One of the ritual demon-strations staged by the players took place in the front of the US embassy. The techno-magical equipment used by the players caught the attention of the police, who showed up with a riot vehicle.
za j. stenros, m. montola & a. waern post mortem interaction: social play modes in momentum
[The police] came with, you know, a whole strike force, you know, these buses, it was a full bus, but only the two people in the front came out, because the other, they were suddenly in there prepared with submachine guns and everything, in the car. […] And, and they came out with you know their hands on the guns and walked up to us […] [T]hey were really jumpy, and they started to explain that this is a game, and of course that was the easiest explanation. It, we didn’t break the Prosopopeia proposal, but we explained it to the cops that this is a game, because it’s an easy thing to say. (player post-game interview)
Prosopopeia, a pervasive Larp event based on an alternate reality aesthetics. In this game, every design choice was informed by the wish to keep the game as close to reality as possible. We conclude that the approach is indeed both possible and promising, and identify some suggestions for improvements.