More Than Friendship
RPG system: LARP
Participants: 4-10 players
By
Otherworldly Consequences (2021), Online, United Kingdom
The International Larp Festival (2023), Online
Description
Your relationship seems to defy words and conventional cultural understanding. You’ve talked about labels before: intimate friendships, platonic, companionate, committed, love, more than friendship; it’s just that there isn’t an understood word for it and they all feel insufficient. But you both understand it, in the ways you’ve connected your lives, in the deep understanding you have of each other, the ways you communicate without words. Your relationship will evolve and grow over time, but you know it will always be there.
More Than Friendship is a contemporary slice of life larp about committed friendships. Not what society thinks is a friendship, but much more, with an importance most only place on a primary romantic partner, but it’s not a romantic relationship. These characters' platonic relationships can be companionate, intimate, loving, dedicated and are their most important, with any outside romantic or sexual relationships being secondary to them. The character relationships will outlast the larp, with a focus on the growth and evolution of it. Characters can be played as any romantic or sexual orientation, but those attributes will not be directed between the characters.
During this larp, players will play out several years of the characters' lives in scenes, skipping ahead in time after each. Players will discuss new details using provided prompts between each skip forward in time. All roleplay will be with the same roleplay partner, making it a 2 player larp, but with multiple instances playing at the same time, with potentially different characters in each. This larp is replayable.
If you can’t quite picture what these relationships are or what this larp really is about, you might find this article with real world examples helpful: What If Friendship, Not Marriage, Was at the Center of Life? (CW in this article only: suicide) (This article will also serve as an information sheet for the larp).
It is hoped that players will leave with more than just memories. This larp is intentionally subversive of amatonormativity by highlighting and prioritizing non-romantic non-sexual relationships.
The casting process will allow you to avoid some of the specific character content, but all the characters will go through some relationship struggles. Content in specific characters includes: housing insecurity, money issues, overworking, toxic childhood friendship (backstory with NPC), class differences, major illness, loss of a close family member (backstory), death of a spouse (backstory), acrimonious divorce (NPC).
As participants will develop some details during the larp, several safety techniques will be used to allow participants to remove content in advance or during the larp.
Participation Advisory
This game requires verbal communication over Zoom, along with an appropriate device, reliable internet connection and quiet place to play. This game can be accessible to those with limited or no vision with advance notice.
Participant Communications
An advance casting form will be used to cast based on how much struggle you want your relationship to have, and if it is mostly external, internal or a mix. Character sheets and reference material will be sent in advance. Character and rules sheets expected to be less than 6 pages total, plus the highly suggested but not required article linked above (and also provided as a PDF)
DURATION: 3 hour
KEYWORDS: Friendship, Platonic Love
Played at
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