Reading Deleuze At Airports

Playground Worlds finally online!

2009-12-18T16:22:18Z

Today Playground Worlds, the book of Solmukohta 2008, was finally published online. It contains some really essential stuff, such as Emily Care Boss' summary of Forge theory, Heidi Hopeametsä's excellent paper on Ground Zero, and the Jeepform primer by Tobias Wrigstad. It also contains what I consider my best article so far, Kaprow's Scions, about larps possibly being the next stage of Happenings. (And despite what Wille Ruotsalainen, says, the continuity does indeed exist, in currents that were introduced into larping after it was already invented.)

My old subjective review of the book can be found here. Download and read the whole book. It's really great.

Burst of Energy,.

2009-12-18T11:42:05Z

My larp, The Critic as Artist, was accepted a week ago to the first period of Human|Culture. I have been wrapping it up to play-readiness this week. I also got my Knutepunkt essay done and sent in, pre-read a bit more of colleagues' texts, and started wrapping up the second article with Andreas. Will finish the projects on Monday, and then take a break from writing academia, at least for a couple of weeks.

Orchard, Season II, Session 9

2009-12-10T17:14:09Z

Heidi couldn't attend this session, but we did have our now-traditional "pikkujoulu" game. We started off at the paris temple, with the women staying with the sisters, and Jere in the janitor's house on the inner yard. There's talk about missing people, all of them overweight adults who have vanished from their own apartments, apparently, and who lived near the Temple. I preparation of the flight to Canada, jere sells away the guns they have collected. Amelie takes some liquid courage and calls her father. Nyx, in turn, has to discuss Amelie's drinking problem, but does not state anything really definitive about it. Amelie donates a bottle of zone-cognac to the cultists, who are very pleased.

Nyx goes looking for her favorite teacher, a heavy-set older woman. She's not to be found, but Nyx senses the smell of apples coming from her closed room. Meanwhile, Jere is walking on the courtyard, and also smells apples. he looks in through the window, and sees a gaunt, Gollum-like figure eating the remains of a fat woman. He charges in through the window, at which point the creature - actually resembling a naked, extremely anorexic young girl - fades away into nothing.

Avoiding the blood on the floor (which the creature had also apparently been slurping away, leaving no traces), Jere simply starts coolly looting the room (prompting commentary on D&D and Praedor from me and other players...) He finds a Lobster's Eye, a Weight, a loaded shotgun, books ranging from Pillman's studies to an Anarchist Cookbook, a strange artifact resembling a fist-sized sea urchin, and other curios. He steals just the Eye, and goes to the door. he sees Nyx out there, pacing, and calls her in. "Come, something terrible has happened." A it of hesitation, and she follows.

She sees the semi-eaten remains and tries to run & scream, but Jere grabs her by the mouth with his good hand, and stops her. He explains things, she clams down, but they argue about whom to tell, and what to say, as Jere's presence there is indeed more than a bit problematic. Eventually Nyx goes to inform her cult, and Jere immediately returns the stolen Eye to the nightstand from which he took it.

At the same time, a somewhat sloshed Amelie is on the phone with her father. He is hosting a dinner party at a hellishly expensive restaurant, and asks Amelie to bring a friend along, for conversation. Amelie blurts out that she's not with Jere, but has a Canadian boyfriend now. She decides to take Runner along, and buys her a pretty dress and a good hairdo. As one can expect, it's a bunch of diplomats with their spouses at the dinner. One couple from Cameroon, one from somewhere North Africa, one from the Far East. They are really keen on hearing "true Stalker" stories (think of the woman at the car in the Tarkovsky movie). Runner starts to tell, Amelie kicks her quiet. While people are talking, Amelie's father is clearly putting the moves on Runner, who's socially quite oblivious.

At the temple, Jere is reporting his experiences in the room, excluding strategic details. They get a sketch done of the thing's face, and the sisters then disperse. At the six-course dinner, Runner is getting drunk while Amelie has been served just watered-down stuff. Realizing this, she drinks some zone-cognac from her hip flask, shouts at her father, and leaves. As Runner is practically in her dad's arms by now, she recommends that she drink the most expensive stuff in the restaurant, at his expense. She then goes to call Frederic. A woman answers (of course), saying "'Allo", to which Amelie responds with a huge load of jealous insults. Angered further, she goes to a certain Parisian park, and hires herself a male prostitute.

The sisters do not consider Jere to be at any fault, they just ask him not to vanish anywhere while the situation is open. He gets an SMS from Amelie: "All other men let me down but you. Come pick me up with a car from the Park." He goes there, meeting a very drunk Amelie who is kissing a TS-prostitute passionately. In the car, she spends the next half-hour claiming how Jere is the only man she can trust, how horrible her dad is, what a whore Frederic had at his place, and so on." jere says she should be happy that she still has parents. Then it's "Nyx is such a lucky girl" time from Amelie. Jere: "Why is she mad at me?", to which Amelie finally gives the nearly real explanation of "She thinks you were fooling around with ... people, as you slept in so many tents."

Runner is ends up in bed with Amelie's father, for a "six-hour quickie". It's lousy sex (we let the die decide, came up 2 out of six, so crappy, but no disaster). Runner raids the fridge of all the good stuff while he sleeps, and leaves. At the Temple, Nyx and Amelie have a chat. Amelie: "Jere is a good man." Nyx: "yes, apparently for many." Amelie: "I have never, ever touched him." Nyx believes her, and they make up. Then she goes to talk with Jere, and they make peace and resolve the misunderstanding. "Do you want to come to my room", says Nyx. "A good idea", he replies. So Nyx smuggles him into her room inside the Temple.

And we ended the pikkujoulu session with Ellis' remark that "So everyone got laid - except for Cady."

Soundtrack for this session: Inade - Samadhi State; Fjernlys - Ascending Triads & Luminous Arcs; Diamanda Galas - Plague Mass.

One more Prayers run.

2009-12-09T10:39:12Z

Jaakko informed me that there has now also been a run, last Monday, of Prayers on a Porcelain Altar in Sweden. It was used as a part of the Framtidens Spel course at the University of Stockholm. A very mixed group of two women and six men, plus one person who actually walked out of the game after four minutes, claiming an interest in reading for exams rather than playing.

In general, feedback was positive, it seems, and mostly concentrated on the insults part, not any potential "plots". This, along with the feedback of the Tampere runs, makes it obvious to me that the game is rather stable, but can cause mixed feelings in players. (Both of these cases featured a player base with no previous larping experience. The "open" character and plot design makes it easy for newcomers to get into the feel of the game, and make it fit within several playing cultures, but it also causes problems: There are always questions about "whether we played it right" afterwards, etc. And I find that highly fascinating. All of the instances, however, show that my original plan to make a game optimized for 1,5 hours of playing time have succeeded very well. That time frame gives the concept time to ebb and flow, but the material won't stay interesting for longer, in most cases.

This brings the number of known Prayers runs now to an even 20.

Work and Visibility.

2009-12-08T18:47:30Z

Two notable things today: First, the morning mail brought me LarpZeit issue #26, which contains the first piece of significant text I have written in German since school two decades ago. It's a two-page piece about larp research and its significance to larpers and not just academia. I am very grateful to Karsten for the opportunity - and the linguistic corrections.

Second, this afternoon and out of, well, the proverbial blue, Anders Højsted posted a link to Greg Costikyan's entry about A Bitter Aftertaste to my FB wall. I am very pleased about the review. And the initial comments have been very interesting. I look forward to seeing how things develop.

Furthermore, I may also have reviewed four articles about larp studies today. Maybe. A highly productive day, work-work very much included.

Orchard, Season II, Session 8.

2009-11-20T11:40:21Z

(Note: The game is moving more and more into C.J. Håkansson territory, for a while at least, but I do not see that so far from the Strugatskis as other might.) We started off with the return trip of Runner and Amelie, escaping from the forest into a field of dangerous spores, living on just Amelie's zone booze for a day, and then finding the tracks of the others. They reach the river about a day later than the main group, and after crossing it (both are strong enough to survive that), they call Jere. He borrows a car from the cultists and drives to get them. They smell of old booze, and are shocked with the news of Cady having shot Becket (or what looked like him).

While the ladies warm up in their borrowed woolen cult-prospect robes, Amelie gives the coin back to Jere. There's news on the TV: some sort of calamity has befallen the town north from Toulouse, leading to a mass suicide of people - who die by screaming their throats out. At least a thousand are dead, and some survivors are building a tower out of their corpses.

A prepaid they picked up from the soldiers rings, and Jere answers with a "hello". It's someone calling from the now mutated GSK building, a scientist trapped within it, looking for help. Jere tells him to call headquarters instead, but he says they can't be reached for some reason, and he's now calling all possible numbers he has from the landline in the storage where is is. The PCs debate things for a while, ranging from "too risky, let's sell the info further and pretend we're Smith" (Cady) to "let's rescue him, as who knows what we can find in a pharmaceutical experimentation lab" (Jere...) and "let's just mail the phone anonymously to their HQ".

Runner calls back to the number, and squeezes some facts out of the scientist: They did not kill the boot crew when they got back, but they did start immediate "monkey tests" with the apples, using a Swedish backpacker as the test subject. He transformed, and they could not kill him aas they'd expected. The scientist has no idea what happened to the guy afterwards, as he went into hiding himself. The man claims that they were sacrificing for the common good, looking for a drug that could regenerate lost flesh. This makes Runner glance at Jere's missing arm. Runner then hangs up. Cady says they should not rescue him. Runner replies that since Cady already fired her, she's free to do as she likes.

There's no one week to the trial, and Albert, the lawyer (who by the way looks very much like Stephen Fry...) is even more annoyed than usual. Meanwhile, a hint of green breath has started leaking from Jere's mouth again now and then. Cady reserves them all a flight from Basel to Canada, leaving in a few days. She won't sit next to Jere, though.

Runner, settling for the rescue plan, buys a cutting torch, earning joking questions from the clerk on her possibly being a stalker. Nyx, who has been absent (doing rituals with her cult sisters, and seen nightmares, too) joins the group. The target building is under quarantine, surrounded by soldiers in raincoats (it's raining) and sporting Institute insignia. The security is lax, however, due to the trouble in the next town. The PCs sneak in, which isn't hard given their skills and the fact that they have a high-rank keycard. The building is a honeycomb of sorts, built around a large central shaft. There's an elevator system, but it's now broken, and has fleshy veins in the superstructure. There is also a damaged truck ramp, which the group follows down underground. On it are the liquified remains of some soldiers, but they get past those easily.

getting to room 516 takes some time and cutting, but they get there eventually, and none of the nuts they have thrown hit anything dangerous. The room where the man is is a storage, full of those very apples. (Meanwhile, Cady is getting her feet massaged and bathed. She notes that Dr. Orlando is sitting next to her. Orlando then makes some rather insulting small talk about her with the beauticians.) The PCs build a bridge - after some serious debate, threats and shouts like "Do I fucking look like I need killing?" plus some apple-throwing - and help the scientist across the apples. He then informs them that Orlando was once a member of Fracture's stalker team, and has been to the orchard once herself. And, furthermore, that the backpacker was named Mathias, and is probably on his way back home, to Skellefteå, by hitch-hiking.

There is the sound of soldiers entering the building. The scientist says he'll stay to talk with them, and tells the PCs of a safe exit route. As they escape, they hear lots of gunshots from behind them.

When they are out, Amelie gets drunk and goes shopping for some pretty clothes (for Canada, and re-seeing her lover), with Cady's expert help. (They then go drink the mandatory soda-lattes.) jere goes to Cafe Croissant, and meets some new "fans" there, plus hears local stalker gossip (and a comment about him looking like a certain guy in a certain famous photograph). Runner gives GSK a call, discussing passed events in a neutral tone. Cady wraps up a new, fact-flirting script. Runner complains about the lack of getting paid, Cady replies that money isn't a good source of motivation. Jere buys a commercial prosthetic arm for himself. Amelie goes to visit the temple, and Nyx to see a doctor for an ultrasound. At this point we find out that she really is pregnant. This, quite naturally, leads to Runner immediately making fun of jeremiah...

Soundtrack for this session: Converter - Exit Ritual; Iszoloscope - The Audient Void; Hecate vs. Lustmord - The Law of the Battle of Conquest.

Projects done and underway.

2009-11-19T11:30:47Z

I sent in an application for producing a larp at the Human|Culture festival, sent in my chapter for the Nordic Larp book, submitted an article proposal to the KP 2010 book, learned that Prayers had been played thrice, and well liked, at the rpg analysis course at the University of Tampere (and also once as a hybrid tabletop with Mike's Tähti) and wrote a significant chunk of both master's thesis and a forthcoming article. Quite a productive, uplifting seven-day span of time.

Next week will see at least the wrap-up of a ritual article. I need to get stuff out of my hands, so that I can concentrate on my PhD work again.

Duus' Dissertation.

2009-11-10T20:04:26Z

That most nifty of creatures, the mail-daemon, brought me today a copy of Thomas Duus Henriksen's PhD thesis, "A Little More Conversation, A Little Less Action, Please": Rethinking Learning Games for the Organisation, accepted and published a week ago. I am really, really pleased to own a copy of this book. I will make further comments about it here when I have read the whole thing properly through. And I will most certainly quote it in at least two of the papers I am currently writing, as its relevance to learning in larps is undeniable.

It also makes me happy in another way: Duus has been one of the (way too) rare people sharing our dream, the dream of turning what knowledge we have on larping so far into something that can and will benefit others, in an academically accepted format which other people will be easily able to utilize. This is one more significant step towards larps becoming a subject of study that does not need its relevance explained in advance.

Without a single speck of envy, I applaud my friend's work, and thank him for blazing the trail for the rest of us a big leap further. His triumph is a triumph for all of us.

Orchard, Season II, Session 7

2009-11-04T12:02:09Z

(Ellis busy elsewhere, Susanna was sick.) While back at the camp site, the PCs make plans for a smooth, safe exit. The Window used to enter is now risky, so they debate the merits of using Fracture's old one. Meanwhile, there is some noise coming from the orchard: Becket is back up, and heading towards them while calling out if anyone's there. Runner bolts into the woods at once, disregarding any risks there. Amelie grabs a bag and goes after her, saying she'll bring her back. Nyx sees her put something - obviously the coin - in her mouth, before she sprints into the darkness.

Cady sets down a flashlight, for illumination, and stands waiting for Becket to reach her. She has one of the looted SMGs, while Nyx and Jere wait in darkness, also armed. Nyx (who has the Night Vision trait) sees how a patch of the orchard's grass seems to form around the soldier's feet as he walks. He reaches Cady, says he's OK, survived because he was apparently just hit in his bulletproof vest (got actually sawed nearly in half with a heavy machine gun) and wants to leave the zone and avenge the murders to the lieutenant (who is actually also dead). He looks ok, but it seems to Cady as if some tiny parts of his skin were boiling. As he gazes towards the direction where Runner and Amelie went, the trees start to reorganize themselves, shuffling noisily. Nyx has a very bad feeling about all of this, now that she sees becket more clearly, and shouts this to Cady. Cady then, immediately, kills Becket by emptying her clip into him. Jere comes to back her up, but does not fire.

There are plans to go after the two missing people, but the trees now block the direct route. jere suggests they go back to find the coin where he lost it, and then return. It's now six hours until the dawn. Nyx goes to check the orchard for clues and extra loot, finding nothing new except Becket's clothing, shot to shreds. (Jere has already taken the corpses' wallets, keys and keycards, and found a picture of the lieutenant with his wife and a cancer patient -looking child). The camp is moved a bit further, away from the remains, which melt (clothing included) away as rotting flesh, and reveal that he had apparently fallen on top of an apple when he died. No one really sleeps.

At dawn, Jere insists they go back for the coin, as the trees still block the way further. A pair of rubber boots has appeared next to the treeline. They try advancing anyway, with a sporadically functioning GPS and a seemingly reliable compass. However, as Jere throws the first nut into the forest, it veers off to hit a tree and vanish. Change of plan, after a comment of throwing him into it. The next plan is to mark the exit route, leave some supplies at the cam site, and head out via the burning town and the road. Nyx, however, tells Jere that "the coin is no longer there, someone has taken it". As they start heading away, Nyx looks at the garden and sees that it's all made of pulsating, twisting flesh - or, just maybe, actually nothing at all.

The progress is slow, as they stop to wait for the others, who do not come. A camp is formed at the supermarket parking lot again. No one arrives by morning to join them. Leaving, they make a chalk map drawing at the site, but it starts raining. Nothing dangerous, but ruins the markings. So they go and pick up some spray paint (Cady: "You have something to sniff now, Jere") from the store - and Nyx takes some more baby clothes. They then leave instructions, and take a new route out, towards Fracture's Window. The way is very similar to what has been seen before, open fields and some buildings, but they play it very safe. They find some carvings on a tree, slightly resembling the ones in Canada. It's like a second attempt at grasping something alien, "the holy language" as Nyx puts it. Cady takes pictures of them.

As they reach the river, at a point outside the zone, they hide the sleds and extra gear, then swim over, nearly freezing to death (It's winter, remember?). They have warm clothes, as they pack the stuff in bags they carry over while they swim (and dry drugs, and dry baby clothes...) Cady is slower, but survives. The others witness her regenerate from the skin damage, and she has to admit to being a mutant. ("I was on the American Zone when the attack came, and that caused me to shed some dandruff occasionally.") Jere goes to hide in the woods, Nyx following him. Eventually they all huddle up for warmth, while debating what to do next.

Cady suggests calling Maria, and making Jere place that call, since she seemed to like him (and hated her, but that's not said out loud...). Nyx is jealous, and starts suspecting he has slept with Maria too. In the end, they decide against it, as it's likely that she sold the info on them to GSK in the first place. They use a prepaid phone (one Jere took from the soldiers along with cab money they also all had) to get in touch with Nyx's cult friends in Toulouse. They get picked up, eventually, and dispose of some problematic stuff in the river before leaving.

In Toulouse, the cultists are happy to welcome them. They offer them rock soup and nice conversation, while one of them is cheerily sharpening combat knives. Cady fakes being a nice, trusting friend of them all. There are also some strange news: An office building in town (the GSK base, of course), visibly twisted and turned the day before. And a local mall ate the people inside it.

Soundtrack for the session: Pacific 231 & Rapoon - Palestine; John Carpenter - Prince of Darkness OST; I.Corax - The Cadaver Pulse I: Sealed in a Radiant Larval Maelstrom

Virtual economy.

2009-10-30T14:41:41Z

I attended today Vili Lehdonvirta's defense of his doctoral dissertation, done on virtual consumption. The main subject point was the use of real-world money on virtual goods, but present were also questions such as how value is created in such systems, and whether such consumerism differs from real-world equivalents. Very interesting stuff, well written, and well defended. A couple of points (one of which I took up during the audience questions segment) are missing, but that's a small thing. The main work is very good, and written in a manner that people not so versed in economic sociology can understand. It's an important book for furher understanding of the economies of virtual worlds. And you can download it for free here. (A side note: An economist's analysis of how much the use of real money for virtual purchases in MMOs resembles the way black market dollars were used in the USSR would be a very interesting thing to see...)

Also, Thomas Duus Henriksen defended his PhD thesis on educational games last Monday, but given the distance, I could not attend. I am extremely anxious to see what he has written.

And I bought myself a copy of On the Brink, the official expansion for Pandemic, too. Testing it next week, when my son returns home.

Orchard: Season II, Session 6.

2009-10-16T17:38:17Z

We started with Cady catching up with the rest of the group, and getting explanations for what had happened. They discuss the option of reaching the orchard by either a de-tour or through the water, in order to avoid the Blood Reeds. There's also a plan to send the first people unarmed ahead, and arming those behind them with the stunners, in case they go berserk. A test shows the water is not safe: there are Paintings (areas of frozen time) in it. And a real de-tour is impossible, due to the terrain and the locational info. While they are planning, Jere realizes it's now been over 24 hours since may have touched the Web, and he is still alive.

The next attempt is to burn the reeds, after a very through talk about whether it's smart of not (the xenobotanists are found really valuable at this point) but Runner can't make it catch fire. It does react to the phosphorus grenades of the soldiers, but the fire does not spread. So there are not enough grenades. "Let's put Nyx in front, carrying a torch", someone suggests. It's two clicks, through a woodland park, to the orchard. In the end, Jere volunteers to go, but Nyx chooses to go along, too. It's not that easy: the park is cut through by small artificial brooks, over which go short, romantic, wooden bridges (the two-meter-long kind). The brooks have become overgrown with the Reed.

Nyx, still angry at Jeremiah, crosses the first bridge, and becomes enraged. Yet she follows her nature, and runs forward instead of heading back. Jere, shocked by this risky behavior, runs after her. As he's full of heroin at the moment, he remains a bit calmed, and thus grapples Nyx. The rage is catching up, though, so as she starts screaming insults, he in turn starts beating her up "in order to stop her". ("No nyt me todella ollaan kuin Matti ja Mervi", said Pauliina.) On Cady's orders, LeClerk throws a phosphorus grenade on the bridge and runs to get them. Nyx is taking as much as she's able of her dozen years of pent-up rage out on Jere. LeClerk tazes him, then kicks her swiftly in the head. As the others think he too has succumbed to the fury, and will kill her, he stops and shouts "She's pregnant - could not taze her, so I had to it this way."

There are some nasty jokes about wife-beating and the foreplay being now over, mostly from Cady. Nyx drinks up some rock-juice, and thinks it helps the pain. The group proceeds more slowly, burning the bridge areas ahead of them with grenades. LeClerk is helping the wounded Nyx, who refuses Jere's help. Cady takes point, handing Amelie her gun - the seeing of which makes Jere rather annoyed. Smith and Kripke are arguing about something private.

Eventually, near nightfall, they reach a hedge, with a large hole cut into it. On the other side is the orchard, behind a low wooden two-board fence and signs saying "Private. Keep out!" After a couple of thrown nuts, they go to the ditch, Runner at point. The lieutenant then kicks down a part of the fence. And the group is soon in the orchard itself.

It's five long rows of apple trees, still carrying bright fruit despite it being winter, and stretches past the next hill. It's rectangular in form, surrounded by fences. The first apple does not drop easily with a thrown nut, but a second nut dislodges another one. Just as the others are going to check it out, Amelie points to the nut: It's now bent into a twisted, still-mutating shape. Instant caution, and plans to camp for the night. Some arguments on the location, leading to the group splitting. The explorers note that there's a spot where the manor should be, as well as logical spots for sheds, etc. Yet there is no sign of them. There's also a strange visual effect, as if one could see the orchard somehow change, but just from the corner of the eye.

While the lieutenant is choosing campsite, Runner leaves the area from its side, going over the fence. There is nothing very special in the plains next to it, but as she's heading back, she notes that a bush next to the orchard is actually cut on the line, as if the whole orchard itself is superimposed upon the real ground and what it actually contains. She immediately runs to warn the others ("strange seeing Naomi run towards us..."). The lieutenant refuses to leave, continuing to construct what looks like a portable missile launcher. After an argument, he banishes the PCs from the orchard for the night, saying he now has command. He then fires two rockets into the sky. Smith says something snotty about the GSK crew being out of here in four hours", as they leave.

In their new camp, the stalkers try eating. Some are experiencing apple-related sensory effects again. Runner opens a tin can of meat, but it's filled with green apples (and her own apple-shaped Weight had turned red). She's about to eat it nevertheless, but gets a lecture on Fracture's fate from the others. "No apples for me from now on", she decides. Nyx's tuna is tasting like apples, but she continues to eat in on the grounds of the potential damage already being done by tasting. There are some arguments, drinking and clandestine drug use.

Two hours later, a loud sound approaches. It's a Boot, coming in fast, apparently following telemetry sent by the lieutenant via satellite. The scientists and soldiers then start packing apples into the Boot's containers. Kripke accidentally touches one, dissolves screaming, and then recovers quickly into her original form. The soldiers immediately shoot her down with heavy gunfire, finishing it all with a phosphorus grenade.

The lieutenant then exchanges a few words with the two people from the Boot (both of whom are wearing full Institute protection suits), turns towards the others, and shoots them all - both remaining soldiers and Smith, too. He then commits suicide with a bullet to the head, and the Boot drives away.

After recovering from the initial shock, the PCs approach the camp, wondering if Lt. Artaud sent them away for arguing or for their own protection. Nyx stays behind, to watch their gear. Smith is still alive, but won't tell them anything beyond "the apples are not really apples". Grabbing what they find useful and can carry (food, weaponry, lights, tools) the PCs then return to camp, to ponder their next move. The mood is quite paranoid, yet curious, too.

Soundtrack for this session: Sleep Chamber - Sirkle Zero; Niko Skorpio - XXII/XI; Inade - The Incarnation of the Solar Architects.

And a special request at his point, out of curiosity: Is anyone beyond our game group reading these? If yes, please drop a comment saying that you are.

Neo-Retro-Larping.

2009-10-13T18:43:08Z

Heiccu gave me a copy of a new Danish larp world book, Jarkwelt, by Thomas Kerff and Claus "International Man of Mystery" Raasted. She even got a nice inscription to me in it, from Claus.

It's a funny item: A pretty hard-cover in Danish, with such a traditional, cliche-filled role-playing world that one simply has to adore its purity. A hundred pages, with next to no rules (so very different from a German larp book) and some costume pictures, for the mandatory Orcs, humans and various Elf types - and of course also Pirates and Vikings. It's silly, at least to an experienced role-player, but it has a wonderful pick-me-up-and-play charm that triumphs over both questions of originality and any demands for innovation.

It looks damn playable, and that's what counts in a land like Denmark where a game any youth can pick up and organize on rather short notice is very much worth doing. The contrast to other recent, more generic role-playing books I have heard about, especially Leppälahti's tract here in Finland (which I have not yet seen), is quite fascinating.

Orchard: Season II, Session 5

2009-10-09T11:42:24Z

Heidi was sick, but the rest were present. So Cady had to camp and wait. Meanwhile, a happy Nyx just walks into the area, having gotten her clearance and then followed the nuts. Smith is very happy about Cady being left behind. They start moving ahead, with Jeremiah at point. He's looking for a place to shoot up again. After a while, there's a group of concrete houses, surrounded by a field of metal growths - probably the remnants of a power grid or an array of some kind. They cam, Jere goes in one of the buildings, and takes some heroin. There's a marvelous, four-dimensional metal contraption inside, and he calls Amelie to check it out. When she and Nyx enter, Nyx sees the room is full of the lethal, normally invisible web.

While Jere is recovering from shock, Amelie and Nyx debate the issue of the coin. Amelie says it should be destroyed, and says it'll be a kind of "returning" it to the zone. Nyx disagrees, wanting to keep it in case it will be needed. Amelie makes her promise not to tell Jere about it, as they decide on keeping it for now.

The road goes on, now in asphalt. They come across a strange, wide, invisible, curtain-like distortion in space, leading to a cold place. Nuts thrown in seem to skip a bit of space, and a branch Smith inserts does not appear on the other side, but can be pulled back (slightly frozen). Kripke and Smith experiment with it, and see via half-inserted binoculars that it seems to lead to the Russian zone. Amelie thinks it's distasteful, as "The French zone is, after all, a bit more refined than the others." After much debate, the group decides to attempt to cross the breach. LeClerk, one of the soldiers, goes first. He passes the anomaly safely. The others then follow.

While in the Russian snow, Runner stops to "tie her shoelaces", and actually hits the shock device with a hammer (the control for it now being in Amelie's hands). She gets a terrible shock as it breaks, and collapses. Jere, with just one arm, and Brionne, the body-builder botanist, carry her out. Just as they are crossing, Runner falls to the ground, as the anomaly has suddenly closed, and all they have left of Brionne (whom they all had really liked) is a pair of bloody hands - the rest probably bleeding in Russia.

The next stop (and camp site) is on the outskirts of a small town, on the parking lot of a shopping mall bombarded by randomly appearing mosquito manges. Jere is drinking rock soup, when Nyx hears the soldiers talk about how Jere has been (supposedly) fucking Amelie. Nyx turns suddenly cold towards him, without explaining why. The night is illuminated by houses in the distance, houses which are burning at one moment, normal the next, in a strange flash-pattern. Nyx throws Jere out of their tent, sleeping alone. He goes to share the tent with the now-deaf Beckett - who is using steroids as he enters, and offers Jere some. They have a nice time chatting.

Meanwhile, amelie is really yearning for booze, and persuades Nyx and Runner to join her for an exploration of the mall. "Girls' shopping night", as they call it. Some parts of the store are ok, despite the manges, but some places on the roof are showing strange stars in the sky. Amelie picks up liters of possibly contaminated cognac, Nyx takes baby clothes (in green) and Runner finds her some metal tools that look like stuff from Dead Ringers. Amelie then gets drunk, tells Jere to go sleep with Runner, and has sex with Beckett (or attempts - she's really drunk and he's been a steroid user for a long time). The others hear everything through the tent.

The morning comes with beginning hang-over and some pointed jokes aimed at Beckett. Nyx has now witnessed Amelie's behavior first-hand, and ponders it and Jeremiah. The group proceeds further into town, lit with the fires, covered in the stench of strange smoke. There's stuff like a train announced and then coming, followed by that repeating over and over again at a fast interval. At the end of the day, they have reached the other side, and are now on the edge of a lake, one day away from the Orchard. The baks of the lake are supposedly filled with Blood Reed, but there is no good way around it. Runner says that since Cady isn't there, he has to be the one to ask everyone to disarm their weapons and prepare for berserker rages in the day to come.

Soundtrack for this session: Keith Howden & Matt Howden - The Matter of Britain; Foundation Hope - Our God is a Consuming Fire; Corpoparassita - Bambinocheride.

Roolipelaaja Magazine dead.

2009-10-06T18:58:41Z

The Finnish role-playing magazine, Roolipelaaja, was declared dead today. The scene, while large enough in principle, was not interested in buying enough copies to make it economically viable. I am very disappointed, but not really surprised.

Anyway, it was a great mag while it lasted, and offered solid contributions to the field - at least for those interested in role-playing in general, and not just an auto-erotic bunch of game minutiae. It will sorely be missed. I am very glad that I was given the chance to contribute to it several times. And, also, a bit bitter towards the people who failed to see useful connections between game types, skipping, say, all larp texts instead of trying to think "what can I adapt from this to my tabletop". But to each his own. I never saw the appeal of a magazine like Magus, but many others did. A thanks to the editors and financiers, as well as everyone who contributed to what was essentially always a community effort.

Orchard pictures.

2009-10-01T07:14:36Z

Ellis has posted a few of her drawings from our Stalker campaign online, at http://luutar.deviantart.com/gallery/ The captions are unfortunately in Finnish only, but I think most readers following the game reports are locals, anyway, so it should not be a big problem.

Siege Mentality revisited.

2009-09-30T14:14:14Z

I celebrated my birthday by organizing a re-run of Siege Mentality II, the zombie-survivor minilarp I have been developing with Roger Gammans and ran at Ropecon. It was again quite a success. I did gather 10 or so small things in need of changing, so the text will see some further revisions before release. A special thanks goes to Senni, who offered us an excellent space for playing the game.

Also, I have been accepted as a researcher-member to the Finnish Association for Sexology. That will help in my continuing studies regarding BDSM and sexual role-playing.

Orchard: Season II, Session 4.

2009-09-23T19:14:02Z

Pauliina too exhausted from work, and our potential guest star too exhausted from school work. Thus Nyx was delayed from getting a permit to enter the zone, due to her background of having stolen from the Institute. The rest of the group met the project leader, Dr. Orlando, a very stern, short middle-aged woman. She tells them the project specs (guide team to site, use vacuum bags to bring back as many apples as possible), deals out the equipment, and introduces the rest of the team. And mentions that they have bought preliminary information from Maria.

There is a lieutenant, Artaud, and three soldiers: Becket, Kirby and LeClerk, all four appear to be former legionnaires, and all are defintely experienced. And probably getting steroids from GSK, for whom they now work. They are huge. As is one of the three botanists, Brionne. The other two are a middle-aged man named Smith and a woman in her late 30, Kripke. The final member is Fukuyama, a female xenozoologist. The PCs, except Runner (who is actually eating apples for breakfast) seem to taste the sour, sickly apple on their tongue once again. Orlando, who will not be coming, then shows them a Canadian newspaper online, displaying Amelie's magnificent photo of Jere kissing Millicent to death. Runner breaks into an uncontrollable laugh. A bit later, they drive to the old window in a mini-bus, escorted by two armed UN jeeps. Cady tries to get a picture of herself next to the Institute vehicles, but Amelie is soon forced to delete it from her camera.

Then it's the normal course: bolts, dragging sleighs, the burned-out forest, the factory yard (checking hot spots with thermal gear, avoiding Amelie's panic with the lieutenant's bear-hug, staying clear of the Iron Devil). The places have changed somewhat, but not too much. The rubber ducks have broken out into the yard, though. There's camping next to the back fence, some planning (including agreeing to a switch to non-lethal weaponry, when they come nearer the blood-reed swamp Fracture said was next to the Orchard). But that's at least three days off, maybe even more, as it's not the same route they are using, just an intersecting one. As they go to bed, Jere takes a look with the Coin, sees a huge vacuum above them, and "accidentally" reveals it. So they move camp.

As a result of the Coin, Jere is now feeling ill. The cure: Heroin. So he tries to wait until Amelie, with whom he shares the tent, goes to sleep - but she sleeps a lot less than he does. The soldiers are taking all the turns on guard, so there is no free time that way either. So he has to shoot up while she is watching, and there is some circumspect disagreement about his habit - which the others hear, but misunderstand. In the morning, the two female scientists are thus complaining about their "sex discussion". But soon they are all headed forward, through tall grass reminiscent of the Tarkovsky movie. Jere, walking point, spots a very strong mosquito mange, but they pass by it safely. Then, at about 2 p.m. there's a field, surrounding a large farm house, and black raven-like creatures picking invisible seeds on it. After some photography by an enthusiastic Fukuyama, they follow a ditch to the house.

It's a classical two-story country house, flanked by two barns, a cattle shelter and a grain silo, forming a square. The dishes in the dining room seem to be floating above the table, and there's strong electricity upstairs. Amelie and Jere go in, to take pictures. Jere carefully approaches upstairs, his hair rising. Suddenly, the electricity is gone, and he quickly runs upstairs and grabs an Empty full of amber liquid, diving back down just as the electricity returns.

Meanwhile, the blast that vanished from upstairs actually hit - invisibly - a soldier (Kirby) on the yard, killing him and prompting panic in Runner. Cady manages to cut her escape short before something bad happens (prompting questions about why the soldiers did know to react to Amelie but not Runner. "Maria" is speculated as an explanation...). Everyone retreats to the ditch, and some time later the soldiers retrieve the gear sleds from the yard. Smith starts complaining, and he has a loud argument about safety with Cady. After that passes, they cross the next fields and come to a treeline, camping. Jere is housed with Runner this time, to avoid complaints (actually leading to suspicion that he's everyones boy toy). He shows Runner the Empty, and she welds him some shielding for it out of used cans, refusing to say what she's doing. People do see the lava-lamp like glow of the Empty from the tent, though. Jere shoots up while she is out (Amelie helps by creating a distraction), and thus does not react to her passes when they go to sleep. The moon glows in infrared. The lieutenant, who has seemingly taken a liking to the PCs, offers Cady a remote-activated shock bracelet, to prevent Runner from fleeing the next time.

The morning comes with Inhumans walking between the trees, and one suddenly turning and heading for Cady. It even calls out her name. Smith immediately starts complaining. Runner stops it with a well-placed bear trap, which cuts of its foot, and the soldiers then mow if down with heavy gunfire from their assault rifles. As Runner was already twitchy, Cady suddenly slips the bracelet on her leg. Naomi (i.e. Runner) complains that Cady does not pay her enough, and says the ring won't stay on for long. Cady says she will remove it each night, and that it's just to prevent her from running to some lethal anomaly in panic. The lieutenant, meanwhile, plays with the bear trap (which he had admired earlier), by forcing it open with his hands and then slamming it onto a tree. The group then forges ahead, once again by going around the creatures that block their way. Runner asks a lot of questions from Cady while they walk. Jere, speaking to himself (and the player, naturally, out loud) complains that "It's awfully hard to use drugs here, everyone is always watching."

The next area they reach is a sand road, flanked by lime trees, the leaves of which do not move at all. Two of the botanists pick a leaf from a tree with bolt cutters, putting it in a ceramic jar. When the PCs complain, Smith suddenly becomes a professional instead of a whiner, and explains that the four of them have earlier been conducting research on plant life in the Russian zone, and are not exactly amateurs. This is followed by a highly knowledgeable, spontaneous lecture on Zone flora.

When they move forward again, they are struck by a wave of force a few hours later, one not revealed by the tossed bolts (thus creating a "why isn't Nyx here" commentary from the players). It causes an infernal migraine attack. Jere uses the Coin to see a way to escape it (seeing that they're just at the edge of the mobile anomaly, and most of it is in the woods they considered as a safer but slower alternative to the road), but passes out due to the pain and the Coin's side effects. Amelie drags him towards the direction to which his hands (accidentally, actually) point, and thus to safety. Fukuyama has beaten her head to a pulp against a tree, and Becket's ears are bleeding. He's alive, but now deaf. While helping Jeremiah, Amelie steals the COin from him.

As they all regroup and somewhat recover, black ravens are seen circling above them, interested in the corpse. So the stalkers leave it behind, and leave really fast. As soon as they are moving, Jeremiah starts to feel cold turkey coming on real fast, and craves more heroin at once...

Soundtrack for this session: Troum, Tam Quam Tabula Rasa & Kallabris - Kasha-Pâshâna; Negru Voda - PromoAppetizer; Stratvm Terror - This Is My Own Hell.

More Jeepform in Italian.

2009-09-21T13:43:43Z

I received a message today stating that some time ago, three more Jeepform games were translated into Italian. Those were Drunk, The Mother and my own A Bitter Aftertaste. They can be found here. They even preserved our original layouts. Lovely.

Hakim Bey in Finnish.

2009-09-14T19:11:54Z

I received my review copy of Hakim Bey's TAZ today. I of course own all the contents (some in books, some as printouts) in English, due to the number of game studies and study of religion researchers who quote and/or re-apply his theories. Nevertheless, having access to a Finnish version is nifty, and will certainly benefit the next generation of Finnish ludologists. Whether the translation itself is up to scratch remains to be seen - my review will appear in Turun Ylioppilaslehti, issue 12/2009.

Orchard: Season II, Session 3.

2009-09-11T11:29:02Z

Everyone except Ellis present. Cady had by now recovered from her fever, possibly thanks to Nyx' rock soup. There was a lot of explaining, when the PCs met at the hotel, and then loads of arguing about what to do with the new artifact. Cady wanted to give it to the crooked police chief, Jere keep it, and Amelie suggested its destruction. Nyx, of course, considered it very sacred. After about 30 minutes, a knock on the door (as is traditional). It's the lawyer, saying that he has negotiated a deal where Amelie gets to go to the stint in France, as long as she returns for trial. The departure for the French zone will be in three days, and they need to send their requirement lists in advance to a certain gmail address.

Runner is given an SMS about meeting the rest in Toronto. The others go there already, and Jere sells his motorcycle. He then asks Nyx to join him for a trip to town, to sell the hockey bag's worth of zone weed. Being well versed in drug culture, he soon finds his way to a significant dealer, surrounded by his gang of wannabe-black-gangsta white boys. They all ogle Nyx, as her cult robes are quite well known from fetish porn. (Meanwhile, Cady sells her fever-produced short, sex-filled story about women and zone mutants to a tabloid magazine.) The dealer personally tests Jere's stuff, then asks if it's really zone-produced. Jere says yes, and after some haggling trades both the weed and the field's location for a sizable amount of heroin. By now Nyx has realized Jere is hooked again, and is worried, as she believes she is already pregnant with his child. (We now had both players present, and after a brief discussion they agreed that the characters had indeed slept together.)

Cady goes to meet a local writer for dinner, and ends up in the same restaurant where Amelie and Frederic are. Amelie is already quite drunk, and drinking heavily nevertheless. She tells Frederic that because of extradition risks, she can't go to the Caribbean with him. Leaving the restaurant, Cady runs into a bum who recognizes her. Only it's not a bum, but a zone-spawned non-human, far away from their usual territory. She flees to a cab, sees the non-human being hit by a car, and get up again to shamble after her. At the hotel, she goes to Jere's and Nyx' room, too afraid to sleep in her own. It's obvious to her that the two have just had sex again, but that does not stop her from just stealing one half of the bed, when Jere goes to check out her room (and, actually, to shoot up in privacy there).

The mood at Frederic's place is nervous, due to two things: The approaching departure and the fact that he has a picture of himself with Millicent very prominently on his wall. This contradicts somewhat what he has said about their relationship ("acquaintances with different methods for promoting a common cause") to Amelie. Furthermore, by now all the newspapers are praising Millicent, so it's all the more annoying - although the phenomenon does explain the picture's presence, too, to a certain degree. Later the next day, Amelie sells the picture of Millicent's death to an extremely respected newspaper, prompting questions about the mystery man (Jere, seen from behind, kissing Millicent) in it for weeks to come. Cady, in turn, makes business plans about her undead fan, should she see it again.

The group meets Runner at the airport and boards a private jet. On it, Amelie gets drunk, while they all look over preliminary papers about the project they will be joining, Orlando-GSK. In Toulouse, they are immediately escorted to the GSK compound, and just kill time there while waiting for Dr. Orlando, who is supposed to come the next day and brief them about everything. They are not allowed to leave the building, or make calls outside. They also meet the four soldiers from the group, all of them former Legionnaires, pumping iron and very much looking like the guys in Predator.

(Appendix. The gear ordered for France: Protective gloves, ceramic containers, some basic survival and protection gear, reserve food, zone-suitable walkie-talkies - and a pistol for Cady, about which she did not tell Jeremiah.)

Soundtrack for this session: Dead Metal Trio - live; some euro-techno played by my next door neighbors; Kreep Ensemble - Rockin Tila (2002); Peter Gabriel - Passion.

Broadened Game Mastering.

2009-09-08T19:07:13Z

Today, the mail brought me the second edition of Florian's book, Methodische Spielleitung: Techniken für dramatisches Rollenspiel. At a quick glance, this 85-page pocket volume does something very close to Aaron's essay, of which I blogged a couple days ago, just for German tabletop. It very cleverly combines experience and layman-clarified stuff from rpg academia, in this case for the purpose of creating more interesting play. I like it very much.

Orchard: Season II, Session 2

2009-09-06T18:37:35Z

Just Susanna and Tomi present, so we naturally concentrated on just their characters. A couple of days had now passed since the last session. Amelie was in the woods, now calmed down, and Jere lay recovering in the hospital. The blast had cut off his left arm up to the bicep - which prompted a "Hey! I'm a one-armed bandit now" from Tomi, who found the wound very appropriate.

Amelie came to the hospital, introducing herself as Jere's girlfriend in order to get access to him. There was already a visitor: Detective Bishop from the Mounted police, asking awkward questions about why Jere was hit by domestic terrorists. He gave them some time for private talk, but they soon notice he has left his coat in the room. Amelie discreetly checks it, and there is indeed a tape recorder - but it isn't turned on. She says she needs a drink, as she was forced to call her dad and confirm whether Bishop is what he says he is. (And the players joke about their characters starting to resemble Matti & Mervi...). Her dad, asks around, then returns with a "yes, straight,good and not bribable". The cop returns, there is some intimidation by him, but nothing too bad. He then leaves, as Jere is soon to be let out. At an awkward moment Frederic calls and asks Amelie to a date, with Jere hearing it all and being - possibly - a bit jealous.

There’s six months before Jere will get a prosthetic arm. And meanwhile, there isn’t a chance to get proper painkillers (the nurse has picked up that Jere is a junkie, and simply rips his prescription and says nasty things). Fortunately for Jeremiah, Amelie too has picked this up, and gives him the morphine capsules she took at the hotel. When they leave the hospital, Jere goes and immediately shoots up. And Amelie goes to drink up. A lot.

We then had a split scene for the next day, as Amelie’s date at a fine restaurant started at six, and Jere’s agreed-upon meeting with Millicent at seven. Amelie meets the charming Frederic, ever friendly and supportive. And Jere goes to meet Millicent, but instead finds a woman who only resembles her. So it’s threats combined with Frederic denying any linkage to the violent separatists, side by side, and some very nice scene-slides and dialogue. The woman eventually tells Jere that he is too late - Millicent is already in the Zone, heading for "her prize". She picks the tab, then leaves. Frederic pays for Amelie’s dinner.

Jere then goes to leave a note about all this in the storage locker to which the local sheriff left the key. Surprisingly, he finds in the box a bag with four SMGs, with their serial numbers removed. The chief of police seems to like to play things rough. He sends Amelie an SMS, saying "No show". Meanwhile back at Frederic’s hotel room, Amelie is asking questions like "do you know my dad", worried that Frederic is just a lure to get her to leave Stalking, as he has asked her to leave all behind and fly to the Caribbean for an extended holiday.

Jeremiah goes to wait at the Zone access window he suspects the LdQ group will be using. Amelie has jouined him and brought him dinner. After a long wait, three figures emerge from Zoneside: two men, carrying a radiantly charming Millicent along. She has somehow changed: It’s as if she has become a glorious martyr figure everyone loves. Encouraged by this, Jeremiah approaches her. The men do nothing to stop him. So in the middle of the open field of the Zone perimeter, he kisses her - lethally. As he is giving her the fatal French kiss (pun intended), he notices a piece of metal in her mouth, and sucks it in. Meanwhile, Amelie gets the best photograph of her life, featuring of all of this. As Millicent dies, the men simply mourn her, as a dedicated martyr who gave her everything to the cause of free Quebec.

Jere looks at the item - a coin, and tries it out. He sees all of the anomalies of the Zone in clear, comprehensible terms. And feels incredibly sick, as if his body is trying to become something alien, and wants to puke everything of the old out right away. Of the coin, they will for now say nothing to the others. "My precioussssss…"

Soundtrack for this session: Arktau Eos - Ai Ma Ra; v/a -Desperado OST; v/a - Black rain OST

New Jeepforms.

2009-09-04T04:23:25Z

There's now a great new, very on-topic jeepform game available, Hold Someone Liable , by Florian Berger. It's about the French labor strikes where employees kidnap their bosses. Very nifty work, and available completely for free.

And I know at least two other very impressive ones will be coming online within a month.

Cooler Than You Think.

2009-09-03T11:03:45Z

Aaron Vanek has today gotten online his essay on larp as an art form, Cooler Than You Think: Understanding Live Action Role Playing (LARP). It's a layman-friendly text about looking at larp from an artistic viewpoint, meant for especially American audiences. Despite its soft approach, it delves into some very deep issues, discusses variables on larp (up to and including pervasives) and shows both extensive knowledge and insight.

I had the pleasure of being one of the pre-commentators for the essay. I really like what Aaron has done. He has effectively written an essay of his own thoughts, compared his ideas to that which has been published elsewhere (ranging from Knutepunkt books to various online fora and commentators from various playing cultures), and then created an easily understandable, strong synthesis of it all. I don't agree with every single point he makes (just with most of them), but I really like the way things are presented in questions and answers, leading a reader to form more questions in his head. This is a solid text which whets the appetite for more, and I love that sort of thing.

Give this paper a look, even if you're not an American, and even if you already know a lot about larp (and larp-as-art) theory. Damn fine.

More Narrativist Critique.

2009-08-27T14:49:38Z

Today, I received a link to an Italian discussion about Serpent. On it, Moreno presents the very same type of critique as Erlend did about Prayers few days ago: That the core approach is too unclear.

I find this very credible. It appears that people with a very strong narrativist bent, particularly those wanting a strong "GM vision" from a game, find my emergent-plot works not very enjoyable or even interesting. This goes to what Ron Edwards, who also often expresses a similar narrativist bias, calls a game being "murky".

I agree with the sentiment: You cannot cater for all audiences, it is now very apparent. Given a random sample, some will always find a game concept, no matter how good it is, wanting. (And no, I do not consider mine anywhere near perfect, so the flaws are that much more apparent.)

I, however, disagree very much with the basic stance of these people: That a strong, driven "narrative vision" always means a better game. The last few years, strangely enough, it's been the ultra-narrativists (and not the competitive players we in the Nordic area so often see as "bad players") who have always been most critical of other people's works. Luckily enough, we now have stuff like theatre connections, minimalist freeform, and of course jeepform, which cater to that sort of play. Meanwhile, I want to keep doing emergence works, because those are in my view way more interesting to run in the long term.

To each his own playing and design style. I simply do not believe that Erlend's equation of "player freedom = confusion = bad design" is appropriate for all players.