The Post-Game Foodmob: Labor and Leisure in LARPing


Glenhaber Mehitabel
2020 DiGRA ’20 – Proceedings of the 2020 DiGRA International Conference: Play Everywhere

LARPing is a co-creative medium, in which participants collaboratively construct storyworlds, eschewing a traditional producer/consumer dichotomy. (Montola, 2012, Stark 2012) To facilitate co-creation, LARPing communities group participants as GMs or players, dividing up narrative roles (Montola, 2008) The negotiation of this division of narrative power has been extensively researched, mostly in Nordic LARPing communities. (Hammer, 2007, Sternos, 2016) However, there is less work on how divisions of creative control correspond to divisions of labor, and attitudes about what constitutes “work.” In this paper, I draw on participant observation and interviews in the MIT Assassins’ Guild, an American LARPing group, in order to explore attitudes about narrative control, labor, and power. I argue that, while the Assassins’ Guild is a non-commercial organization, where most members regard their participation as leisure, social relationships between players and GMs reflect vestiges of a producer/consumer relationship, which Guild members simultaneously reject and borrow from.

 

The Asylum Seekers Larp: The Positive Discomfort of Transgressive Realism


Bjørkelo Kristian A. Jørgensen Kristine
2018 DiGRA Nordic '18: Proceedings of 2018 International DiGRA Nordic Conference

This paper explores positive-negative experiences (Hopeametsä 2008; Montola 2010) and transgressive realism (Bjørkelo 2019) through discomfort experienced in a live-action role-playing game about asylum seekers. Asylsøkjarane (The Asylum Seekers) was designed to create an uncomfortable, but meaningful experience for the participants who play asylum seekers and police officers who interview them. Discomfort is creating through stressful social and physical conditions which seek not to simulate, but stand in for the stress experienced in the real world process. In the debrief following the two playthroughs the players describe their discomfort and how it relates to real world issues, which we relate to the concept of play-external seriousness (Jørgensen 2014).

 

Markers of Subjective Perception in Larp


Mochocki Michał
2018 DiGRA '18 - Proceedings of the 2018 DiGRA International Conference: The Game is the Message

Based on J.-N. Thon's (2016) framework for analysing representations of character's subjective perception in film, video games and comic books, this paper studies representations of subjectivity in live-action role-playing. This is a direct continuation of two previous papers, one positioning larp as a narrative medium in the context of transmedia narratology, the other researching storyworld representation / interpretation by larp participants. The hereby presented text focuses on markers of subjectivity, their three types (narratorial, content, and representational) defined by Thon and the fourth (metasymbolic) by myself. The discussion is organised in three parts, corresponding with Thon's types of subjectivity: (quasi-)perceptual point of view, (quasi-)perceptual overlay, and internal worlds. The analysis confirms Thon's observations about the transmediality of some of the markers (e.g. the use of narratorial markers in larp is very similar to their use in (audio)visual media), and reveals the larp-specific nature and/or larp-specific usage of other markers.

 

Costume Agency in German Larp


Bienia Rafael
2015 DiGRA '15 - Proceedings of the 2015 DiGRA International Conference

Costume Agency in German Larp has two aims. First, it contributes to the understanding of costumes as collaborators in a larp network. Second, it shows that the change towards a network perspective expands the understanding of games as relational processes. An actor-network analysis of the costume builds on first-hand data from three larps. Data analysis required a set of qualitative methods based upon participatory observation and qualitative interviews. The results of the analysis are: 1. Larp works, because the costume contributes to role playing. 2. The costume contributes when it changes its arrangement of material actors to fulfill the demands of the network. 3. Costume contribution demands changes from narrative and ludic actors as well and the result of these negotiations is a development of the network. 4. The development of the three observed larp networks resulted in costumes that work towards the 360° illusion ideal, change game rules, and raise the popularity of one favored narrative genre: Fantasy. Following the costume and tracing its work, reveals how larp as a network of heterogeneous actors structures itself. These processes become visible with an actor-network perspective that reaches beyond the division of agency as being driven by human or material actors.

 

Designing Goals for Online Role-Players


Montola Markus
2005 DiGRA '05 - Proceedings of the 2005 DiGRA International Conference: Changing Views: Worlds in Play

The increasing popularity of persistent worlds and the predicted rise of pervasive gaming, both having a strong inherent potential for role-playing, stress a classical challenge of persistent world industry: in addition to the regular gamer audience, the role-player audience is growing. Catering to role-players requires re-thinking in the design of game structures and narrative structures. The most fundamental conceptual differences between role-player and regular gamer playing styles regard goals, game worlds and the idea of meaningful play.

 

Play it for Real: Sustained Seamless Life/Game Merger in Momentum


Stenros Jaakko Montola Markus Waern Annika Jonsson Staffan
2007 DiGRA '07 - Proceedings of the 2007 DiGRA International Conference: Situated Play

In this paper we describe a high-end pervasive larp Momentum that sought to create a seamless merger of life and game for the game duration of five weeks. During the five weeks the players could be able to play an immersive game set in our ordinary reality augmented with game content, both through narrative content and through game artifacts. The central challenges of the long duration was merging the game and life in a functional manner, game mastering the game for extended periods, and pacing and structuring the game in a working way. This paper looks into the lessons of Momentum; problems, solutions and other evaluation results.

 

‘Can’t Stop The Signal?’ The Design of the Dutch Firefly LARP


Lamerichs Nicolle
2011 DiGRA '11 - Proceedings of the 2011 DiGRA International Conference: Think Design Play

In this paper, I analyze the design of a Dutch live-action role-playing game (LARP), based on the television series Firefly. I discuss it as part of the recent participatory culture in which fans mediate existing fiction into other products such as games. Game studies have often bypassed types of gaming that are initiated by players themselves by taking professional and digital games as their starting points. By focussing on a local example of a fan game, I hope to provide new insights in game design and play. After disseminating between fan and game practices, and sketching some of the previous research thereof, I shall elaborate upon the design of the game in four ways by focussing on the designer, the context, the participants and its construction of meaningful play. I argue that the fan LARP displays a particular design perspective based on the co-creative ethos of role-playing and fandom itself. Whereas existing research isolates the actors that are relevant in game practices, designer, player and fan modes clearly interrelate here.

 

Narrative Friction in Alternate Reality Games: Design Insights from Conspiracy For Good


Stenros Jaakko Holopainen Jussi Waern Annika Montola Markus Ollila Elina
2011 DiGRA '11 - Proceedings of the 2011 DiGRA International Conference: Think Design Play

Alternate Reality Games (ARG) tend to have story-driven game structures. Hence, it is useful to investigate how player activities interact with the often pre-scripted storyline in this genre. In this article, we report on a study of a particular ARG production, Conspiracy For Good (CFG), which was at the same time emphasising the role of strong storytelling, and active on-site participation by players. We uncover multiple levels of friction between the story content and the mode of play of live participants, but also between live and online participation. Based on the observations from the production, we present design recommendations for future productions with similar goals.