Image from Monitor Celestra by Larson Kasper

Basics of Opt-in, Opt-Out Design pt 4: Rage Quitting as a Measure of Your Expectation Management Skills

This is the fourth part of a series on Opt-In, Opt-Out Design. These posts are intended to establish a bunch of concepts and basics before going into nitty gritty (case studies and so on). The first part was an introductory video. The second instalment was a text about why the opt-in, opt-out design philosophy is a good practical baseline, especially if your players have limited … Continue reading Basics of Opt-in, Opt-Out Design pt 4: Rage Quitting as a Measure of Your Expectation Management Skills

Basics of Opt-in, Opt-Out Design pt 3: What They Need to Know at Signup

This is the third part of a series on Opt-In, Opt-Out Design. These posts are intended to establish a bunch of concepts and basics before going into nitty gritty (case studies and so on). The first part was an introductory video. The second instalment was a text about why the opt-in, opt-out design philosophy is a good practical baseline, especially if your players have limited … Continue reading Basics of Opt-in, Opt-Out Design pt 3: What They Need to Know at Signup

Basics of Opt-In, Opt-Out Design, Part 2: Why?

“Opt-in, opt-out design” = designing participation that empowers individual participants to continuously make informed choices about engaging in an experience as well as in specific aspects of that experience. Opt-in, opt-out design operates on the assumption that to feel curiosity and take initiatives, your player first needs to feel safe. (This is different from being safe, which is important for other reasons, and should be the … Continue reading Basics of Opt-In, Opt-Out Design, Part 2: Why?

Basics of Opt-In, Opt-Out Design, Part 1: Introductory Talk

My keynote from the Living Games Conference 2016 has been released, and having first re-watched it in that cringing way one always does I’m actually now quite happy to share it! It covers an insane amount of ground in 20 minutes, all of which this blog will go into in depth later. (I’m also referencing talks that John Stavropoulos and Maury Brown gave just before mine; they’re really … Continue reading Basics of Opt-In, Opt-Out Design, Part 1: Introductory Talk

What I Think About When I Think About Larp Design, Part II: The Disciplines

In my previous post, I wrote about viewing the designable parts of your larp as not just the event’s run-time, but also pretty much everything leading up to it, and also everything that happens after, potentially for ever. (No, really). Here are some of the things I mean in my mind when I think about larp design. (I drew the diagram with my finger again!) … Continue reading What I Think About When I Think About Larp Design, Part II: The Disciplines

What I Think About When I Think About Larp Design, Part I: The Total Larp

The experience of your larp is shaped just as much by what happens before and after the event itself as by your game mechanics Since live-action role-playing was invented, our focus for how to make larps better has been about optimizing game design: creating a “rules machine” that given the input of players and player choices will output the kind of experience you are aiming … Continue reading What I Think About When I Think About Larp Design, Part I: The Total Larp