The Coming Crisis in Casting in

Casting as a field in TS style LARP was introduced in the late 1990s. In the past three years there has been intense growth, maturation, and fluctuation in this area of LARP however, and rapid changes threaten to precipitate a crisis in the coming three years.

Definition of a Crisis - the logical definition of a "Crisis" in LARP is where instability in a system consistently undermines the ability to produce an event satisfactory to all the participants.

Definition of Cast - participants who come to the event not to play goal-oriented characters, but to undertake roles that support the framework of the event - usually roles written, or described, by the GM.

Other Terms as Used Here:

TS - Theatre Style

TSFL - Theatre Style Full Length

TSC - Theatre Style Campaign

CC - Continuing Character (what most games call a "PC" or "Player Character"

Cast - Used here as a generic term for all the Non-GM, Non-player, staff at a LARP

NCC - Non Continuous Character (what most campaigns call an NPC, or "Non Player character, but specifically a fairly developed NPC type character).

Do We Need Cast? - by definition, TSC relies on complex and sophisticated plots - that's the nature of Theatre Style. By definition the lead time on TSC is too short to do the sort of 'per character' writing that allows these plots to resolve on a player v. player basis, especially given the generally destructive effect of player v. player on Campaign LARP. Thus the only way to have TSC is to have competent, and involved Cast, in fair numbers, so that complex plot can be staged quickly by an external source.

What actual Events will this Effect? - I can't honestly answer this question. Certainly it is germane to the 1948: Signals Campaign, which is my primary concern, and functions as a strong "hub" event for the Baltimore-Washington area. Logically it will probably have some impact on Dark Summonings in New England. Potentially it could impact Brassy's Men, though low use of cast may make it a minimal issue. It may or may not affect ARC, as that event runs by a more strongly Live Combat paradigm. It will likely affect other games that run on a TSC paradigm similar to 1936.

Ultimately however, I think that our issues are the local - and possibly leading and most sophisticated example of changes that will eventually be felt in all LARP that utilizes cast, and is not primarily driven by a "monster" dynamic - that is where the cast's primary reward and motivation is to take part in an LC event as fighters. To the extent that a event has cast elements that are not driven by this dynamic, I think it will eventually grapple with most of these issues.

The History of Casting

The Origins of Casting

The concept of "Cast" is a very old one. It is probable that very early LARP did not have "cast." Dagorhir Battle Games, for example, relied on player v. player fighting at least in the early 1980s. The Live Ring Game was presented as an activity for a group of players in which one or more were the villains. In early Assassin games, everyone was a player, co-equal in freedom of movement and plot.

In the Theatre-Style paradigm descended, with many other influences, from the SIL Rekon, and MIT Assassins' Guild games, "Cast" characters were unusual. Some need was seen for players who fulfilled the roles that Cast are called on to fill, however such roles were typically filled by "GMs" or "Assistant GMs" (who in some cases were virtually full time cast), or other assorted friends of the GM on an informal basis. When cast roles were sharply defined they were most often attributed as "AGM" roles.

"Cast" was a more integral part of most Live Combat LARP, though cast were usually called "Monsters" and casting was "Monstering." Where it does not seek to strong TS qualities, LC has already developed a stable paradigm for handling cast, but it relies on an inherent quality of LC which TSC lacks - the fact that to a substantial number of participants, fighting in combats is in fact a substantial goal and reward unto itself.

In the 1990s, Chris Welsh, Andy Looney and others introduced a group called "Role Playing Machine" or RPM, which offered to bring a pool of experienced LARPers to a game, to play "bit parts, villains, color characters, etc." This was likely the first serious implementation of cast, and RPM saw use in the early and mid 1990s. However the group was "self motivated" and many GMs who wanted tight control of their own productions were uncomfortable with bringing in an outside group with a strong style of its own.

In the late 1990s, Dirk Parham, Mike Young, and several other GMs from the Baltimore-Washington area, including myself, began playing XPI: Horror (then Lovecraftian Horror). In July of 1997 for The Four Aces, John Corrado, Stephanie Olmstead-Dean and myself assembled a GM driven cast, and for the first time had a cast room, with properties, etc.