Kylie Broderick is a Ph.D. candidate and Mellon Fellow in modern Middle East history at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. She is also the managing editor of Jadaliyya and a Co-Editor of the Resistance, Subversion, and Mobilization page.… Continue Reading
I play Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) at least once a week–more if I can convince my friends to play with me. I have a monthly tabletop gaming group where we try new and weird role-playing games (RPGs) like Fiasco and Dread, where there are a few rules that create a space of play that’s otherwise pretty boundless. But I always come back to D&D. It’s something special, getting to play with friends in worlds that I’ve imagined alone for so long (see also my long-standing obsession with Bioware-style RPGs, heavy on character creation and relationship-building). Continue Reading
Let me sell you on my favourite game: Dragon Age: Inquisition.
It’s filled with beautifully rendered landscapes, an engaging but not too intricate combat system, a cast of diverse and well-written characters, and hundreds of fully voiced choices that just do not matter—not even a little.
Well, it really depends on who you ask.
“Matter” is such a nebulous word—so lofty, loaded, and vague. Put it beside the word “choices” and both start to feel awfully important. “Choices that matter.” That’s one of those phrases they like to put on the back of the box. If you want to sell it, though, you need a metric. “How many endings?” is a favourite. “How many branches?” is another. What all these definitions share is a focus on content. “How many permutations of the text are there?” is what they’re all really asking. Moreso, much like our choices in real life, there’s a yearning for decisions that last. Continue Reading