Weekly Review Jul. 30th to Aug. 5th

This week has seen several RPG theory development, focusing on influences in our games, and how our games might influence us.

Gender

Joshua BishopRoby discusses the conscious and unconscious influence of gender on RPG design. He argues that early RPGs were implicitly focused on the gender interests of young males. He then suggests, in a certain maturation, that RPGs can now be brought to other genders, both exploring and supporting them. He explains that approaching RPGs as adults gives far more room to relate to the complex topic of gender.

Uncertainty

Thomas Robertson discusses the distribution of control over aspects of play. The simplest structure is where a GM controls everything but the player's character's, and the players control their own character's internal lives. More complex distributions, such as shared world creation and rotating narration, help to make the gaps in this control more noticeable. He suggests that this uncertainty is valuable in play, especially when they remain unfilled, allowing us to retain a private interpretation.

Moral Growth

Victor Gijsbers discusses a moral effect of RPGs and stories in general, namely the ability to see other outcomes or explanations of the world around us. He suggests this enables us to choose a more charitable view of each other than our immediate instincts.