Role Playing Games of Japan Transcultural Dynamics and Orderings 1St Ed Edition Bjorn Ole Kamm All Chapter

Role-Playing Games of Japan:
Transcultural Dynamics and Orderings

1st ed. Edition Björn-Ole Kamm
Visit to download the full and correct content document:
https://ebookmass.com/product/role-playing-games-of-japan-transcultural-dynamics-a
nd-orderings-1st-ed-edition-bjorn-ole-kamm/
Role-Playing Games
of Japan
Björn-Ole Kamm
Role-Playing Games of Japan
Björn-Ole Kamm
Role-Playing Games
of Japan
Björn-Ole Kamm
Graduate School of Letters
Kyoto University
Kyoto, Japan
ISBN 978-3-030-50952-1 ISBN 978-3-030-50953-8 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-50953-8
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer
Nature Switzerland AG 2020
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights
of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on
microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and
retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology
now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc.
in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such
names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for
general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and informa-
tion in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither
the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with
respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been
made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps
and institutional affiliations.
Cover credit: Björn-Ole Kamm
This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature
Switzerland AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
Acknowledgements
I cannot express in words the gratitude, warmth and appreciation I feel

for all those who helped me during the research for and writing process
of this book.
The scholars who have supported me on the road with critique and
encouragement are too numerous to be named here. Hasan Ashraf, Myriel
Balzer, Jaqueline Berndt, Rafael Bienia, Volker Elis, Harald Fuess, Patrick
W. Galbraith, J. Tuomas Harviainen, Carola Hommerich, Itō Kimio, Kam
Thiam Huat, Katō Kōhei, David Mervart, Barbara Mittler, Sophie Roche,
Takahashi Muneyuki and Wagner L. Schmit may stand as representatives.
Most importantly, I want to express my gratitude to all the role-players,
larpers, game designers and organisers, who contributed to this project
with comments, information and questions. My thanks go especially to
those who took part in my interviews and who let me come to their
events. I am in debt to Kondō Kōshi and Adventure Planning Service, to
Okada Atsuhiro and TRPG Café Daydream, to Nico Stahlberg and Castle
Tintagel, to the Moroishis and Laymūn Larp/CLOSS and most dearly to
the members of the youth-larp group in Germany and the TRPG circle
in Tokyo that took me in and to all the anonymous interviewees, who
participated in this study.
This book is based on research conducted for my dissertation “Playing
with Uncertainty” at the Philosophical Faculty of Heidelberg Univer-
sity, which would not have been possible without the support of several
organisations and the opportunity to work in a number of outstanding
v
vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
research centres. My first fieldwork phase is indebted to a scholarship

from the German Institute for Japanese Studies (DIJ), Tokyo. Afterwards
the Friedrich Ebert Foundation (FES) supported me with a fellowship. I
received most if not all of my theoretical input from the Cluster of Excel-
lence “Asia and Europe in a Global Context,” Heidelberg, its reading
classes and colloquia, especially from the Popcult group. My second phase
of fieldwork was made possible through a fellowship of the Global Centre
of Excellence “The Intimate and the Public Spheres” at Kyoto University.
Lastly, the Yamaoka Memorial Foundation also supported later stages of
the research refining the original dissertation. Without these supporters,
this journey and project would not have been possible.
Last but not least, my gratitude goes to friends and family who did not
tire to encourage me in my endeavour throughout the years.
Kyoto, Japan Björn-Ole Kamm

February 2020
Notes on Language and Conventions
• Japanese words in this book are written in revised Hepburn Roman-

isation. Names appear in the Japanese order of family name first and
given name second except for those cases when Japanese authors of
English-language texts have themselves listed their given names first.
• Macrons (e.g. ō, ū) have been omitted in commonly used words or
place names, such as Tokyo.
• All names of personal interlocutors are pseudonyms except where
permission was granted to the author, e.g. from game designers or
publishers active in the public domain. Any names resembling actual
individuals are coincidental.
• Translations of Japanese, German or other Non-English texts and
interviews are by the author unless otherwise noted.
vii
Contents
1 Introduction—Before Play 1
1.1 Prelude 1
1.2 Controversies of Role-Playing 7
Uncertainty and Fluidity 9
Controversy and Knowledge 11
Translation and Transculturality 16
An Assemblage of Practices 20
1.3 “How to Use This Book” 22
References 24
2 Games—Playing with Borders of Reality, or the First

Act 29
2.1 The (Ancient) Origins of Role-Playing Games 29
A History with Reality 32
Kriegsspiel—From India to Prussia and Beyond 34
The Network Wargaming 38
2.2 Creating Markets and Acronyms: D&D, TRPGs,
and LARP 39
Translating TRPGs: Different Languages, Diverse
Media 44
Ages of Winter and Countermeasures: Moé, VTT,
PoD, and Other Abbreviations 50
The Network Table-Top Role-Playing 55
ix
x CONTENTS
Live-Action Role-Play—Theatre, Therapy,

and Education 57
The Network of Larping 66
2.3 Defining and Designing the “Magic Circle” 67
Introducing the Magic Circle 69
Game Design Considerations 73
Typifying Players, or Not? 74
Games as Enterprise 79
2.4 Governing Games: Escapism and the Serious Side of Life 83
Escapism: Stepping Out of (Globalised?) Reality 84
From Moratorium to Withdrawal 86
Playing, the Self and Governing Mentalities 88
Borders and Circles 92
References 94
3 Stereotypes—The Agency of Labels, or the Second Act 111

3.1 Labelling or Making-up People 111
Stereotypes and Representation 130
Practicing Stereotypes 134
Dynamics and Agencies of Stereotypes 143
3.2 Child-Murdering, Satanic Play, and the Otaku 148
Unpacking Black Boxes 150
Establishing the Otaku 151
Suicidal Geniuses, Worried Parents, and Dungeons &
Dragons 157
Recursive Modes of Ordering 168
3.3 Negotiating Stereotypes and Bad Players 171
Gamer Stereotypes 171
“Playing” Otaku 173
Connected Worlds of Stereotypes 179
References 181
4 Mediation—Counterpoints of Dis/Connection,
or the Third Act 197
4.1 A Mediator’s Counterpoint: Non-Human and Human
Actors 197
4.2 The Internet as a Dis/Connector 200
Japan’s Internet Access 201
CONTENTS xi
Connection: Websites and Forums 204

Disconnection: Identity Technologies and Privacy 217
4.3 “Cultural Brokers” and Translators: Human
Mediators 220
From Japan to “the West:” Tenra Banshō Zero 223
Tenra and “Western” Values 228
From Berlin to Iruma: Larping 231
The Making of Patoria Sōris and Laymūn Larp 236
The Role of Language 242
The Roles of Mediators: Cultural Brokers Revisited 246
References 250
5 After Play—Knowledge (and) Practices 257

5.1 Ordering Knowledge Practices 257
Lists of Knowledge and Truth In-Game 260
5.2 Knowledge Through Play: Education
and Professionalisation 264
Learning by Playing 264
The Fine Insider 269
Nordic Nodal Points 274
5.3 The Modes of Ordering RPGs 277
The Mode of Enterprise 278
The Mode of Disclaiming 279
The Mode of Authenticity 281
The Mode of the Magic Circle 282
5.4 The Shape of Partial Connections: Role-Playing Games
as a Practice-Network 283
References 287
Index 295
List of Abbreviations
AD&D Advanced Dungeons & Dragons

APA Amateur Press Association
B.A.D.D. Bothered About Dungeons and Dragons
CLOSS Create LARP Organization Synergy Support
CoC Call of Cthulhu
CRPG Computer Role-Playing Game
D&D Dungeons & Dragons
DKWD(D)K Du Kannst Was Du (Darstellen) Kannst
DLRV Deutscher Liverollenspiel Verband
DM Dungeon Master
DMG Dungeon Master’s Guide
ELIN Education-Larpers’ International Network
F.E.A.R. Far East Amusement Research
F.R.E.D. Fortschrittliche Rollenspiel-Entwicklung in Deutschland
GM Game Master
GNS Gamist, Narrativist, Simulationist
IC In-Character
IT In-Time
JGC Japan Game Convention
LARP Live-Action Role-Play
MET Mind’s Eye Theatre
METI Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry
MMORPG Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game
NEET Not in Education, Employment, or Training
NPC Non-Player Character
OOC Out-of-Character
xiii
xiv LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
OT Out-Time
PC Player Character
PHB Player’s Handbook
PoD Print on Demand
RPG Role-Playing Game
SCA Society for Creative Anachronism
SNS Social Networking Software
SW1/SW2 Sword World 1st Edition/2nd Edition
TRPG Tabletop/Table-Talk Role-Playing Game
VtM Vampire: The Masquerade
VTT Virtual Table-Top
WoD World of Darkness
WotC Wizards of the Coast
XP Experience Points
List of Figures
Fig. 2.1 The Network Wargaming 38

Fig. 2.2 Sword World RPG Pocketbooks (1989, 2018,
© GroupSNE) Related to D&D Boxes (1985, 2017) (©
Wizards of the Coast LLC) 47
Fig. 2.3 Shinobigami Pocketbook with Replay (© Bōken) 49
Fig. 2.4 Role & Roll Magazine Covers (Arclight Publishing) with
Moé Illustrations 54
Fig. 2.5 The Network Table-Top 56
Fig. 2.6 The Network Larping 67
Fig. 2.7 Ryūtama and Its Translations 77
Fig. 2.8 The Network of Larp Between Work and Hobby 82
Fig. 3.1 Maruyama Character Sheet 112
Fig. 3.2 Character Sheet Examples (Pathfinder, Vampire,
Ryūtama) 116
Fig. 3.3 Interview Character Sheet (English) 118
Fig. 3.4 Interview Character Sheet (Japanese) 119
Fig. 3.5 Interview Character Sheet Scanned and Digitised
Translation 121
Fig. 3.6 Otaku in Various Scripts 124
Fig. 3.7 Kawai Character Sheet 138
Fig. 3.8 Nakahara Character Sheet 141
Fig. 3.9 Hirota Character Sheet 145
Fig. 3.10 Articles on Miyazaki and his Interests (August
1989–December 1991) 153
xv
xvi LIST OF FIGURES
Fig. 3.11 Articles on the Disappearance of Dallas (August

1979–August 1980) 161
Fig. 3.12 The Network of Role-Playing and Media Event Induced
Controversies 170
Fig. 4.1 Okamoto Character Sheet 207
Fig. 4.2 TRPG.net (Old) Front Page 209
Fig. 4.3 The mixi.jp TRPG Group 213
Fig. 4.4 Cover of Tenra Banshō Zero (Kitkowski and Inoue 2014) 229
Fig. 4.5 Stahlberg Character Sheet 234
Fig. 4.6 Laymūn Larp Room Set-Up 239
Fig. 4.7 Network of Larping Actualised by Laymūn 242
Fig. 5.1 Sakamoto Character Sheet 265
Fig. 5.2 The Assemblage of Partially Connected Practices Called
Role-Playing Games 285
List of Tables
Table 1.1 At a Glance—Transculturality 18

Table 2.1 Spotlight—Skill Roll Example 43
Table 2.2 Spotlight—Replay, or Example of Play 48
Table 2.3 Spotlight—Rules for Playing 65
Table 3.1 At a Glance—Interviews as Performance Texts 113
Table 3.2 Interlude—The Character Sheet 115
Table 3.3 Interlude—Recruitment 125
Table 3.4 Spotlight—Glossary 164
Table 4.1 At a Glance—Cyber-Ethnography 203
Table 4.2 Interlude—Sites of Investigation 210
xvii
CHAPTER 1
Introduction—Before Play
Groups are made, agencies are explored, and objects play a role. Such are
the […] sources of uncertainty we rely on if we want to follow the social
fluid through its ever-changing and provisional shapes. (Latour 2005, 87)
This book is divided into several chapters, each of which is designed to

explore and explain a specific area of the game. Remember, though, that
in a storytelling game, the most important ‘chapter’ is your imagination.
Never let anything in this book be a substitute for your own creativity.
(Rein·Hagen et al. 1998, 24)
1.1 Prelude
This book engages non-digital role-playing games (usually abbreviated
as RPGs) in and from Japan. In doing so, it attempts an experiment
with concepts and controversies, an experiment in “Japanese Studies.”
For these first lines, let us go no further than describing RPGs as games
in which players take on roles and as a practice entangled with many
other media. To say that RPGs are like The Lord of the Rings combined
with chess and improv-theatre would be amiss but might conjure some
interesting images.
This study deals with role-playing games but does not seek to define
them. General explanations meet the fluidity of contents, play-styles, and
creative agendas, which put any certainty into doubt. Thus, Role-Playing
© The Author(s) 2020 1

B.-O. Kamm, Role-Playing Games of Japan,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-50953-8_1
2 B.-O. KAMM
Games of Japan maps a network of actors and their world-building around

RPGs to allow readers to encounter them with all their uncertainties.
This study focuses on Japan but does not want to emphasise unique
“Japanese” characteristics because what it means to take on a character
in a role-playing game always amounts to a particular, contingent realisa-
tion of this practice. A game troupe in Tokyo may play a US American
game in much the same drama-focused way as does a counterpart group
in Munich, while players down the street of the same city favour games
by local designers and a competitive play-style. Still, the Japanese RPG
industry extended the practice in particular ways not explored elsewhere.
Thus, the purpose of this book is to trace the transcultural entanglements
of RPG practices with a focus on Japan but in a global context. It seeks to
elaborate on what kind of agents, human and non-human alike, function
as mediators between groups of role-players, bridging or strengthening
national borders and other boundaries.
Games like Dungeons & Dragons (Gygax and Arneson 1978), Call
of Cthulhu (Petersen 1981), Vampire: The Masquerade (Rein·Hagen
et al. 1998), or Sword World RPG (Mizuno and GroupSNE 1989)
form a crucial node in a nexus of various media types and genres. They
have inspired media-mixes, such as The Record of Lodoss War novels,
manga and animations (Yasuda and GroupSNE 1986), and are part
of franchises like Lucas’ Star Wars or Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire
(“Game of Thrones”). Currently, non-digital RPGs experience a second
boom worldwide, in Japan particularly driven by the horror game Call
of Cthulhu. They increasingly gain scholarly attention as an inspiring
source for other media and concerning dynamics of group formations.
Since the late 2000s, role-playing games are thus also coming of age in
academic terms: A first peer-reviewed journal was established in 2009,
the International Journal of Role-Playing, followed by the Japanese
Journal of Analog Role-Playing Game Studies in 2019. Meanwhile, the
number of related monographs and edited volumes increases constantly.
Zagal and Deterding’s seminal Role-Playing Game Studies: Transmedia
Foundations (2018) brings together various strands of current research
and covers much ground but like many others focuses almost exclusively
on the Euro-American environment. Studies about Japanese media
and games on the other hand concentrate on anime, manga, and digital
gaming (cf. Steinberg 2012; Picard and Pelletier-Gagnon 2015). Further-
more, previous research often relied on established concepts, such as
“community,” for summing-up group formations of practitioners.
1 INTRODUCTION—BEFORE PLAY 3
This was one incentive for this study: Born out of curiosity for non-
digital gaming in Japan, I sought to amend this deficit in knowledge
because respective research would open a field of dramatic stories bridging
fiction and reality, open a field for questions of entanglement and multi-
plicity. However, at the same time I did not want to fall into the trap
of feeding into nihonjin-ron, that is, stories about how the Japanese
are special and unique, in this case, about the “Japaneseness” of role-
playing. Thus, right from the start, this study was less about positive
knowledge of a stable and certain object of analysis (“the game,” “the
role-player,” “the Japanese”) but concerned with the production of such
knowledge, about the inherent tension of terms and collectives, of conti-
nuities and discontinuities. It questions the appropriateness of traditional
knowledge containers for new phenomena of trans-local connectedness,
such as the heterogeneous networks that make-up role-playing games.
“Be surprised!” became the methodological core of my research. The
people and things I encountered during my study showed me how every-
thing was even more complex, more uncertain than I had envisioned:
How uncertain the dynamics of concepts and identities were, how non-
human mediators such as the Internet connect as well as disconnect, and
foremost, how difficult it is to ask questions about “a practice,” which is
done slightly differently by each actor entangled in its assemblage.
This book is an intervention in discourses on Japan and its cultural
practices that tend to essentialise difference instead of exploring its
making (cf. Galbraith and Lamarre 2010, 362). The emphasis on
“Japaneseness” of products and practices often does not result from the
object of inquiry itself but rather from the limited focus on Japan alone
without regarding global entanglements or uses elsewhere. Through
tracing complexity instead, the project informing this book became a
study about the way in which the assemblage of practices named role-
playing games circulates across borders and simultaneously becomes the
locus of boundary negotiations in a highly digitised and interconnected
world. These partially connected practices have a history that crosses many
nationally or culturally imagined borders, beginning in nineteenth century
Prussia with antecedents in ancient India, gaining a specific form in the
US in the 1970s and being nowadays most popular in a digitised variant
of multiplayer online games relying on mechanics refined by Japanese
programmers, and as live-action enactments promoted in various forms
and in various parts of Europe.
4 B.-O. KAMM
This history features two major instances of circular movements, one

of which is this repeated crossing of national borders and a supposed
formation of collectives beyond the nation-state. Such formations are
contrasted by statements of established difference, such as the impres-
sion that Japanese role-players only engage in computer-mediated games,
dominant on respective Internet forums until recently. The other move-
ment zigzags across boundaries of a different kind, namely education and
training for a supposedly real world. Training—first for the military and
later for businesses and youth—clashes with escapism, reclusiveness and
deviance, but also with the intrinsic value of entertainment. This study
explores how role-playing games and their players interact with contro-
versies revolving around these boundary-makings, but also investigates
the role of those who bridge such boundaries. This study maps global
and local entanglements of a practice that has inspired and was informed
by many other cultural forms (be it film or literature). It sheds light on
some of the traces left by mediators in our globalised-but-bounded world,
none the least of which may be referred to as Internet technologies.
Because role-playing games are entangled with popular media, such as
fantasy and science-fiction, animation and comics, their study might fit the
label of “Cool Japanology” if their forms in Japan are to be considered.
Taken from the title of a book and symposium (Azuma 2010), the label
borrows its “cool” from the country-marketing campaign “Cool Japan,”
which utilises anime, manga and related fan practices to promote Japan
to foreign tourists (Abel 2011; McLelland 2017). Consequently, the label
denotes the study of these products and practices in their Japanese speci-
ficity, usually referred to as “Japanese popular culture.” The search for
their “Japaneseness” often relies on creating boundaries between Japan
and “the West.” For example, narrative text-image-hybrids are suppos-
edly known as manga and not called comics like in the US or Europe.
Such simple contrasts, however, disregard connections, continuities, and
discontinuities alike (see Berndt 2008; or venture into a bookstore in
Japan, where manga are called komikku, comics). Thus, the methodolog-
ical nationalism or parochialism inherent to “Cool Japanology” has been
critiqued for its reproduction of essentialist images (Ōtsuka 2015). In
this study, I want to question such approaches, including the role of
knowledge producers and their modes of studying such practices.
Especially when a new research field in this area emerges, scholars
tend to celebrate what others had ridiculed as childish or problema-
tised as escapism. Such scholarly glorifications include definitions that
read “fans” as pop-culture academics (Jenkins 1992; Okada 1996, 2015)

or middle-class resistance (Eng 2012), laud “gamers” as a postmodern
identity (Azuma 2007; McGonigal 2011) or—in direct relation to this
study—claim that role-playing games are actually art (Mackay 2001) or
actually folklore (Underwood 2009). However, defining fans as scholars,
for example, says more about the audience of the writer, that is, other
academics, than about those defined (Hills 2002, xxiv–xxv). Regardless
of how insightful and ground-breaking we can consider many of these
studies (Bennett 2014), the scholarly tendency to challenge generalisa-
tions about a given object with their own, similarly stands in opposition
to the actors in their multitude and the complexity of practices.
In lieu of judging in the actors’ stead, I want to explore their ways
of defining. Thus, two major tropes or principles guide my study, uncer-
tainty and multiplicity. Both refer to the fluidity, complexity and dynamics
of identifications, boundaries, and interactions. The role-players I encoun-
tered, who are “actors” in many different ways, themselves debate what
characterises a good role-player and what practices should be called
role-playing. Thus, this study follows a practice-oriented approach and
proposes the concept of assemblage of practices to refer to the sum of
humans, materials and ideas entangled in the various arrangements of
RPGs. This perspective helps navigating the fluidity of practices and over-
comes the a priori assumptions inherent to the common, meaning-laden
terms culture or community. The latter, for example, carries the baggage
of referring to a supposedly lost, organic, harmonious village collective,
so that applying it to “online communities” will automatically find them
lacking in commitment or durability (cf. Deterding 2009). This under-
scores that new formations might be better described by using other terms
to catch the meanings they hold for their members. Instead of applying a
theory that explains, this study follows “theories” that urge to describe:
“At some point one has to pass from explanation to mere description”
(Wittgenstein 1979, 26e, §189).
The two historical movements of border-crossing sketched above have
recently come together when markers for deviant media use and prac-
tice, such as the conceptions otaku in Japanese or nerd in English,
conflate with ideas of a networked culture or community within the
discourses on globalisation, participatory media and communication tech-
nologies. Speaking of singular collectives, such as a global otaku culture or
role-player community, runs contrary to the messiness of human and non-
human interactions, perceptions, and on-going transformations which are
6 B.-O. KAMM
part of group formations. Such expressions of an alleged unity also reflect

the distinction between a supposedly distanced, objective observer, the
researcher, and the subjects of research, the informants supposedly blind
to the big picture. This study seeks to be objective in another way by
making these informants into actors again who object to scholarly gener-
alisations. Thus, I do not try to create a position outside of role-playing
in order to judge and explain the nature of this practice. Social scientists
have done this for decades, telling the actors what they are actually doing.
To say what something actually is, is to reduce it, is to deny its ontological
existence (Law 1994, 12). I think the actors themselves know very much
what their practices are about. And here speaks the symbolic interactionist
in me: They know what it is all about for themselves in a particular point
in time and space. Their attitudes have and will change continuously.
However, I also do not follow the opposite move to judgment from afar
and draft myself as an insider in order to celebrate role-playing. Judg-
ment and celebration appear as just contesting perspectives on, contesting
constructions of a single object “out there.”
Instead of moving ever further away, I sought to engage the differences
within and the multiplicities of practices. “If practices are foregrounded
there is no longer a single passive object in the middle, waiting to be
seen from the point of view of seemingly endless series of perspectives.
Instead, objects come into being – and disappear – with the practices in
which they are manipulated. And since the object of manipulation tends
to differ from one practice to another, reality multiplies” (Mol 2002, 5).
In order to explore the multiple realities of role-playing, this study feeds
off of uncertainties and controversies and traces the world-building, the
modes ordering the world of the actors, which involves many different
bits and pieces, material and “real,” symbolic and “fictional.” Stereotyp-
ical, taken-for granted labels such as otaku and nerd are multiple, they can
literally break bones but also induce pride. The role of the Internet is also
uncertain as its technologies can overcome distance and simultaneously
create insurmountable barriers. Role-playing games can create a sense of
belonging and camaraderie but also exclusion and loneliness. These games
can be fun but are sometimes meant to be serious. It appears difficult to
frame all RPGs in one “system” or describe them as one cultural order. In
their difference, all arrangements of role-playing games still relate to what
I call the assemblage, the association of partially connected practices, of
role-playing.
The following study does not seek to solve the difficulty of summing
up by attempting to classify and simplify, to reduce one thing to another.
Instead, it embraces complexity, uncertainty, and foremost multiplicity,
by tracing the controversies on what holds the practices and elements of
role-playing together, the multiple connections of role-playing and group
formations, social inclusion and exclusion, role-playing and Internet tech-
nologies. The aim of this study is not to come to a final conclusion,
stating that role-playing actually is escapism from real life, that it is actu-
ally theatre, or actually a religious epiphany, or an education—views found
in the literature. Grand words or explanations cannot cover all the experi-
ences. That is why this study seeks to show possibilities. These possibilities
are explored through cases, and each case is particular but also speaks to
other cases and stories, and thus may entice an understanding that goes a
little bit further than just the cases at hand.
Lastly, this study seeks to go beyond merely studying RPGs, it also
attempts to make the object of investigation into a resource, into a
tool for research. I used so-called character sheets, for example—one
highly connecting element of these games—as a guiding prop during
my fieldwork. Thus, this book pays also great attention to methodolog-
ical concerns, details the various tools employed during the investigation
to ensure transparency and to offer them as guides so that others
may reproduce the approach applied. The approach is informed by the
perspective of Transcultural Studies , which considers philosophical ques-
tions in empirical ways, through direct engagement: So, without further
ado, let us follow the rabbit into the wonderland of role-playing.1
1.2 Controversies of Role-Playing

Most of us play roles in everyday life. Whether we play that of mother,
son, teacher, or student, there are countless roles we may assume. But
what about the roles we play in role-playing games, such as Elvish mage
or immortal vampire? How do we understand practices that are daily and
mundane yet completely otherworldly? How to draw boundaries around
actions familiar to all of us—taking, performing and negotiating roles,
scripting identities and life-stories—when placed in unfamiliar settings
1 Borrowed from Lewis Carrol’s Alice in Wonderland, a rabbit hole designates the entry
point into the world of a game, especially in recent persuasive and live-action gaming.
8 B.-O. KAMM
and made into games? How to represent such an assemblage of heteroge-

neous entanglements of materials and humans, practices and ideas, at once
lauded as real-world healing and training mechanisms and demonised as
escapist and dangerous fantasies? How to give an account of the char-
acteristics, the history, and the scope of a collective which is in potentia
globally connected via the Internet but whose members converse and play
in many different natural languages?
Instead of delivering a standardising, linear narration about role-
playing—in the sense of deliberately or consciously playing a role-playing
game and not Erving Goffman’s definition of everyday life interaction or
self-enactment (Goffman 1959)—I seek to understand how the actors
themselves make sense of their practice. Judging from the numerous
blogs, websites, books, and documentaries about RPGs, people not only
engage in role-playing, but also discuss its entertainment value, the
distinction between free time engagement and way of life, and its blur-
ring the lines between real-world, fiction, and the virtual. The latter
affects the debate about the social and cultural status of the players—are
they escapist, deviant, and dangerous or creative, intelligent, and well-
integrated? These questions point to a discourse that oscillates between
dystopian visions of maladjustment and utopian ideas of learning through
fantasy and play: Do the players gain “real-world skills” by riding dragons
and slinging spells? Should one play for the games’ own sake or for some
other motivation such as knowledge? Educators have recently rediscov-
ered role-playing and seek to employ it as a teaching method but thereby
came into conflict with those who practice role-playing for entertainment.
Thus, what characterises an individual as a good role-player? Who is one
of “us?” Boundaries in dispute also come into view when we look at
how RPGs are categorised along the border of “the West” and the rest.
Games designed in the US or Europe are merely called role-playing games
while games made in Japan receive the label JRPG by players, translators,
and scholars (cf., Kitkowski 2008; Schules 2015). Are they so different
from the other games that they warrant another category? Is there some-
thing special about Japan? Are Japanese players seen as different, too?
What happens when a European plays a JRPG? Do JRPG players and
their “Western” counterparts communicate with each other? Surely, there
is the Internet but how does this work out? Role-players have met the
Internet age with mixed feelings. Digitised and online role-playing games
have many supporters but also many in opposition to them—and many
who are quite indifferent. This is valid for Japan, Europe, and the US
alike: There are many disputes about role-playing. The rest remains quite
uncertain.
Uncertainty and Fluidity

The realisation of uncertainty forms this study’s point of departure:
Controversies about role-playing games and how they are connected to
other controversies, as no controversy is completely insular (Venturini
2012, 807). Instead of explaining a culture or group of people, this study
deals in practices and problems. Role-playing games do not appear as a
single practice that has travelled between Asia, Europe, America, back,
and back again unchanged. It is uncertain if there ever was “a single
practice” to begin with. That is why I favour terms such as assemblage,
explored throughout this study, to denote the fluidity and ever-changing
character of practices instead of defining them as bounded cultures.
It is not new to question simplifications or the stability of categories
and their connection to the objects they describe (Foucault 1970, 51ff.),
including the call to listen more to the actors and less to preconceived
ideas and theories. But what does it mean to listen to the actors, to
“follow the actors themselves” (Latour 2005, 12)? I believe it means
to take the messiness of the social seriously, its multiplicity, its uncer-
tainty and its changing nature, instead of trying to hide contestations,
ambivalences, and interferences behind definite, linear accounts. It means
to step down from the high pedestal of the distanced, unbiased observer
who divides and conquers the real (Latour 1993). This includes seeing
the actors as experts of what they do, taking their meanings, agencies
and reasoning seriously. Thus, we need to look at the big picture that is
the world-building of the actors , the social worlds they create—including
who and what is made part of it, which scholarly and scientific ideas are
integrated, and what is excluded.
The above concerns place RPG studies in proximity to debates within
fan studies (Bennett 2014), especially considering research on players and
thus the relationship between scholars and practitioners (insider/outsider)
or methods borrowed from anthropology (e.g. participant observation);
less so, when the focus is on game mechanics. Some self-identified fans
also role-play (cf. McClellan 2013) and some role-players may also under-
stand themselves as fans of one franchise, genre, author, director, artist,
or something else. Both research fields share issues of complexity: The
relationship of one fan group with their intellectual property (IP) and the
10 B.-O. KAMM
producers does not necessarily mirror the relationship between another

group and their object(s). What it means to be a fan is spatiotempo-
rally contingent and continuously changing, with new instances of an IP
or new technologies available to organise fandom. Similarly, one group
of role-players may engage in the practice quite differently than another
group. One cares very much about a game’s designers and seeks close
relationships via social media, not so different to what a fan is supposedly
doing. Another group by contrast cannot even name the designers behind
their favourite game. The relationship with the designers, however, says
nothing about the intensity of playing. Thus, subsuming role-playing
under fandom would bring with it many unnecessary a priori assumptions
and also miss the fleeting aspect of the practice, that game sessions cannot
be repeated by their players (contrastingly, a movie can be rewatched, a
book reread).2
Controversies are a good beginning because here conditions and facts
are not yet stable, not yet “natural,” but rather in the process of being
made. This study deploys and traces not only controversies about role-
players and role-playing games but also the entanglements with social,
cultural, economic, political, and religious spheres of knowledge. RPG
settings and game rules, as well as actual sessions of play, assemble knowl-
edge from all these disciplines and more to create their fantastic (or
mundane) worlds. One will find concepts such as race, class, culture, or
gender as building blocks of these worlds including the accompanying
asymmetries of racism, sexism, hegemony and resistance—but not always
in the same manner to which humanities scholars are accustomed. These
entanglements are deeply connected to the controversies to be traced,
such as losing the ability to distinguish between reality and fiction, the
danger of succumbing or escaping to virtual worlds, but also the attested
potential of gaining a look behind the veil of social construction in the
real-world through gaming (Larsson 2003).
This study was triggered by such “untenable accusations” and “utopian
proclamations” directed at users of popular media, gamers and fans in the
Japanese context. In the process of conducting text analyses, interviews,
and fieldwork, however, the motivation of the study changed. I initially
wanted to show that otaku and nerds —terms used for and by media fans
and gamers—are neither a single group nor are they as socially inept
2 Recordings of play sessions, such as replays (see Act 1, pp. 46–48), may be watched
or read repeatedly, the playing still remains an in-the-moment experience only.
or reclusive as they are so often portrayed. Believed to be popularised

in the 1970s through the sitcom Happy Days (cf. Fantle and Johnson
2009), nerd evolved out of the differentiation game of teenagers and
adolescents to designate those who would not be good at sports and
preferred studying over partying. Later came an association with comic
and popular culture fandom, especially science-fiction, such as Star Trek,
further diffused via Chuck Lorre and Bill Prady’s TV-show The Big Bang
Theory. In English-language discourse, the Japanese term otaku is often
made equivalent to nerd and is usually used to designate fans of Japanese
popular media products—very much ignoring the term’s genesis, its use
and manifold meanings in the Japanese discourse (cf. Galbraith et al.
2015). What both terms share is an implicit, if not explicit assumption
that otaku and nerds lack social and communicative competence and
place too much energy into areas outside mainstream pastimes, such as
football/soccer/baseball and pop-songs. In the US and also in Japan,
role-players often receive such labels that exclude them from what is
deemed “normal.” Thus, when I set out to explore their relationships
to such labels, I especially wanted to prove that the above terms are
stereotypes and should not be used has heuristic concepts in research.
They should not be taken for granted as designating actual people. I still
seek to emphasise that these terms do not hold much explanatory value.
However, I also had to realise that what I set out to do meant exchanging
one certainty—that otaku, nerds and gamers share some distinct char-
acteristics that make them into a single, global group—with another
certainty: The notion that these stereotypes always have ill effects on those
so labelled. I would have displaced one distanced judgment and enforced
another, still talking above the heads of the actors, speaking for them.
“My” actors luckily showed me, however, that the affair was not so clear-
cut, that there was and still is uncertainty. Instead of doing away with this
uncertainty I want to deploy it to the fullest (Latour 2005, 184).
Controversy and Knowledge

To make use of uncertainty, including the role of scholarship in world-
building, I explore four larger controversies, four axes of crisis that are
partially connected, overlap and give shape to one another. What makes
a controversy? Any situation in which involved actors disagree, or more
precisely, in which they agree on their disagreement (Venturini 2010,
261).
12 B.-O. KAMM
Informed by a focus on contingency, a study of controversies makes

visible what John Law calls “ordering,” agents’ attempts to negotiate their
way through social relations, by which they constitute and re-constitute
these relations as they go. “[The social is thus the] recursive but incom-
plete performance of an unknowable number of intertwined orderings”
(Law 1994, 101). These social relations or “networks” are understood
as materially heterogeneous. Simply put, some materials last better than
others. And some travel better than others. Voices and bodies carry only
so far, so putative agents enrol other materials—texts, architecture—for
their controlling attempts of the network over longer distances and over
longer time. Large-scale attempts at ordering depend on mobile and
durable materials. However, materials, their mobility and durability are
also network effects: Texts can only order if there is someone to read
and understand them, buildings can be put to other uses as intended.
This relational materialism is in opposition to socio- as well as techno-
determinisms (Law 1994, 102). Furthermore and because agency is a
network effect, non-humans can be agents, too, in the sense that they
make a difference in the network (Latour 2005, 52). Agency, power and
size (together with machines, social entities and every other kind of object
you can point to) are uncertain effects generated by a network and its
mode of interaction.
Following such a perspective, the focus is not on who has power to
declare truths (about role-playing, in this case) nor does it rush to great
explanations of causes. Instead the focus lies on describable attempts and
techniques (Kendall and Wickham 2001, 56). As a consequence, studies
of ordering conflicts do not pretend that their own ordering is complete,
or conceal the work, the difficulties and the blindness that went into
it (Law 1994, 9). What can be done, is finding clues to patterns that
flow from stories, ordering projects within controversies as “patterns in
contingency” or “modes of ordering” (ibid., 18).
This approach borrows from Michel Foucault (1991) not only an
attention to problems and contingencies, but also an understanding of
discourse as more than language, that modes of ordering are contested
attempts to structure, to produce the world, that they are recursive, that
they generate the agents that produce them, that power is an effect to be
explained not something that can explain. Congealments of discourse are
contingent and studying them means to look at particular bits and pieces
instead of great causes. Thus, “truth” is an effect of knowledge practices.
Similar to the metaphor of network, modes of ordering are not something
out there but analytical tools. They designate collectors to bring various
bits and pieces together in order to trace their relations and the effects
they produce.
Controversies are complex and so should be the modes of obser-
vation, accumulating not only literature reviews, but also field notes,
interviews, and archives to observe as many voices of involved parties as
possible, to multiply viewpoints and show the full range of oppositions
around matters-of-concern (Latour 2004). In this regard, I employed
not only one instrument but many, from text analysis to participant
observation. While observation has to be “perplexed,” that is, take into
account as many propositions as possible, the description needs to follow
requirements of proportion. For these purposes, I built on the actors’
own descriptions and followed their irregularities as best as possible but
ordered them along four paths of conflict or uncertainty.
The first axis is informed by the uncertainty of a distinction between
reality and fiction, born out of discourses concerned with youth and
media use. This relates to ontological as well as everyday politics (Mol
1999): What is reality? What are its building blocks, its “facts”? How
is the real world different from fictional and virtual worlds? Which is
contained in which? Discourses on media effects and especially discus-
sions on role-playing games often focus on this axis of uncertainty. The
loci of dispute are bad influences on youth, cultivation processes through
media, escapism into media, or game induced violence as well as, on the
positive side, learning effects. All of them share shifting boundaries of
what is meant by invoking reality. On the one hand, a clear separation
of worlds is induced, that “this is just a game” or that playing is sepa-
rate from the everyday. On the other, enormous amounts of positively
and negatively connoted entities spill over, such as the seduction into
occultism through magic in-game or gaining confidence through taking
on different social roles. Based on the main argument of this study with its
emphasis on multiplicity and uncertainty of practices, the book’s second
chapter or first “Act” (Games) traces the path of various practices that
would at one point be referred to as “role-playing games,” only to diver-
sify again, warranting the concept of “assemblage” to sum them up. This
chapter deals with different modes of ordering this practice, with a focus
on its trajectory to and from Japan, followed by a literature review on
the specialist discourse of game design as well as governmental concerns
about escapism, the flight from “reality.”
14 B.-O. KAMM
This first controversy opens the door to the second axis, which revolves
around the question of stereotypical labels based on “reality’s” special
place, focusing on their dynamics. Who uses terms such as otaku, nerd or
freak and in what way are these words used? Who fears being labelled as
such, and who does not? Is it at all feasible to associate otaku, a Japanese
pronoun used derogatorily by some, yet a proud appellation for others,
with the English nerd? What are the particularities of usage, inclusion
and exclusion? Such questions call into action theories of moral panic
(Cohen 1972), of moral entrepreneurship (Becker 1973), of the “other,”
resistance and hegemony (Gramsci 1971; Said 1978; Pickering 2001), of
dominant culture and sub-culture (Hebdige 1979)—they invoke these
associations to those who have studied the literature. However, what
theories do the actors themselves invoke if they are labelled otaku and
nerd or call themselves so? How do they participate in feeding meaning
into these terms? Many recent publications on role-players (Gilsdorf
2009; Stark 2012) try to overcome a stereotype of obsessiveness and
dangerousness. Virtually all work on otaku shares this goal (Machiyama
1989; Okada 1996; Honda 2005; Nagayama 2005; Galbraith 2012;
Itō et al. 2012 to name but a few). What role do such renunciations
(and projections) of stereotypes play in the game of identification, of
inclusion and exclusion? Is “local” rejection a moment for “global” asso-
ciation? The second Act (Stereotypes) looks at these questions through
two contingent, local events, which by chance made it possible to connect
certain forms of media use with specific stereotypes of losing a sense for
what is real and what is not: Teen suicides and Satanism in the US, murder
and fandom in Japan. These disputes played major roles in my tracing
of the agencies of stereotypes, in how stereotypes make people act. Both
debates continue to impact discussions on Internet forums, at game tables
and the commercialisation of what many deem a hobby.
Related to connectedness and leading towards “global” group forma-
tions, the Internet and “new” communication technologies form the third
axis of uncertainty. The discussion on virtual identities on the web follows
similar questions as the one on fictional identities in role-playing games.
However, the Internet’s uncertainty of interest in the third Act (Media-
tion) is its ability to connect. Is it the source of a kind of connectedness
unknown before modern computing? The assemblage of practices called
RPGs today came into being in one form in the 1970s and has a history of
transnational collaboration since the late nineteenth century: Polyhedral
dice imported from Japan, German game rules and Anglo-Saxon settings
can be mentioned as a brief, nationality-imposing and crude sketch of

possible entanglements. What has changed since the dawn of the Internet?
Amateur and later professional publications were a means of exchange for
the English-speaking and Japanese-speaking worlds. Has this language-
bounded notion of building a collective changed? Until very recently
Japan was believed to know only computer RPGs (which have intro-
duced many basic elements of digital gaming worldwide; see Consalvo
2016). The plethora of Japanese non-digital games was unknown in the
US or Europe until a small number of English-speaking insider-scholars
and translators made their knowledge public on websites, forums and
blogs around 2010. The Internet might conflate space and time, further
shrinking the world. How does this work in the case of role-players in
Japan, Europe, and the US? Who does the Internet connect and who
is left behind? For what purpose do people use the Internet and the
Web? Who bridges barriers and goes beyond borders? I encountered a
number of gatekeepers, translators, and insider-scholars who play at being
spokespersons for the collective of role-playing. Some of them want to
promote not only elements of the practice of role-playing but seek to
carve a space for themselves at the same time.
This last question as to who bridges barriers as well as the role of
insider-scholars leads to the fourth axis of uncertainty, which revolves
around the entanglements of actor knowledge, researchers and theories.
All previous uncertainties or controversies relate to the issue of who is to
speak for the parties involved. The last chapter in lieu of a conclusion—
as this study does not aim at concluding the controversies in the actors’
stead—ends this book in the form of an “After Play” by scrutinising what
remains after playing: Knowledge through, for and of RPGs. What knowl-
edge gain players by and for role-playing? Who decides what constitutes
a role-playing game? Whose boundary markings are accepted and whose
are not? Designers, players, and researchers alike offer ideas and theories
of what characterises a good RPG and a good player. They borrow from
each other, denounce each other’s claims, but also ignore what has been
said. Credibility and access to sites are very much related to a researcher’s
own status as an insider or outsider. This is not a new observation, as
studies of jazz in the past involved learning how to play jazz, for instance
(Becker 1973). The very first study of one particular arrangement of role-
playing games, Shared Fantasy by Gary Alan Fine (1983), appears to have
set the tone for all subsequent studies by stressing the necessity to become
an insider.
16 B.-O. KAMM
Considering knowledge, role-playing practitioners themselves actively

seek to understand their practice and welcome theories and research.
Since the 1990s, there have been websites, forums, and later annual
conferences devoted to such a search, always juggling between design
interests and scholarly endeavours to reach distanced, general accounts
and judgments. In this instance, the clear demarcation between practi-
tioner and researcher, between object and subject of research, becomes
uncertain. Like many novelists, game masters (the referees in RPGs)
spend months researching a historical era if they want to use it as a setting
for their story. This research includes not only Wikipedia but also visits
to “real” libraries. Similarly, players consult medical journals if they want
to portray a mentally ill character, or economic studies to predict the
outcome of their characters’ change of strategy for their cyborg factories
(and kindly hand those papers to their game master, of course). Rules
of magic often include pseudo-scientific explanations, such as equilib-
rium theories about arcane energies and matter akin to Einstein’s special
relativity. Players’ self-presentation, their thoughts on the relationship
between their practice and society, also incorporate sociological explana-
tions and theories, applying or critiquing them, such as moral panics or
media effects. These entanglements show how permeable the epistemo-
logical wall is between research and its object, between researchers and
the actors. What this means, what role actors (such as, researcher-players)
play in the making of social and fantastical worlds is the last but not least
question this study explores.
Translation and Transculturality

The complexity of the material under study makes their “representation,”
their writing-up, equally complex and thus efforts work of ordering:
Studying ordering in itself is ordering, and so always limited (Kendall and
Wickham 2001, 160). Representation might not be an adequate use of
words in this case as the term implies faithfulness between an object and
the way it is re-presented (Law 2011). A far better word for the mode
of re/presentation in this study is translation, and this for two major
reasons. For once, the research process involved dealings in many natural
languages, Japanese, English, German, Swedish, as well as languages of
a different kind, such as Sindarin, Object-C, and html. In this study’s
present form, all but one language, English, have mostly vanished. In
this common meaning, the other languages had to be translated into
English, with all the fluctuations of meaning, loss of detail, and accuracy
this engenders.
However, there is more to the metaphor of translation when it comes
to the presentation of research. If tracing a controversy can be under-
stood as making it readable for others this also means to transform many
different bits and pieces as well as many actors’ own representations into a
single text. This is a balancing act between the uncertainty and messiness
of a controversy and the reductions necessary to write a legible account.
To be effective, this tracing must not only employ different methods to
gain access to different perspectives (this is called triangulation in qualita-
tive data collection speak; cf. Flick 2004), it also needs to place practices
and their dynamics into the foreground.
There are many labels in circulation for the theoretical resources
that inspired the form of this study: Studies of processes, fluidity or
dynamics, of complexity or multiplicity, of practices, modes, and styles.
Their perspective of material semiotics or network ordering described
above for the study of controversies is based on a double movement of
critique: A questioning of modern reductionism that divides and conquers
the real into neat classificatory systems on the one hand, combined with
a simultaneous unease towards the increasingly morally comfortable posi-
tion of denouncing such simplifications as violence on the other (Law and
Mol 2002, 6). Instead of equating—and thus, again simplifying—reduc-
tionism to violence against those represented by treating complexity and
simplicity as opposites, the focus lies on relations instead, “because various
‘orderings’ of similar objects, topics, fields, do not always reinforce the
same simplicities or impose the same silences” (ibid., 7). Thus, a major
trope of this study is multiplicity, that different modes, logics, practices
and performed realities are not closed spheres or islands but interact and
are partially connected (Strathern 2004).
Their concern with processes and dynamics, the emergence, stabil-
isation and breakdown of (social and cultural) orders as well as the
misgivings towards polar conceptions and preconceived divisions offer
themselves as ontological and epistemological companions for “transcul-
tural” studies that transcend national and cultural borders. Born out
of a critique of ideological and methodological nationalism, inherent in
“Cool Japanology,” for example, transculturality in the context of this
study does not refer to a modern state of “culture” (cf. Welsch 1999),
a quality of things or to something “out there,” but to an analytical
mode. The main thrust of this mode means to look at transformations
18 B.-O. KAMM
unfolding through the entanglements of cultural practices and agents.

This means to “investigate the multiple ways in which difference is nego-
tiated within contacts and encounters, through selective appropriation,
mediation, translation, re-historicizing and rereading of signs, alterna-
tively through non-communication, rejection or resistance—or through a
succession/coexistence of any of these” (Juneja and Kravagna 2013, 25).
“Culture” is not a sphere linked to a nation-state but this “organisation
of difference” (see Transculturality at a Glance in Table 1.1). However,
one point of this approach is not being so much concerned with what
culture is or what characterises a culture (there exist too many definitions
and meanings already; cf. Sewell 1999). The “trans” seeks emancipation
from culture as a static, bounded thing. So, the trans-cultural is compa-
rable with the trans-Atlantic or the trans-Pacific. These terms are equally
not about the Atlantic or the Pacific but what happens at the end of
connections bridging these bodies of water (Roche 2016).
In contrast to this emphasis on exchange and entanglement, nation-
based approaches are inherently comparative, pitching one nation against
the other. How do Japanese role-playing games differ from American
ones? What is Japanese about Japanese role-playing games? These are
nation-based, and essentialist questions and they are plainly impossible to
answer. First, we had to clarify what we meant with “Japanese:” Games
with rulebooks written in Japanese? Games made on Japanese soil? Games
Table 1.1 At a Glance—Transculturality
1. Cultures are not contained within ethnically closed, linguistically homogenous and
territorially bounded spheres.
2. Trans-culture enables emancipation from the above notion by focusing on mobility,
contact, interaction, entanglement, process, and the negotiation of difference.
3. Transculturality is a field constituted relationally, so that equivalence and
difference, asymmetry and power, are effects brought forth by regimes of
circulation and networks of exchange.
4. To investigate the dynamics of cultural forms and formations means to be empirical
and pay attention to the particularity of situations and the agency of actors.
5. Thus, there should be no a priori assumptions before a study begins and
explanations cannot take recourse in standard narratives of influence.
6. Scale matters: To go beyond established borders does not mean to take on a
macroscopic vision of a synthetic generalist.
7. It means to trace the global as a connection of locals.
made by Japanese citizens? What if a game designer had a Japanese pass-

port but was not “really” Japanese because he belonged to the minority
of burakumin (cf. Vollmer 2012)? Does this matter? For whom? Do
only rulebooks count or the actual game sessions? What if a Japanese,
two Americans, an Italian, and a Korean played a Japanese-language
game? Second, there are thousands of Japanese (language) RPGs and an
equal number in English; games made by professional studios and those
made by independent and amateur designers. How to compare them?
Is comparing the rules or settings enough? Or should the focus lie on
actual game sessions? How many? One for each game? Two? A thousand
sessions? However, the goal is not to say how Japanese RPGs differ from
American ones—which would presuppose that “Japanese RPGs” and “US
RPGs” were coherent wholes.
Both perspectives—transcultural dynamics and material semiotics—
seek to overcome the tendency of categorising phenomena into prede-
fined boxes—be it “nation” or “community” or “power”—and aim at
investigating how these boxes are made, negotiated, closed, and re-
opened instead. It is essential to ask how orders or patterns, such as
hierarchies, distinctions or power, are performed. How do they appear
to be fixed and durable? For example, how is the exclusion of otaku and
nerds performed and made durable? What kind of materials and agen-
cies are involved? These are core questions, questions that should not
be answered prescriptively but instead descriptively. In other words, the
approach proposed in this book builds on a “methodology for describing
the world without assuming too much about what it would find as it
[goes] about its task” (Law 2011, 4). It discourages a priori assumptions
concerning the phenomena to be researched (e.g. if stereotypes are struc-
tures or agencies, if role-players are a community or a scene, who are
the drivers and who are the driven), before an empirical study is under-
taken because such assumptions would limit the findings already before
the study even began.
Transculturality and material semiotics are performative and heteroge-
neous works in progress, still in search of their own language, struggling
with inherited concepts but also with their own canonisation. Both
projects would fail if they concluded with transcendent definitions of
transculturality or society (Latour 1999). Thus, they appear to be fitting
compatriots on a search for an infra-language and a journey crossing
boundaries and frontiers in being reflexive to how they travel.
20 B.-O. KAMM
An Assemblage of Practices
The above discussion leads to the vocabulary that is used to deploy the
controversies of role-playing. One term has been left out so far, assemblage
of practices , as it is this study’s addition to an infra-language (Latour
2005, 30) which shall help to map controversies without too many
“meaningful” a priori assumptions. “Infra” suggests to neither use the
vocabulary of the actors directly, such as treating otaku or nerd as distinct,
singular social groups—which “they” are not, as the terms are used
differently depending on who speaks when and where (Galbraith et al.
2015)—nor to use extremely saturated concepts of social theory, such as
“community,” which lets new formations of people fail its nostalgic claims
about human interrelations before any investigation can take place.
With the focus on doing, transforming, and ordering, this study
borrows from Wittgenstein ([1953] 2009), Foucault (2010), Butler
(1990), Schatzki (1996) and Reckwitz (2002). However, where Reck-
witz speaks of practice as a “block” of elements (ibid., 250) I favour
the heuristic device of the network: Practices are drawn as networks
that have gained a certain durability that makes them recognisable for
others with the consequence that they can be spoken about and be
treated as a resource when doing the practice. Practices are perfor-
mative, meaning that they exist through “doing,” through recreating,
tracing the network. A practice-as-network consists of interdependent
material and non-material elements that encompass bodies, body parts,
bodily movements, materials or things, practical knowledge or know-
how/competences, and concepts/theoretical knowledge of the practice.
For example, one practice-as-network traced by this study, table-top role-
playing, consists of a complex association of printed paper, dice, figurines,
the spatial arrangement of being seated at a table, the bodily movements
of writing and throwing dices, competences in rhetoric, storytelling,
strategy, and tactics, an understanding of the game’s rules, knowledge of
certain novels or movies directly or indirectly cited, an idea of the gratifi-
cations gained by role-playing, its relation to ideas of gaming and to other
games, and so on. Practices-as-networks are recursive: With each perfor-
mance, the network is slightly reconfigured, including the details of rules
(for example, so-called “house rules,” simplifications or their absence),
the amount of strategic or performative competences, the bodily action
necessary (from gestures to full-out enactments) and also the number or
the shape of the dice, etc. At some point, the elements of the network
have changed to such a degree that it should be treated as distinct, yet

still partially connected network. Larps (live-action role-plays) are such a
case, in which certain network elements are retained but newly combined.
These partially connected practices-as-networks are what I call an assem-
blage of practices . This tool helps in tracing the particular arrangements
in and from Japan and their local-global entanglements.
Treating role-playing games as practices or networks of linked prac-
tices helps in overcoming a priori definitions of their borders, which could
never encompass all their possibilities and dynamics. Such a conceptual-
isation borrows Wittgenstein’s idea of family resemblance (Wittgenstein
[1953] 2009, 36e), and mirrors how game designers understand their
creations as kagerō, ephemeral (Kondō 2019). The assemblage of prac-
tices —and not a culture or community—called role-playing games is the
focus of this study. This assemblage is traced not only by following
elements and actants closely linked to the performance of such games,
but also other (partially) connected practices, such as stereotyping or
“making-up people” and media use. Thus, the task of this study is to
trace the four interrelated controversies or uncertainties of the distinc-
tion between the fictional-virtual and the real, the dynamics and agency
of stereotypes and social inclusion/exclusion, the connecting or discon-
necting capability of the Internet, and the role of scholarly knowledge in
the building of worlds by assembling the bits and pieces of the assem-
blage. To revisit the notion of “network,” this term serves as an analytical
device to map the translational work of mediators and not something out
there.
This mapping of the network imputes the attempts at or modes of
ordering mentioned above: Devices and strategies to establish what is to
count as true, or the protocols and techniques of assembling and creating
the very possibility for knowledge about role-players. As a consequence,
a study of ordering does not claim completeness. What can be done, is
finding clues to patterns that flow from stories, from ordering projects
such as those to be encountered within the four controversies of this
study. Modes of ordering refer to narratives told about “kinds of people”
and their practices, their place in the world, the way they were, the way
they are and the way they ought to be, and how these stories express
themselves in non-verbal and material ways. Ordering is a process, uncer-
tain and conditional. Ordering and what is perceived as its effect, order,
are neither a necessity of the social nor something fixed forever. A study
of ordering is modest and thus “superficial,” accepts appearances—even
22 B.-O. KAMM
“those complex appearances of customs, laws and knowledge endeavors”

(Kendall and Wickham 2001, 55)—and concentrates on describing them
as best as possible. So, the following chapters do not explicate “hidden
reasons” for why the mass media bashes certain groups or why people
become role-players, but rather describe contingent modes of ordering,
which have produced some more or less stable forms of practice, spaces
to talk about them, and related subject positions3 from which to speak.
1.3 “How to Use This Book”

What is the scope of this book? Where are its limits? How is the practice-
as-network RPGs contained? Is it all just a huge mess? Of course, it is!
And this is the important argument that cannot be stressed enough (Law
2004): Role-playing games cannot be captured as a single, unchanging
practice that has travelled between continents without transformations.
It is unclear if there ever was a simple container for all its elements and
relations. That is why I favour terms such as “assemblage,” “modes of
ordering” or the idea of “partial connectedness.” RPGs are multiple but
what they share are (again partial) connections to certain questions that
have arisen in the Asian, European, and American environment. Where
RPGs (in whatever figuration or form) are played, people ask what the
essence of role-playing and thus, what good role-playing is. And people
ask what others, other role-players and non-players, think of them role-
playing, think of their way of role-playing. Especially, the relationship
to “outsiders” is what opened up the four uncertainties of role-playing
games. This also is what limits this study. It can follow the actors through
their world-building along these controversies but cannot wrap them up,
deliver a final conclusion. I offer cases in which the dynamics of these
questions and controversies are played out.
The scope of this study is limited in another sense as well. It began
with the quest to understand the relationship role-players in Japan have
with the label otaku placed upon them by the media or themselves, how
their connections to role-players outside Japan are characterised, and who
3 Subject position is Foucault’s way of eschewing the awkward concept of “identity,” by

tackling a discursive process that produces particular positions from which a subject may
articulate itself or to which it may be delegated by others. The term “identity” usually
fixes two entities (e.g. person x as female) that are not identical instead of describing in
detail how one entity is related to another (Kendall and Wickham 2001, 157).
or what produces these connections. So, the focus of this study remains
RPGs in Japan and their local and global interconnections. My actors did
not stay put but physically moved from and to Japan and back again,
drawing in different sites and going beyond the global connections of
the Internet. If we allow for a reduction to national borders, than the
two sites enrolled the most are the US—where role-playing games gained
a specific form, the term itself was coined, and where we find the first
market for translated games designed in Japan—and Germany—where
Japanese designers of non-digital games seek entry into the European
market via trade fairs, and from where rules for live-action role-play were
transposed to Japan. Phrased more abstractly, this study rests on very local
interactions (interviews, participant observations at conventions or game
tables) but follows the actants and agencies called into action in these
situations to often quite global places and conversations.
Many role-playing games are delivered in the form of rulebooks that
also detail the setting, the game world and its history, its people and social
rules. In RPG jargon a distinction is made between this fluff , informa-
tion about the world of the game and its inhabitants, and its crunch, the
sections dealing with rules and game mechanics. This line is often broken,
however, as fluff informs crunch and vice versa (a pseudo-medieval fantasy
necessitates rules for magic, a futuristic dystopia those for robots and
starships). Similarly, the chapters or “Acts” of this book include refer-
ence boxes (such as the “At a Glance” above), which detail or summarise
theoretical ideas or methods employed. Further, a number of Interludes
interpose the Acts and explain in more detail methodological questions,
such as interview tools used or how informants were recruited. These
interludes evolved out of the concern for reflexivity and thus seek to
establish transparency but also offer insights for using this study’s tech-
niques elsewhere. These various tools helped plot my journey and later
trace the paths and legs of the practice-network RPGs and its actants,
travelling to, from, and within Japan. Translated into this book form, the
journey begins with making, continues with transforming, and ends with
knowing the network. However, the book may end, the journey does
not. The transformations of the network leave its shape uncertain, thus
inviting new players to travel its paths. The tools and cases in this book
are offered as guides for this continuing voyage.
24 B.-O. KAMM
References
Abel, Jonathan E. 2011. “Can Cool Japan Save Post-disaster Japan? On the
Possibilities and Impossibilities of a Cool Japanology.” International Journal
of Japanese Sociology 20 (1): 59–72.
Azuma, Hiroki. 2007. Gēmu-teki riarizumu no tanjō. Dōbutsuka suru posuto-
modan 2 [The Birth of Game-Like Realism: The Animalising Postmodern 2].
Tokyo: Kōdansha.
———, ed. 2010. Nihon-teki sōzōryoku no mirai: kūru Japanorojı̄ no kanōsei [The
Future of Japanese Creativity: The Possibility of Cool Japanology]. Tokyo:
NHK Shuppan.
Becker, Howard Saul. 1973. Outsiders—Studies in the Sociology of Deviance. 2nd
ed. New York: Free Press.
Bennett, Lucy. 2014. “Tracing Textual Poachers: Reflections on the Develop-
ment of Fan Studies and Digital Fandom.” The Journal of Fandom Studies 2
(1): 5–20. https://doi.org/10.1386/jfs.2.1.5_1.
Berndt, Jaqueline. 2008. “Considering Manga Discourse: Location, Ambiguity,
Historicity.” In Japanese Visual Culture, edited by Mark W. MacWilliams,
351–369. Armonk: M. E. Sharpe.
Butler, Judith. 1990. Gender Trouble. New York: Routledge.
Cohen, Stanley. 1972. Folk Devils and Moral Panics: The Creation of the Mods
and Rockers. London: MacGibbon and Kee.
Consalvo, Mia. 2016. Atari to Zelda: Japan’s Videogames in Global Contexts.
Cambridge: MIT Press.
Deterding, Sebastian. 2009. “Virtual Communities.” In Posttraditionale Gemein-
schaften, edited by Ronald Hitzler, Anne Honer, and Michaela Pfadenhauer,
115–131. Wiesbaden: VS.
Eng, Lawrence. 2012. “Strategies of Engagement: Discovering, Defining, and
Describing Otaku Culture in the United States.” In Fandom Unbound, edited
by Mizuko Itō et al., 85–104. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Fantle, David, and Tom Johnson. 2009. “‘Nerd’ Is the Word: Henry Winkler,
August 1981.” In Reel to Real: 25 Years of Celebrity Interviews from Vaudeville
to Movies to TV , 239–242. Oregon: Badger Books Incorporation.
Fine, Gary Alan. 1983. Shared Fantasy: Role-Playing Games as Social Worlds.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Flick, Uwe. 2004. Triangulation in Qualitative Research. In A Companion to
Qualitative Research, edited by Uwe Flick, Ernst von Kardoff, and Ines
Steinke, 178–183. London: Sage.
Foucault, Michel. 1970. The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human
Sciences. New York: Pantheon Books.
———. 1991. “Questions of Method.” In The Foucault Effect, edited by Graham
Burchell, Colin Gordon, and Peter Miller, 73–86. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press.
———. 2010. The Government of Self and Others: Lectures at the College de
France, 1982–1983. Edited by Frédéric Gros. Translated by Graham Burchell.
New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Galbraith, Patrick W. 2012. Otaku Spaces. Seattle: Chin Music Press.
Galbraith, Patrick W., Thiam Huat Kam, and Björn-Ole Kamm. 2015. “Intro-
duction: ‘Otaku’ Research: Past, Present and Future.” In Debating Otaku in
Contemporary Japan, 1–18. London: Bloomsbury Academic.
Galbraith, Patrick W., and Thomas Lamarre. 2010. “Otakuology: A Dialogue.”
Mechademia 5 (1): 360–374 (accessed 2015/9/10).
Gilsdorf, Ethan. 2009. Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks. Guilford: The Lyons
Press.
Goffman, Erving. 1959. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. New York:
Anchor.
Gramsci, Antonio. 1971. Prison Notebooks. New York: International Publishers.
Hebdige, Dick. 1979. Subculture: The Meaning of Style. London: Methuen.
Hills, Matt. 2002. Fan Cultures. London: Routledge.
Honda, Tōru. 2005. Moéru otoko [The Budding Man]. Tokyo: Chikuma.
Itō, Mizuko, Daisuke Okabe, and Izumi Tsuji, eds. 2012. Fandom Unbound:
Otaku Culture in a Connected World. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Jenkins, Henry. 1992. Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory
Culture. New York: Routledge.
Juneja, Monica, and Christian Kravagna. 2013. “Understanding Transcultur-
alism (Conversation).” In Transcultural Modernism, edited by Model House
Research Group, 22–33. Berlin and New York: Sternberg Press.
Kendall, Gavin, and Gary Wickham. 2001. Understanding Culture: Cultural
Studies, Order, Ordering. London: Sage.
Kitkowski, Andy. 2008. “What Is JRPG Talk?” J-RPG Blog! March. http://www.
j-rpg.com/talk/discussion/3/what-is-jrpg-talk (accessed 2020/02/20).
Kondō, Kōshi. 2019. “Gēmu to iu kagerō o mae ni [Before the Heat of the
Game].” Japanese Journal of Analog Role-Playing Game Studies 0: 3–4.
https://doi.org/10.14989/jarps_0_03.
Larsson, Elge. 2003. “Postmodernism.” In As Larp Grows Up: The Lost Chap-
ters—More Theory and Method in Larp, edited by Morten Gade, Line Thorup,
and Mikkel Sander, 10–14. Frederiksberg: Projektgruppen KP03.
Latour, Bruno. 1993. We Have Never Been Modern. Cambridge: Harvard
University Press.
———. 1999. “On Recalling ANT.” In Actor Network Theory and After, edited
by John Law and John Hassard, 15–25. Oxford: Blackwell.
———. 2004. “Why Has Critique Run Out of Steam? From Matters of Fact to
Matters of Concern.” Critical Inquiry 30 (2): 225–248.
———. 2005. Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
26 B.-O. KAMM
Law, John. 1994. Organizing Modernity. Oxford: Blackwell.

———. 2004. After Method: Mess in Social Science Research. London: Routledge.
———. 2011. “Knowledge Places.” Presented at Linking STS and the Social
Sciences: Transforming “the Social” Conference, Kookmin University, Seoul,
October 28. http://www.heterogeneities.net/publications/Law2011Knowl
edgePlaces.pdf (accessed 2020/02/20).
Law, John, and Annemarie Mol, eds. 2002. Complexities: Social Studies of
Knowledge Practices. Durham: Duke University Press.
Machiyama, Tomohiro, ed. 1989. Otaku no hon [The Otaku Book]. Tokyo:
Takarajimasha.
Mackay, Daniel. 2001. The Fantasy Role-Playing Game: A New Performing Art.
Jefferson: MacFarland.
McClellan, Ann. 2013. “A Case of Identity: Role Playing, Social Media and BBC
Sherlock.” The Journal of Fandom Studies 1 (2): 139–157. https://doi.org/
10.1386/jfs.1.2.139_1.
McGonigal, Jane. 2011. Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How
They Can Change the World. New York: Vintage.
McLelland, Mark, ed. 2017. The End of Cool Japan: Ethical, Legal, and Cultural
Challenges to Japanese Popular Culture. New York: Routledge.
Mol, Annemarie. 1999. “Ontological Politics: A Word and Some Questions.”
In Actor Network Theory and After, edited by John Law and John Hassard,
74–89. Oxford: Blackwell.
———. 2002. The Body Multiple: Ontology in Medical Practice. Durham: Duke
University Press.
Nagayama, Nasuo. 2005. Otaku no honkai - “atsumeru” koto no eichi to
bōken [The True Worth of the Otaku—The Wisdom and Excitement of
“Collecting”]. Tokyo: Chikuma.
Okada, Toshio. 1996. Otaku-gaku nyūmon [Introduction to Otakuology].
Tokyo: Shinchōsha.
———. 2015. “Introduction to Otakuology.” In Debating Otaku in Contempo-
rary Japan, edited by Patrick W. Galbraith, Thiam Huat Kam, and Björn-Ole
Kamm, 89–101. London: Bloomsbury Academic.
Ōtsuka, Eiji. 2015. “Otaku Culture as ‘Conversion Literature’.” In Debating
Otaku in Contemporary Japan, edited by Patrick W. Galbraith, Thiam Huat
Kam, and Björn-Ole Kamm, xiii–xxix. London: Bloomsbury Academic.
Picard, Martin, and Jérémie Pelletier-Gagnon. 2015. “Introduction: Geemu,
Media Mix, and the State of Japanese Video Game Studies.” Kinephanos 5:
1–19 (accessed 2019/11/1).
Pickering, Michael. 2001. Stereotyping: The Politics of Representation. New York:
Palgrave Macmillan.
Reckwitz, Andreas. 2002. “Toward a Theory of Social Practices: A Development
in Culturalist Theorizing.” European Journal of Social Theory 5 (2): 243–263.
Roche, Sophie. 2016. “Culture–Relation and Transculturality: Reflecting about

Muslims in Germany through the Philosophy of Édouard Glissant.” Talk
Presented at Transcultural Dynamics of Asia and Europe: Mobility, Negotiation
and Transformation, Kyoto University, September 26.
Said, Edward W. 1978. Orientalism. New York: Pantheon Books.
Schatzki, Theodore R. 1996. Social Practices: A Wittgensteinian Approach to
Human Activity and the Social. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Schules, Douglas. 2015. “Kawaii Japan: Defining JRPGs through the Cultural
Media Mix.” Kinephanos 5: 53–76 (accessed 2019/11/1).
Sewell, William H. 1999. “The Concept(s) of Culture.” In Beyond the Cultural
Turn: New Directions in the Study of Society and Culture, edited by Victoria
E. Bonnell and Lynn Avery Hunt, 35–61. Berkeley: University of California
Press.
Stark, Lizzie. 2012. Leaving Mundania: Inside the Transformative World of Live
Action Role-Playing Games. Chicago: Chicago Review Press.
Steinberg, Marc. 2012. Anime’s Media Mix: Franchising Toys and Characters in
Japan. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Strathern, Marilyn. 2004. Partial Connections. Walnut Creek: AltaMira Press.
Underwood, Michael Robert. 2009. “The Friends That Game Together: A
Folkloric Expansion of Textual Poaching to Genre Farming for Socializa-
tion in Tabletop Role-Playing Games.” Transformative Works and Cultures
2. https://doi.org/10.3983/twc.2009.0087.
Venturini, Tommaso. 2010. “Diving in Magma: How to Explore Controversies
with Actor-Network Theory.” Public Understanding of Science 19 (3): 258–
273.
———. 2012. “Building on Faults: How to Represent Controversies with Digital
Methods.” Public Understanding of Science 21 (7): 796–812.
Vollmer, Klaus. 2012. “How Impurity Is Concealed and Revealed—The Case of
the So-Called Burakumin in Contemporary Japan.” In How Purity Is Made,
edited by Udo Simon and Petra Rösch, 245–264. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.
Welsch, Wolfgang. 1999. “Transculturality—The Puzzling Form of Cultures
Today.” In Spaces of Culture: City, Nation, World, edited by Mike Feath-
erstone and Scott Lash, 194–213. London: Sage.
Wittgenstein, Ludwig. 1979. On Certainty. Oxford: Blackwell.
———. (1953) 2009. Philosophical Investigations. Translated by G. E. M.
Anscombe, P. M. S. Hacker, and Joachim Schulte. 3rd ed. Malden: Blackwell.
Yasuda, Hitoshi, and GroupSNE. 1986. “D&D Rōdosu-tō senki replay dai 1 bu
[D&D Record of Lodoss War Replay, Part 1].” In Comtiq, 1986 Sept. Tokyo:
Kadokawa.
Zagal, José Pablo, and Sebastian Deterding, eds. 2018. Role-Playing Game
Studies: Transmedia Foundations. New York: Routledge.
28 B.-O. KAMM
Audio-Visual Works
Game of Thrones. 2011–19. Benioff, David & D. B. Weiss. TV show. USA: HBO.
Happy Days. 1974–84. Marchall, Garry. TV show. USA: ABC.
Star Trek. 1966–Present. Roddenberry, Gene (original creator). TV show. USA:
Paramount.
The Big Bang Theory. 2007–19. Lorre, Chuck, and Bill Prady. TV show. USA:
CBS.
Ludography
Gygax, Gary, and Dave Arneson. 1978. Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. TRPG.
Corebook. Lake Geneva: TSR.
Mizuno, Ryō, and GroupSNE. 1989. Sōdo Wārudo RPG [Sword World RPG].
TRPG. Corebook. Tokyo: Fujimi Shobō.
Petersen, Sandy. 1981. Call of Cthulhu. TRPG. Corebook. Hayward: Chaosium.
Rein·Hagen, Mark, Justin Achilli, and Robert Hatch. 1998. Vampire: The
Masquerade. Rev. ed. TRPG. Corebook. Stone Mountain: White Wolf.
CHAPTER 2
Games—Playing with Borders of Reality,

or the First Act
The essence of a role-playing game is that it is a group, cooperative expe-

rience. There is no winning or losing, but rather the value is in the
experience of imagining yourself as a character in whatever genre you’re
involved in, whether it’s a fantasy game, the Wild West, secret agents or
whatever else. You get to sort of vicariously experience those things. Gary
Gygax, Game Pioneer, Dies at 69 (Schiesel 2008)
2.1 The (Ancient) Origins of Role-Playing Games

The first controversy surrounds the distinction between games and reality,
a theme that also recurs throughout all of the subsequent contro-
versies under examination. The debates about reality and non-reality
fuelled the labelling of otaku in general and role-players in particular.
However, the relationship between reality and non-reality takes a different
shape depending on which arrangement of the practice-as-network “role-
playing game” is concerned. Thus, the first section of this chapter traces a
history of the assemblage concerning how the border between the two is
constantly renegotiated. Wargaming, also known as conflict simulations,
thrived to represent and simulate reality: The chaos on the battlefield and
the probability of success or failure. It sought to implement knowledge
into aspiring military commanders, so that they could make better deci-
sions in real war. The first figuration actually marketed as role-playing
games followed this simulational directive but aimed at fun instead.
Combining warfare with fantasy elements, however, placed RPGs soon
© The Author(s) 2020 29

B.-O. Kamm, Role-Playing Games of Japan,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-50953-8_2
30 B.-O. KAMM
in the realm of escapism, that the players would lose their connection to
reality and believed they could actually conjure magic. They countered by
arguing that this was just a game, drawing a hard line between their play
and the real world. One recently increasingly popular arrangement is live-
action role-play (larp), where players dress up as their characters and enact
them in a theatre-like manner. Instead of simulating things, players need
to harness their own real-world kills to convincingly portray their roles.
Because larp involves the players fully, body and mind, this configuration
is seen as a tool for experiencing other worlds, not just fantastical ones,
but also those of other people around us. Thus, educators seek to break
the wall between game and reality in order to have people learn about
refugees, bullying or how it is to live under occupation. The assemblage
of role-playing in its various configurations and arrangements oscillates
between simulation and imagination, play-for-knowledge and play-for-its-
own-sake. For some definitions of “play,” these borders are marked and
distinct, games are detached from everyday activities. Other conceptu-
alisations treat this veil as rather porous, allow for knowledge transfer
between the spheres. The rhetoric and enactment of escapism are major
factors for most conceptualisations—whether negative or positive—and
sustains the image that an engagement with media and fictional worlds
always means to leave a “primary reality” behind. Many of my intervie-
wees followed such a perspective and suggested a boundary between play
and an ordinary side of life. Game designers employ the concept of the
magic circle, to set up a time and a space for playing. This is not meant as
an ontological statement but as a tool to be aware of game design choices
for player agency.
This Act aims not at a conclusive definition of what role-playing
games are, or where the border between playing and reality lies. It rather
traces first the border-crossing trajectory of the three practice arrange-
ments sketched above to then follow the various creations of boundaries
drawn around games by those involved in their practice and those who
are not. The reason for this approach lies in the main argument of
this study: The status of games and reality is less a matter-of-fact but
a matter-of -concern (Latour 2004). Singular definitions of “game” or
“role-playing game” always face a multitude of experiences that confirm
these definitions in some ways and diverge from them in others. An
insistence on singularity, that a thing is separate and stable, is expressed
through general statements, such as “Games are like drugs” (Paul 2006)
or “Spielen macht klug” (playing makes wise, Spiegel cover 3/2014).
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
The Project Gutenberg eBook of Hanna
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States
and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no
restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the
United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where
you are located before using this eBook.
Title: Hanna
Romaani
Author: Bertha von Suttner
Translator: Hertta S.
Release date: October 4, 2023 [eBook #71801]

Most recently updated: October 30, 2023
Language: Finnish
Original publication: Helsinki: Otava, 1914
Credits: Anna Siren and Tapio Riikonen
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HANNA ***

HANNA
Romaani
Kirj.
BERTHA VON SUTTNER
Suomentanut
Hertta S.
Helsingissä, Kustannusosakeyhtiö Otava, 1914.

I.
»Oi Jumala, hyvä Jumala, mitä minä kirjoitan… mitä voin sanoa
hänelle, onnettomalle miesparalle!»
Nyyhkyttäen hän nojasi pään käsiinsä. Hänen edessään pöydällä

olevalle kirjepaperille oli kirjoitettu vapisevin käsin vain viisi sanaa:
»Kun sinä löydät tämän, ei…»
»Oh, en tiedä…» vaikeroi hän taas, »kaikki on kuin unennäköä,

olen kuin mieletön!»
Hän nousi mennen päätään pidellen huoneen toisessa

nurkkauksessa olevan seinäpeilin ääreen. Tuskaisin katsein hän
silmäili siinä näkyvää kalpeata, mutta hurmaavan kaunista kuvaa.
Kun on yksin rikoksineen, yksin kauhistuttavine salaisuuksineen,
vetää peili puoleensa. Syyllinen hakee siitä vastauksen
odottamattomiin kysymyksiin, todistajan, ainoan, joka saa tietää
kaiken. Jos vaimo on tekemäisillään syntiä, niin hänen oma
kauneutensa on tavallisesti hänen uskottu rikostoverinsa.
»Hän rakastaa sinua, hän rakastaa sinua», sanoi hän hiljaa. »Hän
odottaa sinua, hän vie sinut satumaisen onnen syliin…»
Mutta vaikka huulet kuiskasivatkin sanan »onni», tiesi hän
kuitenkin valehtelevansa kauniille peilikuvalle. Hänestä tuntui, kuin
aavistamaton onnettomuus hiipisi hänen ympärillään. Mutta
pyörryttävä syvyys veti puoleensa; hänen jalkansa oli jo sen
reunalla, ja hänen täytyi syöksyä sinne. Päättävästi hän poistui peilin
luota kirjoituspöydän ääreen. Lattialla oli täytetty, vielä avonainen
matkalaukku. Hän oli kompastua siihen kumartuessaan sitä
sulkemaan. Sitten hän otti kirjoituspöydänlaatikosta kukkaron ja pani
sen palttoonsa taskuun. Hänestä tuntui, kuin joku muu kuin se, jonka
hän oli nähnyt peilistä, olisi toimittanut nämä koneelliset tehtävät.
Hän ei myöskään ollut se, joka kastoi kynän mustetolppoon ja lopetti
alotetun kirjeen.
Kirjoittaessaan hän tuli entiselleen; sanat pursuivat esiin hänen

sydämensä syvyyksistä:
»Kun sinä löydät tämän, ei sinulla enää ole vaimoa. Ajattele, että
hän on kuollut — hänelle ehkä olisi parempi niin. Älä sure minua,
en sitä ansaitse. Tule onnelliseksi, sinä hyvä, kylmä mies! Minua
odottavat taivaan hurmat… vai helvetinkö turmat! Sama se; en voi
vastustaa niitä. Siksi pakenen. Sinua olisi niin helppo pettää —
mutta kunniani, ylpeyteni sen estävät. Ei, suo anteeksi! Pyyhi pois
nämä sanat; minullahan ei ole enää kunniaa eikä ylpeyttä; minä
olen langennut vaimo raukka. Huuliani tosin eivät vielä synnilliset
suudelmat ole saastuttaneet, mutta eivät ne ole enää puhtaatkaan,
koska ne ovat lausuneet uskottoman myöntymyksen muukalaisen
pakoehdotukseen. Hyvästi! Ainoa lohdutukseni, ainoa
puolustukseni on, ettet minua rakasta. Rakkaimpasihan sinulle jää:
kirjasi. Näihin sanoihin ei sisälly moitetta. Kuinka uskaltaisin minä,
rikoksellinen, joka polvistuneena, pää kumarassa, viimeisen kerran
puhun sinulle, vielä yhdistää katkeria sanoja tähän katkeraan
tekoon. Usko minua, tämä viimeinen hetkeni hiljaisessa,
kunniallisessa, rauhaisessa kodissasi tuntuu minusta
kuolinhetkeltä. Äsken sulkiessani matkalaukkuni oli kuin olisin
virittänyt murha-aseen. Ja nyt kirjoitan joukon turhia asioita tälle
paperille, vaikka aikomukseni oli vain lyhyin sanoin ilmaista
poistumiseni…mutta miksi kirjoittaa enempää? Kätesi vapisee jo
rypistääkseen vihamielin tämän kirjeen, jonka halveksien heität
liekkeihin. Sinä tunnet nyt vain vihaa, oikeutettua inhoa onnetonta,
mieletöntä kohtaan, joka ei enää ole sinun omasi!
Johanna.»
Kello oli yhdeksän vaiheilla illalla Johanna Ballmannin lopettaessa

kirjettä. Huone, jossa hän oli, oli sisustettu porvarillisen
yksinkertaisesti, ja sitä valaisi kirjoituspöydällä oleva lamppu.
Takassa paloi hiipuva tuli. Vaatekaapin ovi oli auki, ja avoimet,
epäjärjestyksessä olevat laatikot osoittivat jonkun kiireisesti niissä
penkoneen. Lattialla kirjoituspöydän luona oli paperipalasia —
revittyjä kirjeitä, laskuja ynnä muuta, kuten aina matkalle
lähdettäessä.
Johannan sulkiessa epätoivoista kirjettään tuli hänen mieleensä

ajatus: »Vielä on aikaa — vielä voin hävittää tämän kirjeen ja
jäädä…» Mutta sitten hänen katseensa osui huoneessa vallitsevaan
sekasortoon. Hänen miehensä voisi millä hetkellä hyvänsä tulla
kotiin, ja miten hän selittäisi tämän epäjärjestyksen ja oman
kiihtymyksensä? Sitäpaitsi oli tämä vaatimattomasti, melkein
köyhästi sisustettu huone kuvana proosallisesta, arkipäiväisestä
tulevaisuudesta, joka oli hänen osansa täällä, kun taas tulevaisuus
siellä, minne hän aikoi paeta, kuvastui hänen mieleensä
satumaisessa komeudessa; siellä kutsuivat häntä romanttisen,
intohimoisen elämän yllätykset. Ja hän, tuo ihana mies tulisine
katseineen ja sointuisine äänineen, mies, joka oli maansa
loistavimpia, jalosukuisimpia, odotti häntä luottavana. »Ei, ei, liian
myöhäistä… minun täytyy lähteä!»
Hän sulki äkkiä kirjeen ja kirjoitti päällekirjoituksen: »Ewald

Ballmann.» Sitten hän painoi jäähyväissuudelman nimen alle. Vielä
kerran hän astui peilin luo; hänestä tuntui, kuin hänen pitäisi ottaa
jäähyväiset myöskin tältä kuvalta — siveän vaimon kuvalta, joka
viimeisen kerran katseli häntä peilistä. Sidottuaan tiheän harson
hattunsa ympäri hän otti matkalaukun ja kiiruhti nopein askelin
portaita alas.
II.
Tämän illan oli Ewald Ballmann, itävaltalaisen maaseutukaupungin

kymnaasin professori, viettänyt juhlaseurassa. Oli johtajan
kaksikymmenviisivuotisjuhla, ja Ewaldin täytyi ottaa siihen osaa.
Kotoa lähtiessään hän oli sanonut vaimolleen:
»Älä valvo minua odotellen, Hanna. En varmaankaan voi tulla

aikaisin kotiin. Olet niin kalpeakin tänään; sinun on paras mennä
aikaisin levolle. Vaivaako sinua jokin?»
»Ei, ei mikään… Pidä hauskaa!»
»Oh, tiedäthän, etten yleensä ole huvien ja seuraelämän suosija!»
»Tiedän, sen pahempi… hyvinkin.»
»Miksi sanot 'sen pahempi', rakas lapsi? Enhän estä sinua

huvittelemasta mielin määrin. Ellen seuraakaan sinua huveihin ja
kävelyille, en myöskään koskaan ole kieltänyt sinua ottamasta niihin
osaa kummisi seurassa, vaikka itse asiassa en käsitä mitä huvia
tuollaiset väsyttävät, tyhjänpäiväiset ja meluavat ihmisjoukot voivat
tarjota. Tuntuu jo pahalta, kun täytyy ottaa hännystakki, tuo
pakkoröijy ylleen. Toivoisin, että tämänpäiväinen juhla olisi ohi.
Hyvästi, Hanna!»
Ewald Ballmann oli siihen aikaan kahdenkymmenenkahdeksan

vuotias ja oli ollut kaksi vuotta naimisissa kauniin Hanna von
Orfalvyn kanssa. He eivät sopineet toisilleen. Ewald oli saksalaisen
kansakoulunopettajan poika, Hanna unkarilaisen aatelismiehen ja
amerikkalaisen tanssijattaren tytär; Ewald oli käytökseltään
yksinkertainen, ujonlainen, miltei kömpelö, umpimielinen ja
harvasanainen, — Hanna viehättävä, vilkas ja voitonvarma; Ewald
totinen, levollinen, työteliäs, Hanna liioiteltu, nautinnonhaluinen ja
työhön tottumaton. Ewaldin sielu sai tyydytystä eksaktisista tiedoista,
kuivista tutkimuksista, — Hannan mieli taas oli täynnä runoja,
romaaneja ja liioiteltuja onnen utukuvia. Tämä avioliitto oli
täydellinen erehdys. Yhteistä molemmille oli heidän nuoruutensa,
kauneutensa ja kykynsä rakastaa; molemmilla oli rikkaat
luonnonlahjat, mutta erilainen kasvatus ja erilaiset olosuhteet olivat
antaneet heidän ymmärrykselleen ja tunteilleen aivan eri suunnan,
niin etteivät heidän sielunsa koskaan voineet sulautua toisiinsa, joten
he koko tämän kaksivuotisen avioliittonsa aikana olivat alati
tunteneet jonkin heitä eroittavan.
Hanna oli kieltämättä saanut huonon kasvatuksen. Hänen isänsä,

entinen upporikas, kevytmielinen magyari, kuoli rappiolle joutuneena
pelaajana, tyttären ollessa kymmenen vuoden vanha. Hänen äitinsä,
ennen niin jumaloitu tanssijatar, joka aina oli elänyt ylellisyydessä ja
jonka nyt täytyi tulla toimeen pienellä eläkkeellä, ei voinut tyytyä
niukkoihin oloihinsa, vaan eli siinä toivossa, että tyttärensä, joka
herätti huomiota kauneudellaan, hankkisi loistavalla naimisella
takaisin entiset ihanat päivät. Näistä tulevaisuuden tuumistaan hän
puheli aina lapsensa kanssa; tuntimääriä hän saattoi Hannalle
selvitellä, miten he järjestäisivät elämänsä tultuaan jälleen rikkaiksi ja
onnellisiksi, kuten olivat olleet isän eläessä. Heidän mielissään
väikkyi huikaisevan komeita satulinnoja; he suunnittelivat pukuja,
joita Hannan oli käytettävä ulkomaisissa hoveissa
esittelytilaisuuksissa; he kuvailivat lakeijain arki- ja juhlapukuja,
erilaatuisia vaunuja, joita oli käytettävä maalla tai ajeluilla Praternilla,
aarrelippaassa olevia timanttidiademeja ja mustahelmisiä
kaulakoruja; suurenmoiset tanssiaiset, ihanat päivälliset, hurmaavat
metsästysretket, huvittavat kylpymatkat, kaikki, kaikki kuvailtiin mitä
yksityiskohtaisimmin ja niin usein, että Hanna vähitellen alkoi pitää
luonnollisena kehittymistään loistavaksi kuuluisuudeksi. Tätä tuki
vielä hänen aikaisin esiintyvä kauneutensa, joka hankki hänelle
mielistelyjä ja rakkaudentunnustuksia jo kolmentoista vuoden iässä.
Mutta äiti vartioi ankarasti tytärtään; hän ei laskenut Hannaa
koskaan silmistään ja opetti hänelle aina hyvien tapojen
noudattamista ja naisellista ylpeyttä. Minnie Orfalvyn mielestä Hanna
oli enkeli, satuprinsessa. Hänen siveyteensä ja kunniaansa ei
koskaan saanut tulla tahraa; hänen tuli saavuttaa rikkautta ja onnea,
mutta ainoastaan avioliiton portin kautta, ainoastaan
arvossapidettynä ja kunnioitettuna vallasnaisena.
Hannalla oli loistavat luonnonlahjat ja ainainen halu oppia ja lukea.

Pianonsoittajana hän oli jo kaksitoistavuotiaana pieni taiteilija ja
saavutti eräässä hyväntekeväisyyskonsertissa myrskyisää suosiota.
Tämä yllytti melkoisesti hänen turhamaisuuttaan; hän astui esiin ja
kumarsi yleisölle voitonhymy huulillaan, sulkien katseeseensa koko
salin, kuten konsanaan suosionosoituksiin tottunut primadonna.
Tästä hetkestä lähtien hän katsoi olevansa oikeutettu aina saamaan
osakseen huomiota. Hän oli tottunut siihen, että ihmiset kadulla
kääntyivät katsomaan häntä. Hänen kauneutensa olikin
hämmästyttävä. Äidiltään hän oli perinyt hienon hipiän ja paksun,
vaalean tukan, joka oli tuuhea ja kihara eikä, kuten vaalea verisillä
yleensä, pehmeä ja sileä. Tummat, tuliset silmänsä, jalon profiilin ja
komean vartalonsa hän oli perinyt isältään.
Paitsi soitannollisia lahjoja oli Hannalla erinomainen

kieltenoppimis-taipumus. Lukuunottamatta englanninkieltä, jonka
hän oppi äidiltään ja jota hän osasi yhtä varmasti kuin saksan- ja
unkarinkieltä, hän tunsi myöskin ranskankielen kaikkine
hienouksineen. Hän luki suunnattoman paljon romaaneja.
Kuusitoistavuotiaana hän oli lukenut kaikki kaupunkinsa
lainakirjastossa olevat ranskalaiset romaanit; sitäpaitsi hän kaikeksi
onneksi tutki myöskin englantilaista kaunokirjallisuutta sekä joitakin
saksalaisten kirjailijain teoksia. Hanna rakasti runoutta, runoilipa
joskus itsekin. Hänellä ei ollut tapana seurustella samanikäisten
lasten kanssa, hän ei ollut koskaan pitänyt nukeista ja hän luki
itsensä edellämainitun konsertin jälkeen aikaihmisiin. Hänestä oli
romaaneja lukiessaan hauskaa laskea, montako vuotta häneltä
puuttui, ennenkuin tuli yhdeksäntoista- tai kaksikymmenvuotiaaksi,
romaanien sankarittarien ikään.
Eräs vanha kaunosielu, eläkettä nauttiva rautatievirkailija, joka oli

Hannan äidin ystävä, tutustutti hänet kirjallisuuteen ja tieteisiin. Hän
ihmetteli alituiseen Hannan nopeata käsityskykyä, hänen hyvää
muistiansa, hänen sattuvia huomautuksiaan, ja niin tuotti
jokapäiväinen opiskelu sekä opettajalle että oppilaalle todellista
huvia. Lukusuunnitelmassa oli seuraavat aineet: historia, maantiede,
fysiikka, kansantarusto, estetiikka, saksalaiset, ranskalaiset ja
englantilaiset klassikot. Hanna opiskeli suurella ihastuksella. Se oli
hänen henkisen puolensa koristelua. Yhtä mielellään kuin hän kietoi
valkean kaulansa ympärille helminauhan tai kiinnitti vaaleihin
kiharoihinsa ruiskukkia, hän myös rikastutti henkistä elämäänsä
oppineisuuden jalokivillä, kultaisilla tiedoilla, runouden helmillä.
Hänen mieleensä ei juolahtanutkaan, että saattoi harjoittaa opintoja
niiden itsensä vuoksi, ja siksi hän ei juonut tiedonmaljaa pohjaan.
Hän ei ollut koskaan tuntenut sitä valoa, joka heijastuu tieteestä ja
jonka säteet valaisevat maailmankatsomusta. Liikaa olisikin vaatia,
että puolikasvuiset tytöt katselisivat maailmaa pitäen kokonaisuutta
silmällä. Hannan kuten niin monen muunkin maailma oli se piiri,
jossa hän itse ja hänen tulevat kohtalonsa olivat keskipisteenä. Hän
oli varma siitä, että jokin erikoinen kohtalo odotti häntä. Hän tunsi
olevansa poikkeusolento, sillä minne hän tuli, siellä ihmiset tuijottivat
häneen kuin ihmeeseen. Hanna oli herkkäluontoinen ja
lämminsydäminen. Hän ei saattanut nähdä kenenkään kärsivän ja
olisi ollut valmis mitä suurimpaan uhraukseen, tuottaakseen muille
onnea. Hän ajatteli ajoittain voivansa, vaikka olikin luotu
loisteliaaseen elämään — vaihtaa kohtalonsa »tupaan ja sydämeen»
ja kulkea köyhän, rakastetun miehen rinnalla elämänsä loppuun.
Siinähän olisi ollut jotain sankarillistakin.
Rakkaus… miten salaperäiseltä ja ihanalta tuo sana kaikuikaan

hänen korvissaan — se mahtoi olla elämän kruunu. Minkä näköinen
lieneekään se prinssi tai mökkiläinen, joka on tekevä hänet
onnelliseksi? Näin hän uneksi usein hiljaisuudessa. Äidilleen hän ei
uskaltanut sellaisista asioista puhua; äidistä kaikki rakkaushaaveilut
olivat mielettömiä.
Paitsi äitiään oli Hannalla vielä eräs suojelija ja ihailija. Se oli

hänen kumminsa, hänen isävainajansa serkku, kenraaliluutnantti von
Orfalvyn viisissäkymmenissä oleva leski. Tämä vanha rouva ei tosin
ollut rikas, mutta melkoisen varakas ja äärettömästi mieltynyt
seuraelämään. Hänen keskiviikko-iltoihinsa, »jour fixe», kuten hän
niitä mielellään nimitti, oli rakas »pieni Ihme-Hanna» jo kahdentoista
ikäisenä kerta kaikkiaan kutsuttu. Kenraalitar Orfalvyn luona ei
käynyt n.s. »seurapiirin kerma» (tämäkin oli hänen mielisanojaan),
se kun itävaltalaisissa pikkukaupungeissa on paljon sulkeutuneempi
kuin Espanjan hovissa, niin ettei ylhäisimpään aateliin kuulumaton
voi sen seuroihin päästä. Mutta paitsi tätä »kermaa» eli »haute
voléeta», jossa vain samanarvoiset seurustelevat, on tällaisessa
pikkukaupungissa toinenkin »seurapiiri», nimittäin korkeitten
sotilasviranomaisten ja virkamiesten perheet; näiden joukossa on
joitakuita »kerman» sukulaisia, joille »kerma» on kääntänyt selkänsä
epäsäätyisten avioliittojen tai köyhyyden takia. Nämä antavat
kuitenkin jonkinlaisen ylhäisyyden leiman »alakermalle.» »Oh, rakas
kreivitär Lotti, miten myöhään te tulette! Saanko esittää: majuri
Schmidt… kreivitär Thurn» (tai joku muu helisevä nimi). Tällainen
kohottaa tunnelmaa vastaanotoissa. Seurue tuntee ympärillään
kerman tuoksua.
Kenraalitar Orfalvyn huoneistoon kokoontui mainittuina

keskiviikko-iltoina klo 8:n tienoissa suuri joukko vanhoja herroja
univormuissaan ja vanhoja naisia mustissa silkkileningeissä, tyttäret
valkeissa musliinipuvuissa ja heidän ilokseen joitakuita nuoria
luutnantteja ja hännystakkiin puettuja tohtoreja. Vanhempaa
herrasväkeä varten oli varattu pelipöytiä, nuoret huvittelivat itseään
leikeillä. Klo 10 siirryttiin ruokasaliin, jossa paitsi teetä ja olutta
(jälkimäinen nuorten tohtorien takia) tarjottiin yksi lämminruoka sekä
koko joukko leikkeleitä ja leivoksia. Illallisen jälkeen oli mieliala
vilkkaampi; vanhat jatkoivat peliään, nuoret soittelivat tai tanssivat
hiukan, jos joku osasi soittaa tanssimusiikkia. Klo 1 lähdettiin pois.
Salissa alotettu lepertely ja mielistely jatkui eteisessä, ja ilta päättyi
puoli tuntia kestävään päällysvaatteiden puentaan, liinojen
solmimiseen ja ystävälliseen hyvästelyyn, joka »tuhatkertaisesi»
kiiteltyyn emäntään jätti mieltälämmittävän voitontunteen.
Hanna oli näiden keskiviikkojen koristus. Hänen äitinsä salli hänen
kuitenkin ainoastaan kolme tai neljä kertaa talven kuluessa mennä
kummitäti Dorin iltakutsuihin, sillä rouva Minnie Orfalvy oli
mustasukkainen äiti eikä itse koskaan ottanut osaa seuraelämään.
Pikkukaupungin seurapiirin kylmäkiskoinen käytös entistä
tanssijatarta ja nykyistä köyhtynyttä aatelisnaista kohtaan sai hänet
katkeroituneena vetäytymään kokonaan syrjään ja kaipauksella
odottamaan voiton ja koston hetkeä, jolloin hänen tyttärensä joutuisi
loistavaan avioliittoon. — Tämän ei muuten ollut tarkoitus tapahtua
vihatussa pikkukaupungissa. Hänen aikomuksensa oli viedä
tyttärensä suureen maailmaan, Baden-Badeniin ja Nizzaan; siellä ei
ollut puutetta englantilaisista lordeista, venäläisistä ruhtinaista,
amerikkalaisista miljonääreistä. Tätä tarkoitusta varten hän vuosittain
säästi puolet tuloistaan, minkä summan hän laski riittävän tätä
sotaretkeä varten Hannan täyttäessä kahdeksantoista vuotta.
Sentakia hän ei mielellään antanut tyttärensä käydä noissa
vähäpätöisissä keskiviikko-illoissa, joissa voisi sattua, että köyhät
luutnantit tai poroporvarilliset tohtorit viekoittelisivat Hannan oikealta
tieltä. Mutta ei myöskään sopinut syrjäyttää kummitätiä, joka oli
kenraalitar, ja sentähden Hanna sai kunnioittaa muutamia iltoja
läsnäolollaan. Hannaa itseä ne suuresti huvittivat. Tämä maailma oli
tosin paljon alhaisempi sitä, johon hän oli tutustunut kirjoissaan ja
johon hän luuli kuuluvansa, mutta voitontunne on aina suloinen. Hän
oli aina nuorin ja kaunein siellä olevista neitosista. »Mitä — vasta
kolmen toista — neljäntoista — se ei ole mahdollista! Hänhän on
täydellinen kaunotar, niin varma käytöksessään, niin viisas!» Tämä
häntä miellytti. Hänen pianonsoittonsa (tosin vailla taiteellista
syventymistä, mutta loistokkaasti esitetty) tuotti hänelle lukemattomia
ylistelyjä. Seuraleikeissä hän osoitti nopeaa käsitystä, monipuolisia
tietojaan. Tanssissa hän oli aina ensimäinen. Illallista syötäessä kosi
häntä tavallisesti joku oluen kiihottama nuori tohtori, ja eteisessä,
missä noutamaan tullut kamarineitsyt häntä odotti, kilpailivat
luutnantit kunniasta saada auttaa palttoota hänen ylleen. Pelkkiä
hyviä takeita tulevista Nizzan voitoista.
Mutta se tuuma — kuten niin monet muut pitkiä aikoja haudotut —

ei toteutunutkaan. Hannan ollessa kuusitoistavuotias kuoli rouva
Minnie Orfalvy ankaraan keuhkokuumeeseen. Tyttären suru oli suuri,
miltei toivoton. Hän oli kaikesta sydämestään rakastanut äitiään,
josta ei ollut koskaan ollut erossa ja joka puolestaan oli elänyt
yksinomaan ainoata lastansa varten, — ja hänen sydämensä pystyi
todellakin lämpimään kiintymykseen. Hanna oli murtunut,
tulevaisuuden voittoja ja nautintoja hän ei enää ajatellut, sillä
ainoastaan äitinsä takia hän olisi tahtonut voittaa rikkautta ja
kunniaa… Miten hänellä voisi enää olla hauskaa, kun hänen rakas
äitiraukkansa oli poissa!
Dori täti otti orvon tytön luokseen. Säästyneen pääoman, joka oli
aiottu suurta matkaa varten, hän otti huostaansa; se oli käytettävä
Hannan myötäjäisiksi, sillä hän toivoi voivansa pian naittaa hänet.
Kummitäti ei ollut koskaan saanut kuulla heidän korkealentoisista
tuumistaan, eikä Hanna niistä mitään puhunut; hän eli vain
surussaan.
Vuoden kuluttua muuttui alkuaan katkera suru hiljaiseksi

haikeudeksi. Nuoruus vaati osansa, ja Hannan katse suuntautui
jälleen, vaikka synkkämielisesti, niin kuitenkin toivorikkaasti
tulevaisuuteen eikä viipynyt yksinomaan menneissä murheissa.
Näihin aikoihin — oltiin kesäkuussa — Dori täti muutti maalle.

Joka vuosi hän vuokrasi läheisestä luonnonihanalla paikalla
sijaitsevasta kylästä pienen, sievän huvilan, jota ympäröi suuri
hedelmäpuutarha. Huvilan vieressä oli talonpoikaistalo, josta levisi
voimakas navetanhaju. Siellä oli liikettä aikaisesta aamusta alkaen;
sieltä kuului iloista puhelua, kukon kiekumista ja koiran haukuntaa.
Tämä maalaisympäristö oli vallan uutta Hannalle. Täällä hän heräsi
kuin uuteen eloon. Metsien tuoksu virkisti hänen mieltänsä, ja sydän
alkoi sykkiä oudosta rakkaudenkaipuusta. Miten tyhjältä tuntuikaan
salonkien, teatterien ja ajoneuvojen komeus tällaisen ihanuuden
rinnalla! Mitä merkitystä oli pompadourin-tyylisellä kammiolla, kun sai
täällä istua puupenkillä putoilevien kirsikankukkien alla — mitä
merkitystä konserttimusiikilla, kun puron lorina, lehtien suhina,
lintujen lemmensävelet, raikas kesätuulahdus sai mielen väräjämään
luonnonmusiikkia? Kaiken tulevan loiston hän tahtoi ilomielin uhrata?
— niin hänestä nyt tuntui — saadakseen tällaisessa ympäristössä
elää rakastetun miehen kanssa, joka olisi onnellinen hänen
rinnallaan. Hän ei ajatellut, että tuleva loisto oli oikeastaan vain
saippuakupla, jota tuskin saattoi tarjota uhriksi. Hänestä tuntui
tekonsa aina kuninkaalliselta alentuvaisuudelta, milloin hän
ajatuksissaan suostui tyytymään yksinkertaiseen elämään.
III.
Näihin aikoihin Ewald Ballmann vietti kuusiviikkoisen lomansa

samassa kylässä. Hän oli niin rasittunut liiallisesta työstä, että lääkäri
voimien palauttamiseksi määräsi hänet maalle lepäämään. Nuoren
professorin tulot eivät riittäneet kylpymatkaan tai vuoristossa
oleskeluun, ja siksi hän vuokrasi pienen huoneen lähimmästä
kylästä, jatkaen siellä kaikessa hiljaisuudessa kasvitieteellisiä
tutkimuksiaan. Hän ei ollut maailmanmies eikä mikään romanttinen
haaveilija, häntä eivät juorut ja maalaiset rakkausseikkailut
viehättäneet, ja kuitenkin tuli hänestä Hannan romaanin sankari.
Tähän saakka Ewald ei koskaan ollut uskaltanut liittyä

naisseuraan. Hänen sydämensä oli yhtä neitseellisen puhdas kuin
naapurinsakin, ehkä puhtaampikin, sillä hän ei koskaan ollut
antautunut rakkaushaaveiluun. Sitä valtavammin vaikutti Hannan
kauneus häneen. Tuskin kahta viikkoa sen jälkeen, kun hän ensi
kerran näki tytön, hän kirjoitti jo kenraalittarelle kirjeen pyytäen neiti
Orfalvya omakseen. Hän oli saanut kuulla valittunsa olevan köyhän,
orvon tytön, joka ei kuulunut korkeimpaan seurapiiriin, ja siksi hänen
mieleensä ei juolahtanutkaan, ettei hänen naimatarjouksensa —
hyvinvoivan professorin, jolla oli edellytykset kerran päästä yliopiston
rehtoriksi, — tyydyttäisi molempia naisia.
Hanna oli puolestaan jo aikoja sitten huomannut professorin ja
hänen ihailevat katseensa. Hannakin haaveili hänestä. Kalpea,
kasveja keräävä oppinut — mikä mieltäkiinnittävä olento! Sitäpaitsi
tämä mies riutui toivottomassa rakkaudessaan häneen… sen Hanna
tiesi varsin hyvin. Professori hiipi tuntikausia heidän asuntonsa
ympärillä saadakseen nähdä hänet ja lensi tulipunaiseksi
huomatessaan hänen tulevan.
»Mutta miksi hänen rakkautensa pitäisi olla toivoton?» ajatteli

Hanna jalomielisenä. »Jos rakastaisin, rakastaisin elinikäni.» (Hän
luulotteli joka ihmistä varten olevan olemassa määrätyn rakkauden,
joka yksin saattoi olla totinen ja ikuinen.) »Jos minä rakastaisin
häntä, miten antautuisinkaan sydämeni valitulle, olipa hänellä sitten
miten vaatimaton yhteiskunnallinen asema tahansa!…
Rakastankohan minä häntä?… Miksi sydämeni tykyttää niin kovasti,
nähdessäni hänet kaukaa?… Miksi hänen kuvansa seuraa minua
iltaisin unien maailmaan? Miksi se aamuisin väikkyy edessäni? Onko
se rakkautta?… Rakastanko todellakin?… Onko tämä kohtaloni?…»
Tällaisiin ajatuksiin vaipuneena Hanna istui eräänä aamuna

lempipaikallaan kirsikkapuun juurella. Kummitädin ääni herätti hänet
äkkiä.
»Hanna, tule huoneeseeni; tahdon puhua kanssasi.»
Hanna kiiruhti kenraalittaren jäljessä sisään. Hän astui matalaan,

kodikkaaseen tupaan, joka oli kenraalittaren asuinhuoneena.
Valkeita seiniä vasten erottuivat kaupungista tuodut huonekalut,
kirjavat uutimet, komea ompelupöytä ja messinkinen papukaijan
häkki.
»Tässä olen, Dori täti. Mistä tahdot puhua kanssani?»

Role Playing Games of Japan Transcultural Dynamics and Orderings 1St Ed Edition Bjorn Ole Kamm All Chapter

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Role Playing Games of Japan Transcultural Dynamics and Orderings 1St Ed Edition Bjorn Ole Kamm All Chapter

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Role-Playing Games of Japan:

Transcultural Dynamics and Orderings

ISBN 978-3-030-50952-1 ISBN 978-3-030-50953-8 (eBook)

Cover credit: Björn-Ole Kamm

I cannot express in words the gratitude, warmth and appreciation I feel

research centres. My first fieldwork phase is indebted to a scholarship

Kyoto, Japan Björn-Ole Kamm

• Japanese words in this book are written in revised Hepburn Roman-

2 Games—Playing with Borders of Reality, or the First

Live-Action Role-Play—Theatre, Therapy,

3 Stereotypes—The Agency of Labels, or the Second Act 111

Connection: Websites and Forums 204

5 After Play—Knowledge (and) Practices 257

AD&D Advanced Dungeons & Dragons

Fig. 2.1 The Network Wargaming 38

Fig. 3.11 Articles on the Disappearance of Dallas (August

Table 1.1 At a Glance—Transculturality 18

This book is divided into several chapters, each of which is designed to

© The Author(s) 2020 1

Games of Japan maps a network of actors and their world-building around

This history features two major instances of circular movements, one

read “fans” as pop-culture academics (Jenkins 1992; Okada 1996, 2015)

part of group formations. Such expressions of an alleged unity also reflect

1.2 Controversies of Role-Playing

and made into games? How to represent such an assemblage of heteroge-

Uncertainty and Fluidity

producers does not necessarily mirror the relationship between another

or reclusive as they are so often portrayed. Believed to be popularised

Controversy and Knowledge

Informed by a focus on contingency, a study of controversies makes

can be mentioned as a brief, nationality-imposing and crude sketch of

Considering knowledge, role-playing practitioners themselves actively

Translation and Transculturality

unfolding through the entanglements of cultural practices and agents.

Table 1.1 At a Glance—Transculturality

made by Japanese citizens? What if a game designer had a Japanese pass-

have changed to such a degree that it should be treated as distinct, yet

“those complex appearances of customs, laws and knowledge endeavors”

1.3 “How to Use This Book”

3 Subject position is Foucault’s way of eschewing the awkward concept of “identity,” by

Law, John. 1994. Organizing Modernity. Oxford: Blackwell.

Roche, Sophie. 2016. “Culture–Relation and Transculturality: Reflecting about

Games—Playing with Borders of Reality,

The essence of a role-playing game is that it is a group, cooperative expe-

2.1 The (Ancient) Origins of Role-Playing Games

© The Author(s) 2020 29

Author: Bertha von Suttner

Release date: October 4, 2023 [eBook #71801]

Original publication: Helsinki: Otava, 1914

Credits: Anna Siren and Tapio Riikonen

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HANNA ***

BERTHA VON SUTTNER

Helsingissä, Kustannusosakeyhtiö Otava, 1914.

Nyyhkyttäen hän nojasi pään käsiinsä. Hänen edessään pöydällä

»Oh, en tiedä…» vaikeroi hän taas, »kaikki on kuin unennäköä,

Hän nousi mennen päätään pidellen huoneen toisessa

Kirjoittaessaan hän tuli entiselleen; sanat pursuivat esiin hänen

Kello oli yhdeksän vaiheilla illalla Johanna Ballmannin lopettaessa

Johannan sulkiessa epätoivoista kirjettään tuli hänen mieleensä

Hän sulki äkkiä kirjeen ja kirjoitti päällekirjoituksen: »Ewald

Tämän illan oli Ewald Ballmann, itävaltalaisen maaseutukaupungin

»Älä valvo minua odotellen, Hanna. En varmaankaan voi tulla

»Ei, ei mikään… Pidä hauskaa!»

* START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HANNA *