The Larper Death Spiral

How things fall apart...

Over the years, we’ve come up with a bunch of tricks and tools to help larp facilitators, but there’s one that everyone seems to like. Even better, facilitators can use it to support “Participants-in-Distress” quickly, even with very little special training. We call it the Larper Death Spiral.

The Larper Death Spiral is a simple tool that identifies Participants-in-Distress, figures out if they have a common problem, and lets a facilitator respond quickly without causing more harm. You can pick it up in a couple of minutes, maybe just by reading a blog article. The trick is to keep the tool in your back pocket, and use it when you need it.

The Larper Death Spiral

We use the Death Spiral to describe a common sequence of events that participants go through during larp. During this sequence, the participant goes from actively playing to being “in distress” - there’s something keeping them from doing what they want to do. In the case of the Death Spiral, there are three steps where they go from larping to completely out-of-role.

Step One: Confusion

The first step of the Larper Death Spiral is when the participant doesn’t know something: they don’t know what’s going on, or how to accomplish a task, or even something simple like where they’re supposed to be. Usually, they know what they want to do; they just lack some critical information. The important thing is that they might not realize they’re confused: they might make a statement like, “I have no idea where I’m supposed to be for the ritual,” but never even think of asking someone for directions. This isn’t a knock against the participant: in aviation, it’s called unrecognized loss of situational awareness, and it happens to pilots at all levels of experience. Because they're still immersed in play, they may never recognize the problem as something they should ask a facilitator to solve.

Step Two: Frustration

After a participant is confused for a bit, they’re either going to move on, figure out the solution, or get stuck. When they remain stuck, confusion becomes frustration. If confusion is a participant not knowing what to do, frustration is when they try to do something and fail. The key to this phase is that they’re still trying to play, even while in distress. If they continue, they’re likely to end up in one of two states.

Step Three: Anger and Sadness

Eventually, frustration will sap the participant’s resilience, and they’ll end up in one of two places. First, they might get angry (probably at you, the larp producer, or maybe at another larper). Anger is usually fairly easy to recognize. Otherwise, they might become sad and focus on negative perceptions of themselves. While it can be less obvious, this is also the point where we typically see a person reach out to the Participant Advocate or safety staff. We look at this as the low point on the Death Spiral, and typically where people drop out-of-role completely.

Identifying Participants-in-Distress

We have a pretty simple way to identify the Larper Death Spiral, but the first thing we have to do is recognize a Participant-In-Distress. This can be tricky because larpers probably won’t reach out in early phases of distress. Further, it’s possible that someone might appear to be in distress, but just be role-playing or be hungry or tired. As such, the first thing to do before applying this tool is to figure out if they’re actually in distress: are they trying to role-play, but have a problem holding them back?

We teach people to do two things as facilitators: observe and engage. We train facilitators to watch participants for signs of distress, which include:

• A lack of engagement with other participants and their surroundings.

• Repeated behavior that doesn’t seem deliberate (i.e. “milling about”).

• Open-ended “negative statements” (“I don’t know what’s going on,” or “It doesn’t really matter.”)

• Displays of frustration or anger that seem out-of-place or out-of-role. 

While we talk quite a bit about these observations in our facilitator training, the important part is that facilitators are actively checking for distress. Once they notice something that suggests distress, they simply engage in role-play. Most of the time, role-play with a facilitator is welcome and provides engagement, and the participant is not in distress. However, if the participant is in distress, the facilitators can use the Death Spiral to diagnose what to do: are they confused, frustrated, angry or sad?Of course, finding their place on the Death Spiral doesn’t do much good without action. Luckily the Death Spiral offers simple solutions for the facilitator to help.

What to Do

We use one simple response for each stage of the spiral. All of them rely on two particular traits: being able to understand the problem, and having patience when helping the participant.

Confusion: Answer the Question

When someone is confused, they generally just need to know what’s going on. If a facilitator thinks a participant is confused, they can usually just help by asking simple questions (our go-to is “What do you need?”) and answering questions. Sometimes a participant needs a more detailed plan, and it's usually worth taking the time to walk them through it.

Frustration: Help Them Through

When someone gets frustrated, they need more support. Generally, we find they need a little success early in the process, which is relatively easy for a facilitator to provide. This intervention might prove time-intensive, but it’s definitely better than a participant falling out-of-role. By going through a role-play task and helping a participant pursue a goal, the facilitator can often lead them out of frustration.

Anger & Sadness: Support & Intervention

When a participant is notably angry or sad, they’ve often stopped role-playing and need significant support. At this point, the facilitator has to see the participant as a person first and foremost, and support them. This includes active listening, helping them with their needs, and ultimately, involving the safety staff. We tell facilitators, “your goal is to provide comfort to the point where you can get them to the Participant Advocate.” The Participant Advocate or other safety staff member has more tools to help them, and the participant now needs more attention than a facilitator in the field can provide.

The point of the Larper Death Spiral isn’t that it’s comprehensive or works in every situation. It’s that a facilitator is in a chaotic and rapidly changing environment and needs a simple tool to figure out what might be wrong, and what might help. Importantly, the tool is designed to minimize the risk of causing harm, provided facilitators remember that their observations are only hypotheses, not facts. Remember, you might think a participant is frustrated, but that might not be the participant’s perspective. As such, instead of trying to "end their frustration," we focus on patience and practical assistance, approaches that are much less likely to make the situation worse. It’s not a perfect tool, but it is quick, effective, and relatively low-risk. If you liked this article, you can probably even try it at your next larp.