Table top role-playing games (TTRPGs) are at an all time high in popularity, inspiring players' almost limitless creativity. This panel demonstrates that creativity inside and outside of religious traditions and encourages us to consider the positives and negatives of allowing our religious imaginations to run wild.
Analog roleplaying games such as Ma Nishtana, Matza Matzah, and Dream Apart draw on the embodied and sensorial to transmit a continuity with Jewish traditions, even as the content of their games invites a queer reworking of historically significant Jewish narratives. Through the medium of play, they create new texts and contexts -- but by preserving ritual structure and specific sensations of touch and taste, they also remain in clear conversation with Jewish culture. This is especially notable given the way the games make space for non-Jewish players and those without any prior knowledge of the traditions they engage. To encounter Judaism through these games is to learn via affect: first by touch and by feel, and only later by text and history.
Drawing on clothing studies, as well as performance and play studies, this paper asks how and why tabletop role-playing game (TTRPG) players wear religiously-charged clothing. Physical elements of roleplaying decrease friction as players’ virtually experience what their characters experience in the world of the game. Articles of clothing and accessories can make aspects of fictional experiences tangible in the real world, and usher players into deeper enjoyment of the game world’s activities. This paper explores what happens when real clothing operationalizess player attachments to both game- and real-world religious systems, objects, and ideas to modulate experience. Namely, the use of worn religion artifacts affectively connects players to their characters’ worlds and experiences and taps into games’ power for personal growth and change.