Live action role-playing (larp) is a form of narrative play that engages participants in fictional words within the dialectic of experience (unorganized time) and narrative (organized time). In this thesis I explore the complexities of the fictional worlds created by larps and how the participation in larps constructs requires a different engagement with traditional thoughts about narrative. Discussing fictional worlds theory, Aristotle, Frye, and Ricoeur along side concepts from game studies, such as the magic circle and the frames of exogeny, endogeny, and diegesis, I propose an alternative approach to understanding narrative within larps that looks at the larp worlds and plot as being driven by a process of affirming the identities constructed to participate within the fictional worlds through the mimetic process. / Thesis / Master of Arts (MA)

This thesis examines how trans people explore gender in live action role-playing games (hereafter: larps). It asks how larps function as spaces for gender exploration, in what ways trans people explore and express gender in larps, as well as how they make sense of, and articulate, this exploration and expression. In addition, the thesis has the secondary aim of exploring the use of larp design as an embodied data collection method. The research design consisted of the larp (Lost and) FOUND which was designed for the participants to play as part of the study, followed by a focus group interview as well as individual semi-structured interviews. The materials used in the thesis are the transcribed interviews as well as the larp. Four trans larpers from Europe participated in the study. They were all part of a specific larping tradition called Nordic larp. Through the design of the larp (Lost and) FOUND, as well as the theoretical and methodological work that underpins it, this thesis develops the method Research with Design, and situates it in relation to other research methods that include design practice. It argues for the method’s applicability beyond this study for research projects where participants’ recollection of and reflections on the research subject is of interest.  The analysis of the interview data suggests that the framing produced by the magic circle of a larp under the right circumstances can support trans larpers in exploring gender in larps. In addition, the thesis argues that validation from other larpers is important for positive experiences of gender exploration, and that such validation is intricately tied to matters of intelligibility. Finally, it illustrates the implications of larping being an embodied activity, by discussing how this simultaneously provides certain opportunities for gender exploration, while complicating others.