Nordic Larp

Tag: Nordic Larp Yearbook

  • BAPHOMET – The Road to Damnation

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    BAPHOMET – The Road to Damnation

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    In 1937 all members of The Hermetic Order of Ardor disappeared without a trace. The Order was gathered to motivate its members to ascend to a higher plane of existence. Notes found at their estate suggest that, during one of the summonings run by the Lady Templar, two deities slipped through the cracks in the aether and slowly condemned the members to hell. The larp BAPHOMET was the story of what happened.

    The Idea, Story and Setting

    BAPHOMET was a larp about personal horror with the themes terror, lust, desire, power and loss of control. The story was about what happens when a group descends into madness together. During the larp, the two deities Pan and Baphomet possessed the characters, and their aspects filled the characters and slowly consumed them.

    Drawing done after the larp by Freja Gyldenstrøm
    Drawing done after the larp by Freja Gyldenstrøm

    We wanted to explore a horror-themed larp where the basis of the horror was not external monsters, but how we as human beings are capable of doing horrible things if we are pushed just a little. A larp with nearly no special effects and with a focus on loss of self-control though the use of meta-techniques.

    The Hermetic Order of Ardor that the characters were members of was based on a mix of real hermetic orders from the turn of the 19th century. Teachings of Madame Blavatsky, Aleister Crowley and Danish couple Michael and Johanne Agerskov formed the basis of the world view of the order. The tome mediated by Johanne and written by Michael Agerskov, Vandrer mod Lyset (Walking towards the Light), was used as the main inspiration.

    Rituals were performed in the order to heighten the mental state of the members and initiate them in the next level. It was during one of these rituals that the two supernatural powers of the larp came into the world by mistake and started to corrupt the characters.

    The outcome of the larp was locked from the beginning: Everyone would die at the end as they followed either Pan or Baphomet to their realms. The interesting part was not whether you died, but how your character would get to that horrific end: how a secret order would leave all sense of reason and mental illumination, give in to temptation and dive into madness.

    The larp was set in what we called The Vintage Era. The vintage era looks and feels like somewhere in between 1910 and 1950. We wanted the visual style of the period more than re-enactment. So as long as the player’s outfits, hair and makeup looked and felt vintage, we were happy.

    Sign-up and Characters

    BAPHOMET had three different kinds of characters: Knights of the East and West (regular characters), staff and a chef. Everyone was a member of the order. The ticket prices were different for the three types: 210 € for members of the order, 60 € for staff and the chef participated for free. This was because the staff participants had off-game duties, needed to help with various happenings during runtime, and could not expect to play the larp uninterrupted. The chef had so many duties during the larp preparing the food that time playing was limited.

    Room interior, photo by Andreas Ingefjord
    Room interior, photo by Andreas Ingefjord

    If you wanted to participate as a member of the order, you had to sign up with a partner. The reason for this was that in the larp you would have a very close relationship with another character, and the larp demands a lot of trust between the two.

    We also had a questionnaire you needed to fill in during the signup. The information requested was designed to help us understand the motivations of the player to participate, and to decide what character we would like to cast the player as.

    “When signing up for Baphomet we were asked what we wanted out of the experience. I specified ‘exploring the topic of madness in a safe environment’, and this is one of the most valuable experiences I had during the larp.”
    – Player feedback

    A secret agenda for the couple’s sign up and the questionnaire was to raise the threshold for participation. A larp like BAPHOMET demands a lot from its players, and by making the threshold for participation high we wanted to make sure the participants really wanted to participate, and not sign up and then later drop out. We also assumed that if you had signed up with a partner, the chances for you to drop out would be much lower since the partner also couldn’t participate if you cancelled.

    Production and Location

    Since we were only two people in the production team we wanted the production to be as easy as possible.

    Lungholm Slot, photo by Andreas Ingefjord
    Lungholm Slot, photo by Andreas Ingefjord

    We rented the amazing Lungholm Castle, a pristine estate located in an isolated spot of the countryside and filled with antiques, old paintings and a grand piano. The quality of the location was one of the key elements for the larp to work and the larp was partially written for the location.

    “In my eyes the fantastic location was both the reason that the larp was a splendid experience but also the fault that it wasn’t amazing. Due to the cost of the castle, the amount of participants had to be doubled compared to earlier runs of PAN. This meant that the relation drama-driven design was packed with secrets and intrigues, to a point where it became trivial that someone screamed and cried in the hallway every half hour. It ended up being ten parallel explosions that dimmed each other, instead of five intertwined escalations that fuelled one another.”
    – Player feedback

    The runtime of the larp was done by the organizers from within the larp with big help from the staff and chef characters. To control the flow of the larp the organisers played the leaders (High Templars) of the order and could to some degree control the character’s actions.

    The Game Mechanics

    Since BAPHOMET was about possession and loss of control, we used a modified version of the possession mechanics used for PAN.

    A possession was symbolized by a necklace; one for each god. When the necklace was placed around your neck, your character’s morals and ethics would fade and only the immediate needs and wants of the deity were present. You would be possessed, for the other players to notice and interact with, until you passed the necklace onto another player. The necklaces would move from player to player and leave a trail of intense, frightening and character-altering experiences.

    Glass containers with beads, photo by Andreas Ingefjord
    Glass containers with beads, photo by Andreas Ingefjord

    To keep track of where the characters were on their path down into insanity, each player had a glass container placed on a small altar in the ritual room of the estate. Each time you had been possessed, you went and put a bead in the container. A black bead for Baphomet and a white for Pan. The more beads, the more you were in the deity’s control; and your actions would be controlled even when you weren’t wearing a necklace. We would also in some cases increase the amount of beads in a player’s container if they forgot to do it themselves due to immersion in the game. This was also sometimes done to align the bead-visualisation of the progressing state of possession with the actual pace of the possession in the game.

    To underline the mood of the larp, non-diegetic music played throughout the estate day and night. The music became more and more disturbing as time passed. This was also used at PAN and has shown to be very effective and highly recommendable.

    The Safety Features

    A larp like BAPHOMET, which is very physical and intimate, demands a lot of trust between players. We have to be absolutely sure that players are free to explore the themes of the larp and that they can opt in or opt out of a scene or interaction at any time.

    First we all agreed on not disclosing what happened at the larp to anybody not playing it. This was not done to stop people from discussing or criticizing the larp; it was done to give the participants full freedom to do whatever they felt their character should, or should not do. To remove the element of competition of e.g. who larped the most intensely.

    We then all agreed that the recipient of an interaction was responsible for steering the scene in a direction that was comfortable for them. This was done to remove some of the difficult nonverbal or verbal negotiations you always see in intense scenes. This works very well but needs to be workshopped before play

    We also used the Tap Out mechanic, as a last resort if you were in a situation where you felt your boundaries were met and you didn’t want to play the scene any more. You simply double-tapped the other player with your hand and the scene would stop.

    “The combination of unsettling sound effects, extreme emotional play, and topics that were a little too close for comfort left me close to having to “tap out” on several occasions, but at every turn I was surrounded by caring, experienced players who made it possible for me to deal and explore, rather than fold and admit defeat.”
    – Player feedback

    The Experience

    The larp experience at BAPHOMET was a very intense and unsettling experience. Several participants have reported weird and terrifying dreams many weeks after the larp. When the possessions started the feeling of time and space slowly crumbled and you went from one interaction to the next without any time to rest. This was both good and bad, since the attrition pushed you further, but also diminished the individual experience.

    “BAPHOMET was truly something else. The setting was magnificent, and as I felt that everyone shared this total suspension of disbelief, we trod down the spiral stairway into madness together. To the increasing presence of two malevolent entities possessing us in shifts. Constant immersion. Liberal amounts of champagne. Altogether overwhelming.

    The intense play between the couples was full of tragedy, insanity and heartbreak. And the envisioned horror was very much present throughout. This is one nightmare I long for…”
    – Player feedback

    BAPHOMET will be run again in 2018.

    BAPHOMET

    Credits: Linda Udby (design, production), Bjarke Pedersen (design, production).

    Date: October 5–8 and 8–11, 2015

    Location: Lungholm Gods – Rødby – Denmark

    Duration: 3 days (2 in character)

    Participants: 26 at Run 1 and 28 at Run 2. Players from Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Germany, England, Ireland, Poland and the US.

    Budget: €4,750

    Participation Fee: €210

    Game Mechanics: Possession mechanics, non-diegetic sound, tap out safety rule.

    Website: http://looking-glass.wixsite.com/baphomet

    This article was initially published in The Nordic Larp Yearbook 2015 published by Rollespilsakademiet and edited by Charles Bo Nielsen, Erik Sonne Georg, et al.

    Cover photo: Character Irene Taylor – Run 2 (photo by Andreas Ingefjord).

  • Real Men – Defining Gender Identities

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    Real Men – Defining Gender Identities

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    Take your mind back, I don’t know when
    Sometime when it always seemed
    To be just us and them
    Girls that wore pink
    And boys that wore blue
    Boys that always grew up better men
    Than me and you

    Joe Jackson, Real Men

    Real Men is a chamber larp for 4–8 players, lasting four hours, designed by Kevin Burns and Mo Holkar. It’s about the lives and friendships of men – taking a group of characters who meet as young adults, and following them through thirty years as events befall them and their relationships evolve and develop.

    Real Men

    The precursor to Real Men is a similar game, known variously as Women on the Verge… or These Are the Days of Our Lives, in which players build a group of female characters and trace their friendship as their lives develop.

    When we started working together on a parallel larp for men, we decided to focus on the challenges men have in friendship: in being vulnerable to each other; in showing their feelings; and in asking for and receiving help. Male difficulty in communicating, and the pressure that patriarchal society places upon men to behave in a certain range of ways, became major themes of the Real Men game.

    Manhood and Masculinity

    Kevin reflects on masculinity: “When I was young I didn’t feel that being a man in a patriarchal sense had much to offer, and it’s only since I turned 40 that I’ve begun to try to explore and reclaim an authentic masculinity. This has led me to participate in men’s groups, to playing the masculinity guru Kohana in Just a Little Lovin’ (Denmark 2015), and to writing Real Men with Mo.”

    One of the design problems in the larp was the confusion around ‘maleness’ and ‘masculinity’. As an example of this, consider these words by 1990s masculinity guru Marvin Allen((Quoted in Steve Biddulph Manhood (1998) p 33.)):

    I like to think what I do is masculine – when I hold a little baby and kiss it, that’s the masculine part of me holding that little baby. When I have tears because I’m scared, or because I’m full of joy, they’re all masculine. There’s not a female thing about them.

    Marvin Allen, quoted in Manhood by Steve Biddulph

    If a man can only have ‘masculine’ qualities, then masculinity simply means ‘anything pertaining to males’ and this makes it difficult to explore the question. In the 2015 runs of Real Men, in Lewes, UK and at Grenselandet in Oslo, we saw that the (all-male) players struggled with this problem.

    We had to find a way to displace the default gender.

    yinyangIt was not until the third run in Lewes (7th May 2016), after a major rewrite, that we were able to make headway with this. The ancient Chinese concept of Yin-Yang allowed us to decouple behaviours from physical gender. Instead of ‘masculine’ we used Yang, and ‘feminine’ became Yin. In Real Men, Yang behaviour is about dominance, status, outward expression and career; while the Yin aspect is a man’s inner life, his emotionality, his soulful quality, his sensitivity, his secret vulnerability and longing.

    We adapted the ‘metabox’ meta-technique, which allows players to give their character’s internal monologue, which we renamed the ‘Yin-Yang Meta-technique’. Players could be as Yang as they wished outwardly, and use this technique to show their hidden Yin qualities of vulnerability, fragility and self-doubt.

    The second important difference with this run was that it involved female players (4 men, 3 women). Having women involved meant spelling out what it meant to be a man. In the workshop players were taught how to be Yang – taking up space, dominating a room or conversation, establishing status. “At last, we felt we had found a way to play with being a man,” says Kevin.

    Gender and Sexuality

    It should be stressed that we talk about the characters in Real Men (and the related games with female characters) from the point of view of gender as binary, because that’s predominant in the 1980s culture from which the characters emerge. However, questioning binarity, and every other aspect of gender which young people take as given, is an important part of the larp’s potential. The characters start Real Men generally perceived as male, but that can cover or develop into a range of genderqueerness, which players may wish to explore. And players of any or of no gender can, we hope, get an interesting and valuable experience from the larp.

    We should also note that the characters’ sexuality isn’t prescribed or suggested. Each player can define their character’s sexuality as they wish, and again the journey of exploring that as it develops is one that we hope will be a productive one.

    The Game

    The game spans 30 years, beginning in the 1980s of the Joe Jackson song ‘Real Men’, redolent of that decade’s confusion around male identity, masculinity and sexuality.

    What’s a man now, what’s a man mean?
    Is he rough or is he rugged?
    Is he cultural and clean?

    …

    Time to get scared, time to change plan
    Don’t know how to treat a lady
    Don’t know how to be a man

    Joe Jackson, Real Men

    The characters are then aged nineteen and have just completed their schooling. Another innovation in the most recent run was that the first scene takes place following a meeting the characters have attended of the ‘Real Man Group’. This group is the brainchild of James Tyler, a post-feminist masculinity guru, and it opens the characters’ minds to new possibilities in being men. Tyler doesn’t have all the answers, and turns out to have feet of clay, but he has sown a seed in which some of the characters may grow.

    Subsequent scenes, each of 30 minutes, and accompanied by a period-appropriate soundtrack, were set in the 1990s, 2000s, and in the present day, as the characters, who have become friends, reunite in various situations to explore their relationships and reflect on their life’s journey over the previous decade. James Tyler’s suicide rocks their belief in him, leading some to question more deeply, and others to cynicism. Throughout, the song ‘Real Men’ is used as a focus. The meaning of the song’s lyrics – its questioning approach to the perception of masculinity – will shift for each player, as their character evolves through the scenes towards middle-age.

    Character Psychology

    Kevin, who has a background in psychotherapy, created a new approach to character psychology for the game. Each character (see example below) was assigned a secret fear which signified a deep psychological issue that would drive behaviour over a whole lifetime. The characters were offered two responses to the fear: The first was a fantasy, which was the vain hope that they could simply avoid dealing with the problem; and the other was a dream, which was a vision of life in which others would be less likely to suffer in the way that the character had.

    T_______

    The Showman

    Your secret fear (unknown even to yourself): ‘I’m worthless’.

    This compels you to perform and prove yourself constantly.

    Your fantasy is fame, success and adulation.

    The impossible dream is that your ordinariness will be accepted.

    So for example, a character with a secret fear of ‘I’m worthless’ would have the fantasy that he could convince others of his value, thus avoiding the pain of the wound; however, the dream would involve a deeper engagement with the fear of worthlessness, and perhaps inspire a life’s work helping people who are seen as worthless by mainstream society.

    The Future of Real Men

    In response to comments from players, we are in the process of developing Real Men from its current four-hour extent into a one-day experience. The pre-game workshop would consist mainly of a recreation of the imaginary ‘Real Man Group’, with exercises in which the characters talk to each other about their fears, fantasies and dreams. Afterwards we will leave time for a full debrief. Real Men will be aimed at the general public and at mixed gender groups.

    Kevin is working on a short film based on Real Men in collaboration with artist Christian Thompson.

    Player Responses

    We will end with some anonymised player responses, which say better than we can what the impact of Real Men was. All seven players in the latest run wrote at least one piece about their experience.

    Real Men

    On reflection there is something of my Dad in Peter. I didn’t feel loved by my father. He abused me when I was young. He thought I was there to serve him in some way I guess. He was dark and mysterious and very unavailable. He became more available when he had been drinking; only the next day to return to a dark, morose character, working hard and not there for his family. I feel such compassion when I think of my Dad and Peter. How would their lives be different if they had experienced a fully loving and present father; and how would mine be, too?

    ‘Peter’

    I’ve been feeling a lot of bleed about the larp… it was an interesting and intense play experience. The way that Shaun felt intimidated by Peter and Mick, and his discomfort when the banter and teasing turned towards him, flashes me back to my own youthful experiences of trying to fit in with groups of young men who were generally more yang-forward than me. And the way that gaining confidence with age led to him making a considerable arsehole out of himself, confusing arrogance with self-belief; that was I guess a writ-large version of the stupid and sometimes unkind things that I did, once I’d come into myself a bit more. (And, sadly, continue to do occasionally, when I’m not being thoughtful).

    ‘Shaun’

    The paradox is that his secret fear was overcome not by his compulsion or his fantasy (to dominate others), but by laying them aside. This paradox, however, would be unresolvable by Mick: he could not see that he had found the significance and status that he desperately sought. A conception of masculinity that became clear to me as I played, is that it is a suit of armour (or, more accurately, a variety of suits of armour) that one puts on.

    Mick simply could not bear the feeling of nakedness and vulnerability that came from being without his armour.

    …

    So what have I learned – if anything – about myself?

    Masculinity as armour: do I have this? If there is any doubt, one has only to read what I have written here. When trying to talk openly and sincerely about myself, I adopt a sort of hyper-formality (note the obsessive disinclination to dangle prepositions, for example). This is like a shield that keeps ‘too much truth’ at a distance, and protects my vulnerability. Perhaps this is something that I need to work on.

    (See what I did there?)

    ‘Mick’

    Yesterday was very emotional, powerful and touching. I can’t even begin to unravel it.

    I wrote a letter to Dean this morning asking him if he’d be my friend. I realised I have disowned the part of myself that is him quite substantially.

    He may need time to answer.

    I imagined climbing a mountain with him and holding his lonely hand as we looked at the view silently…

    My father, much like Dean’s character, was a runaway. I met him at 22. This week he wrote to me like a lost little boy to tell me his partner is dying.

    It’s hard to know how to support someone so not present… not even to themselves.

    All of my sadness around this played out in a colossal text argument with my boyfriend when I got home who is also going through huge father stuff. His father has cancer.

    The argument was good though. I let Dean speak and be his total arsehole self and it was a release.

    Something got released.

    ‘Dean’

    Real Men

    Real Men

    Credits: Designed by Kevin Burns and Mo Holkar; GMed by Kevin Burns

    Dates: 4 Oct 2015 (Lewes), 31 Oct 2015 (Grenselandet, Oslo), 7 May 2016 (Lewes)

    Length: 4 hours

    Players: 4–8

    Game Mechanics: meta-box for internal monologues; music for timing

    This article was initially published in The Nordic Larp Yearbook 2015 published by Rollespilsakademiet and edited by Charles Bo Nielsen, Erik Sonne Georg, et al.

    Cover photo: Tommy (centre) welcomes his friends to his beachside villa. Real Men playtest, Lewes, UK; by Kevin Burns. 4th October 2015. All other photos from the second Lewes run, 7th May 2016, by Christian Thompson. All photos provided by the authors.

  • Krigshjärta 7 – The Gamification of Nordic Fantasy Larp

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    Krigshjärta 7 – The Gamification of Nordic Fantasy Larp

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    Krigshjärta 7 was the latest addition to the Krigshjärta (Heart of War) campaign, a Swedish war larp campaign that has gained international recognition since its founding in 2006. The campaign uses a collectively developed renaissance low-fantasy fiction available online for public use. The main story follows the ongoing conflict between the capitalistic trade federation Gillet (The Guild) and the fascist-communist empire of Cordovien (Cordovia).

    The setting of Krigshjärta 7 was a small incursion into the Cordovian homeland by Guild special forces as part of a war over a natural resource known as Cordovium, required to cure a viral disease that was spreading all over the world. The scenario took place in the mining areas of Cordovia, where this resource is extracted, and focused primarily on holding and extracting this resource instead of eliminating the enemy force. All players played soldiers or civilians in attachment to one of the armies, each with a main camp for immersion-style role-playing.

    Both camps were separated from one another by a small game area used for combat, consisting of primarily wide open fields, a lake and some forested areas. At this game area three outposts and two minor bases were built and decorated to be used during the game as control points. The game attracted roughly 400 players and took place between Tuesday the 9th and Sunday the 14th of June 2015. Players were in-game around the clock between Wednesday lunch and Saturday afternoon.

    Swedish War Larp 101

    War larp in Sweden is not only widespread and grand, but a style that has rapidly grown in popularity during the last years. Where traditional Swedish fantasy larp generally avoids the international brand “Nordic larp”, major productions like Granland or Krigshjärta actively describes themselves as Nordic larp in order to attract international players. The style tries to uphold an immersionist tradition, while at the same time promoting gamistic elements like combat.

    Swedish war-larping has many similarities to Swedish fantasy-larping, primarily a long tradition of historical design and craftsmanship mixed with a strong culture of DIY. Both personal costumes and shared equipment (like tents, furniture and banners) are amongst many players’ top priorities.

    Because of this, Swedish fantasy-larping fields some of the highest-quality costumes and equipment available on the market today. Swedish war-larping is no different. At a Swedish war larp, the group is the organizational basis of the game. Groups create their own fiction and characters (though strictly within the bounds of the scenario) and are in charge of food, lodging and transportation as well as of all costumes and props. Because of this, most groups also play as a squad together. Most games have substantial demands on in-game tents and furniture being historically accurate, and generally do not offer an off-game camping site. Almost all games take place at locations in the wilderness. Organizers supply the overall scenario and fiction, the location as well as drinking water and sanitary solutions for all participants.

    Location, Location, Location!

    Traditionally, Swedish fantasy larp organizers look for a cheap location in order to save money, the result almost always being several logistical problems and a lot of gametime wasted taking care of easily solvable logistics like getting water or having to go very far to get to the bathroom. Sweden has also often had problems with large distances between the two camps, resulting in less action on the game area and long marching distances tiring the players. We wanted to change this. We rented a fantastic location with toilets and fresh water easily accessible all over the game area. A big lake alongside the entire area for in-game bathing, as well as off-game showers and electricity right by the camp. The area was a maximum of one square kilometer large, resulting in very short marching distances and the feeling that the enemy was always close by… Which they also were! We adapted the scenario accordingly, issuing a constant “hold the line”-order, allowing all squads to go into battle whenever they wanted – without having to wait for in-game orders from commanders.

    The Rejuvenation of Swedish War Larp

    Making Krigshjärta 7 we wanted to breathe new life into a scene that had been doing the same thing for ten years. We wanted to take a new look at the game design, so we did. To this end, the organisers recruited controversial game designer Hampus Ahlbom as well as the original founder of the campaign, Robin Berglund. The idea was to find a new approach to many of the common problems that had been plaguing Swedish war larps for years. We did.

    The first thing we realized was that the entire game was heavily reliant on players of in-game officers on both sides successfully synchronizing the time and place for battles using (literally) medieval methods that failed most of the time. Instead, we created a system where the players were required to occupy different control points at scheduled times, earning points if they succeeded. We put a lot of energy into informing the players about this and thus managed to create several “naturally occurring” times and locations for those who wanted combat. It worked wonders. We had at least three times as much combat as ever before, something that we had always wanted. When the officers no longer had to worry about synchronizing battles, they could suddenly focus more on role-playing and upholding the immersion in camp. We wanted to use this, and we also wanted to make the players feel and think that the in-game world was bigger than only the larp area. So we started using NPCs and missions.

    NPCs and Missions

    Four to five times a day the game masters would send in a mission to the in-game officers, usually one mission per side. The objectives were very specific, and if the mission was successful, the team was awarded points. The missions would arrive in the form of a printed off-game document with some short fictional information plus the time, the place and the mission objective. The officers would then use that information to create an in-game order, adding all the fiction and roleplaying required to uphold the illusion. A squad would be dispatched, which was limited to a certain amount of soldiers and armor in order to ensure that they met a balanced resistance whenever possible. As most players participated in the game as part of a squad, the goal was that each squad at the game would get to experience at least one mission. Many had two.

    The missions added an extra flavor to the game. This was partly because the players would almost always only encounter NPCs on the missions, thus adding to the illusion of there being a world outside the game area (new faces), but also because suddenly the game was more than just fighting the other side and hoping to win. The quests rarely had winning a battle as the objective – more often they were about rescuing someone, infiltrating a place or laying an ambush (and much more). The idea was to give the players a broader immersion into the life of a soldier. Because the missions were always created and performed by the game masters and NPCs we could guarantee a time and place to the players. As none of our NPCs participated in the actual game, but rather stayed in an off-game house when not performing missions – ready to act whenever required.

    Winning the Game

    For a long time Swedish fantasy-larping has frowned upon the concept of winning a larp, arguing that competitiveness creates friction and conflicts and that larp is an experience we create together.

    This works well until you involve large gamistic elements, where the will to win is a fundamental driving factor. Krigshjärta has always had an outspoken policy that one team can win the game, and traditionally this has been done by winning the final battle on the last day, thus ignoring all battles up until then. We thought this to be unfair and cheap.

    Instead, we created the system with control points to be controlled and missions to win. Players would generate points for their team (Gillet or Cordovien) and at the end of the game the winning team would be granted victory in the fiction. Winning a battle didn’t generate any points at all, thus making it possible to win all the battles but still lose the war. The result was a more fair competition, but it also made mastering not only combat but also logistics, endurance, speed and tactics necessary in order to win the game. The current score was updated several times a day throughout the game, and published at a discrete location in each camp. In the end the result was very close – with a victory for Cordovien.

    Conclusion

    One of the most important things to know is that this new, and somewhat controversial, game design was in no way mandatory for the players to use. We actually called it Krigshjärta Plus and presented it as an add-on to the traditional way of playing Krigshjärta. Players were free to use it (or not) as they pleased. That being said, the goal of the new game design was primarily three things:

    • To improve the quality and quantity of battles.
    • To solve off-game communication problems between the two sides.
    • To give players more control over their in-game experience, while at the same time maintaining the illusion of a military hierarchy.

    This makes the game design of Krigshjärta 7 different from many other game designs in the Nordic larp tradition, primarily because very little of it focused on improving roleplaying or character immersion. Instead, it was a game in the word’s more traditional meaning, with a clear set of rules for achieving victory, a scoreboard and a tactical scenario. By creating an in-game scenario with a constant in-game order (hold the line) we gave players the option of commandeering themselves into battle when they wished, without feeling that they betrayed the illusion by doing so. This was highly appreciated and saved many players a lot of downtime.

    By creating a clear set of rules for achieving victory, we ensured that the game was not dependent on off-game communication between the officers of both sides in order to synchronize battles. This left these players free to instead create bonus content that the game was not dependent on, for example focusing on maintaining and improving the in-game illusion. This removed a lot of off-game responsibility from the officer players, which led to an improved experience for both them and those playing soldiers.

    By using control points to generate points at specific times every day we managed to create a naturally occurring time and place for battle, so that those who wished to fight could do that without feeling that they were breaking the illusion. This made it possible for players to schedule their game, allowing them to plan festivities, heavy scenes or battles for themselves in good time. This allowed each player to have a broader playing style, being able to focus on different play during the game – without having the threat of an alarm constantly hanging over them.

    The game design was a huge success and is already influencing future war games being created, both in Sweden and abroad.

    Krigshjärta 7 (Heart of War 7)

    Credits: Hampus Ahlbom, Robin Berglund, Peter Edgar and Maria Rodén.

    Dates: June 9–14, 2015

    Location: Kopparbo, Västmanlands län. Sweden.

    Duration: 3.5 days in-game. 5 days with workshops.

    Participants: 400

    Participation Fee: €50, €70 or €100, depending on income.

    Game Mechanics: Immersive camp game and gamistic wargame

    Website: http://www.krigshjarta7.com/

    This article was initially published in The Nordic Larp Yearbook 2015 published by Rollespilsakademiet and edited by Charles Bo Nielsen, Erik Sonne Georg, et al.

    Cover photo: Battle ensues (play, Kalle Burbeck).

  • SHOWTIME – How a Silly Joke Turned into an Experimental Larp

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    SHOWTIME – How a Silly Joke Turned into an Experimental Larp

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    During a Christmas dinner last year, my friend (and then boss) Claus Raasted got drunk and played “truth or dare”. He ended up getting dared to announce a larp that same evening. Being of a minimalist nature, he got the idea of announcing a larp with absolutely no information, except for a title, some organizers and a date. People had to sign up and pay without knowing anything more than that.

    His original thought was that when people signed up, he would send them their money back and tell them not to trust such a silly scam. For better or worse, he put my name as co-organizer together with Anders Ebbehøj (who had bought the rights to be named as main organizer at a Rollespilsfabrikken larp years back – but that’s another story). Claus and I were at the time high on College of Wizardry madness, so it seemed natural that he’d just put my name on a weird project without asking.

    Unlike him, I didn’t wanna pass up the chance to actually make a larp, though. Especially not when my name was on a mysterious website about said larp! So I ended up telling Claus: “Fuck your plan! We are going to do this! I will write a draft for it!”

    We stuck to the idea of running a larp in complete secrecy. Participants had to pay 250 DKK (35€) up front, with no knowledge whatsoever of the content. Even the location was just listed as “somewhere in Copenhagen”.

    Piling on the Silliness

    Once we agreed on doing it and on keeping it silly and fun, the ideas we threw into the pile had no end. “How about if the main game mechanic is players drinking champagne?”, “We’ll make a gimmick out of Anders Ebbehøj being the only actual organizer and being super pretentious!”, “Let’s have players meet up on a public bar and hand them a letter and say we know nothing!”, “There should be a real prize for winning the larp. 1000 DKK sounds right!”

    I hadn’t had this much fun creating a larp since I created a parody larp making fun of Swedish Jeepform. It was called We Åker Jeep – The game, but it was a lot more fun than it sounded. Anyway, this was even more fun than that. We basically laughed every time we got new ideas and said yes to everything

    A Highly Competitive Larp about Pretentious Larp Organizers

    We – that is me and Claus, and definitely NOT Anders, whose role will be explained later – ended up creating a five act larp about a group of pretentious organizers meeting up after the first College of Wizardry; dedicated to making a better larp than that mess. It was heavily inspired by Martin Jordö’s, Stina Almered’s and Karolina Staël’s comedy larp from 2014 about pretentious Nordic larpers; The Alpha Elite Larp of All Times. Except ours was even more outrageous and self-congratulatory.

    Every act started with them opening a bottle of champagne and ended when it was empty. At the end of every act, they had to rate each other on their larping. We gave no rules for how to rate people, only that everyone had to give one of the other players a sticker for being an awesome larper. At the end, the one with most stickers would get a grand prize of 1000 DKK. Yes; real money. Also, it was about half our budget. The other half was spent on champagne. The third half we spent on pizza, thereby blowing our budget.

    Anders Ebbehøj Presents

    We decided early on that it would be Anders’ larp. Anders had no intention of working on it, though, but neither Claus nor I saw this as a particular hindrance. In fact, this was even more fun. So Anders’ role in the project was simple – he would be the star in an instructional in-game (oh, sorry, diegetic, you pretentious fuckers!) video that we put together, and we were to be his henchmen. He would be the diva of the production; showing up for our filming session and reading from an already-prepared script while dressed in various silly outfits. For the actual larp he’d do nothing but appear at the after party and get the war stories and fame. Just as planned.

    No Organizers on Site

    We (Claus and I; NOT Anders) met the players at a bar and gave them a letter with a map and keys to the location. They asked a lot of questions, but we told them that we didn’t know anything either. It was all part of Anders’ brilliant design and we were just the messengers. We also bought them beer. Then we wished them good luck and prayed for the best. On location we had prepared bottles of champagne and the video with Anders explaining the larp and how it should be played. What could possibly go wrong!?

    They Nearly Sent Away the Pizza Man

    None of us were on site for the larp itself, but “Anders” had ordered pizza for them. They weren’t aware of this, so when the pizza guy arrived with pizzas that were already paid for, they almost sent him away. Luckily, one of the players did a “Oh, wait, I ordered pizzas for everyone!” and let her character take the credit for it. More on credit-hogging later.

    Rerunnable Larp

    Since the complete design of the larp is described in the self-explanatory video we made in English, the larp can easily be run again by anyone interested in something crazy and fun.

    This larp is clearly not for everyone, but when we met up with the players later after the larp, they didn’t know what was up and down and had had a quite funny experience. Our only German player won, and walked home with a 1000 DKK cash prize, and of course we had players complaining about how they should have won instead, but played to lose. Beautiful.

    Game Mechanics

    The Rule of I

    In SHOWTIME you only talk about yourself, and never say “we”. This is about your achievements and contribution. (This was a mechanic meant to create alibi for even more outrageous competitive play.)

    Sounding Important is More Important than Being Important

    This is a larp about being pretentious and sounding pretentious, so you should play according to that, by focusing more on sounding important than on actual results.

    Fear

    Since this is a competitive larp, you should embrace your fear of losing and use that fear as a motivator to outplay the other participants.

    Conclusion

    There are a few things I take with me from creating SHOWTIME.

    1. If you have fun while organizing, your players are more likely to do the same.
    2. Sometimes it’s great to just create a larp, without overthinking it.
    3. Videos with a person explaining what is going to happen actually work!
    4. Intentionally breaking with the rules of good design can be a great learning experience.
    5. Watching the video one year later is hilarious.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmeNVsuF2Y8

    SHOWTIME

    Credits: Anders Ebbehøj and co. (Charles Bo Nielsen and Claus Raasted).

    Date: January 17, 2015

    Location: Rollespilsakademiet, Denmark

    Duration: 1 evening

    Participants: 13

    Budget: €435

    Participation Fee: €35

    Game Mechanics: “The Rule of I”, “Sounding important is more important than being important”, “Fear”

    This article was initially published in The Nordic Larp Yearbook 2015 published by Rollespilsakademiet and edited by Charles Bo Nielsen, Erik Sonne Georg, et al.

    Cover photo: Anders giving instructions (Still from the YouTube video).

  • Rebels on the Mountain – The Last Night of Montelupo

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    Rebels on the Mountain – The Last Night of Montelupo

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    I ribelli della montagna: l’ultima notte di Montelupo (The Rebels on the Mountain: The Last Night of Montelupo) was a larp played in Lusernetta (TO), in Italy, in two runs during July 2015. It was the first historical larp of Terre Spezzate, a larping group active in northern Italy, originally dedicated to fantasy larps. In the last years, however, the group has moved its focus towards one-shots in various settings.

    The opportunity for enacting this larp was the celebration of the 70th anniversary of the Resistance antifascist movement and the Liberation of Italy from the Nazi-Fascist forces during World War II. It was inspired by the tragic slaughter that occurred between the 29th of September and the 4th of October 1944 in the region of Monte Sole. The goals of the organisers were to keep the memory of historical facts alive and to support reflections among the participants about those terrible days. Moreover, the potential of the larp allowed the player to fully identify with the people involved in those events and experience the stress, anxiety and fears of such days.

    One of the main intentions of the authors was to confront the player with choices which were difficult or even impossible to make. Ideals, political issues, religion, personal beliefs, opportunism and family were some of the conflicting key factors that determined the choices of the characters involved. Since, as a deliberate choice of the authors, it was the personal choices of the characters that determined the course of history; one of the most important things that players had to feel was the burden of such responsibility.

    The larp was organised under the aegis of A.N.P.I. – Associazione Nazionale Partigiani Italiani (National Association of Italian Partisans).

    ISTORETO – Istituto Piemontese per la Storia della Resistenza e della Società Contemporanea “Giorgio Agosti” (Piedmontese Institute for the History of Resistance and of Contemporary Society “Giorgio Agosti”), a historical archive of national relevance, helped with the iconographic search, giving our press office some original historical photos.

    After the end of the second run, Maria Airaudo, an actual partisan dispatch rider during the years of fascism, met the players to tell them her first-hand war experience.

    Perception

    Although the events of I ribelli della montagna happened 70 years ago, the proposed themes are still sensitive topics in Italy, having strong connections to current political and social issues. Many of the usual players of Terre Spezzate did not feel at ease at the idea of facing tragical historical events. The re-enacting of the circumstances in which real people were killed was perceived as a lack of respect by some people, and some did not want to be disrespectful towards partisans who sacrificed their lives fighting against Nazi-Fascists. Many were worried about playing the part of a war criminal. The distance between character and player was much shorter in I ribelli della montagna than in other larps. It was closer in terms of realism: I ribelli della montagna was inspired by real events and sought to recreate an authentic mood of anguish due to the constant menace of death and violence.

    Events, places and even characters were not entirely imaginary, but rather relied heavily on inspirations from the real world: we made a serious effort to blend fictional and historical features seamlessly. The fantastical style of fantasy larps, and even the fictional one of contemporary-setting larps, were totally missing, forcing the player to endure a realistic, stifling and long-lasting condition in which they couldn’t find easy ways out.

    It wasn’t far in terms of temporal distance, either. Even if 70 years is a long time, the events of those days still have a remarkable impact on present day. Fascism and the Resistance are still hot topics in Italian political debates of today, often leading to reviews and deliberate misinterpretations of history. They are controversial subjects, difficult to discuss with objectivity, which often leads to arguments and partial, misleading interpretations.

    Finally, the separation between player and character was reduced compared to other larps. The player experienced what their grandparents could have suffered; and this implied a strong emotional involvement and, in some cases, incapability to fully detach from the characters after the larp. Conversely, the larp interested a lot of people not familiar with larping, many of whom had their first experience with the phenomenon. Since the larp was presented like an event less oriented towards entertainment and leisure and more like an occasion of reflection and in-depth insight, it was able to attract many people interested in this approach. In particular, some of the characters were reserved for foreign players, coming from outside Italy.

    It was the first time for Terre Spezzate to have international players in a larp and, as far as the organisers know, also in Italy. Non-Italian players were given foreign, English-speaking characters and, to avoid issues arising from the linguistic difference, many Italian characters were able to speak English according to their background. Of course, understanding and speaking English was a requirement in order to play such characters, but an English-speaking player could not use a foreign language if their character wasn’t able to. This was deliberately meant to recreate the confusing final days of World War II in Italy, when Anglo-American downed pilots and stranded paratroopers could pass months among villagers who were barely able to communicate with them.

    The larp benefited from a high level of attention from the media, who usually do not consider larps newsworthy at all – and are not even familiar with them. In addition to A.N.P.I. mentioned above, the larp was reported by local newspapers, web radio stations and even national radio. The event received some great media coverage, compared to that of other larps.

    The Game

    I Ribelli della Montagna was a three-day continuous larp. The absence of breaks during the game was one of the first things decided upon by the staff. In order to effectively recreate the feeling of continuous danger and uncertainty, it was agreed that the overall recreated reality was not to be interrupted by scheduled suspensions of the game.

    Three main groups of characters were designed for this game: The inhabitants of Montelupo, the rebel partisans and the Nazi-Fascists. But these groups had a lot of differences, both internally and regarding how they related to each other. The inhabitants of Montelupo, the majority of which were women, included fascist supporters, secret partisan associates, and neutral people who accepted the current condition. The town was managed by the fascist Black Shirts, who were born and had grown up in the town. They were natives of the town, and they had strong connections with their fellow citizens, friends and relatives, as well as with the members of the local partisan cell, the Stella Rossa (Red Star). This may seem like a paradox, but it is a fact that, during those days, many lifelong friends found themselves being enemies; and yet, they still met each other at the local tavern and such.

    However, not all the partisans were from Montelupo: Members of the Fiamme Verdi (Green Flames) and CLN, driven by Catholic and communist ideals respectively, reached the town. But partisans were not the only foreigners arriving in Montelupo: There were the German Waffen-SS, heading North during their withdrawal, as well as their Italian allies, loyal to the R.S.I. (Repubblica Sociale Italiana or Italian Social Republic); the state proclaimed by Mussolini after he lost the favor of the king. It’s easy to see that the groups were not homogeneous and did not constitute compact fronts divided along a single line. There were many divergences inside each faction about motivations, ideals, political and ethical issues. This was another deliberate choice, made to reflect the complexity of the historical scenario, and a preeminent point on which the authors focused. They shared the view that the outcomes of historical events have always been determined by the final choices of the people involved.

    Personal responsibilities and faults are always the consequences of the actions we decide to take – or not to take.

    Moreover, the groups were largely unbalanced in terms of resources and power. Even if resources were scarce for everybody, the Nazi-Fascists could rely on a slightly higher supply of weapons and ammunitions, at least in the very first part of the war. They also had the power, both military and political, to impose their will on and take what they needed from the inhabitants of Montelupo. On the other hand, partisans were hiding in the woods in a makeshift camp, their food supplies running short. Again, this was done to properly recreate the historical conditions in which the conflict was fought during those years. However, an important part of the control applied to the game was related to mortality. To avoid players having their characters killed in the first hours of the game, there was a specific rule stating that wounded characters could die only in the last day of the game. Moreover, the initial scarcity of weapons was introduced to discourage too fast an escalation of violence and deaths, which would be a very probable result in a real situation.

    Final Considerations

    I ribelli della montagna was a successful experience, but most of all an instructive one: Both organisers and players learnt valuable lessons.

    First of all, this larp proved that even sensitive topics and tragical events can be approached through larp in a proper way, while keeping a respectful perspective: for the historical facts, the victims involved and the personal sensibilities of the participants.

    The organisation of the larp offered the opportunity to examine many aspects of Italy during Fascism and the Second World War in-depth. It was an occasion for everybody, players and staff alike, to shed light on their own country and history, discovering circumstances, background episodes and little-known details. Finally, the event was appreciated for its balance between thrilling and action-oriented scenes, like firefights, rescues, assaults and even a night bombing; and a strong emotional involvement, due to the uncertain fate of Montelupo, the personal dilemmas of the characters and the fragile, daily habits being shaken and threatened. Brutal interrogations, scarce supplies of food and public executions: The hardcore element was well present.

    The writing and playing of I ribelli della montagna was a great experience: Everybody felt enriched and proud for having contributed to an activity furthering the understanding of the past and the perpetuating of the memory.

    Picture from the larp (play, Lisa Muner).
    Picture from the larp (play, Lisa Muner).

    I ribelli della montagna: l’ultima notte di Montelupo (The Rebels on the Mountain: The Last Night of Montelupo)

    Credits: Andrea Capone, Elio Biffi (main organizers), Aladino Amantini, Andrana Vigone, Annalisa Corbo, Federico Barcella, Matteo Miceli, Mauro Vettori, Paolo Benedetti.

    Date: July 10–12 and 17–19, 2015

    Location: Villaggio delle Stelle (a small private mountain village near the town of Lusernetta), Torino, Italy.

    Duration: Approximately 2 days and 2 nights, including workshops, starting from Friday afternoon until Sunday noon.

    Participants: 65 per run

    Participation Fee: €60 for international players, €70 regular price for villager and female Nazi characters, €80 for partisan characters, €115 for male Nazi and Fascist characters. The entry fee for Nazi and Fascist characters, as well as the one for international players, included the rental fee for a costume.

    Game Mechanics: Single Act Structure, Pre-written characters, Play to Lose, Pre-larp Workshops, Light use of fate play.

    This article was initially published in The Nordic Larp Yearbook 2015 published by Rollespilsakademiet and edited by Charles Bo Nielsen, Erik Sonne Georg, et al.

    Cover photo: Partisans in action (play, Lisa Muner).

  • Pneuma – The Game

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    Pneuma – The Game

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    Pneuma is a surreal mystery-drama, seemingly about a random gathering of people stuck on a bus in the middle of nowhere. The larp is played over four acts. The style is inquisitive and dark. We are trying to attain a feeling of mysteries and confusion. The larp was a brain-child of Hallgeir; it also used elements from escape-rooms like riddles, puzzle-boxes and a cryptex.

    Before Game

    We decided to try something new regarding the workshops before the start of the larp. To that end, we gave the players some instructions on certain actions that should be taken during the workshop. This ranged from “3 times during the workshop you should try to be defiant” to “3 times during the workshop you should say something racist”. We wanted to do this to make the divide between the player and the character a bit blurry from the get-go. We also debriefed about this after the larp, so that the player forced to be a racist was able to explain.

    Bullshit Personality-text

    We wanted the players to feel that the character was written for them, and only them. To do this, we asked all the players some bullshit before the larp started, like: “What is your star-sign?”, “What is your favourite colour?”, “Which animal represents you?” and “Write down 3 words that represent you”.

    In addition to this, we started all characters with the following:

    “We have tried to write the personality of your character based on which player is playing them. We do this to increase your empathy with your character and how to play the role. This is not the main theme of the larp, but we would like to use it as much as possible. If we have some misses, you are totally free to use whatever parts you want to use for play.”

    After that, all characters had the same text (written by Derren Brown):

    “You are a person prone to bouts of self-examination. This is in sharp contrast to a striking ability you have developed to appear very socially engaged, even the life and soul of the party; but in a way that only convinces others. You are all too aware of it being a façade…”

    Playing

    The magical mirrors were an efficient tool for creating a surreal atmosphere (play, Tim Esborn). The magical mirrors were an efficient tool for creating a surreal atmosphere (play, Tim Esborn).

    We divided the larp into acts in order to be able to change the black box and to give instructions and information to the players. All the characters were really aspects of one person’s personality, and inspired by a deadly sin or heavenly virtue. They were all a part of a mentally ill man’s psyche. There were two stories playing out during this larp: What happened inside the two black boxes (the consciousness and the subconscious) and the story outside.

    This meant that all players had their “opposite”, and we tried to create conflicts there from the workshops before the larp. The two black boxes were set up to be the consciousness and subconscious of the character of whom the participants were playing aspects. He was a disturbed man contemplating killing his 5-year-old daughter, and what the players were really doing was deciding whether to kill her or not. So when, at the start of act 3, we held back two players and put them into the subconscious, only being able to communicate with the consciousness (the other black box) through a magical mirror, the players could start figuring out what was happening and who they were. We used some riddle-solving and actual puzzles in addition to the meta-game that was going on. It is difficult to predict how hard riddles and puzzles need to be in order to take the appropriate amount of time to solve. This is the first crack we have had at black-boxes and also the first larp we have made that was explicitly intended for reruns.

    Pneuma

    Credits: Hallgeir Gustavsen, Tim Esborn & Ståle Askerød Johansen

    Duration: 5–6 hours, 4 hours play time

    Participants: 14. Organizers can’t participate as ordinary players.

    Organizers & Helpers: 2–3

    Workload: Medium

    Possible Locations: Black box, gallery, classroom, conference room

    Equipment: Tables, chairs, sound-system of sorts, video-projector (not necessary, but better)

    Playing Style: Realistic, riddle-solving, but with plenty of improvisation

    Notes: Inspired by Agatha Christie´s And Then There Were None, and the movie Identity (2003). This larp used two connected black boxes and pre-recorded video and audio together with two “magical mirrors”. The players were not allowed to speak about the game between acts; a decision we would change in retrospect, as this could have helped solving the plot.

    This article was initially published in The Nordic Larp Yearbook 2015 published by Rollespilsakademiet and edited by Charles Bo Nielsen, Erik Sonne Georg, et al.

    Cover photo: The setting of the game was as enigmatic as it was abstract (play, Tim Esborn).

  • Being a Monk – Building a Cathedral

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    Being a Monk – Building a Cathedral

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    Быть Монахом (Being а Monk) was a larp simulating the life of a Benedictine monastery in the Pyrenees during Holy Week of 1202. The organizers were inspired not only by history and art, but also by their personal experience. The Duende larp held in 2010 in the Urals, where this larp’s organizers were players and part of the monastery team, proved that life in a monastery could provide interesting play. Another source of inspiration was the experience of pilgrimage on the Spanish Way of Saint James (Camino de Santiago). Thus an idea of a larp about a monastery on a pilgrim route was born.

    Unity of Place and Time

    Brother James preaching to the birds (Play, Irina Abzalova)
    Brother James preaching to the birds (Play, Irina Abzalova)

    The core idea of the larp was to:

    • show the monastery structure as a hermetic microcosm;
    • make possible a unique and rich gameplay on religious subjects which are seldom touched;
    • make the monastery represent a moment in the history of the whole European religion; the Church’s decline and crisis at the beginning of the 13th century.

    The larp was focused on the idea of an individual within the structure, not on the structure itself – that is why the larp is titled Being a Monk, rather than, for instance, “The Monastery”. The Middle Ages were obsessed with the questions of essence and existence, and the existential aspect was crucial to the larp.

    Why 1202? The idea of the Church on the edge of change was an important issue for us. The Franciscans and Dominicans were just about to appear, but their presence in the larp would make the answer too simple. The question was where the Western Christian world would go. Thus, the Benedictine monastery became the symbol of the Catholic Church; its inner problems, the distemper of all Christians; and the participants’ answers defined the subsequent destiny of the Church.

    Why the Pyrenees? It was important that the monastery was situated on a pilgrimage route, and the Camino de Santiago was chosen. Vivid Basque culture created another plotline, throwing together Christians and pagans.

    A Rose Is a Rose Is a Rose Is a Rose

    The key sources of inspiration were Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose and Postscript to The Name of the Rose. However, the larp was based not on the books themselves, but on their sources: on the archetypal plots and conflicts. A monastery (though in another region than Eco’s), theological treatises, historical facts and legends, Benedictine regulations – it all formed the larp according to the spirit of the sources.

    The process of building of Saint James’s Cathedral was a plot-defining event of the entire larp. The major conflict of the larp was a struggle (an ideological one rather than military) between Catholics and several groups of heretics and pagans. All those groups aimed to build the Cathedral according to their ideology. The construction combined an actual building process with the inclusion of the symbols corresponding to the sides of the conflict.

    An integrated and hermetic universe was an important part of the game. The monastery was planned as a closed system with no participants outside, and as a self-contained system of in-game knowledge. Not everyone is an expert in the Middle Ages, so there had to be a set of information adequately comprehensive, yet concise. The monastery had to be an entire microcosm for everyone who lived in it. The organizers selected a limited set of in-game information available to any character, and that information was collected in the Library available before the larp and later in-game. Any references to other texts and sources were “prohibited” off-game. Thus the participants could be sure that they had access to everything they could need for fully developed play.

    Spirit and Body

    Burning a witch (Play, Alexandra Koval)
    Burning a witch (Play, Alexandra Koval)

    Asceticism, both physical and mental, was another significant part of the game. It did not use any specific larp techniques, but rather authentic monastic practices that have been working very well for many centuries. Among them there was a daily session in which each character spoke about his sins in front of his brothers, as well as an obligatory confession.

    The monk’s day was divided into “hours”, and his daily schedule included five prayer services, even nightly ones. Lenten fare was used to influence the physical bodies of the participants. Large pre-game introductory texts of liturgy, history and game rules aimed to submerge the participants in the text traditions of those times, as well as serving as part of the asceticism. Even the larp’s length of three full days was chosen on purpose to immerse the participants into the monastery’s rhythm of life, as the rhythm was a defining element.

    Gender issues are unavoidable in such a strongly male-centric game world. Many female larpers wanted to have this unique experience of being a male monk. There is quite an old tradition of crossplay in Russian larp community (mostly with female larpers portraying male characters), but, although the number of crossplaying participants is usually strictly limited, in this case we allowed all interested female players to play monks.

    The larp had 19 sets of rules, several simulated crafts and spiritual/heresy regulations known only to some of the participants. The most important rules were devoted to:

    Spirituality

    These rules contained the doctrines of each of the conflicting groups. Following their dogmas, the characters could gain spiritual power. Obtaining spiritual experience was one of the most important game points for some of the characters. The most advanced characters were especially active in the ideological struggle for the Cathedral. Those who, however, had no interest in this field, were free to avoid this part of the larp.

    Crafts/Cathedral construction

    These rules connected the Cathedral with spirituality. Three main arts – mosaics, stained glass and murals – were a collective work of the majority of the monks. At a fixed hour, all participants created the concept of a future work, filling the template with symbols, which was an important opportunity for heretics to show what they were thinking. For example, by the end of the larp all the frescos in the Cathedral had turned out heretical (gnostic).

    Imagining the Cathedral

    Rendering of the draft project (Pre-game, Vasily Zakharov)
    Rendering of the draft project (Pre-game, Vasily Zakharov)

    We should mention that there are many differences between Russian and Nordic larp traditions. Nordic 360° illusion means “everything or nothing” – if you can’t show something for real, don’t even try. Most Russian larpers consider this a needless limitation. They are ready to accept a certain (and rather substantial) extent of conventionality if it suits a particular larp.

    The construction of the Cathedral was therefore first and foremost a symbolic action, and there’s a huge difference between playing in the real cathedral and building a cathedral with your own hands. We thus needed something that could actually be constructed during the larp and by the participants themselves.

    Things that inspired us were gothic architecture itself, and the novels The Spire by William Golding and The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett, both of which were, in their turn, inspired by Salisbury Cathedral in England.

    Our limitations when making the project of the Cathedral were the following:

    • The in-game building was to house and protect from rain all the participants (about 100 people) during the Easter mass at the end of the larp.
    • The style and structure of a gothic cathedral needed to be recognizable.
    • It was to be constructed by the participants and NPCs without any help from professional builders.
    • The time allowed for construction was 3 days before the larp plus 3 days during the larp.
    • The use of modern tools was to be minimized during the larp.
    • It was OK not to finish the building, as in reality cathedrals took centuries to build.
    • By the end of the larp the Cathedral was to be decorated inside with frescoes, stained glass windows, mosaics, sculptures and handmade candles.

    We decided to construct the building from 25 mm wooden planks, and to cover the walls with cloth and the roof with tarpaulin.

    Southern transept (Post-larp, Olga Vasilyeva)
    Southern transept (Post-larp, Olga Vasilyeva)

    This approach is typical for Russian larps, but this particular project was different from the others not only because of the size of the building, but because it was really much more complicated than anything done by Russian larpers before.

    Our main limitation was scarcity of time and people, so the task had to be simplified as much as possible. We therefore decided not to make a second floor in the building, and to play only on the ground.

    Initially the 3D-model of Salisbury cathedral was taken from Google Earth and used as a reference. Then 1-millimeter precise project was created in Trimble SketchUp. A professional engineer was called upon to verify the project’s feasibility and safety, and his suggestions were adopted.

    Finally, a three-nave basilica with a transept and a tower above the crossing was projected (see the plan). The final dimensions of the building were: 19 meters in length, 8 meters wide and 9 meters high.

    In order to speed up the process we decided to assemble the roofs, facades and the tower on the ground and then raise them up as a whole using ropes and poles – yeah, not historically correct for sure, but definitely dramatic. The projected lift weight of the tower (with the spire) was about 111 kg.

    Raising the Walls

    There was an in-game architect who overlooked the whole process and could take a look (in his personal room where other participants couldn’t see him) at the 3D-model on his laptop. Looking at the model he made sketches by hand on pieces of paper and gave those sketches to the building foremen who oversaw the construction. Foremen further distributed the tasks to workers who performed them using the sketches, and the architect monitored that everything was cut and assembled correctly.

    The participants who were actually building the Cathedral therefore didn’t need any specific knowledge or skill except for the ability to climb a stepladder while wearing a frock and using an electric screwdriver. Those who didn’t know how to do it were taught on-site. In this way, everyone whose characters wanted to work got the chance to do so.

    To make the building process look more authentic during the larp we invented historical designations for all the materials and instruments we were going to use. We pretended planks were stone blocks, the electric screwdriver was called a brace, etc.

    Decoration

    The crucifix, completed (Play, Olga Vasilyeva)
    The crucifix, completed (Play, Olga Vasilyeva)

    All the interior decoration of the Cathedral was created during the larp. The participant who played the head of fresco painters was a professional painter (the only professional of all of us!) The statues of the Virgin and St. James were made of parts of a torso mannequin and a head mannequin with the addition of some insulating foam, plasticine and paint.

    The crucifix was made of plasticine and painted; the crosses above the Cathedral and the baldachin above the crucifix were covered with copper and brass foil respectively. The floor mosaic at the crossing was made of mosaic pieces for bathrooms, on a plywood base. The simple campanile was constructed near the Cathedral and was fitted with brass bells 3 to 20 cm in size, brought by some of the participants from their homes.

    The culmination of the larp was to be at the Easter mass at night, so the stained glass windows didn’t seem like a good idea for that: but we desperately wanted to make something with the same visual effect. In the end we suspended a bright hand-made stained glass lamp in the centre of the Cathedral, highlighting the entire building in colorful shades.

    As a final note, we should say that we used about 3 m³ of timber, and the budget of the construction was about 2500 euros – thanks to the fact that almost all the expensive tools were borrowed from our friends for free. The photos pretty much say the rest.

    Still working at night (Pre-game, Irina Abzalova)
    Still working at night (Pre-game, Irina Abzalova)

    Being а Monk

    Credits: Anastasiya “Domenica” Sarkisyan, Liudmila “Var” Vitkevich, Alexander “Gray” Orlov (Design & Production); Vasily “Jolaf” Zakharov (Cathedral design and construction management).

    Date: May 6–10, 2015

    Location: Rented summer houses near Moscow, Russia

    Duration: 3 days (plus 3 days pre-construction)

    Participants: 80

    Organizers and Helpers: 20 NPCs and staff

    Budget: 8,000 € (30% location rental, 30% Cathedral construction, 30% other stuff)

    Participation Fee: 80 € (in advance) to 110 € (last moment)

    Game Mechanics: Adapted ritualistics, Spirituality, Crafts, Construction of the Cathedral

    Website: http://monachum-sum.livejournal.com (in Russian)
    Cathedral report: http://jolaf.livejournal.com/tag/cathedral (in Russian, with lots of photos and videos)

    This article was initially published in The Nordic Larp Yearbook 2015 published by Rollespilsakademiet and edited by Charles Bo Nielsen, Erik Sonne Georg, et al.

    Cover photo: Service (Play, Nataliia Lavrenova).

  • Hinterland – The Will to Survive

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    Hinterland – The Will to Survive

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    Hinterland was set a few years in the future: a future in which war has destroyed much of society and the infrastructure of modern civilization. Millions of Swedes now live in overcrowded refugee camps scattered around the countryside, at the mercy of ad-hoc crisis authorities, whose resources are stretched way too thin. Life in the camps is harsh and many die of disease, malnutrition, or violence. But there is nowhere else to go.

    The real disaster is yet to come, however. A few years into the crisis, a new disease starts spreading. The overpopulated camps and their malnourished inhabitants have no chance. Over the course of six months, almost the entire population of Sweden has succumbed to the disease, whether in camps or elsewhere. Hinterland was about a group of refugees from such a camp, who have fled in panic as the disease burned through the population. With nothing but the clothes on their bodies, and weakened by years of malnutrition, abuse, and trauma, they have marched off into the wilderness, hoping to get away from the disease.

    HinterlandWe designed Hinterland to challenge the basic comforts most of us are used to at larps. We wanted the game to be physically challenging and really uncomfortable, and we told the players to bring as little as possible, even removing a few items from players before the larp. We actively encouraged players to steal things, even items like sleeping gear or food. The idea was to make the players feel like they didn’t have any resources at all, and to force them into scavenging from the start. The game area was an old farm in the middle of nowhere, where we had hidden items that they could make use of: things like food stashes, blankets, and tools.

    To reach the farm, which was unknown to the players before the larp, they had to walk a few kilometers down a country road. That was how the larp started: a gruelling walk on empty bellies.

    Our idea was to have the players scrounge around the farm once they reached it, and to have them ration or divvy up the resources. They also had to figure out whether they could build or improve the farm for an extended stay, or if they should just take what they could use and move on. Would players hoard or hide resources, or would they pool them together to give everyone a chance to survive? Would they fight over food? Would the characters that thought of themselves as “good” act in a selfish way, and vice versa? Would they act as a collective or would they divide into groups? What would happen to the traumatized refugees once they found relative security, a hot meal, and time to process their experiences? And what would happen once one of them started showing symptoms of disease?

    During the larp, we had a few NPC scenes. One was an unexpected visit by a group of thugs who rolled in with guns and dogs and stole anything lying around, including food and blankets. The idea was for the players to feel a bit better about their situation once they had found some food and other items, only to have it brutally taken away from them again. Another NPC scene was when two visitors from a farm a few miles away came by to check in on the former inhabitants of the farm, who were now dead from the same disease running rampant in the camps. The larp ended with a group from the remnants of the local authority arriving to perform quarantine duties (at which point many players ran off into the woods).

    It amazed me how quickly the condition of our clothing and general appearance deteriorated. We all looked pretty disgusting in the end, but I still felt like a person on the inside. The point is that we looked very much like the people I see begging outside my local food store, and the tarp we put up for shelter during the larp looked like the shelters built by the people who come here to beg to provide for their families. So, today, when I see someone begging, or see the refugees arriving with all their belongings in a plastic bag, I remember this disturbing discrepancy between my outside and my inside and I figure it must be similar for them – the feeling that the people who are clean and well fed will not be able to see who I am behind the dirt and grime, they will not be able to respect me for my achievements or envy me my talents, because those things are invisible to them.

    Eva Meunier, participant

    Creating Survivors

    Character creation was left up to the players, in a process where they would answer around twenty specific questions about their character’s life before, during, and after the war. The questions were designed to streamline the character creation process and to get the participants thinking about the same issues, while leaving out things that weren’t relevant to the story to be told. “Where were you when the war came?” “What kind of person were you before the war?” “Have you done anything to survive that you are not proud of?” Players then asked to have their character reviewed and accepted. Players could request coaching if they felt they needed input or direction. In some cases, organisers did not approve of a suggested character. In these cases, players got an assigned coach to help them build a more suitable character.

    Players were also required to create a few background relationships, shared memories, and a skjebne or fate, for their character. All of this was available through an online system, and players could read each other’s approved characters and build internal relationships. Players were encouraged to let their character design be completely transparent, but they could choose to keep some parts of their background accessible only to themselves and to the organizers. Some players choose this option for a few details of their characters. All fates were by design fully transparent, so as to increase the likelihood of them coming true.

    Today, as I’m eating breakfast and listening to the news of refugees being treated like shit in Libya, or when I see Facebook posts about beggars needing money in order to get home to their countries, I realize what this larp has really given me. Not awesome immersion and a heavy larp experience, but an aftertaste that leaves me defenseless when I hear about refugees and is now making me act instead of closing my eyes. Hinterland seems to have actually done what I was hoping it would do – making me more empathic (and acting on that empathy) to people in similar situations to what I’ve experienced. For me, there’s nothing better or greater this larp could have achieved than nudging people like me out of my comfort zone.

    Sofia Bertilsson, participant

    Hinterland

    Game Mechanics

    Hinterland was light on rules. We decided not to have any boffer weapons, instead using a combination of blank-firing guns – of which there was only one available to the larpers, with a total of two rounds of ammunition – and blunt weapons, such as rocks, hammers, etc. Weapons were used to pre-determine the outcome of a confrontation, similar to the Monitor Celestra rule of “the one with a gun controls the situation,” with our take being “the one with the largest rock controls the situation.”

    As for violence, we wanted to avoid pointless fighting for its own sake, and instead made violence have consequences. We also suggested and workshopped a system in which fighting was mostly about postures, escalating to a point where someone backs down, or brawls on the ground. Furthermore, players were made aware that their characters were weak from malnutrition and lack of sleep, and hence would not be able to take a beating. Our game was loosely divided into acts, where any violence used got increasingly more dangerous as the larp progressed. You could choose to die whenever you wanted to, but you were not allowed to kill other players until the last act.

    As the disease was a major plot element – “Am I infected?” “Is anyone else and how do we treat them?” – we devised a system in which a group of randomly selected players were picked from a list and flagged as “infected.” All the players received a small ziploc bag containing a pill – or three pills, at the second run – to take during the larp. If the pill contained salt, you started manifesting the disease, at which point you could go to the lavatory and apply red powder makeup to your armpits or chest, which symbolized the red rashes you got from the disease. This technique gave a lot of players a sense of dread when taking the pill, and for many who were infected, the taste of salt felt like a physical blow.

    The raiders have left, taking most of our scavenged food and blankets with them. Now a group is checking everyone for the disease. I’m slowly removing my stinking shirt and jacket when I see it, the tell-tale symptom: a bleeding rash on my stomach. God, please, no…

    JC Hoogendoorn, participant

    Because of things overlooked at the first run, we decided to let a few players from the first run play run two as well, with the off-game responsibility to “hack” or push players out of situations where we thought the game might get stuck. For example, players could hack instances where they saw a power dynamic or consensus in the game that killed off avenues of play to explore. An example was when everyone agreed on the most sane and rational solution early on and stuck to it, in a way that didn’t feel like decisions made by people who had been subjected to years of misery, were cold, exhausted, hungry, and afraid.

    Why?

    We have always been interested in “end of the world” scenarios, but also contemporary politics. Far-right and anti-immigrant ideologies are on the rise in Sweden, and we wanted to counter that in some way. One way in which we know we could attempt this was to have people experience just a tiny sliver of the life of a refugee for a short while. We didn’t believe that our larp would be anything close to the horrors that refugees encounter, but we hoped that giving players a tiny taste of the situation experienced right now by millions of people out there would give a better understanding of the hardships that war, and fleeing from war, can entail. We also wanted to make something that was “hardcore” in areas that usually go unchallenged at larps: like personal property, comfort, and basic stuff like food and sleeping quarters. And, finally, an aim of this project was to donate the proceeds of the larp to a Swedish organisation that helps refugees already rejected by the system: the paperless or underground refugees that are sometimes called “illegal.” This was our intent from the start, and something we were open about. In the end we managed to raise around €2,000 for that cause; an amount that we are very happy with.

    I just can’t stop thinking of the events and feelings I experienced this weekend and the events and feelings that the real refugees experienced at the same time. It’s hard to grip. And there is more than one million refugees for every participant at the larp. I’d like to thank everyone for this larp that made me think and feel so much. Now I have to make something of those thoughts and feelings. What that will be I do not yet know.

    Martin Gerhardsson, participant

    Hinterland

    Hinterland

    Credits: Sebastian Utbult, Olle Nyman, Erik Stormark, with the help of Karin Edman, Simon Svensson, Ida Eberg, Andreas Sigfridsson and others.

    Date: May 8–10 & May 22–24, 2015.

    Location: Rifallet, Sweden

    Duration: Around 40 hours, plus workshop.

    Participants: 40–45 per run (two runs total).

    Budget: €7,000

    Participation Fee: €50–€250 depending on income.

    Game Mechanics: Blunt weapons (representative), “phys-larping” violence, optional meta scene room, escalation/ de-escalation techniques, disease system, playing to lose, act structure.

    Website: http://beratta.org/hinterland/

    This article was initially published in The Nordic Larp Yearbook 2015 published by Rollespilsakademiet and edited by Charles Bo Nielsen, Erik Sonne Georg, et al.

    Cover photo: Refugees on the move (play, Sebastian Utbult). Other photos by Sebastian Utbult & Olle Nyman.

  • Hell on Wheels – Experience the Wild West

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    Hell on Wheels – Experience the Wild West

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    The Hell on Wheels larp is a dramatic game for 54 players that takes place in Stonetown, a western settlement in the Czech Republic. It draws its inspiration from the US AMC TV series of the same name. It borrows certain characters and introductory plots from the series, but handles them freely and places them into a broader context of the transcontinental railroad construction in 1866. The game takes approximately 20 hours and is preceded by roughly 5 hours of pre-game workshops and gun handling training.

    Our journey to the western-like larp started in 2013 and went through different concepts. Eventually, we chose to convey a dramatic, film-like experience to the players. We decided to make a genuine western stuffed with all the clichés, character archetypes, and scenes people remember from their favourite movies.

    There were gun fights, duels, brawls, prostitutes, Indians on horseback galloping across the plain, boxing matches, cancan in the saloon, whiskey… all emphasised by dramatic music, both recorded and live. On the one hand, the game was based on visually interesting dramatic scenes: on the other, it gives the players room to experience relationships, intrigue, powerful stories, personal dilemmas, and intimate scenes.

    Hell on Wheels is mainly about a film-like experience; nothing too psychologically complex. Everything is done for effect, the inspiration coming from the Hell on Wheels Season 2 is palpable, one cliché follows another – but it’s a damn western! They’ve given me exactly what they promised and what I wanted. Duels on a muddy street, brawls in the shadows, the howling of the Injuns riding past… What more could I ask for? Although it’s not completely shallow. Racial hatred, the machinations surrounding the election of the mayor and the personal tragedies of the Native Americans living in a white town, all that adds credibility and pathos to the story.

    Karel Cernín, player

    Production

    Negotiation with Indians.
    Negotiation with Indians.

    Since realistic scenery and the visual aspect were our priorities, finding an appropriate location for the game was crucial. We managed to find a western town: it is small, but perfect for our purposes since it is period enough. There is a saloon with a brothel, an office, a telegraph station, a store, a barbershop, a sheriff’s house. At the same time, there are sufficient conveniences: Players are accommodated in themed log cabins and modern sanitary facilities are available.

    By establishing a balance sheet, we found out that if we incurred a moderate debt, we would be able to overcome the chief obstacle and get realistic-looking, working guns that we found essential for the game. Horses are also involved. They are mainly mounted by the NPCs and their presence greatly contributes to the movie-like ambience of the larp. The ambience is also significantly enhanced by the use of pyrotechnics. It makes wells blow up and covers the town in smoke and fire after shoot-outs. Players had to get their own costumes and an overwhelming majority of them prepared their costumes with care and improved the overall visual level of the game.

    The first run was successfully held in the autumn of 2013. Visual promotion turned out to be crucial for a dramatic genre larp; stunning photos were one of the reasons why the game got plenty of the hype that enveloped the following Czech-language runs. When our game even started being mentioned abroad, we decided to risk additional time and resources and have an English-language run. The international run gave rise to several difficulties following from the blending of various larping cultures and different views of some of the delicate topics, namely racism and the gender question.

    We decided to make minor concessions in depicting racism – instead of dark make-up, the freedmen were marked symbolically – and to expand the pre-game workshops that allowed us to better transmit our notion of the game‘s principles, topics, and modes of playing. The players came from 12 different countries, mainly Italy, Denmark, and Sweden. For many of us, hearing English in the Hell on Wheels western town was the one last thing needed for our movie-larp dream to come true.

    By now, one international and four Czech runs have been played, endowing us with enough experience to assess the mechanics and topics employed. In the following sections, we will mention the principal ones.

    A prostitute flirting with railroad workers.

    Topics of the Game

    The game is set in 1866 in Nebraska, USA, and revolves around the construction of the transcontinental railway by the Union Pacific Railroad company. The tent camp of the workers and those who follow them – appropriately called the Hell on Wheels – is slowly turning into Durantown, a new settlement. Some of its inhabitants are getting ready to follow the construction when it moves further: the company is hurrying to build the railway line up to the target point before its competitor. Others, though, prefer to start a new life in the town, and there are also strangers whose intentions are unknown. On top of that, the company leadership abounds with intrigues, the threat of an open war with the local Cheyenne tribe is growing, and everything is influenced by a number of personal relationships ranging from love, faith, and friendship to revenge, racism, and madness.

    Upon the preparation of the game, we decided to make a single main story that involved everybody in one way or another. We worked together with a group of people who are involved in Native American re-enactment: they represent a major external danger that became a thread of the story. The main storyline was naturally densely bound with other plots – such as “the Indians know where the gold lies,” or “there is oil on the Indian land” – and with personal stories of individual characters, such as “a specific Indian killed my husband.”

    Animosity between different nations and ethnic groups constitutes a source of internal tension. Germans hate the Irish; Americans hate the Germans and the Irish; everybody scorns prostitutes and hates freedmen and Indians. This includes racism, the most controversial feature of the game for many players, specifically the play of the freedmen group and the Native American characters. It was not so much about enjoying a western movie, but rather about an inward experience of a racist environment. What was our goal? To transmit through personal experience the concept of racism and the way it works, and to stress its negative effects.

    Lazy afternoon on a porch.

    Focus on Drama

    Before describing the game mechanics we employed, it needs to be stressed that we decided to subordinate almost everything else to the effect brought about by drama and ambience. We aimed at creating a profoundly convincing atmosphere of the Wild West for the participants, so that they would – as one of them said – “go home with the feeling that they know what the Wild West was all about.”

    This is why we chose realistic guns – gas guns with acoustic ammunition – that behave like the real ones and also legitimately give the feeling of danger. For duels, we chose to base our game mechanics on body stances. Every gunslinger is given a number that determines the initial posture they start the fight in. The stances are known to all players, so each of the fighters knows before the duel whether they are going to win or lose. The shoot-outs were based on a dramatic acting out of the injury, according to the players’ own preferences with regard to the logic of a particular scene. Brawls and fights with padded cold-steel dummy weapons worked in a similar way.

    The larp also included a group of prostitutes and a number of romantic plots. Obviously, we had to find a way to act out sex scenes. We eventually chose the symbolism of pressing cheeks against each other and unbuttoning or removing a part of the costume or a costume accessory. We also set a mechanic for how both players can agree on a different and more daring way of acting out the scene without going off-game.

    The game is structured into four chapters. The first chapter starts with scripted scenes and for each of the following three chapters, several major events are prepared in which almost all the characters can be involved, actively or passively. These events are usually related to the main storyline or some of the smaller storylines of particular groups or characters. When we were writing the personal stories of the characters, we made sure that each character has a specific issue to tackle in every chapter: every player had a meta-game booklet with instructions for the beginning of each chapter that offered them ideas on what and how to play or simply assigned them a specific scripted scene.

    During the creation, we intertwined the storylines and prepared NPCs to intervene in the story if necessary. At the same time, there were several NPCs acting as normal player characters, serving to push the story forward or to help move plots that became stuck.

    We also used the mechanic of “barbers”: two organisers were available for players throughout the whole game to consult about their characters, the development of the story, etc. If a player needed to consult an important in-game decision with the organisers, did not know what to do, was bored, or needed to access a new plot, they could “go to the barber’s.” There, they could go off-game and discuss the matter with the organisers.

    Finally, I would like to mention one more concept: double characters. Some players’ characters were intended to stay in the game only for half of the game. In the second part, the players arrived to town as new characters. The aim was to make some conflicts escalate in the middle of the game and, at the same time, enable some players to play two different characters, somehow indirectly, but meaningfully related to each other, thereby offering the player the opportunity to approach an issue from two different points of view. The idea received a favourable response, and it turned out that it might be an interesting alternative for players who don‘t mind a limited space for developing their plot and a scripted end of their first character.

    It’s not wheels that make it hell
    Just hear the song of the preacher’s bell
    Clouds are brown like cowboy’s spit
    Welcome to this hellish pit

    Tom Tychtl, player

    Indians attacking the town.

    Hell on Wheels

    Credits: Filip Appl, Tereza Staňková, Tomáš Dulka, Ondřej Staněk, Jan Zeman, Jaroslav Dostál, Veronika Dostálová, Tomáš Felcman, Jana Isabella Růžičková, Jan Teplý

    Dates: 5 runs in the years 2013-2015

    Location: Stonetown near Humpolec, the Czech Republic

    Duration: 2 days

    Participants: 54

    Budget: €3,600 for each Czech-language run, €6,200 for the international run

    Participation Fee: €60/€80 Czech-language run, €145 the international run (due to translation of the texts)

    Game Mechanics: Body postures in duels, meta instructions in players’ booklets

    Website: http://HowLARP.cz/

    This article was initially published in The Nordic Larp Yearbook 2015 published by Rollespilsakademiet and edited by Charles Bo Nielsen, Erik Sonne Georg, et al.

    All photos provided by the Hell on Wheels organizers.

  • The Legend of Percival – Larping in Babylon

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    The Legend of Percival – Larping in Babylon

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    In September 2015, in the city of Rome, the Chaos League organized The Legend of Percival (La leggenda di Parsifal); a pervasive larp which cannibalised reality for a few days by asking its players to play the role of outcasts in search of their own physical and mental place: A search conducted within and without the self. Set in modern times and inspired by the works of Terry Gilliam (The Fisher King, 1991), Jim Jarmusch (Ghost Dog, 1999) and Alan Moore (V for Vendetta, 1982), the event was designed to delve into the concepts of marginality and morality.

    The characters played in The Legend of Percival all shared a painful personal history and were persuaded to be the moral heirs of the legendary knight Percival. Their attempt was to establish a new community – the reborn Camelot – on values such as mutuality, moderation and strict adherence to the inflexible moral code of medieval knights. Plunged into the throbbing heart of a chaotic Rome, they struggled against the annihilation of humanity.

    Needless to say, the underlying objective of this larp was to stimulate an unbiased debate about modern society – overwhelmed by individualistic views and interested only in the accumulation of superfluous objects – through the fictional expedient of larp. The style of play was 360° degrees illusion, without interruption and without use of meta-techniques.

    Collaborative Writing

    First step in Camelot
    First step in Camelot.

    Before actually playing, participants created their characters under the guidance and supervision of the organisers. In outlining their personal traits, players were asked to give special attention to the construction of what was labelled the “pillar collapse”. This meant a traumatic event supposed to be the starting point of a death–rebirth process for each character. In layman’s terms, the “pillar collapse” could be represented by a bereavement in one’s family or by disturbing experiences able to make the characters question everything in which they firmly believed, able to shake their ideas and their way of life.

    Simultaneously, players were asked to begin to follow a training course, which would put them in an exact mental and physical state to face the larp properly. Participants were assigned meditation and breathing exercises (partly borrowed from the Zen tradition), which were to be performed on a daily basis for two weeks before the beginning of the game. For example, some of the assignments were based on selective auditory drills of self-listening and surrounding environment listening, in order to trigger an improved mastery of one’s interior space. The final goal of such training was to prepare players to the rhythms and concepts they would face during the live event, to reduce the impact with a reality very different from their everyday life.

    The third phase of the “diffused game” (a pre-game stage which took place entirely online) introduced characters to the inner workings of the game.

    Players had a series of clues to follow (the so-called “signs”), which showed similarities to a recently discovered ancient prophecy concerning Percival. In these analogies they recognized (or thought they did) their own personal histories. This led them to believe they were the recipients of the prophecy and were therefore called to action.

    Knights dormitory
    Knights dormitory.

    The Signs

    One of the main narrative devices of the game was that of the “signs”. These were enigmatic epiphanies that characters could grasp and freely decipher by virtue of their own peculiarity and eccentricity. Asked to interpret marginalized and cast out people, players were invited to construct their characters as slightly out-of-the-ordinary individuals who could be easily mistaken for hopeless misfits or weirdos in the eyes of the public. Yet, their unconventional behaviour became their strength as they were the only ones able to actually read the “signs” hidden in apparently disconnected fragments of reality. So, for instance, a strange stain of paint turned into a dragon and was interpreted as the coming of an evil creature; an inscription on a wall became a coded message to be cracked; an e-mail announced the advent of a Herald. Almost everything in the outside world – and, more interesting, outside the game – could be re-framed, re-contextualised and re-interpreted in the light of the prophecy, as an alternative reality which ran underneath the conventional reality. Obviously, many of these signs were revealed to be dead leads (in the sense that they were not intentionally placed by organisers), mind tricks which nonetheless fit perfectly in the picture of a quest where knights are expected to learn and where mistakes are part of the process.

    Fighting training
    Fighting training.

    In particular, many characters started to believe in self-induced signs thanks to a great number of off-game coincidences. These turned out to be consistent since the players themselves were trying to make them coherent and consistent with the whole story. This helped to build up the overall context of the game by adding more depth to the narrative and by increasing the ability of players to perceive what surrounded them.

    When considering that the play area was very wide (the city of Rome covers about 1285 square kilometers) and that the game included the possibility to move freely in the city after sunset, one can easily figure out to what extent players were encouraged to stay focused and filter reality through the lens of the game, thus increasing the feeling of self-estrangement. Pushed to the limit of their own psychological capability, they actually reached a new and exceptional awareness which helped them to move smoothly in the urban fabric.

    The Code

    The Knight’s Code of Behaviour that players were asked to follow was partly adapted from the original Medieval Code of Chivalry and partly invented from scratch. It served as a compass to find the way for soul searching and spiritual salvation. Each knight’s duty was to study and apply it to the letter every day. The code not only represented the cornerstone of the community but was the innermost spiritual aspiration all should strive for during the game.

    From a game design perspective, it ensured the focus on aspects deemed interesting and stimulating by the organisers. It included 13 strict rules, of which the following is an extract:

    A piece of the Prophecy written on a wall
    A piece of the Prophecy written on a wall.

    1) I apply myself to loving my brothers and sisters more than myself, and to seeing only the worth of my fellow Knights.

    3) I apply myself to possessing nothing and to living frugally.

    4) I apply myself to training at the first hours of daylight; to exercising the body in the morning and the mind in the afternoon. Only after twilight will I step outside the community walls to face the world.

    5) I apply myself at all times to speaking the truth, no matter what the cost.

    6) I apply myself to talking only if I have something to say.

    12) I apply myself to constantly observing my flaws and to disposing of them.

    Everyday life
    Everyday life.

    The Quest

    Theoretically speaking, the problematization of an issue means to pose the correct opponents as obstacles. In The Legend of Percival the focus was not on the conflicts between players, but rather on the challenge of building a close-knit community which struggles against external forces. On one side, one finds an internal adversary represented by the former “self” of characters; an enemy within, against whom every player was supposed to measure themselves. The strict adherence to the code proved a very difficult test that required sacrifice and self-control in a continuous strife to improve. On the other side, the external opponent was embodied by a corrupt politician who sought to drive the knights out of “Camelot” to build a gigantic shopping centre in the area they inhabited. He epitomised a diseased strain of society and its perverse egotistical dynamics. His strategy was to depict the knights as deviant and dangerous individuals who could possibly harm the general public. Should the knights back down, relinquish their faith in the prophecy and return to their former lives or stand their ground and face the consequences?

    Spaces

    King Arthur speak to her knights
    King Arthur speak to her knights.

    Rome is known worldwide as a city full of ancient monuments and fascinating history. It is, however, also a chaotic, noisy and tortuous metropolis where people are easily marginalized. The Chaos League envisioned it as a modern Babylon in contrast to the peaceful Zen-like sanctuary the warrior-monks were called to recreate in an abandoned train station. Of course, some aspects of the spatial background were exaggerated – above all as regards the degradation and grotesqueness of people and places – in order to create an uncanny and distressing collective imagery of urban life. For instance, one of the highlight scenes of the game took place during a 4000-people rave party with deafening electronic music and blinding lights. Here, surrounded by smoke and sweat, the knights had to look for a man whose face was unknown. Strangers in a crowd, they had to find the missing link to the resolution of their quest. The organisers’ wish was to put players in the unusual situation of estranged beholders of everyday life who are unable to comprehend and come to terms with the contradictions of our shallow Western society.

    Media and Reception

    The White Rabbit Messenger
    The White Rabbit Messenger.

    The Legend of Percival – which received the endorsement of Terry Gilliam in a funny video shot by some organisers attending a conference at which he was a guest – was a successful media event. Professional photographer Andrea Buccella documented the game in an extensive photo-reportage by taking part in the event as a player. Another participant, screenwriter and filmmaker Mariano Di Nardo, recorded a four-episode documentary “from within” which was aired on national radio (RaiRadio3) and heard by a large audience (approximately 530,000 listeners). Many participants praised the event as well. Some were so affected by their mission as knights they went as far as stating that they would be willing to make use of the teachings of the Code in their real everyday life.

    Conclusions

    The Knights looking for someone in a real rave
    The Knights looking for someone in a real rave.

    The Legend of Percival proved an extremely complex larp to manage and organise. It took many months of work and employed the whole team of organisers. When we started sketching the overall game design we did not know how it would go, especially with regard to what the players would be able to grasp and appreciate about the inner search around which the whole larp revolved. Nothing of the kind had ever been attempted in Italy before, and this increased the degree of uncertainty. Yet, at the same time, the knowledge of being the first thus far to research and experiment gave us the resolve and willpower to realise this ambitious project in the end.

    We are very satisfied with what we achieved, even though we are aware The Legend of Percival is not a larp suitable for all tastes (if ever there was one!). It is unquestionably more suitable for people open to self-questioning and to testing their intellectual potentials since it requires an elevated degree of emotional involvement and blending.

    It was nevertheless a successful gamble, although some critical issues emerged which need to be re-examined and sorted out for the future. Reassessment especially concerns how to structure and manage long hours of silence and meditation in the game and how to convey the style of play to newcomers. Critiques aside, The Legend of Percival was a highly demanding, highly intimate game where participants were called to play in all honesty, without exterior barriers or masks. It required dedication and concentration from everyone, above all from our players, the ever-present focus of all our creative endeavours.

    Camelot
    Camelot

    The Legend of Percival

    Credits: The Chaos League

    Date: September 3–6, 2015

    Location: Rome, Italy

    Duration: 4 days

    Participants: 80

    Budget: €13,000

    Participation Fee: €170

    Game Mechanics: Diffused game, pre-game collaborative writing of characters

    Website: http://chaosleague.org/

    This article was initially published in The Nordic Larp Yearbook 2015 published by Rollespilsakademiet and edited by Charles Bo Nielsen, Erik Sonne Georg, et al.

    Cover photo: Shadow over Camelot (Pre-game, Andrea Buccella). Other photos by Andrea Buccella.