Between Game Facilitation and Performance: Interactive Actors and Non-Player Characters in Larps

Stenros's study examines interactive actors, or "ractors," who perform non-player characters in live action role-playing games (larps), with a focus on the pervasive larp The Company P's Conspiracy For Good (CFG). The central question is how these performers balance player agency against narrative coherence, and the paper argues that their work blends six functions: facilitation, content creation, character portrayal, entertaining, playing, and safeguarding. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with six CFG ractors and one ractor from the larp/ARG hybrid Sanningen om Marika, the research is explicitly exploratory and does not claim to support sweeping generalizations, though it situates its findings within wider literature on Nordic larp, pervasive games, and runtime game mastering.

The most significant finding is that ractors' work centers on runtime game mastering, which includes managing pacing, responding to unforeseen player actions, and mentoring players through example. The physical co-presence and improvisational demands of live events set this work sharply apart from online play. The study also identifies a notable divide in how performers approach their roles: ractors trained in theatre tended to regard the character as a functional tool serving the game, whereas role-players typically constructed the character as a complete inner life grounded in their own personality. Effective ractors were found to combine improvisational or role-playing skill with deep knowledge of the game's design, and practitioners often preferred insiders over outside actors, since the latter require extensive briefing.

The research highlights recurring challenges, including the difficulty of avoiding character breaks, the need to maintain a dual perspective, and the conflict that sometimes arises between safety and authenticity in public settings. Ractors must continually balance entertainment, facilitation, player safety, and the ethical implications of blurring fiction and reality for bystanders. The author concludes that larp is best understood as a continuum of co-creation between player and organizer rather than a strict divide between audience and performers. Supplementary notes further distinguish NPCs in larp, primarily design tools whose behavior can be rationalized later, from the conventions of classic theatre, and relate runtime game mastering to the drama managers of digital theatre.