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Conscience:

Layers of Reality

Esperanza Montero

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Larptivism: larps potential to raise awareness and inspire social change.

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A larp about “humanity”

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How it started?

How NOT to make decisions on a larp

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Larp concept: Conscience, humanity and oppression

  • Conscience: A cognitive process that elicits emotion and rational associations based on an individual's moral philosophy or value system.

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Larp concept: Conscience, humanity and oppression

Humanity*

    • Who is human?
    • What means being human?
    • What means being humane?

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Larp concept: Conscience, humanity and oppression

  • Oppression: “Oppression is a form of injustice that occurs when one social group is subordinated while another is privileged, and oppression is maintained by a variety of different mechanisms including social norms, stereotypes and institutional rules”. Taylor

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Larp concept: Conscience, humanity and oppression

  • Oppression: “Privilege refers to a sociopolitical immunity one group has over others derived from particular societal benefits. Many of the groups who have privilege over gender, race, or sexuality, for example, can be unaware of the power their privilege holds”. Weber.

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Guests

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Behavior

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Plot

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QA

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Maintenance

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Hosts

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HUMANS

ROBOTS

(Hosts)

ALEPH

GUESTS: Customers

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The Board

Behavior

Plot writing

Maintenance

QA

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PARK NARRATIVE: OLD WEST STORY

PLOT WRITING

HOSTS GUESTS

BEHAVIOR

plots

character

MAINTENANCE

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PARK NARRATIVE: OLD WEST STORY

  • Designed for: GUESTS
  • Initially designed by larp writing team: with the idea of playing oppression
  • Could be modified by players playing PLOT WRITING team-> players get to change the narrative for 70 players.
  • Performed by HOSTS-> “Hosts are played by people”.
  • BEHAVIOR and BOARD had a say.

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HUMAN NARRATIVE:

  • ALEPH
    • Personal plots
    • Corporate plots

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  • GUESTS
    • Personal plots
    • Corporate plots

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Corporative plots and processes

  • Visual design of Aleph: Designed to be “horrible” following a style book the graphic designer made.
  • IT:
    • Web: for all the company processes
    • App: host information (controlled by humans and GM).
  • App meetings were heavy larp design meetings.

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Processes

  • Playable
  • Fun
  • Easy

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HUMAN NARRATIVE:

  • ALEPH
    • Personal plots
    • Corporate plots
    • Class struggle

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  • GUESTS
    • Personal plots
    • Corporate plots
    • Class struggle

INTERSECTIONAL OPPRESSION

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OPPRESSION BY GROUPS

SHAREHOLDERS

GUESTS

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

BEHAVIOR

PLOT

QA

MAINTENANCE

STRAIGHT MALE HOSTS

STRAIGHT FEMALE HOSTS

QUEER HOSTS

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There is another narrative (spoiler alert).

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Safety design

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What went wrong:

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  • Lost in translation
  • Cultural misunderstandings.
  • Technology problems.
  • Processes that didn’t work properly.
  • Stress and burn out of the organizers.

“No plan of operations extends with any certainty beyond the first contact with the main hostile force”

Helmut Von Moltke (The Elder)

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What are we changing? That might fail, too

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  • No general WiFi.
  • No app but keeping the website.
  • App: known app-> Discord.
  • Organizers organize, only.
  • Making it easier, again.

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We hope to survive.

We love to make larps.

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How to contact me: espemontero@gmail.com or Esperanza Montero (Facebook).