…a butterfly’s journey to the equator and back…a symphony of experiences crescendo in a musical breakthrough…statues contemplating the shifts in the world around them…the spirit of protest and revolutions…vibrating strings…the logistics of Prom on the Moon…an underground rave scene in flux… marches, sit-ins, and die-ins leading to significant policy changes and new institutions… chasing the boulder back down the hill…
Make a Scene! 2023 focuses on Movement, not only of bodies, but of minds, hearts, communities, the moments we slip free of inertia into freedom, purpose, and connection. Leaps of faith, first or last steps, taking a stand or shaping a wave, a shared hope kindled or crushed, spirals and intersections, convergence and separation, changes of every scale and kind… or maybe you’ll write a cool scenario about kites and fluid dynamics!
This doesn’t mean every scenario at Make a Scene will only be about movement, but each scenario this year will structurally or conceptually include it in some way.
Make your move!
The following scenarios debuted at Make a Scene 2023!
After the End
by Alyse Leung and Will Ober
What happens when a movement’s big moment fizzles? For the last ten years, you and your Celestial Siblings have worked in anticipation of the Blessed Ascension. Spreading the word of the Divine Parent, teaching the new Celestial Cousins as the movement grew…the Sublime Movement was your life. Now that the time for the predicted Blessed Ascension has come and gone, what’s next?
After the End is a game to explore how an unexpected challenge to the meaning of life impacts individuals, and how people choose and maintain group identities and personal beliefs. Its journey starts with the chaos of the immediate aftermath, flashes back to the moment of commitment and a previous crisis of faith, then returns to the group’s decision about the movement’s future. The gameplay can include both humor and heartbreak, depending on how the players steer the narrative.
About the author:
Alyse Leung is a scientist studying how to understand/improve people. She is also an enthusiastic parlor LARPer and occasional oracle card reader. She has co-written two LARPs (Between the Penthouse and the Lobby, and Pictures on Life), NaNoWriMo’d three times, and written an interactive fiction game (A Cup of Clues).
Apogee and Perigee
by Eva Schiffer and Quinn D
Apogee and Perigee is an experimental movement larp where players will rotate in variable orbits as they find themselves closer or further apart in both distance and their expressed opinions. Announced topics will be the tool to increase or decrease a pair’s gravity, eventually leading to their falling out of orbit and finding another to continue with.
This larp explores the bravery of expressing opinions (some of them potentially emotional) in a public space where others may disagree. Players will take on minimal characters in a minimal, modern realistic setting. Most play will take place in pairs and players will rotate who they are paired with many times over the course of the game. The scenario has no climactic conclusion, only an interplay of opinions, discussions and movement.
About the authors:
Quinn has over a decade of experience writing, running, and participating in roleplaying events in a variety of formats and styles. Quinn values the format for its ability to build empathy, educate, explore human existence and create social bonds. Quinn’s recent focus has been on emotional content, identity exploration and empathy building in a visceral and safe manner.
Eva Schiffer is a larpwright and tabletop rpg designer. She has been writing games for more than 10 years and playing for more than 20. She has been the primary organizer for Peaky Midwest since 2014.
Velveteen Heart
by Jon Cole
Children at preschool try to make sense of their stresses at home with the help of their stuffed animal companions. This is a physical play experience, where players literally enact childsplay with plush toys.
Velveteen Heart is about children giving and receiving tender care from stuffed animals in response to stress; it aims for a bittersweet tone. You play little kids with mild and unremarkable problems at home that are nevertheless impactful in their lives. Through play answer the questions: How does a child’s inner life come through make-believe play with their stuffed animal? When hardship comes and fears threaten to overwhelm, who supports who and how? Leave this game feeling a little more grown-up and a little more connected to childlike parts of yourself.
Genre and Tags: feel better, bittersweet, introspective, physical play, guided visualization
About the author: Jon Cole (he/him) is a sex educator and award winning larp designer in the Twin Cities. He has been featured on Leaving Mundania and at Fastaval. When he is not roleplaying, Jon dances to blues music, watches films, and eats ice cream. His design work can be found at joncole.itch.io.
Butterflies and Statues
by Nadia Gillitzer
As seasons cycle, statues along a butterfly migration corridor observe the changes in the world around them. Every year, butterflies pass by, pausing near the statues briefly and moving along their way. What do the butterflies come to expect? What do the statues notice changing? A scenario about silence, stillness, and movement, change and agency.
About the author: Nadia Gillitzer lives in Cedar Rapids, Iowa with her spouse and child. She is a technology trainer by day and an imaginer of better worlds always. You can find her on Twitter: @NStenSpid and at hobbittoes.itch.io .
The Candy Bar War
by Moyra Turkington
1947: When the Canadian government releases wartime price controls on cocoa, the price of candy bars leaps from 5c to 8c overnight – putting them out of reach of the hands of Canadian kids! Join them as they take to the streets in a nationwide boycott, and fight back! A War Birds game to help us remember the power of the little guy. Don’t be a sucker! Knuckle down on nickel bars!
Play this if: You think it would be fun to play a kid between 8 and 17. You enjoy energetic play that makes room for funny moments, important relationships, bittersweet realities and balances solidarity anger and love. You like play that recognizes that the personal is political, and the past isn’t so different from now.
Genre and Tags: Slice of life, real history, labour drama, childhood friendship, getting fucked over by capitalism
About the author: Mo is the creator and curator of the War Birds series of games that feature women (and girls) fighting on the front lines of history. She writes emotionally immersive games that use our past to help us learn to navigate our future.
Graffiti: The Art of Rebellion
by Shawn Roske
In “Graffiti: The Art of Rebellion,” you will play as members of rival graffiti crews, each with their unique styles and messages. The game is designed to capture the essence of being a street artist seeking to express themselves before the public. Your objectives will include creating visually stunning graffiti, conveying your political messages, and outshining rival crews.
The game will unfold in a structured manner, with times scheduled for teams to visit designated locations to create their art. You will have opportunities to work as a team and encounter rival crew’s graffiti at the same location, leading to collaboration, competition, or conflicts.
Experience the thrill of creating art that will be seen by the public, navigate the tensions among rival crews, and face the consequences of your actions. Are you ready to leave your mark on the cityscape and become a legendary graffiti artist?
About the author: Shawn Roske has been a front-line care worker and educator in Ottawa, Canada. He is best known for Last Item on the Agenda, a game about the corporate management of sex for workers and residents of adult group homes. His works can be found at vasistha.itch.io He is the founder of Playstories Canada. He has given talks and sat on panels at conventions, including Gen Con and PAX Unplugged about running RPGs in schools for kids in behavioural programs and autism support programs. He has a Masters degree in Anthropology and post-graduate certification in Behavioural Science and Autism.
Two Giant Leaps
by Julian Blechner and Olivia Montoya
Two alien species make first contact on a planet foreign to both of them, only to discover they have significantly different means of perception and ways of socializing. As a member of one of the species, you desperately need to find common ground. Both species have mastered technology necessary to safely interact physically without any fear of biological contamination. In a series of encounters, you will attempt to accommodate each other’s ways of thinking and interacting by creating a common form of movement and touch-centered communication.
Two Giant Leaps is a scenario about overcoming gaps between different ways of thinking, sensing, and socializing. The scenario utilizes simple, dance-like motions as improvised language. In between cross-species encounters, members of each species will be able to reflect, discuss, and plan. Through a sci-fi lens, players explore themes of human connection, social communication, and various types of empathy, performed with roleplay, movement, and platonic touch.
This scenario’s setting and play builds on lessons learned from disability and neurodiversity activism. It is for 6 to 16 players for about 3-4 hours, including the workshop and debrief. Players will be making physical touch in platonic ways, which will be practiced in the pre-game safety workshop. Social faux pas and miscommunications are a core part of the experience. The rules and workshop will include means for accommodating differences in physical ability.
About the authors:
Olivia Montoya is a queer, latine, neurodivergent creative from the Northeast United States. She is a larp writer, hobbyist designer of games both analog and digital, creator of digital tools for playing analog games online, artist, writer, graphic designer, and a proponent of community building around the DIY ethos and interdependence. She has strong feelings about decentering neurotypicality in roleplaying games and the representation of queer and neurodivergent identities in games. Find out more about her work here: http://www.oliviamontoya.com/
Julian Blechner is a queer, autistic hobbyist game designer with a passion for larp and immersive theater. He has published + run half a dozen live action roleplay games, and previously spend 6 years as a full-time professional virtual worlds content developer. During 9-5, he is a user interface engineer for an energy industry non-profit. He also is an avid folk dancer, and a nationally-known contra dance caller and choreographer. He brings all of this experience and background and loves games that center human connection and elevating compassion as central themes.