Transmedia and tabletops (rules of the text 3)
Posted by Roger Travis in Articles
If a rule, in general, is a constraint placed on an agent by the agent’s cultural situation, then in a cultural zone understood as appropriate for play that general sense of “rule” transfers nicely to a sort of constraint that allows a player to make choices (cf. Sid Meier’s famous definition of a game as “a series of...
read moreThe rules of song and the rules of myth: playing with dragons and other mythohistorical archetypes
Posted by Roger Travis in Articles
George RR Martin titled A Song of Ice and Fire advisedly, I think, with reference to the bardic traditions of European culture that gave us also the Iliad, the Odyssey, Beowulf, and the Song of Roland among many others. As I’ve demonstrated, those bardic traditions worked like games. That we call them “oral improvisatory...
read moreA modest proposal for viewing literary texts as rulesets, and for making game studies beneficial to the publick
Posted by Roger Travis in Articles
In this post, I want to try to open a new direction in my own thinking about play and art. As you may have gathered from previous posts here at Play the Past, I see games and other works of art as part of a continuum of μίμησις–or, in my own terminology, of practomime: that is, literally, the doing of playing pretend. I...
read moreThe mask of Apollo and the ruleset of civilization, or what game-based learning can get you
Posted by Roger Travis in Articles
The operatives of Team Agathoboulos in Operation KTHMA (aka Greek Historical Writings) are tasked with playing an aspiring tragedian. Tragedy, that arguably greatest of dramatic genres, held incredible cultural importance in the Athens of Herodotus and Thucydides; the tragic drama of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides–along...
read moreBreaking the chains of Duck Hunt, with an ARG as boltcutter
Posted by Roger Travis in Articles
The prisoners in Plato’s Cave don’t want to get up. The chains are superfluous, as they would be if applied to a player on an BioShock binge, or even on a Duck Hunt one. The interactivity of the contests I talked about in my last post is the real chain, and Plato has his Socrates speak both of chains and of the prisoners’...
read moreAbout Play the Past
Collaboratively edited and authored, Play the Past is dedicated to thoughtfully exploring and discussing the intersection of cultural heritage (very broadly defined) and games/meaningful play (equally broadly defined). Play the Past contributors come from a wide variety of backgrounds, domains, perspectives, and motivations (for being interested in both games and cultural heritage). More information on all of our contributors can be found here. A full rundown of our community and commenting policy can be found here. If you are looking to get in contact with us (for whatever reason), point your browser here and drop us a line.
- New article by @hellenophile and @tjowens "Guns, Germs, and Horses: Cultural Exchange in Sid Meier’s Colonization" t.co/rDXclvRZ ReplyRetweetFavorite
- New post by @RogerTravis: "Transmedia and tabletops (rules of the text 3)" t.co/XD77Rddh ReplyRetweetFavorite
- New article by @adevenney: "Historical Hit Points 1: Uses of History in Tabletop Role-Playing Games" t.co/WK0v1QO8 ReplyRetweetFavorite
- New post by @tjowens & @hellenophile: "if (!isNative()){return false;}: De-People-ing Native Peoples in Colonization" t.co/rEP8DvDQ ReplyRetweetFavorite
- New article by @bonesdonotlie: "Dealing with Multiple Narratives of 'Truth' and Creating Meaningful Play" t.co/Md1fi1aq ReplyRetweetFavorite
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Guns, Germs, and Horses: Cultural Exchange in Sid Meier’s Colonization
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Transmedia and tabletops (rules of the text 3)
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Historical Hit Points 1: Uses of History in Tabletop Role-Playing Games
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if (!isNative()){return false;}: De-People-ing Native Peoples in Sid Meier’s Colonization
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The Presence of the Past in Fallout 3
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War, What is it Good For? Learning from Wargaming
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Playing the Present: Gaming Egypt with GMT’s Labyrinth
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if (!isNative()){return false;}: De-People-ing Native Peoples in Sid Meier’s Colonization
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Emergent gameplay, bardic style
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Playing Pastwatch 2: History is always a useful fiction
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Practical Necromancy* Begins with Latin
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Plato’s new console
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