Diary of a Croatian larper

Last 2 Camarilla Agram Elysium events - on Friday, November 7 and Monday, November 10 - have been quite memorable. We rarely do our Elysium events on Friday - approx. once every 2 months - because we play them in public places which tend to be more crowded on Fridays. This usually means it's harder to keep in character, and this Friday was no different. However, this Friday was memorable for two things: one, it featured a couple of players who arrived from the city of Rijeka. Two, it started a chain of events which would culminate on Monday's event: abdication of a Prince. This has caused quite a stir in the internal politics. The position of a Prince is now open, and a lot of people started manuevering. Some in attempt to become the next prince, others to profit most from the change... This will continue for 2 more weeks, until a new Prince is elected (or takes power) on Camarilla Agram 8 . However it turns out, we'll have a new balance of power at the end of this y...

Click here to visit NERO webpage Last night, Diary of a Croatian Larper has received a generous donation from Joseph Valenti of NERO larp. This is a public "thank you" note. This donation will help a lot in covering the operational costs of this blog - both from technical standpoint and content-wise. A bit of statistics: most of my readership (about 46% of total traffic) is from USA, where NERO is based. It's followed by Croatia (20% total traffic), Germany, UK and Hungary. As a blogger, I'm always grateful for positive feedback and support. This donation will positively impact all articles on this blog - and I got some interesting stuff planned... Should you wish to donate yourself dear readers, check out my Patreon page for more details or contact me. Thanks and it will be greatly appreciated!

Available on DriveThruRPG Almost a year ago, Mind's Eye Theatre: Vampire the Masquerade rulebook was released (and reviewed on this website ). During its' original kickstarter, one could order the Storyteller Secrets PDF-only addon. Now it's finally been released. I didn't preorder it on the Kickstarter (for extra $20, when I had the chance - retail price is $25 now). To be honest, at the time I was not really sure how committed are we going to be to run Camarilla Agram . Well, we're pretty sure we're committed now. So on day one when it was released we decided to get a copy for our own use. If it's gonna help us make better games... Why not?  Camarilla Agram 8 and Sabbat Agram are approaching as we speak. Disclaimer: this article will use some lingo from the rules. If you don't have them and if you're unfamiliar with general Vampire rules, you can also check out the free quickstart rules which explain the base mechanics and terminolog...

Mirror of Second Sight Last week's Elysium 36 event was a pretty standard one for our Vampire series, Camarilla Agram. 17 people showed up - a large number for the last event of a month where most people are XP capped. It was all pretty standard, low-intensity social larping. Camarilla Agram can feel like a very different larp depending on what's going on at that particular time. When things are (sort of) relaxed, they are (sort of) relaxed. When they are tense, they are TENSE. I'd say that the centerpiece of the event was certainly enchanting of a magical item (Mirror of Second Sight) done by a player in a way which was very cool - and it's one of the very few instances of using props on an Elysium event. Such stuff is mostly reserved for large events on Camarilla Agram. Speaking of large events, Camarilla Agram 8 has been announced as well as every Elysium event for November - you can find the schedule (and links to Facebook events) here . Next one's on...

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 ...