The Influence of The Seriousness of the Topic of The Larp on The Participant’s Ability for Deliberative Dialogue

Sammanfattning

Live action role-play (larp) as an academic research area has become more and more recognised. Recently, the Larpocracy project has added democracy and how larp could be used to promote it within academic research. This research, associated with the Larpocracy project, will examine the importance of the topic of the larp as a means to influence how the participants play, specifically how they engage in deliberative dialogue. Using a Research through Design approach, two nano-live action role- paying games (laogs), one with a trivial and the other with a serious topic, were designed and later played by a group of 18 participants. Before and after the larps, participants completed surveys. After each larp they individually participated in interviews. The surveys showed an experienced and competent player group. The Deliberate Civic Values survey, done before and after the two nano-laogs, showed no significant change in opinions on subjects about participation in democracy and community. The semi-structured interviews showed that the seriousness of the topic of the laog they played had some influence on how they played. The participants emphasized that the seriousness of the topic of the laog was not important for their engagement in deliberation. All players found that deliberation was an important part of their game, whether the topic was trivial or serious. The results showed that to achieve deliberative dialogue in the laog the seriousness of the topic was not as important for the players as its relatability. For successful deliberation the topic would also have to be crucial for the characters and have numerous possible solutions. This realisation could lead to new research on how deliberative dialogue could be advanced in larp and larp design, leading to a better understanding of democracy.