20170221194054!2017 Onceuponanordiclarp.Pdf
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Once Upon a Nordic Larp... The ofcial book of Knutepunkt 2017 Edited by Martine Svanevik, Linn Carin Andreassen, Simon Brind, Elin Nilsen, and Grethe Sofie Bulterud Strand. Designed by Casey Gollan, Victoria Sobel, and Owen Law. Cover photograph: Ruslan Gilmanshin, Section breaks photograph: Bjørn Christian Tørrissen Printed by Rollespilakademiet Copies: 500 Published by Knutepunkt 2017 in Oslo, Norway. Financial support from Fritt Ord. © Respective authors 2017. All rights reserved. ISBN 978-87-92507-36-5 knutepunkt.org Once Upon a Nordic Larp... Twenty Years of Playing Stories Being a complex grimoire of received wisdom, forbidden wisdom, and questionable wisdom; techniques (both meta- and otherwise); lies, damn lies, and associated ephemera. It was written by an eclectic mix of wonderful people from across the globe and edited by Martine Svanevik, Linn Carin Andreassen, Simon Brind, Elin Nilsen, and Grethe Sofie Bulterud Strand. Contents Introduction 6 Beyond Play 109 Martine Svanevik Simo Järvelä and Karete Jacobsen Meland Response to Simo Järvelä 117 Yesterday and Karete Jacobsen Meland Grethe Sofie Bulterud Strand Let’s Larp This! 10 Grethe Strand, told by Hanne Grasmo Reply to Grethe Sofie 119 Bulterud Strand All Our Yesterdays 18 Karete Jacobsen Meland and Simo Järvelä Charlotte Ashby Sing in Me, Muse, and Through 121 A Tale of Knutepunkt Theorycrafting 36 Me Tell the Story... J. Tuomas Harviainen Harry Harrold Response to J. Tuomas Harviainen 49 Do You Want to Play Ball? 130 Karete Jacobsen Meland Josefin Westborg and Carl Nordblom Three Roads (of Translation) 53 Designing for Emotions 143 Not Taken Olga Vorobyeva Tadeu Rodrigues Iuama Playing the Stories of Others 152 The Classical Roots of Larp 63 Kaisa Kangas Mike Pohjola History, Herstory and Theirstory: 161 For Thought Today Mo Holkar Hamlet, Vampires and the 79 Body Playground Framework 167 Italian Alps Blaz Branc Juhana Pettersson Playing in Love 176 Ludo-narrative Dissonance and 87 Charles Bo Nielsen Harmony in Larps Hélène Henry Telling Character Stories 184 Monika Weißenfels Pre-larp Communication 95 Alma Elofsson and Mimmi Lundkvist Making Heroes 201 John Shockley Keeping Volunteers Alive 103 Agata Świstak and Claus Raasted Playing Around the Event 213 Charlotte Ashby The Workshop Pyramid 105 Maryia Karachun, Yauheni Karachun, Response to Charlotte Ashby 224 Olga Rudak and Nastassia Sinitsyna Matt Pennington Reply to Matt Pennington 226 Tell Us a Story 313 Charlotte Ashby Ian Andrews The Absence of 231 Response to Ian Andrews 320 Disabled Bodies in Larp Simon Brind Shoshana Kessock Reply to Simon Brind 324 Food for Thought 240 Ian Andrews Siri Sandquist and Rosalind Göthberg YouTube and Larp 250 Tomorrow Mo Mo O’Brien On Ripping Off and Selling Out 328 Character-based Design and 255 Eirik Fatland Narrative Tools in the French Style Romanesque Larp Larp in the Year 2037 334 Muriel Algayres Christopher Amherst Loyalty to Character 262 Thinking Outside the Black Box 347 Charles Bo Nielsen Eva Wei & Rosalind Göthberg Response to Charles B. Nielsen 266 Beyond Playing to Lose 357 Martine Svanevik and Narrativism Jeppe & Maria Bergmann Hamming Reply to Martine Svanevik 267 Charles Bo Nielsen An Invitation to Dance 365 Lorenzo Trenti Moment-based Story Design 269 Ian Thomas Art and Larp 371 Nina Runa Essendrop Curious Pastimes 275 Emmylou Laird Larp and I—Till Death Do Us Part 380 Hanne Grasmo Will to Live 281 Rob Williams Index 388 Context, Context, Context 287 Jamie Harper Biographies 392 Larp Tourism 291 Designers’ Note 399 Claus Raasted Casey Gollan, Victoria Sobel, and Owen Law Tensions Between Transmedia 297 Fandom and Live-Action Role-Play Acknowledgements 400 Evan Torner Meanwhile in the South 304 Andrea Giovannucci, translation by Wendy Columbo Introduction Martine Svanevik WHEN I SET OUT to write this editorial, means that things we thought we’d already I wanted to talk about the anniversary of debated to death and things we’d taken for Knutepunkt and our choice to look to our granted, suddenly need to be defined and roots as well as to the future. Now, twenty argued about. But more than this, as well as years later, we planned to be retrospective; debate we need to create, to play, to write, introspective even ... to pause, consider, and and to make larps. Now more than ever, we take stock. But in the last few years, nordic have an opportunity to shape the future, to larp has become international, perhaps even become that social movement that some mainstream. Once again, people are debat- argue we already are, to create stories that ing whether nordic larp is inherently polit- change the world. ical, artistic, ethical, non-commercial, good Stories are important. They shape us, or bad. The original question of defining frame our experiences, they help us make nordic larp has resurfaced (give up, it can’t be sense of the world and our lives. By playing done in any meaningful way). And I realised stories, we catch glimpses of other people’s that this is not the time to step back and re- lives. We can, for brief moments at least, live flect: this is the time to step forward and act. their experiences. If done right, this type of Nordic larp is changing. We’re doing experience can foster understanding and things bigger, bolder, better, but also smaller, connect people across nationalities, class, weirder and more daring. We’re reaching out age, and genders. across communities and we’re seeing both Collaborative storytelling is a powerful how similar we all are but also how funda- drug. Creating something together gives a mentally different. The increasing interest positive feedback loop, a joyous emotional in, and commercialisation of roleplaying high of communality, creativity and trust. 6 We’re playing games of “Yes, and” with writers and organisers who are not from the tens (and sometimes hundreds) of people nordic tradition but who we believe will fur- at once. It’s no wonder that playing togeth- ther the discourse. At the end, the writers set er can foster a sense of kinship with people out to imagine where we’re headed with all you’ve only known a few days (or, in some this in the future. cases, merely hours). This elation might be Although we’ve chosen to split the book why people keep coming back to larp, and it in three sections: Yesterday, Today and To- is definitely part of what makes larping such morrow, it is not designed to be read cover a powerful tool. It can change the world. to cover. You can flip through it, starting in That is, if we want it to. one spot and skipping to another, but in the That is why the debate about what nordic end, we hope that you’ll read every article. larping can and should do is so important, es- Between articles, we have scattered memo- pecially in the age of transmedia experiences ries and anecdotes from 20 years of larp ex- and commercial larping. And that is why it is periences and design as well as short predic- absolutely paramount that we continue cre- tions for the future. We have also introduced ating, playing and telling new stories. opinion pieces where responses and ripostes This book is an entry in the current debate are published back-to-back. about nordic larp. It looks back to the roots We wanted this year’s Knutepunkt book of our movement and the Knutepunkt con- to be something special, and looking at the ference; it is also a collection of meta-tech- collections of articles, memories, stories and niques, debates, memories and a discussion predictions gathered in this volume, I believe of cutting edge larp design. This collection we succeeded. I hope you enjoy it. also has some articles and opinions from larp 7 Yesterday “The past is a foreign country.” (L.P. Hartley, The Go Between, 1953) THE STORIES WE TELL and retell from larps—in photos, Facebook posts, promo videos, around the campfires, in songs, and over beers—are not the games we played but our memories of them. Parts of every experience are forgotten, misremembered or different for you than they are for me. Your larp was not my larp; your war story is not the same as mine. Back in the day is also clouded in wistful joy. “The way we used to do it” always has a sense of nostalgia to it, which can lead us to believe that yesterday is always better than tomorrow. Forgetting, of course, that those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it. In this part of the book it’s okay to look back. It’s good to examine your roots and to share tall tales and fond memories. This section celebrates epic mistakes, strong character moments, memories of our first larps, the road to Knutepunkt, the story of the Knutebooks, and the history that made nordic larp what it is today. This section does not tell the whole truth, but it tells a few truths, a hint of truth, a story, if you will, about how we got where we are today. LET’S LARP THIS! —THE ROADTRIP THAT SPAWNED KNUTEPUNKT written by Grethe Strand told by Hanne Grasmo 47. Ung var eg fordom, eg einsaman fór, vegvill då eg vart. Rik eg tottest når eg råka einkvar; mann er manns gaman. (Håvamål)1 IT ALL STARTED with a road trip. In the spring of 1997 three Norwe- gians, Niels Wisth, Erlend Eidsem Hansen and Hanne Grasmo, rented a small, cheap car and drove from Oslo to Stockholm. The goal of the trip was to find a collective called Babylon Five, where the creators behind the larp Trenne Byar (Grins and Ericsson, et.al, 1994) lived.