Ford Ivey, sometimes called the Grandfather of NERO,[1] is the founder of several live action role-playing games, including NERO International, Shandlin’s Ferry, Wildlands, The Isles, a live version of Call of Cthulhu, and his newest game, The Osiris Sanction. Ford is the recipient and namesake of the LARPY Lifetime Achievement award, and is the LARP Guest of Honor at Origins Game Fair in July, 2007.
After attending the University of Texas school of Architecture, Ford Ivey worked in all parts of the construction industry, doing everything from design to supervisor of construction on some major projects in the Boston area. He got disenchanted with the construction industry and went back to one of his early loves, opening The GameMaster, a full service game store In Arlington, MA. This store had tables for playing roleplaying games and miniatures. While doing this, he heard about a Live Roleplaying game in New Hampshire called Mid Realms Adventures, based on the Treasure Trap games in England.
While he enjoyed this game, he was convinced that it could be done in a way that would allow more character freedom of action. After running a series of games for a couple of years in Sudbury, MA, under the umbrella of the Explorer Scouts, he (with input and assistance from several others) developed the idea of everyone playing the game: everyone was someone else’s NPC. This event was known as Shandlin’s Ferry, which was run in the fall of 1987 and was the immediate predecessor to NERO.
NERO was a unique development in LARPing, based on character growth and freedom of action. It grew far more quickly than the organization could handle in those early days, after an article appeared in Dragon Magazine, written by Michael A. Ventrella. NERO suddenly had over 5,000 active members.
NERO began to expand with new chapters quickly, starting with one in New Jersey, called the Ashbury Campaign. They later broke off to form Alliance LARP. Other early chapters were the Pittsburgh chapter (now PRO), and the Atlanta chapter, now running a game based on an early set of the NERO rules, now calling themselves SOLAR.
Ford ran the first game to own its own site dedicated to Live Roleplaying in Ware, Massachusetts. This site had 105 acres (0.42 km2) of woods and fields and 27 structures, including an old New England Inn, barns, and many cabins.
Ford sold the game in 1998 to Joe Valenti. After overcoming health issues, Ford is now involved in several new projects, including a new concept in LARP, The Osiris Sanction.