Nørwegian Style is a collection of 17 Norwegian role-playing games translated to English. The book is edited by Matthijs Holter and Even Tømte, and designed by Håken Lid.
The book includes at least one larp (New Voices In Art) and several short games that can be played as larps, as well as a short introduction to Norwegian role-playing history.
Gnavpotveksler is a project started by danish role-player Luisa Carbonelli.
We’ve talked a lot about the curiosity from foreigners towards the Danish scenario tradition, and the other way around. The thing is that not many outside Denmark masters the difficult Danish tongue. Thus the authors of this year’s Fastaval were repeatedly encouraged to venture into translating their scenarios into English and every other language they might think of.
The first aim of the project is to translate the Otto Award Winners from Fastaval 2009 in Århus, Denmark. It will be a team effort and contributors are more than welcome.
The Gnavpotveksler – the Grumpy Converter from Bluxte – is a creature from the comics series about “Valérian and Laureline” (Linda og Valentin) by Pierre Christin. The Grumpy Converter appears in the album “Ambassador of the Shadows”. He is a little guy that generates new copies of any currency you feed him. The process exhausts him greatly but he inevitably develops a fondness for the one that puts him through it. (Quoted from Gnavpotveksler – The Title)
***PARTOUT TICKET SALES CLOSE FRIDAY, MARCH 13TH***
All-new tabletop, freeform and larp scenarios by Denmark’s best game designers! Casual and competitive boardgaming! A fully stocked bar and a cocktail café at reasonable prices! A Saturday night banquet dinner including the Otto awards for excellence in scenario writing! Seminars, socialising, lectures, and a live gig by folktronica sensation Valravn – the smartest, cosiest and most relaxed role-playing convention invites the world to Århus this Easter, April 8th – April 12th.
During its 23 years, Fastaval in Århus, Denmark, has grown from a local game convention to the high-light of the gaming year for role-players of all stripes. With its around 600 participants, Fastaval is still an intimate convention by international standards, and special care is taken every year to ensure a relaxed atmosphere and tons of fun. Although teenagers are very welcome – this year a special youth lounge will offer special programmes – and members the first generation of Danish role-players still attend, a significant part of the participants are in their twenties and thirties. This fact and the convention’s special focus on role-playing game authors create a unique atmosphere that fosters great game design, great playing experiences, and great parties. On a practical level, this is reflected in insights like the fact that man cannot live on Jolt Cola alone: at Fastaval you can always complement your toast and crisps with a good sandwich or preorder a real meal – with luxury options available for those willing to pay grown-up prices for grown-up food.
The prestigious Otto Awards for Excellence in Role-Playing Game Writing and the meticulous feedback provided by the judges to all contributing scenario authors has fostered a culture of strong game design that today affects role-playing communities far beyond Denmark’s borders. It is at Fastaval that Denmark’s best writers choose to premiere their scenarios, whether serious or frivolous, childish in spirit or mature in content. With the 2009 scenarios delivered, we can promise an exceptionally strong line-up. Many scenarios will be available to play in English during the convention. And if your pleasures veer toward board or strategy gaming, those are naturally also available. How about going for the Danish Agricola championship, with straw boaters and all?
For the first time this year, Fastaval offers a special organisation to care for, welcome and integrate international visitors. Gaming sessions in English can be found on the programme, and additional international gaming groups will be organised continuously by the international hosts Frederik Berg Østergaard and Luisa Carbonelli. Faraway guests have the option of upgrading the traditional sleeping bag-on-floor accommodation to a bed in the international trailer park just outside the school. (For convention goers interesting in participating in the Knutepunkt conference the following week, please note that the trip to Oslo is a piece of cake with ferry over Frederikshavn*).
Read more about Fastaval, download scenarios or sign up for the convention at fastaval.dk – please note that the last day for sales of partout tickets is March 13th. After this date you can no longer reserve accommodation, sign up for specific games or the banquet, or pre-order hot meals. Please use the English sign-up even if you can read Danish, as the Danish version does not offer the international perks.
If you have missed this deadline, but are reporting for the role-playing game media in your country or would like to contribute a programme, please email international@fastaval.dk
*The Fastaval-Knutepunkt Travel Fund has received additional funding and accepts further applications until 13.3. Please search “Fastaval-Knutepunkt Travel Fund” on Facebook or click here
Some Nordic larp veterans started a Stockholm-based media company three years back. We’re focused on interactive and participative media – essentially combining roleplaying methods with traditional media.
Our latest project just launched. It’s an interactive web drama augmenting Joss Whedon’s new show Dollhouse. Our thing is called Dollplay and it’s as close to video roleplaying as we can get. Check it out here: http://www.rprimelab.com/
The idea is that people can make their own videos and communicate with the main character through them. Some are clearly roleplaying, others are more focused on solving the mysteries or getting to know the character. (Or using this opportunity to perform horrible experiments on her…)
I think it’s pretty awesome, and a great example of what the methods of roleplaying can do!
Prolog | 2009 is a Swedish larp convention with an aim to connect Swedish larpers from all different styles and cultures. Integration and inspiration through meeting new people and attending great workshop and off-course by playing all kinds of larps.
We currently have over 70 items on the programme which ranges from mainly workshops and larps, larp presentations, lectures and discussion forums.
While this is aimed to both young and older Swedes most of the programme will be held in Swedish.
If you want to join in to this Swedish-larp-slugathon-fest you do have to act fast. Last day of registration is the 26th of January.
Our deepest ambition is writing the prologue of the Swedish larping year of 2009 together will of our participants!
Best regards to all of you in the Nordic Scene and looking forward to Knutepunkt after this! Petter Karlsson, Miriam Lundqvist and Martin Gerhardsson Prolog | 2009 – Ett svenskt lajvkonvent
The Company P (Sanningen om Marika, Prosopopeia 2) is busy with their new production. It’s still top secret, but the need for a larper who knows acting or actress who knows larping is great. If you know of one, please, pass this casting ad to them.
We’re doing a web drama to supplement a Hollywood tv series. It’s an interactive story where online audience participation will decide the progress of the narrative. For our previous project, Sanningen om Marika, we won the International Emmy Award for Best Interactive Tv Service.
For this show we are looking for a young actress (age of play 20-25) with strong skills in impro or role-playing. As the audience is mostly in the US, you must be able to speak American English with no accent. If possible, please include a English-speaking voice sample in your application.
You will play different characters on the show, so you should have great variety in body language and mannerisms. Amongst the characters you will be playing are:
a witty, tech-savvy, geeky hacker
an odd punk girl
middle-aged scientist
We will hold auditions in Stockholm continuously from January 10th to 25th.
We expect you to be available for rehearsals 26/1-1/2 and for shooting on 2/2, 9-13/2, 14-15/2, 17/2, 19-22/2, and 24-27/2. Dates may vary. Shooting days will not be nine-to-five, since we’re sometimes broadcasting live and will have to make the show work for American time zones. We will shoot in Stockholm and can not provide housing, if you come from somewhere else.
We’re paying you 30′000 SEK (incl tax) for the whole project. No residuals.
Send applications (with cv and photos) or questions to casting@thecompanyp.com
Knutepunkt (known as Solmukohta, Knutpunkt or Knudepunkt when held in Finland, Sweden and Denmark respectively) is an annual Nordic role-playing convention with a strong emphasis on live-action role-playing. Knutepunkt 2009 will take place from April 16 to April 19 at Haraldvangen conference centre north of Oslo, Norway.
Do you have an idea aching to be set free at this year’s Knutepunkt? Join us in making this a colorful event filled with all things strange, meaningful, useful and fun! Our goal is that people will leave inspired and with new tools which will make it easier to create more and better larps for more people.
There are few limits to what you can bring to the programme, but we have pinpointed six threads for which we in particular are soliciting contributions:
Creating larps – Workshops on larp design, practical aspects of larp production, methods for creating characters and building worlds.
Games – We want more games this year! Short larps and freeform scenarios. If you have a scenario for just a few participants, think about if it could be played by multiple groups simultaneously.
Researching larp – Presentations and debates. Have you published an article, a book or a thesis, or are you in the middle of the process of writing something which should be shared and discussed with more people?
Larp in “the Real World” – We want to showcase methods and experiences from using larp and role-playing as an educational tool. And is it possible to make a living out of larp-organising?
Rituals – Ecstatic drums, contemplative meditations and pledge of allegiance. Rituals are powerful equipments for building group cohesion and creating strong experiences in larps.
Get Physical – Drama and dance workshops. The body as tool and explorer.
Albión was a mixture of the legend of Robin Hood and the fantasy of Shakespeare written and played in the Adventurous Romanticistic style in a Finnish forest in September. It was the fifth game of that style, directed by Katri Lassila and Tuomas Hakkarainen with help of Laura Kalli.
The main idea was to get the players run in the forest, use bows and swords and enjoy the feeling of the childhood plays. Still the story was written as interesting as possible,
taking inspiration apart from Robin Hood also from Alan Moore’s The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Gaiman’s Sandman, steampunk in general and the Legends of King Arthur. The theatrical playing style was inspired by adventure films and novels, the players watched in advance The Adventures of Robin Hood starred by Errol Flynn from the year 1938.
Main plot in short:
The evil queen Albiónia had murdered and seized the throne from her sister Amanda and had ruled the Albión (situated in a soft spot shifting in times in the Sherwood Forest) for three hundred years, three times more than the natural cycle of the Forest Folk was.
Amanda had sent her seven children to the different times and places to save them, but an old prediction told that after three hundred years of evil rule, on the Midsummer Night’s eve, the “Seven Flowers” would get together again and the queen would fall.
In London 1939 the war had just started, the world was in chaos and nobody except the Society knew, that the queen sitting on the throne of England wasn’t really the Queen Victoria but a human-like machine, put there by the Enemies of the Empire, the horrible secret society led by doctor James Moriarty.
The evil queen Albiónia had come to the year 1936 and wanted to conquer the world by making an alliance with Hitler. The Society had to act. The professor had designed a time machine, a wonderful instrument that brang the members back in time to help Vilja, the princess in exile to defeat her evil aunt.
At the same time the legend of Robin Hood was to be saved, as in the world where the Society left from, she had died in her youth in the hands of the evil sheriff (yes, they both were really women, the history books haven’t been accurate.)
What happened then? Did the characters succeed? Despite some bad luck and difficult situations (as Sir Remington shooting Robin by accident in a battle) the evil queen was killed and sacrificed and the world saved. And everything ended in some fireworks as all the good adventure movies do.
The adventures will continue most probably in the summer 2009 and will welcome all the foreign friends to join in too!
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Andie Nordgren
Claus Raasted
Eirik Fatland
Mike Pohjola
Gabriel Widing
Bjarke Pedersen
Peter Andreasen
Mathias Kromann Rode
Anna Westerling
Martin Ericsson
Axel Löfving
Katri Lassila
Troels Barkholt
Petter Karlsson
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