scene. They will be explained in the player documents closer to the larp, and again during the workshops. Player-centred attitude. Play up slowly to scenes that might be potentially upsetting to other players and give other players the option to opt out or approach the scene in a way that they are comfortable with. It is always okay to ask someone for a brief off-game discussion to calibrate any aspect of play. |
Physical contact.
The baseline for contact without asking for consent is hugs, violence represented by carefully shaking someone's shoulder and making a slow-motion punch without connecting, intimate/romantic/sexual touch not going beyond caressing cheeks, hands and hair and using a theatrical kissing meta-technique (kissing your own thumb placed on the other person's lips; we will demonstrate it during the workshop). However, the larp supports levels of consent both below and above this baseline:
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