📜 French, Izabelle. 2023. “Playing Music: Reconsidering Game Pieces Through Tabletop Roleplaying Game Design.” Bachelor's thesis, Edith Cowan University. https://doi.org/10.25958/998d-3z69
This unique 38-page work looks at game pieces through the lens of TTRPGs. After historical remarks, Duel and Cobra serve as case studies. Lesser known pieces mentioned are: Homo Ludens, 20 Questions, and things to do. After a brief history of tabletop role-playing, the iterative design process was characterized, and its fruit of three games analyzed and then directly presented.
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The author generously shares these three games also directly with/through our wiki. You are a Being of Dirt and Dreams is in the library and Acting Class and Ouroboros are below. For all the works some tips are given as for the music, useful especially for those with low experience with free improvisation:
- Nothing is wrong.
- Don’t play constantly.
- Listen, and respond.
Acting Class
Every player will need their own character sheet to fill in (the only preparation).
After filling in your character sheet (setup), improvise music assuming a role of a character from your sheet.
Ouroboros
Setup. Choose one of the players to be a "Game Master" (the role works only as a far analogy to RPG GMs — all participants will engage with music to a similar extent).
Game start. Game Master starts improvising on one idea.
The gameplay loop is as follows:
- The whole ensemble supports the GM’s improvisation.
- A player may challenge the GM at will (details below).
- If the player lose, the GM continues as previously.
- If the player win or draw, the player then dictates where they think the improvisation should go — the GM recreates player’s example for further playing, with ensemble's support.
- Another challenge occurs etc.
Challenging is done by rock-paper-scissors. If you have an idea on where the performance should go, put your fist out in the direction of the GM, who should play one-on-one rounds in order of challenging.
If the GM wins the match, the improvisation continues as it did before.
If the player wins the match, or the match ends in a draw, the player then performs a small improvisation in a differing style. This should take about 10 seconds. The GM must, to the best of their abilities, recreate, fulfill, and uphold the improvisation that the player suggested until another challenge is successful.
Game end decided by GM.
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