“What will you do?” Autoethnography on Dialogic Authorship in Role-Playing Game Storytelling

Current theory in role-playing game studies often utilises the author’s prior, generalised experience playing and/or creating role-playing games, along with the writings of other theorists as the primary bedrock for their analysis, developing helpful and broadly applicable theory which benefits discussions in fields such as psychology, technology studies, cultural studies, narrative studies, and game studies. I aim to develop the conversation on role-playing games as narratives and cultural practices by directly examining play sessions, with the aim of capturing granular processes which may be skipped, under-perceived, or disregarded in high-level analysis of the RPG medium and fandom.

I utilised autoethnographic techniques to ground the thesis in my lived experience as a player, game-master, and participant in fandom subculture. Utilising structured journaling and online discourse, I analysed narratives, perspectives and behaviours implicated in play within the Dungeons and Dragons and Cyberpunk franchises. During analysis, I explore the concept of ‘Dialogic Authorship’- the idea that the narratives of these RPGs are not pre-existing but rather created moment-to-moment from the interactions between players and developers- be this directly or by proxy of game content. Such a framing illuminates the authorial capacities of players, and the implications fandom subculture often has in the final experience of story that the player takes away from a given play session, campaign, or playthrough.

My findings illuminated processes where developers and players were allies in storytelling who engaged in back-and-forth dialogues responding to authorial inputs, especially where the TTRPG and CRPG medium differed. I explore the interplay between formal and imaginative story content, the ways in which the framing of player-characters interplay with the differing methods of different players and especially examine the implications of fandom subculture on the ongoing construction and reconstruction of narrative storytelling in these titles.