I'd like to tell you a story about one of the events that formed a core pillar of Spectacle Ink's approach to player safety and game management, as well as shaping my own personal philosophy on what a facilitators responsibilities are. It's a Saturday morning in early December, 2021, and I'm part of a team running a vampire game at PAX Unplugged. My car has just parked, and as we are headed towards the convention center I get a text message from another facilitator with some bad news; while a junior member of our team was running the sign in table, a player that I'll call 'X' signed up for our game. X was on our ban list due to a long history of abusive behavior, credible accusations of sexual misconduct, and was well known for public statements of overt bigotry (if you haven't played in the vampire community before, you probably think I'm being hyperbolic. If you have played in the vampire community, you're probably surprised that we were only dealing with *one* of these guys). Needless to say, our team was...upset. X had registered early, which meant a guaranteed entry to our game. We had a ban list that should have been used to deny the sign-up, but the table staff were new and unfamiliar with the process at the time. None of us wanted to allow a predator into our space, where they would *at best* make the game uncomfortable and unpleasant for everyone, but many of us were also conflict-averse facilitators, relatively new to PAX Unplugged. The idea of picking a fight in the middle of check in, when some sixty players would all be arriving at once, didn't fill any of our hearts with excitement. We went around in a circle for a while, facilitators proposing different strategies to handle X, or head them off, none of which particularly satisfied any of our concerns. That's when [[Shannon McGovern]] of the props team (and today, the Spectacle Chief Production Officer) poked her head out of the door and said "Can I do it?" For anyone who hasn't met her, Shannon stands just over five feet tall with a perpetual smile, and is one of the cuddliest people you'll see. For anyone who *has* met her, you'll know that Shannon is exactly the person to handle this job. Fast forward to check-in. X shows up, and instead of waiting at the table to receive a character sheet, tries to simply walk directly into game. Shannon has been watching for them, of course, and calls them to the table (and directs them to get in line like everyone else). When X reaches the table, they waste no time in pointing to their name on our sign up sheet - this was a notable achievement, considering we had already crossed their name out, but X was used to being banned from games, and had made sure to write their name *twice* on our sheet, scribbling it the second time in hopes that it wouldn't be recognized. In response Shannon looks at them calmly and says "Yeah. Our game has a no jerks policy. Go away." X blusters. They sputter out a complaint, ask what this is even about. Shannon calmly repeats the policy, then points to the line and instructs them to leave. X looks around for backup and finds none. They deflate and walk away from the table. I don't run Vampire games anymore (players like X being one of a few reasons why), and Spectacle is long past having to worry about people like X feeling entitled to our game spaces. However, the no jerks policy remains a core pillar of our philosophy. I want to take a moment to outline a couple of the things that we learned from it. - You do not owe predators access to your game space. In fact, quite the opposite: you owe it to your players to *actively exclude* predators from your game. When someone plays in a LARP they place a lot of trust in the players around them, and especially in the organizers running it. You have an obligation to those players to do what you can to create a space that continuously earns that trust. - The assumption of good faith can always be weaponized by those acting in bad faith. Our facilitator team sat around looking for a policy we could invoke, an explanation we could give for why X wouldn't be allowed in our game. Looking back on those arguments, I'm baffled as to why we thought that such an explanation even *existed*. Shannon understood that we didn't *owe* X a dialogue, and that in fact any attempt at one would just be used to keep a fight going. Instead, what was called for was bluntness. - Predators are cowards. They will attempt to create a threatening image of themselves, they'll try to make it seem scary to stand up to them, but the people they *target* are isolated or vulnerable. We tangled ourselves up trying to figure out how to keep a predator out of our game without it being a fight - but when Shannon slammed the metaphorical door in his face, they didn't try to kick it down. They walked away with their tail tucked between their legs. Creating a safe and welcoming environment for LARPS is one of the core missions of Spectacle INK, and it's one that I expect we'll never stop trying to improve. As we do that, these principles form some of the core foundations of our approach. *Author:* [[Jacob Shpiece]] *© Copyright 2024 Spectacle Ink. All rights reserved.*