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New Age is the series of movie-like larps in the steampunk-dieselpunk world,
an alternate reality, in which electricity is exceeded by devices powered by steam,
coal or in our case - uranium or oil.
We've got very dirty, industrial world.
It was going to be first big larp in Poland with this oriental,
chinese-japanese pulp theme.
Our main inspiration were always movies.
This year's edition was inspired by the three categories of them.
The first was Bond franchise, „Goldeneye” in particular.
Second one was „Firefly”, awesome TV series,
mixing motifs of oriental East and science-fiction.
„Firefly” encouraged us to do so in steampunk world.
Third category had loads of Japanese movies in it, i.e.: „Hero”.
We were trying to blend stereotypes, motifs,
topoi of Hollywood West and oriental East.
I believe the way in which larp is created has an enormous impact on the final outcome.
Preparin this year's edition, we have been learning Chinese,
I've taken kung-fu lessons
and most important talks were held right after traditional Chinese tea ceremony.
Writing character's descriptions and preparing a brief sketch of the scenario
I was trying to immerse myself into character's developed by players.
I was thinking about their goals,
about their part in this story and then I got some of the craziest ideas.
Like, for example, assasination in the toilet,
when one player had an opportunity to defend himself with a safe razorblade,
while the attacker-ninja was hidden behind the shower's curtain, armed with a sword.
It was important who exactly work on the certain character's description.
Every one of us has one's own style of writing,
of analysing story and player's inspirational material.
Preparing of each character took rougly 5 hours, I think.
It's not an exaggeration.
What's more, to understand them, we had to dive into inspirations
provided by participants.
We watched movies, listened to music, read books or summaries of the games.
It might look like pleasant thing to do,
but when there are 120 characters, each of them with its own,
long story we would like to include in the larp's plot...
It occurs that the amount od materials was enormous.
Using blackbox metatechnique was an experiment which ended up great.
Blackbox is a special place in which participants
can play the scenes from different times and places than the game's.
I believe, speaking from the inside of blackbox,
that those scenes were full of emotions, interesting, and what's important,
they were building the story.
Some of the players even could see,
how particular New Age editions are connected,
having a spoiler-like experience about what would happen next.
First scenography ideas appeared when we have started to work on the scenario.
In this particular period of time
we were in touch with scenario-writing group.
Their need of certain plots or events determined what we would like to prepare.
But the real challenge was using all of our oriental inspirations
into the plain location.
We had to think about what kind of place we needed
and then prepare them to fullfill our expectations.
Second assumption was that we had to work on budget.
We couldn't just decorate a whole terrain,
we couldn't even pretend that was a real Chinese cottage.
That's why we had to focus on few point
we knew the game would concentrate on – for example, palace od the Daimyo or tea garden.
At the beginning, we have created a few moodboards showing the main theme.
I had to teach a big team into methodology of creating larp scenography.
It is different than movie or theater ones, because it has to be useful.
„Playing” scenography is very important on New Age, because I believe it is action larp.
It is about interacting with the real world,
competing with other players about real resources.
When there is a trap and danger of death,
it should capture the participant and hold them until rescued.
Larp is something more than this few hours or days spent in the other world.
For player larp starts when he for the first time immerse himself into a character
– for a long time before actual game,
writing his role
– and it ends when the last talks about events and emotions fade.
Tłumacznie : Agata Świstak