The best stories happen when Mind’s Eye Theatre (MET) players take significant risks in game. By attempting coups against powerful in-character leaders, revealing secrets about others’ characters or about their own, or going against a faction’s social mores in pursuit of a taboo agenda, players drive the action of each other’s stories and create an atmosphere of suspense and wonder that brings the World of Darkness to life. Yet players can be discouraged from taking risks if the potential for in- or out-of-character fallout greatly outweighs the benefits they might achieve.
As much as players and storytellers carefully scheme to ensure the success of a LARP, most give equal or greater consideration to how bold strokes in-character might impact their out-of-character sense of happiness, security, and community. Recognizing this hesitation, Storytellers and players can encourage one another to take incredible in-character risks that heighten the experience of play by implementing two tools that mitigate players’ out-of-character concerns: consent negotiation and tapping out.
At a basic level, these tools set expectations and facilitate communication between participants without requiring them to interrupt the flow of a scene. When integrated into a community’s culture, these tools build trust between participants, and they help Storytellers share the work of creating of an immersive, exciting, and satisfying game between all participants. Consent Negotiation In MET games, participants may portray characters that are disturbing, violent, or evil. Some enjoy playing abominable fiends with anyone in the community.
Others exclusively enjoy portraying taboo behaviors only with people they know well, or only using particular types of dark content. Finally, some prefer not to imagine the depravities that others create. To complicate things, participants’ roleplaying preferences can change, even within a single game session. Engaging in an MET game from any of these perspectives is a valid way to play; however, not all play styles will mesh well. Naturally, the best way to ensure your fellow players continue to have a great time, no matter their play preferences, is by communicating with one another.
How to Negotiate Consent Consent negotiation facilitates communication between participants without significantly interrupting an ongoing scene. To use this technique, when one participant wants to roleplay aggression, flirtation, or violence with another, the person initiating the action should pause before beginning to address the intended recipient of her action. Using the Out-of-Character hand gesture, she prompts the other player with a verbal cue, such as “off game,” before asking for permission to initiate the action.
Participants should always initiate a consent negotiation before initiating scenes including physical role-play, sexuality, and violence. When playing vampire characters, participants should also initiate consent negotiations before roleplaying feeding upon or with another player’s character. Of course, participants may be more specific when describing their desired actions, such as by asking, “Out-of-character: may I touch your hair?” Participants should only respond to a consent negotiation request in one of two ways: “Yes, please,” or “No, thank you.” These limited responses prevent a consent negotiation from interrupting the flow of a scene.
If a participant is not sure if she wants to participate in the described roleplay, she should say “No, thank you.” After all, she can always change her mind. Whether a participant accepts or rejects a consent negotiation, the player who initiated the negotiation should respond, “Understood, thank you,” expressing gratitude to the player for setting and communicating boundaries. This response ends the negotiation. Participants should not ask anyone for an explanation or push the issue.
Especially in the heat of the moment, participants can forget this recommendation. If further discussion occurs, others should remind the inquiring participant that their recipient, in fact, is obliged not to give an explanation. By requiring participants to avoid explaining why they agree or decline, Storytellers and players can avoid having to justify Care and Community in Competitive Play: Negotiation Tools for MET Chronicles Their preferences cannot be dismissed as immature or invalid.
Other participants should never determine whether a particular scenario is too dark for another individual to roleplay; it is always that individual’s own choice. Players should use this tool regularly, even with people they know well and with whom they roleplay often. This practice ensures that participants make a habit of using the tool with everyone within the game’s community. Showing this care for one another, even in competitive play, demonstrates that mutual enjoyment of playing the game together is more important than winning or losing the game itself.
Example of Negotiating Consent Kiaya, Gabriella, and Antwon are playing Vampire: The Masquerade. Kiaya is storytelling for Gabriella and Antwon. Ensnared by a Setite priestess, their characters, Camarilla neonates, must find a way to escape the NPC’s clutches without revealing who sent them to investigate her. As he portrays his character, Antwon sidles up to Kiaya, who is portraying the Setite NPC. He crosses his fingers in the out-of-character sign and pauses to initiate a consent negotiation.
He asks, “Out-ofcharacter: arm around waist?” Kiaya considers his question. Even though she and Antwon have roleplayed together before and they are on good terms, she declines. “No, thank you.” Perplexed and suspicious, Antwon challenges, “Why not?” Could Kiaya suspect his true motive: to establish a grapple on her NPC, allowing Gabriella’s character to make a break for safety? Gabriella interjects. Making the out-of-character hand gesture, she reminds Antwon, “Let’s resolve it in-character.” Gabriella is right; Kiaya’s reason for declining to participate in physical roleplay with Antwon is not up for discussion, especially in the middle of a scene.
Antwon realizes that he’s let the tension of the moment get to him. “Understood. Thank you,” he tells his companions. Together, they return to the in-character action. Tapping Out Even when participants check in with one another and negotiate consent, scenes can take unexpected turns. Sometimes this change is exciting, but sometimes, a surprise is unwelcome. A player can use the tapping out technique to signal that a scene has escalated beyond the boundaries of her out-of-character sense of respect or well-being.
How to Use Tapping Out To use this tool, a player reaches across her chest with her right hand and firmly taps her left shoulder three times. This gesture should be audible to the participants in her immediate vicinity. If the player is in close quarters with another participant, or if the game site is too dark for her to be seen clearly, she may also tap an object near her. She repeats the gesture until she has the attention of her companions. When someone taps out, those in her immediate vicinity should fall silent and stop what they are doing.
If there is shouting, pause; if the player who tapped out is crowded or her exit is impeded, stand back. During this pause, participants should not ask what is wrong; they should focus on creating space for the person who tapped out to take care of her own needs without significant disruption to the scene. Meanwhile, the person who tapped out can choose from two options: she may exit the game space, or she may stay. If she leaves, she must be allowed to depart with no questions asked.
It’s useful to have an out-of-character space set aside for participants to go to when they exit. If the player or Storyteller chooses to stay, she should initiate a short verbal negotiation to inform the other participants how they can adjust the scene’s darkness or physicality so that it is fun for her again. Thereafter, the scene continues, incorporating the changes. As with negotiating consent, when a participant taps out, no one should ask her why, and she should not explain why she tapped out.
Instead, other participants should ask, “How can we adjust this scene?” This focus frees the player who tapped out to offer suggestions for her out-ofgame sense of security without saying why she has that preference. Before implementing tapping out in a game or chronicle, Storytellers should decide what happens to a player’s character when she taps out and leaves a scene. Does the character remain present while the player is absent? Does the scene pause indefinitely, and if so, should the other players involved in it wait to resume or disperse?
Storytellers should make this decision based on the needs of their individual chronicles or particular scenes and ensure that they communicate their reasoning clearly with all players. Example of Tapping Out Gabriel and Cameron are playing Werewolf: The Apocalypse. Gabriel portrays Wind-in-Stone, a Lupus Red Talon, while Cameron portrays Hydrant Sniffer, a Homid Cub. After observing that Hydrant Sniffer lacks what he considers proper lupine instincts, Wind-in-Stone has begun to verbally disparage him.
Gabriel and Cameron previously agreed that roleplaying this hazing was fun for both of them; however, when Wind-In-Stone begins calling Hydrant Sniffer a “bitch,” Cameron realizes that Gabriel has accidentally crossed an outof-character line. The next time Wind-In-Stone calls Hydrant Sniffer a bitch, Cameron taps his left shoulder three times, signaling that he is tapping out. Gabriel falls silent, pausing to let Cameron leave the scene if necessary. Cameron tells him, “I’d like to keep going.” Gabriel asks, “How can we adjust this scene so it’s more fun?” “Could you think of another way to insult my character without calling him a bitch?” Cameron suggests.
“Of course.” From then on, Wind-in-Stone disparages Hydrant Sniffer as nothing but a snack for a Black Spiral Dancer. Other characters do not comment on this change, as the matter was settled for out-of-character reasons. Application to Competitive Play The purpose of LARP is to participate in a community by playing a game together. Conflict between characters is fundamental to playing MET games. Players enjoy competing with one another for position, power, and prestige, and sometimes, a player can only attain her character’s goals at the expense of another player-character.
So how can Storytellers incorporate these tools into their chronicles without dulling the excitement of competitive play? Workshopping In order to successfully implement these tools, a baseline level of trust must first be established between participants among the community. Storytellers and veteran players can foster trust and willingness to experiment within their gaming groups by leading workshops about these tools and techniques. These workshops can take place as frequently as necessary: before each game session begins, once per quarter, or every time a new player is brought into the game.
Although the following example focuses on how to implement a workshop before a game begins, it may be more practical for some games to run workshops online via video chats or to use a group dinner before game to workshop the tools discussed in this essay. If Storytellers and veteran players want to workshop these techniques directly before a game begins as a way for participants to get into character, they should ideally have a workshop space that is separate from, but adjacent to, the game space.
Begin by guiding players through a series of facial expressions: fury, grief, and terror. Have players walk around the workshop space as they watch one another embodying each expression. Prompt them to observe how they and others express emotion differently, and to consider how to use these techniques when they see someone expressing emotion in-character differently or to a greater degree than they do in this exercise. Next, as players wander through the room, instruct them to flirt with and complement one another without commenting on each other’s bodies below the neck.
“I love all the colors in your costume – did you make it yourself?” is a great compliment, while “I can’t get over how good your boobs look in that dress” is inappropriate for this exercise. This practice helps players feel comfortable with flirtation in-character and provides a baseline foundation for appropriate behavior that one might safely use when roleplaying flirtation or sexuality. Finally, the workshop leaders should ask the participants to practice negotiating consent and tapping out in rotating pairs.
For example, players can practice negotiating consent by making absurd requests of one another and saying no to those requests. In this exercise, participants should always say no instead of saying yes or no, because often, when players are unsure if their answer should be yes or no, they say yes for fear of missing out or of disappointing another. This practice also helps participants accept that they do not need to know why someone declined their request. Workshop leaders should reach out to players who enjoy very competitive games and discuss the idea that everyone participates in LARP by consent.
If current and prospective members are driven off by a community that does not prioritize trust in and care for its members, then there are fewer participants available to compete against. Despite appearances, a diminishing pool of participants is not advantageous to the success of the game or to the satisfaction of competitive players; indeed, when there are fewer people with whom they can compete, games stagnate. Storytellers and workshop leaders should encourage competitive players to consider the culture that they have developed in their chronicles, and to participate in dialogue about their visions of an ideal gaming community.
Address issues of stagnation by asking questions such as, “Once a player or a group of players have achieved incharacter power and success, what do they build next?” or “What do they do with their victory?” If the purpose of their victory is only to retain the power that they have accumulated, these players will find that future challenges become scarce. Enforcement Even if community leaders regularly host pre-game workshops to teach players how to use these and other tools to build an out-of-character culture of care, players may still abuse these tools.
Storytellers and community leaders should make it clear that these techniques are not available to players so that they can avoid consequences for in-character actions. Players who misuse these tools are not only cheating by breaking the rules of the game, but they also cheat the community of the trust that is given to them. If one player feels that another has used these tools to avoid in-character conflict to benefit her character, instead of using them to assert her personal boundaries and limits for darkness, horror, or emotional roleplay, the issue must be adjudicated by a Storyteller, not between players.
Storytellers should speak with players to understand how they used these tools, discover whether a breach of trust occurred, and decide what should happen in-character. Before implementing these tools in their chronicles, Storytellers should determine what discipline players will face if they use these tools to avoid in-character conflict to benefit their characters. If Storytellers decide that a cheating player’s behavior merits discipline, then they must take care to record the incident of cheating and apply disciplinary measures consistently to ensure fairness.
Conclusion When players engage in competitive in-character play and support one another in an out-of-character culture of respect, trust, and communication, participating in the game becomes a way to connect with a vibrant, welcoming community. By using tools like negotiating consent and tapping out, players who enjoy competition can ensure that there is always a churning pool of character-versuscharacter action to keep them engaged and challenged. Eventually, this churn can erode competitive players’ in-character bases of power, but it is this risk — not the security of stagnation — that keeps competitive players challenged and engaged, stoking their enthusiasm.
As a result, players and storytellers can tell better stories while building better communities. Biography Maria Cambone studies intergroup dialogue, racial and disability justice, and educational leadership as a Masters student in the Student Affairs in Higher Education program at Miami University of Ohio. She has been a member of the U.S. mid-Atlantic LARP community since 2006, and an avid World of Darkness fan since her first Vampire: The Masquerade LARP in 2010. Maria began working with Mind’s Eye Theatre: Werewolf The Apocalypse in December 2015.
Originally published in Mind’s Eye Theatre: Immersion Secrets by By Night Studios. Presented here under Resources for chronicles and live play.