NYU - New York University
12/02/2024 | News release | Distributed by Public on 12/02/2024 08:13
Cool Course: Divergent Experiments—Role-Playing on the Margins
A few students sit on the floor in a circle making origami boats out of white paper, while others cradle white balloons in their arms as they pace around the circle. Another repeatedly gestures at a classmate, trying to keep him at bay.
All of them are silent.
They are among the 20 undergraduate and graduate students playing White Death, an experimental live action role-playing game created in 2012 by Simon Steen Hansen and Nina Runa Essendrop that is one of a dozen in-class games explored in "Divergent Experiments: Role-Playing on the Margins."
"This is the weirdest game you will play this semester," says Professor Sharang Biswas at the start of the two-hour experience.
Students playing White Death during class in Brooklyn.
The class meets in a large second-floor classroom at 370 Jay Street in Brooklyn to accommodate the game's extensive lighting and sound requirements. Students start as humans in the "Light Area" with a goal of transforming into "White Ones," who frolic in the "Dark Area." Each player randomly selects a "restriction" (such as "head can't turn" or "you have a stick between your hands") and a "relation" ("I hate people with longer hair than me" or "people with another eye color than me are not trustworthy"). White balloons, ribbons, and powder have specific meanings, as do bells and storm sounds. The game has a prescribed playlist, which includes several mournful Tom Waits cuts.
"The miserable, lonely humans transform into White Ones, who are happy and free," Biswas explains during the lengthy warm-up and review of rules. "Don't think too much. Be impulsive. It's meant to be abstract."
Players select random restrictions before play begins.
White ribbons are tied around the wrists of players.
Ever since Dungeons & Dragons arrived in 1974, role-playing games have evolved into a hybrid of art and design. Biswas's class explores the history and practice of independent role- playing games and how they have moved the medium into areas that feature moral dilemmas, cooperative mechanics, and power structures that blur the line between player and creator.
The course's goals include deepening student understanding of the aesthetics of games, sharpening their analytical skills, and providing the opportunity to study game mechanics through play.
"This class is about playing the game and experiencing art," Biswas says. "If you only read the rule book, then you are studying the rule book. If you are watching a recording of others playing it, then what you're studying is a post-game artifact."
Biswas has taught this two-credit course every fall since 2021. Each week, he assigns readings, journal entries, and games to play. The class sessions include lecture, discussion, and play.
"Their task is to play critically, to connect the games with the readings we're doing. I give them tools to help with this," he says.
This critical approach is apparent during White Death, as students throw themselves into their afflicted characters and actions as humans and then are transformed into joyful, childlike "White Ones."
"This class will fall apart if you're not earnestly playing the games," Biswas explains. "That's the culture we've tried to build right from the start."
An animated discussion follows the game, and students share their strategies for playing and their reactions to what has unfolded.
"This is why art school is so important. There are some types of art that are challenging to experience without the backing of an institution," Biswas adds. "White Death is hard to play. It makes me so happy that I can use this class to introduce students to art that they would otherwise not have access to."