This presentation was delivered on October 20, 2022 at the Transformative Play Initiative Seminar 2022: Role-playing, Culture, and Heritage.
Description:
This paper aims to present an overview of analog role-playing games in Brazil. For this, it uses a mixed method that includes bibliographic research and document analysis, in an autoethnographic perspective. The results from these different methodological approaches, which are evocative rather than exhaustive, are divided into two aspects: first, it presents a brief history of both publications and the idiosyncrasies of the practice of larps and tabletop role-playing games in Brazil; second, it seeks to synthesize the academic perspectives observed in the field of analog role-playing game studies (Schmit and Moro 2016), privileging the main disciplines of study, as well as themes, addressed by Brazilian research. Among the examples of such research, we highlight Fiori (2014), Rezende, Araújo and Portinari (2018), Iuama and Miklos (2019) and Carneiro (2021). Thus, it seeks to serve as a summary of the Brazilian framework, to facilitate future dialogues. In this sense, it is more of a signal for international dialogue than an exhaustive mapping of Brazilian intellectual production regarding studies of analog role-playing games. The research showed that several of the issues that permeate the Brazilian scene are common to other parts of the world and that, sometimes, because our intellectual production is available in Portuguese, we isolate ourselves from broader discussions. There are also problematic, endogenous patterns: regarding to the practice of analog role-playing games, there is a lack of documentation, which makes the sources for researches scarce; regarding to research itself, it is inferred that there is a lack of articulation among Brazilian researchers who, isolated, do not exchange knowledge among themselves.
Bios:
Luiz Falcão lives in São Paulo, Brazil, and is a visual artist, graphic designer, and multimedia instructor. Since 2007 he has been working with the creation and promotion of larps for Confraria das Ideias and since 2011 for the Boi Voador group. He coordinates the NpLarp – Research Group on Larp along with Luiz Prado in São Paulo and is the author of the book LIVE! Guia Prático para Larp (LIVE! A Practical Guide to Larp). You can follow him at http://luizfalcao.blogspot.com or contact him at luizpires.mesmo [at] gmail.com.
Tadeu Rodrigues Iuama has a PhD in Communication, with a post-doctorate in Communication and Culture. Professor in undergraduate courses at the Belas Artes University and at the University of Sorocaba, where he is co-leader of the Playful Media research group. As a researcher, he is dedicated to the interface between the analog role-playing game studies (with an emphasis on larps) and the field of communication. He is also interested in the relationship with Narratives and the Imaginary studies. Author of “The art of the encounter: critical gamification, larps and ludocommunication” and “The mask’s verse: communicational processes in larps and tabletop RPGs.
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This seminar is hosted by the Transformative Play Initiative in the Games & Society Lab at the Department of Game Design, Uppsala University Campus Gotland. This seminar is made possible by financial support from the Sustainable Heritage Research Forum (SuHRF). The Transformative Play Initiative explores the use of analog role-playing games as vehicles for lasting personal and social change.
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Graphic Design by Liliia Chorna. Music by Elias Faltin. Video edited by Rezmo (Mohammad Mohammad Rezaie).