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Salon du Larp House: Glamourous Night playtest

enchanted forest

Wizards, humans, magical creatures, and faeries attend a mundane community’s summer solstice festival. Magic is in the air, voices are stilled, and dreams can come true at a cost. Tonight shifting auras will grant attendees terrifying mystical power to pursue their desires. How far will you go to get what you want? When you are all-powerful, what is actually important to you?

What

Glamourous Night is a larp about faerie magic and wizards’ hubris for 15-25 players. It is an abstract and musical experience exploring the themes of temptation and choice. This event is a playtest for an unfinished larp designed by Jon Cole.

In Glamourous Night, players use two movement techniques to perform ensorcelling magic as their characters. Characters will experience joyful exploration and tempting darkness as they share, subjugate, and are subjugated.

When

Sunday September 1st, 2019, from 1:30 to 6 pm

Background

This is an alpha playtest of a larp. Glamourous Night isn’t finished, and this will be one of the first times it is played. There might be big holes missing or rough patches in play. If this larp sounds interesting to you even though it may not be a coherent start to finish narrative experience, we will be very glad to have you join us!
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Local designers featured in The Guardian

Larp House members and local larp designers Kelley Vanda and Jon Cole have been prominently mentioned in this article in The Guardian about women designing games about reproductive rights.

The female game designers fighting back on abortion rights
The female game designers fighting back on abortion rights
Through video games, live-action role-playing games and interactive documentaries, developers are challenging the conversation around reproductive rights
www.theguardian.com

 

You can get a PDF of The Abortionists here.

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Larp House Presents: POP!

Get Connected!

Update: Sorry to burst your balloon, but this event has been cancelled.

The warm hum of a CRT monitor is drowned out by the scream of a dial-up modem. As Internet access becomes ubiquitous, people with obscure sexual interests are beginning to find one another in anonymous forums. A cursor floats over a hyperlink to looner-landing private forums 18+ only.

On one bulletin board service, a group of people connect over their common sexual interest in balloons. Who are the people behind the keyboard? What nascent community do they form, and how does it change when they meet in person for the first time?

What

POP! is a live-action game about online communities, for 8 to 12 players.

Specifically, it’s about an online community of people who love and fetishize latex balloons.

Players will immerse into the warm, soothing atmosphere of a nostalgic Internet via private messenger, forum posts, and chat rooms. At the end of play, the characters will meet for for the first time at an in-person meet-up event, which might be a joyful revelation or an awkward trainwreck. While this game is about a very specific community, the themes of finding belonging are universal.

Designed by Alex Roberts
Organized by Jon Cole and Tom S. Tea

When

Saturday, 25 May 2019, from 2 to 5 pm

Where

POP! will take place at SpringBOX, located at 262 University Ave W in Saint Paul, Minnesota.

Parking is available on site. METRO Green Line and bus lines stop nearby.

Directions

Tickets

Get a “ticket” by filling out our POP! registration form before 11:59 pm on Sunday, 19 May. Unlike some of our other events, these tickets are first-come first-serve. Once you have a ticket, you don’t need to do anything else besides show up to play. In the unlikely event that too many people sign up, we will solicit volunteers to drop out of the event in exchange for a “golden ticket” of instant admittance to their next event with us.

SpringBOX is a space for community events and programming, operated by Springboard for the Arts. We are requesting a pay-what-you-want donation ($5-10 suggested) to support the work of SpringBOX in appreciation for the use of their space. No one will be turned away if they are unable to make a donation.

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Documentation for Sing Your Heart Out

Documentation for Sing Your Heart Out

A live-action game of singing and drama

Designed by Benjamin Rosenbaum and Jamey Harvey
Organized by Jon Cole and Peregrin Winkle

Four players + a facilitator
Minneapolis, Minnesota
February 2019

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Larp House Presents: Sing Your Heart Out

woman singing into microphone

Who thought that a singing competition was a good idea for a nonprofit fundraiser? Now six nonprofit coworkers with a casual singing group have just one week to turn their setlist into something professional. They will have to wow the judges with their vocal talents if they can hope to land the multi-million dollar grant that will keep the doors open on their community organization. Tensions will mount, drama will ensue, and everyone will sing to express their true feelings!

What

Sing Your Heart Out is a live-action game for five players about a singing group composed of very dramatic people. Think Glee, Pitch Perfect, Fame, and A Chorus Line.

Designed by Benjamin Rosenbaum and Jamey Harvey
Organized by Jon Cole and Peregrin Winkle

When

Sunday 24 February 2019, from 1:00 pm to 6:00 pm

Where

A North Minneapolis nonprofit located near Broadway and Emerson. Players will be given details after they are registered.

Parking on site. Metro Transit lines 5, 14, 30, and 32 stop nearby.

Registration

We are requesting a pay-what-you-want goodwill donation ($5 suggested) to support the work of the nonprofit in appreciation for the use of their space. No one will be turned away if they are unable to make a donation.

If you are interested in participating, fill out our Sing Your Heart Out registration form before 11:59 pm on Sunday, 17 February. We’ll let you know if you are in the larp by Monday, 18 February.

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Documentation for Paratopia

Documentation for Paratopia, a larp design nano-con

Organized by TLS and Katherine Shane

3 November 2018
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Seven attendees

Events

  • Playtest: The Abortionists by Jon Cole and Kelley Vanda
  • Playtest: Better Tell Todd by Josh Krehbiel
  • Roundtable: game concept feedback for unfinished design by Shawn Stokes
  • Workshop: Ars Tegumi, presented by Jon Cole
  • Roundtable: creative process, facilitated by Tayler Stokes
  • Playtest: It Was a Beautiful Mistake by David Rothfeder
  • Playtest: Magnum Opus by Tayler Stokes
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Documentation for My Jam

Documentation for My Jam
A live-action game about music, magic, and high school drama

Designed by Jeff Dieterle and Eric Mersmann
Organized by Cat Stuntebeck, Jon Cole, and Katherine Shane

Photography by l.p.lade

19 August 2018
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Eight players

Original announcement

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Larp House Presents: I Say a Little Prayer

image

Five gay men live together in a shared apartment in New York City. We follow this group of friends over a couple of years in the early 1980s when the AIDS epidemic hit gay communities hard. These men will be personally affected by the AIDS crisis over the course of play.

This larp is a condensed version of the internationally acclaimed Nordic larp Just a Little Lovin’, run in Minnesota last year. The themes of friendship, desire, and death are universal ones. We hope to offer participants new insight on an often overlooked part of US history through this event.

What

I Say a Little Prayer, a freeform Nordic larp scenario for five players.

Designed by Tor Kjetil Edland
Organized by Jon Cole and l.p.lade

When

Saturday, 22 September 2018 from 12:00 pm to 5:00 pm

Where

The larp will be held at a private residence in Minneapolis or St. Paul (TBD)

Registration

If you are interested in playing, fill out our I Say a Little Prayer sign-up form before 11:59 pm on Wednesday, September 12th. You should know if you are in or out of the larp by Tuesday, September 18th.

We encourage you to sign-up promptly! If we see there are sufficient sign-ups, we may consider adding additional runs. If way way too many people sign up, attendance in the multiple runs will be decided by weighted lottery.

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