Quote

My thing with plot is that I don't have fun just talking to people who are pretending to be other people. I need a reason for it, some goal, something I'm trying to get out of the conversation that is different from normal interactions with that person.

- Nyren Knapp

Upcoming Games

Written by Susan Weiner

So, Alleged Entertainment has an awful lot of games coming up (including some awful ones).

3/19-21 WPI Gaming Weekend.
Foam Brain is running 10 Bad LARPs: C-Section

3/26-28 PAX East
At PAX, we will be running both of our horde LARPs. If you plan to be there, and haven’t yet played (or heck, have played and really want to play again), sign up!
Friday at 7pm – Time Travel Review Board – Sign up here
Saturday at 5pm – City Council of Hound’s Teeth Sign up here

4/16-18 V for Vestival (Festival of the LARPs 2010) at Brandeis University
The schedule is not completely finalized, but we will be running:
Welcome to Scearbridge
and 10 Bad LARPs: C-Section
Also running: City Council of Hound’s Teeth

6/11-13 Wyrd Con in Costa Mesa, California
Friday at 11pm Welcome to Scearbridge
Saturday at 1am 10 Bad LARPs: Remix

6/18-20 The Labor Wars in Belmont, MA
This will be Alleged Entertainment’s first weekend long game. If you are interested, we encourage you to sign up using the form available on the website. This is a small game. In the likely event that we have more sign-ups than we have slots, we will have a lottery to fill the available slots. The deadline for signing up for the lottery is 4/11/10. We will notify players shortly after that date.

A Little Slice of History

Written by Joshua "Steve" Rachlin

I’m here to tell a story. Some time ago, a group of people who for the purposes of this entry shall remain anonymous wrote a highly successful LARP which shall not be mentioned here. That is not the story I tell today. Today, I tell the story of the LARP they almost wrote. The LARP that should never have been considered. The LARP that should never be spoken of, for fear of angering the elder gods ofLARP.

I take great personal risk in writing even this much, so I apologize for the lack of detail in what follows. But I have recently come into possession of an artifact that should not exist, from where I cannot say. In fact, many will claim that it cannot exist. All records of the LARP in question were burned in purifying fire; we know that. All of the authors are under a magically enforced geas to never speak or write of it again. And yet, somehow, this exists:

Character Goals versus Player Goals

Written by Joshua "Steve" Rachlin

I want to talk briefly about a vocabulary term that I think a lot of players and GMs could do well to think more about. A common question on apps is "Are you ok with being screwed?" or "Will you have fun if you don't achieve your character's goals?" Those are useful questions, but they are attempting to determine something without a full understanding of the concept. The second question gets very close when it discusses character goals.

The Cancer of Comedy?

Not a full entry, just a quick thought. There’s a seemingly widespread view within the LARP community that nothing kills a game faster than comedy. Phrases like “mood-killer” and “breaking feel” get thrown around a lot. I’m not sure where people get this idea. Take it from me, as someone who gets asked to play the comic relief a lot – being funny for stretches of time is hard work!

Comments are back!

After comments broke on this blog awhile back (probably due to my custom comments additions not being compatible with Radiant 0.8.x), I disabled them and replaced them with a message to email me if you wanted to comment. That’s obviously less than ideal, because part of the point of blog comments is to enable a group discussion.

Since I’ve been unable to figure out how to fix the comments plugin, I’ve replaced it with DISQUSComments, which seems like a reasonably good solution for third-party hosted comments. I’ve imported all the previous comments into DISQUS for your perusal. Enjoy, and please let me know if you run into any issues commenting!

Creating Passionate Players

“I played in your last game, and when I saw that signups were open for this one, I just had to get in.”

It’s every LARP writer’s dream, right? The moment when you can get an answer like that on your casting questionnaire.

There are some LARP groups that people get absolutely fanatical about. Today, I’d like to share a few thoughts on how those groups got to be that way.