Our group is based out of Los Angeles and consists of a handful of veteran burners, all in some way, shape, or form, related to nerdy or geeky pursuits. Our goal is to be a beacon for nerds, geeks, and gamers from all across Black Rock City as a place for them to gather, meet other like-minded folk, and set out on adventures together. Nightcrawlers will serve as the new home of PlayaRPG, which will be its 5th year running in Black Rock City.

PlayaRPG is an interactive, playa-wide, week-long role playing game. In it, players (heroes!) choose their class and receive quests at the camp. The goal of the game is for them to complete and turn in five quests without losing all of their Health Points over the course of the week. Each quest gets significantly more difficult depending on the level, varying from quests that ask players to find certain things, or pick up moop, to find a hidden art piece in deep playa, all the way to finding and visiting other camps and participating in their activities. We work hard to have the quests and plotline reflect the Ten Principles, encouraging players to not only absorb the principles, but to actually act on them. It was created as a way to call out to all of the nerds and geeks and gamers of Burning Man, letting them know that they’re not alone, but also as an inclusive way to include others who may be unfamiliar with role-playing, LARPing, gaming, or geeky stuff in a fun, unique way at Burning Man. The game is purposely made to be inclusive to anyone at the Burn, so that you don’t need prior knowledge in order to play.

PlayaRPG was created to fill the nerdy void the creator felt during her first year, but also for a city (albeit a temporary one), our communities could be doing more to interact with each other. Often times at the Burn it feels as though each camp holds itself as an autonomous unit, and rather than a network of camps, many times exploration feels like walking between separate silos, each camp its own world. PlayaRPG creates an opportunity for a more networked city structure, linking camps to one another so that they’re working together, rather than separately. As such, each year we reach out to camps to ask them to participate in PlayaRPG as quest locations, where we send players to go and visit camps and people they may not normally have stopped at, linking the camps of Burning Man into a Playa-wide network of activity and gaming.

Each year we’ve ran PlayaRPG, it’s gotten better and better. Having a whole themed camp to use as home base, along with engaged camp members will only serve to make this year the best yet! As such, any members of Nightcrawlers will be expected to help coordinate and run PlayaRPG in various capacities, both prior to the Burn and during the week of the Burn.

You can find PlayaRPG’s digital presence below, where there are some photos, images, and descriptions, but not enough, and what’s there barely scrapes the surface.  

https://www.facebook.com/PlayaRPG/