RUN A LARP

Game submissions for Chimera 2011 are closed, but if you are interested in running a game for a future Chimera, please read the guidelines below, and follow the instructions in order to submit your game. If you have any questions, feel free to email us at chimera@nzlarps.org

How do I submit a game?

To formally submit a game, please email the following details through to chimera@nzlarps.org, and we will be in touch to discuss:

Title:

Authors:

Blurb: (to interest potential players, so no spoilers)

Cast List: (if available, otherwise character numbers and gender ratio. Please indicate what the minimum number for the game to run is.)

Costuming Requirements:

GM Contact Info: (to go on the website)

Any other considerations for the convention organisers to know: i.e. this needs to run at night, this needs to run outside, I will need a helicopter and an active volcano...

What are the basic criteria for games?

The criteria for our games are as follows:

• Characters must be prewritten, and mechanics must be reasonably simple.
• The game must take no more than three hours to run, including set up time, briefings and debriefings.
• One-off games are preferred, campaign games are invitational only. Campaign games may not include player characters from their normal campaign, and must not require any previous knowledge of the setting.
• Your game must be completed by August 1st so we can be sure to have a ready game on the day of the convention.

My game needs to run at a specific time, and needs 2 buildings and a helicopter!

We will do our best to schedule your game at a time most optimal to its success, but we need you to be flexible with us as well - not everybody can run on Friday night! Scheduling is determined by a lot of factors, and the chief aim of the schedule juggling act is to make sure that each round has enough player spaces to meet expected demanded, each round has a suitable variety of genres and styles, and that each round has enough playing spaces to accommodate all the games. It's not half-tricky to get it to work, so it helps if there is no fixed time that your game must run. The same applies for where you would like to run your game - we will endeavour to give you the location that best fits your game, flexibility is helpful.

How many characters can my game have?

Each round, on average, we are wanting to accommodate up to 120 players (with some variation due to know demand) therefore games need to of a reasonable size. No game is to have more than 30 people (this includes GMs and crew) and we can only accept limited numbers of games with ~10 characters. If your game has only ~10 characters, consider writing your game so two simultaneous runs can be done at the same time (therefore, you only lose one round to GMing but two groups of people get to play your game!)

How many games will you need? How do you pick which games to run?

How many games we need depends on how many characters the games have. We will probably be needing five or six games per round, so somewhere between 25-30 games for the convention. We try to fit in all the games we are offered. If for some reason we cannot host your game, we will come discuss our reasons with you, but this should be pretty rare.

How many games can I run?

It's actually a fair amount of work to write a game for Chimera and we try to spread the workload across more people rather than less, so you may run, at most, two original games (i.e. games that you are writing between now and Chimera), OR you may run up to three pre-written games (games that are already written at this point) OR one original game and two prewritten games. It is our hope, though, that nobody will need to run more than once or twice in the convention.

What sort of help can Chimera give me with my game?

We want to make the game running process as easy for you as possible. From March onwards, the Chimera team will be in touch and available to support you through the process. We will help you source gear, help you liaise with players and be on hand to help pull things together when things go pear shaped. There is a fair amount of backstage chat between the GMs in the months leading up to the convention, so there is a good sense of community with the other game masters and the organisers.

We are also able to assist in providing props and gear, so talk to us about what you'll need and we'll see what we can arrange.

I am not able to write a new game but would like to run something at Chimera. Can I do this?

Not a worry. Any game that has been made available to run, or you have acquired permission from the original writers, can be run at Chimera.

If you've got an idea, more questions or would like to commit to writing a game for Chimera 2012, please don't hesitate to contact us through the Chimera email: chimera@nzlarps.org