States of Play (+DVD)

This book provides a snapshot of a design movement at a particular moment in time. It's a forum for new design ideas, but also an attempt to document the games we are making for posterity. By necessity, it's a confused collection, since making sense of what's happening now is a luxury that's only available to us after the fact. Because of this, the categories of "Art and Design" and "Documentation" are joined by "New Frontiers", articles that explore concepts and phenomena new to the Nordic larp scene.

As befits the collective, collaborative and co-creative nature of roleplaying, most of the ideas I've had about this book were stolen from somewhere else. The documentation articles follow the lead of the Danish Do Larp book and Stenros and Montola's Nordic Larp. The physical dimensions of this book were cribbed from Larp, the Universe and Everything, the Norwegian Knutepunkt book of 2009. The variant covers were inspired by the ultra-rare "white edition" of the 2011 Knudepunkt book Think Larp.

Along with all this there's a DVD of video documentation and other larp ephemera included with this book. If you get tired of reading, give it a shot.

This is but the latest in a long line of Solmukohta books. During the years, the idea of what a Solmukohta book is has changed and mutated, following various ideals and necessities. As Larp Grows Up in 2003 collected manifestoes and other documents in one place. Beyond Role and Play in 2004 fought hard for respectability, even academic credibility. Last year, the Danes published a trio of books: Talk Larp for rants, Think Larp for academic articles and Do Larp for documentation.

There is freedom in making a Solmukohta book after so much has been accomplished. Academic writing about roleplaying games has its own venues, leaving us to take a more essayistic approach. I'd say the fight for credibility has been won, so we're free to focus on what's truly interesting.

It is my hope that there's something here that makes you think, something that makes you want to play games and make them, and something that makes you angry, delighted or inspired enough to write an article for next year's book.