The Green Book

Community Larp discussion
#1

I’ve recently acquired Nathan Hook’s The Green Book from Lulu. Its… interesting. Also scary.

The book has three small “psychodramatic” larp scenarios in it - basically jeepforms, but where Jeep seems to focus on story, these focus on generating strong emotional responses in the players. The first, “Passionfruit”, is about cheating, and aims to generate feelings of temptation and betrayal. The second, “Black Dog”, is about the spiral into depression. The third, “Balanced Scales”, is about murder, justice, and motive, and aims at generating both guilt and possibly understanding. They all look pretty intense, and players are advised to push things to the limit, including “physical play” (as it is termed) during the murder scenes in Balanced Scales.

I’m not sure if I’ll ever play any of these, except possibly the last one. Quite apart from my not really being used to the Indie-game style of scene creation used here, I don’t think I want those emotional experiences. But the book was interesting reading, and I’m pleased that someone, somewhere is writing games like this. And it has made me think a little about relationships in the more traditional larps I play.

(Oh, and for those who were wondering: Lulu’s postage on this was only US$8 with a 2-7 day delivery time, which wasn’t too bad. Thanks to a coupon, it came to less than US$20, which worked out to NZ$25 - not too bad. Besides, buying it let me flick Nathan a couple of bucks for “Against the Night”, which has been quite enjoyable to run, but a lot less threatening).

#2

I always thought games were supposed to be about having fun. Those themes just go from bad to worse; besides, if I wanted to spend more time comprehending depression I’d just spend it in the real world instead of, y’know, LARPing.

#3

That said though, everybody learns differently, and for some, this would be the most effective/helpful means for them to understand and explore an issue, whereas for others, study, or investigation, or debate, etc… may be more effective.

#4

I think different people find fun in different ways. These games may be fun to people who like to discuss and debate these topics and play in this type of serious game.

#5

And that pretty much covers the discussion. I don’t think these topics are necessarily fun either. But some people like the misery, others may find it educational, and others may be interested in it primarily as performance.

Hell, for “fun” at Chimera, I spent three hours wandering around in the mud in the dark, and another three hours pretending to be a psycholgist and spouting bullshit. Neither sounds like fun when described that way - but I enjoyed both immensely.