Hey folks,
I’d like to thank and congratulate everyone who helped put together The Rose and the Dragon, from the writers to Anna Northey and her set dressers to Russ and Bryn who helped with graphic design to everyone who helped with logistics. I’ve had a lot of great feedback from the game, and it’s all owing to you.
Also thanks to Anna Klein, who provided oversight and advice. For example, telling me early on that a fifth area consisting entirely of nuns maybe wasn’t such a great idea. 
For those interested in the process we used to create the game, I’ve written up a how-to guide you can peruse:
The how-to guide includes a handy character list spreadsheet with some fancy capabilities built in. Anyone is welcome to make a copy to use in writing your own larps in Google Drive.
I’ve read some feedback that there were many interesting innovations and differences in this flagship compared to past ones. We weren’t just trying to be novel, we did these things to solve certain problems:
[ul][li]Dividing the game into multiple areas allowed us to split the writing into chunks of a more manageable size with their own writing teams, and fit into the venue. [/li]
[li]We took a simple, naturalistic approach to rules. This meant we had less work to do on the rules, ability cards and things like contingency envelopes, and gave us more time for everything else. It also suited the naturalistic, historical flavour of the game.[/li]
[li]We kept character sheets to 1 side of paper. This means players would only have to handle a single sheet of paper, and not have to flip through pages to find information. It also kept down the amount of writing required, and the amount of reading players needed to do when preparing for the convention. We also kept the basic game briefings to 1 side of paper, on the back of the character sheets.[/li]
[li]There were more detailed setting briefings available, but they were optional. So players could deep-dive into the setting if they wanted to give their characters extra depth and increase their familiarity with the setting, but it wasn’t required.[/li]
[li]Both foam weapons and rock-paper-scissors were allowed. This made the rules more complex. We did it because foam weapons are so naturally suited to a medieval genre and make combat exciting and fast to resolve for those who enjoy live combat. We allowed rock-paper-scissors as well because it was the Chimera flagship, and we wanted to be as inclusive as possible by allowing for the tastes of people who prefer abstract mechanics or can’t engage in live combat.[/li]
[li]In our casting email we encouraged players to make your characters your own, take them over and focus on the parts that you are most interested in exploring. It’s hard to match player interests exactly to pre-written characters, or to give them the depth of a real person. By encouraging you to get creative with your character, we hoped you would turn your characters into exactly a person you might enjoy playing rather than feeling “stuck” with aspects of a character that don’t work for you.[/li][/ul]
I’d also like to thank the internet. Without which, creating a game this big with writers in 3 cities would have been near impossible. Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the world wide web, you’re my dog. 
Finally, thanks to all the players. Not just for bringing the game to life, but also for creating such an awesome community to be part of. The sense of camaraderie at Chimera this year was amazing.
In The Rose and the Dragon there is a village, where everyone knows each other. You know who made your clothes, you know the cow your milk came from. Everyone is connected, everyone means something to each other. There’s a sense of comfort and place in the world that comes with that sort of community
Our modern life often isn’t like that. We walk down the street and most people are strangers. If you’re lucky you have great friends and family, but for some people modern life can feel commoditised and alienating.
But we can make our own communities. It’s amazing how NZ larpers have come together over a common interest, and created such a fantastic group in the process. At the risk of sounding cheesy, I think that in a way it’s like a village, or a big family. We all know each other through playing together, and we all mean something to each other, and this degree of goodwill among such a large and growing group of people is a rare and beautiful thing. It’s a community I’m proud to be part of, and this Chimera really brought that home to me. So thanks for that.