Why we have to learn Danish
I have quite recently been told that the Danish Friform-scene is superior to the Swedish. That didn't lead me to try prove it right or wrong. When Martin Svahn from Frispel told me almost the same thing again during LinCon this weekend I just had to look it up and compare.
If we only count free, dowloadable scenarios the selection in Danish is far beyond the one in Swedish. The largest selection of Swedish scenarios that I know of is Sveroks Scenariobanken. Compare this with Alexandria that claim to feature over 2500 scenarios in Danish (a lot of this is not friform, of course). But don't start there! Instead, go to Project Rlyeh. Their claim to fame is having one hundred of the best scenarios from Danish Cons. Some of these are system based, but most aren't. I haven't look at everything, of course, but what I have seen so far is really impressive. (All these links may be found to the right.)
I will better my Danish. But at the moment learning Turkish takes up most of my learning language-slots.
If we only count free, dowloadable scenarios the selection in Danish is far beyond the one in Swedish. The largest selection of Swedish scenarios that I know of is Sveroks Scenariobanken. Compare this with Alexandria that claim to feature over 2500 scenarios in Danish (a lot of this is not friform, of course). But don't start there! Instead, go to Project Rlyeh. Their claim to fame is having one hundred of the best scenarios from Danish Cons. Some of these are system based, but most aren't. I haven't look at everything, of course, but what I have seen so far is really impressive. (All these links may be found to the right.)
I will better my Danish. But at the moment learning Turkish takes up most of my learning language-slots.
posted by Sven Holmström at 8:05 pm
4 Comments:
Short-time lurker, first-time poster. Just want to make a correction: Alexandria is like the IMDb of Danish roleplay. Its main purpose is that of a RPG/convention/scenario history repository. There are plans to expand the system to include reviews and more, and it's a good place for the writers to link to online scenarios.
Like so:
http://alexandria.dk/data?person=34
Thank you for the input, but I don't see how this is a 'correction'. What you say can quite easily be understood from the homepage, but I choose not to mention that. But your notion is still very important.
It's a very cool project, they seem to really publish most scenarios from Danish cons. I wish we had something like this in Sweden! But I can't see how that would be possible here. There must be a difference betweem Denmark and Sweden.
Question one: Quite a number of the Swedish con-scenarios are made by RPG-crews, where the friform groups often try to sell their scenarios afterwards and the commercial RPG companies probably won't give away their stuff to a webpage like that. Is the situation very different in Denmark?
Question two: Do you think I'm right if I say that con scenarios over al is more important for Danish RPG? Might a reason for this be that Sweden has a lot more of commercial RPG:s in the own language (we have)?
Okay, fair enough - I felt Alexandria was being compared to Sverok. Btw., there are plans to expand Alexandria to Sweden as well.
Good questions, and I will give them some real thought, rather than start guessing on behalf of the whole community. But some general comments:
The convention scene is completely non-commercial (as regards scenarios). As you can probably tell from Alexandria there are plenty of people involved in writing convention scenarios. A large number of these are not tied in to any established system, and a number of those I would label freeform. There are a couple of groupings that help write and run scenarios for each other, but they're not in it for the money.
Most new scenarios have their debut at either Fastaval (in Aarhus) or Viking-con (in Copenhagen), and then the best are rerun at smaller conventions (each of those two con offers approx. 20-30 new scenarios every year). The strong, written scenario-tradition originated at Fastaval. An important turning point was the Otto-institution, started in 1992: the idea was to award prizes to the best scenarios. It might be a silly, painted plaster statue, but it's a strong symbol of peer recognition, and today it has real importance in motivating writers and improving the quality of the scenarios. Apart from the statue, you also get the added bonus of an organised feedback system, with comments from players and critique from the jury.
One current discussion is wheter to include live RPG scenarios in the Ottos. It seems like a natural progression, given how freeform pushes the boundaries on how to roleplay.
"Okay, fair enough - I felt Alexandria was being compared to Sverok. Btw., there are plans to expand Alexandria to Sweden as well."
As often before I didnät express myself clear enough. To role playing Swedes what I wrote should have been clear, but perhaps not for anyone else. My aim with this blog is of course to be readable by Danes, Americans asa well as Swedes. Thanks for the comments, I will shape up!
An expansion to Swedish would be very welcome. At least by me! As i said it might be hard to have the same level of funtionality here.
"The strong, written scenario-tradition originated at Fastaval. An important turning point was the Otto-institution, started in 1992: the idea was to award prizes to the best scenarios."
We would need something like this over here. I can't say for sure that it's true, but I know that I'm not the only one to think that scenarios over all are loosing ground in Swedish cons.
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