Integrated Larp Style

There is no one singular American larp tradition. Across the states, there is a diversity of play systems and philosophies, from boffer games with stats and hit points to parlor games with no competitive rules. Our style of larp was originally developed by Brian Allison and Howard Moody over thirty years ago. The Adventure Game, as they called it, has been refined by the Wayfinder Experience over the past decade and a half. Event Horizon is calling this style Integrated Larp.

Integrated larp balances story, emotion, and mechanics while emphasizing collaboration and community building. Integrated larp utilizes light mechanics and some pre-planned overarching game plot, drawing elements from various traditions, including what is often called Nordic larp. The core tenets of integrated larp are player empowerment, intense character interaction, play-to-story (as opposed to play-to-win or play-to-lose) conflict creation and resolution, and self-exploration through play.

We encourage our players to collaboratively build scenes that are interesting and empowering to as many participants as possible, instead of just playing to their objectives. This may mean loudly voicing a contrary opinion, making a serious blunder, or needing assistance from others. While combat is not the central focus of the game, we do include play with foam swords. There are no stats or hard rules to determine the outcome of a duel, but rather both players must work together to create a dynamic fight scene.

Integrated larp is also about facing difficult decisions. The world of Event Horizon is not black and white — there is no evil villain, and players are not pitted against each other on two sides. Rather, the characters and stories of Event Horizon are filled with nuance and complexity. We want our players to have the opportunity to push their boundaries, be it by playing someone completely different from themselves, facing a fear, or facing a difficult challenge.​
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Event Horizon will include challenges of all kinds for players. Some of those will be provided by us, in the form of plot elements meant to catalyze player drama. Much of the excitement will come from you, though. Players are encouraged to come up with their own personal storylines, with props and NPCs available on request throughout the weekend. Our intention is for player-generated plot and organizer-generated plot to coexist and interact, leading to exciting emergent storylines that none of us can predict.

Tenets of Play

Players Come First: Player safety is more important than the larp, and you are in charge of your experience. 
Immersive Storytelling: No stats, dice, or rule calls. No Game Masters enforcing rules or dictating plot.
Reaction-Based Conventions: Every game convention is driven and determined by the person reacting. 
Improv: We build on improv theater ideas of going with the flow and yes-and. It is more important to play with your fellow participants in the scene than to be correct about facts of the lore. 
What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get: If we can't have something physically in game, it won't be in the story. (Or if it is in the story, it'll be on another planet!) Occasionally we have black-box scenes.​
It's Fun to Fail: We encourage and teach players to enjoy the story of conflict, failure, and shining the spotlight on others.

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Game Conventions

Safety Mechanics

We use several safety mechanics to help support our players and encourage a play community of cooperation and accountability. These rules are gone over in our players handbook and during the workshop portion of the first day. 

• Reality Check
• Out-of-game signal
• Look down
• Ok Check-In​

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Combat

Combat in the games of Event Horizon is optional, mechanics light, and cooperative. That's right -- any instance of violence in our games is created by the players working together, rather than against each other. We encourage our players to fight well and lose often. As with everything else in our games, combat and violence are scene-making tools there to create cool stories.

Swords
While combat is not the central focus of the game, there will be some fighting in the game, using play-safe foam swords that we provide. For a variety of reasons, guns and laser blasters are rare in the world of Event Horizon. Most combat is done with swords. In the world, dueling with swords is a legal form of conflict resolution so long as it doesn't result in death. With readily available healing, sword fights are painful but rarely lethal. Besides dueling, violence is uncommon and illegal, and there will be consequences for it in game.

There are no stats or rules to determine the outcome of a duel; rather, players work together to create a dynamic fight scene. Our style of sword fighting has been practiced for over fifteen years. It’s pretty simple: if you get hit by the blade anywhere, you scream, act out the wound, and - except in the case of lightest cuts - drop your sword and lose the battle. We believe that dying on a blade is just as fun as winning if the sword bout is epic. This “collaborative sword fighting” works if both players play by the same guidelines:

• Swords are heavy and must be swung deliberately.
• Swords bounce off of other swords.
• If you get hit, you are injured and scream in pain!
• Don't swing as hard and fast as you can.

Our swords are made out of a semi-flexible foam that is light and low-impact. It is incredibly easy to swing our swords super fast, bend around blocks, and change the direction and velocity of the swing -- but that makes for lame-looking fights. The goal is look dramatic and have a satisfying scene the contributes to the narrative, rather than playing to win. Everyone will have a chance to practice with our swords during the workshops on Friday. 

Shadow-Boxing
Shadow-boxing is mock fighting where participants throw hits from a safe distance, and react to blows without ever making physical contact with each other. We will also teach shadow-boxing during our workshop period.

Dying
Death is almost entirely optional in this game. In-game, there is a highly advanced medical force field that automatically stabilizes anyone in critical condition (though it doesn't do much more than that). There will be no death or killing until the climax on Sunday night, when both become possible. Before then, you can absolutely chose to die or remove your character from game if that makes sense for your story! No other player will force your character to die. 

Injuries are fun to play with. We encourage our players to react to wounds from duels in interesting ways that they find fun. 
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​Will players uninterested in combat find the game entertaining?
Yes. The short answer is that combat is not the focus of our game, and is entirely optional. There will be no death or killing until (potentially) Sunday night. (If you want your character to die for some reason, that is totally acceptable.) Our combat is limited to sword fighting and shadow boxing (mock-brawling).  

A scifi setting without guns?!
Yup. Check out the tech section of our World Database to learn why firearm technology never got past the musket. The rare personal guns are not allowed in space because of the inherent danger of using ammunition inside of spacecraft. When fighting does occur within spacecraft, it is done using melee weapons.

Why isn't there more combat?
​The short answer is that this game is combat light because that bests serves the game design. We have loved larps with lots of combat and epic mass battles! However, in Event Horizon, power is represented not solely through physical force, and conflicts cannot simply be solved with violence. The threat of interpersonal violence is a tool in our story arsenal that will come up in game; maybe you need to threaten someone to get a debt repaid; maybe you piss off the wrong person and get punched out; or you fight a duel with your nemesis not to first blood, but to last standing. Weapons will be used to create tense scenes, not defeat other players. 

Characters

Once you have a ticket, you will be sent a survey about what kind of character you want to play. Then we’ll sit down and cast everyone, creating an interlinked network of backstories and drama. You’ll get your character backstory a few months before the event, giving you time to assemble a costume and find other players to build connections with. If your assigned character isn’t to your liking, you can work with a character coach to make changes – we want every player to be happy, and to get the most they can out of the adventure.

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Why Sci-fi?

The setting of Event Horizon is science fiction with some fantasy elements. We believe that sci-fi is not merely a fun genre, but a chance to explore contemporary subjects and their long term implications. In sci-fi we confront life’s biggest questions: what does it mean to be human? What is our place in the universe? Are we alone among the stars? What are the human consequences of war? Event Horizon can be an escapist fantasy adventure, if that's what you’re looking for from the game, but it can also be a vehicle for digging into intense and potentially very personal subjects through a fantastical metaphorical lens.