Ropecon is a Finnish roleplaying game convention. It’s also been something that’s been a part of my life for twenty years now.
It was first organized in 1994, but I missed the initial years. I’m pretty sure my first Ropecon was 1996. I was sixteen and had just discovered Werewolf: the Apocalypse. I had made a character I figured was real badass, and wanted to play it in a game.
Dipoli is a conference center in Espoo, Finland. It has been home to Ropecon from 1998, but now was the last year. Next time, it’s going to be at Messukeskus, or Helsinki Fair Centre.
For me, Dipoli was “the new Ropecon venue” for maybe ten years, because the first ones I attended had been at another place. The building has come to define the event with its labyrinthine interior and plentiful greenery outside. The event is usually held at the end of July, but this time it was last weekend.
My Ropecon experiences tend to be defined by the program items I go there to hold, and this year was no different. We started on Friday with Mike Pohjola by doing a presentation about Baltic Warriors, the larp campaign we’re organizing this summer. This is something I’ve done a number of years: Go to Ropecon to talk about my latest things.
I got downright sentimental later when we went to drink outside with a few friends. We headed to the end of a pier down at the waterfront, because I wanted to stand there one more time. I’ve published or helped to publish five books at Ropecon, and after the book publishing presentations, we’ve had a little champagne to celebrate at the pier. This time we didn’t have a book, but it was still nice to go there anyway.
On Saturday night, I held a presentation called Larpin rajoilla, the Limits of Larp, with Maria Pettersson. Our idea was simply to see what are all the places larp has gone to, geographically, socially, within the human body. It was one of the most fun presentations I’ve ever worked on, and seemed to go down well.
Here’s the Argentinean video about Hitler and Vampire larp we used:
On Sunday, we walked around the con area with Maria. It felt nostalgic to think about all the things that had happened there, the larps we’ve run, the books we’ve published, the presentations, the parties, the games and the conversations.
Ropecon will go on, but I suspect that at least for the next ten years, it will feel like its at “the new venue”.
Cover photo: The view at the entrance on Sunday. Photo by Juhana Pettersson.
I work as a larp producer in the Baltic Warriors project, and first game of our summer season was played last Saturday in Tallinn. It’s quite intimidating to go another country to do a game there. I had never even played in an Estonian larp, but it seemed to go well.
This summer, we’re doing a series of seven Baltic Warriors games, each in a different country. In each game, the subject is eutrophication and other environmental disasters afflicting the Baltic Sea. The zombies are there to remind us that while we talk, the situation is steadily getting worse.
We had the distinct advantage of having a really cool venue, the ice breaker Suur Tõll, now a museum. It was almost too spectacular: It was easy to imagine a much bigger, much longer game taking place there.
The larp, like all Baltic Warriors games, was divided into two parts: Politics and zombie action. During the political part, characters come together to talk about a given issue that’s being voted upon in the parliament.
After the debate has gone for a few hours, the zombies attack. In this case, two viking zombies shambled forth from the hold of the ship, attacking the living. The museum was open to normal visitors during this time, and it was fun to see how they reacted to the screaming and gurgling that was going on.
After this, we have Baltic Warriors games in St Petersburg, Gdansk, Kiel, Copenhagen, Stockholm and Helsinki. It will be fun to see how they change depending on the players, the local issues, the venue, and other matters.
Cover photo: The Estonian producer of Baltic Warriors, Aapo Reitask, as a viking zombie. Ingame-photo by Juhana Pettersson.
Tonnin stiflat is a Finnish larp campaign played in Helsinki in 2014. Consisting of three games, it was organized by the veteran city game designers Niina Niskanen and Simo Järvelä.
The setting is Helsinki in the year 1927, and the subject matter crime, prohibition, working class life and the violent legacy of the civil war. The characters were bootleggers and policemen, struggling artists and their sybaritic patrons.
Niskanen and Järvelä have edited and published a documentation book about the larps in English. It’s downloadable here, for free, and definitely worth a look.
The book is especially welcome as Finnish larp has traditionally been something of a poor cousin in the milieu of Nordic larp. There have been interesting games aplenty, but documentation has been scarce and Nordic attention usually limited to the games that Finnish writers have pushed the hardest, like Ground Zero.
City games played in an open urban environment have traditionally been a Finnish strong suit, and Niskanen and Järvelä are masters of this form. It’s especially nice to see this type of game documented in book form and in English, as the games that tend to receive this treatment are usually one-weekend affair played in a closed environment, such as Kapo and Mad About the Boy.
Tonnin stiflat (the title is an expression for very expensive shoes in the traditional Helsinki slang) benefits greatly from the fact that it’s been documented by the Finnish larp photographer Tuomas Puikkonen. His photos are all over the book, and you can see the full set here.
There are many good larp photographers in the Nordic countries, but Puikkonen distinguishes himself by his ability to be in the moment and capture the subjective feeling of the player.
The only real complaint that I have for this book is that it’s so short. I could’ve read more about this stuff.
Cover photo from Tonnin stiflat by Tuomas Puikkonen. Other photos by Tuomas Puikkonen.
Thanks to it I turned my communist friend into a patriot. And I realized who I really am. This is how a respondent, according to Mochocki (2012), described the Polish tabletop role-playing game Dzikie Pola (“Wild Planes”) in an online survey. The game was set in a period of Polish history dating to 1569 – 1795, and it apparently spawned a vibrant larp scene dedicated to re-enactment.
The era is referred to as the Sarmatian period, and Mochocki appears to see it as a golden past central to all Polish culture. He gives the quote in a positive tone, to portray the “liminal quality” of the experience of “sarmatization” that the players had when living a nationalist construction in the games and related activities.
In larp, the asymmetric power relation between the “authors” and the “audience” seems to manifest more concretely than, say, in cinema. One (but by no means the only) difference is that film spectators rarely discuss their experience with the directors.
However, the contact between organizers and players does not usually end when a larp does. Much of the “sarmatization” described by Mochocki happened outside the actual game events. Often larp organizers have an active role in post-game discussions, which can change the player experience after the game.
In System Danmarc (2005), a game set in a cyberpunk future, the players experienced living in a slum. At the end of the game, they were shown a documentary where real-life Danish prostitutes, drug addicts, homeless people, researchers and social workers talked about social exclusion and inequality. It turned out that there were people in Copenhagen already living the future dystopia.
According to Munthe-Kaas (2010), one player described the film as follows:
I was ready to cry watching it. I wanted to help all those people. Because my character was that way, only now the filter was gone, and it was me wanting to help.
Munthe-Kaas writes:
Generally the ending was received very well and many participants afterwards mentioned the film as a central part of their experience. On the other hand, some participants found the ending to be manipulative and politically colored.
A different example is provided by De tusen rosornas väg (2000) (“Road of the Thousand Roses”). It was a medieval fantasy larp about a war between two nations. On one side, the players sang battle songs provided by the organizers, which created a strong patriotic feeling. At the end of the game, the organizers revealed that the songs were in fact translated from the Hitler Jugend songbook and that many other aspects of the game fiction were also adopted from Nazi Germany.
Apparently, some of the participants were quite upset by the announcement. But many also said they had come to a whole new understanding of Nazi Germany. (Englund, 2013, p. 44; see also Fatland, 2011)
In both cases, revealing the connection to reality reframed the larp experience. Perhaps the players felt that the fiction they had collectively created was taken away from them. We met a similar phenomenon with our game Halat hisar (2013). It was set in a fictional occupied Finland that mirrored real-world Palestine. The players knew this beforehand, but some of them were troubled by the way the correspondence to reality was treated in post-game discussions.
One player brought up the feeling of not being in control of her/his experience anymore.
One aspect that made the game feel real and intense was that we had Palestinian players. Their presence served as a reminder that the occupation really existed. After the game, many players wanted to know which parts of the fiction were based on reality and which were made up. Upon their request, I wrote a text that clarified the connections and provided references. We put it up on the website. According to some players, this greatly helped the processing.
Games Without Agenda?
It is sometimes argued that larps should not have a political agenda or that political topics should be treated in a “neutral” manner. However, every text is written and every larp is designed from some kind of a political perspective. Selecting a topic is already a political choice. When something is referred to as “neutral”, it is usually because it reflects the default assumptions in the society.
There have been some larps about the Finnish civil war of 1918. To my knowledge, the most recent one was Viena 1918 (2014) (“Viena Karelia 1918”). The head organizer, Mikko Heimola (2014) wrote that he wanted to equally portray both parties of the conflict as farcical, oppressive, and stupid. However, this is a political choice as much as presenting one side as better than the other would have been.
Games can be political even when they don’t seem to be. What if the organizers of De tusen rosornas väg had never told the players that the songs came from Hitler Jugend, so that they would have been left to believe the game was a harmless fantasy adventure?
The game would still have been political, just in a different, rather frightening way. Now imagine that the songs were not direct translations from the Hitler Jugend songbook, but had similar themes. Imagine they were really written by the organizers. Imagine that the organizers had never read the Hitler Jugend songbook and were unaware of any connections.
Doesn’t the case of De tusen rosornas väg demonstrate that the Hitler Jugend songs embodied something that is rather commonplace in “harmless” fantasy? If there had been elements that felt out of place or disturbing, would the players have been so surprised after the game?
Thinking through the post-game discussion When designing games, the organizers should take into account that they can affect player experience even after the game, in particular if there is a strong connection to reality. Debrief is often viewed as part of the design. Maybe post-game discussions should be seen in similar light, especially as online groups provide a means to continue collective processing for an extended period of time.
Organizing larps is stressful. When making Halat hisar we did not give much thought to what would happen beyond the after-party. The game turned out more intense than we had dared to hope, so we created a Facebook group for the players to process their experience. The game was an emotional experience for us organizers as well, and in the beginning, I thought I could freely express myself in the group the same way the players did.
I quickly realized this was a mistake. As an organizer, I was in a position of power and I could not discuss with the players on an equal footing. My posts were interpreted differently, and things I said could be seen as attempts to reframe player experiences.
Some players felt that participating in the game had forced a political agenda on them in the eyes of the organizers and other players. They felt that everyone in the group was assumed to be, in the words of one player, a pro-Palestinian activist.
Now that I read the posts again after a year of distance, I am almost surprised at how little controversy there was. Nevertheless, the discussions made me emotional at the time. To correct my mistake, I decided to refrain from commenting as best as I could. Sometimes I did not even dare to “like” comments of others because I didn’t want to steer the discussion.
However, trying to stay away from all political discussion was a mistake, too. It’s a good idea to give the players space to think for themselves and not to flood them with explanations and information. But nothing happens in a void. There is a political context outside the online group, and it, too, affects the discussion.
Sometimes it is the organizers’ responsibility to take a stand. For instance, some players criticized Halat hisar for being “one-sided”.
We made the choice to take the viewpoint of the occupied because the oppressors and the oppressed are not two equal sides. To present them so is to take the side of the stronger party, the oppressors. Some of the members of the processing group were Palestinians who live their daily lives under occupation. Taking this into consideration, I feel that it would have been my responsibility to point out the real-world power imbalance that we wished to tackle by concentrating on the experience of the oppressed.
In summary, as a part of the design process, larp organizers should think about how they will take part in post-game discussions. A player debrief group is not a debrief group for the organizers, who should be conscious about their positions of power.
It is important to leave the players the freedom to discuss the game content. However, real-world political context and the diversity of players should also be taken into account, and the organizers have the responsibility to moderate when needed.
Michal Mochocki (2012): Reliving Sarmatia: National Heritage Relived in the Polish Larp Scene, in States of Play: Nordic Larp Around the World, Helsinki: Pohjoismaisen roolipelaamisen seura.
Peter Munthe-Kaas (2010): System Danmarc: Political Action Larp, in Nordic Larp. Stockholm: Fëa Livia
Cover photo: Students and foreign visitors demonstrate against a visiting dignitary from the occupying government. (Halat hisar, play, Johannes Axner) is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.
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:
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.
A note from the editor: Knudeblues is a term used to describe the post-con blues after the Knudepunkt conference. The 2015 edition just finished, which prompted the publication of this article on handling the Knudeblues.
First I need to state that this text compiles my very personal opinions, I do not claim to own any truths, and I have no scientific background for any of my claims. But I do have a lot of experience with the post con/post larp blues. If you don’t, that’s normal too.
Leaving Knutepunkt 2013. Photo by Johannes Axner.
You are on your way home, or you’ve already gotten home and thrown your exhausted self on the sofa. Maybe you’ve even stretched the bubble, feeling happy and inspired for a day or two, now certain it won’t hit you. But it does. Suddenly you realize that it’s over. It may hit you in different ways. Maybe you feel a mild, but persistent melancholia. Perhaps you still feel euphoric, but with an increasing discomfort of your emotions being stripped naked, of being too vulnerable. Maybe you feel a strong longing for all the people you met, your KP-crush, the magic circle filled with creativity, love and the best kind of madness. The bubble. And a sadness it is gone. If you are an organizer you may feel heartbroken that all the work you put in for this single, important event now only lives on in pictures, memories and memorabilia (and perhaps an impending accounting task). Or maybe you don’t know what you feel – I believe those are often the hardest cases. When your body is filled with overwhelmingly strong, entangled emotions that are manifesting in very real physical pain in your whole upper body, and physical discomfort that can’t be vented, and you feel an urge to use words like “soul” and “heart” in very embarrassing ways. And since you can’t make them out or define them or even keep them apart, though most of them are in fact very positive, it’s a full on acute depression.
Congratulations, you’ve got the Knudeblues.
Being a super emotional person (with – a fortunately very mild case of – bipolar disorder) with a 17 year long larp career and 9 KP/SKs behind me I have over the years developed a collection of strategies to handle this phenomenon, which of course isn’t associated with Knudepunkt/Knutepunkt/Knutpunkt/Solmukohta alone, but can occur after any intense, emotionally and physically exhausting, several days long event with bubble qualities, like a strong larp or another really good con. Maybe your own wedding? (I wouldn’t know.) Since we are all different people, I can’t know what will work for you, but I’m sure some of these tips will help. There are two slightly overlapping categories with things you can do to handle your blues – helping your body back to normal, and processing all the impressions.
The Basics
Processing after Knutpunkt 2014. Photo by Johannes Axner.
Make sure to get enough sleep. And then some more. Re-hydrate and keep hydrated. Eat healthy food. I’m not a nutrition expert, and I have no idea if food can heal you over a short time span, but I always feel better when I eat salmon, because my mother said it’s good for me. Eat comfort food/junk food. If the food can heal both body and soul, it’s even better. And don’t be ashamed, it’s medicine! Pamper yourself. Relax a lot. Have a shower or a bath in the way you like it the most, buy your favorite chocolate. If you have a partner, ask for a back rub or a foot massage. Exercise. Or go for a long walk. I know it works, I just can’t be bothered.
Processing
The emotions inside you need to find their places. To process all the impressions is important, and it can be done in an infinite number of ways. Don’t worry, you don’t have to make lists or do mental exercises, your brain will fix it all if you just give it the chance and time it needs. But there are some things you can do to help it along. The most important tip I’ll give you here, though, is process, but don’t dwell too long in you Knudeblues on purpose. It’s tempting to not let go of the euphoria that often accompanies the blues, to try to relive those special moments, to stay in the bubble as long as possible. And a pinch of that may be good for processing, but I don’t recommend trying to hold on actively. I think the KP euphoria is a hypo-manic state in many ways (as can being drunk or being in love be), and the longer you hold on, the more you risk a harder (and prolonged) fall.
Processing Alone
Processing alone. Photo by Johannes Axner.
Your active brain and your subconscious will work on it no matter what, so sometimes it’s good to give yourself a break. Use distractions, but avoid important have-to-appointments the first day or two if possible. Your mind will be somewhere else anyways.
Isolate yourself with some kind of entertainment. Watch movies, play computer games, read a novel. Depending on your blues and your ways, shielding yourself from strong impressions for a short while can give your mind space to process. (I recommend deep sea documentaries. With jellyfish.) Others may want to seek catharsis through an emotional movie or a song that they know will make them cry. Crying is good if you feel like it, but for some it can feed the depression. You know yourself best.
Write something. For yourself or others – a diary, a report, a letter, a Facebook post, anything. I think expressing yourself in writing helps sorting your thoughts and feelings even better than talking, as you use slightly more time in deciding on the words and your brain gets to dwell on the content. (How do you think the words you’re reading right now came about?)
Processing with friends
Knutepunkt after-care. Photo by Elin Nilsen.
The socially driven processing is also important. First: Add all your new, wonderful friends on Facebook! Then you read all the posts and comments people have made about the experience, and partake in the discussions if you want to. It’s not dwelling, it is hoard processing. Part of processing is forming the final narrative about the experience, the one you will keep with you, and connecting and exchanging opinions is part of that.
Meet people from inside the bubble. Hang out with others who shared the experience. Talk about the event, what was good, what was bad, what was fun, but not only about that. Being around tribes-people talking about other things is also good, they are in the same state as you, they get you, and together you take a step towards normalizing the world. Feel free to get drunk with them if you are so inclined, but remember that might prolong your blues. In my case it’s sometimes worth it.
Talk about the Knudeblues with others who share it. It helps. But try not to exhaust your friends. After all, you are just a little bit crazy right now. It will pass. I promise.
Dare to Face the Mundies
It can be a good idea to plan for a day off from work after Knudepunkt or another event that may throw you into the state of the blues. But don’t shun the mundies. You feel that people who weren’t present, even other larpers, can never understand, but it’s ok to tell your partner if you have one, your friends, your family and colleagues that you are in a state of emotional overdrive right now because of a very intense experience you had. They may understand more than you think. But don’t pepper them with all your stories and anecdotes, it doesn’t mean the same to them as it does to you. Not even if they larp themselves.
Cuddle puddle. Photo by Elin Nilsen.
And then – when you are back to your old self – start to utilize all that wonderful inspiration you got at the event and make some kick-ass larps and projects!
Cover photo: The author after Knutepunkt 2013, photo by Johannes Axner.
You are gliding over the parquet, in a constant battle over who’s in charge. You lock eyes and tighten your grip pulling your partner just a bit closer. Your posture and precise footwork radiate confidence. Other players are holding their breath to see which one gives up the battle first. Actually, there is much more at stake: the dance is a metaphor for a duel. The game In Fair Verona, held in Stockholm in 2012, used dancing to simulate aggression and passion.
There are many things that cannot be acted out in a game – and for this reason the behaviours acted out by the player cannot be identical to the behaviour of their character in the game world.
Firstly, the behaviours may be illicit, unethical or dangerous to perform.
Secondly, the behaviour of the character can be simply impossible: sadly, we do not actually have superpowers or control magic.
Thirdly, the player may not have the skills or the knowledge to perform as their character.
Fourth, the player may find it difficult to act out as their character due to a significant discrepancy between the personality, traits and demeanour of the player and the character, or lacking skills or confidence as an actor.
Whatever the reason for the distinction between the actions, we strive to understand them. We have a constant, automatic tendency to seek meaning in other people’s behaviour, and we attempt to attribute a cause for it. This requires us to make interpretations about each other.
In order for these interpretations to be valid, we must understand how big a difference there is between the behaviour we observe and that of the character. This article proposes a model of behaviour substitution by which the diff erence between the behaviours in- and outside of the game can be described hierarchically.
In other words, the model can be used to assess whether a behaviour is simulated, and in what way. The model proposes six categories whose implications are discussed. Finally, it is suggested that this model can also be applied to other genres in which there is a fictional reality.
The Behaviour Substitution Model
The Behavior Substitution Model describes to what extent the actions of the player physically resemble those their character takes. When there is a high similarity between actions, the behaviour of the player is easily and unambiguously interpreted by other people from close and afar. When the behaviours are not similar, they do not physically resemble each other, and they require prior knowledge to interpret.
The model proposes there is a continuum, divided into six categories, between the two extremes (Table 1). On one end, the actions the player and the character take are identical: there is no substitution.
On the other end, the behavior is unrecognizable, impossible to understand and interpret without prior knowledge, or there is no behavior at all.
Level
Description
An Example
No Substitution
The behaviour is nearly equal in the game world and outside of it
Fighting is real
Adaptation
The behaviour is slightly adapted, yet it clearly resembles the one intended
Fighting slowly using safe techniques
Grotesque
The behaviour is changed moderately, it requires effort to be interpreted
Fighting with grossly exaggerated movements
Symbolical
The behaviour is considerably changed, and does not resemble the original behaviour
Fighting is symbolized by dancing
Mechanical
The behaviour is replaced by agreed upon game mechanics, and acted out by the player
Fighting is resolved by a game of rock-paper-scissors or a computer game
Abstract
The behaviour is not acted out, but communicated through other means
The results of a fight are written down on a paper
Table 1: The Behaviour Substitution Model
Dual Process Theory
To understand the model proposed more thoroughly, it is analysed through dual process theory. According to this theory, we have two complementary information processing systems: an implicit and an explicit one. The first system is very fast, automatic, nonverbal and unconscious. For example, consider your friend pushes a bottle from a table at a party. You instinctively try to catch it mid-air, without any conscious thought.
Your reactions were guided by the implicit system that steered your attention to the object, and your hand to grab it. The explicit system operates in a very different way. It is slower, linked to language, logical, and often involves conscious reasoning. This type of processing happens for instance when we strive to learn something new, or try to figure out how to assemble an Ikea chair.
These two systems work constantly together. When we are writing a letter on a computer, or driving a car, we do not have to pay attention to the individual movements of our hands or feet. Rather, the movements are automatic, guided by our implicit system. At the same time, our explicit system focuses on planning the outline of the text or route.
Not surprisingly, these two systems are active also while during role-playing, and they tie closely to the proposed model: there is a correlation between the two systems. When there is no substitution, the more the implicit system can be used. The further we go toward the abstract end of the model, the more the explicit system comes in to play (Picture 1). This argument is elaborated below by each category.
The Six Levels of Substitution
#1: No Substitution
On this level, the behaviour of the player is nearly identical to that of their characters’ in the game world. No substitution is required because the player is able and wants to physically, emotionally and socially act the behaviour out. Importantly, the player receives immediate, visceral feedback within themselves while acting. This strengthens the immersion: the player feels what their character is feeling.
The behaviours, however, have to occur inside the magic circle of the game. This means that the player views themselves rather as a character in a game world than outside of it. At the same time, other players understand the player has transgressed the line to the game world. This can be communicated through the tone of one’s voice, clothing or the physical game space. When this distinction is clear, the behaviour itself is easily, intuitively and swiftly interpreted by the other players.
#2: Adaptation
On this level, the behaviour is slightly adapted to the situation, without compromising its communicative function to the player themselves and others. The player feels as if they are acting out behaviour, and other players often unambiguously understand what the player is doing within the reality of the game.
#3: Grotesque
The behaviour is moderately changed to suit the situation. In comparison to the levels above, the behaviour is clearly a compromise: it is acted out, but it does no longer clearly resemble the action portrayed. Therefore, it can be difficult to interpret, and in the worst cases it is unintentionally comical or embarrassing.
The behaviour may be seen as true within the game reality, yet it seems somehow out of place, unnatural, acted, or false.
The grotesqueness is exaggerated due to the discrepant information received through the two systems. The explicit system is telling the player they are doing one thing, but the information they receive through the implicit system does not support this. For instance, the player may walk but within the game they are running.
Yet, they are not sweating or out of breath. At the same time, the other players struggle to interpret the behaviour. They have to remind themselves about the previously agreed upon rules, forbidding running, to understand the behaviour. Everyone has to invest conscious effort to correct the information received and possibly suppress conflicting physical reactions. This conflict between two levels of information may break or weaken the immersion of the game. Compare this to T-1000 from the Terminator 2, or zombies: they are both alive and dead at the same time, a key conflict behind their unnaturalness.
#4: Symbolical Substitution
On the symbolical level, the behaviour is given new meanings or it is substituted by another, similar behaviour. In the above mentioned example, tango was used to simulate interaction between two people. The relationship between the behavior and its meaning is no longer completely transparent. Observers oblivious to substitution may see the act as merely intensive dancing, while the players understand a fierce fight is occurring.
This level can be used to give the player skills they do not have or cannot employ.
Further, it can be used to simulate things blatantly impossible using the skills the player already has. The range of behaviours is no longer bound by the player’s skills or the physical world. It is important the players receive sufficient practice in the substitution before the game. The more the method is practiced, the easier it is for the players to interpret in the game. Also, the substituting behavior should be something that is not often acted out in the game. For instance, if knocking on the door means casting a spell, some awkward situations may arise.
Even if one behaviour can be substituted by nearly anything, it is not irrelevant at all by which it is replaced – the choice of substitution greatly affects all the players. For example, social interaction can be simulated by a game of tennis, tug of war, or dancing. Each of these communicates differently to the player themselves and to others. Some behaviours can more easily and clearly convey emotions than others. Basically, the more you have options to move about, use your voice and gestures, the better your emotions will be conveyed.
The substitutive behaviour also crucially affects the players acting it out. The more the behavior physically resembles the original, the clearer the implicit connection is. Substituting bull-riding by dancing or pulling a rope does not give the same sort of visceral feedback. When the two behaviours are intuitively connected, they are easy to compare and interpret. Consider again the example of dancing: the tone of the dance, which person leads, and how they hold their hands, is indicative of the relationship to the viewers, the partner, and the player themselves.
The symbolical behavior can also be more allegorical, an extended metaphor. The game I love Ana used group exercises, support and writing rules to reinforce the players’ dedication to the cause.
The whole game could be a metaphor in itself. A game could be about walking, a common metaphor for leading one’s life. The feeling of walking would give players visceral feedback they could explicitly interpret, making the core of the game. The road would add another layer to the game: the surface, inclination, views and other travelers would be given new meanings.
To sum up, on this level the behavior is interpreted through prior knowledge. When the substituting behavior is physical, and intuitively connected to the behaviour portrayed, it can be used to convey a wide enough range of emotions.
#5: Mechanical Substitution
Playing poker in the game world is not a mechanical substitution, but a case of no substitution, while playing poker to determine the winner of a gun fight would be a mechanical substitution. This sort of substitution happens clearly outside the game’s reality, and requires rules and explicit explanation. As the name implies, the substitution often includes rolling dice, drawing cards, or comparing values.
This is a fast and clear way to resolve anything from brief interactions to world- changing events, but it can feel light. The substitution underscores that everything within the game world is merely agreed upon, make-believe. This may break the immersion by reminding the player about the rules, which can be a welcome break from intense action.
#6: Abstract Substitution
On this level behaviour is no longer required, as it is implied by the consequences. For example, there may be a sheet of paper declaring there is a hovering sphere within the hallway.
This level can be used to introduce players to elements of mystery, or to avoid mechanical substitution. At times, the behavior cannot objectively be deduced from the signifiers, but educated guesses can be thrown around. This lets the players use their imagination and storytelling skills which can result in more vivid and elaborate description than any above. This is especially true for such hard to simulate events such as magic, gross changes in the environment, or communicating events to players not present.
Implications and Conclusions
The six levels described above are already widely used in live action role-playing games. The model can be used to describe individual occurrences of substitutions, the range and the primary level used. It can also be extended beyond games, to genres of arts where there is a fictional world. No substitution is used as a primary level in 360 degree live action role-playing games, historical enactment, and many theatre productions. Adaptation is employed by many live action games, digital music games, and theatre performances. Grotesque level is generally not used as main level, but it is often briefly and unintentionally visited. The symbolic level is used in modern dance, and jeepform or freeform games. Table-top and digital role-playing games often mostly use the mechanical level. The abstract level is used, for instance, in the description of games.
The level of substitution should be chosen based on its overall suitability for the game experience. The designer should carefully choose the techniques and levels of substitution to fit the message of the game, the theme, and the atmosphere. An ill- chosen level may break immersion, while a harmonious one can keep it up for hours. The culture affects the level of substitution. In some countries or subcultures hugging may be a convention, while in other places
it may be frowned upon. The norms of the culture shape not only which behaviours should be substituted and simulated, but also how they are substituted. The more unconventional something is, the more abstract the level of substitution should be. For instance, sex can be such a taboo in some cultures that it can only be indicated indirectly; but in other parts of the world it could be presented symbolically. The level of substitution can often become silent information: new players are unaware of the conventions of the group. Therefore, substitutions should be clearly stated, preferably written down, to assure a pleasant and safe game experience for new and old players alike.
In Summary
The Behaviour Substitution Model describes the degree by which the actions of the player correspond to those their character takes within the game world. At times, the behaviour of the player and the character is identical: there is no substitution. In cases when the player is unable to act as their character due to their attributes, limitations of the physical world, or for ethical reasons, the behaviour may be substituted: simulated by something representing it. This can resemble the intended behaviour closely, symbolically or very remotely.
How the behaviour is substituted should be assessed in the light of several factors. Optimally, the behaviour should convey the intended message clearly and richly, it should be physical, and it should be intuitively comparable to the activity portrayed. The result of the behaviour is easily understood by all the participants. In the best cases, the substituted behaviour adds to the game and gives it new depth. The way that something is substituted should be explicitly stated before the game, to ensure it is understood by all the participants.
Tourists are standing in the queue for the Ferris wheel. Some are eating ice cream. Suddenly two viking zombies, covered in seaweed, shamble from behind the ticket booth. They stumble and crawl to reach the higher platform of the popup cafe. The zombies ignore the tourists and other bystanders, because they’re not players.
There’s a public discussion of the state of the Baltic Sea going on in the cafe. There are politicians, activists and lobbyists arguing what should be done to save the Baltic Sea from an imminent ecological catastrophe, and who should do it. This is the larp.
At first, the characters look at the zombies in confusion, but after the first couple are infected, panic ensues. As one of the organizers, I scramble around picking up purses, shoes and other items the players drop during their impressive zombification scenes. The zombie victims are rushed into makeup so they too can join the undead horde, and I take personal items to the back room of the cafe for safekeeping.
Baltic Warriors: Helsinki was the first in a hopefully longer series of political larps about environmental issues related to the Baltic Sea, and especially to the way oxygen depletion in the water can lead to “dead zones” in which nothing lives. These are caused by many different things, but one culprit is industrial agriculture.
This and future larps are part of the wider Baltic Warriors transmedia project. The creative outline of the project is by Mike Pohjola. He was also the principal designer for this larp, with some help from me. The Baltic Warriors project is a complicated international co-production, steered by the German film company Kinomaton.
Baltic Warriors: Helsinki was played at the Allas popup cafe on the Helsinki waterfront on the 30th of August, 2014.
Zombies
In 2011, I published an article called The Necessary Zombie in one of that year’s Knudepunkt books, Talk Larp. I argued that even an experimental larp must have some elements that are familiar to the participants, and that they are comfortable with. It’s hard to be creative if all the elements of the game feel foreign and opaque. I called this familiar element the Necessary Zombie because zombies are one example of an element familiar to most. We all know what to do in a zombie game.
I never really expected to end up actually making a game with zombies, necessary or otherwise, but in the spring of 2014, I was asked to join the organizing team of Baltic Warriors. My job was to act as a larp producer in the context of the wider transmedia work.
The Necessary Zombie has more to do with Baltic Warriors than just the zombies. Baltic Warriors is a political creative project, and that means it’s supposed to reach people. As transmedia projects tend to do, it consists of many different kinds of media operating on different levels. Some are national or international, and others, such as larp, are local.
In Pohjola’s larp design, the zombie is meant to liven up an otherwise dry subject, and to make the game easier to approach for the participants. It also acts as a blunt metaphor. In our fiction, the Dead Zones forming and growing in the Baltic Sea would make long-dead viking warriors rise from their watery graves as terrifying undead monsters seeking to attack the living. In the game, the political debate was cut short by the attack of the viking zombies.
This went into the heart of the political analysis underlying our game: Everyone agrees that something should be done to help the Baltic Sea.
Yet very little is happening. If this continues, soon it will be too late. Too much talk, too little action, and the viking zombies will get you. Or the damage to the sea will be so severe, it can’t be fixed.
Risks
In its first game, the Baltic Warriors project was following ideas about rapid prototyping and iterative game design championed by Eirik Fatland and Bjarke Pedersen, as well as following my own experiences in the use of a test game to help with the design of the larp Halat hisar. The basic idea is pretty simple: Since larp is relatively cheap and easy to produce, why not try out ideas in smaller games before committing resources and time?
This attitude also encourages taking creative risks. Will it work? We’ll see! It’s a test game. We also had a reason to run a test game that went beyond the demands of the game itself. The transmedia nature of the wider Baltic Warriors project demands that we document the larps thoroughly. In the test game, our documentary crew would get valuable experience with how to shoot larp.
The location was provided by one of the partners, the Korjaamo cultural center. As a larp space, the open-air cafe was pretty much the opposite of private: In addition to our documentation team and reporters and photographers from various media, there were tourists and random passersby. Indeed, this was part of the design. You could jump into the game after a brief talk with an organizer.
It was supposed to work so that you’d get a short instant-character, a couple of pointers about what you could do, and you’d be ready to start playing. You were a citizen, a version of yourself, who had come to the meeting to air some of your own concerns about the state of the Baltic Sea.
Unfortunately, this was one of the parts of the game that didn’t really work. We only had two people who did this. One of them managed to become part of the game, the other didn’t until the zombie attack, which had a democratizing effect.
Baltic Warriors is the second political larp project I’ve been involved in, after Halat hisar. In both cases, using the game to get media attention for the issues has been a part of the overall strategy of the project. Getting media interest for a game is really about how good a story it makes. Halat hisar was easy to publicize: Palestinian larp in Finland is a good story. Baltic Warriors was not especially difficult, but definitely harder than Halat hisar had been. It didn’t have an exceptional hook, which meant it had to compete with all other newsworthy events and cultural happenings going on at the same time.
We got a few mentions on radio and local news, and one really nice article and video in Helsingin Sanomat, the biggest newspaper in Helsinki. I only later found out how this had come to be: through relentless badgering of the paper, by many different people in our organizing group.
The Participants
During the production we joked that we had more partner organizations than we had players. The punchline was that this was literally true. Of course, this was because our small game was the pilot for a big project. It had the support structure of a much more ambitious production.
Our system for who played in the game was somewhat chaotic. We had a public sign up, we invited players, we had people just show up, and at the very last minute, many of the people from the organizations we worked with decided to play. This proved to be a very good thing: Larp is hard to grasp if you don’t try, but when you do try, its power becomes manifest. In complicated transmedia projects, it’s good that the people who are involved understand and appreciate the form.
As a result, we had a strange player base: Some were larpers who knew how to make game but didn’t have a lot of personal experience with environmental politics. Others were professional activists who were new to larp but knew the subject of the game very well.
At least in my estimation, this combination worked well, with larpers helping to make the game work and the newcomers giving it some authenticity.
In practice, we tried to cast characters so that there would be mixed groups. For example, a larper could play a politician and an activist could play her assistant. We planned the characters so that the politician in this scenario would be more of a “face” character, and the assistant more of an “action” character.
Some of the participants were given characters who were the opposite of who they were in real life. For example, one activist player had a business lobbyist character. A participant who was a real business lobbyist got a character who was an environmental activist.
I believe that most people can larp pretty well on their first try, especially in a game with experienced players. That’s how it went this time too. It was fun especially because some of the players from the partner organizations were of an older generation. It gave the game verisimilitude. After the game, we held a public discussion about the issues raised in the game. The idea was that it would be good to show how things were in the real world: What was fiction, and what was true. In the panel discussion, one of the participants was the Finnish Minister of the Environment at that time, Ville Niinistö.
Unfortunately, we couldn’t get him to play in the larp itself.
The Attack
The political debates of the game ended in a pre-designed non sequitur: The zombie attack. We had briefed players about this beforehand. Practicing the rules had doubled as a warm-up exercise before the game started. What had until that point been a very social, discussion-oriented game suddenly turned into everyone running around the place trying to complete the ritual to banish the zombies.
If the players managed to carry enough clean water in their hands to the ritual location, they would win. If not, the zombies would win.
Trying to care for clean water was a game mechanic, and according to player feedback, it worked on a conceptual level.
The zombies were a structural choice I had been a little worried about, because on a story level, it was kind of random. It proved to work in practice, though, probably because it gave the game an action- oriented, fun ending. The characters could only survive by working together to achieve a common goal. That was a good thing to finish with.
Baltic Warriors: Helsinki
Credits: Mike Pohjola (Design), Juhana Pettersson (Additional design and production), Sarita Sharma (Production), Harmke Heezen & Miia Laine (Production Assistance), Julius Sepponen & Make Up For Ever Academy Finland (Zombie Effects), (Film documentation), Kinomaton Berlin & Made Partners: Goethe Institute, Baltic Sea Action Group, Korjaamo, Helsingin kaupunki, Finnland-istitut in Deutschland, AVEK, Medienboard, Berlin-Brandenburg, Media, Filmförderung Hamburg Schleswig- Holstein, Nipkow Programm, EsoDoc (Production) Date: August 30, 2014 Location: Helsinki, Finland Length: 3 hours Players: 20 Budget: €1,000 Participation Fee: none Game Mechanics: First minimal, then light zombie mechanics Website:http://balticwarriors.net
Cover photo: Participants discuss the game while a member of our film crew records sound (Pre-game, Juhana Pettersson). Other photos by Miia Laiene and Juhana Pettersson.
Documentation of larp is an important form to share knowledge and experience about the games being run. Life Under Occupation is a book documenting the larp Halat Hisar (2013) and it was just released in digital format. We caught up the books editor Juhana Pettersson, who also was one of the larps main organizers, to ask some questions.
Juhana Pettersson, photo by Mika Kettunen.
Can you tell us about Halat Hisar?
Halat hisar was a Palestinian-Finnish larp played in Finland in 2013. Its aim was to bring together Palestinian and Nordic larpers, increase awareness of issues in Palestine and create a game where the situation in occupied Palestine was recreated in an alternate reality context as occupied Finland.
How did the book project come about?
Halat hisar was always a twofold project: we wanted to make a larp, but we didn’t want to limit it to the people who participated. For us, it was important to talk about the larp and the issues it dealt with to a wider audience. We did media outreach to achieve this, but also wanted to document the game for people who wanted to learn more.
Have you worked with any other kind of documentation besides the book?
All of the documentation builds on the work done during the game by our two great photographers, Tuomas Puikkonen and Katri Lassila. Our aim was to document as much as we could, and then work that material into two publications: the book, and a forthcoming short documentary film.
What is the structure of the book and documentary, what did you decide to document?
The documentary is still in the works, but will focus on player experiences and issues raised by the game. The book largely follows the structure of the game, starting with the core background and ideas it followed and then going into the actual events. Like many larp documentation efforts, some of the material came to be because of active editorial effort, and some was more about collecting existing stuff.
Anything else we should know?
A personal reason for making this book was all the great stuff that different people had made for the game. I wanted to see these things collected and maybe appreciated by new audiences. For example, the wonderful world material by Kaisa Kangas, the game design by Mohamad Rabah, Fatima AbdulKarim and Riad Mustafa or the photos by Tuomas Puikkonen. Some of the articles have been reworked by the authors from things originally written to debrief the game on social media.
Dipoli is a conference center in Espoo, Finland. It has been home to Ropecon from 1998, but now was the last year. Next time, it’s going to be at Messukeskus, or Helsinki Fair Centre.
My Ropecon experiences tend to be defined by the program items I go there to hold, and this year was no different. We started on Friday with Mike Pohjola by doing a presentation about Baltic Warriors, the larp campaign we’re organizing this summer. This is something I’ve done a number of years: Go to Ropecon to talk about my latest things.
I work as a larp producer in the 
We had the distinct advantage of having a really cool venue, the ice breaker Suur Tõll, now a museum. It was almost too spectacular: It was easy to imagine a much bigger, much longer game taking place there.
