This article, by Thomas Munier, was initially published in French on ElectroGN on January 18th, 2021. It was translated into English for publication here by JC, with the approval of the author and with the permission of ElectroGN.
“It’s not me, it’s my character.”
In larp and tabletop roleplaying, this justification of our actions is called alibi, and it allows us to dare to try new experiences. Alibi is a key factor in benefitting from what larp has to offer.
However, alibi is not always accepted: either because the participant does not see any difference between themself and their character, or because the other participants refuse to forget about the participant when considering the character.
This article will categorize several definitions of alibi, consider the ways in which it is emancipating, and finally the situations when alibi is not enough. Another article will follow, focused on ways to strengthen alibi.
Summary
The common contract of “it’s not me, it’s my character”, also called alibi, allows the participant to experience both themself and otherness, which is both enriching and liberating.
However, the simple fact of knowing about this process keeps us from really abandoning ourselves to the role. We are aware of the concept’s limits: the larp remains part of reality and so there are some things we do not allow ourselves to dare.
Furthermore, even when we fully wish to abandon ourselves to the character, this remains very difficult if other participants do not consider us fitted to play them. We see this when the group does not manage to distinguish the character’s social category from the participant’s; or when it refuses to recognize a character’s ability that the participant does not have. This stems from a larping perspective where “the character is what the participant does and says”, which keeps participants from being seen as able to play characters too different from themselves. The cognitive load, which can be significant in certain larps, also sometimes keeps participants from giving the actions of others the consideration they deserve.
These cases where alibi is not enough motivate us to search for tools to reinforce it. These will be studied in a follow-up article, Building the aura.
Definitions of Alibi
Dico GN (written by Leïla Teteau-Surel and Baptiste Cazes) states “Alibi is making your in-character actions legitimate through your larp character and the larp context”.
Axiel Cazeneuve states: “The basis of the social contract in a roleplaying game is alibi. Alibi is what allows us to say: it’s not me, it’s my character. It’s a contract because, by taking part in the roleplaying game, we in a way commit to not holding other participants to account for their in-character actions. This is an essential aspect of roleplaying, because without this alibi, it’s impossible to really play someone else, including when this someone else commits morally reprehensible acts. Playing a war-criminal or a narcissistic manipulator is only possible because we trust others to differentiate between my actions as a character from those as a person. This is even more true in larp, where we are directly involved in our character’s actions and cannot simply represent or describe them.
To go further (in French):
[Video] Axiel Cazeneuve, LOIDOROS – Alibi, on the Larp in Progress channel
The basic principle is that alibi is a form of social contract that stipulates that participants are not held responsible for what their characters do and say (and, in return, that they accept to not hold other participants accountable for their characters’ words and actions). In other words, “What happens in Alibi-land stays in Alibi-land”: once the larp is over, no participant has to answer for what their character did.
The larp constitutes a “magic circle”, an imaginary space where we cease to be ourselves to become the characters, or, at least, where we change social masks. In that space, participants agree to dissociate the actions and words of other participants from what those participants do and say outside of the larp space.
In reality, things are of course often quite different. In practice, alibi implies a tolerance margin (how far can I go before I go “too far”) rather than actual freedom from responsibility.
Firstly, freedom from responsibility only covers a limited number of situations (participants are, for example, still legally liable). These limits are often informal and implicit (participants are responsible for each other’s physical and psychological wellbeing). They are also often unclear and arbitrary: while some have no issue with being spat on, others will consider the contract broken as soon as someone raises their voice.
The tolerance margin is also often (implicitly) linked to how different the other participant’s character is from that participant: oppressive insults by a cyber-pirate on amphetamines will go down better than if they come from a modern-day character that is similar to their participant.
Finally, the freedom from responsibility is only formal, because despite the alibi contract, the human psyche creates subconscious transfers between “participant–participant” relations and “character–character” relations. Participants who play friends tend to be more mutually friendly after the larp. Our thoughts end up conforming to our actions.
Alibi and its practical manifestations lead participants to exploit it. Abuses of the tolerance margin are easy to find: abusively extending the margin (for example, harassing other characters despite your character not fitting that profile) or abusively reducing the margin (for example, being vindictive towards a participant because their character disobeyed).
There are also abuses of alibi’s porosity. These can be “bleed in”, from outside towards the larp (for example, becoming close in character with real-life friends), or “bleed out”, from the larp towards outside (for example, becoming close in character to someone you would like to meet in real life).
Used well, alibi is emancipating, in a way that the larp community almost unanimously defends, letting participants act without fear of being personally judged (for example, allowing them to speak or sing in public).
Of course, alibi does not grant total immunity. Even inside the magic circle, participants must obey the law (some laws may be broken in character, for example with insults). They must also respect a number of usually implicit rules regarding the physical, material and psychological well-being of other participants (we will see later that the psychological aspect is the most ambivalent, since that is where the participant/character distinction is least obvious).
Alibi is one of the almost systematically assumed social contracts when participating in larp. But it is one of its tacit components. Alibi is considered as self-evident and is rarely explicitly expressed in design documents or larp briefings. In most larps, “you are playing a character” is supposed to be enough, and participants are expected to infer “what the character does cannot be attributed to the participant” by themselves.
Those were, hopefully, the more rigorous definitions of alibi.
Now here are some of the fallacious ways alibi is defined in practice, and which are the cause of the problems we will detail later on:
Alibi is an excuse to justify certain behaviours, in good or bad faith.
Alibi is an authorization to be “rude”, as defined in improv theatre (to refuse the character or situation the other person proposes, or to impose a character on them).
Alibi is a state of deep immersion (we believe in the situation and in our character).
As we can see, alibi is, in its most rigorous definition, most often an implicit concept. Therefore, it is not always known or understood. Other, fallacious definitions of alibi are also implicit and can generate misunderstandings, which we will see later can be quite damaging. But let us first take a deeper look at the benefits of alibi, when the concept is well understood and mastered by participants.
Emancipating Alibi
The concept of character, which was initially a gaming construct, allows us to inhabit another person’s identity for the duration of a larp or RPG.
This allows for escapism but also for the experience of oneself. After all, in reality, when we do or say things in an RPG or (even more so) in a larp, we have really done and said them, simulation techniques aside. The role was a pretext to do it, both making us disinhibited and helping us get legitimacy from the group.
Axiel Cazeneuve confides that they are afraid to sing in public. But when, in the larp OSIRIS/Wish You Were Here, they are supposed to play a renowned artist, they can finally go for it. Axiel explains how the audience (the other larpers) fully supports them. Alibi has attained its goal: it has given Axiel the ideal excuse to try a new experience.
Playing a role is an opportunity to experience oneself. We are still ourselves, but we try different things.
And this makes our real life richer. By experiencing polyamorous relationships and making art in the larp “The Ivy and the Vines”, some participants revisited what they allowed themselves to do in art and love.
Because playing a role is doing, says Marie Olivier in her anthropology memoir of that title on roleplaying (unpublished). Thanks to the alibi it procures, the character is a wonderful tool to construct our identity, by giving us a safe space to experiment before drawing conclusions to use in real life.
But all is not simple in Alibi-land. Alibi mostly works, for participants used to the concept: but it is more fragile in novices – as well as, paradoxically, in some participants who are very experienced or focused on others’ well-being, because alibi’s limits are hard to pinpoint accurately. Alibi can also be exploited for abuse by people who are clumsy or have bad intentions.
When participants self-sabotage
Participants themselves are not always convinced by alibi. Many fail to suspend disbelief when the character sheet lacks coherence, or when they don’t think they have the necessary ability or self-confidence to play their character. If a participant does not believe in their character or feel credible when playing their character, they cannot immerse in their role and reach the experience of self and of otherness promised by alibi.
Misunderstood alibi
It may also happen that alibi, being an unspoken social contract, is not well understood by beginners. These participants then will not “dare” to act in character in a reprehensible or socially charged way.
Alibi demystified
This concept of alibi, progressively popularized in articles and discussions, has become demystified. Let there be no misunderstanding: it is important that concepts like alibi be discussed far and wide. Most participants can finally “go all out” once they really understand the implications of alibi. But for some, learning the tricks kills the magic. We end up understanding that alibi is just a pretext, and that if roleplaying is doing, then we are just playing ourselves. Alibi made us not responsible for our actions, making it possible and acceptable to experiment. But now that the concept has been explained, we are once again responsible for our in-character actions.
Larps reveal themselves to be political spaces. These larps are more than games and they aim to transform the participants through their characters. It therefore becomes difficult to really dare to go beyond one’s comfort zone and social markers, because alibi, considered a scam, no longer operates. Some larps aim to denounce alibi. In Love Is All by Yannis, for example, participants kiss each other. Can anyone really consider that that kiss only happens between characters? This is perhaps only an issue for larp veterans that tend to over-analyse, but it was worth mentioning.
Hacking alibi
“It’s not me, it’s my character” actually becomes a suspicious sentence as we ponder a new question: emotional safety. Because if alibi can be a pretext for experimentation with oneself, it can also be one for abusing others, if there is no consensus on the limit between participant and character responsibility. Anecdotes abound of people using their character and gameplay to simulate aggressions, that are felt by the victims as real ones. This is a case of rudeness or alibi hacking, since the participant knowingly or unknowingly uses their character as cover to exert actual physical or psychological pressure.
Because we know that the border between participant and character is porous. Because if alibi allows us to get invested in our fictional life, it also implies an emotional back and forth between participant and character.
There are cases where the simulation is too far removed from reality to impact us emotionally (even so, some feedback from mass-larp battles relate incredible emotions), but in other cases, the difference between doing and pretending is very small.
When you say “I love you” or “I hate you” in character, you really say it. It has an impact on us and on others. For example, a larper who had to play out a love story with someone they did not really like testified they were still a little bit in love with that person at the end of the larp. It is not so easy to erase the impact a role has on us. I personally avoid larping love stories (less so in tabletop, which seems more abstract) because it makes me feel like I’m cheating on my wife, which goes against my wish to be faithful to her. And I also do not want to run the risk of falling in love.
Alibi’s unclear limits
We have seen previously that the unspoken social contract that creates alibi is limited to ensure that the physical, material and emotional wellbeing of other participants is protected. But how does one discern those limits when it is hard to distinguish the participant from the character? The previous example about romantic relationships is relevant, but here is another one: is it OK for me to shout at another participant? They might find loud noises painful, or they might find getting shouted at difficult to deal with on an emotional level. So yes, alibi should allow me to shout since it’s my character, not me, but by shouting I might be jeopardising the other person’s physical or emotional wellbeing.
As a consequence, out of precaution and in a bid to be inclusive, larpers have no choice but to pull their punches. I would also like to remind everyone that videos of larpers shouting at each other in a historical larp were used to criticise larp in the French Zone Interdite TV show (by people who did not give alibi any consideration). So how can we truly play a character with intensity when it can hurt another participant or impact our hobby’s image negatively?
To go further (in French):
[Video] Zone Interdite, Roleplaying games (1994)
No alibi, no transgression
In short, even if we were at one time fooled by alibi, we no longer are once we calmly think about it. By recognising the artificial nature or the unwelcome effects of alibi, we remove the opportunities for transgression that it offered us.
Photo by aripborip, cc-by, on Flickr
When Others Ignore Our Alibi
If it can be difficult to believe in one’s own alibi and so to really let oneself go, it can also be difficult for others, because of:
cultural and social barriers;
an unwillingness to see the participant as legitimate;
a larping culture that reduces the character to the participant;
a cognitive difficulty in giving importance to the actions of all characters.
Cultural and social barriers
It does not seem to me that respecting the alibi of other participants is part of the social contract of all tabletop RPGs and larps. It depends on the culture, the people and the organisations. Here are some examples where a participant’s alibi is not recognised, preventing them from legitimately playing the role of someone different, and sometimes even of someone similar to their real identity!
In the Harry Potter at the School of Masculinity podcast, Axiel Cazeneuve talks about their experience on a Harry Potter larp where character creation was quite free, including choice of gender. Gendered as female at birth, Axiel decides to present their character as male. They then change their mind, explaining their character is in fact genderfluid.
During the larp, Axiel plays their character as masculine, in a way they deem convincing. Despite this, most participants gender Axiel’s character as female. Axiel explains that, even though most of these larpers were from a progressive environment, accustomed to issues of gender, they still ignored Axiel’s alibi, gendering their character not as neutral or male, but as female, their socially assigned gender. This can be explained by determinism that remains strong within the group, as well as by Axiel changing their mind during character presentation, which might have confused people.
My point is not to blame anyone for what happened in that particular example. I am simply trying to show that alibi is not always a given and that certain factors can lead a group to ignore your role to see you as your usual self instead.
This is also something we see during boffer fights in larp. If combat is touch-based, without a system that codifies damage or magic that could give you an advantage, you can only play a dangerous adversary if you are indeed good at boffer fighting. Even with a character background and roleplaying that say you are the finest swashbuckler in the land, if you are a beginner in boffer fighting, you will probably lose your fights, because the mechanisms of boffer fighting keep your opponents from taking your character background into account.
We see here that the problem comes less from people than from design. Systemless boffer fighting is a legitimate part of larping, but it is not a tool designed to support alibi. If you do not assign yourself a role that aligns with your actual boffer fighting skills, we observe ludonarrative dissonance. We will not here delve either into the fact that boffer fighting is a form of sports combat and is thus different from real fighting (where touch-based victory makes no sense), or into larps using metal weapons instead of boffers (which support alibi even less).
The concepts of authority and hierarchy between characters are also often problematic in terms of support for alibi. In a rules-light larp, if you are lacking in natural leadership, there is a risk that characters that are supposed to be under your orders will not show you respect. Even if their character backgrounds indicate that they fear and obey you, the participants will quickly forget this if they don’t find you charismatic enough.
The problem with the search for convergence
In these cases, longstanding sexism and ableism can of course be involved, but the problem comes essentially from an approach to roleplaying based on “roleplaying is doing”, or convergence.
Convergence is a technique that guarantees simplicity, immersion and bleed. It is sought after for its many advantages, but does not support alibi.
Convergence is making what the character and the participant feel and do as similar as possible. In larp, this is close to a “what you see is what you get” approach. In other words, the main source for the virtual experience is the actual experience. Simulations such as “let’s pretend I’m very athletic even if I’m not in real life” or “let’s pretend that stick in front of you is actually a dragon” or “let’s ignore these electric wires” are put aside.
In other words, when you interact with a participant, you mostly take into account how you see them and their real-life background. Anything in their character sheet that contradicts this is hard to take into account, and the mechanics of convergence tend to erase as much as possible any dissonance (this is a caricature, because a larp can be convergent on some aspects and divergent on others). This means you will gender a character based on the participant’s roleplay and real-life background, you will only lose a boffer fight if they are more skilled than you are, and you will respect them only if their roleplay and real-life background confirm their status.
Convergence completely blurs the distinction between participants and characters. Here, roleplaying is more than ever doing, and there is no room for make-believe, abstraction, or taking into account character background information that is not corroborated by roleplay, the participants real-life background or reputation.
When we see participant and character as one and the same, we can sometimes bear a grudge towards the participant for something the character did or said, for example because the character hurt us, humiliated us, turned us down, foiled our plans, etc. It seems difficult for anyone to just forgive, even if some participants thank others “for having been a great antagonist”. But within populations who are new to alibi, grudges can appear that outlast the larp.
When we also see some participants using their character to assault others, it seems all the more reasonable to say: “Wait a second, what your character did to me was not OK.”
In other words, whether for reasons legitimate (assaulting the participant via the character) or not (lack of familiarity with alibi), alibi does not magically grant immunity or forgiveness for everything we said and did as a character. Other participants will not automatically forgive everything, and this can hold us back.
The issues of cognitive load
I wanted to finish on one last instance of ignoring alibi, which does not necessarily have to do with participant–character confusion, but rather with the issues of cognitive load.
To go further (in English):
[Article] Anonymous, Cognitive load, on Wikipedia
You may know these climactic scenes that frequently occur in larps, where many issues are resolved at the same time. While you are declaring your love to the duchess, two sisters are challenging each other to a duel nearby… and that is when the zombies attack.
In general, it is difficult to roleplay a strong emotional reaction to several things happening at once. So we concentrate on our personal roleplaying objectives, which for example lead us to continue a trivial conversation even as the baron just dropped dead from poisoning.
This creates dissonance in our own experience, but also ignores other participants’ alibi. When you challenge your sister to duel to the death, you expect everyone to react – this is your moment – but unfortunately no one does. Alibi is definitely impacted!
Conclusion
Alibi is an implicit part of the social contract, that removes responsibility from the participants for the things their character does and says.
When the participant is familiar with alibi, they can abandon themselves fully to their role and so access experiences that would otherwise be inaccessible. Alibi is a real tool for emancipation through an experience of self and of the other that is deep and without judgement.
But the physicality of larp and our flawed humanity catch up with us in the end. Some participants do not believe in alibi any more, either because they do not feel able to play their character, or because they lack knowledge of the concept of alibi, or have analysed it too far to still believe. Still others use this concept to commit abuse, knowingly or not.
The community can also be a hindrance. Alibi’s “non-judgement clause” is not always respected and others can sometimes confine us to our social constraints, refusing to let us legitimately roleplay the character we have chosen.
For us to roleplay someone different from ourselves and for the group to acknowledge it, we would need to be surrounded by some kind of aura that gives us legitimacy.
So, how can we build this aura? That’s what we will see in the next article!
Six magickal larp techniques were designed for “Walpurgis” (2018) and refined for its second run (2019). They were created to reinforce psychedelia, confusion and messing with dark undercurrents in a Psychedelic 70’s, Eurotrash surreal setting. Magickal techniques are specific and alternate ways to engage with oneself, with each other character, and with the environment in larp.
The techniques were created by Juan Ignacio Ros and José Castillo Meseguer, working together as Somnia. They were intended to be a complete set: inclusive (for all magick went through them) and prescriptive (for they had to be followed if the character was performing magick and no magick was performed outside them). They were intended as approaches to follow and not definite “spells”, and similar outcomes could be achieved by many of them. They were all about how to do magick, how to be immersed while performing, and results were secondary.
The techniques were also designed to enhance Somnia’s preferred style of seamless immersion and to avoid any blatant stepping out of the illusion to negotiate outcomes – play to flow. For that same reason, the techniques are autonomous and don’t require supervision, decisions or judgement from the larp organization. It was not an aim of the design to enable power fantasies, and we focused on psychological horror.
The esoteric and occult make-up of the magic enacted by the characters through the techniques was seen a secondary concern, or a non-issue, but they enhanced the mood. These techniques benefit vastly if three principles are also followed:
“There are no masters” – Even if characters think they are masters of the Occult, they are not, according to these techniques. There is no certain outcome for their performance and rituals.
“You cannot be wrong” – While the actual performance could be compromised, characters are confident in their works – the same as in any movie with obvious silly rituals that are taken seriously nonetheless. As long as the participant put an effort delivering their “magick”, it was accepted and slight deviations are welcomed.
“Outcomes flow along with the larp running course” – If a character wants to set up a specific situation or opportunity in advance, that is fine, but if the “magick” involve other participants’ characters, they are the ones who decide the intensity and persistence of the effects as they find them interesting. Attempts to perform them in a casual manner, to automatize or to exploit them can be seen as bad form and ignored, for these techniques are played to flow, to see what happens next, and not to abuse other participants’ goodwill.
Lastly, a desired outcome could be irrelevant or going against the larp desired experience or the larp specific phase, flow or limits, so it is expected that participants restrain themselves if such is the case.
Second Sight
The Second Sight is seen as the foundation technique, for it is a requirement before performing the rest of them. It is an active technique to enhance the larp experience by engaging through the inner turmoil and phantoms of the portrayed character.
The key issue is the conscious distortion of perception, and should always be done through the character’s mindset.
A recipe for workshops follows:
Stop for a moment, look inside and try to see what is unseen, the hidden meaning behind what is happening, a subtle level beyond the evident reality of what you see. Let any image, impression or idea manifest in your imagination and hold unto it. Take your insight as the truth or vision your character is perceiving, within the worldview of the larp, however irrational or outrageous it could be, and go with it, act upon it.
The Second Sight is intended to be used as often as possible for inspiration, or to decide if what another character is saying or doing is true, or to look for hints or motivations for anything, but also as a preamble to any act of magick, to “measure“ and ”perceive” hidden forces.
It is a way to generate content for the larp experience in an unilateral way.
Comment: We designed the Second Sight as a “symbolic mode” to engage the larp in a different approach than regular perception allows. We often felt that the standard portrayal of magic in larp relies too often on props, special effects and external actions. The inner action and symbolic significance of performing magick is too often overlooked or not considered, so we used this technique as a prerequisite and threshold for all participants to help them find subjective meaning in sometimes absurd and illogical actions that have sense within themselves.
We stressed the importance of the Second Sight for the second run of Walpurgis, as we found it under-used during the first run.
This technique encouraged participants to tap into their visions and ideas for the larp, situations and characters “in media res” and forge new paths of action.
Divination
This technique is performed to deliver indirect suggestions for a character ‘s next actions or path, by looking into the blurry past and the hidden present. It could be performed by a character on another, or by the character alone over themselves, as a form for diegetic steering. It requires a divination tool, but anything could be used if it makes sense for the larp itself.
When a seer performs the reading on another, they require a framework for the interpretation of the signs, and it can be as vague or specific as the consultant wants.
The answers from the divination should include situations the character who asks for the divination will most surely come across (or have the delusion of encountering), as proofs or triggers behind the divination messages.
Comment: Divination is best for “soft” influences and suggestions. Anything goes with it, and any vague statements and inaccuracies make it very fitting for the “consultant”character to fill up the blanks. It is taken for granted that the “seer” character will start any reading after they enter the Second Sight.
Sorcery
There is no subtlety in sorcery, a blunt and direct technique to exert power and obtain results and alterations in the outer world and in others. It is defined as engaging through forceful commands and overt manipulation.
The effects on other characters depend a lot on the dramatic abilities of the performer, for they are delivered mostly through personal influence.
Examples of sorcery execution could be the ritual delivery of a charm, talisman or potion with the intent of a direct change on another; the use of gestures, looks and words to convey psychic manipulations or cursing; the composition of some sort of semblance or doll, etc. All of them are tied to let the target character know about the intent.
There are many ways of performing sorcery, but with each one the sorcerer is sending a clear message: the character wants a specific result or course of action, is not afraid to force it, and the consequences be damned.
Comment: Successful use of sorcery goes through the principle of “play to flow” for all involved participants: go along if it is well delivered and makes sense, display resistance even if the character is going to lose, let the circumstances and the specifics of your character decide.
By design, subtle and indirect influences, charms and enchantment were not considered for “Walpurgis”, as we aimed for overt and dramatic interventions.
Journey
The technique for Journey was designed to enable travelling through other worlds, alone or in company. It is also seen as engaging through delusions and mindscapes.
It comes in two modes: a mind trip and a physical walk, and both can be performed alone or with company, and take for granted the Second Sight is being used. As a mind trip, the character sits and navigates through a predefined inner landscape of the larp, using the guidance of another character who takes the lead and suggests (but not describes) what is happening or following their own path.
As a physical walk, the character moves through a path after night falls, but projects the inner landscape they should be navigating in the outer world. It can also be performed with another character leading the path and suggesting the zones they are travelling through.
This technique has worked better when performed with some aim or purpose of what the character wanted to find, and dressed up with rituals, music, candles or special lights.
Comment: “Walpurgis” had a predefined inner landscape – the Underworld – for the characters to travel. It was broad and based on Mediterranean otherworlds (specially the Greek Hades) and the larp location, a group of cave houses in Southern Spain, was well suited to it.
Implementing this technique in a larp would require to define an inner landscape or otherworld with the principles that operate inside and the kind of experiences that the Journey might provide. Otherwise, it could end in aimless wandering and complete disconnection.
Evocation
Evocation is intended as the conjuring of otherworldly beings to interact with them for information, exchanges, dealings and pacts. The technique was conceived as engaging through the perspective of a third person with an inhuman mindset: The Other, a character that is played through another character. Different kinds of Others could be conceived: long dead people, personifications of a specific emotion or complex entities who could be conscious but utterly alien.
Evocation requires two characters, the one who calls forth, and a companion who helps and will serve as the basis for the Other.
The evocation ritual is performed in a dramatic way by the one who calls, and conveys to the companion all the information they require: titles, powers, attitude, quirks and demeanor. At the climax of the ritual, the companion embodies the Other. Outwardly, there are no changes, but the magician can see them through the Second Sight.
Then follows a power play between the Other and the magician, who are constantly testing each other’s power and will through their interaction and exchange, trying to gain the upper hand. The entity could ask for prices, obedience, tasks or information. At the end of the interaction, the entity departs by its own volition or when it is banished, and the companion has some distant memories of the interaction.
A particularly dangerous – yet intense – variation is the summoning of a being of desire for the magician, a “demon lover”. The demon lover embodies the qualities and possess the gender the character finds most attractive. The companion embodies the demon lover and interacts – there could be words, touch, a playful exchange, violence, slight gratification or any kind of interaction, but there should be no fulfillment. Whatever interaction develops, it should be unsatisfying and frustrating at the end, but it might be insightful.
Comment: Consent and safety are paramount when playing with Evocation, and particularly if any kind of intimacy is going to be enacted. It is understood the participants would have negotiated before the larp their interaction limits and are able revoke them at any point. To implement this technique, it should be also stressed that whoever plays the companion character could return to their normal character even if they don’t feel threatened, but don’t like how the interaction is developing, stating that the entity has gone.
That all interactions were unsatisfying was a design feature for “Walpurgis”, but it could be different for another larp. However, we thought it was better to avoid power fantasies and any kind of wish fulfillment.
Metamorphosis
The technique for Metamorphosis is the process of becoming the alien Other, engaging inwards through a self-inflicted change of the character.
It allows to change the character by direct ritual action during the larp, to discover new or vestigial aspects unknown before or to fumble and mess with oneself in a horrible and permanent way, whatever seems more interesting. Altering character traits, mindset or basic social functions, like substituting words for humming or rhythmic clapping, or losing the capacity to express some thought or emotion could be some examples.
Tools for Metamorphosis are meditation, concentration, devotion, the invocation and absorption of god forms and specific actions undertaken as a means of transformation.
Comment: As “Walpurgis” themes were horror, confusion and lack of identity, Metamorphosis was the way to go for radical transformations and experimentation, never to “improve” the character or give them an advantage over others, but to make them different from normal human beings by becoming the Other. Metamorphosis was intended as a permanent change, for a passing influence was the purview of other techniques such as Sorcery.
An important point of note was that Metamorphosis was sought after by the character, and it was always personal. This could change for another larp in which a character could alter others’ core identities by sorcerous means.
Additional comments
The techniques were intended as a whole, but they allow for ample experimentation using only a couple of them. For instance, a short chamber larp – “δαίμων” (Daimon, 2019 and 2020), written by Juan Ignacio Ros for Somnia – has used only a streamlined version of Evocation. Other magickal techniques could be designed for specific larps, considering the needs, the design and how they would enhance the way the characters could interact.
We made slight adjustments on the techniques for the second run to explain them better, but they stayed mostly the same.
The biggest changes were connected to Evocation, to offer a more practical approach about it and establish better that the technique should be used with a companion who would perform the entity evoked.
We altered Sorcery so it was understood only as “brute psychic force” and not as a general guidance and manipulation, for we felt it was needed to avoid vagueness and convey the coercive nature of such magicks.
The definition of Metamorphosis was confusing for the first run, according to several participants, so we stressed that the Otherness that took over the character was inhuman, alien, unknown: connected to the chthonic and titanic nature of the Dark Gods that the characters followed.
For the second run of “Walpurgis,” an online session was set up before the larp to give examples, describe and comment on how a participant could produce their larp content through these tools. Extended workshops would be also highly advisable to practice the techniques if participants are not familiar with them.
These tools required engagement and a bit of preparation, but were designed to flesh out and guide interactions in a “magical” mindset, and to enrich the larp experience when Occult and ritual magic are considered.
Cover photo: From the second international run of Walpurgis. Photo by Stefano Kewan Lee.
This article will be published in the upcoming companion book Book of Magic and is published here with permission. Please cite this text as:
Ros, Juan Ignacio. “Six Magickal Techniques.” In Book of Magic, edited by Kari Kvittingen Djukastein, Marcus Irgens, Nadja Lipsyc, and Lars Kristian Løveng Sunde. Oslo, Norway: Knutepunkt, 2021. (In press).
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Nordiclarp.org or any larp community at large.
This article is Part 1 in a series on Grooming in the Larp Community.
Content Advisory: Sexual abuse, mental health issues.
On a bus on my way to Poland, I met Julie, and we struck up a conversation.
It is pretty commonly known that teenage girls can come off as deceptively mature, but as someone who has worked professionally with teenagers, I am not usually surprised about people’s age. In Julie’s case,((This article uses anonymised names. The real names are only known to the author. )) she certainly seemed mentally older than her 19 years. It did not occur to me at the time that her maturity might have had a cost.
We found out that we had a lot in common and agreed to meet up for coffee once we were back home. It was only after a few talks that I came to know of the things she had been through.
Role-playing is a hobby that spans the gap between adults and children. While this gives us a great opportunity to interact with and even form friendships with people outside our own age group, it also means that romantic and sexual relationships occur. In that sense, role-playing isn’t different from football, basketball, scouts, and many other hobbies. The difference is that in role-playing, there are no clear guidelines to what is acceptable or what is not. As opposed to e.g. the 113-years-old scouts movement, we are a young hobby without an established hierarchy or procedures.
I have noticed that many people are accepting of these relationships. But should they be? Does love conquer all differences — including age?
Are Relationships between Teenagers and Adults Harmful?
As it turned out, Julie was one of the many young role-players who had experienced grooming.
According to the Cambridge Dictionary, grooming is “the criminal activity of becoming friends with a child in order to try to persuade the child to have a sexual relationship.”((Cambridge Dictionary. N.d. “Grooming.” Cambridge Dictionary)) And that is exactly what happened to Julie, with role-playing as a backdrop.
Julie described herself as having been a lonely child. She felt ostracized at school — people would bully her for being a nerd. She was preoccupied with manga, Harry Potter, and games, while her classmates were discussing boys and make-up.
Things were not easy at home. Julie’s parents had divorced when she was five. Her mother, whom she lived with most of the time had found a new husband — one who didn’t like kids, and had very strict rules. He wedged himself between Julie and her mother, and expressed how much he looked forward to the day when she was old enough to leave home. Her father, on the other hand, would alternate between harsh criticism and undeserved praise.
Julie told me of how she got into contact with her abuser, “When I met H, I was 12 years old and starving for kindness and acceptance, and when he offered it to me, I ate it all up. You get less picky when you are really, really hungry.”
H. worked in an after-school youth club (a common form of childcare facility in Denmark). Julie described him as “the coolest adult ever.” He was a larper, and he organised trips for the kids to go larping. Also, he told Julie that she was his favourite.
When Julie was 13, H. began inviting her back to his place, where they could be alone. He would also take her out to sushi restaurants. One evening, after a visit to a restaurant, H. took Julie to a secluded wooden shelter in the forest and had her perform oral sex on him.
“I remember throwing up and shaking with disgust,” said Julie. “But I also felt so happy I could scream that I was his favorite.”
The Price of Belonging to a Community
For Julie, the pain and disgust were a price she was willing to pay for H’s attention.
At the same time, H also began taking Julie to adult larps. He had to sign a form saying that he would take responsibility for Julie while she was at the larp since she was underage. It was like the wolf signing for the sheep.
“I was so proud,” said Julie. “He told me to lie to the other participants and tell them I was 14. That way they would accept us more easily, he said.”
H also brought Julie along to his boardgaming events. Julie estimated that she was the only person under the age of 30 at those sessions. She knew that the people she met there were not really her friends — she was seen as an extension of H — and she knew it. Still, it was better than not having a social life.
As Julie got older, H’s demands got worse. Although she still slept at home during weekdays, she visited him every day in his small flat, and played along with his make-believe. It was like they were role-playing an adult couple.
“I was so grateful for the company and I would let him perform more and more different sexual acts on me as the previous ones got boring to him,” Julie explained. Along with the one-sided sex, he also became more controlling. He demanded that Julie count calories in order to stay skinny, and she had to remove all body hair. She began to develop an eating disorder. Starvation made her exhausted, and she barely had energy left for anything else.
When Julie started high school, she somehow found the strength to leave H. She had fallen in love with a boy at school, and that gave her a reason to move on. “I guess I had a glimpse of something different,” she said. “Could I just be a normal person going to school, having a boyfriend, going out after school instead of having to get the first train back so I could do the dishes of this adult man who had become my life?”
An anti-abuse event in Berlin. Photo by Mika Baumeister on Unsplash.
Where are the Parents?
Here is another account, as seen from the point of view of a mother.
Karin was the mother of a happy and smart 13 year-old who happened to love larping. She described her family as pretty harmonious. She and her husband were divorced, but had a very friendly relationship, and were good at working together when it came to the children.
Like Julie, Karin’s daughter had a lot of adults around her. Also like Julie, her daughter was perceived as being mature for her age.
Karin saw herself as a liberal person. She thought there were lots of things children could learn from having adult friends, and she loved the role-playing community. Trusting that her friends would protect her daughter from harm, she let them look after her. Little did she know that these so-called friends were using her young daughter for sex behind her back.
It was statutory rape, but at the time, Karin’s daughter would have denied it.
“The problem is that people are very focused on ‘no means no’,” Karin explained to me. “But teenagers don’t say no. They say a resounding ‘yes’. They agree, body and soul, to having sex with this adult who is so interested in them.”
And she continues,“Children have no idea what that yes means. They just don’t know. They might also think that downing an entire bottle of vodka might be a good idea, even though it might actually kill them.”
It took many years before Karin realised what had been going on. In the beginning, her daughter told her nothing, but she started getting ill. She suffered from shattering depression and had trouble with her studies. Karin was confused: What had happened to her lively, intelligent child? Only when her daughter was in her late teens did she start talking about what had happened. Her daughter had kept it all secret.
When Karin found out, she immediately contacted the police. Both men were sentenced and went to jail.
As for Julie, she and her mother went through a period of estrangement. H had told Julie not to trust her own mother: “She just wanted to separate us because she didn’t understand our love,” was what he told her.
Julie’s mother accepted that there was nothing she could do. Even when Julie told me about her experiences, she believed she would have threatened to run away and never see her mother again if her mother had reported H to the police. That is how much of a hold he had over her.
The Role of the Larping Community
Thinking about Julie and Karin’s experiences, I feel ashamed. Ashamed of the larp community — my community — but also on a personal level. This has been going on since I started larping. Why haven’t I done anything about it?
You might think that what happened to Julie and Karin is unique or at least rare. Unfortunately, that is not the case.
I am one of the witnesses who is here to tell you differently.
So why did I not react?
Because I didn’t know any better. I was repeatedly told by both the abusers and their friends that I needed to accept these relationships. I was even told by the children themselves to mind my own business.
There are some very strong voices within the Danish community that are telling us to be open and accepting to all types of love, no matter what the age difference might be. Asking questions is perceived as “ageist.” Not accepting relationships between adults and teenagers is framed as prudish and meddlesome.
The general position at Danish larps and larp conventions is that unless there is a conviction, there is no reason to call out the behaviour. People who are known to have repeatedly dated very young larpers are able to use our community to pick up teens.
However, to Julie it turned out that even a conviction didn’t change how people saw the relationship she had been in with H. In the beginning of 2018, Julie went to the police. She went through a mentally draining procedure where the police questioned everything she put forward and demanded evidence of her.
Once confronted with his actions, H. denied having had sex with Julie while he was still working at the youth club. Since it had only happened while they were alone, Julie had no way of proving her accusation.
In December of 2018, the case went to court. H. was sentenced with a fine and community service.
After the sentence, Julie experienced a backlash from the Danish role-playing community. H. was part of an extensive network of friends who were willing to support him, and who attacked Julie for having taken him to court. The general feeling was that she had been a willing participant, and old enough to be taken to account for her choices. They saw the charges as an attempt to ‘ruin’ H.
Anyway, if she was not happy in the relationship, why did she stay so long?
“Can you know that you are unhappy, even if all you’ve ever experienced are different flavors of misery? I don’t want to sound overly dramatic, but that was my situation,” Julie explained to me, when I asked her the same question.
Within the Danish community, there are several examples of well-liked and influential roleplayers who have had relationships with either young teenagers or people who were in fact their pupils. Although some of these relationships are not allowed legally, people are willing to overlook them, because of the general feeling of goodwill towards these persons. However, what people are most likely not aware of is the long-term damage done to the teenagers due to the asymmetrical power distribution in such a relationship.
Karin, too, described being disappointed with the role-playing community.
“It was not just those two guys!” She said. “It was 30-40 other adults who bought my daughter alcohol, who saw her drunk and saw her flirting with adults without telling me, the mother”.
A female larper whom Karin considered her friend knew about the repeated rapes for an entire year before she revealed it to Karin.
The Long-Term Effects
According to a report by the Danish national board of social services,((Click here to download the full report as a PDF.)) PTSD is one of the most common reactions to childhood abuse in adults. Although reactions are individual and dependent on both the severity of the abuse, the duration of the abuse and the role of the abuser, there is a long list of common symptoms: anxiety, depression, low self-worth, problems with body image and sexuality, suicidal or overly sexualised behaviour.
It was the same for Julie.
“I mean, how doesn’t it affect me?” she said, when I asked about how she is still affected.
She went on to describe the long-term physical damage to her body from the strict calorie counting that had been forced upon her. The damage to her bones, teeth, and fertility.
“Less concrete but just as consequential for my health are the nightmares. It is very rare that I can get a full night’s sleep without waking up from nightmares once or twice. Sometimes they are about him touching me, sometimes he kills himself (as he threatened to do countless times), and sometimes I’m just back in his apartment, doing everyday things. If anything, the latter dreams are the scariest, as they are often the most realistic and the ones it takes the longest for me to shake off of me once I’m awake.”
Julie has attempted suicide several times and attributed these attempts to the abuse as well.
She also found it hard to have romantic relationships. She described to me how her first experience with relationships and sex had twisted her idea of what a normal relationship should be.
“I have a hard time handling conflict, as my body and brain shuts down in preparation for the situation to escalate into physical violence. At the same time, things I should see as red flags are not even registered by my brain. Certain behavior that other people tell me is manipulative and cruel seems normal to me, and normal human behavior which I should be able to expect from anyone, not only a romantic partner, can bring me to tears because of how kind it seems to me and how undeserving I feel.”
There was nothing Julie would have wanted more than to move on. However, the consequences of the abuse was not something she was able to just shrug off.
For Karin’s daughter, it took more than ten years from when she was raped and when she was finally able to overcome the PTSD, the anxiety, and the personality disorder that were direct consequences of the abuse.
The Healthy Relationship?
Is it even possible for a 16-year-old and an adult to have a healthy relationship? Perhaps a more relevant question is this: What does an adult want to get out of having a relationship with a child?
As the power balance between adults and children is naturally skewed to the benefit of the adult, it is not a stretch to suspect that what they are after might be a situation where they find themselves in control. We are then looking at is a narcissistic drive to be sexually and otherwise dominant, in which the adult is interested neither in their responsibility nor in the moral duty to protect the child.
In the role-playing community, a lot of adults have grown up feeling stigmatised. We were called names — nerds, geeks — and perhaps we did not get a lot of attention. Growing up and becoming the subject of a child’s adoration might be tempting. Perhaps even too tempting. We, the peers, need to interfere. We need to ask questions. We may even need to report our best friends to the police if they refuse to change their behavior, if that is what is necessary in order to stop this culture of abuse.
Cover Photo: An anti-abuse event in Berlin. Photo by Mika Baumeister on Unsplash.
Animus: the Eternal Circle — a Transmedia Larp is an online game.((Sometimes called a LAOG, see Reininghaus (2019).)) It has been run four times over the course of 2020 and included 288 players. The designers, a team originated from Italy with helpers all over the world, Chaos League, describe Animus as:
A story in which ordinary people with their doubts, weaknesses, and fears, are confronted with a greater destiny. It talks about our lives and what we might have been in another time and space. Other lives. In search of our own self. In search of the people we are connected to.
Inspired by Sense8 and The OA, Animus is about friendship, courage, hard choices. About what we were and what we still are deep inside. Animus is a larp that speaks to our emotions. It’s a journey to discover who we really are.
Animus takes place nowadays and tells of the past and present lives of a group of special people bound by destiny. (Chaos League)
I participated in both Run 2 on 23-24 May 2020 as a player, and in Run 4 on 13-14 June 2020 as an NPC and facilitator.
In this article, I will present the larp Animus: The Eternal Circle, discuss its mechanics, and share how the different tools used in designing this game have contributed to my good experience both as player and facilitator. I will first describe why my own story as a larper Animus was so appealing.
Preparing the Leap of Faith: Before the Game
I started larping in 2012. Before that, I was used to tabletop games and forum role-play. I first played locally in France, but went exploring in the international scene in 2018, taking part in the larp Suffragette!
I am attracted to larp because the magic circle is one of my specific interests, as is storytelling. I love all kinds of larps as long as I can share a wonderful, transformative experience with my co-players and organisers. I’ve been a Wachowski fan since The Matrix, so when I first heard about Chaos League’s Sense8-inspired transmedia piece, I had to have a look for myself. Sense8 (2015-2018) is a television show about 8 people across the world who are linked together psychically and empathically.
Enough to get me on board, indeed, but what made me stay after and enroll myself as NPC?
Animus was not my first online larp. During the lockdown, I was lucky enough to try several. For example, Mo Holkar’s After Dark, which was workshopped and played on Jitsi, is a game in which you play the last reunion of a family over visio-conference before their emotions get the better of them and they die of an unknown virus. I also played Are You There?, a Discord-based online larp by Mia Welander. The game follows a forum chat by a group of survivors after a deadly virus killed ninety-nine percent of the population at the beginning of 2020.
While I loved delving into Type 2 fun,((“Type 2 is a strange beast, because it isn’t actually fun at the moment. In fact, it feels much like suffering. It’s only after the event, and in reflection, that you come to realize you actually had fun” (Peck 2017).)) Animus with its hopeful story seemed like the breath of fresh air I needed. As I saw lockdown in France persisting, I signed up to play it.
Although the game is mostly “Discord-based,” it is a transmedia experience.((Wikipedia (n.d.) describes Transmedia in the following way: “Transmedia storytelling (also known as transmedia narrative or multiplatform storytelling) is the technique of telling a single story or story experience across multiple platforms and formats using current digital technologies.))
In Animus, the players use audio files, Google docs, a website, and a musical soundtrack, all of which make the play richer and all the more stimulating. The play, scattered across different media, tells one beautiful story.
After my sign-up, I received a form with a short description of each character. The files were well-made and the short description included the themes, keywords, and triggers relevant to each character. We were asked to choose four characters out of six in our order of preference.
Later on, we received specific files for our final character including their past, present, how they were perceived by others, and the first feelings and impressions that strike them when meeting the other characters at the beginning of the game.
The Lines of the Circle
Background
The larp was set in the present in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic in an international lockdown. The characters were a group of people getting online self-guided group therapy to treat their compulsive fantasy disorder, also known as maladaptive daydreaming, a condition that they first dealt with using beta-blockers.((In Sense8, beta-blockers are a type of medicine that characters take to shut down their psychic link with others.))
Setting
The seven pre-written characters: Alexis, Camille, Elliot, Jackson, Sasha, Robyn, and Hayden (NPC) are complete strangers when they get acquainted through a self-analysis platform, The Beacon, and are grouped together as a Circle by a team of online therapists. They’re all from different places in the world, from different age groups, ethnicities, genders, and backgrounds with the very same goal: stopping the worsening of their condition, which is starting to wreak havoc into their life and impeding them from enjoying it fully.
Little do they know they are linked to one another.
During two days and three therapy sessions, each of them is expected to share with their peer group their fears, their hopes, the content of their daydreams, and most of all, their secrets. In revealing these things, they will unveil a bond that goes beyond what is written in stone or the stars.
The game is based on two strong pillars: 1) emotional play and interactions of characters mixed with 2) discoveries and mystery solving. The characters tell a story while working together, hoping to bring the hidden truth to light.
Despite this search for truth, the game is also an exercise based on trust, fostered by an off-game workshop where the principle of “no false bottom” was introduced and developed. No false bottom means that the key facts of the premise, the therapy, the beta-blockers, and the psychological condition contain no twists or surprises; there is no team of evil doctors nor secret scientist programs like in Sense8. The secrets lie inside the character’s lives, their present, past, and future.
Structure
The game was divided between official time slots (the group therapy sessions) and two free time slots.
The therapy sessions and workshop were played over video conference, a new feature that the platform Discord added to their vocal channels and released within the first day of lockdown. During the free slots, the players were welcome to use the text channel as well as the video/vocal ones.
After a short workshop meeting with our facilitator on Friday night, we started the game in character the next day to engage in the first of the three therapy sessions.
The sessions always followed the same structure: each character took the floor and revealed one secret, unveiling their link as they did so, while the other characters listened, offered advice, support, and care.
The players were encouraged to fill in a diary: a shared document on Google Drive. In the fiction, the characters were asked to write in the diary for the therapists, explaining the content of the session, their feelings, and the questions each character harbors for their peers, etc. Furthermore, the diary being available to all, everyone had an opportunity to play on the other characters’ feelings, to flesh out their relationships, and to make them evolve with each session.
The structure was repetitive, but that was a good thing, setting up an atmosphere of comfort and familiarity.
This structure meant that by the time of the third session, despite the tension of the game, we knew what we had to do. The group was closer and everybody’s role in it was clear.
Run 2 of Animus larp. Photo by LolV Peregrin.
Entering the Circle as Player
A Perfect Trust
I first entered the Circle playing Sasha. Written as a burned-out humanitarian who has been working in a convenience store for the last ten years, I interpreted him through my prism: of someone living with PTSD. Based on my own perception of my syndrome, Sasha was on edge — a bundle of good intentions and very raw, very intense emotions. A soul still marked by his experience and the horrors he witnessed after the earthquake in Haiti.
He was shy, lonely, but sweet and eager to connect with these new people and to try to get better. He was starting to have enough of his convenience store life: safe, comfortable, a bit boring, but not happy.
Sasha wanted to stop waiting and start acting again, but without losing himself this time. He wanted to reclaim himself and start protecting others in doing so.
During the game, he tried to help to the best of his capacity, sometimes coming close to losing faith: faith in himself, in others, in his belief that a moment — his moment — will come.
He was supported, cared for, and helped through his tough time by his Circle members. When allowed, during the very peculiar and secret circumstances of the end of the game, to leave a message that will outlive him, he wrote:
I’m not afraid anymore. I have found myself. I have found something to protect. I am ready to enter the Circle with a perfect love and a perfect trust.
A thought that he shared with his friends before they made a big decision together, a leap of faith.
My time with Sasha was good, but not great. My experience was beautiful, but complicated. I confess that I bled heavily; Sasha’s struggles and mine overlapped in too many places to not feel uncomfortable and uneasy when our time together was cut short at the end of the game.
In lockdown, away from friends and family, I had no means to fix my problems, and I had a huge amount of larp-blues to deal with atop of that.
I tried to enjoy our departure stepping out of the Circle and I wished Sasha well for his future, for he deserved it; but at first, I wanted to never hear about him again.
I sent my feedback to Chaos League, expressing some of the issues I encountered. The form also included the following question: “Would you be willing to help organize/facilitate a future run of Animus: the Eternal Circle?” I answered positively because, no matter my own feelings toward Sasha, I still felt mostly positive about the game, and I was enthusiastic and curious about the prospect of facilitating. I was longing for the friendship and closeness I got to explore in my run as a player while aiming for a bit of emotional distance by playing an NPC.
Coming back to the Circle as a Facilitator
A Perfect Love
I returned to Animus for the 4th run as facilitator and NPC. I played Hayden. Hayden who worked with AI in a big company but who looked like a rock star. Hayden who felt too much but was hiding from it the best he could, channeling it, conceptualizing it, distancing himself from it. The boy who loved stories and hides in music. Hayden who managed to live through his anxiety attacks but was now dealing with severe maladaptive daydreaming. Hayden who didn’t even want to do therapy but was chosen by the team from the Beacon, among his Circle members, to facilitate the group therapy session.
As a player, I felt a strong connection to Hayden; yet his way of processing, addressing, and dealing with his emotions was sufficiently distinct from mine that I didn’t feel like the situation was too close to home.
I already knew the themes, the plot, the characters, and what was expected from me. Entering the Circle felt like coming back to someplace familiar.
Indeed, as a facilitator, I had access now to several new channels, including one where I was navigating the ambiance of the therapy session. I had to deal with a bit of code and a bot every now and then, mostly to start the audio tape and the soundtrack made by the organizers. Even though this felt alien, I had help when I slipped up, no grudge was held, and no player was the wiser since, after all, larp is a good chunk of improvisation and adaptability.
Playing Hayden as an NPC, making sure we were on time, fostering closeness between the characters, and supporting the players was easy. Facilitating the weight of the secrets of the game in my hands felt comfortable.
The only wild card was the players. I was deeply afraid of messing things up for them and for the Chaos League, of not being “good enough” as a facilitator. But by the time the third therapy session rolled in, thanks to the amazing players in my Circle (which was named Hadar), and the tightly linked and supportive organizers team, I felt as if Hayden and I were coming home.
Conclusion: Leaving the Circle?
Entering the Circle was not always easy but it was, for me, a teaching, transformative experience. I made new friends, I learned, and I grew from it.
Talking about coming home, even though I’m still unable today to write a letter to Sasha, I’m enthusiastic at the idea of coming back to the Circle as a player in a few weeks; this time in Animus 2: In Search of Sky.
The Circle is a Never Ending one, opening the ways for stories of friendship, support and connection across the world. It was Chaos League’s goal, and personally, I think they have succeeded.
A community is made up of a group of individuals and the larp community is particularly broad, encompassing people who take part in a range of different activities that come under the heading of larp. These can be vastly different, ranging from competitive larp, to larp with immersion as a goal, to solo larps and larps with thousands of participants. Possibly the only thing that the members of the larp community have in common is that they adopt a character to participate. The differences in what larp is can make discussions of community difficult to frame.
This year, the majority of larps including one of mine have been cancelled due to COVID. When the organizers announced their decision to disappointed players, they were met with almost universal support. When I postponed my larp, in addition to supportive players saying that they understood, and it was the right decision on the social media post, and in response to e-mails, I also received several private messages acknowledging that it must be disappointing for me. There was no expectation of me to manage other people’s emotions – just recognition that it was a difficult decision. This is an example of when a community comes together.
However, the community can also have issues. We can perceive “the larp community” as a separate entity that we are not part of, particularly when trying to address the problems that it has. In this view the individual has no responsibility and the community as a whole, sometimes presumed to be guided by influential people, needs to change and improve – to be more inclusive and less toxic.
At the other extreme it’s an unhelpful message to say that, as the community is made up of individual larpers, its problems can be addressed by each person at an individual level. An individual can only do so much and telling larpers to address every problem in the community by themselves is at best naive and at worst ableist.
There are some activities that can, and as far as possible should, be taken by individuals to help improve the larp community as a whole.
Educate Yourself as a Designer and Player.
Consider what choices you’ve made around accessibility and why. Read up on why, even if you aren’t actively excluding people, they may feel excluded. You are always going to exclude some groups unless you get very lucky with logistics, e.g.:
Looking for locations accessible to people with certain disabilities may increase your price range;
Your 20Km hike larp isn’t going to work for people with certain disabilities or who don’t have a certain level of fitness;
Your horror larp may not be accessible for people with certain mental health issues;
Casting by lottery is going to exclude players who are anxious to go without their friends; and
First come first served sign ups may limit access to people who are working or have childcare responsibilities or just a slower computer during the sign up period.
You need to understand and be mindful about this rather than falling into exclusion by default.
Be Helpful and Inclusive, Including with the Organisers and Volunteers.
If you’re going to a larp or a festival, chances are none of the organizers or volunteers are being paid for what they’re doing: in practice, the volume of labour that the organizers have put in is going to be far more than is covered by the ticket prices. One way to contribute is to be helpful and inclusive. Entitled behaviour is stressful for organizers and volunteers. When attending a larp consider what you can do to help, for example being inclusive of new players, helping with setting up and taking down, and ensuring that your communication with organizers and volunteers is polite and non- aggressive.
Be Aware of What’s Required for the Larp You’re Attending.
The majority of larps require active engagement. The is likely to include creative collaboration and working with other participants to creative a narrative that is satisfying for everyone participating. This is not to say everyone has to be the perfect larper, or always in a supporting role – but consideration for other’s experience is necessary. Also, you may decide that what’s required isn’t something you can offer or something that you would enjoy. For example, if there is a requirement that costuming is authentic and you don’t particularly enjoy costuming you may decide that the larp isn’t for you.
Don’t Use Larp as an Alternative to Therapy.
Although larp can be transformative, it isn’t therapy. Treating it as such may have a negative impact on the participant’s psychology. For example, the participant may discover after a scene that they have tried to use a character to explore personal issues and misjudged the long term impact, or forced themselves to play a scene relating to personal trauma, expecting it to be helpful, only to realise that they should have listened to their feelings of discomfort. This is not to say that larp can’t have a psychologically positive impact, but if the participant is trying to work on a specific issue, they should do it with the assistance of a professional. It is also unfair to use your fellow players as adjuncts in your own journey without their knowledge or consent.
Understand and Use Safety Tools in Larps. Normalize their Use.
Participants should never feel uncomfortable about prioritising their own comfort and safety over a scene. If they need to use safety tools to leave a scene that should be considered unremarkable. Organizers should make this clear, but it’s also the duty of other participants to respect tools as they are used and allow play to continue around them.
Be Aware and Considerate.
People have different privileges, opportunities, and energy, which make certain actions easier or more difficult – the important thing is to be aware of yourself and how you relate to others. Some problems you can’t solve on your own but you can be part of the solution.
Reach Out to New Players.
Or if you’re a new player, reach out to people that you’ve had interesting conversations with. Don’t feel it should be the other person’s responsibility – people don’t always have the energy to initiate contact, regardless of their standing in the community.
Accept “No” Gracefully.
Whether it’s playing a certain scene, being involved in a collaboration, or to hooking up after a larp.
Examine Your Own Behaviour.
In terms of general talk of toxicity in the community – check you’re not part of this. There are people who may not recognize that they are actively acting in toxic ways, and examining our own behaviour is always useful. There is also a passive part of this where we might allow toxic behaviour within larps we run, or defend people after someone has disclosed difficult, abusive, or toxic behaviour on their part because they are a friend, or respected in the community. If you have done either of these they aren’t necessarily insurmountable obstacles to you being part of the community but do what you need to do to change.
Look at Who’s Being Held Accountable.
Sometimes talking about the community being toxic can disguise specific bad actors. Look at who’s being held accountable. This is not to say that anyone is obliged to name and confront an abuser.
The magic of community and of finding a place to belong is powerful. I have been very fortunate to have people around me who have supported me in learning and continuing to learn how to better myself and the community around me, while making the process of discovery fun. One of the unique aspects of larp is the emotions that are invoked during play that allow us to be vulnerable with people who we don’t know outside of their character. Such vulnerability is both what we must protect by educating ourselves on safety, and what we can use to become more compassionate and helpful members of any community, starting with the larp one.
This article will be published in the upcoming companion book Book of Magic and is published here with permission. Please cite this text as:
Wood, Laura. “Why Larp Community Matters and How We Can Improve It.” In Book of Magic, edited by Kari Kvittingen Djukastein, Marcus Irgens, Nadja Lipsyc, and Lars Kristian Løveng Sunde. Oslo, Norway: Knutepunkt, 2021. (In press).
With the pandemic preventing us from larping in the flesh, more and more designers have been running games online. These experiences are not only highly immersive and engaging, but also have the tremendous potential to make games accessible for a wider variety of players who may be excluded from mainstream, face-to-face larps.
For example, the larp TANKERS by Sarah Cook is designed to be played while blindfolded and lying down – much easier for someone with chronic fatigue or migraines to engage with than an in-person game. Similarly, Plug In by Stephen Duxbury – as reimagined by Wrenna Robson and Nat Saunders – is played in real time completely via text, making it ideal for those of us who struggle with speech.
As the Bobbit Worm team, we’ve designed and run three online larps so far (The Nautical Trench, T67 Survival Night, and UPLOAD) and are working on a fourth. When we started running immersive games and larps online, it became clear that new and exciting accessibility challenges were emerging, despite the benefits of this medium. Although you won’t have to deal with a venue made entirely out of stairs, you may be adding a typing element that’s a nightmare for dyslexic participants.
In this article, we want to outline some of the methods we have included in our games to help make them more accessible.
Hazel and Erin sharing post-game icecreams (photo, Hazel Dixon)
Pre-Game
When running a game online, it’s still important to treat the physical and emotional wellbeing of your players with care. You should take responsibility for this the same way as you would for a game in a physical space – ask players about their disabilities, triggers, and what accommodations would help them to access your game, and make sure to keep that information somewhere secure but easily accessed. We find this blog post on Access: Larp on how to ask and how to tell to be quite useful.
However, using online platforms adds a layer of complexity. Make sure to clearly inform your players of how to use the technology you’ve chosen. It’s a great idea to include optional software testing beforehand, for anyone who is unsure or worried about using the tech involved in the game. Whilst playing the game, always have a way for players to contact you on a different platform – such as by email or over the phone – so that if they have technical issues they can still contact you to let you know.
If the game involves documents or files, these should be accessible in multiple formats should a player require them. For example, make sure to prepare transcripts of audio/video files, provide image descriptions, and remember that screenshots and some ways of formatting text files aren’t accessible to everyone.
Text-based considerations
When you’re including text-based elements in your game – whether that’s doing the game entirely via text or allowing players to message each other during your game – bear in mind that players may have problems processing text quickly, typing quickly or typing accurately.
We’ve found that a lot of people are anxious about taking part in games with typing elements, because they perceive themselves as having bad typing, or have disabilities such as chronic hand pain that make it difficult for them to type quickly. We mention in our code of conduct that no one should comment on or shame other players for incorrect grammar/spelling or slow response times.
In addition, if you are letting players upload videos or gifs, remind them to avoid uploading images that flash more than once per second, as these can trigger migraines or epileptic seizures.
Video-based considerations
Video calls, while a great substitute for being in a physical space together, can present their own specific accessibility challenges. For example, deaf people and autistic folks with auditory processing issues may find it difficult to participate if they can’t lip read or see the facial expressions of others; so making sure players have their video switched on and the camera facing them can help them to access video communications.
It’s important to keep in mind a few simple ways to keep video calls a welcoming space for everyone: background noise and feedback can be reduced by wearing headphones or using push to talk; hand gestures and other forms of body language can be made more visible with careful camera framing; players can avoid talking over each other by staying conscious of whether anyone is trying to speak. All of these can mitigate common issues if you bear them in mind, although it’s likely that you won’t be able to keep on top of them all the time. In general, aim for pairing a visual or auditory cue with something else. The word cut can be used in conjunction with crossing your arms across your chest, for example. Leave the option open for players to message each other if they need to communicate and calibrate or to post messages in an open channel.
In a lot of physically co-located games, we end up with natural breaks in action that allow us to collect ourselves and be alone to a certain extent. When it comes to online games, there is more of a feeling of being “always on” that can be overwhelming for some. You can help with this by managing the spaces in your platform. We try to ensure that we have enough separate rooms so people can split off into groups of 2–4 if they need to. As well as this, you can utilise an off game channel to allow players to take a break in a quieter space, and by making sure to stress that anyone is free to leave the space at any time for any reason.
Another consideration is that some video conferencing software, such as Google Meet, will allow you to have automatic live captioning which you may find helpful for people with auditory processing problems. Zoom has now added closed captioning which you can integrate with third-party captioning software and you can find out more about this process on the Zoom Help Centre.
Conclusion
Different games will have different requirements, and it’s important to both consider what you’re trying to do with your game and to work with the players to provide them with the best experience you can. We still have a lot of work to do and a lot of unanswered questions, such as how to make our games easier to play on an unstable internet connection and how to replace some of the physical cues that aren’t easy to communicate over video. Even so, we want to dare you to dream big on accessibility. Immersive experiences are pretty damn cool, and we want as many people as possible to have the opportunity to experience that.
Ludography
Bobbit Worm Games, T67:// Survival Night (2020)
Bobbit Worm Games, The Nautical Trench (2020)
Bobbit Worm Games, UPLOAD (2020)
Cook, Sarah, Tankers (2020)
Duxbury, Stephen, reimagined by Wrenna Robson and Nat Saunders, Plug In (2020)
What is magic? From our perspective, at its core, magic is a form of manifestation: the ability to alter the self and the world around us through the power of intentional thought, force of will, and creative action.((Mat Auryn, Psychic Witch: A Metaphysical Guide to Meditation, Magick & Manifestation (Woodbury, MN: Llewellyn Publications, 2020).)) At the root of this magic is the power of transformation — and the collective agreement within the community to support it.((Bowman, Sarah Lynne, and Kjell Hedgard Hugaas. “Transformative Role-play: Design, Implementation, and Integration.” Nordiclarp.org, December 10, 2019.)) Magic also involves deeply immersive ritual states in which people take on aspects of other identities in order to draw status, strength, power, or insight through embodiment.((Victor Turner, The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure (Piscataway, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1969); Émile Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of Religious Life, trans. J. W. Swain (George Allen & Unwin LTD, 1964).))
These rituals often require the collective efforts of the community to uphold the potency of a magic circle that contains the experience, with each person adhering to this temporary liminal state and supporting one another in co-created immersion.((Mike Pohjola, “Autonomous Identities: Immersion as a Tool for Exploring, Empowering, and Emancipating Identities,” in Beyond Role and Play, ed. Markus Montola and Jaakko Stenros (Ropecon ry, 2004), 81-96; J. Tuomas Harviainen, “Information, Immersion, Identity: The Interplay of Multiple Selves During Live-Action Role-Play,” Journal of Interactive Drama: A Multi-Discipline Peer-Reviewed Journal of Scenario-Based Theatre-Style Interactive Drama 1, no. 2 (October 2006): 9-52.)) Rituals are playful spaces in which participants cross a threshold from the social reality of daily life. They enter into an agreed-upon reality with different rules for a bounded amount of time, thereby creating a new social contract. While role-players may not perceive their actions within play as a form of ritual magic, experiences within this magic circle often do impact them in powerful ways that can have lasting effects.
Simply put: when we imagine ourselves becoming someone else, we tap into our latent potential as human beings and as a community. When the group agrees to “pretend to believe” in these transformations, we create space in our consciousness for an expanded sense of our own identities.((Pohjola, “Autonomous Identities.”)) Through the power of imagination, we are able to conceptualize ourselves as capable in areas in which previously we may have felt limited. Some examples include expansion in one’s abilities, such as leadership and physical prowess; one’s personality qualities, such as extraversion and openness to experiences; one’s interpersonal capacities, such as empathy, intimacy, and connection; and one’s experiences of emotional release, such as catharsis, anger, desire, and grief. We can also explore our shadow sides — those unconscious and scary parts of ourselves and of our collective humanity that arise when we play characters that reveal undesirable character traits and behaviors.((Whitney “Strix” Beltrán, “Shadow Work: A Jungian Perspective on the Underside of Live Action Role-Play in the United States,” in Wyrd Con Companion Book 2013, ed. Sarah Lynne Bowman and Aaron Vanek (Los Angeles, CA: Wyrd Con, 2013), 94-101.)) As a result, many of us have experienced powerful impacts from role-playing and may even continue to hunt for these peak experiences, returning to larp after larp in the hope of immersing in moments of exquisite intensity once more.((Elin Nilsen, “High on Hell,” in States of Play: Nordic Larp Around the World, ed. by Juhana Pettersson (Helsinki, Finland: Pohjoismaisen roolipelaamisen seura, 2012), 10-11.))
But what happens when the magic circle fades, we return to daily life, and are faced with the sometimes brutal facts of the social and physical reality within which we usually exist? What role can bleed play in our ability to create “magic” outside of larp contexts: that uncanny phenomenon in which emotions, behaviors, physical states, and relationship dynamics sometimes spillover from character to player?((Beltrán, “Shadow Work”; Bowman, 2015; Diana J. Leonard and Tessa Thurman, “Bleed-out on the Brain: The Neuroscience of Character-to-Player,” International Journal of Role-Playing 9 (2018): 9-15; Kjell Hedgard Hugaas, “Investigating Types of Bleed in Larp: Emotional, Procedural, and Memetic,” Nordiclarp.org, January 25, 2019; Sarah Lynne Bowman, “Solmukohta 2020 Keynote: Sarah Lynne Bowman – Integrating Larp Experiences,” Nordiclarp.org, April 4, 2020.)) Our belief is that the “magic” discovered through role-playing can persist long after an event concludes when supported by integration practices — not as a form of delusion, but as a valid facet of the role-player’s social and psychological life.((Carl Gustav Jung, The Portable Jung, ed. Joseph Campbell, trans. by R.C.F. Hull. (New York: Penguin Random House, 1976); Stéphane Daniau, “The Transformative Potential of Role-playing Games: From Play Skills to Human Skills,” Simulation & Gaming 47, no. 4 (2016): 423–444; Sarah Lynne Bowman, “Active Imagination, Individuation, and Role-playing Narratives,” Tríade: Revista de Comunicação, Cultura e Midia 5, no. 9 (2017): 158-173; Sarah Lynne Bowman and Kjell Hedgard Hugaas, “Transformative Role-play: Design, Implementation, and Integration,” Nordiclarp.org, December 10, 2019; Jonaya Kemper, “The Battle of Primrose Park: Playing for Emancipatory Bleed in Fortune & Felicity,” Nordiclarp.org, June 21, 2017; 2020).))
With this position in mind, this article will include an in-depth discussion of the “magical” potential of role-playing. We will describe some of the barriers to transformation that can arise from alibi, cognitive dissonance, role-distancing, and the pressures of conformity. We will then examine role-playing from two quite different lenses:
a) Conceptualizations of ritual, aspecting, and manifestation in occult and metaphysical traditions; and
b Research in the social sciences about the power of thought and narrative upon self-concept, behavior, performance, and well-being.
This preliminary exploration of concepts that might help explain the potential of role-playing as a form of postmodern “magic” is by no means exhaustive or detailed. Rather, we present vignettes of thought from various areas of spiritual practice and social science. We explore how role-playing, perspective taking, narrative, ritual, and the conscious use of specific imaginative practices can directly impact people’s performance at tasks, their self-concepts, and their perceived agency. Then, we examine different models of bleed theory, investigating ways that we can raise awareness around bleed effects and consciously steer toward or away from them as needed.((Markus Montola, Jaakko Stenros, and Eleanor Saitta, “The Art of Steering: Bringing the Player and the Character Back Together,” Nordiclarp.org, March 29, 2015.))
If we intentionally emphasize responsibility, safety, and growth in our communities, we can imagine the role-playing space as a transformational container within which we can explore our edges and mold our self-concepts through play. We can use alibi as a tool to permit greater experimentation, while decreasing its strength when we wish to transfer skills, insights, and personality traits outside of the magic circle. Finally, through conscious and deliberate integration practices, we can distill these insights and more permanently infuse our lives with this magic, manifesting new conceptions of self, of community, of relationships, and of our life potential.
Many role-players claim to have experienced powerful impacts from play within the magic circle, whether they describe these moments in mystical terms or not. Yet, some scholars remain skeptical about the generalizability of such claims and may even demean such stories, relegating them to the rather dismissive and even derisive category of “anecdotal evidence.” In other words, if such accounts cannot be measured and quantified in ways that are predictable and generalizable to meet social, psychological, and neurological scientific standards, then they lose tangible credibility in the world of the “real.” Similarly, some role-playing communities still maintain strong boundaries between in- and off-game, distrusting or even scorning players who experience bleed or who express the need to process their experiences after an event.This dismissiveness can lead players to question whether or not their experiences had lasting meaning and may lead to shame and alienation.
In spite of such critiques, we suspect that the majority of participants who continue to role-play and scholars who devote their lives to understanding the mechanics and dynamics of playful spaces do so because, at some point in their lives, role-playing was transformative for them. Yet, when players attempt to make sense of their experiences outside the frame of game even within playful communities, they may have difficulty perceiving or admitting that these powerful play moments were “transformational.”((Matthew M. LeClaire, “Live Action Role-Playing: Transcending the Magic Circle through Play in Dagorhir.” International Journal of Role-Playing 10 (2020): 56-69. )) Why do some players reject the notion of play as a vehicle for transformation?
In the following section, we posit that this tendency to interrogate and ultimately diminish the importance of role-playing as a vehicle of personal transformation is a defense mechanism intended to protect the self from identity confusion and social shame. In order to make sense of the liminal ritual space of play — which is often erratic, contradictory, and ephemeral — role-players undergo the following processes, whether consciously or unconsciously. Players:
Establish alibi to engage in playful activities that remain bounded by the magic circle,
Resolve cognitive dissonance through off-game role-distancing, and
Conform to mainstream social norms after role-play events conclude.
While such processes may enhance a player’s sense of safety, they can also disrupt a participant’s ability to integrate key experiences and revelations emerging from play into daily life.((Simo Järvelä, “How Real Is Larp?,” in Larp Design: Creating Role-play Experiences, ed. Johanna Koljonen, Jaakko Stenros, Anne Serup Grove, Aina D. Skjønsfjell and Elin Nilsen (Copenhagen, Denmark: Landsforeningen Bifrost, 2019).))
Alibi
According to Erving Goffman, all social interactions take place on a specific social stage — or frame — that requires the enactment of predictable roles.((Erving Goffman, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (Anchor Books, 1959); Erving Goffman, Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience. Boston, MA: Northeastern University Press, 1986.)) From this perspective, identity becomes a much more fluid concept than many of us might recognize. Since we must perform appropriately on different social stages, our self-presentation must remain adaptable to the constraints and expectations required by each frame. In Western productivity-focused societies, we have certain predefined roles that we are expected to perform, such as teacher, sibling, parent, colleague, etc. Playing roles and creating fictional realities without a socially acceptable purpose is often frowned upon and even demonized by mainstream groups attempting to uphold these norms.((Lizzie Stark, Leaving Mundania (Chicago Review Press, 2012); Joseph P. Laycock, Dangerous Games: What the Moral Panic over Role-Playing Games Says about Play, Religion, and Imagined Worlds. (University of California Press, 2015).))
As Sebastian Deterding has described at length,((Sebastian Deterding, “Alibis for Adult Play: A Goffmanian Account of Escaping Embarrassment in Adult Play,” Games and Culture 13, no. 3 (2017): 260–279.)) in order to play, we need to feel safe from the embarrassment of performing social roles inadequately or transgressing norms of acceptable behavior.((Cf. Cindy Poremba, “Critical Potential on the Brink of the Magic Circle,” in DiGRA ’07 – Proceedings of the 2007 DiGRA International Conference: Situated Play Volume 4 (Tokyo: The University of Tokyo, 2007); Jaakko Stenros and Sarah Lynne Bowman, “Transgressive Role-play,” in Role-Playing GameStudies: Transmedia Foundations, ed. Sebastian Deterding and José P. Zagal (New York: Routledge, 2018), 411-424.)) Such moments of embarrassment threaten the stability of our sense of belonging and safety; our behaviors become unpredictable and others may feel uncertain how to react. When we role-play, our communities create in-game spaces that act as temporary social frames within which such behavior is no longer transgressive. In other words, we create an alibi for adult play, which allows us to present identities and behaviors that would otherwise be inconsistent with the expectations of our normative social roles.((Deterding, “Alibis”; Pohola, “Autonomous.”))
Game systems, lore, mechanics, design documents, character sheets, social contracts of play, social media groups, event sites, workshops, and debriefs all serve the purpose of creating alibi. They facilitate the construction of what many game scholars call the magic circle: a frame within which playfulness can transpire.((Johan Huizinga, Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1958); Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman, Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2004); Markus Montola, On the Edge of the Magic Circle: Understanding Role-Playing and Pervasive Games (PhD diss, University of Tampere, 2012); Jaakko Stenros, “In Defence of a Magic Circle: The Social, Mental and Cultural Boundaries of Play,” in DiGRA Nordic 2012 Conference: Local and Global – Games in Culture and Society, Tampere Finland, June 6-8, 2012, ed. Raine Koskimaa, Frans Mäyrä and Jaakko Suominen.)) For our purposes, both the off-game social contract and the in-game magic circle afforded by it create a holding container for spontaneous co-creative play and shifts in identity presentation that can feel intensely liberating.((Wilfred P. Bion, Experiences in Groups (Tavistock, England: Tavistock Publications, 1959); Donald W. Winnicott, “Theory”; Kemper, “Battle.”)) However, these framing devices can also lead to cognitive dissonance, especially in communities where discussion of bleed and the transformative impacts of play are discouraged. In other words, playing with one’s self-presentation can only transpire within frames that have been established by and protected by alibi.
Cognitive Dissonance, Role-Distancing, and Conformity
Due to these expectations of proper performativity, the mind is often in a state of vigilance in social interactions as it attempts to regulate and adapt to the demands of the group. When we enter the magic circle of play and we allow ourselves to surrender into the experience, we are still aware and cognitively engaged, but our minds tend to relax some of this vigilance. We place some measure of trust in the group and experience varying degrees of immersion.((Sarah Lynne Bowman, “Immersion and Shared Imagination in Role-Playing Games,” in Role-Playing Game Studies: Transmedia Foundations, ed. Sebastian Deterding and José P. Zagal (New York: Routledge, 2018), 379-394; Leonard and Thurman, “Bleed-out on the Brain”; Lauri Lukka, “The Psychology of Immersion,” in The Cutting Edge of Nordic Larp, edited by Jon Back (Denmark: Knutpunkt, 2014), 81-92.)) We may experience intense moments of vulnerability and intimacy within our play groups, which can lead to a rapid sense of bonding. Yet, we also experience a paradoxical cognitive space in which parts of our brain perceive the game events as real,((Järvelä, “How Real Is Larp?”)) while other parts work hard to reality test by discerning fact from fiction and organizing information accordingly.((Sigmund Freud, “Formulations Regarding the Two Principles in Mental Functioning,” in The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works by Sigmund Freud, ed. James Strachey (London: Hogarth Press, 1958), 13-21.))
When we leave the magic circle, the mind often returns to a more vigilant state, moderating self-expression in order to conform to social norms. Memories of in-character events may feel hyperreal, meaningful, and profound, i.e. peak experiences. Yet, the mind must accept that they are not “real,” despite these feelings of profundity. Even within a supportive community, role-playing can be a confusing process in which previously solid notions of selfhood, proper behavior, and social rules are challenged. In order to manage this cognitive dissonance, the mind often erects defense mechanisms — ways in which it unconsciously attempts to protect itself from identity confusion, emotional dysregulation, challenges to paradigm, and social shame. In order to transition into daily life without major emotional disruption, the mind must find a way to resolve this cognitive dissonance.
Additionally, we are expected to key our off-game behaviors and self-presentations as decidedly different from our playful ones through a process of role-distancing. When we role-distance, we indicate that we understand the difference between fantasy and reality, signaling that we will adhere to social norms outside of the frame of play.((Sarah Lynne Bowman, “Educational Live Action Role-playing Games: A Secondary Literature Review,” in Wyrd Con Companion Book 2014, ed. by Sarah Lynne Bowman (Los Angeles, CA: Wyrd Con, 2014), 112-131; Daniau, “Transformative”; Deterding, “Alibis.”)) This process allows us to displace any in-game behaviors that would be considered socially problematic, such as erotic, violent, destructive, manipulative, or otherwise “evil” play. In other words, our performances remain bounded within the magic circle, giving us plausible deniability that the whole experience was “just a game.” Alternatively, some of us work to justify our play experiences as “productive” by signaling to non-players that we have learned important, marketable skills that help us better integrate into mainstream society. While this tactic helps validate our play experiences as “useful,” it may further distance us from the pleasures of creativity and personal development for their own sake.((Deterding, “Alibis.”))
In transformational language, an expansion of consciousness is often followed by a contraction, colloquially known as a crash or drop. While helpful and even important to a degree, role-distancing after play can lead to feelings of alienation and cognitive dissonance for people who have powerful moments of catharsis, profound realizations of selfhood, and intense experiences of intimacy within the magic circle. The insistence on alibi can become a shock to the system, in which meaningful experiences that occur within play have difficulty finding a place within the rest of life, leading some players to experience an existential sense of loss, grief, depression, or angst.((Sarah Lynne Bowman and Evan Torner, “Post-larp Depression,” Analog Game Studies 1, no. 1, 2014; Sanne Harder, “Larp Crush: The What, When and How,” Nordiclarp.org, March 28, 2018.)) While such responses can emerge after any peak experience ends, the bounded fictional framing adds an additional layer of complexity; peak experiences occurring within a Burning Man festival, a rock concert, or a weekend meditation retreat are still considered mostly “real,” whereas role-playing is not. While many larp communities have worked to normalize debriefing, discussions of bleed, and other forms of off-game processing, shame may arise if a person feels overly attached to a game experience that has long since passed for other players.((Sarah Lynne Bowman, “Social Conflict in Role-playing Communities: An Exploratory Qualitative Study,” International Journal of Role-Playing 4 (2013): 17-18; Lizzie Stark, “How to Run a Post-Larp Debrief,” Leaving Mundania, December 1, 2013.)) Subsequently, players may continue to sign up for larp after larp, yearning for the permission to deeply feel, experience, experiment, and connect once more.
Figure 1: This figure charts the role of alibi within the role-playing process. Players are able to depart from their daily selves, adopting characters within the magic circle. While the social contract of the game allows for playfulness, alibi may interfere with desired transfer of traits, insights, and relationship dynamics from character to player. Vectors designed by macrovector_official and bybrgfx / Freepik.
This article seeks to complicate notions of identity and reality by suggesting that alibi can actually hinder one’s potential for personal growth. Paradoxically, the very same mechanism that allows for playful transgression of self-presentation can also create a barrier for the transfer and integration of play experiences into one’s daily life, self, and community (Figure 1). Even if we experience a shift of selfhood during play((Christopher Sandberg, “Genesi: Larp Art, Basic Theories,” In Beyond Role and Play: Tools, Toys, and Theory for Harnessing the Imagination, edited by Markus Montola and Jaakko Stenros, 264-288. (Helsinki, Finland: Ropecon ry, 2004); Jaakko Stenros, “Living the Story, Free to Choose: Participant Agency in Co-Created Worlds,” Alibis for Interaction Conference, Landskrona, Sweden, October 25, 2013. Reprinted as “Aesthetic of Action,” Jaakkostenros.wordpress.com, Oct. 28, 2013.)) — often enacting a dual consciousness that holds both self and player — ultimately, these experiences are happening to the same person embodied within the same physiological organism.((Järvelä, “How Real Is Larp?”)) If alibi is a polite fiction in which we allow players to obviate responsibility for their actions within games, what happens when we adopt a view of self as consistent and fluid between player and character? What happens when we decrease alibi and imagine the role-playing container as extending beyond just the fictional space and the temporally bounded event? What becomes possible when we steer toward “magical” experiences that can inform our self-concepts, our worldviews, and our definitions of community in more permanent ways?((Beltrán, “Shadow Work”; Kemper, “Battle”; Hugaas, “Investigating.”))
Role-playing and Manifestation
Answers may lie in contemporary occult and metaphysical discourses that conceptualize manifestation as a magical process. The process of manifestation varies from source to source. Modern witchcraft often focuses upon the casting of spells using rituals, physical components, and invocation of spirits. Alternatively, New Age conceptions of manifestation often involve aligning one’s attention and imagination toward the types of experiences one wants to summon into their life, e.g. The Law of Attraction. People outside of such communities may find such concepts suspiciously unscientific or fantastical — forms of magical thinking that do not reflect social or physical reality. Such thinking can also reveal a form of privilege, e.g. leading some individuals to dismissively downplay the real structural inequalities that might inhibit someone from “manifesting” a new Ferrari. With these limitations in mind, we wonder: what insight on personal transformation might role-players gain from manifestational theory and practice?
Although many manifestational models exist, this article will focus on Mat Auryn’s Psychic Witch, which has become successful within alternative subcultural audiences in the last year. In the book, the author works to streamline and make coherent for newcomers different threads of metaphysical thought.((Auryn, Psychic Witch.)) He synthesizes theories and practices pertaining to witchcraft and psychic abilities in non-denominational ways by crystallizing these concepts into more universally applicable language.
Auryn explicitly discusses the connection between role-playing and magic. Due to his belief that all people have inherent psychic abilities, as a basic exercise that he terms “psychic immersion,” he recommends that practitioners role-play being a gifted psychic for a day in order to notice their latent skills.((Auryn, Psychic Witch, 18-20.)) In other words, the author recommends invoking the alibi of inhabiting the role of a skilled psychic, using imagination as a tool for practitioners to step more fully into their nascent abilities. Drawing further parallels, Auryn has addressed an apparently common dismissive attitude held within occult communities toward spellcraft that looks performative as “mere role-playing.” He opines, “The level of devotion and dedication role-players have is something I think witches should aspire to in their Craft. So when someone accuses you of this, take it as a compliment.”((Mat Auryn, Twitter post, February 22, 2020, 8:33 a.m., https://twitter.com/MatAuryn/status/1231225521062776832; Mat Auryn, Twitter post, February 22, 2020, 8:36 a.m., https://twitter.com/MatAuryn/status/1231226271683792896))
If we consider that the processes behind postmodern magic are at the very least similar to role-playing, how is manifestation conceptualized? In one chapter of Psychic Witch, Auryn describes several dimensions of reality that overlay the physical world.((Auryn, Psychic Witch, 182-183. )) He states that successful manifestation — or simply put, “creation” — requires performing several steps within each dimension:
Physical reality: Gathering physical ingredients that support the magic, e.g. herbs, crystals, candles, etc. Physical gestures may also be helpful.
Etheric reality: Creating an energetic container for the magic to take place, e.g. meditation, altered states, establishing a time and space within which to invoke the (literal) magic circle.
Astral reality: Pushing the magical container, which holds a thoughtform or conceptualization of the desired effect, into another realm. This process involves filling the container with one’s personal willpower.
Emotional reality: Moving the thoughtform into alignment with the emotional energy the person wishes to manifest and using those emotions to direct the work, e.g. invoking magic to call love into one’s life by imagining experiencing bliss.
Mental reality: Distilling the thoughtform into concepts or words that represent what the person wants to manifest, e.g. vocalizing affirmations, intoning a spell, chanting, singing, or composing a petition to an entity.
Psychic reality: Using visualization to clearly envision the desired outcome.
Divine reality: Sending the thoughtform to the divine with a petition for assistance with this goal, surrendering, and releasing attachment to the outcome.
Auryn emphasizes the need in this last stage to envision the effect as having already happened, consciously avoiding considering any outcome that contradicts this imagined reality. He further stresses the need to take inspired action on one’s goals through the use of willpower, stating as an example, “You are not going to manifest the perfect relationship for you if you are not actively putting yourself in social situations where you can meet someone.”((Auryn 2020a, p. 184)) Thus, in manifestation, magic requires not only imagining and energetically aligning with the goal, but also taking action and focusing one’s will in order to achieve it.
While these concepts may seem far-fetched to many role-players, if we consider the basic principles Auryn is describing, they do not seem removed from other processes of personal growth and creativity: establishing space for the growth to transpire; aligning emotions, thoughts, and intention toward the desired goal; taking action based upon this aligned, focused willpower; and letting go of attachment to the result. One can imagine these steps being useful, for example, when building a house, establishing a business as an entrepreneur, or pursuing a consensual romantic relationship.
Furthermore, these steps can inform how we might envision our participation in a larp: learning about the location, setting, and game design; excitedly creating characters and costuming; imagining a positive future experience; purchasing tickets and arranging travel; calibrating with co-players for consent regarding the themes one would like to explore; and surrendering to the experience. Surrender in this case still involves remaining aware, present, and conscious, but may require releasing one’s attachment to the larp unfolding “perfectly” or banishing one’s “fear of missing out.” We can also envision these steps as useful after the role-play experience in order to integrate our desired goals: establishing space and time to process the events of play; distilling takeaways; and continuing to align thoughts, emotions, and actions toward concretizing these takeaways in daily life.
Photo by Ivilin Stoyanov, Ivilin on Pixabay.
Aspecting and Wyrding the Self
From a “magical” perspective, the distinctions between self and character are less stark. We can view our characters not as a means of leisurely escape from reality, but as tools for self-reflection. A lifelong Pagan, Phil Brucato, the primary author of White Wolf’s Mage: the Ascension since the 2nd Edition, connects role-playing to the occult practice of aspecting: a term that generally refers to the act of embodying or performing aspects of a divine entity’s characteristics. When conceptualizing characters through the lens of aspecting, Brucato envisions Mage in particular — and role-playing in general — as a metaphor for personal growth and transformation.((Phil Brucato, “Mage 20 Q&A, Part I: What IS Mage, Anyway?,” Satyrosphilbrucato.wordpress.com, March 23, 2014.)) He states, “I view aspects as creative masks and mirrors through which we can understand ourselves better… and thus, grow further than we would grow otherwise if we stuck to a stubborn (and often self-deceptive) sense of one Self.”((Phil Brucato, “Aspecting: Song of My Selves,” Satyrosphilbrucato.wordpress.com, April 23, 2013.)) Thus, when used intentionally, the character can become a tool for better understanding and transforming the self rather than an isolated entity bound to the fictional frame and disconnected from one’s self-concept.
Additionally, characters can occupy spaces, express aspects of selfhood, and perform behaviors that we might feel socially inhibited from exploring in daily life. In “Wyrding the Self,” Jonaya Kemper presents her assiduous process of autoethnographic documentation before, during, and after larps.((Jonaya Kemper, “Wyrding the Self,” in What Do We Do When We Play?, edited by Eleanor Saitta, Jukka Särkijärvi, and Johanna Koljonen (Helsinki, Finland: Solmukohta, 2020).)) Kemper intentionally steers her characters toward experiences of liberation and seeks out emancipatory bleed, a type of bleed that allows players “from marginalized identities to fight back or succeed against systemic oppression.” Kemper discusses how the root of the word “weird” arose from the Old English term “wyrding,” which was also connected to the concept of magic and fate. Kemper asserts:
To be weird, is to control one’s fate, rather than let society determine your place and fate. To be weird, is to be outside the normal aspects of society, yes, but to also collectively decide who you would like to be, not based on societal pressure. It is my belief that larp affords us the actual ability to wyrd ourselves, that is to shape ourselves and our conceptions of self through play.((Kemper, “Wyrding.”))
Like Kemper and Brucato, we believe that role-playing can be used to better understand and wyrd the self. Ultimately, we assert that participants need not believe in magic, different layers of metaphysical reality, or fate in order to use role-playing as a tool for manifestation. Rather, we view role-playing as a vehicle for self-development and community building that can be used alongside other more traditional practices, whether educational, therapeutic, or recreational.
Imaginal Selves, Performance, and Agency
How can we conceptualize this type of “magical” thinking from a scientific paradigm? In this section, we will explore evidence of the impacts of imagination on self-concept and community, drawing parallels between spiritual frameworks, ritual studies, and other social scientific perspectives. We assert that while the domains of science and magic have developed largely in isolation from one another, they reveal similar insights about the human experience and personal growth. We will examine five topics that seem especially relevant for understanding how role-playing can be used as a transformational process: ritual, narrative, identity, empowerment, and imagination.
Ritual
Is the ritual of larp distinct from other forms of magical practice? In terms of formal attributes, J. Tuomas Harviainen has explored how the two practices of larp and postmodern chaos magic are “identical”; they both involve delineating time and space in order to shift identities and engage in pretense play. Harviainen discusses the work of D.W. Winnicott((J. Tuomas Harviainen, ”The Larping that is Not Larp,” in Think Larp: Academic Writings from KP2011, edited by Thomas D. Henriksen, Christian Bierlich, Kasper Friis Hansen, and Valdemar Kølle (Copenhagen, Denmark: Rollespilsakademiet, 2011); Donald W. Winnicott, “Transitional Objects and Transitional Phenomena,” Playing & Reality (Tavistock, England: Tavistock Publications, 1971).)) and Ana-Maria Rizzuto, emphasizing that the processes underpinning play are central to human practices from infancy onward, as children often project fiction onto objects that later grow into imagined entities.
These imaginings are especially strengthened when supported by engagement with others in playful activities, as we do in role-playing communities. Following Winnicott((Donald W. Winnicott, “The Theory of the Parent-Infant Relationship,” The International Journal of Psychoanalysis 41 (1960): 585–595.)) and Wilfred Bion((Bion, Experiences.)), we can conceptualize role-play spaces as ritualized holdingcontainers: environments in which players feel sufficiently secure within the group to explore their authentic selves and experience empowerment by projecting fantasy onto brute reality.((Montola, On the Edge; Jaakko Stenros, Playfulness, Play, and Games: A Constructionist Ludology Approach, PhD diss, University of Tampere, 2015.)) In ritual theory, participants engage in three phases: separation from their mundane roles, entrance into the liminal — or threshold — space, and reincorporation into daily life.((Victor Turner, The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure (Piscataway, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1969).)) According to anthropologist Victor Turner, these activities are often associated with rites of passage that support communitas: a group feeling of camaraderie and interconnectedness.
Lady Gaga symbolically enacting her battle with the Fame Monster in an on-stage ritual. Stefani Germanotta created the alterego of Lady Gaga as a means to gain strength. Photo by John Robert Charlton, Wikimedia (CC BY 2.0).
Despite these formal similarities, enactment in role-playing games as they are generally played today remain fundamentally different from magic or other religious rituals. Players agree to a social contract that dismisses these activities as not “real” in the same way that a religious ceremony or spiritually-motivated ritual is real for a believer. In Turner’s formulation, larps would be considered liminoid, not liminal; players do not acknowledge these shifts in role as rites of passage that have lasting meaning in daily life, e.g. an in-game wedding does not officially marry the players off-game.((Victor Turner, “Liminal to Liminoid, in Play, Flow, and Ritual: An Essay in Comparative Symbology,” Rice University Studies 60, no. 3 (July 1974): 53-91.))
Again, when considering the power of ritual, alibi can become a barrier between the incorporation of game elements to socially recognized states outside of play. By invoking alibi and strongly reinforcing the boundary between reality and fiction, we distance ourselves from much of the content that takes place within the container of the magic circle, blocking it from transferring to our self-concept and group understanding of reality. In Mike Pohjola’s words, we “pretend to believe,” rather than actually believing that what we are invoking is real.((Pohjola, “Autonomous Identities.”))
On the other hand, game scholars Doris C. Rusch and Andrew M. Phelps describe play as a form of “psychomagic,” asserting that games are ritual spaces where players can perform deeply meaningful acts through the lens of fiction. They assert that “symbolic acts are particularly conducive to envisioning – through the tangibility of bodily experience – new ways of being, utilizing the powerful interaction between body and mind.”((Doris C. Rusch and Andrew M. Phelps, “Existential Transformational Game Design: Harnessing the ‘Psychomagic’ of Symbolic Enactment,” Frontiers in Psychology (forthcoming).)) The authors emphasize the role of post-game reflection as central to these transformational processes of envisioning and meaning-making.
What becomes possible when we uphold larp as a liminal rather than liminoid activity? In other words, what happens when we shift our perceptions to actually believing that some of the emotional, social, and physical changes that we experience in games can become lasting over time?
Narrative
One way this shift can occur is by streamlining narratives that happen within role-playing games within the context of our larger life stories. Humans are storytelling machines. According to the theory of narrative identity,((Jefferson Singer, “Narrative Identity and Meaning Making Across the Adult Lifespan: An Introduction,” Journal of Personality 72 (2004): 437-59.)) a person will form their identity by integrating important experiences into a structured “life story” that provides them with a sense of purpose, unity, and a consistent self-concept. When such life events involve adversity or suffering, psychologist Dan McAdams has found it beneficial for people to create narratives of redemption, i.e. extrapolating redemptive meaning from otherwise challenging experiences. In McAdams’ research, individuals who were able to construct stories of agency and exploration tended to “enjoy higher levels of mental health, well-being, and maturity.”((Dan P. McAdams, “Narrative Identity,” in Handbook of Identity Theory and Research, ed. Seth J. Schwartz, Koen Luyckx, and Vivian L. Vignoles (Springer, New York, 2011).))
Role-playing is one of that many forms of narrativization that people employ in order to make sense of their experience. As role-players, we not only tell stories, but also embody the characters whose stories we tell. Sometimes, we construct clear story arcs, whether redemptive or tragic. Additionally, many players will engage in forms of storytelling after larps, whether by relaying amusing or exciting anecdotes — i.e. war stories — or sharing serious, intense narratives as a form of emotional processing, e.g. debriefing sessions or written accounts of play. Players may slip between first- and third-person perspective when recounting these tales. In first-person, players may feel more self-immersed and connected to the story as an active participant. In third-person self-distanced narratives, the players may feel less connected, recounting the tale as an observer of their character’s actions.((Ethan Kross and Ozlem Ayduk, “Self-Distancing: Theory, Research, and Current Directions,” Advances in Experimental Psychology 55 (2016): 81-136.))
In terms of using narratives as a tool for transformation, alibi might help or hinder the process. As described above, alibi might make it harder for players to own core elements of these narratives and apply them to life outside of games, e.g. “My character was brave, but I am not.” On the other hand, overly immersing in the fictional content off-game might also disrupt growth. As Ethan Kross and Ozlem Ayduk discuss in their work on self-distancing, with regard to one’s own life stories, continued self-immersion in the first-person perspective may lead to rumination and a lack of closure.((Kross and Ayduk, “Self-Distancing.” )) In these cases, adopting a third-person distanced perspective may help players reduce shame and engage in self-reflection, e.g. “I wept for hours when he left me at the altar” versus “Elizabeth wept for hours when Anya left her.” Such distancing can enhance post-game narrative meta-reflections when streamlined with the player’s own narrative identity, e.g. “Looking back on Elizabeth’s story, I can see how my own abandonment fears led to strong emotional bleed-in.” The player might then consider approaching future situations differently after reflecting upon these experiences, e.g. “Unlike Elizabeth, I am going to take active steps to make sure that partners are willing to remain in relationship with me before I commit.” In other words, the third-person perspective might allow someone to create a narrative identity that distills important redemptive lessons from the character’s experiences without persistently reliving and rehashing painful emotions.
Additionally, using narrativization tools, players can intentionally explore and process aspects of their own lives within the fictional settings that they inhabit. Organizers can construct containers for this specific intent, giving participants explicit permission to bring personal content into the fiction, e.g. a player’s fear of abandonment. Players can find redemptive meaning within their life stories through their game experiences, especially ones that emphasize adversity, e.g. “When I experienced the death of my character’s partner in the larp, I realized I am more resilient than I thought.” Ultimately, the most important component of this narrativization process is creating opportunities for post-game reflection, which allow players to streamline character narratives with their life stories, making meaning that can positively impact their lives.((Bowman, “Active Imagination.”))
Reginald Kenneth Dwight, aka Elton John, in 1975. Publicity photo, Wikimedia, no copyright.
Identity
One of the most potent tools for transformation within role-playing is identity exploration. When we role-play, we inhabit a dual consciousness((Sandberg, “Genesi”; Stenros, “Living.”)) in which we simultaneously experience both our own subjectivity and our character’s. We engage in perspective taking when we willingly alter our own identity in order to consider the perspective of another.((Adam Gerace, Andrew Day, Sharon Casey, and Philip Mohr, “An Exploratory Investigation of the Process of Perspective Taking in Interpersonal Situations,” Journal of Relationships Research 4, no. e6 (2013): 1–12.)) This perspective taking process can help us approach challenging situations or embolden us to act in ways counter to our self-concept.
The Batman Effect and The Proteus Effect
The creation and embodiment of characters occurs in many activities outside of role-playing games. D.W. Winnicott suggests that through imaginal play, children can express themselves in ways that may feel more authentic than their daily social roles permit.((Winnicott, “Theory.”)) Additionally, researchers have studied the phenomenon of the creation of alter egos: personalities that someone envisions and embodies who can better handle stressful, challenging, or even traumatic situations. When the alter ego is the one performing challenging tasks, some people seem able to exert a greater level of control over their own performance. In their research on how alter egos can affect perseverance in children, Rachel E. White et al. coined the term The Batman Effect.((Rachel E. White, et al,. “The ‘Batman Effect’: Improving Perseverance in Young Children,” Child Development 88, no. 5 (2017): 1563-1571. The added meta layer of Batman being the fictional alter ego of a fictional Bruce Wayne that was created as a result of emotional avoidance after a traumatic event in Wayne’s life, is not lost on the authors.)) They found that children who adopted a third-person perspective in relation to a task showed higher degrees of perseverance than participants operating in the first-person did, but both of these groups were surpassed by the participants that took on powerful alter egos such as Batman. This technique is also common in edu-larp theory and practice; for example, students at the Danish boarding school Østerskov Efterskole are often asked to play experts in larp scenarios in order to cultivate their perceived competence and self-efficacy in leadership.((Malik Hyltoft, “Full-Time Edu-larpers: Experiences from Østerskov,” in Playing the Learning Game: A Practical Introduction to Educational Roleplaying, ed. Martin Eckoff Andresen (Oslo, Norway: Fantasiforbundet, 2012). 20-23.))
As role-players well know, alter egos are not just helpful for children. Drag performers routinely report creating and embodying larger-than-life characters through which they can draw the personal strength to face marginalization in their daily lives. The name of Brian Furkus’ famous drag alter ego Trixie Mattel arose from childhood slurs hurled upon him by his stepfather in response to Furkus’ queerness. Furkus describes:
If I was being too sensitive or acting too feminine especially, he would call me a Trixie. You know, for years that was one of the worst words I could think of. So I took that name Trixie that used to have all this hurt [connected] to it and I made it my drag name. And now it’s something I celebrate, something I’m so proud of. If I hadn’t gone through all that horrible shit when I was little, Trixie Mattel might not even exist.((Nick Murray, dir., “Episode 8,” RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 7,eprformed by RuPaul Charles, et al. (Los Angeles: World of Wonder Productions, 2015).))
Brian Furkus transformed childhood experiences of abuse and shame into creative fuel for his drag persona, Trixie Mattel. Photo by dvsross, Wikimedia, (CC BY 2.0).
Other famous performers have created alter egos that are able to withstand the demands of marginalization and even stardom. Before he created Elton John, Reginald Kenneth Dwight was an introverted bespectacled piano-playing teenager.((Dexter Fletcher, Rocketman, performed by Taron Egerton, Jamie Bell, and Richard Madden (2019; Paramount), film.)) Stefani Germanotta created Lady Gaga as a separate and “stronger” version of herself.((Sarah Begley, “Lady Gaga Says Her Public Persona Is a ‘Separate Entity’ From Her True Self,” Time, June 8, 2016.)) However, the lines between these two entities often bleed together for Germanotta as art becomes life. With regard to this artistic process, she has insisted that we humans “possess something magical and transformative inside — a uniqueness and specialness waiting to be exiled from the depths of our identity.” In order to delve into these depths, bleed is a necessary state, as we “must effortlessly vacillate between two worlds: out of the real and into the surreal. Out of the ordinary, into the extraordinary.”((Lady Gaga, “V Magazine Gaga Memorandum No. 2,” V Magazine 72 (Fall 2011).)) Another widely-known and fascinating example is how Beyoncé created her alter ego, Sasha Fierce. When even someone as successful and praised as Beyoncé feels the need to create an alter ego to accomplish what she wants, the positive potential of identity alteration becomes difficult to dismiss.
Similarly, in role-playing studies, we have the Proteus Effect.((Nick Yee and Jeremy Bailenson, “The Proteus Effect: The Effect of Transformed Self-Representation on Behavior,” Human Communication Research 33 (2007): 271-290.)) Named after the shapeshifting Greek god Proteus, this effect describes how the physical attributes of virtual avatars can sometimes affect the behavior of their players. In their research, Nick Yee and Jeremy Bailenson show how playing more attractive avatars led to more confident behaviour in in-game interpersonal situations and how playing taller avatars led to greater confidence in negotiation tasks during play. While MMORPG avatars are not always fully “role-played,” the avatar clearly provides players with enough alibi to present themselves in ways that they might otherwise feel inhibited when enacting their daily identities.
Some role-players do report actively utilizing their characters to handle situations in their daily life. Players describe a form of “aspecting,” where they enact certain traits or skills from a character rather than performing the character in its entirety, e.g. aspecting a character’s leadership skills during a work meeting. In other words, even in small ways, we can expand alibi beyond the magic circle to allow for certain facets of the role-play experience to extend to the “real” world. Ultimately, role-players do not “become” our characters, but we can distill core aspects and substantiate them into our self-concepts.
Empowerment and Imagination
How can role-playing enhance our sense of personal empowerment? One of the coding constructs used in the narrative identity theory described above is agency. People who create narratives in which they see themselves as protagonists with a high degree of ability to affect change in their lives are likely to feel more agency in general. Agency is closely linked to the concept of locus of control.((Julian B. Rotter, “Generalized Expectancies for Internal Versus External Control of Reinforcement,” Psychological Monographs 80 (1966): 1-28.)) Individuals who have an internal locus of control tend to believe that they have a high degree of influence on the events and outcomes in their lives, while those with an external locus of control tend to insist that outside forces are primarily responsible for determining what happens in their life story.
In relation to role-playing, our characters often have a large degree of agency and even power. Even for disempowered characters, the very act of playing involves exerting a certain amount of control over the character and the environment. As such, role-playing can be a way for players who tend to favor an external locus of control in their everyday life to experience how it is to shift to an internal locus of control through the game. If those experiences feel empowering, through the use of narrative identity, players may be able to shift their own locus of control more readily in daily life. While we acknowledge that, in many situations, outside factors such as structural inequalities and marginalization will reinforce the external locus of control, processes such as Kemper’s Wyrding the Self can feel emancipatory and empowering for players.
Beyoncé during the tour for I Am… Sasha Fierce. The album explored empowerment through the embodiment of an alterego. Photo by idrewuk, Wikimedia, (CC BY 2.0), cropped.
We believe that the more individuals can experience themselves as agentic beings in games, the more they can feel empowered to make changes in the spheres of influence they inhabit, including the personal, interpersonal, and communal. Many role-players likely never believed they were capable of leading groups or running large-scale events before they experienced the motivating agency of larp. From this perspective, the very structure of our role-playing communities has been built upon this increased sense of agency, demonstrating that some forms of transfer are observable. Role-players also often describe the ways in which larp situations have prepared them for the working world in terms of social skills like leadership, teamwork, and understanding how to operate within systems.((Bowman 2010, 2014.))
While these concrete “productive” skills are of interest, we invite players to consider ways in which they might bolster agency throughout other dimensions of their life, including altering their personal narratives to ones that are more empowering. For example, a player may have previously believed themselves to be unlovable, then experienced a successful, impassioned romance in a larp. If they can distill that experience into a new belief about themselves, such as “I am capable of cultivating love,” then they might make different choices in daily life that proactively seek the love they desire based upon the positive proof of concept within the larp. Alternatively, if these experiences remain bounded within the fiction, a player might instead reinforce their previous belief with such thoughts as “My fictional characters are capable of cultivating love, but I myself remain unlovable.” Therefore, we strongly recommend finding ways to integrate these experiences into one’s personal narrative in order to foster a greater internal locus of control.
Furthermore, imagining ourselves as capable of certain activities might actually enhance our physical performance at tasks. While role-playing is not always an obviously physical activity, for many players, especially in larp, some degree of physical embodiment of character is central to their experience. In 1874, William B. Carpenter originated psychoneuromuscular theory, positing that the visualization of mental imagery related to a specific behavior will lead to subsequent greater motor performance of that activity.((William B. Carpenter, Principles of Mental Physiology (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1874).)) This theory is still central to a number of approaches to sports psychology. In brief, research into mental imagery shows that the mere practice of imagining oneself performing a task in an optimal way — such as lifting a heavy weight — will lead to noticeable increases in physical ability when one later performs that action.((Robert S.Weinberg and Daniel Gould. Foundations of Sport and Exercise Psychology. 7th ed. (Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics, 2018); Paul Holmes and Dave Collins, “The PETTLEP Approach to Motor Imagery: A Functional Equivalence Model for Sport Psychologists,” Journal of Applied Sport Psychology 13 (2007): 60-83.)) Studies have also shown that substituting the physical act of working out with imagining the activity can have positive effects on motivation, self-confidence, anxiety, arousal control, and injury rehabilitation.((Danielle Alexander, Eric Hutt, Jordan Lefebvre, and Gordon Bloom, “Using Imagery to Enhance Performance in Powerlifting: A Review of Theory, Research, and Practice,” Strength and Conditioning Journal 41 (2019): 102-109.)) Similar to Auryn’s insistence that action is necessary to fully realize manifestational outcomes, psychologists pair imagination with action in psychoneuromuscular work in order to enhance performance. In other words, while some limitations we cannot control, when we imagine ourselves as capable, we come to realize other limitations are psychological in nature; thus, we can imagine and perform a self that might be able to move past them.
In summary, role-players can find value in both metaphysical and social scientific explanations of transformation. In fact, manifestational work aligns with concepts in social science in the following ways:
We can place collective social meaning upon our ritual experiences that lasts far beyond the liminal phase;
We can place collective social meaning upon our ritual experiences that lasts far beyond the liminal phase;
We can use narratives to construct positive meaning, streamlining our fictional and non-fictional lives;
We can adopt aspects of our alter egos in daily life in order to augment our personalities;
We can imagine ourselves as capable of performing difficult tasks; and thus,
We can strengthen our belief in our own abilities to affect change in the world.
For participants who wish to experience lasting change from their role-playing experiences, the question remains: How do we design, facilitate, and play to maximize such impacts?
Role-Playing Communities as Transformational Containers
As we have discussed, many role-players claim to have experienced powerful transformative impacts as a result of adopting alternate identities in fictional worlds. In many cases, these impacts have evolved somewhat accidentally or even in spite of the game design, meaning that designers and players may not have intended for such effects to unfold. Role-players sometimes have differing views regarding the potential of the medium. Some participants make broad claims about the ability of role-playing to “change the world,” whereas others may insist that their larp activities are purely recreational or for entertainment. Similarly, in role-play studies, some scholars emphasize the educational or therapeutic potential of games, whereas others remain skeptical or conservative about such claims, pushing for quantitative evidence of change over time along specific dimensions of human growth.
While we hold each of these perspectives as valid, our goal is to envision role-playing communities as transformational containers. We define transformational containers as spaces explicitly and intentionally designed to facilitate personal growth and encourage communal cohesion, consent, and trust. Transformational containers extend far beyond the bounds of the magic circle of play. These containers include pre-game goal-setting, transparency, creative activities, bonding, trust-building opportunities, and workshops. They include safety structures, calibration, and negotiation during play. Most importantly, they involve post-game integration activities, such as creative expression, intellectual analysis, emotional processing, community support structures, and taking action on goals. These practices help players streamline game experiences with their self-concepts and social lives (Figure 2).((Sarah Lynne Bowman and Kjell Hedgard Hugaas, “Transformative Role-play: Design, Implementation, and Integration,” Nordiclarp.org, December 10, 2019.))
Transformational containers place personal growth and emotional safety at the forefront of activities. They strengthen and extend the magic circle, providing support for individuals and groups undergoing powerful and sometimes confusing processes. They hold space for personal alchemy, not only facilitating the shift from one state of consciousness to another, but also guiding the process of intentionally shaping consciousness and social reality through experimentation. Central to this process is projection of imagination; thus, fantasy becomes an asset to personal growth rather than “escapism” or a distraction from life.
Such role-playing containers may encourage players to consciously seek out certain types of bleed. While bleed is often unconscious and unpredictable, players can notice bleed when it arises by practicing meta-awareness and can even steer for desired types. Examples include:
Emotional bleed: Accessing and expressing one’s often suppressed emotions, allowing for deep catharsis and further processing;((Markus Montola, “The Positive Negative Experience in Extreme Role-playing,” in Proceedings of DiGRA Nordic 2010: Experiencing Games: Games, Play, and Players (Stockholm, Sweden, August 16, 2010); Nilsen, “High on Hell”; Sarah Lynne Bowman, “Bleed: The Spillover Between Player and Character,” Nordiclarp.org, March 2, 2015; Hugaas, “Investigating.”))
Ego bleed: Exploring new or suppressed aspects of personality or identity, allowing for consolidation of these aspects into one’s off-game self-concept;((Beltrán, “Shadow Work.”))
Procedural bleed: Practicing physical abilities, habits, or ways of holding the body, allowing for greater skill and confidence in one’s off-game abilities;((Hugaas, “Investigating.”))
Emancipatory bleed: Experiencing a successful challenge to structural oppression, allowing for feelings of liberation for players from marginalized identities;((Kemper “Battle”; “Wyrding.”))
Memetic bleed: Experimenting and acting in accordance with different paradigms, allowing for the adoption of new sets of values, ideas, and understandings of reality.((Hugaas, “Investigating.”))
Some players may require a strong alibi in order to experience these impacts, whereas others may play thin characters that are quite similar to themselves. Whatever approach players choose, the goals of the transformational container are to facilitate the exploration of self, envision new configurations of community, and transfer insights from these experiences to one’s life through integration practices. In other words, alibi should not remain so strong as to get in the way of this transfer process.
Figure 2: Envisioning role-playing as a transformational container. Explicit goals, agreements, safety structures, community support, and integration practices facilitate changes in participants’ identities over time. Vectors designed by macrovector_official, and bybrgfx, and kjpargeter / Freepik.
Thus, in a transformational container, we do not simply de-role, with a brief exercise evaluating what we wish to take with us and what we wish to leave behind. We distill the essence of the experience and infuse our lives with the meanings we uncovered. We do not shy away from owning the shadow parts of our identities that may have emerged during play. We embrace the shadow as part of the human experience. We learn to acknowledge and come into psychological balance with the different parts of ourselves. We reflect not only upon the “positive” traits that we hope to cultivate further, but also upon those “negative” behaviors that we fear to own. We hold space as a group for all of these aspects to emerge and develop, providing ongoing opportunities for reflection as individual and group processes. We avoid shaming others for what they have exposed about themselves so long as it emerged under conditions of mutual consent. We understand that feelings may linger, intense bonding may occur, and players may need support long after the game is done. We work together to process such emotions and to help each other learn how to create experiences in life that are as meaningful as we experience in larp. Ultimately, players within transformational containers must feel supported enough to expose their true intentions, desires, and vulnerabilities and the container must feel secure enough to hold space for such goals to potentiate.
Let’s perform magic together.
Acknowledgements
This theoretical framework is part of Sarah Lynne Bowman’s larger ethnographic research project on the therapeutic and educational potential of role-playing games. This project was approved by the Austin Community College Institutional Research Review Committee in June 2020 under the supervision of Dr. Jean Lauer. The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions or policies of Austin Community College. Sarah would like to thank from the bottom of her heart all of her participants in this study, who have helped her refine her thoughts on these topics by offering their own expertise. Special thanks also to Doris Rusch, Lauri Lukka, Lars Kristian Løveng Sunde, Sanne Harder, Michael Freudenthal, and Mo Holkar for their insightful feedback on early drafts.
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Cover photo: Photo by Stefan Keller, Kellepics on Pixabay, cropped.
This article was published in the Knutepunkt companion book Book of Magic and is published here with permission. Please cite this text as:
Bowman, Sarah Lynne, and Kjell Hedgard Hugaas. 2021. “Magic is Real: How Role-playing Can Transform Our Identities, Our Communities, and Our Lives.” In Book of Magic: Vibrant Fragments of Larp Practices, edited by Kari Kvittingen Djukastein, Marcus Irgens, Nadja Lipsyc, and Lars Kristian Løveng Sunde, 52-74. Oslo, Norway: Knutepunkt.
This is your invitation to magic. To visit magic. To return to magic, again and again.
And to one day stay and never leave.
This is your permission to enter. To dip your toe, or completely immerse.
To explore traditions and follow or to forge a path out into the unknown, following no rules or teachings.
Painting by Karin Edman.
Magic is as old as the self aware mind. Magic is an altered state. And you can enter it, you are allowed to enter it, you are invited to enter it even if you need to use the alibi of role-play to do so. Magic is for you and no one needs to know how seriously or non-seriously you take it.
You don’t need to leave it behind.
Not when you stop playing and become yourself again.
Not when you become older and wiser.
Not when you go back to your regular life.
Never.
You don’t ever need to leave.
Painting by Karin Edman.
We talk about entering the magic circle when we go to a larp, and we talk about leaving it. But there are other ways for magic to exist in your life.
Like a parallel universe, just on the other side of the thinnest of veils.
Like a double meaning to the tasks you undertake.
Like a special room inside your mind, that you share with others or that you keep private.
The way I see it, you don’t need anyone’s permission to start living with magic.
Not from a living person, and not from a manual written by a dead historical person.
Magic will be personal anyway.
Never let anyone else gate keep you from connecting with magic. They don’t own that bond, you do.
You do.
Painting by Karin Edman.
Manuals and grimoires and magic books and traditions are not THE truth, just a truth. It was hopefully true for the writers, the makers, the members, doesn’t mean it has to be true to you.
Larp is fiction, but fiction can inspire real life choices.
By larping witches, mages, magic users, sorcerers, völvas, druids we can try with our physical bodies to move through so many strands of magic and see if they resonate with us.
You are invited.
Painting by Karin Edman.
Cover Photo: Close-up of painting by Karin Edman.
This article will be published in the upcoming companion book Book of Magic and is published here with permission. Please cite this text as:
Edman, Karin. “This is an Invitation to Larp.” In Book of Magic, edited by Kari Kvittingen Djukastein, Marcus Irgens, Nadja Lipsyc, and Lars Kristian Løveng Sunde. Oslo, Norway: Knutepunkt, 2021. (In press).
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Nordiclarp.org or any larp community at large.
The Split Attraction Model (SAM) was created within the aromantic (often shortened as aro) and asexual (often shortened as ace) communities to build language to describe members’ experiences. The model can be used to expand language in describing larps, in setting expectations, and in player negotiations. The language and understanding of the split attraction model helps to reduce struggles and misunderstandings.
To understand the Split Attraction Model, it’s important to understand the difference between sexual and romantic attraction, as they are often conflated. Sexual attraction is an attraction that would make someone desire sexual contact with the object of their attraction. Romantic attraction is an attraction that would make someone desire romantic contact with the object of their attraction. There is a societal view that people may experience sexual, but not romantic, attraction to a particular person: but the converse isn’t widely acknowledged, and when it is, it is generally presented in a negative context.
Split Attraction Model
It is helpful to start with some background to best understand the model. Asexuality is a sexual orientation where a person experiences little to no sexual attraction to anyone, and aromanticism is a romantic orientation where a person experiences little to no romantic attraction to anyone. That these are separate orientations, and that they are separate from more widely-known orientations, can be understood via this model. While the SAM is known and inherent in aro and ace communities, it can also be put to use elsewhere, including larp.
The Aromantic spectrum Union for Recognition, Education and Advocacy (AUREA) defines the Split Attraction Model as:
The Split Attraction Model (SAM) is a framework that makes a distinction between experiences of attraction, depending on certain characteristics, and conceptualizes them as different types of attraction. Commonly used are: sexual, romantic, aesthetic, alterous, platonic and sensual attractions.
An Introduction to Aromanticism, The Aromantic spectrum Union for Recognition, Education and Advocacy The Split Attraction Model (Laura Wood)
The above diagram offers a simplistic view of the model. Sexual and romantic orientations are considered separately. The left column indicates whether someone experiences sexual attraction, and if so to whom. If someone experiences little or no sexual attraction they may be considered asexual and if they experience little to no romantic attraction they may be considered aromantic. If they do experience sexual or romantic attraction then they would be considered allosexual or alloromantic respectively.
Someone who experiences no sexual attraction, and romantic attraction to the same gender as themselves could be considered asexual and homoromantic. Someone who experiences sexual attraction to a gender other than their own and no romantic attraction would be heterosexual and aromantic. It can also apply to allo identities — for example someone might be sexually attracted to multiple genders (pansexual) but only romantically attracted to a gender other than their own (hetroromantic).
While the SAM was developed by the aro and ace communities, it is intended to be agnostic to commonly recognized orientations. Another example is someone who is heterosexual and biromantic who might otherwise be seen as “straight”.
The SAM in Larp
In the rest of this article, we will be discussing the SAM, and applying it in ways that refer to players’ interests within larp, which may or may not match their personal orientations. It can be common for a straight player to roleplay romance with players of the same gender, or to not have any desire to roleplay sex in larp. Likewise, an aro player may or may not want to roleplay romance in larp.
Larp often uses the terms ‘romance’ and ‘romantic’ as attributes to describe content, focus, or in creating character relationships: but the meaning varies and is often left unspecified. In some situations this means flirting, courting, and expressing feelings of love between characters. In others it may mean or include intimate or sexual content, in the background, off-stage or on-stage using metatechniques, or otherwise. This conflation is understandable, as many people view romance and sex as going hand in hand, and many societies avoid direct discussion of sex in public.
Larp Development
Understanding the SAM can be an asset to larp designers who need to understand the approach that they want to take to attraction in their larp.
It can help designers decide what they want to include in the larp. The model can examine whether romance is present in the larp and whether sexual attraction is assumed or played out. Even larps that don’t feature characters with romantic and sexual orientations that differ from each other might benefit from understanding how much play they want around each of these areas. For example many UK Freeform larps focus on romance, but don’t often have on-stage play around sex, although sexual attraction in the romantic relationships is usually assumed.
Working out the focus designers want to place on romantic and sexual attraction can also help development of metatechniques. If sexual attraction is an important element of the larp, then metatechniques used for sex generally reflect this, whereas if it’s less important then metatechniques may be less elaborate or omitted all together.
Using this model also opens designers up to the possibility of other relationship models such as queerplatonic relationships (ie close relationships which are not primarily romantic or sexual in nature) and a general approach of relationship anarchy (ie a belief that relationships should not be bound by set rules other than those which are mutually agreed upon).
Describing a Larp
Consent-based larp requires as a foundation that all involved are aware of what they are consenting to, which is something the SAM can help with.
When providing the details of a larp, it is common to include an overview of content potential players can expect, the principles of the larp, or a design document. Using the SAM when writing and sharing these details can remove ambiguity of what content players would be signing up for. This description or document can separately specify if romantic and sexual content is included, along with what is meant in each of those cases.
For example, without using the SAM, a larp may commonly indicate “romantic plots between characters feature strongly in this larp”. To some people, they may assume this means flirting, courting and expressions of love, and want to sign up for that, only to get to the larp and discover sheets which describe sexual content and a defined metatechnique that players can optionally use to represent physical intimacy during game. Using the SAM, this same larp might say “This larp strongly features romantic plots between characters including flirting, and expressions of love as well as sexual content in the background and use of a physical intimacy metatechnique.”
Character Creation
By separating sexual and romantic attraction and detailing how they are expressed within the character, the model can be useful for creating characters based on the type of play that participants want to experience.
It can allow them to understand exactly what they are opting into. They can feel comfortable creating or signing up for a character who has a romantic relationship(s), without feeling that there will be expressions of sexuality that they are uncomfortable with, or conversely can play a sexually driven character without feeling that there is an expectation that a romance should develop.
This can be used to build participant confidence in knowing that they don’t have to opt out of romantic or sexual relationships entirely in order to get the type of play that they enjoy. It also means that there is less uncertainty about whether a relationship will develop in a way that all the participants are comfortable with, leading to increased confidence during the larp. It gives agency to participants by allowing them to choose what is being expressed, rather than making assumptions about what trying to pursue a specific type of relationship entails.
Player Negotiation
In order for the participant in a larp to fully understand what they are consenting to, it is important that as few as possible assumptions are made about the nature of play. This is particularly true around romance, sex and relationships where participants might find it necessary to set boundaries for personal comfort but struggle to do this where the SAM model isn’t normalized, leading to players either continuing with scenes that make them uncomfortable or opting out of romantic or sexual play completely. Not only does that unnecessarily limit play, it can cause games which feature these things heavily to be unplayable by some people as they would be shut out.
The majority of people have expectations of what a romantic (or sexual) relationship should entail which are carried into larp. When two or more characters are defined as being in a relationship, it is generally understood that this will include romantic and sexual aspects. Discussion of participant boundaries would normally take place, but generally would start with the expectation that the player is comfortable in participating in at least some metatechniques involving symbolising sex within the relationship (assuming such metatechniques exist within the larp.) There would also be the assumption that the participant would be comfortable with playing on some romantic attraction, possibly as an endgame in a relationship which is initially based on sexual attraction.
By using the SAM the participant can discuss the sexual and romantic attitudes of their character, as well as the boundaries they are setting as a player. It also means that the other player in the relationship can understand the intended trajectory and steer play accordingly. Use of the SAM can also allow more people to play larps that feature romance or sex, by providing more detailed aspects to be negotiated on.
Posed photo from Live or Die: Break the Wheel, a Game of Thrones larp (photo: Maya Kuper)
Examples of the Split Attraction Model in Larps
Just a Little Lovin’ (Tor Kjetil Edland and Hanne Grasmo) could potentially allow players to use the SAM during play. One of the key themes of the larp is ‘desire’: and there are metatechniques to offer sex and to play out a sexual encounter with the amount of desire and passion discussed beforehand by the participants. Afterwards each character gives a monologue about what occurred, which could allow them to express a (lack of) romantic attraction.
Cult used a technique where when characters negotiated physical intimacy off-game, they also discussed how the characters felt about it and how it would affect their relationship. Due to the setting (a manipulative and exploitative religious cult) it was assumed that not all sexual attraction would necessarily have a romantic element.
Born this Way (Rei England) has opportunities for participants to calibrate their relationships with each other and specifically to ask questions about any sexual or romantic attraction, or deepening of a queerplatonic relationship, as separate emotions, rather than assuming that one entails the other.
More Than Friendship (Quinn D and Eva Schiffer) specifies both romantic and sexual relationships and orientations in the main description, to be explicit and remove ambiguity. There, while the focus is specifically on platonic relationships, romantic and sexual orientations still need to be specified separately.
Currently in larps there seems to be more opportunity to convey that sexual attraction might not be romantic, than to convey that romantic attraction might not be sexual, as the metatechniques used generally focus on sexual activity.
Underexplored Topics
Most of the above is focused on romantic and sexual attraction because they are the most recognized and explored in larp. But the SAM also invites us to look at other types of attraction. While some larps do include some of these, there is a lot more that can be explored. In the same way larps often use romantic and sexual attraction to draw characters towards each other, these other types of attraction can as well.
A larp setting where appearance is important could lean heavily on aesthetic attraction. One focused on exploration of touch could explore sensual attraction. And almost all larps can focus on platonic attraction between characters. These are not often explored in larp simply as a reflection of our amatonormative society which supports the widespread assumption that everyone is better off in an exclusive, romantic, long-term coupled relationship, and that everyone is seeking such a relationship; and which prioritizes romantic connections above all others. By untangling these assumptions larp has more and various directions to explore.
Wrap Up
Using the SAM can help larp designers and players think about sexual and romantic attraction separately throughout the larp process. This allows more deliberate design and roleplay by examining and breaking into pieces something that society just assumes all goes together. And it better supports consent in larp by helping everyone understand what is included, instead of players interpreting things differently. The SAM can function as a language and tool in larp to recognize and apply the distinctions it brings. And it can help expand the topics explored in larp.
When players of older characters at a Jane Austen inspired larp realise they are little more than NPCs for the younger characters, they go off piste and engineer their own romance plot. Through extremes of in-character behaviour, they force the younger characters to take on the roles of antagonists for them, thus inverting the power dynamics of the piece. This is done in a way that does not adversely affect the play of others.
Larp hacking is when players subvert or change the design of a larp while the larp is running. At its most gentle, hacking a larp is when players find ways to push the limits of the design, or use the design of the larp in ways that the original designers did not expect. At the far end of the scale it is a revolt by players to rescue a larp from abject failure. When done for constructive reasons, subverting the design of the larp can be a useful way to improve or save an experience. Hacking a larp involves changing the overall play experience rather than simply tweaking a character. It is the output of calibration rather than gentle steering.((Steering is a conscious decision to change the character within the auspices of the design of the larp, whereas larp hacking plays with the structure. See Stenros, Jaakko. Playfulness, play, and games: A constructionist ludology approach. (2015).)) Larp hacking is called hacking because it involves changing a part of the design or structure of a larp without the designers’ involvement or consent, pushing the limits of the design, or using the design of the larp in ways that the original designers did not expect.
How to hack a larp
There is no single way to hack a larp, but it is useful to think about larp hacking as a three step process with little opportunity for testing and iterating.
Step 1 – Analysis
The approaches you take to hack will differ depending on why you’re doing it. It is more or less impossible to hack a larp successfully if you don’t understand what is not working, and why. This calls for some reflection.
Here are some of the reasons you might need to hack:
The larp is not working for me
The larp is not working for a small group of (identified) players
The larp is not working for anyone
The larp is working, but I want to push the limits
Imagine that a player has identified that the bulk of the larp seems to be taking place in the secure laboratory building, but as a mere janitor they are not allowed inside. The larp design imagined that there would be enough people outside of the laboratory for play to exist there as well, but for whatever reason, one player with a broom is now left sweeping up in the dark. Our imagined player is not a Turkuist,((Someone who follows the tenets of the Turku Manifesto.)) so they are not entirely happy with the situation.
Just saying “the larp is not working for me” or “I am not enjoying myself” is not enough. “I am not enjoying this larp because I am unable to complete this particular function that the larp is supposed to offer, but does not” is better. Most constructive would be an analysis with an implicit solution: “If my character had access to the laboratory and the players there, this larp would be fun.”
As a part of the analysis it is really useful to check in with other players. It is significantly easier to change a larp with a group. Often we’ll assume that we are the only player who is struggling, only to discover after the larp is over that we were one of many silently wishing there was someone to talk to.
Step 2 – Design
Larp hacking is arguably a form of larp design, except it is done by players, typically during the run-time of the larp. It uses many of the same skills and approaches as larp design. Once you understand what problem you are trying to fix, it is possible to come up with solutions. It might be possible to change part of the offgame structures of the larp. Our janitor player may, for example, create a security clearance badge to allow them passage into the lab. It may also be possible to hack from within the diegesis, e.g. by sneaking into the lab without the clearance and (when asked) state that janitors have always had access.
Suggested approaches:
Creatively use or subvert the limits of the playing space. For example, climb through the air vents instead of facing the guards.
Introduce another element consistent with the setting, which hasn’t been used in the design. For example introducing feminism to a historical larp, which does not already have it.
Creatively use / subvert the rules set by the designers. For example by breaking ingame rules in ways you do not think were intended to happen.
Create new sub-groups or interactions between sets of players on the fly, or invent reasons for groups that are meant to compete to collaborate, if competition is blocking play. For example by creating an excuse for members of two warring factions to be trapped alone together without their weapons and work out how to escape.
Take the story of the larp in a direction that the designers had not considered. For example by crafting a new plotline for yourself and other players interested in getting involved.
Insert background material that was not in the larp from the start. For example by introducing new objects and giving them traditional or magical importance, or creating a new religion.
Step 3 – Analysis (again)
Your proposed hack is constrained by time, by impact, and by agency. It is like tuning the engine of a bus driving down the main road carrying 150 passengers. Stop the bus. Sit down. Think. Consider your solution carefully.
Time
Hacking a larp is done against the clock. The earlier in the game you are, the more likely you are to succeed. As a running experience the larp is fluid and your opportunity to implement a change tends to come with a narrow time window. Much like the fictional cyberspace cowboy trying to crack through black ICE,((Intrusion Countermeasures Electronics (ICE) is a term used in cyberpunk literature to refer to security programs which protect computerised data from being accessed by hackers. Black ICE refers to ICE that are capable of killing the intruder.)) if you leave it too long, the chance will be lost.
Agency and Opportunity
Your agency in-game is limited to what you can either do as your character, or what you can negotiate with players you can get hold of and get enthusiastic about your idea. You might have a great plan but if you lack the in-game agency to execute it, you need the off-game support from other players to make it happen.
Impact
Larp hacking is a creative use of space, but it is a shared space. Before you subvert it, consider your co-players. If the impact of your hack is significant and widespread,((See Sarah Lynne Bowman, The Larp Domino Effect)) it runs the risk of adversely affecting the experience of others. It could ruin their immersion, spoil their fun, or break their larp. Consider: Will your hack shut down play for others? Will it derail the plot? Will it break parts of the design that are working? We owe it to our fellow players to ask these questions before implementing a hack.
Step 4 – Implementation
You have a hack, you have thought it through, and now it is time to put it into action. Usually the method of implementation is baked into the design of the hack. In most cases it is a case of JFDI (“Just Do it.”), although sometimes the pace and timing is important. An elegant hack can be a beautiful piece of design, made all the more clever because it is done from within the larp itself.
Conclusion
Sometimes a larp does not work, either for us as individual players or for a number of participants. When a larp goes off-rail, it is not necessarily anybody’s fault, not the designers and not any particular players – it just happens because larps are prone to emergent chaos. For various reasons we may not want to rely on organisers to resolve these issues. Perhaps they are unable or unwilling to compromise their design. Perhaps we don’t want to discuss it with them, either through a lack of trust, or more likely because we see them as fellow larpers under an inordinate amount of pressure and choose not to burden them with our faux-world problems.
There are plenty of strategies available for larpers when things are not working but most of these approaches are techniques that work within the structures of the larp. Sometimes that is not enough. Sometimes in order to play the game, you need to change the rules.
Figure 1: This figure charts the role of alibi within the role-playing process. Players are able to depart from their daily selves, adopting characters within the magic circle. While the social contract of the game allows for playfulness, alibi may interfere with desired transfer of traits, insights, and relationship dynamics from character to player. Vectors designed by macrovector_official and bybrgfx / Freepik.
Figure 2: Envisioning role-playing as a transformational container. Explicit goals, agreements, safety structures, community support, and integration practices facilitate changes in participants’ identities over time. Vectors designed by macrovector_official, and bybrgfx, and kjpargeter / Freepik.
