Affiliation proposal for Larpwriter.com

Hello,

I am Florent Guilleux, I’ve created & manage the website http://www.larpwriter.com.

It is aimed at larp organizers/GMs and makes it possible for them to write their larp online, and makes it easier for those organizers to share information. There is a demo video on the home page, and you can try it quickly.

The site is free for larps & murder parties involving 20 characters or less, and not free when involving more.

I propose Larpwriter to be an affiliate of NZLARPS. My idea is to propose a 10% discount to larp organizers/GMs pertaining to NZLARPS when they use Larpwriter to create and organizer their larp. This is already the case with the Belgian larp federation & the French one (see http://www.larp.be/index.php?option=com_mtree&task=viewlink&link_id=187&Itemid=152 & http://www.fedegn.org/tiki-directory_viewsite.php?categId=42&siteId=1946).

I’d be happy to know your opinion about this proposal, questions are welcomed :slight_smile: If needed you can contact me directly http://www.larpwriter.com/en/contact.

Cheers,
Florent

Interesting idea, and looks quite well presented. However, I have but two words;

“Google Documents”

:wink:

[quote=“TequilaDave”]…

“Google Documents”

[/quote]

:slight_smile:

Hi Dave,

I have to admit that editing in Google Docs is nicer than in Larpwriter :slight_smile:

However there are distinguishing several tools in Larpwriter which permit to easily link characters & players, characters & documents, create groups of characters, quickly put player pictures in characters & groups sheets, a search engine for each larp… Soon I’ll add also an system for players to register online to larp.

I’ve created this website from my own larp organizer experience in France (mainly with ‘theater style’ larp). I don’t know which kind of larp are played in NZ, but if there are crucial features that are missing in Larpwriter and that you would like to be added, let me know.

Hi Florent, it looks very nicely made. We do have a growing pregen larp scene here in New Zealand, especially for the yearly convention Chimera and also at other roleplaying conventions and some one-off games. I’m not sure if many people here will want to pay the price for using it to make a larp of over 20 characters, but you never know. Proposals to affiliate with NZLARPS go to the committee for a vote at their monthly meeting, which I think is coming up soon.

OK, thanks for your answer Ryan :slight_smile:
Good to see that larp is taking off in New Zealand!

I’m writing a larp for under 20 for Battlecry so I’ll try it out. From what I’ve seen of it so far, it actually looks quite a bit more useful for larp writing than Google Docs.

You need to spend more time with it then Vanya, Googledocs is awesome :slight_smile:

Document files, spreadsheets, forms (which can be emailed to your players for completing characters, and then automatically compile back to a spreadsheet for you), powerpoint style presentations, folder and file sharing with any number of other people and control over their privileges, and very easy file management for all those grouping and category needs with a built in search engine to hunt through it all, real-time editing by multiple users at the same time, and even a document specific chat frame so users working on the same document can collaborate and discuss…

Plus, you can upload existing documents (including images) rather than having to input everything online, which I’m sad to say is one area that Larpwriter really does fall down in. It does look shiny and easy to use, and I hate to be the wet blanket or overly negative towards what is obviously a labour of love and no doubt still a useful resource, but even if it did have document uploading there’s nothing about it that seems desperately needed in the organising of larps (or other functions) that isn’t already very well covered elsewhere, and for free.

One question I do have though - the site says (under prices) that after a year the larp will remain on the site but cannot be modified any further. Is there a reason the account can’t be renewed? I’m thinking in terms of longer, ongoing campaigns which at the moment are the most popular here.

[quote=“TequilaDave”]You need to spend more time with it then Vanya, Googledocs is awesome :slight_smile:[/quote]Hi Dave,

I don’t suppose you’ve got an example of a Google docs Larp writing setup that I could look at? I’m about to set up a Larp project with multiple authors, and I’m looking for ways to organise the information so that the boring cut-and-paste bits are minimised, as well as the likelihood of inconsistencies creeping in. Looking at the Larpwriter video, it looked like they’d put a lot of thought into how to crossmatch stuff, but it would be nice to see some other options.

Cheers,

Steph

[quote=“TequilaDave”]You need to spend more time with it then Vanya, Googledocs is awesome :slight_smile:

Document files, spreadsheets, forms (which can be emailed to your players for completing characters, and then automatically compile back to a spreadsheet for you), powerpoint style presentations, folder and file sharing with any number of other people and control over their privileges, and very easy file management for all those grouping and category needs with a built in search engine to hunt through it all, real-time editing by multiple users at the same time, and even a document specific chat frame so users working on the same document can collaborate and discuss…
[/quote]

Thank for detailing those points Dave, I did not know there was a built in search engine and document chat frame for instance, now it makes much more sense for me how Google Docs can be a great tool to organize larps.

As a ready-to-use and specifically larp focused system, I think that Larpwriter still has a relevance, depending on people technical level and the needs of their larp in terms of organization (and their budget :wink: ).

Anyway I truly believe it’s a good think that several alternatives exist like Google Docs, Larpwriter and others, as larp styles and organization needs can strongly differ from countries to countries, from an group of organizers to another group of organizers.

Actually you can upload any kind of document in Larpwriter, but till now only for paying larps. It is possible also for non paying larps but on request only. Maybe will be enabled without request in the future (I need to take time to secure file uploading).

It can be renewed, this indication was missing on the prices page. I’ve updated it, thank :slight_smile:

I’ve used GoogleDocs colloboratively and, as a free-form tool (pun intended), it is very good.

I think Larpwriter has some excellent features which makes it quite useful for developing a larp. In particular, the ability to re-assign characters and have the related player pics automatically update in the character background sheet is very useful. Knowing what a character looks like is advantageous, as it means you can use your natural image processing talents to recognise your associates ingame.

While you can manage player images in GoogleDocs, I’d like to know how you would re-assign characters 1 hour before the larp begins and still have time to print out character sheets with updated player pics. Unless I am mistaken, this would be a manual process, and therefore time-consuming.

Vanya, I’d be interested in a post from you to do with how you find Larpwriter.

One feature that may be of use in a future is a way to track important props (assuming the props are useful to character objectives) and the relationship between various characters and the props.

I’ve really quite enjoyed using LarpWriter. It’s very easy to use, the interface is intuitive, I didn’t bother watching the video’s and everything was self explanatory. I didn’t have to bother with anything technical because everything is already set out with a Larp writing framework in mind. The character sheets are set out in a way that makes character building easy, when there’s a lot of characters to write it’s useful to have those prompts and categories.

I’ll be using it again.

Thanks Mike & Uncle Vanya for your comments!

For your information prices are now much more affordable:
http://blog.larpwriter.com/2010/02/new-prices.html

and I’ve integrated a system to permit online registration of players:
larpwriter.com/en/features#registration

Effectively this feature does not exist yet. For now you would have to create a document describing the prop, and then search for the prop document name in the search engine to see all characters mentioning the prop and what they say about the prop.