The Red Pill

Calam was great :-)

noreply@blogger.com (Jerm) — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 10:09:00 +0000

Two weeks ago the next installment of Calam ran. While we had some drawbacks with people having to skip this event (due to an abundance of larps going on in September), the event itself was great.
People liked our approach for this event and the fact that the inn had a real feel was wel appreciated.
The real feel was one of the main items that I wanted to test this event. We had decorated the inn to make it look good and real, and then we provided service to make it feel good.

Ordering food was done by asking the barkeeper of the waitress for food. They would go into the kitchen, fill a bowl on serve it at the table. No more queing and doing dishes as all other Belgian larps (that I know) ask of the participant. No, we went for the real deal :-)

There were of course some things that could go better, we had this time somewhat more fights than during past events, but everybody agreed that they fit the world. But we'll see how we can dimish them and keep the Calam athmosphere that people are liking.

In the meantime all of the crew is in favor for running 2 events per year, so keep out an eye for 2 events starting 2012.
I'll see that I'll post some pictures this weekend.

Ragnarok larp

noreply@blogger.com (Jerm) — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 08:43:00 +0000

Last year I was rambling on the Avatar larp forum, about the fact that they could take some hints from the Conquest of Mythodea larp in Germany. This resulted in a PM from Thierry who was already working (behind the scenes) on a new mass larp for Belgium: Ragnarok. Having read my posts he wanted me to join the crew.
So I went ahead, helped out where I could and ended up as a referee during the game.

So how was Ragnarok? Well, as a referee I had not much to do, 2 battles to supervise, some easy questions to answer, so all in all I had an easy time. But what about the game itself?

Well the looks were great! They made some wooden buildings for the 'official' places of the in-game Harapan city where the larp took place. They even had a beer brewery :-)
All the players and npc's looked great. It reminded me very much of the Maelstrom larp in the UK.

Ragnarok goes for the What You See is What You Get approach. Which means that people wanting to craft items, will have to do it (or at least make it look like their doing it). This resulted e.g. in players wanting to learn the brewing skill, to actually having to brew a beer for real :-). Pretty awesome, no?

Everywhere you went or looked it all had a real feel to it.

From what I saw, all players enjoyed themselves at the event, so that part they got going good. I especially loved the resources hunt each morning. That was really a splendid idea :-).

But there are some places that they'll need to improve.
Since they want to give all the players so much possibilities to create different kinds of stuff, the organisers are giving themselves a lot of work to do during the event. Each crafted items needs a laminated card and that means you'll need people to make those cards, hand them over and such. In my Manticore larp (max 80 players) we do the same and it's a hassle. If you do it for 500+ players (as were present at Ragnarok) this means you have a lot of adminstration to do. And it seems that this is something that could be done better. I heard a number of times that people had to wait in order to create stuff as the papers were not readily available.
Maybe they should use the Maelstrom approach: make stuff between events => all the laminated cards can be made in the months between events and put in the player envelope to hand out at the check-in.

What I never really liked is the 'paper-work' in order to fight between two armies. I hated it at Avatar and I sure don't like it a Ragnarok :-)
I understand it's done to give referees (like me) the ability to be at the fight and supervise if needed. But if a larp of 6000+ players like Conquest of Mythodea can do without this paper-work and have major battles, Ragnarok should also be able to do without.
Each faction has their own referee, so if faction A attacks faction B you'll already have 2 ref's present. If needed they can call in some backup if the fight is really big.
This would lead to more instant fights making it more fun, and also more tactical. Faction A can then attack the camp of Faction B if those people are going in a big group to the 'city' or such, leaving their camp almost empty...

They could alsodecrease the distance between the camps/city. It took at least 5 minutes to get from the city to the nearest faction camp. That is in my opinion too far. You want the camps closer to the city, so that people will visit the camps and cities more quickly instead of 'planning' the trip.

Final remark is one that I'm sure is not needed to say, but still: more toilets :-) I hate chemical toilets and I hate it even more when there are not enough so that they are full by Saturday afternoon. But like I said, I'm pretty sure the organisators know this one :-)

Here are some things that would improve the game even more:
- give free entrance for people who can play live music, give fireshows etc. They will have to perform X hours per day and in exchange they get drink/eat tickets and free entrance. That's how they do it at Conquest of Mythodea and it results in a great atmosphere.
- lower the price of the NPC's to e.g. 20 euro => the NPC faction will become huge and can bring lots of fights to the players :-) This also means that you lower the hurdle for people wanting to test out the larp without breaking their piggy bank :-)

So all things considered Ragnarok larp is a larp with a huge potential. If they can fix the minor beginer's errors they will have a larp that will attract a lot of people.
Everybody who stopped going to Avatar because it was no longer fun, to much munchkins or such should give Ragnarok a chance, you won't be disappointed.

The people behind the larp

noreply@blogger.com (Jerm) — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 12:42:00 +0000

There is never a larp without the (mostly few) crazy people willing to spend A LOT of their SPARE TIME to organise an event. They spend days, weeks, even months thinking of a good scenario, creating props, writing character roles, decorate the site, manage the event and afterwards cleanup the site.

When an event is good these people are happy and know that all their hard work meant something. But beware if the event is not as good as they hoped or even if it was right out bad. Then these people ask why they put in all the effort if the feedback afterwards is: "the event sucked", "I won't be back", ...

I've been running events for more than 10 years and I've had those moments. When I said 'this is it, I'm stopping', but each time I came around and continued on.

I remember Manticore 12, for me one of the worst as a projectleader, I told myself on the last day of the event that I would quit because I was breaking down (body and soul). But during the cleanup of the site people came up and told me that they loved the event. Suddenly all my reasons to stop were gone, as all the work did mean something!
Manticore 14, it's Sunday 22.30, everybody has already left. I'm cleaning up the mud in the corridors of the building we rented. After 15mins it's still not very clean. I remember thinking "This time it's for real! I will stop and spend the time thus saved on other stuff". Well, that never happened, along came Manticore 15 with me still in charge.

Now why am I all saying this? Well, last weekend we had Manticore 19, the pen-ultimate event before our grand finale of the current storyline. And while I'm not giving up (I plan to at least start the new storyline) I had mixed feelings of this one. My main storywriter is stepping down and I'm not blaming him.
The event received mixed reactions (people are saying that it was great, but those same people also say that is was "so so"), but in the end it was not the event that failed, it was I who failed as the project lead.

I saw from miles away that things in the team were not 100%, but I decided not to intervene, as these problems have always been present and they always solved themselves without my intervention.
But this time it was different and I didn't intervene at the right moment. My main concern with intervening is that the team consists out of volunteers who are also my friends. I find it personally difficult to criticise them if they do something wrong. I don't want to loose them as a teammember and certainly not as a friend. But my hesitation to intervene has cost me one team-member that I did not want to loose before the grand finale. Oh, he'll still be around and has promised to help out and such, but he won't take the lead in the storywriting anymore.
In order to keep the rest of the team going, to deliver at least an awesome finale, I'll have a talk with them in order to smooth things out and to lay down some rules. This to make sure that noone oversteps their function within the team.

Larping is fun, organising a larp can also fun, but like Mark Horstman (of Manager Tools) always says: from the moment you put two people in the same county you have a conflict. I just need that conflict to lead to great results :-)

Forest

noreply@blogger.com (Jerm) — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 13:37:00 +0000

Well as always it's been awefully quiet here :P
But there's been a lot going on. People knowing me, know that one of my dreams has always been to have a piece of land with buildings specifically made for larp. Well, that dream might become true.
I'm in the process of buying a nice big piece of forest just over the Belgium-Netherlands border. It's part of a bigger forest so lot's of opportunities for great larps.
Of course it's not as easy as a piece of cake, but I'm confident that all will work out fine.
Once all has been concluded and I'm ready to build I'll put some more info here.
In the meantime keep larping ;)

It's been quiet here

noreply@blogger.com (Jerm) — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 10:11:00 +0000

It's been just too quiet here on this blog. Well I've been busy with life. But a lot has happened on the Larp scene.

There's been Avatar (where I only help in the build up a bit), I went to Conquest of Mythodea (which was awesome) and last weekend there was my Calam larp.

Above a picture of Conquest of Mythodea (click on it to be redirected to the gallery of pictures I took)

Above is also a link to photos I took at Outlore last May (yes, that's me with a hawk :-)).

I'll see that I'll post some reviews of each event, but in the mean time I hope you'll enjoy the pictures :-)

Calam III, subscriptions have opened

noreply@blogger.com (Jerm) — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 08:23:00 +0000

It's been a while that I talked about Calam and so I thought it good to inform all of you that we've opened the subscriptions. Go to www.calam.eu to subscribe for the next installment.

Once again the team is very enthousiastic about this event. The plot will thicken (duh) and we will make some nice new props that should dazzle the players :-).
Next we will also add extra background information for all faction as we've received the help from some players to help us out on that. This will all result into a Calam that will feel more alive.

If you're not yet certain about Calam you should also check out our forum and ask for info from our participants of Calam II. You won't be disappointed.

More posts will follow later :-)

Updates soon (I hope :-) )

noreply@blogger.com (Jerm) — Sat, 29 May 2010 11:35:00 +0000

It's been very quiet on this blog. So I thought to give a quick update on things to expect:

review of Fantasy Design larp shop in Italy (awesome quality for honest price)
review of Outlore 2010
review of Manticore 18
and the usual stuff I talk about

First review will hopefully be posted somewhere in the coming week

Evolving from enthousiast to pro

noreply@blogger.com (Jerm) — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 08:00:00 +0000

Most of us larp organisers started our hobby as enthousiast. We wanted others to experience the wonderfull world we created. But we all quickly learned it's not all fun.

In order to organise an event we often have a legal organisation backing the event, we need an insurance, bank account, accounting, IT and much more. Soon the hobby takes on the aspect of a small company (packaged inside a non-profit organisation).

With this organisation comes meetings and that's what I want to talk about today.

In the professional world I'm a freelance IT consultant working for a big international company. We have our share of meetings. And like those meetings in the larp world they mostly start late, have no agenda, have discussions in between, end late and lastly no summary of the meeting is sent around.

But since a year now I've introduced the Manager Tools effective meeting guidelines in my professional meetings. And the result is remarkable. My meetings start on time, have an agenda, stick to the agenda and the time for each agenda bullet, the meetings end on time (sometimes the meetings end earlier) and in the end I sent a summary of what was discussed and agreed.

So having made my meetings in my day job more effective I'm now trying to do the same for my larp meetings. A month ago I tried it out at a board meeting of Arrowhead Events vzw and it works :-)
We started 5 mins later than expected, but in the end we ended the meeting 5 mins later than expected. This means that we actually stuck to the meeting schedule and we didn't loose hours on needless talk.

Yesterday I was attending a meeting of the Belgian Larp Fedartion, BE Larp vzw. And it was what I expected it to be: starting rather late (30mins later then announced), no clear agenda (just a document was sent about what we would discuss), people talking amongst themselves, talking about one topic for more than an hour, etc.
Now, don't misunderstand me, what was discussed was important and people made some good points. But I had set aside 3 hours for that meeting and in the end those 3 hours were not enough. When I left after 3 hours only one third of the document was discussed. Meaning I missed 2/3 of the discussion.

I really think that if we would introduce the same standards we use in our professional life into our larp organisations it will really be a great help. I truly believe that the meeting of yesterday could've been done in 3 hours max.
It would already be a great boost if all attendees would start behaving professionally in those meeting. Now a lot of people were talking amongst themselves when someone was trying to make a point, showing a lot of disrepect to the speaker. Having the meeting start on time shows also a lot of respect to those people who actually made the effort to be there on time (btw: I was late, so shame on me).

If meetings always start late and run late you have the following result:

people arrive late, because they know the meeting will start late
people will just not come because their fed-up with how long the meetings take
meetings will each time start later and later and last longer and longer

I've received the proof that using the Manager Tools guidelines for effective meetings work. They work in the professional world and they work in the larp world. It all take some practice. And a little bit of courage to start those first 'effective' meetings on time, even when one 1/3 of the attendee are already present.

I'd say, check out the podcast and start using their rules into your larp meetings, you'll notice the difference.

Player organised IC get together

noreply@blogger.com (Jerm) — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 14:39:00 +0000

I was browsing the Dumnonni Chronicles forum when I saw a discussion about an IC Social get together.

Seems some people think that if players come IC together it might ruin the actual game itself.

Well I disagree. Nothing is more fun than players coming together IC to socialise IC. They may even make big plans, forge alliances, try to kill one another (without really killing someone as that should be reserved for during the actual game), ...

For Manticore we've always allowed that (we even encourage it) and most players even invite us (the crew) to attend. When we have time we gladly accept the invitation and create an NPC character for ourselves.
For players it's always nice when crew attends since we can then give them some extra background information, mostly concerning their own group. We do try to make everybody equal be making that info either group specific or publishing the given info in the IC newspaper.

One of the fears that some crew have is that people would undertake actions that might break the game. But I don't understand this fear. Players can always secretely come together (IC or OOC). At least when the crew knows about the get togethers they can invite themselves :-) and check that everything goes well.

Most notoriously of all player IC get togethers I participated in must be the annual Rafiki's Birthday party each August. In 2008 there was even a murder attempt on Rafiki, without actually killing him. Result: the players who attended it were even more anxious for the next Manticore event.

I believe that the crew should be thankfull that players want to organise IC get togethers. It proves that you have players who really enjoy your fictional world and want to spend time in that world. What better praise can there be? :-)
It also means your players want to prepare themselves for the next game, meaning better IC-ness on their part.

This makes me remember Dragonbane, the day before the game started we were already IC-ish, which helped us get to know each other better in RL (we only knew most of the other players from the internet). Get to know the IC names of everybody etc. All in all the end result is in most cases better IC moments and immersion.

The only caveat of IC get togethers and crew attending is that the crew might give those attending the get together some advantage. Here I mean that the crew can give some background info that is specific to some plot of the (next) event. Crew should take caution to make sure that (a) the info they give is solely intended for the given playergroup or (b) that the info will be distributed via an IC newspaper or such.
As it would else be unfair to those players who are unable to attend/organise IC get togethers.

Let me know if I missed something major :-)

2009 is gone

noreply@blogger.com (Jerm) — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 08:03:00 +0000

Well 2009 is forever gone and will only be kept alive in our memories.
For me 2009 had some ups and downs on the larp scene.
Main downturn was of course the fact that I resigned as a volunteer of Oneiros. I didn't like having to take that decission, but in the end I believe it was needed.
The biggest upturn was for me Calam II. After the mixed result of Calam I some people told me that Calam was lost beyond recovery. Since I'm hard-headed I went along and organised Calam II (with a whole new crew). Although there were not a much participants as at Calam I it still was a big success. Now I just have to confirm this success with Calam III.
Between my big up and down were other things of course; 2 mini Manticores, Avatar, Saga and of course the excellent Outlore.
For me Outlore gives me the closest opportunity to experience how Calam might feel to our participants. Both Outlore and Calam have self-cooking, high costume standards, quick and easy game system, etc. The story is of course different and the game areas are somewhat different, but in spirit they feel the same. Only pity is that I need to go all the way to the South-West of the UK for Outlore.
All in all 2009 was a good year for me on the larp scene.
For 2010 I have the following on my plate: Manticore (ending the current cycle), Calam III (needs to at least be as good as Calam II), trip to Sweden to check out Cinderhill for a possible Dragonbane II, Conquest of Mythodea, Saga and Dawn.
You'll notice that Avatar is missing from the list, well I'm not sure if I'll attend it this year. While I do understand why people like it, it's just not my thing.

Anyway, best wishes to all of you for 2010 and hope you'll make it a blast.

Manticore

noreply@blogger.com (Jerm) — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 08:51:00 +0000

Last weekend was the last larp of the year for me: Manticore X.VI.II - Stilte voor de storm II.

As two of the team just became fathers we made this a so called 'mini' event. This meant less plot, less time etc. This to put less pressure on the team.

In the end we delivered what we promised. But while some thought it was again a great event, others, mostly new players, thought it lacked something.

For us as a crew it was an exhaustive event as we were undermanned for this one. We even had the ill luck that one of the team had an accident the day before the event and his knee was wrecked and thus could not attend the event. Michaël, best of luck with the healing of the knee.

Given the circumstances I think the event was good, we only need to make certain that we always foresee (and use) something for the new players.

As Vincent already told most people: we can use more people in the Manticore team. We can not keep up delivering good events with the current amount of people, we need fresh blood :-)

Caege was a success

noreply@blogger.com (Jerm) — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 07:40:00 +0000

While I wasn't attending this event I've heard that it was considered a success by all who attended.
Although there were some minor moments: e.g. the dreaded Saturday afternoon dip that all Belgian Larps know.
But it seems that the overall event was well liked by those who attended.

Reports like this make me sad that I have such a busy agenda. If I could I'd attend all the larps that I want, but sadly real-life is taking more of my time meaning less time for larps.

Anyway, congrats to the Caege team.

Calam was a great success!

noreply@blogger.com (Jerm) — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 08:37:00 +0000

Well it's a long time since I last blogged so let's give you guys and girls some updates :-)

Calam was a success
This time I'll not use my own words, I'll let the participants speak:

"To say it with the words of Saturday evenging: fracking awesome
Oh ja, the demons are sissies, if I could do all that I'd dare it too "

"Calam was an enjoyable experience
from the point of view of an NPC it was a wonderfull interaction between players and npcs
it always made me more anxious to stay more IC when seeing the other participants
I really loved the quote "that's no metal sir, it's vulcanic glass, that's something completely different"
I'd say, all join for good rpg and athmosphere"

"I can only agree, Calam is so much more than other Larp's.
With the limited amount of participants it looked like a peronal LARP
I'd say, join us if you like some decent roleplaying"

"Calam II was super. I really enjoyed my time there. The location was beautiful (ok, at night "a little bit cold", but still beautifull). I really enjoyed the story, the just enough story and just enough fights
so congratulations to the crew, to the npcs and to anyone who cooked this weekend"

"Thank you, to those who organised it, for the memorable event, and all the effort being put in. And thank you to the playerbase, who made the great moments all the more fun, and with whom I had some hilarious OOC moments as well."

"First of all I would like to thank everybody for the great weekend. Special thanks to the crew that spend a lot of time in scouting for a location, preparing and organising the event. Special thanks to Jeremy, Steven and Chris for making it actually work."

"You can be sure we'll be back.
Thx to the crew, it was really great.
Special thx to Steven and his Defender (you saved us a LOT of trips)."

As you can read it was a success. I'm rather proud of my crew to help me pull it off and make Calam achieve the goal I was aiming for.

No more Caege for me
It's not that I don't like Caege, I actually LOVE the world and there are some really good roleplayers there. But for Elves there's not really much to do.
Oh, I hear ya telling me to stop playing an Elf, but if the organisation doesn't provide things to do for Elves then they just shouldn't let players allow to choose an Elf as race.
I did enjoy myself last time, but that was because I made my own game. And frankly, if I have to make my own game in order to have a great time, then I believe 105 euro's is far too high participation fee. I have nothing against a Larp asking players to make their own game, but then the price should be accordingly.
I stop with Caege with pain in my heart, as it's the only larp I'd consider playing an Elf (and no, I won't consider Poort, as Poort is too old-school for me and I only hear negative feedback from friends who play/npc there). But with my diminished time schedule for larps I need to cut somewhere and Caege had enough reason for me to send it to the chopping block.

How much money is a larp worth?
Well in the previous topic I stated that 105 euro is too much for a larp where I need to make my own game in order to enjoy it. So what are the items that make me decide if a larp is too expensive or not?
Well I'll try to set up a list of things that I take into account when I choose a larp:

game world
rules system
food/drinks included
rpg standards
visual realism
amount of scenario
amount of fighting
distance from my home

Game world
That's an easy one: if the game world intrigues me I'm already with half a foot in.

Rules system
Well this is more complicated. Sometimes I'm all in for a complicated system, while I personnaly prefer the free-form system (like Calam and Dragonbane has).
I think it mostly boils down that if the system is too complex or leaves the game wide open for abuse I might not participate in that larp.

Food/drinks included
If food/drinks are included in the fee I would be ok to pay a bit more for the game. But since I organise larps where we include food and drinks I know how much it all costs. So you need to provide some pretty good food/drinks to make me pay say 40 euro's more for a larp :-).

Costume&rpg standards + visual realism
I'm grouping these threee as for me they are the main deciding factor to participate in a larp.
If a larp would allow US type of weapons, I'm out. If they allow sneakers, jeans and tshirts I'm also out. If there's too much suspension of debelief needed (aka visual realism sucks) then that's not a larp for me.
I also hate the fact when people talk too much OOC. I have no problem with a little OOC talk (I'm guilty as charged), but I still remember a larp when we were in a high tense moment, ready to kill the first who would blink in the wrong way and suddenly the main person said: "Hey, 5 minutes ago, did you ask if I had object X IC or OOC", the guy said "IC of course...", and then she would reply "Oh, but then I didn't say IC that I had it, I thought you asked it OOC". I mean, that's the worst roleplay I ever encountered. Larps where such things happen on a regular basis (people dropping in and out of the game at regular intervals) I leave aside.

Amount of scenario/fighting
If there's too much brainless fighting I won't participate. Also if there's little scenario then I won't participate if the price it too high (too high is subjective to the other items here)

Distance from my home
Well this one is easy. The further away a larp is the higher quality it must have. As I need to take into account the higher traveling costs.
For example Outlore cost me around 200 euro's but it was worth every single cent. I almost believed I was really in that game world and that's already worth some extra money :-)
The price was also high because I had to do a last minute booking of the eurotunnel and that I was alone in the car. I believe I can bring the total cost of Outlore down to 120-150 euro if I book on time and have someone along in the car to share transport costs.

Till next time

Dragonbane II

noreply@blogger.com (Jerm) — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 17:03:00 +0000

While pondering about Dragonbane I posted on Facebook that I'd love to get some idea if there would ever come a Dragonbane II. One of the former team-members of Dragonbane then posted that I'd probably had to do it myself if I wanted a DBII.

Since I'm never scared to take up a challenge I'm asking you: "Would you be willing to travel all the way to the middle of Sweden to spent a week (5-6 days) in the middle of nowhere and larp like you've never larped before?"

If the answer is yes, then let me know. If I get around 50 serious commitments I'll start working on a possible Dragonbane II. BUT, be aware that it will take at least 2 to 3 years to organise such an event.

First we need to get permission to re-use existing DB material, next we'll need access to the site, then we'll need to know the state of the village is (last I heard it was rather bad), we'll need money to fix the village and most importantly: we need crazy people like you and me to go there and fix the village.

So if you're fed up with me telling you how GREAT Dragonbane was and how it's still, to this date, the BEST LARP EVER, then let yourself be heard and let me know you're committing to attending DBII (whenever it may take place).

PS: if you're not sure you'll be going to Sweden for a Larp then DON'T commit!

Non-larp post

noreply@blogger.com (Jerm) — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 10:11:00 +0000

BEWARE: this topic will NOT be about Larp!
This will probably be the first topic not about Larp and for a long time it will also be the only one not about larp.

It will be a topic about TABLETOP RPG!

Long before I participated in a Larp I played AD&D and Star Wars D6. It was in those days that I started to really love role-play and started asking questions about this thing called 'larp'.
Now I'm pretty sure a lot of larpers also play tabletop rpg and it's for those people that I want to talk about XDM!

XDM (X-treme Dungeon Mastery, but it also stand for the X-treme Dungeon Master aka the person running a tabletop using the XDM rules) is what I've been looking for for a long time. If I'm Parsifal then XDM is my Holy Grail (when speaking in terms of tabletop role-play).

Since my early days of tabletop role-playing I was missing something. Not knowing what I was missing led me into buying all kinds of DM guides, Gamemaster guides, books with new systems, etc.

A year ago I discovered Castles & Crusades from the hand of Troll Lord Games. This was a mix of D&D 3rd edition and good old AD&D. I thought my search for the ideal tabletop system was finished. I introduced it immediately to my new campaign Mythandir Chronicles and off we went.
But it still wasn't perfect. For me the perfect system is one that provides rules, but doesn't complicate the game for the DM/GM/... And while C&C makes a good show of making the game simple I still had to look up some rules while running the game.

In comes XDM
So while C&C was not yet perfect it was the best I had found, so I still used it and vouched to re-read the rules again and again until I would know them by heart.
But then I stumbled upon something called XDM. X-treme Dungeon Mastery, hmmm strange title, but wait I recognise one author: Tracy Hickman. Yeap the same guy who co-wrote the very first fantasy book I ever read: Dragonwing from The Deathgate Cycle. This was one of the people who made me fall in love with fantasy. So on a whim I pre-ordered the book (earning some XDM levels along the way :-) ). When the book arrived I read it and was amazed, bedazzled, stunned, ... you get the point. They were talking about fog-generators, laser beams, pyrotechnics and even magic tricks. Well I just LOVE the book!
The goal of the book is NOT to make us quit the gamesystem we all love (be it C&C, D&D (3rd 3.5th, 4th), SW D6, ...). No! It strives to make us better DMs/GMs/... by bringing the essense of the game back: yes, I'm talking about the fun.
With good examples the book explains how you can spice up your tabletop game by adding extra's. How about handing your players a real handwritten letter instead of just saying "you find a letter in which is stated...". These are all things that we find natural in a larp, but they also work perfectly in a tabletop.
This book is full of ideas for a DM to bring their games to a next level.
But that's not all, there is also a section for the players. That one tells the player to play their character, not to play a puppet using die-rolls.
Of course, this book wouldn't be complete if it would not also have it's own game system :-). XD20 is for me the same revolution as a larp that goes with WYSIWYG rules.
XD20 wants to simplify the game by having very little rules to give the XDM more freedom to focus on the game, not the rules. Ah, this is exactly the same phylosophy I uphold for my own larps :-)

XDM is written by Tracy Hickman and Curtis Hickman, with excellent drawings by Howard Tayler. It costs $29.95 and is absolutely worth the money.
Go to http://www.xtremedungeonmaster.com and go buy it NOW.

Fighting in larp

noreply@blogger.com (Jerm) — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 11:15:00 +0000

A couple of months ago I posted a message on larp fora to ask for people to accompany me to Outlore in the UK. To show how cool it was I posted along some videoclips from previous Outlores.
The result was a cry for unsafety, disaster in making etc.

It's seems that in Belgium a lot of larpers are afraid of some bruises and want super safe fights.
Now I also like fights in a larp to be safe. But aren't we overdoing it here in Belgium?

My first larp at Conquest of Mythodea introduced to me fighting that was a lot harder than in Belgium. Harder weapons, shieldbashes, etc. But did I cry out that it was unsafe? No, I actually enjoyed it immensely.

I still remember when I was a kid we played zorro. We hadden WOODEN sticks that we used as swords. Some of us even had hard PLASTIC swords that are way harder than the hardest larp sword. You can even buy those today in toy shops!

So why is it that some larpers cry out that we are fighting unsafe with our very soft latex coated weapons when we allow kids to hit eachother with wooden or hard plastic swords?

I believe that with some common sense and safe weapons and shields (i.e. all foam shields) you can have some 'hard' fights where the worst one can get is some bruises.

I still remember the guy with a gambeson under a full plate armour who was crying out when someone hit his SHIELD to hard. I mean, a foam weapon on a foam shield and that guy (in full plate) was complaining of the hard hit.

Maybe we should have a larp revolution to bring the fun back into fighting instead more and more safety rules.

Dilemma

noreply@blogger.com (Jerm) — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 07:38:00 +0000

Last weekend was Conquest of Mythodea and some of my friends went their. It seems I missed great game. This was the first in three years that I didn't attend Conquest and I'm really wondering if Avatar was worth it to miss out on Conquest.

I have one big dilemma and that is that I'm having less time to play all the larps I want.

If I would only think about myself I would go to Conquest next year and skip Avatar. Avatar is nice and I have a lot of friends playing there (plus the organisation I preside runs a faction there), but Conquest is a total different league. And in my opinion so much better than Avatar. At Conquest they 3000+ participants, 800+ NPCs, toilets running on water, great atmosphere, awesome costumes and much more.

What would you choose if you can only do one of the summer larps. Avatar, Conquest or something else? Let me know in the comments.

Avater 2009 - the review

noreply@blogger.com (Jerm) — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 08:36:00 +0000

I'm finally almost back up and running after Avatar, so it's time to write a review while everything is still somewhat fresh in my mind.
Before I continue I want to make it clear that this review is my perception and I'm 100% sure that some will have another opinion, which is perfectly OK :-)

Avatar 2009 day -1 (aka the day before the game starts)
I arrived in the evening with wonderful Belgian weather at the game site (aka it rained). I was happily surprised by the work already done, factions tents were all set up, the wall was there, player tents were being raised. For me personally, my main concern were the new Viking Tent Canvas that I made with my mum for Arrowhead Event. I was really anxious to know how they held in the rain and I have to say that they held wonderful, not a single drop of rain entered them, special points to my mum for making them :-).
Upon saying hi to most people I checked out how things are. Besides some small logistics problems everything seemed ok. Since it rained I didn't set up my own tent and checked if someone needed my help. When there was a dry moment I started setting up my tent, which means that it, of course, started to rain again, but some 15 mins later my tent was up and I could start moving my stuff in.
For the rest of the evening we got IC-ish and had great fun.

Day 1 - finishing touches and game start
After making sure all the logistics problem got taken care of I went to collect my Walkie (as Responsible Time Out (RTO) and Scenario responsible of the faction I had to get a Walkie from the organisation). While the Walkies were great I'll make sure to get my personal in-ear and mike next year, to decrease the break in IC-ness.
Next we had to bring the final touches to our camp as do our own check-in of our faction members.
Besides a small problem with one tents location everything went fine.
The game would normally start at 18h, but for some reason it took till 20h to start. Luckily I got informed via the Walkie thus I was able to communicate this to the faction.
All in all the only complaint of day 1 was the 'late' Time In.
Special points to the Organisation for the use of horses and carts to transport everything around. High improvement over the quads of the years before. Some extra points for the IC-ness of the crew. A great improvement against the Crew t-shirts of the previous years. In total I saw maybe 5 people with a crew shirt walking around against the 20-30 of the years before.

Day 2 - let hell break loose => storm, rain and Time Out
In the morning there was some great role-play when people from our faction (Koninkrijk) took some prisoners from our former faction (Vlammende Adelaars). For me this was the BEST moment of the whole event. Especially when I got confronted with my King and we had a difference in opinion. Thanks to all for the 100% IC role-play we had there, situations like this are for me the reason why I do LARP, thanks.
This day was also marked with a massive storm, some tents got broken, walls were blown away and at least one gate crashed down. Luckily no-one got badly hurt. The force of the storm made the Organisers decide to have a Time Out for at least half an hour in order to assess the damage and do some repairs. I did some checks on our camp and besides some ropes that needed extra tension nothing bad occurred in our camp.
The heavy rain was also perfect for me to show off my leather highwayman coat (made by my mum after those of The Brotherhood of the Wolf).
When most of the storm was over the Time In was called and the game continued.
Today I also had to organise a scenario for a group in our faction. Here I must say that the organisation was a bit dangerous by using real life torches on a muddy path with overhanging trees. The torches only became extremely dangerous when they were handed over to a player and that player got into a fight. Result: almost one player with his hair burned and almost another with the fur on his hat burned. Positive note: the organisation quickly took away the torch when the danger was apparant.

End result today for the organisation: some points lost by overusing the muddy tracks with they Manitou (modern day work lift kind of truck), resulting in muddy ways. The straw to fix this was delivered a bit too late. But I'm here just nitpicking. And some extra points lost for the dangerous situation with the torch.

Day 3 - sunshine, lolipops, ...
On Saturday the weather improved greatly and was marked by the first sunburns. This day was also the first with some dull moment. It also marked a quarantine in the city to take care of the plague that started on Friday. Soon this became an annoying OOC for the shops in the city and the quarantine was lifted for OOC reasons.
Then there was a blockage of the guilds where there was some presumed foul play by some people, making abuse of their RTO walkie and such. But since I have no more knowledge about it I can not make a call on who was right and who not. The end result was a lot of 'anger'.
But nothing really bad happened beside that.
In the evening I went to the Vlammende Adelaars for the performance of the tribal folk group Prima Nocte. While their musical performance was not flawless (I'm a musician in the folk scene myself so I notice those things :-P ) the show they gave was uber-great. Everybody was dancing, clapping, jumping, ... it was magical. After that performance we got to another camp and had some great fun there.
There was only one drawback of Saturday, the day after would be Sunday or the last day of the game. During this day I got a briefing of the planned events on Sunday and they really spoiled the event a bit for me. The organisers expected us to be up and ready at the battlefield at 9.30 that's a.m. in the morning. The aim of that fight would've been 1 guy getting some inside information about a treasure hunt that would take place Sunday afternoon.
But since a lot of people would be partying the last evening of the game till early hours I expected that not many would be there at 9.30

Day 4 - dull, dull and more dull moments
As I expected we were with only a small part of our faction at 10.30 on the battlefield. The battle was, of course, not yet started so we got with our 10-some warriors and the like on our spot on the battlefield and waited and waited and ... oh yeah, the sun was burning hot while we were waiting.
What could've been a great Avatar was completely screwed by the orchestrated events on Sunday. It was of course not a wonder that a lot of people started packing their stuff early.

The only positive note of Sunday was that by 17.00 our camp was cleaned up of everything except the stuff that would be picked up on Monday. Really a great THANK YOU to all the faction members for their help in the clean-up.

End conclusion
As I said in my previous post Avatar was good, not great nor bad, just good.
There were a lot of improvements but there were also some screw-ups.

My number 1 problem still is the participation fee and the fact that the organisers take 40% of the profit of all drinks sold. This while the faction needs to rent (or have) all the things in order to sell drinks (aka coolers, tent to use as bar, tables and benches, ...). For me it really feels that we are paying the organisation money in order to be able to earn extra money for them.
Also for 65 euro we are not getting a lot in return. If I compare that to what events like Conquest of Mythodea or Maelstrom offer for that money there is a big difference. At Maelstrom we get benches from the organisation for FREE.

Next are of course the Munchkin players. I really hate and hate and hate and ... the freaking kids and adult loosers who kill people during the game for nothing but the thrill of the kill. If you kill me then be sure to have an IC reason for it. On other big events that I've attended (Maelstrom, Conquest of Mythodea) I NEVER saw such behaviour. In this I would advice the organisers of Avatar to attend an event like Maelstrom or Conquest of Mythodea, just to get an idea of how Avatar could different.

Last bad point is of course the fact that Sunday was bad in my opinion. I had the feeling there was too much orchestration from the organisation to make us do stuff that some people just acted as if the game had already ended and they started packing.

I want to end this review with the fact that I got enough of good out of Avatar to be almost certain to come back next year. The only thing that would hold me back is if Avatar will still take 40% of our drink profit. If that's the case they should give us all the needed material to sell drinks for free.

Avatar was good

noreply@blogger.com (Jerm) — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 10:04:00 +0000

I'm back from Avatar and it was not bad at all.
I had some good moments, I had some bad moments, but all in all it was good.
I was well surprised to see that the level of IC-ness of the crew was a great improvement, compared to past events. In total maybe a handfull of crew people ran around in OOC clothes.
Also the addition of horse and cart to transport drinks etc instead of quads was a brilliant idea.
An in depth analysis will have to wait until I'm back full on energy as 4 hours of sleep per night is not ideal when done 4 nights in a row.

I just want to end with the fact that I heard lot's of positive comment on upcoming Calam event. Seems the new approach is working.

Calam II - IC newspaper

noreply@blogger.com (Jerm) — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 08:44:00 +0000

Last week I spent some time making an IC newspaper for Calam.
I'm actually happy with the result.

It just shows the new approach we're taking to Calam :-)
This evening I'll be picking up 1000 flyers to promote Calam II.
If people reading this blog are not yet sure if they will attend Calam II, let me know what's holding you back, as we're always interested in knowing what we're doing wrong.
In August we'll also shoot a new trailer.

Keep larping.

Avatar is almost there

noreply@blogger.com (Jerm) — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 08:32:00 +0000

People reading this blog remember that last year I was not that a huge fan of Avatar. Well, nothing has really changed. But I'm again going this year. Reason is that this year Arrowhead Events is supporting one of the many player factions.

Now that I've been in the middle of faction organising I have gained a lot of extra respect for those who've been doing it for years.

Since Avatar is an expensive game (if you compare the return on investments it is very expensive) each faction has to juggle their budget in order to make Avatar not to over-expensive. I've learned that e.g. a simple bar is more a money making machine for Avatar itself. Where the faction actually has to pay for the infrastructure in order to sell drinks (where a lot of the profits go to Avatar).

Hmm, seems I'm not that really positive about Avatar :-/

Anyway, almost all my larp friends go to Avatar and that's the other reason why I'm going. But depending on how the game turns out it might be my last Avatar. This year I'm not going to Conquest of Mythodea, which I deeply regret, so I'll probably switch next year in order to attend Conquest of Mythodea.

As I'm sure that there are other who love Avatar, please leave a comment with your Avatar experience. I'm always open to discussion :-)

Calam II - Dawn poster

noreply@blogger.com (Jerm) — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 06:58:00 +0000

I finally found some time to make a poster for the next installment of Calam.
I again want to point out that we have listened to all the feedback we got from the participants of Calam I and we are 100% sure Calam II will be great.
I've also added some extras after my participation in Outlore in May.
If you were at Calam I you don't want to miss Calam II.

Larp magazine on hold

noreply@blogger.com (Jerm) — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 06:55:00 +0000

Due to a very busy schedule I have to put the Larp magazine on hold.
I do this reluctantly, but real-life is demanding a lot of my attention at the moment leaving me little choice. (I mostly putting a lot of free time in renovating my house)
But all received articles will be published when I have again more time.

Mini Manticore was super

noreply@blogger.com (Jerm) — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 06:39:00 +0000

Beginning June (5th-7th) gave us a mini Manticore event.
As readers of this blog know I quit volunteering for Oneiros vzw, this also means that I will no longer officially work for Manticore (since it's still a project run under Oneiros vzw). This was for me the first event where I no longer run the show (officially). It was a bit awkward, but I also enjoyed it immensely.
The event itself was well liked by everybody and the food I prepared (together with Michaël) was well tasted.
It was also the first event where I was a full blown Knight of the Order of the Black Crow. This is an Order of Knights who have a kind of elite status, only the Empress can command them or ask them for clarifications. I've always refused to play one because at those times I didn't feel sure enough to play them right. Such a person must show that he is the Law, (except for the Empress and the Gods) nobody stands above him. So now I played one and I hope I did it well. I know I still need to work on some of my roleplaying skills for this character, but all in all I think it went well.
Below is a picture of me as Knight Maurice de Beauville of the Order of the Black Crow, while looking angry at a Knight of the Order of the Twelfth Moon.

Saga was great

noreply@blogger.com (Jerm) — Mon, 11 May 2009 08:26:00 +0000

Back from Saga and I must say it was a great one for me.
I had just little dark looks due to what happened last week so I had little difficulty enjoying myself.
As I was NPC-ing I got a role handed by the team, and what a role it was. I was able to play the father of my late character, this allowed me to feel how it would've turned out for my former character (if he wasn't turned undead at the previous event).
It really felt good to hear IC from all the players how well Hakeem (my former character) was liked by them. I heard stories that I myself had forgotten.

As is always the case with Saga the game area was again well transformed into a nice IC area. They really surpassed themselves in the decoration of the local 'inn'.

Here's a picture my good friend Vince took of me at Saga (I'm on the right :-) )