Interview with a LARP writer who created an entire slice-of-life world

At High Level Games Convention, held in 2018 at the Showboat Hotel in Atlantic City, New Jersey, tabletop RPG players, live-action role-players, game designers, artists, publishers and vendors shared the same busy space. The programme ranged from LARP experiences and tabletop sessions to panels, workshops, an exhibitor hall and immersive escape-room challenges. Its emphasis was not simply on competition, but on inclusive participation, creative exchange and collaborative storytelling.

In that setting, Australian LARP writer and facilitator Mara Venn discussed an entire slice-of-life world she calls Ordinary Hours. Set in the fictional suburb of Wrenfield, it follows bakery workers, hospital staff, students, council volunteers, musicians and retirees whose conflicts rarely involve monsters. Venn explained how a world built around buses, birthdays, rent notices and neighbourhood meetings can produce emotionally intense live-action roleplay without relying on a world-ending quest.

A world built from ordinary routines

Question: Where did Ordinary Hours begin?
Mara Venn: “With a bus timetable, a bakery receipt and a council notice. I wanted the first thing players encountered to feel like evidence of lives already in progress.”

That approach gave the setting depth before a single character entered it. Wrenfield has a hospital with understaffed night shifts, a community centre hosting an amateur choir, a repair café, a football club and a local festival whose planning meetings are longer than the event itself. The streets contain familiar landmarks, but also small narrative problems: a lift is out of service, a mural has been painted over, and two organisations are competing for the same community hall.

Venn calls these details “world loops.” They give participants a reliable rhythm to encounter, while allowing circumstances to change when players make unusual choices. A missing delivery might mean somebody’s shift is unexpectedly free, a neighbourhood dispute might close the bakery early, or a broken air-conditioner could turn an ordinary meeting into a tense encounter.

This makes the slice-of-life format more than a change of scenery. The drama comes from divided loyalties, finite time and the pressure to maintain relationships. A character can have an entire evening ruined by a missed bus, yet that inconvenience becomes compelling because other residents depend on the character being present.

Characters with obligations beyond the game

Venn designs residents around obligations rather than predetermined goals. “A character is more believable when they have somewhere else to be,” she says. Every person in Wrenfield may be tied to work, family, money, reputation or a promise they would prefer not to keep. These commitments create immediate conflicts because every decision consumes time that belongs to somebody else.

The cast also exists on two levels. Player characters enter Wrenfield with their own histories, while non-player characters belong to the wider community and can continue acting when nobody is watching. Venn keeps brief notes on relationships, rumours and unresolved favours, allowing facilitators to introduce an NPC who knows the answer to a question without making that character feel like a disposable source of information.

That degree of continuity changes how stories are told. A rumour can spread before a session begins. An absent character can be noticed at the bus stop or mentioned by a colleague. Players inherit consequences that they did not personally cause, while their actions can alter the outlook of people they may not meet until another gathering weeks later.

Character development also depends on clear boundaries around consent. Venn provides content notices, opt-in tags and methods for stepping out of a scene without embarrassing explanation. Those choices support the convention’s communal ideal: collaborative storytelling works when participants can shape the fiction while retaining control over their own experience.

Writing for collaboration rather than control

A world of this size could become paralysing if the writer tried to specify every street, conversation and possible outcome. Venn therefore uses a layered world bible. The permanent layer contains geography, institutions and major relationships. The seasonal layer records festivals, weather and recurring conflicts. Temporary material belongs to individual scenarios, allowing organisers to introduce new circumstances without rewriting the entire setting.

The facilitator receives story seeds rather than rigid scripts. A seed might describe a council chairperson who needs a quiet ally, a missing community-hall key or an argument over whether the football club should share its rooms. Each offers several directions, including silence or refusal. That space is essential in live-action roleplay, where improvisation is more convincing when it grows from established motives rather than random disruption.

The convention’s practical advice was captured in a recap of the first adventure module, which stressed clear objectives, clues and consequences. Venn applies the same discipline at community scale. Even a scene about returning a borrowed cake needs a question, competing interests and a result that matters to somebody standing in the room.

Her central technique is to write motivations instead of solutions. A character wants to preserve a reputation, care for a relative or avoid disappointing a friend. Players then decide how to pursue that motive, and their methods reveal values that no character sheet could record. The writer’s role is to make those values consequential rather than to decide what happens next.

Testing the world in the open

Venn develops Ordinary Hours through playtests, short public sessions and feedback from facilitators. At gatherings such as High Level Games Convention, a creator can test whether a stranger understands the premise, remembers a detail and feels safe within the tone. A technically intricate world fails if its first-time players spend more time decoding reference material than making choices.

Feedback is collected around usability rather than literary judgement. Facilitators note where players became confused, which prompts invited unwanted assumptions and when an NPC delivered information too directly. Venn also watches for cultural blind spots, asking participants whether a joke, role or conflict carried an unintended implication. That process makes revision more precise and preserves the inclusive intent of the setting.

Useful too was the recap on tabletop project crowdfunding, which examined realistic budgets, transparent rewards and careful promises. Venn applies the same principles to LARP. A project might need reusable props, printed neighbourhood documents, accessible venues and travel for performers before it can claim to support a full weekend of play.

Australian groups can recognise Wrenfield through local rhythms. Sydney’s suburban rail corridors and apartment routines could shape a late-shift storyline, while Melbourne’s laneway cafés and tram stops might inspire an improvised search through the CBD. Brisbane’s riverside parks, summer heat and sudden downpours offer equally strong possibilities for changing the mood of a scene. Even the familiar Australian pub trivia night can become a useful LARP location, with teams, rounds, prize money and intensely competitive regulars supplying ready-made social friction.

The Australian market also shapes how such a world is funded and shared. Local game stores, convention organisers and community-hall operators often form the practical backbone of live-action play. Campaigns need Australian-dollar targets, GST-inclusive retail pricing and realistic domestic shipping costs. Regional groups may also face substantial travel distances, so digital maps, modular scenarios and low-cost props can be more valuable than lavish production.

Practices for a lived-in world

Venn’s recommendations focus on preparation that supports, rather than overcontrols, the people playing.

• Begin with recurring places, work routines and public notices that show ordinary life already exists.
• Give every major character an obligation outside the present scenario so their choices carry personal weight.
• Keep scenario information flexible, supplying motives, pressure points and consequences instead of a single required outcome.
• Establish consent tools and content boundaries before play so intense themes remain collaborative and respectful.
• Test the world with unfamiliar participants, then revise confusing details, inaccessible assumptions and unbalanced expectations.

These practices keep a world bible useful without making it a barrier. Its job is to help organisers remember what has happened, not to remove surprise. The most memorable material usually combines careful preparation with room for players to interpret a situation differently from the writer’s original intention.

The insight worth keeping

Venn’s achievement was not the size of Wrenfield’s map or the number of residents she could name. It was the way she made small commitments feel consequential. A delayed apology, a borrowed chair or a shift covered at short notice can carry the emotional weight that a spectacular battle scene might otherwise overshadow.

The insight worth keeping is that ordinary life already contains conflict, care and narrative momentum. A convincing LARP world does not need a cosmic quest; it needs a chair pulled up to a table, a shift nobody wants to miss, and enough trust for players to make those familiar moments matter.