Nordic Larp Talks

Tag: larp

  • We’re Here, We’re Queer and We’re Ready to Feel Good – Eva Wei

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    Not all queer narratives have to be about death, despair or being hidden away from the public eye. In her talk, Eva Wei will delve into the things she learned while organising Perfect Match, a feel good-larp about a reality dating show for disaster queers.

    Eva Wei is a Swedish lawyer, sword fighter and larpwright. She has been one of the main organisers of Knutpunkt and delights in making close-knit larps about current subjects. She is currently the chairman of the larp collective Bread and Games and has a thing for interacting with new larp cultures and genres.

  • Aesthetics of Randomness – Kaisa Kangas

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    The international larp scene has gone more and more to the direction where players are in control of their character’s fate and story arc. In her talk, Kaisa Kangas argues that this does not always lead to the best larp experience. She talks about the aesthetics that random outcomes can bring to larp, drawing on the experience of running Seaside Prison several times a row.

    Kaisa Kangas is a Finnish larp designer who has been making larps for more than 20 years; her best-known larps are probably Halat hisar and Seaside Prison. Kaisa is also a regular contributor in KP books and has edited the book Larp Politics. She will also be the editor in chief for the 2024 Solmubook. She is currently writing a non-fiction book about larp for a general audience.

  • Designing the Apocalypse – Avoiding that Big Plot crushes the character’s journey – Janusz Maxe

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    Most large starts with an interesting setting. A vampire court, spaceship at the edge of the galaxy, a village in a time and place that is very different from ours. But then we go “What should happen during this larp?” and thus add the plot. That in itself is all fine, but when the plot becomes THE BIG PLOT there’s a danger it will crush the setting like a sledgehammer to an eggshell. This talk focuses on this. The warning signs that this might happen, the problems with that, and how to mitigate those problems, both as a designer and a player.

    Janusz Maxe is from Gothenburg, Sweden. He has been role-playing since the mid 80ies, but did only get into larping 30 years later. What made him take the step was the larp The Monitor Celestra, since that was run in his hometown AND provided costumes. It turned out well since he promptly attended two of the runs, and a decade later he is still here as part of our community. He’s of the designers behind the larp The Devil You Know; and one of the creators of the character-memorising tool Ensemble.

  • A Full House Trumps a Dance Card – Anni Tolvanen

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    Have you ever found yourself running from one in-game meeting, pre-negotiated scene, and secret ritual to another, feeling like there’s no time to larp in this larp? You may be suffering from a Full Dance Card Syndrome! In this talk, Anni Tolvanen addresses the impact of dance card larping on participant experience and demonstrates why steering for openness and serendipity creates powerful larp magic and more inclusive play for all.

    Anni Tolvanen is a Finnish sound designer, composer, and creative producer. She works internationally on participatory art and games projects and has co-created various larps over the past 25 years. Her article “Ensemble Play” in What Do We Do When We Play? (Solmukohta 2020), co-authored with James Lórien MacDonald, talks about artistic co-creation methodology and its relevance to creating better participatory experiences, and a more inclusive larp community.

  • Larp Chemistry – Laura Wood

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    Larp Chemistry is difficult to define and means different things to different people. This talk attempts to look at what it could be, and whether we can create it.

    Laura Wood (she/they) has designed several larps which have run in several countries throughout Europe, including Here Comes a Candle, and Inside. She is an organizer for the Larps on Location collective. She is a strong proponent of creating a safety culture within larps and larp festivals, and has written articles on body positivity within larp.

  • Napping with Purpose – Frida Lindegren

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    The world and the larp community have been through a lot lately. In her talk, Frida Lindegren talks about how we can slow down and explore how we can play and design for rest.

    Frida Lindegren is a Swedish psychologist, experience designer, and larper.

  • Burn Out and Fade Away: Larp Organizing Can be Tough – Mo Holkar

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    Organizing larps and larp-related events can leave people prone to burnout. This talk looks at why this happens, and how participants, and organizers themselves, can try to avoid it.

    Mo Holkar is a UK larper, larp designer, and larp organizer. He works within the design collective Larps on Location and was one of the lead organizers of The Smoke: London’s International Larp Festival, and of The Game Kitchen design workshop. He has experienced his share of burnout, and didn’t like it.

  • Only Larp can save VR! – Josephine Rydberg

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    VR and the Metaverse aren’t as nice places as they could be. Let’s use some larp designer skills for some DIY improvements.

    Josephine Rydberg is a larper who does artistic research at Stockholm University of the Arts, cross-media development at Region Gävleborg & lots of dog walking.

  • The Ethics of Storytelling – Chris Bergstresser

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    As larpers, we have an intimate control over the stories we choose to tell. In this talk, Chris Bergstresser asks what responsibility we bear for the stories we end up telling.

    Chris Bergstresser has been a larper and larp designer for decades. They’ve been active in the Nordic Larp community since 2015. Their next project is Triumph, a Hunger Games-inspired larp running in Zagreb in late November. Their subsequent project will be a very long nap.

  • Reading Larps – Hanne Grasmo

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    Larps exist outside the ephemeral reality of the activity of larping. Larps are published as books and archived as PDFs. In these formats, larps can be read, without playing them, if you have the literacy.

    In the spring of 2022, Hanne Grasmo browsed through 2303 documented larps in search of European larp scripts published in English or Nordic languages. In this talk she discusses the importance of the larp script, rants about archiving larps, and ponders what features are needed for a larp to be published.

    Hanne Grasmo is a Norwegian larp designer, sociologist, educator, and writer. She published the first popular science book about Nordic Larp in 1998, co-founded the Knutepunkt conferences, and is well-known for the world-touring larp Just a Little Lovin’; last year the full larp script of 630 pages was published as a book. Hanne is currently employed as a Doctoral researcher in Game Culture Studies at Tampere University, researching Role-play and Sexual Arousal.