Larp critique: the Steampunk larp “L’Exposition Extraordinaire d’Aven” by S.T.I.M.

For more pre-larp steampunk photos, click here.

Finally, an English-language review of the larp I created all those steampunk props for! L’Exposition Extraordinaire d’Aven was organized by the Société des Transports vers un Imaginaire Mécanique (translations are pretty transparent).  S.T.I.M. (francophones use a “ee” sound for both “steam” and “stim”) gathered about seventy players in Moutier, Swiss Jura on a fine summer week-end of July 2011. Specifically created for the game, the organization is sort of heir to Jeu est un autre, the oldest still active larp group in Switzerland (for more on Swiss larp, and how it compares to American larp, check out my previous post). While not a big fan of steampunk, I signed up right away to support new organizers that were doing something else than fantasy, and to see cool gear. I knew the head honcho was a regular on the badass larp craft forum Trollcalibur and props are important to do justice to the genre. And boy did they deliver.

Organizers during the pre-game briefing

The pilot and financial backer of the Luciole Sereine dressed in styles from two different countries. Photo taken at the in-game kinetograph booth.

Pre-game work

The organizers created a setting that was pretty smart: the various nations of the Nebelwelt, a fictional steamupunk world, had different styles of technology and different looks: classical 19thcentury Western Europe, 18th century Western Europe, Russian, even Native American and medieval. So even though this was the first steampunk larp in the region, the setting still made it easy for people to attend with whatever costume they already had. Most people did play ball though, and ensured a fine representation of top hats and goggles. For me, it was a rare occasion to get my 18th century stuff out and pimp it steampunk or lacepunk style. Most of the pre-game work involved creating the initial concept for our group of characters, while the organizers would finalize it and integrate it in the overall game. Friends and I went for a steampunk version of the Firefly crew, and therefore called our airship “La Luciole Sereine”. It sounded different enough in French from its English translation: “the serene firefly”. Therefore we would not disturb roleplay when pronouncing it, while still making geeky players understand what the group was about. The group would attend the world fair to both repair its zeppelin and advertise its unique flying capabilities to other fair attendees (basically all other vehicles were land-based). We organized a rare thing in the local larp culture: an in-costume photoshoot in downtown Lausanne so that we could have some “wallpaper” decoration for our in-game booth.

Note: the following part is translated and adapted from the subjective feedback I gave to the organizers on their forum.

Stuff that rocked

• The theme overall. Well thought-through, a nice change from fantasy and fully implemented in the game design.

Outdoors view of the game site.

• The game site was amazing: very large, on multiple levels, with both light fabric booths, hard walled rooms, and large open areas, all wooden but covered in lights that were actually controlled by one of the organizers’ iPhone. Just walking around was a really immersive experience.

Iphone-controlled lights!

• Visuals: everyone worked hard on their costumes and the organizers created a lot of props. At some point I just walked around looking at the people’s Nerf gun holsters as some of them were true works of art.

Props ranged from small models…

…to a war mecha!

• Logistics: good hot food, fresh beer, a dry location. It would have been perfect with 100% indoor sleeping arrangements as originally planned (it went down to 7°C at night in fucking July, that’s the Jura for you!) but finding such a site after the previous one bailed out on the organizers is hard. And that French toast in the morning was so tasty…
• Little outdoor missions: some of the action occured out of the game site in the neighboring forest/cabin. It was nice to get out, get some fresh air and shoot some Nerf.

Happy scroungers back from a job well done.

• Overall mood: from the players to the organizers, people were having fun and firmly intent on sharing it. When out-of-game difficulties came up they were quickly resolved in good spirits.

In-game class warfare: while Swiss larpers have a tendency to create confederations, French visitors stayed true to their image by organizing a demonstration calling for a strike

• All the little things that were true to the genre: from technological plots to an amazing absinthe bar.

If you’re around France or Switzerland, do check out Absinth’Event , the host is both an expert and very friendly!

Stuff that sucked

• The slow pace of events and lack of “stuff to do” with my PC. I had a lot of empty moments over the week-end, failing to feel implicated, tempted to just drop out of character and go drink with friends. If the same amount of game had been compacted into a single day, it would have been the perfect larp, unfortunately it was spread over the whole week-end.
• The lack of criss-crossing of plot among the various groups: there was some, but not enough to generate plot that would involve more people and encourage more interactions. For example no one cared much about our ship and what it could offer them, so while we were happy to repair it by the end of the game, we felt a bit isolated.
• The Lego / Easter Egg Hunt game mechanics:  it’s great to find ways to model technology, invention etc as it’s perfectly in genre, but the looks and activities involved were not very immersive for me. Many larpers love trading bits of laminated cardboard and did say so at the debrief, but that’s just not my thing. Neither as a player, nor as a character, who was not a merchant.
• The anti-climactic end where player-triggered “zombies” killed everyone who was awake at 1h30 on Saturday night, resulting in half the people not knowing whether the game was still on Sunday morning, the other half packing their stuff out of character. After a discussion with the organizers, the game was indeed supposed to end on Sunday at noon, but they are firm believers in letting the players drive the game and will avoid any railroading once the game is on.

Happy ending

Interestingly -where is my larp mixing desk when I need it?- this steampunk larp was very influenced by the design principles of its Jurassian predecessors, meaning there was some plot, somewhat pre-written characters, some planned events, but not enough for my taste, and a lot of out-of-character moments. These are the kinds of “group games” where if you play a leader, plot will just flow to you (tried and tested when I was playing an ambassador) but where some other roles are much lighter and more isolated, meaning their players really need to work hard if they want to avoid boredom. Or they need to love trading and collecting things. I don’t think it’s a good or a bad thing, it’s just that this way to spend game time is not my thing. It was interesting to debrief this aspect on the organizers’ forum, as several players enjoyed the off-periods, while others would have preferred for everyone to stay in character all the time.

So overall:

• I had a good week-end
• objectively, for a first larp it was a true success, and a very impressive organization
• subjectively, this kind of larp is not my thing

Both the lead organizer and myself are strong advocates for clarity in organizer communication, and I think attending GN’Idée, the French-Swiss larp con, helped both of us articulate what we looked for when designing games, and how this could differ from person to person.

S.T.I.M.’s next game is clearly labeled as very plot-light, mostly Nerf-based post-apocalyptic battle game. While my buddies and I couldn’t sign-up as PCs, we did sign up as NPCs: with such a role, the on-and-off immersion thing is very clearly labeled from the get go and we know we’ll be pretty busy!