Lizzie Stark

Just wanted to alert you to crack web designer Daniel Quinn's excellent analysis of a recent House episode, using the Chaotic-Lawful Good-Evil alignments from Dungeons & Dragons. In other news, I'm abandoning the massive LARP calendar, not because it's unhelpful, but because updating it sucks up too much time for someone like me, who has about eight bajillion gigs/side projects. Instead, when I have a moment to breathe, you can expect to see an index of gamer jargon, and a list of some LARP resources coming at you after the holidays are over. And be warned: NaNoWriMo is over, so I should be starting to blog again soon. Happy web surfing.... Read More

Just a little note to say: I know I'm viciously late on my most recent flash, but it's for a good reason. I took last week off to start planning my novel for National Novel Writing Month, which began on Sunday along with the month of November. I'll catch up with the aforementioned Superlative exercise as soon as I've written my 50,000 words.... Read More

When I spoke to Ethan Gilsdorf about his new book, Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks, we couldn't seem to get away from the idea of gamer shame. Basically, many gamers feel guilty and ashamed of their obsession with LARP, World of Warcraft, etc. In my own research on LARP, I've encountered a couple cases of gamer shame -- a long-time LARPer who hides his hobby from friends he's known for years, for fear of ridicule; a woman who doesn't want people at her office to find out about her weekends in the woods, because LARP is hard to explain and at first blush, sounds like a child-like past time; gamers who treat other forms of nerdularity -- massive multiplayer online games, Cosplay, and Rennaisance Faires -- with ridicule.... Read More

It's no secret that people all over the country like to dress up in medieval gear and spend a weekend whacking things in the woods. But here's the proof. An esteemed colleague and former collaborator over at the Boulder Daily Camera sent me this excellent, respectful introduction to LARPing by Aimee Heckel.... Read More

Move over Twilight. The underworld's Philip Marlowe is on the case. This piece looks at bestselling author/LARPer Jim Butcher's Turn Coat, the newest in the supernatural detective series the Dresden Files.... Read More

Check out this awesome story on the Jedi exercise routine from my buddy, the inestimable Vidya Rao. Well done, Ms. Rao -- a fine use of the force.... Read More

I spend last weekend medieval camping in the wilds of Sparta, New Jersey at the Knight Realms LARP as part of my book research.  Well, not quite medieval camping -- I and around 60 others huddled in heated cabins that had electricity, but we wore medieval style dress and lugged around boffers.... Read More

There's no single source of good LARP events on the web, in my experience.  Sure, Shade's LARP List has a lot of links, but many of them are dead or lead to groups that are no longer active. So I decided to start my own calendar of LARP events and conventions across the US, and to make it searchable via Google. But this behemoth is only as good as my information.... Read More

That in-game emotions sometimes spill over into the out of game world is one of the hazards of LARPing.  Say someone kills your character in-game, knowing that in doing so, they're causing your character to lose stats.  Would you bear them ill-will once the event is over? I always thought my answer would be no.  After all, it's the risk of conflict, penalty and the unknown plot point that makes LARP exciting.  But a few months ago I learned otherwise.... Read More

I love the idea behind LARP and tabletop role-playing -- that a group of people are getting together to collaboratively tell a story. But whenever someone explains the mechanics of a game to me, my eyes glaze over in seconds and I start thinking about what kind of hat my character would wear.... Read More