Larping in the UK, a report

Community Larp discussion
#61

[quote=“amphigori”]
Back on the subject of making a cool-looking IC tavern…

At the building we used as the “Inn” there were two areas - the upstairs room that was flanked by sleeping quarters, and the downstairs kitchen area.

I know the downstairs kitchen area was used for at least one meal, but otherwise seemed mostly unused. Could we turn that area into the IC tavern? Then the people who want to sleep can do so without the noise.

I looked at some pictures of the Crimson Moon… (well actually I googled “Crimson Moon” and got a picture of a man with his pants around his ankles showing off a sunburnt butt…) and, save for us not having a big tent, I think we could do an OK job putting something similar together. The main considerations would be:

  • Wall coverings to cover all the modern bits and bobs and add flavour (such as simple two-colour pendants: rameset.com/images/2CLRPN.gif

  • Tablecloths all of the same colour

  • Low lighting to simulate candle-light (and hide other modern ‘sins’). Use of those LED candles would be ideal.

  • Period bowls and plates for snacks

  • Period vessels for drinking

  • An absence of overly-modern bottles so the tables aren’t littered with Ribena/Sprite/what have you

Obviously the flags would have to be affixed to the wall but we’ve done that before with staples/pins haven’t we? If we hang a dowel through the flag then we’d just need one thumbtack per flag which probably wouldn’t be super-damaging to walls.

I’d be willing to:

  • Make a bunch of flags
  • Host a sewing bee at my place in Titirangi for others who would like to spend a few hours sewing flags
  • Help set-dress the Tavern on Friday night (though I’ve also got significant costuming requirements of my own, plus other people, so I will need to ensure I give myself time to get kitted up before game start)

Anyone else keen to help?[/quote]

Please make an awesome tavern. Pretty please.

As I plan to spend a fair amount of time there, I’ll help by scouring the Wellington op shops for bowls, plates etc. plus can help with the set up.

#62

Yeah, I’d hope that all players would contribute to the efforts by bringing period drinking vessels and covering their bottles as suggested! (Great idea).

Also soaking the labels off beer/wine bottles is easy enough.

Other ideas for wall coverings, which would come at a cost are:

  • building our own ‘flats’ out of wooden frames with canvas stretched across. Easy enough to do, but expensive-ish.

  • Getting large sheets of cardboard and painting them like stone or what have you. They’d start to look ratty relatively quickly tho and would still need to be affixed to the wall.

Hmmm… actually. If we could make a series of wooden tripods/stands that were relatively flush to the wall, we could get long, wide bits of fabric and staple them to the stands. The effect would be something like this (behold the power of my skills with Paint!):

#63

When i think of Taverns I get the picture of old wooden buildings, long rough hewn tables and bench seats. Its a dark atmosphere, with torches in wall sconces and a fire in a large open hearth.

Pewter / Pottery tankards full of frothy beer, pewter goblets with wine, earthenware jugs full of wine / mead. Casks etc behind the bar.

Then I done a search - under “Typical Tavern” I found this.

Typical-Tavern.jpg1024×768

#64

Yep, I’ll tell you now that it’s impossible to anchor even the lightest sack-cloth to painted cinder blocks. I also tried to do this for a long time on the Friday and it didn’t work at all. Admittedly we only had crappy cellotape, duck tape would probably do better (don’t take my word for it though), but then you’d need to hide the duck tape too…

As a suggestion, if we can figure out a way to hold up the fabric, we’d probably want to cover the windows in that room too. That way it’d always be dark in the tavern and look IC the whole time (even during the day). Part of the problem with that room is that the floor is a horrible blue linoleum and it stands out like a sore thumb in the day.

We also need a tonne of candles to last the whole weekend, turning on those fluorescent lights is a death sentence for mood.

#65

You could cover a window easily with two wooden poles (of the right length, hypotenuse-wise), in an ‘X’ configuration. Then use thumb tacks to pin the fabric to each corner of the ‘X’. Done. It would require measuring the windows for size, but that wouldn’t be beyond the bounds of possibility.

With amphigori’s proposed wooden stands, I would only add one modification - tethering the end poles by rope to some stones (or other heavy weight), in order to prevent the stands from toppling inwards due to the weight of the fabric. Buckets/bags of sand or anything like that would also do the job, I imagine.

       /|------------|------------|\
      / |            |            | \
     /  |            |            |  \
    /   |            |            |   \
   /    |------------|------------|    \
  O    _|_          _|_          _|_    O
#66

Hmmm … perhaps just a couple of candles on the tables for atmosphere/effect, and a bunch of inobtrusive lamps with low wattage bulbs (say 60W or less) in the corners of the room to provide the bulk of the actual lighting?

#67

How about some of the citronela lamps? We have a few at home, and the oil didn’t seem too expensive.
http://www.mitre10mega.co.nz/shop/lighting/portable_lighting/waxworks_classic_citronella_oil_1l_084973/

Or even some Kerosene Lamps?
http://www.mitre10mega.co.nz/shop/lighting/portable_lighting/campmaster_kerosene_lantern_084208/

Natural light during the day is sufficient, I believe, but again that can spoil mood if theres insufficient decorating.

How about a large roll of paper, painted to look like proper stone work??

Get a large roll of paper and paint it something like

All the way along… attach to the 4 walls and we’re done?? Would require obviously some outlay, but its something that could be unrolled and put up, then taken down and rolled up again and stored maybe?

#68

Given that the walls are cinderblock, which more or less look like big stone blocks already, is there some way it could be decorated and/or lit to make the cinderblocks look like stonework? That way you don’t have to cover them up, you could just enhance what’s there.

For example, what about floor-to-ceiling wood-look beams at intervals along the cinderblock walls, perhaps with wood-look criss-cross support between them?

EDIT: the “beams” could actually be thin so they’re not too bulky to transport, made in MDF or something. They might have to be exactly the right height for that room, but it’s served as an larp Inn for over 10 years now so it probably deserves some dedicated decoration.

#69

Regarding the lighting in that room, you can turn off the fluorescents in the dining room but any attempt to turn off the fluorescents in the kitchen is likely to provoke a mutiny from the cooks.

The fluorescent kitchen lighting bleeds into the dining room, both through the door - which is often opened - and through the serving window. Trying to keep the door and serving window shut doesn’t work in practice.

So to really solve the dining room lighting, you’d also need to solve the kitchen lighting. The cooks need plenty of light. Some sort of good electric lighting that’s directed away from the dining room may be better than the fluorescent lighting.

#70

I’m not sure about the camps dedication to keeping it white walls. I would assume its easier to keep it clean etc. Perhaps the camp would be happy for us to paint them permanently… Or not… What about something similar to the Gate that was used. foam around a central core that is painted to look like wooden beams?

In regards to the kitchen, it could be possible to hang some black cloth from the light area down at an angle to the walls, this would “Absorb” the light… It could dim the brightness a little bit, but would mute the leaking light through the door / serving window. I think this kind of thing would need someone to set it up and then have cooks approve / decline it.

#71

I like the idea of bespoke beams for the inn room. Not MDF, though, because it gets wrecked if it gets wet or even damp, plus it is quite heavy so would need to be safefly secured to the wall.

How about coreflute beams with some kind of wood veneer (perhaps from woodgrain adhesive booking coverings) ? I would expect that these could be secured with blutac.

#72

Not a serious idea…

inflatablepub.com/

#73

[quote=“Bryn”]Crewing

All the players are expected to crew for 8 hours over the course of the three days, this is in addition to any dedicated crew. I found crewing as always fun, having a bit of OOC time was a good thing, and when done at the beginning or end of the day didn’t feel overly detrimental to my experience as a player and also allowed the GM’s to stage big battles where the players were outnumbered. [/quote]

I think this is a great idea. I’ve always felt that blurring the line between players and crew would be good. Sometimes you really need 25 more extras.

In the SCA we’ve tended to make lots of wall hangings to try and dress up the rooms. But at the end of the day, I think pavilions are a better option. They tend to be smaller, but they are very atmospheric.

There are also some other cool yet simple options like this:

sloth.geek.nz/cf2006/html/060202am.html

#74

[quote=“TazzyD”]How about some of the citronela lamps? We have a few at home, and the oil didn’t seem too expensive.
http://www.mitre10mega.co.nz/shop/lighting/portable_lighting/waxworks_classic_citronella_oil_1l_084973/

Or even some Kerosene Lamps?
http://www.mitre10mega.co.nz/shop/lighting/portable_lighting/campmaster_kerosene_lantern_084208/

Natural light during the day is sufficient, I believe, but again that can spoil mood if theres insufficient decorating.

How about a large roll of paper, painted to look like proper stone work??
All the way along… attach to the 4 walls and we’re done?? Would require obviously some outlay, but its something that could be unrolled and put up, then taken down and rolled up again and stored maybe?[/quote]

Excuse my parcitcality - Burning stuff like these lamps may set off the smoke alarms. I’d go with standard electric lamps in the corners, power points permitting. Or spotlights aimed at the ceiling gives a good diffuse light. This is the room where an unattended candle and hanging did actually start a fire during a game.

Paper would wear very quickly, and rip and not look good, so wouldn’t be very re-useable IMO. Painting fabric would be better in the long run. The weight of the stuff is going to be the major drawback - as said earlier, too heavy for stickytapes. (Paper would be just as heavy, depending on course on the paper & material)

What about a wire, and the material hanging off it, with curtain hooks sort of mechanism. Wonder if the scout association would mind having some heavy duty eyelets (2-3 cm dia) screwed up into the ceiling. and wire, like yacht rigging wire, strung tauntly in-between. They probably would object … though I wonder if other users might find them useful too…

There are curtains already over the windows, brown floral patterns, from memory. Could potentially swap them out with our own full length hangings/curtains. Assuming we had a ladder to reach them.

Also adding in soft materials will make it acoustically better, rather than the hard echoing blockwork.

The lino flooring is hard to work with, apart from being such a big area, any rugs will slip on the floor, and they get scrunched underfoot with chairs and people moving around the room. Plus then there is the mud and wetness, and having to clean & dry & store them afterward.

How about strewing hay about? Be kind of authentic, but also impratical - sets off people’s hayfever, gets stuck on costume fabric, and I imagine would still be slippery to walk on, considering the lino underneath. I’m happy with having lino, I don’t find the colour obtrusive, the noise of plastic chairs on it however is irksome, but getting altenrative furnitre is a much bigger ask…

What about adding in some screens to cut the space up into several smaller areas - so the orcs don’t have to sit at the same table as the pirates, for example, each can lurk in their own corner and be jealous of the other’s laughter. Could one area have just cushions and a few rugs, maybe have the table just placed onto a few conc block, rather than having the legs extended, so the table is only knee height.

#75

Here’s a few thoughts.

A mid grey cheap cloth can be stamped with rectangular sponges dipped in darker or lighter paint to very quickly create panels of brick work. Hannahs idea of eyelets and wire with the cloth stretched over it is a great one, if the scout people will let us. Wire is very much less obtrusive than stands.

A tall fridge carton similarly painted can be great for pillars or support for cloth. And they can fold flat afterwards. For a stage production we made a triangular version by cutting off one side. Then each side had something different painted on it. Stonework, wood work and library books. (The books were courtesy of an AWESOME wallpaper that one of our people found.) The advantage of cartons is they are self standing. They just might need a sandbag inside if they are also supporting cloth.

You can get VERY strong double sided tape from 3M that will stick to cinderblock. We did it for one of the Wolfgangs games. It’s not cheap though, so judicious use is required.

We could gel the flourescents in the kitchen and in the main room, so that the light can be on, but can be dim and or yellow to give that candle/fire feel. I’m very much with Hannah on this, that actual burning candles in the rooms are a very risky fire hazard, and could set off the smoke alarms. Alternative battery or mains powered lights would be a much better idea for indoors. When the lights are off and the room is only lit by lanterns or candles, it’s VERY atmospheric. I reckon that lighting indoors changes the mood faster than just about anything else.

The plastic chairs… Seriously a mood breaker. I’ve seen cloth covers made for the back and seats of these kinds of chairs. I think that a pattern could be made fairly easily. But, it would take a LOT of sewing and cloth to make enough to cover all the chairs. And some cleverness to attach them. But I would imagine that velcro tabs running under the seat would do it. Maybe some elastic? I wonder if there is any wood patterned cloth out there. I note that this website lets you design your own fabric prints. digitex.co.nz/

#76

I think this is a grand idea! Will pop down to Petes on saturday, they used to have some cheap cloth as above.

#77

I’ve come up with a design for something that can be made with resources we’re already familiar with and have available, in a way that is somewhat diverse and can be reused for multiple locations. This design addresses the idea of pillars to put against walls to add to the atmosphere of a room. Below is an image giving a rough sketch of what I imagine one of the pieces would look like.

An appropriate bottom piece also needs to be made (preferably weighted somehow), although it should conform to the same general shape, as a stack of these pieces can also be used to hide the end poles of the fake walls that people have suggested in this thread (although the poles will have to have some kind of base that allows the pole to fit snugly into these faux pillars). These pillars will also need a top piece to disguise them when the stack is slightly shorter than the ceiling of the place they are being used in. These could also conceivably be used to hide the edges of material hung on walls.

The foam can, of course, be neglected if the added safety seems unnecessary. The ribbing of the corflute, however, will need to be hidden somehow with some sort of cover. The outside of these pillars can then be decorated in any desired fashion.

#78

I think this is a grand idea! Will pop down to Petes on saturday, they used to have some cheap cloth as above.[/quote]Just so you know, there are already some large lengths of stone painted cloth up in the Auckland gear store. I don’t think the Wellington one has any, though.

#79

I think this is a grand idea! Will pop down to Petes on saturday, they used to have some cheap cloth as above.[/quote]Just so you know, there are already some large lengths of stone painted cloth up in the Auckland gear store. I don’t think the Wellington one has any, though.[/quote]

I still have the plastic stone wall print we got for Sanctuary. It’s not great though.

#80

Corflute is a great idea. It’s super light, and if they could be made to unfold flat then they’d be low-volume. The corrugated edges could be covered with duct tape.

How about a thick layer of latex glued on for the surface instead of foam? It could be made in sections using a stonework mould, so that it would have nice texture, and it paints up well. The corner could be put on loose, so when the pillar is unfolded flat they just bubble out.