Kernel License

This article does not seek to provide the reader with a comprehensive understanding of role-play as a whole; instead it presents three views relevant to educational role-play, in order to apply a learning perspective to the role-play phenomenon. As the focus for the educational use of role-play is participant progress at a specific topic and level, rather than entertainment, the focus is somewhat different from the usual perspective (for other understandings of the role-play phenomenon, see Yardley-Matwiejczuk 1997, Sørensen 2001, Gade & al. 2003).

Within the hobbyist use of role-play, a sharp distinction is often made between tabletop and larp. Within the educational use, rather than make this distinction, a hybrid form of the two is used (Molbech 2001). This is due to the purpose of use, as it is not driven by a desire for a medium or an activity, but used in order to meet a developmental need in the best possible way, making the need determine the means, and not vice versa. My personal use of educational role-play though, resembles larp as in many ways it is, as I argue below, easier for the non-skilled role-player to participate in. Usually a combination is used, with the proverbial table as the primary frame, but including bodily factors (see Hakkarainen & Stenros 2003) as appropriate.

The applied insight is illustrated by defining role-play as: “...a medium where a person, through immersion into a role and the world of this role, is given the opportunity to participate in, and interact with the contents of this world, and its participants.”

(Henriksen 2002, 54; 2003, 110). By defining role-play as such, the perspective maintains the focus of the Turku school on immersion (Pohjola 2000), combining it with the creation of a fictional world from Dogme 99 (Fatland & Wingård 1999), as well as the element of interaction from both. A special emphasis is put on Dogme’s focus on placing a fictional world at the participants’ disposal. Finally, the definition is inspired by, but contrasts with, Meilahti (Hakkarainen & Stenros 2002), in order to remove the game master from play, thereby leaving the interaction to take place between the participants and the objects of the fictional frame. The simplicity of this definition is sought in order to make role-play a clearly recognisable phenomenon for the analysis below.

Another central part of the insight is the element of fiction, mentioned by Dogme 99, but understood in the terms of Ryan (1991). According to Ryan, fiction is not to be seen as a contrast with reality, as such a perspective would categorise fictional discourse together with, for example, lies and faults. Fiction is characterised by its explicit distinction from reality, compared to the latter, as they attempt to illustrate the real world. Accepting the fictional contract (see Ryan 1991, Molbech 2001) implies accepting an interpretation, based on an invalidated discourse, which may seem less reasonable than those usually applied. However, a central part of educational use of role-play

implies that only the perspectives of this fictional contract are accepted for a limited period of time.

Fictional and Structural Recentering

The structural recentering model examines the relation, and thereby the experience and action created, of the meeting between the individual and the given structure. The process of recentering refers to moving one’s perception from being in the centre of one situation, to take the centre in another situation.

The way we experience the world is a complex matter, but is also a relevant issue, as we use the element of fiction in role-play to alter this experience. Through the development of academic methods of thought in the western world, our perception of objects has evolved from the medieval lack of distinction between the object and the subjective experience of it, rendering whatever is experienced as truthful (Sørensen 1997), to a modern separation of subjective experience from the object itself. This attempt at separation had some luck, but it also led to the realisation that objective access to an object cannot be achieved, due to the subject perceiving it. From the social constructivist point of view, the perspectives used to interpret our perception are weighted heavier than the object itself (e.g. Burr 1995). It is interesting that the stories surrounding an object are more influential on our experience than the object itself. This perspective is interesting, as the role-play is created as a story, surrounding an object.

From this perspective, the fictional element becomes a social construction, resting on an invalidated discourse, which is accepted for a limited period of time, in order to shape the experience of our perception (Henriksen 2002). The role-play must therefore be able to create a social discourse to shape our experience of the object.

The creation of a social discourse is equally a theoretically complex matter, but can be grasped through a minimalist approach. Bruno Latour’s (1993) theory on actant networks is such an attempt to go beyond the modern distinction between subject and object, in order to acknowledge them both as legitimate sources for experience-shaping.

Any relationship which influences a given practice can be seen as an actant. The actants are organised in a network of connections – the more influential the actant, the stronger and more numerous the connections to the remainder of the network. The experience of the network is determined by the influence of every actant, weighted according to the network, and is easily compared to the processing of a neural network.

A relevant contribution to this approach comes from Sørensen (1997), who uses the theory to examine the foundation of an action. In order to do this, she divides actants into three loosely overlapping categories: personal, local and decentral actants, in order to focus our attention on where to look for influential actants.

To create a discourse for perception shaping, the game designer must be able to identify and alter relevant actants and connections for creating a new experience for the participant. In order to do this, the role-play must generate a fictional recentering for the participant, thereby creating a new relationship between the individual and the

The structural recentering model attempts to illustrate this process, using the social psychological framework in order to demonstrate three levels of attention: a structural, an individual, and a relation level.

The model illustrates the process of fictional recentering (see Ryan 1991) on three separate levels, enabling the role-play to place its participant in a given structure, in a given role, and in a given relation between the two (Henriksen 2000; 2002). The recentering of each level is illustrated with an example from the educational role-play Magasinspillet, designed as a supplement for teaching business economics in Danish high schools (see Henriksen 2002; 2003, Henriksen & Andersen 2003).

Structural recentering creates the context for the role-play by altering the influential decentral actants. This level of attention includes the sociological, anthropological and historical perspectives (and eventually time, technology and laws of nature etc.). The structural recentering enables the role-play to place its participant in a specific context. It is important to notice that the other participants are part of this structure, as they reproduce the game discourse to the individual participant.

Contextual recentering changes the experience of the contextual frame, consisting of the classroom, interior, discourses and such, from being part of a high school classroom, to being experienced as a simulated version of business – simulated with the discourses of this simulated business.

Individual recentering includes those conditions under which the participant participates by altering the influential personal actants. This level includes the

Illustration 1: The Structural Recentering Model

psychological perspective, and enables the play to place its participant in the role-play with a specific perspective, which usually varies among participants.

The individual recentering changes the experience of the participant from being a student in a business economics learning process, to being an employee, working in a department in the specific business.

Relation recentering includes the relation between the individual and the context, and alters the influential local actants. This level includes the social psychological perspective, and cannot be clearly separated from either the structural or individual levels. The relative recentering enables the role-play to create conflict, and thereby action, by creating a specific relation between the individual and the contextual level.

The relation recentering process changes the relation from being a student in a learning context, surrounded by other students, to being part of a working process within the business, surrounded by colleagues.

The role-play uses three agents to facilitate this fictional recentering: actualisation, attraction and interactivity. The agents are interrelated, and therefore able to enhance the effect of each other.

The actualisation agent seeks to make the content of the role-play seem immediate to the participant. This process is relevant in the process of making the participant experience the content as relevant, and the problems significant.

The attractivity agent seeks to make the role-play interesting to participate in. This process is meant to motivate the participant by offering an interesting social position within the role-play. This agent draws on Vygotsky’s (1978) theory about frustrated child’s play based on compensation. The role-play can therefore motivate participation by offering an interesting or attractive role, which is not normally available to the participant.

The process of interactivity refers to the role-play’s capacity to respond to the participant’s interpretation and actions, thereby letting the participant influence the course of the game. To make the game interactive, interpretive degrees of freedom are implemented (a contrast to the degree of linearity), and the participant allowed to choose between different interpretations and actions.

As mentioned above, the effects of the agents are interrelated, and are used to facilitate the participant’s fictional recentering and character identification (the concept of character is dealt with below).

The Interpretative Model

To participate in a role-play, it is necessary to accept the fictional contract, and thereby the discourses used by the game to shape the participant’s experience. The participant

must therefore ignore certain personal aspects (secondary fiction), and temporarily replace them with the fictional discourses of the game (primary fiction).

The interactive element arises from the interpretative degrees of freedom, which the participant is offered to choose between and react upon. This opportunity to interpret can be seen as a consequence of the separation of subject from object. Role-play is a game of communication, and the foremost consequence of the separation of the object and the surrounding discourse, is Luhmann’s distinction between information and symbol (see e.g. Moe 1994).

Whereas the symbol is used to communicate complexity and to speed up the process, the information delivers accurate knowledge, which is used to interpret the symbol. The discourse for seeing the symbol-based object is, in other words, embedded in the information, describing how to frame the symbol (note that the conceptual framework of Luhmann is somewhat different from Peirce’s – a relevant note for further pursuit of this topic (see Loponen & Montola 2004)). This ongoing interpretation creates an uncertainty in the communication, which must be handled in order to prevent ‘dogs barking’ – a non-communication between two one-way communicators. The most common way to handle this contingency is by creating what Luhmann (1984) saw as a social system in which a shared set of information focii is used to handle the world’s vast complexity. In creating a role-play, a social system is created, in which the participants communicate on the basis of a shared set of signs for interpretation of objects. This discourse must be accepted in order to participate – you must see the fiction to be able to be a part of it. For further discussion of the perception of the object, see Loponen &

Montola (2004).

By looking at the structural recentering model, three interpretative processes are revealed: the objects of the structure, the role, and the relation between the two, presented in the interpretative model below.

On the left side of the model, the relations between participant, character and role are displayed. In the right side, the information (discourse) and symbol (object) are communicated to the center of the model, where the action of the role-play takes place.

The elements are understood as follows.

The Individual Perspective

The participant is the person who enters the role-play, and all the knowledge and perspectives he brings with himself.

The character contains the perspectives on which the participation is to take place. The fictive perspectives of the character are of both primary and secondary nature, in order to remove and replace relevant perspectives from the participant.

In order to facilitate the fictional recentering, the character only consists of those perspectives which are to be altered.

The role is the participant’s interpretation of the character, and therefore a combination of the two.

It is important to notice that the player does not play the character, but the role, and that the role is an interpretation of the character, seen from the participant’s perspective.

An important factor in the character’s influence on the role is the participant’s ability to role-play. The novice player will only be able to integrate a few elements, whereas an experienced player will be able to cope with a more extensive proposition (Henriksen 1999). The interpretation is furthermore influenced by the participant’s motivation, and by the participant’s ability to integrate his own perspectives with those of the character, a perspective seen as somewhat different from that of Hakkarainen & Stenros (2003).

Creating Structure

The symbol refers accordingly to Luhmann’s framework, to the object involved in the role-play, the one which is subject to interpretation. Physical circumstances, and the other participants of the game, are symbolic, and are to be interpreted on the basis of the discourse in order to make the content of the game meaningful.

The sign contains the discourse, from which the object of the game is to be understood. The sign-based communication is not to be questioned, as it contains the key to understanding the fictional frame of the game. Through interpretation of the objects of the game, the game is placed in a frame, which becomes meaningful to the roles. Adding to the amount of physical objects increases the degree of bodylines, which pushes the game towards becoming a larp (Hakkarainen & Stenros, 2002).

The third interpretative process arises when the interpreted character enters the interpreted frame of the game, and plays the game by interpreting the game from the perspective of the role. This is often too much for the role-playing novices who participate in developmental role-play. The use must therefore maintain a balance, including enough objects to make the fiction seem immediate, but at the same time avoiding overburdening the participant’s cognitive capacity.

Illustration 2: The Interpretative Model

The Circle Model

After having placed the participant in the fictional framework, and having equipped him with a perspective, it is time to take a look at the action taking place within the frame.

The action taking place in a role-play is far too complex to be grasped from a single perspective. As the interpretative model showed, a role-play is capable of producing a unique experience for each participant, as the observing perspective is a combination of both personal and character perspectives. This results in a unique experience for each participant, even if they shared the same perception. But that is not the case, especially not in a larp. Due to the degrees of freedom, the role is able to choose between different object experiences, and between different situations in the role-play. Rather than seeing the role-play as a linear theatre, it is seen as a field of opportunities, containing a number of potential situations, determined by the degrees of freedom and the content of the fictional recentering. Enabling the participant to choose between different situations, and being able to react upon the choice, is what makes the role-play interactive. Action then becomes a product of the individual experience, and the choices made on the basis of this. The personal experience of a role-play is best illustrated as a personal trajectory across the context of the role-play. This personal trajectory creates potential situations in which other participants eventually take part. This view on role-play is illustrated as the circle model.

The model directs our attention to two interesting areas: the factors determining the outcome of the personal trajectory, and more striking, the number of unrealised situations. The factors for determining the personal trajectory were thoroughly introduced above, but it is relevant to bear in mind that a minor change in the actant-network can cause dramatic changes to the action within the game, e.g. by replacing a participant. The number of unused situations is a direct consequence, or function, of the degrees of freedom. Due to the element of interactivity, the participant is not dragged through every single possible situation, but is allowed to choose the most relevant or

Illustration 2: The Circle Model

interesting ones. The model resembles Montola’s (2004) chaos model, which thoroughly explores the issue of shaping the course of the game through the use of attractors. See also Hansen (2003) on the issue of trajectories and starting points.

The ability of the role-play to create participation in specific situations, and allow the participant to experiment within the frame, is interesting from the learning perspective presented below.