Tag: Character

  • Bleed Before it was Cool: Early descriptions of dissimulative pretense, their unintended effects, and their impact on the evolution of roleplaying

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    Bleed Before it was Cool: Early descriptions of dissimulative pretense, their unintended effects, and their impact on the evolution of roleplaying

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    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.


    Dissimulation: Adopting roles to conceal true intentions, from politeness to deception.

    As the term roleplaying expanded beyond its theatrical roots, it embarked on a fascinating journey of transformation. European sources from the 18th and 19th centuries describe phenomena occurring during, or as a result of roleplaying, that we might now recognize as bleed. But what was the historical context of these cases, and what lessons can they offer for our understanding of roleplaying today?

    Bleed, a concept first introduced by Emily Care Boss (2007), refers to the way emotions, thoughts, or experiences can spill over between a character and the player; flowing either from the character into the player or vice versa (Hugaas, 2024). After immersion, bleed is likely the most talked-about aspect of larping (Jeepen, 2007; Montola, 2010; Montola, 2011; Bowman, 2013; Kemper, 2017; Leonard and Thurman, 2018; Hugaas, 2019). This happens because the line between social reality and pretense is naturally blurred (Järvelä 2019). When we larp, our minds cannot fully separate the experience from reality, as we are actively thinking, physically embodying, and socially co-creating these moments (Kapitany et al., 2022).

    This article is part of an ongoing Hungarian research line (Turi & Hartyándi, 2022; Turi & Hartyándi, 2023; upcoming) that investigates how the concept and notion of roleplaying is evolving through the centuries, instead of projecting the contemporary notion of larp into past or adjacent activities (Hartyándi, 2024).

    The etymology of roleplaying and its early usages

    The word rôle is of French origin, originally referring to the scroll (Latin rotula, English roll) that contained an actor’s lines and written instructions for a theatrical performance. From this, it later acquired its figurative meaning of role. Since actors perform their roles on stage, the phrase ‘to play a role’ is undoubtedly very old, with documented usage by Diderot, Goethe, and Schiller in the 18th century.

    If actors play roles on stage, could it be that we are also playing roles in our lives? Shakespeare’s famous monologue in As You Like It (1623) — “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players” — expresses not a groundbreaking insight into social behavior (Goffman, 1959), but rather a popular cliché of the time, likely tracing its roots back to Roman times (Garber, 2008). Nevertheless, humans are undeniably social roleplayers (Moreno, 1943).

    In this linguistic and historical context, both the term ‘roleplaying’ itself, and its usage in the the sense of dissimulation, originally emerged in German. Dissimulation involves taking on roles to present an image contrary to one’s true feelings or intentions (Corsini et al., 1963). This can range from simple acts of politeness to elaborate uses, such as deception in scams or espionage.

    Fake it till you make it

    Justus Möser, a humble yet proactive giant, was a polyhistor and statesman of the small state of Osnabrück in today’s Lower Saxony. In his Patriotische Phantasien (1776), a compilation of previous newspaper essays addressing various societal-political issues relevant to Osnabrück, he sought to inspire a sense of civic responsibility through concise but playful and dramatic prose. One notable piece is likely one of the earliest sources to use the phrase ‘playing a role’ (eine Rolle spielen) to describe a dissimulation.

    In this story, a married couple (the narrator and her husband) receive unexpected guests in the countryside. Feeling annoyed and unprepared, they decide to pretend to be the most charming hosts despite their initial frustration. As the narrator assesses: “In that very moment, our guests arrived, and we began playing our roles so brilliantly that the good people were utterly delighted.” (Möser, 1776, p. 370.)

    This strategy is not only successful towards the guests. Unintendedly, after a quarter an hour, the pretense leads to genuine joy for the hosts, transforming their moods and fostering an atmosphere of mutual warmth and enjoyment. By making a polite effort to appear attentive, the hosts quickly became so themselves, as their attitude bled through the pretense.

    As the title (‘A proven remedy for a bad mood, shared by a lady in the countryside’) shows, Möser often used fictional correspondence’ in this case, presenting the piece as a letter from a rural woman, offering practical advice on overcoming melancholy. This story is particularly intriguing, as it represents an early example of emotional bleed, showcasing a timeless self-help strategy: intentionally using dissimulation to influence and improve one’s mood through bleed. Yet, the records suggest that this practice went beyond such innocent uses of pretense.

    Getting caught up in one’s own act

    Half a century later, writer Karl Leberecht Immermann (1839) reimagined Rudolf Erich Raspe’s famous Baron Münchausen adventures, combining the baron’s fictional tall tales with sharp commentary on contemporary society. One chapter in Immermann’s version includes the reversed phrase of ‘roleplaying’ (Rollenspiel), possibly for the very first time in written German, and details its psychological effects.

    The story unfolds in the crumbling castle of Schnick-Schnack-Schnurr where the eccentric hosts turn against their guest, Baron Münchhausen, who pretends to suffer from chronic sleeping to escape accountability. Interestingly, the often exaggerating and flamboyant baron is not the story’s biggest pretender. He prompts his servant, Karl Buttervogel, to impersonate Prince von Hechelkram to gain influence, and Emerentia, the host’s romantic daughter, falls for the ruse. As a twist, Münchausen covertly exposes Karl’s act, and the disillusioned young woman remarks that the servant “had identified with the role through continuous roleplaying” (ein fortwährendes Rollespielen mit der Rolle identifizirt, Immermann, 1839, p. 229).

    Immermann describes Karl’s gradual immersion into his assumed role. Initially portrayed as a thoroughly practical character, he adopts noble mannerisms and grows increasingly confident in his act, thriving in his role, but slowly becomes frustrated by the constraints of his deception. Not only does Karl maintain the pretense, but he gradually inhabits the role; altering his behavior, attitude, and life expectations to such an extent that even outsiders, like the disappointed Emerentia, notice the transformation. This blurring of the line between pretense and social reality prompts Emerentia to question how sustained deception can shape identity. The story could be interpreted as an example of bleed that extends beyond emotions, influencing deeper levels of personality.

    Alone in the circle

    It may be mere coincidence, but it is worth noting that in both stories we are in a German-speaking area, in the fictional countryside, and the narrator reflects on the roleplaying from a female identity. What might be even more important is that compared to theatre and larp, these pretenses are not transparent and reciprocal, but dissimulative and pervasive (Montola, 2012) occurrences.

    Generally speaking, both in theater and larp, pretend play is created by integrating two aspects. First, we behave as if we were in a different setting and situation; in other words, we are simulating an environment. Moreover, we are behaving as if we were other persons, so we roleplay characters. These two aspects create a complex pretense, regardless of whether there is an audience, sets, costumes, etc. The two examples discussed above are probably the first to mention the terms playing a role and roleplaying in a German context where setting-simulation is absent and the magical circle of play is not transparent; only one party pretends for dissimulative purposes.

    Interestingly, these early cases not only exemplify dissimulation but also illustrate its unintended consequences. In Möser’s 18th-century essay, playing a role secretly leads to emotional bleed in the pretenders, while in Immermann’s 19th-century tale, dissimulative roleplaying goes even deeper. Could it be that bleed was particularly prevalent in both cases because the roles were not transparent, demanding the pretenders to perform with great effort and credibility—taking it more seriously than within the more permissive framework of playfulness? If we are alone within the magical circle of pretense, could we be more profoundly affected by it?

    Later developments

    As the notion of playing a role had escaped the walls of the theatre, it did not stop at these dissimulative interpretations, but gradually became increasingly abstract. Just as the notion of bleed can be extended to include any crossover between character and player, so too could the idea of playing a role. In its most derived meaning, as a synonym for ‘to have an effect or impact,’ it regularly appeared in late 18th-century German texts (e.g. Werthes, 1791) and was also evident in many examples in English and French.

    Later, in the form of ‘rôle playing’, the reversed phrase entered English texts; first only in terms of children’s pretend play and its connection to identity development (Groos, 1901). From a psychological point of view, children roleplaying is inherently tied to bleed. Its primary function is imitating, practicing, and rehearsing; in other words, adopting new behaviours and experiences through playful experimentation (Kapitany et al, 2023).

    But as we have seen from the two cases, adults are also affected by pretense. This is why the term roleplayer (Rollenspieler) first appeared in the works of Jacob L. Moreno (1924), who viewed social roles not as rigid constraints but as opportunities for spontaneity, experimenting with their utilization. Searching for the origins of larp, theorists often trace larp back to Moreno through an unbroken chain of influence, referring to him as the ‘father of roleplaying’ (Fatland, 2014; 2016). As demonstrated in this article, Moreno did not invent the term roleplaying in either German or English; however, he was likely the first to integrate what larpers now call bleed into his developmental methods for adults (Moreno, 1943). Ironically, this generative aspect of roleplaying was first demonstrated by fictional writings about dissimulative pretense.

    Bibliography

    Boss, Emily Care. 2007. “Romance and Gender in Role-playing Games: Too Hot to Handle?” Presentation at Ropecon 2007. Helsinki, Finland.

    Bowman, Sarah Lynne. 2013. “Social Conflict in Role-playing Communities: An Exploratory Qualitative Study.” International Journal of Role-Playing 4: 4-25.

    Fatland, Eirik. 2014. “A History of Larp – Larpwriter Summer School 2014.” YouTube, Fantasiforbundet, Aug. 3, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rf_gej5Pxkg.

    Garber, Marjorie B. 2008. Profiling Shakespeare, Routledge, New York.#

    Goffman, Erving. 1959. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. New York: Anchor Books.

    Groos, Karl. 1901. The Play of Man. Appleton, New York.

    Hartyándi, Mátyás. 2024. “Larp: the Colonist.” In Liminal Encounters: Evolving Discourse in Nordic and Nordic Inspired Larp, edited by Kaisa Kangas, Jonne Arjoranta, and Ruska Kevätkoski. Helsinki, Finland: Ropecon ry.

    Hugaas, Kjell Hedgard. 2019. “Investigating Types of Bleed in Larp: Emotional, Procedural, and Memetic.” Nordiclarp.org, January 25. https://nordiclarp.org/2019/01/25/investigating-types-of-bleed-in-larp-emotional-procedural-and-memetic/

    Hugaas, Kjell Hedgard. 2024. “Bleed and Identity: A Conceptual Model of Bleed and How Bleed-Out from Role-Playing Games Can Affect a Player’s Sense of Self.” International Journal of Role-Playing 15: 9-35.

    Immermann, Karl. 1839. Münchhausen. Band 3. Düsseldorf.

    Jeepen. 2007. “Bleed.” Vi åker jeep—the home of Jeepform. https://jeepen.org/dict/

    Järvelä, Simo. 2019. “How Real Is Larp?” In Larp Design: Creating Role-Play Experiences, edited by Johanna Koljonen, Jaakko Stenros, Anne Serup Grove, Aina D. Skjønsfjell and Elin Nilsen. Copenhagen: Landsforeningen Bifrost

    Kapitany, Rohan, Tomas Hampejs and Thalia R. Goldstein. 2022. “Pretensive Shared Reality: From Childhood Pretense to Adult Imaginative Play.” Frontiers in Psychology 13: 19.

    Kemper, Jonaya. 2017. “The Battle of Primrose Park: Playing for Emancipatory Bleed in Fortune & Felicity.” Nordiclarp.org, June 21. https://nordiclarp.org/2017/06/21/the-battle-of-primrose-park-playing-for-emancipatory-bleed-in-fortune-felicity/

    Leonard, Diana J., and Tessa Thurman. 2018. “Bleed-out on the Brain: The Neuroscience of Character-to-Player.” International Journal of Role-Playing 9: 9-15.

    Montola, Markus. 2012. On the Edge of the Magic Circle: Understanding Role-Playing and Pervasive Games. PhD dissertation, University of Tampere, School of Information Sciences. https://trepo.tuni.fi/handle/10024/66937

    Montola, Markus. 2010. “The Positive Negative Experience in Extreme Role-playing.” Proceedings of DiGRA Nordic 2010: Experiencing Games: Games, Play, and Players. Stockholm, Sweden.

    Montola, Markus. 2011. “The Painful Art of Extreme Role-playing.” Journal of Gaming & Virtual Worlds 3, 219–237.

    Moreno, Jacob Levy. 1924. Das Stegreiftheater, Verlag des Vaters u.a., Potsdam.

    Moreno, Jacob Levy. 1943. “The Concept of Sociodrama: A New Approach to the Problem of Inter-Cultural Relations.” Sociometry 6/4: 434–449.

    Möser, Justus. 1776. Patriotische Phantasien. Band 2. Berlin.

    Turi, Bálint Márk, and Mátyás Hartyándi. 2022. “Tribes and Kingdoms.” Distance of Touch: The Knutpunkt 2022 Magazine. Edited by Juhana Pettersson, Pohjoismaisen roolipelaamisen seura 90-99.

    Turi, Bálint Márk, and Mátyás Hartyándi. 2023. “Playing With The Fictitious ‘I’: Early Forms of Educational Role-Playing in Hungary, 1938-1978.” International Journal of Role-Playing 14: 47-60.

    Werthes, Friedrich August Clemens. 1791. Margeritha, der Königin von Navarra, romantische Erzählungen. Band 2, Berlin.


    This article is republished from the Knutepunkt 2025 book. Please cite it as:
    Hartyándi, Mátyás. 2025. “Bleed Before it was Cool: Early descriptions of dissimulative pretense, their unintended effects, and their impact on the evolution of roleplaying.” In Anatomy of Larp Thoughts, a breathing corpus: Knutepunkt Conference 2025. Oslo. Fantasiforbundet.


    Cover image: Photo by Markus Donner on Pixabay.

  • Six Levels of Larp Participation

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    Six Levels of Larp Participation

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    Introduction

    This is an attempt to provide some theoretical structure to the different, but in practice often intermingled, levels of larp participation. While some of these levels possess a more readily available terminology – like distinguishing between player and character – the corresponding expectations, responsibilities, purposes, and activities often still remain unspoken. Other levels are still most often overlooked, or maybe not even recognized as a part of the design and experience, much less discussed or communicated. By sorting and clarifying these different levels we hope that our framework can be a useful intellectual tool for both participants and organizers.

    As for all models, our framework is clearly a simplification: an attempt to separate concepts, actions, and ideas where no clear boundaries actually exist, where cultures, play styles, and preferences overlap, shift, and are context-dependent. Since larp as a cultural expression continually breaks the norms and often tests the established boundaries of the format, it isn’t hard to find examples that not only contradict the framework but also do this as a central design choice. This is only natural for a work such as this that tries to be very generic.

    The framework

    A framework is the more or less collective definition that participants in an activity have of the situation. According to Goffman (1961, 1986) it is the unspoken answer that participants could give to the question: what is going on here?

    The meaning of things like an object or something you say or do is dependent on which frame is currently established. When Fine (1983) looked at role-playing games he ended up with three different frames. The first was everyday life, the second was the game level where your actions were affected by the rules such as whose turn it is, and the third was the fantasy frame that we would call ‘in-game’ in larping.

    When talking about larps we realized that there is more going on within each frame. By looking at what the individual does, why they do it, and for whom they do it, we could identify six different levels of larping. As we see it, levels 1 and 2 both go into Fine’s first frame, levels 3 and 5 go into his second frame, and levels 4 and 6 match his third frame. These levels interact and influence each other, providing opportunities and limitations. We found that the levels are not only descriptive: there is also a hierarchy to them. In general, the lower-numbered levels have a higher priority than the higher-numbered ones. By level, they provide the groundwork that the following levels rely on to work and to be meaningful. Below you see a table overview of the framework with its different parts, and short examples.

    Table of the levels of the six levels of larping. Important terms are capitalized. Read the table as “On level 2, The participant acts as an Attendee to Perform a Task for the organizers”.

    Level Who
    The Participant acts as a/an […]
    Action
    to […]
    Purpose
    […]
    Beneficiary
    for […]
    Example
    1. Person Take care of Off-game Needs themselves sleep enough
    2. Attendee Perform (a) Task the organizer/s cook food
    3. Co-creator Uphold (the) Shared Fiction (and play culture) the other Roles use in-game names, only play in-game songs
    4. Role Provide Functions the other Players be the bully everyone fears
    5. Player Steer (their) Experience (through the character) themselves solving the plot,
    all the drama
    6. Character Portray their Personal Fiction themselves, other Characters and Players dress to stand out, swear and challenge norms

    The levels

    First, let’s start by taking a look at the different levels of the framework. We will describe each level and also give some tips to think about for participants and give some insights into what this can mean for an organizer. You can probably come up with many more examples yourself.

    Level 1 Off-game Needs

    ‘The Participant acts as a Person to Take care of Off-game Needs for themselves.’

    As a Person signed up for a larp, you have to make sure that your basic requirements will be met. This might include things like warmth, food, medicine, sleep, security, and trust. These are things that you also would need to take care of outside of a larp. If at any point higher levels challenge your ability to fulfill your Off-game Needs to your own person, the Needs should take priority. They are more important than narrative and character coherence or the Functions your Role is Providing. This doesn’t mean that you should drop everything immediately because you are getting tired, but pushing yourself over your limits because “the plot demands it” isn’t the right thing to do. If you have an Off-game Need to handle that will affect higher levels such as Function (level 4), then please make sure to tell affected organizers and co-players, and maybe help them find a working solution to your absence.

    To think about

    Go through what you need to have your Off-game Needs filled, and see what the organizers take care of and what you should handle yourself. Remember that we can have different Off-game Needs. Some people work great even on very little sleep, while others can’t operate at all. It can also be good to have backup things if someone else forgot, like an extra blanket for warmth or some energy bars.

    For the organizer

    Be clear with what you can offer and what you expect participants to take responsibility for themselves. Are there off-game sleeping areas for people if they need them? Will you accommodate all dietary demands or only some? Also, be clear about what is part of your design and what is not: maybe scarcity of food is part of the larp, and you want participants to also be hungry off-game.

    Level 2 Task

    ‘The Participant acts as an Attendee to Perform a Task for the organizer.’

    On the 2nd level, we have the Tasks that an organizer asks you as an Attendee at their larp to Perform. This may be cooking food, waking everybody up, making sure no one stands in the wrong place when the pyrotechnics go off, letting the organizers know what the council decides, and so on. In many cases, if these Tasks are in some way vital to the larp, they are performed by a non-player character or an organizer with a thin cover character, but it’s not uncommon to see these kinds of Tasks handed out to regular Attendees. It can be hard to know how to prioritize these if there arises a conflict with other Purposes without clear instructions. For example, can your character get fired from the kitchen, or quit voluntarily to go join another group? Can they be taken prisoner? Since working in the kitchen might be a Task you (hopefully) agreed to Perform, your obligation is to the organizers who asked you. In this case, you must check with the organizers before abandoning the Task. If the obligation is to yourself for level 1 reasons – maybe you need to get dry clothes or handle an off-game situation – you should still inform the organizers, if it can affect the Task in a significant way.

    To think about

    Give some thought to what the Tasks that the organizer asks you to Perform will entail, both for your gameplay and for your Experience of the larp. Consider how much time they will take, and how much energy they will require. Are there reasonable backup plans in place if things don’t go as intended? How crucial are the Tasks assigned to you, for the larp to Function at all? Will you be able to carry them out while managing your other commitments to the gaming group and fellow Players? Can you foresee a conflict of interest? Will the Task bring you out of the central playing area or isolate you from the action, and is this something you are fine with?

    For the organizer

    As an organizer, you should consider how crucial the Tasks that you assign to the paying participants are, since they will also anticipate a fulfilling game Experience. Also, consider whether there are alternative solutions if things don’t go as planned, and whether you have clearly communicated your expectations to the participants in question. It’s not automatically evident that the Role of a “guard” entails actual patrols and being on fire watch, or that a “principal” should prepare and lead recurring teacher meetings as a crucial part of the design.

    Level 3 The Shared Fiction

    ‘The Participant acts as a Co-creator to Uphold the Shared Fiction for the other Roles.’

    Level 3 is about how you, as a Co-creator, Uphold the Shared Fiction and play culture. Here we find things like the game’s genre, mood, and type of play. If the game is a horror larp, then playing it like slapstick will not be suitable. In a game about a harsh oppressing system, can you start treating everyone equally? While some things might be very obvious, others might not be, and this can also vary between different play cultures. Is it ok to play a well-known off-game ballad in-game? Will it help with setting the mood or will it break the immersion? Can you invent a witch-lord in a fantasy world if none is mentioned in the background fiction? And what consequences will this have for other Players, their Experience, and their Roles/Characters? In short, what can you do without shattering the world and the make-believe you create together?

    To think about

    Read the necessary material to understand the expectations.Try to consider the broader implications that may arise when you introduce changes or modifications to the narrative. Engage in discussions with other Players about their perspectives on the larp’s theme and the Experiences they desire. Be mindful of whether any forms of discrimination are inherent to the larp’s design, and which ones the organizer has explicitly stated as unacceptable within the larp. If you’re uncertain, you can always verify with an organizer.

    For the organizer

    Ensure your communication is explicit. This includes elements like a checklist outlining the anticipated types of gameplay, what is not desired, content summaries, mood boards, and references to other elements of popular culture. Clearly specify whether specific sensitive topics will be incorporated into the gameplay, and whether there are any that Players can expect to be protected from encountering. If you prefer greater transparency, be sure to clearly articulate what is planned to occur, including any external boundaries for fictional events. Can Characters die during the game? Can they be exiled? Is revolution a conceivable aspect of the gameplay?

    Level 4 Function

    ‘The Participant acts as a Role to Provide Functions for the other Players.’

    At level 4, there are two aspects that can sometimes be separated, but in most cases are so closely interconnected that we handle them together here: Role and Function. Role refers to the social position in the fiction that your Character occupies – a title, profession, or distinct trait – which Characters can refer to and discuss. Examples include “captain of the hockey team”, “the new student”, or “village elder”. Function, on the other hand, is about the possible play opportunities your Role creates for the other Players, within the game. Examples include “the bully others should fear” or “the one who leads the council and makes sure everyone has their say”. As you see, these are implicit positions in a social interaction, perhaps an integral part of the experience design of the larp. It’s not a given that the captain of the team is a dangerous bully; that Function could be fulfilled by someone else. However, it’s likely within the formal responsibilities of the village elder to convene the council. A Role can provide several separate Functions, and a given Function can be provided by several characters. Things are not clear-cut, and ambiguity in this area paves the way for misunderstandings and gaps in the design.

    What is needed for the story/scene/situation to work? If, at a larp about oppression and a dog-eat-dog environment, enough Players of high-status Roles don’t fill their Function to bully others, the power dynamics of the whole larp will change. This leads to problems both with the Characters not being bullied, and thereby the Players not getting the Experience they were after (level 5), and Upholding the fiction of a competitive world getting harder (level 3). Another example is if you said you would fill the Function of love interest for another Player, and then during the larp you focus on other things, leaving your co-Player with an unfilled Function. As seen here, you as a Player can have more than one Function at the same larp. You can have different Functions in different groups and situations, or towards individual Players.

    Having a responsibility to fill with your Function doesn’t mean that you can’t change what your story is about, or go for other gameplay if you wish to: but you need to make sure that the Functions you are assigned will be handled in some other way. It is usually good to start by talking to the affected Players. Maybe the Player you were going to play a romance with is happy about their gameplay, or has already found someone else they would like to play it with instead? Then your dilemma is already solved. But if the change has an impact on a larger group, it might be good to check with the organizers. They might have someone else who can fill the Function in a good way to still make it work. Maybe they know that the Function is already covered by other Players and you don’t need to worry. Either way, you should make sure that your Functions will be handled adequately, and not just leave other Players, that are depending on you to Provide a Function, hanging.

    To think about

    Understand the Role and Functions you Provide, either by reading instructions from the organizers if they have clearly articulated such, or by conversing with your fellow Players and aligning expectations. Keep in mind that a small personal relationship can be a part of a larger design where it’s intended to contribute to gameplay for many others, like the romantic plot of Romeo and Juliet, for example.

    Level 4 is closely connected to the personal skills of ensemble play and “reading the game” To learn more about this we recommend the articles Do You Want to Play Ball (Westborg & Nordblom, 2017) and Ensemble Play (Tolvanen & Macdonald, 2020).

    For the organizer

    Carefully consider the Roles your larp features and requires, along with the Functions they Provide, whether explicitly stated or implied. Can they be communicated more clearly? Are some Functions particularly vital and demanding of a substantial amount of time or energy? If a Function is particularly vital, it can be good to divide it among multiple Players. This way, the design can more easily withstand absences, distractions, or other instances where a Player might not fulfill their intended Function. Alternatively, it might be necessary to elevate a particularly significant Function to a Task, and assign it to an instructed Player or NPC.

    If there are Roles within the larp’s structure that involve stepping into another social Role or occupation in the event of a vacancy, such as a crown prince or second-in-command, do you, as the designer, hold such expectations of the Players too? Be clear in your communication about this. Should they, as Participants, prepare in the same manner as their Roles are expected to? Should they even anticipate that type of gameplay, since it’s very different to play the Role of an heir to the throne biding their time, or one that during the game is thrust into the Role of a ruler and the Functions that entails?

    Level 5 Experience

    ‘The Participant acts as a Player to Steer their Experience for themselves.’

    At level 5 we find the Experience of the larp. Just like in level 1 (Off-game Needs), this level is about the requirements for the individual. But where level 1 concerns itself with the Needs that also exist outside of the larp, level 5 is about desires that are specific to the larp. It’s connected to the participant’s playstyle and wishes about their Experience. Do you want to Experience solving the plot, playing out big drama, running around doing physical things, exploring the world, or having a deep relationship with your Character? What type of gameplay do you like and how can you get it? We use the term steering (Montola & al. 2015) here since it guides your character towards the kind of play you are looking for. This might be playing with another specific participant because you find them interesting, even though your Character does not really have a strong motivation for speaking with them. Or it might be going on all the quests, since you find solving problems and puzzles very thrilling and rewarding.

    To think about

    Be honest with yourself and be clear about what you want from your Experience, and take responsibility for making this happen. Coordinate with other Players to get the best Experience you can. Remember to check with other participants about how they prefer to communicate about this: maybe they like to do an off-game check-in each morning, or maybe they prefer to talk it through before the game. Try to accommodate each other. Approach the organizer if things aren’t working, or if you feel stuck. If you sense that your Character’s personality and internal logic are hindrances to your game, contemplate the changes needed and execute them. However, also consider the Experience of other Players and any commitments you have toward them that still need to be fulfilled. Your desire for a specific Experience shouldn’t lead to neglecting assigned Tasks, the Shared Fiction, or your Role’s Functions.

    For the organizer

    As an organizer, you can help by asking Players at signup what type of gameplay they are after, and then try to match that to the groups or Characters.

    It helps to be explicit about the types of Experiences that might be available and how Players can ensure they either engage in or avoid them. You can also assist participants by being accessible off-game during the larp to support those who might find themselves stuck in gameplay they don’t enjoy, or who are unsure of where to find the kind that they are seeking. By matching Players’ desires with each other, you can guide them towards someone who would likely appreciate that particular type of gameplay they are looking for.

    Level 6 Personal fiction

    ‘The Participant acts as a Character to Portray their Personal Fiction for themselves, other Characters and Players.’

    The 6th level is about the Characters inside the story. Where level 5 is about the Players and their experiences, level 6 is all about the Characters. Here we find things like the inner coherence of your Character, aesthetics, personalized movement, and quirks. It can also mean latching on to well-known archetypes, or deviating from them. “Does this make sense for my Character?” and “What would my Character do in this situation?” are relevant questions at this level. It’s not just about filling a Function or Upholding the Shared Fiction, it’s also about making that Shared Fiction into something intimate, emotional, and unique, about adding your personal flair to it, your interpretation of your Character, and to an extent also the other Characters.

    The 6th level is often closely connected to and restricted by the 4th level (Function), but doesn’t have to be.

    The Character Kim holds the Role of the village elder and is Tasked with the Function of equitably distributing the floor in the council, ensuring all Players have a chance to speak. If the Player finds that the inner coherence and narrative of Kim leads them towards Portraying that Kim has an internal crisis that leads to Kim stepping down as village elder, this works fine on level 6. But it will have consequences on level 4 (Function) that need to be handled, since there is not only the Role of the village elder that should be addressed but also the Function of leading the council. This Function and what it entails has to be communicated clearly to any intended replacement, to prevent the larp’s council from being affected in a manner that the organizers have expressly attempted to avoid.

    To think about

    This level is where you create and Portray your Character. It is where you add your personal twist and go deeper into what the Character would do. It encompasses everything else not defined or confined by the foundational lower levels. However, even here, it’s beneficial to reach out to the organizer and co-participants before and also during the larp for inquiries regarding your Character, calibrating Portrayal, and visual representation.

    Let’s say you have planned to Portray (level 6) a punk rocker with clear aesthetics that break the norm because the Experience you are Steering (level 5) towards is to be alternative and an outsider. If it then turns out that several other participants also choose that their Characters will be punk rockers, you risk not getting the Experience (level 5) you desire. You don’t need to change your level 5 priorities, since a change of direction at level 6 can solve the problem. Maybe playing a very religious Character now seems to be the more alternative choice.

    For the organizer

    This level is mainly relevant to the individual participants, but things you could do as an organizer include running workshops to help participants develop their Characters, adding guidelines on how to Portray the Character to the Character text, and being available and open to questions from the participants.

    Examples

    Here we will give two short examples of how you can apply the framework as a participant. By thinking about the different levels you can analyse what choices are available and assess what consequences these choices might have. There isn’t one right choice; it depends on the situation and what change you are striving for, but the framework might help guide you with your decision.

    Example 1: Theodora the head chef

    The Character Theodora is the head chef and is responsible for the distribution of the food on the ship. Every mealtime she keeps order in the line, shouting threats and insults to the crew, making sure everyone gets some food and no one gets too much, reminding them that they are critically short.

    What part of this situation is the Participant (playing the Character of Theodora) free to change and what can she ignore or add to when next the mealtime comes around? Can she choose to serve food at a different time? Start rationing the food even more so everyone goes hungry? Start being nice and lovely, telling everyone that everything will be ok? Give up the position of the head chef and join the marines instead?

    By applying the framework, we can deduce that distributing food is a Task (level 2) that the organizers have asked the Attendee to do. Therefore it has a very high priority. Unless there are pressing Personal Off-game Needs (Level 1), food distribution according to the schedule designed by the organizers shouldn’t be disrupted. Serving less food than agreed upon would also mean changing the Task, impacting the Off-game Needs of many participants. Even if there are very good Fictional reasons (level 3), like that the food storage of the ship has been damaged, any change in the Task should only be implemented once it’s been checked with the organizers.

    Theodora’s reminding of the dwindling supplies is part of the Shared Fiction (level 3), while her harsh attitude and jargon towards others is a Function to Provide a feeling of military discipline and a tough oppressive command system (level 4). There might be good reasons for Theodora to change these behaviours. Maybe because the Player (level 5) got tired of being a bully and would like to feel well-liked instead, or maybe the Character (level 6) found a new way of dealing with her insecurities and worries by being much more positive. No matter the reason, if the designers placed Theodora in that Role with the explicit Function of being dominant and harsh and reminding people of how rough the times ahead will be, the Player of Theodora should ensure that these things will still happen, probably by someone else shouldering the Function, even if the Role of head chef is not transferred. Or they should at least check in with the organizers to see if the game has reached a point where that Function does not need to be Provided anymore.

    Example 2: a high-status character

    It is not uncommon to be anxious about playing a high-status Character that will work in the larp, say a king or a high-rank officer. The fear is about blocking play for others, or maybe disrupting the larp by not being believable enough. Let’s now apply the framework to break this down.

    Blocking play is connected to level 4, Function. One of the most common Functions to have as a high-status Role is play distribution. Being high up in the hierarchy, a lot of information and many decisions end up in your lap. If you keep all the information to yourself and want to make all the decisions, you will create a bottleneck where everyone else is waiting for you and their play is blocked. You might also block others by having long meetings and not being available. High-status roles often have the responsibility to see that the Function of distributing play is fulfilled, either by you or by someone else.

    The next fear is about disrupting the larp, which is a concern at level 3, Uphold the Shared Fiction. This is a responsibility everyone shares. All Co-creators have the responsibility to by default treat others as would be fitting for their position. It’s not one Co-creator’s job to make everyone else treat them in a certain way. As long as you try to treat everyone else’s Characters in a fitting manner, like inviting the most prestigious people when you are holding court, you have done your part. Also, note that the Shared Fiction isn’t static and can change during the larp. If a war is declared, or an attempt on the life of the king is made, the Functions of the Role would change as the Shared Fiction adjusts to accommodate this new development. Holding court would probably be canceled, as handling the new threat demands focus.

    The last part of the fear is about not being believable enough. That is level 6, Character. Many people think that they must Portray their character with authority and realistic mannerisms in order to get others to listen to them. But as we just established, having others listen to you is part of Upholding the Shared Fiction. How you Portray a Character can be done in many different ways and is not crucial for whether the larp will work or not. As long as you fill your Function, in this case, distributing play and holding court, you don’t have to be demanding and authoritative. You can also Portray your Character as confused and incompetent, stating things like “My head hurts from all these words, let the oracles decide”. Both could work equally well.

    By using the provided framework we see that Portraying a Character is not nearly as important as Providing the Functions of the Role.

    Conclusion

    What we have shown here is a hierarchy of things for you as a participant to do and take care of for the larp to work and for all the participants to have the Experience they want. The levels are not separate: they interact and interfere with each other.

    Diagram by the authors. Graphic design: Sara Kannasvuo.
    Diagram by the authors. Graphic design: Sara Kannasvuo.

    Even though we spent most of this article talking about the levels and what they entail, what we find most important is not what level something belongs to, but the consequences of the choices we make in larps.

    We find that adding new initiatives, making changes, and handling problems would benefit from considering the framework to better assess the available scope of action and possible solutions. Since the lower levels (1–4) affect many participants and/or your personal off-game wellbeing, they need to be prioritized. This doesn’t imply that changes or initiatives on the higher levels (5–6) should be sidelined, but rather that players should make sure that these do not generate large undesired effects on lower levels before implementing them. If you do not consider this, you might commit one or more of the cardinal sins of larp (Koljonen 2021). You do not want to break the trust placed in you, just like you do not want others to break the trust you have in them. Nordic larp is not about rules, it is all about trust.

    Bibliography

    Gary Allan Fine (1983): Shared Fantasy: Role-Playing Games as Social Worlds. University of Chicago Press.

    Erving Goffman (1961): Encounters: Two Studies in the Sociology of Interaction. Bobbs-Merrill.

    Erving Goffman (1986): Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience. Northeastern University Press.

    Johanna Koljonen (2021): Cardinal Sins of Larp. Knutepunkt 2021. [Video] Youtube. https://youtu.be/d5tztYfEbcU?si=JkoFWMS9aavy0zCd

    Markus Montola, Jaakko Stenros and Eleanor Saitta (2015): The Art of Steering – Bringing the Player and the Character Back Together. In The Knudepunkt 2015 Companion Book, edited by Charles Bo Nielsen and Claus Raasted. Rollespilsakademiet.

    Josefin Westborg and Carl Nordblom (2017): Do You Want to Play Ball? In Once Upon a Nordic Larp, edited by Martine Svanevik, Linn Carin Andreassen, Simon Brind, Elin Nilsen and Grethe Sofie Bulterud Strand, 130-140. Knutepunkt 2017.

    Anni Tolvanen and James Lórien Macdonald (2020): Ensemble Play. In What Do We Do When We Play, edited by Eleanor Saitta, Johanna Koljonen and Jukka Särkijärvi. Solmukohta 2020.


    This article has been reprinted with permission from the Solmukohta 2024 book. Please cite as:

    Westborg, Josefin, Janusz Maxe, and Gabriel March. 2024. “Six Levels of Larp Participation.” In Liminal Encounters: Evolving Discourse in Nordic and Nordic Inspired Larp, edited by Kaisa Kangas, Jonne Arjoranta, and Ruska Kevätkoski. Helsinki, Finland: Ropecon ry.


    Cover image: Photo by geraldo stanislas on Unsplash

  • Larp as a Player, Larp as a Character

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    Larp as a Player, Larp as a Character

    Engaging with the larp as a character and as a player.

    We are all in an abusive relationship, and we all love this so much. It’s the core of almost every larp, and it’s an asymmetrical relationship between a human being – the player – and a pseudo human: the character. The two interfaces theory is a way to reflect about identity and agency from a new perspective, drawing from posthuman and object-oriented ontology studies.

    When we larp we use two interfaces:

    1. The character, which is our way to engage with other participants. Through the mask of an alter ego we interact with the others, put ourselves in the fictional world and follow the in-game narrative. Sometimes characters can be “guided” by different people during the same larp (by the plot, other players, supporting characters, designers, and so on).
    2. The player, the “real” person who is living the experience that affects us more individually, usually through the body. We are more aware of this interface while alone (walking in the location, going off-game, doing solitary tasks). 

    Sometimes we mix up those two interfaces. We slide from one to another without always being aware of it. But this theory also implies a certain degree of merging between the two interfaces. Can we say that a character is just a set of indications on a document? Or are they rather living creatures that we need to deal with? And are players sometimes just larp tools, instruments fulfilling the design?

    Each one of the two interfaces have their own needs, drives, and goals, which sometimes collide. In a larp we can limit the agency of our character, and vice versa. Since the character is a pseudo-human, they can fail and be hurt in all kinds of ways: they just don’t feel anything. Characters won’t pay the consequences for their actions. Players will. This is why this relationship can be seen as abusive.

    We like to think that we are always in control of the two interfaces. But objects have a will, and offer resistance. Characters are the first “person” we have to negotiate with. In a larp with pre-written characters, they are a negotiation between us and the designer. When we write our own, then it’s a negotiation between ourselves and what we think the larp will be.  

    And there is where the big conflict lies: characters need danger, players need to be safe. For now we use safety and steering to mediate between reality and fiction, between characters and players, what we want and what we need. In larp there is much more than just us. Let’s listen and incorporate.


    Cover photo: Alessandro Giovannucci in the larp Brightfield. Photo by Luca Tenaglia.

    This article is published in the Knutpunkt 2022 magazine Distance of Touch and is published here with permission. Please cite this text as:

    Giovannucci, Alessandro. 2022. “Larp as a Player, Larp as a Character.” In Distance of Touch: The Knutpunkt 2022 Magazine, edited by Juhana Pettersson, 51-54. Knutpunkt 2022 and Pohjoismaisen roolipelaamisen seura.

  • Finding the Magic in the Mundane

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    Finding the Magic in the Mundane

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    You can have exceptional games without having to be or do anything exceptional. Does this sound strange to you? We are convinced that it shouldn’t. Basing ourselves on a shared larp experience, which we managed to make exceptional for ourselves, we want to show that you can create larp magic without making yourself or your story big or unique, and that everyone can find the magic in the mundane.

    Enjoy the small moments

    We think that one of the first big steps you, as a player, should take, is moving away from the idea of playing a larp as a series of scenes. Every moment is a scene, and the sum makes up the whole of the story. So instead of rushing to preplanned scenes, savour the spontaneous moments that occur. Enjoy the state of being your character, instead of simply attending a scene. As players we both strive to make our characters and their stories richer by enjoying the small, unplanned moments. In turn these moments become powerful and memorable scenes, even if they hadn’t been planned beforehand. As an example we will make a point of sharing stolen moments of quiet with our characters’ love interests that become all the more meaningful because they are small and intimate, and the emotions and impact these moments leave on our characters mean more to them than big speeches or grand gestures ever would. If you are ready to flow with your character and with the small moments that are offered to them, then the small moment of being escorted to a big event by someone dear to your character can become more impactful than the big event itself.

    Additionally, it adds a lot of anxiety to your experience if you’re too focused on the big scenes. You will find yourself checking the time and stressing about not missing anything, while also probably worrying about whether you will be able to deliver the scene. In this mindset you will forget to enjoy the small moments, and you may even forget to just be your character. When you plan stories you can obviously also have scenes in them, and you can even plan for these scenes. But always remember that these scenes are not the aim – the aim is what the scenes could make you feel. If they stress you too much to embody your character, drop them, they do not have to happen.

    Sometimes a larp’s arc requires planned scenes, but the time in between important plot points is not time wasted. We believe this time “in between” is in fact fundamental to building a meaningful story and character arc. Life is lived in the gaps as much as it is lived in the big moments, and we want to devote as much care and consideration to these gaps as we do to the big scenes. It might not be as flashy, but it can be just as important. People, and indeed characters, exist when things are quiet as well, so giving yourself the time to feel them out in the calm between the storms can make the entire experience seem that much more meaningful.

    Give up on being big or unique

    Sometimes the most interesting characters are the entirely mundane ones. Your characters don’t have to be larger than life at every turn to have an interesting and unique story, rather the contrary, in fact. If every character in the larp happens to be “the chosen one”, there can be much more play in being the most mundane character around.

    We have often seen people concerned about creating a character concept that hasn’t been seen before, and we have certainly fallen into that pattern ourselves, but with such an approach you risk forgetting the most important aspect of character creation; playability. If your character is meaningful to you, does it really matter if it has been seen a thousand times before? There’s a reason the same stories and archetypes keep returning – maybe their stories are actually interesting enough to be retold. You, the player, are the one who makes the story unique, worthwhile, and entirely your own, by adding your flavour and interpretation to it. So instead of going out of your way trying to come up with a brand new concept, own your story and play it in your own unique way. In a way it can be liberating to let go of the pressure to create something never before seen, it can allow you to shift your focus to what you really want to play and actively draw on inspiration from others. When developing your character, look towards similar concepts you have seen others play and spend some time reflecting on what it was that drew you towards them, which aspects of them you liked. And then take them for yourself! Why not make use of all the cool things you have seen friends and co-players do in the past, taking all the best bits to create the coolest possible character for yourself? The old adage that great artists steal should apply to larpers as well. When looking towards others we are sure that, apart from inspiration, you will find parts you weren’t as keen on or wish would have been done differently. You have a chance to do it better, or at least how you would prefer it, and that in itself automatically makes for a unique character.

    Next to letting go of the idea of creating unique and big characters, we equally want to argue for the importance of small moments and impactful gestures. When we played together at College of Wizardry 23 (2020) we created a lot of meaning in the relationships between our characters with very little. There were a lot of jabs and meaningful glances between our characters, and our entire conflict of betrayal and resentment was something our characters never explicitly talked about during the first half of the larp, but their small, bitter remarks towards and about each other, the looks of hate and anger between the two of them, and the unspoken defiance and blame were something we played on a lot. In turn, when our characters later reconciled the subtle changes in how they looked at each other and addressed each other made a big impact. In many ways they were acting the same, arguing about the same things they always had, but now they smiled instead of glaring, they helped each other instead of gloating. We don’t believe it was a difference that a lot of our co-players noticed, but that was never the goal; it was important for us. We believe these smaller gestures are too easily forgotten or downplayed, but they deserve our attention. A small gesture can make a big difference if it ties into your story and adds to the whole.

    Lastly, taking small gestures and intimate play one step further, we want to highlight the powerful impact of conflicts and emotions left unsaid and paths not taken. As is also clear from our previous example, play can come not only from small gestures and subtle changes in behaviour, but also from the things that are not explicitly spelled out. You can shape a large part of your experience by internalising your character’s emotions and playing on not talking about them while still showing them – clearly or subtly. There is a lot of play on unspoken emotions, on not saying things that are clearly there, as this creates a tension other players can choose to interact with in the way their character would read (or misread) them.

    An example of this type of play on unresolved tension and unspoken emotions is the experience we had together at Dawnstone (2019). We had agreed beforehand on a potential for romance between our characters, and while during the larp this romance never came to fruition, its potential and the resulting interactions had a big impact on the stories of both our characters. During the events of the larp, it became clear that our characters cared for each other – they had brief but meaningful conversations; when one screamed out in agony, the other was immediately by her side to help her; they would find each other for small shared moments. They never confessed their feelings for each other but kept floating towards each other for various reasons. In the end, it only took one sentence while looking into each other’s eyes to establish again what they could’ve meant for each other, and while that very small and short moment was only shared between two players, it was nevertheless incredibly meaningful to both of our characters.

    Making your story matter — to you, not to an audience

    At the end of the day, the most important person in your story is yourself. It shouldn’t matter if everyone sees a crucial moment or if no one does – if the moment held meaning to you, it was significant.

    It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that bigger is always better. The more people see what is happening, the more play it creates, right? In our experience that is not always true, and some scenes may indeed give you more if no one is around. We suggest trying to consider what intimacy could add to a scene that you would lose out on if there was an audience. Perhaps you would like to really focus on one or just a few other players, and with more players around you would be too concerned with engaging them instead of playing off those important to the scene. Or maybe you want to go big and dramatic without worrying about stealing the spotlight. It is our experience that a smaller scene often has more room for all players to go big, as when fewer people have to share the spotlight there can be so much more of it to go around. Intimacy is something special and valuable. It can add a sense of importance to a scene that you made time for each other, and only each other, and that alone often makes a connection feel deeper and closer. Having a big impact on few people can do just as much for a larp as having a smaller impact on many people.

    One example, and a memory we both cherish, of how moments in a larp can be impactful without being big or having an audience, is a scene we shared at College of Wizardry 23. We had created a story arc together around family, betrayal, and resentment that involved chronomancy, which led to us playing out one pivotal moment in our characters’ past/present between just the two of us. We were our own audience, and played for our own character development, and as such we ended up creating a very intense moment and story together. As we were the only ones who actually lived through all of it, this added aspect of intimacy or privacy made it even more powerful.

    Conclusion

    In this article we wanted to argue that you can create some of your most memorable, or magical, moments in larp without having big scenes, doing unique things, or being that one special character.

    We shared our own experiences with creating compelling stories without having to impose anything on others and while staying small. When you shift your focus to being your character instead of doing things as your character, to living the story as well as the emotions and creating small moments and gestures, you can build a deep and impactful experience. It’s liberating and enhances your play to stop worrying about moving from big scene to big scene, or about the uniqueness of it. There’s no need to bring something new to a game each time, and it can create better play and a better experience to play on something that has been done before. Just remember to do so in a way that works for you, as you are in the end the most important person to your experience.

    Often it isn’t necessarily the big scenes that we carry closest to our hearts after having played a larp, it’s rather the unexpected small moments, the unplanned occurrences, the intimacy. It’s in these mundane moments that the magic happens in a larp, and we hope we have inspired you to go out and look for it.


    Cover photo: Image by RODNAE Productions on Pexels. Photo has been cropped.

    This article is published in the companion book Book of Magic: Vibrant Fragments of Larp Practices and is published here with permission. Please cite this text as:

    Bailly, Sandy, and Mia Kyhn. “Finding the Magic in the Mundane.” 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, 2021.

  • Characterization in a Hurry: From Laban to Larp

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    Characterization in a Hurry: From Laban to Larp

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    [This article is also available in Spanish, at: http://vivologia.es/caracterizacion-de-laban-al-larp/
    Thank you to Vivologia for translating it!]

    The Laban efforts((Schiffman, J. 2001. “THE CRAFT: Mechanics of Movement – Laban Theory can help actors suit the action to the word.” Available online: https://www.backstage.com/magazine/article/craft-mechanics-movement-laban-theory-can-help-actors-suit-50428/ [accessed 16 October 2019].)) are a method of describing movement used by primarily dancers, but also actors when working on the early stages of characterisation. They are essentially eight “personalities” of movement which you can use to easily distinguish different roles from each other. Laban efforts are a particularly useful way of creating a distinct character quickly and can also be used in larping, especially if you know you’re going to be interacting with the same players multiple times under different guises, or if you’re in a group of similar non-player characters (NPCs) that you still want to appear distinct from each other.

    Dancing dervishes (photo, revac film's&photography from Pexels
    Dancing dervishes (photo, revac film’s&photography from Pexels)

    Everybody finds different techniques work for them, but this is one that I find particularly helpful in a larp setting, so maybe you will too. Also, I only know Laban from other people passing it onto me. I don’t understand it in detail, but I know enough to dabble. If what you read here interests you, it’s definitely worth doing some more research.

    The simple version of the efforts is that there are essentially different pairs of words that describe movement. And if you take one word in each pair, you end up with a combination that can be given a name to describe that style of movement. The pairs I like to work with are:

    Heavy      Light

    Sudden      Sustained

    Direct      Indirect

    Bound      Unbound

    Let’s go through each pair. When you’re building a character, it can help to choose these aspects one by one and try out that kind of movement before adding the next bit. Otherwise, the movements are quite a lot to think about at once.

    Heavy vs. Light is probably the simplest choice. Does the character seem to have their focus downwards (heavy) or upwards (light)? Do they leave an impact on the world around them (heavy) or do they barely seem to touch it (light)?

    Sudden vs. Sustained. This is sometimes also known as fast vs. slow, but it doesn’t really describe speed; all the efforts should be able to be performed at all speeds. I prefer to think of it like the character’s visual attention span. Do they perfectly complete every action before moving onto the next (sustained) or do they react instinctively and without thought (sudden)? To me, there’s a certain elegance to sustained movement and an idea of fast-paced thought with sudden movement.

    Direct vs. Indirect is the pair I find hardest. Does the character move in straight lines (direct) or curves and spirals (indirect)? Do they find distractions on the way to their goal (indirect) or do they ignore everything else but their objective until they have reached it (direct)?

    Bound vs. Unbound. Sometimes this pair is omitted, as it is kind of an optional extra called “flow,” but it’s my personal favourite pair. Flow describes the manner in which a movement is performed and, to me, this is often the aspect that makes a character come alive. A bound character will have very closed body language with a lot of tension present in their body. An unbound character is free, with an open and generally more relaxed body.

    Five women lying on the ground (Photo, Skitterphoto from Pexels)
    Five women lying on the ground (Photo, Skitterphoto from Pexels)

    Laban described eight efforts corresponding to choices made between the above pairs. The efforts each describe a movement which is characteristic of the three factors chosen. For example a heavy, direct and sudden movement is described as ‘punching’. This doesn’t mean that a character who moves with that effort will constantly hit others, but keeping the idea of the ‘punch’ in mind, is a simple way to reduce its three components down into something more instinctively performed: it is simpler to think about walking in a way that is similar to a punch than it is to walk in a way that is heavy, direct and sudden.

    If you try them out with their name in mind, you’ll see that each effort almost seems to have its own personality. At that point, you can see how giving one of the efforts to a role can be such a quick step to characterization.

    So, give it a try. Walk around as a Flicker or a Presser and see how different it feels to your normal way of moving. Try to think of the kind of character it evokes. And just have fun – larp is a hobby, not a job. I’d never recommend doing this for every single character you play, that just sounds exhausting. But if it seems to work for you, then why not try playing your next character or NPC with a Laban effort and see how it feels?


    Cover photo: Red human face monument (photo, Mike from Pexels)


    Content editing: Elina Gouliou

  • Investigating Types of Bleed in Larp: Emotional, Procedural, and Memetic

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    Investigating Types of Bleed in Larp: Emotional, Procedural, and Memetic

    At Knutpunkt 2018, I somehow found myself holding a talk called “A Trinity of Consciousness.” This subject might seem an odd choice for someone who, although holds degrees in Nature Science and Public Administration, is pretty much void of any academic expertise on the subject of consciousness; I realize that my approach to the subject can be somewhat unorthodox as a result of this. As a trained actor with almost two decades of experience in Nordic larp though, I have spent a lot of time trying to understand the processes that are involved when we are shifting in- and out-of-character. If there are any concepts that can be considered central to these processes, they are consciousness and bleed.

    This article is a write up of a couple of the subjects that I touched upon in my 2018 talk. Since then, some of my thoughts have changed, hopefully for the better. In the aftermath of my talk, which was primarily on the subject of consciousness, the one thing people seemed to want to engage me in discussion on was my suggestion for further categorizing different types of bleed. In particular, the freshly coined term memetic bleed, which I in all honesty described fairly briefly, was something about which I received comments and questions in the following weeks and months. I am grateful to the people who contacted me and for the discussions that followed, as they have led to a furthering of my own understanding of the phenomenon

    A Brief Take on Consciousness

    In order to understand a little bit more about the nature of any type of bleed, we must first very briefly touch on how we understand — or rather perceive — consciousness. This is a subject that seems to present us with several new questions for every single answer we find. Yes, even an attempt to reach a consensus on the simplest definition is challenging, as it is an ambiguous term commonly used to describe a width of different phenomena. For sake of clarity, it can be helpful to make a distinction between the parts of consciousness that are possible to explain and define with the help of standard methods of cognitive science and the ones that, well… simply aren’t.

    Stained glass window of a woman in blue
    “St. Peter and St Paul’s church Fressingfield Suffolk: Stained glass” by David (CC BY 2.0).

    Chalmers (1995) calls these first aspects of consciousness “the easy problems” and among others names the following: “The ability to discriminate, categorize and react to environmental stimuli; the integration of information by a cognitive system; the reportability of mental states;…” (Chalmers, s. 2) The list can go on for some time, but the common denominator is that all of these aspects can be explained reductively in terms of neural mechanisms. Personally, I find it helpful to consider whether it would be possible to replicate the phenomenon with computational programming, and if the answer is yes, it belongs on this list of “easy problems.” For these phenomena, “consciousness” might not even be the correct term. “Awareness” — or rather “functions of awareness” — would be a better fit. A system that performs functions will be aware of the parts of its surroundings that are relevant to perform the function in question, but this awareness would not equate to “consciousness” in the sense that human beings are “conscious” or “sentient.”

    Then, what is consciousness? Good question. In fact, great question. British psychologist Stuart Sutherland’s attempt at an answer is one of the more memorable ones; the two last sentences went on to become rather infamous. Sutherland describes:

    Consciousness—The having of perceptions, thoughts, and feelings; awareness . . . The term is impossible to define except in terms that are unintelligible without a grasp of what consciousness means. Many fall into the trap of equating consciousness with self-consciousness—to be conscious it is only necessary to be aware of the external world. Consciousness is a fascinating but elusive phenomenon: it is impossible to specify what it is, what it does, or why it has evolved. Nothing worth reading has been written on it. (Sutherland 1989)

    Sutherland’s exasperation might be very understandable, although it does not really bring us any closer to an understanding. What it does do, though, is perfectly exemplify how our established scientific methods have not been capable of providing answers. So, while waiting for a future paradigm shift of thought, we will just have to accept that any work on this subject will have to contain a certain amount of subjective philosophical thought. Then again: what is human existence, if not a subjective experience of how it is to be the one who we are?

    Stained Glass vines, flowers, and water
    “Stained Glass Met” by Adrian Scottow (CC BY-SA 2.0).

    I am writing this, sitting by a beach in Spain. The sun is shining over a perfect azure sea, the wind keeps tugging at my papers and the air is full of languages that I do not speak nor understand. Now… the functions of awareness are explaining all of this to me; the colour of the sea, the strength of the wind, the words that I don’t understand. What they don’t explain though, is how I subjectively experience these factors. A mere description of the functions themselves does nothing to explain the deep pull within me, the longing for foreign shores that this scene awakens, this song of the sea that the poets have written about since ever there was written word. Clearly there is something that is like “being me” in this moment that defies both objective description and reductive methods.

    Chalmers (1995) calls this layer on top of awareness experience:

    When we see, for example, we experience visual sensations: the felt quality of redness, the experience of dark and light, the quality of depth in a visual field. Other experiences go along with perception in different modalities: the sound of a clarinet, the smell of mothballs. Then there are bodily sensations, from pains to orgasms; mental images that are conjured up internally; the felt quality of emotion, and the experience of a stream of conscious thought. What unites all of these states is that there is something it is like to be in them. All of them are states of experience. (Chalmers 1995)

    These musings into the fascinating field of consciousness could go on for some time. For the sake of this article, we can in summary say that while we do not fully understand consciousness, we can conceptualize it roughly in terms of external stimuli and our internal responses and perceptions to those stimuli.

    Reality and How We See It: The Stained Glass Window

    Stained glass window in Gaudi cathedral
    “Sagrada familia, stained glass window” by fry_theonly (CC BY-SA 2.0)

    Personally, I find it helpful to think of the world as a large building. My own particular cultural background makes it easy to imagine an old European cathedral, but any building will do. It does not have to be any particular one, and can be made up in your head solely for this exercise. The important part is that the interior of this building represents reality as it can be objectively described using the terminology of physical science. The size, layout, materials, structure of surfaces, and such can all be described in detail, providing us with an objective take on the reality we inhabit.

    In addition, there is a large stained glass window on one of the walls, like the ones you would find in many houses of worship that usually depict saints or religious scenes. This window is the only light source in the building and, in this exercise, represents the filter through which we experience the reality around us. Now imagine that every person that enters the building will have a personalized and different window from everybody else. So when I, for example, enter the building, my window is particular to me and is shaped by things that are particular to my life, like my long term memories, earlier experiences, skills, knowledge, and so on. When the light from the outside shines on the glass, the depictions and their colours will fill the empty spaces with sensory experience beyond the mere physical outlay of the building. The light will illuminate some areas while keeping others in the dark, in effect providing me with my very personalized experience of the seemingly objective reality. So, the world might exist objectively in a certain way, but the way we experience it changes from person to person.

    Furthermore, the glass is not permanently fixed, but rather it exists to be changed by the present, the future, and reflections on the past. Any action I take in my life can to some degree change it and most of them will. In my everyday life though, where most days are similar in both rhythm and content, changes are slow and minute. How many times will I have to drive the same 12 minute commute to work before that experience makes me reach new insights or have an epiphany that changes something fundamental about how I experience the world? My guess is: quite a few.

    Now, there are of course larger events in our lives that might change things both rapidly and oftentimes also violently: falling in love; the death of a loved one; sudden injury or loss of health; a new job in a different field; moving abroad; becoming a parent; and so on. Any event of comparable size to these is likely to bring more substantial changes in how I experience and see the world, and by that, what it is like to be me in any situation in the future.

    On Consciousness of Character: Altered and Othered

    When we larp, we consciously subject ourselves to simulated events like the life changing ones mentioned above. In fact, a lot of the time, the simulated events to which we subject ourselves will most likely be substantially more dramatic and intense than any we will ever experience in our own modern lives. In addition, most of us subject ourselves to these events at a rate that will probably be much higher than even the most dramatic life one could ever imagine. Of course, for the most part, our minds will know perfectly well that these events are just simulated, but the body and senses that we experience it with do not. In their article in the International Journal of Role-Playing,  Leonard and Thurman (2018) present a overview of the neuro-psychological processes that might lead to stronger bleed-out, stating, “These processes are fundamental, biological, and often outside of conscious awareness and control, which likely makes direct influence over bleed-out a fleeting or even illusory concept” (Leonard and Thurman 2018). I describe bleed-out in more depth later in this article.

    stained glass glass ceiling in a music hall
    “Palau de la Música Catalana” by Alvaro (CC BY-SA 2.0).

    In regard to the stained glass window, what we are doing is changing, substituting, or moving pieces of the filtered consciousness that belongs to us as a player in an attempt to create a distinctly different one through which our character experiences reality. The players’ window will of course never be fully substituted, but the simulated changes will affect how we see the world, even if it is just for a limited time. And as it is never completely static and fixed, changing with our experiences, it is safe to say that what we experience in character would also have an effect on us as players. In other words, when we simulate alterations to our glass painting, we will almost certainly also subtly alter it permanently, and thus we change what it is like to be ourselves.

    In summary, when we temporarily change the filter through which we see the world, we are adding a layer of altered consciousness. When the stained glass window of experience is sufficiently changed for the immediate experience of functions of awareness to overwhelm long-term established frames of “what it is to be you,” temporary states of “othered” consciousness can be experienced.

    Which Leads Us to Bleed

    The term bleed was coined by Emily Care Boss in 2007, and has since been generally accepted to describe when emotions “bleed over” from character to player and vice versa (Montola 2010). In the following years, the addition of thoughts and physical states were done by among others Sarah Lynne Bowman, who states, “Role-players sometimes experience moments where their real life feelings, thoughts, relationships, and physical states spill over into their characters’ and vice versa. In role-playing studies, we call this phenomenon bleed” (Bowman 2015).

    At my talk at Knutepunkt in 2018, I proposed a way to further structure the phenomenon by classifying it in three distinct sub-categories: emotional, procedural, and memetic. I also briefly touched on a potential fourth category that I named cognitive bleed, but the more I have studied it, the less I am sure that it merits its own category and as such I am leaving it out for now.   

    It is also important to note that even though it might be useful to categorize the different types of bleed, any actual bleed situation will most likely be a case of these categories both overlapping and clustering. It is also quite possible that such overlapping could be a catalyst for increasing both the duration and the intensity of the experience. For now, we will content ourselves with saying that the act of categorizing bleed might be useful, but it is important to remember that it is just a framework imposed upon a chaotic reality. In larping, as in the rest of the world, black and white are seldom the only colors.

    stained glass of three women lounging
    “San Francisco, St. Louis, New York” by Eugene Kim (CC BY 2.0).

    Emotional Bleed

    Emotional bleed is when emotions or feelings belonging to either the player or the character affect the actions and emotional state of the other. It is well-known, documented, and has been thoroughly described in theory over the last 10 years and more. It is the most easy to recognize and therefore its existence is not widely questioned in the Nordic larp communities. However, as a workshop that I conducted together with Jost L. Hansen at Knutepunkt in 2017 showed, there are players that report that they have never bled like this. Not even once. This workshop was partially the reason I started looking deeper into the concept of bleed, as the idea of exposing your body and mind to larping and not being affected by the consciousness of the character at all seemed very strange to me. I might not be the heaviest bleeder, but safe to say, I have bled a lot during my years a larper. For some time, I might also have been someone that actively steered my play to increase the chances of experiencing it.

    Bleed-in:

    Emotional bleed-in occurs when the state of the player’s emotions affect the actions of the character in the game. It is probably most easy to recognize when characters are exposed to things in-game that closely resemble experiences that the player has had out-of-game, be they loss, love, or other strong emotions that can be difficult to control.

    Bleed-out:

    Based on work done by among others Bowman (2013) and Leonard and Thurman (2018), out-of-game animosity and feelings of real life exclusion seem to be among the most common bleed-out phenomena. In “Social Conflict in Role-Playing Communities: An Exploratory Qualitative Study,” Bowman discusses how this form of emotional bleed-out can lead to negative effects on game communities:

    Participants explained that when overinvolved, the player assumes in-character interactions correlate with out-of-character personality traits and feelings. In addition, players may possess underlying psychological problems that events within the game world trigger or intensify. (Bowman 2013)

    Other well-known emotional bleed-out phenomena are commonly known as “larp crushes.” These are instances where the love played out between two characters are transferred to one, both, or all of the players that played said characters. As Sanne Harder (2018) describes, “Larp crushes are definitely real experiences of being in love. Larp crushes are real in the sense that the barrier between you and your character’s emotions are eroded to the point where you really, truly are going through limerence” (Harder 2018).

    In summary, emotional bleed is the sub-category that is most widely recognized. To me, the availability and quality of research and writings on the subject are sufficient evidence of the existence of this phenomenon.

    stained glass of male Olympian
    “Stained glass 1: Seen in the Centre for Modern and Contemporary Art, Veletrzni (Trades Fair) Palace, Prague” by Tony Hisgett (CC BY 2.0).

    Procedural Bleed

    Procedural bleed gets its name from procedural memory, more generally referred to as muscle memory. Basically, it refers to gestures, bearing, ticks, or any other kind of physical action that originates in either player or character and then surfaces in the other.

    Bleed-in:

    Getting rid of the physical things we do without conscious thought can be very difficult. Procedural bleed does not cover physical expressions connected to ability, but rather the ways of moving and carrying ourselves that come from for instance cultural conditioning and force of habit. For instance, the culturally coded language of gender will tell us as players how to stand, move, and walk. Players that play other genders than their own will often have to make considerable conscious efforts to change their body language, a task that is made harder by the existence of procedural bleed-in. For my own part, years of being a competitive powerlifter has made procedural bleed-in something that is sometimes very hard to overcome. For instance, I am  unable to hunch my shoulders forward in a subdued stance for some period of time without substantial conscious effort.

    Bleed-out:

    Procedural bleed-out is for all intents and purposes the exact same as bleed-in, only with the roles reversed. The biggest difference would probably be related to the force of the phenomenon. It is natural to assume that the years of physical conditioning of a player would exert more force on the character than the few days of portraying a character’s physicality could ever exert on the player. There might be some exceptions, though.

    For instance, right after the larp Conscience (NotOnlyLarp 2018) ended, I could not stop drawing my phone from my pocket and twirling it as I had done for days with the gun that I carried on my hip. A more horrifying example would be how my portrayal of a Nazi officer at the larp 1942 (FLH 2017) seem to have removed the issues that I had with the Nazi salute as a movement, which for me had caused a considerable amount of physical cognitive dissonance in the past. It would seem though, that in general, it is common that procedural bleed-out burns itself out within a relative short time of the larp ending.

    Some players have told me of lingering procedural bleed-out, which is something I myself have experienced as well. For instance, I carry myself with an air of authority, sometimes quite military in nature. This has lead to my (for some reason) numerous interactions with police officers and military personnel in my travels around the world always being quite enjoyable. However, there is very little in my life outside of larping that could explain the ease with which I interact with (and subtly command) gun-carrying soldiers and officers. Now, I was in the military when I was young, and even dabbled with command, but this was too low level to fully explain my current tacit skill. So to me, at least part of the explanation might be my numerous military and law enforcement commanding characters forming some sort of feedback loop originating from my original military experience over the years. These experiences have provided me with the physicality of someone used to command and having their orders obeyed.

    Two stained glass soldiers with the words Home Guard underneath
    “Stained glass at Bristol cathedral” by Heather Cowper (CC BY 2.0).

    Memetic Bleed

    In his 1976 book The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins presents the concept of the meme as a noun that “conveys the idea of a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation” (Dawkins 1976). Since then, the concept has of course been popularized and redefined a number of times. For the sake of understanding memetic bleed, we can say that a meme is an unit of culture that carries an idea, behaviour, thought, belief, ethical conviction, or similar from person to person. In this definition, a catchy pop song on the radio would be a meme, as would the idea of the earth being flat, although paradigm shifts over time as a result of the scientific revolution have rendered the second meme somewhat less successful in recent centuries. On a side note, this example also shows us that the potential successfulness of memes is dependent upon environmental factors and as such will be subject to change.

    This leaves us with the following attempt at a definition:

    Memetic bleed describes the process by which a meme — a unit of culture — carries an idea, behaviour, thought, belief, ethical conviction, or similar cognitive construct between player and character and vice versa. In addition, it describes the process by which memeplexes — complex structures of memes — are transmitted in part or in whole between players and characters that are part of a group, scene, or subculture and vice versa.

    Bleed-in:

    Since memetic bleed at least partly deals with societal and political structures, it seems to happen on both individual and structural levels. In the case of the latter, the most well-known phenomenon might be what some know as larp democracy, where the players, mostly without communication, “agree” to handle situations in ways that are more in tune with the values of the players than the characters. For example, characters in scenarios involving historical systemic oppression may “solve” the situation through democratic means, a political structure with which their players are familiar and appreciate, but one that might also be entirely alien to the characters themselves.

    “A bearded king” by Tijl Vercaemer (CC BY 2.0).

    A somewhat more subtle example might be how tacit cultural knowledge can affect the feel of a game. For instance, after the larp 1942 (FLH 2017), a larp set in a small village in occupied Norway during the Second World War, the organizers shared how the Scandinavian run and the international one had played out somewhat differently. The assessment expressed verbally was that the tacit cultural knowledge of the Norwegian players playing the bulk of the Norwegian civilian characters in the first run had moved the game in one direction, while the lack of said knowledge among the international players playing Norwegian civilians in the second had moved it in a different one.

    Being Norwegian myself, I can quite clearly see the validity of this observation. Norwegians “know” how life in a small village in the bottom of a fjord would have been, because most of us will have family or relatives that actually lived those lives. Our grandparents would have told us stories and our history books would have explained the societal structures in detail. As modern and progressive people, we might not always like to think so, but concepts such as the low church Haugean movement and the Law of Jante are still deeply ingrained in the culture within which we as Norwegians have grown up. As a result, in the Norwegian run, the civilian play was reportedly quite subdued and low-key. International players, on the other hand, not having access to the same tacit knowledge, based their play upon other sources. What these sources were would probably be pretty individual, but as a result, the run was reportedly richer in both dramatic scenes and amplified play.

    ja.corby on Flickr (CC BY 2.0).

    On a individual level, memetic bleed might affect our ability to play on certain traits or play out certain actions. The one that stands out to me is how some players report that they are, not from lack of trying, unable to play oppressors or antagonists of a certain type. The larp Conscience (NotOnlyLarp 2018) is a prime example of a larp where the oppressive characters are quite extreme; I have spoken to two players that more or less mid-larp had to steer their characters away from how they were written in order to be able to portray them. My opinion is that this impulse is at least partly a result of memetic bleed-in of ethical convictions that were too strong for the alibi of play to overpower. As previously noted though, any bleed might have aspects of more than one of the sub-categories; in this case, it is also probable that there was some emotional bleed related to, for instance, the players’ ability to feel empathy for the oppressed characters.   

    Bleed-out:

    With bleed-out, the most difficult part might be distinguishing between where memetic bleed ends and cognitive reflection begins. By this statement, I mean that not all changes in ideas, values, beliefs, and so on will be the result of bleed, but also that it can be quite a mixed experience where no single reason can claim to be the instrumental one.

    For instance, on a structural level, I propose that the spread in our communities of ideas and values found in intersectional feminism is partly due to it being a memeplex that for years has been central in both content and design choices in a variety of Nordic larps that have, one way or another, set the contemporary standard. Of course, it might be a question of whether feminist larpers demand the creation of feminist larps or if feminist larps create feminist larpers; personally, I think that the correct answer is probably a mix of the two. There is no getting around the fact that we somehow seem to have gotten a lot better at making larps that incorporate these ideals though, and I for one believe that memetic bleed-out has played a part. For my own sake, observing the struggles of marginalized groups in general society on an intellectual level is one thing; routinely dealing with structures within which these marginalization issues are recognized and addressed as the most natural thing in the world is a lot more efficient with regard to furthering my understanding and evolving my progressive views and values.

    isox4 on Flickr (CC BY 2.0).

    On the individual level, memetic bleed-out can be quite hard to recognize. Why do we hum that particular song? Why do we hold that specific opinion on that particular subject? Why have our views evolved over time? Why do we “know” how to act and behave in certain social settings? I think it is safe to say that why we behave the way we do is rarely the result of one single defining reason and there is possibly no right answer to any of the questions above.

    This is what makes memetic bleed such a difficult thing to grasp. In fact, the moment we become cognitively aware that we are affected by it, it might even be possible that the effect diminishes, maybe even disappears. The reason why it is important to understand though is that the memes with which our characters interact will latch onto and take advantage of the exact same functions in our consciousness that any meme that we encounter in our daily lives will. In addition, it might be that when subjecting our characters to ideas that we as players will find ridiculous or even harmful, we will without being fully aware of it have lowered some of our “shields,” thereby making ourselves more susceptible to them.

    For instance, in 2017, to portray a German officer that was a true believer in Nazism in 1942, I read Mein Kampf as part of my preparation. My short review is that it was a jumbled together mess of ideas that were sometimes ridiculously easy to counter. Yet, when I read it in-game, my character hanging on to every word, and me using the same words to explain the ideas to my fellow German characters, it felt very differently. I am not saying that the experience turned me on to Nazism, but it felt uncomfortable enough for me to decide to actively de-role by rereading the arguments against the particular points to which my character had attached himself. I must also mention that I used this larp as one of a few to see if I could detect the elusive memetic bleed-out. To this day, I am not certain if I did detect it or if I just think I did because I wanted to do so.

    “Cleveland Trust rotunda – pt. 2” by Chewy734 (CC BY 2.0).

    In Summary

    As larp continues to evolve and take ever larger steps into the realms of education, training, and therapy, so must we also seek to further our understanding of the phenomena connected to it. It is my opinion that better understanding bleed is crucial in order for larp to be as valuable an addition as possible in the mentioned fields. In that regard, in the last few years, important work that has furthered our understanding has been done by, among others, Jonaya Kemper who introduced the term emancipatory bleed, Whitney “Strix” Beltrán who introduced the term ego bleed, and Maury Elizabeth Brown who has written about the connection between player triggers and bleed.

    As I add my thoughts to the ongoing discussion, let me make it clear that I am acutely aware of how we all tend to fall in love with our own ideas. As Dan Ariely puts it, “In the scientific world, the Not-Invented-Here bias is fondly called the ‘toothbrush theory.’ The idea is that everyone wants a toothbrush, everyone needs one, everyone has one, but no one wants to use anyone else’s” (Ariely 2012).

    Let me then be the first to say that I am certain that there is a lot more out there to figure out, but I hope that my thoughts on possible structures can at least be useful as a point for further discussion. For all I know, there might be categories that are lacking or one of my proposed categories is only part of a larger one. And so let me end this little write up with a very familiar call for further research, and state my belief that either some of the great thinkers I have cited or maybe someone we haven’t even heard of yet will deliver it to us in due time. To me, at least, the future of bleed seems bright.

    “Stained glass 2: Seen in the Centre for Modern and Contemporary Art, Veletrzni (Trades Fair) Palace, Prague” by
    Tony Hisgett (CC BY 2.0).

    References

    Ariely, Dan. 2010. The Upside of Irrationality. London: Harper.

    Beltrán, Whitney “Strix.” 2013. “Shadow Work: A Jungian Perspective on the Underside of Live Action Role-Play in the United States.” In Wyrd Con Companion Book 2013, edited by Sarah Lynne Bowman and Aaron Vanek, 94-101. Los Angeles, CA: Wyrd Con.

    Bowman, Sarah Lynne. 2013. “Social Conflict in Role-Playing Communities: An Exploratory Qualitative Study.” International Journal of Role-Playing 4: 4-25.

    Bowman, Sarah Lynne. “Bleed: The Spillover Between Player and Character.” Nordiclarp.org. Last modified March 2, 2015.

    Brown, Maury Elizabeth. 2014. “Pulling the Trigger on Player Agency: How Psychological Intrusions in Larps Affect Game Play.” In The Wyrd Con Companion Book 2014, edited by Sarah Lynne Bowman, 96-111. Los Angeles, CA: Wyrd Con.

    Chalmers, David J. 1995. “Facing Up to the Problem of ConsciousnessJournal of Consciousness Studies 2: 200-219.

    Dawkins, Richard. 1976. The Selfish Gene. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Hansen, Jost L. and Kjell Hedgard Hugaas. 2017. “To Bleed or Not to Bleed.” Workshop at Knutepunkt Norway 2017, February 24.

    Harder, Sanne. 2018. “Larp Crush: The What, When and How.” Nordiclarp.org. Last modified March 28, 2018.

    Hugaas, Kjell Hedgard. 2018. “A Trinity of Consciousness.” Presentation at Knutpunkt 2018, Lund, Sweden, March 15-18, 2018.

    Kemper, Jonaya. 2017. “The Battle of Primrose Park: Playing for Emancipatory Bleed in Fortune & Felicity.” Nordiclarp.org. Last modified June 21, 2017.

    Leonard, Diana J. and Tessa Thurman. 2018. “Bleed-out on the Brain: The Neuroscience of Character-to-Player Spillover in Larp.” International Journal of Role-Playing 9: 9-15.

    Montola, Markus. 2010. “The Positive Negative Experience in Extreme Role-playing.” Proceedings of DiGRA Nordic 2010: Experiencing Games: Games, Play, and Players.

    Osmond, Will. 2018. “A Game of Give or Take? A Methektic Analysis of Scene-making in Larping.” Filmed May 18, 2018 at Living Games Conference, Boston, MA, video, 26:41.

    Sutherland, Stuart. 1989. The Macmillian Dictionary of Psychology. Basingstoke: The Macmillian Press Ltd.  


    Cover Photo: Saint-Malo Cathedral in Brittany, France. “Pillar and pinnacle, arch and corbel” by Derek Σωκράτης Finch on Flickr (CC BY 2.0). Image has been cropped.

  • Literary and Performative Imaginaries – Where Characters Come From

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    Literary and Performative Imaginaries – Where Characters Come From

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    Dungeon Crawl Classics: Where Characters Are Made to DIE. Photo by Evan Torner. Dungeon Crawl Classics: Where Characters Are Made to DIE. Photo by Evan Torner.

    Character creation and character sheets are a favorite topic of mine. Hang around me long enough and you’ll hear me utter the phrase “Character creation is 50% of the role-playing experience.” I mean this statement in several senses. We underestimate how much enjoyment we get out of the simple pleasure of assembling a thinking being whom we will then inhabit. Furthermore, we are actually already playing the (or at least a) game when we create a character. Finally, we often underestimate exactly how much actual time and energy we must invest in each character (unless you’re playing a horde larp or Dungeon Crawl Classics, with its infamous “funnel” of death). We are imbuing inanimate words with life itself; of course there are complications! They represent significant creative investments.

    Character sheet from 10 Bad Larps, by Alleged Entertainment. Photo by Evan Torner. Character sheet from 10 Bad Larps, by Alleged Entertainment. Photo by Evan Torner.
    Character sheet as promotional material for Knights of Badassdom (2013). Photo by Evan Torner. Character sheet as promotional material for Knights of Badassdom (2013). Photo by Evan Torner.

    Character sheets are the textual evidence of this investment and, if you think about it, constitute just as much of a role-playing game’s “text” as the session itself. In this respect, we can consider Eirik Fatland’s important observation that we use the same word “character” to describe both what’s on the sheet and its actual embodiment,((See Fatland, “What makes a character playable?”)) as well as J. Tuomas Harviainen’s assertion that the act of role-playing generates numerous “texts” in the form of meaningful actions that players then subject to their own individual form of hermeneutic analysis.((Harviainen 66–67.))

    Role-playing Games as a Medium

    But it turns out that this fluidity between written and performed character text is, in fact, specific to role-playing games as a medium. Here I’d like to discuss the media-specific propositional quality of pre-generated character sheets to show that so-called “new media” – which larp is, to some extent – are where old media such as literature go to live an undead afterlife. We are still subjects shaped by the written page.

    I argue that medium-specific assumptions about where “character” comes from underlie specific modes of character presentation which I have, for the sake of argument, subdivided into three different categories:

    • The Literary Mode
    • The Procedural-Performative Mode
    • The Explicitly Emergent Mode

    The Literary Mode consists of providing an extensive character backstory. The Procedural-Performative Mode involves explicit commands given to the player. The Explicitly Emergent Mode relies on the player to supply significant content to “fill in” the character as described. Each of these modes carries with it a corresponding imaginary, which I define as the set of values it promotes, and of propositions made that we accept as “given.” What we consider to be “character” is contingent on both design principles as well as the epistemologies – theories of how we know what we know – that shape them. The character sheet determines in part what we can or cannot know about a specific larp.

    A character from Lives, Births, Deaths by Martin Brodén & Tobias Wrigstad. Photo by Evan Torner. A character from Lives, Births, Deaths by Martin Brodén & Tobias Wrigstad. Photo by Evan Torner.

    “A ‘character’,” writes Markus Montola, “may indicate a group of quantitative attributes within the formal ruleset, a representation of the player in the game world or a fictitious person in the game world.”((Montola 32.)) How we present this fluid construct necessarily represents what we might see as our own specific system of knowledge creation.

    My analysis here primarily focuses on what Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman call the “formal level” of a game: “the game considered as a set of rules … not the experience of the game [itself],”((Salen & Zimmerman 120.)) which would be what they call the “phenomenological level.” It would be interesting to see correspondences with my model in actual play, but that’s for others to attempt.

    As a media scholar, I approach role-playing games as media, such that the games themselves mediate the cultural act of role-playing. What do I mean by this? Role-playing games frame our attention in specific ways, and construct subjectivities of “ideal” users much like newspapers or television. They have their own aesthetics, cultural authority, and political economy. They generate texts, and are texts themselves. Newspapers, for example, imply that the world’s events can be subdivided into digestible text morsels interspersed with glossy ads. The logics of television imply that content is irrelevant so long as it flows along. Role-playing games imply that a player is in a tense, co-dependent relationship with the rules of a given system, and only through the liberal interpretation of these rules can one appropriately explore alternative realities with one’s friends.

    RPGs are structured not around the willing suspension of disbelief but the “willing activation of pretense,” as Michael Saler put it.((Saler 28.)) One creates – or is presented with – a character and then plays it within the diegetic world, bounded by certain rules which the players may have co-designed.

    A slide from Eirik Fatland's talk. Photo by Evan Torner. A slide from Eirik Fatland’s talk. Photo by Evan Torner.

    At a (particularly good) presentation at Solmukohta 2012, Eirik Fatland called larp design “predicting player behavior,” but also notes how openness to player interpretation is, in fact, a primary design feature of good larp characters.

    This poses us with a paradox familiar to most game designers: how do we predict and incentivize player behavior without sacrificing the very unpredictability of the larp experience, especially when the players are relying on the designer/organizers to provide a predictably unpredictable experience?

    To deal with this inherent struggle within the larp medium, we must conceive of high-quality larp as both well-defined, immersive and immanent as well as fluid and elusive. If we frame larps as what Christoph Bode calls “nodal situations,”((Bode 1.)) then there is a predictable forking path of notable decision trees like in Interactive Fiction or a Choose Your Own Adventure novel that are predictable and actionable. In the world of larp, for example, Alleged Entertainment’s Garden of Forking Paths frames a series of nodal situations (see below).

    Alleged Entertainment’s Garden of Forking Paths. Photo by Evan Torner. Alleged Entertainment’s Garden of Forking Paths. Photo by Evan Torner.

    But if we frame larps as mere frameworks for social alibi with no central narratives, as Markus Montola and Jaakko Stenros have,((Montola and Stenros 10.)) then these “nodal” decision trees dissolve under the inherent complexity of human interaction within the medium. Larp is often too complex to be summarized in binary decision trees and other techniques.

    Character Sheets Shaping the Medium

    I conceive larp as a medium. As such, one can look at character sheets as an integral device in shaping its concept, much as the screenplay shapes a resultant film. Several recent perspectives on the character sheet have raised concerns about what exactly its role is in play. Daniel M. Perez sees the character sheet as a map,((See Perez.)) in that you can both use it as a reference to collect information about the game in one central place, and as a guide to what the game itself actually will prioritize during play. Reinforcing this point is Lars Konzack, whose article “Characterology in Tabletop Role-Playing Games” argues for the centrality of the character sheet in determining player experience (and here I quote him at length):

    It is the central document from which the player relates to role-playing a character as regards to rules, setting, situation, and performance. In this view, the character sheet transgresses the boundaries of role-playing textuality. The text becomes vital to the role-playing experience as a textual machine in working progress.((Konzack 87.))

    Konzack’s point is in direct response to David Jara’s argument that character sheets constitute paratexts, in the vein of Gérard Genette’s literary theory.((See Jara.)) Here I side with Konzack, in that I see Jara overemphasizing actual play as the real text, with all other texts being relegated to secondary and tertiary status. But Konzack’s analysis itself primarily focuses on semiotics – that is, how a character sheet signals a system’s priorities – and exclusively on tabletop games, which often have more thoughtfully laid-out character sheets. This is where I’d like to intervene as a larpwright and media scholar, so as to interrogate the medial significance of the larp character sheet.

    What Are Character Sheets?

    What are character sheets? Documents that make numerous propositions. In my mind, they are often non-diegetic texts that exist to preserve the diegesis by helping a player perform as a character within it. They do so by providing select information about the character and make deliberate emotional propositions to pull the player into the role.

    Character sheets are documents that seek instantiation and/or confirmation in the actual play. They often provide a combination of naming/binding the character, his/her approximate physical appearance, a short backstory – written in the 2nd or 3rd person – relationship to other characters in the larp, and mechanical leverage of certain abilities.

    The actual utility of a character sheet in a larp is to identify a character and telegraph how other characters should respond to him/her, provide character impetus for story engagement, abilities for advancing the story, and imply costumes. But these sheets presumably also offer the player a vision of character “interiority,” or a rich inner life with conflicted thoughts and emotions. This interiority proves somewhat crucial in one of the larp medium’s requirements: the act of becoming a “first-person audience,” as Christopher Sandberg describes it.((Sandberg 274–279.)) Once the player is “activated” by the character sheet, they will then undergo the hermeneutic process of responding to events and characters in the larp through the lens of a complex persona construct.

    Our main theoretical and design question remains: how do we form this interiority with a piece of paper? The general solutions the larp medium has offered include: having the players read some literature about the character and interpret him/her based on literary analysis; just telling the players what they should be thinking or feeling; or doing away with the data on the sheet and creating a character through workshops, masks, or whatever else. The rest of my article will address these three modes.

    The Literary Mode

    The only substitute for an experience we ourselves have never lived through is art, literature.

    Alexander Solzhenitsyn, 1970 Nobel Prize speech

    The first is the literary mode, in which the larpwright often writes 2–10 pages of fiction resembling fanfic about the character which contains information the player is intended to internalize as their backstory. These are usually told in the second-person or third-person mode of address, depending on whether or not the larpwrights are signaling that the player immediately immerse themselves in their character. The point of such texts is for the larp organizers to start in media res with the player already knowing that which is known about the character within the diegesis.

    I call it “fanfic” because these texts are either generated by a larpwright passionate about this character set, or occasionally by the player him/herself in order to establish the character. (Based on past experience, having the player write the backstory is more effective, but usually produces characters less linked into social circles in the larp.) In addition, we as players are scarcely permitted to evaluate the text’s aesthetic values as fiction. (It’s sort of a bonus when larp fiction is good.) Now, seeing as these texts are, again, non-diegetic, the player is asked to do literary analysis to extract the necessary data. Kathleen Singles has noted that we take such analysis of the printed page as “natural and non-significant.”((Singles 217.)) I wish to demonstrate, however, that we have many Freudian assumptions underpinning our character assimilation process.

     

    Madam Dragon. Character sheet provided by Sarah Lynne Bowman. Madam Dragon. Character sheet provided by Sarah Lynne Bowman.

    Here’s an example character sheet: Madam Dragon. We can see her abilities as in-game affordances at the top: Breath Weapon, Tough Skin, Claws… notably before any other data, such as what these figures even mean. Then we get to the part marked ‘Your Story’ which goes on for 4 pages. The narrative ostensibly is there to replicate Madam Dragon’s traumatic childhood, going into detail about numerous traumatic episodes, looking at the various nodal moments (of agency and choice) in her backstory that might suggest how the character might behave in the future. These also overload the player with pre-generated genre fiction that is then to be submerged in the player’s consciousness, only to manifest itself in later actions.

    Here, the character sheet is like a corked bottle of champagne, ready to burst forth through the player, who is meanwhile stuck with the task of memorizing a large pile of data, while also parsing it for actionable goals and character relationships. Such literary character sheets also operate on an act of faith that the fictions of each character sheet all align well with each other (so that play becomes “interactive literature”) and that the player is literate in the right way to retain the data so that their play can continue what the fiction started. Needless to say, this form of character sheet presumes genre fiction as the basis for all larp.

    The Performative-procedural Mode

    The second mode is the performative-procedural, in which the game organizers give a brief text about the character in question and explicit instructions to the players as to what they should do. Lizzie Stark and Alessandro Canossa have articulated many of the different ways this can be done. In this model, it is the responsibility of the players to follow the instructions given them by the gamemasters, with the key signifier being the “if-then” statement. It is particularly typical of so-called “horde” larps, with just a few PCs and many NPCs.

    Character descriptions from Babysteps by Tobias Wrigstad. Photo by Evan Torner. Character descriptions from Babysteps by Tobias Wrigstad. Photo by Evan Torner.

    Fatland has called this “fateplay,” in which players exchange agency over their characters’ every action for heightened dramatic stakes and what Greg Costikyan calls the “semiotic uncertainty” of the game.((Costikyan 102.)) So rather than writing down an extensive backstory and providing characters with abilities to act on that backstory, designers working in the procedural mode break the “character” into tasks achievable during the larp and command the player to act on them. The player’s options are constrained, their larp experience boiled down to a series of “if-then” statements.

    A character sheet from All In by Chris Hall. Photo by Evan Torner. A character sheet from All In by Chris Hall. Photo by Evan Torner.
    Part of Akala’s objectives for Voyage to Venus, Planet of Death by Kat Jones & Evan Torner. Photo by Evan Torner. Part of Akala’s objectives for Voyage to Venus, Planet of Death by Kat Jones & Evan Torner. Photo by Evan Torner.

    Such play might be seen by some as disempowering, and also would in theory sacrifice the interiority created by the literary fiction of the first model.((In practice, however, perhaps not.)) Whereas such fiction is somewhat Freudian – giving your character a past history of trauma and so forth – the procedural methodology is decidedly Brechtian. Bertolt Brecht commanded all his proletarian actors to enact certain social gestes, gestures that would signify the alienating class structures of society. Larp does this apolitically, removing the agency of a player so that they then have the alibi that the alienating “system” forced them to do whatever it is that they did in the larp. I theorize this using an alchemical blend of Brechtian theory and Ian Bogost’s concept of procedural rhetoric, which is probably familiar to most of you.

    Here’s a quote from Brecht collaborator Ernst Ottwalt: “It is not the duty of our literature to stabilize the reader’s consciousness but to alter it.”((Ottwalt 22.)) Again, the model presented indicates that the actor carrying out these commands will somehow experience an interior change, but Ottwalt is implying it to be at the level of the consumer/user. Ian Bogost says about procedural rhetoric: “It’s a theory or a design philosophy. It’s a way of making things. A way of thinking about the process of translating systems in the world into representations of those systems in the computer… It gives you a framework through which to ask questions about what a particular situation might demand.”((See Bogost, “Procedural Rhetoric.”)) Procedure can lead to character interiority, but such procedures also can directly enact specific ideologies through the characters too.

    The Explicitly Emergent Mode

    The third mode of character creation is to dispense with sheets entirely and just “workshop” a character, or perhaps build a character through a single sound uttered while wearing a trance mask. These techniques help build character interiority by relying primarily on the player’s own social and physical assets, which are then directly interfaced with a group. Importantly, these characters without character sheets would be dismissed by many larpers as part of a mere theater exercise. This mode has become popular within the blackbox movement, notably in games such as White Death.

    White Death at Blackbox CPH. Photo by Nina Runa Essendrop. White Death at Blackbox CPH. Photo by Nina Runa Essendrop.

    White Death has no character sheets, but rather a physical condition and a core prejudice your character has. Such abandonment of the character sheet makes for an RPG text divorced from the written page, seeking instead emergence of character, storyline, and the world through emergent player interaction. Other games such as Helene Willer Piironen and Maria Ljung’s Stereo Hearts create characters from music playlists. This mode is possibly the least well-understood mode of character presentation, and one that is rapidly evolving as our medium develops.

    But I stress the primacy of a medial understanding of larp here: role-playing games mediate the cultural act of role-playing. I don’t really want to get into the argument of then “what constitutes a game” here, but I would say that my cursory analysis also reinforces Emily Care Boss’ recent point that the “crunch/fluff” dichotomy in games – where we attempt to separate mechanical leverage in games (this is what my stats say I can do) from fictional positioning (this is what the situation dictates) – makes little sense.((Boss 50–54.)) There is equally little substance in stats as there is in backstory as there is in arbitrary orders as there is in on-the-spot social fictions.

    In short: When you write a long backstory for a character, you are asking the player to perform literary analysis in order to understand the character. When you write out procedures and objectives for the character, the player has clear activities to engage in, but may be in some ways ensconced in ideological logics of power and control. When you provide no character sheet whatsoever, the design itself is likely relying on emergence to form the characters. There are so many ways for us to present characters to players; I encourage us to start reflecting on how we do so, and what are the hidden motives behind said designs.

    Works Cited

    • Bode, Christoph. Future Narratives: Theory, poetics, and media-historical moment. Berlin/Boston: Walter de Gruyter, 2013.
    • Bogost, Ian. “Procedural Rhetoric.” Media Systems 7. 23 September 2013. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFaqguc_uNk
    • Boss, Emily Care. “Skin Deep.” WyrdCon Companion Book 2012: 50–54.
    • Carlson, Marvin. Theories of the Theatre. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1984.
    • Costikyan, Greg. Uncertainty in Games. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2013.
    • Fatland, Eirik. “What makes a character playable?” 2013.    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqGVD0W5dhM
    • Harviainen, J. Tuomas. “A Hermeneutical Approach to Role-Playing Analysis.” International Journal of Role-Playing 1 (2009): 66–78.
    • Jara, David. “A Closer Look at the (Rule-) Books: Framings and Paratexts in Tabletop Role-playing Games.” International Journal of Role-Playing 4 (2013): 39–54.
    • Jenkins, Henry. Convergence Culture. New York: New York UP, 2006.
    • Konzack, Lars. “Characterology in Tabletop Role-Playing Games: A Textual Analysis of Character Sheets.” WyrdCon Companion Book 2013. Sarah Lynne Bowman and Aaron Vanek, eds. Orange, CA: Wyrd Con, 2013: 86-93.
    • Montola, Markus. “The Invisible Rules of Role-Playing. The Social Framework of Role Playing Process.” International Journal of Role-Playing 1 (2009): 22–36.
    • ––– and Jaakko Stenros. Nordic Larp. Stockholm: Fea Livia, 2010.
    • Ottwalt, Ernst. “‘Tatsachenroman’ und Formexperiment: Eine Entgegnung an Georg Lukács.” Die Linkskurve 4.10 (October 1932): 22.
    • Perez, Daniel M. “A Character Sheet Is a Map.” 5 April, 2011. http://dmperez.com/2011/04/05/a-character-sheet-is-a-map/
    • Sandberg, Christopher. “Genesi. Larp Art, Basic Theories.” Beyond Role and Play. Tools, Toys and Theory for Harnessing the Imagination. Markus Montola and Jaakko Stenros, eds. Helsinki: Ropecon ry, 2004.
    • Salen, Katie & Eric Zimmerman. The Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2004.
    • Singles, Kathleen. Alternate History: Playing with Contingency and Necessity. Berlin/Boston: Walter de Gruyter, 2013.

    Cover photo: White Death, at Blackbox CPH (photo by Nina Runa Essendrop).