Archive for the 'News' Category

Playground Worlds - new book about larp design, production and evaluation

Published
by
Andie Nordgren
on April 7, 2008
in News
. 0 Comments

The Solmukohta conference is over, and all the participants have a new book in their hands: Playground Worlds - Creating and Evaluating Experiences of Role-Playing Games is a new anthology from the nordic larp conference Solmukohta/Knutepunkt/Knutpunkt/Knudepunkt (Nodal Point) edited by Markus Montola and Jaakko Stenros. You can find a list of earlier books in the series here: Solmukohta 2008 Book and the Book History. From the back cover of the book:

Playground Worlds is a collection of articles on role-playing games by leading researchers, artists and other experts. The book documents the theory and practice of the Nordic role-playing scene – one of the most vibrant in the world – and presents numerous methods and techniques that are directly applicable to larp design and production. It also offers a peek into some Anglo-American role-playing cultures.

The book is divided into three sections. Community and Journalism includes articles on role-player communities written particularly with an eye for approachability. Art and Design covers role-play as the product of a creative process, exposing philosophies and intentions behind specific role-playing works while providing advice and guidance for prospective designers. The Research and Theory section focuses on recent advances in analytic and academic thought on role-play.

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The book will be published online at some point in the future, but for now you need to get hold of a physical copy. Details about how to do this can be found at the book page at the Solmukohta website. You can also read article abstracts and look at some images from the book.

Solmukohta 2008 Book and the Book History

Published
by
Andie Nordgren
on March 14, 2008
in News
. 4 Comments

As part of the yearly conference on nordic style larps, Knutpunkt/Knutepunkt/Knudepunkt/Solmukohta, an anthology is published with articles about larp, roleplaying, theory about larps, game reviews and reflections on the larp hobby.

This year is no different, and the Solmukohta book will be released on March 31 in Helsinki. You can see the table of contents at the book website, and the book will have three parts: Journalism and Community, Art and Design and Research and Theory.

The book is given to all participants of the Solmukohta conference, but will also be published online like all the books from the last few years of conferences. The books are a continuting debate on what larp is or could be and a platform for ideas and experiements to spread from one larp culture to another. You will find both academic style papers on roleplaying theory and columns, rants, game analysis and political vision in these books. They are an excellent starting poing if you want to know more about what kind of larps happen on the Nordic scene and what some of the ambitions in the community are.

Following is links to the online versions of previous conference anthologies:

Knudepunkt 2007 in Denmark: The book is called Lifelike.

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All of the 30 articles in Lifelike can be downloaded as pdf documents here:

Lifelike Table of Contents

Knutpunkt 2006 in Sweden: The book is called Role, Play, Art

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The book includes 12 articles and can be downloaded as a pdf document:

Download the entire book (2 MB)

Knutepunkt 2005 in Norway: The book is called Dissecting Larp

The book contains 15 texts that can be downloaded as pdf documents.

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If you want to know a thing or two about the Nordic larp environment (at least as it was in 2005), make sure to read Knutepunkt and Nordic Live Role-playing: a crash cource by Eirik Fatland.

Download the whole book at this page: Dissecting Larp

Solmukohta 2004 in Finland: The book is called Beyond Role and Play -Tools, Toys and Theory for Harnessing the Imagination
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The book has almost 30 articles that can be downloaded as pdf documents at the book website:

Beyond Role and Play

Knudepunkt 2003 in Denmark: The book is called As Larp Grows Up

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As Larp Grows Up has five chapters on larp, including a dictionary. All chapters can be downloaded as pdf documents here:

As Larp Grows Up - The Book from Knudepunkt 2003

Trailer, End Film and Behind the Scenes from System Danmarc II online

Published
by
Andie Nordgren
on March 11, 2008
in News
. 0 Comments

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This has been posted as a note in the post about System Danmarc III, but deserves it’s own headline:

The organizers of System Danmarc II have posted the trailer, end film and behind the scenes documentary from System Danmarc II online. These were previously avaliable only on the game DVD.

System Danmarc II was a larp held in Denmark in 2005 about a political system where C-class citizens who could not support themselves where dumped in C-sector areas by a State system that was not fascist but still incompetent when it comes to a reasonable distribution of resources in a rich society. It was a cyberpunk larp set in a small city built from freight containers in central Copenhagen, and at the same time a very strong comment on society today.

Take a moment to have a look at this fantastic documentation.

System Danmarc II movie material

Ingenmansland - we’re full

Published
by
Sebastian Utbult
on March 7, 2008
in News
. 0 Comments

Farmers in post-apocalyptic Sweden

One of the most rewarding things that can happen to a larp organizer is when your participants really believe in your project. Especially so when you’re organizing something in an unforgiving genre with a long track-record of failures and half-handed organizing, such as the Post-Apocalyptic genre. Most larps in this category, at least here in Sweden, tend to be rather cliché, with stereotypical worlds and visions, with esthetics pulled right from Mad Max and Tank Girl. Say post apocalyptic larp and people almost always think about teenagers with oversized guns, leather trenchcoats, gasmasks, spiked hair, mutants, canned foods and anarchy. It’s all very cool and movie-like, but not very creative. And when you serve clichés, it’s hard to get participants. Many PA-larps cave in and get cancelled because there is low interest among larpers for these kinds of larps.

Therefor, it’s very exciting to see the developments of our own post-apocalyptic larp Ingenmansland. During the initial planning we were pessimistic and hoped for 150 participants by May, with a theretical maximum of 220 participants. In the middle of february we had to close the door on new participants since we had allready filled our maximum of 220 participants (which grew to 240 participants counting organizers and functionaries). We have swedes, norwegians, danes and even germans coming the larp. We are now in the enviable position of having almost a hundred people who want to participate but can’t, unless we decide to open up new slots for participants (which in turn depends on our ability to provide living quarters, character coaching, props and logistics).

Why this sudden and overwhelming interest in the post apocalyptic larp genre? Without sounding cocky, I think it is because we’ve managed to get people to believe in our project in all its aspects: the fiction, the logistics of the larp, the competence of the organizers, the budget etc. And one other important factor: we’ve reached a “critical mass” of highly active, creative and skilled participants who help create our larp, both on the fictional and the logistical levels. We’re truly blessed with excellent participants.

We’ve believed in this from the start, and the recent developments prove it: people don’t want clichés. People want something different, something that, on the whole, feels realistic and believable while at the same time being escapist enough to warrant actually larping it. You don’t have to go full-out avant-garde neo-dramaturgic free-form high-level larp to attract larpers (odds are you won’t), but a simple rethink on genre-specific stereotypes might bring very rewarding results. If you believe in it, your participants will believe in it.

Original post.

Sanningen om Marika nominated for Emmy!

Published
by
Mike Pohjola
on March 5, 2008
in News
. 4 Comments

More information and links can be found at The company P blogpost. (update by Andie)

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!

Interactive Emmy press release

Credits and other stuff

Solmukohta website down

Published
by
Andie Nordgren
on March 3, 2008
in News
. 0 Comments

The Solmukohta 2008 website (www.solmukohta.org) has experienced a major server crash and some other mishaps and will be offline for a while until things can be fixed, says organizer Jukka Seppänen. This post will be updated with any new information about when the website will be back, or if there is some temporary solution.

Update: The Solmukohta website is back

Art Larp at Art Festival

Published
by
Tor Kjetil Edland
on February 19, 2008
in Events and News
. 3 Comments

The larp “New Voices in Art” has been admitted to Nisjelandet , the art section of the music festival By:Larm taking place in Oslo 21 - 23 February. New Voices in Art will be played at Hausmansgt. 27 (enter from Torggata) from 18 - 20 on Friday the 22nd.

New Voices in Art

New Voices in Art is a short larp about a group of aspiring artist the night before the opening of the exhibition ‘New Voices in Art’. The participants play a version of themselves as aspiring artists. The main themes of this game are ambition, ambivalence and aloneness. The world of modern art is used as a setting to symbolize our yearning for success and fulfillment as creative individuals. Each participant is randomly given a piece of art for the duration of the game that is their work contribution to this exhibition. New Voices in Art has previously been played in Oslo and at Knudepunkt in Denmark in 2007.

One aim of Nisjelandet is to show a selection of distinct forms of cultural expressions being shared with others through the internet. New Voices in Art as well as some other games are freely available at Chambergames.

Tähti

Published
by
Mike Pohjola
on January 23, 2008
in News
. 8 Comments

Just a short blurp about something only available in Finnish, but which might be of interest anyway. It’s my third published roleplaying game Tähti (Riimuahjo Publishing, 2007). (Ask to see or buy a copy at Solmukohta!)

The cover of Tähti

This is a tabletop roleplaying game where you play the member of a Maoist mutant girl band in the Finland of 2017. The action of the game revolves around dating, school, parents, rehearsals, fans, gigs, managers, celebrity and so on.

The insides look quite a bit like a teen mag. The 90s RPGs that read like phone books are ancient history by now. The only conflict resolution mechanic here is based on interpreting fortune cookies.

I wanted to mention this, as I know at least many of my Norwegian and Danish friends consider larp much more experimental and artistic and interersting than tabletops, but the situation is much more balanced in Sweden and Finland. …or am I just being prejudiced here?

In the making: System Danmarc III

Published
by
Andie Nordgren
on January 9, 2008
in Events and News
. 2 Comments

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The last System Danmarc game - setting the standard for what to expect

System Danmarc II was a live role-playing scenario set in a perhaps not so distant future where Europe had been united into the System, a super state dividing its citizens into classes based on wealth and ability to support oneself. The System was not fascist or purposefully brutal - it wanted to help you. If you would just stop screwing up and show some good spirit.

As a C-class citizen you were not locked up, but the only place you were welcome was the c-sector where you could get a place to live, food and some money off the System welfare programme. In the C-sector there was also entertainment, a fairly free flow of drugs and not much to do but fuck up your life some more. It’s all about riot control, eh? And keeping the streets clean for the A- and B-class citizens who earned the right not to be bothered by trash like you.

The C-sector was represented by a town built from freight containers in a square in central Copenhagen, inhabited by about 300 people. A documentary with interviews with (real) Danish politicians and homeless people shown at the end of the scenario indicated that the ideology depicted in the game might not be so far from today as you might think. You can read a review and game story from System Danmarc II, and read all the rest about it at the System Danmarc II game website.

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Coming up: System Danmarc III

System Danmarc III aims to explore the theme of refugees and their situation. Th

e initial idea: the game will be a three day march towards a hope of security northward, but not much is known in a future Europe torn apart by economic collapse and war.

The game will take place in May 2009, a year and a half from now. Now is the time to get involved if you want to be part of making this Amnesty International, Red Cross and Danish Refugee Help supported project real.

First workshop, 26th January 2008

There will be a first workshop on the 26th of January, 2008 in Copenhagen, kicking off the project and locking in on the vision through brainstorming, talking and making plans. This is where you can make yourself a part of the production.

After this workshop, four groups will be formed to work on plans for different parts of organizing the scenario:

– Game design (stories, events, group descriptions and more)
– Scenography (living conditions, transport and more)
– PR (organising communication with player group leaders, players and press)
– Logistics (location, fundraising, budget, cooperation, partners and more)

Second workshop, 24-25 May 2008

A final workshop (24-25 may, 2008, Copenhagen) will bring together all the plans and groups to form a common understanding of how the scenario can be made. A complete project plan is put together and a year of production gets it’s kickoff.

If you are interested in participating in System Danmarc III as a player, mark May 2009 in your calendar right now. If you want to be part of making it happen, get in touch with the organizers right now!

It’s all happening at the project webpage. It’s in danish, but if you don’t speak danish you can help out anyway, just get in touch. The game itself will most probably be played in several of the nordic languages and in english when needed.

System Danmarc III
http://www.munthe-kaas.dk/systemdanmarc

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<Edit Mathias Kromann Rode>
Thank you Andie for posting!
We’ve just uploaded a rip of the movies from the DVD about System Danmarc II. It’s a really god way to get to know about the project fast.

The movies can be found here; http://www.mkromann.dk/stash/sdc_dvdrip/sdc_dvdrip.html

Hello world, Nordic Scene!

Published
by
Andie Nordgren
on December 6, 2007
in News
. 5 Comments

nordicscene.org
A website that covers news and upcoming events on the nordic roleplaying scene in a way accessible to people outside it.

To be properly launched at Solmukohta 2008.

With nordicscene.org I would like to specifically solve three problems:

1) I often talk to people outside the live role-playing community about some of the events I’ve been to, and they think it all sounds wonderfully exciting and want to hear about the next thing coming up. These are people I meet at parties or other subculture happenings, who often have some skill or interest where some live role-playing events seem highly relevant to them. Theater people, writers, film makers.. list goes on and on. These people are not part of the roleplaying scene at all, and thus have a pretty hard time finding their way onto it without some very hands on guidance by people already on it. This rarely happens, since you talk to people, they find it interesting, but then you move on and have nowhere to point them for hooking into the scene. I want somewhere to point people where they can find out what events are coming up, what they can expect and how they can participate, written in a style that does not suppose you know everything about this already.

2) There is actually no website presenting the nordic style roleplaying a style that can be linked to for clarification to outsiders. This part is the least ambitious at the moment - I think that if the first problem can be solved and there is a need for more of a wikipedia style info center website about the nordic scene, this will follow if the site gets visitors and as people feel the need. The simple way to start this is to collect a few links and texts that make up some starting points if you want to explore.

3) News about what’s going on around the nordic scene are very scarce. When not at Knutpunkt, I have little or no idea what people are up to in the other nordic countries. Maybe I’m just not looking in the right places, but I would like to try to make this website some sort of hub where editors from each country will post news items about the local scene. Still in a way that would be accessible to outsiders, though.

/Andie Nordgren