Third year now running my Cucku marathon at Ropecon, a card game popular in Finland (and Sweden) in the 18th and 19th centuries before it got overcome by more gamey games. Usually we get about 50-80 players per marathon, so I speak myself hoarse explaining the rules and the history and the context each time.
Because we got so many repeat players from last year who stayed for longer than just a few rounds, Cucku 2026 had fewer individual players than last year, but the game went by much faster so we had more rounds. Also I loved that we had a wide age scale of players from young teens to us "old people" in our 40s.
People who like playing it like it because it's the perfect social event game, you can talk with your friends about something entirely else while playing at the same time, it's moderately entertaining, but it's obviously meant to happen in a wider social context (like Ropecon!) - three people asked me to bring the game back again next year.
I enjoy talking about the history of the game (from what I know of it from 1600s to early 1900s), explaining our LARP experiences with it, and talking about how a game's design is informed by its contextual social reality, so it doesn't just exist in an abstract "game design on paper" world by itself.
I also love wearing my 18th century Finnish peasant outfit for the game, and now I got even more compliments from random con attendees for it than I did last year. It's 80 % constructed from recycling centre / flea market fabrics and ribbons. Blue and white, it's also a Disney Belle cosplay in disguise.
I was on my way to have lunch on Saturday after the game when someone from staff stopped in me in the corridor to ask what kind of folk dress (which region) was I wearing, and I was like, this is a LARP outfit built out of second hand waste, based on a 1990s cartoon and an 18th century oil painting :D (Actual real folk dress in Finland has high cost involving hand-woven fabrics and all kinds of other expenditures.)
There was also a young lady at the con wearing a Belle cosplay that hadn't been mangled by major redesign, and would have liked to have asked her for a photo together, but she vanished into the crowd unfortunately. I hope I'll catch her next year!
It'll probably take some years, but eventually I'd like to complete my 18th century Finnish peasant take on the Belle outfit with a 18th c. Swedish version of the French Hood cap, which is made of silk, and has a large decorative bobbin lace part. I'll probably check out a reference for the hood silk part from a variety of non-official folk costumes in Finna, and weave Kranssa for the lace part, when I get around to it some year.
#Ropecon #Ropecon2026 #Cucku