“We won’t stop the larp if it’s just an air raid.”
— Anna Posetselska, Ukranian larp designer and organizer
When war erupts, larps come to a halt. The same holds true for various other cultural activities. Society is in a state of suspension. Individuals are fixated on their phones, doomscrolling through the news and social media. Larpers stay connected, checking in on each other – has someone we know died, have the bombs struck a town where our friends or relatives reside?
However, in the subsequent weeks, months, or even years, larp returns, even if the war persists. This occurred in both Ukraine, grappling with the Russian invasion since February 2022, and in Palestine, where the recent war in Gaza started in October 2023. Ukrainian larp designer and organizer Anna Posetselska, along with Palestinian larp professional and designer Tamara Nassar, provide insights into what it is like to organise a larp during times of war.
Larping during wartime in Ukraine
One of Anna Posetselska’s players was a real-life battle medic. She brought her enormous medical kit to the larp in case the venue, a holiday village about 30 kilometers from Kyiv, would be hit by Russian bombs.
“The small places around Kyiv are rarely targeted,” Posetselska says. “We were prepared to move the larp if the situation became too dangerous.”
During play, there were air raids, but the game was not paused.
“We won’t stop the larp if it’s just an air raid,” Posetselska says.
“We experience air raids in Kyiv all the time; just last night, there were explosions. They are part of our everyday life now; we have grown accustomed to them, at least to some extent. We don’t rush to a shelter every time we hear an air raid alert because if we do, we’ll sit there half a day many times a week. That way, you lose your sanity much faster than you lose your life. The chances of losing your life in an air raid while larping are rather low.”
Posetselska’s larp Nevermore: Family Issues, was played in May 2023. The 60-player larp was loosely based on the Netflix series Wednesday. The story about a high school for special kids who are taught how to live with ordinary people was both accessible and safe.
During war, people have many things on their minds, and just surviving from day to day can require a lot of mental energy and resources. That is why a larp should be easily accessible, Posetselska explains. She needed a ready, playable world that the players could grasp easily and without too much effort. Watching a couple of episodes of Wednesday was enough.
Another reason to choose the world of Wednesday was that Posetselska aimed to transport the participants as far away as possible from the war.
“There’s an ongoing discourse about larp as a form of escapism and the extent to which players engage in larp to distance themselves from reality. In our case, the answer was evident: participants genuinely sought an escape from their daily lives. We urgently needed to transport them to a different place and persona,” Posetselska says.
The setting had to incorporate dramatic elements and challenging questions and relationships, yet avoid overly sensitive themes.
“When designing a larp during a war, it’s crucial to ensure that people are not further traumatized or confronted with themes too close to home,” she emphasizes.
Could players detach from their everyday concerns and immerse themselves in the lives of high school students and personnel? Yes and no, Posetselska says.
“Players conveyed afterward that the sense of community was robust, and they experienced relaxation. Not everyone could fully immerse themselves in the game – it may not have necessarily been attributed to the larp or their fellow players, but rather to the exceptionally challenging situation they were in outside the larp. They expressed having a good time, but were unable to completely set aside the worries from the outside world.”
During breaks in the game, both players and organisers scrutinised their social media feeds – had any significant events occurred, had the rockets struck anyone they knew? However, unlike the previous year, individuals managed to stop constantly scrolling through distressing news and concentrate on the game.
Ethical questions
Before the onset of the war, Anna Posetselska made a larp every few years.
“Designing larps is a profoundly significant aspect of my life; I feel invigorated when channeling my mental energy into creating games. I wanted to create something for over a year, but it was impossible due to the war.”
Nevermore: Family Issues (2023). Photo by Anna Posetselska.In 2022, the year of Russia’s major invasion, the larp community engaged in discussions regarding the ethical implications of playing larps during wartime. A pertinent question arose: do larpers possess the right to partake in leisure, enjoy and relax while their friends – many of whom are fellow larpers – are engaged in active combat and losing their lives? This ethical deliberation extended to various facets of life, questioning the appropriateness of social activities like dining out and attending plays or concerts when one’s compatriots are fighting.
“But soldiers fighting in the frontlines kept saying that they were fighting and dying so we could live. At some point you attempt to reinstate elements of your everyday life, otherwise you get mentally very unwell,” Posetselska says.
In February 2023, a modest larp involving approximately 20 players was organised in Kyiv. Evaluating the community’s response, Posetselska understood that it was something larpers desperately needed. Those fortunate to participate were elated, while those unable to partake experienced profound disappointment.
“Playing larps constituted a significant component of our lives, and the community ardently yearned for a return to normalcy.”
Posetselska notes that when she announced her larp, it encountered no opposition; rather, it was met with unanimous enthusiasm and support.
Narrow planning horizon
Before 2022, Posetselska typically started the planning process for a larp approximately a year before its scheduled date. Now, she conceived the idea for Nevermore in March 2023 and decided to execute it as swiftly as possible. The prevailing wartime conditions added to the urgency.
“In the initial months of the war, we couldn’t plan even a few days ahead. Then, the planning horizon would widen from days to weeks and eventually expand to a month. Presently, we operate on a planning cycle spanning a couple of months,” she says.
Who knows what will happen to you or your friends in half a year? During war, six months feels like an eternity. Posetselska calculated the shortest time the larp would take to design and prepare and decided to run it in May, just over two and a half months after getting the idea.
Prior to the war, Ukrainian larps were predominantly played in Russian. However, the linguistic landscape has since changed, as there is a growing trend towards making and playing larps in Ukrainian. Despite the fact that Russian is Posetselska’s mother tongue, she embraced the challenge of composing for the first time all game materials in Ukrainian. This linguistic shift, while demanding, was important because the Ukrainian language has become a more significant part of Ukrainian identity after the 2022 invasion. Participants, mostly from Kyiv but also from other Ukrainian cities, alongside a few international attendees returning to their homeland for the larp, predominantly engaged in gameplay in Ukrainian, irrespective of their native tongues.
Demand for a larp
Posetselska’s foresight proved accurate: there was a substantial demand for a weekend-long larp. Initially conceptualized for 40 players, the larp was expanded for 60 participants due to overwhelming interest and perceived necessity.
In Ukrainian larps, character creation often involves collaborative efforts between players and designers, and this held true for Nevermore. Typically, during times of peace, players engage in preparations for multiple larps simultaneously. This time they only concentrated on Nevermore. Posetselska notes that she has never encountered, and likely won’t encounter in the future, the level of engagement and dedication she observed among participants preparing for Nevermore.
“People exhibited an unprecedented level of creativity, contributing an incredible array of ideas, and demonstrating remarkable support,” she remarks.
The impact of Nevermore extended beyond its immediate context, inspiring other designers to initiate larp events.
“Many designers who had been awaiting a more opportune or secure moment came to realise that the time for larping is now,” Posetselska says.
She knows of several minilarps tailored for small circles of friends, as well as half a dozen larger games spanning 2-3 days. The common objective across these endeavors is to transport players as far away as possible from the grim realities of war.
Political awareness in Palestine
Two thousand kilometers south of Kyiv, in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, larpers have adopted a markedly different approach. Since the latest war in Gaza started in October 2023, all larps in the West Bank have centered around themes of war, occupation, stress relief and political awareness.
Tamara Nassar, a Palestinian larp designer and organiser working for the Palestinian larp organization Bait Byout, asserts, “It would feel disrespectful towards our friends and relatives who are dying in Gaza to play larps for fun.”
Bait Byout collaborates with various organizations, predominantly NGOs, introducing them to larp and aiding them in achieving their objectives by incorporating larp into their toolkit. They are currently running a project, together with the British-founded organization Oxfam International, that addresses women’s sexual and reproductive health education through larp.
With the Swiss charitable organization Drosos Foundation, Bait Byout runs Larp Factory, targeting participants aged 18-35 studying or working in the social sector. The program spans five weeks and involves 22 participants in an educational journey where they acquire skills in playing, designing, and organizing larps. Upon completion, participants are equipped to utilize larp as a tool in their professional settings.
Additionally, Bait Byout has in the past designed and run larps for both adults and children in Palestine and Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon.
As the war unfolded in Gaza in October 2023, Palestinians on the West Bank held their breath.
“We knew to expect bad things, but the level of destruction was unimaginable. Everything stopped, the whole society stopped,” Nassar describes. While Israel started bombing Gaza, violence in the West Bank also skyrocketed, Nassar says. Over 300 people have been killed in the West Bank, 80 kilometers from Gaza.
Nassar grimly acknowledges, “We know that Israel is not going to stop in Gaza; we are next.”
New challenges
Bait Byout was looking at opportunities to take larps to Gaza, but those projects are now on hold. The five-week Larp Factory course which was planned to start in October, faced complications due to the war.
The situation in the West Bank has become substantially more perilous. Bait Byout had planned workshops and minilarps across various locations in the West Bank, but had to revise the plans. Several challenges arose due to the war.
First, the Israeli military has closed most of the checkpoints the Palestinians have to cross to move between cities in the West Bank.
Second, Israeli settlers have become more violent. They patrol the backroads the Palestinians were sometimes able to use to move around, and are using firearms more often.
Additionally, since October 2023, daily raids on Palestinian homes and arbitrary detention of Palestinian civilians by Israeli soldiers have intensified. Palestinians can be detained without formal charges for extended periods, sometimes spanning months or even years. Violence and arrests had increased even before the war, but now such detentions are triggered by minor factors, such as discovering Gaza-related content on a Palestinian’s phone. Faced with these risks, Bait Byout could not expose their participants to potential harm.
Nassar explains that to mitigate these challenges, “We had to gather all participants in Ramallah, secure lodgings for a few days, and confine them to this safer environment to minimize movement.” Participants would visit home briefly and then return for another session. Moving around was dangerous and had to be reduced as much as possible.
At the time of the interview, participants of the Larp Factory had recently completed designing their first larps and were about to present them to the wider group in the coming days. The thematic focus of most larps centered on the social situation in Palestine. Furthermore, participants were about to play their first long larp, Tribes, a historical fiction exploring the tribes of Jericho.
Focus on war, occupation and politics
The war in Gaza has not only impacted the logistical aspects but has also influenced the thematic focus of the larps organized by Bait Byout. During the war, all of their larps are centered around the themes of war, occupation, stress relief and political awareness. Nassar believes there wouldn’t be a demand for larps played only for entertainment in such a dire situation.
“To have fun while they are dying over there? I don’t think people would accept that,” she says.
Bait Byout had originally planned to run a fairytale larp titled Keys to the Kingdom, designed by Nassar, for 50-100 children aged 6-12. In this larp, participants assume the roles of fairies on a quest to retrieve stolen keys, overcoming trials to restore magic to the kingdom.
However, due to the wartime context, they opted for a different children’s larp called The Evil Lions & The Hungry Animals. In this scenario, players represent various animals oppressed by evil lions symbolizing the Israeli military. Through unity and setting aside differences, characters learn to rise against oppression and defeat the lions.
The symbolism is evident to adults, but do the children understand that the larp is about the Israeli occupation over Palestinian territories, and the evil lions represent the Israeli military?
Most of them do, Nassar says. She explains that children experience the narrative as an opportunity to enjoy defeating the oppressor without delving too deeply into the political nuances. The larp serves as stress relief for kids, diverting their attention from the distressing news about the mass killing in Gaza. Chasing lions with water balloons is simply fun.
The larps run as part of the women’s reproductive health program, too, underwent changes.
After the war began, Nassar redesigned the game she was working on to include scenarios of women giving birth in Gaza during the conflict.
“One cannot talk about sexual and reproductive health without mentioning the dire situation women are facing in Gaza,” Nassar explains. One of the scenes in A Journey of Discovery depicts the challenges faced by women having C-sections without anaesthesia in a region where Israel has bombed hospitals and power plants, and air strikes can occur while women are in labour.
According to Nassar, Bait Byout goes against the tide by continuing to run larps. Many other activities such as sports, theatre, and music are currently on hold, and even festive celebrations during Christmas and Ramadan have been largely canceled or altered. The cultural institutions that do continue working have changed their program. It would not feel right to show comedies.
Bait Byout is now developing a series of larps about everyday life in Gaza during the war. They were supposed to reflect the Nakba of 1948, in which the Zionist movement and Israel violently displaced and killed Palestinians, damaging Palestinian society, culture, identity, political rights, and national aspirations.
“But another Nakba unfolding within the war on Gaza has changed the game to reflect the current situation,” Nassar says. The larps primarily target foreigners, especially employees of various international NGOs. At the time of writing, the Israeli military has killed over 30.000 Palestinians, overwhelmingly civilians.
Ludography
Nevermore: Family Issues (2023): Ukraine. Anna Posetselska.
The Tribes (2013): Palestine. Janan Adawi, Sari Abdo, Majd Hamouri, Mohamad Rabah, Shadi Sader & Shadi Zatara.
Keys to the Kingdom (2019):Palestine. Tamara Nassar.
The Evil Lions & The Hungry Animals (2017): Palestine. Zaher Bassioni, Majd Hamouri & Mohamad Rabah.
A Journey of Discovery (will be played in 2024): Palestine. Tamara Nassar, Fawzieh Shilbaya & Alaa Al Barghouthi.
This article has been reprinted with permission from the Solmukohta 2024 book. Please cite as:
Pettersson, Maria. 2024. “Organising Larps during War in Ukraine and Palestine.” In Liminal Encounters: Evolving Discourse in Nordic and Nordic Inspired Larp, edited by Kaisa Kangas, Jonne Arjoranta, and Ruska Kevätkoski. Helsinki, Finland: Ropecon ry.
Cover photo: Photo by DangrafArt on Pixabay. Image has been cropped.
