Creative Accounting: Role-Playing Games, Possible-World Theory, and the Agency of Imagination

Abstract

Role-playing games have many qualities of narrative (character, plot, setting), yet they have received virtually no attention from narratologists. This essay discusses the way that role-playing games construct narrative worlds and compares that to recent theories of fiction based on possible-world models. In both, emphasis is placed on the objects that make up this world. In role-playing games and recent theories of fictional world, this essay argues, emphasis on objects makes possible intertextual comparisons, which in turn help to define and rejuvenate the agency of readers and critics against the backdrop of challenges to that agency by market culture and structuralist literary theory.

Technology rewind: The emergence of the analog entrepreneurial ecosystem

“…In contrast, tabletop board games, such as Settlers of Catan and Carcassonne , are simplistic in their game pieces, materials, and technologies, so consumers are more likely to augment gameplay with imagination (cf. Punday, 2005). Thus, because of their simplicity, the technological limitations of analog products spur creativity and, somewhat paradoxically, can be associated with greater imaginative flexibility.…”

Virtual Total Control: Escaping a Simulated Prison

“…One example may be seen in the evolution of the role-playing game Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) (Gygax & Arneson, 1974), popularized as a table-top game in 1974 (Punday, 2005). Dungeon Masters develop fantasy worlds, where each player develops their own character and explores and occupies the created spaces (Mizer, 2014).…”

“…This transitioned into the multiple online role-playing games version but maintained some of the characteristics of the original rendition. Players continue to have choices in how to use some objects, such as unlocking a box with a key or using lock picking skills (Punday, 2005). D&D operates with a quest system, often divvied out by NPCs and “framed as small narratives” (Dickey, 2007, p. 261).…”

Productive Violence and Poststructural Play in the Dungeons and Dragons Narrative

“… Punday points out that D&D has realized this need for unknowns since its inception. He quotes a pertinent passage from cofounder Gary Gygax's original handbook for the DM, explaining that the DM is privy to certain information that the players are not.…”