Last year, I concluded a presentation at « Donjons & Labo : les lieux du jeu » with a very sketchy slide saying TTRPG are also games about expectations. After reading the article “Pretensive Shared Reality: From Childhood Pretense to Adult Imaginative Play” (1), I finally have the opportunity to elaborate on this point.
Expectations, a subcategory of role
Any social role can be described with many elements: statuses, functions, … and role expectations:
- expectations of others on the role holder,
- or of the role holder on himself,
- or of the role holder on the others.
When expectations are not explicit and shared people are making assumptions. Social relations are problematic when assumptions about others (knowledge, emotions, motivations) are wrong. The best way to eliminate assumptions is to ask appropriate questions.
In everyday life, everyone takes on a series of roles. These roles may interlock, overlap, conflict, alternate, etc. This multitude of roles comes with a multitude of expectations. In social psychology, role theory specifically studies these phenomena.
It can be difficult for someone to list/explain expectations, to prioritize them, to clarify them, to understand their extent or their limits. Some expectations may be perceived as unchosen and potentially infinite. This confusion can lead to anxiety.
Expectations in a role-playing session
When playing a role-play or pretend game in a pretense shared reality (1), one adopts only two clearly interlocking roles: a player role and a character role. Unlike expectations in real life, expectations in a play situation are delineated within the game (the magic circle concept) and are chosen (voluntary and conscious participation in the game).
Sometimes, when the role of player is predominant, then the expectations are mainly social. The dimension of hospitality can be important (2): some are hosts, others are guests. Some master the rules, some have authority over the narrative, some generate fiction, some react to it, etc.
Sometimes when the role of character is preponderant, then the emphasis is on immersion. In this case, the expectations are primarily narrative and diegetic (i.e., they come from the fiction).
Over the past decade, many games and accessories have pushed to clarify expectations around the table with so-called "emotional safety" tools. These innovations have met with resistance, mainly under the pretext that they were infantilizing methods. According to Ludomancien, clarifying expectations is a proof of maturity. Examples: John Stravopoulos's X Card (2012), Apocalypse World's MC principles, Bankui's Same Page Tool, etc.
Playing a role = decrease in brain activity
A recent study (3) shows brain activity of actors decreases when they are acting, suggesting a loss of self as one plays a role and improvising answers (Romeo and Juliet).
Hypothesis
- A
role-playing session is satisfying, enjoyable and memorable if the
expectations of the player and character roles have been understood,
acknowledged, met and fulfilled by everyone.
- Conversely, a participant who did not understand the expectations of others, did not have their expectations met, etc. would not have a good game experience.
- A game that knows how to structure the questions asked would mechanically reduce presumptions.
- To
enter a game session is to reduce the mental dimensions to a smaller
set of expectations (simpler, easier to make explicit, less engaging,…)
than in real life.
- Tabletop role-playing would be the type of game that would least restrict the dimensions of real life since anything can be attempted, under the validation of one or more other players.
- When acting and role playing, does a loss of self is linked to a reduction of expectations ?
- If entering a shared alternate reality means traveling in a sub-universe with reduced dimensions:
- Is there a specific pleasure in manipulating the meta? A kind of libido contextus? To know that one is able to move from one universe to another and bring things back (experiences, values, ideas, etc.)? To know that one is in the distance, the oversight or the irony?
- The
less expectations there are, the more mental savings we make and the
easier it is to play, think, experience emotions, empathize and let
oneself go.
- As a result, are we less anxious or confused? Tabletop roleplayers may have more social anxiety than the average person and this would explain why they engage passionately in this highly relational hobby.
- To what extent can this apply to simulations in general or to other types of games: “In games like chess, everybody has the same set of choices, so its easier to go into other peoples minds than regular interactions. Easier empathy.” (4)
- “Pretensive Shared Reality: From Childhood Pretense to Adult Imaginative Play” by Kapitany, Hampejs and Goldstein (2022). Adults playing TTRPG = evolutionary spandrel of child pretend play. Same mechanisms BUT it needs to be socially shared, it uses more complex social contract & more rules, it uses cognitive quarantine to explore safely + Why studying TTRPG is good to understand human mind, play & agency.
- See series on Hospitality.
- Brown Steven, Cockett Peter and Yuan Ye , 2019, The neuroscience of Romeo and Juliet: an fMRI study of acting. R. Soc. open sci.6181908181908 http://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.181908
- Interview with C Thi Nguyen, around 00:12:00.
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