Life and Trust: A Master Class in Experience Design (Part 3)

This is going to be the first of these posts where I think you actually need to read the “Part 1” and “Part 2” to get the full scope of this blog post. I try to write each one in more of a episodic format, but the truth is, some of these ideas are compound and build off of each other. So at this point if you didn’t read Part 1 and Part 2 of “Life and Trust: A Master Class in Experience Design” I suggest that you do go back and read them first.

Also I want to say that there are details I’m deliberately leaving out in these write-ups, and it’s not because I’m being coy—it’s because Life and Trust is something that must be experienced to be understood. Like the old adage about drugs or sex, you can talk about it all you want, but words fall short of the full truth. No description—no matter how vivid—can replace the actual feeling of being inside that world, surrounded by it, reacting to it in real time. These breakdowns aren’t meant to spoil that experience. They’re meant to learn from it and apply it to other forms of immersive design like LARP and other formats of immersive experience / theater.

What I want to talk about in this part of the series is the role of space—not just the visual design of a room or the way it's lit, but how space is used as a tool. Specifically, I want to focus on the silent, deliberate work of the golden-masked stagehands.

During my run, I followed a scene that led into a bedroom. The space was sparsely but purposefully designed: a bed, a fireplace, a chair, a corner vanity, and a set of tall glass windows that looked out on what appeared to be a courtyard. It was elegant, restrained, and incredibly smart. While the room could easily hold a dozen people inside with the actors, another dozen could—and did—watch from the outside through the glass. They stood like horned-masked voyeurs peering in, still fully engaged, still part of the narrative, even from the outside.

At one point, during a particularly charged moment, a figure—let’s just call him an infernal investor—entered the room by rotating one of the glass panels and stepping inside. The scene that followed was full of tension, unspoken deals, and choreography involving ballet slippers and temptation. As it resolved, the characters exited in different directions. The moment was gone, the room emptied, and the energy shifted.

And that’s when I saw something most people likely didn’t.

Because I had entered the room early and ended up near the front, I was also one of the last to leave. The crowd rushed out to chase the actors, but I lingered. I looked around. I considered taking a new path, maybe climbing out the same way the masked demonic benefactor had entered. But before I could move, I saw the golden-masked stagehands step into motion. Silent, focused, and deliberate, they reset and changed over the space. They straightened the sheets. They turned a chair. They closed the window and picked up some clothing that the previous actors had left behind. They didn’t just clean—they recontextualized.

A few minutes later, a completely different set of actors entered. A new story began. It was the same room, the same space—but used completely differently. Another group of viewers, both inside and outside, watched something new unfold in the exact same location. And because the staging, pacing, and scene content had changed, it felt like a new place. It no longer was a snapshot of history from the prior actors, this was now “their bedroom”.

This is the lesson for LARP designers: scene efficiency and impact verses investment.

Props cost time and money. Good props cost both. Space is never infinite. The temptation to create a new environment for every major plot point is strong, but it’s not sustainable. The answer isn’t to do less—it’s to do smarter. Life and Trust doesn’t waste a single inch of its space. Instead, it designs its spaces for reuse—not by duplicating content, but by layering narrative possibilities within a flexible environment.

The bedroom wasn’t a one-use set piece. It wasn’t overwhelmed with hyper-specific props that locked it into a single story. It was designed to suggest a time, a tone, and a world without boxing itself into a singular narrative. The room wasn’t the story—it supported the story. And that meant it could support more than one; and it did.

In LARP, this means writing for your space instead of writing something first and then trying to make the space fit. Module areas, especially if they’re built up or dressed for effect, should be multi-use by design. If you control how and when people enter, what they see, and what purpose the space serves in their narrative, you can reuse a single space in multiple ways. You can run different modules or scenes with different themes, different emotional arcs, and entirely different casts—all in the same location.

The trick is in controlling the context. Divide your player base intentionally. Use timing, NPC routes, and narrative beats to funnel different groups into the same space at different times. If player “Group B” enters the space shortly after “Group A” leaves you can ensure that the two narratives have difference audiences. Let each group see that space in a different way, for a different reason, with a different result. Yes, you may have the occasional observer who stumbles across more than one use of the space—but even then, if the scenes are distinct enough, it still works. What they witness won’t be a repetition—it’ll be a transformation.

When you design your spaces to invite multiple uses, you make your world denser, more sustainable, and more believable. That doesn’t mean you need to compromise quality—quite the opposite. A single space, carefully dressed and mindfully written for, can do more than half a dozen hastily arranged ones. Control how your spaces are seen. Reset them with intention. Make every scene count.

The golden-masked guides of Life and Trust aren’t just quiet crew—they are conductors, weaving behind the scenes to keep the experience flowing. But the golden-masked guides didn’t just reset scenes or manage props—they curated experience scope. They controlled what participants could see, when they could see it, and how those transitions felt. And they did it all without a word.

Throughout Life and Trust, these masked crew members moved with purpose, opening and closing doors not just as a function of logistics, but as an act of storytelling. When a room was no longer part of the active narrative, the doors would close and, eventually, lock. When a scene was done, it was immediately set for the next scene. There was no announcement, no signal, no whisper that this space was “done.” It simply faded from access, and with it, the participants moved on—guided by the flow of opportunity, not by artificial barriers. When a new space was meant to open, particularly those attached to major reveals, the golden masks would unlock the doors in silence. There was no flourish, no grand gesture. A door that had previously gone unnoticed was simply... available.

What made this effective—brilliant, even—was that it never felt like restriction. In traditional games, especially older RPG video games, the audience knows exactly when they’re being blocked. A random cat sits in a doorway and the game tells you “you can’t go this way yet.” A fallen tree or pile of rubble blocks the path until the right quest flag is flipped. These moments jar the player. You’re no longer exploring a living world—you’re navigating a logic gate. That never happens in Life and Trust.

Doors are closed everywhere. Some are set dressing. Some are narrative boundaries. Some are simply there, and you don’t know which is which. That ambiguity is intentional. It creates a world that feels full of possibility without overwhelming the audience with access. Because the design builds in visual and structural variety, when you find a door that does open—especially one that wasn’t accessible before—it feels earned. It feels like the world is expanding in front of you, rather than being held back and doled out on rails.

This is a massive lesson for LARP and immersive experience designers: control the scope without making the limits feel artificial.

Too often, we try to manage player flow with human bottlenecks, hard redirects, or out-of-character explanations that fracture immersion. Instead of building invisible boundaries, we fall back on traffic cones, "staff only" signs, or NPCs who have to say, “You can’t go there yet.” These approaches work, but they take players out of the fiction. Every time we rely on a real-world instruction to gate content, we are reminded that we are in a game.

But Life and Trust shows how to do it differently. When the world is filled with closed doors—some real, some fake, some waiting—the act of opening one becomes an emotional moment. The golden-masked guides orchestrate that rhythm with grace, silently cueing movement and curiosity without demanding attention. Their presence alone—the flash of a gold mask turning a key, the quiet pivot of a door handle—is enough to signal that something is changing. And that is enough.

For LARP, this means leaning into perceived possibility. Not every door needs to lead somewhere. Not every path needs to be accessible. But players should never feel like they are being denied an experience—they should feel like they are being invited into one. If a room is sealed, let it be sealed in a world where many things are sealed. If something opens, let it feel like the world is revealing itself rather than giving permission. You don’t need to show players every tool you’re using. Just let them walk the halls and believe there’s always something around the next corner.

There’s still more to explore. In future installments, I’ll dive into costuming, the power of the silent observer, and how those ever-watching golden masks can teach LARP Guides something crucial about presence, energy, and when to hold space versus when to shape it. But for now, take this lesson forward: build smarter, reuse better, plan ahead, and never let a good room go to waste.

Life and Trust: A Master Class in Experience Design (Part 2)

Immersive experiences live or die on their ability to manage people effectively. The flow of a crowd, the timing of engagement, and the way space is used all determine how smoothly an experience unfolds. Life and Trust doesn’t just excel at this—it turns logistics into an invisible art. Through its spatial design, its use of secret actor pathways, and its careful modulation of crowd energy, the production maintains a seamless experience where every moment feels alive. More impressively, it does so without the audience ever realizing they are being guided.

At any given moment, nearly every part of the Life and Trust space is active. If an actor isn’t in the room with you, you can hear something happening nearby. A conversation down the hall, a commotion from an unseen space, music functioning as a cue, the distant echo of a moment you aren’t part of but could be. The architecture itself serves as a guiding hand, subtly encouraging movement without restriction. Unlike a theme park where explicit signage directs foot traffic, the pathways here create natural loops, two to three room lines of sight, ensuring that most people flow in the same direction without ever being told to do so. Even though free will exists within the experience, the design minimizes congestion and bottlenecks simply by making the most engaging option the one that keeps people moving.

The actors reinforce this structure. While participants are free to wander, the performers have access to hidden escape hatches, staff-only corridors, and secondary exits that allow them to control engagement levels. If a scene grows too crowded or there is a mark that an actor needs to get to, the actor can slip away and reappear elsewhere, redistributing attention and keeping the story fluid. The effect is that every participant, regardless of where they are in the building, feels as though they are at the center of something meaningful. The structure prevents stagnation, ensuring that high-impact moments aren’t diluted by excessive audience clustering in a single space. This balance between organic movement and structured design is precisely what LARP organizers should strive to achieve.

This is where the lessons for LARP become clear. Too often, games allow players to spread too thin, creating isolated bubbles of engagement that break immersion. The wider the available space, the harder it is to create meaningful interactions. Life and Trust solves this problem by controlling how and where people move without making it feel forced. LARP organizers must consider the same when designing site layouts. Thematic zones should serve as focal points for engagement, naturally drawing in players who seek specific experiences. A well-designed farming area should encourage economic play among those invested in that style of roleplay, but it cannot exist in total isolation. If a game allows for sprawling, disconnected play zones with minimal crossover, then roleplay becomes siloed, and the world feels less alive. By designing areas with intentional paths and points of overlap, LARPs can ensure that every player, at every moment, is encountering something worth engaging with.

Themed role-play spaces (zones of play) are more than just set dressing. They are magnets—pulling players toward natural gathering points where shared interests, organic interaction, and emergent narrative can thrive. A well-designed space isn’t just a place to be; it’s a place that makes being there an experience. The moment a player steps into one of these zones, they should feel its purpose—not because someone tells them what it is, but because the space itself makes it undeniable.

Life and Trust builds this idea into every room. Spaces aren’t just visually themed; they function within the experience. A teller booth isn’t just a bar—it feels like a financial transaction is taking place. The titles of seating areas, the flickering candlelight, the brass fixtures, and the low hum of conversation set an unspoken expectation: you’re here to talk business. The sound of typewriters, the crinkle of money in the bank office, the occasional murmurs of a secret deal happening at a nearby cabaret table—all of these elements reinforce the space’s purpose and build on immersion. Participants don’t just see where they are; they feel it. The role-play follows naturally. The space becomes an extension of the character’s experience, drawing them deeper into the world rather than demanding that they suspend disbelief to make up for what’s missing.

In LARP, this concept is invaluable. A agricultural area should not just be an area where “the farmers go to use their mechanics.” It should feel like a place where agriculture, trade, and quiet farming industry occur. The scent of hay, the presence of workbenches, the weight of sacks filled with grain—all of these create an environment where players naturally adjust their role-play to fit the space. The key isn’t to force them into a pre-scripted experience but to provide a setting that does half the work before a single word is spoken. A smithy that smells of scorched metal and charred wood via oil and incense, where the clang of a hammer against an anvil resonates across a town square, becomes a hub of interaction for craftsmen, traders, and those seeking repairs. A decayed chapel, lit only by flickering lanterns and filled with the scent of old wax and dust, doesn’t need a sign to tell players it’s a sanctuary—it feels like one. These spaces act as narrative conduits, shaping the role-play that happens within them while drawing in those who are most inclined to engage.

Beyond aesthetics, these zones serve a structural function. When certain playstyles gravitate toward shared locations, they become natural hubs for targeted narrative. A traveling merchant doesn’t have to wander a scattered game site searching for someone interested in trade; they know where to go. A political schemer looking for an audience understands that the right people will be found in the halls of power, where the scent of old parchment and the presence of worn leather-bound tomes signal that decisions are made here. A rogue searching for under-the-table dealings knows that dark corners of the tavern aren’t just atmospheric—they are where hushed voices and stolen glances lead to something more. These organic gathering points provide an invisible infrastructure for story delivery, ensuring that key narratives find the players who will care most about them, without the need for artificial placement.

What Life and Trust executes so well is the idea that a space should never just be a backdrop. It should be used, it should function, and it should make the experience feel effortless. The environment itself should direct the role-play. When that happens, when players are drawn into spaces that naturally align with their characters’ goals and interests, story delivery becomes seamless. The setting does not compete with the narrative; it becomes the narrative. The more a space can invite physical, visual, and sensory engagement, the more immersive and intuitive the world becomes. And when the world feels real, the story writes itself. In the experience of the writer, it is better to have one or two AMAZING core roleplay spaces than to have a dozen that mostly miss the mark.

Efficiency in narrative delivery is another key takeaway. Life and Trust ensures that no single character or event carries too much weight. The actors cycle through various locations, layering multiple concurrent narratives rather than bottlenecking engagement into a handful of key scenes. This prevents situations where some participants feel like they are "missing the real story" while others are overwhelmed by a single crowded moment. LARPs often struggle with this balance. If a game’s major plots unfold in only one or two locations, then only a fraction of players will be directly involved. But if the story spreads too thin, then engagement weakens because there is no concentrated energy to drive the experience forward. The solution lies in controlled density—keeping the space active and alive without letting the experience become fragmented.

This is not just about convenience. It’s about immersion, engagement, and impact. A LARP that allows players to retreat too far into isolated spaces will find itself struggling to deliver a cohesive narrative. A LARP that considers space, flow, and density will create an experience where players don’t just wander in search of something meaningful—they are constantly stepping into it. Life and Trust doesn’t tell its audience where to go, but through masterful spatial design, it ensures they always end up exactly where they need to be. LARP should do the same.

There is a part 3 (and probably more) of this coming. At some point I want to talk about costume, the use of masks as the “silent observer”, and how the golden masked “stage hands” can teach Guides a golden lesson in scene space use. If you missed it part 1 was about immersive design and location, location, location.

Life and Trust - A Master Class in Experience Design (Part 1)

"Life and Trust" is an immersive theater experience set in Conwell Tower, a former bank building in New York’s Financial District. The show “follows” J.G. Conwell, a powerful banker who, on the eve of the 1929 stock market crash, strikes a deal with Mephisto. This bargain sends Conwell back through key moments in his life, forcing him to confront the choices that shaped his fate. It also drags back many people impacted by those choices, which is many, since it involves both the birth of opioid industry addiction and many steps of financial and corporate greed and corruption.

The stories integrate classics such as “Faust” and “The Picture of Dorian Gray in modern immersive theater style where the audience members are free to explore six floors of the building, each designed to reflect the era’s grandeur and decadence. It also incorporates real historic figures like Emma Goldman, the influential anarchist political activist.

The story unfolds through movement, small engagements, dance, choreographed dance, silent interactions, and visually AMAZING environments rather than traditional dialogue. Along the way, participants encounter characters from different walks of life—performers, scientists, and power-hungry elites—all connected by ambition, risk, and the consequences of their decisions.

Rather than following a linear plot, attendees navigate the world at their own pace, piecing together Conwell’s story by following characters, discovering hidden rooms, or observing pivotal moments.

I could write 30 pages of what I experienced during Life and Trust and I would be just touching on the experience prior to the event starting and the opening scene of entering the space. To avoid spoilers, I am not actually going to dive into the themes and much of what I experienced, because if you have the interest and the means I am not suggesting but instead demanding for the enrichment of your own creative soul that you go to Life and Trust. I am currently booking the plans for our second visit.

Instead of focusing and failing to explain the narrative, I am going to touch on some of the smaller BRILLIANT design techniques that this experience used and what could be learned for use in LARP design.

The genius of Life and Trust begins long before you step inside Conwell Tower. Unlike their other massive hit Sleep No More, which required a full transformation of a Chelsea warehouse into the fictional McKittrick Hotel, this production takes place on Wall Street itself, in a former bank building that already carries the weight of history. The location isn’t just a backdrop—it’s an active part of the storytelling. The towering columns, the cavernous halls, and the lingering echoes of financial ambition all serve the narrative effortlessly. There’s no need to manufacture liminality; the very streets leading to the event are steeped in power, excess, and the ghosts of fortunes made and lost.

For us, the immersion began before we even arrived at the venue. We had dinner and whiskey drinks at Harry’s, a Wall Street institution known for catering to power players of both past and present. Sitting among finance professionals and old-money regulars, it already felt like stepping into the world of Life and Trust. The production didn't need to create an elaborate façade or guide the audience through a forced transition into its universe. The environment did the work naturally. By the time we crossed the threshold of Conwell Tower, we weren’t entering a theater—we were continuing a journey already in motion.

This is the difference between crafting an experience that fits seamlessly into its surroundings versus one that has to build a world from scratch. Sleep No More succeeded in its own right, but it required heavy scene-setting to make the McKittrick feel real. The moment you stepped out onto 27th Street, the illusion faltered. You weren’t in a mysterious hotel—you were in an industrial district, waiting in line. Life and Trust doesn’t have that problem. The power of its setting does half the work before the first performer even crosses your path. The weight of history, the physicality of the space, and the psychological impact of Wall Street’s towering presence make it clear: you’re already inside the story.

From the moment you step inside Life and Trust, the world closes around you, shaping the experience before you even realize it's happening. The descent down the marble staircase feels deliberate—like you’re not just walking into a theater but being pulled into something deeper, something irreversible. The twisting hallways that follow aren’t just practical transitions; they disorient, creating a sense of passage, of stepping away from the ordinary. Before you even reach the coat check, the environment is already working on you.

The corporate posters lining the hall set the stage without explanation. "Trust your soul to us." A simple phrase, yet laden with the weight of a Faustian bargain. Other taglines follow suit, their meaning just off-kilter enough to raise a subconscious sense of unease. The world of Life and Trust isn’t revealed in an instant—it creeps in, embedding itself in the details. The backdrop for photos, the polished professionalism of the signage, the quiet suggestion that something is just slightly... wrong.

By the time you reach the coat check, you're already inside the machine. The attendants, dressed in pristine 1920s fashion, greet you not as guests but as potential investors, reinforcing the illusion with a perfectly balanced mix of charm and corporate efficiency. "Is this your first time investing with Life and Trust?" It's a simple question, but it does more than engage—it tells you, in no uncertain terms, that you are a part of this world now. There's no breaking the fourth wall, no acknowledgment that this is theater. The moment you lock your phone away in a security bag, any lingering attachment to the outside world vanishes.

And then, the reveal. You ascend a grand marble staircase and step into a massive banking hall, transformed into a lavish temple of excess from the final moments before the 1929 crash. Ornate chandeliers cast warm light over the room, illuminating the brass-barred teller booths where bartenders mix modern variants of period-accurate cocktails. The seating areas, each marked with titles like "Mergers and Acquisitions" or "Accounting," play into the theme, reinforcing the world without force-feeding it. Even the newspapers scattered about name the production’s characters as members of the “Board of Trustees,” seamlessly blending exposition into the environment.

And yet, the most effective elements aren’t the overt ones. A brass mask sits on display, its unsettling presence unexplained but impossible to ignore. Before any scripted performance begins, before a single act begins, the stage has already been set. The illusion isn't waiting for you to step into it—you've been inside it even before you arrived.

Before the performance even begins, Life and Trust has already accomplished something masterful. It has primed every participant, shaped their expectations, and immersed them in a world that feels seamless. And it does this not just through set design or costuming but through something far more fundamental—location.

This experience could not exist anywhere else. The story of greed, corruption, financial ambition, and the endless chase for wealth is not just told inside Conwell Tower; it breathes through the very streets outside. Wall Street itself is an extension of the narrative, reinforcing its themes before a single actor speaks. The weight of history, the architecture, and the cultural significance of the setting all combine to make the story feel inevitable. Even before stepping inside, you are surrounded by the ghosts of real financial triumphs and disasters, by the unspoken pressure of a system built on chasing an ever-moving goalpost. Life and Trust succeeds because it embraces this, letting its environment do the work rather than fighting against it.

This is a lesson that should not be lost on LARP designers. Too often, narratives are written first, with the expectation that the environment will somehow be forced to fit. But the most powerful experiences come from the opposite approach—letting the environment inform and enhance the story. If you have a site dominated by pine forests and wooden cabins, then lean into that atmosphere. Make the trees part of the worldbuilding, let the rustic setting become a lived-in backdrop rather than something to be ignored or covered up. If your space is a single rented hall in a modern building, work that reality into the experience. Make it a gathering place, a stronghold, an artificial sanctuary within a larger world.

Not every production has the resources to fully transform a space the way Sleep No More did, crafting an entirely fictional world inside a warehouse. That kind of immersive overhaul requires enormous investment, both in labor and in materials. Life and Trust proves that sometimes, the smartest design choice is not to build something from scratch, but to recognize the power of what is already there. The best experiences don’t just tell a story—they make you feel like you’ve stepped into one. And the first step in achieving that is making sure the world around you is working with you, not against you.

The second lesson is just as crucial as the first: the experience begins well before the game does. Life and Trust doesn’t wait for a scripted moment to pull participants into its world—it ensures they are already immersed by the time the formal narrative begins. This is where LARP designers and LARP runners (two distinct roles, each with different responsibilities) need to be intentional. The game doesn’t start at “Game On.” It starts the moment participants arrive (or even earlier in virtual engagement).

Think about what your players see as they check in. What is their first impression? Are they walking into a well-crafted space that subtly reinforces the world they are about to step into, or are they greeted by a pile of black totes with yellow lids breaking the illusion before it even begins? Are they handed a clipboard and a waiver with all the ambiance of a dentist’s office, or is there something—anything—that begins to shape the world they are entering? Even something as simple as background music, a costumed greeter engaging with guests in-character, or signage designed to match the setting can go a long way in priming participants. The less work they have to do to suspend disbelief, the more readily they will step into the world you’ve built.

Life and Trust executes this principle flawlessly. By the time we officially "began," we had already been immersed in its world for hours. We had toasted whisky cocktails, relaxed in the big leather seats of the banking hall, and discussed our placement in the "Murders and Executions" department—all without direct prompts from any actor. The environment did the work. The narrative themes were reinforced in a hundred small ways before we ever stepped into the office where the narrative started and we slipped on our masks to physically moved into the scripted world. When the time came to do so, it felt natural. It wasn’t a shift; it was a continuation.

This is the goal of effective LARP design. The more effort you put into creating a world that feels real before the game starts, the easier it is for players to embrace it. Whether through physical space, atmosphere, character interaction, or environmental storytelling, the best experiences make the transition seamless. The game starts the moment your participants step onto the site—it’s just a question of whether you’ve prepared them to feel like they belong in it.

This isn’t going to be the end of our discussions regarding Life and Trust and immersive design techniques related to LARP. Life and Trust isn’t just an impressive immersive experience—it’s a blueprint for how narrative, setting, and engagement can be seamlessly interwoven to create something unforgettable. What I’ve talked about so far is just the beginning. This experience was a masterclass in world design, environmental storytelling, and psychological priming, and I intend to break down as much of it as possible to explore what worked, why it worked, and how these lessons can be applied to LARP and other immersive experiences.

In the coming posts, I’ll be diving into each of these elements in detail—how setting shapes storytelling, how pre-game immersion sets the stage before a single scripted moment occurs, how player agency and structured narrative can coexist, and the countless small but significant details that made Life and Trust feel so natural.

There will be no word count restrictions, no efforts to condense these thoughts into bite-sized takeaways. This is about dissecting techniques, examining their impact, and showing how these lessons can elevate live experiences. For now, this is where I’ll pause—but there’s much more to come.