Dream Park

Dream Park was originally a novel set in a sort of futuristic amusement park of the same name.

The books describe a futuristic form of live action role-playing games (LARPs), although the term was not in use when the original novel was published. The novels inspired many LARP groups, notably the International Fantasy Games Society, named after a fictional entity in the book. A company by the name of Dream Park was founded in the mid-1990s to try to realize as much of Dream Park as possible, but eventually went out of business.

The Dream Park novels were written by Larry Niven and Steven Barnes. The novels set in Dream Park are:

• Dream Park (1981) - Locus Award nominee, 1982
• The Barsoom Project (1989)
• The California Voodoo Game (1992)
• The Moon Maze Game (2011)

The novels Achilles' Choice and Saturn's Race, also by Niven and Barnes, are set in the 2020s and feature a quick reference to Dream Park technologies. The events of another novel, The Descent of Anansi, by the same authors, are referred to in the latter two books of the Dream Park trilogy.

The Dream Park series is set in a near-future Earth, the first book taking place in March 2051. Technology is used to create realistic games in which participants act out the roles of free-willed protagonists in various stories. These are role-playing games and foreshadowed many aspects of modern live action role-playing games.

The sets for the games are quite elaborate. In one novel an entire island is created for the game. Holograms are used for special effects. The blades on sharp weapons can be removed and replaced with holographic edges; this allows participants to engage in safe combat. A combination of computers and gamemasters monitor events, prompt actors playing non-protagonist parts, and resolve simulated actions. Thus, after being repeatedly struck with a holographic sword a computer might determine that a player's character has died. The player will be informed that he should pantomime a death and is removed from play.

Although the Dream Park assumes future technology, it is still an expensive proposition. Players pay fees to play the games. In addition, the first game played is recorded. The creator of the game takes the recorded footage and edits it into a movie and other media for resale. While the resulting movies are heavily influenced by the game's creator, the actions of the players are unscripted. In this way the books anticipate reality television.

The games in the Dream Park series are heavily regulated. One of the regulatory groups is the International Fantasy Games Society or IFGS. The creator of a game has nearly unlimited power in the game; he could arbitrarily change a game to doom a given player's character to death and eject the player from the game. IFGS existed to protect the interests of players and limit abuse by game creators. One group of fantasy based live action role-playing gamers have taken the IFGS name for their rules and organization.