Roleplaying games can resolve conflicts and strengthen democracy
Bildtext
VIDEO. At a first glance, roleplaying might look like fantasy and fiction, but new research suggests it can be a powerful tool for handling real-world conflict and even strengthening democracy.
Sarah Lynne Bowman is a researcher at the Department of Game Design at Uppsala University, Campus Gotland. She explains:
“Transformative games are games that are designed with the intention to have some sort of impact on the players. Roleplaying games allow you to step into another character and co-create reality in a fictional world with other people. Basically, the potential for that is limitless in terms of who we can be, our identities and how we can interact with others.”
She and her research team have developed a method for this.
“In our method for transformative roleplaying game design, we set goals in the beginning. Then we create a framing around the game. We have workshops that help us gear towards a specific intention of the game. Then we play the game, and afterwards we have integration practices that help people bring that experience into their daily life.”
Annica Hulth/Daniel Olsson
Video on Transformative Play
This video features footage from a workshop from the Erasmus+ project ROCKET at the Transformative Play Seminar 2025: Games, Conflict, and Education in Visby, also co-funded by the Uppsala Forum for Democracy, Peace, and Justice. Other projects discussed in the video are Horizon Europe's Larpocracy and Erasmus+ EDGE.