Ovčina 2025 – A LARP for kids and adults

The LARP phenomenon has been with us for decades. As participants grow older, new generations of players emerge, and parent-larpers are looking for larping pastimes where they can involve their own children.

Most events are aimed at adults or “children” from the age of fifteen, but you can also find larps or wood-battles organized for younger participants. Ovčina is quite unique in this regard, as it offers fun for players of practically all age groups – from the youngest ones to seasoned veterans.

Ovčina takes place every year in the forests near Veselá by Valašské Meziříčí. Some years, the organizers even managed to host it twice a season, making this year's edition the 29th in total. It must be said that it shows – the event is perfectly prepared, organized, and planned.

The game itself is loosely inspired by J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth, so you will encounter familiar races (elves, dwarves, orcs…) as well as monsters and locations. It is essentially a well-prepared open world set in a fairly generous area (estimated at one square kilometer) equipped with nearly a hundred different locations and points of interest that can be explored, discovered, and used to complete quests.

Players represent characters, members of one of the four nations, and can navigate the game in several ways. The youngest participants, so-called hobbits, move through the game area in small groups led by a ranger. This is an adult who helps them, reads quests, handles the rules, etc. Players from about six to ten years old focus on collecting experience and leveling up their characters, moving independently through the game area. Older children usually focus more on the storyline that weaves through each year, completing more demanding tasks that influence the plot.

Adults are in charge of running the cities (where an economic layer of the game takes place, dealing with raw materials, supplies, and sufficient resources for players) or they take on the roles of monsters. Monsters represent obstacles and challenges in the game; by defeating them, players gain rewards and can then upgrade their equipment and abilities.

It is also worth mentioning that there are no physical confrontations in the game – combat takes place similarly to board or RPG games. As soon as a fight starts (by saying the formula “fight me, coward!” and tapping), the players and the monster simply sit down, pull out cards and dice, and play out the duel “virtually.” Thanks to this, even the smallest players have a chance to defeat the most terrifying monsters.

This year's Ovčina was visited by more than 120 children, and some forty adults took care of the great fun, whether in the roles of rulers, assistants, NPCs, or monsters, or in the background, which was, as always, perfectly prepared. Organizing an event on such a scale requires skill, courage, and wit – qualities the organizing team definitely does not lack.

In any case, the greatest reward and sign of the event's quality are the opinions and experiences of the children. At the very least, ours left Ovčina for the third time completely immersed in the story and enthusiastic about the next year, which, of course, does not leave us parents cold. It is amazing to watch how children can handle difficult situations in the game, having to bargain, negotiate, and cooperate with each other. They learn to endure defeat and share the joy of winning together. They break a sweat calculating during fights, think about riddles, run away from monsters that are beyond their strength, and often walk dozens of kilometers across the game area.

If you are interested in fantasy, RPGs, or have experience with larps and are thinking about how to involve your children in gaming, I definitely recommend looking for a similar event in your area and trying out a larp with your kids. It is great fun that they will fall in love with.

author Jiří Reiter