Over the course of the New England LARP Conference, starting Saturday morning, NELCO ran a Build Your Own Game (BYOG) workshop. Whether you’ve never written a game, or are an experienced author, BYOG is a great time, and a great way to learn new techniques.   To kick-off the workshop, Jeff ran a LARP Writing 101 session, and laid out the basics how to construct a theater LARP, introduced some of the challenges and discussed 12 Rules for LARP Writing.

Here are the slides for “So You Want to Write a LARP”

Outline (with slide numbers)

0:17 (sl.1) – Title
0:28 (sl.2) – Introduction (What we will be talking about?)
0:56 (sl.3) – Who Am I To Talk About LARP?
2:15 (sl.4) – Who Am I To Talk About LARP? (What are Rules?)
3:30 (sl.5) – What is LARP? (According to what we do.)
4:56 (sl.6) – What is LARP? (Size and shape.)
5:47 (sl.7) – So, what is LARP?

Twelve LARP writing rules to live by
7:46 (sl.8) – Twelve Rules to Live By
8:28 (sl.9) – Rule 1: Interesting Characters
9:25 (sl.10) – Rule 2: Interesting Stories
10:22 (sl.11) – Rule 3: Human Stories
11:23 (sl.12) – Rule 4: Tough Decisions
13:20 (sl.13) – Rule 5: Repercussions
14:10 (sl.14) – Rule 6: Things to Do In Game
15:18 (sl.15) – Rule 7: A Chance to be Noticed
17:32 (sl.16) – Rule 8: Try Something Different
18:44 (sl.17) – Rule 9: A Character Involved
20:52 (sl.18) – Rule 10: A Chance at Success
22:33 (sl.19) – Rule 11: Making the Best of Good Players
23:57 (sl.20) – Rule 12: Play without Interruption

How to get started
25:56 (sl.21) – So, You Have This Brilliant Idea…
26:40 (sl.22) – Keep It Simple
27:48 (sl.23) – But I have Great Character Ideas!
29:05 (sl.24) – So, How Do I Build The Story?
30:26 (sl.25) – I didn’t see that coming…
31:26 (sl.26) – Isn’t that just plot?
32:40 (sl.27) – But is it enough?
33:11 (sl.28) – The Golden Triangle
33:56 (sl.29) – Add a story with a Triangle
35:37 (sl.30) – More triangles, please!
36:35 (sl.31) – A Common Fatal Mistake
38:05 (sl.32) – Compounding the Mistake
39:58 (sl.33) – The Cardinal Rule
41:39 (sl.34) – To Do is to Do
42:45 (sl.35) – To Do is to Do II
44:37 (sl.36) – To Do is to Do Too
47:07 (sl.37) – To Do is to Do Until It Is Done

Size, Shape and Duration
48:22 (sl.38) – Size, Shape, and Duration
50:55 (sl.39) – Interconnection Math
52:10 (sl.40) – There are Limits
53:19 (sl.41) – The Primogen Council Problem
54:13 (sl.42) – It’s not just the Primogen Council…
55:33 (sl.43) – Variable Sized Games
57:06 (sl.44) – 12 Characters Walk Into A Bar…
58:35 (sl.45) – So How Long Should It Run?
59:57 (sl.46) – Don’t Skimp On the Other Bits

Writing Characters
1:01:17 (sl.47) – Writing Characters
1:03:22 (sl.48) – How Long Should a Character Be?
1:04:53 (sl.49) – Where Is the Character Information?
1:05:41 (sl.50) – Which of those Places Do I Choose?
1:06:09 (sl.51) – How will the Choice Affect Game Play?
1:07:26 (sl.52) – Relevant is Key
1:08:21 (sl.53) – Consistency is So Important
1:10:15 (sl.54) – Details Enhance the Picture
1:11:30 (sl.55) – Bluesheets are Your Friend
1:12:24 (sl.56) – You Need to Let Go
1:14:30 (sl.57) – You Really Need to Let Go
1:15:14 (sl.58) – Don’t Forget the Cardinal Rule…
1:16:12 (sl.59) – Archetypes aren’t just for Characters
1:16:48 (sl.60) – The Actor
1:17:37 (sl.61) – The Role-Player
1:18:19 (sl.62) – The Problem Solver
1:19:10 (sl.63) – Matching Players to Characters
1:19:59 (sl.64) – The Third Dimension
1:20:12 (sl.65) – The Gunslinger

Mechanics
1:21:29 (sl.66) – Mechanics
1:22:47 (sl.67) – So How Do You Do Odd Things?
1:24:00 (sl.68) – But I have this Really Cool System!
1:25:29 (sl.69) – Item Cards are a Mechanic, Too
1:26:59 (sl.70) – Don’t Confuse a Prop With A Plot

Conclusions
1:27:59 (sl.71) – Conclusions
1:29:15 (sl.72) – More Conclusions
1:31:34 (sl.73) – Even More Conclusions
1:33:08 (sl.74) – Some Final Advice

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This is part 1 of 10 for the NELCO 2014 Panels & Presentations series.

Updates:

19 APR 16:  I am excited that the New Zealand LARP Writing Workshop Tuhituhi has recommended this presentation as a good place to get started / prepare for their workshop.  I hope they will share a summary of the results in the comments.

JAN 18:  One of our viewers, who was working on a translation has mapped the slides to video times, and posted the timeline in the comments on YouTube.  For easy reference, their timeline is now in the post above.

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