Diary of a Croatian larper

Tamás (left) and Ranko (right), in Tamás' apartment on Friday I spent the last weekend in Budapest, on the second PoRtaL convention. If you've been following this blog or our local scene, you might remember that I was one of the organizers of the first PoRtaL convention last year, together with Ana Rajner and Božo Špoljarić. It was the first such event in region, and we decided it would be awesome if it became a traveling convention across several countries, like Knutepunkt is. The Hungarian team of Obreczán Tamás and Mesterházi Sándor stepped in eagerly and enthusiastically to create the second PoRtaL convention, and joined by Kinde Anna they did an awesome job out of it (note about names: Hungarians typically write family names first and given names second, so I'm also writing them in this order). Sándor was already there when we arrived Five of us traveled from Croatia. I traveled with Miroslav aka Siro, Lovro and Pavle, who are in leadership of Ognjeni Mač,...

To say that Monday's Elysium 5 Vampire event was larger than past Elysium larps would be an understatement. A total of 19 people took part in it, and it was a social larp of 2 and a half hours. There were a couple of new players, and several old ones with new characters. With the sandbox-ey playstyle that drew from the past events - including the Camarilla Agram 2 and plenty of online role-play - there was a lot to discuss, resolve and discover, a lot of old tensions to play and several new opportunities for all characters involved. The time passed quickly, and it really had a feeling of a much bigger larp than previous Elysium events have been. The next event, Elysium 6 , is planned for Tuesday next week (March 11). The other news is preparation for PoRtaL convention in Budapest this week. The schedule has been published, you can see it here . It's gonna be a fun weekend - and if you're planning to attend PoRtaL drop me a note!

The apartment's bathroom was also decorated Yesterday evening it was the time for the second major Camarilla Agram larp. It was organized in the same place as Camarilla Agram 1 , but with higher production values as there was an increase in the number of props. And besides the fact that there was the same maximum number of players as last time - 25 - more of them were active, and 23 stayed for the entire duration of the event. There were many other plot hooks and information, and the players who participated in smaller events were crucial in spreading that info. Between those two events, there were four smaller Elysium larps - making this actually the sixth Vampire larp this year - and there was one online adventure and plenty of other online role-play in the meantime. A gun, a dagger and a skull - a message Mario Bošnir and Goran Bjelić - who are a part of the organizing team - had a head storyteller role for this event, and they wrote some of the head plot eleme...

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...