0 (cont.):
So with highly constrained PCs, the eliciting of player desire must stem less from dramaturgical embodiment, and more from creative interpretation and meaning-making given the limitations. Finding agency and significance through a wall-PC requires contemplating one's place within systems beyond direct control.
Therefore, wall-RP games may reveal players' latent perspectives on powerlessness, or the virtues of embeddedness in community, or conceptualizing fulfillment despite restricted choices. The empty room becomes a meditative space to reframe assumptions of action and identity.
Unconventional PC embodiment compels more symbolic analysis from players, versus direct projection/exploration. But tabletop RP's capacity for illuminating latent desires still applies, simply through different techniques of defamiliarization, constraint and hermeneutic play. The room empties perception to allow for reconstructed identification.
To better illustrate the techniques by which experimental tabletop RP reveals latent player desires, let us consider an example game scenario using wall-PCs.
In this game, players create sentient wall characters for an empty tavern room set in a fantasy village. Through cooperative storytelling, the walls slowly piece together that the tavern has been attacked and abandoned. The walls can only perceive what occurs directly within the room, as well as muffled sounds from outside.