I haven’t posted anything in a
while. I have things written – quite a few things. I’ve got things I need to
get off my chest, things I simply want to write about and things that are just
ideas I feel I should throw into the great aether of the internet – they might
help someone, or get lost forever, but that’s for others to decide, not me.
Partly, I’ve had a lot a
real-life stuff to deal with that hasn’t been great, partly there’s been some
relief of not reliving the same memories over and over – why do I torture
myself? – and partly it’s been the things that I want to write and talk about
that’s been the issue.
Because, in the LARP community, there’s just
things you don’t talk about. Not because they’re racist, or homophobic or
whatever, not like that. Something, I think, is much darker than that.
LARPers don’t want you to make
them look bad.
Why do I say that and not
‘LARPers don’t want you to make LARP look bad’? For the simplest reason of all
– LARP is a hobby that one spends a lot of time, money and socialising invested
in – as a person only has so much time spare, socialising itself is a capital
along with time, meaning that outside of work and some personal issues at home,
for many LARPers, their life revolves around LARP.
For LARPers then, any part of the
community and its lifestyle is very, very personal. Any slight taken against a
game that a LARPer plays at, minor criticism of a game, of a person in the
community, of an aspect of the culture gets take too literal, too deep and as
‘offensive’ without really seeing the bigger picture or the intent behind it (see some previous posts about people takign everything to heart!)
I’ve been a bit lucky really the
past couple of years – I joined a game system that I wrote an article about,
and the game organisers didn’t shun me for it, but the opposite, they embraced
it and made minor changes to the game that’s made it visibly better (I will
write another article about it) and ask for my opinion at times. In my
experience, this isn’t what normally happens at LARP.
I’ll give you an example: look at
this article written by LARP Guide member Leah Tardivel (yes, we’re back to
looking at this, but they’re one of the few article machines out there that
talk openly).
A LARP Guide team member that’s
never played the Lorien Trust game system attended and wrote a review on her
experience.
The first and third comments on
the article are direct attacks. Not justifications, not
counter-points (as I countered about ‘That Event is Too Expensive’ – even
though my counter was very critical and inflammatory, it didn’t attack), not
even ‘yeah, I see what you mean… but...’ or ‘come back and have another go’.
No. Leah was struck with ‘your
fault, you didn’t get involved’ and ‘you didn’t use maps’ and ‘well, that’s
just your experience’.
First – I’m glad Leah got to
experience LT that way, and the snobbish replies afterwards. Leah saying about
the difficulties she had, what she perceived of the game and the replies she
got were exactly what new players get to large system - particularly those new
to LARP.
Leah might be surprised to learn
that she criticised the exact areas of the game that I had problems with when I
started CP - and she's a CP lover.
Being ‘new’ no-one wants to talk
to you much – you get pushed to the edge where you see the crappier costumes.
You must find your way around, and there certainly wasn’t a lot of maps handy
at CP when I started around 15 years back. Sure, the guide had a map at the
back – but if you were new you didn’t have a guide, and not knowing a lot of
people, you don’t always want to ask, especially when someone points out that
it’s something OOC ‘ruining IC immersion’.
New players struggle to get plot
– or indeed, anything or anywhere – new players struggle to find out what’s
going on. Of course, this isn’t true for all new players, but the majority,
certainly. Many long-term LARPers won’t
notice this, however, as, even if they’ve never played CP before, they’ll have
friends they can go see and talk to. They’ll set an IC excuse as to why people
that have never met before are best friends, so they can hang around their OOC
friends without worry.
And those veterans LARPers that
do notice these problems know that – at least for them – it won’t last long as
they’ll find their own way into the game, know the general steps to take etc.
Even though learning this takes years. Unless you have a friend willing to
guide you, LARP generally leaves you out in the cold.
And that’s exactly my point. The
two commenters didn’t want ‘their’ game looking bad – Leah didn’t realise that
the exact things she criticised are also in her game.
LARP doesn’t want to talk about
its problems.
A friend posted on Facebook
something about people saying ‘you shouldn’t hold grudges’ and being bullied,
and then, of course not wanting to be friends with that person again, because
well, you were bullied by them (duh?)
I lost a friendship around this
time last year – because I had dared criticise a friend of a friend. I was
explaining to my friend that this guys had recently joined the small parlour
LARP I attend, seemingly because he knows I attend it. This guy used to send
quite abusive emails and messages on Facebook to me.
At the time, when I pointed it
out to people I was told to keep it under wraps – we didn’t want to upset
others do we?
This time, it was almost like I
was the one abusing my friend – how dare I say such nasty thing about his
friend? If you read ‘5 Geek Social Fallacies’, you’ll see why – my friends have
to also be friends. No one can not get along.
Another friend I know has
recently posted up about the sexual abuse she suffered from someone she met at
LARP that has scarred her for life – and how another LARP friend has been
bullying her into going to a game where this guy is known to attend.
My friend has spent 6 or 7 posts trying to
justify why she doesn’t want to go, and that she shouldn’t put herself in an
abusive situation again.
6 posts. At least.
What a loading of utter fucking
bollocks!
If she doesn’t want to go, she shouldn’t
have to defend herself, or justify herself. It’s her choice! Leave it at that!
LARP doesn’t want to talk about
its problems.
“Wait, yes it does! I’ve seen
loads of articles about dealing with abuse at LARP!”
Yes, you probably have. I have.
Like this one: 19 Truths about Harassment, Missing Stairs, and Safety in Larp Communities.
The article mentions all the
things that can happen at LARP – without directly asserting that they do, in
fact, happen, except in a round-about ‘it happens in the macrocosm, therefore
it happens in the microcosm’ spurious kind of way. It mentions all the bad
things that can happen, and the pledges we must pro-actively strive to include
to make sure these things don’t happen.
I have a couple of major issues
with this article that I’d like to deal with in another article, but mainly,
whilst I praise the article for its candour and for being empowering and
honest, it doesn’t resolve anything. It doesn’t mean anything. You can pledge
all kinds of things you want, but when the worst happens, you’re going to need
to know how to make it better.
LARP doesn’t. It sweeps it under
the proverbial carpet. ALL LARPs should make the pledges mentioned in this
article – and once again, I despair that such things must written out for
people – and yet, the community still struggles with the basic principle of
policing itself in a humane manner.
LARP doesn’t want to talk about
its problems – the community will says that maybe there is some, so it looks
like its talking about its problems – but it isn’t.
Recently, another friend of mine
was telling me about how his friend at CP is suffering from harassment from
another player couple, and how she’s possibly having to move factions because
of it. Apparently, not all of it has
been by messenger either – some of it has been by constant texts and telephone
calls, by threats and even to her face.
What would you do? In a normal,
everyday situation? At work? What would you do?
You’d complain to a higher manager,
wouldn’t you? You’d go to an employment law adviser, wouldn’t you? You’d save
it all up and go to the police, wouldn’t you?
Wouldn’t you?
There’s no such recourse in LARP.
It’s worse if the person in question has influential friends in nthe LARP
community. It’s worse if the person in question is friends with the ref team.
It’s worse when they are the referee team.
I wasn’t ‘allowed’ to speak about
the messages and grief I used to get from players. I can only imagine the
situation this young lady is trapped in, no one to speak to, no way to sort it
out other than change her life.
When I said to my friend that
maybe what she should do is publish the texts and messages she receives, my
friend said “well, no she can’t do that…”
“Why not?”
“She’d get lots of people upset”
Hang on. She’s being abused emotionally
and she isn’t allowed to say anything? She isn’t ‘allowed’ to stand up for
herself? In the article, it mentions
Missing Stairs – players simply avoiding the issue, moving to another location
or another game, whatever. Skirting around it.
That’s exactly what this woman is
expected to do – but it’s not coming from her. It’s coming from the community.
Others are expecting her to not speak out.
LARP doesn’t want to talk about
its problems – it knows it has them, but doesn’t want to admit it.
A friend posted another article
to me: Remember, The Party is Under No Obligation to Adventure With You. This
is accurate and right – though again, I’d like to express more in another
article.
The issue here is though – is it’s
not being dealt with. It’s pushing it to one side.
In the LARP community, this is
often the way certain people are ‘dealt’ with. Look on most forums, for
example, players will often say cheaters are ‘ignored’ or ‘avoided’. I know one
cheat that was ignored so much he became a referee.
LARP doesn’t want to talk about
its problems.
But it needs to. And it needs to
sort them out.