NELCO 2013 Schedule

Ars Amandi Workshop

Marsha Gershon

"LARPs need love. Think about it: in a typical LARP, your character is far more likely to kill something or die than she is to fall in love. The ability to play romance and love safely would open up a whole new vista of possible plots and character developments." - Lizzie Stark

Ars Amandi is a Nordic LARP mechanic for playing out intimate physical encounters in game, simulating romance or sex by mutual touching of safe permitted upper-body zones. It is an immersive way for players to more deeply explore the emotions of their own characters, and to more meaningfully connect with other characters in a way that may otherwise be difficult to tap into during a LARP. This is a very useful and versatile mechanic to have in your toolkit as players, and to incorporate into your own LARPs as writers.

In this guided group workshop, we will be using only hands and forearms as permitted zones to safely ease into practicing this mechanic with one another. Please plan to arrive on-time as we will be closing the door to maintain privacy.

Blogging Larp

Kevin Riggle, Sparrow Rubin, Adina Schreiber

It's not well-organized, but there's a surprising amount of larp blogging on the Internet. (If finding anything on the Internet and in quantity can be surprising, cf. Rule 34.) And there are almost as many reasons people blog about larp as there are larp bloggers. So why blog about larp? Who else does so? What unique challenges do larp bloggers face? Where is larp blogging going -- or where should it go? And how does one get started?

Bring-your-own-non-physical mechanics workshop

Peter Litwack

Have a mechanic that just won't work right? Not sure how to balance your numbers? Can't seem to finish that mechanic? Bring it in to workshop your mechanic with an experienced mechanic designer!

BYOG Brainstorming Session

Jeff Diewald

This is where the Build Your Own Game seminar participants pitch their ideas for the BYOG LARP. Bring your concepts, your character ideas, the styles of games you'd like to write, and what you really think should be in a LARP. Nothing is off the table - all ideas will be considered and discussed. Jeff will facilitate the discussion as we figure out what excites the team, and what is doable within the time span. The choice of what we write is decided by consensus - we pick something that everyone wants to work on.

If you’re interested in participating, please fill out the survey at: https://secure.journeysurveys.com/answer/prompt/402

BYOG Writing

Jeff Diewald

There will be players waiting to playtest a LARP on Sunday. This is where the design and the writing gets done. There's no better way to learn about LARP design and solving LARP problems than by actually writing one - and this is the place to be.

If you’re interested in participating, please fill out the survey at: https://secure.journeysurveys.com/answer/prompt/402

BYOG Run (larp)

Jeff Diewald

An enthusiastic creative team has just spent an entire day writing a brand new LARP. They need enthusiastic LARPers to take it out for a playtest. The details about the LARP and a signup sheet will be posted outside the board room sometime around dinner time on Saturday.

Cavalier Era Fashion for the Well-Attired Larper

Lise Fracalossi

The Cavalier Era, roughly defined as "early 17th century" is a fascinating transitional period of fashion, featuring a style more relaxed than late Tudor and less intricate than Rococco. More importantly to a LARPer, it's the setting for several larps, including the weekend-long King's Musketeers, which is making a return to the DC era next fall.

This is an educational presentation aimed at all levels of costuming skill. Come and learn how to recognize men's and women's Cavalier-era fashions in order to assemble your own!

Hour of the Rant

Chris Amherst

Are you tired of hearing about bleed? Does it piss you off when your latest combat mechanic is discussed and someone says "Oh, we did that back in 1997"?

Do you just wish people would go back to the good ol' LARP days of staking vampires, slaughtering dark elves, and shooting zombies?

Inspired by the Knutepunkt tradition and the "Players are Scum" / "GMs are Bastards" discussions by Tony and Sue - we present an hour filled with epic and uncensored rants (all under 5 minutes) on topics of utmost importance (at least according to the speaker).

WARNING: Panel may contain humor, profanity, adult situations, and the possibility of controversy.

Information Economy Design

Chad Bergeron, Peter Litwack, Mark Waks

Information: the who, what, where, when, how, and why that keeps larpers engaged with the plot and with the game. Too little information and players are frustrated or angry. Too much information and players are unable to sort the important from the unimportant or to focus. Information is a universal bargaining currency. It's a critical plot device. How do you seed the information in your game so the key parts get to the key characters? Too quickly and the game sputters out early. Too slowly and the game ends while players are still trying to piece it all together. Come talk about the different ways to get the information in to your game, and how to adjust the spigot.

LARP Writing 101

Jeff Diewald

Jeff Diewald presents a seminar on LARP theory. So you want to write a LARP, and you're here for the Build Your Own Game effort. Maybe you're just interested in what goes into creating a LARP, even if you're not going to write. (Oh, c'mon. Give the writing a try!) Jeff Diewald has written or cowritten more than a dozen LARPs in many different formats and genres. He's given previous versions of this presentation to other BYOG LARP writing efforts. Come listen to the interesting concepts and ideas that go into his LARP writing process, to give you ideas on how you can improve (or start) your own creative efforts.

You should attend this if you're going to take part in the Build Your Own Game effort. You're quite welcome to attend if you're not going to take part in the BYOG. (More details about the Build Your Own Game workshop is under the Build Your Own Game link.)

LARP Design and Writing using Querki

Mark “Justin” Waks

Querki.net is a brand-new startup for managing information online, with the first alpha release this month. It is designed for all sorts of information, but it was originally built for writing LARPs -- keeping track of characters, plots, items, factions, and anything else you need while building a game. This session will be a hands-on demo, in which we show how Querki works by building a LARP database.

Runtime GM for a weekend larp

Stephen Kohler

So you're GMing a weekend long LARP. It's just like a minigame but longer, right? Well, not really. Especially if you're the lead GM, running a weekend long LARP after a minigame is like going from a Smart Car to a Formula 1 Racecar. And a lot of people haven't had a chance to experience the difference. Fortunately for you, I have, and am here to give the benefit of my knowledge and experience(or lack thereof) to you. Come and hear about dealing with handing out packets for ~50 people, running a game over multiple days, having to be in three places at once (and none of them where you are right now), and other joys of GMing a weekend-long LARP, and what you can do to make your GMing life that much better.

Star Crossed (larp)

Eric Wirtanen

Tonight is the anniversary of the zodiac murders. Exactly twelve years ago, twelve people were murdered all on one night. Tonight, the spirits of the fallen rise and try to remember what happened to them ... and figure out where they go from here.

Star-crossed is a two hour game for twelve players. Players will be taking the roles of the murder victims in the zodiac murders. Their spirits have awakened, somewhat confused about how they died and with fragments of what they used to know of each other.

Expect a game of revenge, revelations, romance, forgiveness, and acceptance. Characters have all been written as gender neutral and players can decide what gender they want their character to be. That being said, there are romantic relationships in the game. If you are uncomfortable with a same gender romance plot, it might not be possible to avoid in a small game.

Skulduggery and LARP

Dave Inkpen, Dave Kapell

In LARP, we often want to simulate various nefarious activities, like lock-picking, stealth, and setting and disarming traps. Join us for a discussion of techniques for implementing these systems in your LARP, what works or doesn't work, real-world-skill vs character abilities and more.

Technical Tools for Larpwriting

Nat Budin, Mark “Justin” Waks, and more

While you *can* write a LARP with nothing but text files, it can be a serious hassle. So tools like Vellum and Querki have emerged, to make it easier to keep all of that information organized and make game production easier. In this panel, we will compare and contrast these tools and others, and talk about each one's particular strengths.

Useful Handsewing Techniques for Larps

Lise Fracalossi, Matt LeVan, Mel Saunders

Sometimes a sewing machine isn't available -- and sometimes it just isn't the right tool for the job. Come to this workshop and learn some basic hand-sewing techniques -- running stitch, hem stitch, slip-stitch, and maybe more. This is a hands-on workshop aimed at sewists of all skill levels.

Writing and Larp-writing

Kevin Riggle, Lise Fracalossi

Larps are a form of fiction, and so larp-writing is a form of fiction writing, albeit a somewhat peculiar one. How does the larp form compare to other fictive forms, and how does the experience of writing it? Which skills and techniques transfer? How does your larp writing influence your other writing, or not? How do the "publication" processes compare?

Writing and Playing Compelling Villains

Chad Bergeron, Matt Brenner, Lise Fracalossi

Man against nature, Man against self, Man against man. Conflict is the driver of narratives, and every larp has them. It's easy to pit the players against an outside force or give them inner angst, but it isn't always easy to write or to play the other side of a Man against man narrative. But villains often prove to be the most effective and interesting element in a story. How do you make sure your villain is more like The Joker and less like Snidely Whiplash? Come talk about what makes for an interesting villain, and how to convincingly play one.