Diary of a Croatian larper

Created by the couple of Izgon 2 players who played the Amani - Ana Mangotić and Marko Brdar (who also runs the larp Bukulja in Serbia ) - as well as two other designers, Zoran Marković and Sanja Marković. It was built during the Global Game Jam 2014 event in Belgrade, Serbia - it's an event where you design a game with other participants in three days. The game simulates the players' roles, traveling around, and various interesting events happening to them. The story has been adapted from the general Amani storyline from Izgon 2, however players start without a race, and during gameplay get "defined" as Amani or Kalesti. Melki, Prophets, Hunters and Draak also make an appearance in form of the event cards. The game is written in English, with a hand-drawn board, and has been released for free under a Creative Commons licence. To play, you'll need to print out the board and event cards. In addition, you will also need some dice (regular D6), a number of pawns...

In Camarilla, positions of power are quite clear. Mile and Teddea, our hosts, both playing Malkavians The first full event of Camarilla Agram series incorporated plenty of experiences we learned from our first three playtests . The larp was played in a private apartment, and the set dressing was created that went way beyond what was done in the second playtest event. A lot of effort has been placed in set dressing - the entire play area was illuminated by a large number of red candles instead of electricity, cloth was draped over crucial locations, there was fake blood in the bathtub and sink... a real effort was made to make it look like an actual Vampire haven. The apartment had a well-fitting number of rooms which made it fitting for a social environment for the number of players who showed up on this larp. A total of 25 players took part in it - 20 of them were on-site for the full time, as some were late or had to go early. Several players had make-up, teeth and/...

Many of you probably remember the first run of Star Trek: Tethys, early last December - here's both a description of the run and the full larp scenario . Yesterday, I ran it again - this time in Star Trek fan club USS Croatia, together with my sister-in-law. Despite a rather sudden announcement, this run went very smoothly - and gives a lot to be excited about. Seven players were interested in playing - which meant one more than the game was written for. The seventh character was quickly improvised as "the counselor", monitoring the mental well-being of the crew. Players were a mix of regular clubmembers and more experienced role-players. A lot of them were wearing uniforms - one even got her uniform made on such a short notice. There were a few props around that were used - namely, a plush tribble and a cell phone with Star Trek sound effects that acted as a tricorder that the group managed to get working... In their version of the twist ending, what happened was no...

So yeah, it's a bit last minute info - but tomorrow I'm having a run of Star Trek: Tethys in the local Star Trek fan club, USS Croatia, at the address Opatijski trg 10 starting at 8 PM. Minimum quota has already been filled, we have plenty of spots left and if the interest ends up high enough it will even be possible to run 2 groups in parallel since my sister-in-law Teddea will be co-GMing it. If you want to visit, the facebook event is here . And it's just a start to a very interesting weekend. Saturday will have the first main series Camarilla Agram event, and many of us are busy preparing for it. Sunday will have the yearly Ognjeni Mač assembly. So, expect plenty of news these days. And pretty pictures.

Yes, I took one of them Facebook challenges today: I, Ivan, promise to make a small work of art for the first 5 people who comment "I'm in!" on this post. A 'like' alone is not enough. In turn, you must post this as your status update and make something for the first 5 people who comment "I'm in!" on your status. No post? No art! RULES  • It has to be an original work—made by you—and the recipient must receive it before the end of 2014. • It can be anything: a drawing, photo, video, a piece of music, a bit of writing, a conceptual work or anything in between. So to the people who responded to me, I wrote five short chamber larp scenarios, one for each of them. Four of them are in Croatian, one is in English. They heavily rely on the Ball of Yarn method for character generation and replayability. You can get them here . If you're gonna play some of them, let me know how it went!

In yesterday's meeting between Ognjeni Mač and Krvomeđe, it was decided that Crolarp 2014 is not going to happen. The official reason is "due to current circumstances in Croatian larp". The more detailed reason is probably Ognjeni Mač switching to the new ruleset and world  that is going on now, which (in combination with falling out of some organizers in 2013 and some scheduling issues) made the current model that Crolarp is using unfeasible. So, Crolarp is on ice at the moment. In the meantime, you can read the available reviews of events in 2012 and 2013  - the two years when Crolarp happened. Will it get restarted in the future, using the same model or a different one? Only time will tell.

If you've been a regular on this site, you probably remember the PoRtaL convention that we did in March 2013 in Zagreb, Croatia. I was proud to be one of its' main organizers, together with Ana Rajner and Božo Špoljarić. It was the first larp convention in the region, drawing in larpers who traveled to the convention from Hungary, Serbia and Bulgaria, taking part in the program and doing presentations of their own. You can read the entire review in these three articles, written for different days: Friday , Saturday and Sunday . For various reasons, we decided that this convention would be a regional one and that it will travel to different organizers, in a way similar to Knutepunkt conventions. So the second convention will be organized March 8-9 in Budapest, Hungary by Tamás Obreczán and Sándor Mesterházi, experienced larpers who also had a large presentation on PoRtaL in Croatia. The second PoRtaL convention will be slightly shorter (no Friday program), but it will k...

Last year, Carmen larp was played in Croatia. A generic space opera sci-fi game set in the distant future, a mishmash of a lot of possible SF settings which could be implemented in the larp. It was said there would be sequels, though none were created yet. But Carmen also created a ruleset. As it was created to work with multiple SF settings, it also enabled it to be used in those settings. The Star Wars larp that's just been announced for Zagreb is going to use Carmen larp's rules in a basically unchanged form (you can read them here - in Croatian). One of the major differences will be the fact that prewritten characters are gonna be used. Set in a bar on a remote world after Episode 6, it will portray a crucial time when society changes - and what consequences will it take, with various factions trying to maintain the influence they had. Sign ups are available from January 12 to 19, and the event will be played on Saturday, February 22nd in Kino klub Zagreb. Entrance...

Three hundred posts! It feels amazing every time a milestone is reached. It took longer to get from 200 to 300 than it took from 100 to 200 . There are several reasons for that, but the biggest one is - larp writing and preparation. Izgon 1 and 2, two Terra Nova larps, three Camarilla Agram intro larps, Star Trek: Tethys , A Party Full of Secrets as well as co-running Rajski Vrhovi XVIII and some small parts of Crolarp 2013 and one of the Para pokreće svijet larps... Doing a Croatian production of Limbo , a couple of convention runs of existing larps, NPCing, reading larp books etc... Well, looking at it now, I'm actually surprized I wrote 100 posts here since late February last year. Traditionally in such milestone posts, I wrote about the all-time most popular posts on this blog. So let's do it again: 1. Interview with the Larp Girl: Kaza Marie Ayersman, Avegost larp This was popular when it got out (November 19, 2012), and new pageviews just keep comin...

January has started slow. Due to the unusually warm weather lasting since before Christmas (seems like our winter escaped to North America), last Sunday's Steampunk event "Chase" - which was imagined to have people chasing each other in snow - has been postponed until January 26th. Krvomeđe - which happened on the same day - didn't work out, as only three people showed up. Personally, I find this puzzling. Plenty of people want some fighting practice, but they don't show up on Krvomeđe which is basically pure fighting, no strings attached. Seems to me like a good match, but oh well. That weekend - 25th and 26th - is gonna be busy. 25th is the first larp of the main Camarilla Agram series. With already over 20 people who said they'll come, it's gonna be an interesting evening. There's more room, so feel free to sign up . Sunday is the Chase, which was mentioned before, and also the yearly assembly of Ognjeni Mač - after which it will be much clearer...