Nordic Larp

Author: Johannes Axner

  • Website Update 2025

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    Website Update 2025

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    Nordiclarp.org has moved to new, faster and better hosting!

    As you might notice the website looks a bit different than it did yesterday.

    After a long period of high costs, bad performance and technical issues we have migrated the website to a new hosting solution. It’s easier to keep up to date and manage as well as costing less.

    Bare with us as there might be some issues to sort out after the move. I’ve tried my best to get everything moved as smoothly as possible, but as a goal of the migration was to use modern versions of everything and not carry over legacy solutions some small details might be weird at times.

    Please report any bugs you find to admin@nordiclarp.org or just any general technical feedback.

    Both the website and wiki have gotten fresh new looks besides the major upgrades to underlying software versions and hosting. We are using as close to default themes as possible with as few extensions and customizations as possible to avoid long term issues.

    If you are interested in the technical details we have moved from a bare metal VPS solution to a managed containerized platform based on Coolify. The sites are hosted on servers in a Nordic country owned by a company based in an EU country. Public assets like images and cached pages are distributed globally with a CDN but no stored data passes US controlled companies or servers.

    Whenever possible we use free open source software which is why we are staying on WordPress and Mediawiki.

    Enjoy the website, enjoy larps and keep sharing knowledge and experiences!

    Update: By design old users and history was not migrated for the wiki and user registration is not working at the moment, I’m working on it.

    /Johannes Axner, admin & owner

  • What Is Nordic Larp?

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    What Is Nordic Larp?

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    What is Nordic larp? We’ve updated and expanded our text on the subject! You can read it here:
    https://nordiclarp.org/what-is-nordic-larp/

  • Larp Design Cards

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    Mikołaj Wicher has together with Agnieszka Kisiel (translation) and Marcin Słowikowski (graphic design) produced a set of cards to help with larp design. Here is how they introduce the cards themselves:

    The Larp Design Cards are a tool for LARP game creation. The goal is to aid the designer in visualising various elements of the game and the connections between these elements. Inspired by The Art of Game Design. A Book of Lenses, the Cards are meant to assist teams of creators in preparing a game together. Other influences include “The Mixing Desk of Larp” and “The Elements of Larp Design” but, contrary to those, Larp Design Cards are a practical tool and not a descriptive system. The formula given here is the first version, and I encourage you to experiment with it.

    You can download the cards here:
    Larp-Design-Cards-PDF

    You can read more about Mikołajs larp work at his Patreon page:
    https://www.patreon.com/mikolajwicher

  • Nordic Larp Talks Malmö 2018

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    Nordic Larp Talks Malmö 2018

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    This years Nordic Larp Talks are out! You can watch them all in the embedded playlist below, or go over to Nordic Larp Talks to get some more context and background.

    Nordic Larp Talks Oslo 2017

    As a bonus, we can also present Nordic Larp Talks Oslo 2017! They are all in the embedded playlist below, and can also be found on the Nordic Larp Talks website.

    Enjoy these and keep an eye out for our own video documentation from Knutpunkt 2018.

  • Living Games Conference 2018

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    Living Games Conference 2018

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    The third Living Games Conference will take place May 17-20, 2018 in Boston, Massachusetts in the United States.  Inspired by the Nordic Knutpunkt tradition, the conference focuses on the academic and practical aspects of larp, including scholarship, design, and play. This year, the conference theme is Our Full Potential. The conference plans to feature A Week in Boston, with events and activities leading up to the conference, including an edu-larp conference at Northeastern University.

    For more information, visit the Living Games website here.

  • Knutpunkt 2018 Companion – Call for Content

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    Knutpunkt 2018 goes online!

    The companion publication for the Knutpunkt 2018 international larp conference wants your contribution! We are now accepting submissions for all kinds of digital content. In this announcement you can find details on what kinds of content we are looking for, what the themes are for the 2018 companion, and how to learn more about contributing to the Companion publication.

    Concept

    The Companion will first and foremost be a digital publication, including all kinds of media. We have no limits on what kind of content we accept, as long as it’s technically possible to be published online. A text, a video, a podcast, a computer game, a piece of music…? Send us your suggestions! We cannot promise to publish all submitted content, but we will consider everything.

    Content will be published on Nordiclarp.org, on a weekly basis over the months leading up to Knutpunkt 2018. The idea is to let the community digest and discuss the companion content even before Knutpunkt. We hope this can inspire the conference participants, as well as create interesting conversations and exchanges in other spaces before, during and after the conference.

    There will also be a print on demand book available with a selection of articles. We aim to have this ready so that it can be ordered around the time that content is beginning to come out online. Only magazine style texts will be considered for the printed book, you can read more about this format further down.

    Themes

    The theme of the Knutpunkt 2018 conference is “Shuffling the Deck”. We have chosen to interpret that as highlighting the diverse nature of larp, wanting to showcase a multitude of themes in a variety of formats. We especially want to lift the scenes that have been less visible in previous Knutpunkt publications.

    The publication will have five main themes, roughly mirroring the five tracks of the conference. We encourage you to use them as starting points for your contributions and be as creative as possible!

    ♠️ Spades

    Larp analysis, discussion and reflection.

    ♦️ Diamonds

    Larp design tools, tips and tricks.

    ♣️ Clubs

    The practicalities of organizing larp.

    ♥️ Hearts

    Participant stories and designers’ post-mortems.

    🃏 Joker

    Discussion and reflections on issues within and opportunities for the (Nordic) larp community.

    Contributing

    To contribute to the publication, please read the full Call for Content on the Knutpunkt 2018 website.

    The Team

    The Companion is a collaboration between the editorial staff of Nordiclarp.org and the Knutpunkt 2018 organizers.

    Editors in Chief

    Johannes Axner is the founder and Editor in Chief of Nordiclarp.org, an online magazine and knowledge portal about larp.

    Annika Waern is a professor in the field of Human–computer interaction at the department of Informatics and Media at Uppsala University, Sweden. She is an established and seasoned researcher and author on the topic of games in general and larp specifically.

    Editing Team

    Besides the main editors, the talented editors of Nordiclarp.org will help edit the content.

    Contact

    Any questions, ideas or feedback can be sent by email to:

    book@knutpunkt.se

    You can read more about the Knutpunkt 2018 conference and the Companion publication on the Knutpunkt 2018 website:
    https://knutpunkt.se/

  • Knutepunkt 2017: Summary

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    Knutepunkt 2017: Summary

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    The Norwegian edition of the Nordic larp conference Knutepunkt, Knutepunkt 2017, is now over. This post will be continuously updated with links to articles, reports, photo albums, videos, slides, books and other relevant documentation.

    If you have any content you want published but lack a place to host it we will gladly host it here at Nordiclarp.org, please contact us on: contribute@nordiclarp.org

    Last update: 2017-03-13, 23:15 CET

    While not specifically written for Knutepunkt 2017, Elin Nilsen’s guide to handling the post Knutepunkt blues is quite relevant for participants:

    The Knutepunkt 2017 Book

    The official journal for Knutepunkt 2017 is called Once Upon a Nordic Larp… Twenty Years of Playing Stories and was edited by Martine Svanevik, Linn Carin Andreassen, Simon Brind, Elin Nilsen, and Grethe Sofie Bulterud Strand.

    Nordiclarp.org Video Reports

    We made a series of interviews on site during the conference. All 14 of them can be found in this playlist.

    Social Media

    Twitter

    Instagram

    Facebook

    Manifestos

     Talks

    Jaakko Stenros – Keynote: Nordic Larp, NPCs, and the Future

    Suus Mutsaers – Net(e)scape: Playing Hackers in an Escape Room

    Slides are available on the linked page.

    Lizzie Stark & Tor Kjetil Edland – The Player Organizer Contract

    Markus Montola – A Cookbook Approach to Quantitative Larp Evaluation

    Here you can download my cookbook slides, and an example excel sheet showing how to crunch those numbers. On the first page of the excel sheet there’s also a link to my living storage of survey items used so far.

    Markus Montola

    Sarah Lynne Bowman, Maury Brown & Johanna Koljonen – Safety & Calibration Tools in Larps

    Nina Runa Essendrop – Retrospect

    Nina Runa Essendrop – Physical, intuitive workshop design

    Magnar Grønvik Müller – Larp as Part of a Learning Process

    Magnar Grønvik Müller – Why edu-larp?

    Photos

    Casper Skyum Høgh

    Anna Volodina

    Dmitry Samus

    Blog Posts

    Kelsey Desrosiers – An American at Knutepunkt

    Mo Holkar – Knutepunkt 2017

    Jonaya Kemper – An American Buccaneer in Scandinavia: Knutepunkt 2017

    KPTV

  • Nordiclarp.org at Knutepunkt 2017

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    Knutepunkt 2017 starts tomorrow with the opening ceremony at 17:00 CET. We will be on location to report. We’ll also try gather all material and links to other reports from the event we can find.

    Knutepunkt 2017

    Knutepunkt is a conference about larp that rotates between the Nordic countries. It gathers people from around the world who want to share knowledge and experiences about larp. The program consists of a wide variety of content. There are talks, panels, workshops, larps, parties, performances and other types of activities.

    This years conference is held in Norway, where the first Knutepunkt was held in 1997.

    Absence

    Because most of our crew is at Knutepunkt we won’t be able to publish or edit content for the next couple of days. We will answer questions as fast as we can, as usual. We’ll especially try to keep an eye on our Facebook page and we might publish some exclusive content there.

    Reporting

    We’re bringing our video equipment to Knutepunkt and we hope to do some video reporting for our YouTube channel. We have some ideas about what to report on, but we’d love your input. Please tell us who you want us to interview and what to ask them!

    Material and Links

    If you have material relating to your program items at Knutepunkt we’d love to publish it here on the website. If you write something about the event we’d also love to link to it.

    After Knutepunkt 2017 is over we will gather all reports, material and links in a round-up post.

    We of course also welcome reports and articles inspired by things happening at Knutepunkt. We have a handy guide here if you want to write for us.

    See You at Knutepunkt 2017!

    We’ll be there, and we hope you’ll come up to say hi if you are too.

    PS. If you want to know more about Knutepunkt 2017, check out their website:
    https://knutepunkt.org/

  • Once Upon a Nordic Larp… – The Knutepunkt 2017 Book

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    The official book for Knutepunkt 2017 is called Once Upon a Nordic Larp… Twenty Years of Playing Stories and it’s out now!

    It promises to be a very interesting read weighing in at an impressive 404 pages. Here’s how the editors introduce it:

    Being a complex grimoire of received wisdom, forbidden wisdom, and questionable wisdom; techniques (both meta- and otherwise); lies, damn lies, and associated ephemera. It was written by an eclectic mix of wonderful people from across the globe and

    edited by

    Martine Svanevik, Linn Carin Andreassen, Simon Brind, Elin Nilsen, and Grethe Sofie Bulterud Strand.

    You can download and read the rest of the book over at the Nordic Larp Wiki:
    https://nordiclarp.org/wiki/Once_Upon_a_Nordic_Larp…_Twenty_Years_of_Playing_Stories

  • Call for Articles

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    We want your brilliance! Have an idea you want to share? Write for Nordiclarp.org!

    We accept text contributions and you can read more about our process here:
    https://nordiclarp.org/write-for-us/

    If you don’t want to write but contribute in other ways we have some suggestions here:
    https://nordiclarp.org/contribute/