From Dungeons and Drafts: Evolution of Roleplaying and Its Influence on Writing
After rebranding Penman Ventures from Medical Writing to something a little more creative, we open our new podcast to the topic of roleplaying; And how it can influence creative writing.
Welcome to a multimedia web journal where I dedicate my time to diving into stories behind various works of art, media, news, and a myriad of interesting topics.
Referenced Articles
- Effectiveness of Role-Playing in Enhancing Creative Writing of English Majors Students at Al-Quds University - Daghamin, Rashed & Naser, Inas & Khales, Buad. (2017). Effectiveness of Role-Playing in Enhancing Creative Writing of English Major Students at Al-Quds University. British Journal of Education, Society & Behavioural Science. 19. 1-12. 10.9734/BJESBS/2017/29794. An article that explores the effectiveness of creative dramatic play in improving students' creative writing and ability to comprehend and appreciate creative text.
- Roleplaying games were around hundreds of years before Dungeons & Dragons | Dicebreaker - Stephen Payne is a freelance writer and historian based in the south of England. He loves three things in life: animals, history and, of course, games.
- How Role-Playing Helps Our Writing - and Our Marriage | Writer's Digest - Emily Wibberley and Austin Siegemund-Broka met and fell in love in high school. Austin went on to graduate from Harvard, while Emily graduated from Princeton. Together, they are the authors of several novels about romance for teens and adults. Now married, they live in Los Angeles, where they continue to take daily inspiration from their own love story. They recently published the book: Do I Know You, a story where a married couple go on vacation and reexplore their marriage... from the perspective of two "strangers" who learn to flirt with and love one another again.
Transcript
I remember being in middle school
::when the concept of role playing
::was first introduced to me by someone I
was playing with online.
::It was described as the
::act of embodying a character or a
specific role
::and collaborating with others to tell a
story.
::And I think the act of role playing in
itself
::helped improve a lot of different
facets of my life and helped me come
::out of my shell, so to speak.
::My name is Gabriel.
::I'm the Penman of Penman Ventures,
::and this is our first broadcast episode
for our
::podcast,
::which is being released
::on
::end of February,
::February 28th.
::We recently went through a rebranding
::where I'm shifting my focus from
::medical writing services to more,
::to a more creative
::outlet.
::I wanted to look at explorer,
::exploring, creative writing and the
different facets
::that go into
::creativity, whether it's in art, media.
::And
::this podcast is meant to generally talk
about various, different interests
::and
::topics.
::So here we are, penman ventures, the
first broadcast for
::a multimedia journal covered by a
public health enthusiast.
::Now
::today, I wanted to talk about
::role playing,
::the evolution thereof, and how it
influenced
::continues to influence writing.
::Now,
::as I mentioned earlier, it holds a
::special place in my heart as something
that helped me come out of my shell
::when I was very young,
::I went through a difficult
::childhood, not in a traditional sense,
but I had
::trouble
::branching out and meeting new people.
::I was
::in
::a specialized school till I was about
four years old,
::specifically, because I refuse to talk
to anyone
::about anything really.
::And around middle school is where I
started the branch out.
::Today's episode is going to focus
mostly on
::how role playing could
::potentially improve someone's
::writing ability
::and the different other
::benefits there are to dramatic play,
drama
::theater,
::as the kids like to call it nowadays.
::I'm not that old myself,
::who am I kidding?
::So here we're going to discuss that,
::and...
::Welcome to Penman Ventures.
::So I was playing Star Wars Galaxies at
the time,
::before the New Game Enhancements patch
came out.
::You know, that patched, that ruined the
game for everyone, kind of;
::Try to turn into a World of Warcraft
clone.
::It was
::there where
::I met other players who were
::creating posts that seemed
::very in character in local a cantina on Tatooine,
::specifically.
::It was one of the more popular hub
zones for role players in the game at
::the time.
::And the idea
::intrigued me
::where I could go ahead and write for my
avatar
::and embody
::their persona, and I don't have to
worry about exposing myself so much.
::From there on, I've been in the role
playing community,
::since then.
84
::I moved on to other video games, such
as World of Warcraft,
85
::Guild Wars,
86
::One and Two...
87
::played there for a while, and most
recently, I've been a part of the Final
88
::Fantasy 14 role play community,
89
::where I am running in my own free
company right now, where we host events occasionally
90
::and have an ongoing storyline
91
::between myself and all of my members.
92
::Now,
93
::the concept of role playing has been
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::in the wide media since the 2010's, just about,
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::thanks to Dungeons and Dragons,
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::primarily.
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::It's probably
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::one of the most famous
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::(or infamous),
100
::tabletop role playing games that are
out there today.
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::And it's inspired
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::countless other
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::tabletop RPGs
104
::since then, including
105
::my personal favorite, which is Fate: Core.
106
::Most of these mediums, most of these
games focus on
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::immersion and storycraft
108
::it's designed to bring you into their
world, so to say.
109
::But the
110
::concept has actually
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::existed since long before
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::Dungeons and Dragons.
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::The concept was actually...
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::actually has its roots -
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::that
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::traced back as far as
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::
118
::70 A.D.
119
::There was an article I found written by
Steven Payne on Dicebreaker.com
120
::that talks about
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::war games
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::and how popular they were in the early
days of civilization.
123
::These war games, these tournaments,
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::over time,
125
::shifted from
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::fighting and violence to focusing more
127
::on storytelling
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::and the creation of
129
::myths surrounding the people who
participated in these tournaments and games.
130
::When participants came onto the field,
they were dressed up in ostentatious
131
::armor
132
::displays.
133
::They were displaying their heraldaries
134
::that provoked
135
::certain emotions
136
::from the crowds that were watching them.
137
::Over time,
138
::these tournaments and field games
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::that
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::inspired
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::legends and stories
142
::moved from the tourney grounds to
parlor halls,
143
::where everything kind of
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::scaled down
145
::to the form of tabletop games such as
cards,
146
::chess.
147
::The author of this article specifically
brought up a game of
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::Consequence.
149
::The
150
::games
151
::here
152
::eventually became more accessible to
the general public.
153
::And they,
154
::when they got into the right hands,
they inspired even more creations that
155
::promoted creativity and collaboration
156
::and especially storytelling,
157
::including games like Dungeons and
Dragons,
158
::which came out in
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::1973.
160
::It was released by
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::Gary Gygax and David Arneson
162
::David Arneson.
163
::And
164
::with the release of Dungeons and
Dragons,
165
::there have been even more
166
::popular mediums since that were released
167
::that helped
168
::inspire stories that could be
transcribed into the written word.
169
::One book series that
170
::comes into mind immediately
171
::is Stephen Erickson's
172
::Malazan: Book of the Fallen series,
173
::which was also inspired by his own
campaign he ran with his friend while
174
::in college.
175
::And it looks like it has more than ten
books so far.
176
::Imagine
177
::logging these sessions
178
::and creating it into a work of art
179
::that's your own.
180
::Inspiring to say it at least.
181
::And I could think of
182
::several my own stories
183
::that were
184
::inspired by similar interactions,
specifically, from
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::online role playing.
186
::And
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::to this day,
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::me and my wife both are
189
::also considering writing our own story
in a similar format,
190
::where we hop on a Discord channel and
start
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::a role playing session with a home
brew campaign,
192
::and
193
::editing and creating a story as we go
along.
194
::This isn't the only example of husband
and wife duo, who
195
::get together in a room and use a role
play as a means to
196
::create and develop a story.
197
::We role play every night, or nearly
every night.
198
::We take breaks now and then when time
permits,
199
::usually, though it's nightly often for
hours, we find it invigorating,
200
::restorative
201
::revealing.
202
::It strengthens our connection.
203
::In fact, it's one of the foundational
pieces of our marriage.
204
::The role playing, we mean, happens not
in the bedroom,
205
::but in our office.
206
::We're referring to our co-writing process,
207
::years of nights working together to get
into the heads and hearts of the
208
::characters we put on the page.
209
::The comparison to role playing isn't
unfounded due to the way we write together.
210
::Instead of exchanging chapters or
wholly dividing duties like one of us
211
::editing and the other drafting.
212
::For instance, we write everything
together in real time in one room.
213
::Every sentence is proposed out loud,
discussed
214
::and incorporated
215
::once each of us feels the character's
voices reflected.
216
::This comes from an article written by
both Emily Wibberley
217
::and Austin Siegmund-Broka,
218
::published on the Writer's Digest.
219
::They're a writing duo
220
::who have published popular romance
novels since, using the style of
221
::writing, including,
222
::most recently, it looks like, "Do I Know You?"
a story where a married couple
223
::revisit their marriage from the
perspective of two complete strangers,
224
::learning to flirt with and love one
another again.
225
::Sounds
226
::very silly, but romantic and fun to put
down to the page
227
::when you're both in the same room
together.
228
::Like I said, these stories are not
uncommon.
229
::We have examples from Steven Erickson,
230
::and
231
::I can bet at least two out of every
five writers have written books in a
232
::similar manner
233
::based on an immersive experience they
themselves had, or have had with others,
234
::whether it's in collaboration
235
::or just a shared experience.
236
::Now
237
::I could speak on
238
::the fact that a lot of role players
nowadays also continue to log their
239
::own sessions,
240
::there on Google docs
241
::it's becoming common practice, especially in
the Final Fantasy community,
242
::where
243
::people would
244
::log role plays into
245
::documents
246
::using plug ins,
247
::so that they could go back and edit
these logs later, and maybe publish
248
::them in a different format,
249
::or
250
::maybe remix them entirely to create
into something entirely new.
251
::One major question that I've had for a
long time, however, is whether or not
252
::role playing actually affects someone's
ability to write.
253
::I could safely say that it has
positively
254
::affected my own ability to write,
255
::put pen to page.
256
::My speaking, not so much, but that's a
work in progress.
(Sure buddy)
257
::After some research, I did find a
journal article from the British
258
::Journal of Education
259
::that is titled: "The effectiveness of
Role Playing and Enhancing Creative Writing
260
::of English Major Students at Al-Quds
University."
261
::It was an interesting read, and I'll
include a
262
::link to the journal article in the podcast notes below.
263
::But, here are some of the highlights I
found within the text.
264
::Role playing helps students to
understand, evaluate and appreciate
265
::text in a better way.
266
::It also helps them enjoy the literary
text, and thus look at the text from a
267
::beautiful perspective.
268
::Dramatic play was highly related to
total work writing fluency.
269
::The study findings also show that
dramatic
270
::play increases a student's ability to
write texts related to creative writing.
271
::This result may be attributed to the
fact that role playing helps students
272
::to understand the literary text in a
better way.
273
::And drama helps in improving students'
creative writing skills by increasing
274
::their vocabulary fortune.
275
::Through the use of creative drama,
276
::students can actively take part in the
learning process,
277
::and they can discover their skills in
creativity as well.
278
::It's assumed that creative drama
activities can be an effective method
279
::to increase the student's writing
capabilities.
280
::So we have confirmation that role
playing can help someone's ability to write.
281
::And the implication of this,
282
::I can't help but smile.
283
::With the increasing popularity of V.R., and
284
::more widespread acceptance of
285
::the different mediums, which we
could role play through...
286
::There are
287
::an infinite amount of resources by this point,
288
::and different ways to publish your
imaginings in written format.
289
::I remember back in the
290
::early 2000's
291
::where we only had a few websites where
you could publish your
292
::works of art or creative writing, such
as Deviantart,
293
::Wattpad, Fanfiction.net, or Archive of our Own.
294
::But now there's
295
::a myriad ways where the written word,
296
::can reach your audience.
297
::Who remembers those sites,
298
::back in the day? I certainly do.
299
::The
300
::accessibility we have to technology now
301
::is also outstanding.
302
::And
303
::there are so many different ways we
could train the next generation
304
::in writing fluency and creative writing.
305
::And I can't help but look forward to
306
::what else is published
307
::in the next day or the day after.
308
::But
309
::I will say
310
::we should be careful about
311
::what is implemented and what is used,
312
::because it can also rob us of creativity
313
::I'm speaking, for instance, of
artificial intelligence,
314
::Chat-GPT,
315
::Google Bard...
316
::or, I guess it's called Gemini now...
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::
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::after the recent scandals with Bard
that were on the news,
319
::we have to
320
::be careful not to rely on such
technology too much.
321
::It could be a good tool for those who
use it correctly, but it could also
322
::depreciate the value of a lot of online
content nowadays, as we
323
::continue to see on sites like YouTube
and
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::Instagram, TikTok, (and Buzzfeed... etc.)
325
::utilizing
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::AI technology
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::to the detriment of
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::viewers and
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::overall
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::the concept of creativity.
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::Thank you for joining me today.
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::Like I said, Penman Ventures is a
multimedia web journal where I dedicate
333
::my time into
334
::diving
335
::into stories behind various works of
art, media news and a myriad of what
336
::a myriad of interesting topics,
whatever comes to mind in that
337
::particular day, or whether for my
potential fans request in the near future.
338
::It is also...
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::a place where I chronicle my own
journey as a storyteller and a creative
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::I
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::hope to improve over time.
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::But for those of you tuning into this
first episode of the Penman Ventures'
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::broadcast, thank you for spending time
with me today,
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::I look forward to hearing from all of
you, either on social media or on my website,
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::346
::WWW.PENMANVENTURES.COM
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::I hope I improve over time and provide
(You said that already, newb)
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::more thoughtful entertainment
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::to you and any other listeners out
there.
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::Thank you.
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::I'll catch you next time.