Dungeon Theory

I remember the first gaming convention I ever attended…and I wasn’t even there for the games. After high school a couple of friends and I drove to Columbus, Ohio because Bruce Campbell was the headliner at the con. While wandering the convention, my friends and I stood alongside a table playing some Star Wars roleplaying game.  One player made a wide slashing gesture with his arms, “And I cut him with my lightsaber!” The other players looked impressed. We looked askance. At the time neither my friends nor I had ever played a tabletop rpg and it seemed so…weird.  Our sense of what was “normal” was challenged watching those players. According to theorist Molefi Kete Asante , Western society is a little like my friends and me, failing to understand that our culture has deeply and powerfully shaped what we regard as normal.  Asante’s scholarship of Afrocentricity presents a worldview contrary to Western norms which seeks to offer a powerful alternative worldview. Watching a ...

Roleplay gaming operates at least in part through the creation of a shared reality. The games work best when players and dungeonmasters have been oriented (in the case of Dungeons & Dragons) into a world of myth and fantasy, magic, exploration, vast wild unexplored spaces, traps, caverns, mimics, and goblins).  It typically falls upon the dungeonmaster (or gamemaster) to establish early on the bounds of that shared reality and to invite, guide, and help to maintain that reality over the session or campaign. Similarly, according to Family Communication Patterns Theory , it is the family of origin which act to socialize an individual into sharing a vision of the world.  How a family talks to, with, and about its members powerfully socializes them into a commonly-held view of the world.  And just as a dungeonmaster’s job is not done after Session Zero , neither is the family’s.      According to Koerner and Fitzpatrick , family talk is often patterne...

Which groups are the main protagonists of your game(s)? Which cultures is the campaign about? Or, probably more tellingly, which groups does your party represent, support, assist, and value? Which factions does it avoid, denigrate, attack, and disrupt? Which groups does your party perceive as a minority, as an inferior or subordinate force? According to Orbe ’s Co-cultural Theory , people who have less power than those of the dominant group(s) will develop different communicative practices in order to get their needs met. This theory’s concerns (i.e., power, inequality, dominance) overlap with those of Muted Group and Face Negotiation Theories.  Your current character wants their waterskin to be refilled. Are you most likely to a) Ask a passing NPC where the closest well is. b) Distract a passerby so that you can steal their waterskin. c) Humbly pray to the Good Lord Pelor to fill your waterskin. d) Invoke your Dark Fey Patron’s name, commanding them to provide you the fresh...

Riddle me this: When faced with conflict, why does the archetypal barbarian fight, the bard cast Charm Person , and the wizard enchant? Perhaps it could be said that “It’s in their nature” or rather, it is assisted by their stats and abilities. Whatever the reason, both in-game and away from the table, people respond to conflict differently. Taken further, and according to this theory, cultures respond to conflict differently. Stella Ting-Toomey ’s Face Negotiation Theory broadly asserts that understanding cultural differences helps to explain why some groups respond to conflict differently than others. One of the foundational tenets of Face Negotiation is that we all have a public self that we want seen, acknowledged, and validated by others. The dragonborn paladin in full plate, broadly declaring his love of Tempus, god of just battle wants to be responded to with awe, reverence, and respect. The skulking rogue halfling, dressed all in muted greys, wants something much different. ...