Diary of a Croatian larper

PoRtaL, the first Croatian larp convention is done. It was an end of the really amazing and exhausting weekend. First of all, I have to say that this was the convention where I did and attended most program ever in my convention experience. Having only one thing at the time (with a few exceptions) that most of the people went to was probably part of the reason why. There's a lot of content to write, so I'll split this review into three parts, each covering a day of the convention... Preparing the convention and all the stuff for it with the other organizers was a wild ride - and an invaluable experience. The programming was done with some things in mind - Saturday and Sunday had workshops from 11-13, then it was time for the lunch break, then for the discussions and panels, and then in the evening it was time for larps. Friday and Saturday were planned to have more internationally significant program, while Sunday was of more local significance. English was the main worki...

I've considered including this topic in "start a larp" series, but in reality this will be something that's hopefully useful to all players and game masters in understanding how a particular larp is designed. NPCs are a term descended from tabletop RPGs, meaning non-player characters. Tabletop role-playing games have a single dungeon master/game master/storyteller who, besides leading the story, also plays all the extra characters who make that story possible. In larp, things don't work the same way as in tabletop. Because, you know, the game is live. There's a variety of ways to put NPCs in game, play them, and plenty of games work just as fine without any NPCs. I'll define four broad categories of larps, considering how their story is designed with NPCs in mind. Most larps will probably fall somewhere between these categories. 1) Jumper NPCs Few people playing are playing several NPCs - usually (with several exceptions) expendable and shallow cha...