Since 1997, the Nordic Larp community has held annual conferences about the theory and practice of live action role playing done in the Nordic way: co-created, collaborative, and often foregrounding more serious themes than popular fantasy and historical larps. The conference rotates between four countries: Sweden, Denmark, Finland, and this year’s host, Norway. Somewhat confusingly, each country gives it a different name, but they all translate to “meeting point”.
As part of the research process of my upcoming book on the history and future of immersive art, this week I attended the three day Knutepunkt conference in Oslo. Since I’m new to the scene, I was intending to mostly listen, but I ended up giving two talks and participating in one panel, largely discussing Nordic larp’s relation to other forms of art such as immersive theatre and video games
Every conference is accompanied by a Knutepunkt Book (“KP book”) containing a couple dozen articles on larp theory. KP books are like a looser form of conference proceedings: they’re published simultaneously with the conference, meaning that many talks don’t have articles and vice versa. The conference is better because it has a lasting, serious object associated with it, and the book is better because it’s launched at a major social event.
I contributed an article to this year’s book, Anatomy of Larp Thoughts: a breathing corpus, examining the Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser through the lens of larp. I’ll publish it here soon, but in the meantime the entire book is already available as a free PDF.
Anatomy of Larp Thoughts was co-created to an even higher degree than normal in order to avoid organiser burnout (successfully, I’m told); every contributor had to help edit, review, and proofread each other’s articles. Inevitably, some articles didn’t get as much editor attention as they should have, though the book’s Discord allowed people to request and receive help. My editor, Ylva Otting, was phenomenal and very diplomatically helped me figure out what I was trying to say. For my part, I reviewed and proofread a number of articles.
These annual books are sometimes described as para-academic: serious treatments of subjects under-examined by academia, by writers outside or excluded from academia. I haven’t read the whole book yet, but I loved Laura op de Beke’s piece thinking about games that were never played, comparing it poetry and design fiction. Other articles are about costume design, designing for young adult players, and grief in larp. I really believe more communities could benefit from compiling these kinds of books, and this year’s process shows that it doesn’t have to be an awful burden.
I’ve learned so much from the KP books and innumerable other books and articles and talks (Nordic Larp by Stenros and Montola is a good starting point, and it’s free) that I didn’t learn much new theory from this year’s conference itself. What I got instead was a huge amount of the context surrounding the theory, by seeing how people talked to each other about ideas informally. Even things as simple as Finns joking about Swedes and vice versa tells you a little about how the different national traditions within Nordic larp operate.
A case in point would be the panel celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Turku Manifesto. In 2000, in the early years of Nordic larp, Mike Pohjola argued that immersion in character should be the main goal in roleplaying games – not enacting a pre-determined story, nor trying to strategise in order to “win”. The Turku Manifesto was the result, named after the city. It came a year after the Dogma 99 Manifesto, which was modelled on the Danish Dogme 95 filmmaking manifesto rejecting special effects, illusionism, and so on; Dogma 99 similarly rejected special effects, but also game mechanics, character backstories, and larps based on tabletop role playing games.
I’m still not really sure why the Turku Manifesto got a 25th anniversary panel and Dogma 99 didn’t. Better branding helped, I’m sure, along with having a solo author, but I suspect it’s because the former directly elevates character immersion as a goal, something that remains very distinctive and much debated in Nordic larp to this day; and because it forcefully argues for role playing to be considered as art. But the panel filled in a lot of the missing context for me, like how Nordic larps were much smaller in 2000, often with a solo auteur designer; and how its youngest proponents – Pohjola was only 21 – were eager to inoculate their work against cliches and stereotypes.
While the panel occasionally veered into misty-eyed reminiscences, there was still active debate about the importance of character immersion. Pohjola has softened on some of the manifesto but still doesn’t like people going out of character during long larps. Others say that remaining in character for so long is physically and emotionally tiring. But what if you had larps where being in character meant resting? Monastery larp?! Much to consider!
Here’s a small selection of the many good talks:
- Rasmus Teilmann on the technologies they’ve used at Blackbox Cph, a festival for experimental role play in Copenhagen, to enhance atmosphere and facilitate gameplay through lighting, sounds, recordings, and smells.
- Alessandro Giovannucci of Chaos League on the importance and challenges of critiquing larps.
- Jaakko Stenros curated a talk where four people shared personal histories of play and games, at times funny and touching and sad.
- Kaisa Kangas on creating larps for museums and art galleries, and how people who want immersive experiences don’t necessarily want to larp (i.e. co-create), instead expecting “readymade experiences”.
- Mike Pohjola with a roundup of the year in larp news, including the fascinating Epos Daimon, an anti-totalitarian larp for kids. It replaced an annual trip to a larp inspired by Harry Potter with a new story based on His Dark Materials, exploring “why fascism can be attractive to many because of the sense of community and the building of a common identity in contrast to others.”
- Josephine Rydberg and Laura Nemeth on playing larp in VR; how it offers new accessibility and safety options to players; and the contradiction that “things that are hard to do in real life are much easier in VR; things that are very easy in real life tend to be incredibly difficult in VR.”
While there were some poor sessions, they weren’t any different from any other conference, so I would have liked to have seen more spaces for talks and impromptu unconference events going later into the night; it would’ve been in keeping with the community’s ethos of accessibility. Knutepunkt welcomed informal events but it was unclear whether that was intended for just parties and mini-larps – certainly that’s what ended up happening.
Accessibility was very apparent in the ticket prices, which ranged from €50-160 subsidised and “super subsidised” tickets, all the way up to Professional tickets from €480-980. All tickets included three nights in the hotel plus breakfast, lunch, and dinner, with the cheaper ones seeing people share triple or quad rooms.
Despite this very affordable price, there was much anxiety that there weren’t enough young people present. Apparently the Danish conferences are even cheaper, usually being held in gymnasiums; more than one person told me that larp used to be more popular than soccer for young Danes. Still, it didn’t seem that bad to me. I’ve seen much greyer crowds at science fiction and fantasy conventions in the UK and US. I wonder whether the worry about absent youth is a product of parents and society in general becoming much more protective of children, resulting in a decline in in-person socialising. If true, this attitude probably frowns upon teenagers getting up to who knows what in co-created social role play.
That said, a reaction may be forming, not just among “Luddite Teens” but young people tiring of endless trends and digital hyperstimulation. This desire for in-person, anti-technological encounters is something Nordic larp could well capitalise on (monastery larp!!).
Or maybe it’s all just bullshit, who knows – we’ll have to wait for the sociologists to show up.
I heard from a few people that “Nordic Larp” as a term is being displaced by “chamber larp” and “international larp”, or country-specific terms like Finnish larp. These are obviously not the same as Nordic larp, but then they aren’t intended to be, either. One could have a chamber larp with Nordic sensibilities or not, even if what some people really mean by “chamber larp” is in fact Nordic larp. This is a sign of a maturing art form, and it’s all well and good. Almost everyone I met coming from the UK and North America didn’t consider themselves to be making Nordic larp, but rather interactive and immersive theatre, or role playing games, augmented reality games, VR larp, etc., and yet here they were, eager to learn.
Quite why the Nordic Larp community has lingered on Facebook for so long is baffling. I understand why it formed there, as a way for people who made friends at larps to stay connected in private and public groups, but it’s disappointing that the community has remained there.
Arguably, the relative invisibility and inaccessibility of Facebook groups has protected an art form and community that has highly diverse members and covers difficult subject matter. At the same time, however, it’s led to insularity and a failure to imagine Nordic larp’s impact on the wider world.
Here’s a prosaic example: marketing. According to multiple sessions, if you’re making a larp, you should market it to larpers and larp groups. But with immersive theatre and immersive experiences and escape rooms and theme parks and augmented reality games all converging on similar ideas of embodied social role play, it seems like a missed trick for larps to not reach out. It’s not that larp should pretend to be something that it isn’t, more that it should realise the things it has in common with other popular activities while being very clear about what makes it different or better. I don’t see any reason why someone who loves Punchdrunk wouldn’t at least consider going to an equally atmospheric larp. They might even find longer experiences and more interactive experiences more, rather than less, attractive.
Various proposals have been bandied around for an exodus from Facebook: new websites, calendars, Discords, and so on. I agreed with another attendee that a forum using the open source Discourse engine would be capable of everything required – events, calendars, public and private groups, good moderation tools, etc. I don’t have the standing in the community to really push for this, and even if I did, I don’t have the time to set it up, so this is just me wishcasting.
Every attendee was required to do a 90 minute helper shift. You could specify which time slot you wanted and what activities you’d prefer. I ended up spending my time tidying various conference rooms and rest areas (they were already pretty tidy, to be honest), moved some chairs around, and passed a message from an attendee to a session organiser who wasn’t online.
It was pretty chill and I spent most of the time hanging around the info desk chatting with other helpers and answering questions. Making this system mandatory rather than voluntary is good – it builds relationships and gives every attendee an appreciation of the work that goes into running an event like this.
I only went to one mini-larp, but it was an absolute banger:
In a basement in a French town that history has forgotten, where the smoke of its denizens bad vices however as an ominous cloud, and the conversion is just a murmur above the mellow jazzy tones that emanates from the shadows. The heart broken and depressed, the dark romantic, the up and coming, the avantgarde, the love struck, and occasional sad clown, come together to have a laugh, a social chat, a drink of absinth, or just enjoy the service from the establishment’s two fine and eccentric French waiters. It is a place where poetry flows and everyone is encouraged to take the stage to describe the world for what it is, declare ones innermost feelings, or undying love for someone precious in the audience, whether it be ennui, distaste, hate, love or desire all is poetry. This is a party. It has larp elements in it. But like the Sad Party, the purpose is to have fun within a somewhat surreal and thematically constrained setting.
The Dark Poetry Café was held in a small conference room with candles, comfortable chairs, moody red lighting, and a projector showing a view of a rainy French city. The two waiters admonished me for not having a reservation and showed me to their worst table:
The waiters were soulful as well as rude, reciting improvised love poetry at the open mic. Before long, the cafe was standing room only and there was a line for the mic, with people reciting poems from their phones to polite applause and occasional boos and cries of “disgusting” and “scandalous”. Occasionally we got little cups of “absinthe”.
I declared I had no need of the anachronistic technological devices (phones) used by the bien pensant and improvised a poem about a rat that was controlling a chef by sitting on his head. After an hour, we were all unceremoniously kicked out. The whole thing shows just how far good lighting and willing participants can go to making a fun, surreal experience!
Things I didn’t see during Knutepunkt:
- Any anxiety about the increasing prices of “blockbuster” larps, which now reach into several hundred euros. I guess everyone is just used to them now? That, and maybe people are reassured they haven’t crowded out smaller and more experimental larps. It felt to me that a lot of artistic prestige still went to smaller larps.
- AI of any kind: generative AI, LLMs, etc.
- Investors or “brands”. Everyone seems to have a healthy skepticism of VC money. High interest rates have probably put paid to that for the moment, though.
The final night of Knutepunkt had a midnight ritual. We were led outside by performers in ancient costumes, performing music and fire-play and chanting. It was vaguely political, encouraging the community to support each other. Some chants worked well (“do what you can”), others didn’t quite fit the vibe (“human rights”). On my way to bed I passed a couple making out on the stairs; it was that kind of night.
The next morning, someone told me they hated the ritual and never went to it any more. There was no transformation or change in status that you might see in proper rites of passage. There was nothing bad with a show but it could’ve been much more. Let it not be said that this community lacks self-criticism.
I talked to a lot of people, I concocted plans for events and larps, I made new friends, and I conducted a killer interview that I’ll be publishing here in the next couple of months. I felt very welcomed.
The next conference (“Knutpunkt“) will be in Gothenburg, Sweden on April 16-19, 2026. I will probably be there!
mssv 