Role Playing Materials

Chapter 2

METHODOLOGY & THEORY

2.1 Introduction, or Following Materials to Multiple Role-Playing Game Sites

This book is about role-playing games, a genre of games played and enjoyed in various forms around the globe. Games are the central unit of analysis of game studies, a field which emerged at the turn of this millennium (Aarseth, 2001). Although the field focuses mainly on digital games, more and more researchers have been asking for the inclusion of analog games in recent years. These discussions take place among members of the Digital Game Research Association (DiGRA), the largest international academic association on games. As a pun, discussions about analog games bear the tag “GRA,” omitting the “Di” for Digital in the association name DiGRA. Additionally, journals have emerged that focus on non-digital games, such as Analog Game Studies (since 2014). When this study includes role-playing games with digital technology (Chapter 4) as well as those without the necessary use of computers (Chapters 3 and 5), it avoids the digital/analog dichotomy with an alternative theoretical and methodological toolset: actor-network theory. As an inter-disciplinary field, game studies draws theories and methodologies mainly from the humanities and social sciences, but few studies to date have worked with actor-network theory. In Chapter 4 of this dissertation, I discuss the dichotomy between digital and non-digital games, and explain my approach that includes digital and analog role-playing games. I return to game studies later in this chapter, but I need first to explicate how this study is situated in actor-work theory, and then introduce the relevant methodological principles in more detail.

The main methodological principle of actor-network theory is to “follow the actors,” so I had to go where “the structural effects actually [are] being produced” (Latour, 2005, p. 175). Since I was interested in those structural effects that produce role playing or make it work, I followed material actors to sites where they took part in three forms of role-playing games: larp, mixed reality role-playing games, and tabletop role-playing games.

I have been familiar with role-playing games as a player since the early 1990s. The first games that I played were on an Atari computer, such as Ultima Underworld: Stygian Abyss (Looking Glass Studios and Origin Systems, 1992) and Ambermoon (Thalion Software, 1993). In January 1995, I bought my first tabletop role-playing game Das Schwarze Auge (Schmidt Spiele / FanPro, 1992). Around this time, I read about larps that took place in the Czech Republic and were advertised in computer game magazines (PowerPlay, 1995). It was eleven years, however, before I participated in my first larp (Alcyon 10, Fantasiewelten e.V., 2006). In the meantime, my perspective on these games changed when I began to modify and design my own games. I changed from being a role-player to a designer. The first design attempt was a tabletop role-playing game in 1998. I involved myself in creating a fictional world that drew upon the works of fantasy literature and 19th century gothic novel. I then wrote several fantasy choose-your-own-path games for DOS with the Pascal programming language, and later I created mods for the computer role-playing game The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (Bethesda Softworks, 2006). Mods are software units that add content which “modifies” the core game. Moving on to designing larps, I co-organized Schwarzbernstein 1 (Utopion, Schwarzbernstein Orga, 2010) and wrote the mini larp Death Buddies about dying in contemporary Western society (2012).1 Compared to my background as a player, my activities as a designer have been limited, but they do provide me with a second perspective on the games that I studied for this book.

The field work for the three role-playing game forms provided a range of opportunities to study material actors in action. Each game session took from four hours (in the case of mixed reality role-playing games) to several days of constant play (in the case of larp). In total, I participated in hundreds of hours of different kinds of role playing from 2010 until 2014.2 During this time, I played each role-playing game form several times at different sites, because I wanted to compare how material work differs. Due to the amount and diversity of my participation, I classify this field work as multi-sited ethnography (Falzon, 2012; Marcus, 1995). Multi-sited ethnography encouraged me to visit multiple sites to uncover the spatio–temporal relationships between the three forms in order to deepen the understanding of role-playing processes and to observe how materials make them work.

I followed materials to sites before and after game sessions, because I was interested in further processes that related to sites of role playing. Some players spend hours on preparation during weekends and evenings. Following material actors to sites of discourse, where players discuss what they do to prepare game sessions or discuss past games, I learned about the demands of materials and gained considerable understanding of the negotiation work that is necessary to include materials. I observed these processes in meetings of players and on online platforms where they discuss and distribute knowledge, for example how to build and modify game materials. My engagement in online forums helped me to position myself “beyond mere observing or lurking” (Michielse, 2015, p. 35), because I was active in discussing hands on experience and theoretical knowledge about role-playing games.

I visited player, designer, and academic meetings dedicated to these games, taking me to the cities of Haarlem (NL), Tampere (FIN), Gothenburg (S), Helsinki (FIN), Offenbach (GER), Köln (GER), and Wiesbaden (GER). At conventions, where players and designers meet, I got in touch with key figures in the contemporary culture involved in the hobby. At these meetings, I participated actively in game sessions but also contributed in reflective discussions on role playing either by sharing preliminary results of this book or by presenting about topics of general interest, such as how to take pictures without disturbing players (Solmukohta, Helsinki, 2012). Being an active part of the processes of player, designer, and academic work allowed me also to observe different types of organizations and to take their point of view on role playing. The insights from these visits helped inform my thought processes in the following chapters, as I selected data about certain phenomena instead of others.

To strengthen my relations with the communities, I became a member of DiGRA in 2013. Within the German larp association Deutscher Live-Rollenspiel Verband (D.L.R.V.), I initiated the founding of the larp research group Deutsche Larp-Forschung in the same year. I established relations between international larp communities, tying East European organizers from Poland with German, French, and American organizers. Appendix A provides a list of conventions and conferences that I participated in.

In terms of following the actors, the question remains what I concretely did to trace material work at these diverse sites of role playing and discussion. The principle “follow the actors” necessitated my going to various sites where role playing happens, including living rooms, pubs (Zu den vier Winden, Bochum), former military areas (Utopion, Saarland, Germany), and youth hostels (Burg Bilstein, Sauerland, Germany). When I arrived there as a researcher, I had to participate in the game session, because role-playing games are rarely played with a non-participating audience. To trace material work in role-playing processes during game sessions, I drew upon the specifics of “follow the actors,” a concept rooted in ethnography (Latour, 1987, 1999). In the following sections, I elaborate upon this principle.

Section 2.2 introduces actor-network theory as the methodological and theoretical toolbox of this study, because I need to explain this study’s alternative take on games in more detail. I elaborate that actor-network theory should not be considered as a framework, but more of an infra-language that works only with empirical data. The section presents key vocabulary that helped me to write about the selected data in the three empirical chapters.

Section 2.3 elaborates on the specifics of the chosen ethnographic tools that helped me to work with actor-network theory during my multi-sited study. The tools included field notes and semi-structured interviews as the main categories of qualitative empirical data. At the end of this section, I elaborate on ethical considerations of this study.

Section 2.4 refines the vocabulary that I use in the following chapters by bridging the vocabulary of actor-network theory with concepts from role-playing game theory, which brings me back to game studies. Table 1 summarizes the refined vocabulary for the following chapters. Finally, I situate this study of materials in the wider field of game studies.

2.2 Introduction to Actor-Network Theory, or Building a Vocabulary

Having addressed what I did to select data when I followed materials to the three sites, the next question is how I selected and presented the results of data analysis. This is a question of how to talk about data. I suggest actor-network theory to...