Playing in the Fields of Desire: Hegemonic Masculinity in Live-Combat LARPs

Abstract

Gender based research on Role Playing Games (RPG's) has long claimed that many males are attracted to RPG's due to the possibility of creating and performing hegemonic identities in-game. This paper presents a research study of males participating in Live-Action Role Play (LARPS), where we seek to better understand the institutional and social limits on identity generation in RPGs, the extent to which pre-existing masculine hierarchies follow gamers into the game context, and the meanings players make of their experiences in game