Guide to Getting Attention from Plot

How to get involved in more stories at LARP

“How do I get more plot?”

As a senior NPC and (more recently) plot member of Alliance LARP Denver, I’ve heard this question from several players. I’ve answered as best I can in the moment, and talked about the problem in-depth with experienced players and other members of the plot team to develop a more complete answer here.

How do you get more plot attention? How do you get involved in the current and ongoing story lines, how do you get to be in the midst of more story, and how do you get more story directed your way?

Who gets all the plot?

The players who “get all the plot” tend to fit a certain profile.

• Well-developed character history. With dangling plot threads, unresolved goals, and driving motivations… which they then follow up on.
• Actively seeks to accomplish goals. A character without motion and motivation is too often a passive character, hard to hook and hard to think of story for. A character who has goals, passions, and is driven to progress on their goals is much easier to hook into stories.
• Gets others involved. They share their information with other people. They pull others into the stories they find. They don’t keep plot and information all to themselves.
• Involved in a group. And not just part of a group: actively involved, invested in the group’s purpose and growth, and with dynamic relationships with the other group members.
• Curious and interested. Has an active interest in what’s going on in the town, even if it doesn’t directly involve them. Asks questions. Gets interested in the small stuff, not just the big stuff. Talks to PCs, NPCs, and even the monsters attacking the town.
• Takes risks. Sometimes these pay off in big wins for the character. Sometimes these mean serious consequences for the character — which is a big win for the player, as it means interesting, juicy plot.
• Makes their own fun. They don’t rely on plot to hand them entertainment. They make their own fun, and sometimes that causes the world to react to their actions, or attracts plot to them.

Join (or create) a group

Understand that the plot team has limited resources. At Alliance LARP Denver, there are currently four plot members, 10–15 NPCs, and 40–60+ PCs… and the player base is growing.

Our goal is to entertain as many people as we can on limited resources.

Individually-targeted story that will only impact one person is low on our priority list. It is an inefficient use of resources.

If you are part of a group, then we can target your group as a whole, entertaining several people with one story. Alternatively, we can target you, and your group will be interested and invested in the story.

So: Join a guild. Join a barony. Start a mercenary company. Found a guild or other organization.

Don’t just be a passive member, either: get involved.

Develop relationships with the other members, and get interested in their histories and their lives. This way, when we hook your character’s friend, your character is more likely to come along for the ride — and vice-versa.

Be active and pro-active

Oftentimes, we don’t target a specific person or group with a story (or “hook” to a story). We send the “hook”, the clue or NPC character that leads to more story, out into the game environment and see who bites. The proactive players are most often the ones who take the bait and, as a result, get “all the plot”.

If you are in your warded cabin all the time, it’s really hard to hook you.

If you never talk to anyone other than your friends, you won’t bite any of the hooks we send out, and therefore won’t get those stories.

This doesn’t mean you can’t play the suspicious warrior who lurks in shadowy corners and never talks to anyone except their traveling companions. In that case, though, you’ll want to have a friend who’s out-going and overly curious and will bite the hook, then bring you along for the ride.

Chase down the hooks. Then follow up on those hooks: seek out more information, talk to other PCs who might have a different aspect of the story, go after anything that looks related to the story.

Make yourself an influential part of one storyline, and there’s a good chance you’ll be involved in any follow-up plot.

Share the love

When you get plot, bring other people with you. Don’t hoard all the information and story to yourself.

There are people in game who reliably share whatever plot they get with a variety of different people. They actively bring people in on their stories. This makes those characters great “plot hubs”: If we give them information, we know it’ll get out there. If we give them a seed of a story, they’ll spread it to the whole town.

They reduce our workload, and this makes them very attractive plot targets.

Sometimes we run stories where different people have different pieces of the puzzle, and all those pieces have to be shared in order to solve it. If you never share any of the information you have with anyone, we’ll quickly learn that we can’t send that kind of plot to you, or else the town can’t solve the problem.

If you try to go it alone with every story we send you, we’ll quickly learn that targeting you with story only entertains one person. This works sometimes, if there’s the potential for eventual multi-person entertainment, but for the most part we’ll learn that it’s a poor use of resources to target you with story.

This doesn’t mean you can’t be a suspicious, solitary character,
but LARP is a social game. The loner is going to have a harder time surviving, and a harder time getting story, than the person who travels with a group and gets involved in the society of the game world.

Have at least a couple of people you can trust, travel with, and share information with. This is a viable play style, and even attracts certain kinds of plot, if we know that hooking you will hook these three people and only these three people as well.

Take risks

The game world is a dangerous place. Don’t walk alone to your cabin, of course, but if you try to maintain maximum safety, you’re not going to get a lot of story.

Take risks! Be bold. Lean into potential conflicts between your character and society, your character and the environment, your character and other characters.

“Plot is a tool for bringing conflict into the world.
Avoiding conflict is avoiding plot.”

Don’t be afraid of making mistakes in game. Don’t be afraid of having your character make mistakes, even if you know better.

Some of the best stories have come out of the question, asked among plot members: “The PCs did what now? How do we deal with that??” or, “The PCs did what? Oh, that’s gonna have repercussions!”

Have goals–and follow up on them!

Send us a character history with unresolved threads of story: missing relatives, missing friends, a mystery from childhood, unmet character goals and aspirations. Have something or several somethings that really drive your character. Know your character’s motivations.

Then — follow up on those goals! Mention that you’re still working on them. Do things in your in-between game actions (IBGAs) towards those goals to show us you’re working on it, you’re invested, and to remind us what your goals and interests are.

We’re much more likely to send you plot related to your history and goals if you seem to still be interested, and if you give us openings in your in-game and in-between-game actions.

Sending you clues about your long-lost relative when you’re not looking for it is hard to do without seeming contrived. Sending you news that you’re actively searching for is much easier and more natural.

Make your own fun

Don’t wait for plot to come to you — make your own! Host a celebration, organize an in-game competition or game, create puzzles and quandaries for fellow characters. Host a party in the guildhall. Learn a skill. Engage in meaningful interpersonal interactions.

Work to make an impact on the society and culture of player characters,
and it’s sure to draw the attention of other entities in the game world. It’ll definitely draw plot’s attention, and create an opportunity for story.

If you want to maximize your chances of getting plot around the fun you’re creating for yourself and others, let plot know ahead of time about your in-game event. Also be sure to let us know if you’re okay with intruding story: PCs put a lot of effort into the in-game events they organize, and we don’t want to distract from it too much by sending in a lot of plot interference.