Author: Elazair (---.145.199)
Date: 06-19-2004 18:18
I would just like to applaud you for 9 installments of high-quality, thought-provoking academic discussion. People like yourself are on the forefront of an entirely new and enormous field of academic study, just as videogames were a few years ago, and television a decade ago; this is a field in which traditional narratology and ludology theories will have to be thrown out, fused together or recreated. I wish you all the best of luck.
I'd also like to suggest one other category of 'value' that can be obtained from RPGs: that of 'Textual Recreation'. I'm currently studying the relationship of licensed RPGs based on cult TV shows and films to their parent texts, based on Henry Jenkins' theory of 'textual poaching': the idea that fans take aspects of the text and make them their own, in order to protect the text from its creator/s. This can be seen in fanfiction, slash fiction, in-character web forums... and also in RPGs.
So players of the Buffy, Angel, Star Trek or Star Wars RPGs all seek to relive/recreate their parent texts somehow, and derive value from this very personal and loving textual poaching, in the same way as a slash fiction writer who creates a romance between Kirk and Spock, or Spike and Angel. The value is derived from living within that well-known and beloved parent story, and creating one's own story within it. A slightly adapted argument could apply to many fantasy RPGs: they all seek to recreate mythic/archetypal texts like LotR.
Anyhoo, thanks for the great column, and i look forward to seeing the next one!
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