bneuensc@indiana.edu
baldred@indiana.edu

PAPER PROPOSAL

Topic: "A Critical History of Role-playing Games"

The paper would be a review of the progress of tabletop RPGs as 
an art form from 1973 to the present, with some acknowledgement 
of other role-playing forms.  The games may be broken down into 
ten distinct groupings of stylistic design -- with analysis of 
the narrative power interactions among the participants.  The 
primary conclusion would be analyzing the rise of dramatic/cinematic 
games in the 1990s (Storyteller, Deadlands, et al), the backlash 
which fueled the new crunchy systems of the 2000s (i.e. D20 et al), 
and independently-published efforts to re-invent narrative play.  


Bibliography: 
 - Cited game books
 - My own RPG encyclopedia, www.darkshire.net/~jhkim/rpg/encyclopedia/
 - Porter, Greg. (1994) "Where We've Been, Where We're Going".  
   Inter*Action #1. Hogshead Games. 
 - Laws, Robin. (1994) "The Hidden Art: Slouching Towards A Critical 
   Framework for RPGs".  Inter*Action #1.  Hogshead Games. 
 - Fine, Gary Alan. (1983) "Shared Fantasy: Roleplaying Games 
   as Social Worlds".  University of Chicago Press.  


Estimated word count: 5000 words


Biography: 
John Kim is 35 years old, and has been role-playing since 1978.  He 
has a PhD in physics from Columbia University, and did two years 
of post-doctoral work before leaving academia for a programming 
career.  He is currently living in the San Francisco Bay area 
with his wife and 3-year old son.  He became active in RPG theory 
beginning with the newsgroup rec.games.frp.advocacy in 1993, which 
he wrote an FAQ for that has been translated into several languages.  
He maintains an extensive website on RPGs and RPG theory, started 
in 1994.  He has been published in the book "Beyond Role and Play" 
(2004) along with a handful of game credits.