Dice Bubble 2013 @RPI announced, accepting game bids!

From Jenny by e-mail:

What's got two dice and is back yet again for the Spring semester at RPI?

That's right! Dice Bubble 2013, the weekend of LARP minigames at RPI, will return for President's Day weekend, February 15-17th! Just like last time, this is a three day weekend, so hopefully having Monday off will help ease some travel plans. We had a great turnout for Time Bubble and DB12, and we hope to see you all again!

Game bids are officially OPEN starting now and going until NOON on Friday, January 4th. [Email dicebubble@gmail.com and we'll send you the submission form.] Please submit your games using that form, and no later than noon on the 4th!

Signups will be announced shortly after game bids close, so keep an eye on your email!

Signal boost wherever and however you can! We like new faces as well as old faces.

--Game Mom Jenny

(Emphasis mine.)

This has actually been announced for about a month now -- I've been lame about posting this. Note the deadline! Bid early, bid often!

Full Intercon Sign-ups Open Tomorrow!

Full sign-ups for Intercon games open tomorrow, Thursday, December 13, at 7 PM EST. Most things will probably fill, so get in early to get the games you want.

Also, three new games have been added to the schedule!

• The Yearbook is an intense horror game that uses Nordic techniques and is running Friday, Saturday afternoon, and Saturday evening.
• Loot Council is a light hearted game about splitting loot in World of Warcraft, running Saturday morning
• All Hail the Pirate Queen is Saturday night, and is a small pirate
  game focusing on female pirates.

On your marks... Get set... GO!

Intercon Second-Round Signups Open Tonight at 7 PM!

Today, Wednesday, December 5 at 7 PM EST, second-round sign-ups for Intercon M (March 1-3, 2013 in Chelmsford, MA) will open!

Games are going fast! We have added new games, including a Dresden Files game! We're still looking for games, with space in every time slot! (And we have games-in-a-box you can run if you're willing to GM but don't have a game.)

It's gonna be the largest Intercon ever.

Anonycon this weekend in Stamford, CT!

Anonycon is this weekend (Dec 7-9) at the Sheraton Stamford in Stamford, CT!

Join us for a weekend full of gaming fun in Stamford, CT this year,
December 7th through 9th.

We have a fantastic array of quality storytelling games for you to play,
including many mainstream and indie games. Enjoy Pathfinder Society and
Living Forgotten Realms, or try out Durance, Dogs in the Vineyard and
Inspectres.

This year we have a full slate of LARP events as well, and a great variety
of kid-friendly games for younger players.

Register to join us at http://anonycon.com, and check out the games we have
now or go ahead and run your own!
For more information, contact info@anonycon.com

Although the games are disproportionately tabletop, there are a number of excellent LARPs running, including:

• A Garden of Forking Paths
• Part of Her Design
• ...and the Electric Labyrinth
• 10 Bad LARPs: Remix!
• Fiasco

All of which still have ample space available. There are also some campaign games running. It sounds like a really good time!

MOAR GAMES PLZ OM NOM NOM

Intercon already has a bunch of games, but it is going to be the largest Intercon ever, and it needs more games!

From the con chairs:

Three hundred and twenty six LARPers. We always grow after signups
open, and today we already have more people than we have ever had at
an Intercon. Last year we had 320 at the actual con, and we're already
at 326. This is very exciting, but we need more games for all these
LARPers! We still have rooms available in every single slot, and we
want your games!

You can submit a bid here:
http://www.interactiveliterature.org/M/biddingAGame.php

Or email us at conchair@intercon-m.org to talk about what might work!
I am always happy to talk with GMs about their games. If you want to
run a game but don't have a game to run, talk to me! Creative Commons
is our friend!

In case you were on the fence about running something, consider this a friendly shove. :-)

Intercon First-Round Signups Open Today at 7 PM!

Today, Tuesday, November 27 at 7 PM EST, first-round sign-ups for Intercon M (March 1-3, 2013 in Chelmsford, MA) will open! Registered attendees (you have registered, right?) will be able to sign up for one game at that time.

"So You Want to be a GM" slides

At dinner after SLAW, several people expressed interest in the slides from the "So You Want to be a GM" seminar that Ariel Segall and I ran in the MIT Assassin's Guild, and I realized that I hadn't posted them here in a follow-up.

So, here are the "So You Want to be a GM" seminar slides.

One of the people I was talking with pointed out that the slides very much reflect the cultural particulars of LARPing at MIT, and wondered if other LARP-writing groups have similar documents. Does anyone here know of something like this in their own LARP group, or have pointers to similar things which are publicly available?

Intercon Precon Needs Panelists!

(tl;dr You should fill out the Precon Panelist Application survey. Deadline is Thursday, December 20, one week after game sign-ups are fully open.)


Taking off my Northeast LARP News blogger hat for a moment, and putting on my Intercon M Precon Chair hat, and quoting myself from the Precon schedule...

We've got an exciting slate of panels we're working on [in addition to the already-scheduled panels -ed.], and we're soliciting panelists! If you're interested in talking about...

• Writing Blurbs (aka "Your Blurb is Bad and You Should Feel Bad")
• "Boxing" a Game
• Stage & Fashion Makeup for LARP
• Basic LARP Design Tools (plot maps, brainstorming, diagramming, pacing timelines)
• Mechanics: What, When, Why, How to Design Them
• Gender and LARP
• Sexuality and LARP
• Creating a Community LARP Storage Closet and Database
• Kriegspiel: Wargames in LARP
• GMing with a Team and Staying Friends
• Information: How to Make It Flow, Control, and Track It
• High-Immersion LARP: Whately
• How to Run a Game Briefing/Wrap
• LARP in Education
• What Boffer LARP Can Teach Intercon
• Casting Your Game
• Combat/Conflict or Narrative?
• Intercon 101, or, Getting the Most Out of Your Intercon Experience (scheduled for 5p Friday)

...then you should fill out the Precon Panelist Application survey with your interests and availability so we can schedule the panels appropriately!

If you're interested in attending any of these panels, or the events below we've already scheduled, you should make plans to come to Precon!

The deadline is Thursday, December 20, one week after game sign-ups are fully open.

Already scheduled are:

• Jam and the Craft of Larp Manufacture -- Tony Mitton and Aaron Vanek debate whether LARPs are art.
• GMs are Bastards -- Sue Lee presents the sequel to Tony's "Players are Scum".
• Introduction to Nordic Larp -- Lizzie Stark and friends bring us a primer on the larp tradition we've all heard so much about (it's not just Jeepform!).
• Ars Amandi Presentation and Workshop -- Lizzie Stark reprises her workshop covering a technique for mechanicking physical intimacy in larp.
• Intercon 101 -- If it's your first or second year at the con, we'll talk about some strategies for getting the most out of your Intercon experience. (It's more than just 5-2-1!) (Although this is already scheduled, we're still looking for panelists for this.)
• EDIT 2012-11-05 16:56: We're also hosting an "Introductory Dance for LARP" workshop which I inexcusably left off the schedule until now due to an attack of brain-pixies. Come find out what to do in a LARP when the music starts and your partner bats their eyes at you!

We've got a couple other things in the works, including a panel on what Bidcomm is looking for in LARP bids for Intercon.

And, if you're interested in running something not listed here, please e-mail me at precon@intercon-m.org.

It is, I hope, going to be a really good Precon. If you're at all interested in any of these topics, you should plan to attend!

Intercon Schedule and Sign-Up Information Announced

From the Intercon M newsletter:

Schedule of Games

The Intercon schedule of games is now live! Begin planning your weekend now at http://www.interactiveliterature.org/M/Schedule.php

Game Sign-Ups
Game sign-ups this year will be staggered over three weeks as usual, but switching day of the week each time.

• 7pm Tuesday, November 27, registered attendees will be able to sign up for one game.
• 7pm Wednesday, December 5, registered attendees will be able to sign up for a second game.
• 7pm Thursday, December 13, registered attendees will have no limit on sign-ups!

Precon
The preliminary Precon schedule is up on the web site at http://interactiveliterature.org/M/Thursday.php. Lizzie Stark returns with her Ars Amandi workshop and an Introduction to Nordic Larp (it's more than just Jeepform!); Sue Lee continues Tony Mitton's "Players are Scum" with "GMs are Bastards"; and Tony himself brings us a discussion of whether LARPs are art, and why anyone should care.

We're also hosting an Intercon 101 panel on Friday at 5p, so if you're new to the con or have only recently joined our community, even if you can't come for all of Precon, show up a little early and drop in for some pointers on getting the most out of your experience. (Don't worry, you'll still have time to eat and change before your Friday evening game.)

Through discussion with the community and our own fevered imaginings, we've come up with a slate of panels, and we're actively recruiting panelists! If you're interested in talking about what Intercon games can learn from boffer LARPs, the intersection of gender and LARP, or a number of other topics, please fill out the survey at this link with your interests and availability!

Iron GM
Intercon M will be running an Iron GM competition! Up to four GM teams of one to four people will have 24 hours to write a game containing three secret elements. Players will play your game at Intercon on Sunday morning. Games will be judged, and the winning GM team will receive a cash prize! Please see the Iron GM page for more details.

Get a Room!
Have you reserved your hotel room yet? Call the Chelmsford Radisson at (978)256-0800 to reserve a room now. The group code is "Intercon." More information is available on our hotel page.

Game bids still wanted!
While the M game schedule looks awesome, we are still accepting game bids, especially for Saturday and Sunday mornings. Head on over to our bid form to bid a game!

Intercon M is March 1-3, 2013 (with Precon beginning February 28, 2013) at the Radisson Hotel and Suites in Chelmsford, MA.

Help Wizards & Warriors Spread Youth Larp Camps!

From an article on Wired's GeekDad blog:

If you’re an adult who knows about the power and fun of larping (live-action role-playing), then you’ll want to pass that experience on to your kids. But perhaps there’s no organization offering larping for young people in your community. Guard Up! wants to change that.

Guard Up!, based in Burlington, Massachusetts, just outside of Boston, is raising funds via a Kickstarter campaign to create a license for their youth program called "Wizards & Warriors." The licensing program would allow activity providers anywhere, such as recreation centers, martial arts schools, fencing clubs, after-school groups, gyms, and fitness centers with youth programs, to run weekly adventures and monthly events using their game system.

Guard Up! currently runs overnight and day camps using the system as Wizards & Warriors Summer Camp at several campgrounds in the Boston area, and they'd like to let others do the same.

From the Kickstarter:

We already have a good chunk of our start-up content... it just needs some final assembly and polishing. We also have the License agreement completed. We are testing an online repository system as we write this. And we are already play testing additional curriculum.

So your money will be for helping us shoot more How-to videos and developing additional written and visual content as well as helping us to upload all of this content into an online repository (which charges us a substantial annual fee). This will let us meet our January 2013 release deadline – which happens to be the best time of year for adventure enrollment.

The Kickstarter page has a nice list of the things licensees receive as part of the license. (Also, some of the Kickstarter reward levels include personal access to sword training videos, which might be useful if your boffer form, like mine, could most politely be described as "enthusiastic but not very effective".)

The project closes on Tuesday, October 30. As of this writing, they're about 60% of the way to full funding!


(Also, holy cow that's an awesome spot from NECN in the YouTube video up top. "From the battlefield to the boardroom," indeed. There's one news organization that Gets It. Props to them.)

Humans vs. Zombies Run in DC Nov. 3

There's a Humans vs. Zombies game on Saturday, November 3 at 2p in Washington, DC's Fort Reno Park. (It's using the Reddit rules -- apparently this is a thing?) Details are on the Meetup page. As with most Meetups, it's open to the public.

(h/t Christopher Amherst on the International Larp Academia mailing list)

Haunted Higgins (with Monster-Hunting Class)!

The Higgins Armory Museum in Worcester, MA is hosting a haunted house event from 11 AM to 3 PM this Saturday, October 27, complete with a workshop for the aspiring Van Helsings in your family:

Monster Hunting, Medieval Style
12:30 pm - 1:15 pm

Zombies are a relatively new threat to the world, but Vampires & Werewolves have been around for centuries. Learn how to fight them off using just a sword or dagger in this fun-filled drop-in workshop!

Class is open to age 14 and up, or age 10 if accompanied by a participating parent. Space is limited. No experience is needed and all equipment is supplied. Workshop participants are advised to wear comfortable clothing with long pants and athletic footgear. All participants must fill out a waiver and participants under 18 will need to have this waiver signed by a parent or legal guardian. For questions or to pre-register, please contact Nancy Huntington at (508) 853-6015, ext. 23, or nhuntington@higgins.org.

COST:
$10 per person

RESERVATIONS REQUIRED:
No

Five Things Make a Post

Occasionally I open something in a tab, meaning to do a post about it, and then forget about it for a while. (In one case, over a month. Oops.) This is me, cleaning out a bunch of tabs. Some of these aren't really events, or necessarily related to the Northeast, but I think they're interesting, so what the heck.

1. SLAW is next weekend at WPI! [Correction! SLAW is TWO weekends from this upcoming weekend, ie. Nov. 9-11. My apologies. -ed.] There are still games with openings on the schedule! (Also if you're five deep on a waitlist, now's the time to consider switching to a different game.)
   
2. Lizzie Stark posts her own reactions to Mad About the Boy and links to others'.
   
3. Norper has some thoughts on the differences between Nordic freeform and US indie tabletop games.
   
4. There's a "Zombie Infested Obstacle Course" in Maryland this Saturday and Sunday, but registration is closed. (Apparently this is a 5K run where people dressed as zombies come chase you and scare you into running faster. Works for me!)
   
5. Watch this man destroy a car with a giant flaming sword:
   
   
   
   (The intro's a bit long, skip to 0:40 for the carnage.)
   
   It's a long story how this happened, but the filming of this involved your humble correspondent standing on top of a ladder with no support for the pivotal scene where the car runs into the stump. And filming from inside the car when the sword comes through the window. I didn't end up with too many bruises!
   
   Also it's totally LARP-related because the form he signs is actually a Legends waiver form, that having been one of the top Google image hits for "waiver form". Really. *nods seriously*
   

Sign up for Jeepform Day at MIT now!

I've been remiss in posting this one, doubly so because I'm tangentially involved with it. My apologies for the short notice. The deadline to sign up for this is tomorrow, Friday, October 19 at 11:59pm, and it's open to the wider LARP community.

From Matt "Halftime" Peairs via e-mail:

tl;dr: Go here <https://secure.journeysurveys.com/answer/426> to sign up for a day of weird and wonderful LARPs!

***

Welcome to Jeepform Day at MIT!

Jeepform Day is a day-long event that will take place on Sunday, October
28. We'll be offering a number of LARPs by the Scandinavian LARPing
group Vi åker jeep (literally, "We go by Jeep"), as well as a couple
that were inspired by the Jeep style. How many games we run, and which
ones, will depend entirely on demand. This event is being organized by
Laura "Laura47" Boylan and Matt "Halftime" Peairs. The casting survey
can be found at https://secure.journeysurveys.com/answer/426.

*This app is due at 11:59pm on Friday, October 19.*

***

Jeepform is a Nordic LARP style that encourages deep roleplaying and
collaborative storytelling. Jeepform games tend to follow a
predetermined structure and typically explore a particular real-world
theme or experience. They are often written to encourage player-level
catharsis, or to let emotions "bleed" from character to player or vice
versa. Many of the usual conventions from theatre-style LARPing do not
hold here. A character may have multiple players and a player may have
multiple characters. Gamespace is generally limited to a single room,
and people tend to keep few secrets from each other--on a player level,
at least. A player may play the same game multiple times, perhaps even
in the same role. It's pretty different. But we think you'll enjoy it.

For more about Jeepform, we suggest you start here
<http://jeepen.org/dict/>.

For a detailed list of the games we're offering, go here
<http://web.mit.edu/peairs/Public/jeep_games.html>.

Nordic Larp at the Smithsonian video

Here's the video of Petter Karlsson's "Introduction to Nordic Larp" talk at the Smithsonian last Tuesday (previously).

Maryland's largest foam fighting event this November!

More for the DC crowd, the Darkon Wargaming Club is running a huge foam fighting event called Bellum Aeternus on November 18 at the Patuxent River State Park. There's a $5 event fee, and players new to Darkon need pay only that and not the usual Darkon membership fee.

From the site:

Eternal War... The Darkon Wargaming Club proudly presents Maryland's largest ever foam fighting event on Sunday, November 18th at the Jug Bay Area of Patuxent River State Park. This is a day for new fighters to join in battle, and for old warriors to return. Join us for the biggest and best battle in Darkon's 27 year history!

Bellum Aeternus will bring back many among the thousands of Darkonians we have fought with and against over the years. It will also give us a great opportunity to welcome warriors from other, similar live action combat games. This is also a great opportunity for you to show off your hobby to your friends and family members who might be curious about what we do. This event is perfect for the family too, with bathroom facilities, shopping and food. The event will feature a festival atmosphere and battles of an epic scale!

Here's the Facebook event page. With 242 people going already, it looks like this is going to be huge.

See Bellum Aeternus at Darkon's site for the schedule, vendors, rules, etc.

Nordic Larp at the Smithsonian Tuesday

If you're in the DC area, Petter Karlsson, a Nordic larp designer and producer, will be providing an "Introduction to Nordic Larp" from 10:00am – 11:00am on Tuesday, October 9, 2012 in the Smithsonian OCIO’s large conference room at 600 Maryland Ave, SW, suite 4000.

Google Plus event page

(h/t @petterkarlsson via @LizzieStark)

Kira Scott anticipates Mad About the Boy

Over at Gaming as Women, Kira Scott writes about her hopes and fears for this weekend's run of the Nordic larp Mad About the Boy (previously, video):

I think I have the most trepidation about exploring those mother themes in the game. Politicking and violence and relationships, sure, I’ve done that. Competing with other women to be the recipient of the last sperm on earth in order to give birth? That’s pretty intense, emotionally and personally. My relationship with motherhood is complex and difficult for me to understand myself, and I feel, now in my early 30′s, an approaching pressure and biological need to have babies. I have a feeling a lot of these emotions are going to emerge in the larp. To me, this is really interesting, because it gives me a place to talk about the nervousness of having children. That’s not really too acceptable in US society at large. Whenever we play characters, we always put huge parts of ourselves into them. I’m interested to see which parts of me Linn will bring out, and the insight that will give me about myself.

[...]

I purposefully decided to go in a bit blind. I didn’t do a whole lot of research on Nordic larp before reading everything about Mad About the Boy. One thing I love about the game so far is it’s transparency. Actually, I’m a little anxious about how open and involved everything is going to get. The game’s purpose seems to be to explore. Really explore. Get immersed in your character and in their brain, and in the other characters brains, and dig deeper. Building and breaking relationships and power politicking seem like huge themes in this game and those are some of my favorite things. I wonder though, will I find myself vulnerable once I jump into my character’s skin and go for three days?

The answer I already know. I feel an impending vulnerability. I like it though. It’s a good scary feeling.

Read the rest at Gaming as Women.

(h/t @LizzieStark)

Time Bubble this weekend @RPI

Time Bubble, the RPI fall LARP weekend, is this weekend! (Previously, previouslier.) There are still open games in all of the time slots as of this writing, so if you're making last minute plans, it's not too late to sign up!

Nordic Larpwrights at NYU next Thursday

The NYU Games Center will be hosting "The Nordic Art Larp Designers" talking craft next Thursday, October 4 at 6:30p at 721 Broadway on the 9th floor. RSVP here.

From the blog:

Join us on Thursday, October 4th at 6:30PM for another exciting 9th Floor Talk with Nordic Art LARP designers, Tor Kjetil Edland, Trine Lise Lindahl, Margrete Raaum, moderated by Lizzie Stark.

They larp about cancer and the Cuban Missile crisis inside submarines, nuclear reactors, and in custom-built shanty towns, sometimes thanks to government funding. Welcome to the arty world of Nordic larp, where intense emotion, minimal mechanics — including safewords — and fabulous scenery rule the day.

Join Norwegian game designers Margrete Raaum, Tor Kjetil Edland, and Trine Lise Lindahl for a discussion about Nordic larp design, and the upcoming US run of Mad About the Boy, an all-women larp about crisis, relationships, sexuality and power. Moderated by Leaving Mundania author Lizzie Stark.

Tor Kjetil Edland, Trine Lise Lindahl and Margrete Raaum are Norwegian larp creators. They are in the US to run their game Mad About the Boy, set in a world where all the men but one have died. Jointly or individually they have also made larps about the Second World War in Norway (1942 and 1944), sexuality and relationships (Just a Little Lovin’, Screwing the Crew, Pair of Tarts) and the Wild West (Once Upon a Time) . They have organized several Nordic larp conferences.

Lizzie Stark is the author of Leaving Mundania, a narrative nonfiction book that examines the complex world of larp, or live action role-play. She’s written for The Today Show website, Philadelphia Inquirer, Daily Beast, io9.com, Good Men Project, and elsewhere.

Please RSVP here.

You have no idea how much I wish I was in NYC next Thursday.

(h/t @LizzieStark)

Middle Earth Day is this Saturday!

The Higgins Armory Museum in Worcester, MA is hosting Middle Earth Day this Saturday (previously). The blurb once again:

Middle Earth Day at the Higgins Armory Museum in Worcester, MA
Saturday, September 29, 2012
10:00-4:00

Hear the stories of elves, hobbits and men; sing their songs, learn about their armor, and help defeat the Necromancer! So dust off your travelling cloaks and study up on your runes, or just comb your feet and join us for a day of fun and fellowship!
Swordfights- See Arwen teach Aragorn the proper way to slay an orc??!!
Storytelling- hear stories of Bilbo from J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit
Crafts- Make Gimli’s shield or design your own
Come dressed as your favorite character from Tolkien’s stories of fantasy and adventure

One Museum to Rule Them All…

Higgins Armory Museum
100 Barber Avenue
Worcester, MA 01606
508-853-6015 ext. 20
http://www.higgins.org/

The event is free and open to all ages.

Now in Convenient Calendar Format!

If you've hit the site in the past day or so, you may have noticed that there's now a "Calendar" link at the top of the page and an "iCal feed" link in the sidebar. That's right, I'm now adding every event I post about to a Google Calendar. You can add this calendar to your Google Calendar (look for the "+ Google Calendar" button in the lower right), or import the iCal feed into any iCal format-supporting calendaring software.

Just as I'm not attempting to capture all the northeast boffer events in the blog, I'm not attempting to put them all on the calendar either, just the ones I post about. Thankfully other people have risen to the task -- in particular, the Ultimate Larp Calendar is tracking an impressive 45 boffer larps in the New England area (at last count). It's now linked over in the sidebar as well.

What other area boffer larp calendars should I be linking to? (In particular, I'm looking for calendars that cover the New York/New Jersey and DC/Maryland games.)

Hopefully, with our powers combined, this will make it yet easier to track upcoming larp-related events in the Northeast US!

Larp Shout-out in the Boston Globe

If you're looking for geeky things to do in Boston, the Boston Globe's Lifestyle section last week ran an article on some of the various geeky events available in the city.

You’re a new nerd in town. You want to roll some dice, cast some spells, kill some orcs. Or you want to leverage your fandom for good, not evil, in the so-called “real world,” whatever that is.

Let it be known, verily and forsooth, that Our Fair City and its environs is a kingdom replete with every variety of nerdery known to man, woman, halfling, and beast. Boston is the undisputed center of the nerdverse — a mothership for dweebs, techies, trekkers, weirdos, and gamers.

Of larp they said:

Live-action role-playing

If you’re hankering to don a costume and portray a character, LARPing is your game. Nero Boston (www.neroboston.com) runs its games in “The Duchy of Volta,” “a harsh and wild land filled with danger, magic, and intrigue.” If steampunk is your preferred genre, try Steam and Cinders (www.be-epic.com). Middle- and high-school kids can “larp” at the Arlington Enrichment Collaborative (www.arlingtonenrichment.org). “We hold each other to the idea of ‘doing awesome things,’ ” said Eric Love, director of the LARP Adventure Program (www.larpadventureprogram.com). They host an open house on Oct. 18. Intercon (www.interactiveliterature.org/M) is the annual LARP convention held in March.

There's a bunch of other stuff in the article of interest to larpers as well (swordplay and medieval reenactment, anyone?) -- further proof, if any were needed, that our hobby is becoming more mainstream (or is it the mainstream becoming more geeky?).

New LARPs at SLAW!

Two new LARPs have been added at SLAW -- Kara Hurvitz and Will Walker's Pooka Support Group on Saturday afternoon, and Peter Litwack's Dreams of Peace, Dreams of War on Sunday afternoon. I played Pooka Support Group at Festival, and Dreams of Peace at Intercon, this year, and can attest to their both being great games.

As of this writing, there are also still open spots in The Dance and the Dawn (running twice due to popular demand!), Yo Dog I Heard You Like Larps, Time Travel Review Board Saturday morning; Collision Imminent Saturday afternoon; The Road Not Taken and Resurrect Me, Please Saturday evening; and New Voices in Art Sunday afternoon. A couple of the games -- Time Travel Review Board and The Road Not Taken -- you can play even if you've already played them before; The Road Not Taken in particular will even be adding new material.

The usual reason for games to not fill early is not because they're bad games -- far from it, all of these games have run before and have been well-liked. These games didn't fill early because much of the community has played and liked them already. They are, you might say, time-tested and larper-approved. With these new additions, there are a couple games available in every slot (except Friday). If you've been unsure about coming, especially if you're new to larping or just new to this style, now's a great time to try it out.

The SLAW schedule is here.

(h/t Sarah Judd by e-mail)

Boston Festival of Indie Games is tomorrow!

The Boston Festival of Indie Games (previously) is tomorrow, Saturday, 22 September, at MIT's Building 34 (50 Vassar St, Cambridge, MA).

They're running a Cthulhu Live LARP called "Silver Twilight" from 5-8p, plus a keynote by the excellent Jason Scott and Leigh Alexander, screenings of Darkon, Get Lamp, Going Cardboard, talks from companies in the area, and a game jam, plus a ton of board, card, and tabletop games. (I saw Jason talk at DEFCON last year, about his Archive Team work, and he was brilliant -- if you get a chance, totally go.) Here's the full schedule and map. Registration is free. It looks like a great time.

Trailers for the screening track below the cut.

Boston World of Darkness Campaigns

From Lise Fracalossi via e-mail:

Just a heads-up on some Mind's Eye Theater campaign games happening in the Boston area: there's an old World of Darkness Masquerade game and two new WoD games, Requiem and Mage. Here are the basic details for those of you who might be interested in one or the other:

Masquerade happens on the second Saturday of every month, usually from 6pm to 11pm. The next game is October 13th. It's a Camarilla game, although we have representation from many independent clans, too. It usually meets at a private residence right in Waltham, only 1-2 miles from [Brandeis's] campus.

Speaking to my personal experience playing this, I was pleasantly surprised how roleplay-focused it was, although the mechanics are there if you need/want them. Even at my first session, I had some very intense scenes. The staff is great, too, and has been very helpful in getting me set up with a character and making sure she had stuff to do, even from my first game.

If you're more interested in new World of Darkness, Requiem and Mage usually take place back-to-back on the third Saturday of each month--in fact the next game is coming up this weekend. The usual venue is the basement of the Cathedral Church of St. Paul right on Boston Common.

Things are going to be changed up a bit November-January, when we're going to try to smoosh all the games together into one Saturday, but we can fill you in on the details if you decide to join.

The usual cost is $5/game, but it's waived for new members--so you can definitely try before you buy.

There's also a website and stuff! You can find it here:
http://shatteredantiquities.com/

If you're interested in any of these games, contact the domain coordinator
at nhma.dc@gmail.com. He can help you get in touch with the right people for the game you're interested in.

Lise also offers to answer any questions relative to her own experience playing Masquerade games -- if you have questions, contact me, and I'll be happy to put you in touch with her.

Station Ident

We've got some new visitors around here: welcome!

This is Northeast LARP News, a site for LARP-related event announcements in the Northeast United States. (Which I define roughly and arbitrarily as anything within a day's surface travel of Boston.)

We're interested in new LARP campaigns and existing games doing special events, LARP conventions, LARP workshops, LARP book readings, or anything else happening in New England, New York, and the Mid-Atlantic states that might be of interest to LARPers.

If you're running something like this or just hearing about it yourself, please e-mail it to me at nelarpnews@gmail.com!

A Feast of Ice and Fire with Pandemonium

Not a LARP, but maybe of interest to LARPers. From Pandemonium Books and Games via e-mail:

Join us for the Feast of Ice & Fire at the Tavern in the Square, on Friday, Sept. 28th at 7pm. This will be a six course meal. Cost is $50, plus beverages.

The menu will include:

• Sister's Stew
  
• Crusty White Bread (for the table throughout the meal)
  
• Onions in Gravy
  
• Sweetcorn Fritters
  
• Wild Board
  
• Wintercakes
  

Our goal is to provide a culinary tour of the Seven Kingdoms. Chelsea Monroe-Cassel and Sariann Lehrer, authors of the cookbook A Feast of Ice & Fire, will be on hand to answer any questions and sign copies of the book. Copies of the book are available on our website and in our store right around the corner from the tavern! As part of the arrangement with Tavern In The Square, we must submit a final head count no later than Sept. 14th in order for this event to go forward. They need to order special ingredients. To sign up, please email Tyler at general@pandemoniumbooks.com

Click through to the Pandemonium event page for links to pictures of some of the menu items.

The recipes used in this meal hail from the cookbook written by the authors of The Inn at the Crossroads, a blog of recipes recreating dishes from the A Song of Ice and Fire books by George R. R. Martin. The blog features among other things some of the most gorgeous food photography I've ever seen on a cooking blog. Highly recommended, but only if you want to be hungry.

Edit 2012-09-08 14:54: Per a question on Reddit (hi Reddit!), the Pandemonium event page confirms this is at the Tavern in the Square in Central Square (730 Massachusetts Ave, Cambridge, MA), just around the corner from Pandemonium itself.

Time Bubble sign-ups are open!

Sign-ups for Time Bubble (previously), the RPI fall LARP weekend, are now open! Looks like another good weekend of games. FairEscape has reviews of the games up here.

Mad About the Boy sign-ups close Saturday!

Sign-ups for Mad About the Boy (previously: here, here, video) close on Saturday, September 8. Twitter informs me that they have seven open spots left, so if you've been torn about signing up, now's the time!

SLAW sign-ups open tomorrow!

General public sign-ups for SLAW at WPI (previously: here, here) open tomorrow, Friday, September 7, at 7p. At least one of the smaller games is nearly full from student and GM sign-ups alone, so expect things to go fast. It looks like they've got a really good schedule of games up, so it should be a good time.

Once Upon a Time in Tombstone @RPI

From FairEscape/Lime Shirt LARPing via e-mail:

Finally, the news you've all been waiting for. Lime Shirt LARPing is proud to present the UK Freeforms weekend-long "Once Upon a Time in Tombstone", a game set in the Wild West of legend. Gamble with Doc Holliday, serve law and order with Wyatt Earp, and shoot against Annie Oakley. The game is running October 26-28th at RPI's Sage Labs. The fee is, as always, $25. This time, you have the option of either paying the full $25 up front, or paying $15 now and $10 at the game. You can find the signup form at TinyUrl.com/TombstoneLARP . If you have any questions about the game, let me know at limeshirtlarping@gmail.com . Thanks, and I'll see y'all on the trail.

From discussion over e-mail, the game is definitely looking for outside players -- "those huge weekend long games tend not to fill, and the more players the better." It sounds like a fun time!

SLAW Schedule is Up!

The game schedule for SLAW, the WPI SFS LARP weekend, is now live! Looks like they've got a lot of well-reviewed games running.

Reliable sources inform me that this is a great time to sign up for the event. Game sign-ups open for current WPI students in a week, on Friday, August 31 at 7PM, and for the general public in two weeks, on Friday, September 7 at 7PM. Game sign-ups are first-come, first-served, so you don't want to be still busy signing up for the con when that game you want fills.

They're also still looking for games! Information about how to bid is on the site.

(h/t FairEscape)

Babycastles Summit in NYC this weekend

This is a fascinating-sounding event combining talks, workshops, and concerts under the auspices of the NYU Game Center among others and headlined by the designer of Katamari Damacy. The event is covering all sorts of gaming, not just LARP, but, among the LARP-specific bits, on Saturday Lizzie Stark is running her Ars Amandi workshop which rocked Intercon last year.

From the Facebook event page:

The Babycastles summit is a three-day series of talks, panels, bands, hands-on workshops and custom video game installations designed by Keita Takahashi , game designer of Japan’s Katamari Damacy. The summit will be hosted by the Museum of Art and Design from August 24th through the 26th as part of the “Fun Fellowship”.

[...]

♥ SATURDAY, AUGUST 25TH ♥
Open 12PM - 1AM

Talks, Workshops, Panels from 1PM - 8PM
♡ Japanese Shmups and the Ascension of a Bodhisattva
♡ Participatory Games Workshop
♡ How To Babycastles
♡ Physical Intimacy in Larps [emphasis mine -ed.]
♡ Performance Machines in Game Space
♡ Nick Fortugno
♡ The Bill Murray of Video Games
♡ Designing Games for Public Spaces

Party and Performances from 8PM - 1AM
♡ The Suzan
♡ Eula
♡ Habibi
♡ Sweet Tooth
♡ Peggy Wang DJ Set (The Pains of Being Pure at Heart)

If you're in the area, definitely check it out. It sounds crazy and awesome.

"Mad About the Boy" Video

As an addendum to yesterday's post, here's a video made as part of (what I believe was) the first run of "Mad About the Boy", the all-female Nordic larp which Lizzie Stark is running in Connecticut.



(via Anna-Karin Linder on the new North American and Nordic Larp Exchange Facebook Group)

Two Weeks to Sign Up for "Mad About the Boy"

There are about two weeks to go on sign-ups for "Mad About the Boy" (deadline is September 8), and they're still looking for players! This is the all-female Nordic larp based loosely on the popular graphic novel Y: The Last Man which we posted about previously. It's running Friday, October 5 through Sunday, October 7 at Camp Cedarcrest in Orange, Connecticut. It looks like ridesharing and so on is being coordinated through the Facebook group.

From http://lizziestark.com/2012/07/26/mad-about-the-boy-sign-up/:

The Plot

Mad About the Boy is a larp about survivors of a global disaster that killed more than half of humanity; an inexplicable disease killed all the men in mere minutes. The surviving women face not only the enormous task of rebuilding society, but also the possible extinction of humanity.

While the graphic novel Y the Last Man by Brian K. Vaughn and Pia Guerra inspired the world of the larp, the game does not use any characters or storylines from the graphic novel. Our story follows a group of women who have applied to an insemination program initiated three years after the disaster. As sperm has become a very precious resource, only a few women will be given this privilege.

Players will portray women applying to the insemination program in familial groups of three. For video about the game, check out this Nordic Larp Talk, by one of the creators, Tor Kjetil Edland.

The Style

This game is a particular sort of larp, a Nordic larp. Rather than winning epic battles, participants will portray flawed human characters living in a reality that is very similar to our own, save for the absence of men. The aim of this larp is for each participant to portray a satisfying story within the game framework. This may mean portraying characters open to tragedy and suffering as well as open to happiness.

Read a primer on Nordic larp here.

Think of it as an interactive theatrical production rather than as a game — you can “win” only by telling a satisfying complex story that supports the experience of your fellow-players.

This larp does not rely on secrecy; participants are encouraged to read the original game libretto if desired, keeping in mind that it will be updated to reflect the US setting.

In keeping with the Nordic larp tradition, the first part of the game, on Friday night, will consist of workshops designed to foster community among the players and help them develop and deepen their characters.

Gender

Earlier runs of Mad About the Boy in Norway featured both all-women casts and mixed-gender casts, all playing women. Our US run will be all-women, with trans women and genderqueer people welcome. We’ve chosen an all-women run of the game in consultation with the Norwegian authors of the larp, who noticed that the mixed-gender run ended up being about the experience of men playing female characters rather than living in a society in which only women are left.

The game is open to everyone who identifies as female in one form or another. And that the people who sign-up may self-select whether this applies to them.

The Sort of Players We Want

Women open to roleplay about serious themes, older than 18 only. This game is for larpers interested in emotional plotlines, as well as non-gamers interested in the game’s theme, or people who loved interactive theatrical productions like Sleep No More, but wanted to get more involved in the plot.

The game is written for 30-40 players.

Got questions about whether this game is for you? Email lizzie.stark@gmail.com. Or ask on the Facebook group.

Discussion with Lizzie Stark by e-mail clarifies for me that, although this is a Nordic game, it is not a Jeepform game, which I was unclear on. It will bear a much closer resemblance to the larps that we're used to in the US than some of the other highly-symbolic Nordic games I've heard about.

Lizzie says, "Mad About the Boy is a larp, not a jeep. It features high immersion, set, costuming, continuous play (as opposed to sharply cut scenes) and real props instead of symbolic props. It's also for about 30 players, whereas most jeepform games are for 2-8." (Although it does sound like they'll be using a jeepy technique or two for certain parts of game.)

Middle Earth Day at the Higgins Armory Museum in Worcester, MA

This seems to be the kind of thing that LARPers would be interested in. From the Museum via e-mail:

Middle Earth Day at the Higgins Armory Museum in Worcester, MA
Saturday, September 29, 2012
10:00-4:00

Hear the stories of elves, hobbits and men; sing their songs, learn about their armor, and help defeat the Necromancer! So dust off your travelling cloaks and study up on your runes, or just comb your feet and join us for a day of fun and fellowship!
Swordfights- See Arwen teach Aragorn the proper way to slay an orc??!!
Storytelling- hear stories of Bilbo from J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit
Crafts- Make Gimli’s shield or design your own
Come dressed as your favorite character from Tolkien’s stories of fantasy and adventure

One Museum to Rule Them All…

Higgins Armory Museum
100 Barber Avenue
Worcester, MA 01606
508-853-6015 ext. 20
http://www.higgins.org/

The event is free and open to all ages.

Boston Indie Game Fest Needs LARPs!

Short version: The Boston Festival of Indie Games, Saturday, September, 22, 2012, wants short, small-space LARPs! The application deadline has been extended to August 20.

Long version from Philip Tan by e-mail to the MIT Assassins' Guild mailing list:

Mike Young LARP in Maryland!

The Tad and Craig's Excellent Party gaming relaxicon is running Mike Young's Miskatonic Archaeological Expedition, a "thematic sequel" to his well-known Miskatonic Class Reunion over Labor Day Weekend in Laurel, Maryland.

From the LARP site:

Miskatonic University thanks you for your interest in this year’s summer project, an Archaeological dig on the Isle of Sumatra. This is sure to be an excellent experience for our staff and students, and it’s all for credit at Miskatonic University as well!

“Miskatonic Archaeological Expedition” is a 4-5 hour minigame written by Mike Young, set in a Lovecraftian world. It has been run multiple times since its first writing and is a thematic cousin to last year’s insanely successful “Miskatonic Class Reunion”.

The LARP site has contact info and a casting questionnaire. Precasting ends on 8/20, and, although it's possible the game has filled already, some bit parts may be available at the door, and the con overall sounds like fun.

Dystopia Rising opens near Worcester, MA

Via Gaylord Tang by e-mail:

A post-apocalyptic zombie boffer LARP, Dystopia Rising, has opened its second franchise near Worcester, MA at Camp Marshall (92 McCormick Road; Spencer, MA).

A tabletop version of the RPG is available in print via Amazon or in PDF via DriveThruRPG. LARP rulebook published in a few weeks.

The original LARP is in New Jersey, and it looks like there's another starting in Texas in October. Their first event is tomorrow (Friday, August 10), with others coming in September and October. The video is more about the tabletop RPG book than the LARP, but it sounds like an interesting setting.

NERO Hartford Kickstarter Offers a New Player Reward

NERO Hartford (Connecticut) is running a Kickstarter campaign to fund the last two events of their Kaurath boffer LARP's 2012 season and to put a deposit down for the 2013 season, the game's 10th anniversary. It sounds like a great time to come in as a new player, specifically through this reward:

PLEDGE $85 OR MORE
NEWCOMER'S JUMPSTART: Available to characters level 8 and below:
1) Listing in the newsletter (and on the website) as an "Adventurer" on our Supporters List.
2) One (1) full admission as a Player Character (PC) to an event of your choice (calendar of events and pre-reg link to be sent after funding). Includes all our delicious meals (late night Friday, breakfast Saturday and Sunday, Saturday lunch, dinner Feast and late night) and a guaranteed cabin assignment;
3) Sack o' Heritage:
(a) A long plot submission relating to character's backstory (developed following our October 2012 event). Note: two XP blankets will be applied to the designated character for their actions;
(b) A Sack of Goodies based on the character's backstory; and
(c) A one year membership in NERO Hartford.

About the Kickstarter:

Use of Funds
The Kickstarter money will cover site rental for the last 2 events of the 2012 Season, and the deposit for the 2013 Season at Camp Cedarcrest (a private camp in Orange CT), and put us well on our way to filling the game with a dynamic and enthusiastic cast We already have thousands of dollars worth of props and costumes, so this money goes towards this project, not building up a storehouse of equipment. If we surpass our first goal, then we will use the additional funds raised to underwrite our other Tenth Anniversary projects, which include, among other things an updated Players' Guide, covering the last ten years of IG (In Game) history, which has been shaped by the players.

Once successfully funded, we will send all backers a questionnaire to verify their donation level and rewards, and any additional rewards for which they may have pledged funds. All proposed delivery dates are estimates. Event admissions will be available as soon as the campaign is successfully funded.

Please note that all rewards can also be banked by players NPCing for awhile, and they can be added on to any other NPC awards earned for NPC service.

h/t @LARPingorg

"Mad About the Boy" Nordic Larp sign-ups open!

From Lizzie Stark:

This October in Connecticut, I am helping run the all-lady Nordic larp Mad About the Boy with some other locals and the original Norwegian creators! The sign-up for the game -- a dystopian future tale about a world in which all men are dead -- is now open.

http://lizziestark.com/2012/07/26/mad-about-the-boy-sign-up/

We'd love help spreading the word. You can find us at the above site, or on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/groups/260955010681088/. Hope to see some of you all there.

They've been able to drop the ticket price from the originally-quoted price.

"Across the Sea of Stars" running at Brandeis Sat, Aug 4

From vortexofchaos on interconlarp at LiveJournal:

Sign up for Across the Sea of Stars before it fills!

It's official: Across the Sea of Stars [which we blogged about previously here -ed.] will run Saturday, August 4th, at 12:30 PM to midnight in the Levin Ballroom of Usdan, at Brandeis.

This is a Universe-spanning hard, realistic science-fiction LARP for 25 players, with strong and interesting characters, and with intense and dense plotting. A lot of people have heard about this game; it's run twice at Intercon to rave reviews. It's been three years, and people have been asking us to rerun it - so here's your rare chance to explore the future.

This is also a bit unusual - it's a Tale Telling LARP. In three parts of the game, you'll step out of your characters to play historical figures in some classic science fiction tropes. You'll get to explore and learn what has gone before, and it may affect what will come. It's a fascinating experience that will have you humming some of your favorite science fiction soundtracks.

Ask those who've played it. They'll tell you this is a game you've got to play.

We're going to take the first 25 people (based on game gender balance) who fill in a completed survey. The questionnaire is not short, and incomplete questionnaires won't count!

We hope to see you there. I'm in the process of announcing this far and wide, so you want to sign up quickly!

He's not kidding about the questionnaire's length, but it was fun to fill out regardless, and I'm looking forward to the game. There were still a few spots left as of earlier this evening, so sign up quickly if you want to play!

NELCO is today! (and tomorrow)

NELCO, the New England LARP Conference [which we've blogged about previously -ed.], is running all this weekend at the Chelmsford Radisson! There are panels and workshops about writing, running, and playing LARPs on Saturday, and a Build Your Own Game being, ah, built Saturday, with the game running Sunday noon-2.

Here's the complete schedule.

The address is

Radisson Hotel and Suites
10 Independence Drive
Chelmsford, MA 01824

[wording flagrantly stolen from laura47 and munged by me -ed.]

So You Want to be a GM seminar location

The So You Want to be a GM seminar will be in 35-225 -- sorry for the late notice.

NELCO schedule up, looking for more events

The New England LARP Convention about which we posted previously now has a schedule up here!

I don't believe the schedule is entirely final, so be aware its contents will likely shift over the next couple weeks. At least you can see what's planned right now.

Also, I believe they're still looking for more panels, talks, workshops, and other events, so please go to the home page and propose an event or volunteer for an existing one that needs more participants! (You'll need to create an account and log in before that link will work.)

NELCO is July 20-22 at the Radisson in Chelmsford, MA. I'm looking forward to it (and I'm not just saying that because I'm running a couple events) -- it should be a good time! (Should be a good barcon too.)

"So You Want to Be a GM" seminar at MIT

[Short version: game-writing how-to seminar this Saturday from 1-8p at MIT which Ariel Segall and I (Kevin Riggle) are running. If you're interested, e-mail us at sywtbatm@mit.edu so we include you on the e-mail about which room it will be in, and so we get a rough headcount on food. I'll try to announce the room here as well, but things are a bit crazy this week and I may forget. E-mail is best. If you didn't RSVP, come anyway! E-mail us for the room location.



You do not need to be affiliated with MIT in any way to attend! But, do note that this session is primarily focused on writing games in the Guild style, so if you're primarily interested in writing games for eg. Intercon or boffer campaigns this is not necessarily going to be useful to you. Then again, it won't necessarily be unuseful either -- we don't know enough to speak directly to those audiences, although we have some experience, but much of the advice is generally true. Do be aware that you will have to take many of the details (and some big ideas) on the understanding that they won't necessarily apply to your audience.



Also note that this session is intended partly as preparation for people interested in doing Guild Camp at MIT beginning the weekend after. Guild Camp (boot, not summer) is an intensive game-writing workshop in which people form up into 3-5 person teams and write a Guild game in two weeks. It's a ton of fun -- I wrote my first game a year ago as part of it -- but light on theory or general advice, so we'll be speaking directly to that experience. Again, most things will be generally true if you're not doing Guild Camp, but take that under advisement. -ed.]

Full blurb under the cut.

"Dia de los sobres" summer LARP day: WPI, Saturday, July 28, 2012

One of the summer LARP events we posted about previously has a date and a slate of games! Via Sarah Judd by e-mail:

Día de los Sobres is a one-day summer LARP event. Last year, at the first Día de los Sobres, Alleged Entertainment and Paranoid & Crotchety teamed up to run two LARPs back-to-back. This year, Día de los Sobres is bigger and better! Here's the deets:

• Where? Alden Hall at WPI, in Worcester, Massachusetts.
• When? Saturday, July 28.
• Which LARPs?
  
  • Alleged Entertainment's A Garden of Forking Paths!
  • Paranoid & Crotchety's Folding the River!

Signups are here: http://sobres2.concentral.net/events/715 We'll be opening registration at 7:00 PM Eastern time on Thursday, July 5.

Time Bubble 2012: A Weekend of Minigames in upstate NY

Time Bubble 2012 Announcement, Call for Games

Via Jenny by e-mail:

My name is Jenny, and I'm Game Mother for the RPI larping community. I'll
be running my second Weekend of Minigames at RPI in Troy, NY on October
5-7. I just released my call for games last night (the flyer is
attached). This event is called Time Bubble 2012. (The last one was Dice
Bubble 2012, and the fall and spring semester weekends will continue to
have these respective names.) Last time, we had fourteen games and
sixty-five registered attendees (we were probably closer to 70 with the
last-minute surprise players) and I'm excited to raise the bar for another
Weekend of Awesome!

I want to extend an invitation to the larping community as a whole to come
run a game and play with us!

You can sign up for the event at Time Bubble 2012's web site. (And here's this past spring's Dice Bubble site so you can see the awesome schedule they put together last time.)

Want to run a game with them? (You should!) You can send bids to dicebubble@gmail.com using this handy-dandy bid form.

Using Kickstarter to fund LARP-related projects

Larping.org has a post up about New Jersey LARP which used Kickstarter to fund improvements at the camp they rent, raising $3,600 from players to build a new common space, not just for that LARP, but for all the LARPs which use the camp.

Where else have you seen Kickstarter used to fund LARPs or LARP-related projects?

Intercon M date and location

Intercon M now has a date and location!

Intercon M will be returning to our comfortable home at the
Chelmsford Radisson from Friday, March 1 to Sunday, March 3, 2013,
with Pre-Con events starting on Thursday, February 28. We're very
happy to be back in Chelmsford! Hotel room reservation information
will be available on the Intercon M website soon.

Pre-Con now included!

The Pre-Con event (aka "The Thursday Thing") has become so popular that
this year, we're rolling in admission to Pre-Con with your Intercon
membership. There will be no extra fee to attend Pre-Con panels and
events! (The web site still mentions a registration fee; we're working on it. -ed.)

New England Larp Conference

Coming up soon is the very first New England Larp Conference, a weekend
of panels and workshops about LARP much like Pre-Con but longer and
without the stressors of Intercon happening right afterwards! NELCO
will be held at the Chelmsford Radisson from July 20 to 22, 2012. Your
panel and presenter ideas are still needed! Submit them and find out
more about attending at the NELCO website.

Co-Parenting

Former Con Chair and soon-to-be-father Chad Bergeron will be organizing
co-parenting at M to provide more freedom for parents wishing to LARP.
Contact Chad for more information. (Contact information withheld pending Chad's approval; ping me at nelarpnews@gmail.com and I'll pass you on. -ed.)

Bid a LARP!

We are actively and excitedly asking for game bids! We're looking for
a diverse selection of LARPs over many different styles and genres from
new and experienced authors. If you're interested in running a game,
you can find the bid form on the Intercon website.

Bid a Pre-Con panel idea!

Do you have a panel or event idea for Pre-Con? Submit your idea to our
Panel Committee here!


Intercon M Website
Find us on Facebook
Follow on Twitter

SLAW weekend of minigames

Via Sarah Judd by e-mail:

Where: WPI
When: Nov 9-11

[Official player signups are at http://slaw2012.concentral.net/events/708.]

[The event is also looking for games!]

Games can be bid to me at dancesthroughlife@gmail.com by August 27 (or later, if you must)

Send an email with:
1. Name of game
2. Short Description
3. Min/max gender player breakdown
4. Kind of room/rooms you'd like
5. If your game can take last-minute casts and add-ins.
6. Any time constraints you have

"Minigames" here means short probably 1-4 hour games. (Although Sarah says, "I suppose if you want to run a 12 hour larp at slaw, I'd take it," not that anyone should consider that a challenge or anything. ;-)

Summer LARP weekend games?

According to acousticshadow2 on LJ, the previously mentioned summer LARP weekend has a tentative location (Bridgewater, MA) and a tentative timing (a Sunday in August). Now they're looking for games!

Visit the original entry for details and to let them know it you have a game you'd like to run.

[Source: interconlarp]

Across the Sea of Stars run interest?

From vortexofchaos on LiveJournal:

I've been talking to a lot of different LARP people about Across the Sea of Stars of late, and some people have said they'd like to play. Now, I'm not promising anything, but I'd like to gauge interest. Across the Sea of Stars is a ten hour Tale telling LARP for 25 players. I know it's probably a stupid question, but would there be enough interest to fill the game?

Remember, it's ten hours. Two Intercon slots.

Again, I'm not promising anything. It's a behemoth of a game, that costs a lot of time, money, and effort to print and stuff. (Seriously. This is a full-sized LARP, in addition to thirty microLARPs that run multiple times in parallel. One copy fills two 4" notebooks. I kill trees to run it. It's the biggest thing I've ever written, by far.) You'd have to convince my co-GMs to help me run the game - there's no way that I can do this without three or four other insane people. It needs a good size space to run in - and I don't know of a good place to do that, even at Brandeis. OK, where Venezia ran in Usdan would work. A ballroom at the Radisson would work. You also have to convince me to add it to my already insane schedule, probably best late in the summer.

What do you think?

RSVP at the original entry.

[Source: interconlarp]

A Build Your Own Game seminar and more

Via vortexofchaos on LiveJournal:

A Build Your Own Game seminar and more

So you want to learn how to write a LARP? Maybe you've been thinking about it, but you didn't want to do it by yourself? Perhaps you just didn't know how to get started? Or, you've written a LARP or three and just want to get a different perspective on the writing process.

Have I got the opportunity for you.

Join me July 20-22, at the Chelmsford Radisson, in Chelmsford, Massachusetts. I'll be speaking on Friday about how to write a LARP. On Saturday, I'll be facilitating another Build Your Own Game effort, where a bunch of people will get together to write a game in 24 hours. There will be other panels about LARP as part of the New England LARP Conference 2012 (which we posted about recently --ed.), but the writing is where the challenge will be - so sign up now!

If you don't want to write, we're looking for proposals for workshops and panels. Let's talk LARP!

[Source: interconlarp]

Boston-area summer LARP event interest?

mllelaurel writes on LiveJournal:

Inquiring minds would like to know...

How would you, Boston-area LARPers, feel about a summer event of some kind? There are a bunch of game-runners, P&C included, who'd be interested in running games over the summer. What do you think? Any dates people are likely to prefer or have a difficult time with? How large an event would you be up for? Single games? A day-long event (probably two games back-to-back)? A weekend?

Comments on the original entry.


[Source: interconlarp]

Look, over in the sidebar -- feeds!

Thanks to a gracious LJ paid account user, we now have a LiveJournal feed, and I've set up a Twitter feed. If there's any other way you'd like me to make this available, comment here or e-mail me and I'll look into it.

Story Wars AU campaign

According to bleemoo, character submissions are open and currently stand at 21 of 30 players for a campaign LARP similar to and run by some of the same people as the Story Wars games which ran at Intercon a few years ago. They're hoping to fill by the end of the month and run first in mid-September. -ed.

Welcome to Story Wars AU (currently a placeholder name). This will be a campaign larp, meeting roughly two to three times per year, as we figure out what we can handle. I will state up front that while we have written other larps, we have not done a campaign before, so expect that there will be a learning curve in some areas and try to bear with us. Thanks!

This is a mash-up game done in the school style. If you have played School For Young Women Specializing in the Arts of Grace and Maidenly Submission or Story Wars: Episode VI Return of the Princess Bride, then you understand the style. For those who haven't, the game will be set in a set of neighboring schools, ones that have a friendly rivalry with each other. Characters will be drawn from various fictional sources and will likely form some kind of theme.

This survey is intended to start the character submission process. We are looking for at least five character ideas from everyone, some on specific themes.

Disclaimer: Submitting a character is not a guarantee that it will be accepted. Nor is it a guarantee of a place in the game. We will be doing a 30 player max. If we find out we can handle more characters later, we may do so, but for the start, 30.

Characters will be accepted based on the following factors: how well we know the character, how well it mixes with other characters submitted (that does not mean everyone is friends, just that they will interact in interesting ways), and how well a character sparks ideas in a GM. The point is to write a cool game that everyone will enjoy. We do that best by picking a set of characters that both excite us and will mix well.

As we do not have a set date for the first game yet, other than vaguely fall, we will be keeping some backup ideas in place just in case what we pick doesn't match who can come to game.

(Via bleemoo.)

Announcing the First New England Larp Conference

Announcing the New England Larp Conference, a multi-tradition conference on the subject of LARP.

What is NELCO?

The New England Larp Conference is a weekend of panels and workshops about LARP. If you've been to the Thursday thing, or Pre-Con at Intercon, that's the idea, only on a weekend, and without Intercon preperations hanging over you. We're looking to have a large number of panels and workshops from all genres of LARP, not just "Intercon Style".

Where is it happening?

At the Chelmsford Radisson, where Intercon L happened earlier this year.

When is it happening?

July 20-22, 2012

How much will it cost?

$20

I've never written a LARP before, is this for me?

Certainly! We've gotten feedback that the panels at Precon have been a great way to learn more about writing games.

I've never played in a LARP before, is this for me?

Honestly, probably not. We're working on some ideas for intro-to-LARP panels leading into a introductory larp for next year's Precon and Intercon, and that's likely a better place to get your feet wet. If you're still interested in coming to NELCO, then, you're certainly welcome.

I hear there's going to be a Build Your Own Game?

Yes, indeed, obvious audience plant, there is going to be a BYOG, coordinated by Jeff Diewald. If you're interested in writing or playing in the BYOG, please sign up on the site, so we can gauge interest. If there's enough interest, we may split into multiple groups and write more than one game.

I've got a great idea for a panel!

Great, we'd love to hear about it. You can make a suggestion for a Panel or Workshop using the proposal form found here. We're looking for new ideas, as well as repeats of panels that went well at Precons in the past.

I'd like to sign up, or I have more questions, do you have a website?

Yes, it's at http://nelco2012.concentral.net.

What is this?

Northeast LARP News is a site for event announcements related to LARPing in the Northeast United States. (I define "the Northeast" roughly and arbitrarily as anything within a day's surface travel of Boston.) So, announcements of conventions, new campaign LARPs, readings of LARP-related books, and other LARP-related events in the area are all fair game -- please e-mail announcements to me at kevinr@free-dissociation.com and I'll post them.