FARCE by Patrick Blenkarn, Laurel Green, and Milton Lim
FARCE (Fictional Arts: Reimagining Creative Ecosystems) is a role-playing tabletop card game and incubator for imagining an arts ecosystem.
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Concept and Design: Patrick Blenkarn, Laurel Green, and Milton Lim Game Masters (performers and co-creators): Patrick Blenkarn, Laurel Green, Marcos Krivocapich, Gilles Poulin-Denis, Nikki Shaffeeullah. |
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Welcome to the FARCE. Your ‘fictional’ arts economy has been disrupted in the wake of a global crisis and you are called upon to work together with others in your region to adapt.
FARCE is a role-playing tabletop card game and incubator for imagining an arts ecosystem. Presented and played over multiple days, participants work together to fill out a map as they take up residence in an imagined city and commit to role playing as unique characters—Agents, Artists, Presenters. With each draw of a card, players must tackle challenges, liaise with and assist other characters, design creative responses, and address the urgent needs in their community. Designed to be played by arts workers, FARCE circumvents usual arts industry roles, hierarchies, and positional powers by placing players in a fictional narrative where they are emboldened to role-play cultural design.
Drawing inspiration from popular games like Dungeons & Dragons and The Quiet Year, this is a participatory team event that balances quirky think-tank problem solving with a commitment to multi-session collaborative storytelling.
FARCE was commissioned and originally presented by Canadian Association for the Performing Arts / Association Canadienne des Organismes Artistiques (CAPACOA) as part of the 2021 Reboot Conference where 30 participants (artists, producers, and presenters from around the world) committed to 8 hours of wild role playing over 4 days.
Outcomes from the game were shared at FARCE’s Awesome Town Hall, complete with a Log of Challenges that detail the approaches to solving systemic challenges designed in each region.
FARCE is a role-playing tabletop card game and incubator for imagining an arts ecosystem. Presented and played over multiple days, participants work together to fill out a map as they take up residence in an imagined city and commit to role playing as unique characters—Agents, Artists, Presenters. With each draw of a card, players must tackle challenges, liaise with and assist other characters, design creative responses, and address the urgent needs in their community. Designed to be played by arts workers, FARCE circumvents usual arts industry roles, hierarchies, and positional powers by placing players in a fictional narrative where they are emboldened to role-play cultural design.
Drawing inspiration from popular games like Dungeons & Dragons and The Quiet Year, this is a participatory team event that balances quirky think-tank problem solving with a commitment to multi-session collaborative storytelling.
FARCE was commissioned and originally presented by Canadian Association for the Performing Arts / Association Canadienne des Organismes Artistiques (CAPACOA) as part of the 2021 Reboot Conference where 30 participants (artists, producers, and presenters from around the world) committed to 8 hours of wild role playing over 4 days.
Outcomes from the game were shared at FARCE’s Awesome Town Hall, complete with a Log of Challenges that detail the approaches to solving systemic challenges designed in each region.
Presentations
