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The Fantasy Role-Playing Game: A New Performing ArtClick to magnify

The Fantasy Role-Playing Game: A New Performing Art

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Many of today's hottest selling games--both non-electronic and electronic--focus on such elements as shooting up as many bad guys as one can (Duke Nuk'em), beating the toughest level (Mortal Kombat), collecting all the cards (Pokemon), and scoring the most points (Tetris).

Fantasy role-playing games (Dungeons & Dragons, Rolemaster, GURPS), while they may involve some of those aforementioned elements, rarely focus on them. Instead, playing a fantasy role-playing game is much like acting out a scene from a play, movie or book, only without a predefined script. Players take on such roles as wise wizards, noble knights, roguish sellswords, crafty hobbits, greedy dwarves, and anything else one can imagine and the referee allows. The players don't exactly compete; instead, they interact with each other and with the fantasy setting. The game is played orally with no game board, and although the referee usually has a storyline planned for a game, much of the action is impromptu.

Performance is a major part of role-playing, and role-playing games as a performing art is the subject of this book, which attempts to introduce an appreciation for the performance aesthetics of such games. The author provides the framework for a critical model useful in understanding the art--especially in terms of aesthetics--of role-playing games.

The book also serves as a contribution to the beginnings of a body of criticism, theory, and aesthetics analysis of a mostly unrecognized and newly developing art form. There are four parts: the cultural structure, the extent to which the game relates to outside cultural elements; the formal structure, or the rules of the game; the social structure, which encompasses the degree and quality of social interaction among players; and the aesthetic structure, concerned with the emergence of role-playing as an art form.

Note: This digital edition is available in ePub format, not PDF.

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Anne T July 10, 2014 10:02 pm UTC
When was this book originally published? From the other gaming references, I would guess that it dates to sometime in the mid-90s...
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Hans B July 11, 2014 7:29 am UTC
March 2001
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James R July 13, 2014 10:38 pm UTC
I remember owning this book back in highschool. It was a good book at the time, not sure how well it holds up now, its been ages since I read it.
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Pokemon R November 24, 2023 3:19 pm UTC

This article beautifully articulates the transformative and interactive nature of fantasy role-playing games (RPGs) as a unique form of performing art. Drawing parallels with theater and improv, the author skillfully captures the essence of RPGs, where players become both actors and spectators in a collaborative storytelling experience. The article effectively emphasizes the social and personal growth aspects of RPGs, highlighting their potential for fostering creativity, resilience, and teamwork.

Shifting focus to Pokemon games, it's fascinating to see how the RPG elements seamlessly translate into the video game realm. The comment rightly points out how the core concept of capturing, training, and battling creatures aligns with traditional RPG mechanics. The inclusivity of Pokemon games, appealing to a broad age range, is a testament to their accessibility and depth.
https://pokemonsrom.com/
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Product Information
Author(s)
Pages
215
ISBN
9780786450473
Publisher Stock #
9780786408153
File Size:
0.9 MB
Format
Original electronic Click for more information
Scanned image
These products were created by scanning an original printed edition. Most older books are in scanned image format because original digital layout files never existed or were no longer available from the publisher.

For PDF download editions, each page has been run through Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software to attempt to decipher the printed text. The result of this OCR process is placed invisibly behind the picture of each scanned page, to allow for text searching. However, any text in a given book set on a graphical background or in handwritten fonts would most likely not be picked up by the OCR software, and is therefore not searchable. Also, a few larger books may be resampled to fit into the system, and may not have this searchable text background.

For printed books, we have performed high-resolution scans of an original hardcopy of the book. We essentially digitally re-master the book. Unfortunately, the resulting quality of these books is not as high. It's the problem of making a copy of a copy. The text is fine for reading, but illustration work starts to run dark, pixellating and/or losing shades of grey. Moiré patterns may develop in photos. We mark clearly which print titles come from scanned image books so that you can make an informed purchase decision about the quality of what you will receive.
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Original electronic format
These ebooks were created from the original electronic layout files, and therefore are fully text searchable. Also, their file size tends to be smaller than scanned image books. Most newer books are in the original electronic format. Both download and print editions of such books should be high quality.
File Last Updated:
July 08, 2014
This title was added to our catalog on July 10, 2014.
Publisher
McFarland
Publisher Average Rating