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To further our discussion of the didactic potential of RPGs, this chapter will discuss the basics of live action role-playing games (larp), as well as adjacent phenomena. We will consider three main larp formats: boffer, chamber, and freeform. We will discuss similarities and differences between these formats and tabletop role-playing games, particularly with regard to their educational potential, their connection to social-emotional learning, and their potency as a result of their somatic, embodied nature. We will emphasize how many larp formats offer players the opportunity to experience a significant amount of agency to make meaningful choices and create play emergently.Tabletop role-playing games can range in scope, intensity, and level of performative enactment. A dungeon crawl featuring only dice rolling, out-of-character strategizing, and combatactions is technically considered a role-playing game, as are games with no dice, no game masters, no combat, and intense immersion into character. In general, the more that players experience embodiment of their character and their performance of the fiction, the closer a game becomes to a larp, although some larps can feature off-game strategizing as well. Embodiment refers to the player physically behaving as they imagine their character would, considering their character in the first-person, i.e. instead of “My character goes to talk to the bartender,” saying “I go talk to the bartender” and/or physically walking up to someone portraying the bartender and speaking to them. Note that for our purposes, embodiment in this case can take place when sitting around a table playing a TTRPG, as some people choose to wear costumes and enact their characters deeply, but the more physical these actions become, the more the game becomes a larp. For example, a group may be playing a game of Fiasco around the table, then choose to physically improvise their characters actions instead of describing them, which is more akin to a larp. Such players may even say, “We got up and larped our game of Fiasco.”As a format, larp is also wide and ranges in scope, intensity, and level of performative enactment. Thus, it becomes difficult to generalize about larp, as different play groups use the term to describe vastly distinct behaviors -- or may not use the term at all when describing behaviors identical to what other groups call “larp.” In general, we define larp as co-creative experiences where participants immerse into fictional characters and realities in an embodied manner for a bounded period of time through emergent playfulness. However, this definition could also be applied to other types of role-playing, such as psychodrama, Drama in Education, improvisation, simulation, and reenactment, as we will discuss in this chapter. Thus, we will refine our definition to focus specifically upon games that have emerged from the RPG subcultures of some kind, whether through the influence of Dungeons & Dragons (1974) or other subcultural roots. For example, in Russia, larp emerged in the 1990s as groups of players inspired by J.R.R. Tolkien began to run larps based on the books entitled Hobbit Games (Semenov 2010).This refinement of the definition allows us to identify larps that have been designed explicitly for educational goals and note how and why their contributions to pedagogy are unique, i.e. edu-larps (Bowman 2014). For example, if an educational role-playing game was designed inspired by leisure games and includes mechanics of some sort, some sort of fantastic setting, win conditions, and persistent co-creation in a consistent fictional world, we can consider it an edu-larp (Bowman and Standiford 2015). However, a larp inspired by the Nordic larp tradition featuring no mechanics, full embodiment of character, no win conditions, i.e. “playing to lose,” in a socially realistic setting such as a prison can also be an edu-larp (Aarebrot & Nielsen, 2012) Similarly, a nursing simulation in which health professionals role-play that includes techniques from Nordic or American freeform -- a tabletop/larp hybrid form -- can also be considered an edu-larp (Standiford 2014). However, the pedagogical goals may be the same as in other types of role-playing in educational and therapeutic settings. Thus, in this chapter, we will further explain and define these cousin forms of larp in order to be precise with our terminology. Regardless of definition, embodied role-playing and storytelling are human activities that likely predate the written language. Humans often learn, educate, practice behaviors and bond through embodied play, as evidenced in childhood pretend play (Bowman & Lieberoth 2018; Kapitany 2022).These different manifestations of embodied role-playing are specific to the socio-cultural contexts within which they emerged, but have many of the same benefits regardless of form. Similarly, many of the benefits of larp can also be achieved through TTRPGs. Thus, this chapter will conclude by discussing the ways in which socio-emotional learning can be enhanced further through physical embodiment as a result of bridging the mental and somatic gap. |
