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:
Tell me, and I will forget.
Show me and I may remember.
Involve me, and I will understand.
Confucius
The next generation of teachers will be expected to possess a broad spectrum of competencies and skills. They are faced with a seemingly impossible task: today, classroom instruction should teach not only content but also competence. It should be as interdisciplinary as possible and it should take the heterogeneity of students into account. In addition to hard skills, classroom instruction should also teach soft skills. It should encourage and include the use of the learning material in a variety of situations that students will face in the real world. At the same time it should also be problem-oriented, varied and interesting, and sustainable. And of course, it should motivate students to learn!
While it seems as though new teachers are being asked to square the circle, the Danish boarding school Østerskov Efterskole and others like it have demonstrated that this challenge can be met and mastered((Cf. Hyltoft, Malik, 2008.)).
How? With Edularp.
But just what is Edularp?
Edularp
Edularp((The term Edularp stands for “educational live action role-playing game”.)) is live-action roleplaying used to impart pre-determined pedagogical or didactic content.
Why is Edularp ffective? Why do children, high school students, college students, and seminar participants learn better, faster, more sustainably and more easily with Edularp?
Edularp as Game
The chief art is to make everything that children have to do, sport and play too.
John Locke
Firstly, Edularp is always a game. And games are usually fun((Henriksen (2008) argues for the contrary opinion, according to which learning games neither must nor should be fun.)). Those who have fun learn more easily((Cf. Corbeil, 1999, pp. 173.)), are more motivated((Cf. Hyltoft, M., 2010, pp. 48.)), and are more likely to tackle larger challenges without reticence((Suits (2005) has even made the overcoming of unnecessary obstacles the core of his definition of games:“Playing a game is the voluntary attempt to overcome unnecessary obstacles.”)). Additionally, players participating in an Edularp — like players of games in general — often forget that they are actually doing something sensible. For them, fun — often fun as part of a group — is in the foreground((Baer, U., 1982.)).
Secondly, in games in general and in Edularps in particular, a kind of secondary reality((Authors from different fields have described this alternative reality in a number of different ways, but often mean the same thing or at least a similar thing: the “situation of the second degree” in Brougère, G., 1999, the “frame” in Goffman, E., 1977, pp. 52, the “surplus reality” in Moreno, 1965 or the “magic circle of gameplay” in Huizinga, 1938/1939.)) takes hold. It is a special reality that not only lifts the players out of their complex and often trivial or boring everyday existences for a brief time, but that also delivers them into a new world that is often exciting, epic and comprehensible in ways that the real word is not. While “normal” classroom instruction is often dry, Edularp is usually the highlight of the day. This provides enormous motivation to players((Cf. McGonigal, J., 2012, pp. 119ff.)). It is simply far more exciting to investigate a murder mystery than to listen to a lecture about chemistry, English or mathematics.
Furthermore, when we play, we are only acting “as if” something were the case. We, and the other players, are only pretending. This results in a kind of sanction-free experimental zone, a safe framework in which we can try out new ways of thinking or beha ving, reasoning or feeling — without fear of negative consequences((Cf. van Ameln, F. and Kramer, Josef, 2007, pp. 397; Hyltoft, M., 2010, pp. 45ff; Vester, 1978, pp. 184.)). After all, it is “only” a game.
This is especially true of role-playing games in which we act “as if” we were knights, elves or orcs. But even in games in which we do not slip into obvious game roles, as is the case in alternate reality games (ARGs), we nevertheless do adopt a role in the sense that we act “as if” something were “real” even though we know that it is not.
It could be a bomb from which we recoil in panic and then attempt to defuse with all the seriousness of someone facing a real explosive device. Or it could be a person who we treat with respect because they present themselves as a police officer, even though we know that they are really just an NPC (a non-player character — the game equivalent of an extra in a film).
Participants in games are often less likely to be discouraged by setbacks; indeed, after “failing” they often return to the challenge with even more motivation than before((McGonigal, J., 2012, pp. 64ff.)).
Edularp: Learning by Doing
For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them.
Furthermore, Edularp is what we refer to as an action-oriented method((Cf. Balzer, 2009, pp.13.)). That means that participants learn not through flat theories or lecturing from the blackboard but rather that they truly become active in the lesson or subject matter by trying it out themselves, through their own actions. Edularp is, in the truest sense of the word, learning by doing((The expression “learning by doing” comes to us not, as is often claimed, from John Dewey, but
rather from the English translation of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, 1985, p. 27f.)).
That means that the participants learn with all their senses. When they viscerally experience the content, when they physically exert themselves, when they smell the appropriate smells and see the appropriate visuals, their entire bodies act as sounding boards both for the experience itself and for their reflections on what they have experienced and learned((Cf. van Ameln, F., Kramer, J., 2007, pp. 393.)).
With Edularp it is possible to present topics that are typically dry or theoretical in ways that make them accessible to sensible experience or allow them to be expressed in symbolic ways((Cf. van Ameln, F., Kramer, J., 2007, pp. 392.)). If, for example, one is on a spaceship and the navigation computer suddenly malfunctions, so that the only way to plot a new course is to solve a differential equation; or if one has to infiltrate and analyze a new cult in order to prevent them from carrying out a terrorist attack; or if one is maltreated by inhumane prison guards((The first example (spaceship) is taken from a game from Østerskov Efterskole, the second example (cult) is taken from a game designed by the authors, while the third example comes from “Prisoner for One Day”, cf. Aarebrot, E. et al., 2012, pp. 24–29.)); what might have been abstract content is instead placed in a concrete, practical context and takes on tangible relevance.
Thus, participants in an Edularp learn not only with their heads but with their guts, with their emotions, senses, and intellects. It is by simultaneously addressing the cognitive and the emotional faculties that the learning content becomes truly relevant and emotionally meaningful to the learner. This means that they can learn more easily and, above all, with greater retention((Cf. van Ameln, F., Kramer, J., 2007, pp. 395.)).
Until now most “knights of education” have been pedagogues, teachers, trainers, social workers, caretakers, therapists and psychologists who typically stumbled upon the larp hobby in their private lives and who independently recognized the huge didactic and pedagogical potential of live- action role-playing((Cf. Balzer, 2009.)) — even in its hobby variant.
They were often pioneers in their fields and had to expend enormous effort to be able to offer their students, patients or participants active learning — live, dynamic and in color.
Nearly 35 years after the first known larp((As the history of larp is often contentious I would like to refer the reader to the English-language Wikipedia article on the topic, which is actively and internationally edited: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/larp)) we found the time ripe for making it easier for young, interested teaching students to utilize the method. To that end we developed a teaching seminar for the University of Siegen Department of Education.
The goal was not just to inform teaching students about the theoretical advantages of live action role-playing in general and Edularp in particular — in the practical seminar we explicitly concerned ourselves with putting the students in a position to develop and run their own Edularps((With our draft seminar we were able to obtain a teaching commission from the University of Siegen. After submitting the written application and presenting the concept to the Department of Education a commission selected our proposed seminar for the didactic module in its 2013/2014 winter semester course offerings.))
Gamification vs. Edularp
In addition to presenting the subject in as practical a manner as possible, our goal was to prepare our students to implement playful learning in real classroom situations in their later careers. Thus our goal was that our students would leave the seminar equipped not only with the theoretical and practical skills to take their children on a two-week “class trip” to Middle Earth, but that they would also be able to employ individual elements of gameplay in their teaching in whatever measure they might find effective and appropriate. That is, that they would be able to use the whole Edularp method as well as smaller elements of games and gameplay.
For this reason we began with an overview of the full breadth of the topic of playful learning, which ranges from learning games (including Edularp) on one end to gamification on the other.
While participants in learning games are normally aware of the fact that they are playing a game((The so-called alternate reality games (ARGs) represent prominent exceptions: players do not necessarily always know if they are really playing a game. Cf. Gosney, J., 2005)) and thus entering into a kind of alternative reality, this is not the case with gamification. Rather, gamification simply attaches individual elements of games — like badges or a ranking list — to normal reality((Deterding, 2011.)), or uses game design techniques to modify everyday processes and procedures((Cf. Werbach, Kevin, https://class.coursera.org/gamification-002/lecture/22.)).
The user of a gamified process does not enter into another reality or game world but rather remains fully and completely in the real world. This means that a gamified process is not a game! The goal of gamification is to make everyday processes more interesting, motivating and seemingly more rewarding. A prominent example of gamification is the app Foursquare, in which users can share their current locations (a restaurant, an event, etc.) with friends and in so doing be rewarded with badges. Another non-digital example from a time before the term gamification was coined is collecting frequent flyer miles, which American Airlines introduced in the early 1980s((The customer collects so-called frequent flyer miles with each flight and, if and when they have collected enough, they can then exchange them for prizes, discounts or access to airport lounges. Microsoft’s Rob Smith, who gamified the software testing process for Windows 7, provides another example. He managed to transform the normally very difficult and trying process of finding and notifying translation errors in the dialogue boxes into a fun experience for a total of 4,500 voluntary participants among his coworkers. Cf. http://gamification-research.org/wp-content/ uploads/2013/03/Smith.pdf.)).
There are also several very successful role models for the use of gamification in the classroom, like the Canadian project World of Classcraft((For more information see: http://www.classcraft.com/en/#intro.)), which gamifies individual school subjects; or the Quest to Learn school in New York City((For more information see: http://q2l.org/.)), which is run according to a fully gamified teaching plan. The didactic method that we taught to our students in the teaching seminar was explicitly intended to prepare them to utilize the entire spectrum between gamification and comprehensive learning games. Thus, the didactic methods we teach enable our students to not only conduct fully-realized Edularps, but to also include individual quests((The term“quest”originates in the classical hero’s journey (cf.Campbell,1999),but in contemporary usage in fantasy literature and computer games it means a task or a puzzle.)) in their normal teaching, as well as to “gamify” their normal lessons.
Our thinking is that by integrating individual game elements in their lessons they can gain experience teaching with games in school and then, bit by bit, take on larger projects.
Playful Learning: Learning in Games | A Practical Seminar
In order to teach the students in our seminar not only the necessary practical competencies for developing and conducting Edularps but also the necessary theoretical knowledge, the seminar was divided into four phases:
Theoretical and practical introduction
Development of the students’ own Edularp
Playing the Edularp
Reflection phase
The individual phases were divided into a total of ten sessions lasting an average of four hours each. The theoretical and especially the practical presentation of the content was important, but it was also important to impart to the students the knowledge and competencies necessary for successfully developing and realizing projects, like project planning and project management, efficient and sustainable communication within a project, etc.
Another consideration was that the students should work independently after the introductory phase, but that they should not be left to face the structuring of the process on their own.
Phase 1: Theoretical and Practical Introduction
The first phase of the seminar consisted of three sessions. In the first session we introduced the theoretical concept of games, larps, Edularps and alternate reality games (ARGs), as well as the didactic potential of Edularps. Our seminar participants were mostly new to larps, and so we introduced them to the topic by presenting successful examples of Edularps and gamification((We selected Østerskov Efterskole’s Harry Potter game (cf.: Hyltoft, M. and Holm, J.T., 2009) as an example of a successful Edularp. As an exceptional example of gamification we chose the Quest to Learn school (cf. http://q2l.org/). As an example of experience-based learning in a larp we selected “Prisoner for a Day” (cf. Aarebrot, E. and Nielsen, M., 2012).)).
In order to impart to our students on a practical level what Edularps are and how it feels to take part in one, in the second session we enacted the four-hour interdisciplinary Edularp “Der Kreuz des Wotans” (Cross of Odin)((In the Edularp Der Kreuz des Wotans players must foil a cult’s plans for a terrorist bombing. The
Edularp was written by Myriel Balzer, Julia Kurz and Tinke Albach.)) so that they would participate in one themselves.
For the third session the participants prepared an elevator pitch((An elevator pitch is a very brief and pointed presentation of a project intended to persuade the
listener to support it.The name comes from the fact that in an elevator one only has the duration of the ride to win the other party over.)) as a homework assignment. Their task in preparation for the session was to think of a gripping story idea for an Edularp and to sketch out a learning quest and the intended learning content. They then had five minutes each to present their ideas at the start of the session as concisely and compellingly as possible, with the intent of persuading the others of the value of their own story ideas.
The goal of this introduction was that the students would be able to begin the development phase with a pool of ideas, rather than have to be creative “on demand” at the start of the practical phase. Building on the pitches, we then discussed what makes a good story, what elements a good game requires, and how a good learning quest should look.
In the second half of the session we presented the core of the seminar, the so- called game organization document (GOD), with which the students would have to develop and conduct their own Edularp in the subsequent practical phase. (A current version of the GOD can be downloaded from www.phoenixgamedesign.de free of charge.)
Phase 2 and 3: Development and Implementation of the Edularp
Since most of our students had no experience with larps or Edularps, it was important for us to give them a guide for their independent work. It was intended to guide them through the various phases of development, provide them with a concrete timeframe and schedule, and help them as much as possible to avoid overlooking any relevant steps or decisions. The game organization document (GOD) arose from these concerns.
The GOD is a form that asks the game developers to specify and explain all the key criteria for the game. In the course of defining and explaining the parameters specified in the generalized GOD, a specific game design document (GDD) for the Edularp under development begins to take shape bit by bit.
The game organization document is divided into seven categories:
Constraints
Project planning
Learning content
Storytelling
External setup
Game design
Documents, materials, props, resources
Category 1: Constraints
The category Constraints includes all the requirements that the game absolutely must fulfil and that have already been specified or must be specified before the start of development. They may include conditions specified by third parties as well as requirements set by the developers themselves. They include things like the number as well as type(s) of participants (age, degree of fitness, etc.) and also factors like the resources that are available (e.g. budget or team strength) and the planned development time.
Category 2: Project Planning
The category Project Planning covers the composition of the team and the division of labor as well as the schedule, the communication pipelines((Communication pipelines are the ways in which the various members of a team should communicate with each other.)), and plans for documentation and data management.
Category 3: Learning Content
In the category Learning Content the developers are asked to define concretely the learning content that is to be conveyed by the game. This is also where the type of learning content (soft skills, hard skills, competences, experience, etc.) is specified. Our teaching students were also required to refer to the school curricula they were using in specific parts of the game.
Category 4: Storytelling
The category Storytelling includes all the elements that deal with the game’s story. This is where the developers formulate the plot. Its development and progress are delineated on a timeline. This is also where they define the setting, genre and topic of the game and specify the staging and dramaturgical elements.
Category 5: External Setup
In the category External Setup the developers are charged with determining all the elements of the game that are not immediate components of the actual game. That means all the elements that take place before the beginning or after the end of the actual game, like pre-workshops, warm- ups, debriefings, the transfer of learning content, the evaluation of the game, and/ or pervasive elements((Cf. Montola, Stenros, Waern, 2009.)). Not every Edularp requires all the elements listed under this category. But it makes sense to consider all the elements and whether or not one’s own game requires them.
Category 6: Game Design
The category Game Design contains the template for the core of the future game design document. This is where the developers describe and visualize the construction of the game and its degree of linearity. This is where they define the victory conditions and determine whether the game can be won cooperatively or competitively.
They define possible game rules — both regulative rules and constitutive rules, as well as possible rules of irrelevance((Regulative rules are those that we typically refer to as the rules of the game. Constitutive rules,
as the name suggests, constitute the game and, for example, define roles and specify key rules or
victory conditions.The rules of irrelevance state that certain objects or facts should be ignored and
thus allow the actual gamespace to exist (cf. Denker and Ballstaedt, 1976, pp. 58).)). They formulate the call to action as well as the intended player motivation, and define points of interest((In this context, a point of interest is the next “point” on which the player should focus. For instance, finding the key to a locked door.)).They determine whether the players take on roles during the game, and who writes them; and they define the game world. In this category the developers explicitly define all the quests that occur in the game, describing their construction, learning goal(s), style, necessary additional knowledge, etc.
The final category Documents, Materials, Props, Resources determines what items are required for the game. All the texts that the players will have access to before, during or after the game, as well as those required for dealing with players, NPCs and game masters (such as in-game contacts or NPC briefings) are also attached here.
This explicit querying of all the important points of the Edularp successfully prevents inexperienced students from overlooking one or more points or failing to give them enough attention. In this seminar we also used the GOD to provide the students with a structured time frame. Thus each of the seven categories had its own deadline, specifying when each unit had to be presented to the instructors in its most-finished version. We thus made it impossible for the students to procrastinate and then attempt to get everything done at the last moment((Experienced planners need not adhere to the order in the GOD, though it will often make sense to do so. And of course, it is not possible to work out all the points separately from each other.)).
While relying on the GOD and the deadlines, the students developed their own Edularp as independently as possible over the course of the following five sessions. We were present during the work sessions and instructed the students that they should create a goal-oriented agenda for each session and ensure that they followed it. Upon completion of each point on the agenda, the students briefly presented their results and we gave them feedback. We also intervened in discussions or development processes here and there when they were in danger of heading in the wrong direction, and we were always available for questions. At the end of the practical phase we played through the Edularp with the students step by step a couple of times (on a theoretical level, without the full staging, etc.), checked it together for logic and consistency, and developed answers for worst-case scenarios.
An Edularp of Their Own
The students’ Edularp was played on the penultimate session and lasted almost exactly four hours. Our students took on all the relevant duties themselves, with the exception of one NPC role. Two of our students served as gamemasters and four others played NPC roles. They also arranged for a student from the university to play an additional NPC and for six others to take part as players; our students organized their participation independently.
In general the process of conducting their first independently designed Edularp was surprisingly smooth and went impressively according to plan. Their tightly-planned schedule functioned very well, and the players managed to work through the entire plot by approx. 5:30 pm (the plan called for them to finish between 5:20 and 5:45 pm). We only intervened once, at the request of both gamemasters, and guided their players back to the right path with a spontaneous NPC improvisation.
Otherwise we simply observed the entire run-through — while making ourselves available for consultation in case of uncertainty on the part of the gamemasters and NPCs — and we tried to avoid getting involved as much as possible.
The game design document for their Edularp — which describes the story and design of the game, etc. — can be downloaded from the author’s website (www.phoenixgamedesign.de) free of charge.
The Reflection Phase
In the last session we all sat together and discussed the seminar in general as well as the students’ Edularp In the course of the seminar we had our students fill out numerous reflection questionnaires regarding the seminar, the GOD and the initial Edularp that we conducted for them: our students also had their own players fill out reflection questionnaires regarding their own larp.
Edularp and Back Again
In principle it can be said that the seminar was a complete success. However, with the benefit of hindsight and feedback there are also some things that we would surely do differently in a future session. We have thus drastically shortened the theoretical portion of the first session for future seminars based on the students’ feedback. Naturally, those students who have no experience with larps must first be properly introduced to the topic.
But the ability to absorb information, especially in the course of a four-hour session, is limited and the primary emphasis of the seminar is on practice rather than theory. According to the students it was the Edularp that they played in the second session that really awakened their interest and their desire to try it out themselves. The examples of successful Edularps in the first session were less important.
Many of them wrote in their reflection questionnaires that it was only through their own participation that they really understood what an Edularp is. Many found the theoretical portion “unimportant” for the independent game development that followed. In the reflection questionnaires the game development process using the GOD was generally described positively, even though the responses did draw attention to a few stumbling blocks.
The students had particular trouble with the Learning Content category, which they felt appeared too early in the GOD. They would have preferred to specify the learning content in the course of developing the quest. However, since teachers must work according to prescribed curricula, we consciously chose this particular sequence to better reflect the realities of the job.
The students also had trouble with the new terminology. Although at the beginning of the practical phase we went over the GOD with them in detail and explained all the terminology in detail, the meaning of individual terms was nonetheless quickly forgotten because they were not documented. Today we would thus distribute a sort of glossary along with the game organization document.
The majority of the students wrote in the questionnaire that the Project Planning category was especially helpful. At the same time, they noted that they only gradually came to understand the importance of well-structured and explicit project management.
In our opinion the most central element of the success of the seminar was the game organization document and the clear scheduling requirements it prescribed for the individual tasks.
Additionally, it was important that the students were required to work in an organized and structured manner, and that they received guidance in doing so. The regular reflection and feedback rounds helped identify and confirm good ideas while rooting out as early as possible ideas that fell outside the scope of the Edularp.
Works Cited
Aarebrot, E. and Nielsen, M. “Prisoner for a Day. Creating a game without winners”, in Aarebrot, E., et. al. (Eds.), Playing the learning game: A practical introduction to educational roleplaying, based on experiences from The Larpwriter Challenge, Fantasi Forbundet, Oslo, pp. 24–29, 2012.
Aristotle, Die Nikomachische Ethik. Auf der Grundlage der Übersetzung von Eugen Rohfes herausgegeben von Günther Bien. 4. Auflage. Hamburg: Meiner, 1985.
Baer, U., Spielpädagogik: Arbeitsblätter zur Spielepädagogik, Robin Hood Versand, Remscheid, 1982.
Balzer, M., Live Action Role Playing: Die Entwicklung realer Kompetenzen in virtuellen Welten, Tectum-Verlag, Marburg, 2009.
Brougère, G., Some Elements Relating to Children’s Play and Adult Simulation/ Gaming. Simulation & Gaming, 30(2), 134-146., “Surplus Reality” in Moreno, J. L. (1965). Therapeutic Vehicles and the Concept of Surplus Reality. Group Psychotherapy and Psychodrama, 18, 211- 216, 1999.
Campbell, J., Der Heros in tausend Gestalten, Insel-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main, 1999.
Corbeil, P., Learning from the Children: Practical and Theoretical Reflections on Playing and Learning. Simulation & Gaming, 30(2), 163-180. 1999.
Deterding, Sebastian et. al., Gamification: Toward a Definition (PDF; 136 kB). In: Mindtrek 2011 Proceedings, ACM Press, Tampere, 2011.
Denker, R., Ballstaedt, S., Aggression im Spiel – mit Anleitungen zu Gruppen und Gesellschaftsspielen, Stuttgart: Verlag W. Kohlhammer GmbH, 1976.
Goffman, E., Rahmen-Analyse. Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp. Oder der magic circle of gameplay, 1977.
Gosney, J., Beyond reality: A guide to alternate reality gaming, Thomson Course Technology PTR, Boston, MA, 2005.
Henriksen, T.D., “Extending Experiences of Learning Games. Or Why Learning Games Should Be neither Fun, Educational nor Realistic”, in Leino, O., Wirman, H. and Fernandez, A. (Eds.), Extending Experiences: Structure, analysis and design of computer game player experience, Lapland University Press, Rovaniemi, pp. 140–162, 2008.
Huizinga, J., Homo ludens: Vom Ursprung der Kultur im Spiel, rororo Rowohlts Enzyklopädie, Vol. 55435, 21. Aufl., Rowohl Taschenbuch- Verl., Reinbek bei Hamburg. 1938/1939.
Hyltoft, M., “The Role-Players’ School. Østerskov Efterskole”, in Montola, M. and Stenros, J. (Eds.), Playground Worlds: Creating and Evaluating Experiences of Role-Playing Games, Published in conjunction with Solmukohta 2008, Ropecon ry, pp. 12–25, 2008.
Hyltoft, M. and Holm, J.T., “Elements of Harry Potter. Deconstructing an edu-larp”, in Holter, M., Fatland, E. and Tømte, E. (Eds.), Larp, the Universe and Everything: An anthology on the theory and practice of live role-playing (larp), published in conjunction with Knutepunkt 2009, pp. 27–42, 2009.
Hyltoft, M., “Four Reasons why Edu- Larp works”, in Dombrowski, K. (Ed.), LARP: Einblicke, Aufsatzsammlung zum Mittelpunkt 2010, Zauberfeder Verlag, Braunschweig, pp. 43–58., 2010.
McGonigal, J., Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World; [includes practical advice for gamers], Vintage Books, London. pp. 119ff, 2012.
Montola, M.; Stenros, J.; Waren, A., Pervasive Games – Experiences on the Boundary Between Life and Play, Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, 2008.
Moreno, J.L., “Therapeutic vehicles and the concept of surplus reality”, Group Psychotherapy, Vol. 18, pp. 211-216, 1965.
Suits, B., The grasshopper: Games, life and utopia, Broadview Press, Peterborough, Ont., 2005.
van Ameln, F. und Kramer Josef, “Wirkprinzipien handlungsorientierter Beratungs- und Trainingsmethoden”, Zeitschrift für Gruppendynamik und Organisationsberatung, Vol. 38 No. 4, pp. 389–406, 2007.
For the Moscow and St. Petersburg larp communities, continuous immersion into the game and into the character seems to be the central point of the larp process. Larp rules proclaim continuity of game, and players generally disapprove one’s going out of the character while playing. This attitude is, however, more declarative than a reflection of the practice as it can be observed: larpers, even the most experienced, of course, do drop out of character.
I got interested in how people perceive themselves and their co-players dropping out of characters, and have studied this topic for my MA thesis. I have collected a database of 600 cases of frame switching at larp using systematic self-observation and analyzed them from the point of view of Goffman’s frame analysis.
The database collected with the help of 15 players has data from 13 larp in which I took part and from some other larp events. I proposed a classification of triggers that cause dropping out of character that reveals some features of this phenomenon. In this paper, I won’t dwell on the triggers themselves, but will concentrate on the ways in which larpers switch from in-game to out-of-game frame.
In what follows, a classification of switching types is presented.
The first division is based on the social expression of frame switching: we distinguish between those which are externally expressed and thus become part of social interaction, and those which take place in a participant’s mind and get no expression.
When considered as phenomena of individual consciousness, all frame switchings are first of all “internal” in a sense, like diegesis is a fact of the players’ consciousness (Montola 2012).
Meanwhile, the game world is a result of mutually agreed behaviors of the participants. Its creation and maintenance involves coordinated activities, some of which belonging not to the game itself but to its meta-level, and so require frame switching.
Here is an example((Examples from my database contain references to game titles marked with bold italic.)) of internal switching that is essentially an inner experience that disturbs immersion and indirectly influences the participant’s behavior.
“The First Age”: Sure, there are a lot of reasons why immersion is difficult to reach: for example, playing with close friends makes me think, like, “Oh, it’s just my friend P eter wearing a garb!” So I try to avoid playing with them, but it is not always possible.
External switchings fall into two broad categories: those which comprise a signal to mark frame change and those which are unmarked.
Both types occur systematically, but the latter are usually perceived negatively, whereas the former are regarded more acceptable.
Two kinds of markers are employed to index a frame change, verbal and non- verbal. The Russian verbal marker resembles the Western practice of safewords: the utterance of a conventional word immediately turns ongoing interaction into out-of-game mode (Brenne 2005).
A safeword is a control device that is used to maintain participants’ psychophysiological conditions to inform partners about the sender’s current troubles having to do with the everyday world.
In the Russian community, in order to pause the game, either local equivalents of “break” and “cut” are used (literally “out of the game”, “in the real world”) or real life names of participants or their nicknames are employed for address instead of their characters’ names.
The verbal markers appear in case of meta- game disputes, in occasional conversation about events in participants’ real life or bodily states, or when asking for pause or help.
It is often uncertainty about partner’s physical condition that makes a player turn to out-of-game question, cf.:
“There is a craft”: Somebody noticed blood (real) on my eye: What happened to your eye? Oh, it’s a memento about my fail in a combat with a strong monster! It won’t heal until I find him again and kill him. Are you serious?
(Whispering) And out of play?
(Smiling) Everything’s OK.
Non-verbal markers include frame switching signals of various kinds, such as:
Tactile contact: to approach closely, to hug, to take a partner’s hand, to take aside. This kind of switching markers are used when the rules of the game world ban these proximating behaviors.
It should be kept in mind that, as far as I can judge from my participant observation at Knutepunkt 2014, Russian larps generally involve less physical contact than the Nordic ones.
Since most Russian larp game worlds represent a variation of hierarchic society with interpersonal etiquette differing from the way people communicate in everyday life, demonstrations of egalitarian and friendly relationship can signal frame switchings.
Conventional gestures: hands crossed over the head represent the character’s absence from the game world; a gesture like a time- out signal used in sports like basketball and American football is performed to accompany an out-of-character utterance.
Non-verbal characteristics of utterances: lowering the pitch, whispering, prosodic emphasis to index an implicit meaning. Utterances like these often pretend to camouflage the reference to out-of-game things, so as not to break explicitly the magic circle of the game, cf:
Deathly hallows: Towards the end of the game, during an in-game conversation S. (male) approaches closely to me and asks me while lowering his voice if he can interrupt my playing. I agree. S. asks me to speak to M. (female) who is playing his sister, because she needs a relaxing talk, and his own talk to her has obviously not been enough.
I call M.’s character, take her hand (my character used to avoid any bodily contact), take her nearer to me, bow to her ear and address to her with her real life name. I ask her whether she wants to speak out-of-game. She agrees eagerly, we enter an empty room together, she expresses her negative emotions connected with playing and participants’ behavior. W e leave the room and continue playing when we hear noise outside.
In this example, the frame switches are expressed with a range of signals: approaching closer than regular social distance, that is, entering intimate distance, lowering the voice (opposed to what is required for characters’ interaction in the game-world), touching, and verbal means (out-of-game name and expression “out of game”).
Along with cases where frame switch is explicitly announced, there are some in which the player’s speech is recognized by co-players as such, but it is merged with the character’s speech without specially marked borders.
Conscious Unmarked Switchings
Explicit out-of-game utterance is a prototypical case of unmarked and unmasked frame swithing. It usually interrupts diegesis in a rather rude way making participants have to cope with an inappropriate element.
In the following example speaker A unexpectedly shifts from the character’s speech to the player’s one, mentioning meta-game problems and the game master’s nickname that confuses the partner:
“France: the Cold Summer of 1939”: An in-game conversation in a pub:
A: I am looking for my wife. And I’d like to find Bird. B: What bird?… A: W ell, Bird, our game master. N ew players have arrived and are waiting for the check-in.
Implicit switching is an action (utterance, gesture) with a hidden agenda; it looks adequate from the diegetic point of view but contains out-of-game information that is expected to be deduced by recipients. This kind of frame switch is appreciated within the community because it doesn’t break the game world and at the same time also adds to playing some extra pleasure to guess the riddle.
Implicit switchings are mostly used for the maintenance of game illusion in case of some slight metagame problems. Here is an example of such case where the problem consists in mistaking an NPC for a player:
“The last submarine”: As usual, something exploded, something is out of order, a service technician is needed. One player looks at a passing NPC and mistakes him for a technician: “W e need help in the armory!” I don’t want to bother: “N o, this technician is not trained enough for that, trust me!” NPC nods and passes by.
In the following example we can see three modes of referring to out of the game information, one after another:
“To kill a dragon”: We are working in a hospital. We use beakers with special liquids provided by game masters. W e should return the beakers to the organizers for refilling. I collect empty beakers and tell to my colleagues:
(1) I: I’ll bring them to the medical depot.
(2) Partner: Where?.. But if they must be brought to orga…
(3) I (Winking, interrupting on purpose): Listen to me: I’ll bring them to the medical depot.
In (1), the speaker employs implicit switching: she talks about the medical depot, but actually announces that she is about to go to meet the organizers. This information is to be deduced by her co- player. This is a case of implicit conscious unmarked switch.
In (2), her co-player makes a meta-game statement with no signaling of its out- of-game mode. This is a case of explicit conscious unmarked switch.
In (3), the initial speaker makes an attempt to repair game-world communication, recurring to interruption and to signalling the utterance pragmatics by means of non- verbal sign (wink) and intonation. This is a case of marked switch with non-verbal signalling.
Implicit switching can and often does imply a joke. Obviously, there is a lot of in- game humor in larp, but some of it is based on a second meaning of in-game phrases that thus turn out to refer both to in- and out-of-game things. Such switchings are performed for fun and also contribute to constructing a group identity.
The humor can be built on a common background of young Russians and thus contain allusions to popular movies, songs, or references to historical, current political and social events, or to internet-memes. It can also be a common memory of a group of real life friends, participants of a long larp campaign who have played together many times, or even just a group of those who had taken part in certain episode of a previous larp. Coming to the joke’s point is a manifestation of a common identity, cf:
“There is a craft”: Walls in the Main H all are covered with inscriptions. One of them says: “Even a rat casts charms better than you!”
Rat is the nickname of the participant who plays the Charms teacher. This is insider knowledge of this particular larp community.
Unconscious Unmarked Switchings
These are cases when someone makes her co-players drop out of the game frame unwittingly and notices the fact of the switching only from the co-players’ reaction.
Ambivalent utterance is not intended by the speaker to have double meaning, but while the speaker has told something in-game, her co-player perceives it as out-of-the- game discourse. The speaker keeps in the game world until she catches the fact that co-player has switched into out-of-game mode.
At first sight an ambivalent phrase looks like an implicit frame switching, but the crucial difference is that here implicit meaning is in the eye of the beholder, it has not been implied intentionally by the speaker.
The frame switch that the speaker has noticed in her co-player’s behavior becomes a surprise.
Cues that typically bring about such ambivalence include any statement that can be perceived in both in-game and out-of- game frames, terms that occasionally coincide with concepts from other game worlds and settings, or with participants’ names and nicknames that belong to other characters.
In the example below, the first utterance is a case of an ambivalent saying that is perceived as potentially ambiguous, while the joking answer is a case of explicit conscious unmarked frame switch.
“Western: Deadlands”: – I have a headache! – Do you need opium or painkiller?
Slip of the tongue is an inadvertent use of a word that is inappropriate to this particular game-world, best exemplified by speech patterns like fillers or swearings that that are ill-suited to the game world, or out-of-game names of co-players or other customary patterns of daily speech.
This kind differs from the previous one in that ambivalent utterance is used by the speaker is an appropriate fact of game world from the speaker’s side, and slip of the tongue is ill-suited from any point of view, but is hard to prevent.
An altered state of consciousness may also contribute to slip of the tongue that switch frames: players not fully awaken, under influence, or physically exhausted can easily loose control over their discourse (see below an example: the sender does not even notice his slip until his co-players attract his attention to the case).
“There is a craft”: At night we discuss fighting drills. B. complains how difficult it is to remember the exercises and suddenly says: “When I drive my car, I am sometimes so tired that I stop understanding what is going on…” We gaze at him in horror, but he does not notice our facial expression and goes on. I have to intervene: “What are you saying?” He slaps his forehead and complains in-game that he has lost his line because he is exhausted.
Conclusion
Our classification of data from the database allowed us to single out relevant features of cases of dropping out of game-world in social interaction. These are: external expression or its absence, presence or absence of signalling, intentional or non- intentional character of switching, explicit or implicit type of reference to out-of- game world, initial perception of switching by the speaker and/or by her co-player, use of speech cliches.
In case of an intentional switch from the game to out-of-the-game frame, a player drops out of character because of some inner or outer reason (need, willing to distract, inappropriate conditions etc.) and makes the switching perceivable to the partners (e.g., in order to receive help, to express displeasure, to maintain group identity, etc.).
In case of unintentional frame switching (ambivalent phrase and slip of the tongue), the author is a “victim” of the effect that her own words produce in her co-players.
Bibliography
Brenne G.- T. Making and Mantaining Frames: A Study of Metacommunication in Laiv Play. Oslo, 2005.
Montola M. On the Edge of the Magic Circle. Understanding Role-Playing and Pervasive Games. Academic dissertation, University of Tampere, 2012.
Ludography
“France: the cold summer of 1939” (St. Petersburg, October 2012),
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.
One of the most difficult – but also most rewarding – parts of larp is coming up with a good character backstory. A sense of a character’s past gives great insights into how to play them in the present, for one thing; not to mention, it shines some light on where you may take them in the future. For some people developing a history comes easily, but for many others it’s a bit more of a chore, especially if you’re new to a particular game. Or maybe it’s a one- shot game and you want to develop your characters just a bit more before playing, but don’t have time to write out long backstories.
Fortunately, coming up with a fun, interesting backstory (and accompanying character depth) doesn’t ha ve to mean nights of staring at a blank sheet of paper, waiting for inspiration to strike. Which is exactly where these games come in. Most of them require little or no preparation, and can be played equally well with friends or strangers.
In fact, they also make excellent “ice breaker” exercises to help players warm up, get in character, and become comfortable with each other before play begins. These games generally presuppose the presence of other players; while most can be reconfigured to be played solitary, I believe all of them are enhanced by group participation.
As far as game runners are concerned, these backstory games also make good pre-game workshop tools. They do not normally require any form of staff supervision; though if you want to cultivate particular elements, or avoid certain topics, you can offer guidelines, or even sit in and moderate play. This can be useful if you’re using these as quick exercises before a single-shot game, as you can guide players to creating fairly detailed and well-realized personas very quickly with these games.
1 –The Hell of a Hat Game
What You Need: Costumes and props.
How You Play: Going around in a circle, have each player pick one of their costume or prop pieces. It doesn’t have to be a flashy one they might already have stories for, like signature weapons or prominent jewellery – in fact, it’s usually better if it’s not. Ordinary objects like coats and boots tend to work best, because they’re the pieces you might not think about otherwise, but can say very interesting things about a character’s day-to-day life.
Once they pick an item, that player must talk about it. The player can say anything she likes, but here are some questions to provoke thought if they get stuck: Where did it come from? How did they get it – buy it, make it, steal it, receive it as a gift? What does it mean to them? What do they like about it? If they don’t like it, why do they still keep it? If it was lost or stolen, what would they do to get it back?
If you don’t have any particular costume or props – say, because you just came into a game as a walk-on at a convention and didn’t prepare anything – you can still play! Simply describe what your character would be wearing, or is wearing in your imagination, as opposed to what you have on in reality. It might be a little tougher to remember all of it, but the point of the game remains the same.
Variation – Eye for Style: If you want to have a different but equally interesting kind of fun, on each player’s turn have that player pick a piece from someone else’s costuming and props. Tell a story about where the item came from, what that character did to get it, etc. Naturally this doesn’t mean the story is automatically “true” – that’s for the player in question to decide – but it can certainly reveal a lot about how the other players feel about your character!
Variation – Solo Play: If you want to play the game solitary, take a picture of the costume piece and write a short paragraph or two about it. Post the results to game forums or social media if you want feedback!
2 – The Polaroid Game
What You Need: Nothing except 2+ players.
How to Play: Going around in a circle, each player asks the others to describe a snapshot image of his character, something they imagine might have happened at some point before the character entered play or that happened during downtime. It can be a funny image, a serious image, a mysterious image; any kind of moment at all.
It doesn’t have to start off being terribly specific – “I picture your character, bloody, standing over a body while a woman cries out, ‘What have you done?’” is in many ways just as useful for this game as something like “I see your character, bloody, standing over Mary’s body behind the Northpoint Tavern.”
Once the basic image is established, go around to all other player in the group, with each player adding another detail to the picture – “You’re bloody, but not wearing your armor or holding a weapon” – until it comes back around to the original player. Hence the name The Polaroid Game, because the details slowly come into focus as the picture develops. The details added don’t have to be strictly visual, though, despite the name of the game.
When everyone has had a turn adding to the picture, the player being described makes a final comment and play passes to the next person. Naturally what is described isn’t necessarily “true” unless the original player approves it, but it can serve as a good inspiration.
Variation – Topic: Have the person whose turn it is to be described provide a topic or moment she wants the others to imagine. “Tell me about my character’s first kill,” for instance, or “What did it look like when my heart got broken for the first time?” This is good for helping players who have difficulty coming up with appropriate moments for other people’s characters, or for soliciting help with a particular background element with which the player is having trouble.
3 –The Card Game (Larper’s Poker)
What You Need: A regular deck of playing cards.
How to Play: Deal one card at random to each player, before moving around to each player in turn. When it is their turn, players must tell a vignette from their character’s past.
The kind of story being told depends on the suit of the card selected. Hearts centers on mental health or an emotional relationship of some kind (not necessarily a loving one); Diamonds refers to stories focused on wealth, equipment and other material goods (or lack thereof); Clubs requires a story about a physical challenge, battle, illness or ordeal of some kind; and Spades refers to encounters focused around interaction with setting-specific supernatural or science-fiction elements such as zombies, magic, cyberware, superpowers, monsters, etc.
If your game does not have elements of this kind, Spades becomes a “wild card” category where the player can tell any kind of story they like. You may want to at least roughly define what Spades involves before playing, if it could be unclear in your setting.
Stories should be no longer than five minutes or so, and can be much shorter – a snapshot or moment is fine, as long as it says something interesting about the character. Players are encouraged to stick close to the subject matter of their card’s suit, but the categories are pretty broad, so it’s OK if there’s a little bit of crossover. It’s about telling an interesting story, after all.
Variation – Five Card Draw: Each player draws a hand of five cards, and picks a card each round, returning it to the deck when it’s played. This gives players more control over the kind of story they feel like telling each round (and time to think about what they’ll be telling next), making it easier for new or nervous players.
Variation – Face Value: As normal, except that the stories reflect the values on the cards – lower numbers mean it was more of a minor incident, while higher numbers mean it was more important, and a face card means a player must talk about a particular person who came into their life (or left it) as a result of the story.
Variation – Pass Left: Players draw fivecards,butoneachplayer’sturn,the person to their left passes them a card to determine what kind of story should be told. After one full round, pass right instead, shuffle seats, or otherwise change the order so that people have new partners for their cards.
Variation – Take Me to the River: Deal each player five cards and go around in a circle, with each player taking a turn. Each round, players play cards from their own hand, but the player must somehow continue the story they’ve been telling in the previous rounds, even if it is a different suit. So by the end of the game, they will have told one story in five installments, with elements dictated by the cards in hand.
4 – The Mixtape Game
What You Need: A mix CD or music playlist and some way to play it.
How to Play: This game requires a little more preparation than most of the others, but the end result is worth it. Each player contributes several musical tracks to the collective mix or playlist, which is then placed on shuffle (if possible, disable repeated playing of the same track). This game is a good one for long trips to a game or breaks during play, so simply adjust the number of tracks that fits the time.
Play itself is simple – start playing the music, and as each song plays, everyone listens to it and declares either “Play,” “Theme,” or “Pass.” “Play” means that you enjoy the song, but don’t necessarily feel it would be a song for your character in particular. “Theme” means that you could see that song as a theme for your character, something you’d put on a personal playlist dedicated to your character. (You can have more than one Theme, and more than one character can call Theme on the same song. It’s non-competitive that way.)
“Pass” means that you’re just not connecting to the song in relation to the game; it doesn’t necessarily mean you think the song is bad, but you’re just not feeling it in this context.
If you say “Play” or “Theme,” try to add what about it that got your attention – connect it to your backstory, to your impression of your character. Does the beat remind you of the thrill of a battle in your past? Does a line in the lyrics jump out as totally true to your character? Is the tone of the song putting you in the mood for game? Did the music capture a moment in your character’s history so perfectly it makes you jump up and down in your seat?
If two players pick Theme, maybe it’s because they shared that moment in their past? You don’t need to have to be a long, detailed anecdote, just a quick image or moment or impression that it brings up as you think of your character.
Play continues until all tracks have been played. It is perfectly acceptable to ask that a track be repeated, or to return to a track after all tracks have been heard, if players are responding to it strongly and have more stories to tell.
Variation – No Preparations: If you don’t have time to put together a playlist or make a CD, or you want to put together a spontaneous session, you can still play! All you need is access to the internet on a device capable of playing music. Simply have each player look up a song online, and when it comes to their turn, they simply play it for the group on their phone or other device. Giving players a few minutes to find the song they want, making sure their device can play it and otherwise prepare is recommended before starting a round; otherwise, players may be distracted looking up songs instead of really listening on other players’ turns.
Variation – The Score: Another variation is to treat the music like the score of a film or a television program, the music that is playing in the background to provide atmosphere and emotion. When each song comes on, have each player describe what their character would be doing “onscreen” while that song played, as if they were watching a movie and that was the music for the scene.
5 – Post Game
As players, you are encouraged to take some time after a game is complete to think about the material that was generated during play, perhaps even talk about it with the other players. It’s important to remember that while these games are intended to stimulate backstory creation and help flesh out characters, that doesn’t mean you must use it, or that you can’t alter, edit, or otherwise use what’s created as you see fit.
Do not feel bound to keep something as “canon” for your character just because it came up in game, even if the other players really liked it and thought it fit. Even if you wind up using none of it, and take your inspiration in a totally different direction from what came up during play, then great! As long as you have fun making stories, that’s what it’s all about.
On January 10, 2015, 101 days after launching, the first global Larp Census closed to replies. 29,751 responses were logged from 123 different territories in 17 different languages. The data from this survey is freely available via a Creative Commons license at LarpCensus.org.
Barring death, dismemberment, or debilitating drunkenness, the total results from each question will be revealed in a presentation at Knudepunkt 2015. This article goes under the covers to expose the motivations, methods, and madness of the squishy humans behind the hard numbers.
The Beginning
At Wyrd Con II (a Southern California interactive storytelling convention) in 2011, I was out at a late dinner with some friends. Mark Mensch, a longtime boffer larper, asked me what I thought was needed to unify live action role players.
Without missing a beat, I laid out my
Three Big Ideas
A user-customizable larp map-calendar where people can search for any kind of larp anywhere in the world up to a year in advance.
A digital archival repository of larp events—what was run, by whom, when, where, using what system, and any notes or links to further documentation.
A larp census to track all larpers around the world.
I actually mentioned #3 first, but it’s more dramatic to bury the lead.
I don’t know why I said those three things, and I probably had the ideas before I said them, but that was the first time I voiced them aloud.
Regardless, the conversation turned to other matters and never went anywhere. I kept the ideas in the back of my head, however. I repeated them at a workshop session at Solmukohta 2012, where Claus Raasted and a few others offered help in making the map-calendar: which has since been created, roughly, by Larping.org and Larpcore.com.
In mid-February, 2013, New Zealander Ryan Paddy and I started communicating via email after he asked the Larp Academia (or International Larp Academia) mailing list for demographic statistics on larpers. He wanted to know if live action role- playing was “popular” and in which countries.
No one on the list had figures beyond their own larp group’s roster or a few isolated surveys from years past, e.g., Joe Valenti of NERO offered a range from “fifty-thousand to two million.” I again floated my census idea and Ryan took the bait. According to Elizabeth Kolbert((Kolbert, Elizabeth,“The Big Kill: New Zealand’s crusade to rid itself of mammals,”The New Yorker, Dec. 22, 2014)) it is not unusual to find Kiwis with “a cheerful, let’s-get-on-with-it manner” that she claims she “eventually came to see as very New Zealand.” This is good, because without Ryan, I would still be whining about kooky concepts that nobody builds for me.
We get along well and communication between us, while spotty, has been robust. Ryan edits the English language entry on “LARP” for Wikipedia and has a background in psychology and programming, skills I lacked to get the Census done.
Both of us wanted to know the answers to basic questions about larping worldwide: how big is the community, what are its demographics, how long have people played, what are they playing, and why?
We set out to make the Larp Census a reality.
The Grind
The first choice we faced fell between using a prepared polling system, such as Google’s, or develop our own. Ryan said “Google Forms can only receive a limited amount of data (400,000 answers to individual questions); we wanted more. Also, there were several things we wanted to do it that it couldn’t have achieved. If it was up to the job I would have been happy to use Google Forms.” Thus Ryan did the programming for the Larp Census site.
Next we looked for a website host. We hoped to deliver this baby in an academic institution, but they either didn’t reply or replied in the negative, e.g., University of Tampere. We then sought other entities, leading to one of the Big Mistakes (possibly the biggest).
One of the sites I asked to host was Larping.org. They immediately agreed, as they were already considering doing a similar project, but during the negotiation process I withdrew. I worried about protecting the privacy of the respondents and the data.
A massive email list like what the census would generate is gold to larp businesses; but neither Ryan nor I wanted anyone, including us, to make any money off of it. While discussing things with Larping.org, I sent over a first draft of the questions. This boomeranged back, and badly. We cut off talks in mid-April and eventually bought the domain larpcensus.org with money out of our own pockets.
Most of Ryan’s and my time was spent designing the questions, which proved surprisingly difficult. First we had to decide what we wanted to know. I felt that a self- identifying larper’s location, age, gender, and how long they have been larping gave enough information.
Ryan wanted more info (much more), which I quickly agreed with. We split the census into two parts: the first page of questions asked for only the required info. Everything else was optional. Tough decisions and some generalizations had to be made for each inquiry. Plus, each question was weighed for informational necessity against the time it would take to answer it, as we wanted to avoid a too-long questionnaire.
One thing was asked of us a few times, “What is your hypothesis?” But we had no thesis going in, nothing we hoped to prove. We merely strived to gather as much data as possible and turn it over to others to see if it confirmed or refuted their hypotheses. My analogy is that we are farmers harvesting data. It is up to chefs—larp scholars, business folk, and independent researchers—to use what we gather and turn it into dissertations and Power Point presentations.
We sent out two iterations of the motivation questions to a few hundred larpers for comments. The first batch had over 50 questions that we edited to below 30. We also asked as many larp scholars as we could manage (herd like cats) to look over the census and provide feedback. One of the comments we received was that it appeared “too American,” something we aggressively trying to avoid. We remained cognizant of the American spelling of words as well as terminology and larp style emphasis. Our goal was to be as broad as possible, to capture something about every kind of larper, straight boffer action to Nordic arthouse and all in between. But this goal, plus the fact that we were talking to larp scholars who stereotypically ha ve a pedantic viewpoint (not anyone at Knudepunkt, of course!), led to some complaints, which I will discuss later.
Remarkably, Ryan was also setting up the website at the same time. Suddenly in the middle of August 2013, we were blindsided: Larping.org released their own Larp Census.
The Larping.org census, in my extremely biased opinion, seemed to be heavily based on the first draft of questions we sent earlier. They used a Google poll form, required respondents’ emails, and skewed it to American larpers, e.g., using the U.S. dollar as the only type of currency, and asking a lot of questions that only made sense to campaign players.
I was livid, and immediately began chewing out the new census, until Jordan Gwyther of Larping.org proved to me in a private mail conversation that I had given them permission to create their own and even promised support:
Jordan: On the census/survey, I think we should go our own directions. We’ll be launching our own here shortly and will have no problem briefly promoting yours when it is ready. We hope that you will do the same for ours. 🙂
Aaron: Yes, of course!
D’oh!
They received just under 4,000 replies, and, according to their own admission, over 17,000 complaints((Larp Census FAQ (English version)))—I do believe that is an exaggeration, though. Two weeks after their launch, Ryan and I bought our own domain.
Ultimately, seeing the mistakes they made inspired us to tweak and revise our project and make it as good as we possibly could. We dove back into reiterating questions, testing, revising, etc. We were totally on our own, without any group or organization helping, sponsoring, or overseeing us.
Besides the very generous and dedicated handful of reviewers and translators who worked on the Larp Census, everything else was the work of Ryan and sometimes myself. If you’re going to credit anyone, credit Ryan or the other names acknowledged on our FAQ page5. If you are going to blame anyone, blame me.
Securing translations was also partially prompted from the Larping.org census. In order to avoid making ours “too American,” we introduced alternate currencies and continued that thought into offering the census in different languages. We really wanted to emphasize the global nature of larping. This was irksome because some words ha ve diff erent meanings in diff erent countries. Ryan and I spent at least fifteen Skype minutes debating the definition of “park,” which isn’t quite the same in New Zealand as it is in America.
After weeks and weeks of iterations— although really it was days of nothing followed by bursts of work and conversation—Ryan finally decided to pull the trigger after most of the translations had arrived.
The Larp Census went live on October 1, 2014, but the big launch occurred October 2, nearly 20 months after we began. What we had wasn’t flawless, but it was as good as we were going to get and still have it out in 2014. By the time translations started, the original questions in English were locked— we couldn’t change a word without asking all translators to change their versions, an odious task.
Here’s a secret: from the beginning I knew we were doomed to fail. There was no way we were going to get every larper on Earth to answer the census or even close to it. But we wanted to get as many as possible. I hoped for 100,000 replies; Ryan, one million.
The Run
Once we publicly announced the census, it almost went viral. Here are the numbers of responses that came in per day for the first week, which made up more than half the total((Initial week’s totals provided by private email correspondence from Ryan Paddy)):
Date
Responses
10/2/2014
5520
10/3/2014
6564
10/4/2014
1492
10/5/2014
1044
10/6/2014
1637
10/7/2014
1176
10/8/2014
828
I was smugly pleased to know that in two days we got triple the responses the other census garnered after running more than a year. Great numbers for us, but we never came close to these initial daily figures again. The server even crashed for a brief time in those first hours: but it was up and running again soon, thanks to Ryan and, probably, because we never returned to that level of activity.
We didn’t have much of a marketing plan, if any. Social media such as Facebook worked best, while the ability to email your friends (once) was hardly used. Ryan and I are both old, so the new-fangled youth methods of communication are lost on us. Plus, we had no budget to do any ad buys—remember, this was just the two of us.
Some translations required minor corrections in the first two weeks, which Ryan repaired with aplomb. We accepted offers to translate the census into Danish, Swedish, Japanese, and Hebrew, though we only completed the first three.
We did give a few interviews on larp sites, and our push was always to larpers and larp groups. I sent press releases to mainstream geek sites like io9, Boing Boing, and Kotaku, but they didn’t reply. If only we had associated with College of Wizardry.
All things considered the run went well even though we didn’t get the amount of responses we hoped for.
The Lessons and Casualties
Irrespective of the data, I learned a few things just from the census existing.
First, there is no way to ever make everyone happy, ever. This should be obvious, but the point was nailed home after we received specific complaints from four people. Two said the census skewed tow ards boff er combat, and two said it favored theater-style.
It even prompted one newcomer to write, “I’m a little turned off to larping as a consequence of filling out this survey.” By making sure every larp style was represented, we shrunk the spotlight on one person’s particular larp preference, which, to them, seemed like a slight.
Second, race and racism are not the same in America as other countries. On the first page of the census we asked respondents to self-describe their race or ethnicity. I don’t know how it translated out of English, but the question upset a few people. Even asking about race offended them.
On the other hand, for many Americans, to not ask the question would be seen as racially insensitive. Although it appears to be a Catch-22 situation, I hope to repair the issue in subsequent censuses with the phrasing “Please describe your racial and/or ethnic heritage. We understand this question may be offensive to some, and it is not our intention to do so. You can refuse to answer.” Or something equivalent.
Third, and more positively, the census is provoking exactly the kind of discussions and issues we hoped it would. A long thread on LARP Haven spun out of Christopher Amherst’s analysis of the preliminary American statistics((Amherst, Christopher Preliminary Analysis of American Larp Census data)). The original poster noticed the male-female ratio in the U.S. is roughly 60% – 36% (with about 3% genderfluid or not answering) and wanted to know why more women weren’t participating in larps. A boisterous conversation ensued.
Although I am aware of the dangers of relying too much on statistics, especially ones pseudo-scientifically generated, having nearly 30,000 larpers respond to the Larp Census will at least plant a few guideposts toward a deeper understanding about this art, hobby, or sport we enjoy. I am proud to know that our Census will finally provide some factual basis to confirm or refute a few Internet arguments while spawning hundreds more. This, I feel, is a Good Thing.
By the way, we’re going to ask if you consider larp to be a sport, hobby, or art in the next version, coming up in about five years.
For more information and to receive the data from the Larp Census, go to LarpCensus.org or find us on Facebook.
No one on the list had figures beyond their own larp group’s roster or a few isolated surveys from years past, e.g., Joe Valenti of NERO offered a range from “ fifty-thousand to two million.”
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.
