Intercon O con report -- part II, Brockhurst

[breakinglight11]

Friday night at Intercon I ran my most recent game, Brockhurst, a Downton Abbey-inspired larp that ties into my greater Breaking History universe written in collaboration with Bernie. I was a bit nervous, due to some weird issues the first run had at last year's Festival. There were some problems with power dynamics, and certain players had a hard

Comments

[jducoeur]

Nobody has the right to boss anybody else around, and nobody has to take orders they don't want to take.

Suggestion: you might want to write this into the game materials, "in persona" as it were. I mean, in the period you're talking about, this is more or less literally true -- consider how important the plots about losing servants are becoming in Downton these days. At this time, there are too many positions chasing too few willing servants, and the good ones are getting to be like talented software engineers in the modern day, with everybody wanting them.

So it may be worth outlining that "servant" does not mean "slave", and that if you're an ass to the folks downstairs, they might up and leave -- and worse, hurt your reputation in doing so. Those are serious consequences...

[breakinglight11]

Yep, it's in the rules now too. But I really like your suggestion of making it diegetic by mentioning how difficult it is to find/keep good servants, to kind of make an in-universe reason to balance the power!