So you want to include a rape plot in your larp…
Or any other disturbing or confronting content.
[N.B. I am not a professional or expert on trauma. I’m just someone who has played and written a bunch of larps and seen how people have tried to include traumatic topics in their larps. This is what I’ve observed and the conclusions I’ve drawn. If you’ve got more expertise in the area, please, by all means, leave some pearls of your wisdom in the comments.]
This issue, or similar, has come up for a few larp writers I know recently. So I figured I’d talk about why it’s problematic and how you can manage it responsibly.
I’m using rape as the example fairly facetiously here, since it has been the most common plot element to make unwelcome surprise appearances in the larps I’ve played. I once had a character in a long-running vampire larp raped three times by three separate GMs who all thought they were being terribly clever and “deep”. However, this advice applies just as much to other difficult topics like genocide, abuse, and suicide.
Note that I’ll focus on larp here, since (in my experience anyway) it tends to be on the more immersive and emotional end of the roleplaying spectrum. But obviously this will probably still have a lot of relevance for a deeply moving and cathartic tabletop and maybe less relevance for a humorous boffer larp.
Let’s start with what should be fairly obvious: I am not advocating banning rape or similar dark or disturbing content from larp or other roleplaying games. Roleplay can be a great medium for addressing and exploring some pretty dark stuff: sex, violence, trauma, abuse. Some people get a lot out of exploring their own pain, prejudices or issues through roleplay. Others enjoy empathizing with people in situations they’ve never been in themselves. Others like to question why someone would commit heinous acts against another. Whatever the reason, there are plenty of players who are, at least in principle, willing and eager to explore these topics in their larp or tabletop roleplay. As a writer, you might want to include it because it is an important part of the experience you are trying to communicate, because you have a message about it, or because the larp is intended to be an opportunity for players to explore those darker issues within themselves. Whatever your reason, you’ve decided to include some potentially confronting content. I’m not going to judge, but I do want to talk about why it can be risky and how we can do it responsibly.
Why someone might not want to play your rape plot
#1 Because they’ve been raped
Or they know someone who has been raped. Or they live in fear of rape.
In Australia 17% of women and 4.3% of men have experienced sexual violence. So your larp of 30 players probably has 3 or 4 survivors of sexual violence in it. It’s probably got even more players who are close to someone who has experienced it. It almost certainly has several players (most likely women) who have been raised to be afraid of it happening to them.
Those players understandably might not want to play out something that touches so closely on their lived experiences. Depending on where they are in dealing with their experience, encountering that topic without warning might send them into uncontrolled memories about the incident, resulting in panic or disassociation. They may feel shameful or embarrassed, or that their emotions are ruining the game. Or it could just really take them out of the game as they have to work to compartmentalize their feelings from their character’s feelings.
The same factors apply for other confronting content like child abuse, domestic violence, substance abuse, mental health issues, still-births, miscarriages, life-threatening illnesses and suicide. These are all real issues that really affect people. Some of your players are likely to have experience with the content you are including. It is not the same as roleplaying having your planet destroyed by the death star, because probably none of your players have really experienced anything like that. (Although be careful if you have players whose families have been affected by genocide.)
Sure, sometimes roleplaying that touches on the players’ real issues can be cathartic and healing. But people should always get to choose for themselves when and where they deal with their own traumas. Which brings me to reason number two.
#2 Because consent
People should always get to choose for themselves how and when they process their traumas and how they spend their free time. Hell, in our society people should get to choose what work they do for a living. But the important point here is that your players have agreed to play your game, in their recreation time, on the basis of certain expectations. Suddenly asking them to deal with trauma or content they didn’t sign up for is an unfair use of their time. Maybe they aren’t ready to deal with this. Maybe they’re exhausted from their week at work and don’t have the capacity to process this properly right now. Maybe they don’t want to deal with these issues in front of players they don’t know. Or players they do know who have laughed at them about these issues in the past. Or who caused them. (Remember that while 17% of women and 4.3% of men have been raped, there is also a percentage of people who did the raping.)
The point is that you will probably never know why someone isn’t up for dealing with confronting content in your game. But you as the game writer shouldn’t need to know. That’s for the player to decide for themselves. Don’t ever take that choice away from them by surprising them with confronting content.
#3 Because you got it wrong
Someone who has experienced sexual violence may also be disinclined to roleplay through clumsy or badly stereotyped renditions of their experiences.
If they stop roleplaying to correct you or other players on harmful or incorrect stereotypes, that’s going to be immersion breaking for them and likely disruptive for the game. If they play along but try to play against the erroneous narrative they’ll be fighting the game, which can be both disruptive for the game as well as a lot of really draining work for the player. If they stay quiet and try to play out the scenario as you’ve written it (the most likely scenario in my experience), then they’re essentially reinforcing and assisting the erroneous narrative. They might feel like it’s their experience that’s wrong, leaving them with feelings of invalidation or shame. Or they may just pull out of the character a bit and not roleplay as deeply or as intensely as they and you had hoped.
There really aren’t any good options for a player who ends up in this scenario, so most players try to avoid it. As a result, if it even looks a bit like your game doesn’t handle confronting content sensitively, players may simply avoid your game altogether.
#4 Because it’s unpleasant
Even if a player doesn’t have any particular personal traumas to do with a topic they still might not like playing with it. By their very nature a lot of these confronting topics involve some pretty unpleasant actions and feelings. Sometimes that’s the point of the game. But not every player is interested in playing that every time. Just like for #2, it’s about consent. It’s not your job to decide that players should confront the darkest sides of human nature. If you want to you can offer them that experience. You can invite them into that experience. But plenty of people are going to turn you down. It wouldn’t be confronting or subversive if it was for everyone.
Furthermore, some “darker” topics have been mishandled in the media so thoroughly that including them will just make people think of all the other times they’ve seen it handled badly. Rape plots are definitely in that category. Not only has the topic been done to the point of being boring (like the three rape plots for my old character), but the gratuitous overuse and mis-respresentation has started to normalize or even glorify it (*ahem* Game of Thrones). Think carefully about what other media you want to be associated with.
The important point here is to avoid passing judgement on a player for disliking certain content. People decline to play confronting content for all sorts of reasons, and they aren’t a bad roleplayer for not wanting to spend their free time going through something horrible. It is never up to you as the game writer to demand that players deal with their traumas or trick them into experiencing something unpleasant. It is your job to offer an experience for them, to invite them to feel the emotions of their character, good and bad, and to provide a place where they can explore those issues if they choose. But it should always be a choice.
How to include rape (or other confronting content) in your game
The biggest risk with handling confronting content poorly isn’t that someone will have a panic attack in the middle of your larp. It can happen, but most people are pretty good at removing themselves from a situation before it gets that far.
The biggest risk is that someone will be quite traumatized, soldier through in silence, and then go home in tears vowing to never larp again. Don’t be that larp writer.
The second biggest risk is that your players won’t feel safe enough to immerse themselves deeply in your game. If you want deep characterization, deep immersion and players that really engage with the content you’ve gone to so much trouble to include, then the players need to feel that they will be safe to do so. They need to be sure they aren’t going to end up going home in tears vowing never to larp again. And they need to be sure they aren’t going to inadvertently cause someone else to go home in tears. They need to know that no-one will laugh at them or belittle them for their experience. They need to know that everything will be okay. Because no-one wants to go into the darkness, without a lighted door to find their way back to.
Needless to say, don’t glorify your difficult content or treat it flippantly. I’m assuming that you at least want your players to genuinely engage with the topic in a serious and sensitive way. If you don’t want that, you are probably reading the wrong blog.
#1 Understand why you want to include it
First examine why you want to include this content. Is it really necessary?
Is it important to the themes of the larp?
Is it an integral part of the experience you are trying to create?
Are you just including it because it’s fashionable and cool?
Is it there just to provide “depth” to the characters?
Could you replace it with something else?
If you want to include a rape backstory in your game, is your game about processing the trauma of sexual violence? Is it about addressing the way society stigmatizes and blames sexual assault survivors? Is it about how toxic masculinity and rape culture excuse rapists and normalise rape? If you’re not actually dealing with the confronting content, if it’s there for flavor rather than substance, then maybe don’t include it.
If you haven’t thought through why you want this content in your larp, players may well assume that you won’t have thought through how to include it either.
#2 Do your research
If you’re including confronting topics, like rape, make sure you know what you’re talking about. Do some reading online about the topic. Find books, blogs or podcasts by people with lived experience of the issue you’re confronting. If you can, talk to someone with that lived experience or invite them to collaborate with you on the game (but respect their right to say no).
If you’ve got that lived experience yourself, remember that your experience, while completely valid, is not universal. Remember to be inter-sectional and ask yourself how people with different backgrounds might experience it differently.
Most of all, be respectful of the topic. Don’t fall back on lazy stereotypes or use them as short-cuts for “deeper” characters.
#3 Warn your players
Players can only consent to play with the content if they’re informed about it.
This is where “trigger warnings” or “content notes” can be useful. Use some judgement here. You probably don’t need to include an exhaustive list of every possible type of content in your game. Topics that people typically might have experienced and find difficult to encounter in a larp could be sexual violence, domestic violence, substance abuse, child abuse, life-threatening illness, infertility, miscarriage and child death, mental health problems, and suicide. But adapt to your audience and the game you’re running. For example, if your players include some military veterans you might want to include a content note about war, injury or death. If there are some parents in the group you may want to warn people about plots involving children in danger.
In my experience, most people won’t use the trigger warning to avoid a game completely, but it will help them shape their expectations and go in prepared to engage with what you’re offering.
There is also a principle here that the larp should be what it says on the label. If you advertise the larp as a light-hearted romantic comedy, don’t turn it into a domestic violence drama in the second half. That’s violating the principle that players should get to choose what they spend their free time on.
If you’re including some seriously dark and disturbing content I also strongly recommend you adopt transparent design principles. Make the game as clear and up-front as possible. Minimize or eliminate secrets or surprise reveals. Make all the character sheets available for anyone to read before the game. Discuss what the main beats or moments of the game will be in a pre-game workshop.
You don’t need to pre-script the entire game, but giving people access to as much information as possible will help them to make an informed choice about whether and how to play. It will also let them steer their play so they can engage with difficult topics in a way they are comfortable and feel safe.
#4 Use a safety mechanic
Feelings are wiley. They can creep up on us unexpectedly. Something we thought we were fine with can turn out to be deeply upsetting. Something we thought would emerge in one way can turn out differently and suddenly we’re not okay with it any more. So always give your players a way out.
Include a safety mechanic like “cut” or an “X” card and teach the players how to use it. And never ask a player to justify or explain their use of the safety mechanic. Just accept it and support them.
In my experience, players who know they can get out of a scenario without rancor will be much more willing to risk getting into a confronting scenario in the first place. It’s about leaving that lighted door in the darkness.
Two examples
The Dance And The Dawn
The worst larp I’ve played that had these issues was probably The Dance and The Dawn.
Several of the characters had backstories with horrifying tales of rape, abuse and enslavement. One of them had a non-consensual lobotomy. But all this trauma added nothing to the game. The characters needed to be sad and tragic. But they didn’t need to be deeply traumatized. A little bit of loneliness or heartbreak would have been sufficient for the game to meet it’s design goals. Going over the top on the traumatic backstories just made it seem like their traumas were trivial and didn’t matter. It was like the writers thought these things were on par with having your true love leave you for another person. It seemed out of touch and a more than a little offensive.
The second problem was that the person who ran the game for us (not the writer) hadn’t thoroughly read these sheets before sending them out. So there were no content warnings. At least one player pulled out as a result. Worse, the remaining players started to lose trust that these topics would be handled sensitively. People started to put up barriers. They started to withdraw from the game emotionally, to protect themselves, before it had even started.
The game was designed to have a lot of hidden secrets. Players were supposed to find out information about the other characters and their histories during play, to determine who their true love was. This meant that people who had no idea about the disturbing content of the game were suddenly confronted with it during play. Most of the players dealt with this by again withdrawing emotionally from the game. Some players didn’t even mention their horrible histories. By the end, the game had taken on a tone of farce, rather than the bittersweet romantic tragedy intended.
Baphomet
The best larp I’ve probably ever played that had this kind of content was Baphomet. It dealt with a lot of adult topics, including sex, violence, drug use, and abuse, all in a cult scenario. It worked largely because the larp had zero secrets. All the sheets were available to all players before the game. I could read the sheets of the characters I had relationships with and see where the relationship was going. I was able to discuss those relationships with the players before the larp and work out what we were both interested in playing and how.
The larp included several hours of pre-game workshops, including on safety and practicing escalation and de-escalation techniques. There was also guidance about riding the wave of balancing the real feelings and emotions we might experience in game while also holding back enough to stay in control of our larp experience.
Baphomet was one of the most intense and safe larp experiences I’ve had. Because I felt safe with the organisers and other players I was able to play with topics I would normally steer away from. I could push myself deeper and further out of my comfort zone, because I knew I had a way back that would be respected.
In conclusion, it’s about consent
Adding difficult or disturbing elements, like rape, can be effective and interesting, so long as you’re including it for good reason, not just because all the cool kids seem to be doing it. Once you’ve decided you definitely need to include it, make sure your players can make an informed choice about whether and how they engage with that content. Provide ample warnings, make the game as transparent as possible, and make sure they can withdraw that consent at any time with a robust safety mechanic.
Not handling it sensitively can not only risk hurting your players, it can also make them less engaged in your game. It can make your game shallower and less immersive and meaningful as players work to protect themselves. That’s the opposite of what you’re trying to do, so don’t undermine yourself with your edginess.
