THESIS APPROVAL SHEET

Title of Thesis: Meaning and Medium in Tabletop Roleplaying Games

Name of Candidate: Emily Parks

Master of Arts 2021

Thesis and Abstract Approved:

Jennifer Maher
Associate Professor
Department of English
2/10/2021 | 12:18:04 PM EST

NOTE: *The Approval Sheet with the original signature must accompany the thesis or
dissertation. No terminal punctuation is to be used.
Emily Parks

EDUCATION

MA, English Language and Literature/Letters (2018 - 2021)

University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Baltimore, MD

BA, English Language and Literature/Letters (2015 - 2018)

University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Baltimore, MD

AA, Creative Writing (2013 - 2015)

Anne Arundel Community College, Annapolis, MD

EXPERIENCE

Freelance Game Writer (May 2018 - Present)

Paizo, Inc., Redmond, WA (remote)
• Wrote informative articles and short interactive adventures for the Pathfinder and
Starfinder properties.
• Designed characters and dialogue for adventures.

Graduate Teaching Assistant (September 2018 - May 2020)

University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Baltimore, MD
• Crafted lesson plans for incoming students.
• Taught English 100 with minimal supervision

AWARDS

Philip J. Landon Award (2018)

Awarded by University of Maryland, Baltimore
County English Department

Malcolm C. Braly Award for Fiction (2017)

Awarded by University of Maryland, Baltimore
County English Department
 Abstract

Title: Meaning and Medium in Tabletop Roleplaying Games

Directed by: Dr. Jennifer Maher

Because the COVID-19 pandemic essentially restructured the way we live our lives,

many of us now do far more of our work, hobbies, and socializing online rather than in-

person. What this changed environment means in terms of satisfying our social needs is

not fully understood. To explore this question, I followed a group of Pathfinder

Roleplaying Game players as they navigated adjusting their formerly in-person weekly

game sessions to a virtual environment. While using a virtual tabletop platform for visual

collaboration and a voice chat program to speak with one another allowed the players to

hold sessions and didn’t appear to restrict their creative engagement with the game, the

restrictions of the virtual environment inhibited social interaction and in one case

worsened social anxiety for the players. This suggests that if we want to sustain online

collaborative work in the future, we may need to reevaluate our virtual communication

methods to better facilitate group-strengthening interactions.

MEANING AND MEDIUM IN TABLETOP ROLEPLAYING GAMES
Emily Parks

Thesis submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the

University of Maryland, Baltimore County in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the degree of
Texts, Technology, and Literature
2021
 ii

INTRODUCTION 1
CHAPTER ONE: Affect and Embodiment in Play and Games 7
CHAPTER TWO: Pathfinder’s Reality 21
CHAPTER THREE: Roll20’s Reality 41
CONCLUSION 55
WORKS CITED 57
 1

INTRODUCTION

Five people sit around a table, atop which is a one-inch, grided playing mat and several

piles of dice. An array of miniature figurines is spread over the mat, positioned as if

locked in combat. One player rolls a twenty-sided die.

“I got a 19. Do I hit?” he asks.

“Yes,” the Game Master says, checking her notes. “You crush the skeleton with

your war hammer. That’s the last enemy.” The rest of the players cheer.

“Now we keep going,” another player says, “we don’t know how much time we

have left to rescue the townspeople, and I’m worried the giants are going to hurt

my mom.”

In one reality, these people are a group of humans sitting around a table, laughing and

chatting and snacking on pizza bites. In another reality, they are a half-demon barbarian,

a half-orc spellcasting rogue, and a half-giant brawler trekking up a mountain to an

ancient fortress in search of kidnapped townspeople. In her study of roleplaying games,

Schallegger separates these understandings of reality into what she calls the primary and

secondary reality. In the above example, the eclectic, fantastical characters inhabiting the

secondary reality have been cultivated for years as secondary personas—that is, people

with personalities, goals, and bodies distinct and yet not distinct from their creators. The

player’s mother is obviously in no physical danger, but the character’s mother is, and

while engaging in creative storytelling, the attachment between player and character that

serves as their surrogate body is strong enough that players can develop feelings and

emotions--or affect--concerning events or characters in the game reality.

 2

Roleplay is an activity humans engage in for different reasons. It could take the

form of children acting out narratives of house or superheroes, or employees participating

in a simulation as part of their job training. Roleplaying games (RPGs) as a hobby

gaming genre gained popularity in the 1970s with the publication of Dungeons &

Dragons (D&D); the cover of the basic set is

shown in Figure 1. Dungeons & Dragons

and similar RPGs typically require players to

create a character and control that character

in a world and narrative mediated by the

players as a group. While it is possible to

roleplay without ”hard” rules, RPGs like

D&D incorporate codified rules and

mechanics that mediate conflict and

determine success or failure within the

Figure 1. Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set narrative.

Since roleplaying game rules tend to require extensive reading, reference, and

math skills to engage with the game material effectively, they can be difficult for younger

children to play without significant help (Curran 52). Demographic information specific

to tabletop RPG players is difficult to find, though Curran consolidates some existing

data on RPG players (including CRPGs and MMORPGs), and finds that “almost 40% of

all game players are women, and the average age of those who play games is 35 years”

(47), indicating the average age of RPG players is rising. When looking at demographics

for tabletop games in general, of which tabletop RPGs are only a subgenre, one
 3

researcher found most survey respondents were white men aged 25-44 (Booth). However,

Booth does point out the sample could have been skewed by the manner of data

collection and more research needs to be done.

Roleplaying games migrated from tabletop to electronic and online platforms with

the popularization of video games in the 1980s and 90s; since then, computer RPGs have

been a subject of much study, especially concerning their effects on players’ lives. With

the internet’s ability to connect thousands of players in the same secondary reality, the

massively multiplayer online roleplaying game (MMORPG) genre currently enjoys

significant popularity and success, although some research suggests there are multiple

negative consequences associated with playing MMORPGs. Di Blasi et al suggest that

gamers may use online RPGs as coping strategies for stress through escapism, which

might lead to such gamers getting addicted to the games (25), though Hussain et al point

out that it’s still difficult to pin down the prevalence of game addiction due to the

subjective definition of addiction (360). Even so, Berle et al suggest that MMORPG

players are more likely to self-report addiction than players of other video game genres

(112). These addicted—or “problematic”—players tend to self-assess their physical

appearance negatively, have low self-esteem, and enjoy gaming less than non-

problematic players, even if they play more frequently (Stirbu 4). In terms of avatar

identification—meaning the degree to which players identify with their game avatars—

some studies indicate that problematic players tend to view their avatar as superior to

themselves and wish to further resemble it in their lives outside of the game (Kuss and

Griffiths 283).
 4

However, that isn’t to say MMORPGs are an inherently harmful hobby. While

research on the benefits of RPGs is sparse, some studies indicate RPGs can have positive

effects on players. Stirbu points out “that innovation and creativity are higher among

MMORPG players” (4), which Mikhailova, in her study of high school students, expands

upon, finding that the students “involved in MMORPG [demonstrate] higher rates of

independence and positivity . . . a more developed ability for constructive leadership and

a higher level of innovation . . . higher originality, imagination and creative thinking” and

“higher rates of sense of humor than the students not involved in massive multiplayer

online role-playing games” (37). In addition, MMORPGs being inherently social games

means there are opportunities for players to socialize with one another. Kirby et al argue

“that players derived social support from fellow online gamers which is, in turn,

associated with improved wellbeing.” More specifically, this socializing can offer

“opportunity for communication, problem solving, teamwork and shared goals” (37).

While the results of these studies show that MMORPGs may have positive effects on

players, they are limited by sample size and there is room for much more research to be

done on the topic in the future.

In both computer RPGs and tabletop RPGs, player avatars—representations of the

player’s body within the secondary reality of the game—are an important part of the

gaming experience. Player avatars serve a vital purpose by providing the vehicle through

which players experience the rest of the game world. Much research has been done on

performance and embodiment in computer roleplaying games (CRPGs). Hussain and

Griffiths suggest that players gender swap as a social tool to be treated favorably by their

peers (52), while Hutchinson suggests that players rigidly police one another’s
 5

performative enactment to keep avatars operating within heteronormative societal

standards and react poorly when faced with the suspicion that a player and avatar might

not be as closely aligned as possible (231). Nielsen suggests that the ability to play and

interact with characters with varying identities can be a positive influence on gamers

(54).

However, researchers have not given the same kind of attention to these aspects of

play in tabletop RPGs, especially tabletop RPGs played through online platforms.

“Virtual tabletop” (VTT) platforms allow for gaming that is not quite conventional

tabletop RPG play, but also not a CRPG. Virtual tabletops allow RPG groups to meet

regardless of distance by using a computer screen and voice chat as a substitute for in-

person meetings. Research on VTT gaming is even more sparse than research on in-

person tabletop gaming, even though VTT platforms have been seeing more and more

use over time. This calls for research into the differences between conventional tabletop

and VTTs concerning how each platform mediates play experience. These differences

beg the question of how much—if any—research on CRPGs can be applied to RPGs

played on a VTT platform.

This thesis aims to address this gap by examining the play materialized in the

player/character/environment relationship in tabletop RPGs, using personal interviews,

audio recordings of sessions, and public discourse. Due to the current COVID-19

pandemic, this thesis will also be looking at how the presence or absence of physical

proximity affects these relationships, as partway through the research period the gaming

group being observed was forced to transition to online play because of safety concerns.

While this thesis specifically studies roleplaying games, this research could be applied to
 6

other collaborative, team-focused tasks that must be performed online due to current

events. Because part of the game was played in-person and later sessions were on a

virtual tabletop, this provides an opportunity to compare player experience and how it

differs based on medium.

 7

CHAPTER ONE: Affect and Embodiment in Play and Games

If one thinks of the concept of ‘play,’ images that come to mind might be children

playing hide and seek, two people playing a chess match, teams facing off in a

competitive sport, or perhaps a theatrical performance. In all of these examples, from the

exhilaration of physical activity, the carefully neutral expression so as to not give one’s

strategy away, or the purposeful depictions of affect and movement on a stage, play is

intertwined with emotion and the body. This goes for roleplaying games as well.

The study of RPGs derives from the study of games, which itself derives from the

study of play. Caillois defines play as:

a free activity standing quite consciously outside ‘ordinary’ life as being ‘not
serious,’ but at the same time absorbing the player intensely and utterly. It is an
activity connected with no material interest, and no profit can be gained by it. It
proceeds within its own proper boundaries of time and space according to fixed
rules and in an orderly manner. It promotes the formation of social groupings
which tend to surround themselves with secrecy and to stress their difference from
the common world by disguise or other means. (4)
In other words, for behavior to be considered play, it must take place “carefully isolated

from the rest of life, and generally is engaged in with precise limits of time and space”

(6); Games that take place in these spaces may or may not have explicit rules (8). Players

following game rules “by the very face of complying with their respective rules, [are]

separated from real life where there is no activity that literally corresponds to any of these

games” (8). Play must also be voluntary and unproductive (10), meaning that players

must have no reason to engage in play other than to derive enjoyment from the action

itself.

Caillois defines games further by presenting categories of games based on the

type of play dominant within them. These categories are agon (competition), alea

(chance), mimicry (simulation), and ilinx (vertigo) (Schallegger 53). RPGs typically
 8

possess all these traits in some capacity, though the degree can vary based on the

particular game.

Play-theory scholar Brian Sutton-Smith takes this definition further by offering

three theories for the function of play. In the first theory, Sutton-Smith refers to play as a

“viability variable,” meaning that “theoretically speaking, in this kind of ludic disaster,

play might be said to transcend emotionally the miseries of the world and allow escape

into these happier, private versions of that world, often conjured with cognitive even if

disgusting originality” (90). In essence, according to this theory play serves as a tool to

re-imagine life into something more palatable to the individual.

The second theory Sutton-Smith puts forth concerns teasing, specifically from a

parent to their child. He argues that play in the form of teasing trains a child to deal with

emotional surprises and possible distress, as well as reinforces the relationship between

parent and child, and helps the child form positive personal relationships throughout its

life (99). Sutton-Smith's third theory calls play a “coevolutionary multiplex of functions,”

meaning that play is a genetic instinctual or adaptational tool, such as an “imitative

representation” of a “defensive ritual” (111), which serves as a way for players to

reconcile with their environment and their ability to influence it.. Play, in this case,

“imitated conflict but removed its immediate dangers and reduced the tensions that

accompany such conflict. This play also had the potential benefit of providing exercise of

a kind that might subsequently help when real conflict occurred” (114).

In a similar vein to defensive rituals, Henricks points out that one advantage of

play is the control it offers players over their reality, which allows them to “gain

assurance about [their] powers (204). Henricks also identifies a type of play he refers to
 9

as “rebellion,” which “addresses the fact of the player’s subordination. Forces that are too

powerful must be taunted, defied, and evaded” (204). He points out that “discontinuity

and surprise” are things players enjoy in and of themselves, as well as because they serve

to “repair those disjunctions” of the real world during play.

While Sutton-Smith primarily focuses on children’s play—either with their

parents or other children—play can serve the same functions in the lives of adults. The

need to form or reinforce social bonds and temporarily indulge in escapist fantasies are

not needs unique to a specific age group.

While most research on play focuses on children, play in adults should not be

ignored. While play may look different for children and adults, that does not mean adults

do not play. Power argues that the concepts of play and development should not be

limited in scope to childhood, because adults experience development cognitively and

creatively throughout their lives as they age (318). Play in adults, Power argues,

manifests itself as “imagination and creativity” in that

Adults are capable of thinking “more flexibly, dynamically, and contextually than
children” (Fischer, Yan, and Stewart 2003, 493). When adults are in a playful
mood, they internalize the high jinks kids enjoy. Adults play with the boundaries
of their own thoughts and perceptions and with those of others—dynamically
exploring possible worlds in fantasies or creative writing; mixing and blending
conceptual spaces through satirical imitation or playful design; stretching and
breaking established schemas by engaging with art or being absurd; and bouncing
round otherwise solid and well-defended psychic structures using self-deprecating
humor or teasing others. (301)

Power characterizes play in adults as being about defamiliarizing one’s surroundings by

looking at the familiar in a new manner or perspective. Forms this can take are “involving

a pretend exploration of the familiar, a playful switch of perspectives, or a reflexive

investigation of mindset as much as environment” (304). Benefits offered by such

 10

behavior include “broadening our response repertoires and . . . building our resilience,

our adaptive ability to recover quickly from stressors and to bounce back from negative

emotional experiences” (312).

The above are functions that play and games serve, but of interest is also why

games are capable of performing this function. Schallegger argues that play is a

significant function” that “goes beyond the requirements of existence in primary

reality, beyond basic needs, and beyond social recognition and status, as it opens
up a secondary reality that is given existence and meaning by symbolic
exchanges, proliferating the meanings contained within and shaping the
semiosphere. (46)
She points out that while “Play establishes a framework separate from everyday

existence, it is not devoid of meaningful interactions with it” (46). Since play spaces are

separated from primary reality, they require the participants themselves to create order, or

else the space cannot be maintained (49).

This order that players establish typically ends up mirroring much of the order of

their primary lives. Schallegger points out that games are “inevitably well suited to

represent and affect the patterns and functions of the systems found in primary reality”

since “games are shaped by members of societies to express their own values and norms,

highlighting the procedural nature of the choices made and the system that constrains

player behavior” (56). Game rules, once a game becomes “institutionalized” (Caillois

27), “become part of its nature” and “transform it into an instrument of fecund and

decisive culture.” At this point, games “reflect the moral and intellectual values of a

culture, as well as contribute to their refinement and development” (27). Therefore,

studying the construction of secondary realities and player behavior within them can

provide insight into the construction and behavior in our primary reality. Another
 11

possible aspect of study is what medium is most effective in encouraging identification

with the secondary reality.

The rules governing these secondary realities have changed over time to further

facilitate player immersion. According to Schallegger, Gary Gygax, the creator of the

original Dungeons & Dragons tabletop RPG, was adamant that his creation was “a game,

not a simulation” (75), meaning his vision was of a combat simulator where the players

attempted to triumph over the obstacles the Game Master (GM) placed in their path.

Later game systems, such as Chivalry & Sorcery, emphasized a simulationist approach to

RPGs by charging “the GM with the task of administering and managing a fully

functional secondary reality on an intradiegetic (society, culture, laws of nature) and

extradiegetic level (rules, group dynamics)” (75). In the simulationist model, the GM

creates this secondary world with the expectation that the players will interact

meaningfully with it. Schallegger points out that an important part of playing an RPG is

negotiating “between the primary (or ‘commonsense’) reality shared by the players, the

social level, and the secondary reality (or ‘fantasy’) shared by their characters, the

narrative level” (91). These two ‘levels’ of reality are commonly referred to by players as

“in-character” and “out of character” activity and communication.

Since many RPGs are designed to immerse the players in a secondary reality,

affect naturally has an impact on the way the game is played and the relationships

between the players. Gregg and Seigworth define affect as “an impingement or extrusion

of a momentary or sometimes more sustained state of relation as well as the passage (and

the duration of passage) of forces or intensities” (1). The forces referred to as affect are:

visceral forces beneath, alongside, or generally other than conscious knowing,

vital forces insisting beyond emotion—that can serve to drive us toward
 12

movement, toward thought and extension, that can likewise suspend us (as if in
neutral) across a barely registering accretion of force-relations, or that can even
leave us overwhelmed by the world’s apparent intractability. (1)
Though the authors offer this definition, they also argue that “there is no single,

generalizable theory of affect: not yet, and (thankfully) there never will be” (3).

Figlerowicz calls affect theory “grounded in movements or flashes of somatic activity

rather than causal narratives of their origins and end points” (4). These “flashes” can be

conscious or unconscious, and can possibly help shape human understanding of the

world. For example, Fisher argues that “our notions of critique and justice are built out of

and structured around passionate experiences of anger” (qtd. in Figlerowicz 8).

Humans also communicate experience and affect to one another. As Fiehler points

out, “communication must be understood as multidimensional” (85), where certain

content is expressed through emotions. Humans—and therefore human communication—

have in the past been regarded as “cognitively determined, purposeful, rational, and

instrumental,” but communication is often not that. Even in games such as Pathfinder

where the object of the game typically requires cooperation, inter-player conflict can

arise from players’ conflicting emotions and desires that may not appear rational at first

glance. Even certain kinds of speaking tones can hurt feelings when no offense is meant,

or players can misinterpret one another based on how they evaluate one another’s moods.

One dimension of communication that needs to be considered is the technological

medium. There’s evidence that communication medium can affect the degree of

satisfaction people can receive from social interaction. One study found that “individuals

who engaged in a face-to-face interaction indicated that their basic social needs were

more satisfied and their mood more positive than individuals who engaged in a virtual
 13

interaction via an Instant Messenger Chat session” and that the participants found the

interaction more interesting and enjoyable in general (Sacco and Ismail 362).

Because much of the research on RPGs focuses upon computer roleplaying games

(CRPGs), especially of the massively multiplayer online roleplaying game (MMORPG)

genre, this research does not always translate to tabletop RPGs, as MMORPGs are an

environment where thousands of players share a space mediated by a computer and

tabletop RPGs are played by smaller groups of people and mediated by the players

together. While some might argue RPGs and CRPGs are close enough in type that

conclusions drawn about one could apply to the others, there are differences that call for a

closer look at RPGs as their own genre. It is important to note that while some aspects of

CRPG experience might be applicable to some parts of tabletop RPG experience, playing

a tabletop RPG through a virtual tabletop platform does not turn that game into a CRPG.

In a CRPGs, the role of GM is filled by a computer, while even on a virtual tabletop, the

role of GM is filled by one of the players. This difference is important, since having a

human mediator rather than a computer mediator drastically affects the constraints of the

game world and one’s gaming experience.

Computer roleplaying games have made significant advances over time in how

they engage players in the game world. As identified by Kuo et al, features that have the

greatest effect on player immersion are realistic, 3-D graphics alongside minute character

customization, which have “the additional effect of generating greater degrees of

telepresence, defined as believable immersion within a mediated (e.g., virtual)

environment” (102), as well as complex narratives. Kuo et al state that storytelling

beyond providing bare-bones motivations for the protagonist allows “for greater
 14

complexity in cinematic storytelling, such that game mechanics now exist to serve the

broader objective of advancing narrative” (102). Complex storytelling can grant players

greater levels of agency during play, such as “the opportunity to make in-game choices

that eventually shape the macro-narrative of the entire game universe” (103).

Unlike CRPGs, which typically feature high-quality visual and audio work

depicting the game’s secondary reality, tabletop RPGs rely primarily on spoken language

and imagination to visualize their game worlds. Because of this, as Schallegger points

out, each player’s secondary reality is “a personal variation of a shared narrative

architecture produced through configuration of the provided narrative elements, bringing

together the social and the psychological aspects mentioned earlier to maximize

immersion and thus identification” (93), meaning that because visualization is generally

the duty of the individual player, tabletop RPGs could possibly provide a greater ability

to identify with the secondary reality compared to CRPGs. CRPGs also use a computer in

place of a human GM for mediation.

Aside from the emphasis on personal creativity to create the game world and how

affect plays into a game, another feature that differentiates RPGs and CRPGs is the

difference in character embodiment. Embodiment refers to how players understand their

relationship to the characters they control in the secondary reality, as well as to the play

environment in general. Embodiment is the idea that “the body—including behaviors and

properties such as facial expression, movement, prosody, gesture, and posture—

influence, and at the same time are influenced by the mind” (Tschacher and Bergomi vii).

In terms of games, this means that the way a person physically engages with the game

pieces and other players influences how that person experiences the game as a whole.
 15

Tools, such as game pieces and other objects used during play, especially those

intended to represent the player character, provide an example of the body extending

beyond the skin of an organism in a way Hirose discusses:

Tools and attachments change the user’s effectivities. This change leads to
changes in affordances of the environment. In order to adapt to the environment,
the user must retune their perception of affordances. Furthermore, the user should
modify perception of his/her own body. Accordingly, what was discussed so far
implies that tools and attachments extend the boundary of the body. (236)
In other words, tool-use alters what a body is capable of doing to its environment, and

therefore altering the perception of the body, thus becoming part of the body. In this way,

it is possible for game avatars—as representations of the player’s body—to extend the

conventional boundaries of the body as well. Gee argues that the virtual mind and virtual

bodies of video game characters “become the player’s surrogate mind and body,” because

while playing as a character, players must “attribute certain mental states (beliefs, values,

goals, feelings, attitudes, and so forth) to the virtual character” and “take them as a basis

for explaining the character’s actions in the world” (258).

Game avatars can also serve as tools players can use to make sense of the world in

which they live. In this way, game avatars “model simulations to help us prepare for

action in the world” (Gee 256). Players can use these simulations to “test out what

consequences follow before [they] act in the real world” through roleplay, or “role-play

another person in the model and try to see what motivates their actions or might follow

from them before [they] respond to them in the real world” (256). When roleplaying as

another person, players can “run simulations that reflect perspectives and values [they] do

not believe in or even value by running a simulation from the perspective of someone

else” (257), allowing players to understand people unlike themselves. Gee extends this

connection between virtual and “real” life by arguing that humans themselves act as
 16

virtual characters when acting in the world by “taking on specific identities such as

‘tough cop,’ ‘sensitive male,’ ‘hip young adult’” (261) and the like in a world made

virtual by “construing the world in certain ways and not others.” (261). In this view, one

can see how “video games build on and play with a stance that is the norm for effective

physical and social human action in the world” (261). While Gee is discussing CRPGs,

his conclusions concerning roleplay can be applied to tabletop RPGs as well.

CRPGs typically allow players to design their characters by selecting from pre-

programmed options in their graphics engine, while RPGs typically have no such tool

built into their systems. How tabletop RPG players visualize and identify with their

characters is a topic that has not seen as much attention as it has in a CRPG context. This

aspect of both game genres is of interest because of the effects it could have on how

players engage with the larger world. Nielsen argues that CRPGs “offer those who do not

want to play a straight male avatar the opportunity to develop and explore identities

through characters in ways that other genres do not” (47). Additionally, the “diversity of

representation found in RPGs” allows players to “participate in the potentially fruitful

criticism of stereotypes and the ability to interact with players and characters different

from themselves” (47). While Nielsen refers primarily to CRPGs, in this instance the

same concepts are transferable to tabletop games as well, since most tabletop RPGs offer

a wide breadth of character options.

Methodology

To understand how issues of creativity, affect, and embodiment function during

gameplay, I recorded multiple play sessions with the participants’ knowledge and consent

and interviewed the participants individually about their experience playing RPGs. While
 17

there are countless tabletop roleplaying games, each with its own distinct rules and

guidelines for play, I choose to focus on only one game because I am particularly

interested in the differences between physical and in-person play within the same game

system. I emphasize one game in my analysis: The Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. To get

a sense of how Pathfinder as a rules-set guides play, I examine the rhetoric in the

Pathfinder Core Rulebook to see how it relates to actual in-person play, as well as how

applicable and useful that guidance is for VTT play. I will also look at the guidance

offered by Roll20, an online platform specifically designed to host tabletop RPGs in a

virtual space.

For insight into the differences between physical and virtual tabletop play, I will

do a brief analysis of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game and the virtual tabletop platform

Roll20 to provide context for these games, followed by a case study of a group of

Pathfinder players transitioning from in-person so online play. While single case studies

cannot be said to produce conclusions universal to human experience, what they can do is

“create knowledge which is capable of being re-situated . . . without creating

decontextualized or depersonalized abstractions” (Cornish 146). Tabletop roleplaying

games are typically played in small, highly personalized groups who often play together

for months or years at a time and have their own preferences and styles of play.

Therefore, a case study of a single group of players—while incapable of producing

universal conclusions—may offer some insight into the relationships between players,

their environment, and the game world.

A case study also provides the opportunity to examine the minute details and

changes between in-person and online play, something that a broader type of study may
 18

lack. To get a sense of how people play these games in practice, I studied the behavior

and interaction of a group of Pathfinder players as they transitioned from an in-person to

an online meeting space. This case study consists of five participants in their mid to late

twenties: Arthur, Jane, Jack, Oz, and me. The names used in this thesis are pseudonyms

chosen by me. All participants are white; three are men and two are women, and three

openly identify as members of the LGBTQ+ community. Oz and I have played RPGs on

and off together for roughly 15 years. Jane first played with me roughly six years ago,

and Arthur and Jack first played with me roughly four years ago. Jane, Jack, and Oz

played various tabletop games before joining this particular play group, but this game

was Arthur’s introduction to playing tabletop RPGs.

The game played during the recorded sessions is a prewritten Adventure Path

(AP) published by the company Paizo, which also owns the Pathfinder game. Paizo

describes APs as

the premiere monthly resource for your fantasy roleplaying campaign. Every
month, the Pathfinder Adventure Path brings you a new installment of a 6-part
series of interconnected quests that together create a fully developed plot of
sweeping scale and epic challenges.
In each volume of the Pathfinder Adventure Path, you'll meet nuanced
characters, visit fantastical locations, face deadly foes, and learn ever more about
nefarious plots and an incredible world forged by some of the most popular
authors and artists in fantasy gaming. (Paizo.com)
 19

While AP volumes are released at a rate of one per month, with the implication that

groups will play through an entire

volume each month and therefore finish

the game in six months, it is not

uncommon for APs to run longer than

that depending on player preference.

The AP this group plays, the cover for

which is shown in Figure 2 below, is

called Rise of the Runelords, frequently

shortened to “Runelords”. We have

been playing this specific game once a

week for roughly three years. Several

Figure 2. Rise of the Runelords Anniversary Edition other players have come and gone, and

these players have remained the core members of the group.

The Runelords group played in-person at my home for most of its existence until

March 2020, when stay-at-home advisories became commonplace in the United States

due to concerns about COVID-19. After that, we switched to playing on Roll20, a VTT

platform designed to replace a physical tabletop to allow players to play games over long

distances. This, along with voice chat software such as Discord, became the new normal

for many tabletop gamers in the wake of COVID-19. While at this point all of the case

study participants could be considered experts in terms of knowledge of the game rules

and group conventions and expectations, most of the participants were not familiar with

Roll20 when the transition happened.

 20

To see how these game decisions guide actual play and players, I recorded the

audio from several in-person and online play sessions with each player’s knowledge. I

also gave the players sets of written questions to answer on their own time, and later

individually interviewed each player, sometimes using their written responses to guide

the interviews in order to highlight areas of play that most interest them. Gathering data

through published materials, during authentic play sessions, and in one-on-one interview

sessions was intended to better triangulate the data and ensure as clear a picture as

possible.
 21

CHAPTER TWO: Pathfinder’s Reality

The first edition of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, the core rulebook of which is

shown in Figure 3 below, was published in 2009 by Paizo Publishing. Its rules system is

based on the 3.5 edition of Dungeons and

Dragons. Since 2009, Paizo has published

hundreds of supplemental texts for the

game, introducing new setting material,

monsters, and other content players can

use in their games. In 2019, ten years after

the game launched, Paizo overhauled the

rules and released a second edition of the

game.

Pathfinder, like most tabletop

Figure 3. The Pathfinder Core Rulebook

RPGs, has traditionally been played in-

person at a physical table.

For a typical in-person has an

average of three to eight

players. Figure 4 to the left

depicts a group of people

playing Pathfinder (Images

of the case study group

playing in-person were

Figure 4. In-Person Play unavailable because we

 22

could not get together in person, so this image was taken from Paizo.com, the Pathfinder

publisher’s official website). Each player, aside from the GM, has a character sheet, the

front and back of which are shown in Figures 5 and 6 below. Character sheets serve as a

record of a player character’s important statistics, such as what weapons, equipment, and

skills they have.

Figure 5. Character Sheet, Front Figure 6. Character Sheet, Back

Players will generally also each have at least one set of dice. Example dice sets

are shown in Figure 7 below. These dice are used to determine the outcome of events that

occur in the game reality. To determine the outcome of an action, a player rolls a die, and

the die result is modified by the

values on the character sheet (to

reflect the character’s level of

skill) to determine the success or

Figure 7. Dice
failure of an action. The GM
 23

determines the difficulty of these rolls. For example, a player wishes to convince a

nonplayer character (NPC) shopkeeper to give them a discount on an item. The player

would roll a twenty-sided die (d20) and add their character’s Diplomacy modifier. If the

player rolls a 7 and the character has a +10 Diplomacy modifier, their result would be a

17. If the GM decides the player needs a 15 to persuade the shopkeeper, the player would

succeed. However, the GM, as the primary arbiter of the game world, can decide how

easy or difficult actions should be based on what best serves the shared narrative. For

example, if the player character was roleplaying and behaving rudely to the shopkeeper,

succeeding at the roll might be more difficult to reflect the shopkeeper having taken

offense. Conversely, if the player roleplays and verbally presents a convincing argument

as to why they should receive a discount, the GM may make the roll easier to reward the

player for engaging creatively with the world.

Since much of the game is based around creativity and narrative, play sometimes

turns into a debate as to how hard it should be to succeed at an action, with players

attempting to convince the GM that, for example, since the player characters just saved

the town from a dragon, the shopkeeper should be more willing to give them a discount.

The GM might accept the players’ reasoning and adjust the difficulty accordingly, or they

might remain unconvinced. Play proceeds in this manner, with the same mechanic used

to resolve other actions, such as fighting monsters.

In scenarios where the players want to better visualize what’s taking place in the

game reality, the GM can use tools to depict the scene. For example, Figure 8 below

depicts the player characters engaging in combat with an enemy in a building drawn in
 24

red marker. GMs use maps when it is important for every player to have the same

understanding of the imagined space.

Figure 8. Hand-Drawn Map

In both the official rulebooks and observations during play, I identified several

aspects of the game that constitute creativity, affect, and embodiment in both play

guidelines and play in practice. Pathfinder’s written rules and guidance are juxtaposed

with the personal experiences of the case study participants in the form of audio

recordings from in-person play sessions in order to analyze how players grapple with

these rules in personalized play.

Creativity

Power discusses adult play as engaging “with the boundaries of their own

thoughts and perceptions and with those of others—dynamically exploring possible

worlds in fantasies or creative writing; mixing and blending conceptual spaces through

satirical imitation or playful design” (201). Such play can be seen in how Pathfinder

players engage with the game and one another, as well as in how the game is marketed.

While Paizo sells detailed play mats and character miniatures, the company makes clear

that such tools are not necessary to play the game. The Pathfinder Core Rulebook
 25

suggests ‘theater of the mind’ as a valid style of play, meaning play where the GM

verbally describes a scene and the players verbally describe what their characters do in

response. Verbal storytelling is so important to play that the book states, “First and

foremost, the Game Master is a storyteller . . . The Game Master must be able to craft

stories and to translate them into a verbal medium” (396). In the same place, the book

also informs the reader that potential GMs should be entertainers putting on a

performance for their players: “A Game Master is on stage, and his players are his

audience” (396).

By inviting the reader to “enter a world,” which implies that simulation and

submerging into a secondary reality is the primary goal of play, Paizo introduces the

reader to the Pathfinder Core Rulebook (the cover of which is shown in Figure 3 at the

beginning of the chapter), and thereby the entirety of the Pathfinder game. The book

expands upon and reinforces this by stating that the game “puts you in the role of a brave

adventurer fighting to survive in a world beset by magic and evil.” With this sentence, the

intended behavior for a player submerged in Pathfinder’s secondary reality is made clear:

players are expected to be brave opponents of “magic and evil.” Based on this distinction,

one can assume that the players are also expected to embody the opposites of those

things: “not magical” and “good.” This description speaks to Caillois’ categories,

‘simulation’ appears to be the dominant focus for this game. However, in this game the

simulation aspect heavily relies on creative input from each player, since the secondary

reality is crafted and maintained cooperatively by the players through exchange with the

GM: “the Game Master describes the events that occur in the game world, and the players

take turns describing what their characters do in response to those events” (8).
 26

Creativity is an aspect of tabletop RPGs that members of the play group brought

up as important to them. Jack expresses enjoyment in crafting new personas through the

characters he roleplays. He states that when playing RPGs, “I get to become another

person . . . from the ground up, I create a new persona, and that is a level of creative

agency I can’t find even in video games.” Jack states that his game personas can have

“different morals and history” compared to himself.

Jane indicates storytelling is an interest to her as well, though she presents the

issue differently than Jack. Jane states that RPGs offer “escapism” that appeals to her

because of “mental health issues,” which escapism through storytelling helps her

alleviate. Jane especially enjoys “building a character and figuring out who that character

is as [she goes],” which evokes an emotional rather than physical form of Caillois'

vertigo, in that there is the implication of potential unknown results in discovery during

play. It also brings to mind what Nielsen argues about RPGs fostering the ability to

explore other identities. Jane also mentions that the storytelling in tabletop RPGs is

typically cooperative, in that each player contributes their ideas to the narrative, which is

something she believes “doesn’t really exist in other hobbies.”

Oz lists several reasons he plays tabletop RPGs; in contrast to Jack and Jane, his

reasons are not focused primarily on creativity and narrative. He states that he enjoys

“strategic games, games with a good multiplayer or social component, games that tell a

story, and the occasional 2-D platformer.” These interests led him to Pathfinder because

it is “played in turn-based strategy, is inherently social as it cannot be played without at

least a few friends, and builds upon those social interactions in a way that tells an

engaging story.” The social and storytelling aspects are both themes that other
 27

participants brought up, but the strategy theme is something only Oz mentions. One of

Oz’s storytelling interests is creating a character that is very unlike himself. He describes

Tavega, the character he plays in the Runelords game, “as right-wing,” which is a view

he states he doesn’t share. He says he has a lot of fun roleplaying a character that says

and thinks things that are “outside the scope of [his] own personality and beliefs.” When

asked why he finds this type of play fun, Oz says

I don’t know, I guess you get to be someone different. I kind of like a little
separation between myself and my character. Just because I want to drop a
character in the world and have some specific and often outlandish belief that they
have actually shape the course of the plot and the game. I like my characters to be
different enough that if you take one character and put it in one world and one
character and put it in the other one’s world, if that’s how they started, then the
plots would be completely different. I want to respond to a situation as a
character, and I want a character to be unique enough that they have a particular
way, that really only they would have that response to that particular situation.

Oz’s interest in playing through a different perspective and mindset, and how that

mindset would impact one’s environment, speaks to Power’s analysis of adult play. It

also speaks to Gee’s suggestion that roleplay can allow players to reflect on perspectives

and values they themselves do not possess in order to better understand those that do.

Oz’s interest in the ways his character choices can change the game’s world also speaks

to Kuo et al’s point about the possibilities of in-game choices with game-world-shaping

consequences serving as tools of greater player agency and immersion.

Given Oz’s explicit interest in exploring other perspectives, it is not surprising to

me that he is the only member of the Runelords group that plays a character that does not

match his gender identity. Oz is male, while his character Tavega is female. He believes

that the choice to play a female character has “opened [his] eyes in a way to how as

writers, as players of a game, we sort of are, or can be limited in how we approach that
 28

trope, and even, there are sort of those issues of perception like I said, sort of how men

and women face different perceptions and realities in the real world as well.” This echoes

Gee’s argument that game avatars can help players “prepare for action in the world”

(256).

Though the game world is mostly defined by the players, the Pathfinder Core

Rulebook does offer guidance into its expected design, such as when the book asks

readers the question “Will you cut your way through monster-filled ruins and cities rife

with political intrigue to emerge as a famous heroes laden with fabulous treasure, or will

you fall victim to treacherous traps and fiendish monsters in a forgotten dungeon?” This

description, along with mechanical rules built around combat, implies the ubiquity of

violence in the secondary reality, by implying that “monster-filled ruins” and “cities rife

with political intrigue” are dangerous locations that must be “cut” through. Additionally,

by doing that cutting, the players will become “famous hero[es] laden with fabulous

treasure,” meaning that within the presupposed game world the book presents, violent

behavior is materially rewarded. Also presented is the idea that the one alternative to

performing violence is succumbing to violence, with the suggestion that those who do not

excel at violence will “fall victim to treacherous traps and fiendish monsters,” which is

likely intended as an analogue for losing the game. However, the paragraph concludes by

informing readers that “your fate is yours to decide!” This implies that player agency

regarding gameplay choices is an emphasized value, but the effect is inhibited by the

binary choices presented earlier in the paragraph. Freedom within a prescribed set of

choices is a theme that continues throughout the book, such as the options presented to
 29

players for character species, class (warrior, wizard, thief, etc.), and skills. Granted,

Pathfinder’s existence as a game means that some amount of rules are necessary.

Even so, it is clear that the intended appeal here is that players are offered the

opportunity for greater control over the game world than they have in their personal lives.

One can also see Pathfinder at work as Sutton-Smith’s “viability variable,” in that it

allows players to escape into a “happier, private [version] of th[eir] world” in which they

are the unambiguous ‘good guys,’ their opponents are the unambiguous ‘bad guys,’ and

the players have the authority to decide their own fate, granting them an escape from a

life in their primary reality that may feel comparatively lacking in choice. This, as well as

the invitation for players to become “famous hero[es] laden with fabulous treasure” also

brings to mind Henricks’ points about play as a way for players to “gain assurance about

[their] powers.” Potential Pathfinder players are told that in the world of the game, they

will be able to attain a sense of control and personal agency in the secondary reality. The

invitation to combat (and hopefully triumph over) “evil” could be seen as a form of

Henricks’ rebellious play.

Affect

Affect comes into play both in terms of the moods the players are in and what

emotions or affects the players “try on” while roleplaying their characters. The

Pathfinder Core Rulebook acknowledges that player affect influences the game before

the players even enter the game world. It informs potential GMs that “it’s your

responsibility to see that your players have a comfortable, enjoyable place to game,

otherwise the game itself will suffer” (402), thereby acknowledging physical comfort as a
 30

“visceral force” (Gregg and Seigworth 1) capable of influencing thought and emotion

during a game.

In addition to the affect with which players enter the game space, there is a

complimentary affect players experience as a result of storytelling during gameplay. In

the following exchange, the GM narrates a scene and the players express emotions in

response.

Emily: The young giant, who was probably not more than seventeen in giant
years, falls--
...
Arthur: . . . I forgot to use nonlethal damage. Oof. Feels bad. Killed the teenager.
For the second time.
Jack: Oh. Forgot these are also some of the dumb kids that we need to knock out.
Arthur: You can do it at no penalty.
Jack: I fucked up.
Arthur: Yeah, me too.

Arthur’s words and tone express sadness because his character accidentally killed an

NPC, meaning a character controlled by the GM and not by any of the other players.

Killing the NPC in this instance had no quantifiable negative consequence to Arthur or

any of the other players, but because of his emotional engagement with the game world,

he feels sad for the unnecessary loss of life. Arthur brings up his sadness again a minute

later when discussing with Oz what Oz should do on his next turn, showing that the

emotion is still moving him toward specific actions:

Arthur: Are you going to nonlethal? I feel kind of bad about killing that one, to be
honest.
Oz: I am not plus all that much to hit, anyways. And I am going to [use] combat
expertise.
Arthur: So, so that’s a no on the nonlethal?
Oz rolls a critical hit1 on the giant Arthur is trying to convince him not to kill.

1
Rolling a 20 on a twenty-sided die when attacking, which doubles the damage the attack does.
 31

Arthur: Fuck.

In this instance, Arthur’s feelings motivate him to try and convince Oz not to kill another

NPC, and he expresses more sadness when Oz kills the NPC anyway.

GMs can also use these feelings to further engage the players. In the following

exchange, the GM plays on Arthur’s feelings in order to further emotionally engage the

players in the game. This takes place after the previous exchanges, where Arthur has

expressed feeling bad about killing the NPC:

Emily: This one, seeing the lifeless body of her companion, charges in!.
...
Emily: (as the giant) “Noooooooo!”
Jack: Oh, now I feel bad.
Arthur: Yeah, that doesn’t feel good.

Here, the GM describes the emotions of an NPC in order to play against the emotions of

the players. While Arthur was the one who originally killed the NPC and provoked an

emotional response, the GM playing out the emotions of other NPCs in response to

Arthur’s actions allows other players, like Jack in this instance, a chance to feel those

emotions as well.

The emotions this event evoked in Arthur stayed with him, as he brings them up

again more than ten minutes later, this time amplified from ‘feeling bad’ to ‘feeling like a

fucking monster’:

Arthur: Well I’m glad she didn’t, because they triple-crit. That’d be terrible. I
don’t want to kill two of these things. I feel like a fucking monster already.

And again, when he believes one of the other players intends to attack an unconscious

enemy:

Emily: Alright. Darvan2?

2
The name of Jack’s character.
 32

Jack: I will give her a flurry3.

Arthur: What?
Jane: She’s unconscious.
Jack: Oh.
Arthur: Jesus Christ . . . God damn murderer. What the fuck. “Yeah, she’s
down. I’m going to pound her brains out into the stone.” God. Literally
what the fuck.
In addition to Arthur’s situation, there are other ways emotions, whether roleplayed or

sincerely felt, influence gameplay. The following exchange comes a moment when the

group is discussing how to best proceed while trying to rescue kidnapped townspeople—

including the mother of one of the characters—and one player suggests a temporary

retreat:

Jack: But we can’t leave, my mom will die!

Arthur: I know, Darvan. I have no intention of doing that.

Jack is taking on the affect and emotions he deems appropriate for his character in the

situation he is in. He expands on this a minute later, when the players are discussing

which of their characters should be cured of a blindness curse first:

Jack: I just want it for narrative reasons. There’s no legitimate logic for Darvan
getting it first, but he’d want to be unblind so he can feel more useful for fighting
for his mom.

Jack makes his intentions with his actions known. He is not playing his character

according to the logic of what decisions would be most mechanically sound in terms of

the players succeeding at the combat challenges posed to them by the GM, but instead on

how he believes his character would act based on the character’s feelings. How Arthur

and Jack roleplay through the regret and anxiety they believe their characters would feel

speaks to Power’s assertion that perspective switching and exploration in adult play can

3
The name of an attack.
 33

help build “our adaptive ability to recover quickly from stressors and to bounce back

from negative emotional experiences” (312). While the specific instances that provoked

these emotional responses within the game world are unlikely to happen to the players in

their primary lives, they can still potentially serve as “practice” in dealing with

distressing events.

While roleplaying emotional responses can help further engage players in the

game reality, this comes with the risk of players becoming legitimately distressed during

play, to a point where their distress disrupts the game completely. Arthur uses this point

to distinguish tabletop RPGs from video games. He believes that “because there’s no real

people who react to what you’re doing in a video game,” moments of conflict in video

games are not as emotionally charged as they are in tabletop RPGs. In other words,

moments where a “line” is crossed in terms of game content are less upsetting in CRPGS,

because “there’s an interface there. It’s not another person thinking that up organically in

the same room as you,” meaning that the social, cooperative aspects of tabletop RPGs

create more constraints on behavior and content. Since Pathfinder by nature requires a

group of people to play, when these emotional lines are crossed, the players must

navigate and somehow rectify that conflict in order to resume play.

The study participants frequently engaged in light-hearted teasing during play,

both in the primary reality between players, and the secondary reality between player

characters. While Sutton-Smith mentions teasing primarily as a form of bonding and

emotional exercise between parent and child, Power points out teasing occurs within peer

groups of adults as well (301), including the Runelords group. Teasing during gameplay

can serve as a way to reinforce the social bonds between the players, and to challenge
 34

group power dynamics. Immediately before the following exchange, I, as the GM,

informed Arthur an enemy rolled poorly while attempting to attack his character and

asked him to give me a card from a deck that would randomly determine the outcome of

the poor roll. In response, in jest, Arthur flicked the card in my direction instead of

placing it in my hand:

Emily: It’s not going to crit fail now because you just threw something at me.
Arthur: I threw it to you!
Oz: Do you prefer it handed? (hands Emily the card)
Emily: Thank you.
Oz: You’re welcome.
Emily: No. Throwing things isn’t nice. So . . . he’s not going to.
Jack: Cancelled.
The group essentially comes together to tease Arthur for throwing the card. In doing so,

they playfully criticize what is perceived as rude behavior, while also providing an

example of polite behavior. This also serves as an example of how being in a shared

physical space enables certain interactions, since throwing a physical object to another

person is not possible when playing using a virtual tabletop platform.

The following exchange is also only possible because the game is taking place at

a physical table.

Jane: Why didn’t we use the mat?

Emily: Because then I would have had to put it on the table.
Jane: oh, god, noooo. You poor baby.
Jack: “Emily: I need more time to prepare and write for Runelords.” Also Emily.
Emily: Leave me alone.
Here, physical constraints again affect the gameplay and create the opportunity for

teasing. Instead of placing the game mat on the table and drawing out the map, I opted to

use “theater of the mind” and verbally describe the situation the player characters were

in. Jane and Jack did not think my approach was the most effective one for the game and

teased me for perceived laziness. Since the GM is typically thought of as the most
 35

powerful player because they mediate the setting and the rules, Jane and Jack’s teasing

also essentially challenges established power dynamics within the group in a non-hostile

manner. In other words, the GM failed to meet a certain standard of preparedness and

was criticized for it.

Embodiment

Players use their bodies during gameplay as both their own and their character’s

body. The Pathfinder Core Rulebook addresses issues related to embodiment first by

placing the onus on the GM for ensuring the other players’ bodily comfort by “prepping

the play area for guests” (401). It is also the GM’s duty to arrange accommodations for

long play sessions, such as making sure the players are not only fed, but fed healthy food:

“while it’s tempting to load up with potato chips and soda pop, gaming is no excuse for

poor health!” (402). The paragraph finishes by informing the potential GM that “it’s your

responsibility to see that your players have a comfortable, enjoyable place to game,

otherwise the game itself will suffer” (402).

In addition to healthy food and a comfortable play space, the “rulebook, a few

friends, and a handful of dice” (5), and “a character sheet (which can be photocopied

from the back of this book) and, if the GM uses a map to represent the adventure, a small

figurine to represent your character” (8) are also listed as necessary for play. During play,

players are encouraged to project themselves onto tokens that act as physical

representations of their characters. While the rulebook encourages players to use a

figurine, typically any token small enough to fit inside a one-inch square would suffice.

Jane considers physical pieces on a table an important part of the play experience, saying

in her interview that it is easier to play on a physical tabletop because of “something

 36

about just seeing the pieces on the table,” though she acknowledges that feeling may be

primarily because physical tabletop is the medium she is most accustomed to since it is

the way she has played such games since she was a child. In a similar vein, Arthur

mentions that the ability to “physically do things with a paper and pencil,” is one of the

aspects of tabletop RPGs that originally drew him to such games.

Example miniatures produced by Paizo are shown in Figure 9 below. These

miniatures—along with many other Paizo sells—depict named, established characters

that appear in other Paizo works. The book states that figurines “come in a wide variety

of styles, so you can probably find a miniature that relatively accurately depicts your

character” (8), making it clear that completely faithful depictions of a player’s character

are likely impossible, meaning a player must typically compromise and project their

character onto an imperfect representation.

Imperfect representation can

lead to misunderstandings. In the

following example, the enemies the

player characters are fighting do not

match what is depicted on the figurines

I chose to use, because I did not have

accurate figurines on hand. Because of

this, Arthur assumes that the enemies

are supposed to be wielding clubs

because that is what the figurine

depicts: Figure 9. Paizo Figurines

 37

Arthur: Oh, he needs to . . . make a Reflex save.

Emily: Uh, he doesn’t, actually. He slams you.
Arthur: Sorry, I thought he was using a club, from the pawn.
Emily: No. The pawn is not representative of what this creature is.
Arthur: I assumed he was using a club or something.
Oz: What do they have?
Emily: Fists.
While I could have purchased the correct figurines or found pictures online, printed them,

and made my own, those are both barriers (in cost or effort/resources) in place for

physical tabletop play. Far less time and resources are required to make accurate tokens

for virtual play.

Alongside figurines, dice can serve as physical representations of player

characters. Physical dice can be made in many different styles, and some players

sentimentally attach certain sets of dice to certain characters they play. For many players,

it is a popular practice to use a set of matching dice during play. This has led to the

creation of companies that almost solely manufacture and sell sets of themed dice. As an

example of this popularity, one such company recently held a fundraiser on the

crowdfunding website Kickstarter to fund a new line of dice that began with a goal of

$20,000 and raised more than $1,000,000 (“Iconic Mythical Collection RPG Dice Sets by

Kraken Dice”). This interest in dice was reflected in Jack’s interview. He believes that

every die is different, and every character is different, and that’s the interesting
part, being able to express your character. Like the closest thing in real life to
your character is the dice you use . . . at least to me, that is what exemplifies the
character. That is, their agency in the made up world. Because they exist on paper,
and the representation that you chose to give them is the dice that you pick.
Jack describes in detail the dice he uses for his character Darvan and how the colors and

texture represent the character’s story and personality. He also describes how he changed

the dice he used during games to represent Darvan’s character development. In addition

to the dice’ appearance, the tactile experience of rolling dice is so important to Jack that
 38

he describes it as “peak roleplay.” He states that “there’s literally no way to perfectly

simulate having dice in your hand and throwing dice . . . onto the table.”

In addition to figurines, the core rulebook instructs potential GMs to get “some

sort of screen you can use to hide your notes, maps, and dice rolls behind” (8). A ‘GM

screen’ imposes a physical barrier separating the players from the GM and conceals

important information from the players.

The Pathfinder rulebook presents two different options in how to handle combat

scenarios in the game, and each of these options calls for different tools. The first,

mentioned previously, is theater of the mind—meaning play where the GM describes a

scene and the players describe what their characters do in response--relies primarily on

verbal exchange, while the second is described as follows: “you can draw the situation on

a piece of paper or a specially made battle mat and allow the characters to move their

miniatures around to more accurately represent their position during the battle” (8).

Figure 10, shown here, is intended to depict docks. Using a pre-drawn map is in many

ways a double-edged sword in terms of both

imagination and embodiment. On one hand, a

pre-drawn map allows players to more easily

imagine their characters existing in the space the

map depicts since there is a strong visual already

in place. On the other hand, most pre-drawn maps

are not customizable and are therefore limited in

the types of scenes they can convey. An

alternative to using a pre-drawn map is for the

Figure 10. Pre-Drawn Map
 39

GM to draw their own on a blank mat or sheet of paper though this method has its own

constraints. There are several examples from the play recordings that reference the use of

the hand-drawn maps. In the following exchange, Arthur and the GM are discussing a

map the GM drew on the game mat:

Arthur: He can try to squeeze against the wall. (Emily moves a piece on the mat)
Oh. Is this not an inside wall here?
Emily: No. Sorry, no. Sorry. This is like, huge. Sorry about that. I forgot to draw
the [space].
....
Emily: No, I didn’t specify because in my mind I was like, ‘it’s big. I don’t need
to say anything.’
As the GM, I drew only the part of the map where spaces were tight and the characters

risked running against walls. If spaces were large and open, I left the part of the map

blank. However, Arthur did not interpret this the way I anticipated, and instead assumed

the space was constrained and acted accordingly until I physically moved a figurine on

the mat to correct him. Since drawing on a mat takes time, effort, and ink, I opted to only

draw the parts I anticipated being necessary, which ultimately inhibited play rather than

facilitating it.

Overall, the Runelords group primarily indicated that their reasons for playing

RPGs are social interaction and the desire to engage in creative, cooperative storytelling

with one another in a way that allows them to take on the perspective of someone

different from themselves. In addition to the socialization and creative outlet RPGs allow

for, one group member even indicated that the storytelling aspect of these games has a

positive effect on her mental health through the ability to immerse herself in a persona

different from her own. In addition to the social and storytelling aspects, some players

also deemed tactile experience as an important part of play. Arthur brought up the

importance of physical actions such as writing with paper and pencils as something he
 40

looks for in hobbies, and Jack brought this up in his interview as well, mentioning the

importance he places in the ability to hold physical props in one’s hands. One of the more

important physical props Jack mentioned were dice, which he believes are the best

physical representation of his characters, better even than a token or figurine.

 41

CHAPTER THREE: Roll20’s Reality

While tabletop roleplaying games were originally designed to be played on a physical

tabletop, advancements in technology over the decades now allow for different ways of

playing. Roleplaying games can be played online through any online medium that allows

communication between users, such as email, forum posts, and the like, but in the last

decade platforms have sprung up that are designed specifically to facilitate tabletop

RPGs. For those who lack a local gaming community where they live, online play is the

only way they can play tabletop RPGs. After the introduction of COVID-19 safety

precautions, VTT platforms quickly became the safest way to play RPGs. In late March,

VTT platforms reported an influx of users in countries affected by lockdown orders

(Grebey). However, by September other media outlets reported that many VTT users

were becoming emotionally fatigued because of the lack of in-person interactions while

using such platforms (Chan).

While VTT platforms allow users to play tabletop RPGs remotely and frequently

also offer a suite of digital tools, this does not transform them into video games. A VTT

platform replaces the physical table, but it is still a human GM that controls the game

reality and mediates it for the rest of the players. Roll20, a popular VTT platform,

addresses this directly on their 2012 Kickstarter4 page, stating that Roll20 “is NOT (sic) a

video game, but instead a virtual “table” to gather around with friends in order to play

any number of role playing games” (Kickstarter). Roll20’s Kickstarter page also explains

the gap the platform seeks to fill: something strictly designed to enable tabletop RPG play

online without adding complicated features or tools. The Kickstarter campaign raised

4
A crowdfunding website.
 42

$39,651 of its $5,000 goal and had 1,580 backers, which indicates the project had

community support.

Roll20’s homepage, shown in Figure 11 below, invites users to sign in or make a

Figure 11. Roll20 Homepage

free account. After signing in, users can scroll through a list of games they’ve created or

been invited to, and launch one in their browser. Figure 12 below depicts what a player

might see when they launch a game. A grided dungeon map takes up most of the screen,

with a chat log on the right-hand side that displays messages and roll results. Above the

chat window are different tabs the players can use to access character sheets, reference

materials, and Roll20’s general settings. On the map are tokens with images the players

chose to represent their characters, along with tokens representing enemies. During a
 43

game, players can move their tokens around the map to represent the movements of their

characters.

Figure 12. Roll20 During Play

Instead of rolling physical dice like one does at a physical tabletop, Roll20

incorporates the ability to mimic the random chance of a dice roll by, for example, typing

“/r 1d20” into the chat to emulate rolling a twenty-sided die. Players can also set up

macros so that by clicking a button they can roll all the dice and add all the modifiers for

a specific action. Figure 13 below shows the end result of one of these macros. With one

click, Maldrek’s player can roll all three attacks he’s capable of making on his turn, add

the bonuses from his character sheet

automatically, and roll and add the bonuses for

the damage the attacks do as well. While by

default the dice rolling aspect of tabletop RPGs

is represented only by numbers on Roll20, there

Figure 13. Roll20 Attack Results is a feature called “3D dice” that plays a dice
 44

rolling animation complete with the sounds of dice hitting a table that players can use if

they wish to feel as if they are playing at a physical table. Roll20 also has the option to

enable voice and video chat, which may also help players feel more as if they are at a

physical table.

Roll20 also provides players with digital character sheets, an example of which is

shown in Figure 14 below, that are programmed to roll a skill or attack with all

applicable modifiers when the item is clicked on. For example, clicking on the word

Figure 14. Roll20 Character Sheet

“Acrobatics” on the sheet would automatically roll the Acrobatics skill and add the

modifiers listed on the sheet. This means that players do not have to manually roll a die

and add their bonuses or penalties; Roll20 does it for them.

 45

The categories below show how Roll20 anticipates and attempts to meet user

needs through how the platform is marketed, and how the case study player group

engages with the platform during play. The categories are creativity, affect, and

embodiment. This chapter focuses on how these aspects of play are mediated online, and

how it differs from in-person play. Roll20’s goals for its platform are juxtaposed with the

personal experiences of the case study group, in the form of individual audio interviews

recorded after the group began playing on Roll20. This analysis is intended to give

readers a broad idea of how these aspects of play—deemed important by both the

Pathfinder game guidelines and the case study group—are affected by the change in

medium from offline to online, to determine how effectively online play as it currently

exists fulfils the goals players have for playing tabletop RPGs.

Creativity

As with the Pathfinder Core Rulebook, Roll20 describes roleplaying games as

creative endeavors, especially in terms of storytelling possibilities. The title of the

Kickstarter campaign “Roll20--Virtual tabletop gaming that tells a story,” immediately

seeks to convey to readers that Roll20’s design emphasizes the storytelling and narrative

aspects of roleplaying games, which are tied to player creativity since the players are

responsible for collaborating to craft a shared narrative. The page then puts storytelling in

conflict with rules by describing Roll20 as “nimble & flexible” and as “focusing on

storytelling & camaraderie, not rulesets or mechanics,” the implication being that the

technical aspects of RPGs are detrimental to the storytelling, creative aspects.

The campaign page continues to reinforce its focus on “storytelling and

camaraderie” by informing readers that such a focus is in fact “the right way” to play
 46

tabletop RPGs online, as opposed to emphasizing gameplay mechanics. It quickly

becomes clear that this focus on narrative storytelling is intended to differentiate Roll20

from potential competitors. It argues that “current virtual tabletop offerings” only offer

“features centered around scripting, automatic damage calculation, and detailed stats

tracking,” all of which forces “the game master [to] spend far too much time preparing

the adventure, and removes all of the magic from the GM and instead tries to put it in the

hands of a computer.” Based on this language, one can gather that giving more than a

certain number of tasks to a computer to mediate will not have a positive effect on a

player’s gaming experience. While “magic” is a vague term, one might be able to

translate it to mean the GM’s agency in controlling the game. This focus on narrative

evokes Caillois’ mimicry, showing that the platform providers place great importance on

facilitating narrative and storytelling in the games Roll20 hosts.

Roll20 appears to be correctly anticipating the interests of potential players with

the way the company markets its platform since Jack, Jane, and Oz indicated that the

possibility for creative storytelling was a point of interest for them. Jack also notes

explicitly that tabletop RPGs offer “a level of creative agency [he] can’t find even in

video games,” which echoes how Roll20 attempts to differentiate itself from video games

by emphasizing its creative storytelling possibilities in contrast to the perceived

limitations of video games.

Affect

How the transition to a VTT platform changed how the players can express their

emotions and affect to one another was one of the most prevalent themes in the one-on-

one interviews with the participants. Three of the four participants brought up
 47

socialization as something they prioritized as an aspect of their gaming experience, and

their thoughts on socialization tended toward the emotional aspects involved. Oz

expresses concern that not physically viewing the other players leads to “a little bit of

awkward.” Senses of humor have to change since jokes cannot be made about “what’s

going on physically.” Oz focuses on the limitations of a “chat room” space, such as

Discord:

You don’t really know when people are doing introductions. I guess it’s easier to
talk about your personal lives when you see people in person and you know for
sure there’s a little break in the game. . . when you have a voice channel, it’s a
little hard to see if someone’s looking something up, or maybe someone’s going
to get food. You sort of know more for sure what the sort of break in the game’s
timing is going to be like if you want to have an outside conversation. And when
people enter a chat room, they don’t always know who’s in it, or who’s actually
physically there, so introductions can sometimes be a little bit weird. So for a
disadvantage, perhaps it feels a little more impersonal.
Jane echoes this notion, stating a preference for a physical tabletop rather than a virtual

tabletop “from a social environment and because it’s easier.” She also explicitly calls out

the ways group chat rooms limit social interaction. Group chats, she claims, limit side

conversations that at a physical table would be easy to have while not distracting to the

other players. Additionally, Jane points out that voice chats can be sources of anxiety for

herself and other players, since there are fewer opportunities to read social cues such as

facial expressions or physical posturing from other parties. Jane’s experience is in

contrast to how Roll20 presents its ability to represent emotions. It suggests that text

communication can improve narrative immersion by allowing a player to “use emotes to

add additional depth to [their] characters.” These emotes are suggested as an attempt to

make the text chat “multidimensional” (85) in the manner Fiehler discusses by serving as

a substitute for tone of voice, facial expression, or other social cues, but based on Jane’s

experience they still allow for misunderstandings that can cause players distress.
 48

Jack was the only group member who mentioned the possibilities of sound and

certain visual effects for enhancing play. He believes that VTTs are more effective than

physical tabletops in terms of visual and audio possibilities. “Mood lighting” is one

capability in which VTTs can outperform physical tabletops, primarily because of the

constraints of each mode of play. When playing on a VTT, Jack states, “Roll20 is great

for ambient music, or for mood lighting in a game. Because if you are tuned into a screen,

and the GM turns out the lights, it’s very dramatic, which you can’t always get in a real

setting, especially if you need to see your paper. Roll20’s papers glow.” Jack mentions

the dramatic possibilities of manipulating lighting and sound, implying they can evoke

certain emotions. Jack’s words also make clear a constraint on physical tabletops: players

will need a light source to play. On a virtual tabletop, as Jack says, the screen provides

light for the players to see the references they need. At a physical tabletop, however, the

GM is limited in visuals based what the players require in order to read papers in front of

them.

Embodiment

The defining difference between in-person and online tabletop play is the means

by which the players engage with their environment—the game table, whether physical

or virtual, as well as one another. Roll20 attempts to appeal to players by assuring them

that the Roll20 experience differs little from the experience of in-person gaming. The

Roll20 campaign page states that with Roll20, “you see your friends; you see the gaming

table” and that Roll20 is “as customizable and easy to use as any game you might

otherwise play with friends gathered in your living room.” However, there are some

basic, necessary differences between virtual and physical tables.

 49

Since Roll20 by necessity cannot provide an identical experience to playing on a

physical tabletop, the company instead promises its platform will be as transparent and

unobtrusive to play as possible. Their product “aims to be lightweight and nimble, so that

you can get up and running with your game as quickly as possible.” The page expands

further on the players by claiming that they are “what’s great about in-person tabletop

gaming,” and that what “Roll20 is about” is “translating that [in-person] experience

online as faithfully as possible, without trying to do too much.” By this, as well as

Roll20’s previous claim that the computer should not be taking up the majority of the

tasks for the game, one could assume that Roll20 is intended to be unobtrusive and

functionally invisible during a game so that the players are free to engage in narrative

storytelling unobstructed by cumbersome or complicated software. It is important to note

that in this instance, automation is not being referenced as something that makes a VTT

easier to use, but instead as something that removes agency from the human participants

and in effect destroys the “magic” of the game.

The difference in allowances between Roll20’s tools and tools used at a physical

tabletop was a topic that the participants brought up. Arthur refers to Roll20’s tools as a

“double-edged sword.” Since Roll20 automates most of the math required for the game, it

can be difficult to account for conditional bonuses5 that could be added or subtracted

mentally or on paper without needing to alter the algorithm used to simulate dice rolling.

Tactile contributions to the play experience were called out by multiple participants—

mostly on how the lack of physical props when playing through a virtual tabletop

negatively affected their experience. Arthur believes it is easier to play the game with

5
For example, if the target of your attack is far away, you might get a -2 on your attack roll. If you’re
walking through fog, you might get a -5 on your Perception check to notice someone following you.
 50

paper aides rather than the tools Roll20 provides, and to communicate to the GM what he

wants his character to do when playing in person. In his experience, Roll20 is “hella

annoying.”

The difference in tool capabilities between mediums is illustrated in Figure 15

and Figure 16 below. Figure 15 illustrates the input of Roll20’s attack calculation

system. Figure 16 is a copy of a flow chart Arthur made to help him keep track of the

Figure 15. Maldrek's Attacks Figure 16. Arthur’s Flow Chart

conditional modifiers for Maldrek6’s attacks, which allows him to do the calculations

himself. When using Roll20, Arthur would click on the named attack shown in Figure

15, and the calculations are done by the computer and presented the way they are shown

in Figure 16; there is not always an option between those steps to include conditional

modifiers.

These practices impose certain limitations on gameplay that could shape the way

players experience it. Roll20’s design allows the number generation aspect to take less

time, but also makes it more difficult to incorporate contextual, storytelling elements into

“hard” gameplay such as rolling dice. While it may take longer to calculate dice rolls

6
Arthur’s character.
 51

without the aid of a computer, some players may prefer it for its flexibility and

verisimilitude. The way Roll20 is experienced by these players bears some relation to

how the company intended it to be experienced, but there are also instances where

Roll20’s tools became a barrier instead of an aid.

However, Jack points out that since using Roll20’s “dice” produces an instant

result instead of players having to roll a die and add bonuses themselves, the game is not

slowed down: “when I need to roll Intimidate, I just click ‘Intimidate’ and it just happens

. . . I like the seamless transition of ‘I want to do this thing, okay press this button, the

thing happens.’ And then we just move right into the words that are exchanged between

player and NPC.” However, Roll20 still leaves Jack wanting in terms of dice. His

“favorite thing of all time” would be if Roll20 offered “customized dice.” Roll20 has

algorithms to produce a random number under specific parameters to simulate rolling

dice on a table, and one can even select an option to make that “roll” more similar to

rolling on a table. Figure 17 shows the end result of a roll that appears onscreen when

“/roll d20” is entered into Roll20’s chat function. Figure 18 shows the same number

Figure 17. Roll20 Dice Roll Figure 18. Roll20 Virtual Dice Roll

displayed instead with Roll20’s 3D dice option. The display also features the die

appearing to roll across the screen accompanied by the sound of a die hitting a table.
 52

Another visual advantage of VTT platforms over physical tabletop platforms Jack

puts forth is how each mode represents tactical movement. Jack states that in terms of

“intrigue” style gameplay, Roll20 can do “whatever you’re capable of thinking of.” Jack

points out a difference in play he noticed between virtual and physical modes, suggesting

that “when you have a map in Roll20 and you put their tokens on the board, whereas if

you’re at a tabletop setting, most people would just narrate this, and there’s no physical

tokens.” He essentially says that on a VTT platform, players will take advantage of the

options presented to them and move their tokens around the tactical map to represent

movement in the game, while on a physical tabletop such movement is more likely to be

relegated to theater of the mind play. Because of this, Jack argues that on a physical

tabletop, “it’s kind of hard to know exactly what’s going on in that sense, and that’s what

makes it a little less smooth.” And of the VTT he states, “but I think it’s really cool,

because people, when you give them that tool, they just adapt to it, and they’re like, ‘oh

yeah, I just know how to speak with that language.’”

Jack then details an instance where these tools affected his play experience. He

describes how on Roll20, he could clearly see that a token that represented an enemy was

adjacent to two tokens representing allied characters, meaning that the enemy could

attack the allies if it chose. He calls the significance of that visual display,

“astronomical,” because it represents a situation with little room for incorrect

interpretation. Because if “we were doing it over a tabletop without miniatures, then you

say ‘he looks like he’s within striking distance,’ or you say, ‘he’s got his weapon up to

her chin,’ or something, and we have to be able to interpret that, okay ‘does that mean he

can instant-kill them? Or does that mean we have a chance to intervene?’” Since the
 53

situation does not rely on the players interpreting events as the GM verbally describes

them, but instead on a

visual all participants

can see, the game moves

more smoothly. Figure

19 to the left depicts the

situation Jack is

referring to in his story.

Figure 19. Roll20 Map

With this map, players can see the spatial layout of the scene, including how close the

characters are to one another.

While physical tabletops do allow tactical maps with tokens and miniatures,

Jack’s point that those playing at a physical tabletop may not be as quick to utilize them

in favor of verbal discussion is valid. The lack of face-to-face interaction in virtual

tabletop may mean that GMs are more likely to rely on visual maps, which in turn may

help players more accurately interpret events.

A problem Jack brings up for Roll20 is the difficulty of using physical props.

Relating to in-person play, he states that “my favorite shit is having tea-stained and

coffee-stained paper and handing it to someone and saying like, ‘look, this is the

document that you just found, it’s right here.’” He discusses how the tactile experience of

the way such a prop is presented, such as the way it is folded, can add to the gameplay

experience, perhaps as clues to some mystery the characters are investigating. The

experience of manipulating a prop in one’s hands is not easily reproducible in an online

mode of play. While discussing physical props, Jack brings the conversation back to dice,
 54

pointing out that “there’s literally no way to perfectly simulate having dice in your hand

and throwing dice . . . onto the table” as opposed to using the random number generation

function in the VTT platform.

Visual experience ties strongly into tactile experience. As Jack stated in the

previous chapter, the dice players use for their characters curates a specific kind of

experience. Dice as character representation is something that one loses when playing on

a virtual rather than physical tabletop, and based on Jack’s words, the ability to use

physical objects like dice to represent his character enriches the game for him.

Compared to in-person play, VTT platforms possess inherently different

allowances and constraints that change what the Runelords group members were able to

get out of play. While Roll20’s marketing style reflects the desire for narrative and

storytelling the Runelords group mentions, the lack of in-person interaction appeared to

be a barrier for communication that especially inhibited conveying affect, so much so that

Jane’s social anxiety worsened from the lack of physical cues from other players. Being

online, VTT platforms also can’t offer physical props or dice, which were an important

part of the gaming experience for multiple group members.

 55

CONCLUSION

The lack of physical presence in VTT platforms, in terms of verbal and body cues from

other players and physically handling game tools and props, appears to detract from the

enjoyment of a gaming experience compared to playing on a physical tabletop, even

when accounting for the technical advantages VTT platforms possess by virtue of being

digital. Some responses from the Runelords group imply that while physical tabletop

games can help players with mental health, online play has less of an effect

comparatively, if at all. Looking forward, given that so many activities that were formerly

held in-person have been forced online indefinitely due to COVID-19 concerns, it may be

prudent to examine more closely how these changes have affected people, especially in

terms of mental health. Given the stress virtual interaction places on group

communication, those required to work on collaborative or team-focused tasks in virtual

settings may suffer in the current environment. If online collaboration is the inevitable

present and future for our work and play, we may suffer from both a lack of productivity

and healthy social interaction.

Since the scope of this study was limited to a single RPG, a single VTT platform,

and a single gaming group, more research is needed before any conclusions can be drawn

concerning the significance of the medium by which people play RPGs. Since all the

participants are white and U.S natives, this thesis doesn’t take into account the play

experiences of nonwhite, non-U.S native players. Even among white, U.S native players,

this group only represents a few views; other gaming groups within that demographic are

likely to have other preferred play styles. This thesis only discusses Roll20, although it is

one of several VTT platforms. This thesis only discusses Pathfinder, which, while
 56

popular, is only one of innumerable tabletop RPGs. Other RPG rules-sets might have an

easier or harder time transitioning from in-person to virtual play mediums.

 57

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