Tabletop Role-Playing Games and the Experience of Imagined Worlds

In 1974, the release of Dungeons & Dragons forever changed the way that we experience imagined worlds. No longer limited to simply reading books or watching movies, gamers came together to collaboratively and interactively build and explore new realms. Based on four years of interviews and game recordings from locations spanning the United States, this book offers a journey that explores how role-playing games use a combination of free-form imagination and tightly constrained rules to experience those realms. By developing our understanding of the fantastic worlds of role-playing games, this book also offers insight into how humans come together and collaboratively imagine the world around us.

Focuses on old-school gaming, connecting with the nostalgic resurgence of interest in Dungeons & Dragons Offers phenomenologically rich descriptions of actual play experiences Combines anthropological ethnographic methodologies with cultural and media studies-based analyses

Auteur

Nicholas J. Mizer is a lecturer in games and culture at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, USA. His work has been published in numerous edited collections and in such journals as the Journal of Popular Culture and Evolution and Human Behavior. Mizer serves as co-chair of Game Studies for the Popular/American Culture Association, and is an editor at The Geek Anthropologist.

Contenu

1. Introduction.- 2. Entering Imagined Worlds through Enchanted Rationalization.- 3. A Life Well Played: How the Past Shapes our Experience of Worlds.- 4. Color, Song, and Choice Diction: Using Chromomancy to Summon Worlds.- 5. Responsibly and Accurately: Dwelling in Imagined Worlds.- 6. Journey's End.