Tabletop Role-Playing Games in Singapore: Case Studies for Education and Empowerment

Abstract

What are some ways people can develop a greater sense of personal agency and reflexivity? This thesis studies the experiences of several individuals in Singapore as they play tabletop role-playing games (TRPGs) together. I present ethnographic accounts of how these individuals express themselves and engage in thought-experiments, and in the process, gain the opportunities to develop their faculties of imagination and reflection. I ask how these processes can help young people to become more reflexive and agentive individuals in the rigid and bureaucratic society of contemporary Singapore.