Resumo de The Fantasy Role Playing Game

ABSTRACT ? MACKAY, DAVID ? THE FANTASY ROLE PLAYING GAME ? A NEW PERFORMING ART 1974 McFarland. Press. A rather heavy-handed sociology essay on the growing phenomena of Table top and live action role-playing fantasy games. Military strategy wargames had been played in soldiering academies since at least 1811. In 1913, no less a personage than English novelist H. G. Wells introduced people shaped playing pieces to replace traditional counters for moving about on the boards. True Role-playing games however grew from student fascination for J. R. R. Tolkien?s Lord of the Rings. The first true R P G game was Dungeons And Dragons, which initially failed to sell, but gradually took off due to word of mouth interest on university campuses in the US. The fantasy element created a strong backlash from the Christian Rightwing Fundamentalists who claimed that the game was too rooted in occultism, and would lead players into Satan worship. A scare story emerged that a missing American youth had become so absorbed in his RPG character that he had gone off to fight demons in the sewers, never to be seen again. In fact, he had gone visiting friends and turned up safe and sound, oblivious of the outrage surrounding his disappearance. The story remains a major urban legend that haunts the RPG circuit to this day. Many RPG game systems now exist. Some openly parody the works of Tolkien, Lovecraft, Cyberpunk author William Gibson, etc. Some are authorised. Many have been shut down due to accusations of plagiarism. The games have become increasingly sophisticated, moving away from fighting the monster of the week to complex social interaction in which players develop complex storylines to develop their characters. Many players take the events seriously, slipping into character even in discussing their strategies with the games-masters (rule setters, and referees). Some players will exchange notes and even e-mails, months in advance of a game to plan secret moves that will affect other players in a given game. Games-Masters usually work with five or less players at a time, or a game can become difficult to control. The industry has spawned books, and major conventions. Some RPG books have become major works of fantasy literature in their own right, i.e., The Dragonlance series. The author draws on many sociology studies and gives formulas and statistical trends that take the book out of its appeal market for RPG players. Fantasy fans will find it heavy going. Social scientists will find its subject matter too frivolous. It is odd that the author takes such a high ground while describing his own game strategies, which include one game in which a player shared half of his mind with a donkey. There are a lot of fascinating insights here, but you have to study hard to find them. http://www.mcfarlandpub.com/book-2.php?isbn=0-7864-0815-4

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