Diary of a Croatian larper

Croatian pervasive larp. That's becoming a category now. I ran  Izgon  and  Izgon 2 last year (read more about them  here ), and they ended up being rather influential on our larp scene. Organized almost a year after Izgon 2 (and influenced by Izgon), Astra is basically a big Croatian pervasive larp of 2014. The two GMs running it - Ivana and Vesna - played some of the central and most active roles in Izgon, but they were also some of the most vocal critics of Izgon & Izgon 2 design choices. The design of Astra reflects that. Unlike Izgon's approach - which fused characters to the player's real personality to justify their experiences and blur the distinction between in-character and out-of-character on purpose - Astra took a more classic larp approach of distinct characters. Put an in-game badge, and you're in-game (but only towards the people who are also playing). Take it off, you're out-of-character. Astra also had some urban fantasy elements - a tou...

The world of Camarilla Agram Vampire larp is often simulated beyond what is easily doable on a larp. This is one of the areas when the complex ruleset used becomes an asset - a transition to the tabletop mode of play is seamlessly done on-the-fly. Several of the early Elysium events were small enough to support a well-rounded tabletop-like party missions near the end, as a change of pace from the social game. But as Camarilla Agram grew, we stopped doing that. Too large parties would be unwieldy for such a mode of play. Last Thursday's Elysium 34 was a change of pace. Its' larp segment lasted only for a minute, while a single scene was played. Two parties sat down (with one player who actually Skyped in), left the Elysium IC and did some missions in the tabletop mode. It wasn't supposed to last as long as it did, but it did - it never returned to the larp mode. Perhaps it would be important to say that Yesterday's Elysium 35 (pictured above) was once again a prop...

Earlier this month, Larp Census 2014 started. Back then I mentioned it in a post - now, two guys who started the project - Aaron Vanek from California, USA and Ryan Paddy from New Zealand - answer everything you wanted to know about the census (there's a bit more, covered in the FAQ ) and also tell us a bit about themselves and their larp scenes. If you haven't answered the census yet, you can do so here: Click here to answer the census 1. Tell us about yourselves. Who are you? When did you start larping? AV: (answered with a blurb) Aaron Vanek lives in Los Angeles and has been larping for nearly 30 years. He wrote and published an essay on the art of larp entitled “Cooler Than You Think: Understanding Live Action Role Playing” that is available as a free PDF download here . He is a founding member of Live Game Labs and Founder of Seekers Unlimited , a non-profit company that makes educational larps. He edited the 2012 and 2013 Wyrd Con Companion Books with ...

Camarilla Agram has grown from the experiment to a huge, popular thing. Last weekend's Camarilla Agram 7 was the 10th major event. In November, we'll have our 50th larp so far in the campaign (Elysium 39). Currently, it's a local poster child larp for a regular campaign/chronicle that runs almost every week. A ritual which totally looks not at all evil. What could possibly go wrong? Due to its' sandbox direction and the fact that it's run continuously, most of the content here is player-made, and a result of interaction between players. Running such a larp is vastly different from one in which a GM prepares all the plot beforehand. It's still done - according to the design goals of the larp - but it's a light push at most. Diplomacy and social interaction are a big part of this larp, and key IC positions are usually expected to be primary motivators to both "get the stuff done" and play their part in the social structure of things. As s...

I can't remember when was the last time when I walked onto one of our Vampire weekly events (Elysium) and NOT see some new players. Was it sometime in August, when most people were at the coast swimming? For my non-Croatian readers, we're a small country. Zagreb is 2 hours away from the coast, and most people go to the coast to spend their holidays there. We usually rent apartments, or go to friends or family down there and chill on the overcrowded pebbly beaches of the Adriatic sea for a week or two, sunbathing and swimming. Not even the crappy weather like this summer can deter us (though it certainly lowers the mood). During July and August, Zagreb seems half-deserted apart from the construction work that gets done in that time. With the arrival of September and a new school year, Zagreb springs back to life. People return to their regular lives and we get the rush hour traffic again. This September (and early October) was supposed to have several big events, but it seem...

Testing my wizard costume the evening before It looked like any other larp preparations. Costumes were getting ready. Carpooling preparations, last-minute costume design, packing - rather light, since we're not camping but staying inside - and watching the weather carefully. Not because we thought rainfall could be overly dangerous as there was a large and quite waterproof building on the terrain, but it could be annoying. I was already good to go. Organizers announced they will be there around 9 AM, and so I already thought to start around 9:30, pick up some people in Zagreb at 10, and be on the terrain around 11 - which should give enough time to dress up, socialize, get ready to play, get the intro speech done etc., before the larp starts at 2 PM. Simple. 8:58 I'm getting a call from a fellow player. Larp got canceled due to floods. Roads are closed and blocked by the police. I call the organizers and it is confirmed. At some time later we found out there was act...

The summer break is over, and larping population started to recover. In our Vampire larp, last week's Elysium 29 had 17 players who took part in the game - five of them first time larpers, who gave the larp quite positive reviews. With Elysium 30 this evening, the game is now successfully over a year old. 16 players took part in today's larp - it would be 17 if I were there, but I was not able to make it. A special Terra Nova event - End of an Empire - was announced last week. Set for this autumn, there's a few logistic kinks which need to be sorted out, but I'll be able to go out with full details. This weekend there's the second main Elder Scrolls Chronicles larp, called Soulburst. The last event was the biggest Croatian fantasy larp of this year so far, and so far it looks like this weekend's event will be of a similar size. Of course, expect a review after the event. Here's a preview of some of my props. Next larp after TESC? Elysium 31 ...