freud and campbell - myth, archetype and role-playing

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Freud and CampbellMyth, Archetype and Role-Playing

by Alldrew Ri lstone, Greg StafTord and J ames Wallis

This is a transcription ofa moderated panel d ~ \ ' C 1 I S 5 i o n held on Saturda), 23rd

July 1994, dU1ing the Convulsion games convention in Leicestn

The panel consisted ofGJeg Staffmd and Andme Rdslone, wllh discussion

moderated by j a m e . ~ H-rdlis, who also transcribed and edited Lhe recording. To

complicate matters, the session began with a role-plaJing conceit: Greg Stafford

took the mle oI]oey' Campbell J>: and Andreu' Rilltone /!laled 'Siggy' FII'lI.d the

second, the recentl), discovered offipring of theiT epoll)'mo1l$ and bellPr-known

parents. Th ese roles were dropped as the discussion expanded bf!)'ond its o'rigmal

brief

nTOugholll the Immcription, GS if G"g Stafford, ,1R is And"" Rilslone

and the occa.sional JW is James rVallis. iVfembers DJ the alldie11CI? have been

identified where possible: MC is Myles C01"COTan; Gll is Geoff Hogan; RH is

Ralph Honle)'; DR is David Renton; DS is David Scoll .

Andrew Rilstone {as 'Sigg;-' Fre-Ild}: I've been vety interestcd by this IlC\ ..

phenomellon of role-playing games, this use of a therapeutic tool in a

recreational contex!. Ir seems to me that you have people who ca ll them

se lves 'dungeon masters' or 'referees', \ ...hich I'm sure is hound up with

something very patriarchal, who put themselves in a thcrapeutic rela

tionship to the players. It looks very much to me like a session of grouptherapy. except thalthey seem to be doing it for fun even thollgh the

sexual and analytical overtones ofwhat they're doing is obvious enough:

competition for experience and levels and magic swords, \ ...e could talk

about that aU night. But there's a game which I imagine Mr CampbeU

wil l have heanl of, Pendmgon', which has an appendix that talks in gen

eral terms about the psychological bellefits of role-playing, although this

seems to be contaminated with ideas from Jung.

Greg Stafford [as ]oey' C"mpbellj: We feel it's about time that these thera

peutic uses were liberated fi-om the hands of people \\'ho set themselves

up on the great phaUic piUar ofwisdom, alld put into the hands of orcli



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E \ ' e r y b o d ~ has v.1thill IhcmselH.'s the abiliry to interact with the ar

chetypal plane in an ordinary manne,; without the leadership of profe,

sionals. I lhink everybody's got it in their heans. I thmk everyone of us

has - well, not everybody: if everybody had thIS , everybody wonld be

role-playing. "mddn ', ,hc),' But among the vaneties of hllman beings.there 's a large number of us who are naturally drawlI 10 panicipate in

the mythic atmosphere. and I think that role-playing games are one of

the best outlets for it these days. In the old da),s 'hey had rituals. the,'

had ceremonies, they had a whole set of thmgs 10 do so that the), could

all be fed in Ihi s way, and these just don't ex is! in Ihe modern world.

lhey've been prelty "'ell stamped out by Western culture. Christi.ffl ty

has done a good job of stamping it OUI ; and sc ience , as people Illink of

it., has gone further to stam p out a 101 of Ollr o\\'n innate contact \"ith ollr

drcam-worlds, \,,·ith ou r OWll archetypal fantasy internal/extel11al selves.

And Illat's why I Illink people play rol e-playing games: because it's a

nalural and pleasant and enjoyable Illing, besides bemg fi.m.

AR : You talk about Il,e interaction with the archetypal plane, which ill-

volves 'archelypa]', a Jungian idea, and 'plane', wh ,ch is some son of

mystical idea. Basically, wilhout my Freud hat on, I'm interested in the

state ments in Pendragrm about Ihe game being hardwired into mydllcarchetypes, and how seriously this was i n t e ~ d from your point. of vieh·,

and if so what does it mean?

I read J oseph Campbell 's works, and he says Il,at reacting fairy-talcs

and myths is in itself a process of psychoanalysis. The process of psy-

choanalysis wh ich h e",1 talks about - and indeed Jung. although he

was working wilhill a different rranlework - is a process which goes on

for years and involves unpicking all those ghastly thmgs ,hal have < e r happened to you, and tran sfeniug your relationship with YOllr fatheronto the analyst. I walll to kllow in ,.,..h at sense playing PendTClgon or

reading ]ack alld the Bc ansta lk' is analogous la lhal.l fed when reading

Can'pbdlll"" he is excellent so long as he is talking about relationships

between the difierent mythologies and recurrent motifs and suc h, but

when he geLS on to talking about whal they really mcan, he gets inlO

ideas like 'follow your bliss'. I didn't need to read two thousand pages of

The Masks o/Gnd and study every mythology ill lhe world to find our thala good way of heing happy is LO find om what Illakes you happy and

Il,en go and do it.

CS: I understand that the au thor of P",dragoll believes [audle/lce laugh-

ll!1j that we are hardwired to {h is stuff, that the ract Ihat it call be used by

so me tyranni ca l {hCr3pisl to lme rheir pockets with your hard-eal11ed

mOlley . . .AR: \\11ich a game t.iesigncr would nev er do. .

CS: Ifyoll cOlllpare llIy annllal income Slal.ement 10 (hat o f a ~ ) ' lheraplslI know, yo u Wll see thal this is ahsolutely uue . But I do believe that we

44 interactive fantas 1.2



Freud and Campbell byAlldrew Ri/stone and Greg Stafford

are hardwired. I think that eyer since human consciousness was Spa\\11ed.

the alienation that is inherent , ..·ithin our human consciousness requires

an ouuet, an interface \vith the world that we can no longer kIlO''''; that <lll

of the archetypal mythic themes are real. Whether you wanlto deal "ith

it or not, the fact is that we're all going to die someday. In a hundred

years. no one in this room will be sitting in this room. The fact is that we

don't know everything, we 're not even in (oman wilh our 0\\>11 emotions,

certainly not with the larger cosmos. 'nIere are things , ..·c don't under-

~ t a n d and things \,,°e can't understand, and we \\.:a lH to have some under

standing and relationship with these things. 1 tllink that's hardwiredinto us.

Our separation from naUtre, if that's an acceptable a n a l o g u ~ of the

fall, has widened tlle gap between us as modern people and the world of

nature. And we do live \\'i1..hil1 the ""orld of nature, \'y'hether we want to

cope with it or not. We still require fi..lfilling, feeding that part of our

selves that lives \,,;thin nature. and this is done through story-tellillg, or

through psychoanalys is if you walllto do itm that manner. Role-playinggames do the same thing. You don ' t need to kill something to under-

stand death. You don ' t need to go out and burn down a village to expe

rience the tremendous pleasure that we can get from destroying our

e.nemies. "Ve do it with our imaginations, which is much safer. And I

think this is what it 's all about: il's our opportunity to experience these

things. botll tlle particular and the universal.

AR: I'm much more in tune ",idl that kind of reasoning: the idea tllat

what's valuable in role-playing or in analy sis is playing tlnuugh situa

tions in some controlled way - playing through things we haven't expe

rienced, like burning down a village or being in a violent sintation . In

analysis it might be playing through a piece of a relationship with a

parent or something similar. -lhat is healing, because it helps you to

understand it.What I remain to be convinced by is the idea that, when playing

~ n g e o & Dragons or Hmdragon, that ,,,'izards and knights have all

Innate power because they reside in our collective unconscious some

where - which seems to be J oseph Campbell's thing - and that just

e x p ~ e n c i n g these things changes you in some way. Myexperience with

plaYing Pendragon is that you're not acting out some thing mystical and

hardWlred because you 're playing through the relationship of a knight

anda sql11re and lady; it' s a convenient code for exploring thi ngs about

(amtly hfe. A Pelldmgon campaign I ran for about eighteen months cen



Freud and Campbell by Andrew Ri/stone and Greg StaJJord

acting out somethillg psychological. I " 'Quid have thoughr that kno\\'lng

that would remove the faith and the panicipalion in lile myth. \\,hieh by

hypothesis is what', having the good psychological effect.

GeoJJ Hogan [frolll lhe audimeel: TI,e question might be about what'suseful abollt psychoanalysis anyway. and whether it 's interllal or resolu

tion through transference, \V11at I think happens in role-playmg games

is thallhe transferring OCClIrs arlY','ay. so ,,-hat is therapeutic about some

body sacrificing to their god is the u'ansference, Tnat happens "hether

the person's got insight or not, hut is actually more lIsentl if the person

hasn't got the insi ght.

AR: A.re we talking about transference in tenns of COIning to regard [lieanalyst or the game's referee as a father-figure. or in terms of pUlting

aggression onto the anilllal that 's being s<tClificed?

CH: Freud moves on to say dUll it's notneccssariiy in sight that is thera

peutic in the therapeutic reialjonship . \'V11at happens is th at the worker

and [he client work on rhe transfert:nce between them and as that u-ans

fere nce gets resolvetl the emotional conflicts, perhaps between child and

father-fif,'llre, get resolved. Certainly \·Villllicott """ould follow on from

that by asking what are we going to do now with (his persoll. How are we

going to giYe them an experience. and arrange a t.ransference \vhich ""ill

help this person to.devdop better? SOIlle of this comes more from Eng

lish psychoanalysis thall from Atnerican, but this does lcad me to think

that 's what happens in role-playing games.

-Ille transferclIce happens right from the time ,,,,'hen the player<"Te-

ates their character ann gives it a name . \-Vhen I look at. the names of

characters who play in my group, one woman called her first character,

a priestess, Jezarene . \Vhich, in tenns of Freudian slips and paraJ-lraxia,

is a combinat ion of 'j esus' and 'Nazarene '. This character went on fO

fonn a church called 'The Guiding Light'. Of' course, Ihe player was

blissfully unaware of a ll this, but I'm sure that some thing w a ~ resolved

for her through it.AR: What. do you think would have happened if' you'd explained that to

her?

CH: I don't think interpretation would have helped her at all. But I

think that the experience did, aIld I was uying to focu s a bit more on

that. Transference relics on a blank S<..Teen and, as rhc games m a S L C I ~ allI can be is like a screen. I h ave a scenario that 's a medium for people 10

approach, there 's a plot with a beginning, middle and cnd, but I still

think of (he blank screen so people can bnllg their own personal objec

tives to the group

AR: It's a blank screen which seems to be stnlCt.u red in a \'ery archetypal



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GH: "Ihat killd of sueen gives them unconditional positive regard as

well, because they kill the monsters, take u1e treasure and arc told that

that's fine. so we're giv in g them pennission to be all (iIose thillgs that as

parents we can't let our children be. ·11."t is actually quite a healing

expenence.

cs: I've been reflecting on .. ndre\v ·s earlicr l a e m e n t ~ and was thinkll1g

that perhaps the fault in the COlI llllCllt he had made was lhe confusion

abo ut making the sacrifice, lO dunk Ihat it has no effcct out there, only

in the head; that psychological assumption that there is no 'out there ',

there is only 'in there ' - that in ract if there is all 'out there' then your

sta tement is fals e?AR: If the religious ritual - I suppose there are two things that go on ill

Joscp h Campbel!'s wo rk, .

CS: ['m negating Dad here.

AR : I was thinking about C"ml'bdrs idea - I think he borrowed it from

Kant - of there being ways of relati ng to the 'X', which could be the

unconsciolls, or could be God, or cou ld be the spirit plane or \v'hatever.If you believe that that 'X' is something real, that there arc spirits or

another dimension or wha tever, then in performing the ritual you arc

interacting with this unknown. I think Illy criticism of Campbell is that

he assumes psychoanalysis a lot of the time: you're talking aboUl the

mythic symbols being masks, but when Cimpbell takes the masks off,

what he thinks is underneath is so mething very Freudian.

GS: Or Jungian. Something psychological.AR: Yes, but it's somet hing to do with the meaning of the se myths beillg

to do with a descent into an underworld which contains a fiCILC fath er

figure who you confront, who you either slay, or he gives you permission

to many the WOlJlaTl, or who you are reconciled with.

CS: Or else you ju st lop his nuts off. One or the ot.her, yeah. But yes. that

assumption is particularly psychological. Also Joseph Campbcll has theproblem of presenting individualization as opposed to individualiol1.

the worship of the indisidllal over all else, a particularly Western disease,

in which the indi vidual is satl'Cd and everything else is secondary' to that.

And f think that th e idea of ule personalization of the imagery and the

pnx:css is contaminatcd by this \Vestel11 ideal as wdl.

AR: \OU lhink th e journey of the hero could be read in a more soc ial

way?

CS: I u1ink so. I think there's a lot to be said for interpreting these

things not just as a totally individual Journey or trip. Even Campbe ll



Freud and Campbell by A"drew Rilsto"e and Greg Stafford

cs: 11,e rest of your psyche. HO"'ever, [ don 't believe that myself [ think

that this {s w_eping ge.lt1l1ej is our village. [f [ had gone off and done all

my Pelldragon or all Iny Gloranthan: work and had it all locked up in my

cabinet at home. where is my artistic merit? If J haven't had the oppor-

tunity to share it \\'ith you and put it out there as something to be criticized, to be played with: sometlling to be enjoyed, even adapted and

slagged oil; it has no value whatsoever. And [ personally don't think it

just has to do with the internal aspect of it.

Ralph Horsley {jiVII! the audience}: l'dlike to ask how you deal with the

aspect of sllccessful resolutions. Overcoming difficulties is admittedly

important, but the possibility that the character could be overcome is

also importa11l withill the stnlCtllre of the g'dlllt'. 00 ~ ' O l l think characters

should finally Q\'CrcOlllc their problems?

CS : No, not necessarily. I've had games where it took three generations

of characters to achieve a goal. So it's not the fact that the characters

succeed, but ultimately that the player succeeds. [ think that's an impor

tant part, but it's not what I ahvays use. I'lll happy to ha\"e players fail.

RH: lfyou're using this psychological tool where the benefit comes fromresolving the conflict, does the benefit only derive when you achieve

that end, or sinlply from being in tha[ situation? Is it the participation or

the resolution?

CS: I think dIal success in a character is not actually important. It d e ~ pends on how you define success. [s the deatll of a character a failure?

Well, maybe. But ,f your character is the person who tums to the party

and says, 'I'll Slay here, I GUl hold them for five minutes. Say g o o d ~ b y c to my wife for me,' and goes away, is dut a success or a failure? It d e ~ pends on the terms. I think in general the interaction is more i m p o r ~ tant than the success, hut the story-teller in me wants some success.

AR: In all these discussions \..·e're probably talking about a vcl)' sma ll

minority of r o l e ~ p l a y i n g games, when the emotional commltment from

player.s and referees is actually going to have any effect at aiL But if

you're talking about a game in which you've invested a lot into your

character and they've become your hero-figure \."ho has embarked on

this quest., \.,'hich we're saying might have archerypal or Freudian signifi

cance, and tlley descend into the underworld and confront tlus evil fa-

ther-figure - and the referee doesn't know this but the player is actually

very screwed up about their own father - and they confront the charac

ter, roll a fumble and are killed. . .

[ don't kilOW, is that going to havesome less therapeutic effect or not?

cs :That's dependent on tl,e reaction of the individual. [f he suddenly

gets ~ p , throws down Ius dice and says, 'Gocldamn it, just like myoid



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cheating ourselves and him. But you did raise Cl point: how many peol,le

here play dlara<..:lCrs with no emotional commitment?

{Audience: C11es of sometimes']

JW:This leads to something I've been working on recently: the differ

ence between role-playing games and character playing-games. The

former is what a lot of the academic work on role-playing has been

about. in which you play a role within society, for example in a u-aining

situation you might play tl,e Head of Marketing or the Secretal)' of

Defence, and you fill in the blanks of that person's character from your

own. Character-playing games, in which you actually act the part of a

round ed personality not yourself, arc far morc drama ticbUl

paradoxica lly, because they're not dealing with archetypal roles onto which the

players can project themselves, the players are less emotionally a ll ached

t.o the charac ters, despite the fact that the characters seen 1 1III.1ch more

tllrec-dimensional.

[Audience: C"es of'bollocks''l

AR: You're say ing that in a character-playing game you visua li ze a char-

acter very different from yourself for example. an old woman with aterror of cats, sOlneone who is very different from I.he player, v,:lH..:rcas ill

a role-playing game I'd play 'a fighter' or 'a cleric' or 'a magic-user'.

GS: But nobody ends up "oth 'a fighter'. You end up with 'GlUg Ule two-

swo rded, six-toed fighter who's done this, that and the other'.

JW: Maybe YOII and Jdo, but when you're fourteen you start. off with 'Jirnthe fighter', and he's got a big sword and some cool armour, but essen

tiaJly it's you inside that armour. You project yoursel f onto the archetypal charac ter in the fantasy world.

RH: As far as characterization went, the role-playing I was doing when I

was fourteen was a lot CTIlder than what I'm doing now, but as far as

emotional anachment goes Iwas probably a lot more upset abollt a cha r

actcr dying then than I would be now, because now I can appreciate that

a character dying while holding someone off on a bridge can he good

role-play ing in itself. D&D ten years ago was a competitive game: )'ou

were playing a game, not role-playing, YOll were trying to achieve some

success. YOtI were not necessarily u)'i llg 1.0 heal the other players hut

trying to beat the system, it was you aga in st the person 1111l11ing the

ganle.

Myles Corcoran [from/he audience}: More importantly, at tl,e age of four

tcen, when you fail in a role-playing game it 's as much as anything afailure in YOllr everyday life. 'Ve're more used to failing because we've

got older and failed a lot more otten. At fourteen it', more of a shock to

YOll because you are confronted with th e fact that you are not going to



Freud and CampbelJ by A"drew Ri/slo"e and Greg Slafford

ships, failed working situ<-ltiO lls, failed everythillg. \Vc're lIsed (0 the fail

ure, and we nm ... kno\\" lhat wc ca lJ learn frOllllhat kind of failure, so it's

useful to fail in a role-playing game as lIIudl as iL's lIseful to fail in allY

other activity.

Audietlce member 1: Can I ask the two eminent panellists, when you play

these games, to ""hat extent arc you playing ' ...'iUl therapeutic functions

and towhar extent as game masters are you putting people in touch \,..ith

the unknown or whatever you want to call it? And do you think that a

game master needs to notice that they're doing this consciousl); or do

you think it just happens? I'm concerned that you might have to be atrained therapist to nm a game.

AR: \Vhen I run games, I alii not cO ll scio1.l s1y plluing lIIyself ill a t.hera

peutic role at alL In some o[the games \,,-hich I would rate as good ones,

I have increasingly become alarmed by types of relationships and situa

tions breaking out in the group which seem to have some son of anal

ogy wit h therapeutic situations.

I can remember a Pendmgon character, all eight - or Ilinc-year-old

squire who was going to become a major character. and \' iC started talk

ing through this character's childhood, one on one, in quite a lot of

depth and it was becoming a quite personal, in-depth discussion. It \,,'as

a very powerful piece of role-playing and the subsequent playing of this

character as an adult was incredibly real. Bw it su""U.ck mc that somethi ng

was going on (here, there is an analogy with therapy. and should refereesbe aware of the psychological potential of these games' l l le 510»lelll'1'

system says yes, the point of these games is the exploration of the dark

side of yourself. 11,e majority of role-players would say don't be silly,

they're just games. I don ' t know_

RH : You're almost drawn into it subconsciously anyway. I play with a

group that's been together about five years . I kllOw that they're quile

good role-players, they can play in characte.; but they're still essentia lly

playing themselves, and I know that certain things will upset certain

players but won' t upset other players, I can do things to certain charac

ters and their players will be happy to role-play those situatio lls, while

other people " i ll fe el that they're being P'<l upon. You've got a social,

emotional sinlation which you can't get away from, and it can be quite

difficult sometimes because you're aware of that, whether vou want it tobe there or not. '

CS: That's a responsibility that games masters have and it's not neces

satiJy psychological in focus. \-Vhen I g a m e - m a s l e l ~ even whell I writ.e



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try not to deliberately provoke or hun your friends. It's lIot a psycho

logical orientation, it's a social onc.

There is a responsibility: I don't think you need 1.0 be conscioLls of

it, I don't think you neecl to know that this has a potential for doing thisor that in a psychological realm, butjusI be aware of your o\,,'n po\\·er as

an individual. I think the cmpowcrmel1l of the individual as a game

master or as a pl<lyer is a major issue here. It comes ..vith the terrain.

AR: ~ 1 1 a t about the first part of the question: do you consciousl), en

courage your players, or ellable them, to interact with the mystical un-

known as you sec it? Do you consciously do that or do you just tell a

story?

cs: I don ' t know if I could tell a story without doing that. I cia it, but not

consciousl)'.

CH: On the subject of responsibility, my game's been running for aboul

ten years and ""ice in it I think I'ye actually got it wrong. and I think it 's

because someone once said to me that as a referee I have the power to

make mher people (Ollle illto my dreams. Dreams resolve things lor methat arc cliffimlt to resolve normally. Rather than simply dream , [ create

scenarios Lhat resolve issues for mc, and I let other people resolve it for

me: I watch and they talk about it to me, and 1 feel better and illspin.:d.

My example may be a bit extreme, bUl. I think that as referees we do

have a responsibility to help people rcmientate into reality after the game.

[ u-l' to have a half-houl; to do something to reorientate the players.

AR: Yes, I think (here are too [eh' referees who worry abollt grounding

players aftenvards. If you're just playing for fun then tbat's b ~ " C a t , bUI if

you are plotying an intense game it does worry me if people then ha\·e to

leave inU11ediately. I'm n01 saying that people are go ing to go otT ancl

have llervous breakdowns, but it doesn't seem like a vcry kind thillg to

do.

cs :I agree. It's a great compliment to be a game master in a game

",here YOLl can emotionally engage people in a real ',,-'ay. but it' s a real

responsibility.

Audience member 2: ' ·\'e've all been aware of times whcn , ..·c\·c perhaps

accidentally stepped on a player's problem, and you think, 'God,

what a galle! What have I done' How am [ going to make it righl again"

You can see from the tact that they're a little bit upset - perhaps they've

got one arm and their character gets theIr ann chopped off. We've alldone it, and sometimes they're upset and SOllletlllles Lhey're nOI, but

you ah..,ays think they are. But the next week they 're fillc - it's all just Cl

game.



Freud and Campbell by Andrew Ri/stone and Greg Stafford

cs: \ ·\·113t you mean is that the triviaJiz31ion of 'game' ill the phrase 'oh,

it's just a game' is an artificial consU·uct. It's just a 'game' - but it's a

'game'!

Audience member 2: It's something you say to protect yourself. If you getin thal state ofm.ind, you can say, 'Jt'sjust a game.'

AR: If we mean 'don't confuse this with reality', I don't believe there's

anyone in the history of the world who's ever conn.lSed a game with

reality.

JW: When you were two or three years old you played 'let's pretend'. It's

a role-playing game, and you knew it \\'as a ganle, but it helped you learn

about the real world.

David Scott [from tlu! audience): \,\,Then i5 a game not a game? \·\,11cn does

it star! to overlap with reality too much, and where is tJIC lut-ofTpoint? I

don't ulink you can say 'it's a game'. \'v'hatever you're doing, even if it's

just in yourself, you're taking on some part of the real world. Even if

you're just slaying monsters, if you have this feeling and have to get it

out, then it's not a game; it's something you really feel you have to do atsome subconscious level. I come away from monster-bashing and 1 feel

really good: you come away "ith a buzz, you don't think, 'Oh yeah, I was

really upset about killing the monsters', you think, 'That felt really good,

I really enjoyed myself.' Perhaps the enjoyment is the release that we get,

so perhaps it's not. a game at all. Is role-playing a game?

CS: As David says, what do we mean by 'game'? i \ game is real. It's not as

real as this {knocks on table} but the experience, the emotional charge you

get can be real. It's not something you can throwaway like an old piece

of paper and forget about it, it's a real thing. Children play games to

practise reality.

I have a friend who was messed up psychologically. His girlfriend

had dumped him, he had a c.Tisis in faith, he was flunking school and he

couldn't deal with his parents, so he did what half the people in Americado. Half take drugs, the other half oin the military. Hejoined the Navy,

and became involved in Dungeons & Dragons. He was on a nuclear sub

{audience laughter} and they would go out for months and never surface.

This was a great time for Cl game, and tlley had very loug and intense

gaming sessions. And at one point he said, 'You know, I'm a pretty un

happy guy.! wonder what I'd need to do to be happy" So he consciously

constnlCted his charact.ers to test out personalities - 'I think I'll be a

bastard with this guy,' and lIled it out; 'I think I'll be a really friendly

~ m l p guy on this,' and tried it out through the games and really got iIlto



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But this was play! 111at's the whole poinr. He was conscious or it as

play, but it had real efIects. It's I1ot jU S( a gallic, as if galtliJlg is a trivial,

unimportant and unreal thing. It has real effecls. It's got its own reality.

It's nO( the same reality ''''here we earn our paycheques. you can't eat

game-food and live, but nevertheless il has its own validity and reality.

AR: 10 a small child, " play-world can be much more important thall

the real world. 11,cy'rc not confused aboUl which is which, but they might

be much more worried about ",that they're doing with their toy soldiers

than what u1cy 're doing at school. I think there are probably role-play

crs in Ihar situation as well.

1 think people role-play for three reasons, and the most important isto have fun ,,,,ith your mates, the social thing, to (hillk beer and eat

peanuts and mess around. Tl1 e second reason is 10 cxpelience a fUll

story, to entertain yourself, to he h a n b ~ l l g ofT u',e edge of a cliff by your

fingell1ails. '1l1e third reason is the more in tense character insight

and that tends to come along when you've been doing good, fun, excit

ing stories ror a long time, and you've had all the adventures.

A mistake that I've made and which some cOlllrnercial systems are

pushing to\vards is staningwith the charaoer insights, saying. 'Hey every

body, design the,e really detailed characters, put a lot of insight into

them, and we're going to have !.his really intense session .' \Vhat actually

happens is you don't have the fun stel)', -you don 't have the messillg

around with peanuts, alld everybody's bored. TIlere are games which

say that the purpose of u1e game is to discover the nature of evil and

explore your dark side, bur that could aCfUally prevent itself from doing

the very thing it's setting out to do.

JW: The moment you say, 'We're going to get together to do some vet)'

purposeful escapism,' you're taking that away, because the players \\ill be

thinking abou t what they're doing rather than just doing it.

DS : If I could ask our two em inent panellists, do they tJliuk thaL referees

should have a responsibility to channel the results of role-playing into amorc positive line? \,\11cnever you finish a game, ,vhether it be a hack-

and -slash or an ell l0Liona l release, people come out happy. GeofTllogan

was talkillg abotl[ a wind-do,,,,) session which I think is a Vel) ' good idea.

hut do you not think that there is a need for rererees to be re sponsible

and actually have these wi nd-down sessions at the end?

AR: Certainly there's a need for referees to act responsibly. I like the idea

of a comedown session vel'\' much, but I would shrink away from a ses

sion of silting around and i n g , ' '''''ell, " ..hat have we all learned from

Ihi s? How Gill we 1l0W apply il to our daily lives'?'



Freud and Campbell by A1!drew Ri/stone and ereg Stafford

f,TJ"Olllld it out a bit before , ...c go hom f. I \,'ould hate to set it as dogma.

though.

David Renton [from tJle audience}: you've 1l1CIIl iollCd that people CO III(, 10

games for all sons of reason s. Some come to have fun, some bring their

emotional hang-ups and explore them as pan or the game. 1l,e rereree

will 11.111 the game but they' re not a psychoanalyst. it's not lheir responsi-

bility to find out why people are doing what they're doing and to help

them along their liv·es. If ther want to come, let them explorc ",hat they

want to explore. \our role as referee is to provide an adventure selling.

\rVhen lhe players leave lhe game and go away, maybe they've lea rned

something. maybe not, maybe they're going to bring it hack next week:but it's that individual' s problem. Ir they're resolving it in a role-playing

context that's their 0,,"'11 personal thing. 111cre's no reason \'>'hy every

body else in the game and the rereree has to have the responsibility to

help them.

AR :111ey do have a responsibility not 10 do anything harmful, though.

DR: You let them explore what they \vant to explore, you don 't start

attacking them or telling them what they should do.

AR: TI,e problem is that for me, some of the things that people define as

good games are the ones \vhere players have had a really good experi

ence, a rea lly intense experience, which can Tllcan an elIloLiOllally dlllrll

ing-up experience, The referee could say, 'TI,e bit in the game where the

guy's father was ntt up on the battlefield, that was a really good sess ion,

he really seemed very moved and upset by that,' and then rememberthat the player's father is in hospiLal wit.h cancer - thaT might not be a

very good thing to do, even though it gave a really good cxperience ,

DR :You still dOIl 't have the skill to know whether that person is going to

be damaged by that experiellce or heartened from ir.

CS: I a i , ~ - c e with you there,

JW: Once )'ou've accepted that role-playing games are inherclllly psy-

chological or psychoanalytic - because they are, you can't get awayfrom it , they are abollt archetypes alld acting out fantasies - you ca ll ' ,

then ignore that. You uon ' t have to act on il , bi l l YO II can't j \ l ~ t say, ' I

don' t wam anything to do with it. '

CS: \Ve're not therapists, but onc thing I knOl" is that you can trust the

process. If it's (he mythological process that we're activating, it has its

0\\'1.1 solution and resolution within it, whether we're <I",'are of i l or 1I0t.

You may tweak tl1is person and provoke S01ne ill-feelings bll1., you know,

that may be just what they need. \'Ve can (rust the process.

AR: Do you think that the nature of mythology IS such that it can by its



Recreation

,.,,"hat we"re talking about. Sure, it can go badly 'wrong. intentionally or

not, bur ill general I think the process is tru stworthy.

Greg S / ( ~ f f ( m / is Ihe C1mtor oJ r;/oralltha alld Pendragon, alld f n ~ s i d e l l l oJClwosill1ll games .

A IIdrell , Rilsloflf 1 , ~ editor of Interactive Fantasy.

Jar!!es Wollls i l director oJ llogs/tead Publishing Ud.

Notes

'King A1'tJwr PendragQlI by Greg Srafford, pllblished by Chaosiulll Inc., JOX5 .

ISBN 0-933635-59-1

2Sto lJlplln is ( l name used to cover the range of role-p laying pnxluLls pmduccd

by \\'hitc \Vo IL including lampi?"/? { 1 9 ~ ) I J, Wereu"Olf[ 1992], Mage [1993]. Il'rmth[1994J alld SI'-"tfigliler [19941·

sGloramlia is the detailed imaginary world in which thc Runeqllfst role-plil)"

ing game is sc t.

freud and campbell - myth, archetype and role-playing

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