English page
Hello and welcome to our English landing page. We want to have here everything about Czech larping – what we have in English. So take a seat and enjoy. We hope we will grow fast.
Social Season: The Event from Regency
At the beginning of May, I took part in the romantic Regency larp Social Season in Germany, set in 1811 England.
The Beauty of Czech Larps in 2022
In the past year, we had the opportunity to visit dozens of games in the Czech Republic. You can see their dates on two calendars, you can add the ratings of the larps to the Larp database, and a summary of current events appears every three weeks in the Larp newsletter. And we remember many larps through photographs.
Patrik´s Blog, Part 5: 2021
Hey, my friends! It’s been a while. Lately I found myself not having much energy to do stuff. Depression and shit, you know… I postponed my summaries so much, I fell several months behind. Well, what the heck, let’s do it now! :-)
Dance Macabre
Dance Macabre was a dancing larp based on the larp In Fair Verona 1 by Tue Beck Saarie and Jasper Brunn and on one chapter of Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book. We initially conceived the game as an experiment to find out whether Czech larpers would even be interested in this style of larp, and whether the Nordic larp approach in general would be welcomed in the Czech Republic. We also wanted to identify the scope of adaptations required to make the Nordic larp-like game attractive for the Czech larp community. This article sums up the concept of the game, the mechanics used and the experience gained from the creation and organization of the game.
- In Fair Verona is a tango-larp-love story made by Tue Beck Saarie (Olling) and Jasper Bruun for 30 players. The game explores different love relationships between male and female characters. The focus of the game is the individual character emotions and the attempt to overcome problems and fears on the subject of love. In this larp the dancing is the medium of storytelling and we found that very inspiring. For more information check the website: http://www.danceaffair.org/in-fair-verona/ .
CZECH CHAMBER LARP THROUGH THE YEARS (PART 2)
This half of the article ends our story about the evolution of chamber larp in the Czech Republic (and Slovakia). I started writing this essay as a by-product of the recent larp book Check Larps because I thought it was high time for reflecting on the past before the details vacated my mind for good. In the first part, I covered the first six years and the way the genre transformed from its first timid steps to an era when we had a chamber larp festival on every corner.
CZECH CHAMBER LARP THROUGH THE YEARS (PART 1)
Last year, a team of authors published a Czech collection of chamber larp scenarios called Check Larps. I wrote the introduction, focused on the specific features of the Czech approach to this format, and in the process, I realized that it would be interesting to look back on the history of Czech chamber larps in general. I was interested in looking at major shared features and intersections in their development, as well as important milestones. After all, there was a time when chamber larp was one of the main drivers of innovation in Czech larp and would often massively determine the shape of larp as a medium in the Czech Republic overall.
Patrik´s Blog, Part 4
Patrik is probably only one of the active larpers of the Czech community who makes his larp summary in English. It is an interesting insight into this hobby because Patrik makes larps – and plays them – a lot. And his interests in themes are wide. We prepared a summary serial of his texts that provide an unique insight into his larp experience. So enjoy and we hope that it inspires you to make your own summaries. :-)
Here are the first, second, and third part of Patrick’s blog.
Patrik´s Blog, Part 3
Patrik is probably only one of the active larpers of the Czech community who makes his larp summary in English. It is an interesting insight into this hobby because Patrik makes larps – and plays them – a lot. And his interests in themes are wide. We prepared a summary serial of his texts that provide an unique insight into his larp experience. So enjoy and we hope that it inspires you to make your own summaries. :-)
Patrik´s Blog, Part 2
Patrik is probably only one of the active larpers of the Czech community who makes his larp summary in English. It is an interesting insight into this hobby because Patrik makes larps – and plays them – a lot. And his interests in themes are wide. We prepared a summary serial of his texts that provide an unique insight into his larp experience. So enjoy and we hope that it inspires you to make your own summaries. :-)
Link for the first part of Patrick’s blog is here.
Patrik´s Blog, Part 1
Patrik is probably only one of the active larpers of the Czech community who makes his larp summary in English. It is an interesting insight into this hobby because Patrik makes larps – and plays them – a lot. And his interests in themes are wide. We prepared a summary serial of his texts that provide an unique insight into his larp experience. So enjoy and we hope that it inspires you to make your own summaries. :-)
together/alone – Searching for a Soulmate in Summer Prague
spolu/sami (in English: together/alone) was a game about ordinary people in present-day Prague. The larp was lyric, melancholic, atmospheric, and authentic. It was about friendship, love, life, and things that really matter. The characters were asking themselves “Can we be happy when we find our soulmate?” The game was created through workshops during one weekend and played on the following weekend. It used the whole city as a scene – streets, parks, cafés, and flats. The game had neither a main plot, nor events common for all characters, except for the ending location. We gave players guidance through the workshops, a theme, structure, and most importantly the feeling of the game.
There is an English version of the Design Document and a Workshop manual published with this article. That is everything you need to run the larp and we will be truly pleased if you use them. And even happier if you let us know about it. Please keep the difference between Czech play culture and yours in mind and adapt the materials accordingly.
This article was initially published at Nordic Larp: https://nordiclarp.org/2017/03/27/togetheralone-searching-for-a-soulmate-in-summer-prague
Review Together / Alone
Together / Alone is a game set in the contemporary Prague. The characters who are playing the game, are normal people with their issues, romances and everything else. We created these characters via the workshops set before the game. The game was played mixed in Czech and English. As for the duration, there was one weekend for workshops a week between where we were creating our online life and 24 hours of the game itself. The main topic is whether we can be happy if we find our soul mate. I am not sure whether the game answered this question, at least not for me, but it was definitely worth playing.
Kola – Konferencja Larpowa in Warsaw.
Kola is a polish larp conference with 4 years long history. This year it was organized by larpers from Warsaw, who got support of the faculty of liberal arts. The conference audience was mainly polish but there were also delegations from Italy, Ukraine, Russia and Czech Republic.
The Cure for the Stuffed Beast
The unexpected problems of a game stuffed with themes and plots and their working solutions.
We made the most expensive game in Czech larp history, we had worked hard on it for a year and we had prepared almost 100 detailed pre-written characters. After the first two runs of the larp a lot of people said “It was alright.” This article is about searching for changes which would make the game better than “alright”.
This article was initially published in https://nordiclarp.org/2014/10/21/the-cure-for-the-stuffed-beast/
Russian Roulette in Practice
Players Casting: A Case Study from the Larp Skoro Rassvet
This article describes the selection process used for high-resolution dramatic larp called Skoro Rassvet [Breaking Dawn] (2012, 15 players). Its advantages and disadvantages are discussed. Knowing that we could take the risk because the number of potential candidates exceeded the number of offered roles several times over, we decided to perform an experiment and select players according to their motivations and abilities.This article was initially published: Martin Buchtík: Russian Roulette in Practice in Nordic LARP. https://nordiclarp.org/2014/06/25/russian-roulette-in-practice
Content Larp Manifesto
The Content Larp Manifesto was originally presented on the Content Larp Manifesto website.
Hell on Wheels – Experience the Wild West
The Hell on Wheels larp is a dramatic game for 54 players that takes place in Stonetown, a western settlement in the Czech Republic. It draws its inspiration from the US AMC TV series of the same name. It borrows certain characters and introductory plots from the series, but handles them freely and places them into a broader context of the transcontinental railroad construction in 1866. The game takes approximately 20 hours and is preceded by roughly 5 hours of pre-game workshops and gun handling training.
This article was initially published in The Nordic Larp Yearbook 2015 published by Rollespilsakademiet and edited by Charles Bo Nielsen, Claus Raasted & Erik Sonne Georg.
Legion – Trans-Siberian Railroading
The Great War, or the first World War, was a massive, horrible massacre on a truly industrial scale, and it is one of the wars I find most fascinating. I’ve read so much about it it, know so much trivia and still I had almost no knowledge of the Czech Legion in Siberia. Walking a few miles in the shoes of those legionnaires not only opened my eyes to a very important piece of history most of us probably have no knowledge of, but also brought me new friends and some very emotional memories.
This article was originally published: Sebastian Utbult: Legion – Trans-Siberian Railroading in Nordic LARP. https://nordiclarp.org/2016/02/01/legion-trans-siberian-railroading/
Phase Games in Czech
In Knutepunkt 2009 Jana Jevická and Tomáš Kopeček held a presentation about the history of larp in the Czech Republic. Rather surprisingly they started their history lesson during the First Republic (1918-1939), long before Dave Arneson and Gary Gygax commodified role-playing activity into Dungeons & Dragons, generally considered to be the starting point of role-playing games. I have interviewed Kopeček to learn more about the subject. The Czech case is interesting as it shows how games that look like larps, pervasive games or even pervasive larps can evolve not just from role-playing games or theater, but from the scout movement.
This article was originally published: Pervasive Games: Markus Montola, Jaakko Stenros, Annika Waern: Theory and Design. https://pervasivegames.wordpress.com/2009/10/30/spotlight-phase-games-in-czech/?fbclid=IwAR2T8kBN3lCJkdVb4EBPedbh-XIloDg7GO7dU1H0qCPfX00zp3ZHQoWTOhQ
Skoro Rassvet – Vodka, Tears and Dostoyevsky
Man will vanquish by his will and reason over the nature. He will understand that he is mortal that he has now hope for resurrection and he will accept death and he will accept it with satisfaction. He will be as God and eve- rything will be allowed to him and as soon as man becomes God any law will cease to apply. Everything will be allowed!
F. M. Dostoyevsky – The Brothers Karamazov
This article was originally published: Charles Bo Nielsen, Claus Raasted (editoři): The Nordic Larp Yearbook 2014. Rollespilsakademiet 2015. ISBN 978-87-92507-23-5 https://web.archive.org/web/20160305012411/
http://rollespilsakademiet.dk/webshop/nordiclarpyearbook2014.pdf