• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

In addition to being fascinated with medieval war gaming, co-creator of D&D Dave Arneson was fascinated by the fantasy worlds created in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy (Mackay, 2001, p. 15). Although its creators later denied the direct influence of Tolkien’s work, the D&D world consists of character classes similar to those found in Tolkien such as a fighter, a wizard, and a rogue. The character races include humans, elves, and halflings (which were originally called hobbits but had to be changed to avoid copyright infringement). By incorporating the fantasy of Tolkien into these gaming worlds, Arneson also made significant changes in the relationship between gaming and literature. TRPGs became, in many ways, a response to literature and a way of interacting in literary worlds. The characters that resulted from Arneson’s initial attempt at roleplaying were endowed with magical weapons and spell-casting abilities, and their enemies evolved into “mythical creatures such as dragons” much like the characters found in fantasy novels (Mackay, 2001, p. 15). Thus, players were given a way to interact with fantasy worlds by playing their own heroes in those worlds. Soon after incorporating these elements of fantasy into his war gaming, Arneson teamed up with fellow war-gamer and fantasy buff Gary Gygax. In 1974 they published the first copy of the Dungeons and Dragons rule book (Mackay, 2001, p. 15).

Acknowledging both the antecedent game genre (war games) and the antecedent literary genre (fantasy) is important to showing the dual nature of the TRPG. As I will argue later, TRPGs are difficult to categorize because they are both games and narratives, thus breaking down a binary that both narrative theorists and ludologists often cling to. Perhaps one of the most significant advances that D&D made possible was a reimagining of the ways that stories and games interact. While D&D was the first of its kind, similar games (often also based on fantasy or science fiction literature) emerged as TRPGs. Among these are Vampire the Masquerade, based on the vampire mythos; Call of Cthulhu, based on H.P. Lovecraft; Babylon5 and Star Trek TRPGs, based on the sci-fi television series; and Champions, based on comic book characters.

Defining the TRPG isn’t easy, but let’s start by looking more specifically at the rather uncontroversial notion that the TRPG is a type of game. What does it mean to classify something as a game? Ludwig Wittgenstein (1958) asks,

What is common to them all?—Don’t say: “There must be something in common, or they would not be called games”—but look and see whether there is anything common to all.—For if you look at them you will not see something that is common to all, but similarities, relationships, and a whole series of them at that [p. 31].

These similarities, which Wittgenstein goes on to describe as “family resemblances” (p. 32), offer a good starting point for defining the TRPG. Often when studying games, or the even a narrower category such as role-playing games, it is difficult to find one thread that connects them all. While looking for connections is admirable and necessary, in terms of genre studies the lack of differentiation made by scholars is sometimes troubling.

A good example of this may be found in some of the early work on computer games. In his book Cybertext (1997), Espen Aarseth comments that many MUDs (Multi User Dungeons) facilitate “Dungeons and Dragons style gaming” (p. 146). Yet, he never explains what “the Dungeons and Dragons style” is, and gamers are quick to recognize that even within a single game it is difficult to pinpoint one particular style. In addition, Aarseth calls D&D a “board game” (p. 98). Some board games may have a similar structure to TRPGs, but they have more static game mechanics and always include a physical component such as a board and figures.4 The use of a battle map and miniature figures might be seen as a connection to board games; however, these are not mandatory features of