Meet Barbara
Barbara (they, she, he) is an educator in the Seattle area. An avid LARPer, Barbara has been gaming with the PNW LARP scene since October of 2009. Although they’re new to owning games, they’ve been on plot for years, and done logistics as well for games such as Refuge and Spite. They are also a full stack web developer, and have helped develop and maintain multiple websites associated with the various LARPs they’ve worked with.
Barbara's LARPing philosophy stems from the things they've learned in the classroom and beyond in the last decade or so they've been gaming. They are looking to create and support games that tell you something new about who you are. Whether that new thing is something you love or something you struggle with, Barb is a firm believer in the idea that it's through LARP that we can learn the most about ourselves.
Barbara also believes LARP can give you access to new tools to learn how to love yourself, work out issues and aggressions you have, and strive to become a better you in the "real" world, by discovering who you are or aren't in a game world. The idea is not that another person becomes your therapist at any point in game, or that you lose personal responsibility for the choices you or your character make. It simply offers another lens through which to view your time as a responsible gamer. (See more about responsible LARPing in the links on the left.)
As a result, Barbara often makes difficult choices as their characters, and creates situations as a plot member that are challenging to players - emotionally, mentally, and physically. The goal is never to hurt anyone, but to encourage growth and learning through gameplay. And although that learning can lead to tears in the moment, the love and healing that hopefully follows ideally makes up for it... and then some! One might say that while Barb doesn't always run Type 2 LARPs, most of their games contain opt-in Type 2 elements.
