The Malkavian Problem: Mental Illness in LARP

It's a little late for World Mental Health Day, but I've been thinking about these issues for a while now, and would thus like to talk a little about issues surrounding mental illness in LARP. This post is going to mostly focus on portrayals of mental illness within LARP, though I'm also going to touch on a couple of other things, such as accessibility issues.

More so than any other form of disability, mental illness is subject to a great degree of mystification, prejudice and stigma in contemporary society. Indeed, the argument can be made that mental illness is the last true social taboo; and whilst the twentieth century has seen (for various reasons) a gradual reduction in stigma associated with depressive illnesses and other "neurotic" disorders, there still remains a great deal of stigma directed towards illnesses characterised by psychosis, and towards certain other categories of mental ill-health or non-normative psychology.

(Quick definition time, for the baffled: neurosis and psychosis is one paradigm by which mental illnesses can be classified, currently more in use in psychoanalysis rather than "medical" psychiatry. In this schema, a neurotic state is one in which there is a degree of emotional distress evolving from unconscious conflict; a psychotic state, on the other hand, is one in which there is a distortion or break from the commonly-assumed conception of reality)

For a simple demonstration of the extent of the problem, let's look at the etymology of some common terms.

Mad - from the Old English "gemæd", meaning "enraged"

Insane - from Latin "insanus", meaning "lacking soundness (of body or mind)"

Deranged - from French "déranger", meaning "to disrupt"

Pictured: A typical linguistic relativist

Lunatic - from Latin "lunaticus", meaning "of the moon"

Crazy - from the Middle English "crasen", meaning "to shatter"

Now, etymology is hardly conclusive, as the usage, and thus meaning of words undeniably shifts with time (linguistic prescriptivists be damned), but the etymology of a word does provide a certain framing of context which is important. Language influences modes of thought; thus, the language that we use to discuss mental illness influences, to some extent.

(Let us not have that argument about the Sapier-Whorf hypothesis again)

We thus see that the linguistic picture of mental illness is one of violence and disruption, which meshes closely with the way in which mental illness is stereotyped. This is backed up by numerous negative depictions of people with mental illness in film and literature - the plethora of violent serial killers from Norman Bates to Dexter Morgan; the quirky "craziness" of characters such as Deadpool; characters who are locked in elaborate fantasy worlds; or characters whose illnesses are portrayed as practically a superpower, such as Dr. Daniel Pierce's crime-solving hallucinations and Adrian Monk's magical OCD.

A good overview of these cultural stereotypes is provided by the Time to Change campaign, who break down the stereotypes into Comedy, Faking & Indulgent, Pity, and Violence. Such stereotypes are not only inaccurate, but also harmful to those with mental health conditions.

So, what about portrayals of mental illness in LARP? Well, they're pretty varied. Let's take a look at a few examples, starting with two well known systems in which mental illnesses are dealt with by a central system mechanic.

Derangement: Obsessive/Compulsive

The post-namer is, of course, from the table-top and numerous LARP implementations of Vampire: the Masquerade. There are a bunch of bad examples in the World of Darkness, with the worst by far being Clan Malkavian. They are a group of vampires often described as "mad seers", who are defined by having some intrinsic "derangement", the vast majority of which are taken straight out of the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Illness, AKA The Big Grey Book). A quick flick through some of the Mind's Eye Theater (the "official" LARP implementation of the old World of Darkness) lists such things as "Antisocial Disorder", "Bulimia", "Compulsive Lying", "Hebephrenia", "Manic-Depression",  "Obsessive/Compulsive", "Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder", "Sadism", "Schizophrenia", and "Self-Annihilation Impulse". In news that will surprise exactly nobody who has played a World of Darkness game, they are not exactly handled well or realistically.

Whilst it does away with Clan Malkavian (kind of), the Mind's Eye Theater implementation of the New World of Darkness is no better. Indeed, it is arguably worse, due to one of the central mechanics around character morality. Across the game lines, characters are given a morality rating ("humanity" for vampires, "wisdom" for mages, and so on) which can be lowered if one performs morally questionable acts. Leaving the inherent issues with moral absolutism in LARP for another post, the particular problem here is that characters are at risk of acquiring "derangements" whenever their morality rating decreases - thus leading to the unfortunate association of mental illness and evil.

Another major offender, again a tabletop RPG with multiple LARP implementations, is Call of Cthulhu, and Lovecraftian horror in general. One of the major themes of the genre is the breakdown of sanity due to encounters with horrific and incomprehensible forces from Beyond, often using some kind of scale of "sanity points" to represent a character's grip on reality. The Cthulhu Live ruleset gives a variety of disadvantages that one may begin play with, such as "Phobia", "Obsession" and "Psychosis", which provide additional points to purchase abilities during character generation; characters can lose sanity and rack up various disadvantages across the game due to traumatic events. One of the worst aspects in CoC adaptations is the categorical association of madness with the "bad guys" - indeed, a common fate of a character who loses all their sanity points is that they become a cultist and begin worshiping the Unmentionable Evils.

90% of Mental Illnesses in LARP

A great number of other systems have what might be referred to as "incidental" portrayals of mental illness; these typically fall into the general categories of "player-originated" portrayals, and "system-emergent" portrayals. A player-originated portrayal is one in which a player makes an active choice to portray a character with a mental disorder, whereas a system-emergent portrayal is one which is imposed on a player through some system mechanic. Both categories have the potential to invoke offensive and inaccurate stereotypes, in different ways.

Player-originated portrayals crop up in just about every LARP, in one form or another; the reasons that players give for such portrayals vary tremendously. I won't judge anyone on their reasons (larp-as-therapy or larp-as-personal-exploration are entirely valid playstyles), but will just note that it is often done very badly.

System-emergent portrayals are again massively varied; they often come in the form of simulacra of symptoms of mental illness being imposed on characters as the result of some external agent - potions, magic, science, or what have you. The way in which these mimic psychiatric symptoms is variable - some systems include effects that mimic auditory hallucinations (Project Ragnarok's whispering demonic voices), disassociative states (Falling Down's malevolent auras of power which override one's personality), and any number of others. Again, these have the possibility of being roleplayed in an offensive manner; an equally important problem here is that being subject to effects which compel one to roleplay certain symptoms can be extremely distressing for players who have mental health problems of their own.

So, what can be done to make this better?

Players - if you are considering playing a character who exhibits traits associated with mental illness, consider why. LARP Hacks provides some very good advice around how to roleplay mental illness in LARP - above all, I would recommend that you don't let a character's mental illness being the defining factor of a character.

Designers - there are a lot of factors to be taken into consideration here, both in terms of system and setting. In terms of system, a few good questions to ask yourself would include:

• Do I really need mechanical rules for "sanity" or the like? 
• If so, what purpose should they serve?
• Do any NPCs that are portrayed as having mental illnesses fall into any harmful or offensive stereotype? I'd recommend this, and the ubiquitous TV Tropes as fairly good starting points.
• Are there any mechanics which compel a player to roleplay in a way which could be seen as mimicking the symptoms of mental illness?

Another very useful piece of advice is to consider writing a statement of thematic intents covering what is and is not considered acceptable within a game: a good example of this is the one for Falling Down.

The role of mental illness in any given setting is an extremely complex question, beyond the scope of this post to offer any real advice on; what I will say, however, is that if you wish to include themes around mental illness in a fictitious game-world, it is vitally important to determine how mental illness is conceptualised in that world. There is a school of thought that suggests that all mental illnesses are socio-cultural constructs; thus cultures significantly different our own will likely have vastly different ideas of mental illness, and likely a different set of symptomatic presentations. I will try and cover this at some point in the future - for those who are interested, and can deal with somewhat-dense French structuralism, recommend reading Michel Foucault's Madness and Civilization as an excellent starting point for looking into the power dynamics behind concepts of sanity and madness.

The Rule of Woodlice

There's an occasionally quoted rule of thumb in certain LARP circles called the "Two Dead Woodlice Rule", which approximately states that one should never introduce a plot that couldn't be solved by the aforementioned pair of isopods if you ever want a chance of players solving it.

It's a rule that I deeply dislike.

I'm going to talk today about this theory, depth, complexity, and storytelling. Certain assumptions will likely about, but that is as much a result of my personal preferences as anything else.

If you are familiar with the youtube channel Extra Credits, you may have come across this already. If not, a number of their videos on game design are worth watching. They focus on video game

Pictured: Half of an average player party

design, but a lot of the ideas that they talk about are pretty relevant to larp. In particular, I want to talk about things that spiral off from this video, whilst vaguely touching on this one on exposition.

We can consider larp analogous to video games in certain aspects, especially when the focus is more on a single-author-creation than on a collaborative-creation, which is to say that the majority of setting material is written by the game organisers rather than the players. It's important to note that there isn't a sharp distinction here - all games fall somewhere between the two extremes. The analogy is most fitting in this first case, as it describes a system written by one party, to be primarily experienced to a second party, to whom they must communicate the elements of the system in order to allow the second party to experience it as fully as possible.

What is, then, "full experience"? Simply put, it is the sum total of the possible actions that can be taken by a player within the framework of the game. This framework is created by system designers, whose role is then to communicate such information to the players as to enable them to have the choice and opportunity to take any possible action within the game. The full experience is not something that can ever be reached, for taking any particular action necessarily forbids taking some other action; it is perhaps better to say that players should be able to make as many free and meaningful choices as possible, within the framework of the larp.

It is also worth explicitly stating that, as implied above, any action undertaken within a larp represents a choice on behalf of the player. Sartre aside, it is worth noting that participants within a larp can potentially have a much greater freedom of action than in most other forms of interactive culture.

This freedom to make meaningful choice is synonymous with the concept of depth. Choices must be meaningful, as for a choice to be false (as in the case of a strictly dominant strategy), or ultimately arbitrary (where the outcome of the choice is beyond the understanding of the player, and is thus equivalent to an essentially random outcome or an entirely fixed one) reduces experiential depth. Players should thus - in theory - be able to predict the outcome of any choice (within margins of error as defined by the frame) based on information that they have, or could acquire.

This is not to say that it is essential for there to be no secrets within a system or setting, although that is an approach that is used in certain Nordic larps. Nor is it saying that there need be a strict degree of causality within a larp; it is rather that players should know enough to make choices that have an impact on their experience of play.

There are thus two essential limiting factors to player agency: concealment, and complexity. Concealment, as alluded to above, is where certain facts of the system or setting are kept from the players. There are various kinds of concealment that we can describe: Total concealment, in which specific information is kept from the entire playerbase; partial concealment, in which only a proportion of the playerbase are privy to the specific information; strict concealment, in which there is no in-character way of gaining that information; and weak concealment, in which there exist in-character methods of acquiring the information in question.

Other than the fact that Coyote was clearly up to no good, obviously.

Note that a single system can easily use multiple levels of concealment for different pieces of information; consider, for example, Maelstrom's native herb descriptions (weak-partial, as it was freely given to one part of the playerbase and could be relatively easily discovered by others), versus the exact process by which the gods chose how to respond to prayers and supplications (total, and fairly strict, as no more than the barest information was provided to any part of the playerbase, and the exact out-of-character process of judging responses was not discoverable through in-character means).

Partial concealment is by its nature weak, or at least as weak as those who have the information wish to make it. Total concealment, however, is discoverable at the whim of the organisers alone. The former could be said to increase player agency - as indeed does weak concealment in general - whilst the latter can be said to decrease it, as it binds the scope of meaningful action.

The typical result of combat in Insurrection

A second consideration is complexity, which can simply be defined as the amount of knowledge that a player needs to be able to make a meaningful decision for a given choice. From a mechanical point of view, consider the difference between the combat system of Odyssey (more-or-less fixed and predictable number of hit points, all weapon blows do one point of damage, a few fairly intuitive special calls) versus that of Insurrection (quite famously convoluted, and once described as "all calls having two parts - the first to tell you which set of resistances that you don't have will let you ignore it, the second whether you can scream or not as you die"). In the former case, it is far easier to make a meaningful choice in regards to weapon selection, fighting style, and so forth than in the latter, as the amount of information that one needs to understand and memorise is substantially lower.

Similarly, complexity can be seen in setting as well as system. In all settings, there will be a minimum amount of information that a player must know in order to meaningfully interact with the world; the information provides context, without which all decisions are fundamentally arbitrary. The amount of detail that a player must know varies substantially between systems and situations, and can include out-of-character skills: for example, certain plot documents in Empire are written in other languages, including Latin and Welsh; the knowledge thus required to make sense of an object within the setting is thus substantially increased.

Complexity is a two-edged sword in larp: an overly-simplistic system or setting provides too little depth as the potential for meaningful choice is limited. Paradoxically, too much complexity has an equally inhibitory effect on player agency - the higher the "information barrier", the harder it is for players to make non-arbitrary decisions.

Mentioning no crafting systems.

Concealment and complexity can combine to make a system near-unplayable; to protect the guilty I shall name no specific examples, but if a core mechanic of the game is both exceedingly complex and not fully divulged to players, then it is likely that a substantial part of the playerbase will feel that they have no agency whatsoever when it comes to choices made around that mechanic. It is possible to work complex, ill-explained mechanics into a system without producing this kind of effect, but it is difficult.

We can see thus that it is in general worth reducing complexity to a relatively low level, at least as far as things that the entire playerbase will need to know. This thus places a low information barrier on participating in the larp at any level, thus improving player agency across the board. However, in order to increase depth, we might wish to increase the maximum complexity that exists within the framework to a level substantially higher than this.

There are certain methods of doing this - most noticeably via concealment, and by modular design. Concealment relies upon the players to desire discovery in order to be useful in this way, and thus best suits games in which such discovery is fitting with the overall themes. This can apply both to system and setting - consider a particular mechanic that only comes into play in unknown but discoverable situations, or some facet of a setting that is deliberately concealed but might be found out in play. Such concealment cannot work if it is strict; there needs to be a mechanism by which it

A surprisingly easy ritual, once you've got the one weird prereq

could be conceivably learned, or else it is merely more arbitrary noise for players to have to work around. Total concealment gives the organisers the ability to fine-tune the point at which increased complexity is revealed, whereas partial concealment does not, and tends to become fully revealed rather quickly (note the old adage that once three people know a secret, it's no longer a secret).

Second, let's consider modular design. Rather than deliberately concealing parts of the system or setting to reduce the general complexity, one might hive off certain pieces of information as being addenda to the general body of the framework. This is most commonly and simply done with system mechanics, assuming that only players who make an active choice to engage with that part of the system will need to understand or memorise the mechanics. Examples might include the workings of Odyssey's world forge (which only really needs to be understood by one specific character class, and even then only if they choose to deal with the world forge; note that it is also subject to a degree of weak concealment), or Empire's ritual metaphysics (which barely need to be understood by anyone, save research magicians, and even then there's rarely a need to have it all memorised).

Medical skills, for example, rarely need to generally understood

Aspects of setting can likewise be made modular, with a degree of "core knowledge" that is required reading for all players, and as many additional details as required. The key to doing this well is to condense what absolutely needs to be known into as simple a form as possible - Profound Decisions do this well in both Odyssey and Empire, by providing bullet-pointed "key facts" about aspects of the setting in their documents, along with reams of additional information.

We might stereotype these approaches as "The Maelstrom Method" of primary concealment, and "The Empire Method" of primary modularity - though of course most larps use a balance of both methods. Primary concealment reduces the "buy-in" of complexity by making much of the information about the setting and system unavailable to the average player, whereas primary modularity keeps information freely available whilst lowering the complexity of that which a player needs to know to "buy-in". Both have their benefits, but both have their risks.

Primary concealment has a tendency to lead to complexity inflation, in which the required baseline of knowledge that is needed to fully engage with the game world tends to increase over time. This has a tendency to go hand-in-hand with power creep, and has the effect of severely disadvantaging new players, who need to swallow a large amount of information (much of it second or third hand, most likely) in order to reach the average level of understanding.

The result of these problems when both applied to Maelstrom

Primary modularity, on the other hand, is less vulnerable to this effect, but suffers from the problem of inconsistency. This is a particular issue when setting complexity is modular - it is all to common for players in this kind of game to end up with entirely erroneous assumptions about basic facts of the gameworld if they have only read a portion of the briefing material available. It is also more difficult to impart a "strict culture" within parts of a modular setting, as the more that is set in stone within the framework, the more complex the general information requirement becomes. This has the secondary effect of encouraging projection of real world concepts into areas of the gameworld that are
undefined, which can lead to all manner of unintended and frame-breaking consequences.

It should be noted that neither of these problems are unique to either method, but can be found to varying extents in varying game frameworks.

This all being said, how can we increase depth without over-burdening players with complex rules and settings, causing an upward spiral of baseline complexity, or risking players ending up wildly off brief?

My general feeling is that an attitude of "show-don't-tell" may be the solution to this, at least as far as setting details go. By designing aspects of system, setting and world to be interlocking, self-revealing and self-reinforcing, it may be possible to ease players up the learning curve, allowing a smooth increase in the upper level of complexity without significantly disadvantaging or over-burdening new players, and without leaving too much room for erroneous assumptions about the gameworld.

How to do that in practice? Well, that's going to be another post, I guess.

The Obfuscated Elephant: Racism

So, it's been talked about quite a lot in the larping side of the blogosphere recently, (well, let's be honest, it's been talked about for years in the larpnet, in that I can vaguely remember the same "is-Drow-blackface" argument on Pagga a decade ago), and whilst I would like to think that we are getting better at things, there's still a lot of distance to go.

So here it is. I'll say it again, probably less eloquently than others, but whatever.

There's A Fair Bit Of Racist Content In A Lot Of LARP

A common problem

Now that I've alienated half my audience, I will alienate the rest by taking something of a step back from that initial position - I am absolutely not saying that most larpers are racists, nor saying that there is even a particularity large minority that would be comfortable to express "classically racist" views. Indeed, most larpers would be horrified at the suggestion.

Which is exactly why we need to have this conversation, and why it cannot be simply brushed off as "a load of SJW crap", to quote various people.

I should add a disclaimer here - I am white. I would consider myself reasonably aware of my privilege here, but as a member of the privileged majority, I will almost certainly screw up and not recognise elements of racial prejudice, simply because I do not suffer them, and furthermore, because I passively benefit from a society in which there is institutional racism. There's a school of thought that white people have no place in talking about racism; in this case, though I feel I am justified in talking as an ally, because there are few people of colour talking about these issues within the (predominantly very white) UK LARP scene.

(As an aside, if anyone knows of any POC blogging about LARP in the UK, I would very much appreciate links and suggestions here)

There are a lot of different kinds of racism - which, for the purposes of this post, we shall consider to be defined as Prejudice, exercised by those with racial Priviledge, so please pipe down if you are about to start talking about how white people experience racism too, or whatever. Within the larping community - at least in the UK - there doesn't seem to be a large amount of racial discrimination, and out-and-out racial abuse is, to my knowledge, pretty rare. However, what is more common is the more subtle kind of racism, which is frequently not recognized as racism by the privileged, white, majority.

What does this "subtle racism" look like? It begins with the assertion that one is "colour-blind", and does not contribute to any racial prejudices within society. Having first assuaged oneself of any guilt, it then moves to normalize whiteness, and thus to make non-whiteness an "other". From here spring any number of issues - cultural appropriation, minimization, accidental gaffes, and so on.

This is important. The beginning of this symbolic racism inevitably comes from a denial of contributing towards racism.

This means considering yourself "colour-blind" or "post-racial".

This means saying that LARP is "just a game".

This means claiming immunity due to intentions.

This means claiming justification due to context, without actually unpacking, considering, or exploring what that context is.

This means using lazy justifications when called out, rather than engaging.

Not a very good Setite concept

Feeling uncomfortable? Good. That doesn't mean you are a bad person, though - to err is human, and one of the most troublesome effects of racial privilege is that difficulty in recognising what does not affect you. We all fuck up - hell, I once played a conniving, corrupt Setite who was actually Simon bar Kokhba, a concept that shall forever be nailed to my wall of Things I Did Not Think Through as a warning - what is more important is that we are willing to listen, openly and without rancour, and modify our choices in the future.

We can divide the ways in which this symbolic racism manifests into three broad categories:

• Cultural appropriation
• Stereotyping
• Dismissive behaviour.

Taking these in turn - cultural appropriation is pretty ubiquitous in LARP, and is such a thorny subject that I'm not going to even try to tackle it fully in a single post. The short version is that it can be seen in the adoption of symbols, imagery and objects from a minority culture, using them outside their traditional context in a way that is offensive. A classic example would be the wearing of a Plains Indian war bonnet as a generic bit of costume - which would be much like wearing a Victoria Cross as part of a "Generic European" costume. Blackface and the like are also a part of this phenomena - this is a good article on the subject, albeit written for a cosplay audience.

Also a problem.

Stereotyping can be seen in the propagation of certain offensive caricatures of a racial or cultural group. The most commonly seen in UK LARP tend to be the "Noble Savage" (Knifewinter's Stoats, Dark Tempus' Falket, etc), the "Interchangeable Asian" (Maelstrom's Kamakura, Empire's Urizen), the "Standard Aladdin" (Maelstrom's Rukh, Empire's Brass Coast), and the "Dodgy Nomads" (Vampire; The Masquerade's Ravnos, 1318's Vici). Such stereotypes easily become a kind of dumping ground into which all manner of unpalatable racial prejudice can be channeled - and, simultaneously any degree of separation where the stereotype is still plainly visible often merely gives rise to the excuse of "but it's only fantasy", as if it is in any way not obvious to everyone in the surrounding mile or so that your kimono-wearing-honour-obsessed-funny-accented-badger-people are not quite clearly a racist caricature.

Finally, dismissive behaviour. Nobody likes being called a racist - partially because of the social approbation that comes with that label, and partly because if one accepted that one was being perhaps even a little bit racist, one would have to start a process of self-examination and thinking about uncomfortable truths around privilege. Thus we have the usual pleadings of intention being somehow magical, or any of the thousand and one equally unconvincing excuses.

So, what's the take home message?

To quote Dame Hixxi:

What we should be doing at LARP events is taking design work for any aspect of our games, whether we are writing, crewing, playing, running, or whatever, and criticising it from every angle, ESPECIALLY a racist one. And really? I can’t see the downside to doing this. I just can’t.

What does the LARP community have to lose by being more critical of themselves and the choices we make when it comes to being more inclusive?

Seems reasonable, no?

There's no need to play into harmful stereotypes. There's no need to appropriate elements of other cultures that you do not fully understand. There's no need to deny the presence of the elephant in the room that is racism in LARP.

If nothing else, what harm can come of a little honest self-analysis?

Manifesto '15: Problematic Content in LARP

I wrote this back in July of 2015, following the events within a certain section of the UK LARP scene that shall be referred to as #drowgate. It remains, more or less, my general philosophy of LARP.


We who subscribe to this manifesto hold the following to be true:

1.1. That LRP is a cultural phenomenon which can be analysed as a form of art.
1.2. All forms of art are in a position to act as a forum for the discussion and exploration of social, political and cultural issues.
1.3. That the way in which issues of contention are framed plays an important role in the discussion that can be had around them - in short, the medium and the message are intertwined.
1.4. That forms of destructive prejudice within our society (including but not limited to racism, sexism, heteronormativity, cisnormativity, ageism, ableism and the like) are worthy of being explored through art. We shall label such issues as "problematic", for reasons of brevity.
1.5. That the refusal to engage in discussion and critical analysis of problematic elements within a form of art is tantamount to the passive approval of such elements.
1.6. That the intent of the creator is not the final authority in the way in which a work of art should be interpreted.

Therefore, we accept that:

2.1. LRP can be a vehicle for exploring contentious issues.
2.2. That where LRPs engage with such content, the way in which such content is framed is important; but that the intent of the designer is not the sole predictor of the nature of the dialogue that shall emerge from the LRP.
2.3. That all participants in LRP are co-creators, acknowledged or not; it is the system designers who frame the discussion, but the players are the ones who determine the direction in which that discussion plays out.
2.4. Should a LRP contain elements which are problematic, it is the responsibility of both the players and the designers to engage critically with that content; and failure to do so is to offer tacit approval of such things.

Therefore, as designers and co-creators we do strive to act upon these principles by:

3.1. Being aware and mindful of content within our LRPs that might be considered problematic.
3.2. Questioning the purpose behind the inclusion of the same.
3.3. Not including material that uncritically reinforces problematic cultural stereotypes or tropes.
3.4. Where appropriate, seeking and accepting the opinions of members of disenfranchised and minority groups on problematic content.
3.5. Being willing to give and take criticism on such in a constructive manner.

We reject the concept that LRP exists in isolation from culture, or can be considered to be "just a game". Equally, we reject all forms of group-think, dogmatism, and the assertion that there is a single "right" or "wrong" way to approach any issue. Rather, we welcome the multiplicity of opinions, and the chance to engage in a deeper dialogue around such issues