Unrealities of Mine

A really good text on the Nordic Scene

2006-08-25T00:28:00.000+02:00

I just stumbled on (ok, I got it from Sven) this really good text about the Nordic Scene and Knutpunkt. It is a bit more elaborate and include more hard numbers than my previous article on the subject, but my text still got some important info not found in this one.

If you want to know about the roleplaying stuff I do these days, you have to turn to Sven.

Promethean

2006-06-07T00:17:00.000+02:00

The previews for White Wolfs next World of Darkness game Promethean: The Created is well underway. Initially I was a bit sceptical about it, as I thought WW would keep to close to their established format, even if the game is a limited series of five books. Sure they will stick to the 5x5 splat format but the social splats are very different due to prometheans not havning a proper society. There also seems to be a lot of other differences in the basic concept that makes it uniqe enough for a new game. Most importantly, the more I hear about the details of the game the more I look forward to trying it out. The concept of someone who is not human at all but wants to be is something I have often wanted to play in various rpg:s but for never gotten around to do. Yes, Data is one of my favourite fictional characters.

If you want to know more about Promethean the following links should do the trick. Starting from above will make the most sense if you are completely new to the game.

Podcast with main book developer Bill Bridges
Interview with developer Matt McFarland
Podcast with developer Matt McFarland
Marcon demo game report
Kublacon demo game report
Promethean homepage with all the daily previews

Victory for Lordi!

2006-05-21T02:06:00.000+02:00

Congratulations to the Finnish monster rockers Lordi for winning the Eurovision Song Contest. They may not represent the best of the genre, but the melodic metal of their entry Hard Rock Hallelujah kind of grows on you. Most importantly it is a large departure from the type of music normally in the top spots of the contest. As the winner is decided by phone voting all over Europe this may be an indication that metal is rising in poularity. Or just that all metalheads voted ten times each...

Role, Play, Art

2006-05-19T17:54:00.000+02:00

The Knutpunk 2006 book is now available online as a PDF.

Role, Play, Art—Collected Experiences of Role-Playing

Knutpunkt is over

2006-05-04T14:37:00.000+02:00

Knutpunkt 2006 is over and it was a blast! Thank you everyone who showed up.

Due to being one of the organisers I didn't have time to attend as may seminars as I wanted, but making travel arrangements also made me meet and talk to people I might not have encounterd otherwise. All in all I think it was a good choice to be part of the crew for my first Knutpunkt.

I will post some more reflections and a picture or two later. We have also made a forum, Post Mortem, for talk about the event.

(I hope I still got some readers left after making no posts in over a month...)

Cat!

2006-03-18T11:09:00.000+01:00

Yesterday I and my girfriend finally brougt home the cat we have had reserved for over a month now. It's a beautiful Somali girl (Somali is an Abyssinian with longer fur). Just look at the silly smile on my face!

She do not have a proper name yet, feel free to make suggestions.

Read this!

2006-03-18T10:19:00.000+01:00

This article over at the Kallista Press blog got an excellent explanation of something that I have touched on myself.

Read it!

Finally!

2006-03-15T16:40:00.000+01:00

Gamers have wondered for nearly 20 years why there is no Warhammer 40.000 roleplaying game. In 2007 the wait will finally be over.

The reactions over at RPGnet is unsurprisingly very positive.

Knutpunkt 2006 in Stockholm

2006-03-04T01:09:00.001+01:00

Knutpunkt 2006 is open for registration!
The convention is limited to 179 participants and we will enforce a strict first come-first serve policy, so hurry and register at:
http://kp2006.jeepen.org/

Who is coming to Knutpunkt?
Look at the registration rooster at: http://kp2006.jeepen.org/

When is Knutpunkt?
Friday 29 april - Monday 1 may on Barnens ö outside Stockholm. It costs 500 SEK and you get entry to all the seminars, the locale, a proper bed, the big party and Sweden (priceless).

What is Knutpunkt?
Knutpunkt (Eng. Junction/Nodal point) is a yearly Nordic convention on the craft and theory of role-playing. The goal of Knutpunkt is to provide a meeting place for people interested in enhancing and analysing role-playing. This we do by seminars, discussions and experimental larping. Knutpunkt in 2006 is the tenth annual conference. It continues to be a big influence on as well as a big source of inspiration for Nordic larp.

When can I meet the organisers?
Thursday 9th of mars 19:00 we will be at the bar “Wirströms” on Stora Nygatan 13 in the old town, Stockholm. Come, talk to us and hang out with a lot of nice larpers!

Where can I register?
http://kp2006.jeepen.org/

Where can I find out more?
http://jeepen.org/knutpunkt/

What if I want to organise something?
Send a description of your arrangement to: programme@jeepen.org

No love for the d12

2006-02-26T22:42:00.000+01:00

Why is the d12 used less often than other dice?

Violent young girls

2006-02-20T12:46:00.000+01:00

This Saturday I had taken on my responsibility to introduce three girls between 13 and 14 years old to roleplaying. The event was taking place at a youth camp arranged by an organization for soberness. (These organizations are quite common in Sweden, many of them created during the turn of the century.)

I had a number of goals when planning the events five hours:
- I wanted to play a fairy traditional scenario, to give them an image of how a typical roleplaying session work.
- I wanted to base it on a commercially available Swedish game.
- I wanted to simplify the rules to enable quick learning of the system and getting on with the actual play.
- I wanted to avoid fantasy, to counteract the opinion that roleplaying is fantasy.
- I wanted the players to have fun and getting to play as they wanted, seldom saying "No, you can't do that at all".

I choosed to use a convention scenario called "The seven mutants" for the game Mutant*. I simplifying the already quite basic rules and did not use the pre-made characters. Instead I created a system where you drew four pieces of paper containing different parts of you character like "personality" and "appearance". You could redraw, choose openly or invent something on your own. It was only an aid for the imagination. It really worked out well.

Now, time after time I have met the opinion that "girls seldom like roleplaying games and computer games because of their great focus on violence and sexual stereotypes. They want stories about relationships". With this in mind I had decided to downplay the violent part of the scenario, a classic murder mystery.

I was so wrong. It started when choosing weapons. I had stated that it was a good idea for their characters to have some kind of weapon, as it fitted both the setting and the scenario. Having the simple and common breach loaders manufactured at this post apocalyptic times was not enough. They wanted artifact weapons with large clips and big calibers. An ancient .44 Magnum revolver was a popular choice and one girl picked the ultra destructive plasma carbine. Hmmm.....Ok, everyone wants big guns. Munchkinism is natural...

We started playing and everything went smooth. They had no problem understand how to play and the separation between the players and the gamemaster seemed natural to them. They were involved in the plot, played their characters well and overall impressed me. But the longer we played the more violent they got. They liked rolling for damage. They really liked when the first enemy exploded by the plasma carbine. They soon started to base their action on how to maximize the potential carnage. At one point at the end of the game they had do decide on which of two factions they would support. As one would let them kill one person and the other five it was an easy decision. And of course they followed up by killing the other side of the conflict and a couple of innocent bystanders. When they did not just kill their opponents they used a combination of seduction and drinking them under the table. Sex, drugs and violence.

I had fun and I'm certain they had too. One of the girls complained on stomach aces from laughing to hard at a couple of in-game funny moments.

After the initial scenario we had some time left and they wanted to continue, this time "playing something with less violence". Sure.... The mission they got was supposed to be sneaky and focusing on social interaction but they still wanted plasma rifles and they still ended up murdering both the target for their investigation and their employer, in addition the requested sneaking and lying.

I do not know if my sample is big enough but maybe it is time to scrap the common understanding that girls do not like sex, drugs and violence in their fiction.

Immersion on RPGnet

2006-02-09T10:34:00.000+01:00

The last week has seen a large number of threads on the topic of immersion over at RPGnet. Even better, an unusually large amount of the posts have been constructive and interesting. Take a look for yourself (I use the handle Havoc):

Immersionism -- What Is It

Immersion Thoughts

Weak and Strong Immersion

Immersive character design & encouraging immersion

And, while I'm at it, a couple of interesting threads more or less related to immersion and/or freeform:

Indie RPGs, BDSM, and Anarchy

With Apologies to Mr. Edwards

Confessions of a former story addict

I wonder if this interest in immersion will continue, or if it's just the flavor of the week...

System and immersion

2006-02-07T17:36:00.000+01:00

I have been trying to write something about systems helping immersion for a long time now, never really getting to it. Then I stumbled onto this thread on RPGnet, discussing what immersion is but quickly turning into a "Can rules ever help immersion" war. I had to post in it anyway. You can either read all 140 post made this far or just read my own post right here:

First, immersion is certainly not all or nothing. Simply "feeling" the game world and "shared imaginary space" is a form of immersion. For this discussion to have any meaning it needs to be narrowed down to character immersion, or even deep character immersion.

To have any form of "deep" immersion in a character it is not enough to feel *for* the character and try to think as it would. You need to go one step further and *be* the character, your and its mind being one. In practice this will never be a total unification, but it can be darn close, both in table top and larping.

Most mechanics do hinder this process but not all. In many cases I can feel more immersed when having stats that are never used for anything than my own reference. Defining my characters in this way makes the risk of having to reason around if I can do something smaller, resulting in less breaks in the immersion.

Well defined procedures for how a scene is ended and how and when you talk out of character can help immersion too, as it also reduces the need for reasoning, with others or in your mind. A smaller portion of the brain capacity is needed if you got a strict procedures, leaving more for you character.

So, mechanics in the form of resolution systems seldom, maybe never, help immersion. Mechanics in the form of a strict framework for play can often help it.

I also agree on the near religious aspects of immersion. Exactly what it is can never be fully explained or defined, only experienced. A good thing is that in a game striving for immersion, everyone can immerse to their own ability and liking, filling in the rest with acting. You are never forced to immerse and are never excluded for the inability to do so. No one but you should be able to tell the difference anyway.

Maybe I get around to making my "real" post about system and immersion some day...

Related, I just found out about this forum focused on immersive play (seems down right now). I have not yet abandoned my plans to start or help starting a forum focused on Nordic style free form and larping, but right now it isn't moving at all.

General comments

2006-01-30T02:47:00.000+01:00

The purpose of this post is to act as a place for readers to post general comments and questions. It will be linked from the menu bar for easy access.

Rules and background stories

2006-01-29T03:34:00.000+01:00

Two treads on RPGnet have made me realize some important stuff about roleplaying.

- Maybe the main difference in how Forge-style games are designed and how I want to use rules is when the rules are used. Forge often makes a point in having rules for the things that matters most in the game, and makes sure that you use these rules. I personally mostly want to use the rules for unimportant stuff, when they help me get on with the roleplaying. Instead of playing out a long scene where the outcome is not crucial, I let the player use a skill. If is is really important, I want the full experience and having the outcome depend on what the characters do or say, not the dice roll. (RPGnet tread)

- When players write a background story for their characters, it is not primarily for me as a storyteller but for themselves. Many in the RPGnet tread argues that a long background story makes the player think he has managed to explain his wishes for the game in great detail, while the GM in reality do not get the important information. That may be correct, but as long as you do not use the background story instead of actually talking to each other, that problem should not arise. I find a well developed background, mostly describing the personality, to be of great help in making the character come to life. (RPGnet tread)

(And no, I haven't read everything in those two treads. Some RPGnet discussions have an ability to go on forever. There are rarely anything important being written after the first ten pages...)

Ending stuff is good!

2006-01-08T23:07:00.000+01:00

This Friday something rare happened, as I played the planned final session in a RPG chronicle. This is rare because most chronicles I have participated in have ended in a much less satisfactory way. They are fun for a while but not having a set ending they sooner or later turns into nothing as people move or the general interest wanes. More often than not this is discovered to late to give everything a proper ending. The next session is planned to be "sometime soon" but this point in time never arrives.

The chronicle, named Utmark (Outlying land), was set in the Fading Suns universe with some use of the rule system from the Swedish game Skymningshem. The characters was part of an expedition examining an abandoned space station. The style of the game changed a bit as we played, having its ups and downs. This made me very aware of my preferences as a player, rather than a game master. This will be a great help both when choosing games to participate in and when designing my own chronicles.

- I do not like dungeon crawling at all, even (or maybe especially) when there is no rules or combat involved. The second session had a detailed exploration of the station. The exciting parts was drowned out by hours of choosing between the right or left door.

- I sometimes like to roll dice. It was a bit weird to realize that I was asking about or requesting a dice roll more often than many of the other players. I have always seen myself as primarily a free former, but in many situations I found that a dice role gave certain strategic actions a bit more weight, or that what was going to be a very long discussion with an NPC might better be decided by a roll. Note that most sessions only had around ten rolls, so this is in contrast to using no rules at all. A conflict resolution system would be entirely out of the question.

- Player secrets are unimportant. In most cases when one character has a secret from another we handle it with sending notes or talking with the GM in private. In this case nearly everything was open, even thou there was a lot of scheming. The immersion gets a little bit trickier but in no way impossible, and you win a lot getting to experience the full story as a player. Splitting the group for longer times have always been a cause for loss of interest among the players not in focus.

- Music can be done right. I've never managed to use music in a good way. I usually put it on in the background with it sometimes reinforcing the theme and sometimes ruining it. Trying to change track for different parts of the game have never worked as I wanted. Kristoffer (the GM) made really good use of music by only playing it in certain parts of the story, and leaving it off for most of the time. I observe and hopefully learn.

- Immersion is still king! As much as I liked the other parts of the game, the situations where I really go the chance to feel my character was the most enjoyable. Setting these scenes up with other types of play might actually make is even better but no immersion is like no orgasm...

As Kristoffer will most likely read this I grab the opportunity to thank him for a good chronicle!

Roleplaying christmas

2005-12-25T02:32:00.000+01:00

Merry christmas or happy holidays or whatever...

Frispel* has written a free form scenario called Dan före dan, about a group of lonely men the day before christmas. It looks very promising and also mentiones my brother in roleplaying Sven.

Get it here*. If you know Swedish, that is...

Spreading the word

2005-12-17T07:50:00.000+01:00

This is only relevant for my Swedish readers.

I and some other roleplayers are explaining what we do to Sakine over in this post on her blog. Join in if you want to...

Two larps and one musical

2005-11-21T05:50:00.000+01:00

I have finally gotten myself together to write about my latest larping experiences, now over a month ago...

Fröken Ingeborg är försenad

First out was Fröken Ingeborg är försenad (Ms Ingeborg is late)*. Following up on their previous game Aurora Borealis*, NCID* one again returned to the 30's and Lovecraftian horror. This time they wanted to make is run as close to a Lovecraft story as possible, with the gradual buildup of fear and madness.

The larp had two parts played out in the same evening, the first being a dinner while waiting for Ingeborg. It was fairly standard for this type of Swedish larp, not bad but nothing spectacular. I played the husband to be of Ingeborg, a very ordinary man feeling a bit out of place among all the artist and occultists. The second part, when searching for Ingeborg in an abandoned mining area was very nice. By mine I mean the real thing, making for a fantastic mood. Examining the swampy holes in the light kerosenerne lamps was fantastic. Another nice technique was the dinner group meeting up with another party also searching for Ingeborg. My only real complain is that the ending felt a bit anticlimactic. I would have preferred the lamps one by one running out of fuel, leaving us in complete darkness.

Efter mörkret

One week later I went to Gothenburg for Efter mörkret (After the Darkness)* by Fabel*. Fabel is known to produce very professional plays requiring a minimum of preparation, and they are in fact professionals as the group sells roleplaying experiences to companies.

The basic plot was a fairly standard post apocalypse story, with humanity mostly destroyed by a plaque. A group of survivors was trying to get to the fabled Ark, where humanity tried to build a new world. Fleeing from marauders, our group took shelter in a subterran complex.

The game started at this point, with the stage being a large bombing shelter in central Gothenburg. Our group faced the expected difficulties of cooperation and establishing some kind of order, and my own very stubborn ex-farmer did nothing to help. After a while we made contact with another group, in the same situation as ours but that was just the beginning of the difficulties. Already present in the mountain was a weird cult lead by the charismatic and power mad Engel...

As you can see this was another event with split groups, this time two parties of refugees and one with the cultists. The style of play differed greatly between the cult and the outsiders. We had the creeping fears of the mountain and our inability to cooperate. They lived in a complex hierarchy based on oppression and violence.

I personally loved it but as I see it some of the other participants may not have gotten as much out of the game as I did. As my role had the attitude that noone could do something good enough than himself, I got in the position to be in the center of all the difficult and dangerous part of the play. I got to explore the areas surrounding our camp and more importantly be one of four emissaries to the courts of Engel. It all ended with the four of us imprisoned with the task to choose of the other refugees to be sacrificed for the others safe passage. After heated and horrible debate we choosed two of ourselves. It was a very intense experience and I nearly threw up from winning the draw and instead sending my best friend to be cooked and eaten. Not surprisingly it ended with all the refugees dying by some event and me starving to death after eating my fellow prisoners. The player of the sacrificed friend of my character, who only had experience from fantasy larps thought the ending was a bit weird but I assured him that it was pretty expected fro this sub-genre of Swedish larps. That by itself its may be a bit weird.

This was one of the better larps I have ever attended, but I'm not to sure if the players whos characters never got to leave our camps would agree with me. As the plot was in fairly tight controll by the arrangers, I think they could have made more effort in dividing the experiences among the players.

En shoggot på taket

This is already way to long so I will cover the musical briefly. One week after Efter mörkret I visited the Lovecraft convention MiskatoniCon, held for the first time in Stockholm I didn't have time for much of the actual convention, but couldn't miss the first ever performance of En shoggot på taket (A shoggoth on the roof - also read this article). I was really impressed by the result and especially the singing. If you get the chance to see this some time in the future, take it!

Ahh.. That's it... I hope at least some of you are still with me this far. Enough for now.

Choose your poison

2005-11-16T02:54:00.000+01:00

It seem like I'm about to switch drug, from Star Wars Galaxies to World of Warcraft. Same shit, different name... Maybe I should finish my text about the last months larping and play less computer games.

If you know Swedish, check out Svens new blog about living in Turkey*.

Promethean, the fourth WoD game?

2005-10-31T01:26:00.000+01:00

Substantial rumors gives the name of the upcoming fourth World of Darkness game as "Promethean". It will apparently circle around some sort of "players as constructs" theme, but little more is known.

"Life and death appeared to me ideal bounds which I should first break through and pour a torrent of life into our dark world."

Earlier rumors have stated that the game will follow a limited format, close to how Orpheus was released.

Links:
WW forum
Shadownessence
RPG.net

Edit: This is no longer just a rumor, and there is an official Promethean forum.

Free WoD: Rulebook!

2005-10-21T13:30:00.000+02:00

The new free book on DriveThruRGP is the World of Darkness: Rulebook! If you haven't yet read this book this is the time to give it a try. And if you already have the dead tree edition, an electronic version is always a good complement.

In my opinion, this is one of the best systems out there. Maybe it's because my general dislike for rules. The Storytelling system do not even try to be very innovative, it does what it should and keep out of the way the rest of the time. Compared to some of the other "modern" systems, it do not try to direct the game flow towards a certain style of gaming. Or maybe it does, just by not trying...

The best part is the combat system. There are numerous RPG:s claiming not to focus on combat, but most of them still have very detailed rules for it. In Storytelling, you basically make a skill roll and apply equipment and situation modifiers as for any other action. The dice only gives you the mechanical effect (damage on target), so you need to roleplay the specifics as with other skill rolls. It is more a system for violence than combat.

The rules are by no means perfect. There are some weird and unnecessary stuff about damaging objects, but those pages are easy to ignore. If you are sensitive about realism you may notice that the rules for firearms are a pretty bad approximation of reality. But, if you want a simple rule set, either as a backup when mostly free-forming, or for the tradition but not rules-fixated game, you should at least give it a try.

Note that this book is not only the basis for Vanpire, Werewolf and Mage, but is designed as a stand alone horror roleplaying game.

Semi-random stuff...

2005-10-12T22:37:00.000+02:00

It was quite some time since I last posted, and I still don't have anything coherent to say, just a collection of semi-random observations:

- Check out Infinite Armies. Excellent idea and good value. It still have some balance issues but I happen to know that an updated version is in the works. It will be free for owners of the original. If you read Fenix* you will get a review by me in the next issue.

- Daily previews seems like the standard method of hype building for White Wolf. Next up to get the treatment is Racer Knights of Falconus. The new homepage launched today. I haven't played any of these new "constructible card games", but this one looks kind of fun.

- Last week we started a new RPG chronicle. It is Fading Suns but with rules from the Swedish game Skymningshem: Andra Imperiet* (Twilighthome: The Second Empire). We play an expedition examining an old space station. This is supposed to be a short chronicle finishing in 6-7 short weekly sessions. I'm not game master for this one.

- I'm getting more and more tempted to visit Dragonbane, even thou I normally don't attend fantasy larps. The more I read about it the more certain I get that it will be something really special.

- Matti Paalanen have managed to leave Teosto, the Finnish organization managing payments for public performance of music. His nice background music is back online. I have updated the links in my original post.

That's all for now. I'm quite sure I have forgotten something, but I'll have to get back on it...

Larps of the Autumn

2005-09-14T23:42:00.000+02:00

Yesterday evening I got two larp invitations. NCID*, the creator of Mellanrummet is arranging Fröken Ingeborg är försenad (Ms Ingeborg is late) and Fabel have two arrangements, a rerun of Efter Mörkret* (After the Darkness) and an independent second part called Monster*.

As all of them are pretty small and expected to be popular I spent a lot of time today coordinating "my crew" and the result is that I, Linnéa and Fredrik will attend Fröken Ingeborg är försenad and Efter Mörkret. The first one had only half of the positions open after less than 24 hours. Popular indeed!

We decided to skip Monster, as they were all pretty close together in time, and it's style did not appeal as much to us as the others.

I will tell you at a later time what these larps are about. Now, I need to sleep...

Nordic lajv part II - The others

2005-09-07T16:59:00.000+02:00

This is the second and final part of my article about Nordic larping (lajv).

I'm not even sure if Ben Lehman have even read the first part, but I will try to finish this article anyway. If you haven't done so already, go read part I first.

First a note about the Nordic lajv in general, as pointed out by a reader. We have a high ratio of female participants in the games, one estimate being 30-40%. From what I know this is not true for American larps.

Vampire
When Vampire: The Masquerade and the Minds Eye Theatre became hugely popular in the US we had the same situation over here. Vampire was the game to play and if you were a vampire lajv player, you was coolest of the cool. Nowadays there games are not as common but there are still lots of them going on. I do not claim to know how the game is played in the US but here it differs quite much from what is written in the book (remember that I'm generalizing here):

- I have never seen or even heard about equipment cards being used. If you got a weapon you need some sort of passable replica or prop. It is not uncommon to have people bring very real knives and other melee weapons to games. They are of course just for show.

- The amount of rules used varies. Almost all games have lots of modifications. In most cases the goal is to never need a narrator for resolving character to character conflicts. The most common attitude is that the rules should only be used when a situation cannot be resolved by social interaction. Combat is more or less rare.

- No minors and no alcohol? This depends on the game in particular, but there is not general consensus that either of them is necessarily bad, but maybe not combined...

In total the Swedish vampire larps take on the characteristics of Swedish larps in general. Less placeholder props, less rules and less combat. The game part isn't as important as the acting part.

Airsoft
Ever since airsoft guns got license free in Sweden the hobby have been growing. Some of the player just see it as a simpler and cheaper alternative to paintball, but there is a large community that wants more.

This type of game is called MilSim, after Military Simulation. Instead of a simple eliminate all or capture the flag game, this variant tries to simulate an actual military operation by having a more complex mission, realistic gear and true to life chain of command. In its pure form there isn't very much of roleplaying a character, the focus is on the action.

This is starting to change. Influenced by the larping scene more and more game incorporates roleplaying as an important part of the game. One method of bringing out these aspects is incorporating non combatants that the soldiers have to interact with in another way than just shooting them. The focus is still on action but many of the more recent MilSim games I have heard about (I have never attended one myself) is to be considered a lajv in the usual sense of the word.

Art lajv
This is a very difficult group to describe, even thou it is the only type I regularly attend. Maybe this is why I have a hard time making generalizations, as I see each game as a unique experience instead of having them described to me in general wordings. I will try anyway.

The average Swedish art lajv:

- Is played during one day or evening.

- Have much more focus on character and theme than equipment.

- Have participants of a minimum of 18 years old. This is seldom a rule but more of the way it happens to be.

- Is played indoors and seldom in a classic fantasy world. All other genres are represented, but mostly historical (1900+) and contemporary settings.

- Is played with no other mechanical rules than signs for slowing down or breaking the game in uncomfortable situations.

- Have a theme that the organizers try to focus on. It is expected of all participants to respect and contribute to this theme.

I realize this do very little do describe how a lajv like this is actually played. To get a better understanding you can read my post on the lajv Mellanrummet.

Ok. That is it. If you have questions or do not agree with me please feel free to post a comment. This is not the definite truth about Nordic larps, but the best I can do.

Ars Armandi experimentation

2005-08-30T00:45:00.000+02:00

This Saturday I and some of the regulars (now including Fredrik von Post, back from China) experimented a bit with the Ars Armandi method (the actual description start at the bottom of page three). In short it is a way of simulating sexual contact in larps, that have been used on several Swedish art larps. You are only allowed to touch the the arms and the area from above the armpits to the earlobes. I have personally not attended any larps using it but Fredrik wanted to further develop what he had seen when participating in Moira.

We ended up doing both theoretical and more "hands on" experimentation, mostly on Ars Armandi as a non-diegetic method. Some of our concussions in short:

- The upper parts of the neck feels to erogenous for us to be included as a permitted body part. We quickly removed it and didn't have any problems. There are still enough areas to touch.

- When used non-diegetic, there is a need to correlate Ars Armandi touching to real world sexual activities. There are several ways to do this depending on how detailed you want to be, but having four different areas seemed to be appropriate. One hand up to the elbow is light caressing and kissing and the same with both hands is making out heavily. Touching up to the shoulders is more or less naked full body caressing. Finally, the lower neck and collar bone is penetrative sex, including oral sex. The point is not to have each caress mean a specific action but to know how far the session have gone on the "sexual scale". This way there will be less misunderstandings.

- We had some discussion on the risk of mistaking non-sexual touching for an Ars Armandi invitation, but in large agreed that you just have to take some care not touching in a way that could be misinterpreted.

- We talked about on how to combine a "real life" start of a seduction with Ars Armandi sex. In many cases it would be weird to not allow any kind of even just sexual suggestive touching. In these cases, when and how do you switch?

- We tried out different sexual situations, including domination. None of them turned out to be much of a problem.

- There could be a problem if your own sexuality is awakened during a Ars Armandi session and interfering with that of your characters. As the method is so different from ordinary sex but still very intense you could be drawn out of character by the physical responses of you body. I guess we have to see how much of a problem this is.

Hmmm.... I have probably forgotten something important but this is everything I remember right now. We did some video recordings but decided not to publish them as taken out of context they would look really weird. All in all it was both interesting and fun. More touching to the people, or at least the larpers!

I am 100% Method Actor!

2005-08-24T02:31:00.000+02:00

I found the link to this quiz on gaming styles over at A moment of clarity. As expected it is very simplistic but more fun than getting to know which character in movie X you are most like.

My results:

You scored as Method Actor. You think that gaming is a form of creative expression. You may view rules as, at best, a necessary evil, preferring sessions where the dice never come out of the bag. You enjoy situations that test or deepen your characterÂs personality traits.

Method Actor - 100%
Storyteller - 67%
Tactician - 67%
Power Gamer - 50%
Specialist - 50%
Butt-Kicker - 17%
Casual Gamer - 0%

I also got to play Dogs in the Vineyard for the first time today. Interesting experience but as we did not get very far into the game I want to play more before doing any serious commenting. I hope I get the chance before the GM (Jonas Karlsson) goes back home.

I nearly forgot! The biggest news of today is that my friend Fredrik have beat me on all levels when it comes to archetypal Swedish art larping. During Moira he was at one point sitting in the naked lap of the renowned larper Martin Eriksson. Fredik was playing a man with the mind of a young boy and Martin was of course playing a pedophile fairy. No Swedish larp is complete without a pedophile. Try experiencing something like that in a Forge game :)

The power of a word

2005-08-18T19:37:00.000+02:00

I have often contemplated how the English word roleplaying differs from the Swedish translation rollspel. I think this difference have an impact on what "laymen" think about the hobby and what they expect when you try to introduce it to them.

Rollspel seems to be a pretty straightforward translation. Roll means role and spel means game. That makes it something like role-game. But what about the play part? The thing is that spel could mean both game, play and acting, so play is already covered. Simple. Or maybe not?

Rollspel can mean role-game, roleplay, role-acting, or roleplaying game, depending on how you choose to interpret it. These three meanings do have different feels to them, different implications on what to expect. Due to how the word is used in other situation the game part is usually not what people get in their mind when hearing someone say rollspel. What we have left is roleplay or role-acting, with game not being an important part of the word.

The effect is that roleplaying is not seen as necessarily being a game at all. People expect a role and they expect to act or play it. The game is entirely optional. I do think this fact may have had an impact on the general rules light nature of Swedish roleplaying, and the existence of the so called Nordic Scene. The name can have a big influence on the type of people a hobby attracts, and the expectations of these people will in turn shape the hobby into something resembling that word.

On Immersion

2005-08-17T23:23:00.000+02:00

Immersion is the single most important thing in roleplaying! Yes, I do make this claim but before you get upset (some of you may just agree, of course) let me clarify a bit. The way I see it there are several levels of immersion and depending on taste one may prefer to focus on one of them or mix and match. They are not really set levels but more of a sliding scale from outside observer to total identification.

Setting Immersion
This is the most basic level of immersion, as it happens every time something is engaging enough that the outside world is shut out. When reading a good book, watching an exiting movie or listening to a skillfully told story you immerse. The imagined world becomes real to you. You are an invisible observer but the characters and events feels real, in the sense that they matter to you. Sometimes the events themselves are real but you still identifies more with them than their objective significance to your life would mandate. A good example on this would be watching sports.

As you see this definition of immersion makes it something to always strive for. As soon as you do something involving your fantasy, immersion is a good thing. I bet almost everyone enjoying a roleplaying game immerse to some extent.

Character Immersion
When we go from being an outside observer to experiencing the fantasy through the senses of one of the protagonists we get character immersion. For most people we are now firmly in the domain of dreams, daydreams or roleplaying. You act thru your character, sees what he sees and put the words in his mouth. You feel with your character as she experiences good and bad. Most roleplayers get to this level of immersion to some extent, regardless of the amount of rules or if you play one or several characters.

Deep Immersion
Now things get deep. There is no longer a difference between you and your character. There is no separation between his and your thoughts. When she experiences something it is you who experiences as there is nothing else. There cannot be a game in this type of roleplaying as little as there is a game in real life. You can roll dice as little as you do it in real life. There is no other way of resolving an action than just doing it. There is nothing forcing a conclusion to a conflict.

This kind of immersion is probably only possible in certain types of lajv (larp) and even then it is a fragile thing. It takes a long time to enter and it can be very hard to keep. The face of a real life friend or an association from a certain smell can be enough to come crashing back into reality. Combining deep immersion with rules of the game (like no violence) can be very hard and take practice. Most of the time you slide gently in and out of it. How deep can immersion be? I do not know and as it is something very personal it is hard to compare. Some people claim to have stayed completely in character for a week, some claim they have a hard time returning to their real self.

Preferences
I see deep immersion as the highest form of immersion and something to strive for, but only because I enjoy it most in the same time as I seldom get to experience it. It takes a lot of work and you have to sacrifice other parts of a game, parts that are also part of the fun. Deep immersion is certainly not the only enjoyment you can get from roleplaying. What I personally try to do is getting as much immersion as possible from the game I play. In a game focused on rules heavy combat you could probably not get close to deep immersion during the battles, but maybe when playing out the conversations around the campfire.

My best (and not very original) advice is immersing to the level of still being fun. The taste differs and you cannot have it all at the same time.

Free background music

2005-07-31T14:16:00.000+02:00

More free stuff!

Matti Paalanen have made lots of nice tracks well suited as background music for roleplaying.

Essence - Orchestral and soundtrack music mostly suitable for fantasy.

Divinity - Ambient tracks great for mystery and horror.

Illuminati - Old school gaming

2005-07-30T22:57:00.000+02:00

I just finished a game of Illuminati, the first time I play it in about five years. For quite a time now I have wondered how it stands up agains the newer German boardgames, but until now I have never gotten around to examine this. As I remembered it from the old days this is a really good game. Is that still true, or have time made it obsolete? Is it currently only worth playing wearing funny hats?

From left: Kristoffer, Me, Sven, Linnéa

Sure, Illuminati has aged but it is still fun. I give you it is not a game where everyone can win until the end, as is the norm today. You can get crushed early and never recover, and everyone can gang up on you to make sure this happens. Even so it got very much character and style. Not only is the theme wonderful but the general mechanics are actually well designed.

Illuminati is still a good game but not quite as great as I remembered it. I have to downgrade it from an eight to a seven on BoardGameGeek. Hmm... I wonder if the fact that I lost has something to do with it?

Free is good

2005-07-28T20:44:00.000+02:00

I know this isn't going to be very new to most of my readers, but I still want to make a short post on it.

DriveThruRPG sells electronic rpg books in .pdf format. They initially got a lot of flak from using DRM, a system to copy protect .pdf files. This turned out to be more of a problem for their customers than the pirates, so they have now changed to having your name in small print on each page of the book. Much smoother. (This is really starting to sound like paid advertisment.)

The best part is not the store but the free stuff! They almost always got a free full product for download, and you even get the date when they will change to a new one. Right now it is Abberant d20. There is also a free section with some smaller things, but if you do some digging you can find more free full products. I have found CJ Carrella's WitchCraft and Twilight: 2000. There is also a (not so) secret code that will give you a free Exalted mainbook. Start by ordering the book but instead of paying enter "freeexalted" in the relevant field (you will see it).

I hope someone learned ar least something...

Bad RPG: The Fun

2005-07-21T12:48:00.000+02:00

We all love reading about bad rpgs! For some reason it is much more fun than the good ones, and what's even better, you do not have to spend money on buying them. No commitments.

I just stumbled on The Wraeththu Report over at Jeff's Gameblog. This guy has really gone to lengths collecting all available information on the game. I will give you a short preview: You play hermaphroditic goths with flower shaped penises. I'm not kidding.

Tell me if you managed to get through it all, complete with the linked forum posts. Actually , you can tell me anyway. I like getting comments to my posts. And no, it seems like F.A.T.A.L. still have the title of worst rpg of all time.

On another note, I actually got the last two books to review for the next issue of Fenix* after just two days of waiting (link). Looks like I will have a resonable time for reading them (Predators and Ordo Dracul).

Reviewing

2005-07-19T00:29:00.000+02:00

I have finally, due to being away on vacation, gotten hold of the latest issue of Fenix*, containing no less than five World of Darkness reviews written by myself. They looked good and as usually it was a special feeling seeing your text in print. Also worth mentioning was the good work done by Anders and Tove (the editors) in layouting the Werewolf adventure (of which my only contribution was proofreading).

At the same time I got two new books to review, City of the Damned: New Orleans and Mysterious Places. Will I get another book or two to review after the deadline? Only time will tell...

GeekSpeak with Fantasy Flight

2005-07-17T00:52:00.000+02:00

Christian Petersen, the boss of one of my favorite board game companies Fantasy Flight Games, have been intervied by BoardGameGeek. I have not listened to it myself yet, but I would be suprised if it isn't interesting. The files below are only the first part of the interview, so be sure to check back on BGG for the last two chapters.

Full information
File in .mp3 format
File in .m4b format

White Wolf withdraws proposed pay-to-play policy

2005-07-15T02:35:00.000+02:00

It had to happen. Due to the outrage following White Wolf's new pay-to-play policy the company has withdrawn the current version of the document. A new version will be designed, promised to be less limiting and taking many of the current fan concerns into account.

Read about in on the White Wolf LiveJournal, forum, or rpg.net.

Mellanrummet - the full monty

2005-07-14T03:20:00.000+02:00

The second performance of Mellanrummet* ,by NCID*, has been finished for a long time. Time to tell the full story of this very interesting lajv (larp).

As you can se on the webpage (if you know Swedish) the participants did not get much information at all about the "story" of the lajv. You got to know the theme (guilt), some short stories with dark and personal themes, and some religious quotes. Except for date, time and general playing guidelines (The only actual game rule was no violence), that was all of it. When preparing your character you had to make a real person, without any information on the environment you was to play this person in.

When registering for the event we made the choice to play together, that is our roles was to be connected to each other in some way. The group was me, Sven, Anna and my girlfirend Linnéa.

I liked our roles from the start. We were to play a group of Laveian satanists living togeather and running an café. There was very little info about the characters, to the point of us being a bit upset about it. We did get lots of info about satanism but nothing that couldn't easily be found on the net. I already knew all the info we got so it did feel a bit thin. In retrospect this lack of information may very well have made our roles better by forcing us to design the characters in a way that we ourselves could easily relate to. No risk of "not understanding the role". We know that other people got more detailed roles, and it would be interesting to know how their experience of the lajv differed from ours.

Johannes, played by Sven, was the central character of the collective. His strong beliefs and charismatic personality had made it possible for him to found a small grotto of Satanists who lived and ran a café together. He had converted two women, Eva (Linnéa) and Tove (Anna), by being there for them in a difficult part of their lives. We realised that this sounded very much like a destructive cult, but made a point in that the experience was constructive for everyone involved, and that both women were stronger and more independent than ever before.

Even thou he was clearly a full memeber of the group, my character Carl was someting of an outsider. His rootless childhood had made him never rely on anyone else and had also put him in contact with criminal circles and drug use. His primary interest in Satanism was magic and rituals. Most of his spare time was spent painting and writing, with writing actually making him almost enough for a living. Being more independent than the others he had some problems with strict rules of Johannes. To Carl, there was no other true rules than the will of the self. He also did not agree with the others in their wish to keep the true focus of the collective a secret. As a very overt Satanist himself, he feelt no need to hide his belifes.

Below I have posted the text I wrote on Carl as a part of the preparations. It's in Swedish, so foreginers are out of luck. I will not refernce this part in the rest of the post, so just scroll past it and continue reading.

Carl
Bakgrund: Carls föräldrar skilde sig tidigt, och han kan inte minnas en tid då de visade kärlek för varandra. Allt bråk om vårdnaden, allt baktalande av den andre och alla nya partners gjorde att han inte kände sig hemma vare sig hos mamma eller hos pappa. Men det finns mycket att ta sig till i Stockholm, mycket att fly till. Han spenderade mycket tid i vad de flesta skulle kalla ”dåligt umgänge”. Inte som en del i något speciellt gäng, utan snarare som en vandrare bland dem, en observatör. Under de tidiga tonåren greps han av polisen flera gånger, oftast för att ha brutit sig in någonstans bara för att undersöka eller för att se om det gick. Senare började han experimentera med droger främst cannabis, LSD och psilocybin. Det är något han fortfarande använder ibland.
Skolan var alltid problematisk för Carl. Själva kunskapsinnehållet hade han inget problem att ta till sig, det var strukturen som störde. Han ville inte inrätta sig i skolans tider och normer. Hans föräldrar lyckades övertala honom att börja på samhällsvetenskapliga programmet, men efter två år där hade han inte fått godkänt i speciellt många kurser. Till mamma och pappas stora förtret bytte han till estetiska programmet med inriktning bild och formgivning. Det fungerade bättre och de frivilliga kurserna gick åt till skrivande. Strukturen var fortfarande ett problem så betygen var dåliga, men ett bra resultat på högskoleprovet gjorde att många val stod öppna för högskolan.
Det blev inte blivit så mycket med universitetsstudierna. Han tog litteraturvetenskap A och en del poäng på Teoretisk och Praktisk filosofi. Mest jobbade i kassan på Konsum för pengarna skull, och skrev och tecknade för sin egen skull. En del pengar kom in från publicerat material, men det var inte så mycket. Mycket kom att förändras med Kollektivet.
Satanismen: Det är mycket som tilltalar Carl i satanismen och LaVeys läror. Han har alltid varit en individualist. Inte nödvändigtvis en ensamvarg men en som gått åt ett annat håll så fort gruppen inte passat honom. Mörkret och mystiken fascinerar honom, något som är tydligt i hans konst. Carl upptäckte satanismen i slutet av högstadiet och han läste mycket om det och umgicks med personer från många olika ockulta sällskap. LaVeys enklar och raka läror var något som ständigt återkom, och idag är det grunden i hans livsfilosofi. Johannes anser nog att han tar lite för lätt
på lärorna och blandar in för mycket från andra inriktningar. Carl svarar att en sann satanist skapar sina egna budord, och att en gud inte har något annat ansvar än att vara sann mot sig själv. I praktiken skapar inte de här meningsskiljaktigheterna så många problem, och Carl accepterar de regler som Johannes satt upp. Dock händer det att han ibland vägrar berätta om detaljer ur sitt liv, något de andra tycker är lite underligt.
Det är ofta Carl som leder Kollektivets ritualer. Inte så mycket för att han ger dem större spirituell signifikans än de andra, utan mer för att han älskar dess estetik. Han kan spendera dagar med att dekorera rekvisitan som ska användas, så att den ger den avsedda känslan av kraftfullt mörker. Genom att se till att alla detaljer passar
ihop perfekt hyllar man satan i sig själv.
Kollektivet: Carl hade gått och funderat ett tag på att starta ett satanistkollektiv. Han hade till och med hittat ett Café med tillhörande bovåning som stod tomt. Det borde gå att hyra billigt. Problemet var bara att han saknade några att flytta in med och Carl var inte rätt person att övertala folk till det. Johannes var lösningen på
problemet. De hade haft kontakt med varandra en tid efter att ha möts genom sitt gemensamma författarintresse. Så fort han fick höra om idén blev det fart. Johannes tog tag i det hela med sin överväldigande karisma, och det dröjde inte länge än de var fyra i Kollektivet. I början kände sig Carl en aning undanskuffad av Johannes, men den känslan försvann snabbt. Mer familj än så här hade Carl aldrig haft och för varje dag blev banden bara starkare. I Kollektivet kunde han både vara sig själv och bidra till något större. Balansen mellan det gemensamma och det privata visade sig fungera perfekt.
I caféet är Carl en mångsysslare. Han kanske är den som bidrar minst till den gemensamma driften, men han drar in hyfsat mycket pengar på sitt skrivande och tecknande. Sedan inflyttningen har hans förmåga att fokusera på ett jobb ökat, vilket gör att han kan illustrera och skriva beställningsjobb. Det senaste året har han blivit allt mer eftertraktad.

Klädstil: Carl klär sig nästan alltid i svart och är den i familjen som ser ut som en satanist. I övrigt så varierar han sin klädsel rätt mycket, från kostym till skinnbyxor till renässansutstyrsel. Däremot har han aldrig några metal-tshirts på sig, även om han lyssnar en del på sån musik.
Personlighet: Carl är inte speciellt framfusig i sociala situationer men ändå rätt utåtriktad när det väl tar fart. När han väl fått kontakt med en person så kan han tala på om magiska teorier och olika filosofier.
Det är mycket svårt att få Carl att visa att han är upprörd över något. Snarare kan han visa ett irriterade lugn under de mest pressade situationer. Blir han ansatt i en diskussion så blir han aldrig hetsig utan snarare elakt odräglig. Med komplexa antydningar och en odräglig överlägsenhet försöker han få den andre att tappa besinningen.
De andra i kollektivet kan ibland tycka att Carl verkar lite okänslig på sättet, men de har förstått att det bara är så han är och det har gång på gång visat sig att han verkligen känner för familjen.
Carl rör sig långsamt och kontrollerat, ständigt betraktande något i sin omgivning som inte alltid är uppenbart för människor omkring honom.
Det ska också noteras att Carl är rätt bra på att manipulera andra om han anser det behövs. Han kan tillfälligt lägga sig an med en helt annan personlighet om han tror att det kommer gangna honom. Det rör sig mest om sådan som att övertala en restaurangägare om att göra ett bord ledig eller slippa en parkeringsböter. Det hela skulle nog fungera ännu bättre om inte Carl envisades med att alltid klä sig i svart.
Sex: Carl har provat homosex, bland annat med Johannes, men kommit fram till att det inte ger honom något. I övrigt så gillar han sex i samma utsträckning som folk i allmänhet. Egentligen är inte rituell sex något han fokuserar på i sitt magiska arbete, men han gillar både det och "vanlig sex". Han har inte så ofta sex utanför kollektivet, mest för att han inte tycker det är speciellt intressant att ragga. De andra kvinnor
han isåfall ligger med kommer oftast från allmänockulta kretsar i Stockholm.
Familj: Carl är enda barnet och han har ingen kontakt med sin
familj. Ni vet att hans pappa är tandläkare och heter Lars och att hans mamma är
revisor och heter Lena. Han pratar mycket sällan om sin barndom.

Ok, lets continue on the lajv itself. After some waiting at the site of the event, we were released into the venue for the actual game. Our characters had no memories of anything after a certain point in time. This time was in the middle of the night, as we were having tea after engaging in a sexual ritual. We all wore morning gowns.

The room we entered, together with around ten other persons as confused as we, was stylish in an old fashioned way, with heavy furniture and old weapons lining the walls. We were all instructed by a man to get seated for dinner. This was weird. These random people were having an buffet seated along on a big table. In one end was several men, quiet and dressed in white. In the other end a collection of frantically chatting men and women dressed in black suites.

As you may have already guessed (and as we actually guessed before the lajv) we were all dead. Not only dead but stuck in between lives because of some kind of mistake in the cosmic order. There were angels and devils but none of them could tell us anything really useful. Our characters couping with this situation was the main point of the lajv.

One very important part of the game was when the imps tricked us into confessing our sins, mostly for their own amusement. This was traumatic for both the confessor and the listeners and spawned all kind of interesting situations. Carl never confessed, maybe the only one not doing so, but some of the confessions in our group was without guilt and regret.

Another important part was when Eva told us that she had decided to murder her former husband, who had severely abused her. The collective gathered and tried to convice her that there was other and less risky ways to get a satisfying revenge. We all swore to help her, if we somehow managed to get back to our lives.

The later part of the lajv (which lasted for an evening all in all) was the most interesting for me and my character. I felt more and more disconnected from the collective, as they started to feel sympathy for the others and pity them in their weakness. As the time passed, my contempt for my adopted family increased. In the meantime I had handled the situation by considering it as intersting and worth studying in detail. I associated with the imps (very obnoxious in the beginning, but not that bad when you got to know them) and the angels as much as I could. I did not gather much infomation but being dead I figured I had all the time in world.

The lajv ended abruptly when one of the angels announced that the problem had been fixed and that we where to be transported to our new lives. Everyone but two got sent to a lower level of reality, where the world was darker and grimmer. We all got especially bleak possitions in this reality, myself being a street urchin in South America. One of the lost souls got sent to heaven and one was found not really dead but just in a coma.

My last thought in the game was considering my new life, naturally with some fear but in the same time the conviction of me being able to handle and rise from it.

That was it. In conclussion a good larp. The only part we that did feel was a bit weird was our (and some of the other souls) strict sentence. The organisers hadn't read our roles and how we had developed them. To us they felt like comparably nice persons who had actually managed to forge a life where everyone could be honest to the others and realise their true potential. We was of course not flawless but being sent to the lowest levels of hell seemed a little to harsh. Not that it mattered that much, it was only the last minutes of play.

All in all the most important part of the game was the interactions in our group. This was made possible by our extensive preparations, like very detailed characters, lots of discussion on the dynamics of our group, and running a short pre-lajv to test and get familiar with the characters.

I look forward to the next larp by NCID*. Rumors says that they will go back to lovecraftian myths (as in their last game Aurora Borealis) and even vaguer rumors that it will maybe be a more physical experience.

LiveJournal feed for Unrealities

2005-07-09T19:14:00.000+02:00

Adam Dray has created LiveJournal feeds for my site as well as several other gaming blogs. Makes things easier for LiveJournal members to keep track of my site.

Thank you Adam!

Big brother White Wolf

2005-07-08T15:46:00.000+02:00

More than once have I wondered exactly how you are allowed to use the roleplaying games you own. With books and movies things are easy as the main way of consuming them is in a rather passive and "simple" way. Roleplaying games are a bit different. By using them you have to alter and use the material in ways the holders of the intellectual property never thought about. This in turn has lead to a culture of great freedom when it comes to the liberties taken with the material. People run games at conventions charging fees to cover their costs. Magazines publish unofficial material about the games (at least here in Sweden).

The reason for the rpg companies to allow this freedom is obvious. The games has to be able to be used to be popular. Most companies in the business do not got the money for heavy advertising, relying on fans to spread the word about the games.

This way of handling it may be about to end. With the beginning in 2006, White Wolf will ban all money transactions connected to playing their games if you do not belong to their official fanclub. It do not matter if the money is only for covering venue or material costs, as long as money changes hands you will have to register and pay.

I have been running an Orpheus chronicle for about two years. I occasionally charge my players a small amount for paper costs. This will now be considered illegal by White Wolf. Not that I will ever pay for this, but I really shouldn't have to break a law just to play the game as it was originally intended.

Read all about it at and cry...

Update: White Wolf seems a bit worried about the massive criticism on their new policy and seems ready to modify the rules a bit. Still stupid...

Prague in a hurry!

2005-06-23T12:24:00.000+02:00

Lincon was good. For some reson I'm currently in Prague and have about six minutes of internet time left to use. One again I'll have to direct you to Sven's Polyfem Transformed for a full account of what we played...

Nordic lajv part I - Fantasy

2005-06-12T04:17:00.000+02:00

I have never really understood American larps. Ben Lehman has promised to explain the different types over at his This Is My Blog. He also made a request to have the basics of Scandinavian larps explaned. This is my shot at doing it. I have tried out most types of Scandinavian larps but in recent years I have focused my attention on a rather specific subscene, and got the more recent info about other types as second hand information. If you feel I’m wrong about something, please tell me.

This writeup won’t use much of and established language for theory, as very little of that is used in our discussion on larps. I’m also not sure enough about G/N/S and related stuff to use it accurately.

I have labeled this article “Scandinavian larps” as the types of games described are much the same in all of Scandinavia. Of course some details differ from Sweden, but there are more similarities than differences.

Lajv
The Swedish term for larp is lajv. It comes from the english word “live”, is pronounciated the same way, and was originally spelled like that. The spelling was changed to reduce the chance of mixing it up with live music performances and the like.

Lajv is big in Sweden. I got no numbers, but I’m pretty sure we got the most active players in the world, compared to the size of our population. These days lajv get lots of media coverage and mainly in a positive way. It is generally considered cool to participate in lajv games. It has gone as far as if you say “roleplaying game” the man on the street immediatly associates to lajv and not tabletop games. Or more accurately, he associates to fantasy-lajv.

Fantasylajv
A huge majority of the Swedish lajv are fantasylajv. Most of the larpers (lajvare) never attend anything else than fantasy games, maybe with the exception for the odd post apocalyptic game. One of the reasons fantasylajv have become so big is that they not only attract people interested in roleplaying and acting, but also many whose primary goal lies in the crafts surrounding the games. The standard Swedish fantasylajv plays out as follows:

- The game lasts for three days, from Friday to Sunday. Some are shorter and we usually got one or two one week games each summer.

- The most typical number of players are a bit difficult for me to estimate, but I think most got at least 100 players, and the largest got 500 or even as many as a thousead participants.

- There are no game masters active during the event itself. They either play influential roles, and direct the story that way, or keep out of it by playing more administratively important roles like an innkeeper.

- The players are supposed to stay in character at all times during the game. There is always an off-lajv area where you can store your real life stuff and this can be visied during the game if you really need to.

- The plot is mainly designed around the “group” unit. This group has usually been preparing for the lajv together, and know each other at least somewhat. It is very common for the same group to visit several lajv together, playing more or less the same roles. The reason for this is mainly the time and money required to make the equiment, but I guess the social aspect is important too. (This “same role” stuff is one of my biggest gripes with our fantasy larps.)

- The standard of the equipment is very high. You are usually allowed to have rubber soles on your shoes, and use a sewing machine for your clothes, but some groups frown on that. If soft weapons are used they are normally required to be cut foam coated with latex and painted. Some rare games allow weapons made of tape covered camping ground sheets. The former are called “latex” and the later “boffer”.

- The gaming area is usually centered around a large clearing in the woods or a secluded field. This either got a large camp of pavillions or a village of simple wooden stuctures. One of the recents trends have been building a quite large fort and centering the lajv on some sort of siege.

The system
The Scandinavian lajv is usually very light on mechanical rules. In most cases only two areas of the game are covered, combat and magic. Combat is nomally handled using padded weapons and simple rules like one hit to a limb and it is useless, one hit to the torso and you are down. To kill another player you have to make one final death blow to the downed warrior. Armor adds to the number of hits you can take. A small part of the games uses real weapons, and an abstract system for combat.

Magic is handled in an even simpler way. When a magican casts a spell, he calls out a special word. Everyone hearing it must stop and listen as he describes the effect. Many lajv use rules for poison where a heavy taste of for example salt mean a specific effect. In recent years it has become more poular with specific rules for sex, where rubbing someones shoulders in private could substitute for intercourse. The point is not having to breask the mood more than necessary while both participants still know is the have had sex or not.

There are of course lots of other rules on how you are supposed to behave. You have to follow the Swedish law. You are usually not allowed to intently destroy other peoples equipment. In many cases it can be hard to know how roughly you can handle someone. One player thinks it is wonderful to be captured and tied up for ten hours while it ruins the game for another. The solution is having a word that signifies that you talk out of character. That way you can expect to be told if you are about to cross another players line. One thing that has been heavily debated is in-game sexual harassment and simulated rape. Some lajv totally forbids this while other expects the players to handle it like any other situation with the recieving player having the option to call the situation off if it feels threatening.

That is enough for now. I have most certainly forgotten to cover a lot of stuff, probably mostly because they feel obvious to me. That do not mean that I believe they should be obvious to you. Feel free to ask about anything. I will make my best to anwer your questions.

In the next part I will probably tak about Vampire and Airsoft larps.

Edit: You can find part two here.

Roleplaying made me do it!

2005-06-06T05:58:00.000+02:00

This was dug up by Google News:

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil -- The crime was shocking by any standard -- a family of three bound, drugged and shot in the head at close range in their beds. Then, a twist: The killers said it was all a game, and the penalty for losing was death.

When they were arrested on May 13, Ronald Ribeiro Rodrigues, a 22-year-old glass worker, and Mayderson Vargas Mendes, an unemployed 21-year-old, confessed to the murder of 21-year-old physics student Tiago Guedes and his parents, Douglas and Heloisa, in Guarapari, a seaside city of 230 miles northeast of Rio de Janeiro.

They said the killings were part of a role-playing game whose rules required the loser to let the winners kill him and his family.

"The suspects are very cool about what they did. They know what they did was wrong and that they will have to pay," said Espirito Santo state police inspector Alexandre Lincoln Capela. "But I believe, from what I have seen, even going to prison is part of the game for them."

The case drew national attention and threw a spotlight on the subculture of role-playing games, which often employ occult imagery. Legislators in Espirito Santo state hastily introduced a bill to ban the games, and priests and pastors across Brazil penned sermons denouncing them.

"We must put the brakes on anything that encourages violence in our state," said Espirito Santo state assemblyman Robson Vaillant.

But some experts on the games have cast doubt on the killers' stories, saying their account doesn't fit with the traditions of such games -- the best-known of which is Dungeons & Dragons -- in which players assume characters and develop stories within the boundaries of elaborately defined fantasy worlds.

Rodrigues' mother told reporters she had never heard of role-playing games and that her son never played them.

And on Web sites and bulletin boards devoted to role-playing games, enthusiasts argue that the crime was a simple robbery and homicide, and the suspects are blaming the game in hopes of escaping punishment.

By claiming the family died as the result of a game, the suspects are entitled to a jury trial in which they are expected to plead temporary insanity. If they had confessed to robbery and homicide, a judge would have sentenced them. Brazil has no death penalty.

The case had parallels to the 2001 slaying of an 18-year-old woman, who was stabbed to death in the colonial city of Ouro Preto. Police claimed she had been playing a game over three days that included a bet that the loser would die. No one has been convicted.

But police said the game that left the Guedes family dead lasted only five hours. Guedes assumed the role of a policeman named Flavio, Mendes played a demon and Rodrigues was the wizard who ran the game.

Police said it wasn't clear how Guedes lost, but when he did, the players went to the bank where Guedes cleaned out his account, withdrawing $1,745.

Guedes then helped the two others to tie up and drug his elderly parents, Douglas and Heloisa, and watched as both were shot in the head. Finally, he was subjected to the same fate.

The suspects stole a computer from his house before leaving, police said.

To enthusiasts of role-playing games, the police version is full of holes. They say games can last for months or years and that there are no winners and losers, and never any betting.

Rodrigues and Mendes were working-class men who had known each other for more than 10 years and met the middle-class Guedes only on the day of the killing. It seemed more than suspicious that Guedes was the loser, and that they were playing at his home with his parents there to watch.

Rodrigues' mother, Lucimara Rodigues Ribeiro, told the local newspaper A Tribuna that she had never heard of role-playing games.

"My son never played them at home," she said. "He's a good boy, and never behaved strangely."

But in an interview with the same newspaper, Rodrigues said he became so caught up in the game that he didn't actually believe the victims would die.

"When you create a character it seems like you're in a real game -- like you're in a forest, in the middle of lots of beasts," he said. "The game's not over. We're going to continue playing."

I hope this is not the start of another wave of "Roleplaying is really dangerous and should be forbidden". The only thing new about roleplaying in this article is that the journalist do not automatically take a stance against roleplaying to get a more sensational article. It is actually very well written.

I will not start ranting about how roleplaying do not make you crazy, as you have probably heard that one several times before. I will instead tell you why roleplaying murders should be expected once in a while.

There are lots of homicides in the world each year. A significant amount of these results from what we could call insanity, for lack of a better word. There are also many roleplayers in the world. We can assume that some portion of the roleplayers are insane, as it would be weird to believe that roleplayers are somehow immune to insanity, or that insane people would never roleplay. Once in a while one of these insane roleplayers are going to murder someone. And when they do stuff from their roleplaying background could become a part of the homicide.

The point is that when a soccer fan murders another soccer fan (because they disagree on soccer) no one believes soccer itself is dangerous. But if a murder is also a roleplayer everyone sees a need to blame the game and have it banned. In this particular article the murderers claim it was because of the game, but I too think it's only the first step of their insanity defense. Satan made med do it, Rock and Roll made me do it, roleplaying made me do it. It is all the same.

Mellanrummet and in defense of immersionism

2005-06-04T22:03:00.000+02:00

- I have now experienced Mellanrummet and it was good. Really good. I will get into the plot and "point" of the larp later as it will be played one more time and I do not want to risk ruin the experience for someone else. Either way the best part of this larp was how our group prepared our characters and how it played out. They knew each other intimately and that made the process of building them and their background challenging. Every step of the preparation had to be done in cooperation with the other players. As other people may end up playing the same group I do not want to go into more detail right now but I can tell you that we ended upp playing the full session in dressing gowns!

- I have made several replies to Vincent Baker's rant about immersion. I do not agree with him at all and most of all I find the "You Have Been Doing It Wrong All The Time And I Know The Only True Way" tone of it to be rather disturbing. Thinking you have really good idéas is one thing, beliving them to be a universal truth is another. If you want to read something good written by Vincent, to get rid of the sour taste and get a more balanced view of his idéas, take a look at this post I made some time ago.

Some random thoughts

2005-05-26T16:14:00.000+02:00

No, I'm not gone, but I haven't had much inspiration to post anything. Things have been somewhat slow on the gaming side.

My group for Mellanrummet is shaping up nicely, but we still has some work to before we are ready for the larp. Next week I'm going to buy some new clothes and dye my hair as part of the preparations.

I have finished my original three reviews for the next issue of Fenix, but I will get two more books to review, Hunting ground: Rockies for Werewolf and Ghouls for Vampire. For some reason the swedish distributor have been a bit slow on sending them, so I will have a very short time for the reviews.

Todays (somewhat) random link:
How to Run Vampire: The Requiem by developer Matthew McFarland (Also known as BlackHat Mat).

Mage again!

2005-05-16T21:12:00.000+02:00

The official daily updates have started.

Praise the [insert random deity here]!

First Mage the Awakening info!

2005-05-16T17:15:00.000+02:00

For some reason I find the upcoming Mage the Awakening important. Maybe it's because all I have been reading the last month is WoD stuff, for the reviews in Fenix. Maybe it's because the games are actually good.

Today, the first substancial spoliers leaked, as some people got preview copies of the upcoming WW Quarterly. Depending on your personal taste, you have three different fora to choose from:

Shadownessence Forum
White Wolf Forum
RPGnet Forum

Lincon getting closer...

2005-05-16T13:46:00.000+02:00

I recieved the Lincon 2005 program today, a beatiful thing in 56 full color pages. The number of arrengements seemed to be the largest yet, I counted them to over one hundred during the four days of the convention. Even the rpg sessions is a respectable fourteen, an increase from last years all time low. The rest is comprised of board games, card games, tabletop games and even some computer games.

There was some interesting free form stuff that will fit the taste of our group. It will also be interesting to see if there will be as much debating before deciding on what to play as we had before Gothcon.

Playing by the rules

2005-05-06T00:20:00.000+02:00

Something I often hear about board games is "You shouldn't try beating the game and finding the one optimal strategy because it will ruin the fun for everyone." This may be true for RPGs and even tabletop war games, as the rules are not definite by design. In the case of board games it's pure bullshit.

The point in a game like this is that you are playing by a given set of rules. These rules should be complete and leave nothing to interpretation (not always the case). Within these rules you try to outwit your opponents by any means possible, leading to winning the game.

If this makes the game less fun there is something wrong with it. Maybe it needs to be fixed with a house rule to work in your group but expecting the players to be "nice" and "not overuse" an aspect of the game is really weird in my eyes.

I play by the rules and I expect my opponents to do the same.

Creating Theme

2005-05-05T12:09:00.000+02:00

Jonas Karlsson recently pointed me to an article on the blog of Vincent Baker (lumpley). Creating Theme is a great text on, you guessed it right, creating theme in stories. It is rather long but do not contain any of the heavy theoretical language of for example The Forge. This makes it possible for me to get the message without being upset by how they unnecessary complicate simple things. Read it.

WTF? WtF!

2005-05-04T01:19:00.000+02:00

We played the first part of the Werewolf the Forsaken demo chronicle tonight. It was very simple storywise but with all the intricacies of the setting, there were more than enough to do. These intricacies was actually the largest problems with our game. The players had to spend much time figuring out how things worked and what it meant to be a werewolf. As I own the book I could at least explain things in as much detail as they wanted. A gamemaster trying to run it with only the info in the pdf could potentially run into problems.

This is not much of a problem if you play the game "for real" and take the time to get to know the characters and their world. I like the setting and once you get to know it you realise it has really been designed with playability in mind. No part of it exists without a reason, White Wolf do know how to design an rpg.

We will probably continue with part two of the chronicle, and even if we don't it was fun and gave me valuable insights for my upcoming review in Fenix.

MET getting even more bloated

2005-04-28T21:03:00.000+02:00

The new Minds Eye Theatre rules, the larp system from White Wolf, is nearing it's compleation. Completion in all it's 800 pages! That's right, 400 pages of basic WoD rules and 400 more for Vampire. With the new and better tabletop storytelling system I had actualy hoped for a more streamlined system than the old one, maybe even to the point of being totally acceptable in the Nordic larp scene. How wrong I was. Amazing!

Read all about it at the White Wolf LiveJournal.

Från Atlantis till Blekinge

2005-04-28T17:27:00.000+02:00

It's time to talk about another important rpg book not available in English, Från Atlantis till Blekinge (From Atlantis to Blekinge) by ASF. ASF is by now quite famous for it's free form scenarios played at Swedish conventions, mainly BSK. In many ways they have defined this quite specific genre of roleplaying (sometimes called Finnish free form) with character driven stories, well defined and predetermined scenes, and of course no rules at all.

Från Atlantis to Blekinge contains four of their scenarios and a quite meaty introduction on how to play free form. I have played in two of these stories, both led by Sven, and so far it has been a very pleasant experience. I'm quite sure Sven will write about our game yesterday in detail so I direct you to his blog for the details.

I recommend this book to everyone with interest in roleplaying, and especially those who have never played, or do not like, traditional "rules and dice" roleplaying. The chances for it ever being translated to English is almost non-existant, so you foreigners can only dream about this gem.

Dan Brown = Bad Researcher

2005-04-28T12:06:00.000+02:00

I've recently read Dan Brown's Angels and Demons, or to be honest I listened to it on my mp3-player. While it was decent as pure fiction I'm now certain that you should never take anyting in Brown's books as a fact. The earlier parts of the book is so packed with ridiculus pseudo-science that I got a bit nauseous and almost gave up on it. My bet is that most of the so called "facts" in The Da Vinci Code is as badly reseached, and I can understand why many christians are upset.

Why are you telling us this at all? Is there really something about gaming in this rant?

Ok, I admit that it's not much but Angels and Demons actually mentions Steve Jackson's Illuminati: New World Order. The only problem is that it is described as a very popular computer game played over the Internet. How hard could it have been to get that one right?

A tide of Darkness

2005-04-24T23:58:00.000+02:00

During the last year I have written a couple of articles on White Wolf games for the Swedish rpg magazine Fenix. Right now it seems like there'll be many more to come. Until now Fenix tried to have a policy of not making reviews. The reason for this was their close cooperation with Swedish rpg companies and the problems of reviewing when not totally independant. In reality there was already lots of "review like" articles in the magazine.

I am not yet sure exactly why, but this policy is about to change. What I do know is that I got sent three WW products to review: Werewolf the Forsaken, Lancea Sanctum and Bloodlines the Hidden, and it looks like I will rewiew most of the upcoming World of Darkness books. Lots of time will be spent writing reviews, thats for sure. Sven is a bit worried this will divert to much energy from the artsy experimental freeform we usually discuss. Will I be able to combine mainstream rpgs with the art? Only time will tell...

I got plans to post my old articles on the web, adding the new reviews a month or two after apperaring in the printed magazine. If you do not read Swedish this will be pretty useless to you as the only thing I got in English is an interview with Vampire developer Justin Achille. Of course I got lots of other plans too and as usual not enough time to realise them all.

Next time I will complain about Dan Brown's Angels and Demons. And yes, I got a gaming angle on it!

Sven on In i evigheten

2005-04-24T21:05:00.000+02:00

I you want to know read more about In i eveigheten, read Sven's account of the weekend over at his blog.

In i evigheten - afterwards

2005-04-18T09:25:00.000+02:00

I will not reveal the plot of In i evigheten, as the organizers asked us not to. They plan to play this larp one more time, with new participants, and thus wants to reduce the number of spoilers floating around the net. You will have to do with some general comments.

The game was very well organised, probably the best I have ever attanded in this regard. The most suprising bit was the general theme. I had expected a traditional who-dun-it story but this was something completely different. The focus was on psychological experiments and locked rooms. Unexpected but good. There was some smaller problems but in general I liked it. I will keep my eyes open on the future games arrenged by Fabel.

Future Art Here Today

2005-04-17T23:56:00.000+02:00

Juhana Pettersson has written a new column over at rpg.net about his upcoming book. It should be of interest to all roleplayers and especially those from the Nordic scene.

In i evigheten

2005-04-11T18:40:00.000+02:00

This weekend I will attend the larp In i evigheten. It is something as unusual as a live roleplaying game arrenged by a company. They make productions both for individuals and for other companies, mostly aimed at conferences and kick-offs.

The story is simple. A murder has been comitted and all suspects and withnesses have been gathered as an experimental way of solving the crime. Both the police and a group of university psychologists are attending.

It will be interesting to see how this larp differs from productions made by non-profit organisations. I can't say much about my character right now as I have been asked to keep all details secret to not risk revealing some plot critical information in advance.

Buying games in Sweden

2005-04-07T12:08:00.000+02:00

In the latest years it have become increasingly difficult to buy board and roleplaying games in Sweden. The pattern is probably similar in most parts of the world. Game retaliers shut down and stores who previously had a good selection now focus almost exclusivly on computer games. Online shops are probably a big part of this and it seems like it has become an evil circle for face to face retailing. As the range of products is decreased more people buy online resulting in lower sales, further reduced assortment which in turn drives more people to the internet. I guess this is the way of the future and even if it is a bit sad I don't think it heralds the end of the market for these games.

As going downtown for you fix is no loger an option unless you live in a big city the online stores is your only hope. Depending on how soon you need your stuff there are many options. The first is the "normal" mail order service. You order what you need, pay it in some manner and the product is delivered in short notice as they got a well stocked store room. The main problem is that when adding postage and packing you usually end up paying as much as in your now defunct local shop.

An alternative to this is Hobbygames. They were originally a classic mail order store but are shifting towards only taking orders for a set date about once each month. If you order at this time you get a discount as they do not need to keep the products in stock. They place their order to the distributor based directly on the orders they got. I have used this service several times.

The newly opened Azimogames has further developed this concept. They keep very low prices but there is a slight catch. When you place your order the products are placed on a public list along with their weight. The games are not ordered from the distributor until the total weight adds upp to 120kg (~260lbs), as a large order is a requiremt for their low prices. It will be very interesting to see if this model is sucessful and I will probably try them out in the near future.

Mellanrummet

2005-03-28T19:10:00.000+02:00

I just recieved an invitation to Mellanrummet (The space between). It is a five hour larp in a contemporary setting with focus on guilt, realistic characters and player interaction. I have participated in one of the previous games arraged by this group (NCID) and this one looks really interesting.

We survived GothCon

2005-03-28T15:08:00.000+02:00

GothCon is over and we are all still alive. We got to play all our planned games, and overall it was a huge success. In our group of five, this was the first roleplaying convention for three, and they sometimes had problems staying awake and active in this hectic and sleep deprived environment. This wasn't much of a problem and from the comments afterwards they all liked their first convention.

After arriving at 12 on friday our first scenario started at 16.00. It was Five and the castle mystery and turned out to be a fairly standard scenario. Our group, comprised mainly of young girls, arrived at a weird castle in the middle of the forest. At first happy to find help for the mortaly wounded knight in our company, weird incidents indicate that something very wrong is going on. The characters was good but the subtle conflicts between them didn't have enough time to evolve. The plot wasn't that enagaing, maybe because of the shortcomings of our gamemaster. The session was ok but won't be remembered as something special.

When the game had ended and we the convention dinner (quite tasty) was eaten it was around 22. No normal gamer want's to sleep at this time, so I and Sven was shocked when everyone else wanted to go to bed. I took the chance to buy Memoir '44 (the only game for from my "top games" that I do not own) and play it with Sven. I won but it was a close game and he liked it.

Our next game was Get beautiful or rap in Swedish. We was lucky to get a game master that really liked this game and knew it very well. The story was about a new reality show called "Rapmaster". The most improbable person it the country had been selected to be made into the next rap star. My girlfriend, Linnéa, played the choosen star, a big, middle aged, Finland-Swedish man with no talent at all. I played the host of the show, a somewhat sucessful immigrant rapper from the ghetto, that in reality was born in a Swedish middle class home. The others in our group played various persons in the support staff. It was hillarious and noone regreted accepting to play it.

As our next game wouldn't start until 22, now was the time to play Orpheus. Around six months had passed in game since the last session and lots of time was spent to decide what the characters had been up to during this time. After that I introduced an important event in the chronicle. I may get back to my Orpheus chronicle in more detail in a later post.

After dinner we had two hours before Snow white emptiness. Linnéa and Anna wanted to sleep again (!) so I, Sven and Kristoffer decided to play a board game. At first we (or rather I) wanted to try Doom: The Boardgame, but a quick glance at the rules revealed that we wouldn't have enough time. We (or rather I) decided on Colossal Arena instead. It turned out to be a great game and we managed to finish just in time (I won). I wanted to buy this game but decided to wait (more on that in a later post).

Our last game Snow white emptiness was a slow and moody horror scenario. Five men on a repetition exercise in the military service in the cold Swedish north, or rather four 45 year old special forces soliders and a 22 year old woman as their officer. This combination could lead to enough problems even without being transported back to the 15:th century with the resulting madness. The game started out very slow and even if it was essential to the story it made our less experienced players very tired. Linnéa fell asleep. The scenario made good use of sound effects and ambient background, but the equipment could have been better. After the mandatory "veryone gets mad and/or dies" we all vent to sleep. It was a good session but it could easily have been even better. I also want to add that our game master had the large cranium of a pig on the gaming table during the play, apparatly their groups long time mascot.

Sunday was mainly getting up, having breakfast and going home, but we managed to play a game of Kablamo. It was fun but I would prefer playing it a few more times before buying.

Enough about GothCon!

GothCon

2005-03-22T12:56:00.000+01:00

On the 25-27:th of Mars me and my roleplaying group are going to visit GothCon, one of Sweden's largest gaming conventions, located in Gothenburg. We are registered for three roleplaying sessions, but unfortunately we are on reserve list for two of them. There were lots of arguing before settling for the following games:

Five and the castle mystery - A fantasy adventure in the the tradition of a youth book. Created by one of Sweden's most prominent scenario writers and presented as "the closest you get to a summer holiday mystery in a medival setting". Should be interesting, and we are on first reserve which shouldn't be a problem.

Get beautiful or rap in Swedish - Comedy based on Swedish achetypes and prejudices. This was the most controversial choice, as me and Sven really wanted to play it but the others didn't care for it at all. I really hope everyone will enjoy it...

Snow white emptiness - You can't visit a convention without playing at least one horror scenario. This is free form and angst, the ideal combination. Five men in an mandatory repetition exercise in the military service. Something is wrong, really wrong. As we are third reserve on this one, there is a risk we won't get to play it. Would be a shame.

In additon to these we are going to play a session of our long campaign in Orpheus... which reminds me I still haven't prepared it. I want this to be a god one. I get back to you with a full report after the convention!

Sucessful TI3 session

2005-03-20T02:06:00.000+01:00

We played a five player session of Twilight Imperium 3rd Edition today. It was my fourth game and the best one yet. We have managed to get the playing time down but we still spent seven hours excluding pizza break. Out of the box TI3 is somewhat unbalanced but it is a very house rule friendly game. I'm still trying to find the perfect balance, and there are heated discussion on the official forum. TI3 is a great game of colonisation, politics and combat.

This time we used the following main rule changes:
- The Ancient throne (official variant)
- Redeuced the size of the map to closer resemble the conditions of a six player game.
- Increased cost of fighters to one resource each.
- Dreadnoughts cause 2 hits on a natural roll of 8+.
- The Barony of Letnev gets improved special abilities. Trade good cost is halved, fleet support is +2 and can't be lost to the action card "Cultural Crisis".

In addition we used the following smaller changes, that has nothing to do with balance:
- You win if you get eight victory points (as opposed to ten).
- Five stage one and three stage two public objectives was used. No "I win" objectives was inculded.
- Game lasts eight rounds maximum.
- Each player got two sectret objectives, but could only claim one of them. One of the objectives was dealt from the "I control Mecatol Rex" type and the other from the rest.
- Each player was handed two randomly drawn races, and got to choose one of them.

Noneuclidian rules and angles

2005-03-18T02:37:00.000+01:00

A comment on BGG on the upcoming rerelease of Arkham Horror:
"I'm worried that the new edition could remove the Cthulhu feel by introducing too many modern mechanics. Hard to feel creeped out when everything is smooth, flawless and perfect... Noneuclidian rules and angles -- now there's the stuff of horror!"
Priceless!

Top boardgames

2005-03-18T00:14:00.000+01:00

As this is my blog I get to rant freely about anthing I want. Today I feel the need to rant about boardgames, more precisely my favourite boardgames. You may already know them all but if you don't I highly recommend trying them.

Puerto Rico
I start with this game as it both number one at BGG by a big margin and probably my overall favourite game. Puerto Rico has all the characteristics of modern German game design. No direct conflict, streamlined rules, short playing time and no player elimination. It is a bit more complex and skill dependent than Settlers or Carcassone which may have prevented it reaching the mass market outside Germany. This game is simple enough to be played with your mother but deep enough for the most die hard gamers.

Euphrat & Tigris
One step up from Puerto Rico in complexity, this game is quite unusual as a German design. Thebeautiful tile placing mechanism allows for very deep strategy and tactics and the outcome of the game is determined by direct and cutthroat conflict between the players. I got this game only a few months ago and as my understanding of it increses it has come to rival Puerto Rico. This is a game for the connoisseur, casual gamers may find it a bit to complex.

Citadels
Citadels is a cheap and relatively simple card game. The thing that makes it shine is the main mechanism of secretly choosing a role each turn. Trying to determine the other players choice is the most important part of the game, as it will make you most sucessful in building your city. Quick, simple and brilliant.

Lord of the Rings - The Confrontation
This is a development if the classic game Stratego. Each game piece represent a character from the books, and the basic game of combat is spiced up by special abilities and a set of power cards. This is a highly strategic two player game with no true luck involved. Victory comes from second guessing your opponents intent. A good poker face helps. Playing time is quick but the game gives you no chance to relax which may scare more casual players. At the same time it is very thematic and manages to capture the feel of Lord of the Rings. Definately the best low luck two player game.

Memoir '44
Another two player game, this time a WW2 war game. This is the opposite to The Condrontation, as there is lots of luck involved and an overall light feel. Despite all the dice rolling it allows for meaningfu choices and feels like a good simulation. Old school war gamers may feel cheated but everyone else, including very casual gamers will have lots of fun. If you want a quick and light wargame with great production values, you can't go wrong with Memoir '44.

A Game of Thrones
Multiplayer war games used to always be drawn out affairs. A Game of Thrones proves this don't have to be the case. It mixes American and German design principles to make a focused and strategic game that involves both diplomacy and military strategy. The different mechanics blend seemlessly into an exerience for all but the most casual gamers. The only problem is the possibility of player elimination, but that is to be expected in a wargame. It playes a bit longer than the other games at around three hours.

Twilight Imperium 3rd Edition
In some cases the quick and streamlined German philosophy is not good enough. If you want to build a great galactic empire and fight epic battles no game is better than Twilight Imperium. This edition takes some inspiration from the latest years development in gaming but it is till a monster of a game. Long rulebook, huge game board and a playing time of at least six hours. This game is not for everyone but certainly the best of its kind. The base game has some serious problems so be sure to use 'The Ancient Throne' official variant from the publishers homepage.

Thats all for now. If you like board games, make sure you get to play these games at least once. If you do not agree with me, make a comment...

The World of Dragons

2005-03-15T23:54:00.000+01:00

I lied to you when I wrote I didn't roleplay until an age of thirteen. When I first read through Drakar och Demoner it all seemed very natural to me. I had been doing this before. My true first contact with roleplaying was many years earlier. I do not remember exactly when but I belvie it was around first or second grade. Me, my brother and a friend of us developed this imaginary world called "Drakarnas Värld" (The World of Dragons), a fantasy planet inspired by television shows like Masters of the Universe. The only character I remember is my borthers creation The Catman. We had extensive roleplaying sessions where we mainly played one of our own characters. Situations that would normally require a game master was resolved by consensus (and the occasional heated argument). The in character sessions were complemented by drawings and shorter texts. Drakarnas Värld gradually evolved into an over the top cyberpunk setting complete with multinational companies and space invasions. Many of the old villains became protagonists in an era of new and greater evils. In time, The World of Dragons was abandoned and forgotten.

Starting around fourth grade choose-your-own-adventure books had become popular. After both reading a particularly good one me and my best friend continued the adventure from the book by ourselves. I was the gamemaster and he played the main protagonist from the book. It was compleately free form and I made most of it up on the go. We played during the breaks at school and it didn't take long before other kids joined us. The only thing lacking was dice, rules and a formal definition of the game world.

So, when I opended up my first roleplaying book I wasn't suprised at all. This was just the next step. In one form or another I have been roleplaying most of my life. The most interesting part is that my style is currently developing more towards the type of roleplaying I used to do before my first rpg book. I do want a prepared scenario but I usually skip the rules and dice. Some of my current friends are experimenting with collaborative storytelling and getting rid of the game master, just as in The World of Dragons. Development have come full circle.

Two and a half hours of Reiner Kniza

2005-03-15T23:28:00.000+01:00

The excellent gaming site BoardGameGeek has recently posted their 18:th installment of GeekSpeak, where they interview persons of interest to the board game community. This episode features the game designer superstar Reiner Kniza. Mr Kniza is very porductive with around 30 completely new games each year and is known for his high and even quality.

The interview is in .mp3 format and have a total running time of nearly two and a half hours. It may seem like to much for anyone but if you are interested in game design it is highly recommended. Grab it from BGG or the links below (each part is around 50mb):

Part one
Part two

The games I played

2005-03-13T22:07:00.000+01:00

I've played most types of hobby games. For a large part of my life gaming has been very important.

It started when I was around thirteen. My two year younger brother got a copy of Drakar och Demoner (Dragons and Demons), the most popular game at the time, for his birthday. As me and my brother had lots of friends in common, it was natural for my to mantle the role of game master. A hectic period of roleplaying followed. In the most active periods we played each day after school and the whole weekends. It was great. We expanden our play to other game systems. The first english game was Star Wars by West End Games.

Then we discovered Magic: The Gathering. It was an instant hit. The collecting and trading of our youth combined with a great game. For a year or two this game took much time from roleplaying. Other card games got played to, but nothing compared to the original.

The next step was table top games and Games Workshop. If we spent lots of money on Magic this was nothing compared to Warhammer. By this time I was maybe 16 or 17 and had more money to spend. During high school this was the games that got most play but it was never the frequency of the early years with Drakar och Demoner and the like. I also did some live action roleplaying (larp), mainly Vampire and fantasy games.

When I moved for college gaming became more rare. There was some tabletop roleplaying with new people and one year I played GW games pretty frequent but I started to belive active gaming was a thing of the past.

Durning the last three years things have changed. It started with the "german" wave of boardgames. Getting people to play these games was easy as it requires little commitment. Nothing strange there. Playing an organised rpg campaign had seemed like impossible, everyone had to much "life" to tend to. But for some reason this changed to. There was roleplying going on everywhere around me.

I have also gotten back into live action roleplaying (or lajv as it's called in Sweden). This time it's not standard fantasy but more experimental plays in a historic or conteporary setting. The rules light nature of these arrengements have also pushed me towards a more free form way of playing table top rpgs.

My thought on rpgs, larps and board games, that's what you'll find in this blog. If you've read this far I guess you're at least mildly interested in the subject...

You got to have a blog...

2005-03-11T17:06:00.000+01:00

You got to have a blog these days. In the future all communication will be through blogs. Or not. Blogs are just a place to put stuff to bad to fit anywhere else. I guess that's a good thing.

Anyway, this blog is supposed to be about gaming. Roleplaying games, live action roleplaying, board games and everything connected to them. Gaming is what I do. The part that matters anyway.

Only time will tell if something even remotely interesting ends up here...