|
|
|
Heroic Knight
 
Group: Basic Members
Last Login: Sunday, November 30, 2008 7:20 PM
Posts: 155,
Visits: 1,643
|
|
| overall, I liked the guy's comments, reasonably close to my own ways of thinking.. I also like the idea that people make the attempt to formalise their ideas about larp, if only so I can get a feeling of whether or not I'm going to like a game. I suspect that the prevalence of 'larp papers' in scandinavia is linked to them getting government funding as a legitimate art form.. They're a mixed bag, some of them I find very useful and others (such as 'larp as a path to spiritual enlightenment') less so. I think given the choice I'd rather be around people who think about larp, and where it could be taken, than people with the attitude "AAGH, he said 'diegetic' (or a derivative) lets beat him sith sticks"
|
|
|
|
|
Heroic Knight
Group: Basic Members
Last Login: Thursday, September 25, 2008 11:59 PM
Posts: 193,
Visits: 1,167
|
|
James_Adamson (11/16/2006)
I think given the choice I'd rather be around people who think about larp, and where it could be taken, than people with the attitude "AAGH, he said 'diegetic' (or a derivative) lets beat him sith sticks"
But diegetic is a made up word, that means fuck all. Extradiegetic is a word that is even more made up (thats where the 'extra- prefix comes in, natch) and consequently means even less.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/diegetic
Making up words to sound important is bad, m'kay?
Unless erveryone can do it! Maelstrom is now officially the most srgsrtsrrgsr LRP that exists!
Costume hippy, live and let live, peace and love for all, man!
|
|
|
|
|
Heroic Knight
Group: Basic Members
Last Login: Yesterday @ 9:34 PM
Posts: 127,
Visits: 1,689
|
|
Matt Pennington (11/16/2006)
I'm also an admirer of the dedication with which the Scandinavians approach LRP, but personally I find the attempt to "theorise" about it to be unhelpful. I suspect this comes from five years working as a PhD student, but I hate research papers, I find them to be unreadable jargon-filled texts. But at least the papers I had to read contained some fragments of truth.
From the little I've seen, the key trend in modern analysis for "artistic" things is to inflate weak ideas by inventing terms that don't mean anything at all to detour around them. It's good to talk about LRP, it's good to analyse it, to try to work out what makes for enjoyable games and by such means to find ways to make better games. But I remain unconvinced that such analysis needs to take it self so seriously as to have it's own academic papers.
I'm a bit of an acedemic lightweight so I can't really comment on "papers" one way or another. I agree that it is too easy to take the whole thing too seriously but I didn't really see this document in that light either, in fact the first point on his manifesto is that Larp isn't artistic expression it's just experience, when he says experience do you think he means "fun" e.g. this is something that we just do to enjoy ourselves so lets not pretend it's anything else.
It didn't come across as an overly serious piece of acedemic research , just a number of bullet points that listed what one person likes to think about when he runs a larp. In fact I can't recall having come across a "paper" on Larp although I'm sure there are some out there that are nothing more than self important brain farting, though that's no worse from my larp persepective than rules lawyers or munchkins and is probably easier to ignore.
If nothing else a manifesto or discussion document as presented gives everyone who reads it something to think about, to pick out what they like about it, pooh pooh what they don't like and then perhaps come up with their own "rules to larp by"
Nick
|
|
|
|
|
Champion
Group: Basic Members
Last Login: Friday, November 28, 2008 9:03 PM
Posts: 320,
Visits: 1,375
|
|
I like rule 11, if you`re making low fantasy, of course.
________________________________________________________- IRL: Edwin Hofstra
- - mostly crewing at the moment
|
|
|
|
|
Wag
Group: Basic Members
Last Login: Friday, November 21, 2008 7:33 PM
Posts: 1,456,
Visits: 2,020
|
|
Jenko (11/16/2006)
I'm a bit of an acedemic lightweight so I can't really comment on "papers" one way or another. I agree that it is too easy to take the whole thing too seriously but I didn't really see this document in that light either, in fact the first point on his manifesto is that Larp isn't artistic expression it's just experience, when he says experience do you think he means "fun" e.g. this is something that we just do to enjoy ourselves so lets not pretend it's anything else.
I wasn't criticising his manifesto, I was criticising the tendency to over-intellectualise things which is endemic in journals in my experience... And to which the Scandinavians seem particularly fond.
On the other hand they create some pretty cool looking LRP events that are pretty innovative (I don't know if they're fun, but they seem innovative to me) and from what I've been told they favour the "take it serious" approach to LRP over the "it's a laugh init?" approach to LRP, so heyho. And clearly it works for them. And from what I've been told, LRP isn't just taken seriously by LRPers in Scandinavia, but also by their fellow countrymen, who also view it as a serious and worthy art form. I've been led to believe they get the sort of respect we can only dream of in this country. I guess that's probably self-evident in the fact that people give them money to do LRP. Maybe taking yourself seriously is a prerequisite for other people taking you seriously.
Personally I chose to prostitute my art-form honestly rather than by publishing papers to get government grants.... 
Sugarpuff Sandwich (11/16/2006)
But diegetic is a made up word, that means fuck all.
I don't think you should criticise a word simply because it's made up. That's how language evolves and adapts to describe new ideas. I do think the word is somewhat over-used and is danger of becoming the LRP version of "dialectic". But the word has a meaning that I did understand once (unlike dialectic!). As I recall it's something to do with being "in the scene" so a piece of diegetic music in a film is a piece of music which you can hear but which is playing in the story (for instance because the scene is a concet), as opposed to, I guess, extradiegetic which I suspect means out of the scene (for instance the stupid "scare" music that plays in horror movies).
Heck we have lammies, time-in and time-out and other words we made up for our hobby. Making up words is an essential part of language, it's a concept fundamental to language and how we communicate. If I understand the linguists correctly.
My problem with the word is that I fail to see a lot of relevance to LRP and worse I don't recall any profound wisdom naming this concept leads to. Hence it's use makes me suspect that it's just jargon for the sake of it. And that way leads to pretentiousness.
History is an important source for LRP. Along with other works of fiction.
|
|
|
|
|
I do talk a good fight
Group: System Moderators
Last Login: Saturday, November 29, 2008 11:45 AM
Posts: 1,861,
Visits: 5,742
|
|
I liked a lot of it, particularly rules (2) and (7).
Of course Sturrock's Corollary (borrowed from Weeden's Story) to Rule (2) is that The Market Is King. I'd love to carefully assemble the precise number and makeup of players from all the people I know who would be perfect for the event, but if 25% of them are broke, 25% are busy, and 25% can't get transport, I'm going to be selling 75% of the tickets to either second choices or random punters whose money is as good as anyone elses. At that point I'll be hoping for the best.
http://www.hyboriantales.com
PD: Ghostdance ("The most irritating curse I've ever encountered" -- NPC played by H.)
Riftworld: Rossar Kuug ("Clearly mad, because he thinks he's a Com-Trow Skirmisher" - Aela)
Hyborian Tales: Crew, cook, dogsbody, general labourer, toilet cleaner ("Dangerously overoptimistic ref" -- Tom Nowell)
Otherwise usually crew ("Quite spry & fit, & willing to wear a big costume & run around a lot" -- various event organisers)
"My other oversized foam weapon is THE LORD" -- Questionable Content
|
|
|
|
|
Heroic Knight
Group: Basic Members
Last Login: Tuesday, September 30, 2008 12:03 AM
Posts: 104,
Visits: 491
|
|
Sugarpuff Sandwich (11/16/2006)
But diegetic is a made up word, that means fuck all. Extradiegetic is a word that is even more made up (thats where the 'extra- prefix comes in, natch) and consequently means even less.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/diegetic
Making up words to sound important is bad, m'kay?The ancient greeks used the word "diegesis" when discussing narrative. "Diegetic" and "extradiegetic" are simple derivatives. I guess those guys were trying to sound important, but really they just came across as pretentious tossers. Diegesis can have the meaning "The (fictional) world in which the situations and events narrated occur". In larp diegetic means something that is part of the fiction, like a costume. As opposed to say a lammie, which is extradiegetic. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/diegesis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diegesis Kind of a useful concept in larp, similar to the concept of IC and OOC. Personally I prefer the term "the fiction" over diegesis because it allows me to have a discussion about it without people whining on about how pretentious I'm being. And everyone can agree what you mean by the word, which isn't always the case with diegesis. Going back to the original topic, I find the suggestion that the quality of a larp is most dependant on who you play with very true. To date my focus has been trying to form a larping community with what I consider a good attitude towards the larp, and that's worked pretty well. But I'm definitely considering running smaller invite-only larps as well. Obviously quality is totally subjective, but I think it's possible to get a limited bunch of people together with similar perceptions and abilities and achieve a more satisfying larp for those people than one with random sign-ups. Random participants sometimes have neither the will or ability to play a larp the way the organisers intended it.
|
|
|
|
|
Heroic Knight
Group: Basic Members
Last Login: Thursday, September 25, 2008 11:59 PM
Posts: 193,
Visits: 1,167
|
|
Look I just don't like people using ancient friggin' greek to describe a simple concept that we've all been used to since we were five... the more jargon, the less friendly something is. LRP is for everyone. I truly believe that out there, there are games that every last person could get something out of. That they could enjoy. Even football hooligans.
Manifestos and diegesis just make it sound impenetrable.
I mean, English is renowned to be the most flexible language on earth, surely theres a better word out there?
Otherwise, we might as well be using kayfabe. (which means roughly the same thing, but is a word that was deliberately created to confuse and hide its meaning)
Costume hippy, live and let live, peace and love for all, man!
|
|
|
| | |