Diary of a Croatian larper

Where does a simulation end and a larp begins? An interesting event had been organized in Croatia recently which could be said to clearly fulfill the definition of both, lasting two days and providing a good example of how a modern, political larp can work. Here's a description of the experience from +Aleksandar Gavrilović , one of the participants. The first of July marks Croatia's entrance into the European Union, a very big and game-changing step for our country. In this light, the European Forum Alpbach has organised a series of events, one of which has been a simulation game of the  European Council, where each player had a role either as an ambassador or head of state of a European country. For my part, I played Pedro Coehlo, the social-democratic prime minister of Portugal.  The game was set up by the Plan politik agency which is experienced in leading such simulations, and they provided all the players (2 per country, 16 countries total) with study materials...

Fantasy larp scene in Croatia is certainly developing. Until 2012, nearly all larps in Croatia were fantasy larps universally played in the same, shared world with more or less the same ruleset universally (Amtgard's or a modified version of the same). Then Terra Nova arrived, running on ConQuest ruleset, and already estabilishing itself as the "alternative" series. Tragači zore was also a significant larp, and a one-shot compared to other fantasy larp series. A mythology larp has already been planned for some time, and here's the freshest project. Enter the Elder Scrolls Chronicles. The Elder Scrolls is one of the most widely known role-playing game series for PC and consoles, and the most famous product of the Bethesda Game Studios. It's not the only one - Fallout is another, which had been acquired from its original owners, Interplay Productions - and it's the second PC RPG series that will be turned into a larp over here. Second after Fallo...

Yesterday's announcement about shortening of Rajski Vrhovi XVIII caused a wave of cancellations. This morning that decision was overturned in favor of postponing the event for the next weekend (but doing it hopefully in its fullness as a camping event instead of the shortened version). So please disregard the previous post. The new info is: Rajski Vrhovi XVIII have been postponed to the next weekend, July 5th - 7th. This will also push Labuđa Rijeka a week later to the Sunday after, July 14th.

This just came in: Rajski Vrhovi XVIII this weekend has just been shortened. Due to the unfortunate weather forecast (rain and low temperatures), the larp will end up a day earlier. The sleeping site has been moved from the regular campsite to the secondary location - the terrain owner's bar. You can check out photos from one of the older larps on the location to see what it looks like compared to the primary location. Use of regular exterior locations has been announced and entry fee has been reduced by 10 kn.

250 is a bit symbolic. A quarter of a thousand somehow looks more important than 50, 150 or 350. It also means I wrote 50 posts in four months . It also means I'm gonna ask you once again for feedback about this blog, this time on our new comment system . Tell me what you like about the blog, what you don't, what you enjoy reading about and what would you enjoy reading about even more. Drop in to say hi. Subscribe to this blog , or start or expand a larp scene . Right now is an excellent time. Anyway, here are some more announcements about this summer. This weekend is, of course, Rajski Vrhovi XVIII. It had already been announced on this blog, so I'm not going to repeat what's already been said - Facebook event is here . The next weekend - on Sunday, July 7th - there will be a Labuđa Rijeka 3 event by the same organizer - a summer battlegame in water. It will be held in Jarče Polje, on Dobra river. Several games have been announced in the water, including ...

As I mentioned earlier , I was unable to join either Maksimir 68 or Utvrda Svijetlosti 2013. I had friends who visited and stayed overnight - and we had a lovely time. It doesn't mean I spent the weekend completely unproductive larp-wise, however - it was time for some terrain scouting for +Terra Nova larp  (aha! Now on Google+) which included a total of over 250 km of cross-country driving... First order of business was a location in Subotica Podravska, near Koprivnica. The terrain is a private property which could take 100 people camping in comfort - and it would work well even if pushed to 200 people. It's a very diverse terrain which will host Terra Nova 2014  in May next year - and sorting it all out allowed us to announce it :) Afterwards, we scouted a second location which would be great for a shorter (single-day) Terra Nova spin-off event this autumn, Rise of Rashalan . We haven't really decided on this location yet as there are few more to scout - but it had ...

It's been a while since my last article in Start a larp series! Well, I do regard it as nearly complete for purposes of basic instruction. However, recently I found out about an awesome project called Larpfactory Book Project . It's a series of workshops on how to document games and methods used in larp that eventually will result in a book. The project will also result in a website with videos of all the workshop methods and drama enhancing techniques used in the larps, in addition to the game material needed. One of the first things they made public is a preliminary how-to in writing good larp scripts. This is one of the best articles I've seen on the matter, and it's of great importance if you're writing a single-shot larp which you plan to republish (like I'm doing with some of my single-shot larps, and I'll keep doing it in the future - I'll have these guidelines in mind though). The original article was written by Lizzie Stark, Elin Nilsen and...