Jeepform: it's LARP, Jim, but not as we know it...

[Ryan Paddy]

So, Jeepform. I've just seen a link to it and read it over. The new RPGnet LARP forum is proving it's worth already in hooking me up with larp stuff I've never heard of!

http://jeepen.org/dict/

This sounds so much like improvisational drama to me that I'm actually picturing it being played on a stage. With four little plastic chairs representing a car. The driver is holding an invisible wheel and tooting an invisible horn.

Which is all good. It's nice to see people delving into other niches in the larp ecosystem.

It reminds me of a loose thought I've had floating around for some years, that larp is not a distinct form but rather part of loosely-connected set of activities that I think of as "Pretend". Acting is pretend. Improvisational theatre is too. Larp is pretend, and freeform, and tabletop rpgs too. Historical reenactment is pretend. Even miniature gaming looks a lot like pretend to me. They all involving pretending that stuff is happening that isn't really. Pretending to be someone else, or a little army of someones. But at the same time, they are all very different in appearance and culture. Perhaps they're less different than they appear. The whole area of pretend is closely related to storytelling too, for that matter.

Jeepform might be closer to convenionial improvisation theatre than it is to freeform (at least, as freeform appears to be practiced in the UK). The key thing that makes it like improvisational theatre is the lack of information hiding. All the players know everything about the larp, and they also know everything that the player's know. This lack of information hiding is a principle called "transparency" in the Jeepform document I linked to. On the other hand, Jeepform bears some resemblence to a freeform (and larp) in that that the characters all seem to be prepared in advance, not invented during play. The scene is set, instead of being created on the fly. But characters can invent new elements during play, which is like improvisational theatre.

It's a hybrid form, I think. A new and distinct form that's neither rabbit nor radish.

What do you reckon? What is it?

[Merten]

What do you reckon? What is it?

While waiting for seeing some concrete examples on the coming summer, just by reading Jeepform stuff I'd take it as some kind of hybrid between tabletop playing and live-action roleplaying. While there are strong live-action elements (using the physical space, body language, etc), I wouldn't call it a LARP. More like something unique - Swedish freeform, or Jeepform.

[Ryan Paddy]

What does Jeepform have in common with table-top roleplaying, specifically?

I'm inclined to think that any similarities to tabletop are by coincidence, not design.

The players have to stay together in a group, but that's for the sake of "transparency" so that everyone can see everything not for the reasons it happen in tabletop. It's more like improv theatre in it's reasoning, all the actors needs to know what's happening. I've seen many tabletop games where the GM would send players away so they wouldn't find out things that their character's don't know. Jeppform is the opposite of that mentality.

And it doesn't use many props, but that's because they don't want to be limited by them. That's not really in common with tabletop which doesn't use many props because "it's all in your head anyway". Again, it's in common with improv. If there are few and simple props, then anything can happen. It's also to stop people considering how props work rather than concentrating on the all-important story. It's about removing distractions.

[Merten]

What does Jeepform have in common with table-top roleplaying, specifically?

This might only be how my brains a wired (*), but Jeepform seems to have deep roots in Scandinavian freeform-tabletop playing; they have just pushed it further by including the physical dimension. The scenarios seem to be pretty much what freeform tabletop playing has been; it's just that they have developed new techniques for running the game (initiating new scenes, using "hyperlinks", etc).

*) The Scandinavian freeform culture, as I know it, owes pretty much to live-roleplaying culture, having adapted pre-written characters and in all, heavy scenario writing, very light game mechanics and such. On the other hand, the live-roleplaying culture has traditionally been using lot's of propping and staging, which is absent from Jeepform. So, for me, it looks a lot like freeform-tabletop playing with crafty techniques.

[Ryan Paddy]

Ah, gotcha. I've never heard of freeform tabletop before.

Sounds like you've a lot of cross-fertilisation happening locally, which is great.

In terms of big international trends, to me it still sounds more like the way improv theatre works than what most people do in tabletop games. But I see how it could have grown that way out of your local freeform tabletop culture.

A larp form that's grown from a tabletop form and resembles improv form... those dividing lines between forms are looking weaker to me by the day.

[Merten]

In terms of big international trends, to me it still sounds more like the way improv theatre works than what most people do in tabletop games. But I see how it could have grown that way out of your local freeform tabletop culture.

A larp form that's grown from a tabletop form and resembles improv form... those dividing lines between forms are looking weaker to me by the day.

I think that live-roleplaying has heavily influenced the way we think about tabletop gaming as well (and in all honesty, "we" in this does mean a relatively small amount of people, at least in Finland - Jeepform leads me to believe there has been similar movement in Sweden, but I wouldn't know). In mid- to late-90's we had a lot of live-roleplaying and formed some kind of established culture of how the games were made; a lot of those things have influenced tabletop playing. Since the same people both create and play in LARPS and create and play in tabletop games, it's pretty natural evolution.

I don't know too much about Jeepform (and I can't wait to learn more), but it sounds a lot like similar developement, but with a lot more stuff adapted from live-roleplaying. While freeform tabletop playing (the local variety) adapts things like character and plot creation from live-roleplaying, Jeepform goes further and adapts things like using the physical space.

I'll see if I can nudge someone from those circles to shed further light into this.