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The Power of Role-Playing for Ethical Decision-Making and Environmental Awareness

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What if learning about ethics and environmental responsibility didn’t come from a textbook, but from lived experience where your choices actually shape the outcome?

This is the power of role-playing.

Role-playing, especially in immersive formats like Live Action Role-Playing (larp) or narrative-based games, allows participants to step into someone else’s shoes and navigate complex situations firsthand. Instead of simply discussing what is right or wrong, players are placed in situations where they must decide, often under pressure, with limited information, and with consequences that unfold within the story.

This approach transforms learning from something passive into something active. Participants are no longer observers of problems, they become part of them. This shift makes ethical questions more immediate and meaningful.

In these scenarios, players are often faced with choices such as:

  • protecting their own group or helping others
  • following rules or resisting injustice
  • prioritising short-term survival or long-term sustainability

The dilemma becomes personal. It is no longer theoretical, it is experienced.

These experiences encourage reflection, empathy, and a deeper understanding of moral complexity. Players begin to realise that ethical decisions are rarely simple or clear-cut. Instead, they involve:

  • trade-offs between competing needs
  • uncertainty and incomplete information
  • responsibility for both individual and collective outcomes

This type of learning is particularly valuable in preparing young people to navigate real-world civic challenges.

Role-playing is also a powerful tool for raising environmental awareness. Many scenarios are built around issues such as resource scarcity, climate crisis, or ecological collapse. In these settings, players must manage limited resources, negotiate with others, and consider the long-term consequences of their actions.

For example, participants might find themselves responsible for a community struggling to survive in a harsh environment. They must decide:

  • how to distribute limited resources
  • whether to prioritise immediate survival or sustainability
  • how to balance fairness with efficiency

These situations highlight a key reality: environmental challenges are not only scientific problems, but also social and ethical ones.

By experiencing these dilemmas directly, participants gain a deeper understanding of sustainability as a shared responsibility. They see how individual choices connect to collective outcomes, and how cooperation, or the lack of it, can shape the future.

Another key strength of role-playing lies in its social dimension. Decisions are rarely made alone. Players must communicate, negotiate, and collaborate, often under pressure. Through this process, they develop essential skills such as:

  • empathy and perspective-taking
  • communication and negotiation
  • critical thinking and problem-solving
  • teamwork and conflict management

Importantly, role-playing provides a safer space for experimentation. Participants can explore difficult scenarios, test different approaches, and even make mistakes without real-world consequences. This sense of safety allows for honest reflection and learning.

After the experience, guided discussions help participants connect what happened in the game to real-world issues, reinforcing the learning process.

In a world facing complex ethical dilemmas and environmental challenges, traditional teaching methods alone are often not enough. Role-playing offers a different approach, one that is immersive, engaging, and deeply human.

By allowing participants to act, decide, and reflect, it helps transform abstract concepts into lived experiences. And in doing so, it supports the development of more aware, responsible, and active citizens, ready not only to understand the world, but to shape it and hopefully make a meaningful change.

References

Bowman, Sarah Lynne. 2010. The Functions of Role-Playing Games: How Participants Create Community, Solve Problems and Explore Identity. Jefferson, NC: McFarland.

Kolb, David A. 1984. Experiential Learning: Experience as the Source of Learning and Development. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Nicholson, Scott. 2012. “A User-Centered Theoretical Framework for Meaningful Gamification.” In Proceedings of the Games+Learning+Society Conference, 223–230.

Wals, Arjen E. J. 2015. Beyond Unreasonable Doubt: Education and Learning for Socio-Ecological Sustainability in the Anthropocene. Wageningen: Wageningen University.

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Why dystopia matters: learning from fictional worlds to understand real societal challenges

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Young people and dystopia

A large survey published in The Lancet Planetary Health in 2021, found that a majority of young people feel very worried about climate change:

  • More than half of them believe that ‘humanity is doomed’, 
  • three-quarters think the future is frightening, 
  • more than half think their ‘family security is threatened’.

Youth feel endangered, as individuals and as humanity, which makes them vulnerable to harmful influences of extreme nationalism, racism, classism. On the other hand, the study also points out that young people care for the world. They are expressing a strong sense of personal stake in the crisis and feelings of betrayal toward governments that failed to protect their future. 

Farca (2018) and Gojkovic (2021) report on popularity of dystopian fiction and dystopian video games among youth as one of the ways to process the heavy emotions exposed in the abovementioned survey. By engaging with imagined worst-case scenarios, they create a safe mental space to confront their fears without being completely overwhelmed by them. 

Also research by Gerald Farca on gaming in the Studies of Digital Media Culture, shows that players ‘play through’ their anxiety. It allows them to turn anxiety into a form of preparation for the real-world action. The games offer something that real life does not – a chance to make choices and take action. In games, young players can fight against the systems that oppress them. This gives them a sense of power that they lack in reality, where they feel ignored by politicians. By engaging with these interactive narratives, young people are testing ideas about resistance and survival in a safe space where they can have full control. Succeeding in the game, even in a dark world, can inspire a feeling of capability and hope.

Dystopia as a tool of non-formal civic education

Thinking of the traits of dystopia – they are actually not the opposite of utopia. As observed by Cole (2025), both genres are about wish-fulfilment. Both turn around the dream of a better future, but somewhat distorted and impossible to reach. Then, how does dystopia serve as a tool of non-formal civic education? 

The primary goals of civic education include stimulating critical thinking, ethical reasoning, and civic engagement. Dystopia contributes to reaching these goals in several ways:

1. Questioning conformity 

The players are oftentimes put in a position where they have to make impossible choices. For example: do they report their best friend to the authorities to save their own child? Or … do they speak against the regime knowing they would be erased as a result? It is in a way testing ones’ values under pressure, thus developing an understanding why some people comply and why others are able to break free. 

2. Enforcing confrontation with uncomfortable truths

In dystopia the abstract social and political concepts become visible and impossible to avoid. For example: the state surveillance would be represented by introducing visible cameras that follow movements of the players, or announcing on the loudspeakers when any of the players is breaking the rules etc. In such way the players can feel how they are losing privacy and autonomy in the name of the ‘greater good’.

3. Allowing learners to experience the perspective of those living under oppressive regimes

Being in a dystopian game or larp is not an actual situation – yet it is sufficiently representative that the player can feel what this situation means for someone in reality. For example: when a player is hiding a prohibited item they hear an automated voice announce their location to security. They cannot reason with the system, the only option is the escape. It brings the realisation that the only way to survive the game is by obeying the rules.

4. Bringing a sense of empathy and moral imagination

In dystopian games the players must hide all the time and learn how to trust no one, even their existence becomes a crime. The experience is so real and vivid that they don’t need to debate the questions of privacy in theory but they feel the fear of losing it. Living it brings one closer to transforming from a passive observer into an active initiator of change.

DystoLarp thus uses the discomfort as a pedagogical tool. By engaging with these stories, young players stay with a sense of unease in a safe yet intense environment. This ‘emotional rehearsal’ transforms their anxiety into a clearer understanding of what is at stake and stimulates critical thinking and activism. As it may also evoke anxiety if not presented thoughtfully, careful facilitation to ensure safety is required. 

The DystoLarp project was designed to support youth workers and young people engage with dystopian stories through educational and facilitated larp experiences. In the course of the project we are developing concrete materials for using dystopian larp in youth work. They will be published in multiple forms such as facilitation guidelines, scenarios, game master guide, curriculum, theoretical backgrounds etc. Do not hesitate to follow the project website here: https://dystolarp.eu/.

Further reads on the topic:

Cole, M. B. 2025. Fear The Future: Dystopia and Political Imagination in the Twentieth Century. University of Michigan Press. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3998/mpub.14528874.7

Hickman, C. eds. 2021. Climate anxiety in children and young people and their beliefs about government responses to climate change: a global survey. Lancet Planet Health. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5196(21)00278-3/fulltext

Farca, G. 2018. Playing Dystopia Nightmarish Worlds in Video Games and the Player’s Aesthetic Response. transcript Verlag. https://www.transcript-publishing.com/media/pdf/6e/03/db/oa9783839445976kV79x57Yut7tB.pdf

Gojkovi?, T. eds. 2021. Gamification in non-formal education and youth work. Youth for Exchange And Understanding. https://share.google/gQrx4kdnefSpuWWFG

Freire, P. 1998. Pedagogy of Freedom: Ethics, Democracy, and Civic Courage. Bloomsbury Academic.

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Educational larps in EU programs 

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For a long time, larp existed in the European public sphere solely as a subcultural phenomenon – a hobby with an unclear status, associated with fantasy and costumes, and rarely considered a conversation partner with institutions. This state of affairs persisted for over three decades.

Today, the situation is completely different. Larps appear in EU budgets, are described in European Commission programming documents, and are also implemented by universities, for example in Sweden, as part of the Horizon Europe program Larpocracy. They are also increasingly being included in projects of national institutions funded by public funds. This change is no accident; it is the result of many years of work by researchers, educators, and activists.

Edu-larp is a form of larp with precisely defined pedagogical goals and a mandatory post-game debriefing.

It offers something that formal education systems typically fail to provide: experiential learning combined with inhabiting another person’s perspective. Playing the role of a character with a different social background, beliefs, or life situation isn’t just fun or a theatrical experiment. It’s a controlled experience of challenging topics in a safe environment. Topics like radicalisation, social exclusion, climate change, and migration aren’t avoided in edu-larp. On the contrary, they become the subject of a consciously designed educational process that allows participants to examine them from different perspectives and better understand them.

Important dates in history

The first institutional traces of larp’s presence in EU projects date back to 2014. However, a clearer point of reference emerged in 2016, when the EUNET (European Network for Education and Training) Working Group launched an initiative called “Mini-LARP on teaching the history of the EU.” The real breakthrough came three years later, with the beginning of the 2019-2024 priority period.

The DiveIN project (2019–2021, Erasmus+ KA2), coordinated by the Krakow-based organisation Europe4Youth, was the first large-scale project we found that consciously framed edu-larp as a response to an EU policy priority: countering the radicalisation of young people.

It demonstrated that larp can be described in a language understood by officials and evaluation committees. Not as a “role-playing game,” but as an “experience-based pedagogical intervention addressing the threat of extremism.”

Subsequent projects followed one after another. LARP For Climate methodology to climate education. GreenEduLARP from Estonia and LARPIC expanded their geographic scope and thematic focus. By April 2026, Erasmus+ databases included 185 projects using edu-larp as a teaching tool.

The culmination of the development of educational larps, in our view, is the Larpocracy project, launched in January 2025 as part of Horizon Europe—a prestigious EU research program previously reserved strictly for hard science and technology. Coordinated by Uppsala University, with a budget of € 3 066 306,00, the project focuses on democratic deliberation and civic competences developed through larps. Furthermore, the MEN4DEM project in Horizon which explore the relationship between masculinities and democratic engagement, is developing an edu-larp designed on these themes. Horizon Europe directs funding to areas where there is a solid methodological basis and evidence of effectiveness. This demonstrates the position larps have taken on in the perception of EU institutions.

Behind this process are specific groups and organisations, particularly from Italy, Poland, Nordic countries, and Greece, which for over a decade have systematically translated larp practice into the language of public policies and educational priorities. As a result, this method, which originated in hobbyist communities, has entered the European educational mainstream faster than expected. 

Our project, DystoLarp, follows the same path.

Bibliography:
CORDIS. n.d. “Larpocracy — Developing Spaces for Deliberation and Democratic Skills Through Role-playing.” Project no. 101177307, Horizon Europe. Accessed April 13, 2026. https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101177307.

European Commission. n.d. “Erasmus+ Funding Programme.” Accessed April 13, 2026. https://commission.europa.eu/education/set-projects-education-and-training/erasmus-funding-programme_en.

European Commission. n.d. “Role-play on EU Decision-making.” Learning Corner. Accessed April 13, 2026. https://learning-corner.learning.europa.eu/learning-materials/role-play-eu-decision-making-0_en.

European Commission. n.d. “Teacher’s Guide: The Chocolate Directive.” Accessed April 13, 2026. https://europa.eu/kids-corner/Chocolate%20directive/Teachers%20Guide/Teachers-guide_en.pdf.

European Commission. 2026. “Erasmus+ Project Results Platform: Projects Lists.” Data retrieved April 12, 2026. https://erasmus-plus.ec.europa.eu/projects/projects-lists.

Harviainen, J. Tuomas, et al. 2016. “The Mixing Desk of Larp: History and Current State of a Design Theory.” Analog Game Studies 3 (6). https://analoggamestudies.org/2016/11/the-mixing-desk-of-larp-history-and-current-state-of-a-design-theory/.

Mochocki, Michal. 2017. “Edu-Larp in Poland.” Terrain/Th?orie, no. 66. OpenEdition Journals. https://journals.openedition.org/td/1271.

Uppsala University. 2024. “New Research Project: Larpocracy.” Department of Informatics and Media, October 3, 2024. https://www.uu.se/en/department/informatics-and-media/news/archive/2024-10-03-new-research-project-larpocracy.

Uppsala University. 2025. “Democracy Training through Larp to Be Studied in EU Project.” January 17, 2025. https://www.uu.se/en/news/2025/2025-01-17-democracy-training-through-larp-to-be-studied-in-eu-project.

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What Defines a Dystolarp Scenario?

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In our previous post we defined dystopia as: “a fictional society in which social, political or environmental systems have failed or become oppressive.” Deepening into the dystopia genre, you will find that it leans heavily on some common themes, tropes, and narratives. 

Common themes 

  • Strict social control:

Governments, corporations, or technologies exert excessive control over citizens’ lives. 

  • Erasure of individuality:

Conformity is forced, and individual expression is suppressed. 

  • Propaganda:

Information is manipulated and false information is widely spread. 

  • Censorship:

Truth and dissenting opinions are suppressed.  

  • Technology:

Technological breakthroughs are used as a tool by the oppressors and not for progress or the good of the majority.  

  • Social stratification:

Rigid social and class systems enhance inequality and assert control.  

  • Environmental destruction:

Nature and natural resources are often damaged or depleted. 

Common tropes 

  • The protagonist rebels:

The main character questions the status quo and challenges the oppressive system.   

  • History is erased and hidden: 

The oppressors erase the past in order to control the present. 

  • Memory: 

Archiving and preserving memory become acts of resistance. 

  • The power of language:

When you control language, you control thought. False narratives and newspeak.  

  • The Big Brother surveillance state: 

Citizens’ lives are under constant surveillance. People watch each other and turn others into oppressors.  

  • Dehumanisation:

People are treated as numbers, objects, or case files. Individuality is suppressed and erased. 

Common narratives 

  • The dystopia is prevented through a pre-emptive victory.  
  • The dystopian system is challenged and defeated. 
  • The dystopia is challenged and defeated, but the victory is pyrrhic. 
  • The dystopian system is challenged but is not defeated. 
  • The dystopian system completely crushes any resistance.  

Dystolarp’s approach

In Dystolarp’s stated objective, we can read: “By engaging participants in interactive dystopian scenarios where they must navigate societal challenges, we aim to enhance soft skills such as critical thinking and problem-solving through ethical dilemmas, promote active citizenship and encourage sustainable practices in non-formal education.” As a short form for “interactive dystopian scenarios” we use dystopian larp, and from the objective we can understand that how we define this term is crucial for how the Dystolarp project unfolds. 

From the offset, one might think that defining dystopian larp is simply a question of extending the definition of dystopia from traditional media, and adding the layers, mechanics, and specificities of larp to them. While this might be true in principle, in the Dystolarp project, we also have to make sure that we keep our focus on the other part of the above cited objective. By this, we mean that we have to be intentional in our definition, making sure that we create scenarios that contain the traditional hallmarks of dystopia, while also engaging the players in skill-learning and inspiring them to take action also after the game has ended. 

How do we design based on these criteria? 

Returning to the lists of common themes, tropes, and narratives, we can say that in general, all the themes and tropes can work well in a Dystolarp scenario, while we will have to be more selective regarding narratives. In short, it is hard to imagine that players will be inspired to engage with real life challenges if the narrative does not allow them to challenge, and at least to some degree achieve victory against the dystopia. For example, some Dystolarp scenarios may focus on narratives of pre-emptive victory and dystopia being defeated through collective efforts. 

Pre-emptive victory narratives are created to warn of what might come if we do not take action against it. The protagonist understands what is about to happen or gets a glimpse of the future in one way or another. Individual or collective efforts then lead to a pre-emptive victory against those who want to build dystopia. Stories about defeating the system revolve around how the protagonist is able to rally people into resisting, fighting, and ultimately achieving victory. 

In short, a Dystolarp scenario leverages narratives of pre-emptive and collective victory against the system, in order aims to enhance soft skills such as critical thinking and problem-solving through ethical dilemmas, promote active citizenship and encourage sustainable practices in non-formal education.

Stay tuned for future updates!

References

  • Claeys, Gregory. 2016. Dystopia: a natural history: a study of modern despotism, its antecedents, and its literary diffractions. Oxford University Press.
  • Encyclopedia[.]com. 2026. “Dystopia”. Encyclopedia[.]com. April 8.2026. https://www.encyclopedia.com/literature-and-arts/literature-english/english-literature-20th-cent-present/dystopia
  • Bowman, Sarah Lynne, Simon Brind, and Kjell Hedgard Hugaas, eds. In press. Implementing Transformative Role-playing Games. Transformative Play Research 2. Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis, Uppsala University Press.

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Why dysto? Why larp? How dystopian larp can enhance civic engagement and environmental responsibility of EU youth

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Dystopian stories and role-playing practices have been part of culture for centuries across the world. Beyond entertainment, they offer powerful educational potential by creating immersive fictional spaces where complex issues can be explored safely. The Dystolarp project builds on this potential by combining dystopian narratives with live action role-playing (larp) to help youth develop necessary social and soft skills, along with a deeper understanding of civic engagement, environmental awareness and democratic values.

Why dystopia serves civic learning and environmental awareness 

A dystopian fiction “explores societies in which social and political systems have gone wrong” (Moylan, 2000). As such, dystopian settings represent and highlight real-world issues, such as climate crisis, political abuse, injustice or loss of essential rights, universalising marginalised groups’ struggles through fiction to make them more accessible and tangible, thus encouraging participants to confront the consequences of ecological, social and political decisions.

In education, dystopia functions as a mirror: it reflects familiar or realistic dynamics engaging with complex themes through fictional characters that provide enough distance to allow discussion without direct personal confrontation. As such, young participants can more readily ask difficult societal questions and experience their meaning: 

  • Who holds power and shapes laws and norms? 
  • Is the system fair and honest? 
  • What is the impact of voting, fact-checking and speaking up? 
  • How can we navigate misinformation, surveillance and inequalities? 

In asking these questions, ideally, they can recognise democratic responsibilities and rights in real life without feeling that their safety, beliefs or identities are under attack. 

Why larp is a uniquely powerful learning strategy

Live action role-playing (larp) is a form of role-play in which participants physically and socially embody fictional characters, interacting and making decisions with diverse consequences within a structured scenario. Educational larp (commonly called edu-larp) thus naturally fits experiential learning principles, in which the learner literally plays an active role in their education: they explore, act, reflect, form insights, test new approaches and grow. 

Most larp experiences are designed to be highly social, with complex social dynamics emerging organically through play. Civic engagement is rarely an individual activity; it is shaped by trust, leadership, peer pressure, cooperation and conflict. Through dystopian larp, participants practise empathy, communication, negotiation, problem-solving, emotional awareness, self-regulation, ethical decision-making and critical thinking, all skills that are essential for democratic participation but often difficult to teach through traditional methods.

Better futures start with empowered citizens

The Dystolarp project was born from this simple premise: if we want young people to understand civic engagement, EU citizenship and sustainability, we should let them experience these topics in safer, controlled and collective settings with intentional structures and settings that facilitate reflection on their role and decisions and explore how these lessons translate into real-life actions and mindsets.

To reach this goal, we aim to provide a variety of resources, such as ready-to-use scenarios, practical guides and detailed tutorials for youth workers to implement, facilitate and create engaging and educational dystopian larp experiences which touch on a wide range of social, civic and environmental matters. 

Through these immersive activities, young people can more safely rehearse civic and democratic dilemmas, and enhance their ability to analyse current issues, contribute to better systems and make a real change. Thus, by acting and playing through potential futures or alternate pasts or presents, whether grounded in our own world or set in a fantastical one, young people can learn, reflect and evolve into a generation of empowered, aware and active citizens.

Stay tuned through our project website to discover our upcoming resources soon!

References