Professor, researcher, leading thinker in the psychology of RPGS both
tabletop and LARP, and contributor to the first
college textbook on RPGs Dr. Sarah Lynne
Bowman joins us for a second time (we first spoke to Sarah back in episode 111)
to discuss more of the psychology around RPGs.
The episode starts with a quick discussion
of the new game Peter is going to be starting up in October with
some StG listeners, and an excellent and thoughtful question about playing characters of the
opposite sex from John and Ginny Swann.
From there, we move into our scripture and a
discussion of the player archetypes that Sarah codified in her book The Functions of
Role-Playing Games. These are a useful tool descriptive tool to discuss who we are in games
on a more psychological level and complement more traditional player types (like tactician and
actor) nicely. With that groundwork laid, the conversation turns to a discussion of the phenomenon
of bleed (psychological transference from player to character or vice versa) in gaming and how
that’s tied up with safety techniques. As you’d expect, we touched on the free (and
excellent) Consent in Gaming
document recently published by Monte Cook games, but also used an
experience of Peter’s from a few years back to illustrate why safety techniques are a
good idea. We also spent a bit of time talking about how gaming can go past mere safety and into
growth, another topic
that Dr. Bowman is passionate about.
Scripture: Proverbs 4:5-6 , Galatians 6:2, Philippians 2:1-4, 3 John 1-6