Critical Code Studies and Creativity Panel: Code as Diegetic Language in LARP

Live Action Role Play or larp presents procedurally governed narrative play. In autumn of 2003, I encountered my first campaign larp, and was charmed by this peculiar practice of creating an augmented sociality in which people shout commands at each other, and, if executed properly, these commands are unwaveringly obeyed. The use of command-phrases and -actions in many campaign larps allow players to fluidly incorporate fantasy elements into the social narrative, such as throwing lightening bolts or casting love spells, as well as incorporating morally undesirable behavior such as murder and torture. These rule sets provide a procedural model of command and consequence, allowing players to swiftly resolve “non-real” activities without enacting them, and to do so with relative autonomy from the game staff. Code is a linguistic form that is both declarative and imperative (Buswell 2009), and with larp rules fitting this definition, they can be interpreted as “code that runs on humans.” Through the methodological approach of Critical Code Studies (Marino 2006) the form of this code can be more readily studied, allowing game designers to develop games in which the social materiality arises more fluidly from the rules. Likewise, the codic sociality of larp provides a neutral setting to observe the way social codes underlay that processes of reification (Lukács 1923) through which our political economic structures take shape.