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.