NZ road lobby's tobacco industry-like tactics revealed in study New Zealand's "road lobby" uses the same tactics as the tobacco industry to obstruct transport policies like walking and cycling, a new University of Otago study says.

NZ road lobby's tobacco industry-like tactics revealed in study

My #larp hot take is that it doesn’t matter that people are using the word the “wrong” way to describe political posers. Let’s relax and accept that part of the popularisation of larp will be people using it to describe broader concepts of pretend, dress-up and performance.

This revolting school lunch is a visual metaphor for what David Seymour wants to do to all public services in NZ.

Parody account that takes people’s posts (in this case yours) and changes “cyber” to “potato”.

@athenicworkshop.bsky.social haha

How influential has The Black Hart of Camelot been? That's hard to say. It had innovative aspects, but there were many wider influences happening at the same time, like the #nordiclarp movement. I would love to hear any stories you have of how running or playing the scenario affected your larping.

The published version of The Black Hart of Camelot included many tweaks to improve gameplay, and also a detailed explanation of the scenario for the GM. In 16 years since publication it has been run all over the world, often at conventions. I love hearing about the various runs and seeing photos.

A photo showing four women at the game costumed as their characters, one of whom is Morgan le Fay.

The many contradictory versions of Arthurian myth provided lots of options for writing the scenario, making it unpredictable even to fans. To allow for both the Christian and pagan themes common to the genre, I envisioned God's creation as including wondrous mysteries unknown to the common people.

Photo from a game showing a pavilion with players in the roles of Lancelot, Arthur, Guinevere, and Merlin are shown as the court of Camelot.

Various hidden game mechanics are in play to determine the outcome of deals made at the gathering. For example, one mechanic deals with Arthur's lords conspiring to go to war with him. Who would win? Merlin is used to channel the results of these hidden mechanics back into the game as prophesies.

Photo from a game where two knights of the Round Table are fighting with foam swords and shields.

It's a classic secrets-and-powers game, but there is also the option for combat to resolve matters of honour, trial by combat, or the looming possibility of a brutal uprising.

Photo from a game of a pavilion where players in the roles of lords, ladies and knights of Camelot are talking.

The first run was at Chimera larp convention in Auckland, New Zealand in 2009. Using a scout camp meant games could be either in halls or in the wooded grounds of the camp. A grassy area surrounded by forest made the perfect setting for Arthur to meet with his lords and their families and knights.

Another innovation in The Black Hart of Camelot was the "verily" mechanic. Rather than having a lot of different verbal calls for the effects of sorcery, there was a single special word. Anything that was said after "verily" must be taken as true. This made magic immersive and unpredictable.

As I saw it, the way you resolve combat is independent of who writes the characters and whether the game is a campaign or one-shot. This might seem obvious now, but at the time I had a lot of arguments about it on larp forums. So I wrote a one-shot larp with pregenerated characters and foam weapons.

Cover of The Book of Larp edited by Mike Young. Faded grey photos of larpers are illustrated.

I also had a #larp axe to grind. The prevailing view (e.g. in The Book of Larp) was that larps had either: 1) player-made characters with foam weapons in campaigns, or 2) GM-written characters with abstract conflict resolution in one-shots. I wanted to write a larp to prove this a false dichotomy.

Cover of Le Morte d'Arthur by Thomas Malory. The illustration shows one knight stabbing another who is on the ground, in a castle courtyard. In the background people look on.

White in turn was inspired by the 15th-century classic Le Morte d'Arthur by Thomas Malory. When writing the #larp I often referenced Malory, an encyclopaedia of Arthurian myth, and other sources, but I came back to White for the emotional depth of his characters.

Cover of The Once and Future King by T.H. White. The tagline is "The classic Arthurian epic". The illustration shows King Arthur in a green tabard with a red dragon on the chest. He is flying a hunting falcon, and behind him is a shield with a red dragon. In the background is a wooded outdoor scene with a pavilion and a castle.

I fell in love with Arthurian legend reading The Once and Future King by TH White. I'm now reading it to my son. The prose is lyrical, the characters whimsical and tragic. It begins light-heartedly but with political parables of might versus justice that play out as the tone darkens across 4 books.

Cover image of The Black Hart of Camelot, a live roleplaying game by Ryan Paddy. The cover illustration shows two armoured knights on horseback jousting, both of their lances have just landed on each other's shields and shattered.

I'd like to talk about a #larp scenario I wrote in 2009, The Black Hart of Camelot. Let's talk about what inspired it, how it was innovative at the time, and where it fits in the New Zealand and international larp scene.

You can find the scenario here: www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/8...

What do you like about larp? The Larp Census is testing some questions! For Round 2 we'd like answers from: Austria, Denmark, Finland, France, Italy, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Slovakia, Taiwan, USA

Are you a larper from Austria, Denmark, Finland, France, Italy, Malaysia, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Slovakia, Taiwan, or the USA? We want to hear from you! You can help us by completing this survey about your larp preferences: forms.gle/AnzkmhWShXS2...