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                     Ritual Discourse in Role-Playing Games

   by Christopher I. Lehrich <[8]clehrich@bu.edu>

Introduction

   Theoretical analysis of RPG's remains largely cut off from other

   theoretical discourses, a situation that tends of itself toward sterility.

   Two reasons for this isolation predominate. First, RPG theorists come from

   a wide range of educational backgrounds, and as such have no shared body

   of theoretical models or discourse on which to draw. Second, RPG theory

   hopes to serve a constructive function, rather than a purely analytical

   one: where the anthropologist for example traditionally understands

   herself as necessarily exterior to the people and situations she analyzes,

   the RPG theorist wishes to employ the results of his analysis to improve

   his own gaming.

   The former difficulty need not concern us unduly. So long as theoretical

   models from outside current RPG discourse receive adequate formulation and

   explication in RPG terms, only an a priori hostility to other theoretical

   constructs would dismiss them out of hand. It is worth considering that

   such hostility does appear mutual -- that is, much RPG discourse

   formulates itself in opposition to academic theoretical discourse, while

   many academics continue to express disdain and scorn if not outright

   hostility for role-playing games as an activity -- but resolution of this

   can only come about in a historical situation as yet hard to imagine. Thus

   I shall set the issue aside, stating only that I intend to explain fully

   whatever theoretical constructs I deploy.

   The second problem, however, inheres in the nature of RPG's themselves. A

   purely theoretical analytical model of RPG's, i.e. one without any

   practical application whatever, will generally be received poorly, if at

   all, within RPG communities. Indeed, even RPG theorists who go to

   considerable lengths to formulate the practical implications of their

   models are sometimes derided as airy pseudo-intellectuals. Fortunately,

   some recent RPG publications by members of the theoretical community have

   received accolades,[9][1] and this will presumably have the long-term

   salutary effect of legitimizing theoretical work within the hobby at

   large.

   At the same time, analyses of RPG's have come to formulate practical,

   essential divisions and categories, and argued that these may be

   unbridgeable. For example, Ron Edwards's tripartite GNS model rests upon

   the notion that the three categories must remain discrete in order to

   avoid paradigmatic clash and attendant misunderstandings among players,

   leading in turn to poor play. That is, a group of players with strongly

   Narrativist tendencies should be wary of playing a strongly

   Gamist-structured game, or introducing into the group a player with such

   an approach. While "hybrids" -- games that effectively serve more than one

   of the three major play-types -- are conceived as possible, a central

   point for Edwards is that Narrativist-oriented play is not well-suited to

   Gamist-oriented games, and that groups who attempt such may need to revise

   the game extensively to fit their needs. Similarly, a single player who

   cannot conform to the paradigmatic norms of the group in which she plays

   will probably find herself continually at odds with other players, leading

   to social conflict; this player would be best advised to find another

   game.[10][2]

   In his recent article "Story and Narrative Paradigms in Role-Playing

   Games,"[11][3] John Kim argues that underlying such categories we find two

   approaches: "Collaborative Storytelling" and "Virtual Experience." These

   tend, like Edwards's categories, to remain divided. In what Kim calls

   "Paradigm Clash," we find a naturally-occurring conflict between

   perspectives:

   To the storytelling point of view, the experiential view seems to result

   in an unnecessarily limited set of techniques. . . . Experiential play may

   also seem passive, letting events happen rather than actively controlling

   them. . . . [Conversely,] To the experiential point of view, storytelling

   play seems to be creating a product for a nonexistent reader. . . .

   Experiential players faced with storytelling play may complain about

   breaking suspension of disbelief, or lack of depth.

   Conflict arising from disjuncture, narrative or otherwise, is not only

   theoretical. Most gamers have experienced it, and one great strength of

   Edwards's model (derived from the earlier Threefold Model developed in the

   Advocacy newsgroup[12][4]) is to emphasize recognition and classification

   as means to avoiding the problem. In both his and Kim's models, players

   and groups who recognize their preferences in a categorical sense can

   select games to fit their desires, or revise them so, leading to enjoyable

   play with a minimum of fuss and trouble.

   While I support this general constructive point, and do not presently wish

   to challenge the classification itself (a much-contested issue), I suggest

   that a hard-line division within analysis leads toward weaknesses in a

   general understanding and formulation of how RPG's really function. By

   drawing on some theoretical models outside of RPG's, I would like to

   propose a more unified model of RPG narrativity.

   A word about practicality: I do not, in the present article, formulate the

   practical implications of this model for game design or play. I do not see

   this as a weakness in itself: if the model serves analytically, it can

   have synthetic value. But the two operations have at least a notional

   distinction, and can operate well in isolation. If theory must face a

   practical proof-critique, then all analysis is already crypto-synthesis;

   logically speaking, there is thus insufficient distance postulated to

   ensure the validity of the analysis. In short, without the ability to

   distinguish at least heuristically between theory and practice,

   theoretical work can never have real logical force, lending weight to the

   criticisms mentioned at the outset.

   A further point: I intend to propose a ritual model for RPG play, based

   upon recent understandings of ritual within the academic discourses of

   anthropology, sociology, and history of religions. This model would appear

   to fall squarely into the common discourse of analogy as theory, of

   proposing that RPG's are "like" something else in order to help emphasize

   a point otherwise unclear. Such analogical reasoning is founded upon an

   essential methodological principle: the analogy is not identity. Thus

   response to the proposal is constrained to two related moves. On the one

   hand, one may move to expand the analogy, picking up additional aspects of

   the metaphorized object or activity and further relating them to RPG's; on

   the other, one may move to limit the analogy, demanding that the metaphor

   not be taken to the point of absurdity.[13][5]

   Some find this mode of analysis useful, primarily in a creative sense. If

   one "gets" the analogy, in its logical extension and intension, one thinks

   about the hobby in a somewhat new way, perhaps leading to new creative

   engagement with design or play. But if one does not "get" the analogy, the

   tendency, naturally, is to dismiss it as unhelpful, or to reformulate it

   endlessly until one does "get it." Either way, the reason to analyze such

   a metaphor is generally synthetic, to create new ways of engaging with the

   hobby. In other words, the proposal of yet another analogy serves no

   analytic function.

   In proposing a ritual model of RPG's, I do not wish to add another analogy

   to the lists. I do not mean that RPG play is like ritual at all; I mean

   that it is ritual. Therefore classical and recent tools of ritual analysis

   apply fully to RPG's, for analytical purposes, for making sense of RPG's

   as something other than an entirely isolated hobby, indeed for seeing

   RPG's as a human cultural product not particularly distinctive to modern

   society. If to some this seems a claim that RPG's are not special and

   extraordinary, I suggest on the contrary that this grants to RPG's a

   legitimacy and "specialness" attendant upon their roots in wider humanity

   and culture.[14][6]

Ritual

   An obvious first step in proposing this model is the formulation of a

   definition of ritual. Unfortunately, perhaps, such definitions have been

   the focus of extensive debate for more than a century now, with no clear

   end in sight. More models have been proposed of what ritual "is" than many

   readers might believe. I have no intention of summarizing this whole

   history; I will instead simply propose a starting-point.

   The above-mentioned disjuncture between "Collaborative Storytelling" and

   "Virtual Experience" parallels, in a number of respects, two recent

   emphases in ritual theory.

   Virtual Experience correlates well with Ronald Grimes's and Victor

   Turner's focus on "performance," which ultimately amounts to a notion of

   total involvement in ritual activity.[15][7] In ritual, according to this

   perspective, humans engage the totality of hearts, minds, and bodies,

   setting them to work creatively and dynamically to produce effects within

   the social and mental worlds of the participants. Thus in zazen (Sitting

   Zen), one does nothing but sit, generally in an approved posture; one's

   mind and heart should be similarly focused on nothing but sitting, not in

   the sense that one should think continuously, "I'm sitting," but rather

   that one's mind should be in a state parallel to the body's state,

   thinking nothing, resting, yet remaining alert and awake, receptive to

   outside contact. In the Catholic Eucharist (Mass), to take a quite

   different sort of example, liturgical tradition emphasizes that the

   communicant should be fully involved in the process, such that when the

   miraculous transformation of the substance of wafer and wine

   (Transubstantiation) occurs, and when in fact the communicant receives

   these into the mouth, it is not only one's body that receives the body and

   blood of Christ, but the totality of body, mind, and soul. Thus this

   understanding of ritual emphasizes what in RPG terms is called

   "immersion," a total involvement in the activity. Failure on this score

   would be seen as ineffective (zazen), impious (Eucharist), or shallow

   (RPG).

   The Collaborative Storytelling model is less obviously commensurate with a

   ritual model. Two directions, however, support this formulation. First,

   there is Claude Levi-Strauss's structuralist interpretation of mythic and

   ritual thought as bricolage, and second, there is the movement largely

   associated with Pierre Bourdieu, Sherry Ortner, and Catherine Bell toward

   understanding ritual as "practice" (or "praxis" in the more overtly

   Marxist formulations).[16][8]

   Levi-Strauss's idea, in simple terms, is that cultures think like oddly

   artistic hobbyists. [17][9] Imagine you have a basement full of stuff from

   which to build whatever you like. You have bits of old machines, things

   your neighbors threw out, scraps of wood, and tail-ends of old projects,

   as well as the taken-apart bits of all your old projects. Now you decide

   to build something, and you have some ideas -- aesthetic and practical --

   about how that should be done; you are very skilled and talented, and can

   see possibilities in all sorts of things. But you do not have a Home Depot

   available, or you consider it "cheating" to go buy things. At any rate,

   you have to build the thing you're going to build from what you already

   have in your basement.

   A nice example is a Rube Goldberg cartoon, though those are deliberately

   silly. You fly a kite, and the kite string pulls a lever, and this pushes

   an old boot, and that turns on your iron, and the iron burns some old

   pants, and smoke goes into a tree, and.... A brilliant example is the

   recent Honda advertisement called "the cog," which can readily be found on

   the Internet.[18][10] The point is that one constructs an elaborate

   machine out of bits and pieces already owned.

   Levi-Strauss's point is that each object used contains its own history;

   that is, the iron has already been used for something and the bricoleur

   then gives it a new use. The iron, to focus on the single example, is a

   local source of heat; it can burn pants, or make a grilled-cheese

   sandwich, and of course can press a shirt. But it cannot be a

   refrigerator. And if, clever person that you are, you pull the heating

   coil out of the iron for some project that requires a heating coil, your

   iron now contains the history of its usage: it is now a heating coil and a

   heavy weight.

   Every sign in myth and ritual, says Levi-Strauss, is like this iron, and

   every living mythic culture is like this bricoleur. When faced with a

   (social) situation, an intellectual problem of whatever kind, the

   bricoleur begins by running through his memory (the basement) to see what

   he already has that can be used to solve the problem. He then builds the

   machine that solves the problem, in the process incorporating the entire

   history of every object in question, and furthermore altering (however

   slightly) each object so used; when he goes to build something else, later

   on, the current project will be part of the history of each object.

   Technically speaking, every sign is thus constrained and yet free. On the

   one hand, it is not constrained to the degree of a percept, a particular

   contingent mental encounter with an actual object; this percept is what is

   called a "perception" in the formalist model to which Kim refers. A

   percept is entirely constrained, because when a person looks at a given

   object on two successive occasions, his or her mental equipment has

   altered -- to use a cliche, one cannot enter the same river twice. At the

   same time, a sign is not fully liberated, as is a concept, an idea arising

   in reaction to a particular person's connections to a percept: when I look

   at the lamp on the table, I may think of my grandmother (who perhaps owned

   a similar lamp), and thus "grandmother" is a legitimate conceptual link,

   but no such connection may arise for you, and even if it did, it would be

   a different grandmother. So a sign (Levi-Strauss means the Saussurean

   version of the sign) is both constrained (the iron cannot be a

   refrigerator) and free (it can do a whole range of things involving local

   intense heat). In Levi-Strauss's linguistic analogy, this iron is a sign

   in the same way as a word is: the word "iron" can mean a range of things

   (the metal, the instrument) but it cannot mean anything at all.

   Furthermore, this word only acquires meaning by its relations to other

   words: if I say "iron," you do not know until I go on with "a pair of

   pants" what sort of meaning I intend, even whether it is a verb or a noun.

   The other approach I want to bring up, "practice" theory, arises from a

   number of rather technical difficulties with structuralism, and amounts to

   an attempt to understand manipulation of signs and symbols in strategic

   yet controlled ways. With respect to ritual, practice theory argues for a

   continuity among behaviors, as against the disjuncture of ritual from

   other modes of action. The signs used in ritual, that is, acquire meaning

   from their extra-ritual contexts, and furthermore the special meanings

   accorded to them in ritual carry over into other modes of life.

   From a practice perspective, every ritual contains within itself a number

   of structures, just as in structuralism; these structures are in essence

   the Rube Goldberg machines constructed by the bricoleur. As we know from

   Levi-Strauss, the iron can be replaced by any other source of local heat,

   since its only function in the machine in question was to create smoke by

   burning a pair of pants. Thus the machine has a structure, requiring a

   number of elements, but the specifics of which objects or signs are used

   to fill those element-slots are open. What interests practice theorists is

   strategic choice: how do people decide whether to use an iron or a space

   heater?

   Broadly, the question in practice theory is how people choose, from a

   limited range of culturally-available options, which techniques to apply

   at a given moment. This depends on strategy: we want to maximize rewards

   in a specific situation. But in order for strategy to work, we have to

   play the game; that is, one cannot go outside the structure of the system

   to manipulate signs as one likes, because to do so annuls the power of the

   strategy in the first place. Thus every strategic use of signs is at once

   a free, liberated exercise of power by a situated person, and at the same

   time a contribution to keeping the system stable and intact without

   significant change. The possibility of real change is thus undermined by

   the very strategies which seek to change the system, because they depend

   for their efficacy upon the structures in question.

   If the dichotomy between virtual experience and collaborative storytelling

   parallels that between performativity and what we might call the practice

   of bricolage, as yet this parallel serves no analytical or synthetic

   function; it is once more an over-theorized and over-determined metaphor.

   In addition, it is as yet under-explained, in that the theories may be

   formulated but their application to the specific situation of RPG's is not

   yet clear. In short, while we can see a parallel division within both the

   two discourses and the two modes of behavior, this does not answer the

   question: why are RPG's ritual?

Semiotic Modeling of Ritual and RPG

   I have noted that Kim's use of the formalist

   perception-discourse-conception model parallels the semiotic or structural

   percept-sign-concept model. The difficulty with the formalist model for

   this purpose, however, is that it is focused primarily on an interpretive

   perspective, in which the analyst stands in a perceptive relationship to a

   givendiscourse; like the circular model in hermeneutics,[19][11] the

   central issue is how an interpreter can make sense of a discourse already

   present, how we approach meaning through interpretation of texts and signs

   already distant from their producers (authors). Thus a central

   preoccupation of both formalist analysis and of hermeneutics has been the

   analysis of ways in which the reading situation is not conversational, in

   which reading a text is not having a conversation with the author. But in

   RPG's, the situation is normally conversational in an obvious sense, and

   thus this mode of analysis focuses on problems seemingly distant from

   those in RPG's.

   The structural model of signification, from which the practice theory also

   arose, is by contrast primarily concerned with the use of signs by a

   current producer, a situation more obviously commensurable with RPG play.

   The question, in short, is not how players read a text produced for them

   by a game-master, but rather how the whole group in combination produces

   signs and texts that they themselves read. The structural model of

   signification fits well here, as the primary issue is to understand ritual

   or mythic activity as a mode of discourse production.

   In ritual, participants manipulate a range of signs within a constrained

   structure. That structure can change through such manipulations, but only

   within narrow limits. Every Catholic Eucharist differs significantly, in

   that the place, people, and physical environment of the ritual vary, but

   this variation is officially read by participants as within a fixed

   structure. The post-Vatican II use of the vernacular in the Mass, for

   example, was at once a major transformation of the structure of the

   ritual, and at the same time theorized as not radically transformative:

   even in the vernacular, according to the Vatican II council, the Eucharist

   retains its sacramental efficacy. From a semiotic perspective, the

   linguistic alteration represents a new negotiation of liturgical language

   as a discrete sign, where Vatican II agreed that the differences between

   Latin and the vernacular should not be understood as an essential

   structure of the ritual, but rather a relatively arbitrary sign amenable

   to conversion without undermining ritual structure itself.

   At this same level of semiotic manipulation, we can see in RPG

   reconstruction and revision a parallel analytical discourse. Taking to its

   extreme the Edwards et al. formulation that "system matters,"[20][12] the

   claim is a clearly structuralist one: transformation of system elements in

   RPG's effects concomitant transformation of gameplay and orientation. For

   example, a combat system dominated by so-called "realism", usually meaning

   a high prioritization of real-world simulation in modes of action and

   effects of violence, is not a discrete sign that may be removed from a

   given game and replaced with an entirely stylized, anti-"realist" combat

   system. Because such a system element is structural, it links to all other

   parts of the total game structure and its transformation thus strongly

   affects the whole. Mike Holmes has made this point well, arguing that a

   "realist" combat system colors the whole game, such that all activity

   occurs with reference to such a preoccupation with violence;[21][13] as

   Kim puts it,

   [E]ven if a gun is never fired during the game session, the mechanics for

   that [weapon] may influence the story -- because they shape how the player

   conceives of guns within the fictional world. If the mechanics make all

   guns exceptionally deadly, it increases the tension in a scene where a gun

   appears even if the gun is never fired.

   Thus the "system does matter" principle argues that system elements are

   motivated signs, and thus contain structure; their transformation affects

   the totality of the structure.

   Between the Vatican II approach to language and the Forge approach to

   system, however, we must recognize that the difference is not absolute;

   furthermore, the distinction drawn is ideological, not "factual." There

   can be no question, for example, that the use of the vernacular in

   Catholic Mass has significantly changed the ways in which Catholics

   experience the ritual; indeed, were this not so, there would have been no

   reason to make the change in the first place. Vatican II asserted a matter

   of aesthetic and theological priority: however far-reaching the effects of

   this transformation, they argued, the essential core of the ritual

   (transubstantiation in a broad sense) would not be affected, and whatever

   aesthetic loss of force might be entailed by the loss of the affective

   qualities of Latin (as traditional, foreign, ancient, powerful) would be

   more than made up for by gains in broader spiritual involvement (through

   understanding the liturgy intellectually, thus affectively through content

   rather than through an aura of ritualism). Indeed, Martin Luther's move to

   the vernacular was intended partly to combat the affective dimension of

   Latin as itself powerful, arguing that this amounted to a kind of

   fetishism or idolatry: the focus should be, he thought, on the content of

   the words spoken, rather than on their linguistic medium.

   In Forge RPG theory, conversely, there is an implicit distinction between

   system elements and other elements. It is certainly plausible that the

   radical transformation of the combat system of Dungeons and Dragons from

   the AD&D system to the recent d20 system considerably changes all elements

   of gameplay, even those not overtly connected with combat; to replace the

   combat system with a more freeform model akin to The Pool would presumably

   effect further changes. But first of all, it seems clear that transforming

   other elements of the game (setting, background, character generation)

   would also entail drastic concomitant changes in gameplay; for example,

   d20 games not based on Dungeons and Dragons genre and story conventions

   exist in considerable numbers, and certainly do not play exactly the same

   way as does Dungeons and Dragons. In short, it is unclear how one is to

   classify elements into arbitrary and motivated, into those which can be

   shifted without large-scale structural effects and those which

   cannot.[22][14]

   More interestingly, RPG theorists (taken in the broadest sense) generally

   make a series of divisions among elements in their games, and implicitly

   argue for relative arbitrariness. That is, the notion that a "combat

   system" is in any sense a discrete element, a discrete structure, should

   not be accepted uncritically. If the Forge "system matters" principle

   argues that even apparently discrete structures like this are motivated

   and not arbitrary, we must recognize that this presumes a tendency to see

   such systems as arbitrary, that they are apparently discrete. By

   emphasizing that "system" is motivated and structural, the Forge theorists

   further suggest a prioritization of elements, where motivation is taken as

   superior to arbitrariness, so that theoretical analysis and synthesis

   should focus on structure rather than sign. To put this differently, it is

   implicit that RPG's consist of a vast group of interrelated elements,

   falling into a natural hierarchical order; those nearest the trunk of the

   tree, as it were, are relatively motivated and theoretically important,

   while those nearest the branch-tips are more arbitrary and of lesser

   theoretical weight.

   At the same time, few would argue that the arbitrary, non-structural signs

   are trivial or unimportant. Such arbitrary elements as Color (essentially

   affective set-dressing in imagined space) or snack choices by players are

   not irrelevant, and may in particular instances be elevated to structural

   elements: the game-concept Long Pig The Role-Playing Game made snack

   choice and usage into a system element, while Ars Magica troupes

   interested in medieval history may make set-dressing a primary focus for

   play.[23][15] But the claim is that it is by shifting such elements from

   arbitrary to motivated, from incidental to system, that they become

   analytically important; in general, the analyst does not focus

   classification on such elements, but rather begins with system.

   The important point here is that whether the issue is the relative weight

   of meaningful dimensions of liturgical language or the classification of

   structural elements in RPG's, the understanding is in both cases

   ideological, intended not only to classify and analyze the ritual in

   question but also to emphasize and push for improvement in the activity,

   thus making normative claims about what the ritual should be about.

   Precisely at this point, predictably, the ideological weapon of

   "practicality" often comes into play in RPG discourse: because a more

   purely analytic classificatory model (e.g. the polythetic comparative

   model proposed for the humanities by Jonathan Z. Smith[24][16]) eschews

   normative claims in the form of practical suggestions for game design or

   ritual construction, the RPG theorist codes such classification as

   impractical, thus valueless. This is equivalent to a Catholic liturgist

   saying of an academic theorist's analysis that it is irrelevant because it

   does not help formulate new dimensions in Mass. For the academic, however,

   this is precisely the point: she may be interested to see the results of

   her analyses serving a constructive use to the liturgist, she does not

   wish to impose her perspective upon those she studies. Ronald Grimes, for

   example, believes deeply that ritual theory can be of constructive value

   for people seeking to formulate or reformulate their rituals, but as a

   rule he does not tell them how to go about it.[25][17] A ritualist who

   denounces Grimes for not proposing a "how-to" makes an entirely

   ideological -- and ultimately incoherent -- claim: if Grimes does not

   propose a "how-to," his work is useless; if on the other hand he does tell

   ritualists how to "fix" their rituals, he will (and should!) be denounced

   for telling others what they ought to believe.

   I have come a long way around, but the notion of RPG's as ritual can now

   be asserted directly. Between RPG theory and RPG practice there exists a

   dynamic relationship structurally identical to that between the theory and

   practice of ritual within lived ritual communities. RPG theory, by this

   logic, is only commensurable to academic theory and analytical method

   through a deeper and more complex formulation; a relatively direct

   correlation links RPG's to rituals in their actuality.[26][18] In order to

   recognize this link, we must accept the duality of theory and practice as

   integral to ritual performance itself; in other words, rituals are not

   actions or activities performed in isolation from their cultural worlds,

   but rather performances related to theoretical concerns in the same way as

   game-play relates to the theory and system-construction that surrounds it.

   To put this differently, and more specifically, RPG play enacts theory, in

   the sense that standing behind and prior to play is a series of

   theoretical constructs: system design, GM notes, pre-play agreements and

   social contract, genre expectations, and other theoretical tools. From

   this perspective, RPG play acts out this prior structure; this is

   equivalent to the old reading of ritual as acting out a liturgical text.

   At the same time, the prior structure is to a degree open to challenge

   within game play, and furthermore does not fully constrain particular game

   actions, determining a range and a set of priorities rather than laying

   out a script. As has been recognized for some decades now, the same can be

   said of the most formal ritual: within apparent constraint there is scope

   for contestation, not only of the various issues and questions related to

   a particular ritual's situation within the social context, but also of the

   ritual itself with all its symbols.

   Nevertheless, these two views are always in dynamic, creative tension: the

   available range of manipulations of ritual signs stands within a

   structural context only slightly accessible to interior challenge. For

   example, radical transformation of Catholic liturgy cannot proceed from

   within ritual performance itself, while small-scale local transformation

   and contestation are fully expected. Radical transformation of liturgy, as

   we have seen with Vatican II, must come from a theoretical discourse

   exterior to performance. Conversely, such discourse acquires its ability

   to challenge ritual structurally by sacrificing its analytical and

   normative force at the local level; that is, while Vatican II could change

   liturgical language, a structural change not available to a given

   congregation at the moment of performance, the congregation can manipulate

   particular performances to effect social meanings inaccessible to the

   Vatican. For example, a particular wedding ritual may be used, at a given

   moment and in a particular contingent historical situation, to enable deep

   consideration within the congregation about the traditions of marriage,

   divorce, and childbirth; these same issues can be discussed by the College

   of Cardinals, as indeed they are, but not at the level of particular

   people in particular time, since they can only formulate principles and

   cannot apply them individually.

   Precisely the same dynamic obtains in RPG discourse. While a given

   structural situation of notes, game system, theoretical models, and so

   forth formulates a contextual model within which play occurs, such

   structures do not extend to the level of individual particularity that is

   central to play experience; that is, no game structure can be so logically

   intensive as to dictate every action and speech by every participant at

   all times, because to do so (even were it possible) would annul the entire

   nature of the game as game. In fact, this limitation of theoretical

   efficacy is granted the status of a virtue in Forge theory, through the

   double formulation of "practicality" as a rational anchor and the

   hierarchization of the relative motivation of system structures as

   relative theoretical importance. Not surprisingly, we find that the usual

   model of RPG discourse has it that performance (play) is the "real" anchor

   of RPG's, and that theory is understood by its proponents as a potentially

   liberating source of creativity and energy for "real" play.

Liminality in Ritual and RPG: Preliminary Classification

   If we recognize in RPG's a dynamic interaction of theoretical and

   practical reason, between structure and event, it is not clear how within

   the practical sphere the active, strategic manipulation of signs actually

   works. That is, we have seen that in religious ritual, situated people

   deploy signs and structures within the context of larger, only partly

   flexible structures, and that RPG play stands within a similar context; we

   need now to understand how RPG players manipulate signs and structures for

   strategic reasons, and how such strategies are both free and subject to

   constraint.

   For this purpose, I would like to propose a specific analogy, that of RPG