What is Planetfall?

Planetfall is the official Oxford LARP Society weekend linear LARP system for 2022-23. It is headed up by Katie, with a supporting Ref team of Anna, James, and Susannah.

Planetfall is, fundamentally, a soft science fantasy sci-fi setting. Sci-fi elements are present, but the science of the world is malleable to fit the narrative of the stories we want to tell. To make it fun to play on a weekly linear basis in the woods, we deliberately have setting elements that make it more practical for the people of the world of Planetfall to fight with swords and sorcery as much if not moreso than guns and missiles. While there is a solid metaphysic underlying everything, the ultimate goal of Planetfall is not to overly restrict actions by the hard rules of physics but to tell good stories and let players have fun.

While set in the dark context of a star system cut off from outside help, Planetfall isn't expected to be all doom and gloom. The worlds of the Keter Borderlands keep on ticking and there are inspiring events to take place as well amongst them as well as the larger concerns of the people.

There is, as you might imagine, a “core” direction to Planetfall: the Keter Borderlands are cut off from outside help due to the Interstellar Gate failing, and the game's scope ultimately ends at the point that is repaired. However, the stories and plots of Planetfall are in no way limited or made “more important” by being about that drive - there are multiple planets and countless people and factions in the world here, all of which have machinations, motivations, and means of their own. We consider every story within Planetfall to be equally important regardless of what it concerns or whether it's a “big” adventure.

We don't know what the world will throw at us, or how long the system will last before it wants to bow out, but at time of writing we're assuming that we will be running Planetfall on a weekly basis from January 2022 until at least the end of April 2023 after the OLS AGM. If we renew the system at the AGM (as we are probably hoping to do at least twice), we would run again for a year each time, with plots and story planned out to meet that length of time. Each year we would expect to start or revitalise new plots in order to keep the world ticking and ensure that new and old players have the same opportunity to interact with the world.

Venue and world permitting, we would like to run at least one weekend-long event per year to delve into a particular area in great detail. We are still working out the details of this, and whether it will be viable in 2022, though, so that's still pending.