Many are one-offs, and some of the older games probably didn’t leave much of a trace, but for those that exist still on the internet somewhere I agree it would be worth linking to them/uploading documents for them. 
There’s a chunk of Auckland live combat stuff missing that happened prior to Portal Games forming in 1990.
- A big event on North Head run by the “Dragonslayers” that @Derek thought happened around 1980. I’ve never gotten a reliable source to add it to Wikipedia. Around 10 years ago Derek gave me a name for a GM who I (apparently) never tried to contact, I’ve just now followed up with him on Facebook. I did find this article that mentions Dragonslayers: https://web-beta.archive.org/web/20071021093114/http://www.comics.org.nz/wiki/index.php/Mark_One_Comics
- Auckland uni roleplay club AMERICA ran live combat games, including at least one in the massive Stony Batter tunnels on Waiheke Island. That’s what inspired Portal Games.
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[quote=“Ryan_Paddy, post:34, topic:21558”]
Auckland uni roleplay club AMERICA ran live combat games, including at least one in the massive Stony Batter tunnels on Waiheke Island. That’s what inspired Portal Games.[/quote]
Do we have a year for these?
I would have to defer to @Derek for that too, I was at high school and don’t know who else was involved to ask. But starting pre 1990 for sure.
My current email and social media doesn’t date back far enough to recall precise years, but we ran a Christchurch Vampire the masquerade game for around three years, I think 1997-1999 maybe?
There was also a Sabbat game, I think run across about 18 months in 2003-2004 maybe?
On Buckets - I do recall a GrandStrat/LARP run in 1994 based on war in Europe. I certainly remember there being a full on costume LARP in 1996 but I can’t recall the topic.
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David Harrop has done some more work, though on Facebook. I’ve integrated his changes, though I’ve gone with dates of first games.
Edit to add: He’s also added a writeup about Hymarghen.
Edit to add again: And another massive update from David on Facebook. This’ll take a while to work out what the changes are.
I think we need an updated version!
Its wiki, so anyone can contribute to it. Just scroll up and hit the “edit” button.
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In 1983, I played in a D&D based LARP run by either TKS (Tiddlywink and Knucklebone Society) or TTN (Tonight’s the Night) which was run at Stoney Batter on Waiheke island. The following year, I crewed in a similar LARP at the tunnels on defence force land at Shakespeare Park at the end of Whangaparaoa peninsula. The latter had really high production values, including fireworks, and dry ice. I remember helping to dig two holes in the beach in which we hid, covered by blankets and sand, and when the players were led (by an NPC guide) between the holes on their way to the start of the adventure (or so they thought) we erupted in a totally unexpected ambush.
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Edit it in!
I still need to dig up stuff about Chapter Victoria. Sadly, not enough of Salient (the VUW student magazine) is online.
I’ve been through my old diaries, and can confirm that the Whangaparaoa game that I crewed in occurred on 2nd March 1985. I am unsure who exactly organised it, but it could have been DragonSlayers (or possibly AMERICA which had just come into existence).
The Stoney Batter game that I played in was probably on 7th May 1983 (first weekend of the May holidays). This was the 3rd (or 4th) such game because there were stories told about previous games, and for example, the Purple Worm encounter was a given because it had occurred at all previous games. I believe it was organised by the members of a University Club called TTN (Tonight’s The Night) which was a boardgaming / roleplaying / social cricket / drinking club, which gave the impression of being a group of friends who had worked out how to get AUSA to help fund their activities. A number of the members ended up with roles in student politics. Among the players in this game were John Broad (president of AUSA - who I don’t think had ever roleplayed before), Neil Reid, John Rodger, John Rattray, and John Haber, who were all involved in Student politics.
I played a Monk with 6 hit points (cf a fighter with 10, and up to 3 more based on the amount of armour worn). My special abilities included being able to block blows with my arms (encased in foam and cardboard), and land blows with the edge of my hands (wearing vinyl gloves), and being able to meditate twice during the game to recover 2hp each time (this was the equivalent of a healing potion, which consisted of a 500ml can of DB Double Brown which had to drunk in its entirety in order to recover 2hp). Weapons were tightly rolled newspaper covered with parcel tape. By time this game occurred, there was already a saying that “Monk’s die first”. Although I did not survive the day, I didn’t die first, and acquitted myself well, including landing blows on an Assassin who had just murdered a fighter from behind as they stood around a chest trying to decide how to divvy up the loot. I believe that Scoff (Mark Scofield) was the original Monk who “Died first” in the first version of the game.
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Awesome that you have those details with dates in diaries Brent.
Interesting to hear about TTN, my brother Brendan went to one of those Stoney Batter games I believe (with @Derek I think?) and I’d always thought it was with AMERICA. Maybe they took over some later runs of it, or copied the concept?
There was definitely a membership overlap between TTN and AMERICA, but the latter only came into existence in 1984 (if my memory is correct).
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I wonder when the first Stoney Batter game was, and whether there were other live combat larp scenarios (as opposed to battle games) before that? This places NZ right at the start of live combat scenarios internationally - they started around 81-83 in the US and UK.
Also, if it was a university club, I wonder if there’s anything in Craccum? Their archive up till 1990 is online here
Found one, the April 19, 1983 edition of Craccum (p 23):
In today’s money, that price is ~$70 / $82. Steep for a day game, but cheap for a weekend.
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Nice find! Amazing to have documented evidence like that.
I see the same ad in the April 12th edition. Did you try going further back? If this was the 3rd or 4th event as Brent says, I wonder if we can find ads for the first ones. Or for the Whangaparaoa game.
Any idea who RAF or JWB might be?
Here’s one from Sep 28, 1982.
Richard foster is described as one of the “leading lights” of TTN in an early edition, 20 Jul 1982.
There’s a pic of Richard Foster in 13 Jul 1982 as he was running for something.
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From Sep 22, 1982, in an article about disputes over Stoney Batter:
This one shows it as TTN running the games there, so presumably they had run at least one before this date.
Can’t find anything else in 1982 or 1981 by searching for Waiheke, TTN, A.M.E, and some other random searches.