It was published a day before, and I was selling them at a convention. When I gave Mika Loponen a copy, her burned it at the ash tray. Everyone was watching and cheering. ”Get them while they’re hot,” I yelled.
Yesterday marked the 10th anniversary of the Manifesto of the Turku School. It is a roleplaying manifesto promoting character immersion as a player goal, and honest world simulation as a game master goal, and according to RPG researcher Jaakko Stenros, it’s “perhaps the most influential Nordic text on role-playing games.”
At the time the discussion on roleplaying theory was mostly centered around the question ”should there be roleplaying theory or is it ruining our hobby?” Some of tried to talk about the theory and practice of what we find interesting, and were blamed for ruining the fun for everyone, since you’re not supposed to take it too seriously, it’s supposed to just be fun. But is it good fun? What do you mean by fun? Is it fun to play something horrible happening to your character? Is it fun if the game master pulls everything out of his ass? Aren’t some kinds of fun better experienced if you really try to feel what the character feels, instead of just going through the motions?
In the summer of 1999 Norwegian roleplaying theorists Eirik Fatland and Lars Wingård wrote the Dogma 99, a ”Programme for the Liberation of LARP”. They argued that larp can be a meaningful medium for artistic expression and that you should take it seriously. We agreed on that. Then they went on to treat roleplaying games more as acting than as character immersion, and made the game master a linear storyteller instead of an interactive or multilinear enabler. I couldn’t stand for that, of course, and had to write the first part of the until then speculational manifesto. This became the Larper’s Vow of Chastity, published in the fall of 1999.
Dogma 99, like it’s Danish predecessor Dogme 95, contained rules that a game master could try out to challenge their way of making art. Most people understood the rules as something every game must adhere to according to the writers, and dismissed the whole thing. The Turku Larper’s Vow of Chastity did contain such rules, meant to be be obeyed when playing in a Turku style larp. ”I shall not speak out of character during a game”, and so on. Most people noticed that the player is also expected to follow the game master’s vision, and misinterpreted this completely assuming that this meant the character’s wouldn’t have free will within the game. I probably should’ve written it better.
Nevertheless, the Vow got lots of discussion, and I decided to go ahead with writing the Manifesto itself. The annual Nordic larp conference Knutepunkt was taking place in Helsinki that year, and there was a pre-party at (now celebrity journalist) Johanna Koljonen’s mother’s place. That was Wednesday 23rd of February, 2000. That’s where I first gave and sold copies of the manifesto that I’d written in the preceding couple of days, and picked up at the printers’ that morning. The title had a typo, since I didn’t know ”manifest” and ”manifesto” are two different things.
There was not yet a tradition for conference journals on roleplaying theory, so people were pretty amazed, and also amused. A copy of the manifesto was burned to protest its horrors. There was a panel discussion where Eirik Fatland and I duked it out. Later Eirik Fatland and I became fast friends, organizing many larps together, such as inside:outside and (with Juhana Pettersson) I Regret Nothing.
Next year and the year after that, people started writing their own manifestos in response to the Turku Manifesto and Dogma 99, and there was a Roihuvuori Manifesto, Meilahti Style, Bristol Manifesto, the Manifesto Manifesto, The Manifest Sunday, and dozens of others. Some were about roleplaying theory, some were parodies, most were descriptions of the writers’ own preferred styles without trying to force it upon anybody else. (Although then they’re not really manifestos, if I may say so.)
The manifesto creeps up every now and again in silly online discussions and such, and new people get angry at it. (Check out this one archived from 4chan!) Then somebody points out there’s a nice idea here or there, and the discussion turns into one of roleplaying theory. And occasionally somebody likes the text so much they want to translate it into their own language. So far we have Le Manifeste de l’Ecole de Turku in French, Manifest Školy Turku in Slovak, and Manifest Školy Turku in Czech. Today I’m publishing the Russian translation by Larnir Haigh. Enjoy!
I’m thinking of doing something cool about regarding the Manifesto at this year’s Knutpunkt in Stockholm. Any ideas?
PS. I’ve added a photo page on the Turku School webiste, commemorating the publication. Check it out!
Jaakko Stenros and Markus Montola are putting together a book showing the different forms and styles of Nordic larps in texts and photographs. This document is a call for proposals on games that should be included in the book. While the texts themselves will be rather brief, all cases must be also presented with a number of quality images. The papers will be selected in an editorial process, based on abstracts or samples.
During the recent 10 or 15 years, a number of great larps have been organized in the Nordic countries, in and around the Knutpunk community. Unfortunately, only very few of those have been documented in any proper fashion. In an effort to correct the problem, Stenros and Montola are editing a book focusing solely on documenting larps; their innovations, designs, significance and expressive power. This book will be a celebration of the unpaid effort and creative work that has been put into building the Nordic tradition of larp.
The plan is to publish a high quality coffee table book. Larpers are the focus audience, but they hope to also gain the attention of people in theatre, visual arts, street art, game research and game design. Thus, the book should be self-explanatory, readable, intelligent and ambitious. The book will include approximately 20-25 case descriptions, selected with numerous criteria:
- Spectrum. The book should be representative of the different sides of Nordic larp.
- Photographs. The book needs photographs of sufficient quality (technical, aesthetic, journalistic).
- Impact. The significance of the game within the scene either as having impact on the scene or as having been influenced by the scene.
- Description and analysis. The quality of the proposed text about the game.
The first criterion is the most important. In practice, we will use “soft quotas” in the process: If the book has one Vampire proposal and five fantasy proposals, it is a reason for favoring the Vampire. Similarly, the book will have soft quotas for countries and organizer groups.
In a Knutepunkt 2009 workshop Stenros and Montola compiled a wish list for games they would like to include, in order to form an understanding on what the book should be like. The list can be found from the blog http://nordiclarp.wordpress.com/. In an ideal world, they’d include all those games, but all proposals are welcome.
They will look for funding from cultural grants. In addition, there is a contingency plan of possibly looking for a commercial photography book publisher for the book.
Editorial Process
The editors will both ask specific people to contribute descriptions of certain projects, and accept open submissions. Expression on willingness to contribute on a game can be expressed immediately. Papers are selected based on abstracts or representative samples of 500+ words and a few full-resolution images, with an editorial review. The editors need to have the first abstracts by September 20th, 2009. The selections will be made during the end of September and the submitters will hear back from the editors in the beginning of October. Final deadline, including photographs and relevant permissions, is November 15th, 2009.
The editors will provide feedback in all phases of the work, consulting external experts if needed. You should expect around two-three rounds of feedback on the text, one based on abstract and another based on full paper. The editors will provide help and guidance in the process.
The length of the papers is 1500-2000 words, plus captions and references. In addition, there will be fact boxes including credits, number of players and so on. In addition, the authors should submit 6-15 images with captions, out of which approximately 5-10 will be included.
The authors are responsible of procuring the photographs, and all the necessary permissions from copyright holders and people shown in the images. The editors may be able to help in the process. Submissions should follow the style guide available at http://nordiclarp.wordpress.com.
Production Crew
The book is edited by Jaakko Stenros and Markus Montola. It is produced by Anna Westerling and Anders Hultman. In addition, they have enlisted a number of country contacts, including Bjarke Pedersen (of
Denmark) and Eirik Fatland (of Norway). With photography, they will consult Britta Bergersen and Katri Lassila. They are still looking for a graphic designer.
The shortlist for 2009 Diana Jones Award has been announced, and for the first time it includes some Nordic roleplaying. Two RPGs, a card-game, a mystery and a Scandinavian collective vie for hobby-gaming’s most exclusive trophy
The committee of the Diana Jones Award has released the shortlist for its 2009 award. This year the shortlist contains five nominees that in the opinion of the committee exemplify the very best that hobby-gaming has produced in the last twelve months. In alphabetical order, they are:
* Dominion, a card game by Donald X. Vaccarino (published by Rio Grande Games)
* Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition, a role-playing game by Rob Heinsoo, Mike Mearls and James Wyatt (published by Wizards of the Coast)
* Jeepform, a game-style from Scandinavia (fostered by the Vi åker jeep collective: http://jeepen.org/)
* Mouseguard, a role-playing game by Luke Crane (published by Archaia Studios Press)
* Sweet Agatha, a mystery game by Kevin Allen Jr (self-published)
The winner of the 2009 Award will be announced on Wednesday 12th August, at the annual Diana Jones Award and Freelancer Party in Indianapolis, the unofficial start of the Gen Con Indy convention.
The Diana Jones Award for Excellence in Gaming was founded and first awarded in 2001. It is presented annually to the person, product, company, event or any other thing that has, in the opinion of its mostly anonymous committee of games industry luminaries, best demonstrated the quality of “excellence” in the world of hobby-gaming in the previous year. The winner of the Award receives the Diana Jones trophy.
The short-list and eventual winner are chosen by the Diana Jones Committee, a mostly anonymous group of games-industry alumni and illuminati. Past winners include Peter Adkison, Jordan Weisman, the role-playing games Nobilis, Sorcerer, and My Life with Master, and the board-game Ticket to Ride. This is the ninth year of the Award.
Vi åker jeep [Eng.: We go by jeep] is a group of Scandinavian roleplayers and gamewrights pushing their style of play, known as jeepform to the rest of the civilized roleplaying world.
The Society for Nordic Roleplaying publishes two roleplaying games in Finnish this summer. Ikuisuuden laakso and Itran kaupunki open up new topics for roleplaying.
The philosophical Ikuisuuden laakso (“Valley of Eternity”) is Juhana Pettersson’s first roleplaying game. It is a tragic RPG set in the Antarctic, in which the players take on the roles of hero penguins living on the borders of penguin society. The life of a hero is not an easy one, even if they are penguins: she must sacrifice everything in her battle against skua gulls and leopard seals, but will always remain a stranger in the eyes of her fellows. The anthropomorphic animals are a cleansing, distancing element in Ikuisuuden laakso, but obviously they also provide comedy.
Juhana Pettersson is a Helsinki-based game designer and journalist. As the editor-in-chief of Roolipelaaja magazine he is a pioneer of RPG journalism. He has also written the much lauded non-fiction book Roolipelimanifesti (“Role playing manifesto”) in 2005. Pettersson has studied media art in France.
Pettersson has been an Antarctica enthusiast for a long time. In 2008 he created the Antarctica-set larp Snowstorm, and in his blog he presents and reviews books and films set in the region. “Years ago I looked at a map of the planet, and said to myself, there’s a white area at the bottom, that I don’t know anything about. Since then I’ve read everything about the southern continent I’ve been able to get my hands on. My dream is to some day visit there, but before that I’ll have to settle on designing games about penguins.”
“The penguin is the everyman of Ikuisuuden laakso. A penguin is noble and foolish at the same time, and can thus avoid the ubermensch ideas which traditionally arise when dealing with the topic of heroes and heroism,” Pettersson says.
Norwegian surrealism
Itran kaupunki (“The City of Itra”) was originally published in Norwegian as Itras by, and is the first roleplaying game translated into Finnish from a language other than English. The game is set in a surrealistic 1920s city that is controlled from the mysterious Moon Tower, and whose streets are filled with the strangest of figures. Itran kaupunki draws from the tradition of roleplaying games, surrealism, futurism, and Norwegian children’s literature.
The creators of Itran kaupunki are Ole Peder Giæver and Martin Bull Gudmundsen. Giæver has roleplayed since he was ten. He works as a journalist in the Norwegian online paper ABC Nyheter. Gudmundsen studies psychology at the Oslo University.
The Society
The Society for Nordic Roleplaying works to facilitate the development and growth of Nordic roleplaying culture in Finland by making works published in other Nordic languages available in Finnish.
We also work to keep the local scene vital by publishing groundbreaking new games by Finnish designers. The Nordic countries of Finland, Sweden, Norway and Denmark are at the vanguard of global roleplaying culture.
Nordic games have broadened the horizons of what can be done in the roleplaying medium and broken barriers between roleplaying and other artforms such as performance art and theatre.
So far, English has been the language of Nordic cooperation. Ideas have been exchanged at international forums like the annual Knutepunkt event, but actual roleplaying publishing has remained a national affair. Games published in Norwegian or Danish won’t reach audiences in other countries because of the language barrier.
Both games will be published at Ropecon on July 31st, 2009. Ropecon is held annually in Espoo.
More information on Itran kaupunki and The Society for Nordic Roleplaying: Mike Pohjola, email mikepohjola@gmail.com
More information on Ikuisuuden laakso: Juhana Pettersson, email jlp@iki.fi
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!
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
I Regret Nothing was a Finnish-Norwegian art larp played at a city art festival in Turku, Finland in 2006. The minds behind the production were Juhana Pettersson, Eirik Fatland and myself.
Mr. Pettersson has published some documentation of the game. Go check it out!
A pirate radio station, a sheet monster, God and the Super-Ego, an underground complex and abducting passersby into the game. Read all about it.
Last year The Company P (of Prosopopeia 2 fame) created a crossmedia event called Sanningen om Marika pervasively combining larp, internet and television drama.
The tv series was jointly produced with the Swedish Public Broadcasting Company SVT. The idea was that the tv show would be a dramatization of actual game-related events, and work as a kind of world book for the roleplaying and provide clues for all the community-based riddle solving going on in blogs, forums and irl.
Anyways, Sanningen om Marika is now nominated for an International Emmy Award for best Interactive Tv Service. All the other candidates are English language shows: Doctor Who Interactive, Emmerdale, and Spooks Interactive.
I’ve always said Nordic larp know-how is something great and unique, but recognition like this was not what I was expecting!
I’m designing a larp called Katvealue to be played in the Finnish Museum of Fine Art (Ateneum) and the Finnish Museum of Contemporary Art (Kiasma).
The larp is part of the project Art Museum of the Future. The research question of the larp is if larp can experiment with new ways of being in a museum and experiencing both the works and the space itself. The fiction of the larp is still top secret, but has to do with art, as well.
The game is designed by artist Oona Tikkaoja, art historian Henna Kontusalmi and myself. It is produced by us in collaboration with the national art museums.
Katvealue will be played in Ateneum on April 23rd, and then in Kiasma on May 22nd. The name of the game means either Dead Zone or Shade.
Subscribe to Nordic Scene
You can subscribe to News, Events or all posts at Nordic Scene. At the Subscription page you can sign up for an email subscription or learn more about the Nordic Scene RSS feeds.
Yesterday marked the 10th anniversary of the Manifesto of the Turku School. It is a roleplaying manifesto promoting character immersion as a player goal, and honest world simulation as a game master goal, and according to RPG researcher Jaakko Stenros, it’s “perhaps the most influential Nordic text on role-playing games.”
There was not yet a tradition for conference journals on roleplaying theory, so people were pretty amazed, and also amused. A copy of the manifesto was burned to protest its horrors. There was a panel discussion where Eirik Fatland and I duked it out. Later Eirik Fatland and I became fast friends, organizing many larps together, such as inside:outside and (with Juhana Pettersson) I Regret Nothing.
The philosophical Ikuisuuden laakso (“Valley of Eternity”) is Juhana Pettersson’s first roleplaying game. It is a tragic RPG set in the Antarctic, in which the players take on the roles of hero penguins living on the borders of penguin society. The life of a hero is not an easy one, even if they are penguins: she must sacrifice everything in her battle against skua gulls and leopard seals, but will always remain a stranger in the eyes of her fellows. The anthropomorphic animals are a cleansing, distancing element in Ikuisuuden laakso, but obviously they also provide comedy.
Itran kaupunki (“The City of Itra”) was originally published in Norwegian as Itras by, and is the first roleplaying game translated into Finnish from a language other than English. The game is set in a surrealistic 1920s city that is controlled from the mysterious Moon Tower, and whose streets are filled with the strangest of figures. Itran kaupunki draws from the tradition of roleplaying games, surrealism, futurism, and Norwegian children’s literature.
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
You?
Recent Comments