Tapas de Larpas

This event occurred in the past. May 26th, 2007, to be precise.

Schedule

1:30pm	Plan 8 from Outer Space [first run starts]
2pm	Plan 8 from Outer Space [second run starts]
3:30pm	Infobahn 2000
5pm	[Dinner Break]
6pm	Snow White [two simultaneous runs]
9pm	[Hanging Out]

The Games

Plan 8 from Outer Space

[aka Dilbert Meets Ed Wood]
a LARP by Mike Young

The People of Earth are Stupid! They have the capacity to build a device which could destroy the Universe. We are part of this Universe and must stop them. But how...

This event is set as a business meeting aboard an Alien Spaceship from the movie Plan Nine From Outer Space by the incomparable Ed Wood. This specific LARP is set before the movie, just after the aliens have tried Plan Eight. This meeting is the post mortem for the failed Plan Eight and a strategy session for Plan Nine, whatever it turns out to be. Think Dilbert meets cheesy 50s B-Grade Sci-Fi. No actual knowledge of the movie is needed to play.

This LARP has no mechanics. There is no combat. You are all professionals here and this is a board meeting. Please don't try to fight. You may get fired. Or transferred to one of the moons of Pluto.

All of the characters in this game are dysfunctional. Figure out how yours is dysfunctional and go for it.

Infobahn 2000

A Fete Fatale Production

Welcome, race fans, to the latest running of the Infobahn 2000!

Delve with us, Gentle User, into a world you never see, a universe you take for granted. In our mundane existence, e-mail transmissions are just a few clicks on a plastic rodent. O, how innocent are we! How comfortable in our limited reality that we ignore the hazardous course and perilous travails awaiting our coveted correspondence: our missives of love and lust, our capitalistic communiqués, our humour du jour and other assorted piffle.

At last we withdraw the veil, if only briefly. At last our worlds merge, blend and flow enough for us to grasp for a moment the true nature of the events we so blithely set in motion. Welcome to the reality behind the façade. Welcome to the Infobahn 2000!

Never fear, while players will find some experience with the Internet helpful, neither technical expertise nor pocket protectors are required to participate. Players represent an Internet Service Provider (ISP) and attempt to deliver their priority mail messages promptly and safely with nary a clue as to what their TCP/IP address or subnet mask might be. The Internet in all its complexity is simply represented by a modified croquet/obstacle course where wickets represent destinations and routers, and balls represent messages the servers (players) are trying to deliver.

Snow White

Parlor LARP by Shifting Forest, run by Drew Novick

Shifting Forest (now sadly out-of-business) published 11 games for 6-8 players they called Parlor Larps. Each one contains a larp scenario with eight pregenerated characters. See here for the basic rules and here for a list of the published games.

"Of all traditional fairy tales that were adapted and censored for children in modern renditions, Snow White has perhaps undergone the most change. Today's bedtime story of an innocent princess, seven happy listtle men and true love forgets the original undertones of desperation, passion, poverty, and sexuality. One cannot tell the true story of Snow White without going back to a time in which men were valued only for their size and stamina, and women only for their beauty and ability to bear children; a time in which glass was so rare that a polished mirror was truly a frightening thing of magic.

"Most of the original characters and a few new ones are present in this adaptation of the older, darker, and more vivid story of Snow White. It is set in the hours before the execution of the Queen and subsequent wedding of the Prince and Princess. A time of last chances and new beginnings."

Shifting Forest classifies this game as focused on Atmosphere (A particular mood or feel to the larp), Relationships (Complicated relationship dynamics) and Morality (Moral dilemmas and complicated decisions). They describe it as Dark 5 (on a scale of 1-5! for the prevalence of depressing or disturbing elements) with disturbing content (Contains themes or elements that some adults may not be comfortable with. Please self-select if you think this would be too uncomfortable for you to play.]

Registration

Name:

Address:

City:

State:

Zip:

Email address:

Phone:

Gender:

Male Female

Age:

Teen 20s 30s 40s A little more

Preferred method of contact:

Best time to contact you:

Any medical conditions or dietary restrictions we should be aware of (e.g., epileptic, allergies)?

Please indicate your game/time preferences:

Plan 8 from Outer Space

1:30 or 2 pm run

not playing

Infobahn 2000

3:30 pm run

not playing

Snow White

6:00 pm-ish run

not playing

PLAN 8 FROM OUTER SPACE

In this game, you play one of the following managers:

	Project Manager
	Research and Development
	Marketing
	Accounting
	Technician
	Quality Assurance
	Administration

Does any particular position interest you? Is there any position you'd rather avoid?

What do you think your greatest strengths are as an employee?

How do you feel toward the people of Earth? How did you form this opinion?

Are you familiar with any of the following:

The comic strip Dilbert?

The movie Ed Wood?

The movie Plan Nine from Outer Space?

Any version of the TV show "The Office?"

How comfortable do you feel improvising?

Extra Credit:
If left to your own devices, how would you prevent the stupid Earthlings from blowing up the Universe?

INFOBAHN 2000

Characters, such as they are, will be cast at the door, based entirely on the GM's whims.

Please check if you have any croquet items you can bring to the game:

SNOW WHITE

I'll do my best to cast so you can plan costuming, but you won't get a character sheet until you are at the game. The sheets are less than a page long, and we'll give you a chance to absorb the material.

Shifting Forest Storyworks characters are all rated on three binary axes, whether they are Goal or Emotionally motivated, whether they are primarily Light or Dark, and whether the characters personality motivations are Simple or Complex. Each character has a unique set of these, there is one Goal oriented Simple character that is primarily Dark (and so forth thus making eight characters).

So, it's a questionnaire. First question is: Do you want to help run Snow White as opposed to play? I think this event offers some fun opportunity in running.

Next, Would you prefer a character that is Goal oriented (G) or Emotionally oriented (E)?

Would you prefer a primarily Light character (L) or primarily Dark character (D)?

Would you prefer a character that has generally Simple motivations (S) or Complex motivations (C)?

Which axis is most important, Goal or Emotion, Light or Dark, Simple or Complex?

Which axis is least important, Goal or Emotion, Light or Dark, Simple or Complex?

All characters have a preferred gender (this is unusual for Shifting Forest Storyworks events) for Snow White, but only half are really mandatory. Are you willing to play across gender if it gets you closer to the character you want?

OR tell me which of the following characters would you rather play (based on this public information), and which you'd like to avoid:

	Snow White: A young princess, the fairest in the land.
	The Prince: Prince of a neighboring kingdom, betrothed of Snow White.
	The Queen: Beautiful Queen, Snow White's stepmother.
	Kione the Dwarf: Leader of seven midget miners whom Snow White had lived with.
	Advisor Naresh: Nominally advisor to the King, then Queen, actually the person who pretty much runs the castle and kingdom.
	Commander Sevros: Commander of the Guard, now serving the Prince.
	Nurse Gittel: Snow White's old, somewhat crazy nurse.
	Lieutenant Armin: Loyal lieutenant to the Prince.

Warning: some (if not most) of the characters and the storylines are not politically correct, there are strong sexist and racist themes in this event. If this is going to be a problem, you might want to give this event a pass. On the other hand, it's a LARP, it's make believe, and what better way to explore these themes safely.