Hmm, I could have a go at translating the French. I’m a bit rusty, but with the aide of Google I reckon it will work.
Yes please! I’ve been reading about them, and desperately want a few. They sound really good.
Any chance of getting some Australian scenarios to round out the international flavour?
(Actually, showcasing larps from across the world sounds like an interesting exercise…)
[quote=“Ryan Paddy”]Snow White
It is set in the hours before the execution of the Queen and subsequent wedding of the Prince and Princess. A time of last chances and new beginnings.[/quote]Gosh. That could be really gruesome - in the earlier versions of the story the Queen has to dance around in red hot shoes until she dies. (Or is that Cinderella? I forget, sometimes.)
I’ve got some Austrialian larps by James O’Rance, look back a few posts. Got any leads for others?
From a game runner’s point of view, the most difficult choice would be what to do with mechanics. Many of these games have their own curious systems attached to them, and there’s a decision whether to run them in all their quirky and possibly clunky glory to give kiwis a taste of what other nations experience in mechanics, or whether to run them with systems that the runner feels would suit our audience.
Parlor Larps is a classic example of that. Reviews are generally positive about the scenarios but give the system a bit of a dogging. It’s too mechanical for my taste. Much simpler than Rules to Live By but the same problem with using mechanics for intellectual or social conflict.
Possibly we could work together? I cruised over to the site to see how my French was doing, and I was pleasantly surprised at how much of it I understood. I also still have a lot of resources (both paper and electronic) from when I did my French minor, which could be helpful. It seems like it could be a really fun exercise.
[quote]Snow White
Of all traditional fairy tales that were adapted and censored for children in modern renditions, Snow White has perhaps undergone the most change. Today’s bedtime story of an innocent princess, seven happy little men and true love forgets the original undertones of desperation, passion, poverty, and sexuality. One cannot tell the true story of Snow White without going back to a time in which men were valued only for their size and stamina, and women only for their beauty and ability to bear children; a time in which glass was so rare that a polished mirror was truly a frightening thing of magic.
Most of the original characters and a few new ones are present in this adaptation of the older, darker, and more vivid story of Snow White. It is set in the hours before the execution of the Queen and subsequent wedding of the Prince and Princess. A time of last chances and new beginnings.[/quote]
This sounds amazing. I would play this.
Apparently one of the Parlor Larps people can be contacted at jineris@gmail.com (or so say the internets…)
I’m friends with someone who knows the Parlor LARPS folk. I’ve sent her an email.
(In the world of gaming, there are only ever two degrees of separation.)
Yes, this is who I’ve emailed. Probably best not to deluge them? Unless people want to buy the scenarios personally.
There have been so many games listed here (which is great) that perhaps people need to remember that there will be other years beyond 2010 for Chimera. Or indeed potential game slots outside of Chimera … So rather than thinking which one to do, it should be which one to do next year, and then we could try …
[quote=“Anna K”][quote=“No Rectangulars”] wrote:
Hmm, I could have a go at translating the French. I’m a bit rusty, but with the aide of Google I reckon it will work.[/quote]
Possibly we could work together? I cruised over to the site to see how my French was doing, and I was pleasantly surprised at how much of it I understood. I also still have a lot of resources (both paper and electronic) from when I did my French minor, which could be helpful. It seems like it could be a really fun exercise.[/quote]
Sure. Your French is probably better than mine then. Haven’t taken a look at the games yet, but will do. Time might be a bit of a problem, seeing as I’m currently in the middle of writing my thesis and then I leave for 6 weeks immediately after handing it in. Maybe in the summer?
[quote=“No Rectangulars”]
Sure. Your French is probably better than mine then. Haven’t taken a look at the games yet, but will do. Time might be a bit of a problem, seeing as I’m currently in the middle of writing my thesis and then I leave for 6 weeks immediately after handing it in. Maybe in the summer?[/quote]
I figure on something like translation, two minds are better than one for deciphering meanings. Even if you’re away, we can do it online, or translate bits and send them to each other for cross checking. Anyway, I won’t have time to think about this kind of stuff until the end of the year since I’ve got Fleet St at the end of the month, and then Wolfgang at the end of November. I’ve also promised to write a small game for KapCon, then it’ll probably be time to start organising Chimera 2010 
Yeah, summer sounds about do-able!
Cool… by that time the French dude may have found his translation and sent it through. 
But there are other scenarios on that site, some of which may be worth a look.
I’ve heard back from J Li at Parlor Games. Their website is down but they are still selling. Here’s what J says:
[quote=“J Li”]I have both printed and PDF copies (the hard copies have an extra set of perforated character sheets and game materials). They are $10 each, 5 for $40. If you want to order, just paypal me at jineris@gmail.com and include in the notes which game(s) you want.
There’s a complete list of the 10 available games on a fan site at digitalchangeling.com/gaming … ingForest/. [/quote]
Personally I reckon NZLARPS buying 5 PDFs for US$40 sounds good. I’d go for maybe Hamlet, Snow White, Garden Station 4, A Little Magic, and Argentin. But others might have different priorities. I’ve told J that NZLARPS or other kiwis might be in touch to buy some.
J Li also noted that the rules are sometimes considered a bit “heavy and anti-immersive” by people outside the US. So we might want to do our usual sort of adaption to something lighter.
I’ve been surprised how many pregen scenarios we’ve unearthed. I figure this thread will make a good library for whenever people are looking for an existing larp to run, not just for Chimera 2010.
Personally I’ve become increasingly excited about pregen larps. I still love make-your-own-character larps too, but I think they offer quite different experiences. Pregen larps often hand the player an intensely interconnected set of relationships and personalised problems to solve, in a way that’s harder to achieve when everyone writes their own character.
Also, pregen larps can be run repeatedly, which is an unusual and useful trait within larp media. Such a huge amount of work can go into writing a larp. Being able to get hold of an existing scenario makes larping much more accessible, it cuts away a major barrier to entry. It would be great to see more international exchange of scenarios, I think it would help the international larp writing culture to mature. EDIT: and for people writing larps, it’s nice to know that others will get play out of them beyond the initial run.
I’ve created a page on the RPGnet wiki as a central list of larp scenarios, with links to where they can be downloaded from. I’ve just put a couple in so far, free to edit it and add more.
Yep, that’s Snow White. I don’t remember what happened to Cinderella’s stepmother, but her stepsisters had their eyes pecked out by birds on their way to and from the wedding.
Some descriptions of some titles in play can be found in John Kim’s LJ: Hamlet, Queen of Spades, All Saints Eve, Garden Station 4, and The Mirror Room.
jhkimrpg.livejournal.com/tag/larp
(I heard back from my friend, but you’ve already tracked down J Li so that’s cool. I’ve since thought of another friend-of-friend route to them - I wasn’t kidding about the two-degrees-of-separation thing…)
[quote=“Anna K”][quote=“No Rectangulars”]
Sure. Your French is probably better than mine then. Haven’t taken a look at the games yet, but will do. Time might be a bit of a problem, seeing as I’m currently in the middle of writing my thesis and then I leave for 6 weeks immediately after handing it in. Maybe in the summer?[/quote]
I figure on something like translation, two minds are better than one for deciphering meanings. Even if you’re away, we can do it online, or translate bits and send them to each other for cross checking. Anyway, I won’t have time to think about this kind of stuff until the end of the year since I’ve got Fleet St at the end of the month, and then Wolfgang at the end of November. I’ve also promised to write a small game for KapCon, then it’ll probably be time to start organising Chimera 2010
Yeah, summer sounds about do-able![/quote]
Sounds like a plan! I had a flick through some of the other larps up there. There’s an interesting looking Agatha Christie one based on The Mirror Cracked (which, coincidentally, I was just reading literally a week ago). Some others caught my eye, but most of them seem to be for around 6-10 players (plus un organisateur)
I’ve also found out about the game below. I gather it’s about the restless spirits of a group of people who have died together on a train, and according to one player it’s very nice. What’s on the website is not the complete game, but the author has offered to pull the rest of what’s needed together, but it may takes some time to do so. If anyone is interested in running it then let me know and I’ll put you in touch with the author.
After Life
hkn.eecs.berkeley.edu/~alchen/parlor/after_life/ [color=#BF0000](SPOILERS in the full character writeups)[/color]
The game is set some time in the future, beginning on a high-speed train traveling from Los Angeles to San Francisco. Players take on the roles of the passengers of one car, whose lives are unexpectedly cut short during a tragic accident. However, the regular mechanisms of the afterlife are somehow suspended, leaving the dead to find their own way to a final reward or punishment. The wayward spirits may have one last chance to second-guess a lifetime of decisions…
Sounds like a load of fun…