Knutepunkt

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The Knutepunkt is an annual role-playing game conference held annually in the Nordic countries since 1997. It has been a vital institution in establishing a Nordic role-playing identity, and in establishing the concept of "Nordic larp" as a unique approach. Though the conference started out strictly as a Live action role-playing (larp for short) event, it has since embraced role-playing games in a more general fashion. Today the conference still has an emphasis on larp, but programs devoted to traditional tabletop role-playing as well as newer arrivals such as freeform are common.

A live action role-playing avant-garde movement, which pursues radical experimentation and the recognition of role-playing as a form of art, has been connected to the Knutepunkt conferences. The scope of the Knutepunkt conference has expanded rather rapidly over the last few years with participants showing up from numerous non-Scandinavian countries. Since about 2003 Knutepunkt has seen participants from the United States, Germany, France, Poland, Italy, Russia, Estonia, Belarus, Belgium, the Netherlands, Israel, Czech Republic, United Kingdom and Austria, among others.

Name

Knutepunkt is Norwegian for "meeting point" or "knot point" as it can be directly translated as, and locally the term is translated into Swedish Knutpunkt, Danish Knudepunkt and Finnish Solmukohta. The name of the convention refers to the point where two pieces of rope or string joins in a knot, and varies with the organizing country.

History

The organising country changes each year in this order: Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland.