INCLUSIVITY

The Quota is an inclusive larp, designed to be played by anyone. Whilst certain cultural and political tensions are a part of the larp design, we have chosen them specifically to fit with our themes.

We believe this will be a better experience without sexism, without homophobia or transphobia, without ableism, and without racism. We ask our participants to respect this decision and to avoid language or behaviours that could be interpreted as breaking this rule.

Some characters may identify as nonbinary, be gender fluid, or without gender. In this larp no character will bat an eye if two men or women show a romantic interest in each other. Likewise, residents in a poly relationship are not worth remarking about. Your character can be straight, bi, gay, lesbian, queer or whatever you choose.

The larp does deal with matters of nationality and nationalism, and considers the experience of immigrants and refugees. There are some characters who have strong opinions about free movement and immigration. For clarity, even these characters do not care about the colour of someone’s skin; only the country on the front of your passport.

HOW THIS AFFECTS PLAY

It doesn’t!

At the larp, gender, disability, sexual preference, and race are not relevant to play or to conflict. If you need to find a reason to hate on another character, you can look at their politics, their class, their attitude to immigration, which way they voted in the Brexit referendum, which city they come from, the football team they support etc. These tensions will be built in to the characters.

We acknowledge that all these issues do affect people caught up in the issues of migration and asylum. We have taken the decision to exclude them from the larp because:

Inclusiveness - there will be those among our player base who struggle in their everyday lives with this issues. Play on these themes will derail their experience and cause them as players (rather than as characters) to feel marginalised and unsafe.

Safety - Each of these issues is complex and demanding. While we are not saying they are issues that can never be played on, exploring these issues through larp requires careful design and thorough work-shopping prior to play. We have to be selective in regards to what we can effectively handle within the parameters of this one event.
The themes focused on in this larp do not require the additional stresses of these tensions to be powerful and meaningful.
This larp is not just about the all-round abuse of the vulnerable. It is about a particular dimension of that abuse, the trauma-inducing loss of autonomy experienced by the stateless, caught up in a system that they cannot escape from.