This textbook describes theory and practice in analog role-playing game (RPG) design that encourage specific transformative impacts in participants, including tabletop, live action role-playing (larp), and Nordic and American freeform. We describe three types of transformative RPGs: transformative leisure, therapeutic, and educational. We present our model of nano-game design, offering recommen…
Have you ever read a manga comic in English or watched a dubbed or subtitled movie on Netflix? Or maybe you’ve even tried subtitling one of your favourite anime or K-drama programs yourself? Perhaps you’ve helped a friend or family member who speaks another language to fill out a form, decipher an email, or communicate with someone else? Or used a tool such as Goog…
Adoption entails the permanent transfer of legal rights and responsibili-ties for a child from birth parents to adoptive parents. Inevitably, such a procedure can be controversial, for adoption has a profound and perma-nent impact on the lives of all the parties involved—the child, the birth parents and the adoptive parents, as well as grandparents, siblings and other relations on …
Who or what is God? How do different religions interpret God's existence? How can we know God? Many people believe in God; not just throughout history but also in the present day. But who or what is it they believe in? Many different and sometimes conflicting answers have been suggested to this question. This Very Short Introduction explores some of the answers provided by philosophers, poet…
t is true that Finns have done well to keep alive our tradi-tion of oral narrative: memorizing and performing stories, fa-bles, myths, and histories. In the nineteenth century, The Ka-levala — comprising ancient songs and tales transmitted orally for centuries — was arranged, printed, and almost immediately adopted by Finns as our ‘official’ national epic. I…