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"Role playing"
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Dangerous games
The 1980s saw the peak of a moral panic over fantasy role-playing games such asDungeons 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 Gamesexplores 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 thatDangerous Gameswill be required reading for those with an interest in religion, popular culture, and social behavior, both in the classroom and beyond.
eBook
Cosplay
Cosplay, a blend of costume and play, has taken off in popularity around the world. This volume introduces the history of this creative outlet and discusses how some people have taken the colorful and whimsical hobby and made it into a lucrative business.
Book
Communities of play : emergent cultures in multiplayer games and virtual worlds
The odyssey of a group of \"refugees\" from a closed-down online game and an exploration of emergent fan cultures in virtual worlds.Play communities existed long before massively multiplayer online games; they have ranged from bridge clubs to sports leagues, from tabletop role-playing games to Civil War reenactments. With the emergence of digital networks, however, new varieties of adult play communities have appeared, most notably within online games and virtual worlds. Players in these networked worlds sometimes develop a sense of community that transcends the game itself. In Communities of Play, game researcher and designer Celia Pearce explores emergent fan cultures in networked digital worlds-actions by players that do not coincide with the intentions of the game's designers. Pearce looks in particular at the Uru Diaspora-a group of players whose game, Uru: Ages Beyond Myst, closed. These players (primarily baby boomers) immigrated into other worlds, self-identifying as \"refugees\"; relocated in There.com, they created a hybrid culture integrating aspects of their old world. Ostracized at first, they became community leaders. Pearce analyzes the properties of virtual worlds and looks at the ways design affects emergent behavior. She discusses the methodologies for studying online games, including a personal account of the sometimes messy process of ethnography. Pearce considers the \"play turn\" in culture and the advent of a participatory global playground enabled by networked digital games every bit as communal as the global village Marshall McLuhan saw united by television. Countering the ludological definition of play as unproductive and pointing to the long history of pre-digital play practices, Pearce argues that play can be a prelude to creativity.
eBook
Theme parks
\"Costumed characters transform ordinary amusement parks into magical settings where princesses, superheroes, and more come to life. This lively guide helps creative teens looking to mix fun and work become a part of this essential theme park experience. Teens will learn how to land a role-playing job, performing in character with guests or onstage. Also covered are the many areas in which teens can exercise their interests away from the spotlight. Readers will learn how to leverage such skills as acting, dancing, and sewing to nail an interview, audition, or future career in or out of the theme park environment.\"--Provided by publisher.
Book
THE VIGNETTE IN A SCENARIO-BASED ROLE-PLAYING EXPERIMENT
A scenario‐based role‐playing experiment is well suited for research seeking to understand how and why operations and supply chain managers, when dealing with complex issues, form their judgments and preferences or make the decisions that they do. As a method for data collection, a scenario‐based role‐playing experiment deploys varying versions of a descriptive vignette to convey scripted information about specific levels of factors of interest that are hypothesized, upfront, to influence judgments, preferences or decisions. Human subjects are recruited to assume an a priori defined role and, in this role, to then form their judgments and preferences or make their decisions in response to the scripted information conveyed in at least one version of the vignette. For these judgments, preferences or decisions to be useful for subsequent statistical analyses, the vignette and its varying versions to be deployed in a scenario‐based role‐playing experiment must be appropriately designed (i.e., written and presented) and validated. This commentary speaks to this “vignette design and validation” issue and prescribes a three‐stage process to create a vignette with its derivative versions that is clear, realistic, complete (in that it contains all information necessary for human subjects to assume their role and to consequently provide their reactions and responses), and is effective (in that it cues human subjects to perceive the desired levels of the factors of interest).
Journal Article
Zombie runs
Zombie lovers and fitness enthusiasts will delight in this book that explains what zombie runs are, how to get involved in this new fitness phenomenon, and how it might help them in a later career.
Book
The effects of serious gaming on risk perceptions of climate tipping points
A growing body of research indicates that effective science-policy interactions demand novel approaches, especially in policy domains with long time horizons like climate change. Serious games offer promising opportunities in this regard, but empirical research on game effects and games’ effectiveness in supporting science-policy engagement remains limited. We investigated the effects of a role-playing simulation game on risk perceptions associated with climate tipping points among a knowledgeable and engaged audience of non-governmental observers of the international climate negotiations and scientists. We analysed its effects on concern, perceived seriousness, perceived likelihood and psychological distance of tipping points, using pre- and post-game surveys, debriefing questions and game observations. Our findings suggest that the game reduced the psychological distance of tipping points, rendering them more ‘real’, proximate and tangible for participants. More generally, our findings indicate that role-playing simulation games, depending on their design and future orientation, can provide effective science-policy engagement tools that allow players to engage in future thinking and corresponding meaning making.
Journal Article
Inhuman resources
Alain Delambre is a 57-year-old former HR executive, drained by four years of hopeless unemployment. All he is offered are small, demoralizing jobs. He has reached his very lowest ebb, and can see no way out. So when a major company finally invites him to an interview, Alain Delambre is ready to do anything, borrow money, shame his wife and his daughters and even participate in the ultimate recruitment test: a role-playing game that involves hostage-taking. Alain Delambre commits body and soul in this struggle to regain his dignity. But if he suddenly realised that the dice had been loaded against him from the start, his fury would be limitless. And what began as a role-play game could quickly become a bloodbath.
Book
Role‐playing games in natural resource management and research: Lessons learned from theory and practice
Participatory games are valued by many researchers as innovative tools to facilitate science‐practice communication in transdisciplinary research processes. This article explores the diverse potentials of role‐playing games (RPGs) in natural resource research and management. Based on a literature review, we discuss different types of game design, the stakeholder groups involved, and outcomes that may be achieved by this method. Our results display how game elements, rationales and rules can be adapted in accordance with the conveners’ intentions, and outline the roles that scientists, land users, institutional actors, and technicians assume in the RPG. We argue that RPGs have the potential to serve scientific knowledge production while also facilitating collective decision‐making, conflict mediation, and joint learning. A case study from Madagascar illustrates that land users can easily relate RPGs to their real lives. The participants in this case study reflected on their livelihood systems, collectively analysed problems, and discussed possible solutions. Finally, we critically discuss the validity and legitimacy of the research results, and measures to avoid bias and manipulation.
Journal Article