Wow, some of those look really fun/interesting to play!
That Irish Gaming site is a real treasure trove of larp scenarios, thanks for pointing that out .
Many of their word documents appear to be infected with viruses though! If you havent a local virus scanner you may be introuble…
Ok a lot of these look a lot of fun to play in. The ones I am interested in working on the mechanics and characters and running are:
Prayers of a Porcelain Altar
The Green Fairy
Carry on Camp David
Diamond Geezers
Marin County New Age Society Cocktail party
The Shadow Play
Although the fact that there was no sci fi games this year that I noticed maybe it would be good to offer Murder on the Horizon.
That’s a very diverse list in terms genre, playstyle, and completeness of the scenarios - the Green Fairy is pretty thin on substance. What do you need to narrow the list?
In terms of horror, “A Family Matter” on the Irish Gaming site looks worth a look. For 25 players. I had a brief look at a character sheet, and they seemed genuinely macabre.
I’m considering running the game Vox from the Irish Gaming site, which would fill that science fiction gap you identified. It’s for 20 players, and is more complete than Murder on the Horizon which is only for 10. I’d quite like to run a SF intrigue game and try for decent production values.
I’d recommend anyone who might like to play a SF game at Chimera 2010 not to read the Vox scenario, it’ll spoil it.
I took that list as my short list, I actually enjoy a number of genres and don’t mind doing work to get them up to scratch, and it would be good to find out what people want to see at Chimera as well. What I have actually started doing is going to the links and checking out more about each game so I can narrow down the list myself. Which when I finally escape from Auckland again I will decide on which ones and put them up again.
Oh and if you are going to do SF then yay I will leave that totally up to you.
Ryan I will send you a PM soon, planning to run Dark Hart second weekend in December, in Wellington.
I asked French larper Thomas B (who is on the RPGnet larp forum) about French pregen scenarios. he says the following website has a number of “murder mystery” larps:
murder2000.com/Organiser/Recherche.php
However, they’re in French. And according to Thomas, and I quote, many of them “suck”. All the scenarios have been rated, so I reckon just sticking with the three or four star ones might weed out the poorer ones. Apparently the “SPSR” scenarios listed are from a professional company that went under and then gave their stuff away.
He says that one of SPSR’s scenarios “Dieu est mort” rocks. It’s a modern comedy where the players are angels and demons investigating the death of God. Thomas has done a rough translation and run in the US, and if he can find it he’ll pass it on… if we’ll return it with the English edited. Or we could just translate it ourselves - Google translate would make a reasonable start, then it could be edited. Here’s my stab at a Google-derived translation of the blurb:
God is dead
While visiting one of the parallel worlds, someone (but who?) pressed a button on the Cosmic Explorer and God has disappeared into nothingness. In the absence of a skipper, four archangels and five demon princes meet to investigate a serious metaphysical problem: where has God gone?
I emailed the guy who wrote the essay on larp that IditoSavant linked to, and he put me on to Parlor Larps as another possible source of games. It’s a US company that published a set of larp scenarios for 6-8 players. The company isn’t in operation any more, but I’m getting in touch with one of the people involved to see if the scenarios are still available.
There’s some info about the games here and here. They have a bunch of games in different genres. Some are modern and dark, others are re-takes of classic stories. For example:
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.
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.