Tag: Solmukohta

  • Solmukohta 2020 Keynote: Kjell Hedgard Hugaas – Designing for Transformative Impacts

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    Solmukohta 2020 Keynote: Kjell Hedgard Hugaas – Designing for Transformative Impacts

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    Kjell Hedgard Hugaas is a game designer, activist, politician, event organizer, and trained actor. In this keynote, Kjell Hedgard Hugaas will make the case for why we should design larps that invite the potential for transformative impacts on players. He will discuss the importance of transparency and intentionality when designing for impacts in domains such as emotional processing, social cohesion, educational goals, and political aims.

    Slides: Designing for Transformative Impacts — Kjelll Hedgard Hugaas (Solmukohta 2020)

    Link to article mentioned in talk: https://nordiclarp.org/2019/12/10/transformative-role-play-design-implementation-and-integration/

    Solmukohta 2020 Keynote speakers: Kjell Hedgard Hugaas, Sarah Lynne Bowman, Usva Seregina, Jonaya Kemper

    Transcript

    My name is Kjell Hedgard Hugaas.

    I am a game designer, activist, politician, event organizer, and trained actor, and I am here to make the case for why we should design larps that invite the potential for transformative impacts on players.

    In doing so, I will discuss the importance of transparency and intentionality when designing for impacts in domains such as emotional processing, social cohesion, educational goals, and political aims.

    (The Why)

    In a world that seems to turn ever more difficult to make sense of by every passing day, where do we, the role-players, fit in? What is our mission? Our task? Are we artists? Are we entertainers? Coaches maybe? Or trainers? Maybe we are just passing time and using role-playing as another way to socialize and connect with our friends?

    In short: Why do we do the things we do?

    Before I give my answer to that, I want to make it clear that people participate in play for a variety of reasons, and most any reason is valid. The following is merely my opinion on what role-playing could be used for and what we could benefit if we followed this particular path.

    I believe that almost everything we do in life can be done in ways that can add value to our own lives, the lives of others in our communities and the world in general. Role-playing is in no way an exception to this and it is my own hope that we as a collection of communities can rise to the challenge and help a world that needs healing now more than ever.

    I believe that we as skilled and curious role-players are in the possession of a powerful tool, that if used with intention can, and indeed almost certainly will, change the world for the better. On the other side of the coin, if we choose to not address or comment on important issues, facilitate for expansion and understanding, lay down frameworks for growth, or help participants make sense of the world that exists outside of the magic circle, we are letting important and potentially very powerful opportunities pass us by.

    My vision for the future of larp is that we explore the limits of our craft, learn to use it to the extent of it’s potential, and then wield it to enact the change we want to see in the world.

    I know that it is a tall order. Maybe even painfully naive to believe in. But are we not people who are used to dreaming big and making the seemingly fantastical come true? Are we not inventors and designers of our own worlds? Is it too much to think that at least some of the things we create within the magic circle might seep out into the world in general?

    Some might say that this is all just a dream.. But am I the only dreamer out there? Maybe one of a happy few? Or maybe, just maybe is the future of role-playing more potently world changing than any of us can even dare to imagine?

    (The Potential)

    The potential for role-playing to have profound transformative impacts on participants should be quite obvious by now. It can facilitate dramatic expansion in their worldview, their understanding of others, and their ability to affect change in the world around them. As Sarah Lynne Bowman noted in 2014; The sheer number of people interested in implementing role-playing and simulation as tools for education, empathy-building, and skill training attests to the methods’ potential potency.

    In my own years of playing I can certainly point to several role-playing experiences that have been transformative to a point where they have altered the course of my life, and judging by the hundreds of stories I and others have gathered over the years, I am far from alone in this experience. For many players, these transformative effects might occur—and certainly do occur—by chance or as a result of intuitive choices that designers and participants make. But, imagine for a moment if you will, what our communities might look like if we actively sought to maximize the potential of such impacts through intentional design, implementation, and post-event integration.

    Well, In my opinion, there is only one way to find out. And I invite you all to join in on this adventure.

    (The How)

    Before we proceed, we should note that even the most skilled and careful consideration and implementation of these ideas and thoughts will not ensure that transformative impacts undoubtedly will take place. Experiences will always vary from person to person and from event to event. To put it bluntly; we are not dealing with an exact science here.

    When seeking to design for transformation, the first step should be establishing a clear vision carefully detailing the desired impacts we want to experience. Sarah Lynne Bowman and I have previously proposed four broad groups of impacts, in order to establish a system. These lists are not exhaustive and in the future we expect that the need for further categorization might also present itself. But for now, we have the following groups: Emotional Processing, Social Cohesion, Educational Goals, and Political Aims.

    A disclaimer here: Designing for certain types of impacts—such as therapeutic aims—may require advanced training, consultation with experts, or increased safety measures.

    As you can see; on these two slides I have listed the groups that we proposed. As you can see, there is a lot of different concepts and themes here and I will not go into them in any detail in this short talk. For those of you who are interested in a deeper dive, there is an article on nordiclarp.org with more details. It also contains a reference list with suggestions for further reading. I will link it in the comments.

    Be it through virtual play, tabletop, or larp, role-playing can arguably change people’s lives for the better. But, in order to maximize this potential, we as participants need to be open to it. In order to be as open as possibly to transformative impacts, we need to feel safe and held. For this reason, I cannot stress enough how principles of informed consent and safety need to be at the forefront of this design philosophy.

    We need to create a container that is strong enough for players to feel that they have the freedom to judge or themselves the extent to which they feel comfortable leaning into certain types of content or experiences based on their own emotional, psychological, and physical thresholds. The freedom of choice is important, since although growth often involves facing our own resistance to change, pushing participants beyond their limits can have the exact opposite effect to what they are seeking for themselves.

    Therefore, while it is my strong belief that transformative impacts should always be at the forefront of design and implementation choices, concerns about safety and consent are inextricably linked to creating a secure-enough container for such experiences to take place.

    So.. why should we design for transformative impacts?

    If 25 years of activism and political engagement have taught me anything, it is that change is not something that is handed to us. Women were not given the right to vote.. it was won by the many that fought for it. Workers were not given the 5 day work-week because the factory owners decided to be kind. It was made into law because they fought for it. Apartheid was not ended out of the good hearts of the oppressors. It was ended because the people of the world made it so.

    In other words.. we cannot allow ourselves to sit and wait for the change we want to see in the world. We need to make it so.

    We need more compassion and empathy.

    We need more peaceful solutions to conflict.

    We need progressive social change.

    We need to raise the voices the disenfranchised and oppressed.

    We need to heal our own wounds.

    We need to heal the wounds of the many.

    And so on and so on…

    The needs are many and the time is now.

    Let us add our skills and knowledge to the efforts and help make it so.

    That is my vision for the future.

    Thank you.


    This was part of the Solmukohta 2020 online program. https://solmukohta.eu/

  • Solmukohta 2020 Futurespective: Sharon Underberg

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    Solmukohta 2020 Futurespective: Sharon Underberg

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    It’s a retrospective – from the year 2040! Six speakers tell us what’s happened in their world of larp “in the past 10 years”.

    Solmukohta 2020 Futurespective speakers: Erik Winther Paisley, Eleanor Saitta, Eirik Fatland, Johanna Koljonen, Sharon Underberg and Karolina Fedyk.

    Transcript

    Thanks for the invitation to speak about the state of larp from 2030 through the present. It’s really been an exciting time. Oh, and since it’s not very interesting watching my face as I speak, I’ll share some photos and drawings #of fellow larpers.

    I will admit I had my worries. I remember all the talks we had back when the term “older larpers” referred to players in their 40’s and 50’s. Many of us were juggling work and family responsibilities.

    We often had more money than the younger larpers, but less time. There were certainly trade offs–

    the more experienced players, especially those identifying as male, had a lot of social capital, and were often given leadership roles in larps.

    But back then, players identifying as female had a bit harder time–more likely to be typecast as mothers or witches, often defined by their relationships with other players.

    And already there was awareness of the physical challenges of aging.

    At that time in my life, I thought of the future with some trepidation. As we progressed from “older” to–I don’t know–”old”? Ancient?– a lot of things would change.

    I’d anticipated that those of us now in our 60s and 70’s would largely be retired, with more spare time but less spare cash.

    What many of us hopefully would have gained in wisdom and experience would be intermixed with losses–of partners, of mobility, of eyesight or hearing, other health challenges.

    I had hopes that assistive technology would ameliorate some of the physical challenges, but still–.I was acutely aware.

    Even without those losses, the old are often perceived differently by the young. As more frail, more needy, less authoritative, And no longer a peer. Imagine larping with someone like THAT?

    But things have turned out way better than I anticipated. One major factor, I think, is that there was a whole cohort of us who were aging at the same time, and many of those people were already pioneers and leaders in the larp community. .

    But even those of us who were just players put out the challenge to larp designers. First, give us physical designs that can accommodate our aging bodies, as well as our differently abled younger peers.

    A comfortable place to sleep, options for those with physical challenges.

    The changes in response to this didn’t happen all at once, nor did they happen universally.

    It took time, especially for younger designers and organizers, to really get what we were asking. To do more than pay lip service to the needs of older players.

    Some were unwilling or unable to make those changes, sometimes for reasons beyond their control.

    There are still ancient castles with winding stairs, still larps centered around physical combat, or running across difficult terrain,

    Not all larps are for everyone, but more and more I’ve seen that decision made consciously rather than by inadvertently excluding some players in the design process.

    And then there’s the expanding genre of virtual reality larps, where our physical abilities and appearances can morph at will. Talk about empowering….!

    But having the physical ability to participate in a larp was only a starting place. Far more important was full inclusion in the story without artificial limits based on age.

    This is what we demanded: Design interesting characters for those of us who are older–without the preconceptions and prejudices about what an older player can feel or do.

    Give us agency, give us passions and flaws and conflicts. And remember, there is no age limit on either romance or sexuality.

    At first it was the older and more experienced designers who responded to this, but once the younger designers saw this modeled, and saw the full breadth of character that someone with six or seven decades of life experience could achieve, many of them followed suit. Not all, but that’s okay.

    Because of course, not all larps are for everyone. As there are some designed for younger players, there have been more larps developed specifically for more mature players.

    Which only makes sense, because as we have aged, many of us have found ourselves interested in exploring new questions and aspects of larp.

    Personally I find myself alternating between escape-from-reality larping and those that explore some of the less comfortable aspects of aging, including memory loss, disability and death.

    Let me tell you about my last few larps.

    Bjarke Pedersen’s latest larp, The Number of the Beast, featured a satanic cult in which the members are powerless until they reach the age of 66 and 6 months. Taking place at a secluded manor house, the mysterious cult leader hosted a “coming of age” ritual for those finally attaining the ranks of elder. As you can imagine,decadence and madness ensued.

    Mythical Fools premiered Navarca, a larp taking place on a generation ship where the inhabitants have lost all knowledge of how to maintain the ship. The lights have been gradually going out, and the larp begins as they are about to be left in total darkness. I played Shim, an elder and hereditary ”Pusher-of-the-keys” who evolved from traditionalist to heretic.

    The latest College of Wizardry spinoff, Squaring Seven, takes place in a world where you only gain magic once your seventh child has given birth to their seventh child. During that last pregnancy, the incipient Witchards come together at college to learn about the skills they are about to acquire.. The larp prides itself on being equally accessible as even younger players are allowed to play the students and professors despite the age discrepancy.

    Kathy Amende’s latest larp, Retreat, is an intimate parlor larp for 6 characters, in which each character starts with fully fleshed memories, skills and complex relationships with the other players. Through a randomized process, memories and skills are gradually lost, affecting some characters more than others. The powerful evolution of interaction was particularly moving–I’m still processing and dealing with significant bleed..

    Meanwhile, Ryan Hart’s latest in his cyberpunk series, Touchstone, uses VR mixed with live action. In a future in which half of humanity has been uploaded to the Cathedral, a giant computer, there are conflicts for rights between the virtual and physical worlds.I greatly enjoyed playing EIGHTBALL, avatar of a powerful Master of Loci who had claimed the Cathedral itself.

    On the post apocalyptic front, Chaos League’s Many Mothers was an ecological fable played out in the Sahara Desert. The matriarchal inhabitants of the last oasis are forced to make difficult decisions when their ecosystem is found to be shrinking. Who will stay and who will leave to join the roving motorcycle gangs warring for dominance in the desert?

    I was privileged to attend the 20th anniversary rerun of The Rites of Spring, run by an experienced team led by John Shockley. This folk horror larp took place on a remote island off the English coast, where ancient traditions become horrifyingly real both for islanders and visitors. As one of the elders, our roles were central to the plot.

    And one more. Avalon Larp Studio’s latest, The Immortal Dilemma, was a thought provoking political larp based on Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels. In the land of Luggnagg, the Struldbrugs are born with a red mark above one eye which indicates they have the blessing–or curse–of living forever, but without the gift of eternal youth. The players are some of the first cohort of struldbruggs, who have been alive and in power long enough that they now own and control everything. Having come to realize that their descendants are suffering under their regime, the Struldbrugs are meeting as a congress to make a consequential decision: either keeping the status quo or giving up all legal rights once they turn 80,remaining powerless for all of their subsequent days. Would removing themselves from society be the solution to give their descendants a chance to have a future of their own? Is it too much of a sacrifice to spend eternity without power or possessions?

    So in summary it’s been an amazing ten years of larp, and especially as we age, larp has progressed right with us and given us more and more opportunities. Please, as we come into the future, remember those who are older are the ones who make magic.


    This was part of the Solmukohta 2020 online program. https://solmukohta.eu/

  • Solmukohta 2020: Kaisa Kangas – Seaside Prison – Designing Larp for Wider Cultural Audiences

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    Solmukohta 2020: Kaisa Kangas – Seaside Prison – Designing Larp for Wider Cultural Audiences

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    Seaside Prison is a blackbox larp financially supported by Finnish Cultural Foundation, about life in Gaza. Lately, art and entertainment in general have been going towards interactive and immersive dimensions, and there has been interest towards the larp toolbox among, for example, performance artists. However, wider cultural audiences often find traditional larps hard to approach since they take a lot of time and require preparation. One of the ideas behind Seaside Prison is to create a package that is easier to approach. The larp is run in a theatre environment and employs sound, light, and video projection. Could this be a joint future for larp and theatre? In this talk we discuss how the larp was created, its aims, and the possible futures for larp in the culture establishment.

    Q&A from the Original Viewing at Solmukohta 2020 Online Event

    Anon 1: Theater as a familiar environment: So true! But does it involves expectations of stage-acting?

    Kaisa Kangas No, we do not advertise it in that way, and we have workshop where we go into what larp is 🙂

     

    Anon 2: Though the building itself carries its own expectations – some people will go to a theatre simply expecting to sit and watch, and even if they know it’s a larp, they have to be onboarded in a way that takes into account the theatre environment’s expectations.

    Kaisa Kangas Sure!

    Kaisa Kangas But we don’t really have a stage or seats for audience, we start the workshop with people walking around. And advertise it as larp. 🙂

     

    Anon 1: I’m just wondering if you know any kind of (public?) space which is more neutral in expectations than theater but still a familiar (playful?) environment?

    Kaisa Kangas I’m sure there are spaces that are more neutral. We use the theatre environment also because it is practical for us: theatres have the light and sound technique that we need, so we don’t have to install everything separately.

     

    Anon 3: We’ve got our own black box room in Zagreb, if it helps.

    Anon 2: I found the careful mapping of “alternate Finland” with “similar to real-world Gaza experience” really successful in Halat hisar; especially while people are very wary about appropriation or misusing suffering for “games”, I find this work to be really deeply rooted in an understanding of its source and of its limitations

    Anon 4: The parallels to The Quota are really interesting – re setting it “at home” rather than appropriating.

    Anon 5: The advantages of the setting being in your country also make is a lot easier for larp newbies for whom it can be daunting to prepare a lot in advance and on the other hand hard to get into character with too little context. 😉

    Anon 6: If anyone wants to do these kind of things in Gothenburg I most often have free of charge venue, but if you are selling tickets I need money for the venue (the money will go back to gaming culture) We have sound systems, but only old school lighting,

    Anon 6: We also have several projectors and movable screens

     

    Kaisa Kangas We sell tickets for two reasons:

    – They cover part of the costs (tech and the spaces can be expensive);

    – People feel more committed to come when they have paid (even a nominal) fee.

     

    Anon 6: Kaisa Agree on the committed thing.

    Anon 7: You don’t see it in the video, but we were literally blinded by bright light.

    Anon 7: As in, couldn’t keep eyes open bright.

    Anon 7: No need to cry out of emotion when your eyes well up from the photons. 🙂

    Anon 6: Crying now.

    Anon 4: Welling up too. Wow.

    Anon 1: There is a similar participatory theater in Hungary which is called the Escape and you play blindly as a refugee childen from a fictional country trying to get into Europe. Very chilling!

    Anon 6: I’ve played something like that when I was a teen.

     

    Anon 1: Can you elaborate? I’m interested!

    Anon 3: Damn! I want to play this!

     

    Anon 10: The lamps also produce a heatwave, which I think was a powerful and unusual addition to the visual effects.

     

    Anon 8: I was in that test run and hearing the music and sounds again made me unexpectedly emotional <3

    Anon 3: Anon 8: Haven’t been there but it got me too.

     

    Anon 4: Inviting politicians would be a great idea too

     

    Anon 7: Yes, the heat was real!

     

    Anon 9: I have one tangential question – I’ve heard about a larp on similar theme (fleeing a war zone) which gave people this fake sense that now they know exactly how it is to be a refugee and they equate the larp experience with real, lived experiences. How to communicate with players to avoid this kind of… emotional appropriation, for the lack of better phrase?

     

    Anon 6: I wouldn’t. They feel what they feel. They might be factually wrong, but experience over time will inform them. 🙂

     

    Anon 6: I mean, larp is something that does happen to your physical body and larping it will increase you emotional understanding of something much more than many other cultural forms.

    Saying its the same experience will be a overstatement, but that is the way some people speak. I don’t think they will belittle people who have had the real experience after going to such a larp, instead they will have more empathy, which is a good thing.

     

    Anon 9: I’m worried that it may lead to belittling though – and for some it might. While as a designer I’m not responsible for how people interpret my larps, I want to make sure I don’t encourage responses that are harmful or dismissive towards other people’s lived experiences.

    Kaisa Kangas I think that when you have someone present who actually has that experience and whom they can discuss with at the debrief/ contextualisation, it usually puts things into perspective. At least I felt that was the effect in Halat hisar, when players could ask Palestinians questions about their lives. You kind of realise that you had your own experience but this other person is living it in real life and there’s a difference.

     

    Anon 6: Anon 9: I’m thinking if I tell they “feel wrong” then I am guilty of belitteling the right there and then.

    I don’t know Everything about my players, and why their inner World works that way or why they use language that way.

     

    Anon 10: I think you get quite far as an organizer by just avoiding equating the larp with a real life experience when you introduce the larp. I would say the risk is quite insignificant when doing a larp in a black box theater with an adult player group.

    But I do think the risk is real if doing a 360 degree simulation with say, teenagers, and organizers who want to exaggerate the impact of what they do.

     

    Anon 9: Anon 6: that is a very good point and I need to let it sink in for me. Thank you!

     

    Anon 6: Anon 9: I Always tro to make like a risk assesment and Think that the person in front of me also Counts. I know I’m super sensitive if someone tells me my feeling is wrong or my language (English isnt my mother tongue) is wrong.

    And my level of what is “harm” is quite high. I see a difference between offence and harm.

     

    Anon 11: Thank you <3 This is a great and important project, I’m looking forward to maybe getting to play it. I would loveto continue the discussion about larps for a wider audience, also in connection to yesterday’s talk about the commodification of larp and how we navigate all this.

    Kaisa Kangas It’s a super-interesting topic!

    I have to yet watch the commodification talk (yesterday, I was still busy editing video…)

     

    Anon 8: My big question with this project is, how does it change the larp as an experience if/when a large part of the participants come with no or little background information on larping, and when the setting guides their perceptions and expectations towards theatre?

    Kaisa Kangas That’s a good question! Our aim is to have some people with larp experience in all the runs so there would be some herd competence. And we spend a lot of time workshopping things. Originally, I planned to talk a bit more about stuff like this, but that was before the Tuesday run got cancelled, and it’s hard to talk about it when you don’t have the experience on how it worked.

     

    Anon 8: I’m looking forward to your future talk about the things you learned from Seaside Prison <3

     

    Anon 2: This was something [X] and I started with in 2009 – we came from theatre and knew we were advertising to a theatre audience, and we also designed very much with theatricality in mind. But there were so, so many things to be learned about a) getting your audience to actually buy a ticket in the first place, b) getting them all on the same page before the piece, c) getting them all on the same page once they’re in the room, d) hand-holding and making sure that they feel confident enough to keep playing until the end. A turn-key larp is an interesting product but does require massive amounts of excellent PR.

     

    Anon 1: I’m quite interested in your best practices and tips in a) and b)!!!

     

    Anon 8: Is “turn-key larp” the term for a larp where you just buy the ticket and show up, no preparations needed?

    Kaisa Kangas We use a really long time for the workshop in our time slot. And we hope to have a right mix of people with larp experience and people with no larp experience in the run, so there is some herd competence. Also, having a clear structure helps.

    Kaisa Kangas Also, was originally hoping to talk more about these aspects at SK, but can’t really talk about them without the experience of running the larp.

     

    Anon 12: Anon 1: Maybe we should write a summary of out experiences some time, but maybe the most important thing (I think) was that the process of getting ready to take part in the piece was the piece itself – that it’s built in that in the beginning the engagement level is different and then it’s deepened through the process.

     

    Anon 5:Low threshold larping is something I think is currently an underused medium of larp. Here, the Seaside Prison team has taken into account and removed or shrunk many obstacles that prevent new people from larping even in super interesting projects like this. I especially appreciate the fact that no preparation is needed yet you get a proper, sufficient background for the larp (due to a familiar setting and the extensive workshop.) It is also a significant advantage that the game can be played in the course of one evening, even after work. The fact that it is cheap is really important, too.

    Kaisa Kangas Here’s a link to our webpage in case you want more information on future runs, etc! (Will be updated when we know that it will be possible to run the larp.)

    http://seasideprison.fi

    Kaisa Kangas We also have a FB page.

    https://www.facebook.com/seasideprison/


    This was part of the Solmukohta 2020 online program. https://solmukohta.eu/

  • Solmukohta 2020: Mátyás Hartyándi – Larp – Oddity, Hypernym or what?

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    Solmukohta 2020: Mátyás Hartyándi – Larp – Oddity, Hypernym or what?

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    A talk about the future and self-definition of larps for those who are interested in overlapping activities and/or multidisciplinary cooperations. As the meaning and praxis of Nordic larps evolved and expanded during the last two decades, some of its larps became nearly indistinguishable from other established forms of role-playing (e.g. process drama or socio drama). Is this a bug or a feature? What type of relations can enrich larp? And (how) should we react to these changes? Larp has the potential to become a new, inclusive, and all-encompassing umbrella movement, but inbred ignorance in its circles might also limit its recognition in favor of more established forms. How can the larp movement stay geniune yet be open to change? And what kind of role should larping take in the eyes of outsiders?

    Slides: Larp_ Oddity, Hypernym or What_ (SK2020)

    Discussion

    Anon 1: Here, I googled it for you:

    Bibliodrama, called Bibliolog in much of Europe, is a form of role playing or improvisational theatre using Bible stories.

    Mátyás Harpgándi To my best knowledge there are at least 2 different lineages of Bibliodrama/log. One is more of a version of sociodrama (structured activities which includes a lot of improv and role-play) and the other is more of an interactive meditation on holy texts.

    Mátyás Harpgándi Also something important: Bibliodrama is mostly about the Bible but not only! That is actually a subgroup called Bibledrama. Bibliodrama means drama of texts and could use any kind of (holy) script for comtemplation. Beside Christian sources I regularly use ancient Chinese and Indian text.

     

    Anon 2: Hard disagree that thin roles are not role-play… sorry Jiituomas <3

    Mátyás Harpgándi I think he says its role-play but not strictly ‘larping’

     

    Anon 2: How do we determine what makes a role deep?

    Anon 2: Not weird… super cool!

     

    Anon 3: Interesting – something I have also wondered about i edularps

     

    Anon 1: Playing “the drunk” or “the elf” is enough of a role to make it larping, imho.

     

    Anon 4: Super interesting, need to look at Leveleki

     

    Anon 5: Not sure if there’s anything about Eszter Leveleki in English. It might be a good idea to change that.

     

    Anon 6: https://archiv.magyarmuzeumok.hu/…/2557_everybody_is…

     

    Anon 1: Hungarians always mention these fantasy camps. I want to know more!

     

    Anon 7: While I stayed in Hungary I met some people who run one of them. They described it as a larp game where they use three days to represent each year and encouraged the children there to roleplay while structuring the events in such a way that they tought them social, political and management skills.

    Anon 7: Their typical event runs for about two weeks over the summer holidays and they use the ‘three days makes the year’ structure to look at a much longer period of time than most larps manage.

     

    Anon 8: So many shortforms rely on characters based on one word, if that. I would still call it larping.

    Mátyás Harpgándi You can, but then larp becomes nearly synonymous with any kind of embodied role-playing. Do you agree?

     

    Anon 2: I think a lot of these distinctions are silos honestly where independent groups think they invented something and have their own term for it. It’s more useful to compare individual larps and their content with these other exercises, as well as their go…See More

     

    Anon 9: While I encountered this less in larp, tabletop rpgs have a whole category of games where you’re playing yourself in some imaginary situation. (There’s a zombie apocalypse, but you are literally yourself)

     

    Anon 4: For a long time I tried to design larps where there wasn’t really a “character” as much as a “social role” and a “situation” – if you get it and design it really well, it totally works, but it’s really hard to get people around “what do you mean there’s no character”

     

    Anon 2: There’s still alibi of fiction, so you are still technically a character. Just a character nearly identical to the self.

     

    Anon 9: Anon 2: You’re absolutely right, of course. But it is the “thinnest” role I can think of, and it is also harder to justify actions with an alibi in such circumstances. Sure, you would only kill your friend in a zombie apocalypse, but… do you mean you would actually kill your friend in a zombie apocalypse?

     

    Anon 10: I think it would be impossible to be play your authentic self because there is a wide gap between an actual crisis situation and a larp/rpg context in terms of real-world consequences. This is, I think, what makes it “a character based on you” rather than “you as a character”

     

    Anon 9: By the way, probably the most popular incarnation of this idea is this line of games: https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/…/the-end-of-the-world/

     

    Anon 2: I play a lot of extremely close to home roleplaying where basically we are versions of ourselves. The narratives and actions often can diverge wildly from everyday life due to fiction and people have alibi due to the setting to speak about things they normally wouldn’t in polite conversation. It adds new affordances that daily life does not.

     

    Anon 11: It might sound like a very silly question, but can someone please clarify to me what does the term “authentic self” mean? Isn’t there some saying that identity is a taking of roles? And if so, and I am highly speculating here, can’t we strive towards the goal of making the players identify more with their characters than with their “real” selves?

    Mátyás Harpgándi ‘Role-shaming’ 😀

     

    Anon 1: Mátyás Harpgándi Great stuff!

     

    Anon 10: I’ve been using the definition of larp by Tuomas Harviainen from the 2011 book where he says that the characters should be more than social roles 🙂

    Mátyás Harpgándi This is a serious misconception in Hungary. Harviainen talked about the key criteria of larping (the activity), not about the definition of larps (the events). His whole writing is about this separation.

     

    Anon 10: Thanks for the clarification!

    I’m looking forward to having your article to quote from too in the future 🙂

     

    Anon 1: There are no set definitions of larp and larping, it’s an ongoing discussion. That you are now a part of! 🙂

     

    Anon 2: I usually just simplify as “playing a character in a fictional environment and some degree of physical enactment of character.” Pretty close, without the “deep role” specification.

     

    Anon 12: I think that as long as it doesn’t result in flat characters (because playing a trope is just boring) any form of characterization should be valid

     

    Anon 12: …although there are, of course, even interesting ways to play a trope 😉

     

    Anon 8: But how do we determine what a “flat” character is? That’s the part I’m struggling with, what’s the bar here? When is it a deep character?

     

    Anon 12: I’m going with the definition of flat character I was taught as a lit studies student at uni — a character that consists of nothing but stereotypical definitions, with only a single point of view and no form of development or insight.

     

    Anon 2: ^^ this. I also worry that it stigmatizes less skilled or experienced role-players. (“How do we determine a flat character?”)

     

    Anon 1: A character description may be super short and flat, but the character interpretation can still be deep and nuanced. There’s really no way to know except for the player.

     

    Anon 12: I respectfully disagree with that, Anon 2, as I don’t think a less experienced or skilled player would necessarily gravitate towards playing a flat character — to me, it seems more likely that they would play an aspect of themselves as a character (‘me as the king’), which by definition wouldn’t be a flat character.

     

    Anon 8: Anon 12: That still feels really vague to me. Like Anon 2, I worry it will stigmatize people.

    I think there’s already a high barrier of entry for larp, and newer players often talk about not being good enough for various roles or responsibilities. How do we work with this definition without telling people their characters are too flat?

     

    Anon 2: Me as the king would fall under “just a social role” in Harviainen’s definition.

    Mátyás Harpgándi Anon 2: they might start as social roles but these kings & queens can organically became nuanced and unique personalities during the long process… thus larping? 🙂

     

    Anon 12: Which is why I said that I believe any form of characterization should be valid — that we should not be using too narrow a definition. Perhaps the ‘flat character’ caveat is just my own preference, though, I do admit that. I would never tell anyone that their character is too flat or that they can’t play a certain way.

     

    Anon 2: Mátyás Harpgándi social roles are still larping to me 🙂

    Mátyás Harpgándi Anon 2: But then larp becomes nearly synonymous with any kind of embodied role-playing. Is that good? Why do we need a second, hobbist jargon (larp) for a general phenomenon? Because we are larpers who like their hobby? 👿

    Anon 2: Mátyás Harpgándi I discussed this in my comment to your paper, but one of the things I think that makes edu-larp unique is it arises from leisure play. So some of the techniques and experiences of leisure play may apply to it (say, experience points, o…See

     

    Anon 13: We (Terrible Creations) cater most of our games to non-players. We don’t use the acronym larp at all because we found it was confusing them.

     

    Anon 2: Anon 13: I tell my students they will be larpers by the end of the session when we edu-larp. They are nervous at first, but then have no trouble using the word larp afterward. (They span several decades for age groups). I think it’s okay for them to be confused at first.

     

    Anon 13: Anon 2:D Good approach! We usually congratulate adult newcomers afterwards on losing their larp virginity. 😉

     

    Anon 2: Haha not sure that would fly in American schools but intriguing approach 😉

     

    Anon 13: Anon 2: Emphasis was on “adult”. Wouldn’t do it with a bunch of teenagers. 😀 But it tends to work well with grown-ups.

     

    Anon 2: Adults too…. Americans tend to be very sensitive about sexualizing language. Which is probably for good reason considering power dynamics of teacher-student 🙂 but also religious students may be actually saving their virginity for marriage

     

    Anon 13: Anon 2: Cultural differences may apply, of course. And should. We do stress it’s a larp virginity, though. But I can see how it might not sit well with some audiences.

     

    Anon 13: Also, we avoid comparisons to theatre if we can help it because people tend to freeze when they think they have to act.

    Mátyás Harpgándi I think using the term ‘deep’ roles was misleading. I’m not neccesarily talking about the quality of role-taking or the depth of immersion. Would you like to see an English infographic about the different stages of role-shaping?

     

    Anon 11: I would love to, while I didn’t agree with everything, I would really like to read some more. 🙂

     

    Anon 2: Absolutely!

    Anon 2: I think what Harviainen means is not just playing a function or social role, but a personality, a more complex ego structure with additional motivations and characteristics. I think these things can evolve in role-playing even with thin characters depending on player choice, but a larper is still role-playing if the role remains thin and they are engaged.

    Mátyás Harpgándi So as a summary, I dont really have any problem with our larp jargon, people talk the way they talk. But I think some of those words are so biased that we should avoid them and use more neutral terms when dealing with outsider specialist (especially if they are from a related sibling field like other forms of role-play)

     

    Anon 4: That was something I encountered a LOT coming from theatre. I felt like larpers were using words that had a whole heckton of meaning and context behind them, in ways that were sometimes accurate and sometimes perversions of what they’d borrowed. But! Getting deeper into larp (or, in my experience, any field at all) you always seem to end up with these terminologies that have limited application outside that field, and the challenge is simply to be able to become familiar with the depths in other people’s fields and learn how to bridge between them.

    Mátyás Harpgándi If I identify as a larper, everything I borrow from Drama in Education could be considered a part of edularp. If I identify with process drama, every technique from Nordic larps could fit into my DiE practice as a new convention. But is there a neutral language to communicate between fields? I think we who work with applied larp should work toward that if we want to avoid terminology wars.


    This was part of the Solmukohta 2020 online program. https://solmukohta.eu/

  • Larp Design Glossary

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    Larp Design Glossary

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    The original version of this glossary was published in the 2019 book Larp Design: Creating Role-Play Experiences.


    360° illusion
    Larp design idea where what you see is what you get. The environment is perceived as authentic, everything works as it should affording participants to engage in authentic activity for real, and participants perform immersive role-play.
    Act (noun)
    A segment of the larp runtime that has some kind of thematic unity, comparable to an act in a play.
    Act break
    The breaks between runtime when runtime is divided into acts. Often used to pause, reflect, and calibrate play.
    Agency
    The capacity of a participant or a character to act in a meaningful manner in a given environment, to have the possibility to impact the proceedings.
    Alibi
    The things that enable a person to (role-)play and to do things they would never do in everyday life while in character. Alibi is value neutral (“It says so in the character description”) and can be used in a positive (“We have all agreed to explore these themes together in a physical way”) or a negative way (“I was drunk at the time”).
    Amusement park design
    In the context of larp design this means creating a larp where there are pre-planned ‘rides’, story units, for the characters to explore.
    Bespoke design
    Approaching every larp as a new work and designing everything from scratch. As opposed to either iterating on a local tradition, or using the same larp system, such as Mind’s Eye Theatre, in multiple larps.
    Blackbox
    A genre of larp played with minimalist setting, with carefully curated props, and controlled light and sound. Often played in theatre black boxes. A room in a longform larp devoted to acting out scenes out of temporal sequence is also sometimes called blackbox, although a better term for that is meta room.
    Bleed
    When the feelings of the character impact on the participant, or vice versa.
    Blockbuster larp
    Longform larp that targets an international audience, features an expensive venue, high participation fee, and is hyped before and after. They usually have a high concept idea, often based on existing intellectual property. Originally, the term was critical of this type of larps.
    Boffer
    A padded weapon. Historically made out of foam covered with duct tape, nowadays often made out of latex.
    Boffer larp
    A larp where fighting modeled with boffers is a central feature.
    Briefing
    The part of the event before runtime where designers instruct participants about the larp.
    Calibration
    Negotiations relating to playstyle and personal boundaries, usually between participants.
    Campaign
    A pre-planned series of larps set in the same fictional world where events from one larp impact events in another.
    Chamber larp
    Shorter larps, with their length measured in hours, often taking place in a small venue and with participants in single or low double digits. Low demands for scenography and costuming make chamber larps easier to package and restage.
    Character
    The fictional persona a participant portrays during runtime. Sometimes also used to refer to the character description that is an inspiration for the character actually played.
    Character alibi
    The alibi provided by portraying a character.
    Character description
    The material on which a participant bases their performance of a character during runtime. Usually takes the form of text describing character background, motivation, goals, and contacts. In some traditions these can be very long and individually tailored, in others they are not used at all.
    Close to home
    Playing with themes, situation, experiences, or personae that one is very familiar with from everyday life.
    Collaborative-style
    Larps that have no victory condition and encourage participants to share and co-create, rather than conceal information and best each other.
    Competitive-style
    Larps in which there is a victory condition that only limited numbers of participants can achieve.
    Consent, physical
    Permission for something physical (e.g. relating to intimacy or roughness) to happen. Can be withheld at any time.
    Consent, story
    Permission to do something particularly impactful to another participant’s character (e.g. give permission to another participant that they can kill your character).
    Content larp
    A style of larp, predominantly Czech, primarily focused on pre-written and tightly structured plot content created by the design team.
    Debrief
    Larpmaker organised post-runtime event, where participants and designers talk about what they just did together. Can be structured or relatively free-flowing. Usually the goal is to put the runtime in perspective, to share stories, or to meet the other participants without the masks the characters provide.
    Decompression
    The cooldown period after the runtime of a larp, when the participant is leaving the fiction and the character behind, and gearing up to return to everyday life outside the larp. Sometimes also called aftercare.
    De-roling
    The process by which a participant divests themselves of the physical embodiment of their character, often used as a method to attempt to prevent or reduce bleed.
    Designable surface
    Anything that can be changed and made choices about that can impact the experience that is being designed. In larp, everything is a designable surface: the typeface of the website, the soundscape, the interaction patterns, character names, toilet temperature.
    Diegesis
    Things that exist inside of the fiction are part of the diegesis. For example, music during runtime is part of the diegesis if the characters can hear it, and non-diegetic if only the players hear it.
    Diegetic
    Something that exists inside of the fiction is diegetic. In a larp participants can address, react to, and interact with things that are diegetic, without breaking character. See diegesis.
    Director
    A runtime gamemaster who guides play in a very hands-on manner. Basically a freeform gamesmaster in larp.
    Escalation (and de-escalation)
    The process of incrementally increasing or decreasing the intensity of a scene to come to the optimal atmosphere for all participants involved. Sometimes there is a specific metatechnique for signalling desired (de)escalation.
    Fate (sometimes skjebne)
    A play instruction for character action that the participant is obliged to follow; occurs in fateplay designs.
    Fateplay
    Prior consent by participants and/or organisers to certain, immutable narrative beats or outcomes. A conscious design decision that presumes that how something happens or someone feels about it happening can be just as interesting to explore as if it happens.
    Freeform (freeform larp, freeform scenario)
    As the name implies, freeform scenarios have no standard form. They typically last a few hours, are usually played without costumes, props, or special lighting in whatever space is available, often feature heavy use of inventive bespoke mechanics and metatechniques, and are sometimes heavily gamemastered. In the Nordic countries, these used to be considered halfway between tabletop role-playing and larps; today, in the international discourse, they are lumped together with larps.
    Gamemaster, runtime
    A runtime story facilitator for a larp, keeping track of plot flow, solving narrative problems, and, if applicable, making rule-system calls. Sometimes but not always one of the larpwrights.
    Herd competence
    The amount of competence in the ensemble of participants. Running a larp for a group of participants where some have prior experience is much easier than running a larp for a group with only beginners. If there is enough experience in the room, beginners can learn by following the example set by more experienced participants.
    Immersion
    A term with multiple meanings, usually relating to how far the participant is engaged with the fiction of the larp. One common usage is in the sense of character immersion, that is, the participant experiencing the diegetic world through the eyes and mind of the character. Sometimes the word is used to mean immersion into the setting or the milieu, as in 360° illusion, or even engagement with the story as in narrative immersion.
    Ingame
    Things that happen during runtime and are true within the world of the larp.
    Inter-immersion
    In a larp, a participant is pretending to be a character, but is also pretending that everyone else is their character. The feedback from the other participants enhances the character immersion, creating a cycle called inter-immersion.
    Jeepform
    A specific tradition of freeform role-playing mostly coming from Sweden and Denmark. See jeepen.org.
    Knutepunkt (also Knutpunkt, Knudepunkt, Solmukohta, KP)
    Annual conference devoted to larp and larp design traveling between Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Finland that began in Oslo in 1997. The name of the event always reflects the local language. The whole tradition is discussed under the original, Norwegian name.
    Larp crush
    An infatuation with another participant, or maybe just their character, that a player develops during runtime due to playing a romance with them. See also bleed.
    Larpmaker
    All the people responsible for the creation of a larp, both in production and in content.
    Larp script
    All the materials (character documents, rules, venue requirements, etc.) created by the designer that are needed to run a larp.
    Larp system
    A set of rules for larping if they can be separated from the individual larp, i.e. multiple larps are run with the same system of rules. Some larps use complex rule mechanics to explain what characters can and cannot do, and those rules can be printed as books. This is the opposite of bespoke rules.
    Larpwright
    The author(s) of a larp. The person or group who defines the larp’s vision, world, workshop structure, characters, etc. A synonym for larp designer from an era before game studies terminology colonised larp discourse. Also, a person who creates larps.
    Longform larp
    Larps that last a full day or several days, possibly with act breaks between different parts, with full scenography and participants in full costumes.
    Magic circle
    Metaphor for the separate space of playing. The time and space of the larp, in which characters are played and different rules apply than normal; upheld by a social contract.
    Mechanics
    In larps where the skills of the characters are important, and they are markedly different from those of the participants, these actions are expressed through replacements that simulate things that are impossible, undesired, or too intimate (e.g. violence and sex). In some traditions, mechanics imply points, levels or other numerical systems representing skills.
    Meta room
    A dedicated room in a longform larp devoted to acting out scenes out of temporal sequence. Often features a runtime gamemaster. Sometimes also called a blackbox.
    Metareflection
    The player reflecting on character actions or the fictional situation, switching between the fictive frame and the metareflexive frame.
    Metatechnique
    Mechanics that allow participants to communicate player to player about their characters, without breaking play. Metatechniques are commonly employed to let participants share their character’s inner thoughts or motivations, or to let participants together establish things about their characters’ shared history and relationship.
    Mixing Desk of Larp
    A theory of larp design, guiding the designer to make conscious decisions between contradictory virtues of larp design. It consists of a series of faders, such as transparency-secrecy, illustrating that a typical larp cannot feature both high transparency and many secrets.
    Narrative
    Narrative is what you are left with after the larp is done, when participants look back on the plot, the story, and the character actions and try to answer the question “what happened in this larp”. The narrative is the choice of events included, and the way they are related to each other, when a story is told. The narrative of a larp continues to change long after the larp has ended.
    Narrative design
    All design choices made in the service of enabling participants to tell stories.
    NPC
    The acronym is short for non-player character. It refers to a character who follows the larp designer or runtime gamemaster’s instructions. NPCs are typically played by organisers, or a crew dedicated to this purpose. NPCs can be present for the whole duration of the larp, or appear only briefly. The term was inherited from tabletop role-playing games.
    Offgame
    Participant activities or utterances outside of both the larp’s diegesis as well as the play of the larp itself.
    One-shot
    A larp designed to be stand-alone and not part of a series of connected larps like a campaign.
    Opt-in
    An instance of choosing to participate in something.
    opt-in design
    Designing in a way where participants have to actively choose to participate in certain aspects or design elements of the larp.
    Opt-out
    An instance of choosing not to participate in something.
    Opt-out design
    Designing in a way that presupposes participation in certain aspects or design elements of the larp, where participants have to actively choose not to participate.
    Organiser
    A person who is at least in part responsible for making sure the larp runs. This can include logistics work as well as runtime gamemastering and other activities.
    Paralarp
    The practices, designs, and texts surrounding the runtime to enable the playing of that larp.
    Playstyle calibration
    Participants or gamemasters communicating beforehand about the desired playstyle of a scene or larp. This type of calibration is not about the content, but about how the participants approach larp in general and to find common ground: physical or not physical, slow or fast paced, very emotionally intense or with levity.
    Plot
    Sequences of narrative events pre-planned by the larp designers, for example in the form of intrigues written into the character descriptions giving characters motivations for actions during the larp.
    Post-play activities
    Any activities undertaken after the official runtime of a larp.
    Pre-written
    Created prior to the run of the larp; often implies that the elements of the larp have been consciously designed and intentionally related to each other.
    Producer
    Person or persons responsible for the physical production and logistics of a larp.
    Role
    A collection of legible social behaviours in a given social position. Everyone plays numerous roles (customer, larper, offspring), both out of the larp and within a larp as a character.
    Rules-light
    Containing few enough rules that the larp can be learned instantly by a novice and that these few rules can be recalled on the spot with little difficulty.
    Run (noun)
    An instance of a full staging and playthrough of a larp. “Some see the first run as a playtest, I see it as a premiere.” (verb) To stage a larp. “We ran House of Cravings last weekend.”
    Runtime
    The allotted time for playing, when characters are being played and the narrative design unfolds.
    Sandbox design
    Sandbox design focuses on providing participants with a playable world that reacts to their input, in which participants can freely bring in or create on-site the plots and the drama they find interesting to play out together.
    Secrecy
    The use of secrecy in larp design is to purposefully prevent participants from knowing things their characters would not know. Common ways to add secrecy are to give participants secret character goals and motivations, and to include surprise happenings during runtime. See also transparency.
    Secrets & powers larp
    North American larp design pattern. Pre-written characters in typically a single-run larp all have often-oppositional goals that they are primarily able to reach by leveraging secrets (hidden information not known to everyone) and powers (game mechanics that permit participants to get other characters to do what their character wishes).
    Setting (a scene)
    The act of framing and describing who is in a scene, what is happening, and where it is taking place. Hitting particular themes or emotional overtones is particularly desirable.
    Status line exercises
    An abstract larp exercise in which participants physically queue up in order to demonstrate and visualise where their characters lie on a specific status continuum. Examples include oldest to youngest, most powerful to least powerful, or degree of agreement with an ideology.
    Story
    Story is created in real time from the moment the larp begins until the participants are done playing.
    Tabletop
    Role-playing style played verbally, where you do not act out your character’s actions, but instead narrate them.
    Theme
    The theme of a larp is what the larp is about, in contrast to what happens at the larp. Setting clear themes for a larp informs participants about the desired tone and playstyle of the larp, and affects what participants expect they might be likely to experience. Larps divided into acts often have different themes for each act.
    Transparency
    The use of transparency in larp design is to purposefully let participants know things their characters would not know. Common ways to add transparency are to let participants read more pre-written characters than just their own, to divide the larp into acts with announced themes, or to tell participants what is going to happen during the larp before it starts. See also secrecy.
    Workshop
    The workshop is a structured period of exercises that your participants will do before the start of runtime, to familiarise themselves with each other and the larp mechanics, enabling them to play together. Typically done on-site before runtime.

    Cover photo by Massi Hannula, used with permission.

  • Ship Ahoy! Mark your calendar for Solmukohta 2016!

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    Ship Ahoy! Mark your calendar for Solmukohta 2016!

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    On Wednesday the 9th to Monday the 14th of March 2016 it’s once again time for the international roleplaying conference Solmukohta. The conference often known as Knutepunkt is this year in Finland and therefore goes by it’s Finnish name Solmukohta for 2016.

    This Solmukohta will be truly Baltic as the location is a Tallink Silja cruise ship. It takes off from Helsinki in Finland on Wednesday afternoon the 9th of March and the hosts the last night of A Week in Finland. The “A Week” tradition has for many years been a nice way to extend your conference experience and often gives a nice peek into the local role-playing scene of the hosting country.

    The actual conference starts on Thursday afternoon as the cruise ship sails from Stockholm and ends on Sunday afternoon in Helsinki.

    The name Solmukohta is Finnish and means “a meeting point”. In Norway the event is called Knutepunkt, in Sweden Knutpunkt and in Denmark Knudepunkt. This meeting point – melting pot for ideas and inspiration – was first organized in 1997. It has been playing a vital role in establishing the Nordic roleplaying identity and in establishing the concept of “Nordic larp” as an unique approach to live action roleplaying.
    From the Solmukohta website

    You can also read more about the previous Knutepunkt-conferences at the Nordic Larp Wiki.

    We had a chance to speak a bit with Massi Hannula Thorhauge who is of the two main organizers of Solmukohta 2016.

    Massi presenting at the Nordic Larp Talks 2015 in Copenhagen Photo: Mathias Kure Massi presenting at the Nordic Larp Talks 2015. Photo: Mathias Kure

    Hey Massi! Could you present team behind next years Solmukohta?

    As it’s the Finnish Solmukohta, we go with a small team again. We aim to transparency and internationality, which I personally think is shown in the choices of the organizers.

    As a main organizer couple me and Mikko Pervilä have a vast experience in Nordic and international convention organizing. Mikko was the main organizer of Solmukohta 2004, and takes the main responsibility of all the technical matters of the convention with the title Technical director. I, go by the title Artistic Director and take the main responsibility of the communication and content of the event. We let our team to drive with their great ideas and organizational skills and help to keep the package intact.

    Program team in 2016 are two experienced larp designers and organizers Hannu Niemi and Olli Lönnberg. They have already put the wheels turning, and set the call for program due October 2015. You might have seen them in KPs before, Hannu playing his guitar in the parties and Olli taking notes in every possible program item he just could partake.

    Solmu-Economy is in hands of the most experienced convention economist in Denmark, possible the Nordics, but as I am bit bias to brag about my husband’s skills, I would just say, that you cannot get better person for this job. David Thorhauge has experience since the mid 90’s on organizing roleplaying conventions from Fastaval to Knudepunkts in Denmark.

    Information at the venue, or Finnformation, KP/SK goers already met in Denmark 2015. Maiju Ruusunen has long time experience in working Ropecon TSInfo and Solmukohta infos. If you’ve met her, you know, she won’t rest before she has solved your problem. Maiju is joined by Zacharias Holmberg, the head of the board of Fenno-Swedish roleplaying association Eloria and larp designer from the Swedish speaking part of Finland. Zacharia’s calm voice and attitude makes problems vanish, and his vast language skills within the Nordics makes him the perfect partner for Maiju in the Finnformation. We hope to fill out the Info desks with finlandsvenska larpers to make them more visible in the Nordic scene.

    What would be Solmukohta without A Week in Finland? This time it has been given into hands of our Portuguese addition, José Jacomé, or as we call him “the guy who gets sh*it done”. Last summer he took groups of Nordic larpers around Portugal and you might know him from his Zombie Walk events in Helsinki. He knows what you want to do in Helsinki, even the things that we Finns would not think about. With his large network José is going to create a fantastic week of venues, events and parties, I have no doubt.

    And we of course have Solum-books! This year two, which seems to become the standard. The editors team is three great Finnish academics and role-players Mika Loponen, Jukka Särkijärvi and Kaisa Kangas. Mika is Solmukohta veteran, and organized events such as Ropecon and Finncon as the main organizer or as a part of the main organizer team. He knows what’s going on in the scene. Jukka, or you might now him as NiTe, is known from his internationally famous roleplaying blog “Worlds in a Handful of Dice”, where he keeps us all updated on what’s happening in the roleplaying scene world wide. Kaisa was designing the political larp Halat hisar in 2013 in Finland, and her takes on Nordic laps she visit all around the Nordic countries are widely read. The Call for Articles will come out in September 2015, and you can read more about the book themes on our website.

    See the faces of the team and contact details herehe full team on the website.

    Do have any general themes or aims with conference?

    The theme for the 2016 Solmukohta is “Reality check”. This is the 20th Solmukohta/KP and we want to stop, take a deep breath and see what we have created. Where has this small gathering of same minded people taken us in less than 20 years? And we want to look into the future, and think where is this, culture and community we have created, taking us.

    We have grown up. We don’t run around schools in elf ears and cloaks made of shiny spandex (though, that’s fun occasionally too). We want quality and drive ourselves towards even grander achievements. This is why we, the team, want to organize Solmukohta as professionally as we can. We want the Nordic Larp scene to concentrate exchanging ideas, creating together and networking without practical worries.

    There will be some nostalgia, some traditional SK/KP program, socializing, parties, meet-up and so on. The program will explore all the mentioned above and beyond.

    And finally the give question… Why on a boat?

    Why not? I mean, we have been as scene talking about Solmukohta on a boat for more than a decade now. If I am not wrong, someone even looked into it at some point. And to be honest, as a conference venue, it is great, and for networking and socializing the spaces and venues are excellent. It will be bit different, but in my honest opinion more “traditional” Solmukohta than we saw in Denmark 2015.

    Also, I get to wear a cool captain’s hat, which is a reason by itself.

    Thank you Massi, we are looking forward to March!

    Don't miss out on scenic views like this one!
    Don’t miss out on scenic views like this one!

    Want more info about Solmukohta 2016?

    Contact the organizers at info@solmukohta.org

    or via other channels:

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