Knutepunkt 2013 Logo

Here is my traditional report of the “nodal point” Nordic larp convention, this year held in Haraldvangen, Norway. For general frivolous comments, I guess part 1 of my Solmukohta 2012 report still applies. Maybe more waxed moustaches for men and more orange hair for women than last year? Anyway, on to the goodies.

The three year itch?

In his novel L’amour dure trois ans (Love lasts three years), French writer Frédéric Beigbeder writes something like “The first year, couples buy furniture. The second year, they move it around the house. The third year, they divide it.” Having seen fellow larpers go from “KP was a life-changing event” to “KP was a nice convention” to “I’m not going to KP this year” in just three years, I was curious about my own reactions. Like last year, I warmed up for the event by attending the Nordic larp talks, and I guess landing too late and missing a couple talks was a way to prevent a routine from developing. I got kind of lost in Oslo, then grabbed a cab whose price tag was the official starting point of many “WTF Norway, who do you think you are, Switzerland?” moments. Finally arrived all sweaty in an overcrowded basement room at the Literature House in Oslo. While the venue was very different from last year’s metal bar, the people were very similar, and the content just as inspiring. Click on the links for videos, and Hippie Trigger Warning: ridiculously flattering comments below.

Pic blatantly stolen from http://www.litteraturhuset.no

Knutepunkt 2013 Book Project Presentation – Karete Jacobsen Meland & Katrine Øverlie Svela

I missed that one, but did get a chance to thank the editors later for their job during the actual con check-in. Working with K&K was a very friendly and smooth process, and putting faces on a productive textual experience is always nice. Shameless plug: you can read my piece on p106 of this pdf.

What does Nordic Larp mean? – 
Jaakko Stenros

Missed that one too (hence missed my 15 seconds of fame at 7:44), so mad thanks to the organizers for video capture (more on this later). While I had already read stuff by Jaakko, KP 2013 was my first occasion to hear him speak (and later talk to) off game. This minefield of a lecture topic is a testimonial to how smart and funny the guy can be. Plus he has The Voice. Yes, I’m jealous.

Welcome to Larp. Let’s Play – 
Jana Pouchlá

I was very impressed by Court of Moravia at Knudepunkt 2011 and still am. I love their What is larp? video, I love their focus on short games with everything provided, and I love the fact that they wrote an 18th century larp. Plus their ex-members bring cool posters to Celestra. And the Czech accent sounds nice in English. And I fully agree that newbies make often “better” players than experienced larpers.

Three Ways to Make Games More Inclusive – 
Lars Nerback

Inclusion was one of the buzzwords for me at KP this year. And I really, really liked that, instead of pointing fingers at the Evil Excluders,  the angle was more “if you’re gonna exclude, do it consciously”. As a fan of private jokes, niche genres etc, this really hit home.

The mixing desk of Swiss medieval larp “Ultima Necat”. Yes, it’s in French. Just be happy we use your stuff, Nords! Sign-up for the game there: http://coryphee.ch/manifestations/ultima-necat-english-version

The Mixing Desk of Larp – Martin Eckhoff Andresen

I love the mixing desk. I don’t use it so much as design method than as a communication tool. It is a fantastic framework to explain my creative agenda to other larpers, and as a player to gauge whether I want to join a game or not. The more organizers use it to not only create, but to describe their games to their local scenes, the fewer disappointed larpers there will be.

No Training can Replace Experience, or Can it? – 
Stefan Deutsch

Until that talk on development workers, Stefan was “that funny German dude I met in Berlin airport on my way to Celestra”. The harsh reality of the subject matter was moving, it brought me back to a very emotional “yes, larp can actually be used for things other than entertainment”. Maybe a no-brainer for many, but still something I’m struggling with.

Bleed: How Emotions Affect Role-Playing Experiences
 – Sarah Lynne Bowman

Reminiscent of the Solmukohta 2012 talk, triggering the same bittersweet nostalgia of my Vampire larp years in the USA, while still providing needed reminders on safety needs and methods to a crowd that often plays hardcore and close to home.

How Can we Know what Actually Happened in a Larp
 – Annika Waern

As a repeat offender in larp critique and often struggling with obtaining larp documentation and feedback, it was fascinating to hear the more academic side of the story. Love the very pragmatic methods.

The rest of the night was (re-)connecting time, and well-lubricated conversation with smart people officially opened a week placed under the auspices of ethanol, dopamine and endorphins.

Bedtime now, stay tuned for part 2, featuring random cultural differences, bullshit detector and Twin Peaks.

Votre équipage

Après les avoir presque toutes jouées, j’en ai donc écrit une, basée sur La croisière s’amuse. Pas que je sois fan de cette série qui servait à meubler les après-midis oisives des allergiques à Roland-Garros et à Pascal Sevran, mais j’avais remarqué que chaque épisode bénéficiait de pas moins de trois intrigues parallèles. Et ceci titillait mon petit coeur de MJ fanzineux scénariste en devenir. J’ai donc repris les persos de la série, changé les noms pour des histoires de copyright (j’espérais bien la publier un jour) rajouté des personnages et des intrigues selon mes obsessions de l’époque (je vous laisse les découvrir à la lecture).

Le pitch

C’est la fête à bord du Pacific Queen, fameux paquebot de croisière. Du médecin de bord au cuisinier, la fine fleur de l’équipage est réunie pour fêter l’anniversaire de la mère du capitaine. Mais le champagne a un goût amer: la chère maman vient de décéder dans d’étranges circonstances. Qui pourrait en vouloir à une si charmante dame qui n’était pas la dernière pour la gaudriole?

Type: disco-parodique, format soirée enquête à la SPSR (points d’actions etc, écrite dans les années 1990 photocopies d’époque)
Nombre de joueurs: 8-9. Attention les joueurs ont aussi une petite fonction d’organisateur en rapport avec leur personnage.

Ça papote, ça conspire.

La première session, organisée dans un appartement de banlieue parisienne, a même été immortalisée par un reportage de France Inter. Des photocopies ont tourné sous le manteau et la légende veut que la croisière se soit accusée de nombreuses fois du côté de l’Alsace pendant quelques années.

Le Bateau Genève était le cadre idéal pour une réception du Capitaine, mais honnêtement un appart ça va aussi.

Si elle n’a jamais été publiée (le rachat d’SPSR par Asmodée imposa une longue pause et un changement de format), La croisière fut mon premier produit fini, et me permis de décrocher des vraies piges payées dans le jdr sur table. Au fil des ans, les disquettes 3.5” on disparu et j’ai laissé les photocopies dans un coin, me promettant que ma deuxième session aurait lieu sur un vrai bateau.

C’est chose faite en 2013, grâce à la chouette équipe du bateau Genève (lieu d’agonie de Sissi impératrice, ça ne s’invente pas) et à des travaux qui rendirent la location du lieu abordable pour un jeu à neuf joueurs. Le Four Fantastique a répondu présent, le petit réseau de fans de huis clos du coin aussi et nous avons donc joué à l’ancienne, avec photocopies d’époque, points d’action etc. Bon, j’ai placé des ateliers nordiques au début, histoire de mettre tout le monde dans le bain du ridicule. Et j’ai zappé le prix du meilleur enquêteur et le meilleur acteur, parce que ma pratique du GN a quand même pas mal évolué depuis 1997. Rien que la mixité du casting sent bon les 90s: aujourd’hui je n’écrirais jamais un jeu avec 7 rôles masculins et seulement 2 rôles féminins. Mais on s’est débrouillés et on a bien rigolé de manière méta-nostalgique entre trentenaires, comme quoi la bête n’a pas si mal vieilli. Elle est toujours aussi difficile par contre.

Voilà, ça fait du bien de laisser ça derrière soi, de le filer au reste du monde qui devrait pouvoir s’amuser un peu avec.

Golfteur et Jodie, toujours naturels.

Le zip de 14Mo contient

- un PDF de toute la soirée enquête, de la couverture aux indices, lisez tout, c’est fait pour. Les photocopies sont moches, parfois à peine lisibles, mais c’est tout ce qui reste. Si une bonne âme veut faire de la reconnaissance de caractère, une jolie maquette etc, et me refiler un zip tout prêt à mettre en ligne, contactez moi thomasbe chez thomasbe point com. Désolé pour le changement de résolution de certaines pages, y avait de la typo à corriger.

- des PDF séparés de toutes les fiches de perso et du document d’introduction, prêts à être envoyés par mail au joueurs

- quelques photos de la session 2013 pour servir d’inspiration costume, merci à Maud, Julie et mézigue.

Le texte de La croisière s’accuse est sous licence Creative Commons

Ce(tte) œuvre est mise à disposition selon les termes de la Licence Creative Commons Attribution – Pas d’Utilisation Commerciale – Partage dans les Mêmes Conditions 3.0 non transposé.

Donc merci de ne pas le vendre, par contre remixez le et partagez le comme vous voulez tant que vous me créditez comme auteur original et gardez la même license.

Vos compte-rendus de parties, photos de vos potes en chemisette-short-socquettes blanches et petit mots doux de remerciements m’intéressent, voir adresse mail ci-dessus. Je prends les critiques, découvertes de bugs autres que le problème de résolution des scans etc mais non, je ne la modifierai pas. Ma version restera à jamais figée dans les 90s, avec Edouard Balladur et (Un Dos Tres) Maria de Ricky Martin.

Si vous voulez vraiment me donner quelques centimes, cliquez sur le bouton Flattr this! ci-dessous.

Ahah, payer pour un scénario, il est impayable!

Ah, comment, le fichier? Ben il est là, pourquoi?

Edit: le retour d’un joueur ici.

Larpers, literally halfway between theater and gaming… (post-game pic on the Ludesco stage)

An offer I couldn’t refuse

• I think there aren’t enough murder mystery style larps publicly advertised in Switzerland (most of them are invite-only things organized among friends), so when some do get organized, they should be encouraged by quick sign-ups
• I was curious to see whether S.T.I.M. could deliver on a short, intense, plot-dense game. I was also dead scared they couldn’t (I had even more slow moments in their first steampunk game than at Celestra)
• I could play the same character as last time, hence re-use all the costume and craft work I put into it
• They had kept my two favorite factions of their setting, a regular anglo-steampunk one and a Venetian-lacepunk one. Meaning there would be masks and tricorns, and that alone half justifies my attendance at any larp.
• Game would be run in a bar open to the public, with regular customers asked to dress steampunk. Last time I played in public was in Vampire larps in San Francisco, so I was curious to see how this would fly in Switzerland
• If the game sucked, there was still the Ludesco gaming festival next door so I could retreat to a warm space with amazing craft beer and friendly gamers
• You only had to pay the small 10 CHF con fee, you’d get a glass of champagne, and you’d have to pay for your own drinks at the bar, meaning the game was dead cheap for non-drinkers
• What better way to get over post-larp blues than with… more larp?

Real life logistics

Regular and bartender before the game. The world needs more bartenders in 18th century costumes.

We met at the con site for pre-game briefing, and just like for every S.T.I.M. game it was fun to see lots of new (to me) faces among the 21 players. Different larp scene sure, but also complete noobs, including an older lady (not that common), showing that advertising larp through a family-oriented game festival worked. There were also people I had NPCed with at the last post-apocalyptic game. Always fun to see one of your former SWAT buddies now playing a smarmy priest, or not even recognizing a fellow mutant because she lost the pustules, changed hair color and gained 10 cm with heels. Spirits were high, briefing went well, and I was glad to see the organizers had gone easy on their usually gamist tendencies: this was going to be about roleplaying our PCs and their personal objectives, not necessarily solving a murder mystery or gathering stuff. We then moved to the bar and game started in confusingly progressive manner due to the absence of a loud “game on” signal.

Some non-players did put effort into their costumes

The bar looked nice, with a badass stained glass light fixture, plenty of wood paneling and leather seating areas and geeky steampunk posters added for decoration. Of course, costumes and set looked nothing like the previous week’s visual orgasm, but for a cheap con game it was very nice.  Main drawback was the sound level, regular for a Friday night in a bar, but too loud for roleplaying diplomatic stuff. Still, that could be managed, and we just yelled over the music during our super-secret meetings.

It was also pretty easy to ignore patrons who were not in costume or in character. Even though I’m a very visual larper, it does make you think about the need for 360° illusion. The main issue, which I heard about after the game, was that some male organizers and female players were harassed by some patrons. While this was dealt with and there was no physical assault, one should not have to be subjected to such behavior, larp or not larp. Especially as, thanks to the magic circle/alibi/whatever, larpers are used to safe environments, letting their guard down and exploring things both from a behavior and costume point of view. The playing-in-public was an idea from the gaming con organizers, with the goal to show larp to the general public. It is a worthy attempt, but obviously needs to come with a better system to ensure the safety of the players. Lesson learned.

The plot dammit!

Noces de plomb literally translates as “leaden wedding (anniversary)”. In French, lead is associated to 14th wedding anniversaries, but it here it obviously referred to bullets. After years of violent gang war, the heads of two mafia families, the Dockers Gang (anglo-steampunk) and the Free Cities Chain Mafia (venetian-lacepunk, always wearing masks) decided to make peace through the marriage of their offspring. The game started after the wedding, with a party held on Dockers territory. Their boss gave a speech but Don Zombaldini dropped dead halfway through his, in classic murdery mystery style. The rest of the evening was “what do we do now?”.

The happy wedding party

Lightbulb’s greatgreatgreatgrandfather, Llomand Crosley, smuggler captain of the “Luciole Sereine”

Some people of course wanted to know what happened, but many of us had other things to deal with. I was playing Llomand Crosley, the smuggler captain of the Luciole Sereine, the Zombaldini’s zeppelin. My character sheet was about two pages, mixing background from the previous game and adding new content. My goals for the night were:

• To receive my nobility title (roleplaying with the widow to the tune of “I get you nominated head of the clan instead of your son, you get me knighted” was so much fun)
• Destroy the alliance between the Dockers Gang and the Free Cities Chain Mafia (that worked quite well, I wasn’t the only one to be scared/pissed off to be in enemy territory with our boss dead)
• Get revenge against those who led Dockers raids against my zeppelin (it worked out in the end, though thanks to other characters)
• Finding out about James Cunnington, another dubious character (wasn’t too effective on that one, and suspected other people to be spies, not him)

So as you can see, even outside of mere survival of murder investigation, I had a lot of stuff to do without having to create any plot. And this was for a 4h-game, not 32h!

Of course, goals intermixed, and there was much more than that, nearly all resolved through discussion and a few mind-control style powers or skills. The final scene for example was a great product of criss-crossing plotlines and player initiatives. We decided to leave the Dockers territory with my zeppelin, with the Zombaldini of course and quite a few locals who wanted out. Zombaldini Junior had somehow been convinced by his father in law to commit suicide, but he wanted to take the old man out before shooting himself. So upon his signal we yelled the code phrase “Next round’s on me!” and walked to the door of the bar. Then everything happened really fast: the doctor I was supposed to convey was subdued by a crooked cop, one of my political allies stabbed the Zombaldini widow to death (he wanted more democratic ruling of the mafia, democracy is a common Swiss larp trope). So there were fewer passengers than expected in the zeppelin, but we were glad to escape the Dockers muscle (and stop that stupid alliance anyway). Zombaldini Junior did stay behind, shot his in-law to death and turned the (Nerf) machinegun against himself.

United Colors of Free Cities Chain Mafia

Conclusion

Noces de plomb was a lot of fun and confirmed that:

• Larping in public can work but means bringing extra security
• I love playing social characters. Playing Crosley was so much easier than playing Lightbulb, and enabled me to roleplay with everyone in a relaxed-at-first manner, while still keeping room for tension
• I prefer dense games with pre-loaded stuff to do rather than sandboxes
• S.T.IM. can totally deliver on short murdery mystery larps
• Swiss larp being built on secrecy, a few more information-sharing techniques would have been good (as I just came back from those weird Nordics, I shared like crazy, and it was fun, but better information flow could have kept the pacing faster for everyone)
• Whatever the setting, whatever the character, in a Swiss larp at least one person will start a democratic confederation

A 1’30″ local nightlife TV report on the larp is available here.

Back to bed now, need to rest before larp cons, first the Swiss GN’Idée, then Knutepunkt!

A message to all you Galactica knuckledraggers (Darby K., Kudos to Stepan for the awesome posters)

For context, please read the previous post, recapping my experience during the English-language run of the larp The Monitor Celestra, organized by Alternaliv AB and Bardo AB in Sweden, 8-10-March 2013. Photos are copyright (their authors), videos were shot by Thomas Aagaard (his Marine character had a helmet cam). Please note this is larping, i.e. full on improv by non-actors, no audience, no sound tech guy, no editing, no second takes.

I played Lieutenant Rik Harris, call sign “Lightbulb”, Viper Pilot from the Battlestar Galactica, and the following is his experience. I.e. this is fiction, I am not a xenophobic soldier, did not actually hit anyone or fire missiles at space robots. For my experience as a real person, please read the previous post.

***

Just received the last news from Apollo that Snake Eyes and I are to babysit some sort of diplomatic mission, with Book and Arrow driving the short bus. I’m sure I was selected for this because my scalp wound won’t scab and the blood tends to run in my eyes while flying. Doesn’t mean I’m not fit for combat, for frakk’s sake! Tigh put together a really weird party. Us two Vipers flying escort, one Raptor to shuttle people around, lots of engineers, CIC crew, workbosses to make the Taurons get off their lazy asses: looks like they’re gonna retrofit the Monitor Celestra, an old ship from the first Cylon war that went through so many owners and so much remodeling that it doesn’t look like much anymore. In any event, we don’t have enough Marines to do any decent storming. They even added some suits at the last minute. Frakkin’ Roslin and her luv for “inclusion of the corporate sector”. Anyway, glad at to see that for once many of us who served under Cain are together in this. It’s hard to stay in touch with each other these days. Reviewed the Celestra specs some more. Shit that thing looks old and shitty, it’s like that frakkin’ XO wants to keep humiliating us! After getting moved from the Pegasus to the frakkin Galactica museum, do they want to bury us in a civvie coffin? As if the destruction of the Colonies wasn’t enough? The motherfrakker wants to add insult to genocide? Or it’s coming directly from Adama, maybe that frakkin’ Tauron softie wants us to pimp his brothas’ ride out so they stop lagging behind the rest of the fleet. Handouts and nepotism, that’s the Tauron way for sure! Well, at least there are torpedo tubes and we just restocked on ammo, so if worst comes to worst we could always use a Tauron shield / suicide carrier loaded with nukes. So say we all.

***

The Monitor Celestra

Boarded the Celestra. That bucket is even more rusty than I thought. Cold and dark corridors, tighter than a Gemenese’ virgin ass on prom night. We were not greeted by rocks, that’s already something. Both their captain, Sofia Polos, and our CO, Major Darlington seem to be extra willing to show goodwill and not yell at each other in front of everyone. Usual top-brass political bullshit. I am very unimpressed by Darlington. Frakk nows where he came from, doing nothing on the Galactica but still acting all formal and crap, while he’s effectively a frakkin’ interior decorator. I sure hope I can leave this shithole ASAP.

***

The two Tauron refugees I talked to in the food line. (Larson Kasper)

It looks like we are not leaving anytime soon, and Jr.Lt. Cox is not talking about how long we’ll have to wait. The farmer boy wants to climb up the hierarchy that’s for sure. Smart man, he understood that being good at navigation was not enough, that you also needed to kiss some ass. Anyway, since we’re gonna stay I get in line for the food, and talk with two Tauron siblings. They introduce themselves and I try to understand their thing about family and clan. The clan stuff is very complicated, they try to make it sound like an intense version of being a Caprica Buccaneers fans (Go C-Bucks!). It sounds to me way more like some kind of mafia-esque favor banking system, even deciding when you’re allowed to die. I should probably ask that Browne engineer guy, he’s Tauron, or the Marine Nathan, who grew up on Tauron and hates the frakkers. Overall, it seems the Tauron refugees are under shock and freaking out about our presence. I think they should be happy we’re coming to save their asses and make them a useful member of the fleet, but I haven’t had my food yet so I shut up and stay in line. I suggest boxing as a way to show we can bond around sport and release tension, and they agree having a little boxing match between Galactica and Celestra crew could work and entertain people.

***

Torpedo console manned by Fahran.

The two crews start to mingle and sort of agree that we’re better at the military gear than them. They haven’t fired a torpedo in ages, mostly at asteroids when exploring deep space. I hear one of their guys yelling at Farhan, one of our guys manning the fore torpedo station. I intervene, think of headbutting their guy but realize we’re supposed to play nice for now. So I just repeat very loud what Farhan is saying about the other (aft) torpedo bay having frakked up and pretend to take over the station to appease the Celestran. Farhan shows me how to work the console, there’s no way I’m taking over. He knows what to do. I just see we got our hands on some pretty sweet toys, from powerful shipbreakers to fancy countermeasures. Now who kept this on stock, I wonder.

***

Seems we botched a jump and are now separated from the fleet. Cox says we’re still in contact with Galactica but he’s got his propaganda voice and this feels like we’re in deep shit.

***

The Monitor Celestra, note Vergis tower in top right-hand corner. (Larson Kasper)

Bonding with the Celestra shuttle pilots in the shuttle bay. These guys don’t take any shit from us, they’re proud and strong, I like that. Confirms that pilots are a true elite, whatever the planet we’re from. Some say they’ve flown Vipers before, we’ll see whether they can actually deliver.

***

I try to explore the ship a bit but an entire section is protected by heavily armed private guards: the Vergis tower. This multi-level thing is off limits even to the Celestra crew, and this is completely frakked up. Isn’t it their ship? Since when do nerds and suits decide to own part of a ship? And it’s more than the tower: their guards are patrolling the ship and basically imposing order. The more I look at it, the more I realize the Celestra crew are a bunch of posers, mere taxi drivers, and Vergis is running the show. With the number of automatic weapons around, it’s gonna get ugly real fast if our Marines start to intervene .

***

Book learns that her old flame from before that attack, Bey Simon, is onboard. Former Viper pilot with PTSD or something, call sign « Cinder », now a Celestra Engineer. She instantly starts to look grim. I ask her «What are you so pissed off about? That he dumped you or that he survived and didn’t call?» That doesn’t seem to fly too well. My great psychology skills I guess.

***

More Tauron refugees – The oracle? (Pablo V.)

Tauron refugees are everywhere. They look both dirty meek, weird and dangerous. I am very uncomfortable in their cargo bay quarters.

***

Darlington finally took over the ship, but is being all diplomatic about it “we have to work together blah-blah-blah”. Oh well, that’ll teach them. He wants us pilots to gather intel. Snake Eyes is so excited, but I find the whole thing really dubious: has he noticed our uniforms? « Oh hi, I’m super secret agent green flightsuit, codename Lightbulb, will you keep talking while I listen in on all your secrets? » He must have learned about espionage in novels or something. Anyways, sure if I hear things I’ll report.

***

Darlington wants to re-enlist Cinder as an active Viper pilot. I inform him of the potential Book situation and he tells me to just deal with it, that Gunnery Sergent Cassidy of the Marines will take care of Cinder.

***

Kiss, Lightbulb, Laszlo, Arrow, Cinder, Book, Spinner, missing: Snake Eyes (Andreas Bruzelius, www.abruz.se, Instagrammed by Carlos C. I guess)

I talk to Book. She won’t fly if Cinder flies. She doesn’t want to see her first combat mission with someone she can’t trust. I understand but it’s not like we get to pick and choose, orders are orders. She may be the best pilot we have, but she still lacks experience. I tell her I’d be willing to beat the shit out of Cinder and make him unfit to fly, but she needs to find a way that would not get me court-martialled. Same with drugging him: we could probably find enough downer pills to put him out, especially with Arrow and Snakes Eyes peddling stuff everywhere, but they shouldn’t track us. Book says she’ll think about it

***

Darlington summons Cinder to the shuttle bay and orders him to re-enlist. He initially refuses, but finally caves in. There is some history between the two, you can see it.

***

Since we’re staying here for so long, I pin the photo of my brother to a cupboard in the shuttle bay. There’s no way a former Colonial Marine instructor ends up on the aft memory wall with civvies. He’s posing in front of a Caprican mountain, with a red-haird girl whose name I don’t remember. One day a mere frakk buddy and the next day on of your strongest memories from before the attack.

***

Captain Polos is asleep and everyone is accusing us of holding her hostage, having airlocked her or whatever. Bullshit, if we wanted her dead, we’d have done it a long time ago.

***

Jr.Lt. King, Jr. Lt. Cox, Lt. Morgan (XO), Major Darlington (CO). Probably the only time they ever got their shit together was when posing for this picture. (Andreas Bruzelius, www.abruz.se)

There’s tension in the Vergis tower, our Marines and their sec are pointing machineguns at each other. Seems Darlington ordered to go at it super sneaky but someone snitched on us and it ended up with guns drawn. The ladder shafts are so small there’s no way we can storm this thing without grenades. People keep yelling, pointing guns at each other and asking for confirmation that Darlington really asked for this. I run to get confirmation and find Lt. Morgan, our XO, who says Darlington never did. I yell «negative» in the hallway and the operation is aborted -I think. Later in the CIC, Darlington confirms he actually requested the operation. Great, if the XO and CO are not aligned how the frakk are we supposed to get any shit done ? Tigh may be a drunk and Adama a softie, but at least they’re a real pair.

***

Officers want us to play cops. Seems our winning good looks make the civvies freak out less than if Marines are the one playing cops. Whatever. You want me to impress weaklings? Sure, I’ll do it.

***

Some Tauron dude tried to shoot Darlington in the CIC. They’re saying he was a Cylon. That they look like us. FRAAAAAAAAAKKKK!

Halliwell, the Roslin government representative, is supposed to make an announcement about this. He stalls, rumor gets out, of course. Doctors do an autopsy but find no metal bits. We later learned that Vergis may have a Cylon detector. Right. What don’t they have up there?

***

Seems Arrow had a Tauron grandmother, and is reconnecting with that side. Am not sure if it’s to infiltrate the Celestra crew or some sort of « born again » thing. Either way, we don’t see him in the shuttle bay anymore.

***

Arany

I ran into the weirdest gun standoff in a corridor. A Celestra ops officer, badge says Arany, is holding a machinegun. A mustachioed Vergis sec is holding the front of the very same gun down, claiming it as his and refusing to let go. Porter, a Galactica marine is holding both in check with his machinegun. I can’t believe the Vergis goon and Arany are actually fighting over ownership of the gun, like kids. Seems people re-allocated some of the Vergis weaponry, which I don’t mind at this point, anything that pisses off Vergis makes me happy. The motherfrakkers have been stealing power from the ship for their own uses, resulting in the last botched jump. Porter is not exactly sure about who actually owns the gun, and obviously doesn’t want to shoot anyone. They’re blocking the corridor and my patience grows thin. I tell them to keep holding the damn thing and go to whoever the frakk was ordering the re-allocation. Yes, while holding it. Seems the re-allocator was good ol’ Emmerson from the Galactica crew. Even so, they don’t seem to like the idea. I yell louder. They yell louder. Arany is kinda cute when she yells. Kinda uptight. The way she holds herself screams proper education. She must have done ballet as a child. Except right now she’s holding a powerful weapon and losing her cool. The yelling match escalates, Emmerson magically appears. She finally lets go and leaves, letting Emmerson manage the gun. All this for finally caving in? I’m extremely disappointed. She’s weak, just like the other Taurons.

***

The crazy-ass Vergis scientist that tried to sell me his frakked up science

Workbosses want to move some civilians to a warmer part of the ship: the Vergis tower. I honestly don’t give frakk about the temperature of Tauron ass but can see how drowning the tower with civvies may mess up the corp’s operations. Or at least piss them off, which would make my day. I move a few of the poor souls upstairs. We squeeze past a few guards, run into suits and have a little chat. They start giving me a tour of their facilities, and I discover entirely new rooms full of guys in white jumpsuits. They’re weird and so fucking exalted. They’re doing something complicated with a holoband. They’re selling it as a way to deal with grief and sorrow. I bluntly refuse to try it, explaining the frakker that my brain may not be the most full, but it is loaded with military classified stuff and there’s no frakking way they get a glimpse of it. He explains it can bring comfort, solace to minds that were hurt, dealing with the memories of the attack. Uses a word like catharsomething. What the frakk, my mind is frakked up and I know, it but there’s no way they’ll make copies of me. He then tries a second approach, explaining that their special Hades sensor, a type of super-Dradis, listens in on space and that they’d like pilot brains hooked up to it to listen to space noise, since we spend so much time in space. I politely explain I’ll have to refer to my hierarchy for that and get the frakk out of the lab ASAP before someone jumps me and hooks me up to one of their machines.

I report to Darlington and the Celestra first mate. I’m still digesting the horror of what they’re doing as I’m talking to them. I feel like a kid crying mommy in front of my superiors, but I still can’t get around my head as to why anyone would want to do this research. We need to do something. Not only is this illegal, but we’ve already been through this. How many holocausts to they need? No amount of cubits can justify evil incarnate.

***

I run into Arany and try to push her buttons several times. I’m sure she can do better. She yells a bit, calls me flyboy, but still nothing physical. Very disappointed.

***

I can’t believe these Tauron assholes are still blaming Capricans for creating Cylons in the first place.

***

Had one frakkin’ triad game and still some cubit to spare.

We were playing triad among pilots when we learned about a hostage situation in the engine room. Running aft, first time in that part of the ship. Nooks and crannies, insane tubing, easy to defend. They’ve taken Halliwell hostage and are threatening to blow up the tyllium reactor (hence all of us) if we don’t surrender control back to their captain. Frakking civvie tactics. Marines can’t do much in that environment. Darlington caves in on the condition that the terrorist Puskas and his ha’la’tha mobsters go on trial afterwards. They agree and we relinquish control.

***

Seems Polos was hooked up to the holoband and came down all weird. That would explain it. Some other people came down asking about Book. What the frakk?

***

Celestra engineers slowly going mad (Larson Kasper)

Every time they give a speech about «this is a Tauron ship but Galactica crew is welcome to work with us » I feel like flying out with my Viper and shooting at the motherfrakkers. Then I think of the said Galactica crew on board, and just feel uneasy while the Taurons huddled against the speakerphones stare at me, the ennemy.

***

Engineers are becoming weirder and weirder. They stroke the ship. Its walls. Its pipes. They talk to her.

***

The CIC is a mess. Yelling at each other, guns being drawn, not decision taken, no course for action. How the hell do they want me to trust them?

***

Urban & Hardwick in the CIC

The Celestra captain offered us to remove our Colonial uniforms and formerly join the Celestra crew. Yeah right, frakk you! I am and always will be a Viper pilot, you will never get stuff from me. It seems Ensign Urban actually accepted the offer. Frakkin traitor. Your time will come.
***

Book is completely wasted. She took all the downers she could herself. That’s how she’ll manage the court martial thing: drug herself rather than Cinder. She remains seated instead of standing to attention, literally yells at Darlington and makes fun of his orders. He yells at her, I feel bad for a moment, I get why she did it but still, this is what we do, we don’t coward away for shitty love stories. She gets sent to her quarters.

***

One more shouting match with Arany, this time in the shuttle bay. We’re about to start fighting when one of the pilots keeps me on the bench and their first mate stares me in a «don’t you dare start a fight now» kind of way. I’m disappointed again: we were nearly there, but she still didn’t land that first punch. The Celestra pilots start making fun of me, saying I’ve got a crush on her. I don’t get it, this is about walking the walk, not just talking the talk. About pushing people to their limits. About proving Caprican superiority over Tauron weaklings. Then they tell me about 10-year olds hitting on each other at school. I think about how all the women I’ve frakked told me I was immature. Yeah, maybe I do have a kind of crush on her.

***

Not the station but the Celestra engine room (Larson Kasper).

They found a planet and an orbital station, and we’re sent to explore. We run to the shuttle bay, some dumbass with a shotgun prevents anyone with guns from progressing to that part of the ship. He stands between me and my Viper. I look around, but a single shot in this corridor would injure important people. I give him my sidearm and rush to the shuttle bay. Behind me, I hear Arrow play the Tauron card to keep his sidearm.Whatever works. The planet was nuked years ago and isn’t hospitable, but there are life forms on the station. We dock our birds and enter. A guy is there: it’s the man who shot Darlington! Or some Cylon copy. Cinder grabs a gun and drops the mofo. We progress, I hear some weird robotic voice and machinegun fire. Everybody drops. We are gunless. Frakking Taurons civvies. What the frakk were they thinking? We’re gonna die here. Cinder and Snake Eyes get hit in the legs, but the three pilots with pistols manage to gun the frakkin’ Centurion down. We discover two more guys in orange overalls, prisoners, mental inpatients? One more copy of the Darlington-shooter, says he’s called Tiberius. Another one is lying in a metal tube, with a facemask and chained hands and feet. He hasn’t been fed in ages, I get some snacks out for him. He says he’s called Daniel. They’re telling us an alarm has been triggered. We need to get out. We drag and push the wounded out the station.

***

We get them onboard the Celestra and take them to the fore mess, several of us keeping them in check at gunpoint. The situation is completely unstable, doctors looking at the Cylons, higher ups coming in . Seems the Galactica nuked the planet a while ago as it was home to religious heretics, probably monotheists. 250-300 civilians died. Puskas is around with his shotgun, yelling at Darlington to answer for these crimes. We just captured two members of the species that destroyed humanity and that Tauron frakker is asking about old religious wars? What is wrong with him? He suddenly moves and shoots Tiberius in the face. No warning, just a shot. That frakker is completely unstable. The other one, Daniel, starts to talk. I carry Tiberius’ body to the airlock.

***

Snake Eyes and Arrow seem to be doing a lot of smuggling, guns and doing drugs. I guess they’re losing it, or going fully native. What a loss for the fleet.

***

Vergis made sort of early copies of cylons. They’re not really Cylons, more like constructs . Has something to do with Gods, AIs, whatever. I don’t get it, All I know is assholes wanted to be like Greystone again and frakked up. Old or new cylons I don’t give a frakk: they’re not human and they will die.

***

The Tauron religion freaks me out. Sure, in theory we have the same gods, but they look all weird in their hands. One of their priests, a bald guy with arrow tattoos, is downright scary. I stroke the Ares ring on my holster everytime I see him. Another one, a giant with braided hair, convulses right before me, has some sort of mystic vision of Artemis commanding him to go hunt cylons hidden onboard the ship.

***

We’ve encountered the Prometheus fleet, a bunch of anti-colonial survivors. They want us to airlock all Vergis execs and Colonial politicians and join their fleet or they’ll attack us. Hell, I’d airlock the Vergis frakkers myself.

***

Foster (Larson Kasper)

The officers have a stroke of genius. We’ll send a message to the Prometheus fleet that we are infected by Cylon AIs (which we indeed seem to be) and should not be incorporated in their fleet. Let’s see the Tauron frakkers deal with this. We need to get to comms so that Ensign Hardwick, who knows how to work the consoles, can send the message. I’m supposed to provide muscle but don’t have a gun. Book stashed one in the shuttle bay, but won’t loan it to me without further explanation. We don’t have time, I tell her she can keep the sidearm in her holster, as long it comes with her I’m happy. We walk over to comms when she’s called to some meeting in the aft mess. She slips me the gun and I’m back in business. Foster appears out of nowhere and joins us in comms. A Celestra engineer is in there, we wait for him to leave, as it’s getting really crowded and suspicious. Foster enters the room and calls Cox, telling him he’s at comms. Must be some sort of signal. Hardwick starts typing the message while I hold the door, finger on the trigger. Considering the size of the room and how busy the corridor is, if anyone opens it’s gonna be a bloodbath. Foster looks at me all weird, obviously he wasn’t briefed about that part. The message is sent, and no one enters. I can’t believe our luck. I put the sidearm back in its holster and we exit smoothly. Nice operation, I’m starting to like this intel thing.

***

The ultimatum is drawing near its end. Obviously Halliwell doesn’t seem too happy about it. An engineer is freaking out. She tells me about her husband, a Viper pilot on the Galactica, who died in a recon mission. Must have been with Cinder or something. I feel bad, didn’t know the guy as I was serving on the Pegasus at the time. She gives me a small Viper model. I take my Ares medallion out my holster and give it to her, asking to put up a fight when she dies, to take at least one Tauron with her, bare hands if need be. I guess I should have hugged her instead. But we need to honor Ares, we are the true warriors. We will not go down silently.

***

The Puskas trial doesn’t seem to progress, so we’re gonna show them how Colonial justice is served. If possible with very public explanations before we shoot the guy. Foster and I are put on the thing. But with no guns. I find Puskas in the CIC, with 2 guns and 1 knife in his hands. This guy rules the ship. It’s not Vergis anymore, it’s not Captain Polos, it’s Puskas. His thugs are everywhere, reporting on everything all the time. As much as it pains me to say it, that motherfrakker is the one strong man on the entire ship.

***

Doc in sick bay, before we invaded it with warm and fuzzy feelings (Larson Kasper)

I join Book and Cinder in sick bay. One by one, pilots enter. After the weird politics, after the couple bullshit, the various allegiances, one thing is clear: we’re one family. No one can take that away from us. A doctor tries to come in and seeing we’re full he says «fine, I’ll take my med crew to shuttle bay and we’ll fly the vipers ourselves».

***

For once the cargo bay is empty of civilians and full of Galactica engineers. Feels just like our hangar bay. Feels like home. We chat, there’s gloves around so I spar with an engineer and with Foster. Feels really good.

***

There’s ruckus near the aft shuttle bay. It seems they’re court-martialling Urban. Great, that’ll show these Taurons we can discipline our own, that Capricans have rules and keep their words, unlike them and their non-existent Puskas trial. I try to join the action, only to see Marine Porter pointing his gun at me from the lower level, asking me to prevent anyone from going down. What is this, some Ha’la’tha thug execution? We should be proud of doing this. I heard Urban struggled and yelled all the way to the airlock. Good riddance.

***

I run into Arany again. She gets uppity. We yell at each other. No first mate this time, no one to hold me back. She throws the first punch. Boy this feels good. I smile and punch her back. We go full force, bouncing around the shuttle bay, she fights well for a civvie. I half-fall on her on the bench where pilots usually sit. One of her jabs sends me slamming against the airlock door. I feel the sweet taste of my own blood and jump on her while she’s still on the bench. I hit her. Again. And again. And again. She stops fighting. I take a deep breath, not realizing exactly what is happening. Hormones rushing in. I think I’m in love. She runs out of the room. The Tauron pilots look at me as if I did the most stupid thing ever. They tell me she’s going to kill me, that I frakked with the wrong person. Something in my stomach feels queasy but I don’t give a shit. Sure, she can send me her brother, thugs or whatever. She’s strong, I love her, we’ll end up together. I know it.

***

There’s civilians with guns everywhere, former politicians carrying assault rifles, waving them like toys. Frakkholes.

***

It seems the Raptor left, with a dozen people onboard, all part of Colonial Intelligence. That includes Cinder, Darlington, Emmerson, another Marine, Celestra Crew, Vergis peeps… and Arany. Might explain where she learned to fight. But seriously, what the frakk ? How many spies on this ship ? At least it shows their priorities. Top brass saves their ass again. Frakk them.

***

They finally kick Puskas out of the CIC. I hold him for some time at gunpoint, dream of pulling the trigger, but orders have changed. Focus is now on keeping CIC control. I am told to let the frakker go.

***

Jr. Lt. Cox is inviting to me to his sort of Tauron baptism. At first I can’t believe it, think of him as a turncoat. Then I hear his speech about being a farmboy and wanting to build bridges between Taurons and Capricans and it sounds a bit like politics again. Then the Tauron oracle speaks. Several priests are there. Arrow is there. These people are not lying. They’re sincerely welcoming here. I see them tattooing him, and am lost in the moment. Spirituality, family, unity. Something is happening here. Weeks ago I’d have kicked their weird-smelling bowl out of their hands and dragged Cox outta here. But not now. This is real. I hug him.

***

The raptor is back. We welcome them at gunpoint, but they seem to be unharmed and uninfected. We all lower our guns. Feels good to see Cinder and Book re-united. Feels good to bump chests with Cassidy. Feels amazing to see Arany again.

***

Everytime I run by Arany I smile, I wink to tell her it’s OK to move on to something more romantic. Not sure she’s getting my signals. Sometimes I feel she’s gonna cry. But she keeps it together and rushes from console to console, manning the ship. Fine, I’ll be patient.

***

King doing his thing in the aft mess, back when we still ruled the ship.

I ran into another standoff. Jr.Lt. King, whom I hadn’t seen for ages as he was busy making friends with civilians, is going down on his knees, hands raised, while Puska points his shotgun at him. I draw my sidearm right to Puska’s temple and order him to drop the shotgun. I would so like to pull the trigger, but a mere post-mortem reflex and, considering the size of the corridor, King gets it. He may have poor taste in pyramid teams (dude supports the Silver Lions or something), but that’s no reason to die, and a Colonial officer will always be more valuable than a dead thug. By the time I’m done thinking this, a mousy Celestra engineer pulls a gun out of nowhere and points it to my head. We all slowly lower our weapons, in sequence, and clear the corridor.

***

Foster wants me to help him kill a Vergis security guy. In theory no problem, in practice it seems to be to please the Ha’la’tha. What the frakk? I know Foster is neither Caprican nor Tauron and playing both sides but still? What the frakk? Sure I hate Vergis. But I also hate the Ha’la’tha. I will kill for the Colonies, not for the frakkin’ Tauron mob.

***

I look down the CIC hatch and see Darlington with a shotgun. Finally he decided to man up. This means we’re ready to roll, and kick some Cylon ass. This also means I will most likely die very soon. Time to pray Ares.

***

The higher ups have made their choice. They’ve nuked the last Cylon orbital station and cut all communication with an old stealthship/basestar that appeared. Space around the Celestra is loaded with rads. They need pilots for what will most likely be a one-way mission. Yeah, like they need to ask. For the first time I see fear and sadness in Darlington’s and Cox’s eyes. It’s like they’re finally realizing this is for real. That us flyboys are not just bravado and bullheads. That yes, I swore an oath to die for the Colonies. I get visions of ancient warriors charging to meet a glorious death in battle. I hear drums in the distance. I can barely hear the mission briefing. I can barely hear what Cox says about bravery. I just hold him. I call the Damage Control station and the Life Support crew brings rad suits. I put it on on top of my flightsuit, this thing is bulky but will most likely give me a few more minutes before burning. Will enable me to kill a few more toasters. Book is in tears, I hug her. I forgot how frail she was. «You’re a diamond, I tell her, they need you. So don’t die just now, show them how to fly». I look at Cinder on the bench behind and end with «Make lots of babies».

Arany is there. She looks so pale, frozen. Halfway between a china ballerina doll and a uniformed killing machine. Gods do I want her. I hold her tight, kiss her. She mutters «I guess I’ll have to airlock you another time, flyboy».

I run out of the shuttle bay.

***

I follow Kiss through the corridors of the Celestra, one last time. Rad alarm lights spinning. We share the last anti-rad meds. The aft shuttle bay airlock is guarded by Galactica crew men and I hug them. No time to explain. Time to die.

***

The Viper is so loaded with missiles it gets unwieldy, I feel like I’m flying a Raptor as I undock from the Celestra. The rads are nearly tangible, all instruments are going nuts. No wireless contact with CIC. I do get a visual on the Raptor and see Spinner in the cockpit. It’s weird that Snake Eyes let him fly, he would have never passed a last chance for truly death-defying maneuvers. I turn around and see the giant, ancient Cylon ship. Finally, they’re here. Not flesh copies of us. Them. In their true mechanical horror.

Kiss is flying next to me, at a perfect distance. Motherfrakker didn’t lie about Viper training. Our eyes meet to share a “what the frakk?” moment as Spinner leisurely flies down the Raptor to the planet, unharmed by the Cylons, unworried. I yell “Spinner, you frakkin’ traitor!” on the wireless. I think Kiss is trying to contact him for more but the rads have finally killed my receiver. Frakk Spinner, I am nearly getting close enough to the ship, it’s time to finish this. I will not die in a rusted metal can full of Taurons. I will die here, in space, with a bang.

The nausea starts to become unbearable, I throw up some orange goo, my gut contents mixed with saliva and half-dissolved anti-rad pills. My scalp wound re-opens. Again. Blood dripping down my brow, into my eye. “Blood for blood”, eh? I am a Caprican. See how our blood burns, the fire of a thousand suns. I launch everything I have at the Cylon ship. The frakker targets the Celestra. Kiss fires at the torpedoes, trying to save the old crazy lady. I do a quick count and realize none of us will make it. But we can ensure these toasters won’t take one more Colonial soul. That they will never get to meet the fleet. I engage all cannons and head straight for the ship’s core. Among the explosions and the rad-induced phosphenes, I see Arany’s face, and realize I never learned her first name.

Everything starts flickering.

Tonight the Lightbulb blows out.

Caprica abides.

So say we all.

For my in-character recap, click here.

What the frakk did he want to go in that destroyer for?

I originally refused to watch the re-imagined BattleStar Galactica series. I remembered the «cheap Star Wars knockoff» feeling of the old ones and didn’t see the interest in remaking them. Then a friend made me watch the «33» episode, and I was instantly hooked. Being the proud owner of a bunch of LazerTag weapons, I started thinking of using them for a BSG larp. Then I saw that Germans did one, that the French did one, then the site I had in mind didn’t work out, so I dropped the idea. And then I heard that a few crazy Nordic larpers were going to do one. It was going to be far away from Switzerland, it was going to be run several times in Swedish with only one run in English, it was going to be expensive… but it was going to be done by people who knew how to put on a larp. I had read about Carolus Rex in Nordic Larp: the book and was envious. I had read about the work of Bardo in general, and was envious. So this was a way to experience some of this awesomeness for real, and I trusted these guys to do it right. I wanted that game to happen, and to be as cool as possible, so when they announced crowdfunding I contributed as much as I could. And the selfish asshole in me quickly noticed this could pretty much guarantee getting the character I wanted. Excitement kept rising over the months as more information about the game was released. It would be run in a Cold War-era destroyer of the Swedish navy, would be technology enhanced, videos explained the organizers’ vision, showcased some pretty amazing costumes… the team was really good about generating hype. When the date of the English-speaking run was finalized, it conflicted with my most anticipated Swiss larp of the year. Ah well, I had dropped so much money on it already: Sweden beat Switzerland.

In game: The Monitor Celestra

Out of game: the destroyer Småland (Larson Kasper)

Casting

As a player, I rarely pick military characters. I am not particularly attracted to war, violence in general (or even sports) and I escaped the French military draft thanks to my very poor eyesight. I am not interested in orders, discipline, guns or planes. I guess what I like best about armies is the looks of some uniforms. However, my favorite theme of the BSG series is the military-political one: what do you do when humanity is down to 30’000 people under attack, with a huge military space ship in the middle. How do you maintain democracy, how do you balance survival, freedom and values? The organizers had highlighted that the Galactica crew may be seen as fascists by the larger Tauron civilian group, and this is exactly what I wanted to play. I had already played Colonel Tigh in a BSG larp-boardgame hybrid, hence had already worn a makeshift blue uniform. For The Monitor Celestra I wanted to go Top Gun all the way and play a Viper pilot. I even started doing push-ups to somewhat fill the iconic double-tank top I would have to wear. I really wanted to be somewhat credible as a stupid testosterone-laden colonial soldier, convinced to be a hero saving the Taurons from their backward ways with his elite pilot buddies. And the game totally delivered on that end.

Learning navigation. Brown uniforms are Celestra crew, blue is Galactica.

Character sheet page 1, note cut corners.

Pay and pray

Organizers were responsive, the three roles I was casted for all matched my requirements, and I picked the Viper pilot, Lt. R. Harris. The looks of all pre-game documents, from ship description to rulebook to character sheet were perfectly matching the theme, confirming the claims of high production value. The character description itself was pretty short: the longest bits were about what it means to be a Caprican or a pilot, not really about Harris as a person. That did give room for personal interpretation, and since the organizers had promised «a game jam-packed with high-stakes interaction», I figured that in-game events would compensate for the light built-in stuff. In the larps I play, most of your character personality, relationships, goals etc is pre-written by the organizers in sometimes great detail, ensuring in-game connections and events. Here, there were a few names and 2-3 sentence relationships for each, but not enough to sustain 32h of gaming, and especially not enough to make the Galactica crew feel as part of the unified team they were supposed to be. This, the players had to build themselves, before the game.

It was a fun and creative process: we connected through the forum and social networks, people built team rosters, invented common past events etc. But it is very time consuming and much less efficient than having these things already present in your character sheet, created by the organizers. We created call signs together, and a player suggested «Lightbulb» for Harris, which was perfect due to the a shaven head look and the limited mental capacity of the character. Further development than this was limited by time constraints. Not everyone had received their characters early, and real life, especially work was crazy. So running home to read the forums every night, connecting with players in a sort of an online dating process «looking for a liberal Caprican who loves Taurons and wants to be my enemy» was getting tiring.

The forum overall was not very practical from a technical point of view due to the several game sessions being mixed, and some key practical info, like bringing a towel for the hostel was hard to find. Not the end of the world, but easy to improve for next time.

Personal TMI stuff, feel free to skip

I am writing this part because it did affect my game. Two days before takeoff, I had a medical emergency. I won’t get into details, but I spent the day before departure doing tests at the local university hospital. Depending upon the results, it could be either nothing serious… or I would live a very short life under heavy pharmaceutical treatment, starting the same day. I suddenly couldn’t care less about flying to Sweden to pretend to be a space fighter. Eighteen hours and several tests later, it was nothing serious, and the symptoms could be controlled with regular meds. As there was nothing contagious, this meant the game was still on, but I was completely drained, both from the symptoms and the psychological shock. I tried to refocus by watching bits of The Hunt for Red October, a recommended inspiration source. And then I urgently needed to work on props, which helped with the stress but I still couldn’t sleep. The night lasted 1h30 and then I took the train to Zurich, the plane to Berlin where I used the 5h break to learn the ship navigation rules and memorize character names. I then met German players on the way to Gothenburg, one of them living in Tanzania, a hint of the truly international nature of this session.

Last minute props: photo of lost family members, an Ares medallion and a notebook from Pegasus, where my character served before joining the Galactica (Thomas B.)

The larper Internationale

Atmosphere at the Youth Hostel was reminiscent of evenings at Knutepunkt: nearly everyone was young, Caucasian, energetic, liberal and said «fucking amazing» when they just meant «very good». Organizers were there, doing the check-in a very friendly manner which they kept throughout the week-end in spite of fatigue. It also felt very KP-like as the player list was a «who’s who» of nordic larp. People who write books, articles and even PhD theses about larp, people you see hosting or on stage at the Nordic larp talks were all there. It may be the stupid fanboy in me, but roleplaying with these guys makes you feel warm and fuzzy and part of something important. Add to that the non-nordic usual suspects of international conventions, and you really felt part of a «larper Internationale». I was happily surprised at the number of Americans, several of them first-time larpers (they rocked), BSG fans who had flown across the Atlantic for the game! I was tired, but desperately needed a towel so ended taking the tram without paying, bought a towel and tram pass at the local supermarket and went back to mingle a bit. I just felt surreal: 24h earlier I thought I was going to die, I was on 1h30 of sleep, it was really bedtime for me.

Game day

When costume boxes arrived at the hostel it kinda felt like Xmas (Pablo V.)

The next morning after a shower my health still sucked and the meds were not working, but there was a lot to do. I got the my Viper pilot costume, the overall was a wee bit short hence tight in the crotch area, but looked awesome. There were actual rank pins on the collar, and the airsoft replica sidearm in its leg holster felt nice and heavy (no ammo was used, whenever a gun was «shot» we would just react to the loudish «click» sound with injuries becoming worse with each game act). Thermal underwear, gloves and Yugoslavian army boots I brought completed the body protection from heat. And the flightsuit had pockets, meaning I could load heating pads, meds and snacks without an extra bag. Seeing everyone in costume raised the excitement level some mo

re: many of us had bought the double tank tops, and just being surrounded by people that looked like they walked out of the TV set was energizing. People kept trying to build connections in a very informal and messy way, as not everyone had hours to spend on the forums. I guess organized connection-building workshops like the ones described by Peter Munthe-Kaas would have been a blessing there.

Winter came and it’s not leaving anytime soon

The trip from the hostel to the ship was done by walking and tram. While we had extra clothes on top of our costumes to stay warm and hid our airsoft replicas to avoid causing panic, people did notice our weird looks. At some point a car stopped by us and the conversation went something like:

- What are you guys up to?

- We’re doing a live-action roleplaying game inspired by the BattleStar Galactica series

- You crazy lunatics! I love you!

We arrived at Maritiman and finally saw her. Oh my frakkin’ gods, the Smaland was beautiful! It was just the perfect playground for grownups, down to a sign saying «Closed for remodeling into a spaceship». Briefing was done on the freezing docks, and many of us started to freak about about how cold it would be inside the ship. We got a tour of the destroyer, and excitement skyrocketed. Sure it looked good in the pre-gamevids, but all the added touches, from green lighting to working consoles it was just awesome. It was so large, on so many levels, with some many cramped corridors full of odd metal pipes and weird noises. We were on a movie set. The costumes, now put in their intended setting worked so well. Even before starting to roleplay, refugees looked like refugees, crew like crew, techies had awesome helmets, you were immersed without thinking about it. Even the very diverse accents worked: for us Europeans, hearing Galactica marines and pilot played by Americans was perfect: it sounded just like the TV series. And for them, hearing our weird accents made them feel in some truly alien multinational scifi setting which also helped their immersion.

Players and organizers on that frakkin’ windsept dock.

It’s amazing how a working phone system can help with immersion (Larson Kasper)

More tech and my first pre-game bleed

People were briefed on how to work the consoles and how to navigate the ship, a very manual process with stopwatches, graph paper etc as for in-game reasons the computer network was taken offline. The ship was also fully rigged with an internal phone system, which provided great roleplaying opportunities, yelling at mechanics at the other end of the ship etc. I later was taught how to use a torpedo console in-game, and was amazed. That thing was integrated in both the ship’s look and the Tauron color code: the plate around the screen was the same color as the ship’s metal, the browns shades of the GUI matched the Celestra uniforms… The buttons and levers to interact with it had been carefully chosen, they looked and even felt right when you pressed them to navigate the menus. As the creator of a Technocculte, small tech-enhanced larp, I can only imagine how many work hours of designing and coding all the consoles took. And they worked, with real in-game consequences and requiring unseen but live organizer involvement to really play the space battles on the other side of the computer.

Helm console with random decoration behind (Larson Kasper)

We went back to freezing our asses outside: as the Galactica crew, we had to wait to let the Celestra game start before boarding it. Organizers found room in a warmer boat to wait in, and brought us tea. We killed time but really wanted to start playing. When finally left the «waiting boat» I bumped my head on the doorway. Nothing serious, but people started giving me funny looks as I my head started to bleed 5 minutes before game start. So I entered the Celestra with a blue band aid making like a mini-mohawk on the top of my skull. Hey, there’s war going on, makes sense some of us are wounded, right?

Themes and twists

The BSG and Caprica series feature many themes: military vs. civilian, monotheism vs. polytheism, where does humanity and AI start and end, Caprican vs. Tauron cultures etc. Playing The Monitor Celestra felt like the writers understood exactly what made these shows cool. They used these themes and expanded upon them, twisting them just a little bit here and there to provide larp-friendly material that was more than just copying & pasting the series, while still not betraying the genre. Setting the game on board of the Celestra, not the Galactica was also very smart. By describing a ship that looked different than the Galactica, they could keep the WYSIWIG intact without having to compromise with a CIC that didn’t look exactly like the series… They could also have more players in non-BSG uniforms, had more freedom to explore other aspects of scifi, including a nice Hunt for Red October meets Alien angle for the Celestra crew.

Navigation tools (Larson Kasper)

The plot already!

The game took place at the beginning of the series. After the fleet stopped at Ragnar’s Anchorage to stock on ammo. A Galactica party of officers, engineers etc is sent to (re-)convert the Celestra into a military ship. The Celestra is an old Monitor class ship from the first Cylon wars that was used to do many other things since it was de-commissioned. It is full of Taurons, from a crew who has very deep emotional relationship with their ship, to Taurons refugees (including quite a few religious nutcases and a whole lot of ha’la’tha mobsters). And of course a bunch of scientists from the Vergis corporation working on -to make along story short- artificial intelligence. Yeah, kinda Cylon-like things, but their heavily armed guards ensured no one was nosing around the labs until the execs decided they needed some guinea pigs.

Phantom play: is that AI/Goddess comforting or tormenting the philosopher on the right? (Larson Kasper)

It is impossible to summarize all the plotlines, but let’s say the ship changed commanding faction several times, more or less violently. It was first a joint Galactica-Celestra affair, then Galactica-driven, than Celestra/mafia driven. The ship was «haunted» by AIs/Gods, NPCs dressed in red playing «Caprica 6» type characters, only visible to the players they touched. I didn’t get touched but really enjoyed watching people going progressively nuts as they talked with people who weren’t there or starting to follow strange orders.

The ship encountered many things, from human-looking Cylons, to weird AIs/Gods/constructs, to an independent fleet of anti-corporate Tauron survivers etc. Then end got rather religious with themes of forgiveness and redemption, as people disagreed on how to deal with the weird Cylons that wanted to ally with the Taurons. Finally, humans and toasters mutually annihilated each other in a torpedo-missile-Viper-nuke-tillium-venting battle. For more details on my actual game scenes, see my separate, in character recap.

Act structure

The game was split into four 8-hour acts, one on Friday night, two on Saturday, one on Sunday, and we got well-deserved sleep and warmth in between. They started and ended with great mood music composed for the game, being played throughout the ship, and allowed everyone to get in and out of character at the same time. Apart from the fact we were not allowed to sleep in the destroyer, one intent of the acts was to use acts as a way to build a dramatic story arc of increasing tension, for example with increasingly lethal combat rules. I don’t think it worked really well on that point. If I know that my PC cannot die, i.e. that my game cannot stop I can act a bit more recklessly. But once you know you can die, things change and people seemed a bit m

Well *that* was more than waving but I missed that scene (Larson Kasper)

ore cautious to me as time progressed. Even though we were instructed to «play to lose», we were also told that in-game stupidity or violent actions would have consequences. People wanted a nice ending scene for their characters, so they were actually rather careful until the very end. In my opinion, the increase in tension at the end of the 4th episode was more due to the players knowing this was the end of the larp, rather than any progressive increase in tension. For my point of view, once the Celestra/Ha’la’tha control

led the ship after a great terrorist takeover of the engine room, game was pretty flat until the very climactic ending. What did work in terms of increasing tension was how crazy the ship’s engineers were getting. With time, they talked more and more about the ship as a pet, as person, as a god. They were caressing machines, patting pipes, which made us non-believers feel like being in a madhouse. That rising sense of madness and impeding doom worked much better than people waving guns around the CIC all the time.

The food court (the cook was listening to Tauron gangsta rap) (Larson Kasper)

Playing a pilot: the good

Playing imperialist top gun was fun. The elite feeling was there, and with our costumes we were easily identified as «the Man». I think that just by walking around looking all grim or cocky we reinforced the BSG atmosphere. I got some positive feedback after the game from people who were confronted to my «stupid US marine» vibe, so it’s always nice to know the role worked.

Flying proper was done through meta-scenes, of which there were only two for me in this game, one in the middle and one at the end.

For the first one we went to explore a space station… represented by an actual submarine docked right next to the destroyer. Climbing down into that thing, crawling into its tiny spaces full of weird pipes, only to be greeted by human looking Cylons and a symbolic representation of a Centurion (white strobe light, red light, airsoft machinegun) was awesome. Plus this was a high-tension situation as several of us had their guns taken from them by Tauron mutineers. I know how much work and time-consuming this type of scene is for organizers: you need a separate space, dedicated NPCs etc, but it makes you feel great as a player to get your own special moment.

My final scene was a Viper battle scene handled in the same as tabletop roleplaying, with an organizer describing us what we saw and asking how we reacted. My character decided to go for the old Cylon stealthbaseshipthingie and die guns blazing. I exited the game, and the player of another pilot, who was for a unification with the cylons, went all like «you did the wrong thing, we were supposed to ally with them!». Since we were out of game I thought «fuck, I know the in-character briefing was short, but friends with them? I though they sent us out because they were hostile! Did I just destroy everyone’s ending due to an out-of-character misunderstanding of orders?» This was thankfully not the case, but the players of pilots who were for the unification were so into their roles that bleed on the topic carried for a while after game end, and until now in the forums.

Pilots doing what they do best: lookin’ good in the shuttle bay (Darby K.)

Playing a pilot: the bad

While the sub was awesome and getting to pull the trigger in the final battle was great way to end the game, I really wish I’d have had one more flying mission. I knew there couldn’t be a lot due to organizer resources required, and I didn’t expect something high tech like playing a video game shooting at raiders. But I would have liked to roleplay something reflecting pilot bonding during dogfights, yelling «behind you!», actually saving each other’s lives live, rather than through back story. Two flight missions over 32h of play was a bit light for me.

Overall my main issue with this larp was the waiting for something to happen. One cause was in-game mechanics: if the command crew decided to jump when they saw a cylon raider instead of launching Vipers, well… that meant we wouldn’t play a flight mission. Having to stand ready in case of combat situation «battlestations, set condition 1 throughout the ship» with people forgetting to change conditions once things cooled down also conflicted between the character needing to be there due to military procedures and the player just being bored and wanted to roleplay something else. All the pilots were great roleplayers, so just chatting and dissing each other in character was fun, but there’s only so much banter you can do before getting bored.

I must admit the players of high-ranking Galactica officers were really good about delegating overall. The «plot sharing» was impressive at the beginning, but I had the feeling they were a bit overwhelmed towards the end and spent less time sharing and welcoming other’s people’s suggestions and requests. So the old larp rule of «top of the in-game hierarchy gets more game» did resurface. And technical limitations of the sound system meant that not everyone knew all the time what happened with the ship, battle outcomes etc, so this increased the disconnect between active navigator crew and the rest of the game even worse.

That place just looked so great. (Larson Kasper)

Boredom causes

My bathroom breaks were also meds break, I popped pills throughout the game, and lost 2kg in 4 days. They’re not back, I can’t complain, but I did sometimes find hard to concentrate. Reacting to stuff was easy but being proactive was a problem and I had selectively remembered that bit from the rulebook:

Active players will have no difficulty filling the 32 hours of actual gameplay with drama and high emotion. We intend to make solitary introspection and menial tasks into things to seek out, if you want to experience them, rather than main components of the experience. This pacing might seem intimidating to players used to slower fantasy games, but once you get into the habit of constantly seeking out new dramatic scenes, we believe everyone will enjoy having a game jam-packed with high-stakes interaction.

I should have paid more attention to «active», and «constantly seeking out». I should have come up with lots of ideas for things to do but I was too tired, too passive, I don’t know. Had I been told «this is like a mass larp, it’s a sandbox where you need to bring your own game», I would have tried to work on it weeks in advance. For example I’m going back to Conquest of Mythodea this year and we have months of preparation to ensure we get a dense game while there. It seems to be a larp cultural difference thing, that self-creating plot is expected in Swedish larps. But this being an international game, it would have been nice to be told this in clearer terms, and also for everyone to get their characters earlier, because I am not very good at coming up with plot on the fly. Finally, I didn’t feel like going begging for plot from other players, it didn’t feel natural. There were things I could have done to stay busy as a player but that would just not be logical for my character. I went through a bad case of this once when playing a sociopath catholic fundamentalist in a post-apocalyptic zombie game  (at 22:49 in this video), where I just connected with no one and got bored. In Celestra it was not as bad because Lightbulb was smart enough to know he needed to interact with people to survive, but I think with a more sociable character I would have had more fun.

Every BSG larp deserves a memory wall. (Larson Kasper)

Final regrets

In retrospect, I also should have played my character more obnoxious and violent, but I did not want to be «the bored player who randomly attacks people». However I should have, because I actually had good in-game reasons to do so. To alleviate boredom I did walk around the ship, talked to many people like the crazy Vergis scientists and execs, which was fun and informative but not very emotionally involving. As boredom progressed, the feeling changed from «being in a movie» to «watching a movie». Whenever a discussion or action would start it drew me back in. I did get a few very intense scenes and unexpected character development, which I’ll describe more in the in-character recap. But otherwise I was regularly drifting mentally away from the character. And talking with other players, several also got the same type of disconnecting boredom, so I am not an isolated case.

The worst about this is that as an organizer I know how to fix it:

- write more connections and personal goals in the character sheets before game starts.

-trigger more organizer-created in-game events directed at non-leader, non-navigation character crews.

I don’t have the skills or connections to make badass consoles or rig sound effects across an entire destroyer, but I can create enough plot for everyone to ensure and intense, fast-paced experience. It’s a rather common skill, so it was frustrating to not see it being used enough in this larp, again possibly due to different priorities of different larp cultures. But bottom line is these long lulls prevent me from saying Celestra was my best larp ever, and it feels a bit like having missed the ultimate larp orgasm when you were nearly there.

So apart from the good looks and freezing weather, what was so Nordic about it?

This is one of the questions us French larpers asked ourselves right after the first act. There were factions, loudmouth players, scheming, in-character banter, a line to the food stand (which tasted better than most larp food I’ve experienced), some good and some bad acting… apart from production value it felt like our usual larps. Some differences may include the instruction to «play to lose» but as some players pointed out, overall people were playing characters that were super competent at what they were supposed to do. From an emotional point of view, I was actually more moved by lightweight nordic games, e.g. running A serpent of ash or playing The kick inside. In a way the Hollywood aspect of Celestra, which drew me to it, got in the way experiencing strictly human feelings.

Another Nordic thing was the «it’s OK to touch» rule. I didn’t follow it as much as I could have: my light contact fighting, was too soft and I was too scared of pushing the other into sharp angles and hard metal parts. Same for more tender contact: the rules explained we should be ready for closed-mouth kissing, but when my character finally embraced his romantic interest in a heart-wrenching goodbye scene, my feminist sexual assault alarm rang and I went for the cheek instead. I guess if I play more in the Nordics I’ll get used to it, but it’s really a «don’t try this at home» kind of thing.

The biggest nordic thing that positively affected my game was probably sharing. In France and Switzerland, secrecy is a huge part of what makes larping fun. Add to this many people playing to win, or at least looking for the pleasure to discover things by themselves, this can result in information retention. In Celestra however people were so open about their secrets, like the players of the super secret spy squad dropping physical clues just to give more game to people. This has already had an impact on my playing: this past Friday night at a steampunk larp I shared way more than I ever had before Celestra.

So why didn’t I bump my head on one of those? (Larson Kasper)

Aftermath

After leaving the game and thanking the organizers, we were all still into it, shouting «gangway! make a hole!» to ask for space in the tram like we had been doing in Celestra’s cramped corridor for three days. Everyone was saying «frakkin’ amazing» instead of «fucking amazing». The post-game photoshoot enabled us to keep the costumes for a bit longer and to debrief together. A blessed shower later, it was on to the after party. Not wearing thermal underwear anymore meant freezing our asses until we reached the pub. Such parties are a given in many countries, but we rarely do those in France or Switzerland, so it was great to chat with people as their real selves and re-assure people i was not some imperialistic asshole. I was so tired I didn’t push very late and collapsed at the hostel. The trip back the next day consisted in me waking up only to change planes and trains, then crashing into half sleep punctuated by «loading torpedo!» sound effects and green lit room flashbacks. The game stayed with me for the better part of the week, and I spent hours on social networks, connecting with the other players. So even though this was not my «best larp ever», it was such an intense experience from an artistic and human point of view that it did leave a lasting mark on me, and I am now looking for more.

In a nutshell

What sucked:

• Outdoor Gothenburg weather
• Uneven distribution of active plot, maybe due to too much focus on ship/military structure/space maneuvers
• Expectation that players create their own game both before and during the game, while «pay and play» and «jam-packed with high-stakes interaction» conveyed the opposite impression
• My overall energy levels

What rocked:

• Amazing 360 environment, WYSIWYG ship, lights, consoles, costumes, eye candy: best-looking scifi larp ever
• Fantastic theme writing perfectly understanding what makes BSG cool and how to expand upon it
• Super friendly, creative and motivated organizers and international players

So let’s end this with a final thank you to everyone involved and the insane amount of work it took to get this going. Let me know next time you’re organizing something, I want to experience that kind of thing again!

Edit: for a great recap by a first-time larper, check out Jeff’s blog post.

For a great video and text recap by Petter Karlsson and Carolina Dahlberg, featuring  interviews and beautiful pics from Game 3, check out this blog post.

 For a great podcast review of game 3 by Claus Raasted Herlovsen, click here.