Bratislava by Jeep

Fast forward a year. In Brno I met a small group of Slovaks as the Slovak and Czech gaming scene is somewhat connected, and at knutepunkt in Norway, where the Czech and Slovaks together held the best party of the year (and also blew votre minds when presenting the prehistory of Czechoslovak larping), we discussed the possibility of a visit to fair Bratislava.
This time I brought Tobias Wrigstad. Tobias and I have a prehistory of going to strange countries to discover the locall flavor of roleplaying. Here the main attraction was of course to see what the slovak roleplaying scene was up to, but most importantly to meet the local roleplayers. Tomaš and Dominika did a great job at being hosts and showered us in information about Slovakia, Bratislava and roleplaying in particular. Both Tobias and I cheered the first beers were set on the table. Beer is an integrated part of the Slovak lifestyle, and in the end we ended up becoming very assimilated.

Gangs of Pressburg

The main attraction was a big water gun larp called Gangy Prešporku or Gangs of Pressburg in a more familiar language. This game is a recurring affair and plays out in the streets of Bratislava (Pressburg is the old name for Bratislava). Armed with a water gun, sombreros and an ill-fitting mustache, Caldo (Tobias) and Freddo (me) battled the forces of a biker gang and some heavily armed hip-hoppers. Every time you got hosed down (which happened a lot), you had to get back to your faction leader, in our case El Presidente, to receive a well delivered pep talk and a new life. In the end, after successfully defending the whore house and taking over the ice cream shop, the Mexicans (our group) won the game and got to eat the cake. It was a very fun game, perhaps a bit too long. Tobias Wrigstad, who usually is hard to impress, was totally immersed, and repeatedly went out in a blaze of water.

15 games in an evening

Also we had a session of gaming where we playtested some beeer induced ideas from the day before: The Chefs of Time, some kind of Mirror Game and Strangers on a Bus. The ideas were not all ready for prime time, but everyone had a lot of fun, and we very honestly delighted to try something else than Lady and Otto or The Upgrade. But wait, you can check out some of the ideas yourself here:

The Slovak Scene

Looking at the Slovak roleplaying scene, it is very clear that they have a lot of good things going for them. Of the people we met and talked to, they have a lot of good energy and willingness to do (new) stuff. It seems as if the Slovak community is moving forward very fast, perhaps even faster than the Czech scene, which I was told was more conservative (but still evolving fast). The Slovak scene seems concentrated around Bratislava and a smaller city called Nitra.

They certainly have a player base that can handle most of what you throw at them, both technically as well as content-wise. As they are relatively young compared to us, they can potentially take roleplaying very far. As they are first-generation roleplayers, they have the unique possiblity of skipping a lot of steps in the evolution of larping and roleplaying. There honestly is no need to learn how to play DnD to become a freeformer. Oh, and they speak an excellent english and have no problems playing in that language.

We discovered one thing that we hope to remedy. On a question of how the typical female role was like, Dominika sarcastically replied, mothers and prostitutes. We laughed a bit, but here is a thing that is easy to pick up: Make better (or more diverse) female characters. I mean, mothers and prostitutes are hardly representative of the professions of the fairer sex. Si kočka.

…And the Czech

Also, as a couple of Czechs was there, it was natural to follow up on what happened since a year ago. A key topic for them was the professionalization of roleplaying and the consequences for their hobby. They were naturally looking to the scandinavian countries for inspiration, an we coined in with our experiences. By going professional, you’ll end up making compromises between making what you want to do (make art) and what you need to do (make money)–and you’ll typically end up earning a very low hourly wage. We gave them our best advice, pitched a couple of ideas and promised them all the help they would need. Still, going professional is an intoxicating idea, and we both wished them all the luck.
Also they are preparing a big international convention, Larpvíkend (or Larpweekend) 6-8 of November. Here you’ll have the opportunity to meet Czech, Slovak, Polish and Hungarian larpers and try out some cool new things. The webpage is still in the making, but you can read about it here: Larpvíkend (via google translate)

I hope that they pick up on what we left there and continue to produce quality games. I think that is great potential within the two former Czechoslovakian countries and it will be interesting to see what the future brings. Remember, Bratislava is closer than ever before. I know I’ll be coming when they call.

If you need contacts or more information, please send me an email at frederik@vuxenspel.dk, and I’ll set you right up.

On a side note these last couple of months have been really busy for me. I have been evangelising Jeepform in The Czech Republic, attended the first ever Scandinavian Freeform convention, Höjdpunkt, and written two brand new games: ‘Fat Man Down’ and ‘Double Exposure’.

Expect more soon.

Love, Frederik

PS: If anyone know anyone doing freeform i France, please let me know. The email is in the letter.

I will be giving the Czech Republic the Jeepform treatment 5-7 Sept. Highlights will include a presentation of Jeepform, The Upgrade, Doubt and drinking of quality czech beer. If you want to attend, contact info@courtofmoravia.com. It will be in english, I will speak slowly and articulate, so everyone will be able to follow. 

As the french say: Jeepform will blow votre minds.

Link: Court of Moravia

[update] Check out the rave reviews!

Fastaval is really unique. First of all, all games are written for the convention, most of them freeform or even jeepform. They are all one-shots, with premade characters and such. However, some very vibrant story-game peeps have been making quite a splash the last couple of years.

The convention takes place at a school and has access to the classrooms and the communal areas. The classrooms are used for the games and the communal areas for hanging out and the like.Games are played at two set times every day, but with multiple sessions each time. It is not unusual for a single game to be played a total of 10 times, some even higher (the highest I’ve seen was 18) with different players and gamemasters. A typical afternoon hosts 5-6 different games, all of these played by 5 or 6 teams each. Thats a total of 25-30 game instances for an entire afternoon.

As a player you sign up to the games via the conventions webpage and you get to play with a lot of people you might know, but more likely people you don’t know. There is no way of signing up as a team. As a gamemaster, you do the same. This is great, since it facilitates a lot of experience exchange. For a new idea, way of gamemastering or playing tecnique , it takes one or two years to propagate and enter the mainstream. The author is not the only person gamemastering her game. The gamemaster get the game sent by mail (or as a downloadable pdf). The games vary in length, but is, as a rule of thumb, read within a cople of hours.

The games are high quality. The writers use a lot of energy to make the games both look nice (layouts etc.) and make them accessible for other players. This is essential. For a game to be understandable for other people than the authors, it has to be well dispositioned and easy to understand. This does not mean that the games are simple, some games are very complex and challenging for both players and gamemasters. It just means that it must be easy to grasp the idea and what the author wants. This has in turn helped getting the games outside the convention, so that today it is possible to download these quality games from several websites like Alexandria.dk and Project R’lyeh. All games are in danish, but you get the picture. This makes it very easy for a gamemaster to pick up a game, gather some friends and play.

Afterwards players, gamemasters and authors engage in informal discussions of the game. Players playing the same character across gamesessions discuss the finer points of that character, relate what they did or said. Gamemasters tell each other what was cool, what worked well and what didn’t work. The author is of course always eager to know how everything went and discuss what people got out of the game. Beer always helps facilitate such a discussion, of which  there is plenty.

The mean age is around 27 and people are able to handle mature subjects. This is in turn matched with the topic of games. Some are very high-brow examinations of the nature of love, hate or complex human interactions, some have a comic streak and yet others are action packed gunslinging adventures. There is a focus on rules-light (or even absent) and a no commercial setting (like WoD, D&D). This is of course a result of several years of change. In the beginning everything was just D&D, Call and the like. In the later years the occational story-game (forge-type) has appeared and has in many ways, brought back the rules.

There is an award-show at last day of the convention, where the best games are celebrated. As an author you can win in several categories. The winners are selected by a jury that has read all games that year. The players and the gamemasters provide valuable input to the jury to help them choose the winners. This competetive element really helped improve overall quality of games both for the convention itself, but also rpgs in general in Denmark.

Fastaval is interesting because, after seeing several other conventions all over the world, I have come to realise that Fastaval really is unique. The conventionmakers worldwide, really should look to Fastaval for inspiration or ideas.

Any questions will be answered in the comments.

[1] Freeform in this context means “freedom of form”, that is you can, as a gamewright, choose whatever form you want, however it *has* to fit the story you are trying to tell. In more practical terms it means “rules” for telling the story, and tecniques that emphasise the story told. Ex: ‘All supporting roles are played by the players’, or ‘the gamemaster must use this tecnique to choose which scene is next’ and so on. Look at www.jeepen.org/dict for more examples of rules and tecniques.

First of all, I attended A Nice Evening with the family, which was a blast. The Jeepform techniques worked like a charm. Almost playing from a script was excellent. The players were very talented. One of the characters filmed the nights events and when we watched some of it the day after, it could just as easily have been a movie. Brilliant. Oh, and the location. And Sweden. And the gamemasters. And Anna Westerling. Talented, beautiful and full of health. Much love from here.

Secondly, Jonas, my wife and I attended the italian convention ModCon, which was a beast of a convention with almost 4000 guests, mostly playing boardgames, cardgames and the traditional tabletop D&D game. Of cause there was the Flying Circus of italian Donkeys who made the entire stay worthwhile. They are the freeforming aspect of italian roleplaying. Their english is not as bad as they themselves think and their games differ slightly from the standard freeform experience. I think I prefer the smaller scale Ambercon, which is more focused on Freeform gaming.

Thirdly, there was Viking-Con, which is the old old convention in Denmark. The visit was a first real visit. A very conventional thinking convention, although it changed a lot this year. There was a bar selling quality beer, it had a Jeepform game on the programe and Jason Morningstar was the guest of honor. Jason was a lot of fun, but I realised that the american roleplayers do not, I repeat, do not, play the same way as we do in scandinavia. More on this later as I get reports from Tobias Wrigstad who is taking on the entire continent of America!

Also, the news are reporting of an upcoming czech translation of Lady and Otto and an italian version of The Mothers. This is great and Im really honored.

Lastly, and a more personal note, I got married, bought a car, got a new apartment, restarted my master thesis (again) and moving to Zürich in Switzerland (in january). So if anyone know anything of the Swiss rpg, I would be very interested.

I’m attending the international session starting 23 aug. One thing really struck me while reading: These guys are really serious and are really trying hard to help us, the players, to get into character, to explore our characters narrative potential as well as experimenting with advanced playing techniques most common in (Jeep-esqe) freeform games.Of course I’m playing one of the bad guys. Luckily not as bad as Francescos (ita) who REALLY drew the longest straw, badguy-wise.So, who will I be seeing there? I’m taking names.

So after visiting the italian convention AmberCon i Modena, done Fastaval in denmark and joined a bi-weekly gaming group at Olles place, I am quite worn out roleplaying-wise. Or maybe not. Perhaps I am teeming with ideas, inspiration and energy. Planning some shock-therapy here.

First of all, Mødregruppen (or The Mothers) will be put online, soon. If Dr. Wrigstad pulls through, it will be a simultaneous uk/dk release. Badehotellet, another of my personal favorites, is already online at alexandria in danish. I think people should play it. Its really fun. Playtested a forgesque Batman 60′ies game with the forementioned Olle-crew. Still needs work.

Oh, and met the grand old man of sweedish roleplaying (actually not so old) Tomas Ruzic. Tomas is one of the forefathers of sweedish freeform, had some interesting points of the importance of a well formed story. Not a big fan of the forge-games i presume.

Three events are on the horizon for you:A nice evening with the family is a larp/theatre hybrid inspired by Ibsen and Vinterberg among others. As far as I know it will be some kind of mashup of the various plays, at least characterwise. Being produced by the beautiful and equally talented Anna Westerling this will be the larp of the year. Even more so, Jeepers are also involved. The dates are August 17-19, 19-21, 21-23 and 23-25; the latter is for the international crowd, the rest are for those fluent in swedish. However, it might be sold out. 
Ropecon is the largest finnish roleplaying (and other geek-culture) convention. Around 3500-4000 people all dressed up in costumes, playing all kinds of games. Really an experience. ModCon in Italy. This is truly a pearl. Located in beautiful Modena, the weather is always nice, coffe is good and the food… you are standing in the pinnacle of the italian cuisine. And roleplaying of cause. The italians have opened up their borders, and are giving you, the international visitor, a unique chance to see whats going on below the Alps. The friendly Andrea Castellani (andrea.castellani[at]gmail.com) will able to guide you through the italian website (Hint: Add a uk-button, Andrea). Highly recommended. For a closer look at the intl programme look here click here 

So, if you need help, just call me or email me.

I characterise the game as a horror game, although none of the traditional horror-elements make any appearance in the game. No Chuthulhus, Vampires or demons of any kind. The horror in the game is more akin to the notion of ‘Personal Horror’, which I first saw appear in the games from White Wolf – the shock of realising that you are a monster – but in a different way. The monsters have left the building, and what remains are ordinary people; in this case mothers.

The game has been a long time underway. From the first threads of inspiration to the full-fledged game is at least 3 years. Sometimes ideas just have to mature. And someone must have the time to write them. My main inspiration for the game and the horror part comes from Sweden. The following is taken from the opening pages of Gustav Edmans game Under Sommaren (my translation):

“Always an adventure. There is always a monster, a conspiracy or over-exaggerated personal relations which must be present to drive the story onwards. I belive that this type of roleplaying, which requires extreme fiction to induce somewhat strong reactions, is to devalue the Swedish roleplayers”(2)Under sommaren, p.1 

This made me think, and in some ways inspired the non-conflict premise of Lady and Otto and eventually led to the concept of nu-horror). This is not to say that all games that involve fantastic or extreme elements are crap – it is the sole reliance on that element of the game to make the it work. This was essentially what made people leave horror-gaming in Denmark in the late nineties. People were fed up with playing (and writing) roles which were killers, sodomisers or the occasional rape victim. It was all cheap effects. And then they stopped doing it.

So horror more or less left the mainstream roleplaying scene. People were fed up. It didn’t work anylonger, people were not scared anymore and worse, the game-mastering specific to the games were looked down upon.And now, it is back. Same, but different.

(1) DISCLAIMER: Remember, this is fiction, right.
(2) Original swedish text reads: “Alltid ett äventyr. Det finns alltid ett monster, en komplott eller överdrivna personrelationer som bara måste finnas där, för att driva historien framåt. Jag tror att denna typ av rollspel, där den extrema fiktionen måste finnas för att framkalla någorlunda starka reaktioner, är att undervärdera Sveriges rollspelare.”

Somewhere here, I also found time to game master Baby Steps together with Frederik with a journalist and Lordi biographer. The game was good, but IMHO a bit too immersed and thus a tad boring to game master. If I had realised the game was heading there earlier, I would have broken up the immersion and forced the players to rely more on the techniques toolbox (sitting/standing play, monologues, and insides and outsides) for immersion in the story rather than the characters.

And he is spot on. It was boring. I even had difficulty concentrating on what the players said (I was playing the therapist, so I had to focus on what was said). As we all know, immersion i s the holy grail of roleplaying – how do we handle it as game masters? I have seen (and experienced) this boredom before. The gamemaster is just watching the players unfold their intrigues, plotting and talking to each other. And what of the Forge-scene – is gamemastering boring here, also? Power to the players?Your thoughts, please.

For newcomers, Lady and Otto is a game for 4 players, where 2 players play Otto and 2 players play Lady. They are divided into pairs that plays out a short scene. A scene could be: “Otto is in the bathroom. The lock has jammed” or “Lady and Otto is in the Eiffel Tower. The view is amazing”. The scenes are announced by the gamemaster, who reads the title out aloud and starts the scene. The players are then to play out that scene. If they make an error (introducing conflict), the scene will start all over again. If they ‘complete’ the scene, another scene will follow or (more likely) the same scene wille start again. There is no real end.

One of the key elements of the game is the ‘no conflict’ element of the game. It sets out try the limits of what is drama/story/a scene. One the definitions on drama is conflict – something must go from ‘plus’ to ‘minus’ or visa versa – that is war to peace, safety to peril, life to death. It is a very structuralist way of seeing drama, and in a way, that was the assumption I tried to work with.

The players of cause, got very frustrated by playing the same scenes over and over again. But this was really the interesting part. Every time they tried to introduce conflict or drama, I would stop them, forcing them to play the game I wanted. The repetition made the players either look for a way out (‘going to the next level’) or explore the boundaries of the game. There were no ways in nor out.

When I played the game at Fastaval (the debut), players got increasingly annoyed, and at the end, decided to quit playing. In a sense the gamewright won – it was not possible to play a game without conflict or drama. What I later realised, was that there was conflict; conflict between me and the players – a metaconflict.

At Ropecon they did not stop. They continued playing, despite my efforts to frustrate them. They eventually found a way of playing that did not contain conflict. In the end, it resulted in some very beautiful scenes, filled with love and acceptance.

Click image to download.

Ropecon was … huge. There were magic-players, board gamers, miniature pushers and roleplayers. But what I noticed the most were all the larpers. I saw ninjas, the compulsory goths, hobbits, an amazing cthulu and lots and lots of latex swords and black T-shirts.

As Tobias Wrigstad and Olle Jonsson were some of the guests of Honor, we had a job to do…

The first speech was with Olle and Tobias explaining the Jeepform style and playing the hosts in a game of “The Upgrade!”. The rest of the Jeep posse and guest star Satu Heliö, played the constestants of the game in front of a live audience; 114 finnish roleplayers, playing their own parents, which pretty much made it the largest freeform roleplaying event ever.

I played Mauno and my potential partner, Pirrko, was played brilliantly by Luisa Carbonelli. We opened the game with a ‘walk on the beach surprised by a (giant) turtle’, which was a very fun starter of the show.

Later things got a bit crazy, as Mike Pohjola of Star Wreck fame, switched identeties with Tobias and continued the presentation as Tobias. Per was voted off the show, and replaced by Markus Montola, who won the show by marrying Anders. The ceremony was performed by a seacaptain. Mauno was of cause not satisfied.

The game ended, and we went to the bar.

The next day we demoed a lot of our games, and I got to play Lady & Otto with great succes for 2 hours with a small audience. They loved it. I will talk more about this at a later time.

Later, Tobias and I were asked to participate in the Speculative Games session together with a finnish larper Laura Kalli and Guest of Honor, Ken Hite. We were all given a title and had to come up with a game that fit.

Tobias raved about the old jeep days and how they had to give up on using rubber dice when playing, and how their disposal inspired the Sony commercial with all the colored rubber balls jumping down the streets of San Francisco.

Ken delivered an epic description of a some roleplaying game, that involved Some ammunition, Fanmail and lots of champagne. Wonderful. I need to hang out more with that man.

I, on the other hand went all-out with the automatic succes system (ASS) and a lot of other crazies.

Unfortunately Line and I had to leave sunday, so we missed the monday afterparty.

Oh, Cthulu and the two hobbits won the prizes for bedst costumes. It was great, as was ropecon.

Until next year, thx.

[UPDATED: Added links]

Med mig i kufferten har jeg scenariet Lady og Otto og blødende fingre efter at have leget Jørgen Clevin hele aftenen i aften. Det scenarie er simpelthen for meget fedteri med pap, klisterpapir og farveprint – især når ens magicolor viser sig fra dens allerværste side. Well, det findes nu i en oversat engelsk version ved Jeepens mellemkomst; tak til dem for den fine oversættelse.

Samtidig har jeg layoutet Tobias Wrigstads helt igennem fantastiske scenarie The Upgrade!, som man havde chancen for at prøve på forrige års Fastaval. Det er nu blevet trykt og venter nu kun på det finske publikums reaktion – jeg er sikker på at det bliver taget godt imod.

See ya on the flipside.

Det betyder desværre også naturalbornholmers.dk adresser ikke vil være stabile før det hele er oppe igen. Brug istedet vores alternative adresser.

Ses on the flipside.

nbh

Nu skal det ikke være nogen hemmelighed, at jeg i sin tid var ret begejstret for Kult. Efter en ret grænseoverskridende spiloplevelse på TRoA-con i ‘94 med Michael G. Schmidts Illusionernes Bånd, så var der ingen vej tilbage. Rollespillet på Bornholm ændrede sig nærmest fra dag til dag. Da Dennis og jeg kom tilbage, var der nye boller på suppen: Horror. Vi kørte ligepå og hårdt. Jeg kørte Illusionernes bånd fra hukommelsen, og Dennis tog de første spadestik til Hjemve og kort efter var hele den Bornholmske ’scene’ forever changed. Det var ved samme lejlighed at vi mødte Jonas, som efter sigende tog hjem til Nexø og skræmte livet af sin vante gruppe. Det var tider!

I løbet af nogle år fik vi spillet en serie af græsesøgende spil vores respektive hjem. Ofte double-features. Det var fucking hårdt, men hvor var det fedt. Det var her vi grundlagde vores spillederstil. Enkelte af vores stamgæster forlod skuden. Michael fik skræmt Thomas Doering så meget fra vid og sans i Jonases kælder, at han ikke rigtig havde lyst til at spille med os mere.

Michael væltede i virkeligheden kutteren meget før hans berygtede Skyggesiden, nemlig med debuten Kollektivet. Scenariet der, udover at være håbløst redigeret, var så benhårdt og grafisk, at en af spillederne sendte scenariet tilbage på grund af dette. Og ja, det var meget voldsomt. Men før det kom til fastaval, så havde vi spillet det i Martin Munchs forældres fabelagtige festsal (eller noget), hvor jeg kan huske at blive trukket ud i køkkenet af Michael, hvor en yderst ubehagelig scene udspillede sig. Det som egentlig var det der virkede skræmmende var Michaels brug af sin fysik; han havde en meget fysisk spillederstil. Og jeg mindes også at en af spillerne kom til skade (ikke alvorligt) under en af hans sessioner. Whew. Bagefter spillede vi Das Heim.

Whew, det var dengang hvor horror virkelig rykkede, og mon ikke der sker noget med det very very soon … horror er jo det nye lakrids (og the new black).

PS: Så kan man jo lige checke Mackackens nye plade, Kill the Romantics, ud.

Tagclouds som karakterbeskrivelser: Go figure. Det vigtigste med størst skrift, let og hurtigt at at overskue. Stor frihed i fortolkning. Skal ses i forbindelse med “Fire in the East”-projektet. Joc fik den samme idé til den gale Finnes oplæg om textism på kp06.

Redaktør på Blodets Bånd af Michael Sonne: Manden med Skyggesiden er tilbage. Denne gang i en lidt mere afdæmpet form, dog er stadig en afart af horror, som vi alle ved er the new shit.

Eksamensramt: Giv mig en øl efter kl. 11 d. 19 juni; jeg trænger til det. Folk er velkomne til at kikke forbi. Det er offentligt. Lokale 2.34 på Artillerivej.

Lady og Otto … på finsk: Jup, den er god nok. Lady og Otto skal oversættes til finsk (og engelsk). Jeg bliver berømt! (men nok ikke rig).

…og der er mere i muleposen. Later!

ufedt

1. Biljagter. Man har prøvet, det er bare ikke spændende. Som thomas siger om Westerns, så virker det bedre på film
2. d20-terningen. Terningens udfaldsrum er alt for stort. Virker ikke. Vi har prøvet det.
3. Genfortællinger. Meget populært i fortællerollespillets barndom. Det er bare ikke sjovt, hvis man ikke må finde på, men bare skal hælde helikoptre på for at gøre det interessant
4. Mænd som spiller kvinder og kvinder som spiller mænd.
Lets face it. Vi forstår bare ikke hinanden, og det bliver ikke bedre af en rask gang cross-dressing.
5. Camping-scenen. Når det går rigtig galt skal alt planlægges (og fortælles minutiøst) ellers vanker der overraskelser fra spillederens side. Det er dræbende at bruge tid på hvem der tager første vagt.

fedt

1. Svensk. Der er bare noget fedt over at sige satan, helvete og kuk.
2. Sex. Den er stensikker hvergang. Hvis der er noget vi har fantaseret over mere en fantasy, så er det sex. Call in the experts!
3. Navne. Slem En-øje, Gedepihl, Suppe-Werner, Grisse og alle de andre, som igennem deres navn får en personlighed foræret.
4. Monstre. Et veludført og velpræsenteret monster er altid en kilde til begejstring.
5. Horror. Jo, den er tilbage.