Virtual Edgework

This article examines how table-top role-playing fantasy gamers engage in edgework. Edgework, as defined by Stephen Lyng, occurs when people voluntarily tread boundaries to gain emotional rewards. Based on nineteen months of participant-observation in a gaming group, twenty in-depth interviews, and archival data from e-mail lists and websites, I show how gamers gained many of the benefits that traditional edgeworkers, like extreme sports...