Dogme 99

Community Larp discussion
#1

Here’s the Dogme 99 larp manifesto. I realised we haven’t discussed it on Diatribe yet!

The manifesto lays out a radical vision for a new direction for larp to take. It does so without worrying about sounding arrogant, and believe you-me it sounds arrogant the whole way!

Dogme posits that the following things are un-larp:
Rules
Game mechanics
Character histories
A "main story"
Crew secrets
Violence.

(srsly)

Dogme 99 explains that by making larps based on table-top roleplaying, movies etc., we inherit all the worst things from them. It says we should create larps that are naturally larps - with features inherent to larping.

I’d be keen to hear people’s thoughts.

#2

I think they spelt dogma wrong… :wink:

Here’s what sums them up best (their emphasis):

We seek the death of “mainstream” LARP

These dudes are onto a winner, I’m rewriting Skirmish to exclude combat and I’m renaming it to “Let’s Resolve Our Differences Over a Cup of Tea”

#3

I think these guys are such purists of role-play only that they have taken out most of what makes LARP fun to most people (ie, combat, and some sense of competition). If you remove rules, then you eliminate competition and it becomes pure improvisational acting for its own sake. If you remove violence then you remove all combat and most of the physical side of things.

This is not to say that what remains is worthless, but I disagree that what they have removed is without value.

I believe that LARP is a broad spectrum ranging from linear to free-form, from combat to passive, from rules-heavy to complete free-form. All have their benefits and disadvantages.

Indeed, you could work up a classification system for any LARP game based on a rating from 0-5 in Combat, Rules, Script (linearity), and Acting (role-play). By this classification…

Mordavia would be something like C3-R2-S2-A3,
Skirmish might be C5-R4-S4-A1,
Og was C4-R2-S3-A3
Nibelungun I guess as being C1-R1-S2-A4

These guys seem to thing only C0-R0-S0-A5 counts… yet I think a high R and S are good for beginners and children, and kids in particular like a high C. A high A often only works if you have a lot of experienced players.

(I like this classification system… what do the rest of you think? It would be good to be able to put a code like this after games in the calendar or in a summary list to give an initial overview…)

#4

I think it very ironic that on their website they say ‘A program for the LIBERATION of LARP’ (my emphasis). Seems more like they are trying to make a huge list of the things they want to forbid.

#5

I just had to laugh, most of the way through their article I was going "but, but, but …I LIKE fighting with foam swords! I LIKE being able to represent magic and I LIKE dressing up as supernatural creatures! That is why I STARTED LARPING!!! :open_mouth: Take away that and you have… ummmm… real life? wow, thrilling… :confused:

Kara

#6

…binding with briars our joys and desires…

It’s certainly a point of view.

#7

Wow, um, wow.

One example.

If you can’t write into a characters background an event, how can you relate to them their racism? (No it cannot be because you saw your sister being stolen by Gypsies when you were 7. It’s because you just are!)

I say, let them write themselves out of existance, or into thre history books. Our children will decide. Meanwhile, lets keep doing what we find fun.

AJ

#8

Itt all about the dynamic of the game. The dont forbid violence they just dont encourage it. If two carecters start hating eachother and break in to a fist fight that is a part of the game and its great because it happened without any prodding from the game masters.

They are not trying to make larp un fun, i am sure i could make a dogme larp fun, although it is a more mature larping style than manny others. I think they are trying to make larp in to its own genre. Instead of the basterdised form which it is now.

my 2 peneth…

Its late though, im going 2 bed.

Hansi

#9

I actually see it as an ideal, but I disagree with them that existing larp conventions are incompatible with the desire for the immersive, convincing games they seek.

"No main plot"
This makes a lot of sense to me. Life has no main plot until you (the character) decides a main plot for it to have. And you choose from an infinite number of possibilities every time. In other words, I think you can have a main plot, but it isn’t up to the organisers.

“No physreps”
(“No object shall be used to represent another object.”)
This one grinds me. I can see where they’re coming from and WHY (oh hell why) but I think what I’d prefer is just BETTER physreps. By better I mean:

Looks damn close to what it is
Acts damn close to what it is
Its use needs no governing rules, even if it requires suspension of disbelief and player buy-in.

"Game mechanics are forbidden"
I love the idea of no rules. No mechanics is too far for me. In May Day, which had no rules, there were a set of obvious, simple in-game mechanics and they totally made the game. For example, everybody knew that at 9pm a bomb would go off in the Skytower - so it was easy for everyone to imagine it together at the same time.

To answer the general criticism here which seems to be “Hey but I want magic and shit!” - I think it’s possible to achieve this closer to the dogme 99 style (an “ideal”), it just takes a different way of thinking about creating the game. They’re right that we’ve inherited yucky things from our table-top cousins like solving problems by writing them into the rules. Rules are great when you’re a computer.

I definately think that when we create larps we should remember that we are creating larps not movies or table top games or miniature battle figures or computer programs. I think that’s one of the main points here. Larps have their own features inherant to larping that aren’t anything like other “media”.

I think there are still solutions to the problems we currently fix with rules (and assume there’s no other way) like sword-fighting and healing (hat-tip to Ravenholme’s interesting take on healing - just do it). When we finally do those combat trials with different rules systems I’d really like to do two trials:

  1. No rules whatsoever, rely on role-playing.
  2. No set rules, but a general understanding that you can only take one or two decent blows before your life is on the line, armour counts for something, mostly relying on role playing.

In creating Nibelungen I’ve held this as an ideal, but gone completely against it in that I’m creating a sci-fi larp that requires its fair share of disbelief suspension (eg. the space-ship is carpeted… live with it.) It’s loaded with phys-reps (although I’m doing my damnedest to make them all “do” what they “do”), there are a LOT of secrets (and I’m not telling you any), … they’d kick me out of their club in a flash (arrogant pricks).

SAIL’s similar. No rules-as-such, relies on role-playing, but the environment is ultimately not going to be perfect. There’ll be farmland and (hell) maybe even animals to ignore. It’s challenging and competitive so there’ll probably be simulated violence generated between players. And we’re fine with that, it’ll just be “pretended” to a different level.

Ultimately, I think they do seek the “liberation of larp” by removing the barriers that detract from … well, larp. I think it’s worth imagining a world of the fantastical beyond conventions like rules and “main plot”. I don’t think it’ll be easy… but I do think it’s ideal.

#10

What he said!

And i think that Mordavia did take a closer step towards a Dogma style of larping when it revised its rules, as the focus was put on imersion and roleplay, not the rules. I think we all can safely say that the rule revision help improve the game.

I think if you have players that are ready to impovise everything and make thing up as you go in any enviorment, then you have a chance to run truly great games.

Dogma rule = there can be no rules.
To say “this plastic thing is a magic wand and it can cast spells” is to make a rule.
To try to cast a spell on another character using a stick in a dogma game allows the player to decide weather or not his character is affected by the spell and that it fits within the contekst of the game that they are both playing.

Hansi

#11

My objection is not with their wanting to have a pure-role-play form of LARP for experienced players. I object to their perceived attitude that all other forms of LARP are worthless and ‘not LARP’. There is room for all systems and genres, and NZLARPS’ constitution recognises them and supports all equally. Real-world pure role-play is all very well as an ideal for some but its like saying that the only fruit worth eating is apples, so lets eliminate all the rest.

Although I’d not want to play those ‘murder mystery in a box’ games due to their heavy linearity and lack of freedom, I recognise them as a type of LARP (C0-R1-S5-A2 maybe)

#12

It cuts both ways - there are many people who would consider Dogme99 style “not larp”.

Dogma99 was written to make people reconsider their understandings of what larp is and can be. You can’t take the propaganda aspect of it seriously, it’s intended to shock people out of complacency with the dominant larp forms. In the Nordic countries, it has had some success. Either that or it was part of a general shift away from stock fantasy and vampire larp.

#13

Wow how avant garde :unamused:

Please kill them now before they Breed.

I can see the next great Larp based on this “Vow of Chastity” The “We are going down the shops for some bread and some milk” Larp my god don’t that sound fun :unamused:

My favourites are 4 and 7.

4 no secrecy,

Whoo Hoo :smiley: that means that at the start of Endgame i could have walked up to Ryan and said “I demand to see what is going to happen over the next 48 hours” and then planned my actions accordingly. My god this is like reading the last page of a novel first so you know how it ends.

7 No object shall be used to represent another object,

No foam swords can be used as real swords, Yeehaaa!!! that means we can all bring our Steel weapons in and get them good and sharp :smiling_imp:

Oh well never mind these Nimrods live in Europe so I dont think we will have to deal with this rubbish anytime soon, one of the goods things about living in a small little self obsessed country at the bottom of the planet.

We dont have to care what anyone else is doing :smiley:

And I dont

Dogma 99 can go where all other Dogma that people try to shove down my throat in my life goes.

here

#14

Sounds a lot like medieval recreation with theatre sports thrown in for good measure.

I always found it funny that one could count World War 2 as a game because it had rules. Dogma 99 could not count it as a Larp because
1 ) Characters have a history that affect their actions.
2 ) It had a main plot.
3 ) Characters played supporting parts.
4 ) There was secrecy.
5 ) After the war began people tried to influence the result.
6 ) Superficial action was common
7 ) Much of the combat was inspired by table top wargames.
8 ) Objects often represented other objects.
9 ) Rules and game mechanics existed
10 ) None of the organisers (except Benito) were held accountable.

I find it amusing that the more some groups try to get rid of the rules to improve realism, the less realistic the experience actually becomes. Irony. With Live Role Play I am not trying to recreate this world, I am trying to create a whole new world that never existed and can never exist except in the minds and imaginations of the players.

#15

I like the way that people who denounce manifestos as unreasonable usually come out looking even more unreasonable than the manifesto. :wink:

All we need now is for a kiwi to write a reactionary “larp is just a game and it’s for fun!” manifesto, then for people to point out they don’t like it, and the circle will be complete. Again.

It’s too late to hope that Dogme99 doesn’t affect NZ larp, it already has. As Hansi points out, some of the improvement of Mordavia resulted from consideration of the principals behind Nordic larp theory. Craig has already run a larp in Auckland that was quite Dogme-like.

I’ve been following the various Nordic theories for years. As the name suggests, 99 is a bit old and newer ones are around. They often make good points, and when they don’t they at least make you think about the subject. No-one is forced to adopt whole manifestos, but it surely don’t hurt to consider the ideas in them. Unless we think we have everything perfect, of course.

#16

As Amor Fati (the people who brought us dogma 99), said [quote]Fateplay is not LARP by itself, but a narrative method that may be used for LARPs, Verbal (“tabletop”) roleplaying or theatre impro.[/quote]

Therefore LARP can be played as

In other words this no rules ‘LARP’ is not a LARP but it is a type of theatre sports. I’m not quite sure how this qualifies as Live or Action. Can I get my sword and hit some of those pesky orcs now?

#17

I am always unreasonable when someone tries to tell me how to think, act, live, believe, you should see me deal with born again christians.

this is much like the ultra Authenticity movement in re enactment at present, the problem is where does the Dogmatic rhetoric stop and the enjoyment keep going.

personally i would find a Larp based on these lines restrictive, flat, and rather unispiring, too much like improv theater, (not theater sports, theater sports can be fun) and way too frustrating.

I dont mind getting stonewalled or told “no” because i cant figure out the puzzle, or because i overlooked some important peice of information, or because i am just being Dumb.

But getting told “no you can’t do that” because it conflicts with some pretentious rule that some frustrated “thespian” came up with, will just make me want to go home.

Which is why i dont go to re-enactment events where they say Authentic kit only, which smacks of elitism, much the same as this does.

these guys are not saying this is another way to Larp, they are saying “Our way or the highway” and that is wrong, we should be able to larp ANYTHING, any situation, any concept, any story, and take each one on its own merits, its own ups, downs, good things and bad things, cliches, and stereotypes, and enjoy all of them.

Putting Larping in a pigeon hole or a strict rigid set of Rules like this will Kill it.

what happens when you pin a butterfly to a board…it dies, yes you can still see its beauty but the life, the soul, and the magic that made you want to catch it is gone.

#18

I don’t think Amor Fati wrote Dogme99, they just published it online.

Fateplay is not directly related to Dogme99. Fateplay is a mechanic used in some larps, where the results of certain situations in the larp are predetermined. For example, a player might be given a note before the event saying “just after a man says ‘let me look at you with my own eyes’ you will realise he’s your father.” or "if you get in a duel and your opponent says “you cannot win this” then you will have your hand chopped off and lose the duel.

Basically, what the excerpt you’ve taken out of context above is saying is that fateplay is a mechanic used in larps, it is not a larp in itself. Similarly, fighting with foam swords is a mechanic that can be used in larp but fighting with foams swords by itself is not larp.

Fateplay is rather like comparing stats and then acting out the results, except instead of stats you have a note from the organisers. Which is more flexible and specific than stats. But it is not intended to dominate play, it just pops up now and then and the rest is improvised.

So fateplay is irrelevant to Dogme99, and your interpretation of it seems incorrect to me.

#19

Carl, I think you may have misunderstood the intentions of Dogme99.

Firstly, the define larp as

Not exactly controversial, is it?

But they do go on to expound what they regard as a valid way to improve larp .

Basically, they have a prescription for a way to develop larp in a way that they think is so cool it will blow away mainstream “gamist” larp. Arrogant, cocky, and malfeasant ? Most likely, but nowhere in the Vows did I get any impression that they were saying that any larping I do is wrong or not larp, just that their way is Totally Cool and Better Than The Alternatives.

In the meantime, I’ll keep on Skirmishing until their Unstoppable Larp Technique rules the world :wink:

#20

From Amor Fati[quote]In 1999, we edited together a bunch of ideas that had been floating around in a circle of Norwegian larpers into a manifesto - Dogma 99 - a programme for the liberation of larp.[/quote]

I think that is a pretty strong claim of ownership.

The people who gave us Fate Play also gave us Dogma 99