or: Towards a Shared Understanding of a Common Form of Larp
Editorial note: This article was originally published in the Knutpunkt 2026 book Seasons of Larp. It has been reprinted from there with the editors’ and authors’ permission. It has not been edited by Nordiclarp.org.
What is Nordic Larp?
“Oh, you’re doing Nordic larp!” is a phrase that probably not so few of us Non-Nordic larp designers have heard a couple of times. When I heard it the first time, by a German larper, I was confused because I did not know what “Nordic Larp” meant. I think, this was at some time around 2009 and I had only once before heard about larp in the Nordic countries – namely some years earlier, when a group of ambitious designers had run a big international larp in Sweden for which they built an even bigger dragon and where players had to follow strict rules concerning costumes, Dragonbane (yep, that’s what I had heard about it). So did my German conversation partner think I was creating larps where huge props were built?
Of course, my conversation partner back then immediately explained what a Nordic larp “really” was – a larp focusing on social relationships, non-competitive, somewhat innovative and creative concerning setting and design, and using few rules. It was definitely not a larp with a lot of boffer sword fights, quests, dungeons, riddles to solve, and 20 pages of point-based rules, like the majority of the larps in Austria were. And I was happy because this sounded like our design style and also like what I enjoyed playing myself. Larps like these Nordic larps – as they had been explained to me – had been around in Austria long before I had started larping in 2000. Since the 90s some of them were even documented, but nobody ever had a specific term for them, except maybe “cast larps” (translated from “gecastete Lives”). So some other Austrian designers and I started to adopt the term Nordic larp without ever playing a Nordic larp.
Only years later, when I got in contact with the international larp community, I learned that Nordic larp was “a term for shared larp traditions in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Finland” (nordiclarp.org). After having played international and Nordic larps, I finally attended my first KP in 2018, and I felt like there was some kind of crisis going on concerning the term “Nordic larp” or “Nordic style larp” – some Non-Nordic designers told me I should not call larps in Austria “Nordic larps”, some Nordics told me the same, others (Nordics and Non-Nordics) told me that we of course, were doing Nordic larp in Austria, if we did larps focusing on social relations and using no point-based mechanics. And once again, I was confused.
Tapping into a more theoretical discourse about Nordic larp and also larp in general in this year and the following years, I learned that there were actually several national/regional definitions of larping styles, which all were, in one way or another, similar to what we did in Austria. Some players in these communities used “Nordic larp” as their style of larping, while others explicitly and fervently rejected it.
Many Facets of the Same Gemstone
I love having a shared vocabulary and a shared understanding of things, so I kept looking for a term for the type of larp I like playing and designing. I looked at definitions of larp styles and larp manifestos, and I found some key points that maybe weren’t present in all of these texts but which were definitely all present in the larps I wanted to have a term for:
A focus on larp being co-creative:
- “We believe, that the designer’s intent is embodied in the larp’s content and design, but we are also aware that, as is the case with many other performative activities, the final work of art can only appear with the players’ participations. We therefore see players as respected partners in creation.” (Content Larp Manifesto, 2016)
- “Larp is a voluntary and collective act […] The player is a vibrant and co-acting individual, energy that wants to play a part in the project.” (Chaos League, 2016)
- “The characters are […] co-created” (Modern Larp, n.d., translated by the author)
- “Playing to add […] is born of collab-oration.” (Iuama, 2018)
A focus on emotions and relations:
- “The characters are pre-written[..] with diverse connections and relationships linking them together.” “The game is supposed to create strong emotions…” (Larp Wiki, n.d., translated by the author)
- “As a special medium of expression, communication, and reflection, it offers people the opportunity to experience interpersonal, emotional, as well as philosophical and socio-political themes firsthand” (Neubauer, 2015, translated by the author).
- “There is no shame in feeling deeply before, during, and after a larp.” (Šumar, 2017)
Larp as an art form:
- Larp “offers unique artistic experiences” (Pohjola, 2025)
- “One of the goals of content larp is to be seen as a form of art.” (Content Larp Manifesto, 2016)
Larp as a motor for transformation:
- “If we complete a larp experience without learning something about ourselves that we can use to improve our daily lives, we feel that we have missed an opportunity.” (Hugaas and Bowman, 2019)
- Larps are extremely well suited at least for criticizing the society (Pohjola, 2003)
- “We believe in larptivism, larps potenti-al to raise awareness and inspire social change. Our goal is to help the change for a better world.” (Not Only Larp, n.d.)
- “We should not reproduce the constructs of oppressive capitalist culture.” (Šumar, 2017)
So what do you call this type of larp, which aims at having these characteristics present? I think some people might call this a Nordic larp, others might call it a Mediterranean larp, or a Modern larp. People and larp communities might have numerous other names for it.
I strongly believe that in many larp communities around the world, traces of this kind of larp have always been there. They have been brought in by larp designers and players who also were (professional or non-professional) activists, teachers, artists, theatre lovers, psychologists, dreamers, critics, philosophers, etc. – by those people who weren’t so much interested (or not only interested) in point based systems, boffer sword battles and dungeon crawls but in co-creating new experiences, telling shared stories and in personal and communal growth.
Relational Larp
In 1998, French curator and arts theorist Nicolas Bourriaud coined the term “Relational Aesthetics,” underlining the participatory potential of an artwork and encouraging artists to explore the relationship between humans and artworks (Bourriaud, 2002, 2004). Bourriaud looks at an artwork as something that creates new meaning, “essentially a political project” (Chen, 2023), hence a potential input for transformation. Relational art focuses on relationships, including inter-human relationships and developing relationships with the world. (Bourriaud 2002; Smith 2024).
Drawing from Nicolas Bourriaud‘s concept of Relational Aesthetics, in which art facilitates human encounters and inspires interactions with the artwork, the space, and each other, I want to suggest that there is a type of larp, which I want to call Relational Larps.
- Relational larps are larps that focus on relationships between characters, their players, and the content provided by larp designers (including story, dramaturgy, space, pre-written or co-created characters, etc.).
- Relational larps offer their players the opportunity to explore new perspectives and to experience themselves in relation to others and/or in relation to a theme in a meaningful way. They usually do so by enabling participants to immerse themselves into the mindset of the character and the world of the larp. Therefore, a Relational larp needs mechanics/rules that support players to tap into a brave space while also taking into account their emotional and physical safety.
- Relational larps underline the co-creative aspect of larps, among other things, by incorporating a play culture of playing to lift and playing to flow, in which meaningful actions and experiences become possible for all participants.
- Relational larps are intended to be a means of transformation by providing participants with an opportunity to develop a new relationship with a theme or with a perspective.
- Relational larps are pieces of art (with varying artistic value). They might belong to different traditions of larp design, but they also build upon ideas present in relational art, performance art, and participatory art.
And no, this is not a new manifesto. This is just a hopefully helpful addition to the vocabulary and theory around larp. It is meant as a new approach to talking about an art form / a form of entertainment / a medium which all of us love, without always focusing on regional terminology. Maybe the term “Relational larp” enables us to embrace the common vision and inspiration we have and work together on getting larp the acknowledgement it deserves among other forms of art, entertainment, self-expression, and means of transformation.
Bibliography
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Chaos League. (n.d.). ‘Introduction to Southern Way – New Italian Larp’. Nordic Larp. [Online]. https://www.nordiclarp.org/2016/05/30/introduction-southern-way-new-italian-larp/
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Chen, M. (2023). Relational experience design for immersive narratives. Phd, University of California.
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This article is republished from the Knutpunkt 2026 book. Please cite it as:
Fischer, Olivia. 2026. ‘Relational Larp.’ In Seasons of Larp eds. Erlandsson, A., Svanevik, M., Holkar, M., and Brind, S. Gothenburg. Knutpunkt.
