spolu/sami (in English: together/alone) was a game about ordinary people in present-day Prague. The larp was lyric, melancholic, atmospheric, and authentic. It was about friendship, love, life, and things that really matter. The characters were asking themselves “Can we be happy when we find our soulmate?” The game was created through workshops during one weekend and played on the following weekend. It used the whole city as a scene – streets, parks, cafés, and flats. The game had neither a main plot, nor events common for all characters, except for the ending location. We gave players guidance through the workshops, a theme, structure, and most importantly the feeling of the game.

There is an English version of the Design Document and a Workshop manual published with this article. That is everything you need to run the larp and we will be truly pleased if you use them. And even happier if you let us know about it. Please keep the difference between Czech play culture and yours in mind and adapt the materials accordingly.

This article was initially published at Nordic Larp: https://nordiclarp.org/2017/03/27/togetheralone-searching-for-a-soulmate-in-summer-prague

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Kola is a polish larp conference with 4 years long history. This year it was organized by larpers from Warsaw, who got support of the faculty of liberal arts. The conference audience was mainly polish but there were also delegations from Italy, Ukraine, Russia and Czech Republic.

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The unexpected problems of a game stuffed with themes and plots and their working solutions.

We made the most expensive game in Czech larp history, we had worked hard on it for a year and we had prepared almost 100 detailed pre-written characters. After the first two runs of the larp a lot of people said “It was alright.” This article is about searching for changes which would make the game better than “alright”.

This article was initially published in

https://nordiclarp.org/2014/10/21/the-cure-for-the-stuffed-beast/

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Players Casting: A Case Study from the Larp Skoro Rassvet

This article describes the selection process used for high-resolution dramatic larp called Skoro Rassvet [Breaking Dawn] (2012, 15 players). Its advantages and disadvantages are discussed. Knowing that we could take the risk because the number of potential candidates exceeded the number of offered roles several times over, we decided to perform an experiment and select players according to their motivations and abilities.

This article was initially published: Martin Buchtík: Russian Roulette in Practice in Nordic LARP. https://nordiclarp.org/2014/06/25/russian-roulette-in-practice

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The Content Larp Manifesto was originally presented on the Content Larp Manifesto website.

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The Hell on Wheels larp is a dramatic game for 54 players that takes place in Stonetown, a western settlement in the Czech Republic. It draws its inspiration from the US AMC TV series of the same name. It borrows certain characters and introductory plots from the series, but handles them freely and places them into a broader context of the transcontinental railroad construction in 1866. The game takes approximately 20 hours and is preceded by roughly 5 hours of pre-game workshops and gun handling training.

This article was initially published in The Nordic Larp Yearbook 2015 published by Rollespilsakademiet and edited by Charles Bo Nielsen, Claus Raasted & Erik Sonne Georg. Celý článek »

The Great War, or the first World War, was a massive, horrible massacre on a truly industrial scale, and it is one of the wars I find most fascinating. I’ve read so much about it it, know so much trivia and still I had almost no knowledge of the Czech Legion in Siberia. Walking a few miles in the shoes of those legionnaires not only opened my eyes to a very important piece of history most of us probably have no knowledge of, but also brought me new friends and some very emotional memories.

This article was originally published: Sebastian Utbult: Legion – Trans-Siberian Railroading in Nordic LARP. https://nordiclarp.org/2016/02/01/legion-trans-siberian-railroading/

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In Knutepunkt 2009 Jana Jevická and Tomáš Kopeček held a presentation about the history of larp in the Czech Republic. Rather surprisingly they started their history lesson during the First Republic (1918-1939), long before Dave Arneson and Gary Gygax commodified role-playing activity into Dungeons & Dragons, generally considered to be the starting point of role-playing games. I have interviewed Kopeček to learn more about the subject. The Czech case is interesting as it shows how games that look like larps, pervasive games or even pervasive larps can evolve not just from role-playing games or theater, but from the scout movement.

This article was originally published: Pervasive Games: Markus Montola, Jaakko Stenros, Annika Waern: Theory and Design. https://pervasivegames.wordpress.com/2009/10/30/spotlight-phase-games-in-czech/?fbclid=IwAR2T8kBN3lCJkdVb4EBPedbh-XIloDg7GO7dU1H0qCPfX00zp3ZHQoWTOhQ

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Man will vanquish by his will and reason over the nature. He will understand that he is mortal that he has now hope for resurrection and he will accept death and he will accept it with satisfaction. He will be as God and eve- rything will be allowed to him and as soon as man becomes God any law will cease to apply. Everything will be allowed!
F. M. Dostoyevsky – The Brothers Karamazov

This article was originally published: Charles Bo Nielsen, Claus Raasted (editoři): The Nordic Larp Yearbook 2014. Rollespilsakademiet 2015. ISBN 978-87-92507-23-5 https://web.archive.org/web/20160305012411/
http://rollespilsakademiet.dk/webshop/nordiclarpyearbook2014.pdf

It was also published here: https://nordiclarp.org/2015/05/08/skoro-rassvet-vodka-tears-and-dostoyevsky/ Celý článek »

“The beast I saw resembled a leopard, but had feet like those of a bear and a mouth like that of a lion. The dragon gave the beast his power and his throne and great authority.” Revelations, 13:2

De la Bête (About the Beast) was a larp for 95 players, running over 48 hours, with 12 hours workshops before and some extra three hours post-larp workshops.

It was probably the most expensive game in the history of Czech larps. We will go more into detail about size and realizations about using gender specific characters in the end. But first: What was the larp all about?

This article was originally published: Charles Bo Nielsen, Claus Raasted (editoři): The Nordic Larp Yearbook 2014. Rollespilsakademiet 2015. ISBN 978-87-92507-23-5 https://web.archive.org/web/20160305012411/
http://rollespilsakademiet.dk/webshop/nordiclarpyearbook2014.pdf

This article was also published here: https://nordiclarp.org/2015/02/06/de-la-bete-an-expensive-beast/ Celý článek »

The door shut and he was gone. At that moment, Evžénie forgot his rank. But she would never forget his short moustache waving over her, how the lips under it were feverishly mumbling something in that repulsive language. How he snorted when he humped. She slid down to the floor. Her back against the wall, she lighted a cigarette and again read the letter with a brief and clear instruction. She spilled the powder from the little vial to the General’s glass. Was he the same man with whom she slept that night? Evžénie did not know that. Everything blurred together, she saw everything through a fog…

This article was originally published: Charles Bo Nielsen, Claus Raasted (editoři): The Nordic Larp Yearbook 2014. Rollespilsakademiet 2015. ISBN 978-87-92507-23-5 https://web.archive.org/web/20160305012411/
http://rollespilsakademiet.dk/webshop/nordiclarpyearbook2014.pdf

It was also published here: https://nordiclarp.org/2015/05/01/salon-moravia-cabaret-for-women-only/ Celý článek »

Deep in the Arctic Ocean, the alarm sounds in a submarine. Twelve members of the crew suddenly realise that they only have enough oxygen to barely get to the surface. What will they do? Should they descend deeper to their colleagues trapped several meters further down, or should they save their own lives? Calling off the operation might end up costing them billions of dollars!

This is the beginning of two days filled with some unusual training for a group of managers. They are about to embark on an adventure focusing on managing styles, negotiation, argumentation, decision-making, communication under pressure, achieving goals and time management.

This article was originally published: Katrine Øverlie Svela, Karete Jacobsen Meland (eds): Crossing Habitual Borders. Knutepunkt 2013. ISBN 978-82-303-2295-6 (print) ISBN 978-82-303-2297-0 (pdf) https://nordiclarp.org/w/images/3/3b/2013_Crossing_Habitual_Borders.pdf Celý článek »

How we created a Firefly larp, not exactly about Firefly One day the world became too small for all of us. Then we started to settle other planets. Terraformation begun. Things changed. Lot of us became adventures, seeking freedom and independence. But with great power comes great responsibility… None of us had an idea of what the “Alliance” would be capable of… “Take my home, take my land, take me where I cannot stand. I don´t care, I´m still free, you can´t take the sky from me…” (Words from the Firefly theme)

This article was originally published: Charles Bo Nielsen, Claus Raasted (eds): The Nordic Larp Yearbook 2014. Rollespilsakademiet 2015. ISBN 978-87-92507-23-5 https://web.archive.org/web/20160305012411/http://rollespilsakademiet.dk/webshop/nordiclarpyearbook2014.pdf

It was also published here: https://nordiclarp.org/2015/03/20/moon-a-firefly-larp-not-exactly-about-firefly/

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“Sabine is a successful magazine publisher, a political activist and she is running in the local elections. She is raising her daughter Denise together with her second wife Veronica. And this evening she is throwing a party for several friends. Although Sabine and some other characters are lesbians, the larp in itself doesn’t deal with the topic of coming out. It’s about love, friendship, partnership and parenting. And also a bit about women… The game is suited for mature and experienced players who like to play out conflicts and develop in-game situations.”

This article was initially published in Blog Game ideas, design thoughts, discussions, and various other bibble. published by Mo Holkar. Celý článek »