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)