Creation of Narrative in Tabletop Role-Playing Games - Jennifer Grouling Cover [46]
Both Jenkins (2002) and Ryan (2005b, 2006) offer possible conciliatory positions in this debate between game and narrative scholars. One of the problems that Jenkins sees with the entire argument is that it deals with games in binary terms, looking only at whether a game is or is not a narrative rather than at what narrative elements might exist in a game. Ryan (2005b) explains that there is a difference between being a narrative and “possessing narrativity” (p 347). A text that possesses narrativity is “produced with the intent to create a response involving the construction of a story” (Ryan, 2005b, p. 347). Many games, including the TRPG, appear to fall into this category.
While Jenkins (2002) is careful not to equate the storyworld with the actual telling of a narrative, he does see the potential for what he calls “spatial storytelling.” What he means by this is that storyworlds are created in games that either provoke previously known stories or provide the potential for creating new stories. For Jenkins (2002), games are “spaces ripe with narrative possibility.” Similarly, Ryan (2006) talks of games as “machines for generating stories” (p. 189). In these more recent studies, we see that the earlier debate suggesting that games must be viewed either through a narratological or a spatial aesthetic falls to the wayside when we think of the way that spaces create the potential for narrative experience rather than sticking to a strict structural analysis of narrative forms.
What we have seen throughout this debate on whether or not games should be studied as narratives is a disciplinary and methodological struggle. As new texts emerge, we have been forced to test whether or not our old methods for studying texts are still applicable. Thus, a discussion of traditional narratological definitions, such as that found in Labov’s 1972 study, has been warranted. When videogames first came on the scholarly scene, this debate caused a separation between those who wished to create new methods to study them and those who wished to apply and adapt already existing methodology. This split is only now beginning to be reconciled as scholars work to expand both the definitions of narrative and games. Yet, the majority of the discussion of games still revolves around videogames. If we keep the discussion focused only on new games and emerging technologies, it seems we will never get past this continual reevaluation of older methods in the face of new texts. Videogame technology is evolving at a pace that moves much faster than our scholarly debates about it. It seems to me, however, that there is value in looking at the debate not in terms of new technology, but in terms of longer existing genres that may also challenge our methodological views. I thus present the TRPG, rather than videogames, as a test case for the argument surrounding defining games and narrative. Showing that a game nearly as old as Labov’s definition can present a challenge to these definitions may very well prove to shake the foundation of narrative and games studies in a way that a more modern critique cannot. It is one thing to say that our definitions of narrative and games must change to account for new technologies; it is another to say that they have never completely accounted for existing ones. The social and rhetorical elements of narratives did not enter the scene with digital technology, but have always been a neglected part of our narrative worlds.
Campaign Settings in D&D
One clear objection to seeing games as narratives is that games draw on vast spaces, storyworlds that players explore with or without an actual story present. With seemingly endless maps of dungeons, to what degree is Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) about an exploration of space? To what degree is it about creating spaces that serve as storyworlds for potential narratives, but not about the narratives themselves? The next section looks in-depth at how worlds are created