Live-action Role-playing Game Research Articles

Mixed-methods assessment of an apparel edu-larp rooted in self-determination theory

ABSTRACT This study explores the effectiveness of an apparel educational Live Action Role-Playing game (edu-larp) in enhancing student skills in Adobe Illustrator and fostering autonomy, competence, and relatedness based on self-determination theory (SDT). The research compares the edu-larp approach to traditional instructional methods in the context of apparel design education through mixed-methods research design. The edu-larp group demonstrated a significant increase in Adobe proficiency scores compared to the traditional module group. Additionally, the edu-larp students expressed a more comprehensive understanding of Adobe Illustrator, emphasising the enhancement of creative abilities and preparation for future careers. The study suggests that edu-larp offers a promising approach to basic psychological needs fulfilment and improving learning outcomes in apparel education. Apparel instructors are encouraged to consider integrating edu-larps into their classrooms to create a dynamic and immersive learning environment that aligns with students’ needs.

Larp as a Potential Space for Non-Formal Queer Cultural Heritage

Queer experience has, until very recently, been invisible or significantly misrepresented in cultural and scholarly fields of record including history, sociology, and ethnography. Self-recording of our lives, communities, and culture has occurred almost exclusively through non-formal means. Queer heritage has seen recent scholarly study of these non-formal means in the form of archives of oral histories, ephemera, and ethnographies. This work emphasises the critical role safer community, social, and performance spaces play in containing, creating, and disseminating queer histories and heritage. Despite this increased visibility, the need for more grassroots expressions of nonnormative genders and sexualities remains crucial for queer people to find support.
 As part of my wider work exploring the potential live action role-playing games (larps) might have for the exploration of gender subjectivity through play, in this paper I suggest that larps can also provide a space to document, disseminate, and educate on queer experience, history, and culture. Larp is a democratic form of expression that does not require performance skill or training, but rather allows people to experience empowerment, including for those who come from marginalized backgrounds, i.e., through emancipatory bleed (Kemper 2020; Baird 2021; Cazeneuve 2021). Larp has on occasion been used for non-formal education on queer history, such as in the larp Just a Little Lovin’ (2011) about the HIV/AIDS crisis in the 1980s, which includes educational workshops and debriefs on notable historical and cultural themes (Groth, Grasmo, and Edland 2022). Larp used this way is not dissimilar to the way queer social and performance space has been co-created as a container for both meaning-making and heritage for LGBTQIA+ people. On this basis, I argue that game design that seeks to reflect and represent this kind of queer cultural production in social and performance spaces may allow for the non-formal education on LGBTQIA+ lives and heritage, as well as opportunities for personal (gender) expression, exploration, and embodiment.

Between Game Facilitation and Performance: Interactive Actors and Non-Player Characters in Larps

The challenge of combining narrative and gameplay in live action role-playing games (larps) has been successfully negotiated with the use of runtime game mastering and interactive actors (ractors) performing non-player characters (NPC). Based on expert interviews six functions for the interactive actors (facilitating, content creation, character portrayal, entertaining, playing, safeguarding) are identified and explored. The paper also reviews existing literature on NPCs in larps, and goes on to offer design insights for runtime game mastering. In addition, certain practical aspects of separating non-player characters from the actors who perform them in pervasive games are considered

Cultural Languages of Role-Playing

Role-play interaction in live role-playing games is also language interaction. Role-playing language is different from everyday language, because the worlds created in role-play are not just a reflection or extension of everyday life. We examine three examples of interaction in live action role-playing games. In all three, players rely on shared cultural knowledge. In the first example, two players employ the cultural conventions about the meanings of colors, objects and space as well as materials borrowed from myth and folklore in order to enact an encounter between a mage and a dragon. In the second, the organizers enact scenes from literary classics in order to construct the game plot. In the third, the players employ cultural stereotypes of personalities and behavior in order to present characters of diverse age and social status.

A Tale of Two Theories

A Tale of Two Theories

A Mimetic Method


 
 
 How does a practice of mimesis — as dramatic enactment in a live-action role-playing game (LARP) — relate to the design of artificial intelligence systems? In this article, I trace the contours of a mimetic method, working through an auto-ethnographic approach in tandem with new materialist theory and in conjunction with recent tendencies in design research to argue that mimesis carries strong potential as a practice through which to encounter, negotiate, and design with artificial intelligence imaginaries. Building on a new materialist conception of mimesis as more-than-human sympathy, I illuminate how LARP that centered on the enactment of a fictional artificial intelligence system sustained an encounter with artificial intelligence imaginaries. In what can be understood as a decidedly mimetic way of doing ethnography of algorithmic systems, I argue that we need to consider the value of mimesis — understood as a practice and a method — as a way to render research into artificial intel- ligence imaginaries.
 
 

The Use of the Role-playing Technique STARS in Formal Didactic Contexts

Live action role-playing games (larps) are an effective, yet uncommon learning tool in schools. For broader implementation, the design of the game has to serve curricular and pedagogical needs alike. This paper presents core principles of design and implementation of educational live action role-playing games in curricular primary and secondary education. Over the course of 5 years, 16 live action role-playing games with a total of 53 cycles of Design-based Research (DBR) including design, testing, and evaluation were conducted in German schools. This paper synthesizes 17 essential principles from the DBR cycles as best practice in the context of subject-bound curricular focus. The results of our study show that four parameters differ in schools from extracurricular live action role-playing activities: curricular guidelines, compulsory participation, grading practices, and time/space confinements. These four parameters need to be taken into consideration at all times when designing and conducting a live action role-playing game in a school environment. Moreover, design for simplicity and inclusion is paramount for successful implementation within subject-teaching in schools as a rewarding tool to foster content-knowledge and to promote social and personal skills.

Role-playing the Self – Trans Self-Expression, Exploration, and Embodiment in Live Action Role-Playing Games

Accounts of trans people using role-playing games (RPGs) as a safer space to “try out” another way to be gen- dered can be found in numerous sites – from the memetic, to the anecdotal, to the academic. Using autoethnography and post-structuralist queer theory of performativity in combination with scholarly perspectives of RPGs as sites for potential- ly transformative experiences, I consider the ways in which live-action role-playing games (larps) might help trans peo- ple express, explore, and embody their subjectivity. I argue that despite there being a relatively small (though growing) number of larps designed to encourage players to consider gender and sexuality norms in society, there remains no larp that intentionally allows trans people (or those questioning their gender) to consider their gender subjectivity therein.
 Scholarly perspectives on larps suggest that they might provide a site for the simulation of complex socio-cultural dy- namics, a space to adopt different social roles, and the alibi and scaffolding to do so in a way that is validating with a community of like-minded role-players (Deterding 2018; Bowman and Hugaas 2021). I present examples of larps that, either by design or not, seem to have provided opportunities for gender role-play and transformative experiences for some trans players. I consider the possible limitations the embodied experience of larps -- as opposed to digital and table-top RPGs (TRPGs) -- might have in allowing such exploration for some trans players, particularly in potentially transphobic play environments. I argue howev- er, that the embodied nature of larps might also provide an opportunity to explore gender role-play in such a way that allows for the validation of more diverse physical and social gender presentations, as well as the rehearsal thereof in a safer space. I present accounts of trans people -- including my own autoethnography -- using role-playing games, larps, and other activities/ environments not necessarily consciously designed for the purpose of gender exploration as the basis for how this might be designed for intentionally in larps. I conclude by proposing to design a larp that could provide an opportunity to express, ex- plore, and embody non-normative gender, and I pose a series of questions that I believe such a design should seek to answer.

International Journal of Role-playing 11 -- Full Issue -- IJRP

IJRP 11: Full Issue
 Table of Contents
 Evan Torner, Sarah Lynne Bowman, and William J. White, “Editorial Introduction to Issue 11”
 Some context for the current issue, especially with regard to current critiques of themes of violence and oppression in games, as well as this year’s Call for Papers on Applied Role-playing Games and the excellent articles submitted in response.
 Sarah Albom, “The Killing Roll: The Prevalence of Violence in Dungeons & Dragons”
 A textual analysis evaluating the language used in the Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition Player’s Handbook. This article discusses the ways that the text incentivizes characters to take violent actions more often than offering peaceful solutions.
 Diana J. Leonard, Jovo Janjetovic, Maximilian Usman, “Playing to Experience Marginalization: Benefits and Drawbacks of ‘Dark Tourism’ in Larp”
 An examination of how playing characters with marginalizations the player does not share can lead to perspective taking and empathy, but can also cause harm if not done with care.
 Joe Lasley, “Fantasy In Real Life: Making Meaning from Vicarious Experiences with a Tabletop RPG Internet Stream”
 A qualitative study examining seven fans of the livestream show Critical Role, in which actors play Dungeons & Dragons. The fans described an increase in their well-being due to parasocial relationships with the fiction and players in the show.
 Kerttu Lehto, “Role-Playing Games and Well-Being”
 A secondary literature review discussing the main themes in role-playing game studies, as well as arts and well-being as fields of study. This author advocates for more dialogue between these fields as a fruitful line of inquiry, especially with regard to the design of games for personal development and well-being.
 Josephine Baird, “Role-playing the Self – Trans Self-Expression, Exploration, and Embodiment in Live Action Role-Playing Games”
 An autoethnography blending gender theory with personal experience exploring gender in role-playing games and other performance spaces. The author considers how best to design larps explicitly to help trans people embody their identities.
 Katrin Geneuss, “The Use of the Role-playing Technique STARS in Formal Didactic Contexts”
 A summary of Design-based Research on 16 educational live action role-playing games (edu-larps) created for German schools. This article offers several best practices for educators who seek to implement edu-larp in the classroom.

‘Whose were those feelings?’ Affect and likenessing inHalat hisarlive action role-playing game

Halat hisar was a live action role-playing game (larp) organized in Finland in 2016. Halat hisar’s ambition as a larp was to mirror the current situation in Palestine. In larps, participants take on different roles and improvise without the presence of an audience. Larps offer a place where emotions and affectivities are transmitted through the embodiment of characters. Larps offer forms of likenessing, which create new affective states for the players. We conclude that larps can be powerful tools for portraying political alternatives of actual events, and they can serve a role in raising awareness. Larps offer a productive context for studying subjectivities where the focus is on affective relationalities because larps place the participants in social positions where they take up roles that might be inaccessible to them in everyday life. Larps offer a window to visit other ‘world-lines’ – and other ways of living.

“My Games are … Unconventional”: Intersections of game and BDSM studies

This article examines connections between games and BDSM (consensual bondage and discipline, dominance and submission, and sadism and masochism), theoretically speaking (in their respective research areas) as well as in practice. A common grounding behind these connections is the consideration of play as a foundational component in games and game studies as well as in BDSM practices and the studies of BDSM as a cultural phenomenon. We identify five sets of relevant connections. First, there are direct comparisons between the two types of play. Second, several live-action role-playing games have been made about BDSM, or for BDSM. Third, many other games have borrowed ideas from BDSM, as well, as have some BDSM activities, in turn, from games and play. Fourth, queer game studies frequently discuss subversive and transgressive play practices, which provide a fruitful context for analyzing play elements in BDSM, and BDSM-inspired elements in games. And fifth, both games and BDSM are frequently discussed in the research contexts related to performance, theater, and rituals, which forms a potential bridge between these activities. Through this five-strand exploratory analysis, we show how deeply interconnected these two realms are, even if the connection is only rarely mentioned, and to this date, not fully recognized as a valid research topic.

Higher Sustainability of Mental Models Acquired from a Digital Game in Comparison with a Live Action Role-playing Game and a Traditional Lecture

This article analyses the effectivity of teaching EU law using various educational media. It specifically explores the differences between, and sustainability of, mental models constructed within three various educational environments: (1) a digital game played on PCs, (2) a non-digital role-playing game, and (3) a traditional lecture with discussions. We conducted a laboratory experiment, in which participants (253 high school students, M = 112, F = 141, mean age 16.5) studied EU laws, institutions, and politics in the three above-mentioned environments. We evaluated and compared mental models participants constructed through content analysis of the concept maps they drew immediately after the experiment and others made one month later. Within the analysis, we studied content, architecture, and changes in mental models over time. The resulting data offer unique insight into the process of mental models creation and sustainability thereof within game-based learning; particularly, when using a digital game. Digital game-based learners’ concept maps differed in comparison with those of the educational role-playing and traditional lecture groups; the students tended to keep less altered mental models in their long-term memory: even after the one month period. The results suggest that a digital game-based learning environment could be more successful in mental model retention and for efficacy of future recall; particularly, when dealing with complex phenomena like EU law.

Prospects for the use of modern technologies to increase student involvement

The article discusses the prospects of role-playing games in the educational process to increase students’ motivation and involvement, as well as the possibility of modern information technologies (primarily social networks) for constructing innovative forms of such games. The author’s format of the live-action role-playing game is presented. It was developed and tested at the Saratov State University. It involves the integration of numerous educational tasks into a single plot, within which each participant plays a role and communicates with other participants to complete tasks. The main interaction, plot development and group activities occur in dialogs, conversations and groups of social networks. This approach has shown its viability in teaching legal disciplines, and also has prospects for use in IT education.

Live-action role-playing games and online role-playing games: psychological functions in the modern sociocultural context

The article deals with the functions of role-playing games of different types in adulthood in conjunction with the particularities of the players’ self-consciousness. Changes in the status of game in the sociocultural context of postmodern society are discussed. 45 respondents took part in the empirical study: 15 participants of live action role-playing games (8 women, average age 31.53 ± 6.48 years old, game experience 10.7 ± 5.9 years), 15 participants of the online role-playing game «Second Life» (8 women, average age 33.8 ± 5.62 years old, game experience 9.57 ± 4.33 years), and 15 people who are not keen on role-playing games (8 women, average age 30.33 ± 6.03 years old). In course of research were used the author’s questionnaire Self-Portrait of a Role-Playing Games Participant, a modification of Kuhn–McPartland’s Twenty Statements Test, Dembo–Rubinstein’s self-esteem measurement methods, and the Giessen Personality Questionnaire by D. Beckman. It has been found that while «players» and «non-players» lack differences in self-esteem, the participants in role-playing games rate the in-game-self higher in a number of parameters than the real-life-self. The characteristic features of self-consciousness of participants in role-playing games have been identified. For the participants in live action role-playing games, those include cognitive simplicity of the self-image and social orientation of the self-identity. For the «Second Life» players, over-differentiation of the self-image and egocentric orientation of the self-identity are common. The key functions of role-playing games have been identified based on the content analysis of the questionnaires. They are as follows: getting intense emotions and changing identities are the key functions in the group of live action role-playing games’ participants, while self-fulfillment and transgression are typical for the «Second Life» players. The results are discussed in the context of possible changes in modern criteria for distinguishing normal and pathological personality.

It’s Better to Enjoy Learning than Playing: Motivational Effects of an Educational Live Action Role-playing Game

Game-based learning is supposed to motivate learners. However, to what degree does motivation driven by interest in playing an instructional game affect learning outcomes compared to motivation driven by interest in the very learning process? This is not known. In this study with a unique design and intervention, young adults (N = 128; a heterogeneous sample) learned how to control an electro-mechanical device in a 40-minute-long learning session integrated into a 2-hour-long educational live action role-playing game (edu-LARP). Edu-LARPs are supposedly engaging games where players take part in team role-playing by physically enacting characters in a fictional universe. In our edu-LARP, players had to understand how the to-be-learned device worked in order to win the game. Departing from typical game-based learning research, learning- and playing-related variables were assessed for each learner separately (i.e., a within-subject design). Affective-motivational factors related to playing (rather than learning) predicted learning outcomes in a positive, but considerably weaker, way compared to learning-related, affective-motivational factors. Developed interest in LARP-like games was primarily related to enjoying the game rather than better learning outcomes; whereas, developed interest in the instructional domain was primarily related to enjoyment of learning and better learning outcomes. Overall, autonomous motivation to play was connected to higher learning outcomes, but this connection was weak.

International Journal of Role-playing 9 -- Full Issue -- IJRP

IJRP 9: Special Issue — Living Games Conference 2018
 Table of Contents
 Evan Torner, “Editorial”
 This special issue contains four articles chosen from among those presented at the Living Games Conference at Northeastern University in Peabody, MA, on May 17-20, 2018.
 Russell Murdock, “Legal Liability in Live Action Role-Playing: The Law is Dark and Full of Terrors”
 This paper explores the legal liabilities and risks associated with running a live-action role-playing game (larp), including issues related to alcohol consumption, employee behavior, and personal injury.
 Diana J. Leonard and Tessa Thurman, “Bleed-out on the Brain: The Neuroscience of Character-to-Player Spillover in Larp”
 This article pairs emerging neuroscience theory and research with classic psychological models of emotion and motivation to examine the causes and consequences of the important larp phenomenon of bleed-out.
 Brodie Atwater and Alexis Rowland, “Developing a Framework of Larp Counseling”
 This paper outlines the purpose and challenges of the role of larp counselor in order to discuss the need for standardization due to liabilities and expectations of care. The authors propose a three part guide containing a code of ethics, procedures, and best practices.
 Jason Cox, “Documenting Larp as an Art of Experience”
 This article approaches larp documentation and representation by foregrounding player experiences over the narrative created by the designers. The author discusses the development of The Magischola Museum website, designed to house artifacts from the larp series New World Magischola.

Legal Liability in Live Action Role-Playing: The Law is Dark and Full of Terrors

This paper explores the legal liabilities and risks associated with running a live-action role-playing game (larp). Because few cases directly involving the larp community have been litigated, this paper searches for corollaries from other types of events run mainly in the United States that may prove enlightening for larp organizers. While the legal concerns faced by larp organizers may seem novel to them, many similar issues of legal liability have been litigated in courts for more than a century. The legal principles of social host liability vs. commercial host liability will be analyzed in the context of larps, demonstrating some of the likely disparate treatment for-profit larp organizers will experience versus their non-commercial counterparts. These principles will provide the foundation to analyze liability regarding the furnishing of alcohol in contexts when alcohol is being sold by the larp’s organizers, when it is given away by organizers, and when organizers provide alcohol to an underage minor. This paper also explores other liability concerns for larp organizers, including their responsibility resulting from criminal actions by participants; criminal or negligent acts by their employees and volunteers; and personal injury of a participant at a larp event. Finally, the paper will briefly explore the liability of the landowner of sites where larps take place. Where clear bright-line answers to legal questions prove impossible—as they all too often do—this paper seeks to provide a general foundation of knowledge from which larp organizers can begin to analyze their legal liabilities. This article is intended for informational purposes only and not for the purpose of providing legal advice.

Editorial - Special Issue: Living Games Conference 2018

IJRP 9: Special Issue — Living Games Conference 2018 Table of Contents Evan Torner, “Editorial” This special issue contains four articles chosen from among those presented at the Living Games Conference at Northeastern University in Peabody, MA, on May 17-20, 2018. Russell Murdock, “Legal Liability in Live Action Role-Playing: The Law is Dark and Full of Terrors” This paper explores the legal liabilities and risks associated with running a live-action role-playing game (larp), including issues related to alcohol consumption, employee behavior, and personal injury. Diana J. Leonard and Tessa Thurman, “Bleed-out on the Brain: The Neuroscience of Character-to-Player Spillover in Larp” This article pairs emerging neuroscience theory and research with classic psychological models of emotion and motivation to examine the causes and consequences of the important larp phenomenon of bleed-out. Brodie Atwater and Alex Rowland, “Developing a Framework of Larp Counseling” This paper outlines the purpose and challenges of the role of larp counselor in order to discuss the need for standardization due to liabilities and expectations of care. The authors propose a three part guide containing a code of ethics, procedures, and best practices. Jason Cox, “Documenting Larp as an Art of Experience” This article approaches larp documentation and representation by foregrounding player experiences over the narrative created by the designers. The author discusses the development of The Magischola Museum website, designed to house artifacts from the larp series New World Magischola.

Undoing gender through performing the other

ABSTRACTFollowing the perspective of gender as a socially constructed performance, consumer research has given light to how individuals take on, negotiate, and express a variety of gender roles. Yet the focus of research has remained on gender roles themselves, largely overlooking the underlying process of gender performativity and consumers’ engagement with it in the context of their everyday lives. Set within a performance methodology and the context of crossplay in live action role-playing games, this paper explores how individuals undo gender on a subjective level, thus becoming conscious and reflexive of gender performativity. The study suggests that individuals become active in undoing gender through engaging in direct, bodily performance of the gender other. Such performance does not challenge or ridicule norms, but pushes individuals to actively figure out for themselves how gender is performed. As a result, individuals become aware of gender performativity and become capable of actively recombining everyday performance.

DESIGNING COSTUMES FOR THE LIVE-ACTION ROLE-PLAYING GAME TAKING INTO ACCOUNT BIOSOCIAL FEATURES OF THE PERSON

The article deals with the essence of the biosocial characteristics of the modern man and the approaches to their classification. The author has provided the original definition of live-action role-playing game, determined the interrelation of personal needs in self-fulfillment and self-expression with the gaming activities is defined, as well as the choice of clothes for the fullest possible disclosure of the selected images. An experience of designing costumes for the live-action role-playing game with consideration of the biosocial characteristics of the man is presented. The author has also substantiated the importance of taking this into account in order to disclose the potential of the individual and personal psycho-physiological comfort.