You are currently browsing the tag archive for the ‘Minilarp’ tag.
I’ve written this in english, so the people on the story-games forum can read it too:
Last week myself and another from the minilarp group played Fiasco with some friends and liked the way of setting up the game. So when we met to design our latest minilarp we adapted the Fiasco setup. We design the games from scratch each time, discussing which game mechanics and structuring to use, make up characters together and a juicy situation for them to clash over.
We established the basic story was of a commune of five young people that had now grown apart and were getting on each others nerves. We would be playing the last monthly meeting where the group would either break apart or find a new way of living together. To establish characters we each wrote a bunch of possible relationships in such a setting on index cards. Some were past events, others were simple feelings, a couple were simple points of disagreement and some were places or objects with meaning. Then we shuffled them all up and took turns drawing one and placing it between ourselves and one of the four others. We continued until each of the ten connections between us had two cards. Then we discussed what kind of relationship it would mean and what kind of characters that would make us.
The cast was a wonderful buch of misfits: Iris, a control-freak busybody; Damien, a shallow drugpeddling bicycle messenger; Liv, a vulnerable idealist with mental issues; Janus, the life of the party who was never at home and I myself played Tjalfe, a lazy anarchist pothead. The Fiasco way of establishing relationships meant that we were forced out of the stereotypical views of each other. For example, my anarchist had a great regard for the opinions of the control-freak and dutifully tended our allotment garden with the partyboy.
The play itself was in an allotment garden that one of the players have, costumes were whatever we could pull out of our wardrobes. We warmed up by retelling the characters and relationships, followed by some simple drama techniques to add body to the roles and the way they interacted. We used a three act structure, with breaks in between to discuss the game and where to take it. The play itself was pure character play, no gamemastering or mechanics to consider. The first act was establishing the situation, the second escalating to a grand conflict and the final was the climax.
We started the play with the neurotic Iris assembling an agenda for the meeting with whatever petty grievances and issues we had with our communal living arrangements, but it quickly devolved into arguments and blaming everyone else. Wonderful bits of drama there in the first act. The second act got more personal as the deeper rifts surfaced and we really tore into each other’s faults. We ended it after it was revealed that Liv the idealist had gotten the Janus fired from his job and that he had almost beat her when he found out. She was now too afraid to be alone in the house with him. The rest of us tried to find a solution, but to no avail. We then had a solid talk out of character about what kind of ending it meant for the story, deciding to let the last act be the final words and exits of the five people. In the end Iris sat alone at the abandoned meeting table with the dream in ruins.
It was a great afternoon of larping, the Fiasco style setup really got the ball rolling from the start. Normally it takes a little while to get to the good conflicts in larping, but we had a nice steady arc from the getgo. Obviously it doesn’t go quite as mad as a real game of Fiasco, what with our subdued scandinavian style of playing, but the setup works just as well for this other kind of tragic collapse story. I’m sure we’ll be using this method again for our next larp design, everyone was psyched at the advantages it gave us.
There’s more about the game (in danish) at the project blog.
I januar satte vi os sammen, fem nørder, for at bruge foråret på at lave og spille små mini lives. Nu fik vi gjort noget ved det.
Torsdag aften satte vi os og lagde forslag på bordet. Vi kom frem til fem, som vi udforskede, men valgte en enkelt idé til gennemarbejdning:
Uden for festen
Fem mennesker er blevet låst ude fra en fest. De kan ikke komme ind igen, så de bruger tiden på at snakke om deres problemer med kærligheden.
Vi brainstormede roller og forhold, udarbejdede regler for spillet. Alle har et issue ellet et dilemma med en fiktiv kæreste/ægtefælle der er inde til festen bag den nu låste dør.
Christian & Christinna: Lidt popsmart bankmand, der er træt af kærestens altoverskyggende fokus på at parret skal have børn.
Edith & Erik: En dag fik hun bare kvalme hver gang hun så sin kæreste, den perfekte gentleman.
Julie & Ian: Et langt åbent forhold, der nu er blevet væsentlig mere monogamt. Men kan det holde?
Lars & Lise: Lars har fået drømmejobbet ude i den store verden, men Lise vil ikke forlade Århus.
Markus & Marie: De to har haft et forhold lige så længe nogen kan huske, men nu snakker de ikke sammen længere.
Nøglen & Døren: Nøglen eksisterer på meta-niveau og ejeren er i fokus. Man kan kun give nøglen, ikke tage den. Døren er låst indtil den der har nøglen vælger og åbner døren.
Fredag aften spillede vi.
Vi brugte et par timer på at spille personerne og deres snak om de problemer de har. Det var meget internt spil vi kom ud i. Det var meget den enkelte der fik luftet sit problem over for de andre, tog imod eller afviste gode råd og fandt sig en beslutning til sidst. Der var også lidt spil på de fem personers indbyrdes forhold, men det blev sekundært. Det var en stille, men god start på projektet. Helt klart et proof of concept.
Specielt debriefingen var interessant, vi fik et konkret udgangspunkt til at snakke videre fra. Om hvad vi vil med projektet og rollespil generelt, teknikker, indstillinger og indhold. Det giver også en bedre, mere personlig forståelse af forholdet mellem spillets rammer og oplevelsen.
Du kan læse mere om vores oplevelser på vores interne blog der er også de andre idéer vi ikke valgte at spille denne her gang, men som stadig er på bordet til senere.
Nogen spørgsmål?
Friskeste indspark