Stanford Gaming Society
Stanford Gaming Society
- Location
- Stanford, CA, USA
- Genre
- Theatre-style
- Established
- 2001
- Website
- Stanford Gaming Society
The Stanford Gaming Society was a gaming club at Stanford University in California, USA. It ran small theatre-style larps in the MIT Assassins' Guild style several times a year, generally monthly or less frequently. Occasionally games were run in other theatre styles as well, including the original SGS/Stanford style games, which generally involve more roleplay and fewer mechanics. Since 2016, the Humans vs. Zombies community at Stanford had become associated with the Stanford Gaming Society.
While the Stanford Gaming Society was been around since 2001, LARPs were only been run by the group since 2003. The creation of the SGS/Stanford style of LARP is attributed to J Li in 2003.[1] Most LARPs run at Stanford were four-hour or shorter one-shots, though in the past there were weekend-long and week-long games. The week-long games were known as "Epic LARP" and were generally played over Spring Break during the 2000s. Eventually, when the local LARP culture was beginning to fade, an MIT Assassins' Guild alum who came to study at Stanford reignited the SGS LARP community by introducing it to MIT Assassins' Guild style LARPs.
The Stanford Gaming Society also ran "Guild Camps", an event originating from the MIT Assassins' Guild. Guild Camp is a LARP writing and GMing boot camp that teaches prospective LARP writers and GMs to write and run an MIT Assassins' Guild Style LARP over the course of two weeks. Guild Camp is held once a year, during Spring Break and the following week.
It was common for SGS alumni to continue to play and GM games in association with the SGS, and some of these people have gone on to run LARPs they have written at Bay Area conventions and beyond. A group of these alumni also formed the Luminary Roleplay Society, which runs mostly games written at Stanford, both SGS style and MIT Assassins' Guild style, but is open to players from around the San Francisco Bay Area. One Stanford-written game associated with the Luminary Roleplay Society, "A Reunion at Katmeers," was run at Intercon S.
The Stanford Gaming Society has since dissolved, sometime after 2017.
References
- ↑ Living Games Conference, Fifth Round of Keynoters Announced. Retreived 18 November 2018.