The Evolution Of Fantasy Role Playing Games

Author : Michael J. Tresca
Publisher : McFarland
Page : 238 pages
File Size : 54,7 Mb
Release : 2014-01-10
Category : Games & Activities
ISBN : 9780786460090

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The Evolution of Fantasy Role-Playing Games by Michael J. Tresca Pdf

Tracing the evolution of fantasy gaming from its origins in tabletop war and collectible card games to contemporary web-based live action and massive multi-player games, this book examines the archetypes and concepts within the fantasy gaming genre alongside the roles and functions of the game players themselves. Other topics include: how The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings helped shape fantasy gaming through Tolkien’s obsessive attention to detail and virtual world building; the community-based fellowship embraced by players of both play-by-post and persistent browser-based games, despite the fact that these games are fundamentally solo experiences; the origins of gamebooks and interactive fiction; and the evolution of online gaming in terms of technological capabilities, media richness, narrative structure, coding authority, and participant roles.

Author : John Eric Holmes
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 232 pages
File Size : 49,8 Mb
Release : 1981
Category : Fantasy games
ISBN : UCSC:32106014947391

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Fantasy Role Playing Games by John Eric Holmes Pdf

A consumer's guide to the popular fantasy games such as Dungeons and Dragons.

Author : Matt Barton,Shane Stacks
Publisher : CRC Press
Page : 618 pages
File Size : 43,9 Mb
Release : 2019-04-18
Category : Computers
ISBN : 9781351273398

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Dungeons and Desktops by Matt Barton,Shane Stacks Pdf

Computer role-playing games (CRPGs) are a special genre of computer games that bring the tabletop role-playing experience of games such as Dungeons & Dragons to the computer screen. Thisnew edition inlcudes two new chapters: The Modern Age, and a chapter on Indies and Mobile CRPGs. The new modern age chapter will cover, among other topics, Kickstarter/FIG crowdfunded projects such as Torment: Tides of Numenera and Pillars of Eternity. It'll also bring the book up to date with major games such as Dragon Age, Witcher, Skyrim. Expanded info in first chapter about educational potential of CRPGs. Color figures will be introduced for the first time. Key Features gives reviews of hundreds of games across many platforms. comprehensive book covering the history of computer RPGs. comprehensive index at the back, letting you quickly look up your favourite titles

Author : Daniel Mackay
Publisher : McFarland
Page : 216 pages
File Size : 54,7 Mb
Release : 2017-08-11
Category : Games & Activities
ISBN : 9780786450473

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The Fantasy Role-Playing Game by Daniel Mackay Pdf

Many of today's hottest selling games--both non-electronic and electronic--focus on such elements as shooting up as many bad guys as one can (Duke Nuk'em), beating the toughest level (Mortal Kombat), collecting all the cards (Pokemon), and scoring the most points (Tetris). Fantasy role-playing games (Dungeons & Dragons, Rolemaster, GURPS), while they may involve some of those aforementioned elements, rarely focus on them. Instead, playing a fantasy role-playing game is much like acting out a scene from a play, movie or book, only without a predefined script. Players take on such roles as wise wizards, noble knights, roguish sellswords, crafty hobbits, greedy dwarves, and anything else one can imagine and the referee allows. The players don't exactly compete; instead, they interact with each other and with the fantasy setting. The game is played orally with no game board, and although the referee usually has a storyline planned for a game, much of the action is impromptu. Performance is a major part of role-playing, and role-playing games as a performing art is the subject of this book, which attempts to introduce an appreciation for the performance aesthetics of such games. The author provides the framework for a critical model useful in understanding the art--especially in terms of aesthetics--of role-playing games. The book also serves as a contribution to the beginnings of a body of criticism, theory, and aesthetics analysis of a mostly unrecognized and newly developing art form. There are four parts: the cultural structure, the extent to which the game relates to outside cultural elements; the formal structure, or the rules of the game; the social structure, which encompasses the degree and quality of social interaction among players; and the aesthetic structure, concerned with the emergence of role-playing as an art form.

Author : Andrew Byers,Francesco Crocco
Publisher : McFarland
Page : 321 pages
File Size : 55,9 Mb
Release : 2016-02-19
Category : Games & Activities
ISBN : 9780786498833

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The Role-Playing Society by Andrew Byers,Francesco Crocco Pdf

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.

Author : Sean Patrick Fannon
Publisher : Obsidian Studio
Page : 266 pages
File Size : 55,8 Mb
Release : 1999
Category : Games & Activities
ISBN : PSU:000049931976

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The Fantasy Roleplaying Gamer's Bible by Sean Patrick Fannon Pdf

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Author : Sarah Lynne Bowman
Publisher : McFarland
Page : 216 pages
File Size : 50,9 Mb
Release : 2010-04-13
Category : Games & Activities
ISBN : 9780786455553

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The Functions of Role-Playing Games by Sarah Lynne Bowman Pdf

This study takes an analytical approach to the world of role-playing games, providing a theoretical framework for understanding their psychological and sociological functions. Sometimes dismissed as escapist and potentially dangerous, role-playing actually encourages creativity, self-awareness, group cohesion and "out-of-the-box" thinking. The book also offers a detailed participant-observer ethnography on role-playing games, featuring insightful interviews with 19 participants of table-top, live action and virtual games.

Author : Lawrence Schick
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 50,7 Mb
Release : 1991
Category : Fantasy games
ISBN : 0879756535

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Heroic Worlds by Lawrence Schick Pdf

This history of role-playing games such as Dungeons and Dragons explains their evolution and gives complete definitions and descriptions for related game products. Arriving on the scene in 1973, such games caught on rapidly and spawned a thriving industry. These games are regularly played improvisations, with rules that allow for consistent resolution of action, in which heroic characters created by the players battle enemies or solve mysteries. Featuring essays by eighteen top industry designers, Heroic Worlds explains the evolution of role-playing games and their influence on other forms of entertainment. The art and jargon of game design, play, and collection are defined in detail.

Author : Bitmap Books
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 55,7 Mb
Release : 2021-10-25
Category : Electronic
ISBN : 1838019146

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A Guide to Japanese Role-Playing Games by Bitmap Books Pdf

Author : Elke Hemminger
Publisher : edition sigma
Page : 174 pages
File Size : 42,5 Mb
Release : 2009
Category : Fantasy games
ISBN : 9783836011037

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The Mergence of Spaces by Elke Hemminger Pdf

Author : Jon Peterson
Publisher : MIT Press
Page : 332 pages
File Size : 54,5 Mb
Release : 2020-12-22
Category : Games & Activities
ISBN : 9780262360944

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The Elusive Shift by Jon Peterson Pdf

How the early Dungeons & Dragons community grappled with the nature of role-playing games, theorizing a new game genre. When Dungeon & Dragons made its debut in the mid-1970s, followed shortly thereafter by other, similar tabletop games, it sparked a renaissance in game design and critical thinking about games. D&D is now popularly considered to be the first role-playing game. But in the original rules, the term "role-playing" is nowhere to be found; D&D was marketed as a war game. In The Elusive Shift, Jon Peterson describes how players and scholars in the D&D community began to apply the term to D&D and similar games--and by doing so, established a new genre of games.

Author : Joseph P. Laycock
Publisher : Univ of California Press
Page : 368 pages
File Size : 55,8 Mb
Release : 2015-02-12
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9780520960565

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Dangerous Games by Joseph P. Laycock Pdf

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.

Author : Gary Alan Fine
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
Page : 298 pages
File Size : 45,5 Mb
Release : 2002-08-14
Category : Games & Activities
ISBN : 9780226249445

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Shared Fantasy by Gary Alan Fine Pdf

This classic study still provides one of the most acute descriptions available of an often misunderstood subculture: that of fantasy role playing games like Dungeons & Dragons. Gary Alan Fine immerses himself in several different gaming systems, offering insightful details on the nature of the games and the patterns of interaction among players—as well as their reasons for playing.

Author : Matt Barton
Publisher : CRC Press
Page : 452 pages
File Size : 44,6 Mb
Release : 2008-02-22
Category : Computers
ISBN : 9781439865248

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Dungeons and Desktops by Matt Barton Pdf

Computer role-playing games (CRPGs) are a special genre of computer games that bring the tabletop role-playing experience of games such as Dungeons & Dragons to the computer screen. This genre includes classics such as Ultima and The Bard's Tale as well as more modern games such as World of Warcraft and Guild Wars. Written in an engaging style for

Author : Jon Peterson
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 698 pages
File Size : 51,8 Mb
Release : 2012
Category : Computer games
ISBN : 0615642047

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Playing at the World by Jon Peterson Pdf

Explore the conceptual origins of wargames and role-playing games in this unprecedented history of simulating the real and the impossible. From a vast survey of primary sources ranging from eighteenth-century strategists to modern hobbyists, Playing at the World distills the story of how gamers first decided fictional battles with boards and dice, and how they moved from simulating wars to simulating people. The invention of role-playing games serves as a touchstone for exploring the ways that the literary concept of character, the lure of fantastic adventure and the principles of gaming combined into the signature cultural innovation of the late twentieth century.