Take 12.... This time!

OK, I've mentioned several times that I would blog more often, well this time I will for sure!

I'm going to blog about gaming, cause I think that's what a lot of my friends might want to hear about, with the various gaming genre's getting good publicity, I believe that blogging about my passion could be quite rewarding.

Gaming comes in many various forms, from the family board games like Game of Life, Monopoly & Cluedo, to computer games, either PC, XBox, PlayStation or Wii.  There are card games, dice games & table top role playing games and there is Live Action Role Playing (LARP).

I've participated in all of these types of games, LARP being the most recent addition.  I got into LARP through watching Role Models, an hilarious movie staring Paul Rudd & Seann William Scott.  These two guys are busted for bad driving & are forced to look after 2 kids who need "big brothers" to look after them.  One of these kids is into LARP where he dresses up & goes to battle with other like minded kids & adults in a world of make believe.  In the movie the men dis the boy and tease him, but in the end its a heart warming scene where they all embrace the LARP scene and defeat the bad guy.  Anyway, this blog isn't about Movies, its about gaming.  So after watching this movie I googled LARP & New Zealand to find that there is a large contingent of people in NZ that do LARP.  I was lead to www.diatribe.co.nz & the rest they say, is history!

Every year, a bright young girl creates one of the BEST Con's in New Zealand for LARP games.  Anna Klein, with the support from enthusiastic people, creates Chimera.  A 3 day event, running 6 time slots of 3 hours each where a large range of games are played.  On the Saturday night, there is a flagship LARP where most of the players are all in 1 large game together.  In the other 5 time slots over 25 games are run, from combat to theatre style, animals to pirates to zombies, indoors, outdoors & in the woods!!  If you ever wanted to see what LARP was all about, then this Con, in Auckland would be a great place to start.  6 different games to give you a good range of what LARP entails is just a great feeling.  This year, Scott Kelly from Wellington ran Hydra, sister-con to Chimera.  This was a great start to the Con Scene in Wellington.  Although there were not as many games in Wellington, they were still top quality and lots of people had fun with them.  I'm sure Hydra will grow just as Chimera has, giving those in Wellington who can't / don't travel to Chimera, a great experience in LARP con atmosphere.

The Flagship LARP for Chimera and Hydra are generally written by NZ LARPers for the actual event & then published.  A group of people, keen on writing the game get together and discuss the overall concept, write characters, plots and cross link them all.  I had the honour of writing both the Hydra and Chimera Flagships this year, it was pointed out that I could write the KapCon Flagship next time & get the Tri-fector, although I think I'll pass on that honour and let Scott be the First :p  After writing 2 flagships, running a game & not playing at Chimera, I've decided that Hydra next year, I will play every round & relax a bit, rather than spend the time running around, picking up and dropping off people etc.  I hope to get to Chimera as well, but that might be a struggle with real life factors.

IN the mean time, we have a weekend game "33 AR: Welcome Home" to attend in a few weeks.  A Steampunk inspired game running from Friday night till Sunday afternoon.  I will be crew for this game, in order to give back to those who have crewed / run games, so they can play in the game & have demons to hack down in all the glory!!