D&D Was Inspired by More Than LOTR

The extent to which Dungeons and Dragons is inspired by J. R. R. Tolkien's work has frequently been misunderstood and overstated. Although Tolkien's books are obviously important to the fantasy genre and were influential on many particular Dungeons and Dragons campaigns undertaken by groups of players, Tolkien can sometimes seem the single straw that those unfamiliar with fantasy and adventure writing grasp at when trying to understand where this game came from and how to situate it vis-a-vi...

 Racial Alignments in DnD

It was rare for me to see another person of color playing, or a girl. Dungeons & Dragons was still largely confined to the white, nerdy, male subculture in which it was born. Most of these players wouldn’t have thought much about the racial meaning of the game—even when the stereotypes were blatant, like one inspired by a “traditional African-analogue tribal society” set in a jungle featuring dark-skinned “noble savages” and “depraved cannibals.” But for kids like me, th...

 Metagame

Metagaming refers to the relationship between the game and outside elements, including everything from player attitudes and play styles to social reputations and social contexts in which the game is played. Post-game locker room conversations about the match are metagame interactions. Memorizing words in the Scrabble dictionary is a metagame activity, the honing of in-game skills. The typical playing strategies of a particular Go master are metagame information, useful if you are playing agai...

 Dice Rolls are Suspect

It is true that every aspect of the role of dice may be suspect: the dice themselves, the form and texture of the surface, the person throwing them. If we push the analysis to its extreme, we may even wonder what chance has to do with it at all. Neither the course of the dice nor their rebounds rely on chance; they are governed by the strict determinism of rational mechanics. Billiards is based on the same principles, and it has never been considered a game of chance. So in the final analysis...

 Redundancy of English language is a Goldilocks zone for C...

In Shannon’s terms, the feature of messages that makes codecracking possible is redundancy. A historian of cryptography, David Kahn, explained it like this: “Roughly, redundancy means that more symbols are transmitted in a message than are actually needed to bear the information.” Information resolves our uncertainty; redundancy is every part of a message that tells us nothing new. Whenever we can guess what comes next, we’re in the presence of redundancy. Letters can be redundant: be...

 Constituative Rules of Chutes and Ladders

Players all begin with a value of zero. Players alternate turns adding a random number of 1–6 to their current value. The first player to reach a value of exactly 100 wins (if adding the random number to a player's total would make the total exceed 100, do not add the random number this turn). When a player's total exactly reaches certain numbers, the total changes. For example, if a player reaches exactly 9, her total becomes 31. If a player reaches exactly 49, her total becomes 11.(This r...

 The Magic Circle

The term magic circle is appropriate because there is in fact something genuinely magical that happens when a game begins. A fancy Backgammon set sitting all alone might be a pretty decoration on the coffee table. If this is the function that the game is serving-decoration-it doesn't really matter how the game pieces are arranged, if some of them are out of place, or even missing. However, once you sit down with a friend to play a game of Backgammon, the arrangement of the pieces suddenly bec...

 Facebook is a Game

Game designer Robin Hunicke has noted that Facebook is actually a complex, massively multiplayer online game, with challenges, rewards, and levels just like any other. Think about it for a second and you'll realize that the rules are simple: be the most fun, intelligent, witty, caring version of yourself. The benefits are obvious, Hunicke observed: Facebook "makes people feel like they matter, like they have friends and family across all kinds of distances," she said. "How many games make you...

 Arcade Games in Game-Based Education

Arcade games such as Pac-Man, Asteroids, Tempest, Gauntlet, and the like are not useless to the gamifying teacher. Rather, their use is limited . . . and their usefulness makes them more akin to board games than contemporary video games. What is Pac-Man but a game of pattern management? Gauntlet is as much about resource management as anything else. These are notions that were discussed in the previous level. So, don’t exclude the value of the old-school video game . . . but don’t equate ...

 Gamification Memory Mechanic

In Memory games, the action of the game has some element that is dependent on players’ memory. This is simple and straightforward enough on its surface, but it becomes interestingly complex when examined in greater detail. What particular parts of memory are being tasked by the game? Some games ask the player to memorize and recall specific details or patterns. Others call on memories that a player brings into the game from his or her actual life. Still other memory games ask players not on...