At the event, what to do with information or plot

In this weeks entry I’m going to try to tell you what you can do with information or plot that you get at the event. The first thing I want to say is that there is no right or wrong way in how you handle this. There are so many ways to deal with information and plot that I can’t tell them all. It is also very difficult to write this but I’ll try to tell you about the main guidelines.
Alexjuh

Like I said there is hardly a right or a wrong. The only thing that people often think is wrong is meta-gaming; using information gained out-of-character in-character. What you do with plot depends on your character and even the group you play with.

You can choose to discard plot if it befits your character or you can choose to hand over the plot to someone else. You can choose to sit it out and see what happens or you can choose to devote yourself to it. And then there are over a thousand possibilities left of course. The options I just gave are some of the most extreme (and often used) cases.

When handling plot keep in mind that everything you do has its consequences, if it is not for you, than for someone else. What you do with plot also highly depends on your character and on what you like. When I get plot I try to react as to what is natural to my character. When playing with a group we try to figure out which person(s) befits this plot best and likes to do something with it.

When you involve other people in the plot you’ve been given, you create interaction. Maybe you can involve someone who is bored and with this give him or her a great day. Maybe you can involve someone who is new to LARP and guide him or her.

You can choose to keep the plot to yourself which brings as a consequence that you’ll have to do everything alone. There is a possibility you deny the information to other people which can result in the plot-line getting stuck. Some events have a strong action/consequence policy. If a certain person decides to hoard important information the whole player-group can receive a penalty for not completing the storyline. Which is a little unfair given that they couldn’t have known the necessary information.

The latter I have seen and resulted in unhappy, even angry, people.

LARP is strongly based on action and interaction. Once I read a blog post about interaction on a LARP. The writer of that blog entry wrote that to involve people is to create more options for your own character. Keeping a secret is all nice, but if you involve other people you can actually do something with your knowledge (even if you don’t actually tell them the secret). You can read her full blog post here.

If you don’t know what to do with the piece of plot, then try to involve other people, maybe they can help you. Or you can hand it over to someone else, maybe he or she has a clue. Another way is to just leave it at a rest and see what happens. Maybe somewhere along the way you get a clue as what to do with it.

As I said, LARP is strongly based on action, interaction, involvement and consequences. When dealing with plot try to find a way that you like and befit your character. When you are at the event, don’t try to analyse every piece of plot you get and what you should do with it, just act in a way that comes naturally to you and/or your character. Don’t push yourself to do something with a piece of plot you don’t like, it can stress you out or ruin your day(s).

Special mention for this entry: Doomsday General. Thank you for helping me writing this entry and helping with translation, grammar and filtering out little mistakes.

Next week’s entry: Encampment.

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Dit artikel is oorspronkelijk gepost op Alexandra’s blog (17 februari 2014) en is opnieuw beschikbaar gesteld voor LARP Platform.

Alexandra is momenteel actief met het organiseren van Dark Union, een unieke bad guy LARP in Nederland. Daarnaast is ze heel creatief meer leerbewerken onder handelsnaam Layers.