Running existing games at Chimera 2010

Auckland Chimera
#41

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.

#42

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.

#43

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.

wiki.rpg.net/index.php/LARP_Scenarios

#44

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.

#45

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…)

#46

[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 :open_mouth:

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)

#47

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…

#48

Sounds like a load of fun…