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Larp Design: Creating Role-Play Experiences · 5 of 13
Larp Design: Creating Role-Play Experiences
ARG Design critical

Inclusion and Equity: Fun Tax, Accessibility, and Identity Design

Larp Design: Creating Role-Play Experiences Johanna Koljonen, Jaakko Stenros, Anne Serup Grove, Aina D. Skjonsfjell, Elin Nilsen (eds.)
fun-tax accessibility inclusion equity erasure-paradox identity queer-design marginalization children

Key Principle

Inclusion is a structural design discipline, not a social courtesy. The fun tax -- the disproportionate cost borne by marginalized participants when in-game societies replicate real-world oppressions -- is a measurable design failure that degrades playability.

Why This Matters

A larp where some participants must manage identity threat while others play freely is structurally inequitable regardless of intent. Playfulness is not a mood but a design-measurable capacity. When identity management consumes cognitive effort, play capacity shrinks -- this is the causal mechanism behind the fun tax.

Core Frameworks

Fun Tax and Mythical Norm: "For members of marginalised groups, negotiating prejudice is not voluntary." (Ch. 3:2:3) Minimize fun tax, be thoughtful about how prejudice is included, and provide marginalized players with support and agency.

Expressing / Erasing / Exploring Framework: Three approaches to handling identity-based prejudice in larp fiction, each with different design requirements and player impacts.

Erasure Paradox (Ch. 3:2:4): Gender-neutral casting that ignores identity fails queer and trans players by making their identities invisible. But including identity without consent recreates harm. The solution is graduated approaches to oppression with player control.

Four Layers of Accessibility (Saitta & Svegaard): Players have a fixed total effort budget. Extra effort in one layer depletes capacity for others:

  1. Production -- can the player physically attend? (stairs, food, sleep)
  2. Larp Material -- can the player engage with pre-game content? (readability, volume, format)
  3. Performance -- can the player do what play requires? (movement, contact, intensity)
  4. Fiction -- can the player connect their identity to the character?

Opt-In Marginalization: In historically oppressive settings, make marginalization themes present but voluntary. This is calibration applied to identity.

Good Examples

  • Avalon (Poland, 2018): Inclusivity statement developed through outside consultation, excluding sexism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, and racism from the fiction. "We believe Avalon will be a better experience without sexism, without homophobia or transphobia, without ableism, and without racism." (Avalon inclusion statement)
  • The Forbidden History (Poland, 2018): Reframed bias as limiting the biased player's experience: "it still negatively impacts others' game, and it limits your own game play by denying you the ability to play with gifted larpers." (The Forbidden History)
  • Halat hisar (Finland, 2013): Opposite treatment of misogyny and homophobia based on specific player desires.
  • Fladlandssagaen: Designed equality as a setting default rather than imposing real-world inequality.

Counterpoints

  • Acknowledging reality while explaining fictional exclusion is stronger than silent omission -- silence leaves marginalized players guessing whether designers are aware or oblivious.
  • Designing for queer and trans accessibility enhances play for everyone -- "diversity in and out of larp also enhances play in and of itself."
  • Saying no is legitimate: "Just as it is important to help people participate... it is also important to identify the players who cannot play the larp or who would not enjoy it if they did." (Ch. 2:1:2)

Key Quotes

"A player needs to be able to access all four of these elements -- the production, the larp material, the performance, and the fiction -- for them to be able to access the larp." (Saitta & Svegaard)

"When you design for accessibility, what you are really doing is designing for trust." (Ch. 2:1:2)

"Sometimes the people with the most severe issues are those who ask for the least." (Ch. 2:1:2)

"There is no way around it -- all ideas will in some way exclude someone from participating. You need to know who you are excluding and be able to explain why." (Ch. 14)

Rules of Thumb

  1. Inclusivity statements must explain which oppressions are excluded, acknowledge they exist in reality, and provide reasoning
  2. The most vulnerable participants are the least vocal -- design proactively, not reactively
  3. Designers need functional information (how condition affects play), not diagnostic information
  4. Opt-in marginalization gives players steering tools for how deeply real-world identity enters fiction
  5. Fun tax begins before the larp does -- marginalized players spend cognitive effort assessing safety during sign-up
  6. Child participants require guardian roles and quest-based play structures matched to developmental stage

Related References