Editorial note: This article was originally published in the Knutepunkt 2025 book Anatomy of Larp Thoughts, a breathing corpus. It has been reprinted from there with the editors’ and authors’ permission. It has not been edited by Nordiclarp.org.
The art-larp paradox refers to the tensions between the development of larp as an artform in its own right and adapting to institutionalised arts spaces, compromising on the essence of what makes it art in the first place. Drawing on my experience of Situationist practices and democratised participation models, I will argue that in adapting larp practices to be suitable for artistic spaces and audiences, embodiment, and player agency is susceptible to compromise – potentially sacrificing the artistic essence of larp itself. In order to be more artistic, larp should be less like art and more like larp.
The term ‘art-larp’ is a bit of a red herring. Generally it refers to larp which experiments with form, has a social relevance, or works interdisciplinarily with other artistic genres. Nordic style larp practice often falls into one of these categories, yet sometimes we are reluctant to acknowledge this. As influence flows between larp practices and artistic practices of audience-based media, larp conforming to artistic spaces is fraught with the danger of compromising key aesthetic values.
Art has a tendency to subsume other practices to be included in its definition. If we think of art as an aesthetic form for its own sake which allows the opportunity to think, feel, and experience something outside of the everyday, then it will be undoubtedly rapacious in its appetite of feeding itself from practices which are close to it, including larp.
Art’s habitude for subsumption does not negatively impact larp. However, in combination with the lack of widespread established institutions to legitimise larp and the prevalence of commodification within late-stage capitalism, larp’s cross-pollination with more established artistic practices has the potential to compromise the artistic essence of larp. The closer larp becomes to neighbouring practices, the more susceptible it becomes to compromising on player agency and the physical embodiment of a first-person audience.
Art-larp has a tendency to be pulled towards presenting to non-playing audiences, as viewers. Whether a live audience of non-players with any degree of interactivity in the case of immersive theatre, or a secondary audience who will engage with photography or video work at a later date, both have a similar effect; by creating a passive distance of spectatorship between artwork and viewer, the simultaneous production and reception of a first-person audience is disrupted.
In the case of larp, artworks which modify the mode of engagement to passive reception through visual images mediate the social interaction of larp. This is present in visual media works which use larp such as video art, film, and theatre, as well as photo documentation of larp. The simultaneous production and reception of larp as media with a first-person audience – a personal embodied experience as part of a collective experience – is in danger of being compromised or sacrificed when we also consider the aesthetic experience of a secondary audience. Visual aesthetics possess an immersive function in larp to help players access the fiction more easily, although in cases where artistic design choices serve a secondary audience first and foremost, it is the primary ‘audience’ experience which is jeopardised; the players of the larp.
In their essay ‘On The Commodification of Larp’ (2019), Usva Seregina mentions the trends within larp to document through photography and film. In doing so, there is a shift in the ephemeral nature of the work which lives through the documentation as ersatz representation, thus beginning ‘to condense and fragment the live performance, freezing it in time to concretize its meaning’. This is not to say it happens more or less with the disputed genre of ‘art-larp’, but visual documentation is a form of social capital which can be encouraged by presenting work in both overlapping contexts as art and as larp.
According to Seregina, this is a more subtle form of commodification, eclipsed by how we engage with larp as consumers more generally. Seregina’s view is that individualising a collective experience becomes synonymous with consumer choice. The processes of individualisation and the mediation of larp through visual representation appear entangled, potentially having a far more detrimental consequence upon the collective social relations of larp.
In thinking critically about in-game social interaction altered through the consideration of aesthetics designed for secondary audiences, there are social effects beyond the magic circle. Larp is a reality when it is played, albeit temporary within the social frame of larp (Järvelä p.23). This is an important framing; how we interact in the reality of larp has sociological implications.
Considering this, larp’s ephemeral state of performance to a first-person audience is altered by aesthetic interactions with the larp which are outside the scope of participating as a player with the fullest agency to affect outcomes. Rescinding agency to visual modes results in a process of alienation: interaction is mediated through the aesthetic, the viewer as a passive consumer is susceptible to being alienated from the real aesthetic of larp – improvised and embodied co-creation. Primarily this affects in-game interaction but in the sense that we are the characters we play, this also has repercussions beyond the magic circle.
A confrontation and resistance to the process of alienation in the field of art is integral to theory and practice of the Situationist International (SI). In Society of the Spectacle, Guy Debord (1967) argues that passive spectatorship commodifies social roles and relations, and social interaction becomes mediated through visual images.
The dogmatic approach in the manifesto of the Situationist International (SI) describes the active construction of ‘situations’ as a tool for the liberation of everyday life (Debord, 1957). What the SI aimed for in the transformative process of the ‘situation’ was a reaction against the alienation of life, concerning work, private property, and the reception of cultural media. In the case of the latter, a passive state of engaging with visual media means the viewer is estranged from cultural life; the theory borrows heavily from Marx’s theory of alienation. In contrast, the embodied experience of situations were liberatory – simultaneously a rehearsal in the social frame of aesthetics and an embodied reality. This prefigures progressive ways of organising and relating, in art and life. The parallels of Situationist and larp practice that I wish to draw attention to are: the temporary suspense of social norms, physical embodiment of the practice through empowered social agency, and the rejection of forms of spectatorship.
Claire Bishop espouses a critique of non-hierarchical participatory art in her book Artificial Hells – rather prioritising aesthetics of ambiguity and antagonism. I do not believe that spaces in which art happens are somehow magically exempt from critique of power structures. Paulo Freire’s writings on education in Pedagogy of The Oppressed is useful in considering how agency matters. He writes and practices in opposition to a banking model of education, where students are empty vessels to be filled up, rather than independent agents of their own destiny, as they are in democratic learning models. This should sound familiar to anyone who has participated in larp activity; this is the agency of co-creation and often greater than the sum of its parts. Just like the passivity of the banking model of education, I believe viewership of larp in other forms of artistic media: visual arts/film/theatre denies the key aesthetics of social agency and co-creation and risks commodifying meaningful social relations of larp activity.
For better and for worse, larp doesn’t have the same institutionalised infrastructure as more established artforms. Its position as a subculture also allows artistic freedom which does not have to follow institutionalised taste patterns. Institutionalisation does allocate time and financial resources towards art making, but at a cost. Larp institutionalising itself usually must fit in the existing model of art reception which rewards artworks that can be commodified, distancing itself from the ephemeral nature of larp, and compromise the social agency of players as co-creators of the artwork. Can these practices still claim to have the liveness which larp’s foundations are built upon? Does the ‘live’ of live action role play then become redundant?
The ‘liveness’ of larp is not only about being present. Those present should be trusted and empowered to have a share in the authorship of their own actions. As players embody the work and the emotional closeness of the experience, they simultaneously create and feel it. The aesthetics of larp are inherently social; they are performative ephemeral interactions which exist between players, (inter-)acting within the diegetic frame, referred to as inter-immersion (Pohjola, 2004). When an artist triangulates to another focus point – to a viewing audience – the reception of larp moves from the result of co-created interaction to a passive alienated state.
Here we arrive at the art-larp paradox. In trying to be more like art – by adapting to existing artistic institutions and familiar modes of audience spectatorship – larp loses its aesthetic value of embodied co-creation. The point of creation and reception – the immediacy of social relations as building blocks of the artwork – become diluted. The immediate emotional reception of the work through the first-person audience is compromised at the cost of a passive relationship to the play aesthetic. Rather than larp activity being simultaneously created and received in a constant state of dynamism, the representation of the larp experience creates concretised meaning, a finished product whose meaning can no longer be in dialogue with its audience.
Nordwall and Widing lament the design optimisation of larp practice in their article ‘Against Design’. They view the well-designed experience product as failing to be in dialogue with wider culture (p.16). I understand their concerns of design related thinking dominating the discourse, but I don’t believe one negates the other: larps can be artistically designed, by means of an open-ended dialogue between larp designer and participants, to address contemporary societal questions. One suggestion they encourage is innovation of the form, which should be handled with care so as not to commodify the experience via means of spectatorship. How can artistic form innovate – continuing the development of art-larp and its relevance to society and institutionalised art spaces – but without giving up the intrinsic aesthetics of co-creation and social agency? What are the conditions for broader artistic experiments which have less of a risk of compromising agency?
A participatory artform occupying this space, which I would find intriguing to move towards, is socially engaged art – or what Grant Kester describes as a ‘dialogical aesthetic’. A key element is ‘a redefinition of the aesthetic experience as durational rather than immediate’ (Kester, p.12). This requires rethinking how we engage with character play, both as players and artistic larp designers, with durational relationality to larps as artworks. This might look like a series with themes that respond to societal issues, coupled with practices of integration. More broadly, integration is understood to be the awareness and openness to affecting change in our lives, beyond the larp itself (Bowman and Hugaas, 2019).
Resisting the art-larp paradox might look like a campaign or series with deeper critical reflection or integration built-in to the work. Maiju Tarpila’s ecological larp trilogy, ‘Kaski’, achieves this successfully by using a durational form, co-creating over a 5 year period. The players revisit the same fiction as a means for exploring ecological attitudes and values of the players (Leppä, 2024). In this approach, it centres the players as active citizens beyond the fiction who are enabled to affect change. As a larp practitioner who feels frustration with the limits to critical reflection and integration of ecological themes in blackbox and chamber larp spaces, allowing time for these processes like in Tarpila’s larps is an attractive prospect.
The art-larp paradox has created diversions for larp’s aesthetics when adapting to existing modes of viewership. Through priviness to the effects of commodification when presenting work to secondary audiences, and being aware of consumer behaviours challenging co-creation, we open up possibilities to affect long-term change. By embracing larp as an artform in its own right, staying strong to co-creation aesthetics and advancing the inclusion of integration models – potentially through durational and dialogical methods – there are means for the paradox to be broken.
References
Bishop, Claire. 2012. Artificial Hells: Participatory Art and the Politics of Spectatorship
Bowman, Sarah & Hugaas, Kjell Hedgard. 2019. Transformative Role Play: Design, Implementation and Integration
Debord, Guy. 1957. Report on the Construction of Situations
Debord, Guy. 1967. Society of the Spectacle
Freire, Paulo. 1970. Pedagogy of the Oppressed
Järvelä, Simo. 2019. ‘How Real Is Larp?’ In Larp Design: Creating Role Play Experiences, edited by Joanna Koljonen, Jaakoo Stenros, Anne Serup Grove
Kester, Grant. 2004. Conversation Pieces: Community and Communication in Modern Art
Leppä, Elli. 2024 ‘Seeds of Hope: How to Intertwine Larp and Ecological Activism’. In Liminal Encounters in Nordic and Nordic Inspired Larp, edited by Kaisa Kangas, Jonne Arjoranta and Ruska Kevätkoski. Helsinki, Finland. Ropecon ry.
Lukacs, Georg. 1923. History and Class Consciousness
Marx, Karl. 1844. Economic Manuscripts of 1844
Nordwall, Andrea and Widing, Gabriel. 2024. ‘Against Design’. In Liminal Encounters in Nordic and Nordic Inspired Larp, edited by Kaisa Kangas, Jonne Arjoranta and Ruska Kevätkoski. Helsinki, Finland. Ropecon ry.
Pohjola, Mike. ‘Autonomous Identities. Immersion as a Tool for Exploring, Empowering and Emancipating Identities’. In Beyond Role and Play: Tools, Toys and Theory for Harnessing the Imagination, edited by Markus Montola and Jaakko Stenros. Ropecon.
Editorial note: This article was originally published in the Knutepunkt 2025 book Anatomy of Larp Thoughts, a breathing corpus. It has been reprinted from there with the editors’ and authors’ permission. It has not been edited by Nordiclarp.org.
This article describes our artistic practice and design principles focusing on the bodily experience. First, we theorize what we are doing and then give a practical overview of some of our pieces.
We have worked mainly in the Finnish art field as an artistic duo. As artists, we look at larp from a slightly different angle, and there is no perfect word for our approach. Our interdisciplinary artistic works are not quite like larps are usually understood. We call them instruction-based performances, built around short directed scenes emphasizing a particular theme or experience. Embodily design often plays a big role in our pieces, both in creation and the final piece.
Vili and Nina on one of the actual sites where a coven did rituals working on a larp about them. Photo: Vili Myrsky Nissinen 2024
What we mean by embodied art
Larp is the art of experience, but not all larps are embodied art. For us, embodied art is art created by researching bodily experiences and trying to find ways to replicate them for the participants. Embodied art designs the bodily experience directly.
Larp designers often focus on fiction, information, and physical objects to create an immersive setting, skipping thinking about the participants’ bodies beyond keeping them safe and accommodating basic physical needs like food and sleep. Larp designers expect emotions and experiences to emerge from the information and setting they have created, and many times they do. But, larp is first and foremost experienced through the participants’ bodies, and what happens in the participants’ bodies creates the piece. In larp, participants strive for certain emotions, narratives, and human experiences. All things humans start from our body and senses. The bodily experience can be designed; bodies guided and prompted towards the emotions we aim to create to support our narrative. We as creators believe that body-focused design is a very direct and reliable way to achieve the experience larp designers want to create and that it significantly accommodates participants in achieving it.
The body as a design tool
Our pieces in the art scene are mostly based on the history of queers and other oppressed. For us, a crucial part of doing background research on certain groups or events is recreating their footsteps and actions using our bodies to understand what they were doing. We aim to understand how the events felt in the bodies of the people whose stories we are telling. This is crucial for us to tell their tale respectfully and in the right tone.
For example as preparations for Fenezar! (2024), a larp about a working-class witch coven that radicalized and did horrific acts in 1930s Helsinki, we visited two of the coven’s actual ritual sites and did spells there based on their rituals. The other ritual site is not easy to reach, as it is far away from the center of Helsinki and in the middle of an overgrown grove. But it was important for us to follow down the witches’ road to the sacred wellspring and sink an offering there, just as the coven did. We got a glimpse of what they might have felt during the exhausting trip and while practising their magic and this bodily experience we tried to transfer directly into the piece we created.
After bodily experimenting and researching, we verbalize what our bodies experienced and figure out how to translate those experiences into exercises and meta techniques so that our participants can safely get the right feeling. In test runs, we try out these exercises and evolve them when needed. If test runners express that they felt the feelings we aimed for, it is a sign that our body-based exercises are working and that the design is reaching its final form.
Experiencing the right bodily reactions and emotions is a powerful tool for the participants to understand the tale we are telling. We, as creators, don’t find larp an unpredictable and uncontrollable medium like many larp designers do, and we think this is because of our focus on bodily experience. Embodied design can do miracles in finding the core of the piece and giving the players the tools to reach it.
Easy things to design from the body perspective
We think the bare minimum of bodily design all larp creators should do is to check that your participants’ bodily experience is not against aimed content. For example, being cold or hungry makes it hard to feel like you’re in a comedy, or being on a tight schedule and in a hurry makes it hard to drop into the feeling of being in a slow-paced slice of life experience, or uncomfortable and complicated costumes may make it impossible to engage in a free form dance improvisation larp. Make sure your participants can easily engage in the emotions you want them to feel and that their bodies will not be against it by design.
Examples of bodily design from our pieces
In Inner Domain players draw together on the floor. Photo: Nina Mutik 2024
In this section, we will give several practical examples of how we have used our bodies as design tools, and how this has been transformed into exercises or meta techniques and the experience replicated in the actual piece.
Finding Tom (2020) tells the story of Tom of Finland’s (1920-91) art’s effect and meaning on the freedom fight of Finnish gay men of his time. We researched a lot on how it was being a gay man between 1940 and 70s in Helsinki. In Finland, homosexual acts were a crime until 1971 and homosexuality was classified as a disease until 1981. Homosexuality was a shame and not a lifestyle choice or an identity, but rather a heavy burden. Gay men mostly met at parks, finding contacts for sex in secret. After reading history and documentation from those times and interviewing researchers and gay men, we went to the actual cruising sites and followed Tom of Finland’s routes. We re-enacted finding company in the shadows of the parks and tried to embody the fear of getting caught, the shame of being ill this way, the strong sexual urge, and the short relief of relieving the symptoms. We immersed ourselves in the stories we found and tried to feel how being torn between sexual need and shame under heavy oppression felt.
To embody the shame of being gay and the pressing feeling of hiding your true self we created a prop that we call the oppression jacket, a relative to a straitjacket. It is a trench coat with straps sewn into them over the chest and stomach. The straps can be pulled tight so that it is a bit hard to breathe. The oppression jacket does not restrain the participants’ movement but gives a pressing feeling around the chest and stomach. Each participant wears one during the larp. The jacket represents the feeling of shame, fear and being oppressed and at the start of the piece the participants have the jackets closed, the collars pulled up to hide their faces and the straps pulled as tight as they are still comfortable with. As the piece progresses and the characters start slowly finding community and identity, the jacket’s straps gradually loosen and open, until the jackets are dropped off and left behind completely as the characters go into Finland’s first Pride parade. The oppression jacket has gotten a lot of thanks from participants as they help get into the right emotions. They are both great metaphors and cause parts of the right emotions directly in the participants’ bodies.
Inner Domain (2024) tells the story of an all-female esoteric group gathered around the Swedish artist Hilma af Klint at the start of the 20th century. These women used theosophy and spirituality to create a safe space for women to break gender norms and to explore same-sex romance and sexuality in a time when women’s roles and possibilities in society were extremely narrow. We picked one method from their rituals, automatic drawing, to be the center of our piece. Drawing together, close to each other on the floor, guided by the spirits allows exploring things that can not be voiced in another way. Communication through touching creates a wordless way to experience the sensual and fragile erotic tension and emotional relationships we were looking for. The touches while drawing could be gentle, shy, brave, flirty, or even violent. All the character communication in the piece happens only through touching and drawing, there is no talking. During the workshops, participants go through a series of touching exercises, so that it is easy and safe to touch and communicate wordlessly during the larp. This piece has also received a lot of thanks and has surprised its participants on how safe it felt to engage and how intense narratives they lived through in such a short time.
Part of Fenezar!’s design aims to imagine how it was to be poor, suffering from illness, pain, and hunger and existing with no hope of finding anything better, all added to the shame of being poor as it was considered to be your fault by authorities. Endless meaningless physical labor that leads to nothing permanent became the core of this experience. In the larp, we give players some carpet rag to crochet with their fingers as they sit around a table over empty plates and talk. After each act, we unravel the crocheting, and they have to start the same roll of rag from the start again. The constant crocheting also physically narrowed down what they could do, so the meaningless work was restricting them in play. Our participants felt the frustration and the repetitiveness of manual labor well through this tool. In Fenezar! we also discuss radicalization. As the coven does rituals and magic to improve their situation in life and nothing happens, the magical acts become more and more severe to keep up the hope that things will improve, and these people have agency in their lives. To embody this we created props based on actual sacrifices the coven sank into the well-spring, and they become physically heavier and larger as the story progresses. Carrying your more and more extreme deeds was concretely heavier and harder. This had a direct emotional impact on participants they found easy to engage with.
These are some examples of how to affect player bodies directly as a medium for the larp to create the emotions and narrative you are aiming for. These tools can not be invented without experiencing the emotions or events you’re trying to tell with your own body or without testing and iterating with test participants.
This article is republished from the Knutepunkt 2025 book. Please cite it as:
Mutik, Nina & Vili Myrsky Nissinen. 2025. “Larp As Embodied Art.” In Anatomy of Larp Thoughts, a breathing corpus: Knutepunkt Conference 2025. Oslo. Fantasiforbundet.
Cover image: Doing rituals at the actual wellspring the coven used to create Fenezar! Photo: Nina Mutik 2024
Larp in general, and Nordic style larp in particular, is often claimed to be an artistic practice, a frontier of participatory arts. However, discourse on larp by larp organizers, larp participants and game studies researchers has, in recent years, started to frame larp making primarily as a design practice. By that logic larps are now designed by larp designers using larp-specific participatory interaction design methods. Discussions on these design methods have become the mainstay of larp conferences such as Knutpunkt/Solmukohta. Let’s discuss what this hegemony of design thinking does to our practice.
The overall project of design thinking is constructive. Design has lowered the thresholds of participation as well as enabled and structured larp organizing. In the best case, larp designers evaluate best practices and share methods. Although every step in this direction seems like a small success of self-understanding and self-improvement, we argue that the long-term consequences do not necessarily benefit larp as a culture nor as an artistic form. The current hegemony of larp as design does the groundwork for an ongoing reification and commodification of larp. Design transforms larp participants into larp consumers.
New larp projects are now pitched to participants with methods catering to various larp audiences (or rather intended target groups). Post-mortems of past projects serve the function of user experience (UX) evaluation examples to optimize the design of future projects. The design methods are reevaluated based on past successes in relation to informally segmented target groups (such as fantasy-chillout, dystopian-play-to-lose, or post-apocalypse-over-the-top larp consumers), combining setting with interaction style to form specific and recurring audiences. These target groups can then be matched to tried and tested larp design methods to successfully form an iterative and recursive feed-forward UX loop. In practice, this leads to repeating ideas and design elements that have proven to be successful, at the expense of new innovation.
In their marketing, larps can “attach” themselves to commercially successful and well-known IPs and franchises to pitch projects with similar names, using brand recognition to drive participance, forming a secondary volunteer-run streaming service experience. The success of this strategy indicates an environment where even the overall set and setting for a larp is purposefully used as a design method to drive interest in and communicate intended participation. Adopting commercially successful mass media culture is the optimal strategy for producing predictable participance.
There was a time when mass media enviously glanced at the rich culture and engagement surrounding Nordic larp. By now, the roles are reversed. When larp designers take turns riding on various commercial successes in mass media, larp becomes a cecum of Hollywood film and streaming culture. Such an approach would be highly unusual in artistic fields, where originality merits artistic value.
We argue that larp as a form is being restricted by its own success as a participatory design practice and that innovation in larp is over (other than sporadic and local). We see several reasons why larp as design practice hampers larp innovation.
Firstly, design thinking avoids conflict at all costs to deliver a product. Any kind of conflict or disagreement is considered a failed interaction design. But culture can be nurtured by conflict, and we would argue that Nordic larp developed through cultural and subcultural clashes, not through consensus-based “everything is okay as long as you know what you want” design thinking. Bring back dialectics; it’s not smooth, but it’s also not harmful.
We are concerned that larp as a field at this point is emulating some of the worst aspects of experience design commodity culture: start-up ambitions among organizers (including burn-out syndrome) and reification of participants’ social interactions: social interaction becomes a “product” that is delivered by the larp through strategic employment of larp design methods.
The idea of clarity of purpose that design brings makes larp a “readerly” practice – a practice where interpretation (and interaction) is “prepared” for the participant, rather than a “writerly” or artistic-oriented practice, open for the plurality of interpretation (and potential conflict). Clarity of interpretation is optimal for designing and delivering predictable and serviceable interaction for a defined target group. This results in predictable and shallow cultural practices and artifacts.
Remember, there are many ways to make larps. Norwegians use the word lage, a verb that could be utilized for larp making as well as for cooking a soup. Larps can be written, created, organized, dreamt up, or they can be born from artistic practice. We want to encourage a plurality of ways of creating larp.
Think about larp as a culture. It has been said that design is “the opposite of tradition.” Then maybe it’s time to value some of our subcultural traditions, the mutual knowledge of gathering and making stories come alive through our community. Here, we have to understand the limits of design thinking. For example, one of the key features of Nordic larp is trust. We have developed trust in our subculture by nurturing it for many years and events, to the point where we can say trust is part of our tradition. This makes some scenarios possible that would otherwise not be possible. However, you can not replace the tradition of trust by design. The harder you try, the further you fall when something goes wrong.
We argue that larp should not be reduced to a streamlined, well-designed experience product, but rather nurture an aesthetic field, an artistic form in dialogue with the participants as well as the culture at large. The reason larp fails to claim a culturally relevant position is because the primary focus on design optimization reduces our capacity to form an aesthetic or artistic field in dialogue with the wider culture. As an artistic form, larp makers should look for autonomy and integrity in our practice.
Stop using experience product delivery as the primary factor when evaluating larp projects. Instead, focus on how it innovates the form and how it can reshape culture by doing so. The latter is not necessarily realized through “good design”, but through good art.
Know that there is a difference between feedback and critique. We know how to give and get the former, not the latter. When engaging in society, larp will become criticized for how it, as a participatory form, approaches important issues. Be ready for, welcome, and enable criticism, not just on how well participatory methods worked out or whether the experience delivered quality time, but on how the form of larp itself can interpret and address cultural issues relevant to society in a wider context. Instead of targeting cultural and societal matters, larp has become a recursive product design improvement loop that is increasingly optimized for a decreasingly creative field.
If we consider larp-making as an artistic creation process, it does not necessarily involve problem-solving or a user-centered approach. Larps can happen through community building, collaborative creation, or even serendipity.
This article has been reprinted with permission from the Solmukohta 2024 book. Please cite as:
Nordwall, Andrea, and Gabriel Widing. 2024. “Against Design.” In Liminal Encounters: Evolving Discourse in Nordic and Nordic Inspired Larp, edited by Kaisa Kangas, Jonne Arjoranta, and Ruska Kevätkoski. Helsinki, Finland: Ropecon ry.
From the Heliconian Muses let us begin to sing, who hold the great and holy mount of Helicon, and dance on soft feet about the deep-blue spring and the altar of the almighty son of Cronos… — Hesiod’s Theogony
Helicon is a larp by Katrine Wind and Maria Pettersson. The first run was held January 5-7, 2024 in Broholm Castle, Denmark, with a second run scheduled for February 16-18. The larp focuses upon a group of artists, leaders, and scientists in the early twentieth century with various specialties who have discovered and enacted an occult ritual in their university years together. This ritual enables them to call forth the Muses of Greek antiquity, children of Zeus and Mnemosyne, goddess of Memory. The artists ensnare the Muses into servitude such that the Muses are spiritually bound into conferring their Inspiration to the artist who summoned them (their “Inspired”) and are not allowed to Inspire others without a direct order. They are also no longer free to leave the vicinity in which their Inspired has ordered them to stay; through the course of the larp, this vicinity was Helicon Manor, a far cry from the Mount Helicon of antiquity where they normally go for replenishment. Helicon deals explicitly with themes of artistic inspiration, addiction, emotional turmoil, power, restrictions on freedom, and dysfunctional relationship dynamics.
If you are planning to play a future run, please be mindful that this article will share spoilers about the details of the design and the ending.
Thalia, the Muse of Comedy. Photo by Bjørn-Morten Gundersen.
Urania, the Muse of Philosophy. Photo by Bjørn-Morten Gundersen.
Physical and Spiritual Subjugation
And, when they have washed their tender bodies in Permessus or in the Horse’s Spring or Olmeius, make their fair, lovely dances upon highest Helicon and move with vigorous feet…
— Hesiod’s Theogony
In Helicon, each Muse has a specific theme that infuses their Inspiration and guides play: Comedy, Dance, Epic poetry, History, Love poetry, Music, Painting, Philosophy, Politics, Psychology, Sculpture, Song, Spiritual inspiration, and Tragedy. While the power dynamics within the dyads (and in one case, triad) are complex, the Muses are essentially enslaved to their Inspired. They can be drained dry of Inspiration, which the Inspired can use to fuel great deeds or waste as they wish. They can be separated from their siblings: the only beings who can truly understand their divine nature and the millennia of memories they share. They can be physically, emotionally, and spiritually abused by their captors. Even in the kindest of pairings, they must endure the renewal ritual of binding every year, witnessing all of their siblings undergo the process of losing their free will once more. Muses are required to wear only white and gold, with their clothing chosen by their Inspired.
Omorfia and Philip Frost, Muse and Inspired of Painting. Photo by Bjørn-Morten Gundersen.
The Muses can also exert influence over their human captors. When their captors experience their Inspiration, whether given consensually or forcibly taken by the Inspired, the experience is akin to being high on drugs and vulnerable to the Muse emotionally such that promises can be extracted. However, whether or not the Inspired chooses to honor those promises depends entirely on their own integrity: not a common trait written within these characters. While the Inspired have different attitudes toward the binding ritual and its problematic ethics, they still willingly or grudgingly participate in subjugating the Muses each year for their own gain.
This subjugation is particularly painful within the context of the epic setting. Because the Muses are forced to give Inspiration only to one (or two) humans, the rest of the world is starving and wasting away. For millennia, the Muses were deities that evoked worship and vulnerable surrender in order to receive their blessings. They could freely give Inspiration and leave at will as befits their nature; now, they were forced into servitude. At the center of this dynamic is the frailty of the human ego: how even the “best” in the world still struggle with needing to feel recognized and important, and how such insecurities lead people to cause brutal harm to others in order to extract their vital energy and love.
The larp is a mixture of the mundane and the extraordinary, with the interactions taking on a significance not only within these interpersonal dynamics, but upon the world stage and even within the realm of gods. For this reason, I classify the experience as epic play, not only because of the context of Greek epic poetry from which it emerges, but also due to the heightened significance of these actions and the strong emphasis on great artistic production arising out of pain. To subjugate a person in order to extract their vital energy is tragic; to subjugate the Muse of Tragedy is tragic on an epic level.
Melpomene (standing), Taylor Montgomery (left), and Thomas Montgomery (right), Muse and Inspired of Tragedy. Photo by Bjørn-Morten Gundersen.
The white and gold attire worn by the Muses gave them an ethereal, otherworldly quality that contrasted sharply with the Vintage Era clothing of the artists. The website describes the Vintage Era as encompassing “any time from the late 19th century to the middle of the 20th century” (Wind and Pettersson 2023). In contrast to this vaguely modern era, diegetically, the Muses have existed for millennia. Despite this eternal quality, however, the Muses tend to “live in the present.” This meant in practice that we may have fragments of memories from bygone eras of having inspiring historical or legendary mythic figures at will, but such memories would be less important than the present moment experience. For me, this awareness led to a strange contrast between being trapped in a mundane human experience of time and its day-to-day concerns, while also mentally leaping to other times and places, adding to the eerie and unnatural nature of the Muses’ servitude. Such elements added a sense of epicness to play.
The concept of epic play is not intended to reduce the importance of larps focusing on oppression, intimacy, and other dynamics occurring amongst “mere” humans, but rather to describe an aesthetic quality about the larp that sets it apart from larps about the mundane world. To be captured as a Muse meant we could not Inspire others, such that our lack of involvement due to our enslavement was creating ripples in reality not only inside Helicon Manor, but outside of it. The Inspired could trade or even gamble away the Muses’ Inspiration, which can be seen as a mixture of their vital essence and their labor the Muses no longer had liberty to use as they wished.
This epic aesthetic quality can also be ascribed to certain storylines within fantasy larps and themes in other games that feature a supernatural component. Epicness relies upon the ensemble of players committing to underscore the epic significance of the actions performed within play. I have had epic play experiences in other settings, such as at the Vampire: the Masquerade (1991) larp Convention of Thorns (2017) as well as within chamber larps and tabletop RPGs of various genres; indeed, this epic quality is likely what draws many people again and again to Dungeons & Dragons (1974-), which is still the most popular tabletop setting in the world.
What made Helicon exemplary in this respect was the care put into the communication, design, structure, and safety surrounding the experience such that this epic quality — and the tragic predicament within which these characters were ensnared — was emphasized. This article will focus on these design and implementation practices, providing theoretical context from my perspective as a player-researcher enacting a Muse character where appropriate.
Calliope and Edmund Wright, Inspired and Muse of Epic Poetry. Photo by Bjørn-Morten Gundersen.
Lawrence Black and Erato, Inspired and Muse of Love Poetry. Photo by Bjørn-Morten Gundersen.
Circles of Trust and Betrayal
Thence they arise and go abroad by night, veiled in thick mist, and utter their song with lovely voice, praising…
— Hesiod’s Theogony
The larp designers fostered trust among the player base in a variety of ways. The website clearly communicated not only the themes of the larp, but also its structure and which sorts of experiences the players were encouraged and discouraged to enact. Players were not expected to demonstrate expertise in their respective arts or to perform during the larp, which lowered the perceived barrier to entry of performance anxiety. Despite the intimate nature of many of the relationships, the designers detailed that this larp is not intended to be an erotic larp in which public displays of sexuality are encouraged and are often a central design feature (Grasmo and Stenros 2022). While such larps can be experienced as liberating for participants (Juhana Pettersson 2021b), explicit sexuality can distract from the more subtle relationship dynamics and interactions that this larp sought to foster. Regardless of the chosen themes, expectation setting is important in creating a shared culture before signup even begins (Koljonen 2016a), provided of course that the players adhere to this established social contract.
Similarly, the website described the structure of scenes that would occur, which included a form of fateplay (Fatland 2000) of certain scenes framing each act. It described the pre-larp scene of the Muses attempting and failing at escape, only to be dragged back to Helicon Manor: in achingly strong contrast to the real Mount Helicon, where they would gather for connection and renewal as siblings before their enslavement.
Stella Wilson, Inspired of Spiritual Inspiration, led the rituals. Photo by Bjørn-Morten Gundersen.
The larp was framed with a beautifully epic theme song composed by Anni Tolvanen, which ushered us in and out of play. Tolvanen also curated a soundscape of dramatic music that echoed through the halls during the larp. The first Act began with a ritualized Punishment scene while standing in a circle, in which the Inspired enacted consequences on their Muses for their escape attempt, also forcing the Muses to punish each other. I have also utilized this technique of starting the larp by dropping characters directly into ritual space when co-designing Immerton (2017) and Epiphany (2018). I find it a particularly helpful practice to emphasize the core themes of the game, help players quickly get past the awkwardness of the first hour of the larp, and create intensely meaningful role-play moments from the beginning that can feed play later. (For further reading on these larps, see Jones 2017; Brown et al. 2018; Kim, Nuncio, and Wong 2018).
In our discussions after the larp, Wind referred to this design technique as part of a concept she calls frontloading, which she will further describe in an upcoming article. For Katrine, this term referred to the structure and pacing in terms of intensity, which puts a lot of structured and tense content earlier in the larp. This term also resonated with Maria, who described frontloading as designing extensive and complex character relations with focus on high playability in the larp itself, a common strategy in Finnish design. Wind explained:
This combination gives players something to immediately play on and react to that has specific relevance for their character and gives them “something to talk about immediately.” It also provides alibi to jump right into relations that might take a lot of time to ramp up and cause everything in the larp to culminate at the same time in the last few hours. . .
If there is one or more crescendos in the beginning of the larp itself, culminations and intensity [are] spread out over the whole playtime because you can be sure that some things will only culminate in the last hours of the larp anyway.
In the next group scene, we were then instructed to go to the dining hall. The multi-course dinners and lunches were catered and high quality. What made these dining scenes particularly epic were the statues and bas reliefs decorating the room that portrayed scenes from Greek mythology. The metatechnique that guided play in these scenes was dinner warfare, also featured in Wind’s larp Daemon (2021-). Unlike the intensely visible brutality in the Punishment ritual, we sat in circles masterminded by assigned seating to maximize drama. We pretended to be members of polite society while delivering passive aggressive verbal barbs, whether about art, the Muses’ confinement, class, or any number of other dynamics. (Gender, sexuality, and race/ethnic discrimination was explicitly forbidden in the larp, but class was very much embedded in the character design). This juxtaposition of high boiling intensity in the beginning directly to a low simmer punctuated the themes of the larp quite sharply: the epic alongside the banal, the fragility of human egos, the need to control in order to feel important, the subtle bids for freedom within enforced servitude, etc. According to the designers, traditions such as arranged seating were diegetically upheld as necessary, both due to affiliation to the Inspired’s prestigious university and the necessity to keep the ritual intact. Wind told me,
Alibi for the seats being like this was provided by the diegetic fact that the Inspired needed the repetition to make sure they could renew the Binding year after year, so they didn’t dare change the seating. It was simply, and naturally, a tradition. This meant that divorced couples and former friends were awkwardly seated close to each other for hours.
Danielle Lafontaine, Inspired of Dance, and Christian Schönburg, Inspired of Comedy, engaged in dinner warfare. Photo by Bjørn-Morten Gundersen.
The first Act ended for Muses with a touching final circle: a purification ritual. Diegetically, the Muses would return to Mount Helicon every 15 years to reconnect through this ritual; since we were not permitted to return to Mount Helicon or see one another at will for the last 15 years, we made do in the Manor with these stolen moments. We huddled for warmth in the dark attic, gently comforting one another through touch as we did throughout the larp. We each took water from a bowl and cleansing the Muse next to us, which felt like a ritual blessing. Then, we each shared a Secret — some revealed shameful feelings or actions, such as taking someone else’s Inspired as a lover or alerting one’s Inspired of the escape plans. While we all witnessed these admissions, the purification ritual added an element of forgiveness to the circle. At least for my character, the understanding that we were taking action under complicated situations of duress made it easy to let such admissions go, although others did hold resentments.
The Inspired awaiting the arrival of the Muses in the first Binding, the beginning of Act 2. Photo by Bjørn-Morten Gundersen. Image has been cropped.
The second Act began with a flashback scene in which we enacted the initial binding ritual. This ritual also occurred in a circle within the same room, imbuing the physical space with a certain repeated significance. This scene was particularly effective because we already had the experience of being subjugated by these relationships the night before. We then began play with a brief experience of freedom, worship, and a pure desire to Inspire outside of such subjugation, only to be bound and betrayed. This worship was especially desired by the Muses because of its unusualness in the modern world, where few still prayed to the old gods; thus the pain of betrayal was manifold.
At the end of Act 2, the characters engaged in another important informal ritual called the Party, which was also upheld every year due to tradition. In the Party, the artists drained their Muses of all Inspiration in a moment of selfish gluttonous intoxication, doing absolutely nothing of worth with these gifts. The Muses were expected to participate in the Party as celebrants as well, which we interpreted in various ways. This sort of peer pressure to maintain appearances was present in all of the rituals, with Inspired and Muse characters alike having various degrees of internal and external conflict around these traditions.
Henry Wilson and Clio, Inspired and Muse of History. Photo by Bjørn-Morten Gundersen.
Close to the end of Act 3 was the yearly renewal of the binding ritual, with a twist: the ritual was disrupted afterward by a scroll that contained a sort of counter spell, in which the Muses were offered the opportunity to make a “Choice.” The Muses could choose to stay with their captors in servitude, or leave, which would entail them to become mortal, losing their supernatural abilities, and eventually dying. The design allowed for us to spend quite a bit of in-game time focused on this Choice and its ramifications. The power dynamics were suddenly flipped: the Muses could now decide to freely go (albeit with twisted ramifications and not at all prepared for human life), or stay within the dysfunctional dynamic of enslavement, lending to the air of tragedy.
I was cast as Clio, the Muse of History, who had a comparatively consensual dynamic with her Inspired, historian Henry Wilson, in part due to intense Stockholm Syndrome. Though Clio’s entrapment was relatively kind, she was appalled at the indignities forced upon her siblings. During the Choice, Henry wanted Clio to stay to help him uncover lost cities like Troy, which had earned him great fame with her Inspiration as an impetus. However, he had chosen to marry another human Inspired, which reinforced to Clio this sense of indignity.
The other dyads and triad had similarly complex interpersonal dynamics, which led to the Choice being difficult to make; certain characters, who experienced some of the worst oppression in the larp chose to remain enslaved. This choice mirrors human dysfunctional relationships, but was intensified by the epic quality of the larp; the Choice had far-reaching ramifications, not only to the characters present, but the world at large. In Henry and Clio’s case, they chose a third option, presented to them by Erato, the Muse of Love Poetry, and her Inspired: the artists would publicly release us from our binding, assert our independence to leave at will, and permit us to Inspire others. The questions then became: Would Clio return of her own free will to Inspire Henry, even though he was now engaged to a mortal woman? Could Henry retract this declaration at will, leaving her to be bound again? Thus, even this “easier” third option was still riddled with emotional complexity.
The Choice. Photo by Bjørn-Morten Gundersen.
Circles of Safety and Calibration
Come thou, let us begin with the Muses who gladden the great spirit of their father Zeus in Olympus with their songs, telling of things that are and that shall be and that were aforetime with consenting voice…
— Hesiod’s Theogony
The larp featured a pre-game call a month before the larp and extensive workshopping before the game in which we were briefed on aspects of the world and practiced specific play techniques. Most of us signed up in pairs (or triads), meaning that we likely already had developed a certain degree of trust with our main co-player(s) in the Inspired/Muse dynamic. We were instructed that we must calibrate with these co-players at least before the game, and ideally also the other relations mentioned in our character sheets. We were also instructed to check-in with our dyad or triad players after the larp. These instructions emphasized the need for emotional care for co-players, acknowledging the intensity of the experience and making it part of the shared culture of the game to tend to one another. On the other hand, we were also reminded that we are responsible for our own experience, meaning we should communicate if needs arrive and do what is necessary to care for ourselves.
Calliope, Muse of Epic Poetry, and Thalia, Muse of Comedy. Photo by Bjørn-Morten Gundersen.
Pre-game workshops are often quite awkward experiences, especially whenpreparing to play larps of this nature. Players often feel a certain degree of social anxiety about their own role-playing abilities and their skills at interpersonal interaction (Algayres 2019). They may feel worried about costuming, physical touch, their own attractiveness, or any other number of insecurities and uncertainties. To establish trust early on, we were instructed to sit closely with our dyad or triad and touch in some way during the briefing, such as a casual touch on the arm, cuddling, holding hands, etc. Physical touch can release oxytocin (Zak 2011) and provide an experience of trust between players, although it can also backfire for participants who feel hypervigilant or triggered when touched. The website communicated that players needed to be willing to experience casual touch: “A good baseline of what you should be okay with could be a stranger touching your arm, shouting at you, holding your hand or kissing you on the cheek” (Helicon website, n.d). We also workshopped eye gazing between Muses and Inspired, which deepened the connection and helped relieve a bit of the awkwardness. Eye gazing is a simple, yet quick and effective technique for people to see others beyond the masks each of us wear in social life, as well as to feel truly seen in a short amount of time.
We also had times within the workshop to calibrate with many of our written relationships, which from my perspective provided a solid groundwork of a “home base” between player-characters within play. In my view, creating time for such calibration is critical to the success of such larps. Many players do not have the time or inclination to reach out before the larp and find it difficult to remember names, faces, and the specifics of written dynamics during play. Creating contact before the game and encouraging players to discuss what each person wants (and doesn’t want) from the dynamic is very helpful.
Danielle Lafontaine after draining Terpsichore at the Party (Inspired and Muse of Dancing). Photo by Bjørn-Morten Gundersen.
We also workshopped a scene involving the drawing of Inspiration. The metatechnique involved a white and gold sash with the Muse’s name written upon it, which we would use in some way to signify giving Inspiration. The sash could be used in many ways ranging from gentle and consensual to violent and non-consensual. We were instructed to hand over one of our three precious Inspiration ribbons placed on our name tags and transfer them to the Inspired’s name tag. The ribbons were a non-diegetic way to communicate how full or empty of Inspiration each character was, as well as who had drawn Inspiration from whom, as each Muse had different colored ribbons. We could decide to act upon this extra-diegetic information as a form of steering (Montola, Stenros, and Saitta 2015). The designers explained that they did not want Inspiration to turn into a statistic like in other role-playing games, but it still influenced play for some of the larpers.
Another workshop emphasized playing to lift (Vejdemo 2018), meaning we took turns boosting the importance of the other characters in terms of their personality or accomplishments using “Yes, And” to build upon what others were improvising. For example, a character could say, “My recent art work has received quite a lot of positive reviews…” which we would then reinforce with added comments. Since the larp also dealt with the fragility of artists’ egos, we also practiced playing each other down, which would be initiated by the person wanting that sort of play, for example, “Lately, I’ve really been struggling to get critics to care about my work…” The co-players would then “Yes, And” to make the character feel even worse about their artistic block or lack of public recognition. This metatechnique was particularly interesting as it provided an impetus for drawing Inspiration and seeking validation from others through dysfunctional means.
We were instructed to use “off-game” in order to quickly calibrate and negotiate consent during play or leave the space for more extensive discussion. We went off-game between acts and the default for sleeping quarters was off-game as well. Right before the larp began, we workshopped violence, including tapping out when we wanted a certain interaction to slow down or stop, as well as escalating slowly through bullet-time consent (Koljonen 2016b) to give other players a chance to opt-in or out. This practice ended up important for the first Punishment scene that we were soon to play.
Omorfia and Philip Frost, Muse and Inspired of Painting in the first Binding. Photo by Bjørn-Morten Gundersen.
Maximillian Stern worshipping Euterpe at the first Binding. Photo by Bjørn-Morten Gundersen.
Christian Schönburg binding Thalia, the Muse of Comedy. Photo by Bjørn-Morten Gundersen.
Calibration was also emphasized in the workshops between acts in effective ways. We were given time for one-on-one discussions, but we also circled up with each player sharing a short sentence of what they would like to experience within this Act. Then, other players could raise their hand and volunteer to deliver that sort of play, which added an element of accountability to one another. Following Juhana Pettersson’s (2021a) assertion that players are engines of desire, being able to openly express one’s wishes in a group without shame is a powerful experience. For example, I tend to prefer subtle scenes and was drawn to the larp due to the emphasis on discussions of art and the creative process; through this process, I was able to ask others to approach me with those kinds of discussions if desired. It was remarkable to me the way a briefly stated request could redirect the flow of play for individual players, and thus the ensemble: a form of group steering.
Epic Dyadic Play as a Genre
Unwearying flows the sweet sound from their lips, and the house of their father Zeus the loud-thunderer is glad at the lily-like voice of the goddesses as it spreads abroad, and the peaks of snowy Olympus resound, and the homes of the immortals…
— Hesiod’s Theogony
At times in Helicon, I felt like I was experiencing something quite new, but I could not put my finger on why. Oppression dynamics and dysfunctional relationships are hardly new themes; indeed they are the bread and butter of many Nordic or Nordic-inspired larps. Epic storylines and supernatural abilities are hardly new either, as RPGs as a medium have featured those elements from their inception.
Euterpe and Maximillian Stern, Muse and Inspired of Music, attempting to compose. Photo by Bjørn-Morten Gundersen.
At one point, I looked around the room during dinner warfare, surveying the artists with their Muses, thinking, “Oh! We are in a really good Toreador larp” — the Toreador being the artistic clan in Vampire: the Masquerade. In Vampire, the undead take “retainers” who are bloodbound to them, meaning supernaturally addicted to their blood and compelled to obey. Retainers bound by Toreador are often highly talented in their own right, ensnared by the vampire’s wish to keep their retainer’s talents for themselves — an especially potent theme considering many vampires lose the potency of their own talents when turned to the undead. This larp was different in many ways, of course, especially considering the retainers were mystical eternal beings. The emphasis on artistic creation as an important theme of the larp led to a depth of discussion that I often craved as a long-time Toreador player, enhanced by the setting of the beautiful castle and its art.
The initial binding ritual was initiated by Henry Wilson, Inspired of History, and Stella Wilson, Inspired of Spiritual Inspiration. Photo by Bjørn-Morten Gundersen.
At another point, I saw characters huddled in corners trying to solve various plots related to the occult rituals: the Inspired were trying to figure out ways to stop the Muses from being able to flee, whereas the Muses were trying to figure out a way for the Escape ritual to work. I thought to myself, “Oh, we’re in a Call of Cthulhu larp and those are the occult researcher characters.” As with Cthulhu (1981), Helicon’s setting is clearly playing to lose on some level; whether freedom is attained or the Muses continue to be bound, loss is embedded. But the sense of supernatural horror that pervades Cthulhu was not the emphasis here; instead, we focused on the interpersonal dramas inherent to these characters being locked in this non-consensual pact. Indeed, the occult components felt like an aberration, while the “natural” state would be to let the Muses free to choose who to Inspire. The occult components did not seem to be a goal to attain or a puzzle to solve. Rather, they were elements calling to mind the Spiritualism of the early twentieth century, as well as storytelling devices providing alibi to engage in intense rituals, which tend to amplify play. From my perspective, these spells were more of a conceit than a quest, although I steered away from play involving them so cannot speak for other players.
The final Binding ritual. Photo by Bjørn-Morten Gundersen.
I keep returning to this emphasis on dyadic (or triadic) play, which is also not new. The Nordic larp Delirium (2010), about oppression within a mental institution, relied on players signing up as couples and used dyadic play to explore themes of love and failed attempts at resistance (Pedersen 2010; Andreasen 2011). Personally, I have had particularly strong experiences playing Here is My Power Button (2017), an American freeform about users purchasing an android from a company as part of a scientific experiment. What made Power Button potent was a toggling back and forth between one-on-one user/android scenes in the same room and group scenes, in which all users would interact in one room and all androids in the other. Helicon had a similar structure: we had large group scenes that were also one-on-one scenes, giving a sense of collective experience along with intimacy. We also had activities such as the Muse ritual in which we were all together and able to share about our paired experience.
Phren, Muse of Psychology, and Athanasia, Muse of Sculpture. Photo by Bjørn-Morten Gundersen.
This epic dyadic structure is also present in Linda Udby and Bjarke Pedersen’s PAN (2013-) and BAPHOMET (2015-), which feature occult storylines and supernatural content in the form of possession from godlike entities (Pedersen and Udby 2017; Nordic Larp Wiki 2019). Another dyadic larp is Wind’s Daemon (2021-), which is based upon Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials (1995-2000) series. In Daemon, characters have animal entities attached to them that represent their souls enacted by other players. I have not yet played Daemon, but have read many play accounts that have emphasized the powerful nature of this dyadic setup. In practice, the structure at Daemon meant that characters are instructed to stay physically close to one another at all times (Wind 2021): not exactly the same as our experience in Helicon, but was a clear inspiration.
Melpomene and Taylor Montgomery, Muse and Inspired of Tragedy. Photo by Bjørn-Morten Gundersen.
In reflecting upon the larp, I am now considering the combination of epic play and a dyadic (or triadic) structure as a particularly potent combination: perhaps an emerging genre of play as more and more larps are produced in this format. Helicon required a strong degree of trust between players in dyads (and triads), as well as a degree of commitment: we were expected to continue to role-play and check-in with our co-players and not abandon them, even if we wanted to steer the story into a new direction. Most characters had several other interesting and playable character relations, which helped interweave the larp into more of an ensemble (Tolvanen and MacDonald 2020), rather than incentivizing isolated play between groups of 2-3. While players may have differing experiences of the larp, my perception is that this dyadic epic play combined with emphasis on the ensemble led to a special magic of interconnectedness not always present at larps.
I finally settled on, “Oh, we’re in a Neil Gaiman larp,” at least thematically; we were epically-infused characters with all-to-human quirks engaged in interpersonally meaningful play tinged with sadness about humanity’s flaws. Gaiman’s (2018) words describe his work well:
A world in which there are monsters, and ghosts, and things that want to steal your heart is a world in which there are angels, and dreams and a world in which there is hope.
However, from discussions of the designers, “Calliope” was not a primary inspiration, so to speak, and the character relations were meant to be far more nuanced, which I definitely experienced. I look forward to seeing what larps are spawned as this type of design and experimentation continues to evolve.
Polyhymnia, Muse of Spiritual Inspiration, and Helica, Muse of Architecture (Wind). Photo by Bjørn-Morten Gundersen.
Acknowledgements
My deepest gratitude to Katrine Wind, Maria Pettersson, Elina Gouliou, Mo Holkar, and Mike Pohjola for giving feedback on this article.
Helicon
Designers: Katrine Wind and Maria Pettersson, Narrators, Inc.
Participation Fee: €630
Players: 29
First Run: January 5-7, 2024
Second Run: February 16-18, 2024 (upcoming)
Location: Broholm Castle, Gudme, Denmark
Music: Anni Tolvanen
Photography: Bjørn-Morten Vang Gundersen
Safety: Anna Werge Bønnelycke (Jan. 5-7) and Klara Rotvig (Feb. 16-18)
Website: Katrine Kavli
Graphics: Maria Manner
Sparring and Ideas: Emil Greve, Elina Gouliou, and Markus Montola
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Davis, G., et al., 1991. Vampire: the Masquerade. Stone Mountain, GA: White Wolf.
Montola, Markus, Jaakko Stenros, and Eleanor Saitta. 2015. “The Art of Steering: Bringing the Player and the Character Back Together.” Nordiclarp.org, March 29.
Nordic Larp Wiki. 2019. “Playing to Lose.” Nordic Larp Wiki, September 3.
Nordic Larp Wiki. 2019. “Pan.” Nordic Larp Wiki, April 2.
Pedersen, Bjarke. 2010. “Delirium: Insanity and Love Bleeding from Larp to Life.” In Nordic Larp, edited by Jaakko Stenros and Markus Montola, 288-297.
Pettersson, Juhana. 2021b. “Terror and Warmth.” In Book of Magic: Vibrant Fragments of Larp Practices, edited by Kari Kvittingen Djukastein, Marcus Irgens, Nadja Lipsyc, and Lars Kristian Løveng Sunde Oslo, Norway: Knutepunkt.
Pullman, Philip. 2000. His Dark Materials Complete Trilogy. Ted Smart.
Tolvanen, Anni, and James Lórien MacDonald. 2020. “Ensemble Play.” In What Do We Do When We Play?, edited by edited by Eleanor Saitta, Johanna Koljonen, Jukka Särkijärvi, Anne Serup Grove, Pauliina Männistö, and Mia Makkonen. Helsinki: Solmukohta.
Vejdemo, Susanne. 2018. “Play to Lift, not Just to Lose.” In Shuffling the Deck: The Knutpunkt 2018 Color Printed Companion, edited by Annika Waern and Johannes Axner, 143-146. Pittsburgh, PA: Carnegie Mellon University: ETC Press.
Your pulse is racing. Your hands are shaking. This is your last chance:
HEALING
The most glamorous entertainment show in the world.
For some it’s a new beginning. For some it’s the end.
Make yourself at home. Just be yourself! We, Falcon Eye, will be watching every step you take.
That was exciting! That was moving! That was magical! Those are real emotions!
Once more it is time for the part of the show we all adore the most: the scoring round! We love scores. You and I, all of us – we live for the scores!
Rags to rags? Not in The Nation. Let’s have some fun fun fun and get you back in shape.
We have seen you give your all. But you can do better, sm_741.
Your scores are consistent. …consistently worse. That’s -30 points in resilience. And -40 in sociability and responsibility. Not long and you will end up in the Farewell.
The Larp
A bunker in an undefined future called Healing Facility-A13 is the place-to-be / last resort for beings who fell out of the middle of society by having a too low LIS-Score (Social Score). As longtime clients in a game show called Healing destiny now is in their own hands, again. Can they impress the “The Tribunal” (online players playing in a specially designed 2D world interconnected with audio and video in real time with the bunker) to lift their LIS-Score and go back in the heart of “The Nation” (society) or do they finally have to go to “Farewell”…
Creation
Summer 2021. An international team of role-players, performers, scenographers, activists, hackers, and creative coders tries to create a larp about a technocratic fascist world inside a bunker. Outside a not-so-fictional but appallingly similar world is waiting: Schweinfurt in Bavaria, Germany. The city is flooded with bored cops and their civil minions. So the team from the network denialofservice.fail holes up even deeper to the bunker to create a unique hybrid game.
Healing was played online and offline at the same time. Beings from all over the world played online with beings located in a World War II era bunker in Germany. The larp was played six times, open to the public, took 10 hours of your time and was designed for beings without any larp experience, with accessibility in mind and ran solely on open source software.
More Information
Check out denialofservice.fail or visithealing.dos.fail on the net to get more information about what happened to the clients in Healing Facility A13.
Cover photo: All photos by Simon Salem Müller VG Bild-Kunst Bonn / denialofservice.fail. Cover photo has been cropped.
This article is published in the Knutpunkt 2022 magazine Distance of Touch and is published here with permission. Please cite this text as:
Neite, Wanja. 2022. “Healing.” In Distance of Touch: The Knutpunkt 2022Magazine, edited by Juhana Pettersson, 124-128. Knutpunkt 2022 and Pohjoismaisen roolipelaamisen seura.
