The Evolution of Fantastical Storyworlds:
A Study of Tabletop Role-Playing Settings
Dimitra Nikolaidou
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece.
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Abstract
Landscapes evolve. Forests turn into cities, rivers change course and even mountains slowly erode. Perhaps it
stands to reason then, that the landscapes of the fantastic evolve as well. In recent times, the evolution of the
imaginary worlds found in speculative works of fiction appears to favour diversity and inclusiveness, keeping in
touch with wider societal trends. This transition in fantastic chronotopes is extensively chronicled in the genre of
Tabletop Role-Playing Games, or TRPGs for short. The present paper aims to examine the evolution of fantastical
landscapes within the very influential TRPG genre through the combined framework of narrative and cultural
theories. The settings of the most successful TRPGs, Dungeons and Dragons and World of Darkness, will serve as
examples. The results will provide valuable insights into how and why the worlds of speculative fiction change over
time, often in response to wider societal change.
Keywords: landscapes, fantastic, chronotopes, Tabletop Role-Playing games, narrative, popular culture.
_________________________________________________________________________________________
The Connection between TRPGs and Speculative Fiction
Tabletop Role-Playing Games (TRPGs) are narrative games first created in Wisconsin
U.S.A., in 1975. Gamer and, later, game designer Stephen Lortz, defines RPGs as “Any game
which allows a number of players to assume the roles of imaginary characters and operate with
some degree of freedom in an imaginary environment” (6). During a TRPG, players gather
around a table. First they decide upon a storyworld, or setting: an imaginary world, where their
adventures will take place. Second, they each create a setting-appropriate unique character,
complete with predetermined abilities, a name, and a backstory; during the game, they will play
using the role of that character. Finally, one player who assumes the role of the game master will
present them with a scenario and will ask them to resolve it through the actions of their
characters, assisted by dice rolls that help determine the success or failure of a given endeavour.
During each session, an ephemeral, collaborative narrative emerges out of the actions and the
choices of the participants. In the end, there are no winners or losers: the adventure itself is the
goal.
These adventures take place in imaginary storyworlds or, to use the game term, “settings,”
which are drawn directly from the literature of the fantastic (as well as movies and more
recently, TV series). From the beginning, the TRPG gaming genre has been widely regarded as a
Ex-centric Narratives: Journal of Anglophone Literature, Culture and Media; Issue 2, 2018; eISSN: 2585-3538. ©2018 The
Authors. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution
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cross between wargaming and fantasy literature (Mackay 2, 7). While wargaming provided a set
of rules and dice rolls to differentiate TRPGs from pretend play, fantasy literature (and
speculative fiction in general) provided the settings, the imaginary worlds, where the players’
adventures could take place.
There are two kinds of TRPG settings. Game designers might license a setting from a wellknown work in the speculative genre: one such example is the Lord of the Rings TRPG or the
Star Trek TRPG. Alternatively, game designers might base their setting on the entirety of a genre
or sub-genre, making heavy use of tropes, imagery and very often clichés, in order to convey to
the player the shape of the world they are about to enter. In both cases, the majority of the
players will already be familiar with the world before they even open a game book.
This familiarity with the setting is beneficial to the game for a number of reasons. Firstly, as
Byers and Crocco (5) point out, the opportunity to immerse oneself in the worlds we come to
love through fiction, movies, and television, and go from passively consuming those to
inhabiting them is one of the major draws of the game. Indeed, both Mackay (112-13) and
Bowman (1) have confirmed this connection. Secondly, upon instantly recognizing the world
and, by extension, its conventions, the players are capable of immersing themselves in the role,
and thus in the narrative immediately, without the need to pause the game for worldbuilding
clarifications. Furthermore, this allows the game to flow easily, since familiarity with the setting
allows for easier communication and the use of pre-existing codes (Hendricks 39-40). For these
reasons, game designers make liberal use of genre tropes, clichés, and conventions during their
worldbuilding (Nikolaidou 2017).
The reliance on familiar settings might be beneficial for the game itself; however, it could
also prove to be a factor of stagnation in the evolution of the fantastic landscape. To understand
why, we need to delve deeper into the connection between speculative works and TRPGs.
TRPGs as Cultural Influencers
Do TRPGs influence the culture of the fantastic? And to what degree is this influence felt?
During a gaming session, players automatically add their own stories to the genre that inspired
the game in the first place; however, since this is an oral game, such stories are always
ephemeral. However, the influence of such stories on the culture of the fantastic can be
registered in a number of ways.
One of the most obvious and well-established influences is the impact the game has had on
the literature of the fantastic. Indeed, many important authors have referred to the influence that
TRPGs have had on their work. Shannon Appelcline’s exhaustive Dungeons and Designers
catalogues the growing number of creators who were either involved in the creation of tabletop
RPGs or were players themselves. The list includes Raymond Feist, George R. R. Martin, Phyllis
Ann Karr, Larry Niven, China Mieville, Scott Lynch, John Ambercrombie, David Mitchell, Jon
Kovalic, Patrick Rothfuss and many more.
Direct adaptations of fantastic literature into TRPGs constitute another measure of impact. A
growing number of works of the fantastic have been directly licensed and adapted as TRPGs
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(such as Star Trek, Wheel of Time, and the Cthulhu Mythos). These game books are considered
as falling within the canon. In this way, TRPGs add further material to a world of transmedial
storytelling. Provided with the right tools, players are encouraged to add their own stories to the
storyworlds of Star Wars, Game of Thrones and Lord of the Rings.
Additionally, scholarship suggests that the medium of video games—including the widely
successful Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games—originates directly from tabletop
role-playing games. In their introduction to Dungeons and Dreamers, King and Borland propose
the following: “Scratch almost any game developer who worked between the late 1970s and the
early 2000s, and you’re likely to find a vein of role-playing experience” (5). Further scholarship
also suggests a direct line of evolution between Tabletop Role-Playing Games and digital games
in general. Matt Barton goes so far as to name the attempts to adapt the tabletop experience as
“‘the holy grail’ of early computer programming.”
Focusing solely on digital role-playing games, Michael Tresca notes that “Fantasy CRPGs
borrowed heavily from Dungeons and Dragons rules, though developers have felt free to modify
them”. Despite not claiming Dungeons and Dragons as the source of all fantasy-themed
computer role-playing games, Tresca considers such games as a continuation in the Dungeon and
Dragons evolutionary path (134-60).
This influence continues to shape the medium of video games. Most of the staple video
games, especially role-playing games and Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games
(MMOs), clearly have their roots in video games.1 The popularity of digital gaming has certainly
contributed to the current popularity of the fantastic, a fact that further underlines the importance
of TRPGs.
Moreover, successful role-playing games often produce successful tie-ins, such as licensed
novels, comics, artwork, video games, movies etc. The Dragonlance novels, written by Margaret
Weiss and Tracey Hickman, are one such example. Other commercially successful tie-ins
include Baldur’s Gate, Icewind Dale, the Dungeons and Dragons movies, the band Midnight
Syndicate, and the TV series Vampire: The Masquerade.
Cultural products related to, or referencing, TRPGs often enjoy a great amount of popularity.
One such example is the medium of webcomics, which became established mostly through
reference to TRPG culture (early works in the medium include pvponline, Penny Arcade, Dork
Tower, etc.).
TRPGs further influence the culture of the fantastic through the communities they help
establish. Such communities vary in size and strength. One of the greatest examples is GenCon, a
gaming convention hosted in Lake Geneva, which exploded in popularity when the place became
known, as the birthplace of D&D. Internet communities sustained in digital forums dedicated to
the subject constitute other examples. On a more local level, gaming shops, tournaments, and
conventions also bring gamers together. Finally, since this is a game that requires a group of
1
For example, the initial choice of character, the distribution of experience points, the importance of equipment and
loot, etc.
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people, small communities are instantly created whenever groups form. Such communities
eventually coalesce into a gaming subculture, largely due to the internet.
Ultimately, the most important TRPG influence on the culture of the fantastic is the influence
the game exerts on the players themselves. Numerous scholars2 have assessed the great degree to
which TRPGs help participants shape their personal identity, help them express themselves, and
lead to the creation of communities. Scholarship has also shown that, while immersed in the
game, the players tend to experience the narrative, rather than simply consuming it. Thus, TRPGemergent narratives are likely to have a greater impact than books, movies, or other cultural
products destined to be passively consumed. Given that the majority of TRPG players already
are, or are expected to become consumers of the fantastic and perhaps even creators, the
influence of these games is easy to discern. Players’ expectations concerning the fantastic and
the relationship to the genre will be directly influenced by the games they play.
Given these points, it is safe to say that since 1975, TRPGs are connected with, and have
become a factor, both in the evolution of the speculative genre, as well as the evolution of the
culture of the fantastic.
The Shared Worlds of TRPGs
The influence that TRPGs clearly yield, suggests that the storyworlds in which they take
place—each game’s “setting”—also require closer examination.
As it is to be expected, our primary source for a study on TRPG settings is the game book, the
published material necessary for a group to begin playing. Successful TRPGs also tend to
publish a lot of supplemental material; supplements usually detail further corners of the setting’s
storyworld (major cities, far-off places, alternate dimensions etc.). Alternatively, they provide the
players with pre-constructed adventures, which also contain information about the setting.
Scholarship suggests that published materials are a major factor in how the game, and thus the
storyworld, is perceived by the player. While most game books underline that TRPGs allow the
players to tell their own story, limited only by their imagination, in truth, their content is bound
to guide the player through a certain style of play. Scholars, including Daniel Mackay (66) and
Jennifer Grouling Gover (138), point out that the text guides the player; Joris Dormans has added
that even the ruleset influences the storyworld (that is, if the rules make it difficult to cast a spell,
then the players perceive the world as low-magic). Jara argues that books “not only affect the
reception of the diegesis3 (once it has come into existence) but, because they temporally precede
its actual creation, [they] heavily influence player expectations and are thus decisive for the
subsequent production of text” (39).
The idea that the player is created by the text is further supported by narrative and cultural
theory. Porter Abbott considers setting as one of the core elements of narrative, following
2
Among them Gary Alan Fine, Sarah Lynne Bowman, Michael Tresca, Jennifer Grouling Cover, Jakko Stenros,
Daniel MackKay, Markus Montola.
3
Diegesis can be defined as a story told by a narrator, colored by his/her voice.
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narrative, story, and narrative discourse. In his words, “it is often difficult to disentangle setting
from what is going on and who is doing it” (20). His theory raises the question of how settings
are constructed by both author and reader. Keen argues that, in order to participate in
worldmaking, we respond to pre-existing cues, while Benhabib suggests that we are bound by
the narratives of our predecessors (15). Narrative can also be railroaded by what Porter Abbott
calls “masterplots,” skeletal stories like the quest or rebirth, which accommodate a number of
different narratives (18). In their quest for familiarity, TRPGs tend to embrace masterplots in
their suggested narratives. Genre is another decisive factor, as Keen suggests that we are
conditioned to associate genre with certain elements, stories, and characters (8). TRPG players,
who come to the table inspired by certain stories, are then very likely to repeat them in their own
narratives.
However, the game book is not the only factor determining the direction a TRPG narrative
will take. As discussed previously, TRPG narratives are collaborative. Indeed, the first academic
treatise on the subject was Gary Alan Fine’s Shared Fantasies. While the game book is created
by game designers, published, and sold to the players, its setting will only come alive when
players narrate their own stories within.4 Angelina Ilieva quotes the work of Fine, Montola,
Hendricks, Tychsen, etc., to demonstrate that TRPG game worlds are mainly constructed orally,
through player communication (27-28). Examining the cultural language of role-playing, she
concludes that:
Role-play is a type of cultural bricolage (as per Genette 1982). Every text—both as a
mode of expression and as a carrier of meaning—is created ad hoc, in a collaborative
process of analysis: extracting elements from various already constituted wholes; and
synthesis: combining these heterogeneous elements into a new whole where none of them
retain their original meaning and (35) function. Examining role-playing games as cultural
systems (as per Fine 1983) implies that we should always place them within webs of
cultural relations, in which each system element leads to other systems, other cultures,
and other discourses. (35-36)
Ilieva points out that the players will inevitably draw elements from the cultures they participate
in. As a result, the narratives they produce will be an amalgam of their various experiences,
codes, and cultural language.
Such a narrative is most likely to divert from the initial, trope-laden material presented in the
game book. This is true of every narrative. Benhabib points out that cultures are contestable,
“complex human practices of signification and representation, of organization and attribution,
which are internally driven by conflicting narratives” (ix). Even popular culture, initially
4
The double role of the player, as both reader and partial author, is one of the reasons TRPGs pose a challenge for
narratology studies. At the same time, they afford scholars of narrative theory with the opportunity to study how a
reader interacts with the text, by studying the production of emergent TRPG narratives. Scholars such as Grouling
Gover, Ilieva and Jara have contributed significantly to the field.
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condemned by the Frankfurt School as homogenizing and hegemonic, is viewed by later thinkers
such as Claude-Levi Strauss and Margaret Mead, as “a totality of social systems and practices of
signification, representation, and symbolism that have an autonomous logic of their own, a logic
separated from and not reducible to the intentions of those through whose actions and doings it
emerges and is reproduced” (qtd. in Benhabib 3). Indeed, though Pοrter Abbott warns that
“culture constrains all narrative” (125), and though critics of the mass culture that produces
genre tend to view popular culture as an iron cage which strangles creativity and original thought
(Appadurai 5-7), modernists reject this view. Without doubting the prescriptive powers of
culture, modernists deny that the consumer is without agency.
Indeed, the TRPG player tends to be much more powerful than the consumer of genre
narratives, since, to play a game, they have to produce a narrative for themselves. Moreover,
immersion guarantees that this narrative will come as an expression of the player’s true self. A
contested concept, immersion refers to the experience of losing oneself in a character. As
Bowman and Standiford have suggested, players experience the game both as their character and
as observers and both modes can lead to a temporary loss of self-awareness (13-14). Narratives
emerging from such states are much more likely to express the player’s actual experience than
blindly follow genre tropes. Ethnographic research suggests that, while players are likely to draw
their characters from popular culture, they are also likely to introduce character concepts from
one genre to another. Moreover, they are likely to forego their initial inspiration as the game
proceeds, crafting a unique, personal voice for their character (Nikolaidou 145-59).
Given, then, that player culture will be reflected within player narratives, our perception of
the settings’ evolution through time can be framed as cultural; after all, it is a common claim that
culture, far from being wholly prescriptive, is instead a series of conflicts. Seyla Benhabib argues
that cultures are not monolithic; instead, she defines cultures as contestable, “complex human
practices of signification and representation, of organization and attribution, which are internally
driven by conflicting narratives” (x). Similarly, Scott McCracken posits that pulp narratives are
driven by societal conflicts:
Who we are is never fixed, and in modern societies an embedded sense of self is less
available than ever before. Popular fiction has the capacity to provide us with a workable,
if temporary, sense of self. It can alleviate the terror described by Mandelstam. It can give
our lives the plots and heroes they lack. While the same can be said for all fiction,
narratives read by large numbers of people are indicative of widespread hopes and fears.
Popular fiction is both created by and a participant in social conflict. (2)
Having established that societal conflict will influence genre narratives in general and will be
even more prominent in players’ emergent narratives due to a high degree of immersion; it
becomes apparent that TRPG evolution is bound to reflect such conflicts. While examining the
narratives themselves as a whole is impossible, given their ephemeral quality and the fact that
every gaming troupe experiences games differently, we can turn to published TRPG settings to
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examine how societal conflicts influence previous established tropes. Given that TRPG designers
are attuned to feedback for a variety of reasons (the early wargaming tradition, crowdfunding,
internet culture, the fact that the settings are built as a backdrop for player narratives and not as a
complete work), the changes they incorporate in their worldbuilding can be said to reflect the
desires of the community.
The Evolution of TRPG Worldbuilding
I. The Evolution of the Dungeons and Dragons Setting
Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) is the first, and the most successful, TRPG ever created. Erik
Mona correctly calls it the lingua franca of role-players and suggests that most people’s
understanding of a TRPG comes from D&D (25).
D&D has gone through five editions, some more successful and well received than others.
Shannon Appelcline and Jon Peterson have both recorded, in their lengthy historical treatises,
how D&D began as a spinoff of the wargaming hobby. The first impromptu game was a tale of
dungeon exploration set in the Napoleonic period but, soon, the fantasy elements took over and a
new gaming genre emerged. The first D&D world, Greyhawk, allowed for the existence of elves,
dwarves, Halflings (essentially Tolkien’s hobbits), and orcs, as well as barbarians, fighters, and
wizards. From the very beginning, Gygax marketed D&D as a game of exploration, adventure,
and combat. The game was as much about traversing a terra incognita, as it was about fighting
monsters and finding treasure. In this, it followed in the footsteps of its pulp inspirations, where
the encounter with alien worlds was very much part of the appeal.
However, while the landscape was alien to the characters, it remained familiar to the players
who controlled them: the places described in the game text were a pseudo-medieval Europe,
complete with castles, hereditary monarchies, robed spellcasters reminiscent of Merlin, etc. The
list of references included in nearly all editions of the game, from the Original Dungeons and
Dragons (1975) to the fifth edition (2014) points to staples of fantasy fiction. The monsters and
fantastical creatures were seemingly drawn from mythology but as Peterson notes, their actual
roots were to be found in pulp fiction and not in the myths that provided the imagery (84). In
terms of diversity, this proved problematic.
As Clive Bloom (178) and Scott McCracken have noted, such pulp fictions were often quick
to render the Other in a rather unflattering way and present the non-Western landscape as alien,
essentially ready to be colonized by bold white men. Monsters and landscapes drawn from nonAnglo-Saxon myth were there, yet there was never any depth or understanding to be found in
such depictions. Instead, they were heavily exoticized and based on a number of stereotypes. It
should be noted that the Anglo-Saxon myth was not presented in depth either. However, given
that the players’ characters were expected to originate from the pseudo-European continent, their
depiction came across as less problematic.
In terms of culture and social issues, D&D presented a setting where the social norms were
reinforced—and, at the same time, subverted. However, in an unexpected turn of events, given
the time of its publication, the game designers created a world where women and men were
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equal and where the prevalent polytheistic religion removed many of Christianity’s taboos. Still,
paratextual elements, such as illustrations, and a lot of the supplemental material did not build on
this premise. Women were often depicted bare-breasted and mainly as spellcasters, and the social
structure did not adapt to the notion of equality.
The second edition of the game clarified that the game text would use male pronouns—not
because the game was intended for male players only, but supposedly for reasons of
convenience. Much of the published material made use of the standard fantasy tropes in its
depiction of female heroes, who were significantly fewer than the male heroes. People of colour
were rare, and, despite the claim that there were no sexual taboos inherent in the setting,
homosexuality was not depicted or mentioned in the game text. This was problematic. As Shaw
suggests, “not being referred to in the public discourse is just as problematic as being referred to
stereotypically. Not being ‘hailed,’ in [Althusser’s] terms, is a form of ‘symbolic annihilation’”
(231).
The third edition (2000) made a conscious effort to change this. It used both male and female
pronouns; the illustrations presented an equal number of men and women, as well as people of
colour. However, there were no further subversions in the narrative. Published adventures
continued to exclude homosexuality and alternate lifestyles. The supplements detailing lands
inspired from non-Western, non-Anglo-Saxon cultures became more detailed, yet they still relied
on a variety of stereotypes.
The fourth edition of Dungeons and Dragons was a departure in theme and style, and it was
viewed as an attempt to attract MMO players and a younger audience. It made no changes in
terms of how cultural issues were handled; moreover, since it was not well received, it published
few supplements detailing the world of the setting. The fifth edition however, published at a time
(2014) when gender and racial issues had come once again to the forefront, was different. The
Player’s Handbook, the most necessary game book required for play, tackled the issue of
alternate gender expression directly. Furthermore, it chose a woman of colour as the symbol for
the human race and eliminated unnecessary female nudity. When sexuality is overt due to the
nature of a creature (for instance, the fey), there is always a male and female version. Moreover,
the game presented its first openly homosexual couple in a published adventure entitled Storm
Kings’ Thunder (2017). Addressing this milestone, lead developer Jeremy Crawford stated that
“I wasn’t about to have this book go out and not acknowledge that people like me exist.” Every
published adventure since then has included homosexual characters (D’ Anastasio).
II. The Evolution of the World of Darkness Setting
The World of Darkness (1991) is an umbrella term for a number of horror TRPGs set in the
same universe.5 Initially inspired by Anne Rice’s novel, Interview with the Vampire, the World
of Darkness (WoD) was created, in many ways, as a direct antithesis to D&D. The player
assumes the role of a monster, gameplay is meant to be story-heavy with little emphasis on
5
The games include Vampire, Mage, Werewolf, Changeling, etc.
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combat, and it is set in our own world. For this reason, many of the supplements published for
WoD and especially for the Vampire the Masquerade (VtM) sub-game, detailed existing cities,
describing their “supernatural” side according to the game’s mythos.
Published as it was in the early 1990s, WoD (and VtM) attempted to distance itself from the
pulp roots of D&D. Many counter-cultural ideas were prevalent in the game from early on. The
villains of VtM were an obvious metaphor for capitalism and organized religion; feelings of
desperation and wrath experienced by the powerless were a major theme. Furthermore, instead of
focusing on cities usually connected with the Vampiric Mythos, the game attempted to turn the
entire world into its game setting. Supplements detailed the supernatural aspects of Cairo,
Montreal, Constantinople, and Mexico City, as well as London and Transylvania. Moreover,
these supplements delved deep into the traditions of each city they described, drawing from their
actual history and culture, instead of relying on Western tropes and stereotypes. Critiques of
cultural hegemony and colonization were abundant and so was the interaction with local myths.
As an example, the Transylvania supplement made only passing reference to Dracula and
focused instead, on the complex politics of the region, essentially de-colonizing the landscape.
Supplements were crafted presenting the African continent and the Asian traditions as entirely
different from their Western counterparts.
Most importantly, the use of the entire world as a valid gaming backdrop gave the players the
impression that WoD stories were taking place all over the globe, enacted by people who could
be of any race or religion. In this way, the player felt much less obliged to re-enact the tropes of
the Vampiric Mythos as previously seen in fiction or in the cinema, since the game made an
effort to subvert these clichés through the use of unexpected backdrops for its stories. The
available roles reinforced this sense: the player could choose to play a character belonging to one
of several vampiric clans, many of them being inspired by different cultures. Finally, the game
clarified that, while supernatural creatures could carry the prejudices of their human culture,
women were, more or less, in an equal position in the supernatural community. In this way, it
both addressed the issue of real-world gender inequality and allowed for in-game equality.
However, it is unlikely that someone reading these supplements today would not find fault
with them. To give a few examples, one of the vampiric clans, the Roma Ravnos, were presented
as compulsive liars and thieves, while the signature character for the irrationally violent Brujah
was an African-American man. In a personal interview with game developer Phil Brucato on 23
May 2018, he suggests that “it was always our intention to make games and stories for a larger
audience than the then-usual straight white suburban American boys.” Brucato went on to
explain that nearly half of the White Wolf developers were “some definition of ‘queer,” nearly
half were women, several were people of colour, and a few had been sometimes “desperately
poor.” Thus, they wanted to appeal to “female gamers, queer gamers, gamers of colour, and folks
who would not have considered themselves interested in gaming until they encountered our
work... We created the games we wanted to see, and those games were intentionally radical in
terms of content, approach and philosophy—if ‘radical’ only by the standards of the gaming
industry at that time.” His last sentence hints at the issues these developers had when attempting
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to radicalize tabletop gaming. In the early 1990s, when their games first came out, they were
only able to hire “suburban American white folks,” who, to create game content, “were riffing
off the popular media of that time... which was not exactly known for its factual accuracy or
cultural sensitivity... And so, even when our people dug deep for research, the materials at our
disposal were often inaccurate, superficial, and generally offensive.”
Brucato’s words highlight a lot of the issues facing the TRPG industry today. Even when the
creators aim for diversity, subversion, and representation, their sources are often rooted in
material one could call offensive by today’s standards. However, despite its problems, WoD’s
work made a difference and drew an entirely different player base to TRPGs.
In 2004, the new World of Darkness came out, rebooting the games. The new edition ushered
in an entirely new mythos, and thus introduced different storyworlds. The new material was
indeed far more inclusive, diverse, and free of many of the traps Brucato mentions. While many
of the contributors came from outside the U.S. WoD’s commitment to addressing social issues
became even more prominent: as an example, the Changeling the Lost subgame, which was
inspired by classic European fairytales, details Miami as a sample city, focusing on the issue of
immigration.
Despite these efforts, the new edition is considered less welcoming to international players
than the old one. While the first edition of the games drew from international folklore and tapped
into the roots of many archetypal myths to draw its material, the new edition instead creates new
myths from scratch. While, in this way, the problematic elements of older myths and archetypes
are avoided, the game’s narrative also feels more artificial and less rooted in the collective
subconscious. While the non-supernatural aspects of the storyworld carefully address real-life
issues, the supernatural mythos itself has abandoned its international inspirations and is
significantly more U.S.-centric.
Though the new edition was a success, the company was eventually pressured by its player
base into re-introducing the first edition. Currently, both editions are published simultaneously.
III. A Common Thread
The evolution of both games towards more diverse and socially conscious settings is owed to
multiple factors. To begin with, unlike other forms of art, these games have always received and
incorporated feedback from the community. In the early days of D&D, the designers presented
parts of the game that were in development in fanzines and expected to hear back. Nowadays, the
same process is repeated through the internet. For their latest editions, both D&D and WoD
chose a process of “open development” (or “crowdsourcing”) whereupon they published their
drafts on the internet and received continuous feedback. The desire to appeal to a wider audience
is also a factor, since making the game more attractive to women and international players,
benefits sales. Moreover, the very nature of the game means that it will always be a “shared
fantasy”. Since much of the game is produced by the players through various means, it is to be
expected that the settings will change along with the “real” world, and will reflect an expanded
player base.
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Conclusion
TRPG storyworlds/settings have been influential in the culture of the fantastic since the
game’s inception in 1975. Due to a variety of reasons, these settings have evolved from their
pulp roots in a way that tends to be reflective of various social conflicts and struggles. Issues of
gender, race, and sexual orientation, as well as political and class conflicts have informed the
evolution of TRPG settings. TRPGs’ close relationship with speculative works and fantasy
culture suggests that these changes are reflective of wider trends.
Closer examination of these settings then, as they are continuously framed by designers and
players, allows for a better understanding of the landscapes of the fantastic. Future research
would benefit from examining independent games along with the staples of the industry, in order
to discern a pattern in the evolution of speculative storyworlds.
Works Cited
Abbott, H. Porter. The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative. Cambridge UP, 2008.
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