Category: 2021 Oslo

2021 Oslo Talks

What Knutepedia Actually Taught Us – Jamie Macdonald

Post author By Petter Karlsson
Post date 2021-10-12
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During the pandemic, Jamie MacDonald and Jaakko Stenros ran a series of Zoom-based Nordic larp virtual pub quizzes, called Knutepedia. We ended up learning some things about our community in the process.

Jamie MacDonald arrived at Nordic larp through the theater and performance route, and over the last decade has written extensively on the potentials and pitfalls of that field’s crossovers with larp. He is also the co-creator of a series of theater/larp pieces, like Walkabout and The Lovers’ Matchmaking Agency, along with Aarni Korpela. He is Canadian and lives in Finland, where he is pursuing a PhD on stand-up comedy performance.

Tags community, Jamie Macdonald, knutepedia, larp

2021 Oslo Talks

I Was Dangerous Player and I’m Really Sorry – Ria Böök

Post author By Petter Karlsson
Post date 2021-10-12
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We all make mistakes. But what to do when you are the one who puts people in real physical danger. Ria Böök tells about she being the dangerous player and what she learned from it.

Ria Böök is a Finnish player and organizer. She organized her first larp in 2002. Sine then, she has been responsible of ie. design and character writing (Tartuntavaara / State of Infection with Jae Takala), Empty epsilon scenarios and coding (Odysseus), kitchen (Pyhävuoren perilliset x 5) and safety (Merirosvopoukama / The Pirate Cove). Ria’s special interest is accessibility, especially for visually impaired.

Tags community, larp, Ria Böök

2021 Oslo Talks

Beautiful Boredom – Jaakko Stenros

Post author By Petter Karlsson
Post date 2021-10-12
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Sometimes just hanging out in character in a larp, being bored, is wonderful. What is that all about? How can boredom be an aesthetic experience?

Jaakko Stenros (PhD) is a game and play scholar working at the Centre of Excellence in Game Culture Studies at Tampere University. He has published nine books and over 50 articles and reports and has taught game studies for a decade. He gave his previous Nordic Larp Talk eight years ago on defining Nordic Larp.

Tags aesthetics, boredom, jaakko stenros, larp

2021 Oslo Talks

How to Use Larp to Improve Your Relationships – Carnelian King

Post author By Petter Karlsson
Post date 2021-10-12
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This talk is about how to use one on one role-playing encounters to make your friendships and dates more interesting. It is an overview of two player games for the development of all types of relationships.

It will explain how to interact with the characters who are in your friend’s heads and how to plan for more meaningful experiences.

Carnelian King is professional dungeon master from Tennessee, USA. They live in Berlin where they have founded a role-playing game society. They are a nonbinary larp-write who has worked for Wizards of the Coast designing a role-playing marketplace for their D&D Live, Descent into Avernus. They specialize in rituals, fire spinning, performing contact juggling. When they are not organizing larps they work for Roll 20, running all different table top games and like to also plan interactive theater events, festivals and role+playing installations. They are working on developing larps for use as gender therapy as well as to make games for prisons.

Tags Carnelian King, larp

2021 Oslo Talks

Mapping Your Way Out of Awkwardness – Eleanor Saitta

Post author By Petter Karlsson
Post date 2021-10-12
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The start of play is awkward for many folks — but why? In this talk, we’ll explain what a “map” is and give some tips to help make the start of your next larp work better for you.

Eleanor Saitta is a hacker, artist, designer, writer, and barbarian making a living and vocation of understanding how complex, trans-disciplinary systems and stories fail and redesigning them to fail better. She has been active in the larp scene since 2011 and has edited two KP books, The Foundation Stone of Nordic Larp and What Do We Do When We Play? She currently lives in Finland, where she’s part of the team behind The Attic, a space for queer performance, politics, art, and music.

Tags Eleanor Saitta, larp, larp start, larp structure

2021 Oslo Talks

Online Larp Design: Pitfalls and Opportunities – Karolina Soltys

Post author By Petter Karlsson
Post date 2021-10-12
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Karolina will share what she has learnt about designing online larps: how to avoid the pitfalls specific to online play, but also how to benefit from the unique opportunities it offers.

Karolina Soltys is a UK-based larp designer creating Nordic-style larps, both in-person and online. Her larps include Our Last Year, The Castle, Together Forever, The Glimpse and Arsenic & Lies.

Tags Karolina Soltys, larp, online larp

2021 Oslo Talks

No More Hero: Larp as a Collective Journey – Alessandro Giovannucci

Post author By Petter Karlsson
Post date 2021-10-12
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We are storytelling animals. We all love stories and we need that. But there is a potential clash between storytelling and experience, between narrative and participation. Is the larp killing storytelling? Or is it reinforcing it? Let’s see if we can learn something from this mess: ideas, reflections and hopefully a weapon against capitalism.

Alessandro Giovannucci is an Italian award-winner larp designer and theorist. He co-founded Chaos League and wrote the Southern Way manifesto. As an organizer he wrote international larp (Sahara Expedition, Bunker 101, Black Friday) and chamber larp translated in several languages. Alessandro is also a musician and a lecturer, curious, friendly and proudly antifa. And he sucks at writing short bios.

Tags Alessandro Giovannucci, larp, storytelling

2021 Oslo Talks

Dream a Little Dream with Me – Karin Edman

Post author By Petter Karlsson
Post date 2021-10-12
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Karin presents how they work with vivid dreams to create their larps and how others also could increase their chance at vivid dreams to use for creative inspiration.

Karin Edman is a Swedish larp writer and runner who focuses on queer alternative history with supernatural elements. Their most known works are Witches of Ästad Farm and Vedergällningen (The Vengeance). Pronouns she/they.