A lot of the conflict in Concord comes from the actions of other characters as they compete for the limited supply of power, wealth, and whatever they deem to be righteous within The Concord. The rivalry and conflict between characters is some of the most thrilling and intense play that can occur at LARP and we want to provide some advice for navigating that at Concord.
In addition, Concord’s dedication in this roleplay (and really in any play for the game) is a focus on the story and remaining in character as much as possible. Do your best to remain in character as much as possible, particularly in these scenes as it adds to the overall strength of the world, separation between characters and players, and the veracity of the story.
It's important to note that hostile play is good and is an intended part of Concord. The world and systems within it are very often designed as zero-sum where if one person succeeds it is because another fails. The story of individuals, flawed and human, moving through this world, attempting to work together and save the world while also battling each other and themselves, brings the best stories possible to the forefront. This document isn’t a writeup of all the bad things you can do, it's some guiding stars towards bringing this play to the forefront in the best way possible.
As an important note, this document is not a set of rules. These circumstances are each unique and need to be traversed with maturity and a dedication to the story being told. Take these points as a guide to the moment at hand.
The world of Concord is one of debate, argument, and compromise.
What is Hostile Roleplay?
Hostile Roleplay is any moment where your roleplay is particularly angry, aggressive, intense, or confronting, generally when directed at another character or group of characters. These moments are often the crux of arguments, betrayals, disagreements, or accusations.
Hostile Roleplay is some of the best parts of LARP as it brings the emotion to the forefront and lets it reach great heights. However some people can find it confronting and given how intense a whole weekend of LARP can be people can have a short fuse or endurance for these things. In addition, when you’re delivering this sort of roleplay (particularly in the midst of a long weekend) it can be easy to get wrapped up in it and lose track of where the character ends and you begin. This is what forms the danger in hostile roleplay.
Advice for engaging in Hostile Roleplay as the aggressor
Characters who are willing and able to argue their positions will find great power at their fingertips.If you can, make sure you’re settled before going into it. It can be very easy to let the OC / IC lines blur, particularly if you’re tired. Take a second and make sure you’re delivering this characterfully. Of course if you’re responding to a situation this isn’t always possible, but do your best to stay in your character's mindset.
Avoid insulting the characters appearance or physical traits as these are often the appearance and physical traits of the player. Your character is going after the character, not player against player.
Be willing to moderate your volume and the intensity of the scene based on player hand signals. Remember that they can’t hand signal their way out of consequences, but they can ask confronting things, such as shouting and aggressive movements to be toned back. Turn a shout into a strong tone, or a strong tone into a harsh whisper if required.
Give space for the target of your roleplay. You may be able to verbally overwhelm a less prepared player, but it won’t be fun for anyone unless you pause long enough to give them a chance to respond.
Advice for engaging in Hostile Roleplay as the target
Rise to the moment. Emotional roleplay is a reward not a punishment for a misstep, and characters getting the chance to shout, to sob, to cry out is a chance to bring those parts of your character to life. Take the opportunity to have your character have those emotions and remember that a stoic non-affected tone is similar to refusing to react to a hit.
Try to maintain perspective on the scene, look for ways that you can bring fun roleplay into the moment but also recognise what other characters are bringing to the roleplay. It can be easy to react with your guy and let your character's emotions and your own bleed together. Take a second, breathe, and recognise the opportunity and roleplay that everyone can have together.
Communicate your needs in the scene through hand signals. If you’re a person who is affected by raised voices or aggression, use the roleplay up and roleplay down hand signals to communicate that. If you’re having trouble reaching a sweet spot, go out of character and ask the aggressor something like “Hey, I’m having trouble finding a spot where I’m comfortable with this, could we pick this up again at [time]?” Remember that your character is not immune to consequences because they make you the player uncomfortable, but finding some space in the delivery is reasonable.
What is Antagonistic Gameplay?
Antagonistic Gameplay is any time when one character engages in mechanical actions which affect another character's mechanical circumstances, or uses systems of the game or world to affect another character indirectly. Examples include attacking another character, reporting a character for crimes or inquisition, running against another character for a title, or taking actions to affect another character's investment or downtime success.
Antagonistic gameplay differs from hostile roleplay as it can often be done indirectly with no social engagement and often has direct mechanical effects. Many times hostile roleplay and antagonistic gameplay will go hand in hand or one will follow the other, but this isn’t always the case.
Antagonistic gameplay is essential to the world of Concord as it is the real consequences which allows real conflict. Hostile roleplay is often just words at the end of the day, antagonistic gameplay is what gives real threat to these words. Given Concord’s use of conflict between characters and the empowerment of characters to take such actions, it is an essential part of the game.
There is a danger of the mechanics for how to achieve an outcome becoming more of a focus than the conflict being portrayed. Vote counting, manipulating events to discredit or negatively impact the standing, wealth, status, or position of another should all be part of this sort of play, but it is important to do those things in character as your character. Otherwise the entire process can end up becoming overly out of character. This is far more likely to lead to a less than characterful story and can be a primary reason for those players involved to suffer negative experiences out of character.
Advice for engaging in Antagonistic Gameplay as the aggressor
Know your systems. If you’re going to bring these systems to bear against someone at least do them the courtesy of knowing how they work.
Check with a Team member ahead of time to confirm your understanding is correct and possibly to have a Marshall oversee.
Roll with the punches. Chances are you have spent a non-zero amount of time planning this to be absolutely devastating and unopposable. But such plans rarely survive contact with the enemy. Instead of immediately dropping character and attempting to rules-argue to victory, stay in-character, react in the moment and roll with it, just like you would in a battle.
Remind yourself regularly at all stages that win or lose the purpose of the attempt is to portray your character and their contest with their rival/s. Even if your character fails in their efforts you have created an interesting story for them, and you have the privilege now of working out their reactions going forward.
Advice for engaging in Antagonistic Gameplay as the target
Recognise that your character's misfortunes are not the end of their story. The rise and fall and rise again of characters is an intended arc in Concord and a single misfortune (or even a set) is something to be taken in stride as part of their tale, rather than an ending. Even a murder will have ripples throughout the story beyond them.
React in-character. Your gut reaction will likely be attacking back on a rules basis, but you’ll have a worse time if this becomes a rules debate, so unless you are quite sure that something outside the rules has occurred, keep in character.
Fail forward. Your misfortune is a moment in your story, let it resonate with your character, let it affect them. You’ll get a lot more enjoyment out of your character losing a title if it ends with a candle lit conversation with friends over a tankard about “Where did it all go wrong? What did I fail to see coming?” rather than a grumpy conversation in your tent about how “They only voted for them because they XYZ”. Turn your mechanical disadvantage into roleplay fuel and you’ll never really lose.
If a situation makes you feel overwhelmed as a player it is very reasonable to go out of character and ask to take a moment to think about what your character would do and plan a reaction. Try to do this at an appropriate ebb in the play, but do not let yourself become distressed to the point that you are unable to portray your character in the situation. This is not good for you or anyone else in the scene.
A note about Murder
Murder is certainly possible in Concord. But the systems around combat and the setup of the event make it very difficult to pull off. Someone who is reduced to bleedout can always scream and shout for help, and even in terminal they can do the same.
The reasoning behind this is that, in a political game such as Concord, if murder is a good choice it becomes the only choice. No other tactic so completely removes a rival. But in a game where we’d much prefer long term rivalries with rise and fall, give and take, a swift murder is anathemic to that.
If a murder is performed we would want it to be a pivotal character moment that carries with it all the inherent drama. Recognise that such actions are likely to end in a murderer's own demise when the law catches up with them, which it likely will.
But also note that murder is possible. You control what events you attend and where your character goes. If you fear that someone may make an attempt on your character's life, it is very easy to take steps to safeguard against that, often having a present bodyguard is more than enough, particularly at smaller events such as Sanctioned Events between summits.
Take time to feel your characters emotions. That rise and fall is a feature of the immersive world.
Check-Ins
A check-in is where you contact someone out-of-character prior or following any hostile roleplay or antagonistic gameplay. It is an out-of-character re-emphasis that there isn’t any bad blood between players despite what is occurring in character. It's a chance to check the temperature and how players may want to proceed.
Use check-ins after particularly powerful scenes that were perhaps unforeseen, or when two players who haven’t roleplayed with each other before get heated. At the scale of Concord it isn’t possible to know everyone you’re playing with OOC and a check-in is a good way to remind all parties that everyone involved is a LARPer in a field rather than the character they are playing. Check-ins should be clear and not disrupt the flow of roleplay. So we recommend that they are conducted a short time after rather than immediately. If you at any point are concerned that the other party has not checked in, then that is a sign for you to go and check in with them.
In the past Concord has heavily recommended check-ins, but this has become an issue. A preponderance of check-ins disrupts the immersion of a scene and can make conflict far more out-of-character than in-character. Recognise that a check-in isn’t an acknowledgement of guilt and is not mandatory, but rather is a courtesy and a kindness. Communicate with other players in a way that forwards the play of the game and gives the benefit of the doubt wherever possible.
Other forms of problem play to avoid
Beyond antagonistic gameplay and hostile roleplay, there are also a handful of other circumstances that have appeared over the world that we would like to draw attention to as being inappropriate for Concord.
Anonymous Writing
“Player A delivers a piece of propaganda into play and states that it wasn’t written by their character, they just found it. The propaganda directly attacks another character or supports a stance Player A’s character supports.”
“Player A delivers a piece of public journalism that engages in hostile roleplay. Player A wants to engage in this sort of writing and play, but their character has no reason to or can’t afford the blowback, and so it is presented as being written by an anonymous third party.”
In both circumstances, these actions abuse the medium of the game to attack other characters, support causes, or just engage in hostile roleplay in an unfair and uninteresting manner. There is very little response to these actions available to aggrieved parties and often feels like a character being attacked by a player. We request that all writing made public, and even most private writing be signed and attributable to a character.
Siloing
“Character A is in conflict with Character B. During some private roleplay between Character A and Character C, Character A divulges a sensitive secret to Character C. This roleplay was overheard by Character B who uses that information to attack character A. Player A is upset because they only divulged that information because they thought they were in private, and is uncomfortable with being disadvantaged.”
Siloing your roleplay into chunks with different characters is anathemic to a game focused around presenting a living and immersive world such as Concord. Your character and how you play them should exist within the whole world, not just chunks of it at a time.
Authorial Play
“Player A is really excited for a story they have written and wants to see it play out at Summit. They contact players B,C, and D and ask them to have their characters act a certain way in response to some news in order to heighten some drama. Player E is also involved but isn’t given an out of character heads-up. The event occurs and Players B and C perform their role, but Player D acts differently. Player E feels ambushed by a piece of roleplay that it appears everyone else was briefed on except them, and Player A feels upset that the story didn’t go how they wanted.”
Concord is LARP, rather than a play. One of the joys of LARPing is the unknown responses of other characters who are independent in how they think and respond. While it's perfectly valid to bring extra content into the game based around your character, it is not reasonable to define and predestine in-character actions based on out-of-character goals which restricts other players actions. Wherever possible, allow things to play out in-character.
