Interview:
Interview with fantasy novelist and Alliance LARP founder Michael A. Ventrella - Part 2

Part 1 of this Interview is available here

Tara M Clapper: In your opinion, what has happened to NERO since the big split?

Michael A. Ventrella: I am not sure exactly but I have been contacted more than once (and recently too) by some of the NERO chapters wanting to join the Alliance for various reason I won't go into here. I've said no to every one though, because they want to be able to keep playing their NERO characters with all their powers and magic items and such. It's not fair to my players to allow someone else to come into my game at 43rd level that he earned in two years by buying experience points with real money or by just playing a different system with a less likely chance of character death and so on. You can't import your World of Warcraft character into Dragon Age, either.

And some of them want to keep their rules variants too. You see, in NERO, each chapter has its own rules on top of the national set of rules, which means if you take your character from one chapter to another, there are all sorts of new rules you have to learn first. That doesn't happen in the Alliance. If it's not in our rule book, it doesn't exist. We want you traveling to new places to learn their plots, not their rules.

So unless they are willing to start a new game at first level and use all our rules and no others, I'm going to keep saying no.

TMC: Were the legal difficulties involving NERO the sole impetus for creating Faire Play, a medieval-style faire ground for LARPs and similar organizations?

MAV: No, it had nothing to do with it. NERO plays no part in any of my decision-making. We've always wanted to own our own site (doesn't every LARP?) and with other Alliance friends, we pitched in our savings, started a corporation and bought the land. Not having to deal with camps that don't understand what we're doing is so refreshing, and being able to run all summer is great, too. The site is available to rent for other LARPs, too. Next year we already have four other LARPs reserving weekends. We wanted to create the kind of place we always wanted to rent from!