in a TRPG, from off-record to narrative speech, are analogous to those Cook-Gumprez (1992) identified in make-believe play. To these types of speech, my model also added the game sphere to account for the more complex interaction surrounding game rules, such as dice rolling. Like make-believe, though, the form of the TRPG is one where players frequently shift among multiple levels of discourse. This structure is far more open than the tree structure found in adventure games, gamebooks, and even some videogames. Because some CRPGs directly adapt D&D rules to a digital environment, we see some strong similarities between videogames and TRPGs. These similarities primarily have to do with the gaming rules, such as the way characters gain experience and level up, or the mechanism of hit points to keep track of how much damage a character has received in battle. However, in purpose, the TRPG is perhaps more closely related to fan fiction. Both gamers and fan fiction writers engage with popular culture in order to create their own texts. The sense of agency and authorship that players feel is one of the main reasons they cite for participating in TRPGs. All of these genres have commonalities with the TRPG, and with the level of intertextuality gamers engage in, this comes as no surprise. Some TRPG players have become computer game designers, some write fan fiction, and most have active imaginations. However, despite the connections between the TRPG and other genres, players keep coming back to the TRPG. They continue to play it while still participating in other games and other genres. Thus, a definition of the TRPG must stand on its own. It must be defined by its own characteristics and not simply on its relation to other texts. This definition is one that many scholars have failed to articulate, who instead never move past comparison. Most studies focus on another type of text with only a quick mention of the TRPG as an antecedent genre. Others, such as Hammer (2007), deal specifically with role-playing games (RPGs), but do not separate TRPGs from CRPGs, live action role-plays (LARPs) or other types of role-play. Instead, Hammer (2007) argues that three elements are present in every type of role-playing—col- laboration, narration and improvisation (p. 69–70). Certainly these are important aspects of the TRPG, but they are not its only defining features.
Mackay’s (2001) definition fits the TRPG as a genre of its own, separate from other types of games.2 His notion of the TRPG as “an episodic and participatory story-creation system” (p. 4) accurately describes both the form and the purpose of the TRPG as a genre, that includes a group of players using the gaming system to produce a narrative. However, it does not account for the rhetorical purpose that sets this communicative event apart from other rhetorical responses. If we view exigence and genre in terms of rhetorical theory, there must be a social, rather than artistic, motive for engaging in the TRPG. It is only by looking at the view of genres as rhetorical—the view of Miller (1984), Swales (1990), and Russell (1997)—that we are able to account for the on going success of the TRPG; and social motive must be key to our new definition.
I thus propose expanding on Mackay’s (2001) definition. In my view, the TRPG can be defined as a type of game/game system that involves collaboration between a small group of players and a gamemaster through faceto-face social activity with the purpose of creating a narrative experience.3 By game/game system I wish to convey the importance of the system of rules behind a TRPG. While role-playing can exist in a number of settings, without these rules, that role-play does not consist of a role-playing game. Childhood make-believe, for example, might be role-play that creates a narrative experience, but it is not a role-playing game. Even if participants in such role-play activities decide on rules for their activity, there is not a gaming system that guides this freeform role-play as there is in the TRPG. A key part of this system, that must