Narrative Structure in Trans-Reality Role-Playing Games: Integrating Story Construction from Live Action, Table Top and Computer-Based Role-Playing Games

This paper proposes a framework for Trans-Reality Role-Playing Games (TRRPGs), a form of role-playing that integrates the established modalities of table-top RPGs (TTRPGs), live-action RPGs (LARPs), and computer-based massively multiplayer online RPGs (MMORPGs) within a single, coherent, persistent game world. Its central argument is that each form offers distinct strengths for articulating an unfolding game story: TTRPGs rely on collaborative verbal improvisation, MMORPGs on fixed sets of audiovisual performance primitives, and LARPs on embodied, face-to-face performance that yields a multitext in which each player holds a different story perspective. Integration, the authors contend, requires new technologically mediated design concepts so that players in different staging contexts experience themselves as sharing one world.

The authors specify a set of requirements for achieving this shared experience, including a unified and persistent game space, consistent characters, objects, NPCs and mobs across all players, and shared rules and mechanics. They then survey candidate technologies for each staging context, such as RFID, infrared and vision-based tracking of miniatures, projection and audio systems for tabletop play, and Bluetooth, wireless and GPS tracking for LARPs. A comparative table contrasts the forms on dimensions such as game space size, session length, visibility of rules, and positional accuracy, with MMORPGs rated highest for positional accuracy and LARPs for visibility.

The proposed design centres on a central server and game state engine, with tangible tabletop characters tracked on instrumented boards and LARP-derived play bridged through video-textured virtual windows or motion capture. The paper acknowledges significant open challenges, including timing mismatches between tabletop time steps and other contexts, and representational mismatches in how remote characters are shown. The evidence is conceptual and illustrative rather than empirical: no prototype testing or player study is reported, and the authors conclude only that the overall concept appears feasible and requires substantial further research.