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A live action role-playing game (LARP) is a form of role-playing game where the participants physically portray their characters. The players pursue goals within a fictional setting represented by real-world environments while interacting with each other in character. The outcome of player actions may be mediated by game rules or determined by consensus among players. Event arrangers called gamemasters decide the setting and rules to be used and facilitate play.
A role-playing game is a game in which players assume the roles of characters in a fictional setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within a narrative, either through literal acting or through a process of structured decision-making regarding character development. Actions taken within many games succeed or fail according to a formal system of rules and guidelines.
Spider Robinson is an American-born Canadian science fiction author. He has won a number of awards for his hard science fiction and humorous stories, including the Hugo Award 1977 and 1983, and another Hugo with his co-author and wife Jeanne Robinson in 1978.
Legend Entertainment Company was an American developer and publisher of computer games, best known for creating adventure titles throughout the 1990s. The company was founded by Bob Bates and Mike Verdu, both veterans of the interactive fiction studio Infocom that shut down in 1989. Legend's first two games, Spellcasting 101: Sorcerers Get All the Girls and Timequest, had strong sales that sustained the company. Legend also profited from negotiating licenses to popular book series, allowing them to create notable game adaptations such as Companions of Xanth and Gateway. Legend also earned a reputation for comedic adventures, with numerous awards for Eric the Unready in 1993. As the technology of the game industry changed, Legend continued to expand its game engine to take advantage of higher graphical fidelity, mouse support, and the increased media storage of the compact disc.
At the Mountains of Madness is a science fiction-horror novella by American author H. P. Lovecraft, written in February/March 1931. Rejected that year by Weird Tales editor Farnsworth Wright on the grounds of its length, it was originally serialized in the February, March, and April 1936 issues of Astounding Stories. It has been reproduced in numerous collections.
Callahan's Place is a fictional bar with strongly community-minded and empathetic clientele, part of the fictional universe of American writer Spider Robinson. It appears in the Callahan's Crosstime Saloon stories along with its sequels Time Travelers Strictly Cash and Callahan's Secret; most of the beloved barflies appear in the further sequels The Callahan Touch, Callahan's Legacy, Callahan's Key, and Callahan's Con, and the computer game.
Randolph Carter is a recurring fictional character created by H. P. Lovecraft. The character first appears in "The Statement of Randolph Carter", a short story Lovecraft wrote in 1919 based on one of his dreams. An American magazine called The Vagrant published the story in May 1920. Carter appears in seven stories written or co-written by Lovecraft, and has since appeared in stories by other authors.
This page lists board and card games, wargames, miniatures games, and tabletop role-playing games published in 1991. For video games, see 1991 in video gaming.
"It was a dark and stormy night" is an often-mocked and parodied phrase considered to represent "the archetypal example of a florid, melodramatic style of fiction writing", also known as purple prose.
GURPS Callahan's Crosstime Saloon is a sourcebook for GURPS. It is a part of the extensive GURPS "generic" roleplaying system.
Robert Bates is an American computer game designer. One of the early designers of interactive fiction games, he was co-founder of Challenge, Inc., which created games in the 1980s for the pioneering company Infocom. After Infocom's dissolution in 1989, Bates co-founded Legend Entertainment to continue publishing games in the Infocom tradition, but with added graphics. Notable games that he has designed, written, or produced include Unreal II (2003), Spider-Man 3 (2007), and Eric the Unready (1993), listed as Adventure Game of the Year by Computer Gaming World magazine and also included on the 1996 list of "150 best games of all time". In 1998 he wrote the award-winning game Quandaries for the U.S. Department of Justice. He has twice been the chairperson of the International Game Developers Association, which honored him with a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2010. Bates has written extensively about game design and development in works such as the 2001 book Game Design: The Art and Business of Creating Games, which is commonly used as a game design textbook in college courses. From 2011–2014, Bates was Chief Creative Officer for External Studios at Zynga. He continues to work as an independent consultant with various publishers in the games industry.
The Whisperer in Darkness is a 26,000-word novella by American writer H. P. Lovecraft. Written February–September 1930, it was first published in Weird Tales, August 1931. Similar to The Colour Out of Space (1927), it is a blend of horror and science fiction. Although it makes numerous references to the Cthulhu Mythos, the story is not a central part of the mythos, but reflects a shift in Lovecraft's writing at this time towards science fiction. The story also introduces the Mi-Go, an extraterrestrial race of fungoid creatures.
Live action role-playing games, known as LARPs, are a form of role-playing game in which live players/actors assume roles as specific characters and play out a scenario in-character. Technically, many childhood games may be thought of as simple LARPs, as they often involve the assumption of character roles. However, the scope of this article concerns itself mainly with LARPing in a technical sense: the organized live-action role-playing games whose origins are closely related to the invention of tabletop role-playing games in America in the 1970s.
Tales from the Floating Vagabond is a science-fiction role-playing game by Lee Garvin, published by Avalon Hill in 1991. It has the tagline "Ludicrous Adventure in a Universe Whose Natural Laws Are Out To Lunch".
Alexander "Sandy" Antunes, is a Maryland-area astronomer, author, and role playing game designer. He graduated from Boston University in 1989 with a dual major in astronomy and physics, received a master's degree in astronomy from Penn State in 1992, and received his PhD in computational astrophysics from George Mason University in 2005. He is an associate professor of Astronautical Engineering at Capitol Technology University.
Josh Mandel is an American video game writer, designer, voice actor, and producer. He worked on computer games such as King's Quest V, The Dagger of Amon Ra, Freddy Pharkas: Frontier Pharmacist, Space Quest 6, and Callahan's Crosstime Saloon.
Tarzan is a Disney media franchise that commenced in 1999 with the theatrical release of the film Tarzan, based on the character Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs.
Callahan's Crosstime Saloon is a 1997 graphic adventure game developed by Legend Entertainment and published by Take-Two Interactive. Based on the Callahan's Place book series by author Spider Robinson, the game follows Jake Stonebender, narrator of the books, through six discrete comic science fiction adventures. Taking the role of Jake, the player solves puzzles, converses with characters from the Callahan's Place series and visits locations such as the Amazon rainforest, Transylvania and outer space.
Michael Verdu is an American manager and producer and author of computer games.
References
- Rice, Scott (1986). Son of "It Was a Dark and Stormy Night" (1st ed.). New York, NY: Penguin. ISBN 0-14-008839-3.
- Rice, Scott (1988). Bride of Dark and Stormy (1st ed.). New York, NY: Penguin. ISBN 014010304X.