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Larp

Just a Little Lovin’ 2019 UK

So a few weeks ago, I was part of a team that ran the classic larp Just a Little Lovin’, for the eighth time overall and the first time in the UK. It seems like the participants mostly had pretty good experiences, and everything pretty much worked as it was supposed to. Behind the scenes, […]

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Larp

Axial tension character design in On Location

On Location is a standalone weekend larp that has run twice, in the UK: in December 2017, and January 2019. The website is here: https://onlocationlarp.wordpress.com/ The initial designers were Karolina Soltys and Mo Holkar. Before reading much further, you might want to look at an example of what the character briefings are like: https://onlocationlarp.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/the-femme-fatale.pdf On […]

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Larp

Tell me about your NPCs

So one thing that I think I want to know, before signing up for a larp: does it use NPCs? – and if so, how? This is not just a question of taste, or even a question of ideology. Rather, I think the answer to it may reveal quite a bit about the ‘style’ of […]

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Larp

Mr & Mrs Unscripted

A weekend larp that ran in Sweden late last spring, designed and organized by Mia Häggström and Petra Lindve. About The setting was the making of a reality TV show, in which couples competed to win the big prize of having their wedding paid for. Players were either contestants, producers, or technical crew (camera, sound, […]

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Card games Conventions Larp

Fastaval – Trauma Ward

(So, yes, I’m so far behind on this blog now that it’s not even funny any more. But! Maybe writing about Fastaval, which has only just now happened, will inspire me to catch up a bit.) What is Fastaval? It’s a games convention that takes place in Denmark, every year over the Easter long weekend. […]

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Conventions Larp

Tallinn Larp Festival

This was the third running of this delightful friendly larp festival (I also went last year), and it was at a new venue: a dance studio complex in the heart of the Estonian capital. There were 17 larps running, and I think about 50 participants – as well as locals, people had come from Italy, […]

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Conventions Larp

Knutpunkt

The end of the winter brought Knutpunkt, the Swedish leg of the annual Nordic larp conference, held in Lund. This was my first ‘repeat’ – the first KP that I attended was the previous Swedish run, in 2014 – and also the first time that I attended ‘A Week in’, the programme of events that […]

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Larp

Life Lessons

I’m getting a bit ahead of myself here, because this is very recent and there’s still loads of old stuff to catch up on. But while it’s fresh, here it is! I ran a playtest, in London, of a new, experimental, larp idea: Life Lessons. The characters are everyday people in today’s world, who have […]

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Larp

The Drinklings

The Beginnings The Drinklings started life in a Facebook thread just about a year ago. I was thinking about the historic Inklings sitting around their table in the Eagle and Child pub in Oxford, discussing the progress of their current work. It struck me that this setup might make for an interesting and/or fun larp. […]

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Larp

Experimental Findings

Experimental Findings is not exactly a chamber larp, because you’re supposed to run it out of doors, preferably in a bleak and deserted landscape. But it’s for a small number of players in a short period of time, so it’s chamber-larp-like in that sense. Introduction Experimental Findings came about at a weekend larp retreat that […]