Something More: Nested Realities & Desire in Veiled Fate

August 2025

Maggie Hemphill, MA, LMHCA

I took a seat at a round folding table with six men in a church basement on a Monday night. It was my third time attending the bi-monthly meet-up of my local board gaming group, Meeples-N-More, and, as one of only two women in the room, I was curious to see how the night would unfold. Each week, I was introduced to a new board game, and as a newcomer, I was delighted by the group’s openness to new players and their seemingly endless patience for my gaming ignorance. These game nights had become a place where I could come with little-to-no knowledge of board games and be welcomed and included in any game. 

On this particular night, the game being introduced was Veiled Fate,¹ a game of hidden influence and strategic social deduction where players manipulate the fates of nine demigods, each posturing for renown (victory points) through quests, the outcomes of which are determined by secret votes (fate cards). With seven players that night, we worked in unknown teams, meaning another player was working towards the same goal but didn’t know who the other ‘teammate’ was until the end of the game. Having an odd number of players also meant someone was working alone; Someone was the ‘odd man out’ and didn’t know it. 

As always, I started the game with eager excitement and the familiar discomfort of not knowing what I was doing—not knowing the rules or what the best strategy was for winning, and in truth, not knowing the people I was with except for one. While Veiled Fate was set up and the rules explained, I recalled a class I had taken in graduate school on the work of French Psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan. The course was called “Lacan Plays Catan,” and our professor, Dr. Hoard, used board games to help us understand psychoanalytic theory.² Through the class, Dr. Hoard invited us to consider that something more was happening while playing board games and to be curious about what psychological processes were being stirred up and activated in and between people. Seen through this theoretical lens, two phenomena I noticed during Veiled Fate were the seamless weaving in and out of the nested realities of the board game and “real life,” and the ways various desires were brought out of me through play. I’ll unpack both. 

Nested Realities: Lacan’s Three Registers

The first “something more” I noted the night I learned Veiled Fate was the ways nested realities were intersecting with each other. Dr. Hoard used the term “nested realities” to describe the way Lacan’s three registers function when playing board games.³ Lacan’s registers—the real, the imaginary and the symbolic—are often depicted as three interlocking circles (See Figure 1⁴) and he used them to theorize the way a person organizes their world; the imaginary and the symbolic are registers of representation where one makes sense of their world through images and symbols, whereas the real is that which cannot be represented⁵. When applied to board games, these registers work like nested realities that players weave seamlessly in, out, and between: 

• The imaginary register is the world created by the images and themes of the game. In the case of Veiled Fate, it is the world of divine beings and demigods, the various terrains of the board (coast, forest, canyon, desert, volcano, mountain), the abyss, and healing pools. The imaginary is also the story or narrative arc that the game tells as you play with the characters in the world created by the game. Veiled Fate is the story of divine beings meddling in the realms of men as they secretly attempt to influence the fate of their demigod offspring to gain the most renown and ascend the throne. This imagery of the imaginary register can hide the real, allowing the players to lose awareness of what is happening outside the game. However, the real is always silently working to break in. I’ll explain more below. 
• The symbolic register is all the rules and language that govern the world of the game—it’s the mechanics and structure of the game. In Veiled Fate the symbolic would be all the things contained in the rulebook such as the operation/function of players taking turns—smiting, influencing, transfiguring; the limitations of player movement/actions between regions on the board, the logistics of the board set up and pieces, and the ways the symbols of the game (feathers, scythe, scorpions, Omega, etc.) have distinct meaning and actions within the game; it’s how renown is achieved/scored, the role of fate cards and secret voting, how favor cards lead to corruption, etc. The symbolic register offers the language that contains the imaginary, and these two registers intersect and overlap as players enter the world of the game and begin to play within its structure.
• The real, as Lacan formulates it, is everything that can’t be put into words.⁶ The real in my example is the reality of being the only woman sitting at a table with a bunch of dudes, most of whom were strangers, learning to play Veiled Fate on a Monday night. That reality cannot be represented inside the game; instead, it breaks in from the outside.⁷ The real also includes the multiplicity of selves⁸ that each player of the game brings when they sit at the table. It includes their backgrounds and experiences tied to play, as well as their intellects and desires (to play, to win, to belong, etc.).⁹

Here’s the magic of board games—so much of “real life” gets moved to the background when you enter the world of the game. Yes, you are still people playing a game together, but you also become something more. Each player becomes aware of and takes on the symbolic and imaginary of the game, becoming immersed in these intersecting realities. They blur together; we are playing the game, and we are the game. While I was playing Veiled Fate, I was also a divine being seeking to influence the fate of my offspring, the demigod Agamar. The real Maggie didn’t fully disappear, but what moved to the foreground was the shared imaginary reality of the game—the city as refuge, entering the Abyss and healing pools when a demigod was smited, moving among the various rugged terrain of the regions of the board, the ominous presence of the envious god Hadria, the necessity of the quests… These came into focus and were brought to the front of my conscious awareness. What moved to the background was the seven of us sitting at a folding table in a church basement. 

Hoard & Steinke (2023) have written about how board games cultivate engagement with these nested realities. They describe board games as a thinning space, the “uncanny place between realities where something beyond breaks in.”¹⁰ Board games facilitate this merging of realities and allow us to experience the more that is present but often goes unnoticed. They write, 

“Playing tabletop games has become—or perhaps has always been—something more than just a way to spend an evening; it shapes us in ways for which we don’t always have words. Sometimes the experience of a game can take you beyond the game and provide a transcendent feeling that is almost spiritual.”¹¹

As I was deep in the imaginary of orchestrating the fate of Agamar, I experienced the real breaking in when the one person I knew at the table read my face. Because he knew me outside the game, he was able to read the subtle changes in my body language and the expressions on my face; he used the real to influence what was happening in the imaginary of the game. This is one way Lacan’s registers function as nested realities that intersect, overlap, and influence each other while playing board games: something in the real of my being who I am gave away my intentions to see Agamar on the throne in the imaginary of Veiled Fate. All of a sudden, I was again aware of myself in the present, of being at the table with six men, of the vulnerability of being known, seen, and read. Many skilled gamers are able to closely observe their opponents, assessing and analyzing other players’ moves both in and out of the game. These folks can gather the data from both the intangible of the real and the actions taken within the imaginary and symbolic of the game.¹² Seamlessly weaving between these three registers is part and parcel of the board game experience, as is the intersection of each player’s desire(s). 

Desire and the Split Subject

Every person comes to the game (and everything else in life) with a host of desires. We are not singular in our desire but have multiple and even conflicting desires. The push and pull of desires is sometimes referred to as ambivalence, where two or more competing and conflicting desires or emotions are being experienced at the same time.¹³ Lacan argues that each ‘subject’ is split in their desires: their conscious desires on one hand and their unconscious, unknown desires on the other. This split in the subject is created by language and thus happens in the symbolic register.¹⁴  Lacan notes that the depth, complexity, and experience of the subject can never be fully captured by the language we give it in the symbolic; we are more than simply our name. Between the imaginary and the real is an unbridgeable divide: in the imaginary, the subject is a conscious self that engages with others, whereas in the real, the subject exists outside of and beyond symbolization and representation, which leaves the subject split.¹⁵ 

In playing Veiled Fate, I could identify layers of my own desire as they unfolded both within the game (at the symbolic and imaginary registers) and outside the game (in the real world). Outside the game, I desired to belong. Being a newcomer to this gaming group, and being the only woman at the table, there was a pull to be accepted, liked, valued, enjoyed. This desire was not represented or expressed in the world of the game itself; it could not be found in the imaginary narrative structure nor the symbolic structure of the rules. However, this desire did show up in the real in how I interacted with other players—through playful banter (my go-to style of relating) and through the non-verbal/unspeakable of my body language and facial expressions. Without my conscious knowledge, this desire to belong was being communicated. In this way, I exhibited the state of a split subject: on a conscious level, I desired to learn the game, have fun, and maybe come out ahead of my friend, which juxtaposed with my unconscious desire to belong. Inside the world of the game, my desires were at least three-fold: (1) to see my demigod Agamar gain the most renown by the end of the third age without also surpassing Hadria, (2) to hide the fact that I wanted Agamar to win by intentionally manipulating the fates of other demigods to throw off my opponents, and (3) to figure out if another player was on my team, working towards the same goal.  All of these desires were present, intersecting with each other and influencing how I played, both consciously and unconsciously, both inside and outside the game. And it was through playing the game that I was able to explore this multitude of desires.¹⁶ 

Conclusion: Something More

Dr. Hoard would often remind us in class to let the course material “wash over you” rather than trying to grasp it or make sense of it, to simply allow yourself to receive it and let it unfold before you.¹⁷ This was brilliant advice not only for learning the complex psychoanalytic theories of Lacan, but also for learning to see and experience the ‘something more’ of board games. Lacan’s registers provided a helpful language to understand the experience of playing: allowing the symbolic and imaginary aspects of the game to “wash over you” gives you the opportunity to enter the nested realities of board games. This allows you to move within and beyond the real, weaving between our world and the world of the game. And what’s more, board games give us the chance to know and engage with our own desires, both those conscious to us and those yet to be known—we get to see them play out before us, giving us the gift to know ourselves and others better. 

And so as the final age drew to a close in our game and the last quest was completed, all players stood to their feet. We began the process of ending the game by tallying renown and corruption to see who had come out on top. The real was irrupting again and returning our awareness to the reality of being seven people in a church basement playing a round of Veiled Fate on a Monday night. The imaginary and symbolic world of the game was coming to a close. We shared our speculations about who we thought each player’s demigod was, based on our observations of their actions in the game, and then one by one, we disclosed the truth. By doing this, it also revealed who was working together towards the same goal, and I learned that I was the odd (wo)man out: the only player not working on a team, which I had suspected. This revelation earned me one additional renown, forcing me to surpass Hadria and lose the game to my friend. It was an exciting, albeit surprising turn of events and a disruptive inbreaking of the real. Despite the loss, I came away with something more—the experience of playing in the thin space of nested realities facilitated by the game and the joy of having (at least some of) my desires met: my conscious desire to learn and play a new game and my unconscious desire to experience a sense of belonging with my fellow game sojourners. 

Works Cited

Cooper-White, Pamela. (2011) Braided Selves: Collected Essays on Multiplicity, God and Persons. Cascade Books, Eugene, OR.

Hoard, Paul R. (2024), “On Pleasure and Board Games” in The Other Journal Vol 37: Spring 2024. https://theotherjournal.com/2024/07/on-pleasure-and-games/

Hoard & Steinke (2023), “Board Games as Liturgy: The Thin Space of Play” in Christ and Cascadia Sept 28, 2023 https://christandcascadia.com/2023/09/28/board-games-as-liturgy/

Meek, Esther, L. (2011). Loving To Know: Covenant Epistemology. Cascade Books, Eugene, OR.

Yadlin-Gadot, S., & Hadar, (2023) A. Lacanian Psychoanalysis: A Contemporary Introduction. Routledge, New York, NY.

1.  Veiled Fate is created by IV Studio. Game Design by Zac Dixon, Samuel Cowden, Maxwell Anderson & Austin Harrison. ↩︎
2. I have tremendous gratitude for Dr. Paul Hoard who was instrumental in my counselor training at the Seattle School of Theology and Psychology. He introduced me to the work of Lacan, which I found simultaneously dizzying and irresistible, and helped rekindle my love of and ability to play in a big way. ↩︎
3. Hoard, Paul R. “On Pleasure and Board Games” in The Other Journal, Vol 37, Spring 2024. https://theotherjournal.com/2024/07/on-pleasure-and-games/ ↩︎
4. Graphic from: https://borromeanknocker.com/tag/lacan/ ↩︎
5. The symbolic register is best incarnated by language, the imaginary by visual information and the real is everything from someone’s most basic bodily experiences to the unnamable/unknowable. Yadlin-Gadot, S., & Hadar, A., Lacanian Psychoanalysis: A Contemporary Introduction. Routledge, New York, New York, 2023, pg. 12. ↩︎
6. The real cannot be spoken or symbolized. (Yadlin-Gadot & Hadar, 2023, p, 12). ↩︎
7. Dr. Hoard says it this way, “The imaginary-symbolic provides context, narrative, and rules of engagement. The register of the real, however, is that which can’t be put into words—can’t be consciously thought inside that world. It pushes into our reality from the outside, irrupting and disrupting—like the unseen and the unimaginable. It remains unsymbolized, beyond our linguistic structures, always there affecting our world…but only occasionally breaking in to reorganize everything.” Hoard, Paul & Steinke, Paul. “Board Games as Liturgy: The Thin Space of Play” in Christ and Cascadia Sept 28, 2023 https://christandcascadia.com/2023/09/28/board-games-as-liturgy/ ↩︎
8. Pamela Cooper-White argues against the idea of a true or core self but rather suggests that we all contain a multiplicity of selves that at any given time have competing desires. Cooper-White, Pamela. Braided Selves: Collected Essays on Multiplicity, God and Persons. Cascade Books, Eugene, OR, 2011. ↩︎
9. Hoard, “On Pleasure and Board Games,” 2024. ↩︎
10. Hoard & Steinke (2023), “Board Games as Liturgy: The Thin Space of Play” in Christ and Cascadia Sept 28, 2023 https://christandcascadia.com/2023/09/28/board-games-as-liturgy/ ↩︎
11. They go on to draw connections to both Celtic Spirituality and Lacan’s nested reality suggesting a liturgical quality to board games. (Hoard & Steinke, 2023). ↩︎
12. It should be noted that the capacity to consciously enter into the nested realities of the game and play within the grammar of the game as a fluent speaker of the symbolic is grown through experience and repetition. The primary focus of a newcomer is learning the specifics of the symbolic and imaginary that are particular to that game. ↩︎
13. The psychological concept of ambivalence was first coined by Swiss psychologist Paul Eugen Bleuer in his 1910 article Vortrag über Ambivalenz where he distinguished three types of ambivalence: volitional, intellectual and emotional. The term was later popularized by Freud. ↩︎
14. Yadlin-Gadot, S., & Hadar, A., Lacanian Psychoanalysis: A Contemporary Introduction. Routledge, New York, New York, 2023, pg. 37. ↩︎
15. Ibid. ↩︎
16. Dr. Hoard writes, “games present us with an opportunity for both the exploration of ourselves and our relationship with desire.” Hoard, “On Pleasure and Board Games,” 2024. ↩︎
17. I suspect at the core of Dr. Hoard’s invitation to “let it wash over you” is Esther Meek’s use of Michael Polanyi’s Subsidiary Focal Integration to understand the process of how we know what we know. By shifting our focus away from all the elements, fragments, and pieces, we allow them to integrate together and create meaning along the way. See Meek’s book Loving To Know: Covenant Epistemology (2011). ↩︎