Quickly Creating Interesting Characters to Roleplay
Summary:
Creating interesting characters that are both playable & meaningful takes more than just rolling stats. Learn how to make a robust character in less than 15 mins & enjoy the character arcs to come.
Description:
Offers a series of must-haves to create a dynamic and realistic character and a set of questions to ask and answer when making a new character. Taught by a writing professor and game designer, this presentation showcases shortcut creative writing techniques that can be used individually and in pairs or small groups to improve your character’s backstory, motivations, conflicts, quirks, and other traits that make them more playable, intense, meaningful, and dynamic. Includes samples of arcs you can have your character follow over short and long-term play.
An army of dark wizards & their revenants approaches. Some among you are cursed, transfigured, or traitors. Can you create a plan and use your magical specialty to defeat the army when it arrives?
Description:
The latest fun larp from the creators of Magischola! You’re students at magic school at the close of the US Civil War. Dark wizard Thanatos Akeldama is chasing your school as it flees toward the coast, following the path of mundane Union General Sherman on his march to the sea. Akeldama is on the wrong side of history, but the army of revenants he created from the bodies of dead mundane soldiers is a seemingly unstoppable force as long as the war continues. It’s up to you, a group gathered to determine what to do when the army arrives. Each of you has a magical specialty; and a spell, skill, or magical item to use or share. Some among you may be Akeldama informants, some are cursed, and still others may be glamorized revenants who appear to be human students. What will you do when the army arrives? No complicated system or stats. Roleplaying and improv stressed. We teach you to play!
An army of dark wizards & their revenants approaches. Some among you are cursed, transfigured, or traitors. Can you create a plan and use your magical specialty to defeat the army when it arrives?
Description:
The latest fun larp from the creators of Magischola! You’re students at magic school at the close of the US Civil War. Dark wizard Thanatos Akeldama is chasing your school as it flees toward the coast, following the path of mundane Union General Sherman on his march to the sea. Akeldama is on the wrong side of history, but the army of revenants he created from the bodies of dead mundane soldiers is a seemingly unstoppable force as long as the war continues. It’s up to you, a group gathered to determine what to do when the army arrives. Each of you has a magical specialty; and a spell, skill, or magical item to use or share. Some among you may be Akeldama informants, some are cursed, and still others may be glamorized revenants who appear to be human students. What will you do when the army arrives? No complicated system or stats. Roleplaying and improv stressed. We teach you to play!
Someone has been illegally practicing time magic & now things have gone amok. Students at wizard college are the worst! Welcome first-time larpers!
Description:
Someone has been illegally practicing time magic, and now things have gone amok. You’ll play a student in Ritual Magic class learning how to deal with extraplanar entities and safely stabilize ley line nodes. Rest assured that these techniques are not dangerous, and the ritual magic you learn cannot be hacked to create powerful, unpredictable outcomes. Everything will work out fine! Trust your teachers, not the anonymous authors of forbidden knowledge, not secret research notes, and definitely not the unpracticed, unproven, and untested rituals designed by other students. If you’re curious about New World Magischola, this short two-hour game shows you the collaborative and improvisational roleplay style that allows you to create the story together and make it different every time. No complicated rules or statistics and we’ll teach you how to play. Great for teens, too!
Someone has been illegally practicing time magic & now things have gone amok. Students at wizard college are the worst! Welcome first-time larpers!
Description:
Someone has been illegally practicing time magic, and now things have gone amok. You’ll play a student in Ritual Magic class learning how to deal with extraplanar entities and safely stabilize ley line nodes. Rest assured that these techniques are not dangerous, and the ritual magic you learn cannot be hacked to create powerful, unpredictable outcomes. Everything will work out fine! Trust your teachers, not the anonymous authors of forbidden knowledge, not secret research notes, and definitely not the unpracticed, unproven, and untested rituals designed by other students. If you’re curious about New World Magischola, this short two-hour game shows you the collaborative and improvisational roleplay style that allows you to create the story together and make it different every time. No complicated rules or statistics and we’ll teach you how to play. Great for teens, too!
Safety & calibration tools help players establish boundaries & co-create intense & desirable experiences. Learn about several techniques & why they are useful; practice them in short scenarios.
Description:
Players of role-playing games have varying experience, abilities, triggers, and comfort zones, both physical and emotional. Trigger and content warnings help, but how do you ensure players feel safe and are able to consent to the roleplay they want and opt-out of what they don’t? What do you do when a boundary is crossed, or a player becomes overwhelmed during play? Safety and Calibration Mechanics are tools designed to help players feel comfortable with each other and with their own needs and boundaries and express them to each other. We will introduce and model various safety and calibration mechanics that can be used in tabletop RPGs, larps, and regular gaming groups. You’ll learn about the techniques, what they are designed to do, the assumptions and research behind them, and why they are important.
A society of women untethered to space & time. You have been chosen to enter this sanctuary of sisterhood among the goddesses. You will play a primary character & additional roles.
Description:
Long ago when the universe was a swirl of dust, four entities merged their consciousnesses to create what we know as the physical world. Goddesses: Creation, Destruction, Reclamation, and Fortification. Four forces that make, break, rebuild, and strengthen. Immerton is where these goddesses reside, where they watch and teach, a place pilgrims and seekers discover, a place alive with the four forces. Every so often, a woman somewhere in the multiverse discovers Immerton. Welcome. In this freeform larp you will use ritual to explore identity, devotion, and sisterhood. The experience includes a rite of passage to devote yourself to your goddess, and the opportunity to choose one of seven Immerton vocations. It also features blackbox play where characters can experience past, present, future, or dream moments, and interactions with the goddesses. Includes workshops, play, and debrief.
Discusses in-game and off-game design strategies to represent & include intersectional identities & create play spaces that feel safer for people of all genders, sexualities, and ethnicities.
Description:
In order to create games that are both representative and inclusive of a variety of intersectional identities, game designers need to pay attention to how a game's setting, roles, genders, races, and classes are portrayed. Gaming archetypes such as fantasy races and tropes may be shortcuts to help players understand how to play more quickly, but they may also replicate subconscious societal norms that reinforce stereotypes, prejudices and assumptions that contribute to racism, misogyny, homophobia, and marginalization. The presentation has two parts: in-game design for inclusivity, which discusses character writing and world-building for the representation of identities, and off-game design for inclusivity, which includes community norms and player conduct expectations to create play spaces that feel safer for players of color, and people of all genders and sexualities.
Detention at magic school sucks! To make things worse, the full moon is about to rise & you have the sinking suspicion that someone in detention will turn into a werewolf. What can you do?
Description:
In the Magimundi, the hidden North American magical universe, two types of creatures can shapeshift into wolves: lycans and loup-garou. Though their powers are essentially the same, the way they are treated by society is not. Loup-garou are privileged; lycans are persecuted. On this night of the full moon, you are in detention with other students, some of whom are secret lycans, struggling to find the potion that will keep them from changing and outing their condition. What will you do? Pre-generated characters are selected at the event. We’ll provide wands and robes, and teach you to play before we begin. This game is designed for those who are curious about the New World Magischola experience or about larping!
Detention at magic school sucks! To make things worse, the full moon is about to rise & you have the sinking suspicion that someone in detention will turn into a werewolf. What can you do?
Description:
In the Magimundi, the hidden North American magical universe, two types of creatures can shapeshift into wolves: lycans and loup-garou. Though their powers are essentially the same, the way they are treated by society is not. Loup-garou are privileged; lycans are persecuted. On this night of the full moon, you are in detention with other students, some of whom are secret lycans, struggling to find the potion that will keep them from changing and outing their condition. What will you do? Pre-generated characters are selected at the event. We’ll provide wands and robes, and teach you to play before we begin. This game is designed for those who are curious about the New World Magischola experience or about larping!