There’s an interesting article on the concept of expressionist larp on larp.eu - Give me Jesus or give me Death!
The Finnish larpwright Mike Pojhola proposes that expressionist larp might be better at achieving many play/story objectives than the “realistic” larp that’s he’s used to.
larp.eu is really good, if over-ambitious. I think of it like they really meant to call it larp.edu.
I’m with him on the “fuck realism” part. There’s merit in that “it only has to make sense to your characters” thing as well.
But the notion that everyone can be all-powerful heroes is a dangerous one. Give me Jesus but don’t give multiple Jesus’. If being all-powerful is the norm, noone is powerful at all. Only a few characters can be extremely powerful, that’s what makes them extremely powerful!
I don’t think he wants to be Jesus to be powerful in terms of abilities, rather powerful emotionally. He wants to play charged-up larger-than-life characters that can’t be over-played. Archetypal ur-characters or something.
I also think he’s playing the devil’s advocate somewhat. I don’t imagine he’d want to play those sorts of larps or characters exclusively. But he wants to open people’s minds to the idea of some larps being like that, so he’s taking an extreme stance. That would be like him.