We gotta get some press material together! We have a fan at TV3/ freelance called David Farrier, who’s about the best interested journo we could ask for. He did the TV3 article on Mordavia and has asked me recently about nzLARPS. I’ve emailed him back, here’s the exchange for the nosy and the keen.
[quote]On 2/14/06, david farrier wrote:
hey there mr neilson
i few questions for you re: nzLARP. i have talked plenty to paddy to get an idea of the kind of larp he runs (which i have seen first hand)... what i'd like to get from you, is how your guys scenarios tend to run. so feel free to have a bit of a rant when you get some time.
1) what kind of scenarios do you act out? i've heard boardroom antics... corporate takeovers etc. donald trump-esque?
2) are there any rules governing peoples actions? surely.. there are rules, like any "game"?
3) following on from that, i suppose, what's stopping somebody from pulling out a gun and shooting everybody? figuratively, of course...
4) how do you remember what happened in a previous session?
5) bad actors. there's got to be plenty to ruin the mood. how do you deal with this?
6) why larp in the first place. are the scenarios too extreme for actually doing in "real life"? ie without participants.
7) satanists. larpers are all satanists. dungeons and dragons!!! response?
you're a good sport .... LEGEND
farrier.
[/quote]
Hahaha, great questions.
Unfortunately they’re a tad on the premature side. The whole thing is still “brand new” and not fully rolling yet, although there are lots of big ideas in the works and being planned on the forums at the moment. You can find newsletters here:
nzlarps.org/ is the website of the parent organisation, and it’s under construction. You can get a brief overview at the wiki entry linked from it.
I’ll try and answer your questions in brief for the hell of it:
- Whadya play?
Anything. - Are there rules?
Nope, sometimes there aren’t really any rules! I played a game in the weekend that was rule-less. Because it was all about social interactions, it was nothing more than your every-day social rules of interaction (the ones that apply everywhere, all the time). Rules like “don’t be a psychopath”.
That said, some games (like Mordavia) have a whole book full of rules because there is a lot more to pretend, and you need to make sure everyone’s imagination is on the same page. - What if you break 'em?
If you break the rules all the time, people are just gonna stop inviting you to their games
I guess it’s like cricket if you get caught out and refuse to leave the pitch. Then what? Well, you stop playing cricket. - What happened last time?
Anything forgotten probably wasn’t worth remembering! There’s no official way. Mordavia is complex so there’s a newspaper published that helps this. You usually remember the more important of your character’s relationships. But not all games are ongoing and require you to remember shit. - Bad actors
We measure acting skill based on how good you make everyone else look. If you have a few good actors, the whole thing is convincing and a real rush, and it seems like everyone is good. I’ve never been to an event where everyone sucked. Those that are “bad” are generally well supported by those that aren’t. - What for?
I think it’s really human, and when I’m larping I always feel really normal. It’s a holiday from yourself, where you can try out what it’s like to be someone else, even if they have never existed, or never will. You get to live out the stories like first hand experiences, where one person’s fate is under your control. You are part of everyone else’s story.
Everyone’s wondered what it’s like to be in someone else’s shoes and we make all sizes fit. - Satanists
Before each game there is time set aside to explain that whatever religion you may be from, LARP is simply pretending to be something else and this is inherently something we do because we are forced by his worship, Lucifer. While chanting “Force of evil bringer-of plight, give me power and I might, take the power that you have, share it amongst this conclave” we drink the blood of goats and/or virgins (this depends on game type, eg. for a futuristic LARP we drink only the blood of goats, but for a game set in present day we must drink only virgins blood. Medieval or mythical games are usually half-half). We have a steady stream of babies that mothers are told have been miscarried from National Womens Hospital, which we spit-roast on social occasions where we are not technically gaming.
Hope these are what you’re after. Answers might be better a few months down the track.