Tag: Featured

Now That We’ve Walked the Walk – Some New Additions to the Larp Vocabulary

Published on

2015-03-18

Now That We’ve Walked the Walk – Some New Additions to the Larp Vocabulary

Bjørn Flindt Temte

Larp is traditionally participatory in nature. Fortunately, there’s been a great introspective and analytical tradition accompanying the continuing push against the ever moving boundaries of what’s possible and what’s been attempted. Yet it seems that our vocabulary has not grown at the same rate as the art form itself.

This article will attempt to cover some of the recent strides towards enriching that vocabulary. It presents the findings of several projects each exploring the nature of larp by investigating how the play and narrative experience change when mediated through computer/larp hybrids. These projects have investigated the interactive digital narrative academic literature, and have come away with a range of terms and concepts directly applicable to larp.

It is my hope that this article will both provide the community with an enriched vocabulary for conversing about our art form, and an expanded analytical toolbox for designing and researching larps.

Before jumping into the murky waters of terminology, let’s first ensure that we’re on the same riverbank. There’s been many endeavours to define role-playing, and I’d like to add my voice to the cacophony. But it’s my hope that by refining and combining the current definition attempts, we can turn the cacophony into a choir instead.

Can’t You See I’m Role-playing?

Based on my experience with the different forms of role-playing, the definitions of Hitchens & Drachen((Hitchens,M.,& Drachen,A.(2008).The many faces of role-playing games.International journal of role-playing,1(1),3-21.)), Arjoranta((Arjoranta, J. (2011). Defining Role-Playing Games as Language-Games. International journal of role-playing, 1(2), 3-17.)) and Montola((Montola, M., 2008.The invisible rules of role- playing.The social framework of role-playing process. International journal of role-playing, 1(1), pp.22–36)), as well as the results from my thesis projects((Temte, B. F. (2014). I, Herosmaton? Unpublished Master Thesis, Department of Architecture, Design and Media Technology, Section of Medialogy, Aalborg University Copenhagen. Supervisors: Bruni, L.E. & Eladhari, M.)) ((Temte, B. F., & Schoenau-Fog, H. (2012). Coffee tables and cryo chambers: a comparison of user experience and diegetic time between traditional and virtual environment-based roleplaying game scenarios. In Interactive Storytelling (pp. 102-113). Springer Berlin Heidelberg.)) ((Temte, B. F. (2011). Project Restless Sleep – An Experimental Framework for Investigating the Change in User Experience of Roleplaying Games in Virtual Environments. Unpublished Bachelor Thesis, Department of Architecture, Design and Media Technology, Section of Medialogy, Aalborg University Copenhagen. Supervisor:
Schoenau-Fog, H.)), I would argue that there are a number of different processes to what we are currently calling role-playing:

Textoring (Lit: weaver): Exploring the potential story evolution possibilities, I.e. the story-space((The complete set of potential story evolutions for the story in its current state)), and consequently manufacturing a personal, curated story-subspace instance, focused on the nodes deemed favourable to an engaging story evolution.

Auctoring (Lit: authoring, acting, originator): (Re)defining the character itself, including personality traits and background. This is both done as part of the initial character creation process, performed by either the player or an author, and at runtime by the player and possibly also the GM.

Ductoring (Lit: guiding, leading, commanding): Determining the appropriate actions/utterances for the character in the given situation. Performed at runtime, with some ductoring taking place during character creation regarding background events.

Rectoring (Lit: ruling, directing, mastering): Directing the story through the actions/utterances of the character. Only at runtime, arguably some planning during initial character creation.

Cantoring (Lit: acting, playing, poet): Portraying/acting out the character physically, including body movements, tone of voice, facial gestures etc. Only at runtime. While one could argue that cantoring may be contemplated prior to runtime, in order to best get a sense of the character’s physical mannerisms, I would label such contemplations as auctoring. However, it is quite common for role- players to explore the mental exercise of imagining their character in various situations, and so a degree of overlap is theoretically possible.

Quod-core

With these processes as a foundation, it’s now possible to formulate a new definition of Role-Playing:

A type of Pretence-Play where Participants interact, often through rules, with a diegetic world through the continuous ductoring and possibly cantoring, rectoring and auctoring, of distinct characters, thus collaboratively co-textoring an emergent, ephemeral narrative.

The core of role-playing is thus, in the presented definition, not the playing of a role per se. Rather, it’s the ductoring of the character(s) you control, the continuous process of evaluating the appropriate and relevant actions for the character and situation, that is the heart of our artform. Whether you then describe or act out the chosen action(s) is of lesser importance, and covered by the definition as well. One would argue that ductoring could also happen e.g. when you read a book or watch a movie. I completely agree, and posit that these examples are also to a large extent role-playing, the only major difference being the degree of interactivity offered by the medium.

Basing media interaction on reader- response theory, the definition also takes this into account through mentioning ‘participants interacting with’.

However, ductoring doesn’t say anything about whether you actually act upon these evaluations. You may be ductoring with/by yourself in a cupboard for 12 hours, without ever moving or saying anything. When larping, a more important concept is thus to which degree you’re acting on behalf of your character or yourself. I define this as the degree of herosproxy.

When exhibiting a low degree of herosproxy, you’re essentially playing and acting as yourself in the given situations, with little regard for your player character’s motivations and personality. Reversely, a high degree of herosproxy signifies both a large amount of ductoring, and that said ductoring is being reflected and acted upon. Therefore, herosproxy is the most relevant real-world measure of role-playing.

What IDS Brought along…

I’d now like to present some of the terminology that the interactive digital storytelling academic community has developed for better understanding and researching their, and to a large extent our, field.

Aarseth((Aarseth, E. (2012, May). A narrative theory of games. In Proceedings of the international conference on the foundations of digital Games (pp. 129-133). ACM.)) divides narrative elements into Kernels and Satellites, kernels being story elements/events which define the story, and satellites being elements/events without which the story would still be recognisable. Clearly, this distinction does not take into account the ephemerality of role-playing stories, but it still gives us terms to distinguish between primary and secondary events/elements. Likewise, one could argue that a larpwright should focus on kernels, letting the satellites happen on their own.

1. The Network – A partially connected, cyclic graph with uni- and bi-directional paths	2. The Complete Graph – Fully connected bi-directional paths
3. The Tree – Unidirectional (from top to bottom), every traversal is a well-formed plot.	4. The Vector with Side Branches – One main direction, with bi-directional subplots.
5. The Maze – Structure typical for adventure games.	6. Directed Network (“flow chart”)
7. The Hidden Story – Plotting navigation on to time.	8. The Braided Plot – Events and destiny lines.
9. Action Space or Epic Wandering – System defined plot with user choices for action. Figure 1: Ryan’s 9 interactive narrative structures((Ryan, M. L. (2001). Narrative as virtual reality. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.)). Illustrations from ((Temte,B.F.,Aabom,H.T.,Bevensee,S.H.,Boisen,K.A.D.,& Olsen,M.P.(2013).Aporia:Codename Still LakeValley – Exploring the Merge of Game-play and Narrative through Multiplayer Cooperation and Storytelling.Unpublished project report,Department of Architecture, Design and Media Technology, Section of Medialogy, Aalborg University Copenhagen. Supervisor: Bruni, L.E.)).

Ryan((Ryan, M. L. (2001). Narrative as virtual reality. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.)) presents nine different interactive narrative structures, along with their individual characteristics, with a tenth added by myself((Temte, B. F. (2014). I, Herosmaton? Unpublished Master Thesis, Department of Architecture, Design and Media Technology, Section of Medialogy, Aalborg University Copenhagen. Supervisors: Bruni, L.E. & Eladhari, M.)), this being ‘Instigating Event with Conflict-laden Characters’. The nine original can be seen on figure 1.

I have yet to come up with a suitable illustration for Instigating Event with Conflict-laden Characters. The ten structures can work as tools for designing and framing conversations about larp structures as well.

Ryan((Ryan, M. L. (2008). Interactive narrative, plot types, and interpersonal relations. In Interactive Storytelling (pp. 6-13). Springer Berlin Heidelberg.)) also proposes two different types of immersion in interactive narratives, these being ludic and narrative immersion. She also distinguishes between spatial, temporal and emotional narrative immersion.

Additionally, Ryan suggests three distinct types of plot in interactive stories, with each plot type primarily suitable for a specific narrative immersion:

Epic: Focuses on the struggle of the individual to survive in a hostile world – Spatial Immersion

Dramatic: The evolution of a network of human relations – Emotional Immersion

Epistemic: The desire to solve a mystery – Temporal Immersion (components of which are curiosity, surprise and suspense).

We’re also given a tool for categorising player actions/utterances, where Theune, Linnsen and Alofs((Theune, M., Linssen, J., & Alofs, T. (2013). Acting, Playing, or Talking about the Story: An Annotation Scheme for Communication during Interactive Digital Storytelling. In Interactive Storytelling (pp. 132-143). Springer International Publishing.)) construct a scheme:

This works very well for categorising e.g. player utterances when analysing larp play (see((Temte, B. F. (2014). I, Herosmaton? Unpublished Master Thesis, Department of Architecture, Design and Media Technology, Section of Medialogy, Aalborg University Copenhagen. Supervisors: Bruni, L.E. & Eladhari, M.))).

Reference
Perspective		Story	Game	Reality
	Character	CS: In-character utterances and imitations	CG: In-character references to game elements	CR:In-character references to events or objects outside play
	Player	PLS: Action suggestions and proposals referring to the story	PLG: Communication about game aspects	PLR: Including real-life events or objects in the game frame
	Person	PES: Observations about events that happened in the story	PEG: Observations about the interface, opinions about the game	PER: Communications about events or objects outside play

Figure 2: Theune, Linnsen and Alofs PxR annotation scheme((Theune, M., Linssen, J., & Alofs, T. (2013). Acting, Playing, or Talking about the Story: An Annotation Scheme for Communication during Interactive Digital Storytelling. In Interactive Storytelling (pp. 132-143). Springer International Publishing.)). Illustration from((Temte, B. F. (2014). I, Herosmaton? Unpublished Master Thesis, Department of Architecture, Design and Media Technology, Section of Medialogy, Aalborg University Copenhagen. Supervisors: Bruni, L.E. & Eladhari, M.))

Mine, My Own, My Propositions

In ((Temte, B. F., & Schoenau-Fog, H. (2012). Coffee tables and cryo chambers: a comparison of user experience and diegetic time between traditional and virtual environment-based roleplaying game scenarios. In Interactive Storytelling (pp. 102-113). Springer Berlin Heidelberg.)), I define Diegetic Adherence to be the degree to which diegetic time equals real time, i.e. whether the larp is running on a 1:1 time, or e.g. features flashbacks/slow motion. This term can both be used for describing/discussing/designing larps, and for analytic purposes.

Hulk, Meet Spock

I also here propose two non-opposed play styles/attributes; Cerebral and Embodied. The distinction here is whether the player seeks out the intellectual challenge(s) or instead strives to be physically/emotionally affected by the larp/situation. Cerebral gamists thus enjoy the intellectual challenge of a mystery or tactical battle, whereas embodied gamists thrive on e.g. the adrenaline response of the battle itself. Embodied immersionists aim for becoming their character, whereas cerebral immersionists are more akin to simulationists, aiming instead for experiencing being in the diegetic world.

Dramaticists with a cerebral focus, enjoy shaping the story and influencing/ experiencing its fl ow and aesthetics, whereas embodied dramaticists instead seek the emotional response from entering the story. I do not see these terms as necessarily being directly in opposition however. Larps/situations where you’re both intellectually and emotionally engrossed are easily imagined.

Exploding the Player Character

In ((Temte, B. F. (2014). I, Herosmaton? Unpublished Master Thesis, Department of Architecture, Design and Media Technology, Section of Medialogy, Aalborg University Copenhagen. Supervisors: Bruni, L.E. & Eladhari, M.)), I define the ALHFa-PAV categorisation (pronounced Alpha-Paw) as a way of dividing and discussing the components of a player character:

Avatar: Physical manifestation of person in another reality. Navigational and ludic focus in games. In larps, the avatar is ourselves.

Locus: The visual appearance of a particular avatar. How we look, with costume, makeup, expression and props.
Herosmaton: The specific contents of the person schema of a player character, including personality traits, goals, background etc.

Facies: The countenance/appearance of a particular herosmaton. How the herosmaton looks inside the imagined diegesis.
Player Character: The combined avatar, locus, herosmaton and facies, along with its more ludic characteristics, e.g. strength score, hit points etc., and the actions available to it, defined below as Ago and Vis.

Ago: The verbs available to the particular PC, such as run, jump, shoot etc.

Vis: The ludic stats associated with the PC, such as hit points, strength score etc.
It’s my hope that our community may adopt some or all of the terms, hereby easing the joint communication and understanding of the player character elements.

Picking Nits

There is little doubt that bleed as a larp term and concept is both relevant and real (for a given definition of real).

But given the pre-existing uses and meanings associated with bleed as a term outside the role-playing community, and the fact that I’m a nerd when it comes to terms/classifications, I would propose to rename the concept Flusentio (in/ex) [Lit: Flow/bleed of feelings]. Influsentio would thus be emotions, characteristics and/ or opinions flowing/bleeding from player to character, with Exflusentio denoting flowing/ bleeding from character to player.

Concerning Genres

Usually, when discussing larps, we refer to the genre as based on those of Hollywood movies. The Danish larp theorist Jacob Nielsen proposes that we instead/additionally adopt the vocabulary of the art world as a way of discussing our works and the intentions of the authors.

For instance, playing a social realism drama expressionistically will yield a very different play through than the exact same larp played abstractly, impressionistically or post-modern. Therefore, I strongly encourage you read Jacob Nielsen’s thought-provoking article on styles in larp in this book.

I hope that the usefulness and relevance of these terms are clear, and encourage further debates about and expansions of our shared vocabulary. I also hope that the term-nado I’ve just unleashed has either blown you away, or at least ruffled your feathers enough that a productive debate will ensue, at whichever decibel level you prefer.

This article was initially published in The Knudepunkt 2015 Companion Book which was edited by Charles Bo Nielsen & Claus Raasted, published by Rollespilsakademiet and released as part of documentation for the Knudepunkt 2015 conference.

Cover photo: “Participants discussing at Knutepunkt 2015” by Johannes Axner is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.

Published on

2015-03-13

in

Documentation

Mare Incognitum – Trapped in the Ice

By
Olle Nyman

The Fate of the M/S Lyckan

Our story took place aboard the M/S Lyckan, a former German navy freighter with a horrific history of atrocities. A research expedition to Kirkenes in Norway had unearthed a strange statuette, which was brought on board during M/S Lyckan’s last journey out of Kirkenes for the winter. Aboard were the expedition, the crew and captain, a group of workers, a doctor and nurse, a group of dilettantes and adventurers and a few others.

Mare Incognitum was a larp set in Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos, aboard the decommissioned destroyer HMS Småland. We wanted to create a claustrophobic horror larp that relied more on atmosphere and “slow pressure” than shock and jump scares; more on subtle, personal horror than on monsters and gore. We chose, unconventionally, to do a 1950’s Lovecraft larp rather than the classic 1920’s setting, both because it fit the actual ship better, but also to be able to use the Second World War as a tapestry for much of the background, something we think worked out very well.

We realized early on that we were going to have to do multiple runs of the larp in order to be able to finance it properly, and we decided on doing three runs of the larp for 26 players each game. Wise from the experiences of our last Mythos larp Terra Incognita we tried our best to have a fifty-fifty ratio of women to men, and to let chance dictate who got the spots for the larp (with a few exceptions).

This strategy proved to be successful, both in terms of equal representation and in terms of players we didn’t personally know – you can get comfortable as an organizer and mostly cast people already known to you. Most of the final participants were from Sweden, but we also had participants from Denmark, Norway, Finland, Estonia, Great Britain, the US and Spain.

We also tried to have at least 20 percent beginners at the larp. However, quite a few of the beginners dropped out before the larp, so the 20 percent was not fully realized.

Creating a Horror Story

The location, the ship, made many decisions about the story for us, which is how we like to work – do something within a set of limitations. It was going to be claustrophobic and dark, and the players were going to be cut off from the outside world; all great components for creating horror. We first decided on the basic outline of the story: first some normality onboard the ship, followed by the ship getting stuck in the ice, then taking away comforts like lights and food, a slow escalation of weirdness, clues, handouts and events leading up to a crescendo in which the players are confronted with their doom.

It was quite a challenge writing twenty-seven interesting, multifaceted characters and fitting them all together in the story, making sure to give all the players both agency and internal logic. It was important to us that we created characters that would be fun to play even if we completely removed the horror and supernatural elements. We had utilized skjebner (fate-play) before, and for Mare Incognitum we gave all the characters several fates and triggers (“if x happens, do this/react in this way”) in order to create hooks for the players nudging towards insanity or to create potential for scenes or conflict. Once we had assigned players to the characters we tweaked those characters who were not Swedes (different background texts).

Characters were divided into groups; an expedition of scientists, a group of workers, a group of dilettantes and adventurers and their servants, etc. A big help here was a drawing board, where you could connect the different characters and how they related to each other in order to visualize possible plots, twists and subgroups.

As we said earlier, we used the Second World War as a background for many of the characters, and the war itself was used as an underlying subplot; the ship had previously been the stage of some atrocities during the war, and many documents, letters and signs produced for the larp and spread around the ship contained info on this backstory which we think added another layer of horror underneath the Mythos horror.
This also offered us the opportunity to treat the ship itself as a character in the drama and the ship’s history was lent physical form as shadows from the past via odd messages on the radio but also as actual Shadows (NPCs giving suggestions or insights to the players, but being invisible to the characters).

Producing Horror

Early on, we decided to aim for a creeping, slow horror rather than “in-your-face” jump-scares. As is the key to most Mythos horror, the horror is ancient, does not care at all about humanity, and is more or less impossible to understand – and there can be no defeating the horror, only a short respite.

The key things that made this larp were, we think, the ship itself (i.e “the stage”), the handouts (handwritten diaries, letters, photos, documents, etc) that gave background and increased the sense of horror onboard, the characters (pre-written and designed for drama, conflict and a slow descent into madness) and a combination of creative NPCs and on-the-spot game-mastering.

The sound system used onboard greatly helped in creating mood and atmosphere. Having great players also helped a lot.
Creating horror, we believe, is a very delicate and sensitive thing.

Pace it too slow or too fast and you burn out the players or destroy the narrative, show too much of the horror and you risk it losing it’s power. Give the players too much to do – like reading handouts and completing tasks – and they can become too focused on doing and not feeling.

But on the other hand, if you give the players too little to do the sense of “developing” story or of getting anywhere might be lost and the players may become tired or bored.

Our larp had its fair share of pacing issues (which we tried correcting during subsequent runs), and as an organizer you have a hard time gauging what the players are feeling or currently doing, and you might panic, thinking the players are bored, and start doing things that screws up what might be an excellent atmosphere for the players.

We had a radio room, where the players diegetically could speak to other ships in the area as well as the coast guard, and we think it worked out better than we had imagined.

At first it functioned as a source of information and safety for the players (there was always an “external party” they could talk to), but as the game progressed the voices on the radio increased the feeling of isolation and the problematic situation the passengers were now in – coastal stations reporting that the storm was gaining in intensity, ships reporting that they could not reach them to help, etc.

Players in the radio room could also experience semi-meta gameplay; strange voices from the past, weird monster sounds, voices speaking to them from beyond the grave etc, which worked really well – especially so since the room was rigged with a night vision camera so we could identify players and simultaneously read up on their back-stories as we spoke to them.

Lessons Learned

Gender Roles and Equality

We put some effort into making sure all the characters for the larp were as gender neutral as possible. Any character should be playable by anyone without any (or very little) modification. We were also very strict in keeping the ratio 50/50 between (self-identified) males and females. We realize that we need to actively work more to create a game with actual equality in regards to gender, and this is something we’ll have to keep discussing and working on.

Tech

Tech never works flawlessly. It will break, or you’ll have great problems getting it to work right. Always plan for that if you intend to have a tech-enhanced larp. Keep an “analog” option for your players. Also make sure tech is dead simple to understand, then dumb it down even further. Test the tech in extreme conditions. Try everything beforehand, multiple times, to find the glitches. Our sound system gave us extreme headaches until we managed to get it working right.

Railroading

We railroaded the end too much, which felt weird and out of place. This is bad design. Try to avoid that unless you have a kick-ass ending that you feel works no matter what state the players are in.

New Blood

Bring in new players, and people you’ve never worked with before. Don’t be afraid. You might just be amazed (like when the new blood don the wellingtons, and take on the monumental task of cleaning out the poop floating all over the kitchen). Make sure you have a great team of NPCs and functionaries to back you up when you get tired or busy.

Don’t Be Afraid to Break the Diegesis

We are somewhat stuck in the 360 design model, and we were sometimes hesitant to break the diegesis in order to spook players or use meta techniques to further the game, but once we did it was universally well received and really worked out well. We need to stop being afraid of breaking the 360 illusion.

Information

Keeping players up to date is very hard, even if you just choose one single channel for that information (email for instance). Do NOT rely on Facebook at all, but also keep in mind that players will miss emails and will not read all your text. Be very, very clear in writing, and repeat everything that is important several times.

The Verdict

In the end we’re happy to have created the larp together with the kick ass participants and our excellent crew, to have run three fairly different runs. The participants humble us with relevant feedback, making us wanting to continue, and also letting others learn from our mistakes (and successes). It was a great larp for most, but it could have been better, and we’ll work on that until next time!

Mare Incognitum

Credits: Olle Nyman, Sara Pertmann, Sebastian Utbult, Andreas Sjöberg and Simon Svensson. Crewed by 15 additional NPCs and deckhands.
Date: November 28-30, 2014
Location: HMS Småland, Gothenburg, Sweden
Length: 10 hours
Players: 78 (26 per run)
Budget: ~€6,500
Participation Fee: €65 – €110 (depending on income)
Game Mechanics Diegetic Game Mastering, Honour System, Slow take- off, Slow Landing, Soundtrack, Pre- written characters,Shadows, Narrative Voice-Over, Playing to lose, Brems, Kutt, Pre-larp Workshop
Website: http://iäiä.se/

This article was initially published in The Nordic Larp Yearbook 2014 which was edited by Charles Bo Nielsen & Claus Raasted, published by Rollespilsakademiet and released as part of documentation for the Knudepunkt 2015 conference.

Cover photo: The organizers have an in-game radio conversation with the stranded travellers. (Play, Jonas Aronsson). Other photos by Jonas Aronsson.
Published on

2015-03-11

in

Documentation

Looking at You – Larp, Documentation and Being Watched

By
Juhana Pettersson

So far, Nordic larp has produced two games that have become international news stories that all kinds of sites cannibalize and copy from each other: the Danish 2013 rerun of Panopticorp, and the Polish-Danish Harry Potter game College of Wizardry. In both cases, the attention was fueled by solid documentation and good video from the game.

In both cases, your private larp experience of co-creating and having fun with your friends suddenly had an audience literally in the millions. Even if only as a glimpse in a video on the website of the Daily Mail. If you don’t document games, they become forgotten ephemera that will live on only in the memories of the participants. If you do document and publish, private experiences can become public in increasingly impressive ways.

The documentary filmmakers Cosmic Joke were present at College of Wizardry. Participants reported after the game that the game was changed and people played differently because of the cameras. Video footage and good photos are essential for fueling mass media coverage, but they also influence the game as it is being played.

Secret Larp

Identlos was a Finnish larp held in Helsinki on the 26th of October, 2014. It was organized by Jamie MacDonald and Petri Leinonen. The larp was about identity in the modern surveillance society. One of my most interesting experiences as a player was leaving my cell phone home.

The last time I was without my cell phone was in the spring of 2013. It fell on the sidewalk and the screen cracked. The superfast, express repair took an hour. An hour I had to spend phone-less. The time before that was in 2009.

I was in North Korea for a week, and left my phone and other electronics in a strongbox at a hotel in Beijing.
I never forget my phone. I get jittery if I have to be without something to do for longer than three minutes. When I have my phone with me, I’m completely trackable to any surveillance entities or curious phone company employees who might be interested. The phone can be used to listen to me remotely. Its list of contacts is a straightforward run through of everyone I associate with.

Because of all this, going to Identlos was a no-brainer for me. It was a game about some of the most pressing issues of our time. It was also an interesting contribution to the discussion going on in the Nordic larp scene concerning documentation. Identlos wasn’t a secret game in the sense that it was hard to find out about it. It was advertised for potential players. Rather, all documentation during the event was forbidden. No photos, no video. Because of this, it’s secret in the sense that it’s hard for a person who wasn’t there to find out how it was. This is part of the design of the game.

Meta

In Identlos, most of the characters had escaped the surveillance networks of modern society, or wanted to do so. To do this, they had to leave behind most of the electronic niceties of the world we live in: social media, cell phones, massive media access.

During the larp, the characters in the organization called Identlos did not have their phones with them, or credit cards or similar items connected to a network. Because of this, the players had to do without as well. We had to pay cash if we wanted to go to the bar.

Despite the ban on documentation, apparently even radical anti-surveillance games are subject to the demands of the outside world. The game was held as part of the arts festival Mad House Helsinki. A photographer unconnected to the larp set up shop directly outside the main game area, separated from the action only by a curtain. We ran past him all the time, and many chose to participate in his portrait project, including myself. Considering the theme and the rules of Identlos, his presence seemed supremely ironic.

Technically, his presence wasn’t against the rules, since he wasn’t in the game area. To the best of my knowledge, the ban on photo documentation of in-game action held.

As a player, I couldn’t but help noticing that this also changes the power dynamics of how we talk about the game afterwards. Centrally-controlled photo policy and documentation is a useful tool for organizers who wish to influence the life their game has after it’s over. In the case of Identlos, no such tool exists. The only records are the words of the players and the impressions of the organizers.

On Display

Baltic Warriors: Helsinki was probably the opposite of Identlos when it comes to documentation and how exposed the players were to outside view. It was the first in a projected series of larps under the wider Baltic Warriors transmedia project. The principal design of the game was by Mike Pohjola. I did additional design and practical production.

The game was played in the center of Helsinki in an outdoor cafe area on the 30th of August, 2014 in the middle of a Saturday afternoon.

The characters were politicians, lobbyists and activists talking about ecological issues related to the Baltic Sea, unaware of a zombie threat that would soon emerge.

The public could just walk into the game area. The game was documented in the photos of random passerby, by journalists we had invited, and by our own documentation team. In short, it was total documentation anarchy. A picture from our game could be anywhere, and we had little control over it.

In Baltic Warriors, this maximalist attitude towards documentation was mandated by the political nature of the project and the demands of making a game in this particular location with these particular partners. In future games, we will probably experiment with different kinds of photo and privacy policies, depending on the individual demands of each game.

Our lax attitude towards being in public was criticized by some players after the game, especially regarding the political speeches that characters made on stage. Since the setting was contemporary and the issues real, larp could easily be mistaken for reality. At least until the zombies attacked. Baltic Warriors: Helsinki demonstrated that privacy and control over documentation are deal-breakers for many players. I have heard from many people who were fascinated by the project, but decided not to participate in what was essentially a public performance.

You Have to Write

Nowadays it’s not enough to play in a larp. You also have to write a 30.000 character essay about it, with original thoughts and profound reflection.

Halat hisar was a political game. As organizers, we wanted to use it to get media attention for issues in Palestine, in addition to creating a meaningful game experience. The political side of the project made documentation a no-brainer. While the game itself would be played in a secluded location away from the public, it would be photographed. There would be video. After the game, we published a documentation book and a short documentary film.

Our photographers Tuomas Puikkonen and Katri Lassila did excellent work documenting the game, but individual player experiences are essential for any true effort to understand what happened. That requires some effort on part of the players.

I spent a lot of time after Halat hisar hounding our players into writing about the game and appearing on camera talking about it. Because of its political content, Halat hisar might be an extreme case, but ordinary ambitious Nordic games have these demands too. As a participant, you have the artwork lodged inside your brain after the game is over. For history to know what happened, that experience has to be drilled out.

Of course, when the documentation effort is led by an organizer, like with Halat hisar, its content is also controlled by the organizers. As the person mainly responsible for the documentation, I tried to be honest, but all documentation entails choices of what to include and what to leave out.

Documentation always has an angle and a perspective: What to shoot during the game? Whom to ask to get something written material about it? What to include in edited versions of the material, such as books and films?

The Danish larp KAPO is an example of a game where the documentation was a player-led process. The documentation book published for the game was curated by a player, and though the organizers supplied photos and some words for it, they had no control over it.

This is a great thing to happen to a game, but personal experience suggests that normally, a documentation effort has to be led pretty aggressively for it to happen. The motivation to do this tends to default to the organizers.

So here’s the question: Is writing about your experience, appearing in photos and on video, part of the responsibility of playing in a game? Do you as the player have to accept the task of framing and expressing your inner processes for the consumption of a wider, non-playing audience?

Reach

In Identlos, I played a successful indie game designer apparently modeled after someone like Minecraft’s Markus Persson. I had escaped normal society because of the amount of hate among videogame fans. I lived in the secluded and small Identlos settlement, still making games but with a much smaller audience and less resources than before. I was happy with this.

In some ways, the difference between what my character had left behind and what he had now was similar to experiences from my own life. I have personally felt the difference by making television for mass audiences and making larp for a small scene.

Getting into character, I thought about how it would feel like to go from an audience of millions to an audience of hundreds. In some ways, the change would be small: You would still get your best feedback and comments from your friends. At the same time, it was hard to see how it wouldn’t be disappointing. Having a mass audience means you get to be part of the conversation on a wider level. You matter. Of course, making games for a limited audience means you still matter to those people. But scale is seductive.

Scale is a classic problem of larp design. Given the extremely personal nature of larp, how to scale it up? How to reach a mass audience? These questions are further complicated by issues of safety and privacy. In Identlos, my character had chosen safety over reaching a mass audience. He had limited his horizons because he didn’t want to live in a world with no privacy. It was an interesting dichotomy, because usually in modern political discourse safety is presented as the result of obliterating privacy. The larp argued the opposite, or at least complicated the issue.

Memory

Due to the lack of photos, Identlos only exists in the memory of its participants. Since there has not been any text-based documentation either, the story of what the game was is left to the underground of folklore in the player community.

When I started larping in the mid- Nineties, this was normal for all larps. There was very little documentation, even photos. Nowadays, it seems to me there’s photos from most larps, at least to some extent. What would have been normal in 1995 is experimental now that it was done by Identlos in 2014.

That’s a facile statement, of course, since Identlos’ choices were informed by a larger political and theoretical apparatus about issues of privacy. Still, the result can be the same: Identlos can join the legions of games that will not be remembered. Does it matter if it’s by design or not, if the end result is the same?

In terms of penetration into larp culture, my most influential game was probably Luminescence, which I organized with Mike Pohjola. I still see jokes about flour games in the most surprising places. It seems to me that the idea of the game, the “flour larp”, has become a meme of sorts, divorced from the original context. I suspect something similar happens when games like Panopticorp and College of Wizardry go through the distorting lens of global mass media.

With political games like Baltic Warriors and Halat hisar, the goal is to change the world. Documentation and publicity are necessary parts of the project. But Identlos is a political game too. It’s just that it prioritizes its art over its politics, and makes us ask the question:

Who are we larping for?

This article was initially published in The Knudepunkt 2015 Companion Book which was edited by Charles Bo Nielsen & Claus Raasted, published by Rollespilsakademiet and released as part of documentation for the Knudepunkt 2015 conference.

Cover photo: Player documenting at Halat hisar by Johannes Axner is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
Published on

2015-03-06

in

Documentation

Livsgäld – Fantasy with Gender Elements

By
Simon Svensson
Setting the Stage

Livsgäld, translated roughly as “the price you pay for your life”, was a low-fantasy larp held in November, 2014, in Halmstad, Sweden. The larp was played in Swedish, had 40 participants, three non-player characters and four organizers. The spots for the players were given out through a lottery process, where participants first signed up over the span of a week after which a draw was made to see whom among the players would receive spots. The larp used two criteria to divide the various players into different pools – we first divided the player group into self identified men, women and non-binary individuals, with a goal of as many self identified men as women in the player group. After this division was made, we went on to divide by age. Ten spots were reserved for the 25% who were youngest of the player group, twenty spots were reserved for the 50% in the middle and ten spots for the oldest 25% of players.

Despite our efforts to achieve this balance, when drop-outs were taken into account, we did not have enough reserve players among men in the latter stages of the process and the actual game ended up with a skewed ratio, with more women than men attending.

Setting

The setting for the larp was a world known as Xaos, constructed by organizer Simon Svensson.

The larp itself was centered around an isolated culture that had been existing on its own for hundreds of years in a single village. The culture entirely lacked a social sex-based gender, the focus was instead on four elements that were seen as part of your biological entity in the same way as gender is for us today. The concepts ‘man’ or ‘woman’ did not exist, even if the members of the culture were physically identical to us.

Story

The story played with themes of survival, both literal in avoiding starvation, but also cultural survival when the old ways did not work as they used to. The food stores were low and for many years, the fields had gotten more barren, the hunting had diminished and tensions were on the rise. During the larp, the People, as they were called, had to confront whether they would rely on the extremely conservative foundations of their entire people, the cultural values they held sacred, or brave the dangers of the unknown.

The unknown also held the mythological threat from a civilization that once held the people as slaves and were said to roam the wilderness in search for them.

The culture was one of shame and guilt, where the personality traits that are often seen as good today were considered destructive and bad (bravery, creativity, being outspoken, self-confidence), while atypical leader abilities – intuition, empathy, carefulness and cowardice – were seen as positive and constructive traits. Conflicts were solved by smoothing over and handling the fallout rather than the cause.

If the main storyline was the food crisis, the actual focus of play was the social pressure that was a natural part of such an isolated society; a society where the equilibrium rests on shame and the silencing of dissenting voices. When the crisis became more outspoken, all the tension that was stored in the various dynamics between the collectives (the family units of the game), individuals and between element-genders rose up to the surface. Love was lost, forbidden love was uncovered and the young members of the village were initiated into their collectives, to live with them for the rest of their lives.

During the larp, three unknown spirits also appeared, brought into the village by some of the fire-gendered, the most oppressed of the four elements. These spirits turned out to have different agendas that they tried to pursue through affecting the people and their ways.

In the end, a choice was made. Their existence doomed, they refused to go quiet into the night and fade away. The village abandoned their ancestral home to face the unknown on a great exodus, knowing well that most of them would not make it.

Designing Livsgäld

Calm gazes with the power to silence loud voices. Tears that are swallowed, hidden away to uphold the illusion of well-being. A collective where everyone is included. Yet, some are still left outside, isolated. Love filled with demands exists side by side with the search for acceptance. To be loved, not for the person who I am but despite of it. Livsgäld. One larp, many emotions followed by important insights. I was not poor when I went there but I left richer than I was before. My new found riches are thoughts and a new way to view the world.
Player, Air-gendered

These thoughts by one of the players include some of our core design elements. When we created Livsgäld, we had three major design goals. They were:
- A gender-equal larp
- Reversing fantasy stereotypes
- Narrow focus
The first point was one of the first that we decided on and our philosophy towards gender was based around the thought that, in order to achieve gender equality in a larp, you could not simply remove gender inequalities and otherwise keep the same traditional fantasy or modern setting. We would still have hidden patterns and behavior that were modelled on inequality. Instead, you have to remove them and replace them with something else that could take their place. This philosophy guided us as we created the Livsgäld world.

The second idea was based on the observation that fantasy worlds are often inherently conservative. They are worlds where uprisings are bad, where feudalism works, where power is rightfully inherited and where loyalty to authority is something noble.

They are worlds where individual bravery and vigilantism is held as the norm of heroic behavior. We wanted to challenge these concepts and show a world that worked differently from how we expected a fantasy world to work. We knew this would be a challenge for our players since we had already removed so many other familiar points from the players’ horizon of expectations and recognition, but we did not want to create a gender-equal world only to reproduce the normative, traditionally masculine traits as superior.

The third point, narrow focus, was something we’d learned from the countless fantasy games that exist out there in the more mainstream fantasy genre. Many of them present a whole fictional world for the prospective larper with nations, maps, cultures and religions all presented in short written format, easily overwhelming their players. We wanted Livsgäld to exclusively present relevant information for the players, where every piece of information was something that had an impact for the People and the experience at the larp.

Inspirations from the Nordic larp tradition were games such as Mellan himmel och hav, for a different way to construct gender and personality traits, Hemligheten, for the way it portrayed a low-key fantasy setting, and Brudpris for handling a culture of shame and invisible barriers.

Reactions

There were many things that did not happen as planned or expected and there were many story elements that were identified as flawed or working in an unintended way. Even as the game came to a close, we had already learnt a lot. After the game, the players were asked to give the organizers a week of stories, a week where feedback and criticism could wait.

When this week had passed, a document was published with our the organizers’ design thoughts, containing thoughts on what had gone wrong and what could be improved, along with a feedback form for the players. We felt that this approach helped players focus on areas that we had not already reflected over.

The feedback form received answers from roughly half of the participants. The most widespread reaction which was echoed by nearly every feedback form, was that the participants had experienced a sense of leaving their own social gender behind. No longer did they feel the internal or external pressure to act their gender.

Despite of this, several individuals noted that actual behavioral patterns still conformed to those they had been taught all their lives. It is not surprising that players did not adapt entirely new patterns of behavior simply from two days gametime and a day of workshop.

However, it is noteworthy that the expectations to behave in the same ways were perceived as lacking. It was more out of comfort and habit that the players acted out their off-game gender identity, rather than a feeling of pressure or expectation.

Another common point of feedback was that the elements had felt like castes, rather than gender. There had been a lack of sexualization or the tension that exists between genders attracted to each other and they had felt like ‘roles’ in society, rather than something natural you were born to.

Many felt that a workshop for translating typically gendered behavior, like flirting, sex and attractive stereotypes, into the Livsgäld world, would have been a boon to the larp. That was, according to the players, the most difficult part of the setting.

The biggest lesson we learned was to trust in the setting and the characters to provide the content. An element was introduced early on that was meant to be kept low-key: the three foreign spirits. However, their occult nature and mystery quickly spiraled it up to the top and it became a major plot. Many players reacted as if they had to solve it, rather than use it as background material. Had we informed everyone about the element beforehand and kept its function transparent, we feel that it would have filled its function more properly.

We are glad that we created Livsgäld and in many ways, it felt like a success. However, it also felt like a game that explored relatively unknown territories and in doing that, left a lot of room for improvement.

Closing Thoughts

Everything points to the fact that Livsgäld changed the way people thought about gender, if only for a little while. In this, we hope that Livsgäld can be an inspiration to others and that we will see more games exploring similar themes.

As a closing statement, here are some thoughts from one of the participants, taken from their blog post about the larp:

It was scary, in a way, to see how effectively we changed our way of thinking and behaving over a mere weekend. It showed me how easy it is to create oppression on completely arbitrary grounds, and how real those feelings provoked can be even though you know it’s just play-pretend. But most of all it gave me hope. If we could change our way of thinking and behaving so easily over such a short period of time I have no doubts about that it can be done on a much larger scale. All it takes is that most of us play along.
Player

Livsgäld

Credits: Kajsa Seinegård (main organizer), Simon Lindman Svensson (co-organizer), Carl Nordblom (co-organizer) and Jennie Nyberg (co-organizer)
Date: October 30 November 2, 2014
Location: Primus Vicus medieval village, outside Halmstad, Sweden
Length: 60 hours in-game, 16 hours pre-game workshop
Players: 40
Budget: ~€5,000
Participation Fee: €70 standard fee, €50 for low income participants and €90 for high income participants
Website: http://projekt-xaos.zaramis.se/

This article was initially published in The Nordic Larp Yearbook 2014 which was edited by Charles Bo Nielsen & Claus Raasted, published by Rollespilsakademiet and released as part of documentation for the Knudepunkt 2015 conference.

Cover photo: The water-gendered: soft, emotional leaders (Post-game, Frida Selvén). Other photos by Frida Selvén.
Published on

2015-03-04

in

Theory

Learning by Playing – Larp As a Teaching Method

By
Myriel Balzer
Tell me, and I will forget.
Show me and I may remember.
Involve me, and I will understand.
Confucius

The next generation of teachers will be expected to possess a broad spectrum of competencies and skills. They are faced with a seemingly impossible task: today, classroom instruction should teach not only content but also competence. It should be as interdisciplinary as possible and it should take the heterogeneity of students into account. In addition to hard skills, classroom instruction should also teach soft skills. It should encourage and include the use of the learning material in a variety of situations that students will face in the real world. At the same time it should also be problem-oriented, varied and interesting, and sustainable. And of course, it should motivate students to learn!

While it seems as though new teachers are being asked to square the circle, the Danish boarding school Østerskov Efterskole and others like it have demonstrated that this challenge can be met and mastered((Cf. Hyltoft, Malik, 2008.)).

How? With Edularp.

But just what is Edularp?

Edularp

Edularp((The term Edularp stands for “educational live action role-playing game”.)) is live-action roleplaying used to impart pre-determined pedagogical or didactic content.

Why is Edularp ffective? Why do children, high school students, college students, and seminar participants learn better, faster, more sustainably and more easily with Edularp?

Edularp as Game

The chief art is to make everything that children have to do, sport and play too.
John Locke

Firstly, Edularp is always a game. And games are usually fun((Henriksen (2008) argues for the contrary opinion, according to which learning games neither must nor should be fun.)). Those who have fun learn more easily((Cf. Corbeil, 1999, pp. 173.)), are more motivated((Cf. Hyltoft, M., 2010, pp. 48.)), and are more likely to tackle larger challenges without reticence((Suits (2005) has even made the overcoming of unnecessary obstacles the core of his definition of games:“Playing a game is the voluntary attempt to overcome unnecessary obstacles.”)). Additionally, players participating in an Edularp — like players of games in general — often forget that they are actually doing something sensible. For them, fun — often fun as part of a group — is in the foreground((Baer, U., 1982.)).

Secondly, in games in general and in Edularps in particular, a kind of secondary reality((Authors from different fields have described this alternative reality in a number of different ways, but often mean the same thing or at least a similar thing: the “situation of the second degree” in Brougère, G., 1999, the “frame” in Goffman, E., 1977, pp. 52, the “surplus reality” in Moreno, 1965 or the “magic circle of gameplay” in Huizinga, 1938/1939.)) takes hold. It is a special reality that not only lifts the players out of their complex and often trivial or boring everyday existences for a brief time, but that also delivers them into a new world that is often exciting, epic and comprehensible in ways that the real word is not. While “normal” classroom instruction is often dry, Edularp is usually the highlight of the day. This provides enormous motivation to players((Cf. McGonigal, J., 2012, pp. 119ff.)). It is simply far more exciting to investigate a murder mystery than to listen to a lecture about chemistry, English or mathematics.

Furthermore, when we play, we are only acting “as if” something were the case. We, and the other players, are only pretending. This results in a kind of sanction-free experimental zone, a safe framework in which we can try out new ways of thinking or beha ving, reasoning or feeling — without fear of negative consequences((Cf. van Ameln, F. and Kramer, Josef, 2007, pp. 397; Hyltoft, M., 2010, pp. 45ff; Vester, 1978, pp. 184.)). After all, it is “only” a game.

This is especially true of role-playing games in which we act “as if” we were knights, elves or orcs. But even in games in which we do not slip into obvious game roles, as is the case in alternate reality games (ARGs), we nevertheless do adopt a role in the sense that we act “as if” something were “real” even though we know that it is not.

It could be a bomb from which we recoil in panic and then attempt to defuse with all the seriousness of someone facing a real explosive device. Or it could be a person who we treat with respect because they present themselves as a police officer, even though we know that they are really just an NPC (a non-player character — the game equivalent of an extra in a film).

Participants in games are often less likely to be discouraged by setbacks; indeed, after “failing” they often return to the challenge with even more motivation than before((McGonigal, J., 2012, pp. 64ff.)).

Edularp: Learning by Doing

For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them.
Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics

Furthermore, Edularp is what we refer to as an action-oriented method((Cf. Balzer, 2009, pp.13.)). That means that participants learn not through flat theories or lecturing from the blackboard but rather that they truly become active in the lesson or subject matter by trying it out themselves, through their own actions. Edularp is, in the truest sense of the word, learning by doing((The expression “learning by doing” comes to us not, as is often claimed, from John Dewey, but

rather from the English translation of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, 1985, p. 27f.)).

That means that the participants learn with all their senses. When they viscerally experience the content, when they physically exert themselves, when they smell the appropriate smells and see the appropriate visuals, their entire bodies act as sounding boards both for the experience itself and for their reflections on what they have experienced and learned((Cf. van Ameln, F., Kramer, J., 2007, pp. 393.)).

With Edularp it is possible to present topics that are typically dry or theoretical in ways that make them accessible to sensible experience or allow them to be expressed in symbolic ways((Cf. van Ameln, F., Kramer, J., 2007, pp. 392.)). If, for example, one is on a spaceship and the navigation computer suddenly malfunctions, so that the only way to plot a new course is to solve a differential equation; or if one has to infiltrate and analyze a new cult in order to prevent them from carrying out a terrorist attack; or if one is maltreated by inhumane prison guards((The first example (spaceship) is taken from a game from Østerskov Efterskole, the second example (cult) is taken from a game designed by the authors, while the third example comes from “Prisoner for One Day”, cf. Aarebrot, E. et al., 2012, pp. 24–29.)); what might have been abstract content is instead placed in a concrete, practical context and takes on tangible relevance.

Thus, participants in an Edularp learn not only with their heads but with their guts, with their emotions, senses, and intellects. It is by simultaneously addressing the cognitive and the emotional faculties that the learning content becomes truly relevant and emotionally meaningful to the learner. This means that they can learn more easily and, above all, with greater retention((Cf. van Ameln, F., Kramer, J., 2007, pp. 395.)).

Edularp in Practice

For several years Edularp has been used professionally around the world to successfully achieve diverse goals in a variety of contexts((Cf. e.g.: http://seekersunlimited.com/, http://rollespilsfabrikken.dk/, http://osterskov.dk/, http:// www.waldritter.de/ or Aarebrot, E., et al., 2012.)). But how do those individuals who teach with games in general and with larps in particular obtain their competency?

Until now most “knights of education” have been pedagogues, teachers, trainers, social workers, caretakers, therapists and psychologists who typically stumbled upon the larp hobby in their private lives and who independently recognized the huge didactic and pedagogical potential of live- action role-playing((Cf. Balzer, 2009.)) — even in its hobby variant.

They were often pioneers in their fields and had to expend enormous effort to be able to offer their students, patients or participants active learning — live, dynamic and in color.

Nearly 35 years after the first known larp((As the history of larp is often contentious I would like to refer the reader to the English-language Wikipedia article on the topic, which is actively and internationally edited: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/larp)) we found the time ripe for making it easier for young, interested teaching students to utilize the method. To that end we developed a teaching seminar for the University of Siegen Department of Education.

The goal was not just to inform teaching students about the theoretical advantages of live action role-playing in general and Edularp in particular — in the practical seminar we explicitly concerned ourselves with putting the students in a position to develop and run their own Edularps((With our draft seminar we were able to obtain a teaching commission from the University of Siegen. After submitting the written application and presenting the concept to the Department of Education a commission selected our proposed seminar for the didactic module in its 2013/2014 winter semester course offerings.))

Gamification vs. Edularp

In addition to presenting the subject in as practical a manner as possible, our goal was to prepare our students to implement playful learning in real classroom situations in their later careers. Thus our goal was that our students would leave the seminar equipped not only with the theoretical and practical skills to take their children on a two-week “class trip” to Middle Earth, but that they would also be able to employ individual elements of gameplay in their teaching in whatever measure they might find effective and appropriate. That is, that they would be able to use the whole Edularp method as well as smaller elements of games and gameplay.

For this reason we began with an overview of the full breadth of the topic of playful learning, which ranges from learning games (including Edularp) on one end to gamification on the other.

While participants in learning games are normally aware of the fact that they are playing a game((The so-called alternate reality games (ARGs) represent prominent exceptions: players do not necessarily always know if they are really playing a game. Cf. Gosney, J., 2005)) and thus entering into a kind of alternative reality, this is not the case with gamification. Rather, gamification simply attaches individual elements of games — like badges or a ranking list — to normal reality((Deterding, 2011.)), or uses game design techniques to modify everyday processes and procedures((Cf. Werbach, Kevin, https://class.coursera.org/gamification-002/lecture/22.)).

The user of a gamified process does not enter into another reality or game world but rather remains fully and completely in the real world. This means that a gamified process is not a game! The goal of gamification is to make everyday processes more interesting, motivating and seemingly more rewarding. A prominent example of gamification is the app Foursquare, in which users can share their current locations (a restaurant, an event, etc.) with friends and in so doing be rewarded with badges. Another non-digital example from a time before the term gamification was coined is collecting frequent flyer miles, which American Airlines introduced in the early 1980s((The customer collects so-called frequent flyer miles with each flight and, if and when they have collected enough, they can then exchange them for prizes, discounts or access to airport lounges. Microsoft’s Rob Smith, who gamified the software testing process for Windows 7, provides another example. He managed to transform the normally very difficult and trying process of finding and notifying translation errors in the dialogue boxes into a fun experience for a total of 4,500 voluntary participants among his coworkers. Cf. http://gamification-research.org/wp-content/ uploads/2013/03/Smith.pdf.)).

There are also several very successful role models for the use of gamification in the classroom, like the Canadian project World of Classcraft((For more information see: http://www.classcraft.com/en/#intro.)), which gamifies individual school subjects; or the Quest to Learn school in New York City((For more information see: http://q2l.org/.)), which is run according to a fully gamified teaching plan. The didactic method that we taught to our students in the teaching seminar was explicitly intended to prepare them to utilize the entire spectrum between gamification and comprehensive learning games. Thus, the didactic methods we teach enable our students to not only conduct fully-realized Edularps, but to also include individual quests((The term“quest”originates in the classical hero’s journey (cf.Campbell,1999),but in contemporary usage in fantasy literature and computer games it means a task or a puzzle.)) in their normal teaching, as well as to “gamify” their normal lessons.

Our thinking is that by integrating individual game elements in their lessons they can gain experience teaching with games in school and then, bit by bit, take on larger projects.

Playful Learning: Learning in Games | A Practical Seminar

In order to teach the students in our seminar not only the necessary practical competencies for developing and conducting Edularps but also the necessary theoretical knowledge, the seminar was divided into four phases:
1. Theoretical and practical introduction
2. Development of the students’ own Edularp
3. Playing the Edularp
4. Reflection phase
The individual phases were divided into a total of ten sessions lasting an average of four hours each. The theoretical and especially the practical presentation of the content was important, but it was also important to impart to the students the knowledge and competencies necessary for successfully developing and realizing projects, like project planning and project management, efficient and sustainable communication within a project, etc.

Another consideration was that the students should work independently after the introductory phase, but that they should not be left to face the structuring of the process on their own.

Phase 1: Theoretical and Practical Introduction

The first phase of the seminar consisted of three sessions. In the first session we introduced the theoretical concept of games, larps, Edularps and alternate reality games (ARGs), as well as the didactic potential of Edularps. Our seminar participants were mostly new to larps, and so we introduced them to the topic by presenting successful examples of Edularps and gamification((We selected Østerskov Efterskole’s Harry Potter game (cf.: Hyltoft, M. and Holm, J.T., 2009) as an example of a successful Edularp. As an exceptional example of gamification we chose the Quest to Learn school (cf. http://q2l.org/). As an example of experience-based learning in a larp we selected “Prisoner for a Day” (cf. Aarebrot, E. and Nielsen, M., 2012).)).

In order to impart to our students on a practical level what Edularps are and how it feels to take part in one, in the second session we enacted the four-hour interdisciplinary Edularp “Der Kreuz des Wotans” (Cross of Odin)((In the Edularp Der Kreuz des Wotans players must foil a cult’s plans for a terrorist bombing. The
Edularp was written by Myriel Balzer, Julia Kurz and Tinke Albach.)) so that they would participate in one themselves.

For the third session the participants prepared an elevator pitch((An elevator pitch is a very brief and pointed presentation of a project intended to persuade the
listener to support it.The name comes from the fact that in an elevator one only has the duration of the ride to win the other party over.)) as a homework assignment. Their task in preparation for the session was to think of a gripping story idea for an Edularp and to sketch out a learning quest and the intended learning content. They then had five minutes each to present their ideas at the start of the session as concisely and compellingly as possible, with the intent of persuading the others of the value of their own story ideas.

The goal of this introduction was that the students would be able to begin the development phase with a pool of ideas, rather than have to be creative “on demand” at the start of the practical phase. Building on the pitches, we then discussed what makes a good story, what elements a good game requires, and how a good learning quest should look.

In the second half of the session we presented the core of the seminar, the so- called game organization document (GOD), with which the students would have to develop and conduct their own Edularp in the subsequent practical phase. (A current version of the GOD can be downloaded from www.phoenixgamedesign.de free of charge.)

Phase 2 and 3: Development and Implementation of the Edularp

Since most of our students had no experience with larps or Edularps, it was important for us to give them a guide for their independent work. It was intended to guide them through the various phases of development, provide them with a concrete timeframe and schedule, and help them as much as possible to avoid overlooking any relevant steps or decisions. The game organization document (GOD) arose from these concerns.

The GOD is a form that asks the game developers to specify and explain all the key criteria for the game. In the course of defining and explaining the parameters specified in the generalized GOD, a specific game design document (GDD) for the Edularp under development begins to take shape bit by bit.

The game organization document is divided into seven categories:
1. Constraints
2. Project planning
3. Learning content
4. Storytelling
5. External setup
6. Game design
7. Documents, materials, props, resources
Category 1: Constraints

The category Constraints includes all the requirements that the game absolutely must fulfil and that have already been specified or must be specified before the start of development. They may include conditions specified by third parties as well as requirements set by the developers themselves. They include things like the number as well as type(s) of participants (age, degree of fitness, etc.) and also factors like the resources that are available (e.g. budget or team strength) and the planned development time.

Category 2: Project Planning

The category Project Planning covers the composition of the team and the division of labor as well as the schedule, the communication pipelines((Communication pipelines are the ways in which the various members of a team should communicate with each other.)), and plans for documentation and data management.

Category 3: Learning Content

In the category Learning Content the developers are asked to define concretely the learning content that is to be conveyed by the game. This is also where the type of learning content (soft skills, hard skills, competences, experience, etc.) is specified. Our teaching students were also required to refer to the school curricula they were using in specific parts of the game.

Category 4: Storytelling

The category Storytelling includes all the elements that deal with the game’s story. This is where the developers formulate the plot. Its development and progress are delineated on a timeline. This is also where they define the setting, genre and topic of the game and specify the staging and dramaturgical elements.

Category 5: External Setup

In the category External Setup the developers are charged with determining all the elements of the game that are not immediate components of the actual game. That means all the elements that take place before the beginning or after the end of the actual game, like pre-workshops, warm- ups, debriefings, the transfer of learning content, the evaluation of the game, and/ or pervasive elements((Cf. Montola, Stenros, Waern, 2009.)). Not every Edularp requires all the elements listed under this category. But it makes sense to consider all the elements and whether or not one’s own game requires them.

Category 6: Game Design

The category Game Design contains the template for the core of the future game design document. This is where the developers describe and visualize the construction of the game and its degree of linearity. This is where they define the victory conditions and determine whether the game can be won cooperatively or competitively.

They define possible game rules — both regulative rules and constitutive rules, as well as possible rules of irrelevance((Regulative rules are those that we typically refer to as the rules of the game. Constitutive rules,
as the name suggests, constitute the game and, for example, define roles and specify key rules or
victory conditions.The rules of irrelevance state that certain objects or facts should be ignored and
thus allow the actual gamespace to exist (cf. Denker and Ballstaedt, 1976, pp. 58).)). They formulate the call to action as well as the intended player motivation, and define points of interest((In this context, a point of interest is the next “point” on which the player should focus. For instance, finding the key to a locked door.)).They determine whether the players take on roles during the game, and who writes them; and they define the game world. In this category the developers explicitly define all the quests that occur in the game, describing their construction, learning goal(s), style, necessary additional knowledge, etc.

Category 7: Documents, Materials, Props, Resources

The final category Documents, Materials, Props, Resources determines what items are required for the game. All the texts that the players will have access to before, during or after the game, as well as those required for dealing with players, NPCs and game masters (such as in-game contacts or NPC briefings) are also attached here.

This explicit querying of all the important points of the Edularp successfully prevents inexperienced students from overlooking one or more points or failing to give them enough attention. In this seminar we also used the GOD to provide the students with a structured time frame. Thus each of the seven categories had its own deadline, specifying when each unit had to be presented to the instructors in its most-finished version. We thus made it impossible for the students to procrastinate and then attempt to get everything done at the last moment((Experienced planners need not adhere to the order in the GOD, though it will often make sense to do so. And of course, it is not possible to work out all the points separately from each other.)).

While relying on the GOD and the deadlines, the students developed their own Edularp as independently as possible over the course of the following five sessions. We were present during the work sessions and instructed the students that they should create a goal-oriented agenda for each session and ensure that they followed it. Upon completion of each point on the agenda, the students briefly presented their results and we gave them feedback. We also intervened in discussions or development processes here and there when they were in danger of heading in the wrong direction, and we were always available for questions. At the end of the practical phase we played through the Edularp with the students step by step a couple of times (on a theoretical level, without the full staging, etc.), checked it together for logic and consistency, and developed answers for worst-case scenarios.

An Edularp of Their Own

The students’ Edularp was played on the penultimate session and lasted almost exactly four hours. Our students took on all the relevant duties themselves, with the exception of one NPC role. Two of our students served as gamemasters and four others played NPC roles. They also arranged for a student from the university to play an additional NPC and for six others to take part as players; our students organized their participation independently.

In general the process of conducting their first independently designed Edularp was surprisingly smooth and went impressively according to plan. Their tightly-planned schedule functioned very well, and the players managed to work through the entire plot by approx. 5:30 pm (the plan called for them to finish between 5:20 and 5:45 pm). We only intervened once, at the request of both gamemasters, and guided their players back to the right path with a spontaneous NPC improvisation.

Otherwise we simply observed the entire run-through — while making ourselves available for consultation in case of uncertainty on the part of the gamemasters and NPCs — and we tried to avoid getting involved as much as possible.

The game design document for their Edularp — which describes the story and design of the game, etc. — can be downloaded from the author’s website (www.phoenixgamedesign.de) free of charge.

The Reflection Phase

In the last session we all sat together and discussed the seminar in general as well as the students’ Edularp In the course of the seminar we had our students fill out numerous reflection questionnaires regarding the seminar, the GOD and the initial Edularp that we conducted for them: our students also had their own players fill out reflection questionnaires regarding their own larp.

Edularp and Back Again

In principle it can be said that the seminar was a complete success. However, with the benefit of hindsight and feedback there are also some things that we would surely do differently in a future session. We have thus drastically shortened the theoretical portion of the first session for future seminars based on the students’ feedback. Naturally, those students who have no experience with larps must first be properly introduced to the topic.

But the ability to absorb information, especially in the course of a four-hour session, is limited and the primary emphasis of the seminar is on practice rather than theory. According to the students it was the Edularp that they played in the second session that really awakened their interest and their desire to try it out themselves. The examples of successful Edularps in the first session were less important.

Many of them wrote in their reflection questionnaires that it was only through their own participation that they really understood what an Edularp is. Many found the theoretical portion “unimportant” for the independent game development that followed. In the reflection questionnaires the game development process using the GOD was generally described positively, even though the responses did draw attention to a few stumbling blocks.

The students had particular trouble with the Learning Content category, which they felt appeared too early in the GOD. They would have preferred to specify the learning content in the course of developing the quest. However, since teachers must work according to prescribed curricula, we consciously chose this particular sequence to better reflect the realities of the job.

The students also had trouble with the new terminology. Although at the beginning of the practical phase we went over the GOD with them in detail and explained all the terminology in detail, the meaning of individual terms was nonetheless quickly forgotten because they were not documented. Today we would thus distribute a sort of glossary along with the game organization document.

The majority of the students wrote in the questionnaire that the Project Planning category was especially helpful. At the same time, they noted that they only gradually came to understand the importance of well-structured and explicit project management.

In our opinion the most central element of the success of the seminar was the game organization document and the clear scheduling requirements it prescribed for the individual tasks.

Additionally, it was important that the students were required to work in an organized and structured manner, and that they received guidance in doing so. The regular reflection and feedback rounds helped identify and confirm good ideas while rooting out as early as possible ideas that fell outside the scope of the Edularp.

Works Cited

Aarebrot, E. and Nielsen, M. “Prisoner for a Day. Creating a game without winners”, in Aarebrot, E., et. al. (Eds.), Playing the learning game: A practical introduction to educational roleplaying, based on experiences from The Larpwriter Challenge, Fantasi Forbundet, Oslo, pp. 24–29, 2012.

Aristotle, Die Nikomachische Ethik. Auf der Grundlage der Übersetzung von Eugen Rohfes herausgegeben von Günther Bien. 4. Auflage. Hamburg: Meiner, 1985.

Baer, U., Spielpädagogik: Arbeitsblätter zur Spielepädagogik, Robin Hood Versand, Remscheid, 1982.

Balzer, M., Live Action Role Playing: Die Entwicklung realer Kompetenzen in virtuellen Welten, Tectum-Verlag, Marburg, 2009.

Brougère, G., Some Elements Relating to Children’s Play and Adult Simulation/ Gaming. Simulation & Gaming, 30(2), 134-146., “Surplus Reality” in Moreno, J. L. (1965). Therapeutic Vehicles and the Concept of Surplus Reality. Group Psychotherapy and Psychodrama, 18, 211- 216, 1999.

Campbell, J., Der Heros in tausend Gestalten, Insel-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main, 1999.

Corbeil, P., Learning from the Children: Practical and Theoretical Reflections on Playing and Learning. Simulation & Gaming, 30(2), 163-180. 1999.

Deterding, Sebastian et. al., Gamification: Toward a Definition (PDF; 136 kB). In: Mindtrek 2011 Proceedings, ACM Press, Tampere, 2011.

Denker, R., Ballstaedt, S., Aggression im Spiel – mit Anleitungen zu Gruppen und Gesellschaftsspielen, Stuttgart: Verlag W. Kohlhammer GmbH, 1976.

Goffman, E., Rahmen-Analyse. Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp. Oder der magic circle of gameplay, 1977.

Gosney, J., Beyond reality: A guide to alternate reality gaming, Thomson Course Technology PTR, Boston, MA, 2005.

Henriksen, T.D., “Extending Experiences of Learning Games. Or Why Learning Games Should Be neither Fun, Educational nor Realistic”, in Leino, O., Wirman, H. and Fernandez, A. (Eds.), Extending Experiences: Structure, analysis and design of computer game player experience, Lapland University Press, Rovaniemi, pp. 140–162, 2008.

Huizinga, J., Homo ludens: Vom Ursprung der Kultur im Spiel, rororo Rowohlts Enzyklopädie, Vol. 55435, 21. Aufl., Rowohl Taschenbuch- Verl., Reinbek bei Hamburg. 1938/1939.

Hyltoft, M., “The Role-Players’ School. Østerskov Efterskole”, in Montola, M. and Stenros, J. (Eds.), Playground Worlds: Creating and Evaluating Experiences of Role-Playing Games, Published in conjunction with Solmukohta 2008, Ropecon ry, pp. 12–25, 2008.

Hyltoft, M. and Holm, J.T., “Elements of Harry Potter. Deconstructing an edu-larp”, in Holter, M., Fatland, E. and Tømte, E. (Eds.), Larp, the Universe and Everything: An anthology on the theory and practice of live role-playing (larp), published in conjunction with Knutepunkt 2009, pp. 27–42, 2009.

Hyltoft, M., “Four Reasons why Edu- Larp works”, in Dombrowski, K. (Ed.), LARP: Einblicke, Aufsatzsammlung zum Mittelpunkt 2010, Zauberfeder Verlag, Braunschweig, pp. 43–58., 2010.

McGonigal, J., Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World; [includes practical advice for gamers], Vintage Books, London. pp. 119ff, 2012.

Montola, M.; Stenros, J.; Waren, A., Pervasive Games – Experiences on the Boundary Between Life and Play, Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, 2008.

Moreno, J.L., “Therapeutic vehicles and the concept of surplus reality”, Group Psychotherapy, Vol. 18, pp. 211-216, 1965.

Suits, B., The grasshopper: Games, life and utopia, Broadview Press, Peterborough, Ont., 2005.

van Ameln, F. und Kramer Josef, “Wirkprinzipien handlungsorientierter Beratungs- und Trainingsmethoden”, Zeitschrift für Gruppendynamik und Organisationsberatung, Vol. 38 No. 4, pp. 389–406, 2007.

Vester, F., Denken, Lernen, Vergessen. Stuttgart: dtv, 1978.

Internet Resources
This article was initially published in The Knudepunkt 2015 Companion Book which was edited by Charles Bo Nielsen & Claus Raasted, published by Rollespilsakademiet and released as part of documentation for the Knudepunkt 2015 conference.

Cover photo: Stockholm Scenario Festival 2014 by Johannes Axner is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
Published on

2015-03-02

in

Theory

Bleed: The Spillover Between Player and Character

By
Sarah Lynne Bowman

Participants often engage in role-playing in order to step inside the shoes of another person in a fictional reality that they consider “consequence-free.” However, role-players sometimes experience moments where their real life feelings, thoughts, relationships, and physical states spill over into their characters’ and vice versa. In role-playing studies, we call this phenomenon bleed.((Markus Montola, “The Positive Negative Experience in Extreme Role-playing.” Proceedings of DiGRA Nordic 2010: Experiencing Games: Games, Play, and Players, 2010; Sarah Lynne Bowman, “Social Conflict in Role-playing Communities: An Exploratory Qualitative Study,” International Journal of Role-Playing 4, 2013, pp.17-18.))

Bleed is neither inherently negative nor positive. Some players erect strong mental boundaries between themselves and their characters in order to avoid bleed. Others consciously seek bleed experiences by “playing close to home.”((Jeepform Dictionary, “Bleed,” Jeepen.org.)) Similarly, some games are designed with the intention of drawing people as far outside of their normal lives as possible through fantastic elements or improbable circumstances. Others are built with the specific goal of inducing a strong emotional reaction in the players and encouraging them to contemplate how the fiction relates to their own lives.

Bleed: How Emotions Affect Role-Playing Experiences – Sarah Lynne Bowman

Regardless of player or designer motivations, sometimes bleed occurs without prompting. These experiences can often come as a surprise, especially when the players are unprepared and have no tools for how to discuss about or manage bleed. This article will explain the phenomenon from a theoretical perspective, detail some of the types of bleed, examine the debates surrounding the concept, and suggest some strategies for managing bleed experiences.

The Phenomenon of Bleed

Explaining the phenomenon of bleed first requires establishing some basic vocabulary to help understand the role-playing experience as a whole. First, when we enter the game from the outside, we adopt a new set of social rules, both implicit and explicit.((Markus Montola, “Social Reality in Role-playing Games,” in The Foundation Stone of Nordic Larp, edited by Eleanor Saitta, Marie Holm-Andersen, and Jon Back (Toptryk Grafisk, Denmark: Knutpunkt, 2014), 103-112.)) These social rules function on an in-character level, e.g., this former warship is actually a spaceship; when a character throws a packet, it symbolizes a fireball; when a player speaks, they are portraying a noblewoman, not their real world profession; etc. Out-of-game social rules also apply, e.g., we will stay in-character for the duration of the experience; we will avoid touching without permission; we will observe safe words when used; etc. Collectively, these rules make up the social contract of the game.((Shoshana Kessock, “Ethical Content Management and the Gaming Social Contract,” in The Wyrd Con Companion Book 2013, edited by Sarah Lynne Bowman and Aaron Vanek (Los Angeles, CA: Wyrd Con), 102-111.)) When the social contract is established, players can enter safety the magic circle, a poetic term describing the rules, identities, and occurrences within the game space.((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, Doctoral Dissertation (Tampere, Finland: Tampere University Press, 2012).))

Diagram of role-playing studies terminology, including the relationship between bleed and alibi. Image by Mat Auryn. Design by Sarah Lynne Bowman.

Perhaps the most important facet of the social contract is the alibi, in which players accept the premise that any actions in the game are taken by the character, not by the player.((Markus Montola and Jussi Holopainen, “First Person Audience and Painful Role-playing,” in Immersive Gameplay, edited by Evan Torner and William J. White (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2012).)) Phrases like, “It wasn’t me, it was my character” and “It’s what my character would have done” are a direct result of the benefit of alibi. In principle, no individual is responsible for their actions in-character if those events could unfold plausibly within the fiction.

Alibi has a direct correlation with bleed: the stronger the alibi, the weaker the bleed. Alternately, playing close to home provides an inherently weaker alibi. For example, if a player has children in real life, playing a parent in a game will likely produce greater bleed and lesser alibi. The player might strengthen the alibi by establishing very different relationship dynamics between the character and the fictional children, thereby affording added distance. Alternately, the player can choose to push toward a greater degree of bleed by using the real names of his or her real life children in-game.

None of these choices will ensure the participant will experience greater or lesser bleed, however. Bleed is not a factor players can necessarily control. In fact, bleed is largely an unconscious process when it occurs, whereas a conscious choice on the part of the player to alter the course of the character is known as steering.((Markus Montola, Jaakko Stenros, and Eleanor Saitta, “The Art of Steering: Bringing the Player and the Character Back Together,” in The Knudepunkt 2015 Companion Book, edited by Charles Bo Nielsen and Claus Raasted (Copenhagen, Denmark: Rollespilsakademiet, 2015), 10-117.)) Therefore, a player can steer toward greater bleed by pushing factors that are likely to cause a bleed response, but bleed is not guaranteed.((Mike Pohjola, “Steering for Immersion in Five Nordic Larps: A New Understanding of Eläytyminen,” in The Knudepunkt 2015 Companion Book, edited by Charles Bo Nielsen and Claus Raasted (Copenhagen, Denmark: Rollespilsakademiet, 2015), 10-117.)) Alternately, players can steer away from potentially emotionally impacting factors, but end up affected by them nonetheless.

A character at the post-apocalyptic game Dystopia Rising: Lone Star in Texas mourns the death of his in-game wife, an event that took months to emotionally process. (Play, Sarah Lynne Bowman)

Characters at DR Lone Star comfort someone after she finds out her in-game family member just died. All photos by Sarah Lynne Bowman. (Play, Sarah Lynne Bowman)

Types of Bleed

Bleed comes in two major forms: bleed-in – when the emotions, thoughts, relationship dynamics, and physical states of the player affect the character – and bleed-out, the opposite process.((Montola, “Positive Negative”; Bowman, “Social Conflict.”)) A bleed feedback loop is also observable, when it becomes difficult to tell where the player begins and the character ends, especially in emotionally overwhelming situations. For example, in games where players experience sleep deprivation and constant attacks from enemies, the exhausted mind may have difficulty distinguishing between a “fake” attack and a “real” one. This phenomenon does not mean that the player is incapable of upholding the magic circle, but rather that the intensity of emotion has become overwhelming to the mind, causing confusion and difficulties with immediate processing and distancing.

Bleed is most often described in terms of emotional experiences, as emotions are the least conscious and most spontaneous aspects of enactment. However, other factors are connected with emotional reactions. Out-of-game thoughts are often interwoven with emotional responses, e.g. “I can’t believe Johnny is insulting my character. He always acts this way when we play together,” which may later induce an angry outburst in-character. Also, relationship dynamics can affect bleed. If two players are best friends out-of-game, they may unconsciously replicate that dynamic within the magic circle.

Physical states can also produce bleed, especially sleep deprivation or exhaustion, which weaken the mental defenses of the players and makes them more susceptible to impulsive emotional responses. Many games, such as high-immersion combat larps, are built upon this principle, though the designers may not realize that they are creating a game designed to produce a bleed effect.

Another type of bleed is termed ego bleed by Whitney “Strix” Beltrán.((Whitney “Strix” Beltran, “Yearning for the Hero Within: Live Action Role-Playing as Engagement with Mythical Archetypes,” in Wyrd Con Companion 2012, edited by Sarah Lynne Bowman and Aaron Vanek (Los Angeles, CA: Wyrd Con, 2012), 91-98.)) Ego bleed occurs when the contents of the player’s personality spillover into the character’s and vice versa. This effect is most measurable when players claim to have learned skills from their in-game experiences that become useful in reality, such as leadership, seduction, etc. However, prolonged immersion into antisocial characteristics such as violent plotting and social backstabbing may impact negatively the participants’ personalities, affecting their relationships with other players out-of-game.((Whitney “Strix” Beltran, “Shadow Work: A Jungian Perspective on the Underside of Live Action Role-Play in the United States,” in The Wyrd Con Companion Book 2013, edited by Sarah Lynne Bowman and Aaron Vanek (Los Angeles, CA: Wyrd Con, 2013), 94-101.)) This issue is particularly problematic in campaign play, where long-term immersion into a particular character or fiction without distinct stopping points can produce what Gary Alan Fine calls overinvolvement, a phenomenon in which the players do not sufficiently shed the role and fail to fully reintegrate into their mundane lives.((Gary Alan Fine, Shared Fantasy: Role-playing Games as Social Worlds (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1983).))

At its most positive, bleed experiences can produce moments of catharsis: when the player and character emotions are synced in a powerful moment of emotional expression. Most often, these experiences manifest in great displays of joy, love, anger, or grief; in-game crying is often associated with bleed.((Sarah Lynne Bowman, “Bleed: How Emotions Affect Role-playing Experiences,” Nordic Larp Talks Oslo, 2013.)) Regardless of their original intentions for alibi, players often call these cathartic experiences their Golden Moments, perhaps because the alibi of the game is still strong enough to allow them the opportunity to express emotions they might otherwise feel inhibited to share in real life.

A character in DR Lone Star experiences a cathartic moment, crying for the death of his mother during his baptism scene into a new religion. (Play, Sarah Lynne Bowman)

Other characters comfort him, letting him know he has friends and is not alone. In-character support can help lessen the negative impact of bleed. (Play, Sarah Lynne Bowman)

However, not all bleed experiences are considered positive.((Bowman, “Social Conflict”)) Players may, for example, feel lasting aggression toward someone who acted antagonistically toward their character in-game. Such feelings may do damage to their out-of-game relationships. Intimate love connections can also form in games as the result of bleed. While some of these relationships may translate well to the outside world, with happy couples forming as a result, in-game relationships also run the risk of damaging existing intimate bonds by complicating established boundaries or invoking jealousy.((Gordon Olmstead-Dean, “Impact of Relationships on Games,” in Lifelike, edited by Jesper Donnis, Morten Gade and Line Thorup (Copenhagen: Projektgruppen KP07, 2007), 195-210; Bowman, “Social Conflict.”))

In-game wedding at DR Lone Star after a year of in-character courtship. The characters are romantically involved, but the players are not. (Play, Sarah Lynne Bowman)

In-game wedding at DR Lone Star after a year of in-character courtship. The characters are romantically involved, but the players are not. (Play, Sarah Lynne Bowman)

Finally, distinguishing between bleed and psychological triggers is important. As Maury Brown explains, psychological triggers in role-playing occur when some sort of stimuli activates a previous traumatic memory and induces a response.((Maury Brown, “Pulling the Trigger on Player Agency: How Psychological Intrusion in Larps Affect Game Play,” in The Wyrd Con Companion Book 2014, edited by Sarah Lynne Bowman (Los Angeles, CA: Wyrd Con), 96-111.)) Trigger responses can range from mild to severe. While triggers are a form of bleed-in, as they represent aspects of the player’s psychology affecting the character experience, not all bleed moments are “triggers.” Safety precautions such as in-game signaling and safe words can help community members distinguish between a player having a cathartic bleed moment and reliving the disruptive triggering of previous trauma.

Debates Surrounding Bleed

Some role-playing communities consider bleed a taboo subject. Because of the so-called Satanic Panic((Stark, Lizzie. Leaving Mundania: Inside the Transformative World of Live Action Role-playing Games. Chicago, IL: Chicago Review Press, 2012.)) and other alarmist outside perceptions of the dangers of role-playing – e.g., Mazes and Monsters, The Wild Hunt, Knights of Badassdom – many participants have endured decades of stigma. Fears around role-playing center upon the assumption that immersion into another person and fictional world will make the individual lose touch with reality and forget who they are. On the extreme end, religious conservatives fear that role-players will become involved in the occult and start using magic “for real” (see the Chick Tracts, recently dramatized in the film Dark Dungeons).

Therefore, role-players are extremely sensitive to these allegations and often wish to distance themselves as much as possible from the perception of becoming “too close” to the character. Individuals who experience bleed and suffer negative consequences, such as players who feel long-term grief as the result of losing a character, might get shamed or otherwise ostracized from certain gaming groups. Some role-players refuse to admit that bleed exists and become defensive at the concept itself, wishing to reinforce the alibi at all costs. Often, these individuals do not wish to be held personally responsible for anything that their character does in-game, which is understandable. However, an airtight alibi can promote a dismissive attitude toward communal problems such as in-game bullying by individuals and cliques. Denying that participants can become personally impacted by game events erases the experience of many players and silences their ability to ask for help.

Ultimately, I believe that denying the existence of the real phenomenon of bleed is not an effective strategy to manage it in role-playing communities. Instead, I suggest that groups adopt a common terminology and a set of techniques to help people experience greater emotional depths in-character and return back to their lives with minimal negative impact.

Strategies to Manage Bleed

Whether or not participants intend to play for bleed, the impact of bleed experiences can become quite intense for some individuals. Players with a strong distance between self and character may find themselves mystified when another participant feels long-lasting emotional devastation at the loss of an in-game companion, for example. I believe that we should acknowledge that the perspectives of both of these types of players are valid: those who experience strong bleed and those who do not. Furthermore, as a community, we can learn strategies to help individuals recover who feel emotionally overwhelmed or confused after a game is done.((Johanna Koljonen, Peter Munthe-Kaas, Bjarke Pedersen, and Jaakko Stenros, “The Great Player Safety Controversy,” Panel at Solmukohta 2012, Nurmijärvi, Finland, April 13, 2012; Johanna Koljonen, “The Second Great Player Safety Controversy,” Presentation at Knutepunkt 2013, Haraldvangen, Norway, April 19, 2013; Johanna Koljonen, “Safety in Larp,” Presentation at the Larpwriter Summer School 2013, Vilnius, Lithuania, last modified Aug. 1, 2013, YouTube, Fantasiforbundet, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qho9O_EMG34; Johanna Koljonen, “Emotional and Physical Safety in Larp – Larpwriter Summer School 2014,” Presentation at the Larpwriter Summer School 2014, Vilnius, Lithuania, last modified Aug. 3, 2014, YouTube, Fantasiforbundet, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-cPmM2bDcU.))

One such strategy is called in-game signaling. During role-playing, in-game signaling techniques help players communicate to one another if bleed has become too intense. Games may employ hand gestures, safe words, “okay” symbols, written check marks, or other methods that enable players to indicate to one another whether or not they are overwhelmed or in need of a break. In order for these signals to be effective, the organizers and role-playing community must reinforce and encourage their use. In other words, players should feel safe to opt-out of a scene at any time and should not feel pressured to continue in order to avoid “ruining” the game for others.

At a briefing before the Planetfall larp in Austin, Texas, organizers explain how to signal backing away from a scene by placing a hand behind the neck. (Play, Sarah Lynne Bowman)

In DR Lone Star, an NPC player signals being off-game with a hand over her head and a whooshing sound, to be interpreted by characters as “the wind.” (Play, Sarah Lynne Bowman)

An important post-game strategy is creating rituals of de-roleing. De-roleing is a method by which the player ritually casts aside the role and re-enters their former identity. Some strategies for de-roleing include: players removing an article of their characters’ clothing and placing it before them in the circle; participants stating what they want to take with them from the character and what they want to leave behind; organizers leading players through a guided meditation to ease their transition; etc. These symbolic actions allow players to switch from the frame of the character to the player in a manner that is less jarring than a hard stop.

Debriefing is another useful strategy to help players process their emotions. Creating a formal space after the game for players to express their feelings and share stories in a serious manner often helps contextualize bleed. Additionally, assigning a “debriefing buddy” provides players with a safety net for private communication after the larp with another participant. Positive, out-of-character communication with other players who were part of intense scenes may help alleviate lasting negative feelings, e.g. “I’m sorry that my character was so cruel to you in-game. Would you like to talk about it?” For a more extensive discussion on debriefing, refer to my article in this series, “Returning to the Real World.”((Sarah Lynne Bowman, “Returning to the Real World: Debriefing After Role-playing Games,” Nordiclarp.org, Dec. 8, 2014.))

Informally, players also can engage in out-of-game socializing, such as dinners, afterparties, charity events, etc. These events help players feel connected to the community outside of the context of the fiction and their characters. Social events reinforce the co-creative nature of the role-playing experience and open up spaces for dialogue about the game, allowing for greater communication. Online forums and social media can also work toward this aim if used with the intention of building out-of-game community.

Some players find writing a useful strategy for managing bleed. Examples include journaling in- or out-of-character, writing a letter to one’s character, creating new stories around that persona, sharing written game memories with other participants, etc. Telling war stories to each other is another popular method of sharing. Externalizing the experiences in a linear fashion, whether verbally or on paper, seems to help immensely by allowing players the chance to reframe their story in a manageable way.

Further strategies include becoming immersed in other experiences. Some people can easily throw themselves into their work, while others have difficulty returning back to daily life. Often, the first 48 hours after a weekend-long game can prove difficult in terms of adjustment. Playing video games, another role-playing game, or immersing into another fictional reality like a television show can help ease this transition. Most importantly, adequate sleep, eating, and hygiene can help reset a player’s psychological state to some semblance of normality. For more information, see my article with Evan Torner on “Post-Larp Depression.”((Sarah Lynne Bowman and Evan Torner, “Post-Larp Depression,” Analog Game Studies 1, no. 1. (1 Aug 2014).))

A Collective Experience

Regardless of the degree of immersion or bleed each player feels, ultimately the role-playing experience is a co-creative and collective one. Understanding bleed and developing tools for compassionately managing intense emotional reactions can help role-playing communities reach deeper levels of trust and collaboration. Recognizing that each individual contributes an important part to the whole is an important step in this process. A healthy community is made up of individuals who feel safe and able to openly communicate with one another about their experiences.

Cover photo: Characters at DR Lone Star attend an in-game funeral to mourn their lost friends. In-game ceremonies are one way of coping with strong emotions within the frame of the magic circle (Play, Sarah Lynne Bowman).
Published on

2015-02-27

in

Documentation

Last Will – Make Us Your Slaves, but Feed Us

By
Annica Strand

In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet, and say to us, “ Make us your slaves, but feed us.

Last Will is a larp on the subject of a fading human dignity in a world run by money and consumption in which people can be bought and sold as commodities. The larp is set in a future where debt and poverty breeds slavery and slavery perpetuates poverty.

The larp was run by the organization Ursula, and the story was set in the gladiator-stable Jericho, with six fighter-teams as well as an administrative staff running it all. The larp depicts some twenty hours in Jericho. The trainers and the coach prepare the fighters for gladiator fights, the doctor and psychiatrist evaluate the fighters and other team members, the pleasers perform their duties towards the fighters, as do the physiotherapists while the guards make sure everyone does what they should do and only the right people slips in the showers.

All the while lives and relationships go on. Some of the people in Jericho are free workers, having contracts that allow them a salary and a little more freedom but also the risk of being let off with no further notice.

Others have signed a life contract, which gives them the security of food and a roof over their heads, but no say on almost everything else. It is the day before the national election to parliament, but only the free workers needs to decide if they should take the risk to sign up to vote or not. The lifers need not worry; they no longer have the right to vote.

Last Will revolves around hope in a hopeless situation, where the desire to create a future battle with constant fighting against fear and hunger. In a time when freedom is weighed against security and survival every day the question echoes – What is my value?

Inspiration: “I Owe My Soul to the Company Store”

Slavery – the word makes us think about chains and whips, blood and colonialism. But the system of humans as commodities is even more widespread today, wrapped in inhuman working contracts and debt that is passed down from generation to generation. We wanted to show what losing self determination does to a person and that it can be done with a piece of paper just as much as with chains of iron.

India: The forced labour of women and girls has become known as the “Sumangali system”. It affects unmarried girls and women aged between 13 and 18 years old who work on three-year contracts, often in mills that operate 24 hours a day, using three shifts. The workers are not only required to work any shift but also to carry out unpaid overtime. The girls are confined to the mills, sleeping in hostels, during their contract period and are rarely, if ever, allowed out during that time.
Slavery on the High Street, 2012

We wanted to create this larp to look at modern slavery through the lens of a fictional future. We can not claim to give a true portrait of a sweatshop in China or a mine in Africa, but by taking bits and pieces from different places and putting them together in Jericho, we can give our participants a feel for what life is like when agency has been taken from you, and what it does to you when you feel that you have no value. And what it makes you do to other people. We hope that experiencing something with your whole body will make you take something home from it.

The setting of a gladiator-stable was a design choice we made to incorporate play on the loss of bodily integrity. We wanted people to sell their bodies to be used by others, for pleasure, entertainment or profit, but we didn’t want to portray a brothel.

Reactions: “Now I Know What It Is Worth.”

As you read this, Last Will will have been run two times, and as we write this, we are preparing for the second run. We decided on doing a second run after the preliminary sign-up for the then only run had over a hundred people sign up in less than a week. The larp was massively hyped, and the first run sold out in only eight (8) minutes.

For the second run we used a different sign-up system than first-come-first-serve, and a hundred people signed up to let us draw lots for the 44 spots on the game. It is strange to arrange a larp with such a hype. Thrilling, but scary.

Will we be able to deliver what all these people fervently wants us to?

What exactly was it that they thought they would experience? Had they really all read the participation contract? And if so, why were they surprised when we told them that they would not get eight solid hours of sleep? The sleeping schedule was a big issue, and something we will re-design for the second run. Having two runs and an extensive questionnaire after the first run gives us this chance of re-evaluating our design choices.

Based on the questionnaire and our own evaluation, we have decided to change some things in the pre-larp workshops and post-game debrief and the above mentioned sleeping schedule, as well as little things as the amount of in-game drugs already present on the game floor at the start of the larp.

In all, we wanted people to get a feeling of how poverty deprives you of your agency. Participants telling us things like this makes us believe we came quite close to our goal:

You felt like an animal, in your head. Everything but the here and now disappeared. You were stripped of your agency and told to shut up when you had opinions. Zero discretion, zero authority. All actions were reactions. Your initiatives were very few and usually caused by something that happened in the past and had the purpose of keeping up appearances.
Player

It was overwhelming, overpowering and scary; my first reaction was that I never wanted to expose myself to anything like that again, but when the experience settled with me a bit, I realized that it had developed me – I realized that I was actually grateful that I am free and I have a healthy and loving family. This is how Ursula really succeeded: rarely have I been so submerged in dystopia. Every little thing played its part, from the crowded gym that served as venue for the event to a clogged drain, the violence, the horrible vacuum-packed food. I felt hopelessness, like a serf and completely lost.
Player

Perspective: “You Used Larp to Tell an Important Story.”

We have been asked why we think this larp got so hyped, and while we can think of several possible explanations for it; we had a very nice presentation package, the setting and roles intrigued many people, and we offered an intense experience without an overwhelming amount of preparations or money needed – we also got another explanation from a friend:

It was the Hardcore larp of the year, and there was a demand to fill.

To be honest we hadn’t really thought about it as hardcore ourselves when we designed it. We focused on the story we wanted to tell. We wanted our players to live and feel the horror, frustration and degradation of their roles. We did not see this as a game for everyone, nor an experience that anyone would want to have.

We did have some players that were fairly new to larping. That was not a problem, though. Like in most games of this type we put a lot of effort into introducing the players to the world, making them feel safe with each other and providing a safe space in which they could indulge in some horrible play.

What we worked for, and hope we succeed with – at least for some – was to leave an impression on our players that would help them see and think about slavery and poverty from a new perspective.

Stories: “The Cruelty and the Pressure Hit Me Hard and My Eyes Start to Water.”

These are some snapshot images from Last Will, told by participants of the first run:

The player of Jericho’s Coach gives us a snapshot from the darktime:

I open my eyes and stare out into the darkness with eyes hurting with the lack of sleep. At the same time thoughts grind and grate. They are always the same thoughts. I am thinking about how it would be if I wasn’t in this sour sweat-musk of Jericho. I am thinking about what I would have done if I had not signed that lifetime-contract.

As always I cannot form a picture in my mind of a different kind of life and I come to the conclusion that I can’t because I have been here for so long that I have forgotten what it is like out there, in freedom. At least I am not hungry. /…/ When the lights come on and the morning buzzer sounds I am nauseous from having gotten too little sleep. The Lifer collar has made an indent into my neck and I casually scratch it as I pack away my sleeping gear.

The player of the fighter Eli tells us this story from not long after she and her teammate have been in the pit fights:

The doctors came by the Team 2 sleeping area and injected Eli and Milo with pain relieving drugs to make them able to impress during the owners’ visit, despite them having been badly beaten up and injured in the arena just hours before.The words with which this was done made it perfectly clear that Eli and Milo were regarded as no more than animals: “There’s going to be hell to pay for this later, but they’ll be fine during the visit.

Another fighter gives us a snapshot from her game:

The time before my fight was quite extraordinary, and coming back from the fight, too.You really felt like a broken star.” /…/ ”The second time the lights went out, when Mitsuki’d been walking back and forth outside the toilets to wait for the painkillers to set in, and finally went to sleep, and just lay there and stared into the ceiling, and felt that this was her entire world, her entire life. It was breathtakingly horrifying.

The player of one of the psychiatrists tells us about a memorable moment:

The rape of Ataru was incredibly strong. As I imagine a real rape in war or a concentration camp. It was so deliberate, so well planned. Not in any way about sex, just power. Ataru sat there, extremely passive, eyes staring straight down at the floor. Never said “no” or “stop” but just sat there. Silent. Motionless.

The player of Team 6’s pleaser tells us about an impression from the game:

Cleaning the shower room from blood after love interest JT6FIL’s suicide. It was horrible but also became a very private way of saying goodbye.

Last Will

Credits: Frida Gamero, Annica Strand and Sofia Stenler
Date: August 15 – 17, 2014 and January 2 – 4, 2015
Location: Stockholm, Sweden
Length: 23 hours game time, 3 days total
Players: 44
Budget: ~€3,000 per run
Participation Fee: €73 regular price, €37 subsidized price
Game Mechanics: Not described.
Website: http://lastwilllarp.com/

This article was initially published in The Nordic Larp Yearbook 2014 which was edited by Charles Bo Nielsen & Claus Raasted, published by Rollespilsakademiet and released as part of documentation for the Knudepunkt 2015 conference.

Cover photo: A lifer collar with the Jericho id-code. (Post-game, Ylva Bergman). Other photos by Lisa H. Ekbom, Sofia Stenler and Annica Strand.
Published on

2015-02-25

in

Theory

Ingame or Offgame? Towards a Typology of Frame Switching Between In-character and Out-of-character

By
Olga Vorobyeva
For the Moscow and St. Petersburg larp communities, continuous immersion into the game and into the character seems to be the central point of the larp process. Larp rules proclaim continuity of game, and players generally disapprove one’s going out of the character while playing. This attitude is, however, more declarative than a reflection of the practice as it can be observed: larpers, even the most experienced, of course, do drop out of character.

I got interested in how people perceive themselves and their co-players dropping out of characters, and have studied this topic for my MA thesis. I have collected a database of 600 cases of frame switching at larp using systematic self-observation and analyzed them from the point of view of Goffman’s frame analysis.

The database collected with the help of 15 players has data from 13 larp in which I took part and from some other larp events. I proposed a classification of triggers that cause dropping out of character that reveals some features of this phenomenon. In this paper, I won’t dwell on the triggers themselves, but will concentrate on the ways in which larpers switch from in-game to out-of-game frame.

In what follows, a classification of switching types is presented.

The first division is based on the social expression of frame switching: we distinguish between those which are externally expressed and thus become part of social interaction, and those which take place in a participant’s mind and get no expression.

When considered as phenomena of individual consciousness, all frame switchings are first of all “internal” in a sense, like diegesis is a fact of the players’ consciousness (Montola 2012).

Meanwhile, the game world is a result of mutually agreed behaviors of the participants. Its creation and maintenance involves coordinated activities, some of which belonging not to the game itself but to its meta-level, and so require frame switching.

Here is an example((Examples from my database contain references to game titles marked with bold italic.)) of internal switching that is essentially an inner experience that disturbs immersion and indirectly influences the participant’s behavior.

“The First Age”: Sure, there are a lot of reasons why immersion is difficult to reach: for example, playing with close friends makes me think, like, “Oh, it’s just my friend P eter wearing a garb!” So I try to avoid playing with them, but it is not always possible.

External switchings fall into two broad categories: those which comprise a signal to mark frame change and those which are unmarked.

Both types occur systematically, but the latter are usually perceived negatively, whereas the former are regarded more acceptable.

Two kinds of markers are employed to index a frame change, verbal and non- verbal. The Russian verbal marker resembles the Western practice of safewords: the utterance of a conventional word immediately turns ongoing interaction into out-of-game mode (Brenne 2005).

A safeword is a control device that is used to maintain participants’ psychophysiological conditions to inform partners about the sender’s current troubles having to do with the everyday world.

In the Russian community, in order to pause the game, either local equivalents of “break” and “cut” are used (literally “out of the game”, “in the real world”) or real life names of participants or their nicknames are employed for address instead of their characters’ names.

The verbal markers appear in case of meta- game disputes, in occasional conversation about events in participants’ real life or bodily states, or when asking for pause or help.

It is often uncertainty about partner’s physical condition that makes a player turn to out-of-game question, cf.:

“There is a craft”: Somebody noticed blood (real) on my eye: What happened to your eye? Oh, it’s a memento about my fail in a combat with a strong monster! It won’t heal until I find him again and kill him. Are you serious?
(Whispering) And out of play?
(Smiling) Everything’s OK.

Non-verbal markers include frame switching signals of various kinds, such as:

Tactile contact: to approach closely, to hug, to take a partner’s hand, to take aside. This kind of switching markers are used when the rules of the game world ban these proximating behaviors.

It should be kept in mind that, as far as I can judge from my participant observation at Knutepunkt 2014, Russian larps generally involve less physical contact than the Nordic ones.

Since most Russian larp game worlds represent a variation of hierarchic society with interpersonal etiquette differing from the way people communicate in everyday life, demonstrations of egalitarian and friendly relationship can signal frame switchings.

Conventional gestures: hands crossed over the head represent the character’s absence from the game world; a gesture like a time- out signal used in sports like basketball and American football is performed to accompany an out-of-character utterance.

Facial expression: winking, “hinting” face, expressive gaze.

Non-verbal characteristics of utterances: lowering the pitch, whispering, prosodic emphasis to index an implicit meaning. Utterances like these often pretend to camouflage the reference to out-of-game things, so as not to break explicitly the magic circle of the game, cf:

Deathly hallows: Towards the end of the game, during an in-game conversation S. (male) approaches closely to me and asks me while lowering his voice if he can interrupt my playing. I agree. S. asks me to speak to M. (female) who is playing his sister, because she needs a relaxing talk, and his own talk to her has obviously not been enough.

I call M.’s character, take her hand (my character used to avoid any bodily contact), take her nearer to me, bow to her ear and address to her with her real life name. I ask her whether she wants to speak out-of-game. She agrees eagerly, we enter an empty room together, she expresses her negative emotions connected with playing and participants’ behavior. W e leave the room and continue playing when we hear noise outside.

In this example, the frame switches are expressed with a range of signals: approaching closer than regular social distance, that is, entering intimate distance, lowering the voice (opposed to what is required for characters’ interaction in the game-world), touching, and verbal means (out-of-game name and expression “out of game”).

Along with cases where frame switch is explicitly announced, there are some in which the player’s speech is recognized by co-players as such, but it is merged with the character’s speech without specially marked borders.

Conscious Unmarked Switchings

Explicit out-of-game utterance is a prototypical case of unmarked and unmasked frame swithing. It usually interrupts diegesis in a rather rude way making participants have to cope with an inappropriate element.

In the following example speaker A unexpectedly shifts from the character’s speech to the player’s one, mentioning meta-game problems and the game master’s nickname that confuses the partner:

“France: the Cold Summer of 1939”: An in-game conversation in a pub:

A: I am looking for my wife. And I’d like to find Bird.
B: What bird?…
A: W ell, Bird, our game master. N ew players have arrived and are waiting for the check-in.

Implicit switching is an action (utterance, gesture) with a hidden agenda; it looks adequate from the diegetic point of view but contains out-of-game information that is expected to be deduced by recipients. This kind of frame switch is appreciated within the community because it doesn’t break the game world and at the same time also adds to playing some extra pleasure to guess the riddle.

Implicit switchings are mostly used for the maintenance of game illusion in case of some slight metagame problems. Here is an example of such case where the problem consists in mistaking an NPC for a player:

“The last submarine”: As usual, something exploded, something is out of order, a service technician is needed. One player looks at a passing NPC and mistakes him for a technician: “W e need help in the armory!” I don’t want to bother: “N o, this technician is not trained enough for that, trust me!” NPC nods and passes by.

In the following example we can see three modes of referring to out of the game information, one after another:

“To kill a dragon”: We are working in a hospital. We use beakers with special liquids provided by game masters. W e should return the beakers to the organizers for refilling. I collect empty beakers and tell to my colleagues:

(1) I: I’ll bring them to the medical depot.
(2) Partner: Where?.. But if they must be brought to orga…
(3) I (Winking, interrupting on purpose): Listen to me: I’ll bring them to the medical depot.

In (1), the speaker employs implicit switching: she talks about the medical depot, but actually announces that she is about to go to meet the organizers. This information is to be deduced by her co- player. This is a case of implicit conscious unmarked switch.

In (2), her co-player makes a meta-game statement with no signaling of its out- of-game mode. This is a case of explicit conscious unmarked switch.

In (3), the initial speaker makes an attempt to repair game-world communication, recurring to interruption and to signalling the utterance pragmatics by means of non- verbal sign (wink) and intonation. This is a case of marked switch with non-verbal signalling.

Implicit switching can and often does imply a joke. Obviously, there is a lot of in- game humor in larp, but some of it is based on a second meaning of in-game phrases that thus turn out to refer both to in- and out-of-game things. Such switchings are performed for fun and also contribute to constructing a group identity.

The humor can be built on a common background of young Russians and thus contain allusions to popular movies, songs, or references to historical, current political and social events, or to internet-memes. It can also be a common memory of a group of real life friends, participants of a long larp campaign who have played together many times, or even just a group of those who had taken part in certain episode of a previous larp. Coming to the joke’s point is a manifestation of a common identity, cf:

“There is a craft”: Walls in the Main H all are covered with inscriptions. One of them says: “Even a rat casts charms better than you!”

Rat is the nickname of the participant who plays the Charms teacher. This is insider knowledge of this particular larp community.

Unconscious Unmarked Switchings

These are cases when someone makes her co-players drop out of the game frame unwittingly and notices the fact of the switching only from the co-players’ reaction.

Ambivalent utterance is not intended by the speaker to have double meaning, but while the speaker has told something in-game, her co-player perceives it as out-of-the- game discourse. The speaker keeps in the game world until she catches the fact that co-player has switched into out-of-game mode.

At first sight an ambivalent phrase looks like an implicit frame switching, but the crucial difference is that here implicit meaning is in the eye of the beholder, it has not been implied intentionally by the speaker.

The frame switch that the speaker has noticed in her co-player’s behavior becomes a surprise.

Cues that typically bring about such ambivalence include any statement that can be perceived in both in-game and out-of- game frames, terms that occasionally coincide with concepts from other game worlds and settings, or with participants’ names and nicknames that belong to other characters.

In the example below, the first utterance is a case of an ambivalent saying that is perceived as potentially ambiguous, while the joking answer is a case of explicit conscious unmarked frame switch.

“Western: Deadlands”: – I have a headache! – Do you need opium or painkiller?

Slip of the tongue is an inadvertent use of a word that is inappropriate to this particular game-world, best exemplified by speech patterns like fillers or swearings that that are ill-suited to the game world, or out-of-game names of co-players or other customary patterns of daily speech.

This kind differs from the previous one in that ambivalent utterance is used by the speaker is an appropriate fact of game world from the speaker’s side, and slip of the tongue is ill-suited from any point of view, but is hard to prevent.

An altered state of consciousness may also contribute to slip of the tongue that switch frames: players not fully awaken, under influence, or physically exhausted can easily loose control over their discourse (see below an example: the sender does not even notice his slip until his co-players attract his attention to the case).

“There is a craft”: At night we discuss fighting drills. B. complains how difficult it is to remember the exercises and suddenly says: “When I drive my car, I am sometimes so tired that I stop understanding what is going on…” We gaze at him in horror, but he does not notice our facial expression and goes on. I have to intervene: “What are you saying?” He slaps his forehead and complains in-game that he has lost his line because he is exhausted.

Conclusion

Our classification of data from the database allowed us to single out relevant features of cases of dropping out of game-world in social interaction. These are: external expression or its absence, presence or absence of signalling, intentional or non- intentional character of switching, explicit or implicit type of reference to out-of- game world, initial perception of switching by the speaker and/or by her co-player, use of speech cliches.

In case of an intentional switch from the game to out-of-the-game frame, a player drops out of character because of some inner or outer reason (need, willing to distract, inappropriate conditions etc.) and makes the switching perceivable to the partners (e.g., in order to receive help, to express displeasure, to maintain group identity, etc.).

In case of unintentional frame switching (ambivalent phrase and slip of the tongue), the author is a “victim” of the effect that her own words produce in her co-players.

Bibliography
- Brenne G.- T. Making and Mantaining Frames: A Study of Metacommunication in Laiv Play. Oslo, 2005.
- Montola M. On the Edge of the Magic Circle. Understanding Role-Playing and Pervasive Games. Academic dissertation, University of Tampere, 2012.
Ludography
- “France: the cold summer of 1939” (St. Petersburg, October 2012),
- “The last submarine” (Moscow, February 2013),
- “Deathly hallows” (Moscow, February 2013),
- “Western: Deadlands” (St. Petersburg, June 2013),
- “There is a craft” (Moscow, August 2013),
- “To kill a Dragon” (Moscow, September 2013).
This article was initially published in The Knudepunkt 2015 Companion Book which was edited by Charles Bo Nielsen & Claus Raasted, published by Rollespilsakademiet and released as part of documentation for the Knudepunkt 2015 conference.

Cover photo: Stockholm Scenario Festival 2014 by Johannes Axner is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
Published on

2015-02-20

in

Documentation

KoiKoi – Drums! Rituals! Inaction!

By
Eirik Fatland

In July of 2014 we invited 75 players from around the Nordic countries to a wilderness camp in Finnskogen, Norway, in order to give life to a fictive hunter-gatherer society. For four days and three nights they sang, slept, woke, wept, ate, drank, drummed, flirted, chanted, and performed the ceremonies as men, women and nuk of the Ankoi. They each have their own stories to tell – some contradictory, but all true. This is a designer’s story – a story about the why and the how of the larp “KoiKoi”.

The Ankoi

The Ankoi are a band society. Each band, (called a “Fam”) consists of 10-20 people, who move from camp to camp through a vast northern forest. Their life is nothing like ours. Their “fathers” are the brothers of their “mothers”, who in turn are the women who nursed them as children. They are surrounded by gods/spirits/presences called kwath, living in the stones and the forest and the winds. Their children have no gender, while their adults have three: women, men and nuknuk. A woman always gives birth alone in the wild, and a man cannot light fires, lest they draw the ire of angry kwath. They have no laws, no judges, and no prisons, regularly fighting each other over perceived insults. They kill strangers on sight.

Every two years, the whole people gather in the valley of Koi, center of their cultural life, to celebrate the feast of KoiKoi. The central rituals of the culture are performed here: rites of passage where children are accepted into a gender and adulthood, FamRit, where a person becomes a member of a different band, the rite of passing into old age, the rites that keep the sun shining and the winds blowing.

The Human Condition

This was not a fantasy larp. Neither was it historical. It was an attempt, for our part, to deal with the central events of human life: Cradle and grave. Relationship and separation. Growing old. Growing young. Being and belonging.

To provide a vantage point on these themes we constructed the Ankoi as a mashup of traditions and ideas as alien from our own culture as possible, but still “authentic”: documented in history and anthropology. The result was a society far more complex than can be described here, but not one representative of any real hunter-gatherer society. These are quite diverse – the Inuit of the Arctic have less in common with the Umanikaina of New Guinea than Denmark has with North Korea.

A hunter-gatherer society opened aesthetic possibilities – facial painting, masks, rituals, storytelling, drums – that had been prominent in some Norwegian larps in the 90s, and that we wanted to bring back for a new generation of players to enjoy. When asked what K oiK oi would be about, our one-word answer was “Rituals!”.

Low Conflict, Slow Play

Our modern culture is steeped in a sense of urgency that infests even historical and fantasy larps with a relentless focus on Action! Conflict! Now! With K oiK oi our aim was different: Serenity. Reflection. Rythm. The joy of being alive.

Player feedback – generally ranging from the moderately positive to the euphoric – was not without critical points. But despite the lack of major conflicts and goals to drive the larp, none of the players seem to have been bored. As one player commented on the forum:

As no-one wore watches, and we were encouraged to play slowly, our experience of time changed. It felt like we had an ocean of time available. When was the last time I felt that way? Time was no longer fragmented into small chunks, but became a steady flow of change.

Another concluded: “The calm I found at KoiKoi will be with me for a long time.”

A Systemic Design

KoiKoi was a systemic larp design: we neither wrote individual characters and plots, nor did we spend time negotiating with players. A character was defined by two standard types, e.g. “The Best Lover” and “Afraid of the Dark”. In the sign-up form, players were asked which of the 40 types they were interested in playing. No two characters had the same combination of types.

We encouraged players to sign up together, as fams. These groups, and the enthusiasts who initiated them, did a lot of work to coordinate practical and creative preparations, filling in the gaps between our types and real humans.

The culture served as the dramaturgical engine, designed to offer up meaningful play opportunities – transitions, relationships and choices – for every character. For young adults to find one or more lovers, and be accepted as members of the same fam. For older adults: to consider whether it was time to settle down at Koi as an Ald, an elder. For the elders: to consider whether your path was near its end. And for the children: to seek adulthood as a woman, a man, or a nuk.

Teaching through Language

We communicated all this by defining how the Ankoi talked about their world, hoping that players would internalize the culture that spoke this language and told these stories. We, obviously, could not make up and teach an entirely new language. Instead, we modified Norwegian (and Swedish and Danish) to create Språk, the Ankoi Language.

In Norwegian a woman is called a “Kvinne”. In Språk she is called “Kvinn”. In Norwegian, the plural – women – is “Kvinner”. In Språk, it is “KvinnKvinn”. Common words were reduced to their first syllable, and repeated to make a plural or an emphasis.

We thereby provided an easy-to-learn illusion of speaking a different language. It also meant that non-larpers overhearing statements like “meeting the nuknuk for some foodfood” thought the players had lost their marbles.

Here is a sample chapter of the main text – the Kulturkompendium – titled “Murder”:

Humans do not kill humans. Only beasts, and strangers.

I have heard that long ago,
a man killed a man in his own fam.
Then all understood that he was not a man. The man was dead.
And he who killed
was a wroth and jealous kwath.
This was difficult.
For the kwath continued to live with the fam
as if it was a man.
And fam asked an aldnuk for advice.
And the advice they were given, they followed. They shared no food with kwath
and told no stories to kwath.
And when kwath-that-pretended-to-be-a-man wanted to tell stories
no-one listened.
And so it walked away
over the river to the land of the strangers
and since then, no-one has heard of it.

These texts were also distributed an audiobook, earning us accolades from busy, text-weary and reading-impaired larpers. Every larp should have an audiobook.

No KoiKoi text has a single author – we wrote collaboratively, online, constantly revising and adding to each others work. We also wrote some 30 myths and stories, and gave each player one, encouraging them to tell it at the larp. That wish was granted: not only did the players tell stories, they also invented new ones. By the end of K oiK oi, the Ankoi Literary Canon contained some 100-150 stories.

Our language-based approach worked very well for most things: The characters spoke Språk. They believed, intuitively, in signs and portents and taboos and kwath. Their social structure followed the intended “primal anarchism”, though with perhaps a bit too much attention given to the symbolic roles of Great Man and Great Woman in each fam, and the future-telling rites of the nuknuk.

Gender was tougher. Players easily picked up the notion of gender as (mostly) divorced from biological sex. One female-bodied character went from being a child to being a man at the larp, and was unambiguously accepted as such. But pairings tended towards monogamy and jokes were told based on the premise of “man who always hunts for the beautiful woman”, in direct contradiction of the cultur compendium. While the nuk’s social role (caretakers and shamans) was clear, their gender identity – their sense of self – was not. If you want to tinker with gender, we conclude, you’ll need plenty of workshop time.

A Ritual Dramaturgy

But this was a larp about rituals, right? Yes. Yes, it was. We had pre-scripted it to contain 1-2 major rituals (“Rit) each day, as well as innumerable smaller ones. Each rit was described through a minimalistic ritual “recipe”. Had the Christian Mass been described the same way, it would have been : “The priest distributes bread and wine, saying ‘this is the body of Christ, this is the blood of Christ’”. All the singing, prayers and cermons would have been left to improvisation.

We used the workshops to practice such improvisation. The main element of ritual improv – a set of practices that have evolved over the years in the Oslo larp scene – is to cultivate an awareness of the people around you : to listen, sense, feel, and then to act in harmony. Rhythm, movement and chanting all contribute to synchronising people. On top of this, we introduced a system of hand-signs that would allow people to take, use and distribute leadership in the rituals.

The ritual improv approach was also used when improvising music, of which there was plenty, and in our sex simulation technique.

Ankoi storytelling was both ritual-like and larp-like: the “audience” would chant along with the storyteller, and the storyteller could use hand-signs to call others to act as the characters of the story. This, we feel, was one of the most successful aspects of the larp design: storytelling became a constant activity, the thing you did when you had nothing else to do, and something some players wanted to continue doing after the larp had ended. Some of the pivotal moments of the larp occurred in the midst of improvised storytelling, as the stories told resonated with the lives of multiple characters and players.

Practical Production

One does not simply walk into Finnskogen. It is a vast wilderness – cold and wet, populated by swarms of meat-eating insects, far removed from the nearest hospital. Our pre-larp planning included contingency plans for bear attacks and the purchase of a defibrillator. Neither bear nor heart attacks occurred, but we waged constant war against the meat- eating insects. The location did not have enough buildings for all the fams, so a gang of heroic larpers volunteered to build additional buildings before the larp.

The main hall, Koi, was transformed into a tribal gathering space by 20 meters of rough tapestry. The three ritual places posed a bigger challenge. We were helped by the large boulders giant kwath had thrown around the area. By decorating them in a mixture of clay and paint, and clearing the bush around, random forest locations were turned into sacred spaces. Each fam was responsible for outfitting their own camp and for most of the food they would need during the game. Observing players in their great costumes, their scenic campsites, preparing elaborate meals, singing, drumming and chanting, being Ankoi – this was our reward as organizers.

Altogether, KoiKoi was – by the standards of Norwegian larp – a major production, nearly perfectly executed. Had it not been, these other stories could not have been told.

A Night of Death and Laughter

We close this organizers’ story by sharing a moment from another, a player’s story. Latter was an aldnuk, an elder nuk and shaman. In the ceremony of Dødrit, Latter was responsible for killing those deemed useless to society and ready to become forkwath, ancestor spirits:

Dødrit had finally come to an end.As always it had been a night filled with one feeling after another. Ebbe and Dugg had stopped being. Latter had strangled them. They were now forkwath. Walking with the other aldnuk towards Koi, Latter was still holding on to the two white ribbons. They heard singing from Koi. When they arrived Bris threw open the doors and they entered. As others danced around the bonfire in the centre of Koi, Latter sat down on the knees.

Sometimes bursting into sorrowful moans.The song in the room continued, but changed character.After a while the circle (on its own?) began chanting the names of the deceased: Ebbe, Dugg, Ebbe, Dugg, Ebbe, Dugg… The names of the two aldmen became a melody. Latter, the only ankoi who takes human lives, crept towards the fire on all fours. Screamed, and left.

Later that night, they sat by the fire at Boarfam. Told lighter stories. Were comforted by their old friend and lover, Wave. Joked. Laughed. Their face still painted with the death mask…

The three previous days had seen meditation, song, dance, love and birth. By this ritual murder, this final act of loss and cruelty, our tableau of the human condition was complete.

KoiKoi

Credits: Margrete Raaum (main organizer + producer), Eirik Fatland and Tor Kjetil Edland (main organizers). Trine Lise Lindahl (writing/concept), Martin Knutsen (production/scenography), Elin Nilsen and Jørn Slemdal (writers). Extended team: Fabe Dalen (costume), Ståle Johansen and Anders Ohlsson (practical), Gaffa Express, (building and derigging), Frode Pettersen and Ørnefam (building), Li Xin (props & photography).
Date: July 1-5, 2014
Location: Finnskogen, Norway
Length: 5 days (4 in-character)
Players: 75
Budget: €10,000
Participation Fee: €90 (€70 under 26)
Game Mechanics: Minimalist.
Website: http://koikoilaiv.org/

This article was initially published in The Nordic Larp Yearbook 2014 which was edited by Charles Bo Nielsen & Claus Raasted, published by Rollespilsakademiet and released as part of documentation for the Knudepunkt 2015 conference.

Cover photo: Forkwath (ancestral spirits) gathered around one of the sacred boulders. Each clay mask weighed 5kg. (Play, Li Xin). All other photos by Li Xin.
Published on

2015-02-18

in

Documentation

Infinite Firing Squads: The Evolution of The Tribunal

By
J. Tuomas Harviainen

I accidentally created a hit, and have ever since been wondering why. I have had success with several mini-larps over the years, such as A Serpent of Ash (2006) and Prayers on a Porcelain Altar (2007), both of which keep getting the occasional rerun here and there. The Tribunal, however, is something else. It has become a viral work that seems to evolve by itself, far beyond my grasp.

Yet, nevertheless, each iteration adds something new. The little game has achieved a Pinocchio effect of its own, and lives a life about which I only hear fragments, in the form of G+ discussions, blog posts, emails and the occasional blog post.

So what exactly happened? It was originally a contest game, part of the first LarpWriter challenge, back in 2010. A game meant for educational purposes: A group of soldiers, waiting for an unjust trial, intended to possibly spark a few key reflections about the mechanics of oppression.

Then, through a couple of convention runs, it started to spread, while still also being run in Belarus, for which it was originally designed. I had received feedback with certain changes to how the game was run being suggested, but due to the educational intent, I was loath to make the recommended changes. I experimented with a few (e.g., an extra character; post- game confessions), but did not add them to the script.

In the mean time, however, others did. As the game script spread, Tribunal was suddenly run by other people much more often than by myself. In some places, it became a tool for symbolic resistance, with characters reaching a uniform goal to do the right thing (and probably die as a result), because the players thought they could not do the same in real life.

In the United States, thanks to the simultaneous contributions of many famous role-playing activists, runs appeared, during which the characters were taken to testify and then returned to the room, with filmed, emotional interrogations, and so forth. Jason Morningstar even made a better-looking version of the game material, which I had kept as a simple text document, for localization.

So what made The Tribunal so popular that I have lost both count and track of its runs after #30 or so? Personally, I believe it to be a combination of factors. Part of the success obviously comes from the success itself: the reputation it has as a good larp brings in more players, as do recommendations from well-known larpers. The design structure, too, has a significant impact.

First and foremost, it is a short one-trick pony, easy to organize and play in a convention setting, or a small apartment. The topic is strong enough to (most of the time) carry the interaction and interest of the participants, and the injustice palpable enough. I nevertheless think that the key factor was my sudden idea to create a fable, to name each character after an animal and give them personalities accordingly.

That is a particularly effective way for players to not only create a strong personality from of the short amount of text, but also to remember those of others. For Finnish players, I could have said “This character is Lehto”, but for everyone else – and the Finn – saying he is Wolf carries the point much better.

The topic and the character templates together create something that is neither transparent nor secret in design((Andresen, M. E. (2012). Bringing fiction alive: An introduction for education and recreation. In M. E. Andresen (ed.) Playing the learning game (pp. 10-17). Oslo: Fantasiforbundet.)). Everyone knows that Cat will be selfish, as Rat probably will too, but no one knows how they will testify.

This produces emergent plot, in which there is no need for steering, just the freedom to talk and to act((Harviainen, J. T. (2012). Experiences with emergent plot. In Truhlář, S. M. (ed.). Odraž se dokud můžeš (pp. 133-145). Praha: Odraz.)). The same way, game masters do not have to intervene in any way, unless they want to run interrogations during the game.

No scene breaks, no inner monologues – it could be run on a stage as an improvisational theatre piece, with very little instructions needed (and actually has). It has its flaws, I know, which are especially visible if certain roles are played in a passive manner. Strangely, when they occasionally manifest, those flaws seem to inspire people to improve on the work, rather than abandon it,

Finally, I think The Tribunal evolves because I did not follow my own advice on writing repeatable larps((Harviainen, J. T. (2009). Notes on designing repeatable larps. In M. Holter, E. Fatland & E. Tømte (Eds.) Larp, the universe, and everything (pp. 97-110). Oslo: Knutepunkt.)): I left the running instructions vague – and thus flexible. So people inspired by the libretto are inspired to experiment with it, rather than to run it by the book. Lucky for me, they are also willing to share the results of those experiments. Tribunal, like any healthy child, may have been influenced by its parent, but it is obvious that it has matured into something with a unique life of its own.

The Tribunal and other free games by the author can be downloaded from:
http://leavingmundania.com/2014/08/17/j-tuomas-harviainen-larp-collection/

This article was initially published in The Knudepunkt 2015 Companion Book which was edited by Charles Bo Nielsen & Claus Raasted, published by Rollespilsakademiet and released as part of documentation for the Knudepunkt 2015 conference.

Cover photo: Stockholm Scenario Festival 2014 by Johannes Axner is licensed under CC BY 2.0.