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TvTV-report made by the Youthdepartment of the National Broadcasting of Norway (NRK) in 1992 from the first Oslo Winterlarp {{#ev:youtube|_siS2M_h95g}}
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[[Image:Oslo Winterlarp Origins09 KrutvassCabin.jpg|thumb|right| Winterlarps in forestcabins had a strong impact on nordic Nordic larps]]
The Oslo '''Winter Larp''' tradition was a genre or series of semi-historic larps played in the Oslo area between 1992 and 2002. These larps would involve reliving the daily life of a certain historic period as central aspect of the frame of the larp. The [[plotline]] was often partly mythological marking them as a transitional genrè between the fantasy of the [[Oslo Summer Larp tradition]] and the realism of larps such as [[1942]] and [[Europa]]. A tendency towards [[persistent play]] and [[High-resolution larp | high-resolution]] role-playing mark these larps as important precursors to the Nordic style, as do their aspirations towards a [[360º]] illusion and an emphasis on cultural simulation and intra-personal relationships at the expense of [[boffer]] fights and epic stories.
==Impact==
Early concepts, techniques, and perceptions of [[playingstyle]]s in [[Norway]] are deeply rooted in the everyday situations that arise from playing non-stop for days in a forest, living in cabins heated with firewood, and making and taking food together as a large family, tribe, clan or [[ætt]].
The winterlarps moved the action away from running in the woods with rubber swords into classic home and family situations, including negotiating between groups about marriages, resources or religion. Girls were often more clever and conspicious conspicuous than the young male participants in improvising and driving the interaction between the characters in such situations. These larps were a crucial factor for the relative gender-balance of participants in Oslo; they helped recruit a majority of the first female organisers of Norway.
The traditions among both organisers and participants of the Winterlarps in Oslo provided the foundations for [[iconic larp]]s such as the 2nd World War larp [[1942]], and the westernlarps [[Wanted]] and [[Once upon a time]].
[[1942]] and [[Once upon a time]] are included in the [[Nordic Larp Book(book)]].
==Playing style==
As [[360]] degree larps, the winterlarps avoided [[off-game]] time by including every facet of character life -- including time spent sleeping -- within the game, requiring players to provide seemingly period underwear, nightcaps and the like for a real [[in-character]] experience. [[Non-diegetic]] items not belonging to a character's environment were banned from the location. This included removing watches, flashlights, cameras, walk-mans and, after some years, beepers and cellphones.
Participants stayed [[in character]] while sleeping, eating, and visiting toilets. This made almost every location an active part of the game. Occasionally, players making dinner or doing dishes might make the kitchen temporarily or permanently into a [[off-game]] area, but apart from the kitchen and the organisers' own sleeping quarters, the ideal was that all the time and space avaible available would be a part of the larp. Since the cabins were relatively crowded with people, the idea that any indoor location was not part of the [[diegesis]] was viewed as limiting to the game. It might not have been a conscious choice of the organisers, but the relatively young playergroup would get so agitated anyway, that it was difficult to ban participants from sneaking around other sleeping players, or from kidnapping people when they went to the traditional outdoor toilets in the dark. On the contrary, the designers of the games promoted these kind of activities, urging participants to play with the borders of the [[diegesis]] by the design of secret cults of kidnappers, and by secret ritual brotherhoods that would demand that characters wake up at night to perform secret activities, hidden from eachothereach other.
Organizers tested the limits of participants' expectations and their commitment to the [[diegesis]] and [[360]] illusion, for example, by breaking a glass window as a part of the start of the game. [[In-game]], a couple of mercenaries shattered a window and crawled into the kitchen (deemed by a few players by habit to be an [[off-game]] space). What really happened was that the participants playing the mercenaries' characters were told to crawl through the open window into the kitchen of the forest cabin in question.
Special character groups used special makeup or costumes to enhance the belief of something supernatural, but in the end, they were most often based on secular explanations. The mysterious Elf in the forest was in the end the mentally retarded child of the parents, that they tried to hide away. The Faeryfolk would be Pictish Tribes from the Scottish highlands interfering with the (main body of players playing) Celtic community.
The difference between [[summerlarps]] and [[winterlarps]] would be that the vast majority of players would not have access to any magical or supernatural powers. There might be characters like druid or a norse Norse volve present, but the supernatural would be in the hands of the organisers in forms of sound effects, pyrotechnics like smokemachines, and especially in the form of staged visits of supernatural creatures dressed up and instructed by the organisers.
Over the years the pyrotechnics got less important and the relationship webs between the players took focus.
*[[Dreamrooms]] (Early variant of a [[Black Box]] or [[Meta-room]])
*[[Dreaming]] (Early variant of a [[Meta-technique]])
*[[Boffer|Bofferweapons]]
*[[Pyrotechnics]]
*[[Non-Diegetic Sound]]
==Preparations==
[[Image:Oslo Winterlarps Preparations03.jpg|thumb|right|The evening before larpstart people would practice folksongs relevant for the larp. Skalds would memorize legends. Priests would practice ceremonies and their latinLatin.]]Participants were divided into family groups of 10-20 people. Normally the size of the group would match a selected house which would be the base location for this groups play. Participant factions would meet regularily regularly up to 6 months prior to the game, to decide on common clothing, plan for food, special customs or other appropriate excercisesexercises. In one game the group playing samipeople memorized some 100 words of Sami and used grammar intended to be totally incomprehensible to the rest of the participants.
Skis that would give a period impression were prepared. Old tools were brought to the game. Axes for cutting trees and making firewood. Shovels for digging in the snow.
The evening before the start of the larp, participants would decorate their living quarters, get into costumes, make food and be only partly playing their characters. They might do last minute practice of names of related characters. Individually people would be testing the way of talking [[in-character]], and often practice common songs related to the [[diegesis]] or the the overall [[genrè]] of the larp. More importantly, participants discussed routines such as when to wake up, dishwashing, fetching water, maintaining the fire, and cooking and established time and reponsibility responsibility for common meals and other practical matters. An organizer would oversee this and balance it with the [[Scheduling]] and the [[Storyarc]] of the larp.
==Origin==
* 1992 - [[Vingulmork 1196]] - Set to the era of King Sverre who defied the pope
* 1993 - [[Kelterlaiven]] ([[The larp of the Celts]]) - Settlement of celts and vikings in north of the Brittish British Isles haunted by mythological creatures of those cultures myths.
* 1994 - [[Vikinglaiven]] ([[The larp of the vikings]]) - Set to the era of the ancestor of the ancient kings of Norway, Halfdan Svarte (Halfdan the Black).
* 1995 - [[Pestlaiven]] ([[The larp of the black death]]) - Based on old norwegian Norwegian folktraditions and faeries.
* 1996 - [[Bronsealderlaiven]] ([[The larp of the bronzeage]]) - Matriarchical bronzeage society where the male clanleader needs to be sacrificed through a series of rituals
* 1997 - [[Et vintereventyr]] - ([[A winters fairytale]]) - First pan-nordic Nordic Larp ever, organised parallell to the first [[Knutepunkt]].
* 1998 - no traditional Winterlarp this year, instead [[1944]] was organised as the first 2nd Wordwar larp (many similarities in playing style)
* 1999 - no Winterlarp this year (it was a year of many other experiments during wintertime, the old crowd went to the 1920ies investigational crimestory larp named [[Dark Hill Mansion]])
* 2000 - [[Fremmede Drømmer]] ([[Alien Dreams]]) - Based on old norse Norse myths of the book Edda.
* 2002 - [[Enigheten]] - (Historic game Wintertime, but set to the time of industrialisation in Norway) (http://folk.uio.no/mraaum/laiv/enighet-008.jpg)
* [http://www.laivgalleriet.no/gallery2/v/laiver/ravn/ravn94/album02/vinter_1994_drekka_mer.jpg.html Photo gallery]
Slideshow of photos from The Black Death larp in 1995 - {{#ev:youtube|nv4OP1I5QnE}}
[[Category:Larps]]
