The ambitions of Dragonbane

[JonasB]

In another thread I made the following claim about Dragonbane:

If you want to read about the pinnacle of Nordic fantasy larping, check out www.dragonbane.org. It is a pan-European fantasy larp in the Nordic tradition. It is probably the most ambitious larp ever created. It will be mainly in English, so start saving your money now :)

This statement got the following reply from Matt:

Jonas, could you start a new thread about how Dragonbane is ambitious? From a quick reading of their site it doesn't seem so, it'd be cool to get a handle on what makes it different, and I'd rather not clutter this thread.

I will describe in short why i belive Dragonbane to be *very* ambitious, and in many way different from both the standard American and European larp. Note that I'm not part of the team and may not even attend it, as fantasy larps is generally not my cup of tea.

1. Size: Dragonbane is not the largest or longest larp, but combined with the other goals 1000 persons and one week is considerble.

2. Culture spanning: Althou focused on the Nordic tradition Dragonbane will mix the larp culture of Europe and have participants of many
nationalities.

3. Backers: Dragonbane is backed by several organisations, including governments, universities and corporations. They contribute with both money and knownledge.

4. Cost: I got no straight figures, but I belive the cost of the game is *huge*. The fee will be european standard due to the many sponsors.

5. Site: The game will have a full village speciallt built for the game, and in line with its (non standard) fantasy world.

6. Consistency. All housing, food and weapon will be provided by the team, and all costumes will have to be made to fit the cultures of the fictional world. The reason fo this is to make the world consitent, and in the case of weapons, limit them and ensure safety. Many Nordic games suffer from a Larpia (the land where all larps take place) syndrome due to standard equiment and roles used in several games.

7. Technology: The aims to use technology to enhance the fantasy in a way that is uncommon, at least here in Europe.

8. Dragon: The game will feature a fully articulated(?) mechanical dragon. (The details on the dragon i secret.)


Feel free to ask addition questions, but keep in mind that I am no expert on this particular game. If I cannot help you, maybe I can get one of the team members to take a look at this thread.

[Lig]

So, it's US-style "innovative", then? Ie. they're building it really f-ing big! All the things you suggest have, I think, been done before, just not on that scale.

I certainly have a lot of respect for what they're attempting, and I wish them every sucess. But didn't they postpone the event due to a lack of IC underwear, or something? Setting your standards too high, while admirable, is a recipe for failure, as I found with Sunlight, which ended up far too ambitious for my capabilities, and has, consquently, been cancelled.

[JonasB]

I have never called it "innovative", just "ambitious". And, from what I know, not only have it not been done on this scale, but never all in one game.

It was postponed one year, due to many reasons. I'm sure underwear wasn't one of them. I've heard it was mostly due to the problems of organising the huge crew and the fact that they had to change country for the game.

And yes, they may fail... only time will tell, but to me it seems like the project have passed the critical point. I doubted it for a long time but nowdays it seems right on track.