Ruta viable para las interconexiones

As interpreting text forms the meanings, we can see that in tabletop role-play, text is everything the players say and do, and even things that exist in the space inhabited by the players (see Padol 1996). For larps, this is even more true, as the physical reality – affecting all five senses – is used directly to construct the diegeses (Montola 2003). In larp, every object in the physical space and every act performed is a sign. While tabletop interaction is based mostly on symbols, larp uses icons and indices as well. It can be said that the more the diegeses are constructed through icons and indices, the more larp-like a game is.

In larp, the interesting interpretation happens when a player takes a sign from her surroundings and interprets it as a part of her diegesis. Indices are the same in the real world and within the diegeses. Icons acquire their meaning through direct similarities and by resembling their meanings inside the diegeses. Symbols have only arbitrated meanings within the diegeses. The following examples clarify the ways of propping:

When a player walks in the forest in a larp, the forest is mostly indexical. The forest in the diegetic world is identical to the forest in the real world. A boffer sword is mostly iconic, though vaguely; it resembles a sword. Gestures relating to rules are symbolic. A floor is indexical in the sense it functions as a diegetic floor, but it is as well iconic in the sense that it often only resembles the diegetic floor. These genre-related signs are interpreted contextually by using the codes of the game: in the genre of science fiction, the player interprets a soldier’s styrofoam armour as cybernetic armour through the codes of science fiction boffer larping.

The problems arise when players are confused as to whether to interpret a sign as an iconic, indexical or symbolic sign. Taking an example from a fantasy larp, let’s take a situation in which a player sees another player wearing a white cloak made from white cloth closely resembling a piece of white sheets. This example of bad propping can be interpreted as having an indexical relationship to her character’s clothing; meaning that her character has, for some reason, decided to dress in sheets. Alternatively, it can be interpreted iconically, seeing that the character is wearing a generic white cloak that slightly resembles the poorly made prop. Or it can be read symbolically, probably meaning that the character is a good-aligned priest or wizard. Whichever interpretation

Diagram 1: Positioning Game Styles

the player chooses, the possibility for misinterpreting the sign is obvious (see diagram 2).

These three core choices offer the player a multitude of opportunities for further misinterpretation within the diegetic context. For example, an indexical reading probably leads the character to wonder why the other character has such a bad-looking white cloak. Or she may be wondering what strange material the cloak is made of? Or, perhaps, whether the cloak’s cleanness denotes its bearer’s high status?

Unfortunately, almost all larp props contain numerous qualities providing the basis for multiple interpretations. The example of the white cloak made of bed sheets contained only one level of interpretation, but similar items can easily contain additional interpretable levels. For example, with two levels of interpretation, the players’ potential of reading the sign incorrectly rises significantly (see diagram 3).

As the example demonstrates, the players’ potential for misreading the sign is extremely high even when a sign only contains two levels of interpretation. As many signs can easily contain numerous additional qualities, interpreting a sign correctly can become nearly impossible; for example, a white cloak made of sheets containing a badly drawn crest would be nearly impossible to interpret. Is the cloak’s material symbolic, iconic or indexical? What about the cloak’s cut? Is the badly drawn crest meant to be badly drawn within the diegetic framework? Does the crest refer indexically to a diegetic noble family or is it only a symbol denoting that the character is a noble? Is the crest indexically painted to the cloak or is it an icon of a stitched crest?

However, even this is not enough: practically, the number of false interpretations of a given sign is multiplied as every sign is at first created as an extradiegetic sign, from which it is interpreted into the diegetic framework through which the receiving

Diagram 2: Interpreting a Visual Sign

is reinterpreted extradiegetically by the receiving players, who in turn communicate the extradiegetic interpretation back into the diegetic framework through which it affects and changes the original sign’s interpretation by other players. As demonstrated in the following example, even the simplest signs are interpreted multiple times, with each time changing the player’s or game master’s reading of the sign.

Diagram 3: Interpreting a Visual Sign

Diagram 4: The Interpretation Layers

As diagram 4 shows, each sign undergoes numerous interpretations and reinterpretations while being conveyed from the sender to the receiver. There are two ways signs are conveyed into role-playing games.

Firstly, signs can be conveyed through both extradiegetic and diegetic levels:

1 From the sender’s extradiegetic level to the sender’s diegetic level; for example, the sender interprets a white polyester cloak iconically as a generic white cloak inside the diegesis.

2 From the sender’s diegetic level to the receiver’s diegetic level; for example, the receiver interprets the polyester cloak – interpreted by the sender as a generic white cloak – as an oddly shiny cloak made of a strange fabric.

3 From the receiver’s diegetic level to the receiver’s extradiegetic level; for example, the receiver tries to interpret whether the cloak is meant to be a generic cloak or whether the odd choice of material is meant to signify something.

4 From the receiver’s extradiegetic level to the receiver’s diegetic level; for example, the receiver may decide to interpret the polyester cloak as a diegetic cloak made of an exotic material.

5 From the receiver’s diegetic level to the sender’s diegetic level; for example, the receiver may demand to know how the sender – a poor farmer – has acquired such an exotic and expensive cloak.

6 From the sender’s diegetic level to the sender’s extradiegetic level; for example, the sender can try to interpret why the receiver has interpreted the cloak as expensive and exotic, and understand that this is because of the cloak’s material.

Secondly, signs can be conveyed directly through the extradiegetic levels:

1 From the sender’s extradiegetic level to the receiver’s extradiegetic level; for example – to continue the previous example – after understanding that the polyester cloak has been interpreted incorrectly, the sender can pass the diegetic levels and inform the other player that “Off-game, the cloak is in fact just a generic cloak, sorry.”

2 From the receiver’s extradiegetic level to the sender’s extradiegetic level; for example, after hearing that on the diegetic level, the cloak is just a normal cloak, the receiver can acknowledge the new information and inform the sender that in that case, the question about the cloak’s odd material was never asked.

In essence, the first method, in which signs are interpreted through the diegetic levels, is used for most signs and communication within a game, while the second method, in which the diegetic levels are bypassed, is used mainly for clarifications and for the utilisation of rule systems, with only the results interpreted from the extradiegetic level

These two methods are commonly used in parallel in the majority of games.

In the examples above, after the interpretation of the cloak has been conveyed from the receiver’s diegetic level to the receiver’s extradiegetic level, the receiver can pass the diegetic levels and ask the sender extradiegetic questions about the cloak before reinterpreting it from the extradiegetic level to the diegetic level.

In a nutshell, the second method – extradiegetic communication – is required when the first method fails.

Although creating and interpreting each sign always requires some extradiegetic processing, it could be said that the more extradiegetic communication is required, the less “pure” a role-playing game is; as extradiegetic communication forces a player to recreate and reinterpret her diegesis, the more explicit arbitration is needed to interpret the communication from the game master and the other players, the less certain a player can be that she can correctly interpret the signs within a game without assistance.

There are several ways to reduce the amount of extradiegetic communication in role-playing games, which are both based on players having shared, correct tools for decoding signs.

The first way is to use only indices in a game, as they are the least arbitrary signs.

The more a game is based on indices, the less chance there is for misinterpretation, and the less need for extradiegetic communication. As each character sees or hears exactly the same indices the player sees or hears, the players need to make fewer extradiegetic interpretations.

However, there are problems in using only indices in a game. The main problem is the limitations this places on the game types and genres that can be used: for example, most fantasy and science fiction games could not be played with only indices.

It could even be argued that games placed in the recent past could not be played with only indices For example, it is difficult for the player to interpret an old mobile phone indexically as a modern, state of the art phone, as for the player it would be an index of an old, unwieldy phone. In a game depicting the IT-boom of the nineties, the players’

nostalgic or ironic interpretations of the signs would be misinterpretations; instead, the immersionist player should get authentically exited about old mobile phones, computers and stock options.

Even with indices every interpretation is unique. In a Victorian larp, one player could interpret a Victorian dress as just a fancy garment, while another would see hidden meanings in the colours and cutting of the dress. In short, the creator of an index can never rely on the players to make the intended interpretation.

In addition, the player’s body can seldom be a true index of his character’s body. A modern player’s body can’t be a realistic index of a medieval peasant’s body, a physically ill or crippled person’s body, a more muscular body and so on. Furthermore, indexical presentation of wounds would require indexical violence – hardly recommendable in any game.

Ideal immersion could be seen as a state in which the player interprets signs identically within her diegetic and extradiegetic frameworks. From the semiotic

perspective, this is impossible to achieve in any game using non-indexical signs for props, and the problems with using nothing but indices make the concept of complete immersion impossible in any game – unless all props are indices and all players are identical with their characters.

The problem with extradiegetic communication is especially bad in larps that include many icons and symbols: the player has to be able to create an extradiegetic interpretation about how the sign seen by the character differs from the sign seen by the player, and what was the sign’s intended meaning both within diegesis and outside it.

The second way of decreasing extradiegetic interpretation is pre-game communication. It is important to provide the players with tools for interpreting signs correctly within the game before the game starts, so that each player may interpret the signs correctly within their individual diegeses. This pre-game arbitration ranges from clarifying the genre and the style of the game to clarifying the correct reading of specific signs (a specific rune could denote a sense of eeriness, while another would be just an indexical rune).

Although even thorough pre-game arbitration can never result in identical diegetic frameworks for the players, it can help to prevent the players from misreading – for example – indices as icons.

These problems exist mainly in larps: as tabletop games rely on symbols, the players presume every sign to be a symbol unless told otherwise. In addition, the smaller numbers of players and the different tools of iconisation allow for much smoother arbitration than in larps, and the game master – the final judge in all explicit arbitration – is present at all times.