A Physical Presence in Simulation: Scratch at the Surface of Complexity

This paper, by J. Tuomas Harviainen, examines how physical presence shapes simulations and educational games, particularly live-action role-playing (larp) and related physical simulations. Drawing on a meta-review of existing research and the author's own experience, it argues that embodied participation offers a visceral, first-person experience that few other media can match, yet also constrains participants to a single viewpoint, removes the expository tools available to other formats, and makes the simulated world feel more disruptive when it departs from players' expectations. The central thesis is that physical simulations are an efficient and enjoyable but imprecise learning tool, and that their success depends heavily on deliberate design and on structured briefings and debriefings.

The paper organizes its analysis around several design concerns. It contends that because physical participants have limited vision and cannot easily adopt others' perspectives, motivations and complexities of other characters may remain hidden, a risk especially significant in military, political, or medical simulations. It also identifies a "Fog of Larp," in which information does not reach all participants equally, producing multiple competing truths within the play space. Additional themes include favoritism toward high-status characters, the tendency of participants to treat in-game indexical cues as real, and the ethical escalation that occurs when activities touch players physically rather than only their characters. Within this framework, the author proposes the 1-2-1 model of preparation, action, and debriefing as the principal mechanism for aligning interpretation and anchoring learning outcomes.

The work is primarily conceptual and synthetic rather than empirical, drawing on a broad range of academic sources across game studies, education, and theatre, along with practitioner literature from the Nordic and Central European larp traditions. It offers no original survey or quantitative data, and its generalizations rest on the cited literature and the author's accumulated experience. As such, its conclusions are best read as a theoretical framework and set of design guidelines for physical simulations rather than as measured findings about their effectiveness.