by NICK MIZER

How does the overall environment of gaming influence our experience of imaginary worlds? In this Spot Check I think about my experiences gaming in Denton, TX, and how the colors, music, and words combined with the performance of the Dungeon Master to shape the imaginative experience. Anthropologically, you could talk about the holistic approach, but I also really like thinking about it as “terroir,” a term that usually applies to wine but that Jeff Vandermeer explores in an expanded sense in his novel Control (which will probably be the subject of my next weekly geek-out.