{"id":1221,"date":"2013-08-31T10:46:42","date_gmt":"2013-08-31T17:46:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.theamericancrawl.com\/?p=1221"},"modified":"2013-08-31T10:46:42","modified_gmt":"2013-08-31T17:46:42","slug":"same-table-different-game-role-playing-and-differentiation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theamericancrawl.com\/?p=1221","title":{"rendered":"Same Table, Different Game: Role-Playing and Differentiation"},"content":{"rendered":"

[This is likely one in a slew of forthcoming posts related to role playing games, learning, literacies, and performance. These are exploratory in nature and a space for me to write through some of the topics I\u2019ve been thinking about in this area. Feedback and pushback are welcomed.]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I\u2019m reading a recently released book about the history of Dungeons and Dragons<\/i><\/a> called Of Dice and Men<\/i><\/a> by David Ewalt. I appreciate the accessibility of the text as a way to describe what could<\/i> happen within a role-playing game. I think Ewalt\u2019s book offers a good introduction but will also likely be read primarily by people already intimately familiar with the polyhedral dice<\/a> and tomes of rules charts he carefully contextualizes; as accessible as the book is, it\u2019s not going to turn the world of gaming on its head. Which is tricky\u2026 because most people probably see D&D more like this<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A month or so ago, when I came home from an evening playing Pathfinder<\/em><\/a>, Ally asked me, \u201cSo, what do you do<\/i> when you play?\u201d I\u2019ve been struggling with an answer to this: I think there is an assumption that all role-playing looks like the live action sort a la Role Models<\/em><\/a>. And actually, I think the endearing, epic ending of Freaks and Geeks<\/i> is a good primer of what typical role-playing looks like. (Leave it to James Franco to help clearly explain nerd culture to the masses.)<\/p>\n