Mo Holkar: Bleed and Debriefing

Larp is an embodied medium, in which we use our own bodies to portray and convey actions and emotions. In this, it's unusual in gaming, but shares elements with performance arts and media. Larpers identify and have studied the concept of 'bleed' -- the complex of processes by which the participant's feelings may influence those of the character, and the character's experiences may leave emotional marks on the participant. This workshop will explore bleed so as to reach a mutual understanding of it, and we will then move on to 'debriefing' -- part of the larper's toolbox for mitigating uncomfortable bleed effects, and an important aspect of the underpinning of participant emotional safety which in larp we seek to construct. The debrief aims to be a transition zone between exiting the larp and returning to the real world; and there are many techniques available to help people deal with that…