NERO International
Encyclopedia
Overview
NERO International is a live action role-playing gameLive action role-playing game
A live action role-playing game is a form of role-playing game where the participants physically act out their characters' actions. The players pursue goals within a fictional setting represented by the real world, while interacting with each other in character. The outcome of player actions may...
(LARP) played in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
. The NERO name originally was an acronym for "New England Role playing Organization", but the game has expanded well beyond its original New England
New England
New England is a region in the northeastern corner of the United States consisting of the six states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut...
roots and thus simply adopted the acronym as part of the official name.
NERO is a lightest touch "boffer" style LARP that uses simulated combat with padded weapons. At a NERO event, players gather at a group campsite (often a State
State park
State parks are parks or other protected areas managed at the federated state level within those nations which use "state" as a political subdivision. State parks are typically established by a state to preserve a location on account of its natural beauty, historic interest, or recreational...
or National Park
National park
A national park is a reserve of natural, semi-natural, or developed land that a sovereign state declares or owns. Although individual nations designate their own national parks differently A national park is a reserve of natural, semi-natural, or developed land that a sovereign state declares or...
) on weekends reserved by the local chapter. A group of staff members write the plot and story for the event, while a cast of volunteer NPC
Non-player character
A non-player character , sometimes known as a non-person character or non-playable character, in a game is any fictional character not controlled by a player. In electronic games, this usually means a character controlled by the computer through artificial intelligence...
s play the roles of monsters and townspeople, helping to sustain the illusion that the campsite in the woods is actually a medieval-fantasy town. The heroes of the event (or PCs
Player character
A player character or playable character is a character in a video game or role playing game who is controlled or controllable by a player, and is typically a protagonist of the story told in the course of the game. A player character is a persona of the player who controls it. Player characters...
), play the part of adventurers, nobility, and various ne'er-do-wells that are spending the weekend in that location. Most chapters run an average of six to ten events a year.
Over the course of an event, characters earn treasure in the form of gold and silver coins (actually brass and nickel tokens minted for the game), magical components, or enchanted items through battle with fantasy monsters and by solving puzzles or other challenges. Characters also earn experience points for surviving the weekend which they can use to buy more skills and become more powerful.
History of the New England Role Playing Organization
The first gatherings that would later become NERO were held by Ford IveyFord Ivey
Ford Ivey, sometimes called the Grandfather of NERO, is the founder of several live action role-playing games, including NERO International, Shandlin’s Ferry, Wildlands, The Isles, a live version of Call of Cthulhu, and his newest game, The Osiris Sanction...
in rural Massachusetts, under the name "Weekend Warriors" in 1986 after he was inspired by a New Hampshire gamecalled "Midrealms Adventures". Over about two years, along with around two dozen friends, they refined their rules and learned more about running live action games amongst themselves, until in March 1988 they began to work on a new concept in LARPing. Instead of each game being a separate game with separate characters and each game having a single linear plot-line, they began to work on a LARP with a single game world, persistent characters, and multiple overlapping and long-term plotlines.
In fall of 1989 they changed their name to the New England Role playing Organization and began to operate larger events. The first event in April 1989 drew approximately 150 participants, and the game slowly grew over the next three years to be a very popular past-time in the Massachusetts area. By 1991, weekend event attendance peaked between 300 and 500 participants and the organization boasted over 1,300 paid members.
In September 1991, Issue #173 of Dragon
Dragon (magazine)
Dragon is one of the two official magazines for source material for the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game and associated products, the other being Dungeon. TSR, Inc. originally launched the monthly printed magazine in 1976 to succeed the company's earlier publication, The Strategic Review. The...
magazine published an article about NERO, which elicited broader interest from the role playing community. Suddenly, NERO was a nationally-known game, and players began to travel to events from across the United States and Canada, increasing event attendance to more than 700 participants.
In 1998, Joseph Valenti purchased NERO from Ford Ivey and began aggressively expanding NERO into new parts of the US and Canada by selling franchise licenses to people who wished to open and operate a local chapter in their area.
Over the years, a number of chapters or groups of chapters have broken away from NERO to form their own, separate organizations. Among these are LAIRE (as featured in Role Models
Role Models
Role Models is a 2008 American comedy film directed by David Wain about two energy drink salesmen who are ordered to perform 150 hours of community service as punishment for various offenses. For their service, the two men work at a program designed to pair kids with adult role models. The film...
), Southern Organization for Live Action Re-enactments (SOLAR), Alliance LARP
Alliance larp
The Alliance LARP, formerly NERO Alliance, is one of the larger live action role playing groups in the United States with ten chapters and hundreds of members.- Overview :...
, and Heroic Interactive Theater.
The Tyrran Campaign Setting
The setting of NERO is the world of Tyrra, a medieval fantasy world full of swords, sorcery, and monsters. The normal NERO campaign is set on the continent of Avalon. The world map of Tyrra very roughly resembles Earth, with Avalon being in the position of North America. Other continents generally only appear as elements of rumor and lore, or as the source of travelers (or enemies) from afar.The level of technology on Tyrra is roughly equivalent to the early 16th century, with Copernican astronomy, intercontinental navigation, crude chemistry, and clock-making being on the cutting edge of the sciences. Firearms do not exist, although gunpowder-like explosives have been created (and can be used as traps or bombs). Culturally, there is a blend of societies and cultures, most inspired by various historic sources from the ancient and medieval world, although it generally resembles Renaissance Europe, with small enclaves or regions having dissimilar cultures.