Storytelling in the Modern Board Game by
Over the years, board games have evolved to include relatable characters, vivid settings and compelling, intricate plotlines. In turn, players have become more emotionally involved--taking on, in essence, the role of coauthors in an interactive narrative. Through the lens of game studies and narratology--traditional storytelling concepts applied to the gaming world--this book explores the synergy of board games, designers and players in story-oriented designs. The author provides development guidance for game designers and recommends games to explore for hobby players.
It's All a Game by
"[A] timely book...It's All a Game provides a wonderfully entertaining trip around the board, through 4,000 years of game history." --The Wall Street Journal Board games have been with us longer than even the written word. But what is it about this pastime that continues to captivate us well into the age of smartphones and instant gratification? In It's All a Game, British journalist and renowned games expert Tristan Donovan opens the box on the incredible and often surprising history and psychology of board games. He traces the evolution of the game across cultures, time periods, and continents, from the paranoid Chicago toy genius behind classics like Operation and Mouse Trap, to the role of Monopoly in helping prisoners of war escape the Nazis, and even the scientific use of board games today to teach artificial intelligence how to reason and how to win. With these compelling stories and characters, Donovan ultimately reveals why board games--from chess to Monopoly to Settlers of Catan, and more--have captured hearts and minds all over the world for generations.
Playing Games by
Gaming and gambling have always had a significant role in our lives, starting from the metaphors we keep using when we speak: "game over", "play your cards well", "lay your cards on the table". The book is both a history and a study of the different types of games and of their profound effect on culture and society. The author retraces the early history of games and of their legislations and pitfalls, from Asia to Greece, from India to Middle East, including Italy and Ancient Rome. By exploring the history and the rules of specific games such as cards, lotteries, board games, games of chance, backgammon, billiards, chess, checkers and roulette, this text allows us to discover a world that, if on one side remains risky, on the other reveals its connection to art, mathematics, in a word to human traditions.
The Role-Playing Society by
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.
The Postmodern Joy of Role-Playing Games by
For Johan Huizinga, play is the motor of humanity's cultural development, and it has accompanied us through history. However, since the late 20th century, its influence has been more pervasive than ever before, and gamification has become a buzzword in social and cultural life. Hand in hand with this cultural turn, theories of Postmodernism emerged, also privileging interactive playful behavior. If play drives culture, understanding it is therefore understanding culture in Postmodern times. Many of the core concepts of Postmodern thought also inform the new medium of the pen&paper role-playing game that coalesced at about the same time as Postmodern theories, a symptom of and feeding into the processes of cultural change. Analyzing these language games beyond their entertainment value shows how current socio-political conditions affect the shifting dynamic and mutual relationship between individual and society. A deep exploration of the complex interrelationship between narrative, game, players, and society raises questions of authority, agency, and responsibility that provide insights into the crisis of engagement that we see in our societies, while at the same time offering a new and original appreciation of the socio-political potential in games as the leading medium of the 21st century.
Forum-Based Role Playing Games As Digital Storytelling by
When people hear the term "role-playing games," they tend to think of two things: a group of friends sitting around a table playing Dungeons & Dragons or video games with exciting graphics. Between those two, however, exists a third style of gaming. Hundreds of online forums offer gathering places for thousands of players--people who come together to role-play through writing. They create stories by taking turns, describing events through their characters' eyes. Whether it is the arena of the Hunger Games, the epic battles of the Marvel Universe or love stories in a fantasy version of New York, people build their own spaces of words, and inhabit them day after day. But what makes thousands of players, many teenagers among them, voluntarily type up novel-length stories? How do they use the resources of the Internet, gather images, sounds, and video clips to weave them into one coherent narrative? How do they create together through improvisation and negotiation, in ways that connect them to older forms of storytelling? Through observing more than a hundred websites and participating in five of them for a year, the author has created a pilot study that delves into a subculture of unbounded creativity.
Dangerous Games by
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, religion--as a socially constructed world of shared meaning--can 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. Laycock's 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.
Designing Board Games by
Designing and playing your own board games can be a lot of fun. Through simple text written to foster creativity and problem solving, students will learn the art of innovation. Large, colorful images show students how to complete activities. Additional tools, including a glossary and an index, help students learn new vocabulary and locate information.
Dungeons, Dragons, and Digital Denizens by
Dungeons, Dragons, and Digital Denizens is a collection of scholarly essays that seeks to represent the far-reaching scope and implications of digital role-playing games as both cultural and academic artifacts. As a genre, digital role playing games have undergone constant and radical revision, pushing not only multiple boundaries of game development, but also the playing strategies and experiences of players. Divided into three distinct sections, this premiere volume captures the distinctiveness of different game types, the forms of play they engender and their social and cultural implications. Contributors examine a range of games, from classics like Final Fantasy to blockbusters like World of Warcraft to obscure genre bending titles like Lux Pain. Working from a broad range of disciplines such as ecocritism, rhetoric, performance, gender, and communication, these essays yield insights that enrich the field of game studies and further illuminate the cultural, psychological and philosophical implications of a society that increasingly produces, plays and discourses about role playing games.
Dungeons and Dragons and Philosophy by
Do demons and devils have free will? Does justice exist in Menzoberranzan? What's the morality involved with player characters casting necromancy and summoning spells? Dungeons & Dragons and Philosophy probes the rich terrain of philosophically compelling concepts and ideas that underlie Dungeons & Dragons, the legendary fantasy role-playing game that grew into a world-wide cultural phenomenon. A series of accessible essays reveals what the imaginary worlds of D&D can teach us about ethics, morality, metaphysics and more. Illustrates a wide variety of philosophical concepts and ideas that arise in Dungeons & Dragons gameplay and presents them in an accessible and entertaining manner Reveals how the strategies, tactics, improvisations, and role-play employed by D&D enthusiasts have startling parallels in the real world of philosophy Explores a wide range of philosophical topics, including the nature of free will, the metaphysics of personal identity, the morality of crafting fictions, sex and gender issues in tabletop gameplay, and friendship and collaborative storytelling Provides gamers with deep philosophical insights that can lead to a richer appreciation of D&D and any gaming experience
Game Design Theory by
Despite the proliferation of video games in the twenty-first century, the theory of game design is largely underdeveloped, leaving designers on their own to understand what games really are. Helping you produce better games, Game Design Theory: A New Philosophy for Understanding Games presents a bold new path for analyzing and designing games.
The Game Inventor's Guidebook by
The definitive guide for anyone with a game idea who wants to know how to get it published from a Game Design Manager at Wizards of the Coast, the world's largest tabletop hobby game company. Do you have an idea for a board game, card game, role-playing game or tabletop game? Have you ever wondered how to get it published? For many years Brian Tinsman reviewed new game submissions for Hasbro, the largest game company in the US. With The Game Inventor's Guidebook: How to Invent and Sell Board Games, Card Games, Role-playing Games & Everything in Between! he presents the only book that lays out step-by-step advice, guidelines and instructions for getting a new game from idea to retail shelf.
Game Play by
The 21st century has seen a board game renaissance. At a time when streaming television finds millions of viewers, video games garner billions of dollars, and social media grows ever more intense, little has been written about the rising popularity of board games. And yet board games are one of our fastest growing hobbies, with sales increasing every year. Today's board games are more than just your average rainy-day mainstay. Once associated solely with geek subcultures, complex and strategic board games are increasingly dominating the playful media environment. The popularity of these complex board games mirrors the rise of more complex cult media products. In Game Play: Paratextuality in Contemporary Board Games, Paul Booth examines complex board games based on book, TV, and film franchises, including Doctor Who, The Walking Dead, Lord of the Rings, Star Trek, The Hunger Games and the worlds of H.P. Lovecraft. How does a game represent a cult world? How can narratives cross media platforms? By investigating the relationship between these media products and their board game versions, Booth illustrates the connections between cult media, gameplay, and narrative in a digital media environment.
Storytelling in the Modern Board Game by
Over the years, board games have evolved to include relatable characters, vivid settings and compelling, intricate plotlines. In turn, players have become more emotionally involved--taking on, in essence, the role of coauthors in an interactive narrative. Through the lens of game studies and narratology--traditional storytelling concepts applied to the gaming world--this book explores the synergy of board games, designers and players in story-oriented designs. The author provides development guidance for game designers and recommends games to explore for hobby players.
Tabletop Role-Playing Games and the Experience of Imagined Worlds by
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.