A commonly overlooked problem is how to begin and end a larp. It’s possible to do so simply by shouting ‘time in’ loud enough for everyone to hear, but it is often jarring and results in a slow start as players feel their way into their characters. Some other options:

• A narrated prelude, describing what has happened that led the characters up to this point. ‘It’s the third day into your journey, after being hired to carry a letter to the merchant’s guild After spending last night at the inn, you set up early morning travelling to the next city. The road is hard and your feet are perhaps starting to get tired when you see something up ahead. . . . Time-in;’ this gives more context to the situation – especially if it is personalised to the characters in question. It can also the good to plan something to happen right away; this is the same technique as some films (e.g. Indiana Jones) where they include an action sequence before even the credits.
• Crossing a threshold. For example, a 1920’s larp might say ‘You are time-in when you arrive at the house.’ The first thing each player does then is walk up to the door, knock and introduce themselves and present their invite to the butler who answers. This act of self-introduction allows the player to reaffirm their role, while crossing the threshold (and in mythic terms, facing the threshold guardian) mentally tells the player they are now entering a special world – the larp, and the 1920’s – where different rules apply.
• Waking up. Some larps have players get into costume but have an off-game party at the location the evening before play starts. As they wake up the next day, they are in-play. Equally the event can end when on the last day the players and their characters go to sleep.

If you have a larp where characters may well die partway through, it can also be important to plan that player’s exit from the larp. Lying dead at your funeral, listening off-game to what people say around you can be an emotionally powerful experience. Beyond that think about what the player experience afterward they leave the main play area. For example at a Danish larp based on Shakespeare’s Hamlet, dead players left the dark play location and went outside to enjoy a warm sunny picnic with champagne; effectively a form of afterlife. It’s easy to see how this completes their mythic journey through the underworld of death.

It is also important to plan what happens after a larp finishes. If the game has been intense, it can be very important to allow players time to debrief and de-role. A chance to talk through what happened (and what was really going on, if you had an objective truth) can be important for a sense of closure. This can also be important to help prevent negative in-game emotions bleeding through off-game. I’ll discuss this further concept in a future article.

Game scholars talk of games – all games, not just role-playing – taking place with a ‘magic circle,’ a social construct that separates them from everyday life. Starting and ending a larp is an exercise in defining and declaring this magic circle, using tools to make it metaphorically or literally manifest.