Part 4 (2/2)

Finally, Murray (1998) offers one last metaphor for the role of the DMa”that of a bard. She explains that if we reconceptualize authors.h.i.+p in terms of a bard, we can athink of it not as the inscribing of a fixed written text but as the invention and arrangement of the expressive patters that const.i.tute a multiform storya (Murray, 1998, p. 194). A bard, by Murrayas (1998) description, chooses bits and pieces of stories to create his or her own (p. 188). A bard also responds to a live audience, noting which direction of the story they are interested in hearing. In fact, one can imagine that a bard might even allow members of the audience to take over parts of the story and tell them, although not in the same way we see in the TRPG. The metaphor of the bard also seems fitting, and somewhat ironic, because it is one of the character cla.s.ses available in D&D.

Whatever metaphor we chose to represent the relations.h.i.+p between the DM and players, we clearly see that the TRPG does not follow the traditional notion of the author and reader. We also see that DM and player roles change depending on the type of game and game setting. A home campaign is not the same as an RPGA campaign, yet in both we see an interaction with texts that is productive. While it is difficult to define who is the author and who is the reader, we can see that acts of authors.h.i.+p continually occur in relation to the TRPG. When a game designer sits down to write a module, he or she does so as an author. When the DM creates his or her own world, he or she does so as an author. In Hammeras (2007) terms, these are both acts of primary authors.h.i.+p. However, when a player creates a character complete with a full narrative backstory, he or she also does so as a primary author. When the DM takes that character backstory and uses it in their campaign setting, they become secondary authors, just as when they take settings from published works by game designers. Likewise, both DMs and players work together as tertiary authors to bring the world they have created as primary or secondary authors to life. According to Aa.r.s.eth (1997), athe reader is (and has always been) a necessary part of the text, but one that we now realize can (or must) perform more than one functiona (p. 74). While it is often argued that digital texts are reason for a revolution in readera”authora”text dynamics, the TRPG offers a clear example of how this dynamic is not new, although it may be more prevalent in a digital world. The TRPG as a text is collaborative; it is multi-vocal, but it is not just the text that must take on multiple voices. The playersa”including the DMa”must simultaneously play the role of the reader as well as the primary, secondary and tertiary author.

8.

The Culture of TRPG Fans.

Throughout this book, I have looked at the ways that tabletop role-playing games (TRPGs) foster narratives. In chapter 5, I divided the actual gaming session into three spheres that access different worlds and are governed by different logic. Of these spheres, the final sphere was the social sphere, and it is the one that I turn to in this penultimate chapter. As we have seen, social interaction is often the least important to developing the story and has the least degree of narrativity. It is, nevertheless, a key reason why players engage in TRPGs. It also contributes to the sense of agency they receive from their partic.i.p.ation. However, my model only looked at the social sphere within individual gaming sessions, not at the larger social sphere of the gaming community. Fans of TRPGs form their own niche group in society and often meet at gaming stores or larger gaming conventions. The significant of the TRPG is not only textual: it is social and cultural.

Gaming culture has recently become a part of the scholarly discussion of fan culture, or fandom. Although fans engage in a variety of activities, which may include role-playing, the genre that has garnished the most attention is fan fiction, where fans write their own stories based on TV shows or other artifacts of popular culture. In order to explain what attracts people to gaming as a particular subculture, I compare gaming to the subculture of television fandom, as presented by Henry Jenkins in his book (1992) Textual Poachers. Aa.r.s.eth (1997) mentions Henry Jenkinsas work on fandom as another example of textual transformation (p. 164), and the type of productive interactivity that is seen in TRPGs is very similar to the activities Jenkins discusses. It was in fan communities (specifically fantasy and science fiction fans) that Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) first became popular, and it has retained its popularity in these communities (Mackay, 2001, p. 16). In fact, Crawford and Rutter (2007) suggest that gaming in general should be considered as a part of studying fandom (p. 271). Can TRPG players be considered just another group within the larger fandom subculture or does it represent its own culture?

Perhaps gaming is a part of fandom as a whole. Certainly, we see gaming tracks at fan conventions along side science fiction and fantasy TV film stars. But we must keep in mind that a variety of fans exist. To call fandom one coherent community is misleading. In this chapter, I begin by looking at gamers as members of partic.i.p.atory culture and by comparing the way they interact with texts to the way that fan fiction writers interact with texts. I explore what it means to partic.i.p.ate in fandom culture, and gaming culture. Ultimately, I show that this partic.i.p.ation is varied, and outline a typology of different types of fans and gamers.

Subcultures, Fan Cultures, and Consumer Culture.

In his article aHow aDungeonsa changed the world,a Bebergal (2004) explains that those who play TRPGs feel marginalized by society, thus pus.h.i.+ng them to form their own subsociety. Fine (1983) sets up his Shared Fantasy book as a study of the subculture of the TRPG. According to Fine (1983), a subculture must be distinct from other groups in society, must have common activities, and share cultural elements (p. 25). In addition, a subculture must have a network of communication for its members and both the members and those outside the subculture must recognize it as a separate group (Fine, 1983, p. 26).

Fine (1983) applies these criteria to tabletop gamers, and despite some changes, they still seem applicable. He estimates in 1979 that the TRPG base was 500,000 people, enough for its own subculture (p. 27). Wizards of the Coast estimates that as of 2006, four million people in the United States play D&D each month, with the worldwide numbers being even higher (). This number also does not include gamers that play other TRPGs besides D&D. It seems, then, that there are still plenty of people to make up a subculture and, in fact, the hobby is more mainstream than at the time of Fineas study. Fine (1983) went on to note that playing the game is, itself, the activity shared by members of this culture. He also shows that common references and terms indicate that D&D players share cultural elements (p. 29). I would argue that this shared cultural reference has gone beyond terms to include lore surrounding adventures such as The Temple of Elemental Evil (Temple). Even if they have not played the game themselves, adventures such as this one form a common cultural background for players. In terms of communication, Fine (1983) mentions magazines and conventions as two of the main methods open for gamers to communicate with one another (pp. 32a”33). These are still important aspects of communication between gamers, but the Internet has expanded these to include message boards, blogs, and other online forums. The two main magazines about D&D, Dungeon and Dragon, are now only available online. Finally, in keeping with Fineas (1983) claim that members of a subculture distinguish themselves as such, I have already shown that both players of TRPGs and members of the larger gaming community distinguish the TRPG as separate from other types of gaming. All of these factors seem to indicate that Fine was correct in calling tabletop gamers a subculture; however, is this subculture the same as fandom and fan fiction subculture?

Both fan fiction writers and gamers use different toolsa”fan fiction and gaming sessionsa”but both respond to the dominant mainstream culture and react against the view of texts as objects of consumption. Jenkins (1992) and Mackay (2001) both refer to Roland Barthesa (1975) idea that re-reading is anot consumption but playa (p. 16). In the case of television fans this re-reading often takes place quite literally as fans continually re-watch episodes of their favorite series. Some fans then use incidents and characters in the series to write their own stories, called fan fiction. Gamers may return to the same game time and time again, but re-playing a TRPG adventure would be so different from session to session that I am hesitant to call this re-playing at all.

Instead of considering it re-reading or re-playing, Mackay (2001) proposes a Barthean-type process in which role-players created a new reality aderived from patterns established in the artifacts of popular culturea (p. 81). Like fans, gamers take bits and pieces of popular culture, such as the fantasy worlds of J.R.R. Tolkien, and re-appropriate them to create their own narratives. As we saw in the previous chapter, in the Sorpraedor campaign, the character Cuthalion was based on Tolkeinas aThe Silmarillion,a but still took on his own life in the Sorpraedor world. In addition, the new role-playing games that have come about in the last thirty years often use a pop culture setting and are often based on popular television series or movies such as Star Trek and Star Wars.

In a way, TRPGs based on popular media are gamersa way of interacting with these worlds, understanding them, and appropriating them as their own. Both gamers and fan fiction writers reject the sort of aesthetic distance that comes from simply reading or listening to a story (that is, from consumption) and instead seek their own narrative control over the text. Jenkins (1992) explains that for many fans, rejection of aesthetic distance is a rejection of authority. Instead of simply accepting the texts as they are presented, fans feel they have the right to offer their own interpretations. They aenter the realm of fiction as if it were a tangible place they can inhabit and explorea (Jenkins, 1992, p. 18). TRPGs offer popular fiction worlds, with the full possibility of exploring and inhabiting them during the gaming session but, furthermore, they offer players the ability to completely transform and control these worlds.

Mackay (2001) states that role-players arenat consumers because the TRPG is a process-performance. He explains that athe role-playing game exhibits a narrative, but this narrative does not exist until the actual performancea (Mackay, 2001, p. 50). Although players buy products, such as the rule books, the outcome of their games (the narrative that is created through gameplay) rarely becomes a consumer product. Similarly, while fans may invest in buying paraphernalia a.s.sociated with their fandom, the texts they create through fan fiction remain unpublished and are freely exchanged among members of the group. Although they are consumers in the sense that they buy products, fans and TRPG gamers do not consume these products. Rather, they use them to actively produce texts of their own.

A key difference between fan fiction writers and TRPG players, however, is the nature of the texts they create. Fan fiction writers use the original text, such as the Star Trek television series, to produce a new texta”their work of fan fiction. On the website plain if they find them too afannish.a While R.A. Salvatoreas D&D novels add to a more complete textual universe, they are different than fan fiction in part because of the way they enter the economic system. Rather than being freely available and exchanged fan to fan, these books are sold by the gaming company for gamers to read and consume. As we have seen, these books are also not based directly on an already existing text; even if they make use of D&D rules, those rules do not already contain a narrative.

Furthermore, TRPGs as a genre are highly influenced by popular culture, and there are game settings and rule systems based entirely on television series. However, there is a difference between an actual role-playing game that has been based on a TV universe and fans simply acting out roles from a TV show. Both are examples of role-play, but the second case is not actually a TRPG. In the case of an informal role-playing group based on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Hammer (2007) explains that series creator Joss Whedon is the primary author and the fans are secondary authors (p. 72). However, her example is from fans partic.i.p.ating in role-playing not a role-playing game. In an actual TRPG based on a television series, there is the author of the series but also the author of the game rules based on the series. In such games, it is rare that the players run the exact characters from the television series in a TRPG. TRPGs differ from fan fiction where the writer may add additional characters but usually centers the story around characters from the original work. Instead, gamers create their own characters within the universe. Fan fiction writers may focus more on minor characters from the show that they feel have more of a story to tell or on repressed or forgotten stories that they feel are subtexts in the show. However, a fan fiction writeras relations.h.i.+p to the text is different than that of TRPG players, even when the game is based in a TV universe.

Another difference between fan fiction and gaming is that while fan fiction may remain unpublished, it is, nevertheless, consumed by other members of the fandom who read it as a complete text of its own. On the other hand, TRPG stories are often not represented in any physical form. Even when I did write up the adventure at Blaze Arrow, my write-up of the orc adventure was done with the purpose of informing Mary what she had missed in her absence from that gaming session. It is one of only several stories from our Sorpraedor campaign that has been written down, and even these were never intended for an audience beyond the Sorpraedor group. Similarly, when Monte Cook bases gaming modules on his own home campaigns, every detail of those stories is not represented in the module; rather, the module acts as a guide for creating new stories in those worlds. In part, this is because TRPG stories are rarely complete, rather, they continue from session to session. Moreover, it is impossible to replicate the complexity of the interaction that occurs in each frame of the TRPG in a written story. Mackay (2001) explains that players continue to play out of a adesire to return to the presence of emotiona that disappears when the game stops (p. 85). The desire to return to the story that can never end, that can never be consumed, keeps TRPG groups going for years. Mackay (2001) sees this ongoing process as one that asuspends the desire to consume the texts (i.e. commodities) of the spectacle of popular culturea (p. 131). The audience, if they can be characterized as such, resists consumption in favor of production. Because the world and characters of D&D are created in the minds of the players, there is no physical text to consume.

The ability to create texts that cannot be reproduced or commodified is important to gamers. Bebergal (2004) shows that in D&D imagination is key, not pre-written modules and rule books. He comments that looking around at his childas room full of toys, he wants to shout, aI created worlds with nothing more than a twenty-sided die!a There is a strong sense of power and owners.h.i.+p involved in creating something that can exist only in a personas imagination; something that can never be read or consumed by others. Gamer Simon Andrew states, aitas great being part of an underground world which baffles 90 percent of people you talk toa (as cited in Waters, 2004). While some gamers want to share their stories with the world in forums like prehensible to those outside their gaming group. As members of a subculture, TRPG gamers connect through their shared desire to produce texts. Because immersive qualities of TRPGs give players a sense of belonging to a storyworld and interactive qualities give players the sense of actively contributing to this world, players see their gaming as a process of production rather than consumption. By engaging in this type of creative and productive behavior, gamers create a culture of their own that rejects notions of texts as consumed objects.

Post-Subculture: A More Complicated View.

While D&D seems to fit neatly into the notion of a subculture (even a fandom), more current studies have challenged the binary between dominant consumer culture and the championed notion of non-consumer based subcultures. This critique has come both from sociology and cultural studies. The idea of post-subculture and post-subculture studies relates to the post-modernist concern with ideas being reduced to binary oppositions. Rupert Weinzierl and David Muggleton (2003) argue that athe subculture concept seems to be little more than a clich, with its implications that both asubculturea and the parent culture against which it is defined are coherent and homeogenous formations that can be clearly demarcateda (p. 7). People do seem to create categorizations for themselves and others; as I have noted, different types of gamers have been known to distinguish themselves from each other. However, a more critical look at any of these communities shows that they are far from homeogenous. For example, there are tabletop gamers who are more focused on combat and ones who are more focused on story and character. The same is true for computer gamers. Some Ma.s.sively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG) gamers focus on the cooperative, team-building aspects of the game while others prefer to engage in player-versus-player combat. None of these communities are h.o.m.ogeneous; which is a limitation of looking at genre from the perspective of audience. Nevertheless, I argue that h.o.m.ogeneity is not necessary for coherence. TPRG players are able to bond together because of common interests and goals while still maintain diverse approaches to the game.

Earlier studies of subcultures tended to not only see these populations as h.o.m.ogenous but to herald their rejection of mainstream capitalist culture. Stahl (2003) explains that an early view of subculture was that it atook objects from the dominant culture and transformed their everyday naturalized meaning into something spectaculara (p. 27). We can see this view present in Jenkins (1992) early work on fandom, and despite Textual Poachers place as a key text in media studies, it has been challenged on this same ground. In their edited collection on fandom, Gray, Sandvoss, and Harrington (2007) explain that early fan studies were overtly political. They asided with the tactics of fan audiences in their evasion of dominant ideologies, and set out to rigorously defend fan communities against their ridicule in the ma.s.s media and by non-fansa (p. 2). By doing so, scholars of fandom maintained the binary between fans (who were creative and rebellious) and mainstream culture (which was consumer-based and non-productive) (Gray et al., 2007, p. 3). As a result, fandom studies focused on those fans who partic.i.p.ated in activities such as fan fiction and ignored other fans, particularly those who may seem to be more in line with dominant cultural ideologies (like sports fans) (Gray et al., 2007, p. 5).

Gray, Sandvoss, and Harrington (2007) explain that a second wave of fandom scholars has been more careful about falling into binary thinking and has sought to explicate fandomas role within the dominant, capitalist system. The work of Matt Hills (2002) falls in this category. Hills (2002) explains the paradox of studying fandom; that within it exists aboth anticommercial ideologies and commodity-completist practicesa (p. 28). Fans may follow a philosophy that resists consumerism, and many may engage with texts in a more productive manner but they nevertheless buy products. Many fans are collectors of specialized merchandise, and these fans may or may not be the same fans who also work to creatively produce texts of their own. In fact, Hills (2002) recognizes that some of those within the dominant power structures, particularly some TV producers, have come to recognize the value of fans and appealing to them (p. 36).

A part of this s.h.i.+ft is also the s.h.i.+ft of post-modernism: as we become an increasingly specialized society, the specialized niche audience of fans becomes increasingly important. A producer no longer has to appeal to every family watching prime time TV, but can focus on an audience that tunes in to a specialty cable channel to see a particular type of show. In addition, producers who are particularly popular with fans (such as Joss Whedon) have made moves to directly appeal to them. During the writeras strike of 2008, Whedon released aDr. Horribleas Sing-Along Bloga online to fans, free of charge. While it later was released as a DVD as well as a soundtrack and other products, the initial video was shown without financial gain. In addition, fans were asked to partic.i.p.ate by sending in their own themed videos, some of which were then released as special features on the DVD.

This sort of s.h.i.+ft to appeal to fans and involve them more directly in the development of more mainstream texts has been a focus of what Gray, Sandvoss, and Harrington (2007) call third wave fandom scholars.h.i.+p. This wave involves a broadening of perspective to include aa wide range of different audiences reflecting fandomas growing cultural currencya (p. 8). While Jenkinsas (1992) study may already seem somewhat dated in light of these new views on fandom, some of the ideas expressed in Textual Poachers and throughout Jenkins work are not necessarily incompatible with this more post-modern view of fandom. In particular, I would argue that it is not fandom that has changed as much as it is mainstream culture. The way that fans interact with texts has become more acceptable, and even mainstream. This sort of response to texts is not new. Fandom did not originate with the Internet, or even with television. Pearson (2007), for example, studies fans of Sherlock Holmes, Shakespeare, and Bach. Yet, Internet technologies have furthered fandom in a way that was previously unfathomable. Although it is problematic to a.s.sume coherence among audience groups, it seems safe to say that with the Internet and social networking, dominant culture has s.h.i.+fted to interact more directly with texts. It is not only fans who now Twitter or update Facebook status messages while watching a favorite TV show, or even something as mainstream as the presidential debates or the Super Bowl. More often these practices also relate directly back to the mainstream. Shows, particularly news shows and reality TV shows, may ask audiences to go online and vote on issues while they are watching. While not practiced by every viewer or every demographic within the audience, engaging with texts in a more active manner is becoming more mainstream. Fan culture may, to an extent, still exist as a subculture yet more and more, mainstream culture is becoming partic.i.p.atory.

The Rise of Gaming in Popular Culture.

As we remember from chapter 2, D&D served as an antecedent genre for many computer games. However, as computer games have become more and more common, the perception of gamers has moved from that of a subculture to mainstream culture. This s.h.i.+ft has been well doc.u.mented by scholars. Dovey and Kennedy (2006) explain in their book Game Cultures that ain the past a taste for fantasy literature, comics, Dungeons and Dragons role-play and technological gadgets all marked the subject as outside dominant arespectablea taste culturesa (p. 76). They found that these particular interests were common among early computer game designers and that as they made gaming into big business, the view of the game designer s.h.i.+fted to be in the center of dominant culture rather than on the sidelines (Dovey and Kennedy, 2006, p. 76). There is no doubt that computer gaming has transformed the way that gaming is perceived in popular culture. It now permeates our lives, from simple games like Bookworm on a cell phone, to exercising on the Wii Fit, to fully immersive MMORPGs like World of Warcraft. However, just because gaming has become mainstream does not mean that all modes and genres of games are equally accepted. Although certain h.o.m.ogenous groups may a.s.sert power, mainstream culture is no more h.o.m.ogenous than a subculture.

We need look no farther than the academic literature on gaming to see that tabletop games, which are often all thought to be synonymous with D&D, continue to be labeled in more marginal terms. From Murrayas (1997) slap at a12-year olds playing D&Da to the more subtle metanarrative of progress found in scholars.h.i.+p on computer gaming, there is a clear move to position D&D as earlier, more primitive than computer gaming. Dovey and Kennedy (2006), for example, spend some time establis.h.i.+ng the connection between game designers and their childhood love of D&D (possibly without intent) to establish it as a less mature game that inspires children to go on to better and more mature games. While it is very possible that many designers (and others) were exposed to D&D as teens or children and did not continue to play as adults, there are countless others who have kept the hobby even as new technology has emerged. Again, an antecedent genre is not necessarily less advanced than the genres the draw upon it.

Furthermore, there have been a great number of advances in games that are not computer-mediated, including TRPGs. For example, the d20 system for TRPGs that emerged in 2000 has changed and improved the game mechanics behind role-playing.1 The system simplifies rolling dice in TRPGs so that a 20-sided die is used for the majority of rolls. Wizards of the Coast viewed this move as a response to solidify the fading TRPG market in the early 1990s by standardizing TRPGs with, then, varying methods for play (). This move also is significant for the relations.h.i.+p it established between Wizards of the Coast, who controls D&D, and other game design companies. While there was skepticism in the companysa choice to trademark the d20 system, Wizards of the Coast provided the System Reference Doc.u.ment (SRD), and the Open Gaming License (OGL) to aallow royalty free, nonexclusive use of the game system at the heart of Dungeons and Dragons by anyone who wishes to do so, for both commercial and noncommercial worksa () This move to standardize systems and share among gaming companies is a far cry from TSR, Inc.as notorious reputation for litigious pursuits. The earlier owners of D&D were known for pursuing even the smallest copyright infringement, especially in the later years as the company was beginning to fail.

Despite a s.h.i.+ft in the traditional business model, D&D fans still gather in traditional consumer s.p.a.ces, such as stores. As Fine (1983) notes, it is important for fans to be able to connect with one another, and because TRPGs are played in person, there must be physical places where these connections can take place. Two main sites exist for TRPG fans to connect with others. There is the local gaming store and the gaming convention. Although these sites are ultimately designed for profit, they also function against dominant consumer trends. Local gaming stores are very rarely chain stores. While most stores exist mainly for shopping (the backbone of consumer activity) gaming stores are sites for gamers to hang out, meet each other, and play games. Some gaming stores may charge members.h.i.+p fees, but many allow players to game there for free. They rely on the purchase of products needed for the games, such as dice, rule books, or even snacks, but do not charge gamers simply to be there and game. In addition, gaming stores often hold tournaments and special events for players to partic.i.p.ate in for prizes. These prizes can be provided by the gaming store or from the larger gaming company. For example, Wizards of the Coast holds worldwide game days when new products are released. At these days, partic.i.p.ating gaming stores get modules specially released for the event as well as prices and other sample products.2 Conventions are another gathering place for gamers. The largest of these conventions is actually the birthplace of D&D, GenCon. GenCon was created by Gygax in 1967 and has been an annual gathering place for gamers ever since (). Originally GenCon was for war gaming enthusiasts, and this is where Gygax met up with Arneson to hear about his new approach to gaming. Today, GenCon is the brand name a.s.sociated with multiple conventions that take place worldwide. However, the most well known of these is currently held each August in Indianapolis and boasts 27,000 attendees each year (). Their website describes GenCon as aa consumer and trade experience dedicated to gaming culture and community.a With a four-day pa.s.s to the convention costing approximately $75, the convention gaming experience seems to be slightly more commercial than the local gaming store that may allow gamers to congregate for free. In addition to gaming, GenCon has vendors who sell gaming products, an art show, a writersa symposium, and other special events. Players do have the chance to play games and to purchase products; however, they also have opportunities that are no

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