Date of Award

2021

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Social Sciences

First Advisor

Zabriskie, Queen

Area of Concentration

Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies

Abstract

As it now stands, Dungeons and Dragons is one of the most widely-known tabletop roleplaying games (TTRPGs). The game has flourished especially over the past seven years with the publication of the fifth edition, particularly among those who are LGBTQ+. In this thesis, I investigate Dungeons and Dragons’ possibility for transformation because of the ability of the Dungeon Master (DM) and the players to rewrite the story and reimagine our world, referred to as “queer worldbuilding”. I ask “How does Dungeons and Dragons support queer worldbuilding?” Drawing on theories of queer performance, I define queer worldbuilding as the processes and actions taken by queer people that foster the growth of our communities. To investigate my research question, I ran a four-week D&D campaign with four other LGBTQ+ New College students using observant participation as the DM, conducted pre- and post-campaign interviews with the participants, and memes posted in our Discord server. I found that queer worldbuilding is possible in D&D and, in this thesis, examine three themes that became relevant through my guided theory analysis: identity exploration, the game’s ability to create/expand upon a shared cultural “language” of queerness, and sharing physical and temporal space. This shows the importance of play within queer communities, and allows for recontextualizing the game and TTRPGs within different means of building queer coalition and community.

Download

Share

COinS