Nordic Larp

Tag: Terminology

  • Larp: the Colonist

    Published on

    in

    Larp: the Colonist

    Written by

    The fact that there is a separate term for larp shows that it is quite a peculiar type of role-playing. It has its own history, culture, and audience. At their origins, the terms LRP, LARP, and larp already denoted an agglomeration of radically different games with some RPG “DNA” in them (Arjoranta 2010, 10). As the praxis of larps evolved and expanded, the term became increasingly diluted.

    As a consequence, the term larp is often used in larp circles as an all-encompassing category that includes every kind of embodied role-playing (Hyltoft 2010; Kot 2012; Bowman 2014). It is weird because, before the late 70s, the basic assumption of any role-playing activity was that it was (at least partially) embodied. The popularity of tabletop and computer role-playing games changed this assumption. A need arose for specific terms for the “live” or “live-action” versions. Originally, larp was a specific thing, but it soon became a blanket term: and, for some, a synonym for the general phenomenon of (embodied) role-playing.

    This usage sometimes extends in time and space to include activities that have never considered themselves as larps. Drama in Education, process drama, sociodrama, simulation gaming, improv theater games, and some other traditions all include elements of embodied role-playing. Larpers, larp theorists, and even larp academics recurrently label these activities as larp or larping.

    Each one of these activities has a longer history and older social institutions than larp, which emerged in the late ‘80s (Harviainen & al. 2018). Although larp as a term is younger than them, it is not necessarily more marginal. None of the aforementioned fields are truly mainstream right now, neither in academic research nor in daily practice. Similar to larp, their meaning and content are often obscure to outsiders. 

    Labeling things as larp might originate from the fact that it is easy to separate the role-playing activity from its game framing (Harviainen 2011, 185). The former is a “behavioral-psychological mode of engagement” (Deterding 2016, 104), a way of doing things that can be experienced and identified in non-larp activities. J. Tuomas Harviainen (2011, 176) attempted to capture this phenomenon with his famous criteria of “larping”:

    • “Role-playing in which a character, not just a social role, is played.
    • The activity takes place in a fictional reality shared with others. Breaking that fictional reality is seen as a breach in the play itself.
    • The physical presence of at least some of the players as their characters.”

    In this sense, “larping” happens at most larp events, while it can also exist at non-larp events (Harviainen cites re-enactment, bibliodrama, and other activities). It is unfortunate that instead of choosing a neutral name for this universal behavior, we call it larping. This use of language subtly undermines identity: “Sure, your events are not larps. But you are still larping.”

    As we identify more and more activities as larps, and create a new category for “those larps that are not aware that they are larps,” we are imposing our language and terminology on these independently established fields. History shows that this could lead to the suppression, undermining, and erasure of their origin, tradition, and identity. And this is not just an unconscious bias, it is a decade-old open agenda, called larpification: “Call it larp and others will follow” (Raasted 2012).

    Larp as a super-umbrella term has caused confusion and mental harm. At least to me, a role-player with multiple backgrounds in the above-mentioned activities. Larpers often behave like embodied personality-playing had been an uninhabited virgin soil discovered first by them. I find it profoundly unjust that they trample over other traditions while attempting to emancipate the meaning of larp in the public discourse. This is why I always find myself on the defensive at larp theory events, if I dare to speak: which is frustrating. 

    While I do not suggest that changing our insider language usage is the most pressing issue in the process of furthering equity, diversity, and inclusion, I propose that cross-activity umbrella terms should be as neutral and analytic as possible to minimize linguistic and cultural oppression. Simply speaking, we should not use larp or larping to describe things outside of our domain.

    It’s good that the larp scene is constantly pushing its own boundaries, but it should not try to do so by conquering or colonizing its neighbors.

    Bibliography

    Sebastian Deterding (2016): Make-Believe in Gameful and Playful Design. In Digital Make-Believe: Human-Computer Interaction edited by Phil Turner and J. Tuomas Harviainen, 101–124. Springer.

    Claus Raasted (2012): Larpification. Nordic Larp Talks, Helsinki. https://nordiclarptalks.org/larpification-claus-raasted/ Accessed: 08.13.2023

    Jonne Arjoranta (2011): Defining Role-Playing Games as Language-Games. International Journal of Role-playing, 3–17.

    J. Tuomas Harviainen (2011): The Larping that is not Larp. In Think Larp. Academic Writings from KP2011, edited by Thomas Duus Henriksen. Christian Bierlich, Kasper Friis Hansen, and Valdemar Kølle, 172–193. Rollespilsakademiet.

    J. Tuomas, Harviainen, Rafael Bienia, Simon Brind, Michael Hitchens, Yaraslau I. Kot, Esther MacCallum-Stewart, David W. Simkins, Jaakko Stenros and Ian Sturrock (2018): Live-action Role-playing Games. In Role-playing Game Studies. A Transmedia Approach, edited by José P. Zagal and Sebastian Deterding, 87–106. Routledge.

    Malik Hyltoft (2010): Four Reasons Why Edu-larp Works. In LARP – Einblicke – Aufsatzsammlungzum MittelPunkt 2010, edited by Karsten Dombrowski. Zauberfeder.

    Sarah Lynne Bowman (2014): Educational Live Action Role-playing Games: A Secondary Literature Review. The Wyrd Con Companion Book 3: 112–131.

    Yaraslau I. Kot (2012): Educational Larp – Topics for Consideration. In The Wyrd Con Companion Book, edited by Aaron Vanek and Sarah Lynne Bowman, 118–27. 

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

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

    Cover photo: Photo by Breizh Clichés on Pexels.

  • Strings and Rails: NPCs vs. Supporting Characters

    Published on

    in

    Strings and Rails: NPCs vs. Supporting Characters

    Written by

    For larps [Non-Player Characters] (…) exist at the service of the larp, and their existence and agency are secondary to those of the player characters (Brind 2020).

    In many larps, Non-Player Characters (NPCs) are diegetic tools for larp designers and runtime gamemasters to set specific events in motion, to convey important messages and to anchor story beats in the timeline of the larp. Their psychology is often simplified compared to other characters, and they are single-minded in their pursuit of the given task. NPCs are a bridge between the plot and the player characters, and their primary goal is to serve the story.

    Sometimes, however, the game benefits from the presence of Non-Player Characters with more complex personalities and agendas; characters who must remain on the runtime gamemasters’ strings, but who can no longer be on rails. For convenience, I call them supporting characters, and I separate them from the NPCs, even though there may be various degrees of overlap in their design.

    Where NPCs serve the story, supporting characters serve the players. Their interactions with player characters are paramount to their personal agendas, and they are often used as a litmus paper for how the game is going and what aspects of it need to be tweaked on the go. Supporting characters bring out the internal struggles in player characters, draw them deeper into the story; not for the story’s sake, but for the characters’.

    The Polish larp Fallout: Xanai’s Revenge (Poland 2023) used both NPCs and supporting characters with great success. The larp’s plot centred around a small village that drew in travellers from various conflicted factions, and with them – all sorts of trouble. NPCs were the overt antagonists who made the other characters’ lives difficult – they were thugs on the roads, raiders attacking the village, one-dimensional villains with straightforward agendas and one simple task: to pose a challenge to the players. They set the tone for the game, and their actions clearly communicated the level of danger facing player characters.

    Simultaneously, each faction at the larp contained a supporting character, some openly introduced as such, some hidden among the players. Their role was more complex: they were expected to provide play to their respective factions, to incentivise players to develop their personal stories, and to provide a living and breathing world where the players could feel at home. Those supporting characters had their own allegiances and agendas, but they were allowed to change them and even switch sides if they bonded with the player characters, or if the direction in which the game was progressing didn’t seem to appeal to the players.

    They were still on the larp designer’s strings – the potential change of their goals was written into the design and had to be consulted with the designer, but the freedom of action set them apart from the single-minded NPCs whose actions and goals were set in stone.

    An important trait separating NPCs from supporting characters is their “screen time”. NPCs are typically one-off appearances. They serve a specific role and then they disappear, or in the case of random encounters, they respawn into equally one-dimensional roles to repeat the same task. Meanwhile, supporting characters are either present throughout the game, or recurring at specific times. Since their role is that of supporting the players’ stories, their availability is crucial for the formation of emotional bonds, the building of stakes, and the escalation of conflicts. Supporting characters are there to encourage players, to create spotlight for them, and to weave the player characters’ personal stories into the overarching story of the larp. They are the manipulative antagonist who tempts the heroes with the promise of power and glory; they are the vulnerable rookie who needs guidance and protection; they are the dying elder who brings out the worst in the relatives fighting for their inheritance.

    Railroad tracks leading through green forest.
    Photo by Antoine Beauvillain on Unsplash.

    Sometimes, all the larp needs are one-off NPCs. The larp Paler Shade of Black (Poland 2013) introduced NPCs whose only job was to incite riots and let themselves be captured by the palace guards to be made an example of. The game focused on a small kingdom surrounded by inhospitable lands, whose survival depended on the absolute trust in the ruthless but effective rulers. Civil disobedience was a major theme there, and the NPCs served as both its enablers and primary victims. Their off-game goal was to provide play to the guards and play up their authority, but because their “screen time” was so short, they didn’t require extensive backgrounds or personalities. Despite this, the cast of the NPCs decided to add flavour to their roles. With the runtime gamemaster’s approval, they wrote quasi-backstories for their characters, weaving them into letters and pages from diaries that could be found on them once they’d been captured. 

    These props didn’t turn the NPCs into supporting characters, but they sprinkled their one-dimensional roles with a little more personality, providing the guards with something new to engage with. Had the NPCs survived and used their backstories as alibi to interact with the personal stories of the player characters, their conversion to full-fledged supporting characters would have been complete.

    When designing a larp, it is crucial to decide which of the roles will be needed, and to clearly communicate it to the cast who will be playing them. While NPCs mostly stay on rails and depend on the runtime gamemasters to direct them, supporting characters require thinking on their feet and a level of selflessness that allows them to cater to the players’ needs while keeping the overarching plot in peripheral vision. Due to their recurring nature, full-fledged personalities, and often complex backstories, supporting characters carry an emotional investment that needs to be recognised and approached with proper care. The supporting cast may experience bleed just like the players, which means that regular check-ins and a thorough debriefing is just as important for them as the pre-game briefing.

    NPCs and supporting characters set an example of generosity, serving the plot and the players alongside the gamemasters. Distinguishing between the roles we perform in larp and the implications they carry is just another step to creating a safe, generous, and wholesome experience for everyone involved. 

    Bibliography

    Brind, Simon. 2020. “Learning from NPCs“. In Eleanor Saitta & al. (eds.). What Do We Do When We Play? Helsinki; Solmukohta 2020.

    Ludography

    Bartczak, Wiktor & Patryk Wrześniewski. 2013. Paler Shade of Black. Poland.

    Nowak, Lech Witold. 2023. Fallout: Xanai’s Revenge. Poland.

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

    Fido-Fairfax, Karolina. 2024. “Strings and Rails: NPCs vs. supporting characters.” 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 Esteban Trivelli on Unsplash. Image has been cropped.

  • Larp Design Glossary

    Published on

    in

    Larp Design Glossary

    Written by

    The original version of this glossary was published in the 2019 book Larp Design: Creating Role-Play Experiences.

    360° illusion
    Larp design idea where what you see is what you get. The environment is perceived as authentic, everything works as it should affording participants to engage in authentic activity for real, and participants perform immersive role-play.
    Act (noun)
    A segment of the larp runtime that has some kind of thematic unity, comparable to an act in a play.
    Act break
    The breaks between runtime when runtime is divided into acts. Often used to pause, reflect, and calibrate play.
    Agency
    The capacity of a participant or a character to act in a meaningful manner in a given environment, to have the possibility to impact the proceedings.
    Alibi
    The things that enable a person to (role-)play and to do things they would never do in everyday life while in character. Alibi is value neutral (“It says so in the character description”) and can be used in a positive (“We have all agreed to explore these themes together in a physical way”) or a negative way (“I was drunk at the time”).
    Amusement park design
    In the context of larp design this means creating a larp where there are pre-planned ‘rides’, story units, for the characters to explore.
    Bespoke design
    Approaching every larp as a new work and designing everything from scratch. As opposed to either iterating on a local tradition, or using the same larp system, such as Mind’s Eye Theatre, in multiple larps.
    Blackbox
    A genre of larp played with minimalist setting, with carefully curated props, and controlled light and sound. Often played in theatre black boxes. A room in a longform larp devoted to acting out scenes out of temporal sequence is also sometimes called blackbox, although a better term for that is meta room.
    Bleed
    When the feelings of the character impact on the participant, or vice versa.
    Blockbuster larp
    Longform larp that targets an international audience, features an expensive venue, high participation fee, and is hyped before and after. They usually have a high concept idea, often based on existing intellectual property. Originally, the term was critical of this type of larps.
    Boffer
    A padded weapon. Historically made out of foam covered with duct tape, nowadays often made out of latex.
    Boffer larp
    A larp where fighting modeled with boffers is a central feature.
    Briefing
    The part of the event before runtime where designers instruct participants about the larp.
    Calibration
    Negotiations relating to playstyle and personal boundaries, usually between participants.
    Campaign
    A pre-planned series of larps set in the same fictional world where events from one larp impact events in another.
    Chamber larp
    Shorter larps, with their length measured in hours, often taking place in a small venue and with participants in single or low double digits. Low demands for scenography and costuming make chamber larps easier to package and restage.
    Character
    The fictional persona a participant portrays during runtime. Sometimes also used to refer to the character description that is an inspiration for the character actually played.
    Character alibi
    The alibi provided by portraying a character.
    Character description
    The material on which a participant bases their performance of a character during runtime. Usually takes the form of text describing character background, motivation, goals, and contacts. In some traditions these can be very long and individually tailored, in others they are not used at all.
    Close to home
    Playing with themes, situation, experiences, or personae that one is very familiar with from everyday life.
    Collaborative-style
    Larps that have no victory condition and encourage participants to share and co-create, rather than conceal information and best each other.
    Competitive-style
    Larps in which there is a victory condition that only limited numbers of participants can achieve.
    Consent, physical
    Permission for something physical (e.g. relating to intimacy or roughness) to happen. Can be withheld at any time.
    Consent, story
    Permission to do something particularly impactful to another participant’s character (e.g. give permission to another participant that they can kill your character).
    Content larp
    A style of larp, predominantly Czech, primarily focused on pre-written and tightly structured plot content created by the design team.
    Debrief
    Larpmaker organised post-runtime event, where participants and designers talk about what they just did together. Can be structured or relatively free-flowing. Usually the goal is to put the runtime in perspective, to share stories, or to meet the other participants without the masks the characters provide.
    Decompression
    The cooldown period after the runtime of a larp, when the participant is leaving the fiction and the character behind, and gearing up to return to everyday life outside the larp. Sometimes also called aftercare.
    De-roling
    The process by which a participant divests themselves of the physical embodiment of their character, often used as a method to attempt to prevent or reduce bleed.
    Designable surface
    Anything that can be changed and made choices about that can impact the experience that is being designed. In larp, everything is a designable surface: the typeface of the website, the soundscape, the interaction patterns, character names, toilet temperature.
    Diegesis
    Things that exist inside of the fiction are part of the diegesis. For example, music during runtime is part of the diegesis if the characters can hear it, and non-diegetic if only the players hear it.
    Diegetic
    Something that exists inside of the fiction is diegetic. In a larp participants can address, react to, and interact with things that are diegetic, without breaking character. See diegesis.
    Director
    A runtime gamemaster who guides play in a very hands-on manner. Basically a freeform gamesmaster in larp.
    Escalation (and de-escalation)
    The process of incrementally increasing or decreasing the intensity of a scene to come to the optimal atmosphere for all participants involved. Sometimes there is a specific metatechnique for signalling desired (de)escalation.
    Fate (sometimes skjebne)
    A play instruction for character action that the participant is obliged to follow; occurs in fateplay designs.
    Fateplay
    Prior consent by participants and/or organisers to certain, immutable narrative beats or outcomes. A conscious design decision that presumes that how something happens or someone feels about it happening can be just as interesting to explore as if it happens.
    Freeform (freeform larp, freeform scenario)
    As the name implies, freeform scenarios have no standard form. They typically last a few hours, are usually played without costumes, props, or special lighting in whatever space is available, often feature heavy use of inventive bespoke mechanics and metatechniques, and are sometimes heavily gamemastered. In the Nordic countries, these used to be considered halfway between tabletop role-playing and larps; today, in the international discourse, they are lumped together with larps.
    Gamemaster, runtime
    A runtime story facilitator for a larp, keeping track of plot flow, solving narrative problems, and, if applicable, making rule-system calls. Sometimes but not always one of the larpwrights.
    Herd competence
    The amount of competence in the ensemble of participants. Running a larp for a group of participants where some have prior experience is much easier than running a larp for a group with only beginners. If there is enough experience in the room, beginners can learn by following the example set by more experienced participants.
    Immersion
    A term with multiple meanings, usually relating to how far the participant is engaged with the fiction of the larp. One common usage is in the sense of character immersion, that is, the participant experiencing the diegetic world through the eyes and mind of the character. Sometimes the word is used to mean immersion into the setting or the milieu, as in 360° illusion, or even engagement with the story as in narrative immersion.
    Ingame
    Things that happen during runtime and are true within the world of the larp.
    Inter-immersion
    In a larp, a participant is pretending to be a character, but is also pretending that everyone else is their character. The feedback from the other participants enhances the character immersion, creating a cycle called inter-immersion.
    Jeepform
    A specific tradition of freeform role-playing mostly coming from Sweden and Denmark. See jeepen.org.
    Knutepunkt (also Knutpunkt, Knudepunkt, Solmukohta, KP)
    Annual conference devoted to larp and larp design traveling between Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Finland that began in Oslo in 1997. The name of the event always reflects the local language. The whole tradition is discussed under the original, Norwegian name.
    Larp crush
    An infatuation with another participant, or maybe just their character, that a player develops during runtime due to playing a romance with them. See also bleed.
    Larpmaker
    All the people responsible for the creation of a larp, both in production and in content.
    Larp script
    All the materials (character documents, rules, venue requirements, etc.) created by the designer that are needed to run a larp.
    Larp system
    A set of rules for larping if they can be separated from the individual larp, i.e. multiple larps are run with the same system of rules. Some larps use complex rule mechanics to explain what characters can and cannot do, and those rules can be printed as books. This is the opposite of bespoke rules.
    Larpwright
    The author(s) of a larp. The person or group who defines the larp’s vision, world, workshop structure, characters, etc. A synonym for larp designer from an era before game studies terminology colonised larp discourse. Also, a person who creates larps.
    Longform larp
    Larps that last a full day or several days, possibly with act breaks between different parts, with full scenography and participants in full costumes.
    Magic circle
    Metaphor for the separate space of playing. The time and space of the larp, in which characters are played and different rules apply than normal; upheld by a social contract.
    Mechanics
    In larps where the skills of the characters are important, and they are markedly different from those of the participants, these actions are expressed through replacements that simulate things that are impossible, undesired, or too intimate (e.g. violence and sex). In some traditions, mechanics imply points, levels or other numerical systems representing skills.
    Meta room
    A dedicated room in a longform larp devoted to acting out scenes out of temporal sequence. Often features a runtime gamemaster. Sometimes also called a blackbox.
    Metareflection
    The player reflecting on character actions or the fictional situation, switching between the fictive frame and the metareflexive frame.
    Metatechnique
    Mechanics that allow participants to communicate player to player about their characters, without breaking play. Metatechniques are commonly employed to let participants share their character’s inner thoughts or motivations, or to let participants together establish things about their characters’ shared history and relationship.
    Mixing Desk of Larp
    A theory of larp design, guiding the designer to make conscious decisions between contradictory virtues of larp design. It consists of a series of faders, such as transparency-secrecy, illustrating that a typical larp cannot feature both high transparency and many secrets.
    Narrative
    Narrative is what you are left with after the larp is done, when participants look back on the plot, the story, and the character actions and try to answer the question “what happened in this larp”. The narrative is the choice of events included, and the way they are related to each other, when a story is told. The narrative of a larp continues to change long after the larp has ended.
    Narrative design
    All design choices made in the service of enabling participants to tell stories.
    NPC
    The acronym is short for non-player character. It refers to a character who follows the larp designer or runtime gamemaster’s instructions. NPCs are typically played by organisers, or a crew dedicated to this purpose. NPCs can be present for the whole duration of the larp, or appear only briefly. The term was inherited from tabletop role-playing games.
    Offgame
    Participant activities or utterances outside of both the larp’s diegesis as well as the play of the larp itself.
    One-shot
    A larp designed to be stand-alone and not part of a series of connected larps like a campaign.
    Opt-in
    An instance of choosing to participate in something.
    opt-in design
    Designing in a way where participants have to actively choose to participate in certain aspects or design elements of the larp.
    Opt-out
    An instance of choosing not to participate in something.
    Opt-out design
    Designing in a way that presupposes participation in certain aspects or design elements of the larp, where participants have to actively choose not to participate.
    Organiser
    A person who is at least in part responsible for making sure the larp runs. This can include logistics work as well as runtime gamemastering and other activities.
    Paralarp
    The practices, designs, and texts surrounding the runtime to enable the playing of that larp.
    Playstyle calibration
    Participants or gamemasters communicating beforehand about the desired playstyle of a scene or larp. This type of calibration is not about the content, but about how the participants approach larp in general and to find common ground: physical or not physical, slow or fast paced, very emotionally intense or with levity.
    Plot
    Sequences of narrative events pre-planned by the larp designers, for example in the form of intrigues written into the character descriptions giving characters motivations for actions during the larp.
    Post-play activities
    Any activities undertaken after the official runtime of a larp.
    Pre-written
    Created prior to the run of the larp; often implies that the elements of the larp have been consciously designed and intentionally related to each other.
    Producer
    Person or persons responsible for the physical production and logistics of a larp.
    Role
    A collection of legible social behaviours in a given social position. Everyone plays numerous roles (customer, larper, offspring), both out of the larp and within a larp as a character.
    Rules-light
    Containing few enough rules that the larp can be learned instantly by a novice and that these few rules can be recalled on the spot with little difficulty.
    Run (noun)
    An instance of a full staging and playthrough of a larp. “Some see the first run as a playtest, I see it as a premiere.” (verb) To stage a larp. “We ran House of Cravings last weekend.”
    Runtime
    The allotted time for playing, when characters are being played and the narrative design unfolds.
    Sandbox design
    Sandbox design focuses on providing participants with a playable world that reacts to their input, in which participants can freely bring in or create on-site the plots and the drama they find interesting to play out together.
    Secrecy
    The use of secrecy in larp design is to purposefully prevent participants from knowing things their characters would not know. Common ways to add secrecy are to give participants secret character goals and motivations, and to include surprise happenings during runtime. See also transparency.
    Secrets & powers larp
    North American larp design pattern. Pre-written characters in typically a single-run larp all have often-oppositional goals that they are primarily able to reach by leveraging secrets (hidden information not known to everyone) and powers (game mechanics that permit participants to get other characters to do what their character wishes).
    Setting (a scene)
    The act of framing and describing who is in a scene, what is happening, and where it is taking place. Hitting particular themes or emotional overtones is particularly desirable.
    Status line exercises
    An abstract larp exercise in which participants physically queue up in order to demonstrate and visualise where their characters lie on a specific status continuum. Examples include oldest to youngest, most powerful to least powerful, or degree of agreement with an ideology.
    Story
    Story is created in real time from the moment the larp begins until the participants are done playing.
    Tabletop
    Role-playing style played verbally, where you do not act out your character’s actions, but instead narrate them.
    Theme
    The theme of a larp is what the larp is about, in contrast to what happens at the larp. Setting clear themes for a larp informs participants about the desired tone and playstyle of the larp, and affects what participants expect they might be likely to experience. Larps divided into acts often have different themes for each act.
    Transparency
    The use of transparency in larp design is to purposefully let participants know things their characters would not know. Common ways to add transparency are to let participants read more pre-written characters than just their own, to divide the larp into acts with announced themes, or to tell participants what is going to happen during the larp before it starts. See also secrecy.
    Workshop
    The workshop is a structured period of exercises that your participants will do before the start of runtime, to familiarise themselves with each other and the larp mechanics, enabling them to play together. Typically done on-site before runtime.

    Cover photo by Massi Hannula, used with permission.

  • There Is No Nordic Larp – And Yet We All Know What It Means

    Published on

    in

    There Is No Nordic Larp – And Yet We All Know What It Means

    Written by

    Disclaimer: The opinions expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Nordiclarp.org or any larp community at large.

    “Nordic larp is like porn. I know it when I see it.”((Adaptation of a quote by United States Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart (1964) ))

    Ten years ago, when first attending the Knutpunkt conference in Norway, I was humbled by stories about Hamlet, 1942 and other great games. Here, there were people actually stretching the definition of what “larp” means. It was an awesome, mind blowing experience for sure. There were a lot of talks about the larps that were influenced by the KP tradition and vice versa. There was no good term for these games, so usually the rather cumbersome “games in the KP/SK tradition” was used.

    When in 2010, Jaakko Stenros and Markus Montola published the book Nordic Larp documenting 30 larps belonging to this tradition, they effectively coined the term. It had been used before, but never with such a brand recognition. Still, there was no clear definition what “Nordic larp” actually means. In discussions, one of the main points is if the term is meant geographically or not. The Nordic Larp Wiki greets its visitors with the following words:

    “Nordic-style larp, or Nordic Larp, is a term used to describe a tradition of larp game design that emerged in the Nordic countries.”

    So far, so good. Is it a geographical description then? “Nordic” seems to imply this and the Nordic Larp Wiki certainly defines it this way:

    “Nordic-style larp is traditionally different from larp in other parts of the world[…]”((http://nordiclarp.org/wiki/Nordic_Larp))

    In 2012, Juhana Pettersson writes in States of Play (already subtitled as “Nordic Larp around the world”):

    “Nordic Larp is not the same as the larps played in the Nordic countries. Indeed, most Nordic larps are not part of the Nordic Larp design movement. This leads to the bizarre situation where the Nordic Larp movement can enter into dialogue with Finnish larp the same way it can be in dialogue with Russian larp.

    “Nowadays, the truly new stuff comes from all those Italians, Germans and Americans who have taken some of the ideas of Nordic Larp and made them part of their own artistic practice. Thankfully, instead of just assimilating stuff from us, they’re sending ideas back, becoming the new creative frontier of Nordic Larp.”

    So the definition from the Wiki is not very useful since there are:

    • Larps in this tradition which are not from Nordic countries;
    • Larps in Nordic countries not belonging to this tradition.

    So why is it still called Nordic? What’s so Nordic about Nordic larp? Maybe it is the origin of the movement. In his Nordic Larp Talk 2013, Jaakko Stenros tries to define “a” Nordic larp this way:

    “A larp that is influenced by the Nordic larp tradition or contributes to the ongoing Nordic larp discourse. This definition may seem disappointing, or even like a cop-out.”((‘What does Nordic Larp mean?’, Jaakko Stenros, Nordic Larp Talks 2013, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mL_qvBaxV5k))

    Not only a cop-out, but also recursive. Thus it is not very helpful if we want to get closer to the actual meaning of the term. Furthermore he continues:

    “Nordic larp is not a set of instructions. It is not even a coherent design philosophy. It is a movement.”

    Well, well – it’s also not a coherent design philosophy. At least that definition empowers anybody to define their own style as Nordic. And where is the nodal point of this movement? It is, in fact, the Nodal Point conference – Knudepunkt/ Knutepunkt/Knutpunkt/Solmukohta.

    Next, there is Jaakko Stenros’ version of a brand definition for the “Nordic larp tradition”:

    “A tradition that views larp as a valid form of expression, worthy of debate, analysis and continuous experimentation, which emerged around the Knutepunkt convention.”

    We are back to the KP/SK tradition. Not much Nordic left here though, because this tradition (r)evolves around the conferences and for at least ten years they have certainly not been entirely Nordic (in geographical terms) anymore and not the creative frontier (according to Juhana Pettersson above). Somehow we are getting nowhere.

    Let’s try a different approach. The book The Foundation Stone of Nordic Larp((The Foundation Stone of Nordic Larp, 2014, Edited by Eleanor Saitta, Marie Holm-Andersen & Jon Back)) was written to give a sort of “kickstart” into the Nordic larp tradition, collecting important articles from the now 20+ books published around the Knudepunkt conference. It describes Nordic larp this way:

    “The Nordic larp community differs from larp culture in other places. […] And yes, that’s right, there are other kinds of larps played in Scandinavia; the Nordic larp community is a specific and by now reasonably well-defined subset.”

    So, first sentence: kind of geographic. Let’s imagine the movement is what the author implies as a “place”, because the last sentence of the paragraph is clear about the term being non-geographic. Let’s try to define the term in other ways. Also from the above paragraph:

    “It spends more time telling stories that emphasize naturalistic emotion, it emphasizes collective, rather than competitive storytelling, and it takes its stories fairly seriously much of the time […]”

    Jaakko Stenros’ Nordic Larp Talk also mentions some of these characteristics:

    “It typically values thematic coherence, continuous illusion, action and immersion, while keeping the larp co-creative and its production noncommercial. Workshops and debriefs are common.”

    These are characteristics which undoubtedly are part of the tradition we are talking about. The Nordic Larp Wiki supports this approach as well:

    “[…]Here are a few examples of aims and ideals that are typical for this unique gaming scene:”

    If we accept the Nordic Larp wiki as a PR instrument, this is certainly cool, but as a reference about what Nordic larp actually means, this is maybe slightly too much self-adulation. Let’s have a closer look at these characteristics and ideals:

    “Immersion. Nordic larpers want to feel like they are “really there”. This includes creating a truly convincing illusion of physically being in a medieval village/on a spaceship/WWII bunker, playing a character that is very close to your own physical appearance, as well as focusing on getting under the character’s skin to ‘feel their feelings’. Dreaming in character at night is seen by some nordic larpers as a sign of an appropriate level of immersion.”

    Not only is this definition of immersion mixing in 360° for good measure, the sentence about the “truly convincing illusion of physically being [there]” is also not very Nordic (at least from my personal experience) even though some games are now trying to do exactly that. The second part talking more about actual immersion could be considered very Nordic, if you like.

    “Collaboration. Nordic-style larp is about creating an exciting and emotionally affecting story together, not measuring your strength. There is no winning, and many players intentionally let their characters fail in their objectives to create more interesting stories.”

    This might actually be one of the better indicators for a “Nordic larp”, but then, there’s plenty of examples from other game traditions where this is used as well – but maybe not the other way around. Maybe it is required, but not sufficient?

    “Artistic vision. Many Nordic games are intended as more than entertainment – they make artistic or even political statements. The goal in these games is to affect the players long term, to perhaps change the way they see themselves or how they act in society.”

    Artistic vision is hard to define, as is a political statement, but there’s certainly a divide between pure “entertainment” and “serious” games. But then, aren’t the ones without a political statement artistic in their own unique way? And what about the Nordic games which are not intended as more than entertainment?

    There’s certainly a lot of elements which are considered part of this tradition, but are they unique? Is “bleed”, “immersion”, “alibi” really Nordic? Are pre-game workshops, 360°, black box and debriefings? Furthermore, what is often described as “Nordic larp”, evolves with every game and every discussion about this tradition. Fifteen years ago, no game would use bleed or alibi or 360° in their descriptions (since the terms didn’t really exist) and even mechanisms, but still they were and are considered part of this tradition.

    One could argue the way Merleau-Ponty does and say that while many of these are often present, none needs to be to make it a Nordic larp. The question cannot be solved this way.

    Furthermore, when we used black-box-style mechanisms in 2000-2003 in the Insomnia series of games in Germany, were they “Nordic”? Did the workshops, debriefings, game acts and use of “cut”, “brems” and “escalate” mechanisms for The Living Dead (2010) make it “Nordic”?

    There’s a simple answer: no. But the reason for that is not that they were not played in the Nordic countries or organized by people from there. The simple reason is that they did not add to the discourse, in one case because we hadn’t heard about KP yet, in the other case because we didn’t bother to do so.

    This needs to change. I don’t think it actually matters where ideas were first tried out and who made it popular, but we need to tell people what we do and show it to them in a meaningful way if we want to be part of the movement.

    “In the end, while we may rage and debate whether Nordic larp actually isn’t all that special, reality is that it is. And let’s use that for our advantage instead of trying to nitpick.”((Claus Raasted, January 14 2015 in a private conversation on Facebook))
    – Claus Raasted

    Conclusion

    I truly believe there is something special about the kind of games we create. I also do think that creating a term like “Nordic Larp” was a masterstroke of Knudepunkt/ Knutepunkt/Knutpunkt/Solmukohta propaganda.

    And this is what I’m going to do((And maybe edit that page in the Nordic Larp Wiki and remove that ridiculous geographic reference.)): Nordic larp. No matter where I am or where I come from. It’s where I’ve been heading all my larping life and I don’t really care how we call it as long as we know what it means. I believe we do.

    Because if we can’t agree upon what Nordic larp means, others will form their own slightly worrying conclusions:

    “Meanwhile, in Europe, some people were already making a living from LARPing and stretching its art in interesting directions. Claus Raasted [sic], for example, fused parlor roleplay with very serious topics, such as acting out couples’ therapy to pretend to grieve for a dead child. The genre spread through the region and became known as Nordic LARP.”((Olivia Simone, tabletmag.com, Sep 2 2014 getting more facts wrong than right in this “definition” of the term.))

    Nobody really can tell you what Nordic larp actually is, but who cares as long as Claus Raasted is the godfather of Nordic LARP?

    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 at Knutpunkt 2014, by Johannes Axner.

  • Painting Larp – Using Art Terms for Clarity

    Published on

    in

    Painting Larp – Using Art Terms for Clarity

    Written by

    When I design scenarios, I try to use the terminology from the Nordic larp discourse. But many of thes styles “available” confuse me and my players instead of clarifying what the larps are actually about.

    One of the problems is that many styles are defined by what they are not, instead of what they are. Because of this, I would like to introduce a new way of thinking about larp terminology. The hope is to make my design choices clearer and open my mind to new ways of designing larp.

    I chose terminology from visual art, since that’s (also) about taking something intangible and turning it into something concrete.

    First we need to unmuddle the picture as we know it today. This means that I will try to use only only the necessary terminology that we know from roleplaying today.

    In art we talk about form, media, style and genre to define the work of art. These are the definitions I will go through and try to convert into terminologies that can be used for larp (and roleplaying in general).

    Form and Media

    An artform is defined by its shape or artistic expression, which often is defined by its media.

    Examples of different kinds of shapes in visual art: painting, sculptures, crafts, photography, film and architecture.

    Roleplaying doesn’t have shapes, but is defined by its artistic expressions of interaction. At one end of the spectrum, we find tabletop RPGs, and at the other we find larp. In the middle we find a lot of more or less recognized bastard children; freeform, semi-larp, etc.

    Style

    The style of art depending on the artform. As mentioned before, I will refer to visual art, but to make it even more concrete, I’m referring to styles of paintings in this and the subsequent section.

    The style is a way to frame the art. For an artform as roleplaying the style makes the expression more understandable. To exemplify I’ll go through some painting styles.

    Naturalism and realism seem similar to many, but have their differences. Where realism tries to capture the reality as it is, naturalism beautifies reality. It’s legal to remove or add something from a naturalist picture. This would be prohibited in realism. Also, realism usually focuses on the harsher aspects of life.

    Realism in roleplaying consists of simulations of reality. An example on a scenario which tried to achieve this is the danish larp U-359 from 2004. The larp took place in an actual (decommisioned) submarine. Not only were historical reproduction uniforms included in the participants package, the organizers also clearly stated that the larp would be more simulation than drama.

    Naturalism in roleplaying focuses on the good experience instead of the authenticity.

    A naturalist larp might be a historical depiction of a rural medieval village (like the larp Brakowitz from 1998 did); but one where everyone cared a bit more and where everything was a bit more rosy (unlike in Brakowitz, where things were horrible).

    Impressionism in roleplaying is where the simulation is comprised to make the important part of the game stand clear.

    An example is the danish larp Uden guds nåde from 2009. The important elements were lighted with stage lighting and the rest of the game area was darkened when not in focus.

    In cubism the artist describes an object or scene from multiple perspective at once.

    Cubism roleplaying uses different perspectives simultaneously that are later combined so that each player gets an experience of several viewpoints.

    An example is be the Danish freeform game Circus Without Boundaries from 2013. Here, the main mechanic is that each scene has one or more main characer(s) and several supporting players. The main character(s) can only talk, and must be moved around by the supporting players as lifesize dolls.

    The physical position shows the thoughts of the main characters where the dialog is what the characters actually are doing. A scene could be that the main characters are doing the dishes, and the supporting players change their positions so that one of the main characters tries to strangle the other one.

    Expressionism is about recognizable feelings, and not reality.

    The larp White Death from 2012 was designed for Black Box play. In the game the players are pioneers climbing a mountain, but the climb is too harsh, and they die one after each another until nobody is left. The players can only make special mechanic movements that make it hard to move. They can only speak incomprehensible sounds, but when a character dies, the player shifts to playing the soul of the pioneer, and can now move freely and help the pioneers left to die. Since there is no dialogue, the experience and context is constructed in the heads of the players; in a very personal way.

    There are many styles of art out there, and it’s not like I have definite answers. Some art styles can be compared with roleplaying and can be useful to us – others can’t.

    Hopefully some of these art styles will inspire us to make new kinds of larps, just like Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque invented Cubism.

    Genre

    To round off, a few words on genre. In paintings the genre defines the theme of the picture. It can be landscapes, portraits etc.

    These are unaffiliated of the style or form. In roleplaying we normally use literary genres to describe the game. These are normally fine to use, but can give problems regarding sandbox-games. The genre is often confused with style because its rarely these are split in literature. In art we have seen both naturalist and cubist landscape in a painting, but what about a cubist fantasy larp in roleplaying?

    What can you imagine?

    Do it!

    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: “Museum of Modern Art” by Ingfbruno is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.