The IEET is a 501(c)3 non-profit, tax-exempt organization registered in the State of Connecticut in the United States. Please give as you are able, and help support our work for a brighter future.
A great article, Jamais! You have expressed neatly here in words some ideas that have been mulling around in my head for some time.
As someone who professionally designs, builds, and manages complex digital medical imaging systems, I have often thought that my many years of experience playing and DMing AD&D;sessions come into play all the time at work, which also involves a kind of "worldbuilding" - imagining a fairly abstact yet internally consistent system in my mind, then figuring out what real-world components need to be in place in order to accomplish some goal.
Your concept of "invisible guidance" touches on another helpful and practical aspect of that kind of gaming: the sort of "cat herding" you have to do as the DM to finagle the free-willed players into going down the route you have planned, rather than taking off in some wild direction. Even though of course they could! Anybody who has ever managed a project can sympathize... ESPECIALLY projects made up of Volunteers.
Most articles I see about D&D;just talk about how nerdy it was, or are simply nostalgia pieces. Kudos to you for writing about how that kind of gaming can positively alter our ways of thinking about the world, imagining possibilities, and then *implementing* them.
IEET Blog |
email list |
newsletter |
The IEET is a 501(c)3 non-profit, tax-exempt organization registered in the State of Connecticut in the United States.
Contact: Executive Director, Dr. James J. Hughes,
Williams 119, Trinity College, 300 Summit St., Hartford CT
06106 USA
Email: director @ ieet.org phone:
860-297-2376
IEET Blog