Role-Playing Game Studies: Transmedia Foundations [Hardcover ed.] 1138638900, 9781138638907

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Role-Playing Game Studies

This handbook collects, for the first time, the state of research on role-playing games (RPGs) across disciplines, cultures, and media in a single, accessible volume. Collaboratively authored by more than 50 key scholars, it traces the history of RPGs, from wargaming precursors to tabletop RPGs like Dungeons & Dragons to the rise of live action role-play and contemporary computer RPG and massively multiplayer online RPG franchises, like Fallout and World of Warcraft. Individual chapters survey the perspectives, concepts, and findings on RPGs from key disciplines, like performance studies, sociology, psychology, education, economics, game design, literary studies, and more. Other chapters integrate insights from RPG studies around broadly significant topics, like transmedia worldbuilding, immersion, transgressive play, or player–character relations. Each chapter includes definitions of key terms and recommended readings to help fans, students, and scholars new to RPG studies find their way into this new interdisciplinary field. Sebastian Deterding is a Reader at the Digital Creativity Labs at the University of York (York, UK). He has been an RPG player and designer for more than 20 years and has published ethnographic portraits of the German pen-and-paper RPG subculture. He is founder and organizer of the Gamification Research Network and co-editor of The Gameful World (MIT Press, 2015), a book about the ludification of culture. He holds a PhD in media studies from Hamburg University. See also: http://codingconduct.cc/. José P. Zagal is an Associate Professor with the University of Utah’s Entertainment Arts & ­Engineering program. He wrote Ludoliteracy (2010) and edited The Videogame Ethics Reader (2012). In 2016, he was honored as a Distinguished Scholar by the Digital Games Research Association (DiGRA) for his contributions to the field of game research. He also serves as the ­Editor-In-Chief of DiGRA’s flagship journal Transactions of the Digital Games Research Association (ToDiGRA). He received his PhD in computer science from Georgia Institute of Technology in 2008. See also: http://www.eng.utah.edu/~zagal/.

Role-Playing Game Studies Transmedia Foundations

Edited by José P. Zagal and Sebastian Deterding

First published 2018 by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 and by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2018 Taylor & Francis The right of the editors to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Names: Zagal, José Pablo, editor. | Deterding, Sebastian, 1978- editor. Title: Role-playing game studies: transmedia foundations / edited by José P. Zagal and Sebastian Deterding. Description: New York: Routledge, 2018. | Includes index. Identifiers: LCCN 2017035803| ISBN 9781138638907 (hardback) | ISBN 9780815369202 (pbk) | ISBN 9781315637532 (ebk) Subjects: LCSH: Fantasy games. | Role playing. Classification: LCC GV1469.6 .R64 2018 | DDC 793.93—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017035803 ISBN: 978-1-138-63890-7 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-63753-2 (ebk) Typeset in Bembo by codeMantra

Contents

Foreword viii 1 The Many Faces of Role-Playing Game Studies 1 Sebastian Deterding and José P. Zagal PART I

Definitions 17 2 Definitions of “Role-Playing Games” 19 José P. Zagal and Sebastian Deterding PART II

Forms 53 3 Precursors 55 Jon Peterson 4 Tabletop Role-Playing Games 63 William J. White, Jonne Arjoranta, Michael Hitchens, Jon Peterson, Evan Torner, and Jonathan Walton 5 Live-Action Role-Playing Games 87 J. Tuomas Harviainen, Rafael Bienia, Simon Brind, Michael Hitchens, Yaraslau I. Kot, Esther MacCallum-Stewart, David W. Simkins, Jaakko Stenros, and Ian Sturrock 6 Single-Player Computer Role-Playing Games 107 Douglas Schules, Jon Peterson, and Martin Picard

vi Contents

7 Multi-Player Online Role-Playing Games 130 Mark Chen, Riley Leary, Jon Peterson, and David W. Simkins 8 Online Freeform Role-Playing Games 159 Jessica Hammer 9 The Impact of Role-Playing Games on Culture 172 Esther MacCallum-Stewart, Jaakko Stenros, and Staffan Björk PART III

Disciplinary Perspectives 189 10 RPG Theorizing by Designers and Players 191 Evan Torner 11 Performance Studies and Role-Playing Games 213 Sarah Hoover, David W. Simkins, Sebastian Deterding, David Meldman, and Amanda Brown 12 Sociology and Role-Playing Games 227 J. Patrick Williams, David Kirschner, Nicholas Mizer, and Sebastian Deterding 13 Psychology and Role-Playing Games 245 Sarah Lynne Bowman and Andreas Lieberoth 14 Literary Studies and Role-Playing Games 265 David Jara and Evan Torner 15 Learning and Role-Playing Games 283 Jessica Hammer, Alexandra To, Karen Schrier, Sarah Lynne Bowman, and Geoff Kaufman 16 Economics and Role-Playing Games 300 Isaac Knowles and Edward Castronova 17 Science and Technology Studies and Role-Playing Games 314 Rafael Bienia 18 Game Design and Role-Playing Games 323 Staffan Björk and José P. Zagal 19 Communication Research and Role-Playing Games 337 William J. White

Contents  vii

PART IV

Interdisciplinary Issues 347 20 Worldbuilding in Role-Playing Games 349 Karen Schrier, Evan Torner, and Jessica Hammer 21 Role-Playing Games as Subculture and Fandom 364 Esther MacCallum-Stewart and Aaron Trammell 22 Immersion and Shared Imagination in Role-Playing Games 379 Sarah Lynne Bowman 23 Players and Their Characters in Role-Playing Games 395 Sarah Lynne Bowman and Karen Schrier 24 Transgressive Role-Play 411 Jaakko Stenros and Sarah Lynne Bowman 25 Sexuality and the Erotic in Role-Play 425 Ashley ML Brown and Jaakko Stenros 26 Representation and Discrimination in Role-Playing Games 440 Aaron Trammell 27 Power and Control in Role-Playing Games 448 Jessica Hammer, Whitney Beltrán, Jonathan Walton, and Moyra Turkington Contributors 469 Glossary of Key Role-Playing Game Terms 477 Index 481

Foreword

Like many things in role-playing games (RPGs), this book began as an online discussion thread. In October 2012, sparked by Jon Peterson’s (2012) voluminous history of the origins of Dungeons & Dragons, members of the Digital Games Research Association (DiGRA) Role-Playing Studies Special Interest Group mailing list debated why academic and fan scholars of RPGs often talked past each other unawares rather than building on each other’s work.1 Like game studies a decade ago, the discussion thread went, the study of RPGs was a dispersed network without a shared recognized ‘canon’ of texts and concepts. It needed a textbook that would bind people, texts, and ideas together into an interdisciplinary field. More than five years later, you hold this textbook in hand. Its authors include not just many participants of said academic discussion thread but also Jon Peterson. We are no longer talking past each other. From the first moment, we intended a truly integrative book: it would cover tabletop and computer and live-action and multi-player online RPGs and recognize other forms as well. It would represent Australian tabletop and Nordic larp and Japanese computer RPGs and other cultural specifics. And it would integrate perspectives from sociology and psychology, economics and education, literary studies and game design, academics and fans and designers alike. Achieving this goal required assembling an invisible college across the globe. In Atlanta, Georgia, in August 2013, we convened a workshop at the international conference of DiGRA, discussing and proposing topics a textbook of RPG Studies should cover and ideas for organizing them.2 The circle of co-authors expanded and contracted, and although each individual chapter now carries a list of authors at the top, this book is really co-authored by all. Over months of collaborative online discussion and drafting and commenting, the initial jumble of ideas became first a unified list of topics, then a table of contents, then short, then extended chapter outlines. Many chapters would then be drafted by whole author teams, as no single person would hold an integrative view of the respective topic in their head. And every chapter went through three or more cycles of peer review and revision, gathering input and critique from the textbook team and outside experts. Draft by draft, revision by revision, we created our shared language and canon and map: a field of RPG Studies.

Foreword  ix

Our first and foremost thanks therefore go to our team of authors, who bared with us editors and each other through the better part of five years. We also thank our external reviewers for graciously donating their time, words, and insights. And we thank our spouses and families for their patience and support. And pancakes. Sebastian Deterding and José P. Zagal January 2018

Acknowledgments This work was partly conducted in the Digital Creativity Labs (digitalcreativity.ac.uk), jointly funded by EPSRC/AHRC/InnovateUK under grant no. EP/M023265/1.

Notes 1 http://mail.digra.org/pipermail/roleplaying/2012-October/thread.html, http://mail.digra.org/ pipermail/roleplaying/2012-November/thread.html. 2 http://rpghandbook.tumblr.com/.

Reference Peterson, Jon. 2012. Playing at the World: A History of Simulating Wars, People, and Fantastic Adventure from Chess to Role-Playing Games. San Diego, CA: Unreason Press.

1 The Many Faces of Role-Playing Game Studies Sebastian Deterding and José P. Zagal

We all role-play. As mere toddlers, we imitate the adult world around us, playing pretend by hosting stuffed animal tea parties and grocery visits. As young children, we become pirates and sorcerers and go on underwater expeditions in the living room, momentarily transcending the bounds of our bodies, skills, and parents. As adolescents, we discover the power of being someone else on a stage in drama class. We try on and shed social roles in quick succession in the desperate desire to become and be recognized as someone. When we go to the theater, read a book, or watch a movie, we imagine ourselves in the shoes of the protagonists, and bits of their fictional worlds may linger with us on the way home – the traffic light changing to green echoing a car chase scene with us as the super spies bringing the engine to a roar, for a moment transcending the norms of responsible adulthood. In our private lives, our therapists ask us to reenact traumatic episodes of our past, and we confide in sexual partners the scenarios that captivate and stoke our desires. In the working world, we partake in drills, dry runs, team-­ building, and leadership and communication exercises where we assume the roles of managers and employees or emergency patients and doctors. We work hard to be taken seriously as “doctors,” “managers,” or just “parents” in social roles we are insecure we will succeed at. And in everyday life, we “put on faces” and “play our parts” as required by the endless succession of social occasions, gatherings, and rituals until we reach the last act, our own funerals, where, for once, we only have to show up and can leave the acting to the others. Given the universality of role-play, it is little wonder that games, those trusty little mirrors of social life, have incorporated it into their form: a snow globe version, safely packed, miniaturized, maybe a bit abstract, but strangely compelling. Starting with Dungeons and Dragons in the 1970s, role-playing games (RPGs) have turned the human practice of role-play into a contemporary leisure genre enjoyed by millions across the globe. RPGs have since spawned subgenres and subcultures of their own: from sitting around a table narrating the actions of one’s characters to scouting the woods wearing chain mail and carrying foam swords; from mourning the death of Aeris in Final Fantasy VII in front of the television screen to using a headset and text chat to a frantically lead team of 40 players in defeating the Lich King in World of Warcraft. What people call “RPGs” today range from the gigantic – online RPGs connecting millions of players, live-action role-plays played in a decommissioned warship refurbished as a

2  Sebastian Deterding and José P. Zagal

spaceship – to the minimalist: two players sitting motionless, improvising the dialogue of a chance encounter between two rocks like a theater piece by Samuel Beckett. RPGs just as readily provide power fantasies as they afford artistic expression, education, or social activism.

The Intersection of Roles, Play, Games, and Media Culture RPGs sit at the intersection of four phenomena – roles, play, games, and media culture (­Figure 1.1). They take a fundamental form of play – make-believe – and a fundamental aspect of social reality and identity – roles – and give them the structured form of a game. They arose from and sit at the heart of much of contemporary fandom, “geek,” and, increasingly, mainstream media culture. To understand RPGs, their forms, origins, and social place, it is useful to examine them through the lens of these four phenomena in turn.

RPGs as Play RPGs involve play. Play is a behavior universally found across all human cultures and in many animal species (Burghardt 2005; Konner 2010, 507). Play transforms and recombines other, functional behaviors, exaggerating, varying, and rendering them incomplete so they lack their “serious” consequences and thus their obvious instrumental or survival value. Instead, play is performed voluntarily, intrinsically motivated, and autotelic, that is, performed “for its own sake.” Play is facilitated by a “relaxed” field of familiar surroundings and others, with no immediate pressing threats or stressors (Burghardt 2005, 68–82; Pellegrini 2009, 8–20). Notably,

Figure 1.1 

R PGs at the Intersection of Roles, Play, Games, and Media Culture.

Many Faces of Role-Playing Game Studies  3

transforming other behavior does not mean that play necessarily represents other behavior: In locomotor or object play, the player often just relishes exploring repetitive engagement with a movement or thing (84–86). Symbolic play may be what sets humans apart from other animals. Humans exhibit specific forms of play otherwise only rudimentarily found in higher primates, namely, strong symbolic, as-if, or pretense play; socio-dramatic or role-play; and rule play involving explicit, pre-defined, and not spontaneously renegotiable rules (Konner 2010, 89–93). Developmental psychologists note that these forms typically occur in rough succession during a child’s development, potentially mirroring their evolutionary emergence: First comes pretense play, in which players jointly enact a script around a (nonexistent or reinterpreted) object, like “going to bed,” with a puppet and magazine as child and blanket. This evolves into role-play, where players stick to the scripts that make up a situational role (the mother, the child) and finally turns into rule play, where players fluidly reenact and reshuffle existing scripts and also agree on explicit shared rules governing their actions (Oerter 1999, 93–103; Pellegrini 2009, 18–20). Similarly, philosopher Roger Caillois (2001) fashioned a fourfold typology of play with alea (roughly, games of chance), agon (contest, rule-based games), ilinx (vertigo, locomotor-rotation play), and, finally, mimicry, where “the subject makes believe or makes others believe that he is someone other than himself ” (19). Whereas developmental psychologists see rule play as a refined, more complex version of role-play, Caillois set the two in opposition: Games are “ruled or make-believe” (9, emphasis in original), and mimicry lacks “the continuous submission to imperative and precise rules” (22) that characterizes play more generally for Caillois. But ­Caillois’ model, first published in 1961, only considered the games of his day. Role-playing games prove it outmoded, if not wrong, because they merge role-play and rule play, “make-­ believe” and “precise rules,” as anyone who has browsed the hundreds of pages of rule books for a contemporary tabletop RPG can attest.

RPGs as Roles RPGs involve roles, another universal human phenomenon that has been studied for over a century (see Biddle 1986; Turner 2001 for reviews). Roles are patterns of behaviors and attitudes expected from a person occupying a given social position. As such, roles are a fundamental part of the power structures and processes of a society. They also provide resources and strategies to those occupying a position (Lynch 2007). During a “restaurant visit,” for instance, we expect the person acting as “server” to do certain things like distribute menus, take orders, and care for our well-being. These expectations also provide a script for performing “waiting tables” and certain rights (like interrupting our conversation to ask whether we’d like coffee). And, if we go along with it, the server may turn their role performance into an informal conversation among friends, a curt and formal affair, or something else entirely. Roles are fundamentally involved in people’s identities, selves, and self-concepts (Owens and Samblanet 2013; Stets and Serpe 2013). In our lives, we typically occupy and move between multiple – often conflicting – roles. Our identities are partially construed from the social roles we and others ascribe to us. Similarly, our selves and self-concepts – the thoughts, emotions, identities, and motives we attribute to ourselves as what constitutes us, and the thoughts and feelings about these selves – are formed from the experience of interacting in situational roles with others.

4  Sebastian Deterding and José P. Zagal

In RPGs, people adopt situational roles of players and are free to play with – temporarily try on, explore, experience, act out, subvert – alternative roles, identities, and selves by enacting the character of a revered healer, a megalomaniac salesperson, a brooding scientist, etc. In a sense, to inhabit a social role is to follow the social rules defining that role, some of which may be quite explicit and specify goals, progress, or failure for that role. Yet RPGs – like games in general – are played, which, as we saw, entails voluntary participation and reduced “serious” consequences. This sets RPGs apart from “real” social roles, which typically cannot be entered and left at will and whose rules are obligatory and can incur serious social consequences if broken.

RPGs as Playing with Roles This also puts RPGs in the long cultural tradition of rituals, celebrations, theater, and other forms of performance where role-play (and rule play) is institutionalized to serve social functions in the adult world (Schechner 2006; Stephenson 2015) (→ Chapter 11). Consider rites of passage, weddings, funerals, and other events that transform the social world and its actors; parades, religious processions, or other official proceedings that present an ideal order of things; or happenings, sit-ins, protests, or modern theater pieces that re-present and question the actual current social order. All performances help reproduce the social and moral bonds of a group by creating strong experiences of shared emotions, moral sentiments, and belonging. Compared with them, RPGs present the interesting case in which “child’s play” is institutionalized and prolonged into adulthood but not for the “respectable” purposes of rituals or celebrations. Instead, RPGs emerged as a form of leisure and entertainment in affluent modern nation-states (Fine 1983).

RPGs as Games Beyond play and roles, RPGs involve rule play or games. The systematic scholarly study of games is relatively recent. It flourished with the use of simulations and serious games in the early 1970s (Abt 1970; Crookall 2012) and intensified with the rise of digital games in the early 2000s (Aarseth 2001). Although debates about the definition of “games” are ongoing (→ Chapter 2), games are commonly seen as involving goals and rules that turn the attainment of those goals into a non-trivial challenge – e.g. overcoming a human opponent or material obstacle ( Juul 2005). This game aspect is what distinguishes RPGs from children’s spontaneous role-play or activities like improvisational theater. In RPGs, a player typically enacts a single continuous character in one stable continuous world where actions and their outcomes are structured and decided by explicit rules. Also, by merging the enactment of roles with rule systems originating in wargaming, RPGs allow players to measurably “win,” “lose,” or advance, thanks to design innovations like progress mechanics (Zagal and Altizer 2014). Through the migration of designers and players, RPGs deeply influenced the tropes and game mechanics of many other game genres (→ Chapter 18).

RPGs as Media Culture RPGs grew from and sit at the heart of contemporary media culture. Beyond deep sociological ties (play, games, performance), RPGs can be traced to several immediate cultural precursors (→ Chapter 3) among “hobby” wargaming and fantastic literature. Examples that

Many Faces of Role-Playing Game Studies  5

influenced early RPGs include J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth, R.E. Howard’s Hyborian Age of Conan, Fritz Leiber’s Nehwon, or the Cthulhu Mythos created by H.P. Lovecraft and his literary friends. Early RPGs not only created their settings from the liberal pastiches of T ­ olkien, Howard, and similar “sword and sorcery” authors: They catered to and attracted players from wargaming and science fiction and fantasy fandom and, through their popularity, helped solidify the tropes and market of the fantasy genre. This puts RPGs at the center of the modern phenomenon of “disenchanted enchantment” (Saler 2012, 12). As secularization, rationalization, and bureaucratization rid our modern lifeworld of deeper experiences of spiritual, magical, or sublime meaning and awe, fiction authors reinstated imaginary worlds full of such enchantment albeit with an ironic consciousness of their “as if ” status (→ Chapter 12). Role-play, wargaming, and fantasy literature all came together in 1974 in the shape of Dungeons & Dragons, the first tabletop RPG (TRPG), which quickly proliferated into myriad forms across cultures and media (Figure 1.2). TRPGs were played as a group sitting around a table, with players controlling and verbally describing the actions of their characters in a game world managed and described by a referee, using rule systems imported from wargames and dice to

Figure 1.2 

Forms of RPGs.

6  Sebastian Deterding and José P. Zagal

decide the outcomes of actions (→ Chapter 4). Computer RPGs (CRPGs, → Chapter 6) translated this setup into something that could be experienced individually sitting at a computer, where the player controlled one or more characters, and the game world was rendered and controlled by the computer. As the first instantiation of multiplayer online RPGs (MORPGs, → Chapter 7), so-called multiuser dungeons (MUDs) turned CRPGs back into a group experience: Players used computer networks – then mostly university networks and the Internet predecessor ARPANET – to play in and create a shared virtual world. In live-action RPGs (larps, → Chapter 5), players embody their characters, often dressing up and physically performing (when possible) their character’s actions. TRPGs, CRPGs, MORPGs, and larps are the four most prominent of a plethora of forms, each with many subforms, cultural variations, and innovations.

Box 1.1  LARP, Larp, or larp? While LARP as an acronym stands for live-action role-play, in recent years, “larp” is being used as a noun (and verb) by some player communities. For example, players might say “I designed this great larp” or “Let’s go larping tomorrow.” Like laser, radar, and scuba in the past, larp is in the process of turning from an acronym into its own meaningful lexical unit: a new word. We have decided to use it as such, not in all caps, throughout this book. We recognize that this may be a bit confusing when seen side by side with the other acronyms (TRPG, CRPG), but we hope you will bear with us.

Despite or because of their popularity, RPGs quickly became the subject of moral panics (→ Chapter 19). In the United States in the 1980s, TRPGs were accused of recruiting adolescent players into satanic cults and practices. Rumors spread of players who confused fiction and reality and died getting lost in underground tunnels playing larp. The 2000s saw a second panic around MORPG “addiction,” with news stories of players dying from extended play or committing crimes over virtual game items. RPGs present an example of adult pretend play that lacks the legitimacy of tradition (like carnival) or recognized cultural function (like theater). Although this is changing, playing RPGs as an adult still carries stigma, even within the fantasy and science fiction fandom (Deterding 2017). However, RPGs are also part of the throbbing heart of fandom – a passage rite and secret language, a stigma to the outer world that signifies “true” belonging and commitment to the inner group. A core aspect of fandom is participating in a fictional world by consuming and discussing media while also extending and co-creating them. RPGs make such shared creation and inhabiting of fictional worlds their focal practice. Large parts of the global population today immerse themselves in transmedia worlds like those of Star Wars, The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, or Game of Thrones. A significant subset of people also engage with these worlds in participatory ways: fan fiction, costume play, and more. In the age of convergence culture, fandom and its transmedia practices have gone mainstream ( Jenkins 2006). Alternate and Augmented Reality Games that layer game rules and game world over everyday life are becoming the digital hope of media and advertising industries (Rose 2011). Many of the involved practices and forms were first developed in RPGs: Long before the Atlas of ­Middle-Earth, Discworld Companion, or Pop-Up Guide to Westeros, RPG authors and referees had

Many Faces of Role-Playing Game Studies  7

to flesh out guides and maps to fictional worlds, learn to write scenarios rich with potential starting points and conflicts for emergent player action, and manage a fictional world in response to multiple players’ actions to give each a satisfying experience. This puts them at the cutting edge of contemporary transmedia authorship of franchises or alternate reality games. RPGs popularized the practice of genre-mixing, like Science fantasy (Gamma World, Shadowrun) or Weird West (Deadlands). They spawned successful novelizations, comics, board and video games, and movies (→ Chapters 9 and 21).

Box 1.2  MORPG, MMOG, MMO or MMORPG? The term MMOG, or massively multi-player online game, is broadly used to refer to online games that allow hundreds, thousands, or more players simultaneously in a virtual world or environment. The term is commonly abbreviated to MMO, and then extended to MMORPG for those MMOs that are also role-playing games. For the purposes of this book, the commonly used terms MMO and MMOG are too broad, since these games are not necessarily RPGs. Rather than using the term MMORPG we have chosen to use a new acronym: MORPG (multiplayer online RPGs). Our reasoning is that the term MMORPG is not broad enough to include all of the kinds of games we wish to refer to and discuss in the context of this book. Specifically, we want to include and acknowledge those online multiplayer RPGs that are not "massive". As discussed in Chapter 7, this includes the multiplayer online dungeons (MUDs) that served as precursors to current MMORPGs as well as other games, many of them offshoots of MUDs, that would otherwise be ignored.

Why Study RPGs? Examining the RPG through the lenses of its four constituent aspects (roles, play, games, and media culture) helps us understand and put in perspective its origins and forms. It also highlights why scholars are (and should be) interested in studying them (Figure 1.3). In terms of play, RPGs provide insight into adult pretense and role-play, which occur in many places besides RPGs: many board, card, and video games have moments of emergent micro-role-play. Contemporary cultural practices, like cosplay, attending Renaissance fairs, steampunk events, theme parties, or increasingly high-profile, mainstream immersive theater productions by groups like Punchdrunk (→ Chapter 11) all entail role-play. Even in day-today life, we often engage in daydreaming “barely games” (Davies 2009), little bouts of private role-play. Besides answering fundamental psychological and sociological questions regarding how adult pretense play works – how people create shared immersion (→ Chapter 22) – RPG literature provides great insight into designing for it. Moving on to roles, RPG scholarship has developed a deep understanding of the many ways players, their identities, and selves relate to their in-game characters and avatars. This work is relevant to any game researcher and designer interested in these dimensions of gameplay as well as to sociologists and psychologists working on identity, self, and role-taking (→ Chapter 12, 13, and 23). Intimately connected to that is the rich work on framing in RPGs. RPG scholars have empirically and conceptually disentangled how the “magic circle” or “separateness” of

8  Sebastian Deterding and José P. Zagal

Figure 1.3 

Issues in RPG Studies.

gameplay comes about – the special norms and understandings governing a gaming encounter (→ Chapter 12). This has also led them to study deviant “dark play”: how actions considered deviant become acceptable within the frame of play and how certain actions test and break the norms of play itself (→ Chapter 24). This is valuable knowledge for any study of deviance and social norms in and beyond gameplay. Speaking of games, RPGs are an important transmedia genre of games, which has explored and refined many aspects of game design and play that designers and scholars coming from other genres can draw rich inspiration from: world-building (→ Chapter 20), the materiality of games (→ Chapter 17), and the myriad ways of organizing and sharing control over game events between referees, players, and game systems (→ Chapter 27). Many video game genres are deeply informed by RPG game mechanics, like progression systems (→ Chapter 18). Studying RPGs is essential to understanding the history of video games and informing the future of game design across genres and media.

Many Faces of Role-Playing Game Studies  9

RPG tropes not only deeply influenced games but also media culture writ large, yet this historical legacy is still underexplored (→ Chapter 9). RPGs have thriving fan subcultures of their own while also connecting and pervading science fiction and fantasy fandom more generally (→ Chapter 21). As such, RPGs are an exemplary site for studying and understanding stereotyping and discrimination in fan cultures (→ Chapter 26) or the way subcultural and adult play practices are cast as deviant in public discourse (→ Chapter 24). The virtualreal economies of MORPGs are an essential site of experimentation with new forms of labor, intellectual property, business models, and governance (→ Chapter 16). All this makes RPG research vital to understanding contemporary media culture and its economies. Last but not least, RPGs are a popular cultural form, practice, and industry of their own. They are increasingly used as a medium of artistic expression, forming and informing the vanguard of contemporary theater, media, and performance art as well as experience design (→ Chapter 11). And for more than four decades, RPGs have been used for all kinds of serious purposes, including therapy (→ Chapter 13), education (→ Chapter 15), business planning and simulation (→ Chapter 16), or activism.

A (Brief) History of RPG Research The first academic studies of adult role-play arose around the first wave of educational simulation and gaming, beginning in the late 1960s and presented at venues like the International Simulation and Gaming Association (ISAGA) conference or in the journal Simulation & Gaming (Abt 1970; Crookall 2012). A significant milestone of role-playing games research was sociologist Gary Alan Fine’s Shared Fantasy: Role-Playing Games as Social Worlds (1983). His ethnography of RPG player groups, published when Dungeons & Dragons first gained mainstream attention, delivered an influential analysis of RPGs as “an urban leisure subculture”; the cultural context of RPGs, like fantasy literature; and the interplay of players’ selves and identities, their everyday lifeworlds, and the fictional characters and worlds they create. Fine’s work has been deeply influential for RPG scholars in performance studies (→ Chapter 11) and sociology (→ Chapter 12). As noted, the 1980s were also witness to a moral panic, as studied by communication researchers (→ Chapter 19). Journalists, religious spokespersons, and other moral entrepreneurs warned of the harmful effects of RPG play on youth, which triggered a counterresponse of researchers, who, over the course of the 1980s and early 1990s, questioned the negative effects of RPGs and, in turn, highlighted a number of potential positive therapeutic, educational, pro-social, and cognitive effects of playing them.1 A firebrand in this debate was Patricia Pulling’s (1989) book The Devil’s Web: Who Is Stalking Your Children for Satan?, linking D&D to satanic rituals, insanity, and perversion, and author and game designer Michael A. Stackpole’s Pulling Report (1990), a meticulous deconstruction of Pulling’s book and its argument. Most other general audience books from this time period consist of introductions to the hobby of role-playing (e.g. Albrecht and Stafford 1984; Butterfield, Parker, and Honigmann 1982; Livingstone 1982), guides for improving RPG play (e.g. Plamondon 1982; Gygax 1987), or bibliographies (Schick 1991). Like much fandom research, RPG scholarship is characterized by intense para-academic scholarship and aca-fandom: early on, RPG designers and fans developed thoughtful and theoretical discourse of their own, and many university academics studying RPGs either started out as fan-scholars “professionalizing” their work or are self-identifying RPG fans who turned their leisure time activity into their research subject (see Hills 2002; Mason 2004) (→ ­Chapter 10).

10  Sebastian Deterding and José P. Zagal

Already in the 1980s, designers and players began reflecting on the design and play of RPGs at conventions as well as in magazines and fanzines like Dragon, Different Worlds, Alarums & Excursions, or the short-lived Interactive Fantasy. This fan discourse flourished with the rise of the Internet and online communication tools in the 1990s on Usenet discussion groups like rec.games.frp.advocacy or the online discussion board The Forge. Another focal point of fan theorizing and aca-fandom has been the Knutepunkt conventions, an annual gathering of the Nordic larp community. Knutepunkt has published proceedings and companion books since 2001 and is a source of much contemporary larp scholarship and design literature as well as a culture of manifestos advancing larp as an artistic medium by articulating particular aesthetic visions (→ Chapter 5). Today, RPG scholars, designers, and players actively promote the exchange between fandom and academia through panels and publications at events like WyrdCon, Intercon, Living Games, or NecronomiCon. Beyond general theories and models of RPGs and their design, this fan scholarship has shaped debates about play and design styles and the cultural role of RPGs (→ Chapter 10). The rise of the Internet in the 1990s also spurred research that brought CRPGs and MORPGs to greater attention: Sherry Turkle’s Life on the Screen (1995) proposed that the multiple “windows” and worlds of the Internet, such as MUDs, fostered new, fluid multiple forms of identity. Janet Murray’s Hamlet on the Holodeck (1997) examined networked computing, including MORPGs, to analyze the forms, authorship, and aesthetic experience of digital interactive environments as a new medium of storytelling. And MUD pioneer Richard Bartle (1997) published “Hearts, Clubs, Diamonds, Spades: players Who Suit MUDs” in the inaugural issue of the now-defunct Journal of Virtual Environments, then named Journal of MUD. Bartle’s paper spearheaded research around player personalities and motives in RPGs (→ Chapter 10). The 2000s saw game studies flourish as an interdisciplinary field, initially focused on digital games, with important waymarks like the founding of the journal Game Studies in 2001 and the Digital Games Research Association (DiGRA) in 2003. RPG research thrived with the rise of game studies in general, and RPG scholars have chiefly gathered within this community. Worthy of note is Pat Harrigan and Noah Wardrip-Fruin’s book trilogy First Person (2004), Second Person (2007), and Third Person (2009). These collections of essays, responses, case studies, design reflections, and games bridged new media and game scholarship, circling around role-play, performance, storytelling, and the authorship of fictional worlds and “vast narratives” found in RPGs. In the 2000s, scholars in fields such as sociology (→ Chapter 12), communication research and media studies (→ Chapter 19), and human-computer interaction followed Fine with ethnographies of RPG communities and their community dynamics, framing processes, or negotiations of the boundaries of work and play. They were joined by scholars who explored the psychology of player motives, immersion, player-avatar relations, and gaming addiction (→ Chapter 13). These strands coalesced in the mid- to late 2000s when the success of MORPGs, particularly World of Warcraft (WoW), put MORPGs on the center stage of game studies for several years (e.g. Corneliussen and Rettberg 2008). Economists studied MORPGs (→ Chapter 16), interested in their virtual economies and interactions with real-world economics. Simultaneously, education researchers in communities like the Games+Learning+Society conference began exploring the use and design of edu-larps, “massively multiplayer classrooms” fashioned in the style of an MORPG, and the educational potential of RPGs more generally (→ Chapter 15). Literary and media scholars studied the forms of textuality, authorship, and narrative in RPGs (→ Chapter 14). Starting with Daniel Mackay (2001), researchers have begun to use theater and

Many Faces of Role-Playing Game Studies  11

performance studies as a lens for RPG aesthetics, design, and play (→ Chapter 11). Design researchers became interested in describing the particular design patterns and practices of RPGs (→ Chapter 18). Scholars informed by science and technology studies (→ Chapter 17) have begun to disentangle the many roles of material artifacts in RPGs. And true to the intertwining of RPG fandom and scholarship, independent authors like Jon Peterson (2012) and Shannon Appelcline (2015) have produced substantial historiographies of the emergence and evolution of TRPGs and RPGs more generally. Today, RPG Studies is a small but established and lively scholarly community with a diverse and growing body of organizations, conferences, journals, and monographs, including a DiGRA special interest group on role-playing (formed in 2008); the International Journal of Roleplaying, inaugurated in 2009 (Drachen 2009); and, starting in 2014, the semi-regular summit of RPG Studies, hosted as part of the general DiGRA conference. RPG Studies also benefits from earlier work by fans and researchers in other fields (Figure 1.4).

Figure 1.4  

Disciplines of RPG Studies.

12  Sebastian Deterding and José P. Zagal

Purpose and Plan of This Book Despite this lively community and a rich body of knowledge created over the past four decades, RPG Studies today faces three challenges. First, while fans, designers, aca-fans, and scholars have developed theories, concepts, and tools around phenomena that hold great potential beyond RPGs, little of this work is known outside RPG circles. It is also often scattered across fan and academic venues, making it hard to find and access. Second, following the diversity of RPG forms and local cultures, RPG research itself has remained somewhat siloed. MORPG research doesn’t necessarily build upon TRPG research (and vice versa). CRPG scholars examine different questions and make different assumptions of RPGs than larp scholars. What is true for US-American CRPGs and MORPGs might not be true for Korean ones. The list goes on. Collecting, comparing, and contrasting findings across forms, cultures, and disciplines not only enriches our understanding of each individual phenomenon: it is essential for constructing a holistic study of RPGs as an interdiscipline. Yet RPG scholars currently have no easy way of reviewing the state of research on other RPG forms, cultures, or disciplines. Third, the disciplines that have engaged with RPGs still have much to offer: researchers have barely scratched the surface when it comes to e.g. applying sociological role theory to RPGs, exploring the experience of playing RPGs through the lens of performance studies, or unpacking the design process of RPGs with the concepts and methods of design research. Yet again, there are currently no easy entry points to relevant literatures across disciplines for interested scholars. The purpose of this book is thus to serve as an interdisciplinary, cross-cultural, and transmedia synthesis of the state of the art of RPG research. Its goals are to lay the transmedia foundations for RPG Studies as a field while also making RPG research concepts and findings easily accessible for other interested parties. We wrote the book with three main audiences in mind: advanced students in game studies and other fields who want to study RPGs; scholars in game studies and other fields who want to do research on RPGs and need a quick reference book to get up to speed or look up key terms; and fans and professionals using RPGs for serious purposes, who want to deepen their understanding of their pastime or make the case for RPGs. As such, this book is designed as a hybrid textbook and handbook: each chapter provides a synthesis of the current state of research on a core perspective or aspect of RPG Studies. That said, each chapter is written without expectations of prior knowledge and includes definitions of key terms and recommended further readings. A handy glossary at the beginning of the book points to definitions of key RPG terms. The book is organized in four parts, which can be seen as concentric rings (Figure 1.5): at the center – Chapter 2 – sits the introduction to and definition of RPGs. For novices unfamiliar with one or several RPG forms, it offers grounding narrative descriptions and exemplary vignettes of each. It then presents philosophical and linguistic considerations regarding what kind of definition is appropriate for RPGs. Rather than searching for one “true” definition of the “essence” of RPGs, the chapter advocates a pluralism of disciplinary perspectives and empirical attention to the variety of things we call “role-playing games.” Following this advice, the chapters in Part II empirically describe the historical emergence, evolution, and cultural variety and impact of the main contemporary forms of RPGs: from their precursors and parallels (Chapter 3) to TRPGs (Chapter 4), larps (Chapter 5),

Many Faces of Role-Playing Game Studies  13

Figure 1.5 

A conceptual map of the book.

CRPGs (Chapter 6), MORPGs (Chapter 7), and the emergent online freeform (Chapter 8) to the impact of RPGs on media culture (Chapter 9). Although there are other forms of RPGs, we focus on those that have been significantly influential due to their popularity, their historical influence, and/or the research attention they received. Part III includes disciplinary perspectives on RPGs and constitutes the outer ring of our conceptual map: performance studies (Chapter 11), sociology (Chapter 12), psychology ­(Chapter 13), literary studies (Chapter 14), education (Chapter 15), economics (Chapter 16), science and ­technology studies (Chapter 17), game design (Chapter 19), and communication research (Chapter 20). Given its prominent role in the formation of RPG Studies, fan theorizing receives its own extended treatment (Chapter 10). Each of these chapters gives a short introduction to the field, explains how RPGs are seen in that field (as performances, markets, texts, etc.), describes what makes them interesting to that field, and surveys existing d­ isciplinary work on RPGs. Any additional number of disciplines could have been brought to bear upon

14  Sebastian Deterding and José P. Zagal

RPGs – art history or moral philosophy come readily to mind. But we highlight those disciplines that have already produced significant work on RPGs. Sitting at the intersection of forms and disciplinary perspectives are interdisciplinary issues, collected in Part IV. These chapters address fundamental aspects of RPGs that have been studied across multiple disciplines and are of relevance to scholars in and beyond game research: how people author collective fictional worlds (Chapter 20); RPGs as a subculture and its place within media fandom (Chapter 21); how immersion in role-play works (Chapter 22); how players relate to their characters and avatars (Chapter 23); transgression in and through RPGs (Chapter 24); erotic and sexual role-play (Chapter 25); discrimination and representation in RPGs (Chapter 26); and, finally, how power over the fictional world and its events is distributed between players, referees, and artifacts (Chapter 27). These last chapters reflect the emerging body of knowledge of RPG Studies as an interdiscipline. If RPGs are characterized by a multitude of forms and cultures at the intersection of roles, play, games, and media culture, the future of RPG Studies is likewise thousand-faced – and an exciting call to adventure.

Summary RPGs sit at the intersection of four phenomena – play, roles, games, and media culture. They foreground a particular form and constitutive aspect of play: shared pretense or make-believe. Through pretense play, they allow players to temporarily step out of their existing social roles and try on and explore alternative roles. This makes RPGs relevant to e.g. sociologists or psychologists interested in adult pretense or basic processes of situational sensemaking and role-taking. As rule-play or games, they are structured by formal rules and goals and a rich source of influential and inspiring game design. As media culture, they sit at the heart of modern disenchanted enchantment and contemporary media fandom and prefigure increasingly mainstream media phenomena like transmedia storytelling or virtual-real economics. F ­ inally, RPGs are a popular cultural form, practice, industry, and artistic medium, forming and informing the vanguard of contemporary theater, media, and performance art as well as experience design. And for more than four decades, they have been used for purposes other than entertainment, like therapy, training, or activism. However, RPG Studies as a field faces three challenges. First, while RPG fans, designers, and scholars have created knowledge with great potential beyond RPGs, little of this work is known outside RPG circles. Second, due to the diversity of RPG forms and local cultures, RPG research itself has remained dispersed. Third, a lot of existing RPG research hasn’t been fully tapped or connected with the basic knowledge of relevant disciplines. To address these challenges, this book provides an interdisciplinary, cross-cultural, and transmedia synthesis of the state of the art of RPG research. It seeks to lay the transmedia foundations for RPG Studies as a field while also making RPG Studies concepts and findings easily accessible for other interested scholars.

Acknowledgments This work was partly conducted in the Digital Creativity Labs (digitalcreativity.ac.uk), jointly funded by EPSRC/AHRC/InnovateUK under grant no. EP/M023265/1.

Many Faces of Role-Playing Game Studies  15

Note 1 The website rpgstudies.net provides an excellent bibliography of the moral panic.

References Aarseth, Espen. 2001. “Computer Game Studies, Year One.” Game Studies 1 (1). www.gamestudies.org/0101/ editorial.html. Abt, Clark C. 1970. Serious Games. New York: The Viking Press. Albrecht, Bob, and Greg Stafford. 1984. The Adventurer’s Handbook: A Guide to Role-Playing Games. ­Reston, VA: Reston Publishing. Appelcline, Shannon. 2015. Designers & Dragons [4 Volume Series]. 2nd ed. Evil Hat Productions. Bartle, Richard. 1997. “Hearts, Clubs, Diamonds, Spades: Players Who Suit MUDs.” The Journal of Virtual Environments 1 (1). https://web.archive.org/web/20060906080759/http://www.brandeis.edu/pubs/jove/ HTML/v1/bartle.html. Biddle, B. J. 1986. “Recent Developments in Role Theory.” Annual Review of Sociology 12 (1): 67–92. Burghardt, Gordon M. 2005. The Genesis of Animal Play: Testing the Limits. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Butterfield, John, Philip Parker, and David Honigmann. 1982. What Is Dungeons & Dragons? New York: Warner Books. Caillois, Roger. 2001. Man, Play, and Games. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press. Corneliussen, Hilde G., and Jill Walker Rettberg, ed. 2008. Digital Culture, Play, and Identity: A World of Warcraft® Reader. Cambridge, MA and London: MIT Press. Crookall, David. 2012. “The Founding of Modern Simulation/Gaming: S&G and ISAGA for Decades on.” Simulation & Gaming 43 (1): 5–14. Davies, Russell. 2009. “Playful.” In This Is Playful 2009. London. http://russelldavies.typepad.com/ planning/2009/11/playful.html. Deterding, Sebastian. 2017. “Alibis of Adult Play. A Goffmanian Account of Escaping Embarrassment in Adult Play.” Games and Culture, online first. https://doi.org/10.1177/1555412017721086 Drachen, Anders. 2009. “Editorial.” International Journal of Role-Playing 1: 2. www.ijrp.subcultures.nl/ wp-content/uploads/2009/01/editorial.pdf. Fine, Gary Alan. 1983. Shared Fantasy: Role-Playing Games as Social Worlds. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press. Gygax, Gary. 1987. Role-Playing Mastery. New York: The Putnam Publishing Group. Harrigan, Pat, and Noah Wardrip-Fruin, ed. 2007. Second Person: Role-Playing and Story in Games and Playable Media. Cambridge, MA and London: MIT Press. Harrigan, Pat, and Noah Wardrip-Fruin, ed. 2009. Third Person: Authoring and Exploring Vast Narratives. Cambridge, MA, London: MIT Press. Hills, Matt. 2002. Fan Cultures. London: Routledge. Jenkins, Henry. 2006. Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide. New York and London: New York University Press. Juul, Jesper. 2005. Half-Real: Video Games between Real Rules and Fictional Worlds. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Konner, Melvin. 2010. The Evolution of Childhood: Relationships, Emotion, and Mind. Cambridge, MA and London: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Livingstone, Ian. 1982. Dicing with Dragons: An Introduction to Role-Playing Games. New York: Plume. Lynch, Karen Danna. 2007. “Modeling Role Enactment: Linking Role Theory and Social Cognition.” Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 37 (4): 379–99. Mackay, Daniel. 2001. The Fantasy Role-Playing Game: A New Performance Art. Jefferson, NC: ­McFarland & Company Mason, P. 2004. “In Search of the Self: A Survey of the First 25 Years of Anglo-American Role-Playing Game Theory.” In Beyond Role and Play. Tools, Toys and Theory for Harnessing the Imagination, edited by Markus Montola and Jaako Stenros, 1–14. Helsinki: Ropecon ry.

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Murray, Janet H. 1997. Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace. New York: The Free Press. Oerter, Rolf. 1999. Psychologie des Spiels. Ein handlungstheoretischer Ansatz. Weinheim and Basel: Beltz. Owens, Timothy J., and Sarah Samblanet. 2013. “Self and Self-Concept.” In Handbook of Social Psychology, edited by John DeLamater and Amanda Ward, 2nd ed., 225–50. Dordrecht: Springer. Pellegrini, Anthony D. 2009. The Role of Play in Human Development. New York: Oxford University Press. Peterson, Jon. 2012. Playing at the World: A History of Simulating Wars, People, and Fantastic Adventure from Chess to Role-Playing Games. San Diego, CA: Unreason Press. Plamondon, Robert. 1982. Through Dungeons Deep: A Fantasy Gamer’s Handbook. Reston, VA: Reston Publishing. Pulling, Patricia. 1989. Devil’s Web: Who Is Stalking Your Children for Satan? Lafayette, LA: Huntington House. Rose, F. (2011). The Art of Immersion: How the Digital Generation is Remaking Hollywood, Madison Avenue, and the Way We Tell Stories. New York and London: W.W. Norton & Company. Saler, Michael. 2012. As If: Modern Enchantment and the Literary Prehistory of Virtual Reality. Oxford: ­Oxford University Press. Schechner, Richard. 2006. Performance Studies: An Introduction. 2nd ed. New York and London: Routledge. Schick, Lawrence. 1991. Heroic Worlds. A History and Guide to Role-Playing Games. New York: ­Prometheus Books. Stackpole, Michael A. 1990. “The Pulling Report.” www.rpgstudies.net/stackpole/pulling_report.html. Stephenson, Barry. 2015. Ritual: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Stets, Jan E., and Richard T. Serpe. 2013. “Identity Theory.” In Handbook of Social Psychology, edited by John DeLamater and Amanda Ward, 2nd ed., 31–60. Dordrecht: Springer. Turkle, Sherry. 1995. Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet. New York: Simon & Schuster. Turner, Ralph H. 2001. “Role Theory.” In Handbook of Sociological Theory, edited by Jonathan H. Turner, 233–54. Dordrecht: Springer. Wardrip-Fruin, Noah, and Pat Harrigan, ed. 2004. First Person: New Media as Story, Performance, and Game. Cambridge, MA, London: MIT Press. Zagal, José P., and Altizer, Roger. 2014. “Examining ‘RPG Elements’: Systems of Character Progression. In Foundations of Digital Games 2014. Retrieved from www.fdg2014.org/papers/fdg2014_­paper_38.pdf.

Part I

Definitions

2 Definitions of “Role-Playing Games” José P. Zagal and Sebastian Deterding

For some, defining “game” is a hopeless task (Parlett 1999). For others, the very idea that one could capture the meaning of a word in a list of defining features is flawed because language and meaning-making do not work that way (Wittgenstein 1963). Still, we use the word “game” every day and, generally, understand each other when we do so. Among game scholars and professionals, we debate “game” definitions with fervor and sophistication. And yet, while we usually agree with some scholars and professionals on some aspects, we never seem to agree with everyone on all. At most, we agree on what we disagree about – that is, what disagreements we consider important for understanding and defining “games” (Stenros 2014). What is true for “games” holds doubly for “role-playing games”. In fact, role-playing games (RPGs) are maybe the most contentious game phenomenon: the exception, the outlier, the not-quite-a-game game. In their foundational game studies text Rules of Play, Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman (2004, 80) acknowledge that their definition of a game (“a system in which players engage in an artificial conflict, defined by rules, that results in a quantifiable outcome”) considers RPGs a borderline case. While RPGs are widely recognized for their influence on many other games (e.g. Tychsen 2006), they are apparently not game enough because they lack a quantifiable outcome (Salen and Zimmerman 2004, 81). Jesper Juul, author of another influential game definition, likewise considers tabletop RPGs (TRPGs) a borderline case: they are “not normal games because with a human game master, their rules are not fixed beyond discussion” ( Juul 2003). To make matters worse, “role-playing games” refers to a plurality of forms across ­media – there are TRPGs, computer RPGs (CRPGs), (massively) multiplayer online RPGs (MORPGs), live-action RPGs (larps), and more. Do these different forms have “enough” in common to all be called “role-playing games”? Furthermore, there are many different communities discussing the definition of “role-playing games”, each with different practical ends: game designers and publishers use the word in game manuals, sales venues, trade publications and conference talks to set consumer expectations and discuss design issues; fans discuss RPGs in fan media; and scholars discuss RPGs in the contexts of research and teaching. RPG fans and designers have long observed the existence of quite different styles and ends of playing RPGs – ­focusing e.g. on storytelling, playing a role, simulating a world, or achieving goals and progress

20  José P. Zagal and Sebastian Deterding

according to rules (→ Chapter 10). This openness to divergent preferences and enactments seems characteristic for RPGs. For instance, different cultural regions have developed distinct flavors like “Nordic larp” (Stenros and Montola 2010). Existing forms are constantly remade and redefined by avant-garde movements like “indie” TRPGs. What’s more, game research is itself notoriously multidisciplinary, looking at games – and RPGs – through many different theoretical and disciplinary lenses (Deterding 2016).

Box 2.1  Sample Definitions of Role-Play “A role-playing situation is here defined as a situation in which an individual is explicitly asked to take a role not normally his own, or [of] his own in a setting not normal for the enactment of the role” (Mann 1956, 227). Role-play is “not a single well-defined activity but a whole species of activities grouped under a convenient name. At one end of the spectrum is the intensive ‘acting out’ of personal emotions. … At the other … is the situation where ‘taking the part’ is closer to the concept of advocacy” (van Ments 1981, 27–28). Role-play is “a media, where a person, through immersion into a role and the world of this role, is given the opportunity to participate in and interact with the contents of this world” (Henriksen 2002, 44). “roleplaying is the art of experience, and making a roleplaying game means creating experiences” (Pettersson 2006, 101). 1 Role-playing is an interactive process of defining and re-defining the state, properties and contents of an imaginary game world. 2 The power to define the game world is allocated to participants of the game. The participants recognize the existence of this power hierarchy. 3 Player-participants define the game world through personified character constructs, conforming to the state, properties and contents of the game world. […] I also present four optional, additional rules that often complement the first three rules. […] i Typically the decisive power to define the decisions made by a free-willed character construct is given to the player of the character. ii The decisive defining power that is not restricted by character constructs is often given to people participating in referee roles. iii The defining process is often governed by a quantitative game ruleset. iv The information regarding the state of the game world is often disseminated hierarchically, in a fashion corresponding with the power structure of the game. […] Additionally, these three endogenous rules […] differentiate certain forms of role-­playing from each other: t1 In tabletop role-playing the game world is defined predominantly in verbal communication.

Definitions of “Role-Playing Games”  21

l1 In larp the game is superimposed on physical world, which is used as a foundation in defining the game world. v1 In virtual role-playing the game is superimposed on a computational virtual reality, which is used as a foundation in defining the game world” (Montola 2009, 23–24). “Role-playing is immersion to an outside consciousness (‘a character’) and interacting with its surroundings” (Pohjola 2003, 34). “Role-playing is immediated character immersion” (Pohjola 2004, 89). “role-playing is defined as any act in which an imaginary reality is concurrently created, added to and observed” (Mäkelä et al. 2005, 207).

Different forms, communities, design and play styles, cultures, historical moments, disciplines: all these contribute to the difficulty of defining “role-playing games”. Yet we believe that a crucial reason why people haven’t been able to settle on a shared definition is the – largely unreflected – way in which they have tried to do so. For, as linguistics and philosophy tell us, there are many ways of defining things: some outmoded, many only appropriate for specific purposes, and all laden with consequential assumptions, decisions, and implicit values. To clarify the definitions of “role-playing games”, we therefore first survey the different forms and understandings of definitions. We argue that how scholars have traditionally tried to define “role-playing games” – as a presumed unchanging “essence” consisting of a set of shared features – is at odds with what we know about language and meaning-making and with the kind of phenomena “role-playing games” refer to. We present an alternative pragmatist position that allows for a plurality of definitions as explicit (disciplinary) perspectives and tools. We then proceed with what we identify as a useful task for disciplinary-spanning work: clarifying discourse by empirically describing who is using the word “role-playing games” how. We do so by discussing four commonly distinguished forms of RPGs: tabletop, live-action, single-player computer, and multiplayer online. For each, we tease out: • • • •

how they have been defined by scholars, designers, and fans, as these are the three main social groups producing and circulating definitions; what empirical phenomena these groups have pointed at with the word “role-playing games” and what characteristics reoccur across these phenomena; where these characteristics historically originated; and how they evolved over time and what kind of variation we see.

Finally, we tease out common characteristics across forms of RPGs as well as characteristics of the discourse about them. We argue that joint ancestry in early TRPGs can explain at least part of the shared characteristics of the things people call “role-playing games”. The divergence of multiple forms of RPGs, in turn, stems from the affordances of their socio-material assemblages: what form of play they make easy or hard to accomplish. Because RPGs are social, not natural entities and relatively underdetermined, they show such a wide and growing diversity of forms and play styles.

22  José P. Zagal and Sebastian Deterding

Box 2.2  Sample Definitions of RPGs RPGs are “any game which allows a number of players to assume the roles of imaginary characters and operate with some degree of freedom in an imaginary environment” (Lortz 1979, 36, as cited in Fine 1983, 6). “role-playing has a lot more in common with novels that it does with games. […] A role-­ playing game is, in fact, an improvised novel in which all the participants serve as authors” (Swan 1990, 3). “A role-playing game must consist of quantified interactive storytelling”: “Character abilities and action resolution must be defined by numbers or quantities that can be manipulated following certain rules”; “player decision-making drives the story forward”; “It is a story with a group for an author, a story that grows organically and is acted out, is experienced by its creators” (Schick 1991, 10–11). An RPG “Allows people to become simultaneously both the artists who create a story and the audience who watches the story unfold. This story has the potential to become a personal myth, shaped to meet the needs of its creators” (Padol 1996). An RPG is “an episodic and participatory story-creation system that includes a set of quantified rules that assist a group of players and a gamemaster in determining how their fictional characters’ spontaneous interactions are resolved. These performed interactions between the players’ and the gamemaster’s characters take place during individual sessions that, together, form episodes or adventures in the lives of the fictional characters” (Mackay 2001, 4–5). An RPG is “what is created in the interaction between players or between player(s) and gamemaster(s) within a specified diegetic framework. […] [A] roleplaying game requires four things, a gamemaster, a player, interaction, and a diegetic framework” (Stenros and Hakkarainen 2003, 61). “1 Game World: A role-playing game is a game set in an imaginary world. Players are free to choose how to explore the game world, in terms of the path through the world they take, and may revisit areas previously explored. The amount of the game world potentially available for exploration is typically large. 2 Participants: The participants in the games are divided between players, who control individual characters, and referees (who may be represented in software for digital examples) who control the remainder of the game world beyond the player characters. Players affect the evolution of the game world through the actions of their characters. 3 Characters: The characters controlled by players may be defined in quantitative and/ or qualitative terms and are defined individuals in the game world, not identified only as roles or functions. These characters can potentially develop, for example in terms [of] skills, abilities or personality, the form of this development is at least partially under player control and the game is capable of reacting to the changes. 4 Game master: At least one, but not all, of the participants has control over the game world beyond a single character. A term commonly used for this function is “game master”,

Definitions of “Role-Playing Games”  23

although many others exist. The balance of power between players and game masters, and the assignment of these roles, can vary, even within the playing of a single game session. Part of the game master function is typically to adjudicate on the rules of the game, although these rules need not be quantitative in any way or rely on any form of random resolution. 5 Interaction: Players have a wide range of configurative options for interacting with the game world through their characters, usually including at least combat, dialogue and object interaction. While the range of options is wide, many are handled in a very abstract fashion. The mode of engagement between player and game can shift relatively freely between configurative and [interpretive]. 6 Narrative: Role-playing games portray some sequence of events within the game world, which gives the game a narrative element. However, given the configurative nature of the players’ involvement, these elements cannot be termed narrative according to traditional narrative theory” (Hitchens and Drachen 2009, 16). “1 Game World: There is a game world, which is defined at least partially in the act of role-playing. This game world is at least partially separate from the [player’s] ordinary life, and exists within a magic circle of play. 2 Participants: There [is] more than one participant, which may include computers. 3 Shared Narrative Power: More than one player can alter the narrative, or it is not role-playing, but storytelling. Shared narrative power implies narrative. 4 Interaction: There are varying modes of interaction with the game world. Conventions of play influence these forms of interaction, limiting the scope (What can I change in the game world?) and modes (How can I change it?) of interaction” (Arjoranta 2011, 14). “An RPG is a game, not a game system or product, but a game experience that a player plays, in which the player portrays a character in a setting. Each player’s portrayal of their character must include three components: immersion, experiencing the character; acting, performing in character; and gaming, obeying and manipulating rules and goals in character” (Simkins 2015, 56).

Defining “Definitions” Definitions are usually seen to state the reference and meaning of a word or concept, to specify its extension and intension (Baumann 2002). Extension is the set of phenomena a word refers to – e.g. “game” refers to all the actual games that exist. Intension is the meaning of the word stated as a set of properties all and only instances of that essence share – e.g. what is the “heart of gameness” ( Juul 2003) that makes all games games? What list of properties allows us to tell whether something counts as a game? Definitions in game studies usually align with this tradition, taking the form “X is a Y with the properties Z1, Z2, …, Zn” – e.g. “a game [X] is a system [Y] in which players [Z1] engage in an artificial conflict [Z2], defined by rules [Z3], that results in a quantifiable outcome [Z4]” (Salen and Zimmerman 2004). This classical conception of definitions – dating to Aristotle and Plato – is sometimes called a genus-differentia definition because it defines X as a specific kind

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of a larger category or genus (here: a system) that is distinct from other kinds in this category by some differentiating properties or differentia (here: players, artificial conflict, etc.) (Margolis and Laurence 2014; Gupta 2015). Although intuitive, there is significant evidence in psychology and linguistics that concepts and words do not work as the classical conception suggests (Baumann 2002; Margolis and Laurence 2014). Scholars have proposed numerous alternatives (see Margolis and Laurence 1999 for a collection). Ludwig Wittgenstein (1963), for instance, held that there is no set of necessary and sufficient properties shared by all and only those phenomena people call “games”. This was not a statement specific to games. Rather, Wittgenstein used games as an example for a general argument about language and meaning. Wittgenstein’s family resemblance model argues that each thing a word refers to shares many properties with other things that word refers to, but no such properties are shared by all and only those things. Given this plurality of theories of concepts and their meanings, each with varying support, any scholarly definition should, with reason, be able to state which theory it subscribes to and why. Yet most current definitions of RPGs don’t. This brings us to a second unspoken assumption: what kind of definition are we making? To mention common distinctions (Gupta 2015), there are stipulative definitions used to introduce a new concept (e.g. “zlorch is a unit of X”) or clarify the use of an existing one – e.g. “I here use ‘game’ to mean any conflict between two or more parties”. Nominal definitions try to capture the meaning and use of a word (as done in a dictionary), and real definitions try to capture the properties of the phenomena the word refers to. Closely linked to that is the anthropological distinction between emic and etic accounts (Headland, Pike, and Harris 1990): emic accounts state the views, concepts, and understandings of a given culture, such as “these people call these things RPGs”. Etic accounts present views and concepts of the observing researcher, such as “they call these ‘RPG’s, but I call them ‘socially-focused play experiences’”. So, when examining existing definitions, it is important to understand what kind of definition is being proposed and what purpose it is attempting to serve. A third assumption: of what “stuff” are concepts, words, and the things they refer to made? The two most relevant considerations for our purposes are whether RPGs are natural or social entities and, connected to that, whether they are natural kinds. Natural entities are things described by the natural sciences, like bees, quasars, or magnetism, that are seen to exist independent of human action and meaning-making. Natural kinds are groupings of natural entities that reflect the structure of the natural world rather than the structure of human interests, actions, and understandings (Bird and Tobin 2015). In contrast, social entities, like divorce, crime, or money, are brought into existence by human action and meaning-making (e.g. Searle 1995). For instance, chemical elements like gold and silver are natural kinds that show the same observable properties in every context, whereas what counts as a “precious metal” and what can be done with it depends on local social contexts of human action and meaning. This doesn’t mean that social entities are “less real” or “less sturdy” than natural entities. Just as chemistry describes the chemical processes through which hydrogen and oxygen combine to produce water, the social sciences describe the social processes – how people act, talk, and shape their material environment – that produce the sturdy entities we call “government”, “money”, or “crime” (Hacking 1999). Because these entities are made of social processes, scientific description can affect the entities described: a psychologist defining a behavior as “mental illness” and classifying someone as “having” that illness affects how we understand and treat that person. With natural kinds, whether something belongs to that kind can be settled empirically. With social categories, whether something belongs to it is determined by the agreement

Definitions of “Role-Playing Games”  25

of that society’s actors. A social category is its practical use (Bowker and Star 2000). As a result, social entities exhibit historical change and cultural variation: Swedish and Japanese people may have different opinions on what is “embarrassing”; these opinions may also differ from those of their ancestors from 100 years ago. The point is that some game definitions imply that “games” are a natural kind, while a number of game scholars have recently argued that games are social (or socio-material) entities (Montola 2012; Stenros 2015). Arguably, RPGs foreground this social constitution of games. In TRPGs and larp, it is readily apparent that people talk and act a given game and game world into being – when people stop enacting it, the game ceases to exist. In contrast, board games continue to exist as physical objects that people can point to and call “games” even when the game is not being played. Defining games as social entities implies that they are subject to historical change and cultural difference. Thus, game definitions can only tease out “what games are” for a given social group at a given point in time. It also means that we have to specify what social entity they are. The word “role-playing games”, like “games”, is used to denote both objects and activities (Hitchens and Drachen 2009). There has been an analogous split between definitions of role-play and definitions of role-playing games (ibid.). Any definition is always an abstraction: the map, not the territory. As such, it foregrounds certain aspects as relevant and ignores or de-emphasizes others. What is considered relevant is always informed by some human concern. As Chris Bateman (2015) pointed out with regard to game definitions, “every definition marks out some subset of phenomena as being of specific interest to its topic and thus involves some kind of value judgment”. This leads to another unspoken assumption of most definitions: from what (disciplinary) perspective are we looking at the phenomenon in question? Now, to some extent, academic disciplines are constituted by what they consider worthy of concern. This concern informs what their theories look like, how the world appears to them and, consequently, what ends up being the starting term or genus of their definitions. An economist is concerned with how goods and services are produced, distributed, and consumed. So, when asked to define “role-playing games”, she might state, “It is a good, specifically, an entertainment/hedonic/experiential good with the properties x, y, z” or “it is an economy, specifically a virtual economy” (→ Chapter 16). To an educational researcher – concerned with human learning – RPGs would appear (and be defined) as a specific site or form of learning (→ Chapter  15). The fact that current popular game definitions (e.g. Juul 2003; Salen and ­Zimmerman 2004) present “games” as systems reflects the concerns and preconceptions of their authors, namely, design, systems theory, and formal literary studies. Similarly, Thomas Malaby’s suggestion (2007) that we understand “games” as processes, practice, or cultural domains reflects his anthropological concerns and preconceptions. We can also consider definitions without a basis in the constructs of an existing discipline. RPG definitions using everyday language – in rule books, fan discourse, or academic texts – typically cast RPGs as an analogy to or deviation from an existing cultural form: RPGs are a form of play/fiction/game/storytelling/drama/simulation/art/literature/etc. (see Simkins 2015 for an instructive example). This is practical as it provides an immediate, rich mental model to work from: “It’s like improv theater, only you sit at a table and describe what your character does” immediately conjures a mental image with rich inferences. However, like disciplinary perspectives, it necessarily reduces the complexity of the phenomenon in some way and embodies what Bateman (2015) called “implicit game aesthetics” and what fan theorists called “creative agenda” (Edwards 2004): RPGs can be realized in distinct styles or desired

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e­ xperiences – e.g. gamism or playing a rule-based game to win, dramatism or theatrically embodying and enacting a character, narrativism or telling an interesting story together, or simulationism or creating a realistic simulation of a world. Thus, to define RPGs as “an act of shared story-­creation” implies a normative value judgment that “good” or “real” RPGs emphasize storytelling over e.g. gaming or dramatic role enactment. These implicit aesthetics may be why definitional debates quickly become contentious and are hard to resolve: they necessarily entail abstractive reductions and value judgments. As individuals, we have usually been socialized into some forms and styles of RPGs earlier and/or more thoroughly than into others and have developed personal aesthetic preferences. Hence, the reference set our intuition draws upon to check whether a given definition “makes sense” or not, whether it captures every feature we “feel” is important, and whether it includes/ excludes everything we “feel” should be included/excluded, is necessarily partial and biased towards that personal set of experience and taste. We point this all out to reiterate that defining something entails decisions regarding importance (i.e. a value judgment regarding what is worthy of attention), some (theoretical) language, and thus some reductive translation of the defined phenomenon. To summarize, defining something implies • • • •

semiotics – a theory of how concepts and meaning-making work and how they hang together with reality, knowledge, and words; a type of definition – a specific way of defining something; an ontology – a theory of what being is and what stuff reality is made of; and a perspective and language – a focus on some phenomena as worthy of concern and some (conceptual) language appropriate for articulating them.

So, how can we construct an interdisciplinary definition of “role-playing games”? One strategy is to devise a transdisciplinary grand unified theory that can articulate the concerns of any individual discipline (Deterding 2016). Yet no such grand theory has been forthcoming in game research. A second strategy – which we adopt here – is to allow a pluralist dialogue of human concerns and disciplinary perspectives. Instead of defining “what ‘role-playing games’ are”, we ask, “What useful questions can be phrased, what helpful things are observable if we see role-playing games as ?” This move from “is” to “as” allows for multiple perspectives without forsaking rigor. It demands that every perspective explicitly articulate the (theoretical, semiotic, ontological) stance from where it speaks, that it argue effectively why this stance is productive for answering its concerns, and that it maintain rigor within its own stance. To enable this pluralist dialogue, the chapters in Section III (Chapters 10–19) each articulate a perspective on RPGs from a discipline that has concerned itself with them in some way. Our pluralist strategy also leaves space for joint foundational work that clarifies, empirically, what we talk about when we talk about “role-playing games”. True to our own demands, we note that this strategy is epistemologically pragmatist: it views scientific disciplines, theories, concepts, and definitions as tools for solving human problems and measures their validity by their practical consequences (Haack 2004). It acknowledges that other stances are possible and possibly useful. Ontologically, we assume that the phenomena called “role-­ playing games” (like words or science) are human creations and therefore at least partially constituted by joint action, talk, and shaping of material artifacts: “Role-playing games”

Definitions of “Role-Playing Games”  27

is a social, not natural entity and thus not a natural kind.1 Semiotically, we subscribe to the pragmatist notion of meaning as use settled by a language community within a shared lifeworld. We also state properties frequently reoccurring across definitions and phenomena people have called “role-playing games” because all current nonclassical theories of concepts employ them in some central way. In short, our goal is to provide an empirical transmedia explication of how the word “role-playing games” has been defined and what phenomena it has been used to refer to.

Forms of RPGs When scholars, designers, and fans use the words “role-playing games”, they typically don’t speak about all phenomena called “role-playing games” but usually refer to one of several clusters of phenomena, which we here call forms (Dormans 2006; Hitchens and Drachen 2009). In this book, we focus on four prominent forms: tabletop, live-action, single-player computer, and multiplayer online RPGs. TRPGs, usually played by a group sitting around a table, are arguably the common ancestor of all forms. Players typically each create and then control a fictional character within a shared fictional game world, maintaining character information (possessions, specific abilities, etc.) on a piece of paper commonly called a character sheet.2 Player characters’ abilities are generally quantified (e.g. strength is 15, driving skill is 12). One special player – called the referee, game master, judge, dungeon master, or something similar – is the arbiter and manager of the game. The referee enforces the rules of the game, enacts the fictional world by telling the players what their characters perceive and what the non-player characters (NPCs) do. Players verbally describe what they want their characters to do, and the referee tells them the results of those actions – typically using a combination of improvisation and the game’s rules, where dice are often used to determine the outcome of certain actions.

Box 2.3  Essential Terminology Campaign: In TRPGs, this refers to a series of adventures with a cast of recurring characters (player and non-player) played over multiple game sessions. Campaigns can be openended, continuing for as long as the players are interested in participating. In the context of CRPGs, a campaign can refer to the entire storyline of the game (e.g. “campaign mode”). Character Sheet: A piece of paper commonly used in TRPGs that serves as a written record of the status and state of a character in the game. This would normally include their statistics and attributes, skills, inventory of equipment, current state of health, name, and so on. DX: One X-sided die. So, D8 means an eight-sided die; D6, six-sided; D20, 20-sided; etc. If preceded by a number, it specifies how many dice need to be rolled: 3D6 would mean roll three six-sided dice. Game Master (GM): In TRPGs, the person who organizes and manages the game, plays the role of all NPCs, and is responsible for everything except the actions taken by the player

(Continued)

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characters. This includes describing everything the player characters experience (see, hear, etc.). Common synonyms include dungeon master (DM), referee, director, and storyteller. In-Character (IC): Communications by a player that are understood as being said/communicated by the character rather than the player. Non-player Character (NPC): All characters in the game world that are not directly controlled by a player. They may be controlled by a game master (TRPGs), an actor (larp), or by computer software (CRPGs and MORPGs). Out-of-Character (OOC): Things a player says or does that are not being said or done by their character. Players sometimes explicitly signal which actions or utterances are OOC, although it is also common for them to be understood as such based on their context. Party: Refers to a team or group of characters, generally PCs, who collaborate or work together (e.g. “The Fellowship of the Ring” in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings). In the context of CRPGs, it is common for a single player to control all of the characters in the party. In MORPGs, there are sometimes in-game benefits from player characters forming a party. Player Character (PC): A character in a game that is directly controlled by a player. This term is usually applied across all forms of RPGs.

From this, perhaps the easiest way to describe larp is to imagine a TRPG where players embody and act out their characters’ actions rather than verbally describing them. As in TRPGs, not all participants are players; some might be referees, while others may play the parts of NPCs – “supporting roles” who receive instructions and information from the referees to guide the flow of events. Rules are still used to govern the success of in-game actions, though they are often simpler and more embodied than those of TRPGs. For example, they might use versions of rock-paper-scissors or rules of thumb, like “your character can do what you can do” to decide the outcome of uncertain actions. CRPGs can be described as TRPGs that are played alone on a computer: one player controls all player characters, and the computer acts as the referee, displaying the game world through monitor and speakers. Their rules are often similar to those in tabletop games, though many CRPGs involve real-time play, testing the player’s reflexes. CRPGs are arguably distinguishable from tabletop games in that they enable easy single-player play; emphasize storylines and rules, which can become much more complex and involved as they are maintained by the computer; and usually don’t afford role-playing in the sense of dramatically empathizing, embodying, and acting out a character (Hitchens and Drachen 2009). MORPGs can be thought of as tabletop games in which players log in to a computer who handles all of the usual referee responsibilities. Conversely, they could be considered multiplayer CRPGs in which players play together in a shared world online, each controlling only one character. In MORPGs, the fictional game world is persistent: it continues to exist and change, even when (individual) players are not logged in. MORPGs also often allow for the coexistence of a massive numbers of players, in which cases they are usually called massively MORPGs (MMORPGs). As with CRPGs, there is usually an emphasis on rules and systems, often borrowed from TRPGs, rather than on the role-playing.

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Again, with “forms”, we don’t mean natural kinds: they are distinctions people make in and through talk, action, and shaping of material artifacts. Consequently, different people distinguish and list different forms. Michael Hitchens and Anders Drachen (2009), for instance, list freeform, system-less, and pervasive as additional forms. In the present book, Chapter 8 describes online freeform as another emerging RPG form. We highlight these four because their distinct reality is widely acknowledged by scholars, designers, and fans; they have had significant cultural impact through their historical roles and sizes of player audience; each has sparked its own definitional debates; and formal etic analyses suggest that the phenomena subsumed under each of these labels indeed share characteristics that differ from those bunched under the other labels (e.g. Dormans 2006; Hitchens and Drachen 2009). Obviously, there are variations, exceptions, and debates within each form: is a TRPG with no rules “still a tabletop RPG”? If a CRPG has a human referee, is it “not actually a tabletop RPG”? And so on. We will now (1) briefly sketch the historical provenance of each form, (2) provide influential definitional attempts, (3) list characteristic features of that form, and (4) highlight common deviations and innovations from that list. Our historical sketch is consciously reductive and partial: we have chosen TRPGs as the ancestor and will trace the other forms through the lens of how they evolved and differentiated themselves from TRPGs. There are other lenses we could have considered (e.g. as acts of collective pretend play, theater, simulation, gaming, storytelling). We focus on the shared lineage from TRPGs because it is helpful for our sociocultural understanding of how and why the different forms differ and don’t.

Tabletop RPGs In 1974, a small company called Tactical Studies Rules, later known as TSR, published Dungeons & Dragons (D&D, Gygax and Arneson 1974a). It was an unassuming box (containing three slim booklets) whose cover described its contents as “Rules for Fantastical Medieval Wargames Campaigns Playable with Paper and Pencil and Miniature Figures” (Gygax and Arneson 1974b). The game was not only closely modeled on its ancestor – miniature wargaming (Peterson 2012) – but also labeled itself as such. And yet, Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson’s introduction to D&D already highlighted characteristics that, while not individually innovative, when taken together, led to its being considered a new type of game (Peterson 2012). It was an open-ended game for which “your time and imagination are about the only limiting factors” (Gygax and Arneson 1974b). Its rules were “guidelines to follow” [emphasis in original]. D&D also required a referee who had to prepare “dungeons” – a scenario set in a fictional game world, typically a cave or castle in a fantasy world filled with adversarial monsters and traps as well as treasures. Players could each decide what individual character or role they wanted to play and then create and govern the actions of that character. PCs could improve their abilities and “work upwards” as they gained “experience”, measured in “experience points”. And the referee would present and govern the events and entities of the game world (Gygax and Arneson 1974b). While TRPGs – in contrast to wargames or board games – gave players unlimited freedom in imagining what their characters might attempt to do, whether these actions succeeded or not was constrained and adjudicated by rules and the whims of the referee. As Daniel Mackay put it in his definition, there are “rules that assist a group of players and a gamemaster in determining how their fictional characters’ spontaneous interactions are resolved” (Mackay

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2001, 5). For this task resolution (→ Chapters 10 and 18), D&D utilized many conventions of the miniature wargames of its time: combat was the (almost exclusive) concern. Rules modeled characters and decided their actions probabilistically: a combatant was described by numerical traits, like level, strength, or “hit points”, and these traits determined the probability of a certain action’s succeeding, usually resolved with dice rolls. One characteristic novel rule component that D&D introduced was systems for character progression (Peterson 2012), that is, rules and game mechanisms that define how player’s characters improve from one game session to the next (Zagal and Altizer 2014). Character progression is one of the primary rewards of TRPGs (Fannon 1999): [I]n most role-playing games, players maintain their characters from session to session, using them again and again. Gradually the player characters’ skills increase. They become more powerful and better equipped and undertake more difficult tasks to maintain the challenge of the game. (Schick 1991) As in wargames, players and referee sat around a table, using a printed rule book with rules, ­t ables, dice, and character sheets. An individual quest or adventure – the looting of a d­ ungeon – could take several sessions of multiple hours of playtime. Individual adventures could be connected together into a campaign by the progressing characters, a shared fictional world, and even an overarching plot. Referees could create adventures, campaigns, and worlds, but TSR (and other companies) also published adventures, campaigns, and books, detailing whole fictional worlds. D&D and other early TRPGs were often adversarial (Appelcline 2014a, 347–348): Players had to watch for traps and survive the challenges thrown at them by their referee. This quickly shifted towards a collaborative experience where players and referee worked together for the enjoyment of all (e.g. Plamondon 1982). In contrast to the often historical settings of wargames, and in tune with the popularity of fantasy and science fiction literature in the 1970s, most early TRPGs were set in some “medieval fantasy” world. As a result, TRPGs are often viewed as a unity of form and content and were often alternatively called “fantasy role-playing games”. Yet as the TRPG market grew, it expanded into different settings: cowboys, spacefaring humans, post-apocalyptic mutants, and others. Still, TRPG settings have largely remained limited to some form of genre fiction, including established franchises (Star Wars, Star Trek, Middle-earth) and genre combination like fantasy-cyberpunk or horror-Western. However, the rise of “indie” TRPGs in the early 21st century (→ Chapter 10) demonstrated that the basic aesthetic form of TRPGs was amenable to all kinds of subject matter. As a new phenomenon, TRPGs could not rely on people’s shared cultural knowledge of what they were or how to play them. They also could not rely on the game artifacts to guide and constrain play: games like D&D consisted of nothing more than printed pages of rules. Presumably for these reasons, to this day, their rule books often include “an obligatory section in the introduction usually titled ‘What is a Role-Playing Game?’ or ‘How to Play a Role-Playing Game’”, sometimes with a script of sample gameplay (Mackay 2001; see Torner 2015). These sections are thus influential manifestations in which designers express their understanding and definitions of “tabletop role-playing games” and shape those of players and other designers reading them.

Definitions of “Role-Playing Games”  31

For example, an early manual for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (AD&D) (Gygax 1979) notes the existence of two schools of thought in hobby games: realism-simulation and games. Gygax positioned AD&D as an adherent of “the game school”, meaning it was primarily a fun game and not a realistic simulation of medieval combat, culture, or society (Gygax 1979). Other designers and companies, differentiating themselves from D&D, likewise decoupled their games from specific rules and settings. Middle-Earth Role Playing (MERP) describes an RPG as a “‘living’ novel where interaction between the actors (characters) creates a constantly evolving plot” in which each player should “take on the persona of his (or her) player character” (Charlton 1984). James Bond 007 describes itself as “much like an improvisational theater piece” in which the players participate in a loosely prepared script and agree to follow the rules as enforced by the referee (Klug 1983, 5). These few early examples illustrate how understandings of TRPGs broadened and diversified from playing a fun combat miniature game to realistically simulating a world, story creation, and theatrical enactment of characters. Beyond introductory passages in rule books, game designers and fans quickly developed theories around TRPGs. These took place initially in fanzines (e.g. Alarums & Excursions) and commercial magazines (e.g. Dragon or the short-lived Interactive Fiction) and then quickly extended onto the Internet, specifically Usenet groups and online forums like The Forge. Scholarly work also emerged in the 1980s and intensified from the 1990s on. Surveying definitional attempts across these communities as well as the phenomena they refer to, the following characteristics are commonly reoccurring in what people call “tabletop RPGs”: • • • • •

• • • • • •

A group of players sits face-to-face around a table to play together (co-located and synchronous); Players create, enact, and govern the actions of individual characters in a fictional game world; A referee determines the game world, manages and communicates it to the players, and enacts all NPCs; Players and referee collaborate towards a shared enjoyable experience; The game world, including PCs and NPCs and their actions, are constituted by talk between referee and players, often with supporting props, like character sheets, miniatures, rule books, or maps; The game world is usually some form of genre fiction: fantasy, science fiction, horror, etc. or a mixture thereof; Attempted PC actions are limited by the imagination of players; The abilities of characters and the outcomes of their actions are usually determined by a quantitative-probabilistic rule system, with extensive rules for combat resolution; The game is open-ended and can be played over multiple sessions; In-game events may be guided along a pre-planned plot through the design of the game world and referee steering or emerge from player initiative; Player characters improve over time via systems for progression.

Not all phenomena called TRPGs have all these characteristics, of course. But this prototypical core helps understand why people consider something “clearly a TRPG” or debate it as “a borderline case”, why people perceive a certain game as “innovative”, and why people want to innovate in the first place.

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TRPGs exist alongside each other: new games were generally designed in response to existing ones to fill an unexplored thematic niche, solve perceived problems of existing rule systems, support aesthetic goals not met by earlier games, and so on. For instance, the effort of gathering players face-to-face for a game session drove the creation of CRPGs, ­play-by-mail TRPGs, solo role-playing (e.g. certain scenarios for Tunnels & Trolls, Schick 1991, 358), and game books like the Fighting Fantasy series ( Jackson and Livingstone 1982). Dissatisfied by the frequent disconnect between the characters created by individual players and the ­referee-created scenario, games like Hillfolk (Laws 2013) make character creation collaborative: characters are defined as a network of conflictual, emotionally charged relations, providing the dramatic raw material for player-driven plots. Other games explore the scope of the actors controlled by the players. In Aria: Canticle of the Monomyth (Moore and Seyler 1994), players fluidly move between role-playing characters, entire families (genealogies), nations, and more. As regards the role of the referee, some games encourage taking turns refereeing (Ars Magica, Tweet and Rein-Hagen 2004), while others allow players to enact certain NPCs (Cosmic Patrol, Catalyst Game Labs 2011). Some games do away with referees entirely, allowing play sessions where “everyone has equal authority at the table” (e.g. Grey Ranks, Morningstar 2007). “Independent” TRPGs have brought in “serious”, non-genre fiction game worlds and themes, like first dates (Breaking the Ice, Boss 2005) or Polish partisan teenagers during the 1944 uprising against the German occupation (Grey Ranks, Morningstar 2007). Dissatisfaction with probabilistic, quantified rule systems best fit for combat led to the exploration of alternative mechanisms, as in Amber’s dice-less role-playing system (Wujcik 1991). Some “rules-light” games reduced rules and props to a minimum to focus on inventive storytelling (The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen, Wallis 1998), while others increased the importance of rules and props, leading to TRPG-board game hybrids (e.g. When Darkness Comes, ­Breitenstein and ­Breitenstein 2002). Similarly, “one-shot” games like Fiasco (Morningstar 2009) do away with character progression and open-ended games because players, over a fixed number of acts or scenes, create a plot that ends in a tragicomic fiasco for all involved characters.

Box 2.4  Paper and Pencil Session Jasmine, Sam, Rosa, and Dennis have gathered around the table. They are in the middle of an ongoing campaign adventure where they play characters who are prehistoric humans, trying to survive in a savage and slightly magical world. Jasmine:  Ok, let’s get started. Last week, you were getting ready to sneak into the valley of the bears. You had decided to hide behind some bushes on a hill, overlooking the valley until nightfall. Sam:  [speaking out of character] Yeah, that’s right. We were worried about unexpected inhabitants. Hey Dennis, do you still have the sacred animal whistle? Dennis:  [checking his character sheet] Yeah, but I think the effect wore off. Rosa, does Tohana’s mystical ability work with items, or is it just for animals? Rosa:  [looking at Dennis and speaking in character] I shall see if the mother of trees will assist us this night. May I have the whistle?

Definitions of “Role-Playing Games”  33

Jasmine:  Ok, Rosa, roll for your mystical sight ability. Don’t forget the +2 bonus you get from your willpower stat. [Rosa picks up a pair of D10s and rolls them. She gets a 5 and a 3.] Rosa:  [checking her character sheet]. I got an 8 plus … uhm, hang on. Ok, total is 15! Does that work? Jasmine:  Tohana cradles the whistle in her hands and whispers while bowing in the direction of a tree. [addressing Rosa] The whistle trembles slightly in your hands and gets noticeably warm. Rosa:  Here ya go, Sharpspear, be careful with it. Dennis:  [looking at Jasmine] I blow the whistle. I also want to have a good look around. Jasmine:  [rolling some dice but keeping the results hidden from the players] As you blow into the whistle, you get sensations of danger and excitement coming from some tall trees to the left of you, perfect timing as well! You see four large humanoid shapes moving towards you very quickly across the ridge. Ok, everyone, roll for initiative! [The whole group groans except for Sam] Sam:  Oh yeah, I’m ready for this! [Everyone picks up a D12 and rolls it in front of them] Dennis:  12! Sam:  I only got a 4… Rosa:  Do I need to add my reflexes modifier or not? I always forget. Jasmine:  Yup, reflex modifiers get added. Rosa:  Ok, I got an 8 then. Jasmine:  As you turn to face your attackers, you notice they are hunters from the Rockslide tribe. They’ve probably been stalking you for a while. Three charge forward while the fourth hangs back. Dennis, you go first… Dennis:  I’m going to attack the one that’s closest to me with my spear, and I’ll use my second action to increase my dodge ability. [rolls a pair of D10s] Double 1s? Are you kidding me? Jasmine:  As you lunge with your spear, your foot slips on a loose rock. Your lunge goes wide, and you also let go of the spear. You’ve lost your weapon, but fortunately, you didn’t fall to the ground. Jasmine:  Ok, now one of them attacks [secretly rolls a pair of D10s]. Sam, what’s your defense score? Sam:  12. Jasmine:  Ok, you get pummeled with a rock for … [rolls a D6], 4 points of damage. [Sam makes a note of this on his character sheet] Jasmine:  Rosa, you’re next. What are you going to do…?

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LARP It is unclear when people ran the first larps (Simkins 2015, 48). One may reasonably assume that some people started performing rather than describing the actions of their characters as soon as D&D was played – play-enacting character dialogue while sitting at the table is a common practice in TRPGs. There are rumors that, as early as 1979, students at Michigan State ­University organized larps in the network of steam tunnels beneath campus (Laycock 2015, 83). In the context of D&D, people understood early larp as role-playing that is taken “beyond the realms of imagined adventures using paper, pencils, and miniature figures”: by fully embodying and enacting one’s character, the game “becomes ‘real’” (Livingstone 1982, 192–193). This notion of immersion through embodiment is an important differentiating characteristic of larp. Instead of describing character actions, players enact them. Instead of describing their appearance, players use costumes. Instead of describing the game world and its inhabitants, referees stage a real-world, physical setting with props and instruct likewise costumed NPCs. The importance of being “in-character” also changed. In most TRPGs, players fluidly move between speaking as players and as characters. In larps, “maintaining character” (not speaking as a player) became more important in order to achieve greater immersion for everyone involved. Because players were no longer stationary, rules needed to be streamlined – e.g. using rock-paper-scissors instead of dice and tables. Rules could also rely more on players’ skills: proficiency in swinging a weapon made of reinforced foam (commonly called “boffer” weapons) could serve as a character’s swordsmanship (M. Malaby and Green 2009). Another effect of staging a game in a physical space was that it could accommodate more players than fit around a table. This allows parallel activities, with up to thousands of players in some large-scale fantasy larps. As a result, a single referee often could not oversee and manage the entire game anymore. One common solution has been to increase the number of referees; another is to have players take on roles of NPCs. These NPCs are analogous to “supporting actors” in movies, who act semiautonomously but share information with referees and take stage directions from them. Yet another strategy has been to forego pre-scripted referee plots in favor of emergent gameplay, sometimes structured by the detailed background stories and goals of player characters. As a collaborative practice, new players typically learn how to larp by joining existing groups and learning from their peers. Larping is usually an embodied practice of a shared social group, and larps are arguably far less homogenized (and pre-scriptable) through mass-­ distributed objects, like TRPG rule books or video gaming hardware and software. As a result, maybe more than any other form of RPG, larp has developed many different local cultural communities practicing distinct styles of larps (→ Chapter 5). Definitional discussions by larp designers and players have chiefly emerged around conventions where local groups encounter each other. Scholarly work on larp (and its definition) frequently stem from people involved in these communities. Notably, across designer, player, and scholar discourses, larp is commonly talked about and defined as live-action role-play, not a live action role-playing game (although numerous people also talk about larp games, running larps with ‘gamey’ characteristics like clear goals, rules, and progression systems). Despite this cultural diversity, one can still identify some characteristics commonly reoccurring across phenomena called larps: • •

A group of players plays together in a shared physical location (co-located and synchronous); Players create and enact individual characters in a fictional game world;

Definitions of “Role-Playing Games”  35

• • • •

• • • •

One or more referees stage and manage the game for the players; Some players may enact NPCs that receive instruction and information from referees; Players and referee collaborate towards a shared enjoyable experience; The game world, including PCs and NPCs, is constituted by players embodying and enacting characters and real physical props and location, with varying degrees of realism or verisimilitude; The game world is usually some form of genre fiction: fantasy, science fiction, horror, Western, crime, or a mixture thereof; Attempted PC actions are limited by the imagination of players, rules, and the players’ bodily abilities and physical surroundings; The abilities of characters and the outcomes of their actions are determined by a mixture of bodily abilities (“you can do what you can do”) and formal rules; In-game events may be guided along a pre-planned plot through the setup of the game world (including PCs and NPCs) and referee steering via NPCs or emerge from player initiative.

There is rich variation and innovation around this prototypical list. Some larps emulate D&Dstyle TRPGs with fantasy backdrops, rules, referee-scripted plots, and an emphasis on combat with boffer weapons. This style is sometimes called “boffer LARP”. Organizations like NERO coordinate multiple larping groups under one set of rules, including character progression, allowing “One Game World with Unrestricted Transference of Characters, Treasure & Possessions” across games (http://nerolarp.com/news.php). In contrast, Nordic larp, as a style, is characterized by high aesthetic ambition and commitment, a noncommercial spirit, minimal game mechanics and a de-emphasizing of game aspects like “winning” or “progression” in favor of intense shared experiences (Stenros and Montola 2010). Games in this tradition often have political and/or artistic aspirations, putting players in the roles of e.g. members of a 1978 commune or attendants of a cross-cultural marriage in Palestine. Staging of the game world may range from barren black rooms similar to empty theater stages (“black-box”) to maximalist games like Monitor Celestra, where over 140 players wore handmade costumes and used a retired military destroyer ship, which was redecorated and augmented with digital control panels, to stage a three-day crisis on a spaceship in the fictional universe of Battlestar Galactica (Berättelsefrämjandet 2013). Larps may last as little as half an hour and have no rules other than a character prompt, strongly resembling improv theater, or might be played over years at different locales. Yet other pervasive larps engage with the distinction between the real and the game world. The 2006 larp Momentum ran continuously, 24 hours a day for five weeks, in everyday locations all around Stockholm, with the goal of merging game and real life. Players enacted themselves being temporarily possessed by ghosts and had to draw in non-players as part of their in-game tasks (Stenros et al. 2007). Some games blur the distinction between larps and TRPGs. Mind’s Eye Theatre: The Masquerade (MET) (Rein-Hagen, Lemke, and Tinney 1993) adapted the TRPG Vampire: The Masquerade’s (V:tM) for live play. Set in the same supernatural horror world as V:tM, MET is one of the few commercially published larp games (Appelcline 2014b, 16). MET also allowed players to bring their tabletop characters over to a larp game and back. V:tM itself was already conducive to this crossover by encouraging “dice-less” and “live-roleplay” at the table, with long-running campaigns full of politicking and intrigue (Fannon 1999, 150). Thus, MET and V:tM could form a single transmedia RPG, with players deciding when to play in which format.

36  José P. Zagal and Sebastian Deterding

Box 2.5  Larp Session Sam, Rosa, and Dennis have gathered on the outskirts of a local campground. All three wear fake animal furs. Rosa has thick necklaces made from stones and string around her neck. Dennis is carrying a spear whose end is thickly padded with foam and covered in duct tape, making it look like a giant cotton swab. They are in the middle of an ongoing campaign adventure where they play characters who are prehistoric humans, trying to survive in a savage and slightly magical world. Jasmine, one of the local referees, walks up to them. Jasmine:  Ok, it’s almost time to get started. Last week, you were getting ready to sneak into the valley of the bears. You hid behind some bushes on a hill, overlooking the valley until nightfall. [Suddenly, an air horn blast breaks the silence. Sam, Rosa, and Dennis quickly crouch, and Jasmine steps away.] Sam:  Showtime! [turning to Dennis] Do you still have the sacred animal whistle? Dennis:  Ack! [He assents] But power weak. [turning to face Rosa] Tohana, you help? Rosa:  Mother of trees, you please bless! [She reaches for a small bone whistle being offered by Dennis] [Rosa pulls a keyring from a pouch that hangs by her waist. The keyring has several colored plastic tabs. She removes a yellow tab and hands it to Jasmine, who then whispers something in her ear.] [Rosa then carefully cradles the whistle in her hands and bows in the direction of the tree.] Rosa:  Oh, mother of trees. You favor us. We see through eyes of you! [after a brief pause] Go Sharpspear, you have much care. [Dennis takes the whistle from Rosa’s open hand. He looks at Jasmine, who nods, then places the whistle in his mouth and blows into it] Jasmine:  [shouting] Concealed creatures and tribespeople, the Mother of Trees commands that you reveal yourselves! [Four people also dressed in fake furs and carrying padded spears step out from behind some trees about 20 meters away. They count to three and then run towards the group!] Attackers:  [yelling] Rockslide tribe! [Both groups quickly meet and start swinging at each other with their padded weapons. As they hit each other, they yell numbers out loud, indicating how much damage they inflict with each hit.]

Computer RPGs The earliest CRPGs appeared in the mid- to late 1970s, created and surreptitiously played by hobbyists on university mainframe computers (Barton 2008, 30). Bearing names like Dungeon (Daglow 1975), dnd (Whisenhunt and Wood 1975), or DND (Lawrence 1977), they often advertised their direct inspiration from D&D. The early CRPG The Temple of Apshai boasts that it “is guaranteed to be the best version of Dungeons & Dragons” (Automated Simulations 1980). What we now call CRPGs were then sometimes referred to as “D&D Games” (Crawford

Definitions of “Role-Playing Games”  37

1984). Early CRPGs commonly entailed quantitatively modeled characters, probabilistic action resolution, character progression, and fantasy maze (dungeon) exploration and combat well known from D&D. Yet, as with early TRPGs, there was significant variation in what early games, now considered CRPGs, called themselves: some, like Telengard, straightforwardly self-labeled as “a computerized fantasy role-playing game” (Lawrence 1982, 3). Others, like The Lords of Midnight, proposed new labels: “not simply an adventure game nor simply a wargame. It is really a new type that we have chosen to call an epic game” (Singleton 1984, 3). Many CRPGs, like The Faery Tale Adventure (1987), called themselves “adventures” or “adventure games”, and contemporary uses of video game genre labels like “role-playing game” and “adventure game” still overlap significantly. CRPGs were often understood as a response to perceived problems of TRPGs: (1) TRPGs could not be played solitaire (e.g. Katz 1982), (2) they often required tedious amounts of calculation and dice rolling (e.g. Crawford 1984, 33), and (3) they needed long (continuous) stretches of time to prepare and play (e.g. Lane 1982). The solution, for many, was to use a computer: “Even microcomputers in a fraction of a second can make complicated calculations that would take a Dungeons and Dragons referee minutes of page-turning” (Freeman 1980). Also, as explained in The Temple of Apshai’s manual, the computer could offer “an already created world with enough details and variety for dozens of adventures”, thus offering a game that is always ready to play (Lane 1982, 6). Instead of being constituted through joint talk, the game world and rules became an algorithmic and data-driven model – software running on a computer – that the player experienced and interacted with through a computer interface. This provided additional affordances that would further distinguish CRPGs from their tabletop brethren: sophistication of simulations, real-time play, and encyclopedic scope. Because the computer handled the bookkeeping, early CRPGs could increase the complexity (and supposed “realism”) of their rule systems beyond human capacities to include features such as line-of-sight for enemy monsters, encumbrance and fatigue, and more (Barton 2008). While many of these existed in prior TRPG games, they were often too complicated to use in practice or were rarely enforced. The downside, as in computerized wargames, was that these rules were often “blackboxed”, only partially exposed to the player (Dunnigan 1992). Real-time play allowed for a different kind of experience: “[i]f you don’t move, the monsters will” (Lindsay 1979). Telengard’s manual notes how [i]t is imperative to understand that the adventure you are about to embark upon is played in Real Time [sic.]. That is, you have a limited amount of time (about 5 seconds) to key-in a command before the computer will do one for you. (Lawrence 1982) Real-time rather than turn-based interaction also led to the increasing appearance of “action” elements where results were dependent on player’s reflexes and hand-eye coordination. TRPGs, in principle, already allowed for a vast scope of their game world, supported by “random encounter” and “dungeon generation” tables, but, in practice, they were bound by the time and inventiveness of a human referee (or supplement author). CRPG designers used the storage of early computers to the maximum, handcrafting environments as well as algorithmically generating enormous game worlds: “over 17,000 screens of exploration” (The Faery Tale Adventure, MicroIllusions 1987). This encyclopedic scope (Murray 1997) became

38  José P. Zagal and Sebastian Deterding

only more pronounced as storage capacities increased. Today, CRPGs generally rely on a mixture of pre-scripted linear narratives (especially in so-called JRPGs, a style of CRPG that developed in Japan, → Chapter 6) and “emergent” stories players tell themselves based on procedurally generated events in vast open game worlds, prototypically in the The Elder Scrolls series (Bethesda, 1994–present). TRPGs, in contrast, allowed for intentional flexible weaving of dramatic plot between players and referees. Thematically, the game worlds of CRPGs have stuck close to the fantasy scenarios of early TRPGs. CRPGs are also more limited in the actions available to characters. In a TRPG, a player could think up any possible action and describe it, no matter if it was explicitly foreseen in the rules: the referee would adjudicate its probability of succeeding on the spot. Game software, in contrast, can only process pre-specified inputs; thus, players are limited to those pre-­ specified actions offered by the CRPG interface. In a TRPG, a player might try and flirt with a guard instead of attacking it, even if the rule book has no rules for flirting. In a CRPG, if the program (and its interface) don’t support flirting, doing so is impossible. Given this lack of expressive capacities and the absence of a human audience, CRPG players less frequently enact characters in a theatrical fashion, although they may choose courses of action they feel are “true” to their characters. Curiously, at least in the early years, CRPGs were lauded for providing rich creative opportunities for players to make decisions. However, this was in comparison to (text) adventure games of the time, which were often devalued as mere puzzles (Freeman 1980). CRPGs added character development, strategic combat, and partially procedurally generated, non-pre-scripted game worlds to the adventure game mix of room exploration and puzzle-solving (Saltzman 1999, 7). This meant that CRPGs were far more re-playable and open-ended than text adventures: players could approach a varying game world with different characters and new strategies. Another significant change from TRPGs to CRPGs is how they are played. While TRPGs are played and experienced as a group, CRPGs are generally designed for a solitary player, often controlling a “party” of multiple characters. The social experience of a CRPG usually comes from players controlling the game together (e.g. one player controls, others gives strategic tips) or player communities sharing experiences (e.g. see what I found!), strategies (e.g. how to beat a monster), and collaborative understanding of the game (e.g. optimizing character improvement). Surveying the phenomena that are today called “computer RPGs”, we find the following commonly reoccurring properties: • • •

• • •

A single player plays with a computing device The player creates and governs the actions of one or more characters in a fictional game world The computer runs an internal model of the game rules and game world, including all NPCs, renders a representation through an interface, and updates model and representation in response to player input The game world is constituted by the computational model’s generating audiovisual representations that ground the player’s imagination The game world is usually some form of genre fiction: fantasy, science fiction, horror, or a mixture thereof Attempted character actions are limited to options made available through the game interface

Definitions of “Role-Playing Games”  39

•

• •

• •

The abilities of characters and the outcomes of their actions are usually determined by quantitative-probabilistic rule systems or by the player’s reflexes and abilities in inputting commands A game is often played over multiple sessions In-game events are usually guided along a pre-planned plot through the extensive scripting of the game world (including non-player character actions) toward clear end points, but players may play open-endedly before, during, or after the conclusion of those plots There are extensive rules for combat resolution Player characters improve over time via systems for progression

Plenty of CRPGs diverge from this list in some aspects. Not all CRPGs are for solitary play. Vampire: The Masquerade – Redemption (Nihilistic Software 2000) included a multiplayer mode that allowed for one player to be a referee, similar to TRPG games. The referee could “possess” NPCs, move them around, and control what they said and populate the maps with items and enemies (Sones 2000). In this sense, Redemption was an attempt to provide a TRPG experience in a CRPG. In most CRPGs, players control either one character or a group of characters for the duration of a game. The composition of the group can sometimes change over time. In Baldur’s Gate (Ohlen and Muzyka 1998), players could recruit different characters. However, some characters might leave, depending on choices made by the player or whoever else was part of the group. In Dragon Quest IV (Nakamura 1990), the player controls different characters for each chapter of the game. Each chapter focuses on the perspective of a supporting character before they all join the protagonist in the final chapter. This allowed for a richer experience of the game’s narrative or, in the case of Baldur’s Gate, highlighted inter-character dynamics often missing in CRPGs. As they evolved, CRPGs developed distinct subgenres, such as “action RPGs”, like the ­Diablo series, which emphasized fast-paced, real-time combat, and “tactical RPGs”, often turn-based, which focus on optimal tactical combat decisions and strategic character progression decisions.

Box 2.6  Computer RPG Session Petra sits in front of her computer, playing a CRPG. She is in the middle of an ongoing campaign where she controls a party of characters who are prehistoric humans, trying to survive in a savage and slightly magical world. As the game finishes loading, she sees an overhead view of a wilderness. Three human figures, about 3cm tall on the screen, are standing behind some bushes. There are two men and one woman, and their names are indicated by text that floats above their heads. To the side of the screen are portraits of each of them that provide additional information, such as their current level, how many life points each has, and what their current equipment is. All three figures wear furs, and one carries a spear. Petra clicks on the portrait of the character called Tohana. A new window appears partially obscuring the landscape. It features a larger image of the character, a list of abilities, and the items and equipment the Tohana is carrying. Petra clicks on an item called “Sacred

(Continued)

40  José P. Zagal and Sebastian Deterding

Animal Whistle”. A smaller window appears with some text and two buttons labelled “Use” and “Cancel”. The text says, • • • •

Duration: 5 minutes, Use: Reveal hidden enemies in 50-meter radius, Charges: 0 (rechargeable), “The mother of trees bestows her sight on those who are worthy.”

Petra curses under her breath as she clicks on the cancel button. As the smaller window closes, she selects an ability named “Imbue Magic” and then picks the whistle from a list of available options. A message window appears, stating “Sacred Animal Whistle now has 10 charges”. As she closes the window, she notices that the purple “magic energy” bar beneath Tohana’s character portrait is now only half-full. Before closing the character window, Petra makes sure to bind the whistle to the “1” on her keyboard. Now, when she wants to use the whistle, all she’ll have to do is select Tohana and tap “1”. While she’s been doing this, the world has been paralyzed. As soon as she closed the character window, however, everything “came back to life”: Tree branches sway, and the characters restlessly tap their feet. As soon as Petra taps “1” on her keyboard, though, she notices the red outlines of four humanoid shapes that are moving quickly towards her characters. As they come in to view, she sees that three of them are labeled “Rockslide Warrior” and the fourth is labeled “Rockslide Shaman”. Each character also has a small green bar beneath its name. Petra taps the spacebar and clicks her characters. For each, she selects the option “Attack Closest Target” before hitting the spacebar again. She sits back to watch what happens but keeps her hand hovering over the spacebar just in case. The characters on the screen start to move towards each other and begin to swing their weapons. Text messages such as “Critical!”, “Miss!”, and “Hit!” appear over the battle as well as numbers indicating how much damage each successful strike causes.

Multiplayer Online RPGs The history of MORPGs starts in 1978 with MUD (also called MUD1) on a mainframe computer at Essex University. MUD, which stands for Multi-User Dungeon, began as a multiplayer implementation of early adventure games Colossal Cave Adventure (also known as Adventure and ADVENT ) and Zork (Bartle 2010). Those games, directly inspired by D&D (McGath 1984, 5), provided players with a textual description of their virtual surroundings and allowed interaction via typed commands, often verb-object pairs such as “ATTACK MONSTER” or “GO NORTH”. MUD was also text-based but was multiplayer and open-ended and provided a persistent environment that continued to exist (and change), even if a player was not accessing it through an interface. The multiplayer aspect of MUD1 allowed multiple players to participate via a network without requiring them to play co-located. The game was open-ended in that players freely traversed and interacted with the (textual) game world and its inhabitants without the puzzles and linear narratives of early adventure games: its designers decided these would not work in a multiplayer environment (Bartle 2010). In terms of refereeing, MUDs presented a mixture of TRPGs and CRPGs. The computer maintained the game world, but MUD administrators, often referred to as “Wizards”, often

Definitions of “Role-Playing Games”  41

interacted directly with players as they created new content, areas, and objects in the database (Shah and Romine 1995, 13). Becoming a Wizard was often a goal for players because they could hope to be invited to play in this role of meta-referee (Turkle 1995). Wizards inhabiting in-game characters gave rise to enticing unexpected situations. For example, having obtained an item they shouldn’t have, a player could negotiate with the grim reaper to get it back (C. Morningstar and Farmer 1990) or they might “kill” a famous Wizard-controlled character who forgot to activate his invulnerability (Blodgett 2009). Because collaboration between players was not needed for the game world to exist, and players often used pseudonyms, behaviors such as “griefing” also appeared – players deriving pleasure from annoying other players in the game. MORPGs also feature a lot of “parallel play”, as seen in larps with large numbers of players. Over the years, MORPGs changed as technology improved. First was a move towards audiovisual representations, followed by a sharp increase in the number of concurrent players these games could support. In the mid-1990s, the Korean games Kingdom of the Winds and Lineage already attracted millions of players and were soon to be followed by “Western” games such as World of Warcraft (Bartle 2010). It was from these games and their successors that a new term was coined: the MMORPG. MORPGs are played by multiple players in different locations, each using their own computing device. Players usually access one of several servers on which versions of the game world run – servers typically cater to geographical and language communities, but players may also cultivate certain play styles on a specific server, e.g. “role-play intensive”. On a server, players communicate using text chat or Voice-Over-IP technology and often organize into lasting or temporary groups, like guilds or clans, to socialize and collaborate, e.g. defeat other player groups or accomplish an in-game “quest” or “raid”, a pre-scripted adventure akin to early TRPG dungeons with monsters to kill and treasures (“loot”) to gain. Most games feature virtual economies, with players trading and selling goods with each other, an emphasis on combat and progression systems and a genre fiction backdrop (→ Chapter 16). Beginning with TinyMUD (1989), MUDs spawned subgenres of MUSH (Multi-User Shared Hallucination) and MOO (MUD, object-oriented). While MUDs focused on D&Dstyle gaming, MUSH players tended to engage more in socializing and theatric role-playing. MOOs were similarly social but also allowed players to program the environment to add new areas, objects, functionality, and more (Bartle 2003, 11). Today’s MMORPGs, arguably the most popular MORPGs in terms of audience, generally limit the impact of players on the game world: a quest may be played repeatedly by player groups, and opponents tend to reappear (“respawn”) shortly after their defeats. Lasting effects tend to limit themselves to narrowly specified areas (e.g. player homes) and player appearance. Across contemporary phenomena called MORPGs, the following features frequently reoccur: • • •

•

A group of players plays synchronously, each accessing the game through an individual computing device linked through the Internet; Players create, enact, and govern the actions of individual characters in the fictional game world; Computers run an internal model of the game rules and a persistent game world, including all NPCs, rendering representations on the players’ local interfaces, and update model and representation in response to player input; The game world is constituted by the computational model generating audiovisual representations that ground the players’ imaginations;

42  José P. Zagal and Sebastian Deterding

• • • •

• • • •

The game world is usually some form of genre fiction: fantasy, science fiction, or a mixture thereof; Players can collaborate, compete, or ignore each other as they pursue a shared enjoyable experience; Attempted character actions are limited to options made available through the game interface; The abilities of characters and the outcomes of their actions are determined by ­quantitative-probabilistic rule systems or by the player’s reflexes and abilities in inputting commands; A game is usually played over multiple sessions; Players can play open-endedly within the game world, which, additionally, usually entails multiple pre-scripted plots with clear end points; There are extensive rules for combat resolution; Player characters improve over time via systems for progression.

While MMORPGs generally offer limited player control over the game world, A Tale in the Desert (eGenesis 2003) is an interesting exception. It is a combat-less MMORPG in which players can petition and vote on laws that can globally affect player options and influence rules and laws that have lasting effects on the game. The game world cyclically begins and ends, and players have a say in changes and additions introduced to the next cycle (Drachen and Heide Smith 2008). In a sense, many ideas present in MOOs are slowly appearing in MMORPGs. Some MORPG designs and practices blur the distinctions between the real and the game world. Real-Money Trading describes the practice of players selling in-game assets, items, and characters for hard cash (Dibbell 2006). While this is often outlawed, EVE Online (CCP 2003) allows players to pay for their monthly subscription service using in-game currency, and Entropia Universe (MindArk 2003) allows the regular exchange of game and real currency (→ Chapter 16). The Augmented Reality MORPG Ingress (Niantic Labs 2012) layers its persistent game world on the real world. Players take on the role of agents who, using a mobile app, must travel to real-world locations to “attempt to ‘hack’ portals for in-game supplies. As they do this […] they gain experience points to level up through the game by gaining Action Points” (Chess 2014). Players can also create new in-game locations by submitting them for approval to the game’s creators (Chess 2014).

Box 2.7  MORPG Session Jasmine is sitting in front of her computer, playing a MORPG. As the game loads, and her character comes in to view on the screen, she notices that Sam, Rosa, and Dennis are waiting for her. They are playing an online game where they play characters who are prehistoric humans, trying to survive in a savage and slightly magical world. Jasmine enables team chat. As she does, her headset crackles to life, and she can hear what the others are saying. Dennis:  …and so I told my boss that… Oh! Hey Jasmine, glad you could make it. Jasmine:  Yeah, sorry I’m late. Ok, let’s get started. Remember we’re going to run ‘valley of the bears’. Everybody all geared up?

Definitions of “Role-Playing Games”  43

Sam:  Yeah, I think we’re good. Don’t forget about the unexpected inhabitants. Hey Dennis, do you still have the sacred animal whistle? Dennis:   [There’s noises of keyboard clicking in the background] Yeah, but I think the effect wore off. Rosa, does Tohana’s buff work with items, or is it just for animals? Rosa:  Everything, I think. You’ll need to drop the whistle though. Dennis:  Ok, give me a sec. [Suddenly, an item appears in mid-air in front of Jasmine. It falls to the ground, and when Jasmine moves her mouse over it, a small window appears with the text, “Sacred Animal Whistle”. She’s barely able to see it before the item disappears. A few seconds later, it appears in mid-air again, and this time, Dennis picks it up. Rosa’s character’s magic bar is significantly depleted.] Rosa:  Ok, ready when you are. Dennis:  Ok, team, on my mark! [As he counts down, everybody is ready to press a few keys on their keyboards, and they position their characters behind Dennis’. His character starts to gyrate, and colored lights leave his fingertips. As soon as this is done, the entire group starts to move forward together. In the distance, they notice the red outlines of four humanoid shapes, which are moving quickly towards the group. As they come in to view, everyone can see that three of them are labeled “Rockslide Warrior” and the fourth is labeled “Rockslide Shaman”. Each character also has a small green bar beneath its name.] Jasmine taps a few keys and selects her teammates. Her character begins to cast a spell, gyrating, and colored lights leave her hands. She’s playing a support role in this battle as Dennis’ character is the monsters’ main focus. Jasmine is both healing him and buffing everyone else.

Comparisons and Conclusions The empirical phenomena referred to as “role-playing games” are very heterogeneous, spanning different socio-material assemblages: joint talk and paper inscriptions (TRPGs), joint embodiment (larp), and single (CRPG) and networked (MORPG) computing devices. As socio-material platforms, these gather different communities of practice: when people say “role-playing game”, they often do so within the context of the form (CRPG, TRPG, etc.) they were socialized in or that is salient in the current context of conversation. These statements often do not generalize to other forms. Given that different designer and player communities chiefly engaged in one form, it is no wonder that their use (and thus, understanding) of the word “role-playing game” may exclude phenomena others readily call “role-playing games”. TRPG players sometimes hold that CRPGs are not “real” RPGs, while larpers call MORPGs, like World of Warcraft, MMOGs (removing role-­playing) (­Simkins 2015, 43). The need for a prefix like “tabletop” or “computer” only emerged once there were multiple forms, and people needed to refer to and distinguish them in the same conversation. With that preface, if one compares the commonly reoccurring features of phenomena clustered under the various forms, some common shared “meta”-characteristics and dimensions of divergence emerge (see Table 2.1), allowing us to formulate an analytic empirical construct: “role-playing games”.

Table 2.1  Common characteristics across RPG forms

TRPG

LARP

CRPG

MORPG

Social

Small group (ca. 2–6+)

Small to large groups (ca. 2–500+)

Single person

Spatial

Face-to-face around a table

One or more face-to-face groups in a shared space

Private space with computing device

Temporal

Synchronous play over multiple sessions, lasting hours at a time Referee determines and controls game world and enacts NPCs, players enact PCs

Synchronous play over one continuous session, lasting hours to days One or more referees determine and control game world; some players enact NPCs guided by referees, players enact PCs Participants collaborate towards a shared autotelic experience

Multiple sessions, lasting minutes to hours at a time Computer determines and controls game world, including NPCs, player enacts PC(s)

Massive population (1 mio.+), acting both alone and in temporary and lasting groups (ca. 3–40+) Individuals in private spaces with computing devices, accessing a joint mediated game world via Internet Multiple sessions, lasting minutes to hours; players may synchronize joint play

Players create, enact, and govern the actions of individual characters

Players create and enact individual characters

The player creates and governs the actions of one or more characters

Players create, enact, and govern the actions of individual characters

Joint talk, often supported by props, like character sheets, rule books, or maps, fixating on rulerelevant facts

Real physical locations and props and participants embodying characters, with varying degrees of identity or similarity with the represented entities

A computational model, generating audiovisual representations on the player’s interface that ground the player’s imagination, updating model and representation in response to player input

A computational model generating audiovisual representations on the players’ local interfaces that ground their imagination, updating model and representation in response to player input

Play situation

Role differentiation

Ethos

Participants collaborate towards a shared autotelic experience

Individual aims for an autotelic experience

Computer determines and controls game world, including NPCs, players enact PCs; some players may determine parts of the game world through pre-scripted rules and tools Individuals aim for autotelic experience in collaboration with others or at their cost (grief play)

Characters Player-Character Relation Game world Constitution

Theme

Usually genre fiction: fantasy, science fiction, horror, etc. or a genre mix

The same

The same

The same

Possible actions

Attempted character actions are limited only by the imagination of controlling players Determined by agreement, usually involving a quantitative-probabilistic rule system

Combat

Extensive rules for combat

Attempted character actions are limited to options made available through the game interface Determined by a quantitativeprobabilistic rule system in real-time play, involving the player’s reflexes and hand-eye coordination Extensive rules for combat

Attempted character actions are limited to options made available through the game interface

Action resolution

Attempted character actions are limited by the imagination and/or bodily abilities of embodying players Determined by a mixture of agreement, bodily abilities, and rules that are sometimes quantitative-probabilistic

Progression

PCs improve over time via systems for progression

PCs improve over time via systems for progression

PCs improve over time via systems for progression

Closure points

Play is open-ended, though participants usually aim for satisfying closures per session Events arise from players’ in-game goals and/or a planned plot through the design of the game world and referee steering

Play is open-ended, though players usually aim for satisfying closures per session Events are guided along pre-planned plots through the extensive scripting of the game world, with various degrees of freedom for players’ goals

Play is open-ended, though players usually aim for satisfying closures per session

Rules

Pre-scripting

Extensive rules for combat in some games In some games, PCs improve over time via systems for progression Play is usually one selfcontained session, though some connect multiple sessions The same, plus in-game goals of NPCs, partially steered by referee

Determined by a quantitative-probabilistic rule system in real-time play, involving the player’s reflexes and hand-eye coordination

Extensive rules for combat

Event sequences can emerge from players’ ingame goals; the game world usually entails multiple pre-scripted plots with clear end points players can choose to engage in

46  José P. Zagal and Sebastian Deterding

Role-playing games is a word used by multiple social groups to refer to multiple forms and styles of play activities and objects revolving around the rule-structured creation and enactment of characters in a fictional world. Players usually individually create, enact, and govern the actions of characters, defining and pursuing their own goals, with great choice in what actions they can attempt. The game world usually follows some genre fiction theme and is managed by a human referee or computer. There are often rules for character progression, tasks, and combat resolution.

Common forms of the phenomena called “role-playing games” include TRPGs, larps, CRPGs, and MORPGs. Forms differ in the structure of the play situation, the constitution and governance of the fictional world, and the form and importance of rules. Styles of RPGs usually differ in their creative agendas (Edwards 2004) – what kind of experiences they pursue. A commonly distinguished dimension is rules- and combat-heavy styles, emphasizing game-typical experiences of goal achievement and progress versus “free form” styles, light on rules and combat, emphasizing theater-like experiences of immersion in and creative expression through role enactment. We find this in the TRPG vernacular “roll-play versus role-play”, “boffer” versus “freeform” larps, MUD versus MUSH, or regular versus “role-play intensive” MORPGs. Again, this is an etic description of features prototypically occurring across the phenomena people across communities call “role-playing games” rather than natural kinds. We assume they partially overlap with people’s emic conceptions: as prototypical features, the more features that are perceived in a given phenomenon, the more likely people are to view the phenomenon as a “typical” RPG. The less of features are observed in a given phenomenon, the more likely people are to view the phenomenon as “atypical”, “borderline”, or “weird” to the point where the phenomenon is not perceived to be an RPG at all. The commonalities we find across forms are not accidental: they stem from a historical ancestry rooted in early TRPGs, specifically D&D. Both early larps and CRPGs were intentional attempts by individuals socialized in TRPGs to emulate the TRPG experience in a new ­socio-technical context and overcome some of its limitations: lacking full-body immersion in character, dependency on other players, or tedious rule bookkeeping. MORPGs, in turn, were inspired by a desire to add multiplayer play to early text-based adventure games (e.g. Zork) and borrowed many of the game elements of D&D (Mortensen 2014) to have a social D&D-like experience on a computer. The diversity of forms results from the idiosyncratic evolution of those socio-material assemblages, including their designer and player communities. Each initial form afforded and constrained role-play in different ways, but each assemblage evolved over time as designer and player communities explored possible uses and changes. This cycle of innovation and contestation breeding new conventions (leading to further innovation and contestation) led to a wide range of local and historical variety. Japanese TRPGs, for instance, historically followed ­Japanese CRPGs, which were modeled on imported “Western” CRPGs – this partially explains why they have taken such a different form compared to “Western” TRPGs. Another cause of diversity: TRPGs and larps, particularly, are less pre-scripted and mass homogenized than their CRPG and MORPG brethren. Video game hardware and software are mass-produced and mass-distributed across the globe, creating relatively homogenous material conditions for play. This contrasts with TRPGs and larps, which have arguably seen only one major brand of global homogenizing scale: D&D. The material objects of TRPGs and

Definitions of “Role-Playing Games”  47

larps – rule books, dice, paper sheets, props – likewise do not pre-script specific usages. Even when rule books and scenarios include detailed instructions, they have to be interpreted and agreed upon by the local player group. This under-determination is arguably one reason why TRPG rule books often include explanatory “What are RPGs?” sections and scripts of sample gameplay: to demonstrate the practice of playing TRPGs. It also afforded the emergence of different local larp and TRPG cultures and traditions and even different TRPG playing styles within one local culture or player group.

Summary Many definitions of “role-play” and “role-playing games” have been suggested, but there is no broad consensus. People disagree because they often have an unclear idea of what kind of phenomena they are talking about and, therefore, what kind of definition is appropriate. Existing definitions often assume games and, with them, RPGs to be a natural kind with some unchanging essence. However, because “role-playing games” is a social category created by humans, it has no unchanging, context-independent essence. Hence, if we ask for a definition of “role-playing games”, we can only refer to either how particular groups at particular points in time empirically use the word and organize actions and the material world around it or how we, as a scientific observer, choose to use the word to foreground and understand a particular perspective: viewing RPGs as a performance or as a virtual economy, etc. RPGs can be traced to a shared historical ancestor: the TRPG D&D. From there, RPGs and their communities evolved increasingly idiosyncratic forms and styles, afforded by their material under-determinations. Commonly recognized forms are TRPGs, larps, CRPGs, and MORPGs. Common styles – ideas of what experience one hopes to achieve through play – are achieving goals and making progress according to rules, acting out and immersing oneself in a role, creating an interesting story, or simulating a world. Every local community, form, or style captures only a subset of the phenomena people call “role-playing games” and carries with it some implicit or explicit normative ideas about what makes an RPG “good”. Thus, people often disagree on the definition of “role-playing games” because they are usually only familiar with and/or aesthetically prefer a subset of RPG forms, styles, and communities: “this is not a role-playing game” often means “this is not something I am familiar with calling and/or like in RPGs”. Still, across forms and styles of RPGs, some characteristics commonly reoccur: they are play activities and objects revolving around the rule-structured creation and enactment of characters in a fictional world. Players create, enact, and govern the actions of characters, defining and pursuing their own goals, with great choice in what actions they can attempt. The game world, including characters not governed by individual players, usually follows some fantastic genre fiction theme, and there are often rules for character progression and combat resolution. Forms diverge in the structure of the play situation, the constitution and governance of the fictional world, and the form and importance of rules. Play situations range from a single player and computer to small face-to-face groups to large co-located or online mediated populations that organize into smaller groups. The fictional world may be constituted through joint talk and inscriptions; physical locales, props, and player bodies; or computer models and user interfaces. It can be governed by one or more human referees or a computer. Rules may be extensive or minimal, resolving the outcome of actions by player negotiation, a model and testing of probabilities, physical abilities of players, or combinations of all three.

48  José P. Zagal and Sebastian Deterding

Given the social constitution of RPGs and the diversity of their forms and styles, we argue that it is pointless to capture an “essential nature” in a definition. Instead, as the following chapter begins to do, it is more fruitful to empirically describe this diversity and analyze it through a multitude of explicit disciplinary perspectives: not asking what something RPGs are but what we can learn when we view them as a particular something.

Acknowledgments This work was partly conducted in the Digital Creativity Labs (digitalcreativity.ac.uk), jointly funded by EPSRC/AHRC/InnovateUK under grant no. EP/M023265/1.

Notes 1 This means that it will differ across groups and change over time and that there will be disagreement within and between groups about “what ‘role-playing games’ are”. Also, any account of “role-­ playing games” participates in this circulation of actions, norms, understandings, and artifacts that constitutes them and thus changes the object observed (Hacking 1999). In the simplest case, people reading this book may have a changed idea of “role-playing games” and play, make, or talk about RPGs differently as a result. 2 This is why TRPGs are also commonly called pen-and-paper RPGs. Other common names include role-playing games, fantasy adventure games, and fantasy role-playing games.

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Part II

Forms

3 Precursors Jon Peterson

Dungeons & Dragons (1974) did not identify itself as a role-playing game, but in the year after its release, critics first applied that term as we now understand it to Dungeons & Dragons and its immediate imitators. Those games share in common a dialog-based format: players voice statements of intention for their characters to referees who, in turn, report the results of those attempted actions. As explored in → Chapter 2, this genre label ultimately extended from that tabletop conversation to several distinct forms: notably, various kinds of theatrical or martial live-action role-playing (larp) and numerous formats aided or mediated by computers. The practices captured under the umbrella of role-playing are diverse, and any search for their origins must cast a wide net. Dungeons & Dragons most directly emerged from the intersection of two key precursors: a wargaming tradition of conflict simulation games and a genre of immersive fantastic literature. In the mid-twentieth century, the two shared a partially overlapping fan base, a dynamic and creative community that persistently experimented with combining fiction and game design. In this endeavor, enthusiasts drew on contemporary innovations original to wargame and fantasy fans as well as some unearthed, or, in some cases, reinvented, practices that were centuries old. This chapter explores these precursors and parallels to the role-playing game phenomenon of the mid-1970s.

Wargaming Conflict simulation began with eighteenth-century efforts to modernize the game of chess. Since it acquired its familiar form in the sixteenth century, chess had long been regarded by the European elite as an instructive diversion for learning military command and statecraft. By the early modern era, military scientists expressed increasing dissatisfaction with the abstract and archaic trappings of chess and designed alternative rules to render its play more like the prosecution of actual battles of the time. These games expanded the board far beyond the eight-byeight confines of chess and, rather than dealing with queens, knights, or rooks, operated on the contemporary branches of European armies: infantry, cavalry, and artillery. Johann C. L. Hellwig, among other early authors, gave these improvements to chess the name of Kriegsspiel or wargame (Lewin 2012, 34–36; Peterson 2012, 212–217).

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In the early nineteenth century, decades after Hellwig first published his ideas, the R ­ eiswitz family radically transformed the wargame (Lewin 2012, 40–44; Peterson 2012, 221–231; von Hilgers 2012, 43–56). They freed the game entirely from the checkerboard in favor of topographic maps and replaced stylized game pieces with unit counters that approximated the dimensions of troop formations on the map scale. The Reiswitz game explicitly set as its objective placing a player in the position of a commander in the field: as such, it was the first wargame to approximate the experience of command in times of war. Each player received only the information a commander might expect in a real battle. Instead of moving pieces on a board, players commanded by writing orders to subordinates, just as an officer would in the field. A neutral referee (Vertraute) interpreted the orders of competing players, resolved any combats by consulting dice and tables, and reported the results in the form of written dispatches. In the Reiswitz game, players truly assumed the roles of commanders, and the referee ideally provided a convincing representation of a fictional world of war. The popularity of the Reiswitz game in the German-speaking world lasted for upwards of fifty years, during which time generations of designers periodically updated its system to reflect incessant innovations in the military sciences due to railroads, telegraphs, rifled barrels, and similar breakthroughs. After spectacular Prussian military victories in the 1860s and 1870s, many foreign commentators speculated that the wargaming tradition had given German forces an advantage. This triggered a wave of Kriegsspiel translations across Europe. The British military commissioned its own official version of the rules, but some British hobbyists developed their own interest in the game as a form of entertainment. A “Kriegspiel” club formed in ­Oxford in the 1870s, and the author Robert Louis Stevenson conceived his own simple wargame system while wintering in Davos in 1881 (Osbourne 1898; Peterson 2012, 256). Reports of these efforts ultimately informed H. G. Wells in his seminal commercial wargame, Little Wars (1913). Wargame A strategy game centered on military operations of different types. Sometimes also called ‘consims’ for conflict simulations.

Little Wars inaugurated a tradition of conflict simulation as entertainment in the English-­ speaking world. Due to various pressures, including the World Wars, no community coalesced around such games until the 1950s (Peterson 2012: 270–272). At that point, three parallel hobby wargaming traditions emerged in the United States. The first was a board wargaming tradition pioneered by Charles S. Roberts of the Avalon Hill company with his seminal game Tactics (1954). The second was a miniature wargaming tradition following closely on the work of Wells and the subsequent efforts of the British Model Soldier Society, best exemplified by Californian Jack Scruby and his magazine the War Game Digest (1957). The third was the ­“Diplomacy” tradition initiated by Alan Calhamer’s board game Diplomacy (1959), which drew on operations research literature and reached a broad audience interested in coalition-building games. Jointly, these three traditions created a niche commercial market for wargames, which grew throughout the 1960s and 1970s: a market that the original Dungeons & Dragons product would explicitly target. Much of the mid-twentieth century impetus behind these wargames came from the military: the designer of Tactics explicitly built the game to prepare himself for service in the Korean War. But at the dawn of the Cold War, nuclear warfare rendered existing tactical

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doctrines obsolete and inspired new approaches to conflict simulation: maneuvering troops became less important to national security than understanding the complex social dynamics of nuclear brinksmanship. American military scientists at RAND and elsewhere began focusing on the simulation of international relations as a multilateral process rather than warfare as a simple two-sided conflict. For this purpose, they drew heavily on the literature of the social sciences, including ideas on role-playing that ultimately descended from the therapeutic psychodramas of Jacob L. Moreno (Peterson 2012, 379; also → Chapter 13). The Inter-Nation Simulation and related work built on the social sciences to explore crisis prevention by bodies like the newly formed United Nations as an exercise in the real-time role-playing of the key decision-makers of rival and allied nations (Guetzkow et al. 1963). In this context, a Joint Chiefs of Staff exercise in multilateral political wargaming would be called a “role-playing game” as early as 1964 (Peterson 2012, 286). On the civilian side, the wargame hobby remained small throughout the 1960s but sustained numerous clubs, fanzines, and modest conventions. Famously, Gary Gygax founded the Lake Geneva Wargames Convention (Gen Con) in 1968 on behalf of his club, the International Federation of Wargaming (Laws 2007, 11). Although the first iteration of Gen Con was small, attracting less than one hundred attendees to its home in rural Wisconsin, it quickly grew into the most important gaming event in the surrounding area. At the second Gen Con in 1969, Gygax first met Twin Cities gamer Dave Arneson:the two would go on to co-author ­Dungeons & Dragons (Laws 2007, 14; Peterson 2012, 25). The creative forces unleashed by the wargaming community invented crucial components of role-playing games. Some wargames put players in the position of assuming the role of an individual character rather than administering a military force. In 1968, Mike Carr self-­ published his World War I aerial combat board wargame Fight in the Skies in which each player plays as a single pilot. Furthermore, Carr encouraged players to record detailed backstories for pilots and even to act in combat in accordance with the pilots’ natures rather than the players’. Carr would become a fixture at Gen Con and a key player in Arneson’s Twin Cities circle. Wargames also pioneered the concept of a campaign, in which a sequence of tactical game sessions all belong to a common strategic context and where the consequences of each session carry over to the next; Wells wrote in Little Wars that “a campaign was to our single game what a rubber is to a game of whist” (Wells 1913, 34). In the early 1970s, Gygax played in Arneson’s Napoleonic Simulation Campaign, which assigned continuous characters to each player: those of national rulers at the time. Their common interest in this period ultimately sparked their first collaboration: the naval miniature wargame, Don’t Give Up the Ship (1972). Diplomacy taught the wargames community the lessons of n-player coalition-building games: while it has a very simple movement and combat system, it requires phases of mandatory interaction between players to negotiate coalitions and eliminate rivals. This encouraged players to immerse themselves in the roles of political leaders and to interact “in character” with other players. Furthermore, a vibrant play-by-mail community coalesced around Diplomacy as the simple rules lent themselves to postal play; all players simultaneously sent their moves in to a single “gamesmaster,” who then revealed the results of the moves publicly. Gygax, Arneson, and others in their immediate circle were avid Diplomacy players, and numerous examples survive of their “in-character” postal Diplomacy propaganda and correspondences (Peterson 2012, 409–410). Diplomacy thus generated its own literary output and was one of several bridges between wargames and collaborative storytelling in this era.

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Participatory Stories Stories have always had the power to transport us. Our relationship to a story, as its author or its audience, can be an engrossing one, encouraging us to participate in ways that go beyond simply reading or writing. Fantastic literature exerts a special pull on the imagination: its most ardent fans strive to do more than just read stories about magical places—they want to get involved in them, to reinterpret their world through these works (Saler 2012). Intriguingly, an immersive engagement seems to be built into the very structure of fantastic stories in that many key exemplars of the genre describe persons from our “real” world somehow visiting a fantastic realm, be it Barsoom, Narnia, or Hogwarts. These tales of visitations prefigure the way that we, as mundane persons, can temporarily take on a fantastic character within the scope of a game. The experience of writing or reading is usually solitary, but some kinds of imaginary worlds admit more than just one. Among the many forms of childhood “Let’s Pretend” that provide perhaps the most fundamental precursor to role-playing (→ Chapter 13), developmental psychologists have identified a phenomenon where small groups of children share a vivid experience of a fantastic world or a “paracosm” (Silvey and Mackeith 1988). The most famous documented instances of paracosms are those of the Brontë siblings, the worlds of Angria and Gondol, which grew out of their childhood play with toy soldiers. Charlotte Brontë reported how writing about Angria in her youth so captivated her that she “saw” key characters in the narrative by day (Peterson 2012, 309). Other examples of writers who experienced paracosms in childhood include Stevenson and C. S. Lewis, key authors in the tradition of fantastic adventures. Stevenson provides the perfect prototype for the crossover fan of games and fiction who attempted to unite the two. Games can draw their setting from an existing story, and, in turn, games themselves can give rise to narratives recording their course and outcome. Given that pioneering wargame designers, such as Stevenson and Wells, were first and foremost authors of fiction, it is unsurprising that they kept journals dramatizing their wargame campaigns, effectively using the games as a way of developing stories—stories they did not solely control as ongoing conflict with their wargaming opponents steered the course of the fictional war. Their early experiments, however, remained restricted to the setting of nineteenth-century military actions rather than embracing the simulation of the impossible. It was not until the late 1950s that the principles of simulation began to be applied to fantastic literary settings through a number of experiments in the United States and United Kingdom. At the time, most genre fantasy literature existed in the form of pulp magazines and hardcovers with very limited print runs and was known only to dedicated fans. It was not until the later, monumental popularity of J. R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, following the cheap pirate editions that appeared in the United States, that sword-and-sorcery mainstays like Robert E. Howard, Fritz Leiber, Jack Vance, Poul Anderson, and Michael Moorcock reached a mass audience. Tony Bath, in the United Kingdom, was a member of the British Model Soldier Society and one of the original subscribers to Scruby’s War Game Digest. He also struggled to import ­A merican fantasy fiction to Britain. In 1957, he began using the world of Howard’s Conan stories as the basis for his famous Hyborian campaign, assigning to his players the parts of rulers over the fictitious Hyborian nations (Peterson 2012, 425). Bath publicized the activities of ­Hyboria in wargaming fanzines, creating an ongoing narrative that demonstrated how a work

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of fiction could provide a context and motivating storyline for a series of wargames and how the games themselves generate their own history. Records also survive of Bath’s experimentations with a fantastic world of “Tolkia” around the same time. Organized science fiction fandom, which had become a force in the United States in the 1930s, developed its own unique inroads to participatory stories outside of wargames. The tradition of the “Masquerade”, where fans dressed as characters from genre fiction stories at convention competitions, encouraged fans to act in the personae of characters. Fan clubs such as the Hyborian Legion and the Knights of St. Fantony adopted titles and costumes appropriate to their beloved subject matter. The “Coventry” phenomenon of Los Angeles fans in the late 1950s took things a step further with a shared literary narrative interspersed with improvised live-action sessions (Peterson 2012, 391–400). Coventry began as something like a paracosm from the childhood of local fan Paul Stanbery but evolved into a roman á clef of local fandom, a story that reimagined local fans in the far future. The initial authors of the Coventry stories discovered that many of their subjects wanted to take responsibility for their own characters and write their own portions of the tale. This ultimately led to in-character meetings, where players wore costumes of their characters, and even some work towards a game system for deciding conflict—though interpersonal problems doomed the effort. Because the participants in Coventry went on to become early adopters and interpreters of Dungeons & Dragons, we should in hindsight see these improvisational activities as a crucial precursor to larp games. But long before Dungeons & Dragons, the core participants in Coventry became innovators in the development of collaborative stories, both in writing and through improvisational performance. Ted Johnstone wrote the first piece of postal Diplomacy propaganda in 1963. Notably, many of the participants in Coventry went on to be early members of the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA) (Peterson 2012, 418). Founded in 1966 by Bay Area fantasy fans, the SCA proposed a recreation of the medieval period “as it should have been,” a time of chivalry, magic, and pageantry. Participants in the SCA adopted the roles of courtly persons in medieval times, crafting any necessary arms or attire to support their characters. Knights made weapons and armor and competed in tournaments for the honor of serving as the king of a particular region of the SCA; the Bay Area, for example, was the “Kingdom of the Mists.” They were inspired by the famous Eglington tournament of the Victorian era, an attempt to recreate a medieval joust of the sort familiar from the works of Walter Scott and other authors—­though the California tradition of the Renaissance Pleasure Faire, which had existed since 1963, surely provided a more direct inspiration (Bowman 2010, 28). All of these activities fall into a pattern of improvisation in the context of pageants with many historical precedents (Stark 2012, 31–36). Interest in the medieval setting, in particular, began to spill over from Tolkien fans into the wargaming community around the same time that the SCA was founded. Although Bath, under the influence of the film Ivanhoe, had issued a seminal set of medieval miniature wargaming rules as far back as 1956 (Peterson 2012, 292), few wargamers in the United States expressed interest in this period before Gygax organized the Castle & Crusade Society (C&CS) early in 1970 (Peterson 2012, 27). Unsurprisingly, there was considerable overlap in the membership of that wargaming group and the SCA. Through its newsletter, the Domesday Book, the C&CS shared medieval game rules and began to specify a shared fantastic medieval world called the Great Kingdom. While most of its core leadership resided in Gygax’s home town of Lake ­Geneva, Wisconsin, it attracted several members from the Twin Cities of Minnesota.

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Gamers in the Twin Cities had a long tradition of experimentation and innovation but also an interest in rediscovering lost techniques: Dave Wesely there endeavored to revive interest in a late nineteenth-century wargame: Totten’s Strategos. Within Strategos, Wesely rediscovered the long-forgotten notion of a dialog-dominated wargame and, in particular, the principle that “anything can be attempted” (Totten 1880, 105): players may verbally propose that they take any action in the game that a person in the game’s situation might reasonably undertake, and it is the responsibility of the referee to interpret these proposals and report the results of such attempts. This proved a crucial catalyst in the evolution of role-playing games as it transformed the game from a series of moves on a board to a string of utterances contributed by participating parties. Wesely made this the guiding principle of a series of games he ran. The first “Braunstein” scenario was run in the late 1960s, and several players adopted civilian characters in the fictional town of Braunstein. Thus, it quickly departed from the principles of a traditional wargame and ventured into the realms of performance and collaborative storytelling (Peterson 2012, 61–62).

The Rise of Role-Playing Dave Arneson was both a veteran of Braunstein and also an early member of the Castle & Crusade Society, one who strongly engaged with the Great Kingdom that Gygax described in the pages of the Domesday Book. After circulating medieval wargaming rules to the ­Society in its pages, Gygax and Jeff Perren published Chainmail (1971), which featured a Fantasy ­Supplement explicitly promising to enable wargames “to refight the epic struggles related by J.R.R. ­Tolkien, Robert E. Howard, and other fantasy writers” (Gygax and Perren 1971, 33). Chainmail further incorporated concepts from the fantasy fiction of Moorcock and Anderson, including the “line-up” of fantastic creatures onto the sides of Law and Chaos (47). But it only connected to those literary sources in so far as it offered a system to wage battle, not to craft collaborative stories. The Chainmail rules were received enthusiastically by the Twin Cities circle. Almost immediately, Arneson put the rules to work in a game that became the most significant precursor to Dungeons & Dragons: his Blackmoor campaign, which he, in turn, modeled on the principles of Wesely’s Braunstein. After a year or so of Blackmoor, Arneson invented the notion of a dungeon adventure, allowing players to explore an underground space to defeat monsters and acquire treasure (Arneson 1972). He documented the state of Blackmoor that summer for the thirteenth and final issue of the Domesday Book and not long thereafter visited Gygax to demonstrate his ideas (Peterson 2012, 71). Gygax was then inspired to collaborate with ­A rneson on a set of rules: Dungeons & Dragons. Their efforts should not be considered in isolation from the context of the time: the idea of combining the simulation principles of wargaming with the fantastic setting had, by this point, come into its own. In 1972, experiments with the Midgard fantastic medieval setting allowed players to take the part of characters in a vast, consensual, play-by-mail world where the verbal exchange took place in writing (Peterson 2012, 441). Bath continued his own experimentation in the United Kingdom, leading chaotic single-day events, pitting characters from famous works of fantasy fiction against one another in epic, open-ended quests. Tolkien fans published rules for a live-action version of Frodo’s quest, the Live Ring Game, in 1973 (Hill 1973). Early computer hobbyists had already begun to produce their own games, which put the player in the place of a hero navigating a subterranean labyrinth in order to slay a monster: notably, the

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1973 proto-text adventure Hunt the Wumpus (Yob 1975). And the term “role-playing game” crept back into the idiom of Diplomacy players in 1973, where it lay in wait for the birth of a new genre (Peterson 2012, 456–457). Dungeons & Dragons instantiated these diverse elements in a way that was nothing short of transformative. Role-playing games created a novel and extraordinary connection between players and characters that made fans see both parallel and prior activities in a new light. Because its rules were so adaptable, Dungeons & Dragons sparked a wave of creativity as early adopters reconfigured the game for new purposes: this quickly enabled some parallel activities to merge into role-playing games, and, indeed, many long-standing activities would be infused with role-playing elements and reclassified as role-playing games once that genre label became widely accepted.

Summary We have examined a variety of practices and communities that served as the context in which Dungeons & Dragons was created. The two main ones are (1) the tradition of conflict simulation that led to three distinct wargaming traditions: board wargames, miniature wargames, and coalition-building games, such as Diplomacy; and (2) immersive fantastic literature. In the decades preceding the publication of Dungeons & Dragons, multiple communities in the United States and the United Kingdom experimented with activities and practices that we now recognize as role-play. These activities include fans dressing up and acting as characters from fantasy and sci-fi novels; wargamers experimenting with games in which players verbally propose anything they feel is reasonable; and the use of genre fiction as the basis for wargame campaigns, with narrativized descriptions of how they evolved. As a game, Dungeons & Dragons instantiated a diversity of practices in a way that had not been done previously while simultaneously enabling a surge in creative adaptations and reconfigurations, going forward.

Further Reading Peterson, Jon. 2012. Playing at the World: A History of Simulating Wars, People, and Fantastic Adventures from Chess to Role-playing Games. San Diego, CA: Unreason Press. von Hilgers, Philipp and Benjamin Ross. 2012. War Games: A History of War on Paper. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

References Arneson, David L. 1972. “Facts about Black Moor.” Domesday Book 13 ( July): 6–7. Bowman, Sarah Lynne. 2010. The Functions of Role-Playing Games: How Participants Create Community, Solve Problems, and Explore Identity. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, Inc. Guetzkow, Harold, et al. 1963. Simulation in International Relations. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Gygax, Gary, and Dave Arneson. 1974. Dungeons & Dragons. Lake Geneva, WI: TSR, Inc. Gygax, Gary, and Jeff Perren. 1971. Chainmail. Evansville, IN: Guidon Games. Hill, Wendell L. 1973. “Rules for The Live Ring Game.” Accessed September 3, 2015. www.ringgame. net/LiveRG1973/liveringgame0001.jpg. Laws, Robin D. 2007. 40 Years of Gen Con. Edited by Michelle Nephew. Atlas Games, Saint Paul MN. Lewin, C. G. 2012. War Games and Their History. Stroud, UK: Fonthill Media. Osbourne, Lloyd 1898. “Stevenson at Play.” Scribner’s Magazine 24 (December): 709–719.

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Peterson, Jon. 2012. Playing at the World: A History of Simulating Wars, People, and Fantastic Adventures from Chess to Role-playing Games. San Diego, CA: Unreason Press. Saler, Michael. 2012. As If: Modern Enchantment and the Literary Prehistory of Virtual Reality. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Silvey, Robert, and Stephen MacKeith. 1988. “The Paracosm: A Special Form of Fantasy.” In Organizing Early Experience: Imagination and Cognition in Childhood, edited by Delmont C. Morrison, 173–197. Amityville, NY: Baywood. Stark, Lizzie. 2012. Leaving Mundania. Chicago, IL: Chicago Review Press. Totten, Charles A. L. 1880. Strategos: A Series of American Games of War Based Upon Military Principles. Vol. 1. New York: D. Appleton and Co. von Hilgers, Philipp. 2012. War Games: A History of War on Paper. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Wells, H. G. 1913. Little Wars: A Game for Boys from Twelve Years of Age to One Hundred and Fifty. Project Gutenberg. Accessed September 9, 2015. www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3691. Yob, Gregory. 1975. “Hunt the Wumpus.” Creative Computing. Vol. 1, No. 5. Morristown, NJ: Ideametrics.

4 Tabletop Role-Playing Games William J. White, Jonne Arjoranta, Michael Hitchens, Jon Peterson, Evan Torner, and Jonathan Walton

This chapter discusses tabletop role-playing games (TRPGs), sometimes also called “pen-andpaper” role-playing games (RPGs) to distinguish them from their compatriot media, primarily the computer RPG (CRPG) and the live action RPG (larp). Once some preliminary matters of definition and description are taken care of, the discussion in this chapter proceeds largely along historical lines, presenting TRPGs as (1) originating in the early 1970s with the publication of Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) and its early offshoots, imitators, and derivations and (2) developing in variety through the 1980s and 1990s as designers sought to emulate different fictional settings and genres and explore various game-mechanical approaches before (3) experiencing a period of “mainstream” consolidation and countervailing “indie” experimentation in the first years of the 21st century. It concludes with an attempt to discern the direction of future developments as the arrival of crowdfunding, print-on-demand (POD), and other Internet-­enabled publishing tools change the face of the industry. The historical arc traced here draws in large measure upon two recent histories of the origins of TRPGs: Jon Peterson’s Playing at the World (Peterson, 2012) and Shannon Appelcline’s multi-volume Designers and Dragons (Appelcline, 2013). Peterson describes the precursors to and influences upon the development of D&D as well as the early history of the game itself (→ Chapter 3), while Appelcline details the fortunes of the myriad TRPG publishers that emerged, decade by decade, in the wake of D&D’s publication. These works provide detailed overviews of the history of RPG publishing, extending earlier, briefer accounts but, in large measure, confirming their outlines. Erik Mona, for example, alludes to the origins of D&D as an offshoot of the miniatures wargaming hobby (Mona, 2007), but Peterson’s account shows how the social networks of U.S. wargamers, extant in the late 1960s and early 1970s, were instrumental in facilitating the creation and dissemination of RPGs in their infancy, and Appelcline describes how the wargaming culture affected the reception of D&D as a set of rules. Similarly, Michael J. Tresca connects the original popularity of fantasy role-playing to a pop-cultural desire to appreciate the work of J.R.R. Tolkien (Tresca, 2011), while Peterson traces the origins of specific D&D rules and terms to their sources in 20th-century fantasy and science fiction. Both Appelcline and Peterson describe some of the legal ramifications and rhetorical strategies surrounding D&D’s use of Tolkien-derived material, which, for the most

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part, were resolved by changing the names of the infringing items so that “hobbits” became “halflings” and “ents” became “treants.” Our presentation of TRPGs as a coherent form relies to a large extent on their character as ergodic texts (Aarseth, 1997) that must be played or performed to be truly “read.” This performativity underscores the complexity and interactivity of the audience/author relationship by blurring the distinction between the two and establishing multiple circuits of textual production and interpretation. In other words, the enacted performance of TRPG play at the table is a kind of tertiary authorship that emerges in conjunction with the secondary authorship of the game master (GM) as story-builder or scenario writer who mediates the primary authorship of the game designer as worldbuilder and rules-maker (Hammer, 2007; see also Cover, 2010). It goes without saying that the author at each successive stage is the audience of the prior one. In practice, this neat scheme is more complicated because individuals can occupy multiple roles within the overall process—for example, a GM acting as designer by devising “house rules” (alterations or extensions of “official” rules from a published rule book) and home-brewed setting or a game designer filling the preparation part of the GM role (versus the GM’s role as presenter, moderator, and referee) by writing “modules” or pre-packaged adventures for commercial sale.

Defining the Form We now expand upon the introductory material in Chapter 2, which identifies the basic elements of a TRPG and discusses how such games are played.

Dungeons & Dragons as Prototype Gary Alan Fine’s seminal ethnography of TRPG players (Fine, 1983) adopted a broad understanding of fantasy role-playing that had appeared in an early gaming magazine. It defined an RPG as “any game which allows a number of players to assume imaginary characters and operate with some degree of freedom in an imaginary environment” (Lortz, 1979, p. 36, quoted in Fine 1983, p. 6), notably including science fiction and other genre-based settings. This definition is sufficiently broad as to encompass later variations, such as larp, CRPGs, and massively-­multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs), but the groups that Fine observed and played with were exclusively tabletop gamers. D&D (TSR, 1974) as described by Fine is the prototypical example of a TRPG: an ongoing wargame-derived adventure game set in a fantasy world devised by a single GM (albeit usually as a pastiche derived from sources, including genre fiction, medieval history, and pop culture-inflected mythology) within which a more or less stable group of other players each take the role of a single player character (PC) who is a companion in an adventuring group. Together, the group or “party” explores some aspect of the setting prepared by the GM (usually a “dungeon” or underground labyrinth) wherein they encounter adversaries and overcome them and take their treasure. The prototypical game presumes a continuing campaign (the term is derived from miniatures wargaming), taking place across multiple instances or sessions of play, each encompassing several hours of real time. Over the course of a campaign, characters gain experience and “level up” or improve in terms of game-mechanical effectiveness, enabling them to overcome greater or more consequential in-game challenges.

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Adventure A play scenario enacted as a sequence of in-game events in a TRPG that, in retrospect, can be said to comprise a narrative arc or plot trajectory, with a beginning, middle, and end. In its simplest form, this consists of a hook (a reason for the PCs to get involved or take action, such as finding a treasure map or being hired by a patron), in-play development (e.g. the exploration of a dungeon and identification of its important features, puzzles, or dangers or interaction with key non-player characters (NPCs) to gather information and exert influence), climax (e.g. a showdown fight with a major villain or the solution of a central mystery or problem), and aftermath (e.g. gathering treasure and returning to town or being rewarded or betrayed by a patron). Dungeon A maze-like underground labyrinth or otherwise self-contained setting for TRPG play, such as a crypt, cavern, or castle ruin, said to be “stocked” with in-game opponents (monsters), obstacles (traps), and rewards (treasure). Wilderness An outdoor or overland adventure setting typically defined by the probability of randomly encountering different numbers and types of monsters, although certain locations within the wilderness may be “keyed” to specific encounters or situations. To the extent that a wilderness setting is less structured than a dungeon, whose corridors tend to channel PC choices along pre-determined paths, it lends itself to “sandbox” play, in which PC choice is less constrained.

Even within this basic format, there is room for variation in terms of the direction and focus of play, with some groups interested in facing adventurous challenges, while others are invested in exploring the fictional game setting. Fine provides the example of two groups participating in M.A.R. Barker’s well-known early D&D variant Empire of the Petal Throne (TSR, 1975) campaign, one of which was said to “follow the game much more as a game,” while the other wanted “to know how it really is on [Barker’s game-world of ] Tekumel” (Fine, 1983, p. 145). However, it is not always easy to reconcile the play preferences of even small groups of players. People play TRPGs for different reasons, and observers of RPG play have made numerous attempts to categorize the different types or styles of players (e.g., Blacow, 1980; Laws, 2001). One approach that tries to show how different play preferences shape the way TRPGs are played is the “Big Model” (Edwards, 2004), developed by an online TRPG design community known as the Forge out of earlier discussions on Usenet and elsewhere (→ Chapter 10). According to the Big Model, TRPG play groups are oriented toward fulfilling different “Creative Agendas” (CA). These agendas may be more or less well served by the game system or techniques of play employed by the play group; to the extent that individual preferences are not well served, unsatisfying or even “dysfunctional” play can result.

Playing the Game Regardless of the presence or absence of adjuncts, such as miniature figurines to represent characters, a TRPG session takes place as a conversation among players and the GM (for an example, → Chapter 2; for more detailed analyses, see Hendricks, 2006 or White, 2009), the point of which is to (a) establish particular events, occurrences, or circumstances as true within the fiction, (b) settle disputes or disagreements about those events, and (c) maintain a shared understanding among participants about the facts of the game-world.

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Setting The fictional background against which the adventures of the PCs are set or the world in which the game takes place (Fine, 1983, p. 76). Settings may be “home-brewed” (i.e. created by the GM for personal use; a more or less “original” creation although almost certainly incorporating elements of favored historical, popular culture, or literary productions) or commercial (i.e. purchased as a published product for incorporation into play). System The procedures by which elements in the fiction are introduced, modified, changed, or removed. These include strictly game-mechanical procedures, such as combat rules and character generation processes, as well as implicit procedures for scenario or adventure design and worldbuilding. More broadly, it can be taken to mean the broader set of behavioral norms and performative conventions that guide participation in the game, which will vary by play group.

Any given game is more or less completely described qua game by its setting and system, with setting understood to refer to the fictional background of the game and system referring to the particular rules set that it employs. System is typically used to mean the mechanisms through which in-game actions by characters are “resolved,” that is, said to have been initiated, been undertaken, and produced results. In his game Everway (Wizards of the Coast, 1995), Jonathan Tweet identified three ways of handling in-game action, which he labeled Drama, Fortune, and Karma, which resemble three of Roger Caillois’s (1961) four modes of play; i.e. mimesis (make-believe), alea (chance), and agon (competition)—the fourth, called ilinx or vertigo, is sometimes said to “clearly fall outside the boundaries of games” (Salen and Zimmerman, 2004, p. 308).

Box 4.1  Everway’s Handling of In-Game Action Drama Resolution: Any game-mechanical procedure that produces outcomes by assigning a player (usually the GM) the responsibility of deciding what is most appropriate given the needs of the narrative and the conventions of the literary or other genre the game seeks to emulate. This is similar to Caillois’s mimesis or pretense play. Fortune Resolution: Any game-mechanical procedure that produces outcomes by some chance method, such as die-rolling, card play, or using a roulette wheel (as one indie TRPG did in the 2000s). This is similar to Caillois’s alea or luck-based play. Karma Resolution: Any game-mechanical procedure that produces outcomes by comparing relevant character attributes and assigning success to the character with the highest or best score; e.g. prescribing that a character with a particular Strength score will always win at arm wrestling against anyone with a lower Strength score. This is similar to Caillois’s agon, a competitive mode of play. (As described in Tweet’s Everway (Wizards of the Coast, 1995) (→ Chapter 10).)

Ron Edwards (1999) argues that resolution methods are typically deployed in the service of one of three outlooks or perspectives on play. A gamist game is oriented toward generating satisfying competition in which a player may hope to win. A narrativist game is aimed at producing a “good story” via the players’ participation in it (rather than through merely recounting a

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pre-authored tale). A simulationist game seeks to satisfyingly reconstruct or model the dynamics of a particular historical, literary, or genre setting. These perspectives do not map onto resolution methods on a one-for-one basis, Edwards says; rather, any resolution method may be made more or less appropriate for a given perspective, depending on its specific implementation.

Box 4.2  Creative Agenda From the Big Model Gamism (Step on Up): A preference for games that reward a competitive or agonistic attitude toward play, in which there are clear winners and losers and in which victory and defeat are associated with player skill, ability, or tenacity. Narrativism (Story Now): A preference for games that produce moral statements, aesthetic propositions, or other value judgments through the process of play in the manner of fiction. Simulationism (The Right to Dream): A preference for games that permit the exploration of a particular historical, literary, or other setting via an internally consistent method of emulating its dynamics. (Creative Agenda From the Big Model, per Edwards (2004) (→ Chapter 10))

Perhaps because any given set of rules can only imperfectly anticipate the variety of player preferences it must accommodate and in-game situations it must satisfyingly resolve, the tendency of play groups to modify or “drift” the published rules by creating house rules applicable to a specific campaign or enacted by a specific GM is well known among gamers. Despite the assumption that the GM is “omnipotent” and “in control” of the game (Fine, 1983, pp. 72–73), this tendency is, to some degree, counteracted by the publication of supplemental game materials, including adventure modules and sourcebooks that provide additional setting details, introduce new game rules and game-mechanical elaborations, and possibly advance a canonical setting’s metaplot. Metaplot An overarching narrative line established as part of the canonical setting for a commercially published game, revealed either in the main rule book or as part of supplemental game texts or sourcebooks. Cf. House System. Module A self-contained adventure published for commercial sale. It may be set in a specific game-world (i.e. a “commercial setting”) or be intended to be adaptable to a wide variety of “generic” game settings.

As Daniel Mackay (2001) observes, a TRPG’s system and setting are embedded within a larger set of frames of reference that simultaneously constitute play as a social experience inhabited by persons, a game conducted by players, and a (shared) narrative related by raconteurs (storytellers) as well as a performance enacted by characters and a world described by addressers (speakers). Frame analysis, as described by Erving Goffman (1974), has offered a powerful analytical tool for making sense of the shifting patterns of interaction at the gaming table. Understanding TRPG play as involving a skillful performance within the multiple frames available to players

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can produce interesting insights about games, play, and identity, particularly about the ways in which tabletop gamers negotiate the boundaries of and discontinuities among different frames (Waskul and Lust 2004; Waskul 2006). With this basic understanding of the structure of TRPG play in place, we turn now to an account of the history of tabletop games.

The Origins of Tabletop RPGs The release of Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson’s D&D early in 1974 marks the beginning of the era of RPGs. But the original D&D booklets did not describe themselves as an RPG, instead invoking the cumbersome construction “Rules for Fantastic Medieval Wargames Campaigns, Playable with Pen and Pencil and Miniature Figures.” Only gradually did the world discover that D&D, as it was commonly played, was more than just a wargame and that its innovations would inspire an entire industry that spans many genres and media.

The Emergence of Dungeons & Dragons The first adopters of D&D (TSR, 1974) were largely wargamers and members of organized science fiction fandom. Tactical Studies Rules (TSR), the publisher of D&D, could initially afford to print only one thousand copies of the game to be sold by mail order, and almost all of its promotion targeted the wargaming community via fanzines and conventions. In the Twin Cities of Minnesota, overlap between the local wargamer and science fiction communities led to D&D’s quickly breaking out of the confines of the traditional gamer circles (Peterson, 2012, pp. 459–494). Within the first year of its existence, D&D had inspired fans to experiment with altering and expanding its rules. The last page of the original booklets invited this community participation, welcoming fans to “write to us and tell about your additions, ideas, and what have you.” Both wargaming and science fiction fandoms had a long tradition of open collaboration, and the fanzines of the era record many attempts to add to the taxonomies of monsters, class, spells, and treasures in D&D. For example, the idea for a Thief class originated with Los Angeles area fans who telephoned Gygax in the spring of 1974 to describe their idea; Gygax then wrote up a system description, which he first informally circulated through fanzines, then played at the summer Gen Con and later made an official game system (Peterson, 2012, pp. 469–471).

Early Adopters and Early Adapters Only months after the game appeared, some fans had already decided to reapply the core principles of D&D to entirely new games although not initially for commercial purposes. Barker had played D&D with university students in Minneapolis, which led him to adapt its rules to the setting of Tekumél, an imaginary world he had previously explored as a fiction author. The resulting game, Empire of the Petal Throne, circulated in draft form in the summer of 1974; it is notable for detailing a concrete setting and scenario for play, where D&D left the nature of the world entirely to the discretion of the referee (Peterson, 2012, pp. 518–522; see also Fine, 1983, pp. 123–152). Outside of the Midwest, the game faced significant obstacles to adoption. The rules were notoriously disorganized and incomplete, and some early reviewers were simply unable to

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decipher them. The 1974 Gen Con, a convention held in TSR’s home town of Lake Geneva, gave 350 gamers from around the country the opportunity to learn the game firsthand from its designers and playtesters, to participate in tournaments, and to bring back their knowledge of the game to their local groups. This kindled wider interest in D&D through various small pockets around the U.S., many of which began their own campaigns and fanzines (Peterson, 2012, pp. 474–482). For the first year of its existence, the spread of D&D remained essentially confined to North America. By mid-1975, some gamers in the U.K. began to adopt it. Most notably, Ian Livingstone and Steve Jackson (one of two men with that name in the gaming business; the other established the eponymous Texas-based company) became fans of the game and distributed it locally via their company Games Workshop, promoting it through their magazine Owl & Weasel (Appelcline, 2014). Gygax began contributing material to Walter Luc Haas’s fanzine Europa, which, in turn, became the de facto distributor for D&D on the continent (Peterson, 2012, pp. 500–502). It would also be in 1975 that D&D’s first close imitators began to appear in the marketplace. By June, Ken St. Andre of Arizona began selling his Tunnels & Trolls (Flying Buffalo, 1975) to fans at West Coast conventions. Though nominally an independent product, the first iteration of Tunnels & Trolls was brief and highly dependent on knowledge of D&D (Peterson, 2012, pp. 514–518; see also Appelcline, 2014). D&D grew so popular that wargaming projects began to take on some of its characteristics. For example, En Garde (GDW, 1975) took a simulation of Renaissance-era man-toman combat and appended to it some character-building elements reminiscent of the personal progression of D&D. The board game Magic Realm (Avalon Hill, 1979), published by a leading wargame company of the period, attempted to systematically represent the activities undertaken by adventurers in fantasy RPGs, including “hiking, hiding and searching, fatigue, wounds, rest, trade, hiring natives, and combat” (Board Game Geek, n.d.), with a game board of giant reversible hexagons and hundreds of cardboard counters and chits. It was only after reviewers began to see several games in the marketplace inspired by the character-driven nature of D&D that the term “role-playing” gained currency as the core element these games had in common. Richard Berg’s reviews in Moves—the house organ of wargames publisher SPI, Inc.—in the fall of 1975 widely popularized the term; only later did it begin to appear in TSR’s own product literature (Peterson, 2012, p. 534) as it produced a number of supplements and expansions that met the demand expressed by fans for additional game material.

The Second Generation Three years after its initial publication, the original rules to D&D had been augmented and amended by a raft of additional material, which TSR had made little effort to integrate into a coherent system. This became a source of increasing consternation to players, who repeatedly called for TSR to address the problem or, alternatively, to grant fans permission to reorganize and edit the game themselves (Peterson, 2012, pp. 578–579). Moreover, the market began to demonstrate the advantages of consolidating and unifying RPG systems. Chivalry & Sorcery (C&S; Fantasy Games Unlimited, 1977) serves as perhaps the best example of this drive to make the system precise and explicit: its dense rule book abounded with charts, covering a wide variety of circumstances neglected by D&D. With this

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system, however, came an increasing burden of complexity that ultimately rendered the game less playable (Fine, 1983). The Arduin Grimoire came out of the same Bay Area group that produced the Perrin Conventions, premiering at the second instance of DunDraCon, a West Coast gaming convention (Peterson, 2012, pp. 576–577). Compared to previous unofficial supplements, its one hundred pages contained new material and also proposed fundamental changes to the base system. Moreover, the Arduin Grimoire did not stop at being a single stand-alone booklet; before the end of the year, the author was busily cobbling together a second volume, which would be followed shortly thereafter by a third. The Perrin Conventions An early D&D variant that streamlined and clarified procedures for conducting combat while also making it less abstract, created and popularized by communities of play in California.

Ultimately, the industry’s efforts to capture a deeper level of simulation of fantastic adventures led to a complete revision of the original D&D product. In 1977, TSR split D&D into two parallel tracks: a “Basic” version of the game, edited by Eric Holmes, and an “Advanced” version, developed under Gygax’s direct supervision. The Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set appeared in a boxed set in 1977 as a simplified introduction to the game that only guided characters through the first three levels of play; the packaging of the Basic Set positioned it for sale in traditional retail venues, like booksellers and department stores. Advanced Dungeon & Dragons would come out in installments over the next three years, dwarfing the word counts of C&S and prior efforts with its increasingly rich system (Peterson, 2012, pp. 579–581). The publication of the Dungeons Masters Guide [sic] coincided with the 1979 Gen Con game exhibition and completed the core trilogy of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (AD&D) manuals (together with the 1977 Monster Manual and 1978 Player’s Handbook). Roughly simultaneously with its publication, the disappearance of a young college student named James Dallas Egbert III set off a wave of media coverage of the game D&D (→ Chapter 19 as well as Laycock, 2015, pp. 81–84). The publicity for RPGs this prompted sparked a huge increase in sales and marks the beginning of the D&D fad (Peterson, 2012, pp. 597–599). From revenues short of $1 m ­ illion in 1978, TSR went to revenues over $20 million in 1982 (Peterson, 2012, pp. ­600–601). Over those years, RPGs truly became their own industry.

The Next Wave: Differentiation and Counter-Movements This section describes the emergence of variant and alternative forms of TRPG as game designers, game masters, and players began to explore the possibilities of the form. It uses examples from the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s to illustrate the ramifying design philosophies.

D&D and TRPG Variants as Alternative Design Philosophies By the end of the 1970s, TRPG designers had already begun to move beyond the “dungeon crawl” that was the original mode of fantasy gaming by seeking to emulate other fictional genres and settings. Even TSR, Inc., the publisher of D&D, had published games set in the Wild West (Boot Hill, 1975), a rudderless interstellar spaceship (Metamorphosis Alpha, 1976),

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and a post-apocalyptic wasteland (Gamma World, 1978). One publisher had produced a cops and robbers game set in the 1920s called Gangster (FGU, 1979) as well as a superhero RPG, Jeff Dee’s Villains and Vigilantes (V&V; FGU, 1979). V&V had been anticipated by an earlier superhero game called Superhero 2044 (Lou Zocchi, 1977). Other FGU games let players be feudal Japanese samurai (Bushido, 1980), post-apocalyptic marauders (Aftermath, 1981), pulp-era adventurers (Daredevil, 1982), 17th-century French swashbucklers (Flashing Blades, 1984), and even adventurous hares in a game inspired by Watership Down (Bunnies & Burrows, 1976). A number of “open world” or generic science fiction games had been published or would shortly see print by the end of the 1970s; the most well known of these was GDW’s Traveller by Marc Miller (GDW, 1977), which focused on “interplanetary exploration,” and by allowing players to control planets or spaceships, gave them “more authority than in other games” (Fine, 1983, p. 20). Traveller eventually generated its own elaborate canonical future history describing the rise and fall of the interstellar Third Imperium and was frequently licensed to other publishers for translation into other game systems (Appelcline, 2015). Even within the genre of fantasy role-playing per se, variant approaches were being explored. Jon Freeman’s well-informed Winner’s Guide to Board Games could list four games as “alternatives to D&D” for those seeking adventure in quasi-medieval fantasy settings: flying Buffalo’s Tunnels & Trolls by Ken St. Andre (1975); Metagaming’s Melee (1977), in combination with its companion game Wizard (1978) by Jackson (who would later use the design ideas pioneered in these “The Fantasy Trip” games to construct his “generic universal role-playing system” GURPS); Chaosium’s Runequest (1978) by Steve Perrin (which drew inspiration from imagery from the Bronze and Iron Ages); and Fantasy Games Unlimited’s C&S (1975) by Ed Simbalist and Will Backhaus (Freeman, 1979). Universal System A rules set intended to be adapted by individual play groups for any of a variety of possible settings with different fictional trappings, including time period, technology levels, and degree of incorporation of supernatural elements, such as magic, psychic powers, and monstrous beings; e.g. Generic Universal Role-Playing System (Steve Jackson Games), Hero System (Hero Games). House System A rules set or game “engine” developed by a game company to be used with slight variations across its different products; e.g. Basic Role-Playing (Chaosium) in Call of Cthulhu, Pendragon, and Runequest; and, more recently, the Gumshoe system (Pelgrane Press) in Trail of Cthulhu, Esoterrorists, Ashen Stars, and others. Setting-Specific System A “bespoke” rules set created to represent a specific fictional setting or historical time period without much thought to its portability to other settings; e.g. Puppetland (Hogshead Ltd.), Dogs in the Vineyard (Lumpley Games).

These alternatives illustrate the range of different design philosophies that shaped game designers’ efforts to “improve” D&D in the period immediately following its publication. Both T&T and Melee/Wizard were efforts to craft less complicated rules systems, emphasizing simplicity, playability, and accessibility; Flying Buffalo went so far as to offer adventure scenarios for T&T capable of being played solitaire in the eventuality that a player was unable to find others with whom to game. Runequest, like Barker’s earlier D&D variant Empire of the Petal Throne (TSR, 1975), focused on adventuring in a game-world that was clearly distinct from the sort-of-Europe with magic and monsters of other games, with an original fantasy background

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evocative of Bronze Age migrations and Iron Age empires. Runequest was also notable for eschewing D&D’s system of “character classes” (e.g. fighter, magic-user, cleric, thief ) and experience levels in favor of a more granular skill system that allowed characters to be wellrounded generalists or highly focused specialists, based on how a player distributed available skill points. Additionally, it self-consciously incorporated setting design into its game mechanics, particularly in character creation. C&S went in the opposite direction from T&T, a product of its designers’ dissatisfaction with the lack of medieval verisimilitude in D&D (White, 2013). Dungeon-Crawling  A mode of RPG play involving the exploration of a site, such as a catacomb, tunnel complex, or ruined fortress, stipulated to exist within a larger gameworld. The site’s specific features and denizens are initially unknown to the PCs who venture inside with the goal of defeating its guardians and obtaining any treasure contained within.

In general, the quest for alternatives to D&D was oriented toward seeking out alternative mechanics, meaning different ways of representing the imaginary actions or imagined abilities of fictional characters, or alternative settings, whether in the form of more richly imagined non-­ European game-worlds or as greater fidelity to the ostensibly medieval backdrop of D&D itself. Some games combined both elements. For example, Tweet’s Everway (Wizards of the Coast, 1995) was centered on a fantasy city that served as a portal to many different alternate planes or “spheres,” with characters who could walk between these spheres to have adventures. Character generation began with players selecting an image from a “vision card” and answering questions about it; the vision cards were specifically selected so as to include a wide variety of non-Western images. Even more striking than this effort to open up the setting of the game was its reliance on a tarot-like “fortune deck” from which cards could be drawn and then interpreted by the GM in order to establish what had occurred. A fine example of the commitment to medieval verisimilitude is Greg Stafford’s Pendragon (Chaosium, 1985), in which the PCs were Arthurian knights of the Round Table, engaging in quests and serving their lords in raid and battle while simultaneously maintaining their fiefs and siring children who would eventually grow up to follow in their fathers’ footsteps (and be PC knights as well), all against the backdrop of Sir Thomas Mallory’s Morte d’Arthur. But Pendragon also included the game-mechanical innovation of introducing “social attributes” that defined aspects of the character’s personality in a way that could influence behavior: if a character with high Pride, a personality trait that is quantified in the game, wanted to forgive an insult he received from an NPC guest of his lord, for example, the GM could call for a die roll that might result in the character refusing to bite his tongue, regardless of the player’s wishes. These two games also illustrate a historical design trend in which, during the 1980s, designers (perhaps hewing to role-playing’s roots in wargames) emphasized more complex or at least more detailed game mechanisms as solutions to their design problems, whereas, in the 1990s, designers began to explicitly emphasize mechanisms that would encourage, facilitate, or enable “role-playing” (which came to be invidiously perceived by many as vastly superior to mechanistic “[die] roll-playing”). We do not intend a normative distinction here, however. Both Everway and Pendragon are much admired within gaming circles, albeit for different qualities.

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Box 4.3  Different Character Creation Methods Random Character Generation: Any procedure in which character aspects are established by methods of chance, such as rolling dice or drawing cards, using the results either as a quantitative measure of some attribute or as an index for a table lookup. Point-Buy System: A character creation method in which character aspects are established by spending points from a budget to purchase useful traits or advantages possessed by the character; selecting negative traits or disadvantages may provide additional points to the player. Life-Path System: A character creation method involving making successive choices for a character at particular points in his or her career, such that prior choices influence the range of later options. Each choice may produce randomly determined consequences, accrue certain character resources, or both. Attribute Auction: A seldom used point-buy variant in which players bid points from their budget for particular character attributes; the bids are compared and then used to rank the characters along that attribute.

A Universal Revolution: Champions and GURPS Two games illustrate the 1980s design trend towards “universal” systems ostensibly capable of emulating multiple genres. Champions (Hero Games, 1981) by George McDonald and Steve Peterson began as a game for playing comic book superheroes. Debuting at the 1981 Origins gaming convention, it made an immediate impact due to its elegant, albeit somewhat arithmetically complex, system for designing superpowers. The fact that the “special effects” (i.e. in-game depiction) of those powers were distinct from their basic game-mechanical descriptions meant that, say, Superman’s heat vision and Green Lantern’s willpower-created, giant, glowing green hammer could both be treated as variations of the generic power “Energy Blast.” This, with the addition of a system for representing innate skills or talents, allowed the same game system to plausibly represent pulp fiction and “lost world” adventures, as with Justice, Inc. (Hero Games, 1984). With this example to guide its designers, there began a transformation of Champions, a game designed to emulate superheroes, into the Hero System (Hero Games, 1989), a role-playing toolkit intended to enable GMs to develop their own bespoke campaign settings (Allston, Long, and Watts, 2006). Meanwhile, the GURPS Basic Set (Steve Jackson Games, 1986) took Jackson’s initial designs for The Fantasy Trip (Metagaming, 1980) and transformed them into a “Generic Universal Role-Playing System” intended to be “detailed and realistic, logical and well-­ organized, and adaptable to any setting and any level of play” (Appelcline, 2013, p. 743). Following the publication of a tactical combat system for individual-level fights in 1985, the basic rules provided a “point-buy” system for character creation, like that of Champions, allowing the player to purchase attributes, talents, skills, and other abilities at a certain cost, perhaps offset by accepting certain disadvantages. GURPS was supported by a steady stream of supplements for specific genres, settings, and licensed properties, such as the

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­Horseclans, Conan, and Wild Cards series in the late 1980s and Traveller, Discworld, and ­Hellboy in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The GURPS “world books,” which describe specific historical settings and time periods, have a well-deserved reputation for being high-­quality reference works, worth consulting even if one doesn’t intend to run a GURPS-based campaign (Hite, 2014). Today, GURPS and the Hero System are perceived similarly by tabletop role-players, regarded as complex in preparation, albeit relatively straightforward in play. “The core of GURPS 4e [4th edition, published in 2004] is not complex,” asserts an online commenter on the RPG.net forums. It’s a basic roll under your skill on a 3d6 and that core is consistent…. However, the other core of GURPS is the Modifications and Limitations that are the working parts in Advantages…. This was an awesome development and what makes 4e so powerful and far-ranging. But it is complex. It really takes a long time to figure out all the little details in a [game mechanical] structure. (Walkerp, 2008) Similarly, regarding the Hero System, another poster remarked, “I can dig people saying it’s too complex, but one of the advantages of HERO [sic] is that it tells you where you can trim. You can run a very streamlined HERO without having to playtest house rules” (Brennan, 2005).

Drawing Trumps: Amber Diceless With a new generation of role-players that had not cut their teeth on military miniatures or hex-and-chit wargames entering the hobby, Erik Wujcik’s Amber Diceless Roleplaying (Phage Press, 1991) helped initiate the “storytelling game” movement of the 1990s, which sought to emphasize immersive “role-playing” and collaborative storytelling rather than tactical combat simulation as the centerpiece of play. Amber was based on the novels by Roger Zelazny, beginning with Nine Princes in Amber (1970), which detailed the intrigues, rivalries, and ­vendettas among the immortal scions of the house of Amber, an inter-dimensional city at the heart of reality. As a diceless game, Amber simply offers no alibi for when a PC is overwhelmed by another PC or a NPC: the PC and/or GM involved are directly responsible. Thus, the game replicates the dysfunctional family structure of the Amber novels (competitive siblings vying for the attention of a remote and arbitrary patriarch) by coding that structure into the rules; it is exactly by gaining the attention and favor of the GM (whose interpretations of the meaning of different character attributes and actions determine the success or failure of a player’s plans) that PC Amberites prosper in the game. Social maneuvering in courtly situations suddenly became more interesting than exploring dungeons, and fellow players became frenemies. Player unpredictability remains the primary source of tension in Amber, even though the game otherwise promises “story” (Torner, 2014). Deep investment in backstory, explicit social player vs player (PVP) elements, and the corresponding secret note-passing behavior would all become hallmarks of popular 1990s TRPGs. We will briefly examine one of these next.

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Box 4.4  The Call of Cthulhu Sandy Petersen’s Call of Cthulhu (Chaosium, 1981) adapts the fictional universe of H.P. Lovecraft to RPGs, pitting mortal “investigators” against malign horrors from beyond space and time. In place of the dungeon crawl, Call of Cthulhu characters investigate mysteries, during which disturbing revelations or shocking face-to-face encounters with otherworldly horrors prompt the loss of mental equilibrium represented by “Sanity points,” with complete madness occurring at zero Sanity and lesser maladies emerging along the way. This device, which “has a rather unsettling way of replicating real-life emotional problems and the way they feed upon themselves” (Herber, 2007, p. 42), opened up a space for psychological horror in RPGs. Lovecraftian horror would prove quite robust, generating a number of alternate settings by Chaosium and others, including one called Delta Green (Pagan Publishing, 1997), which combined the Cthulhu Mythos with conspiracy theories and the UFO craze.

Telling Stories in the Shadows: The World of Darkness White Wolf Publishing’s “World of Darkness” series of horror games, set in the modern world, loosely inspired by Anne Rice’s vampire novels, began with the publication of Mark Rein-­Hagen’s Vampire: The Masquerade (White Wolf, 1991), which became one of the most successful TRPGs, “second only to the lingua franca of the hobby, Dungeons & Dragons” (Hindmarch, 2007). The World of Darkness games used White Wolf’s “Storyteller System,” which was billed as explicitly designed to facilitate the creation of good stories. A lot of the onus for this was placed on the Storyteller (i.e. GM). At its best, the Storyteller procedures facilitated highly immersive character-focused drama as the PCs confronted the choices laid out for them by the development of the narrative; at its worst, it led to disengaged play as they either resisted or succumbed to the Storyteller’s “railroading.” Railroading is a pejorative term for a style of game-mastering in which the GM prepares and runs an adventure whose course proceeds along pre-determined lines without the possibility of being affected by players’ in-game actions in a way that is objectionable to the players (→ Chapter 27).

The Current State: Analog RPGs in a Digital World As the turn of the millennium approached, TRPG enthusiasts frequently expressed anxiety about the future of the medium and the industry. Not only had the popularity of tabletop games been irreversibly eclipsed by digital games—which survived the 1983 crash of Atari to become a multibillion-­dollar industry—but the massive success of fantasy-themed collectible card games, such as Magic: The Gathering, had made TRPGs a second-tier medium, even within analog fantasy games. Despite these seemingly bleak prospects, TRPG fans, creators, and publishers would embrace practices inspired or enabled by digital technologies. Digital printing, digital distribution, and online funding methods allowed new and existing publishers to more easily reach their audiences and manage financial risk (→ Chapter 16). At the same time, new means of communication increased the interconnectedness of far-flung communities of play. Together, these developments have forever changed the ways in which TRPGs are conceived, produced, distributed, and played, unleashing a transformation of the medium that is still ongoing.

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The Internet Arrives TRPG enthusiasts have always included a sizable number of people with strong ties to the computer and software development industries (Peterson, 2012, pp. 618–632). TRPGs were discussed and played over some of the earliest networks due to the common alignment of computing, TRPGs, and tech-savvy nerds. By the early 1990s, the Internet began to spread to the general U.S. population. For the relatively small and dispersed hobby of role-playing, connectivity was revolutionary. Websites conveyed information about what games were available and how fans could acquire them, reducing reliance on hearsay, hobby store employees, and ads in comic books. Newsgroups, bulletin boards, forums, mailing lists, blogs, and chat clients provided ways for distant or even local enthusiasts to find each other, organize meetings, and share their thoughts, experiences, advice, and play techniques. Publishers, creators, and fans could communicate directly. Several digitally supported or digitally inspired practices fundamentally altered the ways in which TRPGs were published, including online sales, media piracy, digital distribution, open content, PDF e-books, digital printing, beta testing, POD, crowdsourcing, and crowdfunding.

The D20 Boom and the Open Gaming License Wizards of the Coast (WotC)—founded by Peter Adkison—began as a TRPG publisher (­Appelcline, 2014). But the unprecedented success of Richard Garfield’s collectible card game Magic: The Gathering (Wizards of the Coast, 1993) provided it, in 1997, with the financial wherewithal to acquire the publisher of D&D: TSR. At first, the new management mostly cleaned house at TSR: paying debts, publishing projects that were nearly finished, securing all rights to D&D from Gygax and Arneson, and making sure that Gen Con gatherings continued to happen. But, in 1999, they announced a third edition of D&D. The core designers of D&D’s third edition included WotC veteran Tweet as well as Monte Cook and Skip Williams, old hands at TSR. The game’s rule framework, dubbed the “d20 system,” had much in common with second edition AD&D but was greatly streamlined. d20 System A TRPG system published by WotC in 2000. It was developed for third edition D&D, and all basic resolution was handled by rolling a single 20-sided die (d20). The system was later licensed and adopted by other publishers across a variety of games and supplements.

Following the model set by AD&D, the game was divided into three massive hardcover books: the Player’s Handbook, Dungeon Master’s Guide, and Monster Manual, each released months apart in 2000. These were accompanied by the Star Wars Roleplaying Game (Wizards of the Coast, 2000), which also used the d20 system. By any measure, third edition was a massive success, spawning hundreds of official products and thousands of open-content products, revitalizing both D&D and the TRPG industry as a whole. One of the biggest successes and challenges of the d20 era involved WotC’s relationship with “third-party” publishers—a term borrowed from software and digital game development. The Open Gaming License (OGL)—largely the brainchild of Ryan Dancey, brand manager of the TSR properties at WotC—allowed any publisher, of any size, to publish products derived from D&D’s core mechanics. One of D&D’s biggest strengths, it was argued, was the broad community of fans that created content and rules variants for the game. Additionally,

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Adkison reportedly wanted to prevent the possibility that D&D might be “imprisoned” by a single company and driven into the ground by financial or managerial mismanagement as it nearly was before the sale of TSR (Appelcline, 2014, vol. 3., p. 156). Open Gaming License (OGL) A public copyright license that game developers and publishers can use to allow others to modify, copy, and redistribute content from their games (usually the game mechanics). It was originally developed by WotC.

WotC’s own publishing policies were partially behind the third-party shift toward stand-alone products. In 2003, WotC surprised many publishers by releasing a slightly updated version of third edition, known as Dungeons & Dragons v3.5 (borrowing decimal edition numbering from the software industry). While the changes were not too substantial, they included numerous tweaks to basic features of the game, enough to prevent easy conversion and arguably rendering many third-party products “out of date.” Consequently, publishers felt an incentive to create distinct sub-brands of D&D that they controlled, rendering their design and publication choices semi-independent of whatever WotC did. This also occurred during a period of perceived market saturation and audience burnout in d20 publishing, which lasted throughout the mid-2000s and contributed to d20 publishers’ anxieties.

Digital Distribution in the New Millennium The third prong of the millennial transformation of TRPG publishing, in addition to the Internet-­enabled community and the OGL-inspired d20 boom, was digital distribution, which initially had two main forks: digital sales of printed TRPG products and digital distribution of digital products. In terms of print products, individual publishers and brick-and-mortar game stores started selling games through their websites as soon after it became possible to accept credit cards online. Streamlined platforms, such as PayPal, were also adopted quickly. Prior to these developments, publishers often ran months-long online pre-orders for forthcoming products in an effort to pay for a print run in the thousands of copies, which was close to the minimum for traditional offset printing. By the 2010s, crowdfunding and high-­quality digital printing would replace pre-orders entirely and reduce the minimums for quality printed products. In the early 2000s, several multi-publisher fulfillment houses were established, complete with online storefronts, but the unexpected collapse of the fulfillment house Wizard’s Attic in the mid-2000s left many small publishers with huge financial debts from unpaid revenues and copies of their games that were never returned. Since then, publishers have mainly sold games online through their own websites and large online retailers in addition to working with traditional print distributors that service book and game stores. In terms of purely digital distribution, the market for TRPG products is huge and fairly unique to the medium, operating independently of the more recently established e-book market. Many digital TRPG products were initially distributed for free or as shareware. Early TRPG fan sites often included “netbooks” (before the term “netbook” referred to a small, Internet-­capable laptop), which were unauthorized fan supplements for commercially published TRPGs. Among the most common free TRPG products were blank character sheets. By the late 1990s, PDF had become the dominant format for transmitted fixed documents and was also commonly used in online TRPG piracy to share scanned copies of otherwise expensive and space-consuming collections of rule books.

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Designer Monte Cook left WotC around the launch of third edition D&D, forming ­Malhavoc Press with the intention of publishing third-party material for the game. Cook initially experimented by releasing a PDF supplement for D&D called The Book of Eldritch Might in May of 2001, which almost immediately sold several thousand copies and proved that there was a substantial market for d20 PDFs, especially from a well-known designer (Cook, 2011). Later in 2001—the same year that Apple launched the iTunes Store—the TRPG entrepreneur James Mathe founded a service called RPGNow, an online marketplace where publishers could create accounts and sell PDFs to customers in a central location. In the beginning, the bestselling products on RPGNow were nearly always d20 products. Mathe made attempts to reach out to established publishers of other types of games, but many were hesitant about selling digital versions, worried that it would increase piracy or cannibalize existing print sales. Nevertheless, RPGNow recorded better than 10% growth in every year of its operation (Mathe, 2015). BitTorrent became a turning point. The peer-to-peer file sharing software was released in 2001, but, by 2004, it was reported to account for a third of all Internet traffic. While most of this traffic did not consist of pirated TRPGs, gaming materials were commonly found on torrents. In the end, Steve Wieck—formerly of White Wolf—founded a rival service to RPGNow, known as DriveThruRPG, offering a variety of anti-piracy digital rights management (DRM) measures; promoting significantly higher PDF prices, which were closer to the cover price of print copies; and attracting many established non-d20 publishers. Most of the DRM measure were quickly discontinued in reaction to fan complaints, and, in 2006, the two companies merged, creating a PDF distributor with an overwhelming share of the market, which later become the PDF sales service for WotC’s products as well.

Countercurrents: Indie RPGs As new technologies made it steadily easier and less risky to publish TRPGs, many new games and supplements challenged popular perceptions about what TRPGs were, how they should be played, and what subject matter they could explore. One major source of this new style of games has been the loosely connected and self-identified “indie RPG” movement, parallel to and directly inspired by contemporaneous indie movements in comics, music, film, and digital games. The roots of this movement lie in the Usenet newsgroup rec.games.frp.advocacy (RGFA), which began in May 1992. As John Kim explains, in the process of hashing out differences, a set of contributors began to actually discuss core concepts of role-playing: what it is, how it works, what styles and techniques exist, how to do it better … [leading to] an acknowledgement that there are different valid styles of role-playing. Different role-playing games are not merely different methods to achieve the same goals, but actually different goals in themselves. (Kim, 2007) These discussions influenced the web forum indie-rpgs.com, which became known as the Forge, which launched as a discussion site for independently published TRPGs in 2001 and remained active throughout the following decade until it was formally shut down in 2012 (White, 2015). The indie RPGs movement has also been organized around Game Chef, an annual game design competition, founded by Mike Holmes in 2002; Games on Demand, a structure for pick-up play at conventions, developed by Katherine Miller in 2006; Story

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Games, a more casual web forum, created by Andy Kitkowski in 2006; and the Independent Game Developers Network, founded by Mark Diaz Truman in 2011. The Forge promoted creator ownership and self-publishing over freelance game design on a work-for-hire basis, the latter of which was and is still often the standard in the industry. It also promoted the idea that every aspect of a game’s rules should be carefully designed to emphasize the game’s core themes rather than relying on popular TRPG conventions. This meant that games were often modeled as structural emulations of particular fictional genres. The game designer was viewed as an auteur, producing unique and special rules that were designed very intentionally to produce a specific kind of role-playing experience. Consequently, indie TRPGs in the Forge tradition often took responsibility for and authority over the game experience away from the GM and gave it to the game designer or the players. Responsibility for sub-optimal play experience was thought to lie either with the game designer for poor design and explanation or with the players for not playing the game “properly.” GM-less Games Some indie games have explored the possibility of GM-less role-­playing, as in Jason Morningstar’s Fiasco (Bully Pulpit Games, 2009) and Ben Lehman’s Polaris (TAO Games, 2005). Both include specific rules to govern how play proceeds in the absence of the GM. They depend on cooperative play, with all players taking on some of the functions of the GM. The mechanics of both games focus on how players support each other in telling the stories of their characters. In Fiasco, players create a network of characters, relationships, needs, locations, and objects. Each player, in turn, then chooses either to set up a scene for his or her character or determine its outcome, assigning the other function to the rest of the table. Polaris similarly focuses on each PC in turn and divides GM functions among other players in a more formal way as different kinds of supporting characters. Note that some early TRPGs permitted GM-less play by layering role-­playing elements on top of wargame-inspired hand-to-hand combat and social advancement systems, as in En Garde (GDW, 1977), or by creating programmed scenarios for single-­character solitaire play, as in T&T (Flying Buffalo, 1975).

The relatively specific American “indie scene” in TRPGs is not the entirety of independently produced TRPGs, of course. A larger number of other independent designers exist among fans of more traditional or conventional styles of play. Most d20 publishers, after all, were one-­person creator-owned operations. Other gaming traditions and communities of play exist, often associated with regional, national, and cross-national gaming cultures.

Box 4.5  Australian Systemless Role-playing Systemless role-playing is a form of game presented at Australian role-playing conventions since the late 1980s. It grew out of horror role-playing, specifically Call of Cthulhu, and the reaction that form of gaming represented to more traditional heroic styles, typified by D&D. System-less role-playing emphasizes in-depth characterization, atmosphere, and exploration of emotional and/or moral dilemmas. While these are important (or at least present) in many other examples of role-playing, in system-less gaming, they have center stage. Many of the examples are psycho-dramas with realistic protagonists, the games explicitly aimed at evoking intense emotional responses in the players. In this, they resemble the “jeepform” larp games of the Scandinavian tradition.

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Fourth Edition D&D, the Old School Renaissance, and D&D Next The publication of fourth edition D&D (Wizards of the Coast, 2008) represented a significant departure in style and approach from previous editions: it emphasized tactical combat almost to the exclusion of all other activities. Characters were assigned specific combat roles and represented by miniatures or tokens on a grid or “battle mat” in a way that many “old school” players felt was an attempt to emulate the aesthetics of online fantasy gaming, particularly MORPGs. Essentially, while many of these were optional elements in third edition D&D, fourth edition D&D was built specifically around this method. The designers felt that this focused approach—rather than something more open to GM and player interpretation—could be more easily translated into online play, backed by a newly announced (but ultimately unsuccessful) software platform. Resistance to this approach was pronounced, with former Dragon magazine publisher Paizo Press using the Open Gaming License to produce Pathfinder (Paizo, 2009) as a legacy of third edition D&D. Other independent designers would coalesce into an “Old School Renaissance” (OSR), which has produced a number of “retro-clones.” These games take advantage of the OGL to recreate older editions of D&D and allow others to release new content for these editions. Perhaps stung by the response to fourth edition, WotC announced a new edition of D&D in 2012 under the working title of “D&D Next.” Learning from Paizo and taking advantage of digital technologies, D&D Next received an extensive open beta test though distribution of free PDF files—though, to get them, one had to sign up on the D&D website—and the game was finally released in 2014 as three hardback books. Fifth edition D&D returns to the aesthetic of previous editions but with revisions and innovations that streamline many aspects of the game.

Box 4.6  Indie and “Old School” Games The U.S. “indie” RPG scene and the OSR are 21st-century TRPG game design communities of play that tend to focus on rules approaches that develop a particular style of play. The indie scene was known for its thematically focused, player-empowering approach to games, while the OSR hearkened back to what it considered to be the original character immersive, GM-centered approach of early TRPGs. Below are a few games from these traditions: Sorcerer (Adept Press, 1998). Demonic magic in a modern-day setting with the focus on sorcerer PCs who must fulfill the needs of the demons they summon, bind, and command in order to gain the power they desire to achieve their own potentially twisted ambitions, written by Ron Edwards. My Life with Master (Half-Meme Press, 2003). Designer Paul Czege’s gothic horror RPG in which PCs are the minions and servitors of a terrifying master whose awful orders they must follow until they can muster the will to defiance. Dogs in the Vineyard (Lumpley Games, 2004). A Western-themed RPG by designer Vincent Baker where young quasi-Mormon gunslingers, empowered by their Church, defend the Faith from demonic influence and pass judgment upon the scattered desert communities of the Faithful.

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OSRIC (Stuart Marshall, 2006). The Old School Reference and Index Collection is a “retro-­ clone” of AD&D, using the provisions of the OGL to make its rules more widely available. Fiasco (Bully Pulpit, 2009). A GM-less game of criminal capers and misadventures in which a network of objects, relationships, and ambitions connects ne’er-do-well PCs in a chaotic web of darkly humorous mayhem. The Romance Trilogy (Black & Green Games, 2016). A compilation of three earlier games by Emily Care Boss – Breaking the Ice (2005), Shooting the Moon (2008), and Under My Skin (2009) – that were highly influential in promoting romantic themes and GM-less play in indie RPGs. Labyrinth Lord (Goblinoid Games, 2007). An OSR game mimicking the 1980 D&D Basic Set second edition by Tom Moldvay. Dungeon Crawl Classics (Goodman Games, 2012). A D&D variant within the OSR tradition that emphasizes the deadly nature of low-level adventuring. It is notable for its heavy reliance on random tables and its quirky incorporation of non-polyhedral dice. Adventurer Conqueror King (Autarch LLC, 2012). A level-based system OSR game emulating the 1977 D&D Basic Set by J. Eric Holmes. It emphasizes the accrual of increasing military and political power as characters advance. Source: Kim (2013).

Digital Mirages: Challenges and Opportunities in Hybridity The integration of TRPGs with the opportunities provided by new digital technologies has not proceeded entirely without difficulty, however. The story of White Wolf, publisher of the popular line of World of Darkness games, is instructive. During the d20 era, White Wolf attempted to take advantage of the renaissance in fantasy games in multiple ways. They created their own d20 imprint, Sword & Sorcery, licensing the print rights to all of the PDF products published by Monte Cook’s Malhavoc Press, licensing the classic Ravenloft and Gamma World settings from WotC, and publishing d20 TRPG adaptations of the popular EverQuest (White Wolf, 2002) and World of Warcraft (White Wolf, 2003) MORPGs. They also launched a new, highly successful, non-d20 fantasy line with Exalted (White Wolf, 2001), an anime- and Japanese CRPG-inspired game using a variation on their existing “Storyteller” system and taking place in an antediluvian setting. In the early 2000s, the decision was also made to reboot the entire World of Darkness. The World of Darkness setting was destroyed in 2004 through a series of narrative events, described in published supplements. The new World of Darkness launched with a core rule book of specific rules for vampires, with additional supplements to follow for werewolves and other denizens of the World of Darkness. While sales were strong initially, they quickly fell off (Appelcline, 2014, vol. 3, p. 42). In 2006, White Wolf was purchased by CCP Games, the Icelandic video game company responsible for the EVE Online science fiction MORPG. CCP hoped to use their experience with EVE to create a World of Darkness MORPG that would be unlike anything else on the market. White Wolf ’s properties had previously been the inspiration for a cult digital game

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called Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines (Troika Games, 2004), which was released with many flaws but is still considered a classic due to its innovative structure and storytelling. Initially, it didn’t seem like the acquisition of White Wolf would change things very much, but that changed over the next few years as staff were pulled from White Wolf to work on the MMO, and Ryan Dancey—the person behind the OGL, now working for CCP—said, “The focus of the company is on making MMOs and our legacy table top business is a legacy business” (Appelcline, 2014, vol. 3, p. 45). White Wolf continued to publish a few game products, but they were minimal. CCP itself faced major issues with EVE Online, which took up increasingly more attention and gradually led to official cancellation of the World of Darkness MMO in 2014, after years of rumors. Yet just when digital mirages seemed to have killed one of TRPG’s most successful publishers, digital technologies also helped save White Wolf, though in a new form. In the midst of this crisis, White Wolf made the fortuitous decision to hire a team of veterans to create a 20th anniversary edition of Vampire: The Masquerade that combined, condensed, and revamped the best material across all the game’s editions. While “V20,” as it was called, was made possible by an old-fashioned pre-order and custom print job, the project was so successful that a new company—Onyx Path—was created by several White Wolf vets, licensing the rights to White Wolf properties from CCP and then using the Kickstarter crowdfunding service to raise money for PDF and POD products, the latter of which had just recently become available through PDF publisher and distributor DriveThruRPG/RPGNow (also owned by a former White Wolf staffer). By going PDF and POD only, Onyx Path could minimize risk by neither having to pay for printing and warehousing nor waiting to be paid by distributors. Working with DriveThru meant they didn’t even need to handle sales themselves. This has proven to be a hugely successful model for them, meaning that White Wolf ’s games are flourishing again, even though they are rarely in game stores and are published by a different company.

Forward to Tomorrow Recent evidence suggests that gaming is not a zero-sum game in that the success of the digital games industry and peer analog game mediums, such as board games, card games, and larp, seem to have synergistically promoted an appreciation for and interest in TRPGs among younger generations of gamers. The contemporary attendees of game conventions, like Gen Con or the Penny Arcade Expo (PAX), are typically consumers of a wide variety of digital and analog games of which TRPGs are often a part. Hybrid media that combine elements from tabletop, live action, card, board, educational, “serious,” and/or digital games to create new forms of play are also emerging. The demographics of TRPGs are changing. The passing of D&D’s creators Gygax in 2008 and Arneson in 2009 was mourned across the TRPG landscape. This coincided with the older “grognard” generation of TRPG enthusiasts, who became hooked in the 1980s and 1990s, sharing the table—both literally and figuratively—with younger generations raised on modern CRPGs. This younger “video game generation” is noticeably more diverse—at least in gender and ethnicity—and seems to be more open to different kinds of TRPG experiences. There has been some backlash against this diversification, manifested prominently in arguments about the visual or written portrayal (or lack thereof ) of women and people of color in TRPG publications as well as many cases of online or in-person harassment or mistreatment. At present, queer participants and those living with disabilities seem to be welcomed more warmly, though there are continuing struggles there as well.

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The social status of TRPGs seems to have also changed over the years. While TRPGs are often considered to be a touchstone of nerd or geek culture, the rising social status of both games (thanks to the profitability and rising social status of digital games) and nerds (thanks to the profitability and rising social status of tech industry jobs) have gradually transformed gaming into something that’s cool or at least interesting for adults to be involved in rather than something inherently shameful and juvenile (→ Chapter 9). The changing demographics have also helped bring TRPGs closer to the mainstream, as have the buzz surrounding “gamification” and other game-based social engineering projects.

Box 4.7  The U.S. and the Rest of the World The relationship between international TRPG communities and markets and those of the U.S. remains both fruitful and problematic. Games published by American companies and creators often dominate TRPG communities outside of the U.S., either among populations fluent in English or through localized translations. While there are many countries with strong local traditions of TRPGs—including Canada, the U.K., France, Germany, Italy, the Nordic countries, Brazil, and Japan, among others—it has not been a two-way street, with international games typically finding limited success in the U.S. That said, some U.S.-based TRPG publishers do make an effort to hire international creators, particularly as visual artists but also as writers and designers. Additionally, many international games are very successful in their local TRPG communities and are more often recognized there (including by government arts funders) as important creative works because TRPGs operate in a different social and cultural context in many countries. More international connections are now being built, thanks to the Internet, so there is hope for a more integrated future.

In the digital age, TRPGs are not a dead medium or even a kind of partially revived “zombie” medium (Hertz and Parika, 2012). They have been left behind in narratives of progress and digitization in mainstream game studies, but they are very much alive, in fact, more alive than ever before. The current state of TRPGs is more like Frankenstein’s monster: put together from media that were assumed to be dead but galvanized—to true life, not un-death—by the electricity of the digital age, a hodgepodge of different overlapping parts that function together as a surprisingly robust, powerful, and yet misunderstood whole.

Box 4.8  International Games Die Schwarze Auge (published in English as “The Dark Eye”) (Germany, 1984). A fantasy game that has been hugely successful in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria, where it outsold D&D. Originally published by Schmidt Spiele, the most recent edition is from 2015, published by Ulisses Spiele. Drakar och Demoner (“Dragons and Demons”) (Sweden, 1984). Notable early TRPG, still in print. A generic medieval fantasy, originally based on a translation of Steve Perrin’s “Magic World” setting from Chaosium’s 1982 Worlds of Wonder universal RPG. Originally published by Äventyrsspel (“Adventure Games”), its sixth edition was published by Riotminds. (Continued)

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In Nomine Satanis/Magna Veritas (France, 1989). An urban fantasy set in the modern world where angels and demons occupy human bodies to fight for good or evil. Was redesigned to be less tongue-in-cheek and released in the U.S. by Steve Jackson Games as In Nomine. Originally published by Siroz. Kult (Sweden, 1991). A game of surreal modern-day gnostic horror, originally published in Swedish by Target Games and then in English, in 1993, by Metropolis, Ltd, with a third edition appearing in 2004. Fanhunter (Spain, 1992). A humorous game set in the Fanhunter comic book universe. The first edition was self-published, but the second was published by Farsa’s Wagon. Universo (Spain, 1993). A universal Spanish-language TRPG system that assigns characters percentile ratings in skills and characteristics, written by Pedro Alcántara and published by Ediciones Cronópolis. Tenra Bansho (Japan, 1997). A fantasy story game heavily influenced by and steeped in ­Japanese culture. It was created by manga author/artist Junichi Inoue and published by FarEast Amusement Research (F.E.A.R). An English translation of Tenra Bansho Zero, the game’s 2000 second edition, is produced by Kotodama Heavy Industries, which also produces translations of other Japanese games. Source: Kim (2013).

Summary This chapter presented a mostly historical discussion of TRPGs, starting with the publication of D&D in 1970. Along the way, we explored how this form has changed over the years, both broadening in terms of emulating different fictional settings and genres as well as in terms of various game-mechanical approaches. This chapter also covered the changes experienced by the TRPG industry as it has grown, consolidated, and adapted to the rise in popularity of the Internet. These changes have included lower barriers to publication and distribution that helped foster an “indie” TRPG community, which has led to a significantly greater diversity of games, subject matter, and players.

Further Reading Appelcline, Shannon. 2014. Designers & Dragons (4 vols.). Silver Spring, MD: Evil Hat, Inc. Fine, Gary Alan. 1983. Shared Fantasy. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Peterson, Jon. 2012. Playing at the World: A History of Simulating Wars, People, and Fantastic Adventures, from Chess to Role-Playing Games. San Diego, CA: Unreason Press.

References Aarseth, Espen J. 1997. Cybertext: Perspectives on Ergodic Literature. Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins ­University Press. Allston, Aaron, Steven Long, and Darren Watts. 2006. Champions: Superpowered Roleplaying (25th Anniversary Edition). San Francisco, CA: DOJ, Inc.

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Appelcline, Shannon. 2014. Designers and Dragons (4 vols.). Silver Spring, MD: Evil Hat, Inc. Blacow, Glenn. 1980. “Aspects of Adventure Gaming.” Different Worlds, no. 10. Board Game Geek. n.d. “Magic Realm.” Board Game Geek. https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/22/ magic-realm. Brennan, Eric.2005. “Re: HERO System: Why Aren’t More People Playing It?” RPG Net, January 27. https:// forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?169824-HERO-System-why-aren-t-more-people-playing-it/ page15. Caillois, Roger. 1961. Man, Play, and Games (Meyer Barash, Trans.). Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press. Cook, Monte. 2011, May 29. “10 Years: From Idea to Industry.” The Chapel Perilous: Monte Cook’s Journal. http://montecook.livejournal.com/242735.html. Cover, Jennifer Grouling. 2010. The Creation of Narrative in Tabletop Role-Playing Games. Jefferson, NC: McFarland. Edwards, Ron. 1999. “System Does Matter.” www.indie-rpgs.com/_articles/system_does_matter.html. Edwards, Ron. 2004. “The Provisional Glossary.” http://indie-rpgs.com/_articles/glossary.html. Fine, Gary Alan. 1983. Shared Fantasy: Role-Playing Games as Social Worlds. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Freeman, Jon. 1979. Playboy Winner’s Guide to Board Game. Chicago, IL: Playboy Press. Goffman, Erving. 1974. Frame Analysis. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Hammer, Jessica. 2007. “Agency and Authority in Role-Playing ‘Texts.’” In A New Literacies Sampler, eds. Michele Knobel and Colin Lankshear, 67–93. New York: Peter Lang. Hendricks, Sean Q. 2006. “Incorporative Discourse Strategies in Tabletop Fantasy Role-Playing Gaming.” In Gaming as Culture: Essays on Reality, Identity, and Experience in Fantasy Games, eds. J. Patrick Williams, Sean Q. Hendricks, and W. Keith Winkler, 77–99. Jefferson, NC: McFarland. Herber, Keith. 2007. “On ‘The Haunted House.’” In Second Person: Role-Playing and Story in Games and Playable Media, eds. Pat Harrigan and Noah Wardrip-Fruin, 41–43. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Hertz, Garnet and Jussi Parikka. 2012. “Zombie Media: Circuit Bending Media Archaeology into an Art Method.” Leonardo 45(5): 424–430. Hindmarch, Will. 2007. “Storytelling Games as a Creative Medium.” In Second Person: Role-Playing and Story in Games and Playable Media, eds. Pat Harrigan and Noah Wardrip-Fruin, 47–55. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Hite, Kenneth. 2014. Personal communication. Kim, John. 2007, “rec.games.frp.advocacy info.” Darkshire, January 23. www.darkshire.net/jhkim/rpg/ theory/rgfa/. Kim, John, 2013. “An Encyclopedia of Role-Playing Games.” Darkshire. http://www.darkshire.net/ jhkim/rpg/encyclopedia/. Laws, Robin. 2001. Robin’s Laws of Good Gamemastering. Austin, TX: Steve Jackson Games. Lortz, Stephen, L. 1979. Role-playing. Different Worlds 1: 36–41. Mackay, Daniel. 2001. Fantasy Role-Playing: A New Performing Art. Jefferson, NC: McFarland. Mathe, James. 2015, Personal communication, May 19. Mona, Erik. 2007. “From the Basement to the Basic Set: The Early Years of Dungeons & Dragons.” In Second Person: Role-Playing and Story in Games and Playable Media, eds. Pat Harrigan and Noah Wardrip-Fruin, 25–30. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Peterson, Jon. 2012. Playing at the World: A History of Simulating Wars, People, and Fantastic Adventures, from Chess to Role-Playing Games. San Diego, CA: Unreason Press. Salen, Katie and Eric Zimmerman. 2004. Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Torner, Evan. 2014. “Uncertainty in Analog Role-Playing Games, Part 2.” Analog Game Studies 1.2. http://analoggamestudies.org/2014/09/uncertainty-in-analog-role-playing-games-part-2/. Tresca, Michael J. 2011. The Evolution of Fantasy Role-Playing Games. Jefferson, NC: McFarland. Walkerp. 2008, “Re: [GURPS] Is the complexity an illusion?” [online discussion]. [GURPS] Is the complexity an illusion? #10 RPG.Net, March 17. http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?390100-GURPS-Isthe-complexity-an-illusion.

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Waskul, Dennis D. 2006. “The Role-Playing Game and the Game of Role-Playing: The Ludic Self and Everyday Life.” In Gaming as Culture: Essays on Reality, Identity, and Experience in Fantasy Games, eds. J. Patrick Williams, Sean Q. Hendricks, and W. Keith Winkler, 19–38. Jefferson, NC: McFarland. Waskul, Dennis D. and Matt Lust. 2004. “Role-Playing and Playing Roles: The Person, Player, and Persona in Fantasy Role-Playing.” Symbolic Interaction 27(1): 333–356. White, William J. 2009. “Face and Figuration in RPG Play.” In Larp, the Universe, and Everything, eds. Matthijs Holter, Eirik Fatland, and Even Tomte, 173–186. Oslo, Norway: Knutepunkt002E. White, William J. 2013. “The Right to Dream of the Middle Ages: Simulating the Medieval in Tabletop RPGs.” In Digital Gaming Re-Imagines the Middle Ages, ed. Daniel T. Kline, 15–28. New York: Routledge. White, William J. 2015. “‘Actual Play’ and the Forge Tradition.” In The Wyrd Con Companion Book 2015, ed. Sarah Lynne Bowman, 94–99. Costa Mesa, CA: Wyrd Con.

5 Live-Action Role-Playing Games J. Tuomas Harviainen, Rafael Bienia, Simon Brind, Michael Hitchens, Yaraslau I. Kot, Esther MacCallum-Stewart, David W. Simkins, Jaakko Stenros, and Ian Sturrock

In this chapter, we discuss the ways in which live-action role-playing (larp) differs from other forms of role-playing. As noted in Chapter 2, larp is often understood as role-playing that takes what happens in a player’s imagination and makes it “real” or embodied: instead of describing a character’s actions, a player performs them. Larps range from a handful (like tabletop role-playing games or TRPGs) to thousands of players (like a multi-player online role-playing games or MMORPGs). For the larger larps, these numbers are even greater if we include nonplayer participants (referees, non-player characters (NPCs), etc.). Larps are physically performed forms of role-playing practiced in many places around the globe. As will be shown later, depending on whom one asks, they have several roots and origins, including Dungeons & Dragons (D&D), historical reenactment, 19th-century educational innovations, and more. Thematically, they range from fantasy knights fighting orcs to introspective dramas based in the real world. Larps vary from one place to the next but have some traits they all share. We first discuss the commonalities before examining some notable cultures of larps and larping. Larp and Larping Few formal definitions exist on what “larp” is, what the activity of “larping” consists of, or whether it may take place in settings other than larps. Here, we use the words as shorthand for embodied role-based interactions and physically performed role-play.

Generally speaking, larps are more likely to be described than they are to be defined. Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman (2004, 578), for example, say that they are descendants of TRPGs that take place in real physical spaces and in which players walk about and interact with each other, acting out their characters’ actions. Lizzie Stark (2012, x–xi), in turn, says that larps are like theatrical pieces but without audiences and scripts: in other words, make-believe for adults. Markus Montola (2008, 24) offers one of the few definitions as an extension of his definition of role-playing, saying that larp is role-playing in which the game is “superimposed on [the] physical world, which is used as a foundation in defining the game world”. Eirik Fatland and Lars Wingård (1999) use the simple but elegant definition of a “meeting between people who, through their [characters,] relate to each other in a fictional world”.

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J. Tuomas Harviainen (2011, p. 176) defines the activity of larping, which, according to him, can also take place in non-larp contexts, with the following criteria: • • •

Role-playing in which a character, not just a social role, is played. The activity takes place in a fictional reality shared with others. Breaking that fictional reality is seen as a breach in the play itself. The physical presence of at least some of the players as their characters.

As noted, what differentiates larp and larping from other types of role-playing is the embodied presence of the players as characters. The play activities are framed by their fictionality, the same way those in TRPGs are, and everyone who participates is present in the same moment as both a character and a player (Stenros, 2010), two personas, the goals of which are rarely identical.

Box 5.1  What Does Larping Look and Feel Like? Imagine being inside a theatrical piece in which you are physically there, have some inkling of the central characters of the play as well as its setting, but there is no fixed script. You can approach your role through various perspectives: as a competition or as a tool for building the best story possible or by trying to be your character as much as possible. The setting can be anything, from fantasy to science fiction to family drama, and so can the mechanics. Perhaps you solve conflicts with Rock, Paper, Scissors; perhaps through fighting with foam swords or by consensually choosing a solution that seems to fit the situation best. What matters is the sense of “being there” – as a person, your character, physically.

General Principles For play to be embodied, the player must perform the actions of the character being played. When the player moves, so does the character. When the player speaks, so does the character. While the player is playing a larp, it is generally assumed that the actions of the player are the character’s actions unless the player signals otherwise. In-Character/Out-of-Character Different larp communities have developed signals for communicating that a player’s actions are carried out by the player and not the character. These actions are called out-of-character actions. Common signals for communicating that an action is out-of-character include placing your fist on top of your head and holding both hands together making a “T” shape (“time-out”) while performing an action.

Even when playing versions of themselves, people keep the character separate and fictional. Any action that is in-character is expected to be treated as the character’s action, not the player’s, the same way many other forms of play also function (Bateson, 1955). When, for example, a character breaks a law within the game world, the player is not held responsible, but likely, the character is. When a character is rude to another character, the other player can have their character be offended and act appropriately, but the player should not act as if they have been insulted. This in-character/out-of-character distinction is also often blurred (e.g. if a character is insulted based on the physical traits of its player) (→ Chapter 23).

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The principles of embodiment (players will embody their play, not merely describe their characters’ actions) and player/character separation (players will not mix character actions with out-of-character actions) are also complemented by the mores and laws of the surrounding society, the rules of the game, and community-specific practices that help larp players find or form a community that allows for the kind of play they are seeking.

Box 5.2  Sample Community Specific Practices: Physical Contact Different larp communities often distinguish themselves from each other by their standards and practices related to interpersonal touch. Some communities explicitly prohibit any form of physical contact, others might designate certain areas (e.g. hands and arms) within limits, while others have sophisticated rules and protocols for players to negotiate among themselves what kinds of physical contact they are comfortable with.

Space and Time In most larps, the corporeal presence of the players as their characters ties them to the locations where they currently are (Harviainen, 2012). As Jaakko Stenros (2010) notes, larps are temporary worlds superimposed on the everyday world, where, as Edward Relph describes (1976), the sense of place is created through a combination of activities, physical settings, and situated meanings. Larps use this mixture to make their fictional spaces seem real, even when the environment cannot be perfectly modeled. A game’s narrative context, the actions each character performs within it, and the location everyone shares enable – even in cases like convention larps without any props – the basic social contract that is required for building the context for larp play. The embodied aspect of larps often means that they are constrained by the physical locations where they are played. For example, it is difficult to play a larp that takes place in a large space in a small hotel conference room. However, temporal shifts or changes are much easier to manage. Larps do not require in-game events to occur chronologically. Players can skip from one scene to another. Both experimental small-scale games, like jeepforms, and high-­profile, high-fidelity games, like Hamlet (see Koljonen, 2004) or the Monitor Celestra (see Fatland & Montola, 2015), may utilize scene-based approaches to narrative (and temporal) structure where, for example, different segments of a story can be played on different days. By framing content from one situation to the next, play can be moved from one point of time to another. For example, the rules of Delirium (by Høgdall et al., 2010; see Pedersen, 2010) required that scenes be played in the “wrong” (i.e. non-chronological) order to convey a sense of insanity. For example, the cleanup of a party might be played well before the party itself. Being able to take advantage of the possibilities afforded by larp players’ presence in a certain moment of time without that time having to be fixed inside the fiction provides opportunities for storyand experience-building (see e.g. Fatland, 2005; Semenov, 2015). These issues of space and time in larps sometimes combine to create what Fatland (2005) calls the “fog of larp”: neither players nor their characters will be aware of things beyond their immediate surroundings, except through secondhand information sources. When an interpretation of a physical environment (e.g. the door in a room’s being imagined to be an iron gate that leads down to a dungeon) is not shared by all the players, what results is a set of multiple truths. For example, if the imagined iron gate is destroyed by a magical spell, players entering that location later on will not know that it no longer exists unless there is some way for that

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to be communicated explicitly. Although the fog of larp is often presented as a problem, it is sometimes used to great effect for creating authentic experiences (see e.g. Pettersson, 2014). For example, a crime larp can unfold in various locations at the same time while keeping parts of the activity secret. Likewise, players’ desire to keep playing often keeps the problems the fog causes to a minimum.

Immersion Immersion, often described as the feeling of “being there”, is an experience that is common in larps because of their embodied nature. This creates challenges and advantages for both the play experience and game design (Säilä, 2004). For instance, immersion and rules often run counter to each other because rules remind the player that what they are doing is not real (Caillois, 1961; Harviainen, 2012). However, rules are necessary for many larps to resolve the outcomes of actions players cannot perform due to personal comfort (e.g. play through a sex scene by actually having sex), safety (e.g. climb a high wall), or lack of ability (e.g. cast magical spells). Player immersion can also be at odds with narrative. For example, players who feel it would be logical for their characters to act in a certain manner may derail carefully designed plotlines for everyone in a larp meant to be very driven towards a pre-scripted central plotline.

Box 5.3  Examples of Structural Larp Types Parlor or convention larps: larps made for small, random player groups at events, usually designed to run with next to no props and for a short fixed time. Campaign larps: Games that have ongoing narratives and characters and extended character development. They are played over multiple events, e.g. once a month. Freeform: Minimalist games that use no props or costumes and are often designed to facilitate optimized/interesting stories instead of e.g. combat or deep character immersion. Jeepform: A more structured style of freeform game, often set in the real world with everyday situations, whose themes and play favor intense drama and emotional experiences. One-shot: A larp designed and conceived to be played only once. One-shots usually have high production values and are played over several days. These game types are not bound by nation or culture. Rather, they are templates to which national play cultures give their own unique spin.

Finally, a player’s state of immersion is not stable. Fluctuations in immersion can take place during the same larp at different stages of play (Harviainen, 2012) and can vary based on problems with fog of larp, concerns about rules, misinterpreted in-character actions, and more. Understanding immersion, including research into players’ mental states, primary frames of reference, and modes of relationship to their characters, is quite challenging (→ Chapter 22).

Materiality and the 360° Illusion Materiality is a third aspect that is both central to larps and makes them stand out. While tabletop games sometimes use props to enhance the experience, and many forms of digital

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role-playing use visual representations of items and environments, the presence of the body, bound in time and space, significantly enhances the influence of the physical. In the context of larp, it is believed by some that the more realistic things appear and feel in a game, the more enjoyable the play experience will be. In other words, a fantasy larp set in a forest will be more enjoyable when played in the woods than, all other things the same, played in a gymnasium. This is because the environment affects the play experience (Bienia, 2016), coupled with players’ abilities in reinterpreting their play environments (see Loponen & Montola, 2004). This notion has been articulated as an aesthetic goal called the “360 degree aesthetic”. This goal is popular in the Nordic tradition of larping and has led to high-level production values in larps where only abstract things, like magic, need to be imagined. These larps are a source of impressive photographs, which partially explains their popularity as targets for extensive documentation, post-promotion, and press. Organizers, of course, agree that accomplishing a true 360° experience is impossible (Koljonen, 2007). 360° Illusion is an aesthetic goal or design ideal. In larps meeting this goal, everything in the game looks, sounds, smells, feels, and behaves like the real thing. This ideal also extends to character actions and interactions – e.g. players cannot rely on their characters’ knowledge and skills but must perform those actions as their characters (e.g. cook a meal, pick a lock).

What cannot be modelled through physical representation (or sometimes written props) has to be telegraphed (signaled through a verbal message) in the form of discourse-constructed elements (e.g. extending an empty, open hand and saying “here, I give you this knife”). Ron Edwards (2004) calls these things, which are only real within the fiction, “ephemera”. They only make sense within the game and cannot exist outside it. The same is also true of any new affordances given to material objects during play and by the play (e.g. a rug is enchanted, allowing characters to fly). Many smaller larps, particularly freeform and parlor games, rely strongly on telegraphing for their success. Likewise, some play cultures (e.g. in the United Kingdom) use written descriptions to depict skills that a character has but the player cannot perform (e.g. magic, pickpocketing). Successful representations also have their problems. For example, in-game elements that do not fit player expectations but would be logical inside the fictional reality can cause dissonance for some players. For example, a tall player playing a short character or obviously male players playing female characters (see e.g. Habbe, 2012). Attempts to reduce this dissonance – for example, by casting characters according to a player’s characteristics – have led to criticism of the 360° aesthetic as potentially leading to larps being highly selective, ableist, and transphobic.

From Basics to National Variance In the following sections, we examine the influences local play cultures have on these factors and the implications of that variance for understanding larps and their related phenomena. Each local larp culture is a microcosm of styles of its own and often a reflection of cultural biases. Furthermore, local larp cultures often fragment into new patterns shaped by external influences. For example, as Nordic larp ideals reach other countries, these might inspire some people to change while reinforcing others’ desires to stick to their own traditions (e.g. Stark, 2012). One therefore has to be aware of the local styles, how they differ from each other and

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the styles of other countries, before making generalizations about larp from observations of only one larp culture. Variations and Culture Systemic and stylistic variables first and foremost reflect the ways in which larps are manifestations of their surrounding cultures and scions of the traditions from which they arose. Because of this, the individual “origin myths” of various countries’ larps are so important.

No larp tradition can be separated from its historical roots, which are reflected in its practices and implicit assumptions. We, therefore, first look into the countries that gave larp its name and initial formulations: the United States, followed by the United Kingdom. Then, we take a leap into the much younger Nordic tradition of larping because of the influence it has had on larp in other countries since the turn of the millennium. Following that, we look into some local permutations of this handful of formulas or “basic templates” of larp types and larping styles in order to demonstrate how cultures make the same role-playing elements their own. Similarities and Divergences The examples presented here show how larp cultures have developed similar results from differing roots and how they may contain stylistic variations within themselves. Over the years, this may change due to increased knowledge transfer between communities.

North American Traditions The development of larp in the United States followed a trajectory common to larp across the world. The currently dominant forms of larp developed out of TRPGs, such as D&D. However, its evolution intersects with other practices as well: theater, parlor games, simulations like the Model United Nations, and, especially, historical reenactment. The Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA), a medieval reenactment organization started in 1966, was a significant influence, but United States Civil War reenactment was also important. It appears that the modern form of larp emerged in many places, nearly simultaneously across the country. Many United States larp groups are regional, knowing about others but interacting little with their surroundings. Many larpers play only locally, often solely within the same community in which they began larping. This locality has had a significant impact on the way United States games developed. More recently, however, these isolated regions are becoming more connected through the gradual rise of corporate, shared universe larps. Many of the games are also defined by their complex mechanics. By having rules for as many things as possible, those games seek to enable participation by people who cannot do the same things in real life (e.g. pick pockets). In addition, complex rules ease the tracking of character progression and history. While particularly stereotypical of United States larps (Stark, 2012), larps with lots of rules and game mechanics are also common in countries like Germany and the United Kingdom.

Combat Larps Many of the rules and mechanics of larps arise from traditions of combat larps. Some of the first rules for live fantasy play can be traced back to 1973’s Rules for the Live Ring Game (Hill,

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1973), a rule set for a complex, two-team tag game that follows the general themes and plot of Tolkien’s novel The Lord of the Rings. These rules, in a modified form, are still actively used by at least one small community. Combat Larp A broad category of larps that focus on physical combat between players. They are also sometimes called “practical larp” because the general rule of thumb is that a character can do what the player can do. Distinctions between combat larps are often based on the weaponry allowed and how much force is permitted. A “heavy” combat larp, for example, might allow rattan weapons and full contact strikes compared to a larp that only allows “light contact” with foam weapons.

In 1977, Brian Wiese founded the Dagorhir Outdoor Improvisational Games in the Washington, D.C. area. It is a full-contact battle larp, with rules that are similar to the simple mechanics used by the SCA. Dagorhir and the many games that evolved from it form a popular subset of larp often called Battle Gaming and are considered by many to be more wargames than role-playing games. The official guidelines of Dagorhir, nevertheless, require participants to stay in character while on the battlefield, again quite similar to the SCA’s guidelines of maintaining persona. Over time, some combat-oriented larps added elements from TRPGs, such as D&D, while others focused on limiting the character largely to what the player can themselves do. These types of larps, as well as combinations of court intrigue and combat gaming, remain highly popular in the United States (Stark, 2012). They are not, however, the only type of larp that people play. Boffer Larps Combat larps are sometimes also called boffer larps because they are often played using foam weapons called “boffer weapons” or “boffers”. Fighting with padded weapons precedes the existence of larps.

Mystery Dinners to Theater Style An equally important trajectory involves larp focused on character interaction and relationships. The first popular verbal interactive events were a form of theater in which the audience played roles. Though there are many forms of experimental theater that invite the audience to play, the step into larp began with the creation of events where the lines between audiences and participants collapse. One popular example of verbal larp is the mystery dinner, a role-played dinner party during which a mystery (typically a crime such as murder) is solved by the participants. As a form of theater, it is credited to Joy Swift in England, who organized weekend-long interactive mysteries beginning in 1981 (Swift & Livesey, 2007). These interactive mystery events quickly spread to the United States and combined with the growing independent development of verbally interactive games. The first known published mystery dinner, Jury Box, was released in 1935. It was more simulation than role-play, with the dinner guests’ being presented a scenario and asked to be the jury determining guilt. As the hobby evolved, it became less necessary to use actors or disguise aspects of truth from the players as these acquired more experience playing characters. Similarly, there was a move towards less heavy-handed techniques to pace the game. There was also an interest in more complex plots and relationships, leading to a transition from focusing on a single

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mystery to a layer of intertwined plots and relationships in which everyone else acted as the supporting cast of each other’s dramas. Even as they evolved, relationship-oriented larps still had players who wished to affect each other or the environment in ways that could not be done safely or physically. So, mechanics were developed to simulate them, e.g. stealth, picking locks and pockets, destruction of property, construction of devices, and – of course – combat. Many of these relationship-oriented larps borrowed from mystery dinner traditions but also derived from TRPGs. Unlike in the development of combat larp, the reason to physically embody, rather than simply narrate, the character came from a desire to enhance the theatric aspect of the game, not to simulate combat. For this reason, some have come to refer to these games as theater-style larp.

Interactive Literature and Company The third root of modern larping arose somewhere between 1979 and 1983 when some tabletop role-players stood up and embodied their characters in a style other than live fantasy combat. They created the first larp to be called a Live Action Role Play, later shortened to LARP (and then made into a noun, larp, in the Nordic Countries). The earliest group to form such a regional presence was the Society for Interactive Literature (SIL), an organization connected to Harvard University. Soon after, across town, the MIT Assassins Guild began to organize events. Meanwhile, in Delaware, a smaller group, now called the Wilmark Dynasty, began organizing events for their campaign. Games organized by members of these groups involved dozens of people and often lasted a weekend or longer. Each organization maintained a community of players, but it was convenient to create a central point by which games could be run. This led to SILicon, the first larp convention for theater-style larp, followed by the formation of the Live Action Role Playing Association (LARPA), created to support a more regional convention. SILicon became Intercon and now draws participants from all of North America and England. Other parts of the United States have other large conventions that support larp, including Gen Con in the Midwest (a general role-playing convention that outlawed larp in the 1980s), WyrdCon in the West Coast of the United States, and Living Games, which changes locations. Broadly speaking, in the 1970s and 1980s, these kinds of larps, while inspired by TRPGs, were not supported by TRPG publishers. This began to change into the 1990s as publishers began to experiment with what they perceived as a growing and interested market. For example, Chaosium published Nexus Live Action Roleplaying (1994) by Rick Dutton and Walter Freitag (founders of SIL), and R Talsorian Games’ Castle Falkenstein TRPG included rules for larp. By far the most significant, commercially and in terms of popularity, was the release of Mind’s Eye Theatre by White Wolf in 1993. Mind’s Eye Theatre was a larp based on White Wolf ’s Vampire: The Masquerade TRPG, sharing the same theme, setting, and, to a certain extent, rules and mechanics. Early games were not interconnected except by common source material and rules, but, in the early 1990s, two organizations formed that began to run interconnected games in a common world. The Camarilla (now Mind’s Eye Society) and One World by Night spread nearly simultaneously across North America, with international branches also created soon after. The initial effect of these groups was substantial in changing the nature, and the demographics, of larps. For example, many more women were drawn to the Vampire tabletop games and larps than had been involved in combat larps (theatre-style larp generally maintained gender parity). Vampire larp rules favored relationship play and no-touching interactions. While by no means the first such rule system, it was the first to be published so widely, be taken up

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readily, and maintain a loyal following. Other larp communities in the United States are now utilizing a similar formula of mixing social play, conflict, and emphasis on genre and style to cater to varying target audiences, with significant success. The next thing to really change these styles, however, was the influence of the Nordic larp scene on other countries, including the United States.

United Kingdom Traditions Larp in the United Kingdom has remained relatively consistent in form, despite its growing popularity as a leisure activity and nearly 40 years of development. Although similar to many other international traditions, United Kingdom larp has some notable differences in semantics, play style, and structure.

History and Development The original United Kingdom larp was the Treasure Trap system in 1982, which gave rise to a gaming society of the same name in 1983. It had a traditional fantasy setting whereby players adopted the role of adventurers and explored a real-world castle and surrounding environs. Weapons and equipment were supplied by the organizers, although players also made their own, usually crafting them from a combination of foam, plastic piping, and gaffa (duct) tape to give them an authentic “steely” appearance. The basic combat and magic system was based loosely on the rules of the TRPG RuneQuest (Perrin, 1978). Treasure Trap established some common phrases and acronyms that still have currency in many United Kingdom systems. “Refs” were the referees, or games masters, who devised, wrote, and acted as marshals at the event, and “monsters” were volunteers who opted to play NPCs (mostly monsters to be slain) throughout the event and who typically did not have to pay to participate. Because monsters now adopt more diverse roles – becoming long-term NPCs, taking up logistical roles, staffing operations desks, and so forth – the term “crew” is more common. Opposing these monsters, “the party” was the name given to the player group, and because this name is common to TRPGs, it has largely remained constant for smaller games. (In ­festival-sized games, the players are usually defined by faction.) As players moved away and access to locations changed, Treasure Trap members spread across the United Kingdom, taking larp with them. New systems, such as Labyrinthe (1985), Spirit of Adventure (1985), Fools & Heroes (1985) and The Gathering (1991), formed. This also created an eventual market for larp gear manufacturing. From these roots, new groups formed and reformed, evolving into the complex family tree of United Kingdom larp today. Larp Systems in the United Kingdom In the United Kingdom, “system” refers to a particular larp brand and its rules, whereas, in most other countries, the word denotes the practical mechanics of a game, not intellectual property.

In the United Kingdom, Live Action Role-Play goes under two acronyms. During the 1980s and 1990s, the term “lrp” was commonly used with “live roleplay” as the descriptive term. In the 2000s, the term “larp” began to become more popular due to the influx of new players as well as international connections. The “rivalry” between lrp/larp is symptomatic of tensions relating to authenticity and belonging in the United Kingdom larp community. Considerable

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snobbery exists over these terms, with older players often rejecting “larp” as a term lacking authenticity and using this as a way to identify themselves as more experienced players, even though ‘Lrp’ seems to have only gradually come into use in the 1990s.

Types of System Although there are no hard and fast determinants between types of events in the United Kingdom, they can roughly be categorized according to number of participants. Large “­festival”-type events, such as The Lorien Trust’s The Gathering and Profound Decisions’ ­Maelstrom (2003–2012), Odyssey (2012–2016), and Empire (2013–present), attract between 500 and 1500 people. They are faction-based, run over a weekend, and usually culminate in largescale battles between factions or NPCs. Each system has an overarching plot, revealed slowly throughout events, usually via a team of monsters, crew, and NPCs. Plot is not directed at specific players or groups but is available if players seek it out. Disseminating or sharing information is difficult, often deliberately so. The central focus of festival events tends to be politicking and trade within and between different groups because targeting individual members can be seen as favoritism and because, logistically, it is impossible to maintain such internecine structures. Festival events in the United Kingdom whose settings are neither fantasy nor historical fantasy are rare. Intermediate-sized games usually emulate festival systems but may contain plots written for individual characters or groups and a closer relationship between characters and m ­ eta-plots. These events host between 50 and 100 people. Because the player base is relatively small, some events are organized such that players will “play” for some of the game and “crew” for the rest. Small-scale events are run over the duration of a weekend, with a more personal level of plot and interaction, and involve 15–20 players and a team of 5–10 crew members. Players camp or stay in rented accommodation, such as youth hostels, and are often given plot that relates directly to their characters or caters specifically to their skill sets. Rule systems may be more complex, with referees able to answer individual questions or oversee encounters between players and crew. The format is often quest-orientated, with players carrying out a series of tasks or objectives. Some crossover exists between games of varying sizes. One-night events, “froths”, and “Nordic larps” are usually stand-alone events or are held by a group or faction wishing to meet up and “froth” (talk in enthusiastic detail) about a particular event or series. “Nordic larps” may use rule sets or scenarios from Nordic games, but the term is largely used to describe games that are considered “experimental” or atypical (see below).

Common Themes Live role-playing events in the United Kingdom have been predominantly fantasy-themed but have slowly developed to include other science fiction and fantasy genres as well. In the 2000s, a new wave of players joined, and larping greatly increased in popularity. Unlike earlier players, many of these people had very different frames of reference for play and rule creation, namely, the growth of MORPGs. As a result, they brought new variance to the hobby. Over the years, other media, such as film and comics, have defined the content and theme of many games – for example, the TV series Firefly (Whedon, 2002–2003) has sparked several copycat games.

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Rules systems have likewise become more hybridized as games and continual gameworlds influence each other and take the concepts farther from their tabletop system roots. To sustain the games and, in some cases, to keep them commercially viable, organizers quickly found themselves relying on the input of enthusiastic players to develop their games, which, in turn, forced the organizers to adapt to player requests and suggestions. The United Kingdom larp scene has become more experimental over the years. Hybrid games have begun to emerge that combine elements of United Kingdom larps with more Nordic influences; however, there is often considerable discussion about and resistance to these events on public fora.

Societal Setting Larp in the United Kingdom does not usually take place on public land. The amount of public outdoor spaces is relatively limited and does not usually contain sufficient facilities for groups. There is also a high degree of stigma from the general public, which is supported by a feeling within the United Kingdom larp community that events should not take place in areas where they can be spectated. Laws prevent the carrying of offensive weapons, and replica weapons must be covered in public spaces, which can also prevent events from taking place. For these reasons, larp usually takes place on private land or facilities. As in some Nordic countries, this is assisted by ties to Scouting organizations, which, in the United Kingdom, own significant areas of land suitable and available for larp play. A second type of site favors sites run for profit, usually maintained by larp enthusiasts. The Chislehurst caves in Kent have, for example, been rented by Labyrinthe since 1985 and comprise several miles of chalk caves and tunnels. They have been customized for role-players, and the site can be partitioned to allow multiple events to run at the same time. Many groups use the same sites every year and have often customized these locations. Lastly, many events are held in smaller locations, such as local halls, community centers, or, sometimes, large private rooms in pubs.

Nordic Larp If North American and United Kingdom larp set the initial baselines, Nordic larp was what brought the counterpoints. The Nordic countries have been quite visible in the debates about role-playing games, especially larps, in recent years. Nordic larp consists of national larp traditions that started interacting and intermingling, eventually forming a loose but influential community around their annual Knutepunkt conference. However, although this is the tradition best known internationally, it represents only a part of the numerous, rich Nordic roleplay cultures.

Backdrop Larp started independently in numerous places around the Nordic countries in the 1980s.1 The earliest sustained Nordic larp-like activities that are somehow connected to larp took place in Sweden. The people who would later organize under the name Gyllene Hjortet (The Golden Deer) held their first events in 1983. In Denmark, the first events can be traced

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back to the mid-1980s, and in Finland, larp dates back to 1988. Norway was the last to join the party; in 1989, unbeknownst to each other Oslo and Trondheim both became hope to larping. There were no manuals for how to larp in the 1980s. Each group that decided to give larp a try put together their own interpretation. Common early influences were TRPGs, which had arrived in the Nordics earlier, first with exchange students that had travelled to the United States, then as imports, translations, and domestic publications. A number of groups also encountered articles about British larping (probably Treasure Trap) in foreign game or computer magazines. Some had even participated in larps in the United Kingdom and later in other cities in the Nordics. The American television movie Mazes and Monsters (1982), which cashed in on the moral panic around D&D, was also an important source of inspiration. The earliest larpers came from tabletop but also from Tolkien societies, historical reenactments, science fiction fandom, scouting, assassination games, and community theatres. The early groups were largely unaware of each other, and it took years for these traditions to find each other. Players would find each other through shared hobbies, shops that sold role-playing games, and magazines within each country. There were soon attempts to bring larpers together under national organizations, some of which prospered, while others withered. Most early larps had fantasy settings. A typical scenario was – and still is – some kind of a meeting between different factions. Fighting with boffer weapons was also important, but from fairly early on, there was also the idea of simulating a whole village, town, or court. Fantasy larps were relatively easy to set up because the Nordic countries (aside from Denmark) have a freedom to roam. Anyone can wander through; camp in; or pick berries and mushrooms, swim, and hike in both public and owned forests as long as they do not disturb anyone’s homes. Fantasy has remained popular throughout the years, although sources of inspiration have varied from D&D to Nordic folklore and from Vikings to Harry Potter. In the 1990s, larps inspired by Vampire: The Masquerade (1993) became popular. Since the late 1990s, larp has been increasingly viewed as a form of expression, not tied to any particular genre. However, fantasy remains the most popular genre, and public perception of larp is still often connected to it. Larp has nevertheless gained a level of acceptance in the Nordic countries such that it can be found reported in news media, it may receive arts related grants, and the common vernacular may compare other forms of pretense to “larping” by default.

The Nordic Style As there is such a wide range of Nordic traditions, teasing out common characteristics is hard. However, general tendencies can be identified.2 Most larps organized in the Nordic countries tend to be noncommercial. The larps are designed, produced, and staged by the community for the community. Larping is not a service one purchases but an experience one participates in creating. Players pay a participation fee, but this fee usually just covers the expenses. Although there is usually an official, bureaucratic structure (such as an association) staging the larp, typically none of the organizers are salaried. This has numerous implications. First, the participant is rarely seen as a customer, and the game organizers are not seen as a service provider. It is more common that the organizers are seen as having a vision they pitch to the potential players, and players who sign up are expected to put effort into co-creation as well. Second, larps are not a big business but more like shared culture. As a result, organizers can stage small, intimate, weird, alternative, and political larps

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without fear of alienating their customers. There is also an abundance of self-contained larps, which are not part of any ongoing world. Building and guarding intellectual property has not been a central consideration. There are people who earn a living by staging larps for larpers, but they are few. Nordic larps tend to have few game mechanics, at least in comparison to many mainstream larps in countries like the United States, Germany, or the United Kingdom. The focus in playing is on conflicts and intrigues between players, not between players and game masters (Eidsem Hansen & Fatland, 2011). Furthermore, in Nordic larps, explicit fighting is rarely important. Nordic larps do have mechanics, but these can usually be explained in a few pages. It is also quite common to hold pre-larp workshops where the mechanics are tried out and practiced. This ensures that everyone is on the same page and builds trust in the ensemble of players. Simulation rules are common, particularly for amorous and violent interactions, but the systems tend to be loose and honor-based. It is also common to have rules to drive drama, such as “conflicts escalate until someone dies” or “all secrets must out”. This discourages gaming the system. Furthermore, “winning a larp” is considered almost as oxymoronic. An example of a loose rule is to “play to lose”: the idea is to let your character lose (e.g. spill secrets, fail, crack under pressure) in order to create a more interesting overall situation. Nordic larp, as a pastime, requires quite a bit of commitment. The organizers are expected to provide a coherent vision, a compelling setting, and often even a fully realized environment. The players are expected to clothe and equip their characters, often create character relations, and stay in character for the duration of the larp – even if it lasts for days. The aforementioned 360° Illusion (Koljonen, 2007) used to be a common ideal but has been challenged. For example, black box larps (Nielsen 2015a) have moved consciously away from realistic environments, but the environments are still highly controlled and designed. Indexical actions (player actions that look like the actions being simulated) are no longer as highly valued, and the concept of steering (players guiding their characters based on reasons that are not part of the game fiction) has challenged the notion that immersion is an ideal experiential state (Montola, Stenros, & Saitta, 2015). Likewise, small convention larps are often run without any props. Yet required commitment, in general, remains high. Finally, in the Nordic countries, larp is increasingly seen as a worthy endeavor and as a valid cultural activity. Although play and playful, it is taken seriously. In some ways, the Nordic countries are home to a geek pride movement; most larpers have rejected the shame with which adult play is usually burdened. After some early moral panics, which were mostly imported from the United States, larp has been successfully framed as a cultural activity, worthy of artistic collaboration and public funding – even if receiving such funding is as difficult as for any other art project. At the same time, serious analysis and later scholarly interest into larp and larp design have grown. Larp is not something that needs to be hidden but something that one can be proud of and that can report on one’s curriculum vitae.

The Knutepunkt Movement At the heart of the Nordic larp traditions is a community of enthusiasts. The Swedish larp Trenne byar (1994) brought together a thousand larpers from Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. Following the mood, it created, a landmark meeting for Nordic players and was organized in Oslo in 1997. This event, Knutepunkt, became an annual convention

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that travels between the four countries, with English as its lingua franca and language of documentation and research. Since 2001, over 30 books on larp have been published by this community, and the community has grown to include people from around the world. Knutepunkt also arose from differences that first emerged in discussions and visits to each other’s larps. They led to debates about the “correct” and “best” way to larp, often formulated as manifestos (Fatland & Wingård, 1999; Harviainen, 2010; Pohjola, 1999). A written tradition started to emerge as people wanted to put together a sustained argument and not repeat the same discussions at every Knutepunkt. At the same time, many of the “classic larps” that form the foundation of the Nordic larp tradition and movement were played. After the formative years, many of the ideas expressed earlier were explored more thoroughly and adopted into a widening toolkit. Examples of these included theatrical techniques, pervasive play that blurred boundaries of game and everyday life (Montola, Stenros, & Waern, 2009), and the tearing down of barriers between the player and the character in order to create bleed: strong emotions that cross over (e.g. Montola, 2010; White, Harviainen & Boss, 2012). Such emotional transfer may take place between players and their characters during and after role-playing. People may, for example, feel empathy or attraction after a game towards a person with whom they played a romantic scene. As a result of active outreach, many of the ideas now associated with Nordic larp originate from other countries. “Nordic larp” has become increasingly ill-fitting as a title (Stenros, 2014). A recent trend has been to recreate older larps and to write down new ones as scores or “librettos”, scripts that contain all the information for re-staging a particular larp. While effective, this removes some characteristics elements of Nordic larps, such as the immersive 360° ideal environment, and diminishes co-creation. Re-runnable Nordic chamber larps that are designed from the start to tackle this were strongly influenced by the ­Danish-Swedish freeform role-playing games (e.g. Thomasen & Andresen, 2011; Wrigstad, 2008). Chamber and black box larps have become popular, and there are numerous festivals devoted to them. They are the Nordic larps most likely to be staged outside the Nordic countries, alongside certain massive larps that are intentionally made for reruns.

Other Nordic Traditions Nordic larp and role-play traditions, although they cross-pollinate each other, have remained distinct. Groups for whom the authenticity of the setting, the props, and the culture is central have devoted decades to building a permanent village in a forest in Sweden. In Finland, others have kept honing a tradition of street larping: campaigns that are played around a city on the streets and in bars and their backrooms (e.g. Niskanen & Järvelä, 2015). In Denmark, children’s larping is a very popular activity, dating back to the 1990s. The games are often led by paid adults and are action-focused, featuring boffer fights between archetypal groups, such as orcs, elves, cultists, and Vikings (Raasted, 2010). Unlike with Nordic larp in general, most of their participants are male. Denmark, like Germany, also has a number of businesses that specialize in manufacturing or selling larp props. The numerous Nordic role-play scenes, traditions, and movements tend to organize themselves around slightly differing conventions, often based on their varying connections to TRPGs (or lack thereof ). Knutepunkt is the epicenter of the international scene, and Fastaval is the capital of freeform, which mixes tabletop with larp-like elements. Conventions also create the new legends of the scene as central venues for promoting the larps the communities consider important and impressive.

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Former USSR Russian-speaking countries present an interesting counterpoint to the histories of larp in other countries. Evidence exists that many larp-like activities were held on the territory of Belarus over 100 years ago. The first officially documented application of larp methodology in educational processes was dated 1916–1918. That new wave was led by Inokentiy Nikolaevich Zhukov (1875–1948). While the fall of the Russian Empire and the formation of the USSR were happening, Zhukov was the first to organize educational larp into a movement and to utilize larp methodology as a cornerstone of a new educational system. He was also responsible for the invention of the Pioneer movement (Kot, 2012), originally modeled on the Scout movement but distinct in its overt politics. In a way, here, too, we can see a Scouting connection to larp. On role-playing games, Zhukov said, From the usual type of games, these games differ in that they are never accidental or short, but can be long-term or even permanent. In these games play got serious, merging with life itself. Two main types of these great educative games were used. The first type included games based on the imitation of contemporary adult citizens, such as School Republics and all kinds of Children’s Clubs. (Zhukov, 1918) In 1918, he conducted the first of his “long-term larps”, which included over 700 participants, aged 12–14, from schools and were designed to last two and a half years. Such innovations were strongly supported at first by the educational system at the dawn of USSR, and with Zhukov’s experience, the national youth organization was created using the method of “permanent larp”. However, the Communist party decided to use this innovation as an ideological and political tool. Larp-like activities were briefly examined in the works of Lev Vygotsky (1896–1934) (e.g. 1929), but the most influential researcher of larp in the history of the USSR by all accounts would be Daniil Elkonin (1904–1984). His works on larps date as far back as the 1930s, and his books on the topic are still considered unmatched by many (in particular, 1957, 1978). Most of his more than a hundred publications were about games and the most prominent of those, about larp. Thus, whereas larp in many other countries seems to have arisen predominantly from D&D and reenactment, in the former USSR countries, it appears to have its root in educational play.

As a Subculture Larp has existed in Russian-speaking countries as a subcultural phenomenon for some time as well. It was less of a movement and more of a children’s leisure activity until the formation of the USSR, when it was encouraged by ideological departments of the Ministry of Education. Later on, these games became more centralized and, in time, turned into larp-like military games for children and teenagers. In the 1980s, larp suddenly had a surge of interest throughout the USSR. Thanks to the success of reenactment turned into larp, and with the aid of educators and literature clubs, Centers of Role Modeling appeared all over the country. By 1982, each Soviet republic had at least one such center. Some still remain and function, especially in the east and northeast parts of the Russian Federation.

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With the fall of USSR, most clubs lost support of state institutions and were disbanded. This was simultaneously a turning point for a new generation. This new generation of players, influenced by previous pioneers (“boxed” educational larps, book-larps, literary creations, etc.) and an influx of translated fantasy and science fiction literature from abroad, started playing out their own fantasies. Many larpers are now also historical reenactors, and larp is often a side hobby for them. Notable communities of play exist in many former Soviet states, and the communities in e.g. Russia, Belarus, and the Baltic states are now also interacting with the Nordic tradition. Much of Russian larp design and research still falls outside the reach of Western scholars due to language barriers, but contributions on the communities have made their way into e.g. the Knutepunkt books and some cross-cultural volumes.

Other Traditions We now briefly examine two less well-known larp traditions: those of Australia and Germany. These traditions are of interest, both for their place in the historical development of larp and because they illuminate the way in which larp traditions can have different roots yet lead to similar results. They both show similar influences as the United States and the United Kingdom but for different reasons.

Australian Traditions Australian larp began in Canberra in 1981 when a group of designers envisaged a looser game with far more players instead of a typical tabletop game. The result was the birth of Australian freeform a year later, which involved three game masters passing groups of people to each other – “a dynamic freeform form of game play” (Quinton, 2015). These designers followed up in 1983 with a larger event for over 150 players and 20 game masters, with interaction occurring mainly between players. These games set much of the format for Australian freeforms, with some plot pre-defined but with development very much left to the players, a focus on player-player interaction, and a low player-to-game master ratio. The format solidified in the mid-1980s, with designers now also providing characters to their players. Typical player numbers became 20–50, with games lasting 3–6 hours. These events varied significantly from early 1980s larp forms in other countries in emphasizing player-player interaction. While the earliest freeforms were sci-fi-themed, they soon branched into other genres, such as fantasy and horror. In the Australian context, the terms “freeform” and “larp” are often, but not rigorously, used to define different types of games. In a larp, players design their own character; in freeform, the designer creates the characters. This particular Australian distinction descends from the origin of freeform in role-playing conventions and the limits forced by such a setting, especially in terms of time and necessary closure. Freeforms are generally short, often only a single play session, while larps are often longer, campaign-focused games. Rule sets are highly defined in larps and often derive from TRPGs. Freeforms use much more minimal rule sets. Some larps involve acting out combat and physical activity – freeforms almost always use abstract resolution systems (which is also often true of larps based on tabletop). Over time, the emphases in freeform design have changed, with more focus on character background as opposed to raw statistics, experimentation with various play mechanics, and exploration of social, political and psychological themes. What has remained constant is an emphasis on player-player social interaction as opposed to mechanical or action-based resolution.

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Fantasy larping arrived in Australia in 1986 and 1987. Larger combat-based larps first appeared in Australia in the early 1990s. The tradition of costumed fantasy larps is continued to the current day, mainly through clubs. Freeforms and larp campaigns based on published rule sets also appeared in the mid-1990s. Most were games set in White Wolf ’s World of Darkness. (Vampire: The Masquerade and related games), even before the official larp rules for that setting were available. These continue to the present day. The games typically have monthly or weekly sessions and last from a few sessions to years of play. These forms, particularly freeform and larps based on commercial tabletop systems, have cross-fertilized each other, predominantly through role-playing conventions. This influences the design of both as players continue to participate across the spectrum of larp styles.

German Traditions Despite similar historical precedents (Harviainen, 2012, pp. 18–22; Montola, 2012, pp. 109–110; Morton, 2007), larp was introduced to a wider public in Germany by a commercial imperative. The idea was to expand the business of the Drachenschmiede hobby shop in Cologne in the early 1990s, based upon British and American larp models. Drachenschmiede distributed surveys among their customers to understand the specific needs of German role-players and evaluate a potential market (Schwohl, 2003). In 1992, the larp Draccon1, which is considered the first officially announced German larp, was organized. While the early years of larping in Germany showed a variety of do-it-yourself practices, players could already buy sophisticated and laborious game materials, such as metal armor. It is tempting to see commercial interests as the sole foundation for larp in Germany, but other streams were as important because they helped to spread the idea of larp independently. We stress two streams in particular because they are typical for German larp. First, German history after World War II was characterized by the occupation of the Allied Forces and the division of Germany into East and West. During the 1980s and 1990s, American and British soldiers brought TRPGs and larp to West Germany. Some of them were members of the SCA. In the East, Communism restricted certain leisure time activities but allowed the reenactment of distant historical times, such as the Middle Ages. Similar developments of larp, with a tradition of historical reenactment during Communist times, can be seen in Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slowenia, and parts of Russia. The East German reenactment stream joined the West German reenactment and larp streams after the reunification in 1989. Second, players thought independently about ways to translate the TRPG into a live-action format. One group translated the first German TRPG Midgard (Franke, 1981) and decided to “play out” the adventures for real. According to one of the members, the idea originated in rumors about British larps after visiting fantasy shops in the United Kingdom. Similar groups have developed in this fashion from the fast-growing subculture of TRPGs. These groups are still active and exist separately from the visible larp culture. As with the other traditions described earlier, to speak of one coherent larp culture in Germany is a simplification. Another common simplification is the distinction between commercial and noncommercial traditions. This simplification is artificial because the different traditions overlap and interact. Today, the German larp market is shared by amateurs, semiprofessionals, and professional game material manufacturers. General suppliers are complemented by special item shops for common game materials, such as masks, tents that look appropriate for fantasy worlds, and raw materials. The commercial interest of larp shops is influential, but that position is challenged

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by a tradition of a do-it-yourself ideology that is also strong within several other national communities, for example, the Nordic tradition. The do-it-yourself ideal and the professional practices of larp shops supported the development of costumes up to today (Bienia, 2016). For the German scene, more than almost any other, visual authenticity and tangibility seem to carry a significant impact on what is considered good play.

Summary Larps, as forms of physical expression, exist on the borderline of several expressive forms, owing their existence not just to TRPGs and reenactment but also to children’s pretend play, educational applications, and commercial interests. There are a few general principles that serve as common ground across different larping traditions. First, there is the notion of embodiment – that players will embody their play rather than describe their characters’ actions. Second, that players and characters are generally seen as separate such that in-character actions should not be confused with out-of-character actions. The embodied aspect of larps often means that they are constrained by the physical locations where they are played. Similarly, they are bound by time. However, larp designers have come up with solutions, such as scene-based narratives to allow for some freedom from “real time”. Materiality is another aspect that is both central to larps and makes them stand out. We then examined a series of different cultural traditions and discussed some significant aspects of their history as well as current characteristics. These distinctions are important because different larping traditions evolved (mostly) simultaneously and with different goals and emphases. Nowadays, even as the cultures of larp play increasingly converge, we can observe a widening variety of play. Escapism-style fantasy remains the most popular form, but dystopias, Vampire: the Masquerade, Witcher, and various variations of Harry Potter have their enthusiasts as well. Likewise, applications within education (→ Chapter 15), design and organizational development are also gaining more and more ground (see e.g. Daniau, 2016).

Notes 1 This early history of Nordic role-play is largely anecdotal. No rigorous academic study exists on this history. This account is based on written accounts (Brodén, 2008; Eidsem Hansen & Fatland, 2011; Eriksson & Sahlin, 1989; Gräslund, 1998; Pettersson, 2005; Sander, 2001; Stenros & Montola, 2010; Thomasen & Andresen, 2011; Westerling & Sahlin, 2001) and on informal personal and online discussions with practitioners. 2 This section is largely based on Stenros and Montola (2010) and Stenros (2014).

Further Reading Stenros, Jaakko & Montola, Markus (Eds.). (2010). Nordic Larp. Stockholm: Fëa Livia. Saitta, Eleanor, Holm-Andersen, Marie, & Back, Jon (Eds.). (2014). The Foundation Stone of Nordic Larp. Stockholm: Knutpunkt. Nilsen, Elin, Stark, Lizzie, & Lindahl, Trine Lise (Eds.). (2013). Larps from the Factory. Copenhagen: Rollespilsakademiet.

References Bateson, G. (1955/2000). A theory of play and fantasy. In G. Bateson (Ed.), Steps to an ecology of mind. Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press. Bienia, R. (2016). Role playing materials. Braunschweig: Zauberfeder.

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Brodén, M. (2008). Sverok 20 år, Sweden. Caillois, R. (1961). Man, play, and games. New York: The Free Press of Glencoe. Daniau, S. (2016). The transformative potential of role-playing games: From play skills to human skills. Simulation & Gaming, 47(4), 423–444. Edwards, R. (2004). The provisional glossary. Chicago, IL: Adept Press. Eidsem Hansen, Erlend & Fatland, Eirik. (2011). Presentation given at Òdras 2011, Horní Bradlo, Czech Republic, 15–17 April, 2011. Elkonin, D. (1957). Artistic role playing games of preschool children. Moscow, USSR. Elkonin, D. (1978). Psychologija igry [The psychology of play]. Moscow, USSR. Eriksson, Stefan & Sahlin, Olle (1989). Levande Rollspel. Äventyrsspels Sinkadus, No. 22, 24–28 December. Fatland, E. (2005). Incentives as tools of larp dramaturgy. In P. Bøckman & R. Hutchison (Eds.), Dissecting larp. Collected papers for Knutepunkt (pp. 147–180). Oslo: Knutepunkt. Fatland, E. & Montola, M. (2015). The blockbuster formula: Brute force design in the monitor celestra and college of wizardry. In C. B. Nielsen & C. Raasted (Eds.), The Knudepunkt 2015 companion book (pp. 106–117). Copenhagen: Knudepunkt. Fatland, E. & Wingård, L. (1999). Dogma 99: A programme for the liberation of LARP. International version reprinted in M. Gade, L. Thorup & M. Sander (Eds.), As larp grows up: Theory and methods in larp. Copenhagen: Projektgruppen KP03.Gräslund, Susanne (1998). Lajv i begynnelsen. Fëa Livia, No. 20. Habbe, C. D. (2012). Warum wir glauben, dass fette Elfen schlechte Spieler sind – Die Macht des Diskurses im Live-Rollenspiel: Rollen von Gewicht. In K. Dombrowski (Ed.), LARP und ich. Aufsatzsammlung zum MittelPunkt (pp. 15–30). Braunschweig: Zauberfeder [Why we think fat elves are bad players]. Harviainen, J. T. (2010). The manifesto manifesto. In E. Larsson (Ed.), Playing reality (pp. 243–249). Stockholm: Interacting Arts. Harviainen, J. T. (2011). Sadomasochist role-playing as live-action role-playing: A trait-descriptive analysis. International Journal of Role-Playing 2, 59–70. Harviainen, J. T. (2012). Systemic perspectives on information in physically performed role-play. Diss. University of Tampere. Hill W. (1973). “Rules for the Live Ring Game”. Self-published. Høgdall R., Schønnemann Andreasen P., Thurøe K., Munthe-Kaas P., Heebøll Arbjørn J. & Kromann M. (2010). “Delirium” Larp run at Viborg Tinghal, Denmark, 22nd–25th of July 2010. https://nordiclarp.org/wiki/Delirium Koljonen, J. (2004). “I could a tale unfold whose lightest word would harrow up thy soul.” Lessons from Hamlet. In M. Montola & J. Stenros (Eds.), Beyond role and play: Tools, toys and theory for Harnessing the Imagination (pp. 191–201). Helsinki: Ropeconry. Koljonen, J. (2007). Eye-witness to the illusion: An essay on the impossibility of 360° roleplaying. In J. Donnis, M. Gade & L. Thorup (Eds.), Lifelike (pp. 175–187). Copenhagen: Knudepunkt. Kot, Y. (2001). Long-term larp of Inokentiy Zhukov. Moskov: MSU. Print. Kot, Y. (2012). Educational larp: Topics for consideration. Wyrd Con Companion 2012 / ed. Sarah Lynne Bow-man (Ph. D.), Aaron Vanek – Mountain View, CA, USA: Creative Commons, 2012. – (135 p.), pp. 116–125. Loponen, M., & Montola, M. (2004). A semiotic view on diegesis construction. In M. Montola & J. Stenros (Eds.), Beyond role and play: Tools, toys and theory for harnessing the imagination (pp. 39–51). ­Helsinki, Finland: Ropecon ry. Montola, M. (2008). The invisible rules of role-playing. The social framework of role-playing process. International Journal of Role-Playing, 1, 22–36. Montola, M. (2010). The positive negative experience in extreme role-playing. In Proceedings of experiencing games: Games, play, and players – First Nordic Digra, 16–17 August, 2010. Stockholm. Montola, M. (2012). On the edge of the magic circle: Understanding role-playing and pervasive games. Tampere University Press. Retrieved from http://tampub.uta.fi/handle/10024/66937 Montola, M., Stenros, J. & Saitta, E. (2015). The art of steering: Bringing the player and the character back together. In C.B. Nielsen & C. Raasted (Eds.), The Knudepunkt 2015 Companion Book. ­Copenhagen: Knudepunkt.

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Montola, M., Stenros, J. & Waern, A. (2009). Pervasive Games: Theory and Design. San Francisco, CA: Morgan Kaufmann Publishers Inc. Morton, B. (2007). LARPs and their cousins through the ages. In J. Donnis, M. Gade & L. Thorup (Eds.), Lifelike (pp. 245–259). Copenhagen: Landsforeningen for Levende Rollespil. Nielsen, M. (2015). Knutepunkt keynote speech, 12–15 February, Copenhagen. Niskanen, N. & Järvelä, S. (Eds.). (2015). Tonnin Stiflat: A street larp campaign in 1920’s Helsinki. Helsinki: Tonnin Stiflat. Pedersen, B. (2010). Delirium – insanity and love bleeding from larp to life. In J. Stenros & M. Montola (Ed.), Nordic Larp (pp. 288–297). Stockholm: Fea Livia. Perrin, Steve. (1978). RuneQuest. Oakland, MA: Chaosium. Pettersson, J. (2005). Roolipelimanifesti. Helsinki: Like. Pettersson, J. (Ed.). (2014). Life under occupation: A documentation book for the larp Halat Hisar. Helsinki: Pohjoismaisen Roolipelaamisen Seura. Pohjola, M. (1999). The manifesto of the Turku school. Reprinted in M. Gade, L. Thorup & M. Sander (Eds.), As larp grows up. Theory and methods in larp (pp. 34–39). Copenhagen: Projektgruppen KP03. Quinton. 2015. Private email correspondence with author. Raasted, Claus. (2010). Rollespil I Rude Skov: Changing the world one sword at a time. In J. Stenros & M. Montola (Eds.), Nordic larp (pp. 174–181). Stockholm: Fëa Livia. Relph, E. (1976). Place and placelessness. London: Pion Books. Salen, K., & Zimmerman, E. (2004). Rules of play: Game design fundamentals. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Säilä, Terhi. (2014). On the importance of body language in live-action role-play. In M. Montola & J. Stenros (Eds.), Beyond role and play: Tools, toys and theory for harnessing the imagination (pp. 175–180). Helsinki: Ropecon. Sander, Mikkel. (2001). Larping in Denmark. The Book, 76. SCA (2008). New members guide to the SCA. Society for Creative Anachronism, Inc. Downloaded on 8/30/2015, from www.sca.org. Schwohl, F. (2003). “Geschichte Des Larp.” LarpWiki. October 10. http://www.larpwiki.de/Geschichte %20Des%20Larp Semenov, A. (2015). Larps built on the problem of choice. In A. Fedoseev, J. T. Harviainen & O. ­Vorobyeva (Eds.), Nordic-Russian larp ialog (pp. 35–42). Moscow: Comcon. Stark, L. (2012). Leaving Mundania: Inside the transformative world of live action role playing games. Chicago, IL: Chicago Review Press. Stenros, J. (2010). Nordic larp: Theatre, art and game. In J. Stenros & M. Montola (Eds.), Nordic larp (pp. 300–315). Stockholm: Fëa Livia. Stenros, Jaakko. (2014). “What does ‘Nordic larp’ mean?” In J. Back (Ed.), The cutting edge of Nordic larp (pp. 147–156). Halland: Knutpunkt. Stenros, Jaakko & Montola, Markus (Eds.). (2010). Nordic Larp. Stockholm: Fëa Livia. Swift, J. & Livesey, C. (2007). The joy of murder. London: Trinity Mirror Sport Media. Thomasen, Bo & Andresen, Lars Nøhr (Eds.). (2011). Fastaval 1986–2011. Foreningen ALEA. Treasure Trap: Basic Rules. http://community.dur.ac.uk/treasure.trap/rules/DUTTBasicRules.php. ‘Treasure Trap on Blue Peter’. www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5yiarlxxN4. Amtgard Rules (version 1.0): http://amtwiki.net/amtwiki/index.php/1.0_Rulebook. Westerling, Anna & Sahlin, Olle (2001). Larping in Sweden. In A. Alfsvåg, I. Storrø & E. E. Hansen (Eds.), The Book (pp. 74–75). Oslo: Knutepunkt. Wrigstad, T. (2008). The nuts and bolts of jeepform. In M. Montola & J. Stenros (Eds.) Playground worlds – creating and evaluating experiences of role-playing games (pp. 125–139). Helsinki: Ropeconry. White, W. J., Harviainen, J. T. & Boss, E. C. (2012). Role-playing communities, cultures of play, and the discourse of immersion. In E. Torner & W. J. White (Eds.), Immersive gameplay: Studies in role-­ playing and media immersion (pp. 71–86). McFarland, CA: Jefferson. Zhukov, Inokentiy. (1918). Two directions of schools evolution. Chita. Print.

6 Single-Player Computer Role-Playing Games Douglas Schules, Jon Peterson, and Martin Picard

When Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) came out in early 1974, personal computers (PCs) were almost unknown. However, many of the early adopters of tabletop role-playing games (TRPGs) were of an age to attend college or join the military, and these institutions had access to computers. It was in this context that experiments with computer role-playing games (CRPGs) began. Thus, CRPGs began as soon as the tabletop genre emerged, and the gradual adoption of computing technologies into everyday life ensured that CRPGs would have a place in the digital domain as well. This chapter discusses the origins of CRPGs, traces their expansion across platforms and cultures, and examines their contributions to the development of hybrid and new genres. These themes are influenced by advancements in technological capabilities because they have impacted how CRPGs have evolved. This chapter draws from a variety of academic, industry, and fan sources in order to present a more fully informed picture of the form and its importance.

CRPGs and Related Subgenres Defining CRPGs Early scholarship on CRPGs often defines them from the perspective of gameplay mechanics (often in relation to computer games or video games more broadly). Thus, CRPGs were defined by the existence of elements such as a formal levelling system (i.e. character progression), randomness, and quantification of characters (e.g. Wolf 2002; Barton 2008). These features reflected attention to the way the computer redefined the role-playing experience by automating many of the more mechanical aspects of TRPGs. As CRPGs matured, the emphasis on mechanics receded as other elements, such as story, rose to prominence. Early gaming magazines were enraptured by the feats performed by computing technologies and their ability to immerse players into gaming worlds. Nevertheless, computer and gaming magazines also reflected upon how the computer medium was an unforgiving arbiter of rules when compared to their human dungeon or game master counterparts. This conversation

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Figure 6.1 

Garriott, Richard. 1979. Akalabeth, Apple II. NA.

reflected a broader concern over how the medium impacted the character-­enactment of role-playing (see Tem 1982; Card 1988). Regardless, these early attempts helped define the CRPG experience, at least until the development of networking technologies (both on- and offline), as a mediation between player and program rather than between players or between players and their dungeon master. The earliest CRPGs consisted of little more than stick figure graphical dungeon crawls that pushed the limits of the systems they operated on (Figure 6.1). In these early games, survival and combat management usually formed the core gaming experience, and the inclusion of an extensive and compelling narrative was generally not considered necessary. Even by 1992, the editors of Computer Gaming World argued that CRPG “game design must be such that the possibility of winning or losing adjusts to the player characters as they improve. If sections of the game are too far out of balance, the game is frustrating rather than fun” (1992b, 54). Although discussing game mechanics was still important to any well-rounded review, their importance had lessened by the end of the 1990s. Popular videogame website IGN’s review of Baldur’s Gate (BioWare 1998), for example, begins by discussing how the game is an improvement from the mechanics of SSI Gold Box classics because “it [the game mechanics] all goes on behind the scenes where it belongs” (Ward 1999). The reviewer quickly shifts gears to mention that even with the best engine in the world though, Baldur’s Gate couldn’t have gotten far without a terrific storyline. I mean, how do you go about writing a tale that can be achieved by (while still providing challenge for) 16 different character classes (more if you count multi-classes) who could be of any race or alignment? (Ward 1999) Likewise, IGN’s review of Gothic (Piranha Bytes 2001) simply recommends the game to players who want a good story (Krause 2002), despite the harsh criticism other sites gave the game in terms of its punishing gameplay (e.g. Park 2001; Nguyen 2002). Because mechanics merely scratch the surface of a game’s experience, the video gaming website Extra Credits argues that we should instead focus on the motivations players have to play games as a benchmark for classification. For CRPGs, narrative engagement is what currently comprises the core gameplay experience. Beyond story and behind-the-scenes game mechanics, CRPGs share other common features. Game historian Matt Barton (2007), in a lengthy reflection on the subject on the website Armchair Arcade, discusses narrative and aesthetic tropes found across games in the genre

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across time. He notes that most CRPGs offer the player direct or indirect control of other characters. This element has been around since the genesis of CRPGs, with classics like Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord (Sir-Tech Software 1981), The Bard’s Tale (Interplay Productions 1985), and The Magic Candle (Mindcraft 1989), allowing players to create and/or control a party of characters.

Box 6.1  Common CRPG Terms Clone: A game that mimics the gameplay, mechanics, and/or aesthetics of another, often popular or innovative, title. Grind/grinding: Repetitively performing the same task, such as killing enemies, to improve character development or acquire items. When applied to item acquisition, it is interchangeable with the term “farming.” Paper Doll: A 2-D or 3-D representation of player characters and their equipment. Permadeath (“permanent death”): A term derived from the fact that once the character or party dies, any relevant save data is deleted, and the game must be started from the beginning. Sometimes referred to as “ironman mode.” Save Scumming: The process of making backup copies of a game’s save files to hedge against permadeath.

One other key feature of CRPGs is that they have some sort of combat system, one that scales in difficulty as the player gains levels or progresses in the game. A classic example of this is Dragon Quest (Chunsoft 1986; localized in North American markets as Dragon Warrior in 1989). In this game, there are no real restrictions on where players can wander, and areas of the world are connected by bridges. Crossing a bridge serves as a visual marker of increasing enemy difficulty. The bridges in Dragon Quest ostensibly connect new areas of the game world, but, by scaling the difficulty of enemies in these new areas, they also serve to guide players along a narrative path. Nowadays, players intuitively recognize that when entering a new area, they will most likely encounter new, more difficult enemies. Alternate systems, such as the one used in Final Fantasy VIII (Square 1999), consist of adjusting (scaling) enemy difficulty to the average level of the player’s party. Experimentation with mechanics continues to be important to CRPGs to this day. CRPGs have been influential in the evolution of video games via the appearance of CRPG design features, often called “RPG Elements,” in non-CRPG video games (Zagal and Altizer 2014). Within the form, this evolution has led to the appearance of multiple CRPG sub-types, which we discuss below.

Sub-types CRPGs are comprised of a seemingly endless variety of sub-types or categories that blend the mechanical elements of CRGPs listed earlier with those of other video game genres. While Mark J.P. Wolf (2002) offers a taxonomy of game genres, the reality is that there are no agreed upon formal definitions of what constitutes the various sub-types of CRPGs as they vary from community to community, culture to culture, and market to market.

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This does not mean, however, that it is impossible to provide a framework for them. We consider the sub-types we will discuss to be “stable” in that they have been in use for several years in the gaming press and colloquially by players. Generally speaking, the sub-types are distinguished by game mechanics and the overall player experience.

Tactical or Simulation RPGs (SRPGs) Tactical role-playing games, known as simulation role-playing games (SRPGs) in Japan, focus heavily on pre-planned combat encounters1. They are distinguished by their emphasis on strategic planning, length of combat encounters, and reduced opportunities to “grind” or otherwise level characters. Strategic planning in SRPGs can range from complex to simple, but it generally requires players to consider both the battle properties of units on the map and how terrain impacts these. In terms of unit properties, many SRPGs appearing on console systems adopted a paper-rock-scissors approach to combat, with categories of weapons or magic being strong against or weak to other forms of attack. The strategic gameplay of the Japanese series Langrisser (Masaya Games 1991; localized as Warsong in North America), for example, is centered on a complex system of purchasable units whose attacks are significantly effective against specific unit types and virtually ineffective against others: archers in the game are strong against flying enemies, such as wyverns and gryphons, but weak against soldiers; these soldiers are, in turn, massacred by mounted units and some monsters; such mounted units are decimated by pikemen. The types of units that are available depends on the class of the general leading them, and certain classes have access to special units that add further depth to this system of checks and balances. Monks, mermen, and guardsmen are special units available for purchase, and part of the challenge of the game is discovering which units are effective against the monster hordes the player may face, which include undead, slimes, werewolves, and dragons. While this system creates a rough balance of power between units, terrain plays a significant role in strategy. Units may encounter bonuses or penalties to movement based on the types of terrain they try to cross and, in some instances, may receive advantages to attack or defense for occupying certain terrain types. In Langrisser, players must also consider the location of their units relative to their general as their effectiveness is limited to a small area surrounding the general who owns them. Outside this “sphere of influence,” their combat capabilities are greatly reduced. The importance of strategy in SRPGs may be seen in part as a response to the way the subtype handles combat encounters (often referred to as maps). While combat in many CRPGs includes both set and random encounters that are resolved quickly, encounters in SRPGs tend to be scripted, less frequent, and take longer to complete. Because of this, there are few opportunities to “grind” levels. Consider examples such as Fire Emblem: The Sword of Flame (­Nintendo 2003), Shining Force (Climax Entertainment 1993), or Shadowrun Returns (­Harebrained Schemes 2013), in which the number of maps hovers around two dozen. As a practical consequence, the finite number of enemies limits the amount of experience that can be earned and, hence, invests the levelling processes – who to level and how high – with a strategic dimension of its own. This is not to suggest that random encounters do not appear in SRPGs – Final Fantasy Tactics (Square 1998), Tactics Ogre (Quest 1998), or Front Mission 3 (Square 2000), to name a few games, include random battles – but the difference between these and other CRPGs lies in how quickly these battles are resolved: in general, encounters in CRPGs are over in a few seconds to a few minutes, while those in SRPGs can require half an hour or more. The hidden

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dungeon of Tactics Ogre, Hell’s Gate, requires players to travel to the bottom of a hundred-floor dungeon in one sitting, a feat that can take upwards of 20 hours – and all without saving.

Action RPGs (ARPGs) ARPGs are generally defined by two characteristics: real-time combat and a simplified character development system. Rather than emphasizing the tactical planning and decisionmaking witnessed in SRPGs, ARPGs introduced a measure of player skill into the CRPG form by integrating dexterity and reflexes into gameplay. The simplified character development made the game more accessible to players put off by the complexities of more traditional CRPGs. Probably the best known ARPG is Blizzard Entertainment’s Diablo (1996), although console developers in the 1980s and early 1990s produced a number of RPGs with action elements. Hydlide (T&E Soft 1984), Ys (Nihon Falcom 1987), and Secret of Mana (Square 1993) are prototypical examples of the genre from Japan, and they share with Diablo a real-time combat system wherein player reflexes combine with character stats to determine combat prowess. Compared to more traditional CRPGs, customization of characters in ARPGs is limited. While characters’ attributes are still quantified, the number of ability scores and the extent to which players have control over developing them varies. In Secret of Mana and the Ys series, for example, level ups increase character stats automatically; the player’s ability to influence a character’s ability scores rests with the types of weapon and armor equipped. Character skills and magic are also awarded, based on level rather than player choice. Compared to this, Diablo is more customizable as each level-up grants players points that can be used to increase one of four attribute scores and an ability point that can be allocated to one of three ability trees specific to the chosen class. While ARPGs have a long history, it was not until Diablo that the sub-type gained significant traction. The impact of Diablo on ARPG as a genre is succinctly summarized in GameSpot’s review of the time: “If you like PC games, you should go out right now and experience what is likely to be the clone maker for the next two years” (Ward 1997). The game would become the progenitor of a number of other games made in its image, from the relatively successful Dungeon Siege (Gas Powered Games 2002) and Nox (Westwood Studios 2000) to the poorly received Gothic 3 (Piranha Bytes 2006). In retrospect, GameSpot’s review appears prophetic as, like Rogue (Toy, Wichman, and Arnold 1980) before it, the “Diablo clone” has become a something of a sub-type in and of itself. Hybrid Games Historically, CRPGs have pushed the boundaries of both the computer medium and the role-playing game genre. It should be no surprise, then, that there are also a number of games that do not easily fit into the sub-types outlined in this section. These games blend CRPG mechanics with those of other video game genres to produce “hybrid” games whose generic status is often contested. Spellforce: The Order of Dawn (Phenomic 2003) alternated between an ARPG interface similar to Diablo, where the player directly controlled the main character and explored the world, and a strategy game interface, like Warcraft or Starcraft, in which the player acted as a general who ordered units to build structures, collect resources, and attack opponents. As a result, the game had two clearly distinct gameplay experiences that make it difficult to definitively classify.

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Box 6.2  Emergent Sub-Type: Puzzle RPGs (PRPGs) Although puzzles have long appeared in CRPGs, they have traditionally been used as minigames that add flavor to the gaming experience. The PRPG, however, foregrounds the puzzle as a core gaming element. Popularized on mobile platforms, this genre combines short “battles,” which involve solving puzzles, with a levelling system that incrementally decreases the challenges players face in solving them. One of the more successful examples of this type of game, from both user and commercial perspectives, is GungHo Online Entertainment’s Puzzle & Dragons (Insel 2012), in which players attempt to match orbs of similar colors to defeat monsters and progress through various dungeons. Completion of dungeons rewards players with experience, which can be used to recruit stronger monsters to help them tackle the challenges of more advanced dungeons, and these recruited monsters can also be levelled up and fused with other monsters to produce skills useful in dungeon progression.

Roguelike The roguelike sub-type derives its name from the 1980 game Rogue: a cult classic in university campus computer systems. In Rogue, players controlled a character exploring a dungeon, fighting monsters, collecting treasure, and getting progressively more powerful as they venture deeper in search of the Amulet of Yendor. The game’s primary challenge lay in the fact that it did not allow players to save their game, and, upon restarting, the dungeon was newly generated. This prevented players from learning the layout of the dungeon as well as the location of treasures and other items of interest. The roguelike sub-type is generally seen as implementing at least one of the following features: procedural generation of dungeons, turn-based gameplay, and permanent death. In terms of gameplay, they share overlaps with both SRPGs and ARPGs. Roguelike games generate maps randomly through an algorithmic process known as procedural generation. The process of procedural generation allows for replay value and also saves space. As maps are generated by a computer program, the size of the gaming program is ­reduced – which was a significant breakthrough in the era Rogue was developed. (To be fair, Rogue was not the first game with procedurally generated dungeons, but it became the namesake for this sub-type due to its popularity.) Procedural generation has influenced other CRPGs as well. Bethesda Softwork’s Daggerfall (Bethesda Softworks 1996) leveraged procedural generation to create random dungeons and dynamically link them to quests (Figure 6.2). Diablo applied procedural generation to maps but also extended it to the generation of equipment. The second feature of the roguelike sub-type is that it is turn-based. Each action the player performs – movement, swinging a sword, using an item – generally takes one turn to complete, although some games have introduced multiple-turn delays for high-level actions, such as spells. Players act first, with enemies and environmental hazards taking their turns after the player. Many roguelikes also link the management of resources, such as food and weapon durability, to the progression of turns. In other words, the player is in control of the progression of time in roguelikes, which lends itself to the type of tactical planning commonly seen in SRPGs as players consider how to balance resource management against combat and exploration. The effective management of resources is necessary to avoid the third common feature of roguelikes: permanent death or permadeath. This means that once a character dies, the game must be started from the beginning; this can be avoided by making backup copies of the game’s

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Figure 6.2 

Bethesda Softworks. 1996. The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall, PC. NA: Bethesda Softworks.

save files – an act known as “save scumming” that is generally viewed as cheating in many communities. While the levels produced in these new games are unique, NetHack (­Stephenson 1987) saves the levels in which characters have died, as well as the items these characters possessed, to a “bones file.” Using this file, in future game sessions, players may encounter the remains of their less successful treks into the procedurally generated world and have the opportunity to salvage equipment that would be of more use to their current incarnations’ needs. The roguelike sub-type has seen a recent resurgence in the West and remains popular in Japan, with the Mystery Dungeon series spanning over 20 years of roguelike action, involving characters across popular culture. The first game, Torneko’s Great Adventure: Mystery Dungeon (Chunsoft 1993), followed Torneko, the popular merchant character from Dragon Quest IV, as he explored dungeons to gather items and gold to expand his budding business. Later games in the series included properties from the Pokémon and Final Fantasy franchises as well as a set of games involving all original characters: the Shiren the Wanderer series. Recent imaginings of the roguelike sub-type include crowdsourced One Way Heroics (Smoking WOLF 2013) and Dragon Fin Soup (Grimm Bros 2015), both described as containing Japanese role-playing games ( JRPG) elements. The accuracy of this categorization – ­particularly the JRPG aspect – is the subject of the next section.

Box 6.3  Emergent Sub-Type: Hunter RPGs A subset of ARPGs, the “hunter” genre is a relatively recent term, used in fan communities to describe games focusing on the collection of materials and harvesting of resources to upgrade player equipment, weapons, and armor. As the number, type, and rarity of materials needed to improve gear increases as they are upgraded, games in this genre require players to repeatedly grind levels in order to secure the requisite resources to craft top-notch endgame gear. Games such as the Monster Hunter series, God Eater series, and Freedom Wars (SCE Japan Studio 2014) are considered to be archetypical of the genre.

114  Douglas Schules, Jon Peterson, and Martin Picard Table 6.1  Commonly cited differences between JRPGs and WRPGs from fans and industry

JRPG Trait

WRPG Trait

Confinement to world Defined characters Anime/cartoon style art Limited narrative choice, singular story Fantasy world

Sandbox exploration Character customization “Realistic” art Narrative plurality, multiple story paths/endings Medieval world

Sources: doady (2012), Extra Credits (2012), JLF1 (2008), Joynt (2006).

JRPGs Perhaps one of the more interesting approaches to classifying CRPGs has been the development of the labels WRPGs, or Western role-playing games, and JRPGs. Unlike the ARPG, SRPG, and roguelike, whose borders are largely defined in terms of their implementation of gaming mechanics, JRPGs tend to be defined in terms of their gameplay and narrative structures. This was not always the case, however. JRPGs were heavily influenced by early CRPGs, such as Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord and Ultima (Garriott 1981) as well as the tabletop D&D game (Kawakami 2015). While the first use of the term “JRPG” is difficult to locate precisely, fans, not game developers or marketers, are generally credited with coining the term to describe the differences they noticed between games produced by Western developers (which tended to be on PC) and those coming from Japan (which gravitated towards console systems). Specifically, players noticed that games from Japanese developers afforded less player customizability, often forcing players along pre-determined paths, but provided engaging character development and narrative arcs. Table 6.1 identifies elements commonly perceived by fan and industry players to belong to JRPGs and WRPGs. The gaming site Extra Credits (Extra Credits 20 May 2012) claims that the core element that distinguishes JRPGs from WPRGs is that of narrative engagement – what role the player occupies within the gaming world. JRPGs tell a story, while WRPGs place players in a story. This approach to defining JRPGs is useful because aesthetic styles are easily copied. Septerra Core: Legacy of the Creator (Valkyrie Studios 1999), for example, mimics the visual character style and combat interface of JRPGs of the time, while Capcom’s Dragon’s Dogma (2012) deviates from many of the standard JRPG tropes in favor of a more “Western” aesthetic. Given that the distinctive anime-style aesthetic that initially helped to define JRPGs in the late 1980s and early 1990s is readily identifiable and reproduced across the creative industries globally, many fans have turned to evaluating the genre in terms of its location of production – an ironic choice, given the multinational reality of contemporary global gaming production (Consalvo 2006).

The Evolution of CRPGs: Cultural, Technological, and Economic Origins and Beginnings: 1970s and 1980s D&D came out after the first boom in video games, triggered by the 1972 release of seminal arcade titles like Computer Space and Pong as well as the first home entertainment console system, the Magnavox Odyssey. Players understandably speculated about a video game version of D&D, though even most home systems lacked the real-time interactive graphical capability required.

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One place where those graphical facilities could be found was the PLATO network, based out of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, which had connected a number of universities and military bases in the United States. The PLATO system was designed to provide an intuitive, graphics-heavy user interface for the purposes of delivering computerized lessons. By 1973, PLATO had been widely repurposed for games, including a variety of pioneering graphical games. Because games were discouraged by the system’s administrators, early games lacked clear titles or attributions to authors, which has led to some controversy over who did what and when. However, a summer 1975 account by a Cornell student on the PLATO network clearly describes a sophisticated graphical game based on D&D at that time. The unnamed game supported a single player character who explored a 30-by-30 dungeon, though, as the account reports, “all you ever get to see on screen is that part of the room/ corridor that is 1 orthogonal step away from you.” The game dispenses with any concept of character class; all characters start with one magic spell and gain more hit points and spells with experience. The game’s sixteen spells and thirty-six varieties of monster were drawn from D&D, but it had a very clear victory condition: to accumulate twenty thousand experience points. The game was exceptionally popular on the PLATO system: only fifteen slots for saved characters were available to all PLATO users, and, as the account reports, “the roster never has an empty space on it for more than a minute.” Because of the ease of development of PLATO “lessons” and their advanced graphics capability, PLATO became a hotbed of computer role-playing. While we know most of these titles only through much later revisions of their source code, games such as Orthanc, Oubliette, and Avatar provided further innovations, including wire-frame, first-person perspective graphics. Prior to the release of D&D, computer hobbyists had circulated a number of text games that experimented with the concept of navigating rooms in a small virtual environment by posing a multiple-choice question to the player each turn. Distributed as source code written in the BASIC programming language through periodicals like the People’s Computer Company, these games included Caves (1972) and Hunt the Wumpus (Yob 1972). As with Caves, in Wumpus, rooms are numbered, and each time a player enters a new room, they are greeted with a textual description, indicating the exits and the proximity of bats, deadly pits, and the wandering eponymous monster, which must be shot from an adjacent chamber. Players in the Mirkwood Tales campaign in Cambridge, Massachusetts – a local, Tolkien-based D&D variant – applied emerging principles of rudimentary textual adventures to role-playing games. Most famously, a computer engineer named Willie Crowther devised a cavern exploration game, Adventure, that was widely distributed across the early Internet. Rather than settling for the primitive instructions issued in a game like Wumpus, Adventure let players input simple natural language commands then parsed by the computer, such as “go west” and “take rod.” This form of interaction resembled a dialog between a player and the computer, highly reminiscent of the dialog between the player and referee in D&D. The object of Crowther’s game was to overcome adversaries and puzzles in order to escape the cave system with treasure. Another of the players in the Mirkwood Tales campaign was Dave Lebling. Lebling, along with Tim Anderson and others at MIT, produced the game Zork 2. The producers of Zork would go on in 1979 to found Infocom, which pioneered a game-authoring paradigm focused on a virtual machine that could be implemented on multiple architectures, which influenced many subsequent computer systems. This aided the transition of Zork to microcomputers, sparking a number of sequels and a franchise of early text adventure games. The lessons of both the graphical tradition pioneered on the PLATO network and the textual tradition of Adventure and Zork informed the earliest commercial computer role-playing

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games. Automated Simulations (later, Epyx) sold some of the earliest commercial wargames for the PC market in 1978, and by 1979, they made an initial foray into the role-playing game market with the Temple of Apshai (Automated Solutions 1979). Like a PLATO game, Apshai showed a top-down view of the dungeon maze, though Apshai reveals more of the environment than early PLATO titles. But the top-down view of Apshai would soon seem anachronistic. Akalabeth (Garriott 1979) sported two modes: a large-scale, top-down overworld view and a first-person perspective for dungeon crawls. Designer Richard Garriott stated that he drew inspiration for the first-person view of Akalabeth from the Silas Warner game Escape (1978), which required players to navigate a three-­ dimensional wireframe maze. Although Akalabeth was coded entirely in basic, Garriott’s follow-up title, Ultima, used faster assembly language code, which made the title run more smoothly on early microcomputers. Ultima entered the market in competition with Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord, which drew directly on the PLATO tradition of games like Oubliette. The success of Ultima, Wizardry, and other titles led to numerous sequels as well as competitors in the early CRPG industry. As the first CRPGs appeared on microcomputers in the West, the genre did not take a long time to find a niche in Japan in the early 1980s. Ultima and Wizardry are the ones who obviously have had the greatest influence on the emergence of role-playing games in Japan. While the most well-known historical accounts of JRPGs often start with Dragon Quest (see Kohler 2004; Barton 2008), in actuality, the first CRPGs designed there appeared a few years prior on Japanese PCs. Some scholars cite Henk Rogers’ The Black Onyx (1984) as “Japan’s first RPG” (Edge 2008; Barnholt 2011), but there were several releases even before that. One of the first documented Japanese CRPGs is Koei’s Dragon and Princess (1982), distributed in December 1982 on the NEC PC-88 and the Fujitsu FM-7 (Derboo 2011, 2014; GameSide, 2014). The same year, Fugen Denshi released Dragon Lair on PC-8001 and FM-7, a title developed exclusively for the Japanese market by the American couple John and Patty Bell (Derboo 2015). From 1982 to the release of The Black Onyx in January 1984, roughly fifteen CRPGs (or, at least, games with role-playing game elements as the form was still in its development phase) appeared on Japanese PCs (see Table 6.2). Table 6.2  List of JRPGs up until January 1984

12/1982 Dragon & Princess ドラゴンアンドプリンセス (PC-80, PC-88, FM-7) 3/1983 Genma Taisen 幻魔大戦 (PC-6001, PC-88, PC-98, FM-7) 5/1983 Kufu-Ou no Himitsu クフ王の秘密 (PC-80, FM-7) 5?/1983 Tokugawa Ieyasu 1. Shounen-hen 徳川家康 1.少年編 (FM-7, MZ-700) 7/1983 Danchi Zuma no Yuuwaku 団地妻の誘惑 (PC-88, FM-7) 8/1983 Ken to Mahou 剣と魔法 (PC-80, PC-88, FM-7) 11/1983 Poibos Part 1 ポイボスＰａｒｔ１ (PC-88, FM-7, X1) 11/1983 Seiken Densetsu 聖剣伝説 (PC-80, unrelated to Secret of Mana) 11?/1983 Parallel World パラレルワールド (X1, PC-88) 12/1983 Dungeon ダンジョン (PC-80, PC-88, FM-7) 12/1983 Bounded バウンドット (PC-88) 12/1983 Panorama Toh ぱのらま島 (PC-88) 1/1984 Telengard テレンガード (localization) 1/1984 Voyager ボイジャー１号 (localization) 1/1984 Fortress of the Witch King ウイッチキング (localization) 1/1984 The Black Onyx ザ•ブラックオニキス Note: Dates are for the oldest known versions (most are according to the PC88 Game Library). Source: Derboo (2011).

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In the intervening two and a half years between the release of The Black Onyx in 1984 and Dragon Quest in 1986, the CRPG genre exploded, with more than fifty titles produced. Of these, a few have had historical significance, such as Nihon Falcom’s Dragon Slayer (1984) and T&E Soft’s Hydlide as the first successful ARPGs; Bokosuka Wars (Sumii 1983), one of the first SRPGs; and Cruise Chaser Blassty (1986), the first role-playing game developed by Square, which became a cult classic for Japanese PC gamers (GameSide 2014). During the first half of the 1980s, CRPGs were bountiful on Japanese computers. However, the games that remained the most well known were imports from the West, especially Ultima and Wizardry. These were officially localized in 1985, but their existence was already well known in Japan because of imports, for example, on the Apple II, or because someone discovered them while traveling abroad. For example, Dragon Quest’s creator, Yuji Horii, mentioned that he discovered the first Wizardry at a Macworld Conference & Expo, and that is what gave him and director Koichi Nakamura the desire to create their own CRPG (1UP 2011). With the phenomenal success of Nintendo’s Family Computer (Famicom) during the mid1980s, it was only a matter of time before the first role-playing games appeared on home consoles. The first was a port of a computer game, Hydlide Special (1986), but the second was Dragon Quest, a game designed for younger console players (although it was also released on PC-98 and MSX the same year, underlining the importance of the PC market at that time). The game merged Ultima’s bird’s-eye view with Wizardry’s combat, among others, but also used a visual style that appealed to young consumers fond of manga and anime. Yuji Horii asked his colleague and manga artist Akira Toriyama (already recognized through his successful manga Dr. Slump [1980] and Dragon Ball [1984]) to take care of the artwork and character design. Cross promotion with popular manga magazine Shonen Jump also contributed greatly to the success of the game and facilitated the popularity of the CRPGs in Japan. After the positive reception of Dragon Quest, which sold 1.5 million copies, nearly thirty role-playing games came out on the console in the next year, including Dragon Quest’s ­follow-up in January 1987 and Square’s first Final Fantasy at the end of the year but also ports such as Ultima: Exodus and Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord as well as ­Nihon ­Falcom’s Dragon Slayer IV and Faxanadu (1987) or Miracle Warriors: Seal of the Dark Lord (Kogado Software 1986), the first Japanese CRPG released in North America on the Sega Master System in 1988. In the end, a little over 140 role-playing games appeared for the Famicom, representing approximately 11.5% of the console’s ludography (behind only the all-encompassing action game genre with its 33%). Aside from the Super Mario Bros. series, the Dragon Quest games were also the biggest sellers on the console, with respectively 1.5, 2.4, 3.8, and 3.1 million copies sold for opus one to four, while Final Fantasy III (Square 1990) sold 1.4 million copies.

The Golden Age of CRPGs and the Rise of Console Gaming: 1990s The 1990s is generally viewed by academics and fans as a golden age for CRPGs due to the explosion of games that were developed and the quality of games released. During this period, a number of highly influential games whose impact can still be felt today appeared on the market: Bethesda Softwork’s Daggerfall, Bioware’s Baldur’s Gate, and Blizzard’s Diablo all fundamentally re-conceptualized CRPGs through innovative gameplay mechanics and narrative engagement. These were made possible through a willingness on the part of developers to push the boundaries of computer and console media by experimenting with the rapidly developing technologies of the period and integrating them into their games.

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The middle of the 1990s saw the popularization of CD-ROM technologies into the consumer market. Due in part to the significantly larger amount of data CD-ROMs could hold when compared to their floppy disk cousins, video game developers across all genres began experimenting with incorporating actors and other real-world visual and audio elements into video games in this period. Aspects of these attempts found their way into CRPGs, albeit briefly, through the inclusion of live-action characters in games such as Interplay Entertainment’s Stonekeep (1995) and Westwood Studio’s Lands of Lore: Guardians of Destiny (1997). ­Japanese developers during this period also explored the limits of CD-ROM technology; NEC/Hudson Soft’s PC Engine (Nintendo’s main competitor at the time in Japan), for example, developed what were termed “cinematic RPGs” – games, such as the Cosmic Fantasy series, that integrated anime cut scenes into gameplay to develop narrative.

Box 6.4  Company Profile: SSI Strategic Simulations Incorporated, better known as SSI, is best known as the developer of a series of highly influential and critically acclaimed D&D-licensed computer games created in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Founded in 1979 by Joel Billings, in September 1988, the company sought affiliated label distribution with Electronic Arts and was purchased in 1993 by Mindscape. In 2001, it was folded into Ubisoft. The company defined the industry of wargaming and was highly productive, producing over 100 games for platforms as varied as the Atari, Apple II, and TRS-80. Although it developed a number of sci-fi and fantasy CRPG titles, the company is best known for its licensing partnership with TSR, which resulted in a number of highly influential games. Starting with Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Heroes of the Lance in 1988, the company would release, on average, one title a year associated with TSR (and D&D) for a little under a decade across a variety of TSR’s licensed properties and CRPG subgenres. With Pool of Radiance (1988), SSI created a game engine (referred to as the Gold Box engine) that combined D&D’s rules with a tactical map interface seen in wargaming. It was also one of the first companies to experiment with online gaming with the development of Neverwinter Nights for America Online (AOL). Finally, it also released software tools for budding CRPG designers and TRPG referees. Unless otherwise noted, games were developed internally by SSI.

Notable Action Role-Playing Games Heroes of the Lance (US Gold 1988), Hillsfar (Westwood Associates 1989), Dragonstrike (Westwood Associates 1990)

Notable Gold Box Games Pool of Radiance (1988), Curse of the Azure Bonds (1989), Secret of the Silver Blades (1990), Pools of Darkness (1991), Neverwinter Nights (Stormfront Studios 1991)

Design/Tabletop Support Tools Dungeon Master’s Assistant Volume I (1988), Dungeon Master’s Assistant Volume II (1989), Forgotten Realms: Unlimited Adventures (1993) Sources: Editor (1988), Proctor (1988), Olafson (1994)

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While the Japanese experiment with injecting anime cut scenes into RPGs was largely successful, the replacement of sprites with real actors ended less fortuitously. Voice acting, however, did take off, and games such as Baldur’s Gate allowed players to customize their characters by adding their own voice files. It should be noted that the inclusion of voice during this period was not necessarily isolated to American developers: in 1995, Namco successfully added voice elements to the Tales of Phantasia (Wolf Team 1995) Super Famicom cartridge. It was able to do so through creative compression techniques that caused the ROM-translation community of the time many problems (DeJap Translations 2003; SuperFamicom.org n.d.). In addition to experimentation with new advances in hardware technologies, companies began to explore the viability of online gaming. Neverwinter Nights (Stormfront Studios 1991), published by SSI, was also one of the first CRPG experiments into online gaming. While it is true that multi-user dungeons (MUDs) in their various styles and implementations (e.g MUSHes, and MOOs) were emerging during the early 1990s (→ Chapter 7), these platforms only offered a text-based interface. Neverwinter Nights, however, drew from the visual interface of the Gold Box engine and offered an experience familiar to many of its users. Accessed through AOL through an hourly fee, the game pushed the connectivity limits of dial-up. Due to its player vs. player elements and guild system, it is often identified as a p­ roto-massively multiplayer online RPG (MMORPG). The game was unceremoniously shut down in 1997 due to a dispute over the future of the game: SSI and TSR wanted to expand access to the game, while AOL wanted to continue offering it as a pay-for-play title available only through them (Lucard 2011). Blizzard Entertainment would try something similar in the late 1990s for Diablo, using its Battle.net server, although the effort would be plagued by cheating (Barton 2008). Despite the experimentation with new hardware technologies, however, the first half of the 1990s saw little innovation in terms of game engines; rather, developers in this period focused on refining gaming engines that were already successful. In its coverage of the 1992 Computer Electronics Show, Computer Gaming World (1992a) noted a trend to create tools that allowed for a similar experience or better integration across games by the same developer. Origin’s Ultima VII Part 2: Serpent Isle (Origin Systems 1993) and New World Computing’s Might and Magic V: Darkside of Xeen (New World Computing 1993) serve as examples of this trend as each developer focused on creating additional content that would integrate with existing worlds and gaming engines they utilized, while Square’s Final Fantasy and Enix’s Dragon Quest releases of the time maintained the familiar combat engines that defined their respective series. The lack of innovation in CRPGs appears to have been temporary as the latter half of the 1990s witnessed developers taking risks in advancing the genre from both gameplay and narrative perspectives. In terms of narrative, a number of Japanese titles began experimenting with multiple endings based on the narrative choices players made throughout the game. Games such as Suikoden (Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo 1996) and Star Ocean (tri-Ace 1996) were seen as holding immense replay value because of the different possible endings. While some Western developers also implemented multiple endings, their approach was slightly different in that these endings were used to determine the starting point of the next game in the series. Wizardry VI: Bane of the Cosmic Forge (Sir-Tech Software 1990), for example, contained three different endings based solely on what the player does with a certain item at one specific part of the game. Compare this to the Super Famicom Shin Megami Tensei (Atlus 1992) game, whose three endings are the product of a series of choices the player makes throughout the course of the game – choices that also influence the direction of the narrative.

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Box 6.5  Company Profile: Bethesda Softworks/Bethesda Game Studios Best known for The Elder Scrolls games and its revival of the Fallout series, Bethesda Softworks was founded in 1986 by Christopher Weaver and takes its name from the location of its headquarters in Bethesda, Maryland. In 2001, Bethesda Softworks assumed the role of game publisher, with game development being given to Bethesda Game Studios. Both companies are subsidiaries of ZeniMax Media, which Weaver co-founded with Robert ­Altman in 1999; the parent company currently owns a number of game publishers and developers, including id Software, Arkane Studios, and Tango Gameworks. Bethesda Softworks’s CRPG contributions lie in its use of immersive gameplay and world exploration that have come to define the sandbox element that contemporary fans see as the hallmark of Western role-playing games. While many games prior to Daggerfall featured first-person perspectives and/or complete worlds to explore (e.g. Sir-Tech’s Wizardry VII: Crusaders of the Dark Savant (1992), Origin Systems’ Ultima VII: The Black Gate (1992), and New World Computing’s Might and Magic: Clouds of Xeen (1992) or Might and Magic V: Darkside of Xeen (1993), Daggerfall introduced a totally new exploration element to the CRPG genre through the creation of random dungeons that players could explore. While the random dungeon design was admittedly limited to a few patterns that astute players could recognize with enough experience, the feature offered a new reason to play the game outside of the main storyline – exploration. This would be refined over Bethesda’s product lines, with exploration becoming a significant gameplay experience for players of Fallout and later Elder Scrolls titles. Source: ZeniMax Media (2014).

In terms of gameplay, a few console games began to integrate action elements into games as a means of differentiation. In an era dominated by the aesthetic combat archetype pioneered by the Final Fantasy franchise, with enemies on the left and player characters on the right, Tales of Phantasia developed a system known as the Linear Motion Battle System (LMBS), where real-time combat encounters took place on a 2-D stage reminiscent of platform games. The player could only directly control one character of the party at a time, although commands could be given through the menu or shortcuts. Real-time elements were also incorporated into SRPGs such as Ogre Battle (Quest 1995) and Growlanser (Career Soft 1999). Unlike PC developer forays into integrating action mechanics into CRPGs, these attempts by console game developers did not ripple significantly beyond the series these games founded and influence other titles.

CRPGs: The New Millennium On This period witnessed an explosion of game development, although not all of the games developed were entirely new. Being around for a little over two decades, CRPGs had a history, and a newer generation of players did not have access to the “classic” titles – or did not wish to play them due to their rudimentary graphics. As a result, many publishers began dusting off previously profitable games, giving them a graphical facelift, and offering these updated versions for play on contemporary consoles and operating systems. These efforts were not

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always successful, and many developers struggled to keep up with the rapid changes in global workflow brought about by emerging portable and handheld ecologies. By the 2000s, some developers had fallen on hard times. Despite their huge successes in the 1990s, the Japanese gaming industry began to increasingly fend off charges of stagnation in their gameplay. In a 2005 article on the top ten video game clichés by EGM, the JRPG narrative structure is described as one of the staler tropes in need of revision (2005). Japanese gaming companies also saw this affect their revenues, and many companies tried to shore up their bottom lines by merging with or acquiring other game publishers. The Square-Enix merger in 2002 was emblematic of this problem. One the one hand, it was welcomed by fan communities but, on the other, viewed with skepticism by some in the industry and business sectors. An article in the Economist notes that while both companies individually owned flagship series (Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest), both titles suffered from ennui of innovation (2002). This viewpoint was given more credence as the newly made mega-company proceeded to raid its gaming archives to port previously popular titles to multiple platforms. Part of the reason for this strategy was economic. In general, the Japanese gaming industry had been losing money steadily as Western game developers produced increasingly competitive and innovative games at the end of the 1990s. In addition, Square made an expensive gamble, trying to diversify its entertainment portfolios with the production of the movie Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, a commercial flop from which it never really recovered. Bringing popular series like Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy to portable and mobile devices was a low-cost way to generate revenue. Due to the general success engendered by this strategy, during the latter half of the decade, other Japanese developers began a strategy aimed at rereleasing older games on contemporary platforms, particularly handheld. These updated games frequently contained altered graphics (e.g. 3-D versions of games in the Final Fantasy franchise) and occasionally boasted additional content. Such strategy was twofold: it attracted older players through nostalgia value and the promise of additional content but also served to introduce a newer generation of players to the so-called classics. Table 6.3 outlines some of the more well-known titles Japanese developers have remade for later generation systems. This strategy would become prolific in the Japanese gaming industry over the next few years, prompting fans and industry insiders, at least in the West, to proselytize a narrative of the Japanese gaming empire’s decline. In addition to struggling to develop innovative games that met the needs of Western markets (Electronic Gaming Monthly 2004), Japanese developers also struggled to keep up with the evolving technologies used to create games. From a development standpoint, Japanese developers’ unfamiliarity with engines such as Unity and Unreal, which are increasingly used to develop games, has also decentralized the game-making process, compelling many studios to outsource aspects of development to overseas programmers (Electronic Gaming Monthly 2007). In the past, the localization process for JRPGs was largely unidirectional and occurred after a title’s ­Japanese release. Even popular titles whose localization for Western markets was not in doubt, like SNES or PlayStation installments of Final Fantasy, could take a year until their debut on Western shores. Workflow during this period, however, began to change. Increased global synergy between subsidiaries of the same company meant that localization increasingly began operating simultaneously with game development. However, this process was still unidirectional in the sense that localization choices made to make the narrative more palatable to the target audience did not alter the Japanese narrative. Currently, localization is often folded into the development process of RPGs developed in Japan and used as a way to produce a uniform narrative cross-culturally.

Table 6.3  Short list of JRPGs ported to other systems

Game title

Initial platform and year

Alternate platform and year

Valkyrie Profile

PSX

PSP

Final Fantasy

Famicom NES Famicom Super Famicom SNES PSX Super Famicom

1999 ( JP) 2000 (NA) 1987 ( JP) 1990 (NA) 1990 ( JP) 1991 ( JP) 1991 (NA) 1997 ( JP, NA) 1995 ( JP)

Famicom NES Super Famicom SNES

1986 ( JP) 1989 (NA) 1995 ( JP) 1995 ( JP)

Final Fantasy III Final Fantasy IV Final Fantasy VII Tales of Phantasia Dragon Quest ( JP) Dragon Quest VI Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together

Alternate platform and year

Alternate platform and year

GBA

2006 ( JP) 2006 (NA) 2004 ( JP, NA)

PSP

2007 ( JP, NA)

iOS

2015 ( JP)

Nintendo DS GBA

2006 ( JP, NA) 2005 ( JP, NA)

iOS PSP

2011 2011 ( JP, NA)

Ouya iOS

2013 2012 ( JP)

Windows GBA

1998 (NA) 2003 ( JP) 2006 (NA) 1999 ( JP) 2000 (NA) 2010 ( JP) 1997 ( JP)

iOS PSP

2015 ( JP) 2006 ( JP)

iOS

2014 (NA)

Wii

2011 ( JP)

iOS

2013 ( JP)

iOS PSP

2015 ( JP) 2010 ( JP)

GBC Nintendo DS PSX

1998 (NA)

2011 (NA)

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In contrast to the woes of Japanese console developers, developers of PC games began flexing their digital muscles through the production of a number of well-received games. Many of these titles drew from established gaming engines but offered intriguing narratives or gameplay mechanics. Troika Games’ Arcanum: of Steamworks and Magick Obscura (Troika Games 2001) offers one example. Drawing from an engine reminiscent of the tactical, gridbased combat interface of Fallout, Arcanum positions the player in a world where both magic and science unstably coexist. Characters cannot become masters of both: the more proficient a character becomes in one, the more dangerous the other becomes to use. The game was well received critically but also produced a dedicated following who created numerous patches and add-ons to keep the game updated for current operating systems. Another game released the same year, Gothic, was known for its punishing learning curve and non-player character (NPC) faction system. Players found that, unlike in many CRPGs, entering houses unbidden and randomly looting chests caused NPCs to alter their behavior towards the character. While this feature was not necessarily new to CRPGs, it was one of the first to do this in a 3-D environment. Also, players did not start with a selected class; this was chosen based on decisions made in the game. This is not to suggest that remakes of older games did not appear on the PC; to the contrary, there were a number of games drawing on the traditions of the PC classics of the 1980s. The games produced in this fashion, however, bore resemblance to their classic predecessors in name only. The Ubisoft reimagining of Pool of Radiance (Stormfront Studios 2001), for example, significantly altered the story from the SSI Gold Box classic, locating the fabled pool from which the game derives its name in the ruins of Myth Drannor (where it appeared in the sequel to the original, Curse of the Azure Bonds). InXile Entertainment’s The Bard’s Tale (inXile Entertainment 2004) follows a similar pattern, although connection to the original 1985 classic is only alluded to as the copyright to the series was still held by Electronic Arts. In large part due to increasing competition from MMORPGs, however, the mid-2000s were fertile ground for gaming and industry oracles portending the demise of the single-player CRPG. As the next section describes, however, technological shifts in the production and consumption of games ensured that rumors of the genre’s demise were greatly exaggerated.

Current Sketch The CRPG genre is currently undergoing a period of expansion. Aided by the democratization of gaming tools and the penetration of digital technologies into everyday life, CRPGs developed by independent developers and individuals can increasingly be found on smartphones and other portable technologies. As the market for CRPGs has broadened, so too have concerns among players over the status of the genre and the marketing tactics used to sell them. The increasing penetration of smartphones and other portable technologies has offered a space for market expansion by targeting the so-called casual gamer. In Japan, the prevalence of mobile devices, especially smartphones, has influenced the direction of the market. Game publishers such as Gree, GungHo, and DeNA have played an increasing role in Japanese gaming on these platforms, frequently collaborating with established developers like Square-Enix. The importance of these new players in gaming can be seen in the fact that these companies have steadily increased their presence at trade shows, particularly the Tokyo Game Show (TGS), over the past few years.

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While industry analysts and cultural critics have claimed that continued viability of the gaming industry, including the role-playing game genre, lies in appealing to a broader demographic, the emphasis on mobile platforms and the casual gamer market has ruffled the feathers of many players. While rarely articulated expressly, part of the resistance may have roots in the very premise of role-playing games as immersive worlds and skepticism that mobile games can provide this experience. What tends to be overlooked is the fact that the causal gamers, who make up the majority of the mobile market, are comprised of different demographics and look for different things than traditional gamers. The Computer Entertainment Supplier’s Association’s (CESA) survey of Japanese gaming trends (2014), for example, notes that while men tend to play video games more often, females across all age demographics are more likely to do so through smartphones or tablets and only continue playing games they find interesting. Recognition of this demographic shift may explain why the more popular games in Japan are casual games with role-playing game elements, like the PRPG Puzzle & Dragons. As of March 2015, the game had 35 million total downloads in Japan (GungHo Online Entertainment 2016) and over six million in North America (GungHo Online Entertainment 2015). Puzzle & Dragons, like many games for smartphones, adopts what is known as the “freemium model,” a marketing strategy pioneered in Japan, which offers users the game for free but allows for the purchase of additional content. As testament to the impact of this model, consider that in Japan in 2014, mobile games generated revenue in excess of 930.8 billion yen, or 8 billion USD in fiscal year (FY)20143, up 11% from 2013 (Gueed 2015). Puzzle & Dragons has successfully utilized this model to become the first game to generate more than 1 billion USD in revenue ( Jordan 2014).

Box 6.6  Company Profile: Square-Enix Square-Enix (SQEX) is arguably one of the most influential game publishers in console gaming. Best known for the Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest (localized early on as Dragon Warrior in North America and Europe) series, the company has produced a number of other titles that have shaped CRPGs. SQEX is really the product of a 2003 merger between two of Japan’s biggest console publishers: Square, which was founded in 1983 by Masafuni Miyamoto, and Enix Corporation, renamed in 1982 from the original company name “Eidansha Boshu Service Center,” founded in 1975 by Yasuhiro Fukushima. Since the merger, SQEX has expanded its global presence by opening subsidiaries in emerging markets or through acquisitions. In 2005, SQEX Holdings established a subsidiary in China and acquired Japanese developer Taito Corporation. In 2009, it acquired London-based Eidos PLC. While the company continues to shape gaming, its main contributions to the CRPG form can be found in the 1990s, prior to the merger between Square and Enix. During this period, the companies produced a number of games that pushed the narrative boundaries of the form, and they experimented with a number of gameplay mechanics that have become industry standard. The active time battle system (ATB) pioneered in the Final Fantasy franchise is but one of these contributions. Sources: Enix Corporation and Square (2002), Square Enix Japan (2016)

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The prevalence of the freemium model in mobile games could be seen as a response to the democratization of game development technologies and distribution platforms. Through these, it is possible for small teams or even individuals to produce games that can theoretically compete with established developers and publishers. In an increasingly saturated market, the freemium model becomes one way developers can attempt to carve a user base. Strictly speaking, the opportunity for average players to design games is not unique to this period. After all, the creation of modules or add-ons for games by fans has a long history in CRPGs. SSI’s Unlimited Adventures (MicroMagic 1993) gave players the tools of the Gold Box engine to create their own games, a practice followed by BioWare in their version of Neverwinter Nights (BioWare 2002). The Elder Scrolls Construction Set, which worked with the game engines of The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, allowed fans similar resources, which enabled them to create entirely new worlds. These programs, however, merely provided users with the tools to build upon the existing scaffold of their respective games’ engines; they did not allow for the substantive introduction of new interfaces or mechanics. It should be noted that the impact of these programs is greatly dependent on the evolution of distribution technologies. While ASCII Corporation’s RPG Maker, a tile-based construction set first released in Japan in 1992, enabled users to develop their own CRPGs, distribution technologies were vastly limited, both in terms of speed and scope, compared to today. The development of Web1.0 technologies certainly facilitated the spread of mods and indie games, but such user-developed content remained largely isolated to specific modding communities. It would not be until the development of Web2.0 technologies that increasingly diverse methods of distribution would became available. The creation of platforms such as Steam, PSN, and Xbox Live for gaming and Apple’s App Store or Google Play for mobile devices broadens the ability of independent developers to distribute products outside the traditional publisher networks.

Summary One of the defining features of modern CRPGs is the importance of story to play. Unlike larps or TRPGs, however, CRPG stories unfold through interaction between the player and computer rather than between players. This is important because, at first glance, CRPGs appear to be less interactive than their other analog cousins, especially if interactivity is defined as social engagement. The fact that these conversations, albeit in a different form, took place in computing magazines and fan venues at the same time the genre emerged should not be overlooked. Perhaps the most significant contribution of CRPGs to role-playing games as a whole is their willingness to experiment with the gaming mechanics that comprise them. In the 1970s, CRPGs were in their infancy and due to the limited processing power of PCs’ efforts, focused on translating TRPG rules into viable programs. This process continued in the 1980s, and while this period witnessed the expansion of gaming consoles such as the Atari 2600 and ­Nintendo Entertainment System in the market, PCs remained the avant-garde of innovation due to their better processing and display capabilities. This would mostly hold true for the next decade, although the increasing popularity of console systems would help them drive innovations of their own. Interestingly, the 1990s temporarily produced a regional schism in developers’ preferred platforms, with Western developers largely favoring PCs and Japanese developers pushing consoles – the major players of which (Nintendo, Sega, and, later, Sony) originated in ­Japan. Despite this apparent fragmentation, similar experimentation with narrative appeared

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cross-culturally. Multiple narrative starting points and endings, for example, appeared in both PC and console games around the same time, and these innovations continue to resonate today in series such as Dragon’s Age and The Witcher. While the gaming industry continued to grow during the new millennium, developers initially faced challenges adapting to new technologies. Japanese developers, in particular, focused on updating older, gaming “classics” for portable systems. However, while this generated revenue among industry and fan communities, it fueled a narrative of decline and stagnation from which the Japanese gaming industry has not fully recovered. Instead, advances in game development resources and distribution technologies that emerged in the latter half of the decade enabled independent developers to create games. The ability of these developers to distribute their games broadly was aided by the release of mobile technologies such as Google Play and Apple’s App Store; distribution potential would further increase with the decision by Sony and Microsoft to invite indie developers to list games on their proprietary stores. All in all, the CRPG form has grown immensely in its nearly 40-year history. Aided by developers willing to experiment with the limits of technological possibility, the form has influenced other computer gaming genres and had a lasting impact on the gaming industry, both culturally and economically.

Acknowledgements All screenshots in this chapter were created by the CRPG Book project available at https:// crpgbook.wordpress.com/.

Notes 1 This chapter will use the abbreviation SRPG to refer to both tactical and strategy role-playing games; this is to avoid confusion with tabletop role-playing games, abbreviated elsewhere in this volume as TRPGs. 2 Zork’s creators briefly changed the name to Dungeon (which was the name used in the FORTRAN version of the game) to make it more saleable. When they got a letter from D&D publisher TSR, rather than fight in court, they changed it back. Source: http://infodoc.plover.net/nzt/NZT4.2.pdf. 3 Estimate based on an average exchange rate of 110.101 yen to the dollar, listed on the IRS website: www.irs.gov/Individuals/International-Taxpayers/Yearly-Average-Currency-Exchange-Rates.

Further Reading Barton, Matt. 2008. Dungeons and Desktops: The History of Computer Role-Playing Games. Wellesley: A K Peters Ltd. Consalvo, Mia. 2016. Atari to Zelda: Japan’s Videogames in Global Contexts. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Pepe, Felipe, ed. 2017 The CRPG Book Project: Sharing the History of Computer Role-Playing Books. Available at https://crpgbook.wordpress.com/ [Accessed May 19, 2017].

References 1992a. The Consumer Electronics Show: No Longer behind Closed Doors. Computer Gaming World, 22–28. 1992b. Designing People…Part II of CGW’s Coverage of the Sixth Annual Computer Game Developer’s Conference. Computer Gaming World, 48–54. 2002. “Role-Playing.” Economist no. 365 (8301):57.

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2003. DeJap Translations – Tales of Phantasia [cited 15 Janurary 2016]. Available from http://dejap.eludevisibility.org/top.php. 2004. “EGM INTERNATIONAL.” Electronic Gaming Monthly (180):32. 2005. “THE TOP 10 GAME CLICHÉS.” Electronic Gaming Monthly (194):58–59. 2007. “Japan, American Style.” Electronic Gaming Monthly (222):92. 2014. 2014 CESA g ēmu hakusho [2014 CESA Games White Paper]. Tokyo. n.d. Tales of Phantasia (SNES) English Translation (DeJap). SuperFamicom.org [cited 20 January 2016]. Available from http://superfamicom.org/translations/info/tales-of-phantasia-english. 1UP. 2011. “East and West, Warrior and Quest: A Dragon Quest Retrospective.” 1UP.com. July 5. Atlus. 1992. Shin Megami Tensei, Super Famicom. JP: Atlus. Automated Solutions. 1979. Temple of Apshai, TRS-80. NA: Automated Solutions. Barton, Matt. 2007. “What’s a CRPG? Some Thoughts on CRPG Genres.” In Matt Barton’s Blog: Armchair Arcade, January 21. Barton, Matt. 2008. Dungeons and Desktops: The History of Computer Role-Playing Games. A K Peters Ltd. Barnholt, Ray. 2011. Scroll 2: Quests. Bethesda Softworks. 1996. The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall, PC. NA: Bethesda Softworks. BioWare. 1998. Baldur’s Gate, PC. NA: Interplay Entertainment. BioWare. 2002. Neverwinter Nights, PC, America Online. NA: Atari. Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. 1996. Diablo, PC. NA: Blizzard Entertainment. Capcom. 2012. Dragon’s Dogma, PS3. JP: Capcom. Card, Orson Scott. 1988. “Gameplay.” Compute! no. 10 (10):9. Career Soft. 1999. Growlanser, PSX. JP: Atlus. CESA. 2014. 2014 CESA Games White Paper. Tokyo: CESA. Chunsoft. 1986. Dragon Quest, Famicom. JP: Enix. Chunsoft. 1993. Torneko’s Great Adventure: Mystery Dungeon, Super Famicom. JP: Chunsoft. Climax Entertainment. 1993. Shining Force, Sega Genesis. NA: Sega. Consalvo, Mia. 2006. “Console Video Games and Global Corporations: Creating a Hybrid Culture.” New Media & Society no. 8 (1):117–137. Derboo, Sam. 2011. “Ultima, Wizardry, The Black Onyx and the origin of JRPGs.” Hardcore Gaming 101, May 20. www.hardcoregaming101.net/history/history2.htm. Derboo, Sam. 2014. “Dark Age of JRPGs.” Hardcore Gaming 101. http://blog.hardcoregaming101.net/ search/label/JRPGs. Derboo, Sam. 2015. “Dragon Lair.” Hardcore Gaming 101, September 18. www.hardcoregaming101.net/ dragonlair/dragonlair.htm. doady. 2012. jRPG vs. wRPG (definitions). November 10. Retrieved 4 December 2012, from www. unikgamer.com/forums/jrpg-vs-wrpg-definitions-273-p15.html. Editor. 1988. “Late News Flashes.” Antic, 55. Edge Staff. 2008. “THE MAKING OF… Japan’s First RPG.” Edge Online, March 16. www.edge-­ online.com/magazine/the-making-of-japans-first-rpg. Enix Corporation and Square. 2016. Gappei ni kan suru oshirase [Notice related to merger] [press release], November 26, 2002 [cited 20 December 2016]. Available from www.jp.square-enix.com/ company/ja/news/2002/download/0301-200211260000-01.pdf. Extra Credits (Producer). 2012. Western RPGs vs Japanese RPGs – I: What Makes Them Different? – Extra Credits, May 20. Retrieved from www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_rvM6hubs8. Extra Credits (Producer). 2012. Extra Credits: Western & Japanese RPGs (part 2), May 20. Retrieved from www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8aiEsIW9IM. Extra Credits (Producer). 2012. Extra Credits: Western & Japanese RPGs (part 3), May. Retrieved from www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cmkdoz5LjdE. GameSide. 2014. RolePlaying GameSide, Vol. 01. Tokyo: Micro Magazine. Garriott, Richard. 1979. Akalabeth, Apple II. NA. Garriott, Richard. 1981. Ultima, Apple II. NA: California Pacific Computer Co. Gas Powered Games. 2002. Dungeon Siege, PC. NA: Microsoft Game Studios.

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Grimm Bros. 2015. Dragon Fin Soup, Playstation Vita. NA: Grimm Bros. Gueed. 2015. 2014 nen no onraingēmu ichiba wa zen’nenhi 11% appu no 9308 okuen. “JOGA onraingēmu ichibach ōsa rep ōto 2015” no hanbai ga honjitsu sut āto. [2014 online game market up 11% from previous year to 930.8 billion yen. “JOGA online game market report” sales start today.], July 15, 2015 [cited 11 November 2015]. Available from www.4gamer.net/games/999/G999905/20150715049/. GungHo Online Entertainment. 2016. Puzzle & Dragons Surpasses 6 Million Downloads [press release]. GungHo Online Entertainment, January 7, 2015 [cited 8 May 2016]. Available from http://puzzleanddragons.us/news/puzzle-dragons-surpasses-6-million-downloads/. GungHo Online Entertainment. 2015. 2015 nen 12 getsuki renketsugyōseki hosokushiryō [2015 annual continuous performance supplementary documents] [press release]. GungHo Online Entertainment, February 2, 2016 [cited 29 April 2016]. Available from www.gungho.co.jp/ir/uploads/irk20160202_8.pdf. Harebrained Schemes. 2013. Shadowrun Retuns, PC. NA: Harebrained Schemes. Hulsman, Noel. 2006. Paul Lee: Hitting Restart. BC Business 2006 [cited 25 August 2015]. Available from www.bcbusiness.ca/people/paul-lee-hitting-restart. Insel. 2012. Puzzle & Dragons, iOS. JP: GungHo Online Entertainment. Interplay Entertainment. 1995. Stonekeep, PC. NA: Interplay Entertainment. Interplay Productions. 1985. The Bard’s Tale, PC. NA: Electronic Arts. inXile Entertainment. 2004. The Bard’s Tale, PC. NA: Vivendi Universal Games. JLF1. 2008. GameSpot Forums – System Wars – JRPG’s are not RPG’s. Retrieved 21 February, 2011, from www.gamespot.com/forums/system-wars-314159282/jrpgs-are-not-rpgs-26428529/ Jordan, Jon. 2014. “It’s official: Puzzle & Dragons is the First Mobile Game to $1 Billion in Revenue.” Pocketgamer.biz, February 4, 2014 [cited 20 January 2016]. Available from www.pocketgamer.biz/asia/ news/57076/its-official-puzzle-and-dragons-is-the-first-mobile-game-to-1-billion-in-revenue/. Joynt, Patrick. 2006. “The Oblivion of RPGs.” PC Magazine no. 25 (12):164–165. Kawakami, Nobuo. 2015. G ēm ā wa motto keieisha wo mokushi subeki! [Gamers should aim to be business people!]. Tokyo: Kadokawa. Koei. 1982. Dragon & Princess, PC-8801. JP: Koei. Kogado Software. 1986. Miracle Warriors: Seal of the Dark Lord, PC-88. JP: Sega. Kohler, Chris. 2004. Power-Up: How Japanese Video Games Gave the World an Extra Life. Indianapolis: BRADY GAMES. Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo. 1996. Suikoden, PSX. NA: Konami. Krause, Staci. 2002. Gothic. IGN, January 15, 2002 [cited 13 November 2015]. Available from www.ign. com/articles/2002/01/16/gothic. Lucard, Alex. 2011. Diehard GameFAN Hall of Game Nominee: Neverwinter Nights (1991), August 16, 2011 [cited 13 November 2015]. Available from http://diehardgamefan.com/2011/08/16/diehardgamefan-hall-of-fame-nominee-neverwinter-nights-1991/. Masaya Games. 1991. Langrisser [Warsong], Mega Drive. JP: Nippon Computer Systems. MicroMagic. 1993. Forgotten Realms: Unlimited Adventures, PC. NA: Strategic Simulations, Inc. Mindcraft. 1989. The Magic Candle, PC. NA: Mindcraft. New World Computing. 1993. Might and Magic V: Darkside of Xeen, PC. NA: New World Computing. Nguyen, Thierry. 2002. Gothic: Ultima IX meets HBO’s OZ. Computer Gaming World, 92–93. Nihon Falcom. 1984. Dragon Slayer, PC-8801. JP: Nihon Falcom. Nihon Falcom. 1987. Faxanadu, Famicom. JP: Nihon Falcom. Nihon Falcom. 1987. Ys, PC-8801. JP: Nihon Falcom. Nintendo. 2003. Fire Emblem: The Sword of Flame, GBA. JP: Nintendo. Olafson, Peter. 1994. “AD&D, R.I.P.?” Compute! no. 16(6):86. Origin Systems. 1993. Ultima VII Part Two: Serpent Isle, PC. NA: Origin Systems. Park, Andrew. 2015. Gothic Review. Gamespot, December 18, 2001 [cited 10 November 2015]. Available from www.gamespot.com/reviews/gothic-review/1900-2833594/. Phenomic. 2003. SpellForce: The Order of Dawn, PC. NA: JoWooD Entertainment. Piranha Bytes. 2001. Gothic, PC. NA: Xicat Interactive. Piranha Bytes. 2006. Gothic 3, PC. NA: Aspyr Media. Proctor, Bob. 1988. “Titans of the Computer Gaming World.” Computer Gaming World, 36–37, 48.

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Quest. 1995. Ogre Battle, SNES. NA: Enix America. Quest. 1998. Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together, PSX. NA: Atlus. Rogers, Henk. 1984. The Black Onyx, PC-8801. JP: Bullet-Proof Software. SCE Japan Studio. 2014. Freedom Wars, Playstation Vita. JP: Sony Computer Entertainment. Sir-Tech Software, Inc. 1981. Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord, PC. NA: Sir-Tech Software, Inc. Sir-Tech Software, Inc. 1990. Wizardry VI: Bane of the Cosmic Forge, PC. NA: Sir-Tech Software, Inc. Smoking WOLF. 2013. One Way Heroics, PC. NA: Smoking WOLF. Square. 1986. Cruise Chaser Blassty, PC-8801. JP: Square. Square. 1990. Final Fantasy III, Famicom. JP: Square. Square. 1993. Secret of Mana, SNES. NA: Square. Square. 1998. Final Fantasy Tactics, PSX. NA: Sony Computer Entertainment. Square. 1999. Final Fantasy VIII, PSX. NA: Square Electronic Arts, LLC. Square. 2000. Front Mission 3, PSX. NA: Square Electronic Arts. Square Enix Japan. 2016. History | Corporate Information | Square Enix Holdings [cited 20 December 2016]. Available from www.hd.square-enix.com/eng/company/history3.html. Stephenson, Mike. 1987. NetHack, PC. NA. Stormfront Studios. 1991. Neverwinter Nights, PC, America Online. NA: Strategic Simulations, Inc. Stormfront Studios. 2001. Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor, PC. NA: Ubisoft. Strategic Simulations, Inc. 1988. Pool of Radiance, PC. NA: Strategic Simulations, Inc. Strategic Simulations, Inc. 1989. Curse of the Azure Bonds, PC. NA: Strategic Simulations, Inc. Strategic Simulations, Inc. 1990. Secret of the Silver Blades, PC. NA: Strategic Simulations, Inc. Strategic Simulations, Inc. 1991. Pools of Darkness, PC. NA: Strategic Simulations, Inc. Sumii, Kōji. 1983. Bokosuka Wars, Sharp X1. JP: ASCII. T&E Soft. 1984. Hydlide, PC-8801. JP: T&E Soft. T&E Soft. 1986. Hydlide Special, Famicom. JP: T&E Soft. Tem, Steve Rasnic. 1982. “The Current State of Computer Game Documentation.” Computer Gaming World no. 2 (2):21–23. tri-Ace. 1996. Star Ocean, Super Famicom. JP: Enix. Toy, Michael, Glenn Wichman, and Ken Arnold. 1980. Rogue, Unix. Troika Games. 2001. Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura, PC. NA: Sierra Entertainment. U.S. Gold. 1988. Heroes of the Lance, PC. NA: Strategic Simulations Inc. Valkyrie Studios. 1999. Septerra Core: Legacy of the Creator, PC. NA: Monolith Productions. Ward, Trent C. 1999. Baldur’s Gate. IGN, January 18, 1999 [cited 13 November 2015]. Available from www.ign.com/articles/1999/01/19/baldurs-gate-6. Ward, Trent. 1997. Diablo Review. GameSpot, January 23, 1997 [cited 28 April 2016]. Available from www.gamespot.com/reviews/diablo-review/1900-2538662/. Warner, Silas. 1978. Escape, Apple II. NA: Muse Software. Westwood Associates. 1989. Hillsfar, PC. NA: Strategic Simulations Inc. Westwood Associated. 1990. Dragonstrike, PC. NA: Strategic Simulations Inc. Westwood Studios. 1997. Lands of Lore: Guardians of Destiny, PC. NA: Virgin Interactive. Westwood Studios. 2000. Nox, PC. NA: Electronic Arts. Wolf Team. 1995. Tales of Phantasia, Super Famicom. JP: Namco. Wolf, Mark J.P., ed. 2002. The Medium of the Video Game. Austin: University of Texas Press. Yob, Gregory. 1972. Hunt the Wumpus, BASIC. NA. Zagal, J. P., and R. Altizer. 2014. “Examining ‘RPG Elements’: Systems of Character Progression.” 2014 Foundations of Digital Games Conference, April 3–7, 2014, Fort Lauderdale, FL. ZeniMax Media, Inc. 2014. Company Profile, 2014 [cited 10 November 2015]. Available from https:// web.archive.org/web/20140209063802/http://www.zenimax.com/profile.htm.

7 Multi-Player Online Role-Playing Games Mark Chen, Riley Leary, Jon Peterson, and David W. Simkins

This chapter describes multiplayer online role-playing games (MORPGs) in which players participate through networked connections to collectively build a narrative or experience with a game that persists, independent of who is logged in. We discuss two main traditions of these games (→ Chapter 8 for an emerging tradition): 1 Multiuser Dungeons (MUDs), and 2 Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs). MUDs and MMORPGs generally allow for a “massive” number of players—sometimes, hundreds, thousands, or tens of thousands of players, who simultaneously engage in the same game. Most MUDs and MMORPGs feature worlds where players log in at any time to visit, providing players with a persistent world, independent of who is logged in. A variety of agents are at play, shaping the MORPG form. Creators have introduced novel game systems or narratives while dealing with the affordances of what everyone agrees is a role-playing game (RPG), but creators are also constrained by the technologies of their time rather than inherent limitations in RPGs. There also exists a parallel history in non-digital RPGs and computer RPGs (CRPGs), which influence the online games. Thus, the evolution of MORPGs is not channeled through just one tradition. Thankfully, firsthand accounts of the history of the MORPG industry (Bartle, 2010) and firsthand accounts of design and management decisions for specific games (e.g. Morningstar & Farmer, 1991; Curtis, 1996; Mulligan & Patrovsky, 2003) exist. One thing these accounts lack is scrutiny from scholars across multiple disciplines, studying specific player phenomena in online gaming, so this chapter complements the historical timeline with notable scholarly research on player behavior and community engagement. This includes ethnographic studies of gamers (Taylor, 2006a; Pearce, 2009; Nardi, 2010) and game companies (Malaby, 2009), collected volumes about specific games (Carter, Bergstrom, & Woodford, 2016; Corneliussen & Rettberg, 2008), economic issues in virtual worlds (Castronova, 2005; Dibbell, 2006), learning in online games (Steinkuehler, 2007; Chen, 2012), issues of inclusion and marginalization (Kolko, 2000; Nakamura, 2009), discussions about player types (Bartle, 1996; Yee, 2006),

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persistent identity (Banks, 2014; Yee, 2014), player communities’ lives (Seay, Jerome, Lee, and Kraut, 2004; Williams et al., 2006), and emergent social norms and policing (Dibbell, 1993). Roughly speaking, the history of MORPGs can be divided into text-based ones (MUDs) and graphical ones (MMORPGs). This division isn’t neat, however, perhaps placing too much emphasis on how content is communicated to players rather than on any number of other ways of thinking about games, such as categorization based on emotional experiences, allowable player activities and decisions, turn-based vs. real-time action, designed purposes, country of origin, etc.

Box 7.1  Common MORPG Terms and Concepts Add-on: User-created modification to a game, e.g. World of Warcraft’s user interface. Cultural capital: Value of a persons’ knowledge and experience. Instance: A copy of a game environment for a group of players such that different groups of players can explore the same environment in separate groups without affecting each other. Level cap: The maximum experience level for characters. After reaching the cap, characters rely on more powerful equipment to “progress.” Loot: Items and equipment obtained as reward for in-game activities. Parser: Software that “reads” what the user types and tries to interpret it as instructions for the game. Used in text-based games and interactive fiction. Party (MORPG): A small group of players. In MORPGs, “party” is also a formal/technical status (being in a party) that allows members to access game content and functionality together (e.g. enter an instanced dungeon, see Instance above). PvP: Player vs. player. Raid: Also, raid group. A large group of players composed of multiple parties. Raiding: A high-stakes, joint-task activity that requires careful coordination. Social capital: The value in relationships or affiliations with friends, family, etc. because they are obligated to honor these connections (e.g. who will do you a favor, and how big a favor would it be?). Often includes value in the reputation one has within a particular community or culture. Theorycraft: Modeling and testing theories about the underlying mechanics of a game. Third place: A site outside of home and work (or school) that acts as a hangout space to “be yourself” and participate with others who share affinities. Wizard: A player in a MUD with higher-level permissions who can change the game world and affect other players.

MUDs, the first MORPGs, were text-based games that are similar in style to single-player, text-based games known as Interactive Fiction (IF; Montfort, 2003) (see Figure 7.1). In IF, a player reads passages of text describing a location as if they are at that location, along with any objects located there and any activity occurring therein. A player then types in commands to let the game know what actions they want their character to take (e.g. “look,” “pick up,” or “go east”). These are usually interleaved interactions, i.e. player does something, game responds,

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Figure 7.1 

A screenshot from MUD1 (Trubshaw and Bartle 1978), featuring a text-based style of play.

Source: By Source, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=34822448.

player does something, game responds. The multiplayer versions of these games allow players to talk and interact with others in addition to interacting with the game environment. Shared in-game locations can resemble early Internet chat rooms, and players can perform actions or chat with each other without having to interact with the game itself. The original MUD1, created by Roy Trubshaw and Richard Bartle, allowed players who “beat” the game, which focused on combat with computer-controlled enemies, to become wizards, who then had the power to modify the locations and objects in the game, including other characters. This allowed those who finished the game’s content to become authors of additional content or to become game masters for other players. Many different flavors of multiuser text-based games exist now, serving different audiences and featuring different affordances. Some focus on battling monsters (MUDs), some on social interaction with other players (MOOs), and some on collective storytelling and role-play (MUSHs). They were all derived from the original MUDs, and we will use that name to refer to all of them throughout this chapter. Just as wizards had the power to create and change the game in MUD1, these early multiplayer games allowed multiple users to create new locations or in-location objects to add to the game and even add limited scripting to objects. Quite often, though, a MUD had a core group of designers and managers such that the whole environment was a collaborative development between players and the MUD staff, the wizards. The extent of collaboration depended on the MUD and ranged from players offering limited description of locations and objects to completely co-created, shared environments in which there were few, if any, limitations on player creation other than those imposed by the MUD’s code. The more role-playing or socially oriented the MUD, the more power was generally given to players to co-create their environments. Though there were earlier incarnations (e.g. Avatar and Habitat), the 1990s saw a rapid expansion in popularity of multiplayer games with graphics. These included top-down, clickto-move games, such as Ultima Online and Lineage (see Figure 7.2), and, at the very end of

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Figure 7.2 

Origin System’s Ultima Online (Origin Systems 1997) and NCSoft’s Lineage (1998) ­feature top-down isometric viewpoints where players clicked on the ground to move and on other objects to interact with them.

Source: Zachary Booth www.mine-control.com/zack/uoecon/uoecon.html and ModDB.com www.moddb. com/games/lineage/images/screenshot1.

Figure 7.3 

SOE’s EverQuest (1999) popularized the move to 3-D graphics.

Source: MMORPG.com http://images.mmorpg.com/images/galleries/full/352010/938c025c-762e-438c-8a007f97917ab5ae.jpg.

the decade, a precursor of today’s MMORPGs, featuring an interface and controls closer to first-person shooters, EverQuest (see Figure 7.3). Most of these games moved away from ­user-created content and focused on designer-specified lore, often set in a fantasy world where players create an archetypal character to play and level up. The rest of this chapter details the advent of MUDs, covering more nuanced definitions of different types of MUDs, and includes notable issues and research around them. This is then followed by the same treatment for MMORPGs.

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MUDs Before today’s standard of lush, visually overloaded screens, MORPGs were mostly plaintext passages on flat fields of color with a parser for user input. Many of these games were played on university campuses with connections to a nascent Internet far before home consumers had access. It can be argued, in fact, that MORPGs originated from the labor of students as they explored and pushed the mainframes and networks to their technological limits. The influences on these students and early game and virtual world creators were varied, but much of it came from trends in the tabletop world.

History Pre-MUDs Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) popularized games structured around an adventuring party where a referee (or “dungeon master”) would manage a game world full of adversaries on behalf of a group of players participating in a campaign (→ Chapter 4); it was inherently a multiplayer game. The original rules recommend that a single referee handle “from four to fifty players” in any single campaign, numbers that are in line with Dave Arneson’s Blackmoor campaign (→ Chapter 3). Practically speaking, this assumed that not all players would be present at all game sessions, but it was not uncommon for early tournament dungeons, like the famous 1975 Tomb of Horrors at the first Origins convention (Schick, 1991, p. 113), to assume a party of fifteen players served by a single referee. Outside the tournament environment, it can be difficult to bring a large and consistent group of players to the same table. This problem has faced multiplayer games since the early 1960s, when geographically distributed Diplomacy fans first began to play by mail rather than in person. Each of the seven players in a Diplomacy game sent their moves at an agreed interval by post to a game master, who then revealed the results of the moves all at once to the players. Diplomacy variants sometimes increased the number of players substantially. This postal format became the norm for many of the more complicated multiplayer simulation games of the decade, such as Tullio Prony’s seminal 1967 War of the Empires (Peterson, 2012, p. 36), which supported over thirty simultaneous players in its first year. Ownership of computer systems at the time remained almost exclusively limited to academics, military personnel, and large institutions, which could invest in mainframes or minicomputers. By 1970, certain computer systems became more affordable, and the possibility of a commercial computer game became realistic. The Flying Buffalo Computer Wargame Company was founded in 1970 with the unusual premise of running a computer to adjudicate multiplayer wargames, beginning with the title Nuclear Destruction (Peterson, 2016, p. 25). A group of between eight and fifteen players mailed in a specially formatted card that indicated their moves. These were then fed into the computer, and, once all moves were received, a printout was sent to all players, explaining the results. In this sense, the early play-by-mail games were prototypical MMORPGs, even though the role-playing elements were lacking. CRPGs (→ Chapter 6) began to appear within a year of the release of D&D. One of the earliest systems to support the interactive graphical systems necessary to visualize dungeon adventures also happened to be a networked, distributed system: PLATO, based at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and created by the Computer-based Education Research Lab

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(CERL). In fact, multiplayer networked games of various kinds already existed on the PLATO system prior to the publication of D&D. For example, the 1973 team-based, space strategy game Empire (Peterson, 2016, p. 25) supported up to fifty players, each controlling their own ship. With the advent of computer versions of D&D, however, multiplayer modes emulating D&D parties soon followed. Early multiuser RPGs, Oubliette (1978), Moria (1978), and Avatar (1979) were created on the PLATO system, allowing groups of players to take advantage of its multiuser platform to form a party to adventure together. The gameplay was limited to exploring a dungeon, killing monsters, and finding treasure, but the social aspect of the games aided their longevity. Of these early games, Avatar was by far the most popular and influential, existing through several incarnations and actively played through the mid-1990s. Despite its relatively long existence, the limited access to PLATO and its successor, NovaNET, kept the total player base quite small. The impact of the early PLATO games is limited, and few of the earliest designers continued to help form the computer games industry. Though the PLATO system allowed for limited graphics, the method of implementing them further limited its early use to specific hardware created for the PLATO system. Thus, the greatest impact on the spread of MORPGs was not through PLATO but through the more widespread teletype and CRT (cathode ray tube) terminals connected to mainframes networks and, eventually, personal computers (PCs) and the Internet. With the widespread availability of mainframe, single-player, text adventure games, like Adventure and Zork, by the end of 1977, several experiments attempted to recreate a multiplayer model in text. One of the authors of Zork, Dave Lebling (1980), recalled that “there was briefly a multiplayer version of the PDP-10 Zork several years ago,” but, by that point, he noted, “today there is a ‘Multiple User Dungeon’ at Essex University in England.” The original MUD system was created in 1979 but remained accessible only to users of the university computer system. Initially, early MUDs simply let multiple players experience the mechanics of a text adventure at the same time, with only minimal opportunities for cooperation, other than sharing advice. Bartle (1983), noted, for example, that “you may have to ask for help in order to lift up a heavy portcullis.” MUDs operated from a variety of code bases and operational models. Outside of university environments, dial-up access was typically required either to access a MUD directly or to connect to an information service supporting the MUD. For example, the 1985 Compunet MUD, available to Commodore 64 players, supported up to 36 simultaneous players. Only when Internet access grew more widespread in the 1990s did Internet MUDs begin to flourish outside of academia. That the history of MUDs is deeply tied to hardware platforms seems to be a major emphasis in early accounts of MUD development. Bartle (2003), for example, spends much of his history chapter on the types of computers and networking infrastructure available to creators as they programmed new MUDs, dividing eras of MUD history into four ages defined in large part by these affordances/constraints. In 1983, Bartle wrote, “What I would like to see—and it’s a long, long way off—is some local or national network with good graphics, sound effects and a well designed set of worlds of varying degrees of difficulty.” While this possibility seemed remote in 1983, it was realized within a decade. Notably, Bartle immediately followed this line with “In this true meritocracy, you will forever be encountering new situations, new difficulties, new solutions, and above all new people. Everyone starts off on an equal footing in this artificial world.” As we will see later, this promise of a new meritocracy wasn’t without struggle and controversy.

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Types of MUDs The term “MUDs” is used here generically, but, for some players, the term specifically refers to combat-heavy games. Howard Rheingold (1993) states that Bartle emphasized death as a necessary component for MUDs to be considered games, and this led to the fork in MUD evolution between social MUDs and combat-oriented MUDs. Indeed, today, many MUDs encourage heavy role-playing where players stay in character and act out scenes. In contrast, combat-heavy games (also called “hack-n-slash” games) usually focus on encountering game-controlled monsters to defeat and loot. One way to differentiate MUDs is to look at the underlying framework that was used in creating them. Different flavors of packages were available for developers to take and modify to create new games. For example, many combat-oriented games were built on LPMud and ­DikuMUD, while TinyMUD’s derivatives (MUSHs and MUCKs, both of which are not really acronyms but rather playful puns on MUD) were often used to create games that emphasized social interaction. Andrew Busey (1995, pp. 3–5) lists types of MUDs, mostly using a platform categorization scheme. These categories are confusing, however, as they conflate platform with style of play and do not represent an exhaustive list of platform types. Amy ­Bruckman (1992), alternatively, divides MUDs into Adventure-Game-Style MUDs and ­Tiny-Style MUDs. Adventure-Game-Style MUDs featured leveling up with a character, exploring, and defeating monsters. Michael Tresca (2011) adds that, eventually, players formed tight fellowships with others in taking on game challenges, foreshadowing the kinds of grouping needed in later MMORPGs. Tiny-Style MUDs were much more about interacting with other players and creating the world for all to inhabit. Bruckman writes, “In these MUDs, status within the community is achieved by building” (1992, p. 8). Further confusing this delineation, both Adventure-Game-Style MUDs and Tiny-Style MUDs were sometimes tied to heavy narratives and genres: again, foreshadowing later MMORPGs that are tied to different media properties (Star Wars, Star Trek, etc.). There were, in fact, a wide variety of MUDs (just as there are now many different affinity groups on the web and different flavors of MMORPGs).

Themes and Issues Governance, Utopian Visions, and Spillover: Part 1 A common feature of these virtual spaces was that users who were given certain permissions could create content (e.g. new rooms or new objects), thereby making game creation a sort of collective or crowdsourced endeavor. Many of these worlds were created and maintained by volunteer players, and visions of collective self-governance attracted academics and tech-­ inclined hippies, anarchists, and libertarians. Writing in 1995, Busey (p. 7) posited that The allure of creating one’s own world, or even just living in a world with different rules, can be immense. Politics, adventure, and the brave new world are great attractions. People like the fact that they can spin a new reality or shed the boundaries of an everyday world. An odd paradox existed, however: most MUDs forced, through code, a hierarchical structure among their denizens, with creators being deemed “gods” in the code, dispelling illusions of participatory control.

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Sometimes, admins would make decisions that were meant to flatten participation and do away with real-world discrimination, some of which backfired, aggravating issues instead of alleviating them. For example, in “erasing @race,” Beth Kolko (2000) detailed LambdaMOO’s move to take away the “race” attribute of created characters. Like color-blind policies, this ended up marginalizing already marginalized groups of people and normalized “default white” rather than resulting in inclusivity. Rheingold (1993) also notes that “Identity is the first thing you create in a MUD… By creating your identity, you help create a world.” This initial action for first-time players clearly emphasizes one’s identity as the starting point to base all other communication on. System-wide control over what options are available to define one’s identity shouldn’t be taken lightly, especially when it’s so easy to obliterate traditionally marginalized sources of identity. Other issues arose around control, user permissions, and social norms. Julian Dibbell (1993), in his landmark article “A Rape in Cyberspace,” detailed controversy that can happen when players have ways of forcing other players to take certain actions: in this case, sexual actions. Sending ripples throughout the community (of LambdaMOO, again), the admins and players had to then figure out how to handle the incident and possible future ones. The debate not only included policies for normal behavior but also necessitated a discussion on what counted as violation. Was sexual harassment and rape less meaningful when performed on a virtual character? How much did players identify with their on-screen selves? One side of the argument maintains that violations did not happen because there was no bodily harm. The other side asserts that players experienced emotional harm, and so these actions were real violations. These questions about virtual vs. “real” harassment persist today. Many later examples of violations that test the boundaries of real and virtual include instances of theft and killing without game-enforced repercussions, such as with the games Habitat (Morningstar & Farmer, 1991), Ultima Online (Lastowka & Hunter, 2004), and ­R unescape (Messner, 2016). Clearly, for some players, the distinctions between online and offline identities are extremely blurred and multifaceted as researchers would later confirm (Banks, 2015; Grooten & Kowart, 2015). As is also seen in TRPGs and live-action role-playing games (larps), MUSHs, MOOs, and other MUDs that were set up for character role-playing required a level of consent from its players. They had to constantly negotiate and socially agree on the limits of their role-play. Social MUDs, however, seemed to bring the issue of consent into focus, especially because players were often anonymous to each other.

Player Types and Identity Consenting to participate is dependent on how a player sees themselves as they play. In an effort to classify players, Bartle (1996) published early scholarship on player behavior. He derived four player archetypes out of a conversation between 30 wizards about their observations of players in games they were administrating from late 1989 to early 1990. These categories—Killers, Achievers, Explorers, and Socializers—were then placed on two axes, creating the diagram in Figure 7.4. Achievers focus on game-related goals, such as acquiring treasure or defeating monsters. Explorers initially map out the extent of a MUD’s world, moving on to experimenting with the rules of the world once the map is complete. Bartle labels these as the breadth and depth of the MUD world. Socializers spend time using the game’s communicative facilities to role-play with other players. Killers are players who impose upon other players. This usually takes on the form of harming or causing other players

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Figure 7.4 

Bartle’s player types (1996).

Source: Wikipedia - By Ramiromagalhaes - Using Inkscape, CC0, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php? curid=38802236.

distress, but it sometimes also includes helping others using in-game tools or mechanics. Thus, perhaps in hindsight, the label “Killer” is a misnomer when it should be “Imposer” or some other name that indicates an effect on other players with no indication of whether it is hurtful or helpful. Many researchers and, indeed, game designers still use these categories as a rough scheme today (→ Chapter 18). Of course, the model is a simplification because players in these settings can testify to expressing all of these categories of behavior to some degree. The Bartle Quotient (now run by GamerDNA), a survey that determines a player’s type, does allow for four independent plots along the four axes, and an alternative model introduced by Nick Yee (2006) and then by Yee, Nicolas Ducheneaut, and Les Nelson (2012) years later supports degrees of affinity toward certain types of behavior as independent from other types of behavior. One major difference between Bartle’s and the later models is that the later ones emerged out of data on thousands of players. That data consists mostly of self-report survey responses, and the affinities are perhaps more useful than the player types that arose out of shared observances from 30 administrators, of which, Bartle states, only 15 were actively engaged in the conversations. Unfortunately, a common move made by researchers using these models is to then place players into these particular categories—labeling the players themselves—rather than just labeling their behavior at specific moments in time. This act can essentialize and generalize human experience rather than recognize that players can act relatively differently from moment to moment. They may have preferred or biased ways of responding to in-game events, but labeling them a specific way has the danger of marginalizing nuanced behavior. Another notable line of research explored online identity and predicted that people spending increasing amounts of time in MUDs would have a very different social experience than previous generations of people who did not spend as much time in these virtual spaces (Bruckman, 1992; Rheingold, 1993; Turkle, 1995). Then and now, this line of reasoning is sometimes accompanied by the claim that time spent online is inferior to time spent offline because we become less social and therefore less human (often seen in sensationalist videos shared on Facebook and YouTube1). This, of course, fails to acknowledge that much of the interaction in virtual spaces can be highly social and allow for more time in social situations and greater numbers of social contacts than in someone’s offline life. Rheingold (1993), for example, recounts

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a quote from Pavel Curtis that counters the argument that time spent in these virtual spaces is not social (while also adding nuance to the claim that MUDs are addicting): These people aren’t addicted to playing video games… They’re communication addicted. They’re addicted to being able to go out and find people twenty-four hours a day and have interesting conversations with them. We’re talking about people who spend up to seventy hours a week connected and active on a MUD… …if someone is spending a large portion of their time being social with people who live thousands of miles away, you can’t say that they’ve turned inward. They aren’t shunning society. They’re actively seeking it. They’re probably doing it more actively than anyone around them. (Curtis as quoted in Rheingold, 1993) Bruckman (1992) and Turkle (1995) note that MUDs provide a space to explore identity construction, and Rheingold (1993) uses identity as the main theme to examine our history with media when he says, MUDs are part of the latest phase in a long sequence of mental changes brought about by the invention and widespread use of symbolic tools. Previous communications media dissolved ancient barriers of time and space that had separated people, and in the process changed the way people thought… Literate people think differently from people in nonliterate or postliterate cultures, and they think of themselves differently… …the latest computer-mediated communications media seem to dissolve boundaries of identity as well. One of the things [we are doing]… is pretending to be somebody else, or even pretending to be several different people at the same time. (Rheingold, 1993) For Rheingold, Bruckman, and Turkle, part of the draw of MUDs is precisely the fact that, in them, identity is malleable. After her earlier optimistic work (1995), however, Turkle more recently (2011) cautions us and questions whether we want our new selves to be so steeped in these new forms of mediation (though she is mostly talking about our use of social media and mobile devices rather than online games). Yet Rheingold seems to be suggesting that the act of switching mediums is no easy task when our defined existence is so tied to the mediums in which we participate. Another area of interest about identity and consent is with sex, sometimes known as “TinySex,” “TSing,” or “cybering” in MUDs. Part of the reason why the virtual rape reported by Dibbell (1993) was so controversial has to do with the blurred line between virtual and real identities and the social etiquette of MUD users that upheld consent and permission (cf. the Netiquette rules laid out by Busey, 1995, pp. 79–81). In truth, TinySex was a known phenomenon and generally accepted within parts of the MUD community, such as in FurryMUCK (Busey, 1995). Romance in MUDs, MMORPGs, and virtual worlds can be intense, sometimes more so than in offscreen romances, partly due to its “always on” nature. They can result in both online marriages and “real-life” marriages, when players move their romance to their real selves. Sex in MUDs and such can be romantic too, but, just as often, sexual encounters can be casual hookups. Furthermore, gender-bending or portraying a character that is unlike

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an offline identity is a frequent phenomenon in MUDs, just as it is in MMORPGs, which theoretically shouldn’t be a problem unless the lines between onscreen and offscreen life get blurred, such as when meeting a romantic partner from an online space in non-game contexts. Issues of control, governance, and identity continue to be concerns for researchers of MMORPGs. MMORPGs are more complicated and attract significantly larger numbers of players (up to millions) than MUDs before them. Research into player communities and culture around MMORPGs also ballooned in comparison to research on MUDs, and in addition to the above topics, many more areas of study emerged, including descriptions of player modding; team-oriented play and coordination; and engagement in scientific practice, analyzing a game’s underlying systems to find the most efficient ways of playing (also known as theorycrafting). It’s not that these practices did not exist for MUDs (and other gaming communities), but the rise in their prevalence, along with the rise in scholarship around MMORPGs, allowed the academy to see these practices in much more detail.

MMORPGs Like text-based multiplayer RPGs, visual RPGs tend to have different foci (whether battling fantasy monsters, socializing with other players, or role-playing specific characters and situations), though more often than not, a single game can serve all of these purposes to varying degrees. This section highlights specific trends that arose as these games gained popularity and as they evolved with the video gaming industry in its pursuit of more sophisticated graphics and designers’ and players’ visions for online life. A defining feature of MMORPGs is that they allow a massive number of players to simultaneously log in and interact with the game world and each other. It is a mistake to assume that playing an MMORPG is like playing a single-player RPG with other people around. In fact, the social aspects of participating in one of these game worlds can eclipse any pre-designed single-player experiences. These games can become “third places” (Steinkuehler & Williams, 2006; Moore, Hankinson Gathman, & Ducheneaut, 2009) where players hang out and live, make friends and enemies, form close bonds, communicate in intricate ways, figure out how to self-organize, and govern. A major change moving from MUDs to MMORPGs is that games transitioned into being paid services as they became commercial ventures rather than hobbyist activities run by students and academics. These ranged from early dial-up games with hourly fees (e.g. Neverwinter Nights on America Online aka AOL) to a monthly subscription fee for Internet-based MMORPGs (e.g. World of Warcraft) to free-to-play games (Neverwinter). The latter sometimes begin as ­subscription-based games that change if/when their subscription numbers falter (Wildstar). Another model requires an upfront purchase and then allow people to play the game indefinitely (Guild Wars).

More History Dial-Up Games: Habitat and Neverwinter Nights In the 1980s and early 1990s, home online access was still costly, but dial-up modems were getting faster, and dial-up services that offered hourly or monthly subscription rates started to gain prominence. These networks often provided online services that were distinct from and not a part of the Internet as it is known and used today.

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Figure 7.5 

Lucasfilm’s Habitat (1986).

Source: Electric Eggplant Videos - Screengrab from YouTube video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UW I8f9QpnR8.

Habitat (1986), by Randy Farmer and Chip Morningstar at Lucasfilm, was essentially a graphical representation of a MUD’s rooms (see Figure 7.5). It was an early example of a virtual world but not typically considered an RPG. Even though players controlled characters that moved from scene to scene and interacted with objects and other characters in those scenes, they did not normally engage in combat with monsters or level up while questing. Locations and characters were drawn from the side, as if from a wide-angle shot, making Habitat’s art format a precursor to Lucasfilm’s later point-n-click adventure games, Maniac Mansion and Zak McKraken. Habitat was set up to allow a self-governing citizenry, taking a cue from many MUDs before it. Players of Habitat had to socially construct rules to follow as a society because the game allowed stealing and killing with no game-enforced repercussions. Morningstar and Farmer (1991) highlighted cases of controversy and showed how the community reacted and reasserted order. These issues continue to appear in both MUDs and MMORPGs today. Perhaps something about virtual space attracts idealists, libertarians, and identity-­experimenters, all interested in experimenting with how far they can push the limits of social interaction or freedom in the system. The idea that players can, together, figure out how to run a place seems compelling for many who want to get away from real-life hierarchies and differences. A few years after Habitat, AOL offered Neverwinter Nights (NWN; 1991) as part of its dial-up service. Created by Stormfront Studios and Strategic Simulations Inc. (SSI) in partnership with TSR (the publisher of D&D), it was an extension of their work on the “Gold Box” games set in the D&D Forgotten Realms campaign world (→ Chapter 6). The Gold Box games emphasized turn-based tactical combat on an isometric grid, which continues to be a mainstay in role-playing and strategy games. NWN is a contender for the first graphical online RPG (see Figure 7.6), and it was certainly the first one to hit consumer markets (though, as covered above, there were other graphical virtual worlds before NWN ).

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Figure 7.6 

Stormfront/SSI’s Neverwinter Nights (1991) featured the same isometric grid combat as their other “Gold Box” games but was a multiplayer online game through the dial-up service AOL.

Source: Millenium, http://millenium.blogs.liberation.fr/2012/11/22/la-saga-des-neverwinter/.

NWN’s community of players was actively engaged, creating guilds and hosting events for members, precursors to the guild-run events in today’s MMORPGs. In fact, a decade later, Bioware sought the NWN brand for its non-massive CRPG of the same name, which featured a construction kit that allowed players to create their own adventures and, if desired, to act as a live game master for a group of players. As intended, this created a new formation of the old player community on Internet forums and web pages dedicated to the game.

Early Online Games: Ultima Online and Lineage Two of the early games that also featured an isometric view where players clicked on the represented ground to move their characters were Ultima Online (UO; 1997), developed by Origin Systems in the US, and Lineage (1998), developed by NCSoft in South Korea. Both were set in fantasy worlds, but UO tended to focus on cooperative action against in-game monsters, while Lineage was lauded for its robust guild-based, team vs. team play. Both games still featured text chat between players, overlaying a text box on top of the main screen’s action. UO took place in the fantasy world of Britannia, the same setting as the popular s­ ingle-player CRPG series Ultima. An important aspect of UO was its virtual economy and crafting system. Players collected resources or equipment and could trade them with others. Some players even constructed homes and gardens (see Figure 7.7). This created a market for rare goods and crafted items, which were traded in a barter system or for in-game currency. As demand rose, players began trading real-world currency for items and in-game money. Dibbell explored these early days of real-market trading (RMT) and describes his experiences attempting to make a living off this virtual economy in Play Money (2006). Development of MMORPGs was not limited to Western markets. Nexus: The Kingdom of the Winds (1996) was an early game from South Korea. A couple of years later, Lineage (1998) hit the market and became available in Western regions. Like UO, Lineage featured a top-down view of the action where players controlled their avatars’ movement primarily with a mouse,

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Figure 7.7 

Player housing and crafting in Ultima Online (1997).

[Source: DJAd, stratics.com] For more, see http://stratics.com/threads/post-your-custom-house-designs-here. 35349/.

like in Blizzard’s single-player RPG Diablo. Lineage also featured player-created guilds or alliances that then battled each other for control of territory. Independent players soon found that survival and richer play experiences depended on joining one of these guilds. It was less dangerous to team up with others than attempting to traverse the world alone. In the early 2000s, academic scholarship around MMORPGs began in earnest. In the education world, Constance Steinkuehler wrote about her experiences with and literacy practices within Lineage and Lineage II. For example, she discussed and analyzed chat communication in Lineage (2007) (e.g. “af k g2g too ef ot regen no poms,”), showing how participating in Lineage play required a cultural understanding—i.e. a sophisticated literacy of its discourse. MMORPGs (and MUDs before them), as with any subculture, spawn new ways of speaking and interacting within a shared social space, and Steinkuehler’s work sheds light on their nuanced and sophisticated nature.

EverQuest When Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) released EverQuest (EQ; 1999), it saw its chance to refine mechanics from earlier games while also taking advantage of improvements in technology by moving its game to a more immersive 3-D platform. To be sure, the creators of EQ cite major influence from earlier text-based MUDs, but it’s easy to argue that some amount of influence must have also come from games like Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss (1992) and The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall (1996). EQ continued to be influenced by other games and otherwise refined over the years, especially with its graphical presentation. It first started out looking like older CRPGs, like the Wizardry series, with information presented in blocked off panels, but it later did away with side panels and instead presented that information as overlays on top of the 3-D space (see Figure 7.8).

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Figure 7.8 

S ide-by-side comparison of EverQuest’s (1999) different presentations, removing text panels from beta and early versions in favor of overlays.

Source: kheprigames.com www.kheprigames.com/EQ35.jpg and Wikipedia - By Source, Fair use, https://en. wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=12992048.

EQ was a landmark MMORPG, not only in terms of defining a genre but also in attracting scholarship around player behavior and cultural practices. T. L. Taylor (2006a) forged the way in describing players as they interact with each other and game developers, both online and at face-to-face conventions, as they define social norms, figure out what’s fair, argue about the future of their game, etc. She paints an intricate portrait of MMORPG gamers, which dispels stereotypes of gamers as teenage boys in basements. Most importantly, participating in MMORPG play means participating in a larger cultural context that is social, collaborative, competitive, contentious, and deeply meaningful in many different ways to its participants.

World of Warcraft In the 1990s, online multiplayer games became more of an industry focus with serious revenue possibilities. Early successes in UO, Lineage, EQ, along with others, such as Asheron’s Call (1999), Dark Age of Camelot (2001), and Star Wars Galaxies (2003), proved that developing and then supporting these games was a viable business model. Then came World of Warcraft (WoW; 2004) by Blizzard Entertainment, who had a sizable fan base already from their Warcraft, Starcraft, and Diablo series of games. Prior to WoW, SOE was proud to amaze people with the fact that EQ had over 450,000 subscribers (MMOData Blog, 2013). EQ’s success was enough to greenlight a sequel, EverQuest 2 (EQ2; 2004). Unfortunately, EQ2 was released right around the same time as WoW, and players were drawn to Blizzard’s reputation for creating satisfying experiences with refined presentations and tightly balanced mechanics. WoW subscriptions quickly dwarfed EQ’s record. In two years, they were up to 6 million subscribers, and at its peak, around 2010, WoW had over 12 million subscribers worldwide, in part due to tools that let players customize the user interface through “add-ons” (see Figure 7.9). This popularity attracted a wave of new games research, much of it ethnographic in nature (e.g. Bainbridge, 2010; Nardi, 2010; Chen, 2012) as graduate students and faculty wrote about their own gaming practices or saw that WoW’s prominence couldn’t be ignored as a site for study. The fledgling journal Games and Culture featured a special issue on WoW in 2006 (­K rzywinska & Lowood, 2006), which included articles that looked at guild formation (Williams et al., 2006), gave a prescient note about surveillance culture (Taylor, 2006b), and compared

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Figure 7.9 

Screenshots of World of Warcraft (Blizzard 2004), showing the default interface (left) and with user-created add-ons (right).

Source: Screenshots by Mark Chen.

text-based MUDs to WoW as social activities (Mortensen, 2006; Corneliussen & Rettberg, 2008). Topics like these existed before WoW, but the game gained a large enough player base to permeate into popular culture and academia alike.

Post-WoW A series of “WoW killers” were released during the late 2000s and early 2010s, but none of them attracted the same magnitude of players nor significantly took away players from WoW. Some hoped established intellectual property (IP) would sell their games: Dungeons & Dragons Online (2006), The Lord of the Rings Online (2007), Age of Conan (2008), Warhammer Online (2008), and Star Wars: The Old Republic (2011). Others, such as Rift (2011) and Wildstar (2014), featured novel gameplay that their creators thought would attract players. When subscription numbers did not meet expectations, many companies decided to try out a new funding model: offer the games for free but charge for vanity items, like character customization options, a higher chance of rare equipment drops, and access to the in-game bank. This “free-to-play” (f2p) model was already being used by other multiplayer online games, such as Runescape (2001) and MapleStory (2003), and by games in other genres, such as Team Fortress 2 (2007) and League of Legends (2009). It was notable, however, that mainstream commercial MMORPGs were going this route. For some, like Dungeons & Dragons Online and Star Wars: The Old Republic, it proved beneficial, increasing active accounts and revenue from item sales, giving the games a new life. ArenaNet, owned by NCSoft, publishers of Lineage and City of Heroes, introduced a different funding model than the others by letting players pay once for the games Guild Wars (2005) and Guild Wars 2 (2012). Players could then play for as long as they wanted without a monthly subscription. Certain in-game items and benefits could then be bought, but they were optional and not critical to success in the game. Later expansions to the game followed the same purchasing model (buy once, play indefinitely).

Asian MMORPGs There is no doubt that games like EQ and WoW expanded the popularity of MMORPGs. In Asian countries, however, the MMORPGs with the most success were locally developed.

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Figure 7.10 

Fantasy Westward Journey (NetEase 2001), an early and lasting success in China.

Source: MMOs.com https://mmos.com/editorials/most-popular-mmorpgs-world

An early example is Fantasy Westward Journey, developed by NetEase in China in 2001 (see Figure 7.10). Loosely based on the famous Chinese tale, Journey to the West, Fantasy Westward Journey gained a huge following in China. In 2007, it was reported to have hit 1.5 million concurrent players, and in 2015, it touted 350 million registered users (NetEase, 2015). These figures seem to dwarf even the most popular Western games, but it is hard to compare because different companies report different metrics. WoW had 12 million active users in 2012, but WoW also charges a monthly fee, while most Asian games do not. WoW’s total number of registered users is probably much higher if we include inactive accounts. Furthermore, many Asian games have longer lifespans, often over ten years, whereas Western games that were not immediately successful shut down within a few years. Most games that do well in Asia owe their numbers to the sheer market size of China. These games tend to be from East Asian companies and gravitate towards three themes: western-style fantasy (i.e. themes found in Tolkien or D&D), wuxia games, and “cute” games. Regardless, Asian MMORPGs are associated with routine, repetitive tasks (which players tend to love or hate), and manga-inspired character designs. Fantasy games, like many from NCSoft, South Korean creators of Lineage, sometimes reach Western shores. This includes Black Desert, developed by Pearl Abyss and released in North America in 2016. Black Desert represents the most sophisticated graphics in an MMORPG to date (see Figure 7.11), allowing players to customize the look of their characters more so than in any previous MMORPG. (A quick online search returns characters modeled after celebrities such as Michael Jackson with surprisingly uncanny fidelity.) Wuxia games, in contrast to traditional fantasy-themed games, seem only to be popular with Chinese players, whether living in China or Taiwan or abroad in Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Thailand, and Indonesia (Chi, 2009). Wuxia games, such as Age of Wulin (2013), often feature martial arts or individual fighting in chivalrous matches, and they owe their origin to traditional Chinese wuxia stories, some of which date back thousands of years and today include comics, films, and video games.

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Figure 7.11 

 lack Desert Online (Pearl Abyss 2015), featuring the latest generation of graphics, B making it resemble many AAA console games.

Source: https://pressakey.com/gameinfos,3039,screenshots,,,Black-Desert-Online,.html

Cute games—sometimes considered girl games because they attract a higher ratio of female players—feature cartoon characters or anthropomorphic animals and focus on sharing and social interaction. Cute games tend to appeal to players “living in urban cities, including Seoul, Tokyo, Taipei, Hong Kong and Shanghai” (Chi, 2009, p. 39). China has the biggest Internet population, and its gaming market is growing rapidly. Its rising youth culture is increasingly digitally connected, and it is likely to build up persistent online personas and more readily align with other youth in virtual worlds (Fung & Liao, 2015). The Chinese market is also interesting in that the Chinese government requires international companies to work with local publishers to release Chinese-specific versions of their games, carefully monitoring them for anything subversive or offensive to Chinese audiences (or the state). In fact, the state deliberately slows down dissemination of Western games and encourages homegrown games. These factors may contribute to the fact that online games serve as a political platform where youth express nationalism and patriotic pride (Kshetri, 2009). No matter the game, China also limits game playing to a few hours to address concerns over addiction and lack of productivity. China has a long history of gambling as a pastime and using cunning to increase wealth, however, and games there often feature gambling-style mechanics that encourage players to spend money to progress to higher levels (cf. Martinsen, 2007) or actively encourage RMT, where players acquire in-game items to sell for real-world money.

Meanwhile, in Iceland: EVE Online In 2003, almost unnoticed amongst the hype of EQ2 and WoW, Icelandic company CCP released a space combat and trading MMORPG called EVE Online. Rather than fade away when WoW took over, EVE has seen a steady slow growth since release and currently has over 500,000 subscribers. While some have likened playing EVE to “spreadsheets in space” (see Figure 7.12), what makes EVE different than other MMORPGs is its strong emphasis on player-driven governance, organizations, and economy. EVE also features high-stakes consequences to player death: ships can cost thousands of real US dollars and are not respawned in

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Figure 7.12 

 VE Online, which has had lasting appeal due to player-driven economies, factions, E governance, and events, despite also being known as “spreadsheets in space.”

Source: https://eve-ua.com/ru/screenshots

the same way that characters can just pop back to life in games like WoW. This has created a sort of “Wild West” feel to the game, where players can engage in piracy and banditry with little intervention from official game-controlled law enforcement. EVE also benefitted from players communicating outside of the game to coordinate, form alliances, make and break treaties, and so on. In fact, detailed accounts of large corporate alliances going to war with each other, made possible only through careful outside-of-game coordination, have appeared in popular media outlets, such as Wired (Moore, 2014). A definitive guide to EVE scholarship can be found in Marcus Carter, Kelly Bergstrom, and Darryl Woodford’s Internet Spaceships Are Serious Business (2016).

Themes and Issues Continued Guilds and Accrual of Social and Cultural Capital Guild life is a huge part of the MMORPG experience (Williams et al., 2006). Belonging to a guild comes with certain privileges, such as access to a private chat channel, a shared storage space to drop and take items into and out of, and group management controls. Guilds became the go-to place to study communication patterns ( Jakobsson & Taylor, 2003), social network bonds (Williams et al., 2006; Hajibagheri, Lakkaraju, Sukthankar, Wigand, and Agarwal, 2015; Tan, Yeh, & Chen, 2015; Schatten & Duric, 2016), and, basically, what shared tasks and existence in an MMORPG looks like (Seay et al., 2004; Ducheneaut, Yee, Nickell, and Moore, 2007). Many guilds have specific purposes for their members. Some are social or family guilds that provide a safe space for players to hang out and explore the game together. Participating in any guild and the general player community meant that players accrued social and cultural capital where access to in-game activity was often tied to a player’s existing capital and network (Chen, 2009). Some specifically provide this safe space for real-world (often marginalized) groups, such as LGBT gamers or gamers who are veterans (McKenna, Gardner, & Myers, 2011; Collister, 2014). Others are more focused on endgame raiding and boss battles (Cockshut,

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2012). Role-playing in WoW was initially relatively difficult due to game design constraints (MacCallum-Stewart & Parsler, 2008), and eventually, it became overshadowed by a focus on efficient raiding (Chen, 2012); this was also reflected in guild life as more and more guilds became “raiding” guilds. Joining a raiding guild required certain qualifications of a player, including having the right tools (or socio-material resources) to do well in a raid.

Gold Farming and Representation WoW, like many other MMORPGs, has a thriving in-game economy and an auction house that allows players to sell and trade resources with each other in-game. An industry emerged where (sometimes Western) entrepreneurs hired laborers from developing countries where wages were low to “farm” resources and gold, continually killing monsters in rich in-game zones to sell for real money (Dibbell, 2007). Players on the demand-side of this equation often participate in these trades as a way to obtain rare items or to shortcut their way through the game (e.g. purchase a character that has already reached the level cap). Most commonly, however, some players purchase in-game gold from others, which gives them an in-game economic boost that they can use to purchase faster mounts or crafting resources needed to make powerful gear. Gold farming and purchasing gold are controversial practices in the West. Some players view the practice as an innocuous way to catch up with their friends, who may have been playing for longer periods of time. Others argue that gold farmers break the “magic circle” of the game, allowing players who are wealthy outside of the game to continue to have advantages in the game. Some of these players even go as far as to organize raiding parties to kill gold farmers in specific locales (Chen, 2012). Issues of race emerged as gold farmers, many of whom were/are Chinese, quickly became stereotyped, leading to discriminatory behavior against any players who seemed to talk or act differently. Lisa Nakamura (2009), who had previously looked at race issues in MUDs (Kolko, Nakamura, & Rodman, 2000), incisively covered this complex global phenomenon, which mixed market factors with racial identity and prejudice. The Chinese player community, meanwhile, does not stigmatize gold farmers in the same way as Western player communities, and it is, for many, a legitimate occupation. There does exist, however, a stigma against gaming in general, and players who work as gold farmers have to carefully construct their identities within this larger milieu (Lee & Lin, 2011). In 2009, the Chinese government banned the sale of virtual currency, but these laws only apply to generic virtual currency that can be used to buy all sorts of goods from many different games (Claburn, 2009). At the time, virtual currency trading was an important source of revenue for players and gaming companies (Kshetri, 2009), so Chinese citizens who engage in RMT are continually wary of potential future restrictions. Also prevalent are cybercrimes, where “a large proportion of the malware found in China is password-stealing Trojans, which are designed to steal users’ identities (passwords and login information for games such as World of Warcraft)” (Kshetri, 2009).

Governance, Utopian Visions, and Spillover: Part 2 As with MUDs, and in contrast to tight external state control in China, many multiplayer online spaces attract players who have visions of a utopian future where they can realize a true democracy. This is most evident in communities around virtual worlds that aren’t necessarily

150  Mark Chen et al.

RPGs, such as Second Life (Malaby, 2009), and even in online communities like The Well (Rheingold, 1993). Still, some RPGs also attracted subsets of idealistic player communities. The Ultima games, which established the world of Britannia featured in UO, were founded on the principles of the Avatar, a character who was the embodiment of a set of virtues deemed by Richard Garriott, the creator, to be ideal characteristics. Much of this was steeped in a fantasy ideal of virtuous knights and chivalry. These ideals seem to come with any new MMORPG space. Forum posts for guilds, clans, and corporations, as they are variously called in different MMORPGs, often feature debate on how to govern, with particular attention given to providing an inclusive egalitarian environment for all member voices, whether in MMORPGs or virtual worlds (McKnight, 2012). As with MUDs, this player-community move is often in contention with built-in game systems of control, such as the game’s only allowing one guild leader or providing default member hierarchies that come with different in-game permissions (as is the case with WoW ). Raph Koster, who had a major hand in Star Wars Galaxies, UO, and other MMORPGs, wrote “Declaring the Rights of Players” (2000), which set forth a bill of rights for avatars in virtual worlds and online games. In it, Koster extends inalienable human rights to avatars of online worlds, thereby codifying norms of proper conduct and due process. To him, it is a given that players are in control of their own selves. Note that these rights were written after the early days of controversy in MUDs but well before mainstream MMORPGs took root. The rise of commercial games also saw many companies claim in-game items and characters as their property, not the players’, game companies would also strictly forbid the selling or trading of these “goods.” Koster’s declaration, however, pertains more to social norms of behavior and control over others in an online society, but these issues continue to be in tension, such as with the recent shutdown of a third-party server that ran original WoW code for players who longed for the early days of WoW (Frank, 2016).

Player Types, Identity, and Effects (Positive and Negative) As mentioned in the discussion on MUDs, research on player types and identity continued with MMORPGs. In 1999, Yee started the Daedalus Project (www.nickyee.com/daedalus/), a long-running project to survey MMORPG players. Out of the data he collected and through later collaborations, Yee added much needed nuance to the discussion on player types (2006) and added detail to player demographics and the link between the two (Yee, Bailenson, & Ducheneaut, 2009). Furthermore, in a landmark move, spearheaded by Dmitri Williams, SOE released massive amounts of EQ2 data to academics (Timmer, 2009). This led to more research on player demographics (Williams, Yee, & Caplan, 2008) and whether it can be mapped onto real-world identities (Williams, 2010). Thus, the late 2000s and early 2010s saw MMORPG research following the trend of big data research in other fields, and this spawned game data analytics companies founded by said researchers (e.g. Quantic Foundry). Meanwhile, a healthy tradition of ethnography and mixed methods research, which also considered player identity, was still ongoing (Nardi, 2010; Taylor, 2006a; Banks, 2015; Jenson, Taylor, de Castell, & Dilouya, 2015), though situating the big data findings, understandably, at a much slower pace. What’s clear from this plethora of research is that there is a massive population of players who fall on a wide spectrum of motivations and reasons for playing. There also exist many different types of MMORPGs and different activities within single MMORPGs that cater to all of these preferences. Many MMORPGs, for example, include zones or arenas for PvP combat,

Multi-Player Online Role-Playing Games  151

and some MMORPGs are completely open to PvP battles throughout the game world. Many games feature crafting items, decorating player housing, tending gardens, and taking care of pets in addition to questing and killing monsters for experience. Players can pick and choose which of these activities to engage in and which to ignore. MMORPGs have so much to offer that it is no wonder there are concerns over addiction and other negative effects. In China, worries over negative impacts on health, productivity, and children’s education spurred the government to limit the duration of gameplay to only a few hours a day (Kshetri, 2009). This is enforced through “fatigue” controls and monitoring software that also prompted those under 18 to “do suitable exercise” after three hours (Kshetri, 2009). In both the West and in China, treatment centers were established to treat Internet and gaming addiction. Much of these causes for concern may be misattributed to games, however, and not to the players who are affected. Clearly, MMORPGs can be spaces for the development of deep, meaningful relationships. To call attachment to living in these spaces “addiction” may be akin to calling living and being social addiction. Furthermore, guilds that focus on camaraderie and being social may actually enhance players’ lives (Snodgrass et al., 2016).

Summary This chapter began by defining different online RPGs, followed by a more detailed account of their histories, broken down into two major sections for text-based games (MUDs) and ­g raphics-based games (MMORPGs). In each of the major sections, notable games were presented that either pushed the medium or were exemplars of a type of game. Also mentioned were notable research and issues arising out of these histories, often focusing on player governance and social norms as they butt against questions about player identity and what counts as “real.” The MMORPG section recounted the early days before the Internet, the rise and lasting life of WoW, and a brief look at other MMORPGs, including Asian games and EVE Online. The MMORPG section also included a look at the co-creation of gaming, positive and negative effects, RMT, and guilds.

Box 7.2  Chronology of Notable MUDs and MMORPGs Year

Title

Creators

Country of Origin

Playersa and Other Notes

1977

Oubliette

Jim Schwaiger

US

Players had to party together to defeat monsters

1978

MUD1

UK

1979

Avatar

1986

Habitat

1989

LPMud

Roy Trubshaw and Richard Bartle Bruce Maggs, Andrew Shapira, and David Sides Chip Morningstar and Randy Farmer (Lucasfilm) Lars Pensjö and many others

US

US

Sweden

(Continued)

152  Mark Chen et al.

Year

Title

Creators

Country of Origin

Playersa and Other Notes

1989 1990 1991

TinyMUD LambdaMOO DikuMUD

US US Denmark

10,000

1991

US

115,000

1995

Neverwinter Nights Meridian 59

US

First 3-D MMORPGb

1996

Furcadia

James Aspnes Pavel Curtis Sebastian Hammer, Michael Seifert, Hans Henrik Staerfeldt, Tom Madsen, Katja Nyboe Stormfront Studios (SSI) Archetype Interactive (3DO) Dragon’s Eye Productions

US

60,000 in 2008; graphical MUD; still exists!b

1996

Nexus: The Kingdom of the Winds Ultima Online Lineage

Nexon

South Korea

Origin Systems NCSoft

US South Korea

Asheron’s Call EverQuest Phantasy Star Online Anarchy Online

Turbine SOE Sonic Team/Sega, PC and consoles Funcom

US US Japan Norway

Dark Age of Camelot Fantasy Westward Journey

Mythic Entertainment

US

NetEase

China

Jagex

UK

2002 2002 2002

Runescape (browser) Asheron’s Call 2 Final Fantasy XI Ragnarok Online

Turbine Square Enix Gravity Corporation

US Japan South Korea

2003 2003 2003

EVE Online Lineage II MapleStory

CCP NCSoft Wizet

Iceland South Korea South Korea

2003

Project Entropia (now Entropia Universe) Star Wars Galaxies Tibia Micro Edition

MindArk

Sweden

SOE CipSoft GmbH

US Germany

1997 1998

1999 1999 2000 2001

2001 2001

2001

2003 2003

250,000 43 million registered usersc (3.2 million active accounts) 120,000 550,000 First cross-platform MMORPGb 60,000; first MMORPG to feature dungeon instancesb 250,000 310 million registered users (2.7 million concurrent)c 200 million registered usersc 50,000; first sequelb 550,000 80 million registered worldwidec (800,000 concurrent) 500,000 2 million 100 million registered usersc First MMORPG to officially allow RMTb 300,000 First mobile phone MMORPGb

Multi-Player Online Role-Playing Games  153

2003 2004

Toontown Online City of Heroes/ Villains

Disney

US

110,000

Cryptic Studios, Paragon Studios/ NCSoft Ankama Studio

US

200,000

France

62 million registered usersc 335,000 120 million registered usersc (750,000 concurrent)

2004

Dofus

2004 2004

EverQuest 2 Legend of Mir 3

SOE WeMade Entertainment

US South Korea

2004

Ryzom

France

2004

World of Warcraft

Nevrax/Winch Gate Property Blizzard Entertainment

US

2005 2005

Guild Wars Perfect World

ArenaNet Beijing Perfect World

US China

2005

The Matrix Online

US

2006

Dungeons & Dragons Online Face of Mankind

Monolith Productions/ SOE Turbine

50 million registered usersc 48,000

US

110,000

Duplex Systems, Nexeon Technologies

Germany

Lord of the Rings Online Myst Online: Uru Live Zhengtu Online (ZT Online)

Turbine

US

First MMORPG to feature player and faction-created questsb 570,000

Cyan Worlds

US

Zhengtu Network

China

2008 2009 2011

Aion Free Realms Drakensang Online (browser)

NCSoft SOE Bigpoint Berlin

South Korea US Germany

2011 2011

Trion Worlds Bioware

US US

2011

Rift Star Wars: The Old Republic TERA

Bluehole Studio

South Korea

2012

Blade & Soul

NCSoft

South Korea

2012

Dragon Quest X (Wii and Wii U) Guild Wars 2 The Secret World Age of Wulin (Age of Wushu)

Square Enix

Japan

ArenaNet/NCSoft Funcom Suzhou Snail Electronic Co.

US Norway China

2006

2007 2007 2007

2012 2012 2013

100 million registered users (peak 12 million active accounts)c

100 million registered usersc (2.8 million active; pay-to-win modeld) 4 million 10 million 35 million 600,000 10 million registered usersc 20 million registered usersc 1.5 million concurrent usersc 400,000 5 million ~300,000

(Continued)

154  Mark Chen et al.

Year

Title

Creators

Country of Origin

Playersa and Other Notes

2013 2013 2014

Final Fantasy XIV Neverwinter The Elder Scrolls Online

Japan US US

5 million

2014 2014

Elite: Dangerous Wildstar

Square Enix Cryptic Studios ZeniMax Online Studios/Bethesda Softworks Frontier Developments Carbine Studios/ NCSoft

2015 TBA

Black Desert EverQuest Next (cancelled)

a

b c d

Daybreak Game Company

US US

800,000

500,000

South Korea US

Not all game developers measure this the same way. Some measure total subscriptions over time, some concurrent players, some peak number of subscriptions, etc. Most of these numbers come from MMOGData and only include peak subscription numbers, which don’t necessarily indicate sustained popularity. Furthermore, many of the Asian MMORPGs have huge numbers for two reasons: (1) China’s truly massive population of gamers, and (2) many of them still have active servers, whereas many Western MMORPGs shut down after a few years. http://news.mmosite.com/content/2009-06-12/20090612022259789,1.shtml. https://mmos.com/editorials/most-popular-mmorpgs-world. www.danwei.org/electronic_games/gambling_your_life_away_in_zt.php.

Note 1 “Look Up.” www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7dLU6f k9QY.

Further Reading Corneliussen, Hilde G., & Rettberg, Jill W. (2008). Digital culture, play, and identity: A World of Warcraft reader. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Taylor, T. L. (2006a). Play between worlds: Exploring online game culture. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Turkle, Sherry. (1995). Life on the screen: Identity in the age of the Internet. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster.

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Williams, Dmitri, Ducheneaut, Nicolas, Xiong, Li, Zhang, Yuanyuan, Yee, Nick, & Nickell, Eric. (2006). From tree house to barracks: The social life of guilds in World of Warcraft. Games and Culture, 1(4), 338–361. Williams, Dmitri, Yee, Nick, & Caplan, Scott E. (2008). Who plays, how much, and why? Debunking the stereotypical gamer profile. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 13(4), 993–1018. Yee, Nick. (2014). The Proteus Paradox: How online games and virtual worlds change us--and how they don’t. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Yee, Nick. (2006). Motivations for play in online games. CyberPsychology & Behavior, 9(6), 772–775. Yee, Nick, Bailenson, Jeremy N., & Ducheneaut, Nicolas. (2009). The Proteus effect: Implications of transformed digital self-representation on online and offline behavior. Communication Research, 36(2), 285–312. Yee, Nick, Ducheneaut, Nic, & Nelson, Les. (2012). Online gaming motivations scale: Development and validation. CHI ‘12, May 5–10, Austin, Texas.

8 Online Freeform Role-Playing Games Jessica Hammer

Imagine being in a chat room, watching as two of your friends play out a conversation between Snape and Spider-Man about how they take their coffee. In another window, you are browsing Snape’s character journal to see what’s been happening to him recently. In a third, you have a half-written post to the game’s forum about how one of your characters, Starbuck, gets into a fistfight. This imaginary game is an example of what participants call online freeform role-playing. Online freeform role-playing games have significant similarities with other types of role-playing games (RPGs). For example, online freeform players adopt the roles of characters in a shared fictional setting (RPedia: The Roleplay Resource 2012b). Participants play their characters together, collaborating to find out what will happen next (wanted wanted 2013). Finally, players can affect the state of the game world through the behavior of their characters (Montola 2008). These features distinguish online freeform RPGs from related activities, such as collaborative writing and fan fiction.1 At the same time, online freeform RPGs are distinct from other types of role-playing, including freeform live-action RPGs (larps) and multi-player online RPGs (MORPGs). Unlike other digital RPGs, which use custom software, online freeform games primarily take place on platforms that are not intended for role-playing. As of this writing, a partial list would include journaling sites, such as LiveJournal and Dreamwidth; online forums; social networks, such as Twitter, Google Plus, and Facebook; Tumblr; dedicated mobile apps, such as ­Geekling; email; wikis; IRC; and chat (RPedia: The Roleplay Resource 2012a). Online freeform players have adopted platforms, even when role-playing is neither supported nor welcomed. For example, so much role-playing was happening on Nintendo’s Mii system that Nintendo redesigned it to reduce role-playing activity (Buckley 2015). Online freeform games do not limit themselves to a single platform. Rather, these games draw on different types of software to serve game goals. In Cryptic Conjuring, for example, players post their characters’ actions on a web-based forum (Cryptic Conjuring 2015). However, players also use chat rooms to sketch out scenes in real-time that they later write up and post. A Shoutbox – live, web-based chat embedded on the game’s home page – allows players to leave quick messages for one another or have brief conversations, while new players are recruited through the All Things Roleplay Tumblr (All Things Roleplay 2015). Each medium

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has a separate purpose, but they are linked together both formally through hyperlinking and references, and culturally, by players’ shared understanding of what technologies to use for which parts of play. Online freeform is also the only form of role-playing that is primarily asynchronous. While some games use synchronous systems, such as chat, for specific purposes, the majority of play takes place using asynchronous systems, such as forums, where players do not have to be online at the same time (RPedia: The Roleplay Resource 2012a). For example, if one player posted on a game forum at midnight, another player could comment on their post at noon. Because players do not have to coordinate schedules, online freeform games enable a wide range of participation patterns. For example, a player could make many posts in a short period of time and then go for a long time without making any posts at all. This is a sharp contrast to tabletop and larp games, where players agree to gather at a specific place for a specific length of time. Finally, online freeform role-players are predominantly women and predominantly young (Fiesler 2013). For example, a survey of one large game found that 83% of players were female, and 75% were between the ages of 16 and 25 (Strickland 2011). This pattern may be because of the form’s roots in fan fiction and online journaling; while some online freeform games develop original settings or require original characters, many games remain deeply engaged with popular books, movies, or television shows (Hampton 2015). Online freeform role-playing is an emergent form that is primarily asynchronous and text-based, taking place using a variety of distributed online journaling and discussion tools, where players take on the roles of characters in a shared fictional setting and collaboratively affect the state of the game world through the behavior of their characters.

To best capture the nature of online freeform, this chapter uses existing research on online freeform where available, coupled with direct investigation of canonical games and interviews with online freeform players. First, we will explore the stakeholders of online freeform games. Second, we will look at common patterns of technology use. Finally, we will examine two challenges created by technology and how online freeform addresses them.

Box 8.1  De Profundis De Profundis, written as a series of letters from designer Michael Oracz, asks players to immerse themselves in a Lovecraftian horror story (2010). Players engage with the game by writing each other letters, either by mail or online. As in online freeform games, players are asked to address problems narratively and socially rather than through explicit formal mechanics. For example, players are guided to be “subtle and believable” when weaving supernatural elements into the game’s world. There are three particularly interesting things about this game. First, it is historically interesting because it is a game book, first published in 2001, with rules for online freeform; most online freeform games have distributed systems of authorship and little notion of a “game designer.” Second, it is a rare example of an asynchronous tabletop RPG. Finally, it is interesting because it shows the continuum between forms of technology. While this chapter emphasizes online play, De Profundis allows players to use the same rule set to play either by email or with physical letters.

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One brief note about what this chapter does not cover: technologies that are used as an adjunct to other forms of role-playing. Consider, for example, Facebook profiles for larp characters, wikis that track the history of tabletop games, or forums that coordinate the activity of MORPG guilds. While these adjuncts to play can be asynchronous, use multiple platforms, and take place on platforms not intended for role-playing, they are beyond the scope of this chapter because they are not the central play activity. Nonetheless, we believe that insights from this chapter are applicable to understanding how they function.

Stakeholders Before exploring how online freeform is played, it is important to understand the different possible roles for participants. As we will see below, each role has important specialized functions within the game. These roles include players, who portray characters; moderators, who manage the logistical and social tasks of play; administrators, who control the technological means of participation; and readers, who follow along with the game without participating. These roles are similar to those found in multi-user dungeons (MUDs), though with some aspects that are specific to online freeform play (→ Chapter 7). Players participate in the game by portraying characters. They often maintain a stable of multiple characters that they can select from, depending on what type of play they are in the mood for or which other players they would like to interact with. In most games, they are considered to have ownership over those characters, and those characters’ actions are the primary way that the players can affect the game world. In most types of online freeform play, players primarily portray their characters through writing. For example, in forum-based play, players write posts that describe what their character is thinking, feeling, and doing; in chat-based games, the players do the same in written chat messages; in play-by-email (PBeM) games, the players use emails. However, there is an important secondary role for image-based communication in online freeform. Players may share character portraits, respond to posts with reaction gifs, or use images to convey the tone of a scene (I, Roleplayer 2015). Moderators handle the logistical and social tasks of managing play. Sample moderator2 duties might include developing storylines for particular players, resolving conflicts between players, enforcing the rules, or managing the application process for the game (Footprint 2006). Administrators control the technological means of participation. For example, the owner of an email list used for PBeM play can change the settings of the list or unilaterally remove individual players from the game. Administrators often delegate some power to moderators, such as the ability to eject a misbehaving player from a chat room. However, administrators’ own power is almost always limited by the constraints of the software the group is using. Readers follow along with the game by reading what participants have written without necessarily participating themselves. Online freeform participants have a complex relationship with readers. On the one hand, they are aware that others are reading their work and often value the ability to entertain readers, both inside and outside the game. On the other hand, players are often aware that their work skirts the boundaries of legality, at least when it comes to writing in preexisting settings or using characters from other media, and hence do not seek to attract the attention of outsiders. In practice, this conflict is resolved by the sheer difficulty of learning how to read an online freeform game without deep expertise in the community of practice; while readers do not necessarily play in the game they are reading, it is exceptionally difficult to learn how to read without ever having played.

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Finally, we note that online freeform games are highly scalable, ranging from intimate twoplayer games at the low end to thousands of players at the high end; for example, Hogwarts New Zealand has over 9,000 player accounts (Hogwarts New Zealand 2015). The balance among players, moderators, administrators, and readers changes, depending on the size of the game. For example, large games often give moderators highly differentiated roles: one large game set in an interdimensional bar included a “bar mod,” who was responsible for maintaining the continuity of the fictional space, such as tracking whether the bar had chairs or benches (­M illiways Mods 2015).

Technology and Characteristics of Play Online freeform players select technologies to serve their social and narrative purposes in play. TL Taylor frames these types of choices as an assemblage of play, a complex relationship between software, game design, and player choices that produces a play experience (Taylor 2009). Online freeform communities vary in the tools they select as well as the goals they seek to achieve with them. This variation is particularly evident in moments of conflict, such as the 2009–2012 exodus of LiveJournal online freeform role-players to competitor Dreamwidth and microblogging site Tumblr. In their discussions about whether to move, players articulated specific software design decisions that LiveJournal made and that changed their play experience. Some groups, such as Fandom High, remained on LiveJournal, despite its limitations, while other groups, such as Milliways Bar, switched platforms in search of an easier way to play (Fanlore 2015). Even though online freeform players assemble and deploy a range of technologies, and even though there is variation within each of those technologies, it is still possible to glean some insights about common behavior. Rather than attempting to describe all online freeform games – whose practices, as mentioned earlier, vary significantly – we extract three relevant themes.

Parallel Play Online freeform allows multiple activities to proceed in parallel, including scenes involving some of the same characters and/or players. This is a sharp contrast to tabletop and larp, where a given player can only be involved in one scene at a time. It also contrasts with the “persistent world” model of computer RPGs (CRPGs) and MORPGs in which all players affect a shared digital environment; in online freeform, players explode the space of play into many parallel streams, then reassemble them mentally into a shared understanding of the world. Online freeform games are, as noted above, assembled across many different platforms. While some games use synchronous elements, the majority of online freeform play is asynchronous, and much of it is slow. Scenes often take multiple play sessions, spread across days or weeks, to complete. It is therefore common for many scenes to be active at the same time. Players can decide on each visit whether they want to contribute to one of the current open scenes, whether they want to initiate something new, or both. Parallel role-play In online freeform, parallel role-play refers to the fact that a player may control characters in multiple scenes at the same time.

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Many online freeform games allow players more than one character. As with alternate characters (alts) in MORPGs, players can switch between different characters. However, unlike alts, players may be engaged with multiple characters simultaneously. For example, a player might have multiple windows open, each of which involves a scene with a different character. Even when players are limited to one character, they may be participating in multiple scenes involving that character or in both scenes and discussions about future scenes, all at the same time. If they have a moderator or administrator role, they may also be simultaneously participating in discussions about game rules, reviewing applications to join the game, or adjusting the software to better support play.

Documentation The default for digitally created materials is that they leave some type of trace. Typed text – the primary medium of online freeform – can be saved, copied, pasted, and edited (Clark and Brennan 1991). Most ways of communicating online through text automatically capture it; for example, sending an email to a Google Group saves a copy, both in the sender’s account and in the group’s archives. Images, as well, are almost always captured in the process of sharing them, such as by posting a gif on Tumblr. Online freeform games, therefore, generate an enormous amount of associated data. Unlike tabletop and live-action games, no special effort is needed to capture and interpret the data or to translate it from analog to digital. Unlike most CRPGs and MORPGs, the data can be extracted, modified, or repurposed without special tools or skills. However, the very abundance of this data generates problems for participants, as we will see later in this chapter.

Access Control Every type of software currently used for online freeform play allows some type of access control. For example, a PbeM game using Google Groups can control whether or not its archives are publicly viewable. Group administrators can grant or revoke posting access for individual players, and they can also decide which members are able to perform technical tasks, such as releasing posts from moderation. These decisions about access are enforced in code. While not every game chooses the same mix of access levels, the idea of controlling viewership, participation, and moderation through code is a critical feature of this genre of RPGs. Despite how granular access control can be in theory, in practice, it is far less so. Online freeform players write scenes that may be read by a range of overlapping audiences: active scene partners, players who aren’t involved in the scene but are observing at the time of writing, players browsing the game archives at a later date, moderators and administrators who need to make game rulings, or dedicated spectators who follow the game as a hobby. As danah boyd found with teenagers using social media, participants are aware of the multiple audiences for their role-play performances and adjust how they write accordingly (boyd 2014). For example, online freeform players often deliberately write in ways that are inaccessible to a general audience so that strangers do not try to police the setting or the stories told in the game.

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Box 8.2  Setting Choices Online freeform games are often known for their use of mainstream media properties to the point where some scholars have proposed the creation of the category fan-based RPG (FRPG; Fiesler 2013). For example, in a sample of nearly 4,000 game advertisements on All Things Roleplay, 28% were tagged as Harry Potter games, with an additional 19% as Supernatural games. These two media properties alone represent nearly half the total games advertised. Casey Fiesler suggests that different fan properties may be more or less popular on different media – for example, Marvel games seem heavily represented on Tumblr – but fan-based games are common across online freeform as a whole. It is important to note, however, that many online freeform games do not use fan settings in a conventional sense. Perhaps most obviously, some games develop original settings, such as the science fiction game Phoenix Nexus (Phoenix Nexus 2015). Others are “multiverse” games in which players may portray characters from any fictional setting they choose (Fandom High 2015). Finally, some online freeform games use existing RPG settings and adapt them to online freeform; examples include In Nomine, Dragon Age, various World of Darkness games, and Assassin’s Creed. Fan-based games face some issues that other online freeform games do not. For example, players who portray famous characters face expectations from other players about how that character “should” be played. Players may want to play the same character, creating the need to manage a “cast list” of permitted characters and to identify which characters have already been taken. (Multiverse games often address this issue by permitting an infinite number of, say, Bruce Waynes.) Similarly, some characters may need to be present in the setting, leading to the need to recruit replacement players if an important character becomes inactive or their player drops out.

Challenges of Online Freeform Play So far, this chapter has described a set of features that, broadly speaking, characterize online freeform play. These features have advantages for participants, such as the ability to contribute on one’s own schedule and the power to control access to different parts of the game. However, they also affect the way that common role-playing challenges, such as agreeing on a shared narrative, are manifested and addressed in this genre of play.

Narrative Collisions In a narrative collision, two contradictory things have happened in the game at the same time. In tabletop and live-action games, this might mean that players have different mental models of what has happened in the game, which may not be discovered until there is an overt conflict between them (Montola 2008). When it is discovered, players can confer to bring their models back into sync. When players interact with digital game worlds, as in CRPGs and MORPGs, the game software prevents these types of contradictions and serves as the canonical baseline for reality. In online freeform, however, there is no shared persistent world nor any computer code-based way to evaluate whether an action has caused a contradiction. On the other hand,

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players may generate a large amount of material, distributed over multiple platforms, based on a misconception; simply conferring with other players may not be enough to restore the narrative integrity of the game world. Narrative collision A narrative collision is when two contradictory things have happened in a game at the same time.

Online freeform play has additional vulnerabilities. First, some types of online freeform play allow simultaneous editing. For example, on a web forum, multiple participants can reply to the same thread at the same time. Second, many games allow characters to be present in multiple scenes running simultaneously; events in one scene might make the other impossible or at least impossible as written. Third, attempts to resolve narrative conflicts can take a long time. While this process is happening, other players may not be aware of it (or even that there was a conflict in the first place) and continue to build on the disputed material. Finally, online freeform players may simply be more likely to catch continuity errors and narrative collisions because the past of the game is so well documented.

Box 8.3  The Golden Rule The golden rule of online freeform, drawn from improvisational theater, is “yes, and” (Johnstone 1987). Players are expected to agree with what has gone before and build on it. The golden rule provides a framework for players to resolve existing narrative conflicts and to play in ways that avoid generating new ones. There are two versions of this approach: consent and ICA-ICC (in-character actions in-character consequences). Consent-based games mean that players may “call consent” to gain veto power on actions that affect their character. For example, if Black Widow shoots at Hawkeye, Hawkeye’s player may veto the action because being shot would affect the character. On the other hand, ICA-ICC games rule that in-character actions lead to in-character consequences. Players cannot call a veto on something happening to their character, but they can insist that appropriate consequences be enforced, usually by an in-game authority. For example, Hawkeye’s player could insist that SHIELD censure Black Widow for inappropriate use of firearms. These terms are common enough in the community that games can identify which one they incorporate, players can use them to describe their preferences, and participants can filter for appropriate co-players and games. It is important to note that, in both cases, players are forbidden from writing one another’s characters. Black Widow could shoot at Hawkeye but could not declare that Hawkeye got shot. Writing another player’s character is referred to as “godmodding” and is deeply frowned upon in the community (Forum Roleplay 2015). It is considered especially egregious when players use godmodding to arrange for their characters to succeed in a conflict. Other types of consent-violating behavior include ignoring fictional limitations to win a conflict, using out-of-character knowledge when players have agreed otherwise, and creating characters out of line with the rest of the game (RPedia: The Roleplay Resource 2012b and 2012c).

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While online games use a range of techniques to address this problem, we present some representative examples: In preplay, players collaborate privately on how they want a given scene to play out, then later run it. Disagreements are ironed out before the scene is made visible to the larger group. Preplay may take place in the same medium as the rest of the game (e.g. using direct messages in a forum-based game), but players may also switch to a different format. For example, players often switch to a synchronous format, such as internet relay chat (IRC) or chat, when doing preplay so they can come to agreement faster. Alternately, a scene that is already publicly visible can be put on hold. For example, a forum thread title might be changed to indicate that no new contributions are allowed until the conflict has been resolved. Preplay is a process by which players collaboratively establish how they want a scene to proceed before playing that scene.

Other solutions use setting to address this problem, for example, by choosing a setting where time, space, or even reality itself is in question. For example, The Nexus took place in an interdimensional nexus, allowing for some flexibility in narrative logic (Dear Multiverse 2015). These choices allow major narrative collisions to exist within the game’s canon. Did a character do two contradictory things? Then they time traveled, had a doppelganger, or simply did them both. Even in games with more traditional settings, minor discontinuities are often treated pragmatically. For example, if a character enjoys a glass of milk in one scene and talks about hating milk in another scene, that conflict may not be important enough to resolve. Players use their own judgment in determining what facts need to be reconciled and which can be elided in the narrative – and many players consider the ability to use their own judgment to be a feature, not a bug.

The Waiting Game Online freeform games are, like all RPGs, collaborative. Players must wait for responses from other participants before moving ahead with the game. However, asynchronous play means that participants cannot know when their collaborators will next contribute to the game. Any given exchange can take an indefinite amount of time as the other participant might respond immediately but might also take hours, days, weeks, or months or never respond at all. As with narrative conflict, online freeform games have developed a range of methods for addressing this problem. Temporary synchronicity means that players move temporarily to a synchronous form, such as chat, IRC, or instant messenger. This solution can also be adapted to asynchronous forms, as when players agree to monitor the same forum thread for a given period of time so they can respond to each other as soon as possible. Turn-taking lets players know what their participation responsibilities are, creating expectations for how often each player should be engaged with the game. It is a common solution in scenes with as few as 3–5 characters and is sometimes combined with a back channel used to request an “out of turn” response. A less formal version of turn-taking prohibits players from

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contributing twice in a row. Turn-taking helps with the waiting problem because it reduces the odds of players each waiting for the other to contribute. It also allows the group to skip the turn of a player who is unresponsive and quickly identify who should pick up the narrative baton. Activity checks also address the problem of unresponsive players by requiring evidence of regular participation. For example, some games require players to participate in a certain number of scenes – one per month is a common amount – in order to remain in the game3 (Canterlot 2014). Godmodding is the practice of controlling someone else’s character when role-playing. It most commonly happens when a player determines how another character reacts to something their character did.

In many games, players are asked to use greedy writing techniques, which means that they will go as far as possible with a scene until they must stop for input4. As explained earlier, almost all online freeform games agree that a player may not write another player’s character, but players can and do write up to the moment when the other character must respond. Players also sometimes give each other permission to write scenes in which their characters behave in pre-defined ways, such as through preplay, so that the number of back-and-forth exchanges are reduced. Greedy writing refers to the practice of writing as much as possible in a scene, stopping only when it becomes necessary for another player to offer their input.

Finally, many games reduce interdependence by focusing on low-key scenes about relationships or character development. While character development might inform how a player writes the character in a different scene, it can be more easily written around than external events, such as the outcome of a climactic battle. If one scene is delayed by a participant’s schedule, then related scenes can still progress.

Sensemaking Because online text and images produce a record by being shared, most online freeform games naturally accumulate a set of game-related artifacts simply by being played. In order to participate in the game, players must be able to identify relevant data and identify a situation that allows them to take action; they must also be able to incorporate existing narrative elements and the social expectations of play into their behavior. This process is known as sensemaking (Weick, Sutcliffe and Obstfeld 2005) (→ Chapter 22). One approach taken by online freeform games is creating centralized archives. An archive might take the form of a Tumblr masterpost, a Google Group’s archives, a Dreamwidth community, or a web forum. Even games that do not have a central archive allow for distributed archiving of game materials, such as individual players keeping chat logs from IRC play. Participants with access to the archive can not only follow the game as it progresses but also see the game’s past. Most types of software used by freeform games allow linking between participant contributions. For example, online forums order posts based on when they were made and identify

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in which thread the posts were made. These implicit linkages help players understand who is responding to whom and in what context. Players can also explicitly choose to post links in one thread that point players to another thread on the forum or to an entirely different website. Metadata makes game materials searchable and also creates conceptual links between different parts of the game. For example, in Milliways Bar, participants can use tags attached to posts as navigational aids. By searching tags, players can identify all scenes a particular character has been involved in or follow specific plots (Milliways Mods 2015). Games like Milliways use ­player-generated metadata, and many games require the players to generate metadata along with their posts; however, many games also automatically generate metadata that players can use for navigation. For example, most journal and forum sites have home pages for each account that show all posts made by that participant. Players can spotlight information that is particularly important for the game. For example, role-playing Twitter accounts can pin a tweet to the head of their stream, which can be used either for quick characterization or to point readers toward a longer format for a description of the game. In other games, players simply state the information, such as beginning a new forum thread with “As of this scene, Spiderman has had his arm cut off.” In both cases, groups develop agreements about what technical strategies are socially appropriate. For example, posting in a forum thread makes that thread more prominent to other players, but some games forbid bumping: acting on your own thread for the sole purpose of forcing it to re-appear at the top (WoWWiki 2005). Finally, sensemaking processes are also used to determine what is not considered a part of the official game record through a process of canon management. Many things written by players do not “count,” such as backchanneling (maintaining a separate, but simultaneous conversation) in chat, out-of-character (OOC) conversations, or entire scenes that are for some reason not accepted by the group. For example, “crack” scenes are ones that players enjoy participating in but do not influence the history of the character or the future of the game (RPedia: The Roleplay Resource 2015). Canon management may happen by platform – for example, “no material produced in chat is canonical until it has been written up and posted on the ­forums” – or through active moderation, such as requiring journals to be linked from a Tumblr masterpost before they become official. They may also be identified in metadata. Either way, exclusion is as important as inclusion when it comes to making meaning out of the enormous amounts of content online freeform role-players generate. Canon management refers to the rules and processes by which the players and moderators determine which game materials should be considered canonical, or officially part of the game’s story and world, and which should not.

Online Freeform Play in Gaming Culture As this chapter has demonstrated, online freeform play is a complex and vital form of role-­ playing, with its own rules, social norms, and cultural expectations. Before we close, we consider two further challenges of online freeform play and why these challenges mean that online freeform may have much to offer other forms of RPGs. First, online freeform is an exceptionally hard form to understand. The canonical texts of play are not game books or computer programs, which, even at their worst, are teaching texts

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that explain how to participate in the game. Instead, the canonical texts are the play record itself, an inward-referencing mass of artifacts generated for and by people who already know what is going on. Similarly, it is hard to learn by observing a game as one might in tabletop or larp. One cannot show up at a particular time or place to observe a game as the game is always happening. One cannot even assume that any given player is having a characteristic experience of a particular game as a single game can support both the player who makes a couple of posts a week and the one who makes hundreds of posts a day. Second, there is very little money in online freeform. Players sometimes pay for software (e.g. paying for no-ad forum software), and they sometimes pay for services (e.g. paying other players to create character portraits), but there is no direct market equivalent to the markets for RPG books or software. There is also no premium market for elaborate multi-day events or branded merchandise. These games, therefore, are rarely publicized, except within the community5. No one benefits by converting new players, except the people who actually play with them. Taken together, these challenges mean games can evolve quickly and independently, while the risks of innovation are low. It is unsurprising then that online freeform culture is flourishing on every level. Participants are turning new forms of software into mediums for play; there are flourishing communities on Twitter, Tumblr, and G+, many of which integrate with email, forums, and/or chat. Older games continue to grow, creating a player community with deep expertise and a set of canonical games whose “children” influence the growth of the medium; Phoenix Nexus, for example, has been running for over twenty years (Phoenix Nexus 2015). The expertise of online freeformers influences role-playing culture beyond online freeform games themselves. Digital adjuncts to other forms of role-playing, such as Facebook pages for larp characters, often adopt online freeform techniques and conventions. Conceptual models from online freeform have also penetrated the tabletop and live-action design communities in frameworks such as Play With Intent (Care Boss and Holter, 2012). Because of the rapid pace of technical change, online freeform is likely to remain a source of both technical and design innovation. To date, such innovation has been brought out to the larger role-playing community by online freeform experts such as Emily Care Boss as there has been a dearth of scholarly attention on this community. If we choose to change this pattern in the future, there is much more that the larger role-playing community can learn.

Summary Online freeform role-playing is an emergent form that is primarily asynchronous and textbased. It takes place using a variety of distributed online journaling and discussion tools, where players take on the roles of characters in a shared fictional setting and collaboratively affect the state of the game world through the behavior of their characters. Online freeform games have evolved to include several distinct roles. Players participate by portraying characters, moderators handle the logistical and social tasks of managing play, administrators control the technological means of participation, and readers follow along by reading what players have written without necessarily participating themselves. Online freeform games are often distributed across a variety of online tools and sites, making them harder to follow and understand. Gameplay generates abundant and diverse game materials, requiring participants to organize and archive them. As an emergent form, online freeform is hard to understand and also

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commercially limited. However, the form is also rapidly evolving, with innovations that are beginning to appear in the other forms of role-playing.

Acknowledgements This chapter would not have been possible without the input of expert online freeform players, including Emily Care Boss, Sanna Fogelvik, Thomas Robertson, and Jonathan ­Walton. Many thanks for their willingness to share their time and expertise.

Notes 1 A minority of RPGs do not treat characters as central. For example, the tabletop game Microscope focuses on creating the history of a civilization rather than on playing characters who affect a world (Robbins 2011). Similarly, some online freeform games, broadly construed, do not emphasize ­character-based, world-affecting play. Lexicon, for example, uses collaborative wiki-writing to develop the history of a person, place, or thing (Twisted Confessions 2012). However, the vast majority of online freeform games are character-centric, as are the vast majority of RPGs more broadly. 2 Some games use the term “administrator” for both administrators and moderators. Nonetheless, the distinction between logistical/social and technical roles is a useful one. 3 Activity checks also address the issue of “character squatting”: when a player claims a character but is rarely active as that character. While not a problem for original characters, players who squat on popular characters from existing media franchises, such as Harry Potter or the Avengers, block other players from participating in the game. 4 This term is taken from computational theory, in which greedy algorithms make decisions that optimize for the state of the problem that is directly in front of them. 5 This effect is even more striking because many players do not want their games publicized outside the community due to intellectual property concerns (Fiesler 2013).

References All Things Roleplay. 2015. ‘All Things Roleplay.’ http://allthingsroleplay.tumblr.com/. boyd, danah. 2014. It’s Complicated. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Buckley, Sean. 2015. ‘Nintendo Redesigned Miiverse Because You Were Using It Wrong’. Engadget. www.engadget.com/2015/07/24/nintendo-redesigned-miiverse-wrong/. Canterlot. 2014. ‘New Player Activity Check System’. www.canterlot.com/topic/19401-new-playeractivity-check-system/. Care Boss, Emily, and Matthijs Holter. 2012. ‘Dear Friends’. Play With Intent. https://playwithintent. wordpress.com/2012/10/17/hello-world/. Clark, H. H. & Brennan, S. E. (1991). Grounding in communication. In L. B. Resnick, J. M. Levine, & S. D. Teasley (Eds.), Perspectives on socially shared cognition (pp. 127–149). Washington, DC: APA Books. Cryptic Conjuring. 2015. ‘Cryptic Conjuring’. http://crypticconjuring.jcink.net/. Dear Multiverse. 2015. ‘Dear_Multiverse - Profile’. http://dear-multiverse.livejournal.com/profile. Fandom High. 2015. ‘Fandomhigh - Profile’. http://fandomhigh.livejournal.com/profile. Fanlore. 2015. ‘Dreamwidth - Fanlore’. http://fanlore.org/wiki/Dreamwidth. Fiesler, Casey. 2013. ‘Pretending without a License: Intellectual Property and Gender Implications in Online Games’. Buffalo Intellectual Property Law Journal IX: 1–34. Footprint, The Big. 2006. ‘Announcements - Free Form Roleplaying’. Giant in the Playground. www. giantitp.com/forums/announcement.php?s=9d4d9490763edcb36630e8fad5f bccad&f=32&a=1. Forum Roleplay. 2015. ‘Bad Roleplay’. http://forumroleplay.com/roleplay-guides/bad-roleplay/. Hampton, Darlene. 2015. ‘Bound Princes and Monogamy Warnings: Harry Potter, Slash, and Queer Performance in Livejournal Communities’. Transformative Works and Cultures 19. doi:10.3983/twc. 2015.0609

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Hogwarts New Zealand. 2015. ‘Hogwarts New Zealand’. http://hogwarts.nz/index/. I, Roleplayer. 2015. ‘Roleplay Term Dictionary’. http://i-roleplayer.tumblr.com/dictionary. Johnstone, Keith. 1987. Impro: Improvisation and the Theatre. London: Routledge Press. Milliways Mods. 2015. ‘The Mods at the End of the Universe - Milliways F.A.Q’. http://milliways-mods. dreamwidth.org/910.html. Montola, Markus. 2008. ‘The Invisible Rules of Role-Playing: A Structural Framework of Role-­Playing Process’. International Journal of Role-Playing 1 (1): 22–36. Oracz, Michael. 2010. De Profundis. 2nd ed. Oxford, UK: Cubicle 7 Entertainment. Phoenix Nexus. 2015. ‘Phoenix Nexus’. www.phoenixbse.com/. Robbins, Ben. 2011. Microscope. [U.S.]: Seattle, Washington: Lame Mage Publications. RPedia: The Roleplay Resource. 2012a. ‘Differences between Forum and Chat Roleplay’. http://rpedia. tumblr.com/post/24526809261. RPedia: The Roleplay Resource. 2012b. ‘The Anti-Munch Project’. http://rpedia.tumblr.com/ post/14994347026. RPedia: The Roleplay Resource. 2012c. ‘What Not to Do, EVER! Aka The Roleplaying Sins’. http:// rpedia.tumblr.com/post/18253901905. RPedia: The Roleplay Resource. 2015. ‘[Ask Rpedia] Crack RP?’. http://rpedia.tumblr.com/ post/115813046903. Strickland, Thomas. 2011. ‘A Different Kind of Game: The Phenomena of Milliways Bar (A JIVE Re-Post) – GRABBINGSAND’. Grabbingsand.Org. www.grabbingsand.org/wordpress/2011/01/06/ a-different-kind-of-game-the-phenomena-of-milliways-bar-a-jive-re-post/. Taylor, T. L. 2009. ‘The Assemblage of Play’. Games and Culture, 4(4), 331–339. The Roleplay Site. 2015. ‘The Golden Rules’. http://s9.therpsite.com/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=174. Twisted Confessions. 2012. ‘Twisted Confessional | Lexicon’. www.twistedconfessions.com/confessional/ index.php?n=Lexicon.HomePage. wanted wanted. 2013. ‘The Ultimate Guide To 1X1 Roleplay On Tumblr’. http://lolita1x1.tumblr. com/post/35445477721/the-ultimate-guide-to-1x1-roleplay-on-tumblr. Weick, Karl E., Kathleen M. Sutcliffe, and David Obstfeld. 2005. ‘Organizing and the Process of Sensemaking.’ Organization Science, 16(4), 409–421. WoWWiki. 2005. ‘Roleplaying FAQ’. http://wowwiki.wikia.com/Roleplaying_FAQ.

9 The Impact of Role-Playing Games on Culture Esther MacCallum-Stewart, Jaakko Stenros, and Staffan Björk

Introduction There is a distressing lack of history knowledge in the gaming community. Tabletop role-players seem entirely disconnected from the miniature wargaming community that spawned Dungeons & Dragons. MUD coders don’t understand where their Dungeons & Dragons-themed rules and assumptions came from. MMORPG developers almost unilaterally ignored what made MUDs successful, making the same mistakes that MUDs made a decade before. Computer role-playing games tout “innovations” that were implemented long before by tabletop gamers and MUD developers. (Tresca 2011: 3) Role-playing games (RPGs) are an essential element of gaming culture. They have not only played a core role in the development of games but have a wider currency in popular culture, where they are often used as a catchall reference for gaming habits, behaviors and players. Terms developed via RPGs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Role-playing_game_terms) or the iconic image of a group of players sitting around a table with pens, paper, dice and small figures (Figure 9.1) are now common shorthand for more general gaming experiences or actions. The role-playing gamer has also become a representation of the gamer in general, depicted through television series such as The Big Bang Theory, Community and Stranger Things. This chapter charts the influence of RPGs on other games and media products as well as their representation in popular culture. It examines the cultural impact of specific role-playing aspects that have caused a “drop down” effect whereby RPGs feed upon common themes and tropes to impact gaming as a whole. Whilst core texts, such as Dungeons & Dragons (D&D), established now familiar tropes, they have been followed by games that continue to sustain and evolve these ideas. The migration of pivotal members of RPG development and design to other popular media (including other types of gaming) solidified these influences. The chapter concludes by examining how specific representations of RPGs and their players have spread

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Figure 9.1 

“A screenshot from Tabletop, ‘Dragon Age Part 1’ (Geek and Sundry 2013 1.19.1)”

and changed throughout popular media. Subcultures and fandom, another core aspect of this cultural spread, are the subject of Chapter 21.

RPGs in Game Culture The launch of D&D heralded the birth of interactive entertainment, long before computer and video games. Nowadays the concept of personalised player-characters who exist in a virtual world is commonplace. (Livingstone 2008)

The Influence of D&D D&D is, for better or worse, considered the founder of RPGs (→ Chapter 4). It is also often used as a generic term to refer to all RPGs. D&D’s co-creator Gary Gygax’s death in March 2008 was noted around the world in obituaries and reflective news items. The New York Times stated that Gygax “wielded a cultural influence far broader than his relatively narrow fame among hard-core game enthusiasts.” (Schiesel 2008) In a follow-up piece published a few days later, it was claimed that we all live in a universe Gygax built as journalist Adam Rogers (2008) traced not just MORPGs and the popularity of the fantasy genre back to D&D but also claimed that by creating a rule-system for social interactions, Gygax paved the way for role and avatar performances everywhere, including social media websites like Facebook. The BBC highlighted the social aspects of RPGs and hailed D&D for gathering geeks together: Dungeons & Dragons had a number of effects. It brought so-called geeks together in a social setting as a matter of course, it quickly spread out into the mainstream, and it signaled that money could be made out of catering for previously niche audiences. The game has also left a legacy of subcultures like live action role-play and online gaming, where there is a pronounced social element. The world we live in now, where “gaining friends” on social networking sites is regarded as a totally reasonable pastime, is a very different world to that in which Dungeons & Dragons made its debut in 1974. (BBC 2008)

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Regardless of the veracity of this observation, a major news outlet crediting D&D in this manner is indicative of its recognized cultural standing. D&D has integrated itself in popular culture through cartoon series; spin-off novels; games within other genres, such as card, video and board games; and also fantasy art.

Tropes and Terms Terminology from RPGs is now a vital part of gaming language. Words and phrases (for example “level up,” “epic,” “tanking” and “ganking”) commonly understood amongst RPG gamers have led to a universalization (and sometimes a subsequent internalization) of gaming language (Masters 1994: 57–74 ; Manninen 2003; Barry 2013; Ensslin 2014: 126–137). This terminology, and the behaviors it often refers to, forms a background to the establishment of RPG cultures, linking players through a shared discourse. This discourse often extends in use beyond the context of games. For example, players might joke that a socially inept person has “low charisma” or that they have been practicing in order to “raise their climbing skill.” Similarly, a player may celebrate that she got a “critical hit” when something lucky happens or that she “failed a saving throw” when unlucky.

Box 9.1  RPG Terminology Example – Looting “Looting” is both a term and an action, meaning to take treasure from a defeated character or monster. The expectation that this will happen is taken as a given, both that the player will loot from the body and that defeated enemies will yield loot. This is one of the most typical ways of accumulating resources in an RPG game, and it would be considered peculiar if the player did not loot or if the game did not allow for it. Looting is such an important part of RPGs that there are often informal rules about it. For example, players often establish a loot agreement, detailing what to do with treasure they find (e.g. split it equally? finder's keepers?) (McEvoy 2016). Also, especially for computer RPGs (CRPGs) and multiplayer online RPGs (MORPGs), changes in the rules may require explanations by the designers, such as an expansion for World of Warcraft that changed the process used by groups to divide their loot (Ghostcrawler 2012). Looting is so commonplace that in CRPGs and MORPGs, it often occurs automatically, with treasure deposited in the player’s hypothetical “bags” as soon as an enemy is defeated.

RPG terminology is also often value-laden in ways that are complicated. For example, the word “Race” often has little to do with the complex mix of cultural upbringing, color, parentage or geographical origins. Instead, “races” within RPGs are often not human but rather entirely different evolutionary groups, with distinctive physical, cultural and psychological attributes. The Player’s Handbook for the 4th Edition of D&D describes the dwarf race as “a natural humanoid race…Dwarves are a short race, as their name implies, standing from 4’ 3” – 4’ 9”… What Dwarves lack in height, they make up for in bulk; they are, on average, about as heavy as humans” (Heinsoo, Collins, and Wyatt 2008: 37). In a sense, “Race” in RPGs has become shorthand for a combination of stereotypical behaviors and statistical attributes: the taciturn dwarf, who is strong and can take a beating, or the dexterous elven archer, who is sensitive and appreciates beauty.

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The Bestiary As the preeminent taxonomy of monsters of our time, D&D and its Monster Manual has also proved hugely influential. In a sense, D&D participates in a broader phenomenon that Michael Saler calls the modern enchantment (2012). Saler sees the creation of coherent mythologies with consistent worlds populated by peoples and creatures, depicted in maps, and functioning cosmologies and languages as a modern project. According to him, the worlds of A ­ rthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes, H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu mythos and J.R.R. Tolkien’s ­M iddle-earth were key pioneers in this development. These worlds continue to exist beyond the initial efforts of their creators through the addition of new creators (e.g. August Derleth for Lovecraft’s Cthulhu mythos) or their adaptation to other forms and media. Paul Booth (2016) argues that these paratexts continuously draw upon and feed back into the original worlds. From this perspective, D&D and the Monster Manual have served as the basis of a form of meta-world. In Playing at the World (2012: 140–157), Jon Peterson explores how the bestiary of D&D, systematized in the numerous different editions of the Monster Manual, was built and provided a systematization and categorization of monsters, which became canonical elements of worldbuilding. According to Peterson, Gygax expanded on the creatures, races and monsters depicted by Tolkien and his contemporaries in fantasy literature by turning to sources outside fiction, such as European bestiaries of fantastic creatures. Of course, some of the monsters depicted in D&D are original creations, but most have a basis in literature or myth. Before D&D, descriptions of monsters could shift from source to source, if they were described at all. Peterson notes that D&D “carefully distinguishes orcs from goblins, trolls from ogres, skeletons from ghouls from wights from wraiths from spectres, as well as defining several categories of giants and dragons.” (2012: 157). In the taxonomy, the monsters, their capabilities and their typical behaviors were described in text, depicted in images and given comparable statistical values for game mechanics. As a result, D&D “extended and ultimately surpassed the efforts of medieval bestiary authors” (ibid). The Monster Manual became the basis from which fantasy literature and other worldbuilders in general could draw from. The creation of rule books like the Monster Manual (Gygax 1977) also created a form of aesthetic desire to accompany the cataloguing of rules, creatures and character abilities. David Ewalt argues that “The Monster Manual succeeded not just as a game supplement, but by elevating the D&D rules book to fetish object” (138). This gave the game, and the books, a wider currency beyond simple gameplay, demonstrated by the continued collectability of early books and the nostalgia that surrounds them. The website GeekDad contains the following eulogization of the Monster Manual by James Floyd Kelly: The Monster Manual was a great source of inspiration for many adventures — I’d pick the right Big Bad, create a dungeon or castle or other location, and then scatter lesser creatures around as needed. When I reached for the [Monster Manual], my players knew something was coming… or around the corner… or hidden just beneath the water’s surface. (Kelly 2014)

Designers and Developers The role-playing game industry has always been small and reasonably self-contained. Over time, however, it has become far more diffuse, drawing from multiple media genres and

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blending into other forms of entertainment. As part of this natural process, some of its members, including important and influential ones, have migrated to other industries and, through this, caused cross-pollination of ideas and concepts. So RPGs have also impacted culture via the role-playing concepts and ideas that its industry members have pollinated other media genres with. The closest influence has, in many cases, been the computer or video game industry, and it comes as no surprise that there are several examples of people becoming core influencers in this respect. Warren Spector provides one example of this. Starting out an editor in chief at Steve ­Jackson Games, he helped develop tabletop RPGs (TRPGs), such as Toon (1984) and GURPS (1986). He later worked on Send in the Clones (Varney and Spector 1985) for TRPG, Paranoia at West End Games and the rule book for the 2nd edition of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (Cook 1989). This experience gave him good insights into several of the most influential companies producing TRPGs. After this, he transitioned into computer RPGs (CRPGs) by working on Ultima VI (1990) at Origins. While CRPGs like games in the Ultima series are still RPGs, it was an initial step that would later lead to broader impacts on non-CRPG video games. Some of Warren Spector’s later video game projects, such as System Shock (1984) and the Deus Ex (2000–2003) and Thief series (1998–2004), have been hailed as innovative computer games due to their introduction of role-playing elements. Spector’s work trajectory is symptomatic of the cross-pollination that tends to happen as a result of transmedial movement. Ken Rolston and Sandy Petersen are other examples of people moving from the tabletop role-playing industry to the computer game industry. Rolston worked across a broad spectrum of RPG franchises, including D&D, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Paranoia and RuneQuest, and later moved into CRPGs with Bethesda in 2002. Petersen also began working in TRPG design; he is most famous for being the main creator of the hugely successful Call of Cthulhu before taking on design responsibilities on video game hits, such as the first-person shooter Doom, and real-time strategy games in the Age of Empires series. Jackson, on the other hand, has taken RPG tropes and jokes from TRPGs and brought them into the domain of card and board games via his long running card game series Munchkin (2001). In 1976, in the UK, Ian Livingstone and a different Steve Jackson (native to the UK rather than the US) founded the game retailer, developer and publishing company Games Workshop. They became the first distributors of D&D in Europe and participated actively in the promotion of commercialization of TRPG games. In 1980, Penguin Books commissioned the two to write a book introducing readers to RPGs. Instead, the pair created the Fighting Fantasy gamebook series (1982–1995). These gamebooks, often referred to as “choose-your-own-­adventure” (CYOA) or branching narrative books, “are texts whose story is experienced by reading through a series of numbered sections” (Zagal and Lewis 2015). At the end of each section, the reader is offered a choice and then, based on that choice, moves to the next corresponding section (Costikyan 2007). The series was incredibly successful and has sold over 17 million copies in 30 languages and has also been adapted into a series of video games (Green 2014). Livingstone moved to the video game industry in 1993 and formed Eidos Interactive in 1995. The company was responsible for the Tomb Raider games. He is now a spokesperson for teaching video game design and computer programming in early stage education and co-authored the Livingstone-Hope Skills Review for the UK government in 2010. Similarly, Jackson moved into the video game industry, founding Lionhead Studios, which, among other titles, created the Fable series. He is now an honorary professor at Brunel University and lectures in games design.

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Richard Bartle is also a professor at the University of Essex. Curiously, he was one of the first people in the UK to buy a copy of D&D from Games Workshop (Stuart 2014). He developed MUD, the first Multi-user Dungeon, in 1978 with Roy Trubshaw. Online multi-user environments emerged from a desire to play networked RPGs and were the earliest examples of MORPGs (→ Chapter 7). The interconnectedness of the RPG industry shows how thought influencers move across gaming cultures and adapt their ideas (and products) to each market. The flexibility of the core elements at the heart of RPGs helps create an underlying discourse that flows and mutates in accordance with the demands of each media. Links with educational establishments and governmental practice help further the impact of RPGs through their dissemination via codes of practice and new generations of students.

RPGs in Popular Culture This section examines the cultural impact of RPGs through their dissemination as a thematic genre and discusses their representation in three other popular media: literature, film and television. RPGs have both affected the composition of other texts and generated their own cultural products. Regarding the texts as “gaming capital,” i.e. artifacts that are in flux according to the needs and desires of players, industry and popular media (Consalvo 2009: 3–6), can help us understand how the dissemination of RPG tropes, most specifically of players and gaming narratives, has led to a broader appreciation of RPGs as cultural artifacts. Different understandings of the “RPG” and the “role-player,” as a literary device, as a description of a specific type of game genre and game playing person, and as a phenomenon that creates specific types of behavior, have formed a notion of both RPGs and the RPG player within a wider cultural sphere.

Literature and Written Texts RPGs lend themselves well to fiction writing simply because of the formulaic manner in which campaigns, events and games are structured. Often tracking versions of Joseph Campbell’s monomyth (1949), RPG campaigns can form the basis of stories or encourage derivative texts. RPG games and character role-play influence other genres stylistically and dovetail with other forms of production, such as long-haul television series, fantasy literature and art. As before, terms and tropes also help support these narratives and constructions by building from a shared understanding of the RPG game and its conventional forms.

Fiction Fiction based around D&D has been published since 1978, beginning with Andre Norton’s Quag Keep (1978). In 1985, D&D’s publisher, TSR, formally began publishing D&D titles with Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman’s Dragons of Autumn Twilight (1984) (see Langford 2002: 92), the first title of the Dragonlance series. This practice has continued over the years with other games and companies. Wizards of the Coast, the current publisher of D&D, is still considered a major force in fantasy literature, with hundreds of official titles. It’s most well-known fantasy franchises are the Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance series. The novels directly relate to D&D, drawing from the worlds, characters and lore created within the manuals and also adhering to

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the basic rules laid out in them. Conversely, new histories, characters and situations from the novels have become official elements within source books and games. For example, the Forgotten Realms: Hall of Heroes supplement for the 2nd edition of D&D (TSR 1989) has a section providing details and character statistics for the character Drizzt Do’Urden, protagonist of, and first seen in, the novel The Crystal Shard (Salvatore 1988). The formulaic nature of an RPG game – a diverse party of adventurers, a series of quests and trials and the potential for individual and group heroism (or failure) – lends itself well to science fiction and fantasy writing, where this structure is an established formula. In series like The Dresden Files (Butcher 2000–present) and Jen Williams’s Copper Cat books (Williams 2014, 2015), this is clearly apparent. Each series is long and episodic; characters resemble RPG archetypes intended to be familiar to a reader, and they “level up” throughout the course of each book, becoming stronger, gaining powerful items or suffering setbacks that impinge on them in some way. For example, in The Iron Ghost (Williams 2015), the character Wyrnn gains a mount in the form of a golem-wolf, ironically commenting that all of the other characters in her party have already managed to gain one (62). In the Dresden Files, Harry Dresden often refers to items such as his staff and a shield bracelet, which he imbues with strength and vitality between books. In the latter case, when it appears that Dresden is becoming too powerful, he suffers a significant wound (a debilitating burn to his left hand). The Dresden Files resembles an RPG adventure so much, in fact, that a subsequent RPG using the FUDGE rule system was created in 2011. Although it would be completely disingenuous to imply that all fantasy and science fiction media has been impacted by RPG covenants, there is certainly a familiarity in these stories, which is appreciated by readers; for example, Richard Webb’s review of The Copper Promise (Williams 2014) notes favorably that “even the trio of central characters bear the hallmarks of a tabletop fantasy RPG” (Webb 2014).

Campaign Notes Campaign notes and reportage are an established part of RPG culture, with players recording their own journeys or documenting them on behalf of the groups they play with. The obviously narrative nature of these accounts has sometimes led to their expansion into published versions, beginning with H.G. Wells’s explanation of the rules for Little Wars (1913) in his discursive example “The Battle of Hook’s Farm” (63–87) and extending to popular fantasy authors who have used games in which they have taken part as a basis for subsequent fiction. The narratives generated through RPGs, which might result in unpredictable outcomes (via dice rolling or other mechanics) lend themselves well to modern pulp fiction writing. In particular, standard formulas of adventure writing are echoed in role-playing narratives and vice versa. Plot devices, such as cliff hangers or twists, are a common part of RPGs and can happen either through planning or random chance. Taking or recording notes within games is an established method of keeping track of a game, and players often produce narratized versions of events (for example, storytelling and singing competitions often form part of Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA) and larp events, where past tales of previous events are recreated). This has proved fertile territory for writers, who have directly lifted events from games they have taken part in. The most famous example is the aforementioned Dragonlance Chronicles (Weis and Hickman 1984–5). The fantasy world of Dragonlance was initially conceived by Tracy and Laura Hickman, played as a campaign between friends and co-workers at TSR and then developed into a series of game products and, later, novels that featured the characters refereed and played by the Hickmans and co-author/series editor Margaret Weis and their

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friends and colleagues. Similarly, George R. R. Martin’s Wildcards series of edited stories (1987–present) originated in a game of Superworld (1983) that Martin ran. A wider cultural impact might be seen in the way that this type of storytelling also crosses over well to other media – for example, Martin’s campaign-style, long form fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire (1996–present) has become HBO’s most popular TV series to date: Game of Thrones (Benioff and Weiss 2011–2017). The Expanse, an epic space opera series (both in book and TV format), provides another example: in an interview, it has been documented as first being conceived as a setting for a MORPG, then maturing into a narrative through two RPG campaigns, then turning into a book, followed by a TV series (Liptak:2015).

Other Fiction The extensive cross-pollination between these novels, source books and modules, and their intertextual nature has laid a basis for subsequent forms of RPG writing, whereby a connected whole is formed across various transmedial platforms. The expectation that RPG tropes and signifiers can move in this way has also led to experimentation beyond linear narratives. We can identify an early form of RPG writing in the gamebook genre, mentioned earlier, perhaps best exemplified by the Fighting Fantasy series’ addition of RPG rules (a game system) to the form of the branching narrative previously popularized by books in the CYOA series (Zagal and Lewis 2015). In terms of cultural dissemination, subsequent RPGs, where players choose a pathway by selecting a conversational or narrative pathway, make a choice or solve a puzzle, or gather items that can be used in specific circumstances later, can be seen in games by companies such as LucasArts (The Monkey Island Series (1990–2010)), BioWare (Mass Effect (2007–17)) and Dragon Age series (2009–14)) and Telltale Games (The Walking Dead series (2012–present)), all of which have made games whereby “dialogue trees” and collecting items for later use are an important element in narrative and worldbuilding.

Nonfiction and Autobiographies Memoirs with RPGs as a focus have also been published, with authors describing the role or importance that such games had for them growing up. These autobiographies tend, in general, to depict RPGs as taking place during a formative part of the author’s teenage years – usually in a relatively negative context that presents RPGs (specifically, tabletop games) as stunting their emotional growth and keeping them away from supposedly more healthy occupations, such as going out and having hearty heterosexual relationships. Mark Barrowcliffe notes in The Elfish Gene (2007, 2–3), “I can’t imagine a woman picking up a 1977 copy of The Monster Manual as I did the other day and actually stroking it, hugging it.” In Ethan Gilsdorf’s (2009) Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks, a midlife crisis causes the author to retrace his childhood interests, expanding this into other areas of role-playing such as larp. David M. Ewalt’s Of Dice and Men (2013), while ostensibly a history of D&D, is interwoven with the author’s retellings of his own game-playing experiences. Confessions of a Part Time Sorceress (Mazzanoble 2007) is a rather overblown “Girl’s Guide to the Dungeons & Dragons ® Game.” The author is an employee of Wizards of the Coast, and the book is written as an enthusiastic entry point for female (or “die curious”) players. Although laudable, this can at times be rather cringeworthy in its presentation, including pink call out boxes, presumably designed to marry more stereotypical feminine pastimes with gaming culture: “If you haven’t figured it out yet, spit, blow, shake, or whisper sweet nothings to them. Do whatever it takes to get those dice to roll high” (Mazzanoble 2007: 34). The overall tone of

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this book is unusual, however, as unlike her male counterparts, Shelly Mazzanoble avoids the presentation of role-playing as embarrassing or shameful, and although more commercial, in this respect, the book is much closer to its Nordic counterparts, described below. Mike Pohjola’s Ihmisen Poika (2011) and Sofia Nordin’s Natthimmel (2009) are both prose novels written by role-players. Both tie larp into a coming of age narrative, the first one detailing the life of a boy who believes he is the second coming of Christ and the second relating a sexual awakening. Lizzie Stark’s Leaving Mundania (2012) bridges the geographic and cultural divide by addressing both American and Nordic larp experiences. It is, however, a journalistic exploration of geek culture rather than a childish pastime revisited. Collectively, these books point to two very different cultural patterns emerging. For the ­Nordic titles, role-playing is seen in a largely positive light and perhaps points to a greater cultural acceptance, which links to the dissemination and support for role-playing within each country (see, for example, Chapter 5). In the accounts from the US and the UK, however, more cultural shame is attached to role-playing, where it is treated more as a juvenile, subcultural activity. A number of guides and histories also exist. These vary hugely in tone. Heroic Worlds (Schick 1991) and Dungeons & Designers (Appelcline 2015) attempt to exhaustively catalogue the systems and history of RPGs. The Fantasy Roleplaying Gamer’s Bible (1999) is a good example of a layperson’s guide to playing, complete with illustrations by the artist of the popular RPG comic strip Dork Tower John Kovalic, and there are, of course, a growing number of academic texts (see Section III). There are considerable differences between literature published in the UK and US and those published in the Nordic countries, demonstrating the differing cultural impact of RPGs around the world. Collectively, these books all set a rather disparate tone for role-playing reading as it is obvious in several cases that the authors are not quite sure whether to write to an audience familiar with RPGs or to explain RPGs in detail to outsiders.

Television and Films When will young people learn that Dungeons & Dragons won’t make you cool!?! ( Futurama: Bender’s Game 2008) The conflicting cultural perceptions of RPGs in general and D&D specifically can be seen in a series of films and shows between 1981 and 1983. Arguably, role-playing completed its journey into the cultural mainstream at this point, when the game was first shown in Steven Spielberg’s 1982 science fiction blockbuster film E.T. – the Extra Terrestrial as a quotidian youth activity that did not need to be explained to the audience, but responses towards it were not always so positive. That same year, TRPGs were the subject of a moral panic-inducing madefor-TV film about players confusing fiction and reality in Mazes and Monsters (based on the book by Rona Jaffe from 1981). Whereas E.T. showed role-playing as an unremarkable pastime for teenage boys in a dimly lit room, Mazes and Monsters sought to play up the deviancy of the practice as “play becomes real.” The D&D cartoon, which started the next year and ran for three seasons, did not really feature role-playing but told the story of a group of human children (and role-players) transported to a fantastic land and given the powers of their characters. Each episode revolved around their attempts to get home and was therefore reminiscent of Andre Norton’s Quag Keep (1978), the first novelization based on D&D.

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Box 9.2  Notable Fiction Films about RPGs Mazes and Monsters, 1982, Steven Hilliard Stern Astrópia, 2007, Gunnar B. Gudmundsson The Wild Hunt, 2010, Alexandre Franchi Role Models, 2008, David Wain The Gamers (trilogy), 2002–2013, Matt Vancil

Since those early movies, multiple films, television series, and more have featured RPGs. There is a clear line here, differentiating between mainstream drama and that which is more niche, potentially aimed at a more “knowing” audience, familiar with gaming culture. In media directed at a general audience, when role-playing is mentioned, it tends to be in a broad context without much background knowledge required. In many cases, the games portrayed are idealized or loosely sketched versions of RPGs that often do not exist and serve to provide moral indicators or plot points for the characters engaging with them. A conflation between “wargame” and “role-playing game” is used as a cultural signifier (both positive and negative) for the genre rather than to accurately depict a specific game or its players. Media tropes of gamers interfere with these depictions, presenting role-players as socially inept (despite appearing in groups!), deviant or morally bankrupt. In The IT Crowd episode “Jen the Fredo” (Linehan 2010), the character Moss tries to teach several office colleagues how to play a tabletop game in order for the script writers to demonstrate both his poor social skills and D&D as a geek subculture. During the CSI: New York episode “Fare Game,” a larp-like alternate reality game called WaterGun Wars is used to portray a series of suspects who are seen as greedy, paranoid, and oblivious to cultural norms, and the “Big Bad” (central villains) of Buffy the Vampire Slayer Series 6 are seen hatching their plans over games of D&D (Whedon 2001). The website TV Tropes provides a list of further examples (TV Tropes 2016) that rehash this archetype across a broad range of television, film and literature examples, from The Simpsons to Jack Chick’s iconic Dark Dungeons (1984).

Box 9.3  Notable Films based on RPGs Dungeons & Dragons, 2000, Courtney Solomon Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, 2001, Hironobu Sakaguchi Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, 2005, Tetsuya Nomura In the Name of the King, 2007, Uwe Boll Dragonlance: Dragons of Autumn Twilight, 2008, Will Meugniot Mutant Chronicles, 2008, Simon Hunter UltraMarines: A Warhammer 40,000 Movie, 2010, Martyn Pick. hack//The Movie, 2012, Hiroshi Matsuyama Warcraft, 2016, Duncan Jones Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV, 2016, Takeshi Nozue

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However, these types of negative representations are changing. After the release of the D&D feature film in 2000, the number of media relating to RPGs increased rapidly. The Big Bang Theory (Lorre and Prady 2007–present) shows that a series with a majority of geek characters can be successful. Community demonstrated a D&D game being used as a healing process for a character with low self-esteem (Russo, 2.14 2011). Movies like Knights of Badassdom (Lynch 2013) and Futurama: Bender’s Tale (Carey-Hill 2008) provide more lighthearted, knowing portrayals of the genre by knowledgeable fan producers (Matt Hills’s “Big Name Fans”) (Hills 2002). In addition, there are films based on RPG products (Warcraft, Jones 2016), web series of people playing tabletop and larp games (High Rollers, The ­Yogscast 2016-­present, ­Tabletop, Geek and ­Sundry 2012–present), documentaries of larps (Treasure Trapped, ­Taylor 2014), ­participant-created documentation of specific larps (Fairweather Manor, Maciejro 2016) and episodes of television shows exploring role-play (Dara O’Braian’s Tough Gig 2007). The ­Netflix series Stranger Things (Duffer & Duffer 2016) is an affectionate parody of 1980s ­A merican culture and horror movies. The series is bookended by the central characters’ playing D&D together, and they name the monster terrorizing them throughout the series after the D&D monster that they fail to beat in the opening scene – a Demogorgon. With Stranger Things, the nerdy role-player trope is reclaimed by the central protagonists, who are “regular” American preteens. Similarly, Geek and Sundry’s webcast Tabletop is hosted by geek celebrity Wil ­W heaton. The show demonstrates various tabletop and board games, with a remit to make gaming more accessible and the slogan “Play More Games!”. The series has featured full playthroughs of TRPGs Fiasco (Morningstar 2009), FATE (Hicks and Donoghue 2013) and Dragon Age (Green Ronin 2015). Overall, these texts demonstrate the pervasive nature of RPGs within popular culture and their continued role within it.

Box 9.4  Notable Documentary Films about RPGs Darkon, 2006, Luke Meyer & Andrew Neel Über Goober, 2004, Steve Metze Vampyyrit, 1997, Timo Järvi Die Herren Der Spiele, 2012, Uta Bodenstein Wochenendkrieger, 2013, Andreas Geiger

Box 9.5  Notable Television Series Related to RPGs Dungeons & Dragons, 1983–1985, John Gibbs Kindred: The Embraced, 1996, John Leekley Siamin tytöt, 2001, Marjut Komulainen. hack//Sign, 2002, Kōichi Mashimo Sanningen om Marika, 2007, Martin Schmidt & Richard Jarnhed The Guild (web series), 2007–2013, Felicia Day

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Culturally, television and films most clearly demonstrate the move from RPGs as something strange and unusual to a pastime engaged with in multiple ways through many different avenues. RPGs and especially larps are a fertile target for episodes of television series and related films. The representations of role-players within these texts are diverse, ranging from films made by players, which show a decent knowledge of RPG cultures, all the way to the most worn-out stereotypes being recreated. Overall, however, this seems to suggest both a broader cultural acceptance of role-playing as a leisure activity emerging, as the various portrayals become more nuanced as time goes on, and an international difference whereby countries with a higher mainstream integration of RPG activities tend to present more nuanced and sympathetic portrayals of events and characters. However, whilst early depictions of RPG games and culture contain many of the features that would, over time, become tropes in representing role-playing and role-players – the all-male gaming groups hunched around a table in dim lighting, poor grip on reality and interest in childish fantastic content – all these depictions show (perhaps unavoidably) that role-playing is social. This important aspect of each game means that even when RPGs are depicted as “different” or “niche,” they are usually seen as a subculture, or culture, that demands collective activity.

Box 9.6  Reality Television with RPGs or Role-Players Beauty and the Geek (Season 4), US FC Zulu (Seasons 1 and 2), 2004–2005, Denmark Barda – Et Rollespil, 2006–2013, Denmark The Quest, 2014, US

Darker Legacies, Brighter Futures It would be disingenuous to say that the cultural impact of role-playing is always positive or benign. Consider, for example, moral panics (→ Chapter 19), player events or activities that have caused offense and other forms of transgressive play (→ Chapter 24). The desire for some players to act out moments of transgression or deviance is also something that the media have focused on heavily because role-playing (especially in the form of larp) is a form of visible difference, and science fiction and fantasy culture is seen as a site of otherness – deliberately represented as “other” than normal, expected behavior. So, racist representations and stereotyping through character creation and larp costuming or commercial products with adult themes and/ or potentially offensive content sometimes draw negative attention to role-playing and provide useful tabloid fodder. For example, the Dungeon Masters Guide for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (Gygax 1979) contained a table for determining what players one might run into when wandering around a city. The table included, among other things, bandits and city officials as well as guards and harlots. The “Harlot table” (removed from later editions) on page 192 could then be used “to distinguish each encounter for what it is” (Gygax 1979). Players might run into a “Brazen strumpet,” a “Saucy tart,” a “Sly pimp” or an “Expensive doxy” who “in addition to the offering of the usual fare” might offer up valuable information or try to rob the players (Gygax 1979).

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In 2015, the RPG download store DriveThruRPG was involved in a controversy due its decision to sell a title called Tournament of Rapists. DriveThruRPG was initially criticized for its slow reaction to complaints about the offensiveness of the product (Wu 2015), and the product was eventually removed from the store. However, the publisher tried (ineffectively) to insist that the title was being misrepresented (e.g. the rapists were the bad guys that players had to kill) (Cathro 2015). Similarly, when the UK larp scene took steps to become a safe and welcoming community in 2014, it found that a number of problematic elements and incidents were revealed that affected the safety of its individual members. Here, changing cultural values revealed unacceptable elements of play and the realization that, in a growing communal hobby, it was sometimes impossible to safeguard all members from harm. This has also been highlighted in articles like “Tabletop Gaming has a White Male Terrorism Problem” (Latining 2016), in which the author details a series of problematic encounters that they have experienced in their lifetime as a gamer. The toxicity of these incidents – and the response to the poster by some critics, who suggested the author was fabricating the accounts – are symptomatic of a wider cultural change in gaming: in short, that the mainstreaming of role-playing has also exposed it to a wider amount of people. This, in turn, has highlighted poor practices within the existing cultural framework and the need for change. To be fair, the controversies surrounding these kinds of problems have also been met with positive responses. Once again, however, this is not the final word. The 5th edition of D&D includes advice on creating alternate genders and non-gender- specific language and represents a desire by developers to encourage greater inclusivity and diversity in RPGs and, by default, the gamer culture that surrounds it (Trice 2014). These changes reflect a growing awareness within RPG cultures that they need to change, but they also demonstrate that RPGs are not a niche subculture for a specific group of people – instead, they have a broad reach throughout geek and leisure cultures and therefore need to be mindful of the groups who participate in them.

Summary RPGs have had a pervasive and ongoing impact on cultural practices and production. This includes the migration of tropes, concepts, types of storytelling and stereotypes intro broader culture. It has also been achieved thoughthe work of RPG industry members, who have moved into, and made significant impacts, in other areas – primarily the video game industry. RPGs are seen as an important part of gaming culture – one that has made a widespread impact on other genres. Sometimes, this is insidious – a reference to a core trope or idea within a different game. At other times, it is reflective, blending elements of other genres or echoing similar ideas. There is certainly a strong element of give-and-take in popular culture more broadly: screenwriters and authors create works influenced by or inspired by their RPG experiences and then these same works inspire or lead to new RPGs. Do modern representations used in fantasy and science fiction borrow from RPGs, or are they so well established that we cannot help but see them in other cultural artifacts? Overall, RPGs have transitioned from being a niche interest, with stigmatizing media representations of its players and fans, to becoming more mainstream, with representations downplaying RPGs as unusual. In fact, RPGs are currently often used as shorthand to represent all kinds of gamers in popular culture.

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Further Reading DriveThruRPG.com www.drivethrurpg.com/ Dungeon Crawlers Radio. www.dungeoncrawlersradio.com Stark, Lizzie. 2012. Leaving Mundania. Inside the Transformative World of Live Action Role-Playing Games. Chicago, IL: Chicago Review Press.

References Appelcline, Shannon. 2015. Designers and Dragons. Evil Hat Productions. LLC. Barrowcliffe, Mark. 2007. The Elfish Gene. Dungeons, Dragons and Growing Up Strange. London: Macmillan. Barry, Gareth. 2013. “The Language of Gamers.” The Circular. http://thecircular.org/the-language-ofgamers/. [Accessed January 6, 2017]. BBC. (Anonymous). 2008. “Five things that Dungeons & Dragons begat.” BBC News, March 6. http:// news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7280969.stm. [Accessed December 12, 2016]. Benioff, David and Weiss, D.B. 2011–2017. Game of Thrones (Television Show). New York: HBO. Booth, Paul. 2016. Game Play: Paratextuality in Contemporary Board Games. New York: Bloomsbury Academic. Butcher, Jim. 2000–present. The Dresden Files (series). New York: Roc Books. Campbell, Joseph. 1949. The Hero with a Thousand Faces. New York: Pantheon Books. Carey-Hill, Dwayne. 2008. Futurama: Bender’s Tale. 20th Century Fox Entertainment. Cathro, Mark. 2015. Press Release – Skortched Urf ’ Studios. www.skortchedurfstudios.com/. [Accessed May 7, 2017]. Chick, Jack. 1984. Dark Dungeons. Publications. www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0046/0046_01.ASP. [Accessed December 12, 2016]. Consalvo, Mia. 2009. Cheating: Gaining Advantage in Videogames. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Cook, David. 1989. Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. 2nd ed. Renton, Washington: Wizards of the Coast Costikyan, Greg. 2007. “Games, Storytelling, and Breaking the String.” In Second Person: RolePlaying and Story in Games and Playable Media, edited by Pat Harrigan and Noah Wardrip-Fruin, 5–13. ­Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Duffer, Matt. and Duffer, Ross. 2016. Stranger Things (Television Series). Scotts Valley, CA: Netflix. Ensslin, Astrid. 2014. Literary Gaming. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Ewalt, David. 2013. Of Dice and Men, the Story of Dungeons and Dragons and the People Who Play It. New York: Scribner. Fannon, Sean Patrick. 1999. The Fantasy Roleplaying Gamer’s Bible. Roseville, CA: Prima Publishing. Geek and Sundry. 2013. “Dragon Age: Chris Hardwick, Kevin Sussman, and Sam Witwer on TableTop, episode 19 pt. 1”. Tabletop. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-61i3R5y9Y. [Accessed December 13, 2016]. Gilsdorf, Ethan. 2009. Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks. An Epic Quest for Reality among Role Players, Online Gamers, and Other Dwellers of Imaginary Realms. Guilford, CT: The Lyons Press. Ghostcrawler. 2012. “Coffee with the Devs: Looting in Mists of Pandaria Explained”. WorldofWarcraft. com. https://worldofwarcraft.com/en-gb/news/10040336/coffee-with-the-devs-mists-of-pandarialooting-explained [Accessed December 12, 2016]. Green, Jonathan. 2014. You are the Hero: A History of Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks. Haddenham: Snowbooks. Green Ronin. 2015. Dragon Age Roleplaying. http://greenronin.com/dragonagerpg/. [Accessed J­anuary 6, 2017]. Gygax, Gary. 1977. Advanced Dungeons and Dragons: Monster Manual. Lake Geneva, WI: TSR Games. Gygax, Gary. 1979. Advanced Dungeons and Dragons: Dungeon Masters Guide. Lake Geneva, WI: TSR Games. Heinsoo, Rob, Collins, Andy and Wyatt, James. 2008. Dungeons & Dragons Player’s Handbook 4th Edition. Wizards of the Coast.

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Hicks, Fred and Donoghue Rob. 2013. FATE Core System. 4nd ed. Silver Spring, MD: Evil Hat Productions. Hills, Matt. 2002. Fan Cultures. London: Routledge. Jackson, Steve (US). 1986. Generic Universal Roleplaying System (GURPS). Austin, TX: Steve Jackson Games. Jackson, Steve (US). Toon. Austin, TX: Steve Jackson Games. Jones, Duncan. 2016. Warcraft: The Beginning. Universal Pictures. Kelly, James Floyd. September 22, 2014. “A Tale of Two Monster Manuals”. GeekDad. https://geekdad. com/2014/09/a-tale-of-two-monster-manuals/. [Accessed December 12, 2016]. Langford, David. 2002. The Complete Critical Assembly. Holicong, PA: Cosmos Books. Latining. 2016. “Tabletop Gaming has a White Male Terrorism Problem”. Latining. March 23. http:// latining.tumblr.com/post/141567276944/tabletop-gaming-has-a-white-male-terrorism-problem. [Accessed December 12, 2016]. Liptak, A. 2015. “Evolution of a Space Epic: James S.A. Corey’s The Expanse”. Barnes & Nobles Sci-Fi and Fantasy Blog. www.barnesandnoble.com/blog/sci-fi-fantasy/the-evolution-of-james-s-a-coreysspace-epic-the-expanse/. [Accessed December 12, 2016]. Linehan, Graham. 2010. “Jen the Fredo”. Episode 1, Season 4 in The IT Crowd. Unitedf Kingdom, Channel 4. Livingstone, Ian. 2008. “Gary Gygax: Creator of Dungeons & Dragons”. The Independent. 7 March 2008. www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/gary-gygax-creator-of-dungeons--dragons-792724. html. [Accessed December 12, 2016]. Lorre, Chuck and Prady, Bill. 2007–present. The Big Bang Theory. CBS. Lynch, Joe. 2013. Knights of Badassdom. Entertainment One. Maciejro. 2016. “Fairweather Manor”. Maciejro. www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7b22hH-5vQ. [­Accessed December 12, 2016]. Mazzanoble, Shelly. 2007. Confessions of a Part-time Sorceress: A Girl's Guide to the D&D Game (Dungeons & Dragons). Seattle, WA: Wizards of the Coast. Manninen, Tony. 2003. “Interaction Forms and Communicative Actions in Multiplayer Games”. Games Studies 3(1). www.gamestudies.org/0301/manninen/. Masters, Phil. 1994. “On the Vocabulary of Roleplaying. Notes towards Critical Consistency?” Interactive Fiction 1994. 57–74. McEvoy, Gerry. “Going Rogue”. Journey Planet #34 – RPGs by the Numbers. 26–28. http://journeyplanet. ­ ecember 12, 2016]. weebly.com/uploads/1/5/7/1/15715530/journeyplanetroleplaying.pdf. [Accessed D Morningstar, Jason. 2009. Fiasco. Bully Pulpit Games. Nordin, Sofia. 2009. Natthimmel. Stockholm: Rabén & Sjögren. Norton, Andre. 1978. Quag Keep. New York: Macmillan. Peterson, Jon. 2012. Playing at the World. A History of Simulating Wars, People and Fantastic Adventures from Chess to Role-Playing Games. San Diego, CA: Unreason Press. Pohjola, Mike. 2011. Ihmisen poika. Helsinki: Gummerus. Rogers, Adam. 2008. “Geek Love”. The New York Times, March 9. Russo, Joe. February 3, 2011. “Advanced Dungeons & Dragons”. Community. 2.14. NBC. Saler, Michael. 2012. As If: Modern Enchantment and the Literary PreHistory of Virtual Reality. New York: Oxford University Press. Salvatore, R.A. 1988. The Crystal Shard. Lake Geneva, WI: TSR Inc. Schiesel, Seth. 2008. “Gary Gygax, Gamepioneer, Dies at 69”. The New York Times, March 5. Schick, Lawrence. 1991. Heroic Worlds, A History and Guide to Role-Playing Games. New York: Prometheus Books. Stark, Lizzie. 2012. Leaving Mundania. Inside the Transformative World of Live Action Role-Playing Games. Chicago, IL: Chicago Review Press. Stuart, Keith. 2014. “Richard Bartle: we invented multiplayer games as a political gesture”. The ­G uardian. November 17. www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/nov/17/richard-bartle-multiplayer-gamespolitical-gesture [Accessed December 14, 2016].

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Taylor, Alex. 2014. Treasure Trapped. Cosmic Joke. Tresca, Michael. 2011. The Evolution of Fantasy Role-Playing Games. Jefferson, NC: McFarland Press. Trice, Michael. 2014. “The Mary Sue Exclusive Interview: Mike Mearls and Jeremy Crawford on Acknowledging Sexuality and Gender Diversity in D&D”. The Mary Sue. July 24. www.themarysue. com/sexuality-and-gender-diversity-dungeons-and-dragons-next/. [Accessed January 6, 2017]. TSR. 1989. Forgotten Realms: Hall of Heroes. Redmond, Washington: TSR. Varney, Allen and Spector, Warren. 1985. Paranoia: Send in the Clones. New York: West End Games. Webb, Richard. 2014.”Review: The Copper Promise by Jen Williams”. The British Fantasy Society. www.britishfantasysociety.org/reviews/the-copper-promise-by-jen-williams-book-review/. March 31. [Accessed January 6, 2017]. Weis, Margaret and Hickman, Tracy. 1984–5. The Dragonlance Chronicles. New York: Random House. Wells, H.G. 1913. Little Wars. London: Frank Palmer. Whedon, Joss. 2001. Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 6. Mutant Enemy Productions. Williams, Jen. 2014. The Copper Promise. London: Hodder Headline. Williams, Jen. 2015. The Iron Ghost. London: Hodder Headline. Wu, Brianna. 2015. “It’s Not about Censorship, It’s about Professional Standards”. Cosmodrome. www.­ cosmodrome.org/home/its-not-about-censorship-its-about-professional-standards. [Accessed ­January 6, 2017]. Yogscast, 2016–present. ‘High Rollers’. Yogscast Live. www.youtube.com/watch?v=so1zVyGd5zk. [Accessed January 6, 2017]. Zagal, José, and Lewis, Corrinne. 2015 “Fighting Fantasies: Authoring RPG Gamebooks for Learning Game Writing and Design”, 2015 RPG Summit at the 2015 Digital Games Research Association (DiGRA) Conference, Lüneburg, Germany. May 14–17, 2015. www.eng.utah.edu/~zagal/Papers/ Zagal_Lewis-Gamebooks_for_teaching.pdf. [Accessed May 5, 2017].

Part III

Disciplinary Perspectives

10 RPG Theorizing by Designers and Players Evan Torner

Introduction Role-playing game theorizing takes place any time someone forms a theory about role-­playing games (RPGs). Such theorizing can be and is done by anyone: critics and scholars but also players, game masters, and designers. “Para-academic” or fan1 and designer theories about RPGs abound today, in part, thanks to the Internet (Hills 2002, 136). Players and designers are the most avid scholars of their own medium. Together, they often form discourse communities: “clubs with tacit rules about who is a member and who is not, and tacit rules about how members ought to behave (if they wish to continue being accepted as members)” (Gee 1990, 143). Despite occasional marginalization or harassment, participating in RPG discourse communities holds autotelic social and intellectual gratifications: theorizing together is inherently enjoyable. This chapter surveys the main concepts and debates emerging from para-academic RPG discourse, spanning live-action role-playing (larp), tabletop (TRPG), computer (CRPG), and multi-player online RPGs (MORPG). Although much is said at convention panels and around the gaming table, this chapter focuses on publicly accessible written work. After defining RPG theorizing, it outlines a history of para-academic RPG theory, followed by sections surveying crucial areas of debate: prescriptive design and playcraft theories on how to design and play RPGs “well”; player and system typologies; task resolution; and how fans have related RPGs to social inequalities and power with respect to race, gender, class, sexuality, age, and ability.

What is RPG Theorizing? The English word “theory” (from the Greek the ōria for contemplation or speculation) emerged in the 16th century to describe a mental model formed from observing a phenomenon, which was then used to predict possible future phenomena (Cole 2014). Theory, today, commonly means a network of constructs and relations expressed in more or less formal statements to describe, explain, predict, and critique phenomena around us. While typically considered the domain of scientists and scholars, the rise of media fandom has brought with it so-­called

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para-academic or fan scholarship (Hills 2002). Such fan theorizing describes theory-making by fans of a particular media cultural phenomenon about that phenomenon. Along these lines, RPG theorizing can be defined as theory-making about RPGs by RPG fans. RPG Theorizing Theory-making about RPGs by RPG fans.

Most RPG players at times spontaneously speculate about RPGs: how leveling systems in Final Fantasy (1987) are calibrated, whose story is being told in a larp, how often you have to often look up rules in a TRPG, or how to best use re-spawn points in an MORPG (Nardi 2009, 137). However, public RPG theorizing primarily takes place among (aspiring) designers. Often, only designers who have worked on published RPGs are credited with theoretical insights about them, resulting in a soft gatekeeping around who counts as a “proper” designer worth giving a voice. For example, the “Analysis and Criticism” page of the popular forum RPG. net only hosts authors connected with well-known TRPG companies, such as Steve Jackson Games, West End Games, and Hogshead Publishing (“The Oracle: Essays”). Designers who theorize in public writing and on panels are therefore sometimes charged with elitism (signature 2007), although online and social media have mitigated gatekeeping to some extent. In practice, distinguishing para-academic from academic RPG theory is difficult as many RPG scholars (­authors of the present volume included) are aca-fans (Hills 2002) who also self-­ identify as RPG fans and began their theorizing careers within para-academic RPG discourse communities, often still participating in them, parallel to academic discourses in conferences, journals, and edited volumes. Aca-fan An academic scholar who self-identifies as a fan of their topic of study.

RPG theorizing serves numerous explicit and implicit purposes. It can help us play better: theorycrafting, the “modeling and testing theories about the underlying mechanics of a game” (Chen 2012, 183), helps MORPG players advance through their games. It can assist dialogue among gaming communities. For example, the North American theater-style larp scene coined the term “secrets and powers larp” when it needed to articulate its default design assumptions to other larp scenes (Budin 2015). Theorizing can “inspire play and design” (Kim 2004). Debates on the RPG theory forum The Forge sparked numerous influential TRPGs, such as My Life with Master (2004). It can help critique and interrogate assumptions. Alice Henton (2012), for instance, found that the CRPG Dragon Age: Origins (2009), ostensibly about fighting off the evil Darkspawn, is actually a game about data collection and archives. Theorizing can further theory for its own sake. John Kirk’s (2006) Design Patterns of Successful Role-Playing Games simply documents and diagrams numerous TRPG designs to illustrate underlying assumptions and problems. It can serve one’s credibility: when Palestinian larp organizer Lina Hijazi talked about her experience taking part in the Play for Life project in Norway, stating, “I realized that as human beings we […] do live action role-playing as a way of releasing stress and enjoying our time in this unfair and unjust world” (2015, 52), she increased her credibility as a commentator on the social justice potential of larp. Theorizing can generate web traffic to advertise and sell. Blizzard Entertainment supports fan theorizing on numerous threads on its Battle.net forum to keep communication about its MORPG World of Warcraft (2004) on company channels. 2 Theorizing can relate RPGs to other media. Robin D. Laws wrote Hamlet’s Hit Points (2010) to explain how the narrative beats of Hamlet or ­Casablanca resemble beats in TRPGs.

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Finally, RPG theorizing participates in the politics of culture: to theorize and critically discern RPGs, one must develop both knowledge of and a sense of taste for RPGs. By demonstrating such knowledge and taste in evaluating, appreciating, or rejecting some subject matter, we accrue social and cultural capital (Bourdieu 1984). Every theoretical contribution is thus fundamentally intertwined with one’s social position: to do RPG theory is always also to manage one’s public impression as a theorist within specific (intended) social networks (Goffman 1959). And because RPG theory holds only meager academic and societal status, most RPG theory and criticism is produced by critical amateurs for critical amateurs. “Taste,” as Antoine Hennion (2005, 135) puts it, “is a productive activity of critical amateurs.”

Histories of RPG Theorizing Most RPG theory debates are local, ephemeral, and dispersed (Mason 2004, 10). Although a surprising number of fanzines and forums are nowadays archived in some way, there are few centralized collections (Axner 2013). Hence, similar debates re-appear in different contexts as participants are unaware of precursors and parallels. For example, in 2014, Dungeon World (2013) creator Adam Koebel started a social media debate on whether RPGs are a craft, not an art (Koebel 2014), unaware that David Novitz (1996) had discussed the same point almost two decades earlier. Before diving into the history of RPG theorizing, it is helpful to see this dynamic play out in one prominent debate: realism versus playability – whether rules should simulate reality or follow their own internal logic. This debate actually precedes RPGs (→ Chapter 3). TRPGs like Dungeons & Dragons (D&D, 1974) emerged from the 1960s wargame community (Peterson 2012), and tensions between precise simulation and imaginative games that play well have existed since the dawn of the wargaming hobby. A 1960 issue of the UK magazine War Games Digest already discussed whether American post-game battle reports were tainted by “lavish extravagant phrases and verbose wording” (Peterson 2012, 298). This disdain for narrative embellishment would then be mirrored in an Avalon Hill General reader poll in 1968, which found readers favoring “playability” over “realism” 60–40 (Shaw 1968), or Jeff Perren’s taxonomy of “WARriors” concerned with simulating war versus “GAMErs” seeking a fun game (Peterson 2012, 300). In 1970, in the third issue of the fanzine Domesday Book, future D&D designer Gary Gygax sided with the GAMErs, asking the rhetorical question “How real is a game anyway?” (qtd. in Peterson 2012, 300). This view would later inform the design of D&D. In 1977, the TRPG Chivalry & Sorcery (C&S) appeared in explicit opposition to Gygax: “Authenticity is the hallmark of C&S. Creativity and imagination are vital, but realism and attention to the facts of human nature and the nature of any reasonable society is necessary as well” (Simbalist and Backhaus 2000, 9). As one review put it (Pulsipher 1977), C&S was “the fantasy role-playing expression of wargamers who favor realism and simulation while D&D is the expression of playability fans who want a good game.” And yet the debate continued: in a 1991 speech, game designer Steve Jackson echoed Gygax: “If a game is insufficiently realistic, it can still be fun…. But insufficient playability is usually fatal.” In 1995, users on the newsgroup rec.games.frp.advocacy (RGFA) coined the term “simulationist” for games concerned with simulating reality.3 Their “playability,” in turn, was seen to depend on whether or not they required onerous charts and dice rolls. In their 2008 volume Things We Think About Games, RPG designers Will Hindmarch and Jeff Tidball note that “theme and gameplay are two different things” (65). By “theme,” they mean

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“what the game is apparently about: medieval warfare, the Second Battle of Bull Run…” but “knowing the tensile strength of folded steel made by Vikings in the 10th century is a not a [sic.] good reason to add a rule to your game” (66). In 2014, a user by the name Cohaven asks on Reddit why, in MORPGs, the “loot that ‘drops’ from opponents [isn’t] sensible and more realistic in its contents?” The ensuing debate again revolves around realism versus playability, with commentators agreeing that although dead wolves dropping 40 gold coins or 10 wolf pelts is “a trope from MMOs of old where you should have to grind for everything,” a system for realistic wolf-skinning makes no economic sense for developers (Cohaven 2014). The tension remains a philosophical and design conundrum: here, the desire to be faithful to the theme and material simulated; there, the reassertion that any simulation has to remain playable. What its multi-generational discussion demonstrates is how players, designers, and critics inherit past conversations, occasionally formulating new terms to advance the debate, at other times, unconsciously re-treading terrain. With this first compass and previous histories in hand (Kim 2004; Mason 2004; Boss 2014), we can trace the history of RPG theorizing in five broad periods: early fanzine writing around mostly technical aspects of D&D and other early TRPGs (1974–1982); the mainstreaming of TRPGs (1982–1989) and emergence of larp and CRPGs, leading to debates on what constitutes “true” RPGs; the differentiation of multiple distinct aesthetic, cultural, and linguistic RPG theorizing communities in fanzines and early Usenet (1989–2000); the growth of focal centers of “indie” theorizing around indie TRPGs and Nordic Larp (2001–2006); and the contemporary (2006+) global spread and differentiation.

1974–1982: The Fanzines Early RPG theory evolved from small press wargaming and science fiction and fantasy newsletters. Their conversations focused on how to adapt historical material into game form, the proper procedure of play-by-mail games, or the mentioned realism versus playability debate (Peterson 2012). Yet with the release of D&D, RPG theorizing hit the pages of fanzines such as the Amateur Press Association – Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society (APA-L). Its editor Lee Gold was tasked with channeling that RPG conversation into a different forum, and so the TRPG fanzine Alarums and Excursions (A&E, 1975–2013) was born. Under Gold’s leadership, A&E was the first fanzine solely devoted to RPGs, predating industry magazines such as Dragon (1976–2007) or White Dwarf (1977–). The first five years of A&E theorizing was “resolutely technical” (Mason 2004, 3). The focus was on game balance and “correct” rule interpretation, such as a multi-issue debate over the D&D spell “Fireball.” Questions about play styles – for instance, whether players should collaborate or compete – emerged only if they followed from the rules’ strict interpretation. In A&E, John Strang (1977) first framed what would become the persistent “role-playing vs. roll-playing” debate (Kubasik 1995), asking whether ­character-based decision-making or random dice rolls should dominate TRPGs. Greg Stafford, founder of RPG publisher Chaosium, inaugurated Different Worlds (1979– 1987), one of the central organs of RPG theorizing for a decade. It contained now-classics, such as Greg Costikyan’s satirical RPG “Lord of the Dice” (1979); Steven Lortz’s “Dramatic Structure of RPGs” (1979), one of the earliest analyses of RPGs with respect to film beats or “moves”; or Glenn Blacow’s (1980) “Role-Playing Styles: aspects of Adventure Gaming,” which influenced later player typologies. In parallel, the RPG periodical Casus Belli (1980–2006) appeared in France, evidence of the beginning global spread of the hobby. Much current French RPG vocabulary originated from

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its pages, as did the French emphasis on artwork and setting over complex rules. As TRPG publishers churned out new material on a monthly basis, these fanzines became the main forum for critiquing and differentiating them.

1982–1989: Mainstreaming RPGs During the 1980s, as D&D and TRPGs had gone mainstream and larps and commercial CRPGs emerged, people began to debate what constitutes “true” role-playing. Books such as Gygax’s Roleplaying Mastery (1989) purported to have the “last word” on the hobby. Yet as forms diversified, authors began to question boundaries and mark distinctions: what distinguished TRPGs from CRPGs and larp? Was it that they used miniatures and maps? Classes and levels? Or that they had dice? (Mason 2004, 5–6). CRPGs, meanwhile, experienced first glimpses of theorizing themselves. Personal computing (PC) magazines, such as Popular Computing Weekly (1983–1989), would occasionally feature moments of MUD theorizing, mostly around technical issues. In 1985, Richard Bartle published Artificial Intelligence and Computer Games, drawing on his experiences designing the first multiuser dungeon MUD1 (1978) with Roy Trubshaw. The global (if uneven) spread of RPGs in the Western world also led to the growth of local RPG discourse communities in countries with sizable RPG player populations. Australia and New Zealand saw gamers innovating system-less and dice-less game design (Boss 2014). Scandinavian countries responded to the Swedish D&D-like TRPG Drakar och Demoner (1982) with photocopied fanzines. Italian communities emerged around translated products from the US, Germany and the UK (“Short History,” 2013). The Russian translation of Lord of the Rings prompted major Russian larp activity after the fall of the USSR and, with this, fan theories about story and player interaction in RPGs (Fedoseev 2012).

1989–2000: Storytelling Turns By the end of the Cold War, three concurrent trends intensified and shifted RPG theory: (1) specific communities changing and defining RPG language and aesthetics, (2) international RPG communities pushing back against the Anglophone world, and (3) the growth of the Internet as a main medium of theorizing. The late 1980s through the early 2000s became a period when commercial TRPGs answered to calls in outlets like A&E and Different Worlds for more “story” (Appelcline 2014). Notably, Ars Magica (1988) by A&E veterans Jonathan Tweet and Mark Rein*Hagen discarded “game balance” in favor of allowing players to embody wildly powerful medieval magi. It enabled “troupe-style” play of multiple characters and created a general purpose rule set for a fictional world in which “anything can be attempted” (Peterson 2012), like Call of Cthulhu (1981) before it intentionally designed a rule system that supported one kind of experience well. Mason writes, Ars Magica was extremely important in finally releasing into the commercial sphere ideas which had hitherto been the province only of gaming groups of an experimental bent…. It is significant that both authors… contributed to Alarums and Excursions, where their ideas could be subjected to intense scrutiny from highly experienced theorists. Ars ­Magica concerned itself explicitly with the creation of a story by the gaming group. (Mason 2004, 9)

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In parallel, David Cook and Warren Spector published the Bullwinkle and Rocky Party Game (1988), a silly puppet RPG that likewise favored “story” over game balance and physics and prefigured many techniques that would become popular in later indie TRPGs: playing without a GM, playing to lose, players actively framing scenes rather than waiting for GM prompts. A similar shift could be found in Andrew Rilstone and Martin Wykes’ UK TRPG fanzine Aslan (1988–1991): it took a stand against commercial pre-plotted scenarios and the burgeoning children’s market for D&D in favor of “player-centered” narratives and RPGs with mature content. Rein*Hagen’s Vampire: The Masquerade (1991), a game about the power machinations of urban vampires, encapsulated this stance by explicitly calling itself a “storytelling game.” Vampire and follow-up games by its publishing house White Wolf saw tremendous commercial success (Appelcline 2014). Meanwhile, in the UK, game company Hogshead Publishing (founded by James Wallis) worked with the community around Aslan to institutionalize this new spirit of storytelling in publications such as Inter*Action/Interactive Fantasy (1994–1995). Discussions continued in (online) magazines like Places to Go, People to Be (1998–2008), Pyramid (1993–), and the Usenet listserv RGFA (1992–2001). These and other fan publications became ground zero for forming the language of RPGs. People pushed for agreeing on the meaning of certain words around RPGs. “If we are going to discuss role-playing games with any kind of rigour,” Phil Masters (1994) wrote in Interactive Fantasy, “we are going to need to define our terms,” following this with a lexicon of his own. Some terms of the time, such as “rules lawyer,” are still in regular use; others have vanished, such as “genre fiend” (a player who wants the game to emulate the fictional genre on which it is based). Today, Nordiclarp.org or The Forge persist as actively used glossaries in RPG communities. This impulse to define dovetailed with efforts to formalize RPG theory, nowhere more apparent than in Laws’s (1995) influential essay “The Hidden Art: Slouching Towards a Critical Framework for RPGs.” Laws asked for coherent terms to enable good RPG criticism, which would “approach the work on its own terms before bringing [the critics’] own value judgments or ideological agendas into the arena.” Notably, he raised the question of whether RPGs were art. This prompted an immediate response in the next issue of Interactive Fantasy. Here, Brian Duguid (1995) stated that the primary reason for valuing RPGs was “fun,” a common trope that emphasizes cohesion across RPG activity compared to the often fervent debates of art criticism. Meanwhile, task resolution – how to determine the outcomes of a player-character attempting a task – took center stage in RPG theorizing and design. Tweet’s RPG Everway (1995), for instance, integrated a particular RPG theory into the game design itself, namely, the “Drama, Fortune, Karma” (DFK) framework for task resolution. One can always debate definitions, but the very act of defining terms empowered designers and fans to join in dialog about RPGs and their design and aesthetics. At the same time, vibrant RPG subcultures had blossomed outside US and UK TRPGs. In Brazil, TRPGs became more popular than board games after D&D was published in 1993 (Healy 2015). At events like Orkon or Fantazjada, Polish larpers began theorizing their rules and design in the late 1990s. The Nordic countries developed a local style of artistically ambitious, emotionally complex larps (Stenros and Montola 2010). As part of that movement, Finnish journalist Johanna Koljonen founded the larp theory zine panclou (1998–2003), which published much of the early writings of those who would become core theorists of the Nordic role-playing scene. Russian larp theory, meanwhile, emerged from large-scale games with

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100–2000 or more players, spread over kilometers of terrain (Prudkovskaya 2015). This experiential ground flavored their particular theories on play and immersion. In the 1990s, CRPG and MORPG fans and designers began to clarify their language as well. D&D was a central influence on early computer games (Salter 2014). Yet over the years, CRPGs and MUDs discovered and affirmed their own logic and, with them, their own fan theorizing. Comms Plus! (1989–1991) and The Confidential (1989–1991) stand out as early relevant fanzines, although much of MUD theorizing happened on Usenet (rec.games.mud) and in bulletin board system (BBS) forums. Indeed, the online discussion forums of the 1990s shaped much of today’s RPG theorizing. This was in spite of a severe crackdown by D&D publisher TSR on Internet activity around its products in 1994, including shutting down a popular Stanford site for discussions and file sharing of D&D products (Maliszewski 2009). Online discussion became the communication norm and default in RPG discourse communities almost overnight. RPGs, in turn, rose to be a prominent, even dominant topic of debate on the fledgling worldwide web, owing to its early geek culture and population (Konzack 2014). In May 1992, the Usenet newsgroup RGFA was created for users of the previous Usenet newsgroup rec.games.frp.misc. Initially set up to hash out differences over systems such as GURPS or Hero, it became an important encompassing site for RPG theory. Discussions often re-treaded territory already covered in the pages of e.g. Alarums and Excursions or Aslan but with the rapid responses, disagreements, and typologies that one expects from Internet forum discourse (White 2015). Archived by list participant and moderator John H. Kim,4 RGFA laid the groundwork for English-language RPG theorizing online. In 1996, web forum RPG. net came online. RPG.net would gradually parallel and exceed A&E for mainstream reviews of TRPGs and host more discussions and flame wars than RGFA. In 1999, on the eve of the 3rd D&D edition, D&D fan Eric Noah launched “Eric Noah’s Unofficial 3rd Edition News” site. It would soon blossom into EN World, a dominant source of theories, reviews, and discussion of mainstream TRPGs. Apart from central forums like RGFA, RPG.net, or EN World, “webrings” linked RPG designers, fans, and their debates, which would previously only have met on the pages of a fanzine or at conventions. Notably, both early online theory platforms and webrings were run largely independently from particular game manufacturers, giving them a measure of critical freedom.

2000–2006: The Rise of Indie RPG Theorizing The years 2000 to 2006 mark three movements in RPG theorizing: (1) the rise of “indie” TRPG design and theory, chiefly on the web forum The Forge; (2) the development of Nordic larp as a genuine form, community, and discourse around the annual Knutepunkt conference; and (3) the rise of “theorycrafting” around MORPGs. The Forge An influential online forum for “indie” TRPG theory discussion, spurring important indie games and fan-theoretical models like the “Big Model.”

The web forum The Forge (indie-rpgs.com/forge) was created by two exiles from the RPG website Gaming Outpost: Ron Edwards, a biology professor and author of the RPG Sorcerer (2001), and Conspiracy X (1997) designer and publicist Ed Healy. Their website Hephaestus’s Forge (1999–2001) initially functioned like a webring, aggregating links to various independently published TRPGs. In 2001, Edwards joined forces with Clinton R. Nixon and later Vincent Baker to moderate a forum dedicated to active TRPG discussion. Discussion initially revolved

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around both publication and distribution strategies for single author TRPGs and nitty-gritty role-playing theorizing (Boss 2008; White 2015). Its core maxim was articulated by Baker: “You can create the game you want, and you can publish it if you want” (Carboni 2012). A connected core aesthetic value was having the written RPG system align with (desired) actual play. The Forge sought to move high theory into working and selling design practice – how to design and write games that would actually afford new, interesting, alternative play experiences. This combination of strong authorship ideals, high theory discourse, and a DIY publishing spirit mirrors that of “independent” moviemaking, which may be one reason for the label “indie RPG.” In its most active period (2001–2006), The Forge became a sounding board for designers who did not mind intense engagement with Edwards (White 2015, 95). Arguments frequently challenged assumptions about how a game was being designed, and evidence from actual play (even if anecdotal) trumped designer intuition. The resulting games galvanized the indie TRPG scene and sold at The Forge booth at Gen Con: The Shadow of Yesterday (2004), Breaking the Ice (2005), and Dogs in the Vineyard (2005), to name a few. One central outcome of The Forge is the so-called Big Model, commonly illustrated as follows: [Social Contract[Exploration[Creative Agenda=>[Techniques[Ephemera]]]]] According to Boss, each of these nested levels corresponds with a core assumption of Forge Theory: 1 Social Contract: role-playing games are social activities (Edwards) 2 Exploration: what happens in the shared fiction is determined by consensus of the participants (Baker) 3 Creative Agenda: players have different, sometimes conflicting preferences about desired styles of play (Edwards) 4 Techniques: rules are all of the methods through which we enact our play (Lehman) 5 Ephemera: system is the sum total of rules used as they are put into play in a particular game session and includes non-formalized interactions between participants. (Boss 2008) The Big Model provides an example for theory as a team effort. The Forge participants formed a model that unified and connected different threads. Its components are hardly unique: Toni Sihvonen already conceptualized RPGs as a social contract in 1997, and Jaakko Stenros and Henri Hakkarainen cast RPGs as being fundamentally about social interaction in 2002. But the Big Model arguably integrated the functional components of an RPG, from hit points to artwork to audience assumptions to the way it is discussed out of game as integral to its design. It was a first major synthesis that enabled key future work, such as Markus Montola’s “The Invisible Rules of Role-Playing” (2009) or J. Tuomas Harviainen’s “Hermeneutical Approach to Role-Playing Analysis” (2009). Big Model A collaboratively produced theoretical model of the main functional components and processes of TRPG play.

A similar fervent mixture of high theorizing and design experimentation would breed a new kind of larp around the annual Knutepunkt convention, rotating between Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Finland (Stenros and Montola 2010, 10).

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Knutepunkt An annual Nordic larp convention, cycling between Nordic countries since 1997. Called Knutpunkt in Swedish, Knudepunkt in Danish, and Solmukohta in Finnish, its literal translation is meeting point or nodal point. Talks and a book series accompanying the convention since 2001 cover larp and RPG design, theory, and criticism, making Knutepunkt an influential hotbed of larp theorizing.

Several early Knutepunkt theorists with “artistic and/or media aspirations” from different larp scenes sought to create “experiences outside the mundane norm” (Harviainen 2005). Resultant larps, such as Carolus Rex (1999)\ or PehmoYdin (2001), pushed the boundaries of what could be asked of players. Alongside artistic games, Knutepunkt spawned a culture of writing artistic (and somewhat tongue-in-cheek) manifestos. The opening was made by the Dogma 99 (1999) manifesto, proclaiming larp “as a medium and a form of art.” It was modeled after Nordic indie moviemakers Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg’s Dogme 95 manifesto, demanding an authentic cinema stripped of Hollywood artifice. Just as Dogme 95 did away with artificial lighting, editing, and the like, the Dogma 99 “Vow of Chastity” asked role-players to strip larp from game masters or game mechanics prescribing, staging, or steering action in favor of action and experience emerging from player interaction. It further demanded that “no object shall be used to represent another object.” As its lead authors, Eirik Fatland and Lars Wingård, explained, this restriction was expressly intended to free larp from conventions and clichés inherited from mainstream TRPGs (Fatland and Wingård 1999). Dogma 99 The first in a series of manifestos authored by larp designers around the annual Knutepunkt convention, articulating particular larp design philosophies. Dogma 99 proclaimed larp an art form and demanded an authentic, minimalist design style, stripped from prior convention and artifice.

Finnish larpwright Mike Pohjola responded with the Turku Manifesto in 2000, which declared in-character immersion and simulation of social interaction to be desirable aesthetic ideals of larp. In turn, it devalued the common TRPG playstyles of “gamism” (playing to win) and “dramatism” (playing to tell a story). Realizing these new aesthetic ideals would require the player “to obey the game master’s every wish concerning the style of play.” (Pohjola 2000). In this, Pohjola responded both to The Forge theory and to Dogma 99, which sought to minimize the game master (GM)’s role. The “Turku school” would be one influence, next to the Danish “freeform” TRPG tradition cultivated at the TRPG convention Fastaval and certain Swedish GM techniques, which would lead to the pan-Nordic “Jeepform” movement in the mid-2000s (Wrigstad 2008). Jeepform’s intense and sometimes sociopathic game design drove designers to see how serious topics should be treated in games. In 2002, Stenros and Hakkarainen wrote yet another manifesto: “The Meilahti School: thoughts on Role-playing.” It aimed to refocus the debate on capturing what RPGs are rather than prescribing what they should be. It strived for an academic, descriptive vision of not just larp but TRPGs too. The Meilahti manifesto defines TRPGs and larp on the basis of social interaction, which excluded CRPGs and solo RPGs. Many parallel manifestos came into the European larp world – the Key Manifesto (2001), Roihuvuori Manifesto (2002), Bristol ­Manifesto (2007), Vademecum of the Karstic Style (2009) – which prompted Harviainen (2010) to write “The Manifesto Manifesto,” a theory piece that nicely summarizes these manifestos’ “statements of habit and intent” and praises them for becoming “the [tools] of honest larp design.”

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More generally, self-reflexive, intellectually articulate RPG design, using the methods and language of art (over “game” and “entertainment”), became the hallmark of what one now calls “Nordic larp.” The concept and community emerged from Norwegian, Swedish, ­Danish, and Finnish larp scenes’ collaborating and recognizing their distinct unity compared to TRPG and other forms of larp. Since 2010, Nordic larp has been expanding internationally although not without some contention (“Content Larp Manifesto,” 2016). Among other things, it was the publication of Nordic larp discourse itself that made it so consequential: annual Knutepunkt books full of RPG theorizing activity were published starting in 2001 with The Book (2001). In this discourse community, manifestos were published next to academic articles, which stood next to grainy photos of people in costumes and diagrams showing how emergent story works. Theorycrafting Modeling, testing, and reverse engineering the underlying mechanics of a game to determine optimal play strategies, often found around MORPGs.

Parallel to TRPG and larp theorizing, “theorycrafting” emerged as a practice around MORPGs: players reverse engineer the actual algorithms of a given game to optimize their play strategies (Ask 2017). Using de facto scientific methods, players began to determine, by experimentation, how much damage each weapon did, what possible equipment and gear one can get from killing particular enemies, etc., documenting all this knowledge online. MORPGs like World of Warcraft or EverQuest formed co-creative cultures in which game design shapes player practice, player practice shapes player theory, then players respond to this with different practice and game designers with changes to the game’s design (Taylor 2006; Nardi 2010). Theorycrafting relies on, and is intertwined with, community: “group goals” (Chen 2012, 156) govern and supersede individual thinkers and their interests, and in-group social and cultural capital structures theory as much as individual curiosity and desire to optimize one’s play.

2006-Present – Diaspora and Divisions While fan theorizing grew and formalized during the early 2000s, it has entered a period of diaspora since 2006 because people and ideas are moving from their “original territory” of The Forge and Nordic larp to others. Deeply informed by those scenes, today’s RPG theorizing is seen to have no “central” physical and cultural nodes. Then again, this is a perception of fragmentation against the background of a nostalgically imagined ideal unity of a past that the actual The Forge and Nordic scene never were (vivsavage 2012). In essence, the Nordic larp community modeled how to create conceptually, artistically, and financially more ambitious larps. Documenting and publishing thought, accessible online as PDF, constituted an important first step. The model spread: Germany formed its own pan-­ German larp conference, Mittelpunkt, in 2006 in direct response to Knutepunkt. The Czech Republic followed with Odraz (in 2008), then Italy with the Larp Symposium in Firenze (2010, 2011), Poland with KOLA (2011), and the US with Wyrd Con (2010) and Living Games (2014, 2016) – each with their own publication series. As German larper Stefan Jordan put it, before Knudepunkt, “larp theory = Flamewars in larp Info,” whereas today, “Scandinavia has a (globally) peerless forum for the engagement with larp theory and praxis” ( Jordan 2006). The Forge and several successful years of indie RPG sales at Gen Con produced similar impulses for TRPG theory. Independent scholars and designers published their own theory

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books, such as Jonathan Walton’s Push: New Thinking about Roleplaying (2006) and Laws’s Hamlet’s Hit Points (2010). Forums modeled on The Forge sprang up, such as France’s Les ateliers imaginaires and Structured Freeform or The Story Games forum, which spawned from the annual “Birthday Forum” threads on The Forge: one-day, unstructured discussion threads (Kitkowski 2006). Much of The Forge community discussion moved to Story Games after a scandal around Edwards’ using the words “brain damage” to describe players unable to break certain RPG habits (White 2015). Old School Renaissance A design movement starting in the mid-2000s, publishing TRPGs and modules that try to emulate the feel of early 1970s and 1980s fantasy RPGs.

Also in 2006, John Tarnowski (aka RPGPundit) founded TheRPGSite, which became a rightwing platform for attacking The Forge and RPG.net and their adherents as well as a home for some of the so-called Old School Renaissance (OSR) TRPG movement. The OSR involved earnest publishing and theorizing efforts around clones of D&D that “embodied a spirit of wild inventiveness and brash disregard for commercial viability” as well as an ethos of “rulings, not rules” – the GM arbitrating the game rather than the game designer (Maliszewski 2009). Fight On! (2008–2013) and Knockspell (2009–2013) are fanzines representative of the OSR movement. Despite occasional status battles between OSR and Story Games (White 2015), the two communities overlap significantly. Thanks to cheap Internet bandwidth and digital recording technology, the podcast became a major format of RPG theorizing. It allowed designers and theorists to become media personalities in their own right, mixing theory with side jokes and music (cf. Rhoer 2007). Notable RPG theorizing podcasts include Theory from the Closet (2007–), Narrative Control (2008–), The Jank Cast (2009–), Jennisodes (2009–2013), and Design Games (2015–2016). Similarly, the blogosphere expanded from 2005 on as a public theorizing medium for many game designers, with titles such as anyway (2004–), Deeper in the Game (2007–), Gnome Stew (2008–), Grognardia (2008–2012), Sin Aesthetics (2005–2011), RPG Theory Review (2006–2008), The CRPG Addict (2010–), or LevelCapped (2014–). Today, forums, podcasts, and blogs are joined by social media. A sizable community of RPG theorists moved to Google+ after its launch in 2011. Facebook has become a major hub for larp discussion because many larpers “friend” each other after large games. Facebook groups, such as “Larp Sanctuary” and “Larpers BFF,” boast ­thousands of members, are actively moderated, and now must reckon with the politics of counting “Likes” on specific threads and responses. One can see the parallel growth of more traditional websites and wikis, like Nordiclarp.org (2012–). As platforms proliferate, consolidate, and fragment again, RPG theory discussions will continue unabated.

Major Debates in RPG Theorizing Best Practices in Design and Play Most RPG theorizing comes in the guise of advice: how to design and play RPGs “well.” While advice usually presents itself as objective and universal, it is useful to remember that any advice entails some normative notion of how RPGs should be and that it comes from a specific play culture at a specific moment and presumes a specific target audience with specific tastes, interests, and capacities.

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Gygax and Dave Arneson are forerunners of the advice strain of RPG theory. Gygax’s Dragon magazine column “From the Sorcerer’s Scroll” (1978–1985) channeled his analytical and design energies into dialog with the TRPG community. It shone when Gygax focused on straight advice for dungeon masters (DMs), such as “Making Monsters Meaningful”: The game is supposed to be overseen by a disinterested judge, referee, and moderator. The DM creates the milieu, sets the stage, and then observes and relates information. The important part usually overlooked is the active (but still impartial) role of the DM as the force behind each and every creature encountered not otherwise represented by a player. Every NPC and monster encountered is a lifeless shell until filled by the DM’s vital activity…. If each DM knew his or her monster and NPCs, then the game would begin to resemble what it is meant to be. (Gygax 1980) Here, Gygax articulates not merely the rules of the game but the social responsibilities of a DM (disinterested judge, referee, moderator, vitality giver). The normative underpinnings of this passage come into light when compared with e.g. the Dogma 99 manifesto’s rejection of any DM steering. Or consider the vastly different “best practices” in game design between different communities. Janna Silverstein’s Complete Kobold Guide to Game Design (2012) identifies three legs of design: practical techniques, adventure narratives, and playtesting and publishing, enshrining the 40-year-plus D&D model of TRPGs. It assumes designers want to hit the mainstream. Compare this to Vincent Baker’s (2012a) “3 problems” approach to TRPGs: they have an oppressive social footprint (take too much time and energy to play), counterproductive procedures of play (you need to know what Luke Skywalker’s Strength stat is before initiating play), and opaque content (you need to read up on a lot of lore). Baker assumes an indie RPG audience is willing to question what a TRPG even is in order to make RPGs accessible. Compare both to Fatland’s “Players are co-designers” (2012). Where Silverstein and Baker frame the designer’s role as solving the puzzle of how to get players to behave, Fatland emphasizes an inherent tension and balance between designer and player agency. And compare that to the Mixing Desk of Larp (Nielsen and Andresen 2013). This framework conceives of larp design as a series of “faders” – faithfulness to the setting, transparency, level of pressure on the players, etc. – so that designers make design choices not by habit or default but by awareness of the range of possible larp designs. Where Silverstein’s or Fatland’s best practices suggest solid “core loops” of anticipation, action, and reward/punishment as the main consideration and uniform normative ideal of design, the Mixing Desk implicitly values a conscious diversity of forms and considerations. Theories of good and bad play abound, many of these weaving in and out of the discourse of player typologies (see below). In a recent Reddit thread, nottimportant666 (2015) asks whether or not s/he is playing the CRPG Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition (2012) incorrectly: I feel… like I’m not fully exploring and understanding the world but at the same time… I should be hurrying along since the game takes days into account and I’ve heard people will leave your party if you take to [sic.] long to do parts of the main quest. The advice s/he receives is to finish one specific side quest to get it out of the way and then take her/his time to finish the game. An even more overt example is World of Warcraft theorycrafting

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advice on the site Elitist Jerks: thousands of pages of statements, such as “Ability queuing based on your latency now extends beyond actions with a cast time and to instants” (Exemplar 2010), that all imply that “good play” means play that is maximally efficient in progressing characters and winning battles and raids as opposed to, say, exploring the world.

Player and System Typologies Maybe the most prominent form of RPG theory is player and system typologies that draw up distinct categories of play preferences or motivations and system designs that speak to these (→ Chapter 13). Such typologies can help find or design a game or assemble a group of players with “fitting” style (Tuunanen and Hamari 2012). But they also reduce the rich diversity of play into false sharp distinctions, can be endlessly debated (and rarely with much grounding in evidence), and are sometimes pejorative of certain play styles (Tuunanen and Hamari 2012).

Box 10.1  A Timeline of Popular Play(er) Typologies 1970: Perren, “WARriors vs. GAMErs” 1980: Blacow, “Four Styles of Role-play” 1988: Allston, “Types of Champions players” 1996: Bartle, “Player Psychology” 1997: Kuhner, “Threefold” 1999: RGFA, “GNS” 2001: Powell, “GEN” 2001: Laws, “Player Types” 2002: Niñoles, “System Color” 2011: McDiarmid: “Player Motives”

In the 1960s, wargamers began classifying (and debating the respective merit of ) WARriors concerned with accurately simulating war versus GAMErs seeking a fun game (Gygax 1970). Along these lines, Blacow (1980) intuited four “aspects” of adventure gaming: power gaming (enjoying winning via amassed in-game power), role-playing (developing and enacting characters), wargaming (solving tactical combat problems), and story-telling (crafting a consistent plot). Blacow articulated another hopeful function of such typologies: recognizing that RPGs are a complex medium affording multiple different styles and aspects of play may help calm fiery debates about “right” or “wrong” play and facilitate a more mature and tolerant negotiation of personal preferences instead. In 1988, Aaron Allston used a GM advice section of a Champions supplement to devise his own colorful “Types of Champions Players”: builder (wants agency/impact), buddy (seeks player socializing), combat monster (seeks fights), copier (imitates non-RPG character), genre fiend (imitates entire genre), mad slasher (kills everything), mad thinker (seeks puzzle solutions), plumber (delves deep into characters), romantic (seeks in-character relationships), rules rapist (bends rules), showoff (seeks spotlight), pro from Dover (wants an awesome character), tragedian (plays to lose). While this typology was cast as GM and player advice (helping to recognize and manage co-players), its labels were pejorative and inflammatory (Gleichman 2009b).

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Laws’s Laws of Good Game Mastering (2001) combined Blacow’s aspects and Allston’s types to similarly help GMs run game sessions that fit the preferences of their players. He distinguished power gamers (wanting to win and grow their characters), butt-kickers (seeking catharsis from combat encounters), tacticians (wanting realistic strategic puzzles), specialists (enamored with playing a particular character), method actors (self-expressing through character enactment), storytellers (wanting to co-create a well-formed narrative), and casual gamers (seeking RPGs to socialize with friends). Threefold Model An influential typology of three dimensions of TRPG play preferences or styles, namely, gamism, dramatism, and simulationism. Gamism captures playing to win by overcoming challenges, dramatism playing to tell and experience stories, simulationism playing to model a coherent world by following its internal logic.

Parallel to this thread of published game designers, the Usenet group RGFA gave birth to what is probably the best known TRPG typology, the so-called Threefold Model. The term was coined by Mary Kuhner in a 1997 posting, and the model was summarized and expanded in a series of FAQ postings by John H. Kim (2008). “[R]ecognizing that there are valid different goals for gaming,” the model articulated three dimensions of play styles called dramatism, gamism, and simulationism: ‘Dramatist’ is the style which values how well the in-game action creates a satisfying storyline…. ‘Gamist’ is the style which values setting up a fair challenge for the players (as opposed to the PCs). ‘Simulationist’ is the style which values resolving in-game events based solely on game-world considerations, without allowing any meta-game concerns to affect the decision. (Kim 2008) The Threefold Model would later be recast as the “Creative Agendas” in The Forge’s Big Model, although the Big Model replaced dramatism with “narrativism” and labeled the resulting triad GNS (Gamist, Simulationist, Narrativist) (Cover 2010). Edwards’s extensive essays (2001) on each agenda became standard reading. Aaron Powell (2001) drafted GEN (Gamism, Exploration, Narrative) Theory in response, arguing that it captured gameplay desires, not techniques like the Big Model. Meanwhile, Fabien Niñoles (2002) created a “System Color” typology, describing design aesthetics along a color spectrum: consistent red privileged simulationist approaches, fluid green privileged systems that were light and easy to handle, and immersive blue privileged mood and atmosphere. Easily the most influential player typology in CRPGs and MORPGs are Bartle’s four MUD player types, a model that again sprang from an online discussion thread: [There was] a long, heated discussion which ran from November 1989 to May 1990 between … highly experienced players … on one particular commercial MUD. The debate was sparked by the question “What do people want out of a MUD?” and comprised several hundred bulletin-board postings, some of considerable length … When the participants had finally run out of new things to say, it became time for me (as senior administrator) to summarise. (Bartle 1995)

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Bartle found that the answers could be mapped in a 2×2 quadrant with two axes: Players vs. World and Interacting vs. Acting. Achievers want to act on the world, i.e. winning battles and progressing with their character, while explorers like to interact with the world, discovering it and how it works. Socializers enjoy interacting with people, while killers enjoy acting on others, dominating them and causing grief. Bartle (2004) later replaced the model with eight player types, but his original four “Bartle types” remained highly influential and contested, spurring a popular online self-test as well as significant later academic scholarship on play preferences, which broadened our understanding of player preferences and player types (e.g. Yee 2007, 2016; Kallio et al. 2011). “Bartle Types” A colloquial term for a typology of four player preferences in MUDs: achievers wanting to win and progress, explorers wanting to discover the virtual world, socializers wanting to socialize, and killers wanting to impose themselves on others.

In larp, Sarah Lynne Bowman (2010) and Rob McDiarmid (2011) have created typologies involving up to 16 different player motivations, used for larp research and casting to this day. Here, as in other RPG forms, typologies were intended to provide a language for communicating and negotiating preferences. On the same token, many in the community (Kitkowski, in Black 2012) have expressed frustration with typologies as being overly divisive for what they contribute.

Task Resolution A core process of RPG play is task resolution: determining whether a player character succeeds at a task in the game world (→ Chapter 18). Ideas about task resolution drive system thinking in TRPGs as well as a player’s reception of their character’s actions. One influential para-­ academic model is fictional positioning (Chinn 2008, Baker 2012b). In traditional board games, what can happen next is fully determined by the rules. In TRPGs, however, the state of the fictional world conjured also determines what can happen next. The fictional world sometimes interacts with and sometimes supersedes the rules (especially in the case of freeform games → Chapter 8): if a player manages through uncontroversial character actions in the game world to position a vat of tar atop an oncoming monster, she will likely be able to stop the monster by dropping the vat, even if there are no explicit rules for this situation. Another model is DFK, devised by Tweet for the 1995 TRPG Everway. It holds that tasks can be resolved in three different ways. Drama means resolving a task without referring to numbers on the character sheet: characters simply talk their way through it or encounter no obstacles because it is important for the story or would disrupt the flow of the session. Fortune involves using a randomizing element, like dice or cards, e.g. a player character making a “Climb” roll to scale a cliff. Karma refers to a resolution based on fixed values, such as comparing the strength value of two characters to see which one wins a round of arm wrestling. Originally developed as a rule system for one game, DFK was included, among others, in the Big Model and thus is an example of a game design directly impacting RPG theory. Finally, player stance, coined by Kevin Hardwick (1995), captures a player’s relation to their character, task resolution, and adversity. Actor stance means that a player adopts the character’s attitudes and sees her available moves in a similar respect. Pawn stance means that a player is blatantly using the character to fulfill her own desires as a player. Author stance means that a

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player sees the character against the backdrop of a broader story and will make decisions that improve that story – regardless of whether or not it goes well for the character. Director stance means that the player has agency beyond just her character and can affect the wider world around her, framing scenes, creating non-player characters (NPCs), etc. The articulation of these four stances, like DFK above, opened up space for different ways of designing, playing, and understanding RPGs. Later, larp theory, such as the concept of “steering” (Montola, Saitta and Stenros 2015) – the conscious direction of a character in accordance with the player’s ­desires – could be seen as extensions of this model.

Societal Positionings RPGs do not exist in a vacuum. They are informed by and informing the culture around them (→ Chapters 9 and 26). Since the 2000s, a variety of parties have tried to theorize and challenge how inclusive and open the various RPG communities are. One of the older debates in this area concerns gender, namely that RPGs appear to be a male-dominated activity whose publications sport female-denigrating to outright misogynist stereotypes, goes back to early Dragon magazine articles by Len Lakof ka (1976) and P. M. ­Crabaugh (1977). A whole feminist RPG theory ecosystem has since developed around issues of gender in gaming. A collective of women designers formed the theory blog Gaming as Women in 2012, with an emphasis on the diversity of content and the importance of a feminist lens in confronting many aspects of geek culture. In MORPG culture, bloggers such as Alex Pickens (2008) examined women’s representation in game artwork as well as a widespread misogynistic culture that cuts across different player types. Sexuality in RPGs has also remained under-theorized until work in this past decade, most notably by Emma Wieslander (2004) and Lizzie Stark (2013) (→ Chapter 25). Wieslander’s larp Mellan himmel och hav (2003) helped institutionalize his technique of Ars Amandi, a means of using arm touching as a meta technique for in-character intimate touch. Ars Amandi set off a flurry of theoretical activity: here was a way of simulating sex that would have similarly interesting consequences to parallel combat mechanics. TRPGs such as Emily Care Boss’s Breaking the Ice (2006) and Baker’s Apocalypse World (2010) would explicitly include sex mechanics, and Nordic larp scenes, such as Fastaval, saw an influx of more scenarios with explicitly articulated sexuality mechanics (Stark 2013). Finally, race and ethnicity have become topics of fan-theoretical debate over the last decade. That being said, bringing up the question of representations of non-white people in an online forum is likely to start a flame war within three or four posts. In March 2009, for example, Eric Provost states on Story Games that he would “like to talk in this thread about how race and racism affects my game, your game, and the people who you and I would like to be designing and playing but aren’t because they have a perception of being excluded” (Provost 2009). Within three comments, there is already a self-redacted post by chearns: “I typed in something, but this is the Internet and is not a safe space, there is no point to my responding” (chearns on Provost 2009). Much of the rest of the thread was spent dealing with the contentiousness of the thread itself. Numerous members of Story Games vacated the forum between 2008 and 2009 as debates around racism in RPGs could not be resolved satisfactorily. Chris Chinn (2015) took up the discussion again after a fractious debate in RPG.net on cultural appropriation, with the useful question “Does your media perpetuate stereotypes of a group?” He proposed acknowledging culture’s inherent racial bias and actually researching and interacting with members of a given culture before writing a game about them. Advice like Chinn’s has

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become the primary means for people of color within the community to have a say in a debate dominated by white voices, both sympathetic and otherwise. For example, A. A. George (2014) recently advocated that Gen Con diversify its guests of honor and listen to people of color when they come forward with complaints. In this respect, structural solutions to what George calls “gaming’s race problem” may also improve the theorizing and discussion on the topic in the future.

Summary “I will now tell you why everybody roleplays. I don’t need any variation on a threefold schema, nor will I carefully hedge my claims. My theory covers everyone ever including you. Especially you” (Henley 2011). This quote, from a blog post titled “The Secret: A Complete, Universal Theory of Roleplaying Games in One Post,” encapsulates much of RPG theorizing as discussed in this chapter. First, it appeared as a personal blog post, standing in the long line of personal and semiprofessional fan publishing history. Here, we could see an evolution from fan magazines (fanzines) to online bulletin boards, web rings, online fora and, today, social media and wikis, and a relatively homogeneous early US/UK-centered and TRPG-focused discourse community, proliferating and splitting into multiple communities in different regions, languages, and around different RPG forms, with particular hotbeds around TRPGs on the online forum The Forge and around larp with the Knutepunkt convention. Second, it picks up one of a few perennial debates: realism versus playability; task resolution; game design and play advice; gender, ethnicity, and sex; and, finally, the subject matter of the post, player and system typologies – what people enjoy about playing RPGs, how different people may have different preferences or styles, and how game design may accommodate that. The post responds dismissively to one of the most influential typologies, the Threefold Model, trying to focus the discussion on what “really” matters – player emotion – while also trying to claim a middle ground: “The thing is, different people’s emotional responses to different gaming techniques differ.” (Henley 2011). This move – third – can be found again and again: “Making different kinds of games to support different kinds of play and different kinds of people shouldn’t de-legitimize the kinds of play that already exist” (Mo 2014). “People can often enjoy many different types of games. And if someone starts playing these ‘wrong’ games, they probably are getting something they missed elsewhere” (Webb 2015). Each time, a new piece of theory wishes to end fruitless debate and provide a big ecumenical tent of tolerance, yet by contributing a new piece that disagrees with previous ones, it does the opposite: continues the debate. While Jim Henley’s blog post overtly makes light of the self-seriousness of RPG theory, it also tries to make its own theory stick. We see here some of the motives for RPG theorizing that we identified at work: the joy of intellectual argument (and connecting over it), the desire to help design and play “better” (implying particular normative ideas about what “good” means), and the jockeying for social status and recognition within one’s community. Finally, fourth, we see the almost eternal return of debates and points made previously (Henley’s appeals to affect theory are far from new) due to the ephemeral nature and fragmented structure of RPG theorizing. As Pierre Bourdieu (1984, 107) put it, “To account for the infinite diversity of practices[, one has] to reconstruct the networks of interrelated relationship which are present in each.” In this respect, valiant attempts to capture its history (Kim 2004; Mason 2004; Boss 2008, 2014; Gleichman 2009a) can only scratch the surface.

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Cultural sociology ( Jones 2012) may prove just as helpful. Future research on RPG theorizing will likely reveal just how rhizomatic our processes and means of thought and communication actually are.

Acknowledgements I owe much of this chapter to the many theorists throughout the RPG community but in particular would like to thank Jon Peterson, Jérôme Larré, Vincent Baker, and Emily Care Boss for their invaluable contributions.

Notes 1 Due to the nature of RPGs, I use the terms “fan” and “player” interchangeably. 2 http://us.battle.net/forums/en/wow. 3 https://groups.google.com/forum/?hl=en#!topic/rec.games.frp.advocacy/axVhdEIaxKo%5B76100%5D. 4 www.darkshire.net/jhkim/rpg/theory/threefold/rgfa_links.html.

Further Reading Ask, Kristine. 2017. “The Value of Calculations: The Coproduction of Theorycraft and Player ­Practices.” Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society. https://doi.org/10.1177/0270467617690058. Boss, Emily Claire. 2008. “Key Concepts in Forge Theory.” In Playground Worlds, eds. Markus Montola and Jaakko Stenros. Helsinki: Ropecon ry, 132–147. Harviainan, J. Tuomas. 2010. “The Manifesto Manifesto.” In Playing Reality, eds. Elge Larsson. ­Stockholm: Interacting Arts, 243–249. Mason, Paul. 2004. “In Search of the Self: A Survey of the First 25 Years of Anglo-American Role-­ Playing Game Theory.” In Beyond Role and Play, eds. Markus Montola and Jaakko Stenros. Helsinki: Ropecon, 1–14. Nordiclarp.org.

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Koebel, Adam. 2014. “A thought.” Google+. July 10. https://plus.google.com/+AdamKoebel/posts/ dvAnPn93KtL. Accessed August 29, 2015. Konzack, Lars. 2014. “The Origins of Geek Culture.” In Wyrd Con Companion Book, ed. Sarah Lynne Bowman. Los Angeles, CA: Wyrd Con, 52–59. Kubasik, Christopher. 1995. “The Interactive Toolkit: Part One: Simulation or Story?” White Wolf Inphobia 50. www.rpg.net/oracle/essays/itoolkit1.html. Accessed December 1, 2015. Lakof ka, Len. 1976. “Notes on Women & Magic—Bringing the Distaff Gamer into D&D.” The Dragon 1.3, 7–10. Laws, Robin D. 1995. “The Hidden Art: Slouching Towards A Critical Framework for RPGs.” ­Inter*Action 1. https://web.archive.org/web/20160210035738/http://www.rpg.net:80/oracle/essays/ hiddenart.html. Accessed June 4, 2017. ———. 2001. Robin’s Laws of Good Game Mastering. Austin, TX: Steve Jackson Games. ———. 2010. Hamlet’s Hit Points. Chicago, IL: Gameplaywright Press. Lortz, Steven L. 1979. “Dramatic Structure of RPGs.” Different Worlds 2, 32–35. Maliszewski, James. 2009. “Full Circle: A History of the Old School Revival.” The Escapist. August 20. www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/tabletop/columns/days-of-high-adventure/6412-FullCircle-A-History-of-the-Old-School-Revival. Accessed December 1, 2015. Mason, Paul. 2004. “In Search of the Self: A Survey of the First 25 Years of Anglo-American Role-­ Playing Game Theory.” In Beyond Role and Play, eds. Markus Montola and Jaakko Stenros. Helsinki: Ropecon, 1–14. Masters, Phil. 1994. “On the Vocabulary of Role-Playing: Notes towards Critical Consistency?” Interactive Fantasy 2. www.philm.demon.co.uk/Miscellaneous/Vocabulary.html. Accessed November 12, 2015. McDiarmid, Rob. 2011. “Analyzing Player Motives to Inform larp Design.” In Branches of Play: The 2011 Wyrd Con Academic Companion, ed. Amber Eagar. Los Angeles: Wyrd Con, 3–26. Mo. 2014. “Fuck Stratification.” Imaginary Funerals. February 12. http://imaginaryfunerals.com/ fuck-stratification/. Accessed October 5, 2015. Montola, Markus. 2009. “The Invisible Rules of Role-Playing. The Social Framework of Role Playing Process.” International Journal of Role-Playing 1, 22–36. Montola, Markus, Eleanor Saitta, and Jaakko Stenros. 2015. “The Art of Steering – Bringing the Player and the Character Back Together.” In Knudepunkt 2015 Companion Book. eds. Charles Bo Nielsen and Claus Raasted. Copenhagen: Rollespilsakademiet. 106–117. Nardi, Bonnie. 2010. My Life as a Night Elf Priest: An Anthropological Account of World of Warcraft. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Nielsen, Martin and Martin Eckhoff Andresen. 2013. “The Mixing Desk of Larp.” In Crossing Theoretical Borders: The Official Book of Knutepunkt 2013, eds. Karete Jacobsen Meland and Katrine Øverlie Svela. Oslo: Fantasiforbundet, 71–79. Niñoles, Fabien. 2002. System Color: A Typology of RPG Mechanics. http://harmonies.tzone.org/articles/ colors/colors.html. Accessed November 27, 2015. nottimportant666. 2015. “Am I playing crpgs wrong?” Reddit. www.reddit.com/r/CRPG/comments/ 3b0d1x/am_i_playing_crpgs_wrong/. Accessed December 26, 2015. Novitz, David. 1996. “Disputes about art.” Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 54(2), 153–163. “The Oracle: Essays.” RPG.net.www.rpg.net/oracle/essays/criticism.html. Accessed August 3, 2015. Peterson, Jon. 2012. Playing at the World. San Diego, CA: Unreason Press. Pickens, Alex. 2008. “Women in MMORPGs” Alex’s Blog. November 14. https://apickens.wordpress. com/2008/11/14/women-in-mmorpgs/. Accessed September 1, 2016. Pohjola, Mike. 2000. “Manifesto of the Turku School, 3rd Edition.” http://mikepohjola.com/turku/ manifesto.html. Accessed December 27, 2015. Porter, Greg. 1995. “Where We’ve Been, Where We’re Going.” Inter*Action 1. www.rpg.net/oracle/ essays/wherewevebeen.html. Accessed February 5, 2014. Powell, Aaron. 2001. “All You Need to Know about GEN.” www.darkshire.net/jhkim/rpg/theory/ threefold/GEN01.html. Accessed June 3, 2017.

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11 Performance Studies and Role-Playing Games Sarah Hoover, David W. Simkins, Sebastian Deterding, David Meldman, and Amanda Brown

Role-play is a form of performance. We take on roles, speak and use body language to represent our characters – our own or through avatars. We engage in verbal storytelling, and we take actions in the characters’ worlds. This chapter explores the relationship between role-play and performance by drawing connections with theories and practices of social science and the performing arts fields. Role-play and performance can be viewed through the lenses of ritual and play. We commonly think of ritual as connected only to the religious, but in the social science sense, we see all cultural ceremonies as combining ritual and play. Sporting events, office meetings, court rooms, and the way friends greet each other on the street all engage in ritual. Any activity in which rules surround action is ritual; any activity in which there is room for experimentation is play. The connections between ritual, performance, theater and role-play are not recent realizations. Though modern role-playing games (RPGs) sprouted more from military wargaming than from theater, from the beginning, RPGs were seen as an interesting way of telling stories, playing characters, exploring themes and recasting traditional performance rituals in a new and personal light. Early in the development of RPGs, M.A.R. Barker’s Thursday night group was using it for collaborative storytelling (Fine 2002, 144). Greg Stafford was exploring ritual and myth (2012). Bruce Young’s interactive theater show “Dungeon Master LIVE!” (1983) brought fantasy RPGs to the stage in what was already a combination of game and theater. Whether looking to the groundwork for the field of RPG studies or seeking ways of enhancing role-play experience, we are wise to look to our cousins in theater and performance studies. This chapter begins with the basis of role-play as ritual performance, moves to an exploration of how we understand the rules of performative play and then finishes with a contextualization of theater and role-play theory and practice. Throughout, we will discuss some concepts and techniques from performance that can enhance our understanding of role-play.

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Performance and Ritual Many scholars in anthropology, philosophy and theater have noted deep similarities among a cluster of universal human practices commonly called performance or ritual: play, ritual, shamanism, magic, theater, sports, dance, music, art-making, storytelling, celebrations and many others (Schechner 2002, 11). Some argue that these similarities stem from a shared historical origin: at the beginning of human culture, play and ritual formed one intertwined sacer ludus, holy game, and from it, drama and the other performance genres sprang (Huizinga 1949; Schechner 2003, 1–6). Others explain storytelling and art-making evolutionarily as cognitive play with a form that is adaptive because it facilitates cultural innovation and trains pattern recognition, causal reasoning and inferring the internal states of others (Boyd 2009; Dutton 2009). Yet others hold that such origin stories will always remain speculative and thus of little use (Schechner 2003, 7). Ritual A type or style of action where behaviors are stylized such that they lose immediate practical function and gain experiential and meaning-making functions. For instance, the ritual of drinking wine during Christian Eucharist does not serve to quench thirst but to remind Christians of Christ’s sacrifice and union with them.

However one may explain the formal similarities of performances, contemporary RPGs unquestionably share many of them. Indeed, RPGs have often been likened to performance genres, like pretense play and ritual (Harviainen and Lieberoth 2012), theater (Simkins 2015) or narrative (Mackay 2001), and several scholars have explicitly engaged in comparing RPGs with or framing them as theater, ritual or performance, more generally (Bowman 2010, 2015b, 2015c; Montola and Stenros 2010; Bergström 2012; Harviainen and Lieberoth 2012; Stenros 2013). Many designers and players have intentionally incorporated aspects of other performance genres into their RPGs. Finally, when designers create RPGs or players encounter them, they do so already informed by their cultural knowledge of the other performance genres. Hence, regardless of whether theater or narrative or others “directly influenced” the first RPGs (and how could they not have, given their cultural ubiquity?), viewing RPGs through the lens of performance can enrich our understanding of them. To this end, the present section articulates and relates central features, types and functions of performance to RPGs.

Characteristics So, to begin: what prototypical features are found across different kinds of performance? First, performances are “restored” or “twice-behaved” behaviors: they are something people repeat, practice, prepare for, rehearse – and/or the transformed repetition of some other behavior (Schechner 2002, 22). In theater, both are the case: actors rehearse a script, and the script is the representation of other, fictional behaviors. Performance Restored behavior, that is, behavior that is repeated, practiced, prepared for, rehearsed or representing some other behavior. Apart from being (1) restored behaviors, performances are usually (2) enacted with an audience in mind, (3) ritualized, (4) producing new meanings and (5) made special, designed to stand out of the “everyday.”

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Second, performances are often intended to affect observing participants (2002, 23). They frequently entail the situational roles of actor and spectator, although the two roles can coincide in the same persons. Even solitary religious rituals are usually directed at an audience – albeit a supernatural one. Third, performances are “ritualized” (Stephenson 2015, 8–20): they involve behaviors and objects that are exaggerated, emphasized, formalized or patterned according to a socially shared knowledge of forms, in short, made more readily recognizable to increase their communicative function, sometimes to the point where behavior loses any practical effect and becomes purely symbolic. Alexander Alland (1977) coined the useful term “transformation-­representation” to describe this process for art-making: materials, events and actions are modulated such that they gain a new socially legitimate representational function. As a result, performances are usually “non-productive” in terms of immediate bodily survival or economic gain (Schechner 2003, 11–12). This does not mean that performances can’t have any practical social effects (instantiating a new king) or even bodily ones: in the course of a Christian sacrament, people do eat bread and drink wine. It just means that symbolic meanings and connected experiences are the legitimate main purpose of a performance. As a result – fourth – the actions and props of performances instantiate a shared frame of meanings (→ Chapter 12): these may be primary social meanings, like “married” in the case of a wedding ritual, or secondary fictional meanings, like “cops and robbers chasing each other” in the case of play. A frequent experiential quality of performances is the iridescent simultaneity of meanings that André Droogers (1996, 53) called “the ludic”: “the capacity to deal simultaneously and subjunctively with two or more ways of classifying reality.” Fifth and finally, performances are “made special” (Dissanayake 1999), designed to stand out from the stream of everyday life. They organize space, time and action (Schechner 2003, 8–10, 12–15) to temporarily excite and bind heightened levels of joint arousal, affect and attention. This typically involves compressing behaviors and events into one tightly interwoven spatial and temporal knot and bracketing them from everyday life through spatial, temporal and communicative bounds (→ Chapter 12). Also, this means that performances are enacted and attended to with special care – or at least expected to be. Effort and skill is put into the design of behavioral and material forms, and there is usually at least some appreciation and enjoyment of such artistic craftsmanship.

Functions of Performance Given these characteristics, the question arises: why do performances entail them? For what function or effect? Anthropologists have long argued that rituals serve to reproduce the social order, ties and power structures of a group (Stephenson 2015). By stoking intense experiences of shared emotion, attention, understanding and action, they create communitas (Turner 1982) or “effervescence” (Durkheim 1964; Collins 2004): a “we”-feeling of group belonging, unity and solidarity. In addition, performances like rites, theater plays, or sagas often depict (and thus, teach and reinforce) the group’s myths – perceived self-evident stories that integrate personal experience with basic assumptions of how the world and group does and should operate (E. A. Schultz and Lavenda 2005, 195). Through “making special,” performances focus attention, stoke emotion and, thus, facilitate memorization of what is important to a culture (Dissanayake 1999).

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Box 11.1  Three Functional Forms of Performance Anthropologist Don Handelman (1998) has developed a useful typology of three functional forms of performances (which he calls “public events”). First are events that model social reality. These structure action to achieve a certain change of affairs. Common examples are rites of passage, weddings, drug trips or evangelical services: They all exist to transform the social status of participants through witnessed acts and/or the participants’ beliefs and values through a literally transformative experience. Then there are events that present: military parades, religious processions, political rallies – in short, events that present the normative ideal of conduct and order in that group. Third are events that re-present, that compare and contrast social reality – be it that they decry a fall from grace, critique the group’s order and myths themselves or present visions of alternative orders, myths and realities. Medieval carnival, Brechtian theater or public protests are ready examples.

Ritual theorist Victor Turner (1982) offered another useful functional-historical distinction between liminal and liminoid performances. Roughly speaking, Turner held that in pre-modern societies, ritual and other performances are fully integrated in the social order. All of life is one cosmic ritual “work of the Gods”: religious service, social order, and private life fall into one. In theory, performances like rites of passage or carnival could perturb this unity as they often entail a socially risky “threshold” (lat. limen) phase of disorder, chaos, playful inversion and recombination of “proper” forms of conduct. Yet this temporary state of liminality is safely couched and functionalized: it serves to discharge energies of dissent and dissatisfaction and to show the horror of being thrown into the chaos outside the group. In contrast, in modern, secularized, individualist cultures, performances retain many of their formal features, yet they become dislodged from their religious and social embedding and functions. In Turner’s word, they become liminoid, not liminal: modern art, theater and literature is set free to critique society or be enjoyed for its own sake; parties, games, movies, sports and other events are still “made special” in that they are designed to excite and bind attention, arousal and affect but chiefly as private options, not public (let alone religious) obligations and for no higher purpose than personal leisure, entertainment and socializing.

RPGs as Performance Restored, audience-involving, ritualized, meaning-making, made-special behaviors; communitas; events that model, present and re-present social life and myths; the liminal and the liminoid – these are just brief excerpts from the lively fields of performance studies (Schechner 2002) and ritual studies (Stephenson 2015). Even so, viewing RPGs in the context of their performance precursors and parallels readily generates some valuable observations. First, comparing RPGs to the characteristics of performance quickly deflates the exceptionalism of early game scholarship, which portrayed games as set apart from other human practices by formal features commonly subsumed under the label “magic circle” (Stenros 2014). For, as Johan Huizinga (1949) himself already noted, these features unite RPGs (and games more generally) with performance practices. For instance, viewing both RPGs and art-making as performance puts the question “Can RPGs be art?” on different footing

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(see e.g. Stenros 2010, 305–306). Like other performances, RPGs involve restored, transformed-­ represented behaviors, though interestingly with the generative openness of pretense play or sports. Actions in RPGs are always communicative, ranging from the fully symbolic (pixels and sounds in computer RPGs, verbal descriptions in tabletop RPGs) to the iconic in live-action role-play (larp). The shared creation of a frame of meanings is recognized as a core characteristic of RPGs (→ Chapter 12). What Ellen Dissanayake describes as making special, game scholars know well as the avowed main goal of playing RPGs – “fun,” “immersion” or “­ engagement” – and the so-called magic circle (→ Chapter 22). And RPGs are noted to evoke feelings of communitas and form and be carried by strong communities of play around them (e.g. Pearce and Boellstorff 2009) (→ Chapter 21). Beyond deflating the exceptionalism of RPGs, a comparison with common formal features of performances also foregrounds interesting specifics of RPGs that are only beginning to receive research attention: for instance, as in e.g. pretense play, rituals or happenings, RPG participants are both actors and spectators (of their and the other players’ characters’ actions) at the same time (Stenros 2013). Larp scholars, like Jaakko Stenros (2010, 2013), have traced the difference between the “beautiful to watch” stage aesthetic of traditional theater, where the audience is in a pure spectator role, and the “beautiful to do” immersed aesthetic of larp or Happenings (Kaprow 1959), characterized by a so-called first-person audience: to access the (embodied, co-creative, emergent) intended aesthetic experience of the piece, one has to perform, become an actor. In a certain sense, many RPGs restore the iridescent simultaneity of experiential stances characteristic of early childhood pretense play, where children fluidly switch between enacting, narrating, observing, directing, etc. (Boyd 2009, 177). Additionally, they often have secondary, “delayed” audiences in that players commonly retell the events of a gaming session as a story, supported by e.g. photography (in larp) or in-game video in multi-player online RPGs (MORPGs). Second, the manifold ritualizations around RPGs are a noteworthy phenomenon: tabletop RPG (TRPG) groups, for instance, tend to fall into a script of typical talking, playing and eating times during gaming sessions. MORPG players often go through celebratory rituals after a successful shared raid. Workshopping or debriefing are similar ritualized pre- and postgame bracketing activities in larps (Bowman 2014). RPGs often contain the re-enactment of rituals or performances within their own performance (Bowman 2015a). And RPGs, in general, heavily feed off of genre fiction rich in tropes that provide easily recognizable forms for composing characters, actions and scenes. A performance view furthermore provides conceptual tools for understanding the social function and role of RPGs more broadly: while cast predominantly as modernist liminoid entertainment, RPGs, like other performance genres, still always exist in a dialectic of efficacy and entertainment (Schechner 2003, 129–52). Intentionally or not, they are always potential events that present basic stories and assumptions about the world and society as e.g. the discourse around gender stereotypes in RPGs readily shows (→ Chapter 26). As communal events and events in which players interact with social groups (real or virtual), they necessarily reinforce groups and with them, group-internal power structures and in-group/out-group distinctions. Beyond that, indie TRPGs and larps have begun experimenting with using RPGs as events that re-present – reflect and critique society – and even events that model – through stoking morally transformative experiences but also directly, e.g. by raising moral questions for players, as in the TRPG Dogs in the Vineyard (Baker 2004) or LARP collection #Feminism Nano-Games (Bushyager, Stark, and Westerling 2016) or by situating larps in public space as a form of protest, such as Amerika, a Weltschmerz Network larp (2000).

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Seeing these continuities opens RPG design and research up to the stores of practical and theoretical knowledge in performance studies about how these kinds of events work and how to design them and opens important areas of criticism. And as noted, the forms and functions of performance are but a fraction of these stores: liveness, embodiment, the relation between script and performance, the processes, practices, and phenomenologies of performing and many other strands of research await the interested RPG scholar.

Theater Histories Role-play and RPGs show close formal ties to and influences from the many practices of theater and performance. Formalized performance dates to prehistory, but three important historical eras impact RPG and their design most strongly: ancient Greek theater, with its categorization of narrative structures and ideals of dramatic presentation; realism’s valorization of mimesis, audience/performance separation and psychophysical acting techniques; and the current postdramatic era, still being developed, in which multiple texts and many viewpoints are interpreted by many collaborators and contributors. This section surveys structures, intentions and interactions in these historical theatrical forms to suggest parallels to and concepts for RPG design, critique and analysis.

Ancient Greek Theater Theater emerged as a dialogic medium of group performance during the fifth century BCE. Though remaining records are sparse, we have some works of playwrights, such as Aeschylus (525–456 BCE), Sophocles (d. 406 BCE) and Euripides (480–406 BCE); some material evidence remains of spaces, costumes and traditions (Green 1996; Ashby 1999). Long tragedies and short Satyr plays (ribald comedies) were performed alongside rituals and games at festivals. These brought attention to important historical and civic issues, “involving the audience symbolically, architecturally and in the conduct of the performance” (Abercrombie and Longhurst 1998, 50). Masked actors represented heroes, witnesses and judges while choruses, speaking and moving in unison, narrated action and reacted to events on stage, establishing an affective link between audience and performance. Performances stimulated pity and awe, “purging” the audience of these emotions in a process called catharsis (Walcot 1976, 4–5; Sata 2008, 464). Mike Pohjola proposes that for chorus members in these early Greek performances, the experience was “that of a participatory ritual” similar to the embodied ritual of many larps. By Aeschylus’ plays (c. 525–456 BCE), however, the role of the chorus had declined significantly, and actors performed a greater number of individual characters. In 335 BCE, Aristotle (384–322 BCE) wrote his Poetics to advocate for a formalist narrative structure and analysis. According to Aristotle, the best tragedies contain six dramatic elements: plot, character, thought, diction, song and spectacle, of which the most important are plot and character. Aristotle claimed that the best plots involve a three-part narrative. First, peripetia or reversal of fortune caused by a serious mistake (hamartia) and not by evil; next, anagnorsis or moment of insight; then, catastrophe or downturn of the protagonist’s status, which develops into pathos, a destructive or painful action (Nellhaus 2016, 63–64). Neoclassical theater theorists of the 17th century used Aristotle’s writing to enforce three unities of action, time and place (Howarth, Clarke and Wickham 2008). The unities required a play to have one action and minimal subplots, to occur over no more than one day and to exist

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in a single physical space. These concepts have found their way into contemporary RPG scholarship. RPG narratologist Daniel Mackay argues that dramatic elements, three-part narrative and the unities all enhance the “continuous flow from author through narrator and narratee to the reader” (Mackay 2001, 132) in theater as well as in RPGs. While such narrative flow may break in RPGs through load times or side conversations, players repair the experience “into an aesthetic object encased within an Aristotelian narrative” (2001, 133) when retelling in-game events. Similarly, interactive drama and narrative in and beyond CRPG has seen a number of Neo-Aristotelian scholars expanding Aristotle with considerations around aesthetic categorization (Murray 1998) or the design of player agency through affordances and restraints (Laurel 1991; Mateas 2004).

Realism Realism emerged in the 1880s at the same time as psychology. Both used the physical and biological sciences to “explore questions about human nature” (D. Schultz and Schultz 2008, 4). Three-walled box stage sets, influenced by the new technologies of photography and gas or electric lighting, introduced accuracy in intimate detail and the fourth wall, a concept that placed a passive audience (for the first time sitting in the dark) behind an invisible barrier, watching characters presumably unconscious of their presence. Combined with the unified vision of a director (also a new development), realism placed the events of characters’ internal and external lives under a microscope. The Fourth Wall The convention that stage performers focus attention and interaction solely on the fictional world on stage, ignoring the audience as if an invisible wall separated them from one another. In so-called box set stage designs popularized in 19th-­ century realist theater, the stage is framed by three occluding walls to the back, open to the audience only in the front through the Proscenium arch. As performers ignore the audience, they act as if there were an additional imaginary “fourth wall” going through the Proscenium arch, separating stage and audience. “Breaking the fourth wall” refers to instances where this convention is violated, for instance, by performers directly addressing the audience.

The realist stage, with its interest in photo-accuracy in reproducing a “real” landscape directly links to RPG work interested in “360° Illusion”” (→ Chapters 5 and 22). Likewise, realist actors and followers of Constantin Stanislavsky’s (2013) system and its adaptation, “The Method,” seek to produce a psychological space in which the character completely inhabits the body of the actor. This is comparable to the motivations of immersionist larpers as described by Pohjola (2004) and Petter Bøckman (2003). Sarah Lynne Bowman and Anne Standiford (2016) compare these to the intention of method actors to live “truthfully under imaginary circumstances” (Meisner and Longwell 1987).

Postdramatic Theater Similarly, RPG designers may find connection to and inspiration in postdramatic theater as it incorporates participation, a variety of performance activities and multiple narratives (or none). Postdramatic theater has its roots in the individualism, public spectacles, skepticism of established social and political institutions, technological advances and cultural exchange,

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characteristic of the West since 1960. This section will touch on three main characteristics of the form: rejection of literary text as the primary mode; the breaking of boundaries between audience and performer; and methods of making, which focus on collaborative exploration “from the ground up.” Karen Jürs-Munby, in her introduction to Hans-Thies Lehmann’s seminal Postdramatic Theater, discusses “a renewed attention to the materiality of performance in theater and in renewed challenges to the dominance of the text” (2006, 6) in the 1960s, demonstrated in Happenings (Kaprow 1959), Fluxus events (see Ruhé 1998) and forms like Environmental Art, Performance Art, Devised Theater, etc. This focus on the materiality of performance results in “a simultaneous and multi-perspectival form of perceiving” (Lehmann 2006, 16), an example of which is Robert Wilson’s Einstein on the Beach (1976, with restagings through 2017). The opera/play is structured as a sequence of three different kinds of space. Within these, repetitions of tone, words and actions (pressing keys, raising a telescope) suggest the bones of a narrative that audiences develop imaginatively and individually. Postdramatic performances (even virtual performances, like Telematic Dreaming (1994), which highlight the absence of the body) use the materiality of the human body in space as a medium. This echoes abstract larps, such as Luminescence, with its sensory stimulations of sight (harsh neon green lighting and simple white clothing), sound (abstract soundtracks and obscure voiceovers) and touch (800 kg of white flour on the floor) (Pohjola and ­Pettersson 2004). Postdramatic theater is also characterized by boundary-breaking. Improvisation breaks boundaries of authorship as well as psychological and phenomenological boundaries. For example, Keith Johnstone’s “Impro” techniques (1987; Bowman 2015b) invite a reflexive dual consciousness within the same body. Theaters escape from theatrical spaces in attempts to disrupt and “make strange” (Shklovsky 1917) daily life. One example is pervasive theater games such as Blast Theory’s Uncle Roy All Around You (Flintham et al. 2003) or Abstract Tours (Ruggeri 2001). Another is theater in the public space, such as Augusto Boal’s Invisible Theater (1993), which stages performances designed to raise political questions for bystanders. These techniques have been borrowed by larps, such as Samir Belarbi’s Foreningen Visionara Vetenskapsmans Arliga Kongress (1996). Site-specific theater, another contemporary form, breaks temporal boundaries by incorporating the history of a location and “haunting” the performance with actual events (Carlson 2003; Kaye 2004). Many postdramatic theaters break boundaries between the roles of spectator and audience. Boal’s Forum Theater (1993) stages situations of oppression drawn from the community, then asks audience members to suggest (and eventually embody) actions the protagonist can take to resist or escape. Addressing computer games such as The Sims (Wright 2000), game designer Gonzalo Frasca (2004) early on suggested that RPGs could be used to break boundaries in similar ways, practicing or enacting resistance. Immersive Theater A contemporary theatric form that surrounds audiences with the aesthetic and fictional space of the performance, often allowing audience members to move through or interact with it. Productions of the British company Punchdrunk, like Sleep No More (2003), are popular examples. Immersive theater pieces are often theme park-like, site-specific immersive installations as much as performances in them. In contrast to larp, audience members tend not to become “full” performers co-creating the flow of events with the actors.

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Contemporary immersive theaters, such as Punchdrunk or ANU, meticulously stage an environment in which audience members might bodily follow actors through their scenes, explore the set for character and plot revelations, and interact with varying degrees of agency. In some cases, lack of agency is designed to evoke an affective link to characters’ experiences. In ANU’s Laundry (Lowe 2011), participants encounter characters incarcerated in the Magdalene laundries, industrial prisons for women whose families and communities identified them as having illicit sexual desires or experiences, thus emphasizing the women’s and participants’ lack of agency. During the 1950s and 1960s, a concern with the creative process itself as opposed to the product of the performance led many theater companies to experiment with collaborative means of production. Challenging “the cult of the artist” (Stenros 2010, 304), they democratized the devising, rehearsal and economic processes of theater by removing distinctions between creators, directors, performers and audiences. RPG designers must face similar questions as these theater-makers, asking who the “we” is in a collaboration, who benefits from it, and how structures of collaboration function toward specific ends (Flanagan 2009).

Box 11.2  Critiques of Immersive Performance One might assume that performance studies wholeheartedly embrace immersive, interactive, collaborative, boundary-breaking performances that seek to transform their audiences and surrounding societies, such as can be found in contemporary postdramatic and “immersive” theater or larps. Yet there are also criticisms. Take German playwright and director Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956), whose critical realism sought to shift the passive consumer of realist theater into an “active producer of meaning” who would recognize that oppressive behaviors and structures found in the world and re-performed on stage are just as contingent as a theatric performance and therefore change them – a rhetoric very much in line with contemporary activist larps (Belsey 2003, 126, 175–79). Critics, however, respond that this logic absolves procedural authors (White 2013) of the oppressions that are almost inevitably re-performed within the creation and performance of these events. When you bully someone onstage to rally against bullying, you still bully that person onstage. This becomes all the more problematic as postdramatic theater and larp move toward embodied participation. While the intense effect of embodied experience can be a potent tool of social critique, it can also create traumatic experiences and remove objectivity (Haughton 2014). Performance can slip into voyeurism (Maples 2016). Larp theorists often examine such issues under the label “bleed,” capturing how the thoughts and feelings of a player are influenced by her character and vice versa (Gerge and Widing 2006) (→ Chapter 23). Finally, high-profile immersive theatrical events have also been criticized as money-making “experience machines” where the critical objectivity of an audience’s experiential ­separation from the performance is traded for a hedonist pursuit of a desirable affective experience (Nozick 1974, 42–45; Alston 2016).

Phenomena A useful way of understanding role-play and performance is examining their particular experiential qualities. Here, we will focus on four particular ones: liveness, presence, the aesthetics of action and the phenomenology of playing a role.

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Liveness and Presence Two key terms in which scholars have tried to capture the experiential and aesthetic specifics of theater are liveness and presence. Theater unfolds “live,” an unrepeatable stretch of events and experiences here and now, at a particular juncture of time, space, and people, with some opening to the unexpected and spontaneous. However many recordings might be taken of the event, some essential quality of experience will be lost in them, only remaining in the shared memory of those that were present (Reason 2004). Theater shares this with RPG play. No matter how many times a piece or game is played, it will never be the same because players never interact exactly the same way. But what is the specific, non-recordable quality of experience of being present at a “live” event? Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht and others have called it presence: the immediate embodied, sensual and material experience of things and people, the emotional charging of interacting in bodily co-presence with others is something that media and analysis focused on representation and meaning cannot capture (Gumbrecht 2004; Power 2008). Current immersive and interactive theater forms, like many larps, try to maximize such presence by making the spectator a bodily participant within the performance, not separated by architecture or a fourth wall. The underlying assumption is that this deep emotional embodied experience is more likely to affect or even alter participants (Giannachi and Kaye 2011).

Aesthetics of Action Coming from RPGs, not theater, Stenros and MacDonald (2013) have tried to articulate the unique aesthetics or “beauty” of larp as a co-creative game/performance. First, the meaning and experience of larps occur embodied in the player: “They are beautiful to do, but not necessarily interesting to watch.” Second, they are rule-bound. The experience of traditional film and theater is also enabled by shared (social) rules, but these are usually implicit, taken for granted, and not subject to change or explicit upfront negotiation. What such explicit rules negotiation and agreement allow is a space for new kinds of bodily shared interaction, such as role-playing intimate encounters. Third, larps are co-creative, requiring essential input from all participants and therefore not determined by any one participant or author. Hence, fourth, they are emergent, meaning that the resultant experiences cannot be predicted but can (and have to be) afforded by careful preparation to create the right conditions (in materials, expectations, people’s moods, etc.) for desired experiences to come about. Fifth, they are reflexive: players experience both fictive and real worlds in a dialogic relationship. Finally, pretending together or inter-immersion is a key requirement and source of engagement. Some contemporary theater, such as Coney’s A Small Town Anywhere (Stevens 2009), may fit the requirements for larp under these aesthetics. Coney, an interactive theatre group, frames the event as theater, but we may still evaluate it through the lens of aesthetics of action. Similarly, designers of other forms of RPG may find inspiration and guidance in Stenros and MacDonald’s theory.

Phenomenology of Performance As Stenros and Macdonald capture in the term “reflexive,” the process of performance involves some consciousness that we perform and some “quotation” of our selves (States 1983) within the performance. Some may see this as a distraction and therefore seek to minimize it to increase mimetic virtuosity, a sense of realism or immersion (→ Chapter 22). But it is likewise a possible strategy “to pursue the thing as it is given to consciousness in direct experience”

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(Garner 1994, 1), to explore the experiences and meaning-making that arise when we both explore the performance bodily and retain reflexive consciousness of our performance and the meanings that arise from its intersection with the many other “texts” present. Many postdramatic theater forms seek to make familiar objects and actions strange in this way in order to imbue them with new meaning created in the dramatic process, deconstructing them, drawing out certain characteristics or placing them in different contexts. For instance, so-called devised theater (Oddey 1994), where the performers collaboratively develop the script to be performed, includes methods that allow them to understand objects or actions in multiple modes at once. One technique is to allow layers of time to be present at the same time, for instance, by making a character’s past choices visible as objects or people. The usually implicit process by which humans “quote” their histories becomes a tool of dramatic character exploration, exposition or relationship-building between characters. Some experimental forms of larp explicitly seek to express and work with similar phenomenological processes. Jeepform, black box and arthouse larp often use these techniques on the surface (→ Chapter 5), but many other forms, digital and analog, can benefit from pushing beyond a rudimentary understanding of realism into a more robust understanding of experience and meaning-making through role-play.

Summary Role-play is both a part of everyday experience since the origins of humankind, readily visible in children’s pretense play, and part of formalized genres of human action, including theater and RPGs. This chapter invited a reading of both through the lens of performance studies. Seen this way, theater and RPGs share roots and formal characteristics as forms of ­performance – behavior that is restored, stylized, made special, often audience-facing and forfeiting a primarily practical function to stoke experience and meaning-making. Performances can reproduce, critique or transform individuals and the societies in which they live, and we found theatric and RPG examples for each. A historical survey of Aristotelian, realist, and postdramatic theater found parallels, connections, influences and inspirations aplenty. Contemporary postdramatic theater genres – immersive theater, in particular – share many aesthetic goals, forms and techniques with contemporary larp, from high production value, 360° staged immersive environments to collaborative story creation and the desire to afford lasting emotional experiences by pushing formal and social boundaries. Both are united experientially in affording liveness, presence and an “aesthetic of action,” a split consciousness between “being in character” and being aware of performing. Across concepts, histories and experiences, performance studies and RPGs have much to offer to each other. By applying and comparing the familiar to the unfamiliar, we can bring new life and interest to both.

Acknowledgments This work was partly conducted in the Digital Creativity Labs (digitalcreativity.ac.uk), jointly funded by EPSRC/AHRC/InnovateUK under grant no. EP/M023265/1.

Further Reading Bowman, Sarah Lynne. 2015. “Connecting Role-Playing, Stage Acting, and Improvisation.” Analog Game Studies 2. http://analoggamestudies.org/2015/05/connecting-role-playing-stage-acting-andimprovisation/. Schechner, Richard. 2006. Performance Studies: An Introduction. 2nd ed. New York: Routledge.

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Stenros, Jaakko. 2010. “Nordic Larp: Theater, Art and Game.” In Nordic Larp, edited by Markus Montola and Jaakko Stenros, 300–14. Stockholm: Fëa Livia. Stephenson, Barry. 2015. Ritual: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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12 Sociology and Role-Playing Games J. Patrick Williams, David Kirschner, Nicholas Mizer, and Sebastian Deterding

What is sociology, what do sociologists study, and how do they study it? One of the largest professional organizations in the world, the American Sociological Association (n.d.) describes sociology as a social science involving the study of the social lives of people, groups, and societies; the study of our behavior as social beings, covering everything from the analysis of short contacts between anonymous individuals on the street to the study of global social processes; [and] the scientific study of social aggregations, the entities through which humans move throughout their lives. Sociology is concerned with most aspects of human social life. Sociologists study a range of phenomena, from small-scale structures and processes, such as individuals and how they think, feel, and act, to mid-level structures and processes, such as local communities or the cultures of organizations or groups, to large-scale patterns of stratification that affect entire societies, such as class, gender, and race. As you can tell, sociologists are interested in the structures surrounding social life as well as in its processes. Both are readily found in role-playing games (RPGs): rules and game mechanics are important structures, while the performance of roles and the cooperative actions of players are important processes. Sociology covers not just a breadth of topics but a diversity of perspectives as well. Through major perspectives such as interpretivism and social constructionism, scholars study social life in terms of how people make sense of the world. Another perspective, called realism, assumes that social life can be studied without considering individuals’ understanding of it. Such perspectives fundamentally shape the study of RPGs (Stenros 2015, 29–34). Assume two scholars are studying RPGs and time. Scholar 1 is interested in the amount of time people spend playing a given RPG, while scholar 2 is interested in how they experience the passage of time when playing that RPG. Scholar 1 can treat time as a natural or real phenomenon and players’ experiences as irrelevant. They might ask players to keep a diary of when they play or track players through observations to create an objective measure. Meanwhile, scholar 2’s research question assumes that players might construct different understandings of time and gameplay. Scholar 2

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could also track the amount of time played but would want to ask players about their play experiences. Scholar 1 might theorize connections between number of hours played per week and other objective measures of those players, such as how well they do in school. Scholar 2 might focus on players’ understandings of what constitutes “playing too long.” The key difference is that scholar 1 studies time in objective terms (minutes and hours), while scholar 2 studies it in interpretive terms (feelings and experiences). Each approach is valid so long as it helps answer the research questions being asked. This chapter on the sociology of RPGs will take this variety of perspectives into account. The next two sections look at interpretivist and constructionist approaches to RPGs, focusing first on important concepts such as interaction, identity, role, and frames to then broaden focus to culture as we discuss player relations, collaborative action, and rationality. After that, we will review social stratification research that highlights noteworthy trends related to class, education, religion, gender, sexuality, race, and ethnicity in RPGs from a realist perspective.

Experience and Interaction Sociologists often study players’ experiences and behaviors in and around RPGs. This has to do with what many see as inherently attractive about RPGs – the interactive environments within which groups can collaboratively construct an imagined world and then act in it. In this section, we look at several sociological concepts that help provide insight into players’ experiences and interactions.

Situations, Identities, and Roles If two friends are playing an RPG, and one steals a coveted item from the other in the game world, will this become a problem? The answer lies in how the friends make sense of the situation and their identities and roles within it. Although these terms may be defined in multiple ways by sociologists, here we’ll say that situation refers to the physical and social environment surrounding the event or action we are studying, identity refers to the names or labels players attach to themselves and others in the situation, and role refers to the expected and performed behaviors of players with certain situational identities (Dolch 2003; Vryan, Adler, and Adler 2003). Situation The physical and social context within which identities, roles, and behaviors take place. Situations vary in salience and duration. The few moments during which a party fights for its life or the years over which a group of friends meet to play games each constitute a situation. Role In everyday life, a pattern of behaviors and attitudes expected from a person occupying a given social position, such as mother, salesclerk, guest, etc. In RPGs, typically the character enacted by a player or the game-functional role of that character, e.g. a “­damage-dealer” in a multiplayer online RPG (MORPG) raid. Identity The meanings attached to the roles an individual occupies, the groups they identify with, and the ways in which they see themselves. Self The thoughts, emotions, identities, and motives we attribute to ourselves as what constitutes us.

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Here, there are at least two situations: 1 A Friday night in a family dining room or local gaming store where players are collectively immersed in a fantasy world. 2 A dark and smoky corner in the parlor of an inn where a group of thieves are showing off their latest acquisitions (in the fantasy world). There are also at least two identities operating, each corresponding to a situation: 1 Friend—the label one gives to a person, including themselves, that establishes their relation(s) in the situation. 2 Thief—a person who takes something from another person, typically using stealth, without their consent. Finally, there are at least two roles operating, each corresponding to an identity: 1 Friends are supposed to be trustworthy and supportive; they are expected not to steal from each other. 2 Thieves are expected to try and steal things from people who are unsuspecting or unaware. Thieves may go about stealing in a variety of different ways and for a variety of reasons. If friend were the only identity at work in this example, it would be likely that the victim of the theft would no longer consider the other person a friend because theft breaches the role expectations of a friend. But if the friends are role-playing as thieves who subscribe to a code in which they may steal from anyone, including other thieves, then the theft takes on new meaning. What is important for RPGs is how situations, identities, and roles are tied together. It is the meanings that players attach to their and others’ actions as friends and thieves, for example, that shape the reality of gameplay. From a sociological point of view, the identity and role of a thief is just as important as the identity and role of a friend within gameplay situations. J. Patrick Williams (2016) mentions a similar example of two players, a husband and wife, playing Munchkin with a larger set of friends. In Munchkin, players shift back and forth between helping and backstabbing each other in an attempt to win. His description of the situation in terms of (a) two players and (b) a husband and wife is important for interpreting players’ behaviors. In the reported case, the husband betrayed the wife, causing her to lose a couple of levels and quite a bit of gear. She became furious, going so far as to quit the game and leave the room. Some other players were surprised by this, and the husband himself expressed regret about his actions. The man had evidently defined the situation in terms of a Munchkin game and defined the woman as a rival player, while the woman was apparently operating under the assumption that her husband would never do something like that to his wife. To be sure, stabbing another player in the back is very different than stabbing your spouse in the back. Had the woman experienced another player doing this to her instead of her husband, there likely would have been much less drama because the identities of husband and wife would not have been overlapping and clashing with the identities of rival players.

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Situations, identities, and roles provide guides for how to relate to other players or characters, how to make use of game-related knowledge, and how to manage feelings in and around play (Williams, Kirschner, and Suhaimi-Broder 2014). Recognizing that there may be multiple sets of identities active at the same time is an important part of how sociologists make sense of player actions (Carter, Gibbs, and Arnold 2012): where the psychological notion of personality assumes that people have stable tendencies to behave in certain ways regardless of the situation they are in, the sociological notions of identity and roles assume that people interpret the situations they are in, the identities that are active, and the roles being performed.

Box 12.1  Shared Fantasy Gary Alan Fine’s (1983) book Shared Fantasy: Role-Playing Games as Social Worlds is among the earliest detailed studies of RPGs and deeply influenced RPG studies across disciplines in its questions, concepts, and methods. Fine used qualitative research methods, such as participant observation and interviews, to gain an insider’s perspective on tabletop RPG (TRPG) gameplay. He retraced how RPG players formed a subculture of their own and how, in play, players collectively create, maintain, and navigate a shared set of meanings, set apart and frame a “shared fantasy,” and manage roles inside and outside of play. And he studied how the meanings and behaviors of play related to behaviors, meanings, and social structures outside, such as depictions of sexual violence and the male-dominated TRPG subculture he observed. These themes are as relevant to researchers today as they were then.

Frames and Frame Analysis These examples not only illustrate situations, identities, and roles but also frames. Developed by Erving Goffman (1986) as a general theory of the social “organization of experience,” frame analysis is a dominant sociological approach in current game research as it was applied early to RPGs by Fine (1983) and speaks to a core concern of game scholars: the “magic circle” or bounded “pocket reality” of special meanings, norms, and experiences created by gameplay (Stenros 2014). In any situation, humans face the question of what other people’s actions mean: was that elbow bump an accidental oversight, an intentional attack, or an ironic come-on? ­Goffman (1986) argued that most people solve this question with a shared repertoire of frames. Frames comprise shared norms, expectations, and understandings of what things, events, and roles to find in a given situation; how to behave in those situations and for what purposes; what to attend and disattend to; and how deeply to get involved in those situations (Deterding 2014). As a form of culture, frames differ from group to group and change over time. Frame analysis argues that people will experience and respond to an action very differently depending on how they frame it and unpacks the processes by which people agree on (or deceive each other about) the “correct” framing of a given situation. This makes frame analysis useful for understanding a variety of key RPG studies questions, such as: why is it safer to insult someone in an RPG than in “real life”? Why is playing Nazis “just a game” in some countries but taboo in others? How do we tell whether a player said something “in character” or not, and why does it matter? Frame A way of understanding and organizing situations, like “play” or “grocery shopping,” made of shared norms, expectations, and understandings of what things mean and

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how to behave in the given situation. Framing is the often implicit and taken-for-granted process by which participants negotiate and maintain a shared understanding of what type of situation they are currently in.

Goffman (1986) distinguished basic frames, like “going to the doctor” or “wedding,” from secondary keyings of such basic frames, like “irony” or “rehearsal.” Keyings modulate action little but meaning very much – compare a serious “I love you” to an ironic one. In a given situation, multiple frames can co-occur, and frames and their keyings can be nested in “laminations” (Goffman 1986, 156): fine (1983, 186, 194), for instance, saw TRPG encounters organized into three laminations: • • •

the “primary framework” of the “real world” where participants are “people”; the “game context” or the “world of game rules” where participants act as “players […] in light of the conventions of the game”; and the “gaming world” or “fantasy world” where participants enact “characters.”

In each lamination, individuals enact different role-identities as they define reality in terms of the relevant frame. The idea that these frames overlap as laminations demonstrates the complexity of role-play. Not only must “real world” friends be careful how they treat their “fantasy world” enemies, but a player who plays an adventure for a second time may need to ignore what they know is coming for the sake of their character or other party members. In actual play, players frequently switch among roles and frames, creating intentional and unintentional comic confusion about whether something was said “in character” or not. For instance, an MORPG party member may suddenly exclaim “OMG!” in a voice chat, leading the others to search for something in-game that would justify the exclamation only to be told, “Sorry, watching TV and saw something unexpected!” Frame analysis evolved from Goffman’s own studies of games (Goffman 1967, 1969, 1972). Following Gregory Bateson (2000), Goffman saw animal play as the first evolutionary keying and viewed gaming as a basic frame that institutionalizes a playful keying of contests, decoupling them from physical and social consequence. Gaming is socio-materially organized with norms, rules, and props to enhance and focus participants’ shared attention and engrossment in an activity. Thus, the gaming frame enables players to feel excitement without having to risk their lives (Shay 2016) or to engage in behaviors that would otherwise be labelled as deviant (Brown 2015, Chapman and Linderoth 2015, → Chapters 24 and 25). However, establishing and maintaining a gaming frame requires (often invisible) framing work. Players often use “brackets” (Goffman 1986, 252) or metacommunications to signal the frame status of an action, object, or event or to indicate a shift in frame. Examples are entry and exit rituals, dedicated words like “cut,” or the layout of the physical environment in live-action role-playing (larp) (Brenne 2005). Along similar lines, Jaakko Stenros (2008) observed how larp players use costumes, props, and rituals to “get into character,” while Regine Herbrik (2011) showed how materials like maps help anchor and settle disputes over shared imaginations in TRPGs. People can hide, play with, or project false frames, which can generate intense experiences of multiple, ambiguous, or breaking frames, particularly in pervasive and alternate reality RPGs that aim for a “this is not a game” aesthetic (Mäyrä and Lankoski 2009; Stenros, Waern, and Montola 2011). And, finally, gaming itself can be keyed, such as in serious RPGs or gold farming in MORPGs (Glas et al. 2011). Where other theoretical approaches struggle with such cases that cross perceived dichotomies like serious/fun or work/play, frame analysis can arguably help unpack how people make sense of and orient themselves in these situations.

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Social and Cultural Dimensions Beyond the experiences and interactions of players, RPGs are embedded in larger social and cultural processes and structures that enable and constrain play, be that face-to-face in a TRPG or sitting alone in front of a computer RPG (CRPG). Social refers to the organization of relations among games, designers, producers, players, and others, while cultural has to do with the organization of meanings that both enables those relations and derives from them.

Social Processes and Structures: Player Relations RPGs facilitate many different player configurations and types of social interaction. A game’s design (→ Chapter 18) locates players in specific relationships, from the human-computer interaction foregrounded in CRPGs to the small groups found in TRPGs to larger groupings that genres such as MORPGs and larps afford. Yet players also develop their own relations and patterns of interaction within (and sometimes despite) the design (Simon, Boudreau, and Silverman 2009). Most TRPGs, for example, are designed to suit a small group of players that regularly meets face-to-face over months or even years to play together. Rules for character development and extended campaigns help ensure long-term commitment to the gaming group but also require such commitment to come into play. MORPGs, in contrast, technically enable physically separate players to get together in virtual space at any time and, in their quest design, allow players to adventure alone, hang out with friends or guild mates, and also form temporary pick-up groups (PUGs) with strangers for a short quest (Linderoth, Björk, and Olsson 2014). The MORPG World of Warcraft, for instance, offered a “Dungeon Finder” feature that matched solo players with each other for quests or raids. Yet such PUG interactions became predominantly instrumental. Players regularly completed scenarios with little interpersonal communication or respect for informal rules of play. The relative anonymity of PUGs removed the physical co-presence and shared pasts (or imagined futures) found in e.g. TRPGs, and so players reoriented their play to take advantage of the opportunity for quick rewards (Eklund and Johansson 2013; Williams, Kirschner, and ­Suhaimi-Broder 2014). One of the most attractive aspects of RPG play is its long-lasting gaming groups (Rossi 2008). As MORPGs popularized fantasy role-playing, sociologists have for some time been studying their social groupings, such as clans and guilds. Guilds differ by goals, size, cohesion, and membership (Williams et al. 2006) and may be oriented toward casual sociality (Albrechtslund 2010), competitive player vs player (PVP) play ( Jørgensen 2008), collaborative raiding (Chen 2012), or fantasy role-playing (MacCallum-Stewart and Parsler 2008). Due in part to their relative stability, guilds can develop idiocultures: cultural elements, like shared knowledge, skills, and behaviors that inform group life. Some guilds recruit openly, while others may require extensive application processes and interviews. Some become revolving-door third places where informal sociality reigns, while others become regimented and work-like as members become mutually reliant on one another to accomplish difficult objectives. Some groups strictly represent existing on- or off-line social networks, while others seek members that enhance the group’s social capital (Ducheneaut, Moore, and Nickell 2007; Eklund and Ask 2013; Williams, Kirschner, and Suhaimi-Broder 2014).

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Box 12.2  Social relations and power While there are many competing definitions of power in sociology, it is generally agreed that power has to do with the capacity or ability to shape people’s actions. Power may be seen both as a structure and as a process and can be found in many different sets of relationships. Structure  Power structures gameplay, both formally and informally. Formal power structures include rules: Handbooks and rule books, dice, maps, and other materials support the designers’ definitions of what constitutes “proper” play. In MORPGs, terms of service, player codes of conduct, and computer algorithms all structure gameplay. Roles, such as dungeon masters and guild leaders, formalize which members of the community have power, but power is also often facilitated informally through status hierarchies and norms within gaming groups. Younger or newer players, for example, may be sanctioned differently than more advanced players for breaking rules. Process Power is a practice in which players engage as they interpret and apply or negotiate rules and norms, make decisions on how to divide resources or loot, and treat players in various ways based on their perceived values or statuses. Individuals are given authority or leadership roles, but power can also be revoked or modified. Over time, players can gain or lose status either in-game or out-of-game; in fact, the two may be connected.

Outside the game, social relations among players include fan and para-academic conventions (Intercon, Knutepunkt, Gen Con, Dragon*Con), game-specific events (BlizzCon, EVE ­Fanfest), and local tournaments (→ Chapters 10 and 21). Conventions serve as “public spheres of the imagination” where attendees circulate new ideas and techniques and find like-minded individuals to play and commune with as well sites of commemoration and nostalgia for the attendees’ own gaming lives and the “old days” of “the hobby” (Mello 2006; Mizer 2015). Most recently, online and social media have afforded new types of transient and durable sociality. Identity-based networks, such as Gamergate, have formed to preserve dominant (i.e. white heterosexual male) gaming culture, while others formed in response, including female-only gaming clans; LGBTQ and gaymer communities; reddit groups, such as /r/blackgirlgamers; or the AbleGamers Foundation for disabled gamers (Kafai, Heeter, Denner, and Sun 2008; Daniels and LaLone 2012; Sunden 2012).

Culture: Gaming Identity and Collaborative Action Culture can be understood as an abstract and yet coherent web of meanings (see Geertz 1973) that people use to define themselves, their relations to each other, and the social actions that take place in and around games. Social player relations and cultures of play are intertwined: many of the organizations and social groupings just mentioned also provide a sense of purpose and identity to players – very much a cultural phenomenon. Most gamers would agree that the identity of “being a gamer” involves specific interests and likes, caring about or valuing things in unique ways, and perhaps even talking and acting differently. Prominent larp

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designer Eirik Fatland eloquently described the collaborative project of culture creation in all forms of RPGs: When we design larps, we play with the building blocks of culture… But asking people to act As If is not enough to make a larp. As larpers we need to act As If together… this is what we do, as larp designers, which is to describe and communicate the minimum requirements needed to direct human creativity towards a shared purpose. (Fatland 2014, emphasis added) This is not to say that designers alone create RPG culture. Gaming cultures are created through a multitude of interactions among designers, players, and others (Fine 2012). On the one hand, players become enculturated into RPG culture by interacting with and within games and gaming communities (Bainbridge 2010, 83). On the other, players acting together create gaming culture, which, in turn, influences their thoughts, emotions, and actions (Fine 2012). These processes become most directly visible in the collaboration required to start and keep joint RPG play going (Kirschner 2014). To coordinate their play and achieve both personal and group goals (like shared enjoyment), players learn and shape the meanings associated with play, whether those meanings are specific to a game (such as what “rolling a 1” means), a local group of gamers (e.g. the referee is always right), or popular culture more broadly (e.g. conflict can be reduced to good versus evil). In MORPGs, players must learn what deserves their immediate or deferred attention on the screen, how they should respond to certain enemies’ or allies’ actions, and what identity/ies to foreground or bracket at any given time (Williams and Kirschner 2012). Likewise, players may need to learn new ways of negotiating social relations within and beyond a game. Whether culture is internalized through interaction with the game, mediated by game masters, or learned from collaborative action with fellow players, we typically take it for granted. Only when players’ motivations, understandings of social norms, or actions diverge does it reassert itself.

Culture and Disenchanted Enchantment In a famous 1917 lecture, sociologist Max Weber (2009) argued that modernity is characterized by a “disenchantment” of the world. Disenchantment  A process of modernity in which secularization, rationalization, and bureaucratization replace beliefs in magic and religion with beliefs in science, and people experience less mystery, wonder, awe, and “deeper meaning.” As part of disenchantment, rationalization describes how rational motivators of behavior like formal rules, calculations, and an instrumental means-end logic replace tradition, values, emotions, or individual charisma.

Since then, sociologists have traced disenchantment and rationalization in a wide variety of settings – including RPGs. We see it in MORPG phenomena like virtual economies, ­real-money trading (→ Chapter 16), or so-called gold farming where play is turned into rational, gainful labor to produce and sell in-game gold and items (Dibbell 2006). Another example is theorycrafting: playing in a quasi-scientific fashion to reverse engineer the rules of a game and identify maximally efficient gameplay (→ Chapter 10). This is common among so-called power gamers who “play in ways we typically do not associate with notions of fun and leisure”

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(Taylor 2006, 72). Their intense commitment to the game can turn it into an obligation to the extent that “It became a chore to play” (quoted in Yee 2006, 69). Even a game’s design can show rationalization: the fourth edition of Dungeons & Dragons (D&D), for instance, replaced the rough, more open-to-interpretation guidelines of earlier editions with calculated formulas and experience point “budgets.” (Mizer 2014) Disenchanted enchantment A cultural response to disenchantment, beginning with late 19th- and early 20th-century fiction authors like E.A. Poe, J.R.R. Tolkien, and H.P. Lovecraft and manifest in contemporary RPGs and science fiction and fantasy fandom. Grounded in a secular, rational lifeworld, people delight in imaginary worlds filled with wonder, awe, magic, and gods, thanks to an ironic consciousness of their “as if” status.

However, rationalization does not necessarily clash with enchantment. Michael Saler (2012) views “disenchanted enchantment” as a characteristic modern practice that uses rational means for a re-enchantment of our secular world (see also Ritzer 2005). Authors like Lovecraft and Tolkien used modernist trappings, such as detailed, quasi-scientific maps, glossaries, appendices, or the genre form of “found footage” to make their imaginary worlds more believable, all the while remaining conscious of their fictional statuses. RPGs similarly use modern statistics and quantitative techniques to buttress free-form imagination, prompting one commentator to call D&D “fantasy fiction through actuarial science” (Macris 2011). And Fine (1983) early on noted that ironic awareness of and play with the laminations of RPG play – fictional game world and real table – is part and parcel of its appeal. Different social groups re-enchant the world in different ways, which can lead to conflict. In the 1980s, TRPGs became the target of a moral panic (→ Chapter 19). Particularly, Christian organizations in the US accused RPG players of engaging in occultism. However, as Daniel Martin and Gary Alan Fine (1991, 121) argued, “in framing fantasy role-playing games as occultist activities, crusading groups share with Dungeons & Dragons players a sense of ‘the world re-enchanted.’” Many RPGs indeed include religious practices and beliefs that are even integrated into the games’ mechanics and core narratives of their fictional worlds (Gregory 2014). In D&D, for example, player characters may choose to follow one or more of a pantheon of deities, who may open or restrict the characters’ moral alignment. Followers of Bahamut, the lawful good god of justice, protection, and nobility, would be appalled at the beliefs and behaviors of a follower of Lolth, chaotic evil goddess of shadow and lies. However, conservative religious groups either fail or refuse to acknowledge the fictional, “as if ” status of such in-game spiritual practice (Laycock 2015, 52). They insist that players whose characters believe in pagan deities in-game must also believe in these deities outside of the game. To them, invoking a god in play is not different from invoking their god in their own everyday life, within a religious frame that guides their beliefs and actions in that moment (Bainbridge 2013; Waltemathe 2014). RPG players, in contrast, are aware of and point to the “as if ” frame of play when engaging in in-game spiritual practice and, like fictional literature, use this “as if ” space to reflect on spirituality (Schaap and Aupers 2016). The CRPG Dragon Age II, for instance, presents a story of destruction wrought by monotheistic factions, inviting the player to question religious extremism (Bezio 2014). The CRPG trilogy Mass Effect can be read as is a story of conflict over religious authority where players are compelled to wrestle with their own religious perspectives (Irizarry and Irizarry 2014).

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Social Stratification Stratification refers to classifying people into categories or strata based on income, religion, education, age, gender, sex, race, or other characteristics (Andersen and Collins 2016; Hurst, Gibbon, and Nurse 2017). People tend to assume that stratification research inevitably focuses on minority groups or “low” strata – for example, that talking about gender means talking about women. However, stratification research deals with all categories: men and women, rich and poor, etc. And as people occupy multiple social categories or strata simultaneously, sociologists often apply an intersectional lens, looking at how multiple social categories intersect in shaping people’s experiences and situations (Collins 1990) (→ Chapters 26 and 27). Here, we will review studies that have analyzed player populations in terms of adoption of RPGs, education, gender and sexuality, and race and ethnicity.

Adoption and Education Demographic data on role-playing gamers is sparse, chiefly stemming from industry reports. A 1999 study by D&D publishers Wizards of the Coast (WotC) found 5.5 million US A ­ mericans that played or have played TRPGs and 7.3 million that played or have played CRPGs. One in five was female. The overlap between CRPG and TRPG players was somewhat unidirectional: 46% of TRPG players also played CRPGs monthly, while only 21% of CRPG players also played TRPGs (Dancey 2000). Working with Sony Online Entertainment, Dmitri W ­ illiams, Nick Yee, and Scott Caplan (2008) surveyed over 7,000 players of the MORPG EverQuest II and found that players were wealthier and more educated than the average A ­ merican. 23% had a high school diploma or less (compared to 50% of the general population), while nearly 13% had at least some graduate training (8% in the general population). This seems to confirm a more positive dimension of the “nerdy gamer,” who is intelligent and educated with specialist knowledge of niche topics and hobbies (Fine 1983). Different forms of RPGs show different penetration and social status in different cultures. The Nordic countries, for instance, are known to be welcoming to larp. One analysis of data from the Danish Society for Nature Conservation suggested that a full 8% of Danish children aged 10–14 participated in some larp event during a single month (Gade 2005). While TRPGs (called tēburu-tōku or “table-talk” RPGs) have a significant following in Japan, spawning popular transmedia franchises like Record of Lodoss War, larp has been much slower to develop in the country due to lack of knowledge about how to organize larps as well as concerns about public perception and police opposition (Kamm 2011). Larping evokes negative popular imagery of otakus – roughly meaning “nerds.” In a different local idioculture, a given RPG form, genre, or game is often stratified differently. Anecdotal evidence suggests, for example, that German TRPG is male-dominated by highly educated players, while Norwegian larp is female-dominated and embraces exploring alternative ways of being (such as alternate sexualities).

Gender and Sexuality Despite such current local diversities, historically, RPG culture has been predominantly male and heterosexual, shaped in many ways by the genre’s emergence from war gaming. Surveys in the late 1970s reported that only between 0.4% and 2.3% of TRPG players were female (Fine

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1983, 41). Since, the number of self-reported female gamers in many RPG forms has been on the rise. Women now represent at least 20% of players in TRPGs (Dancey 2000) and a slight majority of the CRPG player base. In MORPGs, the proportion of female players has risen in the past decade from 15%–20% (Yee 2006; Williams et al. 2009b) to 34% (Chalk 2014), although the variation between games is huge. For example, 96% of players in the science fiction MORPG EVE Online are male (Leray 2013). An international larp census in 2014 found that 61.8% of larpers identify as male and 35.5% as female, with proportions varying by country. In Finland, for instance, women outnumber men (Vanek 2014). This data appears to point toward increasing gender equality but doesn’t fully reflect deeper issues of gender and sexuality in gaming culture and its study – including allegations that Fine specifically excluded women role-players from his 1983 study (Kutalik 2010). As gaming has become more popular among women, those inside and outside of RPG cultures have highlighted endemic misogyny and sexism (Trammell 2014). This has prompted some to question and study the heteronormativity pervasive in TRPGs (Stenros and Sihvonen 2015), and RPGs have increasingly become a site of struggle for feminist players ( Jenson and de Castell 2013). In-game disparities in gender behavior and representation are also prevalent. In a review of the literature on motivations for play, Danae Romrell (2013) found that men were more motivated by achievement and women by social factors to play MORPGs, echoing earlier findings across a spectrum of digital games (Hartmann and Klimmt 2006; Williams et al. 2009a). Natasha Veltri et al. (2014) found that males were generally more motivated to play and spend more time playing. Additionally, males were more competitive, whereas women were more likely to seek collaborative relationships. Women and men equally enjoyed the fantastical aspect of games and the ability to role-play and step outside the bounds of daily life into a game space (ibid.). Such differences in play styles are entangled in everyday life. In digital RPGs, for example, player and character gender disparities map closely onto virtual economic disparities where competitive and achievement-oriented activities typically pursued by males yield higher returns on virtual wealth, while stereotypically feminine activities, such as socializing, so-called “pink collar” activities, yield lower returns (Lehdonvirta et al. 2014). A content analysis of characters in 150 digital games (including but not limited to RPGs) revealed systematic over-representation of males and white people and an underrepresentation of females, Native Americans, and Hispanic people (Williams et al. 2009b). Partially in response to such studies, some developers are consciously creating more inclusive games, leading to further discussion among players and developers over norms regarding the intersection of gender and sexuality with other minority strata in RPGs. BioWare is an example of a games company that has been actively seeking to diversify its games. Its flagship CRPG series Mass Effect and Dragon Age allow the player to create characters of various genders and sexualities and to pursue a variety of relationships with non-player characters in the narratives (Greer 2013; Kelly 2015). Although these are progressive steps forward, there is still room to improve (Condis 2015).

Race and Ethnicity Racial demographics of RPG players have been studied less than gender and sexuality. Anecdotal evidence from studies of local scenes suggests that some RPG player groups are relatively white-dominated, while others are more ethnically and racially diverse. This likely reflects the racial diversity and multiracial interactions of the larger communities within which the RPG scenes exist.

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Box 12.3  Race in RPGs In sociology, “race” refers to dividing humans by observable physical characteristics like skin color, while “ethnicity” refers to dividing humans by culture. Contemporary sociology views race as the outcome of racialization: there are no stable biologically identifiable races. Rather, people construct race categories based on physiological properties and count individuals into them, thereby marking them for unequal treatment. Particularly fantasy RPGs are full of “races” like elves, dwarves, or humans. These are typically depicted and rule-modelled as biologically distinct species with different inherited traits, including unobservable ones: An elf might start the game with, say, a +2 value in intelligence or eyesight. These biological differences go hand in hand with different ethnic backgrounds, like language, culture, history, or geographic origin and even moral character and cosmic destiny. In a sense, the races in RPGs embody the outmoded racial thought of the 19th century and earlier that assumes “race” to be a biologically or even cosmically determined unity of physiological species, ethnic culture, and geographic place.

More work has been done on representations of race in RPGs, although more often focusing on fictional racialized categories of RPG characters (orc, troll, elf, etc.) than on everyday racial and ethnic categories. On the surface, RPGs seem racially (or species) diverse, but some scholars have argued that, in reality, they are domains of “blackless fantasy.” Blackness, here, not only refers to a lack of people of color but to the appropriation of ethnic cultures (Higgin 2009). Tanner Higgin argued that the well-known Leeroy Jenkins video in World of Warcraft performs Leeroy as a stereotypical black character of the old minstrel show variety, who is funny because he is stupid. In the absence of authentic blackness, such misrepresentations flourish. This devalues the potential of [RPGs] to provide productive racial experiences because they reinforce dominant notions of Blacks as incapable of being functional members of society. These games […] function as hegemonic fantasy by filtering the racial imagery that threatens the safety and political coherence of White dominance. (Higgin 2009) Indeed, the relative absence of blackness in RPGs limits narratives in which people of color can be notable or heroic. This reflects minority stereotyping and diversity issues present in other media (Khanna and Harris 2015). Looking at fantasy races in fictional worlds, Allen Kwan (2007) and Melissa Monson (2012) suggested three ways in which they are grounded in real-world stereotypes and ideologies. First, many RPGs essentialize race. In TRPGs, game rules regularly claim that there are objective, immutable, and strong differences between races: orcs may have the racial trait “berserk,” while dwarves get +2 to perception after consuming alcohol. Second, “fictional races [are given] recognizable cultural traits associated with real-world race [and ethnic] groups” (Monson 2012, 54). In World of Warcraft, the Tauren race, with their totems, teepees, and shamans, are clearly representative of Native Americans, while the Troll race are a hybrid

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of familiar African cultural stereotypes, with witch doctors, spears, and a Caribbean accent (“greetings mon!”). Third, across races, light-skinned, Western European appearances are associated with good, while dark-skinned appearances are often associated with evil – effectively expressing notions of white supremacy. Jessica Langer (2008) finds a more nuanced picture of racial representations in World of Warcraft. For her, the hard-coded racial differences are not intended to represent certain races as superior to others as each race has its own set of attractive game mechanical features. Rather, based on whichever race a player chooses, subsequent narratives and design will support a player’s understanding that other races are “foreign” to his or her own character’s race. In summary, while RPG player demographics appear to move towards an equitable, post-racialized, post-gendered vision of 21st-century pluralist societies, the fictional worlds of RPGs are still often highly stratified.

Summary Sociology studies the structures and processes of social life (and how they interact) from a variety of perspectives. While there has been some realist work on RPGs – collecting observational data, like demographics or play time – interpretivist and constructionist studies concerned with people’s experiences and understandings dominate as RPGs showcase and involve fundamental micro-social meaning-making processes and constructs, like situation, identity, role, frame, or lamination. In order for players to successfully get a game going, they must develop a shared understanding of what is going on (the situation), who they and the other players are (identities), and what kind of behavior is expected of them (role), all of which is guided by cultural knowledge and norms about different types of situations (frames), including layers of meaning (laminations), such as a player’s speaking “in character” versus “out of character.” RPGs also show a rich variety of social relations shaped by and shaping game design and content: TRPG face-to-face groups; MORPG guilds, clans, and pick-up groups; and gaming subcultures meeting online and at conventions. These social relations are interwoven with the web of meanings called culture: RPG play and community rely on shared and contested gamer identities and unspoken norms and understandings of how to play, and they are part of modern disenchanted enchantment, filling a secular, rational lifeworld with imaginary worlds of wonder and magic, thanks to an ironic consciousness of their “as if ” status. Finally, we reviewed the stratification of RPGs and RPG players along strata like education, gender and sexuality, and race and ethnicity. Although RPG content and players seem to move towards an equitable, post-racialized, post-gendered, pluralist society, their fictional worlds are still often highly stratified. As can be seen, sociology is a remarkably broad discipline. This chapter focused on the general perspectives through which sociologists study RPGs and “core” social phenomena. That said, other chapters in this book deal with sociological topics in much more detail (signposted in this chapter), and we hope you will read those for more insights.

Acknowledgments Sebastian Deterding’s work on this chapter was partly conducted in the Digital Creativity Labs (www.digitalcreativity.ac.uk), jointly funded by EPSRC/AHRC/InnovateUK under grant no. EP/M023265/1.

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Further Reading Deterding, Sebastian. 2014. “Modes of Play: A Frame Analytic Account of Video Game Play.” Hamburg University. (http://ediss.sub.uni-hamburg.de/volltexte/2014/6863/). Accessed December 11, 2017. Fine, Gary Alan. 2012. “Group Cultures and Subcultures.” pp. 213–222 in John R. Hall, Laura Grindstaff, and Ming-Cheng Lo (Eds.), Handbook of Cultural Sociology. London: Routledge. Taylor, T. L. 2006. Play between Worlds: Exploring Online Game Culture. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

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13 Psychology and Role-Playing Games Sarah Lynne Bowman and Andreas Lieberoth

Role-playing games (RPGs) can be ludic, narrative, and social – but they are always, on some level, psychological experiences. The role-playing experience offers possibilities for studying psychological phenomena like personality and identity. Similarly, the discipline of psychology offers designers and practitioners of RPGs frames of interpretation and models for design. The term “role-playing” appeared in the psychological literature as early as 1943 (Lippitt 1943). In 1947, Julian B. Rotter and Delos D. Wickens presented a paper on role-playing as a “behavioral method” for assessing trait aggressiveness to the American Psychological Association, asking participants to play out situations in which one person had a dominant position over the other. They cited Jacob Moreno’s (1945) emerging concept of psychodrama as a source of their idea. Rotter and Wickens (1948, 235) defined role-playing as a method in which “the subject is asked to play out some role as naturally as possible with another subject. The roles are usually defined with minimal instructions, and the subject is allowed great freedom in selecting his responses or interpreting the role”. Such uses of role-playing as a research method and object of inquiry became more common in the latter half of the twentieth century, e.g. in education and the social psychology of attitude formation. By 1960, the concept had been introduced in settings ranging from schools (Gillies 1948) to industry (Bavelas 1947) to prisons (Lassner 1950). Many papers would follow. Having been wholly absent from psychology journals before 1948, “role-playing” appeared as a keyword in three PubMed citations in 1960, rising to a hundred papers per year in 1975 and even more thereafter. From the viewpoint of psychological sciences, the kinds of role-playing games discussed in this volume are a fairly marginal cultural phenomenon. So, few studies have directly and rigorously investigated their impacts or dynamics. However, there are studies that address the constituent elements of role-playing experiences through lenses such as play, role-taking, media, and games more generally (e.g. Ferguson 2007; Lieberoth, Wellnitz, and Aagaard 2015). Additionally, a body of ambitious para-academic literature has emerged in the new millennium (→ Chapter 10). Finally, though psychoanalysis has fallen out of favor in much of academic psychology on methodological grounds (see, notably, Popper 1962), it is still often used as an interpretative framework and basis for therapy as the conversation and relation-building

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entailed in all versions of the “talking cure”, Freudian or not, seem to help people (Shedler 2010). This chapter thus aims to gather existing research on the psychology of role-playing from two perspectives: (1) current scientific psychology and (2) phenomenological and psychoanalytic analyses. We will begin exploring role-playing from different existing scientific frameworks, including developmental, cognitive, behavioral, motivational, clinical, and social psychology. Next, we will emphasize the subjective psychological interpretations of role-playing through various perspectives, including phenomenology, hobbyist theories, role-play studies, and psychoanalysis. We will thus connect evidence that can be leveraged from the psychological sciences, based on empirical research in the (post-)positivist tradition and the uses and conjectures of other forms of analysis.

The Psychology of Role-Playing: A Scientific View Thorough application of psychological theories and methods to RPGs is still scientifically marginal. Therefore, we will need to explore the few empirical studies that have addressed the psychology of RPGs directly as well as the ways in which different scientific perspectives in psychology may illuminate aspects of the role-playing experience.

Developmental Psychology Developmental psychology examines the growth and becoming of the mind throughout the human life span, with an emphasis on child development. It encompasses “systemic changes and continuities in the individual that occur between conception and death” (Sigelman 1999, 2–3). Pretend play is recognized as an important facet of development. Many animals engage in pretense activities, such as chase play, that allow the opportunity to practice important survival skills (Owens and Steen 2001). Similarly, humans play chase games such as “Hide and Seek” and “Cops and Robbers”. Additionally, humans play to practice social identities and roles, such as through “Playing House”, although not all play has a productive function (Lieberoth 2008; Stenros 2015). While many studies have addressed fantasy play and role-taking in children, few have directly involved RPGs. A couple of RPG-based interventions have, however, been documented in groups with special needs (Zayas and Lewis 1986; Rosselet and Stauffer 2013). Here, psychiatrists and case workers observed increases in self-efficacy among participating children and adolescents, finding the game context to be a useful social and behavioral scaffolding for development of impulse control and social competences (Enfield 2006; Rosselet and Stauffer 2013). Given the small body of research, it is unclear whether these findings are generalizable, or scalable. Indeed, role-playing has not proven easy to link empirically to academic achievement for school children, even though many examples of school interventions exist (White 2008). Theory of mind is another important concept in developmental psychology. As children develop, they learn to establish internalized models of how other individuals – e.g. peers or teachers – are likely to respond in particular situations, and how they may experience emotional or cognitive states that are different from their own (Sigelman 1999, 329). One process though which this maturation takes place is through play, including taking on the perspectives of real or imagined others (Leslie 1987; Lieberoth 2008). Theory of mind is crucial to

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the development of empathy and higher cognitive process and, according to this theory, the creation and enactment of a consistent role-playing character would be a function of theory of mind. In Jean Piaget’s conception (1923), play is an exercise in assimilation in which children express their own inner schemas of the world around them. In order to play roles and shift perspectives, children must have basic concepts and behavioral “schemas” for the characters they embody and also the overall cognitive capacity to imagine the minds of others and shift perspectives accordingly. Thus, children’s role-taking transitions from the rudimentary reenactment of stereotypical characters such as “doctor” or “teacher” to complex negotiations of identity and behavior as well as shared meta-obligations for the play session in question (e.g. Scott, Baron-Cohen, and Leslie 1999; Lieberoth 2008; Harviainen and Lieberoth 2011). As a part of this development, children also sometimes create paracosms (Cohen and MacKeith 1991) – or imaginary worlds – and imaginary friends (Taylor et al. 2004). As children mature into adolescence, pretense play often connects with the development of identity as adolescents seek to individuate from their parents and find their place in the social strata (Erikson 1968). In this period overt play goes “underground” or takes on more socially acceptable forms (Lieberoth 2008). Pretend play such as role-playing can help provide direction for identity formation in adolescents as can self-socialization though organized sports, games, and media (Carnes 2014). Because of this, adults can also be said to frequently engage in pretend play, though generally under constrained circumstances facilitated by social structures. Adult pretend play undertaken outside of these structures is often viewed as transgressive (→ Chapter 24). Despite the stigma attached to adult pretend play, players cite benefits to the leisure activity, including community-building, problem-solving, and identity exploration (Bowman 2010); increases in self-awareness and empathy (Meriläinen 2012); the development of critical ethical reasoning and awareness of social issues (Simkins 2010); etc. Professional and social skills are sometimes practiced using role-playing. In organizational psychology, many professional organizations utilize adult role-playing as a means of simulation, including higher education, healthcare, government (Bowman 2010), and the military (e.g. Vanek 2012). Scholars and designers are developing an interest in adapting leisure role-playing to educational environments for these reasons (→ Chapter 15).

Cognitive Psychology and Neuroscience Cognitive psychology studies the mind and mental function, including learning, memory, attention, perception, reasoning, language, conceptual development, cognitive capacities, and decision-making. Cognitive psychology typically employs experimental methods and is often considered as providing the “hard” evidence base for understanding human phenomena. Because our shared cognitive apparatus underlies all human behavior and experience, cognitive psychology arguably can help understand the mental processes of role-playing. Still, few studies in cognitive psychology have tackled RPGs directly (Lieberoth and ­Trier-Knudsen 2016). An early study by Michael Kallam (1984) found that a small group of mildly handicapped subjects gradually developed more creative and complex solutions to ingame problems over a prolonged role-playing campaign, a finding that was later mirrored in an inner-city intervention by Luis Zayas and Bradford Lewis (1986). Both studies addressed cognitive problem-solving at a group level, but their findings may not transfer to individuals or

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other problem domains. Using a correlational design, one study found that students who were role-players had a slightly higher IQ (Barnett 1995), while two other studies found no such relationship (Douse and McManus 1993; Simón 1998). Empirically speaking, the evidence base regarding the cognitive dimension of RPGs is too thin for any strong claims or generalizations. Scholars like Andreas Lieberoth, Petri Lankoski and Simo Järvelä have applied the theories of grounded cognition and embodiment to the role-playing experience, arguing that “immersion and bleed are natural consequences of how the brain works” because knowledge is “inseparably grounded to bodily states and modalities” (Lankoski and Järvelä 2012, 18). In other words, when we experience things in the body – even when we know them to be ­fictional – they affect the mind. This has implications for live-action role-play (larp) and possibly for the other forms as well. In brain research, the emerging consensus is that when experiencing stimuli, such as motion or social interactions, on-screen or in the mind’s eye, the patterns of neural activations correspond to slightly modified versions of what we would expect to see if the subject was in that situation herself. This includes emotional states, such as vicariously experiencing embarrassment when watching a cringe-inducing reality show (Melchers et al. 2015). Arguably, the brain does not have separate apparatuses for playing a multi-player online RPG (MORPG), interpreting movies, or imagining the feelings of a Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) character. Instead, the brain recruits the neuronal networks evolved to do or experience those things in real life, with certain “checking and tagging” mechanisms (Lieberoth 2013). We might hypothesize that deep immersion in role-playing involves changes in these modulating processes, at least at the level of conscious experience. A similar hypothesis has been investigated for theater viewing using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), linking activation changes in certain brain regions to the state of dissociation between immediate physical awareness and adhesion to the dramatic fiction (Metz-Lutz et al. 2010). Furthermore, significant overlap exists between the neural networks used to understand stories and those used to interact with other individuals, i.e. the theory of mind or mirroring (Mar 2011), as described earlier. In other words, our cognitive processing of fictional constructs (say, RPG characters) is highly similar to that of actual experience and behavior, which may be a reason why engaging with fictions can build capabilities for empathy, understanding, and taking on the perspectives of others (Mar, Oatley, and Peterson 2009; Kaufman and Libby 2012). Some f MRI studies also suggest that our perception of “reality” versus “fantasy” may relate to the personal relevance of the imaginative content (Abraham and von Cramon 2009). In other words, if a concept is more relevant to our daily lives, we are more likely to perceive it as real. While most of the time, a fictional character might be less relevant and, therefore, less “real” than other concepts, a chronic World of Warcraft player likely views the fictional content as more relevant and, therefore, more real. An alternative interpretation of such results is that narrative meaning helps the brain process fictional elements in a coherent and predictable manner, as evidenced by greater intersubject overlaps of f MRI data recorded while subjects watched story-driven movie clips over non-story ones (Hasson et al. 2008). In theory, role-playing could piggyback on both of these factors as players seek to merge reality and narrative in their in-character experiences. Ultimately, even young children exhibit the capacity to understand the difference between play and work (Bergen 2009), which indicates that even if an individual feels a strong sense of empathy, emotional connection, or relevancy to fictional events, they do not run the risk of forgetting the distinction between reality and fantasy.

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Box 13.1  RPGs and Violence Most research on the cognitive effects of games has attempted to understand the links between video game play and aggression. Some see a causal connection (cf. Anderson and Bushman 2001), while others refute it (cf. Ferguson 2007). Oftentimes, it is the interactive aspect of games that is the concern. For example, comparing the aggressive recess behaviors of students immediately after playing a violent game with others who only watched the same game session, researchers found the active play component to have a significant effect: The designated players displayed more aggression than did the designated onlookers, although they all imitated what had been seen on screen (Polman, de Castro, and van Aken 2008). Thus, the interactive component, including immersion into a character viewpoint, is likely important if and when games lead to cognitive and behavioral changes. In role-­ playing studies, particularly of the practitioner-driven para-academic variety, this transfer of feelings or behaviors from an RPG to real life is known as “bleed”. However, meta-analyses of studies related to aggression and games indicate that findings are strongest in the short term, with no documented links to overt violence and few links to antisocial behavior that cannot be more reliably predicted by factors such as home environment and sociodemographic data (Ferguson 2007; Griffiths 1999). It is unclear how these findings might apply to RPGs, specifically, but it is likely that RPGs follow the same patterns as other interactive games. Compared with other games used to study violent or antisocial content, RPGs offer character enactment and fictional co-creation. Examining the relationship between immersion into character and world, as well as behavioral or biological changes, would serve to better help us understand the relationship between involvement, immersion, and bleed, concepts to be discussed later in this ­chapter (→ Chapter 22).

Behavioral Psychology and Motivation Psychologists have examined why games appear to be highly motivating. Indeed, looking for motivational effects has been one of the more fruitful empirical approaches to the psychological study of games (Ryan, Rigby, and Przybylski 2006), including digital and analog RPGs in schools (Bowman and Sandiford 2015; Lieberoth 2015). Early twentieth-century behaviorism eschewed notions of thought and motives, instead seeing “learned associations between external stimuli and observable responses [as] the building blocks of human development” (Sigelman 1999). Behaviorism centers upon the ways in which human activity can become motivated through positive and negative reinforcement. In the context of games, behaviorism has been used to explain how players may become highly motivated – even “addicted” – to play due to the ongoing reinforcement provided by rewards in games such as World of Warcraft (Yee 2002; Karlsen 2011) and gamification in general (Linehan, Kirman, and Roche 2014). However, such behaviorist frameworks do not help explain why role-taking and pretense play are motivating, and the psychiatric community has thus far resisted acknowledging gaming addiction as a real diagnosis, despite public discourse (APA 2013). In the latter half of the twentieth century, as cognitive psychology gained footing, motivations other than conditioning and rewards became a legitimate area of inquiry. Motivation in this more recent view refers to the human impulse to perform certain actions or maintain

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specific attitudes. In humanistic psychology, motivation is viewed as a spectrum from extrinsic and intrinsic. Extrinsic motivation refers to actions that are energized by causes outside the activity itself, such as punishments, rewards, or social pressure. In RPGs, these can be in-game resources, experience points, special items (Karlsen 2011), status gains (Bowman 2010), or fear of losing one’s character or key social relationships in-game. However, gameplay is also intrinsically motivating: done for its own sake, energized by causes within the activity itself (e.g. Malone and Lepper 1987; Ryan, Rigby, and Przybylski 2006). Players experience enjoyment in the act of play itself, regardless of successes or failures (Csíkszentmihályi 1975). Multiple models of intrinsic motivation exist; immersion, curiosity, and surprise (Malone and Lepper 1987) and experiences of competence, autonomy, and relatedness (Ryan, Rigby, and Przybylski 2006) are repeatedly highlighted as sustaining game engagement over time. More recently, researchers have begun to investigate intrinsic motivation from meaning ful experiences (Oliver and Raney 2011) as some players intentionally “play to lose” to evoke negative experiences similar to e.g. tragedies in theater and literature (Montola 2010; Montola and Holopainen 2012). Besides theories stemming directly from psychology, RPG players and designers have developed typologies of player personalities, motives, and preferences that have since been taken up by research (→ Chapter 10).

Clinical Psychology Role-playing is sometimes used as a therapeutic tool. An early version of the term role-playing was coined by Moreno, an Austrian-American psychologist who founded psychodrama and group psychotherapy. Psychodrama involves a therapist helping individuals to explore psychological issues through the enactment of roles (Blatner 2000). Instead of working through issues one-on-one, psychodrama encourages individuals to cast other participants in the re-staging of key past scenes or imagined future scenarios to explore alternative courses of action, just as leisure role-playing often does. These acts of role-taking not only allow patients to develop new social skills but also to feel empathy for others, benefits also attributed to leisure role-­playing and educational games. Other psychologists use non-directed play therapy to help children work through issues (Ginott 2005). One popular type of play therapy is sandplay, in which children are encouraged to play freely with objects in a tray in order to better understand their feelings and their relationships to others (Carey 1999). Psychodrama A method of group psychotherapy developed by Moreno. Under guidance, patients stage and enact inner conflicts or key scenes from their past with the help of the group, enabling them to reflect on them and explore alternative ways of dealing with them.

Some case studies exist in which psychologists have used leisure RPGs in therapeutic contexts. One study claimed that the “unrestricted play” of games such as D&D by adolescents in psychiatric impatient units “contributed to the disruption of a treatment setting, resistances to treatment, reinforcement of character pathology, disruption of individual treatments, and to the normalization of violence” (Ascherman 1993). Another therapist used D&D to treat a suicidal young adult with an obsessional, schizoid personality. This study found that the fantasy play released fears, enhanced ego development, improved the patient’s interactional abilities, and increased the patient’s feelings of comfort with himself (Blackmon 1994). Kallam (1984)

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observed that a cohort of mildly handicapped players gradually developed higher self-efficacy and capacity for creative and complex solutions as a group, a finding mirrored by Zayas and Lewis (1986). In general, existing clinical case studies (e.g. Zayas and Lewis 1986; Hughes 1988; Blackmon 1994; Enfield 2006; Almog 2011) have a bright outlook on the therapeutic use of fantasy RPGs, many reporting some kind of positive effect on individuals or small groups. However, cases and theoretical interpretations are difficult to distill into clinical recommendations (Sackett et al. 1996) and implement on a larger scale. While readers should remain careful not to conflate leisure RPGs with therapy, many participants report playing them as therapeutic, particularly individuals who cannot afford more standard treatments (Bowman 2010). In fact, some games are designed to explore difficult psychological situations, such as freeform games intended to explore infidelity, e.g. Doubt (Axelzon 2007) and Under My Skin (Boss 2009). Other games include psychologically difficult content as part of the overarching game fiction, such as racism, murder, and slavery. In such games, players may deal directly with such topics or choose to stay farther removed from them. Concerns about psychological safety have thus led to the creation of tools and mechanisms to create safer spaces inside certain role-playing communities (→ Box 13.2). Concerns about potential ill effects of immersion in non-digital fantasy games (→ ­Chapter 19) have largely been dismissed in the research literature. For instance, a casual analysis of suicide statistics does not support the notion that role-players as a group have a higher rate of suicide or symptoms related to self-harm than any other youth cohort (Wolpert 2006; ­Lieberoth and Trier-Knudsen 2016). When compared to groups of non-players, such as other college undergrads (Carter and Lester 1998) or US national guardsmen (DeRenard and Kline 1990), no differences have been found in relation to depression, suicidal ideation, psychoticism, extraversion, or neuroticism. Indeed, in the latter study, role-players rated lower on scores of meaninglessness, suggesting that RPG activities may positively impact mental health and well-being. Authors of clinical case studies suggest that such positive impacts stem from camaraderie and a sense of accomplishment (Zayas and Lewis 1986) as well as the empowering negotiation of shared realities (Hughes 1988). In this regard, role-playing has been linked to increased self-­ efficacy in children and adults (Zayas and Lewis 1986; Hughes 1988; Enfield 2006; Almog 2011; Rosselet and Stauffer 2013). However, correlations have been found between excessive gaming and depression. One study found that individuals who play 15+ hours a week had significantly higher depression and loneliness scores (Pezzeca 2009), but role-players scored lower on depression than did video game players as a group. Even if troubles in the real world may be the root cause of problematic gaming, excessive tabletop role-playing appears to be comparable to other kinds of gaming in this regard.

Personality, Attitudes, and Social Psychology Issues of personality and identity are also central to role-playing. From common personality tests, role-playing gamers appear much like everyone else (e.g. Simón 1987, 1998; Carroll and Carolin 1989; Abyeta and Forest 1991; Douse and McManus 1993; Leeds 1995; Carter and Lester 1998; Rosenthal et al. 1998). However, small variations occur across studies. One study found that players were more likely to be introverted, intuitive, and perceptive compared to the national average (Wilson 2007). Survey researchers and ethnographers have also looked at the formation of identity in role-playing communities. John Denman (1988) found that players

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believed themselves to be intelligent, imaginative, and set outside of the mainstream culture. Certain gender stereotypes are endemic to many role-playing genres and may find expression though play (Martin 2013), yet Stephanie Fleischer (2007) finds that among larpers, “masculine role-playing identities are [negotiated] to represent more complex and intelligent masculine stereotypes” (Lieberoth and Trier-Knudsen 2016). For instance, Heather Shay (2013) investigated a current sample where “good gamer” identities were construed as dedicated, cooperative, selfless, creative, intelligent, and dedicated to authenticity. This fits with other studies of community values among tabletop RPG players and larpers (Denman 1988; Wilson 2007; Meriläinen 2012). Indeed, camaraderie (Zayas and Lewis 1986; Almog 2011) and shared gamer identity seems to be important to myriad social and psychological effects surrounding gaming. As noted, the earliest publicized uses of role-playing occurred in experimental psychology and psychodrama. While adaptations occurred within therapy, most empirical research that followed took place in attitude research and social psychology. The hypothesis was that people’s behaviors and attitudes might by influenced by, say, having to argue unfamiliar points or taking someone else’s perspective in a dilemma. In one famous approach, participants in one experimental group were asked to read an argument and those in another group to write an argument pertaining to the same political issue. Afterwards, the two groups were both somewhat persuaded on the subject matter, but the group that had to take on a position and make their own case for it were significantly more likely to remember the proceedings and retain the attitude contained therein over time (Watts 1967). More emotional role-playing, such as taking on the role of a smoker cum lung cancer patent receiving bad news from her physician, was also demonstrated to have an effect (e.g. Janis and Mann 1965). By the late 1960s, enough studies had been published to warrant review which asserted the stable presence of a “role playing effect” (Elms 1967). The reproducible “role-playing effect” was said to have occurred “when greater attitude change is manifest by role-playing subjects than by controls exposed to similar information (Elms 1967). However, results were far from uniform, especially outside well-controlled labs.

The Psychology of Role-Playing: An Experiential and Interpretative View The perspectives discussed so far understand role-playing from a scientific perspective. However, the psychology of role-play has also been examined from a subjective view in terms of the lived experiences and meanings of role-play. The study of lived experience is commonly called phenomenology (Starks and Trinidad 2007; Eagleton 2008, 47–53). Because researchers cannot access the “live” mental states of others, phenomenological research commonly relies on self-observation and post hoc reports (White 2014). After play, players inevitably construct elaborate stories about their role-play experience, either as informal war stories or guided through more serious debriefing methods (Fatland 2013; Stark 2013). These allow players to express themselves, make sense of their experiences, reflect upon the relationships between themselves and their characters, validate the significance of specific moments, and share with others. Some researchers consider these stories a “lie” (Waern 2013): an attempt to make a chaotic, confusing experience linear and coherent. However, players rarely lie, at least not consciously, although they may omit or forget certain details in the retelling. A more useful way of framing post-game narrativization is the psychoanalytic concept of secondary revision (Freud 2010).

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Arising from dream analysis, secondary revision refers to telling a dream after waking; certain material becomes instantly repressed, whereas other details remain distinct. Sigmund Freud believed that one can analyze the contents of secondary revisions. While such descriptions don’t fully replicate the dream, they provide helpful clues about the psychological concerns of the dreamer. Similarly, post-game narratives can help point to the play experience and ­express player concerns. Indeed, next to role-play studies, psychoanalysis is one body of inquiry that has been used to unpack the experiences and meanings of role-play, describing a body of inquiry emerging chiefly from aca-fans (→ Chapter 10) interested in understanding their “hobby”, particularly larp. We will here engage with them in reverse order.

Concepts Emerging from Role-Play Studies The act of immersion into a character and a fictional world is psychological at its core. The participant must accept a new set of precepts about reality, personal goals, and identity. Role-play theorists emerging from hobby communities have called this shift pretending to believe (Pohjola 2004, 84). Pretending to believe requires the participant to play an active part in the unfolding of the narrative. Indeed, the role-playing experience is viewable as an altered state: a double consciousness of ironic imagination in which they experience reality from within at least two frames of understanding without experiencing cognitive dissonance (Hopeametsä 2008; Saler 2012; Stenros 2013). Role-players often report having psychologically transformative experiences as the result of aesthetic doubling, a similar concept in which they perceive their own identities as existing alongside those of their characters’, a phenomenon also observed in drama ­therapy contexts (Østern and Heikkinen 2001). Players’ primary sense of self or identity remains present while a new self emerges and acts within the fiction of the game world. This alter ego represents the identity and the goals of the character. In their study on the power of narrative fiction, Geoff Kaufman and Lisa Libby (2012) describe this as the process of e­ xperience-taking: temporarily adopting the emotions and concerns of a fictional character in lieu of one’s own. Role-players often refer to this identity shift as immersion (→ Chapter 22). Within play, this new identity performs actions bounded in part by the structure of the game but also driven by the goals of the character. These goals manifest from some mixture of in-game and out-of-game motivations. Thus, both the player and the character have goals that affect play. Sometimes, these goals conflict with one another (Cooper 2007). For example, if a player wishes to have a pleasant role-playing experience with friends but their character’s goals revolve around deception, betrayal, and conflict, that individual may experience moments of dissonance. This can also extend to one’s experience of identity (Montola 2010); if characters behave in ways that their players find inconsistent with their identities, such as acts of murder or taboo activities, they may wonder how such actions can be enacted by them. Players often resolve such dissonance through a rationalization mechanism called alibi (Montola and Holopainen 2012). While players are technically present and enacting, they ­absolve themselves from responsibility for actions their characters perform with statements such as “it’s just a game” or “it’s what my character would have done”. Alibi is an essential aspect of the so-called magic circle of play (Salen and Zimmerman 2004) or frame (→ Chapter 12): the psychological and practical arrangements and implicit or explicit social contracts that “set apart” in-game events and actions and discount them as fictional (Kessock 2013). Together, they help resolve emerging dissonance and allow participants to experience a game with a relative sense of safety.

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Figure 13.1 

(a) A diagram of role-play studies terminology. (b) A visualization of Jung’s layers of consciousness from a modern perspective, integrating Durkheim’s collective consciousness.

Source: Design by Sarah Lynne Bowman. Art by Mat Walker (2014).

However, their protective framework is not ironclad. The phenomenon of emotions, thoughts, relationships, and physical states spilling over between in-game and out-of-game is known as bleed (Montola 2010; Bowman 2013). For example, if a player feels jealousy when their ­out-of-game monogamous romantic partner flirts with another character during a game, they are experiencing bleed, even if their partner technically has the alibi of the character and fiction. Bleed-in occurs when aspects cross over from player to character, while bleed-out happens when the character’s actions and experiences affect the player (see Figure 13.1a and → Chapter 23). Alternately, a player may direct the actions of the character for out-of-game reasons, a process known as steering (Montola, Stenros, and Saitta 2015; Pohjola 2015). While bleed is a mostly unconscious process, steering is intentional. Using our previous example, the jealous player might steer toward a romantic relationship with their out-of-game partner in order to replicate their real-life dynamic in-game and fend off emotional complications (Bowman 2013). Participants can attempt to “play for bleed” by using strategies to weaken the protective framework of play. For example, players can enact characters similar to themselves – also

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called “close to home” characters or doppelgangers (Bowman 2010). Players can also weaken their psychological barriers through exertion, such as sleep deprivation or extreme emotional play called “brink” or “hardcore” play (Poremba 2007; Montola 2010). This often leads to a more intense experience, a lowered sense of inhibition, and a reduced ability to maintain psychological distance. However, employing these strategies does not guarantee bleed. Some players claim to have never experienced bleed in years of role-playing, whereas others hold to experience it on a regular basis. Markus Montola (2010) explored how playing taboo scenarios about e.g. rape produced strong feelings of bleed; while the contents of the game were morally “negative”, players framed their play experience as “positive” in that they were cathartic and insightful. Sarah Lynne Bowman (2013) examined both bleed-in and bleed-out as potential sources of conflict in role-playing communities, listing a multitude of potential bleed effects arising from participant responses (16–18). Maury Brown (2014) has discussed bleed in relation to psychological triggers in larp settings. While bleed is separate from triggering, it may lead to triggering complexes around previous trauma. Related to such problematic consequences are possible negative impacts of exposure to “questionable content” in games (Kessock 2013) and what Gary Alan Fine (1983) describes as overinvolvement. Overinvolvement occurs when the attachment to the character and fiction begins to create problems in the players’ mundane life, something that can be seen as akin to gaming addiction (Karlsen 2011). While overinvolved players are not delusional, they may spend excessive amounts of time playing the game or engaging in imaginative activities pertaining to the fictional universe. One such example of imaginative activity is if-game thinking in which a player’s daydreaming is fixated upon a game (Bowman 2013; Koljonen 2014, 233). If-game thinking can include actions the player fantasizes about taking as their character, scenes they wish to orchestrate, ways in which they may optimize their character’s abilities, relationships they desire to explore in-game, etc. While if-game thinking is a normal process associated with immersion, an overinvolved player may neglect existing social relationships or personal responsibilities. However, the point at which a player should be considered “overinvolved” is debatable as many role-players engage enthusiastically with their preferred game worlds while still maintaining healthy social relationships and fulfilling professional and scholastic obligations. And while outsiders may view psychological investment in a game as unhealthy, players often report feeling a greater sense of meaning and community as a result of immersion into game worlds (Bowman 2010).

Box 13.2  Psychological Safety Player communities (mostly for larp and tabletop RPG) have developed psychological safety mechanisms to reinforce the protective framework of the game (e.g. Bindslet and Schultz 2011; Koljonen, Munthe-Kaas, Pedersen, and Stenros 2012; Koljonen 2013; Pedersen 2015). As larp designer Troels Pedersen recently expressed, “Your larp’s only as safe as its safety culture” (2015). In other words, the tools do not make a game inherently safer, but they do signal to the community that a culture of safety is desirable, reinforcing the protective framework of the magic circle. (Continued)

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Safe Words (Nordic Larp Wiki 2015) • Brake: Used to indicate that someone is at, or near, their limits. Play continues but should not get more intense. • Cut: Indicates that play should immediately stop. • Man Down (used in UK larps): Indicates that physical activity should stop to address possible injuries.

X-Card (Stavropoulos, N.D.) An index card with an “X” on it. Player can use the card to “edit out anything that makes them uncomfortable with no explanations needed”.

Workshops (Pre- and Post-Game) and Debriefs Collaborative or social activities help participants get to know one another outside of the context of the game and develop trust between the ensemble of players. They are also used to ease people into play so that the intensity is less of a shock. Post-game structured debriefing sessions allow players to express pent up emotions and externalize their thoughts in a serious manner. Post-game dining or parties, often accompanied by war stories about the game, allow players to bond over shared narratives in an out-of-character context. Furthermore, some players write letters to their characters, journal entries, or play reports after game sessions as methods of externalizing feelings.

Psychoanalytic Theories Psychoanalytic theory offers interesting concepts and methods for understanding various aspects of the role-playing experience, including the types of content with which participants play and the drive to adopt alternate identities and worlds that Freud (2008) called phantasy. Psychoanalysis focuses upon the relationship between the conscious mind and the unconscious, seen as a collection of drives and desires that lurk beneath the surface. Freud (1990) believed that the psyche is divided into three distinct areas: the ego, which is the conscious mind, the “I” when we speak of ourselves; the id, which is made up of our unconscious drives toward sex, aggression, and death, also called libido and thanatos; and the superego, which is the internalization of social norms meant to regulate the id’s influence. Freud (1990) posited that as children, we understand reality primarily based upon the pleasure principle, meaning we seek pleasure and avoid pain. As we mature, we must adopt the reality principle: an understanding of time, money, language, work, and other social norms that we must adopt in order to coexist, analogous to Emile Durkheim’s (2001) collective consciousness. The ego remains largely unconscious of this internal battle between desires and norms through a process called repression. While repression attempts to keep most drives under control, their mental energy is often redirected into observable thoughts and behaviors, such as dreams, neuroses, psychoses, and creative impulses. Freud believed that the unconscious could be revealed and understood through examination of these impulses, advocating for a form of verbal dialogue between therapist and patient called psychoanalysis. He considered himself

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an empiricist, meaning that he thought that “symptoms” such as artistic representations and dreams could unlock the secrets of the unconscious of every person. Freud (1990) referred to most of these representations as wish fulfillments, meaning images that bubble up from the unconscious, intended to satisfy the wishes of the id. These theories offer some explanation of certain types of creative expression in RPGS. Scholars such as Michelle Nephew (2006) have found the notion of wish fulfillment u ­ seful when analyzing role-playing, positing that the core contents of most D&D adventures – ­including violence, theft, and sometimes rape – are the manifestation of male power fantasies, emerging from adolescence. In fact, like much of popular culture, RPGs often feature extensive systems for violence as main components of their design (Torner 2015). Some systems also feature mechanics for sexuality, although explicit sexuality in games remains somewhat taboo (→ Chapter 25). Some reject this reading of role-play as wish fulfillment view to be reductive: after all, the imaginative spaces of RPGs can and do produce an almost limitless wealth of creative imagery, only some of which emerges as sexual or violent. Still, if role-players can imagine any world, why do they continue to imagine worlds filled with dominance and violence? Whatever the cause, much RPG content is transgressive against social and cultural norms (→ Chapter 24). Jungian psychoanalysis offers an alternative explanatory framework. Carl Jung (1976) believed that the human mind had embedded images – called archetypes – that evolved over time. Drawing the term from Plato’s philosophy of ideal forms, Jung thought archetypes were important to the development of human consciousness and language and that they continued to manifest within human dreams, art, creativity, religion, and other facets of our culture. He (1976) posited that humans could access archetypes through a process called active imagination, a conscious dream or trance-like state in which the individual is awake yet open to imagery emerging from what Jung called the collective unconscious. The collective unconscious contains the archetypes of the past and, he speculated, might even point to an interconnected consciousness to which all humans are linked. He charted cross-cultural similarities between certain archetypal symbols in religion and culture, including geometric shapes; elemental and natural forces, such as trees, the earth, and the sun; animals, such as snakes and bears; and ­repeating roles, such the Great Mother, the Trickster, the Sage, etc. Ultimately, whether these symbols are embedded in our genetic material or merely arise in culture as memes, they are recognizable in modern popular culture and emerge in RPGs quite often, particularly in the fantasy genre. When accessing archetypes through active imagination, the individual can engage in a form of dialogue with these symbols, which are sometimes embodied as characters. Jung (1976) believed that archetypes are unknowable in their complete form, and such interactions reveal only aspects of the archetype. After interacting with aspects, individuals must reconcile their previous identity with this transformative information through a process called individuation. This process requires dedication, work, and facing the darker side of one’s unconscious, which Jung termed the Shadow. Thus, for Jung, consciousness involves several layers: the persona, or outer shell, often accompanied by expected social roles; the personal consciousness, or ego identity; the personal unconscious, or repressed elements of the psyche, including the Shadow; and the collective unconscious (see Figure 13.1b). Jung’s theories were quite influential in humanistic psychology. They offered a path to the transpersonal, to rise above the human condition and strive toward a higher state of consciousness (cf Maslow 1943; Assagioli 1965). They also influenced mythologists like Joseph

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Campbell, whose book The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1947) tried to unearth a similar universal narrative and spiritual structure across myths, which was popularized by screenwriters like George Lucas, using Campbell’s hero’s journey as a blueprint for plotting. Along these lines, Whitney Beltrán has explored role-playing as a way to recover myth, ritual, and the hero’s journey in a secular world (2012), also discussing the potential benefits and drawbacks of enacting the individual and collective Shadow aspects of the unconscious through role-playing narratives. Fantasy RPGs like D&D feature strongly archetypal characters inspired by mythic sources and, in their character progression systems, effectively model an extended hero’s journey in which characters may eventually ascend into godhood: the ultimate expression of the transpersonal. Expanding upon the work of Stephen Larsen (1996), who studied larpers as indicative of a modern enactment of mythic imagination, Craig Page (2014) has articulated three levels of myth in larp: the World Myth, which describes the metaplot; the Heroic Myth, which indicates the role of the character; and the Player Myth, which refers to the stories told after the game that become part of the understood overall fiction. Overall, psychoanalytic theories offer explanatory potential for exploring certain ever-­ present questions inherent to the role-playing experience: from where do characters emerge? What is the nature of their personalities? Who are role-playing characters in relation to the self?

Summary This chapter has provided a cursory overview of some of the psychological concepts relevant to the role-playing experience. We have examined this from two perspectives: an empirical scientific, and an experiential and interpretative view. For the former, we discussed some core concepts, such as the role that pretense play has in human development and the theory of mind. We also discussed how scientists are trying to understand what happens “in the brain” when people role-play as well as what we know about the motivations that people have for ­role-­playing, as explained by behavioral psychology. The first half of the chapter concluded with an examination of the concerns that are often expressed in the media regarding role-­ playing: is it dangerous, psychologically? There seem to be no dangers specific to role-playing; in fact, there can be many benefits as it is used in psychodrama and psychotherapy, but these are hard to determine empirically. In the second half of the chapter, we assumed an experiential view and discussed the phenomenology of role-playing and how different psychoanalytic theories can be useful in helping us to understand what the experience of role-playing is like and what it’s relation to consciousness is. We also examined some psychological concepts, such as bleed, that have been developed to better articulate the psychological relationship between players and their characters as they play.

Further Reading Bowman, Sarah Lynne. 2010. The Functions of Role-Playing Games: How Participants Create Community, Solve Problems, and Explore Identity. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, Inc. Lieberoth, Andreas, and Jonas Trier-Knudsen. 2016. “Psychological Effects of Fantasy Games on Their Players: A Discourse-Based Look at the Evidence.” In The Role-Playing Society: Essays on the Cultural Influence of RPGs, edited by Andrew Byers and Francesco Crocco. Jefferson, NC: McFarland. doi:978-0-7864-9883-3. Meriläinen, Mikko. 2012. “The Self-Perceived Effects of the Role-playing Hobby on Personal ­Development – A Survey Report.” International Journal of Role-Playing 3: 49–68.

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Vanek, Aaron. 2012. “Inside the Box: The United States Army’s Taxpayer Funded Larp.” In Wyrd Con Companion 2012, edited by Aaron Vanek and Sarah Lynne Bowman, 77–80. Los Angeles, CA: Wyrd Con. Waern, Annika. 2013. “Nordic Larp Talks: How Can We Know What Actually Happened at a Larp.” Nordiclarp.org, April 22. Accessed August 20, 2015. http://nordiclarp.org/2013/04/22/nordiclarp-talks-how-can-we-know-what-actually-happened-in-a-larp%E2%80%A8/. Watts, William A. 1967. “Relative Persistence of Opinion Change Induced by Active Compared to Passive Participation.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 5 (1): 4–15. doi:10.1037/h0021196. White, Matthew M. 2008. “Level 10 Human Student: The Effects of Non-Curricular Role-Playing Game Use on Academic Achievement and Self-Efficacy.” Masters Thesis, The University of New Brunswick. White, William J. 2014. “Player-Character is What You Are in the Dark: The Phenomenology of ­Immersion in Dungeons & Dragons.” Pp 82-92 in Dungeons & Dragons and Philosophy, edited by ­Christopher Robichaud. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. Wilson, David Louis. 2007. “An Exploratory Study on the Players of Dungeons and Dragons.” PhD Thesis, Palo Alto, CA: Institute of Transpersonal Psychology. Wolpert, Lewis. 2006. Six Impossible Things before Breakfast – The Evolutionary Origins of Belief. London: Faber & Faber. Yee, Nicholas. 2002. “Ariadne: Understanding MMPORPG Addiction.” Nickyee.com. Accessed ­September 15, 2015. www.nickyee.com/hub/addiction/addiction.pdf. Zayas, Luis H., and Bradford H. Lewis. 1986. “Fantasy Role-Playing for Mutual Aid in Children’s Groups: A Case Illustration.” Social Work with Groups 9 (1): 53–66. doi:10.1300/J009v09n01_05.

14 Literary Studies and Role-Playing Games David Jara and Evan Torner

Literary Studies is an academic discipline that involves the systematic study and analysis of literature. But what is ‘literature’, and to what extent can role-playing games (RPGs) be counted as such? In terms of its etymology, the word literature refers to written language. Accordingly, traditional notions of literature have been greatly informed by print media and the book as a cultural artifact (Vandenthorpe 2008). Although contemporary notions of textuality have expanded the scope of Literary Studies, it still focuses on verbally encoded and usually printed or otherwise affixed language. Astrid Ensslin (2007), for example, states that the adjective ‘literary’ refers to the emotions, meanings, and similar experiences stoked by words. Any RPG player will be readily familiar with this: in tabletop RPGs (TRPGs), live-action role-play (larp), or online freeform RPGs, spoken or written language is often the main substance of gameplay. Literary works are also often described as texts (from the Latin textum for fabric or web), that is, as systems of interconnected signs. Because all human action arguably involves signification (Barthes 1957), ‘text’ has come to include verbal language and languages of other media, such as film or comics—or arcade games (Cornis-Pope 2014). Any set of signs that can be interpreted or ‘read’ count as a (potentially literary) text: a TRPG or larp game book is a text. A play report is a text. A 70-hour computer RPG (CRPG) is a text. In Literary Studies, literature is commonly defined by a specific use or form of language. ‘These lives flee from us like gossip and gestures’, a line by the poet Gryphius, is presumably literary. ‘Can I roll an attack to see if my bow hit?’ presumably is not. ‘Literature’ implies a quality, termed literariness or poeticity, that, in theory, helps distinguish between ‘literary’ and ‘non-literary’ texts. It refers to some or all of the following: • • • •

Defamiliarization: literary language deviates and distinguishes itself from everyday language, both in use and form. Fictionality: literary texts refer to something that does not exist outside of the work. Ambiguity: literary texts afford different interpretations by extending the possible meanings of the words or signs that compose a text. Context: works of literature do not have a function or use in the same way a cookbook or a map does.

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RPGs are edge cases for literariness and poeticity. The TRPG Unknown Armies opens with a technical description: ‘Unknown Armies is an occult game about broken people conspiring to fix the world’. But it ends the section with a literary statement interwoven with a practical instruction: ‘Without you, the world ticks on as it always has. Your job is to create a character for whom that is intolerable’ (Tynes & Stolze 2016, 5). This oscillation between instructive, descriptive, and literary language is a feature of many TRPG rule books. Similarly, fantasy CRPGs, such as Diablo (1996), use the trope of scroll-shaped or book-framed text boxes to afford players a readerly moment before they return to the standard avatar view. Literary scholarship has also worked towards identifying, sometimes prescribing, the features of ‘good’ literature, which are reflected in literary ‘canons’ or lists of ‘great’ literature considered to possess special aesthetic, moral, cultural, and material value (→ Chapter 21 for ‘canon’ in the context of fandom). Twentieth-century theorists challenged these distinctions of ‘high’ and ‘low’ culture, replacing them with broad definitions of text that can all be fruitfully subjected to interpretation (Knellwolf & Norris 2001). Thus, RPGs become literature when we choose to read their texts in a literary fashion. Overall, as a discipline, Literary Studies attempts to understand what texts mean (hermeneutics) and how they evoke these meanings (poetics). Analogously, past RPG studies have chiefly adopted two major manifestations of Literary Studies: textual analysis concerned with the meaning and interpretation of RPGs and narratology, which is more interested in formally describing how RPGs and their stories are constructed.

Literature and RPG Studies Early 20th-century authors and scholars explored play and games in relation to literature and established an important precedent to current game studies. In fact, the notion of literature as a form of play is almost as old as literature itself (Sutrop 2000). Grounded in examples of French avant-garde literature like work by Stéphane Mallarmé and the Oulipo collective, post-­structuralist theorists cast literature and indeed all meaning-making as an inherently boundless free play of texts and their readings (e.g. Derrida 1978; Iser 1980).

Fictionality and Role-Play In the 1950s, Walker Gibson already conceived of reading literary fiction as a form of role-play, stating that ‘[e]very time we open the pages of another piece of writing, we are embarked on a new adventure in which we become a new person’: [T]here are two readers indistinguishable in every literary experience. First, there is the “real” individual upon whose crossed knee rests the open volume […]. Second, there is the fictitious reader – I shall call him the ‘mock reader’ – whose mask and costume the individual takes on in order to experience the language. […] A bad book, then, is a book in whose mock reader we discover a person we refuse to become, a mask we refuse to put on, a role we will not play. (Gibson 1950/1980, 1–5) Gibson’s ‘real’ and ‘mock’ readers are closely related to Gary Alan Fine’s (2002) distinction between the enactment of ‘player’ and ‘character’ identities during TRPG gameplay. Margit

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Sutrop similarly speaks of ‘imagining in first person’ as the defining characteristic of the literary experience and the source of our emotional involvement with fictions in general (Sutrop 2002, 226). To summarize with Peter Brandes (2009), reading fictional literature and gameplay are: • • • • • •

cultural practices, enabled by social frames, defined by rule systems, voluntary activities, done for pleasure or fun, and assume a social distinction between play and seriousness.

Literary Play Literature itself has constantly staged its own playful nature. Game-like contests between poets featured prominently in early literature, such as the Greek eclogues. The baroque pastoral genre was notorious for its self-referential focus on the relationship between literature and reality, foregrounding the idea that art in general was a form of play with meaning (Iser 1991). Authors of early Gothic and detective fiction from the 18th and 19th centuries, on the other hand, consciously utilized markers of non-fictionality—footnotes, fake newsletters or scientific reports—to enhance the emotional effect on the reader by making texts seem realistic. As a result, the texts emphasized an understanding of fiction as a form of make believe and role-play. Ergodic Literature Literature that requires more than a trivial effort by the reader to traverse the text is called ergodic literature (Aarseth 1997). This is generally taken to mean that the reader must actively make decisions in order to generate and/or read the text. Early text-based multi-player online RPGs (MORPGs), like MUD1 and TinyMUD, are considered ergodic literature.

Although print media are often seen as noninteractive, early 20th-century writers were keenly interested in interactivity and the deconstruction and playful nature of literature. Tristan Tzara’s ‘To Make a Dadaist Poem’ (1920), for example, is a simple set of instructions the reader can use to assemble her/his own work from random scraps of language. Similarly, Julio Cortázar’s novel Hopscotch (1967) includes additional chapters and instructions for the reader to reorganize the book, thus creating alternative versions of it. The French literary movement Oulipo ‘gamified’ literary production by establishing playful constraints for authors to overcome. For example, Georges Perec’s novel La Disparition (1969) was written without using the letter ‘e’—and therefore without any words containing it.

RPGs’ ‘Literary Heritage’ Michelle Nephew argues that th[e] pregenerated background afforded by a literature-based setting is a boon to roleplaying games […] because [it] fulfills that wish on the part of the readers of a book, or the audiences of a movie, to take the story beyond the ending the original writer provided (Nephew 2003, 67)

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Michael Saler (2012) argues that the fan communities that developed around the public discussion of fantasy, detective fiction, and early science fiction texts in magazines, clubs, and conventions provided a form of social network based on the ‘willing belief ’ in fictional worlds. By encouraging the continuous participation of the public in the construction and interpretation of the worlds of these texts, this form of shared pretense not only heightened people’s sense of emotional investment and immersion but transformed relatively ‘static’ fictional worlds into persistently inhabited ‘virtual’ ones. Such fan communities evolved into those that would produce Dungeons & Dragons and other RPGs (Peterson 2012). Seeing RPGs as a form of literary-based fan culture, Daniel Punday also suggests that RPGs allow players to establish relationships between literary subgenres, such as fantasy and science fiction. As he observes, [role]play is less a matter of escape or story than a matter of sifting through the relations between genres and what it means to be a fan. In this regard, RPGs are exemplary artifacts of fan culture and reflect the cultural work done by objects that achieve ‘‘cult’’ status. (Punday 2005, 128) RPGs reflect the importance of literature as a form of social practice and human interaction. Not only do these games allow us to become involved in fictions, but they allow us to do so simultaneously as a group, therefore establishing fiction as a place of ‘real’ encounters.

Hyperfiction The ‘Literary Studies’ approach to RPGs is tied to the discussions surrounding the emergence of hypertext fiction (‘hyperfiction’) in the mid-1980s. Hypertext and Hyperfiction A hypertext is a system of information organization based on discrete elements known as ‘lexias’ connected with each other via links. Almost any webpage on the Internet is considered a hypertext. Hyperfiction is a literary text form based on a hypertextual organization principle. Although there are some notable exceptions, hyperfictions are mostly ‘digital born’.

As a result of their often complex ‘branching structure’, hyperfiction narratives lacked fixed (‘linear’) plots or clear endings (‘closure’). Instead of turning pages, readers choose among a number of ‘links’ in order to ‘navigate’ through a text, thus creating their own textual trajectory or ‘path’ through it. These features revealed a new form of textuality—both in its production as well as reception—as an emergent process of decision-making and interpretation that took on increasingly game-like qualities (Wardrip-Fruin 2007). Interactive fiction (IF) is a form of fiction that reacts to the input of a reader or audience (Montfort 2003). As a consequence, IFs require the active participation of the reader in order to produce a text. It is an umbrella term, covering anything from ‘choose your own adventure’ to hyperfiction to RPGs.

The study of hyperfiction laid the foundations for studying other digital phenomena, including CRPGs and MORPGs. In the case of TRPGs, it became apparent that these, too, were

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complex ‘ergodic’ texts based on collaborative and interactive narration and, as such, were unprecedented in the way in which they destabilized ‘the notion of a cohesive, central creator of a work’ (Nephew 2003, 166).

Box 14.1  Game Books, Solo Adventures, and RPG Game Books Game Books are texts whose stories are experienced through reading a series of numbered sections. At the end of each section, the reader is offered a choice and then, based on that choice, moves to the next corresponding section (Costikyan 2007). They are also called ‘choose your own adventure’ (CYOA) and branching narrative books. Solo Adventures differ from game books in that, in addition to reading and d ­ ecisionmaking, they require that players have knowledge of, and experience with, the rules of the game they were designed for (generally a TRPG). These rules were not included in the book. Early solo adventures were published for the TRPG Tunnels & Trolls. RPG Game Books are a hybrid in that they represent the ‘addition of rules and game mechanics to the CYOA format’ or ‘the design of a pencil and paper RPG system simple enough that it could be self-contained in an RPG solo adventure’ (Zagal & Lewis 2015). In other words, they are like solo adventures with rules included in the book. Popular RPG gamebooks include those in the Fighting Fantasy and Lone Wolf series. Source: (Zagal & Lewis 2015)

Analyzing RPGs To apply textual analysis to RPGs, we need to define what the ‘text’ in question is. RPGs comprise superimposed layers of discourse and different instances of authorial control and agency. Also, ‘it is not clear where to draw the line between game and non-game, between “the game” and its “surroundings”’ (Rockenberger 2014, 260). TRPGs may feature large amounts of written text in rule books, scenarios, or adventure sets. CRPGs, on the other hand, often include accompanying booklets with instructions for playing the game and information related to the game’s setting or narrative premise. These texts, however, are not always necessary for play: a group of Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) players could ignore a location in a scenario, a CRPG player could not read the manual, etc. Furthermore, player interaction during gameplay is often verbal, gestural, and aural and can involve other media. Few of these textual elements, however, are ever transcribed, existing only momentarily or ‘ephemerally’ within the game session. And yet they are an essential part of the game. This is especially notorious in the case of TRPGs and larp. MORPGs and CRPGs are meanwhile constructed as ‘vast’ or ‘encyclopedic’ narrative worlds. This means that they are ‘open-ended’ texts, which can ­develop—often uninterruptedly and over extended periods of time—independently of the actions of individual players. This makes it even more difficult to speak of a contained or unique ‘text’. RPGs combine pre-established textual structures and emergent performance. Scholars call this condition ‘emergent’ because the way in which play (and, correspondingly, the game’s narrative) is constructed and experienced cannot be predicted a priori. More importantly, many RPG’s aspects are only temporarily available during gameplay, making retrospective analysis difficult.

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Linearity, Non-linearity, Multi-linearity Traditional media texts are described as linear because they typically present audiences with a single, pre-established sequence of events. Non-linearity occurs when the sequence of events depends on the reader’s/­ player’s choices. Multi-linearity is when the same textual artifact can offer several different paths or ‘storylines’. This is relevant in RPGs as individual players decide how to ‘navigate’ through the game world and can even create events on the fly if they choose to do so.

Thus, delineating what RPG ‘text’ one is discussing is important. Lisa Padol’s (1996) definition of the TRPG text as ‘the session itself, transitory, existing only for the duration of the session’ marginalizes the rules and manuals. Yet including ‘everything’ without a specific focus threatens to muddle even the most well-meaning of studies. As Stenros writes, ‘Searching for meaning in role-playing games is a worthwhile process, but it is important to enunciate properly what it is exactly that is being analysed’ (Stenros 2004, 78). A narrower definition of which RPG text is meant allows for a more capacious application of Literary Studies techniques on the object itself: the meta-fiction in a rule book, the dialog script from a CRPG, the character database for a larp, the play report of an MORPG guild, etc.

Hermeneutics and Textual Analysis RPGs create a fictional reality that is ‘embedded’ in the real world. When communicating within the fictional world of the game, the language we use functionally ‘mimics’ everyday language. As characters, we ask non-player characters (NPCs) to give us items or tell us where a treasure is located. Literary language, however, speaks to reality indirectly: through metaphors, personifications, flourishes, and so forth. Textual interpretation, therefore, involves understanding a text beyond its ‘face value’. But where does a text’s meaning come from? Is it defined by the author or the reader/player? Is it external or intrinsic to the text itself? These are some of the questions traditionally discussed by literary theory that are relevant for RPG analysis.

Interpretation in RPGs Playing an RPG involves many forms of interpretation. First, we ‘read’ the signs used to ‘represent’ or simulate the fictional world of the game: a verbal description of a tavern in a TRPG, the body language of other players in a larp, the on-screen interface in a CRPG or MORPG. These elements allow us to generate a mental image of the game world and to (inter)act coherently with and within it. Second, we use language to communicate as characters within that same game world. Third, we may relate the game to our knowledge of other texts (intertextuality) and to our real-world ideas and experiences. This can be described as the difference between understanding and interpreting a game (cf. Kücklich 2006). The latter involves going beyond what we could call the ‘literal’ understanding of the game in order to make observations that relate to its ‘deeper’ meaning. But where does such a ‘deeper’ meaning come from? Early approaches to textual interpretation viewed meaning as something that was ‘encoded’ into the text by the author. These forms of ‘historical criticism’ tended to favor the idea that a ‘correct’ interpretation could only be obtained by knowing or discovering the intentions of a work’s creator. Later theories refuted the ‘author-centric’ perspective, arguing that the meaning of a text could not be ascribed to a source beyond the text itself. Because they were built from basic semantic units such as literary motifs and tropes, literary texts were ‘intrinsically’ meaningful. Thus, interpretation was less a question about what a text meant as about how it worked.

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In order to explain the latter, a methodology called ‘close reading’ was developed, involving the detailed examination and formal analysis of individual texts. Close reading made it possible to ‘dissect’ and understand the ‘mechanics’ behind literary works but has been criticized for excluding relevant contextual information. For ‘Marxist’ criticism and the later ‘New Historicist’ approach, on the other hand, context was decisive in conferring meaning to a text. Literature, they argued, was a product of its time and was to be seen as symptomatic of the social, economic, historical, and ideological contexts surrounding it. Yet another perspective was taken by the so-called reader-response theories. These emphasized the active participation of readers and audiences in cognitively constructing and conveying a text’s meaning. Although subjective, meaning was not random but rather a ‘negotiation’ between the reader—their knowledge and expectations—and the semantic structures present in the text. Finally, post-structuralist ­theories—in particular, Jacques Derrida’s deconstruction movement—questioned the enterprise of interpretation as a whole, arguing that because the meaning of language is arbitrary and differential, it is impossible to speak of any stable meanings in a text. A wide range of approaches to textual interpretation are available. While many developed historically as a reaction to one another, RPG studies allows us to integrate them in a useful manner. For example, author-centered approaches manifest through Ian Bogost’s (2007) notion of ‘procedural rhetoric’, a term that describes how video game rules and mechanics are a form of encoded discourse and are, therefore, conveyors of ‘authorized’ meanings. Text-based approaches, on the other hand, can be observed in ‘close readings’ of an RPG’s pre-generated or ‘scripted’ texts (e.g. Jara 2013; Torner 2016). This can be useful to understanding the mechanisms and structures of meaning ‘objectively’ available in the text. Additionally, RPG scholars often use the term ‘close-playing’ to describe a reader-/player-based methodology centered around the subjective experience of gameplay. This kind of approach is typical of TRPG analysis where ‘[t]he reading done by a participant, and the special case of a reading done by the game master, are the second most common starting-points of analyses of role-playing games’ (Stenros 2004, 76–77). However, as Jennifer Grouling-Cover (2010) observes, it is also important to be aware of the fact that our particular experience of the game might be idiosyncratic and non-generalizable. Finally, post-structuralist and deconstructionist theories can be used to demonstrate/discuss the extent to which gameplay may also be a space for subversion and reappropriation. For example, when participants engage in activities that have not been explicitly contemplated by the designers as forming part of the game (e.g. Ensslin 2014).

Hermeneutic Circle: Play and Re-Play The hermeneutic circle in interpretation theory describes the paradox that in order to make sense of a text, we must already have a (pre-)understanding of it: one that is influenced by information such as the title, genre, knowledge about its creator, the hype about it in the newspaper, etc. Contexts and expectations allow us to make sense of the elements that compose a text. Conversely, as we make sense of it, our interpretation of the text as a whole changes, making us reassess our understanding of its composing elements. Realizing at the end that two characters are blood relations, for example, might completely change our understanding of the events in a game. This may, more likely than not, require us to play it again. As a result, interpretation is conceived of as a ‘circular’ movement between our overall and particular understanding of a text and, as such, as an always incomplete and ongoing process. For RPG studies, the hermeneutic circle helps highlight the importance of playing (‘reading’) and re-playing a game (interpretation). Re-playing, however, is complicated because most

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games do not allow re-play in the same sense that print media allows re-reading. Every time we encounter a game, we may engage with it differently, not only cognitively but also from a very practical perspective: we might encounter other situations and characters, we might fail in accomplishing the main task and ‘lose’, and so forth. Nevertheless, playing a game repeatedly allows us to understand the text more deeply because we will be more aware of the differences between one playing and another and thus of how different, individual elements of a game may affect our experience of it as a whole. Conversely, the more we understand a game as a macro-textual structure, the more nuanced our observations of its individual elements become.

Intertextuality Intertextuality refers to the way texts affect each other’s meaning. Typical examples of intertextuality are texts that explicitly parody, imitate, or quote from others. A text may also covertly allude to another, either in content or structure. Readers can also establish personal intertextual relationships when making connections between texts. The fact that the author of a work might not have ‘seen’ or indeed intended such a connection is irrelevant because intertextuality is concerned with how texts affect each other’s meanings. For example, the MORPG The Secret World (2012) alludes to a number of locations and character names from fiction horror authors H.P. Lovecraft (Kingsmouth) and Stephen King (Maine, The Overlook Motel), among others. By doing so, it taps into the fictional and figurative imaginary of these authors, calling our attention to themes such as helplessness and social decay. We might then develop allegorical interpretations of the game: e.g. The Secret World can be read as a reflection of modern-day fears in an increasingly globalized and depersonalized society. Similarly, Fallout 3 (2008) includes allusions to classical literary works, such as T.S. Elliot’s The Wasteland (1922), John Milton’s Paradise Lost (1667) and Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy (1320). Thus, the text makes a claim as to its aesthetic and ‘literary’ value. More importantly, these references emphasize the game’s themes of morality, redemption, and damnation, hinting that the protagonist’s plight can be seen metaphorically as an everyman’s deliberation on the issue of free will. Angelina Ilieva (2013), on the other hand, has demonstrated how intertexts and other ‘literary codes’ are sometimes used as clues to help players resolve in-game complications or ‘riddles’. The literary code itself is thus also a mode of communication in RPGs.

Paratextuality in RPGs The worlds, events, and narratives of RPGs, in all their forms, do not occur in a vacuum. Gérard Genette (1987/1997) coined the term paratext to refer to elements in print media that ‘surround’ the ‘main text’. Additionally, there are peritexts (appended to the main body of a work) and epitexts (texts outside the main body). In RPGs, game titles, packaging, cover and back cover, and so forth are peritexts, and accompanying media, like trailers, reviews, and walkthroughs, are epitexts. Paratexts inform, mediate, and influence what we expect from, how we interact with, and how we make sense of a game and the stories it produces. Consider The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind (2002). Its title establishes it as a sequel, immediately foregrounding narrative progression as a priority. It reinforces its kinship to the preceding titles in the series via the subtitle ‘The Sequel to Arena and Daggerfall’ so as to claim to its own value based on the latter’s success. Additionally, the (pseudo-)diegetic text on the back of

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the box frames the game as a source of ludic and narrative pleasures, portrays the CRPG as a storytelling medium, and evokes the language of traditional analog RPGs: Snatched from prison by the Emperor’s decree, you arrive at the port of Seyda Neen with nothing but the name of a contact in Balmora… completely ignorant of the Prophecies of the Incarnate, your mission and the role you are to play in the Morrowind’s history. Will you play an heroic warrior or a stealthy thief? Will you join a mages guild or the assassin guild? Will you explore in the huge open-ended world or will you complete all the quests and find the Truth? You’re the only one to answer those questions. You write the story. (Bethesda Softworks 2002) Paratexts also influence the production of text during play. Call of Cthulhu’s cover (1981) emphasizes that it is supposed to be a game about ‘horror’ based on Lovecraft. The illustration evokes the appropriate themes, genre, and mood. It is, however, up to the players to include these elements in gameplay. Indeed, even the extensive information in the manual is only potentially diegetic. David Jara (2013) recognizes the unique and unconventional use of texts and paratexts as a way of generating—not merely mediating—fiction. RPGs are fictions that beget more fictions, and paratexts are an important source of knowledge for our understanding. By ‘provid[ing] further layers of interpretation’, paratexts allow us ‘to understand how [video games] become complex media artifacts’ (Fernández-Vara 2015, 379–87).

RPG Canons The notion of corpus of core texts (canon) around which a field revolves is also closely related to the idea of intertextuality. For example, William Shakespeare’s Hamlet belongs to the canon of English literature, given how much it is referenced and studied. Canon can be found in two contexts in the study of RPGs: the corpus of texts that form the presumed literary basis of an RPG and the corpus of RPGs thought themselves to be canonical for a specific medium. Gary Gygax’s now famous Appendix N ‘Inspirational and Educational Reading’ from the 1979 Advanced Dungeons &Dragons Dungeon Master’s Guide suggests many literary inspirations for the system: the works of Lord Dunsany, Poul Anderson’s The High Crusade (1960), Jack Vance’s Eyes of the Overworld (1966), and so forth. ‘The most immediate influences upon AD&D’, Gygax writes, ‘were probably de Camp & Pratt, R. E. Howard, Fritz Leiber, Jack Vance, H. P. Lovecraft, and A. Merritt’ (Gygax 1979, 224). Other TRPGs, including Cyberpunk 2020 (1991), In Nomine (1997), and others, incorporated bibliographies to document texts that might inspire play. Literary interpretation might point out specific works’ influence on D&D’s rules, for example, or it might describe common tropes and language between early fantasy RPGs and these genre texts. The RPG canon itself—what are the must-play RPGs of an era, genre, etc.—is naturally contested but perhaps less that one might imagine. For TRPGs, D&D (1974) would count as canonical: references to its systems (e.g. saving throw) might be made without forewarning or introduction. For larps, Vampire: The Masquerade may be considered canonical because it was likely also an average player’s gateway into the hobby. For contemporary CRPGs, games in

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the Final Fantasy series could be canonical, given their vastness and overall cultural reach. For MORPGs, it would be undoubtedly World of Warcraft (Blizzard 2004). In analyses of these bodies of work, literary scholars can spot patterns emerging from the interaction between RPGs and the texts that followed them.

Narratology Narratology studies the forms, structures, and mental processes involved in the generation of narratives. Narrative can be described as the rendering of a set of events (story) in a way that discloses a relationship of causality between them (plot). The specific way in which story and plot are conveyed is called discourse. Originally, narrative was defined as the verbal rendering of a story via a narrator to a narratee (Prince 1987). Scholars, however, have contested this notion, arguing that narrative is a mental/cognitive construct. As such, it can be produced by or derived from any form of semantic encoding/decoding (e.g. Ryan 2006; Domsch 2013). RPGs are of interest to narratology because they use games as a medium for telling stories and display unique features, such as simultaneity, interactivity, emergence, and collaboration.

Box 14.2  Games Against Narratives? Can games be considered narratives, or are games and narratives mutually exclusive? This is one of the most well-known discussions in game studies: the so-called ludology vs. narratology debate. Recognizing ‘storytelling’ as an important element in the design and appreciation of many contemporary games, ‘narratologists’ were interested in describing and analyzing the particular ways in which these and other interactive media could integrate and/or produce narratives. Early game researchers or ‘ludologists’, on the other hand, argued that the main feature of narratives was that they were predetermined and therefore ‘linear’ in a way that precluded the ‘essential’ quality of games, namely, their interactivity. As Greg Costikyan put it, ‘[t]o the degree that you make a story more like a game—with alternative paths and outcomes—you make it a less effective story. It’s not merely that games aren’t stories, and vice versa; rather they are, in a sense, opposites’ [emphasis added] (Costikyan 2007, 13). The main problem with the ludological position was that its arguments were mostly ideologically/politically motivated. At a time when game studies were only beginning to develop as a specialized field of investigation, narratology—­ originally a subfield of Literary Studies—was perceived as a potential ‘threat’ to game studies’ chances of ‘emancipation’. Correspondingly, as Grouling-Cover has pointed out, the ludological understanding of narrative was artificially narrow and obsolete. Indeed, by the early 20th century, narrative theories were already being applied to cinema, drama, and even poetry (Weedon 2001). Despite the initial conflict of the two perspectives, the present understanding of games in general and RPGs in particular acknowledges games as a medium that affords storytelling, albeit to different degrees (Ryan 2006). Consequently, current approaches are less concerned with whether specific games are narratives as with how they are so. Thus, both in their analog and digital forms, RPGs present the challenge of analyzing narratives that ‘are simulative rather than representational, emergent rather than scripted, participatory rather than receptive, and simultaneous rather than retrospective’ (Ryan 2006, no. 173).

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Future Narratives: Emergence, Interactivity, and Authority The story, plot, and even discourse on an RPG are at least partially dependent on player action, decision-making, and direct creative input. Because of this, Christoph Bode, Rainer Dietrich, and Jeffrey Kranhold (2013) have described RPGs as ‘future narratives’. They argue that it is the ‘nodal situation’ (or ‘node’) rather than the ‘event’ that becomes the defining element and minimal narrative unit. As players of such texts, we negotiate the narrative by taking action and making meaningful decisions, and we are also made aware that ‘“what happens next” may well depend upon us, upon our decisions, our actions, our values and motivations’ (ibid.). Nevertheless, different RPGs allow for different forms of interactivity and thus various ‘degrees’ of narrative potentiality and emergence. Game designers and players may therefore use different strategies to ‘harness’ narrative content and confer it with meaning. Whereas classical narratology attempted to reduce narrative discourse to its basic components, the qualities of RPG storytelling often require an approach from an inverse perspective: identifying, in retrospect, the elements used to generate meaningful narratives during gameplay.

Improvising Narratives in Analog RPGs Analog RPGs allow participants to directly affect or modify a game’s basic ‘architecture’. ­Tabletop players may point out inconsistencies in a location’s description or request additional information during an ongoing scene. Larpers may ignore a game rule while interacting with another player to maintain the narrative and immersive ‘flow’ of the moment. In narratological terms, these forms of role-play generally make it easier for players to affect the discourse (how the narrative is conveyed) of a game’s story rather than merely the plot (what the characters do). Authorship and Authority An author is the creator of a work or text. Authorship is often seen in relation to authority, which refers to the power of enforcement and responsibility over a text in terms of its production, content, use, and even interpretation. Game designers have a more limited amount of influence over the game text: players can both create content and devise ways of interacting with a game that were not predicted by its creators. Thus, players share authorial control over the text. Consequently, RPGs can generally be seen as being multi-­ authorial. Many games purposefully leave their ‘architecture’ open to player modification by explicitly inviting players to adapt and make changes. For example, CRPGs often include tools for building ‘mods’ based on the original game program. ‘Top-down’ and ‘bottom-up’ forms of authority refer to authority exerted by designers and players respectively.

Literary motifs, tropes, and themes are semantic units that also form a basis for developing and negotiating a game’s narrative. Daniel Mackay (2001) describes these semantic units in terms of ‘fictive blocks’ because they enable players and game designers to ‘build upon’ each other’s input in real time. Eirik Fatland (2006) explains their essential function of triggering ‘improvisation patterns’ in order to make coherent ‘in-game’ player interaction possible and fluent. As Markus Montola (2008) notes, ‘every player’s performance can be a conscious manipulation of tropes and conventions or an unconscious replay of fictive blocks to which players have been exposed’ (28). This allows multiple players to collaborate within the game world without having to resort to ‘out of game’ dialogue. Motifs The basic semantic structures of a text. In narratives, they are often recurrent and recognizable elements such as ‘the family secret’ or ‘the broken promise’.

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Theme A more abstract, general notion of what the text is about, for example, ‘generational conflict’ or ‘the power of friendship’. Tropes Figures of speech, such as metaphor, allegory, or irony. More recently, ‘trope’ has gained colloquial use as a synonym for ‘motif’.

Multi-Linear Storytelling in CRPGs Player involvement in CRPGs is generally more limited, with player agency often reduced to aspects related to the character itself. When playing Skyrim (Bethesda 2011), for example, players can determine the gender and aspect of their character at the beginning of the game, but they cannot create or modify the available choices themselves without creating a ‘mod’ using programming scripts. From the perspective of narrative generation, Jan Thon (2007) distinguishes between a ‘virtual designer story’—the possible actions offered by the program—and a ‘player story’—what a player actually does during gameplay. Similarly, game scholars make a distinction between what they call ‘ludic’ and ‘narrative’ phases of play (cf. Thon 2007; Neitzel 2014). While the former concern player activity related to the simulative aspect of the game, the latter are predetermined and best exemplified by the use of ‘cut scenes’ or ‘scripted’ events. The elements that do not allow player interaction are considered distinctly separate from play. Game designers use them to drive the linear narratives of the game. Britta Neitzel (2014) describes adventure-themed CRPGs as being generally composed of ‘numerous short linear action lines’ (21), following the mythological structure of the ‘quest’. Nevertheless, while these predetermined narrative structures ‘provide players or their avatars with a clearly defined aim that marks the end state of the game (e.g. “Rescue the Princess!”), players are generally able to choose the order in which they complete the different tasks (Neitzel 2014, 17–18). Indeed, the information processing capabilities of computer-based games allow them to present players with multiple plotlines and complex branching structures. Players create their own stories as they follow different, multi-linear narrative paths through the game. Furthermore, Neitzel also recognizes an underlying narrative structure in these games, characterized by ‘not provid[ing] the players with a clearly defined aim’ (23). As a result, CRPGs may also incite ‘exploratory narratives’ in which players may search for knowledge and meaning within the game world. This mode of interaction with the game means that the ending ‘is unforeseeable from the beginning of the narration and tends to point back into the past’ (ibid.).

Vast Narratives in MORPGs Digital RPGs become a stage for ‘vast narratives’, thanks to the capacity of computers to process huge amounts of information (Harrigan & Wardrip-Fruin 2009). This marks one of the major differences between digital and analog forms of role-play. While the ‘advantages’ of a human game master or referee lie in their capacity to read the emotions and desires of their fellow players and adapt to them (Chinn 2015), they are also often limited by their previous preparation for a session and their capacity to convincingly improvise new material. TRPG players, for example, may perceive that a character in a game is important based on the accuracy and consistency of their portrayal. A CRPG, on the other hand, ‘can afford many more intricately designed characters’ (Murray 1997, 6). Furthermore, MORPGs present narrative worlds that can be explored and developed simultaneously by a nearly unlimited number of players. This last feature, in particular, greatly increases these games’ potential for narrative emergence. Players can form alliances and explore the world in adventure groups; they can engage in conversation or battle each other, generating events and plots that could never have

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been envisioned by the game designers. EVE Online (2003) is a notable example of this, having produced some of the biggest battles among player groups ever documented (e.g. Groen 2015).

Narrative Levels, Focalization, and Character Representation Narratology is also concerned with the discourse level of narrative representation (how a story is told). For example, in verbally encoded media, different narrators or narrative instances can be recognized based on their relationship to a text’s story world. A narrative instance that is not part of the story world is called extra-diegetic. An intra-diegetic narrator is a recognizable character who is part of the fictional world of the narrative. Most RPGs offer at least some instances of verbal storytelling. Indeed, players are constantly encountering characters who tell them stories. This feature serves the purpose of giving players new goals (e.g. quests) and of making sense of the world of the game. For example, in an early quest in the CRPG The Witcher III (2015), Gerald must retrieve information from a hunter who lives on the outskirts of town. During their initial encounter, the character—previously described by another NPC as a ‘freak’—reveals the reason for his exile: his homosexuality. The character’s tale therefore gives us important perspectives into the character’s intra-diegetic values and beliefs, such as homophobia and superstition. In narratological terms, we call this an embedded or ‘hypodiegetic’ narrative because the hunter’s tale occurs within—and thus a level ‘below’—the main spatiotemporal world or ‘diegesis’ of the game. In contrast, ‘frame’ narratives occur on a level that is ontologically or narratively ‘above’ it. At the beginning of Dragon Age II (2011), players witness a Dwarf being interrogated as to the whereabouts of ‘the champion’ (the player-­ controlled character). This is not merely an introduction to the game’s narrative; as it turns out, it is a frame narrative that accompanies the player’s progress throughout the game. The diegetic level of gameplay is itself contained within the Dwarf ’s recollections. The notion of diegetic levels allows us to isolate and analyze aspects of a narrative’s representation, even if it does not involve an actual instance of verbal narration or narrative ‘voice’. Music is a good example of this: the soundtrack of a game can influence our perception of it, e.g. by adding a feeling of suspense or excitement to a scene or situation. However, the music as such is often not heard by the character itself and is therefore ‘extra-diegetic’. On the other hand, if a character in the game switches on a radio that, in turn, plays a song, the music is intra-diegetic as it is part of the narrative world. Because the diegesis of a video game is mostly rendered visually, cinematic terminology offers another possibility for describing narrative representation. Neitzel (2007), for example, makes a distinction between subjective, semi-subjective, and objective points of view (POV). These POVs are important because they may also affect our emotional experience of the narrative. For example, a subjective POV means that players encounter the world through the simulated eyes of the character, a feature that heightens our sense of immersion in the game world (Denisova & Cairns 2015). Also, by constraining our (visual) ‘knowledge’ of the surrounding environment to equal that of the character, the game makes us aware of our lack of power and our relative vulnerability. This may increase our sense of fear or suspense, making us more careful of the decisions we make in the game. In semi-subjective POVs (also called ‘over the shoulder’), players are granted an advantage over the characters: e.g. they can notice creatures sneaking up from behind. This allows players a ‘higher level’ of strategic gameplay in overcoming in-game obstacles while, at the same time, maintaining a feeling of immersion and connection to the character. Examples of this approach include games in the Witcher series or World of Warcraft. In contrast, an objective POV gives us a broad view of the game world,

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distancing the player experience from that of the character. This POV is typically used in ­isomorphic-view RPGs in which players control a number of different elements within a large game space, such as party members in Planescape: Torment (1999). POV helps describe the relationship between our visualization of the game world and our experience and interpretation of it. Focalization, on the other hand, conceives of narrative representation in terms of our knowledge (or lack thereof ) of characters’ emotions and thoughts. Focalization defines how narrative information is selectively presented relative to the knowledge and experience of one or more characters within the story. The concept is similar to perspective, but whereas perspective describes the position from which a story is observed, focalization describes what can be observed as compared to a character. (Fraser 2015, 2) Broadly, there are three forms of focalization: internal, where we have access to the character’s thoughts and emotions; external, where we follow the character’s actions without being granted access to their internal aspects; and zero focalization, where we are not tied to a single character’s perspective. Jonne Arjoranta introduces the notion of ‘embodied focalization’ to describe an ‘additional’ perspective where players are given control of a character and a ‘physical perspective inside [its] body’ but simultaneously lack ‘access to that character’s mental landscape’ (Arjoranta 2013, 9). Felix Schröter and Jan-Noel Thon (2014) observe that games offer three basic modes of character representation: narrative, simulative, and social. Characters can be described as fictional entities with their own thoughts and emotions; as tools for play with specific properties and possibilities of (inter)action; or, as in the case of multi-player games, avatars tied to actual people. Understanding how these representational modes relate to each other allows us to have a deeper understanding of these games and our experience of them (ibid.).

Further Approaches We have examined how Literary Studies can help us understand RPGs. However, how can our understanding of RPGs help us understand or re-situate literature? This is rarely discussed in RPG studies and yet may offer a vast field to expand critical inquiry. For example, many analog RPG source texts could be read as literary poetics in themselves. Indeed, they consistently combine rules and setting information with reflections on what ‘good’ storytelling or role-playing is, how to communicate intentions and interpret the desires of the players during the game, etc. How do these notions apply to traditional print literature? What do they tell us, concerning questions of aesthetics or our emotional involvement with fiction? Can a TRPG source book be seen, perhaps, as literary theory in the sense of a poetics of knowledge (Brandes 2009)? Similarly, can the notion of ‘becoming the monster’ in White Wolf ’s Vampire (1991) give us a new perspective on the genres of ‘horror’ or ‘Gothic fiction’ via its rules and mechanics of character creation? Can John Wick’s notion of ‘tragedy’ from Houses of the Blooded (2009) help us discuss Shakespeare? Another interesting area is the analysis of RPG adaptations of literary works (Westerling 2008; Torner 2016). What aspects of the original texts are problematized, changed, or reflected? Can we see the RPG as a form of ‘reading’ a canonical text?

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Inversely, on a more philological level, one could ask to what extent RPGs have informed and influenced contemporary works of print fiction. It is, for example, no secret that many authors have been creatively influenced by the playing of RPGs (→ Chapter 9). Is the influence of the games recognizable in the narrative strategies, structures, and themes of these works? Does a novel based on a D&D campaign possibly also offer us a reading and interpretation of the RPG? Finally, despite the fact that there have been ongoing discussions on the question of meaning in RPGs, we understand too little about the production of poetic meaning in these texts. This has been partly due to the structuralist focus of much of the current scholarship as well as the idea that, due to their functional requirements, RPGs ‘tend to use extremely limited allegorical communication’ (Loponen & Montola 2004, 50–51). While the idea of RPGs as a source of ‘procedural rhetoric’ (Bogost 2007) is important in understanding how these texts can confer ideological meanings, a broader understanding of their semantic potential is necessary if we want to appreciate them as an art/literary form in their own right. In other words, realizing and studying RPGs as a medium that allows polysemy and exploits multiple readings will enable us to appreciate them truly as a medium for human expression and figuration (cf. Jara, forthcoming).

Summary Literary Studies and RPG studies go hand in hand. RPGs are texts that produce other texts, and once the scholar has narrowed their focus with regard to which text is in question—the rule books, the session itself, player procedure, etc.—then the same questions can be asked of it as one might ask of a novel. RPGs also invoke many similar questions to those of literature. Literary fiction has playfulness built right into it, and to artificially separate literature from play is a mistake. RPGs, too, are inspired by literary fiction, even using comparable framing devices and tropes. CRPGs and MORPGs also evince traces of this literary heritage. In analyzing and interpreting RPGs, we can therefore draw on earlier methodologies in the analysis and interpretation of literature.

Further Reading Cover, Jennifer G. 2010. The Creation of Narrative in Tabletop Role-Playing Games. Jefferson, NC: ­McFarland & Co. Publishers. Ensslin, Astrid. 2014. Literary Gaming. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Harrigan, Pat and Noah Wardrip-Fruin, eds. 2007. Second Person: Role-Playing and Story in Games and Playable Media. Cambridge, MA, London: MIT Press.

References Aarseth, Espen J. 1997. Cybertext: Perspectives on Ergodic Literature. Baltimore, MDL: Johns Hopkins ­University Press. Alighieri, Dante. 1320. Divina Commedia. First printer edition published in Foligno, Italy by Johann Numeister and Evangelista Angelini da Trevi. Anderson, Poul. 1960. The High Crusade. New York: Doubleday Books. Arjoranta, Jonne. 2013. “Meaning Effects in Video Games. Focalization, Granularity and Mode of Narration in Games.” In Proceedings of the Games and Literary Theory Conference, 1–20. October 31– November 1, Valleta, Malta. Barthes, Roland. 1957. Mythologies. Collection Points. Paris: Éditions du Seuil.

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Bethesda Game Studios. 2002. Morrowind: The Elder scrolls III [PC]. Rockville, MD: Bethesda Softworks, Ubisoft. ———. 2008. Fallout 3 [PC]. Rockville, MD: Bethesda Softworks. ———. 2011. Skyrim: The Elder Scrolls V [PC]. Rockville, MD: Bethesda Softworks. BioWare. 2011. Dragon Age II [PC]. Redwood City, CA: Electronic Arts. Black Isle Studios. 1999. Planescape: Torment [PC]. Orange County, CA: Interplay Entertainment. Blizzard Entertainment. 2004. World of Warcraft [PC]. Irvine, CA: Blizzard Entertainment. Blizzard North. 1996. Diablo. [PC]. Irvine, CA: Blizzard Entertainment. Bode, Christoph, Rainer Dietrich, and Jeffrey Kranhold. 2013. Future Narratives: Theory, Poetics, and Media-Historical Moment. Narrating Futures 1. Berlin: de Gruyter. Bogost, Ian. 2007. Persuasive Games: The Expressive Power of Videogames. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Brandes, Peter. 2009. “Das Spiel der Bedeutungen im Prozess der Lektüre: Überlegungen zur ­Möglichkeit einer Literarutheorie des Spiels.” In Literatur als Spiel: Evolutionsbiologische, ästhetische und pädagogische Konzepte, edited by Thomas Anz and Heinrich Kaulen, pp. 115–34. Spectrum Literaturwissenschaft. Berlin: de Gruyter. CCP Games. 2003. Eve Online [PC]. Reykjavík, Iceland: CCP Games. CD Projekt RED. 2015. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. Warsaw, Poland: CD Projekt RED. Chinn, Chris. 2015. “Honest Communication.” Deeper in the Game. July 4. https://bankuei.wordpress. com/2015/07/04/honest-communication/. Cornis-Pope, Marcel. 2014. New Literary Hybrids in the Age of Multimedia Expression: Crossing Borders, Crossing Genres. Amsterdam and New York: John Benjamins Publishing Company. Cortázar, Julio. 1967. [Rayuela.] Hopscotch. Transl. Gregory Rabassa. London: Collins. Costikyan, Greg. 2007. “Games, Storytelling, and Breaking the String.” In Second Person: RolePlaying and Story in Games and Playable Media, edited by Pat Harrigan and Noah Wardrip-Fruin, pp. 5–13. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Cover, Jennifer G. 2010. The Creation of Narrative in Tabletop Role-Playing Games. Jefferson, NC: ­McFarland & Co. Publishers. Denisova, Alena and Paul Cairns. 2015. “First Person vs. Third Person Perspective in Digital Games.” In Proceedings of the 33rd Annual ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, edited by Bo Begole, pp. 145–148. New York: ACM. Derrida, Jacques. 1978. Writing and Difference. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Domsch, Sebastian. 2013. Narrating Futures: Volume 4: Storyplaying: Agency and Narrative in Video Games. Berlin: de Gruyter. Eliot, T. S. 1922. The Wasteland. New York: Horace Liveright. Ensslin, Astrid. 2007. Canonizing Hypertext: Explorations and Constructions. Continuum Literary Studies. London: Continuum International Publishing. ———. 2014. Literary Gaming. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Fatland, Eirik. 2006. “Interaction Codes: Understanding and Establishing Patterns in Player Improvisation.” In Role, Play, Art: Collected Experiences of Role-Playing, edited by T. Fritzon and T. Wrigstad, pp. 17–34. Stockholm: Knutpunkt. http://jeepen.org/kpbook/kp-book-2006.pdf. Accessed March 19, 2014. Fernández-Vara, Clara. 2015. Introduction to Game Analysis. New York: Routledge. Fine, Gary A. 2002. Shared Fantasy: Role-Playing Games as Social Worlds. Paperback ed. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Fraser, Allison. 2015. “Whose mind is the signal? Focalization in video game narratives.” In DiGRA ‘15: Proceedings of the 2015 DiGRA International Conference, Digital Games Research Association. Funcom. 2012. The Secret World [PC]. Redwood City, CA: Electronic Arts. Genette, Gérard. 1987. Seuils. Paris: Seuil. ———, transl. Jane E. Lewin. op. 1997. Paratexts: Thresholds of Interpretation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gibson, Walker. (1950) 1980. “Authors, Speakers, Readers and Mock Readers.” In Reader-Response Criticism: From Formalism to Post-Structuralism, edited by Jane P. Tompkins, pp. 1–6. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.

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Groen, Andrew. 2015. Empires of Eve: A History of the Great Wars of EVE Online. Chicago: Lightburn Industries. Gygax, E. Gary. 1979. AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide. Lake Geneva, WI: TSR. Harrigan, Pat and Noah Wardrip-Fruin, eds. 2009. Third Person: Authoring and Exploring Vast Narratives. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Ilieva, Angelina. 2013. “Cultural Languages of Role-Playing.” International Journal of Role-Playing 1(4): 26–38. http://journalofroleplaying.org/. Iser, Wolfgang. 1980. “The Reading Process.” In Reader-Response Criticism: From Formalism to Post-­ Structuralism, edited by Jane P. Tompkins. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. ———. 1991. Das Fiktive und das Imaginäre: Perspektiven literarischer Anthropologie. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp. Jara, David. 2013. “A Closer Look at the (Rule-) Books: Framings and Paratexts in Tabletop Role-­ playing Games.” International Journal of Role-Playing (4). www.ijrp.subcultures.nl/wp-content/issue4/ IJRPissue4jara.pdf. Accessed March 27, 2015. Knellwolf, Christa and Christopher Norris, eds. 2001. The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism. Vol. IX Twentieth-Century Historical, Philosophical, and Psychological Perspectives. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Kücklich, Julian. 2006. “Literary Theory and Digital Games.” In Understanding Digital Games, edited by Jason Rutter and Jo Bryce, pp. 95–112. London, Thousand Oaks, Calif: Sage Publications. Loponen, Mika and Markus Montola. 2004. “A Semiotic View on Diegesis Construction.” In Beyond Role and Play, edited by Markus Montola and Jaakko Stenros, pp. 39–51. Helsinki: Fëa Livia. Mackay, Daniel. 2001. The Fantasy Role-Playing Game: A New Performing Art. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co. Milton, John. 1667. Paradise Lost: A Poem Written in Ten Books. London: Samuel Simmons. Montola, Markus. 2008. “The Invisible Rules of Role-Playing: A Structural Framework of Role-­Playing Process.” International Journal of Role-Playing 1(1): 22–36. Web. http://journalofroleplaying.org/. Murray, Janet H. 1997. Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace. New York: The Free Press. ———. 2003. “Inventing the Medium.” In The New Media Reader, edited by Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Nick Montfort, pp. 1–11. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Neitzel, Britta. 2007. “Point of View and Point of Action. Eine Perspektive auf die Perspektive in Computerspielen.” In Computer/Spiel/Räume. Materialien zur Einführung in die Computer Game Studies, edited by K. Bartels and J. N. Thon, 8–28. Hamburg: Zentrum für Medienkommunikation. ———. 2014. “Narrativity of Computer Games.” In The Living Handbook of Narratology, edited by ­Peter Hühn, et al. Hamburg: Hamburg University. www.lhn.uni-hamburg.de/article/narrativity-­computergames. Accessed May 30, 2014. Nephew, Michelle A. B. 2003. “Playing with Power: The Authorial Consequences of Roleplaying Games.” PhD Dissertation, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Padol, Lisa. 1996. Playing Stories, Telling Games. Collaborative Storytelling in Role-Playing Games. RECAP Publications. Pearcy, Derek, Dan S. Smith, Steve Jackson, Jeff Koke, and Susan Pinsonneault. 1997. In Nomine: A Roleplaying Game for Two or More Players: Based on the Original French Game by Croc. Austin, TX: S. Jackson Games. Petersen, Sandy and Gene Day. 1981. Call of Cthulhu: Fantasy role-playing in the worlds of H.P. Lovecraft. Albany, CA: Chaosium. Peterson, Jon. 2012. Playing At the World. San Diego, CA: Unreason Press. Perec, Georges. 1969. La Disparition. Paris: Les Lettres nouvelles. Pondsmith, Mike. 1991. Cyberpunk 2.0.2.0., version 2.0: The Roleplaying Game of the Dark Future. ­Berkeley, CA: R. Talsorian Games. Prince, Gerald. 1987. A Dictionary of Narratology. Lincoln, London: University of Nebraska Press. Punday, Daniel. 2005. “Creative Accounting: Role-Playing Games, Possible-World Theory, and the Agency of Imagination.” Poetics Today 26 (1): 113–39. Rein-Hagen, Mark. 1991. Vampire: The Masquerade. Stone Mountain, GA: White Wolf Publishing.

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Rockenberger, Annika. 2014. “Video Game Framings.” In Examining Paratextual Theory and Its Applications in Digital Culture, edited by Nadine Desrochers and Daniel Apollon, pp. 252–286. Advances in human and social aspects of technology (AHSAT) book series. Hershey, PA: IGI Global. Ryan, Marie-Laure. 2006. Avatars of Story. Electronic mediations 17. Minneapolis and Bristol: University of Minnesota Press. Saler, Michael T. 2012. As if: Modern Enchantment and the Literary Pre-History of Virtual Reality. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press. Print. Schröter, Felix and Jan-Noel Thon. 2014. “Video Game Characters: Theory and Analysis.” DIEGESIS Interdisciplinary E-Journal for Narrative Research 3 (1): 40–77. https://diegesis.uni-wuppertal.de/index. php/diegesis/article/view/151/194. Accessed July 11, 2014. Stenros, Jaakko. 2004. “Notes on Role-Playing Texts.” In Beyond Role and Play, edited by Markus ­Montola and Jaakko Stenros, pp. 75–80, Helsinki: Fëa Livia. Sutrop, Margit. 2000. Fiction and Imagination: The Anthropological Function of Literature. Explicatio. ­Paderborn: Mentis. Thon, Jan. 2007. “Simulation vs. Narration. Zur Darstellung fiktionaler Welten in neueren Computerspielen.” In Medien - Diskurse - Deutungen: Dokumentation des 20. Film - und Fernsehwissenschaftlichen Kolloquium, edited by Andreas Becker, et al., pp. 68–76. Marburg: Schüren. Torner, Evan. 2015. “Larp as Adaptation.” Nordic Larp Talks. February 11. http://nordiclarptalks.org/ larp-as-adaptation-evan-torner/. ———. 2016. “The Self-Reflexive Tabletop Role-Playing Game.” GAME: The Italian Journal of Game Studies 5. www.gamejournal.it/torner-the-self-reflexive-tabletop-role-playing-game/. Accessed January 15, 2017. Tynes, John S. and Greg Stolze. 2016. Unknown Armies. St. Paul, MN: Atlas Games. Tzara, T. (1920) ‘To Make a Dadist Poem’, ArtStack. https://theartstack.com/artist/tristan-tzara/­howmake-dadaist-poem (Originally published as ‘Dada manifeste sur l’amour faible et l’amour amer, VIII’, in Oeuvres complètes [1975: Volume 1, p. 382] Paris.) Accessed December 13, 2017. Vance, Jack. 1966. Eyes of the Overworld. New York City: Ace Books. Vandenthorpe, Christian. 2008. “Reading on Screen: The New Media Sphere.” A Companion to Digital Literary Studies. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, pp. 203–215. Wardrip-Fruin, Noah. 2007. “Reading Digital Literature: Surface, Data, Interaction, and Expressive Processing. In A Companion to Digital Literary Studies, edited by Ray Siemens and Susan Schreibman, pp. 163–182. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Weedon, Chris. 2001. “Cultural Studies.” In The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism. Vol. IX ­TwentiethCentury Historical, Philosophical, and Psychological Perspectives, edited by Christa Knellwolf and ­Christopher Norris, pp. 155–172. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Westerling, Anna. 2008. “Producing a Nice Evening.” In Playground Worlds, edited by Markus Montola and Jaakko Stenros, pp. 53–63. Helsinki: Ropecon ry. Wick, John. 2009. Houses of the Blooded: Cubicle 7 Entertainment Ltd. Zagal, José P. and Corrinne Lewis, C. 2015. “Fighting Fantasies: Authoring RPG Gamebooks for Learning Game Writing and Design”. In Proceedings of the 2015 RPG Summit. www.eng.utah.edu/~zagal/ Papers/Zagal_Lewis-Gamebooks_for_teaching.pdf. Accessed June 11, 2017.

15 Learning and Role-Playing Games Jessica Hammer, Alexandra To, Karen Schrier, Sarah Lynne Bowman, and Geoff Kaufman

This chapter explores the relationship between role-playing games (RPGs) and learning,1 broadly construed. We include both formal educational settings, such as schools; informal educational settings, like museums and libraries; professional training, including medical or police simulations; hobbyist and leisure-time learning; and incidental learning, which happens while people are taking part in other activities. The common theme between these settings is that they are places where people learn and, as this chapter proposes, places where RPGs offer key strengths to support educational goals. To make sense of the complexity of the interaction between the domains of RPGs and education, we must first understand what is meant by learning. To do this, we turn to four families of learning theories: behaviorism, cognitivism, constructivism, and sociocultural theory. While some might argue that these are mutually exclusive theories, we instead consider these theories as lenses that allow us to understand different types of learning experiences people may have. Rather than attempting to establish which of these approaches best applies to learning through role-playing, we consider the idea that RPGs may be productive for learning in ways that align with any or all of these approaches. As our next step, we will examine how games – not just RPGs – work for learning. Contemporary research on this topic attempts to uncover the underlying mechanisms of learning through games to evaluate the effectiveness of game-based learning interventions and to inform the design of games for more effective learning. Because RPGs are games, this research helps provide a foundation for our understanding of education and RPGs. After that, we will dig into prior understandings of role-playing, particularly its role in development. In this context, role-playing is understood as the act of taking on a social role without the game-like aspects of RPGs. Finally, we will bring together these three elements – learning, games, and role-playing – to provide a deeper understanding of the relationship between education and RPGs. To do so, we will consider the history of educational RPGs, examine five affordances of RPGs that are driving RPG-based education in the present, and consider additional aspects of RPGs that are ripe for educational adaptation in the future.

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Prior Work Overview of Learning Theories Education research, or the study of education and learning processes, is broadly informed by four different approaches to learning: behaviorism, cognitivism, constructivism, and sociocultural theory (Egenfeldt-Nielsen 2006). Each approach encapsulates different ideas about what learning is and how it is best accomplished. Behaviorism treats learning as the accomplishment of observable learning outcomes. For example, looking at multiplication, a behaviorist would emphasize the ability to produce correct answers, not achieving an internal understanding of how multiplication takes place. Behaviorist theories hold that learning occurs through conditioning and reinforcement: the learner responds to stimuli with behaviors, which are then reinforced with rewards or punishment to shape future behavior (Skinner 1965). Cognitivism developed as a response to behaviorism, which largely treated the mind as a “black box” – inaccessible and, to some degree, irrelevant. Cognitivists counter that the mind is central to learning – in fact, that learning can be understood as changes in information processing in the mind. The ability to perform a particular skill is not necessarily evidence of learning absent evidence of changes in the learner’s thinking; conversely, learners who change their cognitive strategies – how they go about trying to solve a problem – without producing the correct answer have still learned something. Cognitivist theories focus on integrating knowledge about the world into mental models and other cognitive representations, which people use to reason differently in the future (Schank and Ableson 1981). For cognitivists, important mechanisms for learning include targeting information at known misconceptions in a given area, breaking down information so that it can be more easily processed, and helping students become aware of their own learning strategies (Ertmer and Newby 2013). Learning theories The four main approaches to learning are behaviorism, cognitivism, constructivism, and sociocultural theory. Each approach has a different view of what learning is and how it can be best accomplished.

Constructivism aligns with cognitivism in that it emphasizes the development of models and the integration of information into knowledge. However, constructivists argue that mental models are idiosyncratic rather than universal. Each learner must construct their own understanding based on their prior attitudes, beliefs, and experiences; people build new knowledge by connecting it to knowledge they already have (Wadsworth 2004). A closely related theory, constructionism, argues that such construction of individual internal models works best through confronting physical or digital models and accomplishing real-world tasks (Papert 1980). Learning emerges through exploration of an authentic task, often aimed at producing an artifact. Working with ideas alone, without the ability to implement them in a real context, is not sufficient for learning because learning is the ability to reconstruct rather than transmit knowledge (Papert and Harel 1991). Consequently, constructionists emphasize learning through making and doing, which is sometimes known as project-based learning. Finally, the sociocultural approach argues that learning cannot occur in a vacuum. Experts in a specific field define how knowledge is structured in the field, what work is appropriate

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for the field, and even what is considered knowledge in the first place. Learning, therefore, is always social: even when those experts are not personally present, their points of view are encoded in everything from the organization of knowledge to best practices. Moreover, people are always learning from others by observing, modeling, testing behavior, and internalizing feedback (Bandura 1986). Learning can therefore best be understood as developing shared mental models with other learners that are appropriate for a given context. Important learning mechanisms in sociocultural theory include collaboration between peer learners, observation and imitation of experts, and participating in a field as an apprentice (Lave and Wegner 1991). In practice, RPGs are primarily understood through the constructionist and sociocultural lenses as RPGs emphasize the shared creation of a fictional reality and the ability to adopt a new role. Later in this chapter, we will show how specific features of RPGs relate to these approaches to learning theory.

Overview of Game-Based Learning Before we tackle the topic of RPGs in education, we must consider a broader question: how do educational games in general help players learn, and are they effective at doing so? Simon Egenfeldt-Nielsen (2007) argues that there are four approaches to educational games, corresponding to the four approaches to education detailed above; as with other educational activities, a given game may embody one or more of these approaches. A behaviorist approach to educational games sees games as opportunities for “drill and practice” – what one might call the Math Blaster approach to games for learning. A cognitivist approach treats games as places where players’ existing mental models can be challenged and as cognitive supports that can help players develop expertise. A constructionist approach emphasizes games as simulation spaces where players can learn through hands-on experimentation. Finally, the sociocultural approach considers games as affinity spaces that produce collaboration, community, and conversation. James Gee (2007) claims that well-designed games can illuminate principles of good learning, particularly from a sociocultural approach. For example, games provide a space of “psychosocial moratorium” where real-world consequences are lowered. Gee argues that good learning, too, requires a psychosocial moratorium, which can be provided either in educational games or in other learning activities. While Gee’s approach is driven by broad principles of learning, games can also incorporate specific instructional strategies, such as embedded assessment. Embedded assessment means evaluating players’ learning within the game itself. Digital games can track player behavior to provide evidence of learning and show areas where players are still struggling (Loh et al. 2015). Non-digital games can accomplish similar goals using live observation combined with game artifacts (Flatt 2014). Combining educational theory, game design theory, and instructional strategies can create games that ought to support learning – but do they? Are games for learning effective? The impact of educational games is often characterized as either cognitive or motivational (Wouters 2013). Cognitive effects of educational games include teaching content, providing an opportunity to practice skills, improving a mental model, or linking knowledge with performance. An example of a cognitive effect would be learning facts about history from a game of Civilization. Motivational effects focus instead on the intensity, persistence, and quality of player engagement. For example, voluntarily choosing to read about history after playing

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Civilization would be a motivational effect, though we note that increased motivation does not always lead to increased learning outcomes (Iten and Petko 2014). Systematic reviews of learning outcomes find mixed results (e.g. Wouters 2013; Clark et al. 2016). Compared to other active learning activities, educational games typically provide better cognitive outcomes, but only some studies found differences in motivational outcomes. These meta-analyses are unanimous, though, in finding that games can produce learning under the right circumstances. Creating the right circumstances for game-based learning involves designing the learning experience as carefully as the games. For example, games and learning activities must be aligned with one another (Aleven et al. 2010). If players spend most of their time on activities that are not relevant to the learning content, they are not likely to learn very much. When games become mandatory, they are less motivating and less engaging – qualities on which many educational games depend (Heeter et al. 2013). Finally, learners must be supported in transferring their knowledge from the context of the game to other contexts where the knowledge may be useful (Hammer and Black 2009). Game-based learning experiences are often accompanied by a debrief: a post-game reflective process in which participants discuss and make sense of their experiences (Atwater 2016; Crookall 2014). Debriefs are typically facilitated by a teacher or trainer, but participant-driven debriefing can also be employed in informal learning contexts, such as players discussing their play experiences together (Fanning and Gaba 2007). What this research suggests is that games can have an impact on learning – but only when they are well-designed experiences that are well aligned with the desired learning and executed in an appropriate context (Clark et al. 2016). However, we are far more likely to understand games and learning when examined with a narrower lens, such as by looking specifically at a single genre of games – in this case, RPGs.

Overview of Role-Play and Learning We have now considered both theories of learning and theories of educational games. However, to understand RPGs specifically, we must also consider the importance of role-play for cognitive and social development. While RPGs have accrued a wide variety of game design features over the years (→ Chapter 2), the core act of playing a role has its own set of implications for learning. It is particularly central to the sociocultural framework in which people learn from others by observing, modeling, testing behavior, and responding to feedback (Bandura 1986). Although learners may or may not experience it as playful, this process of testing and adopting a new role is highly similar to role-play. Cognitive and developmental psychologists identify pretend play as a core developmental experience in early childhood (Pinkham and Smith 2011). In pretend play, young children take on the role of an imaginary character. This character may be archetypal (e.g. Mommy, baby, teacher) or specific to the child’s media landscape (e.g. Elsa, Dora, Elmo). In either case, the child imagines themselves into the role, then acts out scenes as if they were the character. This activity is parallel to what role-players do. Pretend play is a critical part of child development and has been linked to cognitive competence (Bergen 2002). Ashley Pinkham and Eric Smith (2011) emphasize the social aspects of pretend play, identifying five key benefits: social referencing – developing responses by using others’ reactions to ambiguous situations as a guide; interpretation of underlying intentions – ­t ranslating pretend actions into intentions; quarantining of a pretend world – separating the

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pretend from the real; symbolic understandings – making the connection between pretense and real life counterparts; and understanding alternative representations of the world and social cognition – developing social competencies, such as decentration, negotiation, role-taking, and empathy. Role-play and development Role-play is a natural part of human development. This includes both pretend play by children and identity experimentation by adolescents.

In the normal course of child development, children mature into adolescents who have mastered these capacities. They can, for example, reliably separate the pretend from the real. However, role-play takes on a new significance for adolescents, who struggle to establish a distinct identity and find their place in the social order. The adolescent period is often accompanied by role confusion and a search for the peer groups and preferences that make the adolescent feel most stable and “authentic” in their identity, also called a psychosocial moratorium (Erikson 1968). While normal adolescent social environments can feel constraining, with an emphasis on cliques and even bullying, adolescents can use role-play to navigate social identities like “artist” or “jock” without committing to that identity for life. The prevalence of learning through role-play suggests that, depending on their stage of development, many people already have role-play-based learning experiences that RPGs can draw on.

Approaches to Role-Play in Education Role-playing activities in education have been used for decades – longer than RPGs, as a genre, have existed. Situational Language Teaching theory, developed in the 1950s and 1960s, posits that learners must practice language in real-world situations. This is accomplished by having students engage in conversations and pretend scenarios (Frisby 1957). At about the same time that this theory was developed, simulated patients were introduced to medical education (Barrows 1964). An actor would role-play as a patient, and the medical student’s ability to address their fictional problem would be evaluated. These approaches are now educationally mainstream. Role-play is nearly universal in introductory language classes, and patient simulation is part of the medical licensing requirements for the United States and Canada as well as a common medical education practice in many other countries; simulations are also regularly used for military training as well as to train emergency personnel, such as police and firefighters. Despite the popularity of these precursor forms, early analog role-playing games were not commonly used in education. In the 1980s, a few influential voices successfully framed RPGs as addictive, violent experiences that could serve as gateways to occult practices (Lieberoth and Trier-Knudsen 2016). Despite a counter-discourse that pointed out possible educational benefits, such as improved communication skills, RPGs remained at the periphery of educational institutions (Holmes 1981). The rise of computer-based RPGs coincided with a wave of interest in preparing students for a digital future. Multiplayer online RPGs (MORPGs) were seen as laboratories, both for teaching disciplinary knowledge and for practicing “21st century skills,” the more general abilities needed to succeed in a technological age (Galarneau and Zibit 2007). Early educational efforts with MORPGs included having students role-play as ethnographers in EverQuest to learn how to conduct social science research (Delwiche 2003), experience military leadership

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in Full Spectrum Command (De Freitas and Griffiths 2007), and explore a public health problem in River City (Dede et al. 2005). More recently, educators have begun to apply role-playing principles to the design of curricula and educational institutions. The Multiplayer Classroom (Sheldon 2012) reports on ways to incorporate role-playing concepts into course design, which are now being disseminated by companies such as Classcraft (Make Learning an Adventure). Lee Sheldon’s approach attaches RPG elements to the framework of the classroom, such as treating points earned on assignments as “experience points.” While this transformation may seem superficial, it invokes a different model of learning than the traditional classroom. In an RPG, characters often begin as weak or ignorant, then improve their abilities over time by tackling challenging tasks, which are modeled mechanically through experience points. In contrast, the standard classroom model treats learning not as work that leads to improvement but rather as a deviation from perfection. When grades are assigned, students are marked by the points they have lost; losing the fewest points results in the highest grade. This model emphasizes performance at the expense of learning; in contrast, RPGs provide transparent assessment systems based on effort and improvement. Edu-larp A larp primarily designed for educational purposes and often used in formal and informal learning environments. Edu-larps are the primary pedagogical tool at the Danish boarding school Østerskov Efterskole.

Another approach is practomime, which emphasizes the collaborative pretend play that occurs both in fiction and in games (Travis 2010). The practomimetic tradition adopts not just the mechanics of RPGs but also assigns altered identities to members of the class. The classroom might be reframed as a secluded Roman villa in which players are a group of young cousins, and the instructor is their wicked uncle whose plots they must defeat (Transforming Learning through the Power of Imagination). The classroom already has differentiated roles for participants, such as student and teacher – but rewriting the roles that people use in the classroom can help change the ways they relate to each other because the roles come with embedded assumptions about how people treat one another. A teacher whose role has been reframed into “wicked uncle” may find it easier to be the “guide on the side,” while a student who thinks of themselves as not very good at Latin might find new ways of relating to it in their new identity. This approach can be extended beyond individual classrooms, as with Østerskov Efterskole, a Danish school where everything is taught through live-action RPGs (Hyltoft 2008). Like practomime, epistemic games emphasize role-taking and pretending over RPG mechanics. However, while practomime generally incorporates elements of fantasy, epistemic games ask players to take on the roles of real-world identities, such as scientists or zookeepers (Shaffer 2006). Game elements support the players in taking on the roles, but the ultimate goal is for the players to understand what it means to inhabit the roles in question. Whether they are engaging with the domain or learning how to participate in a community of practice, role-playing serves as a way to engage possible futures. For example, epistemic game techniques can be applied to professional development, such as virtual internships for engineers (Shaffer 2006). At the time of this writing, RPGs have been successfully used to teach or augment the teaching of a wide range of topics, such as history, language learning, political science, science, and math. They have been used in primary, secondary, undergraduate, and graduate curricula; in vocational training; in professional training; and in teacher training, including their use in

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redesigning the structures of classrooms (Sheldon 2012) and entire schools (Hyltoft 2008). But all this tells us what has been done, not what can be done. For that, we must understand how and why educational RPGs function as learning experiences. We, therefore, next turn to this topic.

Educational Features of RPGs Based on the analysis of RPGs in this volume (→ Chapter 2), we identify five key features of RPGs. These features include aspects of role-playing as an activity, like portraying a character, and game design decisions, such as those that make RPGs easy to modify and construct in the classroom. For each feature, we explore the underlying educational theories that make it relevant for learning and identify examples of how it is already being used in education. We recognize that in practice, these features rarely break down as neatly as they are presented here. However, we believe that clear analysis and understanding of these features permits two important things. First, it allows us to use these features analytically to understand how and why educational RPGs affect players. Not only can this help us as scholars, it can also help teachers and learners select role-play activities that align with their educational goals. Second, we can use our understanding of these features to enhance future educational RPGs, including both designing games to be used in educational settings and redesigning educational interventions to take advantage of key features of RPGs.

Portraying a Character Several bodies of work have shown that character adoption can be a learning experience. In particular, the taking on of another person’s role gives individuals the chance to live different lives and have experiences unlike the ones they might have in their own. This is useful from a variety of learning perspectives.

Perspective-Taking One effect of role-taking is known as perspective-taking, or the appreciation for and understanding of others’ unique psychological points of view. Perspective-taking is built through imagining the experiences of others (Galinsky and Moskowitz, 2000) – and in most RPGs, this is precisely what players are asked to do with respect to their characters. In the vast majority of RPGs, players must adopt the perspective of someone who is not them. For example, in Ars Magica, players are asked to imagine themselves as characters who have different capacities from themselves (wizards), who live in a different time (the thirteenth century), and who may have different social relationships and personality traits (Tweet and Rein-Hagen 2004). RPGs have a number of strategies for supporting perspective-taking, from creating a high-fidelity environment in which a player really feels like they are their character (Magischola) to providing rewards for acting according to their character’s perspective (Nixon 2004). Either way, perspective-taking allows players to practice SEL (social-emotional learning) skills. ­Perspective-taking increases empathy (Vescio et al. 2003) and altruism (Batson 2008), and it decreases reliance on stereotypes in understanding others (Galinsky and Moskowitz 2000). Perspective-taking can be used to deepen people’s understanding of specific educational topics. In the War Birds larp scenarios, players are asked to broaden their perspectives on World War II by taking on the perspectives of women, including women whose perspectives

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are often marginalized for reasons of race or religion (Turkington 2016). This experience can change players’ stereotypes and assumptions about whose perspectives are valuable when thinking about history.

Experience-Taking Beyond imagining what someone else might feel, people can also feel as though experiences in an RPG happened to them. This is known as experience-taking, the process of simulating a character’s subjective experience (e.g. thoughts, emotions, goals, behaviors, and traits) while immersed in a story or game (Kaufman and Libby 2012). Role-playing discourse often describes this as “immersion” (Harding 2007). Research on this phenomenon has shown that the more an individual immerses themselves in the role of a character, the more likely they are to adjust their own behavior to align with the character’s and to (at least temporarily) internalize the character’s personality traits after emerging from the world of the narrative. In addition, when experience-taking occurs with characters who belong to other social groups (such as protagonists of a different race or sexual orientation), individuals report lower levels of prejudice and stereotyping toward those groups. In other words, as a consequence of having simulated the experience of a character, readers come to see the world, other people, and themselves quite differently. These results suggest that experience-taking can be directed to instill in readers particular values, beliefs, mindsets, and behaviors that are conducive to processing and understanding others’ subjective experiences – and other contexts (for example, historical events) – in a more open and receptive, and less biased or presumptive, fashion. For example, the larp Autonomy helps players experience discrimination based on gender (Kreider 2016). This experience can help players confront flaws in their mental models by actually experiencing situations where those models do not fit the real world. This can be understood from both a cognitivist perspective because reshaping mental models is critical to that theory, and from a sociocultural perspective because the learning happens as players experience different social positions.

Vicarious Experience The experiences people feel they have had in RPGs do not need to align with the experiences that are available to them in real life (Carnes 2014). For example, most students have not experienced life in a concentration camp, but the larp Kapo puts players into a fictional one. Experiences that are understood as part of a game are qualitatively different from those that are not; for example, players of Kapo are allowed to go home at the end of the game, and they know they are not going to be killed by the guards. At the same time, the player has genuinely had those experiences. They do not disappear simply because they are experienced within the frame of a game (Gee 2007). Game experiences therefore become part of the player’s intellectual and emotional history, which future educational experiences can build on to construct new meanings. This “preparation for future learning” approach is not limited to RPGs. For example, Jessica Hammer and John Black (2009) showed that Civilization prepares players for future learning about history because it provides experiences to which they can tie abstract concepts. However, RPGs are unique because they put the player inside the experience, such as by asking them to experience the Battle of Lexington during the American Revolution through a character they are playing (Schrier 2014b). “It happened to me” is a powerful tool for constructivist learning approaches.

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Manipulating a Fictional World Role-playing involves participants taking actions that change the game world, then taking the changed world as a premise for future action (→ Chapter 28). In order to affect the game world, participants must develop theories about how the game world works, identify actions that are available for them to affect it, predict the impact on the game world, and then evaluate their model using the actual results of their actions. This process, which may remind the reader of the scientific method, generates several applications for learning.

Theorycrafting and Experimentation As explained earlier, constructivist learning theories suggest that learners must build their own mental models of a new domain in order to truly understand it. They accomplish this by constructing theories and then testing them against the domain. This process is precisely what role-players must learn to do if they hope to successfully manipulate the game’s fictional world. For example, Constance Steinkuehler and Sean Duncan (2008) found that World of Warcraft players were using the game forums to reverse engineer information about the game itself. In order to understand what kind of loot they could expect to earn by defeating particular enemies, players collaborated to create a dataset of which enemy had dropped what item. The entire game community could then use the data to make better decisions about how to accomplish their in-game goals. This example illustrates that RPGs can be used to practice the process of experimentation and theorycrafting; while Steinkuehler’s work focuses on independent learners, RPGs can also be adapted for students to learn and practice this skill in classroom settings.

Authentic Simulation While the abstract process of theorycrafting is important, players are also learning concrete things about the game as they conduct their experiments. If the game world simulates a particular learning domain, then players are learning about that domain while they are learning to play the game (Shaffer 2006). This approach can emphasize practicing real-world skills, such as in role-play-based training exercises for emergency responders. Trainees are thrown into a complex situation, such as a disaster scenario, and must rely both on their expertise and their analysis of the situation to probe for the best outcome (Center for Domestic Preparedness). By manipulating the fictional disaster scenario, they can practice the same skills they would use in a real one. Another approach is to help players understand the behavior of the game world as a complex system. For example, the Reacting to the Past larp curriculum includes games that are not strictly realistic; they sometimes compress months of political negotiation into just a few hours and reduce the complex options available to the real-world participants (Reacting to the Past 2016). However, they allow players to experiment with alternate histories and to understand what kinds of actions might have gotten the world there. In both types of learning, the key is the authenticity – not the realism – of what and how the game world simulates. The player has the opportunity to learn what actions they can take, what effect they have on the game world, and how the game world reacts to those choices, developing better mental models of how the real world works and how they can affect it.

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Practicing the skills they would use in an authentic situation has benefits from a behaviorist lens, but developing models that let them judge how and when to deploy those skills requires a cognitivist understanding.

Situated Motivational Affordances Much of the pleasure of playing an RPG is in affecting the game world. Designing players’ opportunities to affect the world can provide a situated motivational affordance – a good reason, within the frame of the game, for them to engage in learning behaviors (Deterding 2011). For example, Jessica Hammer and Kaitlin Heller (2012) studied a group playing Ars Magica, a historical tabletop game set in an alternate thirteenth century where magic is real. The group developed a rule that historical evidence could override game rules and allow players to succeed in their goals, even if they technically should have failed. As a result, most of the players in the group spent significant out-of-game time learning about thirteenth-century history so that they could be more effective in play. This included both self-described history enthusiasts and players who claimed not to be interested in history. After all, they weren’t doing history. They were simply getting better at playing the game (Hammer and Heller, 2012). This effect is not limited to Ars Magica or to historical games; for example, online freeform role-players work to improve their writing in order to get into high-quality games (→ Chapter 8). Understood socioculturally, these situated motivational affordances help enculturate players into a particular social context and reward them with power and/or recognition if they succeed.

Altered Sense of Reality RPGs are particularly useful for educational techniques that rely on changing the stakes of a problem or on altering a learner’s emotional state. For example, the phenomenon of “bleed” refers to the blurring of the line between character and player when the player’s thoughts and feelings influence the character or vice versa (→ Chapter 13). RPGs can also promote deep immersion, in which the player is transported into the fictional environment of the game.

Narrative Immersion Established theories of narrative immersion within psychology and communication suggest that when people are highly transported into a fictional or simulated world, their preexisting associations (e.g. aspects of their personal or social identity, beliefs, attitudes, knowledge structures, etc.) become temporarily deactivated (e.g. Green and Brock 2000). Thus, the potential for individuals’ experiences in the world of stories to alter their schemas and representations is amplified, given that simulations, especially highly absorbing ones, place individuals in a mindset that is amenable to considering, and often internalizing, the beliefs or knowledge they reveal. This “deactivation” of schemas should make players of RPGs more amenable to taking on the mindset, as well as the cognitive and behavioral tendencies and strategies, of characters depicted in the narrative and preclude the interference of learning impediments, such as functional fixedness that might preclude the acquisition and deployment of novel, unpracticed learning strategies and problem-solving techniques. From a cognitivist perspective, this is valuable because it helps challenge and deconstruct faulty mental models, which is a necessary step for learners to construct models that are more accurate.

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Ethical Thinking Ethical thinking is a critical skill for addressing complex social problems that require learners to weigh multiple perspectives and make value judgments (Schrier 2014a). RPGs can make fictional ethical decisions highly engaging. For example, David W. Simkins and Constance Steinkuehler (2008) found four main themes for ethical engagement with single-player RPGs: effecting change, mirroring, social context, and significant decisions. Players experience ethically significant moments when they know their choices have consequences, when other characters in the game respond to their choices, when they are making their choices in a well-understood social context rather than in a vacuum, and when those choices are experienced as important. All four of these factors are based on taking the game world seriously. For example, one player reported an ethically significant decision about whether to kill an NPC in order to be invited to join an assassin’s guild. For the decision to be significant, the player needed to experience the NPC as real enough to be reluctant to kill them, to have a genuine desire to join the assassin’s guild, and to believe that their choice would have real consequences in the long term. All these elements involve taking the game seriously and choosing to be immersed in the game as a frame of reference.

Safe High-Pressure Situations While RPGs for ethical thinking increase the stakes in order to help players be more ethically engaged, other fields use immersion in RPGs to decrease the stakes of failure by providing a psychosocial moratorium (Gee 2007). For example, live simulations are a common training method in emergency response and disaster management. These immersive simulations allow participants to practice responding to infrequent events, such as a disease outbreak or natural disaster. Many of these simulations ask players to play as themselves, using their own judgment and resources (Homeland Security and Emergency Services). In all cases, players get to respond to potentially serious situations in a way that is high-pressure and low-pressure at the same time. Within the frame of the game, the stakes are high, which helps participants practice making decisions under stress. At the same time, the external stakes are low: no one’s lives are on the line. That gives participants the opportunity to practice, take risks, and learn effectively without the distraction of potential disaster.

Shared Imagination The experience of an RPG is usually a social one. Tabletop, live-action, multiplayer online, and online freeform RPGs are, by default, multi-player games, and many computer RPGs (CRPGs) also allow play with friends. The primary mode of engagement with tabletop, live-action, and online freeform is not just engagement with a fictional world but collaborative engagement with it. Players can jointly affect their shared environment and must respond to one another’s participation in the game world. In some games, this happens through pre-scripted actions, such as coordinating attacks in an multiplayer online RPG (MORPG) to do the maximum damage to an opponent. In other games, the game itself exists only in a collective agreement about a fictional reality that all players participate in creating. RPGs have a shared design language about how this collaborative participation is structured (→ Chapter 18). For example, a common design pattern is giving characters interdependent

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combat skills: one type of character deals out damage, one absorbs damage, while a third heals the others. This pushes players to have their characters work together. Another approach is to focus on structuring collaboration between players directly. For example, players may take turns contributing to the game. Either way, these collaborative elements of RPGs have learning implications.

Social Learning Skills The ability to collaborate effectively is sometimes understood as collective intelligence, which predicts general group effectiveness (Woolley et al. 2010). Collective intelligence, in turn, is predicted by group members’ individual abilities to understand and predict the cognitive and emotional states of others (i.e. their ability to perspective-take and exhibit theory of mind) (Granic et al. 2014). When learning is understood as collaborative and social, these types of skills, sometimes referred to as SEL, come to the fore. Many types of constructivist and constructionist learning are collaborative, such as project-based learning, and entire disciplines, such as design, rely heavily on students’ abilities to work in teams. Developing social learning skills, therefore, is important for education. Role-players describe their games as opportunities to practice everything from making eye contact to reading body language to handling difficult conversations (e.g. Schrier and Shaenfield 2015). This is not accidental but rather a feature of how RPGs work. For example, if two players both want to contribute to the same game world, they must listen carefully to understand how the other person’s contribution should affect their own.

Role-Switching RPGs do not just structure roles in the sense of playing a character. They also ask participants to adopt a social role within the group of players. For example, the guildmaster of an MORPG guild serves as a group leader, coordinating players for raids and distributing group resources. Character abilities can also structure social roles, such as whether a character has access to lore (e.g. knows a lot about the setting and hence can serve as an in-game expert). Sociocultural theory points out that learning is always linked to one’s social role within a community (­Bandura 1986; Gee 2007; Lave and Wegner 1991). RPGs can allow players to try on roles that are more conducive to learning. For example, the class clown might become a domain expert, or a quiet person might become the group leader.

Communities of Practice Role-players develop social norms about what kinds of contributions to the game are acceptable (→ Chapter 28). When suggested contributions do not meet these norms, they are rejected. Often, the norms relate to genre (for example, a laser pistol might be rejected in a fantasy game) or to the game rules (for example, a fighter trying to cast a fireball in a game where only wizards can cast spells). However, groups can also adopt norms that parallel those of communities of practice: groups of people who are core participants in a discipline/area (Gee 2007). Acceptable contributions to the game become acceptable contributions to the discipline, and group participants can learn about those norms by participating in the game. When these disciplines align with academic learning areas, this can be a highly productive way of

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engaging with education, closely aligned with the way working practitioners behave. For example, Jessica Hammer and Kaitlin Heller (2012) observed Ars Magica players who adopted the norms and practices of social history. They operated far more like historians than history students, working with primary sources and debating the meaning/application of historical material. This type of learning can be particularly powerful when experts are playing with novices – the game can serve as a form of legitimate peripheral participation in the discipline – but the game rules can also encapsulate the insights of disciplinary experts and help individual groups enforce appropriate norms. For example, San Tilapian Studies has been adapted to help students learn the techniques of material history while studying early American history (San Tilapian Studies, 2012). Participating in the game teaches players to value the same behaviors and activities that historians do.

Making RPGs Constructionist learning theory says we learn by making. RPGs are a good fit for this because their creation involves many different skills and domains, they can draw on broad communities of practice of RPG fans/designers, and tabletop and live-action RPGs require very little specialized expertise and few materials to start making: paper, pen, dice, and bodies are all that is needed.

Modding One approach to using RPGs for project-based learning is for learners to design modifications, or mods, to existing games. The framework of the existing game can help learners see the results of their projects more quickly, and it can also provide authentic context for the project to be meaningful to the learner. Consider the case of Skyrim, where available mods showcase a range of skills. Mods that introduce new hairstyles for the characters involve 3D modeling, while mods that introduce new quests rely on both programming and writing. While learning these skills can be challenging, the effort is in no way comparable to the effort of creating Skyrim itself. The potential rewards, on the other hand, are proportional to Skyrim’s success as a game and to the size of the fan community around it. This helps motivate players to complete Skyrim mod projects, even outside formal learning contexts; as of 2016, there were over 40,000 mods available (Dey et al. 2016).

Production Skills Rather than modding existing RPGs, projects can involve making a new RPG from scratch. Developing new RPGs allows learners more creative freedom than modifying existing games and requires learners to make planning and production decisions. It also incorporates a wide variety of skills. Creating an RPG involves writing (for rules and game fiction), mathematics (for evaluating rule sets), scientific reasoning (for playtesting and iteration), and visual design (for art and layout). Additional domains can be integrated through setting or material constraints, such as using literary analysis to create games that address specific fictional settings (Klimick et al. 2016). Even within the constraints of formal learning environments where time is limited, RPGs can support productive project-based learning.

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Making as Critical Practice As described above, RPGs function as simulations of an imaginary world. The design of the simulation encapsulates an argument about how the world works. For example, in The Sims, characters are made happy by the players’ purchasing items for them, which implies that happiness comes from consumption (Bogost 2010). When learners are asked to make RPGs, they are also being asked to take a critical position on the issues addressed by their game world. For example, early essays on Dungeons & Dragons proposed gendered bonuses and penalties to attributes like Strength (Trammel 2014), while Dream Askew requires players to select from gender options such as “raven,” “gargoyle,” and “transgressing” (Mcdaldno 2013). These rule sets respectively reify and undermine conventional gender roles. In the process of designing RPGs, players can be prompted to think critically about what they are expressing with their game and what changes might more accurately express their ideas. While RPGs are not the only game genre that can be used for critical making, they can easily be used to reflect on identity and social roles, on social systems, and on ways to change the world.

Summary RPGs can, under the right circumstances, help players learn new skills, motivate players to engage with academic or nonacademic content, support collaboration, and much more. So, what are the “right circumstances”? Effective learning with RPGs happens when learning theories are aligned with the strengths of role-play and are appropriately supported by the learning environment. RPGs are deeply related to constructivism, in which learning happens through hands-on experimentation with new situations, and sociocultural learning theories, in which learning takes place through the adoption of new social roles. Key features of RPGs that relate to these learning theories include portraying a character; manipulating a fictional world; experiencing an altered sense of reality, which can either heighten the stakes of fictional decisions or lower the stakes of realistic ones; supporting collaboration through shared imaginative spaces; and learning through making RPGs. Additionally, common RPG practices, such as debriefs, can help learners transfer their knowledge from game contexts to other contexts, such as work, school, or practice.

Acknowledgements Thanks to Jade Schiffer and Rachel Moeller for research assistance with this project.

Note 1 We deliberately distinguish education from learning. Top education schools offer programs in education leadership, teacher training, education technology, special education, counseling, developmental science, and education policy. We acknowledge the importance of these and other topics to educational theory, but they are outside the scope of this chapter.

Further Reading Gee, James Paul. What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy. 2007. A classic analysis of educational principles in digital games. Schrier, Karen, Learning, Education & Games: Curricular and Design Considerations (Volumes One and Two). Pittsburgh, PA: Carnegie Mellon. 2014. A collection of essays on topics related to games and learning, including RPGs.

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References Aleven, Vincent, Eben Myers, Matthew Easterday, and Amy Ogan. “Toward a Framework for the Analysis and Design of Educational Games.” Proceedings of Digital Game and Intelligent Toy Enhanced Learning (DIGITEL), 2010 Third IEEE International Conference. 2010, pp. 69–76. Atwater, Brodie. “We Need to Talk: A Literature Review of Debrief.” International Journal of Role-Playing, no. 6 (2016): 7–11. Bandura, Albert. Social Foundations of Thought and Action: A Social Cognitive Theory. EnglewoodCliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1986. Barrows, Howard S. and Stephen Abrahamson. “The Programmed Patient: A Technique for Appraising Student Performance in Clinical Neurology.” Journal of Medical Education 39, no. 8 (1964): 802–05. Batson, Daniel C. “Empathy-Induced Altruistic Motivation.” Inaugural Herzliya Symposium on Prosocial Motives, Emotions, and Behavior, March 24, 2008. Bergen, Doris. “The Role of Pretend Play in Children’s Cognitive Development.” Early Childhood Research and Practice 4, no. 1 (2002). Bogost, Ian. Persuasive Games. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press Ltd, 2010. Carnes, Mark C. Minds on Fire: How Role-Immersion Games Transform College. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2014. “Center for Domestic Preparedness.” Role Players Offer Real-World Training Experience – Center for Domestic Preparedness. Accessed January 19, 2017. https://cdp.dhs.gov/news-media/articles/role-playersoffer-real-world-training-experience/. Clark, Douglas B., Emily E. Tanner-Smith, and Stephen Killingsworth. “Digital Games, Design, and Learning: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.” Review of Educational Research 86, no. 1 (2016): 79–122. Crookall, D. “Engaging (in) Gameplay and (in) Debriefing.” Simulation & Gaming 45, no. 4–5 (2014): 416–27. De Freitas, Sara and Mark Griffiths. “Online Gaming as an Educational Tool in Learning and Training.” British Journal of Educational Technology 38, no. 3 (2007): 535–37. Dede, Chris, Jody Clarke, Diane Ketelhut, Brian Nelson, and Cassie Bowman. “Motivation, Learning, and Transfer in Multi-User Virtual Environments.” Harvard Graduate School of Education, 2005. Accessed July 23, 2008. Delwiche, Aaron. MMORPG’s in the College Classroom the State of Play: Law, Games and Virtual Worlds. Technical paper. New York Law School. 2003. Deterding, Sebastian. “Situated Motivational Affordances of Game Elements: A Conceptual Model.” Proceedings of CHI 2011, Vancouver. 2011. Dey, Tapajit, Jacob Logan Massengill, and Audris Mockus. “Analysis of Popularity of Game Mods.” Proceedings of CHI PLAY 2016, Texas, Austin. 2016. pp. 133–39. Egenfeldt-Nielsen, Simon. “Overview of Research on the Educational Use of Video Games.” Digital Kompetanse 1, no. 3 (2006): 184–213. Egenfeldt-Nielsen, Simon. “Third Generation Educational Use of Computer Games.” Journal of Educational Multimedia and Hypermedia 16, no. 3 (2007): 263. Erikson, Erik H. Identity, Youth, and Crisis. New York: W.W. Norton, 1968. Ertmer, Peggy A. and Timothy J. Newby. “Behaviorism, Cognitivism, Constructivism: Comparing Critical Features From an Instructional Design Perspective.” Performance Improvement Quarterly 26, no. 2 (2013): 43–71. Fanning, Ruth M. and David M. Gaba. “The Role of Debriefing in Simulation-Based Learning.” Society for Simulation in Healthcare 2, no. 2 (2007): 115–25. Flatt, C. Ross. “How a Classroom Game Becomes an Embedded Assessment.” Edutopia. May 13, 2014. Accessed January 19, 2017. https://www.edutopia.org/blog/classroom-game-becomes-embeddedassessment-ross-flatt. Frisby, Alfred William. Teaching English Notes and Comments on Teaching English Overseas. London: ­L ongman, 1957. Galarneau, Lisa and Melanie Zibit. “Online Games for 21st Century Skills.” In Games and Simulations in Online Learning: Research and Development Frameworks. Hershey, PA: Information Science Publishing, 2007, 59–88.

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16 Economics and Role-Playing Games Isaac Knowles and Edward Castronova

This chapter outlines economic perspectives on role-playing games (RPGs). Economists have studied RPGs for years but mostly those based in shared virtual worlds. The reason is that these multi-player online RPGs (MORPGs) with large populations support complex social dynamics, including large-scale economies that actively trade with the “real world.” Additionally, game design patterns (→ Chapter 18) common to MORPGs, such as their progress mechanics and difficulty curves, have come to be seen as being partially determined by a profit motive – and thus also of interest to economists. Designers of tabletop RPGs (TRPGs), computer RPGs (CRPGs), and live-action role-play (larp) all face their own economic tradeoffs between design and business success, and we can explore those as well through the lens of economics. The bulk of this chapter focuses on the traditional questions of economics as they relate to RPGs: consumption, production, and trade. While many games have economic activities incorporated into their mechanics, RPGs are unique in the freedom that they give players to engage in those activities. For example, few RPGs build the concept of “rent” into the game rules. Instead, if one finds players paying or charging rent in-game, this is often because that activity emerged as a result of players’ decisions. By relying on players to generate economic phenomena in RPGs, designers create a more engrossing world for those players. At the same time, designers have learned through trial and error that it is folly to take a completely ­laissez-faire approach to RPG economies, especially MORPGs based in persistent virtual worlds. Understanding the relationship between macroeconomic phenomena, game rules, and business success has occupied the bulk of economic analysis as it relates to RPGs. We begin this chapter with an introduction to economics as a field and three economic concepts that we consider particularly relevant to the study of RPGs: macroeconomics, happiness, and game theory. Across all three, economics and game design overlap in their interest in designing rule systems – market regulations and mechanisms here, game mechanics there. We will then use these concepts and this rule design focus to probe four particular intersections of RPGs and economics: f irst, we will look at business RPGs as a form of treating the economy as role-play. Then we will look at the economics of RPGs: their market size, business models, and the like. Next, we will probe the economies within RPGs: their markets, auction houses, and interchanges with the real economy. We will end with an economic theory of role-play, asking how and when people choose to engage in role-playing and what consequences this holds.

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What is Economics? Historically, economics has concerned itself with the production, distribution, and consumption of goods (including intangible services) and how these phenomena behave at different levels of aggregation – from the individual person to the firm to the industry to the nation-state. Economists assume that each of these entities is self-interested and has unlimited needs and wants. Then, on the basis of these two assumptions, they build models that describe how these entities make decisions about which goods they will buy and which they will sell, which they will produce themselves and which they will procure from others, how prices for those items are set in a market, whether those prices lead to efficient outcomes, and what effect government policy might have on markets.

Three Economic Concepts A chapter on “the economics of RPGs” could be as unbounded as, say, a chapter on “the philosophy of RPGs” or any other deep field. We could interrogate “rational choice,” the assertion by many economists that humans should be modeled as rational (Fudenberg 2006).1 Or we could discuss economic inequality, power differentials, and privilege – topics that come under many scholars’ understanding of “political economy.” Due to space, we must exclude many such economic topics. In particular, this essay will focus on macroeconomics, happiness, and game theory. Macroeconomics concerns the overall economic performance of a nation. Macroeconomists study the trends, fluctuations, and causes of phenomena such as unemployment, economic growth, productivity, and inflation. Macroeconomics was an important area of research in MORPGs throughout the 2000s but has since faded into the background. Happiness research is an area of study related to macroeconomics (Di Tella, MacCulloch, & Oswald 2003). Standing in part as a critique of economists’ traditional focus on income as a source of well-being, happiness research deals in questions of alternative measures of well-being, such as feelings of life satisfaction, security in self and property, or freedom from persecution for thoughts and beliefs (Di Tella & MacCulloch 2006). Happiness researchers also deal in questions of how an individual’s pursuit of subjective well-being drives phenomena like migration and integration (Clark, Frijters, & Shields 2008). Towards the end of this analysis, we will argue that migration as a search for happiness is a possible explanation for the individual act of role-playing. Game theory is the study of strategic interaction between individuals or organizations. A game is defined by three features: a set of players; a set of actions (also called strategies) available to each player; and an outcome for each of these actions, given the actions of the other players. Though invented in the first half of the 20th century, game theory came into vogue in economics in the 1970s. Initially, it was used only to understand the behavior of competing firms, but it was soon adapted to the task of explaining human social behavior, in general. Game theory has been (or can be) applied to phenomena as diverse as used car markets (Akerlof 1970), gender roles in marriage (Lundberg & Pollak 1993), or the persistence of discriminatory social customs (Akerlof 1980).

The Design Aspects of Economics Game theory, happiness, and macroeconomics typically appear as studies of things that are. But economics has also studied how to make new things in the economy. In particular, socalled mechanism design (Myerson 1979) focuses on the question of how a principal (e.g. a

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government, an employer, a parent) might design a game between other agents (e.g. a collection of firms, workers, or children) in order to facilitate a desired outcome. Work in this area initially focused on the design of auctions, which can be viewed as a game between bidders for an item being offered by a seller. The seller (the designer) wants to run an auction (the mechanism) that will elicit the highest possible bid and lead to the most revenue (a favorable outcome). This is a nontrivial problem because each bidder has an incentive to disguise her true value for an item – a problem known as asymmetric information (Akerlof 1970). However, mechanism design offers a way for the seller to overcome this problem by creating an auction that incentivizes bidders to reveal their true value for the item for sale. In more recent years, mechanism design has come to play an important role in such realms as regulatory policy-making (Rob 1989) and institution-building in developing countries (Guriev 2004). There are strong parallels between this line of economics and the work of RPG designers. However, to our knowledge, there are no documented, explicit uses of mechanism design by game designers, though we have heard inklings of it in informal settings (DeCoster & Rubin 2011). We know of no documented uses of it in the analysis or design of RPGs. That said, there are uncanny parallels between the game designer’s problem of making game rules that (for example) encourage role-playing and the policy-maker’s problem of making regulatory rules that encourage (for example) eco-friendly behavior by companies.

The Economy as Role-Play: Business RPGs “All the world’s a stage,” said William Shakespeare. He might have meant that it is all a game as well. To the extent that people perform different roles and present different aspects of their persons when functioning in different parts of the economy, they could be said to be strategically enacting roles. People in business meetings, for instance, enact particular roles, like “chair” or “expert,” to affect decisions (Angouri & Marra 2011). Business Gaming The development and use of games for business simulation, planning, and training.

Beyond such a general conception of economic participation as role-play, businesses have more than four decades of history of using business games for planning, simulation, and education (Faria et al., 2009). Additionally, much business education is based on case learning. In case learning, learners adopt roles of business leaders in particular situations and enact relevant behavior. In executive education, for instance, learners are senior executives who demand immediately relevant material, and cases and role-play are often used to satisfy this demand. In addition, as learning involves more “soft” interpersonal skills, personal dispositions or “in the heat of the moment” responses, e.g. around ethical decision-making (Brown 1994), role-play becomes a prime educational tool (→ Chapter 15). Harvard Business School (HBS) is renowned for its development of and reliance on cases as a means of training business leaders. “When students are presented with a case,” says the HBS website, “they place themselves in the role of the decision maker as they read through the situation and identify the problem” (HBS 2016). Business cases perform best when different students occupy different leadership roles. One person might be the director of a regulatory agency, another the CEO of a power company, a third the leader of an environmental advocacy group, and the fourth the editor of a local newspaper.

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Finally, it is worth pondering what the economy actually is. We are told that the economy consists of buyers and sellers pursuing the best possible exchanges of goods and services. Yet if all of those agents have learned what to do as part of role-playing business cases, they are all, in a sense, acting out the roles of buyers and sellers. They are not economic agents; they are human beings pretending to be economic agents. Perhaps the economy is nothing more than a utility-driven RPG.

The Economics of RPGs CRPGs and MORPGs CRPGs are about as old as video games. For the first 20 years of their lifetime – from early textbased adventures like ADVENT to mid-1990s blockbusters like Baldur’s Gate and Final Fantasy VII – there was little to distinguish the CRPG business from that of other video game genres. At a high level, the traditional, mass-market (or so-called triple-A) video game industry follows a basic value chain. First, a game publisher contracts a developer to develop a game (or produces it in house). Sometimes, the publisher solicits ideas for games from developers. Other times, the developers pitch ideas to the publisher. If and when the publisher hires the developer, production proceeds. Production requires the input of sometimes hundreds of specialists in a number of fields, including motion capture, animation, sound design, technical art, software engineering, marketing, and game design, and can easily take years and tens of millions of dollars. Under this model, the developer is paid by the publisher to make the game and may receive additional royalties once it is released. The publisher is in charge of marketing the game, bears most of the financial risk, but is also the principal beneficiary if the game succeeds. Players purchase the whole game up-front, traditionally “off the shelf” from a retailer and increasingly, today, as a digital download. In the late 1990s, MORPGs emerged and began to diverge from the traditional game industry model due to their persistence, number of players, and consequential revenue models. MORPGs are persistent, always-on worlds, designed to support anywhere from 16 to over 300,000 simultaneous users. Depending on the number of simultaneous users, this can result in substantial server and server-maintenance costs. For this reason, throughout the 1990s and well into the 2000s, MORPGs in North America, Australia, and Western Europe predominantly opted for a pay-to-play, initially pay-per-minute and, later, pay-per-month, model. Pay-to-play Games that give players access to game content only after payment.

In contrast, MORPG publishers in South Korea and East Asia obtained revenue through the sale of virtual goods and services while providing all players access to the game’s servers for free. This so-called free-to-play or F2P model was slow to transfer from Asia to Europe and North America were, players’ higher income and their resistance to the model led most MORPG publishers to prefer subscription models. Over time, however, subscription revenue models have become quite rare. Of the hundreds of MORPGs currently on the market in the Americas, Asia, and Europe, we know of only one that is purely subscription-based: EVE Online. World of Warcraft, a stalwart opponent to F2P for many years, now sells (apart from a subscription) a number of goods and services that provide conveniences or aesthetic improvements to players. Most other MORPGs have eschewed subscriptions altogether and instead rely heavily or even exclusively on the sale of virtual goods and services.

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Free-to-play Games that give players access to significant portions of their content without payment, often making revenues by charging players small amounts for additional features and content.

This move to F2P has created the need for careful management of the in-game economy. As discussed in greater detail below, the sales of items or currency for real money can lead to disruptive imbalances in a game’s economy and can be very disconcerting for players. It may also deeply affect the design of the game. F2P game mechanics are designed to encourage the sales of virtual goods by creating barriers to a player’s progression through the game (Hamari & Lehdonvirta 2010). For this reason, the model was once highly controversial in more affluent countries. Over time, however, resistance has diminished considerably, and it is now the norm rather than the exception. Virtual goods Digital goods whose value consists in their practical, social, or psychological function, not their informational content. In MORPGs, these are in-game items like gold or character equipment that often can or have to be purchased for real currency from the game provider.

It is difficult to assess the size of the CRPG market as companies rarely report numbers for their individual games. The research firm Superdata, which specializes in analysis of the game industry, claims that the MORPG market generated $19.8 billion in revenue in 2016. 2 There is also a problem of defining a game as an RPG in the contemporary industry because many games are labelled and tagged rather than distinctly categorized. As of this writing, the popular personal computer (PC) gaming platform Steam lists 1,720 separate RPGs, including 214 MORPGs. This list includes games like Terraria and BioShock, neither of which would meet everyone’s definition of an RPG, although they might be said to include RPG elements. As for the future, the advent of virtual and augmented reality suggests continued growth for CRPGs. They are a rather unique entertainment good in that they allow the player to almost completely replace their out-of-game life with a different life in a game. New friends, new things to do, new ways to make contributions, new rewards to earn. Advanced technologies only deepen this sense of difference. While the applications of Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) will be legion, role-playing will clearly be among them. VR completely replaces the imagery of the outside world and thus makes the role-playing experience deeper. AR puts an overlay of new content onto the surface of the outside world: instead of creating a new fantasy environment somewhere “out there,” AR turns our daily lives into fantasy world. It is impossible to predict the economic and social changes that will result from these developments.

TRPGs If numbers on the total size of the CRPG and MORPG industry are hard to come by, today’s TRPGs prove even more elusive. Although they often involve physical goods like dice, miniatures, erasable maps and so on, the main bespoke (and copyright-protected) good a TRPG publisher sells is illustrated text: rule books and extra scenarios or handbooks. Already in the 1970s, Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) players were reported to xerox rather than

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purchase the (expensive) publications – D&D co-creator Gary Gygax later estimated that pirated copies made up 10%–25% of all D&D rule books in existence (Peterson 2012, loc. 12732). The advent of digital document formats and the Internet in the first instance meant that players could engage in digital piracy, sharing scanned copies of TRPG books online (most commonly using the PDF file format). Second, game companies started exploring the new opportunities of digital networked publishing. Notably, in 2000, then D&D publisher Wizards of the Coast released the third edition D&D rules as the background-agnostic d20 rule system licensed under the “Open Gaming License,” meaning that others could freely publish scenarios, books, and rule sets using the d20 system. This led to a flurry of fan and small press publications, including the successful Pathfinder franchise but also – some argue – to an oversupply of TRPG material, which eroded prices. Combining PDF desktop publishing with online distribution, online marketplaces like DriveThruRPG emerged where large and small TRPG publishers could supply a global market at near-zero marginal costs (Appelcline 2014, 403–9).

Box 16.1  DriveThruRPG and RPG Online Marketplaces By its own account, DriveThruRPG, run by OneBookShelf, is currently the largest online marketplace for TRPGs. The company resulted from the merger of DriveThruRPG, founded in 2004, with RPGNow, founded in 2001. It allows TRPG publishers to offer their current and historic catalogs as PDFs and print-on-demand books. As online digital and print-on-­ demand distribution maximizes reach and minimizes up-front investment hurdles and risk, it has contributed to the flourishing of “long tail,” “indie” RPGs (Appelcline 2014, 407–8). For instance, Indie Press Revolution, a network of small-press, indie publishers running a joint online marketplace and fulfillment house, has grown to over 100 participating publishers since its founding in 2004. Online marketplaces have become a main pillar of contemporary TRPG publishing. White Wolf, a major TRPG publisher, now publishes exclusively online via DriveThruRPG, and D&D publisher Wizards of the Coast joined up with OneBookShelf to create Dungeon Masters Guild, a marketplace selling the complete D&D back catalog and allowing fans to publish and sell their own D&D-licensed material.

Woven into this increasingly digital-only value chain are three further revenue-driving strategies: •

•

•

Extension: To sustain revenue, publishers produce a basic offering (typically a rule book) and then gradually publish enhancements and additions – this strategy has indeed been in use since the 1970s. Collector’s Items: Publishers are producing limited, high-quality physical prints with lavish materials and illustrations at premium prices as a form of price discrimination and creating goods whose value is hard to copy digitally. Accessories: Some systems are designed to create the need for physical accessories, such as maps, figures, charts, special dice, and so on. This allows the publisher to either gain licensing fees from physical producers or generate direct income from their production and distribution.

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Larps Data pickings on the economics of larps are even slimmer than for TRPGs (→ Chapter 5). At first look, one may distinguish three kinds of goods: publications, like rule books or scenarios; costuming and props; and the hosting and staging of larp runs, easily the most resource-­ intensive of the three as it usually builds on and incorporates the prior two kinds of goods. The majority of larps were and are chiefly fan-produced as a labor of love, with no profit motive and the major investment being voluntary, unremunerated fan labor (Stanfill & Condis 2014). Fan labor Value generation by fans of a media property, such as playtesting, word-ofmouth marketing, or community moderation, often unremunerated.

More recent “high-profile,” high production value larps often involve dedicated and laboriously staged sets and hundreds of participants, each requiring lavish costuming and backstory. For instance, the 2013 larp Monitor Celestra involved a decommissioned battleship refurbished as a spaceship, with 389 players over three days and a production budget of €120,000.3 To amortize these costs, such larps charge significant participation fees, running in the hundreds of euros. Nevertheless, the media attention and resultant popular success of some of these high-profile productions have raised critiques within the larp community about whether players are being exploited in these larps as they arguably begin to make profits, and senior players taking on more involved roles requiring skill and preparation arguably make essential contributions to the larps’ successes ( Jones, Koulu, and Torner 2016).

Crowdfunding Most recently, the meteoric rise of crowdfunding has expanded and shifted financing and revenue generation models in the whole game industry, spreading up-front investment risk from producers to consumers. On the popular crowdfunding platform Kickstarter, games are the single largest project category in terms of funding raised, with nearly $124 million US$ pledged in 2016. Of that, the lion’s share of more than $105 million went to 1,695 successful tabletop games (Bidaux 2017). From its launch in 2009 to early 2017, Kickstarter has successfully funded more than 1,200 RPG projects, with the CRPG Shenmue III topping the list with $6.3 million pledged, soon followed by the second edition of the TRPG 7th Sea, raising $1.3 million.4 While the overall size and relative share of crowdfunding is hard to ascertain, these numbers do indicate that it has become a significant new entrant among TRPG and CRPG revenue models.

The Economies of RPGs Within any RPG, there is economic activity. Characters earn money and spend it. Items are produced and shipped. Economic strategies form one element of gameplay. We will begin with MORPGs. In this sector more than any other, the internal economies of RPGs have come to be seen as broadly significant.

The Economies of MORPGs MORPGs were arguably the first games to receive significant attention from economists. There have been three main topics of interest. First, the design of the ecosystems of these games: whether the virtual world will be self-contained and self-regulated or actively managed

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by the game’s operator. Second, the phenomenon known as the real money trade, which describes the practice of exchanging virtual goods, services, and currency for real money. Finally, the measurement of virtual economic activity and the real economic activity that it generates. It may not be obvious why a game’s ecosystem should be a topic of interest to economists, but, in fact, the issue is central. Zachary Simpson’s (2000) early analysis of the economy of Ultima Online (UO) shows why. After a fascinating and thorough unpacking of the initial design of UO’s virtual ecosystem, which was closed and not regulated by the game’s operators, Simpson goes on to describe the spectacularly devastating economic consequences of this initial design decision. Finally, he describes the solution UO’s developers devised, namely, an open ecosystem, often called the faucet-drain system, which has become standard-issue in every MORPG since. At its release, the virtual world of UO was designed with a limited amount of resources, which themselves were constructed from a limited quantity of abstract stuff (a highly technical term for which there is really no better alternative). A piece of iron ore might be constructed from 50 points of stuff, while a shirt might contain 75 points. In this manner, as more and more raw resources were removed from the environment, they became harder to find. The system was designed to be rejuvenated as players discarded items, which eventually degraded back into abstract stuff to be remade into something else. Though unique and even ingenious, there was a problem with this design. Some players would collect items and simply hold them in their inventory, disrupting the recycling process and eventually depleting the virtual world of all of its natural resources.5 This was a distressing turn for many UO players, who suddenly found themselves unable to progress in the game world. They could not mine minerals for blacksmithing for there were no minerals to mine. Animals could not spawn for lack of food. The economy was frozen because the ecosystem was perpetually destitute of resources. In retrospect, the key failure of the original ecosystem was that it constituted a common resource pool, access to which was completely unrestricted. With everyone drawing from the same pool and nobody facing any cost of depleting that pool, a shortage was inevitable. This dynamic is known as the tragedy of the commons, and economists have long argued that the cause of this tragedy is the lack of property rights (Demsetz 1967) or – in the absence of property rights – the lack of a government to regulate usage of the commons (Ostrom 2008). The UO developers faced a quandary. First, they did not want to assign property rights to players. Second, they did not want to start raising the costs of collecting resources by, for example, charging players for their uses of the resource, either with real money or virtual currency. If they did, they would surely experience a mass exodus of players who wanted to play the game in whatever way they saw fit. There seemed to be no solution that would both leave the closed ecosystem intact and keep UO running successfully. To solve the problem, the UO developers instituted a new, open ecosystem. They eliminated the theoretical limit on the amount of stuff that could be collected from the virtual world. Any player could take from the virtual world as many resources as she could collect. In technical terms, the UO developers opened the resource faucet. Faucet Any feature in a game that continually adds a particular resource (like gold) to circulation in the in-game economy.

This alone was not enough, however. If there was no limit on resource collection, the world could become inundated with currency, resulting in a price inflation and a follow-up phenomenon known colloquially as MUDflation (Lehdonvirta & Castronova 2014, 230–1; Koster, 2007).

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MUDflation A portmanteau of MUD (Multiuser Dungeon) and inflation, describing the situation in which a surfeit of powerful items, like weapons and armor, in the game world trivializes the game’s challenge.

To prevent these two game- and economy-breaking phenomenon, inflation and MUDflation, UO’s developers also instituted a number of resource sinks, which forced currency and items to drain from the economy. This was achieved through processes like depreciation, obsolescence, and the sale of items that could only be purchased with large amounts of in-game currency (Lehdonvirta & Castronova 2014, 224–226, 233). Sink Any feature in a game that removes a particular resource (like gold) from circulation in the in-game economy.

The failure of the original closed ecosystem was a watershed moment in MORPG design. The institution of an open ecosystem of faucets and sinks, which gives the game operator much more control over how resources enter and exit the game world, is a universal feature of MORPGs and now appears in other electronic game genres. Additionally, the event and its aftermath resulted in the first publicly documented economic failure and restructuring to occur not in the real world but in the virtual one. And third, the fact that game economies could fail, to catastrophic results for the game company, gave impetus to efforts to measure virtual economic activity. This early game telemetry was some of the first of its kind, presaging the colossal contemporary data collection and analysis efforts that fall under the rubric of game analytics. Virtual Economy An economy based on scarce digital resources, such as virtual gold and equipment in an MORPG or the Q coin in the instant messaging system QQ.

Although dozens of useful measures of virtual economic activity can be gathered, there are three in particular that get to the heart of economic management, each with its analog in the real world (Lehdonvirta & Castronova 2014, Chapter 12): •

•

•

Gross Virtual Product (GVP): The value, in terms of virtual currency, of all final goods and services sold in the economy. The terms final and sold are important: items that players collect but never sell are not part of the income. Items that are sold but end up as inputs to other items should not be counted either – only items that are consumed directly. GVP – and its movement through time – indicates the economic well-being of characters. Large positive movements may be indicative of MUDflation, while large negative movements may indicate that players are having difficulty finding trading partners. Consumer Price Index (CPI): A weighted measure of the average price of items sold in the market. The CPI takes a basket of goods, each selling a total quantity of q at average price p. The CPI is a relative measure, generated by weighting the normalized total sales of each item by its quantity sold in some other time period. Changes in the CPI are indicative of inflation or deflation. It can also be used to convert GVP and other measures from nominal to real terms that can be compared through time. Exchange Rates: Whether or not it is against the rules, virtual currency trades with real currency on open markets. Keeping track of fluctuations in these values is crucial. Not only

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does conversion of GVP to dollar make the values more intelligible. Gwangjae Jung et al. (2011) point out that targeting exchange rates on open markets is an important part of profit maximization for game companies because it regulates players’ consumption of content.

Real Money Trade Beyond MUDflation, Simpson (2000) discussed another crucial phenomenon of MORPG economies: some players were buying and selling virtual things for real money. At the time, Simpson was mostly interested in how this real money trade (RMT) exacerbated the other knotty problems associated with a closed ecosystem. Real Money Trade The buying and selling virtual goods, services, and currencies for real money.

But RMT persisted within and beyond UO, and many believed it to be a serious problem. MMO developers argued that it contributed to disruptions like hyperinflation (Koster 2007). They also did not like the fact that people were making money off of virtual goods over which the companies claimed intellectual property rights.6 Many players complained about it as well because it interfered with the idea that success in the MORPG was determined by merit, not influenced by wealth or circumstance of birth. But from an economic perspective, what is most interesting about RMT is that this market was creating data on the value of virtual things in terms of real money. There was, in effect, an exchange rate of EverQuest platinum or World of Warcraft gold to real-world dollars. And that meant it was possible to measure virtual economic activity in terms that nonresidents of the virtual world could understand. In 2001, Edward Castronova published an account of his experiences in EverQuest. On a lark, he collected data on the price of the game’s currency (platinum) and avatars that were for sale on eBay and other auction websites. Devising a crude method for measuring the population of Norrath, the virtual world of EverQuest, Castronova calculated that players’ total ­holdings – including items, currency, and the avatars holding them in inventory – was about $135 million. This number was astounding, especially to people who had never heard of MORPGs or virtual worlds. Later, using a common econometric technique knowns as hedonic price modeling, Castronova (2004) showed that the value of female avatars was 12%–16% less than that of male avatars and that this difference was likely driven not by any material difference in the avatars but solely by their difference in gender. Thus, RMT was not just an economic curiosity. Players were creating real value in these virtual worlds, and this was at odds with basic folk theories that fantasy worlds are “separate” from the real one. Because RMT violated this conceptual boundary, Castronova (2006) argued that it resulted in a negative externality: a cost that was being born by players who were not even engaging in the purchasing or selling of virtual goods. Once again, game developers were faced with a quandary. The usual policy solution to an externality is to impose a tax on the people who are exerting a cost on others. But this works only when there is no asymmetric information regarding market participants and the size of the market. Although game companies collected data on virtual economic transactions, and though they had methods for detecting suspect transactions, it was hard to find definitive proof

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that a player had participated in RMT. There was – and remains – no panacea for the RMT problem. Moreover, RMT was probably the only reason why some players continued to pay their subscriptions every month. Did game operators really want to remove all violators of anti-RMT policies? Almost certainly not. Over the years, most MORPGs have chosen to go along with some sort of RMT. Developers usually resort to one of two strategies: direct sale of virtual goods to players or intermediation of sales between players (Robischon 2007). This enables developers to capture the real value that players place on their virtual wealth. It also helps to put control of the virtual economy back into the hands of the game operators.

The Economies of Other RPG Forms Traditionally, an economy serves two major purposes in any RPG. First, it adds a sense of realism to the game. Shops, taverns, and other players can provide goods and services to a player for a price. Not only does this generate immersion, it also gives the game operator – be it a developer or a game master – a way to drive a story forward. Second, an economy is a game system that facilitates choice in play. Character and story creation are activities that occur primarily before an RPG is played, but trade affords characters a way for players to express themselves during play. Will you buy a beer at the tavern? Will you give alms to the beggar? Will you bribe the guard to let you into his master’s fortress, or will you fight him? When there is an in-game economy, these choices are meaningful because they are costly if “only” virtually so. That being said, larp and TRPG economies are usually much smaller and less complex than those of MORPGs. Whereas MORPGs are persistent, most TRPGs and larps are impermanent, eliminating the need for much economic management. They are also principally not immune to RMT, but unlike MORPGs, there are few if any known instances, let alone controversies.

An Economic Theory of Role-Play Why do people role-play? People in different fields advance different responses, and economics is no exception. Some might expect the “economics of role-playing” to be all about money. But economics analyzes strategic behavior in terms of well-being, of which money only makes a part (and not always a big part). Economics basically predicts that there will be more role-­ playing when it makes someone better off to their own way of thinking. How does role-playing make people better off? Gordon Walton, a well-known game designer, once said, “Everybody wants to be a hero.” This is probably not true – at least, not of everybody – but it does capture the idea that our experience within role-playing contexts may seem richer and more rewarding in many ways than what we experience outside of them. If the whole economy is itself a type of RPG, then what we have here is not the choice of whether to role-play or not but under which set of rules to do so. What system does a person prefer: that of the “real world” or that of D&D? Edward Castronova and Gert Wagner (2011) compared happiness levels of people inside and outside the virtual environment of Second Life. They found that the effect of being in the virtual world was about as strong as the effect of getting a job when you have been unemployed. This is a big effect size; being employed is one of the main sources of happiness in data like these. The study suggests that RPGs might contribute as much to happiness as many of the

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activities with which they compete for time: schools, jobs, exercise, relationships. If so, then a comparative economic explanation of role-play behavior would make sense: people will role-play whenever doing so seems to make them better off. As RPG design and technology improves, this economic model predicts that the amount of role-playing, particularly in computers, will steadily rise. The resultant exodus of people to virtual environments will, of course, create pressures and changes within RPG worlds but also in the outside world. When migrants leave one place for another, both places change (Castronova 2008). Of course, these predictions are based on the idea that people generally pursue immediate happiness, not long-term well-being. It is a standard libertarian assumption that people who do what they prefer will also be happy and fulfilled, but that is not a necessary element of economic reasoning. In some areas, such as alcohol abuse, we have to reject the assumption that what people want to do will necessarily be good for them as judged by themselves. Relatedly, a recent article in Time reported an “epidemic” of pornography and suggested that it might be causing high levels of erectile dysfunction (Luscombe 2016). Put differently, the pursuit of immediate satisfaction through RPGs will probably rise, but this is no guarantee of human flourishing.

Summary In this essay, we have summarized much of the available research on economics and RPGs. We noted interesting intersections of the two along happiness, game theory, mechanism design, and macroeconomics. Both RPGs and economics are concerned with people wanting to maximize their happiness or well-being, both attempt to shape and analyze resultant behavior through formal rule systems, and both involve larger systems of circulating virtual or real goods and currencies. Still, the relevant literature is sparse. While games and role-play have a long tradition of being used in business simulation and training, RPGs and role-playing themselves have not been the object of much economic attention. We offered one explanatory theory for studying the latter: role-playing is akin to migration or preferential choices between one (real-life) game and others and could be researched as such. The one RPG phenomenon that economists have studied is the virtual economies of MORPGs. Data on the size of the video games market is accessible, its size is significant enough to receive economic attention, and MORPG developers and researchers discovered relatively early that a game’s business success is immediately tied to its game design: be it that a poorly designed in-game economy would spoil player enjoyment with a dearth (tragedy of the commons) or surplus of in-game goods (MUDflation); be it that players start exchanging in-game goods for real money (real-money trading), impinging on other players’ sense of fairness; or be it that offering a game as free-to-play whilst selling additional virtual goods for real money is a lucrative revenue model. In addition, real-money trading, combined with the rich analytics captured by game companies, meant that economists could use standard methods to measure and model the virtual economies of MORPGs and demonstrate the real economic value and impact of these presumably unreal worlds. In comparison, we found little on the economics or in-game economies of TRPGs or larps. Hard data is hard to come by. Nonetheless, we saw that TRPGs have been shifting from physical print copy sales to often crowdfunded, digital-first value chains, not unlike other entertainment industries. The recent emergence of high-profile, high(er)-grossing larps has sparked

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debates about the economic value of previously unremunerated fan labor. Both are fully in line with deeper transformation processes of emergent digital, experience-driven economics writ large – and as such, more than worthy of more economic attention.

Notes 1 In defense of this idea, consider that to model something is not to assume it. We model the world, quite usefully, using a map. In doing so, we are not assuming that Chicago is big black dot and that no little towns exist. Games are often good models of something that they represent completely unrealistically. 2 www.superdataresearch.com/market-data/mmo-market/. 3 https://nordiclarp.org/wiki/The_Monitor_Celestra. 4 www.kickstarter.com/discover/advanced?state=successful&tag_id=33&sort=most_funded& seed=2490148&page=1. 5 The players’ intent was not necessarily malicious – many of them just enjoyed collecting items. For example, Simpson (2000) describes one player that decided he would like to make and hold thousands of virtual shirts in his virtual home. 6 Though beyond the scope of this essay, the question of property rights over virtual goods is fascinating in its own right. Interested readers should see (Lastowka & Hunter, 2004) and (Lastowka, 2011, Ch. 7).

Further Reading Appelcline, S. (2014). Designers & Dragons. 4 vols. Silver Spring, MD: Evil Hat Productions. Dibbell, J. (2006). Play Money: Or, How I Quit My Day Job and Made Millions Trading Virtual Loot. New York: Basic Books. Faria, A. J., Hutchinson, D., Wellington, W. J., & Gold, S. (2009). “Developments in Business Gaming: A Review of the Past 40 Years.” Simulation & Gaming 40 (4): 464–87. Lehdonvirta, V., & Castronova, E. (2014). Virtual Economies: Design and Analysis. Cambridge, MA and London: MIT Press.

References Angouri, J., & Marra, M. (2011). “‘OK One Last Thing for Today Then’: Constructing Identities in Corporate Meeting Talk.” In Constructing Identities at Work, edited by Jo Angouri and Meredith Marra, pp. 85–100. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Akerlof, G. A. (1970). The market for ‘lemons’: Quality uncertainty and the market mechanism. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 84 (3): 488–500. Akerlof, G. A. (1980). A theory of social custom, of which unemployment may be one consequence. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 94 (4): 749–775. Appelcline, S. (2014). Designers & Dragons: The ‘00s. Silver Spring, MD: Evil Hat Productions. Bidaux, T. (2017). Kickstarter in 2016 – Deep Dive into the Games Category. http://icopartners.com/2017/01/ kickstarter-2016-deep-dive-games-category/. Brown, K. M. (1994). Using role play to integrate ethics into the business curriculum: A financial management example. Journal of Business Ethics 13 (2): 105–10. doi:10.1007/BF00881579. Castronova, E. (2008). Exodus to the Virtual World: How Online Fun is Changing Reality. Palgrave Macmillan. Castronova, E. (2006) A cost-benefit analysis of real-money trade in the products of synthetic economies, Info 8 (6): 56–68. Castronova, E. (2004) The price of bodies: A hedonic analysis of avatar attributes in a synthetic world, Kyklos 57 (2): 173–196. Castronova, E., & Wagner, Gert G. (2011). Virtual life satisfaction. Kyklos 64 (3): 313–328.

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Clark, A. E., Frijters, P., & Shields, M. A. (2008). Relative income, happiness, and utility: An explanation for the Easterlin paradox and other puzzles. Journal of Economic literature, 46 (1): 95–144. DeCoster, B. & Rubin, S. (2011) “Game mechanics and mechanism design” https://youtu.be/ GXdf U2DoF8o. Demsetz, H. (1967). Toward a theory of property rights. The American Economic Review, 57 (2): 347–359. Di Tella, R., & MacCulloch, R. (2006). Some uses of happiness data in economics. The Journal of Economic Perspectives, 20 (1): 25–46. Di Tella, R., MacCulloch, R. J., & Oswald, A. J. (2003). The macroeconomics of happiness. Review of Economics and Statistics, 85 (4): 809–827. Faria, A. J., Hutchinson, D., Wellington, W. J., & Gold, S. (2009). Developments in business gaming: A review of the past 40 years. Simulation & Gaming 40 (4): 464–87. Fudenberg, D. (2006). Advancing beyond “Advances in Behavioral Economics”. Journal of Economic Literature, 44 (3): 694–711. Guriev, S. (2004). Red tape and corruption. Journal of Development Economics, 73 (2): 489–504. Hamari, J., & Lehdonvirta, V. (2010). Game design as marketing: How game mechanics create demand for virtual goods. International Journal of Business Science & Applied Management, 5 (1): 14–29. Harvard Business School (2016). “The HBS Case Method.” www.hbs.edu/mba/academic-experience/ Pages/the-hbs-case-method.aspx, observed November 1, 2016. Jones, K. C., Koulu, S., & Torner, E. (2016). “Playing at Work: Labor, Identity and Emotion in Larp.” In Larp Politics: Systems, Theory, and Gender in Action, edited by Kaisa Kangas, Mika Loponen, & Jukka Särkijärvi, pp. 125–34. Ropeconry. Jung, G., Byungtae, L., Byungjoon, Y., & Erik, B. (2011). Analysis of the Relationship between Virtual Goods Trading and Performance of Virtual Worlds. Working Paper. SSRN Working Paper Series. http://ssrn. com/abstract=1938313. Koster, R. (2007) “Flation”, http://www.raphkoster.com/2007/01/17/flation/. Lastowka, G. (2011), Virtual Justice, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Lastowka, G., & Hunter, D., (2004) The laws of the virtual worlds, California Law Review 92 (1): 1–74. Lehdonvirta, V., & Castronova, E. (2014). Virtual Economies: Design and Analysis. Cambridge, MA, ­L ondon: MIT Press. Lundberg, S., & Pollak, R. A. (1993). Separate spheres bargaining and the marriage market. Journal of political Economy, 101 (6): 988–1010. Luscombe, B. (2016). “Porn and the Threat to Virility.” Time http://time.com/4277510/porn-and-thethreat-to-virility/. Myerson, R. B. (1979). Incentive compatibility and the bargaining problem. Econometrica: Journal of the Econometric Society, 47 (1): 61–73. Ostrom, E. (2008). Tragedy of the commons. In The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, edited by Durlauf, Steven and Blume Lawrence, pp. 3573–3576. Palgrave Macmillan. Peterson, J. (2012). Playing at the World. Unreason Press. Kindle Edition. Rob, R. (1989). Pollution claim settlements under private information. Journal of Economic Theory, 47 (2): 307–333. Robischon, N. (2007) ‘Station Exchange, Year One’, Industry white paper, available at: www.­f redshouse. net/images/SOE Station Exchange White Paper 1.19.pdf. Simpson, Z. B. (2000, March). The in-game economics of Ultima Online. In Computer Game Developer’s Conference, San Jose, CA. Stanfill, M., & Condis, M. (2014). “Editorial: Fandom and/as Labor”. In Transformative Works and Cultures Special Issue Fandom and/as Labor, edited by Mel Stanfill and Megan Condis. doi:10.3983/ twc.2014.0593.

17 Science and Technology Studies and Role-Playing Games Rafael Bienia

Box 17.1  A Home of Role-Players In 2012, I went to Helsinki for the first time for a larp convention. I arrived earlier, and two locals offered me a place to stay overnight. They had prepared a place for me and two other convention guests in their living room. Entering their apartment, I felt immediately at home. The living room was full of game boxes, candleholders, books by authors beloved in the role-playing game community, a walking stick and other larp props; a huge table, with comfortable chairs for six players and one game master. In its center stood a wooden box, filled with many-faced dice, ready for play. All these things felt familiar, making me think, This is the home of role-players.

During role-playing games (RPGs), players are surrounded by manifold materials: there are physical books, which lie on a table or move from player to player; computer hardware, which builds virtual worlds and extends possibilities with headsets; and larp costumes, which players make and buy from shops. Despite this rich material world, players, designers, and researchers rarely ascribe materials more than a passive, supporting role. With the rise of cloud services, computer RPGs (CRPGs) seem to have become even more ephemeral, with physical copies no longer required other than for some quaint copyright protection or collector’s impulse. In tabletop RPGs (TRPGs), physical dice hold a game-mechanical function and some tangible and acoustic pleasures, but again, these tiny bits of plastic, metal, and sometimes bone can be and often are replaced with random number generators on a computer without much loss. What does it really matter what the living room of a role-player is composed of if we can and do play RPGs in convention halls, via Google hangouts, or on tiny smartphone screens? Surely, phenomena like rules, narratives, or player immersion are far more defining and constitutive for RPGs than discs, dice, and ‘feelies’.

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Such views – common in game studies – express an anthropocentric perspective: they take human experience and agency as the starting point, center, and limit of analysis. While this may be useful in understanding how, for instance, RPGs are experientially different from other games, it is just one perspective. Ian Bogost’s Alien Phenomenology (2012) invites game studies to take on a different perspective or ontology – a view on how being and reality are constituted – that has been variously called speculative realism, speculative materialism, post-humanism, new materialism, or object-oriented ontology. This alternative perspective puts human and nonhuman entities, including materials, on equal footing. Ontology Historically, a branch of philosophy concerned with the nature of being and reality. In contemporary science and technology studies, ontology denotes a particular way of constructing what something is. For example, making a fundamental distinction between human and nonhuman is a specific ontology.

Standard anthropocentric RPG research would ask how humans produce, enact, experience, and make sense of phenomena like rules, stories, or RPGs. A materialist or object-­oriented perspective, in contrast, might ask how objects like dice or computers produce, enact, and experience stories, rules, RPGs, players, and each other in turn. Arguably, such a perspective is fruitful for RPGs because of the wealth of material objects involved and how the diversity of RPG forms is entangled in their materiality: live action role-play (larp), CRPGs, multi-player online RPGs (MORPGs), and TRPGs. To give some examples, in Chapter 2, José P. Zagal and Sebastian Deterding reconstruct how the material underdetermination of TRPGs – a rule book and dice don’t prescribe action as much as a piece of software does – allowed people to develop very different play styles. The string of bits of a console CRPG, programmed according to very specific standards, determines that all players have to use a particular console and cartridge, standardized controllers, and compatible monitors. Chapter 5, on larp, shows how materials like costumes or locations make play possible but also differ from group to group, country to country, affording a rich diversity of play. In short, following materials not people, researchers can learn how materials shape, constrain, and evoke RPG phenomena. Discovering and analyzing these processes requires tools and methods. This chapter introduces the field of science, technology, and society studies (STS) as a source of proven approaches to study how materials and technologies work within our lifeworld. It offers a materialist perspective on RPGs, which views games as materials or technologies – the collection of processes that produce a product or service. In other words, it views RPGs as an exemplary entertainment technology. The next sections survey the current main approaches in STS to then focus on actor-­ network theory as an exemplary and widely influential approach. The following sections present current work analyzing RPGs through actor-network theory and a materialist perspective more broadly as well as its limitations.

Science and Technology Studies Science and technology studies (STS, also sometimes Science, Technology, and Society Studies) is an interdisciplinary field that emerged in the 1960s within the larger research area of science studies. It brings together historical, sociological, and philosophical work to study how

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society, politics, and culture affect scientific research and technological innovation and how science and technology, in turn, affect society, politics, and culture (Hackett et al. 2008). This means that STS views and analyzes scientific knowledge and technologies as fundamentally social. For example, Isaac Newton’s axioms aren’t eternal truths that ‘somehow’ exist in a Platonic idea sphere: to inform aspects of social reality, like the building of machines, they have to become part of teaching books; the engineering curriculum; engineering equipment, like rules and calculators; and so on. That said, STS rejects technological determinism – the widespread belief that technologies are fixed entities that automatically cause predictable changes in human lives, e.g. ‘video games cause violence’. Instead, STS examines technologies as processes. They ask how and from what other social processes and things are ‘video games’ being put together and stabilized as an entity? How do people come to agree on the belief that they ‘cause violence’, and how do such shared beliefs change ‘what video games are’ in return? In so doing, STS highlight the contingency of these processes: they are not eternal natural givens but malleable phenomena that could and can be different. Science and technology society studies An interdisciplinary field within the larger research area of science studies that studies how society, politics, and culture affect scientific research and technological innovation and how science and technology, in turn, affect society, politics and culture.

There are three prominent approaches within STS: large technological systems, social construction of technology, and actor-network theory. Large technological systems (LTS) originated in the history of technology and studies the development of complex technical infrastructures, like the Internet or electricity supply system (Hughes 1983). In so doing, it aims to understand how technologies become integrated with society, how they are ‘both socially constructed and society shaping’ (Hughes 1987, 51). LTS sees a system like the Internet as consisting of a technological core that is put together and extended by particular individuals – system ­builders – within a rich sociocultural context and, in the course, reshapes this context. A study of RPGs as large technological systems might follow the development of a particular MORPG like World of Warcraft, disentangling how particular developers, designers, and financiers managed to put together a system touching millions of people across the globe within a complex web of organizations, traditions, laws, people, and artifacts and how this MORPG, in turn, reshaped society around it. In contrast, social construction of technology (SCOT) develops a less linear and ‘heroic’, ­individual-centered analysis of technological innovation (; Bijker, Hughes, Pinch, and ­Douglas 1987; Bijker 1997). A common story of technological history is that technology becomes objectively ‘better’ over time: among competing inventions, ‘the better one’ will win. SCOT counters that not only is this a mere untested assumption – different people have different ideas of what counts as ‘better’. If we study the history of a technical invention in detail, we see multiple different variants being continually developed, tested, and changed. Different social groups – teams of inventors, users, and journalists – hold different understandings or ‘technological frames’ of a particular technology, which shape what new variants they construct and test and how they use a technology. Groups ‘fight’ with new variants as much as with rhetoric and political power to establish a dominant understanding of the technology; once dominant, an understanding or frame stabilizes how a particular technology is designed and used. A SCOT analysis of TRPGs would show how they are not the sole result of two

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‘genius’ inventors’, Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson’s, publishing Dungeons & Dragons. It would unpack how TRPGs as a form emerged from a complex chain of variants developed by different groups in tandem, together with different understandings of what they are and how to use them, and how, in the struggle of designers, players, the media, lawyers, and other groups, a dominant, stable form and notion of TRPGs came to be. Actor-network theory (ANT) asks even more fundamentally how any entity like ‘the media’, ‘the law’, or ‘Dungeons & Dragons’ is made and maintained from other entities. Instead of starting with predetermined constructs like ‘system builders’ or ‘technological frames’ or focusing on the development of one technology within the context of ‘organizations’, ‘laws’, and the like, which are treated as stable and given, ANT traces the processes in which all these entities or actors are put together or networked from heterogeneous elements (Latour 2005; Law 2009). Similarly, it rejects the common ontology of human actors’ having agency and passive nonhuman things lacking it; rather, it studies empirically whether and how a given actor – human or nonhuman – affects other actors (Fenwick and Edwards 2010). Studying CRPGs with ANT, one could trace how players, designers, computers, and monitors together construct the virtual world of the game, whether and how it is set apart from and related to other actors outside of it, or how the computer ‘plays’ the player. All three STS approaches share a focus on heterogeneous elements – human and nonhuman, social and technical, etc. – and the processes in which these elements shape technology and scientific knowledge. They also share a rejection of technological determinism. They differ from each other in the extent to which they take certain entities and distinctions as given: LTS sees individual human ‘system builders’ creating and pushing a given technology into society. SCOT sees technologies not as a given but as the outcome of social groups with different interests and understandings fighting for dominance. ANT doesn’t take the distinction of human actors versus passive nonhuman matter as given, nor entities like ‘social groups’ or any other ontology for that matter. What entities there are in a field, which entities are active and passive, is the result of constant processes that have to be empirically observed. All three approaches have individual strengths and drawbacks in investigating the materiality of RPGs. Because ANT is the most ‘radical’ in adopting a materialist perspective and because the overwhelming majority of existing materialist RPG research has used ANT, we will focus on it here.

Analyzing RPGs with Actor-Network Theory ANT originates in ethnographic studies of how science works and how scientific knowledge is produced in concrete environments, such as laboratories (Latour 1987). Other analysts took this kind of ethnographic fieldwork to places of technological invention. Today, ANT is deployed across many disciplines, ranging from organization studies (Kostera 2007) to education (­Fenwick and Edwards 2010) to game design (Beil and Hensel 2011). ANT is a social constructivist approach that studies how scientific and technical entities come into being as the result of actor collaborations or networks, including nonhuman actors. Instead of replacing human actors, such as players or designers, with nonhuman actors, such as dice or computer hardware, ANT starts with the symmetrical premise of the equal analytical worth of all actors. Both the stability and change of any network involves some concrete work of actors. Actors have to make other actors change behavior, enrolling yet other actors in the process. In this regard, ANT redefines agency and change as a distributed process. Where anthropocentric game studies see agency as solely human, for ANT, it might involve any actor (Wardrip-Fruin, Mateas, Dow, and Sali 2009).

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Box 17.2  Some Key Terms in Actor-Network Theory Actor: An element that makes a difference to other elements. Network: A collaboration of actors working together. Agency: The ‘inertia’ of the process, which makes all actors collaborate to make one specific change to the network and its relations between actors. Agency is not caused by one actor but emerges from the collaboration of actors.

Box 17.3  A Home of Role-Players Back in the role-player home in Finland in 2012, I pick a die out of the box on the table. Dice have been added to TRPGs to generate chance. But they don’t automatically produce chance. To insert chance in a particular play session, the dice have to entertain particular relations with other actors. Rules have to be written that specify how to use and read dice results. Players have to know the rules and decide when to use dice, which is often triggered by particularly moments of their co-created story. There need to be the required number and type of dice available for the situation. There needs to be a table or other surface with free space to roll them and sufficient light to read their faces. Once the dice are cast and read, players need to conform their actions to the result in accordance with the rules. From an ANT perspective, the dice are an actor – an element that acts upon its environment. To identify an actor, we require empirical evidence that shows another entity changing in response to the actor’s changes. And indeed, we observe that players do change behavior in response to how the dice fall. However, to accomplish chance and the continuation of the play session, player and dice have to collaborate. If the dice don’t land in a clearly legible way on the table, no chance is produced and the session is interrupted. This is similarly so if the dice land legibly but the player refuses to adapt their action to the dice result. And how much agency over in-game events is given to dice to begin with depends on the rules of the TRPG in question (Dormans 2006). As we can see, agency, such as producing a moment of chance, rests not automatically with players or dice: It emerges from a process of networked heterogeneous actors collaborating, including ‘marginal’, often taken for granted actors, such as the table or the light source.

Maybe the fundamental strength of ANT for researchers studying RPGs is that it broadens the perspective on what heterogeneous actors are involved and how they collaborate beyond preconceived conceptions and distinctions. Working with ANT requires few initial concepts at the outset. If anything, like much qualitative research, it asks us to not begin with preconceived conceptions. In this regard, ANT is sometimes framed as an onto-epistemological tool set or ‘infra-language’ that works best when it challenges preconceived ontologies and theories (­Latour 2005). Rather than taking any ontology for granted, ANT is interested in what ontologies emerge from empirical evidence. What this does require from researchers is to go to places where role-playing occurs and ethnographically observe the proceedings. Take the (already contested) concept of ‘immersion’ in RPG Studies (Torner and White 2012). Where other researchers might pitch one definition or argument against the other, an actor-network researcher would

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take no definition for granted but reconstruct from field data how different actors collaborate and work on each other in bringing about one or several stable or instable ‘immersion’ processes.

Material Studies of RPGs In the past decade, researchers have begun paying attention to the materiality of games, a movement Tom Apperley and Darshana Jayemane (2012) have called ‘game studies’ material turn’. They identify three particular streams of research: ethnographies of play unearthing the many ways matter and technology shape play; platform studies analyzing how technical platforms, like the Atari 2600, afford and constrain what kinds of games could be made on them (Montfort and Bogost 2009), and critical studies of free digital labor around user-generated content, like modifications (mods) enabled by modding tools. Very much in the spirit of the first stream, Seth Giddings (2006) has addressed video games as a new media form embedded in everyday experience and popular culture. Drawing upon ANT and other STS work, he develops a method of video micro-ethnography of play to tease out how, in children’s video games and other play, play and its experience cut across standard distinctions like virtual versus actual. They form circuits enrolling heterogeneous actors, ranging from non-player characters to furniture and toys to embodied knowledge. In a similar fashion informed by the post-phenomenological philosophy of technology, Olli Leino (2012) unpacks the phenomenon of gameplay. Gameplay artifacts afford a particular existential condition in which players have to freely choose to submit themselves to and succeed over the constraints and adversity of the game artifact, working to be able to continue choosing to play. At the same time, players’ intentionality and experience becomes mediated in a way that is not just a ‘simultaneous occurrence of material, processual and experiential qualities’ but ‘an inextricable intertwinement of qualities across ontological domains’ (73). Continuing on this phenomenological theme, Saara Toivonen and Olli Sotamaa (2011) examine the values people attach to physical copies of video games. Collecting physical copies is a crucial game culture practice, feeding subcultural capital, nostalgia, and gamer identity. It shows that ‘digital games should not be simplified to mere code lines running along optical cables’ (9). Literally opening those physical video game boxes, Velli-Matti Karhulahti (2012) reminds us of ‘feelies’: often high production value objects that publishers added to physical video games, such as maps or faux letters, police reports, and similar documents for investigative games. In their tactile physicality, feelies support players’ immersion in the game’s overall story world as well as the situation of a character. Looking at the wargame Warhammer 40,000, Carter, Harrop, and Gibbs (2014) similarly argue that the ‘physicality of dice has a positive effect on players’ experience and enjoyment’: replacing physical with digital dice eliminates tactile and acoustic pleasures as well as play practices like particular rituals and superstitions about how to roll dice. The majority of ANT-informed work on RPGs specifically revolves around the MORPG World of Warcraft (WoW), starting with Marinka Copier’s ‘network perspective on role-play in online games’ (2007). Against the standard game studies distinctions between games and real life (‘the magic circle’) and play and research (‘the ivory tower’), she teases out how human and nonhuman actors negotiate performances, identities, and relations across what we call ‘ingame’ and ‘outof-game’ and how game researchers are always embedded in networks of research and play. While Copier uses STS and ANT to unpack the socio-material negotiation of game/nongame and play/research boundaries, T. L. Taylor (2009, 336) turns attention to the negotiation of ‘the game’ WoW itself as player practices and mods inform game designers adapting the game’s technology in response, and player groups enroll mods as actors in their ‘collective use of

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software and the production of group practices’. Mark Chen (2011) follows this thread in an ANT ethnography of how an established WoW guild adopted a ‘threat meter’ mod that, at face value, allowed users to assess how much threat a player-character generated for opponents (and, thus, how much attention it drew) but, at a deeper level, allowed users to analyze and monitor player efficiency. Chen traces how the role and function of this new actor changed as it was enrolled by the players into their raiding network but also how it created ‘new responsibilities to the other actors in the network’ (177), and how it ‘would sometimes extend beyond the computer screen and into the room […] sticky notes on my desk to help me remember’ (174). Rafael Bienia (2016) extends Copier’s work from MORPGs to larp, mixed reality, and tabletop RPGs. Drawing on Bruno Latour (2005) and John Law (2009), he identifies material as an actor in RPGs on the same analytical level as ludic and narrative actors. Thus, ‘[i]nstead of replacing previously studied elements with material elements’, he ‘offers a multi-centered perspective’ (90) on the intertwinement of role-playing. More broadly, Bienia shows that researchers have only just begun to inquire about the manifold places enrolled in role-playing and trace their actors and relations – ranging from the living room in Helsinki to a sole person sitting in front of a screen to large-scale larps or the many local global nodes of media content production and distribution in RPG media culture (→ Chapter 21) to the material sites of World Wide Web and its routers, land lines, and satellites. This focus on one particular site shows one limitation of actor-network studies. Because they are committed to the empirical tracing of any and all actors, data gathering and analysis are time-consuming and tend to be limited to ‘small’ sites. Moreover, as ANT studies tend to question, dissolve, and reassemble initially focused actors, and any actor may entertain relations with a not pre-specified number of other actors, there is no principled limit to a study. Any research with ANT therefore demands tricky conceptual and practical decisions about what to study and when to stop studying. Finally, ANT still stirs controversy where it defies folk theories by ‘giving’ a role and agency to nonhuman actors (Sayes 2014). Is it the role-player buying a costume for a larp that is relevant, or is it the costume’s work during a larp that is relevant? Embedded in the networks of play and research, it is on the researchers to make that decision (Copier 2007; Taylor 2009) – and then enroll readers in the network of their writing, convincing them of the prudence of that choice.

Summary Box 17.4  A Home of Role-Players I return to the Helsinki living room for a last time. I sit with my notebook in my lap and look around. A brief analysis helps me understand why I feel that this is a room where role-­ players live and role-playing happens. The assembly of shelves with RPG materials is a trace of the social group of RPG fans. The choice of the big table results from a negotiation of the players’ needs, the size of the living room, and the other pieces of furniture present, like the couch where I will later sleep. Understanding the work between materials and people helps me to see what and how elements have been assembled, sometimes by players, sometimes by the requirements of material elements. Taking their work into consideration helps me to understand how this heterogeneous actor-network constructs role-playing.

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Despite the proclaimed ‘material turn’ of game studies (Apperley and Jayemane 2012), games and RPG Studies often view materials as playing a marginal, passive role in the constitution of RPGs and therefore pay little attention to their workings, be these in larp, CRPGs, MORPGs, or TRPGs. This view is tied to a common anthropocentric ontology that splits reality into agentic human actors and non-agentic nonhuman ones. This chapter presented an alternative materialist perspective, using methodological and theoretical programs from STS to study the materiality of RPGs. Of the three popular programs – LTS, SCOT, and ANT – ANT in particular has found use in game studies and RPG research. Rather than beginning with assumed ontological distinctions, ANT asks the researcher to empirically observe which heterogeneous actors (human and nonhuman, alike) assert themselves in the field, which other actors they affect and network with, and how change in the total field emerges from the collaboration of actors. Studies following this and similar STS-informed programs have shown how gameplay and its experience are an inextricable mangle of human and material; how physical objects, like game boxes, feelies, or dice can hold essential social, narrative, aesthetic, or functional roles and values; how classic distinctions and entities like game/non-game, play/research, or ‘the game’ on closer analysis dissolve into ongoing socio-material negotiation processes; or how agency in something as simple as the roll of a die involves a large network of human and nonhuman actors. Still, we remain at the beginning of fully understanding the role of materials in RPGs. Here, STS invites researchers to question preconceived notions of ‘the better technology winning’ and retrace processes of innovation and stabilization as contingent. ANT invites them to study materials on the same analytical level with other actors and trace their relations in a RPG network. Together, they offer powerful tools to leave established ontologies behind and ask how and why materials also matter.

Further Reading Bienia, R. (2016). Role playing materials. PhD dissertation. Maastricht: Maastricht University. Giddings, S. (2006). Walkthrough: Videogames and technocultural form. PhD dissertation. Bristol: University of the West of England. www.badnewthings.co.uk/papers/Walkthrough.pdf. Hackett, E. J., Amsterdamska, O., Lynch, M., & Wajcman, J. (2008). The handbook of science and technology studies. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Sotamaa, O. (2014). Artifact. In M. J. P. Wolf & B. Perron (Eds.), The Routledge companion to video game studies. New York: Routledge, 310–316.

References Apperley, T. H., & Jayemane, D. (2012). Game studies’ material turn. Westminster Papers in Communication and Culture, 9(1), 5–25. Beil, B., & Hensel, T. (2011). Game laboratory studies. Siegen: University of Siegen Press. Bienia, R. (2016). Role Playing materials. PhD dissertation. Maastricht: Maastricht University. Bijker, W. E. (1997). Of bicycles, bakelites, and bulbs: Toward a theory of sociotechnical change. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Bijker, W. E., T. P. Hughes, & T. J. Pinch, eds. (1987). The social construction of technological systems: New directions in the sociology and history of technology. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Bogost, I. (2012). Alien phenomenology, or, what it’s like to be a thing. Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press. Carter, M., Harrop, M., & Gibbs, M. (2014). The Roll of the Dice in Warhammer 40,000. Transactions of the digital games research association, 1(3).

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Chen, M. (2011). Leet noobs: The life and death of an expert player group in world of warcraft. Frankfurt a. M.: Peter Lang. Copier, M. (2007). Beyond the magic circle: A network perspective on role-play in online games. PhD dissertation. Utrecht: Utrecht University. Dormans, J. (2006). On the role of the die: A brief ludologic study of pen-and-paper roleplaying games and their rules. Game Studies, 6(1). http://gamestudies.org/0601/articles/dormans. Fenwick, T., & Edwards, R. (2010). Actor-network theory in education. New York: Routledge. Giddings, S. (2006). Walkthrough: Videogames and technocultural form. PhD dissertation. Bristol: University of the West of England. www.badnewthings.co.uk/papers/Walkthrough.pdf. Hackett, E. J., Amsterdamska, O., Lynch, M., & Wajcman, J. (2008). The handbook of science and technology studies. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Hughes, T. P. (1983). Networks of power: Electric supply systems in the US, England and Germany, 1880–1930. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University. Hughes, T. P. (1987). The evolution of large technological systems. In Bijker et al. (Ed.), The social construction of technological systems: New directions in the sociology and history of technology, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. 51–82. Karhulahti, V.-M. (2012). Feelies: The lost art of immersing the narrative. In Proceedings of Digital Games Research Association (DiGRA) Nordic 2012 Conference: Local and Global–Games in Culture and Society, 1–9. Kostera, M. (2007). Organizational ethnography: Methods and inspirations. Lund: Studentlitteratur. Latour, B. (1987). Science in action: How to follow scientists and engineers through society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Latour, B. (2005). Reassembling the social: An introduction to actor-network-theory. New York: Oxford ­University Press. Law, J. (2009). Actor network theory and material semiotics. In B. S. Turner (Ed.), The new Blackwell companion to social theory. Hoboken, NJ: Blackwell Publishing, 141–158. Leino, O. T. (2012). Untangling gameplay: An account of experience, activity and materiality within computer game play. In J. R. Sageng, H. Fossheim, & T. Mandt Larsen (Eds.), The philosophy of computer games, Vol. 7., Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands, 57–75. Montfort, N., & Bogost, I. (2009). Racing the beam: The Atari Video computer system. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Sayes, E. (2014). Actor–Network theory and methodology: Just what does it mean to say that nonhumans have agency? Social Studies of Science, 44(1), 134–149. Sotamaa, O. (2014). Artifact. In M. J. P. Wolf & B. Perron (Eds.), The Routledge companion to video game studies. New York: Routledge, 310–316. Taylor, T. L. (2009). The assemblage of play. Games and Culture. 4(4). Toivonen, S., & Sotamaa, O. (2011). Of discs, boxes and cartridges: The material life of digital games. In Proceedings of Think Design Play: The Fifth International Conference of the Digital Research Association (DIGRA). Torner, E., & White, W. J. (Eds.). (2012). Immersive gameplay. Jefferson, NC: McFarland Press. Wardrip-Fruin, N., Mateas, M., Dow, S., & Sali, S. (2009). Agency reconsidered. In Proceedings of the Digital Games Research Association 4.

18 Game Design and Role-Playing Games Staffan Björk and José P. Zagal

This chapter explores role-playing games (RPGs) from a design perspective. While there are many approaches to acquiring knowledge about RPGs, designers of RPGs often consider the structural elements of a game – its rules and the entities on which the rules act – and how they will interact with each other. One complication of game design, and RPG design specifically, is that “games” involve and describe both the artifacts that makes playing possible – the things we buy in stores – and the gameplay artifacts that enable and encourage. While game designers can exert control over the artifact (e.g. a rule book or software), their ultimate goal is to encourage a certain kind of gameplay. Thus, gameplay, which primarily depends on the player’s behavior, is out of their direct control. Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman (2004) refer to this as “second-order design” and stress the importance of playtesting to see if the game artifacts generate the desired game activities when used by the intended target group. However, they also stress the importance of game designers’ having a structural understanding of games as systems so they can anticipate how specific design configurations will work. The first publications on tabletop RPGs (TRPGs) (→ Chapter 4) and their design reach back to the early 1980s (Schuessler & Jackson 1981). Over the years, design knowledge has been shared via columns in magazines and books (e.g. Schick 1991; Spector 1993; Spector 1994; Appelcline 2014), interviews, events, and online venues. Still, most RPG design knowledge resides in the heads of the professionals in the field. As game designer Sandy Petersen (1991, 241) put it, “[s]tandard practice is to more-or-less tacitly agree that role-playing games spring, full-grown, from their designers’ heads, like Athena from Zeus.” Greg Costikyan (1994) early on stressed the need for a vocabulary when designing, which Phil Masters (1994) responded to with a vocabulary of common RPG terms. In addition to these calls for documented design knowledge and language, people began exploring more abstract ways of describing different kinds of RPGs, such as the Gamism-Narrativism-­ Simulationism model (Edwards 2001) (→ Chapter 10) and Richard Bartle’s (2016) detailed overview of multiuser dungeons (MUDs) and multi-player online RPGs (MORPGs) and design perspectives on them (→ Chapter 7). The Nordic larp community maintains a wiki1 to describe concepts and design techniques for live-action RPGs (larps) (→ Chapter 5) as well as meta-design theories like the “mixing desk” (Stenros et al. 2016). Still, there is little common

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language to discuss and share knowledge on RPG design across forms. To address this issue, this chapter will first tease out a number of RPG design challenges across forms and then three general design questions or domains that most RPG designers have to address.

Design Challenges of RPG Design Familiar Versus Novel A challenge in nearly every design is to balance creating something novel while providing familiarity. In the case of RPGs, this means providing a new type of gaming experience while still making it feel like other RPGs (and often specific genres). Familiarity and novelty may come from the rule set (e.g. different games using the same or similar rules), the fictional elements (e.g. it’s a fantasy game with orcs and elves), or some combination of both. In the case of TRPGs, this challenge was partly responsible for the development of “house systems” in which publishers use the same set of rules and game mechanics for different games (Appelcline 2014). This reduced production costs and made it easier for players to pick up new games because they wouldn’t have to learn a new set of rules. The next evolution of this idea was the universal or generic system that could be used in multiple settings. For example, GURPS (the “Generic Universal Roleplaying System”) allows players to learn only one set of rules and play games in highly varied settings, including science fiction, superheroes, horror, fantasy, and more. Moreover, GURPS “is designed to be as compatible as possible with supplements written for different games” ( Jackson et al. 2008, 5).

Licensed Versus Original Content It is common for RPGs to pay for the use of preexisting intellectual property; e.g. Call of Cthulhu (Petersen 1981) is based on H.P. Lovecraft’s horror stories and Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game (Costikyan 1987) is based on George Lucas’ Star Wars movie and its sequels. The benefits can be varied: name or brand recognition might mean there is an audience ready for a game. It can also reduce the amount of effort and cost to develop a game (Hallford & Hallford 2001). On the other hand, using an existing license also creates constraints in a game’s design, and it can complicate the design process because of additional stakeholders who must vet or approve a game’s design. One of the lead designers of the computer RPG (CRPG) Baldur’s Gate, Ray Muzyka, noted how “one of the first hurdles we encountered with developing in the AD&D [Advanced Dungeons & Dragons] universe was complying with [the publisher’s] strict code of ethics – and this did limit the design somewhat” (Muzyka as quoted in Saltzman 1999, 64). Because they chose to make the game run in real-time (as opposed to having a turn-based system), “one of the largest hurdles was figuring out how to actually implement the AD&D rule system on a computer” (Muzyka as quoted in Saltzman 1999, 64). This example shows how it is not only fictional universes (e.g. the Star Wars universe) that are licensed but also rules systems and that licensing across different forms of RPGs also occurs (e.g. a TRPG is licensed for a CRPG or vice versa).

Rules Versus Setting The practice of licensing, together with the tension between the familiar and novel, also highlights another design challenge: balancing the needs of a rule set with those of a setting. Unless

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one is developing a generic system like GURPS (Jackson 1986) or the Hero system (Long 1989), the common wisdom is that rules should be designed for the specific experiences that a game’s themes make players expect (Hallford & Hallford 2001). As such, the rules should hopefully in some way capture and enhance something special about the game’s setting. For example, players would expect an RPG set in the Star Wars universe to have rules of some sort about “the Force.” Similarly, TRPG Call of Cthulhu’s rules for insanity model (by design) “the behavior of protagonists in H.P Lovecraft’s fiction, who more than a few times faint or go mad” (Petersen & Willis 2001, 69), and, as noted by the game’s original designer Petersen, these were a direct attempt to “incorporate a large portion of the Lovecraft feel into the rules” (Petersen 1982). However, rules that are too closely interwoven with a setting can suffer in terms of how applicable they are to a wide range of potential settings. Figuring out the right balance is a significant design challenge.

Rules Heavy Versus Rules Light The number of rules and how detailed these should be are another challenge for designers of RPGs. Few rules can allow for focusing on storytelling and role-playing but lead to unrealistic events and depend on the decisions of those running the games. Many rules can allow for specialized handling of various situations but require step learning curves and spending time looking up rules while playing. For example, the fourth edition of GURPS is described by its creators as “a single, unified system that allows for great diversity without losing its coherence. This Fourth Edition incorporates dozens of rules that originally appeared in supplements published for the Third Edition” ( Jackson et al. 2008, 5). In contrast, the creator of Everway states, “The point of Everway is to make role-playing easier and more attractive” (Tweet 1995b). This is not to say that large rule sets and complexity are seen to be a goal in themselves: In GURPS, most of the detailed calculations are done before you start play… they are entered on the character sheet, and saved until you need them. Once play actually begins, it should not be complex. I’ve tried to make GURPS as fast-moving yet realistic as possible. It’s up to you to decide whether I succeeded. ( Jackson et al. 2008, 5) In the context of larps, one of the distinguishing characteristics of Nordic larp is that they tend to eschew long, written, and complicated formal rules. This is in contrast to, for example, the rule book for the American action larp Dystopia Rising, whose rule book has over 450 pages, roughly half of which are dedicated to character creation and skills (Pucci 2016). The medium of the RPG plays a role: RPGs on computers can have complex sets of rules. For some, this is a benefit of CRPGs and MORPGs because they can easily implement complicated rule systems. In fact, rules in these games are often opaque – and players spend significant effort attempting to reverse engineer them (e.g. trying to figure out what kind of treasure a monster will have when killed and how often it may have super rare treasure items). This practice is also called theorycrafting (→ Chapter 10).

Support for Specific or Varied Play Styles The rules of an RPG often direct players on how to approach playing it, e.g. seriously, competitively, or humorously. However, a challenge for designers is how inclusive or restrictive that style, or styles, of play should be. This can have an impact on the number and complexity

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of rules because RPGs that direct towards a narrower style can support them better. However, they may alienate players that want to play other ways. RPGs that offer more ways instead run the risk of not supporting any style clearly and requiring players to find a style of play that works for them themselves. To further complicate this issue, different players have different playing styles, depending on the role they wish to have in a playing group. RPGs often need to provide multiple such roles – if, for nothing else, to make players roles’ distinguishable from each other – and providing rules that do this fairly is not easy. For example, MORPG designers often work with what is known as “the holy trinity”: tank, healer, and damager. These are meta-roles that reflect how combat should be approached strategically by players: tanks draw enemy fire and take damage, healers protect and support the team, and damagers focus on damaging and killing the enemy. While a game might have many different classes for players to choose from, when it comes to combat, most characters have probably been designed to perform as either a tank, healer, or damage dealer. The idea of player styles, or preferences on how to play a certain game, is closely related to the notion of “player types.” Bartle, one of the creators of the first MORPG, first described four categories of players based on what was “fun” for them in MUD2 (Bartle 2003). His player types consisted of achievers (those who like to progress and achieve defined goals), socializers (those who like to interact socially with others), explorers (those who like to discover and increase their knowledge of the game), and killers (those who want to dominate others) (Bartle 2003). Bartle’s types, while somewhat simplistic, are interesting from a design perspective because they are defined by what activities players wish to perform during gameplay. Thus, when designing a game, designers may wish to identify types of activities that can interest and captivate their intended players and decide whether or not to support them via their rules. For example, a fantasy game might include detailed rules for diplomacy and negotiation in addition to combat and magic in order to more broadly support potential player interest.

Ongoing Playability The open-endedness that most RPGs have poses an additional challenge in their design: how to encourage players to continue playing and how to support them. Brad McQuaid, producer for the MORPG EverQuest, describes how “MMORPGs change and evolve, both due to new content being added and also because the game’s player base is constantly changing and advancing. This means constant tweaks must be made both before and after commercial launch” (McQuaid as quoted in Saltzman 2000, 70). This lack of an ending, common in many RPGs (except, perhaps, in CRPGs), necessitates thinking, in terms of design, of how a game can continue to grow and expand, even while it’s being designed. In TRPGs, this is often accomplished by designing for greater specificity (e.g. a rule book with special rules for elves) and also breadth (e.g. a source book detailing a newly discovered continent in a game world). In the case of software-based RPGs, this new way of design-thinking is sometimes referred to as “software as a service” rather than “software as a product.” The former implies an ongoing relationship with the players (who are provided a service). These design discussions have even made their way into RPGs designed to be played once. For example, in some larp communities, there are discussions on how to design a larp so that it can be run, or staged, multiple times and how to best maintain the designers’ goals and intentions across these runs while still letting players enact their own agencies in the experience (Harviainen 2009).

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Design Areas of RPGs Having described broadly some of the challenges faced by RPG designers, we focus on three broad areas in the design space of RPGs through the lens of design patterns. Originally introduced in architecture by Christopher Alexander and others (1977), design patterns capture common, reoccurring solutions to common, reoccurring problems in a design domain – for instance, using two corner doors to allow people to cross a room without having to walk through its middle. Design Patterns Semi-formalized descriptions of design features in a design field. In other words, they describe commonly used design solutions. The relations between patterns is an important part of describing how design choices influence each other.

Building on the work of ChristopherAlexander, Staffan Björk, and Jussi Holopainen (2004) developed the concept of gameplay design patterns and described nearly 300 of these commonly reoccurring parts of the design of a game that concern gameplay. Their initial collection already contained many common design elements of RPGs, e.g. Combat, Skills, and Storytelling and Role-playing (in written text, a pattern is denoted through the use of Small caps). Here, we will explore patterns in three key design areas of RPGs: characterization, action resolution and combat, and character development. These were chosen because they are relevant for all types of RPGs and can be illustrative of different design solutions possible. Naturally, many other rule areas exist. It should also be pointed out that while this chapter deals with gameplay rules, there are, of course, many other design areas vital to RPG design, e.g. graphic design, visual design, script-writing, and prop construction (for other examples of structural analysis, → Chapter 14). We chose not to examine them here because they are more media dependent, and not all types of RPGs are concerned with all these areas. Due to the large number of patterns, none will be described in full detail, and only the most important will be defined through callouts. However, the patterns are named after common RPG concepts and should, in most cases, be understandable by their names. Readers who wish to explore specific patterns can refer to the public collection.2

Characterization of Player Characters The fictional game world or diegetic world of an RPG is populated by Agents, which pursue some goals in the game world: monsters trying to eat village people, knights wanting to fend off monsters, etc. Players in an RPG typically take on the role of some agents – their goals and characteristics – and control some or all of their actions in the game world. Such player-­ enacted and controlled game world agents are called Player Characters (PCs). For instance, a player might control one of the knights fighting off monsters. Player Characters Agents in the game world that are controlled and enacted by players.

Many RPGs support Player-Created Characters, that is, players create the Characters they play and can make some choices regarding their Attributes and Skills, their Equipment, and in-game world features, such as the Characters’ names.

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Attributes Basic and more or less stable aspects of agents that affect what they can do. For instance, a Character with a low “speed” attribute may not be allowed to move as fast or act as often as a Character with higher “speed.” Skills Statistics that represent how likely agents are to succeed at a type of activity. They are learned capacities that can be improved through experience. For instance, a Character can increase their “jumping” skill through in-game learning, which makes it more likely that they can jump over a chasm successfully.

Quite often, players can choose different Functional Roles – for example, through “classes” like mage or thief in Dungeons and Dragons (Gygax & Arneson 1974; hereafter D&D) or Factions in Vampire: The Masquerade. These Functional Roles ease character creation by giving players ready templates or archetypes to work from: everybody has a general idea of what a “hard-boiled detective” is and roughly what they should able to do. Also, Functional Roles coordinate character creation and play between multiple players in a group. In MORPGs like World of Warcraft, it is common knowledge that an effective player group needs Characters in three main Functional Roles: tanks that can draw and take damage from enemies, healers than can heal the tanks and others, and damage dealers that can deal damage to enemies. Hence, players are likely to compose groups of Characters that include all three. Functional Roles Gameplay where responsibility for different types of game actions can be divided between participants.

Functional Roles often open up specific choices or Privileged Abilities that are only available to specific types of agents: e.g. only the “mage” can cast spells, only the thief can pick pockets. Privileged Abilities Abilities that let agents perform actions not readily available to others.

The possibility of easily storing details about the PCs allow CRPGs to have more complex rule sets and more variety in Attributes, Skills, and Equipment. Examples of the latter include formal rules regarding Inventories and Equipment Slots as well as the Deterioration of Equipment based on damage or wear and tear (the Fallout series being an example of this). While rules for this existed in earlier games (D&D for the former, GURPS for the latter), CRPGs can have the extra detail this provides without burdening the gamemaster (GM) or players. While providing a wide variety of Attributes, Skills, etc. allows players to have detailed characterizations of their PCs that are supported by the game rules, some RPGs avoid this. For example, Everway describes PCs in relation to the four elements, the four humors, and what virtues and flaws they have. These descriptions are purposefully vague and require interpretation by both players and GMs. The intention of this design choice was to encourage players’ creative freedom: “[…] you can play characters that I never would have thought of. You’re limited by your imagination, not mine” (Tweet 1995b, 87). This can be seen as a design intent to support Storytelling. One effect of focusing character creation towards Storytelling between players is that the concept of having one’s own PC can be questioned.

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Players of Fiasco do have their own PCs, but other players often get to decide the outcome of their Scenes. In Nobilis (Moran 1999), players pick abstract concepts, such as Time, Hesitation, etc., to champion and then play personifications of these concepts, making players simultaneously role-play PCs and represent perspectives of the Game World. Universalis (Mazza & Holmes 2002) does not assign PCs in any sense to players, instead letting players create Characters fitting specific Scenes but not necessarily role-playing them. The trend of removing the presence of PCs can be said to have been taken the furthest in Once Upon a Time (Lambert et al. 1994). In this card-based storytelling game, the concept of having one’s own Character is completely removed. Arguably, this shows how rules focusing upon supporting Storytelling in games can impact the possibility of Role-playing and blur the borders of what constitutes RPGs. Character creation for larps typically differs substantially from character creation for other RPGs. The difficulty of handling complex rules in a practical way limits the use of lots of Attributes and Skills. Equipment also becomes more important and requires more effort in the sense that they may have to be functional (e.g. clothing, tents, and cooking equipment). Further, in larps that are single events, i.e. not connected to other larp events, relations between characters often need to be prepared before gameplay begins. This can be done well in advance through detailed dossiers, directly in conjunction with the actual event, or a combination of both. In Nordic larps (see Stenros & Montola 2010 for examples), workshop techniques with all the players are often used prior to gameplay to finalize Characters and to emotionally and psychologically prepare players. For example, the Ball of Yarn technique3 is used to establish relationships between characters. As a workshop technique, it requires that all the players sit in a circle with one holding the end of a thread from a ball of yarn. The player holding the ball then throws it to another player while stating something about the relationship between both characters (e.g. “We are cousins, and you don’t approve of my fashion sense”). As the ball is thrown around, players see how the relations between Characters are created together. This technique also highlights which Characters need more relations. Larps often feature Warming-Up Role-play Exercises to serve as icebreakers and help players overcome social inhibitions or become more energized before a larp begins (MuntheKaas et al. 2009). Warming-Up Role-Play Exercises Exercises before gameplay begins that help players prepare for enactment and role-playing

Kluddermor, for instance, consists of creating an entangled chain of hands while keeping one’s eyes closed and then opening ones’ eyes and collaboratively untangling everyone without letting go of each other’s hands. Flamingos and Penguins is a form of tag requiring different types of silly walking styles. Generally, these exercises have similar designs as the games created and promoted by the New Games Movement (see Fluegelman 1976).

Action Resolution, Combat, and Handling Death Apart from describing a Player Character, Attributes, Skills, and Privileged Abilities usually have “hard” consequences in terms of what the characters can do in the game world and how likely they are to succeed – that is, they affect action resolution.

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Action Resolution The rules and processes by which the outcome of an in-game agent’s attempted action is determined.

For instance, a character’s speed attribute and jumping skill can affect whether the character manages to jump over a very wide chasm or not. As Jon Peterson (2012) has shown, D&D and other early RPGs inherited many rules from wargames (→ Chapter 3). Unsurprisingly, the majority of their gameplay and therefore required rules for action resolution revolved around Combat against Enemies. For this reason, we will here discuss action resolution exemplarily around Combat. While the Equipment, Armor, Skills, Privileged Abilities (e.g. spells), and Attributes (e.g. Strength, Dexterity, and Hit Points in D&D) of Characters affect the Combat outcome, various types of are typically used to introduce Randomness to the outcome (Mogensen 2016). The complex combination of the two – character Statistics and Dice – result in Combat, often taking significant play time to resolve. Most early TRPGs model Combat similarly, although specific features differed. For instance, Tunnels and Trolls (St. Andre 1975) and GURPS ( Jackson 1986) use Armor that absorbs Damage rather than make its wearer harder to hit (as in the case of D&D). Most CRPGs, like the Diablo series (various 1996-) and Roguelikes, like Moria (Koeneke 1981), have Combat rules very similar to TRPGs4 but often more complex because the computer can keep track of all the rules and calculations. This is also the case for MUDs, such as BatMUD (various 1990), and MORPGs, such as World of Warcraft (Pardo et al. 2004-). However, some RPGs differ significantly in their approaches to Combat. As its name suggests, Amber Diceless Roleplaying Game (Wujcik 1991; hereafter Amber) removes Dice and guarantees eventual victory to those with higher Statistics in fair struggles. Everway (Tweet 1995a) functions similarly, although it provides an optional “Fortune Deck” for Randomness. By their design, these games de-emphasize the detailed accounting for individual attacks and defenses (i.e. simulating “real” combat) in Combat to instead encourage narration, drama, and intrigue from players and GM. Fiasco (Morningstar 2009) goes even further by not having any Statistics and letting a particular Character of a Scene either decide the premise or outcome of that Scene, thus letting players narrate how Combat plays out, knowing the outcome beforehand. Larps mirror these different design approaches: The NERO system (Valenti 2014), for example, has detailed Combat rules, while Monitor Celestra (various 2013) had weapon type determine victory, and College of Wizardry (various 2014) let targets of spells decide their effects. While the two latter examples can be seen as design structures to promote collaborative storytelling, they also help strive for Diegetic Consistency in the games by supporting the design goal of a “360° Illusion” (Koljonen 2007). Death occurs easily in some TRPGs: a single blow from a sword can kill a novice D&D magic-user, while a bullet from a rifle can kill most Characters in GURPS. While more experienced and prosperous player groups may afford Extra Lives through resurrection spells and other means, players without these possibilities only have limited Death Consequences in that they can simply create new Characters to replace the ones that have been killed. In one way, this is not a problem in most RPGs because they are often Unwinnable Games; there is no way of winning them, and the closest equivalent is to succeed in an adventure or campaign after which the GM stops running the game. Death Consequences Gameplay consequences of avatars’ or characters’ dying.

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However, Character deaths can be disappointments in that they can represent substantial emotional investments and be important to the developing narrative of the game. Some TRPGs that focus upon storytelling, like Amber and Everway, deemphasize Combat rules, so dying becomes unlikely unless the GM or players want to enforce it for dramatic purposes. Paranoia (Costikyan et al. 1984) and Toon (Costikyan & Spector 1984), in contrast, take two radically different views on death. Trying to balance having PCs die, often making it possible to complete adventures and their associated narration, PCs in Paranoia have Extra lives through being part of clone families where one clone replaces another as PCs as they die. In Toon, dying means that the PC is out of the Scene but can return in the next one. The deaths of Characters in larps with campaign structures are handled more or less as in other types of RPGs; players can create new Characters and start playing again without disrupting the overall gameplay. However, this is not the case for larps set up as single productions where the Characters are dramatically important, making it harder to quickly introduce new ones. This results in rules for how PCs can die that are often tied to dramatic structures. For example, in Monitor Celestra, the players could only be killed in the final Scene, while College of Wizardry states that players cannot kill any other Characters, but they can themselves choose to die (various 2014). PC deaths are typically handled differently in CRPGs, compared to TRPGs and larps. This is due to CRPGs such as the Ultima series, the Fallout series, the Dragon Age series, and the Mass Effect series being Single-Player Games where players can continue playing from a previously created Save File when their Characters die. Through this, players can create Save-Load Cycles that diminish Death Consequences. Thus, death often represents a failed attempt and a minor setback. Roguelikes, such as Rogue (Toy, Wichman and Arnold 1980) and Moria (Koeneke 1981), counter this by implementing Permadeath: the death of the PC ends the game, and players need to start a new game instance if they want to continue playing. This design solution can also be found in the initial games in the X-COM series (various 1994b-) as well as in the “hardcore” or “ironman” options for some CRPGs, e.g. later installments in the Fallout series. Deaths in MUDs and MORPGs are handled differently than in CRPGs. First, few MUDs support Permadeath. Hardcore BatMUD (various 2000) is a version of BatMUD where players Characters are gone as soon as they die once, but this is one of few exceptions. Wanting to have some Death Consequences without killing PCs permanently, MORPGs instead punish players with other penalties, such as loss of Experience Points or Damage to Equipment. In Ultima Online, the Equipment of a dead Character becomes Loot, which might be accessible to anyone. In World of Warcraft, death forces players to choose between waiting to be resurrected by others, spawning as a spirit at the nearest graveyard and only resurrecting when they rejoin their corpse, or being resurrected by a spirit healer at a graveyard.

Character Development As José Zagal and Roger Altizer (2014) report, character development was not only enthusiastically praised in early D&D reviews but has since often been referenced as a fundamental appeal and aspect of RPGs. Character Development can happen in one-off game sessions but also over the course of many years. This can lead to players’ having strong emotional bonds with their characters and developing important aspects of the overall narrative created in Campaigns.

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Character Development Changes in characters’ abilities, skills, or powers as part of gameplay.

While part of Character Development can be primarily in diegetic, in-game world terms (getting married, becoming a knight, etc.), it is also structurally accomplished in RPGs like D&D by gaining Experience Points for accomplishing certain in-game activities, such as killing certain monsters or solving a puzzle. Experience Points Points used to measure a character’s progress towards a state where abilities or characteristics related to gameplay are improved.

Once Characters collect a certain threshold amount of Experience Points, they are allowed to progress in Character Levels that allow access to Improved Attributes, Improved Skills, or New Abilities (which are also often Privileged Abilities). Levels An enumeration of states characters can progress through, gaining and improving abilities as they are reached.

Another form of Character Development occurs in D&D through PCs acquiring Loot from defeated Enemies; this provides Equipment and Resources (most commonly in the form of money or valuable items). In many cases, the RPGs that followed D&D provided more granular Character Development; for example, specific Skills could be improved between game sessions rather than having improvements stratified by linking them to advancements in a relatively limited scale of Character Levels (Zagal & Altizer 2014). Having computational powers to handle frequent and minute changes, CRPGs can handle Character Progression with even greater detail than most other types of RPGs. Experience Points can, for example, be given continuously during gameplay (as done in the Diablo and Dragon Age series) as Enemies are killed, and Skills can be increased based upon actual use as done in the Elder Scrolls series (various 1994a-). This can, of course, lessen the impact of each numerical increase as well as give rise to Grinding. However, simplified versions of these are used in some TRPGs, e.g. Call of Cthulhu (Petersen 1981) and Pendragon (Stafford 1985). While one might think of Character Development as improvement over time, it can also take the form of Character Decline. Examples of this can be found in the TRPGs Call of Cthulhu and Pendragon, where PCs can lose Statistics values through insanity and aging, respectively. Vampire: The Masquerade uses “humanity points” to measure how alienated a vampire character is from humankind (Rein-Hagen et al 1991). Similarly, Cyberpunk (Pondsmith 1988) uses an empathy score to show how dissociated and unfeeling PCs have become due to acquiring cybernetic implants. Fitting its setting, the Star Wars RPG (Costikyan 1987) gives “dark Force points” to those PCs that gave in to evil temptations. While these may not necessary be development that players (or their PCs) strive for, they can both function as Penalties and as starting points for personal goals. While these rules for Character Decline can help emphasize story creation, Daniel Mackay notes a paradox regarding this: inexperienced players and GMs may be supported by these rules, but experienced ones may find such rules restrictive because they do not “allow for less formulaic stories” (2001, 47–48). Progression in MUDs and MORPGs can function similarly to both TRPGs and CRPGs. However, they differ from TRPGs in how they support gameplay for players that have reached

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the maximum Character Level with their PCs. In this Endgame, games such as World of Warcraft encourage players to collect specific rare Equipment. The higher focus on Equipment in MORPGs makes the division of Loot more important. While AD&D already had rules suggesting how players divide Loot (Gygax 1978, p. 122), MORPGs can enforce these systems. World of Warcraft has a system where the leader of the group can set five different loot parameters: free-for-all, master looter, round-robin, group loot, and need before greed. Rules that control who can take what loot can promote fairness, but they can also enable behavior that is primarily seen as selfish; Ninja Looting is the act of taking Loot PCs are supposedly not entitled to (e.g. it was dropped by an enemy they did not defeat but rather swooped in at the last minute and took the loot of ). Larps, especially campaign ones with recurring characters, also often have rules regarding Character Development, similar to other RPGs. Vampire campaigns using the Mind’s Eye Theatre rules (Rein-Hagen et al. 1993) and the Knight Realms game (for a description of the later, see Stark 2012, p. 56) are prime examples of this. However, many larps are one-off events, so this becomes less relevant. While Zagal and Altizer (2014) mention negative progression through choice, the Nordic larp tradition has a technique called Playing to Lose in which players volunteer to make their characters fail in their goals in order to create more interesting stories. Playing to Lose Gameplay directed at making one’s own character lose to provide an interesting or enjoyable experience for oneself and others.

Concluding Observations The above are just some of the areas that need to be considered when designing an RPG. Further, we have not been exhaustive in the examples presented nor have we traced influences or design intentions of individual designers, e.g. seeing how the rules of Call of Cthulhu support the claim that the RPG “suggested a whole new sort of adventure, where players investigated mysteries rather than just blindly hacking and slashing their way through dungeons” (Appelcline 2014, 259). We have also ignored how design principles transferred from one RPG form to another: for example, D&D’s character progression system or rules for generating dungeons had a significant influence on early CRPGs (Dahlskog et al. 2015). Similarly, we have not examined how RPG design has evolved and changed over the years, even for the same game: for example, newer RPGs have influenced remakes of old ones, e.g. Paranoia can nowadays be played with player influence on Dice rolls, and Functional Roles in MORPGs are echoed in the 4th edition of D&D. What we have done is show how specific reoccurring design features can be identified for RPGs to show both difference and similarities, be it between genres or over time. This provides the basis for exploring the issues mentioned above. Being able to put words to the possible and existing design elements of RPGs allows an artifact-centered perspective that is useful for questions linked to issues like the ones above and to designers who wish to be reflective. The commonality of shared patterns or structural elements that can be found between different forms of RPGs shows that they not only have vague similarities to each other on a general level but also share specific rules or game elements. These specific design solutions point towards a way of tracing the development of RPGs over time and how different player preferences have developed and been given form through the designs of new RPGs, especially

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when using a design language that supports identifying relations between the elements and feasible contexts of use. It is the hope that this chapter provides an initial step on how this can be done and supports further work in the same style.

Summary This chapter examined RPGs from a design perspective. It highlighted common challenges and tensions that RPG designers face, namely, the need to balance the novel with the familiar, whether to license someone else’s intellectual property or develop one’s own, and balance the needs of a rule set with those of the setting, figuring out how many rules to articulate, how detailed they should be, whether to support broad or narrow styles of play, and how to design for open-ended play that can last years or more. It then used design patterns, semi-formalized descriptions of design features, to more closely examine the salient design features of some important areas in the design space of RPGs: action resolution, combat and handling of character death, characterization of PCs, and progression. We wrapped up by pointing out a few of the things we opted to leave out, such as how RPG design has evolved and how the different forms have influenced each other over the years.

Acknowledgments The authors would like to thank Karl Bergström, Marcus Brissman, Peter Holm, and Josefin Westborg for providing feedback on an early version of this chapter. They would also like to thank ­Mattias Svendsen for providing access to issues of Interactive Fantasy for many years. Several of the authors of other chapters in the book have also provided very valuable feedback that heavily influenced the final version of chapter.

Notes 1 https://nordiclarp.org/wiki/Main_Page. 2 http://gameplaydesignpatterns.org/. 3 http://nordiclarp.org/wiki/Ball_of_Yarn. 4 This is especially easy to see in early CRPGs, e.g. Dungeon, dnd, and DND (see Barton 2008).

Further Reading Bartle, Richard A. 2004. Designing Virtual Worlds. New Riders. Björk, S. & Holopainen, J. 2004. Patterns in Game Design. Charles River Media. Stenros, J., Andresen, M.E. & Nielsen, M. 2016. “The Mixing Desk of Larp: History and Current State of a Design Theory.” Analog Game Studies IV (II). http://analoggamestudies.org/2016/11/ the-mixing-desk-of-larp-history-and-current-state-of-a-design-theory/. Zagal, J. and Altizer, R. 2014. Examining ‘RPG Elements’: Systems of Character Progression. FDG 2014.

References (developers). Microsoft Game Studios, Electronic Arts (publishers). (various), 1990. BatMUD. (various). 1994a-. The Elder Scrolls series. Bethesda Game Studios (developer). Bethesda Softworks (publisher).

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(various). 1994b-. The X-COM series. Mythos Games, MicroProse, Hasbro Interactive, Infogrames, ­Irrational Games, 2K Marin, Firaxis Games (developers). MicroProse, Hasbro Interactive, Infogrames/ Atari, 2K Games (publishers). (various), 1996-. Diablo series. Blizzard Entertainment (developers). Blizzard Entertainment, Sierra Entertainment (publishers). (various), 2000. Hardcore BatMUD. (various). 2013. Monitor Celestra. Produced by Alternaliv AB in collaboration with Bardo AB and Berättelsefrämjandet. Full credits available at www.alternaliv.se/celestra-credits.html. (various) 2014. College of Wizardry – Design Document. Version 24, 2014–05–11. Downloaded from www. rollespilsfabrikken.dk/harrypotter/designdocument.pdf. Alexander, C., Ishikawa, S., Silverstein, M., Jacobson, M., Fiksdahl-King, I. & Angel, S. 1977. A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction. Oxford University Press, 1977. Appelcline, S. 2014. Designers & Dragons: The 70’s. Silver Spring, MD: Evil Hat Productions. Bartle, R.A. 2003. Designing Virtual Worlds. Berkeley, CA: New Riders. Bartle, R.A. 2016. MMOs from the Inside Out: The History, Design, Fun, and Art of Massively-­ multiplayer Online Role-playing Games. Apress. Barton, M. 2008. Dungeons & Desktops. A K Peters, Ltd. Björk, S & Holopainen, J. 2004. Patterns in Game Design. Charles River Media. Costikyan, G., Gelber, D. & Goldberg, E. 1984. Paranoia. West End Games. Costikyan, G. & Spector, W. 1984. Toon. Austin, TX: Steve Jackson Games. Costikyan, G. 1987. Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game. West End Games. Costikyan, G. 1994. “I have no words and I must design.” In Interactive Fantasy 1.2. Hogshead Publishing. Dahlskog, S., Björk, S. & Togelius, J. 2015. “Patterns, Dungeons and Generators.” Paper presented at Foundations of Digital Games Conference, 2015. Edwards, R. 2001. “GNS and Other Matters of Role-playing Theory.” Online article at The Forge. www.indie-rpgs.com/articles/1/. Downloaded 2016-06-25. Fluegelman, A. (Ed.). 1976. The New Games Book. Main Street Books. Gygax, G. & Arneson, D. 1974. Dungeons & Dragons (1st edition). TSR. Gygax, G. 1978. Official Advanced Dungeons & Dragons – Players Handbook. TSR, Inc. Hallford, H. & Hallford, J. 2001. Swords & Circuitry: A Designer’s Guide to Computer Role-Playing Games. Roseville, CA: Prima Publishing. Harviainen, J.T. 2009. “Notes on Designing Repeatable Larps”. In Matthijs Holter, Eirik Fatland, Even Tømte (Eds.), Larp, the Universe and Everything, pp. 97–110. http://knutepunkt.laiv.org/2009/book/ NotesOnDesigningRepeatableLarps/. Jackson, Steve (US). 1986. Generic Universal Roleplaying System (GURPS). Austin, TX: Steve Jackson Games. Jackson, S., Punch, S. & Pulver, D. 2008. GURPS Fourth Edition: Basic Set – Characters. Steve Jackson Games. Koeneke, R.A. 1981. Moria. Self-published. Koljonen, J. 2007. “Eye-Witness to the Illusion – An Essay on the Impossibility of 360º Role-Playing.” Lifelike, pp. 175–187. ISBN 978-87-989377-1-5. Lambert, R., Rilstone, A. & Wallis, J. 1994. Once upon a Time. Atlas Games. Long, S.S. 1989. The Hero System. Hero Games. Mackay, D. 2001. The Fantasy Role-Playing Game. McFarland & Company. Masters, P. 1994. “On the Vocabulary of Role-Playing”. Interactive Fantasy 1.2, pp. 57–74. Hogshead Publishing. Mazza, R. & Holmes, M. 2002. Universalis. Ramshead Publishing. Mogensen, Torben. 2016. “Dice-Rolls in Role-Playing Games.” www.diku.dk/~torbenm/Troll/­ RPGdice.pdf. Moran, J.K. 1999. Nobilis. Pharos Press. Morningstar, J. 2009. Fiasco. Bully Pulpit Games. Munthe-Kaas, P., Andreasen, P.S., Høgdall, R. & Thurøe, K. 2009. Workshop Håndbogen. www.munthekaas.dk/downloads/wshb.pdf.

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Pardo, R., Kaplan, J. & Chilton, T. 2004-. World of Warcraft. Blizzard Entertainment (developers. B ­ lizzard Entertainment (publishers). Petersen, S. 1981. Call of Cthulhu. Oakland, CA: Chaosium. Petersen, S. 1982. “Call of Cthulhu Designer’s Notes.” Different Worlds. 19, 8–13. Petersen, S. 1991. Insert (p. 241) in Schick, L. 1991. Heroic Worlds - A History and Guide to Role-Playing Games. Prometheus Books. Petersen, S., Willis, L. 2001. Call of Cthulhu (Edition 5.6.1). Oakland, CA: Chaosium. Peterson, J. 2012. Playing at the World. Unreason Press. Pondsmith, M. 1988. Cyberpunk. R Talsorian Games. Pucci, M. 2016. Dystopia Rising LARP Network. Eschaton Media. www.dystopiarisinglarp.com/. Rein-Hagen, M., Davis, G., Dowd, T., Stevens, L. & Wieck, S. 1991. Vampire – The Masquerade. White Wolf Publishing. Rein-Hagen, M., et al. 1993. Mind’s Eye Theatre (1st edition). White Wolf. Salen, K. & Zimmerman, E., 2004. Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals. MIT Press. Saltzman, M. (Ed.). 1999. Game Design: Secrets of the Sages. Indianapolis, IN: Brady Publishing. Saltzman, M. (Ed.). 2000. Game Design: Secrets of the Sages (2nd edition). Indianapolis, IN: Brady Publishing. Schick, L. 1991. Heroic Worlds. Prometheus Books. Schuessler, N. & Jackson, S. 1981. Game Design – Volume 1: Theory and Practice. SJ Games. 1981. Spector, C. 1993. Ultima VII and Underworld: More Avatar Adventures. Prima Publishing. Spector, C. 1994. Might and Magic Compendium. Prima Publishing. Stafford, G. 1985. Pendragon. Chaosium. St. Andre, K. 1975. Tunnels & Trolls. Flying Buffalo Inc. (2nd edition). Stark, L. 2012. Leaving Mundania - Inside the Transformative World of Live Action Role-playing Games. Chicago Review Press. Stenros, J. & Montola, M. (eds.). 2010. Nordic Larp. Fëa Livia. Stenros, J., Andresen, M.E. & Nielsen, M. 2016. “The Mixing Desk of Larp: History and Current State of a Design Theory.” Analog Game Studies IV (II). http://analoggamestudies.org/2016/11/ the-mixing-desk-of-larp-history-and-current-state-of-a-design-theory/. Toy, M., Wichman, G. & Arnold, K. 1980. Rogue. Self-published. Tweet, J. 1995a. Everway. Wizards of the Coast. Tweet, J. 1995b. “Everway: Designer’s Notes.” Interactive Fantasy, No 4. Hogshead Publishing. Valenti, J. (2014). The NERO Rule Book (9th edition). nerolarp.com. Wujcik, E. 1991. Amber Diceless Roleplaying Game. Phage Press. Zagal, J. & Altizer, R. 2014. Examining ‘RPG Elements’: Systems of Character Progression. FDG 2014.

19 Communication Research and Role-Playing Games William J. White

This chapter discusses the field of communication as a disciplinary site for the study of role-playing. The main avenue of approach for communication scholars interested in this topic is the equally interdisciplinary field of game studies—which means that role-playing as an object of study is often addressed obliquely in studies mainly devoted to understanding, e.g., immersion or identification in multiplayer online role-playing games (MORPGs). Other role-playing-related research foci do exist within communication, however, particularly in the use of role-playing as a pedagogical or educational tool and in discourse-analytic studies of role-playing as language use, among others. Additionally, the moral panic surrounding role-playing games (RPGs) in the early 1980s is relevant to critical studies in communication, media ecology, rhetoric, and related communication subfields. This chapter identifies specific lines of communication inquiry that are directly relevant to the scholarship of role-playing. It also discusses moral panics as a mediated phenomenon relevant to communication scholarship.

The Field of Communication The field of communication is an interdisciplinary enterprise that draws upon a number of intellectual traditions for its theoretical models and paradigmatic exemplars, investigating human interaction in a multitude of contexts from perspectives that include both humanistic and social-scientific outlooks. The field is further characterized by a bifurcation into broad, discrete specialties, often labeled mass (or mediated) communication and interpersonal (or speech) communication (Peters 1994). Mass communication research tends to examine the social and psychological factors as well as technological features that account for media effects afforded by media experiences, while interpersonal communication researchers explore the dynamics of face-to-face or reciprocal interactions within relationships, small groups, and organizations. Additionally, the humanistic tradition of rhetoric, the study of effective or persuasive speaking and writing, is increasingly recognized as a fundamental component of communication studies (Angus and Lannaman 1988). The subfield of media ecology concerns itself with investigating how technology shapes and is shaped by human action and includes critical and cultural studies approaches to the social organization of communication (Strate 1999). More recently, a sub-discipline labeled language and social interaction (LSI) has emerged (Leeds-Hurwitz 2010).

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All these specialties have a potential interest in games generally and role-playing specifically, but thus far, communication as a field has investigated these phenomena mainly through the mass communication tradition, which is largely concerned with studying “media effects,” that is, treating games as a medium, with fixed characteristics or affordances that interact with certain psychological attributes of individuals to generate specific behavioral or attitudinal outcomes.

Games and the Field of Communication This section contextualizes the study of role-playing in communication by laying out the broader contours of the study of games in the field. Communication research contributes to the interdisciplinary field of game studies most heavily via social psychological investigation of digital games, relying mainly on the sociological (→ Chapter 12), psychological (→ ­Chapter 13), and literary (→ Chapter 14) approaches described elsewhere. However, communication is also connected to game scholarship that predates the emergence of game studies as a field in the early 21st century (Aarseth 2006). And within the field of game studies, communication-­ theoretic scholarship proceeding from outside the media effects tradition is gaining broader attention, particularly critical and cultural studies approaches.

Simulations and Games in Communication Pedagogy In the 1970s and 1980s, simulation gaming and serious games (Abt 1970) approaches were adopted by communication educators, particularly organizational communication scholars (Ruben 1978), as part of a broader educational gaming movement (McVicar 1981). Some of these efforts included role-playing, which was understood as a skill with ancient origins, first developed for therapeutic use in Viennese psychiatrist Jacob L. Moreno’s psychodrama (Moreno 1946) as well as for training and educational use among European armies in the mid-20th century (Shaw, Corsini, Blake, and Mouton 1980) before being adopted more widely in business and academic settings (→ also Chapter 15 on education).

Communication and the Study of Video Games It was, however, the emergence of video games as a mass cultural phenomenon that caused communication as a field to become interested in games, largely in the context of their impact as a new medium on children and adolescents (e.g. Selnow 1984). This interest has also extended to the social dynamics of gamers in which games are conceived as “a medium through which people interact socially with one another” (Limperos, Downs, Ivory, and Bowman. 2013, 364). Multi-player online RPGs (MORPGs), such as World of Warcraft and EverQuest, have been studied attentively, and questions of player/character identity and boundaries relevant to role-playing scholarship are also often explored. The next section discusses these investigations in more detail.

Communication Analytic Approaches to Studying RPGs Role-Playing and the “Social Dimensions” of Gaming It is within the emerging domain of investigating social dimensions of gaming that communication studies most clearly engages with the study of RPGs, which are not typically understood as a distinct object of inquiry. RPGs (typically the massive multi-player online variety)

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are increasingly studied as sites of social interaction (Cole and Griffiths 2007; Poels, Ijsselssteijn, and de Kort 2015; Smyth 2007) and identification (Gabbiadini, Mari, Volpato, and Grazia Monaci 2014; Peng 2008). The way that online avatars and other self-representations are connected to individual identity seems to be particularly interesting to communication scholars ( Jin and Park 2009; Lewis, Weber, and Bowman 2008; Waddell and Ivory 2015; Yee and Bailenson 2007). In particular, ethnographic investigations of online role-playing, by itself or in concert with other methods (e.g. Chen 2009; Cole and Griffiths 2007; Williams, Kennedy, and Moore 2011; Williams, Kirschner, and Suhaimi-Broder 2014), are often employed to explore questions of identity and the social uses that players make of MORPGs. Of particular interest is the way that play does or does not become “real” in terms of interpersonal relationships, boundaries, and sense of self (Huynh, Lim, and Skoric 2013).

Critical, Rhetorical, and Sociocultural Approaches Mass communication research, in both its positive “uses and gratifications” and its negative “media effects” forms, is sometimes criticized for taking the nature of media for granted: media are the products of social facts rather than natural laws. So, alternative approaches challenge our thinking about games in general and RPGs in particular or seek to unpack the discourse of games in particular settings. For example, scholars critique the metaphor of “new frontier” and “new world” used in connection with virtual reality and MORPG games for their implicitly hegemonic connotations: as employed, the terms forget their history and presage the drive to determine winners and losers, insiders and outsiders, in the rush to exploit, colonize, and conquer “virgin” virtual territory (Gunkel and Gunkel 2009). Other analyses interrogate the constitution or conceptual underpinnings of online gameplay. David J. Gunkel discusses the problematic deployment of the term “real,” which is always relative to something less authentic, natural, or desirable than itself (Gunkel 2010). Anne Mette Thorhauge compares tabletop and online role-playing to show the fundamentally communicative character of rules in RPGs (Thorhauge 2013). Issues of race (Higgins 2009; Nakamura 2009), gender fluidity (Martey, Stromer-Galley, Wu, and Consalvo 2014; Song and Jung 2015), and sexuality (Pulos 2013) have also been explored as have the aesthetic and cultural values embedded in the presentation of game scenarios, both online and tabletop (Gillespie and Crouse 2012; Patterson 2015). Ian Bogost’s communication-theoretic notion of games as procedural rhetoric (Bogost 2007) has begun to be applied to computer RPGS (CRPGs) specifically (Harper 2011) and offers a powerful theoretical lens for understanding the rhetorical character of gameplay. ­Tabletop RPGs have also been argued from a rhetorical perspective to represent a speech genre characterized by a high degree of narrative agency, the degree to which participants feel they have control over the direction of a story (Cover 2010). Similarly, J. Tuomas Harviainen (2012) discusses how, in live-action role-playing (larp), players’ preferences with respect to what can be known, and in what circumstances this information can be disclosed, hidden, or ignored, shape their information-seeking behavior and thus the social dynamics of larp. Procedural Rhetoric Rhetorician Bogost’s term for argumentation by game mechanics. In other words, because they model the workings of some aspect of the world in a particular way, games are essentially arguments about what is important or vital in order to understand how that aspect of the world works, affecting the attitudes and beliefs of those who play them.

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Language and Social Interaction (LSI) Approaches The game session, as an instance of language use, is sometimes taken as an object of LSI or discourse-analytic approaches, which examine texts as artifacts of communication revelatory of the processes used to produce them. For example, Sean Q. Hendricks describes the “incorporative discourse strategies” that players use to provide input into the game, creating a typology of conversational moves employed by tabletop role-players (Hendricks 2006). ­­William J.  White (2010) adopts a similar procedure to examine the presentation of self in tabletop RPG sessions, and Angelina Ilieva (2013) examines the kinds of playful utterances used among ­participants in larp.

Moral Panics and RPGs One avenue of investigation for communication research into RPGs as a cultural phenomenon and object of discourse is the moral panic of the 1980s, which linked Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) to participation in Satanic ritual cults. “Moral panic” is sociologist Stanley Cohen’s (1980) term for the mass-mediated public response to some object—a person, group, episode, condition, or circumstance, in other words—that has come to be understood as a threat to society and society’s values. This response includes the pronouncements of moral authorities and the diagnoses of socially accredited experts and may fade with time or lead to changes in laws, policies, or even societal self-conceptions (Goode and Ben-Yehuda 2009). Thus far, only a little work in this area has been done in communication per se. Communication scholar Nicholas Bowman elaborates on the moral panic as a mass media phenomenon, describing the history of moral panics and the tendency of media forms associated with youth culture in different eras—including film and television, rock and roll, comic books, and D&D—to be demonized in alarmist public discourse (Bowman 2016; see also Gagne 2001 and Stark 2012, pp. 91–105). Bowman is, however, more interested in examining cases of moral panic involving graphic video game violence than in the moral panic over D&D. Moral Panic as a Scholarly Idea in Communication Studies It is perhaps professional courtesy that prevents much use of the concept among communication researchers interested in game studies as some of their colleagues are invested in the investigation of the dangers associated with media exposure. This forbearance avoids the possibility of heated exchanges (at least in academic terms) between those in different camps. It is also somewhat of a loaded term because calling a particular public concern a “moral panic” implies a sort of pearl-clutching oversensitivity on the part of those who find something alarming about a given social phenomenon. Moral panic theorists are careful to distance themselves from this judgment; Bowman (2016), for example, issues a warning to “video game scholars (as well as developers and players)… about the risk of taking a normative stance in assuming that video games have no capability for negative effects” (p. 9). However, it is frequently the implication that the morally panicked are worried about nothing or at least out of proportion to the actual danger. In other words, the diagnosis of “moral panic” is not neutral: it requires that a particular public hazard in fact be overblown.

For the purposes of this book, we will focus on the use of the term “moral panic” for the negative attention that D&D and other RPGs received in the 1980s in the aftermath of the disappearance and later suicide of James Dallas Egbert III that erroneously linked RPGs to cult-like activity. The best recent work on this issue stems from religious studies scholar Joseph

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P. Laycock who argues that fantasy role-playing and religion-based anti-gaming “represent rival fantasies,” which instantiate the Freudian “narcissism of minor differences” in which “moral entrepreneurs are antagonistic toward fantasy role-playing games precisely because the games mirror their own heroic fantasies” (Laycock 2015, 242). Both draw upon popular culture’s images of supernatural monsters to collectively construct narratives involving personas that were connected to heroic mythoi. “Where gamers battle demons…as wizards and warriors, moral entrepreneurs battle the imagined forces of evil as occult crime investigators and exorcists” (Laycock 2015, 242). In outline, the moral panic of the 1980s began with the temporary disappearance of a young college student named James Dallas Egbert III in the steam tunnels of Michigan State University’s campus. This disappearance was falsely linked to his participation in a campus D&D group by a private investigator named William Dear, hired by the Egbert family (Haberman 2016). Dear wrote a book about his investigation in which he “cast himself as a compassionate hero on a quest to save a vulnerable child genius from a web of destructive fantasy” (­Laycock 2015, 82), an account that “demonstrates how the panic over fantasy role-playing games evolved from the panic over cults” (85). Others took up this emergent narrative, including a woman named Patricia Pulling, who founded an organization called “Bothered About Dungeons & Dragons (BADD)” after the suicide of her son. These fears over role-playing gained additional currency with the 1980 publication of Rona Jaffe’s novel Mazes and Monsters, later adapted to film, in which emotionally vulnerable youth lose touch with reality by acting out their in-game character roles. And the 1984 religious tract Dark Dungeons by Jack Chick explicitly linked the game to blasphemous religious activity antithetical to politically conservative Christian sensibilities. Ironically, the response of role-playing gamers to the harassment from “churches, police, schools, and governments” during the anti-D&D moral panic of the 1980s was the development of a gamer identity and subculture characterized by a widespread hostility toward the sort of Christianity that could be perceived as “bigoted, oppressive, and violent” and a self-­ consciously countercultural orientation of the sort that characterized White Wolf games in the 1990s (Waldron 2005; also → Chapter 24). Crimen del rol (The role-playing crime) Although the D&D moral panic of the 1980s in the US is perhaps the most well known, there were similar role-playing-related scares in other countries as well, albeit smaller in scope and scale. One notable example occurred in Spain during the mid-1990s after two young men murdered a 52-year-old stranger they selected as a victim. The media quickly sensationalized the story, and certain moral entrepreneurs made much of the presence of numerous role-playing manuals in the apartment of one of the perpetrators. Even though the Spanish courts ultimately absolved exposure to RPGs as the motive for the crime because the murderers did not actually play them, RPGs received a good deal of negative attention, including movies inspired by the case.

Making the Ludic Turn There are opportunities to apply communication-theoretic approaches to RPGs in ways that go beyond the games-as-medium perspective predominant within mass communication research. In particular, cultural perspectives on communication offer access to RPGs as a phenomenon of mass culture and enable them to be seen as part of a broader suite of modes of engaging in fannish “participatory culture” ( Jenkins 1992, 2006) in which the audience is

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seen as highly active and engaged (e.g. Staiger 2000). For more on this, see Chapter 21. The cultural history of RPGs, in particular, seems to be amenable to a communication-based (and perhaps specifically rhetorical) approach that emphasizes the nature of RPGs as performed texts (see Cover 2010; Mackay 2001; Stenros 2004). More to the point, communication theory perspectives that emphasize the playfulness of language and conversation (Bateson 1972; ­Sutton-Smith 2001) have already informed game design praxis (Salen and Zimmerman 2004) and may usefully supplement existing frame-analytic perspectives. Additionally, the phenomenology of role-playing seems ripe for exploration, building on preliminary reflections regarding both video games (Crick 2011) and tabletop role-playing (White 2014), which have not hitherto received much systematic, theoretically informed attention (for more information about phenomenological applications, see Chapter 13).

Summary The intellectually diverse scholarly field of communication first became involved with games as a phenomenon when it participated in the pedagogical “serious games” movement of the 1970s and 1980s, with role-playing considered to be part of the toolbox of techniques available to serious game designers. By the 1990s and early 2000s, mass communication researchers were contributing to the social psychological study of video games as a medium via their investigations of video game effects as well as player uses and gratifications. This has led more recently to communication’s contribution to the burgeoning field of game studies, primarily via examinations of the social dimensions of gaming as well as through critical and rhetorical analyses of the sociocultural aspects of digital and analog games. Role-playing is addressed more or less incidentally in the study of online games, particularly MORPGs, as questions of identity, identification, and the player/character boundary are explored. Opportunities exist to focus attention on the pragmatic and performative elements of RPG play under the rubric of language and social interaction. Additionally, the cultural impact of RPGs via the discourse of moral panic is relevant to communication’s media ecology subfield and other studies of communication as culture.

Further Reading Cover, Jennifer Grouling. 2010. The Creation of Narrative in Tabletop Roleplaying Games. Jefferson, NC: McFarland. Laycock, Joseph P. 2015. Dangerous Games: What the Moral Panic over Role-Playing Games Says about Play, Religion, and Imagined Worlds. Oakland: University of California Press. J. Patrick Williams, Sean Q. Hendricks, and W. Keith Winkler (Eds). 2006. Gaming as Culture: Essays on Identity and Experience in Fantasy Games. Jefferson, NC: McFarland.

References Aarseth, Espen. 2006. “How We Became Postdigital: From CyberStudies to Game Studies.” In David Silver and Adrienne Massanari (Eds.), Critical Cyberculture Studies (pp. 37–46). New York: New York University Press. Abt, Clark C. 1970. Serious Games. New York: Viking. Angus, Ian H. and John W. Lannaman. 1988. “Questioning the Boundaries of U.S. Communication Research: An Epistemological Inquiry.” Journal of Communication 38 (3): 62–74.

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Bateson, Gregory. 1972. Steps to an Ecology of Mind. New York: Ballantine. Bogost, Ian. 2007. Persuasive Games. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Bowman, Nicholas D. 2016. “The Rise (and Refinement) of Moral Panic.” In Rachel Kowert and Thorsten Quandt (Eds.), The Video Game Debate: Unraveling the Physical, Social, and Psychological Effects of Video Games. New York: Routledge. Chen, Mark G. 2009. “Communication, Coordination, and Camaraderie in World of Warcraft.” Games and Culture 4 (1): 47–73. Cohen, Stanley. 1980. Folk Devils and Moral Panics: The Creation of the Mods and the Rockers. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Cole, Helena, and Mark D. Griffiths. 2007. “Social Interactions in Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games.” Cyberpsychology and Behavior 10 (4): 575–583. Cover, Jennifer Grouling. 2010. The Creation of Narrative in Tabletop Role-Playing Games. Jefferson, NC: McFarland. Crick, Timothy. 2011. “The Game Body: Toward a Phenomenology of Contemporary Video Gaming.” Games and Culture 6 (3): 259–269. Gabbiadini, Alessandro, Silvia Mari, Chiara Volpato, and Maria Grazia Monaci. “Identification Processes in Online Groups: Identity Motives in the Virtual Realm of MMORPGs.” Journal of Media Psychology: Theories, Methods, and Applications 26 (3): 141–152. Gagne, Ken. 2001. “Moral Panics over Youth Culture and Video Games.” [online]. Path: www.gamebits.net/other/mqp/. Gillespie, Greg and Crouse, Darren 2012. “There and Back again: Nostalgia, Art, and Ideology in ­Old-School Dungeons and Dragons.” Games & Culture, 7 (6): 441–470. Goode, Erich and Nachman Ben-Yehuda. 2009. Moral Panics: The Social Construction of Deviance. ­Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell. Gunkel, David J. 2010. “The Real Problem: Avatars, Metaphysics, and Online Social Interaction.” New Media & Society 12 (1): 127–141. Gunkel, David J. and Ann Hetzel Gunkel. 2009. “Terra Nova 2.0—The New World of MMORPGs.” Critical Studies in Media Communication 26 (2): 104–127. Haberman, Clyde. 2016, April 17. “When Dungeons & Dragons Set Off a ‘Moral Panic.’” New York Times. www.nytimes.com/2016/04/18/us/when-dungeons-dragons-set-off-a-moral-panic.html. Harper, Todd. 2011. “Rules, Rhetoric, and Genre: Procedural Rhetoric in Persona 3.” Games and Culture 6 (5): 395–413. Harviainen, J. Tuomas. 2012. Systemic Perspectives on Information in Physically Performed Role-Play [Ph.D. dissertation]. Tampere: University of Tampere. Hendricks, Sean Q. 2006. “Incorporative Discourse Strategies in Tabletop Fantasy Role-Playing Gaming.” In J.P. Williams, S.Q. Hendricks, and W.K. Winkler (Eds.), Gaming as Culture: Essays on Identity and Experience in Fantasy Games (pp. 39–56). Jefferson, NC: McFarland. Higgins, Tanner. 2009. “Blackless Fantasy: The Disappearance of Race in Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games.” Games and Culture 4 (1): 3–26. Huynh, Kim-Phong, Si-Wei Lim, and Marko M. Skoric. 2013. “Stepping Out of the Magic Circle: Regulation of Play/Life Boundary in MMO-Mediated Romantic Relationship.” Journal of ComputerMediated Communication 18(3): 251–264. Ilieva, Angelina. 2013. “Cultural Languages of Role-Playing.” International Journal of Role-Playing 4: 26–38. Jenkins, Henry. 1992. Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture. New York: Routledge. Jenkins, Henry. 2006. Fans, Bloggers, and Gamers: Exploring Participatory Culture. New York: New York University Press. Jin, S.-A. Annie, and Namkee Park. 2009. “Parasocial Interaction with My Avatar: Effects of Interdependent Self-Construal and the Mediating Role of Self-Presence in an Avatar-Based Console Game, Wii.” Cyberpsychology and Behavior 12(6): 723–727. Laycock, Joseph P. 2015. Dangerous Games: What the Moral Panic over Role-Playing Games Says about Play, Religion, and Imagined Worlds. Oakland: University of California Press.

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Leeds-Hurwitz, Wendy. 2010. The Social History of Language and Social Interaction Research. New York: Hampton Press. Lewis, Melissa L., Rene Weber, and Nicholas D. Bowman. 2008. “‘They May Be Pixels, But They’re MY Pixels’: Developing a Metric of Character Attachment in Role-Playing Video Games.” Cyberpsychology and Behavior 11(4): 515–518. Limperos, Anthony M., Edward Downs, James D. Ivory, and Nicholas D. Bowman. “Leveling Up: A Review of Emerging Trends and Suggestions for the Next Generation of Communication Research Investigating Video Games’ Effects.” Communication Yearbook 37, 349–377. Mackay, Daniel. 2001. The Fantasy Role-Playing Game. Jefferson, NC: McFarland. Martey, Rosa M., Jennifer Stromer-Galley, Jaime Banks, J.S. Wu, and Mia Consalvo. 2014. “The Strategic Female: Gender-Switching and Player Behavior in Online Games.” Information, Communication, and Society 17(3): 286–300. McVicar, M. 1981. “Simulating Bureaucracy: An Exercise in Bureaucratic Decision-Making.” In B. Hollinshead and M. Yorke (Eds.), Perspectives on Academic Gaming & Simulation 6 (Simulation and Games: The Real and the Ideal, pp. 41–47). London: Kogan Page Ltd. Moreno, Jacob. 1946. Psychodrama. New York: Beacon House. Nakamura, Lisa. 2009. “Don’t Hate the Player, Hate the Game: The Racialization of Labor in World of Warcraft.” Critical Studies in Media Communication 26(2): 128–144. Patterson, Christopher B. 2015. “Role-Playing the Multiculturalist Umpire: Loyalty and War in ­BioWare’s Mass Effect Series.” Games and Culture 10(3): 207–228. Peng, Wei. 2008. “The Mediational Role of Identification in the Relationship between Experience Mode and Self-Efficacy: Enactive Role-Playing versus Passive Observation.” Cyberpsychology & Behavior 11(6): 649–652. Peters, John Durham. 1994. “The Gaps of Which Communication Is Made.” Critical Studies in Mass Communication. 11(2): 117–140. Poels, Karolien, Wijnand A. Ijsselsteijn, and Yvonne de Kort. 2015. “World of Warcraft, the Aftermath: How Game Elements Transfer into Perceptions, Associations, and (Day)Dreams in the Everyday Life of Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games.” New Media and Society 17(7): 1137–1153. Pulos, Alexis. 2013. “Confronting Heteronormativity in Online Games: A Critical Discourse Analysis of LGBTQ Sexuality in World of Warcraft.” Games and Culture 8(2): 77–97. Ruben, Brent D. 1978. Human Communication Handbook: Simulation and Games (2 vol.). Rochelle Park, NJ: Hayden. Salen, Katie and Eric Zimmerman. 2004. Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Selnow, Gary W. 1984. “Playing Video games: The Electronic Friend.” Journal of Communication 34(2): 148–156. Shaw, Malcom E., Raymond J. Corsini, Robert R. Blake, and Jane S. Mouton. 1980. Role Playing: A Practical Manual for Group Facilitators. San Diego, CA: University Associates. Smyth, Joshua M. 2007. “Beyond Self-Selection in Video Game Play: An Experimental Examination of the Consequences of Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game Play.” Cyberpsychology and Behavior 10(5): 717–721. Song, Haeyeop, and Jaemin Jung. 2015. “Antecedents and Consequences of Gender Swapping in Online Games.” Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 20(4): 434–449. Staiger, Janet. 2000. Perverse Spectators: The Practices of Film Reception. New York: New York University Press. Stark, Lizzie. 2012. Leaving Mundania. Chicago, IL: Chicago Review Press. Stenros, Jaakko. 2004. “Notes on Role-Playing Texts.” In Markus Montola and Jaakko Stenros (eds.), Beyond Role and Play—Tools, Toys, and Theory for Harnessing the Imagination Helsinki: Solmukohta. Strate, Lance. 1999. “Understanding MEA.” In Medias Res 1 (1). www.media-ecology.org/publications/ In_Medias_Res/imrv1n1.html. Sutton-Smith, Brian. 2001. The Ambiguity of Play. Boston, MA: Harvard University Press

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Thorhauge, Anne Mette. 2013. “The Rules of the Game—The Rules of the Player.” Games and Culture 8(6): 371–391. Waddell, T. Franklin, and James D. Ivory. 2015. “It’s Not Easy Trying to Be One of the Guys: The Effect of  Avatar Attractiveness, Avatar Sex, and User Sex on the Success of Help-Seeking Requests in an ­Online Game.” Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media 59(1): 112–129. Waldron, David. 2005. “Role-Playing Games and the Christian Right: Community Formation in Response to a Moral Panic.” Journal of Religion and Popular Culture, 9 (1): 3. White, William J. 2010. “Playing House in a World of Night: Discursive Trajectories of Masculinity in a Tabletop Role-Playing Game.” International Journal of Role-Playing 2: 18–31. White, William J. 2014. “Player-Character Is What You Are in the Dark: The Phenomenology of Immersion in Dungeons & Dragons.” In Christopher Robichaud (ed.), pp. 82–92. Dungeons & Dragons and Philosophy: Read and Gain Advantage on All Wisdom Checks, Malden, MA: John Wiley & Sons. Williams, Dmitri, Tracy L.M. Kennedy, and Robert J. Moore. 2011. “Behind the Avatar: The Patterns, Practices, and Functions of Role Playing in MMOs.” Games and Culture 6(2): 171–200. Williams, J. Patrick, David Kirschner, and Zahirah Suhaimi-Broder. 2014. “Structural Roles in Massively Multiplayer Online Games: A Case Study of Guild and Raid Leaders in World of Warcraft.” Symbolic Interaction and New Social Media 43: 121–142. Yee, Nick, and Jeremy Bailenson. 2007. “The Proteus Effect: The Effect of Transformed Self-­ Representation on Behavior.” Human Communication Research 33(3): 271–290.

Part IV

Interdisciplinary Issues

20 Worldbuilding in Role-Playing Games Karen Schrier, Evan Torner, and Jessica Hammer

Whether you are creating a fantasy role-playing game (RPG), science fiction live-action roleplay (larp), seafaring tabletop RPG (TRPG), or vampire multi-player online RPG (MORPG), one of the first practices in the process is the creation of the fictional universe, or world, from which the stories, perspectives, and roles are to emerge. This practice is called worldbuilding. Worldbuilding is just that—creating a fictional world. It constitutes both the “act of designing and constructing believable fictional universes” (Dowd et al., 2013, p. 21) and the “process of creating a universe that links together individual stories scattered across multiple media” (von Stackelberg, 2011, p. 79). As such, worldbuilding enables what, in 1817, Samuel Taylor Coleridge famously called “willing suspension of disbelief ” as a precondition of poetry: a reader’s willingness to accept the author’s vision of otherwise unbelievable times, places, worlds, or characters (Dowd et al., 2013, p. 21). In other words, the audience must willingly step into that new world, even if it makes no sense within their own world. Worldbuilding is an essential component of RPGs. In fact, a desire to be immersed in a new world is a primary motivation for many players. Worldbuilding The act of designing and constructing believable fictional universes

In his seminal study As If, Michael Saler (2012) explains worldbuilding as an attempt to “re-enchant” our own everyday reality or “primary world” with intensively detailed fictional, “secondary worlds.” The pivotal epoch in which worldbuilding transformed into what we recognize today took place between 1883, with Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island and the inauguration of the so-called New Romance literary movement (Saler, 2012, p. 67), and 1917, when sociologist Max Weber gave his famous lecture on modernity’s “disenchantment of the world” (Saler, p. 8). Treasure Island famously featured a map that Stevenson created with “engineer’s exactitude,” which allowed the reader to imagine herself into the fictional world. The New Romance movement, encompassing figures such as Stevenson, Lord Dunsany, and Jules Verne, used riffs on new scientific and engineering knowledge to bring the reader into closer contact with their fictional propositions. Saler cautions us and explains that we should not conceive of the reader as being tricked by this aesthetic illusion. Rather, an active reader uses a willing activation of pretense (instead of the more passive willing suspension of disbelief ) to

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pretend their way into the fictional time-space in exchange for a deeper, childlike enjoyment of its splendor. The willing act of pretense relies on Weber’s assertion that we would otherwise be imprisoned in a kind of “iron cage” of modernity—one that had measured, bureaucratized, and eradicated any meaning in the world. An ironic imagination permits a reader a loophole through which they can escape the boring calculability of the primary world into the exciting intentionality (and emergent properties) of the secondary world. Saler’s prime examples of expert secondary world creators include Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (with Sherlock Holmes), H.P. Lovecraft (with his Cthulhu mythos), and J.R.R. Tolkien (with Middle-earth). Together, the genres of science fiction, speculative fiction, and fantasy across media play a central role in worldbuilding as a cultural practice (Bainbridge, 2009). Louise M. Rosenblatt explains that the act of reading involves a type of co-creative worldbuilding performance and leads to “the creation of a dynamic, alternative reality – one that requires the active participation, or even performance, of the reader in creating ‘the poem’ that results” (Rogers, 1999, p. 140). In a sense, worldbuilders like Doyle, Lovecraft, and Tolkien play “God” in that they are creating a brand-new world, its stories, and its physical, mythological, social, and fantasy aspects. The worlds that are created can range from a tiny ant farm in a parallel ant universe to a jungle of giants in a made-up monkey kingdom. As Noah Wardrip-Fruin (2014) writes, Sometimes these fictional worlds closely resemble our own. Others are speculative and represent realities far-removed from the world we know. Either way, most fictional worlds present us with lenses with which to view familiar aspects of our own that have been accentuated, transformed, and lain bare. In RPGs, the world provides the raw material and constraints that shape the possible roles and provides a playground in which to experience and enact these roles. While specific stories can emerge from the world, the world itself acts as a substrate and home base where one’s role can play and interact. Often, worldbuilding is the gameplay in RPGs or a central part of it, such as in TRPGs like Microscope (2011) or The Quiet Year (2013), described below, or in larps like Revived (2014) or New World Magischola (2016), in which players are given broad license to determine major aspects of the world. Worldbuilding involves not only imagining a new world but also creating materials that instantiate it, such as writing timelines; drawing up maps; filling dictionaries with new languages; populating a religion with detailed mythology; realizing the technologies and artistic pieces of this new world as 2-D or 3-D assets; or even creating new races, ethnicities, cultures, and subcultures in fictional travel guides and bestiaries. These practices and genres have become so commonplace in RPGs that many audiences expect them in new games, particularly ones set in fantasy, science fiction, and speculative fiction genres. RPGs imply the invention and simulation of other realities. The term “role-playing game,” which eventually emerged in the 1970s, had been competing with the term FRP or “fantasy role-play.” RPGs have spawned entire subgenres, not just of world-describing materials (so-called supplements, manuals, or expansions) but also of guides for creating them. Some RPGs even have rule systems and tools for generating new worlds, such as tables for randomly creating maps and encounters, digital map editors, and procedural content generation software (Smith, 2015). In this chapter, we describe the major models of worldbuilding, the components and processes of worldbuilding, and the central tensions as well as the best practices of worldbuilding, with special attention to the connection between RPGs and worldbuilding.

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Major Concepts in Worldbuilding Before moving forward, we need to define a few key terms central to the discussion of worldbuilding. First, people speak of many different types of world, such as “fictional world,” “secondary world,” “storyworld,” “backworld,” “possible world,” “virtual world,” and “transmedia world.” They also refer to the key components and qualities of fictional worlds, such as “mythos,” “ethos,” “topos,” “color,” and “worldness.” Fictional World An internally consistent world, either an alternate version of our own or otherwise, that has been imagined for the purposes of fictional storytelling.

A fictional world is an internally consistent world, either an alternate version of our own or otherwise, that has been imagined for the purposes of fictional storytelling. It is a “system of non-real but possible states….created by the text, of objects, individuals, space, time, events, regularities, etc” (Eder, Jannidis and Schneider, 2011, p. 7). Tolkien coined the terms “secondary world” or “subcreation” to describe consistent fictional worlds in contrast to the real or “primary” world (see also Tolkien, 1947; Benton, 1983, 1992). Tolkien considered his world Arda, where the continent of Middle-earth is located, to be such a secondary world. Like characters in a novel, secondary worlds should have their own internal logic, consistency, and richness of life, granting them some autonomy vis-à-vis their creators. Their “scenery” of geography, characters, languages, timelines, etc. should make the characters and stories they host believable. Tolkien explains that, “The story-maker… makes a Secondary World which your mind can enter. Inside it, what he relates is ‘true.’… You therefore believe it, while you are, as it were, inside” (Tolkien, 1947/1965, p. 37, quoted in Rogers, 1999, p. 139). Tolkien also popularized the term “mythopoeia” or mythopoesis, literally “myth-making,” to describe the genre of fiction that creates a fictional mythology (see Nagy, 2004). Likewise, Mark J.P. Wolf has called worldbuilding a type of “subcreation,” which refers to both process and product … [involving] new combinations of existing concepts, which, in the building of a secondary world, become the inventions that replace or reset Primary World defaults (for example, new flora and fauna, new languages, new geography, and so forth). (Wolf, 2012, p. 24) Though transmedia subcreation predates the computer—Wolf calls The Wizard of Oz (1939) the first true transmedia property—the rise of modern computing informs much of the language we use to describe it. For example, Wolf uses the technical term “secondary world infrastructures” to refer to imagined maps, timelines, genealogies, natural beings, culture, language, mythology, and philosophy created in concert with one another. Marie-Laure Ryan uses similar computational language when she talks of “metaleptic machines” that produce secondary worlds (Ryan, 2006, pp. 204–230). For instance, she explains that we now have algorithms that can rapidly produce fictions with their own physics and lifeblood, which encourages “interpenetration” between primary and secondary worlds. Storyworld The constructed, sensual world in which the events of a story take place, which can be fictional or non-fictional. Also known as diegesis.

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In contrast to fictional or secondary worlds, a storyworld can be fictional or nonfictional or have components of both. The storyworld is the constructed, sensation-filled world in which the events of a story take place, and it is also known as the “diegesis” of a text (Genette, 1980). Wholly unfamiliar storyworlds may require a reader or player to adapt to a new environment and its rules. Familiar storyworlds, such as those of popular franchises like Star Wars, save the recipient a great deal of cognitive load by having the same world serve as a backdrop for many different stories (Ryan and Thon, 2014). Storyworlds afford specific genre tropes; a high school on Mars would imply themes of adolescence and the isolation of an inhospitable planet. A vampire-dominated urban area implies a predator-prey dynamic and shadowy conspiracies. A bunker in the post-nuclear computer RPG (CRPG) Fallout (1997) suggests themes of safety and survival amid a dangerous post-nuclear environment and the remains of the past. Storyworlds typically embrace some type of mythology or lore and an internal logic that explain why some things in the world happen while others do not. For example, in the CRPG series Dragon Age (2009), you can play as mage elves or Templar humans (among other things), and the explanation of how magic, religion, and races relate is part of the game’s mythology. Similar to the concept of “backstory,” literary scholars speak of the “backworld” of a storyworld, which encompasses the information or history of events that led up to the “present” state of a world or the “unseen story that informs all of your characters’ decisions and actions” (Weiland, 2009, para. 7). This could include anything from the construction of Hogwarts in the Harry Potter universe (Rowling, 1997–) to the first unleashing of the Reapers in the Mass Effect CRPG series (2007–). It is the world that existed prior to how the world functions in some fictive “now” state, usually fixed by a particular canonical story. A backworld may be revealed directly or indirectly, and it may or may not be explicit within stories. The CRPG Demon’s Souls (2009) is an example of a non-explicit backworld. Oftentimes, it is established to maintain consistency, continuity, and provide a rationale for the “current” state of the world as well as motivators for its characters. If a backworld is not established right away, it may need to be created or activated later, a process called “retcon” or retroactive continuity (Wolf, 2012). Possible World Emerging from the realms of logic and philosophy, a possible world is a version of our world that may or may not exist in a broader multiverse. Many possible worlds include the use of alternate histories, geographies, and scientific laws. The use of logical conjecture and the imagination of cause-effect relations are pivotal in possible world creation as the natural consequences that we’d surmise about a given alternative state of affairs also govern the main points of difference in the world from our own. Possible worlds may adopt the veneer of scientific, logical accuracy, although they are no freer of prevailing social ideologies than any other human creation.

The concept of “possible worlds” emerges from logic and philosophy; it involves proposed versions of our world that may or may not exist in a broader multiverse or multiple universes that exist side-by-side (Pavel, 1986; Menzel, 2016). Possible worlds are mostly like ours but have something slightly different about them. These things could be infinitesimal, such as a coffee cup shifted slightly to the left, or cosmic, such as having 28 planets in our solar system. In philosophy, the use of logical conjecture and imagination around cause-effect relations allows one to picture the rippling butterfly effects of this proposed difference. Though such worlds could be posited as more “logical” or scientific, they are no freer of prevailing social ideologies than other human creations.

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Virtual World A virtual world is a simulated environment that can be experienced by one or more users. Virtual worlds are typically associated with computer graphical representation of topography, motion, and figures, with which a user has at least limited interaction. Also associated with the connectivity of the Internet and multiple, simultaneous inhabitation by multiple users who can communicate with one another.

A virtual world is a simulated environment that can be experienced by one or more users (­Bartle, 2004). Virtual worlds are typically associated with computer-generated, mostly audiovisual representations of spaces, with objects and actors with which a user has at least limited interaction. However, as the typically text-based Multi-User Dungeons (MUDs) demonstrate, virtual worlds can also be simulated in other forms. Today, many virtual worlds use computing and networking capabilities to be persistent and multiuser: the world continues to exist and evolve, even if we exit it, and it can be simultaneously inhabited by multiple users. Transmedia Storytelling The act of consciously telling a story across multiple platforms. A transmedia storyteller will often assume that the participant/consumer of the fiction will have gleaned some details about the storyworld and its characters from some other platform.

Transmedia stories are stories told across multiple media, such as television shows, books, video games, websites, and on-the-ground events. Transmedia stories, which are “told across these platforms, interlock and interlace—if you remove one platform, you do not just remove one story element or one character, but you remove a portion of the overall experience” (Schrier, 2016, p. 1). For example, The Matrix (1999–2003) is told across three movies, an animated series, comics, and video games. Although each component tells a standalone story, the stories together create a transmedia experience that is greater than the sum of its parts and provide new perspectives to each standalone story. Along these lines, the term “transmedia world” refers to fictional worlds that invite audiences to experience them across multiple platforms or media formats ( Jenkins, 2006). Together, transmedia storytelling and worldbuilding involve consciously telling a story and building a world across multiple platforms. A major challenge for transmedia storytellers is that each audience member will come into a particular story with different amounts of knowledge about the general storyworld and its characters and may continue to learn more about the storyworld from other media in the future. Effective transmedia stories create, stem from, or contribute to a holistic transmedia storyworld but remain self-contained and satisfying on their own ( Jenkins, 2006; Rutledge, 2011). Transmedia World A storyworld that exists across multiple platforms, such as games, comics, and television. Examples of popular transmedia universes include Star Wars and the Marvel universe but can also include any number of role-playing products, such as Dungeons & Dragons. Although the stories within the transmedia world differ, the general timeframe and space of the world remains constant and requires extensive, fictional, multimedia elaboration and documentation.

Klastrup and Tosca (2004, 2016) have teased out three important elements standard to all fictional worlds: mythos, topos, and ethos. Mythos is the “backstory of all backstories—the central knowledge one needs to have in order to interact with or interpret events in the world successfully”

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(Klastrup and Tosca, 2004, p. 412). A world has a strong mythos when the central conflicts, figures, rumors, creatures, and objects of note reinforce each other. In the world of Cyberpunk 2020 (Pondsmith, 1990), for example, a timeline walks the readers through technological advancements and waypoints of social decay and corporate dominance year by year. 2020, the current year of the storyworld, then becomes the year that high technology meets social decay and corporate dominance. Topos describes the “setting of the world in a specific historical period and detailed geography. … From the player’s perspective, we can say that knowing the topos is knowing what is to be expected from the physics of and navigation in the world” (Klastrup and Tosca, 2004, p. 412). The TRPG The 13th Age (2013), for example, contains a glossy full-colored map of the Dragon Empire, clustered around the Midland Sea and bordered by the Iron Sea. As Klastrup and Tosca note, “the actual space and time of an actualization of the transmedial world can be changed, but the general space and time of the universe is normally unchangeable” (Klastrup and Tosca, 2004, p. 412). While steampunk worlds may evolve, inhabitants of these worlds cannot jump ahead in time 150 years to see future advances from steampunk technology for doing so would destroy the internal consistency of the world. Ethos delineates the “good and bad” elements of the world, a “form of knowledge required in order to know how to behave in the world” (Klastrup and Tosca, 2004, p. 412). In our world, for example, euthanasia is often frowned upon. In the dystopia of Logan’s Run (1976), however, euthanasia is called “Carousel” and is ritualized when citizens turn 30. Ethos defines the grounds for internal character struggle over moral issues within any narratives that would take place within the world. For instance, in the Star Wars universe, Luke Skywalker must not succumb to the Dark Side of the Force. “Color” describes the richness and quality of detail that helps the audience to more fully believe that a created world is an actual world they can embody and embrace (Edwards, 2003). The more color, the more others are able to imagine and co-envision the world and to also empathize with its characters and situations. Color is present in both explicit ways, such as specific character tags in Spirit of the Century (2006) and other FATE games, and in implicit, less direct, and unstructured ways, such as in the description of objects or characters. Apart from fleshing a world out and making it believable, color is also crucial in evoking mood, emotions, and caring.

Worldbuilding and RPGs Worldbuilding is often an integral component of RPGs, whether conducted by designers, players, or both in tandem. Game designers and game masters are worldbuilders by definition, fleshing out a fictional world in code, words, or physical props. In some RPGs, players are inextricably involved in the worldbuilding such that the game only exists once the world is created by its players. Why is worldbuilding so important to RPGs? Player immersion in a secondary world— rather than cognitive estrangement from either it or our own—is a common motivator and aesthetic ideal of RPGs (Murray, 1997; Calleja, 2011; Torner and White, 2012; Wolf, 2013). Referring back to Saler’s (2012) notion of worldbuilding as re-enchantment, both analog and digital role-players try to actively and willingly “trick [themselves] into creating interesting things” (Ravachol, 2013), thanks to well-engineered design techniques that support such immersion. For instance, adventures are often written in the second-person, a time-honored

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method of situating the players themselves (beyond their characters) in the secondary world (Cover, 2010, p. 107). Klastrup and Tosca (2004) argue that storyworlds rely on semiotic and narrative cues to immerse the player. To feel authentic, they require a certain degree of fidelity to both our own world (in terms of physics, the look of flora and fauna, etc.) and “core elements of the ur-world,” the original setting of the story universe, to make immersion work (Klastrup and Tosca, 2004, p. 415). As Jessie Verino (2010) frames it, worldbuilding is also about creating a hospitable space: Worldbuilding is so much more than creating a planet in a galaxy far, far away. Writers must take the foreign, the alien, the unfamiliar, and make it resonate with readers. Readers should feel welcome in the world created, not like an outsider or spectator. They need to identify with the characters, be they humanoid, demon, angel, vampire, were, or an alien form of life. Simply stated, the writer must make the unbelievable believable. How do we design these new worlds in an immersive, believable manner? The process of creating a world and its stories, characters, and “worldness,” or the trait of its feeling like a world, is complex and involves many layers of production, interactions among people, and iteration. The goal of worldbuilding is to establish and define the context for a story or set of stories, regardless of how they will be told (e.g. through a book, game, or larp). Other goals of worldbuilding are establishing the consistency and reliability of the stories, particularly to establish the world’s trustworthiness, and it is also to provide a sense of immersion and engagement for the audience. Different forms of RPGs incorporate and approach worldbuilding differently, particularly in terms of who does the worldbuilding—designer/writer, player, or both. We will now summarize the different major RPG forms and how each form typically delegates or establishes worldbuilding.

The RPG Player as Worldbuilder RPGs always concern the agency of the player (→ Chapter 27). Some games intend the player to have full agency over world creation as well. In a “bottom-up” approach, designers provide the initial components of the world or give prompts and rules for creation, but the players ultimately discuss and co-create the world collectively, either in the course of gameplay or as the core of gameplay itself. A world is built each time a new version of the game is played, or a world is shaped over time and over many plays of the game such that the ultimate world that is generated has evolved well past the initial sketches. As examples of RPGs with worldbuilding as the central activity, consider Microscope and The Quiet Year. Microscope (2011) calls itself a “fractal role-playing game of epic histories.” This TRPG situates worldbuilding as a collective activity across temporal dimensions: players create a chain of events and then “zoom in” and “zoom out” of specific scenes as they define and experience a sweeping epic history out of chronological order. The flexible temporality of the game humanizes the events on the timeline, allowing the players to remain in suspense about the outcomes and ripple effects of events small and large in their secondary world. Microscope thus actively engages with possible worlds (Doležel, 2000) and their interplay with contingency and necessity (Singles, 2013).

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Similarly, The Quiet Year (2013) takes the often lonely activity of mapmaking and gives it a twist. Players play out a year of a community trying to survive after the fall of civilization, watching and reacting as the events of the year take their toll. Play is initiated through the drawing of a map of the community, and elements are added as opportunities and crises turn up. Horizons of possibility can radically shift with one illustration or another, with players capable of introducing a drought or rabid war weasels under the same category of “threat.” But at any time, players can take a Contempt token that signals discomfort with any other player’s (or character’s) decision. Contempt tokens can later be spent on selfish actions. This has the effect of producing fallout for worldbuilding decisions that do not align with the spirit of the group. Peter Molyneux’s Dungeon Keeper (1997) is an example of a worldbuilding CRPG in which players carve out a dungeon and populate it with monsters to protect its treasure from invading heroes.

RPGs as Richly Created Worlds In other RPGs, worldbuilding is a top-down process. A designer or group of designers creates the world from high concept to detailed settings and non-player characters (NPCs). Storylines, plots, and possible sequences of events may be more or less rigidly pre-scripted. A good example is Richard Bartle’s virtual worlds model, which is based on MUDs and was later applied to MORPGs. In Bartle’s model, virtual worlds are constituted by “codebases” (Bartle, 2004, p. 32) that enable players to engage with a pre-created world, based on their different motivations. While player contingency and different motivations should be accounted for in design decisions, responsibility for the world’s consistency ultimately rests on the shoulders of its creators. Examples of this type of richly created world, which a player then inhabits, include games such as those in the Final Fantasy (1987–), Fallout (1997–), World of Warcraft (2004–), and Fable (2004) series. While many games can be modded (modified by the player) to some extent, and player actions and behaviors may change the world, the game’s diegesis, mythology, and main characters have been pre-established by the designers. MORPGs and CRPGs tend toward top-down authorial worldbuilding, with a tight rein on player input. World of Warcraft may have its modding culture around “Add-ons” and the ability to establish subcultures through guilds. However, in World of Warcraft, monsters are reset, the environment remains static, and little player input within the game itself can contribute to or expand upon the world already created. Espen Aarseth has described it as “essentially hollow, a multicolored shell with a hard, static surface and no inner substance to speak of ” (Aarseth, 2008, pp. 111–112). Likewise, Mass Effect features a richly detailed universe, with its own in-game history encyclopedia, complex set of character backstories, and founding myths related to the player-character by the game’s NPCs. Part of the game’s narrative suspense involves uncovering further secrets about past fictional civilizations. Players choose their character’s interpretations of those secrets. TRPGs, online freeform, and larps, on the other hand, grant more direct worldbuilding agency to the game master and players. Without requiring massive coordination between programmers, graphic artists, and storytellers, these analog and freeform digital games can more easily incorporate player input and spin it into the fiber of the world being collectively built (Cover, 2010). Larps such as The Intrepid Seven (2016) have characters terraforming a new planet during the larp, showing how worldbuilding itself can be incorporated into live-action

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play. TRPGs such as Empire of the Petal Throne (1975) or Children of the Sun (2002) place heavy emphasis on player-characters engaging deeply with the world, but that does not prevent them from changing it during play, given consent at the table.

RPGs with Player/Designer Co-Creation While every game is, to some extent, a co-creation between player and designer, some games are specifically designed to balance their worldbuilding aspects between players and designers. For example, in the MORPG Landmark (2016), players can create buildings, levels, and challenges for other players to encounter. Landmark takes advantage of the key features of specific genre worlds—futuristic taverns for space operas, epic castles for wuxia—and allows players to develop and expand on them. Nicholas G. Cragoe (2016) compares mythmaking in folk narratives and RPG games played place face-to-face (generally TRPG and larp). He argues that unlike in folk narratives, where the story is dictated, in RPGs, the game master or storyteller is a facilitator who helps co-­create the world with the players, who play an active role in performing the story. This difference may be indicative of Western world values of individualism, where these RPGs are popular, as they provide more agency and individuality to the participants and greater flexibility and collective participation in the mythmaking (Cragoe, 2016).

Components of Worldbuilding in RPGs Regardless of where you start while creating a new world—a map, guidebook, the mythology, the characters, or the gameplay—worlds themselves should be expansive, rich with detail, and ripe for telling stories. These stories do not need to be tied to a specific platform but should be drawn from the world’s core canon (Dowd, 2013). The following are some possible components of building a new world, with a short description of each as applied to RPGs.

Core Canon The core canon includes the official elements that make up your world, which are agreed upon by the makers and the audience/fans. Canon is always a negotiation. According to Dowd and colleagues (2013), We talk about canon (official elements of the universe)—this is a case where this particular fact was originally part of the official story, but was cut, and because of its inclusion in the novelization—the official adaptation of the motion picture—is viewed by many fans as ‘canon’. (Section IV) RPG worldbuilding influences this process. Star Wars: The Role-Playing Game (1987) by West End Games, for example, took the liberty of embellishing on and inventing new universe details in that franchise. It later became a story bible for Timothy Zahn in writing the beloved Heir to the Empire trilogy (1991), which, in turn, canonized figures such as Grand Admiral Thrawn and

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Mara Jade among fans. RPGs that take place in certain fictional worlds, such as Middle-earth (1917), rely on the core canon of specific non-RPG books to dictate what is and is not possible in them. But other games, such as College of Wizardry (2014) or Glorantha (1966), create worlds specifically to be used by their corresponding games, establishing core canons by way of hundreds of pages of description and illustration in the main rule books. On the one hand, publishers of RPG titles perform a gatekeeping role with respect to what counts as core canon: fans of Palladium Books titles such as RIFTS (1990) could not publish their own content, and BioWare CRPGs do not let fans dictate components of Dragon Age (2009). On the other hand, player interpretation plays such a large role in the reception of RPGs that one might say the impact of core canon is lessened from other fandoms. Bailey writes, “RPGs are by their nature varying and modular. Trying to lock them down to a consistent set of facts is disrespectful to players and painful for everybody…” (Bailey, 2010, para. 3). Yet Bailey suggests that having a consistent setting and agreed upon facts and principles helps everyone stay focused and connected, particularly when there are so many people with so many different roles and perspectives (Bailey, 2010). Jason Mittell (2015) argues that the very act of interpreting and establishing the canon from these different perspectives may even be part of what engages people in this world. Canon, and establishing it, is essential, even for worlds that are not derivative of any previous worlds or creations. For instance, in any games from the Glorantha fantasy setting, the play experience is greatly enhanced by knowledge of the world’s mythology and politics, so one can know the significance of, say, the invasion of Sartar’s lands by the Lunar Empire. College of Wizardry establishes Czocha Castle in Poland as a major hub of magical activity, delineating both the parts of the world that most certainly resemble the Harry Potter universe and the others that necessarily diverge.

Fringe In addition to the canon, there are also works, stories, and sources that are semi-canon — as in some people/audience members accept it as canon, and others do not—and also fringe, which are typically told through unofficial channels (zines, fan blogs, forums). Examples include the backstories of certain guilds in World of Warcraft or the widespread impact of a regional Mind’s Eye Society Vampire: The Masquerade (Rein-Hagen, 1992) event. Some information may overlap with the canon; some may be conspiracy theories and so-called insider information that has not yet been vetted by the community; and some may be fan fiction that is oblique or purposefully counter to the canon, such as a fan community’s developing materials where two characters are in a relationship that would be impossible in the canon. However, established canon more generally becomes worldbuilding fodder for others. TRPG-inspired literary worlds, such as Dragonlance (1984), transform into wikis explaining the canonical physics of the Silver Arm of Ergoth or the deep culture of the kender.

Metatexts Beyond the texts that stem from the world itself, such as books, web content, or game narratives, there are extra-diegetic texts that can be used to describe or visualize the world in question. These are called meta-texts and can be created by the designers/worldbuilders, fans/ audience, or both. This could include, for example, a wiki or collaborative online encyclopedia (Wikipedia) for the world itself (such as Fringeopedia, Dragon Age wiki). It could include

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a map to the world, such as the large map included in the Fallout guide, or a collaboratively drawn map of Skyrim. It could also be a timeline that is created by one fan or many, or even the designers, as they try to organize all of the major plot points that happen in a world. The world “metatext” comes from literature and literary theory and can be locational such that it points to itself or parts of the text (e.g. “in the next section, we will discuss…”), or it can be rhetorical, which refers to the act of research or writing done by the author (e.g. “in this paper, we will argue that…”) (Thonney, 2016). The metatext breaks away and is the commentary on top of a text. In this way, the world and its texts are multilayered. Metatext typically has five characteristics (McGee): • • •

•

•

It is self-referential in that it refers to itself as being a text and as being a text about a text. It breaks the fourth wall, or speaks directly to the community; is from the community; or does not come directly from the fictive world but is from our own world. It blurs the boundaries between the fictive world and our own real world by focusing on those ways that they interact with each other. For example, it might point out the boundaries of the fictive world (through a map) or explain how characters in the world might look like people in the real world. The narrator in these texts is constantly interrupting and being involved in the process of creating itself rather than letting the story unfold. The narrator, and his/her intent, matters because it is the insight you get into how they are interpreting the fictive world. Finally, it is constantly explaining its own medium, whether it is a map, guide, timeline, or other artifact.

World Book or Story “Bible” In the creation of transmedia, a so-called story Bible is imperative in documenting—and thus establishing—the world. With RPGs, however, the world can manifest differently across different media. Images, embedded fiction, and near-encyclopedic pages of taxonomy and description portray the worlds of most TRPGs. Such material can usually be found in the “core” book of a game, but inevitably, supplement books and campaign modules flesh out the imaginary world even more. CRPGs and MORPGs, by contrast, mostly permit players to know about the world by exploring it virtually with their avatar. Occasional games, such as Mass Effect, contain codexes with detailed meta-level world information, but many games, such as Dragon Quest (1986), have very little explaining the backstory, objects, and location of the world. Thus, CRPG and MORPG worldbuilding tends to be sensual with respect to player-characters. The opposite is true of most larps: worldbuilding happens in books and sprawling PDFs containing outlines of the advantages or disadvantages of playing specific character types, lists of different available weapons, and outlines of how specific cultures might behave. Although high-budget larps, such as College of Wizardry, may be able to create a close to 360° illusion of a wizard school by holding it in a Polish castle, most larps rely on players knowing of and referring to items present on so-called blue sheets or extra-diegetic documents explaining aspects of a world key to player experience.

The Creative-Interpretive Community Because the world itself is fictitious, it is strange to think that some parts of it could even be a fiction to that fiction. But there are governing rules of worlds that should not be broken.

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The creative-interpretive community sifts through the canon, semi-canon, and fringe to create meaning. The interpretive community that interacts with and responds to a fictional role-playing world is similar to that of literature. In literature, the interpretive community reads and responds to literature and imbues it with meaning—we cannot escape the cultural frames and values of our time and perspective. Each text or world is created with “authorial intent,” but the community of readers also constructs those meanings as well (Fish, 1980). In RPGs, the interpretive community provides culturally constructed meaning as well as homegrown micro-narratives, side stories, perspectives, and characters, which can affect how the world is perceived and potentially change the world itself. For instance, in larps, the fictional world is co-shaped by the players, and the fictional world does not even emerge without players playing the game and shaping how the world gets realized (­Linderoth, 2012). In the horror RPG Call of Cthulhu (Chaosium, 1981), the premise stems from the worlds created through Lovecraft’s writing on imaginary beasts, such as Cthulhu, and uses basic role-playing rules. But individual players can, for example, fill in information about their characters’ backstories, traits, injuries, phobias, and treasured possessions. How players describe and interpret their roles and then enact them in the game contributes significantly to the Cthulhu world that gets co-created through each instance of play. Likewise, in ­D ungeons & Dragons, local game master or “house rules” for playing the game can influence how the game is played and how the world of Dungeons & Dragons is realized at a particular table. There are also different aspects of RPGs that can be interpreted, such as the drama of the game (narrative meaning and story); the game challenges, obstacles, balancing, and win conditions; and simulation or the consistency of the events, rules, and activities of the game as they emerge (Kim, 2008).

Closing Thoughts Worldbuilding brings up many questions essential to understanding humanity. For instance, how does creating a fictional world, and playing as a member of this novel world, enable us to see our own real world in a new way? In the process of creating other worlds, the act of worldbuilding also reveals something about us. As the editors of the Journal of Digital Humanities write, What can we learn from the creation and exploration of a virtual world? The impulse to create imagined spaces occupies a longstanding tradition in the humanities. Whether it be Plato’s Cave or Mount Olympus or Yoknapatawpha, virtual landscapes hold out the promise to expand our human capacities to create, to imagine, and to analyze beyond our physical constraints. (Editors, 2014, para. 1) What we choose to build, and how we choose to explore it through a role, suggests something about who we are and how we dream.

Summary In this chapter, we have explored the complexity of worldbuilding in RPGs. We have discussed its origins in literary practices and discussed how it forms an integral part of RPGs,

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both in their creation and their play. One of the fundamental ideas is that a certain amount of worldbuilding is necessary in order for players to collaboratively make sense of and understand the gameworld they are participating in collectively co-creating. There are different models for worldbuilding: some provide all of the creative agency to the players, others are primarily in the hands of game designers and game masters, while a third group attempts to balance both.

Further Reading Bartle, Richart. 2004. Designing Virtual Worlds. Indianapolis, IN: New Riders Publishing. Harrigan, Pat and Noah Wardrip-Fruin. 2009. Third Person: Authoring and Exploring Vast Narratives. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Saler, Michael. 2012. As If: Modern Enchantment and the Literary Prehistory of Virtual Reality. New York: Oxford University Press. Wolf, Mark J.P. 2012. Building Imaginary Worlds: The Theory and History of Subcreation. New York: Routledge.

References Aarseth, Espen. 2008. “A Hollow World: World of Warcraft as Spatial Practice.” In Digital Culture, Play and Identity: A World of Warcraft Reader. Hilde G. Corneliussen and Jill Walker Rettberg, (eds). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Bailey, Rose. 2010. “Canon, Setting, and Transmedia.” Fantasy Heartbreaker. http://blog.fantasyheart breaker.com/2010/10/01/canon-setting-and-transmedia/. Bainbridge, William Sims. 2009. “Online Multiplayer Games.” Synthesis Lectures on Information Concepts, Retrieval, and Sciences. 1(1): 1–113. Barker, M.A.R. 1975. Empire of the Petal Throne. Lake Geneva, WI: TSR Inc. Bartle, Richard A. 2004. Designing Virtual Worlds. Indianapolis, IN: New Riders Publishing. Benton, M. 1983. “Secondary Worlds.” Journal of Research and Development in Education. 16(3): 68–75. Benton, M. 1992. Secondary Worlds: Literature Teaching and the Visual Arts. Philadelphia: Open University Press. Bethesda Softworks. 1994-current. Elder Scrolls Series. Bethesda Softworks. 1997–2015. Fallout Series. BioWare. 2007. Mass Effect. ———. 2009. Dragon Age: Origins. Black Isle Studios. 1997. Fallout: A Post Nuclear Role Playing Game. Blizzard. 2004. World of Warcraft. Brown, Maury and Ben Morrow. 2016. New World Magischola. Charlottesville, VA: Learn Larp, LLC. Bryk, Jacqueline and Evan Torner. 2016. The Intrepid Seven: A Space Colony Diary of a Septad. Calleja, Gordon. 2011. In-Game: From Immersion to Incorporation. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Chaosium, 1981. Call of Cthulhu. Cover, Jennifer Grouling. 2010. The Creation of Narrative in Tabletop Role-Playing Games. Jefferson, NC: McFarland. Cragoe, N. 2016. “Narrative Gaming as Mythmaking.” Games & Culture. 11(6): 583–607. Daybreak Game Company, 2016. Landmark. Doležel, Lubomir. 2000. Heterocosmica: Fiction and Possible Worlds. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Dowd, Tom, Michael Fry, Michael Niederman, and Josef Steiff. 2013. Storytelling across Worlds: Storytelling for Creatives and Producers. New York and London: Taylor & Francis/Focal Press. Dziobak Larp Studios. 2014. College of Wizardry. www.cowlarp.com. Eder, Jens, Fotis Jannidis, and Ralf Schneider. (eds). 2011. Characters in Fictional Worlds. Berlin, Germany: De Gruyter.

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Editors, Journal of Digital Humanities. 2014. “Exploring and Designing Virtual Worlds.” Journal of Digital Humanities. 3(1): Spring. Accessed at: http://journalofdigitalhumanities.org/3-1/exploringand-designing-virtual-worlds/. Edwards, Ron. 2003. “Simulationism: The Right to Dream.” The Forge. www.indie-rpgs.com/articles/15/. Fish, Stanley. 1980. Is There a Text in this Class? The Authority of Interpretative Communities. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. FromSoftware. 2009. Demon’s Souls. Genette, Gérard. 1980. Narrative Discourse. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Heinsoo, Rob and Jonathan Tweet. 2013. The 13th Age. London: Pelgrane Press. Hicks, Fred, Rob Donoghue, and Leonard Balsera. 2006. Spirit of the Century. Evil Hat Games. Horri, Yuji. 1986. Dragon Quest. Square Enix. Jenkins, Henry. 2006. Convergence Culture. New York: New York University Press. Jones, Katherine. 2014. Revived: A Support Group for the Partially Deceased. http://bit.ly/2l4nkzj. Kim, J. 2008. The Threefold Model. Accessed at: www.darkshire.net/~jhkim/rpg/theory/threefold/. Klastrup, Lisbeth and Susana Tosca. 2004. Transmedial Worlds. Rethinking Cyberworld Design. In CW ‘04 Proceedings of the 2004 International Conference on Cyberworlds. Tokyo. Washington: IEEE Computer Society. www.itu.dk/people/klastrup/klastruptosca_transworlds.pdf. Klastrup, Lisbeth and Susana Tosca. 2016. “The Networked Reception of Transmedial Universes. An Experience-centered Approach.” MedieKultur, 107–112. Linderoth, J. 2012. “The Effort of Being in a Fictional World: Upkeyings and Laminated Frames in RPGs. Symbolic Interaction. 35(4): 474–492. Lionhead Studios. 2004. Fable. Logan’s Run. 1976. dir. Michael Anderson. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Mcdaldno, Avery. 2013. The Quiet Year. Buried without Ceremony. Menzel, Christopher. 2016. “Possible Worlds.” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. https://plato.­stanford. edu/entries/possible-worlds/. Mittell, Jason. 2015. Complex TV: The Poetics of Contemporary Television Storytelling. New York: New York University Press. Molyneux, Peter. 1997. Dungeon Keeper. Bullfrog Productions. Murray, Janet. 1997. Hamlet on the Holodeck. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Nagy, G. 2004. “Saving the Myths: The Re-creation of Mythology in Plato and Tolkien.” in Tolkien and the Invention of Myth: A Reader. J. Chance, (ed). Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky. Pavel, Thomas. 1986. Fictional Worlds. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Pondsmith, Mike. 1990. Cyberpunk 2020. 2nd edition. Berkeley, CA: R. Talsorian Games. Ravachol, Epidiah. 2013. What Is a Role-Playing Game? Greenfield, MA: Dig a Thousand Holes Publishing. Rein-Hagen, Mark. 1992. Vampire: The Masquerade. Stone Mountain, GA: White Wolf. Robbins, Ben. 2011. Microscope. Portland, OR: Lame Mage Productions. Rogers, T. 1999. “Literary Theory and Children’s Literature. Interpreting Ourselves and Our Worlds.” Theory into Practice. 38(3): 138–147. Ross, Dan, Joe Carl, and Lewis Pollak. 2002. Children of the Sun. Misguided Games. Rowling, J.K. 1997. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. London: Bloomsbury. Rutledge, Pamela. 2011. Transmedia Storytelling: Neuroscience Meets Ancient Practices. http://mprcenter.org/ blog/2011/05/16/transmedia-storytelling-neuroscience-meets-ancient-practices/. Ryan, Marie Laure. 2006. Avatars of Story. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. ——— and Jan-Noël Thon. (eds). 2014. Storyworlds across Media: Toward a Media-Conscious Narratology. Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press. Saler, Michael. 2012. As If: Modern Enchantment and the Literary Prehistory of Virtual Reality. New York: Oxford University Press. Schrier, K. 2016. “Guest Editorial Preface: Special Issue on Transmedia and Games.” International Journal of Gaming and Computer-Mediated Simulations. 8(2): April–June 2016. Singles, Kathleen. 2013. Alternate History. Berlin and Boston: Walter De Gruyter.

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Smith, Gillian. 2015. “An Analog History of Procedural Content Generation.” Proceedings of the 2015 Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games. Monterey, CA, June 22–25. ———. 1966. Glorantha. Issaries Inc. Stafford, Greg. 2010. King Arthur: Pendragon. Houston, TX: Nocturnal Media. Thonney, T. 2016. “‘In This Article, I Argue’: An Analysis of Metatext in Research Article Introductions.” Teaching English in the Two Year College; Urbana. 43(4): 411–422. Tolkien, J.R.R. 1939/1947/1965. On Fairy-Stories. In Tree and Leaf (pp. 3–84). London: Allen & Unwin. Torner, Evan and William J. White. (eds). 2012. Immersive Gameplay: Essays on Participatory Media and Role-Playing. Jefferson, NC: McFarland. Verino, J. 2010. Fundamentals of Worldbuilding. L&L Dreamspell. von Stackelberg, P. 2011. Creating Transmedia Narratives: The Structure and Design of Stories Told across Multiple Media. Master’s Thesis, SUNY Institute of Technology. Accessed at: https://talking objects.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/thesis-by-peter-von-stackelberg.pdf. Wachowski, Lana and Lilly. 1997–2003. The Matrix Trilogy. Film series. New Line Cinema. Wardrip-Fruin, Noah. 2014. “An Introduction to Alex McDowell’s World Building.” Journal of Digital Humanities. 3(1). http://journalofdigitalhumanities.org/3-1/an-introduction-to-alex-mcdowells-worldbuilding-by-noah-wardrip-fruin/. Weiland, K.M. 2009. Subtext. The art of backstory. Accessed at: www.movieoutline.com/articles/­ subtext-the-art-of-backstory.html. Weis, Margaret and Tracy Hickman. 1984. Dragonlance: Dragons of Autumn Twilight. Lake Geneva, WI: TSR. West End Games. 1987. Star Wars: The Role-Playing Game. Wolf, Mark J.P. 2012. Building Imaginary Worlds: The Theory and History of Subcreation. New York: Routledge. Wolf, Werner. 2013. “Aesthetic Illusion.” In Immersion and Distance: Aesthetic Illusion in Literature and Other Media. Werner Wolf, Walter Bernhart, and Andreas Mahler, (eds). Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1–66. Zahn, T. 1991. Heir to the Empire. New York: Bantam Spectra.

21 Role-Playing Games as Subculture and Fandom Esther MacCallum-Stewart and Aaron Trammell

This chapter examines role-playing games (RPGs) as a subculture and fan activity. We first define some of the key terms needed to understand these ideas, providing a brief overview of relevant schools of thought and linking these theories to RPGs. Then we look at how and where subcultural and fan practices take place and discuss whether RPG communities identify themselves as a subculture or not. We will reflect on how the things that fans produce and the ways they communicate with each other give examples of how RPGs have permeated gaming and popular cultures (→ Chapter 9). We also discuss some of the problems inherent in this relationship: for example, the relationships of fans to their objects of fandom and their producers are often difficult. We suggest that fans of RPGs are defined by their subcultural practices – the things they create as a result of their fandom – and that the subculture itself is defined by its fans and their desires. Furthermore, we will discuss whether the relatively mainstream position of RPGs, both in gaming and geek culture, still allows them to qualify as a subculture. Unease in fan communities, seen through the toxicity of movements like #gamergate but also in the rise of ‘geek chic’ and aggressive ‘pro-gamer’ products, like Felicia Day’s video ‘I’m The One That’s Cool’ (Whedon and Day 2012), suggest that gaming subculture has broadened to such a point that it has destabilised. It seems that the fandom of gaming, including that of RPGs, is large and too disparate to unite within one small remit. Defining and understanding the relationship of fans/ subcultures to RPGs is therefore important, even if this means that they need to be regarded in a wider context.

Subcultures and RPGs Sub-cultures must exhibit a distinctive enough shape and structure to make them identifiably different from their ‘parent’ culture. They must be focused around certain activities, values, certain uses of material artefacts, territorial spaces etc. which significantly differentiate them from the wider culture. But, since they are subsets, there must also be significant things that bind and articulate them with the ‘parent’ culture…. Sub-cultures, therefore, take shape around the distinctive activities and ‘focal concerns’ of groups.

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They can be loosely or tightly bounded. Some sub-cultures are merely loosely-defined strands or ‘milieux’ within the parent culture: they possess no distinctive ‘world’ of their own. Others develop a clear, coherent identity and structure. (Clarke et al. 1975: 13–14) For a subculture to exist, one must be able to cite networks of communication through which common information is transmitted. Second, one needs to show that [RPG] gamers identify themselves as a group and as sharing a subculture. Finally, the subsociety must be identified as such by those outside of the group, which increases the perception of common interests of the group members and increases solidarity (Fine 1983: 26) Subcultural studies began in the late 1920s, with sociologists investigating gangs as carriers of deviance – behaviour that deviates from recognised social norms and provokes negative reactions in response, like crime. These initial studies explained deviance as a result of gang members’ sharing alternative norms different from those of ‘normal’ society – a subculture (e.g. Cohen 1955). In 1979, Dick Hebdige’s Subcultures: The Meaning of Style (1979) shifted this to a predominantly Marxist interpretation of subcultural practices as (symbolic) resistance to the norms of mainstream culture. In 1995, Sarah Thornton’s examination of clubbing cultures extended this work, defining subcultures as distinctive and also porous, allowing members to move in and out of them more smoothly, and engaging with them in a more temporal manner. Overall, studies have tended to see subcultures as apart from the mainstream, gradually veering towards an acceptance of these groups as different rather than frightening. Within the academic study of games, RPGs as a subculture has been a popular and lasting subject for some time. Early studies examined the tabletop RPG (TRPG) in terms of their players and history (Holmes 1981), sociality (Fine 1983), and as a performative text (Mackay 2001). These perspectives are important because they placed the early analysis of RPGs firmly within a sociological framework, focusing on the players and the contexts of play. Jon Eric Holmes’s book is largely descriptive, giving a broad overview of RPG gaming and its history and meaning in the wider cultural sphere. However, Gary Alan Fine’s Shared Fantasy studies player behaviour and activities specifically. He firmly identifies TRPGs (then often called ‘Fantasy Role-Play Games’ (FRP)) as a subcultural practice that should be studied as such and highlights common trends within RPG subcultures, such as shared ‘cant, in-jokes and common expressions’ (28). In The Language of Gaming, Astrid Ensslin (2012) describes such shared forms of communication as ‘buddylect’ (Ensslin 87–96). The shared observations of each text are important as they demonstrate a lasting subcultural trend over nearly thirty years of gaming communities. These typical forms of shared discourse can also be seen through acts like wearing ribbons with comments or jokes at conventions to signal to others that subcultural behaviour is being practiced. These kinds of activities are well established and continue today. Mackay elaborates on subcultural behaviour by discussing the RPG as a performative text. He understands the formation of a subculture around TRPGs predominantly through an expanded version of Erving Goffman’s frame analysis (1974). Within this framework, he describes TRPGs as forming subcultures through the creation of games played by small groups of people (Mackay 2001: 3) and then subsequently through their performances at gaming conventions (69–73). The behaviour he observes is of players performing: for themselves, for

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their groups, and at conventions. These groups are not isolationist subcultures and instead deliberately reach out to other RPG players beyond the remit of private spaces. These early studies helped to identify subcultural activities and practices as a key element of studies concerning RPGs.

Fandom and RPGs To define fan is a fraught activity, but generally, a fan is taken to be someone who engages within a subculture organized around a specific object of study, be it Star Trek, science fiction literature, Sherlock Holmes, anime, comics, gaming, or sports. Fans engage in a range of activities related to their passion: they write derivative literature called fan fiction, they create artworks, they write what’s known as meta (analyses of fandom itself, or analysis of analysis), they play role-playing games, they blog, they make fan vids, and they organize and attend conventions. Not least, they create and pass along a culture, with its attendant rules of behavior and acceptability. (Hellekson 2009) At the core of fan studies, a label loosely applied to scholarly work that examines fan practices and culture, lies the question of what, or rather who, is a fan. Karen Hellekson’s definition identifies three criteria: fans are fans of something; they engage in activities related to this thing; and they create and pass along a culture that lays down behavioural codes and social practices, which are often informed by this thing. There are similarities with the idea of a subculture because the fan is part of a niche group who evolve their own social practices, dress in a certain way, and formulate an exclusive discourse related to the object that they are a fan of. For many scholars, fans are identified by their tendency to produce or in a visible manner share content that demonstrates knowledge of the fannish subject and a personal identification with it: for example, someone who posts on an online forum, wears a T-shirt, or goes to a convention about their chosen subject. Both Marxist and consumerist readings of fan culture agree that the extensive market that surrounds and supports fans enables them to practice being fans with relative ease.

What Are Fan Studies? Fan studies scholars have frequently focused on science fiction and fantasy (SFF) fandom. Very early research also looked at sports fans, but, like the studies around subcultures, it often tended to regard fans in a negative light: as out of control and obsessive. Joli Jensen notes that the media often capitalises on these negative stereotypes, seeing fans as either part of a hysterical crowd or as obsessive loners, and that this characterisation is a deliberate act of societal control: ‘Defining disorderly and emotional fan display as excessive allows the celebration of all that is orderly or unemotional’ ( Jensen in Lewis 1992: 24). However, this has changed, and fans are now usually studied in relation to their social interactions and outputs rather than their perceived behaviours. One of the most influential fan studies scholars is Henry Jenkins. In his book Textual Poachers (1992), Jenkins uses Michel De Certeau’s somewhat derogatory notion of ‘textual poaching’ to describe how fans take (poach) an original text and repurpose it for their own

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ends: “Readers are travellers; they move across lands belonging to someone else, like nomads poaching their way across fields they did not write, despoiling the wealth of Egypt to enjoy it for themselves.” (De Certeau 1984: 174) Jenkins argues that fans can only create work retrospectively, after the core text has been finalised. Thus, fans are not always listened to by the people who produce the works of fannish attention as they are not seen as relevant. To some extent, this means that they are exploited – by both the consumerist market that aims to make them consume fannish products and by producers, who use fans to disseminate their own works without attribution, recognition, or payment. However, fans are able to use this dynamic to their own ends via textual poaching. Jenkins argues that fandom is a method for expressing dissention because ‘fans construct their cultural and social identity through borrowing and inflecting mass culture images, articulating concerns which often go unvoiced within the dominant media’ (1992: 23). Jenkins’s subsequent work has continued to pinpoint moments of struggle between media producers and media fans in an effort to consider points when fans have led to successful shifts in the ideologies of production, and how this has changed over time (2006a). Jenkins now sees fans as strong influencers, but they remain less powerful than their own self-perception might suggest ( Jenkins 199). His writing on fans also focuses on how they produce and tell stories across media (‘transmedia’) ( Jenkins 2007) and how they bring different media together to produce more all-encompassing texts (‘convergence’) ( Jenkins 2006b). Jenkins’s concept of ‘transmedial storytelling’ encourages storytellers and content producers to create fannish objects in different ways across media and to allow fans to participate at different points and in different ways. A good example of this would be the Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) player who played the online game before sitting around the table for a TRPG adventure or who played an adventure and then sought out a novel set in the same universe. Although fans were initially seen as having very little input into the object of fandom, this relationship has changed significantly over time, especially with the advent of the Internet. Karen Hellekson and Kristina Busse (2006) see fans as ‘early adopters’ of digital technologies as they are often separated geographically and use this technology to share information and ideas. Their work specifically examines the ways in which fans use online technology to support their outputs. David Gauntlett, Clay Shirky, Cornel Sandvoss, and Matt Hills are some of the key scholars examining the new generation of Internet users and producers. Gauntlett (2011) describes creative practices online as empowering, based around ‘co-creativity’ (Prahalad and Ramaswamy 2000), citing the growth of groups with shared interests working together toward a common goal. These people bring their own expertise to bear on each project, allowing highly specialised elements of production to emerge. In Here Comes Everybody, Shirky describes co-creative practice as liberating and revolutionary, capable of fixing social crises and bringing people together in productive, emancipating ways (2008). His examples include those of communities working together to share information and help each other, both on- and offline. Sandvoss’s Fans: The Mirror of Consumption (2005) is more about fans themselves and reaches towards definitions of how they consume and create work. He sees fan consumption as mirroring the self and creating a form of self-identity, which is also reflected in fans’ creative practices online, but his writing is less optimistic in tone. Like Jenkins, Sandvoss (2005) considers the pressures that fans are subjected to as consumers of an aggressive market. Finally, Hills (2010) examines later fandom and unpacks the ‘producer-fan’, a fan who has found themselves in the role of a content producer. He argues that as fandom has developed and

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changed over time, it has also become more empowered. There are now areas in which fans have direct influence over the texts that they are attached to. Hills uses Russell T. Davies, a fan who became the showrunner/executive producer of Doctor Who between 2005 and 2010, as his prime example (Hills 2010). This theory is particularly useful here because the games industry is populated by fans, of both the genre and the individual text, and because games – most specifically TRPGs – allow content creation as an integral part of their makeup. This means that the producer-fan exists on all levels of RPG content creation, from the D&D player crafting their own adventures to writers and designers working on big budget computer RPG (CRPG) games. This type of activity is also often known as ‘co-creativity’ – a process by which fans work alongside developers to produce content.

Fan Practices There is a great deal of overlap between the theories and work examining subcultures and fan studies. This includes some of the critical terms and concepts used as well as studies that assume fans exist within their own subcultures. This chapter therefore accepts the following premises: • • •

RPG fandom is a subculture. Within the subculture of RPG fans, there are specific subcultures and fandoms. Fandoms and subcultures are often seen as interchangeable.

Specific work on RPG players as fans tends to blur with their examination as subcultures: Role-players are seen as both fans of the genre (role-playing) and part of a role-playing subculture that embraces co-creative activity online. This work is often ‘autoethnographic’ as the researchers embed themselves within the fan community and study it from within. Autoethnography is a form of qualitative research in which the author uses a self-­ reflective form of writing to explore and describe their own experience while connecting it to some broader context. It is also used to refer to studies where the author provides insight into a culture they belong to.

Multi-player online RPGs (MORPGs) in particular provided a useful subject because they actively encouraged the formation of communities of play. At the same time, the sheer growth in players participating in online games meant that RPGs became an extremely visible aspect of broader video gaming culture. Key texts here examine the role of the player within subcultural groups and the meaning of gameplay for these people. T.L Taylor’s Play Between Worlds (2006) presents gamers as creators both on- and offline, following their fannish activities and social behaviours through an examination of a guild of EverQuest gamers. Celia Pearce identifies ways in which to study players through an autoethnographic lens, again tracing the behaviour of a group of players in the online puzzle RPG Uru: Ages Beyond Myst and the subsequent migration of the players to other platforms, where they recreated the game (2009). These books set the tone for future writing about players’ fannish practices as an important part of community-building. Both authors ultimately collaborated on Ethnography of Virtual Worlds, which seeks to provide a taxonomy on how to study players and fans within virtual spaces (Boellstorff et al. 2012).

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Box 21.1 In 2012, freelance journalist Lizzie Stark published Leaving Mundania. In it, she details her experience diving into the world of live-action role-play (larp). She examines both the history of the hobby as well as the diversity of its fandom and its uses today. Although she isn’t quite aware of this as she writes it, the book is an interesting perspective on becoming a fan. Although by the end of her narrative, it is clear that Stark is both impressed and amazed by what she’s learned about larping, she still maintains a certain degree of professional distance from the hobby. However, this would quickly change. Stark is now a well-known and respected member of the North American and international larping communities. Not only has she published more books on the subject (e.g. Pocket Guide to American Freeform, 2014), but she is now a larp designer, or larpwright, and helps run conventions and workshops. Her story seems to run counter to the common narrative of the fan who is able to become a professional in their hobby – as a designer or publisher. Stark became a fan after immersing herself in larp for the book she was writing. The book came first, the fan came second.

Games like World of Warcraft (WoW; Blizzard Entertainment 2004 – present) attract millions of players, leading to smaller, niche subcultures forming within them. Thus, we have also seen growth and interest in more specific areas of player practices. For example, Ashley ML Brown’s Sexuality in Roleplaying Games (2015) studies a group of WoW players writing fan fiction to each other, creating role-playing opportunities within an MORPG that seems to have strayed from the imaginative, individual element of role-playing (→ Chapter 25). Similarly, Markus Montola and Jaakko Stenros chart the rise of Nordic larp through a variety of means, including archival photography taken by players at events (2010), and discuss elements such as the broad nature of RPG scenarios that these groups explore. Elsewhere, edited collections, such as Dungeons & Dragons and Philosophy (Robichaud, ed. 2014), Digital Culture, Play and Identity (­Rettburg-Walker and Cornelliussen, eds. 2011), and The Roleplaying Society (ed. Byers and Crocco 2016), examine fannish output or subcultural practices within the remit of a specific text, again seeing these groups as fans or subcultures within the broader church of the ‘RPG’ genre. Elsewhere, the dialogue begun by earlier scholars about the influence of fans over the fannish text is unpacked by authors such as Patrick Prax (2016) and Nicholle Lamerichs (2011), who sound a note of caution against assuming entirely altruistic relations between companies and their fans. Within RPGs and MORPGs, it is common for players to make ‘mods’ (‘modifications’), ‘machinima’ (videos that use footage from the games), or to otherwise broadcast the game in other transmedial places. Prax argues that the use of mods in particular can be exploitative, with companies appropriating elements developed by fans that improve a game, often simply taking these without accreditation. Similarly, Lamerichs argues that the time and effort taken to create a cosplay (costumed play) of an RPG character helps promote that game, with little thanks or reciprocity from the gaming companies (2015).

Framing RPG Subcultures, Fans, and Fandom Gamers and RPG fans are becoming increasingly obvious within the wider sphere of popular culture. Frans Mäyrä (2008) argues that the organisation of players into subcultures is a useful

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way to understand their social and cultural manifestations in a broader context. As the hobby has grown and become more mainstream, so, too, have opportunities for these groups to reach out to one another and publicly share their fandom. Social events, meet-ups, and conventions have allowed the spread of role-playing throughout geek culture and enabled its dissemination beyond this to a wider audience. In this respect, RPG subcultures can be seen as reaching out, both to each other and to new audiences. The growth of ‘outward show’ within RPG cultures, initially observed by Fine (1983), is now a fundamental aspect of RPG fandom and activity. As an example, the growth in attendance at gaming conventions such as Gen Con (USA) and the UK Games Expo shows the willingness of RPG players to express moments of fandom within a public sphere (Law 2016). Similarly, the spread of geek fashion and merchandise, which has grown to support this audience, has a reciprocal effect as it pushes RPGs more visibly into mainstream culture. Supporting this is Hills’s argument that fandom is always performative – that in order to be a fan, a person must be acting out their desires in a visible manner (Hills 2002). The idea of performativity in fans lends itself strongly to RPGs because they are often played collaboratively, with players acting out their roles in some form.

Box 21.2 In the TRPG world, Gen Con and Origins Game Fair are probably the most well-known conventions. Gen Con was founded in 1968 by Gary Gygax as a wargaming convention. Once Gygax had co-created D&D, the emphasis quickly shifted towards TRPGs. Nowadays, Gen Con is held in Indianapolis, Indiana (USA) and features all sorts of RPGs as well as other kinds of games. Origins Game Fair is run by the Game Manufacturer’s Association (GAMA), a trade organisation dedicated to non-electronic games, including TRPGs and larp. It is held annually in Columbus, Ohio (USA) and includes the Origins Awards ceremony, which features several categories for TRPGs and larps. Other notable RPG conventions and gatherings of note, include: • BlizzCon Organised by Blizzard Entertainment for fans of its games, including WoW and the Diablo series. Held in Anaheim, California. • Gaelcon A national gaming convention run in Dublin, Ireland, with an emphasis on RPG tournaments and sessions as well as larps and wargame RPGs. • Intercon Refers to a series of larp conventions, usually held in the North-east USA. The largest is Intercon O, usually held in the Boston area. • Knutepunkt (aka Knutpunkt, Knudepunkt, Solmukohta) Began as a larp conference but is now broader. Moves around between Nordic countries. • Ropecon Finnish RPG convention, featuring TRPGs, larp, and other non-digital games. • UK Games Expo Includes board games and TRPGs as well as other games. Notably includes free open areas for people to play games. • Wyrd Con larp convention held on the West Coast of the USA since 2010.

Because fandom and subculture are often used interchangeably as theoretical terms, gaming scholars have tried to frame gaming fans more specifically. Partly, this is an attempt to clarify how video game subcultures and fandoms act or exist in specific ways. For example, there is a perception of greater performativity among RPG fans – e.g. creating machinima or Let’s Play

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videos in which they role-play their characters from RPGs. Scholars are curious about this interest in performance and role-playing within games that already provide them with strong narratives. Gaming Capital is a way to capture the idea that belonging to game culture requires more than just playing games. More broadly, it’s about acquiring, creating, and sharing knowledge about games (Consalvo 2009)

Mia Consalvo uses the term ‘gaming capital’ instead of ‘subculture’ when discussing video gamers and gaming fans, borrowing from Pierre Bourdieu’s idea of cultural production (2009: 3–4). Gaming capital is a way of defining how fans make meaning when ‘doing culture’ (or acting as part of a subculture). Consalvo argues that this term helps to contextualise what RPG groups are doing and avoids some of the assumptions about ‘subcultures’ having a physical aspect because gaming fans may never come together fully. Instead, they often exist in geographically disparate locations. However, they enact their fandom via a complex infrastructure of newsletters, message boards, review sites, and hobby magazines, which pull the community together. Even though gamers may not know each other, they are likely subscribers to the same magazines and lurk on common message boards. Patrick Kinkade and Michael Katovich (2009) also report on this phenomenon in their ethnography of Magic: The Gathering players. But they term it ‘ethereal culture’, a nod to the ways in which these cultural attitudes are often indebted to an invisible cultural network that may not ever meet physically.

Outcomes and Outputs Fans demonstrate their attachment in a tangible manner. As a result, they are usually visible because they form subcultures to outwardly express their fandom. This can take the form of elements such as cosplay, sculpture, art, music, and fashion. Fandom has an established ‘early adopter’ relationship with the media and uses it extensively as a mode of communication and demonstration (Coppa in Hellekson and Busse 2006: 41–61). RPGs specifically encourage imaginative and performative practices individual to the RPG player. The website DeviantArt hosts millions of images of role-playing art and costumes, whilst the fanfiction site Archive of Our Own lists 900 D&D stories alone (2016). In addition to websites and forums that review and discuss new titles amongst their members, there is a growing number of sites that showcase RPG culture specifically. Straightforward pod- and webcasts, such as Dungeon Crawlers Radio and The Dice Tower (Vasel et al. 2005 – present), review new titles. YouTuber Mo Mo O’Brien produces ‘how to’ content for various different aspects of the hobby. Players recruit new members and discuss role-playing on forums, such as reddit. There is also a growing audience for spectating RPGs online, especially if the participants are celebrities. YouTubers Geek and Sundry and The Yogscast have featured playthroughs of Fiasco, Dragon Age, the latest Star Wars RPG, and D&D. A more transmedial version of this can be seen in the podcast Welcome to Nightvale (Fink and Craynor 2012 – present) and blogger/ artist Richard Littler’s eerie website and book Discovering Scafolk (Littler 2014), both of which use common tropes from supernatural RPGs. The producers often assume that the audience will have some familiarity with RPG tropes in order to understand the humour or intertextual references in their shows and programs.

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Fan Production and Co-Creativity When creating a combat encounter, let your imagination run wild and build something your players will enjoy. Once you have the details figured out, use this section to adjust the difficulty of the encounter. (Mearls and Crawford 2015: 56) The dialogical relationship that fan production has with the RPG genre is not only well established but an intrinsic part of the usage of RPGs. D&D grew as part of a rich tradition of fan correspondence around the game. Fans would write letters to each other, discussing their thoughts on the game, proposing ideas for new rules and additions, and recounting their experiences playing the game (→ Chapters 10 and 20). RPG gaming capital (Consalvo 2009) is creative by nature – playing a TRPG or larp involves a ‘shared fantasy’ (Fine 1983) that must be collectively experienced and created by the players. Rule books are ‘incomplete’ to run adventures: they require creativity, and many modules entail explicit guidance on how to create your own adventures or seeds for adventures. Players and game masters must co-create the universe, story, and experience of a TRPG.

Box 21.3 Fan co-creativity and transformative works are wrapped in struggles around their ‘moral economy’ (Jenkins, Ford, and Green 2013; Banks and Deuze 2009), which is the unwritten social norms and expectations surrounding the written laws of economic exchanges – in the cases of creative works like RPGs, intellectual property (IP) and authorship are the most common. Fans find that their deep investment in and contributions to a game earn them certain moral rights to have a say in its development and use it in their own creative expression. So, fan creativity follows logics of gift exchange and social recognition, not contracts and financial pay. Companies, in turn, often enforce IP law to retain control over a games’ creative direction and eliminate fan works perceived as competing or ‘brand-damaging’. On the other hand, companies are happy to capitalise on significant free labour by fans modding, extending, improving, translating, or advocating for a game without formal recognition, let alone payment. An early example in RPGs was the controversy surrounding the creation of the ‘Thief’ class in the original D&D. Its co-creator Gygax wrote the rules for this new class after a telephone conversation with a player from California, which later led to complaints of ideas’ being stolen (Peterson 2012: 469–471). It did not help that there was no acknowledgement or attribution when the rules were later published by TSR, Inc. Accessible tools for creation and digital distribution have intensified these struggles because awareness of fan work can both grow and spread quickly, and fans are able to more easily, and collectively, voice their concerns.

Whilst modules and campaign settings may set the tone for games, there is an assumption that players will also design their own games, characters, and stories – TRPGs are specifically designed with this in mind, for example – whereby rule and source books provide building block-style information, designed to be used by players as part of a creative practice, and it is

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common that large-scale larps in the UK are written by a team of players that changes over time. ‘Spin-off’ or ‘froth’ events, written by other players, are also common. For many RPGs, the assumption that players will create their own versions or work creatively to expand the rules or artefacts within a game is often written into the ethos of each game. In fact, worldbuilding, or the process of creating an imaginary world, has become so endemic that for some RPGs, worldbuilding is the gameplay e.g Microscope (Robbins 2011) or Aria: Canticle of the Monomyth (Moore and Seyler 1994) (→ Chapter 20). Fan creation has also traditionally been supported by the publishers of TRPGs. For example, in 2000, Wizards of the Coast created the Open Game License (OGL), which allows commercial and non-commercial publishers to release mods or supplements to the D&D system without paying for the use of the system’s associated IP (with some caveats). This arrangement presupposes that players will create their own games, and the more games created, the more the loyalty to the key texts grows as these still have to be purchased in order to play. There is a similar practice in the case of digital RPGs, with standalone tools, such as RPGMaker (1992-present), that allow for the creation of CRPG titles. It is also common for CRPGs to allow players to ‘mod’ or create their own content for them. Neverwinter Nights (BioWare 2002), for example, included the Aurora toolkit, which allowed players to build their own games using the game’s engine and assets. Skywind and SkyBlivion are fan-made projects, remaking previous Elder Scrolls titles within the Skyrim world (TESRenewal Project 2016). Various aspects of the RPG industry benefit from fan input or are designed with it in mind. In MORPGs, players have hacked the code to provide modifications and apps, which then become integrated as standard parts of gameplay. Patrick Prax discusses the relationship between mods and WoW, noting that a significant number of player-made tools (such as the mod ‘Quest Helper’) are now default aspects of WoW’s user interface (Prax 2012). Elsewhere, players interact with the gameworld in order to change it. In Egyptian technology-building MORPG A Tale in the Desert (eGenesis 2003 – present), players can suggest rules, which are put to a collective vote, and which change the code of the game. The EverQuest spin-off Landmark (Daybreak Game Company 2016) also allowed players to build their own structures whilst borrowing its worldsphere – the atmosphere created in an MORPG by players and developers working collectively to worldbuild their environment in an ongoing manner (2003) – from the earlier EverQuest games. Like much of geek culture, RPGs are widely disseminated online, across a range of dedicated and more general geek culture sites. One environment where the relationship between fans and creators has developed is on crowdfunding sites, such as Kickstarter and Indiegogo. These sites regularly feature new or revised games, which are brought to the market through financial pledges by consumers. If the game does not raise enough money, it cannot be published, whilst the quality and variety of the game is often contingent on the amount raised. This type of funding model is indicative of the more consumerist relationship between fan/ subculture and producers but also of how the RPG industry uses fans to determine interest and value for older and future products (→ Chapter 16).

Big Name Fans and Celebritization Hills’s work on fandom identifies what he calls ‘BNFs’ – Big Name Fans. These are fans who have become embedded in the industry as a result of their fandom (Hills 2010). These fans have a deep-set knowledge of the industry and often specifically enter it in order to continue immersing themselves as agents of gaming capital – creating the very things that they are fans

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of. They are also seen as key influencers, in turn, producing their own works for fans with increased expertise and, potentially, an awareness of ‘fan service’ (listening to what fans want and ‘serving’ them with these desires). This second tier of fans appreciate that BNFs are not only fans in their own right but that their work comes specifically from their knowledge of such. For example, Monica Valentinelli is a TRPG writer for various franchises with a history in strong fandoms, including Firefly (Whedon 2002) and Vampire: The Masquerade (2015, 2016, 2017), and her writing is born specifically from her in-depth knowledge of each text. BNFs are an important part of RPG fan culture for a number of reasons. Most of the early proponents of the genre were fans and amateur developers or writers first and grew the industry because of their own fannish desires (→ Chapter 9). RPGs and CRPGs demand fan involvement and sharing, and, with the rise of online video sharing (e.g. YouTube) and live streaming of gameplay (e.g. Twitch), they are also easy to consume for spectators. Finally, good writers, artists, cosplayers, and other RPG creatives are shared transmedially – and experts are celebrated as such. Thus, the industry has always been, in part, shaped by fans, and fans are expected to be key influencers within it. The worldbuilding of any given RPG is often highly detailed; may be driven by complex, nuanced rule systems; and may have been in existence for a number of years. In-depth knowledge is important to the continued development of these products, and, therefore, fans, especially ones that others respect and who demonstrate expertise, are useful. Some BNFs have become well known through a combination of luck, through appropriation of a popular transmedia channel, or by filling a niche market. Most notably, this has happened through YouTube as the platform allows non-industry members and fans to upload content freely to their own channels and because the visual nature of the platform allows content producers to ‘show’ as well as ‘tell’. For example, Shut Up and Sit Down (Dean and Smith 2013 – present) and The Dice Tower (Vasel et al. 2005 – present) review RPG games, High Rollers and Harmontown (Harmon and Davis 2011 – present) serialise TRPG campaigns, and Lindsay Stirling and Megan Lara produce fan-related music and artwork.

Box 21.4 Although we are arguing in this chapter that RPG culture is a significant part of broader popular culture such that it may not make sense to refer to it as a subculture, the truth is that even within RPG culture, not all forms are treated or viewed equally. There are multiple versions of a ‘Geek Hierarchy’, which can be found online, that purport to describe, sometimes for humorous purposes but in others more discriminatory, the relationship between different subcommunities (Xaxers 2013). In these hierarchies, it is often the case that ‘video gamers’ are portrayed as less geeky than tabletop role-players. Larpers are often represented as the geekiest. In this context, ‘geek’ is generally used to refer to the degree of acceptance within mainstream popular culture – thus to be ‘geekier’ is to be less mainstream. Arguably, RPG fans often make similar distinctions, even within form: D&D and Pathfinder players might be seen as more mainstream than fans of more obscure TRPGs, while freeform larpers might see themselves as more niche than, say, action-based boffer larp players. In the case of CRPGs, a common distinction is made between fans of games traditionally made in Japan (JRPGs) and those made in the USA or UK, and MORPG fan cultures are quite different when comparing games played predominantly in, say, Korea, China, or the USA.

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However, the relationship between fans, BNFs, and the industry can get complicated. A growing number of geek celebrities use their fandom commercially. YaYa Han is a popular cosplayer who now also sells clothing and makes ‘how to’ videos, influencing future cosplayers who imitate her style as well as that of the RPG character costumes she creates (Han 2017). Fans who follow BNFs tend to respect them for their authenticity and therefore regard their reviews or the products that they consume in a positive light. Sponsorship deals are also problematic as fans have specific ideas regarding the authenticity of a BNF. A group seen to be taking sponsorship can be heavily criticised for doing so, being accused of ‘selling out’ or somehow losing their status as fans and instead becoming complicit with market forces. Overall, however, it is unclear how much power fans and BNFs have. Jenkins’s early discussions of fandom see it as ultimately powerless ( Jenkins 2006a, 134–151), but, partly thanks to greater fan visibility, this has changed dramatically.

Subculture No More? The cultural impact of games like D&D permeates popular discourse far beyond gaming (→ Chapter 9). MORPGs and CRPGs comprise a significant part of the video game industry, and the rise of social events for RPG players, as well as their intertextual relationships with other media, has given RPG fandoms and subcultures a high degree of prominence in video gaming culture and beyond. Some elements of RPGs have become so well known in popular culture that they have, to use the term of John Clarke et al. (1975), bound themselves to the ‘parent culture’, becoming so familiar and accepted that they are often seen as mainstream rather than subcultures or niche activities. For example, MORPGs like WoW and Runescape ( Jagex 2001 – present) have dominated the MORPG market and provided formative gaming experiences for millions of people. RPG tropes, like experience points, are ubiquitous beyond RPGs. Thousands of people attend gaming events every year, and ludic aspects of games have translated across platforms in a highly pervasive manner (→ Chapter 9). There is a clear argument here that sees RPGs as a part of gaming culture as a whole, therefore relinquishing their position as a specific subculture within it.

Summary RPG fan and subcultures have become so well known that they are arguably no longer subcultures: they are part of popular culture. RPGs are culturally well known, with big recognisable franchises, such as Final Fantasy, D&D, and WoW, whose products and symbols can be appreciated by people who may not identify strongly with them. SFF – in many ways the cultural foundations from which RPGs emerged – has become mainstream. Consider the success of franchises like the Lord of the Rings trilogy ( Jackson 2001–2003) or Harry Potter (Rowling 1997–2007). Whilst fandom can be seen as performative, the tenets that have previously denoted RPG cultural production as subcultural have largely disintegrated, and barriers to entry have been removed. A more visible profile, through public events, dissemination over the Internet, and an increase in demand for such products, has led to these fandoms and subcultures’ becoming homogenised and commonplace. Yet RPGs are still distinct in terms of form. It will be interesting to see whether RPG cultures and fandoms are simply riding a wave of popularity or if their current status is permanent.

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Further Reading Fine, Gary Alan. 1983. Shared Fantasy: Role-Playing as Social Worlds. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press. Hellekson, Karen and Busse, Kristina, eds. 2006. Fan Fiction and Fan Communities in the Age of the Internet. Jefferson, NC: McFarland Press. Shut up and Sit Down. 2013 – present. Dean, Paul and Smith, Quintin. www.shutupandsitdown.com/. Stark, Lizzie. 2012. Leaving Mundania: A Non-fiction Book about Larp. Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press. Wizards of the Coast. 2000. Open Game License 1.0a. http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/openGame License.html.

References Archive of Our Own. https://archiveofourown.org/. [Accessed July 6, 2016]. BioWare. 2002. NeverWinter Nights. Banks, J. and Deuze, M. 2009. Co-creative Labour. International Journal of Cultural Studies, 12(5): 419–431. Boellstorff, Tom, Nardi, Bonnie, Pearce, Celia and Taylor, T.L. 2012. Ethnography and Virtual Worlds. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Brown, Ashley. 2015. Sexuality in Roleplaying Games. London: Routledge. Byers, Andrew and Crocco, Francesco, eds. 2016. The Role-Playing Society: Essays on the Cultural Influence of RPGs. Jefferson, NC: McFarland Press. Clarke, John, Hall, Stuart, Jefferson, Tony and Roberts, Brian. 1975. “Subcultures, Cultures, and Class.” In Hall, Stuart and Jefferson, Tony, eds. Resistance through Rituals: Youth Subcultures in Post-War Britain. London: Routledge. 9–74. Cohen, Albert. 1955. Delinquent Boys: The Culture of the Gang. Glencoe, IL: Free Press. Consalvo, Mia. 2009. Cheating. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Coppa, Francesca. 2006. “A Brief History of Media Fandom.” In Hellekson, Karen and Busse, Kristina, eds. Fan Fiction and Fan Communities in the Age of the Internet. Jefferson, NC: McFarland Press. 41–61. Cornelluissen, Hilde and Rettburg-Walker, Jill. 2011. Digital Culture, Play and Identity. A World of Warcraft Reader. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Daybreak Game Company. 2016. Landmark. De Certeau, Michel. 1984. The Practice of Everyday Life. Berkeley: University of California Press. eGenesis. 2003 – present. A Tale in the Desert. Ensslin, Astrid. 2012. The Language of Gaming. London: Routledge. Gauntlett, David. 2011. Making Is Connecting. Cambridge: Polity Press. Goffman, Erving. 1974. Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience. Boston, MA: Northeastern University Press. Fine, Gary Alan. 1983. Shared Fantasy: Role-Playing as Social Worlds. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press. Fink  Joseph and Craynor, Jeffrey. 2012 – present. Welcome to Nightvale. http://www.­welcometonightvale. com. [Accessed January 17, 2017]. Han, YaYa. 2017. Yayahan.com at http://www.yayahan.com/. [Accessed January 18, 2017]. Harmon, Dan and Davis, Jeff. 2011 – present. Harmon Town. www.harmontown.com/about/. [Accessed January 18, 2017]. Hebdige, Dick. 1979. Subculture: The Meaning of Style. London: Routledge. Hellekson, Karen. 2009. “A Fannish Field of Value: Online Fan Gift Culture.” Cinema Journal 48(4): 113–118. Hellekson, Karen and Busse, Kristina, eds. 2006. Fan Fiction and Fan Communities in the Age of the Internet. Jefferson, NC: McFarland Press. Hills, Matt. 2002. Fan Cultures. London: Routledge.

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Hills, Matt. 2010. Triumph of a TimeLord: Regenerating “Doctor Who” in the Twenty First Century. London: I.B. Tauris. Holmes, John Eric. 1981. Fantasy Role Playing Games. London: Arms and Armour Press. Jenkins, Henry. 1992. Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture. New York: Routledge. Jenkins, Henry. 2006a. Fans, Bloggers and Gamers. Exploring Participatory Culture. New York: New York University Press. Jenkins, Henry. 2006b. Convergence Culture. Where Old and New Media Collide. New York: New York University Press. Jenkins, Henry. 2007. “Transmedia Storytelling 101” at Confessions of An Aca-Fan. March 22, 2007. http://henryjenkins.org/2007/03/transmedia_storytelling_101.html. [Accessed January 18, 2007]. Jenkins, H., Ford, S. and Green, J. (2013). Spreadable Media: Creating Value and Meaning in a Networked Culture. New York: NYU Press. Kinkade, P.T. and Katovich, M.A. 2009. “Beyond Place: On Being Regular in an Ethereal Culture”. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography. 38(1): 3–24. Lamerichs, Nicholle. 2011. “Stranger than Fiction: Fan Identity in Cosplay”. Transformative Works and Culture. 7. http://journal.transformativeworks.org/index.php/twc/article/view/246/230. [Accessed January 10, 2017]. Lamerichs, Nicholle. 2015. “‘Express Yourself ’, an Affective Study of Game Cosplayers.” In ­Enevold, ­Jessica and MacCallum-Stewart, eds. Game Love, Essays on Play and Affection. Jefferson, NC: ­McFarland Press. 97–115. Law, Ying Ying. 2016. “The Travelling Gamer: An Ethnography of Video Game Events”. Thesis submitted to University of Salford, Manchester. UK. Jagex. 2001 – present. Runescape. Jensen, Joli. 1992. “Fandom as Pathology.” In Lewis, Lisa ed. The Adoring Audience. London: Routledge. 9–27. Littler, Richard. 2014. Discovering Scarfolk. London: Random House. Mackay, Daniel. 2001. The Fantasy Role-Playing Game. Jefferson, NC: McFarland Press. Mäyrä, Frans. 2008. An Introduction to Game Studies: Games in Culture. London: Sage Publications. Mearls, Mike and Crawford, Jeremy. 2015. Dungeon Master’s D&D Basic Rules version 0.5. http://media. wizards.com/2016/downloads/DND/DMBasicRulesV05.pdf. [Accessed January 17, 2017]. Montola, Marcus and Stenros, Jaakko. 2010. Nordic Larp. Tampere: Fëa Livia. http://tampub.uta.fi/handle/ 10024/95123. [Accessed January 17, 2017]. Moore, Christian and Seyler, Owen. 1994. Aria: Canticle of the Monomyth. Last Unicorn Games. Pearce, Celia. 2009. Communities of Play: Emergent Cultures in Multiplayer Games and Virtual Worlds. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Peterson, Jon. 2012. Playing at the World. San Diego: Unreason Press. Prahalad, C. K. and Ramaswamy, Venkat. 2000. “Co-Opting Customer Competence”. Harvard Business Review, January–February 2000. Prax, Patrick. 2012. “Co-creative Interface Development in MMORPGs – The Case of World of ­Warcraft add-ons”. Journal of Gaming and Virtual Worlds. 4(1): 3–24. Prax, Patrick. 2016. Co-Creative Game Design as Participatory Alternative Media. Unpublished Thesis. University of Uppsala. Robbins, Ben. 2011. Microscope. Lame Mage Productions. www.lamemage.com/microscope/. [Accessed January 19, 2017]. Robichaud, Christopher. 2014. Dungeons & Dragons and Philosophy. Chichester: Wiley. Sandvoss, Cornel. 2005. Fans: The Mirror of Consumption. London: Polity Press. Shirky, Clay. 2008, Here Comes Everybody: How Change Happens When People Come Together. London: Penguin. Shut up and Sit Down. 2013 – present. Dean, Paul and Smith, Quintin. www.shutupandsitdown.com/. TESRenewal Project. 2016. https://tesrenewal.com/. [Accessed January 18, 2017]. Valentinelli, Monica. 2015. Dread Names: Red List. Stone Mountain, CA: Onyx Path / White Wolf Publishing.

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Valentinelli, Monica. 2016. Ghouls and Revenents. Stone Mountain, CA: Onyx Path / White Wolf Publishing. Valentinelli, Monica. 2017. Beckett’s Jyhad Diary. Stone Mountain, CA: Onyx Path / White Wolf Publishing. Vasel, Tom et al. 2005 – present. The Dice Tower. 2005 – present. www.dicetower.com/. [Accessed ­January 18, 2017]. Whedon, Jed and Day, Felicia. 2012. “I’m the One That’s Cool”. Geek and Sundry. https://www.­youtube. com/watch?v=jFhgupR565Q. [Accessed January 17, 2017]. Whedon, Joss. 2002. Firefly. Mutant Enemy Productions. Wizards of the Coast. 2000. Open Game License 1.0a http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/openGame License.html. [Accessed July 6, 2016]. Xaxers. 2013. “Penny Arcade: Why the Geek Hierarchy Needs to Go”. Reddit. www.reddit.com/r/rpg/ comments/181vys/penny_arcade_the_geek_hierarchy_needs_to_go_why/.

22 Immersion and Shared Imagination in Role-Playing Games Sarah Lynne Bowman

One of the more complex concepts in the field of role-playing studies is immersion. Most players report having the phenomenological experience of immersion in role-playing games (RPGs), using phrases such as “losing myself in the game” or “the character took over”. However, the definition of the term itself is hotly debated in practitioner communities as members soon realize that they are describing different sorts of experiences from one another (White, Boss, and ­Harviainen 2012). Some theorists suggest abandoning the term entirely; debates about the nature of immersion often become unproductive when players feel the need to defend their preferred experiential modes or establish their gaming styles as superior (Holter 2007; Torner and White 2012). Ultimately, the term immersion persists despite these attempts to redefine and – in many ways – rebrand it. This chapter presents the different ways that players, theorists, and researchers discuss immersion in RPGs, establishing six major categories: activity, game, environment, narrative, character, and community. These categories are similar to the types established by Gordon Calleja (2011) in his work on video game immersion with some minor distinctions, as explained below. Immersion is not a phenomenon limited to gameplay. Rather, immersion is a fundamental state of human consciousness, taking many forms and encompassing a variety of experiences with distinct cognitive and emotional processes. Despite this plurality, all immersion arises from some form of psychological motivation to engage with certain stimuli. The defining feature that links each of these modes of engagement is that immersive play captures the attention of the participant. As Huizinga elaborates, play is “a free activity standing quite consciously outside ‘ordinary’ life as being ‘not serious’ but at the same time absorbing the player intensely and utterly” (qtd. in White, Boss, and Harviainen 2012, 72–73). As a metaphor, immersion relates to the feeling of being submerged in liquid and is often described as such. As Janet Murray (1997) explains, We seek the same feeling from a psychologically immersive experience that we do from a plunge in the ocean or swimming pool: the sensation of being surrounded by a completely other reality … that takes over all of our attention, our whole perceptual apparatus … In a participatory medium, immersion implies learning to swim, to do the things that the new environment makes possible. (98–99)

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Immersion is often conflated with the concept of flow, a term that also arose from this water metaphor; Mihályi Csíkszentmihályi’s (1975) participants often compared the experience of engagement in a task to a water current’s carrying them along a certain course. This aquatic imagery is far older, however: The Buddhist and Taoist concept of wei-wu-wei – a paradoxical state of action that does not involve struggle or excessive effort – is also compared to water as liquid has a yielding nature and ability to change shape yet overcome things that are hard and strong (Loy 1985, 75). In this regard, immersion is not simply the sense of being surrounded by an all-consuming environment but also relates to active engagement and agency within that experience.

Related Concepts This section will present a variety of terms that are similar and related to immersion. Because they are often borrowed from different disciplines, they are often conflated with one another. For example, the term engagement is often conceptualized by “combining and relabeling existing notions, such as commitment, satisfaction, involvement, motivation, and extra-role performance” (Schaufeli 2013). These conflations often raise their own complications that we hope to, in some way, clarify here. Each of these concepts contributes specific dimensions to our understanding of the types of experiences associated with “immersion” in role-playing. However, additional insights are found in game studies: informally, through the development of role-play theory in various subcultures, as well as formally, through scholarly investigation.

Flow Csíkszentmihályi’s concept of flow is described as a mental state (colloquially referred to as “being in the zone”) of full involvement, focus, and enjoyment in the process of an activity. The nature of the activity is important in that it should be intrinsically rewarding but also require a balance between skill and challenge (Csíkszentmihályi 1990). People experiencing moments of flow often lose track of time and become intensely focused on the activity. Flow states, whether in play or work environments, are often positively correlated with happiness.

Engagement Engagement can describe multiple kinds of immersive activities (Brockmyer et al. 2009). The term engagement is utilized in multiple contexts: the most relevant here are work and media engagement. Scholars study work engagement by judging the degree to which employees are motivated and involved with work activities cognitively, emotionally, and physically though vigor, dedication, and absorption (Schaufeli, Bakker, Salanova 2006). Work engagement is often considered against its antithesis, burnout, which occurs when employees are entirely unmotivated to work. Media engagement studies the degree to which people become invested in a particular form of media content, such as a game. While work and play are often described in binary terms, some forms of gameplay, such as “leveling” or “grinding” in a computer RPG (CRPG) or a multi-player online RPG (MORPG), may be considered a form of work done in order to receive a payoff. In some cases, this work may be engaging, whereas, in others, players may experience burnout from the effort of producing consistent outputs.

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Involvement The notion of media engagement is similar to involvement, which often refers to the relationship between a consumer and a product (cf. Warrington and Shim 2000). However, involvement can also refer to various subcultural activities, such as extended participation in a sports team (cf. Kenyon 1970). Thus, this use of the term refers more to social modes of engagement than nonsocial ones, such as psychological identification with a brand. Erving Goffman defined involvement as “the capacity of the individual to give, or withhold from giving, concerted attention to some activity at hand – a solitary task, a conversation, a collaborative work activity” (qtd. in Smith 2006). Thus, involvement can describe investment in nonhuman actors – such as products or games – or participation in social group activities.

Absorption The term absorption refers to a psychological tendency of certain individuals to become easily involved in mental imagery, especially fantasy. Absorption is considered a characteristic that “involves an openness to experience emotional and cognitive alterations in a variety of situations” (Roche and McConkey 1990). In this regard, absorption is considered an altered state of consciousness, often associated with hypnotic susceptibility; internal imagery; and fantasy proneness, including daydreaming. Absorption is sometimes discussed as a form of non-pathological dissociation in which an individual spontaneously enters another mental state but is still capable of performing important tasks (Brockmyer et al. 2009). While absorption may be a component that helps people enter into a flow state, this “total engagement in the present moment” does not necessitate an activity that balances skill and challenge and thus is not equivalent to flow.

Transportation In communication studies, transportation theory emphasizes the importance of narrative as a vehicle for transporting the mind to another time and place (Gerrig 1993). Stories are potent ways of drawing people into an experience by creating an identification between the audience and the narrative events experienced by the characters. This transportation effect is particularly strong in terms of persuasion as identification with narratives may prove more compelling for audiences than messages lacking stories (Green and Brock 2000). Transportation may be a stimulating factor that leads to absorption by inviting engagement with compelling fictional or nonfictional stories.

Presence Drawing from several disciplinary approaches to immersive states of consciousness, in communication studies, presence theory refers to the “illusion that a mediated experience is not mediated” (Lombard and Ditton 1997). Colloquially, it is described as the feeling of “being there” (when you are not) or as something virtual that feels real (when it’s not). The term is derived from Marvin Minsky’s notion of telepresence (1980) or the perception and manipulation of physically distant objects via technology. For example, using a computer to control robotic arms in a remote location. Presence is now used quite broadly to refer to feelings of social richness (does an environment feel intimate, personal, warm, etc.?), realism

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(does this seem real?), transportation (feeling like “you’re there”, “it is here”, and “we are together”), perceptual immersion (are my senses shut out from reality?), or social responsiveness to a communication technology (virtual characters feel “real”, talking to a computer) (­Lombard and Ditton 1997). Thus, like involvement, presence is an expansive term that engages multiple facets of experience, from the psychological to the social.

Engrossment Gary Alan Fine (1983) discusses the concept of engrossment as a primary component of the social experience of tabletop RPGs (TRPGs). Fine describes engrossment as the willing, temporary acceptance of a fantasy world and persona as real, indicating this process as a necessary component to playing. He asserts that players “must lose themselves to the game”, although he indicates that this state is not “total” or “continuous” and that such engrossment contributes to “fun” (1983, p. 4). While similar to transportation and presence, engrossment is unique in its emphasis on the adoption of a new identity within the game frame.

Dissociation Dissociation refers to a range of psychological states, involving the phenomenon of detachment from reality. Dissociative moments often arise from a need to cope with stress, from minor issues, such as boredom, to more serious forms of conflict, such as trauma. These states include experiences such as daydreaming, a sense that the world (derealization) or the self (depersonalization) is unreal, a loss of memory (amnesia), forgetting identity (fugue), assuming a new self (alteration), or fragmentation into multiple selves (dissociative identity) (Steinberg and Schnall 2000). While these temporary breaks from reality are often pathologized in their extreme forms, minor dissociative experiences are considered common occurrences by some psychologists. Dissociative theory provides a useful explanation for the ability of role-players to inhabit willfully altered states of consciousness, including alternative worlds and identities (Bowman 2010; Lukka 2014; Bowman 2015).

Types of Immersion The remainder of this chapter will discuss six general categories of immersion: activity, game, environment, narrative, character, and community. Each category is informed by work in game studies, along with theoretical models from other fields. These types roughly correspond with Calleja’s (2011) work on video game immersion, with minor distinctions as this section also includes analog forms, such as TRPGs and larp. For the purposes of the remainder of this chapter, immersion refers to the psychological experience of heightened attention while participating in a fictional game reality by enacting a role. Obviously, no player fits into one category exclusively; indeed, players can experience and enjoy different types of immersion. Additional categories likely exist. Also, readers may notice that several of these theories overlap in content, using different language to describe similar states of immersion. Furthermore, many of the concepts in this section arise from motivation theories in role-playing studies. Indeed, the desire to immerse in particular ways is closely linked to motivation (→ Chapter 13). Also, while the physiological aspects of engagement in each form of RPG may differ, each of the following categories of immersion can occur in all modes of play.

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Furthermore, multiple intensities of immersion likely exist. Paul Cairns and Emily Brown (2004) describe three levels of immersion: engagement, the lowest level of access, which involves an initial investment of time, effort, and attention; engrossment, in which the game affects the player’s emotions; and total immersion, also called presence, in which the player is detached from reality and completely focused on the game (1–4). Therefore, players likely engage in several immersive modes simultaneously and with varying levels of intensity. In RPG Studies, more broadly, immersion is also at times a debated term. As we will see, immersion is a multifaceted phenomenon, with distinct levels of engagement, each with ­potentially gratifying elements.

Immersion into Activity Some forms of immersion focus upon the repetitive execution of a particular task or activity, involving a certain degree of agency or kinesthetic involvement, as Calleja (2011) terms it. This immersion into activity most closely aligns with the concept of flow. In flow states, players engage in an activity that requires a balance between challenge and skill and has clear goals, progressions, and immediate feedback (Csíkszentmihályi 1975). Entering into flow states requires a certain freedom from distractions, both internal – such as fear or anxiety – and external – such as a ringing telephone. Indeed, flow states can often draw participants’ attention from other physical or environmental needs. Flow states are often correlated with positive affect; in other words, regular, enjoyable immersive experiences can make people happier, providing a sense of accomplishment, lowering anxiety, and improving self-esteem. Game scholars often find the concept of flow useful for describing the experience many participants report of “getting into the game” or losing track of time while “in the zone”. As Csíkszentmihályi states, “Games are obvious flow activities and play is the flow experience par excellence. Yet playing a game does not guarantee that one is experiencing flow” (36–37). In MORPG theory, Nick Yee’s (2006) escapism could include all of the categories in this chapter but most closely resembles a flow state in the sense of a diversion of concentration from the mundane world. For larpers, Rob McDiarmid’s exercise, flow, and crafting categories are understandable as immersion into activity. Exercise refers to enjoyment of physical activity, flow is “losing oneself in the moment”, and crafting refers to “creating non-ephemeral things” (5–6). In other theoretical formulations, Laura Ermi and Frans Mäyrä (2005) discuss challenge-based immersion, which involves a satisfying balance of challenge and ability, including the use of motor skills. Ernest Adams (2004) describes tactical immersion, which refers to rapidly cycling manual operations that require skill. Similarly, Staffan Björk and Jussi Holopainen (2004) discuss spatial-motor immersion, which occurs as “the result of feedback loops between repetitious movements players make to perform actions in the game” (Björk 2011). These descriptions are particularly relevant for games that require some sort of repetitive physical action, such as defeating foes by pushing buttons in World of Warcraft or fighting with foam swords in a boffer larp. Crafting tools in a larp or “grinding” to gain loot in an online game may also qualify. In all of these cases, game rewards motivate these tactile or spatial-­ motor activities, so this category is closely linked to the next one: immersion into game. These ludic motivations may separate games from other immersive tactile activities, such as practicing archery or playing the piano, although participants aim for a certain degree of mastery and achievement in each of these cases.

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Immersion into Game Another mode is immersion into game, in which players adopt what Bernard Suits calls a lusory attitude, meaning that they become “willing to strive toward the game’s goal using only the methods prescribed by its rules” (qtd. in White, Boss, and Harviainen 2012, 73), although certainly, any form of gameplay is lusory in nature. In Calleja’s (2011) model, this type of play is called ludic involvement. Challenge-based immersion also entails this form of ludic mindset, which encompasses strategic thinking, cognition, and problem-solving (Ermi and Mäyrä 2005). Similarly, Björk and Holopainen’s cognitive immersion is “based upon the focus on abstract reasoning and is usually achieved by complex problem solving” (Björk 2011). For Adams (2004), this concept is called cerebral immersion and is usually associated with mental challenges. In order to be game-like, these challenges often include a tension between risk and reward, which creates a productive intersection between what Nicole Lazzaro (2004) calls frustration and fiero or triumph. Along these lines, Sarah Lynne Bowman (2010) describes complex problem-solving as one of the primary functions of RPGs. This function includes tactical problem-solving, such as synchronizing an adventuring party’s strengths to defeat an enemy; puzzle-solving, such as deciphering a riddle; and social problem-solving, such as finding ways to navigate political hierarchies (110–119). Immersion into game resembles the creative agenda of gamism, in which players focus on achievements and “winning” when possible, although not all RPGs have win conditions (Edwards 2001). For MORPGs, in Richard Bartle’s (1996) taxonomy, achievers and killers fit into this category, although “griefing” other players can also be understood as a form of transgressive play in many game contexts (Stenros 2015; → Chapter 24). Yee’s (2006) achievement type corresponds with this type as well, with its sub-categories of advancement, mechanics, and competition. For larpers, McDiarmid’s comprehension, competition, and versatility categories can be seen as immersion into game as they focus upon ludic goals. Comprehension refers to figuring out puzzles and solving problems, competition refers to winning or competing with others, and versatility involves collecting important items for use in game situations (5–6).

Immersion into Environment RPGs establish new environments in which meanings shift from the mundane to the extraordinary. Immersion into environment involves exploring the different aspects of an alternate game world, whether these characteristics are physical, mental, or virtual. Calleja (2011) refers to this type as spatial involvement, although he mainly discusses this experience as immersion into a virtual space rather than a physical space, as in larp. This concept is informed by the theories of presence and telepresence. A TRPG that takes place over online video conferencing software exemplifies the use of telepresence in gaming. Alternatively, with virtual presence, participants inhabit an imaginary, digital world, such as World of Warcraft or Second Life. Presence has both a psychological and social component. Thus, presence also applies to the immersion into community category due to its emphasis on the importance of social interaction within the alternate world. Proponents of presence theory often argue that the more realistic the setting becomes, the more immersion players will experience. In this sense, realism can mean accurate

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representations, such as when a TRPGs’s combat mechanics closely simulate the physics of the mundane world; alternatively, realism can involve attempting to render a visual space as accurate as possible, e.g. high-fidelity simulations in medical training (Standiford 2014), historical reenactment societies (Stark 2012), online worlds with 3-D virtual reality technology and advanced graphics, and larps designed with the 360° aesthetic in which all props and settings represent real places and objects in the fictional world (Koljonen 2014). Forge theory refers to this creative agenda as simulationism (Edwards 2001). In this sense, realism also refers to a sense of accuracy in genre games, such as fantasy, science fiction, horror, or post-apocalyptic games. Other terms exist for this concept in game studies. In Bartle’s (1996) taxonomy of MUD players, explorers fit best into this category. J. Tuomas Harviainen (2003) refers to immersion into environment as reality immersion. Ermi and Mäyrä (2005) use the term imaginative immersion to refer, in part, to players’ becoming absorbed in a game world, but further delineate the concept of sensory immersion to refer to the audiovisual execution of a game. Similarly, Björk and Holopainen refer to spatial immersion, which occurs as the “result of moving around [in real time] in a game” (Björk 2011). Jennifer Grouling Cover (2010) also discusses spatial immersion, referring to the “space” of the storyworld, which may or may not involve narrative elements (108). For some theorists, the turning point for immersion is when players begin to accept the game world as their primary reference point rather than the mundane (Lappi 2007, 77). The discovery and customization subcategories of Yee’s (2006) immersion motivation focus upon the exploration of the world and the simulation of the avatar. In larp, McDiarmid’s (2011) exploration, exhibition, and spectacle categories fall under immersion into environment. Exploration refers to experiencing the fictional setting; Exhibition indicates showing off costumes, props, and abilities, and spectacle refers to experiencing these and other aspects of the game world, including sets and non-player characters (NPCs) (5–6). While increased realism in the execution of game worlds can increase immersion for some players, many theorists find that the assumption that increased production values or mimesis will necessarily lead to heightened engagement is problematic. With regard to digital games, Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman (2004) refer to this assumption as the immersive fallacy (451). Johanna Koljonen (2014) describes similar problems with this mentality with regard to the 360-degree aesthetic in larp, stating that “a complete environment alone does not generate better role-playing” (89). Overall, a realistic world is not always sufficient to generate a sense of immersion in players, although it can help facilitate the transition from the mundane frame of reality to the frame of the game.

Immersion into Narrative Fictional narratives can also produce immersive experiences. For the purposes of this chapter, immersion into narrative is distinct from immersion into an environment due to the emphasis on fiction and story, although the two often overlap and work together. As Janet Murray (1997) explains, “a stirring narrative in any medium can be experienced as a virtual reality because our brains are programmed to tune into stories with an intensity that can obliterate the world around us” (98). Calleja (2011) terms this type of immersion narrative involvement, indicating both pre-programmed narratives in virtual games and the ongoing stories produced by players through interaction with the game.

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Box 22.1  Fandom and Immersion Narratives are particularly important when considering fandom toward a particular media product. Henry Jenkins (2008) describes fans as possessing “a strong fantastical identification or emotional connection with a fictional environment, often described in terms of ‘escapism’ or of ‘being there’” (295). That connection with both the environment and the narrative can lead to forms of participatory culture in which fans actively interact with the fictional material. Michael Saler (2012) explains that active involvement with such stories provides a sense of re-enchantment and ironic imagination with reference to the everyday world, which is important to meaning-making in modern life. As many RPGs arise from popular culture or historical narratives, scholars can understand them as particularly dynamic forms of participatory culture in this sense.

Immersion into narrative is explainable through the lens of transportation theory. For instance, Adams (2004) refers to the transportational engagement with game stories as narrative immersion. While all narratives are potentially transportational, the act of role-playing is particularly immersive due to the first-person audience (Montola and Holopainen 2012; Stenros 2013). In RPGs, players both enact the narrative and observe it without an external audience. This mode of engagement removes some of the distance afforded by the more voyeuristic perspective of a medium such as film (cf. Mulvey 1975) as player-characters are affected by the story and have agency to impact it. In terms of creative agenda, emphasis on story as the primary immersive quality of a game is sometimes called narrativism (Edwards 2001). In the United States, the TRPG online community The Forge – and its subsequent outgrowth, Story Games – emerged and “redefined the game space of the conventional tabletop RPG by taking procedures and game rules as serious reward systems in sculpting narrative and creativity” (Torner and White 2012, 8). In other words, rewards in Story Games are designed with the intention of developing more interesting narratives rather than focusing on game-driven achievements. These systems often emphasize the co-creative potential of role-playing, distributing narrative control of various parts of the game world to the players. Many free-form larps take this approach as well, including pauses in play for the group to collaboratively decide upon the focus of the next scenes in the story. Some RPGs feature narratives and emphasize rewards for unlocking “plot points”. Cover (2010) refers to interacting with plot points in role-playing narratives as temporal immersion (110). Some American larps feature modules, where players must engage with pockets of narrative, often featuring a problem-solving element but not always. MORPGs feature quests, which are wrapped in narrative trappings. For some players, these stories are viewed as significant moments shared between the player and the character (Banks 2015) as well as the community as a whole. In addition to narrativism, other terms exist to describe this phenomenon. Harviainen (2003) refers to narrative immersion, while, again, Ermi and Mäyrä (2005) use the blanket term imaginative immersion to describe becoming absorbed by the story. Björk and Holopainen term this mode emotional immersion, which is “obtained by responding to the events that characters are part of during the unfolding narrative structure” (Björk 2011) and is a term that also emphasizes the importance of character enactment, as described below. Yee’s (2006) role-playing sub-component of immersion involves narrative engagement as well as character enactment. In larp, McDiarmid’s (2011) audience and protagonist categories involve immersion into narrative. Audience refers to “experiencing a satisfying narrative”, while protagonist involves becoming important to the story or personally impacting the game world (5–6).

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Box 22.2  Narrative Immersion and Narrative Structure Role-playing narratives do not tend to follow a strict Aristotelian structure, with multiple acts, a coherent arc, a rising climax, and a denouement. The form can change dramatically, depending on the emergence of play and the amount of time spent immersed in the story. For example, in contrast to the tightly scripted nature of an action movie, campaign play is often likened to a soap opera, in which stories morph and change organically and indefinitely, while interpersonal dynamics may become more foregrounded.

Immersion into Character Immersion commonly refers to the experience of enacting a character. This type is the major point of divergence from Calleja’s (2011) model. Calleja speaks of affective involvement in terms of becoming emotionally engaged but does not directly address character enactment. Similarly, Ermi and Mäyrä (2005) discuss affect under the broader rubric of imaginative immersion, in which the player empathizes with the character; Björk and Holopainen (2004) describe emotional immersion, which also relates to immersion into narrative, as described above. Cover (2010) uses this same term, specifying the importance of emotional connection to the character within the narrative (113). However, enactment is another step from emotional connection to character; Harviainen refers to this mode as character immersion. Yee’s (2006) role-playing sub-component of immersion also includes this sense of character enactment. In larp, McDiarmid’s (2011) categories of catharsis, embodiment, and education describe immersion into character. Catharsis refers to experiencing emotions through the character, embodiment involves decision-making based upon the character, and education refers to acquiring new knowledge or understanding through play (5–6). With regard to character immersion, some role-play scholars emphasize the form as conducive to identity exploration through enactment of alternate personalities or avatars (Banks 2015). Bowman (2010) considers this exploration of identity another primary function of RPGs (→ Chapter 23). While role-playing, players sometimes experience what is known in drama therapy as aesthetic doubling (Østern and Heikkinen 2001), sometimes called double consciousness (Saler 2012), in which they experience the game world both as themselves in an observational role and as their character (Montola and Holopainen 2012; Stenros 2013; Bowman 2015). However, moments do exist for some players in which the player consciousness is less prominent or even disappears completely for brief moments (Bowman 2015), an effect also observed in intensive improvisational theatre situations ( Johnstone 1989, 151). Some players never experience a strong distinction between player and character; others always feel a strong distinction between the two, experiencing a sense of detachment. In some instances, the character is a thin veneer or a one-dimensional social role, similar to the concept of a persona in terms of a player’s performing an expected function in society rather than a complex identity ( Jung 1976). As Tobias Harding (2007) suggests, a role may simply be a change of perspective rather than another personality. In other instances, characters are experienced as complex, distinct individuals with goals, feelings, and psychological complexes that are separate from the player’s, although information flows between the two (Harviainen 2005; Lukka 2011, 164). Lauri Lukka (2011) considers the player and character identity to be in a constant state of overlap. Therefore, discussing immersion into character is often one of the most difficult aspects of communicating about the role-playing experience. In the Nordic larp community, one

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philosophy of play, posited by Mike Pohjola, called the Turku School, emphasized immersionism as the primary goal of role-playing (2003). Expanding upon the notion of suspension of disbelief, Pohjola suggests that in order to become immersed, players must actively pretend to believe that the events of the game world are real and respond faithfully as their characters (2004). This process involves projecting reality outward rather than only accepting an alternative reality inward. Along these lines, Petter Bøckman (2003) suggested a modification to the Threefold model developed by The Forge, replacing simulationism with immersionism as a key goal in larp engagement. Alternatively, the Meilahti School discounted this definition, suggesting that a character is important in terms of its social frame rather than as an individual personality (Stenros and Hakkarainen 2003), a topic explored further in the next section. In studies on fiction, the transportation affect described above is often also associated with identification with characters (Kaufman and Libby 2012). In other words, the story as a whole is not the only form of engagement; readers also connect deeply with the experiences and thoughts of characters, particularly when character perspectives are presented in the first-­ person. As role-playing involves a first-person audience, with characters enacted by the players themselves, this form of identification can become heightened: a desirable immersive state for many players. Regardless of the type of narrative, identification can produce a temporary loss of self-awareness (Balzer 2011, 25), feelings of greater empathy with people from other perspectives, and an increased self-awareness about players’ own perspectives upon reflection after the game (Meriläinen 2012). Additionally, deep character immersion can produce feelings of catharsis. Players often report enjoyment as the result of crying in character or having extreme emotional experiences that they might find unappealing in mundane life, which are processed as positive experiences after the game (Montola and Holopainen 2012). Similarly, a person might find watching drama or horror films ultimately enjoyable and rewarding, despite intense emotional connection with characters in their moments of tragedy.

Box 22.3  Immersion and Bleed Some theorists connect the immersionism ideal with the phenomenon of bleed, in which the feelings, thoughts, relationships, and physical states of the player affect the character and vice versa (Montola 2010; Bowman 2013). For example, the jeepform collective of free-form designers emphasizes bleed as “the point of play” as it can “create psychologically or emotionally resonant individual experience” (White, Boss, and Harviainen, 72). Bleed may heighten player identification with character (Montola and Holopainen 2012, 84). Other communities fear bleed, emphasizing rules such as “in-character does not equal out-of-character” in order to reinforce the alibi that separates the self from the character. In such communities, individuals are seen as “taking the game too far” when immersed too deeply in character (→ Chapter 13 for more information). Another concept related to the division between player and character is steering: when the player can temporarily take control of the character in order to direct action, even in immersionist play (Montola, Stenros, and Saitta 2015; Pohjola 2015).

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Degrees of character immersion can be phrased metaphorically relating to the degree of control the player takes over actions. In the steering metaphor, the player might drive the car, indicating complete control; might sit in the passenger’s seat, indicating an active role while the character drives; might remain in the back seat while the character drives most of the action; or might lie latent in the trunk while the character takes complete control over the action. In contrast, Moyra Turkington (2006) has described the phenomenon of character immersion using theatrical metaphors (Bowman 2015). The player might act like a puppeteer, directing all actions of the character from a distanced perspective; might wear the character like a puppet on a hand, with slightly more immersion but strong control; might don the character like a mask, so the character is the primary actor, although the player still lies beneath; or may experience the character as a possessing force that takes control completely within the context of the game. This concept of possession is echoed in improv studies as well as in ethnographic accounts of role-players’ reporting deep states of immersion ( Johnstone 1989; Bowman 2015). The degree to which a player may “repossess” the body during such immersive states, as well as the length of time for which players can achieve this state of immersion, is subject to debate. Other psychological states experienced in spiritual communities, such as trance work ( Johnstone 1989), possession (Bourguignon 2004), channeling (Hughes 1991), and ‘aspecting’ (Sage n.d.), may bear similarities to this form of intense character immersion, although the fictional frame of the game may differentiate these experiences as liminoid rather than liminal. In other words, if a person believes themselves to be channeling an entity from another dimension, that experience is phenomenologically different from enacting a fictional character in an imaginary world, even if some of the psychological descriptions are similar. In this regard, highly immersive character play is likely more akin to method acting than channeling (Bowman 2015). Indeed, revising his original work in the Turku Manifesto, Pohjola (2004) later claimed that total character immersion is impossible, if still a goal to which players should aspire.

Immersion into Community The last category emphasizes immersion as a social state: immersion into community. For many players and theorists alike, the experience of role-playing immersion cannot be divorced from the social contexts – both in-game and out-of-game – within which they transpire. This concept correlates with Calleja’s (2011) shared involvement, which includes competition, cooperation, and cohabitation with both human and nonhuman actors within virtual games. Cover describes social immersion as a distinct category (116), and Björk and Holopainen (2004) explain immersion as being “deeply focused on the interaction [players] are having within the game” (qtd. in Torner and White 2012, 5). In Bartle’s (1996) taxonomy, socializers fit into this category. Yee’s (2006) social classification also corresponds with this motivation, including the subcategories of socializing, relationship(s), and teamwork. In larp, McDiarmid’s (2011) categories of fellowship and leadership fall under immersion in community, with Bienia (2012) finding fellowship to be the most important motivation in his sample group. Fellowship refers to enjoying time with members of the community, whereas leadership involves feeling important to the player group (McDiarmid, 6). Along these lines, Bowman (2010) emphasizes the creation of community as another primary function of RPGs. As mentioned earlier, the Meilahti School rejected the concept of character immersion, emphasizing interactivity as central by viewing role-playing characters as “effectively just

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more drastic versions of the social identities people switch between when they move from one context to another” (White, Boss, and Harviainen 2011, 83). In this sense, role-playing is not an individual activity but rather a form of shared imagination. This concept of social immersion focuses on the ability to play with identity through what Todd Nicholas Fuist (2012) calls the agentic imagination: framing one’s sense of self with regard to one’s social roles rather than one’s psychological ones. Fuist posits that role-players immerse on three levels of social practice and interaction: (1) their immediate gaming group, (2) the shared imagined space of the game world, and (3) the greater collective identity of the gaming community (114). Even within the Turku School, Pohjola (2004) stresses the importance of inter-immersion, which describes the ability of players to draw one another into deeper states of immersion through portrayals of character (89). From a narrative perspective, the players collectively create and adhere to the logic of a paracosm or imaginary world. Similar is the notion of group flow (Walker 2010), an immersive state often experienced by players in sports or musical groups who “get into the groove” or are “in the pocket”. While inter-immersion best explains social gaming related to character, narrative, and environmental enactment, group flow may help explain how players sync together in the overall experience of play or activities within play, such as working as a team in mass combats in a larp or MORPG. Interestingly, these collaborative, socially immersive states can occur outside of the individual roles characters must enact. For example, for a hero to defeat a villain in a boffer fight, both players have to to inter-immerse in the shared fiction and achieve group flow of activity, enacting a believable combat experience. In some larp communities, team-building activities, such as pregame workshops, help to build a cohesive group ensemble of players in order to establish a greater sense of trust, inter-immersion, and group flow (Methods, n.d.). Out-of-game social activities may serve a similar function, helping to reinforce relationships out-of-character and strengthening the protective frame of the magic circle (Bowman 2013). When considering creative agenda, immersion into community ties together all of the other categories as groups work best when the players consciously agree to a particular mode of enactment. As William J. White, Emily Care Boss, and Harviainen explain, “Since identifying a group-level Creative Agenda is a matter of seeing what player-behaviors are socially reinforced, Forge theory implies an immersive ideal that is related to a mutuality of ­experience – a game that ‘clicks’ for all participants” (71). Harviainen (2006) expands upon this point, stating that despite disparate play styles, players often do manage to inhabit the same fictional world successfully “because their interpretations of the game need not be identical” (78). Still, problems with differing creative agendas – which may arise out of alternate preferred modes of immersion – do occur, sometimes causing strife and even schisms within communities (­Bowman 2013). Therefore, understanding these modes of immersion, validating the experiences of others, and consciously designing games with a variety of immersive states can help tailor role-playing to facilitate stronger group cohesion.

Summary We began by discussing concepts related to immersion, such as flow, engagement, and presence, among others. Then we examined six distinct categories of immersion (activity, game, environment, narrative, character, and community) and discussed them in the context of existing theories and player’s experiential goals (i.e. creative agendas). While the exact phenomenon

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of immersion still remains a subject of debate, the term itself remains in use. Establishing useful ways to frame various immersive experiences is important, as is avoiding privileging one mode of role-playing immersion over another. Through a better understanding of the ways in which various players find enjoyment through immersion, designers and organizers can create experiences that are more fulfilling for their player base at large. They can also identify the reasons behind issues arising within the community when players have differing creative agendas. Finally, through understanding immersion, scholars can better comprehend the reasons why RPGs are so appealing and, in some cases, transformative for players.

Further Reading Calleja, Gordon. 2011. In-Game: From Immersion to Incorporation. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Cover, Jennifer Grouling. 2010. The Creation of Narrative in Tabletop Role-playing Games. Jefferson, NC: McFarland.

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Smith, Greg. 2006. Erving Goffman. New York, Routledge. Standiford, Anne. 2014. “Lessons Learned By Larp: Promoting Social Realism in Nursing Simulation.” In The Wyrd Con Companion Book 2014, edited by Sarah Lynne Bowman, 150–159. Los Angeles, CA: Wyrd Con. Stark, Lizzie. 2012. Leaving Mundania. Chicago, IL: Chicago Review Press. Steinberg, Marlene, and Maxine Schnall. 2000. The Stranger in the Mirror, Dissociation: The Hidden Epidemic. New York: HarperCollins. Stenros, Jaakko. 2013. “Aesthetics of Action.” Jaakko Stenros: Researcher, Player, Writer, October 28. https://jaakkostenros.wordpress.com/2013/10/28/aesthetics-of-action/. ———. 2015. Playfulness, Play, and Games: A Constructionist Ludology Approach. Tampere, Finland: ­Tampere University Press. Stenros, Jaakko, and Henri Hakkarainen. 2003. “The Meilahti Model.” In As Larp Grows Up, edited by Morten Gade, Line Thorup, and Mikkel Sander, 56–64. Fredriksberg: Projektgruppen KP03. Torner, Evan, and William J. White. 2012. “Introduction.” In Immersive Gameplay, edited by Evan Torner and William J. White, 3–11. Jefferson, NC: McFarland and Company, Inc. Turkington, Moyra. 2006. “Getting in the Cockpit.” Sin Aesthetics, November 17. http://games.space anddeath.com/sin_aesthetics/36. Walker, Charles J. 2010. “Experiencing Flow: Is Doing It Together Better than Doing It Alone?” The Journal of Positive Psychology 5: 3–11. Warrington, Patti, and Soyeon Shim. 2000. “An Empirical Investigation of the Relationship between Product Involvement and Brand Commitment.” Psychology & Marketing 17 (9): 761–782. White, William J., Emily Care Boss, and J. Tuomas Harviainen. 2012. “Role-playing Communities, Cultures of Play, and the Discourse of Immersion.” In Immersive Gameplay, edited by Evan Torner and William J. White, 71–86. Jefferson, NC: McFarland and Company, Inc. Yee, Nick. 2006. “Motivations of Play in MMORPGs: Results from a Factor Analytic Approach.” Nickyee.com. Accessed October 1, 2015. http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus/archives/pdf/3-2.pdf.

23 Players and Their Characters in ­Role-Playing Games Sarah Lynne Bowman and Karen Schrier

One of the more complex elements of role-playing studies is understanding the relationship between players and their characters. Indeed, the role-playing experience is unique in that the relationship between the player and character often varies depending on the game and also due to the expectation that a person is performing a type of “alternate self ” during their game. The performative aspects of games may be highly limited and constrained, such as in the case of many multi-player online role-playing games (MORPGs), or much more free and unrestrained, such as with some tabletop role-playing games (TRPGs) and live-action role-playing (larp) experiences. The degree to which players relate to and embody the thoughts, feelings, and actions of their characters depends strongly on the play culture of the group, not just the format or genre of a game. However, players always see themselves as distinct from their character in some way, even when playing intense and highly emotional games (→ Chapters 13 and 24). This chapter explores topics pertaining to the relationship between players and their characters. These topics range from the psychological, such as identity and personality transformation, to sociological concerns, such as representations of gender, race, and sexuality. In some cases, sociological and psychological concerns overlap, such as when players develop parasocial relationships with their characters (Banks and Bowman 2014a). In this chapter, the term character refers to the portrayal of a consistent persona in a fictional world of a role-playing game (RPG). The term avatar, commonly used in video games (including computer RPGs (CRPGs) and MORPGs) to refer to virtual representations of the player, will be used similarly to character. For instance, Jaime Banks uses Gregory Little’s definition of an avatar, describing it as “a delegate, a tool or instrument allowing an agency to transmit signification to a parallel world” (Little 1999) and also as “an interactive, social representation of a user” (Meadows 2008). Avatar can refer to a variety of virtual representations, including a textual name, customized font, instant messaging icon, forum avatar, navigational visualization of a user within a digital system, or customizable 3-D embodiment (Carter, Gibbs, and Arnold 2012). The term player will be used to describe the person who is inhabiting the character or avatar as part of their play of an RPG, whether it is played in the real world, digitally, or in a hybrid format.

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For the purposes of this chapter, distinguishing between avatar and character as distinct entities is not that important. For example, TRPGs may feature miniature figurines that represent characters for use in battles or dungeon crawls. Role-players may also visually render their characters through works of art or photos of celebrities that look like their alter egos in the game. Costuming in a larp is a form of avatar creation in the same way that players often customize the clothing and appearance of their characters in MORPGs (Yee 2006). However, in tabletop, freeform, and larp, a visual representation separate from the player is not always necessary for character enactment. That being said, each of the different forms of RPGs have particular affordances when it comes to players and their characters. For example, a player may feel more comfortable portraying their character as a gender different from their own in an online environment, a common occurrence in MORPGs (Yee, Ducheneaut, Yao, and Nelson 2011), whereas such crossplay may become more difficult in a fully immersive larp. While crossplay certainly exists in tabletop and larp games, “passing” as a different gender physically is usually far easier through a digital interface that visually portrays the character. Additionally, standards vary in play communities in terms of expectations of immersion into character (see Chapter 22). Role-playing in MORPGs is limited to a small subset of players (Williams, Kennedy, and Moore 2011), whereas intensive character immersion is the norm in Nordic larp (Stenros and Montola 2010). Crossplay is the act of playing a character whose gender is different from one’s own.

In this regard, some concepts emerging from the literature are more relevant in the study of certain forms of RPGs than others, although some phenomenological aspects are universal, such as the perception of the character as different from the player due to its status as existing in a fictional game world. The term “fictional” here does not imply that character experiences are somehow less important or “real-feeling” than mundane ones. Rather, the events that transpire within the game are not considered to occur in mundane reality. Thus, a player whose character casts a fireball spell knows the act takes place in fiction, even if that experience was profoundly affecting for the player in question. Despite this tendency to keep the “real world” separate from the fiction, especially in terms of identity, scholars, such as Zach Waggoner, have found that characters in MORPGS are often “just as real” to users as their non-virtual identities (Waggoner 2009). Thus, this chapter will refer to the person’s everyday self as their primary identity and the “real world” as the mundane for clarification purposes.

The Psychology of Players and Their Characters The process of creating a character can range dramatically from game to game. For example, character creation activities could include the selection of the physical appearance of an avatar in a video game (Yee 2006); describing and attributing skills or strengths to one’s character in a tabletop game, according to a predefined system ( Jara 2013; Torner 2016); or writing several page backstories for character in a larp. Other character creation activities include conducting research on personality factors, genre, or time periods; selecting costuming, whether virtual or physical; and establishing relationships with other characters, whether played by people or computer interfaces or invented by the player in question (Bowman 2010). Players of Dungeons & Dragons, for instance, may use a character record sheet that considers the character’s quantified attributes, including wisdom, dexterity, strength, charisma,

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languages spoken, special skills, and equipment carried. A Call of Cthulhu character sheet may include descriptions of family and friend relationships, special heirlooms, and/or phobias, while a Night Witches sheet may allow for fewer room for creativity on the part of the player by reducing the options available. Here, check boxes may be used to select whether the character is a “Leader” or “Dreamer.” In some cases, designers provide completely pre-written character backgrounds for the players, which the participants must interpret with some degree of fidelity to authorial intention, as is the case with New England Interactive Literature larps (Budin 2015) and many Nordic larps (Stenros and Montola 2010). Thus, players have varying levels of investment and control with regard to fleshing out the details of their characters. However, a higher degree of investment does not necessarily correlate with greater feelings of immersion into character (Pohjola 2004), attachment (Banks and Bowman 2014a), or roleplay (Williams, Kennedy, and Moore 2011). Each player engages with their character in unique ways at different points during the play period, according to their motivations and modes of immersion (→ Chapters 13 and 22). Similarly, some characters may evolve over time in terms of the depth of character development in a set of stages: character creation, further development through planning, elaboration through interaction with others, and actualization/realization as an independent entity (Bowman 2010). As there is so much variety in terms of the extent to which players create their characters, the subsequent sections will focus on how the player enacts and engages with their character from a psychological perspective. Of particular interest are the degrees to which a player feels distinct from their character, how deeply they experience immersion, in what ways they feel that their character is an independent agent, and how they shape their personal identities as a result of character enactment.

Multiplicity In role-playing, participants always experience their characters as distinct in some way. In this regard, the moral panics around players “losing touch with reality” or “getting lost in the character” are considered stigmatizing and unfounded by players as participants perceive their characters as separate entities, interacting in a fictional world through the use of alibi (Montola and Holopainen 2012). As Sarah Lynne Bowman explains, alibi is part of the social contract by which “players accept the premise that any actions in the game are taken by the character, not by the player” (Bowman 2015, para. 4). Alibi allows players to distance themselves from the actions of their characters, even when these characters’ personae are quite similar to the players’ primary identities, e.g. “It wasn’t me killing that orc,” “my character yelled at yours, not me,” or “my character is prince of the city, but I work at an insurance office” (→Chapter 24). In drama therapy, this notion is called aesthetic doubling, in which the participant simultaneously perceives themselves as their character and their primary identity (Østern and Heikkinen 2001). This process is central to other cousin activities involving characterization, such as novel writing, stage acting, improvisation, etc. (Bowman 2015). Thus, some theorists assert that the ability to create and enact an identity separate from one’s own is an essential function of the human mind. Psychologists speak of dissociation, in which the mind shifts states in various ways, including altering one’s sense of time, space, physicality, memory, and identity (Steinberg and Schnall 2000). Some role-play scholars connect this notion of dissociation to the role-play experience (Lukka 2014), particularly with regard to identity alteration (Bowman 2010, 2015). While dissociation is often associated with trauma or a personality disorder, theorists such as Sherry Turkle (1995) emphasize the multiplicity of self as common to the postmodern experience of engagement with

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multiple media at once. According to Turkle, each window in our computer screen represents a new presentation of self and an exploration of an alternate aspect of our personality. Thus, role-playing characters are extensions of this inherent multiplicity. Along these lines, Marcus Carter, Martin Gibbs, and Michael Arnold (2012) have noted at least four distinct modes of identification in MOPRGs: the perspectives of user, player, avatar, and character. The user refers to the mundane identity, the player refers to the mode of engagement in the game, the avatar refers to the visual representation, and the character refers to all the aspects of the alternate persona. These concepts also align with Erving Goffman’s notions of the presentation of self as a shifting identity in various social spaces (1959) and frames (1974), as explored in → Chapter 12. Some theorists take the multiplicity of self a step further by suggesting that exploring these facets is productive to the psychological health of the individual (Burns 2014). The theory of psychosynthesis, originally developed by Roberto Assagioli (2000), maintains that each person holds several alternate identities within them, organized by a main overseeing ego known as the Integrator or Manager. In psychosynthesis, the goal of the therapeutic process is to identify, develop, and guide these multiple selves to greater cooperation rather than unification. In other words, psychosynthesis celebrates the multiplicity of self as a healthy creative process rather than psychosis. Bob Rehak (2003) takes this notion a bit further, suggesting that games provide a conscious window into the multiplicity already existing within us. He describes our experience of reality as existing in a constant tension between the illusion of wholeness of consciousness and the multiplicity of self “riddled with unbridgeable gaps” (p. 123). Rehak asserts that, through games, players find a “small square of contemplative space: a laboratory, quiet and orderly by comparison with the [mundane] world, in which we toy with subjectivity, play with being” (p. 123). Thus, some role-play theorists find productive multiplicity a possible avenue for understanding the impulse to enact characters as well as a mode of exploring aspects and skills that can transfer to the primary identity in mundane reality (Turkle 1995; Bowman 2010).

Box 23.1  Problematic Usage Some researchers worry about the use of role-playing as an escape from concerns in mundane life (e.g. Williams, Kennedy, and Moore 2011). In this regard, the fantasy of enacting a character, particularly in a long-term campaign setting, such as an ongoing larp or MORPG, might become a form of addiction, which some researchers prefer to call problematic usage (Peters and Malesky 2008). If players often view their characters as idealized selves, the desire to immerse oneself in a more empowered identity might become absorbing, a process Gary Alan Fine (1983) calls overinvolvement. Interestingly, Dmitri Williams, Tracy Kennedy, and Robert Moore (2011) found that intensive role-players in MORPGs – who made up only 5% of the total respondents of their sample– were quantitatively more likely to come from marginalized groups and have physical or personal challenges. However, interviews revealed that these players found that their engagement with the game increased their sociability and self-expression. Such studies show that, when determining problematic usage, simply measuring aspects like time spent playing or neuroatypicality may prove less instructive than personal interviews about the lived experiences, uses, and gratifications of players.

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Degree of Separation and Intensity of Immersion Another fascinating element pertaining to the psychology of characters is the ways in which players imagine themselves in relation to their characters. For some players, a character is a sort of toy that they manipulate to achieve a goal. For others, the character is just an extension of themselves in a fictional world. Others still view their characters as fully articulated alternate personae with their own goals and feelings. In some cases, the character even becomes a social other in need of care (Banks 2015; Banks and Bowman 2014a). These concepts are explored further in the sections on identity and parasocial relationships. For some tabletop and larp theorists, the phenomenology of player experience with regard to characters relates to how much control they cede to the alternate persona in play. Similar to method acting, some participants allow the characters to take the primary role in their consciousness during play, even if they always retain some measure of observation through the process of aesthetic doubling (Bowman 2015). Moyra Turkington (2006) describes four degrees of immersion in relation to the relative distance between the primary identity and the character: marionette, puppet, mask, and possessing force. The marionette refers to the player’s having the greatest distance and control over the character, whereas, in the possessing force, “the player abandons a personal identity and surrenders to the character object as a goal of play in order to directly experience the full subjective reality of the character.” This final description corresponds strongly with the immersionism ideal in Nordic larp and other RPG communities (Pohjola 2003; Bøckman 2003).

Box 23.2  Steering Theory Steering theory (Montola, Stenros, and Saitta 2015; Pohjola 2015) in role-playing studies offers another analogy for describing how enveloped by the character the player becomes in terms of personal identification and ego control. The analogy involves driving a car. The participant may perceive their primary consciousness as residing in the trunk, the back seat, the passenger seat, or behind the wheel while the character is “driving,” indicating degrees of player direction and control.

Finally, these concepts may relate to the intensity of immersion experienced by the player. Emily Brown and Paul Cairns (2004) describe three degrees of immersion, from weakest to strongest: engagement, engrossment, and so-called total immersion. While the authors speak of immersion in a general sense, these concepts are also of interest to the specific experience of immersion into character (→Chapter 22). While total immersion in the sense of the player forgetting completely who they are in favor of their character’s feelings, thoughts, and actions is a myth, some participants do report losing time or feeling “possessed” by the character for intervals (Bowman 2015). Ultimately, participants engage with their characters uniquely with regard to degree of character immersion, so generalizations about play experiences are difficult to make.

Identity The relationship between a player’s identity and their character’s is a subject of interest to many scholars. One of the most interesting facets of the role-playing experience is the enactment

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of a different self – and, moreover – one that may or may not bear resemblance to the player’s primary identity. Bowman explains that players enter a game and adopt the “new set of social rules, both implicit and explicit” (Bowman 2015, para. 4) that comprise the game’s social contract. Once this contract has been agreed upon, players can safely enter the “magic circle” of the game, where they have the chance to explore repressed or otherwise marginalized aspects of their consciousness in a relatively consequence-free space. Players can use this space to enact versions of themselves in alternate sets of circumstances or portray characters quite different from their self-concepts. Either way, character enactment may result from a dissociative psychological state called identity alteration, in which the primary identity relinquishes partial control over the self to an alternate personality (Bowman 2010, 138–143; Bowman 2015). As noted earlier, proponents of this theory do not consider this dissociative state pathological but rather a willful extension of the multiplicity of identity inherent to consciousness. The following subsections will detail the ways in which players describe their characters with reference to their primary identities, based upon the types established by Jaime Banks (2015) and Bowman (2010) in their qualitative work on role-playing gamers. While a thorough examination of the nuances of these works is beyond the scope of this discussion, this chapter aims to provide a useful set of categories to help understand player-character experiences. Some of these concepts relate directly to the sensation of immersion into character, whereas others are more descriptive of character traits with reference to identity. While ­Bowman’s work focuses on the psychological dimensions of these identity relationships, Banks also explores the parasocial dynamics and players’ attachment to their characters as external entities.

Object, Me, Symbiote, Other Banks’s (2015) qualitative study of MORPG participants revealed four main relationships between players and characters: avatar-as-object, avatar-as-me, avatar-as-symbiote, and avatar-as-other. Some theorists refer to an avatar as a “tool” (Linderoth 2005), “instrument” (Little 1999), or “bundle of resources” (Castronova 2005), highlighting the mechanical, lifeless quality of a computerized representation: one that the player can maneuver but that has no identity of its own. Banks’s works complicates this understanding of an avatar because she demonstrates that several of her respondents have developed emotional intimacy and a sense of commitment to their characters, experiencing their journeys within the game as shared with the avatar rather than simply viewed through it. While only true for a small minority of Banks’s participants, this conceptualization is closer to the way many of Bowman’s participants describe their analog role-playing characters, many viewing these alter egos as complete individuals with minds and wills of their own. The degree to which the visual representation of the avatar as generated by a computer program may or may not provide added distance to the role-playing experience is an area of research that requires further investigation. Ultimately, one’s relationship to one’s character – whether in virtual or analog space – depends quite a bit on one’s relative creative agenda and player motivations (→Chapter 13).

Avatar-as-Object The avatar-as-object relationship features language that most closely resembles viewing the character as tool-like. Players with this sort of stance focus upon competition and combat

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practices from a strategic and detached perspective, emphasizing game-defined goals over social interaction or identity exploration (Banks 2015). In their systemic linguistic analysis comparing the metaphoric language employed by scholars with the way MORPG users refer to their characters, Banks and Bowman (2014b) found that players with the avatar-as-object orientation were most likely to refer to their avatars as objects, puppets, tools, or toys. This category aligns with the gamist creative agenda (→Chapter 10), which focuses upon achievement, problem-solving, and winning challenges (Edwards 2001). This mode of engagement also suggests a strong degree of alibi in that players perceive their actions in the game or toward the characters mainly through the lens of ludic goals. These players may not view their in-game actions as having any consequences to other players and, thus, view their game behavior as justifiable, if technically possible.

Avatar-as-Me In the avatar-as-me relationship, the avatar acts as an extension or mirror of the player in the game world while engaging in the ritual practice of play with others. In this sense, the character is not separate from the player but rather a vehicle through which they can operate (Carr 2002). Often, these avatars will replicate the identity of the player in terms of roles, appearance, and personality. This relationship type also enhances the player’s sense of agency when they experience validation as the result of successfully performing actions through the avatar (Banks 2015). Banks and Bowman (2014b) found that players with the avatar-as-me orientation most often refer to their avatars as identities, mirrors, pieces of themselves, representations, or extensions. Such players may view their characters as merging with their experiences of self while they are playing (Klimmt, Hefner, and Vorderer 2009). This relationship is similar to Bowman’s Doppelganger Self, described in the following section.

Avatar-as-Symbiote In the avatar-as-symbiote relationship, the character assists the player with identity and sensemaking. The character serves as a costume (Merola and Peña 2010) or mask (Galanxhi and Nah 2007), allowing players to craft an alternate persona, often one with idealized personality traits, such as heroism, sociability, strength, independence, etc. In this regard, avatars in MORPGs often serve as a bridge between the player’s perception of their actual self and their ideal self (Bessière, Seay, and Kiesler 2007). The symbiotic relationship involves the player using the character to practice desirable behaviors. The result of this interaction is that players can bring dimensions of these personality characteristics into their mundane lives (Banks 2015). Unlike avatar-as-me, players with this orientation view their characters as separate but symbiotic entities, often ones with characteristics they lack. While any role-playing character type can help a player practice traits – even undesirable ones – this category most resembles Bowman’s Idealized Self but could also connect with other categories, such as the Oppositional Self.

Avatar-as-Other When conceiving of an avatar as an “Other,” the player considers the character a distinct social agent. The character exists within the game fiction as independent from the mundane world and has “its own governing systems, life history, and trajectory” (Banks 2015). Players

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experience a high degree of emotional intimacy with such characters, viewing them as “real amalgam[s] of body, personality, behaviors, and beliefs through and about which new narratives emerge over time” (Banks 2015). While many MORPG games feature an embedded ­meta-narrative with smaller quest stories, players with the avatar-as-other orientation streamline these stories with player-created ones to establish a linear, narrative reality within which their characters exist. In other words, the characters may follow pre-scripted narratives provided by the game design, but participants who view their characters as other entities sometimes create new content around their characters’ backstories (Moore and Gathman 2007) as well as individualized experiences and relationships that contextualize their personal narratives within the larger ones. This act of narrativization increases the social element of play, as described in more detail in the following section on parasocial relationships. Banks and Bowman (2014b) found that players with the avatar-as-other orientation most commonly referred to their character as a person or partner. These descriptions correlate with all of Bowman’s types as a whole and also connect with her “Four Stages of Character Evolution,” described in the following section.

Box 23.3  Anonymity and Griefing As mentioned, not all behaviors in role-playing environments are pro-social. One common example of upsetting or hurtful behavior occurs in online settings where players experience a greater degree of anonymity, although players in analog RPGs may feel a similar degree of distancing due to the fiction or other reasons. So, some players may use the game space to “grief” others, with behaviors such as repeatedly killing a character each time they resurrect in MORPGS (Chen, Duh, and Ng 2009) or using mechanics, harassment, or social humiliation to overpower others in analog games (Stenros 2015). This anonymity causes a form of de-individuation in which individuals lose their sense of social responsibility, similar to the concept of alibi in role-play studies. In this context, Vivian Chen, Henry Duh, and Chiew Woon Ng (2009) discuss four categories of griefing, which are provoked by the following factors: the game world, such as boredom and testing limits; other players, such as spite and vulnerability; other griefers, such as ritualization, group identity, and reputation; and the self, such as moodiness, needing attention, wanting to feel powerful, and role-playing motivations (342) (→Chapter 24). Such antisocial behaviors may cause problems for individual players or the social community at large. Thus, in online games, game creators have experimented with ways of minimizing and reducing griefing behavior. Similarly, a greater emphasis on social responsibility for emotional safety amongst players has emerged in the discourse on analog games (Brown 2016; Koljonen 2016).

Stages of Character Evolution and Typology Bowman’s (2010) work on the relationship between players and their characters focuses primarily on participants involved in campaign play with player-generated characters, including text-based role-play, tabletop, and larp. While some of the participants in the study play games that feature a hack-and-slash element, such as Dungeons & Dragons, her interview questions asked players to reflect upon their relationships with their characters in terms of how they perceive their primary identity characteristics as similar or distinct (Bowman 2010, 183–184).

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Four Stages of Character Evolution Bowman (2010) describes a model of “Four Stages of Character Evolution” (p. 156–164), which indicate a trajectory of growth from the initial character concept to greater levels of complexity: 1 Genesis Stage: the player creates the initial concept, usually prompted by others within the gaming group or based upon personal interest. This concept might arise from extensive deliberation or momentary inspiration. 2 Development Stage: the player may then proceed to engage in other character building activities, e.g. filling out character sheets, performing external research, writing backstories, purchasing specific dice, costuming, drawing the character, painting miniatures, etc. Players may develop names, accents, and other personal affectations for their characters. Co-creation with other players may occur during this stage with the establishment of character relationships and narrative dynamics. These activities are not always necessary for development to occur, but they can help the player become more prepared for play. 3 Interaction Stage: the player enacts the character in the role-playing world, interacting with other characters and narratives. Often, the character concept can change dramatically as a result of this stage; characters may veer in unforeseen directions when events occur outside of the players’ control. 4 Realization Stage: the player has a strong sense of the character as a distinct entity, including their idiosyncrasies and complexities. The player understands the character’s past and present motivations and sees their existence along a distinct narrative timeline. The character can still grow and change over time after reaching this stage. This stage most resembles Banks’s avatar-as-other category, as described by MMORPG players (Banks 2015). Not all characters reach the Realization Stage, nor do all players view these stages as personal goals based upon their creative agendas and motivations. Also, these stages are seen across different styles of play, such as long-form one-shot games, enacted over several days, and campaign play, which may take place over months and years.

Nine Types of Role-Playing Characters Like Banks’s categories, Bowman’s “Nine Types of Player-Characters” detail the ways in which players describe their characters with reference to their own primary identities (p. 164–176). While Banks’s work explores the functional use of the characters as “objects,” Bowman focuses on definitions of the character based upon identity, including social roles, personalities, preferences, attitudes, etc. This typology demonstrates a spectrum approach to character enactment; types range from close to the primary identity – with the Doppelganger Self – to far away – with the Oppositional and Taboo Selves. These types are descriptive rather than proscriptive. They describe the main themes discussed by RPG players and do not limit other themes as possibilities. Characters may change types over time or occupy multiple types at once. Some types might express themselves more strongly in the character than others. 1 Doppelganger Self: a character that behaves and thinks almost identically to the player’s primary identity. The player may have designed the character as distinct originally but

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enacts it as similar to the player’s own identity in practice. Alternatively, the game may encourage players to enact characters “close to home” or identical to the self in fictional circumstances. 2 Devoid Self: a character similar to the primary identity that lacks an essential trait or quality that the player possesses, e.g. a physical disability, lack of empathy, harsher upbringing, etc. This type represents the Doppelganger minus an important facet of the player’s experience. 3 Augmented Self: a character similar to the primary identity, with some sort of augmentation, e.g. a superpower, immortality, or inexhaustible wealth. This type represents the Doppelganger plus an important facet that would change the player’s perspective. 4 Fragmented Self: a subdued fragment of the primary identity that becomes accentuated, magnified, or twisted into a distinctive feature of the character. The fragment can represent anything from within the self, e.g. their sensuality, their manipulative-ness, their dream of pursuing a certain profession, their interest in a particular field of study, etc. Most characters are Fragmented Selves to greater and lesser degrees. Characters of this type often fall under additional categories, such as Idealized or Taboo Selves. 5 Repressed Self: a regression into an earlier state of consciousness, such as an Inner Child character. The Repressed Self may also represent adolescence or any other earlier life stage. While Bowman (2010) focuses upon human consciousness, the repressed self can also include regression to animalistic states or previous stages of human evolution. This type may also include the enactment of tribal behavior from less Westernized societies or imaginary cultures. 6 Idealized Self: a character that possesses qualities that the player desires, e.g. physical prowess, heroism, seductiveness, keeping calm under pressure, pacifism, extraversion, etc. These qualities may not always correlate with “heroic” traits; for example, a rogue character may fall under the Idealized type, depending on the perspective of the player. This type corresponds strongly with Banks’s avatar-as-symbiote (Banks 2015). 7 Oppositional Self: a character in complete opposition to the player’s sense of primary identity. This character might be villainous but does not always possess negative characteristics. Oppositional selves are sometimes used to explore a mentality or an opposing ideology that the player does not understand. This type may, from a Jungian perspective, represent the player’s Shadow qualities: elements of the repressed, unconscious personality manifesting through active imagination and creativity ( Jung 1976; Bowman 2012; Beltrán 2013). Oppositional selves are common character types; villains or otherwise polarizing figures often create conflict in games, which can result in interesting narratives. 8 Experimental Self: a character created as an experiment in order to explore a bizarre concept, challenge the participant’s role-playing abilities, highlight interesting themes in the game, or test the boundaries of the game experience. 9 Taboo Self: a character meant to explore a social taboo. Taboos may include behaviors such as incest, rape, murder, torture, cannibalism, or abuse. In these situations, the ­Taboo Self often works to reaffirm the player’s moral stance on these topics after the game rather than subvert it. This type may also describe players enacting gender or sexual identities that conservative communities might find taboo, such as transgenderism, homosexuality, anthropomorphism (e.g. playing animalistic characters), or BDSM. In the latter case, the player may be expressing their own identity or sexuality, which mainstream society has deemed inappropriate in their experience. Alternatively, a player may

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wish to experience the perspective of people who have an alternate identity while not finding it personally relatable. Taboos are culturally specific in this context and might be a part of the game fiction. Bowman emphasizes the potential for players to engage in self-reflection after enacting these characters, which can lead them to discard unwanted character traits and integrate desired ones into their primary self-concepts (see also Rehak 2003). Players may also “activate” aspects of their characters in mundane situations, e.g. enacting or “borrowing” their characters’ leadership abilities when giving speeches at work. While not all players undergo this process, Banks reports a similar phenomenon in players who view their avatars-as-symbiotes who are able to teach them important skills.

Transfer and Ego-Bleed Much of the research on role-playing supports the notion that players have learned valuable skills or experienced personal shifts as a result of playing a character. Bowman (2010, 2014) stresses the potential for RPGs to expand the affective, cognitive, and behavioral skills of players, whether designed for an educational purpose or leisure. Katherine Bessière, A. Fleming Seay, and Sara Kiesler (2007) discuss the ways in which MORPGs build a bridge between the player’s perception of their actual self and the ideal self that they wish to become. Nick Yee, Nicholas Ducheneaut, Mike Yao, and Less Nelson (2011) explore the concept of the Proteus effect, in which players tend to conform to expected attitudes and behaviors, based upon their avatar’s appearance in MMORPGs. Such effects may remain limited to the in-game context or transfer to out-of-game behaviors. Psychologist Whitney Strix Beltrán (2013) theorizes this notion as ego-bleed, in which the identity contents of the characters spill over into the primary identities of the players. The degree to which ego-bleed occurs is difficult to determine as many players describe drawing strong distinctions between their mundane attitudes and behaviors and those of their characters. However, this notion of ego-bleed can help explain how players may constructively choose to enact certain character traits in mundane contexts or how they might use a character to help them practice social skills, such as leadership, courtship, or teamwork. Another way of understanding this notion of ego-bleed is through the concept of individuation ( Jung 1976), in which a person engages in active imagination, interacts with archetypal material – for ­example, by embodying a character within a fiction – and actively uses those experiences and that content to reconstruct their own sense of self (Bowman 2012). However, transformational effects are not always positive. Bessière, Seay, and Kiesler (2007) suggest that players reveal both pro-social and antisocial elements of their personalities in online games. People, in some sense, are their characters while playing World of Warcraft. Others refer to them by the names of their characters, and they interact with others as those characters. The comparative anonymity offered by the Internet allows players, as their characters, to escape ­real-world norms and expectations, act out roles, and try out personas that range from enhanced versions of their real-life selves to alter egos that behave in reprehensible ways. A player’s character, therefore, is one instance of a possible virtual self. (Bessière, Seay, and Kiesler 2007) Similarly, Yee (2014) has noted problematic behaviors in online games, such as racism and false gender stereotyping (p. 4). Jaakko Stenros (2015) discusses the ways in which participants

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engage in grief play and other activities that feel playful to them but not to others. Beltrán (2013) discusses these sorts of activities in terms of enacting the Shadow, meaning playing with content normally repressed or considered socially unacceptable. While shadow or brink play can sometimes prove pro-social in that players further differentiate their self-­ concepts from such behaviors and reinforce their senses of ethics (Simkins 2010), Beltrán (2013) contends that extended immersion into shadow play runs the risk of ego-bleed of negative characteristics from the characters, such as deception, destructive competition, and status jockeying. Such discussions relate to fears around the effects of playing violence in RPGs (→ Chapters 13 and 24).

The Sociology of Players and Their Characters While the experiences of players in relation to their characters are primarily individual and, therefore, psychological ones, some social dimensions are important to explore. Players exist within a community of play, and characters exist within a community of fiction. Studying the relationship between players and characters necessitates also evaluating the social environments within which they exist, e.g. the norms of the play culture, the affordances of the system, and fictional limitations. This section will explore the sociological dimensions of the player-­ character relationship. (→ Chapters 12 and 22)

Playing Gender, Race, and Sexuality One of the benefits of enacting a fictional character is the ability to portray someone from a vastly different social experience than that of the player’s mundane life. For example, a cisgendered male can play a female-identifying character. Players can enact different races, ethnicities, nationalities, sexualities, and even species, depending on the game. The degree of embodiment may impact the experience. For example, players may more reliably “pass” as another gender in virtual spaces with fewer cues to their mundane social identity, such as voice, photographs, or other indications. For this reason, people from marginalized identities often describe virtual spaces as freeing from social constraints that might otherwise hinder them, such as differences in able-bodied-ness, race, or gender (Pineiro-Escoriaza 2008). In fact, some players prefer to present themselves using a more socially commanding avatar to garner respect, such as a short, Filipino woman feeling empowered by playing a tall, black, male avatar in EverQuest (Levine 2007). Additionally, larp and tabletop groups often allow for crossplay and other alternative social identity performances. Indeed, players sometimes use these spaces to explore aspects of their own gender or sexuality that are normally suppressed, such as transgender or non-binary gender identities or queer desires (Bowman 2010). Such character performances can lead to players’ feeling more emboldened to come out in their everyday lives. In terms of virtual games, scholars have made efforts to quantify instances of alternative gender performance and racial diversity in representation. Yee, Ducheneaut, Yao, and Nelson (2011) found that in a sample of 1,084 participants, 53.3% of males played at least one female character as opposed to 18.5% of women, who played at least one male character. Interestingly, the authors found that gendered behavior tended to be reproduced in these instances as male players would perform traditionally feminine roles as female characters, including healing and

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other support roles. Similarly, female players displayed masculine behaviors while enacting male characters, including aggressive player-versus-player moves. However, racial diversity still remains problematic in many role-playing spaces (Waddell, Ivory, Conde, et al. 2014). Whether by player choice or affordances of the game space, MORPGs still remain overwhelmingly white, even with greater customization of avatars available (Higgin 2009). While some people of color may choose to play a white character to avoid stigma, others often feel frustrated by this lack of representation, especially in fantasy worlds where social realities are designable to reflect more progressive social ideals (Beltrán 2015). Other issues in terms of character enactment and representation are connected to cultural appropriation or stereotyping, in which enactments are considered offensive or hurtful to people from marginalized groups. Thus, while many players and designers encourage a greater diversity of portrayals, they also suggest that these representations require a certain degree of sensitivity and research (Long 2016).

Parasocial Relationships One fascinating element of the player relationship to character is the potential for the participant to relate to the avatar or alter ego as a distinct social person. These parasocial relationships can vary, such as treating an avatar in an MORPG as a child or loved one that needs care (Banks and ­Bowman 2014a), worrying about how a particular narrative in a campaign larp might negatively impact one’s ongoing character, or engaging in upkeep of a character’s stats. Such relationships are less about the player’s personal feelings when embodying the character and more about viewing the avatar as an independent entity that one feels responsible for maintaining. Here, the player experiences a higher degree of separation from the character but also a high feeling of intimacy (Banks 2015). However, players likely switch between modes of immersion. In other words, a player may experience their character both as a deeply psychological experience and as a social relationship. Additionally, such modes of identification may shift, depending upon when a player reflects upon them, or when they are queried in interviews or surveys.

Summary The relationship between the player and character in RPGs is one of the most interesting subjects in the field of role-playing studies, in part because the distinction is somewhat unique to other sorts of gaming experiences, such as those of poker, bridge, or sports. We have highlighted psychological and sociological factors, including: • •

Multiplicity, or the distinction between player and character, and the extent to which players relate to and identify with their characters. Gender, race, and sexuality connections and how social norms and categories in the real world may relate to those enacted through play.

While identity exploration through character enactment is often experienced as pleasurable and even life-changing, it also entails certain drawbacks, especially in terms of antisocial play. Studying this dynamic further can help illuminate the popularity, the pleasures, and the potentials afforded by RPGs.

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Further Reading Bowman, Sarah Lynne. 2010. The Functions of Role-Playing Games: How Participants Create Community, Solve Problems, and Explore Identity. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, Inc. Goffman, Erving. 1959. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. New York: Anchor Books. Turkle, Sherry. 1995. Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet. New York: Simon & Shuster.

References Assagioli, Roberto. 2000. Psychosynthesis: A Collection of Basic Writings. Amhurst, MA: Synthesis Center. Banks, Jamie. 2015. “Object, Me, Symbiote, Other: A Social Typology of Player-Avatar Relationships.” First Monday: Peer Reviewed Journal on the Internet 20 (2). Accessed December 17, 2017 http://first­ monday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/5433. Banks, Jaime and Nicholas David Bowman. 2014a. “Avatars Are (Sometimes) People Too: Linguistic Indicators of Parasocial and Social Ties in Player-avatar Relationships.” New Media & Society 18 (7): 1–20. ———. 2014b. “From Toy and Tool to Partner and Person: Phenomenal Convergence/Divergence among Game Avatar Metaphors.” Proceedings from Papers of Internet Research 16: The 16th Annual Meeting of the Association of Internet Researchers. Phoenix, AZ, October 21–24. Beltrán, Whitney “Strix.” 2013. “Shadow Work: A Jungian Perspective on the Underside of Live Action Role-Play in the United States.” In Wyrd Con Companion Book 2013, edited by Sarah Lynne Bowman and Aaron Vanek, 94–101. Los Angeles, CA: Wyrd Con. ———. 2015. “Why Minority Settings in RPGs Matter.” Tor.com, April 27. www.tor.com/2015/04/27/ why-minority-settings-in-rpgs-matter/. Bessière, Katherine, A. Fleming Seay, and Sara Kiesler. 2007. “The Ideal Elf: Identity Exploration in World of Warcraft.” Cyberpsychology & Behavior 10 (4): 530–535. Bøckman, Petter. 2003. “The Three Way Model.” In When Larp Grows Up – Theory and Methods in Larp, edited by Morten Gade, Line Thorup and Mikkel Sander, 12–16. Frederiksberg: Projektgruppen KP03. Bowman, Sarah Lynne. 2010. The Functions of Role-Playing Games: How Participants Create Community, Solve Problems, and Explore Identity. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, Inc. ———. 2012. “Jungian Theory and Immersion in Role-Playing Games.” In Immersive Gameplay, edited by Evan Torner and William J. White, 31–51. Jefferson, NC: McFarland. ———. 2014. “Educational Live Action Role-playing Games: A Secondary Literature Review.” In The Wyrd Con Companion Book 2014, edited by Sarah Lynne Bowman, 112–131. Los Angeles, CA: Wyrd Con. ———. 2015. “Connecting Role-Playing, Stage Acting, and Improvisation.” Analog Game Studies 2.4. Accessed August 20, 2015. http://analoggamestudies.org/2015/05/connecting-role-playing-stageacting-and-improvisation/. Brown, Emily and Paul Cairns. 2004. “A Grounded Investigation of Game Immersion.” Proceedings for CHI 2004, Vienna, Austria, April 24–29. Brown, Maury. 2016. “Creating a Culture of Trust through Safety and Calibration Larp Mechanics.” Nordiclarp.org, September 9. https://nordiclarp.org/2016/09/09/creating-culture-trust-safetycalibration-larp-mechanic. Budin, Nat. 2015. “Decoding the Default: Secrets and Powers Larp.” In The Wyrd Con Companion Book 2015, edited by Sarah Lynne Bowman, 20–25. Los Angeles, CA: Wyrd Con. Burns, Kevin. 2014. “The Therapy Game: Nordic Larp, Psychotherapy, and Player Safety.” In The Wyrd Con Companion Book 2014, edited by Sarah Lynne Bowman, 28–41. Los Angeles, CA: Wyrd Con. Carr, Diane. 2002. “Playing with Lara.” In ScreenPlay: Cinema/Videogames/Interfaces, edited by Geoff King and Tanya Krzywinska, 171–180. London: Wallflower Press.

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Carter, Marcus, Martin Gibbs, and Michael Arnold. 2012. “Avatars, Characters, Players and Users: Multiple Identities at/in Play.” Proceedings of OZCHI’12, Melbourne, Australia, November 26–30. Castronova, Edward. 2005. Synthetic Worlds: The Business and Culture of Online Games. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Chen, Vivian Hsueh-Hua, Henry Been-Lirn Duh, and Chiew Woon Ng. 2009. “Players Who Play to Make Others Cry: The Influence of Anonymity and Immersion.” Proceedings from Ace 2009, ­Athens, Greece, October 29–31. Edwards, Ron. 2001. “GNS and Other Matters of Role-Playing Theory.” Adept Press, October 14. Accessed August 20, 2015. www.indie-rpgs.com/articles/1/. Fine, Gary Alan. 1983. Shared Fantasy: Role-Playing Games as Social Worlds. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Galanxhi, Holtjona and Fiona Fui-Hoon Nah. 2007. “Deception in Cyberspace: A Comparison of TextOnly vs. Avatar-Supported Medium.” International Journal of Human-Computer Studies 65 (9): 770–783. Goffman, Erving. 1959. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. New York: Anchor Books. ———. 1974. Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience. Boston, MA: Northeastern University Press. Higgin, Tanner. 2009. “Blackless Fantasy: The Disappearance of Race in Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games.” Games and Culture 4 (1): 3–26. Jara, David. 2013. “A Closer Look at the (Rule-) Books: Framings and Paratexts in Tabletop Role-­ playing Games.” International Journal of Role-playing 4: 39–54. Jung, Carl G. 1976. The Portable Jung. Edited by Joseph Campbell. Translated by R. F. C. Hull. New York: Penguin Books. Klimmt, Christoph, Dorothée Hefner, and Peter Vorderer. 2009. “The Video Game Experience as ‘True’ Identification: A Theory of Enjoyable Alterations of Players’ Self-Perception.” Communication Theory 19 (4): 351–373. Koljonen, Johanna. 2016. Participation Safety. https://participationsafety.wordpress.com/, Accessed ­December 15, 2017. Levine, Ketzel. 2007. Alter Egos in a Virtual World. NPR: Morning Addition, July 31. www.npr.org/ templates/story/story.php?storyId=12263532. Linderoth, Jonas. 2005. “Animated Game Pieces: Avatars as Roles, Tools and Props.” Paper presented at Aesthetics of Play conference, University of Bergen, Norway, October 14–15. Accessed August 20, 2015. www.aestheticsofplay.org/papers/linderoth2.htm. Little, Gregory. 1999. “An Avatar Manifesto.” Intertexts 3 (2). Accessed August 20, 2015. www.scribd. com/doc/165921086/An-Avatar-Manifesto#scribd. Long, TiMar. 2016. “Character Creation Diversity in Gaming Art.” International Journal of Role-playing 7: 23–29. Lukka, Lauri. 2014. “The Psychology of Immersion.” In The Cutting Edge of Nordic Larp, edited by Jon Back, 81–92. Gråsten, Denmark: Knutpunkt. Meadows, Mark Stephen 2008. I, Avatar: The Culture and Consequences of Having a Second Life. Berkeley, CA: New Riders. Merola, Nicholas and Jorge Peña. 2010. “The Effects of Avatar Appearance in Virtual Worlds.” Journal of Virtual Worlds Research 2 (5). Accessed August 8. 2015. https://journals.tdl.org/jvwr/index.php/ jvwr/article/view/843. Montola, Markus, Jaakko Stenros, and Eleanor Saitta. 2015. “The Art of Steering: Bringing the Player and the Character Back Together.” In The Knudepunkt 2015 Companion Book, edited by Charles Bo Nielsen and Claus Raasted, 106–117. Copenhagen, Denmark: Rollespilsakademiet. Montola, Markus and Jussi Holopainen. 2012. “First Person Audience and Painful Role-playing.” In Immersive Gameplay, edited by Evan Torner and William J. White, 13–30. Jefferson, NC: McFarland. Moore, Robert J. and Cabell Gathman. 2007. “Role-playing practices in massively multiplayer online worlds.” Paper presented at the Pacific Sociological Association Annual Meeting, March 29–April 1, 2007, Oakland, CA.

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Østern, Anna-Lena and Hannu Heikkinen. 2001. “The Aesthetic Doubling: A Central Concept for the Theory of Drama Education?” In Nordic Voices in Drama Theatre and Education, edited by Torunn Kjølner, Viveka Rasmussen, and Hannu Heikkinen, 110–123. Bergen, Norway: IDEA Publications. Peters, Christopher S. and L. Alvin Malesky, Jr. 2008. “Problematic Usage among Highly-Engaged Players of Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games.” Cyberpsychology & Behavior 11 (4): 481–484. Pineiro-Escoriaza, J.C., dir. 2008. Second Skin. United States: Pure West Films. http://­documentarystorm. com/second-skin/. Pohjola, Mike. 2003. “Manifesto of the Turku School.” In When Larp Grows Up – Theory and Methods in Larp, edited by Morten Gade, Line Thorup and Mikkel Sander, 34–39. Frederiksberg: Projektgruppen KP03. ———. “Autonomous Identities: Immersion as a Tool for Exploring, Empowering, and Emancipating Identities.” In Beyond Role and Play, edited by Markus Montola and Jaakko Stenros, 81–95. Helsinki, Finland: Ropecon ry. ———. 2015. “Steering for Immersion in Five Nordic Larps: A New Understanding of Eläytyminen.” In The Knudepunkt 2015 Companion Book, edited by Charles Bo Nielsen and Claus Raasted, 94–105. Copenhagen, Denmark: Rollespilsakademiet. Rehak, Bob. 2003. “Playing at Being: Psychoanalysis and the Avatar.” In The Video Game Theory Reader, edited by Mark J. P. Wolf and Bernard Perron, 103–127. New York: Routledge. Simkins, David. 2010. “Playing with Ethics: Experiencing New Ways of Being in RPGs.” In Ethics and Game Design: Teaching Values through Play, edited by Karen Schrier and David Gibson, 69–84. ­Hershey, PA: IGI Global. Steinberg, Marlene and Maxine Schnall. 2000. The Stranger in the Mirror, Dissociation: The Hidden Epidemic. New York: HarperCollins. Stenros, Jaakko. 2015. Playfulness, Play, and Games: A Constructionist Ludology Approach. PhD Diss. ­Tampere, Finland: University of Tampere. Stenros, Jaakko and Markus Montola, eds. 2010. Nordic Larp. Stockholm, Sweden: Fea Livia. Torner, Evan. 2016. “Literary and Performative Imaginaries – Where Characters Come From.” Nordiclarp.org, January 31. https://nordiclarp.org/2017/01/31/literary-and-performative-imaginarieswhere-characters-come-from/. Turkington, Moyra. 2006. “Getting in the Cockpit.” Sin Aesthetics, November 17. http://games.space anddeath.com/sin_aesthetics/36. Turkle, Sherry. 1995. Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet. New York: Simon & Schuster. Turkle, Sherry. 1997. “Multiple Subjectivity and Virtual Community at the End of the Freudian ­Century.” Sociological Inquiry 67 (1): 72–84. Waddell, T. Franklin, James D. Ivory, Rommelyn Conde, Courtney Long, and Rachel McDonnell. 2014. “White Man’s Virtual World: A Systematic Content Analysis of Gender and Race in Massively Multiplayer Online Games.” Journal of Virtual Worlds Research 7 (2). Accessed December 17, 2017 at https://journals.tdl.org/jvwr/index.php/jvwr/article/view/7096. Waggoner, Zach. 2009. My Avatar, My Self: Identity in Video Role-playing Games. Jefferson, NC: McFarland. Williams, Dmitri, Tracy L. M. Kennedy, and Robert J. Moore. 2011. “Behind the Avatar: The Patterns, Practices, and Functions of Role Playing in MMOs.” Games and Culture 6 (2): 171–200. Yee, Nick. 2006. “Motivations for Play in Online Games.” Cyberpsychology & Behavior 9 (6): 772–775. ———. 2014. The Proteus Paradox: How Online Games and Virtual Worlds Change Us—And How They Don’t. New Haven, CT: Yalu University Press. Yee, Nick, Nicholas Ducheneaut, Mike Yao, and Les Nelson. 2011. “Do Men Heal More When in Drag? Conflicting Identity Cues Between User and Avatar.” Paper presented at CHI 2011, Vancouver, CA, May 7–12.

24 Transgressive Role-Play Jaakko Stenros and Sarah Lynne Bowman

Play can be fun, liberating, exciting, orderly, trivial, and regenerative, but it can also be disruptive, disrespectful, unruly, serious, chaotic, and transgressive. Role-playing games (RPGs) are ordered play. They not only have rules set down by game designers but also have social rules and cultural norms about how participation is conducted. For the most part, play and playfulness stay within the limits of the rules, but, at times, they overstep those boundaries. Indeed, play is prone to invite disport with norms and boundaries. These transgressions can happen accidentally, but it is also possible for players to knowingly question and ignore the numerous boundaries. RPGs, specifically, establish temporary alternative norms and rules that might be transgressive in many other situations while providing plausible deniability for societal boundary-breaking as players are just following the rules of the game. In many ways, play is a contested space: a tension between the possible and impossible, reality and fantasy, respectability and taboo. In this chapter, violations against RPGs, expectations of play patterns, and cultural conceptions of role-playing are examined. To set the stage, we discuss the boundedness of play, games, and RPGs and explain the concepts of transgression and deviance used in this chapter. Following that, we discuss three categories of transgressive role-play: adult play and imagination as deviant; violations of game rules and the concept of “game”; and, finally, violations of norms relating to the relationship between the player and the character. This chapter should be read alongside the sections on pretend play (→ Chapter 13), social interaction and social psychology (→ Chapter 12), culture and social relations (→ Chapter 12), and psychology (→ Chapter 13).

Boundaries and Transgressions RPGs, like most games, are conceived as bounded phenomena. A common metaphor for this boundedness is the magic circle of gameplay. Although the concept dates to Johan Huizinga’s (1938/1955) work on the element of play in culture, as it is understood today, it comes from game scholars Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman (2004), for whom the magic circle is “the idea of a special place in time and space created by a game” (p. 95). The magic circle is entered voluntarily, is self-sufficient, is set apart from ordinary life in locality and duration, and

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has rules that differ from everyday life. The player in the magic circle, according to Salen and ­Zimmerman, must adopt a lusory attitude (see Suits 1978, 41), meaning that the player accepts the rules of the game simply because they make the activity of playing the game possible. The magic circle is a social contract negotiated, created, and upheld by the participants, and, ­importantly, this “social contract can become societal as other social frameworks (law, economics) can recognize it” (Stenros 2014). The magic circle is by no means the only conceptualization of the boundedness of gameplay. In relation to RPGs specifically, Erving Goffman’s (1974) concept of frames, as socially shared types of situations that guide the production and interpretation of situationally appropriate action, has also influenced the field as has Gary Alan Fine’s (1983) elaboration of frame analysis as applied to RPGs (→ Chapter 12). It is worth noting that neither of these conceptualizations of the boundedness of play disconnect it from the world around it; the boundaries are porous. In other words, expectations of behavior in normative social frames may affect experiences within play spaces and vice versa. Also, following Goffman, any type of social situation is bounded and governed by specific rules: the dinner conversation and the bus ride no less than the role-playing session. Frames or types of situations differ in how specifically they are bounded and ruled. Notably, these conceptualizations of gameplay show that there is a socially agreed upon way to conduct the playing of a game. Playing a specific game socially is not even possible without adopting a lusory attitude and following the rules. This includes agreeing to act “as if,” which is the foundation of role-play activity. However, the bounded game does not boil down to explicit game rules. The systemic rules of the game are an important part of the magic circle contract, but they can be difficult to fully identify. In digital online RPGs, the rules are coded, and the boundaries of the game environment may seem fairly self-evident, while tabletop and live-action role-playing (larp) sessions tend to be clearly marked temporally, spatially, and socially, even if rules are easier to negotiate on the spot. Yet digital add-ons, mods, wikis, and player forums, as well as metaplay between sessions (narrating, possibly with others, what a character is up to between sessions) and pervasive games (see below), certainly show that these boundaries are not easy to delineate. Furthermore, the social contract also carries numerous implied cultural norms about the nature of play and games and how they are conducted. Games and play are not only intelligible for the people participating in them but are recognized by other people, even by other cultural institutions. For example, hitting another person is illegal except while following the rules in a boxing ring – and this rule is recognized by most judicial systems. Similarly, many games have built-in gameplay options that would be considered unethical outside the fictional context – and many players enjoy playing these evil options (Lange 2014). Transgression is always tied to a norm violation in a specific context. Without boundaries, there can be no transgressions – and the deviance of an outsider is always understood in relation to the norms constructed by the in-group (Becker 1963). The concept of transgression used in this chapter builds on the symbolic interactionist idea of the social construction of deviance (Sandstrom, Martin, and Fine 2010, 170–195). According to the labeling theory of deviance, rule-makers and enforcers are as involved, if not more so, in the construction of deviance as the alleged deviant. This theory is usually used to account for larger societal issues, such as the labeling of drug users, sex workers, homosexuals, or homeless though banning (e.g. legislation), detection (e.g. police, social workers), attributing (to an individual), and reaction (e.g. social sanctioning). Aside from the moral crusaders attempting to ban RPGs (see below

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and → Chapter 19) and, to a much lesser degree, the fear expressed relating to addiction to multi-player online RPGs (MORPGs) in the last decade (e.g. Young 2009), RPGs have rarely been targeted on a societal level. However, as with all social activities, there are numerous norms relating to playing, game playing, and the playing of RPGs that outline how things are supposedly done. While violating those norms, i.e. transgressing over these social or societal boundaries, does not label one a deviant institutionally, such behavior can still result in a social punishment. The labeling theory also works on a smaller scale than that of a nation or a city. Connected to the ideas of a norm and transgression are the notions of threat and danger. Norms help keep us safe, and transgressions are seen as potentially harmful – to an individual, the morale, the social fabric, or the society. Then why do people transgress? According to ­labeling theory (Sandstrom et al. 2010, 190), transgressions are usually rendered understandable when seen from the point of view of the alleged deviant. For example, play is not safe in itself, even when fully consensual. Risk and danger are enticing; they raise arousal. It is exciting to play with danger – as long as we feel safe (Apter 1992; Stenros 2015). Philip Rosedale, creator of the virtual world Second Life, had this to say about safety and virtual worlds in the 2010 documentary Life 2.0: I would say to a certain extent the virtual world must contain some sort of danger and risk and possibility of pain and loss to be interesting. I don’t think that we can create worlds of any kind that are interesting without them, you know, being at least somewhat dangerous. That said, the virtual world is, at a basic level, a safer place than the real world. We do not have the ability in the virtual world to physically harm each other. And that is a very powerful change that I think that brings us closer to our aspiration about what it is to be human. I think that the fact that we are perhaps emotionally in danger but not physically in danger in the virtual world is a tremendous positive step toward being all that we can be. So, while the virtual world is not without danger, it is certainly a good deal safer than the physical world that we for the most part live in now. (Rosedale 2010) In the larp context, ongoing debates have unfolded for years relating to “psychological safety” and the aftereffects of participating in intense role-playing experiences. Author and critic ­Johanna Koljonen (2013), who has followed and participated in this debate for over a decade, has summed up these worries as “Larp is not dangerous … but life is dangerous.” However, she talks about community safety: how all role-players are responsible for how role-playing is perceived in the society at large. While larp may not be significantly more dangerous than life, if being a larper is seen as deviant, then larp is dangerous as well. Still, the possibility for unpredictable and even dangerous activities is part of the design in some RPG environments. Negotiations between different players, who have varying expectations and ideas about where the acceptable limits are, is a part of running a fictional world. One way to create an area where transgressive behavior is relatively safe is by transgressing as a group against wider norms. Indeed, according to labeling theory, the alleged deviants are part of the negotiation process as to where the boundaries lie and can challenge and transform meaning relating to behavior (Sandstrom et al. 2010, 187). One place where there is a particularly visible history of such activity is the art world. Anthony Julius (2003) has documented how artists have been breaking rules, social norms, and laws enough that there is a tradition of transgressive art dating back to

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the mid-19th century. According to him, there are four ways for art to transgress: “the denying of doctrinal truths; rule-breaking, including the violating of principles, conventions, pieties or taboos; the giving of serious offence; and the exceeding, erasing or disordering of physical or conceptual boundaries”(p. 19). RPGs are only tangentially connected to the traditions of art – although those ties are strengthening – but similar to the “art,” “play” and “games” are bounded domains with historical roots, governed by specific rules. They are magic circles where questioning mainstream social norms is not punished as severely. Indeed, artistic or political transgression challenging the status quo can even be celebrated. In some ways, that is a societal function of these kinds of spaces. For example, in the Danish freeform role-playing scene, transgressive topics and game mechanics are often highly valued (e.g. Montola 2010), and the MORPG EVE Online celebrates activities that in other online worlds are considered griefing (Carter 2015). However, transgressions may also reinforce cultural norms, such as individuals exploring their “dark side” in a vampire game subsequently choosing to reaffirm normative ethical values in everyday life (Beltrán 2013). Indeed, according to the sociology of deviance, transgressions are useful in many ways. They clarify where the boundaries lie, promote social unity, and encourage change in the face of new challenges (Sandstrom et al. 2010, 171). Griefing Anti-social behavior in a multi-player game, intended to irritate, harass, or otherwise create a negative experience for others for the sake of the entertainment of the griefer. In the context of RPGs, it is most commonly associated with MORPGs.

Play and Imagination as Transgressive Participating in an RPG is transgressive in three interconnected ways that question how the world operates: play, imagination, and fiction. Play and the act of imagining have both at times been seen as suspect (Laycock 2015, 210–240). Specifically, any kind of play after adolescence can be considered transgressive for adult play is often seen as frivolous (Sutton-Smith 1997, 201–213). There is also a worry that participants are unable to differentiate fiction from reality, that they cannot leave the meanings of the magic circle behind when they exit it. Furthermore, even when adult pretend play is accepted, there are limits as to what topics are appropriate. Frivolity and imagination, even when accepted, have boundaries. On some level, all adult play is suspect. Adults can have hobbies, but they should not be silly on purpose. If an adult expresses creativity, they should do so under socially codified constraints, such as through professional jobs in cinema, theatre, or high art. Likewise, some communities value certain games over others; playing bridge or chess, for example, is deemed more socially acceptable than private adult pretend play games not intended for an external audience or mass entertainment. Adults are expected to adhere to what Émile Durkheim (1893/1997, 38–39) called the collective conscience: the “totality of beliefs and sentiments common to average citizens of the same society.” Individuals are expected to adhere to cultural norms regarding the scientific, cosmological, or religious understanding of how reality “works” while also maintaining a stable sense of identity. Role-playing communities create new collective understandings of reality, based upon a mixture of existing conceptions from the mundane world and fictional representations from game rules and narratives. While players involved in role-playing activities often insist that

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confusion relating to this layering of frames is impossible, scholars have noted that over-­ involvement (Fine 1983) and shifts in how players interpret the world (Laycock 2015, 199–206) are possible. However, producing a socially shared understanding of a situation requires continuous maintenance work (Goffman 1974). The spread of Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) was perceived as a threat, leading to the so-called Satanic Panic in the late 1970s through to the early 1990s in the United States and other countries (→ Chapter 19). Joseph Laycock (2015) details how the Christian Right, as well as some psychologists and law enforcement officials, launched an alarmist public campaign against RPGs as potential gateways to real occult activities and a loss of touch with reality (also Stark 2012). Laycock (pp. 24–25) argues that these alarmist groups were targeting RPGs because they perceived these leisure activities to be creating a deviant religion, interpreted Christian content in D&D as occult, and were suspicious of imagination in general. He locates a further, much more debilitating fear beneath: “The realization that a game of imagination can resemble a religion naturally leads to the suspicion that one’s religion could likewise be a game of imagination.” The secondary worlds of D&D and other RPGs threatened the ­Christian hegemony (p. 238), or, put differently, they are a threat to the Durheimian collective consciousness. These cultural fears manifested in the movie Mazes and Monsters (1982), inspired by the disproven story of James Egbert, in which a role-player becomes confused between fantasy and reality, resulting in a psychotic break. Laycock calls the story the “first narrative of the delusional gamer” (p. 25). Finally, religion is not the only possibly taboo subject in play. There are limits to what is acceptable in the frame of a game, varying from what is tasteful to how seriously the play is taken (Goffman 1974, 49–57). Depending on the culture, taboo content might include the following: racist, sexist, homophobic, or transphobic behavior; topics such as pedophilia, incest, genocide, or euthanasia; religion and blasphemy; or opinions that align with anti-Semitic or Islamophobic attitudes. However, the norms can be much more specific. The depiction of Nazi symbols is not legal in Germany, norms relating to touching and personal space vary between cultures, and attitudes towards nudity and violence are different on opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean. Indeed, games and play are often expected to be escapist fun (cf. Mortensen 2003, 215). Tackling complex real-world matters can be seen as unfit for RPGs. The extreme manifestation of this perception is the idea that games are – and should be – trivial; hence, using games to explore sensitive issues is seen as trivializing (cf. Chapman and Linderoth 2015). When the perceived assigned function of role-playing cannot fully be reduced to recreation and enjoyment – for example, when games explore ideas, survey history, or aim to educate – then often other framings are needed. While play and imagination can be transgressive in and of themselves, play that is not just frivolous is even more suspect.

Violating the Concept of Game “Game” as a concept is a sociocultural artifact (cf. Stenros 2016). In order to play games together, participants need to trust that they share similar enough ideas about how games are played and, for example, how involved one should become while playing (Sniderman 1999). In this section, we consider violations of the concept of game, specifically transgressing game rules, trust amongst players, and issues with involvement as well as boundedness and separation of playing from the quotidian.

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The most obvious violation of gameplay happens against the shared rules of play. In cheating (cf. Consalvo 2007), a player breaks the explicit rules of a game. This an obvious transgression and a serious threat to the play activity. In RPGs, the fictional world and the game are constructed through working together intentionally and by upholding the rules for shared enjoyment (e.g. Montola 2008; Linderoth 2012). If these rules are broken, the shared activity is at risk. Sometimes, participants will try to maximize their outcome, regardless of the other players’ enjoyment or the spirit of the rules, something that has been called gaming the system (Stenros 2015). Thus, the participant plays the system instead of the game; role-players have a number of words for this behavior, from min-maxing to munchkinism, and there are guides devoted to this topic, such as The Munchkin’s Guide to Power Gaming (Desborough and Mortimer 1999). Similar behaviors are seen in computer RPGs (CRPGs) and MORPGs when players look for ways to “optimize” their gameplay (e.g. fastest way to level up). While some play groups accept aggressive rule negotiation as normative and even laudable, other groups view such behavior as disruptive as it can cause conflict between organizers and members of the community (Bowman 2013, 13–14). However, as Huizinga (1938/1955, 11) noted, it is easier to cope with a cheat, who rejects the rules to achieve the goal of faring better in the game, than with a spoilsport, who rejects the game. When a participant ignores or changes the goals but leaves the rules untouched, we encounter an explorer, often a troll, an artist, an appropriator, a hacker, or a trickster (Stenros 2015, 163–165; see also Bartle 1996). Play also requires a certain amount of trust; players should hope that their actions are interpreted in the right frame of reference and that all participants are genuine in their intentions of working towards the shared goal of upholding the game. This trust can be betrayed, for example, by adopting aberrant goals. MORPGs are particularly susceptible to this because even if work to maintain the game (e.g. Linderoth 2012) has ceased, the appearance of the virtual world is still upheld by the computer, although large-scale larps can also offer such spaces. The most visible type of exploration is grief play aka griefing. Multi-player online worlds have a long and rich history of disruptive play practices, already noted in Richard Bartle’s (1996, 2003) player typology. Bartle identified a player type, killers, who enjoy upsetting other players. Nowadays, such activities are called griefing (e.g. Mulligan and Patrovsky 2003, 218). In griefing, a player rejects the official goals of a game and instead starts playing at the expense of the other players, usually with the goal of provoking a visual emotional response in another player (Foo and Koivisto 2004). Different virtual worlds have varying approaches to grief play; some see it as aberrant behavior to be thwarted, while others, such as EVE Online, incorporate all play activity enabled by the rules, even scamming, stealing, espionage, and blackmail (Carter 2015). The social norms relating to what is considered a transgression vary. There are numerous terms for specific acts that are seen to fall under griefing, such as harassing, scamming, ninja looting (taking loot one is not entitled to), and ganking (killing a character to disadvantage them e.g. by a gang, see Goguen 2009). A challenge in tackling griefing analytically is that there is an element of intentionality in its conceptualization. Trying to learn the game, get ahead in the game, or amass a fortune (greed play, according to Lin and Sun 2005) are usually not seen as griefing, but the actions that a player takes to achieve these aims maybe indistinguishable from griefing (Stenros 2015, 178). A playing style that many players interpreted as griefing was even used as a research method by David Myers (2010), who conducted a breaching experiment in an MORPG called City of Heroes.

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Larp hacking When an individual or group actively creates their own game within the existing larp or derails the plans of the organizers for their own enjoyment (Hansen 2012). While players can “hack” a game with good intentions and a lack of malice, the overall effect may negatively impact the experiences of others. Hacking can also become a productive transgression for players if a game experience is considered unenjoyable in its unhacked state by the majority of the participants: a form of play mutiny.

In the context of MORPGs, the concept of counterplay is used to describe “disruptive potential immanent in gamer culture,” especially when contesting “hegemonic power relations” (De Peuter 2015). Greig De Peuter (2015) outlines three types of counterplay. First is playing against the grain by rejecting the player position, goals, and values that a game offers. This varies from game-specific rejection of goals such as gold farming (the accumulation of in-game items to sell for real money, see Heeks 2010) to game platform spanning guilds that seek to reveal racialized marginalization (Gray 2012). Second is gamer interventions that use the game as a platform for protest. Examples include pacifist runs on World of Warcraft, gay weddings on Star Wars Galaxies, political machinima created using a game, and critical modding of a game. De Peuter’s (2015) third category is tactical games, which refers to activist-oriented standalone games that “experiment with nontraditional game themes, mechanics, and applications, and tend to openly support political causes, expose injustice, and promote social transformation.” Let us now return to the element of trust and safety. Following the rules and norms brings predictability – and fosters a feeling of safety. Transgressions shake those foundations. While play always carries the possibility of danger, it is also connected to safety; it is hard to be in a playful state of mind when feeling threatened. For example, nonconsensual turns during play – such as enforced rape narratives or the murder of one’s character without explicit player c­ onsent – can make players feel unsafe, even if their bodies are not physically at risk. If an action is possible for a character to enact in the game world, then some groups expect participants to accept the “narrative repercussions” of existing within that fiction, even when such repercussions feel like an abuse of power (Donovan 2014). Other groups offer opt-out mechanics, e.g. larp safe words such as “cut” (stop) and “brake” (reduce intensity) (Koljonen 2013) and the X-card, a method for disallowing certain types of content in tabletop games (Stavropoulos n.d.). Yet playing with taboos, as discussed above, can feel exhilarating precisely because they are outside the norms. It is not uncommon to have groups play with such topics in ways that, in a wider cultural context, would seem insensitive, disgusting, or even illegal. Yet such play does take place as play can act as “a step apart” from the everyday life in which players can toy with wider norms. This kind of play is called brink play (Poremba 2007), a term for activities in which the socially recognized act of playing is used as an alibi for conduct that would otherwise be difficult or unacceptable. In brink play, norms are played with, but there is at least an appearance that they are not actually broken in reality. Brink play requires trust in the group so that everyone present understands that the activity is “just play.” Of course, brink play can be used to get away with actions that would not be permissible otherwise. Examples from outside RPGs include Twister (physical intimacy), Truth or Dare (actions and intimate queries), Cards Against Humanity (gross-out humor, opinions), as well as many college hazing rituals and theme parties. A role-playing example is Dudebros and Douchebags, a tabletop game in which players enact stereotypically male misogyny in an ironic manner. Sometimes, though, participants might play games that are designed with transgressive aims “straightly,” unconsciously reinforcing norms rather than challenging them, which is a

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possibility whenever exploring oppressive structures in games. Also, the line between what feels authentically and playfully transgressive and what feels uncomfortable and offensive becomes more difficult to navigate without ways to opt out of play or social rules to communicate discomfort with certain content, e.g. safe words. Yet this very ambiguity is central to brink play. Brink play Using the alibi and “as-if” status of play to engage in conduct that would be otherwise difficult or norm-breaking.

The next aspect of cultural expectations relating to gameplay to consider is exhibiting the correct amount of involvement in a game. Usually, groups expect that the player takes the playing lightly but not so lightly that the playing no longer matters. A player should manifest disinvolved involvement (Deterding 2015). Not caring about the outcome of the game can manifest in not putting enough effort into playing; caring too much can manifest as being a sore loser, gloating after winning, but also into having too strong of an emotional commitment to the dramatic events or characters depicted. Fine (1983) discussed overinvolvement, indicating that too much investment in a game or character may cause a psychological imbalance in the player that negatively impacts their life. In his discussion of online RPGs, Faltin Karlsen (2013, 4) uses the term excessive playing to address playing that “exceeds what is regarded as normal or that playing is done in immoderate measure.” Different communities have distinct standards with regard to expectations of involvement. Members of a community may become self-conscious about overinvolvement, pointing to the behavior of others as “going too far” to avoid drawing attention to their own investment of time and emotional energy. For example, in the documentary Second Skin (2008) about MORPGs, one highly involved gamer claims with a laugh, “I don’t get all into it when I’m running around talking like an elf or something like certain people do. I think people that role-play got more of a problem than other people.” This behavior works to establish a third-person effect hypothesis: the notion that individuals other than the self are more greatly impacted by messages or play activities and are, therefore, more transgressive or abnormal (Smith and Wood 2005, 107). Brink play is not solely an issue of trust but one of boundedness. The line between the quotidian and the ludic is blurred. Another game type that muddles the separation between game and the rest of life is pervasive games. These are games that have “one or more salient features that expand the contractual magic circle of play spatially, temporally, or socially” (Montola 2005a). In, say, a session of D&D, it is clear where the gaming takes place (spatial), when it starts and ends (temporal), and who is participating as players (social). Pervasive games blur one or more of these notions: they can be played all over a city, around a country, or even globally; they can go on indefinitely without pausing; and it can be unclear who is playing in them. One genre of pervasive games is pervasive larps. These run the gamut from vampire larps played all over town amongst people who are unaware that a game is underway to ones where players stay within the fiction for five weeks, do techno-occult rituals outside the United States embassy in Stockholm, and have a police strike force show up (Montola, Stenros and Waern 2009).1

Negotiating the Player-Character Divide Just as there are norms and expectations relating to the concept of “game,” there are hegemonic ideas about what role-play is and how RPGs should be conducted. An important aspect

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of RPGs that many gaming traditions have norms for is the performance of the connection between player and character. In this section, we discuss transgressions against this separation. The performative distinction between the player and the character as separate entities is one of the building blocks of role-playing (cf. Montola 2008) (→ Chapter 23). A particularly clear formulation of this norm comes from larp: After the player makes a decision regarding the discontinuation of self in the beginning of immersion, it is no longer justified to draw conclusions on the player from the actions of the character. It is difficult to fully establish the role-playing contract – familiar faces and memorable characters leave their mark on players. The core of the contract is trust. When a player trusts the contract, he dares to immerse even in activities the player would consider awkward or strange. (Sihvonen 1997, 7, translated from Finnish by Stenros) This is the role-play agreement, as defined by Toni Sihvonen (for similar norms in online role-­ playing, see Montola 2005b): one should not make assumptions about the player based on the character and vice versa. The contract is not a description of what happens but a social agreement. Without the contract, it is hard to carry out actions as a character if the player is reluctant to perform them outside of the fiction. The role-playing contract is important in establishing trust between players. Furthermore, it gives the players an alibi; a player should not hold another personally accountable for actions that their characters take (Montola and Holopainen, 2012). Alibi Things that enable a player to act in ways unacceptable outside the role-play context. A player can pretend to be stupid, violent, or lustful without that performance influencing their everyday persona. Numerous legitimization strategies provide alibi, such as playing (“It’s just pretending”) and game rules (“These are the options the game offers me”).

However, role-players do make assumptions, even judgments, about the player based on the character, about the character based on the player, and about a character a player enacted based on another that they have played in the past. Indeed, according to Goffman (1961, 68–75), games give a possibility to “exhibit attributes valued in the wider social world […] [t]hese attributes could even be earned within the encounter, to be claimed later outside it.” He further argues that it is possible to use games as a site to display attributes that one could not display out-of-game. Thus, the player is obviously responsible for the acts of the character – and, for example, MOPRG end user license agreements make no distinction between the two. There are role-playing cultures in which the player and the character are not strictly separated. The character the player portrays is akin to the player except situated in a fictional world and usually equipped with a different name. For example, in the Amtgard larp tradition, emphasis is on combat, and there is a thin separation between player and character, noted by a new name, costume, or in-game social rank (Budai and Hammock 2014). Many of these larpers experience the game as a sport in which they play versions of themselves in an ongoing fiction. On the other end of the spectrum, Nordic larpers often immerse themselves in intense scenarios intended to evoke strong emotional reactions in both player and character. While the character may have different personality characteristics and live in a world unlike the player’s own, these intense moments can produce instances in which the boundary between character and player become less distinct.

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The phenomenon of the thoughts or feelings of a character influencing those of the player is called bleed (Montola 2010). The influence need not be direct; bleed does not occur only when a character’s emotion moves to the player but also when, for example, a player feels remorse over what a character did. Bleed is sometimes understood as a counter to alibi: if a player is experiencing bleed, they may no longer benefit from the distance afforded by the defense mechanism of alibi, particularly when exhibiting strong, authentic emotional reactions (Bowman 2015). The concept of bleed emerged as a descriptive term in emic discussions among tabletop role-players and larpers. Most instances of role-playing probably result in some degree of bleed because the player enacts that character, and hence, the two are experientially connected. However, the term is not usually used to include all emotional states a player feels as a result of a game.

Box 24.1  Bleed Bleed describes the phenomenon when a player’s thoughts and emotions influence the thoughts and emotions of the character they are role-playing (bleed-in) or a character’s thoughts and emotions influence the player (bleed-out). The term was first used in this sense in a popular article on the effects of relationships on larps (Olmstead-Dean 2007, 204). Current usage comes from designer Emily Care Boss’s keynote (2007) at Ropecon 2007. Tobias Wrigstad and Thorbiörn Frizon of the freeform collective Vi Åker Jeep adopted and elaborated on the term (c.f. Jeep games Doubt (2007), Fat Man Down (2007)). The term crossed over to academia when Markus Montola (2010) studied players of Gang Rape (2008) and Journey (2010). In further academic work on the topic, Sarah Lynne Bowman has studied bleed as a potential source of conflict in role-playing communities (Bowman 2013). Whitney “Strix” Beltrán (2012) has theorized the possibility of ego bleed, in which ego identity contents bleed. Additionally, Maury Brown (2014) has explored the relationship between bleed and psychological triggers.

Designing for bleed means purposefully affecting the player through the character. It happens, for example, by making the players inhabit characters in a particularly emotional context. Another possibility is to encourage players to enact thin characters, or “doppelganger selves,” that are similar to how they perceive themselves outside the fiction (Bowman 2010). While there are norms that underline the separation of the player and the character, there are also norms relating to continuity between the two. In some role-playing cultures, there are expectations that certain aspects need to remain the same between the player and the character. Some tabletop groups and game systems discourage crossplay, the enactment of a character whose gender is different from the player’s (Stenros and Sihvonen 2015). Players can also be uncomfortable with nonconforming gender presentation (Boss 2007), and, in larp, crossplay is at times confused with trans players playing characters of their own gender (cf. Koski 2016). Furthermore, some larps feature rules, often implicit, on the matter, e.g. stipulating fantasy race-related norms on players, like only thin and tall people can play elves, or requiring that real-world ethnicities be portrayed by people who have lived experience as part of that group. Where there is a rule, there is a possibility for transgressing – and even for

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using that transgression as a design principle. Some larps encourage crossplay for the sake of inclusivity. Similarly, attempts have been made to find ways of portraying different ethnicities in culturally and socially sensitive ways. In online RPGs, a further complication exists. A participant can play a different sort of a player. This is called masquerading: pretending that the person sitting at the keyboard is someone else. Individuals may engage in crossplay, for example, leading other participants to assume that their mundane gender identity is the same as their character’s, a common phenomenon in online RPGs (Turkle 1995, 212–214; Pearce and Artemesia 2009, 240–255). Masquerading may afford players certain benefits they might not otherwise experience, such as an escape from objectification, harassment, or discrimination based on body shape, sex, gender, or race. Benefits may also include access to in-game resources, protection, or emotional support. While masquerading is a common activity in online gaming environments, some players feel betrayed when a member of their community is revealed to look different in the “real world” than they present on-screen, particularly if non-diegetic intimate bonds were established. The diegetic boundary of fiction separates the player from the character but also the player from the characters of other players and from non-player characters. During play, the player, through their character, can develop relationships with other characters. When the game is over, these bonds may cease to exist. Yet the player may still feel strong emotions towards these characters, such as longing for people who no longer exist or who are “just NPCs.” This phenomenon has been described in CRPGs as pixel crush (see Waern 2010; → Chapter 25). The interactions and relationships developed in RPGs feel real and indeed are real, even if they are also fictional. Although such relationships are not deviant from the point of view of social psychology, they can still feel somehow wrong and transgressive. Indeed, some players establish strict rules with their partners, prohibiting in-game relationships with others, or may reproduce their out-of-game relationships diegetically as added protection (Bowman 2013).

Summary This chapter discussed the bounded nature of RPGs as playful fictional spaces inhabited by alternate identities enacted by players. Enacting characters in a fictional world as an adult is considered a transgressive act by many people in and of itself: it temporarily alters the player’s perception of the social reality. Thus, play itself is understood as potentially deviant as are games that are designed to transgress cultural taboos, play with serious topics, and activities within play cultures that transgress against the notion of what a “game” is. In role-play cultures, there are further norms, particularly relating to the correct performance of the relationship between the player and the character. While play requires safety and trust to manifest, it always contains element of unpredictability, unruliness, and danger.

Note 1 Pervasive game design poses numerous ethical questions. When the boundary between the ordinary life and the game is blurred, players may find it difficult to understand the consequences of their actions. Their actions may result in effects that are not restricted to the game world. Who is responsible for player actions in a pervasive larp? Is it always the player, or does the game organizer share some of the accountability, especially as players may not be able to give informed consent about participating? Furthermore, there are numerous questions relating to how to play with bystanders, who can end up as unaware participants or victims (Montola et al. 2009, 193–213).

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Further Reading Deterding, Sebastian. 2013. Modes of Play. A Frame Analytic Account of Video Game Play. Doctoral dissertation. University of Hamburg, Germany. http://ediss.sub.uni-hamburg.de/volltexte/2014/6863/. Laycock, Joseph P. 2015. Dangerous Games. What the Moral Panic over Role-Playing Games Says about Play, Religion, and Imagined Worlds. Oakland: California University Press. Mortensen, Torill Elvira, Linderoth, Jonas and Brown Ashley M.L. (eds.) 2015. The Dark Side of Game Play. Controversial Issues in Playful Environments. New York: Routledge.

References All web sources accessed on September 11, 2015. Andersson, Mikael. 2015. Dudebros and Douchebags. http://dudebrosanddouchebags.com/. Apter, Michael J. 1992. The Dangerous Edge: The Psychology of Excitement. New York: The Free Press. Axelzon, Frederik. 2007. “Doubt.” Vi Åker Jeep. http://jeepen.org/games/doubt/#. ———. 2010. “The Journey.” Vi Åker Jeep. http://jeepen.org/games/thejourney/. Bartle, Richard A. 1996. “Hearts, Clubs, Diamonds and Spades: Players Who Suit MUDs”, Journal of MUD Research, 1(1). Referred from Game Design Reader. A Rules of Play Anthology, ed. Salen, Katie and Eric Zimmerman. 2004. MIT Press; Cambridge. ———. 2003. Designing Virtual Worlds. Boston, MA: New Riders. Becker, Howard S. 1963. Outsiders: Science in the Sociology of Deviance. New York: The Free Press. Beltrán, Whitney “Strix.” 2012. “Yearning for the Hero Within: Live Action Role-Playing as Engagement with Mythical Archetypes.” In Wyrd Con Companion 2012, ed. Aaron Vanek and Sarah Lynne Bowman. Los Angeles, CA: Wyrd Con. ———. 2013. “Shadow Work: A Jungian Perspective on the Underside of Live Action Role-Play in the United States.” In Wyrd Con Companion Book 2013, ed. Sarah Lynne Bowman and Aaron Vanek. Los Angeles, CA: Wyrd Con. Boss, Emily Care. 2007. “Romance and Gender in Role-playing Games: Too Hot to Handle?” Black and Green Games. http://static1.squarespace.com/static/53d9a7cde4b0e6c5ed6457bd/t/547e3dd6e4 b009dfcd6a704c/1417559510557/Romance+in+RPGs+ECBoss+Ropecon+2007.pdf. Bowman, Sarah Lynne. 2010. The Functions of Role-Playing Games: How Participants Create Community, Solve Problems, and Explore Identity. Jefferson, NC: McFarland. ———. 2013. “Social Conflict in Role-Playing Communities: An Exploratory Qualitative Study.” International Journal of Role-Playing 4 (4): 4–25. ———. 2015. “Bleed: The Spillover between Player and Character.” Nordiclarp.org, March 2. http:// nordiclarp.org/2015/03/02/bleed-the-spillover-between-player-and-character/. Brown, Maury. 2014. “Pulling the Trigger on Player Agency: How Psychological Intrusion in Larps Affect Game Play.” In Wyrd Con Companion Book 2014, ed. Sarah Lynne Bowman. Los Angeles, CA: Wyrd Con. Budai, Sarah and Kristin Hammock. 2014. “The State of Amtgard.” In Wyrd Con Companion Book 2014, ed. Sarah Lynne Bowman. Los Angeles, CA: Wyrd Con. Carter, Marcus. 2015. “Massively Multiplayer Dark Play: Treacherous Play in EVE Online.” In The Dark Side of Game Play. Controversial Issues in Playful Environments, ed. Torill Elvira Mortensen, Jonas ­Linderoth and Ashley M.L. Brown. New York: Routledge. Chapman, Adam and Jonas Linderoth. 2015. “Exploring the Limits of Play. A Case Study of Representations of Nazism in Games.” In The Dark Side of Game Play. Controversial Issues in Playful Environments, ed. Torill Elvira Mortensen, Jonas Linderoth and Ashley M.L. Brown. New York: Routledge. Consalvo, Mia. 2007. Cheating: Gaining Advantage in Video Games. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. De Peuter, Greig. 2015. “Online Games and Counterplay.” In The International Encyclopedia of Digital Communication and Society, ed. Robin Mansell and Peng Hwa Ang. John Wiley & Sons. Desborough, James and Steve Mortimer. 1999. Munchkins Guide to Power Gaming. Austin, TX: Steve Jackson Games.

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Deterding, Sebastian. 2015. “The Joys of Absence: Emotion, Emotion Display, and Interaction Tension in Video Game Play.” Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games, June 22–25, 2015, Pacific Grove, USA. Donovan, Tim. 2014. “#NotAllRolePlayers: A History of Rapey Dungeon Masters.” Vice, July 24. www.vice.com/read/notallroleplayers-a-history-of-rapey-dungeon-masters. Durkheim, Émile. 1893/1997. The Division of Labor in Society. New York: Free Press. Fine, Gary Alan. 1983. Shared Fantasy: Role-Playing Games as Social Worlds. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Foo, Chek Yang and Elina M. I. Koivisto. 2004. “Defining Grief Play in MMORPGs: Player and Developer Perceptions.” Proceedings of the 2004 ACM SIGCHI International Conference on Advances in Computer Entertainment Technology (ACE’04), Singapore, June 03–04, 2004, 245–250. Goffman, Erving. 1961. Encounters: Two Studies in the Sociology of Interaction. Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill. ———. 1974. Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience. Boston, MA: Northeastern University Press. Goguen, Stacey. 2009. “Dual Wielding Morality: World of Warcraft and the Ethics of Ganking.” Philosophy of Computer Games Conference, Oslo, Norway, August 13–15, 2009. Gray, Kishonna L. 2012. “Intersecting Oppressions and Online Communities.” Information, Communications & Society 13(3): 411–428. Hansen, Erlend Eidsem. 2012. “8 Ways to Hack a Larp.” Playground: The New Wave in Role-playing 5: 50–51. Heeks, Richard. 2010. “Understanding “Gold Farming” and Real-Money Trading in Virtual Worlds.” Journal of Virtual Worlds Research 2(4). https://journals.tdl.org/jvwr/index.php/jvwr/article/view/868 Huizinga, Johan. 1938/1955. Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture. Boston, MA: Beacon Press. Julius, Anthony. 2003. Transgressions. The Offences of Art. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press. Karlsen, Faltin. 2013. A World of Excesses: Online Games and Excessive Playing. Farnham: Ashgate. Koljonen, Johanna. 2013. “Safety in Larp.” YouTube, Fantasiforbundet, August 1, www.youtube.com/ watch?v=Qho9O_EMG34. Koski, Neko. 2016. “Not a Real Man?” In Larp Politics. Systems, Theory, and Gender in Action, ed. Kaisa Kangas, Mika Loponen and Jukka Särkijärvi. Helsinki: Ropecon. Lange, Amanda. 2014. “You’re Just Gonna Be Nice”: How Players Engage with Moral Choice Systems. Journal of Games Criticism 1(1). http://gamescriticism.org/articles/lange-1-1/ Laycock, Joseph P. 2015. Dangerous Games. What the Moral Panic over Role-Playing Games Says about Play, Religion, and Imagined Worlds. Oakland: California University Press. Lin, Holin and Chuen-Tsai Sun. 2005. “The “White-eyed” Player Culture: Grief Play and Construction of Deviance in MMOPRGs”, Proceedings of DiGRA 2005 Conference: Changing Views – Worlds in Play, June 16–20, 2005, Vancouver, Canada. Linderoth, Jonas. 2012. “The Effort of Being in a Fictional World: Upkeyings and Laminated Frames in MMORPGs.” Symbolic Interaction 35(4): 474–492. Montola, Markus. 2005a. “Exploring the Edge of the Magic Circle: Defining Pervasive Games.” Proceedings for DAC 2005 Conference, December 1–3, University of Copenhagen, Denmark. ———. 2005b. “Designing Goals for Online Role-Players.” Proceedings of the 2005 DiGRA International Conference: Changing Views: Worlds in Play, June 16–20, 2005, Vancouver, Canada. ———. 2008. “The Invisible Rules of Role-playing: The Social Framework of Role-playing Process.” International Journal of Role-playing 1: 22–36. ———. 2010. “The Positive Negative Experience in Extreme Role-Playing.” Proceedings of DiGRA Nordic 2010: Experiencing Games: Games, Play, and Players, August 16–17, Stockholm, Sweden. Montola, Markus and Jussi Holopainen. 2012. “First Person Audience and Painful Role-playing.” In Immersive Gameplay, ed. Evan Torner and William J. White. Jefferson, NC: McFarland. Montola, Markus, Jaakko Stenros and Annika Waern. 2009. Pervasive Games. Theory and Design. ­A msterdam: Morgan Kaufmann.

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Mortensen, Torill Elvira. 2003. Pleasures of the Player: Flow and Control in Online Games. Doctoral dissertation. University of Bergen, Norway. Mulligan, Jessica and Bridgette Patrovsky. 2003. Developing Online Games. An Insider’s Guide. Thousand Oaks, CA: New Riders. Myers, David. 2010. Play Redux. The Form of Computer Games. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press. Olmstead-Dean, Gordon. 2007. “Impact of Relationships on Games.” In Lifelife, ed. Jesper Donnis, Morten Gade and Line Thorup. Copenhagen: Projektgruppen KP07. Østergaard, Frederik Berg. 2007. “Fat Man Down.” Vi Åker Jeep. http://jeepen.org/games/fatmandown/. Pearce, Celia and Artemesia. 2009. Communities of Play. Emergent Cultures in Multiplayer Games and Virtual Worlds. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Pineiro-Escoriaza, J.C., dir. 2008. Second Skin. Long Island City, NY: Pure West Films. Poremba, Cindy. 2007. “Critical Potential on the Brink of the Magic Circle.” Proceedings of Situated Play: DiGRA 2007 Conference, September 24–28. Tokyo, Japan. Salen, Katie and Eric Zimmerman. 2004. Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Sandstrom, Kent L., Martin, Daniel D. and Fine, Gary Alan. 2010. Symbols, Selves, and Social Reality. A Symbolic Interactionist Approach to Social Psychology and Sociology. New York: Oxford University Press. Sihvonen, Toni. 1997. “Pieni Johdatus Live-roolipelaamisen Psykologiaan.” In Larppaajan Käsikirja, ed. Niklas Vainio. Tampere: Suomen live-roolipelaajat. Smith, Matthew J. and Andrew F. Wood. 2005. Online Communication: Linking Technology, Identity, & Culture. 2nd ed. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Sniderman, Stephen. 1999. “Unwritten Rules.” Quoted from Salen, Katie and Zimmerman, Eric (eds.) 2006. The Game Design Reader. A Rules of Play Anthology. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Spingarn-Koff, Jason, dir. 2010. Life 2.0. New York: Andrew Lauren Productions. Stark, Lizzie. 2012. Leaving Mundania: Inside the Transformative World of Live Action Role-Playing Games. Chicago, IL: Chicago Review Press. Stavropoulos, John. N.d. “X-Card: Safety Tools for Simulations, Role-Playing, and Games.” http:// tinyurl.com/x-card-rpg. Stenros, Jaakko. 2014. “In Defense of a Magic Circle: The Social, Mental and Cultural Boundaries of Play.” Transactions of Digital Games Research Association 1(2): 147–185. ———. 2015. Playfulness, Play, and Games: A Constructionist Ludology Approach. Doctoral dissertation. University of Tampere, Finland. ———. 2016. “The Game Definition Game: A Review.” Games and Culture. OnlineFirst. Stenros, Jaakko and Tanja Sihvonen. 2015. “Out of the Dungeons: Representations of Queer Sexuality in RPG Books.” Analog Game Studies 2(5). http://analoggamestudies.org/2015/07/out-of-thedungeons-representations-of-queer-sexuality-in-rpg-source-books/ Stern, Steven Hillard, dir. 1982. Mazes and Monsters. Burbank, CA: Warner Brothers. Suits, Bernard. 1978. The Grasshopper: Games, Life and Utopia. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Sutton-Smith, Brian. 1997. The Ambiguity of Play. Cambridge: Oxford University Press. Turkle, Sherry. 1995. Life on the Screen. Identity in the Age of the Internet. New York: Simon & Schuster. Waern, Annika. 2010. “I’m in Love with Someone That Doesn’t Exist!!” Bleed in the Context of a Computer Game.” Proceedings of DiGRA Nordic 2010: Experiencing Games: Games, Play, and Players, August 16–17, Stockholm, Sweden. Wrigstad, Tobias. 2008. “Gang Rape.” Vi Åker Jeep. http://jeepen.org/games/gr/. Young, Kimberly. 2009. “Understanding Online Gaming Addiction and Treatment Issues for Adolescents.” The American Journal of Family Therapy 37: 355–372.

25 Sexuality and the Erotic in Role-Play Ashley ML Brown and Jaakko Stenros

Role-play and role-playing games engage the imagination. Through whatever media role-playing occurs, the opportunity to create or take part in developing narratives allows for the imagining of what could be, even if it never was. This chapter considers how role-play and the erotic intersect and specifically answers one question: what are the relationships between sexuality, the erotic, and role-play? This chapter focuses on three key areas of interest: sexual and erotic themes and imagery in role-playing games, erotic role-play and player interactions, and sexual and erotic roleplay outside of game contexts. The first section largely focuses on how sex, sexuality, and the erotic have been represented in role-playing games. This section covers both rules in games that allow for the playing out of sexual acts as well as the representation of character sexuality. The second section looks at erotic role-play and player interactions, examining studies of how role-players incorporate sex into their games. The final section looks at sexual and erotic roleplay behaviors in non-game contexts. This section encompasses activities that can be argued to be playful but do not revolve around a set game. By using these three key themes to discuss sexuality and erotic role-play, this chapter provides a good introduction to contemporary research on the topic.1

Sexual and Erotic Themes and Imagery in Role-Playing Games The first aspect of erotic role-play to be discussed is perhaps the most obvious from the perspective of those who play games. The representation of erotic themes and imagery in games will be discussed in this section from both narrative and mechanical aspects as the erotic is present in games, both in the telling of stories and also as gameplay. This sub-chapter addresses various live-action role-playing (larp) mechanics for handling amorous interactions, gendered power dynamics in tabletop role-playing games (TRPGs), and representations of queer sexualities in tabletop and online role-playing. But, first, let us start with representations of sexual and erotic themes in TRPGs. In the beginning, TRPG manuals were apparently devoid of sexual or erotic content. As Ian Sturrock (2015) found, “the first Tabletop Role-Playing Game [sic.] (TRPG) Dungeons

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& Dragons (Arneson and Gygax 1974) does not mention love, romance, sex, or even, for that matter, women (player-characters can be Men, Dwarves, Elves, or Hobbits)” (p. 64). Sturrock posits that the lack of sexual content in the first edition of Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) is largely due to its roots in wargaming. Early editions of the game emphasized rules and strategy for battle over other aspects that assist and support role-play. As scholar Joseph P. Laycock notes, by all accounts, at the beginning, “…the game was hopelessly confusing for anyone who did not already have a detailed knowledge of wargaming” (2015, p. 44). The connection between early editions and wargaming not only means that the gaming experience was centered on combat mechanics, but it is also probable that the narratives that emerged from this early version of the game also centered on martial themes (→ Chapter 3). This changed with later iterations of the game. In an ethnography of tabletop players, Gary Alan Fine (1983) observed that players utilized their physical constitution score, usually a metric of a character’s physical health in battle, as a way to determine how many times their character could have sex in one night. Likewise, Fine observed the use of fantasy sexual violence against female non-player characters amongst allmale groups of players. Although Fine does not discuss whether or not the appearance of sexual violence he observed in the tabletop games connected to warfare tactics, as is unfortunately the case in the real world (Vikman 2005), it does present an interesting counter-narrative to the idea of role-playing games as a desexualized, all-male activity. The narrative of the geeky, virgin, teenage boy playing D&D has been a common one in North American press for decades (cf. Nephew 2003, p. 182). Although this chapter is about the representation of sex and the erotic in games, it seems unavoidable to cover some gender power dynamics related to sexual violence as these themes seem to arise out of the mechanics for sexual gameplay in early tabletop games. Fine’s (1983) ethnographic study of tabletop role-play noted both a lack of women players and a lack of female characters in the groups he studied. While players believed the lack of women around the gaming table was due to biological, “intrinsic differences between the sexes” (Fine 1983, p. 64), Fine found that the “…games are structured particularly for male c­ haracters… male players comment that female characters should be treated as property and not as human beings” (Fine 1983, p. 65). Such attitudes were visible in publications devoted to RPGs and related culture when the topics of how to bring more women into gaming and how to create ­gender-specific rules for female characters were discussed (Trammel 2014; cf. P ­ eterson 2014). Such attitudes were not universal, but a “locker room atmosphere” was common (Sturrock 2015, p. 64). Furthermore, players interviewed by Fine commented that they often felt constrained by the presence of women players because it would “…prevent characters from engaging in fantasy rape…” (Fine 1983, p. 69). In this secondary example, when sex does emerge as a narrative theme in tabletop role-playing, it is often through a narrative of violence. It is difficult to read Fine’s (1983) account and not draw parallels between tabletop role-­ playing’s wargaming roots and the early conflation between sex and violence. Role-playing games are unique as a medium as they seem particularly prone to narrative and mechanics having a close relationship due to the emphasis on diegetic realness. That is to say, because of players’ commitment to their characters, every action, every plot point, must feel believable for the narrative being constructed and the theme and setting for the game. The existence of sexual violence in a game themed around war seems to make diegetic sense, even if it is distasteful and a morally questionable play activity (Brown 2015a).

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Aside from the representations of gender and sexual violence as a mechanic, suggestive and sexual imagery have had a clear presence in role-playing game source books since the very beginning, so, suggesting that early tabletop games were completely devoid of sexual content is not accurate. The original D&D and its supplements featured illustrations that showed naked breasts. Towards the end of the 1970s, these illustrations disappeared, only to reappear in the 1990s (Trammel 2014; Stenros and Sihvonen 2015). Furthermore, although the source books were desexualized, sex was included in the practice of play, as Fine’s account above attests. Additionally, Jon Peterson (2014) notes that D&D co-creator Dave Arneson’s gaming group at the time of testing rules for the upcoming game did not shy away from sexual themes: Contemporary records show them to be exclusively male, and as the game took after exuberant settings like Fritz Leiber’s Lankhmar and John Norman’s Gor, it contained play elements that might not have been explored in mixed company. For example, a surviving Blackmoor character sheet has an early attribute listing for ‘Sex,’ but rather than indicating gender it is a numeric value that came into play under certain circumstances. (p. 11) Such elements did not make it into the published rule books – and Gor is rarely discussed as an early influence of D&D (→ Box 25.2). Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (AD&D) (Gygax 1977) introduced sexual themes and female player-characters, and it is interesting that both were introduced at the same time. It is perhaps more fascinating that sex is still seen as a type of mechanic, as in Dave Arneson’s Blackmoor. As Sturrock notes, “this edition of AD&D is notorious for its “Harlot” encounters table (also known by players as the “Random Prostitute Table”), allowing the Games Master to randomly determine which kind of sex worker the players encounter…” (Sturrock 2015, p. 64). So, sex was introduced, not for the purposes of narrative romance but rather as a feature of the game’s economy. The existence of the “Harlot” encounters table provides insight into the types of sexual narratives that could emerge in game and additionally makes some allusion to how early versions of the game were viewed as deliberately exclusionary – both in the sense that encountering sex workers may dissuade some women from role-playing and in the sense that the Harlot table only lends itself to a particular type of narrative (→ Chapter 9).

Box 25.1  Sex and Mechanics The following examples are by no means exhaustive but provide a sample of games that integrate sex into RPG mechanics: Bunnies and Burrows (1976): Perhaps the first example of a tabletop game with explicit rules for sex, players would take on the role of an intelligent rabbit. AD&D: The previously discussed Harlot encounter table found in the AD&D Dungeon Master’s Guide (Gygax 1979, p. 192) requires a d100 roll to determine the type of sex worker the player-character’s will encounter. It is a randomization mechanic that determines, in addition to sex, whether or not player-characters gain information or are robbed by the sex worker they encounter. (Continued)

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Cyberpunk (1988): In this game, a flowchart used during character creation called the “Lifepath” was designed to help players define their characters and give them context before the game started. One options player could choose was “romantic involvement,” which was used to determine what the character’s romantic history was, and which could lead to jealous rivals, jilted lovers, or true love’s having an impact on later gameplay. Vampire: The Masquerade (Vampire; Rein-Hagen 1991): The previously mentioned seduction checks are well exemplified in this tabletop game wherein a player-character’s Manipulation and Persuasion scores are combined in a dice roll. If successful, the player character can seduce a non-player character, usually for the purposes of feeding. The Book of Erotic Fantasy (2006): As an Open Gaming License supplement book for d20 systems, this handbook includes randomization mechanics for a variety of sexual encounters, probability rolls for chance of pregnancy or contraction of sexually transmitted infections, rules for determining a satisfactory sexual performance, and spells specific to the erotic arts. Dragon Age: Origins (2009): The first digital example mentioned here, this game features a reputation system that has the potential to culminate in a sexual encounter with a non-player character. Gifts are purchased from a vendor using in-game currency and then given to a particular non-player party member to increase (or decrease) reputational standing.

Reducing sexuality, amorous interactions, and the erotic to a mechanic was common amongst early role-playing games, which emphasized the systemic and simulation aspects of role-play. However, it is telling that these mechanics were often meant to be used for goal-­oriented expressions of sexuality. The most common form of sexuality was Seduction, and it was used mostly to manipulate a person to get them to do something plot-relevant that was not in their best interest. Dramatic, narrative, and experiential results of sexuality did not become widespread in role-playing game source books until the 1990s, with popular games, such as Vampire (1991). A sea change in addressing sexuality in role-playing games started in the 1990s. A key work is Vampire (Rein-Hagen 1991), in which “seduction checks” represent both a mechanical rule and a narrative guideline. Players are given context of when to rely on mechanics and when instead to allow narrative to emerge between characters. Seduction checks are only to be performed “…if a player is trying to use their character’s supernatural charm to gain false intimacy with another character” (Brown 2015b, p. 82). In this example, seduction can be thought of as a type of survival strategy; rather than ambush their prey, players can instead choose to use social stats to charm their way into feeding. However, Vampire’s treatment of sex is not automatically reduced to a mechanic but contextualized with flavor texts. The description of the ability ends with a caveat stating, “If the emotions and motives [of the player-character] are true, then you should ignore this system and role-play it out” (Rein-Hagen 1991, p. 217). So, if the player wishes to genuinely seduce a character for purposes other than strategic feeding, the rule system for rolling dice gives way to a more fluid, storytelling system, which allows for the emergence of erotic content away from the roll of the dice. After the turn of the millennium, many TRPG rule books for the inclusion of sexual activity became available. Book of Erotic Fantasy (Kestrel and Scott 2003), Naughty & Dice (Morgan

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and Morgan 2003), Sex and Sorcery (Edwards 2003), and Encyclopaedia Arcane Nymphology (­Desborough 2003) are perhaps the most notable. These rule books were written under Open Gaming License as compatible general supplement to d20 games (→ Chapter 16), which rarely discussed sexual themes directly. The sex supplements contain worldbuilding information in addition to game mechanics, although the emphasis is on magic items, spells, sexually transmitted infections, and pregnancy (cf. Sturrock 2015). Although the sexual themes addressed in Vampire and other games (→ Box 25.1) were surely influential, their roots can be traced back to fan-created supplements like The AD&D Book of Sex (Bluebaugh 1992) and The Complete Guide to Unlawful Carnal Knowledge (Anonymous 1992), both distributed free online during the 1990s (Stenros and Sihvonen 2015). Thus far, we have largely focused on depictions of heterosexual relations. Role-playing game books have, over the years, started to represent queer sexualities as well. As Jaakko Stenros and Tanja Sihvonen (2015) discuss, for a long time, queer sexualities were absent from role-playing game source books. This started to change in the late 1980s with rare mentions of gender-fluid chaos gods and treacherous homosexuals. One of the first times queer sexualities to be clearly and openly addressed was in the Central Casting: Heroes of Legend ( Jaquays 1988) source books, which featured a table of Sexual Disorders (see Table 25.1) that listed such things as Transsexualism, Shyness, Homosexuality, Sadism, and Necrophilia. According to the book, “All Sexual Disorders are considered to be Darkside, or unsavory, personality traits by most societies, fantastic or otherwise. (p. 71)” In later books by the same publisher, there were explicit position statements from the designer, warning against bringing such abominations into play. As with sexuality in general, queer sexualities became part of role-playing games through game mechanics. Although Central Casting’s books are rare examples of combining explicit morals with statistics, random tables in other role-playing games started to include the possibilities of homosexual characters occasionally. Table 25.1  E xcerpt from Sexual Disorder Table (Roll 2D8) from Central Casting: Heroes of Legend

( Jaquays 1988, 71) Roll Result

Disorder Title

Disorder Description

2

Transsexualism

3 4

Complete Disinterest Shyness

5

Homosexuality

6

Bisexuality

7

Transvestitism

Believe oneself to be the spirit of one gender trapped in the body of the opposite gender. May express itself as constant Transvestitism. No sexual desire. Uncomfortable around opposite gender, difficult to talk with them. At the extreme, it may be a fear, either Gynephobia (fear of females) or Androphobia (fear of males). Sexually attracted to persons of same gender as oneself. Sexually attracted to persons of both genders (usually more strongly to one than the other). Sexually excited by wearing clothing of the opposite gender. May try and pass oneself off as someone of opposite gender, which may be difficult unless the character is also androgynous (neither strongly male nor female in appearance).

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Stenros and Sihvonen have further noted that Vampire and the other games and supplements that followed from publisher White Wolf increased visibility of queers in role-playing games during the 1990s. Thematically, all alternative cultures, homosexual included, seemed to fit within the game’s World of Darkness – itself largely positioned as the alternative to the mainstream of fantasy, following in the footsteps of D&D. Indeed, even if queer sexualities and experiences started to appear in numerous genres, from cyberpunk to superheroes, fantasy seemed quite resistant until the new millennium. Queer themes are still rarely featured in central positions in role-playing games, but such RPGs do exist, e.g. Blue Rose (Crawford, Elliot, Kenson and Snead 2005), a romantic fantasy game, or Monsterhearts (Mcdaldno 2012), a game about sexy teenage monsters and messy relationships. The flavor texts present in White Wolf ’s games usefully provide a context and setting for sexual interactions to emerge through gameplay. As other studies on online role-playing games have found, this is important for how players engage with sexuality in the game. In a study of World of Warcraft forums, Alexis Pulos found that “the positioning of heteronormative as good against queer as bad is a polarizing strategy that not only creates a hostile space but produces homophobic players that learn to govern or discipline other players” (Pulos 2013, p. 90). In this example, it was Blizzard’s censorship of guild names that referenced homosexual or queer culture that arguably contributed to a rise of homophobic discourse in the player base. Although this study focused on forums outside of the game, the rules developed to censor and police queer guilds inside the game led to a pervasive and palpable homophobic atmosphere. Even exogenic or social rules outside of the game have an impact on what is made available for play inside the game. In this sense, both endogenic (in-game) and exogenic rules affect in- and out-of-game player behavior with regards to sexuality. Considering these issues, it is of little wonder that so many single-player computer role-­ playing games (CRPGs) seem inclined to treat sex (and romance) as a mechanic rather than a part of an overall narrative. Dragon Age II (DA2), for example, has been criticized for its gamification of relationships through the purchasing and giving of gifts. Peter Kelly writes that there are two main problems with the game’s representation of romance: First, they assume that romance and dating can be easy by following only a few simple, reductive steps. Do X, Y, and Z, and the girl is yours. There is no room in this equation for unpredictability and naturally occurring chemistry, honest commonalities, or even pure physical attraction… Second, these tips suffer from the same bottom-line issue… Sex is treated as a prize or a reward for playing the game correctly, rather than another aspect to romance and love. (Kelly 2015, pp. 57–58) While there are obvious issues with the treatment of sex as a prize at the expense of other aspects of human sexuality, there are some connections between the rule-governed experience of sexuality in digital role-playing games and in the mundane world. Kelly writes that …in the mid-1800s, women and men were considered to be part of separate ideological and cultural spheres, thus ‘rules’ were in place to help guide successful courtship… there were common steps and stages of courtship or dating to which a vast majority of individuals in modern Western culture adhered. (Kelly 2015, p. 57)

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An important connection is made here between the way sex is treated in digital role-playing games – as a prize or reward – and the way sex has traditionally been treated in the “real” world. The Victorian example is particularly useful as it highlights how after a long and probably tedious period of following the rules of courtship towards marriage, sex was “unlocked” for the courtly participants. Alternately, Nordic larps demonstrate a greater variety of types of intimate experiences. Stenros (2014, also 2013) analyzed the game mechanics used for amorous and sexual interactions in Nordic larps and divided them into four rough, partly overlapping categories: establishing the events, outcome resolution systems, expressive and symbolic methods, and adjusting to the level of sexuality. Each of these categories abstracts sexuality when it is being modelled, but different aspects are emphasized. When establishing the events, the emphasis is on the narrative and dramatic aspects’ determining what happened. This is usually done verbally, for example, by taking a timeout and discussing what happens. Sometimes, the scene is enacted as in a radio theatre, creating a soundtrack for other players to hear and react to while refraining from physical enactment. In such cases, the emphasis shifts from determining what happened for the people involved to performing for others. It is also possible to switch to a more tabletop-like enactment of the sexual scene or to use a “meta room.”

Box 25.2  Glossary of Sexy RPG Terms Ars Amandi: Simulation method for making love in larps by touching hands, arms, and upper back while looking each other in the eyes and breathing heavily. Meta room: Metatechnique used in larp in which a specific space, a meta room, is set aside for playing out sequences that do not fit the timeline of larp (like past events), more symbolic actions (such as dream sequences), or encounters requiring different simulation methods (sex scenes in an otherwise naturalistic larp). Bleed: The conflation, or perhaps merging, of in-character thoughts, feelings, actions, or reactions with those expressed out-of-character. Erotic Role-Play (ERP): A general term given to role-play with erotic or sexual themes. Gor: A fantasy setting for a series of novels written by John Norman, which feature sexualized themes of slavery, bondage, domination, and servitude. Has inspired role-playing games, from D&D to settings on Second Life (cf. Sixma 2009).

Outcome resolution systems are akin to traditional tabletop methods in which game mechanics are used to determine what the result of the sex is. Was the sex good? Did a seduction succeed? Was a child conceived? This can entail the combination of character ability scores and some randomizing elements but can also feature mechanics like reading a random fortune ­cookie-like text, which is then used as basis for an interpretation of the events. Expressive and symbolic methods seek to capture the feelings of doing an amorous physical act together, one that is creative, embodied, pleasurable, metaphoric – and possibly awkward. Through exaggeration, distancing, and symbolic action, it can be fairly difficult to establish exactly what happened, but the general feeling of the proceedings, presence or absence of chemistry, and the

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embodied nature of the activity create an emotional picture of the sex, open to personal interpretation. For example, performing a back rub to symbolize sex falls into this category. Other possibilities include singing, dancing, and hand games (e.g. patty-cake). There are also more structured versions of this, such as arm and body painting and Ars Amandi. This last one is a stylized mechanic that recodes hands, arms, neck, upper back (above the shoulder blades), and the area above the breasts as the erogenous areas of a human. Love is made by touching and rubbing these areas while looking one another in the eyes and breathing heavily (Wieslander 2004). Finally, there are methods for adjusting to the level of sexuality. These mechanics tap into the experience of sexual acts, which the player can exaggerate in her mind while reining in the action. Examples include simulated sex with clothes on, playing with dildos, or substituting touching of the face for kissing, kissing for foreplay, and foreplay for intercourse. Larps where sex is not simulated but played as is do exist as well, but they are rare. Although the mechanics just described originate in larp, Stenros’s (2014) categories have wider relevance as they underline how simulation methods carry implications about the activity being modeled. The method chosen obviously implies what is being modeled: for example, intimacy, exchange, manipulation, or pleasure. However, they also reveal what is seen as sexual and what kind of sexual activity is seen as worthy of being modeled. Some methods assume that sex happens between exactly two people, with one giving and the other receiving (e.g. the back rub), while others are broader in terms of participants, genders, and power relations. Furthermore, some mechanics thrive on matching player and character desire, while others make it easier for players to enact sexual situations they may not find erotic. Of course, the mechanics provided by designers may not be the ones players end up using: players can decide to use different mechanics than those proposed by the larp organizers.

Erotic Role-Play and Player Interactions While the previous section discussed how sexuality is represented and the types of erotic content designed into role-playing games, this section looks at player interactions with games and each other that involve sexuality or erotic content. The section is subdivided to address two aspects of interaction. The first part will define erotic role-play and provide a context for how it happens in online and offline games. The second section will look at studies concerning interactions between players and the games themselves, including how players interact with characters in single-player games. ERP is role-play that invokes erotic, sensual, and sexual themes. We can also define it as a participant-defined activity that involves the incorporation of sexual or erotic content into preexisting role-play scenarios. This type of direct, player-to-player interaction has been found to offer a variety of pleasures to players – and not just the obvious ones. Although it is assumed that people engage in erotic role-play to live out sexual fantasies or for onanistic reasons, this is not always the case. A persistent stereotype nevertheless exists that erotic role-play, especially online, is performed for out-of-character arousal and carnal pleasure. Interestingly, not all role-play mediums define the purpose of ERP the same way. A focus group with tabletop role-players who included erotic content in their games found that even they had preconceptions about online erotic role-players. Ashley Brown notes that …tabletop participants made efforts to distinguish themselves as different from online erotic role-players through their difference in motivations to erotic role-play. In their

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view, erotic role-play in online virtual worlds is done only as a masturbation aid, whereas they view the erotic role-play they involve in their tabletop scenes as directly contributing to the game in some way. (2015b, p. 110) An interesting distinction between different forms of role-play emerges in the suspicion faced by online erotic role-players. Because tabletop role-play occurs in the flesh and in a group setting, participants can be sure that even if another player experiences arousal from a play session, they do not physically act on it. The fact that online erotic role-play is mediated through a computer and thus lacks physicality causes suspicion that the sometimes anonymous player on the other end of the screen may be partaking in the activity for gratification of sexual desire. Brown’s 2015 study found that the pleasure of developing a cohesive narrative around a character, developing friendships with other players, and experiencing a diversity of sexual scenarios, which may or may not be desirable in the “real” world, were all justifications for enjoyment of erotic role-play. In particular, … erotic role-play is not always about thrill-seeking and carnal pleasure but also… some erotic role-players find pleasure in the contemplative and active syncopation between their personal views of sex and relationships outside the game and the actions and behaviours of their characters inside of it. (Brown 2015b, pp. 108–109) So, pleasure is gained not only from the fantastic elements of sexual role-play but also from the mundane. Or, in other words, pleasure can be gained from both the perspectives of the player and the character. Likewise, the same study found that the fantasy element of role-playing games allowed players to experiment with types of sexualities that are personally or culturally undesirable, or even physically impossible, in real life. In this way, erotic role-play can be thought of as an opportunity to ameliorate forms of sexual interaction that sound pleasant but are impractical or even harmful. In one example, magic spells or healing potions might be used as a type of aftercare during an erotic role-play session involving rough bondage, discipline, dominance and submission, or sadomasochism (BDSM; Brown 2015b, p. 74). Or, in another example, sex outdoors is made much more pleasant when it happens in a digital forest away from the hard ground, unpleasant climate, insects, and birdwatchers found in the “real” wilderness. Finally, Brown found that erotic role-play offers the pleasure of friendship to its participants. Although it might be expected that romantic relationships will develop between players, there is currently no evidence to suggest that this is the case for online communities. This does not mean, however, that erotic role-players do not experience a type of bleed wherein the experiences of characters have an impact on the thoughts, feelings, emotions, and actions of players (Bowman 2014) but rather that the development of a romantic relationship between people whose characters are romantically involved has been found to be uncommon (Brown 2015b). It is worth noting that the results of Brown’s online study conflict with Sarah Lynne Bowman’s (2014) findings, which demonstrated that the development of intimate relationships amongst larpers was not uncommon. Although erotic role-play is a way in which people engage with sexuality in role-playing games, there are many other instances in which people use games to mediate sexual interaction.

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Cindy Poremba (2007) describes a type of play mediated by games that intentionally invokes forbidden expressions of sexuality or, at least, sensuality. Giving the example of the game Twister, she writes, “The popularity of Twister lies in its forbidden play or brink status: the framing of the game allowing the temporary reinscribing of rules of intimate social distance” (Poremba 2007, p. 772). While brink play is about pushing against the edge of socially acceptable play more so than role-play, it deserves the space here for discussion because arguably many role-playing games also invoke a type of reinscribing of social rules (→ Chapter 24). The easiest example of this is larp wherein the social norms of monogamy might be pushed to the brink by touching or kissing players other than one’s partner. Whether or not players feel real emotion for the person or character their character happens to be kissing (as would be the case if there was bleed between character and player) is irrelevant for the act to be considered brink play. The very prospect of transgressing a social norm through role-play is enough to qualify the act. Along the same vein, scholars have examined the romantic interactions between players and non-player characters in videogames. In the context of CRPGs specifically, Annika Waern (2015) found that players of Dragon Age games experience strong emotions for non-player characters. She writes that “experiences of jealousy and guilt are perhaps the strongest indications of a bleed-out effect in Dragon Age” (Waern 2015, p. 35). Many fans also reported that the romance options in the games caused them to develop a particular attraction to one or more nonplayer characters. Waern (2015) documents that, when players tried alternate romance options in the game on later playthroughs, they often experienced feelings of jealousy or guilt. Further, when starting a new character in the game for an alternate playthrough, many reported that choosing the same romance option as their previous character made it feel as though the nonplayer character was having an affair. Waern’s research also discusses how players fall in love with non-player characters in ­single-player role-playing games. She writes, “The concept of ‘pixel crush’ is not unheard of in computer games. It refers to the emotion of being ‘physically attracted’ to an animated character…” (Waern 2015, p. 37). In this sense, there is a romantic, sexual attraction to pixels on the screen, but whether or not the players act on this attraction and whether or not it could be considered erotic role-play is debatable. Rather than pathologize “pixel crushes,” Waern is quick to note that romanticizing or fantasizing about unreal characters is no different from the teenage idolization of pop stars. “Pixel crushes” are probably just that: crushes. It is unlikely, but not impossible, that players role-play in single player games with non-player characters for the gratification of sexual desire, and some of this is due to the narrative limits of digital games.

Sexual and Erotic Role-Play in Non-Game Contexts Not all sexual or erotic role-play happens within the context of games. Although this is an ­under-researched area, a few notable studies have been conducted on sexual and erotic roleplay that occurs elsewhere. Brown (2015c) has used the concept of brink play (Poremba 2007) to study and delineate activities that may be considered borderline cases of sexy analog play. For example, a garter toss at a wedding can certainly be said to contain sensual or erotic undertones, but as an activity, it is firmly located in the realm of traditional gesture and not a game (Brown 2015c). But a follow-up question might ask if the activity is role-play. It would be a difficult, although not impossible, argument that the newlyweds are playing the roles of bride and groom (in whichever gender combination they prefer). Although certainly some bravado,

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theatrics, and acting go into removing a piece of lingerie from a spouse’s leg in front of friends and family, it likely does not fit into the definitions of role-play used within this book; it would be at home in a more social-psychological taxonomy of play. There are other gray areas that are not as easily defined. One such example might be dress up sexual play. Commonly found in adult or lingerie shops, outfits that resemble occupational uniforms (e.g. naughty nurse, macho police officer) can be viewed as facilitating a type of erotic role-play (Harviainen 2012; Brown 2015b,c). However, J. Tuomas Harviainen (2012) notes that the narratives and character development that such costumes inspire tend to be thin and tenuous. There exists a definition of costuming that takes into consideration both the act of dressing up for sexual play and the embodiment of a character that the costume represents. Janine Fron, Tracy Fullerton, Jacquelyn Ford Morie and Celia Pearce (2007) summarizes Joanne B. ­Eicher’s (1981) concept of the communication of “three selves” – the public, private, and secret – through dress and how it might apply to play below: Public- one’s presentation in the public sphere; Private- when engaged with family and friends; and Secret- when by oneself, when the bulk of fantasy play takes place…Public, costumes worn in a public context, such as a festival or holiday which are not anonymous; Private, costumes worn among friends or in the context of family/childhood play; Secret, which could include both activities that are solitary or intimate (such as sex play) and those which are public and anonymous. (Fron et al. 2007, p. 12) In this distinction, secret forms of dress, which lend themselves easily to intimate, sexual forms of play, are directly related to fantasy. This distinction is of interest as it highlights that the wearing of costumes for types of sexual play is about more than aesthetics. While a basque top and holdup stockings might be worn because they look and feel nice, the act of putting on the lingerie can function as the taking on of a character. According to Fron et al.’s (2007) reading of Eicher (1981), the act of putting on lingerie can switch participants to their secret selves, which can be considered a type of role-play. This is certainly the case when the lingerie happens to be styled with reference to an occupational uniform. Within the occupational roles of nurse and patient or police officer and criminal, there are clear power dynamics, which dictate who does what to whom. These power dynamics emerge as a type of sexual role-play when the costumes are worn and the secret selves are allowed to play. Although costumes are perhaps the most visible expression of the power dynamics involved in erotic role-play, other accessories and objects arguably have a similar effect. A dog collar, for example, signifies sexual submissiveness within some communities. The act of wearing a dog collar, even in public, is an act that allows for role-play. In fact, it has been argued that BDSM sex is a type of live action role-play. J. Tuomas Harviainen (2012) provides a breakdown of how, even without costumes, the shifts in the power dynamics of individuals that take place during BDSM play sessions are similar to larp. As he notes, “After the [play] session has ended, the normal everyday power dynamic between the participants – which may or may not be equal – is restored” (2012, p. 62). This example is similar to how power dynamics within a group of friends might shift during a role-play session when one friends takes the role of game master but shifts back at the session’s end, once the game is over.

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The final example of erotic role-play occurring outside of games focuses on role-play that occurs in chat rooms. Virtual sex, the general term for online sexual activity, has been well documented. In fact, early studies of the Internet noted that “in cyberspace, this activity [virtual sex] is not only common but, for many people, it is the centerpiece of their online experience” (Turkle 1995, p. 223). Of course, not all virtual sex can be considered erotic role-play as there must be a distinguishing role-play element to qualify the act. Cybersex, for example, occupies an interesting grey area between role-play and reality. Cybersex has been defined as …a process of provoking, constructing, and playing out sexual encounters through a single interactive mode of communication… also like phone sex, participants draw from a vast repertoire of socio-cultural symbols to construct a drama that compresses large amounts of information into the very small experiential space of a text medium. (Waskul 2003, p. 79) Within this definition, there is no defining characteristic of the self. It remains unclear whether or not cybersex is experienced as a kind of co-authored erotica with fanciful characters or if it is – like phone sex – meant to be a faithful representation of the wants, desires, and physiologies of the participating authors. While virtual sex in massively multi-player online role-playing games (MMORPGs), or any variant of an online world, is presumably a form of erotic role-play between player-­ characters, there is significant ambiguity over whether or not the same is true in cybersex. For example, in John Campbell’s study of gay men’s chatrooms, he found that within the online communities studied, there was a central ethos “…that interactants are representing their bodies in good faith” (2004, p.124). If it was discovered that a chatroom member had misrepresented themselves or their body, consequences such as “…the loss of online friendships, as well as teasing or outright attacks on the main window of a channel” (Campbell 2004, p. 124) were found to occur. In this example of cybersex, there is a strong emphasis on being as faithful to reality as possible to avoid potentially misleading another chatroom participant. Campbell is quick to note, however, that this is not to suggest that there is no room for fantasy on these channels but rather to indicate that assuming a fantasy persona is acceptable only within a context explicitly understood by all parties as a fantasy performance, otherwise it is considered deception. (Campbell 2004, p. 125) So, for practitioners of cybersex, role-playing or fantasy is only acceptable if it is explained to all participants. There is an expectation that those engaging in erotic play in chatrooms will attempt to represent themselves as faithfully as possible, unlike other forms of erotic role-play, which happen in games or in virtual worlds.

Summary This chapter has looked at three aspects of sexuality in role-playing games. It began by looking at the representation of sexuality and the erotic in digital and analog games, where it was determined that an over-emphasis is placed on the mechanics of sex in TRPGs. Few games provide

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narrative context for how erotic content can enter role-play scenarios, preferring instead to treat sexual performance as something that can have a quantifiable outcome. In relation to larp, four categories of game mechanics for handling sexual activity were discussed as well as the implications they have for the experiences created. The chapter then covered studies of erotic player interactions with other players and non-player characters. From studies on erotic role-play in online environments, research has overturned the assumption that only carnal pleasure can come from engaging with sexual or erotic themes online. Instead, a diversity of pleasures, from narrative consistency to friendship building, were discovered. Likewise, research that highlights “pixel-crushes” and other emotional attachments to characters in single-player, digital role-playing games were discussed. The final section looked at erotic role-play that occurs outside of games. Examples of instances in which sexual activities could be considered role-play were given, ranging from costumed sex to BDSM to cybersex. Cybersex was presented as an interesting gray area in which participants were generally assumed to present an accurate, “real-life” version of themselves online, with the occasional instances in which participants could play out fantasies. Overall, this chapter has presented three areas of research on the topic of sexuality and role-play, but the authors must caution against taking this account as absolute. No doubt, scholars have yet to uncover other important aspects of the topic.

Note 1 The three previous chapters, along with the rest of the book, provide an important backdrop for this chapter. Chapter 22 on immersion and Chapter 23 on the relationship between player and character attest that role-playing can allow for a playful engagement with unfamiliar identities and behaviors. Chapter 24 on transgressive role-play shows that there is a possibility to engage with the unfamiliar – and even the forbidden.

Further Reading Brathwaite, Brenda. 2006. Sex in Video Games. Boston, MA: Charles River Media. Enevold, Jessica and MacCallum-Stewart, Esther. 2015. Game Love: Essays on Play and Affection. ­Jefferson, NC: McFarland. Wysocki, Matthew and Lauteria, Evan. 2015. Rated M for Mature. New York: Bloomsbury.

References Anonymous. 1992. The Complete Guide to Unlawful Carnal Knowledge. Numerous version over the years, original online at www.textfiles.com/rpg/sexguide.txt. Arneson, Dave and Gygax, Gary. 1974. Dungeons & Dragons. Lake Geneva, WI: TSR. Bluebaugh, Reid. 1992. The AD&D Book of Sex. Accessed from: www.acc.umu.se/~stradh/dnd/mirror/ Assorted/ADnD_netbook_of_sex.html. Accessed on 11 August 2015. Bowman, Sarah Lynne. 2014. “Post-LARP Depression.” Analog Game Studies, 1(1). Accessed from: http://analoggamestudies.org/2014/08/post-larp-depression/. Accessed on 12 August 2015. Brown, Ashley ML. 2015a. “Three Defenses for the Fourteen-Inch Barbed Penis: Darkly Playing with Morals, Ethics, and Sexual Violence” in Mortensen, Torill Elvira, Linderoth, Jonas and Brown, ­A shley ML. The Dark Side of Game Play: Controversial Issues in Playful Environments. London: ­Routledge, pp. 119–136. Brown, Ashley ML. 2015b. Sexuality in Role-Playing Games. London: Routledge.

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Brown, Ashley ML. 2015c. “Towards a Taxonomy of Sexy Analog Play”. Analog Game Studies, 2(5). Accessed from: http://analoggamestudies.org/2015/07/towards-a-taxonomy-of-sexy-analog-play/. Accessed on 13 August 2015. Campbell, John Edward. 2004. Getting It on Online: Cyberspace, Gay Male Sexuality, and Embodied Identity. New York: Harrington Park Press. Crawford, Jeremy, Elliot, Dawn, Kenson, Steve and Snead, John. 2005. Blue Rose. Renton, WA; Green Ronin Publishing. Desborough, James. 2003. Encyclopaedia Arcade Nymphology. Swindon; Mongoose Publishing. Edwards, Ron. 2003. Sex and Sorcery. Chicago, IL: Adept Press. Eicher, Joanne B. 1981. “Influences of Changing Resources in Clothing, Textiles, and the Quality of Life: Dressing for Reality, Fun and Fantasy”. Combined Proceedings, Eastern, Central, and Western Regional Meetings of Association of College Professors of Textiles and Clothing, 36–41. Denver, CO: ACPTC. Fine, Gary Alan. 1983. Shared Fantasy: Role-Playing Games as Social Worlds. London: The University of Chicago Press. Fron, Janine, Fullerton, Tracy, Morie, Jacquelyn Ford and Pearce, Celia. 2007. “Playing Dress Up: Costumes, Role-Play and Imagination”. Proceedings of Philosophy of Computer Games Conference 2007, 24–27 January, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Emilia-Romagna, Italy. Gygax, Gary. 1977. Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Monster Manual. Lake Geneva, WI: TSR. Gygax, Gary. 1979. Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Dungeon Masters Guide. Lake Geneva, WI: TSR. Harviainen, J. Tuomas. 2012. “Sadomasochist Role-Playing as LiveAction Role-Playing: A Trait Descriptive Analysis”. International Journal of Role-Playing, 1(2), pp. 59–70. Jaquays, Paul. 1988. Central Casting: Heroes of Legend. Jackson, MI: Task Force Games. ­ acCallum-Stewart, Kelly, Peter. 2015. “The Digital Courting Process in Dragon Age 2.” in Enevold, Jessica and M Esther. Game Love: Essays on Play and Affection. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, pp. 46–62. Kestrel, Gwendolyn and Scott, Duncan. 2003. Book of Erotic Fantasy. Seattle, WA: Valar Project. Laycock, Joseph P. 2015. Dangerous Games: What the Moral Panic over Role-Playing Games Says about Play, Religion and Imagined Worlds. Oakland: University of California Press. Mcdaldno, Joe. 2012. Monsterhearts. Buried Without Ceremony. Morgan, Christine and Morgan, Tim. 2003. Naughty and Dice. Seattle, WA: Sabledrake Enterprises. Nephew, Michelle. 2003. Playing with Power: The Authorial Consequences of Role-playing Games. Doctoral dissertation, The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Peterson, Jon. 2014. “The First Female Gamers.” Medium, Accessed from: https://medium.com/@­ increment/the-first-female-gamers-c784f be3ff37. Accessed on 5 October 2014. Poremba, Cindy. 2007. “Critical Potential on the Brink of the Magic Circle”. Situated Play: Proceedings of the 2007 Annual Digital Games Research Association Conference, September 2007, pp. 772–778, University of Tokyo. Pulos, Alexis. (2013). “Confronting Heteronormativity in Online Games: A Critical Discourse Analysis of LGBTQ Sexuality in World of Warcraft”, Games and Culture, 8(2), pp. 77–97. Rein-Hagen, Mark. 1991. Vampire: The Masquerade, First Edition. Stone Mountain, GA: White Wolf Game Studio. Sixma, Tjarda. 2009. “The Gorean Community in Second Life: Rules of Sexual Inspired Role-Play”. Journal of Virtual Worlds Research, 1(3), pp. 1–18. Accessed from: journals.tdl.org/jvwr/article/ view/330. Accessed on November 23, 2017. Stenros, Jaakko. 2013. “Amorous Bodies in Play. Sexuality in Nordic Live Action Role-Playing Games” in Grenzfurthner, Johannes, Friesinger, Günther and Fabry, Daniel. Screw the System – Explorations of Spaces, Games and Politics through Sexuality and Technology. Arse Elektronika Anthology #4. San ­Francisco, CA: RE/Search & Monochrom. pp. 120–127. Stenros, Jaakko. 2014. “Touching the Player: Game Mechanics for Amorous Interaction from Nordic Larp.” Keynote at Lyst Summit, 6 June 2014, Copenhagen, Denmark. Stenros, Jaakko and Sihvonen, Tanja. 2015. “Out of the Dungeons: Representations of Queer Sexuality in RPG Source Books.” Analog Game Studies, 2(5). Accessed from: http://analoggamestudies. org/2015/07/out-of-the-dungeons-representations-of-queer-sexuality-in-rpg-source-books/.

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Sturrock, Ian. 2015. “Love for Dice: Love, Sex, Romance and Reward in Tabletop Role-Playing Games” in Enevold, Jessica and MacCallum-Stewart, Esther. Game Love: Essays on Play and Affection. Jefferson, NC: McFarland. pp. 63–81. Trammel, Aaron. 2014, “Misogyny and the Female Body in Dungeons & Dragons.” Analog Game Studies, 2(4). Accessed from: http://analoggamestudies.org/2014/10/constructing-the-female-bodyin-role-playing-games/. Turkle, Sherry, 1995. Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet. New York: Simon and Schuster Paperbacks. Vikman, Elisabeth, 2005. “Ancient Origins: Sexual Violence in Warfare, Part I.” Anthropology & Medicine, 12(1), pp. 21–31. Waern, Annika. 2015. “‘I’m in Love with Someone Who Doesn’t Exist!’ Bleed in the Context of a Computer Game.” in Enevold, Jessica and MacCallum-Stewart, Esther. Game Love: Essays on Play and Affection. Jefferson, NC: McFarland. pp. 25–45. Waskul, Dennis D. 2003. Self-Games and Body-Play: Personhood in Online Chat and Cybersex. New York: Peter Lang. Wieslander, Emma. 2004. “Rules of Engagement.” in Montola, Markus and Stenros, Jaakko. Beyond Role and Play. Tools, Toys and Theory for Harnessing the Imagination. Helsinki: Ropecon. pp. 181–186.

26 Representation and Discrimination in Role-Playing Games Aaron Trammell

Lisa Nakamura’s 1995 essay “Race In/For Cyberspace” offers a good starting point for understanding representation and discrimination in role-playing games (RPGs). The text unpacks a problematic form of play on Lambda MOO (an early, text-based multiuser dungeon) that Nakamura calls “identity tourism”. Simply put, identity tourism refers to assuming an often exotic identity on the Internet for leisure purposes.1 The design of Lambda MOO allowed players to describe their characters in a paragraph of prose. This led to a game world populated by predominantly white male players, enacting almost comically stereotypical Asian characters, with handles like AsianDoll, Miss_Saigon, Bisexual_Asian_Guest, Geisha_Guest, or MaidenTaiwan. In doing so, players reproduced toxic stereotypes that make the virtual world an unwelcome space for ethnically Asian players; subtly displayed and reinforced white supremacy; and essentialized identity and race, portraying them as simple, fixed categories. Despite such problematic dynamics, Nakamura concludes that RPGs could also be a space for players to experiment with performing Asian-ness or other categories in ways that explore, make them aware of, and challenge fixed notions around race and identity. In this, she draws on Judith Butler’s Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (1990). Using examples of people who don’t fall into neat categories like “male” and “female”, Butler shows how categories like race, gender, and identity are socially constructed, not biologically determined, and best understood as performed, multiple, and moving fluidly along several continua. However, as Nakamura points out, the design of a game can render such categories invisible or fixed – or offer spaces for exploration and deliberation. In summary, Nakamura’s essay establishes three basic tenets that still hold today: (1) representation and stereotypes matter; (2) players can enact and reproduce stereotypes or subvert them and explore different representations, and (3) this player agency is afforded and constrained by the design of the game played. Along these lines, one can distinguish two main angles of studying representation and discrimination in RPGs. A player angle looks at how identities, discrimination, and representation are actively constructed and negotiated by players. A procedural angle looks at how game design embodies certain representations and, with them, potential bias and stereotypes.

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The present book explores RPGs as a transmedia phenomenon across forms like live-action role-play, tabletop RPGs (TRPGs), computer RPGs (CRPGs), or multi-player online RPGs (MORPGs), each of which comes with a multitude of local communities in different places and around different games. This diversity makes general statements about “RPGs as such” difficult. For this reason, the present chapter will focus on the US American TRPG industry and community. This is not to say that US TRPGs are any “less” or “more” discriminatory than other RPG forms and communities. Rather, they serve as an exemplary case study to ­illustrate the larger dynamics and problems of discrimination and representation in RPGs. ­A fter introducing key concepts, the chapter will first provide a player angle on the construction and negotiation of identity and representation by players to then analyze how the design of RPGs as rule systems prefigure these processes.

Key Concepts The term “representation” is used in many different ways across disciplines and theories, usually to describe how one thing can stand in for another (Hall 1998). Politically, representation refers to whether and how a given social group has a say in political processes, for instance, via individual representatives. In cultural and media studies, representation as a process describes the production of meaning, while representations of refer to what kind of meanings media and communication circulate about a certain subject, like a social group or category, e.g. “representations of blackness”. Such representations often entail stereotypes: oversimplified ideas about groups of people that don’t take individual differences into account (Dyer 1999). Stereotypes can be positive or negative. They are formed when the characteristics of an individual are used to stand for the characteristics of a group of similar individuals: the stereotype that all black men are athletic is a generalization of the fact that some black men are athletic. For Stuart Hall (1998, 258–9), stereotypes reflect the attitudes of the dominant social group and order and work both consciously and unconsciously. Subjects of stereotyping, for instance, often unconsciously perform one stereotype to resist another. The dominant stereotype of black men as infantile leads black men to perform machismo in resistance, which, in turn, reinforces another stereotype: that black men have large sexual appetites (262–3). According to Hall, the only way to combat a stereotype is to dissolve it by embracing and producing diverse representations in the media. Apart from simplifying, stereotypes often essentialize. This means that they reduce the complexity and diversity of individuals of a social category into a set of defining attributes that is assumed to be an underlying, unchanging “essence”. For instance, an essentialist view of “Asian-ness” would be that all people called Asian share some unchanging essence – maybe “in their genes” – that makes all of them smart, collectivist, polite, etc. Indeed, race is a prime example of a social category that, particularly during the rise of eugenics in the 19th century, was essentialized: people (wrongly) assumed that there were different human races, like biological species, with clear and stable differences in traits, like intelligence or self-control. In contemporary cultural research, race refers to dividing humans by observable physical characteristics, like skin color, while ethnicity refers to dividing humans by shared culture. Race is not a fixed biological property but the outcome of racialization: ­people construct race categories based on superficial physiological properties, like skin color, and count individuals into them (Little 2013).

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Similarly, contemporary research makes a clear distinction between sex and gender. Sex refers to physiological differences between males and females, such as the reproductive system or height. Gender refers to social or cultural distinctions and understandings of masculinity and femininity that are ascribed and performed. For example, by wearing pink, one performs femininity as there is a commonsense cultural association between femininity and the color pink. To conclude our tour of concepts, discrimination, on an abstract level, is the recognition of difference. In common and sociological parlance, discrimination consists of the unequal treatment of individuals based on their belonging to particular social groups, such as race, ethnicity, religion, or gender.

A Player Angle Discussions of discrimination reach back to the very beginning of TRPGs. In a 1976 issue of the fanzine Alarums & Excursions, Samuel Edward Konkin III published an article depicting Gary Gygax (co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons (D&D)), Tim Kask (editor of the D&D magazine Dragon), and Len Lakof ka (a key voice in the game’s fan community) being hung by a party of women. Konkin reacted to a Dragon article by Lakof ka, which suggested rules for (“obviously” female) characters of female gamers in D&D that today seem almost comically misogynistic. Lakof ka suggested that female characters should have a “beauty” score that connects to unique abilities like “charm men” or “seduce”, while women in combat should fight at the level of “man–1” (Trammell 2014). Change has been slow to come. In 2016, the world’s largest TRPG convention, Gen Con, finally reached gender parity in featured speakers, compared to only 6% female featured speakers in 2011 (Strix Beltrán 2016). This is the result of a conscious recent initiative of Gen Con towards a more inclusive role-playing community, which reflects the degree to which the TRPG community has historically been a site of struggle and ignorance over representation and discrimination. Founded by Gygax in 1968, Gen Con looks back on a history of over 40 years of predominantly white male invited speakers. Take Ajit George’s (2014) experience of Gen Con as recently as 2013: For all that GenCon offers, it lacks in minority gamers. Last year was my first GenCon, and as I explored the convention, I saw almost no one who looked like me. By far, the most visible minorities at GenCon were the hired convention hall facilities staff who were setting up, serving, and cleaning up garbage for the predominantly white ­convention-goers. It was a surreal experience and it felt like I had stepped into an ugly part of a bygone era, one in which whites were waited upon by minority servants. Gen Con made the decision to produce a more inclusive space for gaming because many outspoken fans, like Ajit George, critiqued the lack of diversity in the industry. Yet while high-profile industry bodies like Gen Con are making some headway, discrimination of women and people of color is still commonplace in today’s TRPG community, if in forms that are sometimes hard to notice for the unaffected. Take contemporary TRPG designer Julia Bond Ellingboe and her game Steal Away Jordan. The game deals specifically with issues of intersectionality – how the experience, status, and identity of a person is construed by the intersection of multiple categories, like ethnicity and gender (Collins 1990). In a recent interview ( Jones 2016), Ellingboe relates the difficulty she’s had as a woman of color instigating

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meaningful dialogue around race in the indie TRPG community. Many white people, she explains, avoided playing her game for fear of “getting it wrong”. As a result, she moved from race to gender as a narrative theme: Although I can find other women game designers in the scene, I see a scant few black designers. It’s hard to be the unicorn. In my day-to-day life I’m one of the only African Americans in my workplace. I unpack that in different ways, I don’t want to unpack that in my game design. (Ellingboe in Jones 2016, paragraph 32) As Ellingboe observes, the mere absence of people with similar intersectional experiences and people’s unwillingness to play her game due to its racially charged topic is enough to discourage and silence more diverse perspectives, such as hers. George’s and Ellingboe’s experiences are exemplary of the invisible and often unstated discrimination in the TRPG community, which is mirrored, for instance, in #1ReasonWhy, a conversation started on Twitter in 2012 when a user posted the question “Why are there so few lady game creators?” (Ochsner 2017). Although most participants were women in the socalled AAA video game industry, describing the sexism they encounter at work, Shoshanna Kessock (2012) reports that a number of TRPG developers were involved as well. Notable RPG designers, such as Avery McDaldno, Lillian Cohen-Moore, Emily Care Boss, and Jess Hartley, joined the conversation (McDaldno 2012). Following a recent content analysis of #1ReasonWhy (Ochsner 2017), women in the game industry are (1) often evaluated on different standards than men and with criteria other than professional accomplishments; (2) denied the recognition of status and expertise; and (3) silenced, dismissed, and made invisible. This is all the more problematic as the values and experiences of game designers directly and indirectly inform the representations of social categories of the games they produce (Flanagan, Howe, and Nissenbaum 2008, 324). Homogenous development teams develop homogeneous games and are often blind to the racial, ethnic, or gender stereotypes they reproduce in them. Discrimination in production and consumption mutually reinforce each other: racist, sexist, and homogeneous games chiefly attract relatively homogeneous player communities, who reproduce their stereotypes and police their notions and norms of “normal” identity. Thus, Zek Cypress Valkyrie (2011) found that although MORPGs would allow players to explore alternative sexualities in “safe” pseudonymous cybersex, players often restrained and sanctioned any nonheterosexual interaction. This hostile environment keeps minority groups from buying and playing games and seeking positions in the games industry, which perpetuates the homogeneity and stereotyping of produced games. That said, Adrienne Shaw (2015) offers evidence of game players from marginalized groups who continued to play games despite stereotypical representations of race, class, and gender. She also reports on new trends of diversity within the industry that have broadened the representational palette within games to include more women, people of color, and LGBTQ people. Although these efforts to diversify games are a step in the right direction, Shaw finds them to often still be couched in the logic of neoliberalism – players try on identities as if they were trying on clothes. Also, counter-movements like #gamergate show how far gaming fan communities are from embracing diversity as a positive value or recognizing that how games represent social categories like race, class, or gender and who gets to play and make them has deep societal and cultural relevance (Mortensen 2016).

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A Procedure Angle With their rich storytelling, open worlds, complex rules, and player freedom, RPGs have a unique opportunity to present complex and multifaceted portrayals of identity, race, ethnicity, and gender and to allow players to explore identity in new ways. This section explores how many TRPGs have made good on this opportunity and what kinds of representation are embodied in their design. TRPG design in the D&D tradition generally follows a three-part formula (→ Chapter 18). They are organized by a rule set, which is documented in a set of manuals. They involve a referee who maintains the dramatic action of the world. And they involve groups of players who take on the roles of characters and decide how these will interact with the world that has been presented by the referee. Player actions are structured by the rules, although referee and players can choose how strictly or loosely to follow them. Thus, understanding representation in TRPGs means recognizing how the open-ended nature of player interaction is set against the structural elements established by the game’s rules. Take how the rules of D&D implement race as a category. Players select one of many fantastic races for their character. Early D&D editions offered the staples from Lord of the Rings (human, elf, half-elf, dwarf, and halfling/hobbit), but the fifth edition has expanded the list to include dragonborn, gnome, half-orc, and tiefling (Wizards of the Coast 2014). Characters are defined by a set of six main attributes: strength, dexterity, constitution, wisdom, intelligence, and charisma. Depending on which race players choose, character attributes are modified. Where early editions would modify some attributes negatively for some races, the fifth edition now rewards players for choosing a nonhuman. A half-orc, for example, now only gains a two-point bonus to their strength, which, in previous editions, was balanced by a two-point penalty to intelligence and charisma. Be that as it may, the D&D rules model race as a fixed biological species with fundamental bodily differences – some races are inherently stronger, smarter, more charming, etc. than others. This reproduces an essentialist understanding of race found in eugenics (Fisher 1918), which sought statistical evidence for inherited traits linked to race in humans. Although long disproven by research, this biologistic concept of human race is the primary way in which race has been modelled in TRPG rules, from D&D to many other influential and current games, such as Empire of the Petal Throne, GURPS, or Pathfinder. It is exacerbated by the fact that RPGs often rely on archetypes in their content (Bowman 2012), which, again, have a tendency towards stereotyping and essentialism. And many games present a white European fashioning of “humans” as the most “normal”, “familiar”, and “default” race (Higgin 2009). RPGs inherit these fantasy races from neoromantic if not anti-modern writers, like J.R.R. Tolkien. That races are then modeled as fixed statistical differences is arguably due to the game mechanics TRPGs inherited from wargames. If everything is game mechanically expressed as statistical attributes, how could race not be? Or put differently, if race doesn’t make a statistical difference, why bother choosing one? The focus on faithfully reproducing tropes of fantasy worlds and providing players “meaningful choice” in character creation overlooks how these rules reinforce outmoded notions of race. Where TRPGs allow players to negotiate whether and how they might want to enact these rules, CRPGs and MORPGs “hardwire” them into their source code. The science fiction game RimWorld is a good example of such algorithmic stereotyping (Lo 2016). Much

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like Lakof ka’s D&D rules for female characters, RimWorld uses categories like gender, age, or disability to determine attraction and whether characters will make or accept romantic moves, embodying numerous stereotypes in the course: men are eight times more likely to make a romantic advance; people with disabilities are always less attractive; attraction is affected only by physical beauty; there are only bisexual or gay women, gay men (who find all women unattractive), and straight men (who find all men unattractive), no bisexual men; etc. (Lo 2016). All this is not to say that all RPGs treat social categories like race and gender in the same way. Using Ian Bogost’s concept of procedural rhetoric, Gerald Vorhees (2009), for instance, shows how in their character configuration systems, different games in the Final Fantasy CRPG series embody very different conceptions of race, which interact with surrounding cultural context. Earlier versions present “classes” that encompass race, ethnicity, and occupation, and game success almost requires players to assemble a party of diverse, complementary classes, valuing difference. Later versions do away with classes, presenting a fictional world in which social difference doesn’t exist and every individual is in control of their own fate and makeup by learning abilities. Also, stereotyping can be reinforced through an absence of representation (Higgin 2009). On the surface, MORPGs like World of Warcraft lack any representation of different human races and ethnicities or reduce them to choosing character skin color during character creation, creating a space presumably free of race or racist stereotypes. However, this lack of positive, diverse representations of human race is betrayed by the game’s giving “humans” stereotypically white Caucasian attributes and stereotypical black attributes to other races, e.g. darkskinned, brutish, and aggressive orcs or stoic and spiritual tauren. And it opens the space for players to freely act out their own racial stereotypes – as Lisa Nakamura already observed in early Lambda MOO.

Summary The problems of representation in RPGs described in this chapter are intended to be a conversation starter and not an endpoint. Players and designers of RPGs face discrimination and stereotypes on both a community and representational level. A player-oriented angle considers a player or designer’s experience of discrimination when interacting with a community or game. Analyzing the US TRPG community, we found ample evidence that fan communities and industry were until very recently excluding and reproducing stereotypes of racial, ethnic, and gender minorities. A procedure-oriented approach to discrimination considers the degree to which a game’s rules and design embody stereotypes and create a hostile space for minority players. RPGs in the D&D tradition inherit essentializing and stereotypical notions of race from fantasy authors like Tolkien. RPGs are almost inevitably discriminating and essentializing because they abstract bodies through statistical rules that mirror 19th-century eugenics. This is especially the case in CRPGs that need to model and produce individual difference with underlying fixed categories in code, which is often not made transparent or malleable to players. Designers must consider how to best address this inescapable kernel of discrimination and stereotyping. Is it used to prompt meaningful dialogue about the role of race in RPGs, or does it reinforce problematic stereotypes? Does playing a black character allow players an opportunity to understand the complexity of black experience, or do the playable black characters in a game simply serve as shallow vehicles of identity tourism?

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Representation in games should not be looked at as a problem to be solved but rather as a problem to derive more problems from. And from these problems, we might challenge ourselves to imagine a world where all forms of representation become equally problematic and our understandings of race, class, gender, and sexuality become decreasingly myopic.

Note 1 Identity tourism isn’t necessarily problematic. Nakamura’s discussion of identity tourism keys in to its most problematic overtones – appropriating the racial identity of another more vulnerable, person – but many instances of identity tourism, such as exploring the role of a unicorn soaring through the sky, less rooted in the struggle of race in modern American society have significantly less problematic connotations.

Further Reading Kafai, Yasmin B., Richard, Gabriela T., Tynes, Brendesha M. (eds.) 2016. Diversifying Barbie and Mortal Kombat: Intersectional Perspectives and Inclusive Designs in Gaming. Pittsburgh, PI: ETC Press. Malkowski, Jennifer, and Russworm, TreaAndrea (eds.) 2017. Gaming Representation: Race, Gender, and Sexuality in Video Games. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Shaw, Adrienne. 2015. Gaming at the Edge: Sexuality and Gender at the Margins of Gamer Culture. Minneapolis: The University of Minnesota Press. Trammell, Aaron. 2014. “Misogyny and the Female Body in Dungeons & Dragons.” Analog Game Studies 1 (3). http://analoggamestudies.org/2014/10/constructing-the-female-body-in-role-playing-games/.

References Bowman, Sarah Lynne. 2012. “Jungian Theory and Immersion in Role-Playing Games.” In Immersive Gameplay, eds. Evan Torner and William White, 31–51. Jefferson, NC: McFarland. Butler, Judith. 1990. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York: Routledge. Collins, Patricia Hill. 1990. Distinguishing Features of Black Feminist Thought. London: Routledge. Dyer, Richard. 1999. “The Role of Stereotypes.” In Media Studies: A Reader, 2nd Edition, eds. Paul Marris and Sue Thornham, 245–251. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Fisher, Ronald. 1918. “The Correlation between Relatives on the Supposition of Mendelian Inheritance.” Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 52: 399–433. Flanagan, Mary, Howe, Daniel, and Nissenbaum, Helen. 2008. “Embodying Values in Technology: Theory and Practice.” In Information Technology and Moral Philosophy, eds. Jeroen van den Hoven and John Weckert, 322–353. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. George, Ajit. 2014. “Gaming’s Race Problem: Gen Con and Beyond.” Tor. www.tor.com/2014/08/13/ gamings-race-problem-gen-con-and-beyond/. Hall, Stuart. 1998. Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications. Higgin, Tanner. 2009. “Blackless Fantasy: The Disappearance of Race in Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games.” Games and Culture 4 (1): 3–26. Jones, Katherine Castiello. 2016. “A Lonely Place: An Interview with Julia Bond Ellingboe.” Analog Game Studies 3 (1). http://analoggamestudies.org/2016/01/a-lonely-place-an-interview-with-­juliabond-ellingboe/. Kessock, Shoshana. 2012. “#1ReasonWhy Brings Game Discrimination to Light.” Tor. www.tor. com/2012/11/28/1reasonwhy-brings-game-design-discrimination-to-light/. Little, William. 2013. Introduction to Sociology – 1st Canadian Edition. Rice University. https://opentextbc. ca/introductiontosociology/.

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Lo, Claudia. 2016. “How RimWorld’s Code Defines Strict Gender Roles.” Rock, Paper, Shotgun. www. rockpapershotgun.com/2016/11/02/rimworld-code-analysis/. McDaldno, Avery. 2012. “1 Reason Why.” Storify. https://storify.com/mcdaldno/1-reason-why. Mortensen, Torill E. 2016. “Anger, Fear, and Games: The Long Event of #GamerGate.” Games and Culture. https://doi.org/10.1177/1555412016640408. Nakamura, Lisa. 1995. “Race in/for Cyberspace: Identity Tourism and Racial Passing on the Internet.” Work and Days 13: 181–193. Ochsner, Amanda. 2017. “Reasons Why: Examining the Experience of Women in Games 140 Characters at a Time.” Games and Culture. https://doi.org/10.1177/1555412017709418. Shaw, Adrienne. 2015. Gaming at the Edge: Sexuality and Gender at the Margins of Gamer Culture. Minneapolis: The University of Minnesota Press. Strix Beltrán, Whitney. 2016. “Gen Con 2016 Sends a Clear Message That Gaming Is for Everyone.” Tor. www.tor.com/2016/05/17/gen-con-2016-sends-clear-message-that-gaming-is-for-everyone/. Trammell, Aaron. 2014. “Misogyny and the Female Body in Dungeons & Dragons.” Analog Game Studies 1 (3). http://analoggamestudies.org/2014/10/constructing-the-female-body-in-role-playing-games/. Valkyrie, Zek Cypress. 2011. “Sexuality in MMORPGs: Virtual Sexual Revolution Untapped.” Men and masculinities 14 (1): 3–26. Vorhees, Gerald. 2009. “The Character of Difference: Procedurality, Rhetoric, and Roleplaying Games.” Game Studies 9 (2). http://gamestudies.org/0902/articles/voorhees.

27 Power and Control in Role-Playing Games Jessica Hammer, Whitney Beltrán, Jonathan Walton, and Moyra Turkington

When we play a role-playing game (RPG), we are doing several things at once. First, we are constructing a fictional reality in which we agree that our words or actions represent meaningful changes to a game world (Searle 1995; Montola 2008). Second, we are playing a game in which we adopt an attitude of playfulness in following game rules (Suits 1978). Finally, we are participating in a socio-technical system of play, which includes everything from the code that runs a computer RPG (CRPG) to the publishing structures that determine which games are released in the first place. Power structures in RPGs, therefore, must address the fiction, the game, and the sociocultural context. Power structures are particularly visible in multi-player1 RPGs because power becomes something that has to be negotiated among game participants. Under what circumstances are contributions to the game world considered valid? How much impact can a given participant have on what happens in the world? When participants disagree, who gets their way? How are decisions enforced? What values are used to judge successful participation? What social, cultural, and material factors affect what participants even try to do in the first place? These are serious—and, depending on players’ commitment to the game, often emotionally ­demanding—questions. On the other hand, these questions must be answered in a way that supports playfulness and allows players to engage with the experience as a game. Games go to some effort to demonstrate that power relations in the game are specific, constrained, and different from those in ordinary life (Huizinga 1955). Power relations in the game are carefully regulated by game rules and game materials, in part to ensure that these relations are not carried over outside the game world. However, this attempt can never be entirely successful because game rules exist within the social world of the game group, within role-playing culture, and within larger social and technical systems at the same time (Goffman 1974; Fine 1983). In this chapter, we first examine prior work on RPGs and power and contextualize it within existing work on power relations. Next, we discuss how the different frames of an RPG allow the reshaping of power. We then look at the concrete ways in which RPGs distribute power, both to intervene in the game and to enforce one’s intentions. Finally, we conclude with an examination of how power shapes the way games are designed, produced, and distributed.

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Prior Work To understand more clearly how power functions in RPGs, we begin by examining a range of existing scholarly work on the topic. We then consider how it might relate to larger sociological theories of power. Markus Montola (2008) proposes that two fundamental features of multi-player RPGs are, first, that “[t]he power to define the game world is allocated to participants of the game” and, second, that “participants recognize the existence of this power hierarchy.” He divides the methods of exerting power in games into three categories. First, there is diegetic power, the power that game characters have to influence the game world. A character who persuades an enemy to surrender is an example of diegetic power because their actions are taken within the game’s fiction. Second, there is endogenous power, power allocated to the player by an aspect of the game, such as game rules or a game-defined social role. An example of this is rolling a die to cast a spell. Finally, there is exogenous power, the power that players have to control the game outside of the game context. Asking a new player to join the game is an example of exogenous power. Jessica Hammer (2007) provides an empirical study of how role-players negotiate power in practice in tabletop, larp, and computer-based RPGs. She investigates two concepts: agency, or how participants negotiate input into the game; and authority, or how participants resolve disputes. She then breaks down the types of agency and authority available to game participants, such as the difference between “character agency” (what a character is capable of doing in the game world) and “participant agency” (whether the character’s actions have the impact the player had hoped). Hammer also identifies a number of strategies used by role-players to negotiate agency and authority during play, such as reasoning forward from player actions to determine how they might later impact the game world and playing toward that impact. Mikael Hellstrom (2013) considers the role of “symbolic capital,” or agreed upon symbols of authority, as ways of shaping power relations in games. By defining what is valued and should be emulated, symbolic capital shapes not just what participants are able to do but what they aspire to do. Hellstrom compares two different larp communities to identify what each community values and through what symbols and concepts community values are enforced. He finds that there are differences between the communities in what is valued, and that those differences imply different power relations between larp organizers and players. Edmonton larps emphasize adherence to quantitative rules and expect that rule books are used by larp staff to control player misbehavior. Stockholm larps focus on drama, which results in a more egalitarian relationship between players and larp staff because everyone can contribute dramatically; however, costuming and props are highly valued by the community, which serves to exclude players with less time, money, or interest. Within the game, Stockholm players have a more equal relationship with game staff, but Edmonton larps are more egalitarian when it comes to access. These are quite different power structures, but in both cases, the mechanism for determining what is valued, namely, the development and deployment of symbolic capital, remains the same. Luca Rossi (2008) examines how the technical and social tools available to guilds in multiplayer online RPGs (MORPGs) interact to give guild leaders and members power in conflicts. For example, Rossi defines the power controlled by individuals (who decide how to allocate their time and expertise in completing high-level raids) and guild leaders (who control entry to the guild and can also unilaterally remove participants). Guild leaders must balance their

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unilateral power to control guild membership against their need for enough high-quality members to run a successful guild. On the other hand, guild members can always take their valuable skills elsewhere but cannot negotiate too hard with leaders or they risk being banned. These studies collectively demonstrate that power in RPGs can be construed quite differently, depending on one’s scholarly approach. Is power the right to define the game world? The ability to get one’s way in the face of opposition? The capacity to determine what is valued or valuable in the game community? Is it located in game rules? Player behavior? Social relationships? Material or technical capabilities? Somewhere else entirely? These differences are not just present in the literature on power in RPGs—they are present in the underlying literature on power. For example, an ongoing debate in the power literature2 is about whether power is primarily agentic (rooted in individual decisions) or systemic (rooted in the systems within which individuals operate). In the realm of RPGs, we might understand this as a debate over whether power operates in the decisions players make or in the systems of game rules that constrain decisions. Another debate in the power literature asks whether power means the ability to accomplish one’s goals or the ability to impose one’s will on others. RPGs often conflate these two types of power by, for example, requiring players to defeat monsters controlled by a referee to receive in-game rewards, but they do not have to be so conflated. The difference between these types of power is perhaps best summed up by Mary Parker Follett (1942), who articulated a distinction between power-to and power-over. Power-to is the ability to advance one’s own goals through direct action, while power-over is the ability to overcome opposition. Follett also defined a third type of power: coactive power or power-with. This type of power refers to new abilities and capacities discovered by those who voluntarily work together. For example, ­power-to might reflect a player’s ability to personally influence the game world, power-over might reflect their ability to control or negate the creative contributions of others, and ­power-with might describe shared creative elements of gameplay. This chapter attempts to reconcile these approaches to power by pointing out how each is relevant to a different aspect of RPGs. We will also consider how these understandings can be applied across a range of role-playing forms, including tabletop RPGs, live-action role-play (larp), single-player CPRGs, MORPGs, and online freeform play.

Frames, Contexts, and Power Power is typically tied to a particular social and material context. For example, a teacher typically has a great deal of power inside their classroom but much less power in ordinary situations, such as when going to the grocery store. Even when games are not involved, it is normal for power relations to shift as contexts do. We can understand these power changes as shifts between frames. According to Erving Goffman, a frame is a shared understanding of a situation, which both helps construct the situation and allows people to interpret it (1974). The same behavior can mean different things in the context of different frames. For example, knocking someone down might be interpreted as hostile in the frame of everyday life but as good behavior in the frame of a game of rugby. Most RPGs involve three frames at once: “the social frame inhabited by the person, the game frame inhabited by the player, and the gaming-world frame inhabited by the character” (Mackay 2001). Each of these frames has its own codes and rules of power. In the frame of the game world, players may gain power diegetically or within the context of the fiction. For

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example, one player might take the role of a queen, while another might take the role of her lady-in-waiting. In the frame of the game, players gain power by skillfully manipulating rules. Finally, in the social frame, players gain power through social skill, access to valued resources, or other types of community status. Many games use rituals or workshops as frame-shifting activities to help signal that the context is changing and rapidly prepare the player for the game’s power dynamics. For example, part of the workshop for the game Service, in which characters are enlisted into the military, has players practice marching as a unit (Kessock 2014). Costuming, makeup, or even filling out a character sheet can also serve this purpose. In theory, the player who has the most social clout in the group, the player who is best at manipulating the game rules, and the player who plays the highest-status character could be three different people. However, in practice, these categories often bleed into one another (Copier 2009). For example, skillful use of game rules might result in a player’s character’s becoming queen, while players who want favors from the in-game queen might treat her player differently in the social frame. One reason that this may happen is because frame shifts are not limited to the beginning and end of role-playing sessions, when rituals and workshops can be deployed. Within a game session, players regularly switch between frames (Fine 1983). Additionally, Sebastian Deterding demonstrates that the three frames Daniel Mackay identifies are not unitary experiences but actually contain many possible framings (Deterding 2013). For example, players can frame gameplay as a leisurely social activity or as a competitive one. These issues, however, only serve to point out how impressive it is that RPGs are able to restructure power relations at all. So, what do players actually do with these shiny new power relations? We’ll begin with, as Follett might put it, the power-to define the game world.

Changing the Game World RPGs proceed by allowing players to iteratively make changes to a shared fictional world (Montola 2008). These changes may be spoken, as in a tabletop RPG; acted out, as in a larp; written, as in online freeform play; or executed in code, as in a computer-based RPG. However, not all participants have equal power to make changes to the game world, and not all attempted changes “count.” When we think about power in games, we must consider who has the power to make changes to the game world and under what circumstances (Hammer 2007).

Inputs and Interfaces Different types of RPGs imply different ways that changes to the game world can be expressed. Role-players may affect the state of the fictional world through many different interfaces, including spoken language, written words, physical behavior, and/or interactions with software. In most CRPGs and MORPGs3, participants interact with a digital interface that controls the in-game actions they can take and defines how those actions affect the game world. The player might want to take an action that is not in that limited set, but they cannot. For example, when Skyrim was originally released, players could fight dragons but not ride them. When the Dragonborn expansion was released in 2012, it included dragon-riding, which allowed for new types of interactions and new effects of player actions on the game world (The Unofficial Elder Scrolls Pages 2015).

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In other types of RPGs, most changes to the game world are made through statements. These statements may be spoken, as in tabletop; written, as in online freeform and MORPG chat play; or acted out, as in larp. As a group, players agree that certain kinds of statements have the ability to affect the game world. This agreement can be understood as a constitutive rule of role-playing (Searle 1995; Montola 2012). Constitutive rules are rules that make an activity possible by defining how objects should be treated in that context (Searle 1995). For example, a constitutive rule of chess is “This piece of wood counts as a white king in the game of chess” (Montola 2012). In the case of RPGs, a constitutive rule might be “When a participant communicates that something happens in the game world, and the right conditions are met, then all players update their model of the game world accordingly.” As suggested in the formulation of this rule, the conditions under which a participant can change the game world are important. For games with digital interfaces, those conditions are often implicit in the interface design and the back end code. However, in statement-based games, players can say, write, or do4 whatever they like. The statements they make may exist in a role-playing context, but they only have meaning for the game under certain circumstances. The rest of this section will consider examples of these circumstances.

Actions by Characters In most RPGs, at least some participants take action through the lens of a character (Montola 2008). Those characters might have different amounts of diegetic power (power considered purely within the fiction of the game). A queen typically has more power, in a fantasy setting, than a farm-girl; an admiral would outrank an adjutant, and a superhero surpasses a shopkeeper. Characters may also have very different levels of absolute power. Some might have the abilities of ordinary humans, such as the would-be lovers in Breaking the Ice (Boss 2005), while others might be near-divine, such as the Nobilis, who can stop time, turn memories into wine, or shoot down the sun (Moran 2011). When a player wants their character to take action in the game world, the diegetic power of the character helps game participants understand whether that action can succeed.

Box 27.1  Power Dynamics Within RPG Fiction RPGs often unintentionally replicate or creatively explore power dynamics from the real world. For example, in the fantasy adventuring premise of Dungeons & Dragons—which has since been popularized across different RPG genres—characters “grind” their way through a series of lesser jobs toward the promise of greater wealth, power, and fame (Wizards RPG Team 2014). This is the promise of a modern capitalist society. The key to success lies in gaining more experience that can be codified into a series of one-line traits written on a character sheet, not unlike a resume or CV. Most of these valuable experiences involve killing or harming animals, sentient beings othered as nonhuman, and people viewed as incurably wicked. At the end of this process, characters hope to have earned enough power and wealth to save the world. Many digital RPGs replicate and model these dynamics. The power dynamics of Vampire: The Masquerade are perhaps more self-aware and jaded, positing that the world is secretly ruled by an illuminati of ancient vampires, standing in for

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the ‘Powers That Be’ (Rein-Hagen 1991). These elders could easily be overpowered by the hordes of their young who have only recently come into their own, and so they manipulate these youth into jealously fighting among themselves over mere scraps cast down from the adults’ table, allowing the elders to remain largely unchallenged. Even in the rare event that a younger vampire succeeds in literally “eating the rich” and taking the power of an elder, their struggle to the top of this unfair system socializes them such that they now take their rightful place at the top of the pyramid scheme and continue perpetuating the status quo. Tabletop RPGs also reify certain real-world power dynamics through specific play procedures. For example, many games with horrific elements include descriptions of mental illnesses paraphrased from outdated editions of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), telling players to randomly assign them to characters who experience trauma. While one might hope this practice was a satirical commentary on the state of contemporary psychiatry, in reality, it mostly serves to promote popular misunderstandings of mental illness (Dymphna 2012). A number of independent tabletop RPGs were intentionally designed to call out problematic power dynamics or educate players on real-world issues of power by explicitly modeling unfair processes and situations. For example, Liam Burke’s Dog Eat Dog demonstrates the power dynamics of colonialism by having the actions of a group of “native” characters repeatedly judged against a steadily increasing number of restrictive rules, generated over the course of play. In the end, each native character has to essentially choose between assimilating into the new society imposed by the “occupation” or rebelling and being killed (Burke 2012). Similarly, Danielle Lewon’s Kagematsu attempts to model certain gender dynamics, asking one female player to portray a male ronin passing through a troubled Japanese village, while the other players portray local women trying to convince this stranger—using what few means and resources they have—to stay and help solve their problems (Lewon 2008).

Characters’ diegetic power, however, does not always translate directly into their abilities to affect the game world. Their abilities are often codified into character sheets, which may contain vital statistics or other descriptors representing the characters’ abilities. A queen’s character sheet might not give her many abilities, despite her high fictional rank, while the farm-girl might have exceptional statistics, which give her player far more power to change the world of the game. Additionally, RPGs typically require that the character follow rules of plausibility in taking action in the game world, such as being present at the scene of their proposed action (Ryan 1980). Statements such as “I am ten miles away but everyone can still hear me” must typically be explained, e.g. by magic or telepathy. As we will see next, these explanations must also be logically consistent with the narrative reality of the game. Steering is what a player does when they intentionally influence and make decisions for their character for reasons that are outside of the game. For example, a character may leave a scene in a larp because the player needs to go to the restroom. In the context of a game master, it is used to refer to the way players might be subtly influenced to make certain decisions or perform certain actions (see also Railroading, this chapter).

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Narrative Expectations Proposed actions must fit with the players’ broad sense of the fictional environment of the game. For example, while there may be no specific rule forbidding a player from describing how they pull out a laser pistol in a fantasy game, it is unlikely to be acceptable5. Narrative expectations can also include requiring that statements be consistent with the prior state of the game world as established through play by, for example, not abruptly writing characters out of a scene. Many games define the default state of the game world thoroughly so that players can reference game materials to determine what actions make sense; for example, the Ars ­Magica 5th Edition line includes over thirty books as of this writing (Atlas Games 2015). Games can also use pre-scripted elements. In such a case, statements may be checked for validity based on whether they are consistent with the specific scenario being used. Lizzie Stark’s The Curse features two couples confronting breast cancer (2013). While cancers do sometimes go into spontaneous remission, a player making that claim about the game world would undermine the basic premise of the scenario, and their choice would be unlikely to be accepted.

Game Mechanics Some statements are valid if and only if certain rule conditions are met. For example, many combat-based statements require players to follow a complex sequence of rules before anyone involved knows how the statement affected the game world. In Shadowrun, a player who states that they are making an attack must spend an action, apply situational modifiers, and make an opposed die roll to determine whether their attack hits the enemy; an additional two steps are necessary to determine whether the enemy was injured (2013). The validity of the statement is determined retroactively by the outcome of the game mechanics. House rules In RPGs, these are rules created by local player groups that deviate from those officially published by the game creators. House rules can include changes to existing rules as well as entirely new ones. Their use and creation is largely uncontroversial because RPG publications have a long tradition of encouraging players to adapt the game to better suit their needs. Popular and widespread house rules are often later incorporated into the official rules.

Groups develop their own interpretations of which of these constraints must be followed, and under what circumstances, to create a valid statement. This can take the form of removing rules from the game; for example, deliberately ignoring the Dungeons & Dragons rules about Encumbrance allows participants to make valid statements in which their characters carry implausible amounts of gold (Wizards RPG Team 2014)6. It can also mean creating their own rulings for situations not covered by the rules. House rules are also possible in digitally mediated games; instead of the group agreeing to follow a different set of rules, players use mods (external pieces of software that change the game) to change what actions are possible and under what circumstances. Group intervention is not the only way that game mechanics can change during a particular game. For example, game mechanics may vary over time, such as in the larp Hamlet. Characters could not be damaged in the first act of the game, they could suffer serious wounds in

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the second, and violence in the third act could lead to “an untimely and spectacular death” (Koljonen 2004). Different game mechanics may also apply in different game spaces (either physical or virtual, such as zone-wide effects in MORPGs) or, as we will see next, to different participants.

Game Role Some methods of changing the game world are only available to players with certain in-game roles. For example, Ars Magica (2004) has a rotating game master role; each participant may get a turn to serve as game master. While they are the game master, they can propose changes to the state of the game world or the behavior of non-player characters. The same statements, made by the same person while taking the role of a player, would likely be unacceptable. The person in the player role has the right to make authoritative statements about their own character but generally not about other players’ characters, including those played by the game master. While the game master-player division is a common pattern in multiplayer RPGs, other role assignments are possible. For example, the online freeform game Milliways has a “bar mod,” a player who is in charge of statements about the physical layout of the bar where the game is set (Milliways Bar 2015), while many of the larger Vampire larps put different storytellers in charge of different clans. These formal roles define the kinds of changes that participants can propose. However, informal roles can also influence the power participants have to affect the game world.

Social Status Social status within a group can affect whether a proposed action is considered a valid way of changing the game world. This can manifest through differences in opportunities to participate; for example, high-status group members are interrupted more than low-status members, and women are more likely to be interrupted in either case by men (e.g. Smith-Lovin and Brody 1989). This can also manifest as constraints being more or less rigidly applied to different members of the group. While few groups are willing to admit to this, many players anecdotally report that statements made by higher-status members are more likely to change the game world. These examples demonstrate how complicated it can be to decide whose input to the game is legitimate and under what circumstances. This list of constraints may seem overwhelming, and, indeed, learning to make valid statements is a particular challenge for new role-players. However, participants in a particular game are generally able to learn which constraints matter for them and which do not. CRPGs and MORPGs carefully teach players about what power they have to change the game world through tutorials and early quests and embody most game mechanics in code. While tabletop, larp, and online freeform do not have the option of digital tutorials, they use a variety of techniques to help players learn what power they have to affect the world, including game texts, online teaching aids, introductory scenarios, and players teaching one another. In practice, players are able to use their power to affect the game world reliably. Game sessions captured by researchers show that experienced players can usually contribute in ways that are within the scope of the power they have been assigned (e.g. Fine 1983; Mackay 2001).

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It is important to note that even when a valid statement has been made, its power can be negated by other occurrences in the game world. Jessica Hammer (2007) describes this as “participant agency”—the degree to which a player’s actions will actually achieve the player’s goals. For example, game masters who “railroad” their players give their players the ability to make statements that change the game world, but negate the effect of those statements when it is incongruent with what the game master would like to happen. This negation might happen at the level of the fiction by the game master’s twisting the game world to make the statement pragmatically irrelevant, at the level of the game by the game master’s using their role to overrule the statements, or at the level of the social group by the game master’s using their social power to influence what kinds of statements get made in the first place. Railroading is when a game or game referee takes noticeable measures to steer player action in such a way that the players feel curtailed in their freedom. For example, player characters might run into arbitrarily broken bridges and blocked roads that prevent them from proceeding in any direction that isn’t the “correct” one. Railroading is generally viewed negatively.

Sometimes, though, game participants propose to change the game world in ways that violate one or more of the rules about how they ought to participate. In that case, a number of things can happen. The statement may be ignored: it has no effect on the game world. Sometimes, the group agrees to let the exception pass or to negotiate a version of the statement that they can accept7. Sometimes, participants explicitly argue about whether the statement can or should be accepted, and sometimes, group members cannot agree on what the right course of action is. Note that these responses to invalid statements are, generally speaking, about what the group does. This is because most forms of role-playing are group activities in which all players must agree on a shared reality8. The nature of the activity pushes participants toward requiring agreement on what has happened, what is happening, and what should happen—but participants’ opinions about these things may differ. What, then, happens when participants disagree, whether deliberately or because of a misunderstanding? When disagreements between stakeholders must be resolved, we enter the realm of power-over: the ability to get one’s way in the face of opposition. We therefore next examine how disagreements are resolved and resolutions enforced.

Getting Your Way When Others Disagree Even when they are all are making statements that have the power to change the game world, participants in a game can often disagree. For example, they might disagree about how a given statement should change the game world, what rules ought to constrain the statement, or whether the statement was valid in the first place. Participants can also disagree about a wide variety of other things, from whether Monty Python jokes are allowed at the table to how ingame resources should be shared. So, what happens when participants disagree? Who has the power to win conflicts? Note that some conflicts are built into RPGs. As Bernard Suits might put it, RPG rules offer “unnecessary obstacles” that allow playfulness to emerge (1978). Statements like “I hit the orc with my axe” are meant to be contested, using the game’s rule set, to determine whether the statement takes effect in the game world. As long as all participants agree on what rule

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set should be used and how it should be applied, the suspense as to what will happen in game does not create a conflict between players. Rather, the process of discovering the effect of the statement, through the application of rules, is precisely the shared goal of play. Instead of looking at conflicts that are purposefully designed, this section emphasizes conflicts that emerge from the reality of any collaborative endeavor. For example, these might be conflicts about what has happened. As Montola describes, different participants can have different understandings of the game world and may only discover at a later date that these understandings conflict (2008). Conflicts might also be about what should be allowed to happen. For example, social norms in the MORPG City of Heroes forbade certain combat tricks, such as teleporting enemies into dangerous situations, even though they were technically possible and permitted by the rules of the game (Myers 2008). Finally, conflicts might be about what methods should be used for decision-making, such as when players disagree about interpretations of the rules. Like disagreements about Monty Python jokes, not all participants in these conflicts can get what they want. Power is at play in deciding who gets their way and who must go along with it. To understand the methods by which disagreements in games are resolved, we can turn to Montola’s work, categorizing rules in games (Montola 2012). He identifies six types of rules: internal rules, social rules, formal rules, external regulations, materially embodied rules, and “brute circumstance” or the limits of physical reality. We can understand these six types of rules as reducing to three methods of getting one’s way: referential authority or turning to game rules; social authority or using social power within the game context; and external authority, which includes social, legal, material, and technical authorities beyond the scope of the game itself.

Referential Authority Referential authority means voluntarily referring to game rules or other game materials as a way of resolving in-group conflicts9. Referential authority is helpful because all participants agree to be bound by the same game rules and narrative conventions. By having one overall buy in, methods of resolving later conflicts do not always need to be negotiated individually. In some situations, referential authority is simple and effective. For example, consider a group playing through the pre-written scenario Desert of Desolation (Hickman 1987). If two players disagree on the topography of the desert, the group can refer to the included map to determine the correct answer. In other cases, referential authority may require judgment calls. For example, a Harry ­Potter-based online freeform game may require players to write in a way that is true to the character they are portraying. However, even with all the Harry Potter books available for reference, players may disagree about what, say, Professor Snape would do in a particular situation. Further, judgment calls are themselves open to question, and groups may voluntarily choose to ignore even the clearest-cut decisions made by the game designer. This is both the strength and the weakness of referential authority: it is only as good as participants’ willingness to use it to resolve group conflicts. Because game rules are malleable, there is an incredible flowering of diversity among groups in how they actually use them. Groups develop house rules that modify original rule sets, create “rulings not rules” for situations in which they feel the rules do not apply, generate original setting materials and homebrew scenarios, and write mods for digital games. In short, it is common for groups to generate their own game materials and to give those materials the same power as the original

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game rules when it comes to deciding whose vision of the game gets enforced. Individuals can use the same malleability to opt out of referencing the rules when they encounter an outcome they don’t like. “Rulings, not rules” refers to the idea that published rules should be considered suggestions or ideas that can be used or not, depending on the group’s desires. It also represents a style of game refereeing that prioritizes flexibility, improvisation, and creativity over getting bogged down in details. The idea is that a game referee is empowered when they can craft rulings on the spot rather than being hampered by rules that get in the way of running a game the way they’d like to.

Game participants can also pretend they are following the rules but in actuality cheat. While there is debate about what counts as cheating in games (Consalvo 2009), some forms of cheating in RPGs include misreporting die rolls, secretly changing character statistics or other abilities, or reading a scenario when the group has agreed to be surprised by it. Cheaters rely on other participants to follow the rules and encourage others to believe that they themselves are following the rules. In other words, they rely on referential authority to enforce a system in which they have a secret advantage. The case of cheating illuminates another limit of referential authority: referential authority has only as much power as the least invested member of the group chooses to give it. We therefore must also consider forms of authority that have greater power to compel bad actors to conform to group norms.

Social Authority It is not an accident that referential authority only works if the group agrees to use the rules and other game materials as a final source of authority. Social authority, therefore, refers to types of power that are negotiated between members of a group10. One common type of social authority is group consensus, in which all members of the group agree to something. Consensus can take the form of explicit agreements, such as choosing a setting for the game, or implicit norms, such as gaining a “feel” for what types of storylines are appropriate. Extensive research shows that individuals work to conform to the expectations of groups that they value (e.g. Goffman 1959); while consensus seems a fragile way to enforce authority, groups that succeed in forming a strong sense of identity have great power over individuals (Carron and Brawley 2000). When group members disagree, the ones who most effectively conform to group norms can use the threat of loss of cohesion in the group to compel others to do as they wish. Note that this implies that referential authority—in which everyone agrees to use game rules or other game materials to resolve conflicts—can only be achieved by the use of social authority. This is an unsurprising finding because in most cases, games are a voluntary activity; participants must agree to play before in-game rules become binding (Suits 1978). Another common type of social authority is the use of social status to win conflicts. Social status may be allocated by game rules or, in other words, by the referential authority accepted by the group. For example, in many games, the game master is the final arbiter of conflicts between group members, even ones in which they do not have a personal stake. However,

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social status can also result from out-of-game group relationships. For example, a player who has many close relationships with other group members may be able to enforce their will on others, particularly others who have fewer relationships backing them up. A third type of authority is resource control. When some members of the group control a critical resource for play, they can limit or withhold access to it unless others agree to their conditions. Conversely, they can give access to those who please them. Resources for RPGs can include in-game resources; for example, the person playing a queen might give grants of in-game land to her favorite courtiers. Resources can also mean out-of-game resources, such as access to the space where the game is played. Resisting social forms of authority is, unsurprisingly, primarily social. For example, a participant who uses access to play space to resolve conflicts becomes less persuasive when another participant provides an alternative space. Rules Lawyer A colloquial description of a player who prioritizes enforcing a game’s official rules over shared enjoyment. It generally has a negative connotation, either due to its use by a player to “get their own way” or because it leads to the disruption of play sessions, which get bogged down in the need to check and verify rules.

One important form of resistance to social authority is the threat of spoiling. The player who is least invested in the group’s cohesion and success can hold the group hostage, so to speak, as long as that player does not overstep sufficiently to be expelled. They threaten the ritual space of the game and the cohesion of the group by refusing to buy into it. This behavior can manifest in apparently minor choices, such a wearing a T-shirt to a costumed larp11. Rules lawyering, or attempting to exploit game rules in a way that violates the social compact of play, can also be a form of spoiling. Rather than rejecting the authority of the group entirely, rules lawyering attempts to reject social authority and replace it with referential authority—when, of course, it most benefits the rules lawyer. Griefers are individuals who, for whatever reason, engage in annoying other players and ruining the game experience as much as possible. They perform serial harassment for their own entertainment and are not at all interested in authentic engagement in play. Often, they will attempt disruption in any way possible, which may include cheating. A last resort form of resistance to social authority is for the group to split or dissolve. For example, members of online freeform games commonly create “child” games, inspired by a previous game they were in, when they want to change the setting or rules of the game in a way the rest of the group does not.

External Authority Some methods of imposing control are not chosen by group members but rather are enforced by an external authority. As per Montola’s analysis, these methods may include external regulation by a legal or social authority, methods inherent in the physical or digital artifacts of play, and methods that are enforced by the “brute circumstance” of the physical world (Montola 2012). Legal constraints mean that stakeholders may be able to invoke the law to resolve conflicts about the game. For example, most CPRGs and MORPGs require players to sign a Terms of

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Service agreement. These terms of service are legally binding, and players who violate them can be punished in- or out-of-game. In computer-based RPGs (CRPGs, MORPGs, online freeform, and digitally enhanced tabletop or larp play), technical enforcement is also a factor. We saw earlier in this chapter that when RPGs become digital, players can only affect the game in ways that the code allows; however, code can also be used to enforce the authority of game participants. For example, World of Warcraft gives special powers to raid leaders: players who coordinate groups to defeat particularly difficult enemies. Raid participants can disagree about how the battle’s rewards should be divided, but only the raid leader has the technical capacity to choose a method for dividing looted items (Nardi 2009). Online freeform games often give special powers to moderators, such as the ability to kick players out of chat rooms associated with the game. Finally, physical methods of control involve using time, place, or the laws of physics to get one’s way, such as by physically expelling a participant from a real-world location where a game is being played. While it is difficult to ignore the laws of physics, both legal and technical authority can still be resisted. For example, some online freeform players use existing media properties in ways that skirt the law and work to avoid coming to the notice of anyone who might use legal authority against them (→ Chapter 8), CRPG players have been known to illegally download games, and MORPG players might play on a pirate server. While there are stakeholders who might disagree with their actions—for example, the rights holders for the characters being played or the publishers of the games being illegally downloaded—the pragmatic costs of pursuing individual offenders means most of these cases fly under the radar. Resistance to technical authority is a more interesting case. For example, in games that allow user-generated content, developers measure TTP or “time to penis” (Urban Dictionary 2015); at least some players will very quickly push the boundaries of what they think the game’s authority figures will tolerate, even if it involves elaborately constructing flying penises from primitive geometric objects. This resistance can be used to dramatic effect, such as when would-be presidential candidate Mark Warner gave an in-game interview in Second Life; in protest, the entire area was assaulted by digital flying penises, and the attack ended up overloading the server (Game Politics 2006). Along similar lines, games that allow modding often end up with mods that undermine the developers’ intents. For example, fans of the Dragon Age series have created mods that permit heterosexual romances with gay or lesbian characters (Nexus Mods 2015). Raph Koster’s “A Declaration of the Rights of Avatars,” a set of principles determining how avatars ought to be treated in multi-player digital virtual games, such as MUDs and MORPGs, illuminates additional areas in which power in digital RPGs can be technically contested (2005). For example, he raises the question of data ownership. He argues that players should never lose data without a compelling reason; however, one could also imagine players keeping their own data backups as a way of resisting technical control.

Overlapping Authorities While we have separated referential, social, and external authority for purposes of analysis, in practice, they are often entwined. World of Warcraft guilds, for example, have technical methods for enforcing group agreements, such as removing someone from the guild or removing their access to shared resources. However, there are also social agreements as players can decide

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whether they are a role-playing guild, a raiding guild, a casual guild, or a guild of some other type. Finally, players can reference shared rule sets to settle disputes, such as rules-based algorithms that players voluntarily adhere to in distributing loot (Nardi 2009). When groups have different types of authority available to them, they often serve different functions in practice and cannot always be substituted for one another. Perhaps the best example of this comes from Habitat, an early online RPG (Morningstar and Farmer 2005). The game’s “wizards” (technical authorities) accidentally gave a player a powerful weapon and then had to decide how to retrieve it. The wizards had ultimate technical power within Habitat. They could have simply removed the gun from the player’s inventory or destroyed it. However, the wizards realized that resorting to a technical fix would destroy that player’s engagement with the game. Instead, they negotiated with the player in question even though they did not have to. Eventually, the player agreed to hand over the gun as part of a dramatic in-game scenario and invited the larger community to watch. By using a socially negotiated agreement that fit with the game’s narrative rather than technological force, the wizards were able to not just sustain but actually enhance the narrative of the game.

Shaping the Discourse We have discussed how individual players can have power over the game world and how disputes between players are resolved and resolutions enforced. However, there is a third type of power at play in RPGs: the power to define what is valued and set the terms of debate. This power is what Bourdieu describes as “symbolic power”—the ability to define what sort of world is ideal or even legitimate and to impose that vision on other people (1989). This power can be seen in how categories are created and used as markers of value, such as in attempts to divide the space of RPGs into “real role-playing games” and “not real role-playing games” or to demonstrate that one’s own gaming style is the best (Gillen 2010; Bowman 2013). While different groups may draw that line in different places, any place that it is drawn is an attempt to enforce group values as aspirational for all role-players, and a claim that someone has the right to draw it is a play for symbolic power. In other words, role-players must grapple with a third form of power: the power to shape the possibility space in which people define their desires, aspirations, and goals12. This type of power can be construed as the power to establish different game frames, with different governing norms and different goals of play (Deterding 2013). Different groups can establish different behaviors as valued and valuable. In one group, sharp characterization might be the ideal, while in another, respect goes to those who master the intricacies of the rule system. By referencing larger genres or communities of play, such as the freeform tabletop traditions of Fastaval (ALEA 2017), groups can reference the values and norms of existing game frames rather than training players from scratch. The conditions under which RPGs are produced and distributed also shape the options available to players. For example, expensive games filter out players who are unwilling or unable to spend money on the game, no matter how much they would like to play (Hellstrom 2013). Any power relations that are negotiated within the game have already been shaped by the game’s barriers to entry. To understand how these broader conditions shape power relations in games, we will look deeply at one example: the tension between communalism and commercialism in RPG creation, distribution, and play.

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Box 27.2  Games and Resistance to Power RPGs can serve as a site of resistance to power relations in the real world by giving players direct experience of unjust power dynamics and the opportunity to experiment with different ways of responding. For example, Burke’s Dog Eat Dog illustrates the power dynamics of colonialism while asking players to personally participate in an unjust system (2012). The larp Kapo takes place in a prison camp where the rules of the game forbid an upheaval of the brutal power dynamics between prisoners and authorities. Instead, players must explore methods of survival within such a power dynamic. The larp is explicitly designed to respond to issues of terrorism and illegal detention and critiques the power structures of the modern state (Raasted 2012).

Communalism, as a form of power, relies on the shared dedication of members of various RPG communities to create public goods—whether these goods are freely distributed games and game materials, time volunteered to help organize games at a local meet-up or major game convention, or the hosting and moderating of an Internet discussion forum dedicated to RPGs— and to support fellow players and fellow amateur designers. Under a communal approach, games are valued based on their ability to attract the attention of community members and particularly the dedicated attention required to run games, host discussions, or create supplementary materials for the game. Power, therefore, lies in the ability to attract the time and labor of others. Communalism does not allocate power equally to all participants, regardless of the quality of the game at hand. For example, not all people are seen as equally deserving of the time and labor of other role-players. While different groups are marginalized in different role-playing communities, designers from marginalized groups typically struggle with acquiring community capital, all the more so when multiple marginalized identities apply (→ Chapter 26). Commercialism as a form of power comes down to money. This includes the money raised by selling RPGs and/or related products and services and also the social prestige of earning money through RPGs. Under a commercial approach, the value of a role-playing activity is defined by whether one can get paid and the value of a game by whether it will sell. Money is power, and power is money. This, in turn, leads to the rise of “playbor”: work treated and framed as play, despite poor work conditions and low wages, such as gold farming or trading MORPG currency for real-world money (Nardi and Kow 2010) (→ Chapter 16 for a discussion of fan labor). The power structures of communalism and commercialism—engagement and money—are not mutually exclusive. For example, tabletop RPGs have many elements that the players are expected to come up with on their own: characters, setting details, adventure concepts, opposition, new rules for how to deal with new situations, and so on. Sharing these between different groups of players makes things easier for everyone, meaning that collaboration and communalism often happen, not just within a single table but within a broader community of practitioners. If the elements that the players come up with are welcomed—not only at their own table but taken up by other groups—these elements can acquire status equal to or even above that of elements included in published game products. This, in turn, creates opportunities for commercialization because players can choose to commercially publish these new elements or a new game. Consequently, the divide between the designers and writers of tabletop RPGs, on the one hand and the players and consumers of their products on the other has always been indistinct.

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The situation in digital RPGs has at times been similar. Many early computer adventure games and early RPGs, including foundational games, such as Colossal Cave Adventure (1976–1977), were originally created through the free collaboration of a number of designers and then later commercialized, sometimes in ways that cut out the original creators (Adams 2015). More recently, particularly following the rise of the Internet, an extensive number of high-powered creation tools—both commercial tools and free programs—have allowed players and amateur designers to create their own CRPGs. For example, Danny Ledonne’s controversial but critically acclaimed Super Columbine Massacre RPG! was created using the commercial program RPGMaker (Columbine Game 2015), while Edward Castronova’s experimental Shakespeare MMO Arden was built in the engine used for the commercial game Neverwinter Nights (IU Research and Creative Activity Magazine 2006). Currently, the Unity engine is freely available and popular among both professional and amateur game designers. In both of these cases, advances in digital technologies have made it increasingly easy for players and amateur creators to gain power, receiving the time and labor of others under the system of communalism or being paid for their work under commercialism. For example, the Internet makes it easier for independent RPG creators to find support, particularly from one another, and allows for the free distribution of games as part of a mutually supportive community. It also allows creators to market and sell their game products directly to customers, often by using digital distribution methods and crowdfunding to lower the amount of financial risk involved (Linver 2011; Maiberg 2015) (→ Chapter 16). At the same time, both communalism and commercialism have established power structures: game designers who have gained status in the community or who are paid well and regularly to do their work. While many individuals from both of these groups want to help players and amateur creators succeed, there are also counter-efforts to enforce the separation between professional and amateur creators and their games, similar to many of the methods used to resist or subsume the rise of indie comics, indie film, and so on. In particular, these include multiple attempts to define what a “real” RPG or game is, redrawing or reasserting boundaries to exclude many of the games made by new creators, and to co-opt new creators into more traditional business models in which intellectual property remains in the hands of larger corporations; small-scale game publishers also adopt the practices of much larger companies to seem legitimate. Other power struggles around communalism and commercialism produce specific topics of debate within the RPG community. When should you distribute a game for free? When is it acceptable to charge money for a game, and how much? What is required to call yourself a game designer? Should success be measured by sales? Should people be paid for playtesting? How do we keep the entry level low for new and more diverse creators? How do we prevent the market from being swamped by low-quality games that make it harder for consumers to find the good stuff? Why are some poorly designed games so popular and successful? Within individual role-playing communities, participants come up with sets of answers that reflect both the pragmatic values they place on communalism and commercialism and also the community’s norms and values.

Summary We have seen multiple ways in which power is at stake in RPGs. Within the game, not all statements have: the power to change the shared fiction of the game world. Participants must

464  Jessica Hammer et al.

navigate a complex set of conditions in order to make effective statements about the game, and even then, their statements may not achieve the goals they have for themselves. Among stakeholders, power means the ability to get one’s way in the face of opposition and to enforce such an outcome, even when others do not want to obey. This type of power can be rooted in shared agreements to obey the game rules; in social status and access to resources; or in external constraints, such as code. Finally, game culture and the value frameworks it creates shape power relations, particularly in the kinds of activities that are used to gain status and the standards against which people and games are judged. In practice, these types of power are not completely independent of one another. As B ­ ourdieu might put it, there are certain associations between, say, how power is allocated to players during play and which community values a game’s players and designers aspire to (1989). For example, tabletop games that involve taking turns with narrative control are most often found in the self-identified “story-game” community. The goal of this chapter, however, has been to provide tools to analyze the overlapping power structures in RPGs and to understand the multiple levels in which power is at play. That being said, role-playing communities are nothing if not idiosyncratic, and there is still much to be learned from individual communities and games about the wide variety of strategies for distributing power and control.

Notes 1 This typically includes tabletop, larp, and online freeform as well as multi-player interactions within multiplayer online RPGs (MORPGs). However, CRPGs and solo MORPG play will also be considered in this chapter. 2 For example, Weber (1978) locates power in the individual, while Foucault (1977) primarily attributes power to the systems within which individuals operate. 3 Exceptions include MUDs and MOOs, where players interact through freeform text as well as text commands (→ Chapter 7). Additionally, many MORPGs have text-based role-playing elements, though they do not directly affect the virtual world of the game. 4 Within, of course, the constraints of physical reality. 5 Should the player persist, the group must decide how to respond. See the next section of this chapter for details. 6 Agreeing as a group to ignore the Encumbrance rules is distinct from one player’s unilaterally choosing not to follow those rules, which would be better understood as cheating. See the next section of this chapter for further discussion of rule enforcement. 7 This varies based on the perceived importance of the violation. For example, a player declaring what another player’s character does is generally treated more seriously than a player establishing minor setting details, even if both are technically disallowed. 8 Agreement looks different across different role-playing forms. For example, single-player CRPGs do not require agreement between multiple players, but players must still negotiate with the designers’ visions of the games; MORPGs and multi-site larps may only require local agreements between players; and online freeform RPGs often support multiple parallel realities, but for each one, players must still agree. 9 Referring to rules that are embedded in code is typically not voluntary on the part of the player and is examined later in this chapter. 10 As noted earlier, most types of RPGs are multi-player. However, even players of single-player CRPGs may encounter social authority if they participate in online communities or discuss their play practices with others. 11 There are, of course, many reasons why a player might end up wearing a T-shirt to a costumed larp; however, one of them might be to signal that they are willing to break the game rather than allow others to win conflicts. 12 A careful reader will have noticed that the previous section of this chapter references only five of Montola’s six types of rules. Internal rules, or rules that players set and enforce privately for

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themselves, were omitted. This chapter argues that internal rules do not exist in a vacuum. Instead, players internalize the values and norms of their play communities, which, in turn, shape what internal rules they perceive as worth following. This type of “soft power” is often difficult to see, but it can also be exceptionally powerful in shaping player behavior.

Further Reading Hammer, Jessica. 2007. “Agency and Authority in Role-Playing ‘Texts’’. In A New Literacies Sampler, 1st ed., edited by Michele Knobel and Colin Lankshear, 67–94. New York: Lang Press. Koster, Raph. 2005. “Declaring the Rights of Players.” In The Game Design Reader: A Rules of Play Anthology, 1st ed., edited by Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman, 788–813. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Montola, Markus. 2008. “The Invisible Rules of Role-Playing.” International Journal of Role-Playing 1 (1): 22–36.

References Adams, Rick. 2015. “A History of ‘Adventure.” The Colossal Cave Adventure Page. http://rickadams.org/ adventure/a_history.html. Accessed March 28 2017. ALEA. 2017. Fastaval. www.fastaval.dk/?lang=en. Accessed March 28 2017. Atlas-games.com. 2015. “Atlas Games.” www.atlas-games.com/arm5/. Accessed March 28 2017. Boss, Emily Care. 2005. Shooting the Moon. Plainfield, MA: Shield and Crescent Press, Black and Green Games. Bourdieu, Pierre. 1989. “Social Space and Symbolic Power.” Sociological Theory 7 (1): 14–25. Bowman, Sarah L. 2013. “Social Conflict in Role-Playing Communities: An Exploratory Qualitative Study.” International Journal of Role-Playing 3: 4–25. Burke, Liam. 2012. Dog Eat Dog. Oakland, CA: Liwanag Press. Carron, Albert V., and Lawrence R. Brawley. 2000. “Cohesion: Conceptual and Measurement Issues.” Small Group Research 31 (1): 89–106. Consalvo, Mia. 2009. Cheating: Gaining Advantage in Videogames. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Copier, Marinka. 2009. “Challenging the Magic Circle: How Online Role-Playing Games Are Negotiated By Everyday Life.” Digital Material: Tracing New Media in Everyday Life and Technology, edited by Marianne van den Boomen, 159–172. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Deterding, Sebastian. 2013. “Modes of Play: A Frame Analytic Account of Video Game Play.” PhD diss., University of Hamburg. ediss.sub.uni-hamburg.de/volltexte/2014/6863/. Accessed March 28 2017. Dymphna. 2012. “Madness, Insanity, Derangement: Mental Illness in Rpgs, Part I | Gaming as Women.” Gaming As Women. www.gamingaswomen.com/posts/2012/08/madness-insanity-­derangement-mentalillness-in-rpgs/. Accessed March 28 2017. Fine, Gary Alan. 1983. Shared Fantasy. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Follett, Mary Parker. 1942. “‘Power,” In Dynamic Administration.” In The Collected Papers of Mary Parker Follett, 1st ed, Henry Clayton Metcalf, Lyndall Fownes Urwick, 72–95. New York: Harper. Foucault, Michel. 1977. Discipline and Punish. New York: Pantheon Books. Game Politics. 2006. “Second Life Event Interrupted By Flying Penis Attack.” www.gamepolitics. com/2006/12/21/second-life-event-interrupted-by-flying-penis-attack. Accessed March 28 2017. Gillen, Kieron. 2010. “Just Die: Against ‘Real’ Role-Playing Games.” www.rockpapershotgun. com/2010/04/08/just-die-against-real-role-playing-games/. Accessed March 29 2017. Goffman, Erving. 1959. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Carden City, NY: Doubleday Anchor Books. Goffman, Erving. 1974. Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience. Boston, MA: Northeastern University Press. Hammer, Jessica. 2007. “Agency and Authority in Role-Playing ‘Texts’.” In A New Literacies Sampler, 1st ed., edited by Michele Knobel and Colin Lankshear, 67–94. New York: Lang Press.

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Hardy, Jason M., Jennifer Brozek, Raymond Croteau, Mark Dynna, Patrick Goodman, Robyn Rat King, Adam Large, Devon Oratz, Aaron Pavao, and Steven Bull Ratkovich. 2013. Shadowrun, 5th ed., Lake Stevens, WA: Catalyst Game Labs. Hellstrom, Mikael. 2013. “A Tale of Two Cities: Symbolic Capital and Larp Community Formation in Canada and Sweden.” International Journal of Role-Playing 3 (1): 33–48. Hickman, Tracy. 1987. Desert of Desolation. Seattle, WA: Wizards of the Coast. Huizinga, Johan. 1955. Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture. Boston, MA: Beacon Press. IU Research and Creative Activity Magazine. 2006. “All the (Synthetic) World’s a Stage.” www.indiana. edu/~rcapub/v29n1/synthetic.shtml. Accessed March 28 2017. Kessock, Shoshana. 2014. SERVICE. http://shoshanakessock.com/top-drawer-my-work/service/. Accessed March 28 2017. Koljonen, Johanna. 2004. “Lessons from Hamlet.” In Beyond Role and Play - Tools, Toys, and Theory for Harnessing the Imagination, 1st ed. http://nordiclarp.org/w/images/8/84/2004-Beyond.Role.and. Play.pdf. Accessed March 28 2017. Koster, Raph. 2005. “Declaring the Rights of Players.” In The Game Design Reader: A Rules of Play Anthology, 1st ed., edited by Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman, 788–813. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Ledonne, Danny. 2015. “Super Columbine Massacre RPG!.” Columbine Game. www.columbinegame. com/. Accessed March 28 2017. Lewon, Danielle. 2008. Kagematsu. Cream Alien Press. Linver, Daniel. 2011. “Crowdsourcing and the Evolving Relationship between Artist and Audience.” Master’s thesis, University of Oregon. Accessed March 29, 2017. Mackay, Daniel. 2001. The Fantasy Role-Playing Game. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co. Maiberg, Emanuel. 2015. “Itch.io Is the Littlest Next Big Thing in Gaming.” https://motherboard.vice. com/en_us/article/itchio-is-the-littlest-next-big-thing-in-gaming. Accessed March 29 2017. Milliways Bar. 2015. “Milliways_Bar - Community Profile.” https://milliways-bar.dreamwidth.org/ profile. Accessed March 28 2017. Montola, Markus. 2008. “The Invisible Rules of Role-Playing.” International Journal of Role-Playing 1 (1): 22–36. Montola, Markus. 2012. “On the Edge of the Magic Circle: Understanding Role-Playing and Pervasive Games.” PhD diss., University of Tampere. Accessed March 28 2017. Moran, Jenna Katerin. 2011. Nobilis. 3rd ed. Suzhou: Eos Press. Morningstar, Chip, and F. Randall Farmer. 2005. “The Lessons of Lucasfilm’s Habitat.” In The Game Design Reader: A Rules of Play Anthology, 1st ed., edited by Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman, 728–753. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Myers, David. 2008. “Play and Punishment: The Sad and Curious Case of Twixt.” In Proceedings of the [player] Conference, edited by Sara Mosberg Iversen, 1–27. Copenhagen: IT University of Copenhagen. Nardi, Bonnie A. 2009. My Life as a Night Elf Priest: An Anthropological Account of World of Warcraft. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. Nardi, Bonnie A., and Yong Ming Kow. 2010. “Digital Imaginaries: How We Know What We (Think We) Know about Chinese Gold Farming.” First Monday 15 (6–7). Nexus Mods. 2015. “Dorian Romance for Female Inquisitor at Dragon Age: Inquisition Nexus - Mods and Community.” www.nexusmods.com/dragonageinquisition/mods/616/. Accessed March 28 2017. Raasted, Claus, ed. 2012. The Book of Kapo. Documenting a Larp Project about Dehumanization and Life in Camps. Copenhagen: Rollenspilsakademiet. Rein-Hagen, Mark. 1991. Vampire: The Masquerade. Atlanta, GA: White Wolf Publishing. Rossi, Luca. 2008. “MMORPG Guilds as Online Communities - Power, Space and Time: From Fun to Engagement in Virtual Worlds.” SSRN Electronic Journal. doi:10.2139/ssrn.2137594. Ryan, Marie-Laure. 1980. “Fiction, Non-Factuals, and the Principle of Minimal Departure.” Poetics 9 (4): 403–422. Searle, John R. 1995. The Construction of Social Reality. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster. Smith-Lovin, Lynn, and Charles Brody. 1989. “Interruptions in Group Discussions: The Effects of Gender and Group Composition.” American Sociological Review 54 ( June): 424–435.

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Stark, Lizzie. 2013. “The Curse: A Freeform Game about BRCA » Lizzie Stark.” Leaving Mundania. http://leavingmundania.com/2013/05/28/the-curse-a-freeform-game-about-brca/. Accessed March 28 2017. Suits, Bernard. 1978. The Grasshopper. Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press. The Unofficial Elder Scrolls Pages. 2015. “Dragonborn: Dragon Riding.” www.uesp.net/wiki/Dragon born:Dragon_Riding. Accessed March 28 2017. Tweet, Jonathan, Mark Rein-Hagen, and David Chart. 2004. Ars Magica. 5th ed. Atlas Games. Urban Dictionary. 2015. “TTP.” www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=TTP. Accessed March 28 2017. Weber, Max. 1978. Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Wizards RPG Team. 2014. Dungeons & Dragons Players Handbook. 5th ed. Wizards of the Coast.

Contributors

Arjoranta, Jonne  Jonne Arjoranta, PhD, is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland, where he researches and teaches games. His main research interests are Internet culture, playful politics and the structures of meaning found in games. He has published on play, meaning in games, game definitions and the media perception of games and violence. Beltrán, Whitney  Whitney Beltrán is a writer and narrative designer for analogue and video

games, scripts and features, and transmedia IP. She has written for studios including Undead Labs, Onyx Path, and Crackhorse Films. She is an expert in worldbuilding and narrative design and holds a master’s in Mythological Studies. She has published peer reviewed academic papers on the intersection between mythology, psychology and narrative play and has conducted research through Carnegie Mellon’s Human Computer Interaction Institute on technology and live-action role-playing. Bienia, Rafael  Rafael Bienia (PhD, Maastricht University) is an independent researcher on

role-playing and network cooperation. He wrote Role Playing Materials (2016) and is co-editor of the annual essay collection MittelPunkt from the German-speaking larp studies collective. Björk, Staffan  Staffan Björk is Full Professor at the department of Computer Science and En-

gineering, Gothenburg University, Sweden, and has researched gameplay design since 2000. Together with Jussi Holopainen, he published the book Patterns in Game Design, which helped establish design patterns methodology within game research. Besides publishing research based on this approach, he has been part of several international research projects exploring ubiquitous games and computer-augmented traditional games. He is one of the founding members of the Digital Games Research Association (DiGRA). Bowman, Sarah Lynne  Sarah Lynne Bowman (PhD) is a role-playing games scholar, designer, and organizer. She teaches as adjunct faculty in English, Communication, and Humanities for several institutions, including Austin Community College. She received her BS from the University of Texas at Austin in Radio-TV-Film in 1998 and her MA from the same

470 Contributors

department in 2003. She graduated with her PhD in Arts and Humanities from the University of Texas at Dallas in 2008. McFarland Press published her dissertation in 2010 as The Functions of Role-Playing Games: How Participants Create Community, Solve Problems, and Explore Identity. She has served as an editor for The Wyrd Con Companion Book from 2012 to 2015 and is a Coordinating Editor for the International Journal of Role-playing. She was the lead organizer for the Living Games Conference 2016 and helped coordinate the Role-playing and Simulation in Education Conference at Texas State University. Brind, Simon  Simon Brind (BA, MSc) is a PhD candidate in Combat Narratology at the

University of The West of England. His current research focuses on moments of narrative crisis in participatory fiction, specifically the role of the author in live-action role-playing games. Brown, Amanda  Amanda Brown is a PhD candidate in the Department of Comparative

Human Development at the University of Chicago. She examines the development of pretend play using a longitudinal sample of children engaged in naturalistic interactions in the home. As part of a project entitled “The Body’s Role in Thinking, Performing and Referencing” at the University’s Center for Gesture, Sign and Language, Amanda conducts research with motion capture technology to examine how individuals use the body to describe their experiences. Amanda earned her BS in theater from Northwestern University and directed The Mime Company Theater, an ensemble creating original plays without word and conducting educational outreach in the Chicago area. Brown, Ashley  Ashley ML Brown is an Assistant Professor in Entertainment Arts and En-

gineering at the University of Utah. She completed her PhD at the University of Manchester in autumn 2013 before going on to teach and win awards at Brunel University London. She is the author of the book Sexuality in Role-Playing Games and helped edit The Dark Side of Game Play, both of which are available from Routledge. When she’s not researching sex and games, she is in the park with her lovely dog Isabelle. Castronova, Edward  Edward Castronova wonders why vanilla ice cream is even produced in a world that knows chocolate. At Indiana University, he is Professor of Media, Director of the BS degree program in Game Design, and Chair of the Department of Media Arts and Production. His scholarly work specializes in games, technology, and society. Books include Wildcat Currency: The Virtual Transformation of the Economy (Yale 2014), Virtual Economies: Analysis and Design (with Vili Lehdonvirta, MIT 2014), Exodus to the Virtual World (Palgrave 2007), and Synthetic Worlds: The Business and Culture of Online Games (Chicago 2005). His production work specializes in board games with a historical focus. He was born as Edward Bird in 1962, converted to Roman Catholicism in 1995, and took his wife’s name on marrying in 2000. He has two sons, two god-children, and a beagle named Tilly. He thinks God is a game designer: get to Heaven for the win. Chen, Mark  Mark Chen (PhD, University of Washington) is an independent games scholar and Part-time Professor of interaction design, qualitative research, and games studies at the University of Washington Bothell and Pepperdine University. He runs esotericgaming.com, an alternative publication outlet that celebrates gaming diversity through detailed accounts of arcane and marginal gaming practices. He wrote Leet Noobs: The Life and Death of an Expert

Contributors  471

Player Group in World of Warcraft, an ethnography that details how a new team learned to excel through the use of game mods and then died in a fiery meltdown catalyzed by the same mods. He tweets at @mcdanger. Deterding, Sebastian  Sebastian Deterding is a Reader at the Digital Creativity Labs at the

University of York (York, UK). He is founder and organizer of the Gamification Research Network and co-editor of The Gameful World (MIT Press, 2015), a book about the ludification of culture. He holds a PhD in media studies from Hamburg University. He lives online at: http://codingconduct.cc. Hammer, Jessica  Jessica Hammer is an Assistant Professor at Carnegie Mellon University, jointly appointed in the Human-Computer Interaction Institute and the Entertainment Technology Center. She brings together game research, psychology, learning theory, and computer science to understand how games change the way players think, feel, and behave. In addition to studying games and teaching game design, she is also an award-winning role-playing game designer. Harviainen, J. Tuomas  J. Tuomas Harviainen (MTh, PhD, MBA) is a municipal Development Manager; an Assistant Professor of Management and Organization at Hanken School of Economics, Finland; an Adjunct Professor (Title of Docent) of Contemporary Culture Science at the University of Jyväskylä; and a service design consultant. He co-edits Simulation & ­Gaming and is a former executive editor of the International Journal of Role-Playing. Nowadays, his research mostly focuses on areas ranging from public sector management to strategy design, behavioral economics, and games as business phenomena, but he keeps returning to role-­ playing studies every year as well. Contact E-mail: [email protected]. Hitchens, Michael  Michael Hitchens is an Associate Professor in the Department of Comput-

ing and an Associate Dean in the Faculty of Science and Engineering at Macquarie U ­ niversity. His research interests include player experience, story and narrative in games, the relationship between player and player character and role-playing game theory. He has designed over twenty role-playing modules for Australian hobby conventions. He led the development of the Bachelor of Information Technology - Games Design and Development at Macquarie ­University. He teaches game design and implementation. He has a Bachelor of Mathematics (Hons) and a PhD in Computer Science. Hoover, Sarah  Sarah Hoover is a PhD candidate in the O’Donoghue Centre for Drama, Theatre & Performance at the National University of Ireland in Galway. Through practice as research methodology, she applies process phenomenologies to participatory performances and larps in her thesis titled “Gaming audiences into theatre: engagements and resonances”. She has served as executive director, director and writer for theatres and gaming organizations in the US and Ireland for over 15 years. Jara, David  David Jara is a PhD candidate in literary studies at the University of Heidelberg, Germany. He was granted a doctoral scholarship from the Graduate Academy (Landesgraduiertenförderung) in 2011 and is a member of the Heidelberger Graduiertenschule für Geistes – und Sozialwissenschaften (HGGS). His current research focuses on the creation, interpretation and negotiation of narratives and fictional worlds in ‘tabletop’ role-playing games.

472 Contributors

Kaufman, Geoff  Geoff Kaufman is an Assistant Professor in the Human-Computer Interaction Institute at Carnegie Mellon University. He holds a PhD in social psychology from Ohio State University and completed his postdoctoral work at the Tiltfactor game design and research laboratory at Dartmouth College. His primary research focuses on how experience-­ taking – the mental simulation of characters’ experiences in fictional narratives, virtual worlds, or games – can change individuals’ attitudes and behaviors. This work has led to the generation of a host of empirically validated design techniques and best practices for the creation of playful interventions for social change. Kirschner, David  David Kirschner is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Georgia Gwinnett College, where his work brings together human-computer interaction, learning, literacy, and new media. His dissertation focused on how players make meaning in virtual environments and experience socialization into digital games. Current research includes exploring communities of practice among artificial intelligences in single-player games, assessing the impact of social justice debates on gaming culture, and collecting narratives of virtual reality sickness. In class, he enjoys experimenting with new ways to teach sociology, using digital and analog games. Knowles, Isaac  Isaac Knowles is a Statistical Data Analyst at Epic Games and a PhD candidate in The Media School at Indiana University – Bloomington. His work and research both focus on the economics of the video game industry and the design of digital economies for RPGs and other game genres. He holds an MS in economics from Louisiana State University. He lives in Raleigh, North Carolina. Kot, Yaraslau I.  Yaraslau I. Kot (PhD, MBA, MPsy). Game designer and researcher. Lawyer, business consultant, psychologist and lecturer. Author of over 100 academic publications. Senior lecturer of Belarusian State University. Owner and partner of the law firm “Business Advisors”. Head of LARP, Social Mission at Business School IPM. Serves as one of Directors for the Medical charity organization “Medicine and Chernobyl”. Trustee for the charity “Independent Children’s Aid”, etc. Applies larp methodology for education, therapy, rehabilitation, corporate training, crime investigation, research and entertainment. University page: www.law.bsu.by/users/?319. Leary, Riley  Riley is a doctoral candidate at Pepperdine University in the Educational Technologies program and a full-time teacher. Gaming is a fundamental base of her 7th-grade curriculum, digitally and non-digitally. Lieberoth, Andreas  Andreas Lieberoth is a LEGO-funded play and games researcher at the

Interacting Minds Center (IMC), Aarhus University, Denmark and an Assistant Professor in Educational Psychology. He employs combinations of experimental psychology and mixed methods research in the study of games, gamification and media effects. His writings on theory, methods and design have appeared in multiple textbooks, and his empirical research in journals like Nature, Simulation and Gaming and Games and Culture. Even though his dice are growing cold, Shadowrun and World of Darkness are still the gold standard against which he holds all new game experiences. MacCallum-Stewart, Esther  Dr. Esther MacCallum-Stewart is an Associate Professor of

Games Studies at Staffordshire University, UK. Her work investigates the ways that players

Contributors  473

understand and reproduce the gaming narratives that surround them, and she has written widely on role-playing, webcasting, sexuality, gender and deviant play in games. Her forthcoming work examines board games and hidden object games. E-mail: [email protected]. Meldman, David  David F. Meldman is a professional actor, director, and teacher. He holds a

BA in Theatre Studies from the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee and an MFA in Theatre Performance from Florida Atlantic University. Currently, he is pursuing a Masters of Letters in Shakespeare and Performance at Mary Baldwin University. Mizer, Nicholas  Nicholas Mizer (PhD) is an instructional designer and independent scholar.

He is the co-chair of Game Studies for the Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association and an editor for TheGeekAnthropologist.com. His dissertation, The Greatest Unreality: Tabletop Role-Playing Games and the Experience of Imagined Worlds, is a phenomenological ethnography of how gamers collaboratively build, experience, and maintain imagined worlds. He has also written articles on the cultural history of Dungeons & Dragons, the early history of role-playing games in Spain, and geek culture as a tradition of creative consumption techniques. Peterson, Jon  Jon Peterson is the author of the book Playing at the World, a history of wargames and role-playing games. He maintains a blog of the same name, where he discusses ongoing historical discoveries in the area. Picard, Martin  Martin Picard is a Visiting Professor at Leipzig University and Lecturer at

the Université de Montréal. His teaching and research interests cover video game culture and history, Japanese popular culture, film, and digital media. His publications consist of articles and chapters in anthologies such as The Routledge Companion to Video Game Studies (Routledge 2014), Horror Video Games: Essays on the Fusion of Fear and Play (McFarland 2009), and The Video Game Theory Reader 2 (Routledge 2009). Schrier, Karen  Karen Schrier is an Associate Professor and Director of the Games & Emerging Media program at Marist College. She also directs the Play Innovation Lab, which focuses on creating games for education and social change. Prior to Marist, she spent over a decade producing media and games for Scholastic, BrainPOP, Nickelodeon, and ESI Design. Her book Knowledge Games was recently published by Johns Hopkins University Press. She is also the editor of a book series on educational games (ETC/Carnegie Mellon Press) and has edited books on games and ethics. She holds degrees from Columbia University, MIT, and Amherst College. Schules, Douglas  Douglas Schules (PhD, University of Iowa) is an Associate Professor at

Rikkyo University in Tokyo. His research explores how digital technologies impact the creative industries, with a focus on the production, distribution, and consumption of creative media cross-culturally. Recently, his work has centered on the Japanese game industry, especially indie-developed and fan-produced games. Translations of his conversations with developers and fans can often be found on his site www.daedalusmachine.com. Simkins, David W.  David Simkins (PhD) is an Assistant Professor of Game Design and Development at the School of Interactive Games and Media at the Rochester Institute of

474 Contributors

Technology. His research focuses on role-playing as a tool for learning, most often in informal contexts, with games that were written and are played primarily for entertainment. Though he does work broadly in role-play and learning, he is particularly interested in practices involving role-play, learning, and ethics. He is a lifelong role-player and hopes to role-play until he dies. Stenros, Jaakko  Jaakko Stenros (PhD) researches games and play at the Game Research Lab

(University of Tampere). He has published five books and over 50 articles and reports and has taught game studies and Internet studies for almost a decade. He is currently working on understanding and documenting adult play and uncovering the aesthetics of social play, but his research interests include norm-defying play, role-playing games, pervasive games, and playfulness. Stenros has also collaborated with artists and designers to create ludic experiences. He lives in Helsinki, Finland. Sturrock, Ian  Ian Sturrock is a game designer and games lecturer. He wrote the award-­ winning Slaine and Conan tabletop RPGs for Mongoose Publishing, among many other things. He teaches at the University of Hertfordshire on the 2D Animation, 3D Animation, Games Art and VFX course, named as the best course in the world for Next-Gen Gaming in the Rookies Awards 2017. In what passes for his spare time, he manages Serpent King Games, a small press tabletop RPG publisher. He has been playing and running larp games and tabletop RPGs for around 35 years. To, Alexandra  Alexandra To is a PhD student in the Human-Computer Interaction Institute

at Carnegie Mellon University. Her research focuses on designing and studying game-based interventions to empower young people from marginalized groups. One of these games, Outbreak, was awarded two game design awards at Meaningful Play 2016. She holds a BS and MS in Symbolic Systems from Stanford University. More information on her publications and research can be found at www.alexandrato.com. Torner, Evan  Evan Torner (PhD, University of Massachusetts Amherst) is Assistant Professor of German Studies at the University of Cincinnati, where he also serves as Undergraduate Director of German Studies and Director of the UC Game Lab. His fields of expertise include East German genre cinema, German film history, critical race theory, and science fiction. He is currently working on a monograph on a century of German science fiction cinema and an edited handbook with Henning Wrage on the East German film legacy. Trammell, Aaron  Aaron Trammell is an Assistant Professor at the University of California, Irvine. He is also a blogger, game designer, and musician. His dissertation focused on recovering a cultural history of role-playing games. It explores the politics of the role-playing techniques and diplomatic experiments in conflict resolution in Cold War think tanks like The RAND Corporation, the subsequent dissemination of these techniques through grassroots Alternative Publishing Associations in the 1960s, and the stabilization and commoditization of these techniques in the game Dungeons and Dragons. See also http://aarontrammell.com. Turkington, Moyra  Moyra Turkington is an award-winning Canadian larpwright, game

designer and theorist, with a background in Cultural Studies and Theatre. She is the founder of the Unruly Designs publishing house and the leader of the War Birds Collective, which

Contributors  475

designs and publishes games that highlight, explore and reclaim the contributions and experiences of the forgotten women of history. She is interested in immersive, transformative, educational and political games and particularly in creating a multiplicity of media, design, representation and play. Walton, Jonathan  Jonathan Walton is a Katzin Scholar and PhD student in Communication at the University of California, San Diego, as well as an independent game designer. He previously worked for 7 years in the foreign policy world, where his research focused on state-society relations in China, specifically in the areas of policing and religious policy. He served as the organizer of the award-winning Game Chef annual game design competition from 2009 to 2012 and has been an active participant in independent and experimental games communities since 2002. White, William J.  Bill White is Associate Professor of Communication Arts & Sciences at Penn State Altoona in Pennsylvania, where he teaches courses on gaming, mass media, and public speaking. His research interests include rhetorical and communication theory, gaming as participatory culture, and rhetoric of science. He co-edited Immersive Gameplay: Essays on Participatory Media and Role-Playing (2012) with Evan Torner. He is also a game designer, publishing tabletop role-playing game adventure scenarios with names like Castle Bravo and The Big Hoodoo (Pelgrane Press) as well as the forthcoming Romance in the Air (Evil Hat, Inc.). Williams, J. Patrick  Patrick Williams is Associate Professor of Sociology at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, where his research and teaching interests focus on micro-­ sociology, culture, self and identity, and digital technologies. He is a symbolic interactionist by training and is particularly interested in the interactional and experiential dimensions of gameplay. Patrick has published dozens of peer-reviewed articles and book chapters, many of which deal with games or play. He is the editor of Gaming as Culture: Essays in Social Reality, Identity and Experience in Fantasy Games (2006) and The Players’ Realm: Studies in Video Games and Gaming (2007). Zagal, José P.  José Zagal is an Associate Professor with the University of Utah’s Entertain-

ment Arts & Engineering program. He wrote Ludoliteracy (2010) and edited The Videogame Ethics Reader (2012). In 2016, he was honored as a Distinguished Scholar by the Digital Games Research Association (DiGRA) for his contributions to the field of game research. He also serves as the Editor-In-Chief of DiGRA’s flagship journal Transactions of the Digital Games Research Association (ToDiGRA). He received his PhD in computer science from Georgia Institute of Technology in 2008. See also: http://www.eng.utah.edu/~zagal/.

Glossary of Key Role-Playing Game Terms

360º Illusion, 91 Aca-fan, 192 Action resolution, 330 Add-On, 131 Adventure, 65 Alibi, 419 Ars amandi, 431 Attribute auction, 73 Attributes, 328 Australian systemless role-playing, 79 Bartle types, 205 Big model, 198 Bleed, 420 Boffer larp, 93 Brink play, 418 Business gaming, 302 Campaign, 27 Campaign larp, 90 Canon management, 168 Character development, 332 Character sheet, 27 Choose your own adventure, see “Game Book” Clone, 109

Combat larp, 93 Computer RPG (CRPG), 38–39 Crossplay, 396 d20 System, 76 Death consequences, 330 Debrief, see “Workshop/Debrief ” Design patterns, 327 Disenchantment, 234 Disenchanted enchantment, 235 Dogma 99, 199 Dungeon, 65 Dungeon-crawling, 72 DX, 27 Edu-larp, 288 Ergodic literature, 267 Erotic role-play, 431 Experience points, 332 Fan labor, 306 Faucet (in a virtual economy), 307 Fictional world, 351 Frame, framing, 230 ­–231 Free-to-play (F2P), 304 Freeform, 90 Functional roles, 328

478  Glossary of Key Role-Playing Game Terms

Game Master (GM), 27 Game book, 269 Gaming capital, 371 Gamism (from Big Model), 67 GM-less games, 79 Godmodding, 167 Greedy writing, 167 Griefing, 414 Grind, grinding, 109 House rules, 454 House system, 71 Hybrid games, 111 Identity, 228 Immersion, 90, 379 In-Character (IC), 28 Instance, 131 Interactive fiction, 268 Jeepform, 90

Open Game License (OGL), 77 Out-of-character (OOC), 88 Paper doll, 109 Parallel role-play, 162 Parlor larp, 90 Parser, 131 Party (MORPG), 131 Party (TRPG), 28 Pay-to-play, 303 Performance, 214 Permadeath, 109 Perrin conventions, 70 Player Character (PC), 327 Playing to lose, 333 Point-buy system, 73 Possible world, 352 Preplay, 166 Privileged abilities, 328 Procedural rhetoric, 339 Psychodrama, 250 Player versus Player PvP, 131

Knutepunkt, 199 Larp, 34–35, 87 Larp hacking, 417 Level cap, 131 Levels, 332 Life-Path system, 73 Loot, Looting, 131, 174 Meta room, 431 Metaplot, 67 Module, 67 MUD, 40, 134 MUDflation, 308 Multiplayer Online RPG (MORPG), 41–42 Narrative collision, 165 Narrativism (from Big Model), 67 Non-Player Character (NPC), 28 Old School Renaissance (OSR), 201 One-shot, 90 Online freeform role-playing, 160

Race (in RPGs), 238 Raid, raiding, 131 Railroading, 456 Random character generation, 73 Real Money Trade (RMT), 309 Ritual, 214 Role, 228 Role-playing games, 46 RPG Game Book, 269 RPG theorizing, 192 Rules lawyer, 459 Rulings, not rules, 458 Safe words, 256 Save scumming, 109 Self, 228 Setting, 66 Setting-specific system, 71 Simulationism (from Big Model), 67 Sink (in a virtual economy), 308 Skills, 328 Social capital, 131 Solo adventure, 269

Glossary of Key Role-Playing Game Terms  479

Steering, 453 Steering Theory (larp), 399 Storyworld, 351 System, 66 Systemless, see “Australian systemless role-playing” Tabletop RPG (TRPG), 31 The Forge, 197 The Fourth Wall, 219 Theorycrafting, 200 Threefold Model, 204 Transmedia storytelling, 353 Transmedia world, 353

Universal system, 71 Virtual economy, 308 Virtual goods, 304 Virtual world, 353 Wargame, 56 Warming-Up Role-Play exercises, 329 Wilderness, 65 Wizard, 131 Workshop/Debrief, 256 Worldbuilding, 349 X-Card, 256

Index

absorption 380–381 aca-fans 9–10, 12, 192 action resolution 329–330 actor-network theory (ANT) 317–320 alibi theory 253–254, 393, 419 Ars Magica 195, 289, 292, 454–455 autoethnography 368–369 avatars 150, 213, 278, 339, 407, 460; see also player characters Baldur’s Gate 39, 108, 117 Bartle player types 137–138, 204–205, 326 Big Model, the 65, 67, 197–198, 204–205 bleed: definitions 100, 221, 249, 420, 431; designing for 420; ego-bleed 405–406, 420; and immersion 388; as inevitable 248; psychological perspective 254–255 boundedness, of games 411–412 brink play 255, 406, 417–418, 434 business RPGs 302–303 The Call of Cthulhu 333, 75, 79, 176, 360, 397 Chainmail 60 chapter overviews 12–14 characters see player characters cheating 416, 458 Chivalry & Sorcery (C&S) 69–70, 193 communication studies perspectives 337–342 computer role-playing games (CRPGs): action RPGs (ARPGs) 39, 111; aspects of 107–109, 125; character progression 332; Daggerfall 112, 117, 120; death in 331; Diablo 39, 111–112, 119, 266; Dragon Quest games 39, 109, 117, 122; economics of 303–304; eroticism in 430–431; example session 39–40; history of, 1970s–1980s 114–117, 125, 134–135; history of, 1990s

117–120, 125–126; history of, 2000s 120–121, 123; hunter RPGs 113; indie development 125; mobile platforms 123–126; overview 6, 28, 36–39, 125; puzzle RPGs 112, 124; roguelikes 112–113; simulation RPGs (SRPGs) 110–111; storytelling in 296; terminology 109; versus TRPGs 37–38; Western versus Japanese 114 conventions 82, 94, 233, 370, 442 counterplay 417 Coventry 59 crossplay 396, 408, 420–421 cultural impact, of RPGs: controversies 183–184; D&D 173–175, 180–182; game industry 175–177; language 174; see also popular culture, RPGs in cybersex 436–437 Daggerfall 112, 117, 120 death 330–331 definitions, defining 23–26 Diablo 39, 111–112, 119, 266 Diplomacy 57–58, 134 discrimination 137, 421, 442–443, 445 disenchantment 234–235, 349 dissociation 381–382, 397 diversity 237–238, 407, 442–443; see also feminism; race, representations of Dragon Quest games 39, 109, 117, 122 Dungeons & Dragons (D&D): Arduin Grimoire 70; and CRPGs, early 36–37; cultural impact 173–175; d20 system 76–77, 325; eroticism in 425–427; fan creations 68, 70, 76–78; history, early 68–70; imitators 69–70; Monster Manual 175; moral panic 6, 9, 340–341, 415; multiplayer aspect 134; Old School Renaissance (OSR) 80–81, 201; Open Gaming License (OGL) 76–77, 305, 373; origins of 55, 57, 60–61 (see also stories,

482 Index

participatory; wargames); overview 29–30; Perrin Conventions, The 70; piracy of 304–305; in popular culture 180–182; as prototypical TRPG 64; race in 444; versions of 70, 76–77, 80 economic perspectives: business games 302–303; concepts 301–302, 308; crowdfunding 306; CRPGs 303–304; faucets and sinks 307–308; LARPs 306; MORPGs 303–304, 306–310; MUDflation 307–308; overview 300, 311–312; real money trade 309–310; on role-playing 310–311; TRPGs 304–305 education 287–289; see also learning ego-bleed 405–406, 420 Empire of the Petal Throne 65, 68, 71–72, 357 engagement 379–380 engrossment 382 eroticism: in CRPGs 430–431; in LARPs 431–432; pixel crushes 434; queer sexualities 429–430; sex, mechanics for 427–428, 431–432; in TRPGs 425–430 erotic role-play 432–436 EVE Online 147–148, 152, 277, 303, 414 EverQuest 143–144, 152, 236, 309 experience points 332, 375 fans: Big Name Fans 373–375; D&D creations 68, 70, 76–78; definition 366; and immersion 386; practices of 368–371; productions of 371–375; RPGs and 6–7; studies of 366–369; as subculture 365–366, 368, 370; theorization by 9–10, 31, 200–201, 206–207; see also RPG theorizing faucets and sinks 307–308 feminism 206, 237 fictionality 266–268 fictional worlds 371 Fighting Fantasy game books 32, 176, 179 flow 380, 383 The Forge: Big Model, the 65, 67, 197–198, 204–205; ideology of 79, 198; origins of 78, 197 frame analysis 230–231, 450–451 free-to-play (F2P) model 145, 303–304, 311 game books 32, 176, 179, 269 game design perspectives: action resolution 329–330; character development 331–333; combat 330; death 330–331; design challenges 324–326; design patterns 327–334; familiarity 324; licensing 324; ongoing playability 326; overview 323–324, 334; player characters 327–329, 331; play styles 325–326; rules 324–325 gaming capital 177, 371–374 Gen Con 57, 69–70, 207, 442 gender 206, 236–237, 406–407, 426, 442 Generic Universal Roleplaying System (GURPS) 71, 73–74, 324 griefing 41, 402, 414, 416

Habitat 141, 461 hyperfiction 268–269 identity tourism 440, 446n1 immersion: activity 383; and bleed 388; character 387–389, 399; community 389–390; definitions of 379–380; environment 384–385; game 384; narrative 385–387; as psychological 253, 292; related concepts 380–382; types of 382–383 interactive fiction (IF) 131–132, 268 involvement 381–382 Japanese game industry 121, 126 Japanese role-playing games (JRPGs) 114, 121, 122, 126 Knutepunkt 99–100, 198–199 larp see live-action role-playing learning: and character portrayal 289–392; and constructionist theory 284, 295–296; versus education 283, 296n1; ethical thinking 293; and fictional worlds 291–292; game-based 285–286; immersion 292; and role-playing 286–289; safety 285, 293; settings for 283; sociality 285, 293–295; theories of 284–285 Lineage 142–143 literary perspectives: canons 273–274; fictionality 266–268; hyperfiction 268–269; intertextuality 272; narratology 274–278; overview 265–266, 279; paratextuality 272–273; play 267; RPG studies and literature 278–279; textual analysis 269–272 Little Wars 56–57 live-action role-playing (larp): 360° illusion, the 90–91, 99; Australian 102–103; British 95–97; characters 88, 329, 332; combat larps 92–93; combat systems 350; cultural variances 91–92; definitions of 87–88; economics of 326; embodiment 88–90; eroticism in 431–432; examples of play 36, 88; German 103–104; hacking 417; immersion 90; Knutepunkt 99–100, 198–199; Nordic 97–100, 198–200; North American 92–95; overview 6, 28, 34–35, 87, 104; space and time 89–90; theater-style larps 93–94; touch in 89; and TRPG publishers 94–95; types of 90; in USSR countries, former 101–102 localization 121 loot 131, 174, 194, 331–333 magic circle, the 411–412 masquerading 421 massively multiplayer online RPGs (MMORPGs): addiction 151; Asian 145–147; EVE Online 147–148, 152, 277, 303, 414; EverQuest 143– 144, 152, 236, 309; free-to-play 145, 303–304,

Index  483

311; gold farming 149; guilds 148–149; history of, early 140–143; idealism in 150; Lineage 142–143; overview 130, 140; player types 150–151; Ultima Online 142; World of Warcraft 144–145, 149 metatexts 358–359 mobile platforms 123–126 moral panics 6, 9, 340–341, 415 motivations, for play 249–250 MUDflation 307–308 multiplayer online role-playing games (MORPGs): character development 332–333; counterplay 417; death in 331; economics of 303–304; economies of 306–310; example session 41–42; history of, early 132–133, 135; narratives in 276–277; notable game chronology 151–154; overview 7, 28, 40–42, 130; real money trade 309–310; studies of, prior 130–131; terminology 131; see also massively multiplayer online RPGs; multiuser dungeons; online freeform RPGs multiuser dungeons (MUDs): Bartle player types 137–138, 204–205; fan theorizing 195; griefing in 41; history of, early 135; and identity 137–140; and interactive fiction 131–132; overview 6, 40–41, 130; social issues 136–137; types of 132, 136 mythos 353–354 narrative collisions 164–166 narrative immersion 385–387 narratology 274–278 Neverwinter Nights 119, 141–142, 152 Nordic larp 97–100, 198–200 Old School Renaissance (OSR) 80–81, 201 online freeform RPGs: aspects of 162–163, 168–169; as asynchronous 160, 166–167; De Profundis 160; godmodding 167; greedy writing 167; narrative collision in 164–166; narrative settings 161, 164; overview 159–160; participant roles 161–162; rules of 165; sensemaking 167–168 Open Gaming License (OGL) 76–77, 305, 373 paracosms 58 paratextuality 272–273 participatory stories 58–60 performance: functions of 215–216; and ritual 214–215; and role-play 213, 221–223; RPGs as 216–218; theater 218–221 pixel crushes 454 play and ritual 213 player characters: alibi theory 253–254, 397, 419; creating 32, 73, 328–329, 396–397; crossplay 396; death of 331; definitions of 395–396; design perspective 327–329, 331; development of 30, 331–332; evolution of 402–403; and identity 399–402; immersion 387–389, 399;

in larps 88, 332; and learning 289–292; and multiplicity 397–398; and power 452–453; social aspects 406–407; steering theory 254, 399; and transgressive play 418–421; types of 395–396, 403–405; see also bleed popular culture, RPGs in: controversies 183–184; fiction 177–179; games, other 375; moral panics 6, 9, 340–341, 415; nonfiction 179–180; television and film 180–183 possible worlds 352 power: of characters 452–453; commercialism versus communalism 462–463; defining 233, 450; external authority 459–460; and frame-shifting 450–451; and game mechanics 454–455; game worlds, over 451–452, 455; and narrative 454; referential authority 457–458; resisting 462; social authority 458–459; and social status 455–456; sources of 450; studies of 449–450; symbolic 461; in TRPGs 452–453 presence 381–382, 384 problematic usage 398 psychodrama 250, 252 psychological perspectives: behavioral 249– 250; clinical 250–251; cognitive 247–248; developmental 246–247; personalities 251–252; phenomenology 252; psychoanalytical 256–258; on RPG studies concepts 253–255; secondary revision 252–253; social 252; on violence 249 puzzle RPGs 112, 124 queer sexualities 429–430 race 206–207, 441 race, representations of 237–239, 440, 442–445 railroading 456 real money trade 309–310 representation 441 ritual 213–215 roguelikes 112–113 role-playing: definitions, examples of 20–21; economic perspectives on 310–311; erotic 432–436; and learning 286–289; as performance 213; psychology, use in 245, 250–252; universality of 1 role-playing games (RPGs): aspects of, core 7–9; characteristics, across forms 44–45; defining, difficulties of 19–21, 25–26, 48n1; definition, for this book 26–27, 46; definitions, examples of 22–23, 25–26; forms of 27–29, 43, 46–47; as games 4; as media culture 4–7; as performance 216–218; as play 2–4; as roles 3–4; study of 9–12 RPG studies, field 9–12 RPG theorizing: best practices debate 201–203; Big Model, the 65, 67, 197–198, 204–205; definition of 191–192; fanzines 194–197; gender 206; Henley’s universal theory 207–208; indie games 197–198; language 196–197; MUDs 195;

484 Index

Nordic 198–200; podcasts 201; political aspects 193; purposes of 192; race 206–207; realism versus playability debate 193–194; sexuality 206; storytelling, turn to 195–197; task resolution 205–206; theorycrafting 200; TRPGs 31, 200–201; typologies 203–205; web discussions 197, 201 rules 324–325, 457 safety 255–256, 413, 417 science and technology studies (STS) perspectives: actor-network theory 317–320; anthropocentrism 314–315; concepts and overview 315–317, 321; materiality 315, 319–320 sex, mechanics for 427–418, 431–432 Shared Fantasy 9, 230, 365 simulation RPGs (SRPGs) 110–111 The Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA) 59 sociological perspectives: culture 233–235; disenchantment 234–235; frame analysis 230–231, 470–471; overview 227–228, 239; player relations 232–233; power 233 (see also power); Shared Fantasy 9, 230, 385; situations, identities and roles theory 228–230; stratification, social 236–239 Square-Enix 121, 124 steering 254, 399, 453 stereotypes 441, 445 stories, participatory 58–60 Strategic Simulations Incorporated (SSI) 118 subcultures 365–366, 368 tabletop role-playing games (TRPGs): Amber Diceless Roleplaying 74; Ars Magica 195, 289, 292, 454–455; The Call of Cthulhu 75, 79, 176, 323, 360, 397; creative agendas 65, 67; versus CRPGs 37–38; d20 system 76–78; death in 330–331; demographics, player 82; design philosophies 71–72; digital distribution 77–78; and digital media 75–76; discrimination, social 442–443; economics of 304–305; Empire of the Petal Throne 65, 68, 71–72, 357; as ergodic 64, 267–269; eroticism in 425–430; Everway 72; example session 32–33; fan theories of 31, 200–201; GM-less games 79; GURPS 71, 73–74, 324; Hero System 73–74; indie 78–81, 325; non-American games 83–84; Old School Renaissance (OSR) 80–81, 201; overview 5, 29–31, 64; Pendragon

72; play of 65–68; play preferences 65; power in 452–453; resolution methods 66–67; settings, examples of 30, 70–71; social status of 83; studies of 63–64; system-less games 79; term history 69; terminology 27–28, 65–67, 71; threefold model 204; Traveler 71; types of 31–32; universal systems 71, 73; World of Darkness 75, 81, 103, 430; see also Dungeons & Dragons; player characters Tactical Studies Rules (TSR) 29–30, 69–70, 76, 197 textual analysis 269–272 theater 218–221 theorycrafting 192, 200, 234, 291 theory, definition of 191–192 topos 353–354 transgressions: against games 415–418; overview 411–414; play as 414–415; player-character divide 418–421; and safety 413, 417 transportation theory 381, 386 Ultima 116–117 Ultima Online 142, 150, 307–308 Vampire:The Masquerade: as canonical 273; eroticism in 428–430; humanity points 332; overview 75; power dynamics in 452–453; Redemption CRPG 39; storytelling emphasis 196;V20 edition 82 wargames 55–59 White Wolf 81–82, 305 Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord 116–117 Wizards of the Coast (WotC) 76–77, 177, 236, 373 women: and crossplay 406; designers 443; exclusion of 426–427, 442; Gaming As Women blog 206; lack of, early 426; and online freeform roleplaying 160; perspective-taking of 289–290; play preferences 94, 237; representations of 82, 426; see also feminism worldbuilding: color 354; components of 357–360; core canons 357–358; ethos 353–354; fictional worlds 351; fringe 358; importance of 354–355; metatexts 358–359; mythos 353–354; overview 349–350; players and 355–357, 359–360; possible worlds 352; story bibles 359; storyworlds 351–352; topos 353–354; transmedia worlds 353; virtual worlds 353 World of Darkness 75, 81, 103, 430 World of Warcraft 144–145