Features of Storytelling in the Dungeons & Dragons Tabletop Role-Playing Game
Nefedova Olga Igorevna
Moscow City Teachers’ Training University
Submitted: 09.12.2022
Abstract. The research aims to determine the features of storytelling of the Dungeons & Dragons tabletop role-playing game. The paper is novel in that it is the first to consider both storytelling and tabletop role-playing games through the lens of cognitive literary studies. Modern storytelling has many features of mythological-folklore communication along with the influence of written culture, which is reflected in the process of constructing a narrative in tabletop role-playing games. This process occurs simultaneously in several interconnected frames (game, narrative, social and dramatic) in the process of player communication. The players see themselves as a player, a player character and a person at the same time and interact in all the frames at once in their own way of describing and bringing the setting to life. Mythological-folklore and fantasy clichés are widely used in the game, but its uniqueness is maintained due to the very process of collaboration - prepared written text elements and oral improvisation are involved. From the viewpoint of the plot, the games are a series of quests with a non-linear chronology within a multiverse and a narrative emerges from a constant discussion of the rules, roles and boundaries of game reality. As a result, it has been proved that storytelling in the studied tabletop role-playing game is carried out through the creation of a blend of mental spaces and frames, where players experience a liminal state and transformation with the help of verbal interactive experience.
Key words and phrases: сторителлинг, настольные ролевые игры, когнитивное литературоведение, ментальное пространство, фрейм, storytelling, tabletop role-playing games, cognitive literary studies, mental space, frame
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