Nordic Larp Talks is a series of short, entertaining, thought-provoking and mind-boggling lectures about projects, ideas and design practice from the Nordic and collaborative traditions of live action roleplaying.
Jaakko Stenros (M.Soc.Sc.) is a game researcher at the Game Research Lab at the University of Tampere, Finland. Currently he is working on a dissertation on the limits of games. Together with Markus Montola, Jaakko has edited three books on larp, Playground Worlds (2008), Beyond Role and Play (2004) Nordic Larp (2010). They are also authors of Pervasive Games: Theory and Design (2009).
Eirik Fatland is a larpwright and interaction designer from Norway and has has since 1994 been involved in the design of around 10-15 larps. He has written several articles for the Knutepunkt books, larp magazines and the Amor Fati website.
Tor Kjetil Edland was one of the organizers of the (almost) all female larp Mad about the Boy the summer of 2010. He is an active member of Laivfabrikken Oslo, a network organizing monthly larps in Oslo, and has been part of producing two Knutepunkts, the annual Nordic larp conference. Other larps on his resume include Just a little lovin’, 1942, New Voices in Art, Limbo and Kristianiabohemen. Most of his professional career has involved working on international development projects, and he is currently managing women’s rights projects in Africa and South Asia in the YWCA/YMCA movement.
Markus Montola (M.Soc.Sc.) has worked as a researcher both at University of Tampere and at Nokia Research Center, with role-playing and pervasive games as main research interests. Together with Jaakko Stenros, Montola has edited three books on larp, Playground Worlds (2008), Beyond Role and Play (2004) Nordic Larp (2010). They are also authors of Pervasive Games: Theory and Design (2009).
Sanne Harder is a Danish scenario writer, who has more than 15 productions behind her, both LARP and tabletop, among which the most prominent are Agerlund (2009) and Felicia’s Story (2008). Her work has been published several times, both as part of antologies and as stand alone scenarios. Sanne has many year’s experience as a judge at the Danish scenario convention Fastaval. Here she has also been awarded prizes for her work. She has been a contributing writer and editor of several Danish (and international) magazines about roleplaying. In her professional life, Sanne is a teacher. She has studied theory of teaching at the Danish University of Education, where her work has focussed on competencies as an alternative approach to modern teaching. She has worked professionally with roleplaying in education for several years.
Delirium is a larp about couples in a mental institution, a story about revolution and desire in a deconstructed universe. The larp uses ensemble play and workshops to develop a 50 hour experience for 38 players; played in a huge black box with theatrical set lights to break time flow and switch between scenes. It is designed as a high resolution larp involving many diegetic game devices to bring forth the feeling of insanity in the players.
Peter Schønnemann Andreasen is a Danish organizer, game designer, proponent of the pre-larp workshop and co-creator of the Ars Ordo mechanic. He helped organize the “A Week” activities for Knudepunkt 2007, served as the Ropecon guest of honor in 2008, and was nominated for an honorary Otto at Fastaval 2011. Peter was one of the organizers of the larp Delirum in 2010.
Bjarke Pedersen runs the Copenhagen based company Odyssé which focuses on interactive storytelling, larping and participatory events. He also works together International artist Brody Condon on interactive performances in Europe and the States. He has played, designed and organised larps since the late nineties. He has made everything from children-larps for the Royal Danish Theatre to an elaborate simulation of life aboard a Soviet submarine.
Johanna Koljonen is a writer, Radio and TV host, critic, and a popular lecturer on larp and related topics. Her groundbreaking larp criticism, in essays like “Eye-Witness to the Illusion: The Impossibility of 360° Role-Playing” and “The Dragon Was the Least of it: Larp As Ephemera and Ruin” are widely quoted in the field. She is a co-founder of the TV, radio and web production company Rundfunk Media AB and has a BA in literature. She has hosted several popular radio shows such as “P3 Kultur – Nördorama med Johanna Koljonen” and “Jättestora frågor med Johanna Koljonen” on Swedish national radio and writes columns for Dagens Nyheter and Fokus. She is the scriptwriter of the Oblivion High series of graphic novels and the co-author of the book-length larp autopsy Dragonbane – The Legacy.
Live action roleplaying games are the art of experience. Renowned game researchers Markus Montola and Jaakko Stenros go through a wide range of live action roleplaying games, explaining how the games can be understood as escaping, exposing, exploring or imposing a certain world view.
Markus Montola (M.Soc.Sc.) has worked as a researcher both at University of Tampere and at Nokia Research Center, with role-playing and pervasive games as main research interests. Currently he is a doctoral candidate at the University of Tampere with a 3-year grant from the Finnish Cultural Foundation. Together with Jaakko Stenros, Montola has edited two books on larp, Playground Worlds (2008) and Beyond Role and Play (2004). They are also authors of Pervasive Games: Theory and Design (2009). They are currently editing a coffee table book called Nordic Larp, forthcoming in 2010.
Jaakko Stenros (M.Soc.Sc.) is a game researcher at the Game Research Lab at the University of Tampere, Finland. Currently he studies larps and social games, and is working on a dissertation on games as an activity. Together with Markus Montola, Stenros has edited two books on larp, Playground Worlds (2008) and Beyond Role and Play (2004). They are also authors of Pervasive Games: Theory and Design (2009). They are currently editing a coffee table book called Nordic Larp, forthcoming in 2010.
Further reading
Anthologies on larp edited by Markus Montola and Jaakko Stenros, electronic editions:
Bringing both love and violence into a game can take players to a high resolution game experience. Andie Nordgren talks about ways to give players power to express conflicts and intimacy inside the game fiction rather than simulating them through abstract rules, and shares some of the mechanics used in the tribal larp Totem.
Andie Nordgren produced the Interactive Emmy Award winning game The Truth About Marika and is currently working as a technical producer at CCP Games. She is one of the co-founders of the Geek Girl Meetup, a member of the change-through-participation think tank Interacting Arts, and was recently chosen one of ten people whose advice the next Swedish prime minister should heed by Internetworld magazine.
Further reading
High Resolution Larping: Enabling Subtlety at Totem and Beyond by Andie Nordgren in Playground Worlds.
