FARCE (Fictional Arts: Reimagining Creative Ecosystems)
A table-top roleplaying game and idea incubator for the arts sector.
Created by Patrick Blenkarn, Laurel Green, and Milton Lim
Your 'fictional' arts economy has been disrupted in the wake of a global crisis and you are called upon to work together with others in your region to adapt. FARCE is a tabletop role-playing game and idea incubator for reimagining an arts ecosystem. Played over four days, participants take up residence in an imaginary region and commit to building community as unique characters — Producers, Artists, Presenters. With each draw of a card, players tackle challenges, design creative responses, liaise with and assist others, and address urgent needs.
FARCE is grounded in the belief that the dramaturgy of cultural design is a responsibility that is shared by all members of the creative community, rather than something to be relegated to boardrooms, panel discussions, and the offices of those who hold institutional power. Participants reflect upon their positional power to effect change more rapidly and in conversation with others. The game offers a platform to rehearse ideas—including everything from drafting policy, launching initiatives, toppling institutions, and implementing far-fetched innovations. FARCE unlocks new ways of designing possible futures and rehearsing transformation experientially. Its blend of strategic foresight, long-form storytelling, and role-play methodologies facilitates a unique ideation process. FARCE emboldens its players to become active change agents.
The Game
Members of the arts sector are cast in a fictional arts community to play the role of an Artist, Presenter, or Producer — deliberately not the role they inhabit in their daily lives. They create a character persona complete with pseudonym, practice keywords, and a mission statement. With every deal of a Challenge Card and roll of a dice, players are tasked with addressing the systemic challenges that befall their arts community and play out the consequences of their decision-making as a cataclysm hits. Each challenge card is based on familiar real-world scenarios including :Hiring Practices Excluding Artists of Colour, Leadership Models Perpetuating Harmful Colonial Structures, Dwindling Subscriptions Leaving Audiences Empty, and Childcare Costs Impeding Artist-Parents' Practice.
Led by a trained Game Master who has custom-designed the region and written the story of the world of each unique arts community, players work together to design solutions and respond, no matter how outlandish the idea. After four days, they have travelled ten years into the future of their region and, using legacy game mechanics, experienced the full impact of their decision-making when yesterday’s solutions become today’s challenges.
Drawing inspiration from popular tabletop role-playing and map-drawing games like Dungeons & Dragons and The Quiet Year, FARCE is designed to embolden artistic directors, producers, agents, and artists in becoming active change agents in the arts sector. Participants are primed to collaboratively envision, rigorously play out, and boldly share surprising strategies to address our sector's most pressing systemic challenges.
The game concludes with the FARCE Awesome Town Hall, convened as a public context to share out stories, ideas, and wild solutions in our Log of Challenges.
Performances (Campaigns)
September 12 - 15, 2023—Zones Théâtrales at the National Arts Centre, Ottawa, ON
November 17 - 24, 2021—CAPACOA Reboot Conference — Online (English, French, Spanish)
Creative Team
Concept & Design — Patrick Blenkarn, Laurel Green, Milton Lim
Zones Théâtrales Game Masters—Barbara-Audrey Bergeron, Joel Lebois, Sébastien Leclerc, Marie-Eve Fortier, Daphney Joseph
Indigenous Consultant—Kahentawaks Tiewishaw
Graphic design and maps—Lee Cookson
CAPACOA Game Masters—Patrick Blenkarn, Laurel Green, Marcos Krivocapich, Gilles Poulin-Denis, Nikki Shaffeeullah
Commissioned by Canadian Association for the Performing Arts / Association Canadienne des Organismes Artistiques (CAPACOA)
Support & Partners
Commissioned by Canadian Association for the Performing Arts / Association Canadienne des Organismes Artistiques (CAPACOA).
Presented by Zones Théâtrales at the National Arts Centre in partnership with Association des théâtres francophones du Canada (ATFC).
