Ford Ivey
Ford McHenry Ivey (June 8, 1948 – March 20, 2021), sometimes called the "Grandfather of NERO", was the founder of several live action role-playing games, including New England Role-playing Organization (NERO), "Shandlin's Ferry", "Wildlands", "The Isles", a live version of "Call of Cthulhu", and "The Osiris Sanction". Ford was the recipient and namesake of the LARPY Lifetime Achievement award, and was the LARP Guest of Honor at Origins Game Fair in 2007. Early life and education. Ivey was born in Honolulu to Ford and Nellie Ivey. He went to high school in San Antonio, Texas, then  attended the University of Texas in the 1970s, where he was first introduced to fantasy role-playing games such as "Dungeons & Dragons". After serving in the U.S. Army, Ivey worked in the construction industry in the Boston area. He became more involved with role-playing, and eventually opened The GameMaster, a game store in Arlington, Massachusetts. NERO. While running his store in 1986, Ivey became interested in the new hobby of Live-Action Role-Playing (LARPing). Ivey heard of a role-playing game in New Hampshire called "Midrealms Adventures" that was played outdoors, where participants dressed up like their player  characters. However, when he participated in it, he was disappointed. In a 2001 interview, he said, "It was not a lot like what I imagined. It was a module-based game — a few hours and it was over, and a marshal had to be with you all the time." Ivey decided to try out some new ideas. At the time he was running a role-playing game for a Boy Scouts Explorer group, and had access to a Boy Scout camp at Nobscot Hill. With several friends, Ivey planned out what such a new type of outdoor role-playing adventure  would involve. Ivey scripted the game, bought some costumes for the non-player characters, and ran the event that he called "Weekend Warriors" for six players. This event was, in Ivey's words, "pretty bad", but he persevered, and offered the event several more times. After one of these events, he was approached by several participants — Craig and Debbie Walton, Mike Ventrella, Heidi Hooper, and Bob King — who suggested some changes to the format, including a storyline that would be driven by the non-player characters rather than a marshall, leaving the players free to explore the plot-lines of  the event themselves. In March 1988 they began to work on the idea that instead of each event being a separate game with separate characters and a single linear plot-line, there would be a single game world, players would have persistent characters, and the campaign would have multiple overlapping and long-term plotlines. That summer, with a much-improved product, the group presented a 24-hour LARP called "Shandlin's Ferry". Its success led Ivey and the other organizers to create an on-going LARP campaign called the New England Role-playing Organization (NERO), based on the same principles  of play that had been used in "Shandlin's Ferry". The world they created was called Tyrra — roughly analogous to Earth — and the campaign events happened on the continent of Avalon. In a 2012 interview, Ivey outlined how NERO had developed the idea of LARPing, saying, "Live role-playing started in England, where there are a lot of medieval reenactment societies, but what we do is a fantasy game." The first NERO event was held in August 1989, and attracted 150 participants. By 1991, attendance at regularly scheduled summer weekend events was up to 300–500 participants. Ivey sold his store  to NERO, which became their central headquarters. In 1991, one of the NERO organizers, Mike Ventrella, wrote an article about NERO that appeared in the September 1991 issue of "Dragon". Suddenly, paid memberships increased to 5,000, and NERO eventually expanding to chapters in New Jersey and Atlanta. NERO closed the store's sales space in order to use the entire building for event planning. The largest NERO event location became the "Duchy of Ravenholt", where Ivey would oversee feasts and celebrations in the role of Duke Basil Ravenhurst. Ivey sold "NERO" to Joseph Valenti in August 1998, and since then  numerous American LARPs have spun off from the original NERO system. Ivey developed the "Osiris Sanction" game in 2008, and founded NERO World and Legacy Game Systems. Personal life. Ivey married Dr. Sidney Fisher, and the couple had three children. Ivey died on March 20, 2021, in Swannanoa, North Carolina, and is buried at the Western Carolina State Veteran's Cemetery in Black Mountain, North Carolina.