Every society has some concept of social status; prestige attached to social position. Status predates mankind itself, for even animals have a ‘pack alpha.’ It is worth considering how to include the concept of social status within the fictional society of your larp setting. This can be particularly important for exploring certain themes, such as society.

Determining Status

While defining the larp setting, it can be worth considering what determines social status within the society. In many modern societies occupation is the major factor (e.g. a newly qualified teacher is higher status than a bin collector, even if both earn the similar salaries). More materialist societies tend to tie status more closely to financial position. Other typical factors include ethnic background, family’s status (e.g. inherited noble rank or caste system), religion, gender, or other associations (e.g. criminals may be sentenced to low social status, such as slavery).

Related to this is what forms of social mobility exist (or don’t) in the society. If a pirate steals a huge treasure, can they buy their way into high social status (as Francis Drake did) or do they remain an outcast?

Within a fantasy context, it can be worth considering how fantastical elements interact with this. If magic can only be used by those with a natural gift for it (as in Ars Magica), how does society handle it? Are Magi considered a particular ‘occupation’ with relatively high social status (like the Psi Corps in the Babylon 5 TV series)? Do they form the noble ruling class, or does something stop that happening? What happens when a low status serf manifests the magical Gift? Are they elevated in social status, or made outcast and hunted down as a threat to the social order?

It can be worth considering how other intelligent fantasy creatures are viewed within this. Humans leaving offerings out for the ‘fair folk’ are effectively playing on faeries as high status people. Even if not within ‘society’ in a narrow sense if the fair folk are known about and acknowledged they are within the social paradigm in a wider sense, just as a social outcast is.

Status Symbols

It is worth thinking about symbols of status, and how those can be represented in a larp. In most societies, people use dress to visually represent status. This can also serve to remind players of different character’s relative status.

For example, in a medieval monastery, the abbot can be distinguished from another monk by the finer grade of cloth his habits are made from. You might decide this is too subtle a level of detail or too awkward to represent with costume, so instead write that the abbot always wears a signet ring and gold cross to remind people of his status.

If you are creating a fictional setting from scratch, then you have more freedom to design customs that fit in with the larp format. A simple and effective approach is to have a certain colour as indicating ‘high status’ (such as a purple stripe representing a senator in ancient Rome). The more of this colour the character wears, the higher status they are. This can be also be referenced in other parts of the setting material – perhaps that colour of dye is extremely expensive due to the way it is produced.

In many societies, there are laws against wearing symbols that misrepresent your status. ‘Pretending to be a policeman’ is still a crime today. Aside from in-game laws, you may decide that such symbols are fulfilling both an in-game and off-game function and have a rule / convention that players cannot do this. A serf dressed in a (stolen) king’s robe should not be able to pass themselves off as a king, even if in a larp (where everyone is already playing something they are not) a player thinks they can do this.

Playing Status

It is important to convey to players what status means and how to interact and react to it. This might be done via written briefing material or a pre-event session / workshop to demonstrate it.

Again, it can be important to consider whether these are fully in-game customs or also include an element of off-game rules. This point relates to whether the larp is about the journey (characters struggling to reach their goals) or the destination (experiencing what the culture feels like) as discussed in the second article in this series, Journey vs. Destination.

For example, one larp were some characters were slaves included a rule ‘no slave can make eye contact with a free person.’ As a consequence, the slaves found themselves unable to assert themselves at all and the players got some hint of what the experience of slavery feels like.

It can be interesting to define a few basic social rules around status. Drama can then arise when characters break them, either accidentally (which may or may not be an accident on the part of the player, depending on your play culture) or deliberately (to make a point). For example:

• In a feudal society it may be regarded as rude for a lower status character to approach a higher status character unless directly under them (so a serf can petition his own lord, but not go round gossiping to other lords).
• A higher status character’s word may be more highly regarded than one of lower status. For example, a homeless drug addict who complains of police mistreatment may be ignored, but a policeman who claims he was assaulted by the addict will be taken seriously. This rule was used in the Camarilla international vampire game – when the high status elder is found standing over the ash pile of a murdered vampire, clearly the high status elder is right when he sees the neonate caitiff in the next room did it (and the neonate is wrong when he denies it), even through other characters can trivially use aura perception to discern the actual ‘truth.’ In fact, when the neonate challenges the elder’s word he actually commits the crime of sedition and treason (far worse than the murder) against the Camarilla by trying to undermine its system of status.

I recommend not defining too many status rules in-game or otherwise since that can get confusing. A few board brush strokes can suffice. The idea ultimately is create a framework for meaningful interactions. Ambiguities will naturally arise (how do different types of high social status compare? E.g. should the bishop sit higher or lower at the feast table than an earl?) These emergent complexities from a few simple rules make the status system feel organically real, and can be a rich source of drama.

Inter-cultural Status Play

This article has assumed that the play is within one culture. A lot of larps often include many cultures. If they are cultures that regularly interact, then this does not make as much difference as you might expect – a social framework for these interactions will already be established. If this is not the case and cultures are discovering each other for the first time, the situation is a lot less clear (e.g. will high status in one culture be recognised and acknowledged by the other?). This can also be a strong source of drama.

Conclusion

We’ve looked points to consider when designing social status customs within in-game cultures, how to represent them in play and how to play upon them to generate drama.

A remaining question is what rule mechanics if any to include. Some older larps (such as met vampire) include hard game mechanics for tracking status, sometimes without explaining what they mean or how to play upon them. Alternatively you can brief the players in the customs of status within the setting and not have the mechanics.