1st BNS Round Table take-aways

1. A diverse group of players and staff from across the world met to share their experiences with the hope of determining best practices for LARP. Documents are already being shared by the attendees. Our desire to get folks talking was a complete success!

2. LARP means a lot to all of us; it is where we met our dearest friends and is our main social activity. It is what helped many of us break out of our shells, find acceptance for who we are as individuals, and gave us an experience like no other.

3. Of the three broad categories between small, medium, and large LARP games, the majority loved the large the most for the political opportunities! However, we discussed haw the lack of some game’s abilities to onboard, entrance, and attract new players on a regular basis was the chief reason for the slow decline of some games. The pool becomes stagnant over time. In the end, if you want to get the best players for your game you need to get the most players you can, because it is not always easy to distinguish who the future standouts will be and those who will someday be the heart of your game.

For those games which consistently attract 3 to 5 new players per session, we identified a few factors:

a. They advertised on FB and on Meet-up groups and were findable on "Find a LARP" like link;
b. Safety must be a priority. Without safety, there is no trust. A code of conduct that keeps it simple and holds staff to the same standards by which players are held (if not more rigorous);
c. An optimal staff to player ratio is between 7 to 10 players to every 1 staff member;
d. Nominating a mentor for each new player is important and and onboarding from amongst the players is really important to help new people during their first sessions. An intro module may help, but nothing really beats having an accessible and motivated mentor (both IC and OCC) to guide a new LARP player through their first few sessions.

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