Pandemic Larp Improvisation
Larp organizers have learned a thing or two about organizing scenarios. How have we applied those skills during the COVID-19 pandemic?
Author Archives
Heuristics for Larp
Heuristic techniques help us reduce the load of decision making. They’re especially useful when it’s not possible (or just not worth the time it would take) to find an optimal solution. They are mental shortcuts that are generally good enough.
Labor and Play
Have you gone to a larp requiring more work than your day job? Have you done work in a larp and been compensated with fictional resources rather than money?
Emergence, Iteration, and Reincorporation in Larp
This essay proposes an aesthetic model for apprehending narrative and play, in-game and out-of-game experiences in terms of emergence, iteration, and reincorporation. Emergence can be judged with respect to its cultivation of the themes of the larp. Iteration regards the…
Just a Little Lovin’ USA 2017
This essay recounts the organizer experience of running the Norwegian larp Just a Little Lovin' in the USA in 2017. It specifically recounts challenges encountered with securing the site, managing controversy around the larp, and adapting it to US larpers.
Tensions between Transmedia Fandom and Live-Action Role-Play
Larping in a franchise means players are familiar with the material. Yet fan practice may contradict larp's flexibility. How to address these tensions?
Literary and Performative Imaginaries – Where Characters Come From
Character sheets are an important part of a roleplaying game's "text", but how are they constructed, and how do they operate? Evan Torner investigates.
The Golden Cobra Challenge: Amateur-Friendly Pervasive Freeform Design
Once upon a time – actually, at GenCon 2014 in Indianapolis, USA – several of us discovered a design problem for live freeform games. For the last five years, the independent role-playing game scene here in North America has run…
Post-larp Depression
Larp occupies a unique place among analog games, for it demands as much from players’ bodies as it does from their minds. It comes then as no surprise that many players find themselves in the situation of feeling confused, exhausted,…