This presentation was delivered on October 20, 2022 at the Transformative Play Initiative Seminar 2022: Role-playing, Culture, and Heritage.
Description:
There are numerous theories and studies from different fields such as psychology (Erikson 1950, Marcia 1966, Piaget 1972, Jung 1976), social psychology (Goffman 1959, 1986, Stryker 1968, Burke and Stets 2009, Stets and Serpe 2013), and neuroscience ((Klein and Nichols 2012, Brown et. al 2019, Broom et.al. 2021) that all attempt to explain how an individual creates their sense of self. Role-playing games(RPGs) often touch on many of the same concepts, albeit role-players might know them under different names. In short, the RPG concept of bleed (Boss 2007) describes the transfer of physical states, mental states, physicality, values, opinions and other similar concepts from player to character and vice versa. Over the years there have been several specific types of bleed suggested by numerous theorists (Montola 2010, Beltrán 2012, 2013, Bowman 2015, Kemper 2017,2020, Harder 2018, Hugaas 2019), but how these suggested types stand in relation to each other has yet to be theorized. In order to create a foundation from which to better be able to study and conduct research on bleed, this paper presents a conceptual model of bleed that places the previously suggested bleed types in relation to each other and to theories of identity in adjacent fields. The concept of the bleed perception threshold and the bleed complex of identity bleed is suggested as part of this model. Using the model as a starting point, this paper goes on to make suggestions about how bleed can affect a player’s sense of self.
Bio:
Kjell Hedgard Hugaas is a Northern Norwegian game designer, organizer, writer, theorist, and trained actor. In particular, he is engaged within the Nordic larp tradition, where he has been active for a bit over two decades. Hugaas has theorized how ideas impact players through the process of memetic bleed, and how the physicality of play does the same through the process of procedural bleed. His thoughts on design can be found in The Butterfly Effect Manifesto, which he co-authored with Dr. Sarah Lynne Bowman in 2019. The last few years he has explored the transformative potential of games, and has proposed specific intentional game design practices that facilitate transformative effects. He currently works as a project manager for Region Gotland, while getting his MA in Game Design at Uppsala University.
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This seminar is hosted by the Transformative Play Initiative in the Games & Society Lab at the Department of Game Design, Uppsala University Campus Gotland. This seminar is made possible by financial support from the Sustainable Heritage Research Forum (SuHRF). The Transformative Play Initiative explores the use of analog role-playing games as vehicles for lasting personal and social change.
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Graphic Design by Liliia Chorna. Music by Elias Faltin. Video edited by Rezmo (Mohammad Mohammad Rezaie).