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| By user Diacritica on Wikimedia commons. |
I have always appreciated those who put effort into researching roleplay theory. While I've been an old-school follower of the threefold/GNS/GEN models, I've always felt something was missing. I would say, it's the same feeling economists felt when they were originally presented the IS/LM model. Brilliant, explains most, though ... missing a vital part.
In terms of roleplay theory, the missing link to me was the very roleplayer. What drives a player to roleplay, how they form their characters and how they approach roleplay, without their factor merely reduces to one of three main categories in a "tier" or "level". An early precursor to this idea would be Robin D. Laws who highlighted casual players in his 2001 book on roleplay theory. I find a re-consideration of the roleplaying game theory vital with the emergence of all kinds of new roleplay mediums, with the internet and MMO games in highlight.
Another issue I found with most roleplaying-game theories that they tend to focus on creating categories for the most obscure tabletop roleplaying systems instead of taking the whole spectrum into account, from the cheesiest of linear "proclaimed RPGs" to the least regulated forum interactions.
Read on to see a four-dimensional model, built on the categories of player approach, player goals, centralization and player affinity, also followed by a wide range of other spectra in correlation to these.
