As I mentioned last month, I am running a four-part political LARP over the summer. There are six GMs and nearly 20 players lined up, with the first episode in early June. As of this article everything is still being developed from characters to story arcs, yet the process of setting this up has reminded me of perhaps the most critical element for successful roleplaying: enthusiasm!

If GMs and players are enthusiastic you can plow through a badly designed adventure and everyone emerge positive. The opposite is also true; the adventure can be brilliantly written and even well-executed but if there isn't enthusiasm, failure is the most likely outcome. Obviously, enthusiasm is very much influenced by the events at the table, both in how the GMs runs the game and how the players interact, yet it is a nebulous factor at times.

There are two sides to enthusiasm: players and GMs.

With players it is easy to generate enthusiasm before a game. You give them freedom to create their character and to help develop the setting - that's all there is to it. Consider this: do you or players you know sometimes just like to draw up characters? Probably. For a lot of roleplayers, character creation is their favorite part of the game. In a way that might seem sad or somehow tragic, but you have to understand why this is the case. When a player creates a character they are not just creating the statistics for that character but a narrative as well. They are emotionally and intellectually investing into that character, which is what you want as a GM.

The problem is that once the game begins often the player's vision for their character runs into opposition from the GM's vision and that of the other players for the story being told. There's a reason most campaigns that die, die after the first adventure. The vision, and expectations, of the player were shattered. Yeah, if the player can survive this letdown there might be an even greater story to be told than the one the player imagined, yet we now have an enthusiasm issue.

It's like with the LARP we're running - generating a modicum of player enthusiasm is easy. You give them some open-ended questions to answer, involve them a little in the process, and share some teasers of what's to come. Honestly, this is easy. The challenge is how to preserve that enthusiasm during and after the first episode.

We are doing a couple of things to help with this. First, the LARP is only four episodes; it has a beginning, middle, and clear end. Second, different GMs will run different episodes. So if some of the players are 'meh' with the first episode I'm running they can look forward to a different approach in the next episode. Third, not everyone can make every episode so there will be different players at each episode, which can help add some energy. Fourth, keep engaged with players between episodes so they can keep interacting with the setting to find their footing, to harmonize their vision with the reality of their character. Fifth...okay, not sure at this point but clearly we need a fifth, sixth, and probably seventh technique of cheap gimmicks to preserve enthusiasm. Suggestions in comments are welcome!

I expect us to lose a few players after the first and second episodes due to an enthusiasm gap. It's disappointing and something for GMs to combat, but sometimes it's a little unavoidable, especially when players become really fused to their vision for their character. We'll see how it goes with the LARP.

Sometimes, and this does happen, players become more enthusiastic for a character and campaign. One can hope for this to happen, but don't expect it to happen. If you can just keep your players engaged and moderately enthusiastic you are doing great as a GM.

The other side of enthusiasm involves the GM.

I have noticed this with the LARP. We have six GMs and enthusiasm is for the most part low. Part of this I suspect is nerves, as most of the GMs have never designed or GMed a LARP, this is sort of a tutorial project so I don't have to do all the LARPs our group runs. Another part of it is that I framed the LARP and set up the broad brushstrokes. Yes, I have encouraged them to be creative and fill in the vast gaps within the framework, but this is my LARP or worse it's no one's LARP. This is why group projects can go so poorly - when everyone has ownership, no one has ownership. Right now I am wrangling the GMs to get involved or sort of get demoted to players. This has worked to get most of them to get more engaged, but it was not how I wanted this to play out. That's expectations, the ultimate evil. I had expectations of how the process of designing the LARP would play out even though I knew those expectations were ridiculous. The reality is that if I threw open creating the entire scenario there 'might' be more enthusiasm from the other GMs but we would never have the scenario done in time for early June. Truthfully, GMs are far more fragile than players when it comes to enthusiasm.

Right now we're slogging through the design process and enthusiasm is not great. The good news is that as long as the first episode goes okay the enthusiasm on the GM side will increase. They will have survived GMing their first LARP, which isn't that difficult but can be scary for the uninitiated, and the enthusiasm of the players is contagious to GMs. I have found that the enthusiasm of GMs can carry players through the first adventure or two but that's it, yet the enthusiasm of players can carry GMs through many adventures.

We'll see how it plays out. Will the GMs become more engaged? Will player enthusiasm survive the first episode? Will we get through all four episodes and end on a high note in regards to enthusiasm or will things fade and end on a low note?

Next time I'll go over the set up for the LARP and the results of the first episode.