New Games for Social Change

Recently I trav­eled to Nor­way. Not because they still had snow there, but because Knutepunkt 2013 was in the land of lakes, fjords and good fish. Knutepunkt is an event that is hosted every year in a dif­fer­ent Nordic coun­try and serves as a get-together for the Nordic larp scene, full of talks, work­shops, dis­cus­sions and meet­ing peo­ple. To show what has been made in the field last year, and to dis­cuss what should be next.

One of the views over the majes­tic frozen lake at the venue.

This Knutepunkt was all about “cross­ing bor­ders”, both in terms of coun­tries and design scenes. About reach­ing out and shar­ing the knowl­edge. So I went to see what Knutepunkt could teach me, you, and every­one out there. I will sum­ma­rize it for all of you, from larpers to art lovers, from game design­ers to exec­u­tives. Read your per­son­al­ized take­away from Knutepunkt 2013 below.

About Nordic larp

For those of you not famil­iar with the term larp, it describes a genre of role­play­ing games where play­ers enact their char­ac­ter and actions in the phys­i­cal space rather than telling other play­ers what they are doing or using metaphors like dice or a dig­i­tally con­trolled avatar to do so. In a way play­ers ‘become’ the char­ac­ter they role-play, because of the phys­i­cal nature of most games and ele­ments that improve immer­sion like cos­tumes, scenery or entire in-game venues. This very short expla­na­tion gen­er­al­izes the diver­sity of the genre a bit, so if you’d like to know more, Wikipedia would be a good place to start for a more thor­ough description.

The term Nordic larp is then used to describe the larp scene present in Den­mark, Nor­way, Swe­den and Fin­land, which has grown most notably in diver­sity over the past 20 years when com­pared to other larp scenes due to the active doc­u­men­ta­tion of and dis­course around the games made in these coun­tries. This has resulted in a more var­ied scene in terms of the types of games being hosted in those coun­tries¹, some of which aim to cre­ate artis­tic games focus­ing heav­ily on dra­matic inter­ac­tion and mean­ing­ful expe­ri­ences rather than mak­ing “just” a fun game. This in turn has widened the poten­tial uses of larps in these coun­tries, where they are now not only made for enter­tain­ment but also for edu­ca­tion, social exper­i­ments, express­ing artis­tic or polit­i­cal mes­sages and much more. As such the Nordic larp scene is widely known as one of the most advanced larp scenes in terms of game design prac­tice, doc­u­men­ta­tion and research.

With the intro­duc­tion out of the way, lets move on to my takeaways.

The non-Nordic larper

So you enjoy the occa­sional hit­ting of orcs with weaponized latex or maybe you might even be inter­ested in some intensely dra­matic games. There’s lots to be learned for all! First off, start by using these two words: game designer and larp writer. Because if we want to widen our exper­tise and improve our games, lets first prop­erly rec­og­nize the peo­ple who make them. Once we’ve done that, let’s start think­ing about and dis­cussing the design of our games; doc­u­ment them, share them, improve upon them. I’m not say­ing our larps are nec­es­sar­ily infe­rior to Nordic larps, I’m say­ing that there is a lot to be won if we start actively think­ing about the design of our games.

Many larp scenes out here often have a few solid for­mats copied over var­i­ous events for years, with lit­tle to no vari­a­tion at all. There are a lot of dif­fer­ent types of games that we could make and host. There are lots of improve­ments to be made upon our exist­ing for­mats if we look at our events as game design­ers rather than orga­niz­ers. Think of encounter design, find­ing dif­fer­ent approaches of pre­sent­ing the plot to play­ers, man­ag­ing role-play stan­dards in a com­mu­nity, cre­at­ing cos­tumes and other pre­sen­ta­tion meth­ods, just to name a few of the things we can improve together. I’m call­ing upon fel­low larp design­ers to be con­scious of what it is we are cre­at­ing and dis­cuss the choices we make doing so.

Some small larps were also played dur­ing the conference.

And why do we make improv­ing games so hard for our­selves? Why do we have to go to other events to know what they are exper­i­ment­ing with? Just writ­ing a 500-word arti­cle say­ing ‘we hosted a larp in which we did A and it resulted in B’ can help push the scene for­ward. Only then can we reach out to other fields, become more than ‘those nerds with elf-ears in a for­est’ to the out­side world and show­case the hid­den gems our scene may have. Because a bunch of pho­tographs and heroic camp­fire sto­ries are cool for those that actu­ally vis­ited the larp, but they keep the many peo­ple not included in that group grop­ing in the dark.

The game designer

Role-play in games is more than a bunch of guys play­ing Dun­geons & Drag­ons. As a mat­ter of fact, as a game designer, role­play­ing could be a valu­able asset in your toolkit. Let play­ers enact the char­ac­ter or role they take on in your game and reward them for doing so.² To make them part of your game in such a way increases their immer­sion and allows you to tell the story of the game in a fash­ion that is more closely tied to the game­play. This does not mean you have to nec­es­sar­ily make your game facil­i­tate role­play­ing for the the full 100%. Rather, use it as a tool when applic­a­ble. Design the func­tion and place of the player in the nar­ra­tive more actively, most notably in rela­tion to other play­ers, and give them free­dom to role-play as much as your game can support.

The pro­gram at Knutepunkt offered talks, work­shops, pan­els and small games. Audi­ence par­tic­i­pa­tion was pre­ferred, even at the talks.

Learn from the Scan­di­na­vians and use char­ac­ter design to tell your story, cre­ate a con­flict or script an event. Char­ac­ter design is often one of the main aspects of cre­at­ing a Nordic larp. Many of these larps facil­i­tate the major part of their story or events through player-to-player inter­ac­tion manip­u­lated via the char­ac­ters they are play­ing. With some insight, much of this is trans­fer­able to a lot of other game gen­res. Whether you assign play­ers a char­ac­ter at the start of the game or slowly lead them on the path of becom­ing the char­ac­ter you have planned for them, play­ers will be delighted to be such a strong part of the story. For­get hand­ing the play­ers infor­ma­tion through non-player char­ac­ters, acti­vate a player by giv­ing him spe­cial info before or dur­ing the game. Make them an active part of the events in your game instead of hav­ing them lis­ten to (or read) mono­logue after mono­logue. Allow play­ers to fill in key aspects of your story and they will become part of it and share it. And last but not least, always remem­ber that the nar­ra­tive of your game is what the player expe­ri­ences, not what he reads or hears. And role­play­ing is experiencing.

The gamer

What’s in it for you as a player of games, what­ever the kind? Well, Knutepunkt’s mis­sion to encour­age clear dis­course around the design of larps and to per­me­ate bor­ders of other design scenes with the obtained knowl­edge makes that these well-designed forms of role­play­ing may be used in many more types of games soon. And why is role­play­ing such a good thing for you, the player? Well, first of all, it increases your influ­ence as a player in the game and on its con­tent. Games that are designed to enable and reward role­play­ing give the play­ers more free­dom in choos­ing their actions, and a stronger effect of those actions. It enables the player to become part of the game and even pro­vide an expe­ri­ence for other play­ers. Because, lets face it, you’ve always wanted to be the pro­tag­o­nist or antag­o­nist in sto­ries. There is some­thing very sat­is­fy­ing about becom­ing part of another person’s expe­ri­ence, about hav­ing your actions live on in legend.

Sec­ondly, Nordic larps are often the can­vas for a far wider array of char­ac­ters than most game scenes are used to. Don’t just play the hero who slays the dragon or the sol­dier who wins the war over and over again. Play the drug addict, the mother in a fam­ily of 8, the doc­tor on a fed­er­a­tion star­ship, any­thing really. Dis­cover new types of char­ac­ters, dif­fer­ent views on life, new expe­ri­ences. Nordic larp has proven to excel at pro­vid­ing play­ers with unlikely heroes and unusual expe­ri­ences. Here’s to hop­ing game design­ers pick up on this.

The exec­u­tive

Remem­ber the last time your com­pany hired some agency to give your employ­ees a train­ing with live actors? Good chance it wasn’t quite as effec­tive as you’d hoped it would be. Next time, why not try to work with game design­ers that have learned from Knutepunkt? In the Nordic coun­tries, larps are used for edu­ca­tion, train­ing, cul­tural engage­ment, or even as a tool for devel­op­ment. Last Knutepunkt, Nor­we­gian min­is­ter of devel­op­ment Heikki Holmås even vis­ited to give his thoughts on the matter.

Nordic larp tech­niques can be used to cre­ate a safe game envi­ron­ment for peo­ple to try out dif­fer­ent approaches, rise above their usual thought pat­terns, or get out of their reg­u­lar role and expe­ri­ence mat­ters from another angle. Where nor­mal train­ings strug­gle to get peo­ple to move out of their com­fort zone and actu­ally start exper­i­ment­ing and learn­ing, games pro­vide play­ers with per­mis­sion and encour­age­ment to do so. Role­play­ing work­shops before the game even starts, tried and tested strate­gies of design and pro­found knowl­edge of how groups of peo­ple func­tion do the rest. And it’s just as much fun as it is beneficial.

The the­atre designer

The­atre, I know you. I know how you strug­gle to engage with new audi­ences. How you work to break the fourth wall wide open and get your audi­ence to par­tic­i­pate in your plays. I’ve made my fair share of inter­ac­tive the­atre myself. I know how most peo­ple are scared to really par­tic­i­pate. I know how hard it can be to make mean­ing­ful the­atre while allow­ing the audi­ence to have influ­ence. Engag­ing your audi­ence how­ever is a bright and fas­ci­nat­ing future for the per­form­ing arts, if done right.

Open­ing cer­e­mony of the party on Sat­ur­day evening.

When I hear about some of the Nordic larps, they strongly remind me of how pro­fes­sional actors do role­play­ing and impro­vi­sa­tional scenes to train their act­ing or cre­ate mate­r­ial. Those larps get play­ers to act like they never knew they could, to engage with the play that is presented.

So next time you try to tear down that fourth wall, remem­ber to do it like they do it at Knutepunkt: give your play­ers char­ac­ters to enact. Build a safe envi­ron­ment and an illu­sory mask for them to hide behind and they will do almost any­thing. Engag­ing with the unknown as your­self is scary and you will feel looked upon. Engag­ing with it as a char­ac­ter some­one told you to be is a lot less fright­en­ing. Send them on their way with a brief­ing before­hand, a work­shop, or smart design of the play itself. No mat­ter how you do it, give them their mask and they will take part in your adventure.

The art lover

There is some­thing like com­mu­nity art, and then there is Nordic larp. Live up to any role. Expe­ri­ence any artis­tic mes­sage. Be part of the art­work itself. At Knutepunkt they show how art can be made through role-play, and how role-play can be art in itself. It’s all about set­ting the frame­works for a group of peo­ple to be let loose in. To expe­ri­ence dif­fer­ent soci­eties, imag­ined sto­ries. Sure, an artist can show you how he would imag­ine a world with­out cap­i­tal­ism. Or he can let you live it. Every piece is here and now, always unique and unre­peat­able, co-created and lived by its pri­mary audi­ence. They are still quite rare, but if you ever come across a Nordic-inspired art larp, dive in!

The open­ing cer­e­mony on Thursday.

The designer who already does all of this

Then why don’t we know? The last mes­sage of Knutepunkt is to share. Doc­u­ment for your­self and oth­ers. Become bet­ter in design­ing as a com­mu­nity. The Nordic larp hasn’t evolved this far by pure chance. It’s done so because of the com­mu­nity behind it, get­ting together to dis­cuss design, tackle recent issues, reflect on what has been made and become wiser. And that is a mes­sage that can be given as an advice to any new scene out there: Get together. Estab­lish a dis­course. Share cool projects. Make even more awe­some projects.

The end­ing cer­e­mony on Sunday.

And for me?

Knutepunkt has been a big inspi­ra­tion. I have met awe­some peo­ple from var­i­ous coun­tries, and learned much from the Nordic way of design­ing larps. It wasn’t all new mate­r­ial, but hear­ing about things you have been deal­ing with or think­ing about from oth­ers in a clear and orga­nized fash­ion helps the thought process a great deal. Plans I had for alter­na­tive larps in the Nether­lands have got­ten a boost and I may very well cre­ate a new game myself sooner or later.

As you can read in some of the lessons above, espe­cially the com­mu­nity aspect of Knutepunkt has got me think­ing. It may be time to set up a clear plat­form to talk about the design of larps in the Nether­lands specif­i­cally. Maybe we should even expand this phi­los­o­phy to other (new) fields of design. The future will tell which of these thoughts are turned into plans and where we may get with this. I know for cer­tain though that I will be using my obtained Nordic knowl­edge in the designs of games to come, both larps and other gen­res. Because as I’ve illus­trated above, the uses are plenty.

For those of you eager to find out more, take a look at this years Nordic Larp Talks, an event hosted prior to Knutepunkt yet closely linked to it in terms of sub­ject mat­ter and speakers.

Pho­tos cour­tesy of and made by:

• Pic­ture 1 — Me
• Pic­tures 6 and 8 — Eleanor Saitta
• Pic­tures 2,3,4,5 and 7 — Johannes Axner

Foot­notes:

1. I’m not sug­gest­ing these types of games don’t exist out­side of the Nordic coun­tries, but they are more com­mon and accepted in the Nordic scene. [↩]
2. Note that the most pop­u­lar use of the term role­play­ing in (video) games nowa­days doesn’t actu­ally mean play­ing a role any­more, but refers to the avail­abil­ity of char­ac­ter cus­tomiza­tion and growth in the game. Role­play­ing in this arti­cle instead refers to the orig­i­nal mean­ing of the term, being the enact­ment of a role or char­ac­ter by the player, much like in clas­sic table­top role­play­ing games like Dun­geons & Drag­ons. [↩]