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Big Multilarp Events

LARP Olympics
KingCon: 2001, sponsored by Dream Knights & Knight Realms in the Pocono mountains of Pennsylvania, is sponsoring a series of competitions for LARPers. The events seem to be live-combat oriented and are aimed more towards combat than roleplaying, but the convention promises other events and demos and since it's the closest thing to a multigroup event like those in the UK, we thought it worth comment. The "Con" is being run at Camp Lindenmere, which is the site for Mike Ventrella's NERO Alliance's Ashbury campaign, but it isn't clear from the Ashbury homepage whether or not the group is actively involved with Dream Knights & Knight Realms. At any rate, it's a LARP friendly location. LARP Olympics events run from "One Man Tourney" and "Live Knife Throw," to "Best Made Boffer Weapon," and "Bridge Battle." The Con also advertises a Live Web Broadcast and Broadcast on Public Access TV.    http://www.dreamknights.com/kingcon_f/kingcon.html

LRPGA "Crossover Campaign"
Along similar lines, KingCon promises the premiere of the L.R.P.G.A. (Live Role Playing Game Association) Crossover Campaign. The Campaign is so far being supported by Dream Knights , Knight Realms, and Fire LARP, and ran a successful playtest or inaugural event August 4th, featuring a turkey feast, merriment, and battling with undead hordes. Like all post Camarilla attempts at creating a shared universe for this or that genre, we're interested but reserved. Having been cynical, things that bring LARPers together and allow them to experience what other groups are running are good. We wish luck.

General News

Ford Ivey leaves NERO, founds new Campaign
Ford Ivey -- considered a founding luminary of NERO -- has left the organization he started fourteen years ago and is in the process of starting and promoting a new live combat game called The Isles. A rules system play test was scheduled during late July in Eastern central Virginia area. Ford says, "The new game has had a great many skills built into it that will make it far more roleplaying-laden than NERO ever was (even us old guys can learn), though it is still a long term game, playing the same character and allowing him (or her) to develop over a series of events." Ford launched one of the most successful live LARP systems ever, and we can't help but think that a system built with fourteen more years of experience seems promising indeed!

Doug Bischoff resigns as XPI President, VP of Fantasy
Doug Bischoff, a principal founder, and the primary shareholder in the Pennsylvania based Xanodria Productions, Inc., announced at an annual shareholder's meeting that he would be stepping down as President, and in his VP role through which he is principally responsible for the group's popular Medieval Fantasy game, in order to devote more time to his work and home life. Bischoff was a founding member of the Xanodria group, founded in 1991, and the principal shareholder in the XPI corporation founded in 1993, and has headed the Medieval Fantasy genre for all or most of that period. The XPI directors are working to establish new officers for both positions.

The turnover in leadership has created uncertainty as to the future of XPI's Horror Genre. The group produces two game genres, a popular medieval fantasy game, and a horror game which is not as widely attended. The need to focus on maintaining the older and more populous fantasy genre has created a vacuum, and it is uncertain if XPI will continue to produce Horror after the final two games of the 2001 season.

Worldcon Needs Women...
But they'll settle for games. Mark A. Santillo, Deputy Head of Gaming for WorldCon 2001 in Philadelphia PA from August 30 to September 3, was looking for games as recently as last month. They didn't say they were looking for LARPs, but WorldCon has hosted LARP events in the past, and says that all types of gaming and role-playing are invited. For information about running games (and the clock is ticking folks) contact them at gaming@milphil.org. For con information, try: http://www.milphil.org.

RTLB Supernatural
Interactivities Ink has released a support book for its Rules to Live By LARP system. RTLB Supernatural includes Rules for Psionics, Magic, Sanity, and Supernatural Beings. Jim MacDougal's warhorse theatre-style LARP "Marin County New Age Society Cocktail Party" will be out in the coming month from Interactivities Ink.    http://www.interactivitiesink.com/larps/index.html

LARP Magazines Online
Time In, the UK Live Roleplay Webzine, launched a new issue in early July this year, after a long hiatus. Check it out at - http://www.lrp-index.org.uk/zine

Panclou the magazine of Nordic LARP is still offering its SEX issue at - http://hylsy.roolipeli.net/panclou/

Critical Miss isn't specifically a LARP magazine, but it does carry an article on LARP and as before, the "Magazine for Dysfunctional Roleplayers" is simply so funny you will wet yourself.    http://www.criticalmiss.com

Need a Forum?
Pagga operates general LARP forums under Tripod, and also provides forums for "any ongoing LARP that needs one." If you aren't up to setting up your own Yahoogroup, give them a try. The discussions are relatively lively and have recent posts. The events listed are mostly British, and the focus looks more European than U.S.    http://www.pagga.com/

Full Length Theatre Style Roundup

Having decided that trying to site Ivory-billed woodpeckers was too easy, we decided to take up a challenge and report on the dwindling field of Full Length Theatre Style Games. To quote a well-intentioned opponent - when we raised this question on the LARPA newsgroup, "Full Length Theatre Style Games haven't gone away - there just isn't anyone running them."

This is a genre for which we have an admitted weak spot. The ILF, the predecessor of LARPA (that's our publisher, capiche?...a good group and one well worth giving a look at) was largely organized by and for Full Length Theatre Style gamers, and in its previous incarnation as Metagame magazine The LARPer catered to the Full Length aficionado.

2001 was set to be the year of return for the Full Length games, but so far it hasn't worked out.

Golden Aeon
VIA has already announced an out-and-out cancellation of its Golden Aeon, with an indefinite reschedule date "sometime in 2002, probably December." Nice specificity there, though since the game had already cancelled once it isn't too surprising. VIA is offering the handful of registrants refunds or allowing conversion to a more successful Washington area campaign game, in which one of the GMs is a participant. Our sources (one of which is this editor) think the game will eventually see the light in 2002, but aren't putting any large bills on it.

Myriad Saga
In the not-quite-as-depressing category (subhead: science fiction) "choose your own alien" game, Naked Beneath Our Straight Jackets' Myriad Saga has announced a postponement until September 13-15, 2002. The postponement seems fairly solid, and the group has begun aggressively promoting the new dates, including the first "all naked LARP plug." Our sources tell us the game is likely to come together and run on the new dates, and the cancellation hasn't seemed to cause a downturn in player loyalty, with the game starting to generate a ripple of excitement.

The Myriad Saga is set in a Galaxy where several forms of life have been living, evolving, colliding and interacting in a variety of ways, most but not all of which are fairly violent, competitive, and unpleasant.

There are a number of treaties and stand-offs in effect -- some of which involve the neutrality of a certain area of space. Suddenly in this disputed area, a huge, constructed object of mysterious origin has appeared, sparking a lot of action on the part of these precariously balanced factions. Some have moved to claim it, others to dispute those claims, others to try to form alliances to research it, still others to accuse their enemies of placing it for some outrageous reason or other.

Now for those that haven't rolled over...

Grand Prix
VIA is on schedule to produce Grand Prix October 5-7 at the Days Hotel, Timonium, Maryland (Baltimore area). The game promises fast cars and espionage and embodies some frankly risky computer tech, but our sources (likely biased as one of them is our editor) tell us that all will be pulled off to spectacular result. We'll wait and see, but the basic concept seems sound and despite some late character hints, the game seems to be shaping up. The GMs say they have enough to run with 28 players but want fourteen more registrants to fully flesh out the game.

Drink Deeper
Drink Deeper is running February 22nd - 24th, 2002 at the Days Hotel, Timonium, Maryland (Baltimore area). The "play your own character" game is made up of literary characters and John Myers Myers' Silverlock "Commonwealth of Letters" is used (very loosely) as a backdrop and continuity mechanism. Insider gossip says that the game is actually shaping up fairly well, and the talk that has begun to flow makes it sound like this event will actually run as advertised. Drink Deeper has the odd distinction of being a sequel without original authors...the original Drink Deep staff is entirely uninvolved in the production of the sequel, but has given the new crew blessings and spoken well of them.

Bottle Rocket
For several years Wilmark Dynasty (under which name John Corradin and Lee McCormick published some now rather hard to find tabletop fantasy RPG supplements in the early 80s) has run one or two small conventions at the Crystal Inn in North East Maryland, just south of the Pennsylvania line. That's about halfway between Philadelphia and Baltimore. Most years a LARP of some kind has been featured. The folks there are a wonderful, friendly crowd and the convention is very low key.

This year's LARP event is BottleRocket, August 31 - September 2, 2001. I've yet to find a web page, but you can send inquiries to John Corradin - Laranteer@aol.com

Bottle Rocket is a retro pulp game set in an alternate past where WWII never happened and the 1950s is seeing an all out race for the moon, between heroic test pilots and even meddlesome kids cobbling together a rocket in the backyard. The overall feel seems charming and Heinleinesque. It would be hard for a game to have a better pedigree - Rick Dutton was involved with Walt Frietag in the very first Theatre Style Full Length games that ran under the "Rekon" title at SF Cons in Boston during the early 80s, and also with other early groups, and ranks as one of the fathers of the genre.

Torch of Freedom
The Torch of Freedom, set to run June 14-16, 2002 at (somehow I think this comes as no surprise) Days Hotel, Timonium, Maryland is set during the revolutions of 1848. The pitch is "In 1848, a wave of revolutions swept across Europe. Every single one of them failed. This is not the story of those revolutions. This is the story of how one of those revolutions might have occurred if it had been filmed in Hollywood starring Errol Flynn and Basil Rathbone, if masked avengers had prowled the rooftops of the capitol, and if everyone carried rapier." You can't get much better founded than a game which is mostly written, and has six GMs who have run Full Length Theatre Style games before. If there is a player base out there, the game will run, and we're only hoping to see Torch ramp up its promotional activities starting at Intercon XVI.

Torch is the brainchild of Bruce Glassco, who wrote most of its text. Bruce was also one of the primary talents behind both 1897: Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee and All Quiet on the Potomac. Bruce also has a short game, Nepenthe to his credit, available from the LARPA Gamebank. A rare crossover artist from print literature, Bruce is a member of the Science Fiction Writer's Association, with seven professionally published stories.

Bruce's partners in crime include Brian Altmiller, who worked with him on 1897: Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee; and Rebecca Ellis, (also of Myriad Saga) whose credits include the full length Pax Romana, and the Outpost Chi campaign, work with XPI Horror, Aura Medieval Fantasy, and a string of short works including Biosphere (not based on the Pauly Shore monstrosity) and the Gonzo Bugfuck Game. Veteran GM Suzanne Miller's single full length credit is When the Wind Blows, however her resume includes the near full length City of Light, crowd-pleaser Hairball, the widely run Mariner Station, and several other short credits. Walter Neill worked with Bruce on All Quiet on the Potomac, and Paul Wayner was an original writer and GM for Diamond Jubilee.

If you have a game or event you wish to publicize through this site, please contact our Submissions Editor.