Download or read book The Functions of Role Playing Games written by Sarah Lynne Bowman and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2010-04-13 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study takes an analytical approach to the world of role-playing games, providing a theoretical framework for understanding their psychological and sociological functions. Sometimes dismissed as escapist and potentially dangerous, role-playing actually encourages creativity, self-awareness, group cohesion and "out-of-the-box" thinking. The book also offers a detailed participant-observer ethnography on role-playing games, featuring insightful interviews with 19 participants of table-top, live action and virtual games.
Download or read book The Creation of Narrative in Tabletop Role Playing Games written by Jennifer Grouling Cover and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2014-01-10 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite the rise of computer gaming, millions of adults still play face to face role playing games, which rely in part on social interaction to create stories. This work explores tabletop role playing game (TRPG) as a genre separate from computer role playing games. The relationship of TRPGs to other games is examined, as well as the interaction among the tabletop module, computer game, and novel versions of Dungeons & Dragons. Given particular attention are the narrative and linguistic structures of the gaming session, and the ways that players and gamemasters work together to construct narratives. The text also explores wider cultural influences that surround tabletop gamers.
Download or read book Role Playing Game Studies written by Sebastian Deterding and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-04-17 with total page 484 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Shared Fantasy written by Gary Alan Fine and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2002-08-14 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This classic study still provides one of the most acute descriptions available of an often misunderstood subculture: that of fantasy role playing games like Dungeons & Dragons. Gary Alan Fine immerses himself in several different gaming systems, offering insightful details on the nature of the games and the patterns of interaction among players—as well as their reasons for playing.
Download or read book The Postmodern Joy of Role Playing Games written by René Reinhold Schallegger and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2018-02-16 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Historian Johan Huizinga once described game playing as the motor of humanity’s cultural development, predating art and literature. Since the late 20th century, Western society has undergone a “ludification,” as the influence of game-playing has grown ever more prevalent. At the same time, new theories of postmodernism have emphasized the importance of interactive, playful behavior. Core concepts of postmodernism are evident in pen-and-paper role-playing, such as Dungeons and Dragons. Exploring the interrelationships among narrative, gameplay, players and society, the author raises questions regarding authority, agency and responsibility, and discusses the social potential of RPGs in the 21st century.
Download or read book The Role Playing Society written by Andrew Byers and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2016-03-01 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the release of Dungeons & Dragons in 1974, role-playing games (RPGs) have spawned a vibrant industry and subculture whose characteristics and player experiences have been well explored. Yet little attention has been devoted to the ways RPGs have shaped society at large over the last four decades. Role-playing games influenced video game design, have been widely represented in film, television and other media, and have made their mark on education, social media, corporate training and the military. This collection of new essays illustrates the broad appeal and impact of RPGs. Topics range from a critical reexamination of the Satanic Panic of the 1980s, to the growing significance of RPGs in education, to the potential for "serious" RPGs to provoke awareness and social change. The contributors discuss the myriad subtle (and not-so-subtle) ways in which the values, concepts and mechanics of RPGs have infiltrated popular culture.
Download or read book Dangerous Games written by Joseph Laycock and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2015-02-12 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The 1980s saw the peak of a moral panic over fantasy role-playing games such as Dungeons and Dragons. A coalition of moral entrepreneurs that included representatives from the Christian Right, the field of psychology, and law enforcement claimed that these games were not only psychologically dangerous but an occult religion masquerading as a game. Dangerous Games explores both the history and the sociological significance of this panic. Fantasy role-playing games do share several functions in common with religion. However, religionÑas a socially constructed world of shared meaningÑcan also be compared to a fantasy role-playing game. In fact, the claims of the moral entrepreneurs, in which they presented themselves as heroes battling a dark conspiracy, often resembled the very games of imagination they condemned as evil. By attacking the imagination, they preserved the taken-for-granted status of their own socially constructed reality. Interpreted in this way, the panic over fantasy-role playing games yields new insights about how humans play and together construct and maintain meaningful worlds. LaycockÕs clear and accessible writing ensures that Dangerous Games will be required reading for those with an interest in religion, popular culture, and social behavior, both in the classroom and beyond.
Download or read book Watch Us Roll written by Shelly Jones and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2021-08-03 with total page 227 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Actual play is a movement within role-playing gaming in which players livestream their gameplay for others to watch and enjoy. This new medium has allowed the playing of games to become a digestible, consumable text for individuals to watch, enjoy, learn from, and analyze. Bridging the gap between the analog and the digital, actual play is changing and challenging our expectations of tabletop role-playing and providing a space for new scholarship. This edited collection of essays focuses on Dungeons and Dragons actual play and examines this phenomenon from a variety of different disciplinary approaches. Authors explore how to define actual play, how fans interact with and affect the narrative and gameplay of actual play, the diversity of gamers (or lack thereof) within actual play media, and how audiences can use actual play media for more than mere entertainment.
Download or read book The Evolution of Fantasy Role Playing Games written by Michael J. Tresca and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2014-01-10 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tracing the evolution of fantasy gaming from its origins in tabletop war and collectible card games to contemporary web-based live action and massive multi-player games, this book examines the archetypes and concepts within the fantasy gaming genre alongside the roles and functions of the game players themselves. Other topics include: how The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings helped shape fantasy gaming through Tolkien's obsessive attention to detail and virtual world building; the community-based fellowship embraced by players of both play-by-post and persistent browser-based games, despite the fact that these games are fundamentally solo experiences; the origins of gamebooks and interactive fiction; and the evolution of online gaming in terms of technological capabilities, media richness, narrative structure, coding authority, and participant roles.
Download or read book Gaming as Culture written by J. Patrick Williams and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2014-01-10 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since tabletop fantasy role-playing games emerged in the 1970s, fantasy gaming has made a unique contribution to popular culture and perceptions of social realities in America and around the world. This contribution is increasingly apparent as the gaming industry has diversified with the addition of collectible strategy games and other innovative products, as well as the recent advancements in videogame technology. This book presents the most current research in fantasy games and examines the cultural and constructionist dimensions of fantasy gaming as a leisure activity. Each chapter investigates some social or behavioral aspect of fantasy gaming and provides insight into the cultural, linguistic, sociological, and psychological impact of games on both the individual and society. Section I discusses the intersection of fantasy and real-world scenarios and how the construction of a fantasy world is dialectically related to the construction of a gamer's social reality. Because the basic premise of fantasy gaming is the assumption of virtual identities, Section II looks at the relationship between gaming and various aspects of identity. The third and final section examines what the personal experiences of gamers can tell us about how humans experience reality. Instructors considering this book for use in a course may request an examination copy here.
Download or read book Gaming for Classroom Based Learning Digital Role Playing as a Motivator of Study written by Baek, Young Kyun and published by IGI Global. This book was released on 2010-05-31 with total page 358 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As part of an international dialogue between researchers in educational technology, this title investigates where games can motivate students to learn and improve their knowledge and skills.
Download or read book Playground Worlds written by Jaakko Stenros and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Leaving Mundania written by Lizzie Stark and published by Chicago Review Press. This book was released on 2012-05-01 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Exposing a subculture only beginning to enter the imagination of mainstream America, this is the story of live action role-playing (LARP) games. A hybrid of games—such as Dungeons & Dragons, historical reenactment, fandom, and good old-fashioned pretend—LARP games are thriving and this book explores its multifaceted culture and related phenomenon, including the Society for Creative Anachronism, a medieval reenactment group that boasts more than 32,000 members. The history of LARP is detailed and is shown to have arisen from the pageantry of Tudor England and is currently being used as a training tool for the U.S. military. Along the way, the author duels foes with foam-padded weapons, lets the great elder god Cthulhu destroy her parents' beach house, and endures an existential awakening in the high-art LARP scene of Scandinavia.
Download or read book Beyond Role and Play written by Markus Montola and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Sailor Moon Role playing Game and Resource Book written by Mark C. MacKinnon and published by Guelph, Ont. : Guardians of Order. This book was released on 1999 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Welcome to the ultimate English-language guide for one of the most popular Japanese anime shows of all times! Sailor Moon is a hit with boys and girls of all ages, and is watched on Cartoon Network's popular "Toonami" programming block every day by over one million viewers. This book offers a comprehensive Sailor Moon resource and reference section, including episode summaries, character bios, and series analysis in a clear and easy to read format.
Download or read book Westworld and Philosophy written by James B. South and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2018-05-29 with total page 295 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “We can’t define consciousness because consciousness does not exist. Humans fancy that there’s something special about the way we perceive the world, and yet we live in loops as tight and as closed as the hosts do, seldom questioning our choices, content, for the most part, to be told what to do next.” —Dr. Robert Ford, Westworld Have you ever questioned the nature of your reality? HBO’s Westworld, a high-concept cerebral television series which explores the emergence of artificial consciousness at a futuristic amusement park, raises numerous questions about the nature of consciousness and its bearing on the divide between authentic and artificial life. Are our choices our own? What is the relationship between the mind and the body? Why do violent delights have violent ends? Could machines ever have the moral edge over man? Does consciousness create humanity, or humanity consciousness? In Westworld and Philosophy, philosophers, filmmakers, scientists, activists, and ethicists ask the questions you’re not supposed to ask and suggest the answers you’re not supposed to know. There’s a deeper level to this game, and this book charts a course through the maze of the mind, examining how we think about humans, hosts, and the world around us on a journey toward self-actualization. Essays explore different facets of the show’s philosophical puzzles, including the nature of autonomy as well as the pursuit of liberation and free thought, while levying a critical eye at the human example as Westworld’s hosts ascend to their apotheosis in a world scarred and defined by violent acts. The perfect companion for Westworld fans who want to exit the park and bend their minds around the philosophy behind the scenes, Westworld and Philosophy will enrich the experience of the show for its viewers and shed new light on its enigmatic twists and turns.
Download or read book Of Dice and Men written by David M. Ewalt and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2013-08-20 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A definitive look at Dungeons & Dragons traces its origins on the battlefields of ancient Europe through the hysteria that linked it to satanic rituals and teen suicides and to its apotheosis as father of the modern video game industry.
