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.
I have never made a vase, but I have made larps, and I think there are some similarities between the two. Both have spaces to be filled with something beautiful and just like I have made larps and thus became a person who can make larps, I could start to learn different crafts and become a person who can make vases. In this article I will introduce and explain the term ‘Vessel of meaning’ and how it can help us design and understand larp. I will also argue that making a larp is not as hard or scary as it might seem.
Let us begin with a larp I designed, called Dancing with Myself (Sweden, 2022), which is a game about people who meet themselves at a party. In the game, the players are divided into pairs and make a character together that they both play – discussing things the character cannot discuss with anyone else. Because the entire game consists of talking and dancing, I decided that a non-verbal break was needed. That became a scene where in the middle of the playtime all players would focus on dancing. To give it some kind of actual story purpose, all characters suddenly see everybody on the dancefloor as other versions of themselves, not just the one partner. This meta-scene was added with practical purpose, but afterwards I have been told that the scene was interpreted in many different ways and gave people a deeper experience. At first this made me feel like a fraud, like the players somehow thought I designed the game better than I actually did, when that meaning actually came from them. But they would not have created it without my design, and with that realization the term ‘Vessel of meaning’ was born. Even though I did not know it, I had designed a Vessel of meaning for them to fill.
So, what is a Vessel of meaning? A vessel is something that can hold something else. One example is a vase, which is hollow – and intended to be filled with flowers. A vase is a particularly good metaphor for larp, because it is designed – but also in a way unfinished unless it is filled. Often vases are hidden away until there are flowers to put in it, just like a larp manuscript in a drawer, waiting to be played. Making a vase means making something that can be further finished by someone else, hopefully over and over again. The maker of the vase influences how it is filled. They decide how many and how tall flowers fit, and they decide if the vase is see-through, coloured or patterned. All of these design choices, made on purpose or not, impacts what flowers people put into the vase, which type, which colour and so on. When it comes to larp design, the designer makes creative choices and steers the larpers; but the larpers are the ones that fill the vessel with their own meaning and story, to different extents depending on the larp.
What is meaning in this context then? In a way, it is the moral of the story, but because the story of a larp is experienced and created simultaneously, the meaning created in a larp becomes much deeper and more multifaceted than the moral of a fairytale or movie. Meaning can be a realisation, a deep feeling or something beyond words. Honestly, to me it is most of all something beyond words, and because it can be so many things I do not want to give it a too specific definition. What I do want to make clear though is that any story in any medium may have a greater meaning for a specific person, but only in cocreated mediums can the participant create their very own meaning that is part of the story. In a similar vein, many larps do have a meaning from the start – a larp about war might show how war is bad for example. In making their own story within the larp, players might add their own meaning though, like the importance of close bonds for example. To continue the metaphor, a vase may have some ceramic flowers inside it as well as room for fresh flowers from someone else. With this said, it is impor-tant to know that if one makes a larp, the players can put whatever they want into the designer’s vase. If you want something very particular in your vase you could make a sculpture instead which translated to the larp context means making a book or play instead.
So, back to what a vessel of meaning is. My larp Dancing with myself is one big vessel of meaning, as it is a game where the majority of the plot and thus also the meaning is made by the players. The meta scene is a vessel as well, and an example of an abstract kind of scene where you can give larpers space to create their very own meaning even in larps with a lot of meaning there from the start. There are also ways to create vessels of meaning in the small things. When we inhabit a character, we have to do all parts of their life, no matter how dull, but sometimes this means making things that could be dull deeply meaningful. At a school for example, standing in line and choosing where to sit in the dining hall can have lots of meaning. With the right design the least dramatic scenes can become the most meaningful, either by reminding players of their possibilities or by putting design into mundane things.
The fact that a larp is like a vase, also means that you never fully make a larp alone – cocreation is unavoidable, as soon as the larp comes into contact with players. Making a larp can seem intimidating, especially since it will never be completed until you show it to others, and the only way to become a better designer is to let players into your creation. But when you have players, they will ask about that detail you forgot to design so that you can decide it in the moment, and they will make up their own backstory where you forgot to. I truly believe that almost any larp is better than an absence of larp, and beautiful roses can be put into a crooked vase. Larp design also doesn’t have to be very detailed – flowers can also be put into a very simple vase, that might give the players a greater opportunity to make an elaborate and memorable bouquet. Sometimes the best experiences are created by letting players decide a lot of things themselves – but it still has to be designed with prompts and timekeeping. Putting flowers directly on a table is a completely different thing, and then you need to prepare to let your players craft their own vase.
Larps where a lot of decisions are made by the players can fully be vessels of meaning, and in other larps there might be vessels here and there. I encourage you to find where you have made vessels of meaning, and to make more. Most of all, I encourage you to make larps!
Ludography
Dancing with myself (2022). Karlsson, T. Stockholm Scenario Festival, Stockholm, Sweden.
This article is republished from the Knutpunkt 2026 book. Please cite it as:
Karlsson, Teddy. 2026. ‘Designing Vessels of Meaning.’ In Seasons of Larp eds. Erlandsson, A., Svanevik, M., Holkar, M., and Brind, S. Gothenburg. Knutpunkt.
