Whilst I am a therapist who specialises in working with Disabled and Queer communities, I am also an avid LARPer. I’ve talked a little on the power of LARP and TTRPGs on therapy in a previous article which you can find here. I’ve recently decided to converge my professional work with my huge passion of LARP and making it more accessible.
This started with me attending an amazing 18+ LARP called Divided We Fall which takes inspiration from the likes of The Last of Us and other zombie media. Here, I quickly joined the game team and have encouraged the team to consider accessibility in all aspects of the game. We did such a good job that we won the Accessibility Awards at the LARP Awards 2025!
I have repeatedly ruffled feathers in the LARP community with my call for more inclusive aspects in the hobby. From being accused of lying about my disabilities to being made to feel less than because of my disabilities. But I became a bit fed up with waiting for others to take more of a leadership role in the community to make our hobby more inclusive. As such, with a good friend, I set up the Disabled LARPers Discord Server.
The overall aims have been:
- Community for disabled/chronically ill LARPers in the UK
- Community for friends & allies of disabled/chronically ill LARPers of the UK
- Advice & Support around making the hobby more accessible
Already we have quite a big group of people who have joined this venture and have been sharing what works well for them, and areas they’d like to see improved.
I took a bit of a chance, and reached out to LARPBook – a hugely respected project that raises the UK hobby up, providing video, interviews as well as professional photos at events.
You can watch the full interview I did with LARPBook here, and must admit, I chuckled at the blurb they put together!
Becki runs accessibility for DWF and is an all-round disability accessibility advocate in LARP. She’s recently started a Discord group dedicated to that very topic.
The show turned into quite the conversation. Becki isn’t just a Larper with a passion for enabling people to play — accessibility is part of her professional life, too. She’s so good at talking about accessibility that the conversation accidentally turned into a therapy session for us! We ended up confessing sins of the past, and Becki kindly explained how those things should be approached today.
That really captures what accessibility should be about: a conversation between everyone involved to figure out the best solutions — not just clumsy compromises, but valid, meaningful answers. And even if circumstances sometimes mean reduced access for some, at least we can all learn and improve from the experience.
Also, if you think LARP hasn’t progressed much over the years, take a look as we compare LARP from 30 years ago to today. Things have improved, and they can keep improving — we’d be proud to be even a small part of that journey.
Becki runs a fantastic Discord on the subject, full of people comparing ideas and sharing experiences. It’s an absolute must-join if you have, or know someone with, any kind of accessibility needs.
I have more plans to develop my work with LARPBook and the wider LARP community. But needless to say, I’m a nerd. I love my hobby, and I live and breath the therapeutic work I do in my personal life.
buddingtherapy.com 