Titiller la fiction historique d’un jeu

Abstract

Representations of the past are often used in the fiction of board games and video games. What happens to historical content when people play with it? This article draws on ethnographic data from an observational participation in Legion: Siberian Story, a Czech live action role-playing game (or “larp”) inspired by local history and adapted for a foreign audience. This case study analyses the way in which players circulate the resources offered by the organisation and mobilise them in the context of leisurely play, through the analysis of the frames mobilised by players during the game. Far from disrupting the activity, errors and omissions that weaken it give rise to strategies for maintaining the frames of the game and the fiction that can enable the learning of historical knowledge, valid or not.

Keywords

• boardgame
• role-playing game
• larp
• leisure
• informal learning
• frames