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The Family Andersson review


The Family Andersson is a Swedish chamber larp written by Åke Nolemo and Johan Röklander. I played a run yesterday in Zagreb, Croatia, organized by Miroslav Wranka (aka Siro), based on English translation by Tor Kjetil Edland and Håken Lied.

This was the larp's third run in Croatia, but first one in Zagreb - it was run in the cities of Rijeka and Osijek before that, as part of the "Larp day" events which presented several chamber larps to the general public. Zagreb has yet to receive a similar event - this was a separate run, under the renewed SRP.

The Family Andersson is a modern-era family drama for 8-10 people, which deals with family inheritance distribution (as well as some Christmas plans) between the siblings. This is a simple premise, however there's a twist - the number of characters is half that of the players, and each character is played by two players in a tag-team sort of way - the players switch and alternatively play the same character.

Everything is fully described in larp documentation, which is available for free. The larp itself is fairly simple, but in fact it worked really smooth (both in our group's experience, and previous Croatian groups). Our group was 8 players, and we dropped the character of Robin for this run. I ended up co-playing the character of Kim, a nurse studying to become a priest.

It's interesting to note that of our group, half were the first-time larpers, and only two of us were larping for several years. Several of these new players provided a really strong and intensive play - both in their negotiations and their relationships to other siblings (and some very memorable responses and burns). Indeed, the discussions were so heated that the "team tag" mechanic was very useful as it allowed the passive player to go back for a while, to regain some energy for further play.

Should you get a chance to play (or run) this larp, I highly recommend it.
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