Content area
Abstract
This MA thesis examines the relationship between tabletop role-playing games (TRPGs) and convergence culture. As a genre, TRPGs are characterized by multi-author collaboration and narrative agency for participants. Drawing upon the text of a pre-written scenario, as well as audio recordings from a play-through of that scenario, this essay catalogs significant points of departure between the two. This demonstrates the limits of authority between different types of authors (i.e. game designers, module writers, game masters, and players). It also reveals the points at which these roles bleed into one another, showing that professional and amateur authors are participating in much the same activity despite their apparent differences. Because TRPGs are predicated on creating texts in which amateur authors are engaged in the same work as their professional counterparts, and because texts are created with the expectation of input from lower-order authors, TRPGs represent a uniquely democratic form of convergence culture.
