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Ritual Discourse in Role-Playing Games

by Christopher I. Lehrich <clehrich@bu.edu>

Introduction

Theoretical analysis of RPG's remains largely cut off from other theoretical discourses, a situation that tends of itself toward sterility. Two reasons for this isolation predominate. First, RPG theorists come from a wide range of educational backgrounds, and as such have no shared body of theoretical models or discourse on which to draw. Second, RPG theory hopes to serve a constructive function, rather than a purely analytical one: where the anthropologist for example traditionally understands herself as necessarily exterior to the people and situations she analyzes, the RPG theorist wishes to employ the results of his analysis to improve his own gaming.

The former difficulty need not concern us unduly. So long as theoretical models from outside current RPG discourse receive adequate formulation and explication in RPG terms, only an a priori hostility to other theoretical constructs would dismiss them out of hand. It is worth considering that such hostility does appear mutual -- that is, much RPG discourse formulates itself in opposition to academic theoretical discourse, while many academics continue to express disdain and scorn if not outright hostility for role-playing games as an activity -- but resolution of this can only come about in a historical situation as yet hard to imagine. Thus I shall set the issue aside, stating only that I intend to explain fully whatever theoretical constructs I deploy.

The second problem, however, inheres in the nature of RPG's themselves. A purely theoretical analytical model of RPG's, i.e. one without any practical application whatever, will generally be received poorly, if at all, within RPG communities. Indeed, even RPG theorists who go to considerable lengths to formulate the practical implications of their models are sometimes derided as airy pseudo-intellectuals. Fortunately, some recent RPG publications by members of the theoretical community have received accolades,[1] and this will presumably have the long-term salutary effect of legitimizing theoretical work within the hobby at large.

At the same time, analyses of RPG's have come to formulate practical, essential divisions and categories, and argued that these may be unbridgeable. For example, Ron Edwards's tripartite GNS model rests upon the notion that the three categories must remain discrete in order to avoid paradigmatic clash and attendant misunderstandings among players, leading in turn to poor play. That is, a group of players with strongly Narrativist tendencies should be wary of playing a strongly Gamist-structured game, or introducing into the group a player with such an approach. While "hybrids" -- games that effectively serve more than one of the three major play-types -- are conceived as possible, a central point for Edwards is that Narrativist-oriented play is not well-suited to Gamist-oriented games, and that groups who attempt such may need to revise the game extensively to fit their needs. Similarly, a single player who cannot conform to the paradigmatic norms of the group in which she plays will probably find herself continually at odds with other players, leading to social conflict; this player would be best advised to find another game.[2]

In his recent article "Story and Narrative Paradigms in Role-Playing Games,"[3] John Kim argues that underlying such categories we find two approaches: "Collaborative Storytelling" and "Virtual Experience." These tend, like Edwards's categories, to remain divided. In what Kim calls "Paradigm Clash," we find a naturally-occurring conflict between perspectives:

To the storytelling point of view, the experiential view seems to result in an unnecessarily limited set of techniques. . . . Experiential play may also seem passive, letting events happen rather than actively controlling them. . . . [Conversely,] To the experiential point of view, storytelling play seems to be creating a product for a nonexistent reader. . . . Experiential players faced with storytelling play may complain about breaking suspension of disbelief, or lack of depth.

Conflict arising from disjuncture, narrative or otherwise, is not only theoretical. Most gamers have experienced it, and one great strength of Edwards's model (derived from the earlier Threefold Model developed in the Advocacy newsgroup[4]) is to emphasize recognition and classification as means to avoiding the problem. In both his and Kim's models, players and groups who recognize their preferences in a categorical sense can select games to fit their desires, or revise them so, leading to enjoyable play with a minimum of fuss and trouble.

While I support this general constructive point, and do not presently wish to challenge the classification itself (a much-contested issue), I suggest that a hard-line division within analysis leads toward weaknesses in a general understanding and formulation of how RPG's really function. By drawing on some theoretical models outside of RPG's, I would like to propose a more unified model of RPG narrativity.

A word about practicality: I do not, in the present article, formulate the practical implications of this model for game design or play. I do not see this as a weakness in itself: if the model serves analytically, it can have synthetic value. But the two operations have at least a notional distinction, and can operate well in isolation. If theory must face a practical proof-critique, then all analysis is already crypto-synthesis; logically speaking, there is thus insufficient distance postulated to ensure the validity of the analysis. In short, without the ability to distinguish at least heuristically between theory and practice, theoretical work can never have real logical force, lending weight to the criticisms mentioned at the outset.

A further point: I intend to propose a ritual model for RPG play, based upon recent understandings of ritual within the academic discourses of anthropology, sociology, and history of religions. This model would appear to fall squarely into the common discourse of analogy as theory, of proposing that RPG's are "like" something else in order to help emphasize a point otherwise unclear. Such analogical reasoning is founded upon an essential methodological principle: the analogy is not identity. Thus response to the proposal is constrained to two related moves. On the one hand, one may move to expand the analogy, picking up additional aspects of the metaphorized object or activity and further relating them to RPG's; on the other, one may move to limit the analogy, demanding that the metaphor not be taken to the point of absurdity.[5]

Some find this mode of analysis useful, primarily in a creative sense. If one "gets" the analogy, in its logical extension and intension, one thinks about the hobby in a somewhat new way, perhaps leading to new creative engagement with design or play. But if one does not "get" the analogy, the tendency, naturally, is to dismiss it as unhelpful, or to reformulate it endlessly until one does "get it." Either way, the reason to analyze such a metaphor is generally synthetic, to create new ways of engaging with the hobby. In other words, the proposal of yet another analogy serves no analytic function.

In proposing a ritual model of RPG's, I do not wish to add another analogy to the lists. I do not mean that RPG play is like ritual at all; I mean that it is ritual. Therefore classical and recent tools of ritual analysis apply fully to RPG's, for analytical purposes, for making sense of RPG's as something other than an entirely isolated hobby, indeed for seeing RPG's as a human cultural product not particularly distinctive to modern society. If to some this seems a claim that RPG's are not special and extraordinary, I suggest on the contrary that this grants to RPG's a legitimacy and "specialness" attendant upon their roots in wider humanity and culture.[6]

Ritual

An obvious first step in proposing this model is the formulation of a definition of ritual. Unfortunately, perhaps, such definitions have been the focus of extensive debate for more than a century now, with no clear end in sight. More models have been proposed of what ritual "is" than many readers might believe. I have no intention of summarizing this whole history; I will instead simply propose a starting-point.

The above-mentioned disjuncture between "Collaborative Storytelling" and "Virtual Experience" parallels, in a number of respects, two recent emphases in ritual theory.

Virtual Experience correlates well with Ronald Grimes's and Victor Turner's focus on "performance," which ultimately amounts to a notion of total involvement in ritual activity.[7] In ritual, according to this perspective, humans engage the totality of hearts, minds, and bodies, setting them to work creatively and dynamically to produce effects within the social and mental worlds of the participants. Thus in zazen (Sitting Zen), one does nothing but sit, generally in an approved posture; one's mind and heart should be similarly focused on nothing but sitting, not in the sense that one should think continuously, "I'm sitting," but rather that one's mind should be in a state parallel to the body's state, thinking nothing, resting, yet remaining alert and awake, receptive to outside contact. In the Catholic Eucharist (Mass), to take a quite different sort of example, liturgical tradition emphasizes that the communicant should be fully involved in the process, such that when the miraculous transformation of the substance of wafer and wine (Transubstantiation) occurs, and when in fact the communicant receives these into the mouth, it is not only one's body that receives the body and blood of Christ, but the totality of body, mind, and soul. Thus this understanding of ritual emphasizes what in RPG terms is called "immersion," a total involvement in the activity. Failure on this score would be seen as ineffective (zazen), impious (Eucharist), or shallow (RPG).

The Collaborative Storytelling model is less obviously commensurate with a ritual model. Two directions, however, support this formulation. First, there is Claude Lévi-Strauss's structuralist interpretation of mythic and ritual thought as bricolage, and second, there is the movement largely associated with Pierre Bourdieu, Sherry Ortner, and Catherine Bell toward understanding ritual as "practice" (or "praxis" in the more overtly Marxist formulations).[8]

Lévi-Strauss's idea, in simple terms, is that cultures think like oddly artistic hobbyists. [9] Imagine you have a basement full of stuff from which to build whatever you like. You have bits of old machines, things your neighbors threw out, scraps of wood, and tail-ends of old projects, as well as the taken-apart bits of all your old projects. Now you decide to build something, and you have some ideas -- aesthetic and practical -- about how that should be done; you are very skilled and talented, and can see possibilities in all sorts of things. But you do not have a Home Depot available, or you consider it "cheating" to go buy things. At any rate, you have to build the thing you're going to build from what you already have in your basement.

A nice example is a Rube Goldberg cartoon, though those are deliberately silly. You fly a kite, and the kite string pulls a lever, and this pushes an old boot, and that turns on your iron, and the iron burns some old pants, and smoke goes into a tree, and.... A brilliant example is the recent Honda advertisement called "the cog," which can readily be found on the Internet.[10] The point is that one constructs an elaborate machine out of bits and pieces already owned.

Lévi-Strauss's point is that each object used contains its own history; that is, the iron has already been used for something and the bricoleur then gives it a new use. The iron, to focus on the single example, is a local source of heat; it can burn pants, or make a grilled-cheese sandwich, and of course can press a shirt. But it cannot be a refrigerator. And if, clever person that you are, you pull the heating coil out of the iron for some project that requires a heating coil, your iron now contains the history of its usage: it is now a heating coil and a heavy weight.

Every sign in myth and ritual, says Lévi-Strauss, is like this iron, and every living mythic culture is like this bricoleur. When faced with a (social) situation, an intellectual problem of whatever kind, the bricoleur begins by running through his memory (the basement) to see what he already has that can be used to solve the problem. He then builds the machine that solves the problem, in the process incorporating the entire history of every object in question, and furthermore altering (however slightly) each object so used; when he goes to build something else, later on, the current project will be part of the history of each object.

Technically speaking, every sign is thus constrained and yet free. On the one hand, it is not constrained to the degree of a percept, a particular contingent mental encounter with an actual object; this percept is what is called a "perception" in the formalist model to which Kim refers. A percept is entirely constrained, because when a person looks at a given object on two successive occasions, his or her mental equipment has altered -- to use a cliché, one cannot enter the same river twice. At the same time, a sign is not fully liberated, as is a concept, an idea arising in reaction to a particular person's connections to a percept: when I look at the lamp on the table, I may think of my grandmother (who perhaps owned a similar lamp), and thus "grandmother" is a legitimate conceptual link, but no such connection may arise for you, and even if it did, it would be a different grandmother. So a sign (Lévi-Strauss means the Saussurean version of the sign) is both constrained (the iron cannot be a refrigerator) and free (it can do a whole range of things involving local intense heat). In Lévi-Strauss's linguistic analogy, this iron is a sign in the same way as a word is: the word "iron" can mean a range of things (the metal, the instrument) but it cannot mean anything at all. Furthermore, this word only acquires meaning by its relations to other words: if I say "iron," you do not know until I go on with "a pair of pants" what sort of meaning I intend, even whether it is a verb or a noun.

The other approach I want to bring up, "practice" theory, arises from a number of rather technical difficulties with structuralism, and amounts to an attempt to understand manipulation of signs and symbols in strategic yet controlled ways. With respect to ritual, practice theory argues for a continuity among behaviors, as against the disjuncture of ritual from other modes of action. The signs used in ritual, that is, acquire meaning from their extra-ritual contexts, and furthermore the special meanings accorded to them in ritual carry over into other modes of life.

From a practice perspective, every ritual contains within itself a number of structures, just as in structuralism; these structures are in essence the Rube Goldberg machines constructed by the bricoleur. As we know from Lévi-Strauss, the iron can be replaced by any other source of local heat, since its only function in the machine in question was to create smoke by burning a pair of pants. Thus the machine has a structure, requiring a number of elements, but the specifics of which objects or signs are used to fill those element-slots are open. What interests practice theorists is strategic choice: how do people decide whether to use an iron or a space heater?

Broadly, the question in practice theory is how people choose, from a limited range of culturally-available options, which techniques to apply at a given moment. This depends on strategy: we want to maximize rewards in a specific situation. But in order for strategy to work, we have to play the game; that is, one cannot go outside the structure of the system to manipulate signs as one likes, because to do so annuls the power of the strategy in the first place. Thus every strategic use of signs is at once a free, liberated exercise of power by a situated person, and at the same time a contribution to keeping the system stable and intact without significant change. The possibility of real change is thus undermined by the very strategies which seek to change the system, because they depend for their efficacy upon the structures in question.

If the dichotomy between virtual experience and collaborative storytelling parallels that between performativity and what we might call the practice of bricolage, as yet this parallel serves no analytical or synthetic function; it is once more an over-theorized and over-determined metaphor. In addition, it is as yet under-explained, in that the theories may be formulated but their application to the specific situation of RPG's is not yet clear. In short, while we can see a parallel division within both the two discourses and the two modes of behavior, this does not answer the question: why are RPG's ritual?

Semiotic Modeling of Ritual and RPG

I have noted that Kim's use of the formalist perception-discourse-conception model parallels the semiotic or structural percept-sign-concept model. The difficulty with the formalist model for this purpose, however, is that it is focused primarily on an interpretive perspective, in which the analyst stands in a perceptive relationship to a givendiscourse; like the circular model in hermeneutics,[11] the central issue is how an interpreter can make sense of a discourse already present, how we approach meaning through interpretation of texts and signs already distant from their producers (authors). Thus a central preoccupation of both formalist analysis and of hermeneutics has been the analysis of ways in which the reading situation is not conversational, in which reading a text is not having a conversation with the author. But in RPG's, the situation is normally conversational in an obvious sense, and thus this mode of analysis focuses on problems seemingly distant from those in RPG's.

The structural model of signification, from which the practice theory also arose, is by contrast primarily concerned with the use of signs by a current producer, a situation more obviously commensurable with RPG play. The question, in short, is not how players read a text produced for them by a game-master, but rather how the whole group in combination produces signs and texts that they themselves read. The structural model of signification fits well here, as the primary issue is to understand ritual or mythic activity as a mode of discourse production.

In ritual, participants manipulate a range of signs within a constrained structure. That structure can change through such manipulations, but only within narrow limits. Every Catholic Eucharist differs significantly, in that the place, people, and physical environment of the ritual vary, but this variation is officially read by participants as within a fixed structure. The post-Vatican II use of the vernacular in the Mass, for example, was at once a major transformation of the structure of the ritual, and at the same time theorized as not radically transformative: even in the vernacular, according to the Vatican II council, the Eucharist retains its sacramental efficacy. From a semiotic perspective, the linguistic alteration represents a new negotiation of liturgical language as a discrete sign, where Vatican II agreed that the differences between Latin and the vernacular should not be understood as an essential structure of the ritual, but rather a relatively arbitrary sign amenable to conversion without undermining ritual structure itself.

At this same level of semiotic manipulation, we can see in RPG reconstruction and revision a parallel analytical discourse. Taking to its extreme the Edwards et al. formulation that "system matters,"[12] the claim is a clearly structuralist one: transformation of system elements in RPG's effects concomitant transformation of gameplay and orientation. For example, a combat system dominated by so-called "realism", usually meaning a high prioritization of real-world simulation in modes of action and effects of violence, is not a discrete sign that may be removed from a given game and replaced with an entirely stylized, anti-"realist" combat system. Because such a system element is structural, it links to all other parts of the total game structure and its transformation thus strongly affects the whole. Mike Holmes has made this point well, arguing that a "realist" combat system colors the whole game, such that all activity occurs with reference to such a preoccupation with violence;[13] as Kim puts it,

[E]ven if a gun is never fired during the game session, the mechanics for that [weapon] may influence the story -- because they shape how the player conceives of guns within the fictional world. If the mechanics make all guns exceptionally deadly, it increases the tension in a scene where a gun appears even if the gun is never fired.

Thus the "system does matter" principle argues that system elements are motivated signs, and thus contain structure; their transformation affects the totality of the structure.

Between the Vatican II approach to language and the Forge approach to system, however, we must recognize that the difference is not absolute; furthermore, the distinction drawn is ideological, not "factual." There can be no question, for example, that the use of the vernacular in Catholic Mass has significantly changed the ways in which Catholics experience the ritual; indeed, were this not so, there would have been no reason to make the change in the first place. Vatican II asserted a matter of aesthetic and theological priority: however far-reaching the effects of this transformation, they argued, the essential core of the ritual (transubstantiation in a broad sense) would not be affected, and whatever aesthetic loss of force might be entailed by the loss of the affective qualities of Latin (as traditional, foreign, ancient, powerful) would be more than made up for by gains in broader spiritual involvement (through understanding the liturgy intellectually, thus affectively through content rather than through an aura of ritualism). Indeed, Martin Luther's move to the vernacular was intended partly to combat the affective dimension of Latin as itself powerful, arguing that this amounted to a kind of fetishism or idolatry: the focus should be, he thought, on the content of the words spoken, rather than on their linguistic medium.

In Forge RPG theory, conversely, there is an implicit distinction between system elements and other elements. It is certainly plausible that the radical transformation of the combat system of Dungeons and Dragons from the AD&D system to the recent d20 system considerably changes all elements of gameplay, even those not overtly connected with combat; to replace the combat system with a more freeform model akin to The Pool would presumably effect further changes. But first of all, it seems clear that transforming other elements of the game (setting, background, character generation) would also entail drastic concomitant changes in gameplay; for example, d20 games not based on Dungeons and Dragons genre and story conventions exist in considerable numbers, and certainly do not play exactly the same way as does Dungeons and Dragons. In short, it is unclear how one is to classify elements into arbitrary and motivated, into those which can be shifted without large-scale structural effects and those which cannot.[14]

More interestingly, RPG theorists (taken in the broadest sense) generally make a series of divisions among elements in their games, and implicitly argue for relative arbitrariness. That is, the notion that a "combat system" is in any sense a discrete element, a discrete structure, should not be accepted uncritically. If the Forge "system matters" principle argues that even apparently discrete structures like this are motivated and not arbitrary, we must recognize that this presumes a tendency to see such systems as arbitrary, that they are apparently discrete. By emphasizing that "system" is motivated and structural, the Forge theorists further suggest a prioritization of elements, where motivation is taken as superior to arbitrariness, so that theoretical analysis and synthesis should focus on structure rather than sign. To put this differently, it is implicit that RPG's consist of a vast group of interrelated elements, falling into a natural hierarchical order; those nearest the trunk of the tree, as it were, are relatively motivated and theoretically important, while those nearest the branch-tips are more arbitrary and of lesser theoretical weight.

At the same time, few would argue that the arbitrary, non-structural signs are trivial or unimportant. Such arbitrary elements as Color (essentially affective set-dressing in imagined space) or snack choices by players are not irrelevant, and may in particular instances be elevated to structural elements: the game-concept Long Pig The Role-Playing Game made snack choice and usage into a system element, while Ars Magica troupes interested in medieval history may make set-dressing a primary focus for play.[15] But the claim is that it is by shifting such elements from arbitrary to motivated, from incidental to system, that they become analytically important; in general, the analyst does not focus classification on such elements, but rather begins with system.

The important point here is that whether the issue is the relative weight of meaningful dimensions of liturgical language or the classification of structural elements in RPG's, the understanding is in both cases ideological, intended not only to classify and analyze the ritual in question but also to emphasize and push for improvement in the activity, thus making normative claims about what the ritual should be about. Precisely at this point, predictably, the ideological weapon of "practicality" often comes into play in RPG discourse: because a more purely analytic classificatory model (e.g. the polythetic comparative model proposed for the humanities by Jonathan Z. Smith[16]) eschews normative claims in the form of practical suggestions for game design or ritual construction, the RPG theorist codes such classification as impractical, thus valueless. This is equivalent to a Catholic liturgist saying of an academic theorist's analysis that it is irrelevant because it does not help formulate new dimensions in Mass. For the academic, however, this is precisely the point: she may be interested to see the results of her analyses serving a constructive use to the liturgist, she does not wish to impose her perspective upon those she studies. Ronald Grimes, for example, believes deeply that ritual theory can be of constructive value for people seeking to formulate or reformulate their rituals, but as a rule he does not tell them how to go about it.[17] A ritualist who denounces Grimes for not proposing a "how-to" makes an entirely ideological -- and ultimately incoherent -- claim: if Grimes does not propose a "how-to," his work is useless; if on the other hand he does tell ritualists how to "fix" their rituals, he will (and should!) be denounced for telling others what they ought to believe.

I have come a long way around, but the notion of RPG's as ritual can now be asserted directly. Between RPG theory and RPG practice there exists a dynamic relationship structurally identical to that between the theory and practice of ritual within lived ritual communities. RPG theory, by this logic, is only commensurable to academic theory and analytical method through a deeper and more complex formulation; a relatively direct correlation links RPG's to rituals in their actuality.[18] In order to recognize this link, we must accept the duality of theory and practice as integral to ritual performance itself; in other words, rituals are not actions or activities performed in isolation from their cultural worlds, but rather performances related to theoretical concerns in the same way as game-play relates to the theory and system-construction that surrounds it.

To put this differently, and more specifically, RPG play enacts theory, in the sense that standing behind and prior to play is a series of theoretical constructs: system design, GM notes, pre-play agreements and social contract, genre expectations, and other theoretical tools. From this perspective, RPG play acts out this prior structure; this is equivalent to the old reading of ritual as acting out a liturgical text. At the same time, the prior structure is to a degree open to challenge within game play, and furthermore does not fully constrain particular game actions, determining a range and a set of priorities rather than laying out a script. As has been recognized for some decades now, the same can be said of the most formal ritual: within apparent constraint there is scope for contestation, not only of the various issues and questions related to a particular ritual's situation within the social context, but also of the ritual itself with all its symbols.

Nevertheless, these two views are always in dynamic, creative tension: the available range of manipulations of ritual signs stands within a structural context only slightly accessible to interior challenge. For example, radical transformation of Catholic liturgy cannot proceed from within ritual performance itself, while small-scale local transformation and contestation are fully expected. Radical transformation of liturgy, as we have seen with Vatican II, must come from a theoretical discourse exterior to performance. Conversely, such discourse acquires its ability to challenge ritual structurally by sacrificing its analytical and normative force at the local level; that is, while Vatican II could change liturgical language, a structural change not available to a given congregation at the moment of performance, the congregation can manipulate particular performances to effect social meanings inaccessible to the Vatican. For example, a particular wedding ritual may be used, at a given moment and in a particular contingent historical situation, to enable deep consideration within the congregation about the traditions of marriage, divorce, and childbirth; these same issues can be discussed by the College of Cardinals, as indeed they are, but not at the level of particular people in particular time, since they can only formulate principles and cannot apply them individually.

Precisely the same dynamic obtains in RPG discourse. While a given structural situation of notes, game system, theoretical models, and so forth formulates a contextual model within which play occurs, such structures do not extend to the level of individual particularity that is central to play experience; that is, no game structure can be so logically intensive as to dictate every action and speech by every participant at all times, because to do so (even were it possible) would annul the entire nature of the game as game. In fact, this limitation of theoretical efficacy is granted the status of a virtue in Forge theory, through the double formulation of "practicality" as a rational anchor and the hierarchization of the relative motivation of system structures as relative theoretical importance. Not surprisingly, we find that the usual model of RPG discourse has it that performance (play) is the "real" anchor of RPG's, and that theory is understood by its proponents as a potentially liberating source of creativity and energy for "real" play.

Liminality in Ritual and RPG: Preliminary Classification

If we recognize in RPG's a dynamic interaction of theoretical and practical reason, between structure and event, it is not clear how within the practical sphere the active, strategic manipulation of signs actually works. That is, we have seen that in religious ritual, situated people deploy signs and structures within the context of larger, only partly flexible structures, and that RPG play stands within a similar context; we need now to understand how RPG players manipulate signs and structures for strategic reasons, and how such strategies are both free and subject to constraint.

For this purpose, I would like to propose a specific analogy, that of RPG play to a particular mode of ritual behavior. At the outset, however, I should note that this is analogy and not identity; that is, while RPG is (and is not merely like) ritual, it is nevertheless a distinct and specific kind of ritual, one with no exact equivalent in other ritual spheres. Thus this analysis must be effected within a deliberately constrained comparative model, in order to evade the methodological problems attendant upon the loose metaphoricities described in the introduction.

Every modern scholar of ritual is familiar with the liminal model of rites de passage (passage-rites), originally proposed by Arnold van Gennep in the eponymous book, and elevated to a critical analytical model in especially the earlier work of Victor Turner.[19] In its classic formulation by van Gennep, such passage-rites as initiations consist of three stages. First, the neophyte is separated from the symbolic and social structures which normally surround him; second, the neophyte passes through a liminal phase, in which a series of new and powerful symbols known as sacra are presented to the neophyte for consideration and reflection; and finally, the neophyte is aggregated back into the social structure, now in a new status.

For example, in boys' puberty initiations, the boy is removed from boyhood and society in general, perhaps secluded in a special initiation hut or otherwise physically removed; in addition, he is visibly marked as unclassified, e.g. having his head shaved, being painted black or white, stripped of clothing, and so forth. Once separation from boyhood has been effected, the neophyte is in a condition of liminality, "betwixt and between," neither this nor that; neither boy nor man, he is unclassifiable, a condition generally expressed through symbols marking status as not participating in even a larger range of classes: he may be dressed as an androgyne, marking him as neither male nor female (and both); he may be forced to lie on the ground in a posture normal for corpses, marking him as neither dead nor alive (and both); and so forth.

In this liminal phase, various sacred symbols (sacra) are presented to the boy and his co-initiates (such initiations usually involve several boys at once), in the form of monstrous and bizarre masks, objects, or behaviors, presented to the neophytes by already-initiated men. All these signs serve as objects of thought, and are commonly distorted to emphasize reflection on particular issues; for example, a figurine or dancing costume might be shrunken and blurred in all its parts, but bear a wildly exaggerated phallus, encouraging reflection on sexuality and male sexual identity.

In an example discussed by Turner,[20] Bemba girls are presented with an earthenware figurine of an exaggeratedly pregnant woman who carries four infants, two at her equally exaggerated breasts and two on her back; other features of this figure (arms and legs, for example) are shrunken to stubs. The figurine in this case is accompanied by a riddling song about a mythical midwife, and initiated women say the riddle's point is straightforward: Bemba tradition demands that after giving birth women abstain from sexual intercourse for a year. But a woman's husband may object to this, and one's mother or mother-in-law may also demand that the young woman get pregnant again, as the older woman wants grandchildren and the husband wants sexual satisfaction. The point of the sacrum, then, is that a wife who does not respect the tradition of abstention will become like the figurine, dominated to destruction by babies and their care. However much a woman may wish to give in to her husband or mother -- or her own desires -- she must abstain. Thus the use of exaggerated symbols in the liminal phase focuses attention on traditional culture, its reasons and purposes, and ultimately promotes conformity.

Once this instructional phase has concluded, aggregation usually begins with more or less permanent markers of the new status, followed by social presentation of the neophyte to the relevant communities (initiates, then society at large). For example, a boy may be circumcised, marking him permanently as an initiate (thus fully male), then dressed in men's clothing (not unlike the old British practice of a boy's changing permanently from short to long pants); the initiates are then presented to the men, who welcome them into the men's longhouse or equivalent male structure from which they were previously forbidden, and they depart this house to be greeted by the women of the community as men rather than boys.

The emphasis in the current analysis is, as for Turner, the liminal. There is no difficulty spotting separation and aggregation in RPG's. Depending on a particular group's habitual practices and preferences, separation may begin at the front door of the host's house or apartment; this is particularly apparent in more LARP-oriented play, where entry into the broadly-defined play space is marked by a transformation of manner and affect, even of clothing. But the most limited table-top play generally marks a separation between game-play and out-of-game behavior. This is perhaps most obvious negatively, in objections to players who do not focus on the game and continually introduce "irrelevant" topics (television shows, video games, current events, etc.) into play.

I have marked the term "irrelevant" with quotes for a reason: these topics are only irrelevant if and to the degree that a given group marks them so, a point generally negotiated through piecemeal social contract means. The LARP example, as an extreme of the Virtual Experience model, may tend to object to any introduction of topics or behaviors not previously formulated as "in-game." A smaller-scale variant of this general dynamic is the issue of "in-character" as distinct from "out-of-character": in some groups, speech should be performed in-character, in that anything said by a given player should be taken as the speech of that player's current character; sometimes this takes the form of linguistic constraint, notably the demand that players speak of their characters in the first person rather than the third.

At a more strategic level, groups may make a sharp distinction between in-character and out-of-character knowledge, raising as a problem whether a player may act in-character upon knowledge presumably not available to his character. That is, if Alan (playing Thror the Barbarian) knows that Marler the Wizard (played by Barbara) has been captured by an evil sorcerer and is held in a deep dungeon below the castle in which Thror now stands, and Alan knows this because as a player he was present when Marler/Barbara was captured, but Thror was not on the scene and thus has no particular way to know what has occurred, a group must consider whether Alan may have Thror head for the deep dungeon to rescue Marler.

The question is complex, and may be handled strategically at any number of levels. For example, some groups feel that, so long as Thror's rescue of Marler would make an exciting story, the fact that Thror "knows" nothing about the capture is irrelevant. Even within this perspective, however, we might note a distinction between Alan having Thror "happen accidentally" to head downwards, postulating an in-game coincidence to cover the out-of-game implausibility, as against Alan having Thror declaim in ringing tones that somehow he knows what has occurred, postulating a backwards revision of plot and thus annulling disjuncture. Another strategic choice, of course, would have Alan simply ignore what has happened to Marler, since Thror is "actually" ignorant of it; Alan and Barbara may hope that events will transpire such that Thror can rescue Marler, but the interior logic of the game-world in this case does not permit Alan's use of out-of-character knowledge to alter events in this fashion.

At a theoretical level, the same issues obtain, particularly in the aesthetics of game design. Some groups prefer to keep rules and systems as far in the background as possible, because they see such structures as irrelevant to the game-world; that is, since Thror himself cannot be imagined thinking that he has a +7 to hit but a -2 to damage if he swings his fist, while he has a +3 to hit and a +6 to damage if he swings his sword, the strategic choices made by Alan in selecting the appropriate attack for the situation can be read as interfering with the interior game-logic. Other groups see such activity on Alan's part as an essential aspect of gaming as an activity. For example, one can treat a Dungeons and Dragons "dungeon-crawl" as a competition by the players, as strategic manipulators of an intricate mechanical system, against the Dungeon Master who has similarly manipulated the system to construct a difficult challenge; in this case, Barbara's choice to cast Magic Missile rather than Fireball because she makes a trade-off between damage inflicted upon a chosen target and the collateral damage which comes from the fireball spell, not to mention the specifics of range, casting-time, and material components, is anything but irrelevant: indeed, at one extreme, this may constitute much of the fun of play.

In any event, the problem of negotiating the bridge between in-character and out-of-character is founded upon the structural separation effected at the outset of ritual. The social aggregation at the close of play thus amounts to an undoing of this separation: players step back from the in-character world (to whatever extent they postulated themselves as in it) in order to receive rewards or accolades, rehash enjoyable events, and generally begin shifting from a relatively discontinuous and separated game-time to an ordinary social event, itself marked eventually by the dispersal of the participants to their everyday lives.

We have already seen that within the liminal phase, the "game itself," classification, and identity are sites of considerable contestation and difficulty. But it is when we take into account the question of sacra and response that the parallel to initiation becomes particularly valuable. In particular, when we consider the interrelation of freedom and conformity, i.e. the political nature of liminality, we can begin to dig under the surface of gaming to discern the social relations and contracts which make play possible.

Liminality in RPG's: The Social Rituals of Play

One of Turner's great achievements in the study of ritual was his explication of the socio-political implications of ritual activity; while he was hardly alone in formulating this general perspective, Turner has the advantage for present purposes of having a relatively clear model that does not depend on extensive prior reading in the literature of anthropology or sociology.

As liminality theory shaded into the origins of "practice" theory, it gave rise to a stock type of analysis. The symbols of a given ritual, particularly its liminal phase, would be explicated for purposes of situation, giving sufficient data for the reader to make sense of the further argument. The analyst would then attempt to demonstrate the following dynamic at work: within the liminal phase, neophytes -- and by extension, the society as a whole -- employ symbols and structures to challenge, test, and even undermine the structures and norms of authority; through the ritual process, however, particularly as the liminal phase moves towards conclusion in aggregation, all this "testing" ends up serving the purposes of established authority. Thus the ritual gives the illusion of freedom and choice, but actually enforces conformity; ritual is thus read as a technique of mystification by which cultural authority can be produced and reproduced by deceiving participants in all walks of society into accepting these authority structures as natural, given, and ideal.

There is certainly truth in this reading. For example, numerous carnivalesque rituals (Mardi Gras in New Orleans, Carnàval, Saturnalia, etc.) do indeed construct a special space and time in which to express discontent, disorder, radicalism, and challenge, all of which is then often deployed in a larger cultural context to emphasize the "rightness" of hegemonic discourses of authority. But more recently scholars have begun to grant that this reading is simplistic: Mardi Gras has on numerous occasions been used precisely to foment revolt, for example. Thus recent practice theory, when it has focused on ritual and liminality, has tended to admit that ritual does produce conformity through the illusion of free choice, but at the same time to grant that particular agents in particular historical situations have the ability to manipulate symbols to their own advantage, despite the apparent constraints (and apparent freedoms) of ritual structures.

At present, I will not push the socio-political reading of RPG's beyond the narrow, local community. It would be interesting to consider how RPG's as ritual necessarily participate in and reconstitute the structures of society at large, but the data-set required to do such analysis meaningfully is prohibitively large. In addition, ethnography of game-sessions has barely begun, if indeed it can be said to have begun at all, and thus we have only the most dubious sort of anecdotal data. My concern, then, is with the socio-political workings within a gaming group, which amounts to an analytic perspective on the social contract of such a group as it intersects with other structures of gaming.

It is worth noting here that the dominant Forge theory generally takes social contract to be a maximally distanced structure, standing at the upper extreme of the hierarchy of RPG structure. While there has been discussion of social contract and means by which it can be negotiated in order to avoid paradigmatic or personal conflict, the emphasis fits squarely within Edwards's overall approach. That is, because social contract is seen as at a considerable remove from in-game play issues, the most efficient way to deal with contractual problems is to discuss them outside of play, e.g. by confronting a problem player outside of game time, by formulating explicit social expectations before play, and so forth. But the fact remains that these problems generally arise within game play, and prior constraint cannot fully predict or forestall such difficulties. I suggest, in fact, that precisely because RPG's are ritual behaviors, social conflict is inherent in the form. At the same time, from a practical perspective, it is worth recognizing that because structural and sign-manipulation achieve their maximal expressions within liminality, with extra-ritual commentary discourse primarily functioning to protect ritual tradition against challenge, acting disjunctively to separate possible challenges from the fragile yet powerful matrix of ritual performance, play itself will necessary be t

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