More Than Friendship

Written by Quinn D and Eva Schiffer 

 A larp for 1 to 8 pairs of players (2 to 16 players) and 1 facilitator over 3 hours 

Note: This game can be played online through video chat or in a face-to-face setting.

Your relationship seems to defy words and conventional cultural understanding. You've talked about labels before, intimate friendships, platonic, companionate, committed, love, more than friendship, it's just that there isn't an understood word for it and they all feel insufficient. But you both understand it, in the ways you've connected your lives, in the deep understanding you have of each other, the ways you communicate without words. Your relationship will evolve and grow over time, but you know it will always be there.

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 More Than Friendship is a near future slice of life larp about committed friendships. Not what society thinks is a friendship, but much more, with an importance most people only place on a primary romantic partner, but it's not a romantic relationship. These characters’ platonic relationships can be companionate, intimate, loving, dedicated and are their most important, with any outside romantic or sexual relationships being secondary to them. The character relationships will outlast the larp, and play will focus on the growth and evolution of it. Characters can be played as any romantic or sexual orientation, but those attributes will not be directed between the characters.

During this larp players will play out several years of the characters lives in scenes, skipping ahead in time after each scene. Players will discuss new details in their characters’ lives using provided prompts during each skip forward in time. All roleplay will be with the same roleplay partner, making it a two

player larp, but with multiple pairs of players playing at the same time, with potentially different characters in each pair. This larp is replayable.

If you can't quite picture what these relationships are or what this larp really is, you might find this article with real world examples helpful: 

https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2020/10/people-who-prioritize-friends...

(This article will also serve as an information sheet for the larp)

We hope that players will leave with more than just memories. This larp is intentionally subversive of amatonormativity because it highlights and prioritizes non-romantic non-sexual relationships.

As participants will develop some details during the larp, several safety techniques will be used to allow participants to remove content in advance or during the larp. 

Content Warnings

The casting process will allow players to avoid some of the specific character content, but all the characters will go through some relationship struggles. Content in specific characters includes: loss of a parent (backstory), death of a spouse (backstory), acrimonious divorce and infidelity (divorce from and infidelity by an NPC in backstory).

Cover photo by Cornelia Steinwender