I'm writing a paper called "Forging Neo-Folklore through Role-Playing
Games" for an academic conference on contemporary paganism. I ran
across the web site today and I wondered if you would be willing to
talk to me about your campaigns.
Who I am: I teach at Emerson College, and one of my courses is a Buffy
seminar ("Deconstructing TV's Buffy). I have written on the series at
www.slayageonline.com (issues 19, 22, and 23). I've gamed for years,
but never in this system. I've asked this question on the yahoo group
devoted to the game system. (http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/
btvsrpg-eden/) Please let me know if there's anything else you want to
know.
The idea behind the paper is to look at how one way to examine how
influential media representation can be is by studying what its most
devoted consumers actually do with the material they know so well.
This paper will examine how role-playing game players craft their own
creative folklore out of the fictional folklore of Buffy the Vampire
Slayer, for example.
Our creative practices bring up several important questions.
=B7 How do we represent witches, Wicca, pagans, and the occult?
=B7 What does our creative folklore retain and alter from the canonical
folklore of the series, itself based in part on actual folklore and
fiction narratives based on folklore? How important is the media frame
in guiding the imaginative play fostered by this series?
=B7 What do we fan-authors want witches and pagans to be when we build
our own worlds?
=B7 Who wants to play the part of a witch and why?
=B7 How faithfully are pagan belief systems represented within this sub-
genre of fan fiction?
=B7 What happens to an oral tradition when it's filtered through a
fantasy literature tradition, a TV series' narrative, and a game
system, only to be translated back into an oral tradition and then
displayed in a digital medium?
Any information you or your group have to offer will be deeply
appreciated, and credited fully.
Best wishes and thank you for your time,
Prof. David Kociemba
Emerson College
VMA Department
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