Systemically Implied Atmospheres

This paper argues that parts of a roleplaying system tune both the player's mood toward, and the atmosphere of, the real and imaginary environments created in play. The paper proposes how a roleplaying game system can be analyzed without an actual play situation. Such analysis can be performed through adopting a mechanistic cybermedia perspective. This allows for the deduction of how the systems rules, physical tools, and postulated norms and implied player perspectives informs the atmospheres implied by the system, both individually and through their interplay. A horror roleplaying game system, DREAD, is then analyzed through this perspective.