Has anyone else seen tara Clapper’s latest piece on Medium?
TLDR: Individuality and competition are core American values, but the American system is fundamentally broken. So larp designers should include competition to give players an opportunity to succeed or shine that they will never have in real life.
Which is an awfully bleak view - basicly that larp should be the opium of (some of) the geeks.
IMHO competition has its place - “play to win” is sometimes a useful design tool. But in my experience, actually competitive larps very quickly turn toxic and cease to be fun. And the idea that larp should provide psychological support because society is broken just seems… misguided.