Fame, identity, Spice Girls |
| Designer: Kat Jones |
| Number of participants: 5–7 |
| Duration: 3 hours |
| The presenter feels that this larp IS NOT suitable for young people aged 16+ |
About the larp
A game about Spice Girls, fame, and identity. Explore the personas, backstage selves, and relationships of a girl group that had a brief period of fame before breaking up. Using collaborative character creation and meta interludes players build complex backstories and relationships while playing out a variety of scenes from the group’s history.
Content Warnings: This game does not contain any pre-written sensitive content. A discussion of potential sensitive content that may arise during the game will take place as part of pre-game safety workshops.
Presented by
Kat Jones: Kat Jones (she/they) is a queer Latina game designer, organizer, and scholar of Sociology; Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies; and Game Design. Kat’s games tend to focus on identity, community, and playful social commentary. Their entry to the Queer Gaymes anthology, Glitter Pits, involves glitter, stickers, and setting oppressive beauty norms on fire. Kat organizes live-action events in a variety of locations, including an academic conference on the Occult. She was on the organizing team for the US run of Just a Little Lovin’ in 2017. Who do you think you are?, their game about fame and identity (and the Spice Girls), received an honorable mention in the 2018 Golden Cobra Challenge.
Parameters
| Physical contact | Light contact; touching hands or forearms |
| Romance and intimacy | Possible romantic themes, no pre-written content, possible demonstrations of affection but nothing beyond this |
| Conflict and violence | Themes of conflict, but not enacted by players; e.g. quiet threats and vengeful stares |
| Communication style | Lots of speech |
| Movement style | Some movement and posing is suggested in the first scene, but can be easily modified for those with restricted movement. All other scenes can be played sitting down. |
| Characters | Players build their characters around a predesigned skeleton or archetype |
| Narrative control | Scenes are pre-defined. Some have set outcomes, others are more open-ended. |
| Transparency | Fully transparent – players will, or at least can, know absolutely everything in advance |
| Representation level | The fictional space looks very unlike the play space, but players will use their imaginations |
| Play culture | The whole concept of rivalry or cooperation between players doesn’t really apply |
| Tone | Moderate |
The Smoke 