Mayfair is a collaborative larp where we tell a story together and where no one’s storyline is more important than someone else’s. However, some storylines will be more visible or involve more people. Since the larp is played over several acts, we recommend a film-like approach to your larping, where feelings can change from one scene to another because time has passed.
In general, we advise that you do not push a conflict to the level where there is no way of resolving it and that you go for resolution at some point to bring it all together in a nice cinematic ending. We will be using a play-to-lift playstyle.
Each day, there will be a calibration break over lunch, during which you can off-game discuss and calibrate things with your co-players. Apart from that, it’s possible to communicate small offgame things during the larp itself, and to ask someone to have a chat with you off-game. However, when larping, we expect you to be in-game, and not act clearly off-game in public scenes and drop out of character. We also expect you not to have your phone visible.
This is a larp where character opinions do not have to be the same as player opinions. There will be play on sexism, cis-normativity, homo- and biphobia, but every time we are off-game, this will not be acceptable. Similarly, transphobia will not be tolerated off-game. There may be trans characters at the larp if someone specifically requests this, but it will also be possible to request not to be connected to that storyline.
The larp will have pre-written characters, and we expect players not to change major details in the character without clearing it with an organiser. However, for things not clearly stated in the character, you can make up your own details, and during the larp new relationships will likely form organically, which is perfectly accepted, so long as you also play with your pre-written relationships.
Transparency
This larp has a “choose-your-own-transparency-level” approach. This means that all characters will be available to read for all participants, but that you choose yourself whether to read someone else’s character. However, for this to work, we ask you NOT to publicly discuss characters’ plots or secrets, both your own and others’. We also recommend that prior to calibrating with any relationships, whether family, romances, or friendships, you ascertain what transparency level you want.
However, if you as a player want no transparency, that does not mean you can control how much transparency other people will have. They should however respect your wish not to hear about anything to do with plots or secrets.
Conflict and Drama
We expect there to be smaller conflicts within families when it comes to what people want for their future. Some characters might have bigger and more dramatic conflicts. All of that ties into the dramatic approach to the larp, where you can feel strongly, both positively and negatively. At this larp, we encourage people to lean heavily into TV-like storytelling with big emotions and focus on your own storyline and sentiments that can change quickly. Try not to get stuck in a predetermined end for your character, but embrace the whimsical and chaotic elements of the larp.
Larp-Specific Rules
Here are some specific rules for this larp:
- Participants should be on-site for the entire larp, including the workshops, and at night. We also recommend staying for the afterparty and the morning after, but it is not mandatory.
- In general, participants will be in-game and playing for the duration of runtime, unless they need to either rest or take care of themselves by being off-game for a while.
- You are in charge of your character’s agency and fate. This also means that you cannot force another player to behave in the way you wish them to.
- A male character is the head of each household and is the one to ask if you wish to marry one of his sisters, daughters, or his mother. He is allowed to refuse a suitor once. However, if the suitor asks again in another act and has in some way become a better prospect, the head of the household should not refuse again (within reason).
- A woman can always refuse a proposal and cannot be forced to marry someone.
- Though titles technically exist in a hierarchy, no matches will be stopped on account of someone being lower in rank than their match. Treat the titles as a cool flair to someone’s name rather than placing them above or below you.
- Men and women are seen by this Regency society as completely separate genders and have different expectations placed on them. This larp will contain generic sexism when it comes to what men and women can get away with (purity culture) as well as what they can do (women dabble in arts, men perfect. Women have hobbies, men can work).
- A woman can be as uninformed about sex as the player wishes them to be. An unmarried woman is, however, assumed to not have had sex ever. A man is assumed to be experienced, but you, as a player, can choose for them not to be.
- A young man and a young woman found alone and unchaperoned at night can be pressured to marry unless they are related.
- Public outings will not happen at this larp. However, homosexuality is not socially accepted in the historically inspired setting, and should a same-sex couple be found out; this will be handled in private within the families concerned.
- Same-sex couples will not act as couples in public but can act as close friends.
- There can be rumours about someone’s sexual encounters, but these will be kept vague on details.
- A personal scandal can make it significantly more difficult for another family member to get married. However, a scandal usually only lasts for one act after being made public.
- If you wish to have a secret romance and for this not to be found out, you will pursue this in the designated place (The Garden of Secrets). In this garden, you cannot play on seeing what anyone else is doing. If you play your scene anywhere else, you are actively opting in for consequences.
- There can be duels at the larp, with sabres. You can set a time and place for this, but if it happens in public, you are opting in for a scandal.
- This larp will not contain clear sexual assault scenes or explicit rape. However, there may be storylines with large age differences, differences in power, and where people nag others for sex.
- Racism is not a theme at this larp and will not be tolerated either in-game or off-game.