Inclusion in Larp: Between Challenge and the Experience of Limits

Personal note: In this article, I give my personal opinion. In doing so, I must refer to the article by Shoshana Kessock The Absence of Disabled Bodies in Larp, as it addresses some basic things regarding game design which I wholeheartedly support, especially the point about the representation of disability by non-disabled people. What is needed is not more non-disabled people in larp portraying disability (whether to make the character cooler and more interesting or something else), but more people with disabilities larping.

Our world is becoming more and more diverse. Realities of life can finally find a place and we are every day socially responsible to deal with and react to people’s most diverse needs. This hard-won achievement does not stop at a hobby like ours.

This means that all those who are active in the field of larp, as organisers or players, have to face the fact that needs arising from diversity have to be recognised and accommodated. It is irrelevant whether a person is disabled or not. Every person has needs arising from their background. Our task as larpers is to meet these needs as best we can, provided that we have the opportunity to do so.

In this article, I try to show that the limit of my imagination due to the awareness of my self means a break with immersion and has an impact on inclusion in larp in terms of self-determination and informed choice. In the course of the article, I draw attention to communication and expectations from the perspective of the vision of a larp event and the resources of all participants, and which courses of action can result from this.

So let’s have a look together at what points we still need to work on.

At the Limits: Our Imagination

A central element of our hobby is the oft-praised immersion. We can immerse ourselves as completely and holistically as possible in situations we encounter in the game and not be distracted. Immersion is an element that is supposed to help us get as close as possible to a realistic experience or feeling.
It is a fact that we succeed in immersion to a greater or lesser extent depending on the situation, location, participants, or unexpected events. The fact that we often portray supernatural beings and abilities and have to imitate these abilities without actually possessing them is already a break with immersion.

So on some meta-level we are fully aware that what we are doing is a game. Yet we engage with it and ignore the fact that it is merely a representation. So we build representation into our immersion for the benefit of the flow of the game. Why is it nevertheless possible to get the impression that this is a bigger problem in interaction with disabled people than, for example, in the representation of a superpower.

My personal experience and assumption is: because despite immersion, we think of ourselves mentally on the meta-level as the real me and thereby include social contexts, assumptions, as well as learned knowledge and ignorance in situations. We are moving in ableist systems, which, in addition to the disability itself, constitutes the true core of disability: non-participation in society.

Ableism is the “discrimination and social prejudice against people with disabilities. Ableism characterises persons as defined by their disabilities and as inferior to the non-disabled” (Kessock 2017).

The lack of accessibility is a central element of the non-participation of disabled people in social interactions. It is irrelevant whether this discrimination happens consciously or unconsciously. The decisive factor is whether measures and actions are taken to eliminate this situation once the discrimination has been recognised.

In doing so, we realise that in many cases we have little contact with disabled people in everyday life. This realisation often brings with it insecurity, which then shows itself in play and interactions. However, we also fail to realise that disability is not a condition that prevails from the beginning of life. Only 3% of disabled people are disabled from birth. All other disabilities are acquired in the course of a lifetime. We fail to realise that at some point in our lives we ourselves may belong to the group of people with disabilities that, according to the WHO (2023), makes up about 16% of the world’s population. That is roughly one in six of us. This figure does not stop at larpers and is not linked to a specific population stratum.

Source: Lise Wagner (2021) – Disabled People in the World: Facts and Figures at Okeenea – Inclusive City Maker

It is beyond our imagination to suddenly no longer be able to do things we were previously good at, for whatever reason. This limitation of abilities is often understood as a loss of quality of life. It is accompanied by assumptions about what disabled people are able to do. This is where the greatest danger of acting ableist lies: we cannot imagine what disabled people are capable of doing, and also we think we have to make decisions without including disabled people in the discussion.

Often the boundary between external responsibility and personal responsibility is crossed in an encroaching way. A supposed protective space is built up for disabled people that protects no one but ourselves – from experiences that could take us further.

The diversity of forms of disability is obviously a big problem for many people. Facing many forms of disabilities means that I cannot develop a patent remedy for dealing with them all. As a result, I have to reposition myself in every situation, at every event, in every conversation, according to the needs of my counterpart.

Even though this last sentence applies to practically every situation in my life, even without people with disabilities, it takes on a special meaning for me when dealing with people with disabilities. In this context, if inclusion would be really implemented, it would mean that it is just not a special event. I deliberately avoid the term normality here, because this is a fallacy regarding the diversity of people we encounter in the course of a lifetime.

The special nature of the situation is made clear for many by the fact that they are afraid of possible embarrassment in direct contact with disabled people. They are afraid that they could do something wrong out of ignorance. Therefore, they often do not do it at all and thus deprive themselves of the opportunity to learn and to overcome that very limitation of imagination.

At the Limits: Communication

If there is no meeting or exchange, larp will not be able to develop in this. area. One often feels that disabled people are not taken into account at larps. For example, if I can’t find any information in advance of an event that helps me as a disabled person about the location, the game, the expectations of the organisers, etc., I have to expend additional energy on top of my personal effort, which is regularly caused by my disability anyway, in order to be able to make an informed decision.

What does informed choice mean?

According to the NC Department of Health and Human Services in North Carolina,

“individuals with disabilities have the right to make choices over where they work and how they spend their days. However, people with disabilities too often have limited experiences on which to base choices. Informed choice is what we call the process of choosing from options based on accurate information, knowledge, and experiences. Core principles include:

• Everyone is capable of making choices, regardless of their limitations, and needs opportunity, experience, and support to do so.
• Choice means selecting among available options, and clearly defining what those options are.
• Choices have consequences and it is important to clearly understand what those consequences are.
• Choices are made within the overall context of cultural and societal expectations and some choices are viewed as more acceptable and more positive than others.

Informed choice occurs when a person, with or without reasonable accommodations, understands all the options available to them, including the benefits and risks of their decisions. The process of informed choice doesn’t have an end and doesn’t just occur one time. Informed choice is part of an ongoing process of engaging people in person-centred conversations about their goals.” (NCDHHS 2023)

Especially with regard to organisers, it is desirable that people with disabilities can be involved in the run-up to an event. This means that I either have people with disabilities in my environment that I can integrate into my team, or I make an effort to recruit people with disabilities as experts for my event.

Here I should just briefly point out that counselling, in the sense of “I educate myself further”, is something I pay money for in my working life. It should be noted at this point that disabled people owe nobody free education.

Low-barrier access to information on the event’s website is also something that not only benefits people with disabilities. Clear structures of the page layout, bundled and brief information, pictures of the location, and references to the sanitary facilities are just a few examples to help people in general make informed decisions.

It seems to me that an important point is the agenda of the organiser. As a disabled person, I want to be able to get an idea of who I am dealing with on the organiser’s side:

• Personally, I would like to meet people who have not already made up their minds about me and my disability.
• I want to meet people who trust me to do things, as they would trust non-disabled people.
• I want to meet people who trust that I can make decisions for myself just like non-disabled people instead of organisers who have already made decisions for me without knowing what I am capable of.
• I want to meet people who want to look at situations with me and find a solution together.
• I want to meet open-minded people who are aware in their communication that they don’t have to know everything (and probably can’t), but are willing to learn and educate themselves
• I want to meet people with whom I can build a trusting relationship in order to be able to discuss needs that may also require more intimate knowledge in one situation or another. For this I need a protected space.
• I want to meet people who recognise where there is a need in play situations (be it through physical barriers or in interaction with other participants) and are not afraid to solve the problem with the necessary knowledge and calmness and above all, clarity and unambiguity.

This sounds like a lot of work at first, but on closer inspection it turns out to be demands that we in the field of larp already implement in many other things and that we try to incorporate into our thinking and actions on diversity issues anyway. Often, experiences of marginalisation arise from the same or at least similar behaviour of counterparts in encounters, so intersectionality is a clear building block of a diverse world for marginalised people, but one that needs to be remembered again and again.

Nevertheless, we need to be aware that there are people who are already overburdened by these demands.

At the Limits: Our Own Vision and Our Resources

Does this mean that I, as an organiser, can no longer organise an event that is not barrier-free, such as a castle larp? Does every event I organise have to be inclusive and diverse?

Those who ask themselves such questions have failed to understand what inclusion and diversity actually mean and what added social value their own events derive from them.

First of all, there are not only physical hurdles when I organise a larp in a castle. Running a larp in Czocha Castle in Poland, for example, has driven an organiser bankrupt and ticket prices have risen out of reach for many larpers.

One question I should ask myself as an organiser is whether the location I have chosen is a compelling element for what my larp will ultimately be. In the course of developing a larp, I have to think about which of my visions will ultimately become reality due to various circumstances. Sometimes the process involves painful decisions. Inclusion can seem like another hurdle that prevents me from realising my visions.

Even though I personally find this assessment regrettable, it seems to me to be a valid attitude if I am eager to implement a certain vision. Here it is important to know that I can (and should!) also communicate this accordingly, but then also have to face consequences and counter-positions. This means above all that I have to be prepared for criticism and accept it, listen to it, and process it.

But maybe I also have to admit to myself that my own resources may not be sufficient to implement inclusion. This also needs to be communicated. It would be important to remain open to the process, to accept help if necessary and to include people in my team with whom I can better implement inclusion. However, if my resources are not sufficient, the most important advice is not to promise what I cannot deliver. This only leads to frustration on both sides, as expectations and implementation efforts clash and cannot be resolved. The worst-case scenarios are that someone is at an event that I, as the organiser, cannot help or I, as a disabled person, am sitting at an event and cannot take action because the circumstances are not as they were announced to me.

In my opinion, organisers must be able to clearly communicate what resources they have available for which processes. They must provide resources in their event organisation structures to be able to address the issue of inclusion appropriately and provide contact persons. In my experience, it helps enormously if this person is a person with disabilities themselves, as this already offers a less barrier-laden approach, which can be of great importance for communicating the own needs of people with disabilities.

Beyond the Limits: Accepting the Challenge

Perhaps the most important conclusion that can be drawn from this article is that there are no easy answers to how best to implement inclusion. The human species is diverse and each of us, regardless of whether it is a person with a (visible) disability or not, or if it’s just personal preferences that matter to us: we have to try to engage with our counterpart.

When it comes to disability, both Shoshana Kessock (2017) and Lizzie Stark (2014) have made suggestions years ago about great ways to implement their own game design as an organiser and take further steps from there. For example, the idea of an avatar taking the place of the player in certain situations is one way to create an element of participation in certain situations. Lizzie Stark rightly writes: “Since the world is big and people and their needs are complex, it’s unlikely that any one technique is going to work for everyone all the time” (Stark 2014). Dann Lynch (2023) has also given suggestions on how to make larp more accessible.

People with disabilities will not give you a one-size-fits-all answer to the question: what do I have to do to be inclusive? None of us can avoid thinking about it ourselves in exchange with affected people.
There are already many people with disabilities in the field of larp – but not all of their disabilities are visible. These people must be allowed to gain the courage and be offered the opportunity to talk about it without prejudice and in a self-determined way. Larp designers must credibly and honestly assure and emphasise that disability in larp is treated neither as a cool feature of a character such as an eye patch nor as a burden regarding the efforts I have to put in my larp because someone is disabled, but as a part of the personalities that live in the game world in which I currently find myself.

Real participation means that people with disabilities can also immerse themselves in play worlds in order to have new experiences like everyone else, and to escape from everyday life for a while.

Bibliography

Lise Wagner (2021): Disabled People in the World: Facts and Figures at Okeenea – Inclusive City Maker

WHO: Disability (2023)

NCDHHS: Informed Choice (2023)

Shoshana Kessock (2017): The Absence of Disabled Bodies in Larp in Once Upon a Nordic Larp… Twenty Years of Playing Stories

Lizzie Stark (2014): A Wheelchair Ramp for Larp

Dann Lynch (2023): Accessibility – More Than Just Wheels

This article has been reprinted with permission from the Solmukohta 2024 book. Please cite as:

Butzen, Björn. 2024. “Inclusion in Larp: Between Challenge and the Experience of Limits.” In Liminal Encounters: Evolving Discourse in Nordic and Nordic Inspired Larp, edited by Kaisa Kangas, Jonne Arjoranta, and Ruska Kevätkoski. Helsinki, Finland: Ropecon ry.

Cover photo: image from Pixers.