Larps, as forms of physical expression, exist on the borderline of several expressive forms, ow-ing their existence not just to TRPGs and reenactment but also to children’s pretend play, edu-cational applications, and commercial interests.

The development of larp in the United States followed a trajectory common to larp across theworld. The currently dominant forms of larp developed out of TRPGs, such as D&D. How-ever, its evolution intersects with other practices as well: theater, parlor games, simulations likethe Model United Nations, and, especially, historical reenactment. The Society for CreativeAnachronism (SCA), a medieval reenactment organization started in 1966, was a significantinfluence, but United States Civil War reenactment was also important. It appears that themodern form of larp emerged in many places, nearly simultaneously across the country

Immersion, often described as the feeling of “being there”, is an experience that is commonin larps because of their embodied nature. This creates challenges and advantages for both theplay experience and game design (Säilä, 2004). For instance, immersion and rules often runcounter to each other because rules remind the player that what they are doing is not real (Cail-lois, 1961; Harviainen, 2012)

The empirical phenomena referred to as “role-playing games” are very heterogeneous, span-ning different socio-material assemblages: joint talk and paper inscriptions (TRPGs), jointembodiment (larp), and single (CRPG) and networked (MORPG) computing devices. Associo-material platforms, these gather different communities of practice: when people say“role-playing game”, they often do so within the context of the form (CRPG, TRPG, etc.)they were socialized in or that is salient in the current context of conversation

In 1974, a small company called Tactical Studies Rules, later known as TSR, published Dun-geons & Dragons (D&D, Gygax and Arneson 1974a). It was an unassuming box (containingthree slim booklets) whose cover described its contents as “Rules for Fantastical MedievalWargames Campaigns Playable with Paper and Pencil and Miniature Figures” (Gygax andArneson 1974b). The game was not only closely modeled on its ancestor – miniature wargam-ing (Peterson 2012) – but also labeled itself as such.

When scholars, designers, and fans use the words “role-playing games”, they typically don’tspeak about all phenomena called “role-playing games” but usually refer to one of several clus-ters of phenomena, which we here call forms (Dormans 2006; Hitchens and Drachen 2009). Inthis book, we focus on four prominent forms: tabletop, live-action, single-player computer,and multiplayer online RPGs

As a result,social entities exhibit historical change and cultural variation: Swedish and Japanese peoplemay have different opinions on what is “embarrassing”; these opinions may also differ fromthose of their ancestors from 100 years ago.

Some “Enlighten-ment” intellectuals, as they understood themselves, worked in this frame-work in eighteenth-century Europe when they wrote the history of Europeas progressing from the pre-modern “Dark Ages” (full of simpletons andsuperstition) to the modern “Enlightenment” era (animated by reason andcomplexity).

My practical advice to those who want to understand the choices othershave made and decide what to build on in their own historical scholarshipis this: instead of only mining history monographs for “the facts,” readthe introductions to see what kinds of historical conversations the authorsintervene in, how, and why.

The historiography of a particular subject can be studied to find areas ofconsensus and contention and how these change over time. In terms ofhow historical output is done, one engages with records, others’ interpre-tations, historiographical critiques, and peer review of one’s own work, allamidst changing concerns about the present and why people would careabout this past in the first place.

A way of summing up all of these choices is to say that historians makeassertions about what is historically significant from the records and producetheir interpretation in justification of those assertions, citing the recordsand other interpretations they are informed by and, sometimes but not al-ways, revealing their decision-making process.

A point that any historian should remem-ber is that any similar study is just like a chess game: It demands strategy, skills,patience and attacking your object from different angles

Chess was not just an erotic metaphor. It was also one of the skills a knightlylover had to master. Yalom uses the characteristic example of the troubadour,who, to be a successful one, was expected to be “sophisticated, witty, skilled as apoet, singer, musician, and—let us not forget—chess player”.27The metaphor correlating chess to erotic love was in fact setting up a socialframework for the unfolding of the erotic practice between the members of thehigher social strata, in a medieval society that was based on following socialrules and etiquette. Erotic love should be expressed in ways strategically thoughtand designed. At the same time, it should not be forgotten that erotic love wasa battle in which the two people in love had to act as opponents participating ina combat

They say that, in the reign of Khusraw of the Immortal Soul, a chessgame (16 counters of emerald and 16 counters of red ruby) was sent byDewisharm, great ruler of the Indians, to test the intelligence and wisdomof the Iranians and to see to his own profit. ... In a letter had been written:“Since you are named the king of kings, as king of kings over us all, it isnecessary that your wise men be wiser than ours. [It is so] if you explain therationale of this chess; otherwise you send tribute [and] taxes!

The replacement of the vizier by the queen is also a goodexample for this point. The vizier could only move one step diagonally and thisapplied originally to the queen as well. But as we know, in time the queen got analmost unlimited specter of movements, thus becoming the most powerful pieceon the board. What does it mean in terms of politics? Does it reflect changes inmedieval political culture?

Decoration of the game: Strongly related to the identification of the game is thepresentation of its decoration, both the decoration that is related to the gameplaybut also that which simply serves aesthetics or promotion purposes. In manyplaces and periods, game sets and equipment were not only meant as objects ofgameplay; particularly in the higher strata of the society, they were also elementsof the social apparatus of the household and as such they were media of social

On the basis of the object, the historian willinterpret the past. What is important here is that “objects should not be used as anaid for providing enhanced answers, but for asking better questions”.14

This is a characteristic example of how the material side of games mightillustrate social, cultural and sociocultural priorities. Games, game pieces, gameequipment and game architecture could be very interesting sources of mate-rial history and equally valuable material sources of social and cultural history.Unfortunately, the material dimension of games has not been given the academicattention it deserves

Summing up, by reflecting on the original names of chess pieces and theirchanges in the medieval space-time, we realize that even if remaining for themost part the same, the game was changed from a military into a sociopoliticalsimulation. In medieval Europe, the political power was centralized in the handsof kings and queens, but the church and the army as institutions had a crucial,and sometimes vital, role to play.

Think for example of sport games as football, card games as poker, boardgames as backgammon, digital games as Civilization, or any fantasy role-playinggame, and imagine the challenges related to the use of the same concepts to speakabout these so very different games as games

The word book is a word when it signifies a bookin a library, but it becomes a concept in the expression “religions of the book”(referring to Judaism, Christianity and Islam), as the word book here signifies theholy texts the three religions are based on, or in the expression “by the book”, ashere it signifies a set of rules or principles.

In Crowther's view,on the other hand, the interactivity of games dissolves the line between author and audience; interactive arts are col-lectively authored by the game designer and the player, so they cannot have the traditional relationship of one personfilling a work with meaning and another retrieving that meaning. Lopes's view is an intermediate between the two. ForLopes, there is an authoritative relationship between the author and the audience. To experience the work, theaudience must follow the norms of appreciation. However, proper appreciation of an interactive artwork involvesexploring the space of possible interactions.

Films or books present that information in a fixed sequence. A gamedesigner distributes that information through space, and a player discovers it through temporally uncontrolled explo-ration. Jenkins dubs this form “narrative architecture” and compares game narrative to the environmental storytellingused by the architects of Disney World, where story elements are infused into particular locations and objects inphysical space (Henry, 2002

That is, video games are part of a special class of fiction in which, byinteracting with the game, the player makes things fictionally true of the player herself or himself, and not just theirin‐game avatar. For example, if Jane maneuvers her Spiderman avatar to defeat Galactus in a video game, then it isnot only fictionally true that Spiderman beat Galactus; it is fictionally true that Jane herself beat Galactus. Robsonand Meskin do not claim that their category is an exact match for video games—pure arcade games like Tetris arenot fictions in any sense, and wholly nontechnological artifacts like Choose Your Own Adventure novels also countas self‐involving interactive fictions.

I take up opponents and a requirement fordribbling. This is not because getting the ball through the hoop is, in and of itself, a valuable achievement. If that werethe case, I would just show up to an empty basketball court with a stepladder and have at it. Rather, I adopt anessentially arbitrary goal (achieving such‐and‐such inside certain constraints) in order to create a new kind of activity

But war is one of the horrifying constants of humanhistory. It is not uniquely medieval. And while the hand-to-hand combat that is the hallmark of much of medieval war-fare may feel more brutal and savage than, say, a drone strike,the murderous capability of the latter far outstrips the former

These people see the Middle Ages as a landscape for hero-ism, passion, and legendary deeds.