The Guy in the Black Hat

Category: Role-Playing Games

  • Teaching Gramsci and Arendt at Wizard School

    “Jeglicher Zauber geht verloren, wenn du versuchst, ihn einzufangen.” –Helga Schäferling What role does “magic” play in our lives? Is magic already suffused with the powers of the mundane? How does magic duplicate and comment upon the logics of neoliberalism already governing us? To what extent can “rebellion” be realized within a left-leaning institution, and…

  • Losing Friends and the Stories We Tell Ourselves: Just a Little Lovin’ Denmark 2015

    “Hat ein einziges [Werk] seinen Zweck erreicht? Haben sie das Rad aufhalten können, das unaufhaltsam stürzend seinem Abgrund entgegeneilt?” –– Heinrich von Kleist When we finish a book, exit a movie theater, let the record needle hit the center label, we might ask ourselves: What did this experience mean? Am I moved? Did the work…

  • American Freeform: A Transatlantic Dialog

    Quiet waves of change have rippled through the role-playing community. On Monday of this week, Lizzie Stark posted an introduction to American freeform on her blog, an entry that codified design practices we’ve been using here in the States since at least the middle of the 00s. As one of the numerous designers whose work she listed,…

  • Immersive Gameplay – Interview with Katherine Castiello Jones

    Katherine Castiello Jones talks about Gary Alan Fine and his legacy on role-playing game studies.

  • Immersive Gameplay – Interview with Evan Torner

    In honor of the release of Bill White’s and my co-edited volume with McFarland, Immersive Gameplay: Essays on Role-Playing and Participatory Media, I am conducting interviews with some of my talented and erudite contributors. The eighth interview is with myself, Evan Torner, conducted by my co-editor Bill White. In addition to co-editing the book and…

  • Immersive Gameplay – Interview with Nathan Hook

    In honor of the release of Bill White’s and my co-edited volume with McFarland, Immersive Gameplay: Essays on Role-Playing and Participatory Media, I am conducting interviews with some of my talented and erudite contributors. The seventh interview is with role-playing designer and writer Nathan Hook. His article “Circles and Frames: The Games Social Scientists Play,”…

  • Immersive Gameplay – Interview with William J. White

    In honor of the release of Bill White’s and my co-edited volume with McFarland, Immersive Gameplay: Essays on Role-Playing and Participatory Media, I am conducting interviews with some of my talented and erudite contributors. The sixth interview is with role-playing designer, professor and my co-editor Bill White. He co-authored the article in the volume “Role-Playing…

  • Immersive Gameplay Sighting – Exciting!

    Pics of the new Immersive Gameplay book.

  • Immersive Gameplay – Interview with Jussi Holopainen

    In honor of the release of Bill White’s and my co-edited volume with McFarland, Immersive Gameplay: Essays on Role-Playing and Participatory Media, I am conducting interviews with some of my talented and erudite contributors. The fifth interview is with game scholar Jussi Holopainen. In the volume, he co-authored  “First Person Audience and the Art of…

  • Immersive Gameplay – Interview with Todd Nicholas Fuist

    In honor of the release of Bill White’s and my co-edited volume with McFarland, Immersive Gameplay: Essays on Role-Playing and Participatory Media, I am conducting interviews with some of my talented and erudite contributors. The fourth interview is with sociologist Todd Nicholas Fuist. His article in the volume “The Agentic Imagination: Tabletop Role-Playing Games as…