Designing for democratic engagement: new Larpocracy report explores larp experiments and early findings
How can live-action role-playing (larp) create opportunities to practise democratic engagement? What design choices support listening, reflection, and participation?
A new Larpocracy publication, Design experiments, setup and results, examines these questions through the ongoing work of Work Package 3. Published on 2 October 2026, the report is authored by Jon Back, Annika Waern, Sarah Lynne Bowman, and Weronika Szatkowska at Uppsala University.
The publication documents the project’s methodological approach, developing designs, and preliminary findings. Its purpose is to build knowledge that can inform design principles and practical examples of larp and related activities supporting democratic engagement.
The research follows a Research through Design approach, in which creating, testing, and revising experiences are themselves ways of generating knowledge. As the authors explain, “design can also be a way of thinking, testing, and communicating” (Back et al., 2026, p. 8).
This approach takes several forms. Alongside complete scenarios, the team develops “larp snippets”: short, playable experiments that make particular design ideas available for collective exploration. These help researchers and practitioners discuss what works, what creates difficulties, and what warrants further development.
One central example is The Assembly, a larp designed around democratic deliberation. Participants take on the roles of community members with different backgrounds and perspectives, working through a contested public issue. Its evaluation combines observations, surveys, and interviews to examine experiences during play and their possible significance over time.
An initial study of one online run identified opportunities for empathic engagement and reflective political thinking. This offers an early indication of how deliberative role-play may support engagement across differences, while evaluation across further runs remains ongoing.
The report also examines embodied debriefing: reflective practices involving movement, sensory awareness, gestures, and interaction with materials or environments. This work considers how participants can recognise and interpret their experiences, including their emotional and bodily dimensions.
Other investigations explore how differences between players’ and characters’ perspectives affect participation, how the seriousness of a discussion topic shapes interaction, and how political parody accounts enable playful engagement with political discourse on social media.
Across these studies, an important finding concerns the relationship between experience and learning. A compelling larp does not automatically generate democratic learning or transfer into everyday life. Reflection, facilitation, and the opportunities participants have to interpret their own experiences therefore deserve deliberate attention.
The report also emphasises that larp encompasses different forms, purposes, and audiences. Educational scenarios, leisure experiences, and related participatory practices require attention to their particular contexts.
As WP3 continues, further testing will refine these insights and contribute to Larpocracy’s Democracy by Design Toolkit.
Read the full open-access report on Zenodo.
Reference
Back, J., Waern, A., Bowman, S. L., and Szatkowska, W. (2026). Design experiments, setup and results. Larpocracy, Deliverable D3.1, WP3. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23094630