20109120.0430

I noted in yesterday's post that looking at roleplaying games as narratives--which they are--would take a fair bit of doing, though it would likely be a rewarding endeavor. (Given the generally non- or pseudo-scholarly nature of this webspace, I am not going to go to the trouble of finding playership numbers, but I have the sense that there are a lot of people in a lot of places who play such games, and something that takes up so many people's time and resources seems to invite attention.) And I remarked that one necessary step in doing such would would be to develop an approach to it, since the typical analytical practices with which I am familiar do not seem to suffice. (I will admit, though, that it's been a little while since I've been in school, and it's been a bit since I've been more fully connected to academe, so it's possible there is such a tool in place and I am simply unaware of it. I'd be happy to see it--but it won't change the thrust of what I'm doing in this bit of writing.)
I do know that one of the common claims against academic humanistic study is the reliance on and emphasis of theory in the work. That is, much humanistic study concerns itself with asserting and refining approaches to the human works being studied, rather than attending to the works themselves and connecting them to the commonly perceived concerns of an imagined general public. There is some validity to such claims; there is a damned lot of theory, and the theory is not the thing to which the theory is applied, so that discussions of that theory become exercises in comparative erudition that a less generous person might call pissing contests. And no matter who wins a pissing contest, there's still a bunch of piss on the floor that needs cleaning up.
But that does not mean that there is no place for theory. A detailed disciplinary history is, of course, out of place here, and looking into it makes for some interesting reading, but it will suffice for the moment to note that having a reasonably consistent, discernible approach to things helps in making sense out of them. Humanistic study is, at root, interpretive work, and having a rubric or guide for that interpretation, having an external structure to which reference can be made, is of help in performing interpretive acts and in explaining them to others. There is always the danger of being too restricted by the theory--the old adage about having only one tool comes to mind--but, as with any tool, it is far easier to do the work that needs doing with a more amenable tool than without.
I continue to look forward to having a tool amenable to use in interpreting roleplaying games. I do not know that I have the skills to develop one, myself; I rather expect that I do not, else I might be in a different line of work than that were I now find myself. But I know I would be able to use it, were it ready to hand...