I’m not in favor of a total ban. Why? I don’t think it will work.
What do you do when someone breaks the ban and brings alcohol?
Whatever the answer is; Why can’t that be done to the specific people causing the problem?
I think realistically, the suggestions are there now, as are the opinions of a lot of people - both for and against alcohol at LARPS (my 2c, since I can’t remember if I ever posted it or not… I don’t consider myself a drinker… not at all really. But, I would like to have the option available if I did so choose. It’s not about “not being able to go a weekend without alcohol” it’s more about thinking at the time 'it’d be nice to relax with a glass of _____ and chat to a few people. I am just starting to get into Auckland LARP and I hardly know anyone, but of the people I do know, and those I know I will be getting to know better, relaxing at the end of a night and deciding at the time to drink might be a nice thing. It happens on occasion at home, and it’s why there is a bottle of gin in my cupboard. If I decide one night that I’d like to mellow out a bit and enjoy a drink, I like not having to go ‘but I can’t because of…’).
Now it will be up to individual organizers and GMs to decide what is practical and what they like the look of. Do they favour a blanket ban for safety reasons, or do they think that will create more issues? Do they think that someone’s suggestion is particularly good, or is it a collaboration of ideas which are good and can be tweaked so that it may work. Yes it is going to mean that the GMs are going to have to do a bit of thinking about how things may or may not work out, but when it comes to dealing with rules, that is how it is going to end up - someone has to think about how to implement the rules and what they will be. Everyone here could put their hands up and say 'We’ll do better. We’ll look out for irresponsible drinkers", but from what I have gathered - that approach isn’t working.
In order to help with the decision making though, I propose that a series of polls are created. Starting with the wide picture of ‘do we ban alcohol completely or not’ and then getting into the finer details (assuming that most people say ‘no’ to a blanket ban) of how to deal with alcohol at events.
I’m just keen for the conversation to not get too circular, cuz there gets a point where you just start re-hashing things which can get people wound up.
Scott asked for suggestions, and now he has a bunch. So, Scott, is this enough for you to take back to the NZLAPs Committee to help you guys decide what approach you’d like to take for NZLARPs games?
And are most players who have been reading this in agreement that we can all be a bit more proactive (using many of the fine suggestions within this thread) in ensuring we take care of ourselves and our mates so alcohol consumption doesn’t contribute to crappy experiences for players, GMs and crew?
[quote=“amphigori”]
And are most players who have been reading this in agreement that we can all be a bit more proactive (using many of the fine suggestions within this thread) in ensuring we take care of ourselves and our mates so alcohol consumption doesn’t contribute to crappy experiences for players, GMs and crew?[/quote] Yes! And… to be honest… I did try to say something to someone about someone at Chimera Sat night… and was laughed off. This is one of the hard things about being a young girl, and a non-drinker. I can’t really tell someone to stop drinking. I can try. But it likely won’t be recieved. So we need to work together… Thanks for putting it this way 
I was thinking of posting and saying thanks to everyone who posted that the various committees would look at this and consider what path to go down. It is also up to individual GMs and events as well of course, as the NZLARPS committees can recommend action but at the end of the day it is those people who have to decide how their events are run.
I was then reminded that this thread has only really been open a day (though it grew big very fast) and people may feel they haven’t had a chance to have a say. I think so far it has been good, it has bought the discussion out into the open and made people aware of it, even those people who may not go to the events that have been mentioned.
I know people have asked for specific names and incidents, but really I dislike playing the name and shame game, and for those it was a one off incident it seems to be unfair to tar them with a mistake they will learn from. Those people are likely to be contacted by Anna if they haven’t been already. As will anyone where it was a repeat offence of course. While I don’t want to go into details on a public internet forum, we would not have even raised this if we didn’t have serious concerns and a number of complaints, and not just from Chimera. And we appreciate people are giving this thought and taking it seriously.
So the way going forward is that the relevant people are going to read over all the input here and try and come up with a positive way forward so we can all keep having a fun and safe time. I will leave this thread going for any constructive ideas and input others may have.
This discussion and the awareness of the seriousness of the issue that it is creating is going to be a big part of the cure. So I think we shouldn’t be trying to round it up. If people aren’t sufficiently aware of the problem, they won’t take personal action, and they will work against the intent of action from event organisers. Awareness is key.
Also, there are still a lot of comments here that I think fundamentally miss the point.
This isn’t the problem of “a few people” who “go too far”. It’s a culture problem, and that means everyone.
A picture explains it best:
[attachment=1]drinkingnow.gif[/attachment]
It’s too easy to focus on the big red “excessive” drinkers to the right and miss the real problem. The underlying cause of excessive drinking is heavy drinking. You get a lot of people drinking heavily, and some of them are going to accidentally drink too much, becoming a danger to themselves and others and a burden for everyone. What we have now seems to be an expectation of heavy drinking at larps from a lot of attendees. That’s the problem.
[attachment=0]drinking.gif[/attachment]
That’s where we should be if we want to continue having social drinks at larps. Again, it’s too easy to focus on the tiny red bit and say “yes, obviously we want less excessive drinking”. The truth lies in the “Heavy” drinking area, which is much smaller. Eliminate heavy drinking as much as possible, and you will largely eliminate excessive drinking.
Note that there are still the same number of people drinking. It’s just that they’ve shifted from heavy drinking to light drinking.
What is light drinking? Have 3 standard drinks over a couple of hours.
We need to change to a culture where heavy drinking at larp events is unacceptable.
My motto is always, we get a weekend larp once every 3 months, I have 11 other weekends to drink.
But I realise not everyone thinks this way. However as mentioned previously in a post, banning drinking may just end up with people drinking in secret, which is much more dangerous to the drinkers if something goes wrong.
As a community we should work at discouraging drinking rather than banning it. Kind of like like the government does with drink driving adds.
Granted I don’t know exactly how this will be achieved but its only my 2c.
Not everyone’s life is the same, though. And this is not aimed at you, Dan, but some of the previous, more hardlined statements. I find myself fairly offended by the fact that “wanting to have a couple of relaxing drinks at a larp” translates apparently to “if you cant’ go a weekend without drinking, you have a problem”.
I live a long way out of town nowhere near public transportation. I will not drive if I’ve been drinking, full stop. So, the only time I can have a few drinks with friends is if I have a place to stay after. Given that I have a family to look after and can’t crash at mate’s places every second weekend, that essentially means at larps. So yes, I DO want to have a few drinks with my friends. No, it’s not the focus of my weekend. No, I will not be drunk during play and if you think I am, time out and check me, I guarantee I’m acting. I’m not a heavy or even a regular drinker, and I resent that assumption being made.
By the way Ryan, I like your graph. That’s an extremely good representation of the problem and the solution (at least statistically speaking)… Now to acheive it.
Having read through this entire thread (and I continue to check it for updates), what follows is a suggestion for managing drinking for both conventions and campaign sessions based on all of the feedback in this thread.
The intention to use this method would be communicated to potential attendees long before the event and reminded on occasion in order to reduce the chances that someone might turn up ignorant of the rules.
Note that all drinking is to be restricted to a specified area of the venue, such as the late night area.
After the initial briefing at an event;
[ul][li]Everyone is asked if they desire to drink during the event, and those who wish to do so are asked to gather round one of the event organisers.[/li]
[li]The self proclaimed drinkers are then asked to choose a drinking buddy who they must take care of and watch over while drinking, and with whom they must be when they plan on drinking.[/li]
[li]It is up to you, and your drinking buddy, to make sure you both don’t consume too much alcohol and that you both make it back to your beds at a reasonable hour.[/li]
[li]It would be recommended that your drinking buddy be someone with a similar preference of bed time to you, and preferably someone in the same bunk room as you.[/li]
[li]Once everyone has a drinking buddy (optionally this can be recorded on a list, as the organiser desires), the group of drinkers is asked for a volunteer for each night of the event (or more, depending on the size of the group), and are picked by the organiser. These volunteers will be dubbed Night Wardens.[/li]
[li]The responsibilities of a Night Warden are;
[list][]To remain sober for the night they have volunteered for,[/li]
[li]Make sure everyone who turns up on their night to drink is accompanied by their drinking buddy,[/li]
[li]Keep the noise level of the drinkers low so that anyone within hearing can sleep,[/li]
[li]Keep an eye on everyone to make sure that everyone is safe,[/li]
[li]Herd everyone to their beds at a predefined curfew set by the organisers,[/li]
[li]Clean up after everyone has gone to bed.[/li][/ul][/:m]
[li]Note that if not enough Night Wardens are forthcoming, nobody gets to drink that weekend. With this alternative in place, it is highly likely that volunteers will be numerous.[/li][/list:u]
This solution is intended to put the onus for management of drinking on the drinkers. The drinking buddy system is there to make sure everyone has a second pair of eyes on their consumption. The Night Wardens are picked from the drinkers to encourage management and responsibility in each person.
At the beginning of implementing this system it may be necessary for one of the organisers to check in on the group and ensure that the Night Wardens are doing their job. It may also be necessary for the organisers to only pick volunteers to be Night Wardens who they already know and trust in order to mitigate any unknown risk, whether real or not.
Edit to note that, for anyone who breaks the rules, gets drunk and unruly, or disturbs other participants to the point of complaints, they would be asked to leave the event as soon as it was safe for them to do so and without a refund.
What do you think of this proposal? Would it meet your desires and needs? Do you think this would sufficiently manage the drinking situation at your event?
I’ve been following this thread from the very beginning, and have held back from saying anything because most of the time I can sympathise with all the sides (there being more than two!) of this debate.
My father is a drug and alcohol counsellor. I’m going to speak to him next time I see him about our issue with the drinking culture at larps, and any constructive ideas he might have to help us out.
At first I thought having a contract that each person must sign upon registering that they have arrived at an event was a good idea. Disclaimers can go a long way, I guess. For myself, I’m actually far more intimidated now at the idea of somebody’s death being blamed on me if I ever choose to run a big event as a GM/organiser (and I have heaps of ideas that I wish to implement in the future… I hope this doesn’t scare me, and others in my position, off!). But of course there can be problems with getting people to sign a document like that.
I then thought about having a call. Like the calls we have in games, and the hand-signals. We “t-out” if we need to say something out of character for any reason. I especially hope that if someone is ever uncomfortable with any theme being roleplayed (without fair warning!) they would feel like they are allowed to “t-out” and explain that they are not comfortable for whatever reason. Generally, the protocol from there if the person continues to carry down that uncomfortable path is to either tell a GM or just walk away. Perhaps some people are more submissive than this. In fact I can think of one time where I wish I had told a roleplayer I was really uncomfortable with where he was going. But you know, I thought I wouldn’t look cool. And that’s the problem a lot of people have now, when it comes to telling drunk people to lay off.
But you know what was cool? Last Teonn on the Saturday night, I drank two ciders and was sitting with some mates, my head lolling about because I desperately needed sleep. And the people I was sitting with said to me, “Hey Claire, time for bed.” And they were right. I’m really glad they said that to me, because I would not have wanted to be the obnoxious drunk.
Why don’t we consider opting for an OOC handsignal of Fair Warning? It could be a W, made with the fingers from both hands (a little hard while you’re holding a beer, maybe…). You could put your hands into a W and tell a mate,
- “Hey I think that was your third drink in the last two hours. I think you need some food now.”
- “Hey, I see you just walked into the tavern with a six-pack. You’re going to stagger those out, right? Cos that’s like… four hours worth of booze.”
- “Hey, just so you know, if you keep drinking, I’m not holding your hair back for you when you get sick.”
- “Hey, you don’t want this to come back and bite you in the arse tomorrow morning. Eat something, or I’m going to drag you back to your cabin.”
- “Hey, you just made that person feel uncomfortable. You need to lay off and sober up.”
- “Hey bro… you’re drunk. Just crash here.”
(Can I also point out that the tone you deliver this all in is important too? If you sound like a nag, you’re going to invoke the rebellious teenager in every drunk… And I only included that last one because hey, if you deliver it in an East Coast Maori accent, the drunk might actually listen to you
)
)Sure, this doesn’t deal with the hardcore bunch, I guess. If they’re out there, trying to get more wasted than each other, they’re unlikely to “w-out”. But I would hope that more people can pick up the attitude of the people who told me to go to bed that night. Awareness is going to help a whole lot I reckon, so it’s great that we’re having this discussion.
(Also I really like your drinking buddy system Tetrajak)
Systems are good. Systems help. I personally don’t like what Tetrajak suggests (I’m a convrntion organiser, not a nanny state) but there will probably some new things in place at future events I run.
Systems are useless without buy in though. We want to be able to have our social ciders and beers and mead at a game so asa community we all need to start looking at our friends’ behavious and as fuschia says, telling them when its not cool. And if your mate tells you that you’re drinking too much or you’re too loud or you need to go to bed, don’t tell them to bugger off. Listen to them. Be responsible. You might not realise when you’re part of the problem.
We all need to take part in cultural change.
Anna’s got it super-right.
I’m going to keep preaching the ‘K.I.S.S’ model here, because that’s what works in just about any situation. Keeping it simple.
- Organisers can put a few sensible rules in place (time limit on the social area, removing drunk/disruptive people from games, whatever…)
- Players take responsibility for themselves & their mates, taking on board the suggestions/awareness raised in this thread
Claire, it’d be great if your dad could give us some resources on how to approach people who’ve had a few too many - what to say, etc. It’s pretty natural for people, no matter how well-meaning (and this certainly applies to me too) to never get past the “internalizing a complicated situation in my head” stage of things.
Exactly 
I’ll have a chat and see what he can offer us.
I keep looking for the “like” button in diatribe… I have so much “like” for Ryan’s post… It makes so much sense… Now how to achieve the “swing” to light drinking… I also “like” Claire’s post… but do think that their needs to be a few “sober” revellers who agree to be the “drinker’s friends” for the night…Say 3-4 guaranteed sober friends for any party… Like the Red Hats of after partys…, call them white hats if you like , guardian angels…They shouldn’t have to clean up after the drinkers though, that job really belongs to the revellers themselves to organise… I also still think that sharing of alcohol with those that are already well pickled should be heavily discouraged by all. Now that the whole issue has come to a head , hopefully people will be more aware , but i do also wonder, out of the 160 chimera attendees (and from other games) who has followed this thread ?, as someone said, most of the people here are the ones with the least problems in this area, or the ones who end up dealing with the problems. At the end of the day we can only give input , but I do think that we need to have a default standard for this , whatever the decision that is finely made, that goes throughout NZ…I believe that the NZlarps council are the ones that would take the most heat if anything ever did go badly wrong, (it may be another GM in the firing line, but you know the media) so it is therefore best that we allow them to set the standard and to abide by it…
It’s good to see the community discussing the issue of alcohol at larps and bringing all the issues out into the open.
From a GM point of view, I want to back up what Nikki has said, about being terrified of what drunk people might do at 3am in the morning. This is something GMs feel is waaaaay out of our control and is a recipe for disaster. Can I remind the drinkers that the buck stops with the GMs.
Please understand that when I (and other GMs) organise an event, I am doing so to tell a story or provide a shared experience through the medium of larp. I am not going through all that effort, energy and expense just so drunks can get boozed and be rowdy dickheads at 3 am in the morning.
I perfectly understand Larp is a social medium and socializing is part of the weekend, but it is not the main focus. Certainly not as an organiser.
I personally feel an outright ban is not the answer. I think that just leads to people drinking in secret and that’s a whole new bag of issues.
The worst case scenario would be when a group of drunks head down to the beach to avoid drinking on site or maybe just for larks, have an accident and keep it or the details from the organisers for fear of repercussions. That probably wouldn’t happen. (I hope, but unfortunately drunks make poor decisions)
As of next year, I’m playing at these events. After years of not drinking at these things because I’m GMing, I would like to be able to enjoy a glass of wine or two and cultured conversation round the fire or at the tavern at the end of the day. That said, if a GM calls a dry event, I won’t be losing any sleep over it.
I’d like to see the culture change to that of personal responsibility and responsible drinking. I also think heavy and irresponsible drinkers need to be removed from the situation as soon as is safe and told not to return larp until they can control their drinking.
I’m with Anna and Jackie above, as far as systems are concerned, the simpler the better.
I think that’s less of a ‘they get to clean up by themselves’ and more of a ‘they get to make sure everyone pitches in before being cats herded to bed’. I also think it’s a good idea, although you have to be careful not to reuse the same people for that job over and over again. Like kitchen duty I think that of the drinkers there needs to be a roster/group agreement that if you volunteer at one event you shouldn’t need to do so at the next event (unless the near unthinkable happens and it’s yourself and one other person who want to drink). My perspective on that is just being able to see it being the same 2-3 people who volunteer at every event… which now that I think about it, if you have the responsibility of herding people and making sure everything runs smoothly, then you’re more likely to be considerate when you next drink because you know how annoying it is when people don’t listen/need to be reminded constantly.
Well, no, it doesn’t translate to that. That’s why we’re discussing, so intensely, how to moderate the problem drinkers - the ones who can’t or won’t keep themselves under control - while letting quiet social drinkers get their quiet social drink.
I’m sorry if you’re feeling harried.
As another suggestion for those wishing to drink at an event. Almost every larp I’ve been to that has accommodation asks if I have any preferences in bunk buddies, or people I prefer not to bunk with. How about we add something to that questionnaire about if you’re planning to drink can we place you in a designated “drinker’s bunk room” … then all the noisy drunken snorers, coming back to bed late, etc are neatly grouped together and pretty much only annoying each other.
Shouldn’t be any more hassle than helping people who want to bunk w specific people or to avoid specific people
Should, I’d hope, also help with letting the non-drinkers get more sleep and not be disturbed as much.
Win/win yes?
Well, no, it doesn’t translate to that. That’s why we’re discussing, so intensely, how to moderate the problem drinkers - the ones who can’t or won’t keep themselves under control - while letting quiet social drinkers get their quiet social drink.
I’m sorry if you’re feeling harried.[/quote]
Uuuuh… some one literally said “if you cant’ go a weekend without drinking, you have a problem”. There’s no translation issue here, there are people pulling this line.
[quote=“Anna K”]Systems are good. Systems help. I personally don’t like what Tetrajak suggests (I’m a convrntion organiser, not a nanny state) but there will probably some new things in place at future events I run.
Systems are useless without buy in though. We want to be able to have our social ciders and beers and mead at a game so asa community we all need to start looking at our friends’ behavious and as fuschia says, telling them when its not cool. And if your mate tells you that you’re drinking too much or you’re too loud or you need to go to bed, don’t tell them to bugger off. Listen to them. Be responsible. You might not realise when you’re part of the problem.
We all need to take part in cultural change.[/quote]
This should be the end of the discussion. Anything after this post pushing that there is still no resolution is pointless circles and needless arguing.
Actually Jordan as much as I like Anna’s post, this is a chance for people to have their say whether we agree with them or not. And while there are certainly some solutions put forward, there hasn’t been a resolution yet. So if people do want to post they can. Hopefully it’s constructive, and we can all move on and this sort of thing will no longer be an issue, but we aren’t going to tell people to be quiet and go away.