Identities at Play
by Nathan Hook
http://www.filedropper.com/identitiesatplay
DISCLAIMER: um, some people don’t like this author. i dont know how to word this.
Your disclaimer needs a disclaimer: “Just take my word for it”. So… links?
I’ve read this, I thought its conclusions were a stretch from its observations. But it’s someone’s thesis, and it’s about larp, so we should look closely at arguments for and against and not just jump on a bandwagon. Sometimes academic “debunkings” turn out to be wrong themselves.
can’t bothered, i do enough referencing at uni.
Where did you hear it had been “discredited”? I can’t see anything on Google web search or Google Scholar like that.
Are you sure it was this thesis, you’re not confusing this with some other publication that came in for criticism?
Seems rather harsh to say that a thesis about larp by a larper has been discredited without even a link, or any hint about by whom.
interactivedramas.info/archi … df#page=65 - Michael Cheng, instructor, English Department, National Chengchi University; Taipei, Taiwan. “Nathan Hook’s The Green Book: Psycho-dramatic role-play scenarios. Volume 1: love, despair and truth. ”
sorry he was pretty iffy about the games hook wrote, not the thesis.
[quote=“zanni”]http://www.interactivedramas.info/archive/IDJ_4_1_2011_11.pdf#page=65 - Michael Cheng, instructor, English Department, National Chengchi University; Taipei, Taiwan. “Nathan Hook’s The Green Book: Psycho-dramatic role-play scenarios. Volume 1: love, despair and truth. ”
sorry he was pretty iffy about the games hook wrote, not the thesis.[/quote]
I wouldn’t call that “pretty iffy”; it’s “these look like good games, but I don’t want to touch that subject matter with a barge pole”. Which was exactly my reaction (and yes, I have the book). Its also my reaction to many jeeps e.g. “Drunk” or the infamous “G.R” (it stands for something unpleasant). But this is because I am not a “serious” larper, and I’m not interested in “close to home” play or in that particular sort of misery tourism (other sorts sound more appealing).
ok now i have to ask, what are they?
Thanks for the link Zanni.
Knowing the journal and having looked at the author of the review, I wouldn’t call that review especially authoritative. It’s by an English teacher who it sounds like is new to the idea of larps that aren’t just for laughs. Like you said it’s not actually about the thesis, and if it was then an English teacher reviewing a Psych thesis wouldn’t have particular credibility to “discredit” it either. And like Idiot said he didn’t actually dislike the games he reviewed anyway, just felt he wasn’t ready for the subject matter.
For added irony points, the editor of the journal in question is into much more borderline types of “roleplay” than anything in the Green Book, and has written on them in previous issues of his journal.
that’s…that’s horrific…
They are however an English teacher who writes larps, and uses them educationally. But they’re trad larps, not Jeeps - which means that they’re perhaps not the best person to review that book (this is also BTW why I haven’t reviewed it on rpg.net - as a non-Jeeper, I don’t think I can assess it properly).
here. Its about an alcoholic drinking themselves to death in a public bathroom, with flashbacks to the awful things they did as a result of their problem. It has a beautiful mechanic: you fill up a bottle at the beginning of the game, and tape strips of paper with awful things on them to it. Whoever is playing the drunk (it switches) drinks melodramatically as they narrate. When the level of liquid reaches a strip of paper, that thing must happen in the next scene. When the bottle is empty, the game ends. Difficult to borrow for a trad larp (well…), but great for a Jeep.
Its one of the most cited Jeeps around (along with “Fat Man Down”); I’m surprised you hadn’t encountered it yet in your reading.
i’m swimming way out of my depth here.
these games where they all play a character in rapidly changing scenes doesn’t really sound like LARP to me, very odd. i guess ive never played one before.
has anyone ever run one where it’s scene by scene in nz?
[quote=“zanni”]i’m swimming way out of my depth here.
these games where they all play a character in rapidly changing scenes doesn’t really sound like LARP to me, very odd.[/quote]
They’re JeepForms, a mostly Scandenavian tweak on larp, designed to produce short, punchy stories. I don’t think anyone’s really tried running them here yet, possibly because the subject matter tends to be off-putting for many people.
Think of them as being to theatre-style larp what story-games are to traditional tabletop. Only less fun.
I’d like to play one. If only just the try it. Though probably not the GR one. shudders
There’s one called The Mothers, too, which I thought was pretty mean spirited. But, um, yeah, misery tourism just isn’t my thing.
And there’s that article in the latest Solmukohta book called “High on Hell” where someone talks about that prison game (Kapo?) and how much she enjoyed getting Stockholm Syndrome. But not my thing!
Yeah, gonna throw my hat in on this one as well. There’s already enough misery for real in the world; I really don’t see the appeal for games where the objective seems to be “Be the nasty person you’ve always wanted to play”, no matter how far from reality that may be. Games like the GR one alluded to above boggle my mind - in my opinion (<— and that phrase is more important than normal for this conversation) if you want to play in a game like that, you have issues that need to be resolved.
I play RPG’s and Larp for the fun, the escapism, and the opportunity to be a Big Damn Hero (at least, most of the time); as an emotional release valve which I understand some of these games can be, I think it’s the “Yay I survived that, my life isn’t so bad” reaction. I’d have an awful time in a game like this, and it would probably mess with me in ways that would take some time to heal.
I’m reminded of a quick joke:
“Dad, why are you banging your head against a wall?”
“Because it feels so good when I stop!”
Not a reason to bang your head in the first place, IMO 
It’s a form of catharsis. But not one that works for everyone. For some I think it has the opposite effect.
highly disturbing if psychologists aren’t at hand