Posted by Senda Linaugh

https://gnomestew.com/a-larp-approach-to-practicing-tabletop-safety/

https://gnomestew.com/?p=52952

If you’ve done some tabletop and dabbled in or heard about some larp, there’s one thing I think everyone who appreciates a good collaborative, mechanics light game has picked up on: the conversations about safety in larp are lightyears ahead of what we’re talking about at the table. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about safety at my tables, but I remain in full learning mode when larping – but the best part is, the work that is happening in larp largely translates back. 

What is different about larp safety?

(This is not an article about why you should care, and it is not an article that will try to convince you to. I will only say, as I have said before and as has been said many places before by many people – being able to create an environment in which it is expected that humans have boundaries and will enforce them creates a space where it’s much easier to play more intensely, closer to those boundaries than we might otherwise want to engage. If that’s not the gaming experience you want, or if the concept of clear consent is a problem for you, I invite you to move along and not waste your time on the rest of this article as it will only make both of us upset.)

My personal interest in larp mimics my interest in TTRPGs: mechanics light or negotiation based, Nordic-inspired games with strong intended emotional experiences. My most major experience with this to date, which only emphasized to me that I want desperately to do it again, was the Dresden Files 1920s larp by Mooney Bin Entertainment. If you haven’t played in an organized larp before, there’s some additional session 0 style work to do before you play. Yes, we talked through character relationships and touched base on the connections, and then we spent some serious time on safety in a way we don’t usually do it at the table: practicing. 

Why practice for something to go wrong?

The best thing you can have in your back pocket for an emergency is a plan. When your prefrontal cortex goes into full react mode is not the time to be trying to figure out what to do – it’s the time when you already want to have a plan in place, or instincts that will see you through. If all goes well and you never have to use the plan or the practice? Awesome! I didn’t need to at Dresden – but knowing how to react if I did was the best safety net I could have asked for. Practice at Dresden, led by the brilliant Ericka Skirpan, meant putting ourselves intentionally in uncomfortable and escalating situations: yelling, physical impact, etc. so that we could feel our boundaries and tap out of the situation. It was practice for the feeling, the action, and being completely cool at accepting the other person enforcing their boundaries.

Okay, how do we practice at the table? 

I am still thinking about how I want to bring this to my tabletop sessions, but it feels like it would help particularly in situations where I’m playing with folks who haven’t played together before. With a long standing group, we’ve built the trust and practices over time simply by length of association. At a convention or running a one shot, or even at the beginning of a new campaign, what is the best way for me to take these practices and make them work for the table?

This is a brainstorm of my thoughts on the concept so far. 

Things I am already doing: 

1. When you are the facilitator, engage the in-game safety tool you’re using early in the game on a low risk topic. This is a good way to lead by example, and I usually do it on something I’ve brought up myself – naming an NPC something that I wouldn’t actually want in the game and then using the X card to edit it out is one of the easiest. In setting up Lines and Veils, I am always ready with content in case no one jumps in first, and usually once we’ve started talking folks will get more comfortable about adding things to the list. 
2. In tabletop, we can use safety tools as a shortcut to structuring a conversation about content in our games. They already have rules and expectations to help make them easier to use, based on the type of tool itself. With Lines and Veils, we know we’re setting up the boundaries of the space we’re going to play in. With the X card, we know we’re going to edit content. The structures can be helpful but in the end, what we’re really trying to do is have a conversation – to negotiate how we’re going to play together. The good news is that we already do this! When we’re negotiating how our characters know each other, or deciding what kind of setting we’re playing, or why these two are always fighting, we’re negotiating. It’s easy and seamless to bring that energy to your game itself, because hopefully you’ve already started as part of the default set up for your game. In game, it looks very similar – instead of “what if our characters are siblings,” you might say “what if we had a scene here where we fought about…” Plenty of mechanically light games already assume this: anywhere you’re setting a scene, you’re already doing it when you build it together. It is much easier to slip in and out of character at the table, so take advantage of it. 

Things I could be doing:

1. Referencing very directly, I think volume and intensity are something we could practice quickly at the table. This might also include practicing appropriate volume for the space you’re in – a cafe or a convention space may be different than around your kitchen table. (If you really want people to scream at each other, angry sounding compliments are one great way to do this.)
2. Have everyone throw out something they’d like to edit, and hit the X card for it. Maybe this could be part of the ritual around creating Lines and Veils – it practices the physical action, the edit, and validates that everyone can reach the card (or, my preference, say it/make an x with fingers etc. because reaching is less than ideal, so whatever you expect from a revoking of consent with your tools for your game).
3. Practice saying no. What if we all turned to the person next to us, offered up a wild idea, and then they just got to say no? Then reverse. Just practice the act of saying no – it’s not something a lot of us are good at (especially folks of varying marginalizations and life experiences). (Source: Be Prepared to Set Boundaries)

I definitely have more thoughts on specifics we can and should bring to the tabletop conversation from negotiation-based larps, but I’ve kept my content here limited to the act of practicing. Worth your time to read, from Ericka Skirpan (the article that made me think about this):  https://thespacebetweenstories.com/2025/06/02/safety-is-personal-wearing-your-larp-seatbelt/ 

Do you have ideas about things we could practice at the table before getting into play?

https://gnomestew.com/a-larp-approach-to-practicing-tabletop-safety/

https://gnomestew.com/?p=52952