Overview: Sociology and Role-playing Games
Welcome to our unit on Sociology and Role-playing Games! We have been focusing quite extensively on Psychology in these courses up until this point. In alignment with this course’s focus on communities, we will shift gears to consider role-playing through a sociological lens. We will examine sociological theories as they apply to RPGs. Then, we will discuss specific dimensions of social identity that can impact the experiences of role-players and community dynamics. While we have discussed some of these dimensions before with regard to game design and implementation, our focus in this Unit will be on considering how certain sociological factors can impact transformative processes positively and negatively. In our exploration of conflict transformation, will also discuss several additional dimensions of marginalization and privilege with The ‘Isms. Consider the ways in which these additional vectors of discrimination might impact members of role-playing communities.
In this Unit, we will cover:
- Sociology and role-playing games
- Social status
- Appearance
- Class
- Gender/Sexuality
- Race/Ethnicity
- The ‘Isms and conflict
Click here to access the ROCKET Studium page.
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Required Materials:
- Ford, Kol. 2020. “Mind the Gap: Barriers to Larping for People from Backgrounds of Structural Poverty.” Presentation at Solmukohta 2020. Nordic Larp. YouTube, April 10.
- Resolutions Northwest. 2020. “The ‘Isms.” Adapted from Equity-Informed Mediation Training by Austin Community College. Conflict Transformation Academy.
- Vanek, Aaron. 2015. “Behind the Larp Census: 29.751 Larpers Can’t (All) Be Wrong.” In The Knudepunkt Companion Book, 16-23.
- Williams, J. Patrick, David Kirschner, Nicholas Mizer, and Sebastian Deterding. 2018. “ Sociology and Role-playing Games.” In Role-Playing Game Studies: Transmedia Foundations, edited by José P. Zagal and Sebastian Deterding, 227-244. New York: Routledge.