Evolution of Story III: Having a Larp – Immersion, Liveness, and the Qualities of Experience – June 2025
KEYNOTE by Dr Simon Brind, Avalon Larp
Spontaneity is a Lie (But a Beautiful One) On Liveness, Agency, and the Myth of Emergence | DR Simon Brind, Avalon Larp
This talk examines the relationship between liveness, player agency, and emergent narrative in larp. Rather than viewing emergent narrative as something organically unfolding, it is framed here as an effect of power-knowledge regimes embedded within the structural design of the game. While these regimes are shaped by embodied role-play and immersion, what often appears as narrative spontaneity may instead function as a disciplinary mechanism—normalising particular story forms while marginalising others. The talk questions whether larp produces subjects who internalise the very rules that shape their imaginative freedom, and whether larp designers themselves may internalise dramaturgical conventions. To support this inquiry, a work-in-progress model of these metaleptic structures will be presented, offering an expanded framework for understanding narrative in relation to immersion and liveness.
Download a full list of abstracts HERE!
