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.
Even terrorists, pedophiles, and murderers play religious board games. This is the case with the Order of Nine Angles (ONA), a far-right, self-identified Satanic new religious movement currently spreading around the world, and their use of a board game, The Star Game. The beliefs and practices of the group have led to the ONA being labeled as a terrorist organization in many places, and they have confirmed ties to Neo-Nazi organizations, pedophiles, and murder plots. The Star Game influences and embodies all the beliefs and practices of the ONA. Scholars tend to overlook The Star Game despite its centrality to the Order, likely due to its nature as "just a game," which are often seen as trivial at best. In this paper I present a material culture study of The Star Game and argue for the importance of seriously studying religious board games.
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.