Role-playing games are not immune to the tribalism that is itself a symptom of the Internet bringing humanity together. Defining oneself by an allegiance to a topic and defending it from others has been around as long as humanity has been interacting. To understand the controversies that sometimes roil geek fandom, sports teams provide a useful guide on what constitutes a "fan."
Jon Peterson traces the fandom of Dungeons & Dragons in Playing at the World to a confluence of geek-related fandoms (wargaming, science fiction, and the Society of Creative Anachronism to name a few), all of which came together to produce the tabletop role-playing game communities we know today. This new fandom went well beyond co-creator of D&D Gary Gygax's marketing efforts, which focused primarily on wargamers:
Jennifer Grouling Cover in The Creation of Narrative in Tabletop Role-Playing Games explains how this new form of fandom mixes with other forms:
Self-publishing is a key part of fandom and this creation process (be it by the game master with her players or published as part of an officially-endorsed system like DM's Guild) is a feature of tabletop RPGs. Dr. Richard Forest explained how D&D propagates itself in The Complete Oracle:
The ability to "make more D&D" also risked splintering the player base, as customers of D&D began playing in one of the many worlds TSR (then owner of the brand) published. As RPG fandom grew in popularity, it became increasingly fractious until it harmed D&D's publishing model and nearly sunk the company that created it, TSR. Shannon Appelcline illustrates TSR's downfall in Designers & Dragons:
That was when fandom was untamed, uncontrolled, and -- most importantly for TSR -- not always profitable. Thanks to the Internet and social media, the tables have turned and now fandom feeds publishers in a virtuous cycle through Open Game Licenses and co-publishing efforts like the DM's Guild.
[h=3]Why We Like[/h]Digital social media pivots on the "like" button. Likes signal what we find appealing, but it also indicates to others -- friends, colleagues, even enemies -- that we like something too. This reinforces our connection to a topic by indicating not just that we enjoy or support a topic, but we can see how many others agree with us. There's a reason this feedback loop works so well; it drives our self-esteem. This self-esteem is what influences fandom, as Allen R McConnell explains in "The Psychology of Sports Fandom":
This sense of belonging is a powerful driver that shores up our self-esteem. Social connectedness (AKA relatedness) is one of the three pillars of Self-Determination Theory, which argues that satisfaction is driven by relatedness, competence, and autonomy. Fandom satisfies our need to relate, but given that geeky fandom is often structured by those who know the most about esoteric subjects, it also rates highly in our display of competence -- both our personal sense of competence and how others perceive that competence.
Taken together, this explains why it's not enough that a fandom topic, like an edition of D&D, be fun and engaging; fans often look for proof it's "better" than others, because by signaling their allegiance to a fandom, it feeds into their own self-worth. It's also part of "gatekeeping," in which fans attempt to protect or define fandom through exclusive of others. In an era where fans ferociously defend their fandom, McConnell's warning is apt:
Fandom, it seems, is not driven solely by allegiance to an edition or philosophy of gameplay. It's about us.
Mike "Talien" Tresca is a freelance game columnist, author, communicator, and a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to http://amazon.com. You can follow him at Patreon.
Title image by William Tung from USA (SDCC13 - T-Shirt BoothUploaded by daisydeee) [CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
[h=3]A Brief History of Fandom[/h]Fandom, and its ability to influence the material that created it, all began with Sherlock Holmes: It was the dawn of fandom as we now know it—zealous, fractious, hydra-headed, and participatory. Of course, these 19th-century proto-nerds didn't use the phrase fan fiction. The term wouldn't enter the lexicon until the mid-'60s, around the publication of the earliest fanfic journal, the Star Trek-themed Spockanalia. Sherlockians called them parodies and pastiches (they still do), and the initial ones appeared within 10 years of the first Holmes 1887 novella, A Study in Scarlet. Fan-written homages began to appear in earnest not long after Conan Doyle infamously killed off Holmes in order to spend more time on his serious work, historical novels. He was moved, less than a decade later, to resurrect the beloved sleuth, mindful of a massive fan outpouring.
Jon Peterson traces the fandom of Dungeons & Dragons in Playing at the World to a confluence of geek-related fandoms (wargaming, science fiction, and the Society of Creative Anachronism to name a few), all of which came together to produce the tabletop role-playing game communities we know today. This new fandom went well beyond co-creator of D&D Gary Gygax's marketing efforts, which focused primarily on wargamers:
While Gygax supervised and encouraged the spread of Dungeons & Dragons through the wargaming community, its wild propagation through science-fiction fandom rode a wave of sheer grassroots advocacy. Once Arneson had offhandedly sparked the interest of Minn-stf, the highly interconnected communities of science-fiction fans created many opportunities for cross-pollination: in APAs, at the large-scale science-fiction conventions and with the multitude of college-aged fans who commuted between their hometowns and distant universities. Just as Grasstek brought his Dungeon to the World Science Fiction Convention, so did other members of Minneapolis fandom bring the game to the attention of distant venues.
Jennifer Grouling Cover in The Creation of Narrative in Tabletop Role-Playing Games explains how this new form of fandom mixes with other forms:
Gaming culture has recently become a part of the scholarly discussion of fan culture, or fandom. Although fans engage in a variety of activities, which may include role-playing, the genre that has garnished the most attention is fan fiction, where fans write their own stories based on TV shows or other artifacts of popular culture...It was in fan communities (specifically fantasy and science fiction fans) that Dungeons and Dragons (Deb) first became popular, and it has retained its popularity in these communities (Mackay, 2001, p. 16). In fact, Crawford and Rutter (2007) suggest that gaming in general should be considered as a part of studying fandom (p. 271). Can TRPG players be considered just another group within the larger fandom subculture or does it represent its own culture? Perhaps gaming is a part of fandom as a whole.
Self-publishing is a key part of fandom and this creation process (be it by the game master with her players or published as part of an officially-endorsed system like DM's Guild) is a feature of tabletop RPGs. Dr. Richard Forest explained how D&D propagates itself in The Complete Oracle:
The genius of Dungeons & Dragons is that it is a machine that makes more Dungeons & Dragons, and it does this right at your table. D&D is not in the books. It is at the game table. It is in our scribbled notes. It is in our maps, in our jokes, in our daydreams during dull classes or meetings, in our forum posts from work, in our blogs and tweets and zines...Dungeons & Dragons is the game we build together...The game works because it is ours. From the very beginning, we all knew this. Even the designers knew it at the beginning, though they have sometimes claimed otherwise under the influence of avarice, pride, or market and company pressures. The game itself is built to support its own extension...You can’t play the game without creating something new. Dungeons & Dragons is a machine for generating more Dungeons & Dragons, and once you pick it up and start playing it, it’s yours. Which is the basis of the entire hobby.
The ability to "make more D&D" also risked splintering the player base, as customers of D&D began playing in one of the many worlds TSR (then owner of the brand) published. As RPG fandom grew in popularity, it became increasingly fractious until it harmed D&D's publishing model and nearly sunk the company that created it, TSR. Shannon Appelcline illustrates TSR's downfall in Designers & Dragons:
TSR had unbalanced their AD&D game through a series of lucrative supplements that ultimately hurt the long-time viability of the game. Meanwhile they developed so many settings — many of them both popular and well-received — that they were both cannibalizing their only sales and discouraging players from picking up settings that might be gone in a few years. They may have been cannibalizing their own sales through excessive production of books or supplements too.
That was when fandom was untamed, uncontrolled, and -- most importantly for TSR -- not always profitable. Thanks to the Internet and social media, the tables have turned and now fandom feeds publishers in a virtuous cycle through Open Game Licenses and co-publishing efforts like the DM's Guild.
[h=3]Why We Like[/h]Digital social media pivots on the "like" button. Likes signal what we find appealing, but it also indicates to others -- friends, colleagues, even enemies -- that we like something too. This reinforces our connection to a topic by indicating not just that we enjoy or support a topic, but we can see how many others agree with us. There's a reason this feedback loop works so well; it drives our self-esteem. This self-esteem is what influences fandom, as Allen R McConnell explains in "The Psychology of Sports Fandom":
It has been well established that people derive self-esteem benefits from simple associations with successful others. Research by Cialdini and colleagues has shown that people are more likely to wear sports-related apparel following team victories than following losses, and they are more likely to use first-person pronouns to describe victories—our offense was great today—and third-person pronouns to describe losses—they couldn't score a run if their lives depended on it. Our need to increase our sense of self-worth leads us to seek broad connections, and this not only plays out in terms of sports team identification, but in our sense of connection to various phenomena ranging from favorite authors to nationalism.
This sense of belonging is a powerful driver that shores up our self-esteem. Social connectedness (AKA relatedness) is one of the three pillars of Self-Determination Theory, which argues that satisfaction is driven by relatedness, competence, and autonomy. Fandom satisfies our need to relate, but given that geeky fandom is often structured by those who know the most about esoteric subjects, it also rates highly in our display of competence -- both our personal sense of competence and how others perceive that competence.
Taken together, this explains why it's not enough that a fandom topic, like an edition of D&D, be fun and engaging; fans often look for proof it's "better" than others, because by signaling their allegiance to a fandom, it feeds into their own self-worth. It's also part of "gatekeeping," in which fans attempt to protect or define fandom through exclusive of others. In an era where fans ferociously defend their fandom, McConnell's warning is apt:
These observations are not intended to say that anyone's strongly-held beliefs, ranging from sports team allegiances or religious preferences, have less meaning or validity. Indeed, having self-worth, a sense of greater social connectedness, and belief systems that we hold passionately represent some of the most meaningful aspects of life. Yet at the same time, observing these processes play out in seemingly "less important" domains, like an All-Star Game, should remind us to be mindful of how these basic psychological processes operate in other domains of our lives and why we should guard against allowing our allegiances and belief systems to run amok over others.
Fandom, it seems, is not driven solely by allegiance to an edition or philosophy of gameplay. It's about us.
Mike "Talien" Tresca is a freelance game columnist, author, communicator, and a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to http://amazon.com. You can follow him at Patreon.
