Creation of Narrative in Tabletop Role-Playing Games - Jennifer Grouling Cover [77]
Jessica Hammer (2007) offers a taxonomy of authorship for roleplaying that begins to shed some light on this question. She argues for three levels of authorship: primary, secondary, and tertiary. Primary authors, according to Hammer (2007), have authorship over the system and the setting; they create the rules and the storyworld (p. 71). Secondary authors create the story; the scenario encountered in the gaming session. Tertiary authors form the text that emerges from the gaming session (Hammer, 2007, p. 71). To return to Murray’s (1998) metaphor of the costume trunk, Hammer (2007) explains that “if the primary author creates the sets and costumes, and the secondary author provides the characters and a script outline, the tertiary authors are the ones who bring the story to life” (p. 71). When first looking at these definitions, the division of authorship might seem clear in the TRPG. The game designers could be seen as primary authors, creating rule books and campaign settings. The DM of a home campaign who creates his or her own setting might also be in this category. In general, though, the secondary author role seems to be filled by the DM—a DM will present the encounters that the players respond to and have control over what actions enter the narrative of the gaming session. The tertiary authors are the players themselves—the ones responding to the scenarios and bringing life to the story by creating the text through gameplay. These definitions provide us with a basic understanding of the three levels of authorship in the TRPG. However, rather than being static, these roles are in constant motion. As Hammer (2007) notes, we must continually assess “who is acting as world-builder, who as storybuilder, and who as story-player” (p. 72). In this chapter, I look at the way that participants in the TPRG interact with multiple texts and how their positioning in relationship to those texts continually shifts, redefining their role within the taxonomy of authorship.
In this chapter I focus primarily on authorship in the homemade game of Sorpraedor. I look specifically at the way that Scott, as DM, interacted with other texts; both those created by the gaming industry and those created by players in the game. For this analysis I use Scott’s notes, my own notes from the game, interviews with select players, and email exchanges between Scott and other players. These email exchanges took place outside of the game itself, but were another place where the players were able to exercise control over the gaming environment and story. In fact, Mary had entire subplots for Maureen that took place outside of normal gaming hours. I also look at the way the player interacts with multiple texts, including those created by the DM and the gaming industry as well more general references to popular culture. Finally, I also include information from game designers, authors, and Role-Playing Gamers Association (RPGA) members that add to the complexities of authorship in the TRPG. This analysis will show how the TRPG allows for rethinking the author-reader dynamic.
The Multiple Roles of the Gamer
In the TRPG, the shift in the author/reader relationship takes on two levels. The players take the game in directions the DM could not have anticipated and the DM takes the game in directions the game designers could not forsee. While a computer game designer may not be too fond of the hacker that cracks the code of a computer game (such behavior may indicate a flaw in their design), TRPG designers welcome this sort of interference. Monte Cook explains that one of the great joys of being a game designer is hearing the creative ways that DMs have used his material to go in their own directions (personal communication, June 30, 2009). He says, “It’s fun in a way that I think is unique to this medium because I wrote