New World Magischola- Being Contreras

Being Contreras: What I Learned While Teaching at a Magical College

Introduction

            This paper speaks to my experience playing in the third run of the New World Magischola (NWM), a four day larp in Richmond, VA, that was run during the summer of 2016. From the outset it was my intention to use the experience to reflect on my own role as a Professor of art education, on the systems of power in educational communities, and on the potential of large scale larp for personal and communal transformation.

My First Steps into the Magimundi

I first met Maury Brown at the Living Games Conference, at which we played the Monsterhearts larp together. In Monsterhearts you play teenaged monsters of myth, and their extreme perceptions, appetites, and actions become metaphors for the complex fears and longing teenagers feel. In that game I was a short tempered bully of a werewolf and Maury was a witch that was tired of being ignored. The characters did not get along, and she cursed me to vomit live frogs for a short time, but Maury and I got on well.

Sometime later, Maury and her partner Ben began work on New World Magischola. Inspired by the College of Wizardry larp that had done so well in Poland, NWM was envisioned as a way to bring a new style of play to the United States. Maury asked me to spread the word, and I like to think that the efforts I made to reach out to my contacts in games and academia helped build some of the momentum that propelled the game into a wildly successful Kickstarter. This may be more credit than I deserve really, but given the positive reviews the game has received, I am thrilled to have played any part at all.

Maury and Ben released information about the five houses that NWM would be composed of, and I offered my take on those houses on the social media networks that were developing around the game. One realization that I had early on was that where both College of Wizardry and the works of fiction that inspired it had dealt with questions of class and war, NWM directly confronted the complex issues that arise when you have a diverse society with a spotty history when it comes to treating one another fairly and with respect. It is, in this way and others, not so much a Nordic larp as a hybridization of Nordic and American themes, mechanics, and ideas.

Since I wanted to engage in the game as a reflection on my own practice I asked to play a professor, specifically an artificer. However, I was asked to teach Magical Theory and Ethics instead, which was just as well since my summer had filled up with many more activities than I had expected, restricting my ability to create physical props for my class. I was given A. Contreras (I filled in the name as Alfred), an ideologue who fancied himself a peacemaker, and who believed unequivocally in equal rights for vampires.

Designing Magical Theory and Ethics

            Playing a professor in NWM meant assuming some additional responsibilities. Firstly, I was expected to write two lesson plans for the classes I was to teach, complete with student learning objectives, and to submit requests for any props or on-player characters (NPCs) that I would require. The character I was playing would be teaching all the students in their first year at the school, who were not yet placed in any of the houses around which it was organized, and it was his job to introduce the broad strokes of how theory and ethics existed in the game world of the Magimundi.

In order to craft a class that met both my expectations and those of the people playing “students” I laid out three general goals that existed as thematic ideas to envelop my lesson plans:

1.      To inform students about the magical world.

2.      To create a magical experience.

3.      To impart a lesson that was transferable to the world outside the game.

To accomplish these goals, I designed lesson plans that used an active question and answer discourse with the students, allowing them to be the experts and share their own knowledge of the game world while also creating an active dialog.

For the first lesson I planned on considering the different houses and the roles they played at NWM, a question my students would be very invested in, and I asked for there to be a ghost from each of the houses to speak to what they felt their history and values were. While ostensibly the overarching question was “which House is best?”, the real (not terribly subtle) point was to emphasize the value of diversity.

For the second lesson I wanted a vampire NPC, whom I described as a long-time friend of Contreras’, to speak to the class. In the game world vampires were allowed to exist, but they were forced to remain secret and were not supposed to attend college-level magical schools. Thus, this lesson highlighted that coexistence without discourse was neither just nor productive. I also included a drawing portion, because I teach Art and really wanted to, though I included a discussion as to some magical-world reasons that drawing might be a superior method for capturing the image of a vampire.

Developing Alfred Contreras

The first day of the larp was filled with workshops to share information and techniques and to develop characters history and personality, both of which would be developed still further in play. For me, Contreras was a gregarious and passionate thinker who was one of the longest tenured teachers of the school, and in that regard he considered himself the first among equals (save the chancellor, who had no equal in Contreras' eyes). He was quite lonely, having lost his vampiric paramour twenty years before in a violent conflict between wizards and vampires. While he considered himself a “good guy” and advocated for critical thought in students, he also believed that if they failed to agree with him than they clearly had not thought critically enough.

The workshop also allowed me to develop on of the most important relationships Contreras had at NWM. Kai Hassinger, played by a good friend of mine, was a former student of Contreras’ who had a rockstar personality and a very anti-establishment perspective. Given that my friend has actually been something of a mentor to me in real life, inverting that relationship for play was enormously enjoyable. Several times during the game we combined our real academic differences with the diegetic ones, resulting in a constant burble of friendly philosophical argument. Together, Hassinger and Contreras were the House Monitor’s for Maison DuBois, a group of students known for their pursuit of justice. It seemed an odd fit at first, given Hassinger’s outright and Contreras’ somewhat quieter subversive views, but those same views came to embody our respective professor’s own pursuits of justice in the Magimundi.

The Students

            One thing about being a faculty member is that while we held great diegetic magical power, meaning we could freely ignore student spells and do whatever we liked, we held very little power to alter the Magimundi. We were told to encourage students to deal with whatever problems arose, no matter how big or how small, with the idea that we felt certain they would learn more from the experience. This was expressed to the students constantly by the character of Chancellor Fortinbras, who told them to “Be the wizard you want to become.” This approach had an interesting effect, in that it put in place a directive that practically required professors to trust the students with both the freedom to fail and the freedom to succeed. I can’t say every teacher, nor that every place of learning, can make that claim.

On the first night of the game, many students came to me with broad ethical questions that challenged the laws of the game world. Being the know it all that I was, I calmly responded to each one of these challenges with a self-assured air to imply that I had given a lot of thought to questions about raising the dead, interacting with the mundane world, and the design and use of magical weapons, but always with the implication that ethics did not so much provide answers as a series of challenges to constantly pose to oneself. As a direct result of these discussions I also developed a model of what “responsibility” meant that actually applied both to Contreras and myself, which is that while a person should be willing to explore the ideas and activities they feel drawn to, they also must accept the responsibility for the outcome of their actions. This therefore meant that they should do their best to consider different perspectives and ramifications, at least as best as they were able to, first. Whatever followed, however great or terrible, was a thing that they should admit a connection to and a responsibility for, the flip side of being the wizard they wanted to become. One of the first conversations I had with students in my class was also to distinguish the concept of Ethics from that of Jurisprudence. Jurisprudence, I maintained, functioned on a binary of action and reaction, such as crime and punishment or the submission and resolution of a proposed law, whereas Ethics was a constant questioning and re-assessment of the relationship between one’s self and the groups and societies they are connected to. Whether these are codes Contreras applied to himself, or which I can ever hope to live up to on my own, is somewhat more in question.

Ethical questions played a fairly large role at my run of NWM, most especially when it came to the rights of magical non-human creatures and the maintenance of a magical prison that included forced labor as a punishment. As with other aspects of the school, the impetus for affecting change was placed upon the students rather than the teachers, and they took that responsibility very seriously. As a direct result of their actions, Contreras could sign petitions and stand in support of ideas he treasured, but which he literally could not have advocated for on his own. While I was mechanically constrained in NWM in this regard, the social constraint analog in real life is certainly interesting to think about. Furthermore, students began to take it upon themselves to ask for class time to ponder difficult ethical situations or to engage in ethical discussions focused on their House and their own being outside of class, which was heartening to me because it illustrated an appreciation of the value of my subject, but it also broadened the perimeter of thought available to the class by introducing new and unforeseen quandaries. In this particular case, I feel like the social justice arc the students took improved my class, my character, and even my own sense of possibility for the world.   

DuBois

 Outside of my role as a teacher, I was also a House Monitor for Maison DuBois. Oddly enough, I was not actually aware that my character would be in this role until shortly before the game, but I was happy to take it on. Due to real world issues such as travel difficulties or life events, the house had less characters in it than any other house. We put this down to the idea that, in pursuit of doing what they believed to be right, previous members had either been suspended, expelled, or had perished, including the two previous House Monitors. A side effect was that it was very difficult for the House to gain points for the House cup that denoted achievement within the school, a fact exacerbated by the DuBois tendency to rush off to where they were needed and thus 1) not be where they were “supposed” to be and 2) not be seen by the teachers, who awarded points. Halfway through the game, with morale low, the house presidents asked the faculty to consider allowing them to draft more students if their numbers were as low next year. We realized we could not without breaking the system, and had to turn them down, but an opportunity arose in the form of a new group suggested by Professor Kane, the third and final ethics professor. This group would focus on skills that supported and provided oversight on the Marshals, the law-people of the Magimundi, and because of their focus on doing what was right, DuBois would get first crack.

            I had liked my House when the game began, but it was when they were at their lowest that I really began to love them and cheer for them. As an Ethic professor I considered it to be my duty to be fair in my distribution of House points and so I did not try to balance the scales that way, though after the game I was actually quite hurt to hear that some students believed I had been unfairly biased towards DuBois. Because Professor Kane was involved in discussions elsewhere, it fell to me to tell the students about their new opportunity, and because I believe I work best when fully invested in a thing, Contreras threw the whole weight of his passion and conviction into the idea that joining a group focused on doing what was right, rather than on points, was the heart and soul of what being a DuBois House member meant. The students were enthusiastic supporters of the idea, and all at once there was a crack in the wall they had been up against. Without realizing it, and without pursuing them, House members began to rack up points. They had impressed the Jurisprudence professor several times over, helped rescue the House ghosts who were in trouble, and came to exemplify what it means to be Just at New World Magischola. When the winners of the House Cup were revealed, DuBois had moved dramatically from last place to second. Being beaten by Casa Calisayla, the one house who had been our most ardent supporters and firm friends, was the best loss we could have hoped for.

Both Contreras and I are full of pride for everything the students accomplished, and we both agree that my wardrobe could use a lot more DuBois blue in it. This is interesting to me, as a person who has never felt a particular inclination to sport school or sports colors at almost any other time in my life. I have read a description of the House Cup competition at NWM being almost comically gentle, but I disagree. The points do not matter in a real sense, and are only an arbitrary recognition of effort, and the competition to get more never got cutthroat. However, students were absolutely recognized when they acquired a large number of points, and the nature of the competition at NWM felt as if the Houses were eventually each urging each other to be more true to themselves, to “become the Wizards they want to be”, rather than to acquire points for their own sake. To me, that is what a competition really should be, and so rarely is: a shared pursuit of excellence, not the glorification of a single entity. That Maison DuBois and Casa Calisayla embodied this idea so beautifully in my particular run means the world to me, and why I so proudly roared my approval for the most dramatic second-place finish I have ever seen.

Community and Colleagues

            Contreras did develop relationships with other community members as well, which resulted in some unexpected play opportunities. Because I had invited the ghosts and vampires to my classroom, and because I taught that class three times a day, I had more opportunity to interact with those characters than nearly anybody else at NWM. This meant that I developed a great rapport with them, got to see how their attitudes changed as they interacted with my students, and had the chance to learn as much as my students did about their perceptions of the world we inhabited. Among the ghosts, I developed a particularly strong relationship with Alfie, who was the House ghost for DuBois. As that character’s player noted, the two of them shared a sadness and a sense of resolve that made them kindred spirits despite their many differences, and this encouraged in them a kind of love and respect for one another. The vampire visitor, Melisandra, not only informed characters as to a vampiric perspective and furthered more than a few plots, but also provided a vital long-time friend for Contreras who could tell him that it was okay for him to at last move on from his lost love. The last dance I did at NWM was with Melisandra, a payment for their visit and a quiet thanks for their friendship. The whole of my experience with these terrific players and characters made me feel I had made the right choice in lesson plan design, but also reminded me of the importance of remembering the people and relationships involved in the real world analogs to my classes. These are often not just experts and stakeholders that speak to us, these are our friends and some of the most important and giving people we can hope to know.

            Contreras also got to know some of his colleagues fairly well, and sat in on a few classes. The chief effect of doing so for him was the realization that while he claimed ethics was central to every discipline, his own knowledge of those disciplines was severely lacking. This was made most clear by two interactions with one of the Dueling teachers, Professor Fitzroy. In the first, a distressed and upset Fitzroy left a group of students in a dueling club with Contreras and Professor Whitt, the Healing professor, neither of whom had any idea as to the etiquette and practice of dueling. In the second, Fitzroy made a joke about how he thought he should get all the money from a grant, and then other professors could challenge him for a purse. Contreras realized, in light of the dueling club event, that Fitzroy had knowledge that it was important for him to learn. He also realized that doing so would mean losing continuously to Fitzroy for a period of years, probably with a fair amount of taunting thrown in for good measure. Because of his “first among equals” sense of self, these were hard pills for Contreras to swallow, but he believed that it was a necessity if he were to want to exemplify his own teachings and model them for his students. This is not the first time I have shared this realization, but I am resolved to make it into some of my colleague’s classes this semester and to live by Contreras’ example on this point.  

Romance/Friendship

            The single most important relationship Contreras had at NWM was with another professor, and I would say mine was with the player of that character. After the second class I taught, before our first lunch together as a school, I was feeling a little left out. Because we pushed students towards plots, I had begun to feel like nothing more than a cog in the system of the school, a tool for distributing points and providing context to students. I wondered if I was “doing it right”, if I had not planned enough plotlines for myself before play began, or if I should use the melancholy I felt to meditate further on the effect schools have on professors. During lunch though, I realized that I liked and trusted one of the other players I had met at the game well enough to make use of a suggested romance plotline Contreras had come with. We talked about it out of character and set boundaries, and clarified that I was had been happily married for ten years while they were in a quite stable relationship of their own.

Because Contreras had been alone for a very long time he was a little awkward, a narrative fact that did a great job meshing with my own natural awkwardness. Over the rest of the game we played out their relationship, ending with a very sweet and pleasant waltz at the ball that was the narrative finale of play. Most people were not aware of the relationship, though we made no real effort to hide it, but its existence really defined who Contreras was, and what NWM was, for me. He had to navigate ethical questions regarding who to support in the pursuit of a faculty grant, to consider where he needed to be versus where he wanted to be, and to deal with a protective streak that was not entirely his best feature. These same questions are ones I often face (if somewhat less dramatically) in my own life, and I owe a debt of gratitude to that player for bringing them to the fore. Furthermore, the development of the plotline meant I had the opportunity to get to know and appreciate the player more, and to allow them to get to know me, which provided a dose of grounded humanity. I think the talks we had about our lives outside of the magical world were some of the most fulfilling I could have had, and I believe they stood out all the more because of the wonder all around us.  

Some Final Thoughts on NWM

Debrief and Reflection. At the end of a larp, we typically have a debrief to talk about what happened, address our feelings, resolve interpersonal difficulties, and guide us back to the real world. It typically functions as an element of emotional safety, but asking for players at NWM to consider what they want to take from and leave behind with regards to the character did provide a reflective component. It is not really enough though, if the point is to take home the themes of diversity and inclusion that the larp wants to represent. While the players I have talked to have been amazed by the experience, and really had their minds open to new styles of play, I am not certain that the ideas that undergird that play can be addressed in a single debrief.

This is not the responsibility of the larp organizers though, and is one reason I have been so active in the Facebook discussions after the larp: it provides a venue for discourse and reflection. Talking about the experience, reliving it with friends, considering it in the context of the world we live in, or suggesting theme songs for our characters all provide a new and valuable lens through which to think back on what happened in NWM and on how it applies to our lives now. This paper has been the largest such reflection, but I will not say “culmination”, because I think I will be talking and thinking about this game for years to come.    

Playing for the experience. As I said earlier, NWM is a hybridization of Nordic and North American larps, which creates a lot of interesting areas to examine and develop, and one such area is the narrative goal that a player may have for themselves. In the United States we often “play to win”, which is to say that we tend to want to see our characters (especially heroic characters) succeed at their goals, while it is common in some Nordic traditions to “play to lose”, which means emphasizing negative traits and outcomes in pursuit of a more dramatic story. Elin Dalstål and many of her fellow players use a variant in which they play boldly and vulnerably (http://www.gamingaswomen.com/posts/2012/09/play-boldly-let-yourself-be-vulnerable/), which they do in pursuit of an experience they find to be personally moving. NWM itself uses an opt-in approach to play, wherein they supply some narrative hooks that you could choose for your character to follow, such as social connections or large plot events, but the actual experience of play is actually determined and experienced by the players themselves.

In my own case, when I play a larp I try to play without a preconception as to where the plot will go or what will become of my character, an act I think of as “playing for the experience”. I do this because I reason that the collaborative nature of the media means driving for a fixed ending will restrict my play more than I care to, especially given my reflective goals, and because I conceive of my characters as a complex mesh not really understandable in a binary “win/lose” sense. Even at the end of NWM, where Contreras has seen students rise to social justice, has begun a new relationship, and has realized some of his own next steps, I also know that he has not been everywhere or accomplished as much as he thinks he should have, that his actions will have repercussions he is not ready for, and that he is still too fixed in his belief that he is, in fact, a “good guy”.

A question mark ending such as Contreras’ is possibly less narratively satisfying, but it leaves me room to wonder about what would come next for him (and possibly play out those ideas if I make it to future runs), or to consider his life in-process next to my own. This sort of play was made possible because of the design philosophy of NWM, its length of play and underlying opt-in approach, as well as by my own engagement with the game. The end result, as in ethics and in art, is not an answer, but more questions.

Authority and Teaching. One realization I had during the game was that while professor characters were really just players with no actual authority, the fake authority they had over classes and students translated to actual authority. For all intents and purposes, if we told a student to do something or act a certain way then they felt an enormous social pressure to do so, both inside and outside of the game. I’m not certain every player appreciated the power this pseudo-authority gave us, but I am certain its effect was felt. This is not necessarily bad, as it certainly provides the structure the school needed to function as a game, but I do worry when power goes unacknowledged and unaddressed. This is perhaps the second-most important lesson for me to take back into my professional practice.

The most important lesson is a modification of the Chancellor’s call to the students to “Be the wizard you want to become.” It is for me to “Be the teacher I want to become.” Every day, with every decision I make and no matter how long I do this for, I want to strive towards the ideal of who I want to be. That idea may, and I would argue should, be as in-process as my own being. If I want to change the world, then it is time for me to consider the outcomes, prepare my will and knowledge, and do so. If I want to fill hearts with joy, then it is on me to help cultivate the love and trust that joy will be built on. If I want to be true to myself, then it is best that I stop worrying about what other people may want or expect me to be. Just like the teacher, and the wizard, that I am.