Abstract

Dungeons & Dragons and TRPGs have an interesting crossover with how people view their identity and engage with communities. Queer people use the TRPG space to find a community, and through that community they can help other people find their identity. This paper examines the concept of queer identity, meaningful play experiences, identity play, and community building. Drawing from lived experience and backing it up with scholarly sources, it touches on the ways that queer representation in the TRPG space have positively impacted players and the community. It concludes with a simple point that the stereotypical perception of TRPG players is shifting from lonely nerds to the diverse population that exists in the space.

——————————————————————————————————————————–

I have been playing Dungeons and Dragons and other Tabletop Roleplaying Games (TRPGs) for most of my life. It has helped shape my identity and allowed me to work through both identity and trauma within the bounds of the game. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that it would become as popular as it is today.

Introduction

Now 50 years after its inception, Dungeons & Dragons has a larger player base than ever before. This is possibly due to the popularity of actual-play podcasts such as Critical Role and Dimension 20 or shows such as The Big Bang Theory and Stranger Things. TRPGs give players the freedom to experiment with identity in ways that they would otherwise not have the ability to do. This is especially true for queer players. Historically the fanbase of Dungeons & Dragons has been cisgender straight white men, with people of colour, women and queer people being left out of the conversation around TRPGs generally. However, since the 2014 release of D&D5e, the community has become much more diverse. The TRPG community has become a place for people from all communities to meet and make friends. When the Covid-19 lockdowns people had to change their regular games from in-person to online, a shift that some players found difficult (Scriven, 2021). However, the shift to online play, as well as the rise of TikTok during the pandemic (Green et al., 2022) led to a thriving community of content creators making content about D&D. This put D&D and TRPGs into a new context, no longer was it kids sitting in dark basements or being nerdy white men around a coffee table, but actual people passionate about a game, inviting new players to join in the fun. In a New York Times piece, Amelia Diamond finds that marginalized peoples are the new forefront of the D&D community (Diamond, 2022). The TRPG community gave queer people a space that is accepting of who they are and, through platforms such as TikTok and Tumblr, the ability to help others find their identity through online play.

Growing up queer in a small country town is hard. I constantly had to hide who I was out of fear. My reprieve from that fear was playing D&D with a small group of friends, although they didn’t know that my half-elf fighter woman was me exploring who I wanted to be, or that the next character I played (Katt, another half-elf bard) would become the name I would take on for myself. As I got older and moved out of that place, I would become more open about my identity, but even now I still learn new things about myself through characters.

Meaningful Play and Queer Identity

Salen and Zimmerman discuss a concept called meaningful play, where at a basic level, meaning is derived from the relationship between an action taken in the game and the outcome within the broader context of the game (2004). Within the context of D&D and TRPGs, meaningful play occurs when players interact with each other, in character and feel the emotions that their characters feel (Sidhu & Carter, 2021). As players engage in this pivotal play, where they become their character, they are not only exploring the characters identity, but also their own (Hawley, 2014; Sidhu & Carter, 2021). Players might originally create a character to explore one facet of their identity such as gender, but as they spend more time with that character they are able to explore other facets through a concept of narrative empathy (Shepherd, 2021).  TRPGs allow queer and non queer players alike to try on different identities and see what fits. There are some that view trying different identities as inauthentic, and pressure is put on people to fit into one singular identity to be “authentic” especially on social media (Brusseau, 2019). However, public identity is nothing but a performance, and TRPGs give players a chance to test those performances before presenting them to the public (Rogers, 2020). Queer TRPG players take to social media to find people who are into the same things and build communities based on a shared identity as both queer individuals and TRPG players (Hawley, 2014; Papacharissi, 2010). These communities continue to grow as members belonging to other networks bring new people into the fold (Papacharissi, 2010). Players will often create characters specifically to explore one aspect of their identity that they can’t physically achieve, with a lot of queer players creating shape shifter characters (Kemp, 2023). Queer players make queer stories, which helps other queer people find their own identity.

Character work in TRPG is amazing, you can be anyone you want to be. One of my most recent D&D character was a Halfling Bard named Bree-Andry. She was young, queer, overtly feminine, and very happy with life. She lived and died helping others.

Play as Self-Discovery

Queer people often keep multiple identities, mostly as a safety mechanism because you never know when it’s safe to out yourself (Brusseau, 2019). In an increasingly networked society, the identity you put forth is who you are (Papacharissi, 2010). But how can queer people explore their identity without publicly outing themselves? Tabletop roleplaying games give people the opportunities to explore their identity in ways that are otherwise not available. There is a concept within game theory called the Magic Circle developed by Johan Huizinga, where play happens within certain boundaries that supersede the rules outside of the playspace (Kawitzky, 2020). The mechanics of TRPGs, notably character creation and subversive play offer queer players the ability to make their own stories (Fung, 2017). Through TRPG queer players can create a utopia where queer people are free and open, and through that, they (the players) can freely try on new identities, names, genders, sexual or romantic attachments (Kawitzky, 2020; Rogers, 2020). TRPGs offer affordances for telling stories that a lot of mediums struggle to imitate, with players working with the Game Master to tell a collaborative story in a world that is designed for the specific purpose of telling a story with those players (Kemp, 2023; Shepherd, 2021). Another aspect that makes TRPGs an amazing medium for exploring identity through storytelling is the player agency that players are afforded (Kemp, 2023).. The game pushes people to explore the edges of what is acceptable within society, transgressing social boundaries within the game world (Sidhu & Carter, 2023). Transgressive play within Dungeons & Dragons and TRPGs gives players the ability to learn new things about themselves, both positive and negative (Sidhu & Carter, 2023). As queer identity is largely seen as transgressive within society, queer players can latch onto this element of the game and meaningfully explore their authentic self.

The online TRPG community when I was growing up was a few forums and later Tumblr blogs posting information for Game Masters (GMs) or funny stories that happened in game. I had a hard time engaging with the community as a kid, but even back then I saw queer stories being shared, and it was something that helped me accept who I am. As an older teen, I moved to Tumblr and found more of a queer community, although I didn’t have a way to play with the people I met, I still felt that I was accepted there. 

Changing of the guard

Dungeons & Dragons has been on the fringes of society since the start, a game for social outcasts (Diamond, 2022). This led many people to come together over their shared interest in the game. People were drawn to the game from books and music, and a diverse community grew. Despite the overwhelming perception that the game was for cisgender straight white men, queer people and other marginalized groups have been involved on the fringes of the TRPG almost as long as it’s existed (Zagyg, 2022). D&D has suffered in the past, basically since the beginning, with not acknowledging other identities outside of straight white human male, with accusations of racism, sexism and homophobia levelled both at the game itself and the players (Garcia, 2017). However, as both Diamond and Zagyg attest, Dungeons & Dragons has a large and visibly queer audience today, which can be attributed to the prevalence of actual-play podcasts as well as social media platforms (Bosstick, 2021; Diamond, 2022; Zagyg, 2022). D&D was coming more into the mainstream, with celebrities such as Joe Manganiello, Stephen Colbert, and Vin Diesel being open about playing, with the latter appearing on the Critical Role podcast in late 2015 (Diamond, 2022; sandokanw73, 2010; Shepherd, 2021). These podcasts were and continue to be the entry way into the hobby for many new players. Actual-play podcasts, generally recorded live and mostly unscripted save for ads and introductions, provide listeners with a seemingly authentic representation of what D&D is, aside from having a professional cast and production (Bosstick, 2021).

Building a diverse community

Actual-play podcasts have diverse casts, can tell diverse stories and often explore queer identities (Bosstick, 2021). Queer fans of these podcasts took to social media looking for a virtual community that could introduce them into the game as their local communities either weren’t accepting or simply lacked the locations to play (Giordano, 2022; Kemp, 2023). Within the virtual D&D community, queer players found spaces that let them create and explore their identity more openly than they could in person (Kemp, 2023; Papacharissi, 2010). Platforms such as TikTok and Tumblr were refuges for queer players, where they could openly talk about their experiences in game as they experimented with their identity (Kemp, 2023).  During the Covid-19 lockdowns when the entire world seemed to stop, TikTok seemingly became full of D&D media, with people cosplaying their characters, using sounds from popular TV shows and movies and the TRPG community exploded (Diamond, 2022). TikTok creators were the new gateway into the hobby, bringing more authentic queer stories to the forefront (Diamond, 2022; Kemp, 2023). As wide spread as the community is, there is a sense of pervasiveness that allows people to form strong relationships with each other, for example, many queer D&D creators on TikTok have become close friends and often play together through virtual tabletops (Hampton, 2016; Hampton & Wellman, 2018). The visibility of queer stories in TRPG spaces helps new people coming into the hobby feel free to explore their own identities.

It took me almost 15 years to accept myself for who I am, and without the support of this community that I love, and the ability to find myself through my characters I might never have experienced all of the wonderful things this community has brought. 

Conclusion

As queer communities rose on TikTok around TRPGs and D&D, a wider range of people were able to work on discovering their own identities by building connections within the community. TRPG players engage in meaningful play to work through aspects of queer identity that are seen as transgressive or otherwise socially unacceptable. Queer people use TRPGs to tell queer stories, embracing their authentic selves. The TRPG and D&D community has finally started to shed its image of being for lonely losers sitting in their parents basement, with a lot of celebrities being vocal about their love of the game, as well as the hugely diverse content creators on platforms such as TikTok shepherding new people into the hobby.

 

References

Bosstick, H. (2021). “To Become Who You Wish to Be”: Actual-Play Tabletop Roleplaying Game Podcasts as Oral Storytelling Outlets for Queer Community, Representation, and Identity [M.A., Indiana State University]. https://www.proquest.com/docview/2572619608/abstract/3C71D5DA4C6F4245PQ/1

Brusseau, J. (2019). Ethics of identity in the time of big data. First Monday, 24(5). https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v24i5.9624

Diamond, A. (2022, May 21). Who’s Playing Dungeons & Dragons These Days? The Usual Fans, and Then Some. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/21/style/dungeons-and-dragons.html

Fung, C. (2017). Playing with Identities: Queering Digital Narratology and the Exploration of Gender and Sexual Identities—ProQuest. Digital Humanities Quarterly, 11(3). https://www.proquest.com/docview/2555196602?pq-origsite=gscholar&fromopenview=true&sourcetype=Scholarly%20Journals

Garcia, A. (2017). Privilege, Power, and Dungeons & Dragons: How Systems Shape Racial and Gender Identities in Tabletop Role-Playing Games. Mind, Culture, and Activity, 24(3), 232–246. https://doi.org/10.1080/10749039.2017.1293691

Giordano, M. J. (2022). Legitimate Peripheral Participation by Novices in a Dungeons and Dragons Community. Simulation & Gaming, 53(5), 446–469. https://doi.org/10.1177/10468781221119829

Green, D., Polk, X. L., Arnold, J., Chester, C., & Matthews, J. (2022). The Rise Of TikTok: A Case Study Of The New Social Media Giant. Management and Economics Research Journal, 8(1), 1–6. https://doi.org/10.18639/MERJ.2022.9900063

Hampton, K. N. (2016). Persistent and Pervasive Community: New Communication Technologies and the Future of Community. American Behavioral Scientist, 60(1), 101–124. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002764215601714

Hampton, K. N., & Wellman, B. (2018). Lost and Saved . . . Again: The Moral Panic about the Loss of Community Takes Hold of Social Media. Contemporary Sociology, 47(6), 643–651.

Hawley, I. (2014). Intersubjective imagination: Identity and community building within Dungeons & Dragons. Ethnographic Encounters, 5(1), Article 1. https://ojs.st-andrews.ac.uk/index.php/SAEE/article/view/1034

Kawitzky, F. R. (2020). Magic Circles: Tabletop role-playing games as queer utopian method. Performance Research, 25(8), 129–136. https://doi.org/10.1080/13528165.2020.1930786

Kemp, M. (2023). Cultivating Community and Belonging: Queer Rhetorical Practices in Virtual Dungeons & Dragons Games [Ph.D., Iowa State University]. https://www.proquest.com/docview/2858805755/abstract/B9D1DD0ADDEE4E25PQ/1

Papacharissi, Z. (2010). Conclusion: A Networked Self. In Z. Papacharissi (Ed.), A Networked Self: Identity, Community, and Culture on Social Network Sites. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203876527

Rogers, N. L. (2020). “A World Where They Belonged”: Queer Women’s Use of a Dungeons & Dragons Game to Experiment with, Express, and Explore Identity [M.A., San Diego State University]. https://www.proquest.com/docview/2490736949/abstract/F0CF8F9A06B842BEPQ/1

Salen, K., & Zimmerman, E. (2004). Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals (Library Catalog). The MIT Press; Library Catalog.

sandokanw73 (Director). (2010, March 16). Vin Diesel on Dungeons and Dragons. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36_-DauQi0s

Scriven, P. (2021). From Tabletop to Screen: Playing Dungeons and Dragons during COVID-19. Societies, 11(4), Article 4. https://doi.org/10.3390/soc11040125

Shepherd, T. (2021). Roll for Identity: A Study of Tabletop Roleplaying Games and Exploring Identity [M.A., University of Wyoming]. https://www.proquest.com/docview/2543475498/abstract/1FE954F940854374PQ/1

Sidhu, P., & Carter, M. (2021). Pivotal Play: Rethinking Meaningful Play in Games Through Death in Dungeons & Dragons. Games and Culture, 16(8), 1044–1064. https://doi.org/10.1177/15554120211005231

Sidhu, P., & Carter, M. (2023). Benevolent Transgressive Play in Dungeons & Dragons [D&D]. Simulation & Gaming, 54(6), 708–729. https://doi.org/10.1177/10468781231199824

Zagyg, S. (2022, June 5). [+] Pride Month- A Brief History of Representation in TTRPGs [Blog]. EN World Tabletop RPG News & Reviews. https://www.enworld.org/threads/pride-month-a-brief-history-of-representation-in-ttrpgs.689055/