Author Archives: volvemaal

Reading Larps: Experience the Sea from the Shore.

Presentation at Nordic Larp Talks 2022.

This spring I read 2303 larps.

Not true, this spring I browsed 2303 larps. My mission was to find larp scripts in English or Nordic language.My desire was to read larps. Not true. My desire was to prove that a larp can be read. That larps are more than larping.

Published in International Journal of Role-play, October 2022.

http://ijrp.subcultures.nl/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/IJRP-12-Full-Issue-Nordic-Erotic-Larp-Designing-for-Sexual-Playfulness-Hanne-Grasmo-and-Jaakko-Stenros.pdf

This article by Jaakko Stenros and myself is exactly what is says on the tin, an exploration of emerging genre of erotic larps in the Nordics — based on design abstracts (basically larp websites). The article maps the rise of the erotic larp during that last decade, charts what kind of erotic larps are out there and what mechanics they use, discusses the tension between oppression and liberation that is at the core of many of these larps, analyses how alibi is layered to allow for erotic play, shows how larps are inclusive of marginalized sexualites and genders, and more. The article is 44 pages long, so there is a lot here.

One relevant contribution for the larp community is probably my formulation of compulsive mechanics, that are found in many erotics larps. Push for play, double alibi and complusive erotic play was discussed at Knutpunkt conference in Linköping 2022.