NaLaWriMo 2021?

Community Larp discussion
#1

Everyone is probably still feeling creatively crushed due to [vague gesture]. But: is anyone interested in doing NaLaWriMo this year? I mean, this is going to end sometime, right? At which point, we’re going to want some larps to play.

The “rules” (such as they are) are here. But its basicly “write a larp in a month, specifically November”.

[maybe I should set up a new signup form…]

I failed miserably last year (sketched some stuff out, decided it wasn’t working, gave up because it was All Too Hard). I failed less miserably in 2019 as well (wrote a larp on a serious topic and hated it, because it just wasn’t my style). but I’m thinking of having another go at something this year. Is anyone else interested?

What works in a whodunnit?
#2

And to help out anyone looking for ideas: the inspiration list for 2022 (includes link to 2021):

Meanwhile, I am idly wondering about Foundation (because it is topical). You could easily get a larp out of the first crisis. But would it be interesting?

#3

The world is dark and full of terrors ATM, so I’m wondering if I can write something… hopeful. Maybe solarpunk (except that’s a terribly-defined genre). Post-capitalist green SF (in the style of Kim Stanley Robinson), or people making a new start somewhere (and somehow not making all the old mistakes)?

#4

The problem with Solarpunk:

“You can’t LARP Solarpunk because LARPing Solarpunk is going out and planting a garden.”

This is using “larp” in its vulgar sense of “pretending” rather than our particular sort of “pretending-with-a-purpose”, but it does make me think:

a) how much I hate the pastoralism and agricultural nostalgia of those sorts of futures;
b) a larp where you plant a garden would be kindof cool;
c) someone should totally write a Stardew Valley larp.

#5

Based on the “larp in China” discussion and my recent watching of too much Miss Marple I’m now noodling around with ideas for small murder-mystery games. A software billionaire in their Queenstown bolthole? Or maybe a cosy Cthulhu country house murder?

2 Likes
#6

:rofl: Aaaand we’re back to writing about murder and mayhem.

Not telling you you shouldn’t do it, mind! :yum:

#7

Murder and mayhem is easy. And ATM I may need to write something easy.

I did think a little about doing a Foundation larp from the POV of the second foundation, but I’m not sure how it would work.

#8

Final day of NaLaWriMo, and like last year, this year has been a bit of a bust. I spent the first week thinking about whodunnits, then pivoted to a more inspiring idea of a 20/30’s occult archaeological dig. Development on that went reasonably well, except for the “occult” part (which is pretty central), where it stalled under a mountain of possibilities. And then I got distracted and wrote a lot of other things. Which were important and worthy and needed to be done, but used all my good words and thinking time on something that wasn’t a larp.

Still, at the end of it: I have half a larp, fairly well developed, waiting for the other half of the idea to fall into place. At which point it should all flow out nicely. So, not wasted, but obviously not what I’d hoped to achieve.