Diary of a Croatian larper

The convention Liburnicon in Opatija starts today. Well, only the outdoor stage. The real stuff starts tomorrow, making it probably the longest Sci-Fi convention in Croatia so far. It's not the only convention in Croatia this weekend - there's Domikon in Donji Miholjac - but it has no RPG content, so it's not going to be subject of this article. Now back to Liburnicon. And it will be full with larp content, thanks to Miroslav Wranka aka Siro who's going to ensure there's larp content on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Convention schedule can be found here . Thursday at 8 PM, there will be a Larp FAQ presentation. Friday at 9:30 PM, expect the Upoznajte larpere ( Meet the larpers ) panel discussion. And be sure not to miss Siro's  Pokret otpora larp (Resistance movement) which will premiere on Saturday at 8 PM. It will be a short (1 hour) Nordic-style chamber larp for six people, featuring pregenerated characters. So make sure you reserve your spot on ...

Chronos is a new and quite unique larp system. It's meant for non-contact play - similar to Vampire  - but that's hardly scratching the surface of what Chronos is. Produced by Eschaton Media - famous for Dystopia Rising - it's something that's certainly unique. First of all, the rules explicitly say that the system can be used for either larp or tabletop, by contrasting live action play vs narrative play. It's also well designed for some combination of both and it offers advice to running games which are both primarily narrative and primarily live. Chronos utilizes specially designed cards as its' mechanical system of play. These cards represent characters, their items, skills and a form of magic called Aether. Instead of having a character sheet - like similar mechanics-heavy larps - Chronos characters will have player decks instead, giving Chronos a character similar to TCGs (trading card games). However, player decks will be much simpler than usu...

With the summer still going on, numbers on weekly Elysium events are still low as people are still out of town. But that doesn't mean we're idling away in Zagreb. Two days ago we had Camarilla Agram Elysium 27. Our regular location - Kinoklub Zagreb - became unavailable, so instead we played in the Valhalla bar, in a relatively isolated place - although close to the main rail station. It's open to public only on weekends, so we managed to get it for ourselves. Still, it was not overly populated. A relatively small group of players - 10 of us - did some light social larping for about 2 hours this Wednesday, from 9 to 11 PM. What mostly happened was some in-character socializing and planning for the future. Elysium events are purely sandbox, so what happens is what other players push. The central part of the event turned out to be some heated arguments between a neonate and an elder, which ended up in a neonate being "educated". The play atmosphere ...

It's been almost a year since Larps from the Factory book came out, and I still haven't given it a proper review... until now. The chief reason for it being a simple lack of time. It's close to 300 pages long, and I got it just as I was running Izgon 2 . However, while on my summer vacation I managed to give it a good cover to cover read. Better late than never. In a way, this book is about the same things as this article series - starting a larp. Or to be more precise, it's about organizing and running larps in the Nordic, larp factory style. Larp factories are collectives of larp designers producing larps of high quality but very low treshold of participation. In essence, you get a larp which is well-written, simple to produce, and requires a minimum of prior preparation from players. So for example you would attend a Factory larp in a similar way you would go out to movies. Larp factory in Oslo was the first such group. Personally, I visited the Larp factor...

Most larp campaigns in Croatia so far died before they reached a double digit number of weekend events, and only a few had reached their teens. Rajski Vrhovi, running continuously from 2004., had their 21st event this weekend. The history of Rajski Vrhovi is now long and complex. It was started by a group of enthusiasts, many of whom formed a core of the Amtgard chapter of Krvomedje when the latter was formed. On this blog you'll find reviews of all Rajski Vrhovi events from 15 onwards, except for the Rajski Vrhovi XX this June on which I was not present because it was on a weekend between Terra Nova and Demgard . The organizational model, however, evolved in that time - the group of organizers spread, and the larp now stands on its' own, introducing expanded organizer team, permanent death (since last year) and latex weapons (since this event). Despite that, they remain the most "classic" event around, representing the structure and playstyle that has existed s...

Howdy folks! Today's post is going to be a bit different, as it's gonna talk about this blog. Ever since this blog has started, I've been covering the costs myself, from my salary - as well as larps I go to. That's something I'm actually OK with. I love larps, I'd do it anyway. And writing this blog, which was difficult for the first year, became almost like a hobby - I actually discovered that I like writing. So I'll do it anyway. However, the fact is that I can't really afford everything that I'd love to write about on this blog. So in an effort to improve this blog and its' content, I started a campaign on Patreon . It's a website similar to Kickstarter, but instead of funding singular projects it's used to fund content creators who continuously release a stream of smaller works - like artists and, yes, bloggers. So I would ask of you: if you like this blog and would like to see it grow even better, please support it by your pled...

"How to become a larper? How to start larping? Where do you begin? How to join a larp? How to prepare for your first event? How to gear up? What do I need to know for my first larp?" Etc. These are all questions that people interested in larp ask all the time. And in over three years of writing this blog and over 350 posts on it, I just remembered I haven't written any decent advice for new and potential players. And that's why it's harder than it seems. Not preparing for your first larp, but writing about it. Different larps can be quite different, and can be even more confusing to existing larpers (used to another style) than to those who never larped before. However, I decided to do it - and write a comprehensive guide about it, with a catchy Upworthy-style title that's sure to catch the attention, right? After all, it did catch yours. Below you will find a 10-step guide that will answer the most fundamental questions about larping that you might ha...

Last night Camarilla Agram Elysium 25 event took place. 25 Elysium events so far, all of them this year... that's a nice number. This time, the middle of the summer, feels like an eye of the storm. There are very few larps going on right now, as nothing major is going on weekends, so there's only the weekly Elysiums - ever since mid-July's Star Wars 2 and Camarilla Agram 5 ... Which makes me wonder, when the hell did I start thinking about one larp a week for a month as a "low" amount? Must have happened this year. When I started this blog over 3 years ago, most months had 1-2 events only, and if there was more than one event from November to February it was a good year. When I started to larp back in 2001, there was only one event a year - a year later, the second one appeared, and there were people commenting how 2 larps a year are too much for the scene, even if they were on the opposite sides of the country... Back to the topic. Elysium 25 was played ...