Dogme 99

Community Larp discussion
#21

When you discover the context, it becomes clear that these guys don’t actually think that way. They’ve just written it that way to achieve maximum impact, which (once again) it has.

They do raise some good questions. Have larps inherited a lot of crap from tabletop that doesn’t adapt to the new medium well? Yes, I’d say that’s true. Do all larps have to have big player backgrounds that often aren’t relevant in play? No, they probably don’t. Do all larps have to revolve around secrets that the organisers keep from the players? No, they probably don’t. Is violence a necessary theme in all larp? No, it’s not.

Of course, if they’d written all that in the mild manner that I just used, hardly anyone would have read it. The way they wrote it made it infamous and very well read in the international community, so it reached a wider market and probably had a wider effect.

I think I’d enjoy playing larps run in this style or using some of these methods sometimes. Don’t see anything wrong with the approach as an option. Obviously its not the be all and end all, but nothing is.

I’d far prefer to play a well-done Dogme99 larp than most of the shit fantasy larp with foam swords that’s I gather is out there, a lot of which seems to suck for the exact reasons they give in the manifesto.

#22

From Dogma 99

Again this definition is so broad as to allow Magic the Gathering and playing a part in a play or being in an insane asylum, to be defined as Live Role Play.

#23

[quote=“Alista”]I think that is a pretty strong claim of ownership.

The people who gave us Fate Play also gave us Dogma 99[/quote]

Looks like you’re probably right there. I remembered Dogme99 being anonymous but it seems they’ve claimed it.

But Dogme99 and Fateplay are not the same thing, and neither requires the other. Fateplay is a tool that can be used in any larp.

Your claim that Fateplay admits to not being a larp is out of context. They’re just saying that Fateplay is a mechanic that can be used in larps. As mechanics go, it’s more determanistic than many but not much more than compared statistics. Which is a pretty common larp resolution mechanic.

[quote=“Alista”]From Dogma 99

Again this definition is so broad as to allow magic the Gathering and playing a part in a play.[/quote]

You don’t like my preferred definition for the same reason:

larp n. an activity where participants improvise the roles of characters in a fictional situation.

I think that if your games of Magic truly fit the spirit of that definition, they’re larp. But I suspect they’re don’t really. The word “improvise” in that context implies embodying your character. That’s not something you do in Magic or in tabletop RPGs. I suspect their definition rests on similar assumptions of actually embodying your character.

#24

I didn’t see in the Dogme manifesto that games can’t be fun and have to be mundane. Actually, I thought the opposite: “Oh my god, these games would have to be a lot of fun!”

AJ, I think you’ve got the history part a bit skew-wiff. I’m not 100% sure on this one but I’ll try. You can have racist characters and even that they have some prejudice because of an historical event. But this is a manifesto basically for organisers, and that kind of history should not be up to them. A better example of what you can’t have:

The organisers of XE 99: The bubble tell the character Eric Schmidt that he used to date Susan Young when they were at high school. They went to the same high school.
GM note: half way through, Eric will be told there is a baby. Susan is an NPC supporting-character.

So the organisers can’t do that. But if Susan Young (a fully fledged player-character like everyone else) tells Eric Schmidt at XE 99 that there is a baby… then there is!

The secrecy statement follows that. If Carl says to the organisers at XE 99 “what’s planned?” then the organisers will give him that half an hour into the game they will play a video on a big screen, and that if Carl wants he can have the video. The idea is that it’s not the role of the organisers to make history as some attempt to create action in game.

There’s a common thread on Diatribe that larp is made of a set of analog continuum’s (realism, supernatural, drama, etc). Let’s be honest, these guys are just putting this out there to illustrate one end of a bunch of continuum’s and framing it as liberated larp.

Carl - if you brought steel weapons to a game and started hurting people, you’d quickly be recognized as a sociopath and probably put in jail. What they’re saying is not “use sharp swords” but “foam weapons are not a good enough physrep for real weapons”. It probably means you simple don’t play larps that revolve around huring people with weapons, and you don’t play a larp set in a castle unless you have a castle.

You can ask the organisers for the plan because there is no plan. That’s up to you. Dogme 99 is largely about putting the onus for larp on the players of the larp. If you don’t make any action then there isn’t necessarily going to be any.

In Nibelungen, when people ask me what’s going to happen I’m totally honest. I say “I don’t know”. I have some secrets and half-plans based on what I think are likely scenarios, and I won’t give those away. But if they don’t make sense then they won’t happen. I think that’s a step in the direction they’re intending with the “no secrets” vow. The plans for plot aren’t secret because there are no plans. Plot is up to the players. (Technically in Nibelungen we don’t have plot, we have setting. The players create the plot within the setting, and the setting gets revealed over the course of the game not the plot.)

I think it’s an ideal I’ll never reach. But I still think it’s an ideal.

#25

I’d write one but I cant be sodded :smiley: and would prefer to spend my time actualy, I dont know, going to the pub or playing the games and not analysising the sub atomic system of what larp IS (cause people will never agree)…how about insted of making theory on how larp works people, just an idea, playtest and play the games and just find one they enjoy and like…dun dun DAAAA Shock and horror :slight_smile: Personaly i think a unified LARP theory would be needed…I see the beinfits of all sides of the polyhedral…player led/GM led…Simcom/Boff…pregen characters/player made…pros and cons on all sides…but I like em all…for me its the actual roleplaying and interaction of the characters I like…the system is secondary…

I know I for one am just going to continue playing LARP (or LRP for our southen freinds :wink: ) no matter what form they are in…I’m gonna go to a larp see if it works for me and then decide… :slight_smile:

My $0.02

Disclaimer: This is not meant to be and attack on anyone or anyones veiws or veiw points all comments are just opinions, or smartass comments that are just part of my jovial nature

#26

[quote]larp n. an activity where participants improvise the roles of characters in a fictional situation.
[/quote]

You guys obviously do Paper Role Play differently up there. I love it when you are playing a game and you just say something in a normal voice\ and all the players recoil. Or you can vivibly see the players shaking with fear or anger or anticipation. The above definition of LARP definately includes our paper role play and some of our Magic the Gathering

#27

A fun fackt about Dogma 99. In 2002 i attenden a larp meeting they call knutepungt http://knutepunkt.laiv.org/ which is a meeting between larpers from Norway, Sweeden, Demeark and Finland. It happens every four years and works like a forum for Larpers who want to discuss and talk about larps and consepts they have eksperimented with. the website will probably contain several articels about contemporary LARP theori.

Anyway when i attended Knutepunkt they tied up the two authors and burnt a copy of the Dogma 99 in front of them. It was quite an amazing display. None the less Doma 99 had allreaddy made a massive change to the international Larp scene.

Also i dont think there are any or have been any 100% dogma run games.

Non the less the like ryan said the manifest is to challange the idea of what larp can be not to kill all the mainstream ‘LARPers’ and start a new world order.

Why are people so threatened by this way of larping, surely if you see your selfs as good larper you will be ready to embrace any kind of game you find.

The next game i run i will see if i can turn in to a pure dogma 99 game, and it will be fun, even for some of you more conservative Larpers out there.

Hansi

#28

Mate, when I play RPGs I sometimes jump up and act out what my character or an NPC is doing. I do voices, I use props (even as a player).

Is that larp? Well, fractionally.

But I don’t spend the whole time playing out my character’s body. That’s larp. That’s what I mean in that definition by “improvise” although it’s probably not clear enough. In full, it’s “acting out the character’s part with my body and making it up as I go in a physical setting that’s an analogue of the fictional setting,” that’s what it implies. That’s larp. Do you do that in Magic and in pen & paper RPGs? Then yes, it’s larp in my book.

#29

[quote=“Hansi”]
Anyway when i attended Knutepunkt they tied up the two authors and burnt a copy of the Dogma 99 in front of them. It was quite an amazing display. [/quote]

Is that Dogma 99 style LARP in action ? Did the fates tell them they were going to be tied up and the manifesto burnt?

#30

Alista, fate play is not Dogma 99. It’s fate play. Separate things.

#31

I know. As the same people brought us both Fateplay and Dogma 99, I thought it would be fun to concatanate these two events. Would it be better stated as,

Is that the style of Fateplay as outlined by the authors of Fateplay and based on their manefesto which they entitled Dogma 99? Did the fates that they created as their game mechanism tell them they were going to be tied up and a copy of the manifesto they edited and named would be burnt?

#32

[quote=“Exquire”]
Carl - if you brought steel weapons to a game and started hurting people, you’d quickly be recognized as a sociopath and probably put in jail. What they’re saying is not “use sharp swords” but “foam weapons are not a good enough physrep for real weapons”. It probably means you simple don’t play larps that revolve around huring people with weapons, and you don’t play a larp set in a castle unless you have a castle.[/quote]

I am just going by what they said, A stryofoam stick is not a sword, if you want a sword use a real sword, is that not the gist of what they are saying?

And you are calling me a sociopath :open_mouth:

of course if you dont want people swinging real weapons around the place dont include violence easy fix.

I understand the idea of what they are trying to do, I just dont like the rhetoric they are using.

the Aunthenticity nazi’s in NAAMA do the same thing, they say “we are not trying to make you do it our way” and “You can wear whatever you want, if you really want to” but then they tell you that you cant take part in thier battle day or event because you are wearing doc martins or a modern fabric or whatever they basically feel like, and they justify this by saying “This event is Aunthentic Kit Only”.

Rhetoric like this is the fertile soil that exclusive elitism grows in, not everyone will get facist with rules like these but some one will, and if you argue they have the “Manifesto” to wave in your face and say “But it is written here”

it is not what they say that is wrong, but they way they say it, but it seems that it is perfectly acceptable to tell these guys to shove it where the sun don’t shine, so thats good.

as long as dogma can be challenged and common sense can have its day I am golden.

#33

The fate play people definately advocate using real sharp swords in their LARP. Are they all sociopaths?

They gave us Dogma 99. Is Dogma 99 only relevant to sociopaths?

#34

When I read Dogme99, this is the message I took home:

How about running some larps set in the real world, because we have the perfect place to represent it. How about avoiding stuff that we can’t do for real, because doing things for real is cool. Rather than back-loading the characters with a weight of historical stuff that happened to them before the event, let’s try making it mostly about just what the characters are doing right now, in play. And let’s make it specifically about whatever the characters decide to do, with equal weighting on all of them. Rather than loading it to be about easily-understood action, let’s make it about harder-to-grasp stuff. Rather than trying to shoehorn stuff from another medium into the larp medium, let’s try making something from scratch that fits. Seeing we’ve got rid of everything that needs rules, how about doing without them?

I don’t think Dogme99 is as rigid or unreasonable as people are making out. Take this for example:

It’s doesn’t say “foam sword fighting is shit”, it says it’s fine but can we try something a bit more artistically challenging please? That’s pretty typical of the manifesto. It’s a challenge to create more artistic larp, and some guidelines that the writers think might help achieve this end. Of course not everyone is interested in this challenge, or in the type of larp it might produce. But some people are, and the manifesto has something to offer them.

When it is rigid it’s in a tongue-in-cheek way. Do they really have to preface every sentence with “it’s our opinion that…” for people to just take the content for what it is, someone’s suggestions for a different way of running a larp?

On the subject of fun, I think Dogma99 can be used to create fun larps. But I also think that larp doesn’t have to be about fun. Are all movies fun? All books? All plays? Larp is a medium, and the content can be practically anything. Educational, artistic, inspirational, and yes, entertaining. Or any number of these things at once, or something else I haven’t thought of.

Just because we like one type of content, it doesn’t invalidate someone else’s preferences or interests.

#35

that may be what they are trying to say or get across but that is unfortunately not the message they are getting across.

look at the title “Dogma 99” one definition of Dogma is a doctrine that is proclaimed as true without proof

I mean come on if you subscribe to these rules you are asked to put your name to a “Vow of Chastity” come on, this means you must remain Pure to the articles of that Vow.

sure larping can be anything, any kind of situation could be turned into a Larp and it could be fun, exciting, pick your superlative.

but who says that it has to run based on a set of rigid rules, throw the rule book out the window and create something organic not mechanical.

i agree with thier intention not thier rhetoric.

#36

I think you’re on to something here, but we need to switch it up a bit. No physreps, right? So a foam sword is foam sword and instead of playing a character in a LARP, you play a normal person who is playing a character in a LARP. So then we get a Dogma LARP about people playing in a non-Dogma LARP.

#37

Mordavia and Ravenholme are the only two larps I have played so far, both of which were great fun. From the sound of it there are some fairly dreadful attempts at LARP that I would have found neither immersive, nor fun. OK, so these guys are trying to (I guess) have completely immersive larps. I don’t disagree with the concept and I don’t much care about their method, I don’t have to do it or sign the charter, so, meh…

I have to disagree with the concept of backstory though. If you are not using a main plot,or GM controlled story then unless your character was born on the day of the LARP, you ARE going to have to have a history. When you play a character in a play, you spend a lot of time imagining how they got here, what may have happened in the past, how they feel about the other people (if they know them) etc. Because this gives you a way to understand how they will react to things that happen now.

Anyhow, just a thought. Also, if this document is 7 years old, probably noone cares anymore anyway!!! :slight_smile:

Kara

#38

The article suggests that GMs shouldn’t write backstories for characters, but the players can if it helps them immerse. So again, it’s not as B&W as it may seem and the purpose is to stop GMs from loading the event full of what they want to happen, and leave it up to players what happens.

In practice, some of the Dogme99 larps that have run did give characters backstory. Probably because it’s hard to describe a situation without describing what came before, unless it’s a setting like “a dream” or Cube.

When I first read Dogme99 I thought they were weirdos. Especially when I read about the larp Europa. But then I thought how weird larp in general seems to most non-larpers. So who is to say they shouldn’t write alternative larp creeds to attempt to follow if they want? And now the more larp I play and run, the more I empathise with aspects of their message, especially the message of not being afraid to attempt art in the medium, and the more larps like Europa seem like an interesting larping challenge rather than a bizarre and torturous experiment.

In terms of whether Dogme99 is still relevant, I think so. I mean, most larp is still basically doing what the first live D&Ders did in the eighties, or what White Wolf wrote to do in the nineties. 99 is quite recent in the scheme of things. I gather that full-on Dogma larps are quite rare, but that the ideas in it have influenced a lot of larps.

#39

Would any of you fine debaters here be interested in writing a discussion piece for Immersion using the ideals presented in Dogme99 as a starting point?

PM me :slight_smile:

#40

For interest, Dogma95. I suspect there was an influence on the Dogme99 manifesto. (I once had a flatmate who was a film nut, and he was really interested in the films made with their Vow of Chastity.)