122 Tabletop Role-Playing Games: The Nesting Doll of Ideology
122 Tabletop Role-Playing Games: The Nesting Doll of Ideology
Amelia Berube
Welcome to [insert tabletop game name here]! It is now time to create your character!
I’m sure many of you who just read that are blankly staring at the words on this page and wondering just what Dungeons and Dragons or Pathfinder might have to do with critical theory and ideology. Believe me, there is a stronger link between the tabletop gaming community and the concepts of Althusser than you’d think.
Over the past semester, I had the chance to help set up and attend Plymouth State University’s yearly event, Game-on-Icon, which is ritualistically hosted and attended by past and current members of the Gaming Club. The event encompassed many different types of gaming, from video games, to card games and board games. Let it be noted that the gaming community is composed of different niches and preferences, which explains the wealth of different types of games. However, the spotlight was on tabletop games.
First off, I would like to show that Gaming Club itself is the host of an ideological state apparatus. Ideology, to Althusser, “…represents the imaginary relationship of individuals to their real conditions of existence” (Althusser 693). This signifies that the individual uses the concept of ideology to form a sort of bond with an aspect of the reality around them. In the instance of the Gaming Club member, this speaks of the relation of the individual to the club. They have a belief that they are a part of the club. Yet, they are not physically attached to it, as the club is intangible in nature. Ideology allows them to have an intact imaginary relationship to the intangible club. Yet, there are certain real-world actions and connotations the individual gamer must ascribe to if they imagine themselves as a part of the gaming community.
“The individual in question behaves in such and such a way, adopts such and such a practical attitude, and, what is more, participates in certain regular practices which are those of the ideological apparatus on which ‘depend’ the ideas which he has in all consciousness freely chosen as a subject” (Althusser 696).
For the average Gaming Club or gaming community member, the practices that are required from them are simple. One must show up to club meetings and play games. It may be a simple ideological apparatus, but it is one. If no one were to show up to the meetings that were held, or play the games that are provided, the Gaming Club would cease to exist. When it comes to the “state” of the ideological apparatus, the governing force is the elected core, and above them, the school.
Now, Game-on-Icon is essentially a Gaming Club bonanza that is set up for the weekend. There are also micro events within the larger event itself. When I stated earlier that the spotlight is on tabletop role-playing games, this is what I meant; the majority of events run during Game-on-Icon are tabletop role-playing games. I had the chance to play one that was r