LARP’s Weird Identity Crisis: Community, Business, or Just Broke With Friends?

Here’s the thing about LARP that nobody really preps you for when you start: it’s not a fandom, it’s not a business, and it’s not a game in the traditional sense. It’s a social contract duct-taped to a stage play held together by borrowed tents, enthusiasm, and one working water spigot. And because of that, it ends up stuck between two worlds—community and commerce—and often benefits from the worst of both.

Let’s compare. If you’re into anime, you can binge episodes, argue on Discord, cosplay when you like, and still be 100% in the community fandom. You don’t need to attend conventions to prove your worth. Missing a con doesn’t revoke your fan card. You don’t have to help run panels or clean up after the rave to call yourself a fan of something. But with LARP? You aren’t part of the hobby unless you show up. That’s the deal. LARP isn’t something you passively consume—it’s something you have to physically do. It’s like if the only way to enjoy anime was to rent a convention center and run a all-day binge of Hazbin Hotelwith a bunch of your friends and hope no one gets sick.

And here’s where it gets messier. LARP has real costs: site rentals, insurance, props, gear, printing, food, travel, software, labor. But to keep it accessible, most monthly events run on shoestring budgets with ticket prices low enough to attract more than just the cosplay elite. That doesn’t make them cheap to run—it just means someone’s eating the difference. Unlike cons, there’s no vendor hall, no merch booths, no marketing sponsors slinging energy drinks. And unlike high-end blockbuster larps or immersive convention-style experiences, there’s no investor pipeline to use the experience as marketing or $800 ticket price to float your logistics. Most LARPs survive on goodwill, duct tape, and the fact that players are also invested as promoters, cast, and mutual support.

But here’s the catch: when you charge a ticket price, no matter how low, some people start thinking of LARP like a purchased product. They want to show up and be entertained. Which is a totally normal expectation—for a concert. Or a movie. Or a Ren Faire with a paid cast. But not for a shared creative endeavor that literally requires its participants to help carry the weight of the world they want to explore.

So you end up in this weird balancing act. Make it affordable and you need your players to pitch in or the whole thing breaks under its own weight. Raise prices to deliver a turnkey experience, and suddenly you’re out of reach for most of your community—and you’re still probably not making profit. Because again, no one’s selling $15 cocktails out of a tavern tent and taking vendor booth fees to cover site rental.

This is the heart of LARP’s identity crisis. It wants to be accessible and collaborative. It also needs money and logistics. And the people involved? They want meaningful experiences but are often exhausted, broke, and confused about whether they just attended a game, ran a show, or staffed a summer camp that left them emotionally shattered.

So, lets say that you’re part of a LARP that isn’t charging $800 a ticket, doesn’t have a paid cast, and isn’t secretly funded by someone’s crypto startup. Cool. That means you’re likely part of a community-focused game where the experience lives or dies based on how much the people involved care. And that includes you. Yeah—you. If you want the game to be awesome, grow, and not crumble into a puddle of “remember when it used to be good,” here are some best practices for being the kind of player who makes things better instead of silently wondering why things feel off.

So if your LARP is a community-focused game, here are some things you should consider trying to make that game stay around for more than a month or two.

1. Your Experience Is Your Responsibility (Mostly)

You’re not a passive audience member. This isn’t Netflix. LARP thrives when people build, ask, offer, and explore. If something feels a little flat, don’t ask “Why isn’t this more fun?” Ask “What can I do to make this more fun for me and the people around me?” Throw a scene. Make a deal. Start a rumor. Stop playing safe. Be weird in character. Run with it.

2. Make the Five Feet Around You Better

Whether you’re in a big scene or just sitting around the campfire, focus on the experience of the people closest to you. That’s your sphere of influence. Invite someone into your plot. Compliment a cool costume. Ask a new player about their character. The LARP gets better when you treat it like your job to be generous in-character and welcoming out-of-character.

3. Stop Hiding the Fact That You LARP

We get it. You don’t want your coworkers, your gym friends, or your Instagram followers to know you spend one weekend a month pretending to be a blood sorcerer who runs a moonshine cartel out of a tent made of PVC. But here’s the truth: your shame isn’t helping anyone. Every time someone hides the fact that they LARP, the hobby shrinks just a little bit. If you want your game to grow, talk about it. JUST DONT TALK ABOUT IT IN THE CREEPY OBSESSIVE WAY THAT MAKES PEOPLE NOT WANT TO LARP. Show people photos. Share your joy. You don’t need to give a TED Talk—you just need to be visibly excited about something you care about. People notice that energy. That’s how you get new players.

4. Yes, You Might Have to Befriend the Next Generation

LARP doesn’t exist unless new players show up. And if you’ve been LARPing for a while, you might realize that most of your friends at LARP are the ones you brought with you. That’s not a coincidence. It’s a consequence of people not being invited, not being welcomed, or feeling like they’re crashing someone else's reunion. You don’t have to adopt every college kid that shows up. But you should say hi. Ask them about their character. Tell them where the bathrooms are. Make them feel like they belong. Because one day, that 19-year-old might be the reason your game still exists five years from now. When you are at other events where you think people might enjoy larp? Have some larp specific business cards in your pocket and share them. You aren’t promoting for a company… you are trying to bring more friends into a hobby you love and meet new people.

5. If You Want a Cool Story, Help Make It

Community LARP is collaborative storytelling. If you’re waiting around for the staff to hand-deliver a story to your tent like a room service tray, you’re going to be hungry. Instead, bring plot hooks, character goals, conflicts, and consequences. Ask yourself: what happens next? Then make it happen. Loop other people in. The best storylines aren’t assigned—they’re entangled. You don’t have to show up in Oscar-worthy costuming with a Shakespearean monologue memorized and method act from the moment you put your boots on until you collapse in a heap of emotional catharsis three days later. But—and this is a gentle but firm but—you do have to try.

Once a almost-wise man said, “LARP requires costume.” I’ll go a step further: LARP requires effort. Not perfection. Not competition. Just honest, visible effort to help build the world with everyone else. That might mean wearing garb that looks like it belongs, staying in character when it matters, showing up prepared for your role, making your camp space genred, or just being emotionally present and game to play. You can’t ask the game to do everything for you while doing nothing in return. If everyone did the bare minimum, there would be no magic. You don’t have to be perfect. Just be someone who adds to the table instead of waiting to be served.

6. Share the Good Stuff

Post photos (with permission). Tell stories from the event. Brag about the moment your character got absolutely wrecked emotionally. Share out-of-character praise for staff or other players. These things build momentum and make people want to come back—or come for the first time. Social media algorithms don’t care about your humility. Hype your game group like it deserves to live.

7. Don’t Be That Cynical Veteran

You know the one. They sit around sighing about how things used to be better, used to be more fun, used to have “real plot.” That attitude is poison. If the best days of your LARP are behind you, either help create new ones or politely step aside so others can. Nostalgia is not a personality.

8. Invite One Person a Month. Just One.

Seriously. Just invite one person to check out the game. They don’t have to come immediately. They might never come. But just talk to someone in your life about what LARP is and why you love it. Plant the seed. That’s how community grows. Not from billboards or TikTok influencers. From people who care enough to say, “Hey, I think you’d have a blast doing this.”

9. Stop Playing the System and Play the Game.

This one’s for the rules lawyers, min-maxers, and mid-scene mechanics debaters out there: you are not enhancing the experience when you drop out of a moment to start arguing about how a rule works. You are dragging everyone else out of the story, out of their characters, and into a void of spreadsheet logic and misplaced priorities. That amazing, tense, emotional, or dramatic moment that was just happening? It’s gone now—buried under a pile of “well actually” and a four-minute rules debate that nobody but you wanted . You are not just disrupting the scene. You are actively sucking the fun out of LARP for everyone around you and killing the experience of the hobby for others.

Yes, mechanics matter. Yes, clarity and consistency are important. But they exist to support the story—not override it in real time. If a call feels wrong, handle it later. Bring it up respectfully. Ask questions. Offer your thoughts. But do it in a way that doesn’t derail the whole damn experience for ten people who were just trying to have a cool scene until you showed up to drop a deuce in their cereal bowl. YOUR NECESSITY FOR THINGS TO BE RIGHT ISN’T MORE IMPORTANT THAN THE SHARED EXPERIENCE.

There it is. Its simple but maybe its a message that has been lost in the modern day. If a LARP is primarily collaborative story, everyone needs to collaborate to not only make the experience better but to make your section of the hobby better. It requires some effort, some communication, some planning, and to not come to the table empty handed. Come with excitement, a desire to bring other people into the hobby, an earnest desire to have fun and make new experiences, and a willingness to put in effort. Because if you rely on others to put in the effort for you, one day they are going to stop doing it.

Stop Treating Your LARP Mechanics Like CCG Rules.

LARP Is Not a Competitive Game, Even When Your Characters Compete

LARP is not Magic: The Gathering or chess. Its not a board game, a CCG, or a tournament-ready miniatures war game. There’s no codified win condition. No best-of-three match bracket. In the vast majority of scenarios, a LARP does not end when a single character reaches a point of power, a victory condition, or a position of authority. Because of this LARP does not require an airtight system that must account for every fringe case and rules exploit to preserve fairness. What LARP offers isn’t a balance of power across symmetrical matchups; it’s a curated, participatory experience. Mechanics serve to simulate moments, support immersion, and reinforce the narrative tone of the world. The rules are a tool, not the point.

In tournament-based games, the goal is precision. Every word in a card’s text is scrutinized. Every corner case must be considered, because players will press the system to its edges in pursuit of a win. Magic: The Gathering’s comprehensive rules are 292 pages long (as of June 2024), not because the game is broken, but because the format demands it. The expectation is that competitive players will seek optimal outcomes by any technically legal means available. That's the culture those rules are written for.

But that’s not LARP. LARP is built on improvisation and shared experience. Its systems are inherently porous, variable, and site-specific. Players have different gear, different environments, different levels of familiarity. There is no universal table or judge’s booth to appeal to. That doesn’t mean rules don’t matter. It means they are not the sole backbone of the experience. When something goes wrong in a LARP, the solution isn’t always to reach for a new rule. Sometimes the solution starts with the question: what kind of culture are we encouraging at our event?

The System Might Not Be Broken – Your Culture Might Be

When players start exploiting mechanics to edge out advantages in a game that doesn't offer any actual win condition, it's a red flag—not for the rules, but for the play culture. Systems get pushed to their limit when people treat LARP like a problem to solve instead of an experience to explore. When participants are more invested in what their character can do rather than why they’re doing it, something is off. And the knee-jerk reaction is often to patch the rules.

A player throws a stack of conditional effects together to become untouchable in combat, and suddenly there’s a new rule banning stacking. Another player abuses downtime submissions to powergame resource control, so a form gets changed. Then a third group exploits the economy by combining their actions across a loophole, and a pricing table gets rewritten. Again and again, the solution becomes more rules, more patches, more restriction. And every time, the game moves further from its original intent—not because the system was flawed, but because the culture prioritized technical leverage over communal storytelling.

Addressing this doesn't mean letting players run wild or ignoring system drift. It means being honest about what kind of play you want to support. Are you running a LARP that prioritizes clever mechanical manipulation, or are you running a LARP that values narrative immersion, tension, and emotional stakes? If you want the latter, then the fix might not be in the next rulebook update—it might be in the onboarding, the tone of leadership, the kinds of scenes you reward, and the way you frame success.

Encouraging the Right Kind of Play

You can’t patch culture with a clause. If players feel like the system is a puzzle to be cracked, they will keep looking for cracks. If they feel like they are collaborators in something larger than themselves, they’ll start behaving accordingly. That starts with how your game talks about itself. It’s in the expectations you set before the event, in the values your staff models, and in the way resolution is handled when tension flares.

Encourage players to treat the rules as the framework, not the prize. Give permission to step back from mechanical advantage in favor of better story beats. Make space for failure that is meaningful. Celebrate scenes that land emotionally, not just tactically. And be willing to say, out loud, that LARP isn’t about winning, it’s about playing in a way that creates something worth remembering.

No system is perfect. That’s fine. Every game will require adjustment, and some updates are essential. But if your changelog is full of responses to behavior that chips away at your intended experience, stop and ask: what kind of play are we encouraging, and why do we think it needs fixing? Because if the system works 99 out of 100 times, then maybe the issue is that you have built a culture where people are looking for that 1 out of a 100 for their fun.

Larp Design Series (5 of Series): Now Be Blunt With Your Players

Running a LARP community isn't just about writing plot, setting up sites, or coordinating mechanics. It's about people. And when you're working with people—especially in high-emotion, collaborative environments like LARP—you have to get real comfortable with communication. Not just the fun kind. Not just the celebratory kind. The blunt kind. The kind that comes with discomfort and the risk of not being universally liked. The kind that sometimes feels more like a necessary chore than a cathartic connection.

In the business world, there's a concept from the book Eat That Frog by Brian Tracy. It’s about tackling the hardest, ugliest, most uncomfortable task first—before it eats up all your energy avoiding it. That frog, in LARP, is communication. Especially the kind of communication that involves telling people what they don’t want to hear. When you’re running a game, avoiding the hard conversations doesn’t make the problems go away. It just gives them room to fester.

Transparency is your greatest asset. That means being honest about your intent, your process, your capacity, and your expectations. It means setting the tone early and often about what people can expect from you—and what you expect from them. It means telling your players when you’re taking a break. When you're stepping back to care for yourself. When you're focusing on one area of the game and letting another rest. When something needs improvement, or when you know something didn’t land the way it should have. You don’t owe everyone your private life, but you do owe the community enough clarity so they’re not navigating in the dark. The more you tell them, the less they have to guess.

Of course, you can’t personally tell every single player everything in the exact format they prefer. That’s not sustainable. That’s not reasonable. What you can do is offer a consistent and well-organized method for those who are invested to stay informed. Whether that’s a Discord announcement channel, a monthly digest email, a pinned document, or a combination of all of them—what matters is that the effort has been made and the door is open. After that, it is perfectly acceptable to say, “This information is available. It is clear. It is accessible. It is your responsibility to read it.” If someone needs help understanding, you or your team should clarify. But you are not obligated to communicate every detail in every preferred medium just to avoid being misinterpreted.

This is where community and communication gets tricky. The part most people avoid. The part where being a leader means stepping up and saying what needs to be said, even when it’s going to make someone uncomfortable. It means calling attention to unhealthy patterns. It means naming the behavior you’re seeing. It means addressing the social undercurrents that erode community health if left unchecked. You don’t need to shame people. You don’t need to lecture. But you do need to find your voice and use it when it matters.

Because if you don’t say it, someone else will fill in the silence for you. And chances are, they’ll do it with half the facts and twice the drama.

Let’s take one example I’ve seen across the board—from small-town parlor games to large-scale blockbuster events. Communication breaks down between players. Let’s say you have a player who has an issue with another attendee. Maybe it’s an in-character conflict that got too real. Maybe it’s a non-game personal grievance, a social misunderstanding, or some kind of emotional bleed. Maybe someone was too aggressive with a shield or came off curt in the moment during boffer combat.

What happens far too often is that instead of addressing it directly and speaking as adults, one or both individuals choose the path of perceived least resistance. They quietly distance themselves, vent to others and spark online drama, or escalate it by expecting staff to step in as a go-between. Suddenly the issue becomes “a problem with the game,” or “a community issue,” or something staff is now expected to manage—despite the fact that no direct conversation has ever taken place between the people involved.

Now let’s be absolutely clear so this idea isn’t taken out of context. If there is a threat, a danger, or even a vaguely credible perception of danger to a member of your community, that is not something you shrug off or delegate. That is your responsibility to address—immediately and decisively. If someone is being harassed, stalked, threatened, or harmed—physically, emotionally, or psychologically—you don’t ask them to talk it out first. You take it seriously. You investigate. You include outside authorities when needed. You act with care, with urgency, and with the full understanding that safety is not optional.

And if you run a game—whether it’s a backyard one-shot with twenty friends or a weekend event with a hundred people at a rented site—you don’t get to pass that responsibility off. Not to the people who wrote the rulebook. Not to the publishing company. Not to the developers of the software you use. Your event, your players, your scenario—you have to own it. That doesn’t mean you have to be perfect. But it does mean you have to be present.

Those danger-danger situations are not what I’m talking about in the previous example. What we’re looking at are the quieter, murkier interpersonal conflicts. The “I don’t like that person” moments. The “I had a bad vibe from something they said” dynamics. The “we don’t get along and now it’s awkward” tensions that often get elevated into structural problems when no direct communication ever occurred. These aren’t dangers. They’re discomforts. And while discomfort should never be dismissed, it also shouldn’t be mistaken for harm. Discomfort should be acknowledged—but not used as a reason to bypass personal responsibility.

This happens over and over again. And every time it does, the culture shifts a little further away from accountability. Staff become the default conflict negotiators. The community becomes hesitant, wary, and performative. And worse, the actual problem—the real human connection that could have been salvaged—is lost. You cannot build a strong community if people aren’t willing to talk to one another. And you cannot run a sustainable game if your staff is expected to be a surrogate for every hard conversation players avoid.

The hard part is that once this pattern sets in, it takes more effort to undo than it would have to prevent. It takes policies. It takes reinforcement. It takes saying, “No, we’re not going to step in until you’ve spoken to the other person first—unless someone’s safety is at risk.” And yes, you may get pushback. You may have to guide people through their discomfort. But it’s worth it. Because the alternative is a game where staff are social referees, where players offload their communication responsibilities, and where emotional transparency becomes weaponized instead of respected.

I know this firsthand because I’m trying to address it right now—with my own successes and failures. I don’t know exactly when the conversation should have happened to prevent where we are. But I know it should have been long before now.

Being blunt with your players doesn’t mean being cruel. It doesn’t mean being dismissive. It means respecting them enough to tell the truth. It means giving them the context they need to understand the game’s direction. It means setting boundaries that keep your team healthy and whole. And it means making it clear—to your staff, to your players, to yourself—that when someone is behaving in a way that runs against the health of the game or the community, they should be encouraged to have the uncomfortable conversation. Because if you don’t, and they don’t, you might as well throw out half the work you’ve done to get to this point.

Frogs. For eating—not just for frog cults anymore.

Larp Design Series (4 of Series): You’ve Got a Game. Now Build A Team

So, you've got your game off the ground. Maybe it's running monthly. Maybe it's pulling decent numbers. Maybe you're still in that thrilling, chaotic phase where you're doing everything yourself—writing plot, managing finances, wrangling props, posting on social media, and trying to keep a smile on your face while loading bins into your trunk at midnight. Here’s the truth: you can run a game solo... but not forever. And definitely not if you want it to grow.

If your goal is long-term sustainability (something that builds momentum instead of burning you out) you need a team. Not just friends who help when they can. A real structure. A team with roles, responsibilities, and accountability that lets you scale without losing your mind. This isn’t a “one-size-fits-all” solution. It’s not a corporate playbook forced onto LARP. But after years of designing and supporting games that grew from living rooms to multi-hundred-player monthly events, I’ve found this five-role framework to be remarkably effective.

Now, some people bristle at the idea of defined roles and structured responsibilities. There's a perception that applying any kind of organized framework—especially one that feels like it comes from the corporate world—somehow stifles creativity or crushes the soul of the game. It’s not an unfounded fear. We’ve all seen moments where rules and policies get weaponized, or where rigid chains of command become a shield against flexibility and collaboration. But that’s not what this structure is about.

This framework doesn’t exist to box people in or force a hobby into a business suit. It exists because when something is “everyone’s job,” it almost always ends up being “no one’s job”. Without clear responsibility, even the most well-meaning teams end up dropping balls. Not because they don’t care, but because they’re each assuming someone else is handling it—or they’re too unsure of their authority to take action. Clarity creates empowerment. Accountability creates trust. And trust, more than anything, is what gives a team the freedom to actually focus on the parts of the game that matter most to them.

In the absence of role definition, you start to see the same pattern repeat. Some people check out entirely, not because they don’t want to help, but because they don’t know how—or worse, they’ve tried before and felt like they were stepping on someone else’s toes. Others will do as little as possible, because without expectations in place, there’s nothing pushing them to do more. And then there’s the most common trap of all: the over-functioner. The person who quietly picks up every piece that falls through the cracks, who volunteers before the question is even finished, who puts in endless hours because they love the game too much to let it suffer. That person burns out. Or they get bitter. Or they leave. And when they do, the game takes a hit that could have been prevented.

And if you’re a game owner who’s still resisting this kind of structure—if something about it feels like giving up the freedom or spirit of how your LARP has always worked—take a moment to look back. Ask yourself how many of your rockstars, the team members who used to light up with energy and ideas, have quietly stepped back or outright burned out. How many are still with you, but clearly running on fumes, teetering toward bitterness because they feel like they’re carrying too much with too little recognition or support? How often do you find yourself rushing through last-minute fixes, assuming that the chaos is just part of the job, when in reality it might be the direct result of a lack of structure? And most importantly, how many times are you taking on extra work not because it’s your job, but because nobody else is doing it—and someone has to? These aren’t signs of failure. They’re signs of a system that needs help. And you can change that. Not by making things colder or more corporate, but by giving your people the clarity and support they need to succeed together.

Building a leadership structure isn't about pretending you're running a business. It’s about protecting your volunteers. It’s about honoring the work that goes into running a live event month after month. And it’s about making sure that when someone gives their time, energy, and creativity to the game, they aren’t just filling gaps that shouldn’t exist in the first place—they’re contributing to something built to last.

These five focus areas cover the essentials:
Finance. Story. Community. Operations. Integration.

1. Finance Director (Finance, Site, Ordering)

Theme: Stewardship, infrastructure, and legal compliance.

Core Responsibilities:

• Financial Oversight: Manage budgets, track revenue and expenditures, pay debts, and ensure event profitability.

• Site & Logistics Management: Secure event locations, manage site rentals, coordinate vendor payments, and ensure logistical needs are met.

• Compliance & Accountability: Handle taxes, maintain records, and ensure all business operations adhere to local and national laws in alignment with the licensed IP agreement.

2. Story Director (Narrative Management)

Theme: Worldbuilding, continuity, and emotional engagement.

Core Responsibilities:

• Narrative Development: Oversee long-term story arcs, ensuring alignment with licensed IP and emotional engagement beyond mechanics.

• Content Coordination: Recruit and organize a writing team, assign writing duties, and maintain continuity across arcs and characters.

• Event Documentation: Archive major plot beats, NPCs, and decisions per event to ensure world and lore continuity.

3. Community Director (Community Management & Recruitment)

Theme: Player health, culture-building, and outreach.

Core Responsibilities:

• Community Wellness: Foster a healthy, inclusive, and welcoming environment; act as a mandatory reporter and trusted liaison in social disputes.

• Recruitment & Outreach: Set and meet goals for new player attendance (e.g., 5 new players per event), run introductory content, and partner with marketing to grow the base.

• Culture Stewardship: Maintain the tone and values of the branch, mediate through structure, and support human-to-human interaction when guidance is needed.

4. Operations Director (Operational Management)

Theme: Execution, immersion, and logistics.

Core Responsibilities:

• Physical Resource Management: Order and track all supplies and materials, from costuming to props to paperwork.

• Event Infrastructure: Organize setup and breakdown crews, maintain morale, and ensure environmental immersion through aesthetics and layout.

• Team Coordination: Manage event-day Guides, delegate tasks efficiently, and support consistency in experience delivery.

5. Integration Director (Project Management & Interdepartmental Liaison)

Theme: Strategy, alignment, and momentum.

Core Responsibilities:

• Project Management: Track progress across departments, set deadlines, hold team leaders accountable, and ensure smooth coordination between teams.

• Support & Intervention: Step in where friction, gaps, or burnout appear to remove blockers and offer hands-on assistance.

• Communication & Alignment: Ensure consistent, clear communication between all leadership and teams; turn reactive patterns into proactive systems.

Larp Design Series (3 of Series): Your Mechanics and Meta-Design Must Match Your Narrative

Not every game needs more rules. Not every problem needs a new mechanic. And not every dramatic moment needs a codified outcome sheet or an exhilarating rock-paper-scissors session to mean something. But what every game does need is clarity of purpose—backed by a design that supports that purpose at every level.

This piece is about how mechanics (the codified rules and systems that define what characters can do) and meta-mechanics (the out-of-character structures and agreements that shape how players interact with the story and each other) must work in tandem to serve your narrative. If either one is out of step with the kind of experience you’re trying to create, the entire event begins to fray at the seams.

Because design isn’t about having more. It’s about having what’s right.

Mechanics vs. Meta-Mechanics: What’s the Difference?

Let’s define these quickly so we’re on the same page.

• System Mechanics are the hard rules. These are the combat systems, skill check rules, crafting trees, resource charts, and point economies. They live in the rulebook, and they tell players how their characters interact with the game world.

• Meta-Mechanics are the tools and agreements players use outside of character to keep the game running in line with its narrative vision. That might be how PvP is initiated, how to ask for consent for certain types of scenes, how to signal fatigue or discomfort, or even frameworks for collaborative storytelling. Meta-mechanics are the scaffolding that helps hold the narrative together, even when the written rules can’t cover every moment.

When both are aligned with the story you want to tell, your players don’t just understand the world—they feel like part of it.

Every Rule Sends a Message

When you add a mechanic, you’re saying: “This matters here.” If your game has a detailed ruleset for swordplay but zero mention of interpersonal conflict, then don’t be surprised when players spend more time swinging foam than roleplaying emotionally tense moments. If you add six layers of rules to resolve social influence but have no meta-framework for safety or consent? You’re designing a story where manipulation gets more mechanical support than player agency.

Mechanics are not neutral. They elevate certain actions and push others into the background. So ask yourself: What actions do I want players to take often? What interactions do I want to feel real? What kind of story do I want them to believe they’re in?

Then build your rules—both mechanical and meta—to make those choices obvious and accessible.

A great LARP system doesn’t just control what players can and can’t do. It gives them the tools to interact with the narrative in meaningful, supported ways. Think of your system as a framework: strong enough to support the weight of dramatic play, flexible enough to allow for player agency, and intentional enough that no one is left guessing at how to engage.

You don’t need 40 combat abilities if what you really want is two factions trying to negotiate peace. You don’t need a granular economy if the theme is survival under scarcity. You need enough system to anchor the experience, and enough meta-design to ensure the players are all on the same page about what kind of story they’re telling together.

This means building toward moments—moments where the mechanics and meta-structures reinforce the tone, the stakes, and the feel of the world. Moments that leave players talking long after the event is over. Your mechanics and meta-mechanics should always be in service to the kind of story you want players to experience. If your game is about the collapse of empire, your economy and social systems should highlight scarcity, inequality, and unrest. If it’s about personal horror, then both rules and safety systems should prioritize introspection, tension, and emotional risk. If your game is about survival in the apocalypse, then your skills should be about “just being able to do enough” instead of thriving. And if your story is about connection—about players forging bonds through hardship or joy—then build a framework that rewards that. Not just with XP or downtime points, but with actual space and tools that make those connections easier to play.

Review, Revisit, Revise… Refuse?

One of the most common pitfalls in LARP design is what we’ll call patch mentality—the instinct to reach for more rules, more exceptions, or new abilities every time something goes sideways. It’s understandable. Designers care about their communities, and when something feels unfair or breaks the game loop, there’s a natural urge to fix it fast and definitively. But more often than not, each new rule adds a little more weight to a structure that’s already starting to sag. You don’t build a better bridge by throwing on more bricks. You do it by reinforcing what’s already there—or replacing what doesn’t hold.

Before you start adding more mechanics to shore up a shaky moment, take a breath and ask: Is this actually a rules problem? Or is it a culture problem? A rules problem means something isn’t functioning in the way the system promised. Maybe the numbers are off. Maybe the resource flow breaks under pressure. Maybe the pacing collapses. That’s worth examining from a systems perspective.

But a culture problem? That’s something else entirely. That’s when players act in ways that undermine the tone, spirit, or intention of the game—not because they’re breaking a rule, but because the environment allows it. Maybe some players are dominating scenes with aggressive roleplay styles, sidelining others in the process. Maybe combat-focused characters are derailing narrative arcs built for social tension. Maybe the emotional content you thought would be shared is being hoarded, joked through, or turned into melodrama. Maybe players are leaning into “playing the mechanics” instead of “playing in the world”. You can’t fix that with a clause in the rulebook. You fix it by reasserting the narrative vision of the game, reintroducing the meta-structures that support healthy play, and having real conversations with your community.

It’s also worth asking: Are players doing something unexpected—or are they doing exactly what the game signaled was possible? If people are circumventing systems or creating emergent forms of interaction, that’s not always a bug. It might be a sign that your system didn’t offer a way to play the story they’re trying to tell. Rules will never cover everything, and trying to design a failsafe for every outcome is like trying to plug holes in a sieve with sticky notes. It’s far more sustainable to revisit your original design and ask what kinds of play you’re inviting in—intentionally or otherwise.

And finally: Would a meta-mechanic solve this better than a mechanical fix? Maybe players are over-escalating scenes because there’s no way to de-escalate. Maybe emotional bleed is running high because there’s no communal cool-down built into the event. Maybe character conflict is spiraling into player conflict because the game lacks narrative guardrails or signaling tools. These aren’t situations that need another rule. Maybe players are hyper focused on “the rules” because they don’t trust their game runners or fellow players to play fair. These players need a better scaffold. Meta-mechanics—opt-in frameworks, feedback loops, content tagging, tone indicators, calibration tools—can often do more to fix these issues than another “if-then” clause ever could.

Design is iterative. And good LARP systems aren’t set-and-forget—they’re living organisms. That means you’re allowed to revisit what you’ve written. You’re allowed to revise. But when you do, don’t just patch. Pause. Review the problem for what it really is. Revisit the goals of your system. And revise with intent, not just urgency. Because what we build isn’t just a game. It’s a container for emotion, memory, and meaning. The more intentional we are in maintaining that container, the longer it’ll last—and the better it’ll serve the people who step inside.

Larp Design Series (2 of Series): Writing for Location or Location to Match Narrative

One of the hardest logistical problems in running a LARP isn’t the rules, the story, or the mechanics. It’s the site and making the game actually happen. There’s a real difference between creating something that could be run and actually doing the work to run it. Writing a great world, crafting clever systems, and dreaming up immersive scenes is one thing. Booking port-a-potties, negotiating rental insurance, budgeting for 100 beds, and managing food safety? That’s something else entirely.

Part of the issue is that sometimes game design and development happens in a bubble without consideration for game implementation. This is the pitfall that makes so many people “have an idea for a larp” or “have a larp they have designed” but never actually made happen. The first big hurdle between design and implementation is the concept of site in regards to scope, game world, and operation.

Where your game happens shapes everything; how it feels, how it plays, and what’s even possible. In the United States, especially in the Northeast, finding a suitable site is one of the most expensive and limiting parts of the process. In Connecticut every history, outdoor, or pretty venue has become a destination wedding site for at least part of the year. It makes sense, given that for a wedding you can charge thousands for a single day of use. It’s like if you are asking for a wedding cake, or a sheet pan cake. What it’s being used for changes the price immeasurably.

That’s why you should consider starting your design with an honest conversation about location. If you already have a dependable site, consider building the game around it. If you are connected to a college campus and have access to use of their facilities maybe you need to start with the framework of running a lot of larps “at a school”. Use what you have. Let the layout, buildings, and natural features reinforce the world you’re creating.

Why do you want to design a larp?
Where is your experience happening?
Who is running your experience?
Who is your experience for?

Consider these questions when you are in the “lets make soup” brainstorm phase of your larp design. Starting with having a site in mind can also be a boon for the creative aspect of game design. When you’ve got a specific site in front of you, you’re no longer inventing in the abstract. You’re seeing paths, buildings, woods, dorms, basements—and your brain starts to fill in the gaps. That broken-down barn isn’t just a hazard on the property, it’s now an abandoned watch station, or a cursed chapel. That looped path isn’t just a walking trail—it’s a ritual route, a patrol circuit, or a border between factions. A bridge or a cliff changes the tone of a scene before you write a single line of dialogue.

Blank-slate worldbuilding can be overwhelming. You have infinite options, and with that comes the paralysis of too many choices. But when a site is in front of you, it becomes your co-writer. Its layout, aesthetics, and quirks all nudge your story in certain directions. You're no longer choosing from a universe of ideas—you're interpreting and shaping a world that’s already halfway built.

If you don’t have a site yet and are committed to a specific concept, you’ll need to stay flexible. You may have to scale or reshape your idea based on what’s actually available—and what you can afford. The decisions you make often times directly or indirectly create a need for infrastructure. That infrastructure comes at a cost, and it’s often where new designers hit a wall. A lot of the sites that provide these basics make their money hosting weddings and corporate retreats. That means a single-day rental can easily cost thousands. So the real work starts here: finding sites in off-seasons, building good relationships, staying flexible, and adjusting the scope of your design to fit what the real world makes available.

A good LARP site needs more than atmosphere. You need water, bathrooms, power, weather shelter, sleep space, parking, accessibility. If your game runs over multiple days, those aren’t optional. And most event sites that offer them are used to hosting weddings or corporate retreats that pay thousands for a single day. Your event will need to work with shoulder seasons, off-peak dates, and alternative setups to stay in budget. Part of being a LARP runner is always scouting. Keep an eye out for viable sites. Build good relationships. Stay respectful, professional, and easy to work with. Often, a game happens—or doesn’t—because of a handshake, a returned email, or a good impression you left six months ago. You’re not just designing a world. You’re navigating the real one it has to live in. The more honest you are about that relationship from the start, the more solid your foundation becomes.

If you're a writer without experience coordinating live events, there are key site factors you might overlook at first. Start with the basics: indoor shelter, potable water, bathrooms with working toilets, and reliable power. If the event runs overnight, confirm that there are enough safe, heated (or cooled) sleeping areas—indoors or out—and that those spaces are clearly segmented for privacy, rest, and safety.

Look at how people will move through the space. Are there good places for scenes or faction areas? Can players walk safely between them after dark? How much of the space is accessible for players with mobility challenges? Do you need to provide your own lighting or generators? Are there limitations on noise, occupancy, or activities due to local laws, proximity to neighborhoods, or park rules? Don’t forget logistical concerns: parking, trash removal, delivery access, medical emergency access, cell reception, and food storage. If you're running kitchen operations, you need working refrigeration and sanitary food prep areas—or a reliable plan to bring them. If you’re offering in-character spaces, know whether props can stay overnight, whether tents are allowed, and what insurance or permits the venue requires.

If you’re designing your game and treating logistics like a separate step that someone else will figure out later, you’re setting yourself up for problems. The most immersive scenes in the world fall flat when half your players are exhausted from cold sleeping arrangements or frustrated that they can’t find a bathroom. Every game element you create has a logistical footprint: where it happens, how it’s lit, how it sounds, what the physical safety concerns are, and what needs to be cleaned up or repaired afterward. That doesn’t mean you can’t be ambitious. It means your ambition has to include logistics as a design factor. If your story hinges on a dramatic late-night ritual in the woods, then part of writing that story is making sure you have safe paths, lighting, and shelter to support it. If your event has multiple factions with in-character spaces, then part of your creative process is making sure those spaces actually exist and function the way players expect.

Larp Design Series (1 of Series): Writing the World You Actually Want to Run

Every LARP begins with a choice: are you running a game inside someone else's world, or are you writing your own? If you're writing your own, you need to be honest with yourself about what that really means. Building a game world isn't about throwing together a few interesting ideas. It's about constructing a foundation that other people will build on—through their characters, their stories, and their interpretations of your work. You're not just writing a story. You're writing the mythology and the definition of the setting's reality. There are good reasons to create your own world. Maybe the stories you want to tell don’t quite fit into someone else’s framework. Maybe you’re building around a core theme that hasn’t been explored in the genre the way you want it to be. Or maybe you just want full creative control. But creating a new world means taking on more than just writing lore. You're designing a mythology that has to make sense to other people and hold up under the pressure of hundreds of individual narratives running at the same time.

When you build your own mythology, you’re setting the stage for others to create stories inside it—many of which will be far removed from your original ideas. This is part of the process. At some point, your world will no longer belong entirely to you. Players will interpret, shift, bend, and even contradict your work, intentionally or not. Some parts will be misunderstood. Others will be ignored. This is the natural outcome of writing a shared universe. Death of the author isn’t a risk; it’s a feature. You need to want to see this world in action. You need to want to see what players do with it, how they stress-test it, where they fill in the blanks. If your passion is tied to tight control or single-story outcomes, you're going to have a hard time. But if you enjoy the idea of giving people a playground and watching what they build, you're in the right place.

Start by deciding what kind of experience you're actually trying to run. Not what you think people want, or what looks good on a flier. What kind of game do you want to spend your time building, writing for, and answering questions about for years? Is it heavy narrative drama? Pulp action? Bleak survival? Hopeful reconstruction? You need to know what the emotional center of your game world is before you start writing anything. That emotional focus will shape your setting, your conflicts, your cultures, and your mechanics.

Once you know what kind of game you want to run, decide if you actually need to write a new world. There is no shame in running a game using someone else's IP or setting, as long as you have that writer’s permission. If what you're trying to run already exists in a system or world built by someone else, don't reinvent the wheel just to say you did. Building a world from scratch is a lot of work, and most of that work isn't fun. It's taxonomy. It's internal logic. It's knowing why one culture acts differently from another, and making sure your documents don't contradict themselves three chapters later.

If you're committed to building something new, then start by creating a clear framework. What do players need to know to understand your world? What do they need to know to play in it effectively? What are the core conflicts? What themes are consistent across the setting? Avoid writing thousands of words of timeline and backstory before you've answered those questions. Focus on what players need to read before their first event.

You also need to separate worldbuilding from storytelling. A lot of new world designers write backstory that is actually just a character arc or a single plot line. That material has value, but it's not the same as worldbuilding. Worldbuilding is about what's typical, not what was exceptional. When you write your documents, be clear about whether you're describing the world as it is, or telling a specific story that happened in it. If you blur that line too much, your setting will feel vague and inconsistent.

Build what you need. Don’t create twelve religions if only one shows up in play. Don’t write a six-thousand-year history if players only need to know the last thirty. Focus your energy on the parts of the world that create meaningful choices and scenes. Expand from there. Make the core documents readable and usable. Save the deep dives and longform lore for optional material.

Most importantly, you need to want to see this world in action. You need to be excited to run games in it, write for it, fix problems in it, and hand it over to players who will do things with it that you never expected. If that doesn't sound like something you want to manage long-term, you're not ready to write your own world. But if it does? Start small. Build smart. Write the world you actually want to run, not the one you think you're supposed to.

The Art of Expectation - Designing Within Reality, Playing Within Reason

There’s a rhythm to live games that most people don’t recognize until they’re already in the middle of it. That rhythm isn’t set by the plot beats or the combat calls or the soundtracks in the background. It’s set by expectations. The spoken ones. The unspoken ones. The ones we didn’t mean to set but did anyway. The ones that sneak into the back of our minds when we hand over cash or commit to months of preparation.

For game runners, this means every decision they make is already sitting inside a container built by what the players think they’re signing up for. If you promise a small-town horror experience and show up with an off-brand fantasy masquerade, it doesn’t matter how good your content is. You broke the rhythm. If you bill your event as a political game of influence and legacy, but your core structure is built on weekend-long boffer modules, you’re not delivering the game you advertised. That isn’t a matter of quality. It’s a matter of clarity.

Managing expectations doesn’t mean aiming low. It means being honest. What’s your actual scope? How much can you deliver with the resources, staff, time, and experience you have? If you have the infrastructure for a tight two-day story arc with deep personal scenes and a bit of prop support, then own that. Build that. Deliver that with everything you’ve got. But don’t overpromise a full cinematic universe because you feel like that’s what will sell the tickets. Design to your strengths. Say what you’re doing, say what you’re not, and then do what you said.

Transparency isn't a loss of mystique. It's a sign of respect. The more honest you are about what your game is and isn’t, the more likely you are to bring in players who want that exact thing. You can still have surprise. You can still have mystery. But no one wants to spend months building a political noble for a game that turns out to be a monster-of-the-week larp. No one wants to craft an emotional connection arc for a weekend that’s structured like a combat ladder. If you want to deliver impact, then the first step is building a foundation that aligns your intent with your communication. Everything else follows.

On the other side of the story is the player—and here’s where the conversation gets uncomfortable. Because players, consciously or not, carry their own expectations into every game. And more often than not, those expectations are inflated by price, history, entitlement, and assumptions that don’t match the production sitting in front of them.

This is where we need to talk, bluntly, about value. If your ticket cost is under a hundred dollars and you're playing in someone’s rented community center or vamp site, the scope of what you should expect needs to match that. If you're paying nine hundred dollars for a three-day fully-catered game with added costuming rentals, actor-staffed roles, and a 24/7 immersive environment, then yes, the bar is higher. But you don't get blockbuster expectations at backyard indie pricing. You don’t get high-gloss festival impact at kitchen-table costs. And more importantly, you don’t get to demand labor someone else has to eat because you don’t want to pay for it.

Larp has long held a strange position. It has an expectation of being culturally immersive, creatively rich, logistically intense, visually stunning, and often priced like a charity bake sale. But the truth is, if you want sets, tools, costumes, props, logistics coordination, staff with experience, safety frameworks, accessible support, and tight narrative design, then someone has to pay for that work. If you're not willing to, then what makes it fair to expect someone else to build it for free?

This isn’t about gatekeeping or exclusivity. It's about respect. Respect for labor. Respect for time. Respect for the reality that building good experiences requires resources. And as players, we have a choice in how we show up to those experiences. We can walk in with the unspoken contract of “entertain me,” or we can walk in with the mutual understanding that we’re all here to raise the bar together.

Because that’s where the magic lives. Not in perfect props or flawless scheduling, but in the collective commitment to meet the game at its level and then lift it higher. That’s when staff and players become collaborators. That’s when immersion becomes personal. That’s when expectation becomes trust, and trust becomes payoff of really being a part of a fictional world.

Not every game needs to be massive. Not every player needs to spend hundreds of dollars. But whatever level you’re playing at, whatever stage you’re building on, make sure the expectations are shared. Make sure the value is understood. And above all, make sure the experience being promised is one you’re ready to meet from both sides of the mask. Set realistic expectations for your players, have realistic expectations of your game runners, and in the end try to raise the experience instead of expecting others to make the experience better for you.

Why I Hate Elves – Design Apathy

 There’s a version of this where I say “I don’t actually hate elves”—that this is a metaphor, or a provocation, or a bit of theater. But I won’t. I hate them.

Not because they’re glitter slugs or overused, though they are. Not because they’re a cultural Frankenstein stitched together from Germanic folklore, Victorian poetry, and 20th-century marketing, though that’s also true. I hate elves because of what they represent: the creative floor that too many designers stop on. Elves are the duct tape of fantasy worldbuilding. They’re not here to enrich, they’re here to patch holes and to embrace the familiar instead of embracing the weird.

And the problem isn’t just elves. It’s what choosing elves says about a creatives willingness to take risks.

The elf, in its current form, is a design surrender. Once, these creatures were supernatural forces of illness, seduction, power, and fear. They weren’t noble or wise. They were dangerous. They were folklore's unknowable “other”. But somewhere between Shakespeare’s trickster sprites and Tolkien’s immortal supermodels, elves became fantasy’s comfort food. They are safe. They are expected. They are a blank canvas wearing a costume and calling it lore.

Need something magical? Pointy ears.
Need something “ancient and elegant”? Pointy ears, slow speech.
Need a species you can make ten subtypes of to pretend your game world is rich? Spin the wheel. Blood elves. Deep elves. Steampunk elves. Sea elves. Goth elves. Eldrich elves. You’re not building culture—you’re just tagging templates.

This is where immersive design, and LARP especially, finds itself trapped. When the pressure is on to “make something mystical,” we don’t reach for bold originality, but for familiarity dressed up with a little flair. But what’s worse is that repetition isn’t the enemy. Stagnation is.

Because what’s really happening here is stagnation caused by fear. The fear that a wholly original concept might not land. That your world might not be “understood” unless you anchor it to something recognizably Elvish. And in doing so, you not only flatten the creative potential of your setting—you teach your players that imagination lives within a set of allowable shapes.

This isn’t just a callout to writers. This is about immersive design. Scene setting. World cohesion. NPC creation. Cultural immersion. When you introduce elves into your world, ask yourself: what are they doing that a fully unique culture couldn’t do better? What narrative weight are they carrying that couldn't be handled by a new construct that reflects your themes and values?

LARP is one of the few artistic mediums where the world you create is experienced in the body. People walk through it. Eat in it. Speak inside it. That demands more from our design than aesthetic mimicry. If you’re just creating Fantasy Clone 9981 with elf ears and soft ambient music, then congratulations—you’re in the business of nostalgia, not narrative. And look, it’s not that every world needs to reinvent the wheel. But if your first magical instinct is “add elves,” then the real question is: what story are you too scared to tell instead?

Elves, as they exist now in most immersive and fantasy games, are a product of genre safety. They’re the narrative equivalent of bland comfort food. Easy to serve. Easy to recognize. Easy to digest. But you can’t live on mashed potatoes forever, and the longer your world leans on old scaffolding, the less it will say anything meaningful about the human experience it’s meant to explore. Elves were once feared. Dangerous. They represented invisible forces that could ruin crops or seduce your soul. They were folklore’s metaphor for the unexplainable. They were once new and powerful concepts. Unfortunately when elves were new and powerful concepts it was the 13th and 14th century. Now they’re Instagram models with +2 Dexterity.

I understand the allure of writing something safe. There are many reasons why sometimes it feels like there are more larp academics and larp influencers in the world than larp writers and larp runners. It is socially and emotionally safer to approach the hobby as an academic, critic, or influencer than it is to be willing to create content and put it out in the world for scrutiny and criticism (thats another blog).

There’s comfort in using elves. Its source material that is less likely to draw ire and it provides a predictability that feels like protection. When you’re working in a medium as labor-intensive, expensive, and socially vulnerable as LARP, the instinct to hedge your bets isn’t just understandable, it’s pragmatic. LARP in the U.S. is still niche. It demands enormous investment not just in time and logistics, but in emotional and social capital. Building a game means exposing yourself to scrutiny, managing community dynamics, and shouldering the weight of expectation (both realistic and unrealistic) from players who’ve traveled, paid, and committed to something you created. That’s not a small ask. So of course it’s tempting to reach for something that feels familiar. Of course it’s tempting to write what’s already been accepted, already been played, already “works.”

There’s value in that, too. Not everything has to be a revolution. Sometimes the goal is to create something that will be understood, appreciated, and engaged with and doing that often means speaking in a language your audience already knows. Fantasy tropes, familiar cultures, common archetypes, they offer a sense of entry. They lower the barrier of comprehension and help players feel at home faster. And when you’re launching a new game, especially on limited resources, every inch of approachability can help carry you across the finish line. Designing for success isn’t a weakness. It’s a strategy. But even strategies need to be examined, because what’s safest for us as designers isn’t always what’s best for the worlds we’re trying to build or the creative community we are trying to build.

Take the risk. Create something new. Use magic, real magic, in your design thinking. Stop playing fantasy Mad Libs with aesthetic templates. Stop building safe. Safe doesn’t last. Safe doesn’t move people. Safe doesn’t get remembered.

And I hate that more than I hate elves.

Life and Trust: A Master Class in Experience Design (Part 4)

The sad story shown on the landing page of Life and Trust, 4/20/2025

There was going to be a different version of this article. One focused on the brilliance of scene control and space transformation, told through the silent choreography of golden-masked stagehands. That piece may still come. But this one, this one is about a different kind of mastery. A more painful one. The kind you only learn when something extraordinary falters. However, recent developments have necessitated a shift in focus. Less than 48 hours ago, Emursive, the company behind Life and Trust, announced the cancellation of the remainder of its shows and the refunding of all future ticket sales. As of this writing, no official statement has been released explaining the sudden closure. Given the show's innovative design and the talent involved, we are left to interpret the silence and extract lessons from the unwritten spaces.​

The creative force behind Life and Trust was formidable. Emursive, renowned for producing the groundbreaking Sleep No More, continued its tradition of immersive storytelling with this production. The Kuperman Brothers, Jeff and Rick, served as co-directors and choreographers, bringing their extensive experience from stage and screen, including their Tony Award-winning choreography for The Outsiders . Their work is characterized by a seamless blend of movement and narrative, creating a visceral experience for the audience.​

Ilana Gilovich, the Chief Storyteller at Emursive, played a pivotal role in shaping the narrative landscape of Life and Trust. With a Ph.D. in English Literature (Theatre and Performance) from Columbia University, her academic and creative pursuits converge to craft stories that resonate on multiple levels. Her contributions ensured that the immersive experience was not only visually captivating but also rich in thematic depth.

Despite the show’s artistic successes, its premature closure underscores a critical lesson for creators of immersive experiences and LARPs alike: you still have to run the business. In the instance of Life and Trust future tickets were refunded. No official reason given. At the time of writing, we’re left with silence. And that silence weighs heavy. Because Life and Trust was not a incredibly flawed production. Quite the opposite—it was exceptional. Beautifully executed, narratively tight, visually stunning, logistically elegant. It hit nearly every mark that immersive creators dream of. And still, it ended.

Art is transformative. A powerful story, a compelling character, a room that makes someone feel something—these things matter deeply. But when you scale that artistry up—when your production stretches across multiple floors, a sprawling camp, or a complex multi-day timeline—vision alone is not enough. Good art can’t save you from the very real demands of budget spreadsheets, tax forms, and human resource planning. If you want to build worlds, you have to fund them. Sustain them. Staff them. Sell them.

 This is a trap that LARP, especially in the American scene, falls into often. Events are underfunded by default. Most organizers come from within the hobby. They’re passionate, creative, and often overworked. They know how to write scenes and balance mechanics. They know how to run a game weekend. But they’ve never been taught how to build a multi-year budget model, run payroll, or design a marketing funnel. And if they’ve never run a business, it’s easy to assume that the art will carry the weight. That if the experience is good enough, the rest will follow.

But it doesn’t.

Large-scale productions, even volunteer-driven ones, run on cash flow. LARPs need money for insurance, permits, props, food, facilities, staff stipends, printing, software, storage, travel, and infrastructure. The moment you move past a group of friends in a field, you are running an enterprise. If you don’t treat it that way, the foundation will eventually crack. And when it does, it often takes the art down with it.

Staffing, too, becomes a business decision. Not just about who’s available or passionate, but about roles, workload distribution, expectations, and burnout mitigation. Someone needs to be tracking time. Someone needs to manage the books. Someone needs to make sure taxes are filed, and someone needs to understand how to build systems that let the creative leads actually do the creative work.

Marketing isn’t just posting on social media or tossing up a hype trailer a few weeks before opening day. Have you mapped your Customer Value Journey? Do you know how your players find your game, how you educate them, how you convert them from interested to invested? Have you budgeted for ads, email campaigns, partnerships, or long-term community engagement? If you don’t have a funnel, you don’t have a plan—you have hope. And hope is a fragile foundation.

This isn’t the glamorous part of creation. But it is what keeps the work alive. Do you own your brand? Are your names, logos, taglines, and systems protected with trademarks or copyrights? Are your publications properly licensed, documented, and attributed? Is your creative IP shielded from unauthorized reuse—not just morally, but legally? Have you filed your business with your state, registered for the right permits, or set up the insurance that would keep you covered if something went wrong during a weekend event? Have you even looked at the insurance you need, let alone priced it out or ensured it aligns with your scope of activities?

None of this is particularly romantic. But when something happens—and something will happen—these are the things that decide whether you survive it.

Because if you’re running your operation with no protections in place, without understanding the legal and financial standards required to operate at scale, then what you’re doing isn’t bold or innovative. It’s reckless. It’s the Icarus story, not in metaphor, but in practice: flying toward the sun not because of ambition, but because you never checked whether the wings were stitched with wax or sinew. When your work melts under scrutiny, when disputes arise, or when the government steps in to ask questions you don’t have answers for, that’s not dramatic irony. It’s a lesson in neglect.

Legal infrastructure is the scaffolding that holds your creation up when the wind shifts. It doesn’t diminish your vision—it protects it. It makes sure that the stories you tell, the mechanics you design, the community you build, and the spaces you shape don’t evaporate the first time a contract goes sideways, a copyright is challenged, or someone breaks an ankle and asks who’s liable. For every LARP organizer who thinks, “We’re just a group of friends,” or “We’ll deal with that later,” there’s a lesson waiting. And it’s usually not a gentle one. You don’t need to be a lawyer to run a game—but you do need to understand that once money changes hands, once publishing begins, once people travel to interact with your brand, you’re running something that exists in a legal framework. It’s not about fear—it’s about care. If the world you’re building matters to you, then so should the steps it takes to keep it safe, legitimate, and yours.

The irony isn’t lost on me that Life and Trust—a story centered on Faustian bargains, wealth, and the cost of ambition—quietly closed to all outside perspective under the same weight it portrayed. A show about the price of success, undone perhaps by the very same truth. That no matter how beautiful your vision is, if the money dries up or the logistics fail, the curtain comes down. That’s the hardest lesson to learn in this work. That building something incredible is only half the battle. The other half is the paperwork. The filings. The contracts. The invoices. The marketing strategy. The emergency fund. The backend tools. The off-season sustainability plan. It’s the least romantic part of immersive design—and the most important.

To the team behind Life and Trust, I offer nothing but admiration. The show was a masterpiece. Its closure is not a failure; it’s a tragedy of scale, a reminder of how fragile even the strongest structures can be without enough scaffolding underneath.

To the LARP community and immersive designers still building, still dreaming: take this lesson seriously. Don’t build your dreams on top of chaos. Learn the business. Fund the foundation. Design the logistics as carefully as you design the story.

You can’t keep the world alive if the world you’re building it in collapses.

Life and Trust: A Master Class in Experience Design (Part 3)

This is going to be the first of these posts where I think you actually need to read the “Part 1” and “Part 2” to get the full scope of this blog post. I try to write each one in more of a episodic format, but the truth is, some of these ideas are compound and build off of each other. So at this point if you didn’t read Part 1 and Part 2 of “Life and Trust: A Master Class in Experience Design” I suggest that you do go back and read them first.

Also I want to say that there are details I’m deliberately leaving out in these write-ups, and it’s not because I’m being coy—it’s because Life and Trust is something that must be experienced to be understood. Like the old adage about drugs or sex, you can talk about it all you want, but words fall short of the full truth. No description—no matter how vivid—can replace the actual feeling of being inside that world, surrounded by it, reacting to it in real time. These breakdowns aren’t meant to spoil that experience. They’re meant to learn from it and apply it to other forms of immersive design like LARP and other formats of immersive experience / theater.

What I want to talk about in this part of the series is the role of space—not just the visual design of a room or the way it's lit, but how space is used as a tool. Specifically, I want to focus on the silent, deliberate work of the golden-masked stagehands.

During my run, I followed a scene that led into a bedroom. The space was sparsely but purposefully designed: a bed, a fireplace, a chair, a corner vanity, and a set of tall glass windows that looked out on what appeared to be a courtyard. It was elegant, restrained, and incredibly smart. While the room could easily hold a dozen people inside with the actors, another dozen could—and did—watch from the outside through the glass. They stood like horned-masked voyeurs peering in, still fully engaged, still part of the narrative, even from the outside.

At one point, during a particularly charged moment, a figure—let’s just call him an infernal investor—entered the room by rotating one of the glass panels and stepping inside. The scene that followed was full of tension, unspoken deals, and choreography involving ballet slippers and temptation. As it resolved, the characters exited in different directions. The moment was gone, the room emptied, and the energy shifted.

And that’s when I saw something most people likely didn’t.

Because I had entered the room early and ended up near the front, I was also one of the last to leave. The crowd rushed out to chase the actors, but I lingered. I looked around. I considered taking a new path, maybe climbing out the same way the masked demonic benefactor had entered. But before I could move, I saw the golden-masked stagehands step into motion. Silent, focused, and deliberate, they reset and changed over the space. They straightened the sheets. They turned a chair. They closed the window and picked up some clothing that the previous actors had left behind. They didn’t just clean—they recontextualized.

A few minutes later, a completely different set of actors entered. A new story began. It was the same room, the same space—but used completely differently. Another group of viewers, both inside and outside, watched something new unfold in the exact same location. And because the staging, pacing, and scene content had changed, it felt like a new place. It no longer was a snapshot of history from the prior actors, this was now “their bedroom”.

This is the lesson for LARP designers: scene efficiency and impact verses investment.

Props cost time and money. Good props cost both. Space is never infinite. The temptation to create a new environment for every major plot point is strong, but it’s not sustainable. The answer isn’t to do less—it’s to do smarter. Life and Trust doesn’t waste a single inch of its space. Instead, it designs its spaces for reuse—not by duplicating content, but by layering narrative possibilities within a flexible environment.

The bedroom wasn’t a one-use set piece. It wasn’t overwhelmed with hyper-specific props that locked it into a single story. It was designed to suggest a time, a tone, and a world without boxing itself into a singular narrative. The room wasn’t the story—it supported the story. And that meant it could support more than one; and it did.

In LARP, this means writing for your space instead of writing something first and then trying to make the space fit. Module areas, especially if they’re built up or dressed for effect, should be multi-use by design. If you control how and when people enter, what they see, and what purpose the space serves in their narrative, you can reuse a single space in multiple ways. You can run different modules or scenes with different themes, different emotional arcs, and entirely different casts—all in the same location.

The trick is in controlling the context. Divide your player base intentionally. Use timing, NPC routes, and narrative beats to funnel different groups into the same space at different times. If player “Group B” enters the space shortly after “Group A” leaves you can ensure that the two narratives have difference audiences. Let each group see that space in a different way, for a different reason, with a different result. Yes, you may have the occasional observer who stumbles across more than one use of the space—but even then, if the scenes are distinct enough, it still works. What they witness won’t be a repetition—it’ll be a transformation.

When you design your spaces to invite multiple uses, you make your world denser, more sustainable, and more believable. That doesn’t mean you need to compromise quality—quite the opposite. A single space, carefully dressed and mindfully written for, can do more than half a dozen hastily arranged ones. Control how your spaces are seen. Reset them with intention. Make every scene count.

The golden-masked guides of Life and Trust aren’t just quiet crew—they are conductors, weaving behind the scenes to keep the experience flowing. But the golden-masked guides didn’t just reset scenes or manage props—they curated experience scope. They controlled what participants could see, when they could see it, and how those transitions felt. And they did it all without a word.

Throughout Life and Trust, these masked crew members moved with purpose, opening and closing doors not just as a function of logistics, but as an act of storytelling. When a room was no longer part of the active narrative, the doors would close and, eventually, lock. When a scene was done, it was immediately set for the next scene. There was no announcement, no signal, no whisper that this space was “done.” It simply faded from access, and with it, the participants moved on—guided by the flow of opportunity, not by artificial barriers. When a new space was meant to open, particularly those attached to major reveals, the golden masks would unlock the doors in silence. There was no flourish, no grand gesture. A door that had previously gone unnoticed was simply... available.

What made this effective—brilliant, even—was that it never felt like restriction. In traditional games, especially older RPG video games, the audience knows exactly when they’re being blocked. A random cat sits in a doorway and the game tells you “you can’t go this way yet.” A fallen tree or pile of rubble blocks the path until the right quest flag is flipped. These moments jar the player. You’re no longer exploring a living world—you’re navigating a logic gate. That never happens in Life and Trust.

Doors are closed everywhere. Some are set dressing. Some are narrative boundaries. Some are simply there, and you don’t know which is which. That ambiguity is intentional. It creates a world that feels full of possibility without overwhelming the audience with access. Because the design builds in visual and structural variety, when you find a door that does open—especially one that wasn’t accessible before—it feels earned. It feels like the world is expanding in front of you, rather than being held back and doled out on rails.

This is a massive lesson for LARP and immersive experience designers: control the scope without making the limits feel artificial.

Too often, we try to manage player flow with human bottlenecks, hard redirects, or out-of-character explanations that fracture immersion. Instead of building invisible boundaries, we fall back on traffic cones, "staff only" signs, or NPCs who have to say, “You can’t go there yet.” These approaches work, but they take players out of the fiction. Every time we rely on a real-world instruction to gate content, we are reminded that we are in a game.

But Life and Trust shows how to do it differently. When the world is filled with closed doors—some real, some fake, some waiting—the act of opening one becomes an emotional moment. The golden-masked guides orchestrate that rhythm with grace, silently cueing movement and curiosity without demanding attention. Their presence alone—the flash of a gold mask turning a key, the quiet pivot of a door handle—is enough to signal that something is changing. And that is enough.

For LARP, this means leaning into perceived possibility. Not every door needs to lead somewhere. Not every path needs to be accessible. But players should never feel like they are being denied an experience—they should feel like they are being invited into one. If a room is sealed, let it be sealed in a world where many things are sealed. If something opens, let it feel like the world is revealing itself rather than giving permission. You don’t need to show players every tool you’re using. Just let them walk the halls and believe there’s always something around the next corner.

There’s still more to explore. In future installments, I’ll dive into costuming, the power of the silent observer, and how those ever-watching golden masks can teach LARP Guides something crucial about presence, energy, and when to hold space versus when to shape it. But for now, take this lesson forward: build smarter, reuse better, plan ahead, and never let a good room go to waste.

Life and Trust: A Master Class in Experience Design (Part 2)

Immersive experiences live or die on their ability to manage people effectively. The flow of a crowd, the timing of engagement, and the way space is used all determine how smoothly an experience unfolds. Life and Trust doesn’t just excel at this—it turns logistics into an invisible art. Through its spatial design, its use of secret actor pathways, and its careful modulation of crowd energy, the production maintains a seamless experience where every moment feels alive. More impressively, it does so without the audience ever realizing they are being guided.

At any given moment, nearly every part of the Life and Trust space is active. If an actor isn’t in the room with you, you can hear something happening nearby. A conversation down the hall, a commotion from an unseen space, music functioning as a cue, the distant echo of a moment you aren’t part of but could be. The architecture itself serves as a guiding hand, subtly encouraging movement without restriction. Unlike a theme park where explicit signage directs foot traffic, the pathways here create natural loops, two to three room lines of sight, ensuring that most people flow in the same direction without ever being told to do so. Even though free will exists within the experience, the design minimizes congestion and bottlenecks simply by making the most engaging option the one that keeps people moving.

The actors reinforce this structure. While participants are free to wander, the performers have access to hidden escape hatches, staff-only corridors, and secondary exits that allow them to control engagement levels. If a scene grows too crowded or there is a mark that an actor needs to get to, the actor can slip away and reappear elsewhere, redistributing attention and keeping the story fluid. The effect is that every participant, regardless of where they are in the building, feels as though they are at the center of something meaningful. The structure prevents stagnation, ensuring that high-impact moments aren’t diluted by excessive audience clustering in a single space. This balance between organic movement and structured design is precisely what LARP organizers should strive to achieve.

This is where the lessons for LARP become clear. Too often, games allow players to spread too thin, creating isolated bubbles of engagement that break immersion. The wider the available space, the harder it is to create meaningful interactions. Life and Trust solves this problem by controlling how and where people move without making it feel forced. LARP organizers must consider the same when designing site layouts. Thematic zones should serve as focal points for engagement, naturally drawing in players who seek specific experiences. A well-designed farming area should encourage economic play among those invested in that style of roleplay, but it cannot exist in total isolation. If a game allows for sprawling, disconnected play zones with minimal crossover, then roleplay becomes siloed, and the world feels less alive. By designing areas with intentional paths and points of overlap, LARPs can ensure that every player, at every moment, is encountering something worth engaging with.

Themed role-play spaces (zones of play) are more than just set dressing. They are magnets—pulling players toward natural gathering points where shared interests, organic interaction, and emergent narrative can thrive. A well-designed space isn’t just a place to be; it’s a place that makes being there an experience. The moment a player steps into one of these zones, they should feel its purpose—not because someone tells them what it is, but because the space itself makes it undeniable.

Life and Trust builds this idea into every room. Spaces aren’t just visually themed; they function within the experience. A teller booth isn’t just a bar—it feels like a financial transaction is taking place. The titles of seating areas, the flickering candlelight, the brass fixtures, and the low hum of conversation set an unspoken expectation: you’re here to talk business. The sound of typewriters, the crinkle of money in the bank office, the occasional murmurs of a secret deal happening at a nearby cabaret table—all of these elements reinforce the space’s purpose and build on immersion. Participants don’t just see where they are; they feel it. The role-play follows naturally. The space becomes an extension of the character’s experience, drawing them deeper into the world rather than demanding that they suspend disbelief to make up for what’s missing.

In LARP, this concept is invaluable. A agricultural area should not just be an area where “the farmers go to use their mechanics.” It should feel like a place where agriculture, trade, and quiet farming industry occur. The scent of hay, the presence of workbenches, the weight of sacks filled with grain—all of these create an environment where players naturally adjust their role-play to fit the space. The key isn’t to force them into a pre-scripted experience but to provide a setting that does half the work before a single word is spoken. A smithy that smells of scorched metal and charred wood via oil and incense, where the clang of a hammer against an anvil resonates across a town square, becomes a hub of interaction for craftsmen, traders, and those seeking repairs. A decayed chapel, lit only by flickering lanterns and filled with the scent of old wax and dust, doesn’t need a sign to tell players it’s a sanctuary—it feels like one. These spaces act as narrative conduits, shaping the role-play that happens within them while drawing in those who are most inclined to engage.

Beyond aesthetics, these zones serve a structural function. When certain playstyles gravitate toward shared locations, they become natural hubs for targeted narrative. A traveling merchant doesn’t have to wander a scattered game site searching for someone interested in trade; they know where to go. A political schemer looking for an audience understands that the right people will be found in the halls of power, where the scent of old parchment and the presence of worn leather-bound tomes signal that decisions are made here. A rogue searching for under-the-table dealings knows that dark corners of the tavern aren’t just atmospheric—they are where hushed voices and stolen glances lead to something more. These organic gathering points provide an invisible infrastructure for story delivery, ensuring that key narratives find the players who will care most about them, without the need for artificial placement.

What Life and Trust executes so well is the idea that a space should never just be a backdrop. It should be used, it should function, and it should make the experience feel effortless. The environment itself should direct the role-play. When that happens, when players are drawn into spaces that naturally align with their characters’ goals and interests, story delivery becomes seamless. The setting does not compete with the narrative; it becomes the narrative. The more a space can invite physical, visual, and sensory engagement, the more immersive and intuitive the world becomes. And when the world feels real, the story writes itself. In the experience of the writer, it is better to have one or two AMAZING core roleplay spaces than to have a dozen that mostly miss the mark.

Efficiency in narrative delivery is another key takeaway. Life and Trust ensures that no single character or event carries too much weight. The actors cycle through various locations, layering multiple concurrent narratives rather than bottlenecking engagement into a handful of key scenes. This prevents situations where some participants feel like they are "missing the real story" while others are overwhelmed by a single crowded moment. LARPs often struggle with this balance. If a game’s major plots unfold in only one or two locations, then only a fraction of players will be directly involved. But if the story spreads too thin, then engagement weakens because there is no concentrated energy to drive the experience forward. The solution lies in controlled density—keeping the space active and alive without letting the experience become fragmented.

This is not just about convenience. It’s about immersion, engagement, and impact. A LARP that allows players to retreat too far into isolated spaces will find itself struggling to deliver a cohesive narrative. A LARP that considers space, flow, and density will create an experience where players don’t just wander in search of something meaningful—they are constantly stepping into it. Life and Trust doesn’t tell its audience where to go, but through masterful spatial design, it ensures they always end up exactly where they need to be. LARP should do the same.

There is a part 3 (and probably more) of this coming. At some point I want to talk about costume, the use of masks as the “silent observer”, and how the golden masked “stage hands” can teach Guides a golden lesson in scene space use. If you missed it part 1 was about immersive design and location, location, location.

Life and Trust - A Master Class in Experience Design (Part 1)

"Life and Trust" is an immersive theater experience set in Conwell Tower, a former bank building in New York’s Financial District. The show “follows” J.G. Conwell, a powerful banker who, on the eve of the 1929 stock market crash, strikes a deal with Mephisto. This bargain sends Conwell back through key moments in his life, forcing him to confront the choices that shaped his fate. It also drags back many people impacted by those choices, which is many, since it involves both the birth of opioid industry addiction and many steps of financial and corporate greed and corruption.

The stories integrate classics such as “Faust” and “The Picture of Dorian Gray in modern immersive theater style where the audience members are free to explore six floors of the building, each designed to reflect the era’s grandeur and decadence. It also incorporates real historic figures like Emma Goldman, the influential anarchist political activist.

The story unfolds through movement, small engagements, dance, choreographed dance, silent interactions, and visually AMAZING environments rather than traditional dialogue. Along the way, participants encounter characters from different walks of life—performers, scientists, and power-hungry elites—all connected by ambition, risk, and the consequences of their decisions.

Rather than following a linear plot, attendees navigate the world at their own pace, piecing together Conwell’s story by following characters, discovering hidden rooms, or observing pivotal moments.

I could write 30 pages of what I experienced during Life and Trust and I would be just touching on the experience prior to the event starting and the opening scene of entering the space. To avoid spoilers, I am not actually going to dive into the themes and much of what I experienced, because if you have the interest and the means I am not suggesting but instead demanding for the enrichment of your own creative soul that you go to Life and Trust. I am currently booking the plans for our second visit.

Instead of focusing and failing to explain the narrative, I am going to touch on some of the smaller BRILLIANT design techniques that this experience used and what could be learned for use in LARP design.

The genius of Life and Trust begins long before you step inside Conwell Tower. Unlike their other massive hit Sleep No More, which required a full transformation of a Chelsea warehouse into the fictional McKittrick Hotel, this production takes place on Wall Street itself, in a former bank building that already carries the weight of history. The location isn’t just a backdrop—it’s an active part of the storytelling. The towering columns, the cavernous halls, and the lingering echoes of financial ambition all serve the narrative effortlessly. There’s no need to manufacture liminality; the very streets leading to the event are steeped in power, excess, and the ghosts of fortunes made and lost.

For us, the immersion began before we even arrived at the venue. We had dinner and whiskey drinks at Harry’s, a Wall Street institution known for catering to power players of both past and present. Sitting among finance professionals and old-money regulars, it already felt like stepping into the world of Life and Trust. The production didn't need to create an elaborate façade or guide the audience through a forced transition into its universe. The environment did the work naturally. By the time we crossed the threshold of Conwell Tower, we weren’t entering a theater—we were continuing a journey already in motion.

This is the difference between crafting an experience that fits seamlessly into its surroundings versus one that has to build a world from scratch. Sleep No More succeeded in its own right, but it required heavy scene-setting to make the McKittrick feel real. The moment you stepped out onto 27th Street, the illusion faltered. You weren’t in a mysterious hotel—you were in an industrial district, waiting in line. Life and Trust doesn’t have that problem. The power of its setting does half the work before the first performer even crosses your path. The weight of history, the physicality of the space, and the psychological impact of Wall Street’s towering presence make it clear: you’re already inside the story.

From the moment you step inside Life and Trust, the world closes around you, shaping the experience before you even realize it's happening. The descent down the marble staircase feels deliberate—like you’re not just walking into a theater but being pulled into something deeper, something irreversible. The twisting hallways that follow aren’t just practical transitions; they disorient, creating a sense of passage, of stepping away from the ordinary. Before you even reach the coat check, the environment is already working on you.

The corporate posters lining the hall set the stage without explanation. "Trust your soul to us." A simple phrase, yet laden with the weight of a Faustian bargain. Other taglines follow suit, their meaning just off-kilter enough to raise a subconscious sense of unease. The world of Life and Trust isn’t revealed in an instant—it creeps in, embedding itself in the details. The backdrop for photos, the polished professionalism of the signage, the quiet suggestion that something is just slightly... wrong.

By the time you reach the coat check, you're already inside the machine. The attendants, dressed in pristine 1920s fashion, greet you not as guests but as potential investors, reinforcing the illusion with a perfectly balanced mix of charm and corporate efficiency. "Is this your first time investing with Life and Trust?" It's a simple question, but it does more than engage—it tells you, in no uncertain terms, that you are a part of this world now. There's no breaking the fourth wall, no acknowledgment that this is theater. The moment you lock your phone away in a security bag, any lingering attachment to the outside world vanishes.

And then, the reveal. You ascend a grand marble staircase and step into a massive banking hall, transformed into a lavish temple of excess from the final moments before the 1929 crash. Ornate chandeliers cast warm light over the room, illuminating the brass-barred teller booths where bartenders mix modern variants of period-accurate cocktails. The seating areas, each marked with titles like "Mergers and Acquisitions" or "Accounting," play into the theme, reinforcing the world without force-feeding it. Even the newspapers scattered about name the production’s characters as members of the “Board of Trustees,” seamlessly blending exposition into the environment.

And yet, the most effective elements aren’t the overt ones. A brass mask sits on display, its unsettling presence unexplained but impossible to ignore. Before any scripted performance begins, before a single act begins, the stage has already been set. The illusion isn't waiting for you to step into it—you've been inside it even before you arrived.

Before the performance even begins, Life and Trust has already accomplished something masterful. It has primed every participant, shaped their expectations, and immersed them in a world that feels seamless. And it does this not just through set design or costuming but through something far more fundamental—location.

This experience could not exist anywhere else. The story of greed, corruption, financial ambition, and the endless chase for wealth is not just told inside Conwell Tower; it breathes through the very streets outside. Wall Street itself is an extension of the narrative, reinforcing its themes before a single actor speaks. The weight of history, the architecture, and the cultural significance of the setting all combine to make the story feel inevitable. Even before stepping inside, you are surrounded by the ghosts of real financial triumphs and disasters, by the unspoken pressure of a system built on chasing an ever-moving goalpost. Life and Trust succeeds because it embraces this, letting its environment do the work rather than fighting against it.

This is a lesson that should not be lost on LARP designers. Too often, narratives are written first, with the expectation that the environment will somehow be forced to fit. But the most powerful experiences come from the opposite approach—letting the environment inform and enhance the story. If you have a site dominated by pine forests and wooden cabins, then lean into that atmosphere. Make the trees part of the worldbuilding, let the rustic setting become a lived-in backdrop rather than something to be ignored or covered up. If your space is a single rented hall in a modern building, work that reality into the experience. Make it a gathering place, a stronghold, an artificial sanctuary within a larger world.

Not every production has the resources to fully transform a space the way Sleep No More did, crafting an entirely fictional world inside a warehouse. That kind of immersive overhaul requires enormous investment, both in labor and in materials. Life and Trust proves that sometimes, the smartest design choice is not to build something from scratch, but to recognize the power of what is already there. The best experiences don’t just tell a story—they make you feel like you’ve stepped into one. And the first step in achieving that is making sure the world around you is working with you, not against you.

The second lesson is just as crucial as the first: the experience begins well before the game does. Life and Trust doesn’t wait for a scripted moment to pull participants into its world—it ensures they are already immersed by the time the formal narrative begins. This is where LARP designers and LARP runners (two distinct roles, each with different responsibilities) need to be intentional. The game doesn’t start at “Game On.” It starts the moment participants arrive (or even earlier in virtual engagement).

Think about what your players see as they check in. What is their first impression? Are they walking into a well-crafted space that subtly reinforces the world they are about to step into, or are they greeted by a pile of black totes with yellow lids breaking the illusion before it even begins? Are they handed a clipboard and a waiver with all the ambiance of a dentist’s office, or is there something—anything—that begins to shape the world they are entering? Even something as simple as background music, a costumed greeter engaging with guests in-character, or signage designed to match the setting can go a long way in priming participants. The less work they have to do to suspend disbelief, the more readily they will step into the world you’ve built.

Life and Trust executes this principle flawlessly. By the time we officially "began," we had already been immersed in its world for hours. We had toasted whisky cocktails, relaxed in the big leather seats of the banking hall, and discussed our placement in the "Murders and Executions" department—all without direct prompts from any actor. The environment did the work. The narrative themes were reinforced in a hundred small ways before we ever stepped into the office where the narrative started and we slipped on our masks to physically moved into the scripted world. When the time came to do so, it felt natural. It wasn’t a shift; it was a continuation.

This is the goal of effective LARP design. The more effort you put into creating a world that feels real before the game starts, the easier it is for players to embrace it. Whether through physical space, atmosphere, character interaction, or environmental storytelling, the best experiences make the transition seamless. The game starts the moment your participants step onto the site—it’s just a question of whether you’ve prepared them to feel like they belong in it.

This isn’t going to be the end of our discussions regarding Life and Trust and immersive design techniques related to LARP. Life and Trust isn’t just an impressive immersive experience—it’s a blueprint for how narrative, setting, and engagement can be seamlessly interwoven to create something unforgettable. What I’ve talked about so far is just the beginning. This experience was a masterclass in world design, environmental storytelling, and psychological priming, and I intend to break down as much of it as possible to explore what worked, why it worked, and how these lessons can be applied to LARP and other immersive experiences.

In the coming posts, I’ll be diving into each of these elements in detail—how setting shapes storytelling, how pre-game immersion sets the stage before a single scripted moment occurs, how player agency and structured narrative can coexist, and the countless small but significant details that made Life and Trust feel so natural.

There will be no word count restrictions, no efforts to condense these thoughts into bite-sized takeaways. This is about dissecting techniques, examining their impact, and showing how these lessons can elevate live experiences. For now, this is where I’ll pause—but there’s much more to come.