The International Journal of Roleplaying is... might be best just to reference their website. My understanding was that it is a place to collect RPG theory and thought with a bit of peer review and the like. Not as exclusive to academia as some journals, but more than just a blog like... oh... this place.
Besides, I was at one point invited to write something for this Journal. Heaven knows what, I'm just a hobbyist with a few thoughts about game design. Not an academic with a ton of letters after my name (well, there are letters there if I wanted to show them- but I don't consider them impressive or related to game design).
So I downloaded the 71 page PDF to see what they had. Here are the titles of the included articles:
- Defining Role-Playing Games as Language-Games
- Playing House in a World of Night: Discursive Trajectories of Masculinity in a Tabletop Role-Playing Game
- Immersion as a Prerequisite of the Didactical Potential of Role-Playing
- Stereotypes and Individual Differences in Role-playing Games
- Sadomasochist Role-Playing as Live-Action Role-Playing: A Trait-Descriptive Analysis
On one hand, some of this (after stripping away the fancy language) is the type of stuff you see all the time online in RPG forums. Heck, they even note those same forums as references. It's just, well fancied up and made more colorful.
On the other, I don't recall ever trying to do a Trait-Descriptive Analysis of Sadomasochist Role-Playing: be it live or dead. Although now that someone has, I do wish a bit more for the release of death.
I'm sure those are all interesting subjects, to the authors and likely others. Eye opening to some even. So I'm really not calling their usefulness or relevance into question here. Nor even the IJoR itself, it is after all the sum of what articles were submitted. They have a rather open policy if anyone thinks they can do better- they are invited to try.
No, what I find interesting here is that these were the articles submitted and approved. And I wonder what it tells us of the hobby as a whole. Or maybe not the hobby really, but rather how the hobby is seen in the type of circle that would write for and publish the journal.
I don't think I like the picture.
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So in proper academic fashion I should keep my comments to myself until I've at least read the issue in question, then a sampling of other work by the same authors, and finally everything there is to read on all the topics presented, and then present my scathing rebuttal in impenetrable language in about 2-3 years.
Instead, going straight off those titles you offer, I'm thinking this is more about what's trendy in the humanities right now rather than what a pressing concern in RPGs. Gender studies has recently latched onto masculinity like it was a recent discovery, and the SM thing is bound to come up just because of the two meanings of the phrase "dungeon master." Actually, there probably is something interesting to be studied, viewing SM through roleplaying, given that there's a large and vocal non-SM roleplaying community to look at.
they even note those same forums as references.
Where else should they look? RPGs are just starting to appear in the academy, what other sources are there to cite?
how the hobby is seen in [fringe academia]
Yeah, well. Academics are in general insecure about their geekiness. Many are trying to establish some sort of cred, some aura of power or the ability to broker in out-groups (secretly I think this is what a lot of academic "political activism" is about - the search for relevance in wider society, or at least the semblance of it that can be brought back to the academic hearth). So if they write about something as geeky as RPGs they have to try to give it some edge, generally by importing it from somewhere else.
[what are pressing concerns in RPGs]
sorry, hasty typing. This journal has no editorial staff!
I agree with you about the subjects being what's trendy, and perhaps driven by the goal of gaining 'cred'. Some of these look like a duel purpose paper- something for a class that they also submitted to the journal.
References...
On one hand, you make a good point that there are few besides RPG forums. But better sources do exist. Blogs from real industry names for example, or even their actual published works. I imagine some would be willing to be interviewed for such a paper.
But I doubt they have much to say about masculinity or SM in role-playing. So those types of sources may be off the table.
For the record, richard, the supposedly nonexistant editorial board is listed here: http://marinkacopier.nl/ijrp/?page_id=20
And none of the papers are dual-purpose works. The great majority of what was submitted got weeded out as too weak, as is normal in any academic journal run properly.
On whether the authors (myself included) were trying to be "trendy", or just researching what they normally research, you can do your own legwork. ;)
Ah, I see the source of the misunderstanding re editorial board: I meant Whitehall Paraindustries has no editorial staff, allowing my mistyped comment through.
Whether the trendiness of the topic reflects on what you normally research or not has no real bearing: out of all the things one could possibly write about RPGs I note that these particular things are the same sorts of topics you'll find in lots of other journals right now. That's hardly surprising or noteworthy in itself. My point was that it's not special to RPGs, it doesn't necessarily reflect what RPGs are good for, academically.
I have a sense that you may feel insulted as an author of a paper I haven't read by my casual insinuation that academic writers seem often to seek credibility outside the academy and adopt a variety of poses to that end, but in fact I haven't insulted you. My point (made rather roundaboutly) in that last paragraph of the first comment was that in terms of general interest the academic market is as susceptible to fashion and charisma as any other. Papers with some sort of edge get wider readership. Papers that are simply and unabashedly about RPGs are unlikely to be seen as attractively edgy.
Ah, no risk of insults, richard.
All professional role-playing researchers either develop a thick skin to being dismissed by hobbyists as "pretentious" and academics as "apologetic" (or somesuch), and to hearing even approved PhD theses off-handedly dismissed as "undergraduate level work" by outsiders because they deal with role-playing. Or they burn out quickly. In this case, no such comments were even made.
My interest was solely in pointing out some apparent misconceptions in the above comments. The final value of each work as a contribution is up to each reader to decide, after the works have passed the peer review and made their way to print.
As for trends, it's a tricky issue: these are works that stay in review usually for a year at least, often longer. So no one can predict what appears on the market while they are being processed, especially at conferences.
And finally, on "Papers that are simply and unabashedly about RPGs are unlikely to be seen as attractively edgy." This depends strongly on content and publication channel. For example, Simulation & Gaming has featured many of those over its 40-year course as a top-tier game studies journal. IJRP, in turn, was founded so as to make it possible to publish articles about all sorts of role-playing - and get those peer reviewed by experts on that very subject.
Where I live, there no longer is an academic stigma for studying role-playing. Nor a social one for playing them. Makes it a lot easier for us to do both, while not paying so much attention to what sort of subject would please an editor.
On a further note, as someone recently (after issue 2, that is) chosen to join the editorial board, I'd like to ask the original post author about this:
"No, what I find interesting here is that these were the articles submitted and approved. And I wonder what it tells us of the hobby as a whole. Or maybe not the hobby really, but rather how the hobby is seen in the type of circle that would write for and publish the journal.
I don't think I like the picture."
Care to clarify what and why you dislike, as this is precisely the sort of thing that I, as an editor, would like to see addressed in future issues. What, in your opinion, is problematic in the current state of affairs?
@jiituomas: A fair question. That it would need to be asked points in itself to the answer.
This issue had five articles, of those are three (#2, 3, and 5) that I would view as forcing niche (and now traditional left wing academic activism) concerns from outside RPGs upon RPGs. Thus rather than studying or saying anything interesting about the games themselves- they are just using those games as an expansion of other battlefields.
I don't consider that so much invalid as a concept, as one that would better be handled in a journal more interested in the debates of Masculinity, Didactical Potential, and Sadomasochism. In the world of RPGs themselves- such things just aren't of much interest.
The Stereotype article is perhaps the best one of the set. Knowing who plays these games is a important step towards making games that speak to them. This article doesn't really do that, but it's a start.
What is interesting is that the article seeks to overturn gamer Stereotypes, but the previous three I mention above re-enforces the Stereotype of the gamer being a non-mainstream idealist (at best), more concerned with his own desires than anything else. This to the point where one article uses the writers own game design and campaign to make a general statement- frankly it tells us a lot about the writer and his group and nothing about RPGs.
Lastly the first article continues to play with defining what an RPG is. But does so in a way that doesn't seem to offer any practical use except to expand the term RPG to cover an ever increasing range. A goal that is completely unimpressive to me and one that I feel is counterproductive in the long run.
Still that debate is core to what the Journal is. And while I would have expected the editorial board to enforce a definition by what they choose to include, I can understand why that wasn't the case.
The result however is a poster child for vague and non-practical application of buzz words. The result is so wide that it says nothing. Definitions must exclude things to be meaningful and IMO the approach taken so far is simply wrong. Rather than seeking a definition for everything- it would be more useful to define the subtypes first.
To sum up- by subject, by method, and by tone the Journal risks only increasing the distance between theorists and the day to day gamer by ignoring their goals and play styles in favor of wide statements, niche gaming examples, and infusion of unrelated subject.
That such things would be considered valid RPG articles indicates to me that the Journal will only increase the now widespread opinion that theorists are out of touch with the mainstream of the hobby. This will in the end make it a classic example of the Ivory Tower mindset.
I see. This is one of the standard critiques seen over the years in both blogs and especially on the Forge forums. That the works lack practicality, which they indeed do. That's why there is a separate slot for design contributions in the journal too, but sadly it has not been used so far.
One thing that bears noting, though, is that by self-stated intent from the start, this is a journal of studying role-playing, including role-playing games. Not a journal of studying role-playing games. Therefore an article on psychodrama would fit its CFP just as well as one on Runequest. The editorial board thus indeed enforces a policy, one of being inclusive, and it does not appeal to you. Fair enough.
In the world around them, RPGs really aren't of much interest by themselves. The processes or social groups involved in them are.
@jiituomas:
"In the world around them, RPGs really aren't of much interest by themselves. The processes or social groups involved in them are."
I find that a very telling remark, as it admits that one's interest isn't in the games, how they're played, or how they are designed. But rather your interest is how you can use them to meet your social goals.
Most gamers couldn't care less about your social goals. And thus they won't care about your journal- either to read or to write for.
Likewise, this is where your own prejudice shows: The study of role-playing processes in order to understand them more thoroughly is in no way an external, ivory tower goal, despite repeatedly being perceived as such by people demanding familiar elements.
For the people who write these things on role-playing, the theory arises from their own design and play experiences.
But yes, case closed. I now know why the journal will probably never appeal to you, excluding the occasional design contribution that may appear. Thanks for responding.
Judgement, not prejudice. Although I know they no longer teach the difference, there is one.
Thanks for your time here.
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