The Asylum Seekers Larp: The Positive Discomfort of Transgressive Realism

Abstract

This paper explores positive-negative experiences (Hopeametsä 2008; Montola 2010) and transgressive realism (Bjørkelo 2019) through discomfort experienced in a live- action role-playing game about asylum seekers. Asylsøkjarane (The Asylum Seekers) was designed to create an uncomfortable, but meaningful experience for the participants who play asylum seekers and police officers who interview them. Discomfort is creating through stressful social and physical conditions which seek not to simulate, but stand in for the stress experienced in the real world process. In the debrief following the two playthroughs the players describe their discomfort and how it relates to real world issues, which we relate to the concept of play-external seriousness (Jørgensen 2014).