Fine Art #7: Chris Lehrich's "Ritual Discourse"

[Jonathan Walton]

Hey Folks,

The newest article in my "Fine Art of Roleplaying" column is finally up, after a two week break.

We decided to abandon the article I was going to talk about previously (because it wasn't very interesting) and instead discuss Chris Lehrich's piece Ritual Discourse in Role-Playing Games (which is).  Along the way, I also address the ideological debate between "System Doesn't Matter" and "System Does Matter," so it's a pretty Forge-centric article in general.

http://www.rpg.net/news+reviews/columns/fineart22apr04.html

Feel free to respond here or in the forums for the column.  I've very interested to hear what people think.

[Cemendur]

I am not sure where you want to go with this. You ask a very broad question.

I will nod my head and say me too. Then humbly offer my thoughts which are suggestions for what's next.

RPGs as Ritual

RPG (esp. Step on Up) as a form of "deep play" (Compare with Balinese cockfighting, halloween, and masquerades).

RPG (esp. some forms of "immersion") as "meditative rites" - compare with possession, conversion, trance, and "spirit possession"

RPG, "play theory" (childhood psychology), and the anthropology of childhood role-playing.

RPG and the "sacred clown", or RPGs as "Rites of Inversion".

RPG as "ritual drama"- pageantry, experimental and entertainment rites.

RPG as pilgrimage - specifically quests.

And for further thought, but not as convincing:

Purification rites - fasts, pollution, taboos, sin, confession

Exchange rituals - hunt, agricultural food offerings, potlatch

Magical rites - fertility, divination, sorcery, oracles (RPGs as the "invocation" of fantasy. Compare with the Surrealist movement and its invocation of Surreality- Perhaps summoning the character from surreality. Alternatively, manifesting the character in fantasy.)

Healing rites - shamanic rites, entheogenic rites, exorcism, therapy, dream rites. (Compare with RPGs as "psychodrama", "play therapy" and "ritual therapy")

[contracycle]

There is also precedent for games creating overtly sacred space, such as possible interpretattions of the meso-american ball agem.  In the vbroader sense, a lot of reitualised human interactions can probably be classified as games quite easily.