Analog Game Studies

In the popular improv storytelling game Dungeons & Dragons (1974), busy school and work schedules intersect while dice rolls dictate life and death. This system and other tabletop role-playing games (TTRPGs) provide players with a chance to step into the shoes of an adventurer as they navigate a fantastical world, letting a twenty-sided die decide between their character's success and failure. During my freshman year of college, I started listening to the actual-play TTRPG podcast The Adventure Zone: Balance (2014), a comedy production by McElroy brothers Griffin, Justin, and Travis, and their father Clint. In the show, Griffin took on the role of game master (GM) to lead his family members through a story of treasure-hunting, memory wipes, and powerful community. In this article, I explore how TTRPGs can be read through the lens of queer theory through 1) Judith Butler’s concept of gender performativity, 2) Halberstam’s rejection of chronological signifiers and Muñoz’s uninhibited fictive utopias, 3) memory and trauma, and 4) queer kinships. I assert that queer time defines the imaginative and creative experience of immersing oneself in tabletop role-playing as well as shaping the lives of the player characters embodied. Ultimately, I analyze why non-normative time is not only a crucial component in the pacing of an effective campaign, but also a relevant lens of analysis for evaluating the queer experiences fostered by TTRPGs since Dungeons & Dragons hit the shelves in 1974.