Ars Erotica

2020 ◽  
pp. 112-149
Author(s):  
Christopher B. Patterson
Keyword(s):  
Video Games ◽  
Role Play ◽  
Mass Effect ◽  
Role Playing ◽  
Rule Based ◽  
Sexual Role ◽  
Power Differentials ◽  
Conditions Of Possibility ◽  
Material Process ◽  
Liberal Tolerance

This chapter compares narratives of digital utopia against the turgid material process of factory labor in Asia. It begins by exploring how role-playing video games like Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Guild Wars 2, and others shore up evidence for digital utopia by enacting its values of liberal tolerance, freedom, and egalitarianism within a virtual realm. Yet played erotically, role playing offers new connections between the empire and its Asian provinces through playing a role, an act characteristic of the power positions of sexual role play (domination and subjugation). Using Michel Foucault’s theories of ars erotica and aphrodisia, this chapter argues that role playing bounds the gamelike, the queer, and the erotic, as all develop rule-based fantasy worlds with hierarchized avatars or roles. Role play can make explicit the transnational power differentials that function as digital utopia’s conditions of possibility.

scholarly journals Dressing Commander Shepard in pink: Queer playing in a heteronormative game culture

2015 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tereza Krobová ◽  
Ondřej Moravec ◽  
Jaroslav Švelch
Keyword(s):  
Video Games ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Mass Effect ◽  
Role Playing ◽  
Same Sex ◽  
Mutual Exclusivity ◽  
Heterosexual Male ◽  
Imaginative Play ◽  
Gay Communities ◽  
Age Series

This article explores the strategies of queer playing of video games and their relationship to the heteronormative game culture. Its premise is that most video games are, either implicitly or explicitly, heteronormative and the inscribed player of such games is in the majority of cases a heterosexual male. In order to achieve the same level of identification with an avatar and to enjoy a similar gameplay experience as the heterosexual player, the LGBT player may have to deploy various strategies to challenge the game and work around it, or to find the LGBT content which some more progressive games offer. The study is based on in-depth qualitative interviews with six players (5 males and 1 female) who identified themselves both as homosexual and as players of the Mass Effect or Dragon Age series, games that include several opportunities to initiate same-sex romance. We have identified three different queer playing strategies: imaginative play (queer reading of unspecified or heterosexual characters), stylized performance (the use of gay stereotypes to mark one as queer) and role-playing of a LGBT character. However, players do not seek sexuality in games to the same extent as they do in film or TV, and they tend to use these strategies, and especially the latter two, reluctantly or with reservations. These reservations may be linked to our finding that LGBT players consider their gay (or lesbian) identities disconnected from their identities as players or gamers. This can be explained by the mutual exclusivity of gay communities and the heteronormative game culture.

scholarly journals Legens alvor. Styring i rollespillets læringspraksis

2016 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-73 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lotte Galløe
Keyword(s):  
Social Services ◽  
Role Play ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Management Training ◽  
Role Playing ◽  
Parent Management Training ◽  
Learning Technology ◽  
Advanced Form ◽  
The Social ◽  
Parent Management

Denne artikel beskæftiger sig med rollespil som en læringsteknologi. Artiklen stiller skarpt på rollespil som en nuanceret styring, der søger at fremme en særlig adfærd. Der argumenteres for, at rollespillet er et eksempel på en strategisk praksis, der fungerer ved at inddrage de lærende i påvirkningen af sig selv og hinanden. Gennem et feltstudie af et træningsforløb for forældre med udadreagerende børn er rollespil som læringsteknologi undersøgt. Med et foucaultiansk magtperspektiv belyses de specifikke teknikker, der gør rollespillet til en legende praksis, for siden at tillægge det en anden alvor. Artiklen viser, hvordan rollespillet tager form i samspillet mellem instruktører og forældre og viser sig virksomt ved at inkludere forældrene i udførelsen og omdirigere deres modstand. ENGELSK ABSTRACT: Lotte Galløe: Imaginary Real Life. The Governed Learning of Role Playing This paper examines role-playing as a learning technology. It focuses on role-playing, as employed in the social services, as an advanced form of governance aiming to produce a certain behavior on the part of the learners. Based on an ethnographic interpretation of Michel Foucault’s notion of power, the paper sheds light on role-playing in practice in Parent Management Training (PMTO) group sessions. Role-playing in PMTO exemplifies the use of particular techniques that shape role-playing as an imaginary game, and simultaneously ascribes it significance in real life. The article argues that role-playing’s apparent non-serious approach enables a strategic practice engaging the learners in the governing actions targeted towards shaping them as subjects. The paper shows how the techniques of enactment, instruction, and evaluation unfold by involving the parents in the performance. Finally the paper shows how resistance is rejected or adapted within the governing practice. Keywords: role-play, Foucault, governance, PMTO, learning.

What qualities can make TRPG more appealing to new players?

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Huayu Liu
Keyword(s):  
Video Games ◽  
Qualitative Analysis ◽  
Role Playing ◽  
Primary Language ◽  
Design Problems ◽  
Dominant Position ◽  
Design Elements ◽  
Board Games ◽  
Role Playing Games

<p>Tabletop role-playing games (TRPGs) have more than 40 years of history and have achieved far-reaching influence, especially in countries where English is the primary language. However, even though many new games appear every year, TRPGs still does not occupy a dominant position in the game market. Most gamers prefer video games and board games to TRPG. The aim of this project is to use qualitative analysis to investigate which parts of TRPG design prohibit players from engaging with TRPGs and then to create a novel TRPG that addresses these design problems. This project will combine newly formulated design elements into a game designed to attract new players and ensure that player engagement is sustained in subsequent play. The project focuses on the example of China, where many people play video games and board games, but few know about or play TRPGs. Therefore, this research will mainly study the gaming behaviour and feedback of Chinese participants to study what methods can attract Chinese players to TRPGs.</p>

The Persuasive Language of Action

2014 ◽  
pp. 113-129
Author(s):  
Martin van Velsen
Keyword(s):  
Video Games ◽  
Digital Video ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Role Playing ◽  
Human Experience ◽  
Digital Rhetoric ◽  
Current Generation ◽  
Role Playing Games ◽  
Body Of Knowledge

Besides the visual splendor pervasive in the current generation of digital video games, especially those where players roam simulated landscapes and imaginary worlds, few efforts have looked at the resources available to embed human meaning into a game's experience. From the art of persuasion to the mechanics of meaning-making in digital video games and table-top role playing games, this chapter investigates the changes and new opportunities available that can extend our understanding of digital rhetoric. Starting with a breakdown of the role of choice, workable models from psychology and the untapped body of knowledge from table-top role playing games are shown to allow game designers to enrich their products with a deeper human experience.

An Overview of Child Abuses in 3D Social Networks and Online Video Games

2012 ◽  
pp. 101-116 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miguel A. Garcia-Ruiz ◽  
Miguel Vargas Martin ◽  
Patrik Olsson
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Child Abuse ◽  
Video Games ◽  
Second Life ◽  
Virtual World ◽  
Child Pornography ◽  
Role Playing ◽  
Text Messages ◽  
Ethical And Legal Issues ◽  
Network Approaches

It appears that child pornography distribution and child abuses on the Internet have permeated to massively multiplayer online role-playing video games (MMORPG) and 3D social networks, such as Second Life (SL), a compelling online virtual world where millions of users have registered. Although SL is intended for general entertainment in its adult (over 18) version, cases of simulated pedophilia have been reported inside SL’s virtual world, generated by some of its users, employing SL communication capabilities to trade and show child pornography images to exchange related text messages. This chapter provides a literature review on child pornography in MMORPGs and other 3D social networks including SL, as well as policy and network approaches for overcoming child abuse. A review on ethical and legal issues of dealing with child pornography and other types of child abuse in 3D social networks and MMORPGs is also addressed in this chapter.

Does Anyone Really Identify with FemShep?

Gamer Trouble ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 137-170
Author(s):  
Amanda Phillips
Keyword(s):  
Video Games ◽  
Identity Politics ◽  
Mass Effect ◽  
Audre Lorde ◽  
Black Feminists ◽  
Diversity And Inclusion ◽  
The Future ◽  
Female Version

This chapter argues that we should understand identity in video games as a way to value incommensurable difference rather than organized diversity. It focuses on FemShep, the female version of the Mass Effect trilogy’s Commander Shepard, who became an icon of diversity and inclusion in conversations about video games. FemShep is not a fully realized woman in her own right, but a character designed as a man and minimally altered to become a “woman.” The chapter explores the ways that Mass Effect betrays these origins through improbable animations and relationship choices, comparing it to similar oversights in Lionhead Studios’ Fable 2, and then suggests that it is the fact that FemShep is not a fully realized character that makes her a useful rallying point for political gamers. The chapter closes by drawing from Black feminists Kara Keeling and Audre Lorde to propose that “unity in difference” is the future (and past) of identity politics, and that the individualist war hero so popular in video games is no way to implement a politics of coalition and justice.

scholarly journals Using virtual worlds for role play simulation in child and adolescent psychiatry: an evaluation study

2014 ◽  
Vol 38 (5) ◽  
pp. 204-210 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aaron K. Vallance ◽  
Ashish Hemani ◽  
Victoria Fernandez ◽  
Daniel Livingstone ◽  
Kerri McCusker ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Worlds ◽  
Learning Experience ◽  
Role Play ◽  
Role Playing ◽  
Evaluation Study ◽  
Child And Adolescent Psychiatry ◽  
Added Value ◽  
Nominal Group ◽  
Small Group Teaching ◽  
Role Play Simulation

Aims and methodTo develop and evaluate a novel teaching session on clinical assessment using role play simulation. Teaching and research sessions occurred sequentially in computer laboratories. Ten medical students were divided into two online small-group teaching sessions. Students role-played as clinician avatars and the teacher played a suicidal adolescent avatar. Questionnaire and focus-group methodology evaluated participants' attitudes to the learning experience. Quantitative data were analysed using SPSS, qualitative data through nominal-group and thematic analyses.ResultsParticipants reported improvements in psychiatric skills/knowledge, expressing less anxiety and more enjoyment than role-playing face to face. Data demonstrated a positive relationship between simulator fidelity and perceived utility. Some participants expressed concern about added value over other learning methods and non-verbal communication.Clinical implicationsThe study shows that virtual worlds can successfully host role play simulation, valued by students as a useful learning method. The potential for distance learning would allow delivery irrespective of geographical distance and boundaries.

Educational Games to Support Caring and Compassion Among Youth

2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-76 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sinem Siyahhan ◽  
Adam A. Ingram-Goble ◽  
Sasha Barab ◽  
Maria Solomou
Keyword(s):  
Video Games ◽  
Educational Games ◽  
Role Playing ◽  
Academic Learning ◽  
Design Work ◽  
Design Decisions ◽  
Future Directions ◽  
Work Identity ◽  
Design Elements ◽  
Role Playing Game

In this paper, the authors argue that video games offer unique and pervasive opportunities for children to develop social dispositions that are necessary to succeed in the 21st century. To this end, they discuss the design of TavCats—a virtual role-playing game that aimed to engage children (ages 9 to 13) in understanding, acting upon, and coming to value being caring and compassionate. The authors' discussion takes the form of a design narrative through which they explain the connections between their theoretical commitments and design decisions. Specifically, they review four design elements they utilized in their design work: identity claims, boundary objects, profession trajectories, and cyclic gameplay. The authors briefly share their observations from a pilot study with children in an afterschool setting to illustrate how their design work might be realized in the world. They conclude their paper with a discussion of the implications of their work for designing educational video games for supporting social dispositions as well as academic learning, and future directions.

The Influence of Role Play Teaching Technique on English Performance Among Learners With Hearing Impairment, Kenya

2021 ◽  
pp. 225-245
Author(s):  
Judith Opiyo Yabbi
Keyword(s):  
Hearing Impairment ◽  
Primary Schools ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Positive Impact ◽  
Role Play ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Role Playing ◽  
Effective Implementation ◽  
Teaching Technique ◽  
Secondary Materials

Role-play is a holistic pedagogy in teaching. The technique instills critical thinking in pupils, enhances emotional intelligence, and improves morality and forms of realism about information. The chapter examines the influence of role-play teaching technique on English performance among the pupils with hearing impairment in Kenyan primary schools. The chapter looks at several elements of role-playing such as games, real-life expression, imitation, positive impact, and the challenges facing the effective implementation of the use of role-play in teaching and learning in primary schools of learners with hearing impairment. This study is a desktop review and only relies on secondary materials. The literature was sourced in various databases. The review revealed that role-play improves the self-efficacy of the learner since the technique is grounded in reality. Learning is enhanced when the activities involved are memorable and engaging.

“They May Be Pixels, But They're MY Pixels:” Developing a Metric of Character Attachment in Role-Playing Video Games

2008 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 515-518 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melissa L. Lewis ◽  
René Weber ◽  
Nicholas David Bowman
Keyword(s):  
Video Games ◽  
Role Playing
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