Thomas B.
After a small taste in The Spiral, the Franco-German TV channel Arte goes full-on larp and will organize a Nordic larp in Paris and Berlin on October 29th.
The goal is to roleplay a sequel to the burlesque movie Tournée by Mathieu Amalric.
It’s a great idea, but the French and German webpages have left larpers scratching their heads, or even feeling insulted.
French roleplayers have a mixed history with the accuracy of journalistic coverage of the hobby, mainly because they went through the same type of lie-ridden media witch hunt in the 1990s that the US got in the 1980s. So when someone sells Nordic larp by saying it has never been done outside of Scandinavia, as the French translator and organizer of J. Tuomas Harviainen‘s A Serpent of Ash in Switzerland back in 2008, I beg to differ. And what of Nathan Hook‘s work, of the Italian scene etc. ?
Then French larpers have a painful and very recent history with naming and branding of larp by corporations.
The Arte larp is done with a transmedia company, which is fine, but the last time a French event company dealt with larp, they tried to trademark the phrase French larpers use to designate one-shot murder mystery larps (“murder party” en français dans le texte). The company sued a random non-profit larp group that dared organizing such a game using the phrase that everyone had been using since way before the company existed. The trial took years of work, stress and money, which could have been better used to organizing games. The larp community (the non-profit local organizing group, helped by the also non-profit FedeGN, the French larp federation) finally won the trial and the trademark was declared invalid, but the topic does make people tense. Larpers welcome people trying to make a living out of their hobby, they just want said people to respect the existing community.
So what is the problem now?
Arte uses the word “larp” to refer to “Nordic larp” to differentiate it from “GN”, the French acronym for “larp”, by saying it is essentially better (newer, more believable, more immersive, more realistic, not connected to fantasy settings) than “GN”. Which is bullshit because Nordic larp (or “GN Nordique”) is just a type of GN. GN just means larp, so you get massive battle boffer larps, intimate horror larps, Nordic larps… all kinds. French larpers have been organizing and playing Nordic larps in France for a few years now, and they use “GN” (or jeepform if it’s a jeepform). The page is so proud to say it invented the verb “larper un film” (“to larp a movie”) in French to designate the action of running a larp based on a film, just like Be kind, rewind invented “to swede a movie” to make a funky cheapass remake. French larpers have been adapting films into larp for years just saying “faire un GN [insert movie title here]” (to a run/play a [insert movie title here] larp). I”ve played a Star Wars larp set in between episodes II and III in 2005 and people have been doing these since the 1980s. The kicker is the German page seems to be badly translated from the French page, bringing the confusion to the other side of the Rhine.
What’s the big deal?
Nothing, it’s just a bit annoying to see something branded as new, better etc when the journalist/copywriter could just have done their homework. The poor word choice is introducing confusion that could prevent new larpers from finding existing larp groups doing exactly these types of games.
Bottom line: Arte announces a Tournée larp, which is a great initiative, sign-up!
Pour les Français: Arte annonce un GN Tournée et c’est une très bonne initiative, inscrivez vous!
4-Oct-2012, 16:46 update: the organizer has been contacted by many French and German larpers, a constructive dialogue has started, and some good corrections are already implemented on the web page. We’re not fully there yet, but it’s a nice testimony to the power of crowdsourcing. Long live the larper internationale!
8-Oct-2012 update: the organizer has been interviewed by Electro-GN, the main French larp blog and displays a heartwarming noobish enthusiasm to try something different from his past experience producing movies and stays open to communication with larpers. Good stuff!
(désolé pour le français, si je lis couramment l’ami Thomas dans la langue de Beckam, en revanche, pour m’exprimer, c’est autre chose)
Les éclaircissements sont bienvenus, encore que je doute de la capacité d’un media comme Arte à intégrer la présente critique (constructive). Clairement, nous sommes en présence d’un journaleux qui pense avoir inventé l’eau chaude et n’a pas fait son travail à fond. En même temps, étant donnée la ligne éditoriale d’Arte, je les vois mal expliquer à leur audience ce que peut être aussi le GN, soit, grossièrement, des neuneus qui se meulent dans les bois en singeant maladroitement le Seigneur des Anneaux (ou, pour faire plus trendy, Trône de Fer).
Cela dit, et pour élargir le débat : Au risque de paraître renier “l’école” qui m’a amené au GN, ou de me faire des ennemis parmi mes camarades de jeu, j’encourage des deux mains et j’applaudis des deux pieds tout ce qui contribue à la diversification du public GN, pour l’heure issu majoritairement d’un substrat geek/gamer/rôliste sur table. Si ce public a des qualités, ainsi qu’un magnifique héritage en matière d’imaginaire et de créativité, il me semble (ouvrez le feu) qu’il se renouvelle peu, voire pas, voire pire : qu’il tourne en rond et lorgne vers le divertissement le plus strict, dans ce que cette notion peut avoir de plus ontologiquement abject.
Imaginer que des gens normaux (aussi normaux que des spectateurs d’Arte peuvent l’être) apprennent l’existence du GN par ce biais, et soient dispensés du gloubi-boulga médiéval-fantastique avec règles indigestes qui est malheureusement la plus fréquente porte d’entrée sur le GN, c’est cool.
Imaginer que des gens sans aucune culture rôliste se mettent au GN, apportant sang frais, nouvelles références, nouvelles attentes, nouveaux savoir-faire, c’est super cool.
Je ne donne pas raison par défaut aux nouveaux, aux innovateurs ou aux réformateurs, personne ne détient de vérité absolue en matière de GN.
Mais le simple fait que le spectre s’élargisse, par l’offre, le public comme la pratique, c’est un soulagement, voire un espoir.
On va faire court: je suis 100% d’accord avec toi.
Je veux juste que les gens normaux apprennent l’existence du GN, pas du larp 🙂
Et tu devrais vraiment aller à Knudepunkt: trainer avec des artistes, des profs, des expérimenteurs, c’est un vrai bol d’air.
Si on jour je re-recrute, ce sera comme la dernière fois, dans des cercles qui ont fait du théatre, de l’impro, ou qui sont juste curieux, pas chez les joueurs de WoW.
I’m on my way to KP 2013. Nous organisons la veille partagée de l’annonce de l’ouverture des inscriptions avec Bruno “we have plenty of castles” 😉
Cool, prévenez moi dès que ça sort, ça avait été le stress l’année dernière et la merde pour planifier le voyage à cause de l’incertitude.
Prévenez-moi, comme tu y vas…
Je te rappelle qu’il faut une réactivité de l’ordre de 8 heures maximum si c’est comme l’an dernier.
Donc jette un coup d’oeil régulièrement toi aussi, et préviens-nous si jamais 🙂
(plus on sera nombreux sur le coup, moins on risque de se retrouver le bec dans l’eau)
et comme je suis un boulet, j’ai répondu à l’article au lieu du commentaire… tu as ma bénédiction pour [me censurer atrocement] faire le ménage, si jamais
Pas de souci, c’est pas comme si il y avait des centaines de commentaires, donc je laisse comme ça 🙂
Great write-up Thomas! Thanks!
Hello-
My name is Kitten- the musical burlesque MC for The troupe in the film Tournee-
None of the troupe was informed of the Arte Larp- interested to see what happens with our characters- most of our names are trademarked!
Happy larping-
Wow! This is awesome and intriguing on so many levels, as the game is going on right now. The best would be to contact Michel Reilhac, the organizer. https://www.facebook.com/michel.reilhac
In Europe, 99.99% larps are run by volunteers from non-profit organizations, usually at a loss, so even when doing Star Wars larps no one got sued by Lucasfilms, so I hope you can find an arrangement 🙂
It’s all good- happy larping-
just would have been cool to know about it!
You do bring up a very fair point: both for your troupe and for this larp’s organizer, it’s a job (in his case a transmedia company). For us larpers, it’s a hobby.
And I’m curious how the TV report they want to do on the game will look, as larp movies look like crap in general: larp as a medium is not designed to be performed in front of an audience, but only within a private group of participants, so the resulting acting is usually pretty bad from an observer’s standpoint. And because it’s all improvised, camera crews usually have trouble keeping up with the action. Do get in touch with the guy, he should be able to give you a heads up on next steps.
I played the LARP. It was strangely nice, given the time we players had to prepare, and the lack of experience of both organizers and players.
Many written reports will show up in the next days.
Concerning the outcome of the event, it will only be showed online on Arte.tv, with interviews of the players and some interesting sequences of the game (20 to 40 min). Of course it is a tribute to the troup: most of us are fond of burlesque, and big fans. As Cherry LilyDarling said, it was an honor to “live” as one of you [member of the troup] for some hours.
We all hope our performance will live to the expectations of our role-models!
Dear Eve-
Thank you so much for the wonderful description of the Tournee LARP.
Delighted it was an interesting and unique event. It’s nice to know that the film lives on through various media. Thank you for your kind words! I will pass the info on to the others in the troupe when we head out on another tour! I know they will be proud to know they are role models!
Best-
Kitten
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