Can the Head and the Hand be mediated through the Heart?

Metropolis is a science-fiction melodrama in three acts based on the eponymous 1927 silent film by Fritz Lang, though no experience with the film is necessary. Players are invited into an expressionist mega-city, where their characters are largely determined by their social class and the spaces which they inhabit. Alienated from Nature, God, each other and themselves, each character yearns for some kind of meaningful connection in the world, and yet are continuously foiled by the social system in which they live and – paradoxically – the very crises that threaten that system. In addition, at any given time, some of the players physically embody the very City that constricts the characters, manipulating the others’ actions and emotions while being acutely aware of the impending doom that awaits it. The game rules are designed to explore these issues and situations, as well as simulate the exaggerated and bombastic style of this particular German film, while giving the players agency over the ending.

Class struggle has never been so allegorically simple, yet so emotionally complex.

_There is only the City. Few know what exists outside it. If such an Outside existed, however, its Inhabitants would desperately yearn for it. For as nothing exists outside the City, so too does nothing exist inside its Inhabitants._

The Ruling - the City’s Head - rule by ignoring their class privilege. The Ruled - the City’s Hands - are ruled by fear and tedium. It is a closed system that sustains itself, yet proves utterly unsustainable. The hierarchies harden, becoming brittle and cracking under their inflexibility. And cracks have begun to appear in the City too.

Can the Head and the Hands be mediated through the Heart?

**Metropolis** is a live-action role-playing game (LARP) based on the characters, scenarios and locations found in the eponymous 1927 German silent science-fiction film written by Thea von Harbou and directed by Fritz Lang. This scene-based game is intended to be the first in a series of LARP adaptations of famous films, books and graphic novels in the style of Anna Westerling (_A Nice Evening with the Family_, 2007; _Sense and Sensibility_, 2010) and the parlor LARPs of [Shifting Forest Storyworks](http://www.shiftingforest.com/) (_Hamlet_, 2004) and John H. Kim (_Stagecoach_, 2007), with a heavy nod toward the Nordic jeepform scenarios ([http://www.jeepen.org](http://www.jeepen.org/)) of the last decade.

The game invites players into an expressionist science-fiction mega-city, where their characters are largely determined by their social class and the spaces which they inhabit. Alienated from Nature, God, each other and themselves, each character yearns for some kind of meaningful connection in the world, and yet are continuously foiled by the social system in which they live and - paradoxically - the very crises that threaten that system. In addition, the players physically embody the very City that constricts the characters, manipulating the others’ actions and emotions while being acutely aware of its impending doom. The game rules are intended to explore these issues and situations, as well as simulate the exaggerated and bombastic style of this particular German film, yet without predetermining too much of the narrative or the story’s ending. Though gamemasters are present, they are to function as guides to ensure smooth transitions between scenes and guides for dramatic action. The players of the game are largely in control of how the story unfolds and its consequences on all involved.

Black and white garments and pale white silent movie make-up encouraged.