Case study - Project System, larp about a life a in a totalitarian regime. Knutepunkt 2010

1. Knutpunkt 2010

3. welcome at the lecture about educational
larp Project System
Jana Jevická
Jiří Zlatohlávek

4. civil association from Czech Republic
we make workshops, chamber larps, edu
larps and experience larps
aimed on public
grants and international funds

5. reasons for making Project System

6. voters‘ passivity
lack of interrest about communism era
among young people
distorted image about 40 years of our history,
simplification, idealization
effort to combine education and experien-
ce in a way that encourages young people to
think about totalism

7. What is the
totalism
to you?

8. themes of the project

9. the boundaries of personal freedom
is it possible to stay morally clean when
there‘s no right decision
the totalism in us — the fear of our own
thoughts
exploitation of the social group on behalf of
the superior group

10. project‘s structure

11. November 08: elections and the first ideas
December 08: applying for grants
May 09: creating the team, planning phase
June 09: public discussion about the themes
June — September: gamedesign, production,
propagation, communicating with players
September — October: 3 realizations
November 09: 20th anniversary of the Velvet re-
volution; public discussion with a witness of
the communism, confronting the experiences

12. game weekend‘s structure

13. pre-game workshops: 6 hours
game: 30 hours
debriefieng: 2 hours
closing worhkshop with reflexion of players
experience: 3 hours

14. game

15. 40 players
15 NPCs (some of being agents)
fictional totalitarian regime, transparent, logic
hierarchical society: officials, citizens,
students, immigrants
corporate principles, uniformity
exchange of freedoms for social securities

16. place

17. summer resort as a model of a village
many different scenes suppporting the game
in smaller groups
scenographic touches before and throughout
the game

18. story

19. Day of Equality celebrations
student pranks and protest of the young
Commisar, investigation, represion and trial
personal stories vs. group stories vs. complex
stories

20. characters

21. common people
different opinions on the main ideas
clear dramatic purpose of each character
inner hierarchy of the whole village and social
groups
carefully designed social connections

25. dramaturgy

26. preset structure of main events: warm-up
7.15, breakfast 8.00, school 9.30, area cleaning
11.00, lunch 12.00, preparations of the celeb-
ration 13.30…
players weren‘t able to influence the order of
events, but outcome of the events was in
player‘s hands

27. player‘s outputs

28. strong experience from a totalitarian setting
discovering hidden threats of totalitarianism:
not only external threats, but constant pres-
sure on human pride
realization, that‘s not possible by frontal tea-
ching — the experience bound with
understanding

29. …when talking about totalitarian country, one
only hears the classic „travelling was forbid-
den“, but fails to realize, what a day in a such
world really looked like. What it all actual-
ly covered. For me, the totalitarianism now
starts where one is getting afraid, if she has
an acceptable and publishable opinion.
Irena Vovsová, age 16

30. organizer‘s outputs

31. many practical experiences: work in a big
team, repetition of the game, logistics, game-
design for 55 characters
fulfilling the grant promisses
not only game, but a whole project
motivation for the next games

32. outputs for Czech larp

33. quality of the preparation
price
production
many new players

34. conclusion

35. it‘s hard not to be proud :-)
efforts to continue the project for middle
schools and universities

36. questions?

37. Thank you for your attention!
Jana Jevická & Jiří Zlatohlávek
jevicka@courtofmoravia.com
zlatohlavek@courofmoravia.com