Auxientia LARP Review

Portrait by Distant Era Photography

At the very end of April, I attended Auxientia, a steampunk LARP just south of Chicago. It’s been five years or more since my last LARP, and I missed the cooperative storytelling game of adult make-believe enough to jump at the chance to go when a letter LARP friend mentioned she was co-organizing it. 

Quick primer: LARP (Live Action Role Playing) is a blanket term for cooperative storytelling through group gameplay. Themes and rules vary, but imagine when you were kids playing ‘the floor is lava’ or ‘let’s be ponies’- that’s LARP.

In December, the organizers reached out to go over the world, lore, and ideas for my character. Spoiler alert: I was too busy and exhausted to settle on much for my character…and 5 months later I hadn’t made much progress there. In fact, I was somewhat dreading getting on that plane to Chicago, certain in my over-exhausted state that I wouldn’t enjoy the LARP due to my lack of preparedness.

Oh how very wrong I was.

Safety first! We all stayed masked during the event, with morning COVID temperature tests and symptom reporting. Nobody got sick, thankfully. Photo by Elmo

The game runners definitely communicated far more than I’ve ever experienced for a LARP (including the blockbuster LARPs I’ve been to that cost several thousand dollars to attend). And early into those communications I told them that my experience with LARP was a mixed bag because of two primary issues:

• I get saddled with helping other players (either voluntold, despite being a paying player, or I feel obligated to because others are being ignored and that’s not OK), sidelining my own character and plot.
• I feel as if I’m “doing it wrong” and begin to retreat into myself, because of GM and/or player response to character choices.

Then things progressed more along the lines of safety mechanics, Who is Your Character, including Zoom meetings with fellow faction members, and snippets of world lore. I had one pre-negotiated scene with a fellow player I didn’t know, where we loosely blocked out a confrontation (and I was feeling a little nervous about that, because brain fog makes me so delayed in processing that I often appear an absolutely idiot and cannot improv well anymore).

The TL;DR is that I had an amazing time- above and beyond my expectations, in a way that felt renewing. 

Making bets with fellow faction members on the outcome of a duel. Photo by Elmo

The good (as succinctly as I can make it):

• There were about 15 players and about 10 staff, making it intimate enough to be involved in others’ plots and allowing for very personal, near-constant gamerunner attention.
  • The ratio of staff to players was phenomenal and it meant my #1 concern (see above) was not ever a worry.
• The staff were fantastic actors, from dedicated NPCs greasing plot wheels within factions to staff who players multiple NPCs depending on character choices. This helped with immersion (especially emotionally) and also upheld a very true and real “yes, and”, eliminating my #2 concern (see above).

• Despite the vast majority of players and staff knowing each other for years and having gamed together before, there was no sense of cliquishness or exclusion.
  • I credit everyone being genuinely good people but also the very apparent and deliberate inclusion by staff of new players through game story lines.
• Disabilities were truly accommodated. Not only was I given a first-floor bedroom (after expressing concern about my mobility and energy levels), every time brain fog made me an absolute idiot, I could turn to an NPC and they’d prompt me with a possible character choice, or patiently allow me the space to gather my thoughts without pressure.
  • I did not realize how scared I was that my brain fog would ruin gaming for me until I had the opportunity to play without being punished for having it.

• The LARP itself included accommodations at an historic summer camp (now owned by a church), which was better maintained than expected and also nicely insulated by woods, and all meals as well as a constant parade of snacks and tea.
  • Never before have I had such steady blood sugar and hydration levels at an event (LARP, faire, SCA, etc.)
• Though I’m not a steampunk fan, per se, the world included a touch of fantasy, political intrigue, social injustice, and other aspects that allowed for flexibility of thought, costuming, and character motivation, which brought greater diversity and more plot to play with.
• The staff had a series of hand signals to check in (for safety), an intimacy coach (especially for conflict scenes), a stage combat coach (for pre-negotiated fight sequences, as dueling and battle happened), and a Can’t Even Corner (full of plush things and privacy, for dealing with being overwhelmed), but they were also watching us (covertly) and had a very empathetic manner, which created an atmosphere of genuine safety, concern, and involvement.
  • I’ve played LARPs that gave lip service to safety, but ultimately left it up to the players to identify unsafe situations and take care of their own self-care (which is nigh on impossible if you are overwhelmed or feeling in any way threatened).
  • This staff clearly accepted that their job was as much about creating a safe and inclusive space for play as it was for progressing story.

• Relatedly, the staff never tried to control or direct the story. They also clearly embrace the concept that players are chaos cats which will scatter at moment 1 (which we did) and had both world plot bunnies and personal plot bunnies for everyone, giving themselves the flexibility to run with whatever we did.
  • They’re pros enough that said flexibility never looked like chaos on our end (I credit it with them having amazing communication among the staff).
• One of the primary NPCs was a LARPer and creative that I’ve long admired. She gave me a hug when we officially met and I about died of excitement.
• Meals were in-character (after the first one), which allowed for an opportunity to chat with characters without the threat of large-scale plots suddenly requiring someone to rush off.
  • Consequently, there were a lot of small and sweet or silly moments that helped build character and direct character choices, over delicious food.
• The staff utilized ‘scene painting’, creating a sense-heavy verbal description of the scenes which couldn’t be literal, but also enhanced it with top-tier props and decor.
  • For example, at one point my character and a few others went off through the actual woods, following the sound of wyvern calls (an Aztec death whistle, which was chilling). They happened upon a wyvern nest (props) that smelled strongly of vinegar (scene painting) and a corpse (scene painting).
  • This approach appealed to both sense and imagination, allowing an amount of immersion that I found very fulfilling.

One of my proudest moments was a seance scene with almost all of the players and several staff members, where my character got to speak with the ghost of her murdered mother. I allowed myself to be vulnerable in front of near-strangers (for the first time since I was a toddler) and feel all the complex emotions my character would’ve been feeling. I wept openly, I didn’t try to tone down my shaking voice, and I didn’t pre-script my lines in my head.

The staff member playing my character’s dead mother met me, emotion for emotion, and it created an intense but ultimately healing several minutes. On the one hand, horrifically, we all discovered that my character’s mother had been murdered at the order of my character’s grandfather. On the other hand, several attendees also cried during the seance, allowing themselves to be emotionally moved by our openly raw emotions.

My takeaway:

Not all LARPs are created equal, but I will merrily participate in any LARP these gamerunners produce (and am in fact on the waitlist for their September ‘fey prom’ LARP).