Diary of a Croatian larper

A lot of larpers (and larp organizers) never think twice about HOW the larp plot is structured - or even created, instead following in the footsteps of their predecessors and how things have always been done. Plot structure can have profound effect on a larp - different plot structure can give a way different feel to how plot works, and can make them look and feel very very different from one another regardless of the rule system used or not used. It is one of the most important aspects of any larp. This article will cover several ways to structure the plot. But of course, this is a place where you can get inventive and combine listed methods, use some of the unlisted or even invent your own. As far as I know, methods of structure so far haven't been categorized in any way, which means I'm probably just inventing the classification here. Yes, feel free to use or modify it for your own purposes (as a reminder: everything I write here is free and reusable , though I could use y...

This year had been rather odd for Croatian fantasy larp in general, and looked very different from the previous years. And some of that change reflected in the Amtgard chapter of Krvomeđe. We pretty much stopped doing regular battlegames and meetings back in Spring, after a few games where only 3 of us bothered to show up - and a far longer period which was very much doom and gloom and people slowly leaving (similar to other groups running similar events). Far from the (most recent) chapter's prime which lasted from late 2011 to early 2013. The only saving grace of the chapter were Rajski Vrhovi events, which are still among the biggest fantasy larps in Croatia, and which went quite well. Out of the blue, after 8 months of inactivity, a battlegame day was announced for Saturday, December 20th. Expectations - due to recent experiences - were minimal. The weather on Saturday turned out to be beautiful. Warm, sunny, and probably the best weather we've seen in over a...

Yesterday's Elysium 43 was a fun game. While Elysiums are rather low-profile Vampire events, this one was quite eventful. Characters started feeling safe and secure - in a stark contrast to last weekend's Sabbat Agram - and events from player perspective played out. A new Harpy was selected, a character who was leaving the town soon IC tried to clean the boons he owed others, etc. But soon there was trouble. A city-wide incident. And it was interesting to see how players would react to it - things were happening fast. It was an interesting response to the situation - a situation to which a lot of players were not used to. A situation which was prophesised some time earlier by some Malkavians which started to act weirder than usual... And so, that was Elysium 43. Starting out with Kindred feeling very safe, and ending with the city that is slightly in flames. These events will continue next Tuesday on Elysium 44 , last event of the year. In other news, I announced...

Sabbat Agram was a one-shot Vampire larp that we played last weekend. Being a one-shot, organizing it differed vastly from Camarilla Agram. Since CA is a campaign - a rather sandboxy and PC-driven one at that - a lot of its' content is set up by players and their continuos, long-term actions through various larps and the downtime system. Sabbat Agram differed in every possible way. Pre-written characters. Pre-generated relations. Writing all the stuff for it took some rather significant time. One-shot event where everything was to happen NOW. Hype was building up. I was carried by it myself, and so were some players. When they showed up in costumes, well... a lot of them were quite awesome, but also rather disturbing. So this is the first larp where I won't be comfortable publishing photos with identifiable faces. Or the performance of certain rituals the characters performed on the event. All of it could be easily misinterpreted as something that it wasn't. The atmo...

A lot of you are probably waiting for a review of last weekend's Sabbat Agram Vampire event. This isn't one, sorry. I still need some time to sort things out properly. But in the meanwhile, let's talk about last Croatian larp events of 2014. There's gonna be 3 of them, and all are going to happen in a week. This Thursday (December 18th) there's gonna be Camarilla Agram Elysium 43 . We're back to the Camarilla flavor of Vampire after some Sabbat craziness. This Saturday (December 20th) there's gonna be an Amtgard game at our Krvomeđe chapter. Yes. These have not been held since April due to the population drop back then. It's gonna be held at its' standard location - near the bank of river Sava, next to the Savica šanci lake in Zagreb. Starting at 13:30 (except if bad weather occurs, but the forecast is good) with a planned duration of about 2 hours, it will offer some sparring, battlegaming and a tournament in several categories. The last event...

Last weekend I took a survival training class . Now, while this is not a larp activity, there's a lot of overlap in outdoor skills between such a training and our outdoor larps - mostly done outside, with little to no facilities. Some stuff such as firebuilding was very helpful (even though I'm larping outdoors for over a decade), but one of the most interesting things is certainly building shelters. We usually camp on our larps, and - considering our larp demographics - very few people have the money for authentic canvas tents. However, shelters from the branches and debris are pretty much authentic for every historical period from paleolithic till today, they work very well and they are free. They just require a bit of work to make. A knife or an axe would be very helpful though. Despite appearances, the shelter was in fact remarkably sturdy We built a low lean-to shelter which is simple. Stick two sticks with Y-shaped ends into the ground. Put a branch between them....

Camarilla Agram 8, played last weekend, was the last major event of the year of our Vampire larp Camarilla Agram (well, besides the Sabbat Agram special event on Dec 13th - Camarilla Agram 9 will be played on January 10). Let's be honest - last few major events we have lost the visual edge. At our first event, we brought in a make-up artist and made fangs for our players. At Camarilla Agram 1-3 we were in a small apartment, which was decorated much better every time we were playing. Since Camarilla Agram 4, we moved to the new environment - KKZ. While it was much larger and roomier than our previous location, it was never decorated as much or so densely. And while our costume quality went up, somewhere along the way we have lost the makeup. And the music. And the lighting... Camarilla Agram 8 reversed all those thrends, and with a vengeance. We had skilled people doing makeup - especially visible for Nosferatu players. There was good quality fake blood. All players...

Today we're having a slightly different review than usual. It's a guest review written by Pavle Pelikan, another Croatian larper, about College of Wizardry - a Harry Potter based larp which took place in Poland. He traveled to Poland with two other Croatian players to take part in what is probably the most talked about larp this year, produced by the Rollespilsfabrikken and Liveform. Without further ado, read about his experiences below... It took me some time to get this done properly, so dear readers you have my apologies for the delay. Two weeks ago, I attended „The College of Wizardry“, a Harry Potter themed larp, set in a castle, in Poland. And when i say set in a castle, i mean a real freakin' 14th century castle! Before i get into the larp it self, i would just like to say a couple of things regarding the castle. Czocha Castle is a 14th century museum hotel, it is very large and has a lot of secret passages, I'm not talking about fake walls from room ...

Elysium 39 last week was the 50th Camarilla Agram event ever, and as such it was a bit spiced up compared to usual. Normally, the plot on Elysium events is fully player-decided social sandbox. For a change, Elysium 39 featured a Sabbat ductus who visited the Elysium in a dominated body, and the reaction by most characters was shock and fear. The situation got handled a bit clumsily, but that opened up new avenues to the story. Apart from exploring the Sabbat situation, most of the plot in Elysium 39 and 40 revolved around who will be the new prince (due to the previous events ), and around effectively organizing all the characters from the in-character perspective. Currently there's rather intense plotting and backstabbing going on. We'll see how it ends up on Camarilla Agram 8 this Saturday (reschedule: it will start at 7 PM instead of 6 PM), and how it develops further on future events . And now let's catch up with some local larp news and announcements. E...

The Elder Scrolls Chronicles 2: Soulburst event was supposed to run over 2 months ago. However, due to heavy flooding in the area it got postponed. Organizational blues didn't end there - several players could not make it for the new date, and a lot of players canceled in the last two days. At this point, I'm pretty much certain that "canceling at the last moment" is actually a hobby among a lot of Croatian players. So the larp ended up with two thirds of planned characters - 41 (including 6 organizers) as opposed to the originally planned (and balanced-for) 62. It was still the second largest fantasy larp of the year, after its' predecessor . But when the plot is player-driven instead of NPC-driven, loss of players can hurt the plot significantly, and postponement did kill a bit of hype and excitement. The weather was nice. November Sun's Dusk is of course colder than September Heartfire, but it was dry and at times sunny. The outdoor terrain was hi...

A Star Wars larp by Matija Mihoković and Ivo Turk was played this weekend. It was a fanmade larp, the third in the Star Wars series which started this year (check out the reviews of the first and second event here). It's important to note that the storyline ended here - the Star Wars larp will continue, but it will be played in an earlier time period. So this review is also a sort of a wrap up of all three events and how they looked. First of all, apologies to everyone, but I forgot my cellphone at home, so I didn't manage to snap photos of this larp. Some people did, but those photos are not available yet so most of this review will be in text. But if we were to compare looks with previous larps in the series, this one was close to the second event. The first larp still looked best, but a lot of these players haven't returned afterwards. There was one exception though: an amazing Twi'lek costume. And there was a cute Ewok costume too! :) With the projection ...

Warrior. Fighter. Soldier. Swordsman. They are some of the most popular archetypes played on larps which include combat. This guide will focus on mastering the role of a fighter - especifically in a medieval-ish fantasy setting, but most things could be adapted for other genres too. In most larps, fighters are actually one of the simpler characters available to play. It takes minutes to explain things to someone who hasn't done it before. This article will NOT attempt to do that. If you're new to larping, you might want to start here instead . This article is about mastering the role of a fighter, in any way possible. Now, obviously you don't need all of this just to be able to play. But if you are dedicated and want to do your best in your portrayal of a medieval-ish fantasy larp warrior, read on. I'll divide this post into sections: Know your character, your setting and combat rules Fitness Gear Ability, acting, specific training Types of battle Tact...