Photo credit: nordiclarp.org
About this event:
The Manchester Metropolitan Game Centre is excited to host a panel on current trends in LARP research with Michaël Freudenthal, Jonaya Kemper and Evan Torner, and chaired by Chloé Germaine. Each panellist will give a short presentation on their emergent research, and a group discussion will follow.
Michaël’s Presentation:
History’s weight and inertia in Legion: a Siberian Story.
Many larp workshops aim to harmonize player cultures, norms and expectations for their engagement in fiction to flow seamlessly and as safely as possible. In an historical and physically heavy larp like Legion: a Siberian Story (Rolling, 2014), the authored representation of a national story encounters players’ representation of the past. This talks draws on an empirical monographic study on Legion in 2020 to provide an analysis of some complex links between perception of fact and fiction in an intercultural context. Drawing on French narratology scholars and sociologist, as well as larp theory, this talk intends to discuss how play outside runtime possibly influences larp legacy.
Michaël Freudenthal is a PhD fellow at EXPERICE (University Sorbonne Paris Nord) supervised by Gilles Brougère and Vincent Berry and co-financed by the Asmodee group. Their research is a sociological approach of leisurely analog games, from larp to expert boardgames, and is focused on the influence of fiction on participation and learning. As a larper they coordinated several larp conferences in France (GNiales, Convergences) and they recently authored A Missing Stair, a card-based roleplaying game on toxic situations caused by manipulation.
Evan’s Presentation:
Affordances and Constraints in Larp Adaptation
Larps provide a variety of on-ramps for participants and use bespoke, specific means of fulfilling player fantasies, all while navigating a host of mechanical, material, and social constraints. This talk takes larp design as a playful-yet-rigorous way to address both imaginative fantasy and brute reality. The core of larp design, as Eirik Fatland once noted, is "incentivizing player behavior." Free and emergent play, with supports for player identity, stress, and failure, are the backbones of equity and democracy. How do larp designers and organizers offer players a chance to play what is familiar and graspable, but then channels the design toward specific, bespoke goals that are often outside of the realm of the familiar? Example larps discussed will include Dagorhir, Vampire: the Masquerade, Metropolis, Just a Little Lovin, The Sleepover, and Blip.
Evan Torner is Associate Professor of German Studies and Film & Media Studies at the University of Cincinnati, where he directs the UC Game Lab. He has been writing larps and scholarship about larps for over a decade, and co-founded the journal Analog Game Studies and the Golden Cobra Larp Challenge. His latest game Diamond 20, with Kyle Latino, is in competition at Fastaval 2022.
Emergent Paths event flyer.