Many of today's hottest selling games--both non-electronic and electronic--focus on such elements as shooting up as many bad guys as one can (Duke Nuk'em), beating the toughest level (Mortal Kombat), collecting all the cards (Pokemon), and scoring the most points (Tetris). Fantasy role-playing games (Dungeons & Dragons, Rolemaster, GURPS), while they may involve some of those aforementioned elements, rarely focus on them. Instead, playing a fantasy role-playing game is much like acting out a scene from a play, movie or book, only without a predefined script. Players take on such roles as wise wizards, noble knights, roguish sellswords, crafty hobbits, greedy dwarves, and anything else one can imagine and the referee allows. The players don't exactly compete; instead, they interact with each other and with the fantasy setting. The game is played orally with no game board, and although the referee usually has a storyline planned for a game, much of the action is impromptu. Performance is a major part of role-playing, and role-playing games as a performing art is the subject of this book, which attempts to introduce an appreciation for the performance aesthetics of such games. The author provides the framework for a critical model useful in understanding the art--especially in terms of aesthetics--of role-playing games. The book also serves as a contribution to the beginnings of a body of criticism, theory, and aesthetics analysis of a mostly unrecognized and newly developing art form. There are four parts: the cultural structure, the extent to which the game relates to outside cultural elements; the formal structure, or the rules of the game; the social structure, which encompasses the degree and quality of social interaction among players; and the aesthetic structure, concerned with the emergence of role-playing as an art form.

Tracing the evolution of fantasy gaming from its origins in tabletop war and collectible card games to contemporary web-based live action and massive multi-player games, this book examines the archetypes and concepts within the fantasy gaming genre alongside the roles and functions of the game players themselves. Other topics include: how The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings helped shape fantasy gaming through Tolkien's obsessive attention to detail and virtual world building; the community-based fellowship embraced by players of both play-by-post and persistent browser-based games, despite the fact that these games are fundamentally solo experiences; the origins of gamebooks and interactive fiction; and the evolution of online gaming in terms of technological capabilities, media richness, narrative structure, coding authority, and participant roles.

Seminar paper from the year 2011 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 2.7, University of Cologne (Englisches Seminar), course: Onomastics, language: English, abstract: Fantasy-role-playing games resemble a part of culture dedicated to the play and shortwhile identification with fictional characters. First appearing in the 1960s, role-playing games secured a small spot in a society crowded by fans of Fantasy-, SciFi- or other fictional literature. One of the major works of fantasy-literature is 'The Lord Of The Rings', 'The Hobbit' or 'The Silmarillion' of John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (1892-1973). Tolkien, as a philologist of early medieval languages, created not only a range of new (and adapted) races to people his universe of Middle Earth, he also created for each race a specific language, with own grammar, vocabulary and: names. He spent great afford in creating so distinct languages that no one could misunderstand the words of the Elves as words by Dwarves, for example. This linguistic effort is supposed to play an important role in the reception of his works, and regarded to play a certain role in the influence Tolkien's works have today on other works of fantastic- and non-fantastic literature. Role-playing games resemble a part of creative and active literature, where the players tell and create stories while imaginatively acting in these worlds. For taking part in such an interactive story, one has to create an alter ego, an avatar, or just: a character. These characters are the means by which players interact in the fictional worlds, and as they are most of the time a part of their self-expression and self-conception, they are every time a sum of all the influences on the players mind and knowledge about culture and all its aspects. This paper will investigate on the influence of Tolkien's works on one particular part of role-playing games: the creation of names for those characters used to interact in fictional worlds. The assumption is that, as Tolkien is commonly regarded as a significant influence on literature and fantasy in special, his impact on the naming of fictional characters must be somehow traceable.

Twenty million people are currently online--and this book will be their TV Guide. Lively, easy-access format with helpful grapohics--and a unique rating system--enables users to save time and money by prescreening their options. Covers 60,000 bulletin boards, 9,000 networks, 500 libraries, and all commercial services.

"This book presents the most current research in fantasy games and examines the cultural and constructionist dimensions of fantasy gaming as a leisure activity. Each chapter investigates some social or behavioral aspect of fantasy gaming and provides insight into the cultural, linguistic, sociological, and psychological impact of games on both the individual and society"--Provided by publisher.

Details ways for the reader to find out what online discussion and information groups exist on the Internet, and explains how to connect with them. The book features mini-reviews of 2300 newsgroups, Frequently Asked Question (FAQ) files and a 5500-word, alphabetically-organized subject index.