Deleted 78 days ago
Appendix A
More
The dictionary definition focuses on fantasy roleplay driven by game rules and chance. But the texts imply imagination need not be escapist - it can heighten our engagement with society. And rules/dice introduce unpredictability, but player creativity and ethics remain central.
Thus, tabletop RPGs facilitate collaborative trials of identity within bounded spaces. This process reveals multiplicity and interconnectedness, while avoiding total unselfing. Players project aspects of self onto roles, yet NPC interactions also externally reflect latent desires and conflicts. Though projection may raise imputation of qualities like agency, ultimately the game is an imaginative workspace for self-discovery, not literal embodiment. Or do they? (continue this thread…)
While fantasy scenarios can provide escapist entertainment, the shared storytelling also functions as metaphorical exploration of relationships and society. Rules introduce chance yet guide inquiry, while keeping player creativity primary. Or does it? (continue this thread…)
Tabletop roleplaying games constitute constrained workshops for identity play. This collaborative imagining can foster self-knowledge and empathy without branding or embodying a single self. RPGs thus craft spaces of guided imagination that illuminate the human experience. Or do they? (continue this thread…)
Tabletop RPGs reveal identity as multifaceted and fluid, not a singular fixed brand. By temporarily inhabiting fictional personas, players rediscover the diversity within themselves. PC interactions with imaginatively fleshed-out NPCs further reflect the self’s heterogeneous possibilities. Or do they? (continue this thread…)
Rules, chance elements, and gamemaster scenarios constrain yet focus collaborative imagining in RPGs. Unlike branding, this structure guides creative identity exploration rather than limiting it. The game’s constraints introduce unpredictability yet keep player agency primary. Or do they? (continue this thread…)
RPGs use fantasy and imagination not as escapism, but as a metaphorical language to better grasp relationships and society. Players gain emotional investment in fictional scenarios that then provide insight into the human condition. Imagination becomes a path to greater empathy and wisdom. Or does it? (continue this thread…)
By externalizing inner conflicts through NPC interactions in a low-stakes fictional space, RPGs allow players to safely encounter and integrate otherwise hidden aspects of self. The game becomes a crucible for catalyzing self-discovery through roleplay. It involves shared worldbuilding, not singular authorship. Meaning emerges through the interplay of multiple player perspectives. This models identity as co-constructed, woven from collaborative imagination. Unless it's not. (continue this thread…)
A shelf of games is a shelf holding technologies of the self-structured spaces for collaborative transformation. These imagination experiments subvert fixed identities, revealing us as co-authored perpetually in revision. The only limitation: permissions granted. Can it be? (continue this thread…)
Appendix B
Systemic Loyalty
As a carnivalesque inversion of branding's commodification of identity, the game state leaves liberated from online self-marketing players rediscovering play's sacredness.
Gaming frees identity from profit's narrowing matrices. The table redraws the map of being, rekindling lost existential pursuits. Stats, only there as ritual — to meet an equal and disperse. By uprooting us from habitual roles, RPGs expose identity's own rituals. We roleplay new possibilities of self and society, spirit and spirituality.
Unlike social media's dopamine treadmill of self-optimization cruxing virality, gaming fosters collective liberation approaching stillness. Here we roleplay the democracy we deserve into the state we don't.
RPG creativity guided by surprise creates fractures in the geode of the branded self. We glimpse self's broader vistas, resacralized.
Gaming has no winners, only co-existers mapping psychocartographic machinations. We are charged, to identity's continuum, reconnected.
Appendix C
Glossary of Terms
Monads and Foils
Monads are indivisible substances that each express the entire universe from their subjective viewpoints.
Foils are constructs that provide contrast to player character monads, revealing latent aspects through tension.
Foils reflect monadic perspectives back to the player for self-discovery.
The Empty Room
The empty room is a space devoid of predetermined constraints and narratives.
It allows free manifestation of monadic imagination and creativity.
The empty room represents a blank canvas for actualizing inner potential.
Blurring PC/NPC
In collaborative storytelling, PC and NPC roles can blend together.
NPCs can exhibit depth and agency, while PCs engage internal conflicts through external world foils.
This interplay elicits nuanced exploration of identity and desires.
Personalized Character Stats
Personifying PC stats and abilities as NPCs allows for embodied interactions.
Conversing with these inner facet characters provides self-reflection.
Externalizing and nurturing PC strengths and flaws manifests the player's aspirations.
Eliciting Latent Desires
Co-creative tabletop RP reveals players' unspoken needs and conflicts.
Roleplaying choices directly or symbolically engage with identity.
Games craft bespoke possibility spaces to actualize subjective passions and potentials.