Crowdfunding a roleplaying game for kids
I’m making an entry-level tabletop roleplaying game for kids. I started playing the D&D Red Box when I was 9, and so did pretty much everyone else in my generation. There hasn’t really been anything like that available in Finland, and from what I can tell, not really anywhere. (If there is, please correct me, but definitely nothing over here.)
Therefore I hope to publish a tabletop roleplaying game for kids 9-13 years old, and I’m raising money for it. Myrskyn sankarit (“Heroes of Storm”) is based on my earlier tabletop RPG, Myrskyn aika (“Age of Storm”) that was also the setting for the larp Dragonbane. Here’s the crowdfunding site: http://www.indiegogo.com/myrskynsankarit
The story is about a group of brave rebels who live in the forest and fight against an evil witch emperor, in the vein of Robin Hood, Star Wars and Knights of the Round Table. And yes, it will have lots of strong female characters, as well!
The initial version will be published in Finnish, but while I’m at it, why not aim for a bigger thing.
If I raise enough cash (and I think I will), I can publish this in Finnish. Hopefully we’ll get some supermarket distribution, but at least it’ll be available in all the gaming stores and the like. Now, after that, the translation into English won’t be too big a hassle. (I already have people to do that.)
But for all this to work, I need money NOW to pay for the printing, storage, postage, marketing and so on. I’ve just added a special international friendly “Khaleesi Daenerys Targaryen” Perk for $75 that will get you a copy of the Finnish language box, a PDF of the English translation (if we get to that), and eventually a boxed copy in English or whatever your chosen language is (if we get to that). If the project doesn’t reach its funding, you won’t pay anything,
Here are the other Perks in English, in case you want to invest more!
We’ve already raised almost half of the money (in less than a third of the time), have 350 Facebook supporters, and yesterday the crowdfunding site IndieGoGo.com decided to honor us by having Myrskyn sankarit as one of the featured projects on their homepage! Please participate, and help spread the word!
http://www.indiegogo.com/myrskynsankarit
Nordic Larp Talks and State of Play
If you’re interested in what’s going on in the fields of participation, interaction or roleplaying, I recommend spending this evening at Club PRKL in Helsinki or online following the webcast. It’s the publishing of the new Solmukohta journal States of Play followed by Nordic Larp Talks.
The doors open at 6pm, the excellent book States of Play is published at 7, and Nordic Larp Talks hosted by Johanna Koljonen starts at 8!
States of Play is edited by Juhana Pettersson and has dozens of really interesting articles on the design, theory, documentation and results of the cutting edge Nordic tradition of live roleplaying. My article Folk Fantasy deals with Täällä Kirjokannen alla and what I think might be the dawn of a new era in the fantasy genre. The book is also published as a free PDF.
Now, here’s some info on Nordic Larp Talks:
We are proud to welcome you to Nordic Larp Talks Helsinki 2012 – an evening of entertaining, thought-provoking and mind-boggling lectures about projects and ideas from the Nordic tradition of live action roleplaying games.
The talks are presented by writer, radio & television host as well as winner of the innovator category of this year’s The Swedish Grand Journalism Prize award, Johanna Koljonen.
You can follow the talks live streamed on nordiclarptalks.org Wednesday April 11th 8pm EEST or at the PRKL club in central Helsinki, Kaisaniemenkatu 4.
Speakers
Mike Pohjola – How to become a god
Johanna Macdonald – From stage to larp
JP Kaljonen – The interplay between player and man in the street
Jesper Bruun – Experimental Larp Design
Lizzie Stark – Playing in Graveyards: Terror collides with larp in New York City
My presentation, How To Become A God, deals with the history of drama from Dionysian rituals to reality television, and beyond, and how all of this relates to roleplaying. While doing that, I’ll also answer a puzzling point in Aristotle’s Poetics that’s been bugging theatre scholars for three thousand years.
See you there!
Son of Man finished
I’ve finished the manuscript for my autobiographical Jesus novel, and sent it to the lay out people. Son of Man will be printed this month and published in Finnish in September 2011. Translations will follow soon, I hope. The first words I wrote for this made their way from my fingertips to the keyboard in 2006, so it’s taken a while.
While waiting for more information, come Like the book on Facebook! http://facebook.com/ihmisenpoika I’ll be adding pictures, the latest news and other fun stuff. 🙂
Alright, alright! The UFOs were a viral for Son of Man
Looks like our little videos about UFOs over London and Jerusalem have some people baffled. Are they real? Are they fake? Are they viral marketing for Iron Sky? Not exactly…
I guess it’s time to come clean. But check them out first — they’re pretty nice.
UFOs over the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, where according to Judaism, Islam and Christianity, the creation of the world started:
And a few months later the same UFOs were seen in London over the BBC building.
What were these white shining things, these unidentified flying objects? No, they weren’t spaceships. No, they weren’t swamp gas, either.
Yes, that’s right. Now you’re getting it.
They were angels.
Son of Man is a novel about a young man growing up in the 80s thinking he might be the Second Coming of Christ. And lots of semi-miraculous things do happen that might make you think maybe he is.
Most of the book takes place in Finland, but he also visits Jerusalem in the turn of the millennium. That’s why we made a video showing angels over Jerusalem.
Many people figured that one out, but London left them wondering. Honestly, I thought that one would’ve been easier! It’s a reference to Conspiracy For Good, the project we did over there almost exactly a year ago. That’s when I shot the video with my cell phone. CFG has nothing to do with the Son of Man directly, but the experience it gave me in making graffiti came useful when writing one of the chapters.
We’re going through the last round of edits for Son of Man, and it will be published in Finnish this September. Expect translations to follow soon…
Here’s the cover.
Either that or the really were UFOs…
Son of Man cover
My autobiographical Jesus novel Son of Man will be published in Finnish this September by Gummerus. It’s a book about a young man who thinks he might be the Second Coming of Jesus Christ…
The film rights have already been optioned in Hollywood. If you represent a non-Finnish publishing house, get in touch with me or my agent, get the rights, and beat the crowd! Otherwise, enjoy the cover and Easter!
New Knudebooks online!
The roleplaying conference Knutepunkt 2011 is going on as I type. For the first time since 1999 I’m not attending, but I’ve written a short essay on one of the books. Yes, one of the books, since this year they had three books! You can download them all as PDFs.
Do Larp has manuscripts an blueprints for several recent larps, Think Larp has academic articles on larp, and Talk Larp has various rants and essays on larp. That’s the one I’ve contributed to.
Infernal Musical will soon premiere…
A short trailer for 1827 – Infernal Musical, the heavy metal musical that will open in a week and a half. There’s still some tickets left, but don’t waste any time if you want to pick your seats. The show only runs from Jan 21 to Feb 5, 2010.
Many people are confused by what a heavy metal musical exactly is. Will it only have songs or is there a story or what? In form and function it’s much like West Side Story or Producers — a stage play where the story is sometimes told through songs instead of dialogue. In style it will be quite different, combining period action with the classics of heavy metal. The show will mostly feature known songs like Paranoid, Carry On, or Hunting High And Low. There will also be one of our own songs (lyrics by me, music by our band leader Joona Lukala), and one brand new song by Lordi, Devil’s Crashing the Party. So in traditional terms, “the book” is by me, and the lyrics are by Dio and whoever. But yes, there’s one hell of a story there!
If you’re in the UK, I recommend listening to BBC Radio 3’s program Music Matters, and their report on Turku and Tallinn, the European Capitals of Culture. They interview me about 1827, and play some of our songs.
Also, for Finns, Ajankohtainen kakkonen is going to do a big piece on Turku this week, and will feature both the musical and yours truly. (Also check out VR’s paper Matkaan, January issue.)
Rock on!
Lordi with two of our burned ladies, and the single release of Devil's Crashing the Party.
Nordic Larp is coming out!
My friends Jaakko Stenros and Markus Montola have been working for eighteen months on a huge photo book about the most ambitious larps in the Nordic countries. Nordic Larp will be published today Wednesday. I got my copy Tuesday afternoon, and it’s worthy of much praise!
The book has thirty excellent live roleplaying games from Finland, Sweden, Denmark and Norway. Some games I’ve been involved in creating (Luminescence, inside:outside, Europa, PanoptiCorp, Dragonbane), in others I’ve been a player (Helsingin Camarilla, Ground Zero, The Executive Game, Hamlet, Zombie, Mellan himmel och hav, Silmäpuoli merirosvo), and all of them I’ve heard lots of good things about.
During the fifteen larp years in the book, the scene has deal with gender roles, society, cancer, Norway’s Nazi occupation, the mafia, nationality, insanity, capitalism, Shakespeare and the homeless, and adventure with vampires, dragons, steampunk spaceships, pirates and dead spirits that communicate through radio. Many of these in the same game.
My article In Prison With Kafka and Beckett is about inside:outside (2001-2002), a larp Eirik Fatland and I designed, and Irene Tanke produced, that was my first larp to be exhibited in an art gallery. The book has eight pages of text an Frode Dybvad’s photos for the game. While the pictures are good, many more articles are much more visual, since the originals were somehow lost in the Faroe Islands in Frode’s bag. (I think this accurately displays what a huge undertaking Stenros and Montola had in getting photos of some of the older games.)
Since a larp is an immediate work that cannot be recorded or reproduced, editing and publishing a book like this is a great deed for the whole culture. Without one the visionary live roleplaying games of old would remain only in the dimming memories of its participants and turn into vague stories told over proverbial campfires, but now they are documented with visual proof. With this book the history of Nordic larp is immortalized.
I obviously haven’t read the whole tome yet, but after browsing it, I can tell it’s full of interesting articles and brilliant photo pages. The book will be available online and in select bookstores, but you can also get it at the publishing party today on Wednesday, Dec 22th.
There will be four or five simultaneous parties held in Helsinki, Oslo, Copenhagen, Stockholm, at least. The parties kick off at 19:00 local time. The Stockholm part fill be held in Betahaus (Skeppsholmen 30), and in Helsinki the location is Dubrovnik Lounge (Eerikinkatu 11). Locations for Oslo and Copenhagen will be announced here.
The parties are also connected to each other with a live stream. You can also watch the video online in real time, or take part by Tweeting (#nordiclarp). (I promise not everyone there dubs themselves a Social Media Expert!)
Welcome!
The Golden Dragon!
The main event of the roleplaying year, Ropecon, is just behind us. For seven years this is where the lifetime award Golden Dragon has been given to roleplaying luminaries, people whose games I’ve played as a kid, whose stores I’ve frequented and whose magazines I’ve read. In other words, I have quite alot of respect for these Grand Old Men of Finnish roleplaying.
Therefore I was both proud and humbled to receive the same recognition. In my thank you speech I was very touched but managed to speak for the future of the hobby.
A summary of the Finnish press release:
Mike Pohjola has been influential in the field since the mid 90s. His live roleplaying games have been played in cultural centers and art galleries. His publications include the roleplaying games Myrskyn aika (2003), Star Wreck Roleplaying Game (2006), and Tähti (2007). In addition Pohjola has published Sanaleikkikirja (2008), and the YA novel Kadonneet kyyneleet (2008).
Pohjola is also a founding member in The Company P, that won the International Emmy for Best Interactive Tv Service in 2008 for Sanningen om Marika. Right now he’s working on The Conspiracy For Good mega-project that premiered last Saturday in London. The Nokia-sponsored Conspiracy For Good is a project that combines participatory storytelling and gaming and lets players search clues with new mobile technology to progress in the story and help charities. The creative visionary of the project is Tim Kring, the showrunner of the tv show Heroes.
Thank you so much! It’s a really great feeling to be recognized by your own people in such a way.
The story of the Conspiracy For Good has begun…
The Conspiracy For Good is a combination of participatory storytelling, gaming and attempt to support real-life NGOs and charities. The story has now begun in earnest, so you can go check out the latest videos on the blog daily. Our story begins in Zambia:
Conspiracy For Goodin website has lots more videos, discussions and riddles… What is Blackwell Briggs doing in Zambia and can we stop it? Where are Missä David, Nadirah, and Ann Marie now?
Beyond the World 