Dogme '99
April 22, 2015 10:17 AM Subscribe
"We wanted to kill the game," says Eirik Fatland, a Norwegian interaction designer who has spent over twenty years creating, participating in, and theorizing about these types of forward-thinking LARPs. In 1999, he and some others started a movement called Dogma 99. Modeled after Lars Von Trier's Dogme 95 and Jerzy Grotowski's minimalist, impulse-driven notion of a "poor theatre," the movement included a ten-point "vow of chastity" intended to maximize LARP's dramatic immersion, while removing pretty much everything else.
NO OBJECT shall be used to represent another object. (All things shall be what they appear to be.)
I find this incredibly ironic/hilarious/sad given that the entire point, the entire premise of roleplaying is that people are manifestly not who they appear to be. Indeed, if they were, it would not be role playing, it would just be hanging out with some other people.
posted by Tomorrowful at 10:38 AM on April 22, 2015 [1 favorite]
I find this incredibly ironic/hilarious/sad given that the entire point, the entire premise of roleplaying is that people are manifestly not who they appear to be. Indeed, if they were, it would not be role playing, it would just be hanging out with some other people.
posted by Tomorrowful at 10:38 AM on April 22, 2015 [1 favorite]
"Role-playing games are not about winning" is the most widespread example of synecdoche in the hobby...
posted by bonehead at 10:38 AM on April 22, 2015
posted by bonehead at 10:38 AM on April 22, 2015
While I can definitely criticize the pretentiousness of the Dogma manifesto, and it opens itself up to some criticism as to whether it's actually LARPing or improv theatre, there are some really useful ideas in the manifesto.
Number One would be "No secondary characters". There's a number of LARPs I've been in where I wished the creators would take that advice.
posted by happyroach at 10:39 AM on April 22, 2015 [1 favorite]
Number One would be "No secondary characters". There's a number of LARPs I've been in where I wished the creators would take that advice.
posted by happyroach at 10:39 AM on April 22, 2015 [1 favorite]
This very much smells like a reaction to the gamist, narrativist/dramatist, simulationist theories of gaming floating around in the 90s.
posted by bonehead at 10:40 AM on April 22, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by bonehead at 10:40 AM on April 22, 2015 [3 favorites]
Playing pretend is serious fucking business people
posted by prize bull octorok at 10:48 AM on April 22, 2015 [13 favorites]
posted by prize bull octorok at 10:48 AM on April 22, 2015 [13 favorites]
That reminds me:
For those as might be interested, the book Nordic LARP (which won the 2012 Diana Jones Award for Excellence in Gaming) is available as a free PDF download from the University of Tampere.
posted by magstheaxe at 10:49 AM on April 22, 2015 [7 favorites]
For those as might be interested, the book Nordic LARP (which won the 2012 Diana Jones Award for Excellence in Gaming) is available as a free PDF download from the University of Tampere.
posted by magstheaxe at 10:49 AM on April 22, 2015 [7 favorites]
In particular, this reads very much like the simulationist definitional document. To summarize: "...Simulationism is based on method and observation rather than a theoretical goal which it strives for. The tool is simulation: projecting what should happen based on the game-world as it has been imagined. Put aside what you think the story should be based on books and movies, and instead think about the game-world as an alternate reality."
These folks have run a decade-long experiment in that, which is beyond cool. I'm just sorry that a dear friend of mine, who was part of those early discussions in the 90s, isn't around to see the flower of this.
posted by bonehead at 10:50 AM on April 22, 2015 [2 favorites]
These folks have run a decade-long experiment in that, which is beyond cool. I'm just sorry that a dear friend of mine, who was part of those early discussions in the 90s, isn't around to see the flower of this.
posted by bonehead at 10:50 AM on April 22, 2015 [2 favorites]
Playing pretend is serious fucking business people
Everything I know about pretending to be a manipulative, conniving Vampire whose only interest was accumulating power and bending others to his will, I learned by being an officer in my college LARP club.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 10:54 AM on April 22, 2015 [6 favorites]
Everything I know about pretending to be a manipulative, conniving Vampire whose only interest was accumulating power and bending others to his will, I learned by being an officer in my college LARP club.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 10:54 AM on April 22, 2015 [6 favorites]
I'm simultaneously intrigued and annoyed by the rules and descriptions. On the one hand, I can appreciate that for some people they're really more interested in the roleplaying aspects than they are the "gaming" aspects; on the other, some of these seem anti-fun, particularly #s 8 and 9, which seem particularly anti-fun. I'm reminded of some of the hardcore Civil War re-enacters from Confederates in the Attic who would spend nights eating rancid bacon and sleeping in mildewed blankets and examine each other's clothing for any taint of postbellum manufacture. (It might help if the article included some more description of the actual scenarios; the pictures hint at things more interesting than the situations described.)
posted by Halloween Jack at 10:59 AM on April 22, 2015
posted by Halloween Jack at 10:59 AM on April 22, 2015
As a former Vampire LARP'er, I can see the need to simplify, simplify, simplify, but as I get older, I just want to play Humans Versus Zombies, (or Killer, remember Killer?) and just run and shoot nerf guns at each other.
But that's just me.
posted by Major Matt Mason Dixon at 10:59 AM on April 22, 2015 [3 favorites]
But that's just me.
posted by Major Matt Mason Dixon at 10:59 AM on April 22, 2015 [3 favorites]
It's also interesting in the article to see that they talk mostly the gamist-simulationist tensions (there's no winning, only naturalistic outcomes) which tend to be the obvious immersion-breakers. Shouting out damage scores, worrying about meta-reality recordkeeping, and so on.
There's comparatively little about the dramatist-simulationist ones, the temptation to inject an overarching story into the world and thus force outcomes. In my experience, this was the more insidious problem. Game-masters, or even players doing things because it would suit a narrative better, rather than situations evolving as they might naturally. The criticism was always about sticking to your motivations, rather than seeking dramatic closure. This was role-play, not drama.
posted by bonehead at 10:59 AM on April 22, 2015
There's comparatively little about the dramatist-simulationist ones, the temptation to inject an overarching story into the world and thus force outcomes. In my experience, this was the more insidious problem. Game-masters, or even players doing things because it would suit a narrative better, rather than situations evolving as they might naturally. The criticism was always about sticking to your motivations, rather than seeking dramatic closure. This was role-play, not drama.
posted by bonehead at 10:59 AM on April 22, 2015
So my reaction is:
That Lars Von Triers
*reads the article*
*backs away silently while my own inner weirdo sings a strange song*
posted by angrycat at 11:00 AM on April 22, 2015
That Lars Von Triers
*reads the article*
*backs away silently while my own inner weirdo sings a strange song*
posted by angrycat at 11:00 AM on April 22, 2015
Holy heck. There are pretentious, holier-than-thou, "I'm more artsy than you" LARPers. I didn't even know that was possible in a hobby considered only a couple steps more respectable than Furries in Geekdom. (Disclaimer: I have been a LARPer for well over a decade.)
I want to grab them by the shoulders and shake them while yelling "It's a game!" Playing rock, paper, scissors to determine the outcome of my character's choices, or marking off things on my character sheet do not pull me out of the immersion I feel for the game. I actually feel rather offended by the notion of my "gamist" style meaning there has to be winners or losers portrayed during cataclysmic moments in time.
The instance that LARP is an art-form for them really makes me feel as though what they're doing isn't really LARP at all. It's just a form of interactive theatre where the participants are also the only audience.
They also miss the point that the largest organized LARPing group in the world, (as far as I know) Mind's Eye Theater, runs globally integrated, years long chronicles. There is literally no way to carry this out without some sort of formalized rules set and way of resolving disputes. Most of the sessions referred to in the article seem to be one night or short one-shot games, held in one location for a limited participant list. Which is the only way their lack of rules would work.
Anyway, I have lots of conflicting feelings with this... Which might just boil down to Northern European LARPers are vastly different than North American LARPers, but I'm running out of lunch hour in which to analyze them.
posted by sharp pointy objects at 11:45 AM on April 22, 2015
I want to grab them by the shoulders and shake them while yelling "It's a game!" Playing rock, paper, scissors to determine the outcome of my character's choices, or marking off things on my character sheet do not pull me out of the immersion I feel for the game. I actually feel rather offended by the notion of my "gamist" style meaning there has to be winners or losers portrayed during cataclysmic moments in time.
The instance that LARP is an art-form for them really makes me feel as though what they're doing isn't really LARP at all. It's just a form of interactive theatre where the participants are also the only audience.
They also miss the point that the largest organized LARPing group in the world, (as far as I know) Mind's Eye Theater, runs globally integrated, years long chronicles. There is literally no way to carry this out without some sort of formalized rules set and way of resolving disputes. Most of the sessions referred to in the article seem to be one night or short one-shot games, held in one location for a limited participant list. Which is the only way their lack of rules would work.
Anyway, I have lots of conflicting feelings with this... Which might just boil down to Northern European LARPers are vastly different than North American LARPers, but I'm running out of lunch hour in which to analyze them.
posted by sharp pointy objects at 11:45 AM on April 22, 2015
Oh my GOD that font in the article is insufferable.
posted by Sternmeyer at 11:56 AM on April 22, 2015
posted by Sternmeyer at 11:56 AM on April 22, 2015
I completely agree with the aims of this movement- I think it is important to emphasize the role-playing aspects of a LARP while removing artifice and gimmickry.
That's why everyone in my Restoration-period high fantasy LARP wears a black turtleneck and leotard.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 12:54 PM on April 22, 2015 [2 favorites]
That's why everyone in my Restoration-period high fantasy LARP wears a black turtleneck and leotard.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 12:54 PM on April 22, 2015 [2 favorites]
NO OBJECT shall be used to represent another object. (All things shall be what they appear to be.)
I refute it thus: Lightning bolt lightning bolt lightning bolt!!!
posted by Doktor Zed at 1:16 PM on April 22, 2015 [2 favorites]
I refute it thus: Lightning bolt lightning bolt lightning bolt!!!
posted by Doktor Zed at 1:16 PM on April 22, 2015 [2 favorites]
Why would you want to break the illusion? A lot of us are completely disinterested in whether our characters succeed -- we're not competing, we're telling a story
The joy among role playing games tabletop and larp is that multiple people can play different types of games among themselves without breaking the game for everyone else. But that requires a tolerance for others playstyles. Just because it mystifies you doesn't mean it's not useful.
I mean, I guess one of the things that's nice about a manifesto is that (and this was super true of the Dogme movies) it tells you what you're going to get right there on the tin, so you can avoid it or at least expect it if it's not your thing.
posted by lumpenprole at 1:26 PM on April 22, 2015
The joy among role playing games tabletop and larp is that multiple people can play different types of games among themselves without breaking the game for everyone else. But that requires a tolerance for others playstyles. Just because it mystifies you doesn't mean it's not useful.
I mean, I guess one of the things that's nice about a manifesto is that (and this was super true of the Dogme movies) it tells you what you're going to get right there on the tin, so you can avoid it or at least expect it if it's not your thing.
posted by lumpenprole at 1:26 PM on April 22, 2015
I think it's absolutely hilarious that D&D-related LARPers would complain about Dogme '99 because they came up with a bunch of rules for their LARPing.
"How can you LARP with all these rules?!"
posted by straight at 1:34 PM on April 22, 2015 [1 favorite]
"How can you LARP with all these rules?!"
posted by straight at 1:34 PM on April 22, 2015 [1 favorite]
I like what they did there.
And note the past tense. What they did. "According to Fatland, the last Dogme LARP to "make its mark on the discourse" took place in 2006. (It saw a group of players emulating the Road Knights, a real-life Danish subculture of benevolent traveling hobos.)"
They deliberately wrote out much of what they were doing and forced themselves to do something new. When I read the "Vow of Chastity" I was "Yeah, this is silly" then realized that they were doing exactly what they wanted to do -- get rid of superficial and goal directed structures -- and forcing themselves into a new direction. And, well, it seems to have worked spectacularly well.
Now they have a whole new set of experiences -- the years of the Dogma LARP, and the old years of the pre-Vow LARP, and they're combining those into something new.
That's neat. Still not interesting enough to me to make me want to join them -- just not my thing -- but the idea that "We really like X, but we seem to be stuck in a rut. Can we isolate what we really want, then explicitly exclude everything else and see if something new emerges that we'd enjoy?" is really fascinating to me. They wanted role playing. They got rid of skills, goal, point systems, item descriptions -- certainly everything I personally think of when you say "RPG" to me, and I've done tabletop RPGs since D&D, and note there's no A in from of that. They left nothing but playing a role, and said "Let's see what happens with that."
And geeze: "AFTER THE EVENT HAS BEGUN, the playwrights are not allowed to influence it." DM Rule #1 is "The players are going to do what you least expect them to do" and you are now barred from doing anything to stop them or guide them to the actual scenario you've built. You're also barred from keeping any secrets from the players. You basically have to build the scenario, give the players their stories, wind the world up, and let it go, and hope like hell they have fun.
It's a hell of a concept, and apparently, somehow, it worked, and it move their concept of live action role playing into a very different direction. That, to me, is a really cool result.
posted by eriko at 1:46 PM on April 22, 2015 [4 favorites]
And note the past tense. What they did. "According to Fatland, the last Dogme LARP to "make its mark on the discourse" took place in 2006. (It saw a group of players emulating the Road Knights, a real-life Danish subculture of benevolent traveling hobos.)"
They deliberately wrote out much of what they were doing and forced themselves to do something new. When I read the "Vow of Chastity" I was "Yeah, this is silly" then realized that they were doing exactly what they wanted to do -- get rid of superficial and goal directed structures -- and forcing themselves into a new direction. And, well, it seems to have worked spectacularly well.
Now they have a whole new set of experiences -- the years of the Dogma LARP, and the old years of the pre-Vow LARP, and they're combining those into something new.
That's neat. Still not interesting enough to me to make me want to join them -- just not my thing -- but the idea that "We really like X, but we seem to be stuck in a rut. Can we isolate what we really want, then explicitly exclude everything else and see if something new emerges that we'd enjoy?" is really fascinating to me. They wanted role playing. They got rid of skills, goal, point systems, item descriptions -- certainly everything I personally think of when you say "RPG" to me, and I've done tabletop RPGs since D&D, and note there's no A in from of that. They left nothing but playing a role, and said "Let's see what happens with that."
And geeze: "AFTER THE EVENT HAS BEGUN, the playwrights are not allowed to influence it." DM Rule #1 is "The players are going to do what you least expect them to do" and you are now barred from doing anything to stop them or guide them to the actual scenario you've built. You're also barred from keeping any secrets from the players. You basically have to build the scenario, give the players their stories, wind the world up, and let it go, and hope like hell they have fun.
It's a hell of a concept, and apparently, somehow, it worked, and it move their concept of live action role playing into a very different direction. That, to me, is a really cool result.
posted by eriko at 1:46 PM on April 22, 2015 [4 favorites]
I don't LARP, but I know enough about it that I wouldn't characterize what they're doing as LARP, any more than I'd say an actor was LARPing because it is live action and she is playing a role. They came up with a specific way to do, as previously pointed out, a form of improvisational theater or performance art.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 2:01 PM on April 22, 2015
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 2:01 PM on April 22, 2015
I've had issues with the Nordic Scene in the past, but I've come to understand that part of going out all hardcore with a MANIFESTO and all that was partly to cause controversy so people would pay attention and make people re-examine what they thought was a larp, what wasn't and how they did stuff. Which I can get behind.
I know some friends of mine have had conversations with them comparing our habits in the UK to theirs over there and like we had trouble understand them, they had trouble understanding how you could run a game with actual plot for 1500 people in a field :).
posted by invisible_al at 2:02 PM on April 22, 2015
I know some friends of mine have had conversations with them comparing our habits in the UK to theirs over there and like we had trouble understand them, they had trouble understanding how you could run a game with actual plot for 1500 people in a field :).
posted by invisible_al at 2:02 PM on April 22, 2015
There's a terrible disease roleplayers have where they're compelled to say THIS IS ROLEPLAYING and THAT IS NOT ROLEPLAYING, when actually this kind of field is broad and vague fuzzy and there are completely different kinds of behaviour that all fit at least partially under the same umbrella.
I blame D&D's class system.
(My fave LARP from the last few years was an ten-player systemless game set in Borges' Library of Babel)
posted by xiw at 2:17 PM on April 22, 2015 [2 favorites]
I blame D&D's class system.
(My fave LARP from the last few years was an ten-player systemless game set in Borges' Library of Babel)
posted by xiw at 2:17 PM on April 22, 2015 [2 favorites]
Strange. The LoB sourcebook outlines a system of dice rolls.
posted by clarknova at 2:22 PM on April 22, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by clarknova at 2:22 PM on April 22, 2015 [1 favorite]
Major Matt Mason Dixon: "As a former Vampire LARP'er, I can see the need to simplify, simplify, simplify, but as I get older, I just want to play Humans Versus Zombies, (or Killer, remember Killer?) and just run and shoot nerf guns at each other.
But that's just me."
Of course, then there is the bad side of Killer. Like walking out of a 7-11 less than 200 yards away from your apartment (since nothing compliments a productive day of murder like a Slurpee), to hear the words "Freeze!" and look to see a cop in Weaver stance on the far side of the old school asymmetrical 7-11 storefront.
(Just as a note, when prompted, I hit the ground faster than a prom dress on Homecoming night, and did not protest either the officer's destruction of my gun or the loss of the Slurpee.)
I like LARPing, but that was a WEE bit too close to real life for me.
posted by Samizdata at 4:35 PM on April 22, 2015
But that's just me."
Of course, then there is the bad side of Killer. Like walking out of a 7-11 less than 200 yards away from your apartment (since nothing compliments a productive day of murder like a Slurpee), to hear the words "Freeze!" and look to see a cop in Weaver stance on the far side of the old school asymmetrical 7-11 storefront.
(Just as a note, when prompted, I hit the ground faster than a prom dress on Homecoming night, and did not protest either the officer's destruction of my gun or the loss of the Slurpee.)
I like LARPing, but that was a WEE bit too close to real life for me.
posted by Samizdata at 4:35 PM on April 22, 2015
Killer is the sort of thing that can only work in a closed environment like a Uni Dorm. Our rules were limited to dorms and quad only---we'd been warned they'd be confiscated in class. Off-campus was a huge no-go for obvious reasons. I think it was actually an autodeath in later games.
posted by bonehead at 6:59 PM on April 22, 2015
posted by bonehead at 6:59 PM on April 22, 2015
Strange. The LoB sourcebook outlines a system of dice rolls.
No, see, here's the Second Edition LoB Sourcebook that explains that whole dice rolling system was a printer error, probably related to contracting it out to White Wolf Publishing.
posted by straight at 9:51 PM on April 22, 2015
No, see, here's the Second Edition LoB Sourcebook that explains that whole dice rolling system was a printer error, probably related to contracting it out to White Wolf Publishing.
posted by straight at 9:51 PM on April 22, 2015
Blaming it all on White Wolf?
I guess I suspected it when I read his one-shot module The Aleph, but now I know Borges is just a bitter refugee from West End.
posted by clarknova at 10:43 PM on April 22, 2015
I guess I suspected it when I read his one-shot module The Aleph, but now I know Borges is just a bitter refugee from West End.
posted by clarknova at 10:43 PM on April 22, 2015
Dexcon in NJ is a convention that host LARPs of all kinds (amongst other things) and has a LARP track devoted to a a few of these Nordic LARPs and they're pretty good.
posted by ShawnStruck at 1:13 AM on April 23, 2015
posted by ShawnStruck at 1:13 AM on April 23, 2015
That Dexcon website is something else.
No kidding. It's like a LARP set in a world where Angelfire triumphed.
posted by lumpenprole at 1:09 PM on April 24, 2015
No kidding. It's like a LARP set in a world where Angelfire triumphed.
posted by lumpenprole at 1:09 PM on April 24, 2015
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