[CAR-PGa] Studies & Literature

Below are a number of studies about role-playing games, in Portuguese, English and Italian. I've given the bibliographic information, links, abstract + keywords (when I could find them). Please contact me if you find errors, broken links or such. Since this was originally formatted as a posting on a bulletin board, I might also have overlooked the occasional markup tag.

Since we have a bibliography on the homepage, these might be added there. Also, some of the studies in the homepage are available online and should get weblinks accordingly. How rocky or smooth is the road to homepage changes? :-)

Jonas

Marinka Copier: Connecting Worlds. Fantasy Role-Playing Games, Ritual Acts and the Magic Circle. Proceedings of DiGRA 2005 Conference: Changing Views – Worlds in Play. PDF http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.97.2637&rep=rep1&type=pdf

Abstract: From a cultural history and game theoretical perspective my work focuses on the relationship between the fantasy subculture, fantasy role-playing games and the daily life of their participants in the Netherlands. Main research themes are the construction of game/play space and identities. Within this context I elaborate in this paper on the usefulness of the term magic circle (Johan Huizinga). I will argue why in game research the current use of the term magic circle is problematic. We can understand the term differently when returning to the context in which Huizinga introduced the magic circle as ritual play-ground. According to him ritual is play and play is ritual. Referring back to his work Homo Ludens (1938) I will discuss the various relationships between role-play and ritual performance. I will argue that fantasy role-playing consists of collections of performances or ritual acts, in which players construct the game/play space, identities and meaning.

Keywords: fantasy role-playing games, fantasy subculture, space, identity, magic circle, ritual, performance


Lynn Gelfand: Haunted Worlds: Narrative, Ritual, and Carnival in Gothic Role-Playing Games, in: New directions in folklore 3 (1999).

https://scholarworks.iu.edu/dspace/handle/2022/7211


Danilo Silva Guimarães: A Negociação Intersubjetiva de Significados em Jogos de Interpretação de Papéis (Intersubjective Negotiation of Meanings in Role-Playing Games); in: Psicologia: Teoria e Pesquisa. Out-Dez 2008, Vol. 24 n. 4, pp. 433-439.

PDF: http://www.academia.edu/997636/A_Negociacao_Intersubjetiva_de_Significados_em_Jogos_de_Interpretacao_de_Papeis1

HTML: http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?pid=S0102-37722008000400006&script=sci_arttext&tlng=es

Abstract: This article focuses on the intersubjective process of meaning negotiation, through microgenetic analysis of Role-Playing Game sessions. We departed from the supposition that the analysis of I-other interactions, during that game, could put in evidence relevant aspects for the comprehension of the relation between intersubjectivity and otherness in interpersonal contexts. The results of the microgenetic analysis of the dialogues among the players showed the participation of important psychological processes in human development. In those processes, moments of tension and disquiet - typical of otherness relationships - were alternated with moments of convergence and sharing about the topics of the dialogue, as well as about the relational positions of the interlocutors.

Keywords: semiotic-cultural constructivism; intersubjectivity; otherness; human development; Role-Playing Games.

Danilo Silva Guimarães: Intersubjetividade e desejo nas relações sociais: o caso dos jogos de representação de papéis; in: INTERACÇÕES NO. 7, PP. 30-54 (2007).

PDF: http://www.academia.edu/997635/Intersubjetividade_e_desejo_nas_relacoes_sociais_o_caso_dos_jogos_de_representacao_de_papeis

Abstract:

This paper focuses some aspects of the self – other process of knowledgeconstruction, from the interpretive analysis of Role Playing Game situations. Our focus of analysis is mainly concerned with relationships between the subjective dimensions of desire and alterity, as opened by the participants’ symbolic actions addressed to thefuture. In such an extent, we looked for ruptures in the actors’ seek to intersubjectivesharing, brought about their dialogical interactions. These ruptures were usuallyaccompanied by the reorganization of the actors’ subjective experiences throughsymbolic resources. As a result, we propose an interpretive frame about the dynamicelements encompassed by the actor’s dialogical relationships. We could apprehend thepresence of otherness in the symbolic configurations constructed by the I. In such anextent, we can say that the meaning of personal constructions were mainly addressedto the otherness, with whom the I tried to have a shared ground of meaning. Thishappens as part of the process of questioning for ways of symbolic transitions, facingthe ruptures brought about in the course of the I-other interaction itself.

Keywords: Knowledge construction; Intersubjectivity; Otherness; Desire; Symbolic resources; Role-playing games.

Sean Guynes: Deep Play: A Communicatory Ethnography of Role Indexing during a Dungeons & Dragons Gaming Session (.doc) – 2012/2013 (?).

http://www.academia.edu/2631746/Deep_Play_A_Communicatory_Ethnography_of_Role_Indexing_during_a_Dungeons_and_Dragons_Gaming_Session

From the introduction:

The present paper is a study of a TRPG called Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) through the lens of the ethnography of communication, and is based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted with an all-male-identified college student gaminggroup during February 2012 at Western Washington University. [...] I chose to follow in the path of sociologists Waskul and Lust (2004), whose social-psychological analysis of roles inTRPGs inspired me to approach their topic from a communicative perspective. I found thatgamers often cross-referenced their roles: an utterance might be said in the style of one role,while the underlying meaning of the utterance pointed to another role. This phenomenon— indexicality—and its application to gamers’ roles during D&D gaming sessions will be thecentral focus of this paper. Ultimately, I will provide a new model for indices which is informed by the work of other scholars and my ethnographic reading of a single gaming session.

Two powerpoint presentations (a teaching document and a conference talk?):
Sean Guynes: Role-Playing Games and Linguistic Anthropology
http://www.academia.edu/2133296/Role-Playing_Games_and_Linguistic_Anthropology

Sean Guynes: Communicatory Practices among Role-Playing Gamers: Building a Working Model of the Index

http://www.academia.edu/2631750/Communicatory_Practices_among_Role-Playing_Gamers_Building_a_Working_Model_of_the_Index

Jerzy Kociatkiewicz: Dreams of Time, Times of Dreams: Stories of creation from roleplaying game sessions, in: Studies in Cultures, Organizations, and Societies 6/1: 71-86.
http://www.academia.edu/686872/Dreams_of_Time_Times_of_Dreams_Stories_of_creation_from_roleplaying_game_sessions

DOI:10.1080/10245280008523538. This copy does not follow journal layout or page numbering.

Abstract: Roleplaying games (RPGs) are an activity in which a group of people (called the players) creates and roleplays characters in a world devised by one other participant, called the Game Master, who describes the results of their actions as well as the actions themselves of everything and everybody else in this created world. The malleability of this world, coupled with the RPGs’ social aspect, parallels the socially constructed reality which usually surrounds us. In this paper I collect a series of impressions from a few roleplaying sessions during which di" erent groups of players attempted to construct new realities. In this sense, I examine the shared creation of reality out of empty space, exploring the potential inherent in roleplaying as a metaphor for organizing. I look for non-standard view-points on organizing which emerge from these sessions, and examine the process itself, not trying to pinpoint any regularities, but rather seeking the unusual and the sublime.

Alessandro Macilenti: Il ruolo del gioco nel gioco di ruolo: interpretare la didattica ludica nella classe di italiano lingua straniera. Master Thesis 2009/2010. http://venus.unive.it/itals/postmaster/files/Tesi/tesi_nonociclo/Macilenti_Alessandro.pdf


Iván Pérez Miranda/ Juan Ramón Carbó García: JUEGOS DE ROL Y ROLES DE GÉNERO (RPGs and Gender Roles); in: Teoría de la Educación. Educación y Cultura en la Sociedad de la Información (TESI), 11 (3), 2010, 168-184.http://campus.usal.es/~revistas_trabajo/index.php/revistatesi/article/view/7456/7472

Abstract: This paper focuses on the role playing games evolution from the Gender perspective. The authors analyze the evolution of the role playing games and the progressive incorporation of women to this form of games.

Key words: role playing games, gender, women studies


Last but not least: two papers on projects merging pen&paper with digital tools - probably a major trend in the future of RPGs, probably a niche without much chance, but in any case interesting as a possible road of RPG evolution:

Karl Bergström/ Staffan Jonsson/ Staffan Björk: Undercurrents. A Computer-Based Gameplay Tool to Support Tabletop Roleplaying. Nordic DiGRA 2010.

http://www.digra.org/dl/db/10343.50118.pdf

Abstract: This paper introduces Undercurrents, a computer-based gameplay tool for providing additional communication and media streams during tabletop roleplaying sessions. Based upon a client-server architecture, the system is intended to unobtrusively support secret communication, timing of audio and visual presentations to game events, and real-time documentation of the game session. Potential end users have been involved in the development and the paper provides details on the full design process.

KEYWORDS: Computer-Supported Gameplay Tools, Computer-Supported Collaborative Play, Role Playing, Tabletop Role Playing

Mazalek, Ali/ Basil Mironer/ Elijah O’Rear/ Dana Van Devender (2008): The TViews Table Role-Playing Game, in: Journal of Virtual Reality and Broadcasting 5 (2008), no. 8. urn:nbn:de:0009-6-14913, ISSN 1860-2037

http://synlab.gatech.edu/data/papers/mazalek_jvrb2008_ttrpg.pdf

Abstract: The TViews Table Role-Playing Game (TTRPG) is a digital tabletop role-playing game that runs on the TViews table, bridging the separate worlds of traditional role-playing games with the growing area of massively multiplayer online role-playing games. The TViews table is an interactive tabletop media platform that can track the location of multiple tagged objects in real-time as they are moved around its surface, providing a simultaneous and coincident graphical display. In this paper we present the implementation of the first version of TTRPG, with a content set based on the traditional Dungeons & Dragons rule-set. We also discuss the results of a user study that used TTRPG to explore the possible social context of digital tabletop role-playing games.

Keywords: Tabletop platform, tangible interaction, role-playing games, social interaction, game design





--   Jonas Richter, M.A.  * Mittelhochdeutsches Wörterbuch    http://www.mhdwb.uni-goettingen.de/  * Religionswissenschaft, Universität Göttingen    http://www.religionswissenschaft.uni-goettingen.de/
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