Diary of a Croatian larper

Yesterday's Camarilla Agram Elysium 4 event was the biggest one so far, with 11 players attending. And it was just the first of the things that will happen in the next few days. To remind readers - Elysium events start as out-of-character meetings, then a short social larp is played, and in some cases (like yesterday) a short adventure-style mission is played in tabletop mode, which is near-seamless on Elysium. To keep up with the cross-media, cross-style RP that's being played in Camarilla Agram, today there will be an adventure-style online RP session that will include several people who missed the Elysium events. And of course, the Facebook group is open for RP 24/7. And that's not all - after over 2 months of waiting since the release of PDF version, the print version of the By Night Studios Vampire the Masquerade rules is out. The book is $35 for softcover, $60 for hardcover (with delivery to Croatia for $21.5/$25.5, and with the option for PDF for additional $

In late 2012, a new larp video project appeared on Kickstarter - Treasure Trapped. It set out to be a larp documentary, but there were a few things that set it apart from previously existing documentaries. It promised to cover a lot of larps, tour all the way to Denmark to visit Østerskov Efterskole, a school that teaches its' pupils using larp methods, and to show it all from a perspective from a typical larper. Brilliant! Filmed by the Cosmic Joke, an indie film and video production company from Manchester, UK, Treasure Trapped is... well, it's a bit late. But the filmmakers have been busy, getting to film some really interesting larps this year, including The Monitor Celestra and the remake of Panopticorp. The movie is getting close to release, and in the meanwhile I've been able to interview Alex Taylor, the director of the movie, and Shona Brown, his assistant and the production manager. Read on, but first - here's a trailer: 1) First of all, tell us

When it comes to larps, I like to be well-organized far in advance. That's why I laid out the dates for all Camarilla Agram events in 2014 back in 2013. And that's why I announced Terra Nova 2014 almost a year ahead of time. However, as time went on problems started to arise with the proposed May 16-18 date. The largest Croatian sci-fi convention SFeraKon was also announced on that weekend, which meant that we would have to change the date one way or the other because a lot of Terra Nova players are regular SFeraKon attendees. But in the meantime, another thing came into focus. We're expecting another baby and my wife is due on that date. And when childbirth is involved, the only thing you can really plan for around that date is that you can't plan anything with any certainty. To cut the story short, I went over the new dates and there were no easy options. Most weekends were already taken by something else. The new date for Terra Nova 2014 is June 13-15 . It'

A look inspired by 80's and the original trilogy Yesterday, the first Star Wars larp was played in Zagreb, Croatia. It's simply called Star Wars larp, and it's set in a time just after Episode 6. The story: after the fall of the Empire, a group of powerful businessmen, industry owners, bankers and various shady characters met in a bar on a planet far away to discuss their further plans and ways to increase their profitability... But let's get back to the beginning. The idea for a Star Wars larp started back over a year ago after Carmen  larp was played. Ivo Turk, who's a Star Wars fan (and played a Sith lord on Carmen), started talking about the idea. And indeed it happened - Carmen rules (with the full blessing of their author, Zvonimir Barać aka Watashi aka Jalžek) have been slightly adapted to better fit the Star Wars setting and the larp was announced . Matija Mihoković joined Ivo Turk to make it possible, and to give it a strong Facebook presence importan

A total of 9 players took part in yesterday's Elysium 3 vampire event. It was structured in much the same, hybrid way as the last one , however I'd say this time people got even more involved. For the most part it ran as a social larp, however the last third of the event played in the tabletop mode - a battle against werewolves, which engaged the players. This way of playing is so far proving to be well-received for the Elysium events. In other news, Ognjeni Mač published the new version of their rules, developed for the last six months, and you can get them here - so far in Croatian but there's some talk about making an English version as well. Setting is still to be completed, but from what is now visible it will be based around three main forces (Law, Nature and Chaos), and it will feature domination-style battles to control "nexuses" which will give certain bonus to groups controlling them. Terra Nova website has been updated to the current timeline, o

Planning to snatch a body With a total of 8 players attending yesterday, Elysium 2 was an interesting event. And it crossed role-playing genres in a way. While the majority of it was a social larp - with players discussing events that were happening behind the screen, or during online role-play - later on several players went out for a short mission played out in the tabletop form. The transition between the two modes was very smooth, and well-received by players. The storyline - grim, violent and gory, as expected from Vampire - included body disposal. The next event is the Elysium 3 next Wednesday . So far, it's a very successful series of events. However, it's not the only project crossing the genres. Almost five months after initial announcement , Izgon RPG is ready for beta. Based on Fate Accelerated (FAE) , I'm looking for players willing to GM it or write adventures for it. If you're up for it, apply here and you'll receive the rules. It is playab

When I usually review larps made by other GMs, I typically say "review" in the title. When I review mine, I name them "how it was", typically with the disclaimer before the review starts that mentions how reviewing one's own larps is different. However, Elysium events were meant to be different. The plot in them is player-driven. Well, in fact it does depend on a lot of it - the setting, character backgrounds, online role-play and events that happened on previous larps (whether introduced by players or GMs). What I did as a GM was helping a new guy with his character and awarding the final XP to everyone. We played our characters, though mostly in the secondary role - encouraging other players to come forward. Which worked pretty well, and the larp ended up as a lively and intensive conversation and some in-game organizing of efforts and further planning, very much like Embrace the Night 3 was. In contrast to the main Camarilla Agram vampire events, t

I originally wrote the six-part Start a larp series in mid-2012, fueled by my euphoria after starting and successfuly pulling off the first Terra Nova larp. Since then, I've been adding to the series roughly once every six months - first by tagging a scenario I wrote, then by adding the seventh article which contained some writing ideas. However, in that time I have observed several larps who have started, some who didn't get continued, and several that didn't manage to even get started. From my observations, I find there are two qualities that determine the success of larp more than anything else: determination and resolve. Here's a story. Last June, a couple of days after last article in this series, my friend Marko told me about this idea he had about an Elder Scrolls-themed larp. Being a fan of the Elder Scrolls series myself, I loved the idea. And then he said that he expects to finish the ruleset in early 2014, hoping it could be playtested at some point...

Hello February :) Lots of exciting stuff happening in the larp world right now. After several postponements, the Steampunk larp "Chase" from the "Para pokreće svijet" series was finally held this Sunday. The main requirement for it to happen was the snowfall, and the larp included a chase across the snowy mountain. A total of four people plus GM took part in the larp. The second thing happening was the yearly Ognjeni Mač meeting, postponed from the week before due to some heating-related issues. Six events were announced , starting from the March 1st battlegame (clashing with the Camarilla Agram 2 schedule) to the big event last weekend of July. New setting, new ruleset, new organizing structure. To start off the larping season, this Sunday (Feb 9th) - starting at 6 PM - they'll be auctioning off their extra costumes, weapons and props, with bids starting from the low amount of 1-5 kn. Two days from now (Wednesday, February 5th), the Elysium series o