Irick
New Member
The prominent literary critic Harold Bloom has an interesting insight into the world of words. After Derrida's call to inversion many theorists got caught in the semantic nihilism of postmodern theorizing. "Structures of privilege must be dismantled!" they called, upending every dualistic trope they could find. In this frenzy, the legitimacy of literature was questioned. Postmodern thought seemed entirely capable of deconstructing such relationships, but it also tended to recurse. Bloom saw this and took an interesting stance. Drawing from the tradition of Kabbalah he said "Words are either magic, or meaningless." and with that he could ground himself in both. By setting boundaries and delineating a sacred space, he overcame the tyranny of an infinite problem space and thus: magic was penned.
Similarly, for play to begin we must begin not with an infinite plane, but a sand box. A definite space with lines of demarcation. This paradoxically frees us from the tyranny of choice by putting us to work on much easier to grasp items. This is why we don't start a roleplay game with a blank slate, we start with context. Some arena wherein our play will occur. Some signal that lets us know when we are playing and when we are not. This can be something as simple as starting a thread or as complex as a masonic initiation. Either way, the use of ritual can be a powerful contextualiser.
But how to apply this more explicitly and to better effect? "Lets play a game." The phrase is a simple ritual. It marks the beginnings of a game. It notates the mode, lets you communicate the boundaries, but it is generic. "Alright, everyone roll up level 3 characters. We'll be playing in Forgotten Realms." Again, ritual. Filling out that character sheet as a book proscribes, casting an oracle and recording the fates... but that's silly right? In the context by which each of these magic circles are defined we allow a safe kind of distance between ourselves and the play subject. The player need not commit to a world surrounded by a magic circle, and that makes it less frightening.
"Crossed arms means you are speaking out of character" "You can not move if you are struck by a blue ball." "Elves do not share the same viewpoint as humans, they are much longer lived." Each of these statements define the structure that a player is free to explore, and they each, in some way, inform the mood in which a player will engage with a game. Adding trappings such as costume, a physical space, or specialized diction to mark crossing a barrier into a game space helps play.
"We are not players. Each of us is a medium, channeling a long dead hero to bring their exploits in mythical china to life. Through these hexagrams we tap the Way-that-was and transmute it into story." If we think carefully about the kinds of ritual we use to mark out the 'territory' of our role playing game, we can influence the creation of the kind of roles we want to portray and occupy.
I think we can all point to a GM we know whom we can identify just on the way they structure their game worlds. That we can identify as unique just by the pitch. I put forward that this is one of the most important creative acts in role playing. As GM and player, we choose to exclude the infinite to allow our finite experiences to emerge.
So I finish this meditation with a quote from Bloom and an invitation: for examples of ritual, game space and magic circles. For questions, answers and commentary:
Similarly, for play to begin we must begin not with an infinite plane, but a sand box. A definite space with lines of demarcation. This paradoxically frees us from the tyranny of choice by putting us to work on much easier to grasp items. This is why we don't start a roleplay game with a blank slate, we start with context. Some arena wherein our play will occur. Some signal that lets us know when we are playing and when we are not. This can be something as simple as starting a thread or as complex as a masonic initiation. Either way, the use of ritual can be a powerful contextualiser.
But how to apply this more explicitly and to better effect? "Lets play a game." The phrase is a simple ritual. It marks the beginnings of a game. It notates the mode, lets you communicate the boundaries, but it is generic. "Alright, everyone roll up level 3 characters. We'll be playing in Forgotten Realms." Again, ritual. Filling out that character sheet as a book proscribes, casting an oracle and recording the fates... but that's silly right? In the context by which each of these magic circles are defined we allow a safe kind of distance between ourselves and the play subject. The player need not commit to a world surrounded by a magic circle, and that makes it less frightening.
"Crossed arms means you are speaking out of character" "You can not move if you are struck by a blue ball." "Elves do not share the same viewpoint as humans, they are much longer lived." Each of these statements define the structure that a player is free to explore, and they each, in some way, inform the mood in which a player will engage with a game. Adding trappings such as costume, a physical space, or specialized diction to mark crossing a barrier into a game space helps play.
"We are not players. Each of us is a medium, channeling a long dead hero to bring their exploits in mythical china to life. Through these hexagrams we tap the Way-that-was and transmute it into story." If we think carefully about the kinds of ritual we use to mark out the 'territory' of our role playing game, we can influence the creation of the kind of roles we want to portray and occupy.
I think we can all point to a GM we know whom we can identify just on the way they structure their game worlds. That we can identify as unique just by the pitch. I put forward that this is one of the most important creative acts in role playing. As GM and player, we choose to exclude the infinite to allow our finite experiences to emerge.
So I finish this meditation with a quote from Bloom and an invitation: for examples of ritual, game space and magic circles. For questions, answers and commentary:
