The Perils of Red and Green as LARP Signals

Please don't communicate important information about your game using red and green colours in isolation.  If you do so, you are creating an accessibility problem for your LARPs.

I will set some context.  When building a shared environment to tell stories,  LARP designers often use signals of a variety of kinds to convey meaning.  Common signals are visual symbols and shapes. Not all signalling is visual - for instance sound effects can sometime be used.  

Signals that engage multiple senses at the same time can be particularly powerful and can help with those who have impaired senses.  

Sometimes LARP designers will signal meaning involving colour and light.

Not to brag, but as a photographer I probably have a better understanding than most of:

• how light works and 
• how colours and details are perceived by the human eye.

Two incidents, a few weeks apart, convinced me I need to talk about red-green colour blindness.

1)  Someone took a graphic design of mine and adjusted it. In the process they put important, safety related text, in red on a green background.
2) Yet another new Larp announces its game design. Its has groups/factions that are distinguished by primary colour, with no other declared way to distinguish them. The primary colours included both red and green.

There are several forms of colour blindness.  Fortunately one of them is statistically extremely rare (less than 1 in 10,000) but two others are much more common and both cause problems in the perception of red and green, rendering them not distinguishable from each other. These conditions affect about 4% of the population.  Put another way, if your LARPing club or event has more than twenty five people - odds are at least one of your attendees is affected.  It's common enough to be a design consideration for most games.

I don't suffer from the condition personally but I have lived with someone who does. It doesn't sound like a particularly debilitating condition - and for the most part its not - but it is scary when you realize a loved one cannot spot green bread mold on the crust of a loaf.

Larp organizers are, in general, well-meaning, decent people.  Behind the scenes I have seen many of them go to extra lengths in venue selection and event design to cater to wheelchair users,  which is nice to see.  Colour-blindless is roughly twice as common as wheelchair usage and seldom gets the same level of consideration - even though catering to the condition is easy.

If you write and design things electronically, which is nearly all LARPS, the there a numerous tools that can be used to simulate the medical condition and check for problems.

There is a second form of colour blindness.  This one is situational and affects 100% of people. In low light conditions, everyone's colour perception is impaired. It can be worse if the dim source of lighting is not a full spectrum, then colours can be shifted or blend together more easily.  

Lots and lots of Larps run after sundown, by candle-light and firelight. Colour Gel Lights and single colour LED lighting effects, are also common, especially in modern or sci-fi settings.

Dramatic Sci-Fi Lighting

The play environment of the game is seldom lit similarly to the home or office environment in which game writing and visual design takes place.

So if you need to communicate game/faction or meta information then a single colour is not a very good choice.  Combine a colour with a shape, pattern, logo, sound or position - why is why (for example) traffic lights do not confuse the heck out of 4% of the population.

Also, if you want visually distinct player factions, try not to use a single colour.  I understand organizers want players to make costuming choices based on the game design.    It just as easy though to pick several non-clashing colours and that will also give players more flexibility when putting together their costume.

This Photographer has no quest for you, currently

As someone who LARPs as well as photographs, there are times when one is required to make a choice.  Should I take photographs “in character” or “out of character.”

Not all photographers are comfortable or competent to play a character, but I have met other LARPer photographers who are quite happy to provide the same options as me to organisers.

In case the difference is not clear.  

• An in-character photographer will be posing and costumed as a character that is appropriate to the setting and where it would make sense for them to take photographs.  The character is often, but not always, a journalist.

• An out-of-character photographer stays more in the background and actively avoids participation with the players.  They are not usually costumed.

I do like in-character photography as it provides a little more agency to interact with the player.  The out of character photographer is more like a nature photographer - passively observing, waiting and hoping for something interesting to happen.

There’s a problem though, which is that whether in-character or out-of-character, the LARP photographer is often going to be ignored or looked past anyway.  It’s as though players assume that there is nothing to be gained through interacting with the NPC photographer, even if they are told they can.

There’s certainly been occasions where I’ve been well enough connected with the plot and crew room to have clues or secrets that I could leak, but no-one ever thinks to ask.   I need the equivalent of one of those World of Warcraft yellow exclamation marks floating above my head.

If you see several photographers at a LARP and wonder why they are hanging out together it’s probably a response to being ignored by players for the majority of the time.  The players aren’t mistreating the togs, it's just that they have a reality filter and photographersare not part of their reality.

It would be great to see that one LARP, that actually wants an in-character photographer, step up to the play and provide a character sheet or brief. I am not holding my breath for it to happen.

So this photographer has no quest for you, currently.

The long tail of Larp photography

I still get approached regarding photos I took five years ago, in the pre-pandemic times. I’d say it happens every few months.

On the one hand it's nice to be asked and it is also evidence, were any needed, that the photographs have lasting value and are the main long term record (other than people’s memories) that a Larp took place.

On the other hand, it is weird to me that folk will assume they are entitled to have you act as archivist and librarian for old photos that they didn’t preserve at the time.

Demand for photos follows a curve.  It starts immediately after the Larp ends, when the photographer has yet to do their edits,  peaks with any quarantine & release process, and then tails off but never goes to zero - at least, not in my experience so far.

The shape of the curve over time very much reminds me of the of the long tail business model, a term coined by Chris Anderson and implemented by variety of internet based companies  

I am increasingly of the view that my back catalogue of photographs needs to be available and searchable, online and for the long term, to cater to this long tail demand. Larp organizations may also have an interest in preserving the photos but Larp organizations come and go and many of them just don’t survive the aftermath of the specific event that they were put together to deliver. So, on balance, I also believe it is better for the photographer to arrange the long term solution themselves.

Unfortunately, online hosting has a cost.  Sure, google will give you 15Gb of storage to play with but in the context of modern high-megapixel cameras and weekend Larps, where thousands of images can be taken - free online storage runs out very quickly.  If you take photos regularly, this is not a long term solution.

Looking into solutions, I found two major models.   The shorthand is they are either Advertiser supported (like youtube) or client supported (like patreon).

Advertising supported.  The online storage is fairly plentiful and cheap but the hosting provider serves adverts amongst it - monetizing your content in other ways.  So that the advertising content is seen by the widest number of people - galleries are unprotected and open to the world.

Client supported.  Online storage is more frugal, but galleries can be configured to be private/shared only with those parties who attended the event.  In this model, those with access pay for the particular content they want and that payment goes towards covering the hosting process.

While sharing ones photography with the world seems laudable, I am not sure the LARPers I would photograph would always find this acceptable.  I am also not keen on a web-crawler harvesting images for an A.I.-bot to remix, repackage and attempt to present as an original work.

So if I launch an archival website it will follow a client supported model and there will be a nominal charge for downloading images or sending them to a print partner.

On A.I. and Larp Marketing

Recently, my birth city went viral on the internet, but not for a good reason.  It had the misfortune to host a themed event that was spectacularly bad.

I am talking about Willy’s Chocolate Experience.

This event was aimed at families and was very clearly not a LARP but it used AI for some of its writing and visuals and had a bunch of characteristics in common with a lot of LARPs.

• Built on someone else’s Intellectual Property

• Unpaid “NPCs” trying their best to entertain.

• Over promised and under delivered set dressing.

• Clumsy Amateurish Marketing.

There is good news and bad news.  The artificial intelligence was not sufficiently good to script and market the event in a professional manner.  If you dug a little, alarm bells should have started ringing.  The website, now defunct, but archived on the wayback machine - contained spelling mistakes, un-necessary repeats of information and an excessive use of the trademark [™] symbol.  That last one seems particularly ironic.

Unfortunately,  lots of people didn’t dig a little and the marketing succeeded in enticing around 800 ticket sales.   Do I think that Glaswegians are particularly gullible?  Not really.  Do I think that Glaswegians are good at expressing themselves when angry. Yes, Absolutely, S tier, God Mode.  This probably helped the event go viral.

One can assume that the A.I. is going to get better and this has major implications for larp organisers and attendees.   Marketing a larp is comparatively easy, compared with planning and running a larp - and the A.I. Bots have now made it easier.

Whilst I have major respect for everyone taking the challenge of organising a larp it's worth acknowledging that some rise better to the experience of doing so than others.  My big concern is that A.I. is going to provide marketing and writing tools to those others.

So if you are contemplating signing up for a LARP, please don’t be enticed with cool imagery - probably taken by a ‘tog like me - then ripped apart and put back together by an A.I.  Look past the slick words promises of all good things and look for both red and green flags.

Other lists are out there, here are some of mine:

RED FLAG

• If a larp website has a lot of spelling mistakes, it can be an indication that quality is not a priority.

• If there is no player code of conduct or risk assessments, then there’s probably insufficient thinking about player safety.

• If there is no FAQ or starters guide, then the needs of new players (vs experienced) may not be properly considered.

• If sleeping, feeding or sanitary arrangements are poorly described, it could indicate that the organisation is focused on story but not on the basics.

GREEN FLAG

• The LARP organisation structure is transparent, with the key people, their track record and their roles named.

LARPer archetypes and how it affects who gets photos

When I first got into LARPing I did quite a lot of reading.  Theres a great presentation by Jeff Diewald, titled “So You Want to Write a LARP: LARP Theory 101.”  It has really influenced how I think about LARP.   As of writing this post the presentation is still available on the Vortex of Chaos website and it is worth checking out if you haven’t seen it.

Amongst other valuable lessons, Jeff introduces the concept of player archetypes.  He groups and labels different types of LARPers by how they tend to play.  These archetypes can and do populate each larp in varying quantities.

The archetypes have fairly intuitive names but I will summarise Jeffs archetypes here:

Actors go for dramatic effect.  They emote, draw attention to themselves, play to audiences.

Role-players focus on the characters inner thoughts and goals.

Problem Solvers like to explore, investigate, research and uncover secrets

Gun-slingers enjoy using game mechanics to extend their experience, including but not limited to combat.

Jeff mentions the archetypes to illustrate that differing playstyles exist but also to make larp writers think about character writing and casting.  You need to match players to the kind of play activities their character is likely to provoke and you should want to write LARPs that cater to multiple play-styles simultaneously.

I am mentioning the archetypes for different reasons.  As a passive observer and photographer of a LARP it's my experience that Actor players are more natural photographic subjects.  Their ability to emote and draw in an audience will likely draw in photographers as well, which results in those archetypes doing rather well when it comes to getting photos.   

As an extension to this Actor archetypes will often make the most extreme of costuming decisions in order to stand out from the crowd which becomes yet another way of gaining attention.

Correcting this bias requires the photographer to be aware of it. For a LARP with a large cast, this may not be easy. Taking breaks from shooting to evaluate who you have already shot can help you identify gaps or biases as long as sufficient game time exists to correct them.

The LARP design can also help a lot, particularly if it contains scenes that spread leadership and generate an audience for non-Actor archetypes at various points.   Give lots of players their moment in the sun and tell the photographers when those moments are going to be so they can be there to capture it.

Night Photography and the LARP Schedule

Managing Player Expectations on Photography

It has become common, in the international larp space in particular, for LARP players to expect photographers to be present.  This is particularly the case if the larp is advertised as such, has high production values or if players are asked to waive privacy rights as part of the ticketing process.

What can be achieved is going to be a function of who showed up and (to an extent) the equipment and lighting available.  This is often not something that organisers will know exactly,  particularly if photography services are voluntary and  have not been contracted.  Even if organisers have fully arranged everything and have a photography brief for players to read, it's gonna be one piece of information amongst many and players won't necessarily have absorbed it.

A short, pre-game workshop session, where the photography team speaks to the players directly, can be hugely useful to the process.   

Larp Workshop

The script for this is going to vary from larp to larp and should always be based on what, if anything, has been promised or what has happened on prior runs (an implicit promise to returning players) but should always include

• Identifying the individual photographers

• Describe the “when” and “how” of photography taking place.

• Whether photographers will be in character or out of character

• If there are going to be any staged photo opportunities or photography specific events in the schedule (examples: Photo-booth,  Team/Faction Photo)

• Explain how to opt-in / opt out of photography

• Share a few tips for having your photo taken

• Describe the timing of editing / post-production

• Describe any quarantine/take-down process

• State acceptable use of the photos

Workshop time is very scarce, but I’ve verbally covered all of the above in five minutes or less.

My number one concern is making sure that players appreciate that it takes time to review, edit and publish… particularly because there will usually be lots and lots of them.

My number two concern is to make myself approachable,  so that the player who never seems to get photos of themselves, can come up and ask for them specifically.

Stealthy LARP photography - The Camera

In the cinema,  no one likes the guy that pulls out their phone whilst the movie is playing.

Similarly, a LARP photographer, through their own behaviour, as well as the behaviour of their camera, can cause a level of disruption to any LARP scene.

A minimal level of presence is necessary in order for the photo to be taken but hopefully this can be done without altering the behaviour of the subjects of the photo.  In this way,  LARP photography could be said to be like nature photography.

I will typically make adjustments to my camera in order to make it less instrusive at a LARP..  Here are steps that I take to make my camera "Stealthy."

Cover up camera branding

Cameras haven't changed much in shape and ergonomics but the brands of today are not the brands that have existing throughout photography's history.   By covering up the branding of the camera, usually with black electrical tape I can make the camera a slightly more plausible item in a historic setting.

One other behaviour I have noticed is that, if a fellow photographer recognizes your camera brand they may try initiating a conversation about photography gear.  There are endless debates around which camera / lens combination is best and endless opinions.  When I am carrying my camera its to use it and I dont particular want to stop shooting and have a gear related debate. When at a LARP, provoking a discussion on photography could be a distraction.

An extension of this is swapping a the camera strap that comes with it for a generic, non-branded one.

Turn-off autofocus beep

Most camera beep when the achieve focus.  Useful, but also annoying. The beep is generally louder generally louder than the shutter action of the camera.   Fortunately, many camera have multiple ways of indicating focus, the beep is just one and it can be switched off. 

Use a "Quieter" Shutter

Some cameras allow quieter operation of the shutter button, with a small trade-off in speed of operation.  Unless I need the speed, I genereally prefer a quieter shutter.

Turn-off Live viewfinder

Most camera have a rear-facing screen that can be used as a viewfinder to compose your photo, similar to a cellphone.   These screen can generate a fair bit of light pollution and are a dead giveaway that your camera is of contemporary, rather than historic design.

I much prefer to use an eye-cup viewfinder, either optical or electronic and leave the back screen switched off as much as the camera model allows.