Overview: Player Skills and Interpersonal Relationship Dynamics
Unit 7 Overview
In Unit 7, we will discuss the labor involved in play, not only in implementation, but specifically on the part of players. Participation in role-playing games is not a passive activity. As we have explored, it involves a certain degree of attention in order to achieve immersion. It also often involves other forms of labor, be it physical, emotional, intellectual, or professional.
In specific, we will discuss practical player skills, in particular: steering, working with plot, spotlighting, and playing to lift.
Steering is a method by which players make choices off-game that impact their actions within the game. We will read the original steering theory, then consider it with regard to Jonaya Kemper’s concept of liberatory steering as a transformational process. Steering is also an important tool for implementation, as it helps facilitators guide the game toward intended impacts.
Players can work with plot in a variety of ways that can move the game forward, slow it down, or stall it. Players can develop specific skills at working with plot, as well as involving other players, like volleying a ball back and forth as we will learn from Josefin Westborg’s article.
Spotlighting is a method of drawing attention through play, as well as passing that attention to other people. Players have different levels of confidence and skill at spotlighting; it is important to practice as players and especially as an active facilitator.
Playing to lift is a method of providing support for other participants. It can involve encouragement off-game or in-game, spotlighting in terms of giving their character moments to shine, etc. Playing to lift emphasizes not just one playstyle with regard to one’s personal experience, but emphasizes the interconnectivity between players within a system of play.
Along these lines, we will also discuss various factors pertaining to interpersonal relationship dynamics, both within and outside of role-playing games. We will explore role-playing games as a fundamentally relational activity. Most role-playing games involve extensive interaction between characters; even if the player is engaging alone, they are relating to some aspect of the game, the character, the environment, etc. Due to the high degree of surrender involved in creative play, role-playing games invite a certain degree of intimacy between facilitators, players, characters, and the game. Understanding relationship dynamics within games can help us steer toward transformative impacts both as players and as facilitators.
In this Unit, we will cover:
- Play as labor
- Steering
- Working with plot
- Spotlighting
- Playing to lift
- Interpersonal Relationship Dynamics
- Intimacy
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Note: Some of the materials below may not be available outside of this course. We are providing them as part of your education within this course. Do not distribute PDFs.
Required materials:
- Baird, Josephine, Sarah Lynne Bowman, and Kjell Hedgard Hugaas. 2022. “Liminal Intimacy: Role-playing Games as Catalysts for Interpersonal Growth and Relating.” In The Magic of Games, edited by Nikolaus Koenig, Natalie Denk, Alexander Pfeiffer, and Thomas Wernbacher, 169-171. Edition Donau-Universität Krems.
- Montola, Markus, Jaakko Stenros, and Eleanor Saitta. “The Art of Steering: Bringing the Player and the Character Back Together.” In The Knudepunkt 2015 Companion Book, edited by Charles Bo Nielsen, 94-105. Copenhagen, Denmark: Rollespilsakademiet.
- Vejdemo, Susanne. 2018. “Play to Lift, Not Just to Lose.” Nordiclarp, February 21.
- Westborg, Josefin, and Carl Nordblom. 2017. “Do You Want to Play Ball? How to Be a Good Team Player (in a Single-Team Player vs. Player Game).” In Once Upon a Nordic Larp… Twenty Years of Playing Stories, edited by Martine Svanevik, Linn Carin Andreassen, Simon Brind, Elin Nilsen, and Grethe Sofie Bulterud Strand, 130-140. Oslo, Norway: Knutepunkt.