LIVE-ACTION ROLE-PLAYING
IN THE REALM OF ARTHURIAN BRITAIN

LARP Co-ordinator:  Mark Philp

   Initially I had an idea to run a small once-off Live-Action event which I dubbed "A Medieval Night of Tales" inspired by Chaucer's Canturbury Tales and an event being ran at the Melborune Convention entitled, "Baron Munchausen's Night of 1001 Tales"  . The idea was a simple one - a group of players posing as knights, lords and ladies gather around a table to tell tales in a storytelling competition.

   Nothing is ever as simple as it first seems!

   After discussing the idea with a few people I quickly began to realise it would be difficult to gather a group of Role-Players together for such an evening. People wouldn't know what to expect... Where to begin... And a few players would definitely have an attack of self-consciousness which wouldn't be good for an evening of boasting, bragging and storytelling.

   So it was suggested to me to create a lead-in event to get players interested and allow me to develop some principal characters. Taking that suggestion to heart I thought

   I plan to set the LARP within legendary 5th century Arthurian Britain. This fictitious and mythical time period contains a lot of material to draw on for adventures, something which appeals to me as I don't have to make up a lot of the background material for the game.

   I have based my ideas around the PENDRAGON roleplaying game as it offers some well thought-out ways of integrating characters into Arthurian legend without making things too fanciful (for instance, major characters of Arthurian legend such as Arthur and his Round Table Knights exists as background material only and won't appear as a part of LARP events). PENDRAGON is excellent for developing Arthurian characters as it's trait system works extremely well

   Players would play knights, nobles, lords, ladies and other important people within the Court of Earl Robert of Salisbury. Earl robert is a minor lord who is barely mentioned within any of the major Arthurian works, making his Earldom the perfect place to set the LARP within.

   The campaign would focus on early Arthurian legend, beginning before the time of Arthur and possibly moving onwards into the time the Boy King was riding around and raising armies to fight the Northern Kings. This would make life more interesting and akin to 12th Century Medieval times as the concept of chivalry is slowly introduced by Arthur's future wife during this period.
 
 

   My initial hope was to make this LARP a free form game which did not use any sort of gaming system at all. Unfortunately, there are times when you need to determine if an action is successful or who is the victor in a combat situation. So I havd to adopt some sort of simple and easy-to-use Role-Playing system to figure out these kinds of details.

   For major battles I've decided to have two forces - the characters involved in the LARP (fighting for the glory of Britain); and their enemies (whoever they might be for the battle - the Knights of Lot and the Northern Kings, the Saxxon, Bandits, etc...). Basically the players within each force wil be given several men to command (perhaps men from their lands or sections of an army depending on the size of the battle) and the Game Co-rodinator will go between each group of players
 
 

   It has been suggested to me that I begin with a smaller live-action event first which links into the medieval feast. This would allow me to gauge interest in the feast, how much organization and planning would be needed to run such an evening, and allow me to develop skills in relation to live-action roleplaying.

   This smaller event – at the moment entitled “A meeting of Knights” – would allow the main characters of the medieval feast to be fleshed out between players. It would be held at the end of March. The participants of “A meeting of Knights” would be people I have approached and invited to participate in the event.

   It has been my aim over the past six months to run some form of live-action event this year and, if possible, to begin a live-action roleplaying campaign through the Adelaide Gamers’ Association. If this medieval feast idea works out I might develop it further into an ongoing campaign with one event occurring every month or two.
 
 

REQUIREMENTS

   What would a medieval event require? A list of things for any medieval event I can think of is included below:

? Costumes (What does a medieval character wear? A small fee might be charged to cover the construction of basic costumes – purchasing material and sewing together tabards, tunics and other bodily garments)
? Food (Possibly… If a small fee was charged a light supper or props like grapejuice substituting for wine could be provided)
? Location (The AGA premises were my idea for a location to begin with. If anyone can suggest a better place to host a medieval event that’s cost effective please speak up!)
? Make-up (Maybe… I don’t think too many people would need make-up, probably only characters with scars, pox marks, etc…)
? Out of Character area: This would be a section of the venue where anyone could come into and be ‘out of character’ to unwind / cool off
? Props (Shields and heraldic devices, background music and tape recorder, mugs / glasses / vessels to drink from, etc…)
? Scenery (I thought a few white sheets to hang from the roof to disguise the walls of the AGA common area would help to set the scene)

   I have been thinking about the idea of charging a nominal fee to cover the construction of costumes and possibly food. For the first event I plan to conduct I’ll try not to charge a fee as I am a little dubious as to the degree of ‘professionality’ I can offer a 1st time group of players.

   Costumes would be made by hand from simple materials rather than being hired. This wouldn’t be too hard as medieval fashions weren’t necessarily THAT advanced! I would try to match as best as possible modern clothing to medieval clothing so that some semblance of customary was present.

   The “A meeting of Knights” event would be held in the Rage Cage. The medieval feast would be held in the AGA common area, with some of the sand tables possibly being shifted back for the duration of the event to increase the area of floor space available.

   I would require some funds to purchase white material to cover up areas of the AGA to add to the setting. I have as of yet to measure the area I want to cover but shall do so and then attempt to obtain some estimates in relation to this backdrop.