Role-Playing Games of Japan: Transcultural Dynamics and Orderings [1st ed.] 9783030509521, 9783030509538

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Role-Playing Games of Japan Transcultural Dynamics and Orderings

Björn-Ole Kamm

Role-Playing Games of Japan

Björn-Ole Kamm

Role-Playing Games of Japan Transcultural Dynamics and Orderings

Björn-Ole Kamm Graduate School of Letters Kyoto University Kyoto, Japan

ISBN 978-3-030-50952-1 ISBN 978-3-030-50953-8 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-50953-8 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover credit: Björn-Ole Kamm This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Acknowledgements

I cannot express in words the gratitude, warmth and appreciation I feel for all those who helped me during the research for and writing process of this book. The scholars who have supported me on the road with critique and encouragement are too numerous to be named here. Hasan Ashraf, Myriel Balzer, Jaqueline Berndt, Rafael Bienia, Volker Elis, Harald Fuess, Patrick W. Galbraith, J. Tuomas Harviainen, Carola Hommerich, It¯ o Kimio, Kam Thiam Huat, Kat¯o K¯ohei, David Mervart, Barbara Mittler, Sophie Roche, Takahashi Muneyuki and Wagner L. Schmit may stand as representatives. Most importantly, I want to express my gratitude to all the role-players, larpers, game designers and organisers, who contributed to this project with comments, information and questions. My thanks go especially to those who took part in my interviews and who let me come to their events. I am in debt to Kond¯o K¯oshi and Adventure Planning Service, to Okada Atsuhiro and TRPG Café Daydream, to Nico Stahlberg and Castle Tintagel, to the Moroishis and Laym¯un Larp/CLOSS and most dearly to the members of the youth-larp group in Germany and the TRPG circle in Tokyo that took me in and to all the anonymous interviewees, who participated in this study. This book is based on research conducted for my dissertation “Playing with Uncertainty” at the Philosophical Faculty of Heidelberg University, which would not have been possible without the support of several organisations and the opportunity to work in a number of outstanding v

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

research centres. My first fieldwork phase is indebted to a scholarship from the German Institute for Japanese Studies (DIJ), Tokyo. Afterwards the Friedrich Ebert Foundation (FES) supported me with a fellowship. I received most if not all of my theoretical input from the Cluster of Excellence “Asia and Europe in a Global Context,” Heidelberg, its reading classes and colloquia, especially from the Popcult group. My second phase of fieldwork was made possible through a fellowship of the Global Centre of Excellence “The Intimate and the Public Spheres” at Kyoto University. Lastly, the Yamaoka Memorial Foundation also supported later stages of the research refining the original dissertation. Without these supporters, this journey and project would not have been possible. Last but not least, my gratitude goes to friends and family who did not tire to encourage me in my endeavour throughout the years. Kyoto, Japan February 2020

Björn-Ole Kamm

Notes on Language and Conventions

• Japanese words in this book are written in revised Hepburn Romanisation. Names appear in the Japanese order of family name first and given name second except for those cases when Japanese authors of English-language texts have themselves listed their given names first. • Macrons (e.g. o ¯, u ¯ ) have been omitted in commonly used words or place names, such as Tokyo. • All names of personal interlocutors are pseudonyms except where permission was granted to the author, e.g. from game designers or publishers active in the public domain. Any names resembling actual individuals are coincidental. • Translations of Japanese, German or other Non-English texts and interviews are by the author unless otherwise noted.

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Contents

1

Introduction—Before Play 1.1 Prelude 1.2 Controversies of Role-Playing Uncertainty and Fluidity Controversy and Knowledge Translation and Transculturality An Assemblage of Practices 1.3 “How to Use This Book” References

2

Games—Playing with Borders of Reality, or the First Act 2.1 The (Ancient) Origins of Role-Playing Games A History with Reality Kriegsspiel—From India to Prussia and Beyond The Network Wargaming 2.2 Creating Markets and Acronyms: D&D, TRPGs, and LARP Translating TRPGs: Different Languages, Diverse Media Ages of Winter and Countermeasures: Moé, VTT, PoD, and Other Abbreviations The Network Table-Top Role-Playing

1 1 7 9 11 16 20 22 24

29 29 32 34 38 39 44 50 55 ix

x

CONTENTS

Live-Action Role-Play—Theatre, Therapy, and Education The Network of Larping 2.3 Defining and Designing the “Magic Circle” Introducing the Magic Circle Game Design Considerations Typifying Players, or Not? Games as Enterprise 2.4 Governing Games: Escapism and the Serious Side of Life Escapism: Stepping Out of (Globalised?) Reality From Moratorium to Withdrawal Playing, the Self and Governing Mentalities Borders and Circles References 3

4

Stereotypes—The Agency of Labels, or the Second Act 3.1 Labelling or Making-up People Stereotypes and Representation Practicing Stereotypes Dynamics and Agencies of Stereotypes 3.2 Child-Murdering, Satanic Play, and the Otaku Unpacking Black Boxes Establishing the Otaku Suicidal Geniuses, Worried Parents, and Dungeons & Dragons Recursive Modes of Ordering 3.3 Negotiating Stereotypes and Bad Players Gamer Stereotypes “Playing” Otaku Connected Worlds of Stereotypes References Mediation—Counterpoints of Dis/Connection, or the Third Act 4.1 A Mediator’s Counterpoint: Non-Human and Human Actors 4.2 The Internet as a Dis/Connector Japan’s Internet Access

57 66 67 69 73 74 79 83 84 86 88 92 94 111 111 130 134 143 148 150 151 157 168 171 171 173 179 181

197 197 200 201

CONTENTS

Connection: Websites and Forums Disconnection: Identity Technologies and Privacy 4.3 “Cultural Brokers” and Translators: Human Mediators From Japan to “the West:” Tenra Bansh¯ o Zero Tenra and “Western” Values From Berlin to Iruma: Larping The Making of Patoria S¯ oris and Laym¯ un Larp The Role of Language The Roles of Mediators: Cultural Brokers Revisited References 5

After Play—Knowledge (and) Practices 5.1 Ordering Knowledge Practices Lists of Knowledge and Truth In-Game 5.2 Knowledge Through Play: Education and Professionalisation Learning by Playing The Fine Insider Nordic Nodal Points 5.3 The Modes of Ordering RPGs The Mode of Enterprise The Mode of Disclaiming The Mode of Authenticity The Mode of the Magic Circle 5.4 The Shape of Partial Connections: Role-Playing Games as a Practice-Network References

Index

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204 217 220 223 228 231 236 242 246 250 257 257 260 264 264 269 274 277 278 279 281 282 283 287 295

List of Abbreviations

AD&D APA B.A.D.D. CLOSS CoC CRPG D&D DKWD(D)K DLRV DM DMG ELIN F.E.A.R. F.R.E.D. GM GNS IC IT JGC LARP MET METI MMORPG NEET NPC OOC

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Amateur Press Association Bothered About Dungeons and Dragons Create LARP Organization Synergy Support Call of Cthulhu Computer Role-Playing Game Dungeons & Dragons Du Kannst Was Du (Darstellen) Kannst Deutscher Liverollenspiel Verband Dungeon Master Dungeon Master’s Guide Education-Larpers’ International Network Far East Amusement Research Fortschrittliche Rollenspiel-Entwicklung in Deutschland Game Master Gamist, Narrativist, Simulationist In-Character In-Time Japan Game Convention Live-Action Role-Play Mind’s Eye Theatre Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game Not in Education, Employment, or Training Non-Player Character Out-of-Character xiii

xiv

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

OT PC PHB PoD RPG SCA SNS SW1/SW2 TRPG VtM VTT WoD WotC XP

Out-Time Player Character Player’s Handbook Print on Demand Role-Playing Game Society for Creative Anachronism Social Networking Software Sword World 1st Edition/2nd Edition Tabletop/Table-Talk Role-Playing Game Vampire: The Masquerade Virtual Table-Top World of Darkness Wizards of the Coast Experience Points

List of Figures

Fig. 2.1 Fig. 2.2

Fig. 2.3 Fig. 2.4 Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig.

2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8 3.1 3.2

Fig. 3.3 Fig. 3.4 Fig. 3.5 Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig.

3.6 3.7 3.8 3.9 3.10

The Network Wargaming Sword World RPG Pocketbooks (1989, 2018, © GroupSNE) Related to D&D Boxes (1985, 2017) (© Wizards of the Coast LLC) Shinobigami Pocketbook with Replay (© B¯ oken) Role & Roll Magazine Covers (Arclight Publishing) with Moé Illustrations The Network Table-Top The Network Larping Ry¯ utama and Its Translations The Network of Larp Between Work and Hobby Maruyama Character Sheet Character Sheet Examples (Pathfinder, Vampire, Ry¯ utama) Interview Character Sheet (English) Interview Character Sheet (Japanese) Interview Character Sheet Scanned and Digitised Translation Otaku in Various Scripts Kawai Character Sheet Nakahara Character Sheet Hirota Character Sheet Articles on Miyazaki and his Interests (August 1989–December 1991)

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47 49 54 56 67 77 82 112 116 118 119 121 124 138 141 145 153

xv

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LIST OF FIGURES

Fig. 3.11 Fig. 3.12 Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig.

4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 4.7 5.1 5.2

Articles on the Disappearance of Dallas (August 1979–August 1980) The Network of Role-Playing and Media Event Induced Controversies Okamoto Character Sheet TRPG.net (Old) Front Page The mixi.jp TRPG Group Cover of Tenra Bansh¯ o Zero (Kitkowski and Inoue 2014) Stahlberg Character Sheet Laym¯un Larp Room Set-Up Network of Larping Actualised by Laym¯un Sakamoto Character Sheet The Assemblage of Partially Connected Practices Called Role-Playing Games

161 170 207 209 213 229 234 239 242 265 285

List of Tables

Table Table Table Table Table Table Table Table Table Table

1.1 2.1 2.2 2.3 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 4.1 4.2

At a Glance—Transculturality Spotlight—Skill Roll Example Spotlight—Replay, or Example of Play Spotlight—Rules for Playing At a Glance—Interviews as Performance Texts Interlude—The Character Sheet Interlude—Recruitment Spotlight—Glossary At a Glance—Cyber-Ethnography Interlude—Sites of Investigation

18 43 48 65 113 115 125 164 203 210

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CHAPTER 1

Introduction—Before Play

Groups are made, agencies are explored, and objects play a role. Such are the […] sources of uncertainty we rely on if we want to follow the social fluid through its ever-changing and provisional shapes. (Latour 2005, 87) This book is divided into several chapters, each of which is designed to explore and explain a specific area of the game. Remember, though, that in a storytelling game, the most important ‘chapter’ is your imagination. Never let anything in this book be a substitute for your own creativity. (Rein·Hagen et al. 1998, 24)

1.1

Prelude

This book engages non-digital role-playing games (usually abbreviated as RPGs) in and from Japan. In doing so, it attempts an experiment with concepts and controversies, an experiment in “Japanese Studies.” For these first lines, let us go no further than describing RPGs as games in which players take on roles and as a practice entangled with many other media. To say that RPGs are like The Lord of the Rings combined with chess and improv-theatre would be amiss but might conjure some interesting images. This study deals with role-playing games but does not seek to define them. General explanations meet the fluidity of contents, play-styles, and creative agendas, which put any certainty into doubt. Thus, Role-Playing

© The Author(s) 2020 B.-O. Kamm, Role-Playing Games of Japan, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-50953-8_1

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Games of Japan maps a network of actors and their world-building around RPGs to allow readers to encounter them with all their uncertainties. This study focuses on Japan but does not want to emphasise unique “Japanese” characteristics because what it means to take on a character in a role-playing game always amounts to a particular, contingent realisation of this practice. A game troupe in Tokyo may play a US American game in much the same drama-focused way as does a counterpart group in Munich, while players down the street of the same city favour games by local designers and a competitive play-style. Still, the Japanese RPG industry extended the practice in particular ways not explored elsewhere. Thus, the purpose of this book is to trace the transcultural entanglements of RPG practices with a focus on Japan but in a global context. It seeks to elaborate on what kind of agents, human and non-human alike, function as mediators between groups of role-players, bridging or strengthening national borders and other boundaries. Games like Dungeons & Dragons (Gygax and Arneson 1978), Call of Cthulhu (Petersen 1981), Vampire: The Masquerade (Rein·Hagen et al. 1998), or Sword World RPG (Mizuno and GroupSNE 1989) form a crucial node in a nexus of various media types and genres. They have inspired media-mixes, such as The Record of Lodoss War novels, manga and animations (Yasuda and GroupSNE 1986), and are part of franchises like Lucas’ Star Wars or Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire (“Game of Thrones”). Currently, non-digital RPGs experience a second boom worldwide, in Japan particularly driven by the horror game Call of Cthulhu. They increasingly gain scholarly attention as an inspiring source for other media and concerning dynamics of group formations. Since the late 2000s, role-playing games are thus also coming of age in academic terms: A first peer-reviewed journal was established in 2009, the International Journal of Role-Playing, followed by the Japanese Journal of Analog Role-Playing Game Studies in 2019. Meanwhile, the number of related monographs and edited volumes increases constantly. Zagal and Deterding’s seminal Role-Playing Game Studies: Transmedia Foundations (2018) brings together various strands of current research and covers much ground but like many others focuses almost exclusively on the Euro-American environment. Studies about Japanese media and games on the other hand concentrate on anime, manga, and digital gaming (cf. Steinberg 2012; Picard and Pelletier-Gagnon 2015). Furthermore, previous research often relied on established concepts, such as “community,” for summing-up group formations of practitioners.

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This was one incentive for this study: Born out of curiosity for nondigital gaming in Japan, I sought to amend this deficit in knowledge because respective research would open a field of dramatic stories bridging fiction and reality, open a field for questions of entanglement and multiplicity. However, at the same time I did not want to fall into the trap of feeding into nihonjin-ron, that is, stories about how the Japanese are special and unique, in this case, about the “Japaneseness” of roleplaying. Thus, right from the start, this study was less about positive knowledge of a stable and certain object of analysis (“the game,” “the role-player,” “the Japanese”) but concerned with the production of such knowledge, about the inherent tension of terms and collectives, of continuities and discontinuities. It questions the appropriateness of traditional knowledge containers for new phenomena of trans-local connectedness, such as the heterogeneous networks that make-up role-playing games. “Be surprised!” became the methodological core of my research. The people and things I encountered during my study showed me how everything was even more complex, more uncertain than I had envisioned: How uncertain the dynamics of concepts and identities were, how nonhuman mediators such as the Internet connect as well as disconnect, and foremost, how difficult it is to ask questions about “a practice,” which is done slightly differently by each actor entangled in its assemblage. This book is an intervention in discourses on Japan and its cultural practices that tend to essentialise difference instead of exploring its making (cf. Galbraith and Lamarre 2010, 362). The emphasis on “Japaneseness” of products and practices often does not result from the object of inquiry itself but rather from the limited focus on Japan alone without regarding global entanglements or uses elsewhere. Through tracing complexity instead, the project informing this book became a study about the way in which the assemblage of practices named roleplaying games circulates across borders and simultaneously becomes the locus of boundary negotiations in a highly digitised and interconnected world. These partially connected practices have a history that crosses many nationally or culturally imagined borders, beginning in nineteenth century Prussia with antecedents in ancient India, gaining a specific form in the US in the 1970s and being nowadays most popular in a digitised variant of multiplayer online games relying on mechanics refined by Japanese programmers, and as live-action enactments promoted in various forms and in various parts of Europe.

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This history features two major instances of circular movements, one of which is this repeated crossing of national borders and a supposed formation of collectives beyond the nation-state. Such formations are contrasted by statements of established difference, such as the impression that Japanese role-players only engage in computer-mediated games, dominant on respective Internet forums until recently. The other movement zigzags across boundaries of a different kind, namely education and training for a supposedly real world. Training—first for the military and later for businesses and youth—clashes with escapism, reclusiveness and deviance, but also with the intrinsic value of entertainment. This study explores how role-playing games and their players interact with controversies revolving around these boundary-makings, but also investigates the role of those who bridge such boundaries. This study maps global and local entanglements of a practice that has inspired and was informed by many other cultural forms (be it film or literature). It sheds light on some of the traces left by mediators in our globalised-but-bounded world, none the least of which may be referred to as Internet technologies. Because role-playing games are entangled with popular media, such as fantasy and science-fiction, animation and comics, their study might fit the label of “Cool Japanology” if their forms in Japan are to be considered. Taken from the title of a book and symposium (Azuma 2010), the label borrows its “cool” from the country-marketing campaign “Cool Japan,” which utilises anime, manga and related fan practices to promote Japan to foreign tourists (Abel 2011; McLelland 2017). Consequently, the label denotes the study of these products and practices in their Japanese specificity, usually referred to as “Japanese popular culture.” The search for their “Japaneseness” often relies on creating boundaries between Japan and “the West.” For example, narrative text-image-hybrids are supposedly known as manga and not called comics like in the US or Europe. Such simple contrasts, however, disregard connections, continuities, and discontinuities alike (see Berndt 2008; or venture into a bookstore in Japan, where manga are called komikku, comics). Thus, the methodological nationalism or parochialism inherent to “Cool Japanology” has been ¯ critiqued for its reproduction of essentialist images (Otsuka 2015). In this study, I want to question such approaches, including the role of knowledge producers and their modes of studying such practices. Especially when a new research field in this area emerges, scholars tend to celebrate what others had ridiculed as childish or problematised as escapism. Such scholarly glorifications include definitions that

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read “fans” as pop-culture academics (Jenkins 1992; Okada 1996, 2015) or middle-class resistance (Eng 2012), laud “gamers” as a postmodern identity (Azuma 2007; McGonigal 2011) or—in direct relation to this study—claim that role-playing games are actually art (Mackay 2001) or actually folklore (Underwood 2009). However, defining fans as scholars, for example, says more about the audience of the writer, that is, other academics, than about those defined (Hills 2002, xxiv–xxv). Regardless of how insightful and ground-breaking we can consider many of these studies (Bennett 2014), the scholarly tendency to challenge generalisations about a given object with their own, similarly stands in opposition to the actors in their multitude and the complexity of practices. In lieu of judging in the actors’ stead, I want to explore their ways of defining. Thus, two major tropes or principles guide my study, uncertainty and multiplicity. Both refer to the fluidity, complexity and dynamics of identifications, boundaries, and interactions. The role-players I encountered, who are “actors” in many different ways, themselves debate what characterises a good role-player and what practices should be called role-playing. Thus, this study follows a practice-oriented approach and proposes the concept of assemblage of practices to refer to the sum of humans, materials and ideas entangled in the various arrangements of RPGs. This perspective helps navigating the fluidity of practices and overcomes the a priori assumptions inherent to the common, meaning-laden terms culture or community. The latter, for example, carries the baggage of referring to a supposedly lost, organic, harmonious village collective, so that applying it to “online communities” will automatically find them lacking in commitment or durability (cf. Deterding 2009). This underscores that new formations might be better described by using other terms to catch the meanings they hold for their members. Instead of applying a theory that explains, this study follows “theories” that urge to describe: “At some point one has to pass from explanation to mere description” (Wittgenstein 1979, 26e, §189). The two historical movements of border-crossing sketched above have recently come together when markers for deviant media use and practice, such as the conceptions otaku in Japanese or nerd in English, conflate with ideas of a networked culture or community within the discourses on globalisation, participatory media and communication technologies. Speaking of singular collectives, such as a global otaku culture or role-player community, runs contrary to the messiness of human and nonhuman interactions, perceptions, and on-going transformations which are

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part of group formations. Such expressions of an alleged unity also reflect the distinction between a supposedly distanced, objective observer, the researcher, and the subjects of research, the informants supposedly blind to the big picture. This study seeks to be objective in another way by making these informants into actors again who object to scholarly generalisations. Thus, I do not try to create a position outside of role-playing in order to judge and explain the nature of this practice. Social scientists have done this for decades, telling the actors what they are actually doing. To say what something actually is, is to reduce it, is to deny its ontological existence (Law 1994, 12). I think the actors themselves know very much what their practices are about. And here speaks the symbolic interactionist in me: They know what it is all about for themselves in a particular point in time and space. Their attitudes have and will change continuously. However, I also do not follow the opposite move to judgment from afar and draft myself as an insider in order to celebrate role-playing. Judgment and celebration appear as just contesting perspectives on, contesting constructions of a single object “out there.” Instead of moving ever further away, I sought to engage the differences within and the multiplicities of practices. “If practices are foregrounded there is no longer a single passive object in the middle, waiting to be seen from the point of view of seemingly endless series of perspectives. Instead, objects come into being – and disappear – with the practices in which they are manipulated. And since the object of manipulation tends to differ from one practice to another, reality multiplies” (Mol 2002, 5). In order to explore the multiple realities of role-playing, this study feeds off of uncertainties and controversies and traces the world-building, the modes ordering the world of the actors, which involves many different bits and pieces, material and “real,” symbolic and “fictional.” Stereotypical, taken-for granted labels such as otaku and nerd are multiple, they can literally break bones but also induce pride. The role of the Internet is also uncertain as its technologies can overcome distance and simultaneously create insurmountable barriers. Role-playing games can create a sense of belonging and camaraderie but also exclusion and loneliness. These games can be fun but are sometimes meant to be serious. It appears difficult to frame all RPGs in one “system” or describe them as one cultural order. In their difference, all arrangements of role-playing games still relate to what I call the assemblage, the association of partially connected practices, of role-playing.

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The following study does not seek to solve the difficulty of summing up by attempting to classify and simplify, to reduce one thing to another. Instead, it embraces complexity, uncertainty, and foremost multiplicity, by tracing the controversies on what holds the practices and elements of role-playing together, the multiple connections of role-playing and group formations, social inclusion and exclusion, role-playing and Internet technologies. The aim of this study is not to come to a final conclusion, stating that role-playing actually is escapism from real life, that it is actually theatre, or actually a religious epiphany, or an education—views found in the literature. Grand words or explanations cannot cover all the experiences. That is why this study seeks to show possibilities. These possibilities are explored through cases, and each case is particular but also speaks to other cases and stories, and thus may entice an understanding that goes a little bit further than just the cases at hand. Lastly, this study seeks to go beyond merely studying RPGs, it also attempts to make the object of investigation into a resource, into a tool for research. I used so-called character sheets, for example—one highly connecting element of these games—as a guiding prop during my fieldwork. Thus, this book pays also great attention to methodological concerns, details the various tools employed during the investigation to ensure transparency and to offer them as guides so that others may reproduce the approach applied. The approach is informed by the perspective of Transcultural Studies , which considers philosophical questions in empirical ways, through direct engagement: So, without further ado, let us follow the rabbit into the wonderland of role-playing.1

1.2

Controversies of Role-Playing

Most of us play roles in everyday life. Whether we play that of mother, son, teacher, or student, there are countless roles we may assume. But what about the roles we play in role-playing games, such as Elvish mage or immortal vampire? How do we understand practices that are daily and mundane yet completely otherworldly? How to draw boundaries around actions familiar to all of us—taking, performing and negotiating roles, scripting identities and life-stories—when placed in unfamiliar settings

1 Borrowed from Lewis Carrol’s Alice in Wonderland, a rabbit hole designates the entry point into the world of a game, especially in recent persuasive and live-action gaming.

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and made into games? How to represent such an assemblage of heterogeneous entanglements of materials and humans, practices and ideas, at once lauded as real-world healing and training mechanisms and demonised as escapist and dangerous fantasies? How to give an account of the characteristics, the history, and the scope of a collective which is in potentia globally connected via the Internet but whose members converse and play in many different natural languages? Instead of delivering a standardising, linear narration about roleplaying—in the sense of deliberately or consciously playing a role-playing game and not Erving Goffman’s definition of everyday life interaction or self-enactment (Goffman 1959)—I seek to understand how the actors themselves make sense of their practice. Judging from the numerous blogs, websites, books, and documentaries about RPGs, people not only engage in role-playing, but also discuss its entertainment value, the distinction between free time engagement and way of life, and its blurring the lines between real-world, fiction, and the virtual. The latter affects the debate about the social and cultural status of the players—are they escapist, deviant, and dangerous or creative, intelligent, and wellintegrated? These questions point to a discourse that oscillates between dystopian visions of maladjustment and utopian ideas of learning through fantasy and play: Do the players gain “real-world skills” by riding dragons and slinging spells? Should one play for the games’ own sake or for some other motivation such as knowledge? Educators have recently rediscovered role-playing and seek to employ it as a teaching method but thereby came into conflict with those who practice role-playing for entertainment. Thus, what characterises an individual as a good role-player? Who is one of “us?” Boundaries in dispute also come into view when we look at how RPGs are categorised along the border of “the West” and the rest. Games designed in the US or Europe are merely called role-playing games while games made in Japan receive the label JRPG by players, translators, and scholars (cf., Kitkowski 2008; Schules 2015). Are they so different from the other games that they warrant another category? Is there something special about Japan? Are Japanese players seen as different, too? What happens when a European plays a JRPG? Do JRPG players and their “Western” counterparts communicate with each other? Surely, there is the Internet but how does this work out? Role-players have met the Internet age with mixed feelings. Digitised and online role-playing games have many supporters but also many in opposition to them—and many who are quite indifferent. This is valid for Japan, Europe, and the US

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alike: There are many disputes about role-playing. The rest remains quite uncertain. Uncertainty and Fluidity The realisation of uncertainty forms this study’s point of departure: Controversies about role-playing games and how they are connected to other controversies, as no controversy is completely insular (Venturini 2012, 807). Instead of explaining a culture or group of people, this study deals in practices and problems. Role-playing games do not appear as a single practice that has travelled between Asia, Europe, America, back, and back again unchanged. It is uncertain if there ever was “a single practice” to begin with. That is why I favour terms such as assemblage, explored throughout this study, to denote the fluidity and ever-changing character of practices instead of defining them as bounded cultures. It is not new to question simplifications or the stability of categories and their connection to the objects they describe (Foucault 1970, 51ff.), including the call to listen more to the actors and less to preconceived ideas and theories. But what does it mean to listen to the actors, to “follow the actors themselves” (Latour 2005, 12)? I believe it means to take the messiness of the social seriously, its multiplicity, its uncertainty and its changing nature, instead of trying to hide contestations, ambivalences, and interferences behind definite, linear accounts. It means to step down from the high pedestal of the distanced, unbiased observer who divides and conquers the real (Latour 1993). This includes seeing the actors as experts of what they do, taking their meanings, agencies and reasoning seriously. Thus, we need to look at the big picture that is the world-building of the actors , the social worlds they create—including who and what is made part of it, which scholarly and scientific ideas are integrated, and what is excluded. The above concerns place RPG studies in proximity to debates within fan studies (Bennett 2014), especially considering research on players and thus the relationship between scholars and practitioners (insider/outsider) or methods borrowed from anthropology (e.g. participant observation); less so, when the focus is on game mechanics. Some self-identified fans also role-play (cf. McClellan 2013) and some role-players may also understand themselves as fans of one franchise, genre, author, director, artist, or something else. Both research fields share issues of complexity: The relationship of one fan group with their intellectual property (IP) and the

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producers does not necessarily mirror the relationship between another group and their object(s). What it means to be a fan is spatiotemporally contingent and continuously changing, with new instances of an IP or new technologies available to organise fandom. Similarly, one group of role-players may engage in the practice quite differently than another group. One cares very much about a game’s designers and seeks close relationships via social media, not so different to what a fan is supposedly doing. Another group by contrast cannot even name the designers behind their favourite game. The relationship with the designers, however, says nothing about the intensity of playing. Thus, subsuming role-playing under fandom would bring with it many unnecessary a priori assumptions and also miss the fleeting aspect of the practice, that game sessions cannot be repeated by their players (contrastingly, a movie can be rewatched, a book reread).2 Controversies are a good beginning because here conditions and facts are not yet stable, not yet “natural,” but rather in the process of being made. This study deploys and traces not only controversies about roleplayers and role-playing games but also the entanglements with social, cultural, economic, political, and religious spheres of knowledge. RPG settings and game rules, as well as actual sessions of play, assemble knowledge from all these disciplines and more to create their fantastic (or mundane) worlds. One will find concepts such as race, class, culture, or gender as building blocks of these worlds including the accompanying asymmetries of racism, sexism, hegemony and resistance—but not always in the same manner to which humanities scholars are accustomed. These entanglements are deeply connected to the controversies to be traced, such as losing the ability to distinguish between reality and fiction, the danger of succumbing or escaping to virtual worlds, but also the attested potential of gaining a look behind the veil of social construction in the real-world through gaming (Larsson 2003). This study was triggered by such “untenable accusations” and “utopian proclamations” directed at users of popular media, gamers and fans in the Japanese context. In the process of conducting text analyses, interviews, and fieldwork, however, the motivation of the study changed. I initially wanted to show that otaku and nerds —terms used for and by media fans and gamers—are neither a single group nor are they as socially inept 2 Recordings of play sessions, such as replays (see Act 1, pp. 46–48), may be watched or read repeatedly, the playing still remains an in-the-moment experience only.

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or reclusive as they are so often portrayed. Believed to be popularised in the 1970s through the sitcom Happy Days (cf. Fantle and Johnson 2009), nerd evolved out of the differentiation game of teenagers and adolescents to designate those who would not be good at sports and preferred studying over partying. Later came an association with comic and popular culture fandom, especially science-fiction, such as Star Trek, further diffused via Chuck Lorre and Bill Prady’s TV-show The Big Bang Theory. In English-language discourse, the Japanese term otaku is often made equivalent to nerd and is usually used to designate fans of Japanese popular media products—very much ignoring the term’s genesis, its use and manifold meanings in the Japanese discourse (cf. Galbraith et al. 2015). What both terms share is an implicit, if not explicit assumption that otaku and nerds lack social and communicative competence and place too much energy into areas outside mainstream pastimes, such as football/soccer/baseball and pop-songs. In the US and also in Japan, role-players often receive such labels that exclude them from what is deemed “normal.” Thus, when I set out to explore their relationships to such labels, I especially wanted to prove that the above terms are stereotypes and should not be used has heuristic concepts in research. They should not be taken for granted as designating actual people. I still seek to emphasise that these terms do not hold much explanatory value. However, I also had to realise that what I set out to do meant exchanging one certainty—that otaku, nerds and gamers share some distinct characteristics that make them into a single, global group—with another certainty: The notion that these stereotypes always have ill effects on those so labelled. I would have displaced one distanced judgment and enforced another, still talking above the heads of the actors, speaking for them. “My” actors luckily showed me, however, that the affair was not so clearcut, that there was and still is uncertainty. Instead of doing away with this uncertainty I want to deploy it to the fullest (Latour 2005, 184). Controversy and Knowledge To make use of uncertainty, including the role of scholarship in worldbuilding, I explore four larger controversies, four axes of crisis that are partially connected, overlap and give shape to one another. What makes a controversy? Any situation in which involved actors disagree, or more precisely, in which they agree on their disagreement (Venturini 2010, 261).

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Informed by a focus on contingency, a study of controversies makes visible what John Law calls “ordering,” agents’ attempts to negotiate their way through social relations, by which they constitute and re-constitute these relations as they go. “[The social is thus the] recursive but incomplete performance of an unknowable number of intertwined orderings” (Law 1994, 101). These social relations or “networks” are understood as materially heterogeneous. Simply put, some materials last better than others. And some travel better than others. Voices and bodies carry only so far, so putative agents enrol other materials—texts, architecture—for their controlling attempts of the network over longer distances and over longer time. Large-scale attempts at ordering depend on mobile and durable materials. However, materials, their mobility and durability are also network effects: Texts can only order if there is someone to read and understand them, buildings can be put to other uses as intended. This relational materialism is in opposition to socio- as well as technodeterminisms (Law 1994, 102). Furthermore and because agency is a network effect, non-humans can be agents, too, in the sense that they make a difference in the network (Latour 2005, 52). Agency, power and size (together with machines, social entities and every other kind of object you can point to) are uncertain effects generated by a network and its mode of interaction. Following such a perspective, the focus is not on who has power to declare truths (about role-playing, in this case) nor does it rush to great explanations of causes. Instead the focus lies on describable attempts and techniques (Kendall and Wickham 2001, 56). As a consequence, studies of ordering conflicts do not pretend that their own ordering is complete, or conceal the work, the difficulties and the blindness that went into it (Law 1994, 9). What can be done, is finding clues to patterns that flow from stories, ordering projects within controversies as “patterns in contingency” or “modes of ordering” (ibid., 18). This approach borrows from Michel Foucault (1991) not only an attention to problems and contingencies, but also an understanding of discourse as more than language, that modes of ordering are contested attempts to structure, to produce the world, that they are recursive, that they generate the agents that produce them, that power is an effect to be explained not something that can explain. Congealments of discourse are contingent and studying them means to look at particular bits and pieces instead of great causes. Thus, “truth” is an effect of knowledge practices. Similar to the metaphor of network, modes of ordering are not something

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out there but analytical tools. They designate collectors to bring various bits and pieces together in order to trace their relations and the effects they produce. Controversies are complex and so should be the modes of observation, accumulating not only literature reviews, but also field notes, interviews, and archives to observe as many voices of involved parties as possible, to multiply viewpoints and show the full range of oppositions around matters-of-concern (Latour 2004). In this regard, I employed not only one instrument but many, from text analysis to participant observation. While observation has to be “perplexed,” that is, take into account as many propositions as possible, the description needs to follow requirements of proportion. For these purposes, I built on the actors’ own descriptions and followed their irregularities as best as possible but ordered them along four paths of conflict or uncertainty. The first axis is informed by the uncertainty of a distinction between reality and fiction, born out of discourses concerned with youth and media use. This relates to ontological as well as everyday politics (Mol 1999): What is reality? What are its building blocks, its “facts”? How is the real world different from fictional and virtual worlds? Which is contained in which? Discourses on media effects and especially discussions on role-playing games often focus on this axis of uncertainty. The loci of dispute are bad influences on youth, cultivation processes through media, escapism into media, or game induced violence as well as, on the positive side, learning effects. All of them share shifting boundaries of what is meant by invoking reality. On the one hand, a clear separation of worlds is induced, that “this is just a game” or that playing is separate from the everyday. On the other, enormous amounts of positively and negatively connoted entities spill over, such as the seduction into occultism through magic in-game or gaining confidence through taking on different social roles. Based on the main argument of this study with its emphasis on multiplicity and uncertainty of practices, the book’s second chapter or first “Act” (Games) traces the path of various practices that would at one point be referred to as “role-playing games,” only to diversify again, warranting the concept of “assemblage” to sum them up. This chapter deals with different modes of ordering this practice, with a focus on its trajectory to and from Japan, followed by a literature review on the specialist discourse of game design as well as governmental concerns about escapism, the flight from “reality.”

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This first controversy opens the door to the second axis, which revolves around the question of stereotypical labels based on “reality’s” special place, focusing on their dynamics. Who uses terms such as otaku, nerd or freak and in what way are these words used? Who fears being labelled as such, and who does not? Is it at all feasible to associate otaku, a Japanese pronoun used derogatorily by some, yet a proud appellation for others, with the English nerd? What are the particularities of usage, inclusion and exclusion? Such questions call into action theories of moral panic (Cohen 1972), of moral entrepreneurship (Becker 1973), of the “other,” resistance and hegemony (Gramsci 1971; Said 1978; Pickering 2001), of dominant culture and sub-culture (Hebdige 1979)—they invoke these associations to those who have studied the literature. However, what theories do the actors themselves invoke if they are labelled otaku and nerd or call themselves so? How do they participate in feeding meaning into these terms? Many recent publications on role-players (Gilsdorf 2009; Stark 2012) try to overcome a stereotype of obsessiveness and dangerousness. Virtually all work on otaku shares this goal (Machiyama 1989; Okada 1996; Honda 2005; Nagayama 2005; Galbraith 2012; It¯o et al. 2012 to name but a few). What role do such renunciations (and projections) of stereotypes play in the game of identification, of inclusion and exclusion? Is “local” rejection a moment for “global” association? The second Act (Stereotypes) looks at these questions through two contingent, local events, which by chance made it possible to connect certain forms of media use with specific stereotypes of losing a sense for what is real and what is not: Teen suicides and Satanism in the US, murder and fandom in Japan. These disputes played major roles in my tracing of the agencies of stereotypes, in how stereotypes make people act. Both debates continue to impact discussions on Internet forums, at game tables and the commercialisation of what many deem a hobby. Related to connectedness and leading towards “global” group formations, the Internet and “new” communication technologies form the third axis of uncertainty. The discussion on virtual identities on the web follows similar questions as the one on fictional identities in role-playing games. However, the Internet’s uncertainty of interest in the third Act (Mediation) is its ability to connect. Is it the source of a kind of connectedness unknown before modern computing? The assemblage of practices called RPGs today came into being in one form in the 1970s and has a history of transnational collaboration since the late nineteenth century: Polyhedral dice imported from Japan, German game rules and Anglo-Saxon settings

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can be mentioned as a brief, nationality-imposing and crude sketch of possible entanglements. What has changed since the dawn of the Internet? Amateur and later professional publications were a means of exchange for the English-speaking and Japanese-speaking worlds. Has this languagebounded notion of building a collective changed? Until very recently Japan was believed to know only computer RPGs (which have introduced many basic elements of digital gaming worldwide; see Consalvo 2016). The plethora of Japanese non-digital games was unknown in the US or Europe until a small number of English-speaking insider-scholars and translators made their knowledge public on websites, forums and blogs around 2010. The Internet might conflate space and time, further shrinking the world. How does this work in the case of role-players in Japan, Europe, and the US? Who does the Internet connect and who is left behind? For what purpose do people use the Internet and the Web? Who bridges barriers and goes beyond borders? I encountered a number of gatekeepers, translators, and insider-scholars who play at being spokespersons for the collective of role-playing. Some of them want to promote not only elements of the practice of role-playing but seek to carve a space for themselves at the same time. This last question as to who bridges barriers as well as the role of insider-scholars leads to the fourth axis of uncertainty, which revolves around the entanglements of actor knowledge, researchers and theories. All previous uncertainties or controversies relate to the issue of who is to speak for the parties involved. The last chapter in lieu of a conclusion— as this study does not aim at concluding the controversies in the actors’ stead—ends this book in the form of an “After Play” by scrutinising what remains after playing: Knowledge through, for and of RPGs. What knowledge gain players by and for role-playing? Who decides what constitutes a role-playing game? Whose boundary markings are accepted and whose are not? Designers, players, and researchers alike offer ideas and theories of what characterises a good RPG and a good player. They borrow from each other, denounce each other’s claims, but also ignore what has been said. Credibility and access to sites are very much related to a researcher’s own status as an insider or outsider. This is not a new observation, as studies of jazz in the past involved learning how to play jazz, for instance (Becker 1973). The very first study of one particular arrangement of roleplaying games, Shared Fantasy by Gary Alan Fine (1983), appears to have set the tone for all subsequent studies by stressing the necessity to become an insider.

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Considering knowledge, role-playing practitioners themselves actively seek to understand their practice and welcome theories and research. Since the 1990s, there have been websites, forums, and later annual conferences devoted to such a search, always juggling between design interests and scholarly endeavours to reach distanced, general accounts and judgments. In this instance, the clear demarcation between practitioner and researcher, between object and subject of research, becomes uncertain. Like many novelists, game masters (the referees in RPGs) spend months researching a historical era if they want to use it as a setting for their story. This research includes not only Wikipedia but also visits to “real” libraries. Similarly, players consult medical journals if they want to portray a mentally ill character, or economic studies to predict the outcome of their characters’ change of strategy for their cyborg factories (and kindly hand those papers to their game master, of course). Rules of magic often include pseudo-scientific explanations, such as equilibrium theories about arcane energies and matter akin to Einstein’s special relativity. Players’ self-presentation, their thoughts on the relationship between their practice and society, also incorporate sociological explanations and theories, applying or critiquing them, such as moral panics or media effects. These entanglements show how permeable the epistemological wall is between research and its object, between researchers and the actors. What this means, what role actors (such as, researcher-players) play in the making of social and fantastical worlds is the last but not least question this study explores. Translation and Transculturality The complexity of the material under study makes their “representation,” their writing-up, equally complex and thus efforts work of ordering: Studying ordering in itself is ordering, and so always limited (Kendall and Wickham 2001, 160). Representation might not be an adequate use of words in this case as the term implies faithfulness between an object and the way it is re-presented (Law 2011). A far better word for the mode of re/presentation in this study is translation, and this for two major reasons. For once, the research process involved dealings in many natural languages, Japanese, English, German, Swedish, as well as languages of a different kind, such as Sindarin, Object-C, and html. In this study’s present form, all but one language, English, have mostly vanished. In this common meaning, the other languages had to be translated into

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English, with all the fluctuations of meaning, loss of detail, and accuracy this engenders. However, there is more to the metaphor of translation when it comes to the presentation of research. If tracing a controversy can be understood as making it readable for others this also means to transform many different bits and pieces as well as many actors’ own representations into a single text. This is a balancing act between the uncertainty and messiness of a controversy and the reductions necessary to write a legible account. To be effective, this tracing must not only employ different methods to gain access to different perspectives (this is called triangulation in qualitative data collection speak; cf. Flick 2004), it also needs to place practices and their dynamics into the foreground. There are many labels in circulation for the theoretical resources that inspired the form of this study: Studies of processes, fluidity or dynamics, of complexity or multiplicity, of practices, modes, and styles. Their perspective of material semiotics or network ordering described above for the study of controversies is based on a double movement of critique: A questioning of modern reductionism that divides and conquers the real into neat classificatory systems on the one hand, combined with a simultaneous unease towards the increasingly morally comfortable position of denouncing such simplifications as violence on the other (Law and Mol 2002, 6). Instead of equating—and thus, again simplifying—reductionism to violence against those represented by treating complexity and simplicity as opposites, the focus lies on relations instead, “because various ‘orderings’ of similar objects, topics, fields, do not always reinforce the same simplicities or impose the same silences” (ibid., 7). Thus, a major trope of this study is multiplicity, that different modes, logics, practices and performed realities are not closed spheres or islands but interact and are partially connected (Strathern 2004). Their concern with processes and dynamics, the emergence, stabilisation and breakdown of (social and cultural) orders as well as the misgivings towards polar conceptions and preconceived divisions offer themselves as ontological and epistemological companions for “transcultural” studies that transcend national and cultural borders. Born out of a critique of ideological and methodological nationalism, inherent in “Cool Japanology,” for example, transculturality in the context of this study does not refer to a modern state of “culture” (cf. Welsch 1999), a quality of things or to something “out there,” but to an analytical mode. The main thrust of this mode means to look at transformations

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unfolding through the entanglements of cultural practices and agents. This means to “investigate the multiple ways in which difference is negotiated within contacts and encounters, through selective appropriation, mediation, translation, re-historicizing and rereading of signs, alternatively through non-communication, rejection or resistance—or through a succession/coexistence of any of these” (Juneja and Kravagna 2013, 25). “Culture” is not a sphere linked to a nation-state but this “organisation of difference” (see Transculturality at a Glance in Table 1.1). However, one point of this approach is not being so much concerned with what culture is or what characterises a culture (there exist too many definitions and meanings already; cf. Sewell 1999). The “trans” seeks emancipation from culture as a static, bounded thing. So, the trans-cultural is comparable with the trans-Atlantic or the trans-Pacific. These terms are equally not about the Atlantic or the Pacific but what happens at the end of connections bridging these bodies of water (Roche 2016). In contrast to this emphasis on exchange and entanglement, nationbased approaches are inherently comparative, pitching one nation against the other. How do Japanese role-playing games differ from American ones? What is Japanese about Japanese role-playing games? These are nation-based, and essentialist questions and they are plainly impossible to answer. First, we had to clarify what we meant with “Japanese:” Games with rulebooks written in Japanese? Games made on Japanese soil? Games Table 1.1 At a Glance—Transculturality 1. Cultures are not contained within ethnically closed, linguistically homogenous and territorially bounded spheres. 2. Trans-culture enables emancipation from the above notion by focusing on mobility, contact, interaction, entanglement, process, and the negotiation of difference. 3. Transculturality is a field constituted relationally, so that equivalence and difference, asymmetry and power, are effects brought forth by regimes of circulation and networks of exchange. 4. To investigate the dynamics of cultural forms and formations means to be empirical and pay attention to the particularity of situations and the agency of actors. 5. Thus, there should be no a priori assumptions before a study begins and explanations cannot take recourse in standard narratives of influence. 6. Scale matters: To go beyond established borders does not mean to take on a macroscopic vision of a synthetic generalist. 7. It means to trace the global as a connection of locals.

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made by Japanese citizens? What if a game designer had a Japanese passport but was not “really” Japanese because he belonged to the minority of burakumin (cf. Vollmer 2012)? Does this matter? For whom? Do only rulebooks count or the actual game sessions? What if a Japanese, two Americans, an Italian, and a Korean played a Japanese-language game? Second, there are thousands of Japanese (language) RPGs and an equal number in English; games made by professional studios and those made by independent and amateur designers. How to compare them? Is comparing the rules or settings enough? Or should the focus lie on actual game sessions? How many? One for each game? Two? A thousand sessions? However, the goal is not to say how Japanese RPGs differ from American ones—which would presuppose that “Japanese RPGs” and “US RPGs” were coherent wholes. Both perspectives—transcultural dynamics and material semiotics— seek to overcome the tendency of categorising phenomena into predefined boxes—be it “nation” or “community” or “power”—and aim at investigating how these boxes are made, negotiated, closed, and reopened instead. It is essential to ask how orders or patterns, such as hierarchies, distinctions or power, are performed. How do they appear to be fixed and durable? For example, how is the exclusion of otaku and nerds performed and made durable? What kind of materials and agencies are involved? These are core questions, questions that should not be answered prescriptively but instead descriptively. In other words, the approach proposed in this book builds on a “methodology for describing the world without assuming too much about what it would find as it [goes] about its task” (Law 2011, 4). It discourages a priori assumptions concerning the phenomena to be researched (e.g. if stereotypes are structures or agencies, if role-players are a community or a scene, who are the drivers and who are the driven), before an empirical study is undertaken because such assumptions would limit the findings already before the study even began. Transculturality and material semiotics are performative and heterogeneous works in progress, still in search of their own language, struggling with inherited concepts but also with their own canonisation. Both projects would fail if they concluded with transcendent definitions of transculturality or society (Latour 1999). Thus, they appear to be fitting compatriots on a search for an infra-language and a journey crossing boundaries and frontiers in being reflexive to how they travel.

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An Assemblage of Practices The above discussion leads to the vocabulary that is used to deploy the controversies of role-playing. One term has been left out so far, assemblage of practices , as it is this study’s addition to an infra-language (Latour 2005, 30) which shall help to map controversies without too many “meaningful” a priori assumptions. “Infra” suggests to neither use the vocabulary of the actors directly, such as treating otaku or nerd as distinct, singular social groups—which “they” are not, as the terms are used differently depending on who speaks when and where (Galbraith et al. 2015)—nor to use extremely saturated concepts of social theory, such as “community,” which lets new formations of people fail its nostalgic claims about human interrelations before any investigation can take place. With the focus on doing, transforming, and ordering, this study borrows from Wittgenstein ([1953] 2009), Foucault (2010), Butler (1990), Schatzki (1996) and Reckwitz (2002). However, where Reckwitz speaks of practice as a “block” of elements (ibid., 250) I favour the heuristic device of the network: Practices are drawn as networks that have gained a certain durability that makes them recognisable for others with the consequence that they can be spoken about and be treated as a resource when doing the practice. Practices are performative, meaning that they exist through “doing,” through recreating, tracing the network. A practice-as-network consists of interdependent material and non-material elements that encompass bodies, body parts, bodily movements, materials or things, practical knowledge or knowhow/competences, and concepts/theoretical knowledge of the practice. For example, one practice-as-network traced by this study, table-top roleplaying, consists of a complex association of printed paper, dice, figurines, the spatial arrangement of being seated at a table, the bodily movements of writing and throwing dices, competences in rhetoric, storytelling, strategy, and tactics, an understanding of the game’s rules, knowledge of certain novels or movies directly or indirectly cited, an idea of the gratifications gained by role-playing, its relation to ideas of gaming and to other games, and so on. Practices-as-networks are recursive: With each performance, the network is slightly reconfigured, including the details of rules (for example, so-called “house rules,” simplifications or their absence), the amount of strategic or performative competences, the bodily action necessary (from gestures to full-out enactments) and also the number or the shape of the dice, etc. At some point, the elements of the network

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have changed to such a degree that it should be treated as distinct, yet still partially connected network. Larps (live-action role-plays) are such a case, in which certain network elements are retained but newly combined. These partially connected practices-as-networks are what I call an assemblage of practices . This tool helps in tracing the particular arrangements in and from Japan and their local-global entanglements. Treating role-playing games as practices or networks of linked practices helps in overcoming a priori definitions of their borders, which could never encompass all their possibilities and dynamics. Such a conceptualisation borrows Wittgenstein’s idea of family resemblance (Wittgenstein [1953] 2009, 36e), and mirrors how game designers understand their creations as kager¯ o, ephemeral (Kond¯o 2019). The assemblage of practices —and not a culture or community—called role-playing games is the focus of this study. This assemblage is traced not only by following elements and actants closely linked to the performance of such games, but also other (partially) connected practices, such as stereotyping or “making-up people” and media use. Thus, the task of this study is to trace the four interrelated controversies or uncertainties of the distinction between the fictional-virtual and the real, the dynamics and agency of stereotypes and social inclusion/exclusion, the connecting or disconnecting capability of the Internet, and the role of scholarly knowledge in the building of worlds by assembling the bits and pieces of the assemblage. To revisit the notion of “network,” this term serves as an analytical device to map the translational work of mediators and not something out there. This mapping of the network imputes the attempts at or modes of ordering mentioned above: Devices and strategies to establish what is to count as true, or the protocols and techniques of assembling and creating the very possibility for knowledge about role-players. As a consequence, a study of ordering does not claim completeness. What can be done, is finding clues to patterns that flow from stories, from ordering projects such as those to be encountered within the four controversies of this study. Modes of ordering refer to narratives told about “kinds of people” and their practices, their place in the world, the way they were, the way they are and the way they ought to be, and how these stories express themselves in non-verbal and material ways. Ordering is a process, uncertain and conditional. Ordering and what is perceived as its effect, order, are neither a necessity of the social nor something fixed forever. A study of ordering is modest and thus “superficial,” accepts appearances—even

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“those complex appearances of customs, laws and knowledge endeavors” (Kendall and Wickham 2001, 55)—and concentrates on describing them as best as possible. So, the following chapters do not explicate “hidden reasons” for why the mass media bashes certain groups or why people become role-players, but rather describe contingent modes of ordering, which have produced some more or less stable forms of practice, spaces to talk about them, and related subject positions3 from which to speak.

1.3

“How to Use This Book”

What is the scope of this book? Where are its limits? How is the practiceas-network RPGs contained? Is it all just a huge mess? Of course, it is! And this is the important argument that cannot be stressed enough (Law 2004): Role-playing games cannot be captured as a single, unchanging practice that has travelled between continents without transformations. It is unclear if there ever was a simple container for all its elements and relations. That is why I favour terms such as “assemblage,” “modes of ordering” or the idea of “partial connectedness.” RPGs are multiple but what they share are (again partial) connections to certain questions that have arisen in the Asian, European, and American environment. Where RPGs (in whatever figuration or form) are played, people ask what the essence of role-playing and thus, what good role-playing is. And people ask what others, other role-players and non-players, think of them roleplaying, think of their way of role-playing. Especially, the relationship to “outsiders” is what opened up the four uncertainties of role-playing games. This also is what limits this study. It can follow the actors through their world-building along these controversies but cannot wrap them up, deliver a final conclusion. I offer cases in which the dynamics of these questions and controversies are played out. The scope of this study is limited in another sense as well. It began with the quest to understand the relationship role-players in Japan have with the label otaku placed upon them by the media or themselves, how their connections to role-players outside Japan are characterised, and who

3 Subject position is Foucault’s way of eschewing the awkward concept of “identity,” by tackling a discursive process that produces particular positions from which a subject may articulate itself or to which it may be delegated by others. The term “identity” usually fixes two entities (e.g. person x as female) that are not identical instead of describing in detail how one entity is related to another (Kendall and Wickham 2001, 157).

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or what produces these connections. So, the focus of this study remains RPGs in Japan and their local and global interconnections. My actors did not stay put but physically moved from and to Japan and back again, drawing in different sites and going beyond the global connections of the Internet. If we allow for a reduction to national borders, than the two sites enrolled the most are the US—where role-playing games gained a specific form, the term itself was coined, and where we find the first market for translated games designed in Japan—and Germany—where Japanese designers of non-digital games seek entry into the European market via trade fairs, and from where rules for live-action role-play were transposed to Japan. Phrased more abstractly, this study rests on very local interactions (interviews, participant observations at conventions or game tables) but follows the actants and agencies called into action in these situations to often quite global places and conversations. Many role-playing games are delivered in the form of rulebooks that also detail the setting, the game world and its history, its people and social rules. In RPG jargon a distinction is made between this fluff , information about the world of the game and its inhabitants, and its crunch, the sections dealing with rules and game mechanics. This line is often broken, however, as fluff informs crunch and vice versa (a pseudo-medieval fantasy necessitates rules for magic, a futuristic dystopia those for robots and starships). Similarly, the chapters or “Acts” of this book include reference boxes (such as the “At a Glance” above), which detail or summarise theoretical ideas or methods employed. Further, a number of Interludes interpose the Acts and explain in more detail methodological questions, such as interview tools used or how informants were recruited. These interludes evolved out of the concern for reflexivity and thus seek to establish transparency but also offer insights for using this study’s techniques elsewhere. These various tools helped plot my journey and later trace the paths and legs of the practice-network RPGs and its actants, travelling to, from, and within Japan. Translated into this book form, the journey begins with making, continues with transforming, and ends with knowing the network. However, the book may end, the journey does not. The transformations of the network leave its shape uncertain, thus inviting new players to travel its paths. The tools and cases in this book are offered as guides for this continuing voyage.

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References Abel, Jonathan E. 2011. “Can Cool Japan Save Post-disaster Japan? On the Possibilities and Impossibilities of a Cool Japanology.” International Journal of Japanese Sociology 20 (1): 59–72. Azuma, Hiroki. 2007. G¯emu-teki riarizumu no tanj¯ o. D¯ obutsuka suru posutomodan 2 [The Birth of Game-Like Realism: The Animalising Postmodern 2]. Tokyo: K¯ odansha. ———, ed. 2010. Nihon-teki s¯ oz¯ oryoku no mirai: k¯ uru Japanoroj¯ı no kan¯ osei [The Future of Japanese Creativity: The Possibility of Cool Japanology]. Tokyo: NHK Shuppan. Becker, Howard Saul. 1973. Outsiders—Studies in the Sociology of Deviance. 2nd ed. New York: Free Press. Bennett, Lucy. 2014. “Tracing Textual Poachers: Reflections on the Development of Fan Studies and Digital Fandom.” The Journal of Fandom Studies 2 (1): 5–20. https://doi.org/10.1386/jfs.2.1.5_1. Berndt, Jaqueline. 2008. “Considering Manga Discourse: Location, Ambiguity, Historicity.” In Japanese Visual Culture, edited by Mark W. MacWilliams, 351–369. Armonk: M. E. Sharpe. Butler, Judith. 1990. Gender Trouble. New York: Routledge. Cohen, Stanley. 1972. Folk Devils and Moral Panics: The Creation of the Mods and Rockers. London: MacGibbon and Kee. Consalvo, Mia. 2016. Atari to Zelda: Japan’s Videogames in Global Contexts. Cambridge: MIT Press. Deterding, Sebastian. 2009. “Virtual Communities.” In Posttraditionale Gemeinschaften, edited by Ronald Hitzler, Anne Honer, and Michaela Pfadenhauer, 115–131. Wiesbaden: VS. Eng, Lawrence. 2012. “Strategies of Engagement: Discovering, Defining, and Describing Otaku Culture in the United States.” In Fandom Unbound, edited by Mizuko It¯ o et al., 85–104. New Haven: Yale University Press. Fantle, David, and Tom Johnson. 2009. “‘Nerd’ Is the Word: Henry Winkler, August 1981.” In Reel to Real: 25 Years of Celebrity Interviews from Vaudeville to Movies to TV , 239–242. Oregon: Badger Books Incorporation. Fine, Gary Alan. 1983. Shared Fantasy: Role-Playing Games as Social Worlds. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Flick, Uwe. 2004. Triangulation in Qualitative Research. In A Companion to Qualitative Research, edited by Uwe Flick, Ernst von Kardoff, and Ines Steinke, 178–183. London: Sage. Foucault, Michel. 1970. The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences. New York: Pantheon Books. ———. 1991. “Questions of Method.” In The Foucault Effect, edited by Graham Burchell, Colin Gordon, and Peter Miller, 73–86. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

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———. 2010. The Government of Self and Others: Lectures at the College de France, 1982–1983. Edited by Frédéric Gros. Translated by Graham Burchell. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Galbraith, Patrick W. 2012. Otaku Spaces. Seattle: Chin Music Press. Galbraith, Patrick W., Thiam Huat Kam, and Björn-Ole Kamm. 2015. “Introduction: ‘Otaku’ Research: Past, Present and Future.” In Debating Otaku in Contemporary Japan, 1–18. London: Bloomsbury Academic. Galbraith, Patrick W., and Thomas Lamarre. 2010. “Otakuology: A Dialogue.” Mechademia 5 (1): 360–374 (accessed 2015/9/10). Gilsdorf, Ethan. 2009. Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks. Guilford: The Lyons Press. Goffman, Erving. 1959. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. New York: Anchor. Gramsci, Antonio. 1971. Prison Notebooks. New York: International Publishers. Hebdige, Dick. 1979. Subculture: The Meaning of Style. London: Methuen. Hills, Matt. 2002. Fan Cultures. London: Routledge. Honda, T¯ oru. 2005. Moéru otoko [The Budding Man]. Tokyo: Chikuma. It¯ o, Mizuko, Daisuke Okabe, and Izumi Tsuji, eds. 2012. Fandom Unbound: Otaku Culture in a Connected World. New Haven: Yale University Press. Jenkins, Henry. 1992. Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture. New York: Routledge. Juneja, Monica, and Christian Kravagna. 2013. “Understanding Transculturalism (Conversation).” In Transcultural Modernism, edited by Model House Research Group, 22–33. Berlin and New York: Sternberg Press. Kendall, Gavin, and Gary Wickham. 2001. Understanding Culture: Cultural Studies, Order, Ordering. London: Sage. Kitkowski, Andy. 2008. “What Is JRPG Talk?” J-RPG Blog! March. http://www. j-rpg.com/talk/discussion/3/what-is-jrpg-talk (accessed 2020/02/20). Kond¯ o, K¯ oshi. 2019. “G¯emu to iu kager¯ o o mae ni [Before the Heat of the Game].” Japanese Journal of Analog Role-Playing Game Studies 0: 3–4. https://doi.org/10.14989/jarps_0_03. Larsson, Elge. 2003. “Postmodernism.” In As Larp Grows Up: The Lost Chapters—More Theory and Method in Larp, edited by Morten Gade, Line Thorup, and Mikkel Sander, 10–14. Frederiksberg: Projektgruppen KP03. Latour, Bruno. 1993. We Have Never Been Modern. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. ———. 1999. “On Recalling ANT.” In Actor Network Theory and After, edited by John Law and John Hassard, 15–25. Oxford: Blackwell. ———. 2004. “Why Has Critique Run Out of Steam? From Matters of Fact to Matters of Concern.” Critical Inquiry 30 (2): 225–248. ———. 2005. Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Law, John. 1994. Organizing Modernity. Oxford: Blackwell. ———. 2004. After Method: Mess in Social Science Research. London: Routledge. ———. 2011. “Knowledge Places.” Presented at Linking STS and the Social Sciences: Transforming “the Social” Conference, Kookmin University, Seoul, October 28. http://www.heterogeneities.net/publications/Law2011Knowl edgePlaces.pdf (accessed 2020/02/20). Law, John, and Annemarie Mol, eds. 2002. Complexities: Social Studies of Knowledge Practices. Durham: Duke University Press. Machiyama, Tomohiro, ed. 1989. Otaku no hon [The Otaku Book]. Tokyo: Takarajimasha. Mackay, Daniel. 2001. The Fantasy Role-Playing Game: A New Performing Art. Jefferson: MacFarland. McClellan, Ann. 2013. “A Case of Identity: Role Playing, Social Media and BBC Sherlock.” The Journal of Fandom Studies 1 (2): 139–157. https://doi.org/ 10.1386/jfs.1.2.139_1. McGonigal, Jane. 2011. Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World. New York: Vintage. McLelland, Mark, ed. 2017. The End of Cool Japan: Ethical, Legal, and Cultural Challenges to Japanese Popular Culture. New York: Routledge. Mol, Annemarie. 1999. “Ontological Politics: A Word and Some Questions.” In Actor Network Theory and After, edited by John Law and John Hassard, 74–89. Oxford: Blackwell. ———. 2002. The Body Multiple: Ontology in Medical Practice. Durham: Duke University Press. Nagayama, Nasuo. 2005. Otaku no honkai - “atsumeru” koto no eichi to b¯ oken [The True Worth of the Otaku—The Wisdom and Excitement of “Collecting”]. Tokyo: Chikuma. Okada, Toshio. 1996. Otaku-gaku ny¯ umon [Introduction to Otakuology]. Tokyo: Shinch¯ osha. ———. 2015. “Introduction to Otakuology.” In Debating Otaku in Contemporary Japan, edited by Patrick W. Galbraith, Thiam Huat Kam, and Björn-Ole Kamm, 89–101. London: Bloomsbury Academic. ¯ Otsuka, Eiji. 2015. “Otaku Culture as ‘Conversion Literature’.” In Debating Otaku in Contemporary Japan, edited by Patrick W. Galbraith, Thiam Huat Kam, and Björn-Ole Kamm, xiii–xxix. London: Bloomsbury Academic. Picard, Martin, and Jérémie Pelletier-Gagnon. 2015. “Introduction: Geemu, Media Mix, and the State of Japanese Video Game Studies.” Kinephanos 5: 1–19 (accessed 2019/11/1). Pickering, Michael. 2001. Stereotyping: The Politics of Representation. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Reckwitz, Andreas. 2002. “Toward a Theory of Social Practices: A Development in Culturalist Theorizing.” European Journal of Social Theory 5 (2): 243–263.

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Roche, Sophie. 2016. “Culture–Relation and Transculturality: Reflecting about Muslims in Germany through the Philosophy of Édouard Glissant.” Talk Presented at Transcultural Dynamics of Asia and Europe: Mobility, Negotiation and Transformation, Kyoto University, September 26. Said, Edward W. 1978. Orientalism. New York: Pantheon Books. Schatzki, Theodore R. 1996. Social Practices: A Wittgensteinian Approach to Human Activity and the Social. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Schules, Douglas. 2015. “Kawaii Japan: Defining JRPGs through the Cultural Media Mix.” Kinephanos 5: 53–76 (accessed 2019/11/1). Sewell, William H. 1999. “The Concept(s) of Culture.” In Beyond the Cultural Turn: New Directions in the Study of Society and Culture, edited by Victoria E. Bonnell and Lynn Avery Hunt, 35–61. Berkeley: University of California Press. Stark, Lizzie. 2012. Leaving Mundania: Inside the Transformative World of Live Action Role-Playing Games. Chicago: Chicago Review Press. Steinberg, Marc. 2012. Anime’s Media Mix: Franchising Toys and Characters in Japan. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Strathern, Marilyn. 2004. Partial Connections. Walnut Creek: AltaMira Press. Underwood, Michael Robert. 2009. “The Friends That Game Together: A Folkloric Expansion of Textual Poaching to Genre Farming for Socialization in Tabletop Role-Playing Games.” Transformative Works and Cultures 2. https://doi.org/10.3983/twc.2009.0087. Venturini, Tommaso. 2010. “Diving in Magma: How to Explore Controversies with Actor-Network Theory.” Public Understanding of Science 19 (3): 258– 273. ———. 2012. “Building on Faults: How to Represent Controversies with Digital Methods.” Public Understanding of Science 21 (7): 796–812. Vollmer, Klaus. 2012. “How Impurity Is Concealed and Revealed—The Case of the So-Called Burakumin in Contemporary Japan.” In How Purity Is Made, edited by Udo Simon and Petra Rösch, 245–264. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. Welsch, Wolfgang. 1999. “Transculturality—The Puzzling Form of Cultures Today.” In Spaces of Culture: City, Nation, World, edited by Mike Featherstone and Scott Lash, 194–213. London: Sage. Wittgenstein, Ludwig. 1979. On Certainty. Oxford: Blackwell. ———. (1953) 2009. Philosophical Investigations. Translated by G. E. M. Anscombe, P. M. S. Hacker, and Joachim Schulte. 3rd ed. Malden: Blackwell. Yasuda, Hitoshi, and GroupSNE. 1986. “D&D R¯ odosu-t¯ o senki replay dai 1 bu [D&D Record of Lodoss War Replay, Part 1].” In Comtiq, 1986 Sept. Tokyo: Kadokawa. Zagal, José Pablo, and Sebastian Deterding, eds. 2018. Role-Playing Game Studies: Transmedia Foundations. New York: Routledge.

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Audio-Visual Works Game of Thrones. 2011–19. Benioff, David & D. B. Weiss. TV show. USA: HBO. Happy Days. 1974–84. Marchall, Garry. TV show. USA: ABC. Star Trek. 1966–Present. Roddenberry, Gene (original creator). TV show. USA: Paramount. The Big Bang Theory. 2007–19. Lorre, Chuck, and Bill Prady. TV show. USA: CBS.

Ludography Gygax, Gary, and Dave Arneson. 1978. Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. TRPG. Corebook. Lake Geneva: TSR. Mizuno, Ry¯ o, and GroupSNE. 1989. S¯ odo W¯ arudo RPG [Sword World RPG]. TRPG. Corebook. Tokyo: Fujimi Shob¯ o. Petersen, Sandy. 1981. Call of Cthulhu. TRPG. Corebook. Hayward: Chaosium. Rein·Hagen, Mark, Justin Achilli, and Robert Hatch. 1998. Vampire: The Masquerade. Rev. ed. TRPG. Corebook. Stone Mountain: White Wolf.

CHAPTER 2

Games—Playing with Borders of Reality, or the First Act

The essence of a role-playing game is that it is a group, cooperative experience. There is no winning or losing, but rather the value is in the experience of imagining yourself as a character in whatever genre you’re involved in, whether it’s a fantasy game, the Wild West, secret agents or whatever else. You get to sort of vicariously experience those things. Gary Gygax, Game Pioneer, Dies at 69 (Schiesel 2008)

2.1

The (Ancient) Origins of Role-Playing Games

The first controversy surrounds the distinction between games and reality, a theme that also recurs throughout all of the subsequent controversies under examination. The debates about reality and non-reality fuelled the labelling of otaku in general and role-players in particular. However, the relationship between reality and non-reality takes a different shape depending on which arrangement of the practice-as-network “roleplaying game” is concerned. Thus, the first section of this chapter traces a history of the assemblage concerning how the border between the two is constantly renegotiated. Wargaming, also known as conflict simulations, thrived to represent and simulate reality: The chaos on the battlefield and the probability of success or failure. It sought to implement knowledge into aspiring military commanders, so that they could make better decisions in real war. The first figuration actually marketed as role-playing games followed this simulational directive but aimed at fun instead. Combining warfare with fantasy elements, however, placed RPGs soon © The Author(s) 2020 B.-O. Kamm, Role-Playing Games of Japan, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-50953-8_2

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in the realm of escapism, that the players would lose their connection to reality and believed they could actually conjure magic. They countered by arguing that this was just a game, drawing a hard line between their play and the real world. One recently increasingly popular arrangement is liveaction role-play (larp), where players dress up as their characters and enact them in a theatre-like manner. Instead of simulating things, players need to harness their own real-world kills to convincingly portray their roles. Because larp involves the players fully, body and mind, this configuration is seen as a tool for experiencing other worlds, not just fantastical ones, but also those of other people around us. Thus, educators seek to break the wall between game and reality in order to have people learn about refugees, bullying or how it is to live under occupation. The assemblage of role-playing in its various configurations and arrangements oscillates between simulation and imagination, play-for-knowledge and play-for-itsown-sake. For some definitions of “play,” these borders are marked and distinct, games are detached from everyday activities. Other conceptualisations treat this veil as rather porous, allow for knowledge transfer between the spheres. The rhetoric and enactment of escapism are major factors for most conceptualisations—whether negative or positive—and sustains the image that an engagement with media and fictional worlds always means to leave a “primary reality” behind. Many of my interviewees followed such a perspective and suggested a boundary between play and an ordinary side of life. Game designers employ the concept of the magic circle, to set up a time and a space for playing. This is not meant as an ontological statement but as a tool to be aware of game design choices for player agency. This Act aims not at a conclusive definition of what role-playing games are, or where the border between playing and reality lies. It rather traces first the border-crossing trajectory of the three practice arrangements sketched above to then follow the various creations of boundaries drawn around games by those involved in their practice and those who are not. The reason for this approach lies in the main argument of this study: The status of games and reality is less a matter-of-fact but a matter-of -concern (Latour 2004). Singular definitions of “game” or “role-playing game” always face a multitude of experiences that confirm these definitions in some ways and diverge from them in others. An insistence on singularity, that a thing is separate and stable, is expressed through general statements, such as “Games are like drugs” (Paul 2006) or “Spielen macht klug” (playing makes wise, Spiegel cover 3/2014).

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However, “[i]n general, nothing is definite. Only in particular” (Law 2004, 65). Boundary negotiations, contesting practices of producing singularity, aim at such stable and separate objects but simultaneously enact the multiplicity they seek to overcome. By tracing the insistence on singularity—what games and their place in reality are—and the multiplicity of experiences simultaneously, the possibility of partial connections becomes clearer. These partial connections are not only between objects out there, or objects and humans, but also within. For a game designer or organiser, a particular game takes other forms than for its players. It feels differently for seasoned players than for beginners or cheaters. Some elements are visible to only one party; others, to all. A parent relates differently to the visible and invisible elements than a marketing employee. However, designing and playing a game also differ if the person remains the same. By writing about these experiences and engagements, a researcher enacts the same game again in another variant. Each of these enactments is not simply a subjectively alternating perspective on the same thing. As a myriad of different objects, bodily functions (e.g. adrenaline output for a player during a game, or adrenaline output for a parent whose child “gets lost in a game world”), and emotions (e.g. pride when defeating an enemy in-game, or apprehension when dressed as a hobbit and encountered by work colleagues out-of-game), to name but a few elements, make up a game, the status of a game is not only a question of contesting perspectives but of contesting realities. As conflicting as these realities might be, they are also partially connected. A parent’s or a sales manager’s assessment of a game depend on collective norms, for example. What counts as “normal” behaviour or as a good business tool is a function of valuation of a whole population’s activities or statistical measurement of a whole business sector. The individual assessment includes collective norms but cannot be reduced to these. Simultaneously, the collective norms depend on a sample of individual assessments but are not reducible to any single appraisal. The different realities not only contradict but also include or co-operate with each other. The idea of an unseen but effective boundary between the everyday and games or playing appears as a key trope in debates revolving around the relationship between games and reality, especially on the dominant concept of “escapism,” and thus also on otaku and role-playing. Logically, escapism presupposes the existence of a true reality from which to escape. Truth and reality are concepts that the philosopher of science Ian Hacking calls “elevator words” (1999, 22–23): Like “fact” or “knowledge,” they

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elevate the discussion to a higher philosophical level than a mere debate about objects or ideas. These words are not in the world but used to say something about the world, are usually circularly defined (the real is what is truly such, true is what is real), and are treated as if they had stable and transparent meanings. “But when we investigate their uses over time, we find that they have been remarkably free-floating” (ibid., 23). The “reality” that people flee from by engaging in games and the ontological “reality” referred to in such philosophical discussions cannot be the same because a departure from the latter would either be essentially magical or mundanely suicidal. The term “reality” is not so much specified in the debates on games or playing. Instead it is used in its elevating function to underscore the gravity of an escape from this “reality” and boost the position of those concerned about this matter (cf. Latour 2004). The concern about a flight from “reality” in this manner features at the end of this chapter and bridges to the labels that came to be associated with role-playing at the end of the twentieth century. To reach this point, we have to move back in time and visit multiple locations. A History with Reality What follows is the telling of a, not the, history of role-playing games, one that encompasses transboundary movements as well as movements creating and contesting borders. It is not a triumphant story of the glorious “culture” of role-playing games. Referring contemporary practices back to some ancient origin is first and foremost a legitimising move by scholars and also some of my informants. For example, manga studies of the 1990s were prone to this and linked current forms to ancient Buddhist scrolls, ignoring many discontinuities (as well as continuities), in order to establish themselves as a discipline now taught at universities (Berndt 2008). Similarly, RPG studies likes to show how its object of inquiry originates from realms of high cultural appreciation. However, there is no direct line from chess to the currently most popular computer RPG, World of Warcraft . There are partial connections in time and space. Others have named these connections “multiple sources” (Harviainen 2012a, 18). The following narrative traces how the spatiotemporal journey of the assemblage built, entangled and unravelled its networks. The telling of this journey thus encompasses figures displaying these networks, their elements and the changes to the fluidity

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of their arrangement as well as spotlights on examples of play or excerpts from rulebooks to illustrate diversity. Where to begin? With a focus on live-action and enactment, one possible avenue is to trace origins back to the spectacles of gladiatorial fights and mock naval battles of ancient Rome or the Commedia dell’arte, a form of improvisational theatre that has brought us many role archetypes, such as the harlequin or the star-crossed lovers (Morton 2007, 246). This is a story of family resemblance (Wittgenstein [1953] 2009, 36e): There is no direct connection or succession of development but shared attributes and characteristics instead, identified in hindsight. Others write a history that begins with games of strategy in ancient India and follows the developments of military simulation games, such as the nineteenth century Prussian Kriegsspiel (Lischka 2009). This is a story of more or less direct exchanges because the first so-called fantasy role-playing game, Dungeons & Dragons, evolved from US American wargaming. Some players, represented by a number of my interviewees, could not care less about the origins of their hobby either way. They focus on games as they are now and how they like to play. Others seem to gain much from linking RPGs to distant predecessors, legitimising their practice by seeing it as part of a long tradition, be it aristocratic games of war, science fiction literature, theatrical methods, or therapeutic paradigms. Furthermore, both avenues of tracing the origins and development of RPGs are valuable for the main argument of this study because they offer differing views of development and show how different elements, practices, and concepts were assembled together, how aspects got lost over time, or were reintroduced later on, how role-playing games were and continue to be a border-crossing assemblage. Clear definitions of what an RPG is, are usually employed as a counter measure to deal with this fluidity. The fluid nature of the assemblage is ironically proving each and every definition to be quite spatiotemporally dependent. The following account is indebted to recent studies conducted by emergent (live-action) role-playing game historians, such as Shannon Appelcline (2014a, b, c, d), Jon Peterson (2012), and Michael Tresca (2010), among others.1 Most such histories, however, limit themselves to the US or Europe, end their studies around the 1990s, or focus on only 1 Consult especially Peterson for a detailed account on the trajectory from wargaming to TRPGs and Appelcline for the development of the industry in the US. As this book deals exclusively with non-digital gaming, computer mediated RPGs do not feature in the

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one figuration of role-playing games. Thus, details on the development of role-playing in Japan, and in parts also the passages on Germany represent original research. Especially depictions of recent events are based on my fieldwork, conducted between 2010 and 2019. Kriegsspiel—From India to Prussia and Beyond Prussian wargaming lead more or less directly to the commercialisation of RPGs, with a few sidesteps along the way. Wargames as a genre of hobbyist entertainment took off from tactical military training based on variants of Chess, which were popular in the region today enveloped by the German nation-state. Chess in turn is believed to have derived from 2 a game of strategy played in Eastern India around 500–600 chaturanga, ˙ CE, which made use of specially carved figurines with different in-game properties and movement capabilities (Murray 2012). Like many other games, chaturanga ˙ came to Europe via the Islamic world known then as shatranj (ibid.). The figurines of Chess and its predecessor(s) already resembled military units, with a king as the commander and his capture the aim of the game. The game underwent several transformations in Europe, with a number of (aristocratic) authors attempting to improve on its rules and design until it reached the form known today by the late 16th or early seventeenth century (Bird 2008; Murray 2012). In 1780, however, a break with the previous way of gaming became popular, Johann Hellwig’s (1743–1831) Das Kriegsspiel (The Wargame, Hellwig 1780, 1803). In contrast to the abstract Chess, the game board was colour-coded by terrain type and artillery units could attack from the distance (Peterson 2012, loc. 6236). Hellwig also changed the winning condition from capturing or subduing a king to acquiring the opponent’s fortress. The most important shift to realism in wargaming, probability, came out of modern-day Poland, then part of the kingdom of Prussia. Major conflicts in Europe had not only spawned an army reform in this

following history. For their development, see King and Borland (2003) and Barton and Stacks (2019). 2 Sanskrit, meaning “four divisions,” more specifically the four divisions of the military, namely chariots, cavalry, infantry, and elephants. Chaturanga ˙ counts as the common predecessor of the board games Xiangqi (China), Shatranj (Persia), Janggi (Korea), Sh¯ ogi (Japan), Makruk (Thailand), and Chess (Europe).

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kingdom but also an increased interest in military science. In 1811, Georg Leopold von Reiswitz (1760–1828), counsellor to the local government in Wrocław, presented king Friedrich Wilhelm III with a beautifully carved sandbox including detailed figurines instead of a game board. Following a favourable royal reception (Peterson 2012, loc. 6503), his son, Georg Heinrich Rudolf Johann von Reiswitz (1794–1827), would undertake the project of reaching a broader audience. Based on his personal experiences in the war against Napoleon, the younger Reiswitz rewrote his father’s “Taktisches Kriegs-Spiel” (Tactical War-Game) in order to convey a “picture of events on the battlefield as realistic as possible” (Reiswitz 1989, vi). The 1824 edition of the younger Reiswitz’s game included elements that would become nodal points of connections between RPGs in the future: A referee and dice. This meant that a Kriegsspiel always had at least three players, two opponents and a referee, called “umpire.” The inclusion of an umpire made the game more flexible. Instead of a winning condition that never changes, such as capturing the opponent’s king (Chess) or fortress (Hellwig), the umpire’s main task was to create a scenario with defined objectives. In the service of realism and with the didactic purpose of giving the players insights into the decision making on a real battlefield, the players only have partial knowledge and cannot control their troops as directly and perfectly as was previously the case. They pass orders in writing to the umpire who in turn interprets these orders for the troops. The younger Reiswitz added another level of “uncertainty” to convey the situation on a battlefield: In Chess the result of an attack is pre-ordained, the attacker will always displace the opponent’s piece when moving into the same square. In a Reiswitz Kriegsspiel, however, the result of an attack is uncertain, depending on the conditions (favourably, such as elevated terrain, or of disadvantage, such as concealed defenders) and on the result of a dice throw. These dice throws were not an element of mere chance, but of probability, a discipline of mathematics coming to the fore merely two-hundred years before Reiswitz’s time (Stigler 1999; Hald 2003). Reiswitz based the effects of firepower in his game on a newly invented tool of eighteenth and nineteenth century governance: Statistics. The younger Reiswitz used state-of-the-art science studies as his main source for the probabilistic account of firepower. This unprecedented inclusion of science marks not only a paradigm shift in simulation gaming but also established a connection between wargaming and the general trend of governmentality in

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nineteenth century Europe: “The ensemble formed by the institutions, procedures, analyses and reflections, the calculations and tactics that allow the exercise of this very specific albeit complex form of power, which has as its target population, as its principal form of knowledge political economy, and as its essential technical means apparatuses of security” (Foucault 1991, 102). Without the state’s attempt to measure, calculate and predict its population, without the invention of statistics, the realism achieved by Reiswitz would not have been possible. For distributing the game throughout the Prussian army, the younger Reiswitz developed a “mass-market” version of his Kriegsspiel which was delivered in a 25 by 15 centimetre box, sold for 30 Thalers3 —comparable in price to a more-or-less decent gaming computer today. This increased availability led to the formation of Kriegsspiel-Vereine (wargame association), of which the first probably was the Berliner Kriegsspiel-Verein (Berlin Wargame Association, BKV; Wilson 1969; Pias 2004; Peterson 2012). Most members of these associations or clubs had military background, so the target audience still consisted mostly of soldiers, officers, and aristocracy. Later to be found at most universities, these associations published also magazines to discuss tactics or present new rules. Despite first steps into commercialisation, during the nineteenth century wargaming remained a military exercise, in which virtuality (playing) and actuality (war) continuously took turns. Even though labelled a game, Kriegsspiel appeared to be serious business. The Prussian Kriegsspiel found its use during the war against Austria in 1866 but foremost in the simulation of logistics during the war with France in 1870/71 through which this kind of game gained even more popularity throughout Europe (Pias 2004, 180). Subsequently, translations of the rules began to surface in many different languages. In its first English translation (Rules for the Conduct of the War-Game, von Tschischwitz and Baring 1872), Kriegsspiel gained the attention of the US military in the late 1870s and so found its way into American military education and also informed the first American wargame: Strategos (1980) by Charles A.L. Totten (1851–1908), a tactics professor.

3 One Thaler had 22,272 g silver (Verdenhalven 1968) which would cost about e1.15 today. However, if we look at the buying power of a Thaler, one Thaler equals DM14.70 in 1967, which translates to ca. e27.89 in 2019 (Lindcom 2019). The Reiswitz 1828 edition would have cost approx. e840 (or $900) in late 2019.

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Around the turn of the century, wargaming and its compatriot of toy soldiery experienced a short phase as adult entertainment (cf. H.G. Wells’ Little Wars, 2004 [1913]). In the aftermath and devastation of World War I, however, the public interest and enthusiasm in playing war understandably dropped off the scale. Still, wargaming continued to be highly valued in the military worldwide. Similar to Prussia’s successes against Austria and France half a century earlier, many observers attributed the victory of Japan over Russia in 1904 to its detailed planning and testing of strategies through wargames (McHugh 2013, chap. II, loc. 911). The victory was labelled a remarkable feat for a “late-comer” to modernity such as Japan (which was as “late” as Germany). Following this success, the Japanese government created the Total War Research Institute, the S¯ oryokusenkenky¯ ujo, in Tokyo in 1940. The Institute conducted analytical games for the purpose of determining military and economic strategies. The games played to simulate the attack on Pearl Harbour a year later, however, apparently did not prepare for the actual assault. Participants attributed the failure to the arrogance of the generals and their arbitrary dismissal of umpire rulings (Fuchida and Okumiya 1992, 125). Outside the military and half a century after the first boom of wargaming for entertainment, the practice remained a niche interest. A major “game changer” was released in 1959, the US board game Diplomacy (Calhamer 1959), which incorporated social interaction and interpersonal skills into its gameplay. A second shift in the network saw the inclusion of fantasy elements. In 1971, Gary Gygax published a game named Chainmail set in the late medieval period. The first edition was a historical game similar to others, but later versions gained an appendix, which gave players the possibility to add fantasy elements such as dragons or wizards. Gygax was inspired by J.R.R. Tolkien (The Lord of the Rings ) and Robert E. Howard (Conan the Barbarian) and sought to catch the imagination of their fans with his “Fantasy Supplement” that offered the possibility to refight the stories’ epic struggles (Gygax and Perren 1971, 33). In this instance, the tight citation cycle of the role-playing game assemblage becomes apparent. Many key elements of the fantasy/sword & sorcery, and later science fiction settings bear close resemblance to respective literary works. Today there is almost no TV series or movie, which does not find adaptation as a (professionally or independently produced) role-playing game; and many RPGs themselves are again intermedially incorporated in franchises consisting of novels, movies and also manga and anime.

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The Network Wargaming What does the practice-as-network wargaming look like at the end of the nineteenth century and how did it change during the twentieth century? Figure 2.1 identifies a physical table as the central element. All configurations include further material objects, ranging from figurines or troop markers to dice and result tables. The dice connect to hands, arms and bodily movements. Besides moving dice, bodies also move the units and themselves around the table. There are at least three bodies, two opposing players-as-commanders and a referee or umpire. The umpire comes up with the scenario, where the battle takes place, what the goals are—defeat, capturing a fort or something other. One of this referee’s most important roles is to mediate between the game and a higher concept, realism or authenticity (that the game represents real war accurately). He is in league here with the dice. The dice bring in cold probability, random results of attacks but not mere chance. Why? Because the numbers on

Fig. 2.1 The Network Wargaming

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the dices are connected to tables, tables of firearm effects, depending on distance of target and its cover. These tables are further linked to statistics based on observations of real-world warfare. Thus, Reiswitz’s game table is connected to actual wars conducted in the late nineteenth century and wargames to the study of military history (Willmuth 2001). Mass-market versions of the game as well as compatriot networks, such as toy soldiery, were produced and transformed the Kriegsspiel into another form of connector: The core node of hundredth of university clubs (Vereine) in Europe, which were connected through newsletters and magazines. Two World Wars confined the mass-market game to two niches, back to actual military training and a concern with realism on the one hand, and into a hobbyist affair on the other. Within the latter niche, the network established connections to studies of social interaction, to incorporate diplomatic dealings and negotiations into an element of the game. It also took a step away from realism and built ties to fantasy and science fiction literature. On the surface, this changed only the appearance of the figurines, now wizards and dragons instead of cavalry and cannons. The combination of individual interaction and fantasy elements, however, opened the practice-as-network to a major re-configuration to be explored in the next section on fantasy role-playing.

2.2 Creating Markets and Acronyms: D&D, TRPGs, and LARP In the early 1970s, Gary Gygax (1938–2008), a wargaming enthusiast and writer for related hobby magazines (Appelcline 2014b, 8), as well as Dave Arneson (1947–2009), then a student of history at the University of Minnesota and mind behind a character-based scenario named Blackmoor (ibid., 12), that combined Gygax’s Chainmail with Diplomacy, collaborated to produce the game system that today is referred to as the mother of role-playing games, Dungeons & Dragons (D&D)—turning Gygax’s wish to make a living from gaming into a reality (Schiesel 2008). The game’s status follows from being the first game marketed as a “fantasy

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role-playing game” (Peterson 2012). Gygax and Arneson defined their creation and explained it to prospective players the following way4 : Swords & sorcery best describes what this game is all about, for those are the two key fantasy ingredients. ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS is a fantasy game of role playing which relies upon the imagination of participants, for it is certainly make-believe, yet it is so interesting, so challenging, so mind-unleashing that it comes near reality. (Gygax and Arneson 1978, 7)

This quote may help situate D&D within a network of the literary genre that inspired it, its often-cited basic component, imagination, and the discourse on gaming and reality, it does not shed light on its mechanics. Continuing on the same page the reader learns most of what one might call the core elements of D&D and many other games that tried to emulate it (Peterson 2012, sec. 5.10, loc. 15945ff; Appelcline 2014b, 117): Players create and portray characters distinct from their own selves (not Jane or Jim but Quenthel, for example). These characters have quantifiable physical and mental traits (such as intelligence and dexterity), and are differentiated by occupational classes, such as fighter or wizard. There is further a distinction between those players who portray just one character and the referee (the dungeon master (DM), game master (GM), or storyteller (ST) in other systems) who controls the setting and the supporting cast, so-called non-player characters (NPCs). In the course of a game the players explore, fight, talk, and gain rewards, such as gold and experience. The latter is collected in a currency of points and players need a certain amount of these XP5 to “level up,” to grow from a simple 4 The quote is taken from the so-called 1st edition of the game, published in 1978, and not from the “original” of 1974, which was a supplement to the authors’ war game Chainmail . This “Original D&D” or OD&D inspired many others to design a similar game. The 1st edition of 1978 was marketed as a fantasy RPG, the “original” still as a wargame. 5 Depending on the game, a player character receives XP for different actions and to differing amounts. In earlier editions of D&D, for example, most XP were earned for killing monsters (=non-humans)—1 XP for a sheep, 100 XP for an orc, and so on. If a certain threshold was reached, say 1000 XP for the transition from level 1 to level 2, then the character would “level up.” In systems without levels, XP can be spent to increase skills (e.g. “Computer,” “Medicine,” or “Brawl”). Story focused games also may not be so generous with XP—you might only gain 1 or 2 per session. This is to “increase” the realism of learning new skills, which does not happen overnight.

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fighter to Quenthel the Invincible. This would take many game sessions and real-time years for Quenthel’s player to achieve. All this is accomplished by verbal tellings, by a dialog between the players and the referee, and—this is a legacy from wargaming—with the help of dice and optionally with figurines and maps. The dice are used to determine the result of actions of which the outcome is unclear: If a character wants to climb a wall their player needs to succeed at the appropriate dice roll, which is modified by the character’s traits (a strong character receives a bonus on climbing, for example). If the roll does not succeed or fails, the character either does not climb over the wall or might even fall off it. All later editions of D&D and its siblings or (unintended) offspring, such as Tunnels & Trolls (St. Andre 1975), RuneQuest (Perrin and Stafford 1978), Midgard (Franke 1981), Rolemaster (Fenlon and Charlton 1982), or later Pathfinder (Bulmahn 2009) share these basic features—with small modifications to emphasise unique selling points. Some games use polyhedral dice,6 others have the players roll dozens of common six-sided ones. Because players usually fill out elaborate “character sheets” listing all the traits, weaponry, and spells of their characters, the broader category for this kind of game is often referred to as pen & paper RPG. Another common designation is table-top RPG as the game is played sitting at a table. Later game designers extended the possibilities of role-playing beyond the standard dungeon-crawl of killing monsters, gaining treasure, and becoming the omnipotent hero of the realm. The 1990s brought a small “revolution,” a differentiation of play-styles, which translated into many new subcategories and connected to later developments in live-action play. One cornerstone of this first distinct wave of differentiation in the US market is Mark Rein·Hagen’s World of Darkness (WoD), or more precisely, his Vampire: The Masquerade (VtM ; 1991).7 Vampire retained 6 The first editions of D& D, for example, used two 10-sided dice for so-called percentage rolls, one dice with the numbers 1-9 and the other with 00-10. Players had to roll a number smaller than the given difficulty to hit an opponent, for example (“you have a 15% chance of hitting”). 4-, 6-, 8- and other multi-sided dice were used for different kinds of rolls (see book cover for example dice). The correct dice to be used is usually indicated by a lowercase “d,” the appropriate number, and a preceding quantity count. Some game systems are named after the dice mostly used during play, for example Wizards of the Coast’s d20-system, or GroupSNE’s 2d6-system. 7 The history and impact of the World of Darkness on gaming but also club culture featured in a recent documentary of the same name (Alderson 2017).

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the distinction between players and referee, here called storyteller, but eschewed many of the then taken for granted key elements of fantasy role-playing, such as classes, levels, dungeons, dragons, or that the player characters are necessarily the good guys. In VtM , the characters are not aspiring heroes in search of treasure and fame but, as the name suggests, freshly created vampires in search of their human souls. The game emphasises less the outbound struggle against evil but the inner struggle of a still human consciousness with an insatiable hunger for blood. D& D and VtM , each represent different genres of literature but also of game mechanics. D&D was inspired by the so-called sword & sorcery genre, spearheaded by Robert E. Howard’s Conan (1932) and, of course, J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings (1954). To gain an inkling of what might happen in the players’ imagination (or at least in Gary Gygax’s; Schiesel 2008) it might help to envision these stories. The revised edition of Vampire from 2000 lists several inspirational sources from romantic literature and other media that highlight the direction of play the creators imagined: Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897), Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire (1976) or The Vampire Lestat (1985), Lost Souls by Poppy Z. Brite (1992), Friedrich W. Murnau’s silent movie Nosferatu (1922), Joel Schuhmacher’s The Lost Boys (1987), and also Kikuchi Hideyuki’s Ky¯ uketsuki Hant¯ a D (Vampire Hunter D, since 1983) and its anime adaptations. Louis’ 200-year life story as one of the undead in Interview with the Vampire is the prime example of the diegetic idea behind the game. First, he denies his new-born nature, seeks to live with his still mortal family and feeds off of rats and other animals. Later he grows accustomed to the possibilities of his undying way of existence and the politics of the dammed—still clinging to some kind of moral code, however. Accordingly, in VtM the most important character traits are not so much strength or the number of spells a character knows but their “humanity” (measured on a 10-point scale, with 10 being a saint and 0 equalling a mindless, hunger-driven beast). RPGs do not only differ content- or genre-wise—there are over 600 commercial table-top systems and settings worldwide covering fantasy, science-fiction, horror, adventure, espionage, (alternative) history, satire, superheroes, steampunk, and numerous adaptations of literature and film. Not all games feature humans or humanoids as player characters: In Plüsch, Power & Plunder (Sandfuchs et al. 1991) one plays as toys of every imaginable kind, while one becomes home appliances in Isamash¯ı chibi no suihanki TRPG (Brave Little Rice-cooker TRPG, Koaradamari 2012).

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Table 2.1 Spotlight—Skill Roll Example Carter intends to fire a medium burst at Jones, Sykes and Farrow, but a bystander is amongst them. An attack roll must be made against each person. Since that means there are four targets, Carter’s dice pools each suffer a −4 penalty rather than a −3. Carter also needs to make a long burst instead of a medium one (a medium burst affects up to three people, while Carter now needs to hit four). Carter starts with 12 dice for a long burst (3 Dexterity + 3 Firearms + 3 equipment bonus + 3 for long burst). That pool is immediately reduced by four for all the targets involved, leaving eight. Farrow is also at long range (a −4 penalty), so four dice are rolled against him. Sykes is substantially concealed (a −3 penalty), so five dice are rolled against him. Jones wears armor rated 3, so five dice are rolled against him. The bystander is out in the open and at short range, so all eight dice are rolled against him. (From The World of Darkness , Achilli and Bridges 2004, 160) The above example is taken from a story focused game. Simulation oriented games would seek to translate the different conditions and skills in ever more sophisticated, mathematical and statistical appropriations, which speaks for a stronger connection to wargames.

Pen & paper role-playing games are further differentiated in regard to their mechanics on a spectrum between realist simulation and narrativist playability (cf. spotlight in Table 2.1 and GNS below): While D& D and its siblings aim for a detailed representation of combat as possible, games like VtM focus more on story and thus feature simpler rules. A number of indie games, systems and settings developed by individual or amateur game designers, sold outside the three-tier distribution model of publisher, distributor, and retailer (cf. Winkler 2006), are often more experimental and do not always favour comprehensive rule sets. Both ends of the spectrum have adherents and opponents. Incidentally, the Japanese TRPG magazine R¯ oru & R¯ oru (Role & Roll, Arclight Publishing) hints at both play-styles with its title and markets itself as caterer to both, role-players and (the often derogatorily used label of) roll-players. The latter is said to gain most enjoyment out of throwing dice and advancing their character’s power level instead of acting out a role. Still, how game designers describe their creations, how elaborate or how simple their rule systems are, this does not necessarily translate into actual styles of play at the game table: There are roll- and role-players in each and every system. Game designers know this and thus often include phrases such as: “But the rules are only intended to help your imagination. The most important things are your inspiration and your intention to have fun” (Kitazawa and GroupSNE 2008, 9, translation by the author).

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Translating TRPGs: Different Languages, Diverse Media Roads to Lord by Kadokura Naoto (1984) receives the status of Japan’s first TRPG and like D&D borrows heavily from Tolkien fantasy for its setting and characters. However, its rules and playstyle differed very much from D&D as it eschewed numerical values for character traits and progressed solely via conversations building on phrases picked from the rulebook. Despite a long-standing player-base and new editions, Roads to Lord remains overshadowed by the first translation of this form of play into Japanese that closely followed in D&D’s footsteps. Translation here ¯ does not refer to the first Japanese translation of D&D (Onuki and ORG 1985) but the transformation of its game mechanics and elements into a separate system. This game grew out of D&D sessions organised at Kyoto University’s Science Fiction Club by Yasuda Hitoshi, translator of various SF novels and also Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series. He had encountered this new game via US wargame and SF magazines in 1979. With his SF background, Yasuda first translated Traveller (Miller 1977, Japanese in 1984). However, because these games lacked example scenarios, he and his colleagues felt compelled to publish examples of play to explain RPGs (Yasuda and Mizuno 2018, 20), which turned into the literature form replay (see below). Due to licensing issues with D&D’s copyright holder TSR (ibid., 35) and seeking to adjust role-playing to “the Japanese player” they imagined, Yasuda and his co-authors, Kiyomatsu Miyuki and Mizuno Ry¯o, designed Sword World RPG, which they explained in similar terms as Gygax: What is a ‘Role-Playing Game (RPG)’? ‘Role-playing’ means to play a role.8 So RPG literally means a game which proceeds by the ‘game master’ and the ‘players’ portraying roles […]. A player basically envisions the personality and outlook of one character, their alter ego so to say, and decides what this character does in relation to the world and its events. The game master contrastingly has to consider the detailed setting of this world and what happens there (referred to as a scenario). Moreover, they also have to play the roles of all human and monstrous non-player characters.

8 This sentence is tautological in its English rendition. In Japanese, however, the loanword “role-playing” (or r¯ orupureingu) is explained with “yakuwari o enjiru”—acting out, portraying or playing a role.

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According to this game style, each participant acts out their role by telling the others what they do, followed by others determining their reactions to this character. (Mizuno and GroupSNE 1989, 28; translation by author)

Sword World became the most popular RPG in Japan during the 1990s due to its distribution as inexpensive paperbacks. In 2008, its game studio GroupSNE released Sword World 2.0, followed by an update in 2018, labelled edition 2.5.9 One major change in the 2008 version’s introduction is the use of the term t¯eburu-t¯ oku r¯ orupureingu g¯emu (Table-Talk Role-Playing Game, TRPG for short; Kitazawa and GroupSNE 2008, 8). Because computer RPGs came to Japan at approximately the same time, when the “original” table-top variant arrived but were easier to start playing and thus tremendously more successful economically, the term ¯ Aru-Pi-Ji (RPG) in Japanese refers to computer and online games only. Besides Ultima (1st edition, Garriott 1981) the best-selling computer RPG at the time was Wizardry (1st edition, Greenberg and Woodhead 1981), though badly translated. It did not only inspire a manga series but also console RPGs including the globally successful Final Fantasy (1st edition, Sakaguchi 1987), which in turn decisively influenced the game mechanics of today’s online games such as World of Warcraft (Pardo et al. 2004). In view of how the term RPG was used in Japan, we can observe a transcultural moment of organising difference: Role-playing game designer of the first hour Kond¯ o K¯oshi proposed the category TRPG to distinguish table-top games from other kinds of role-playing in one of the very first RPG magazines, Warlock (Kond¯o 1987).10 The explanatory section of Sword World 2.0 makes apparent the common knowledge of video or computer RPGs and—even though over 20 years had passed—the need felt by the designers to distinguish TRPGs from their digital cousins: “…the facilitator [or] GM serves the same role as the computer in a video 9 A 30-year anniversary edition of the original game and its Record of Lodoss War franchise, including new manga and remastered anime, is in the works since 2019 (see, https://sneakerbunko.jp/lodoss30th; accessed 2020/02/20). 10 The English-language magazine created by Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone focused on adventure gamebooks, where the reader can make choices and so create their own stories. The Japanese edition deviated from this focus and dealt more with TRPGs, especially Traveller, when the magazine continued until 1997 even though the English original had already ceased publication in 1986.

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game” (Kitazawa and GroupSNE 2008, 8). It also highlights the flexibility of table-top games, which are not constrained and predetermined by programming algorithms: “In a TRPG, the GM can create a scenario freely. […] The players […] may also talk to [an enemy], who they would have no choice but to fight in a video game or to lure away and fight in more favourable conditions. Instead, they may even reach a settlement without fighting” (ibid.). At the end of the 1980s, the US as well as Japan saw a small boom in publicity for TRPGs. In Japan, this was related to the introduction of the above mentioned first edition of Sword World RPG (Mizuno and GroupSNE 1989), which remained the gold standard of non-digital roleplaying until the 2000s. Sword World RPG is a classical fantasy RPG with elves, dwarves, dragons and dark wizards. The designers and authors of the Kobe-based Group SNE—which arose from the Kyoto University Science Fiction Club (today called RPG kenky¯ ukai, Japan’s oldest and still active role-playing club)11 —counted on pocketbooks (bunkobon in Japanese) for their game and were rewarded with a broader reach into the market of young players. The basic rulebook of Sword World RPG sold for only ¥640 (ca. $4 at the time), which amounts to less than 15% of the price of the translated D&D (¥4800). Compared to the large D&D boxes and later hardcover rulebooks, bunkobon stand out in their portability (see Fig. 2.2). Eschewing the polyhedral dice of US RPGs and using only regular 6-sided dice increased accessibility further. Years later but with a similar incentive, the cyberpunk game T¯ oky¯ o NOVA of game studio F.E.A.R. (“Far East Amusement Research”) made use of a regular deck of playing cards instead of dice (Suzufuki 1993). Thus, the translation work focused on increasing availability and access, and less on a “Japanification” of content. Both game studios also became aware of the opportunities offered by replays: Replays are complete transcripts of game sessions aiming at introducing new players to the game, teaching them how to play, and widening the market (Yasuda 2016, 48). These slightly novelised narratives belong in Japan to the category of raito noberu (“light novel,” stories for a younger audience; Ichiyanagi and Kume 2009) and are understood as the part of the TRPG market that yields the largest revenue (interviews with the game studios Group SNE, F.E.A.R. und B¯oken 2010). 11 For more on the relationship between role-playing games and science fiction, especially in the formative years in Japan, see Okawada (2017).

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Fig. 2.2 Sword World RPG Pocketbooks (1989, 2018, © GroupSNE) Related to D&D Boxes (1985, 2017) (© Wizards of the Coast LLC)

Judging from my participant observations on Japanese-language Internet forums, replays function as the most salient introduction to TRPGs for many players. Replays can count as a valued addition to the diversity of TRPGs but are hardly known outside Japan. There are examples of play in most rulebooks and also novelisations on the US market, such as Dragonlance (Weis, Hickman and Hickman 1984–2011). The latter do not retain the style of a transcript: Replays depict conversations between GM and players accompanied by dice rolls or rule explanations at the bottom of a page (see spotlight in Table 2.2 and Fig. 2.3). In some cases, such as Shinobigami (Kawashima and B¯oken 2014), the replay parts takeup more space than the rules (the dark pages of the book). Only with the proliferation of video sharing platforms such as YouTube or since 2011 twitch, and the increasing simplicity and convenience of distributing game session recordings via the Internet did the amount of such replay

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Table 2.2 Spotlight—Replay, or Example of Play Game Master (GM): OK, after a steady walk and just around noon, you two have arrived at a town called “Ruby Leaf.” Entering the town you are engulfed by savoury and sweet smells. Haruka: What a delicious odour! Rio: I guess because the town is famous for its momiji-feuille [sweets]. Haruka: Ah, those momiji-feuille look delicious! Outside it’s a crispy maple-leaf-shaped pie and from the inside drops sweet maple syrup…ah.. GM: While saying this and in company of their pet dog, Haruka and Rio approach the sweet shop that sells the momiji-feuille. Please now roll for Strength and Spirit. Haruka: (sound of dice rolling) It’s a 7… Rio: I got an 11 though… GM: Well, while Haruka admires the momiji-feuille, suddenly someone rushes by from the side, extremely fast and furious. Haruka: Wha..!? What is it? GM: It’s a guy with a cat’s curved back, wearing a jug on his head, with sharp eyes, tusks, and having claws. Rio & Haruka: A cat-goblin!? GM: Correct! He garbles “Out of my way, gobunya!”, while you hear at the same time from the other side of the street a shout “Stop the thief!” Rio: They said thief? I won’t permit it! GM: Well, that means it’s going to be a fight with the cat-goblin! Rio & Haruka: Allright! [More dice rolling ensues…] (From Ry¯ utama—Natural Fantasy R.P.G., Okada A. 2007, 98; translation by the author). Most RPG rulebooks include such examples of play to introduce new players into how the designers envision the game. Novelisations of game sessions, such as Dragonlance, are indistinguishable from conventional novels. A so-called replay contrastingly retains the parallel presentation of story, dialogue and dice roll results.

distributions change outside Japan.12 In contrast to Japan’s replays, this does not generate as much direct income for game studios. Replay videos on niconico especially of Call of Cthulhu (CoC ), continue to draw new players, so that university clubs see a rising membership and TRPG cafés an ever-increasing customer base: Tokyo’s Café Daydream had to expand between 2016 and 2018 from a single-floor establishment to encompassing the whole building it is in, from basement to third floor (Ueno 2019). The former owner, Okada Atsuhiro, attributes this to the CoC boom and to the raising interest in live-action role-play (cf. Kamm 2019).

12 The Japanese platform niconico still remains the leader and today hosts thousands of such videos, which slowly take over from the published replay novels. Outside Japan, semi-professional shows like Critical Role follow a similar format (https://critrole.com; accessed 2020/02/20).

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Fig. 2.3 Shinobigami Pocketbook with Replay (© B¯ oken)

CoC as a US game but even more so, most of the popular TPRGs made by local studios are embedded in multi-media franchises on the Japanese market, known as media-mixes (Steinberg 2012). They can be played at the game table but also read as manga or novel, watched as anime or movie. Chronologically, the first example of such a media-mix is R¯ odosu T¯ osenki (Record of Lodoss War), known outside Japan mostly in its anime form.13 In the guise of a D&D replay, Lodoss was published in the computer game magazine Comptiq (Yasuda and GroupSNE 1986) and later became the basis for Group SNE’s own Sword World. Compared to other regions, the number of Japanese-language TRPGs is remarkably high. This contribution is due to the countless d¯ ojinshi (literally, “work or magazine for the like-minded”), games made by amateurs. To this very day, you can find such amateur works at the Comic Market (abbreviated to komike in Japanese), Japan’s largest amateur fair 13 The art-nouveau-style illustrations for which Lodoss is known featured in the 2019 exhibition “Timeless Mucha—Mucha to Manga: The Magic of Line” of the Mucha Foundation, so that this particular media-mix goes beyond manga, anime, and games.

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for manga, novels, music, drama CDs, digital and non-digital games. Similar to the manga industry, most professional designers began their careers as amateurs at such fairs, including for example Tokyo-based F.E.A.R., which counts among the major game studios today. Many of the translators and designers of the very beginning are nowadays well-established or even famous novelists, (video) game designers, or literature critics. The novelist Mizuno Ry¯ o or the manga author, critic and ¯ researcher Otsuka Eiji are cases in point. The latter still and continuously refers to TRPGs in his tutorials on how to create characters for novels as ¯ well as in his socio-critical writings (Otsuka 2003, 2004a). Ages of Winter and Countermeasures: Moé, VTT, PoD, and Other Abbreviations Before their current revival—in Japan connected to CoC , in the US due to new editions of games with more inclusive settings and diverse representations of people (Alimurung 2019)—TRPGs had experienced a small but noteworthy boom in the late 1980s and early 1990s. In the US, sales blossomed due to the extended media attention D&D had gained by its association with occultism. Several cases of youth delinquency and suicide were portrayed as the outcome of too a serious engagement with fantasy role-playing and Satanism (see Chapter 3). Gary Gygax’s game studio TSR among other game companies, such as Avalon Hill or Parker, may not have welcomed the scapegoating but gladly tapped into the commercial potential of the link between their games and a general interest in occultism and New Age (Peterson 2012, loc. 16194). D&D sold well due to the media attention. No longer an obscure hobby nobody knew about, D&D featured without much explanatory comment or beguiling in blockbuster movies such as Spielberg’s E.T. (1982). In Japan, TRPGs themselves were less known, but their intermediality was of a high profile with successful novels, manga, and anime based on their settings. Many popular manga series of the 1990s had some link to TRPGs, while at the same time popular anime were often translated into role-playing games, such as Tenchi Muy¯ o (Hayashi 1992), or “reverse-engineered” from their light novel roots, e.g. Slayers! (Kanzaka 1989–present). The relationship between these franchise products was mostly unknown to the American and European audiences. Here too, popular anime and manga were made into role-playing games, the most

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well-known was the Canadian all-purpose anime game system Big Eyes, Small Mouths (MacKinnon 1997). The late 1990s, however, saw a decrease in player numbers in Japan, Europe, and America. The rise of trading card games (TGC) were one factor affecting many producers and distributors (Appelcline 2014d, 377). Judging from Internet forums in English and Japanese, less available time after college graduation also did its part in reducing the active player population. Despite being a problem for the respective industries worldwide, only the Japanese coined (or borrowed from early twentieth century socialism) a term for this period; fuyu no jidai, the Age of Winter (Baba 1997b). In Germany, the lack of translations indicates this change most profoundly. In the 1990s and until the early 2000s, the most popular US game lines, such as D&D or VtM , were soon and almost completely translated into German. Later editions also saw translated core rulebooks but never reached the same coverage as earlier versions, which included supplemental books about a particular character class or vampire kind. A number of German publishers moved on to fantasy novels and other merchandise. Contrastingly, many Japan-based game designers tried to revive the market with new ideas that were tailored to the conditions players faced in Japan (Takahashi 2006; Kamm 2011). Japanese houses usually do not feature a basement, nor are apartments very large, which limited play outside the sphere of university clubs to public spaces like community centres and their respective opening hours. The game studio F.E.A.R. favoured a quick and dramatist game play that took inspirations from anime and moved its products far away from attempts at simulation or realism. The game designer Tokita Y¯usuke likened the development of TRPGs in Japan to the one of animation (personal interview 2010). While many admired Disney, full-animation was just not financially possible, so people made the best out of limited animation, created new forms of expression and told stories with the resources they had. In a similar manner, games encompassing huge amounts of books and supplements like D&D were beyond the scope of Japanese game studios, which promoted the switch to paperbacks in the late 1980s. F.E.A.R. now began to include quick templates for game masters to plan and hold 4-hour sessions that could be played even on weeknights or at conventions. Instead of randomised dice rolls, some games like the cyberpunk T¯ oky¯ o NOVA (Suzufuki 1993) use trump cards and a system that is less random but incorporates resource management. Players fail on

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purpose in the earlier “scenes” during a session to get better cards for the “climax” or showdown at the end. A focus on dramatic or “cool” scenes is inherent to most F.E.A.R. games, which often explicitly reward enjoyable role-play with hero points that are to be used for superhuman feats in a session’s final. Other companies such as Kond¯ o’s B¯ oken Kikakkyoku (Adventure Planning Service) tried to mix board game elements with TRPGs, which resulted in labyrinth-like city adventures or “dungeonmanagement-RPGs” (Kawashima et al. 2008; Kawashima and Kond¯o 2010). Very much like in the US, game studios searched for ways to reach younger players and those of digital RPGs. F.E.A.R. at times attempts to completely reconstruct the game play of console games, for example with the MMORPG-inspired14 Arianrhod (Kikuchi and F.E.A.R. 2004). Alone the different responses of game designers to the Age of Winter underscore how the practice-as-network role-playing game in its Japanese configuration is not singular. Player responses again emphasis multiplicity as some embrace the drama-driven style of F.E.A.R., for example, while others critique it as just favouring the designer’s way of playing, as an interviewee suggested to be the case with Inoue’s Tenra Bansh¯ o (Interview Kawai and Nakahara, see Chapter 3).15 Due to the extended appropriation of video game techniques, newer TRPGs are rule-wise much simpler than the games of the 1990s but also more battle and strategy oriented. Thus, during my participant observations at game conventions it seemed that performative elements such as the immersion into a character moved to the background for some players. The increased interest into live-action role-play worldwide and recently especially in Japan can be imputed as a countermove to these developments. The developments in Japan are not identical with but speak to attempts made elsewhere. For example, newer editions of D&D, now sold by Wizards of the Coast (WotC), a subsidiary of Hasbro Inc., also tried to emulate computer games and reduced the amount of actual role-play. For example, players no longer have to act out social interactions but may roll dices instead on appropriate character skills. Called “social combat,” this means that players and dungeon masters do not engage in elaborate, first 14 MMORPG stands for Massively Multi-Player Online Role-Playing Game, of which globally the most popular is World of Warcraft. Thousands of players from different regions meet online in virtual server environments to play together or fight each other. 15 All interviewee names have been changed for anonymity.

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person in-character conversations in which they try to bluff, persuade, or negotiate for “real” but just describe what happens after a successful or failed die roll (“You convince the king of your plan.”). Being a company that grew from its success with trading card games such as Magic: The Gathering (Garfield 1993) WotC also included cards into the game play. For each skill and power, such as spells or special attacks, players now have description cards lying in front of them (if they bought them, of course) which they turn around after the respective power was used. The game table of this new D&D thus now closely resembles the interface of CRPGs. After graduating from high school or college and entering the job market many of my interviewees experienced a loss of time to continue playing TRPGs on a weekly or monthly basis. Especially after relocating for a new position, many players stopped playing because they could not find a new gaming group or had difficulties finding a date to play with their friends. This changed to some degree with virtual game tables such as Fantasy Grounds, Roll20, or the Japanese dodontof . These virtual tabletops (VTT) offer many features, such as voice-over-IP or video telephony for talking, chat rooms for sharing secret information, online character sheets and inventories, dice rollers, and an emulated game table on which digital figurines can be moved around. While American TRPGs and those made in Japan in the 1980s as well as game magazines favoured quite realistic artwork for their rulebooks and supplements (and later virtual game tables), since the 1990s Japanese game studios began to align the artwork with a style common to most manga and anime. Exemplified by the covers of Role & Roll magazine, such artwork recently includes also moé-style illustrations. Moé has contested meanings (cf. Galbraith 2014; and Chapter 3 “Practicing Stereotypes,” p. 134), one of which is a passionate response to often grotesquely cute, fictional characters, like Hello Kitty, who have no personality or narrative embeddedness (cf. It¯ o 2005). The magazine covers (see Fig. 2.4) often highlight the moé aspect of contrasts, such as cute characters in heavy armour or operating powerful machinery. An “Asian” or manga-like flair, however, is also sought after outside Japan as the artwork of newer D&D editions and especially White Wolf’s fantasy game Exalted (Hatch et al. 2001; Chambers et al. 2006) attest. This change in artwork created a point of differentiation between younger and older players, of which the latter continue to favour (photo-) “realism.”

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Fig. 2.4 Role & Roll Magazine Covers (Arclight Publishing) with Moé Illustrations

The worldwide spread of the moé style in anime and the sphere of roleplaying games also expresses itself in the first Japanese-language TRPG translated into English, Maid RPG (Kamiya 2004; Cluney and Kamiya 2008). In this game (male) players choose to portray French maids in the service of a lord who they try to please, which may result in heavy rivalry among the maids. The French maid is an icon of the moé style, represented by the hundreds of Tokyo’s “Maid Cafés” where customers are served by maids and treated like lords coming home, and by one of the “cute ambassadors” of Japan’s “Cool Japan” country marketing campaign. Maid RPG has a pseudo-European setting. Only later followed translations of TRPGs into English that had much more elements “typically Japanese,” such as samurai or oni (Tenra Bansh¯ o, Inoue 1996; Kitkowski and Inoue 2014), or exemplified a gameplay less prominent in the US or Europe, such as the collaborative creation of a session’s setting (usually

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the sole domain of the game master; Ry¯ utama, Okada 2007, 2015b). Marketed as JRPGs, these translations create a distinctive “Japaneseness” of TRPGs that is not inherent in the games themselves but becomes a marker of difference through explanations of a specific “Japan” by the translators (cf. Chapter 4, and Kamm 2017). Most of these translations never appeared on the shelves of gaming stores. Maid RPG is only available in PDF form; Tenra and Ry¯ utama were first financed via crowdfunding and are now sold by digital bookstores and print-on-demand services (PoD), such as DriveThruRPG. This change in distribution is one of the long-lasting effects associated with the Age of Winter. Besides the Hasbro-backed WotC—still suspicious of online distribution—most US game studios either went out of business or changed to a digital only model. White Wolf, the studio behind Vampire, moved all its contents (past, present, and future) to online stores—before the studio more or less closed down in 2013 (and “re-opened” in 2016 after the acquisition by Paradox Interactive, Sweden, only to shut-down operations again soon thereafter due to creative disagreements). Onyx Path Publishing and ByNight Studios took over licenses and employees and finance most of their endeavours now via crowdfunding. This means that they make sure to have enough “backers” (buyers) before they invest in developing a new game or rulebook. Japanese and German publishers have not yet fully embraced this new form of distribution. The Network Table-Top Role-Playing Which elements of the network-as-practice now called role-playing changed and which remained the same after the introduction of fantasy elements to the connected network wargaming? Figure 2.5 shows that there are still a table, figurines, and maps. The latter are usually drawn on graph paper. Furthermore, the figurines can be replaced by tokens. Players do no longer command armies but single characters, and these characters have more attributes besides durability, firepower and speed. They need character sheets with quantifiable traits which connect them not only to the players, the game’s scenario but also to gender, class, religion, health, and moral alignment (if you are good or evil) amongst many other things and concepts. All these elements— usually except gender—are translatable into so-called game mechanics. We retain the umpire, now called dungeon or game master, and probability with the help of dice. Similar to the umpire, the game master prepares a

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Fig. 2.5 The Network Table-Top

scenario with a certain goal and also plays all supporting cast. The dice too connect to result tables, in some cases to tables that cover each and every possibility. So materially, a game session is surrounded by dozens of rulebooks and game supplements. Another major difference to wargaming is that the action is not limited to the figurines on the board but that most actions are conducted via verbal tellings of what the characters are doing. Realism in the sense of simulating real-world conditions and probability remains extremely important, even or especially in a fantasy world. Each of the hundreds of worlds is always closely tied to the real world, be it inadvertent misogyny and racism in the form of evil, matriarchal dark elves,16 or rules of diplomacy, or in the form of merchandise, related

16 Black-skinned, underground-dwelling dark elves, the Drow, were introduced in the game world setting Forgotten Realms (Greenwood et al. 1987) and to this day feature

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novels, TV-shows, or philosophical questions. And these games and settings are connected to magazines, newsletters, forums, associations, and conventions. Especially in continental Europe, basements or hobby rooms play a major role in role-playing games: A safe haven where to play until the middle of the night. In Japan, apartments are often too small for large gaming groups. Subsequently, the practice-as-network in Japan has become linked to public spaces, such as university club rooms or community centres. Such public spaces are often bound by opening hours. As a result, Japanese game designers favour quick rules and dramatic gameplay. The basic arrangement, including snacks and junk food, resembles game sessions in the US or Europe. TRPGs worldwide share a tension-laden relationship with the digital. CRPGs are attributed with cannibalising the market. Contrastingly, VTTs and PoD are new elements to the network that allow its continued existence. Still, sales and player numbers are in flux, going downward in the 1990s and currently exponentially raising worldwide. Especially, the arrangement of the assemblage that likes to be traced back to the performing arts and psychodrama gains in popularity: live-action role-play. Live-Action Role-Play—Theatre, Therapy, and Education More than any other arrangement of role-playing, live-action role-play or larp is a practice hard to trace back to a definite “origin”—and this search for origins remains nothing but a legitimising move against unfavourable media coverage. With its close resemblance to theatrical play some scholar-practitioners endeavoured so far to name Roman ludi the earliest predecessors (Morton 2007, 246). If one likes to go even further, you could call the very first instance in human history of someone

large in debates between players about depictions of people of colour and female rulers in RPGs as intrinsically evil. Because of this, official publications by WotC, for example, switched the skin colour to purple or grey (which leaves the misogynist image of evil females untouched, however). Still, white players often insist on black skin, also when portraying Drow in live-action role-plays, which receives blame because of similarities to “blackface,” white people with black make-up portraying stereotypes of black people. Players in favour of black skin paint for Drow insist that “this is just a fantasy game” with no connections to systematic oppression of people of colour in the real world. Others ask for more sensitivity towards those who experience it as too similar to blackface. As recent as late 2019, this led to heated discussions in respective Facebook groups.

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performing a societal role (cf. Goffman 1959) or the first children engaging in “pretend play” the beginnings of larp.17 As players can— and sometimes do!—larp in plain sight of non-participants, it extremely blurs the boundaries between gaming and the everyday. In light of the on-going and so far inconclusive discussion about how to define larp, linking larp to other and earlier forms of performative arts is rather an ex-post facto process than a direct historical connection unearthed. In the continuing discussions and theoretical saturation of larp, players and scholars of larps realised that similarities can be imputed, that one might improve larp play-styles by taking cues from method acting , for example (cf. Constantin Stanislavski’s “system” and Lee Strasberg’s “The Method”) or seek transformative experiences such as those provided by Moreno’s psychodrama. However, the first fantasy larps in Europe paid more homage to the Lord of the Rings than to Jakob Levy Moreno’s theories who features today large as a father figure of live-action role-play in historical discussions. Moreno developed a “theatre of spontaneity” and a “therapy for normal people.” In his psychodramas, he created situations for his patients, in which they had to improvise and thus simulate the role of a person in the prescribed circumstance. Moreno developed a theoretical framework of human behaviour that focused on societal and vocational roles, such as “mother” or “lawyer.” His work introduced the term “role-playing” and related ideas also in education during the 1940s and 1950s, so that he asserted its value as a training method in social as well as vocational settings (Moreno 1953, 48). Similar to larp and different to any other form of theatre, his psychodrama does not know an audience, everyone participates fully. Such family resemblances , however, were only later “rediscovered” and connections to his work and ideas became apparent in the increasingly theoretically inclined discussions at the Nordic larp conference, Knutepunkt (Waade and Sandvik 2007; Morton 2007; Harviainen 2011).

17 In German and (American) English Live-Action Roleplay is usually abbreviated as LARP. Since the first publication of the “Knutepunkt books,” collections of essays from the so-named Nordic role-playing conference, “larp” (lowercase, as a noun; e.g. “a larp” for an event) and “larping” (the activity) are now widely used in European Englishlanguage discussions of the practice (Fatland 2005, 12; Holter et al. 2009, 5). As this language use is also spreading into other language spheres, I decided to follow this tradition.

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A close cousin in outlook and style of larp is the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA). The SCA is a prime example of how larp- and larplike practices came into existence at the junction of coincidence and a desire to experience something other, instead of being the result of a linear progression from previous practices. The Society began as a singular event on May 1, 1966, in Berkeley, California: A graduation celebration for Diana L. Paxson, who majored in medieval literature and named the event “The Last Tournament” in reference to an ill-fated recreation of medieval life in 19th-century Scotland (Paxson 1966). Paxson was member of a local science-fiction fan club and also contributed artwork to the Tolkien-fanzine NIEKAS, published from 1962 until 1998. NIEKAS had evolved out of an apazine, a mail magazine for member publications by an amateur press association (APA), distributed by a so-called central mailer, comparable to an editor-in-chief, and at the expense of the members themselves. Apazine is a portmanteau word combining APA and magazine, of which the first was founded in 1876 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (Smith 1944). The first science fiction related APA was the Fantasy Amateur Press Association (FAPA) formed by a group of sci-fi fans in 1937, who had learned of APAs from the horror author H.P. Lovecraft (cf. Cthulhu). Two contributors to NIEKAS, David Thewlis and Ken de Maiffe, had been stationed in Bremerhaven, Germany, in the early 1960s, where they were introduced to fencing which piqued their interest in medieval swordsmanship (Keyes 1980). Back in the US, they continued their study of medieval orders of chivalry and the art of sword and shield fighting, which they put into actual practice by 1965. The swords they used were made out of wood, the shields out of plywood, and both tried to find out how medieval sword fighting was “really” done (ibid.). Enthralled by this idea, Paxson invited friends to her backyard in order to hold a costume contest and a tournament. Costume contests were nothing new to the fans of science-fiction and fantasy: The World Science Fiction Convention (“WorldCon,” since 1939), at which also the Hugo Awards ceremony for science fiction and fantasy works is held each year, included costuming right from the start, formally in its competition “The Masquerade,” and casually in the form of “hall costumes.” The costumes at WorldCon were usually inspired by literary and other fictions, so that Conans and Frodos as well as many other fantasy characters and later Captain Kirks or Darth Vaders could be encountered. Paxson’s event differed, as the participants of her event came as self-invented lords and ladies dressed in self-made “medieval”

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attire. The costume contest on May Day brought also something else into play: Authenticity. Dresses and armaments had to be as close to medieval clothing as possible for an immersive experience. It remains a topic of debate, how “creative” this authenticity may have been (Friedman and Cook 2012, 201). The May Day Tournament and later SCA events include attire from a millennium of different styles between the sixth until the sixteenth century, never aiming at recreating a specific time period. Authenticity understood as historical accuracy stopped at clothing and language, hunger and decease do not feature in the events held by this now worldwide operating non-profit organisation.18 The SCA and its distant cousins, historical re-enactment groups, including ninja and samurai battle re-enactors in Japan, as well as fantasy battle groups officially do not count themselves to the representatives of the practiceas-network larp, despite a resemblance that makes it hard to spot the differences from an outsider position. Like table-top games, they form partial connections, be it by chance or via individuals who engage in more than one arrangement of the practices that came before the term “live-action role-play” came into being. Similar to this connection with the SCA, one can point to other siblings or previous arrangements, such as “interactive literature” run by Harvard University’s Society for Interactive Literature (SIL; Jahnke 2009, 16), which after a troubled transition from a student club to a non-profit organisation in 1990 split into two groups, one under the SIL name and one named Live Action Roleplayers Association (LARPA). Comparable to wargaming associations and the SCA, the SIL/LARPA also built connections through publishing a periodical, Metagame, since 1997 marketed as “The Magazine for Live Action Role Playing.” The SIL and later LARPA way of role-playing is known today as “theatre-style LARP,” which follows a similar structure and gameplay as murder mysteries, where one or more detective(s) try to solve a murder by interviewing other players, the suspects, examining alibi and evidence, and attempting to identify the killer. Today variants of such games are played worldwide, for example in a version where killers are not mafiosi but werewolves. The

18 Like so many other concepts, authenticity, suffers from multiple meanings, often present in parallel in negotiations of the authentic (Theodossopoulos 2013). As discussed in Chapter 3, this study does not aim at a romanticized, deep or hidden authenticity or true selves. When the term is brought up, it is always in its local situatedness and qualified, such as “historical accuracy” in this case.

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first SIL games, such as “Rekon I” in 1983, were affiliated with science fiction conventions and thus limited to a room or two and a dozen or so players. Later SIL-organised ventures allowed for a much larger group of players as they were standalone events taking place at their own site. Structurally, they did not differ much from their predecessors but featured increasingly complex plots and allowed for more and more player input (Olmstead-Dean 1998). Despite a heavy scripting of characters, the interaction between participants is as improvisational as with any other form of role-playing game. There is no actual combat and often also no physical contact allowed in a “theatre-style” larp but fighting is simulated through the use of cards or other representational techniques. Usually referred to as the first British larp, Treasure Trap (Carey and Donaldson 1981–84 AD), contrastingly involved direct combat situations. The organisers had rented Peckforton Castle in Cheshire, a Victorian reconstruction from 1850, where they sent the players on quests and into battle, very much like in Dungeons & Dragons —the character classes were identical to those in the table-top game. The first larp weapons were simple bamboo sticks wrapped in foam and held together with silver duct-tape. Eventually, this would develop into more realistic looking, so-called boffer weapons with a glass fibre stick at their core and coated with latex. At Treasure Trap, players would make damage calls, announcing how much damage their weapon inflicts, while hitting each other with these soft tools (Hook 2008). The connection to fantasy wargaming can be traced through an advertisement Treasure Trap posted in the White Dwarf (no. 28, December 1981/January 1982), the inhouse magazine of Games Workshop, a company producing fantasy and science-fiction wargames, Warhammer and Warhammer 40K, which are played worldwide since the 1980s. During the late 1980s and early 1990s role-players in Europe experimented with cross overs of renaissance fairs, so-called “Gewandungstreffen” (medieval costume get-together), and table-top RPGs. Some started doing so by chance, others received information and inspiration from English-language magazines or other sources. The larp researchers Jaakko Stenros and Markus Montola call this a “pattern of sporadic emergence,” maybe to some degree also related to the anti-D&D movie Mazes and Monsters (Stern 1982; see Chapter 3), which featured scenes that can be interpreted as larp in hindsight, and thus “spread the idea of larping wide and far, allowing people to ‘invent’ larp for themselves” (Stenros and Montola 2011). The first such events were usually private affairs. Over

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time, commercial larps increased in number, where players payed a fee to participate. Exemplified by the first German larp shop Drachenschmiede (“Dragon’s Forge”), founded by Fred Schwohl (1955–2007, name-giver to the German LARP Award F.R.E.D.), many of these larps were organised to create a market for larp equipment, from boffer weapons to armour and clothes, and featured sales events. The first larps in Germany employed the game system still most popular today,19 which is actually no system at all, “DKWDK:” Du kannst, was du kannst, which translates to “You (the character) can do what you (the player) can do.” In a table-top or computer game, a physically weak player can choose a physically strong character. A player does not need to know how to pick a lock, their character’s traits in stealth, larceny, or plain “Pick Lock,” and the result of a dice throw determine if they can do that. In DKWDK, a character can only achieve what their player is capable of. So, if you wanted to play a fighter you had need to practice your actual skills in wielding a weapon and in tactics. One of my informants, a TRPG player and Japanese exchange student to Germany, found this necessity discouraging after her first visit to a larp. She preferred the possibilities of TRPGs to go beyond the limits of her body. As DKWDK precluded the use of magic—no player was actually able to cast spells—Schwohl and colleagues amended the system to include magic and other fantastical elements. “DKWDDK:” Du kannst, was du darstellen kannst; “You can do, what you can portray.” If a player then wanted to cast a spell, they had to convincingly perform/represent the spell-casting known from movies and literature, using props (“components”), gestures, and incantations. With the right rigmarole and drama, the other players would react accordingly to the spell’s supposed effect. If the caster failed in their ritualistic portrayal (due to an un/intentional mispronunciation or failure in the sequence of gestures, or out of laziness), the spell would not be effective. Just before the advent of so-called “Großcons” (mass larps with hundreds, if not thousands of players, such as Drachenfest, Wyvern Crafts 2002–present, or Conquest of Mythodea, Live Adventure 2004–present), the 1990s saw the development of point19 30% of larps in Germany used DKW(D)DK in 2013 (Bölle 2013) and over 50% of announced larps did so in 2018. The second number is based on a search analysis on Germany’s largest website for larp announcements, the Larp-Kalender: www.larpkalen der.de (accessed 2020/02/20).

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and skill-based systems, which borrowed again from table-top games and made the managing of large player numbers easier. One of the first examples is DragonSys (Weis 1995), now in its third edition (Dombrowski 2009), which also informed the beginnings of larp in Japan. With an increasing number of larpers and larp events and a concurrently growing public interest in larp, especially in “Großcons,” the German larp association DLRV was founded in 2008 to represent all larping associations and groups in Germany (and also other Germanlanguage countries), including businesses, such as the Twilight-Team (since 1995), and also educational organisations, such as Die Waldritter (“the forest knights,” since 2007, see edu-larp below). Most of these organisations, be it businesses or “Vereine” (non-profit associations), focus on events adhering to the fantasy genre (about 80%, Bölle 2013). The usual format had been three-day events in the 1990s and early 2000s, while today so-called “tavern-cons” increasingly become a major form of larps (ibid.). A “tavern” usually lasts only one evening, offers few-to-no plotted events and focuses on “in-character” play. With exception of invite-only events, larps are advertised through word-ofmouth, on flyers and pamphlets, and most often via calendar services, such as the German “Larp-Kalendar” by Thilo Wagner (www.larpkalendar.de, since 2004), or Facebook and Twitter. For these advertising purposes, larps are usually categorised into the genres and activities in focus of the event. Besides fantasy, major other genres include steampunk, apocalypse, science fiction, or Vampire, of which the latter has its own official system since 1993, “Mind’s Eye Theatre” (MET; as the name suggests, at home in the representational “theatre-style” larp, Rein·Hagen et al. 1993).20 Activity-wise, larp typology knows “academy cons” (focus on learning and everyday experience in a training institution, be it a Magic School or Starfleet Academy), “action cons” (focus on combat), “adventure cons” (the “standard,” which includes some plot, some character-play, some riddles, and also fighting), “ambience cons” (less to no combat, focus on character play and an immersive experience), “battle cons” (a succession of larger battles between opposing groups), “manoeuvre cons” (a succession of (training) battles between friendly groups), “mystery cons” (less to no combat, focus on riddles and intrigues), “party cons” (close to an ambience con but usually without a plot, focus on characters’ leisure; the 20 The newly acquired White Wolf set out to reinvent Vampire larp by incorporating elements from Nordic larp.

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tavern is a sub-category), and “travel cons” (few durable locations, more akin to in-character hiking trips). Duration (one night, one day, several days) as well as location (forest/camping site, urban etc.) are further ways of distinguishing between larps. Many larps, especially the “Großcons,” are open to anyone who pays the (net cost) participation fee but do not include board and lodging—players have to bring their own tents and food. Some larps include full room and board and thus tickets sell for a price usually more than three times as expensive. Depending on when you buy a ticket, the price scale of the Drachenfest , for example, ranges from e89 (when you buy a year before the event) to e159 if paid on the day the one-week-con starts. Full board larp tickets usually cost between e50 and e90 per day. The recent genre of “blockbuster larps,” such as College of Wizardry (Dziobak Larp Studios, 2014–2018, company P, since 2019), inspired by the world of Harry Potter and run at an actual Polish castle with secret pathways, cost much more, about e600 for a weekend. Besides the genre, content, and activity related typologies employed for larps, players also often discuss broader “national” categorisations. “German larp” is characterised by its large fantasy cons, “US larp” by its “no-touch” paradigm, while “Russian larp” has been associated with “Tolkienism” for a long time, and “Nordic larp” with avant-garde roleplaying and larp theory. Transformed from a regional label to a paradigm, “Nordic larp” goes beyond fantasy and playing for fun, often seeking to provide players with extraordinary experiences, extreme situations, and a space to learn about themselves and the world (see the spotlight in Table 2.3). Closely associated with the larp conference Knutepunkt , this form of larp will feature again in the last part of this book. Larping as described above for Europe came to Japan only recently and its entanglements with larp practices in Germany feature in Chapter 4, the third Act on Mediation. Loosely connected to Nordic larp is the current development of edularp, larp for educational purposes, which brings the assemblage back to the agenda of providing knowledge, of displacing knowledge from the game into the real world. This form of larp received its major momentum with the establishment of a Danish middle school whose curriculum is solely based on using larp and other forms of role-playing as a teaching methodology, Østerskov Efterskole (Hyltoft 2008). The institution is a so-called “free school” within the Danish system, thus needs to conform to the same standards as public schools but is free to apply alternative teaching methods. With its curriculum of courses that include elements of

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Table 2.3 Spotlight—Rules for Playing §1 All players must be perfectly clear about the subject and premise of the game before playing. They must also commit to deal with any situation that might arise from the game. It is especially important for the rapists to watch out for the player playing the woman. To this end, it is a rule that all players must have read the text in its entirety before the game starts. §2 Playing ironically, over-the-top or trying to laugh things off is not allowed. Better then to stop playing, or not play at all. §3 Having a game master is not allowed — every player must be either the victim or one of the rapists. §4 A player’s gender need not match that of the character for either the victim or the rapists. It is not meant to be fun to play. (From Voldtaget —Gang Rape, Wrigstad 2010) One of the more difficult cases of extreme situations explored in avantgarde larp and its siblings, Voldtaget deals with rape but judging from players’ accounts, it is the rapists who are more in need of support after the game than the victim because the players would need to come to terms with playing a horrible role (cf. Montola 2014). Not all Nordic larps go to the level of Voldtaget, however, many include emotions and intimacy, so that they make use of various meta-techniques to help players, include emotional safety protocols, and commonly end with debriefings.

storytelling, role-playing, and project-oriented teaching, the school aims at building motivation to work on the subjects at hand by placing them in a creative and meaning-producing context. Members of the school’s teaching staff continuously report on their methodology, struggles, and achievements within the annually published Knutepunkt Books. As with larping itself, it is impossible to designate a single origin for the increasing interest by educators in larping but the Efterskole is a quite visible and often discussed approach. In 2009, a number of larpers interested in such methods and their promotion founded ELIN, Education Larpers’ International Network, at Knutepunkt, Oslo. ELIN states to have members from all over the world who are employed in an educational or pedagogical setting and (wish) to include role-playing in their work. ELIN in Germany is very much sustained by the work of the Waldritter association, surrounding Daniel Steinbach and Dirk Springenberg. The Waldritter focused much of their first activities on younger children but are now increasingly working with older youth and adults, too. Often, they offer one-day or even shorter larps in which they combine experiential and environmental education (so called, “Erlebnispädagogik” in German). The participants have to solve riddles and mysteries of the fantasy land “Silvania,” but also engage with

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the world outdoors, learning about flora and fauna of their environment. The Waldritter work closely together with schools, aim at inclusion of children with special needs, and also work in the field of addiction prevention. Their projects have received funding from the “Bundesamt für Politische Bildung” (Federal Agency for Civic Education) on numerous occasions, which symbolises the increased public interest in alternative methods of teaching and engaging youth with politics. Today, edu-larp is amongst the most visible formations of the partially connected practices of the role-playing assemblage. This positive image is also what the Japanese larp association CLOSS strives more in their attempt to make larp organisation into a working business (see Chapters 4 and 5). The Network of Larping Larp differs from other forms of performative practices in the sense that it has no predetermined aim, such as catharsis in the case of psychodrama, and that it does not include spectators as an integral element, such as theatre or stage plays do.21 Larp further connects to reality in a way different to TRPGs and in doing so, reconnects to its predecessor, the wargame, even though there are many larps without fighting. In wargames, you trained for the real battlefield. For a larp you train in many different real-world activities in order to portray them “authentically,” be it sewing, smithery, medieval dancing, Roman cooking, bow shooting, diplomacy, method acting, hacking, or learning a language or a regional dialect. Because of this, educators are increasingly interested in larping. This is connected to questions of mental and physical health, kids engaging in a shared activity outside, and is thus the mirror image of the escapism associated with other arrangements of RPGs. Besides modes of organising (e.g. registered associations, magazines), larps are further linked to other arrangements within the assemblage (see Fig. 2.6) through producers or organisers who are usually also consumers/players themselves; that consuming is always producing (cocreation). While the development and history of TRPGs can be traced directly (Gygax had played the games that came before his creation) and onwards 21 Often played in whole castles or on many hectares of land, spectators would have a hard time following the narrative evolving out of player interactions. In Japan, where many larps are played indoors, a not-playing audience may be invited more easily.

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Fig. 2.6 The Network Larping

to CRPGs (developers had played D&D), larping emerged in different places and its tracing is more one of spirit, partially connecting to sibling practices only in hindsight and through theoretical comparison.

2.3

Defining and Designing the “Magic Circle”

Role-playing games, played at a table or through physical enactment, play with reality—as in probability, or verisimilitude—citing it, reworking it, performing it. And, through this play, through changing rules of engagement, through seeking no purpose besides being played, they are also removed from reality—as in “serious life.” Game designers, larp theorists, and event organisers being aware of these circular movements and interrelations appropriated the idea of the magic circle in an attempt to contain their role-playing. The magic circle circumscribes the time-space in which RPGs (and other games) play out. It is a ludological shorthand, an explicit

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tool of game theory and design. This section discusses definitions, theories and interpretations of “games” and “playing” principally through a literature review and source analysis of studies and articles within the emerging disciplines of game studies and ludology, as well as from various neighbouring fields of inquiry, such as media studies, psychology, pedagogy, philosophy, and cultural studies. I emphasise that these “fields” are internally as multiple as I propose “games” to be. Thus, I cannot offer a generalised account of “the literature.” These specialist perspectives, in their disunity, are juxtaposed by game design guides, excerpts from forum observations and interviews conducted in the process of this study. Because the specialist discourse of game designers and theorists stands in contrast to the attempts of politicians to order leisure, they too form nodes in the network of the assemblage. The dichotomy between “reality” and “play” is fuelled by the association of play with the sacred and rituals, a connection outlined for many “cultures,” be they European or Asian, by Dutch historian-philosopher Johan Huizinga in his pioneering monograph Homo Ludens , originally published in 1938 (1971). Huizinga draws from many examples worldwide to make universal and abstract claims about “play.” These claims apparently resonate with people independent of their background. Since Huizinga’s publication of Homo Ludens and its translations into English (1955), Japanese (1963) and dozens of other languages, his abstract definition of play as separate from ordinary life has become the core node for follow-up discussions, beginning with Roger Caillois’ Man, Play and Games (French original 1958, English in 1961, and 2001). Huizinga himself, however, does not describe this separation as absolute and in the end advocates a shared space for life and play. Not one Japanese-language account on asobi (“play,” e.g. Higuchi 1980; Tada 1980; Moriya 1989; Seikatsubunka-kenky¯ ujo 1992; Masukawa 2006) neglects, implicitly or explicitly, to relate to Huizinga’s conceptualisation. Homo Ludens receives in these cases the agency to legitimise the study of games and play (Inoue 1999, 223). Even if he is not cited directly, as in the Japanese archaeologist Higuchi’s case for example, Huizinga’s conceptualisations seem to be known or taken to be so universal to the human condition that others come to the same conclusion. Linguistically, the connection seems not farfetched: The word used for playing in modern Japanese, asobi, has been linked to engagements with the gods and ritual practice, as they were depicted in historical documents and myths, such as the Kojiki (“Records ¯ no Yasumaru 712 CE) and the Nihon Shoki (“The of Ancient Matters,” O

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Chronicles of Japan;” Higuchi 1980, 10; Tada 1980, 211). Regardless of the question, if modern terms can be traced so easily to ancient usage, such depictions speak to Huizinga’s idea of how play derived from sacred rituals to evolve into cultural practices and thus give agency to rules of knowledge production that bridges entire oceans. Most Japanese studies since the 1970s explicitly reference Huizinga’s work (see, Tada 1980, 83f; Moriya 1989, 17; Seikatsubunka-kenky¯ujo 1992, 32f; Masukawa 2006, 203ff), but do not follow in his “universalist” footsteps. They focus on the “Japaneseness” of asobi, of play forms in Japan. This move of ordering the world matches the genre of nihonjin-ron literature, the discourse on the Japanese. In no European language do we find so many books on the “cultural” specificities of playing—which speaks for an assumed universality of European thought. Maybe due to the long engagement with Huizinga’s work has his term diffused outside of a solely academic discourse, such that the term homo ludens (man as player) was familiar to some of my Japanese interviewees (Horiuchi, Matsubara, Okamoto), and a distinction between play and the ordinary made sense to most of them. Huizinga’s cultural critique also sparked foundational ideas within ludology (e.g. Harviainen 2012b; Salen and Zimmerman 2003; Bogost 2006; Järvinen 2009; Montola 2012; Schallegger 2012), of which Salen and Zimmerman’s Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals popularised the idea of the magic circle, and diffused this idea further also on the Japanese market. Their book became a bestseller: The English language edition ranks high on amazon.co.jp sales. Physical copies of the Japanese translation (Salen and Zimmerman 2011, 2013) have sold out and were replaced with e-book editions in 2019. Such reception warrants a closer look at their writings. Even though they focus on digital games and build the foundation for current discussions in that field (Watanabe and Nakamura 2014, 2), their work bore considerable ramifications for the emerging field of role-playing game research and was also well received by Japanese scholars and game designers who work with non-digital games (Takahashi 2011). Introducing the Magic Circle “Western” scholars of games rarely betray any consciousness of the question as to whether their reasoning is universal, even though they are quite sensitive towards the minute differences, diversities and intricacies of games. Pursuits in this line of scholarship successively aim at formulating

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clearer definitions of “games,” their categories, and theoretical frameworks for producing knowledge about them. Salen and Zimmerman, both game designers, thus set out to create an “integrated set of conceptual tools for thinking about games” (2003, ix). They attempt an emancipation of ludology, distinct from “game studies,” which can be seen as an interdisciplinary field of research about games and related phenomena (cf. Mäyrä 2008, 6; Montola 2012, 18). This “ludological emancipation” was the cornerstone of the “ludology vs. narratology” debate of the 1990s, in which scholars sought to define and study games on their own terms instead of reading them as just another form of narrative. The hardliner’s opposition between games as a distinct object of investigation and as a narrative has been more or less resolved, and integrated views have proliferated (Murray 2005). The discursive creation of a bogeyman who holds an out-dated and naive perspective on a given subject matter, in this case the narratologist who continues to read games as static texts, disregarding interactive elements and the agency of the players, is echoed in the later debate on the magic circle. Salen and Zimmerman begin much like most studies on games do, be it in English, Japanese, or German, that is, with a discussion of Huizinga’s conceptualisation of play as voluntary, rules-structured, and distinct from ordinary life. His term magic circle, which he himself only used six-times within his monograph to designate a special space-time of play, similar to the space-time of ritual (Huizinga 1971, 10, 11, 20, 77, 210, 212), caught attention as a shorthand for his “bipolar” or oppositional conceptualisation of play (versus seriousness; Kerr 1991, 32f). The magic circle formulated by Salen and Zimmerman has been cited frequently as well as criticised and debated hotly (for overviews, see dos Santos Petry 2013; Stenros 2014). Following the debate, Zimmerman posits that critiquing the magic circle has become an “obligatory point of passage” (my words; cf. Callon 1986) for young game scholars between the B.A. and M.A. level because most game studies conferences host at least a few papers offering a critical view on such a “formaliststructuralist-ludologist” concept (Zimmerman 2012, 1). In his reaction to the repeated criticism that the magic circle is too absolute and misses the “reality” of play, Zimmerman stresses that it is a concept formulated from within and for the discipline of game design, and that it simply refers to newly generated meanings when a game is being played (ibid., 4). In their original formulation, Salen and Zimmerman connect the magic circle to the three different levels of boundedness a game as a system may

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assume in relation to its surrounding “context:” The formal and closed structure of a rules system, the semi-open play process or experience, and the porousness of the circle when a game is seen as an element or institution of society (Salen and Zimmerman 2003, 96). Despite their many critics, Salen and Zimmerman are not alone in pointing to the advantages of the magic circle as an analytical device (cf. Juul 2008; Stenros 2014). Stenros, however, sees the need to qualify and develop the concept further in order to address the existing criticism. He distinguishes between mental, social, and cultural borders of play, while stressing the distinction between ontological and analytical boundaries (Stenros 2014, 173). His “psychological bubble” of a playful mind-set echoes entertainment theories formulated for media use in general and not just for gaming in particular: In this view, entertainment as well as gaming allows people to safely explore risky situations because they are in control, a case that has been referred to as “controlled loss of control” (Früh 2003): “A person needs to feel safe in order to be playful, though it is not necessary to actually be safe” (Stenros 2014, 174). Many of the life-action role-players I encountered in Germany and Japan reported, for example, that during a larp they experienced themselves as more daring and risk seeking (e.g. in physical combat) than outside the game. This playful mind-set is concerned with play for play’s sake and not with gratifications that go beyond the immediate situation of play. Play as an end to other means is what Caillois has termed the corruption of play, which can be found in the form of professional (sports) players, who pursue a career and income through play. Apter has called this a telic mind-set—from Greek “telos,” goal or purpose—in opposition to the paratelic, playful one, with “para” meaning “along the way”. Like myself, he prefers abstract terms or an infra-language over everyday labels, such as “play” or “work,” because the latter are already heavily fraught with meaning (1991). Analytically distinguished from such psychological framing, Stenros explains a second, social border, to which he ascribes the moniker magic circle, as a social contract (Stenros 2014, 174). Its borders presuppose a disconnection from the outside world and forbid bringing external motivations from the non-play into the play. Regardless of how seriously the participants take such “regulations,” Stenros asserts that the events within this magic circle gain special meaning (ibid., 175). In line with Huizinga’s assertion that “culture” evolves out of play, Stenros describes a third “border,” the cultural institutionalisation of such social contracts in the

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form of established “playgrounds,” such as tennis courts, or rules coded as specific game products, like Monopoly. This culturally accepted and often material border he names “arena.” Following Stenros, Markus Montola emphasises that the “important part about the protective and separating quality of the magic circle is that it is not about isolation, but about transformation” (Montola 2012, 52; emphasis original). In brief, for the study of games, as it is proposed by Salen, Zimmerman, Stenros, Montola, and others, magic circle and “ordinary life” are not statements about the ontological constitution of the world but rather abbreviations for complex phenomena of “social construction.” One example of such negotiations in RPGs is the distinction between “OT” and “IT” in German and their equivalences in other languages. “OT,” short for “out-time,” usually referred to as out-ofgame or out-of-character (OOC) in English, and “IT,” “in-time” or in-game/in-character, demarcate the line of the magic circle in German larp terminology. Through the translation process of larp via a German rule system (see Chapter 4), Japanese larp terms borrow the temporal separation and pseudo-English of “in-time” and “out-time,” for example in game commandos, such as taimu in (time in) at the start of an event. If something is OT or OOC, then it is not recognised as part of the play experience. Many larps include a so-called out-of-game-area, a place where NPCs receive their make-up, where the kitchen is located, or where stressed out players may rest for a while. Players may cross their arms to indicate to others that they are OOC, for example on their way to see a “real” paramedic when they have been bitten by a tick or scratched their skin. IT or in-game on the other hand refers to everything that is part of the game diegesis. For example, if someone screams in pain after being hit, it might be prudent to ask “OOC or in-game?,” which is to ask whether the screaming is caused by a real wound or whether it is convincing acting following a diegetic wound.22 In the larps I participated in or observed in Japan, players often used such communicative tools to navigate unclear situations. Crossing their arms in front of their chests and whispering “daij¯ obu?” (are you ok?), the game masters often check on players who fell down during a fight scene. With the same gesture,

22 Larp design theory and practice today knows many more so-called calibration techniques to navigate such ambiguous situations as well as providing player safety (Koljonen 2019).

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players ask questions about rules during play or NPCs make themselves “invisible.” The distinction is rather permeable in actual play, reflecting how the ingame world is never completely severed from out-of-game considerations, goals, or mundane bodily needs. OOC frustration with another player may lead to an in-game fight, while in-game romance may encourage the same after the game. Besides OOC, in-game or magic circle, (roleplaying) game theory knows other, similar concepts, such as alibi, the agreed upon premise that player and character are separate entities, that in-game actions are those of the character (Montola and Holopainen 2012). What they all share is making visible the interactions between play and non-play, especially concerning choices and difficulties of game design. Game Design Considerations Salen’s and Zimmerman’s conceptualisation of game has as foundation their own experiences in game design and finds application for teaching in this field (Watanabe and Nakamura 2014). In game design theory proper, designers engage with what Salen and Zimmerman designate “meaningful play.” Their concept of meaning hinges on what they call discernibility and integration (Salen and Zimmerman 2003, 34). A game or playing a game has meaning in their sense if the player receives feedback for their actions, if players can discern the immediate outcome of what they are doing (“what their actions mean” within the game). In larps, for instance, if a player hits an opponent with a boffer weapon but the other player does not react as if a real weapon hit them, there is no meaning in attacking them. If the other player screams, holds the “wounded” body part and continues to gasp for breath, the first player’s action has meaning: “If you do not receive feedback that indicates you are on the right track, the action you took will have very little meaning” (2003, 35). The term “integrated” goes beyond such immediate responses and refers to how a given action affects the game in the long term. Players would experience “meaning” if they realise that an action executed in one of the first sessions of their TRPG campaign bore consequences for them in later. For example, the neonate vampire they left outside when the sun was already rising turns out to be the child of a powerful lord of the damned who now seeks revenge. Or the other way around (and this is what happened in one of the groups I observed), the neonate

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vampire they rescued from the sun’s evil rays turns out to be the child of a powerful lord of the damned who is now in a well-disposed mood to help them with their financial problems. Following this, the creation of meaningful play should be the highest goal of game design, while others might aim to develop a good play experience for different reasons, which may include personal profit, prestige, or an educational agenda. Still, if we look at some Japanese examples (Kond¯o 1992; Yasuda and Murakawa 1995; Shimizu 2003; Seko 2011; Watanabe and Nakamura 2014), the pragmatics outlined in these game design guidebooks and tutorials appear to be similar: Do not frustrate players—as a game likely would if players did not receive feedback— and keep them coming back for more by giving them (limited) agency within the game, i.e., by showing them that their actions matter within the game, and by anticipating and meeting their expectations. Equivalent advice can be found in almost all role-playing game rulebooks in the sections on “game mastering”—Costikyan’s game Paranoia might be a (tongue-in-cheek) exception to this rule (Costikyan et al. 1985)— and in advice columns by game designers and theoreticians (e.g. Baba 1997a). As a prominent example of a guideline on dealing with players and meeting their expectations, the so-called GNS-Theory serves well in the case of (non-digital) RPGs. This cluster of theories or models has been frequently discussed and will function as an example for practical considerations regarding (role-playing) games. Typifying Players, or Not? GNS-Theory seeks to circumscribe the category of “role-playing games” by defining three categories of player expectations or play-styles in order to make judgments about a good (or meaningful) RPG and to translate the resulting insights into better game design—in other words, defining the mind-sets of playing an RPG (cf. Apter on paratelic). An acronym standing for “Gamist,” “Narrativist” and “Simulationist” as categories of different player motivations, GNS has become part of player jargon in the US, but also in Europe (Bøckman 2003) and Asia (Kagami 2009). Even though the theoretical development has lost most of its momentum, one can still find polls about player types on role-playing game related forums, such as the English-language RPG.net, or on blogs such as the Japaneselanguage RPG column “Ugatsumono” (hair-splitting things; Kaitenyoku 2006), and many of my informants were familiar with its ideas.

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GNS emerged from online discussions on the rec.games.frp.advocacy (rgfa) USENET group, founded in 1992. USENET is one of the predecessors of today’s Internet/Web. The participants already used a number of neologisms and technical terms to describe aspects of their hobby, such as the distinction between “intra-game” (matters within the game world, concerns of the characters) and “metagame” (concerns and knowledge of the players), which is still found in various forms in most discussions of role-playing (cf. OT and IT above). Instead of arguing for or against the best approach to role-playing, they aimed at establishing types of games in order to further discuss what would be best for a given type. The first line of discussion centred on a split between drama and simulation, or plot-based and world-based games and play-styles (Kim 2003). Inspired by Greg Costikyan’s article “I Have No Words and I Must Design” (1994; for an updated version, see 2002) and in following stages formulated by Ron Edwards, a biologist and RPG designer (Edwards 2003a, b; 2004a, b), Forge Theory has been reviewed and extended by several other authors (Bøckman 2003; Boss 2008; Kagami 2009). The name relates to Edwards’ independent game designer website, The Forge. Part of this theory, GNS is now called Creative Agendas (Edwards 2003b). These agendas are defined as “Gamism,” the competition between the players, “Narratavism,” shared storytelling via role-playing, and “Simulationism,” a concern with the internal logic and experiential consistency. For Edwards, these three creative agendas are mutually exclusive and may result in conflict at the game table (not to be confused with conflict within the game’s diegesis). For example, if a Gamist hopes to succeed at a mission, this may be jeopardised by a fellow Simulationist who acts out the cowardly or backstabbing nature of their character. Most commentators disagree with Edwards’ emphasis on exclusivity, paraphrasing the GNS-element of his model in terms of dominance. Depending on the game played or on other circumstances, a player has a dominant creative agenda—which may change even during game play. Similarly, specific games answer more to one agenda than to the other two but do not exclude the other play-styles or motives completely. Regardless of exclusivity, the GNS idea has been evaluated as helpful tool for running campaigns or designing games. They raise awareness of the importance of people in role-playing games and of the ways actual play informs design (Boss 2008, 245; Stewart 2011).

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For example, if one designs a game with mostly competition in mind, that is, for a player “audience” that is mostly inclined to gamism, character creation should focus on creating “tools,” that excel at this kind of play strategy. For a story-oriented game, on the other hand, characters may still be effective: The focus of character creation should lie on character background, relationships to other characters etc., in order to integrate the character into the world and the story. Similar considerations apply to resolution mechanics, character development and rewards. A gamist play will probably focus on probability-based resolution mechanics adjusted by character skills. Contrastingly, a narrativism-dominated game will afford many chances of in-character dialogue to act out the resolution of conflicts instead of having the players just roll the dice and try to convince an opponent. The “power level” of characters also falls into these considerations—“weak,” sub-superhuman characters will most likely ask for wits and negotiation skills of the players and less on brute force, combat-oriented conflict solutions. The TRPG Ry¯ utama by Okada Atsuhiro (2007) creates stories of “normal” human characters who leave their villages to explore the world. The professions available to players reflect this aim: Crafter, Farmer, Healer, Hunter, Merchant, Minstrel, and Noble. So, there are no warriors or mages. There is magic, but it is limited to simple healing spells, charms that help with the harvest, or similar “everyday” enchantments useful in an agrarian, medieval-inspired fantasy world. Other game mechanics also contribute to telling “natural fantastic” stories (as the game’s subtitle suggests): Players have to check their character’s health every morning, for example, to determine whether they might have attracted a disease on their journey. This is not so unlikely, if you imagine them sleeping outside in the woods during the rain. In games, such as D&D, diseases rarely affect player characters and when they do, they mostly take the form of magical attacks (which can be healed by equally magical counter spells)—if the game master conforms to the written rules. By contrast, in Ry¯ utama catching a cold and dealing with it may become the main trope of a game session. Ry¯ utama also stresses collaboration among players and the GM more than other games do. If the group of player characters hits on a town or village during their journey, players and game master jointly lay out the settlement, decide on its key residents and locations as well as issues the town might be plagued with. In a personal interview, Okada stated that he did not want to create a gamist experience of superherolike knights or mages who have the power to travel through time and

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Fig. 2.7 Ry¯ utama and Its Translations

other elements of “High Fantasy.” Instead, he sought to deliver a game that appeals to those players who favour collaborative storytelling and the immersion into their characters and the game world. The game mechanics reflect these design choices. With these choices, Okada spoke to players worldwide, so that Ry¯ utama is currently the most translated, originally Japanese-language TRPG (French: 2013; English: 2015; Spanish: 2015; Chinese: 2019), with replay videos not only in Japanese on niconico but also in English and French on twitch,23 and earning him an ENnie Award in 2016. Not only the game mechanics appealed to the translators, the visual design was kept throughout all versions as it underscores the narrative elements of the game (see Fig. 2.7). Other games may aim at high drama instead, a reputation most games made by F.E.A.R. share. Many of my interviewees, such as Kawai and Nakahara, noted this verbally or reflected it in play performance. In a session of T¯ oky¯ o NOVA, I played with them, I was told not to use powerful skills during the first scenes but to wait until the climax, keeping the showdown in mind. Instead of using my character’s shooting skills to the fullest, I “burned” the less strong cards in my hand and so failed on purpose in an earlier scene in which we were confronting our main adversary. T¯ oky¯ o NOVA uses trump cards instead of dice as a resolution mechanic, which favours resource management instead of pure

23 For example, from the TRPG channel Off_theTable: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/ 391806710 (accessed 2020/02/20).

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chance. Because of such management, I could then rely on strong cards and thus stronger attacks during the showdown to call down lightning, which without fail, would hit our opponents. In other scenes, the players and the game master seemed to construct a high fantasy gangster story instead of focusing on “what their characters might want to do” based on their imagined personalities. Another F.E.A.R. game, Terra Bansh¯ o, has players award each other story points for good contributions to the evolving narrative, which also may be used to boost skills and make superhuman feats possible during end scenes. Players who do not like such “metagaming,” decisions made on the basis of considerations not inherent to the game world or its characters, avoid playing F.E.A.R. games. As mentioned before, F.E.A.R. and other game studios sought to fill the magic circle of community centres and other publicly available spaces with meaning, so that their games particularly weave the opening hours of such places into their network. GNS was conceptualised mostly with the design of table-top games in mind. For the purpose of designing and running larps, larpwright Peter Bøckman revised the GNS and replaced the “simulationist” agenda with “immersionist:” “Immersionists insist on resolving in-game events based solely on game-world considerations. […] [A]n immersionist isn’t simply trying to play in a way that is believable. She is trying to actually do what would ‘really’ happen by trying to put her self in her roles shoes” (Bøckman 2003, 13, 14). The idea of immersion and achieving it has become a central point of discussion within theoretical and practical deliberations on larping since the late 2000s (cf. Harding 2007; Lappi 2007; Hopeametsä 2008; Balzer 2010; Ermi and Mäyrä 2011; and esp., Lukka 2014). Immersion revolves around questions that deal with player-character knowledge or how to provoke emotional responses of characters by creating the intended emotion within the players, e.g. in incorporating the “real world” into the diegesis to achieve certain effects. A great deal of the (theoretical) engagement with immersion focuses on weaving the magic circle as tightly as possible around the participants, creating perfect environments so that players do not have to strain their suspension of disbelief to ignore elements that do not fit the diegesis. At the same time, game masters and larp designers play with and rely on spill-overs between players and their characters. Cognitive and emotional spill-overs are referred to as bleed in larp or RPG theory (Bowman 2015). One direction bleed can take is from the character or from the game to the player, an effect specifically

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pursued in educational larps or serious games and many pervasive forms of role-playing. Projekt Prometheus (Springenberg and Steinbach 2010) sought to teach players something about political conspiracies and stereotypes. Frederik Østergaard’s Fat Man Down (Østergaard 2009) hoped to raise awareness about the poor treatment of overweight people in our society, though it may only reflect these people’s miserable emotional plight (Pettersson 2011). Psychologist Kat¯o K¯ohei pursues another form of bleed: He plays highly structured, “gamist” fantasy table-top RPGs with children who have been diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Through playing and communicating during these games the children managed to also communicate more freely outside the protective frame of the games (Kat¯o et al. 2012, 2019; Kat¯o and Fujino 2016). Bleed here is in line with immersion, as the goal is to involve players in the topics of the games emotionally so that they carry insights with them to the “real world.” This form of bleed is imagined flowing from character to player and thrives on “realism,” that is, believable and possibly “complete” settings, probable characters, and narratives. A game that resembles reality more closely is seen as offering advantages over those that do not. Depending on the platform, such realism takes many different forms, such as high definition graphics, plausibility of events, or “authentic” dress and behaviour. From the education-cum-game-design perspective, realism gains importance if pedagogical goals, such as real-world competencies, are to be achieved. Other games make use of the opposite direction of bleed. Horrororiented games, such as those run by the Japanese group Laym¯un, try less to scare the characters and more so to scare the players themselves, based on the notion that a scared player will portray a scared character (Kamm 2019). The techniques employed for such endeavours are usually borrowed from other media like film or theatre. With the advent of “blockbuster” larps, the production value of larps may reach comparable level, too. Games as Enterprise The discussion of theories and practices in game design leads to an important realisation if one seeks to trace the assemblage of practices called role-playing games. In regard to the question as to whether games are separate from the ordinary world, the answer differs for people who make their living with games from those who “only” play games. The aspect of

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game production is often neglected in the discussions that differentiate between a “real world” and entertainment. Most companies producing role-playing games or groups (more or less professionally) organising conventions are rather small. This is true even for the “big players” of the industry, such as Hasbro-subsidiary Wizards of the Coast, which employs about 200 developers, designers, and illustrators as well as marketers, salespersons, and others involved in accounting, management, or the maintenance of the company’s website, forum, and social media outlets. Wages are often quite low, especially compared to the digital gaming industry, which is offset by the enthusiasm and personal enjoyment of those working in this field—most game designers are also avid players (Winkler 2006, 144). If we only look at the proponents of RPG theory above or the “great minds” behind the invention of now popular game titles, such as the creators of D&D, many game designers work on games as freelancers or on the side, receiving their income from “regular jobs.” The small scale of the industry as well as the irregularities in cash flows and the limited time developers have to actually work on a product cause the notorious delays in publications—long-time RPG players have become accustomed to release dates being pushed back months or even years (ibid., 146). During the 1990s and early 2000s, many game studios either had to go out of business, be acquired by larger corporations, or scale down their operations tremendously. The Kobe-based studio GroupSNE can still afford to make role-playing games only because they broadened their portfolio and started to produce also collectible card games—a move other industry members perceived as a betrayal.24 In the case of organising larps, there are very few if any who can make an actual living of this line of business. Most professional larp organisers in Europe, such as Wyvern Craft or Live Adventure, have to rely on the revenue from selling equipment at their events. A business model already introduced by Germany’s first larp shop, the Drachenschmiede in the early 1990s, and mirrored by the budding larp equipment industry in Japan. Smaller groups, such as those organising educational larps, rely on the enthusiasm and willingness of gamers to help host events in an honorary capacity and may only be able to pay a handful of permanent

24 Personal interview with designers Kitazawa Kei, Tomono Sh¯ o, and Fujisawa Sanae (2010).

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staff. Recently, Jones, Koulu, and Torner opened the discourse on roleplaying to questions of especially larp as labour or “labour in larp,” with a threefold taxonomy of labour that is part and parcel to an event, e.g. working in character to be fed or the (out-of-character) work of organisers and their staff, secondly, labour in a larp that would usually be compensated, such as teaching how to larp or how to employ magic (incharacter), and lastly, purely diegetic labour meant to serve the story only, such as plotting a course of a spaceship (Jones et al. 2016). To organise a larp is a far cry away from “escaping into a fantasy world.” The logistics—renting a space, planning food delivery, arranging for the necessary sanitary infrastructure, obtaining all the mandatory permissions and insurances, setting up a schedule for the resident first aiders etc.—differ in no significant way from the logistics of any other larger event, such as concerts or festivals. From a larp organiser’s perspective, larping translates into a practice-as-network that transcends the “obvious” elements of plot, character play, setting, and includes appropriate environment and all the other tools and equipment such as boffer weapons or make-up (Fig 2.8). If organisers want a charitable NPO status, larping extends into the offices of the ministries of finance. These are issues ordinary players do not have to deal with so that for them the practice-as-network larping is much more contained. Similarly, table-top role-players also do not have to face such concerns. Game designer Kond¯o K¯oshi expressed how running a gaming business is not all fun and games: “I never wanted to become a sarar¯ıman, and look at me now! Wearing suits all the time and going to business meetings…” (field notes, October 2014). Professionally run larps that provide great locations, such as College of Wizardry with its Polish castle, necessitate shuttle services from airports, and generate many more costs for materials, equipment, and personnel, so that such events are fully bound to real-world economic dependencies, asking not only for a great plot but also for a good business plan. Dziobak Larp Studios learned this the hard way and went bankrupt in late 2018.25 However, larps and larp businesses must not necessarily fail big but still have to deal with other issues on the ground. If problems arise during an event—a broken bone, food poisoning, or complaints by neighbouring residents, to name but a few—a larp can undeniably become quite serious. 25 Most Dziobak IPs, such as College of Wizardry, found new owners and an Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign helped ensure the continuing run of these larps.

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Fig. 2.8 The Network of Larp Between Work and Hobby

Making larp into a business may also cause friction as the repeated accusations of usury on forums in Germany or heated discussions on Twitter about a Japanese event manager show. The latter concerned the right of a perceived outsider to claim the term larp for their events. While RPG theory deals mostly with the in-game aspects of creating and organising role-playing games, efforts have recently been made by members of the German Larp Association DLRV, for instance, to create organiser handbooks that offer newcomers all necessary legal and practical information to organise a larp. From the Nordic larp discourse emerged the “Mixing Desk of Larp,” highlighting in-game and out-of-game design choices as well as questions of player safety (Stenros et al. 2016). The Japanese

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larp association CLOSS, has produced similar advice on numerous occasions.26 From game design to larp organisation, the creation and ordering of games for a living is what I impute as the mode of enterprise.27 This mode of creating the magic circle allows participants to engage and immerse themselves in imaginary spaces, thus involves many “ordinary,” non-magical tasks—ranging from employing the many techniques discussed in practical game and RPG theory, such as GNS or immersion, to paying the bills of port-a-potty rental agencies—and one cannot become more mundane, more ordinary than cleaning away other people’s excretions. Tracing the realities of game designers and larp organisers amounts not to an attempt of introducing an auteur emphasis, that these people speak for the assemblage. Neither do play sessions always put game books into practice as the designers envisioned, nor do larp players follow the predefined plot as larpwrights planned it. Still, these player translations are also not completely divorced from the designers’ setups—they are partially connected. Another such connection brings RPGs into relation with the discourse on escapism.

2.4 Governing Games: Escapism and the Serious Side of Life What role does “play” play in “ordinary life,” its counterpoint? The previous section focused on the specialist discourse of (role-playing) game design, which dealt with questions of methods and practical considerations: How to fill the shorthand of the magic circle with meaning, 26 Concerning legal questions, CLOSS also applied for and received the trademark rights in Japan for “LARP” in April 2017, in order to ensure that no one, especially no big publisher or corporation, could do the same and hinder others at producing larps in Japan. 27 With the US broadcaster HBO’s recent “Westworld: The Experience” at San Diego Comic-Con International in 2017 and Disney’s Star Wars hotel and “Rise of the Resistance” experience starting 2019 in Disneyland, big corporations have begun to move into larp territory—giving this mode of ordering a new, yet to be studied spin. Especially, if we consider that Disney applied for and was granted a patent for the game master function (Role-play simulation engine, US9213935 B2). Again, we see partial connections: These new attempts at producing immersive experiences for customers differ/will differ from what many practitioners consider larp (e.g. the Westworld experience did not offer a plot). Still, at least the Disney Imagineers sought out members of the Nordic larp field and participated in workshops and lectures on larp design.

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how to create “meaningful” games, and how to work and labour in a field that is meant to be fun. The distinction between “play” or games and ordinary life or a “primary reality” is proposed more as an analytical exploration than as a statement about the constitution of the real world. A number of my interviewees also draw a distinction between the everyday, mundane side of life, and their playing of role-playing games. This distinction between work (serious, real life) and leisure (play) appears to be a common-sense agency in most industrialised nation-states (cf. Katz and Foulkes 1962; Sait¯o 2000; Früh 2003). Important for the debate on otaku and thus playing a role in processes of my interviewees taking subject positions, this distinction is what makes “escapism” conceivable. Genjitsu t¯ ohi (the escape from reality) functions as a major connector for playing practices across national borders. Escapism: Stepping Out of (Globalised?) Reality Much of the escapism debate in the late twentieth century borrows from Horkheimer’s and Adorno’s critique of what they termed “culture industry” (Horkheimer and Adorno 2002) or Jean Baudrillard’s (1994) in Japan well-received notion of “hyperreality.” For Baudrillard, the (post-)modern world is a mere copy: Humans chase after nothing but simulated stimuli. Instead of interacting with a “real” reality, humans gradually accept media producers’ versions of reality as their own. The “reality” invoked here is not that of serious work but that of authentic, organic culture, which develops spontaneously and is characterised by diversity. The most prominent reverberation of these notions appears in the form of debates on globalisation and its negative effects on local “cultures:” Everything becomes homogenised into commodities of a western-dominated fashion (Inda and Rosaldo 2008, 17). Regardless of who is the cultural dupe, individual consumers or local “cultures,” such assessments of media flows are concerned with structures and orders, dividing society into the drivers (e.g. dominant classes, the “West”) and the driven. The driven are usually those who seek to escape. This model is also present in debates outside the realms of academia, for example, in public reactions to rampages by youths or young adults. Among my interviewees, many respondents, especially the at the time 30-year old sales-manager Hirota, pointed out how unconvincing and “unrealistic” most media discussions about the effect of video games were. Whenever a killing spree at a school takes place (cf. Fujiwara 1988),

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a causal relationship is envisioned between the crime and the person’s media use (cf. Ferguson 2008). This is the often-debunked bogeyman theory of media impact, the so-called hypodermic-needle-effect—“bogeyman” because similar to the discussion of the magic circle above, there is no evidence that anyone engaged in media effects research ever subscribed to this belief. There are only studies that try to overcome its simplistic causal model by introducing mitigating factors (Brosius and Esser 1998). Still, the idea of direct media effects prevails in calls for policy adjustments, such as the demand for a ban on violent video games. Immediately after a disastrous rampage a desperate search for motives begins, in which the computer of the perpetrator is investigated. The logic behind such an investigation assumes a direct effect from playing such games that would compel “normal” children to kill because they have done so in these games. The games receive the status of drivers, of omnipotent agencies that make the perpetrators act. The driven are the same cultural dupes as the passive consumers of the “culture industry.” Either as another symptom for the killer’s pathology or as a counterargument against direct media effect assumptions, alienation and escapism appear as further agencies (Ferguson 2008). For whatever reason, the perpetrator had been alienated from their peers and had no friends at school. On the one hand, the alienation is interpreted as the cause for an intensive media use, an escape from the disagreeable social reality of school life, which further expresses itself in a preference for violent media. On the other, it is seen as the very result of engaging in and fleeing into such violent fictions. The perpetrator is cast as a loner who threatens society or is threatened by it. As immediate as the call for a ban on violent games appears on the news, media scholars and gamers alike criticise the simplistic model behind the move to further regulate gaming—usually with the “killer argument” that playing violent games cannot be the independent variable in the equation because if it were, all players of these games would necessarily be equally compelled to violence (cf. Früh and Wünsch 2007; Quandt et al. 2008). Relevant to the current discussion is the underlying logic of ordering how the world ought to be, and the escape from it for whatever reason. This ordering mode is less about what “play” is than what it lacks—seriousness and responsibility.

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From Moratorium to Withdrawal Two of my interviewees, Ry¯usaki Mieko and Hirano Toshiko, limned different worlds when we discussed their growing up in the 1980s. Ry¯usaki, a then 32-year old writer, presented herself as a member of a “gamer family,” in which she found support for her hobbies and was also accompanied by her mother to gaming and manga conventions when she was too young to go alone. While she had heard from fellow classmates that they did not talk about their gaming activities with their parents and had to sneak out with friends to play, she explained that she shared her hobbies freely with her parents. They also encouraged her to pursue a career in the publishing and gaming industry. By contrast, the 37-year old writer Hirano gave a starkly different account of her youth: She had always had problems openly living her “childish” interests. When she was severely ill and had to stay at home or in the hospital for long periods, she faced mistrust from classmates who called her names—including the word otaku—and avoided her during her phases of attending school. She interpreted their rejection as her being overly dependent and not able to compete with “normal” school life. Her indulgence in manga and games was not accepted as a means of coping with her illness and inability to leave bed. The term she used for appearing childish and dependent was amaeru, and she used the neologism parasaito shinguru (“parasite single”) to describe her still living with her parents despite her age. These expressions were coined in the early 1970s by psychoanalyst Doi Takeo and in the late 1990s by sociologist Yamada Masahiro, respectively (the latter is also attributed with introducing the idea of a stratified society, kakusa shakai). These terms and others, such as moratoriamu ningen (“moratorium people”), NEET (Not in Education, Employment, or Training) or hikikomori (social withdrawal), keep appearing in the Japanese public debate since the 1970s concerning youth who “did not grow up” and did not take on the responsibilities of “real” adults, that is, to work full-time, get married, and reproduce. From Doi’s version of a nihonjin-ron and his much-critiqued concept of amae (over-dependence, Doi 1971, 1973),28 and psychoanalyst

28 Over-dependence had been a concern in the US already in the 1950s (Stendler 1954), undermining the assumed “Japaneseness” of the phenomenon. For critical comments, see Dale (1986) and Maruta (1992).

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Okonogi Keigo giving Erik Erkison’s concept of a psychosocial moratorium (a necessary “play” phase, Erikson 1950) a negative connotation of childishness in an affluent consumer society (Okonogi 1981), to shinjinrui, the “new breed” (Chikushi 1985), commentators saw in young people’s lifestyle an attack on earlier values, especially the family system (equals reproduction) because the younger generation would marry later and rear fewer children (at least compared to the post-war baby-boomer generation; Osajima et al. 2010). With the public critique of a continued interest in manga and anime after leaving high school, the shinjinrui ¯ label appears as the predecessor of the otaku stereotype (Otsuka 2004b). Targeted mostly at young women, the concern over reproduction and unhealthy play produced many more sites of debate, ranging from “compensated dating” of teenage girls (enjo-k¯ osai; for details see, Ueno 1992, 2010; Miller 2004; Leheny 2009), “parasite singles”—young women staying with their parents, threatening the economy (Yamada 2001)—to unwilling “birth-giving machines” (umu-kikai, a phrase coined by then Minister of Health, Yanagisawa Hakuo (LDP), Ky¯ od¯o 2007).29 One of the latest terms expressing the concern of maladjusted young adults is hikikomori, social withdrawal. The term gained public awareness when the well-known psychiatrist Sait¯ o Tamaki published a book entitled Shakaiteki Hikikomori: Owaranai Shishunki (“Social Withdrawal: Neverending Adolescence,” Sait¯o 1998), and popular author Murakami Ry¯u wrote a novel about a male hikikomori who was fascinated with war (Murakami 2000). Distinct from any form of mental disorder, this shakaiteki hikikomori (psycho-social withdrawal) remains difficult to diagnose for psychiatrists—as the symptoms match other forms of anxiety or avoidant personality disorder—and confirmed case numbers remain hard to come by (Furlong 2008, 311f; Teo 2010, 180). When not viewed as a mental illness, hikikomori have been closely associated with NEETs in discussions on changes in the Japanese labour market. Anxiety about one’s future is seen as a probable cause for young people withdrawing from the labour market altogether. It has been suggested to understand hikikomori less as a mental illness than as an idiom of distress (Tajan 2015). Hikikomori is often seen as a “Japanese disease” resulting from the 29 The term spawned not only an international controversy but also creativity of a sort in the 2013 manga “20XXnen, umu-kikai - seifuk¯onin-tanetsuke-purojekuto” (The Year 20XX, birthing-machines—A Government Approved Mating Project) by Hagi Amone, an erotic lady comic targeted at a female audience.

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“traditional Japanese value system,” characterised as centring on harmony and collectivism (Teo and Gaw 2010; Teo et al. 2014). However, cases of hikikomori were also reported in other countries, such as Italy (Ricci 2010), suggesting that it is a phenomenon not limited to Japanese “culture.” Still, the Japanese word has traction, so that in Finland, for example, the neologism of “hikikomero” is used for a self-help forum (Haasio 2015).30 Regardless of its state as a culture-bound or culture-transcending affliction, hikikomori in Japan spawned a number of policies to help those who keep to themselves and stay mostly indoors. The programs to support hikikomori and reintegrate them into society relate not so much to any concept of “play,” as what hikikomori are doing at home is of less interest than are strategies to entice them to leave their “moratoriumplay-spaces.” Nevertheless, the Japanese government takes serious interest in the play activity of its populace—also with market concerns in mind. Playing, the Self and Governing Mentalities In opposition to “genuine” Japanese terms, such as asobi, amae, or hikikomori, both words used for leisure in Japanese are loanwords, either from English (rej¯ a ) or from Chinese (yoka). This gives the nihonjin-ron impression emphasised by the historian Higuchi that the Japanese are bad at play, or that leisure is not really “Japanese” (Higuchi 1980). Regardless of its linguistics, however, leisure was a matter of concern before the twentieth century. The Meiji government (1868–1912) attempted to civilise its populace in the late nineteenth century by introducing European forms of entertainment (Moriya 1989). It is furthermore credited with creating the hard-working, private-time-sacrificing corporate warrior—a prevailing image of Japanese employees—after Westerners had critiqued the lazy, easy-going and drink-prone nature of the Japanese commoner (similarly a stereotype without doubt, as are the imaginairies of Japan as a workaholic society or manga kingdom in more recent times; cf. Linhart 1988). While the Meiji and early Sh¯ owa (1926–1989) governments sought to

30 For ambiguous, fictional representations of hikikomori, see Takimoto Tatsuhiko’s semi-autobiographical N.H.K. ni Y¯ okoso! (Welcome to the N.H.K.), or Ernest Cline’s rather racist 2011 Ready Player One, which depicts two hikikomori with some positive spin.

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create a hard-working, militarily strong nation to compete for international recognition and power, reducing leisure time in the wake of their strategies, later governments tried to paddle back, coming full circle in an attempt to make Japan a seikatsu taikoku (“great nation of life quality”) and a “cool,” “soft” superpower (Leheny 2003, 103f). Japanese governments are not alone in aiming at controlling or at least “positively” influencing how citizens use their spare-time through policies, which commonly have economic goals in mind. Such leisure politics seek to eradicate troublesome forms of leisure, induce national pride and enhance tax revenues (Leheny 2003, 22ff). The last point is easy to outline as it refers to policies that may, for instance, promote in-state and out-of-state tourism. The Japanese government or its tourism-related agencies have implemented several campaigns over the past decades to foster tourism, such as the furusato (hometown or native place) campaign to encourage visits to the countryside and train use, targeted at the Japanese population (cf. Robertson 1988; McMorran 2008), or the notorious “Cool Japan” country marketing campaign targeted at foreigners. The latter is notorious because the campaign continues to face harsh critique from academia and the entertainment industry. This critique is manifold: With government agencies promoting anime as a uniquely Japanese, yet globally successful product, the campaign would not only reaffirm national borders but completely disregard the production process, which mostly happens outside Japan (M¯ori 2011). The “Japaneseness” is further questioned by highlighting the connections to Disney aesthetics or other forms of American pop culture (Steinberg 2004). Despite its pledge to support the so-called content industries (anime, manga, games) within Japan itself, the government’s programs would not reach those in need, e.g. the “working poor” illustrators and graphic artists (Azuma 2007). Japanese media companies and publishers are chastised for not providing enough information about their business in English (Kelts 2010). The focus on narratives, games and other products targeted at a male audience, often going hand-in-hand with depictions of a cute femininity would strengthen gender stratification and inequity (Miller 2011). The best example are the three “cute ambassadors” of then Minister of Foreign Affairs As¯ o Tar¯o’s “popular culture diplomacy,” a schoolgirl, a French maid, and a lolita (cf. Kaminishikawara 2009). Broadly put, the campaign is mostly criticised as not representing the

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“real” circumstances of Japan, Japanese culture, the manga business or its users. “Cool Japan” is Japanese Studies’ magic circle: From post-graduate student to professor, many scholars of literature or media sought to dismantle the supposedly ill-conceived campaign. With the notable exception of anthropologist Daniel White, few directly engage the politicians and administrators involved or evaluate the campaign for what it is: A marketing strategy. Even the administrators themselves do not implement evaluation mechanisms (cf. White 2010) in order to judge whether the campaign does what it is supposed to do: Establish and increase Japan’s “soft-power,” the ability to attract others in world politics, not by force but by persuasion (Nye 2004, 5, 6). The idea relates to international and transnational foreign policies that rest more on “cultural” rather than on military strategies. Briefly put, after an American journalist suggested the use of anime and manga for soft power because of their worldwide economic success (McGray 2002), parts of the Japanese government implemented several programs to make Japan more attractive to foreigners and to capitalise on international demand. The main motor behind the set of strategies named “Cool Japan” was a declining domestic market, decreasing GNP, and an estimated increase in possible revenue from creative industries (in opposition to heavy industries) worldwide (Creative Industries Division 2010, 5). The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) seeks to “seduce” foreigners to come to Japan and buy Japanese products, so one avenue of gaining the desired soft power are outbound strategies, which include the advice to companies to actively search for foreign markets instead of letting those markets come to Japan (such as the semi-legal market for fan-made translations of manga not yet available in other languages; called “scanlations”). A second line of projects tries to lure more tourists to Japan. These projects, for example Y¯ okoso Japan! (“Welcome to Japan”), also include a longrunning TV show produced by NHK, which promoted the “Cool Japan” moniker. The show is advertised on international TV guides and has about 60,000 likes on Facebook. Government documents do not state, however, whether it has been successful in promoting tourism. Regardless, central and local governments try to prepare for the coming anime, manga, and fashion fans, as could and can be observed in Akihabara’s “otaku district” in Tokyo. This “mecca for otaku” (Kikuchi 2015) is caught in the tension between previous stereotypes of consumers indulging in escapist media and current attempts to create revenue from

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overseas sales of these very media. Akihabara is promoted as the place for foreign fans to go by the Japan Tourist Bureau and has been “cleaned up” or redeveloped by the municipal government of Chiyoda city (Galbraith 2010, 222). This effort included the construction of three high-rise buildings, such as the UDX Building by telecommunications giant NTT and a chain store of the Suits Company. One of my interviewees, Hirota, expressed extreme displeasure with these redevelopments because he did no longer feel “at home” in Akihabara. Each time he left the Yellow Submarine RPG and hobby shop he would now be greeted by the sleek, all-glass facade of the suit’s store which he felt was telling him: “What are you wasting your time with games? You should better buy a suit and think about work in the real world!” Policies concerning “escapist” media in Japan appear to discriminate between local consumers—who should not indulge in passive use of childish media—and a global market—which they want to consume these media. However, “the Japanese government” conjured as a single-point actor in the critique formulated against it, does not exist in this “homogeneous” form. While police harassed supposed otaku (Watanabe 2005), then Prime Minister to-be As¯o Tar¯o gave a speech rallying his otaku voters as he tried to enlist them by recounting how many manga he read that day.31 The “Cool Japan” campaign shows how contradictory a distinction between “good” and “bad” leisure or play may be. In the 1970s and 1980s, indulging in “childish” media, such as manga or anime, received its share of criticism and was judged as a peril for Japan’s society and economic success in the world. With the economic success of these “bad” media, however, manga and anime enjoyed a new status as export goods and as a national heritage product. The use of these by local youth and young adults is still viewed with suspicion. The (administrative) ordering mode of the nation follows a quick and easy logic of market values: What sells—either to moral entrepreneurs or economic administrators—is “good,” and is situated on this side of the division between the “real” and escapism. What does not overtly support agendas other than fun are marked as “bad.” The same game or leisure activity may contextually differ as “good” or “bad” under this hazy reasoning. The “realities”

31 Cf. his speech at the Digital Hollywood University, As¯ o (2006).

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of play and game themselves are different, each time created anew as a “good” national product or as a “bad” escapist medium. Borders and Circles From tracing the specialist discourse of role-playing game design to governmental campaigns and leisure policies, we could impute three different modes of ordering play, role-playing and non-play. All three modes are about ideals and the strategies to achieve them. Even though they share a sometimes-similar vocabulary and interact, these modes create very different realities and enable different subject positions, places from where to speak about (role-) playing and games. The mode of the magic circle produces the position of game designers and larp organisers whose matter of concern is the creation of meaningful games, be they paratelic and just for fun and recreation, or telic, and seek to encourage bleed from the characters to the players. The magic circle features as a tool to designate where a game begins and where it ends. It describes an attitude of playing that suspends other concerns. Thus, ludological distinctions between play or game and “the everyday” are less ontological statements about the separation of a “real world” of work and ordinary life from the “reality” of a game. Games as systems and play as rules-bound are analytical conceptualisations, at times strongly critiqued but always with an explicit purpose: Creating “meaningful” play experiences. Meaningful here is also not metaphysical but rather refers to an intelligible game framework and an incorporated feedback loop for player actions. The discussion of the many ways of conceptualising role-playing, for example into different creative agendas and how to answer them, has also shed light on the effect that if play becomes a matter-of-concern it loses many of its playful characteristics. Dissecting play elements and game mechanics is a serious business for theoreticians as well as game designers. The creation of meaningful experiences may be a similarly playful activity, pursued for its own sake, but for professional and also game designers and organisers, making games is hard work, a mode of enterprise. So the same game includes a number of different, but of course partially connected realities: The reality of its creation and production, the reality of its codified rules and established props, the reality of its flow, of experiencing the playing of the game, and the reality of the game’s unintended consequences, such as contributing to change, be it individual or societal.

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Games’ capacities to make people dangerous or to increase their knowledge derive from the same production of a reality in which games are not “magically” displaced into another world but have the agency to affect. While the magic circle of game designers is an explicit tool, the common sense understanding of play and “ordinary life,” however, remains implicit. The role of “reality” in the debate on the relationship between playing and “ordinary life” hinges on the association of play with the extra-ordinary. If the everyday is concerned, for example through leisure policies, then “reality” does not refer to any ontology of the “real” but functions as an “elevator word,” raising the stakes. Here “reality” refers to work and reproduction. Framed differently, there are games and then there are “good” games. “Good” games are situated in the “real world,” that is the world of labour, of reproduction, of health, of community. If the consumers supposedly gain something from playing that is appreciated by economic bureaucrats, health administrators, or employers, such as knowledge about the nation-state, an awareness of current problems, then the activity receives support and funding. If players supposedly learn how to shoot and loot instead, or are just doing silly, childish things, the activity becomes an escape from the responsibilities and the community of the nation-state. Neither bad nor good effects of these games, however, are supported by evidence, although the effects are produced by the mode of the nation. Just as one gamer who does not go on a killing spree after playing a violent game falsifies any theory positing a correlation between the two, so does a single larper failing to become aware of the ill effects of nationalism in his home city falsifies the direct learning effect of edu-larps.32 The discussion on escapism featured a salient archetype, the figure of the hikikomori, or the shut-in. This might be the only form of escape describable: People not leaving their homes and avoiding contact with others. It does not say much, however, about what they are escaping from (if they escape at all), nor whither they escape. Social withdrawal in this observable form has been linked to media use and playing. Passive consumption of childish goods and media or playing without taking on the responsibility of a “real” job are treated as the initial symptoms on a route to escaping into the four walls of a single room. This understanding

32 Edu-larp organisers thus place much importance on debriefing and reflection: Such larps are not limited to just being played but incorporate many other educational tools.

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informs the otaku, or better, some realities of otaku, which we will explore in the next Act.

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Ludography Achilli, Justin, and Bill Bridges. 2004. The World of Darkness. TRPG. Corebook. Clarkston: White Wolf. Bulmahn, Jason. 2009. Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. TRPG. Corebook. 1st ed. Redmond: Paizo. Cluney, Ewen, and Ry¯ o Kamiya. 2008. Maid RPG. TRPG. Rulebook. Cary: Kuroneko Designs. Costikyan, Greg, Dan Gelber, Eric Goldberg, Ken Rolston, and Paul Murphy. 1985. Paranoia. TRPG. Corebook. 1st ed. New York: West End Games. Dombrowski, Karsten. 2009. DragonSys: Regelwerk für Fantasy-Live-Rollenspiele [DragonSys: Rulebook for Fantasy-Live-Action Role-Plays]. Larp. Rulebook. Braunschweig: Zauberfeder. Dziobak Larp Studios. 2014–18AD. College of Wizardry. Larp. Zamek Czocha, Poland. Website (new owner, Company P): www.wizardry.college. Fenlon, Peter C., and Coleman Charlton. 1982. Rolemaster. TRPG. Corebook. 1st ed. Virginia: Iron Crown Enterprises. Franke, Jürgen E. 1981. Midgard. TRPG. Corebook. 1st ed. Stelzenberg: Verlag für F & SF-Spiele. Garfield, Richard. 1993. Magic: The Gathering. TGC. 1st ed. Seattle: Wizards of the Coast. Garriott, Richard. 1981. Ultima. CRPG. Austin: Origin Systems. Greenberg, Andrew C., and Robert Woodhead. 1981. Wizardry. New York: SirTech. Greenwood, Ed, Jeff Grubb, and Karen S Boomgarden. 1987. Forgotten Realms Campaign Set. TRPG. Sourcebook. 1st ed. Lake Geneva: TSR. Gygax, Gary, and Dave Arneson. 1978. Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. TRPG. Corebook. Lake Geneva: TSR. Gygax, Gary, and Jeff Perren. 1971. Chainmail. Wargame. Evansville: Guidon Games. Hatch, Robert, Justin Achilli, and Stephan Wieck. 2001. Exalted. TRPG. Corebook. 1st ed. Stone Mountain: White Wolf. Hellwig, Johann C. L. 1780. Versuch Eines Aufs Schachspiel Gebaueten Taktischen Spiels von Zwey Und Mehreren Personen Zu Spielen [Attempt to Build Upon Chess a Tactical Game Which Two or More Persons Might Play]. Wargame. Braunschweig: Friedrich Vieweg & Sohn.

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———. 2015a. Ryuutama - Juego de Rol de Fantasía Natural. Translated by Carlos de la Cruz and Rodrigo García Carmona. TRPG. Rulebook. Madrid: Other Selves. ———. 2015b. Ryuutama—Natural Fantasy Role-Playing Game. Translated by Andy Kitkowski and Matt Sanchez. TRPG. Rulebook. Research Triangle Park: Kotodama Heavy Industries. ———. 2019. Lóng dàn wùyuˇ - Natural Fantasy R.P.G. TRPG. Rulebook. Beijing: Labyrinth Culture. ¯ Onuki, Masayuki, and ORG. 1985. Danjonzu ando doragonzu [Dungeons & Dragons]. TRPG. Corebook. Tokyo: Shinwa shuppan. Østergaard, Frederik Berg. 2009. Fat Man Down. Larp. Århus, Denmark. Webiste: http://jeepen.org/games/fatmandown/. Pardo, Rob, Jeff Kaplan, and Tom Chilton. 2004. World of Warcraft. Irvine: Blizzard Entertainment. Perrin, Steve, and Greg Stafford. 1978. RuneQuest. TRPG. Corebook. 1st ed. Oakland: Chaosium. Rein·Hagen, Mark. 1991. Vampire: The Masquerade. TRPG. Corebook. 1st ed. Stone Mountain: White Wolf. Rein·Hagen, Mark, Ian Lemke, and Mike Tinney. 1993. Mind’s Eye Theatre: The Masquerade. Larp. Rulebook. Stone Mountain: White Wolf. Reiswitz, Georg Leopold von. 1989. Kriegsspiel: Instructions for the Representation of Military Manoeuvres with the Kriegsspiel Apparatus. Translated by William Leeson. Wargame. N.p.: Self-published. Sakaguchi, Hironobu. 1987. Final Fantasy. Ja. Tokyo: Square. Sandfuchs, Ralf, Steffen Schütte, Thomas Finn, and Norbert Matausch. 1991. Plüsch, Power & Plunder. Düsseldorf: Phase-Verlag. St. Andre, Ken. 1975. Tunnels & Trolls. TRPG. Corebook. 1st ed. Scottsdale: Flying Buffalo. Suzufuki, Tar¯ o. 1993. T¯ oky¯ o NOVA. TRPG. Corebook. Tokyo: Tsukuda Hobby. Totten, Charles A. L. 1980. Strategos: The American Game of War. Wargame. New York: D. Appleton. Weis, Robert. 1995. DragonSys: Das LARP-Regelbuch [DragonSys: The LARPRulebook]. Larp. Rulebook. Nürnberg: Jürgen Wittmann Verlag. Wells, Herbert George. 2004. Little Wars. Wargame. Springfield: Skirmisher. Wrigstad, Tobias. 2010. “Voldtaget - Et Vuxenspil” [Gang Rape - A GrownUp Game]. In Scenariebogen - 9 Fremragende Danske Rollespilscenarier 20062010, edited by Klaus Meier Olsen, Morten Greis Petersen, and Frikard Ellemand, Larp, 452–77. Wyvern Crafts. 2002–present. Drachenfest. Larp. Diemelstadt, Germany. Website: www.drachenfest-larp.info.

CHAPTER 3

Stereotypes—The Agency of Labels, or the Second Act

…if you are not like everybody else, then you are abnormal, if you are abnormal, then you are sick. These three categories, not being like everybody else, not being normal and being sick are in fact very different but have been reduced to the same thing. (Foucault 2004, 95)

3.1

Labelling or Making-up People

After changing interview locations to a smaller but crowded café, Maruyama Kazuo, as I call him, had to raise his voice during the last minutes of the conversation. Maruyama was 33 years old at the time and working for a telecommunications company. During the interview, he had emphasised repeatedly, how much he enjoyed his job because of the joy in assisting customers with finding a suitable product. Without me asking he stressed how role-playing had helped him develop communicative skills: He could put himself in the position of another person; in his case, customers looking for a phone. He continued answering frankly all my inquiries, keeping eye-contact, when he was not searching for words or dealing with the props, including a character sheet to fill in. Thus, he was contradicting many of the stereotypes brought against nerds or gamers, who often find themselves subsumed in Japanese under the otaku label. He seemed neither anti-social, sociophobic, nor unable to relate to other humans—corner attributes of the otaku image. But stereotypes do not work this way, “correct information” does not make them go away (Pickering 2001, 12): © The Author(s) 2020 B.-O. Kamm, Role-Playing Games of Japan, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-50953-8_3

111

112

B.-O. KAMM Maruyama Kazuo

CHARACTERSHEET Age: Gender: Species:

Concept: Virtue: Vice:

Edu. Level: Profession: Marital Status:

ATTRIBUTES Strength

Perception

Resolve

Dexterity

Wits

Composure

Stamina

Reason

Luck

SKILLS Mental Academics Computer Crafts Folklore Investigation Medicine Politics Science

_____________

OTHER TRAITS Background Class Fame Mentor Resources RPG-Status ______________ ______________ ______________ ______________

Physical Athletics Brawl Drive Firearms Larceny Stealth Survival Weaponry

_____________

Social Animal Ken Empathy Expression Intimidation Persuasion Socialize Streetwise Subterfuge

_____________

Merits

Health Satisfaction Favorites _____________________ _____________________ _____________________ _____________________ _____________________

Language:______ ______________ ______________ ______________

Dislikes _____________________ _____________________ _____________________

Flaws _____________________ _____________________ _____________________

Dreams _____________________ _____________________ _____________________

Affliations ____________________________________________ ____________________________________________ ____________________________________________ Equipment ____________________________________________ ____________________________________________ ____________________________________________ ____________________________________________

Values: = non-existent; = below average; beyond average; = world top. Björn-Ole Kamm

Fig. 3.1 Maruyama Character Sheet

= average;

= above average;

= way

DIJ Tokyo

3

STEREOTYPES—THE AGENCY OF LABELS, OR THE SECOND ACT

113

Their imperviousness to information allows for a continued and recursive production of knowledge about those stereotyped. This is their agency to be explored in the case of role-playing games and how it speaks across borders of nation-sates and natural languages. On the flat surface of appearance and behaviour—and we will stay also flat and symmetric when we deal with discourses—Maruyama was no socially inept otaku, or was he? Following his entries on the character sheet, we talked about why he believed his knowledge of natural science to be above average (see Fig. 3.1). I employed character sheets during my formal, narrative interviews as guides: Interviewees would fill in the sheet and subsequently talk about what experiences or ideas they connected with each item (see Interlude—The Character Sheet in Table 3.2 on p. 115). Because my interviewees were familiar with this kind of tool, the character sheets also helped me in building rapport. They were designed with role-players in mind but may be employed in other studies which seek comprehensive engagement with retellings of experiences and the performance of ideas. I follow a “reflexive” approach to interviewing (see Interviews as Performance Texts in Table 3.1) that does not search for a romanticised authenticity of the self, because the stories told are never complete (Denzin 2009a, 222). How could they, if they are the product of limited conversation? Instead, it treats the text performed in the interview situation as a “flat surface,” on which elements of dominant discourses, familiar narrative constructs, and individual meaning ascriptions come together—partially connecting the world created in the Table 3.1 At a Glance—Interviews as Performance Texts 1. Interviews are performances, and thus neither mirror a reality “out there” nor an “inner self.” 2. Reflexivity: The interviewer is part of the narrative told during an interview, performs the resulting text together with the respondent. 3. Partial connections: The interview interaction creates a world connected to others by combining resources from dominant discourses, familiar narrative constructs, and individual meaning ascriptions. 4. Flat analysis: The network configuration of these elements is the subject of analysis, not some “hidden truths,” or “facts.” What kind of agencies or entities are invoked? 5. No jumps: There should be no jumps from the interview to big explanations. “Local sites” and “global structures” are not explanations or forces but the resources from which the performance is created.

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interview interaction with other worlds (“patterns in contingency;” Law 1994, 19). Flat means that statements do not represent something deep or hidden, some “truth” about the persons involved or “fact” that can be inferred about their “society,” “culture,” or “community.” If the performative of the real is to be taken seriously (cf. Law 2009), researchers should not jump from respondents’ statements about their behaviours or preferences to another dimension of big entities. When someone says, they like role-playing games because they can experience other personalities and life-worlds, we do not take the leap and explain this preference with “escapism,” and the “alienating effect” of the (post-) industrial society. If female gamers report to be unfavourably treated as less knowledgeable by some of their male counterparts, we do not link this directly to the “patriarchal structure” of society. Instead it is the scaling, the making of “local sites” and “global structures” in the interactive performance texts of the interview we are interested in. Both are not treated as forces or variables that explain the other but resources from which the participants in an interview situation may draw. We do not look at the loci themselves but at the translation between them, placing the movements and shifts into the foreground. People will jump from “local” interactions, a specific game session or a particular RPG rule, to the whole nation in their narratives. What materials or templates do they choose in these jumps? Which agencies do they call into action? How do they bring them together? How are “localities” and “hierarchies” generated? How is the interviewer made part of this world-building? For example, interviewees might call upon nationality as one resource to tell their stories when they see the need, as was the case especially with my male Japanese informants. It is not just a theoretical question what role the interviewer plays in interview performances. Social distance (of age, gender, class, or other category), however real or imagined, may concern interviewees so that they won’t trust the researcher (Miller and Glassner 2004, 130) . I therefore chose a middle ground in my self-presentation, neither too “mainstream” nor too marginal. My Japanese interviewees, for example, often expressed an interest in role-playing games and larping practiced in Germany—knowledge I could more or less deliver. Similarly, I wanted to learn from them, and see how they told stories about their roleplaying experiences. This reciprocal interest allowed me to appear as not a complete outsider, (continues on p. 121 after Interlude in Table 3.2)

3

Table 3.2

STEREOTYPES—THE AGENCY OF LABELS, OR THE SECOND ACT

115

Interlude—The Character Sheet

Similar to a questionnaire, in qualitative, more open-ended interviews a guide is employed that translates the overall research question(s) into smaller sets, which can be talked about during the interview. The design of such a guide depends on what kind of data needs collecting, if one wants to explore new themes, test hypotheses, or explore opinions (Tracy 2013, 143). Thus, the interview guide for this study, the topics to be talked about as well as the related questions, was organised along my research questions, prior knowledge, and the four controversies informing my study: (1) a distinction between real and fictional worlds; (2) the agency of stereotypes; (3) the (non-) mediating role of the Internet; and (4) the possibility for knowledge about role-playing games. I formulated specific topics to be covered in the interviews but never asked all my predefined questions in one interview as many were answered directly or indirectly through the episodic narratives of my interviewees (Flick 2000). Some questions I used to redirect the narrative when the interviewee derailed too much from issues relevant to this study or to clarify aspects mentioned during the storytelling. For example, if an interviewee used the term otaku in their description of experiences, I would ask a question related to this term, such as how the interviewee understood it. An interview guide usually begins with an opening that builds rapport, shortly sets expectations, and confirms details of the interview. Thus, I began all episodic interviews paraphrasing the following introduction: Thank you for agreeing to this interview. As we talked about before it will probably last for about two hours—does this still work for you? I would like to record our conversation, so please let me know if this is ok with you. I will transcribe the interview afterwards, leaving out your real name and those of your friends and family, and may check with you later to determine if I have understood everything correctly. During the interview, I would like to mostly listen to your experiences and ideas but might also redirect so that we are able to talk about as many topics pertaining to role-playing as possible within our two hours. Before the actual interview began, I further asked for and recorded my interviewees’ consent and also promised them anonymity if they so desired (some of the industry members, such as game designers, had no objections to be identifiable by their real names). After these first exchanges, I explained the main guiding tool, a character sheet. Most table-top role-playing games make use of so-called character sheets, differing in layout and scope but all listing characteristics of player characters relevant to the game. Figure 3.2 shows examples taken form Pathfinder, Vampire: The Masquerade, and Ry¯ utama. At the top of each example, we find “fluff” information about a character, name, gender, occupation or class, age, and religion, amongst other things. The following sections deal with main attributes shared by most characters in a game, such as strength or intelligence, hit points or health, as well as some more abstract traits in the focus of a specific game, such as defensive capabilities, armour, resistance to magic or sanity. These so-called “crunch” stats of a character are usually quantifiable and come into play in determining dice rolls.

(continued)

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B.-O. KAMM

Fig. 3.2

Table 3.2

Character Sheet Examples (Pathfinder, Vampire, Ry¯ utama)

(continued)

Depending on the rules, players may role more dice if the trait in question is higher or receive bonuses to the die roles. In Pathfinder, for example, players always role 20-sided dice (“d20”) and add their Strength score to the result if they want to do some heavy lifting. Other sections of a character sheet deal with skills, such as knowledge in a specific area, the handling of tools or weaponry, as well as spells known if the game involves magic. Further, we may find sections dealing with equipment or more detailed “fluff” information, such as place of residence, family relations, personal history, magical artefacts obtained and so on. The “crunch” part is governed by a game system’s rules, stating how many points can be allocated to which trait and in which way a trait influences dice rolls. Some “fluffier” elements restrict choices, so for a fighter it is more difficult to buy/gain knowledge skills, while a mage can only obtain limited armour. The “fluff” itself is governed and restricted by each game’s setting or world. Character sheets are filled in during the process of “character creation,” which again depends on the game system but usually follows a similar sequence of choices, from rough concept to its translation into skills and powers. I expected that most of my interviewees-to-be would bring a certain familiarity with these mechanics to the interviews and also believed the use of such a character sheet during the interview to be a source for building rapport, as it would demonstrate my own level of acquaintance with role-playing. As character sheets detail many aspects of a character’s life-world, they further seemed to be an unobtrusive avenue into many of the questions or topics I sought to explore.

(continued)

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Table 3.2

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(continued)

The character sheet I constructed for the purpose of my interviews took inspiration from the Storytelling System developed by White Wolf for their Vampire, or rather World of Darkness franchise. I chose the Storytelling System for two major reasons: First, White Wolf games had seen translations into many languages, including Japanese and German, and I knew from my participant observations on Internet platforms that most players active there had played these games at least once. If I had chosen a less known system or created a new one from scratch, I would have needed much more time to explain how the character sheet works during the interview, restricting the time the informant and I could actually talk. The second reason lies in the name and purpose of the system, which to some degree mirrors the aim of my interviews. As its name implicates, the Storytelling System was created to tell stories. As I also wanted to encourage my interviewees to tell a shared story with me, the Storytelling System appeared a favourable basis. Below explains the character sheet I created in a very similar fashion to how this is done in a TRPG rulebook, in this way further detailing this major element of table-top role-playing. The Character Sheet Explained (Figs. 3.3 and 3.4) Interview Information. Usually character sheets include a field entitled “Player name.” As I guaranteed anonymity to my informants, I added this field instead in which they were asked to put down the date (and maybe time) of the interview. Background . This section covers demographical information, such as age, gender, and species, as well as education and marital status, mostly related to the relationship between supposed-to-be real worlds and fictitious worlds as well as competencies gained in these worlds/learning effects. I included species as a way to open the conversation to the many fantastical creatures at home in role-playing games and to see how my interviewees related to these ideas. Concept refers to a short two- or three-word description of how the interviewee sees themself, a brief sketch of their self-image and motivations. This may include some idea of career: “stoic mechanic,” “gentle youngster,” or “up and coming journalist.” Virtue and Vice refer to a person’s strengths and weaknesses, their noble and their dark sides informing their sense of self. They may reflect the background or Concept or may contrast it. An example taken from WoD itself is the priest whose defining Virtue is Faith and the defining Vice is Pride. I gave a list with possible Virtues and Vices to my informants but allowed them to come up with descriptions of their own. Concept, as well as Virtue and Vice were included as avenues to talk about topics related to stereotyping and social in-/exclusion. Attributes. Attributes define “inborn” aptitudes and potential, such as a keen Perception or an unyielding Resolve. I did not limit the amount of points to be used for Attributes, as is common during the character creation process in actual role-playing games. The chosen levels should represent how the interviewees saw their own capabilities in regard to an imagined average (two dots). Were they more on the average side, below or above it, or do they think they are one of a kind in one area? Skills. Skills refer to those abilities and proficiencies one possesses intuitively or has learned and are also linked to possible learning-effects of TRPGs. They are divided into Mental, Physical, and Social Skills, each also represented by a skill level of zero (almost none to no capabilities) to five (the best in the world). The Skill list was directly informed by the Storytelling System, as it is used to portray modern humans, but I left a blank field in each area for interviewees who wanted to include some abilities not covered.

(continued)

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CHARACTERSHEET Age: Gender: Species:

Concept: Virtue: Vice:

Edu. Level: Profession: Marital Status:

ATTRIBUTES Strength

Perception

Resolve

Dexterity

Wits

Composure

Stamina

Reason

Luck

SKILLS Mental Academics Computer Crafts Folklore Investigation Medicine Politics Science

_____________

OTHER TRAITS Background Class Fame Mentor Resources RPG-Status ______________ ______________ ______________ ______________

Physical Athletics Brawl Drive Firearms Larceny Stealth Survival Weaponry

_____________

Social Animal Ken Empathy Expression Intimidation Persuasion Socialize Streetwise Subterfuge

_____________

Merits

Satisfaction Favorites _____________________ _____________________ _____________________ _____________________ _____________________

Language:______ ______________ ______________ ______________

Dislikes _____________________ _____________________ _____________________

Flaws _____________________ _____________________ _____________________

Dreams _____________________ _____________________ _____________________

Affliations ____________________________________________ ____________________________________________ ____________________________________________ Equipment ____________________________________________ ____________________________________________ ____________________________________________ ____________________________________________

Values: = non-existent; = below average; beyond average; = world top.

= average;

Björn-Ole Kamm

Fig. 3.3

Health

Interview Character Sheet (English)

= above average;

= way

DIJ Tokyo

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Fig. 3.4

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Interview Character Sheet (Japanese)

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Table 3.2

(continued)

Skill Specialties. Behind each listed Skill is also a blank field to allow for focused areas of expertise: Interviewees were asked to assign as many specialties as they deemed fit. For example, if they were good with computers, they could narrow down their expertise to “programming,” or “website design;” with Expression they could be best in “singing,” or “dancing.” The choice was up to them and they did not have to choose a specialty at all if they did not see the necessity. Other Traits . This section covers several other traits, such as Background, Health, or Merits. Background defines material assets and social networks related to competences and social capital, such as Resources (access to money/income), Mentor (a person who guides the interviewee), or their level of expertise, knowledge, and experience in the role-playing world (RPG-Status, ranging from novice to expert). Health means the level of self-assessed physical well-being and robustness (e.g. how often one becomes sick), while Satisfaction refers to how satisfied the interviewee is in regard to their current circumstances. Favourites and Dislikes, again, offer mostly an opportunity to talk about different aspects of an interviewee’s life-world. Merits and Flaws are also open to interpretation, with only one trait given from the beginning, which are language skills. As I am interested in trans-local interconnectedness, I wanted to learn not necessarily about respective language skills but use this part as a chance to talk about informants’ use of and access to foreign language games and websites. Dreams, lastly, were included in order to talk about an interviewee’s aspirations, on an individual but also on a broader level. Final Touches. To round out details, the last two sections cover Affiliations, such as game groups or any other association. Under Equipment I asked them to list any (iconic) items they thought of defining themselves, such as a particular kind of clothes or gadget. The addition of a section on equipment was not only informed by typical role-playing game conventions but also by the material-semiotic view on humans, which limits individuals not only to the living organism and its mind but also incorporates things (cf. cyborg in Act 3, Haraway 1991; or, Hodder 2012). Despite the appearance to the contrary, my aim was not a true and complete picture of my interviewees but to have an entry point into a conversation with them. So, I did not force them to fill in each and every section of the character sheets if they did not want to or did not care about a particular section or the entire sheet at all. Many informants confessed to having previously used a role-playing game’s system to recreate themselves as an RPG character, but most expressed this to be rather difficult—independent of prior experience with such an endeavour. For the Japanese version, I could rely on already existing translations of the World of Darkness character sheet (Achilli and Bridges 2005, 247). For the other elements, for example Satisfaction, I talked with informants if my choice of translation would convey the attended meaning (Harkness and Schoua-Glusberg 1998). Coincidentally, the German Institute for Japanese Studies, Tokyo (DIJ) conducted several studies on satisfaction, subjective well-being, quality of life, and work-life-balance under the umbrella of an institute-wide research focus on “Happiness in Japan: Continuities and Discontinuities” at the time I was stationed at the institute. This focus included preliminary research on how to translate relevant terms, such as happiness or satisfaction. Relying on DIJ internal documents and the consultation with one of my earliest Japanese informants, I chose shiawase for Satisfaction as it corresponds most closely to leading a happy, fortunate life.

(continued)

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Table 3.2

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(continued)

During the interviews, the respondents filled in the character sheets by hand. For the subsequent qualitative analysis—for which I employed the qualitative data analysis software MaxQDA—it was necessary to digitise them. So, I scanned each of them and transferred them into PDFs and simultaneously into English (see Fig. 3.5).

Fig. 3.5 Interview Character Sheet Scanned and Digitised Translation

which resulted in the willingness of my interviewees to talk to me in the first place. I also did not hide that our conversations would be part of a study, did not gloss over my connection to universities and research centres. The degree of prestige associated with some such institutions contrastingly marks distance. This distance to their non-academic worlds gave them the roles of experts on a topic of apparent interest to the academia, which “can be both empowering and illuminating because one can reflect on and speak about one’s life in ways not often available” (ibid., 132). Rapport is key to bridge distances and open a space for

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a shared interview performance. My aim was not to trick my interviewees into revealing hidden aspects of their “true” selves or to equate narration with factual experience. “[W]hat is presented in a narrative is constructed in a specific form during the process of narrating, and memories of earlier events may be influenced by the situation in which they are told” (Flick 2009, 184). Instead, the space to talk freely would allow them to emphasise points and talk about aspects I could not have thought of. In the present case, Maruyama related his three dots in “Science”— which mean “above average”—to the design of scenarios for the science fiction table-top RPG Traveller (Miller 1977; Japanese edition, Miller 1984), which took inspiration from Isaac Asimov among others. Maruyama had consulted scientific publications to attain the amount of “realism” or “fidelity” he and his players demanded for depicting technology and space travel. Traveller did not only open his eyes to science but also made him into a science-fiction otaku in his own words. When he mentioned this laughing and in passing, I did not check further what he meant with otaku because I did not want to break his flow. We had discussed politics before, which he designated as important despite not knowing much about them, and continued with history and what he had learned about earlier periods by playing alternate history TRPGs. However, we returned to the topic of otaku after we had changed locations. Maruyama had been musing about how often he had time to play TRPGs—maybe twice a month. Compared to his time at high school this number was very low. Many forum posters on mixi, a Japanese language Facebook equivalent, also lamented the limited amount of time they had for playing after graduating from high school or college. This did not appear very otaku-like, not like someone who had escaped “this world.” I took Maruyama’s statement as an incentive to inquire after how he had used the term otaku previously in our conversation. That’s quite difficult to say… if asked, however, I would imagine otaku to be somewhat below maniacs, not with the same degree of passion. Actually, I do not have much of an image related to the word otaku. I myself do not use it that much. Probably, previous generations would have used maniac, maybe… If it was something, then otaku was a discriminatory word, but I would not use it that way, you know.

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Maruyama dismissed otaku as something of the past, as a word the mass media had used once. He told about reading Okada Toshio’s Otaku-gaku ny¯ umon (Introduction to Otakuology, 1996), a bestselling monograph in which the author tried to positively re-evaluate otaku as scholars of popular media. Okada was the co-founder of the production studio Gainax, which is credited with revolutionising TV anime through its critically acclaimed Neon Genesis Evangelion (1995–96, Anno; TV Tokyo; cf. Morikawa 2012) about teens piloting giant bio-machine robots and their psychological and emotional struggles. Referencing himself and his friends—more often than not, fans turned producers, designers or media artists—he describes otaku as knowledge experts who specialise in anime. They could appreciate minute details in back story or character design and had a keen eye for inter-media citations. Such an understanding of otaku as hard-core fans of anime, manga, and also video games became widespread in Non-Japanese fan discourse. American and European users of Japanese media appropriated the label after they were exposed to it in various productions (cf. Eng 2012). In English and German, the term’s meaning is rather clear, translatable as “fan of Japanese media,” just as “Trekkie” means a fan of Star Trek (1966– present, Roddenberry; Paramount) or “Whovian” refers to fans of Doctor Who (1963–89, 2005–present; BBC). Further, in these languages you write “otaku” in one way only, in the Latin alphabet. In Japanese, it can be written in one of the two syllabaries hiragana and katakana, as well as in kanji characters or r¯ omaji (Roman letters; see Fig. 3.6). Its earliest variant was a form of address, a distanced, polite “you,” literary meaning “your house.” Using hiragana or katakana, soon becomes political (Galbraith et al. 2015a, 7) because the former syllabary often consciously highlights the pejorative usage as a stereotype for social awkwardness and obsessive ¯ behaviour (Otsuka 2015). Contrastingly, the katakana variant opposes the negative image—a use very much promoted by Okada—and comes closest to the connotation of fan or prosumer, an active consumer (cf. NRI 2005). In everyday usage, the latter connotation of intensive consumption or interest—not just fandom—dominates today, so that people also speak of kenk¯ o-otaku (“health otaku,” Tanaka 2003), but never without a hint of negativity or the stench of obsession. In English-language studies dealing with otaku as a singular, social group in Japan, this varied usage of homonyms usually disappears, equating otaku solely with fandom and fan practices.

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Fig. 3.6 Otaku in Various Scripts

If we limited the understanding to fandom, we still missed many practices designated as otaku that Okada tries to defend in the 1990s as worthwhile engagements: For example, collectors of railway schedules and train photos or military and model weapon enthusiasts. Further, people may take several subject positions, so that individual role-players may of course be also fans of some thing or another. They may cite favourite novels, movies, or manga, if not outright play in an official setting inspired by a specific intellectual property (IP), be it Star Wars (1977–present, Lucas; 20th Century Fox.) or Slayers! (1995, Yamazaki, Watanabe; T¯oei). However, a “fan studies” perspective, that resolves around the relationship of users with an IP and amongst each other, would limit the possibilities for the assemblage under study and the network drawn by labels such as otaku in the Japanese-language context. Studying the stereotype otaku needs to engage some forms of fan practices due to the way the label came into usage in the 1980s. Important to note, the connection between otaku and these practices is a contingent outcome of historical happenings, not a necessity. It is also not about fan practices per se. The relation and agency of this label to role-players in Japan complicates easy categories even more. Again, the focus is on partial connections not on equivalence or identity. Maruyama had answered my call for interviewees because he identified with the experience of being a “role-player” (see Interlude—Recruitment in Table 3.3). During our conversation about TRPGs, we touched other

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Table 3.3 Interlude—Recruitment Recruiting interviewees and conducting formal interviews in Japan took mostly place between July and October 2010, some also in 2012, 2014, and 2016. I applied a strategy of gradual selection, adjusting theoretical sampling (Glaser and Strauss 2006, 45) to a purposive and also systematic selection and integration of persons and settings, which adheres to the concept of triangulation as a strategy to diversify the data collected. In this sense, new perspectives are opened and more worlds are explored (Flick 2009; Denzin 2009b). Beyond the willingness and capability of participating in an interview, my informants had to fulfil the basic requirement of being an “expert” of (T)RPGs: Prior knowledge of and experience with (table-top) role-playing games. As the definition of what a role-playing game is, was also at stake and I wanted to receive input on that matter I did not define the term in my attempts to recruit interviewees. Instead, I left it at “TRPG” in general to allow for any interviewee who felt themself equipped to answer my questions. My starting point for attracting possible interviewees was twofold—in actuality threefold, as a number of interviewees had learned of my project by word of mouth—including a recruiting post on the Internet platform mixi and advertisements submitted to the TRPG Café Daydream in Kanda, Tokyo. Mixi is the Japanese equivalent to Facebook, a digital social networking service, where participants may post information or “tweets,” get into conversations with friends, and join thematically oriented groups. On mixi exist several groups pertaining to table-top role-playing. Some smaller ones deal only with one specific game system, for example, but there is also one larger group just named “TRPG,” with over 6000 members. I had introduced myself on the forum of this group on July 13, 2010 and posted recruiting info in my nikki (diary) on the same day. In the post, I explicated my position as a researcher and also outlined the scope and purpose of the interviews. I had also set-up a page on my website, which offered further information and also a sample of the character sheet. The link to this page was also included in the pamphlet I distributed at Café Daydream, so that interested parties could contact me. The diary post on mixi was immediately reposted and linked to by Masuda, one of my closest informants and member of the TRPG circle “Illusion’s Disciples,” with whom I did much of my fieldwork between 2010 and 2013—after my arrival in Japan, I soon contacted this group of role-players who had announced their small monthly convention on the mixi TRPG forums a few days earlier. Explaining my intentions, I asked if I could join their meeting and participate in their games, to which they agreed. My participation in this first TRPG convention turned out to be extremely crucial for the remainder of my research because the “Disciples” would later vouch for me online and promote my call for interviewees. Masuda’s connections and friends also shared my call for interviewees if they did not answer it themselves. This definitely helped me in building rapport with potential informants, as only ten hours later, still on July 13, I received the first response by one of my later interviewees, Shintani.

(continued)

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Table 3.3 (continued) Besides expertise with role-playing games another criterion I wanted to emphasise in my sampling was to not limit my interviewees to residents of Tokyo. Often studies on Japan tend to be studies on Tokyo (Okada 2008, 84), so I aspired to cover at least a few other regions of Japan in my selection of informants to overcome this Tokyo-bias. Luckily, amongst the first people who replied to my recruitment call were three Nagoya-residents, so I was able to interview them during my visit to the D&D Aichi Convention, held at the Nagoya Convention Centre from August 18 to 20. On my return trip to Tokyo, I further spoke to a role-player living in Hamatsu, Shizuoka prefecture. Two other respondents came from Saitama prefecture, another was from Ky¯ushu but had recently relocated to Tokyo. As nine of my first ten interviewees who replied to my mixi post and the recruitment pamphlet until August 15 were above the age of 25, a majority also older than 30, I saw the need to purposely adjust my sample and began to contact university TRPG clubs in the greater Tokyo area. I thus travelled to Kanagawa prefecture to speak to four students between the age of 18 and 21. I was also concerned that too few female interviewees might answer my call. Even though the majority of gamers in Japan appears to be male (the emphasis is on “appears,” see Kamm 2016), it seemed prudent to search for female role-players so that their input and ideas could also inform my study. My concern was rather unfounded, as three of the seven later interviewees were female. For the purpose of my study I treat all my interviewees as experts, experts for their experience with and view on role-playing. Still, I also aimed at gaining insight not only into the “consumer” or “amateur” side but also into production and design. Through my contacts to the “Illusion’s Disciples” circle as well as to staff at the Café Daydream, I was able to talk to business members, two Tokyo-based independent game designers, one illustrator working for F.E.A.R., as well as a game designer, an illustrator and the CEO of the game studio B¯oken (Tokyo). As I had made a name for myself during the first months of my fieldwork, I was further able to get in contact with four game designers from GroupSNE (Osaka/Kobe) and talk to them in 2010, 2012, 2014, and 2019. With most of my informants, laymen as well as professionals, I continue(d) to stay in contact months and years after the initial interview. The CEO of B¯oken later invited me also to come to their booth at the international game fair SPIEL, held in Essen, Germany, each year in October, so that I conducted also fieldwork at this convention after my return to Germany.

interests too and he mused that he might have been an anime otaku in the past as Okada described them, but not anymore. He would not watch much anime in general today and did not keep track of current developments or series. Old anime, such as the giant robot science-fiction series Gundam (1979, Tomino; TV Nagoya), had been his purview. He would also appreciate the works of Tezuka Osamu (1928–89), the socalled “godfather of manga.” Today’s so-called “moé anime,” full of cute girls with cat ears, however, did not attract him. For anime as well as roleplaying, he preferred or even demanded “realism:” A believable world, realistic characters with personality, and probable stories.

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With these last observations about his attitude towards newer media products, Maruyama indirectly cites Okada again. In 2008, Okada had published Otaku ha sude ni shindeiru (Otaku are Already Dead, 2008) and similarly expressed how he would not understand the media and the people now called otaku. His generation of otaku would have been different, could appreciate stories, inter-media relations, were amateur producers, and had formed a community across different interests. Today’s anime were merely childishly cute, garish spectacles, their consumption an escape, and their consumers unwilling to grow up and unable to appreciate minute details or remember even the format of a product. The same Okada who staged himself as the otaku-king defending young adults who consumed children’s media in the 1980s and 90s, now shows how the passage of time also changes connotations. For Okada, the otaku-scholars are dead, and he now brings the critique brought against his generation full-circle against the current anime and manga fans. Concerning role-playing games, we see a similar differentiation. Not only Maruyama, also others, for example, my interviewees Kawai and Nakahara, voiced a comparable critique when it came to the covers of Role & Roll, until 2018 the only TRPG magazine left on the Japanese market. On these covers, one would only find cute girls, sometimes with some too huge weaponry.1 This stands in contrast to the “realism” older players demand and expect from a role-playing game related publication and which mirrors advice given by European gamers to Japanese publishers at the SPIEL convention. In continuation with the previous chapter on games, the otaku stereotype as well as that of gamers in the US and Europe explicitly refer to an inability to distinguish between reality and fiction, a point often raised when someone kills classmates at their school or murders their family when having a history of playing games that include violence (Ferguson 2008). The explanation for such murders follows the logic that the person in question lost the ability to distinguish between the figures in a game and “real” human beings. Such critique is not only targeted at extreme, sociopathological crimes but also voiced against seemingly innocent behaviour, such as desiring pop-idols (cf. Galbraith 2012; Kojima 2016). In both cases, concerned critics and analysts posit that people would not identify with something real, with a model they can 1 For sample covers, see the magazine’s website: http://r-r.arclight.co.jp/backnumber (accessed 2020/02/20), or Act 1, Fig. 2.4 on p. 54.

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possibly become but with something that is mere fantasy. Otaku would have failed to form a self-identity grounded in a relation to ideals that are “real” so that in their case the valuation of daily work and immer¯ sion in fiction would become completely inverted (Osawa 1992, 217). Not only Okada—at least in the 1990s—spoke against accusations that rendered otaku as distorted, non-socialised individuals unable to distinguish between fiction and reality, and continued to stress the diversity of people lumped together into a single “prison camp for weirdoes” (Okada 2015, 165). In hindsight, Okada himself stresses how otaku was and is a gathering device that brings unrelated people and practices together. In his reassessment, the various theories of otaku will always only touch upon particular aspects of a limited number of people subsumed under the otaku label. Studies about people who are emotionally moved or sexually aroused by two-dimensional characters (Galbraith 2015) cannot explain the collection of railway schedules (Tsuji 2012). There is neither an inner logic linking one practice to the label and not another, nor do the people so labelled form a social group or type. In retelling and analysing the discourse on otaku between 1983 and 2005, Aida Miho (Aida 2005, 2015) also repeatedly questions the idea of otaku as a singular, specific and fixed personality type. She emphasises the difference between “actual” otaku (jittai toshite no otaku, 2005, 19; 2015, 105), about which we know nothing, and otaku as an idea discussed in media and academia. This goes in line with her distinction between the riaru (the real), which we humans cannot perceive, and genjitsu, the many different “realities,” we give meaning to. To paraphrase, if we all attribute different levels of “reality”—what we see as real and important— to different things, then the distinction between non-reality or fiction and reality becomes irrelevant (ibid., 34; see also “symbolic interactionism,” below). However, otaku are in her words usually addressed as a problem of non-reality. Aida’s attention to “social constructions” of reality and a distinction between “actual” otaku and “ideal” otaku came late and remains mostly unappreciated in a discourse that oscillates between problematising otaku as a single, pathological group or heralding them as a new form of subjectivity adjusted to the age of the Internet. Often building on public understandings, either critiquing or elaborating views on otaku like those given in dictionaries or encyclopaedias (for example, imidas or Gendai y¯ ogo no kisochishiki, “Fundamental Knowledge of Current Terms;” Matsumura 1992; Fukagawa 1992), in over thirty years of scholarly and

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critical discourse otaku have been presented and discussed as “unbalanced specialists” (Miyadai 1994, 2006), a personality and identity problem ¯ (Osawa 1992), as new isolated-but-connected Internet-based lifeforms (Grassmuck 1990), a case of non-socialised beings with a “communication insufficiency syndrome” (Nakajima 1995), a special form of sexuality oriented towards the fictional (Sait¯o 2000, 2011), a postmodern, Japanese subjectivity (Azuma 2001, 2009; Azuma et al. 2003), but also as amateur critics (Okada 1996), as an urban transformative movement (Morikawa 2003, 2012), as the guiding principle to Tokyo (Macias and Machiyama 2004), as prosumers (NRI 2005; Media Create 2008), an artistic configuration (Murakami, T. 2005), and the heralds of a creative, collaborative media culture (Condry 2013). In recent years, the focus is on the latter, more-positive side, based on the assessment that otaku would have been accepted by mainstream society now, due to the positive depiction in movies such as Densha Otoko or due to the “Cool Japan” campaign (Japan Tourist Bureau 2008; It¯o 2012). We subsequently encounter the imaginaire of a “global otaku culture.” Most of these publications do not make Aida’s distinction, but treat otaku as a single social group and so begin with a shared claim: Existing knowledge of otaku is riddled with false representations, such as an inability to bond with others, and thus, these misrepresentations need correcting (Okada 1996, 10–14; Honda 2005, 8; Nagayama 2005, 13). This mode of engaging with presumably sticking stereotypes is neither limited to the Japanese-language context— most English or German studies on otaku (in Japan or beyond) follow the same—nor to the case of otaku. Especially in the US, we encounter a similar mode of disclaiming stereotypes in (semi-) academic and journalistic treatments of role-players and gamers standing up against images of reclusiveness, social incompetence, and escapism (e.g. Gilsdorf 2009; McGonigal 2011; Stark 2012; Woods 2012; Ewalt 2013). All these publications aim at showing not only the “coolness” of otaku, nerds, or role-players but also their internal diversity, that larpers might be different from other nerds, that anime otaku should be distinguished from fashion otaku (NRI 2005). In this sense, the Japanese otaku discourse appears local and global at the same time. Local as its actors refer to specific genres, ideas, or particular events that happened to evolve or take place on soil claimed by the Japanese state. Global because it not only borrows models and explanations as wide ranged as Freudian psychoanalysis (Sait¯o 2000, 2011), Baudrillard’s hyperreality and simulacra (Azuma 2001, 2009), or British Cultural Studies and Gramsci’s

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hegemony (Nagai 2002; Miyake 2013), but also because it speaks to similar discourses on media use, specific genres and particular events elsewhere. The modes ordering the discourse on otaku—reductionism on the one hand, disclaiming stereotypes and singularity by giving “correct” information about a group of people and detailing their diversity on the other—and a strong belief in correspondence when it comes to representation, appear also salient in the debates about gamers and role-players in particular. The dynamics of the controversies around the stereotypes brought against role-players and otaku also make visible, implicitly or explicitly, that being subject to a stereotype oneself does not deter one from labelling others similarly. This Act explores these dynamics in past debates and in current politics of belonging among role-players. The latter I trace through my interviewee’s accounts, which I relate to the debate of critics and academics when my informants drew these discussions into our conversation. This exploration will show how the discursive mode of disclaiming functions as a node within the assemblage of practices called role-playing games and a bridge across language and space in light of questions of social groupings: Who is one of us and who is not? What makes a good role-player? Apparently one who does distinguish between reality and non-reality. This investigation does not seek to settle these debates but rather wants to demonstrate what counts as correct knowledge about otaku and roleplayers as well as which agencies are called to action in attempts to create such knowledge. I thus neither take categories or kinds such as otaku, nerd or gamer for granted, nor do I distinguish right from the start between drivers and driven, between stereotypers and stereotyped. This follows this book’s methodological protocol to be symmetric and forego judgment. The black and white picture too often drawn in literature appears rather more colourful and complex to settle asymmetries before the exploration has begun. Stereotypes and Representation Stereotypes and labels work in various ways. This book engages them mostly as rhetorical figures, discursive tools to elevate oneself in opposition to those one labels deviant or inferior (Pickering 2001). Stereotypes mediate power relations by connecting actors in an asymmetrical fashion. There are typically those who drive, those who label, and then there are the driven, those labelled, in this case, otaku, or escapist role-players.

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However, does this make the labelled just passive canvases on which others may paint their images of what is not part of the “normal?” At first, I believed that labels such as otaku only have ill effects, casting people out. But such a unidirectional conceptualisation does not capture the dynamics involved in making-up kinds of people. The media franchise Densha Otoko (Train Man; e.g. the movie directed by Murakami S. 2005), for example, supposedly changed the public image of otaku for good (cf. Galbraith 2010; Freedman 2015). Believed to be based on real events, the protagonist of this story is a computer otaku who rescues a young woman from being harassed on a train. She thanks him later by sending him expensive Hermès cups (for which she gains the nickname “Hermes”). On the online forum 2channel (where he is called densha otoko), the protagonist receives help to date Hermes and finally graduate from his otaku ways, to mainstream his hair style and appearance, and win the bride. While some critique the depictions as enforced “love capitalism” (Honda 2005; Honda and Galbraith 2014), they feature strongly in stories of otaku rehabilitation (e.g. It¯ o 2012; cf. “triumphant narrative”). If correct information or media images had direct effects on consumers, otaku should have become accepted members of society. However, a forum post on the “Rapli Love Forum” (ren’ai teijiban) made five years after the often-cited rehabilitation of otaku, belies a different picture. Despite the self-reported fact that the author’s boyfriend looks good, knows about current trends, and is kind, ishikawa0021 (2010) recoils when she learns that he is also into media associated with otaku. Should his other traits not have proven the stereotype wrong that as an otaku he not necessarily is a strange being? If she (assumed ichikawa0021 is a she) was serious or just a so-called “troll” who wants to enrage people, we cannot say. She did, however, receive quite angry reactions from other forum members. Her post was voted down by 46 people, opposed to only eight who sympathised with her. Over a year, almost a hundred people replied, chastising her for reducing her boyfriend to a stereotype. If we follow theories on stereotyping, then her reaction matches the assessment that stereotypes function differently than categories or mental schemas. Unlike psychological or analytic categories or schemas, which change through new information, stereotypical labels do not as their function is to fix the labelled in a subordinate position, to exorcise bad traits unto others. Categories and schemas are also reductions and simplifications but with the function to help navigate a complex world: When we

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enter a social situation, for example a visit to a restaurant, most humans know what to expect from previous experience, be they of a first-hand or second-hand order, that is, experience we made ourselves or to which we have access by other means (cf. Winterhoff-Spurk 1989; Shrum 2004). So, we know there will be a menu to choose from, a waiter who takes orders and brings the food, that we might want to dress for the occasion if the setting demands it; that we want to raise our hands to gain the attention of the waiter. The mental script “restaurant,” will be quickly adapted if necessary. In a Japanese “family restaurant,” we will observe that people won’t raise a hand but press a buzzer button conveniently placed on the table to tell the staff that they are ready to order. When we go to another such establishment, we will know what to do because our script “restaurant” has been amended by this prior experience. This is what “symbolic interactionism” tells us (Blumer 1969; Denzin 1992; Plummer 2000): Humans do not interact with things and other humans but with the meanings they ascribe to these non-humans and people. Meanings are not stable but ever changing through new encounters and new experiences. In essence, mental categories, such as “restaurant” or “waiter” and respective scripts for behaviour, cut social reality into neat chunks that we can deal with more easily than if we had to evaluate each situation completely anew. If we encounter different or new information, this will be incorporated in our mental map of the world and we would adjust actions accordingly. Important to note, this model does not assume any “scripts” stored in the biochemistry of our brains. It is just a model that is totally wrong in representing reality—like all models—but useful for us to talk about things (Box 1976, 792; 1979, 203). Stereotypes and labels are not part of this model if we follow Michael Pickering’s classification in Stereotyping: The Politics of Representation (2001). Stereotypes contrastingly would not change with new information, they would be impervious to it, because their function is not to help navigate the world but to make the world. Stereotyping is about putting humans and non-humans in their place. Understood this way, stereotypes do not merely represent realities but have and give agency to produce realities, their power makes subjects (Foucault 2004, 120). For the most part, however, stereotypes have played a role in theories about representation. Pickering reviews how previous studies ignored this productiveness and the asymmetries of power in the relations created through stereotypes. Most commonly, stereotypes are made equivalent with representational categories and seen as an individual, intra-psychic

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form of defunct, prejudiced knowledge about the world—either as a necessity to reduce complexities brought upon by modernisation (cf. Lippmann 1922) or as an issue of “irrational” personality types (cf. Adorno et al. 1950). Usually scholars subscribing to such a view took themselves out of the equation. Current, universalist socio-psychological studies outside and within Japan investigate in-group/out-group relations, allow for ambivalence, and pay attention to how stereotypes relate to various factors such as norms or a competition for resources (Cuddy et al. 2009; Sakuma 2015), but they still rest on the idea that stereotypes are in essence a question of misrepresentation. Pickering underscores how pathologizing prejudice and stereotypes as individual failings or treating them as matters of accuracy misses how they are rooted in power relations (2001, 26). Stereotypes are not just wrong categorisations, misplaced matrices of perception and action. For Pickering and others, for example Edward Said, stereotypes operate as reductionist and exorcistic tools. They reduce the diversity of others (e.g. blacks, Asians, women, otaku) and are untrue in this instance but are also true because they mirror the common and dominant ideology of what counts as normal. Orientalism as it was conceived by Said (1978) refers not so much to knowledge about the orient but to how the “West” tried to create a self-identity of a male, modern, and rational society contrasted to images of an effeminate, savage, and irrational “East.” Phrased this way, however, Orientalism falls in its own trap, reducing a plethora of actors and discourses to a homogenised “West” (Moore-Gilbert 1997). Stereotypes should be suspect to the extent that they give us a feeling of superiority, be it as modern whites or as critical observers. Furthermore, in Pickering’s view, the critique of stereotyping should not seek to produce “neutral” categories instead because such “neutrality” often only camouflages the implicit taking of a position (2001, 42). Studying stereotypes should further not seek to deliver the final word because that is what stereotyping is all about, “freeze-framing” our thinking about others (ibid., 44–45). Stereotyping, labelling, or othering—to name a number of parallel concepts that deal with similar issues—as collective processes of evaluation and attempts to fix others in their place, deny history and repress politics but are nevertheless based in both. To understand stereotypes, according to Pickering, we need to trace their roots historically but also be aware of their dynamics because the same stereotype does not hold value at all times and places. Stereotypes are particular. And just now,

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the particular stereotypes brought against gamers and otaku seem to have lost currency. Games and gamification are now represented as cool; everyone wears nerdy glasses even though they see perfectly. On the level of representation, labels and images, we can observe such a change. However, conceptualising stereotypes as mere misrepresentations inadvertently assumes that there is something “out there,” a singular reality, “actual” otaku, that can be correctly or incorrectly represented. Instead, I argue that stereotyping is a practice that does realities, that creates its object in the first place. Practicing Stereotypes It was terrible the most during middle school… During middle school, I had the feeling that I only had to show my face and people would say mean things to me. Well, there were also those who beat me up… Once, during a fight, one broke my arm… here at the wrist… [shows and strokes his forearm]. (interviewee Takeuchi)

Takeuchi Jun, an 18-year old university student, did not connect his experience of being bullied with the term otaku. For him otaku are those who like cute characters, who are hooked on all things evoking “moé.” Moé, spelled with the kanji for budding that is unisonous with the character for burning, is an idea as contested as otaku. To cut a long discussion short, many commentators summarise its meaning as a passionate, euphoric if not aroused response to specific, fictional characters, particular character attributes or character relations in anime, manga, or games but also beyond (Galbraith 2014). The etymology of the term is lost on 2channel ,2 a Japanese-language forum for anonymous discussions, often sexually explicit or politically incorrect. What may induce moé varies greatly, but in the academic debate the term is often associated with neotenised female characters targeted at a male audience. Most have a different understanding of the term—Takeuchi used kawaii, “cute,” to relate otaku to moé. Galbraith’s The Moé Manifesto (2014), an Englishlanguage collection of interviews with Japanese scholars, producers, voice

2 Created in 1999 by Nishimura Hiroyuki, 2channel (ni channeru) changed ownership several times in the last years and has been rebranded as 5channel (5ch.net) in 2017.

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actors, and artists, demonstrates how difficult and unproductive the search for a general definition is. Although, figures such as Okada Toshio lament their lack of understanding moé and the media associated with it, the respective products found a home in the Japanese government’s “Cool Japan” country marketing (regardless of the question, if administrators understood the term “correctly”). The three “cute ambassadors,” a maid, a schoolgirl, and a lolita, are a case in point. Moé as a label for a patterned, commercially used formula, such as cat ears and saying nya-nya (“meow;” Momoi and Galbraith 2014), sells on the domestic market as well as abroad. The positive valuation of media and products associated with these images of otaku and moé within the national discourse on Japanese “culture” fostered what Galbraith, Kam, and Kamm call the “triumphant narrative” (Galbraith et al. 2015b, xxxiii). Within this narrative the former stereotype of otaku has lost its power and was abolished due to the state sanctioning otaku culture (read, the industry producing media for an assumed otaku audience). English-language scholarship especially speaks of otaku as an accepted part of Japanese culture (cf. Levi 2010; It¯o 2012). What they miss is that the term otaku or one of its homonyms might have gained a positive meaning in public discourse but that everyday practices of exclusion still operate under like signs. Takeuchi’s generation, born in the early and middle 1990s, may consciously know otaku only as a label for fans of a specific form of popular media. He has not read any book on otaku or experienced the media bashing that was a topic of discussion amongst “otaku scholars” during his preschool years. In the 1990s, major TV broadcasters also banned the term as discriminatory (Okada 1996). The experiences Takeuchi retold, however, align with those who were of his age during the late 1980s and early 1990s: Being bullied for his ineptitude at sports, keeping to himself during breaks, and spending most of his time with fictional “realities.” Remembering the incident of his broken wrist, he imputes the violence brought against him with normalcy. In hindsight, he muses why people might have disliked him, judging that his own behaviour might have come across as odd. He did not so much care about the bullying at the time, he says now. What he mostly cared about then was that moving his broken wrist was too painful to play video games. Even though people did not call him an otaku, they displayed a similar attitude towards behaviour matching the stereotype of the 1990s. Interviews conducted with Japanese university students between 2006

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and 2007 (Kam 2008) also highlight how the stereotype continued to have currency among young adults. Those who have no fashion sense, spend too much time with hobbies not appropriate for their gender or age, or who do not measure up to demands of productivity (be it labour or reproduction) remain excluded from “mainstream” society despite the “mainstreaming” of the media formerly associated with the label. In this regard, Aida’s distinction between “actual” otaku and “ideal” otaku also appears useful for engaging the redevelopment of Akihabara, Tokyo’s so-called otaku mecca (Kikuchi 2015). The Chiyoda city council sought to turn Akihabara into a Japanese Silicon Valley and a haven for tourists interested in manga and anime (Galbraith 2010). “Ideal” receives here the double connotation of otaku as an idea, a concept, and of ideal otaku, meaning foreign consumers who travel to Japan and produce revenue for business and the state; versus non-ideal otaku, men spending time and money on childish and escapist products instead of working overtime for their companies. Instances were reported of supposed-to-be otaku experiencing harassment through the police, questioning them on what they bought and why they are not at work or school (Hashimoto 2005; Watanabe 2005). This so-called otaku-gari, otaku hunting, comes also in the flavour of people mugging those who obviously match the stereotype, which despite its unhygienic and unfashionable elements also includes people with high disposable income in order to buy all the media products (Galbraith 2009, 173). And all this happens after the supposed game changer of Densha Otoko. Amongst my interview partners were not only those who had made unfortunate experiences with the otaku stereotype, such as Takeuchi above or Hirano in Chapter 2, who was made abnormal due to illness and absences from school (cf. Foucault 2004). Some also did not believe in otaku hunting and called it just another media fad. Nakahara Ichir¯o, who I interviewed together with his roommate Kawai Takao, expressed strong opinions about the stereotype, media representations, and how different generations were subject to such labelling. Nakahara was 39 when I met him, a former assistant to a mangaka (manga author) and editor of a Nintendo related games magazine, who had become unemployed due to a less favourable domestic market situation, as he put it. He lost his job when the publisher cancelled the production of the magazine. Also unemployed, Kawai had worked for event management companies and tried to start up his own business but did not succeed.

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Very much in line with the “diversity” argument, Kawai did not match the typical otaku image because his outlook was closer to that of a hard rocker: Thick beard, long hair, piercings, a bulky figure with muscular arms. He stressed at one point that he was very much aware of how his appearance may look threatening or violent. First, he chose “Klingon” as his kind or type on the character sheet but changed that during the interview to “Brujah” (see Fig. 3.7). The Klingon Empire is the main antagonist of the United Federation of Planets during the original run of Star Trek and within the first movies. Klingons are depicted as a species of humanoids known for their pride, ruthlessness, brutality, and totalitarian martial society, reflecting loosely stereotypes of the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. Later they are also characterised with a bushid¯ o (“path of the warrior”) inspired honour code and became close allies of the humans in the series. Brujah, which is Spanish for witch, are one of the fifteen clans of vampires, distinct families or bloodlines, in the Vampire: The Masquerade role-playing game. Philosophers and activists in pre-modern times, the Brujah have become a group of passionate and easy to anger rebels and roughnecks in the modern nights of the game. Kawai saw himself reflected in this clan and liked to play with such an image, he said, even though he believed himself to be a nice guy inside. I played one session of T¯ oky¯ o NOVA, a cyberpunk TRPG, with him, Nakahara, and two of their friends. During the game Kawai acted a patient game master by explaining many details and ruling in the players’ favour. Nakahara, on the other hand, was taller than Kawai but rather lean. He wore a sweat suit and kept his hair in a ponytail. Even though Kawai had made the initial contact, Nakahara was the more assertive spokesman. He also showed much stronger reactions to the topic of otaku. “He only tells lies! I hate such people…The conclusions are just fabricated to meet his ends” said Nakahara standing up from his chair when I mentioned Azuma Hiroki’s monograph on otaku (2001), in which he argues that otaku would not be interested in narratives but only consumed combinations of moé elements. Nakahara did not see much ¯ worth in academic writings on otaku, an opinion he shares with Otsuka 3 ¯ Eiji, a prominent manga author and critic (Otsuka 2015). Nakahara believes that writers, such as Azuma, are not really interested in otaku but instrumentalise the topic for their own purposes. In his view they are 3 Otsuka ¯ writes that the academic study of otaku and applying Western philosophy on the subject, was nothing but a joke to see if they could get away with it.

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B.-O. KAMM Kawai Takao

CHARACTERSHEET Age: Gender: Species:

Concept: Virtue: Vice:

Edu. Level: Profession: Marital Status:

ATTRIBUTES Strength

Perception

Resolve

Dexterity

Wits

Composure

Stamina

Reason

Luck

SKILLS

OTHER TRAITS

Mental Academics Computer Crafts Folklore Investigation Medicine Politics Science

_____________

Background Class Fame Mentor Resources RPG-Status ______________ ______________ ______________ ______________

Merits

Physical Athletics Brawl Drive Firearms Larceny Stealth Survival Weaponry

_____________

Social Animal Ken Empathy Expression Intimidation Persuasion Socialize Streetwise Subterfuge

_____________

Health Satisfaction Favorites _____________________ _____________________ _____________________ _____________________ _____________________

Language:______ ______________ ______________ ______________

Dislikes _____________________ _____________________ _____________________

Flaws _____________________ _____________________ _____________________

Dreams _____________________ _____________________ _____________________

Affliations ____________________________________________ ____________________________________________ ____________________________________________ Equipment ____________________________________________ ____________________________________________ ____________________________________________ ____________________________________________

Values: = non-existent; = below average; = world top. beyond average; Björn-Ole Kamm

Fig. 3.7 Kawai Character Sheet

= average;

= above average;

= way

DIJ Tokyo

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comparable to the mass media that bashed otaku in the 1990s. For him and Kawai otaku was and remains ambiguous: They object to the label, did not like to be called otaku. Still, for their generation the term also signalled a kind of lifestyle in the 1990s, Nakahara continued. Working in the creative industries of game publishing, he saw himself as a kind of rebel against the ideal of becoming a male sarar¯ıman (white-collar employee) in a large corporation—the middle-class standard everyone supposedly aspired to (cf. Ochiai 1997; O’Day 2012).4 In this sense, working as an editor for a games magazine or as an event manager at related conventions was a choice against ideals of mainstream society. We can find this idea of otaku as a critical stance towards mainstream capitalist society also in the respective literature. Honda T¯oru, for example, asserts that otaku prefer fictional characters because they despise “love capitalism,” the commodification of human relationships (Honda 2005), and Morikawa Kaichir¯ o muses about how otaku like only things despised by mainstream culture (Morikawa 2003). Nakahara compared his life in the 1990s with that of current young adults who enjoy anime and games. In light of the anxiety about youths not following through with the social contract of production and reproducing for the nation, he felt it a daring move to follow his interests instead of aiming at a “normal” career. Contrastingly, to remain a consumer of manga or anime if not a fan beyond high school has become quite normal today. That was why the younger generations would not understand what it once meant to take the subject position of otaku. The term would have lost all its meaning today and just refers to fancying something—to fancy anime or to fancy health. Many attempts have been made by academics and journalists to pinpoint what an otaku actually is. Because one needs quite the disposable income to buy the products of interest—and here otaku is solely associated with fandom again—otaku are often linked to middle-class consumerism and described as “quiet rebels” (Eng 2012), who step up against mainstream culture by not buying mainstream products. The search for a counter movement in “otaku culture” is at times linked to a romantic view of subculture, following the use of the term in 4 Still, some magazines are part of large corporations. In Nakahara’s case there existed a close association with Nintendo. “Creative industry” does not necessarily mean that one is freed from wearing suits and dealing with business calls, as game designer Kond¯ o K¯oshi reflected in a personal conversation.

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British Cultural Studies. Sabukaruch¯ a in Japanese, however, has gained this connotation only recently and did not designate some form of counterculture against a parent generation. In the 1990s and still today, the term refers more to target audiences (cf. use of term by Miyadai 1993; ¯ Okada 1996; Otsuka 2004b). Regardless, with also sarar¯ıman playing games and reading manga in public, any rebellious aspect associated with otaku has lost its momentum, at least in Nakahara’s eyes. Both described themselves during our conversation not as middleclass rebels who fiercely attacked mainstream society with their wallets but as “true rebels.” Being unemployed—and thus not matching most imaginaries of “middle-class”—they had more time at their disposal. This allowed Nakahara to start role-playing again, which he had not done in years. It also allowed them to become active in PAFF, an NGO for “Part-timers, Arbeiters, Freeters, and Foreign” workers, and mother organisation of the General Freeter Labour Union (Fur¯ıt¯ azenpan-r¯ od¯ okumiai, FZRK) that aims at representing workers in irregular or precarious employment. As a nationally operating group, this union departs from the common arrangement of one-company-one-union in Japan. “Arbeit” (arubaito), or its more common short-form baito, is a German loan word that is used in Japanese for casual, short-term labour— jobs at convenient stores, for example, with the usual arubait¯ a being a high school or college student. Freeter again is a portmanteau word of English “free” and German “Arbeiter,” meaning someone in an even less stable employment situation, switching from one odd job to the next, never paying into a pension scheme or enjoying any form of worker benefits. PAFF, founded in 2004, sought to fight for the rights of such precarious workers and for the “working poor.” The politics surrounding the latter are of special interest to Nakahara (see Fig. 3.8, mental skills) and his roommate, which lead them to their engagement with PAFF.5 One goal of PAFF is an unconditional basic income and its members take part in May Day labour parades but also organise own events. The union made the headlines in 2008, when three of its members were arrested during a not registered and thus unapproved protest in October (Asahi 2008; Tokairin 2008). PAFF called the event an inspection tour of premier As¯o’s residence, just citizens walking by and not an official protest. However, police saw their activity in contempt of Tokyo’s 5 PAFF’s (former) website is freeter-union.org (accessed 2020/02/20) and current Twitter account @FZRK.

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Nakahara Ichirō

CHARACTERSHEET Age: Gender: Species:

Concept: Virtue: Vice:

Edu. Level: Profession: Marital Status:

ATTRIBUTES Strength

Perception

Resolve

Dexterity

Wits

Composure

Stamina

Reason

Luck

SKILLS Mental Academics Computer Crafts Folklore Investigation Medicine Politics Science

_____________

OTHER TRAITS Background Class Fame Mentor Resources RPG-Status ______________ ______________ ______________ ______________

Merits

Physical Athletics Brawl Drive Firearms Larceny Stealth Survival Weaponry

_____________

Social Animal Ken Empathy Expression Intimidation Persuasion Socialize Streetwise Subterfuge

_____________

Health Satisfaction Favorites _____________________ _____________________ _____________________ _____________________ _____________________

Language:______ ______________ ______________ ______________

Dislikes _____________________ _____________________ _____________________

Flaws _____________________ _____________________ _____________________

Dreams _____________________ _____________________ _____________________

Affliations ____________________________________________ ____________________________________________ ____________________________________________ Equipment ____________________________________________ ____________________________________________ ____________________________________________ ____________________________________________

Values: = non-existent; = below average; beyond average; = world top. Björn-Ole Kamm

Fig. 3.8 Nakahara Character Sheet

= average;

= above average;

= way

DIJ Tokyo

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public safety regulations (Takenobu et al. 2008). Then-premier As¯ o Tar¯o (LDP, former minister of foreign affairs and minister of finance since 2012, who had made rallies in Akihabara and called himself a “cool” otaku) had boasted about wearing a ¥300,000 suit6 during his inauguration in September 2008 and made other public comments about how much money he would spend on his hobbies. So, PAFF had invited people to come and have a look at his house in Shibuya (RTB 2008). One participant had carried a poster and was arrested, followed by two others who had tried to reason with police. These arrests earned PAFF at least some attention by less conservative newspapers, such as Asahi (Yomiuri ignored the incidence), to highlight the discrepancy between the premier’s spending power and that of his working poor subjects. Nakahara and Kawai were among the promenaders-cum-protesters in Shibuya. They had further participated in “noise” or “sound demos,” since 2011 also present in the anti-nuclear movements against the electric utility corporation TEPCO. However, they found these protests lacking a holistic picture of society, more focusing on personal circumstances. Even though they are both not rich, Nakahara and Kawai see themselves as fighting for those who are even worse off than they are, especially working poor. Regardless of their motivations or successes, interesting to note is, that in their protests and especially during the As¯ o-Tour, a number of self-identified otaku were actually involved in political affairs that day in October 2008: A prime minister and unemployed activists, neither being middle class. A lens that reduces people to card-board figures of assumed, taken-for-granted labels, such as otaku = middle-class prosumers, will overlook the myriad connections and disconnections in these people’s lives. Both prevalent avenues of studying and approaching otaku, either as negative stereotype that needs clarification or as prosumers who have become a “taken-for-granted feature of the global cultural landscape” (It¯o 2012, xxvii), offer a leverage point for the current discussion. Saying that a stereotype is inaccurate, that it reduces diversity, might lead to a position of moral high ground but will fail to change the stereotype’s effectiveness because it does not operate on the same level of knowledge. It easily falls into the trap of reinforcing what one wants to ban. Both approaches

6 About e2500 or $2700 (as of February 2020).

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are also static, but what Pickering already alluded to, stereotyping is a dynamic business. Dynamics and Agencies of Stereotypes Similar to Howard S. Becker in his work Outsiders (1973), the father of what came to be called “labelling” in sociology, sees Erving Goffman a demand for “normalcy” as the source for deviant labels and stereotypes (Goffman 1963, 7). Normalcy should be understood as the product of the modern nation-state’s attempt to measure and control its population via statistics, a technology that allows for statements about what is normal or average.7 Nakahara above invokes this normalcy when he describes himself as a rebel to it and studies on otaku labelling have shown the common-sense notions behind it (Kam 2013). Goffman’s Stigma and Becker’s labelling approach intervened into hitherto common social scientific practice, which assumed stable criteria for deviance outside a community’s contingent rules and responses to specific acts. Labelling questioned assumed-to-be given features of social settings, such as objective deviance, and treated them as collective actions instead. By repeating the notion of stable criteria with a typology that knew “secret deviance” (Becker 1973, 20), however, it ended up repeating the common sense notions it sought to critique. If “deviant behavior is behavior that people so label,” then “secret deviance” does not make sense as it assumes a criterion of deviance independent from the community response (Pollner 1978, 274). The philosopher of science Ian Hacking, successor of Michel Foucault as Chair of Philosophy and History of Scientific Concepts at the Collège de France, offers a way out of this conundrum with his concept of “interactive kinds,” because it accounts for the dynamics of labelling or “making-up” people. This notion of labelling does not assume any “true” criteria for deviance, but rather is more interested in the interdependent co-production, the dynamic co-creation of worlds shared by the labellers and the labelled, the making of labels, stereotypes and kinds of people such as otaku or occultist role-players. This way of studying and engaging with stereotypes or kinds is not there to judge whether “deviance” or any other label has been applied correctly. I do not want to engage in 7 Interestingly enough, this very technology engendered the development of wargaming and its offspring, TRPGs (see Act 1).

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an “epistemological” scepsis of the relation between the world and its representation by showing how otaku have been represented wrongly, or that the true otaku is not like the received image. Rather, the approach outlined here “eschews the implication that the world pre-exists representational practices and favours instead the assumption that practices… perform the world” (Woolgar and Lezaun 2013, 325). I thus look into the shared contingent enactments of labels by the media, by “ordinary” people, and by self-identifying otaku and role-players. In this Act, I am thus interested in the dynamics of such stereotypes as “interactive kinds” of people. Interactive kinds (Hacking 1986, 1999) are classifications that have an effect on the self-images of those so labelled and are themselves affected by those labelled when they change their selfimages, behaviour or outlook. Such changes can take different forms, from consciously parodying the label to contesting or avoiding it. Hirota Gor¯o, a then 30-year old sales manager, who discredits media representations of otaku and role-playing as “unrealistic,” likes to play with the stereotype: He sarcastically describes himself as a lazy “fatso” who does not like to move much; his body fat also featured as one of the “things” he always carries around (see Fig. 3.9, “equipment” on his character sheet). Hirota, who had come to meet me in a café in Akihabara—so actually moved his body to another location, something he did also for a board game session in a community centre where I met him for the first time— wore rather comfortable clothes, wide trousers and gym shoes, but did not appear as slacked off and uncaring about his outlook than he drafted himself to be during our conversation. He had learned from others that I might ask questions about otaku and the discourse, so with a smirk he played into the stereotype, giving me what I might want to hear. Roleplaying, he said, would be the core of otaku bunka, otaku culture—and he was the only interviewee who used the term culture here—because it was such a niche that most other otaku would not even know it, especially the younger ones. Furthermore, the mass media would have such a hard time to ridicule and stereotype TRPGs because it takes too long to explain the practice before one could make accusations. His reasoning was based on the fact that there was only one TV broadcast in the 1990s that explicitly targeted table-top role-playing, Egawa Sh¯oko’s “How About Becoming Another Self,” part of NHK’s Youth Exploration series, running from 1997 to 1999. Since then, TRPGs did not feature at all on TV in Japan. Only in 2013 did it receive a rather positive depiction as an adult pastime

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Hirota Gorō

CHARACTERSHEET Age: Gender: Species:

Concept: Virtue: Vice:

Edu. Level: Profession: Marital Status:

ATTRIBUTES Strength

Perception

Resolve

Dexterity

Wits

Composure

Stamina

Reason

Luck

SKILLS

OTHER TRAITS

Mental Academics Computer Crafts Folklore Investigation Medicine Politics Science

_____________

Background Class Fame Mentor Resources RPG-Status ______________ ______________ ______________ ______________

Merits

Physical Athletics Brawl Drive Firearms Larceny Stealth Survival Weaponry

_____________

Social Animal Ken Empathy Expression Intimidation Persuasion Socialize Streetwise Subterfuge

_____________

Health Satisfaction Favorites _____________________ _____________________ _____________________ _____________________ _____________________

Language:______ ______________ ______________ ______________

Dislikes _____________________ _____________________ _____________________

Flaws _____________________ _____________________ _____________________

Dreams _____________________ _____________________ _____________________

Affliations ____________________________________________ ____________________________________________ ____________________________________________ Equipment ____________________________________________ ____________________________________________ ____________________________________________ ____________________________________________

Values: = non-existent; = below average; = world top. beyond average; Björn-Ole Kamm

Fig. 3.9 Hirota Character Sheet

= average;

= above average;

= way

DIJ Tokyo

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in one episode of Sh¯ uden baibai (“Good Bye, Last Train;” Iwai and Hirata 2013), a broadcast for which the director contacted Okada Atsuhiro as creative consultant, the designer of Ry¯ utama and former owner of the role-playing and board game café Daydream in Kanda, Tokyo. Still, Egawa—who had been very much involved in the reporting of the 1995 terror attacks by the cult Aum Shinriky¯ o and connecting anime to the group’s apocalyptic world view (cf. Reader 2000; Murakami 2001; Sawaragi 2005)—had staged TRPGs as a rather sinister, escapist activity. Consequently, a friend of another informant, Daimaru K¯ota, leader of the gamer circle “Illusion’s Disciples” I did most of my participant observation with, lost his job after appearing in the NHK show. Daimaru emphasised how interviews made during the production had been assembled in such a way that the intended statements were lost and matched only Egawa’s ideas of a strange and possibly dangerous activity. Even though Hirota believed the media to be rather unfaithful to informants labelled otaku, he apparently trusted the referral from my other interviewees and talked to me for over two hours in order for me to understand role-playing in Japan. During the interview he took the props and interview aides quite seriously and detailed many positive effects of role-playing he had experienced, such as learning how to be decisive. When it came to the stereotype, however, he played with the role of the lazy and anti-social otaku who only worked to sustain his hobbies. Others disclaimed this stereotype vehemently but described actions and behaviour that were always conscious about how their doings might receive negative attention. For Shintani Kunio, a then 35-year old car engineer, quite well connected within TRPG groups on the net and beyond, otaku should just refer to people who are very knowledgeable about a given topic and tend to collect, maybe hoard, things related to that area of interest. For these purposes, anime or stamps would make no difference to him. Discussing who was close to him and with whom he would talk about hobbies, he admitted that he kept a rather low profile at work when it came to his hobbies, such as role-playing. He also referred me to the media induced stereotype of otaku and the difficulty of explaining TRPGs to outsiders. Shintani did not “look” otaku. That, apparently, was also the case of a co-worker. After years of working next to each other, Shintani overheard a phone call that suggested his colleague was also interested in games, so he took the risk and asked him directly. It turned out that they both shared an enthusiasm for similar role-playing and board games, so that they are now playing sessions together when

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their free time permits. Shintani concedes, though, that both still do not talk much about their hobbies at the workplace in order to not “bother” other colleagues with things they might not understand the appeal of. The above examples account for the often-highlighted diversity of those people labelled otaku or role-player. My aim, however, is not to prove the stereotype wrong but focus on the diversity of engaging with it. It is not the true otaku or Aida’s “actual” otaku or “typical” roleplayer I want to drag out into the light but analyse the very mechanics of contesting truth claims made about these “kinds of people.” I am thus interested in the devices of ordering to establish what is to count as true, or the protocols and techniques of assembling and creating the very possibility for knowledge about otaku and role-players. Otaku and role-player stereotypes focus on how particular people are socially inept and thus flee into fantasy worlds, or even flee into occultism. The ontological argument in both cases is twofold and what partially connects them across boundaries of geography, nation-states, and languages: (1) There is a distinction between a “real” world and an unreal one. (2) Things can be traced back to general and determinable reasons (Law 1994, 96). This argument correlates with reductionism and a logic of cause and effect, and also inherent distinction between those that drive and those that are driven. In this study, however, I neither take otaku or role-player as a given, nor do I see those typically cast in the role of the antagonist, the mass media, as a single driving force. In the following, I will historicise the partially connected kinds, otaku and role-player, by tracing specific mass media events that gave rise to the production of knowledge about these kinds in order to open a network of interrelated actors, which include humans but also non-humans, not the least the stereotypes themselves. These events, the case of a child-murder in Japan and teen suicides with supposed relations to TRPGs in the US, were contingent but formative moments that have produced a space to speak about otaku and role-players in such a way that made both sustainable as a stereotype and a subject position (Foucault 2002, 57). How these moments still order the dynamics of interaction between those who identify with one or both of these kinds, will be highlighted by examples taken from current discussions on the Internet as well as from game sessions. The engagement with labelling is not intended to question the reality of either otaku or the stereotypical role-player, but rather to focus on the dynamics and interferences of their creation and performance. “If we recognize and analyse these interferences then the

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question of evaluating performance becomes more and more complex” (Mol 1999, 82). And in a sense, this is the aim of this Chapter, if not the whole study: To make it more and more difficult to talk about kinds of people and kinds of games with any certainty.

3.2 Child-Murdering, Satanic Play, and the Otaku Many certainties associated with otaku and with role-playing stem from media events, the so-called “James Dallas Egbert Case” and Irving Lee Pulling’s suicide in the early 1980s, and the “Miyazaki-Incident” of the late 1980s and early 1990s. Embedded in discourses of fear for and of youths, certain media practices became linked to possibly dangerous behaviour. Resulting from chance encounters so to speak, these links nonetheless became durable and gained a sense of necessity over time. The subsequent “origin stories” feature in scholarly contributions as well as in personal conversations and deliver the first certainty we encounter in the discourse: Existing knowledge is riddled with false representations born during these events, such as an inability to bond with others, and thus, these misrepresentations need to be corrected. The scholarship on otaku in Japanese, English and German reproduces the among academics well-known narrative of how the term emerged from the confines of discriminatory columns by Nakamori Akio in 1983 in a niche magazine (see Yamanaka 2015), and later gained mainstream attention via a mass media moral panic over a child molester and murderer in 1989 (Kinsella 1998) and sarin gas attacks by the Aum Shinriky¯ o cult in 1995 that was supposedly inspired by apocalyptic anime (Gardner 2008). Resonating with most later studies, the first book on otaku, titled Otaku no hon (The Book of Otaku or “Your book;” Machiyama 1989), disclaims gloomy or anti-social images of otaku, which the authors argue have become dominant definitions due to the mass media coverage of the Miyazaki-jiken, or “Miyazaki Incident,” from 1988 to 1989. Because the mass media allegedly applied the term otaku to the suspect, Miyazaki Tsutomu, and rendered him as but one example of broader societal troubles (cf. LaMarre 2004, 184; Manfé 2005, 22; Ishimori 2009, 9; It¯o 2012, xxi), scholars emphasise the need for disentangling Miyazaki from other otaku and for fixing the incorrect view of otaku centred on him (Okada 1996; Kikuchi 2015). What are thus the certainties of otaku? They are certainly a single group, that is certainly misrepresented.

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Past and present engagements with otaku critique reductionism, for example, when journalists or other scholars judge otaku behaviour or motives by only studying the content of a narrow selection of media and assuming that media users passively absorb this content. Reductionism, however, is not only limited to such explanations of otaku. This mode also surfaces in the writings of the critics when they make “the mass media” into a single-point actor that launched a witch-hunt against otaku. Be it the mass media, society or mainstream culture, a large-scale adversary emerges as an integral part of the stories told about otaku from outside positions as well as from an insider’s perspective. Attacking this adversary is one of the most salient techniques for ordering otaku—for ordering the narratives told about otaku, their place in the world, and the material embodiments of these narratives (Law 1994; Kamm 2015). Many of my interviewees gave also agency to the mass media in this form when they emphasised that their activities would in no way resemble the negative portrayals known from the mass media. Similarly, the disappearance of 16-year old James Dallas Egbert III from his dorm room at Michigan State University (MSU) in 1979, his suicide as well as those of others were linked to role-playing games in the mass media. They thus emerge as a node point in the network of roleplaying games, their public image, and the performance of their “reality.” Dallas’ case, for example, soon gained nation-wide attention when private investigator and leading spokesperson William Dear turned exceedingly to enrol newspaper and TV reporting in his attempt to either coax the boy out of hiding, to reach out to his captors if he was kidnapped, or to force the university management to agree to his search of MSU’s tunnels (Dear 1984, 30, 69)—because he believed Dallas had played Dungeons & Dragons there. Dallas’ case and even more so the suicide of Irving Lee Pulling in June 1982 played a similar role as the Miyazaki Incident, because commentators and scholars alike treat these cases as the source for misconceptions, something they want to rectify or at least clarify, a point of departure for their explanations (cf. Fine 1983; Martin and Fine 1991; Stackpole 1990, 1991; Robie 1991; Cardwell 1994; Cale 1998; Hately 1998; Mackay 2001; Waldron 2005; Bowman 2010; Tresca 2010; Stark 2012; Ewalt 2013). This shared mode of ordering speaks across nationally envisioned borders and natural languages, to form one of the partial connections of role-playing games traced in this study. This mode of disclaiming —which has to name what it wants to ban before it can

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rectify a misrepresentation—is the link between the discourses on otaku and role-players. Attacking perceived misrepresentations and reductionist stereotypes, critics employ the same rhetoric and reduce the mass media in their diversity to a single-point actor. Symptomatically, a question never asked is why the mass media or the many humans and non-humans compromising them are so reductionist. Incidentally, a very limited number of scholarly texts on otaku or role-players actually cite or refer to newspaper or journal articles.8 The point of the following sections, however, is not to look into selective modes of human perception (Pronin 2007), criteria of news-worthiness (Strömbäck et al. 2012), or processes of inter-media agenda setting (McCombs 2004), in an attempt to explain the behaviour of journalists.9 The point is to be curious about the lack of engagement with news articles or broadcasts in the first place. I posit that this is not done because interrogating these sources would destabilise the image of a hegemonic and powerful actor if one examined the many different bits and pieces inside the black box “mass media.” Borrowed from cybernetics, a black box refers to an apparatus or other device in a diagram, whose inner workings are not of interest. A black box can be used as a “fact” in a change of arguments (Latour 1988, 3). Instead of carrying black boxes over from one argument to the next, we need to look closely inside and at involved human and non-human actors, their actions and the agencies they enrol. Unpacking Black Boxes How were the two interactive kinds of this study, the otaku and role-players, produced, assembled, or ordered during the controversies surrounding their respective media incidents? By untangling the previously homogenised network of “the mass media,” I seek to open the respective black boxes of their media incidents. My tool of choice is thus

8 One text brushing this question in the otaku’s case is Sharon Kinsella’s Japanese Subculture in the 1990s (Kinsella 1998) with a focus on why social scientists felt the need to engage with the murder case and the otaku. The only other one is a quantitative content analysis of the term’s use in newspapers (Nakagawa 2011). 9 The question is also not to ask journalists directly why they are reductionist as such an approach premises the romantic notion that people can explain their behaviour (cf. “Interview Society,” Atkinson and Silverman 1997).

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a qualitative content analysis of newspaper, tabloid, and journal articles that dealt with the Miyazaki Incident and the teen suicides in the US. These articles and their respective authors, as well as other voices in their texts, show some of the bits and pieces making up the “mass media,” ranging from individuals, technologies, and products. As both debates played out on a national level, I employed digital searches in newspaper archives of larger and nationwide newspapers, including Yomiuri, Asahi, Nikkei, and Mainichi for Japan, the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times for the US, but also local and regional newspapers in both countries. Disregarding the type of publication, the Miyazaki Incident attracted more attention in Japan in the months surrounding the arrest of the subject in August 1989 (with ca. 1000 articles between late 1988 and early 1990) then the Dallas Egbert case, for example, did in the US (ca. 250 articles between his disappearance in August 1979 and after his suicide in 1980). The following sections briefly summarise the stories of each case and show how these incidences became node points for the production of knowledge. Establishing the Otaku The first trace to follow begins with the question how communicators (journalists) gained knowledge of the respective cases. Beginning with Japan, how did they draw a connection from Miyazaki Tsutomu to the then obscure term otaku? Otaku with the meaning of “gloomy manga fan” remained within the circle of very few people until 1989, mostly the producers and consumers of the special interest magazine Manga Burikko (see Yamanaka 2015). In most retellings of the otaku bashing narrative, the columnist Nakamori Akio emerges as the one coining the term otaku in this small-scale lolicon magazine in 1983. Lolicon stands for lolita complex, meaning in this instance not paedophilia but an attraction towards two-dimensional, cute female cartoon characters (cf. Takatsuki 2010; Galbraith 2011). How did the term manage to relocate from such a niche-market magazine to “the mass media?” I have explored this trajectory of the term in its derogatory meaning in detail elsewhere (Kamm 2015). Because “ground level” accounts, that is my interviewees relationships to the term, take centre stage in this book, the following exemplifies

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only a brief summary of me unboxing the otaku origin story. Nevertheless, its core mode of ordering continues to inform my interviewees’ way of relating to otaku as a subject position. After four elementary school girls went missing in Saitama prefecture in July 1988 and many speculations about their whereabouts, Asahi received cardboard boxes with body-parts of the second girl, photos of the victims, and a confession note on December 20, catapulting the case to the front-pages of all major newspapers. Despite a police profile of a camera and printing specialist (Asahi 1989a), it took eight more months and a chance encounter to apprehend the subject, 26-year old printing assistant Miyazaki Tsutomu. Journalists soon and insistently interviewed the parents and gained access to his room, which was full of videotapes and manga magazines. His collection is said to include quite many horror and slasher videos as well as porn and lolicon magazines.10 During the subsequent trial, Miyazaki’s room and his video collection would play their part in attempts to explain his behaviour and mental state (Yomiuri 1990). However, how were these objects brought in conjunction with otaku? Until August 17, 1989, the use of otaku (either in hiragana or katakana) was limited to a form of address (“you”), which is rarely used today (see Nakagawa 2011; Kamm 2015). On this day, however, the special¯ interest newspaper for publishers Shinbunka printed an article by Otsuka Eiji (1989b), a manga author, critic and editor who used the term otaku sh¯ onen (otaku-boys) in an attempt to defend video collectors against a ¯ witch-hunt that he saw unfolding. Otsuka had been the editor of Manga ¯ Burikko, so that his interventions appear less surprising. Otsuka’s stance was republished in an article in Asahi on August 24 (Asahi 1989b). This is the first and only article in Asahi in 1989 in which the term otaku was used in this way. Yomiuri published three articles using otaku in the same year. Linking the term to Miyazaki remained limited in both newspapers (see Fig. 3.10). Accounting for articles that drew attention to Miyazaki’s hobbies and media use, twenty-three were published in Asahi, fifty-six in Yomiuri, and thirteen in Mainichi in 1989. Including a few more in 1990, only 12.5% of the coverage in Japan’s largest newspapers are

10 During the news reporting the number of tapes in his collection increased from 2000 to 8000 and later settled at 5763 or 5787. These discrepancies were reason for some to believe in evidence fabrication through the police or the photographers (Ichihashi 2001).

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Fig. 3.10 Articles on Miyazaki and his Interests (August 1989–December 1991)

concerned with Miyazaki as a video collector or anime fan. Summarising accounts of the year 1989 do not mention his interests (Asahi 1989c). The accounts on anime, manga, or video fans draw a line between the average enthusiast and Miyazaki (“he is no ordinary video collector”). This is even the case when concerns about horror videos were voiced or large gestures made towards the problems of the young generation or society as a whole. I impute into this form of assembling the news and information a strategic narrative that I label the mode of balance. Journalists themselves generally do not state that anime fans are dangerous, but rather quote or interview experts such as psychiatrists, who give conflicting accounts, and informants, who describe Miyazaki in negative terms and fear that this incident might lead to the representation of anime and video mania as psychopaths. This latter way of dealing with or ordering the incident is what I call the mode of disclaiming , which is realised by disclaiming the association of otaku with negative traits, but nonetheless always has to make the connection before it can reject it.

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¯ Otsuka also drew a line between the suspect and others in light of the idea that fans are an army of Miyazakis-in-the-making (Miyazaki¯ yobigun, Otsuka 1989b, 440). This phrase originated in talk shows, such as 3ji ni aimash¯ o (Let’s meet at three) and found also wider circulation in ¯ tabloids like Nikkan Gendai and Yukan Fuji. Despite Otsuka’s attempts to mitigate, such tabloids were more or less explicit about tying Miyazaki to video fandom. Similar to wide shows, tabloids used large, screaming headlines such as “The Unparalleled Serial Killings of Young Girls by a Lonely Anime Enthusiast” (Nikkan Gendai 1989). In the body text, however, even tabloids appear to follow a mode of balance. Balance in the sense that everybody—parents, school, employers, videotapes, society— receives blame. Such reporting is not reserved for Miyazaki, however, as crime suspects are usually drawn as perverts or politicians as morons. By September, the tabloids already moved on to another topic, the recently introduced value-added tax. Journals and magazines, on the other hand, had time to prepare and took over in October. Manga artists, critics, editors and media professionals would crystallise as the most vocal group in condemning or explaining Miyazaki. One of the most prolific writers remains the afore¯ mentioned Otsuka Eiji. As a former editor of a lolicon magazine, manga ¯ author and critic, Otsuka was soon contacted by journalists to give comments on the incident, but in a short time began to feel like a criminal ¯ himself (Otsuka 2004b, 318). This compelled him to step forward and defend Miyazaki and all the others who might now receive undue atten¯ tion. Otsuka did this on several occasions in newspapers, but also in his ¯ own writings, which were published in journals as well as books (Otsuka ¯ 1989a; Otsuka and Nakamori 1989a, b). As one important reason for his ¯ media engagement, Otsuka points to the magazines he saw in pictures of Miyazaki’s room, which included back issues of the lolicon magazine ¯ that he edited (Otsuka 2004b, 319). The objects—books, magazines and videos—in Miyazaki’s room enrolled commentators and established the network of people and ideas that should constitute the otaku discourse. Without the presence of these objects, Miyazaki would have been an “ordinary” serial killer. While journalists, psychiatrists, jurists and social scientists (Abe 1989; Oda et al. 1989; Iwai et al. 1989) were attempting to define and manage the incident, the videos and magazines called manga critics into action to concurrently manage the construction of otaku as we have come to know this (interactive) kind since.

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Regardless of the question if Miyazaki really killed the four girls, ¯ Otsuka’s urge to defend him was born from the assumption that mass media and police were only looking for a scapegoat and found a likely suspect in the horror movie collector. In published conversations with ¯ Nakamori Akio, Otsuka sees a need to stand up for their generation, who were brought up in a time of media saturation (manga and anime, later games) and material affluence, but without father figures (“maternal ¯ era with no fathers,” Otsuka and Nakamori 1989a, 81). This discourse mirrored the “societal” explanations used by Miyazaki’s lawyers, Suzuki ¯ Junji and Iwakura Keiji, who had also enrolled Otsuka to testify during the trials. The lawyers’ attempt to have Miyazaki declared mentally ill and a victim of circumstance to bypass the death penalty failed, however. ¯ After calling Miyazaki a product of the post-war era (Otsuka and ¯ Nakamori 1989a, 84) and a symbol of their generation, Otsuka and Nakamori apparently switch sides and discuss how Miyazaki differed from the average fan down the street in the way he arranged his collection and had several movies on a single tape (instead of one tape per work, the ¯ “normal” way of doing it; Otsuka and Nakamori 1989a, 96). With the death of his grandfather, Miyazaki’s childhood had ended, and he had to leave home and step out into the world. He had tried to enter otaku ¯ society but failed miserably (Otsuka and Nakamori 1989a, 97). From the perspective of these two critics, the killings were moreover not on purpose, but rather the result of an over-identification with the girls, a ¯ peculiar expression of love (Otsuka and Nakamori 1989a, 195), and the desire to create a new kind of family after losing his former one (ibid., 202). For the jurists and also some journalists, the otaku issue was not the main point of debate, and the “flight from reality” was more a symptom. Contrastingly and important to note, literary critics, authors, manga artists and editors intensively discussed the idea of a link between Miyazaki and otaku and the question if his crimes resulted from media use. The manga critic Fujita Hisashi criticised the jurists for equating Miyazaki’s motive with him being otaku (Asahi 1990), despite the lawyers never doing so in a printed public statement. A large number of literary journals such as Bungeishunj¯ u, Tsukuru, Uwasa no Shinz¯ o and Ch¯ u¯ o K¯ oron, as well as magazines such as Takarajima, published special issues on Miyazaki and otaku in 1989, the most popular being the aforementioned Otaku no hon (“The Book of Otaku;” Machiyama 1989). Critics and artists alike ¯ were quick in signing contracts with publishers, Otsuka and Nakamori

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spearheading these “creations of other stories” that would bring them ¯ closer to Miyazaki’s inner narrative (Otsuka and Nakamori 1989a, 194ff.). ¯ Especially, Otsuka would publish almost every day in 1989 (attested by ¯ Nakamori; Otsuka and Nakamori 1989b, 176) and write a whole column on Miyazaki in the following years. With major journals and publishing houses interested in Japan’s youth ¯ and “subcultural” realms, Otsuka later surmised that elite manga and anime fans and producers (including himself) attempted to distinguish themselves from their followers through the tool formula of “Miyazaki ¯ as otaku” (Otsuka 2004b, 37; see also Miyadai 2006, 196–198). The formula is similar to the disclaiming mode of ordering: The elites repeatedly endeavoured to order otaku culture by fixing or repairing a mistaken image springing from the Miyazaki Incident and disassociating themselves from him. However, and ironically, by declaring that Miyazaki was not an otaku, these elites repeatedly gave voice to the link between collecting popular media and social ineptitude, making a connection that they intended to critique. By confronting “wrong” knowledge and building ¯ alliances with publishers, Otsuka and Nakamori, and later Nakajima Azusa (1995), Okada Toshio (1996), and many others established the scholaras-otaku position from which to speak true knowledge. Using the media as a platform, they positioned themselves as those who know how things truly are, at times even emphasising that they are the “real” otaku (with the right to speak about otaku), interweaving their disclaiming with genuineness. Through the network of videotapes in Miyazaki’s room, his lawyers’ attempts to enrol specialists, and critics’ attempts to capture public attention, the question of “who is an otaku” became a question of establishing the only “real” otaku position describable within the discourse: The position of denying otaku as antisocial, which first needs to ¯ declare otaku antisocial to make sense. In this way, critics such as Otsuka made a connection between Miyazaki and otaku even as they denied it. Many of my interviewees in Japan take up this very same defensive position when speaking of them practicing a form of role-playing game— even though, RPGs were only once targeted directly by Egawa’s NHK broadcast. Until the positive broadcast Sh¯ uden baibai in 2013 and unlike manga and anime producers and critics, role-playing game designers had so far kept silent during the beginning otaku discourse or any mass medial dealings with RPGs. This strategy, if it was one, served them well apparently. Even if role-playing itself appeared not on the radar of commentators in Japan, most of my informants located the games in the

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same group of practices targeted by the otaku label or became targets due to other interests, e.g. in anime or manga. Suicidal Geniuses, Worried Parents, and Dungeons & Dragons Role-playing and its supposedly ill effects—usually suicide—featured more intensively in European and especially US American news. On November 8, 1994, the German public network ZDF broadcasted as part of its “Auslandsjournal” (foreign journal) a report on the suicide of Christophe Maltese (Bock 1994), a French teenager who had shot himself. An incident believed to be part of a role-playing game. The report received— and still receives—harsh criticism by role-players because the moderator compared the game master-player-relationship to structures common in cults, in which the “guru” (in this case, the game master) had enormous psychological power over the others, and because the role-playing footage shown was accompanied by sinister background music. The French reporting and subsequent discussion of RPGs was more extensive than the German one. However, unlike in the US, where Satan was the main protagonist in reports about the dangers of many contemporary toys and games, Satanism had not played a role in the French or German news reporting. Occultism and Satanism also do not feature at all in recent newspaper reports or TV broadcasts about larping or role-playing in Germany, though journalists had previously ridiculed the practice and questioned the psychological motives of those playing (with positive evaluations by psychologists and educators; cf. “Wild Germany,” Möglich 2013; “monalisa,” Hahlweg 2013; Lehmann 2014; and thus, also positive attitudes towards these broadcasts by larpers on forums, such as LarpeR). Today also networks associated with sensationalist reporting about larp and RPGs, such as RTL (Bock 1994), acknowledge the work people put into their characters and into role-playing, so that “it is hard to make fun of them” (“YOLO—Challenge Day,” Kruck 2014, at 05:37 minutes). Major tabloids, such as the BILD may continue to use garish headlines but give neutral reports about an entertaining hobby (“‘ConQuest of Mythodea:’ 9000 Fantasy Fans turn Village into a Battle Field,” Lichte and Wölki 2014). However, we encounter occultism and religion in current debates among role-players. Take an example from LarpeR, Germany’s largest larp- and role-playing-related Internet blog and forum platform with

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over 14,000 members (as of 2020), where in 2011 a blogger rhetorically asked what was behind everyone objecting to “real religions” in larps and received 339 comments in which the topic was hotly discussed. She explicitly refers to characters with a Christian background and outlook in fantasy settings and leaves out other religions or historical re-enactments. The display of Christian symbols does not, in her view, equate to “offending real Christians,” but there were other issues with such characters. Most commentators agreed with the blogger’s position, repeating several of her main points, such as the issue of offending offgame believers, of in-game Christians talking theological “nonsense,” or of fighting Christian clerics—which would add to the existing problem that larping appeared violent to outsiders. Older forum members interjected that this discussion has been on-going since the 1980s and no one has ever reached a conclusion that would satisfy all parties. One main thread of the discussion concerns itself with the public image of role-playing and repeated allegations of Satanism. Where does the fear of being labelled a Satanist come from? When I asked this question directly, very few of the larpers and role-players I interviewed could point me to a specific event in Germany and even fewer to personal experience—being ridiculed for dressing-up and playing an elf, yes, but being charged with Satanism, no. One of my German informants, Thomas Richter, a at the time 34-year-old entrepreneur, recalled that TSR, the original makers of D&D had stopped using the terms “angel,” “demon,” and “devil” in the 2nd edition of the game, giving those beings new names (calling the good ones “celestials” or “archons,” the evil creatures “Tanar’ri” and “Baatezu”)—a deliberate decision by the designers (Ward 1990, 9). He mentioned this while we had been talking about artwork in role-playing books and he retold his first impression of the 3rd edition D&D Monster Manual, in which demons and devils were once again called by these designations. He related the fact that TSR had to change the names to an anti-role-playing-game debate in the US that had revolved around allegations of a Satanist conspiracy behind RPGs. As far as my Japanese informants are concerned, few could relate to the discussion on Satanism. Germany, however, imported this debate in the form of translated books by critics of D&D, such as Turmoil in the Toybox (Phillips 1988; “Aufruhr in der Spielzeugkiste,” Phillips 1986) or The Devil’s Web (Pulling 1989; “Das Teufelsnetz,” Pulling 1990). The same publisher, Francke, a Christian publishing house with its seat in Marburg, brought both to the German market. The German editions went into

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second printing, which demonstrates that the topic resonated at least with some readers and was echoed in other publications about children’s games that display a tendency towards the occult and suggest that comicbooks and fantasy role-playing will teach children to use only violence for conflict resolutions (Dürholt 1991; Ledermann and Skambraks 1993). Jehovah’s Witnesses in Germany also warned against role-playing games, D&D in particular, in their magazines (“Dungeon and Dragons—A Dangerous Game,” in Erwachet!, Zeugen Jehovas 1982), which were translations of the English language editions. The German discourse on Satanism and role-playing, of which one finds only few traces after the mid-1990s, took its cue from Christian debates in the US, especially those about Satanist conspiracies, child abuse, and teen suicides. Remembering the 1980’s “moral panic” and the Christian Right’s “anti-D&D hysteria,” US American role-players on the RPG.net forums recall their parents forcing them to stop playing during the 1980s and early 1990s due to their concern that the game might lead to occultism. To trace the devil’s involvement in role-playing games, we have to go even further back to the end of the 1970s and look at the suicide of James Dallas Egbert III, who unwittingly brought D&D to mainstream media attention. Before August 1979, newspapers such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, or The Chicago Tribune described role-playing games favourably, referring to them as a kind of (pacifist) wargame (Gildea 1975; Decker 1979), intellectually challenging, and approved of by psychologist and parents (Krier 1979). The way journalists reported on role-playing changed 1979, when James Dallas Egbert III vanished from his dorm room at Michigan State University (MSU) around August 15 (Los Angeles Times 1979). Dallas, a 16-year-old boy, was a sophomore in the university’s computer science department that year. News reports often called him brilliant or pointed out his above 140 IQ (Hilts 1979). Dallas’s case was well reported. It did not become world news, as Dear claimed, only one Canadian newspaper picked up on the case. No British or continental European newspaper did,11 but in the US, national and also many regional newspapers and TV stations

11 In Germany, only in 2009 did Der Spiegel publish an article on Dallas’s case and RPGs. The article appeared in the magazine’s thematic section on role-playing games, which mostly covers computer games, and was rather sympathetic. The author relates the debate about D&D to current discussions on the ill effects of “killer games” (Hillenbrand 2009).

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paid much attention to Dallas’s disappearance and the subsequent search. In Germany, Dallas’ case gained some notoriety after its fictionalisation as Mazes and Monsters by Rona Jaffe in 1981, which was turned into a TV movie starring Tom Hanks in 1982. Not everyone knows that this narrative in based, at least in part, on actual events, but participants on a German D&D online forum agree that the movie gives the wrong impression of role-playing. On English-language forums related to role-playing, many still speak of the mass media condemning RPGs or equating gaming with Satanism due to Dallas’ case, and also speak about their own experiences, as mentioned above: Parents forbade them to play. Similar to Takeuchi, who links otaku only to cute things, younger players, however, have to ask what actually happened in the 1980s. Scholars also continue to speak of a “media frenzy” and “moral panic” when retelling the story of Dallas and D&D, but rarely analyse newspaper articles of the time. In a similar move as the opening of the black box of the 1989 discourse on Miyazaki, I thus analysed the reporting about the disappearance of Dallas and the subsequent condemnation of role-playing games. With the help of archives of US periodicals, I gained access to larger American newspapers, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, the Boston Globe and the Chicago Tribune, but also a number of smaller and regional papers. Between all of these newspapers, 55 articles on Dallas’ disappearance and return were published in September 1979; August 1980 saw 46 more articles when Dallas had died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound (see Fig. 3.11). In ten of the September news items his case made the front page. In 1980, this number was limited to two. If we compared only the larger newspapers in the US (New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune) to the reporting about Miyazaki in major Japanese publications (Asahi, Yomiuri, Mainichi), then Dallas’ case caused much less of a stir than did Miyazaki’s. The question I had to ask for otaku, was how the term became known to the communicators. This is not so mysterious in the case of D&D and James Dallas Egbert III. It was William Dear, the private investigator hired by Dallas’ parents, who brought the case and thus the game to the mass media’s attention after finding clues in Dallas’ room related to the game. Despite TSR representatives stating that no “live” version of their D&D existed (Kask 1979), the idea of Dallas playing a real-life version of D&D in the steam tunnels had taken root (Hilts 1976). D&D was seen as the cause for him losing touch with reality. The investigators followed

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Fig. 3.11 Articles on the Disappearance of Dallas (August 1979–August 1980)

many leads, including a trip to GenCon, TSR’s role-playing convention held one day after Dallas disappeared, to no avail (New York Times 1979). Dear found the boy on September 13, less than a month after his disappearance; and upon this discovery it was confirmed that he was not involved in fantasy games but had sought escape from his parents and his homosexuality. Neither Dallas nor Dear, however, would tell the press or the police what had happened, so his case remained a “mystery.” Dear was quoted saying that D&D, however, had no bearing on his disappearance (Chicago Tribune 1979). Still, the game had gained media attention, often not as unfavourably as one might imagine. Reports described how shop owners could not sell enough copies of the game due to its newly gained publicity. Curiosity in the game flourished “even though it became clear that the game had nothing to do with it” (Shulins 1979, 1). After Dallas’s return, Gary Gygax was also interviewed in a mainstream newspaper, declaring relief that Dallas was not killed by Satan worshippers and defending the game (Heller 1979, 12). Interestingly, before Gygax referred to Satan, Satanism played no role in any of the articles about the case so far. After Dallas’ return, the public remained interested in understanding the game that had so captivated him, regardless of its role in his disappearance. The newspapers turned to psychologists and psychiatrists who spoke of dangers to mentally unstable persons, although they were generally of a favourable disposition (Witt 1979). The game is characterised as an empowering playground that allows for making and

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learning from mistakes while encouraging teamwork. So the widely held assumption that the mass media—as a single-point actor—condemned D&D while Dallas was missing and never corrected their position (Hately 1998), is not entirely accurate. Because Dallas’s flight from the university was related to his drug abuse, repressed homosexuality, and fear of not meeting his parents’ expectations, Dear dedicated his book about the search for Dallas to all the other gifted children in the US in the hope that they would not suffer the same hardships he had experienced (Dear 1984, x). However, the story of D&D and gifted teen suicides does not end here. It intensified with the death of Irving Lee “Bink” Pulling in June 1982 followed by a campaign against gaming that aligned his suicide to D&D. Bink Pulling’s case did not initially attract media attention in the same manner Dallas’s had. Bink had also been 16 years old, was in the “Talented and Gifted” programme of Patrick Henry High School in Virginia, and—according to the police—an avid D&D player. He had shot himself in the chest (with his mother’s gun) a day before final exams. This did not draw the attention of larger newspapers. His parents suing the school’s principal, Robert Bracey, a year later, however, would.12 One headline on this case read: “Game Cited in Youth’s Suicide: Parents Blame Game in Suicide of Va. Youth.” The news report makes the connection to Dallas when explaining D&D (Isikoff 1983, A8). The police found several D&D books and magazines in Bink’s room, including a “bizarre” suicide note, which they presumed was a reference to the game. His mother, Patricia “Pat” Pulling, sued the school’s principal and blamed him for her son’s death, because the school had allowed him to play D&D on its grounds as an “organised school activity.” Regardless of the extent of the school’s involvement in its students’ D&D sessions, further cases demonstrate that this was not anomalous: D&D was widespread in the US by this time with often favourable newspaper accounts. Pat Pulling, however, believed in ill effects of the game and attributed the death of her son to a “curse” placed on him during a session of D&D.13 The case “Pulling vs. Bracey” (Hanover District Court) was

12 She sued the school and not TSR, the manufacturer. A misconception often repeated by commentators (cf. Waldron 2005). 13 NCTV press release January 17, 1985; cited in Stackpole 1990.

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dismissed on October 21, 1983.14 Following this failure in court, Pulling began to campaign against this “occult” and “Satanic” game on the national level. In 1985, Pulling founded B.A.D.D. (Bothered About Dungeons and Dragons), perhaps inspired by M.A.D.D. (Mothers Against Drunk Driving); the principal difference, of course, is that the former was a public advocacy group that published information about how D&D promoted devil worship and suicide. B.A.D.D. and its sister organisation NCTV campaigned against fantasy games in the press and in courts, distributing a list with a growing number of cases of murders and violence they attributed to D&D. Pulling also appeared as expert in several court trials to discuss the possibility of D&D inciting crimes (in all cases the “D&D defence” was dismissed by the judges and jury, cf. Satz 1985; Pulling 1989, 90ff.; CAR-PGa 2008). For her campaign, Pulling made alterations to news articles that she employed as evidence in her publications or during TV and radio interviews, and made claims about the population of Satanists in the US, which were untenable to such a degree that also journalists began to doubt her “expertise.” This also gave RPG advocates a firm basis for critiquing her methods. The most often cited critique of Pat Pulling is Michael A. Stackpole’s Pulling Report (1990). A science fiction novelist and game designer, Stackpole had become interested in the media attention paid to roleplaying through the reporting of James Dallas Egbert’s case and, together with other industry members, began to follow cases of alleged D&D crimes in order to set “the record straight” (1990, 39). As Pat Pulling became a prominent figure within the discourse, Stackpole began to gather information about her activities and presented the findings in his report. He had reviewed her evidence and spoke to those Pulling had tried to represent in court trials. Stackpole found evidence of changes to news articles reprinted in B.A.D.D. publications. For example, a statement by classmates that Pulling’s son had “a lot of problems anyway that weren’t associated with the game” was omitted when Pulling distributed the article as one case of D&D related crimes (Isikoff 1983). Further, Stackpole lists incidents of copyright infringement and tries to show that Pulling has no expertise whatsoever concerning role-playing, as she repeatedly misrepresents game aspects or seems to have no knowledge of 14 Cf. Case No. L-128-83, County of Hanover, Virginia Circuit Court; Judge: Richard H. C. Taylor.

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games other than D&D or of the game’s state after 1983. Many of the examples she offers in her pamphlets are consequently out-dated. Stackpole emphasises other inconsistencies, for example, that Pulling states that she knew nothing of her son’s psychological issues prior to his death but then sues the school for not recognising these problems. One major point of critique rests on Pulling’s own distinction between “fantasy” and “reality” (cf. spotlight in Table 3.4). In public statements as well as during trials, she cautions against role-playing games’ effects on the minds of players, stating that many crimes resulted from the murderer believing he was acting within the game. Stackpole, on the other hand, highlights how Pulling herself apparently believed in magic and the supernatural (the “non-real”). She believed that role-playing games could actually teach magical spells, what Stackpole labels a “Magical World View” (1990, 17). Pulling was not alone in her belief that role-playing games could teach magic or lead players astray from Christianity. For the Christian Right, role-playing game books appeared to be occultist tomes. The 1977 first edition of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons , a more sophisticated and updated version of the 1974 D&D, featured the image of a red statue on the cover of the Players Handbook (PHB) that looked like the classic image of the devil. The Dungeon Masters Guide (DMG) sprouted a red demon. Within its pages, the Players Handbook detailed the many options available to players, including race (dwarves, elves, gnomes, halfelves, halflings (hobbits), half-orcs, and humans), class (cleric, fighter, Table 3.4 Spotlight—Glossary DUNGEONS & DRAGONS: A fantasy role-playing game which uses demonology, witchcraft, voodoo, murder, rape, blasphemy, suicide, assassination, insanity, sex perversion, homosexuality, prostitution, satanic type rituals, gambling, barbarism, cannibalism, sadism, desecration, demon summoning, necromantics, divination and many other teachings. There have been a number of deaths nationwide where games like Dungeons & Dragons were either the decisive factor in adolescent suicide and murder, or played a major factor in the violent behavior in such tragedies. Since role-playing is used typically for behavior modification, it has become apparent nationwide (with the increased homicide and suicide rates in adolescents) that there is great need to investigate every aspect of a youngster’s environment, including their method of entertainment, in reaching a responsible conclusion for their violent actions. (From The Devil’s Web, Pulling 1989, 179) This fourth and last spotlight symbolises the confusion of reality, how RPGs oscillate between a practice of creating or citing realities and a flight from reality, as in “serious life.”

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magic-user, thief, and many sub-classes like assassin), and hundreds of magical spells. Flipping through these descriptions—always accompanied by images of the monsters the player characters might face during the game—the reader would encounter sentences like “Another important attribute of the cleric is the ability to turn away (or actually command into service) the undead and less powerful demons and devils” (AD&D 1st ed PHB, 1978, 20) or a list of titles for magic-users: “warlock,” “sorcerer,” and “necromancer” (ibid., 25). The spells section lists a number of incantations the players may use during a game, which might also appear blasphemous or at odds with Christian teachings: “raise dead” (ibid., 50), “resurrection” (ibid., 53, both belonging to the sub school “Necromancy”), or “trap the soul” (ibid., 92), with which a spell caster can force another creature’s soul into a magical prison. These spells in particular gave agency to the suspicion of religious commentators. Furthermore, the pantheistic outlook of most fantasy worlds appears to them in opposition to the first commandment. Christian authors, such as Weldon and Bjornstad, do not disapprove of fantasy per se—the works by J.R.R. Tolkien or C. S. Lewis would also include evil and good characters while conveying a Christian worldview (an assessment not shared by all campaigners)—but designate games like D&D as bad, escapist fantasy, including the loss of emotional control (Weldon 1984, 74). Later authors speculate as to why people might engage in such fantasies and over-identify with their characters: Because they are overweight, lisp or stutter or have another “defect” (Ledermann and Skambraks 1993, 226). Weldon and Bjornstad do not go so far and are mainly concerned with how the worldview represented in fantasy games and a heavy engagement with these worlds might constitute a precondition for young players to accept occultism. The lists of spells mentioned above in D&D and other games dealing with magic—also forbidden by the Bible—led the authors to believe that these games taught players about communication with the dead and the summoning of demons. For them, there is no protecting psychological barrier that shields the players within the frame of the game (cf. a game designer’s magic circle). What happens inside the game inadvertently has to spill over into this reality, thus, who plays at a demon summoning conjurer and warlock will start dark rituals to summon the same demons into this world or commit suicide in order to disengage from this world, the climax of escapism. The progression from role-playing games to witchcraft was outlined by cartoonist and evangelist Jack Chick in his

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comic Dark Dungeons (1984). The comic has received a great deal of criticism from RPG advocates (William 2014), which painstakingly debunk every mistake, inconsistency, and untruth. The comic also saw many parodies in the form of other comics, games (Blackball 2010) and it was recently made into a live action movie (“Dark Dungeons: The Movie,” Gonda 2014) with the support of crowdfunding. Opponents of the Christian critics of role-playing games continue to be unconvinced of the information and objectivity of the authors. They deny that the pictures and descriptions of hellish creatures, magical spells and rituals could spill over into the “real world” or primary reality: “There is no more relation to the occult than studying Greek mythology” (Schaffer in Kelley 1981, 22; Pomeranz 1983). The pro-RPG side emphasised how role-playing is “just a game,” that players would be able to distinguish between their characters and themselves, that the game worlds are just fantasy and have nothing in common with real occultism or Satanism (Moore 1989; Stackpole 1991). However, in order to promote roleplaying games as good they had to appeal to notions of them being educational or therapeutic. For this argument they rely on psychological and psychiatric studies, on Science (cf. CAR-PGa 2008). As Stackpole has done for Pulling in particular, the US Game Manufacturers Association (GAMA) and the Committee for the Advancement of Role-Playing Games (CAR-PGa), offered counterarguments via various gamers’ magazines, pamphlets, and other means of publications in reaction to the moral campaigning (e.g. Stafford 1988; Borges 1994; CAR-PGa 1996). Ordinary players, including those as young as 12 years of age, made a stand against the claims circulated by Christians and sent letters to the editors of newspapers (Newcomb 1985; Silvian 1985), where they pointed out misconceptions, for example in the article “Fantasy Game Turns into Deadly Reality” (Witt 1985). Later publications, especially those released by CAR-PGa members, not only sought to rectify misrepresentations but to “verify their facts” scientifically. Science here receives a similar degree of agency as God did in the Christian pamphlets and refers mostly to the disciplines of psychology and psychiatry. A number of studies had been conducted, especially related to gifted children, so that Stackpole in 1995, for example, could refer to experiments and studies that had pointed to positive learning effects and found no correlation between role-playing games and deviant or criminal behaviour (cf. Abeyta and Forest 1991). Further, the American Association of Suicidology, the US Centres for Disease Control and

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Prevention, and the Canadian Centre for Health and Welfare came to the conclusion that there was no causal link between fantasy role-playing games and suicides (Lewis 2001, 75). The “facts” appeared to be on the gamers’ side.15 Despite such facts and the redoubled commercial success of D&D due to the publicity, TSR employed two strategies to appease parents. The first was in line with the rest of the gaming industry, producing leaflets and informational brochures that explained role-playing to parents and advised young players on how to counter the ideas of danger and occultism. The second was more “in-game,” that is the second edition of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (1989) highlighted the heroic elements of the game as well as player teamwork, discouraging evil characters for players by eliminating classes such as the assassin or races such as the half-orc, and eschewing the words demon and devil throughout all publications of the game line. With this less “dark” tone in their game,16 TSR’s marketing and artworks also targeted a younger audience—the player population grew and now included an increasing number of middle and elementary school students. Media reporting remains to be widely discussed on Internet forums and blogs, and suspects continue to attempt the “D&D defence” (a 45-year-old lingerie thief, for example, defended himself by saying that he had believed himself to be a female elven shaman during the crime, BBC 2007). However, newspapers and magazines now also issue more positive articles on role-playing games, and the heat of the Christian antiRPG campaign has cooled down—or perhaps moved onto different topics (Pyle 2014, 66ff.). The “D&D moral panic” as it is called, however, remains a hot topic among players, as reflected by the abundance of forum posts and crowd funding supporters of the Dark Dungeons movie project. Despite a new boom in the US and D&D’s more inclusive 5th edition gaining a newly found image as therapeutic, the moral panic remains a point of reference that needs disclaiming (cf. Alimurung 2019). Even 15 During the 1990s, Pulling and fellow campaigner Thomas Radecki further lost credibility, when the latter’s sexual harassment of patients and drug dealings came to light (Entertainment Weekly 1992; Pennsylvania Attorney General 2013). 16 The German role-playing game DSA (The Back Eye; Kiesow 1984) also received

criticism due to its dark images: The first edition featured the depiction of a torture and rape scene, which was deemed inappropriate for a game sold at toy stores. A second “first edition” was published in the same year and did not include the criticised picture. Parents were also concerned with the supposedly impressionable minds of their children but feared magic less than accepting sexual violence.

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though role-playing games have moved out of the popular focus of the media, players continue to be reminded of their own experiences when Christian groups target other media, such as J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series (cf. Ewing and Grady 2006). It is important to note, however, that the term “Christians” here cannot be applied to a single-point actor; in contrast to the popular image of Christians condemning the witchcraft in Harry Potter, for instance, the magazine Christianity Today published an editorial entitled “Why we like Harry Potter” (Christianity Today 2000). Does it matter if the devil is “really” real? Regardless of the answer to this question, the actant Satan received a distinctive amount of agency in these debates about role-playing games: He made people act. Satan called Pulling and the Christian Right into action because he showed his face on and in the rulebooks of role-playing games. In this way, he also gave cause to the pro-RPG activists to fight the Christian Right. He made parents act, either to directly make schools ban role-playing or to keep their children from playing, have them sell or even destroy their role-playing books. He made administrators act when their banned role-playing from prisons. Recursive Modes of Ordering Invoking a higher truth, be it God or Science, appears as a mode of ordering not present in the debate about Miyazaki and otaku. However, the journalists and activists during the “Satanism scare” about RPGs also employed other modes we encountered during the Miyazaki Incident: That of the spectacle with eye-catching headlines, of a reductionist search for direct causes, or of balancing concern over youth with expert voices. Reviewing the modes of ordering that I could impute through my analysis, the most prominent mode of ordering the Miyazaki Incident in Japan and the teen suicides in the US remains reductionism, or cause and effect. Exemplified by the juridical system, the controversies about Miyazaki as well as Dallas and “Bink” emphasised the search for a single (maybe multiple, but in any case, direct) cause(s) leading to the crimes or suicides. This narrative, the possibility for direct causes repeatedly gives agency to the “D&D defence” strategy, that a crime was committed due to the game’s influence. There is no denying in Miyazaki’s case that horror videos and lolicon magazines appear as actants in this search for a direct cause. They are introduced as actors by acting on Miyazaki as templates for the murders,

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which make him act. These non-humans are also treated as symptoms, though, or an expression of the larger problems of society, such as the school system, bullying and bad parenting. If we look at the analysed articles only quantitatively, it is clear that the latter issues received more attention than otaku. In the form of a reverse bias, this mode of ordering (reductionism) is also guiding the critique of the mass media, highlighted by an opposition to, but also following the mode of the spectacular embedded in, tabloids. Loud, attention-drawing terms such as yobigun are not ignored but repeated continuously and filled with meaning by those who stage themselves as knowing better, highlighting the dynamics of interactive kinds. While journalists and jurists debated links between the crimes and the media found in Miyazaki’s room, manga and anime critics and producers, those who know better, gave them the key term for ¯ this controversy: Before Otsuka used otaku in his discussion of Miyazaki and the wrong impression of otaku, or Takatori mused about Miyazaki and the otaku-zoku, no mainstream journalists had used the term in this ¯ way. Otsuka and others are the ones that made the connection. Similarly, Gygax and other game designers voiced the connection of role-playing with Satan by denying it, while the game books found in the rooms of Dallas and “Bink” featured as major actants that were cast as causes and enrolled the aforementioned experts, be they anti-occultism campaigners or game designers (Fig. 3.12). This is an important take-away point: That there is no inner logic connecting certain practices (collecting videos and anime or playing RPGs) with stereotypes of reclusiveness or dangerousness (against others or oneself). This connection is made durable through all the work put into maintaining it. Thus, one of the major aims of this chapter was to show that the rhetorical creation of single entities (e.g. the otaku or the role-player) or single-point actors (“the mass media”) became an element of the practice-as-network role-playing by repeated actualisations on both sides. The involved actors are very much entangled, which complicates the black-and-white picture of “the stereotyped” (the driven) versus “the mass media” (the drivers)—not to forget the videos, magazines, and game books that enrolled so many other actors, “drivers” and “driven” alike. The driven very much drove the debate in a specific direction by repeatedly engaging with the link between Miyazaki and otaku, role-playing and Satan, either by defending or denying its plausibility. Next to psychiatrists and sociologists, these critics had a chance to act as “experts” and

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Fig. 3.12 The Network of Role-Playing and Media Event Induced Controversies

took it. For this creation of a space to talk about otaku and role-playing games, the most salient mode of ordering is the mode of disclaiming . This mode is characterised by a push-and-pull-scenario: Stories are told about good otaku by banishing the bad traits on Miyazaki. Narratives about good learning effects through role-playing are pitched against ideas of learning occultism. By repeating negative portrayals, a reason is created to rectify these portrayals. This process is recursive, in that each statement on otaku or occultist role-players allows for another statement, be it a clarification or a rejection. The concern over appearing as Satanists never leaves the debate about role-playing, so that all current books and publications similarly to those about otaku begin with the claim that the mass media portrayal of role-players is wrong. This disclaiming takes the form of presenting scientific counterclaims or a debunking on the basis of authentic experience (versus the fantastic, un-authentic claims by accusers)

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and numbers (with millions of gamers, why do not all kill themselves?)— but also takes the route of the parody, making a movie possible that ridicules a slight made over thirty years ago. Such a constant disclaiming has been interpreted as the formative agency behind a “role-player identity” (Waldron 2005, 44). In this sense, Satan had another agency: The concern about Satanism produced the subject position prevalent in the discourse from which to make truth claims about role-playing games. The ordering of these incidents—despite their local particularities—in this mode allowed actors to draw and sustain attention, a pattern that gave direction to many later statements within the respective discourse and also my interviewees’ explanations of their relations to the term otaku or religion and “bad” role-players.

3.3

Negotiating Stereotypes and Bad Players Gamer Stereotypes

The live-action parody of the Christian anti-RPG comic Dark Dungeons is only one of many examples of mocking stereotypes brought against roleplayers. The Dork Tower comic series by John Kovalic (1997 to present, e.g. 2000) plays with many assumptions about nerds and gamers. Some of the stereotypical depictions follow accusations found in newspapers or on TV, others come from gaming itself. Kovalic also illustrates the so-called Munchkin franchise, which includes a plethora of differently themed cardgames, a board game and a role-playing game based on the d20-system rules developed by Wizards of the Coast for the third edition of D&D. The word “munchkin” first appeared in the Wizard of Oz books by L. Frank Baum, where it designated a race of dwarfish people wearing only blue (Baum and Denslow 1900). In US role-playing jargon, the term gained traction as a label for young players due to their shorter stature (Gribble 1994). From there, the term received the connotation of juvenile or childish play regardless of the height of a gamer so labelled. Today, it is used as a pejorative for gamers who play a non-competitive game in a very competitive manner, by aiming at amassing power and grabbing loot during a role-playing game without paying any consideration to character development, storyline or how other players would like to enjoy the game. It is thus also often applied to so-called “powergamers,” who focus more on tweaking the game system in order to create extremely strong

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characters and who are more concerned over dice-throwing than roleplaying (thus, they are also referred to as roll-players). Like any other label, munchkin and powergamer reflect what kind of role-playing the other party judges to be the correct way of playing or the correct creative agenda to pursue, that is, in-character play and storytelling.17 The “powergamer” may be one of the most prominent stereotypes of players in the sphere of role-playing games. While “powergamers” in table-top games are attributed with maximising character traits almost so far as breaking the rules and a gamist creative agenda, in larps, a despised category of player is the one with too much money off-game. Many of the larpers I interviewed in Japan and Germany complained about players who buy expensive equipment and believe that this alone would make a good character. Others hotly discuss on the Larp-AhrCommunity, for example, whether they are prejudiced in assuming that certain character classes or roles attract only “powergamers” because one gains several in-game benefits a usual human does not receive. The debate about powergaming revolves also around regional boundaries, attesting specific playstyles to larpers from specific regions—for example, powergaming to players from Berlin (Berlin-Larp forum). Some see also good aspects to the “powergamers,” because their great equipment adds its part to the atmosphere of a game (Prinz 2011). More despised than the “powergamer” is the so-called “Pappnase” (Eng. numpty, fool) because this label designates a player who ignores the unwritten, or at times written rules of the “play contract” (cf. magic circle). A Pappnase is an extremely bad player who spoils the fun of other participants by either powergaming, wearing uninspired garb, having destructive character concepts, by failing to distinguish between in- and out-of-character, by killing other player characters or by a combination of the above. Labelling someone a Pappnase, however, often equates to stating subjective standards of playing and often happens during a larp in which high power and low power gamers encounter each other, attacking the other

17 Steve Jackson Games, one of the first publishers of role-playing games, made the ideas behind the stereotypical munchkin into an award-winning card-game, the aforementioned Munchkin (2001). Dozens of supplements cover all kinds of role-playing games and themes, from fantasy, vampires to Marvel superheroes. It was translated into German in 2003 by Pegasus Spiele and into Japanese by Yasuda Hitoshi/Arclight in 2006, followed by many other languages and making Munchkin one of the most successful parodies of role-playing worldwide.

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side for a playstyle different from their own. Thus, commentators argue that “real” Pappnasen seem rare (Trapp 2011). “Playing” Otaku Such in-group stereotypes create boundaries and designate unwelcome behaviour much like those labels placed on gamers and otaku. While some games also play with the latter stereotypes, others incorporate them in a non-mocking, serious way into their game diegesis. For example, one German informant asked me if he should envision the “real-world” otaku in the way portrayed in the game Shadowrun (Charrette et al. 1989). The setting of Shadowrun is Earth, however some decades in the future (2050 in its first edition of 1989). The end of the Mesoamerican Long Count ushered in a cataclysmic change to the world, reawakening magic and thus, also many mythical creatures, such as dragons and spirits. Many humans underwent a “goblinisation,” turning into elves, dwarves, and orcs, and many new-born children were born into these races. Contrasting these fantasy elements is a cyberpunk world order inspired by Blade Runner (Scott 1982) or Neuromancer (Gibson 1984), in which megacorporations rule after nation-states have faded in power, and technology has opened up possibilities of grandeur and depravity. Rephrasing the “escapism” debate about games, a major societal issue are so-called BTLchips (better than life), which allow users to enter virtual environments where they can realise their dreams and create wonderful experiences. The use of these chips is highly addictive and causes not few to unwittingly commit suicide because they become lost in virtual dreams as their bodies wither away unfed and dehydrated. People have bionic implants that give them better eyesight or strength a normal human could ever achieve naturally but also grant the ability to connect directly with the Matrix, Shadowrun’s version of the Internet. The players take on the role of outcasts and criminals who work as spies for the large corporations and other organisations, fighting in the shadows (thus, “shadowrun”). They are “street samurai” (bionically enhanced warriors) and magicians as well as “deckers” (who connect to the Matrix) and riggers (who control machinery with their minds). Next to D&D, Vampire, and Cthulhu, Shadowrun is one of the globally most successful role-playing game lines, with supplemental source books and novels available only on local markets. GroupSNE, the translators of the 2nd edition, published not

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only a Tokyo sourcebook but also a series of replays , which finds continuation with the Japanese fourth edition, translated by the game designer Tokita Y¯usuke. Shadowrun was also made into several computer games, a trading card game, and a table-top board game. The game designers introduced a new character concept in the box-set Denver: City of Shadows (Findley 1994), to be fleshed out in the expansion source book Virtual Realities 2.0 (Hume 1995), the “otaku.” A decker needs a “cyberdeck” in order to connect with the Matrix and affect it with their persona programmes. “Otaku” would only need an ASIST-Interface18 and could control the Matrix with their minds directly. Before the fourth edition of Shadowrun (Boyle 2005) the Matrix was still a wired environment and it was not until 2005 that in-game technology began to catch-up with the wireless computing that is so common today. “Otaku” in the setting are described as children below the age of 21 who live in urban gang-like groups called tribes (which matches a Japanese rendition, the otaku-zoku, in discussions about tribe-like groups of young people). Most of these “otaku” worship the Matrix, or more precisely the entity called Deep Resonance, which they credit with their creation and worship with a cult-like devotion akin to a religion (cf. the anime-cult debate about Aum Shinriky¯ o ). Some tribes also devote themselves zealously to the causes of Artificial Intelligences, such as DEUS, a mad entity that also could create its own “otaku.” Known as the Fading, “otaku” would lose their abilities to freely navigate and control the Matrix when they grew up. With the introduction of “otaku” to the game, players who might be targeted by a stereotype of the same name in the “real world” could now play at being “otaku,” children with awesome powers to some degree comparable to the characters from cyberpunk manga or anime like Akira (Otomo 1982). Most people in the setting did not know “otaku” existed and had not even heard urban legends, but the mega-corporations saw them as a threat and tried to study them. This threat manifested itself within the metaplot of the game world in the year 2064: A tribe of “twisted otaku,” “Ex Pacis,” who worshipped the entity Dissonance planned and executed a worldwide Matrix Crash, that caused many systems to fail that depended on the Matrix, such as trains, planes, or power plants, and thus also many 18 Artificial Sensory Induction Systems Technology is the basis for all cybernetic implants which allow a communication between the brain and technology. In the game world, ASIST was developed by the fictional inventor Hikita Hosato in 2018.

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deaths. The wired Matrix was left a smoking ruin, and, in its stead, the Wireless Matrix was installed and spread over the globe. During the crash, many people had uploaded their persona/consciousness into the Matrix and had to exist their as virtual ghosts or perished until a connection to the “real world” could be established again. Some of these returnees had, for unexplainable reasons, gained the abilities of the “otaku” so that “today” (2070) adults could also access the Wireless Matrix without any technological interface due to a changed neurological chemistry. When these “technomancers” were discovered they were met with great fear because many assumed, they could cause another crash—a “witch hunt” occurred and many technomancers lost their lives until emotions cooled down. The only place they were accepted right away was Neo-Tokyo, Japan, according to the game’s backstory. The tribe idea, cult-like religious zeal of “otaku” and the “witch hunt” terminology mirror the Japanese discourse on otaku. The cult-like obsession, however, could not have been inspired by the “doomsday anime cult” Aum Shinriky¯ o because their terror attack happened a year after the Denver book was published. Rob Boyle, one of the lead designers of Shadowrun 4th edition and also behind the source book Matrix (Boyle and Mulvihill 2000) that further developed the “otaku” character concept, spoke less of a direct translation of the “real world” otaku discourse from Japan into the game word. The image of obsession with new technology associated with otaku in English (cf. Grassmuck 1990) may have been a source of inspiration in the beginning.19 However, the technomancer witch-hunt was not taken from Miyazaki’s case but “modelled on witchhunts against similar real-life hackers and people who could manipulate machines in ways that others found hard to understand (Kevin Mitnick and Bruce Sterling’s the Hacker Crackdown were probably an influence on me there)” (email conversation, Boyle, 2017). Not only as a word and idea giver, Japan also had its place in the fictional setting of the game. The authors behind the first and second edition of Shadowrun limned Japan as an imperial state, annexing parts of California and oppressing meta-humans (elves, dwarves etc.) in concentration camps. This did not resonate with the translators at GroupSNE/Fujimi Shob¯o: In their supplement Shadowrun Tokyo (Egawa 19 Nigel Findley, the developer who introduced the “otaku” into Shadowrun, passed away in 1995. Thus, I could not directly interview him about his inspiration for developing the character concept.

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and GroupSNE 1996), they rewrote the backstory for Japan to a large extent. Japan had become an extremely weak state with megacorporations fighting openly in the streets of Tokyo. The annexation of California was also the corporations’ doing in this version. American players likewise take issue with the original setting, stating that Japan would neither have the military power nor the will to conquer other countries, and that it would be unlikely for Japanese culture to spread so far and wide that it suffused most languages of the globe (in the setting, Japanese words and customs had spread globally). Japan as an imperial power would not make sense (“Japan in Shadowrun just makes me facepalm,” ShadowGrid forum). Older players respond with lengthy explanations of where the setting came from: The 1980s. A time when Japanese business practices were in high esteem and everyone feared that Japanese corporations would financially dominate the US. For the game designers, it seemed safe to assume that Japan would become the next global superpower, especially because they could not foresee how the Japanese market would crash only a few years later. When the Japanese Tokyo supplement became available on the market, it immediately faced harsh criticism by Japanese players. On December 1, 1996, the gamer Nishio Gen’ichi posted an English review of the sourcebook on the USENET group rec.games.frp.cyber. Pointing out inconsistencies, such as a “convenient” wasteland Tokyo, where shadowrunners could hack and slay as they saw fit, he criticised that GroupSNE would target teenagers who were powergamers only interested in magical sci-fi adventures disregarding the political issues imbued into the game world: We all know JIS [Japan Imperial State] is arguably the worst rasist [sic!] nation in the awakened world. However, to our surprise, the book has very few descriptions about racism subject in the country. There is an explanation of Tokyo Olympic in 2056, but no mention to the fact Japanese government announced they would keep metahuman players from the games as written in Shadowbeat. Why no racism? Because most of Japanese readers, who are teenagers, don’t like their country described such a manner. Yeah, all the Japanese know racism no good. Their only flaw is that they don’t know what to do to prevent racism. They are so insensible to racial issues, and tend to cause racial problem unawares. Nonetheless, they can’t believe themselves racists. They aren’t taught what their grandfathers did to Koreans, Chinese, Ainu and Okinawa people past days on account of the “patriotic” education system forced by the current conservative government. I cannot excuse

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the deception and hypocricy [sic!]… Stop! Sorry, this is a game review, not a political protest… (Nishio 1996) Fujimi-Shobo intends to sell its RPG products (Shadowrun included) to adolescent generation. This generation in Japan is more childish than same generation in USA, at least publishers feel so. Most of novels for this generation are variations of Never-Never Land fantasy. The “Re-plays” are also juvenile reading. I don’t think Fujimi-Shobo’s attitude is bad. But it does not fit Shadowrun. (Nishio 1997)

Together with other Japanese gamers, Nishio launched the JIS-Project in the same year to write a “history” of the Shadowrun Japan Imperial State more in line with the original setting and more suited to an adult audience. On the homepage of the project (now defunct but accessible via the Internet archive), the group asks the rhetorical question: “But why do you want to present your own country as evil?” Their reply: “Because it’s interesting! We feel that Japan as a villain sounds better than Japan as a weak nation.”20 With such statements the JIS-Project oscillates between an attitude that could be interpreted as nationalistic because they favour a strong fictional Japan over a weak one and also, if we look at Nishio’s complaints above, an interest in problematising “real world” issues in their role-playing (e.g. patriotism and racism and their effect on those outcast as well as those who do the outcasting). The stereotypical workaholic Japan that suffused the original Shadowrun setting appears much more appealing than the economically weak but rhetorically patriotic Japan in which the players lived during the 1990s. So, they rewrote its fictional history. This history and background made it also into later editions of the game—and not the licensee GroupSNE’s version—so that with the Japanese translations of the fourth edition, the fearsome JIS has become a part of Shadowrun for all players worldwide. The discussion about Japan’s role in the Shadowrun setting highlights how the magic circle of role-playing is permeable as well as how enactments of “nation” within the game are partially connected to enacting the nation off-game. The real-world nation is not just the “wider context” in which its “fantastic” version is done but both interact in an intricate choreography. The 1990s saw not only the collapse of the Japanese

20 JIS-Project: https://web.archive.org/web/19990421134157/http://www.sainet.or. jp/%7Efatcat/index-e.html (accessed 2020/02/20).

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economy but also the first and soon criticised apologies to victims of Japan’s imperial strategy during the Pacific War (cf. Miyazawa 1992) and attempts at re-writing this “masochistic” history as an “aggressor state” (cf. revionist groups, such as the Tsukuru-kai; Rose 2006). The aggression, racism and collaboration of state and mega-corporations within the fictitious Japanese Imperial State take cues from this “out-of-game past.” Experiencing racism and exploitation during the game similarly bleed into players’ perceptions of contemporary forms of social exclusion off-game. Both intertwined “makings” of a nation further share the instance of taking the nation for granted. Despite the fantastical setting of Shadowrun many building blocks of the cosmos, such as ethnicity, race, or nation just spill over—it seems impossible that magic could have changed this ordering of the world. Fantasy is built from elements borrowed from “primary reality.” The performance of “real world” stereotypes and oppression within role-playing games, the Eurocentrism and sexism of many game worlds, and the question of who is to speak for groups to be represented in-game, who may sanction cultural appropriations, feature large in face-to-face and online discussions. Such boundaries find also enactment when my male-identified interviewees talk about a presumed male majority and less conspicuous female players, or when female players judge a male player preforming a female character based on social rules and linguistic conventions that would appear outdated outside the game (see Kamm 2016; and also Trammel 2014; Garcia 2017). The question of how to deal with appropriating cultural practices, dress, customs, or behaviour from marginalised groups or people who have been oppressed (especially, people of colour, trans-gender/queer, and the mentally ill), repeatedly appears on respective Facebook group forums, where commentators seek to find a balance between fantastic play and respectful borrowings from the “primary reality.”21 Concerning the enactment of otaku “in-game,” none of my Japanese interviewees had ever played an “otaku” in Shadowrun and thus could not comment on how it “feels” to play something so heavily linked to stereotypes and histories of the “real” world. Even though role-players retain the memory of being stereotyped, many also employ stereotypes to demarcate the line between good and bad role-playing, emphasising the rhetorical function and power relations attributed to stereotypes in theory. 21 For reasons of anonymity, no link to the closed, invitation-only Facebook groups is provided here. For more on the politics of physical representation, see Kessock (2016).

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Many also play with stereotypical accusations, even if this is essential to their own demeanours in the games they play or the movies they make and watch. “They” here is used very loosely, as no one can speak for all role-players and gamers. The aforementioned instances of dealing with and furthering exclusion, however, can be traced throughout Internet forums and personal conversations. The Japanese episode in which players revolt against game designers, also repeats this very observable creation of boundaries: The tensions and friction between professionals and their customers—what I impute as the mode of enterprise. This conflict is often rooted in proclamations of “we are all gamers,” a statement of “community” that hits a wall the moment one “obviously” goes against player wishes. Connected Worlds of Stereotypes From the discourse on otaku and Satanism to negotiations of modes of belonging, the practice-as-network role-playing does not stay within its magic circl e, but rather opens up avenues to a plethora of connected worlds, including debates about media effects and attempts at writing the—fictional and “real”—nation. Stereotypes can be imputed as major actants in these interactions. In some form, stereotypes such as otaku, the amalgam of antisocial behaviour and media dependency, may have a direct effect on the bodies of people so labelled, such as Takeuchi’s wrist. However, stereotypes show the power of their agency when they only hover in the background, as a story repeatedly told, sustained by continuously denying their plausibility. Even though media portrayals have changed (“cool otaku”) or target something and somebody else (videogames instead of table-top RPGs as recent “causes” for anti-social behaviour), people have integrated the stereotype into their modes of ordering the world, their narratives about their place in the world and their practices to navigate this world. Thus, role-playing games become a matter of concern when it comes to how they might be perceived by a transcendent other, the bystander, themself produced as if RPGs and larps were unknown worlds displaced into the “real world” where games are misunderstood. Role-player and otaku as interactive kinds heavily revolve around the production of dichotomies, beginning with the ontological politics about what is “real” and what is “fantasy,” but range to the dualisms of “mainstream” and “not-mainstream,” or “subculture” as well as the

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boundaries of gender, when male players assume that female players do not like fighting and dislocate role-playing into a homosocial domain.22 Producing role-playing games as a practice-as-network appears as a very “modern” move (Latour 1993), that is, purification and mediation at the same time. “Fantasy” and the “real” are separated, purified, only to be made into a hybrid again that mixes both. Role-playing needs to be a “fantasy” to become a “bad” escape from an alienating “real world,” and similarly cannot be separated from the “real world” because its inherent occultism would not be able to spill over if the boundary between both was too solid. Role-playing also needs to be a “fantasy,” a make-believe that might include demons and violence, but that “is just a game,” with no evil effects on the players. At the same time, good effects, such as competencies and knowledge may pass through the veil of the magic circle. These various negotiations at the game table and beyond, can be framed as “performing realities,” an idea borrowed from empirical ontology. Taking practices and thus performativity seriously, this approach takes a step outside of a Euro-American common-sense ontology and its singular, coherent reality “out there” and the question of representation, a key factor in the discussions about stereotypes: The relationship between signifier and signified. Instead of dividing the world into represented things and their representations, this approach favours the assumption that practices perform the world, perform realities (Woolgar and Lezaun 2013, 325). During a role-playing session or a larp, players consciously undo objects and meanings, space and even their very bodies to creatively weave new material-semiotic fabrics. They become cultural mediators between a world taken for granted—with its social groups, genders and nations—and its partially connected others, in which fantasies are translated into realities. The fantasy of Satanic role-players is equally performed by Christian activists and parents, made real and given agency, when they try to expunge RPGs from the reality of children, by game designers when they delete demons and dragons from their books, as well as by roleplayers when they sit down in a magic circle made from flour and chant to the deities beyond “reality,” as horror author H.P. Lovecraft envisioned them.

22 On the creation of male “heroes” and female “damsels-in-distress” at the game table, see “Cross-Gender Table-Talk-RPG in Japanese” (in German; Kamm 2016).

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Separating the “real” from the “unreal,” or role-players and otaku from the “mainstream” society, the stereotypical agencies that make people act work as excluding modes and as modes of drawing people together, for example in the opposition against the modes of ordering employed by others. The particular, local contexts and cases of stereotyping discussed in this chapter are also “global,” they form patterns in contingency (Law 1994, 19)—stories are told and embodied in Japan that resonate with stories emerging elsewhere. Of these patterns, the mode of disclaiming can be imputed as the most salient technique for creating a space to talk about oneself that connects role-players across national borders. The major difference emerging from the described cases is that role-players in the US (and by association, also in Europe) were the direct targets of the stereotyping they seek to disclaim. Role-players in Japan faced accusations because they were part of a larger imagined target population, the otaku (of which they might embody the stereotype of going against what is mainstream the “best,” as some of my interviewees put it). In this light, the whole practice-as-network appears rather serious, without any “fun” to be had. However, stereotypes are not the only connector, neither locally nor globally. Role-playing knows a number of mediators and translators, on an intersubjective but also on an intrasubjective level. The following Act focuses on these many mediators but reserves a special place for the Internet, which does exist in the singular but is also multiple: The largest connector and the most active separator of worlds.

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Witt, Karen De. 1979. “Fantasy Game Finds Unimagined Success.” New York Times, October 3, 68. Woods, Stewart. 2012. Eurogames: The Design, Culture and Play of Modern European Board Games. Kindle ed. Jefferson: McFarland. Woolgar, Steve, and Javier Lezaun. 2013. The Wrong Bin Bag: A Turn to Ontology in Science and Technology Studies? Social Studies of Science 43 (3): 321–340. Yamanaka, Tomomi. 2015. “The Birth of ‘Otaku’: Centring on Discourse Dynamics in Manga Burikko.” In Debating Otaku in Contemporary Japan, edited by Galbraith, Kam, and Kamm, 34–50. London: Bloomsbury Academic. Yomiuri. 1990. “Renzoku y¯ ojo y¯ ukai satsujin hatsu k¯oban bengo-gawa no iken chinjutsu y¯ oshi” [Serial Abduction-Murders of Little Girls—First Trial Hearing and Statement Summary of the Defense’s Opinion]. Yomiuri Shimbun, March 30, Tokyo, evening issue: 3. Zeugen Jehovas. 1982. “Dungeons and Dragons – ein gefährliches Unterhaltungsspiel” [Dungeon and Dragons—A Dangerous Game]. Erwachet!, June 22.

Audio-Visual Works “Betsu no jibun ni natte mitara ~ R¯ orupureig¯emu ni hitaru wakamonotachi” [How about Becoming Another Self ~ Youth Immersed in Role-Playing Games]. 1997. Egawa, Sh¯ oko. Seishuntanken [Youth Exploration]. TV show. Japan: NHK. Blade Runner. 1982. Scott, Ridley. Movie. USA: Warner Bros. “Dai 2 yoru. Akihabara-eki” [2nd Night. Akihabara Station]. 2013. Iwai, Hideto and Hirata Kenya. Sh¯ uden baibai [Good Bye, Last Train]. TV mini series. Japan: TBS. Dark Dungeons —The Movie. 2014. Gonda, Gabriel L. Movie. USA: Zombie Orpheus Entertainment. Densha otoko [Train Man]. 2005. Murakami, Sh¯ osuke. Movie. Japan: T¯oh¯ o. “Die Herrin Der Ringe: Im Reich von Orks Und Elfen” [The Lady of the Rings]. 2014. Kruck, Jana. YOLO—Challenge Day. TV show. Germany: RTL. Doctor Who. 1963–89, 2005–present. Newman, Sydney. TV show. UK: BBC. “Einmal in fremde Rollen schlüpfen—Live Action Role Play” [To Step into a Different Role]. 2013. Hahlweg, Barbara. MonaLisa. TV show. Germany: ZDF. Gandamu [Mobile Suit Gundam]. 1979–80. Tomino, Yoshiuki. TV animation. Japan: Nippon Sunrise. Jesus Camp. 2006. Ewing, Heidi and Rachel Grady. Documentary. USA: Magnolia Pictures.

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“Jonas und die schwarze Meute” [Jonas and the Black Pack]. 2014. Lehmann, Ulrike. Schau in meine Welt! [Look into my world!]. TV show. Germany: arte. “Live Action Roleplay.” 2013. Möglich, Manuel. Wild Germany. TV show. Germany: zdfneo. Mazes and Monsters. 1982. Stern, Steven Hilliard. TV movie. USA: CBS. Neon Genesis Evangelion. 1995–96. Anno, Hideaki. TV animation. Japan: TV Tokyo. Slayers! 1995. Yamazaki, Kazuo and Watanabe Hiroshi. TV animation. Japan: T¯ oei. Star Trek. 1966–present. Roddenberry, Gene (original creator). TV show. USA: Paramount. Star Wars. 1977–present. Lucas, George (original creator). Movies. USA: 20th Century Fox.

Ludography Achilli, Justin, Russell Bailey, Matthew McFarland, and Eddy Webb. 2011. Vampire: The Masquerade—20th Anniversary Edition. TRPG. Corebook. Decatur: CCP/White Wolf. Achilli, Justin, and Bill Bridges. 2004. The World of Darkness. TRPG. Corebook. Clarkston: White Wolf. ———. 2005. W¯ arudo-ofu-d¯ akunessu [The World of Darkness]. Translated by Masatoshi Tokuoka. TRPG. Corebook. Tokyo: Shinkigensha. Blackball, Blacky the. 2010. Dark Dungeons. TRPG. Rulebook. Raleigh: Lulu Press. Boyle, Rob. 2005. Shadowrun. TRPG. Corebook. 4th ed. Chicago: FanPro. Boyle, Rob, and Michael Mulvihill, eds. 2000. Matrix. TRPG. Sourcebook. Chicago: FASA Corporation. Bulmahn, Jason. 2009. Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. TRPG. Corebook. 1st ed. Redmond: Paizo. Charrette, Robert N., Paul Hume, and Tom Dowd. 1989. Shadowrun [Shadowrun]. TRPG. Corebook. 1st ed. Chicago: FASA Corporation. Cook, David ‘Zeb’. 1989. Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. TRPG. Corebook. 2nd ed. Lake Geneva: TSR. Egawa, Akira, and GroupSNE. 1996. TOKYO S¯ osubukku (Shad¯ oran) [TOKYO Source Book (Shadowrun)]. TRPG. Sourcebook. Tokyo: Fujimi Shob¯ o. Findley, Nigel D. 1994. Denver: The City of Shadows. TRPG. Sourcebook. Chicago: FASA Corporation. Gygax, Gary, and Dave Arneson. 1978. Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. TRPG. Corebook. Lake Geneva: TSR.

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Hume, Paul. 1995. Virtual Realities 2.0: A Shadowrun Sourcebook. TRPG. Sourcebook. Chicago: FASA Corporation. Jackson, Steve. 2001. Munchkin. Card Game. 1st ed. Austin: Steve Jackson Games. Kiesow, Ulrich. 1984. Das Schwarze Auge. TRPG. Corebook. 1st ed. Berlin: Schmidt Spiele. Miller, Marc. 1977. Traveller. TRPG. Corebook. 1st ed. Normal: Game Designers’ Workshop. ———. 1984. Toraber¯ a [Traveller]. Translated by Hitoshi Yasuda. TRPG. Corebook. Tokyo: Raimei. Okada, Atsuhiro. 2007. Ry¯ utama: Natural Fantasy R.P.G. TRPG. Corebook. Tokyo: Jaibu.

CHAPTER 4

Mediation—Counterpoints of Dis/Connection, or the Third Act

The Internet was done so well that most people think of it as a natural resource like the Pacific Ocean, rather than something that was man-made. When was the last time a technology with a scale like that was so error-free? (Alan Kay in Binstock 2012)

4.1 A Mediator’s Counterpoint: Non-Human and Human Actors What are the things that connect? One point made by proponents of relational materialism (Law 1994, 24) makes us aware how the social is generated whenever actors practically connect entities with other entities, that power always needs other materials than just human bodies to travel (Latour 2005). To re-trace these connections and associations means to “write” the paths of heterogeneous networks of humans and non-humans alike, to follow how mediators translate entities from one part of the network to another. What are the things that disconnect? One point made by proponents of transculturality (Juneja and Kravagna 2013, 25) asks to study not only what connects but also rejection and resistance, failed communication, to look for displacement. To re-trace these disconnections and obstacles means to “write” the paths of mediators when they “mistranslate” entities from one part of the network to another, or do not translate, and block the flows to be followed. © The Author(s) 2020 B.-O. Kamm, Role-Playing Games of Japan, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-50953-8_4

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“I didn’t know Japanese played pen & paper role-playing games…” said Thorsten Bauer, a 28-year old anime and board game enthusiast, to whom I talked at the international game fair SPIEL in Essen, Germany, in October 2012. When he went past the booth of B¯ oken, a Japanese game studio that produces card, board, and role-playing games and presents its wares at the game fair since 2004,1 he became attracted to the many posters decorating the booth’s walls, all in a style one could call “anime-like.” Incidentally, Matt Sanchez, a then 33-year old customs broker working for the US subsidiary of the Nagoya-based international shipping company Isewan Kaiun, presented there his work-in-progress translation of Shinobigami (Kawashima and B¯oken 2009). This is a TRPG about modern ninjas and dramatic stories. Matt Sanchez belongs to the translation firm Kotodama Heavy Industries, founded together with Andy Kitkowski, a today 45-year old senior escalation engineer, who untangles misconfigured computer networks and crashed databases, when he is not translating Japanese TRPGs (e.g. Tenra, Kitkowski and Inoue 2014; Ry¯ utama, Okada 2015). Both had lived in Japan for several years, made connections to game designers and studios, and finally released their first English translation of a “JRPG” in 2013. Something Kitkowski had been working on for almost a decade. Sanchez and Kitkowski are two major actors and mediators when it comes to the paths the practiceassemblage RPG takes. In this instance of 2012, Sanchez mediated not only a specific game by facilitating introductory sessions but became a conduit for “general” knowledge about role-playing in Japan. Bauer was not the only European visitor who reacted with surprise to the existence of non-digital RPGs made in Japanese. When I asked him and others, why they were so surprised, they could not explain it in so many words: They just had identified Japan exclusively with digital gaming, such as the franchise Final Fantasy, and never thought about TRPGs in conjunction with the “Cool Japan” of manga, anime, and video games. What about the so-called Internet in this instance? Often addressed as a single-point actor, should this new communication technology not have mediated between role-players in Japan and in Germany? Does it not connect the “globally networked otaku culture” (It¯o 2012)? The huge assemblage of technologies abbreviated as Internet have become naturalized parts of our everyday (cf. Binstock 2012), making it possible 1 Kond¯ o K¯oshi, B¯oken’s CEO, first came to SPIEL due to his connections with Marc Miller, the designer of Traveller, who he encountered through his editorship of Warlock.

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to video-chat home from vast distances and to raise awareness among audience members dispersed over the globe rather than the immediate circle of acquaintances; but does it create “community?” Such questions are not so much about saying what the Internet is, a connector, a mediator, an intermediary, but about opening a space for scepticism towards any such general assessment of a heterogeneous agency that draws upon so many other actors, humans and non-humans alike, only to enable again others. Like the imaginaire of the otaku, ordered through newspaper clippings as well as self-identified otaku scholars, the making of the Internet oscillates between apocalyptic scenarios of machines controlling humans and utopian visions of a technologically controlled good society. The Internet here reveals itself as completely “non-modern” (Latour 1993), drawing together material objects, engineering and science, human nature, national regulators and societal evolution, as well as religious myths, discourse and data. The modern world, however, should be easily dividable into Society and Nature, politics and science, humans and non-humans. As a single-point actor the Internet has become one of those big words, very much like globalisation, that are imbued with the power to single-handedly destroy and rebuild societies. This is technological determinism at its best. The following accounts on which role Internet technologies play in the travelling of the practice-assemblage RPG are much more modest: The actions of the Internet are too much out of view that they could be studied and analysed. The actions of the many bits and pieces, humans and non-humans alike that travel this network and make up the relations and associations of role-playing games, on the other hand, may be followed. The previous chapter focused on modes of ordering kinds of people that involve the creation of boundaries, this chapter tries the opposite and looks at modes and actors set out to cross borders. Where the former exclude, the latter mediate. However, as we have seen, modes of exclusion, such as labelling someone an antisocial being or an occult deviant, may also create spaces for producing realities of belonging, of excluding the excluders and including the excluded. Thus, stories of exclusion and misrepresentation sustain modes of ordering the world of those feeling excluded. Similarly, mediators cannot be trusted with being faithful in how they translate and connect. Some actants block flows at the same moment they direct others across borders, they bridge boundaries to sustain others. Because of this duplicity of mediators, I chose to represent the actants I followed in the manner of a counterpoint,

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showing where they make associations and where they inhibit them. The mediators I traced include individual humans, such as Matt Sanchez and Andy Kitkowski, but also institutions and events, ranging from game conventions to privacy protection technologies and customs laws. We find here profane agencies such as telephones and day jobs side by side code that separates generations of players, programmes that reconnect old acquaintances, complex logics like languages, or ontologies of a “real” and a “virtual”—the latter issue retaining its thrust throughout this book. Before I relate these agencies to two specific instances of translation and brokerage between “Japan” and “the West,” the first section looks at the major actor “the Internet” in relation to Japan and how it opens doors for some, while closing paths for others.

4.2

The Internet as a Dis/Connector

“The Internet” often becomes a single-point, black-boxed actor. In South Korea it supposedly causes an epidemic of online addictions (Jang et al. 2008; Block 2008; Kosoff 2014). Humans apparently suffer decreasing attention spans and become more and more aggressive in their interactions because the Internet limits information to 140-character tweets and anonymises communication (Aboujaoude 2011). Ultimately, it makes us alone by stripping us of our solitude (Turkle 2011). While some of the authors of the many books on the effects of “the Internet” unpack this agency in the course of their discussions (e.g. describe which “parts” of the Internet are deemed responsible), it remains a powerful actor within their texts as well as in public discourse and imaginaire (Mansell 2012). I thus would like to multiply the Internet—this does not equate to perspectivalism, showing different, contesting perspectives on the Internet. Instead I trace practices that make the Internet into a reality, that make it act and receive agency from it. In what way does it enable and disable mediations between roleplayers? How do other actors interfere with and/or amplify the translations performed by the Internet? These questions cannot be answered in general terms, only in specificity, at specific locations and in specific practices. In the following, I will briefly sketch the Internet connecting to the Japanese state but mostly trace it at current sites taken from my fieldwork—online and offline. These sites show how the Internet is a maker of potentials, a creator of pathways, but not a guarantor for actual connection.

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Japan’s Internet Access If we look at when Commercial Internet Exchange nodes were established worldwide, JPNAP (Japan Network Access Point in Tokyo and Osaka) appears as quite the late player in 2001. Despite its image of a high technology nation, the Internet adoption rate for Japan did not fare well until recently. What had been major factors for its success in the US environment—decentralised control, user-driven applications, and open standards (cf. Abbate 1999)—proved rather to function as obstacles in the Japanese case. Despite many Japanese computer scientists contributing to the technological development and working closely together with colleagues at CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research), for example, actors within the Japanese government rather favoured their own networking projects and did not see much value in connecting to the rest of the world (Y¯useish¯ o 1991), leaving the Internet unused in many spheres of life (Murai 2003). The Internet just failed to enrol key players for its purpose. The government’s top-down, very controlled approach to networking met with distinct opposition, spearheaded by Murai Jun, a computer scientist from Kei¯o University. He had tried to establish inter-university message systems but failed due to a legislation preventing the use of the telephone network for computer messages and extreme fees for data connections (Murai 1995, 137). After the privatisation of telephone monopolist NTT DoCoMo in 1985, Murai created the first application for inter-networking communication, JUNET, and continued to fight together with other scientists for an international connection. He was also instrumental for enabling double-byte characters, such as kanji and kana instead of only the Latin alphabet (Akiyoshi 2004, 54). Regardless, due to the high costs of leasing telephone/data communication circuits, only few private individuals used the Internet. Very much linked to the later otaku stereotype of reclusiveness, most of these users connected to JUNET or later nifty.serve, a bulletin board software (BBS), during the small hours of the night. The reason for this, one of my informants, Honda Takeo, who was active on JUNET in its early days, told me, can be found in NTT’s telecommunication monopole and the high prices the company demanded for its circuits. At night, telephone fees were much lower and so many users aimed for these lower prices to connect to

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JUNET, USENET and beyond.2 NTT’s price policy was another factor for the slow Internet adoption rate in Japan (Aizu 1998). Only when the US declared the Internet as the major asset for economy, science, and culture in 1993, did the Japanese government enable and promote its wider adoption. If we move from scientific and desktop networking to the mobile Internet, the picture of Japan as a “late-comer” turns upside down. While the rest of the world was limited to 140 character-long SMS and cellphones could only access special mobile websites, if at all, Japanese users had an almost complete Internet experience at their fingertips with the introduction of i-mode and similar services for mobile phones (keitai denwa) in 1999 (Murase 2003). Japanese feature phones gained in agency over the years, including music player capability, GPS navigation, video calling, mobile TV, and e-money. This went far beyond the functions of mobile phones on the European or US markets. Only the Apple iPhone, launched in 2007, and the subsequent smartphone boom and “naturalisation” would change this situation. Feature and smart phones played their part in re-ordering the worlds of humans. In their everydayness these non-humans have become such an integral part of the networks we form, that a distinction between the “virtual” and the “real,” that marked the 1990s discussions on and research endeavours about the Internet (Hine 2008), drifts into the background of augmented realities. Historically and currently, inter-networking is less concerned with connecting terminals and mainframes, it connects networks of humans and non-humans. Social networking was needed to network circuits and networked circuits engendered social networking. This inter-connectedness brings to light how networks of all kinds need to be traced. Thus, this study follows a cyber-ethnographic approach that does not distinguish between the “virtual” and the “real.” The aim behind the moniker cyber-ethnography is to overcome the at times ontologically framed dichotomy between Internet and offline space and the sole focus on web interactions (see Cyber-Ethnography at a Glance in Table 4.1). Regarding the instruments and methods employed online, cyberethnography might appear as just a new name-tag placed on an old toolbox—the mere process of participant observation online does not 2 Lower fees at night were not special to Japan, most USENET servers also established connection to other servers only during the night to batch-transfer their news messages to other nodes in the network (Banks and Card 2008, 71).

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Table 4.1 At a Glance—Cyber-Ethnography 1. Humans are “cyborgs:” As man-machine hybrids they form heterogeneous networks of bodily, semiotic, and technological elements. 2. Ethical implications: Cyber-ethnography needs to take seriously that online persona of people cannot be separated from offline individuals. 3. Kuki o yomu, or café conversations: Cyber-ethnographers need to “read the air” of online conversations. The Internet may be a public space, but some participants enter forums or other exchange platforms seeking private interactions, comparable to conversations in a café. 4. Anonymity: Informant data needs to be anonymised and stored in a secure, possibly encrypted way. 5. Frankness and consent: A researcher needs to disclose their intentions and inform respondents about the purpose and progress of the investigation. To give actually informed consent, respondents should be kept up to date, for example, via Internet technologies, such as e-mail or blogs. 6. Triangulation: Offline conversations are triangulated with online interactions to draw a more holistic, life-world sensitive picture, not to play both sides against each other in search for “authenticity.” 7. Performativity: Research encounters on- and offline are performative and should be analysed as such. They do not point to “hidden truths” out there nor in the minds of respondents.

differ much from offline processes, for example. However, the understanding of “the Internet as such” informing these approaches differs. Hailing back to Donna Haraway (1991) and her idea of the cyborg, cyber-ethnography understands “cyberspace” as a network of human and non-human actants. Phrased differently—but also completely inaccurate because it reasserts the separation between web spaces and a real world by talking of hybridity—cyberspace here refers to contexts that are “hybrid:” Mediated by computer technology3 but also inseparably linked to supposedly “real” sites. Following this perspective, an ethnography of online groups comprises not only the study of groups online, but “the ethnography of online and related off-line situations, the ethnography of humans and non-human actors in these related fields” (Teli et al. 2007). Regarding humans as cyborgs also lets ethical implications for Internetbased research proliferate, implications hidden and suppressed by the rigorous a priori distinction between “virtual” and “real” space. If “virtual” personas were completely separated from the “real,” authentic 3 The term computer also includes smartphones, smart watches, and AR glasses—glasses or head-up displays that augment reality (AR).

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persons “behind” them, then harm done to the persona (e.g. ridicule, exclusion) would in no way affect the human who created and performed that persona online. As the concern about cyberbullying shows (Li 2006; Beran and Li 2007; Fawzi 2009; Welham 2013; Rich 2014), this appears to not be the case. Many challenges of cyber-ethnography are in some respects comparable to difficulties of “classic,” face-to-face ethnography—not the least, because cyber-ethnography also includes face-to-face communication! This brought me also to many offline sites, while online sites I had relied on change or disappear. In the following, the focus shifts to the RPG practice-as-network and its connections with social and technological networks. For this purpose, this study takes a few steps into the world of online gaming but mostly investigates the making of augmented worlds, that is partial connections between online and offline sites, “field sites” such as Internet forums. It traces the many connectors and disconnectors involved in making and unmaking the practice elements of role-playing that link from the game table to other sites, from the local to the global and back again. Connection: Websites and Forums Self-published magazines, especially “apazines,” already played an important role in connecting wargame, science-fiction and fantasy enthusiasts in the US and UK at the beginning of the twentieth century. The Japanese word for fan or amateur publication, in English often eclipsed by the umbrella term fanzine,4 expresses very much what apazines stood for: A magazine circulated among like-minded people, d¯ ojinshi. The ancestor of such magazines in Japan is believed to be Garakuta-bunko (1885–1890). Current manga magazines like to trace d¯ ojinshi back to this Meiji-period journal (Gokigen 2013, 129). Garakuta-bunko, literarily “rubbish heap collection,” was the magazine of the literature circle Ken’y¯ usha (“friends of the inkstone”) formed by Ozaki K¯oy¯o (1867– 1903), Yamada Bimy¯o (1868–1910), Ishibashi Shian (1867–1927), and Maruoka Ky¯uka (1865–1927), famous writers today known for their gesaku style (“playful writings,” Morita 1969, 219; Compernolle 2003, 66). What the stories of Garakuta-bunko or apazines share, are the career 4 “Fanzine” also originates from science fiction fandom and was put in opposition to “prozines.” Both these terms were coined by Russ Chauvenet in 1940, a famous chess player and leading figure in U.S. sci-fi fandom (Warner and Siclari 2004).

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paths of some of their contributors, who turned from amateur writers to (well-known) professionals. In Japan, the first such fanzine that worked as a springboard for science-fiction writers is said to be Shibano Takumi’s (1926–2010) Uch¯ ujin (Cosmic Dust), that began its circulation in 1957 and reached 204 issues when it ceased publication in 2013 (Okawada 2017). Shibano and his group of sci-fi fans, the Kagaku-s¯ osaku-kurabu (literarily, “science literature club”), became also initiators and drivers of the Japan Science Fiction Convention (Nihon SF Taikai) in 1962. Science fiction fandom and magazines (fan-made and professional) in the US also spearheaded the rumour-mill about D&D in the 1970s (Peterson 2012, loc. 12475) and included already discussion sections, where fans or players could exchange ideas or search for people in their area to start a game. Since the 1980s, USENET groups offered the potential of interacting over long distances, made a difference in the networks of humans, ideas, and various non-humans, be it dice or styles of game play. With the introduction of the World Wide Web in the early 1990s, hypertext became a ubiquitous mediator of information. So, it is unsurprising that today various websites revolve around role-playing games, websites by big players, such as the Hasbro owned Wizards of the Coast, producers of D&D, and those set-up by independent designers as well as gamers who want to promote a practice they care about. One to Many: Websites Websites by game companies have grown to elaborate houses of knowledge concerning their products. As of 2020, dnd.wizards.com, for example, welcomes beginners with the page “Where to Start,” which guides prospective players to the necessary products and stores selling gaming material. After many RPG related periodicals ceased publication (including Dragon [1975–2007], the official D&D magazine), websites have become the tool to hand out not only basic introductions or invitations to events but also additional game material, of which the most common are character sheet PDFs and errata. These offerings connect all publisher websites, regardless of game line or language, and also connect many of my interviewees and informants in Japan and Germany: One of the main reasons to access publisher websites they gave is to download character sheets. Okamoto Hiroyuki has a different view, though. The then 37-year old specialist in finance IT quite regularly visits English-language websites, such as those created by publishers but also the forums and blogs of RPG.net, the oldest and

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largest role-playing site in English. Most of my interviewees in Japan stated that they were not using English websites much, if at all, and focused on websites in Japanese because they offered all they needed.5 From my conversations with especially younger players in Germany I also learned that they would not engage with websites much; playing in itself was more important to them. Usually there was one who took on the role of game master and who would be most interested in gaining new information from websites or magazines. Okamoto is one such actor. Soon into our two-hour interview, he commented on the character sheet design I had chosen for my interviews, as he recognised on first sight that they were based on the Storytelling System, one of his favourites. Discussing the differences and commonalities of TRPGs made in Japan and elsewhere, Okamoto explained that he preferred to run foreign games, especially those not yet translated into Japanese. He liked to play games by Japanese publishers too but as a player, not as a game master. If he GMed a game, he wanted something novel. He was quick in supplying me with English terms should I struggle to catch a Japanese TRPG senmony¯ ogo (technical term) and also chose an English word for his vice (“sloth,” see Fig. 4.1, Okamoto’s character sheet) because it was the first thing that came to his mind. During high school, he had lived as an exchange student in Canada and attributed this time in an all-English environment—where he also played role-playing games—with fostering his language proficiency. Growing up in a remote, peripheral area of the Japanese archipelago, around 1988 he first encountered TRPGs in the form of the “red box” (akahako), that is, the D&D basic rules, here in the Japanese translation already (see Fig. 2.2 in Chapter 2, p. 47). However, he could not recall for what reason he actually bought it, why it caught his fancy. This red box also was all the information he and his middle school classmates had at the time, “there were no pamphlets or magazines at all back then.” Today living in Tokyo and due to mobile and inter-networking, Okamoto has not only access to magazines but also to hundreds of websites. He is always on the lookout for new games or supplements and thus spends much time on English-language websites. Because he finds not much difficulty in translating English games, he can introduce products so far not available 5 The “completeness” of the Japanese-language Web combined with providing no information in English has been named “Japanese as a formidable barrier” of communication (Kariya 2014).

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Okamoto Hiroyuki

CHARACTERSHEET Age: Gender: Species:

Concept: Virtue: Vice:

Edu. Level: Profession: Marital Status:

ATTRIBUTES Strength

Perception

Resolve

Dexterity

Wits

Composure

Stamina

Reason

Luck

SKILLS Mental Academics Computer Crafts Folklore Investigation Medicine Politics Science

_____________

OTHER TRAITS Background Class Fame Mentor Resources RPG-Status ______________ ______________ ______________ ______________

Physical Athletics Brawl Drive Firearms Larceny Stealth Survival Weaponry

_____________

Social Animal Ken Empathy Expression Intimidation Persuasion Socialize Streetwise Subterfuge

_____________

Merits

Health Satisfaction Favorites _____________________ _____________________ _____________________ _____________________ _____________________

Language:______ ______________ ______________ ______________

Dislikes _____________________ _____________________ _____________________

Flaws _____________________ _____________________ _____________________

Dreams _____________________ _____________________ _____________________

Affliations ____________________________________________ ____________________________________________ ____________________________________________ Equipment ____________________________________________ ____________________________________________ ____________________________________________ ____________________________________________

Values: = non-existent; = below average; = world top. beyond average;

= average;

Björn-Ole Kamm

Fig. 4.1 Okamoto Character Sheet

= above average;

= way

DIJ Tokyo

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on the Japanese market to other members of his player circle. Rather than a direct flow of information, in this case websites need to enrol “cultural brokers,” such as Okamoto, to reach an audience that is less proficient in English or less inclined to search the Web for information. Many to Many: Forums Company websites of game publishers include introductory information, store locators, detailed product descriptions and download areas for errata and free game materials. As mentioned above, this unidirectional mode of ordering information flows from the publishers to their customers appears as a template common to game studios no matter where they are located. Where they differ greatly, is in interactive content. Bulletin boards and mailing lists soon featured on US websites but have been mostly replaced by dynamic forum software, which became available with server-side scripting languages such as PHP in the late 1990s to early 2000s. Similarly, blogs—by staff members as well as “ordinary” players—also feature under the commonly used label “community,” a button to be found on websites from Wizards, Paizo to Steve Jackson Games from the US, from Pegasus Spiele to Ulisses Spiele from Germany. In contrast, not one of the Japanese game studios and publishers, from Arclight, B¯oken, F.E.A.R. to GroupSNE and Hobby Japan, offer forums on their websites. Websites remain solely one-to-many media in this case. In Japanese, forums appear as a “grass-roots” business, organised by players on various platforms, be it mixi or TRPG.net, and USENET groups before that. When I asked members of GroupSNE and B¯oken, why they did not offer forums, both referred to the costs of moderating and administrating. Gamers already maintain such exchange platforms anyway and have done so since BBS and chat-software became available. From this follows, that for example all staff members of GroupSNE maintain mixi and also Twitter presences, for private but also for work-related interactions. Forums created by independent actors, such as RPG.net or the Japanese-language TRPG.net, function as a hub or platform that bridge lines between publishers or franchises. Mixi was another such space that allowed the creation of groups or “communities” with a rather specific topic, such as a single game line, but also broad themes or areas of interest, such as a general TRPG group. As of 2020, Twitter has superseded mixi in the use by role-players. How are these platforms used? How do they connect and mediate? When I began my field work in 2010, one of the main connecting features of TRPG.net appeared already defunct: The bulletin board was flooded

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with spam going back to early 2009, the last “meaningful” posts dated back to early 2008. In 2012, the owner of TRPG.net, Furuya Shin’ichi, moved his platform to a new software (Wordpress) but as of 2020 has not yet migrated all the information and services previously available so that he keeps a more or less running version of the old TRPG.net online. This underscores the contingency of the Web: What I write here about websites and forums might have already changed. Still, many of my Japanese informants pointed me to TRPG.net as a source for information about various game systems because the site offered introductory pages to many of them and continues to do so in its newest iteration. The older version included also bulletin boards on which players discuss rules and settings. The website offered, and to some degree offers, services in several categories (see Fig. 4.2), from “wanting to play” to “news & materials.” The majority of my first phase of online fieldwork in Japanese took place on the mixi TRPG group (see Interlude—Sites of Investigation in Table 4.2). It was here that I found the first convention to go to and

Fig. 4.2 TRPG.net (Old) Front Page

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Table 4.2 Interlude—Sites of Investigation Participant Observations in Online… I began my participant observations in 2010, then still in “lurking” mode—that is, just observing without communicating myself—on several Internet platforms that appeared relevant for my study. The spaces I observed included the following: • • • • • •

RPG.net (one of the largest and oldest role-playing related forums and review site); White Wolf/OnyxPath forums (forums of the publisher of Vampire); Mixi.jp TRPG group (role-playing related discussion group on Japan’s largest SNS); TRPG.net (a long-standing Japanese exchange forum); LarpeR.ning (Germany’s largest larp forum and blogosphere); and LarpWiki.de (a wiki-site in German with information about larping).

RPG.net was founded by Emma and Sandy Antunes in 1996 as an aggregator for all aspects of role-playing, from table-top gaming to larps in order to overcome the fragmentation they perceived in the RPG world with its dozens of small websites (Attunes 2006). Today RPG.net introduces itself as “the oldest & largest independent roleplaying site on the Internet” with over 110,000 registered users. RPG.net offers not only a forum but also opinion columns/blogs and game reviews that see comments from all over the world (judged from the locations given by the posters). Concerning my questions on border-crossing communication, RPG.net seemed a good fieldwork site. Mixi.jp was Japan’s largest SNS equivalent to Facebook with over 21 million users, created in 2004 by Kenji Kasahara, who had founded Mixi Inc. in 1999. The word mixi is a portmanteau of “to mix” and “I” referring to a user mixing with others. Different to Facebook, mixi.jp does not take intellectual property rights from its users leaving all rights (including copyright and personal-usage rights) for content belonging to the user that created it. With the exception of celebrities, most profiles employ pseudonyms or nicknames instead of real names out of privacy concerns. Mixi houses not only personal profiles but also so-called “communities,” special interest groups including forums and a shared calendar. Related to role-playing games, mixi’s largest TRPG community has 6247 members (as of February 2020; since 2011, the number of members has decreased by over a thousand as people migrate to other platforms). Smaller communities exist, too, but often share the same people amongst their members. All communities include announcement threads concerning events or advertisements for local player groups. One such announcement led me to “Illusion’s Disciples,” whose TRPG events became my first and primary field site offline. TRPG.net was founded in 1998 by systems engineer Furutani Shun’ichi, who has a standing as rule creator and science fiction novelist in the gaming industry. TRPG.net hosts hundreds of link lists, for example links to websites of gaming circles, information pages on several rule systems and settings, as well as announcements, a bulletin board and an IRC server. The site still hosts logs of previous discussions (on the bulletin board as well as from chats) and thus is an important source to gain access to information about discussions among Japanese role-players during the late 1990s and early 2000s. In 2012 the website received a major overhaul but now eschews a forum. The original TRPG.net also offered a limited number of pages in English, the new one is Japanese only.

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Table 4.2 (continued) LarpeR.ning counts as Germany’s largest platform for larpers and has over 14,400 members (as of 2020). LarpeR is hosted on ning.com, a platform for creating custom social networks, founded in 2005. As such, LarpeR offers discussion forums, blogs, and special interest groups to its members. Members my post photos of their events and characters, discuss issues pertaining to larping or share ideas of how to make larp equipment. Most organisers have a presence here, advertising their cons and events. As ning.com is a paid service, the social network receives support from the German Larp Association (DLRV) to realise its platform. Not directly associated with LarpeR but equally large in standing among larpers in Germany is the Larp-Wiki, a Wikipedia-like website that hosts all manner of information for beginners as well as long-time larpers. The Larp-Wiki is operated by a Verein (association) of the same name, founded in 2009 at the German larp conference MittelPunkt , and lead by Tilmann Haak and Boris Bernhard, two active members and experienced organisers within the DLRV. Beyond these major sites, I investigated the forums of Japan’s International Gamers Guild (JIGG, now defunct), the German sites DS4Forum.de, DnD-Gate.de, and the Animexx forum, which belongs to the association of the same name that organises Germany’s largest anime, manga, and game conventions. The Animexx website also offers areas for play by web role-playing—mostly related to existing anime and manga settings but also in original game worlds created by the club members. During its events, such as the Connichi, people may also participate in role-playing game sessions, which usually only include German-language games such as DSA or translations of D&D (Streicher 2008). … and Offline Situations The online spaces, such as forums and discussion groups, led me to offline situations—gaming sessions, conventions, and personal conversations. Even though most of these encounters led me back to online interactions, the following focuses on these offline spaces. Since their convention in June 2010, I participated in several events organised by “Illusion’s Disciples.” The group, or better “circle” as such collectives are called, consists of a core group of about ten members, most of them above the age of thirty—they all have been playing for quite some time and have seen a great number of other TRPG groups dissolve in the past decade. They also publish own game scenarios in the form of d¯ ojinshi and are familiar with a number of industry members, for example, illustrators such as Piyõpu or game designers like Tokita Y¯usuke (Shin’en, “Abyss,” 2008; translator of 4th edition Shadowrun). Due to their acquaintance with producers they were also crucial in establishing contacts to the industry. Besides the conventions of “Illusion’s Disciples,” I participated in several private game sessions, for example at the Daydream TRPG Café in Kanda, and went to the D&D Aichi Con (DAC) in Nagoya, the Japan Game Convention (JGC) in Yokohama, and the latter’s successor, the TRPG Fes in Atami. These conventions combine elements of a trade fair with gaming sessions and other play opportunities. The JGC allowed me to get in contact with members of GroupSNE, the Kobe-based game studio founded by Yasuda Hitoshi and that produces Japan’s long-time number one game line, Sword World.

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Table 4.2 (continued) After this initial contact I also established connections on mixi and later met with the studio’s designers and illustrators for several personal conversations in Osaka. After I had sent out my call for interviewees, I was contacted by Rasenjin (a pen name), a manga artist and illustrator working for B¯ oken Kikakkyoku (Adventure Planning Service), the game studio founded by Kond¯ o K¯oshi who had coined the term “TRPG” in 1987. Through this interview, I also came to know Kond¯ o and his team who I was subsequently able to talk to on several occasions. This encounter also led me back to Germany. Since 2004, Kond¯o presents his games each year at the SPIEL faire in Essen and in 2011 he contacted me if I was interested in accompanying B¯oken to this event to help with interpreting and translating. I agreed and thus found my way to Germany’s largest non-digital game fair, where I conducted participant observations for five years. This event proved invaluable for gaining more insights into how a game studio operates as well as Japan’s earlier role-playing history. For SPIEL 2012, the translator of the English edition of Shinobigami, Matt Sanchez, had come to Germany from the US and through him I was then able to make the acquaintance with Andy Kitkowski, the translator of Tenra Bansh¯ o , who I met a year later in Tokyo. Despite the links and connections of the Internet, it always were such personal contacts that brought me to new field sites and important insights into the border-crossings of the assemblage RPG.

where I analysed much of the online interaction of role-players. The TRPG group, or “community” in mixi-jargon, is a public one which means that anyone can join it without the approval of a moderator. A “community” on mixi offers its members a joint calendar and an exchange forum (see Fig. 4.3). Convention organisers can add their events to the calendar and announce it on the forums, the latter being one of the main kinds of interaction I observed. The second most commonly occurring topic is self-introductions, often accompanied by the wish to get in contact with players in one’s vicinity. I found more detailed discussions in private groups. “Illusion’s Disciples,” Nakahara and Kawai’s play circle as well as the 2012 founded larp group Laym¯un, all created their own “communities” on mixi, where they use the calendar function but also discuss in detail past and future game sessions. For example, after my play session with Kawai and Nakahara, the other players opened a thread in which they told Kawai what he did well as a game master and where they saw issues. In these private groups, I also observed that participants often use “real” names when they address each other, while public groups are usually limited to nicknames; making

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Fig. 4.3 The mixi.jp TRPG Group

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it necessary to introduce oneself with both when one goes to an event “in the real world.” Searches for advice and hints also make up a large part of the interaction happening on the German LarpeR, an SNS specifically targeting larpers. Beginners and long-time players ask for advice on how to sew a specific costume part, how to build equipment or which kind of tent to buy. In this regard, nothing has changed much compared to the “readers” sections of magazines. What has changed is the immediacy of replies. With magazines, readers had to wait weeks if not months until the next issue. On forums, replies fly in within minutes. Since USENET, discussions have thus become more dynamic and there is no space limit as there was in the case of printed magazines. Discussions may go on for dozens, if not hundreds of pages. One such example are the at times heated exchanges concerning the question, if “real world” religions have a place in a fantasy larp or if white players in black body paint portraying dark elves amounts to “black facing.” The way conversations unfold in these online spaces further encourage an understanding of “cyberspace” as closely connected to the “real world,” as participants do not word their replies in a way that would display a disbelief in another person’s existence. What is often questioned, however, is sincerity. A common accusation brought forth in English-, German- and Japanese-language forums is that of trolling, that someone posts an opinion only to enrage others. This is not limited to role-playing related sites but a common feature of online communication anywhere (Bishop 2013; Buckels et al. 2014). In Japanese, such posts are known as tsuri (literally, “angling,” “fishing”), referring to someone who fishes for negative reactions by others, and as arashi, to “raise havoc.” If many of my Japanese informants are to be believed, the era of forums and SNS such as mixi is passé. The new and most popular medium today turns out to be Twitter, a micro-blogging service that allows to post short messages of up to 140 characters and tagged with so-called hash-tags, such as #trpg or #jlarp. The platform offers participants to follow other members and such hash-tags in order to get notified if new posts have arrived. One of my informants, the founder of the larp group Laym¯ un, Hinasaki Mochiki (her current d¯ ojinshi pen name, previously known as Hinasaki Y¯ u), explained to me that 140 characters might appear as a restriction for languages employing the Latin alphabet. Thanks to the evolved character encoding protocols today (cf. Murai’s attempts concerning double-byte characters above), the limit is the same

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for languages such as Chinese or Japanese, “and you can say a lot with 140 kanji” (private e-mail, November 2014, translated by the author). Thus, Twitter has become an increasingly popular medium to announce events or even discuss topics among my Japanese informants. I have not studied Twitter conversations in detail in the course of this study but for the other platforms I observed a common mode of making online friends in Germany and Japan. In many cases, “offline” comes first. People meet at a convention or during a larp and befriend (maimiku) each other then and there so that they can stay in touch. Again, the non-human mediators might differ—telephone numbers or business cards before, mixi nickname or Twitter account today—but the interest in keeping in touch with others, building networks through non-human mediators remains stable. Not everyone I encountered looks gladly at the “digitisation” of life worlds, though. Very few eschew SNS but many of the “old guard,” those who started to play TRPGs in the 1990s, frown upon younger players and publishers’ attempts to make analog games more like digital ones. These informants mused that publishers go this direction because they seek to draw in players who grew up with Final Fantasy or World of Warcraft instead of Sword World and D&D.6 Forums and e-mail find application for PBW, play-by-web, as did letters sent by post before them. On the jikosh¯ okai (self-introduction) threads on mixi, over a hundred group members wrote that they would play CRPGs or online, such as play-by-web (PBW) or play-by-post (PBP). These modes of playing might be a substitute because they could not find any players nearby or their former groups had disbanded when everyone went away to study or find employment: Recently, it has become difficult to meet for a play session, so we have moved to online sessions. (mixi.jp, TRPG group, jikosh¯ okai topic, 2006) In my current [job] situation I cannot play TRPGs, so I think I will move to games on the net. (mixi.jp, TRPG group, jikosh¯ okai topic, 2010)

Online gaming takes also more elaborate forms, always with the aim to replicate the “real” experience of sitting at a table together. 6 For a detailed overview of the development of graphical computer role-playing games and multiuser online gaming, see Dungeons & Dreamers (King and Borland 2003) and Dungeons & Desktops (Barton and Stacks 2019).

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Few to Few: Long-Distance Gaming Daimaru K¯ota, the circle head of “Illusion’s Disciples,” exclaimed once during the recess of one of their conventions: “It’s called table-talk RPG, damn it! There should be a table, right?” (field notes, August 2010). He went on, stating that CRPGs should not be called role-playing games because no one actually role-played but just controlled a game figure. There would be no incentive to role-play as players do not receive any bonuses in-game for acting out a fictitious personality. Further, “virtual table-tops” for pen & paper games might enable players to bridge long distances and participate in game sessions, the immediacy, the camaraderie and fun of sitting at a table together and enjoying a shared adventure would not be recreated, though. The other circle members present agreed to his views on the matter. Judging from introductory threads, however, there are many players who would like to play offline but cannot for whatever reason. “Virtual table-tops” (VTT) aim at this player population. VTTs appeared on the market in the early 2000s. Currently, the market is broadly shared by two proprietary software solutions, Fantasy Grounds (SmiteWorks 2004) and Battlegrounds: RPG (BRPG, Heruca 2006), as well as a number of open source or free services, such as Role Playing Tools (RPTools, Croft et al. 2005) and most recently Roll20 (Dutton et al. 2012).7 All these applications offer similar functions, that is, dice rollers, chat tools, but fore and foremost a graphical map, which game masters can customise by importing graphic files or using those provided by the application itself to create terrain, buildings and place objects. The other players may then log into these maps and all participants may move tokens on this “game board” to represent their characters movements. In most fantasy or combat oriented TRPGs, but also for storytelling, maps and tokens or figurines are employed to make sure that everyone understands where their character is in relation to others. If the participants are sitting at the same table, this is not a difficult feat. If they sit miles apart, in front of computer screens, a map that is updated in real-time becomes useful. However, most makers of VTTs offer their software exclusively to an English-language market, an issue criticised in German reviews, for

7 A comparison chart can be found at http://www.battlegroundsgames.com/compar eVTT.html (accessed 2020/02/20).

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example.8 This may have produced the lack of informants in Japan or Germany who had extensive experience with these particular VTTs. My Interviewee Horiuchi Kenta, a then 36-year old system engineer who is very active in online forums and groups, seeks to bring players from different areas together (by building an SNS for TRPG players, for example) and plays himself in an online only group. He had tried VTTs, including the Japanese dodontof (Takeru 2009), but did not go beyond a few dabs and tests. The main caveat of such applications, he finds, is the sometimes-extreme learning curve necessary to handle all their functions and even more so, the preparation time the GM has to put into creating scenarios to actually take advantage of the tools. However, if time were limited and the reason why one cannot meet friends to play TRPGs, then a tool that draws even more on this time would not alleviate the issue. VTTs work as a tool to bridge distances but not to elevate time constraints. Judging from the “Online TRPG” group on mixi, many players in Japan use tools like voice and video chat software. Still, dodontof saw some popularity due to its Adobe Flash framework and thus cross-platform compatibility (Win, Mac, and Linux). However, with Flash support ending in 2020, dodontof will also be at an end, developer Takeru announced in 2017. Since 2019, Strikeworks with its TRPG Studio is seeking to fill this gap (2019). So far, we looked at the various applications building on the Internet’s infrastructure that facilitate a bridging of borders—not completely, but much more immediate than a magazine could. The Internet, however, does not only create potentials for connection but also assembles technologies that inhibit flow. Disconnection: Identity Technologies and Privacy “Do you have a spare phone? Or know one who has? I am desperately in need of a phone so that I can register with mixi…” Alexis H. Truong, a Canadian sociologist studying cosplay and working at Sophia University in Tokyo at the same time I conducted my fieldwork under the aegis of the German Institute for Japanese Studies (DIJ), came to me with a request in July 2010 that surprised me. From what I had learned about his research 8 Cf. Drachenzwinge, a platform for online role-playing offering various guides and information (http://www.drachenzwinge.de/anleitung.php?topic=wuerfeln&topic2=FG; accessed 2020/02/20).

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at a cultural studies seminar I organised at the DIJ, mixi indeed appeared as a valuable field site—even more so because many of his informants had asked him for his account details. However, why would he need another person’s phone to register, I wondered. I had created my mixi account in 2005 during a year at Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto. A Japanese colleague kindly invited me to join the SNS. There was no possibility to just register, an e-mail invitation by a member functioned as the point of passage to enter mixi. Since March 2007 an identity verification via mobile phone became necessary (Impress 2007). The procedure involves an e-mail sent to an address obtained from one of Japan’s mobile phone carriers (e.g. an address ending with @docomo.ne.jp, @softbank.ne.jp) and following a verification link. Prepaid phones on offer in Japan at the time allowed for a mobile carrier e-mail address but are excluded from this process because none of these models came equipped with a web browser to open the link. Until 2010 invitations remained a necessary point of passage and smartphones such as iPhone were barred from registering new mixi accounts (Android based phones could not be used until 2011). If an e-mail address was already used for registering or the account tied to that address was cancelled by mixi for whatever reason, neither the address nor the phone associated with it can be employed to register a new account. That was why Truong searched for someone with a “spare phone,” a phone that has not yet been used to register for mixi. As he was staying in Japan for only a year, he did not want to sign a mobile phone contract, which come with a minimum duration of two years. It took him over four months to find someone with a “spare phone.” Until that exchange with Truong I could not explain why there were so few non-Japanese posters on the TRPG mixi-group. Only six self-proclaimed foreigners posted in the oft-mentioned jikosh¯ okai topics between 2005 and 2014: Three US Americans, one South Korean, and two Germans (one of which was me). In addition, I could identify the profile of Nicholas Wagon, a video game designer turned English teacher and living in Japan, via a post in which he advertised English-language role-playing. Until I learned of the verification procedures, I could not draw any conclusion from the very limited number of self-proclaimed foreigners. However, if you needed a Japanese contract mobile phone (and thus a student or work visa and a residency permit) to register with mixi, it was no surprise that these measures excluded all those who might be able to communicate in Japanese but did not live in Japan.

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Why would mixi opt for such drastic means of exclusion? As it happens these changes to procedures of registration were user-driven: I asked my interviewees what they thought about mixi’s verification process. Maruyama, for example, replied that he remembers a time on mixi when trolls and spammers flooded the SNS. Many genuine users complained about strange or illicit private messages and flame wars on forums, he said. Indeed, at the end of 2006 complaints about komyujakku (“hijacked communities”), trolling and spamming had become extremely frequent (Matsunaga 2006) and first cases of mixi-zukare (“mixi fatigue”) gained attention: People tiring of mixi, stopping to use its services or terminating their accounts (Okada 2006). The identity verification procedures introduced in 2007 did not stop trolling per se—there still exists an active group of users exploring “measures against trolling” (arashi no taisaku)—but made it easier for mixi’s management to terminate especially offending users and block them from a renewed registration (unless they bought a new contract phone). For foreigners this meant, however, that they could not gain access to mixi even if they had an invitation— some Japanese learning websites, such as tofugu.com, had offered invites to interested users so that they could practice their Japanese on mixi (Koichi 2008). Without a Japanese mobile phone these invitations lost their usefulness. Thus, mixi was made into an area of cyberspace not only bounded by a national language but also tied to a nationally defined soil—questioning the distinction between a virtual and a “real” world; both sides constantly interact with each other and are thus scapes fixed and fluid at the same time. For the exchange between role-players outside and within Japan, mixi could not function as the mediator it was within the Japanese environment. Its verification procedures function as one example for how important it is to break down big concepts or generalising categories such as “Internet technologies.” TCP/IP, Unicode and other protocols may connect mixi’s servers to any place in the world. The databases on these servers listing valid mobile e-mail addresses contrastingly block access to mixi by anyone not living in Japan with an appropriate visa—questioning the prophesied demise of the nation-state in the Internet age (cf. Beck 2000, 2002; for a critical position, see Everard 2000). The exclusion of foreigners from mixi speaks to the controlled isolation of networking before the Japanese nation-state opened up to TCP/IP and a connection to servers outside its territory. However, the motives and ideals behind these orderings of networks and the strategies involved do not. The mode

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of the nation in the latter case was concerned with controlled collaboration within the country, on mixi the concern was over privacy and controlling “bad players.” On mixi, we find further mechanisms of exclusion and privacy that do their part in mediating the connectivity of the Internet. As described above, public groups or “communities” can be joined by anyone. Private groups on the other hand necessitate owner approval or are hidden from searches. Especially the latter means that gaining access presupposes contact with the members of this group. The three private groups I could join—Nakahara and Kawai’s circle, “Illusion’s Disciples,” and Hinasaki’s larp group—I learned of via direct face-to-face contact, or in Hinasaki’s case, the referral by a third party, the larper and translator Nico Stahlberg. Only after I established rapport, was I able to become a “virtual” member of these groups. This shows how cyberspace interactions are not so separate from “real world” interactions in the first place but grounded in and informing them. As of this writing, at least the Japanese larpers have moved their presence from the Japan-only mixi to Facebook, which allows them to connect also with like-minded people beyond Japan’s borders. Language, however, still remains a barrier, so that the next step of tracing connections switches registers from the technologies of the Internet to the language capabilities of cultural brokers.

4.3 “Cultural Brokers” and Translators: Human Mediators In the course of my fieldwork online and offline, I dealt not only with technologies of (inter-) connection, non-human mediators of different kinds, but also encountered a number of human actors who were entangled with the non-humans and stood out in the sense that they made themselves—or were made—into nodes of translation, that is into “cultural brokers.” The term increasingly receives currency in transculturally inclined histories of interconnectedness (cf. Höh et al. 2013). Conceptualisations of “cultural brokerage” may not clean up the messiness of “my actors” but offers a few ideas resonating with my encounters, nonetheless. There exists a range of possibly applicable terms, translator or mediator but also opinion leader, for example, but the economically connoted “brokerage” plays into the mode of enterprise that seeks to make a practice deemed a hobby into a source of income.

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In this sense, the tensions between “ordinary” players and designers, such as those about Japan in Shadowrun (see Chapter 3, p. 176) exemplify one kind of “cultural brokerage,” namely between the “cultural” sphere of pastime and that of business and considerations of profit—a transcultural process must not necessarily involve the bridging of territorially defined “cultures.” Translation of ideas from one language into another and the displacement from one location to another play an important role in these processes, so that these activities are retained in my perspective on “cultural brokerage.” The practice-as-network role-playing games itself is made up of many series of translations. The translation of an elaborate character concept or the “self,” if my interviewees are concerned, into numbers on a character sheet alone and the subsequent re-translation of these numbers into a “plausible” and “realistic” character portrayal are a case in point. If I want to create a charismatic mafia boss, how many points in “Charisma” would be necessary? If two dots represent human average then I should give her three at least, right? But what is charisma anyway? Charisma is a character’s ability to entice and please others through her personality. Charisma comes into question when a character tries to win another character’s sympathies or encourage others to trust her. (Rein·Hagen et al. 1998, 117)

Is that what I had in mind? “…encourage others to trust her?” Looking through the descriptions of character traits, maybe “Manipulation” fits my ideas better: Manipulation measures a character’s ability for self-expression in the interests of getting others to share her outlook or follow her whims. In short, it’s getting others to do what she wants. […] Manipulation is used to trick, bluff, fast-talk and railroad other characters. (ibid.)

This is more what I had in mind. So, my charismatic mafia boss is a manipulator in game terms. How difficult it is to not only translate a character into the attributes and skills the game designers came up with but to translate the “real world” into these abstract traits in the first place becomes apparent when one traces the development of game mechanics. The next edition of the World of Darkness , published six years later, eschews “Charisma” and replaces it with “Presence,” command over the

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attention of others (Achilli and Bridges 2004, 49). In each game system, character abilities find different translations into measured traits, building a network of representations of supposedly identifiable attributes. Presence circumnavigates the issue of physical attractiveness, an attribute often associated with “Charisma” and at times appearing on character sheets as “Appearance.” In the fantastical and “multi-cultural” worlds of many role-playing games, however, this translation of a subjective aspect often produces the collateral reality of a more or less Hollywood dominated standard of beauty—at least if we look at character sketches in rulebooks or on character sheets.9 However, does orc society realise the same standard, the standard of a movie industry that most likely does not exist in their world? Maybe for an orc, long canines and frizzly hair curling around ear points appears more attractive than pouty lips and straight noses. The more abstract idea of “Presence” might do a better trick in translating the effect a character has on others. These abstract traits link to specific game effects, which necessitates another translation. Physical attributes find realisation mostly in dice throws in the case of TRPGs. In a larp, bodily movements of the players translate them. At the game table this means, for example, to add “Strength” to “Athletics” and roll dice to gauge if a character can run away. The difficulty of this throw is determined by the game master and what the rules prescribe for such an occasion. The result, e.g. one success, too needs translation. What does this mean? The GM decides that the character got away but only barely. It becomes harder with “social” or “mental” abilities. However, this is a question of taste. Players who like to act out might eschew a dice roll and stage a social encounter by speaking like they envision their characters would. This might end up in a disparity between the portrayal and what is written on the character sheet—how do you portray “Intelligence 5,” the highest trait a human can have? Such traits bring the players back to dice rolling, for which the game designers already conducted most of the translation work. What if I wanted to lie my way out of a situation? Just roll “Manipulation” plus “Subterfuge” against the “Wits” and “Subterfuge” of the person lied to.

9 WotC with the 5th edition of D&D and before that Paizo with Pathfinder, to name two mainstream games, sought to elevate the “whiteness” and male-centrism of previous games by including rules and artwork that allow for more diversity of genders and skin tones. With also lower access threshold of the rules, these factors have resulted in increased popularity (Alimurung 2019).

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Most commercial games come not only with descriptions of attributes but also with pages upon pages of examples of use. These processes and many more are part and parcel of the translation business within the immediate practice of role-playing at the game table and at the designer’s board or during play tests. In this section I want to trace a particular dot-connecting activity of translation, in which “cultural brokers” and the non-humans they enrol play the main roles. Broadly speaking, “cultural brokerage” can refer to the mediation between environments or spheres, the transfer of knowledge, either deliberately (“manifest”) or involuntarily (“latent;” Höh et al. 2013, 9). What makes a “cultural broker?” What are their requirements, what their challenges? What do they transfer, and what do they exclude? In the following, I will trace two cases of cultural brokerage: First, the translation of a Japanese-language TRPG into English, which was explicitly chosen for its “Japaneseness.” Second, the creation of a new arrangement of the practice assemblage, larp in Japan. From Japan to “the West:” Tenra Bansh¯ o Zero Many visitors to SPIEL in Germany were unfamiliar with non-digital games from Japan. During my fieldwork one key player inhibiting flows from Japan to Europe turned out to be customs offices: For a number of years, Kond¯o and B¯oken as well as other Japanese game designers did not sell products at the convention and brought only limited samples. German customs tend to distinguish products by medium, not by product line, which affects especially games that come in the form of books, such as TRPGs. “Pen & paper RPG” is an unknown category within the tariff number position 9504 (games and game equipment), thus they are classified as “printed books, others” (49019900). One item of a product may count as a sample, however, if all books are classified as belonging to one product line (despite being samples from different games), customs asks for tax payments. Thus, to bring Japanese games to the European market, partnerships with publishers from that region appear as a possible way to circumvent such tariffs.10 After over a decade coming to SPIEL, Kond¯o remains reserved concerning contracts with European partners. During our conversations 10 With the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) between the EU and Japan, many developers also hope for an easier entry into the European market.

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between 2011 and 2018, Kond¯o emphasised how much he cherishes the opportunity to test gaming ideas with an international audience at SPIEL, something rarely happening at game fairs in Japan. However, another aim of visiting the convention is to find a printing partner to sell their games in Europe. Because European publishers are unsure if Japanese games would sell, they often offer Japanese developers contracts with little margin. 5% apparently is the maximum offered, according to Nico Stahlberg, who interprets for GroupSNE, for example, and was key to bringing larp to Japan. He was present in several contract negotiations but none of which ever came to a conclusion satisfying both parties. Often one side would just terminate the discussions, he reported. Kond¯o finally concluded several negotiations in 2018, which will bring one of their games to Germany and German larp books to Japan. The situation may also change with the non-profit organisation Spiele-Autoren-Zunft (“Game Authors Guild,” SAZ) opening its membership to Non-Europeans. SAZ represents game designers and aims at supporting their rights in a similar fashion other copyright agencies do, such as lobbying for better royalty rates. GroupSNE and B¯oken as RPG pioneers entered a partnership in 2015 to promote their games domestically and internationally. In 2019, Kond¯o began to consider negotiations with Spiel-direkt, a “Genossenschaft” (cooperative) helping with distribution and taxes in Europe, which already has Korean boardgame designers as members. A different route, circumventing classic publishers and distributors while mobilising Internet technologies but staying on the legal side of things,11 was taken by the aforementioned Andy Kitkowski who appears as the prime example of very active and deliberate brokers of “cultural” knowledge. He is known as Andy K on RPG.net (where he continuously promoted Japanese TRPGs and talked about his translation projects) and as Diamond Sutra, the creator of j-rpg.com, a mixture of forum and blog geared towards those specifically interested in Japanese TRPGs (Kitkowski 2008). The website covers brief presentations and reviews of games, such as Night Wizard! (Kikuchi 2007), T¯ oky¯ o NOVA (Suzufuki 2003), Double Cross (Yano and F.E.A.R. 2001) and Shinobigami (Kawashima and B¯oken 2009). Kitkowski also discusses practical issues, such as how to buy games when not in Japan, how to study Japanese, or which text recognition 11 Comparable in practice to fan-made “scanlations” of manga (cf. Deppey 2005), there exist also legally grey hubs and websites seeking to translate Japanese TRPGs, such as Sword World.

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software works best with kanji and kana. The website was also one major outlet besides RPG.net where he announced the progress of his first major project, the translation of Tenra Bansh¯ o . Members of j-rpg.com also went to US gaming conventions, such as GenCon, to offer demo sessions of games they translated (such as Maid RPG or Tenra). Born in the US in 1975, Kitkowski majored in sociology and philosophy, and minored in Japanese in college. Between 1995 and 1996, he lived in Japan for the first time as an exchange student at Sophia University where he joined “Science Fantastica,” the university’s science fiction club which also played TRPGs.12 Here he encountered games like Sword World and T¯ oky¯ o NOVA but “didn’t really have the language skills at the time to play them,” he said. After graduating in the US, he went straight back to Japan to work as teacher at schools in Gunma, then as consultant for the government and area businesses like Fuji Heavy Industries (Subaru). When he returned to the US in 2000 with his Japanese wife, he had several low-level temporary jobs as system engineer, working for Duke University Hospital, Time Warner, and Cisco. Since 2013, he is back in Japan working for Nimble Storage. For the English-language release of Bastard!! (Hagiwara 1988), a dystopian fantasy manga, he had been asked by Viz Media (the translation’s publisher) to write some comments on Japanese fantasy role-playing in 2002. He reported in one of our conversations, that this was a decisive moment for him because he felt encouraged to start his own licensed translation of Tenra in 2004. Previously, he had made simple translations of Sword World (Mizuno and GroupSNE 1989) to be used with his circle of friends. Tenra was different in some important ways: First, he had to obtain the license for the translation. E-mail correspondence was apparently not enough, so he ended up calling F.E.A.R. from the US. The studio’s president, Nakajima Jun’ichir¯o, expressed interest in the project but a face-to-face encounter with the president and the original designer, Inoue Jun’ichi, in a Tokyo café six months later was crucial (Kitkowski and Inoue 2014, 34). The studio was very supportive; Kitkowski says: “It was perceived as an honor, because in Japan getting your work published in English is a very high honor worthy of resume boosts, etc. It was a great two-way relationship.” This is a common trope in discussing Japan’s foreign relations, where we also find comments on how Japanese value recognition from 12 The following account is based on personal e-mail exchanges and conversations in 2010, 2012, and 2016.

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abroad (commonly, Europe or the US), or how changes within Japan are linked to attention or pressure from the outside. Prominent examples are the ratification of the equal opportunity act after women’s rights organisations spoke at the UN against discrimination on the Japanese labour market (cf. Parkinson 1989) or the turn to manga and “Cool Japan” after Japanese popular media received worldwide attention (cf. McGray 2002). Initially, Kitkowski picked Tenra for his translation because of its appeal to him as a gamer, its many “cool” characters and its “Hyper Japan as Written by Japanese effect” (Kitkowski and Inoue 2014, 34). Thus, Japaneseness guided Kitkowski’s choice: “I particularly wanted to translate Tenra because it was clearly the most ‘Japanese’ RPG in terms of art, focus, setting, and rules.” What he means here is twofold. It is a “practical” summarising of game mechanics as “Japanese,” which were introduced in the “Age of Winter” (see Chapter 2), as well as artwork and modes of storytelling following conventions that developed in manga writing. F.E.A.R. had been at the forefront, according to him (Kitkowski 2015, 12, 18), when it came to revitalising the TRPG market with fastpaced, dramatic games that could be played in spaces where time was a rare commodity—another instance of the mode of the magic circle. F.E.A.R. games introduced ideas and mechanics for scenes, for example, which cut the play experience into smaller chunks, followed by the encouragement of meta-gaming. This enabled clearly structured narratives instead of an endless series of events without a distinct end, common for many TRPG campaigns before Tenra. Tenra and subsequent titles would focus “on the anime/manga/console gaming generation: With simple rules, a story-focus, etc. They made gaming into an experience that could not be duplicated on a console. And that was a huge change from the past, which was basically nothing more than translating Western RPGs, or creating classic ‘very rules intense’ Japanese games (e.g. Shin Megami Tensei, Tokita 1995).” The artwork of F.E.A.R. games and also those of competitors underscores his point and links Japanese TRPG to the broader sphere of stylistic elements globally referred to as manga and promoted by the Japanese government as Japanese. Many illustrators also produce common storymanga in addition to creating images for TRPG books. US games, such as D&D, long favoured artwork that is closer to neoclassicism and sometimes photo-realism. When talking to “old school” gamers at SPIEL, they suggested to Kond¯o from B¯oken, for example, that he should avoid the manga-style artwork of his games when attempting to enter the German

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TRPG market. Furthermore, Japanese game designers explain the desired dramatic pacing by referencing scenes from well-known anime. This paratextual mixture of rules, setting and artwork is what Kitkowski calls the Japaneseness of Tenra that he found appealing and subsequently highlighted as the core difference of JRPGs. The world of Tenra adds another layer to this mix and this is the second, entangled meaning of “Japanese.” Its game world is a planet populated by daimy¯ o (feudal rulers), samurai (warrior nobles), pseudoBuddhist monks, shint¯ o priests, and geisha-like artisans but also knows sorcery, creatures from Japanese folklore (oni, teng¯ u ) and magic-fuelled technology such as mecha and cyborgs popular from sci-fi anime. Set in a world analogue to the Warring States (sengoku) era of Japan (ca. 1467–1603 C.E.), the game appears like a sword & sorcery jidaigeki (era drama). Jidaigeki represent one specific form of nihonjin-ron, a nostalgia for and reaffirmation of “traditional” Japanese ways and values (Moeran 2010). The advent of jidaigeki coincides with post-war challenges to the nihonjin-ron idea of a homogenous society in the form of migrant labourers and Japanese-speaking foreigners so that the genre appears as “re-processing” history and so “‘structured a feeling’ of Japaneseness at the very juncture of its undermining,” offering lost Confucian-values and ideals embodied by mythic heroes (Standish 2011, 434). There are a few US made RPGs borrowing sengoku or Edo-period images intermingled with fantasy and folklore, such as Legend of the Five Rings (L5R, Wick 1997; Wick and Horbart 2010), a fantasy RPG taking its name form Miyamoto Musashi’s Gorin no sho (Book of Five Rings, mid-17th century) and set in the fictional nation of Rokugan, a feudal pseudo-Japan with elements from other East Asian folklore. What differentiates this game from Tenra is “authenticity,” understood as correct representations of Japanese cultural elements, made by genuine Japanese (Kitkowski, e-mail conversation 2010). Kitkowski’s nose for authenticity—however a nostalgic reconstruction this may refer to—and its appeal to non-Japanese players was proven correct, when he launched a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign in 2012 for the production of the English version. Also established commercial studios, such as Onyx Path Publishing, use Kickstarter to gauge the interest in a given product and to make sure that it will find enough buyers (the backers) before they invest in a game project. Tenra’s pledge goal had been $9000, which was achieved within hours. When the Kickstarter campaign ended in September 2012, 1704

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backers had pledged $129,64013 —more than fourteen times the original pledge goal and not so far off from what Onyx Path, with its established brands, receives. Tenra became the highest-funded TRPG project at the time. The campaign for the English version of Ry¯ utama (Okada 2015) a year later equally exceeded expectations with 2056 backers and $97,960 pledged.14 Other translators similarly rely on crowdfunding platforms, with the French Ry¯ utama project on Ulule, for example, reaching 701% utama was published in 2015, of its pledge goal.15 When the English Ry¯ Tenra had already become a “Gold Bestseller” on DriveThruStuff ,16 a global leader in role-playing PDF and print-on-demand (PoD) sales. Those who did not back the Kickstarter campaign have to purchase the game through DriveThru. Tenra and “Western” Values Kitkowski received very positive reviews but also criticism, which displaced the translation of Tenra from the realms of fantasy into the sphere of “cultures” clashing. Under the title “RPGs and cultural context: a conversation with Andy Kitkowski about Tenra” on the blog Gaming as Woman, the game designer and illustrator Anna “wundergeek” Kreider (Kreider 2013), who also had provided a campaign setting for the English version, discusses the cover art of the 1997 Japanese edition in light of possible reactions to it in the “West.” The central figure on the cover is a semi-bionic female ninja in a “male,” active pose (Fig. 4.4). Kreider asked Kitkowski in an e-mail interview: “[..] by Western standards, the cover art is pretty damn extreme. That’s a LOT of crotch right on the cover. So, could you comment on the cultural differences at work there? Because it seems like that ‘I don’t want to get seen reading this in public’ is a very Western reaction.” Kitkowski first explains cultural differences concerning nudity in the West versus Japan and the rest of Asia, where one might encounter a 13 See https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/diamondsutra/tenra-bansho-zero-an-artand-culture-rich-rpg-from (accessed 2020/02/20). 14 See https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/diamondsutra/ryuutama-natural-fantasyrole-playing-game (accessed 2020/02/20). 15 See https://www.ulule.com/ryuutama/ (accessed 2020/02/20). 16 See http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/111713/Tenra-Bansho-Zero-Heaven-

and-Earth-Edition (accessed 2020/02/20).

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Fig. 4.4 Cover of Tenra Bansh¯ o Zero (Kitkowski and Inoue 2014)

“non-sexual nudity and casualness that can be strange (and frightening!) to foreigners.” Who is meant by “foreigners,” appears obscure if one does not consider the blog’s target audience, which is predominantly Anglo-Saxon and often critical of seemingly overt sexuality. Regardless of supposedly Japanese morals in any general sense, in Tenra’s particular case, the cover and other artwork was, in Kitkowski’s view, due to Inoue Jun’ichi’s otaku-hood: The original designer of the game had a history of producing pornographic dolls and was merely not aware of how others might react to his illustrations, according to Kitkowski. Being married today “returned him in part to a real world with real people [so that] now his art lacks most of the ‘gooeyness’ of the past.” In order

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to rescue Japan from being seen as a strange, nudist, crotch-fetishizing “other,” Kitkowski deflects criticism to the otaku stereotype of a reclusive, asocial media enthusiast. He follows what I called the disclaiming mode to highlight what is good and what is deviant: He deflects negative images onto an “other” only to strengthen the connection between the negative image and the practices and people it is applied to. Still, Inoue himself attributes the shift in focus of his art and work to now being part of a family, without condemning his previous work or denying his otaku-hood (cf. Yajima 2013a, b). The blog post goes on to question why also female manga artists create nude scenes of their adolescent characters or write porn-manga, which Kitkowski again explains with a general casualness towards nudity. In the instance of their translation and border crossing these games become node points for (re-) establishing boundaries: The “West” versus Japan, normal people versus “crotch-fetishizing otaku,” sexually moral women and Asian women without such a moral compass. These boundary creations do not make a halt at rather established and die-hard conceptualisations of “cultures” as static but continue in a dynamic fashion to become themselves loci for other boundaries: A reader of this blog post took objection at how “the West” and “Japan” were represented as monolithic entities as he read the statements, and subsequently drew a line between the discussants and himself (Yin 2014). Voices against “cultural islandism” can also be heard on the RPG.net forums. As a translator in the most common sense of the term, a mediator between languages, Kitkowski’s activities can be categorised as “manifest:” His inter-, cross- or trans-cultural brokerage is an intentional act and his main “function” in this instance (cf. Höh et al. 2013, 23). He has actively enrolled many other actors to build a network that would result in the translation of Tenra. He was not a faithful translator of language, though. “Unfaithful” is not meant in any morally negative sense here, but refers to the work and changes that go hand-in-hand with any translation (cf. Law 2006). In particular, it relates to the many adjustments necessary to sell Tenra to an audience that Kitkowski perceived as different from the “original” Japanese one and that (in part) perceives itself as different from it. So he changed what he transported (“broker as media,” Höh et al. 2013) and added notes and explanations, such as a “nifty culture point” on the “quintessential” TRPG experience in Japan: Playing in a karaoke box (Kitkowski and Inoue 2014, 100, Game Rules). Issuing Director’s Notes with more explanations of cultural concepts and the

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game’s background (Kitkowski 2015),17 he also addressed the fear that he may have diluted the “authenticity,” the unmitigatedness, of the original experience with his amendments (Spike 2015).18 These additions and explanations point to the economic dimension of cultural brokerage: Without the backing of nearly two thousand interested gamers, his project would have failed. It took him almost eight years to enrol enough participants to reach this point. The economics involved go beyond money: Kitkowski was already well known among RPG.net users and with Tenra only gained in fame, enabling him to continue his project of promoting JRPGs and create a space for Japanese game designers to gain recognition.19 The label JRPG alone, however, attests to how “cultural brokerage” does not simply translate between cultures but speaks for them and thus necessarily produces them as a reality. It makes the West—by adding information—and similarly also Japan. The Japaneseness of Tenra is its selling point but has to be made first through assembling an authentic Japan: A traditionally modern world where samurai battle oni and giant robots alike. The dynamic process of mediation here rests on the necessary production of static, nostalgic images, which paradoxically underscores the messiness of such endeavours.20 From Berlin to Iruma: Larping I myself am guilty of producing a particular Japan by asking, “why does Japan not larp” (Kamm 2011)—as if a nation, the abstract entity, could larp. I learned during my interviews that dressing up for role-playing and thus, larping were elements of the network I could not trace here. Many knew the arrangement raibu RPG (literally, “live RPG”). Despite

17 In these Director’s Notes, Kitkowski himself addresses the issue of knowledge diffusion, e.g. concerning Buddhism (ibid., 4). 18 The additions amount to approx. 1.5 pages in total and are mostly limited to sidebars

(Kitkowski 2015). 19 For example, via podcasts on the “Asian Popular Culture” platform Geeky & Genki (2013–2016), https://lnns.co/6rmfTHn0vOd (accessed 2020/02/20). 20 Interestingly and adding to the mess, when asked, the original designer, Inoue, posits that players should not be concerned about playing “authentic” Japanese (Kitkowski 2015, 10–11).

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the “live” descriptor, this form of gaming is more at home in the arrangement of TRPGs than larp. Raibu RPGs exist as treasure-hunt-like sessions at events and conventions, such as the TRPG Fes . If it comes to costuming, cosplaying is a another larp-like practice, which focuses on dressing-up as a character and is currently very much associated with Japan. Kosupure is a made-up loan word combining “costume” and “play” (Winge 2006). Re-appropriated by English speakers, it mostly refers to the masquerading as a character from popular media (in Japanese, cosplay finds use for all kinds of dress-up). Cosplay has its roots at the Japan Science Fiction Convention of the 1970s, where a costume show was established in the spirit of similar practices of US American WorldCon’s “Masquerade” (Takeda 2002, 102). In 1977/1978 people started to base their costumes on anime characters as well and the practice spread to the Comic Market. The game designer Okada Atsuhiro, who has cosplay experience, sees the main difference between role-playing and cosplay in the approach to the characters “played” (personal interview, 2010): A role-player wants to act like another character or at least wants to play the character in a story or game. The cosplayer wants to look like a chosen, usually pre-existing character instead. Hinasaki Y¯u, the founder of the larp group Laym¯ un, sees similar differences and adds that cosplay (in Japan) mainly focuses on taking pictures (e-mail conversation, 2014). Despite the recognition of airsoft in Japan, a team sport similar to paintball called survival game here (sabage), the number of individuals engaging also in role-playing games is extremely limited, similar to cosplay. Large outdoor fantasy larps are also unheard of. Even though Japanese larpers have explored this idea (Hinasaki 2015, 34), they organised only one outdoor event in November 2015. Larping, fore and foremost in its fantasy arrangement as it is popular in Europe, came to Japan only recently. Before 2012 there had been two smaller horror-larps and a crime scene urban larp organised by American video game developer and English-teacher Nicholas Wagon but no events hosted by Japanese role-players (cf. Kamm 2011). In light of these findings, I sought an answer to the question why larping was barely present in Japan and could relate this absence to space: Space in the physical sense and also in regard to what my informants found to be sanctioned behaviour in public. Both forms of “space” were apparently missing from the experiences and expectations of role-players living in Japan. Another

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“cultural broker,” Nico Stahlberg, however, proved my write-up of these findings wrong. At the time of our interview, Stahlberg called himself an “entrepreneurial student” (see Fig. 4.5, character sheet) from Berlin, born in 1988, who studied Asian-African Regional Studies, focus Japan, at Humboldt University (Interview Stahlberg, February 2013; source of all following accounts). From 2011 to 2012 he took part in an exchange programme with T¯okai University, Tokyo, to improve his language skills and also to promote larp as it turned out. When he came to Japan, Stahlberg had only limited experience with organising larps because he had mostly participated as a player, preferring larger events. At T¯ okai he soon joined the university’s TRPG club but made similar experiences as Kitkowski before him: His vocabulary, he said, was not sufficient enough to fully take part in what happened at the game table. He had informed himself about role-playing in Japan before he went to Tokyo and so had also stumbled on the article “Why Japan does not larp,” available via the Knutepunkt 2011 conference website. He wondered if it was true that there was no larping in Japan, and if so, what he could do about it. Stahlberg had come to larp via re-enactment but found the latter too much concerned with a painstaking accuracy of objects, costumes, and representations. Searching for information about larp in Japan on the Web he came across the website-cum-forum of JIGG,21 “Japan’s International Gamers Guild,” a group founded by two American English teachers in 1992 in order to continue their analog gaming hobbies while in Japan and connect with others who shared their interests. On the group’s forum, he found a call for a “larp consultant,” who could guide people into larping, issued by Jay Noyes, the founder of “Castle Tintagel,” a historical arts and fighting school located in Mejiro, where he teaches medieval martial arts. Noyes, a long-standing member of the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA), saw potential in adding larp to his school’s portfolio and so issued the call because he believed to lack the necessary experience himself. When Stahlberg arrived in Japan he soon met with Noyes and spoke with him about what he had in mind concerning larp at “Castle Tintagel:” “There was no foundation on which to build larping,” Stahlberg remembers, “so Tintagel would become this foundation, what 21 Defunct since 2011 and replaced by several profile pages on Facebook and Meetup, e.g. https://www.meetup.com/JIGG-Tokyo/ (accessed 2020/02/20).

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B.-O. KAMM Nico Stahlberg

CHARACTERSHEET Age: Gender: Species:

Concept: Virtue: Vice:

Edu. Level: Profession: Marital Status:

ATTRIBUTES Strength

Perception

Resolve

Dexterity

Wits

Composure

Stamina

Reason

Luck

SKILLS Mental Academics Computer Crafts Folklore Investigation Medicine Politics Science

_____________

OTHER TRAITS

Class Fame Mentor Resources RPG-Status ______________ ______________ ______________ ______________

Physical Athletics Brawl Drive Firearms Larceny Stealth Survival Weaponry

_____________

Social Animal Ken Empathy Expression Intimidation Persuasion Socialize Streetwise Subterfuge

_____________

Health

Background

Satisfaction Favorites _____________________ _____________________ _____________________ _____________________ _____________________

Merits Language:______ ______________ ______________ ______________

Dislikes _____________________ _____________________ _____________________

Flaws _____________________ _____________________ _____________________

Dreams _____________________ _____________________ _____________________

Affliations ____________________________________________ ____________________________________________ ____________________________________________ Equipment ____________________________________________ ____________________________________________ ____________________________________________ ____________________________________________

Values: = non-existent; = below average; = world top. beyond average; Björn-Ole Kamm

Fig. 4.5 Stahlberg Character Sheet

= average;

= above average;

= way

DIJ Tokyo Cluster “Asia & Europe”, Heidelberg University

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would give larping structure.” He had to realise, however, that Noyes saw a different role for Tintagel in the larp-network-to-be. Noyes clearly stated his economic interests and wanted to establish Tintagel as the centre if not monopole for larping in Japan. During one of my own visits to Tintagel in 2012, Noyes explained why he came to emphasise paid services instead of organising Tintagel as a non-profit organisation. He had tried before to interest people in medieval fighting, advertised classes for free but no one came. Only after incorporating Tintagel as a business and school in 2008, and by offering classes in swordsmanship or medieval European customs for a fee was he able to gain people’s attention: Tintagel soon boasted a stable group of students. “I had to learn that ‘for free’ seems to have not the same ring to it here compared to what I was used to in the States. Here, if you don’t have to pay for it, it can’t be worth much either. I am not sure if that’s the case but since we take fees, Tintagel runs smoothly” (Jay Noyes, field notes November 2012). Noyes believed that larp had to be done in a similar fashion. If they included larping into Tintagel’s offering of classes, he worried, however, about the copyright of anything they would do larp-wise. Who would control the rules, the stories? Stahlberg saw one main issue with the “Tintagel monopole” approach: If there were only one organiser, larp would rise and fall with that particular provider. He wanted to spread the practice, so that many people would be able to keep on going if one organiser faulted. “Larp does not have a ‘Yasuda Hitoshi’ yet,” meaning, there was no one who could stabilise the practice-as-network through promotions and publications (cf. replays ). As Noyes wanted to broaden his portfolio, had the resources (an established medieval fighting school, Japanese employees who knew role-playing games) but had not much experience with organising larps, he needed Stahlberg’s expertise. The latter on the other hand needed access to Noye’s resources if he wanted to promote larp in Japan, he believed. In the end, both agreed on a middle way: Stahlberg would assist Tintagel with creating a first platform for larping but only during the time he was in Japan. Afterwards, Noyes had to run events on his own and Stahlberg would also be allowed to encourage others in setting up their own larps.

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The Making of Patoria S¯ oris and Laym¯ un Larp From reading “Why Japan does not larp,” Nico judged that larp needed a different assembling than in Germany, that one had to adapt, adjust, and change at least some of the elements of larping he had become familiar with. He knew also US American larp rule systems but said that in essence he could only draw on his experiences in Germany. Thus, his first step was to get in contact with Japanese role-players and those studying at Noyes’s school. Beginning at the foundation, he wanted to know “what makes a rule system.” The responses he received boiled down to “strict instructions and procedures”—so something like DKWDK (“you, the character, can do what you, the player, can do”), a larp “system” popular in Germany that offers almost no rules, was out of the question. The answers Stahlberg received are more or less congruent to the feedback after the mini urban larp in Akihabara Nicholas Wagon organised in 2010, a programmer and English-teacher who also employs role-playing in his classes and who I had met at board and role-playing game café Daydream: Players preferred clear rules telling them what they can do and how—at least until they had collected enough experience to move on to freer, less rules-structured game play. Setting-wise most of those Stahlberg spoke to were interested in sword & sorcery, what they knew from literature and TRPGs. With Tintagel at the centre of Stahlberg’s network building attempts, he thus opted also for a (low) fantasy, pseudo-medieval setting. Based on these premises and the German larp rules he was most familiar with—DragonSys 2nd edition (Schlump and Hölzel 2004)— together with two Tintagel employees, Sugiura Atsutaka and FrenchCanadian Dennis Frappier, Stahlberg began to develop a rule system for the “Tintagel larps.” DragonSys counts among those systems with a point-based character creation process that aim at “game balance” and controlled character development. Even though DragonSys delivered a strict system for creating characters and using skills, including magic, it was designed for larps that last at least a weekend if not longer. From the feedback Stahlberg received, time constraints appeared much tighter in Japan. During our conversation, he admitted that he was not able to rewrite the rules completely, which especially would later interfere with learning skills or creating potions, for example. While the latter should take hours during a multi-day larp, it interfered with only a few hours of gameplay if a player was absent to make their potion somewhere else. During the first larps Tintagel organised, they would repeatedly change

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the duration of such endeavours in order to adjust for the limited time available. DragonSys in its current, 3rd edition, does not have any character classes but divides skills into three categories—general, magical, combat— and makes players choose one of these categories for their character. Because the potential players Stahlberg had interviewed wanted detailed rules, his system on the other hand offers sixteen different classes, from adventurer, cleric, ranger to wizard (see Stahlberg 2012b, 6–13). All include a detailed prescription which skills they may choose or how much experience points it would cost to raise a particular skill for this class (rogues have it easier to learn “trap disabling,” for example). In 2012, he and Sugiura had finally completed their work to such a degree that they could make it available on Tintagel’s homepage and start workshops for those interested in larping. The rulebook was named Patoria S¯ orisu (Patria Solis, Stahlberg 2012b) and published as a PDF for free. They had received a licence from the original designers but only for noncommercial purposes and only in Japan. When they planned the setting for the Tintagel larps, the Japanese contributors proposed to use Christianity as the world’s main religion. Stahlberg advised against this due to issues of using real-world religions and concerns about occultism. They settled for a fictional pantheon of deities with pseudo-Latin names. Stahlberg, Sugiura and Noyes began to advertise larp and invited people to workshops, employing the “usual” channels, such as Tintagel’s website, flyers in game stores, and mixi. During these workshops, Stahlberg and colleagues explained and showed the basics of their rules for and ideas behind larp. Their first workshops enrolled about twenty participants, of which most were women—something they had not expected. “Some of the guys had only come because their girlfriends wanted to,” said Stahlberg. Even though most of those who came to these workshops knew TRPGs, larp interested a different clientele, they found. They saw some reluctance to join because apparently many attributed roleplaying and so larp with otaku-ish stereotypes of strangeness. However, many seemed surprised that mostly “normal” people and women were present. Half of the workshop participants had only come to receive some information about larp as only ten registered for the first event. Stahlberg describes this first larp as akin to a murder mystery cum tavernstyle event, in which the players had to find out who had used magical poison against the Baron of Castle Ebendar, a central location in their larp world Karminya (see Stahlberg 2012a)—taking the same space as “Castle

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Tintagel,” that is, one large training hall for swordsmanship. The players conducted a magical ritual to find answers to the riddle of the attack against the Baron, “… which was cool for beginners. They had this idea mainly because it was explained in the rules,” muses Stahlberg. On the other hand, if something was not stated in the rules in Patoria S¯ orisu, players would not do it but had to be encouraged once or twice to try. Including one brief outdoor session, Tintagel organised six Karminya larps until early 2013, the first GMed by Stahlberg, the later ones supervised by team members of the school. They continued to offer (paid) workshops which drew a steady flow of interested players and in which those who had participated in larps already would act as “role models:” Dressed up in character they would act out what the game masters explained. However, since late 2013 Tintagel stopped offering larps in its Karminya campaign. When I talked to one of the GMs during one of their workshops in early 2013, they admitted feeling overwhelmed with the task of GMing—they had barely learned how to organise larps from Stahlberg. In 2018, Noyes further explained that they had to concentrate on their core business—the medieval fighting school—also for financial reasons and thus stopped their larp activities. Offering Patoria S¯ orisu for free and teaching larp through the workshops circumvent Tintagel as the only centre of calculation. One very active participant, Hinasaki Y¯u (a pen-name) took what she learned and founded a larp circle in Iruma City, Saitama prefecture, named “SW1.0 F¯aranndo LARP Circle Laym¯un,” which uses the classic Sword World RPG (SW1) for its setting. As of this writing, the group still flourishes and organises a monthly game line at the Iruma Community Centre. On their homepage, they host a trailer for their activities, which consist of oneroom mystery adventures and involve “European-style” boffer weapon fighting.22 Outdoor fantasy larps employ locations where something happens when players stumble upon that area. In a Laym¯un larp, the game masters directly guide the players through the scenes or to locations. The organisers borrow here from the narrative meta-gaming introduced or at least propagated by F.E.A.R. when it comes to TRPGs, because they also have to be mindful of time constraints. A GM describes the scene’s setup, so that players follow these instructions in their improvised play. An

22 Laym¯ un Homepage: http://laymun.minim.ne.jp/index.html (accessed 2020/02/20).

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adjustable wall allows Laym¯un to flexibly divide the one room they are using, so that players can move between locations (see Fig. 4.6). For example, players gain information in Scene 1 and can decide where they go next. Meanwhile, the organisers set-up the other half of the room for this next scene. The larp narrative is structured into several pre-plotted scene locations, such as scenes in the forest, at a tavern, or in the villain’s castle. Player action and interaction, for example, when they find a particular clue or how they continue afterwards, decides the order of scenes. Depending on player choices, the organisers need adjust details. Still, due to extended play-testing, Laym¯un usually has scenes prepared for most player decisions. Most importantly, the scenarios do not railroad players to a particular conclusion: Their characters may die in battle or may not prevent the arch-villain from conquering the world because they did not find the necessary magical artefact. Of course, they may also succeed—or join forces with the evil overlord to rule at her side. Since 2016, the group started to host horror larps based on their own larp system (Hoshikuzu and CLOSS 2015) besides the monthly fantasy campaign. As of this writing, they have also developed their own fantasy rules and a Japanese folklore supplement (Hoshikuzu and CLOSS 2017, 2018). They chose modern horror for their first own rule system due its lower threshold for newcomers (less equipment necessary than for

Fig. 4.6 Laym¯un Larp Room Set-Up

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fantasy) and a current popularity of the genre in gaming (Hinasaki 2019; Kamm 2019b). The size of the group had reached about thirty in 2015 but did not seem to grow further. Hinasaki complained in an e-mail exchange that they advertised their events on mixi in respective groups but received no reply from the TRPG players. Hinasaki also helped translate the “Larp Census 2014” questionnaire of Aaron Vanek and Ryan Paddy into Japanese.23 The number of respondents who chose “Japan” as their country of residence more or less equalled the number of Laym¯un circle members. Three years earlier, this number would have been close to zero. Stahlberg is known to most of the Laym¯ un larpers and was thus one of the major actors translating and rearranging larp for players living in Japan. In 2017, some members of the group founded a national association for the promotion of larp in Japan, named CLOSS (Create LARP Organization Synergy Support), and began to hold workshops all over the country. Soon, several new groups came into existence, from Chiba near Tokyo to Kagawa on Shikoku island (CLOSS 2018).24 CLOSS took over from Stahlberg and their guidebooks count among the most noteworthy “non-human” actors in the field. These books point the reader to steps for organising larps, managing a larp group (Hinasaki 2015), and in various forms describe how and where to obtain the right “stuff” for this trade (Hinasaki 2013). Among these sources for equipment, 100-yen shops take a prominent place because they offer many products, such as flasks or jewellery, which can be used without alterations for larps (see Kamm 2015, 2019a). Via the close connection to the world of Sword World, which evolved out of D&D game sessions, and the use of a rule system that also comes from the fantasy genre (Patoria S¯ orisu, DragonSys ), most larpers

23 See http://www.larpcensus.org (accessed 2020/02/20). 24 Not part of this investigation but important to note, is the formation of an English-

language larp group in Aichi in 2015. Founded by the Canadian Steven Smith and using the background and rules of Underworld (Mercer and Garrotte 2017), a medieval horrorfantasy setting. A group of five to 15 players (Underworld LARP Japan-Guildhouse: Havenhollow) meets each month to play for a weekend on land Smith bought for this purpose. Smith is also the Japan representative of Epic Armory, a producer of larp gear. He is in conversation with CLOSS on joint endeavours. As of this writing, there has been only one instance of shared playing between the Japanese-language and the English-language groups. Physical distance and assumed language issues make this difficult, but the first attempt was reported as promising.

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from Europe are likely to gain access to the games in Japan quickly— if they spoke Japanese. Due to their specific history of translation from German, larps in Japan trace numerous connections, which also many larps in Europe follow. In addition to the tendency to prefer appropriations from (once Tolkien-inspired) fantasy, this “translation” (adapting, adjusting) includes not only the linguistic transfer, but also the many practical elements, such as rules, character classes and the like, known already from TRPGs—despite the emphasis of borders to this established sibling practice or others, such as cosplay. Larp in its “Japanese” configuration, however, is also faced with limitations that do not exist in Europe: Space and time. Hinasaki’s circle mostly plays indoors, making use of community centres. Thus, they are bound by the opening hours of these spaces, which limits their play time to a few hours (different to Europe, where people often play continuously over a couple of days). These circumstances have given birth to other connections, such as the focus on narrative already employed by Japanese TRPG designers. Laym¯un larps include detailed pre-written scripts for the plot and are divided into scenes. Thus, this Laym¯un configuration (cf. Fig. 4.7)—which makes more sense than speaking of a “Japanese” arrangement—draws in dramatic play design and the above-mentioned 100-yen shop items into the network. In conversations with Laym¯un members, the “Japaneseness” of their play-style often becomes a matter of concern. There is no doubt that the combination of a guided and structured narrative with an indoor set-up and boffer weapon fighting represents a particular arrangement—especially if we consider the ideal European “other” of large-scale, week-long outdoor fantasy larps. However, if we look beyond this—again, particular—ideal, then chamber larps and freeform arrangements display similar configurations concerning story design and structured scenes guided by a game master or plot guidelines.25

25 Adapted from theatrical chamber plays, a chamber larp takes place in an enclosed area, often just a single room, and lasts only for a few hours (2–6)—very similar to how a Laym¯un larp proceeds. A subcategory named black box larp further involves a room that has no windows and black walls but features a sound and light system. The room thus offers few distractions and allows for lighting and sound effects. Laym¯un larps also incorporate such effects to enhance the drama of the play. Freeform games usually eschew taken-for-granted elements, such as technical rules or game masters. Some follow narrative scripts, however, that guide the players through scenes.

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Fig. 4.7 Network of Larping Actualised by Laym¯ un

Generalisations about role-playing and larping can only have ideal character. Each larp is a specific arrangement of certain elements. Here, individual events are not connected to each other because they correspond to an abstract definition of “larp,” but because they link to these elements. These links may be intangible, such as the citing of fantasy genre elements, material such as a larp sword imported from Denmark or an introductory book on larp, but also occur in the form of human actors such as Nico Stahlberg and Hinasaki Y¯u. The Role of Language In 2019, Hinasaki travelled to Germany to participate in the biggest larp event of the world, ConQuest of Mythodea, with over 8500 participants from over twenty different countries. Her experiences relate in one area, language, to those of another Japanese player: Shimizu, a at the time 26-year old student from Tokyo who took part in a larp when she was an

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exchange student to a German university in 2013/2014. She had known about larps before—her RPG-reki (history or record of role-playing) begins in middle school with PBC (play-by-chat) and moved to TRPGs just before her trip abroad. A friend took her to Café Daydream in Kanda, where she met Okada Atsuhiro. During a conversation on the side of a game session, she told him that she was going to take part in an exchange semester in Germany. Thereupon, Okada soon contacted me if I could help her find someone to play TRPGs with if not facilitate a larp experience. I soon contacted Shimizu and referred her to a youth larp organiser, who had agreed to welcome her at one of their larps. In February 2014, Shimizu and two of her friends took part in a tavern larp for one evening. She later told me that she had read a lot of TRPG rules because she expected something similarly complex from the larp (e-mail conversation, Shimizu August 2014). However, the youth larp employed DKWDDK, that a character can do what its player can do and plausibly portray, in the case of magic. Again, also Shimizu found this rather more difficult than reading up on a complex rules system because she was unsure during the game what she could actually do. She also stated that she preferred TRPGs over larps because in a larp she was limited to her own capabilities while in a TRPG she could play anyone with any capabilities. Despite this difficulty, she described the larp as a memorable experience often thinking during the event, how “real” the fantasy world felt, that it was as if she “really” was transported into a world similar to MiddleEarth, concerning the setting, the other players’ costumes—she herself had brought a dark coat and a plague doctor’s mask she bought for this event—and how they portrayed their characters. What might have been the most difficult part, however, was the language, Shimizu said: She struggled with the German spoken by the other players—sometimes using heavy dialect to portray their characters. She understood the main parts of conversations and interactions but missed the finer points, she feared. Shimizu’s experiences and the demand by larpers-to-be for as detailed rules as possible speak for an understanding of role-playing as a language that needs to be learned. Daimaru and Masuda, to whom I talked after their very first larp experience in Wagon’s CSI: Akihabara (2010), emphasised how important that event was for their understanding of how larps may work, how “ordinary” things could be transformed into “meaningful,” “extraordinary” things for a game. They had both read about larps on various English websites but could not envision how to put that information into practice, how to “translate” it. “Translation” in this

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instance also encompasses its common sense meaning of translating from one nationally defined language to another because both also mentioned how they had remained unsure whether they had understood the English descriptions of rules correctly. Similarly, and as Okamoto’s case shows, availability does not directly translate into use. Most of my interviewees did not feel a need to venture beyond Japanese-language games. Contrastingly, larp theorists discuss how not understanding a language may add to the immersion of the game. For example, when players enacting elves take pains to learn Sindarin, the language for which Tolkien wrote The Lord of the Rings , the experience of not understanding the elves becomes “real” and so fun for other players (Hendricks 2006, 54– 55). However, this works only if the participants speak the same natural language and do not have to deal with a meta-language that is not shared. In the latter cases, such as in Shimizu’s experience, misunderstandings do not add to immersion but may break it because the character does not understand what she should when the player cannot comprehend what is being said. If this continues too long the player may withdraw from participating in the game entirely. Shimizu was lucky because the German players worked hard to help her understand. Because of this welcome, she said she continued to look into gaining more larp experience but stated that she still feels more “at home” with PBC and TRPGs. Regardless, she encourages friends to make such an experience themselves—and maybe travel to Europe, too. Hinasaki and another CLOSS member did just that with the goal to learn how to organise something as big as ConQuest. 2019 was the 16th event of this annual larp con, which translates into a complex, fictional history about the different factions and their conflicts. New players often faced difficulties in entering this world because they lacked the necessary background knowledge to understand what was going on. Several groups thus offer new players in-game contact points, such as libraries, where they can ask questions and learn the ropes. The organiser, Live Adventure, began in 2019 to offer hundreds of so-called mini-plots in addition to the main story. Players could go to designated points and receive small tasks, clues, or riddles through which they would be integrated in the main story, but which also did not necessitate encyclopaedic knowledge about the game world. Despite such offerings, the larpers from Japan struggled with the language barrier. According to the organiser, roughly 20% of participants come from outside Germany. Still, the event is mainly run in German with the most important information available

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also in English. Speaking no German and navigating English as best they could, much of the plot developments alluded Hinasaki and her compatriot. In such a huge event lasting almost a week, they could still make extraordinary experiences, show their fighting prowess during battles,26 or help “heal” the wounded, finding their place in the game. Not understanding, however, did not lead to immersion. For this they would need to come in larger numbers, which would allow for in-group character play combined with interactions with other groups.27 Judging from the enthusiastic reactions to their reports on Twitter, participant numbers may rise quickly. Okada Atsuhiro, the creator of Ry¯ utama, also visited Germany, in his case already in December 2010. He had contacted me if I would interpret for him during some parts of his stay in Germany. He undertook this journey because he wanted to see “real” German castles. Here I played the role of connector because I also brought him together with Emil Mayer, a then 32-year old industrial designer, and his friends, with whom I did much of my participant observations in Germany. They were also great fans of Japanese anime and had played D&D sessions in a self-prepared setting based on Record of Lodoss War. This brought the movements of the role-playing assemblage here full-circle because the anime had been the result of translating D&D sessions into a replay. Due to their interests in Japanese media products, they were excited to meet a Japanese game designer. We met in a small café and I translated between German and Japanese, sometimes also English. During this brief meeting, however, not much translating was necessary because “role-playing experience” itself worked as a mediator between both sides. I usually had to translate only a few words until either Okada or Emil and his friends understood what the other was talking about as they had played games with the same rules system or retold game sessions in which encounters, quests, or riddles mirrored sessions the other had played. For both sides this meeting acted as an eye-opener: Okada had not realised how popular

26 In this regard, they had also to learn that the way battles are fought in their larp events did not register at ConQuest. They are used to only touch the enemy slightly, which is enough if everyone wears only cloth or leather. At ConQuest, they encountered opponents in full-plate armour, which you have to hit with more emphasis for your target to feel the attack. 27 Soon after their trip, they published a guidebook for potential Japanese participants (CLOSS 2020).

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Japanese anime were in Germany and Emil’s group had not been aware of Japanese TRPGs as they too linked Japan more to video games. Information about “JRPGs” on websites and in Internet forums was a rather new phenomenon and still favours English as the mode of dissemination. The Roles of Mediators: Cultural Brokers Revisited The Internet, all its protocols and standards, cables and routers, engineers and developers, all these humans and non-humans make and break its “infrastructure,” but it needs to enrol many more if it wants to go beyond establishing mere contact. The Web and its hyperlinks play a similar role as a mediating actor in principle. Similar to the Internet, the Web gives the agency of connecting to other actors but does not guarantee connections. And this is what I encountered during my fieldwork: Despite the potential of connecting any- with everywhere, many mediators step in and interfere with connections, either blocking or boosting them. Mixi’s identity verification acted as one of the strongest mediators rooting the Web more than anything in the sovereign soil of mobile phone contracts. All the potential of Internet technologies and human actors is for naught. Interactions between non-Japanese and Japanese role-players on mixi thus make dislocation necessary, the physical movement to Japan. The second most prominent group of mediators are nationally defined languages themselves. Even though popular media products increasingly travel across national borders, their translation and knowledge about them rides on the backs of human actors who again employ many different non-humans to guide the flow of information. For decades, magazines, professional and amateur-made, functioned as the vehicle to transport knowledge about role-playing games. The first replays reached an interested audience via computer game magazines in Japan. Magazines with their “letters” or “discussions” columns worked as mediators between SF fans and later role-players to find likeminded people and so facilitated the creation of clubs and circles. Professional magazines first were complemented and later to a major degree replaced by company websites as sources of “static” information, product announcements and general information about game lines and game worlds. Amateur magazines found a faster equivalent in newsgroups and forums. Still, knowledge about JRPGs only spread on RPG.net, for example, because Kitkowski physically travelled to Japan and encountered a TRPG circle there. Even though he intentionally worked at transporting news about JRPGs to the

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English-speaking gamer world, this was not his “day job,” and it took over eight years to translate a Japanese TRPG into English. For this purpose, he had to enrol many others, from the copyright holder to the backers at Kickstarter. Kickstarter here acted as a mediator foregoing contract negotiations that could have crippled the project in similar fashion import tax and royalties play their role in drawing a wall around the European analog gaming market, as Kond¯o and Stahlberg continuously encountered. By bridging the boundary between Japanese and English Kitkowski also reaffirmed this divide, creating two “cultures” in need of more than literary translation. Deriving some form of profit, be it monetary or “social,” from his translation work, his “cultural brokerage” rests on Japan as an “other” in need of mediation and explanation. However, the last but not least mediator takes the form of role-playing itself, or more precisely, experience with role-playing games. The practice can act as a language itself, utilising its core elements to bridge borders of other sign systems. Rolling dice, character sheets, stories told about botched rolls or power gaming and their relations to each other act as translators and make human actors nod in agreement even if they barely understand a word the other speaks. If role-playing games can be deemed a “technology,” than these are the stories told around its campfire (cf. Clarke 1984, 76). To summarise, I could impute the following modes of ordering for the journeys the practice-as-network of role-playing games undertakes: Mode of potential, mode of translation, and mode of brokerage, all of which are produced by and produce mediators, that is, actors that function as important nodes in the network itself. Mode of Potential Magazines, conventions, the Internet, the Web, crowdfunding, virtual table-tops and foreign language education mediate potential. They are the most basic enablers of flow and exchange and at times closer to intermediaries, that is non-actors, just passing things through when they do their job. Conventions, such as SPIEL, similarly bring together many different bits and pieces, humans and non-humans, so does the Internet with all its cables and protocols as well as the Web, linking websites, forums, and ultimately users. Modes of potential create roads and paths for others to walk on. They exemplify the production of non-modern object-subject hybrid: Not only designed as technology but as a set of human and non-human relations.

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The Internet merely produces potential, a possible road role-players could take to meet but not necessarily will do so. Its latent ability to connect can be activated or blocked by other agencies, such as identity protocols, user privacy or translators. Many other modes of mediation, however, rely on the modes of potential engendered by magazines, conventions, or the Web. TSR, Gary Gygax’s company that made the first table-top RPG, Dungeons & Dragons, always struggled with unpaid loans and missed opportunities to receive feedback from their customers (Appelcline 2014, 106f.), so that they had to close shop in 1997. The Internet’s many bits and pieces created the potential to engage with customers directly, continuously and across long distances, so that translators, such as Kitkowski and his European counterparts, can rely on a base of loyal crowdfunders who back their projects. Mode of Translation Humans as well as non-humans can embody modes of translation. I encountered many translators while tracing the network of role-playing games, that is, humans who translate between so-called natural languages, English and Japanese, Japanese and German. Modes of translation mediate between different elements of RPGs, which can be role-players speaking different natural languages. At the forefront stand often nonhumans, such as rules translating between ideas, abstract representations, and manifestations during game play. While modes of potential enable connections, modes of translation enable actions. As a metaphor based in the sphere of language, they also bridge between linguistic spheres by substituting for literal translations. When translating dice throws a player does not need to know how a “7” is pronounced in a natural language, she just needs to know that it means she has hit the troll. When players know how the d20 System works, they do not need to learn anew how to resolve actions when they switch from D&D to Pathfinder or vice versa. Similarly, if they are familiar with the setting of Sword World in its TRPG form, they will be able to recognise its key elements in its larp arrangement (recently published by GroupSNE, Bethe and Cosaic 2018). Replays in written as well as in audio-visual form translate between an idea and its application. They make people act so that they post on a forum and proclaim interest in doing what they have seen or read. Modes of translation, however, often necessitate a bridging of natural languages, an act that rests on previous work by and “cultural brokers.”

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Mode of Brokerage Modes of brokerage can be imputed as a specified form of the mode of enterprise. These modes bridge the previous two, building manifest connections and use them to enable others. They could not do their work, and work it is, without enrolling these other mediators. Modes of brokerage generate “cultural brokers,” but how this plays out differs from case to case, resting on the resources available. Kond¯o and B¯oken continuously bring “Japanese” games to the attention of European and American audiences but have difficulties in overcoming major points of passages and centres of calculation, such as customs duties or rooms in which contract negotiations take place. Stahlberg encountered the same mediating obstacles. Where he succeeded was in overcoming the rooting of larps at a single place in Japan, at “Castle Tintagel.” Because he encouraged “grass root” activities, grass root translations of larp rules into larp actions, this arrangement of the practice-as-network could spread and was again translated, this time into an introductory pamphlet sold at komike by Hinasaki’s circle. Kitkowski and Sanchez appear as the most successful “cultural brokers,” making use of as many materials and connectors as possible, ranging from forums and conventions to crowd funding and podcasts. By crossing boundaries, however, modes of brokerage also rely on and rebuilt borders, such as the “Japaneseness” and the “JRPGs” they seek to translate. The second main characteristic of these modes besides the use of other mediators is that something is at stake when they mediate. All “cultural brokers” I encountered at the least seek to promote something they like and profit from this, even if that only means that they can play more games of a kind they prefer. Their active “reality making” or “world building” by enrolling RPGs as a resource entangles the mode of brokerage with the mode of enterprise. The brokers discussed in this chapter focus thereby on bridging language barriers and distributing information to which they have access. Other actors of enterprise play with other “cultures,” such as the “culture” of a hobby and the “culture” of a business. For them all income and prestige are at stake should they fail in enrolling the necessary mediators and recourses. Lastly, the modes of brokerage engender each other so that the brokers encountered often come in “packs,” that is, actors operating from one specific node within the network or point of departure, for example “JRPGs,” sooner or later cross paths. Sachnez, Kitkowski, Noyes, Kond¯o, Okada, Yasuda, and Okamoto, for example, bridge language scapes,

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Japanese and English or Japanese and German, and are also known to each other through their brokerage. In this regard, they mediate also between themselves, offer help to trace other actors. All three kinds of mediation traced along the paths the arrangements of role-playing games under study take, that is pen & paper and larp, play with uncertainty. Surprising is the encounter of role-players who cannot speak with each other but can still translate their experiences via the help of dice and statistics. Such local moments appeared always connected to something global, if it only was the rolling of dice to determine the outcome of a fictitious action. What is left after these mediators’ play with uncertainty remains to be encountered when we move towards after play: Knowledge.

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Kosoff, Maya. 2014. “The Incredibly Sad Story of How One Couple Let Their Child Die Because They Were Addicted to the Internet.” Business Insider, July. http://www.businessinsider.com/south-koreas-internet-add iction-epidemic-2014-7 (accessed 2020/02/20). Kreider, Anna “wundergeek”. 2013. “RPGs and Cultural Context: A Conversation with Andy Kitkowski about Tenra.” Gaming as Women, January 2. http://www.gamingaswomen.com/posts/2013/01/rpgs-andcultural-context-a-conversation-with-andy-kitkowski-about-tenra/ (accessed 2020/02/20). Latour, Bruno. 1993. We Have Never Been Modern. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. ———. 2005. Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Law, John. 1994. Organizing Modernity. Oxford: Blackwell. ———. 2006. “Traduction/Trahison: Notes on ANT.” Convergencia 42: 47–72. Li, Qing. 2006. “Cyberbullying in Schools A Research of Gender Differences.” School Psychology International 27 (2): 157–170. Mansell, Robin. 2012. Imagining the Internet: Communication, Innovation, and Governance. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Matsunaga, Hideaki. 2006. “Akushitsu na mixi komyujakku jian boppatsuch¯ u [Outbreack of Concerns Over Vicious Community Hijacking on mixi].” Kotonoha, December 30. http://www.kotono8.com/2006/12/28mixicom mujack.html (accessed 2020/02/20). McGray, Douglas. 2002. “Japan’s Gross National Cool.” Foreign Policy 130: 44–55. Moeran, Brian. 2010. Language and Popular Culture in Japan. London: Routledge. Morita, James R. 1969. “Garakuta Bunko.” Monumenta Nipponica 24 (3): 219– 233. Murai, Jun. 1995. Int¯ anetto [Internet]. Tokyo: Iwanami Shinso. ———. 2003. “Int¯anetto no rekishi o furikaeru: Int¯anetto no ayumi: Sono tanj¯ oto ayumi, soshite, nihon ni okeru hatten [Review of the Internet History: Evolution of the Internet: Internet Deployment and the Case in Japan].” Denshi J¯ oh¯ o Ts¯ ushin Gakkaishi 86 (3): 154–163. Murase, Emily Moto. 2003. “Keitai boomu: The Case of NTT DoCoMo and Innovation in the Wireless Internet in Japan.” Doctoral Dissertation, Stanford University, Stanford. Okada, Y¯una. 2006. “‘mixi-zukare’ o shinrigaku kara kangaeru [Considering ‘mixi fatigue’ from a Psychological Perspective].” IT Media News, July 21. Okawada, Akira. 2017. Sekai ni akerareta dankon to, tasogare no genky¯ o 〜 SF - gens¯ o bungaku - g¯emu ronsh¯ u [The Bullet that Opened the World and the

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CHAPTER 5

After Play—Knowledge (and) Practices

Knowledge is not made for understanding; it is made for cutting. (Foucault 1984, 88) If no signal travels faster than light, no knowledge travels without scientists, laboratories, and fragile reference chains. (Latour 2005, 175–176)

5.1

Ordering Knowledge Practices

Is knowledge what comes after play? To trace its nodes and connections, the previous Acts (chapters) dealt with controversies and the modes ordering them. The first presented a conflict that also plays out in subsequent Acts, the opposition of the “real” and the “non-real,” “seriousness” and “play.” By describing the contested attempts of various actors to create and bridge, to order this boundary, these chapters have—sometimes implicitly, sometimes explicitly—also outlined modes and questions of producing knowledge; knowledge of role-playing, knowledge of the “self,” knowledge of doing: What is correct knowledge about roleplaying? How does knowledge travel across borders? Who is to produce such knowledge? When dice move back into their bags, character sheets are stored in protective cover, and the players go home, what remains of the game they engaged in? Knowledge always hovered in the background but now takes centre stage.

© The Author(s) 2020 B.-O. Kamm, Role-Playing Games of Japan, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-50953-8_5

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We encountered knowledge—more precisely, how-to or prescriptive knowledge (Ryle 2002; Stanley 2011; MacFarlane 2013)—immediately with wargaming, which was designed to teach tactics and strategies on the one, and necessitated familiarity with rules and statistics on the other hand. The RPGs that retraced the simulational paths of this configuration, such as D&D, Traveller or Sword World, but also their narration and drama focused cousins, Vampire, T¯ oky¯ o NOVA or Tenra, also enrolled the knowledge of how to play them in the first place. Before larp could take off in Japan, potential players also asked for clear instructions. Those traveling deeper into a particular game, will not only need to learn its rules—the crunch—but engage with its fluff , the histories of game worlds, their politics, the relationships between fantastic species.1 Still, some games can be learned and played after skimming their manual, such as Isamash¯ı chibi no suihanki TRPG (“Brave Little Rice-Cooker TRPG,” Koaradamari 2012) where one plays kitchen and household appliances who become alive when no one is looking. In contrast, games set in “our world,” demand much preparation, especially from the game masters to get their “facts” right. This refers to the propositional knowledge that builds the basis, the accumulated experience and information, through which we know how to do things (Stanley 2011, vii). Newcomers may learn all the above with the help of replays or through direct experience. Studying the assemblage role-playing games and the performative tracing of its network by humans and non-humans also necessitates such knowledge. Knowledge of how RPGs are played featured very much in the disclaiming of game designers when they defended role-playing against the Christian Right: The attackers should not be taken seriously because they lack appropriate knowledge. Similarly, otaku spokespersons emphasised insider knowledge in light of to the question of who is to speak for otaku. They appeal to genuineness or authenticity as the arbiter of correct knowledge. In the former case, however, it was less about a notion of authenticity as the authority to speak for a group of people due to being a genuine member of said group. Pro-RPG-activists stressed the point that a researcher cannot understand what is going on at a game table if they do not understand the rules. This relates deeply to the ways of academic knowledge production and the observation that

1 Species might be a better term than the problematic and controversial “races” (cf. Sturtevant 2017; Hodes 2019).

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most if not all RPG scholars are also practitioners—either already before they began their study or becoming so in the course of their inquiries. Thus, this last chapter looks at a specific kind of actor, the manifest knowledge producer, such as educators and researchers. Their role in the network is also one of brokerage but faces certain demands of their craft, such as “objectivity” or “impartiality.” But what happens when a researcher studies role-playing games? Do they simply record what happens at game tables and in “fantastic” worlds? Those actors who made the Internet studied packet switching protocols only to end up creating a communicative agency of tremendous scale. Do researchers also make the games they study? To a large degree this session after play deals with reflexivity—one of the core principles of material semiotics and transculturality—and is offered in lieu of a conclusion. This study was not undertaken to conclude the controversies in the actors’ stead. The conflicts about role-playing games continue, some controversies ebb down in intensity only to be taken up again by a forum post and a subsequent debate a decade later. This chapter, however, attempts to wrap-up the—contingent—modes of ordering encountered in these controversies and ends this session of the game: The experiment of writing about a practice, a hobby, a business, a collective, without being definite but aware of dynamics and transformations (Foucault 1984, 117). If the production of knowledge itself receives attention, what is knowledge in the first place? Epistemologists rejoice and despair considering this question, and this is not the place to answer it after millennia of philosophical debates—in the “West” and in the “East.”2 Again, I want to 2 In their debate about what may count as knowledge, “Western” epistemologists introduced the “tripartite” (three components) of justified true belief, abbreviated to JTB, a formulation already attributed to Plato (Pollock 1999). All three conditions, justification, truth, and belief, received their share of criticism and counter examples (cf. the so-called Gettier problem; see Floridi 2004 or Turri 2011). Similar to JTB, “Indian” ideas of knowledge are based in the immediate data of experience and seen as a guide for ordering practical life (Prabhav¯ananda 2003), but also allow for intuition in a dynamic relationship to intellect (Radhakrishnan 1982). We find concepts of knowledge that go beyond the mere intellectual also in “Japanese” philosophy (D¯ogen 2002). Engaging with Kant and Wittgenstein (amongst others), Nishida Kitar¯o (1870–1945), acclaimed father of the Kyoto School of philosophy, borrows from Buddhist and Confucian classics to relate the “Western” being with the “Asian” nonbeing in his conceptualizations of knowledge as a creative process (Graupe 2014). Based on his logic of place (basho), Nishida conceptualises knowledge as dynamic and context specific (Nonaka

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stay as low as the statements and propositions of the actors I followed. What do they designate as knowledge? What remains for them after play? A plethora of things: Self-reported experiences ranging from emotions to cognitions, from learning to new forms of awareness. So, how does knowledge appear in their practice of role-playing? The other side, the other window into knowledge focuses on those who set out to define these experiences: Game designers, organisers, and, of course, scholars of RPGs, delivering manifests for correct immersion or studies such as this one. Lists of Knowledge and Truth In-Game Role-playing games are full of knowledge. But how is this knowledge approached, how is it ordered in forms so that players can use it? A look at character sheets shows that characters have possible access to all kinds of knowledge. The World of Darkness set in contemporary human society orders various “Knowledges” in a list, each item associated with a character’s mental Attributes (Perception, Intelligence, and Wits; Achilli et al. 2011, 520; see also the Interlude in Table 3.2 from p. 115): Academics, Computer, Finance, Investigation, Law, Medicine, Occult, Politics, Science, and Technology. Knowledges fall under the category Abilities, “proficiencies [a] character possesses intuitively or has learned” (ibid., 100). To make use of them, a player rolls on a combination of Attribute (inborn aptitudes) and Ability, for example, Intelligence plus Computer to “hack” into a corporate computer network or Perception plus Investigation to find clues at a crime scene (ibid., 264). Some knowledges usually do not involve dice rolling: Linguistics, for example, gives the character the ability to read, write, and converse in one foreign language per dot instead. Anyone can attempt a roll on a Talent they do not have any dots in, even Skills (trained abilities) may be tried but with a higher difficulty in achieving a success. Contrastingly, Knowledges foreclose a roll if the character does not have at least one dot in the respective ability: “If you don’t know Spanish, you can’t try holding a conversation en español on your wits alone” (ibid., 107). In summary, knowledge here refers to an ability

et al. 2001). Symbolic interactionism travels a similar path. Relating Nishida’s experiential philosophy to larp would be a worthwhile project to explore another time.

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that involves the “application of the mind” (ibid.) and that has to be learned. In Pathfinder (Bulmahn 2009), a d20-system derivate of Dungeons & Dragons 3.5 that was developed to answer players’ dissatisfaction with D&D’s 3rd and equally with its 4th edition, the nomenclature differs: Inborn traits are called “Abilities” and proficiencies are labelled “Skills.” The core rules describe 35 skills, ranging from Acrobatics and Diplomacy to Use Magic Device, of which ten fall into the category of “Knowledge” (ibid., 89). The skill’s description, however, stresses that there is actually only one Skill called Knowledge, with ten examples again ordered in the form of a list of specialisations: Fields of study the character is educated in and in which she “can answer both simple and complex questions” (ibid., 99), such as Arcana (ancient mysteries, arcane symbols, dragons), Dungeoneering (aberrations, caverns, oozes), or Nature (animals, fey, monstrous humanoids, plants), or Religion (deities, mythic history, holy symbols, undead). Knowledges in the Storyteller System are akin to “knowledge-how” and find application in their use. The d20-system employs knowledge as “knowledge-of.” For example, if a player wants to find out if their character knows of the strengths and vulnerabilities of a certain kind of monster, say the octopus-headed humanoid creatures called mind flayers (which fall into the category of “aberrations”), they need to choose— right in the beginning—a character class that has access to Knowledge (dungeoneering) because the list of skills a character can train in is determined by class (only bards, fighters, rangers, rogues, and wizards have access to dungeoneering, for example). To make a skill check, the player combines the appropriate ability modifier (for example, +1, +2 or more based on their Intelligence) with their character’s Skill rank in the respective Knowledge field and adds the result of a dice throw. Similar to the Storyteller System, a knowledge skill cannot be used untrained.3 While knowledge in the former is application based and allows rerolls (if the first hacking attempt failed, the character may try again later), knowledge in Pathfinder only refers to things characters have stored in their memory (access to a library might offer a bonus). Such

3 In Pathfinder 2nd Edition, Skills and many other rules received a major overhaul. Knowledge has been split and replaced by other Skills, of which “Lore” stays closest to its predecessor. “Recall Knowledge” is now a possible action even if untrained but less likely to succeed if compared to training or mastery in a field of knowledge (Bonner et al. 2019, 239).

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knowledge checks cannot be retried (Bulmahn 2009, 100). Thus, induction has to be done by the players themselves. Nevertheless, here too knowledge refers to something mental and that is learned. Sword World 2.0 and 2.5 (SW2) do not offer an elaborate list of areas of expertise or study but explain how to check whether a character might know something. Attempting a kenshiki hantei, a knowledge or insight check,4 necessitates the “Sage” class/ability and involves a dice roll on “Sage level” plus Intelligence (chiryoku). The higher the result of the dice throw, the more detailed a character knows the matter (Kitazawa and GroupSNE 2008, 110). In how it handles knowledge, SW2 with its “D&D heritage” is closer to Pathfinder. Many of the more use-oriented Knowledges of the Storyteller System find expression in different skill checks in SW2, for example, Investigation (tansaku). One skill bridges the gap between “knowledge-of” and “knowledge-how:” Pathological Knowledge (by¯ ori chishiki) is used to identify a disease but also to check if one knows (and thus can administer) its treatment (ibid., 112). The check’s description also refers to what the character has learned. Many other game systems give characters access to Knowledge skills, usually with different subdivisions of varying degree of detail, such as Academic, Interests, Professional, and Street Knowledge in Shadowrun (Boyle 2005, 127), or with lists of different fields of study as separate skills, for example, in Call of Cthulhu (Petersen and Willis 2005), T¯ oky¯ o NOVA (Suzufuki 2003), or GURPS (Jackson et al. 2004). Knowledge skills in TRPGs negotiate between what is usually referred to as “player knowledge” and “character knowledge:” The issue that a character may know things the player does not, or vice versa, that a player knows things their character cannot possibly be aware of (the narrativeoriented play style of F.E.A.R. games, however, builds on metagaming, that decisions are based on the players’ perspective; in competitive or immersionist play-styles, participants see such knowledge bleed from player to character critically). If a knowledge skill check succeeds, the character has access to the information looked for. If the roll fails, they do not. Contrastingly, in larps where no dice throws are used, the gap between player and character is not so easily bridged. Games in which 4 Kenshiki has several connotations, ranging from perception to wisdom. Kenshiki aru hito, however, translates as “enlightened” or “knowledgeable” person. Hantei is the Japanese technical term used in TRPGs for ability or skill checks, usually meaning “to judge,” “to make a decision,” “to make a call.”

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the character can do what the player can do, character knowledge usually ends were player knowledge does. This depends on how the organisers handle “telling,” the verbal presentation of information about things the characters perceive but the players do not. Larps with more elaborate rule systems such as DragonSys or its derivate Patoria S¯ orisu list skills like the broader, subdivided “Fachwissen” (expert knowledge) or already specialised areas like Cryptology (ank¯ ogaku) and Legend Lore (densh¯ o chishiki, Stahlberg 2012, 22–23). If a character has chosen such an area of expertise, for example, tracking, she will receive information from a resident game master about tracks left at the site of a crime or battle (Dombrowski 2009a, 17). Any character-slash-player may follow obvious tracks left in snow but tracks that are not actually there can only be “found” through GM information. Players whose characters have expert knowledge, for example, about “court politics,” may also actively request information. The accuracy or detail of information depends on how much skill points were invested into that specific area of knowledge. “Truth” in-game is very much in line with the orthodox correspondence theory of truth in “Western” epistemology that states true propositions would match the facts (but see the issue of circular definitions of terms, such as truth and fact, Hacking 1999, 23). If a player succeeds at the Knowledge (dungeoneering) check, she will find out what her character knows: That mind flayers like to fight from a distance, attack with telepathy and send out minions; that they like to eat brains but immediately flee if they feel threatened or overwhelmed (Gygax et al. 2003, 186). For the sake of the game this information is accurate, it equals “true” knowledge. What is written in sourcebooks, what players declare during a play session, is ontologically true in-game. To make a controversial point, “truth” in this pure form is only achieved in fiction. In-game we may encounter the truest form of knowledge because once a diegetic statement was uttered, the knowledge it conveys will correspond with justified, true belief. Still, even if declarations create reality in-game, this does not necessarily mean that all participants remember this “truth” correctly after the fact. I observed many conversations in which players disagreed on what happened during the previous session, usually limited to minor details, though. Details do matter still, for example, when the GM forgets to mention an NPC’s curly beard the players-slashcharacters have no chance to build the knowledge that the prince they are just talking to is the same person as the “beggar” they encountered at the graveyard in the previous night. If we revisit the dispute about the Japanese Imperial State in Shadowrun from Chapter 3, what ought to be

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the truth for a game needs negotiation and alliance building. Moving on from learning to play and knowledge in-game, the next section explores the translation of play into what comes after—again, knowledge and knowledge practices.

5.2 Knowledge Through Play: Education and Professionalisation An important observation missed by most pathological and essentialist explanations of media use—for example, media or genre preference as “personality induced” (e.g. otaku and fujoshi discourses; cf. Ueno 1989; Nakajima 1995; Mizoguchi 2003; Yamada 2007; Kamm 2013b)—relates also to knowledge-slash-information: If one does not know of a particular media or genre it cannot be used. Interactionism informed media use research circumscribes this first step towards use with the two concepts of “availability” and “awareness” (McLeod and Becker 1981, 73; Schweiger 2007, 91; Kamm 2010, 88). As the example of replays shows, without the awareness, without the knowledge that TRPGs can be practiced, a potential player will not engage with role-playing games. To become aware, a certain amount of information needs to be available. Even after a first encounter with RPGs in whatever arrangement and through whatever means (chance, friends, replays, niconico), knowledge continues to play a major role. Learning by Playing Learning how to play is only the second step on the road of learning experiences players of RPGs travel on. Defining (T)RPGs as a learning tool, however, appears rather at odds with an understanding of the practice as play. Most of my informants did not associate role-playing games with learning and knowledge at first. When I asked Sakamoto, a then 33year old software programmer who describes himself as a giny¯ ushijin GM (“bard GM,” see Fig. 5.1), what he had learned from playing TRPGs he looked at me rather puzzled. Until I asked him, he would have not linked TPRGs to learning of any kind. Thinking for a few moments, he soon offered a plethora of areas in which he had gained knowledge through playing. As a GM, he had learned many details about the Kamakura period (1185–1333), for example, a transition time in which the ruling court

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Sakamoto Satoshi

CHARACTERSHEET Age: Gender: Species:

Concept: Virtue: Vice:

Edu. Level: Profession: Marital Status:

ATTRIBUTES Strength

Perception

Resolve

Dexterity

Wits

Composure

Stamina

Reason

Luck

SKILLS Mental Academics Computer Crafts Folklore Investigation Medicine Politics Science

_____________

OTHER TRAITS Background Class Fame Mentor Resources RPG-Status ______________ ______________ ______________ ______________

Merits

Physical Athletics Brawl Drive Firearms Larceny Stealth Survival Weaponry

_____________

Social Animal Ken Empathy Expression Intimidation Persuasion Socialize Streetwise Subterfuge

_____________

Health Satisfaction Favorites _____________________ _____________________ _____________________ _____________________ _____________________

Language:______ ______________ ______________ ______________

Dislikes _____________________ _____________________ _____________________

Flaws _____________________ _____________________ _____________________

Dreams _____________________ _____________________ _____________________

Affliations ____________________________________________ ____________________________________________ ____________________________________________ Equipment ____________________________________________ ____________________________________________ ____________________________________________ ____________________________________________

Values: = non-existent; = below average; = world top. beyond average; Björn-Ole Kamm

Fig. 5.1 Sakamoto Character Sheet

= average;

= above average;

= way

DIJ Tokyo

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in Heian/Kyoto was superseded by the warrior nobles, the samurai, and the Shogunate. He less focused on such propositional knowledge and more on know-how. Negotiating between various player opinions and expressing his own views was a competence he had earned through game mastering. This also helps him now at his job where he has to communicate with customers and other team members. He believes to have gained more empathy through TRPGs—mirroring the assessment by Maruyama (see Chapter 3). Learning communication skills, mostly phrased by my informants as the ability to take another person’s viewpoint but also English-language proficiency, remained the dominating kind of know-how when I asked what people had learned through role-playing games. The psychologist Kat¯ o K¯ohei explores this very area of expertise with children who have been diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome, which is often associated with difficulties in social communication. Kat¯o found that the very rules-structured magic circle of TRPGs enables these children to communicate not only during game play but also afterwards (Kat¯ o et al. 2012, 2013; Kat¯o and Fujino 2018)—Kat¯o counts among those actors who attempt to (re-)locate (T)RPGs into the field of education. Many of my informants reported historical, “factual” knowledge as a close second to communication skills. For Sakamoto, this meant the Kamakura period, for one of my German informants this meant early twentieth century Europe. Sociologist and gamer, the 49-year old Joachim Weinberger plays in a Cthulhu campaign organised and GMed by a high school history teacher who painstakingly ensures that all historical details he presents during play, for example, dates, distribution of rule, speeches by politicians, match the “facts” given in history text books. By playing for years in this campaign, Joachim muses that he has learned more about the given time period than ever at school (field notes, August 2010). Amagawa Mari, a then 26-year old clerical assistant, did not so much discuss the details of such factual knowledge but enthusiastically referred to the math skills she could improve by playing TRPGs. The more a game’s rules aim at realism, the more mathematical calculations become necessary, for example, calculating the flight path of an arrow, she explained. For her, role-playing retains a status as hobby (mattaku shumi, “solely a hobby”), and not particularly a tool for learning—she calls this a side effect and not what defines the practice for her. Here, she shortcuts the lengthy and continued discussion in media effect research about entertainment in which scholars try to disentangle primary motives

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for media use from its effects (Früh 2003; Schweiger 2007). Within a paradigm that is rather positivist, scholars treat a change in knowledge as the only media effect measurable (cf. Winterhoff-Spurk 1989; Shrum 2002). Here no distinction is made between correct and incorrect knowledge in the first instance. “Knowledge effect” merely refers to change in propositional knowledge a person has access to before and after media use. Of importance for the current discussion and this study is not so much the kind of knowledge my informants and interviewees reported, even less so is the question, whether the knowledge gained is correct or not. Staying on the level of appearances, the issue itself does appear as no matter of much concern for most players I encountered. Few stated that they had learned something without me asking—and that despite all the learning and studying they had done to gain the knowledge for playing the game in the first place. Maruyama and Sakamoto feature as exceptions to the rule. One other example of self-reported knowledge gain is a 14-year old participant of a youth-larp I observed in 2012, who came to me afterwards to tell me how much he had learned about himself through larping. As a magician, he felt competent and assertive, secure in his knowledge of the magical planes of existence and the knowledge that he could rely on his fellow adventurers in the face of danger. Now, he also saw himself in a different light, “realising” that the player and the character were not so different after all, that he could act more assertive also outside the game frame. Besides such self-realisations, organisers of edu-larps face the problem of evaluating the results of their endeavours, which are usually less controlled than the experiments executed by Kat¯o. However, what can be imputed in this self-reporting is how expectations and awareness go hand in hand. Placing larp into a context of learning, ordering role-playing as knowledge practice, appeared to the young larper less far-fetched considering that the youth-larp is advertised as a learning experience. Even though players participate not necessarily to learn something beyond learning how to larp—which is the explicit goal of some organisers—they had nonetheless encountered the idea of larp as a knowledge practice. The Waldritter, Østerskov Efterskole, and Education-Larpers’ International Network (ELIN), to name a few organisations, but also individual teachers, such as Nicholas Wagon, continuously attempt to re-order role-playing games as an educational tool—and receive awards for these endeavours or funding from federal state agencies. For my interviewees, knowledge was a side-effect and something they phrased in a form very

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similar to the rulebooks cited above, as either information or knowhow. For promoters of edu-larp it appears that education comes first, larp comes second if the label alone is considered—the valuation of each side depends on each event or organiser, though. Still, between the two agendas of learning and of having fun, the tension of play as a paratelic activity without an outside purpose and play or entertainment as spheres of experimenting come to the fore. Role-playing games receive their share of scholarly attention and more discursive, that is linguistic attempts of ordering, as a game or as something beyond play. How difficult it is to make RPGs into a tool to knowledge—in the above instance, for example knowledge-how to teamwork or knowledge-of capabilities previously in doubt—becomes most apparent in practice. Actors of a smaller scale and range, such as Nicholas Wagon with his English classes, seem to achieve durable networks of knowledge translation easier than actors that aim at a wider spread. Wagon’s classes enrol people with a clear aim, they want to learn English. The gain in knowledge can be measured: If they understand English subjectively better than they did before, then Wagon’s way of teaching through role-playing games appears effective. Kat¯o’s experiment with autistic children also produced “facts” that can be observed according to the rules of establishing facts in psychology. The children spoke more to others outside the game sessions than they had done before. Kat¯o explains this with an increased knowledge about how rules not only govern game play but also societal interaction (Kat¯o et al. 2013, 15). Scaling of their networks to a degree they directly control, Kat¯o and Wagon appear successful in translating TRPGs from a paratelic activity with knowledge side-effects to a telic activity with fun-effects. The organisers of many youth-larps try to create a much larger network, consisting of many human actors—parents, children and youth, NPCs, urban administrators, truck drivers, nearby campers, and so on—and non-human actors—tents, gaffer tape, boffer weapons, rain, toilets, that is, objects, but also ideas, such as teamwork, self-competence, and of course, what it means to larp. Accordingly, they have a hard time to “test” the knowledge effects they want to achieve because they do not have access to the participants’ life-worlds between the conventions. What they can measure is that the parents appear satisfied because they continue to pay for their children’s participation. Self-paying players, on the other hand, continue to complain when the larp-as-knowledge practice interferes with their larp-as-fun practice.

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Role-players learn what a role-playing game is through playing and through playing they constitute the knowledge that is needed to play. Such learning often starts as a language-game in Wittgenstein’s terms ([1953] 2009), sequences of explanations through invented examples and their subsequent practice in action, e.g. how players are told what the difference of in-game and out-of-game is (“this is in-game”) and immediately are shown what this means, to then experience it themselves.5 Wittgenstein’s idea of language-games encourage a procedural and indefinite understanding of practices, his family resemblances shed light on how things and patterns may be connected. Calling role-playing games an assemblage of practices , that is, networks of knowledge-of, knowledge-how and actions, follows these two ideas. Despite the “Golden Rule”—that role-playing games are what you make of them (Achilli et al. 2011, 245)— players, designers, organisers, and scholars (to whom we will now turn) argue with words and in practice about what defines role-playing games. My infra-lingual “rebranding” thus appears as just another turn in this language-game (Latour 2005; Arjoranta 2011), which designates subject positions, such as the “scholar of role-playing,” whose “enterprise” is to produce knowledge and whose position I took when I looked for informants. Which role do scholars play in the practice-as-network? Do they unearth “knowledge-of” or do they produce the very object of their research? The Fine Insider In light of the teen suicides traced in Chapter 3, the late 1980s saw first attempts to study RPGs. These studies focused on the (social) psychological question of whether RPGs cause violence or not. The first scholar not trained in psychology was Gary Alan Fine. Today a professor for sociology at Northwestern University and former editor of Social Psychology Quarterly he studied the group dynamics in fantasy role-playing and introduced the term “subculture” as a collector for those engaging in the practice. In 1983 he published his seminal work Shared Fantasy: Role-Playing Games as Social Worlds (1983), which remains one of the most cited treatise 5 My fieldwork also often took this path, for example, when Masuda explained the workings of Tenra’s hero points to me before I participated in a session of this game during my first participant observation at a TRPG convention in Japan.

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on role-playing games and inspiration to other researchers (e.g. Schmidt 1996; Mackay 2001; Janus and Janus 2007; Stark 2012). Some of the more recent studies appear on first glance like updated versions of his book, for example, The Functions of Role-Playing Games: How Participants Create Community, Solve Problems and Explore Identity (Bowman 2010). Fine’s work is of interest foremost due to how he introduced modes of scholarly ordering that determined the subsequent path of many other studies: He wrote an ethnography of small groups from an insider perspective, applied general social theories (e.g. framing, roletaking) en vogue at his time, and ended up teaching the practice. Fine is in good standing with “ordinary” players due to his neutral perspective on RPGs in light of the Satanism debates in the US, during which he also offered a critical response to the RPG-occultism-connection (Martin and Fine 1991). His 1983 publication evolved from over a year of ethnographic fieldwork in three groups of role-players, conducted in 1979. Fine had learned of RPGs from a colleague at Minnesota University and wanted to continue to study the “culture” of small groups in the US after finishing his ethnography on baseball teams (Fine 1987). From the very beginning of “RPG studies,” Fine opens the door to the dominant-to-be mode researching role-playing games, that is, from the subject position of “insider/outsider.” He set out as an “ordinary” participant of a public TRPG group, gained the necessary know-how for playing (Fine 1983, 246), and from there continued to also participate in two private groups and went to conventions. After eight months, however, he cut his ties with the group because he found himself teaching TRPGs instead of observing how new members learned to play (Fine 1983, 252). Since Fine’s work, TRPG and larp researchers do not only take on the role of more-or-less participant observer but of “observant participant:” Many played role-playing games before they set out to study elements of the practice-as-network (e.g. Mackay 2001, 168; Williams et al. 2006; Bowman 2010, 2; Tresca 2010; Peterson 2012; Ewalt 2013, to name a few, as well as all contributors to the Knutepunkt Books, see below). The mode of observant participation gears towards an emic perspective— opposed to an etic one that looks at structures outside the actor’s minds. It builds on ideas of authenticity and thus authority (Harris 1976, 331). Doubt remains whether a researcher can ever take a “truly” emic position because there will always exist differences, be it age, gender, or nationality (as in passport possession, not in any ethnic sense), which have to be navigated.

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Fine is one of the few researchers on RPGs who problematises his position, and receives praise from other sociologists that only his insider position enabled him to “make fine distinctions in the strategies and functions of these games that are lost to most outside analysts” (Ellis 1985, 337). For his successors being an insider appears not as an issue but as a requirement: It is a resource. Looking at authors’ biographies in the various publications to the Knutepunkt conference, for example, the answer to the question, who might produce the “better” knowledge about the practice, thus appears settled on “insiders” or “observant participants.” With few exceptions all biographies of (academic) authors list role-playing and larp experiences, including how long the respective author has been involved in the practice (Montola and Stenros 2004, 297–301; 2008, 283–286; Gade et al. 2007, 277–281; Henriksen et al. 2011, 9–12; Pettersson 2012, 176–180; Svela and Meland 2013b, 98– 99; Back 2014, 192–197; Saitta et al. 2014, 309–315).6 Focusing only on the contributors to the Foundation Stone of Nordic Larp (Saitta et al. 2014), which revisits past debates and contributions, it becomes apparent that all authors have years if not decades of experience in TRPGs and larps, as participants but mostly also as organisers and designers. The same style of author CV can be found in the “Companions” to the US American Wyrd Con, which was modelled on Knutepunkt (Eager 2010, 2011; Bowman and Vanek 2012, 2013; Bowman 2014, 2015) and in the publications associated with the German MittelPunkt conference (Dombrowski 2009b, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013; Bienia 2014; Bienia and Schlickmann 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018; Bienia 2019), of which only the 2014 book explicitly strives to be a mostly academic volume. The MittelPunkt places its focus on practical questions of organising or playing larps, for example, talks on event management, organiser liability, and so on. The scholarship of interest has to answer a requirement of translatability: If players negotiate “character,” “player” and “outside the game” identities, how does that knowledge help in producing better larps? I had struggled with my own position in the network I traced since the beginning because to gain access always meant to give something back: In Japan, I offered knowledge about role-playing in Germany in exchange for knowledge of my interviewees’ life and play worlds; only to 6 In 2001, 2005, and 2010 author bios appeared alongside the main text of their articles. These books also include many “non-academic” contributions, dealing with practical questions of game design, larp organisation or plot development.

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realise that the “authentic” answer was engendered through the creation of a contingent performance-space, e.g. of the language-game “RPG as learning tool,” and that my questions would not access unmediated, raw experiential data. Similarly, I cut a deal with larp organisers: I would be allowed to observe and study their activities if I helped with the organisation. This is the emic position of larp studies: One does not report how others shivered in their clothes drenched with rain after a literarily stormy battle with undead, the researcher shivers too and longs for a hot bath. It is important to underscore that the above observation neither seeks to judge, affirm or critique the insider/outsider ratio within the network of role-playing. The take-away point is that knowledge-of role-playing games is very much linked to knowledge-how. The latter forms not only the basis for being able to observe what is happening in the first place, it is also the minimum entry ticket to building rapport. How-to knowledge, however, needs time to accumulate. Fine spent a year with three groups of players. The insider role of most contributors to the RPG discourse who follow implicitly or explicitly in his footsteps, however, have access to years and decades of (personal) data. A common mode of analysing these sheer amounts of personal experience in combination with information gained via “formal” research, that is, explicit questionnaires, interviews or text analysis, relies on established theoretical frameworks from various humanities disciplines. Fine also pioneered such an approach by using Erving Goffman’s frame analysis (Goffman 1974) on his findings, detailing the “cognitive frames” at work during game play and within the groups revolving around TRPGs, their interactions and rivalries, their power relations in which experience counts at and away from the game table. Even though rich in ethnographic detail, Fine tends to jump from his data to the sociological concepts about “everyday life” and others proposed by Goffman. Goffman stays with the analysis of role-playing games until today, especially when it comes to “rituals” and “roletaking,” further examples of his widely used concepts (Bowman 2010 refers to him, for example, especially concerning “release of role-stress” in cross-gender play). Other theories also connect the study of RPGs with a broader academic discourse, ranging from gender studies (Regitzesdatter 2011) to media psychology (Stenros and Montola 2011) and religious studies (Harviainen 2011). Narratology and ludology remain key sources of theory but the general project of studying RPGs has become an interdisciplinary endeavour in which individual contributions adhere to the standards and norms of their

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“mother disciplines.” Very emic data often meets etic attempts of establishing “relevance,” and thus favours second-order judgments by applying “big names,” such as Goffman, on new activities and behaviour. Following the emphasis on “insiderhood” and “translatability,” most contributions to the RPG discourse consider practical questions. The hottest debates emerge from the meeting of practical concerns and academic definitions, including the various attempts of defining what role-playing, RPGs and larp are (Mackay 2001; Fatland and Wingård 2003; Montola 2003; Hitchens and Drachen 2009, etc.), or explications of particular elements or issues, of which immersion into the game world and/or the character continues to draw the most attention (cf. Lukka 2014). Fine’s study was critiqued for its sole focus on one “subculture.” For example, it was noted that a comparison with other youth groups and practices would have contributed more to an understanding of contemporary adolescent life worlds—to some degree thus promoting an understanding of emic as non-universal (Ellis 1985). Contrastingly, those contributors who are not trained in sociology break with the “small group,” or “subculture” frame of reference and compare role-playing games with other practices or fields, for example, ideals of postmodern literature (Schallegger 2012). The ludological focus of many studies continues to stay within boundaries, one of which is a Euro-American frame of reference and comparisons between different approaches to larping sustained by local history. Thus, these assessments usually deal with Europe versus the US, or between various “national” traditions of role-playing (such as “Latvian larp,” “Russian larp,” Dzervite 2009; Semenov 2010). The 2013 Knutepunkt made such views from different traditions its main topic (Svela and Meland 2013a). It is a Russian scholar discussing Russian ways of role-playing, a Brazilian detailing larps in Brazil and so on. From a marketing perspective, larp organiser and theorist Claus Raasted proposed to emphasise such differences. When advertising a larp on an international scale, organisers should underscore how their event differs from others, for example, highlighting the location of a “real castle, something we in Denmark do not have” (Raasted 2014). In this transcultural moment of organising difference, the point, the goal is clear. Still, national stereotypes do circulate—Germans like complicated rules, Russians favour Tolkien, Swedes are perfectionists, and so forth. Beyond any such moves of differentiation, however, the pull of “Nordic larp” constitutes the strongest “force,” practically, artistically, and intellectually.

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Nordic Nodal Points When Knutepunkt was held for the first time in 1997 in Oslo, the organisers decided on English as their language of communication—even though Norwegian, Swedish, and Danish share linguistic ties, Finnish does not (Raaum 2014, 37).7 In the early years of this conference that rotates between the four countries, the focus was more practical, with workshops and discussions about plot- or costume-design. Soon theoretical debates followed, so that the event gained a more scholarly guise. This turned some larpers away and spawned attempts to make Knutepunkt less academic again (ibid.). Today the conference has settled on a mix of academic talks, practical workshops, and actual playing. The decision to hold the conference and publish its proceedings in English—least to forget, to offer these publications as free PDFs online—made the discussions within the circle of “Nordic larpers” available and visible worldwide. What characterises “Nordic larpers” is that many of them “are game designers, organisers, producers, and theorists, not just players. The player isn’t just a passive consumer but an active part of creating games and developing the discourse” (Piironen and Thurøe 2014, 34). Experimenting with new forms of role-playing beyond the mainstream fantasy and vampire forms, the “avant-gardist” projects by this group drew the attention from others in Europe and also in the Americas. Becoming a larp or TRPG scholar involves not only mentioning the conference in individual works, citing from Knutepunkt books, thus gaining familiarity with the debates so far, but seems to necessitate actual physical presence at the conference. Sarah Lynne Bowman and Lizzie Stark, two of the currently most visible US larp theorists (and practitioners), both went through the “obligatory point of passage” of Knutepunkt. Even though Bowman had focussed on pen & paper games in her Ph.D. thesis, since participating in Knutepunkt her focus has shifted onto larp (Bowman and Vanek 2013; Bowman 2014). Also Kat¯o K¯ohei took this route and presented his research at Knutepunkt, just when the conference celebrated its 20th anniversary (Kat¯ o 2017), and again in 2019. By making connections here and stabilising them through Facebook friend requests, he was also able to broaden his personal network and become acquainted with members of a Facebook group focusing on the applied use of fantasy 7 Depending on where the conference is held, it is called Knutepunkt (Norway), Knutpunkt (Sweden), Knudepunkt (Denmark), or Solmukohta (Finland).

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RPGs in therapy and treatment. This also symbolises the increasing migration of Japanese role-players from the country-bound SNS mixi to more accessible platforms, such as Twitter or Facebook. Knutepunkt also affected the research for this study, not only theoretically but especially in the tracing of border crossings. My article “Why Japan does not larp” (Kamm 2011) appeared in the Knutepunkt companion book Think larp! to be read by Nico Stahlberg who then travelled to Japan to prove my account wrong. Unintentionally I had enrolled Stahlberg in a network of many bits and pieces, that span from Helsinki and Berlin to Tokyo and would produce more or less durable patterns of larping in Japan. This is the agency of objects: They make other actors act (Latour 2005, 55). I do not know whether my reviewers ever printed my article before it was published in a hardcover book and a PDF online. But on my side, it stayed from writing until printing solely digital; also Stahlberg knew only the PDF version. So, for him to read this article, hundreds of cables, node switches, gateways, encoding protocols and many other elements of “the Internet” and “the Web” had also been enrolled. All these actants made a difference to the network I had previously described. This is the second point I want to make about knowledge production and my own involvement: Not only through me asking unfamiliar questions about learning or personal experiences with RPGs do I make a difference as a researcher in the network I trace. My articles may also have agency. This is the moment when Ian Hacking’s “interactive kinds” (Hacking 1999, 112–113) become useful, not only in the discussion of stereotypes but also of less asymmetric classifications. Whenever a researcher—or journalist—writes about a particular “kind of people,” such as larpers or role-players, members of the groups so specified will interact with the description and may change their behaviour or outlook to escape or alter the specification ascribed. So, the classification does not longer match what it designates and has to be amended. Similarly, scholarly knowledge about a practice is equally “interactive,” and changes once it clashes with the knowledge and actual practicing by other actors; it is part of the language-game. In this regard, also Knutepunkt stands out. When other scholars are still working hard on a “one-size-fits-all” definition of role-playing games (e.g. Hitchens and Drachen 2009), or the Japanese larp association CLOSS seeks to establish a safety charter that also defines larp

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(CLOSS 2017),8 the first Knutepunkt book (Alfsvåg and Hansen 2001) already begins with a declaration to be open and show diversity. Such statements were a reaction to assertive and aggressive manifestos of larping, dominating the discourse in the late 1990s, in which proponents declared the only true ways of larping (cf. Fatland and Wingård 2003). Like the “Threefold Way,” later forms of categorising play-styles took a more moderate and analytical than normative stance. Not defining larp or role-playing games in a normative or “universalistic” way, plays with and into the “insider” requirement for RPG studies while speaking to Wittgenstein’s language-games and family resemblances at the same time. The recent Knutepunkt way of dealing with a definition of larp or roleplaying favours writings that show what larp can be and not what larp is or ought to be (cf. Stenros et al. 2016). There are affinities between accounts but as larps and RPGs exist in the doing, each doing changes the accounts. This relates to my third point about knowledge production and my involvement: Like everyone else I too began from a position not fully outsider and not fully insider. I had played table-top and live-action roleplays during high school, so I already had a rudimentary understanding of many elements that make the practice. I knew the basic vocabulary, but current affairs eluded me. Still I believe this helped me with gaining access to my informants in the first place. Further, the awareness for building rapport through such knowledge helped in opening doors—as I have elaborated elsewhere, rushing into a field, snatching some data, and writing second-order judgments has neither produced “reliable” knowledge nor has it contributed to an easier approach to people for researchers who come after (Kamm 2013a). Because I gained access to many different sites that I perceived as partially connected but not congruent or identical, an “uncertain” definition and a multitude of voices as those present in the Knutepunkt Books appealed to me. In other words, if I unmake the single-point actor called researcher and trace the network of his or her heterogeneous elements I will find many implicit agencies, from past experiences to books on Qualitative Inquiry (Denzin and Lincoln 2008). Throughout the previous Acts I have sought to unpack these “black boxes” as well. 8 This shall not be misunderstood as critique because the concern over physical and emotional safety expressed in this charter displays an awareness for these matters when larp is still judged to be in its infancy in Japan, while elsewhere these matters have not yet been touched despite decades of playing.

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While the definition-less world of Knutepunkt infiltrates also conferences elsewhere, it clashes with the practical concerns of many organisers. The search for a definition that helps with gaining charitable NPO status in Germany or the important concern over safety in Japan are cases in point. Such definitions might appear normative. From the contingent, particular actors’ perspective, however, it must only answer the practical question: Does it deliver the desired tax-free status or does it not? “Don’t ask for the meaning, ask what’s the point” (Hacking 1999, 5). The point is less an accurate description of the elements of larping but to gain access to funding. The point of the magic circle is less an accurate ontology but to create a space for game design. This is why I emphasise practices as matters of concern and as assemblages of networks of diverse elements. Different elements come to the fore or bear no meaning at all when I participate in a role-playing game as a player compared to game mastering or organising a larp. Contracts and liability do not play a role for the former, for the latter they might even appear more important than plot. That is why I have emphasised that it should be the actors who conclude: Their doing defines their practice, not a “one-size-fits-all” definition. This doing, however, can be imputed as contingent patterns, as interacting modes of ordering.

5.3

The Modes of Ordering RPGs

Instead of defining the practice-as-network, I aimed to impute modes ordering the various, partially connected and heterogeneous elements of this assemblage, from intellectual and practical concerns about boundaries, the agency of stereotypes and deviance, to border crossing flows. None of these modes can be reduced to mere perspectives because the verbal tellings go hand in hand with practices, with “making realities.” From the mode of the spectacle to the mode of potential, I could impute a number of patterns that connect contingent local moments with stories and their embodiments elsewhere. I mapped four controversies throughout this study and similarly want to highlight, at the end of my tracings, four modes of ordering that I could impute as particularly connecting: Four ways of talking about and enacting the assemblage: the mode of enterprise, the mode of disclaiming, the mode of authenticity, and the mode of the magic circle.

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The Mode of Enterprise The mode of enterprise expresses itself in the statement, “I do not want to work as an employee in a boring job. I want to make a living with something I enjoy,” uttered and sought to be realised by various actors, ranging from Gary Gygax, the inventor of D&D, Yasuda Hitoshi, the president of the first TRPG club and later game studio in Japan, Kond¯ o K¯oshi, the father of the term “TRPG” and world-travelling game CEO, Okada Atsuhiro, who established Japan’s first TRPG and board game café, and Andy Kitkowski, the broker behind the first major English translation of a TRPG designed in Japan, to Nico Stahlberg, who brought larp to Tokyo, or Hinasaki Y¯u, who hopes to establish larp as a business. This mode seeks to bridge the divide of seriousness and play, telic and paratelic. The mode of enterprise problematises the agency of work and simultaneously generates purpose: Instead of merely play, an entrepreneurially ordered practice gains an aim beyond play, such as monetary or social capital, knowledge or education. Enterprise does not only generate the agents who seek to earn a living from something they like to do anyway—game designers, organisers, educators and scholars of RPGs—but also produces the opposite actants, those who do not design, organise, or research. This dualism may become an obstacle, e.g. when players critique organisers or game designers for caring only about their preferred style or sanitising an aggressive sciencefictional Japan. In this sense, enterprise is highly productive, it creates many obstacles in its path by adding a plethora of resources to those already assembled for play: It adds contracts, liabilities, profit, and many more. By enrolling these resources enterprise subtracts the para from the telic and may become what it tried to delete: Boring suits and business calls. In this sense, it is most productive when it hides the add-ons it generates: As long as the materials, tools and resources necessary to facilitate play, for example, in a larp, stay invisible, there is no conflict between the two sides of enterprise, the entrepreneurs of play and the customers of play. Thus, the mode produces entrepreneurs as master translators and mediators between the very different legs of the network, e.g. customs duty and player enthusiasm, NPO laws and public recognition, crowdfunding and PDFs, English and Japanese. Internet technologies link into this network as sources of potential, so that the entrepreneurs can reach

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further than with magazines and trade fairs alone, and so that they can engage more directly with each other and their potential customers. Entrepreneurs step up as spokespersons for the network they attempt to order, especially those who work through knowledge endeavours, be it educators or researchers. There is a strong connection between the academy and role-playing enterprise: Many entrepreneurs, be it designers or scholars, found their footing at a university and all arrangements of the network have produced clubs at institutes of learning or were informed by them. The entrepreneurs thus follow modes of knowledge production that enrol books and blogs and wikis to show others what role-playing should be like and practice this in their games, e.g. by structuring it like a movie (F.E.A.R.) and saying that a good role-player emphasises drama. Many of these entrepreneurial actors start from a niche position (economic and in size), managing a space they or others have created through another prominent mode, disclaiming. The Mode of Disclaiming The mode of disclaiming expresses itself in the statement, “I am not like the stereotype commonly in use for my practice,” followed by the ¯ promise, “I will now give you correct information.” Otsuka Eiji, Okada Toshio, Lizzie Stark, Ethan Gilsdorf, Michael Stackpole as well as my interviewees, Nakahara Ichir¯o and Shintani Kunio, to name only two, disclaim previous accounts to show how things truly are. The mode of disclaiming relates to enterprise but also generates agents who do not seek to establish their interest as a business, producing a subject position that bridges the divide created by enterprise. Its most powerful effect is a recursive patterning of representations because it always has to name what it wants to disclaim. Saying that role-playing has nothing to do with Satanism or that otaku are not socially incompetent, necessarily repeats the image it seeks to ban. The resources employed to disclaim and ban come from the same pool as those informing its obstacles, e.g. cause and effect. Its main techniques come from strategies of knowledge production, the natural sciences, psychology, economy and also sociology. Thus, for example, concerned Christians as well as concerned gamers relied on the same sources, materials and technologies—psychological studies, laboratory arrangements, printed matter—to distribute representations. The mode of disclaiming works in tension with

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normalcy, critiquing its universality but also invoking it, when it says “We are normal, too.” I asked in the beginning who uses labels such as otaku and who fears being labelled so. The answer turned out to be multiple: Especially, interviewees who were young adults in the early 1990s reject the label in its negativity but claim it for themselves as a conscious choice for doing what they like (again connecting this mode to the first one). Those who experienced exclusion for whatever reason, e.g. a prolonged illness, reject the label the most, while others are just cautious—again claiming it when in a setting where they do not fear consequences, such as ridicule or exclusion. Who dreads the contact with the label the most, however, are those who see themselves as “normal” and “mainstream.” Who worries the least, are those who use it for other means, such as a politician attempting to appeal to a younger demographic or administrators seeking to attract tourists. What was consistent in the various ways interviewees and critics related to terms such as otaku, was that no one simply said, “I am otaku.” Instead, we find “I am otaku but…” This “but,” this mode of disclaiming is productive because disclaiming opens new areas of discourse. Still, the resources for explanations come from old toolboxes, e.g. “society” or the “mass media.” The mode appears to work recursively: It builds on stereotypes to disclaim them but cannot delete them. In this sense—and related to the next mode of ordering—an important tool in disclaiming remains the building of traditions: This can be imputed as a mode of its own, for the particularities of role-playing games, however, I subsume it under the mode of disclaiming. Traditionalising an object, for example, by linking a newer configuration of practice to older, more established ones (manga to ukiyo-e, RPGs to “pacifist” wargaming and education, larp to psychodrama, etc.), appears as a main resource for disclaiming “wrong” representations. A second important resource could be imputed as “complexity,” the move to create a wall around a practice so that is appears hard to understand. The subjectivity generated falls also in the category of expert. These experts do not build their networks through laboratories or experiments but with the help of another pattern, a mode that recursively reconnects to reality, authenticity.

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The Mode of Authenticity The mode of authenticity expresses itself in the statement, “There are facts in the world, and I know how they are.” This mode generates experts and a plethora of knowledges, from the elite otaku and the insider-scholar to the translator who places cultural facts into boxes of boundedness. Authenticity is multi-dimensional and polysemic (Theodossopoulos 2013, 354) but in this case functions as an elevator word much like truth or reality (cf. Hacking 1999). The mode of authenticity less concerns the word or its declaration. As a mode of ordering it patterns the arrangement of heterogeneous materials in practices, such as in role-playing but also in the way knowledge is produced about role-playing. The material and discursive objects it generates live in the detail and range from costumes and latex coated boffer weapons to fictional languages and gestures. Aligned in various configurations these elements have diverse effects. Authenticity is context-specific but in this situatedness appeals to single truths, thus on “reality,” which problematises play by displacing it into “seriousness.” For example, the mode produces the subjectivity of the good role-player who takes his character portrayal seriously. Further, it generates “true” or genuine nerds and old-guard otaku who have suffered through exclusion and also their opposite, “fake” nerds and “cool” otaku who are only in for the fun. For the production of knowledge, authenticity creates the dualism of insider and outsider and also the method of “observant participation.” An inside scholar’s subjectivity is patterned through participating in the practice under study. Thus, a scholar needs to be authentic in the translation of accounts and in being a carrier of accounts through practice itself. The mode of authenticity tells of truth through practice. As practice becomes multiple in exercise, the mode of authenticity also produces conflict, always hinting at multitude but deleting it when in the open. Authenticity engenders border crossings, such as translations of games from one “natural” language into another or answers to questions posed by a researcher. Thus, it also generates the translator who has to be unfaithful in order to produce authentic translations. Authentic “Japan” and an authentic “West” were produced through this mode, when a translator displaces and brokers knowledge of the former.

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The Mode of the Magic Circle The mode of the magic circle expresses itself in the statement, “There is a difference between play and non-play. This difference has effects.” This mode is highly productive in the realm of dualisms and binary oppositions. It generates the possibility of games and play and their opposites, work and seriousness. Its patterning effects, however, take on dualist masks, too. In generating ludology, the magic circle makes tools to produce meaningful games. In generating a “primary reality” of serious work it makes tools to produce good citizens. The oppositions of reality produce only one world, delete the rest but through deletion make visible what has been pushed away. In its nation-concerned application the magic circle problematises deviance from patterns that appear non-negotiable, valorising those on the side of “reality,” and ostracising those on the side of “non-reality.” The mode generates agents concerned with foundations, stability, their own place in the world and security for their decision-making. Thus, it generates material configurations such as hikikomori centres that translate deviance into non-deviance, displace objects from the “non-real” to the “real.” Reality represents everything that can be explained and deletes what cannot. With the ludological magic circle I contrastingly impute a technique of hiding not to delete but to focus; this mode generates a boundary around a space in order to create. It produces a plethora of interfaces, such as dice and character sheets, costumes and make-up, red-white-tape to mark “out-of-game” space and declarations of “in-game,” explicit rules and terms of service, fast-paced drama to deal with opening hours of community centres. It problematises “meaning” in play, that is, obstacles, feedback and consequences. Thus, it makes practical theories, such as GNS, but does not deal in ontologies. I traced this mode mostly through how it makes entrepreneurs, but it infuses also other players and their engagement with the practices. These are the four main modes of ordering I could impute into the traces the actors I studied left behind. In the course of this study we encountered also other modes, such as the aforementioned mode of the spectacle and its sibling, the mode of balance, in how tabloids order the world. Internet technologies exemplify the mode of potential. The four main modes, however, were of primary interest because they also appear as the main connectors: For example, the mode of disclaiming connects otaku scholars as well as larp researchers who begin their studies with

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disclaiming the hitherto wrong representation of the people they study. Another example is the mode of enterprise, which brings together all those actors who want to add purpose to what previously was defined as without. Most importantly, the four modes I could describe also compete with each other in what has now been called a game in itself: The assemblage of role-playing game practices moves between these four modes, while the modes break it apart to reorder it anew. And this process continues.

5.4 The Shape of Partial Connections: Role-Playing Games as a Practice-Network I could have approached the study of role-playing games differently. First, I could have defined clearly what RPGs are at the very outset of this book. Second, I could have used some established theory—framing, roletaking, cultivation, social strain theory, or labelling—and applied it to my material to see how the bits and pieces that I encountered fit into these general patterns to explain meanings and functions. In the beginning I favoured labelling, with its clear position of drivers and driven. The moment I hit my material, though, I was overwhelmed. How could any one theory explain it all? Explain, for example, how otaku scholars make the otaku they describe, how anything that is made into a black box by one group of actors (e.g. the mass media, the Internet) attributed with particular agencies (e.g. to promote moral panics, to connect across borders) explodes into thousands of bits and pieces, many tiny and large actors, durable links and necrotic relations, elements that enable and those that disable. What about functions and motivations? Trained in media psychology, it would have been easy to ascribe gratifications sought and obtained. Instead of applying second-hand explanations, I followed an approach that emphasis description. Its theories are less about the world out there and more about how to look at and write about the world: Instead of mobilising big agencies, one should travel along the miniscule paths the actors use. This approach talks about conflict: Conflict between the actors, conflict between accounts, conflict between modes of ordering. This perspective spoke to me because it also emphasises the importance of connecting dots and I was interested in connections. In the course of this study, I could trace manifest and direct connections, such as those generated by actors who literarily translate between one natural language to another; who create the dualism of the “cultures” they translate. I

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could also trace indirect connections through the modes of ordering I imputed. Disclaiming representations and delivering supposedly correct information appeared as a mode, for example, that orders the relationship between role-players and their counterparts in Japan, Germany, and the US. What they order in particular, however, remains contingent in space and time. Role-playing games drawn and mapped as an assemblage of practices instead of a closed system or a community of people with essential characteristics allowed me to do this travelling (Foucault 1984, 335–336). These practices range from rolling dice, gluing on elven ears, to forming clubs, fighting the agency of stereotypes and booking port-a-potties. Mapping partially connected practices as an assemblage catapults something called a subculture or a niche, immediately from the margins to centres of calculation. Looking at people playing in fantastic worlds led me to government policies and various actors working on producing “Japanese culture,” either in proscribing good leisure activities, or in translating a “typical” Japanese role-playing game. I was led to import taxes and market borders, while character sheets showed me the way to the performance of supposedly fundamental realities, such as the self. Instead of talking about a thing in a so-called context, I drew a network of local and global connections. Through this tracing I was able to produce knowledge, which I do not offer as certainties about practices but as glimpses and windows into connections. This study did not seek to establish positive knowledge about a given thing but wanted to question such knowledge endeavours in the first place. The tracing of controversies shows how matters-of-concern deliver much more information than placing actors and their activities into neat, predefined boxes, be they fan, gamer, otaku, or Japan. Uncertainty was a very talkative companion on this journey, which I would like to end with a last drawing of the assemblage of practices called role-playing games as I could impute it (Fig. 5.2). This drawing tries to map the practices and controversies traced in this study. Nodes and practice elements connecting the various arrangements of table-top and live-action role-playing appear in the centre: There are human actors, the players, at least one of which usually takes on the role of game master. Rules structure the interaction between these actors, be they abstract and simulational or simple and just one sentence, such as the directive to have fun or the instruction to look out for each other (because there is no single game master, for example). The interactions based on

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Fig. 5.2 The Assemblage of Partially Connected Practices Called Role-Playing Games

these rules play out in and through settings, game worlds, and scenarios. Abbreviated as “The Real” on this map, we find concerns over plausibility of rules and such set-ups, aspirations to be realist-simulation, or authenticportrayal, or both. This node also sends out legs of a different vector, towards concerns about seriousness and play, about the veil between telic and paratelic, about knowledge bleeding from one side to the other. More mundane than this, magazines, clubs, associations, conventions and forums as well as marketing strategies, the question of how to present the partially connected practices as a singularity, create links and shared ways of doing. The modes of presentation also produce the shared nodes of

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the amateur and the professional, of those who play for play’s sake and those who play for different reasons. So far, this assemblage is right at home in Wittgenstein’s family of games, as many of the above elements could also be found in football or poker. Moving out from the centre—and this is not the centre, but a centre, the one I started to draw the network from because I encountered these nodes in most arrangements of role-playing—we happen onto elements that are more particular for specific arrangements, such as the use of dice, tables, and figurines in TRPGs as well as the accompanying bodily movements of throwing dices, sitting, and writing. Staying with tools, we may point to characters translated into traits on character sheets and retranslated through verbal tellings or enactments in the above scenarios that may borrow from popular fiction to foster new stories in the form of novelisations. These new stories may take the shape of replays , with which we have a first element much associated with Japan and a leg reconnecting to marketing but also opening the network to various knowledges, the most fundamental being knowledge of RPGs themselves. Knowledge (tactical, theatrical, practical) and competences or abilities mark nodes designating the tracing of the rest of the network in practice and also highlight the malleability of the practice-as-network: Storytelling and drama focused frameworks, such as those of Vampire or F.E.A.R. games, invite to trace the network differently than frameworks, that engage with strategy and battle simulation, such as D&D or Arianrhod RPG. Their rules make this invitation, which players not necessarily have to follow, the tracing is flexible and the results many. The contingent process of experiencing an RPG builds on the contingent resources available, so that the arrangement of larp in its Laym¯ un form in Japan, for example, may have less access to castles but therefor to 100-yen shop items as props for the fantastic worlds enacted in community centres. Alone this form is constantly changing, when manufacturers recognise a market or new ideas and knowledge are transferred from other arrangements or places. Knowledge of and for the game leads to knowledge and competence through the game, either as a side-effect or explicitly sought after by educators and for training. The ancestor configuration wargame already made this connection, which bridges back to “the Real” and all the entities spilling over through the porous veil of the magic circle—be it knowledge about an aspect of our world’s history because the game is

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set in that particular era, increased communication skills because one can transfer the awareness of rules from the gaming to other social situations, or self-confidence because one realised what one could achieve if one only tried. But we also find here concern over teaching violence or occultism, over youth who stepped into other worlds. This is where “the Real” draws in the nation-state and concerns over (re-)productivity and normality, be it in relation to mainstream media use or religious practices. And these concerns make various forms of exclusion—excluding people from society through stereotypes as well as excluding practices from the network (e.g. portrayal of real-world religion). They now enrol all kinds of actors of representing, from the many bits and pieces that make up the mass media to the insider-scholars who disclaim misrepresentations in order to deliver correct knowledge. The conflicts “outside” the magic circle about the assemblage feed back into it, ostracising demons and devils or making otaku into technoshamanistic “otaku.” All these elements can be enrolled or ignored during the contingent tracing of their network, with which I refer to the actual play at game tables or at larps. And this is the most exciting element of the assemblage: A player may be familiar with its elements and their connections that have become stable enough to refer to them as a practice and be understood by other players. However, as the actual tracing of these practice elements is contingent, uncertainty remains, and people can be surprised. The network drawn above follows the paths my actors laid out before me when I entered it through the door of the controversy over reality and stereotypes in the Japanese discourse. Thus, the map is also as contingent as each of its arrangements and enactments. It is a crude and superficial sketch of the possibilities of role-playing games and the uncertainties revolving around their dynamics and ordering in Japan and beyond. And this is the last but not least observation when I look on this drawing of partial connections after my journey: The assemblage of role-playing is more than one and less than many.

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Index

A actor, 5, 6, 9, 22, 197, 230, 246, 257, 259, 268, 283, 287 non-human, 3, 12, 150, 169, 202, 205, 215, 240, 246, 248, 268 single-point, 91, 149, 150, 162, 168, 198, 200, 276 Adventure Planning Service. See B¯ oken Age of Winter. See fuyu no jidai Aida, Miho, 128–129, 136, 147 Akihabara, 90, 136, 142, 144, 194, 236, 243 Arneson, Dave, 39 As¯ o, Tar¯ o, 91, 142 assemblage of practices , 3, 5, 14, 20, 21, 30, 79, 130, 269, 283–287 Aum Shinriky¯ o , 146, 148, 174, 175 B B.A.D.D., 163–164 Becker, Howard S., 143 Big Eyes, Small Mouths , 51 black box, 150, 160, 276, 283 bleed, 78, 79, 92, 178, 262

B¯ oken, 52, 198, 208, 212, 223, 224, 249 Bothered About Dungeons and Dragons. See B.A.D.D. Brave Little Rice-cooker TRPG, 42, 258 British Cultural Studies, 129, 140 bunkobon. See pocketbook C Call of Cthulhu. See CoC Castle Tintagel, 233, 238, 249 Chainmail , 37, 39, 40 2channel , 131, 134 character, 16, 30, 40–42 character sheet, 7, 41, 55, 111, 113, 115, 222, 260 chaturanga. ˙ See chess chess, 34 CLOSS, 83, 240 CoC, 2, 48–50, 262 College of Wizardry, 64, 81 Comic Market. See komike Commedia dell’arte, 33

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 B.-O. Kamm, Role-Playing Games of Japan, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-50953-8

295

296

INDEX

Committee for the Advancement of Role-Playing Games (CAR-PGa), 166 Comptiq, 49 computer RPG. See CRPG Conan the Barbarian, 37, 42 conflict simulation. See wargaming ConQuest of Mythodea, 242 controversies, 6, 9–11, 13, 257 Cool Japan, 54, 89–91 Cool Japanology, 4, 17 cosplay, 232, 241 Costikyan, Greg, 74, 75 Create LARP Organization Synergy Support. See CLOSS creative agenda. See GNS crowdfunding, 227, 228, 247 CRPG, 45, 53, 57, 215, 216 crunch, 23, 115, 258 cultural broker, 220, 223, 233, 246 culture industry, 84 cyber-ethnography, 203

D D&D, 39, 41–43, 61, 164, 167 Dark Dungeons , 166 Daydream, TRPG Café, 48, 125, 236 Densha Otoko, 129, 131 Deutscher Liverollenspiel Verband (DLRV), 63, 82 dice, 20, 35, 38, 41, 43, 46 Diplomacy, 37 Discworld, 44 DKWDDK. See DKWDK DKWDK, 62 dodontof , 217 Drachenfest , 64 Dragonlance, 47 DragonSys , 63, 236, 263 DriveThruRPG, 55 d20-system, 171, 261

Dungeons & Dragons . See D&D Dziobak Larp Studios, 81 E edu-larp, 64, 267, 268 Edwards, Ron, 75 Egbert, James Dallas, 149, 159–162 escapism, 4, 30, 31, 84, 93 E.T., 50 Exalted, 53 F family resemblance, 21, 33, 58, 276 fandom. See fan studies fan studies, 9, 124 Far East Amusement Research. See F.E.A.R. F.E.A.R., 46, 50, 51 Final Fantasy, 45, 198, 215 Fine, Gary Alan, 15, 269 fluff , 23, 115, 258 Forge Theory. See GNS Foucault, Michel, 12, 36 freeter, 140 Furuya, Shin’ichi, 209 fuyu no jidai, 51, 52, 55 G Galbraith, Patrick W., 134, 135 game master. See referee, game master (GM) gamism. See GNS GenCon, 161 GNS, 75, 78, 92 Goffman, Erving, 8, 143 governmentality, 35 Gramsci, Antonio, 129 GroupSNE, 45, 173 Gundam, 126 Gygax, Gary, 37, 39, 42, 50, 161, 278

INDEX

H Hacking, Ian, 31, 143, 144, 275 Haraway, Donna, 203 Harry Potter, 64, 168 Hellwig, Johann, 34 hikikomori, 87–88, 93, 282 Hinasaki, Y¯ u, 214, 232, 238, 242, 278 Homo Ludens , 68 Howard, Robert E., 37, 42 Huizinga, Johan, 68–69 I Illusion’s Disciples, 125, 146, 211, 216 immersion, 77, 78, 244 immersionist. See GNS in-game, 72 Inoue, Jun’ichi, 225, 229 insider/outsider, 9, 270, 272 interactive kinds, 143, 169 intermediality. See media-mix intermediary, 199, 247 Internet, 200–202 interviews. See performance text Interview with the Vampire, 42 Isamash¯ı chibi no suihanki TRPG. See Brave Little Rice-cooker TRPG J Jackson, Steve, 45, 172 Japan’s International Gamers Guild, 211, 233 Japaneseness, 3, 55, 69, 89, 223, 241 Japan Science Fiction Convention, 205, 232 jidaigeki, 227 JIS-Project, 177 JRPG, 8, 55, 198, 246 Juneja, Monica, 18, 197 JUNET, 201

297

K Kadokura, Naoto, 44 kanji & kana, 123 Karminya Larp, 237 Kat¯ o, K¯ ohei, 79, 266, 274 kawaii, 134 Kickstarter. See crowdfunding Kitkowski, Andy, 198, 224, 228, 246, 278 Knutepunkt , 58, 64, 271, 274 komike, 49, 232, 249 komikku, 4 o, K¯ oshi, 45, 52, 81, 212, 223, Kond¯ 249, 278 Kotodama Heavy Industries, 198 Kyoto University, 44 L labelling. See stereotype larp, 30, 57–58, 61–63, 66, 238–240 larper. See larp larper.ning, 157, 211, 214 Latour, Bruno, 9, 20, 150, 199 Law, John, 12, 19, 114, 197, 230 Laym¯un, 212, 238, 241 Legend of the Five Rings , 227 light novel, 46 Little Wars , 37 live-action role-play. See larp lolicon, 151, 154 lolita, 89, 135 The Lord of the Rings , 1, 37, 58, 244 Lovecraft, H.P., 59, 180 ludology, 69, 70, 272 M Magic The Gathering , 53 magic circle, 30, 67, 70, 83, 92, 177, 226, 266, 282 Maid RPG, 54

298

INDEX

manga, 2, 4, 32, 50 Manga Burikko, 151 material semiotics, 17 matter-of -concern, 30, 92 matter-of-fact, 30 Mazes and Monsters , 61, 160 media-mix, 2, 49, 50 MET, 63 method acting , 58 Miller, Marc, 44, 198 Mind’s Eye Theatre. See MET MittelPunkt , 211, 271 mixi, 122, 125, 209, 210, 218 Mixing Desk of Larp, 82 Miyazaki Incident, 148 Miyazaki, Tsutomu, 148, 151, 154, 156, 168 Mizuno, Ry¯ o, 44, 50 modes of ordering, 12, 21, 92, 168, 181, 199, 247 mode of authenticity, 281 mode of balance, 153 mode of disclaiming , 130, 149, 153, 170, 279–280 mode of enterprise, 83, 92, 179, 220, 249, 278–279 mode of observant participation, 270 mode of potential , 247 mode of the magic circle. See magic circle mode of the spectacle, 168 mode of translation, 248 moé, 53, 134 Montola, Markus, 61, 72 moratoriamu ningen (moratorium people), 86 Moreno, Jakob Levy, 58 munchkin, 171

N Nakamori, Akio, 151, 155

narratavism. See GNS narratology, 70 Neon Genesis Evangelion, 123 nerd, 6, 11, 134 nihonjin-ron, 3, 69, 86, 227 Nihon SF Taikai. See Japan Science Fiction Convention non-actor. See intermediary non-player character, 40, 72, 263 Nordic larp, 64, 82, 274 Noyes, Jay, 233 NPC. See non-player character O occultism, 13, 50, 157, 164, 166, 237 Okada, Atsuhiro, 48, 76, 146, 232, 243, 278 Okada, Toshio, 123, 135, 279 Onyx Path Publishing, 55, 227 OOC, 72, 81, 172 otaku, 123–124, 151–157, 173–175 hunting, 136 triumphant narrative, 131, 135 -zoku, 169, 174 ¯ Otsuka, Eiji, 50, 137, 152, 154, 156, 169, 279 out-of-character. See OOC P Paizo, 222 Paranoia, 74 paratelic. See telic Pathfinder, 115, 261 Patoria S¯ orisu, 237, 263 Patria Solis . See Patoria S¯ orisu Paxson, Diana L., 59 pen & paper RPG. See TRPG performance text, 114 Pickering, Michael, 111, 132 pocketbook, 46 PoD, 55, 228

INDEX

powergamer, 171 practice-as-network, 20, 38, 52, 57, 81, 169, 179, 221, 235, 269, 286 prescriptive knowledge, 258 print-on-demand. See PoD propositional knowledge, 258 psychodrama, 58 Pulling, Irving Lee, 149, 162 Pulling, Patricia, 162, 163 R Record of Lodoss War, 49, 245 referee, 35, 41 dungeon master (DM), 40 game master (GM), 16, 40, 44, 54, 55, 72, 206, 222 storyteller, 40 Rein·Hagen, Mark, 41 Reiswitz, Georg Heinrich Johann von, 35 Reiswitz, Georg Leopold von, 35 relational materialism, 12, 197 replay, 46, 48, 174, 245, 258, 286 Rice, Anne, 42 Roads to Lord, 44 Role & Roll , 43, 53 RPG.net, 210 Ry¯ utama, 76, 115, 228 S Said, Edward, 133 Sait¯ o, Tamaki, 87 Salen and Zimmerman, 69, 73 Salen, Katie. See Salen and Zimmerman Sanchez, Matt, 198 Satanism, 157, 166, 179 SCA, 59 self-publishing APA, 59 apazine, 59, 204

299

d¯ ojinshi, 49, 204 fanzine, 204, 205 shatranj . See chess Shinobigami, 47, 198, 214 simulationism. See GNS Society for Creative Anachronism. See SCA Society for Interactive Literature, 60 Solmukohta. See Knutepunkt SPIEL, 126, 198, 212, 223, 247 Stackpole, Michael A., 163, 279 Stahlberg, Nico, 233, 240, 275, 278 Stenros, Jaakko, 61, 71 stereotype, 11, 14, 21, 111, 129, 131–134, 143 Storytelling System, 117, 206 Strategos , 36 subculture, 139 survival game, 232 Sword World RPG, 44, 238 symbolic interactionism, 132

T Table-Talk Role-Playing Game. See TRPG table-top RPG. See TRPG technomancer, 175 telic, 71, 92, 268 Tenra Bansh¯ o , 212, 225 Tezuka, Osamu, 126 Tokita, Y¯ usuke, 51, 174, 211 T¯ oky¯ o NOVA, 46, 77, 137 Tolkien, J.R.R., 37, 64, 165 transcultural dynamics. See transculturality transculturality, 17, 19 organisation of difference, 18 Transcultural Studies . See transculturality translation, 16, 44, 72, 200, 220, 221 Traveller, 44, 122

300

INDEX

Treasure Trap, 61 triangulation, 17, 125 troll, 131 TRPG, 41, 45, 55–57 TRPG Fes , 211, 232 TRPG.net, 208, 210 TSR, 50, 158, 167 Tunnels & Trolls , 41

U USENET, 75, 176

V Vampire The Masquerade. See VtM virtual table-top. See VTT VtM, 41, 51, 115 VTT, 53, 57, 216

W Waldritter, 63, 267

wargame. See wargaming wargaming, 29, 34–39 Warlock, 45 White Wolf, 55 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 20, 21, 269 Wizard of Oz, 171 Wizards of the Coast. See WotC WoD, 41, 43, 260 WorldCon, 59, 232 World of Darkness . See WoD World of Warcraft , 32, 45, 215 World Science Fiction Convention. See WorldCon WotC, 52, 53, 57 Y Yasuda, Hitoshi, 44, 235, 278 youth-larp, 267 Z Zimmerman, Eric. See Salen and Zimmerman