Inside character design: Romances

Casting is just around the corner, and we are happy that so many of you share our vision of the style of plots and characters we have planned! In this blog post, I will talk about ingame romances and about our larp culture as a reference point.

Let’s start with a little bit of statistics. Roughly 30% of characters don’t have any active romances. What this means is that they might have e.g. an ex amongst the characters, but there 

are no romantic feelings between them; they might just be friends. Or a character might have a partner among the survivors on one of the other ships in the fleet. In these cases the romance is not a theme we expect you to play, but the npc is someone whose fate your character would care about. There are also characters who do not have any kind of a romance at all, past or present. All examples above are considered not to have a romantic contact in terms of casting. ​

​Roughly 50% of the characters have some form of a romance as a supporting theme, and about 20% have romance as a main theme. What we mean by “a main theme” is that it doesn’t mean that these characters don’t have anything else to play, but in most cases their romantic partner is their closest and most important contact, and in all cases it is mirrored so that the romance is the main aspect for both characters. Romance as a supporting theme means that the romance can be a relevant aspect in the game, but if it doesn’t play out, there are lot of other interesting themes to explore. In these romances, there might be some imbalance concerning how important the romance is for a character (e.g. a triangle drama).  

A little bit of insight into our larp culture: in Finland, it is very common that characters are written by the organizers and all the plots, themes, and contacts are ready-made. Larps in which you write your own character and create your own contacts are still a minority in Finland. It is very common that there are quite many romances written into each game. Most of us are used to writing and playing these themes. Within the past few years, it has become a standard to talk with your contacts about their boundaries and the experience they are looking for.  Since we have a tradition of prewritten contacts, it is very much frowned upon to do ‘contact shopping’ to choose the players you want to play with while ignoring others. This doesn’t mean we expect you to play with someone you do not feel comfortable with or someone you feel threatened by. What we want to say is that if we can imagine we are in a distant spaceship instead of an elementary school, we can also imagine that our character is attracted to someone we are not. Romance is just one way to create meaningful links between the characters, and the same applies to friends, families and colleagues.
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​Since we have people coming from all around the world and from very different larp cultures, we want to highlight a few things concerning playing romances to create a safe and pleasant experience for everyone. These are pretty common sense things, but it is still better to state them:

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• Boundaries should be respected at all times, even - and especially - if they change during the larp. We expect that everyone who is having a romantic contact in the larp talks to their co-player before the larp as well as during the game. We have arranged time for this before the larp, and there is an offgame room available should you want to have a longer conversation during the larp. Our safety team is happy to help if you feel you need any assistance concerning setting boundaries. We will provide questions and examples to make it as easy as possible to have this conversation. It is of utmost importance to respect the boundaries set by your co-players! We do not tolerate any crossing of set boundaries and should you find yourself in a situation where your co-player is pushing these boundaries, please come talk with our safety team. Being able to determine what you are comfortable playing and holding on to these boundaries as well as trusting others do the same is very important. Being able to trust your co-players to respect these boundaries makes it possible to play intense romances in larps.  ​​

• Romances are between characters. If someone is playing a character that is interested in your character it doesn’t mean that the person is interested in you. No matter how intense the romance is during the larp, it is not real. In an intense experience that is shared with other people - and especially combined with intimate romances - there is a high risk of experiencing bleed. This means that the feelings your character has may feel real after the larp. Playing romance means that you trick your brain to think they are in love with someone they are not, and the feeling might not disappear immediately after the larp ends. However, the other person might not want to hang out with you after the larp, or they might not appreciate the attention after the game has ended. This should be respected. We have a structured debrief in which we hope that everyone participates to make it possible to share your experiences and get your character’s feelings out of your system. And even though sometimes it is good to be able to have a long chat with your in-game partner after the larp has ended, it should be respected if the other person does not want to do that. We have organizers who are there to listen and to help out if there is need to go through your experience with someone.​

• There is no set format on how romances should be played. Some might want to explore the emotions affiliated with playing a romance without any physical interaction with their co-players. Romance can be played out through meaningful dialogues, looks across the hall, or saving someone’s life. It is entirely up to the players to decide how they wish to express the feelings between their characters. Any physical contact should always be slowly escalated to give the other person a chance to say if they don’t feel comfortable - and if they decline escalation, respect that!

Romances can provide extremely intense and meaningful experiences in a larp. Even if you have some doubts on playing romance, I would encourage you to embrace with an open mind all the plots written in your character. However, your safety and your preferences are our priority, and if you have any issues or concerns, do not hesitate to contact us!

Laura, Producer of Odysseus

Pictures by Axelle Cazeneuve, editing by Laura Kröger