Author here: Genuinely not sure how this appeared again today, but I’m glad to see it!
I have not affiliation with the team, but I really like what they do. They are currently crowdfunding €850,000 to build a permanent installation for the larp and are about a quarter of the way funded:
I love Odysseus so much. On one hand I think it sounds amazing and would love the opportunity to play it one day.
On the other, from a technical accomplishment of volunteer work it is amazing! Just the IT work alone. Here's a video I found years ago by one of the volunteers talking about the work they put into the electronics.
Is there something like this, but without (or with minimal) spoilers?
mmooss6 days ago
[2025]
J.R.R. Tolkien, both the leading practitioner of fantasy and a leading scholar of Old English (Anglo-Saxon) and related languages and, at least adjacently, their 'fantasy' myths and stories, argued that the focus of fantasy is not character or plot nor even the protagonist, but the fantasy world and the reader's (vicarious) exploration of it.
I wonder how the high-level LARP designers, and players, would respond to that. They clearly put a lot into creating their world and making it compelling, and we might argue that the point of LARP is to give audience a more direct experience of the world than reading or watching or playing on a computer. The article talks mostly of emotional experience (which doesn't exclude the world and its exploration) and plot.
Author here: Genuinely not sure how this appeared again today, but I’m glad to see it!
I have not affiliation with the team, but I really like what they do. They are currently crowdfunding €850,000 to build a permanent installation for the larp and are about a quarter of the way funded:
https://www.indiegogo.com/en/projects/ellarion-tales/odysseu...
I love Odysseus so much. On one hand I think it sounds amazing and would love the opportunity to play it one day.
On the other, from a technical accomplishment of volunteer work it is amazing! Just the IT work alone. Here's a video I found years ago by one of the volunteers talking about the work they put into the electronics.
https://youtu.be/IE7j1SgUpKs?si=Fgq1B6aVByjwhdk3
This video was also just posted on Friday and does magnificent job describing the experience from a player point of view: https://youtu.be/qUvVA8J5fYQ?si=sFB9fQu9GyLrVsFc
Is there something like this, but without (or with minimal) spoilers?
[2025]
J.R.R. Tolkien, both the leading practitioner of fantasy and a leading scholar of Old English (Anglo-Saxon) and related languages and, at least adjacently, their 'fantasy' myths and stories, argued that the focus of fantasy is not character or plot nor even the protagonist, but the fantasy world and the reader's (vicarious) exploration of it.
I wonder how the high-level LARP designers, and players, would respond to that. They clearly put a lot into creating their world and making it compelling, and we might argue that the point of LARP is to give audience a more direct experience of the world than reading or watching or playing on a computer. The article talks mostly of emotional experience (which doesn't exclude the world and its exploration) and plot.