Imaginary Worlds - How I Won the Larp

Episode Date: November 29, 2018

In my 2017 episode Winning the Larp, I looked at the history of larps (live action role plays) and how the larping experience is deeply personal for each of the players. But I hadn’t done any larps myself. So this year, I delved deep into larping, where I discovered the thrill of stepping into someone else’s world, and the out-of-body experience of feeling emotions that aren’t yours. Featuring Ashwick Planation, DexCon and Sinking Ship Creations, along with readings by George Morafetis, Nicole Greevy and Luisa Tripoli. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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slash opinion to take a short survey that will help support our network. You're listening to Imaginary Worlds, a show about how we create them and why we suspend our disbelief. I'm Eric Molenski. It's 2, right? What? Yes. 2 in the morning now? Now?

What time is it? I have no clue. Yes, it is 2 a.m. and I'm at a summer camp in central Massachusetts. But it was not summer. It was actually in the spring, so the weather was still chilly. But this group is feeling amped up because they just burned a witch at the stake. Yeah, we didn't even have to put shrills in the audience. There were random PCs we're doing.

All right, so I am actually at the command center for a massive LARP called Ashwick Plantation. LARP, of course, stands for live action role play. Ashwick Plantation. LARP, of course, stands for Live Action Roleplay. The LARP organizer, Vin Spadafora, had invited me there after you heard my episode from 2017 called Winning the LARP. The title of that episode, Winning the LARP, is actually based on a joke among LARPers, because there's no real way to win a LARP, even though a LARP is technically a game. Now, if you haven't heard that episode, you should check it out because it provides a lot of context for what's going to happen next. Because while I looked very deeply into what a LARP is, I hadn't actually done any LARPs. And Vin wrote to me and said, have I got a LARP for you?

His team spent three years developing Ashwick Plantation. They play tested it, they bought and made all the props, the sets, the costumes. And most LARPs aren't this elaborate. But Ashwick is both a horror LARP and a period piece. We have the mundane horrors of 17th century, your basic survival and trying to get through daily life and how awful it was for everyone involved in trying to deal with that, while at the same time, the horrors that they believe as well, like witchcraft and sorcery and those kinds of things, being alive and well. What if the things that we committed atrocities for actually existed? Now, I could have been a full-on player, but I was honestly just too intimidated because this LARP goes on for almost 24 hours, with the players sleeping in cabins and

waking up in character. So I told them I'd like to record what happens behind the scenes and kind of dip my toe in the water by playing NPCs, which are non-playing characters that interact with the players for a short period of time to help shape the plot, give them information. But my experience going behind the scenes was still completely fascinating. Like earlier in the day, Adria Kine, who is one of the organizers, showed me the schedule on the wall, and it was several giant spreadsheets tacked in a row. And what this enables you to do as an NPC, as the actor who is helping to make this game come alive, is you can look and see in advance, okay, so I'm going to be in the dead body

scene, that is P-55. So you can then go and look up in the folders over here, the resources. So this is what your character is in the scene. This is what your goal is. This is the success and failure conditions. These are the players that we hope to get involved. These are the props that you need to have with you in order to be able to make the scene go off. Now, the big unknown factor in any LARP is player agency. In other words, the scene could go very differently than expected. As you heard, the big climax in the middle of the night was going to be a witch burning. Now, earlier in the day, the LARP organizers weren't sure if the players would vote to burn the witch. The witch was an NPC played by a staff member, and they had

a dummy ready to burn, dressed just like her, tied to a stake. We really want to burn a witch at the stake because the special effects are going to be fun, and who doesn't want to burn a witch at the stake? But they might decide not to do it. They might decide that they want to be part of a town that's soft on witchcraft, which is a terrible idea. But you know, sometimes players have terrible ideas and that's where the fun is and you don't know what's going to happen next. Now, some of the NPC roles that I played did not require very much effort. Like I played a dead body, played a soldier in a rogue Dutch militia that attacked the fort. And after the witch was burned, I played a werewolf type demon that came the fort. And after the witch was burned, I played a werewolf-type demon

that came out after dark to attack the villagers. But I had two substantial roles that allowed me to interact with the players. The first role I had was of a Dutch merchant who came to sell furs. And this would allow the players to have currency in the game, but it was also a training exercise for me. And I was really, really nervous about this. But luckily, I knew one of the players, but it was also a training exercise for me. And I was really, really nervous about

this. But luckily, I knew one of the players, Caroline Murphy. Hey, good to see you again. Hi, good to see you too. Now, you might remember her from my first LARPing episode. In fact, she actually pitched me that episode and got me into the subject. So she was really excited that I was going to take the next step. Because you've talked about some of these immersive experiences you've had with your tabletop games, and I think that this is kind of a next level thing, and I think that you're going to really like it. I'm looking forward to it. I'm a little intimidated, to be

honest. Oh, don't be intimidated. Everyone here is super friendly, and it's going to be great. But it's like, I don't, you know, I keep, like, I mean, they've given me very low-level NPC stuff because I'm a newbie, so, but I'm still, like, I think the minute I go out there and everyone's giving me a character, I'm going to be like, uh, I'm still like I think the minute I go out there and everyone's giving me in character I'm gonna be like uh I'm from olden times you know yeah no I think that uh that's totally natural I think that my first LARP I had that same thing where I was like oh I don't even know how to talk

in character but then people just start doing it and it becomes really fluid and easy and like it just kind of takes you know just doing it i think my character will be very quiet just hey maybe you won't that's brendan butts he's caroline's friend who's going to play her husband in this game i'm going to find you and i'm going to engage you in conversation i'm just going to ask you questions over and over until you're just in it you know i'll be like what was your family life like back in Dutch area? Dutch. And Dutch area. Now, I actually had a good handle on my character's backstory in Dutch area because I gave him my own family history.

My ancestors on my mother's side were Dutch Jews who came to Boston in the 19th century. In fact, I was going to base this character off my Uncle Mike. But once I started talking in character, I found myself doing Daniel Day-Lewis's accent from Gangs of New York. I didn't even know I could do that accent. And by the way, you're not going to hear me during the LARPs. I was not allowed to record any LARPs. So instead, you're going to hear me describe what happened. So it was about a 10-minute walk into the woods, the campground where the game was happening. And when I saw Caroline, I could not believe how much she had transformed into character.

It wasn't just her wig and her costume, but her eyes were not hers anymore. She looked at me like this deeply private Puritan woman. And growing up in Massachusetts, the Puritans always felt very present to me. They weren't just some people in a history book. I mean, I went to school with their descendants. I knew that look of cold politeness. The characters were happy to trade with me, but they never asked me about my backstory. Vin, the LARP organizer, actually sent me back out there two more times because he wanted me to have a meaningful interaction with the players, but I kept getting the same chilly politeness. Later that night, I came back as a different character, a traveling

storyteller who was supposed to unnerve the townsfolk with talk of ghosts and demons. This character was a Puritan. I decided he was the son of a preacher. Maybe that's why he became a storyteller. But other than that, I really hadn't thought much about his backstory because nobody asked me about my last character, the Dutch merchant. But when I showed up at the dining hall as a Puritan, they were so friendly to me and asked me so many questions.

And remember Brandon, who played Caroline's husband? He'd warn me he was going to seek me out. Well, he did, but our conversations were great. I mean, they felt very believable. But afterwards, I was kicking myself for all the dumb things that I made up on the spot about my backstory because I was so underprepared. I also had a personal realization.

These are the kinds of interactions I missed out on by growing up in Massachusetts and not being one of them. Wow, that's pretty remarkable. After the LARP was over, I called up Caroline. That's a pretty remarkable experience to have had, especially for your first time there. I also told Caroline about what was going on behind the scenes at the command center. After the burning of the witch,

everybody, when they went back and were high-fiving each other at the staff center, somebody said, like caroline was crying and they're like yeah like it's not a good larp until caroline cries and in fact i think at that point vin goes did we win the larp that's amazing i mean you know if the if winning means making people feel emotions then i think that's a pretty worthy goal. I'll sign up for winning if that's the win condition.

Now, I could not imagine how I would ever actually cry at a LARP. But Caroline kept telling me about what happened to her and her friends. And I was jealous of the emotional experience they were going through. They came in with a huge drama ready to unfold. Caroline's character, Helen, may have seemed like a proper Puritan woman to me, but she had a scandalous backstory. Historically, the Puritans, before they got to the New World, first they tried to settle in Holland, and that just didn't work out for them. So Caroline's character, Helen, had actually fallen in love with a Dutch merchant

when she was in Amsterdam. Her family never approved of the marriage. And when they decided to move to the New World, they gave her an impossible choice. It was a heart-wrenching decision. But Helen went with her family to Massachusetts, leaving behind not just her husband, but their infant son. And so in this LARP, her friend, Albert Lin, was playing the long-lost son who had spent years looking for her. Even from the second that we called game on, I could not look at his character without feeling this overwhelming sense of guilt and dread. And I could see in him just this absolute unfulfilled sadness. Now, I thought that sounded amazing.

And I really wish that I could be part of that storyline. And then I found out that I can. You see, this LARP was not a one-off. It's actually the first chapter in a series of about a dozen LARPs. It'll take place over the next four years with the same characters. So I asked if I could come back and be part of their storyline. Oh yeah, we'd love to, absolutely.

We set up a conference call and the group decided that I should play the ex-husband from Holland, the father of the boy that Helen had to give up 25 years earlier. Now the sequel to this LARP would not be for another six months. In the meantime, I needed a lot more experience. And so during that time, I did five LARPs.

And this turned out to be a surprisingly personal journey. I went places that I never, ever expected. We have a long road ahead just after the break. Never expected. We have a long road ahead, just after the break. So the first LARP that I did after Ashwick Plantation was the complete opposite. No sets, no costumes, it was only two hours long, and it took place in somebody's apartment. The LARP was called Strange Gravity. It was a space adventure that was very Star Trek-like. It was really fun, and I thought it actually made very clever suggestions. But in the end, being clever felt kind of hollow.

I asked the LARP organizer how I could improve, and he said, well, the next time you do a LARP, find one other person in the story and decide, that character is deeply important to me. Use that relationship as your anchor. That would eventually turn into really good advice. The next LARP I did was called Honorbound. And weirdly enough, it took place at Google headquarters in New York because one of the LARPers was an employee there and he had access to the building after hours. Obviously, there are no sets or costumes.

We were just in a big conference room, and it was only two hours long, but it was surprisingly intense. The LARP took place in a society that was consumed with toxic masculinity. It was actually based on a real town in Italy, where centuries ago, the number one cause of death was dueling. I was assigned a central role, which scared me because I'm, you know, a newbie. I didn't want to make beginner mistakes and screw it up for everybody else. But I accepted the challenge. My character was called Mr. Steele. He was a local politician who had been caught embezzling funds.

And when his honor was besmirched by a character called Mr. Golding, I denied the accusation and challenged him to a duel. Then we separated. We went to different hallways where the other characters tried to talk us out of this duel. Now, toxic macho pride is the furthest thing from the way that I was raised. But as I got into this character's mind, I started to see how the loss of his dignity and honor could be worse than making a widow out of his wife and family. And I really felt it in my gut. In fact, I began to hear Mr. Steele's voice in my head.

The voice of an old, weary man. I didn't feel angry or pick at it. I felt caught up in a no-win situation. I knew if I withdrew my challenge, the shame and humiliation would be like an emotional death I wouldn't be able to handle. And I was surprised how earnestly the other characters tried to talk me out of the duel. At the same time, I could see they were resigned to the fact that this duel was probably going to happen. In fact, I could feel them start to mourn my inevitable death, even though I was standing right there in front of them.

In the end, a part of me must have come through. Because at the last minute, my character decided to de-escalate the duel and live with my shame. That surprised everybody, which made me wonder, did I do something wrong? I mean, did I do that or did my character do that? And does it matter? I mean, the LARP is meant to give you an understanding of societies like that, and especially men like that. And it worked. I mean, I still would never excuse the actions of people like that, but I don't dismiss them as easily as I used to.

So that felt like a big step forward. I decided to move on to the next stage. DexCon, a gaming convention in New Jersey. And the convention went over several days. I mean, it actually stayed overnight. The first LARP that I chose to play was called Voyage of the Damned. It was based on the writings of H.P. Lovecraft. I was given the role of a Texas oil baron who was going into arms dealership in the 1940s.

I was looking forward to this game. I thought it was going to be really intense. But I never heard my character's voice in my head. I couldn't find another character to connect with. And when it was over, I didn't feel anything. And I wondered if I made a mistake coming to this convention. But when I came back the next day, everything changed for me. Now, this LARP was called Tomb Priestesses of the Nameless Dead. It was based on the Earthsea novels by Ursula K. Le Guin. The characters were all female, but anyone could play them. And our characters were basically nuns on a remote island.

Our job was to honor the dead who had nobody to mourn them. But the dead were kind of with us. I mean, when we were not in a scene, we were playing the dead, which involved draping a black shawl over us and whispering doubt and fear into the player's ears. The characters, once again, were distributed randomly. And I was given the role of Yobitai, a 10-year-old girl. I had the option of swapping it out for an adult, but I decided, all right, I'll take up this challenge. The moment the LARP started, I instinctively took on the body language of a kid. I just understood the way she kept fidgeting,

shifting her weight, how she would just plop herself down on the floor cross-legged during a meeting. And when she wanted to speak, her hand shot up like she was in a classroom. And the moment my hand shot up and the other players looked at me on the floor, sitting cross-legged,

they all looked at me the way that sitting cross-legged they all looked at me the way that a group of adults would look at a child and i heard her voice instantly in my head i knew a few things about yobitai she was very sick when she was little her parents spent all their money curing her and then afterward they had no money to feed her so they sent her to this island to spend her life as a priestess. So she could have been bitter or angry. She could have been a brat. But I decided it would be more interesting if she felt isolated.

As the only kid on the island, she would always try to make a good impression with the grown-ups and not get into trouble, even though she still got into trouble. And the dead really scared her, but she wouldn't let anyone know that. And when I raised my hand to speak for the first time there was one particular priestess named Gamegi who looked at me with such warmth and caring I decided she meant the most to me.

I'd sort of adopted her like as my mom or like an older sister. I wanted to be like her when I grew up. But as the story continued I could feel my character's confusion because the adults were not setting a good example. They told me what was right and wrong, but none of them was actually my parent or my teacher. And they didn't follow their own advice. They all had secrets.

They were all doing bad stuff and getting caught by the high priestess. In the end, I learned that Gamage was sending love letters, forbidden love letters, to another priestess. Her punishment was to spend a night in the tomb of the dead, which was actually a dark corner of the conference room blocked by chairs. Gamage tried to tell me that it was going to be okay, but I could tell she was scared. As she was being pulled away, I actually blurted out,

I love you. She started to cry, or the woman playing her did. I wasn't sure. I waited outside the tombs for Gamage to come out. Finally, the high priestess told me that Gamage had decided to join the dead. She died? I asked. The high priestess nodded. I ran.

No, actually, I scampered to the other end of the room, and I buried my head in my hands. I knew that was the day that Yobitai lost her innocence. That was the day she grew up. And for the next few days, whenever I thought back on that LARP, just remembering how the other players looked at me with such concern, just remembering how the other players looked at me with such concern, I actually had kind of a deep memory, a callback, of feeling safe and cared for as a child. And this is what LARPers called bleed,

when the feelings of a game bleed beyond the LARP and stay with you. And it was kind of exhilarating. So I found another LARP in the New York area. It took place about a month later. This one I knew was going to be very, very different. The LARP was called Escape from Marseille. It was based on a true story of people in 1940, mostly American expats,

who worked in secret to get refugees out of Nazi-occupied Europe. And when I scanned the list of people they saved in real life, there were all these famous artists like Marc Chagall who owed their lives to this group. And once again, I was assigned a female character, Miriam Davenport. She was a real person. She's an artist from Boston, where I grew up, of course. I didn't go full costume, but I wore a very blousey white shirt and my wife's hat and scarf. The LARP was held at the Airmen's Club in Manhattan, which is a social club for enlisted soldiers and veterans. The building is 100 years old. It was never really remodeled, so the setting was perfect. And the props were really convincing. They had old photos, passports, dossiers, and

envelopes and stacks of fake Deutschmarks. Our task was to choose which refugees would get passports to escape. And the LARP was designed for us to come to the table with competing values. For instance, there was a communist who wanted to get all his comrades out. Somebody else was advocating on behalf of the Jews and the gypsies. My character wanted to get all his comrades out. Somebody else was advocating on behalf of the Jews and the gypsies. My character wanted to save the artists. In the meantime, there were air raids. We had to keep doing our work in the dark. We also would have to go around the corner in the stifling August heat

to drop off passports and money in a cardboard box at a real restaurant. But, you know, it's New York City, so nobody bats an eye at weird stuff like that. real restaurant. But, you know, it's New York City, so nobody bats an eye at weird stuff like that. Meanwhile, one of the LARP organizers was playing a spy outside in the real world trying to entrap us. Now, I was not sure how I was going to play Miriam. But the moment the game started, my body language changed and I heard Miriam's voice instantly. I thought of all the Boston ladies I knew from my grandmother's generation, The way they talked, the way they held their cigarettes. But I tried to imagine how they would sound if they were young. I even picked up a physical tick of tapping the dossiers of people I wanted to save. This one. Tap, tap, tap. I like her. Tap, tap, tap. Our decision-making was clunky at first.

We argued a lot. Two of the players decided their cause was so great, they bypassed our voting process, grabbed the visas of the people they wanted to save, and ran out of the building without a group consensus. We were only ten minutes into the game, but emotions were running so high, I found myself giving a fiery speech in defense of democracy.

Sure, it's messy and ugly, but it's the only way we can go about this process. When we decide that we know better than our fellow citizens, and we make unilateral decisions without consulting everyone else, we are no better than the fascists. And when the players returned who had gone rogue, I banned them from any more decision-making. One of them actually quit and left the group. The other sat there looking glum until we let him back into the group.

We needed all hands on deck. I didn't realize how relentless this process would be. More and more dossiers kept arriving, and we were working against the clock. Our contacts on the outside had limited windows of time to help us. In our haste, we got sloppy. We split up couples and families. We accidentally sent people into the arms of the SS. And I could feel Miriam becoming so passionate in her convictions

that she easily convinced the others to let the artists go, at least in the beginning. But eventually, the group turned against me. When famous names like Vladimir Nabokov showed up in our dossiers, I got even more passionate. We had to get them out. Why? they asked. I knew he would eventually write Lolita, but it was 1940.

All I could say was that he had a lot of promise. By the time we got to Marc Chagall, I was quickly outvoted. Enough with the artists. Let others live. In our world, does Marc Chagall live to see his paintings on posters and calendars around the world? Maybe not. Privately, the other players and I would talk about the fact that we were playing God. But if we didn't intervene, someone else would. I could feel Miriam becoming darker and more cynical. At one point, I got a secret telegram from Peggy Guggenheim praising me for doing such heroic work. But my passion for the artists started to feel frivolous.

I was choosing to save them based on how good their work was or would be. Isn't that cruel and shallow? A life is a life! But I knew what the art world wanted, what they'd say. Life is fleeting. Wars come and go. Art is eternal. The game ended when the SF SS burst through the door. As an American citizen, at a time when my country was still in neutral power,

I was just sent back to Boston, safe and sound. That's when I realized how little danger I had been in compared to the French who were helping us, let alone the refugees who were trying to get out. I could have taken even more risks. But it was too late. Game over. The bleed that I felt after the LARP wasn't warm or fuzzy like the last one.

I got a glimpse into an experience I could never truly understand. But I felt like, again, I had learned something. And I was ready to return to Massachusetts, to jump into something much bigger, much more ambitious, and scarier. Now, if you remember the first Puritan LARP took place at a summer camp in Massachusetts, this time, we're going to be at a reconstruction

of the original Salem village, not far from where the witch trials took place. It was going to be at a reconstruction of the original Salem village, not far from where the witch trials took place. It was going to be perfect. And I say it was going to be perfect because a few days beforehand, the LARP organizer, Vin Spadafora, found out he would not be able to use that location. They were scrambling to find new options. And eventually they found a very different place for us to have this LARP, an Oddfellows Lodge, which is sort of an early 20th century social club in a suburb outside Boston. And when I arrived, Vin and his team were putting up a makeshift inn in a fake

forest in the basement auditorium. I asked him how much this new location was compromising what he had planned. We have been writing since the last event, which ended in May. So you're looking at about five months' worth of pretty continuous writing. We have about 60 to 50 scenes that, you know, three days before, you can't rewrite. So we're on the fly going to be figuring out how to make scenes that were supposed to be it within 24 hours is pretty amazing from the people that we have with us. Now to recap, I was going to play Lars Der Veen,

the ex-husband of Helen Allerton. He was played by Caroline Murphy, we heard from earlier. Helen had been the love of my character's life. We met in Amsterdam, but our Puritan, Calvinist, Dutch-English marriage was just too scandalous for her family. They forced her to come to the New World and leave behind me and our infant son, Marcus. Marcus and I were not on good terms. I had lied to him and told him that his mother had died in childbirth. It was a decision made by the entire community back in Amsterdam

to spare the child from scandal. And when Marcus was an adult, I told him the truth, he was furious that I lied to him. That's why he went searching for his mother. And by the way, I was not coming from Holland. I had since relocated to New Amsterdam, which was now New York. Now, since I knew as a player that we're going to be clashing with

demons in this game, I decided that Lars was uncertain whether his marriage to Helen was part of God's plan or the devil's. And to maximize conflict, I decided he had not remarried because he never got over the heartbreak. He poured his energy into his work, making him a very wealthy man and a very eligible bachelor. He finally gave in to social pressure and agreed to marry a young woman of good standing in New York. But his heart was not into it. He was hoping that seeing Helen might give him closure. Although, of course, he would never use that word, closure.

When the game began, I waited outside the inn as the other players got into character. I wasn't sure what voice I was going to hear in my head when I finally stepped through that door. But eventually I just took a deep breath and I made my entrance. Immediately, I locked eyes with Albert, the player who was playing my son Marcus. He looked very displeased to see me, which I was surprised by. And then he said he didn't think I was going to come. He also called me Lars instead of father. Is it Lars now? I said with amusement. But it was my voice that I heard in my head. It was not an older man or a man with a Dutch accent. It was me, but not me. Marcus brought me over to see Helen.

She was sitting with her husband, William, and their daughter. They were me over to see Helen. She was sitting with her husband, William, and their daughter. They were so shocked to see me, I felt like they had seen a ghost. I apologized for making such an entrance. I thought Marcus knew I was coming, and I certainly assumed he would have told them. I stepped away, and Marcus followed. He urged me to talk with Helen. I told him I don't know what to say. I could see that my arrival was traumatic enough for her, and why is he imposing himself on their family? But he said that Helen's family has been welcoming of him, and she still feels tremendous guilt about abandoning him as a child.

In fact, he said she needs my forgiveness. Finally, he sat me down with Helen. We could barely make eye contact. Caroline, who played Helen, again was so convincing. I didn't see any traces of the person I knew in her eyes. After a long, painful silence, I told her that Marcus and I were not on good terms. She asked what the quarrel was about. I couldn't admit the lie that I told him that she had died in childbirth. I just felt so ashamed I started to choke up. Her eyes were red, tears as well. She said neither one of us had a choice in this matter. And suddenly I felt a tremendous weight lifted from my shoulders hearing her say that. I told her I was

under a lot of pressure to remarry. In fact, I was engaged to a young woman and she was pleased to hear it, which was also a relief. And I realized it was so hard for Lars to accept the disappointment of this marriage because he had never known anyone who married for love. He and Helen married for love and look what happened. I mean, he almost wished he had never met Helen so he wouldn't know what he was missing. Finally, I told her that I don't know what God wants from me. Now, this is the furthest thing from my own personal experience. This is something I had written into his backstory, but it was the most honest thing that Lars could have said to her at that moment, and my chin was quivering, and I began to cry. I mean, things were so intense with our story,

I missed many of the clues that the main storyline was happening all around us, until a preacher was found dead, his throat slit outside the inn. To my surprise, Helen immediately suspected a militia man that I'd spoken with earlier, a man that Lars really liked. Helen was certain this man and female accomplice were engaged in witchcraft. I privately told Marcus I didn't doubt his mother, but I was very concerned she was rushing to judgment. And Marcus shared my worry. A makeshift trial quickly came together. I was very concerned she was rushing to judgment. And Marcus shared my worry. A makeshift trial quickly came together.

I was asked to serve on a jury. I asked Helen if the punishment would be imprisonment or stockades. She was mortified. Witches should be put to death, she told me. I really regretted saying yes to be on this jury because now I had the lives of two people on my conscience. At the same time, if I decided there wasn't enough evidence to convict, Helen would be so disgusted with me. The peace of mind that I needed for the last 25 years that I had just achieved would be

destroyed. But when the trial got underway, the volunteer prosecutor didn't care about this list of jurors and just started assigning people himself. Marcus pointed at me and said he is one of the jurors. But I said nothing and let the others take my place. Marcus was so disappointed in me, he stormed out of the inn. Helen was leading the crowd, yelling witch at the defendants. The pressure on the jurors and the mob mentality was disturbing to me. And I saw a side of Helen that shocked me. At the same time, the defendants were strangely blasé about the accusations, even defiant. If I had been on the jury and admitted that I had doubt, the other jurors would have outvoted me anyway, and I would have turned myself into a pariah. I felt like I had made the right choice avoiding the jury, even if it was a

cowardly one. But it turns out Helen was right. Sometimes accused witches are actually witches. And not long after they were led away, demons attack the fort. Now, six months earlier, I had been on the other end of this battle wearing a demon costume. And back then, I found that kind of gameplay kind of unsatisfying. But now I could feel Lars' adrenaline rush. He was thrilled that he finally had a battle to fight that had no moral ambiguity. But the problem was that this fight was supposed to take place outdoors in a replica of Salem Village, not the basement of a social lodge in a suburb where we were trying to avoid knocking over plastic trees.

I started slipping out of character, looking at the clock, wondering how much longer this was going to go on. And then we heard Vin's voice saying the game was over, lights up. I caught up with Vin afterwards, and I asked if things had gone according to plan. Not exactly, he said.

It was supposed to start with these family picnic-style games to set a lighter mood. But the other players were so deeply in the Puritan mindset they rejected them immediately as pagan rituals. And Vin did not expect the players who were secretly witches to kill the pastor. These players knew what they were getting into. They wanted higher stakes in a game, and they wanted other players to realize that there are high stakes in games. So we were running behind, and I was like, I have to scrap stuff.

What's a happy thing? X that off, X that off, X that off. Do you feel like the combat, did that work for you, having the combat in such a small space like that over and over again? No. I'm sure it'll be great in the next LARP, although I don't think Lars will be there. I feel like he's kind of completed his character arc.

Now in all the LARPs that I had done before, the characters were assigned to me. And Lars was kind of an assignment too, but there were a lot of blank spaces in his backstory that I had filled in with details about my own life or the lives of people I knew. So there was less of a boundary between me and him, and his emotional angst was still hanging over me. So I felt like I really had to talk with Caroline about this. Okay, so.

So. I was recently listening back to the tape that we did like six months ago oh yeah i was talking about the fact that i'd found out that you'd cry during the witch burning oh yeah and i thought that was incredible i was like something made caroline cry during this larp yeah i mean i i do cry a lot but i freaking cried I cried during our conversation. You cried and you were so sad and it was so good. It was amazing. So yeah. How'd it feel?

I couldn't believe it. It was like an out of body experience. I couldn't believe it. Really? Well, it was like, cause I was really incredibly sad, but like you were not you. You were, you know, you were Helen and I was Lars. Even though it's funny cause the other LARPs I've done,'ve sort of I've heard another character's voice right and this time I didn't have a voice you know like a like a fake voice that I put on or a fake affect it was pretty much

me but it was not me so totally and that's the first time that you've experienced like that level of immersion before yeah is that like the next level after you do like a character yeah totally absolutely that's why this format is so great really yeah did you feel a sense of therapeutic release i think so yeah i think i did in this really weird like it's like after you cry about something and you just feel like relieved about it is that for you exactly exactly i think that is why i think that this format is so powerful why what would you say about this format i think that this format is so powerful. Why? What would you say about this format? I think that this format allows people a platform for finding their own therapeutic release with whatever it is that they are interested in exploring.

And sometimes you can make a character that can really be what you need in that moment and can really help you through something. What about for you? I mean, this was a big emotional day for you. How was it therapeutic for you? Oh man, I had no idea how angry my character was at witches. Neither did I.

I had no idea. I didn't know that Helen had that in her, but she knew. Like she knew that they were evil and that they were going to hurt her family. And she mama bared out. You like to find that kind of thing within your side yourself saying if something was ever to threaten my family i wouldn't let it i wouldn't stand for it so this is the end of my larp episode uh you contacted me yeah and emailed

me and were like you should get into larps and i see you almost like a teacher at this point how how do you how do you feel your student is how would you how would you evaluate your student uh you cried you know you cried you felt really genuine emotion and you found something there and that is exactly what i hoped for that's exactly because i know that you're a storyteller and like i've heard your other work and so I know how deeply you investigate things and how much you care about them. And so I knew that when you started Down This Path that you would find that at the end of it. So I feel like mission accomplished. I won the LARP. You won the LARP. I won the LARP.

You won the LARP. Well, that is it for this week. But that's not it for me and LARPing. I mean, I have no idea what LARP I'm going to do next or who I'm going to play. But I have discovered that jumping into the unknown is really the best part. Special thanks to Vin Spadafora, Caroline Murphy, Albert Lin, Brendan Butts, Sharang Biswas, James Stewart, everybody at Dexcon, and Sinking Ship

Creations. Also thanks to Sono Sanctus, who created original music for this episode. George Morafetis played Mr. Steel, Louisa Tripoli played Yobitai. And Nicole Grevy played Miriam. Imaginary Worlds is part of the Panoply Network. My assistant producer is Stephanie Billman. You can like the show on Facebook. I tweet at emolinski and imagineworldspod. And my website is imaginaryworldspodcast.org.