Cien Anos De Soledad

It was the game from South America. There was a small settlements Macondo in the middle of the rainforest mostly separated from the rest of the world. The story of the game was heavily inspired by the book Hundred years of solitude from the Gabriel Garcia Marquez. The mechanics were created for sole purpose of transferring the feeling of magic realism and his stories to the players and as far as I can tell the organizers succeeded but more about that later.
The game was played in the southern part of Czech republic in two small buildings with campsite which was borrowed for this purpose. It served its purpose in a great way really resembling the feeling of Macondo. At least for the Czech larp culture, the team decided to use quite a lot of mechanics that are mostly experimental for the Czech larp scene. The game was intended for 31 players playing 11 characters and lasted for approximately 30 hours where 8 hours were designed for sleeping with no game content in this time.
Game mechanics
- Triplets/ Triplication of the character — There were only 11 characters and therefore more or less for every character there were multiple players playing this character. What does it mean? That there were three players who had the same instructions. Each of them was interpreting these instructions in different ways that they to some extent decided before the game. They could also play the inner voices to other players from triplet. As from the outside world, it was up to the players to interpret this as they want in given context. They could decide that now they see three friends talking or that they feel the internal struggle playing in the character’s head.
- Multiple characters per player — Not only multiple players played on character but the same triplet also played multiple characters for the duration of the larp. There was a character known as Santiago. He came to the village in the beginning and lived his life until he died. Then he was born in the village again and played another life, which had different theme o some extent and then he died and was born again. And the same three players played all these three different incarnations of the Santiago.
- Cause and Effect? — The meaning of different events during the game was rather fluid. To express this in a way which will be accessible to more players, there was a mechanic known as “chocolates” it meant that you could give chocolate to another player and ask him this way to replay some of the scenes from the past, either some that were actually played or some you need to have in the shared history. The player who was giving the chocolate could also define what the outcome of the scene should be. It was up to the players that viewed the scene, to interpret it either as an objective reality or reinterpretation of the objective reality by one of the characters.
- Scenes — The game was divided into the 11 scenes lasting for approximately 2 hours each. Each of the character incarnations lasted for some amount of the scenes. From 1 to all 11. In order to know in which phase of the character we are, there were 11 pieces of Indian corn hanging on the wall. The authors were hanging ribbons of the appropriate color for each character on the correct scene for the character from the left to the right. The content for the scenes was written using fate play technique and we read them when the character was born.
- How long does it take? — The game spanned over several generations of the people living in the same village. Therefore there were multiple ways for the interpretation of the time and simplest was that only important time is now and past. By that I mean that event is happening either right now or somewhere in past or might happen in some time in the future. It wasn’t of any importance when exactly a thing happened.
- I am a ghost — After the character died but before he was reborn, the players of the characters were playing the ghost of the character and could interact with the other players. Their interactions were limited but not by much.
- I wanna sleep with you (Sex) — Th mechanic was also named as caramel on the stick. If you wanted to play a sexual scene with someone you took two caramels on the stick and went to the character and touched at most lightly, like caressing the hair a bit but nothing explicitly erotic and then gave them the caramel on the stick and each of you was expressively playing the mechanic using his own caramel on the stick.
- There is a new piece of clothing for me — Every character had a color which was representing attraction to someone and another one that represented someone is their fate. The basic costume of all players was a combination of only black and white. The organizers were giving and also taking away color pieces of clothing from the characters. These pieces of clothing were symbolizing either the attraction or fate based on the color. Every character had their own unique colors for these two concepts.
Workshops

There was only one workshop that caught my attention and that was when we were taught how the life goes in the South America. We were playing a part of the carnival. The scene always started with having fun and dancing around and ended with a brawl and step by step we were moving more toward how that would look like in the different culture. At first, it was played in the way we would do it, then we moved to escalating it differently and in the end, we went to a role of women in deescalating the conflicts.
Other than that the workshops seemed well thought out at least to me and they transferred the mechanics described above as well as the style of the game and a bit about the realia of the place on the different continent with a culture different from our own.
My story (Spoiler alert — If you intend to play the game think twice about reading this part.)
I played Santiago. We played Santiago.
Santiago, children who died before growing up
I, Santiago, was born outside of Macondo and came with my aunt and uncle. At first, they seemed to care a bit about me and I didn’t mind the decision of my parents but when their own children were born they started ignoring me. I disliked my brothers and tried fighting them but this was theirs home and not mine and therefore I became lonely except for the younger sister who was coming up with games we all played and I enjoyed playing with her. One of the games was a game of courage. In this game, we were proving our courage. I have never failed to prove my courage, but over the course of the time we went too far and my sister was asked to do a deed which was just plain stupidity. I went to fulfill it instead of her and this killed me. I died for the first time in Macondo.
Santiago, man who never belongs
I was born in the Macondo to the house of grandma Ursula. I didn’t even know my mother. My father abandoned me. I was alone in a place I didn’t understand. Only one who seemed to care about me was my aunt Amarantha. I enjoyed the time with here. I enjoyed the time when we slept together in bed when I was afraid. I enjoyed her caressing.
But then I grew up, I became a young adult and I had to prove myself. I had to become someone and therefore I followed Aureliano to the civil war .I was fighting on his side until one day I left back for home. I didn’t want to live through the horrors of the war any longer. I simply wanted to live as a man and woman with my aunt. I came back and was a hero for the rest of the village. I tried persuading my aunt and even though she loved me as well as I loved her she refused my proposals and I wasn’t strong enough. I accepted her refusal.
Then we were together and we weren’t together at the same time. I hated every moment at this time. At first, I hated explosively but then, later on, I was just bitter about my life. I was trying to kill the memories by drinking cheap liquor in the pub, but it wasn’t helping. Later on, my aunt died and I cried for her, for my life, for everything that could have been and now never will be. I carried her to the grave alone. Thank god the death came early when I was lying, again. I told the attackers that I am lieutenant Santiago, I am the legend whom it was impossible to kill and they killed me and left the village.
Santiago, just a shell for the dreams of others
I was born in Macondo and this time, I knew my mother and father. Everyone in the village wanted me to be someone and I was too weak, I tried to be everything at once. The strongest of this wishes was a wish of my mother. A wish to become a religious man, even a dream of me becoming a pope one day and then when time came I left for Rome, for studies, for becoming someone.
I failed. I left the studies month after coming to the Rome. I was simply enjoying all the fruits of life. I was partying endlessly. There was nothing I would deem forbidden, but then I had to come back to Macondo. I wanted a pleasurable life so I was pretending and lying, again. I persuaded the others that I am here for just some time and that I am still studying. It worked and so I partied here, I was just concealing it more.
The time came and I was earning money from trusting old women whom I was sending the recipes for medicine that couldn’t have worked. I didn’t care anymore about the way people will look at me in Macondo. I wanted to show them the Rome, to show them the decadence of the old world. And I was succeeding and I was failing and then I remained alone. Nobody would sit next to me and I didn’t care and when I died, there was nobody left, it was as if Macondo have never existed.
Conclusion
If you don’t mind experimenting and cause and effect aren’t that important for you, if you love the books of Gabriel Garcia Marquez or if you want to enjoy well written dramatic larp go there. It is definitely worth the time and the money you will put into it.
The game worked for me for most of the time. There were only two times where in one time the scene took too long which made it rather exhausting to live through. In this scene the character was in the complicated relationship with an older woman and living it for two hours would be ok, having to live it for approx. 4 hours was akin to hell. The second one was the end of the game where everything had to happen very fast and was followed by a ritual which then took about the half hour of the time. Therefore there wasn’t enough time for me to play the character in a way which would be believable to me.
I was surprised how well the mechanics worked together in the creation of the world where the real and bizarre was blending in a mix which made some weird kind of sense. I didn’t like the sex mechanic but using other techniques it was possible to work around it, Most of the other players seemed to like it quite well. What I would like to see more in other games is a usage of the “chocolates”. Even without the mechanic the players could talk more about the memories and in a way also create shared memories if they need them. There were some issues in the game due to the fate play mechanic but at least from my point of view it wasn’t that bad considering how fragile this mechanic can be.
I also loved how the whole game gave me lots of opportunities to decide on the interpretation of a character, scenes, and mechanics.
