Newsletter

nzLARPS
#101

Speak for yourself!

But seriously, I think it’s relevant to discuss people’s reasoning for rejecting a Maori name. It’s still discussing the name.

Personally, I felt and still feel that “Tuakoi” doesn’t have any immediate resonance for most people who will see the magazine. If it was an English word it might. Or a Maori word that had some familiar aspect to it. But then, I accept the point that Maori words don’t become familiar unless they’re used somewhere in the first place. . So I’m kinda on the fence about that name.

“Persona” is still my favourite name at the moment.

  1. It says what we do, we “adopt a persona”.
  2. Despite the word having a Latin origin it’s not pretentious, because the word has been fully assimilated into common English and its meaning is recognisable by it’s similarity to “person”.
  3. It’s an elegant looking and sounding word.
  4. It has a visual metaphor - the mask - that has clear relevance to larp. Visual metaphors are nice things to have in a visual medium like a mag.
  5. While it doesn’t have a catch that makes it sound like a magazine name (like NZLARPer does), it doesn’t sound inappropriate as a mag name either. “Did you like that article in Persona about hitting stuff with swords?” Sounds pretty natural.

Derek, we’re looking at the mag being quarterly and finding ways of reducing the costs substantially. It will be supported by monthly emails. I think the mag should be a project of NZLARPS, and it should do up a project proposal and financial costing for the committee to decide on. I think the costs will be made manageable, and the advertising of events in the magazine will bring more people to the larps, which will pay for the costs of the magazine (so long as they’re not excessive). In other words, it’s a marketing cost.

If the mag is a project, that also answers the question of who decides the name of it. The creative direction of all NZLARPS projects is decided by the project team. In this case, that’s Nikki and Anna. In my opinion, we’re all just offering suggestions and arguments for them to consider.[/quote]

I agree that it is a good idea to run the newsletter as a project of nzLARPS. And Id like to thank Ryan for pointing out that in the end someone has to make a decision about the name of this magazine/newsletter. Although the debate has been, uh… interesting it does not make my and Anna’s job easier. (selfish as that sounds)

I accept that I screwed up on the cost of the first issue and the format and content could do with a lot of work but as Ryan says there will be a quarterly issue of the mag and the next one’s deadline for production is the 11/12/06. Anna and I can only learn as we go along and I can almost guarantee I will be making more mistakes along the way, but I am hoping to be able to hand over at least the semblance of successful newsletter to whoever becomes Community Officer next year.

I suspect Anna will be more the one to do this than I, but there you go.

#102

Man, I really need to get a job where I have ready internet access during the day. This thread mushroomed in the eight or so hours I’ve been away.

In a continuation of the naming debate, some further suggestions for your consideration:
Ecclectica
Eccentrica
Wonderland
Backstory
Lost Imaginations

Secondly, I’d like to address Derek’s question of whether we need a larp fanzine or not.

I obviously say yes, yes we do :wink:

I think that the larpers who are not on the internet or not habitually on the internet are in a minority for the simple reason that by not being on the internet, they are automatically pretty much out of the larp loop. We tend to forget, in our computer savviness, that Diatribe is fairly formidable for someone with little to no experience with a computer. Does this make them less valid to be a part of the wider larp community?

In any case, larp does not operate on a computer. In that same vein, nor should nzLARPS exist solely on the internet. By producing a magazine, it brings nzLARPS into another medium, one that we can hand to our friends and say “Look what I do!”. Larping has a hard time existing in the physical - if you think about, it exists only on the internet and in fleeting weekends from which we walk away with our personal experiences. Nothing tangible comes from either of these mediums. A magazine would be a tangible product of larp.

It’d also be kind of neat to have a recorded history of larp that’s more than a scattered collection of forums across the wide plains of the internet.

#103

Another name suggestion: Chameleon.

#104

Nice. Or, less subtley:

Shapeshifter

or

Metamorph

#105

You forgot Dopplegänger :wink:

#106

Actually, it was a political statement. Too long have we been force-fed German culture. The time has come to rise up against our oppressors! Etc.

#107

I see through your thinly veiled deceptions ! The real Ryan Paddy has a soft spot for sauerkraut. Perhaps the reason you did not mention doppelgänger is because you are the doppelgänger in Ryan’s form !

#108

Nein! Du bist ein kleinen vogel!

One year of German, and for some reason that’s always the first phrase that jumps to mind.

#109

“No, you are a small breakfast cereal!”

At least, I seem to recall that Vogels is a brand of cereal.

Ah, now we’re back to informed, sensible debate. :unamused:

-edit- After a recent trip to the supermarket, it appear that Vogels is a brand of bread.

#110

Just out of curiosity are magazine names that use single words (those that are used in everyday speech such as facade etc) protected by copyright? I don’t think it should be a problem even if it is as I did a quick google search on the names people have been suggesting and I only got one hit and that was for a student magazine in the US. But google is hardly an exhaustive list of New Zealand publications so it might be something we need to look into :confused:

btw the hit was for Persona

#111

Fuck that.

For an “every day speech” word I don’t think we’d have to be worried about copyright. Even media-specific names of papers aren’t copyright sacred, think of how many “Star” papers there must be. We’d only have to be careful with giving it a name already operating in our zone. So we won’t call it the Listener and we should be ok.

#112

Some more suggestions: :laughing:

Squigles
Scratchings
Scratches
Strokes
Words

#113

I’m hesitating posting this as this might be too weird/esoteric but how about “The Fourth Wall” or some kind of twist on that idea?

#114

Thats kinda cool.

#115

Ooh, I like The Fourth Wall

Tuakoi is starting to grow on me too.

For the record, I’m against using words with French, German, Latin, Japanese, or Swahili flavours. It would feel too much like an avant garde Art magazine.

#116

And don’t use anything Dutch, 'cos they’re all annoying, racist idiots.

p.s. I love The Paper Face, Tuakoi and The Fourth Wall.

#117

Do people think that Larpzine, which I quite like is too boring a name?

#118

Not terribly keen on larpzine personally. Now that I’ve seen so many imaginative suggestions, it would feel weak to revert to something obvious.

Personally I don’t like The Paper Faces at all either. It’s irrelevant, a reference to an obscure song lyric that has nothing to do with larp. I don’t find it imaginative, I find it derivative of something that has no relevance to larp.

#119

Here are names that have been brainstormed so far:

Tuakoi

NZLARPer

Play

Imagine

Ersatz

Faker

Pretend

Masks

Masquerade

Interactive

Interact

Character

Enstage

Larphter

larp-zine

Facade

magine

Mindset

Alternique

Purakau

Larpernomicon

The Masque

Masque

The Paper Face

Pathos

Chimaera

Volition

Vagary

Gemynd

Nacent

Diegesis

Persona

Verse

Create

Lonely Pages

Ecclectica

Eccentrica

Wonderland

Backstory

Lost Imaginations

Chameleon

Shapeshifter

Metamorph

Dopplegänger

Squigles

Scratchings

Scratches

Strokes

Words

The Fourth Wall

Larpzine

#120

[quote=“Anna K”]I’m hesitating posting this as this might be too weird/esoteric but how about “The Fourth Wall” or some kind of twist on that idea?

I kinda like this name, but I have trouble with the implications.

The fourth wall is almost always used in reference to moments when characters address the audience, as in breaking the fourth wall when a character makes an aside to the audience that isn’t part of the fiction. Like what Alfie does. This really doesn’t have much relevance to larp, where this is an extremely uncommon technique.

I’ve never heard “the fourth wall” used in any other way. By itself it does mean a kind of suspension of disbelief, which is relevant to larp, but that’s a quite subtle implication. I think it’s just too stretched, and the main implication is a wrong one.