Conclusion

Dread Trident has argued that theorizing the modern fantastic within the context of TRPG texts is important for understanding SF and fantasy as academic disciplines, as well as for understanding the rise of realized worlds. It has worked through case studies of representative TRPGs to provide a variety of examples of this phenomenon, utilizing core concepts such as SF as modern myth-making, the Singularity as a fantasy trope, hyper-embodied language, enchantment-as-magification, fantasy’s challenge to the mundane, gametext harmonization in imaginary worlds, the draconic-posthuman trope, the ‘spectral return’ of the gothic, cosmic horror, cosmic despair, realized-fantasy space, ironic distance, untranslatable and unimaginable representation, ‘nerdy’ categorization of the material, complexity of lore in fantasy gametexts, post-anthropocene posthumanization, etc. In the modern fantastic’s realized worlds of TRPGs we have a wealth of unexamined gametexts that function like engineering tools along with discursive literary objects. They are both. And they are designed for material, embodied gameplay. They form a megatext of shared-world-setting creation far beyond those of any one author. The fantasy they offer provides a way of managing existence within modern, technologized life....

Beyond Borders with Miéville, Borges, Wolfe, Ligotti, and Numenera

This chapter examines a final case study, the TRPG Numenera. It finds in writers such as China Miéville and Gene Wolfe precursors of how literary studies can inform and understanding of the imaginary worlds found in a game like Numenera. Miéville, for example, finds roots for his Bas Lag trilogy in elements from TRPGs like Dungeons and Dragons, articulating a granular style of textured detail like that found in the best of Lovecraft. With Wolfe, this chapter reads his blending of science fiction and fantasy elements, especially how he embraces a magical impulse. Numenera incorporates these elements into a post-anthropocene setting that imagines a post-human far future. Its cosmicism, though, lacks the pessimism of Lovecraft or a writer like Thomas Ligotto, who this chapter sees as moving beyond Lovecraft, yet retaining much of his insistence in resisting drawing the ultimate horror. This chapter ends by arguing that realized worlds such as those inspired by Lovecraft, e.g. Numenera, can also be seen in the first season of the HBO series True Detective, a series that valorized a pulp fantasism, yet refused to acknowledge it in the end.

Dungeons and Dragons’ Multiverse

This chapter analyses Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) as a case study for the investigation into how a seminal fantasy imaginary world has been represented through 40 years of gametexts. It does so by focusing on the grand metaverse within which players play this game. It sees in the construction of this metaverse critical elements that facilitate the harmonization of the different settings. For example, the different ‘planes’ of existence, as well as a godswar demonstrate how the designers have consistently crafted these imaginary worlds with both an ability to embrace highly textured and disparate details, as well as a sense of continuity and cohesion. This chapter addresses several of the most popular settings, such as Mystara, Greyhawk, Ravenloft, Krynn, Spelljammer, and Planescape. It focuses on the Forgotten Realms as a stellar example of how a fantasy gameworld develops as a shared universe into a realized world.

The Posthuman in the Schismatrix Stories and Eclipse Phase

This chapter examines exemplary texts within science fiction, Bruce Sterling’s Schismatrix stories and the TRPG, Eclipse Phase (EP). It begins by looking at SF as a mythic form of storytelling, one rooted in modernity. It uses literary theorist Istvan Csicsery-Ronay’s ideas in The Seven Beauties of Science Fiction (2008) to argue that tropes within SF are often highly fantastic, the cyborg transforming into posthuman tropes far beyond simple human-machine interfaces. In Sterling’s stories we see this dynamic in extreme forms of posthuman imaginings. With Sterling, he represents both transhuman and posthuman possibilities, some as extreme as biological space stations. In EP, players can choose a variety of characters to play that go beyond normative human forms into the strange and exotic. This provides a template for posthuman subjectivity.

Lovecraft’s (Cthulhu) Mythos

This central chapter examines the importance of H.P. Lovecraft in how realized worlds are conceptualized in Dread Trident, especially within the context of TRPGs. It sees in Lovecraft, not just a writer of Weird fiction, but a writer of cosmic fiction who also, inadvertently, helped create a mythos. This ‘Cthulhu’ Mythos acts as a supreme example of how a realized world works because of how it incorporates a broad canvas of elements from a variety of individuals. Also, Lovecraft’s poetics of creating a sense of dread with Weird writing hints how he often sidesteps rather than directly draws the ultimate horror. Yet, his later writing embraced a materialistic categorizing of scientific and biological forms. This chapter looks through Lovecraftian scholarship, as well as a few of his own pieces of fiction, as well as the TRPG The Call of Cthulhu, for examples of how his mythos works and examples of his granular style.

Introduction

This chapter introduces key concepts that help theorize the modern fantastic and its relationship to tabletop role-playing games (TRPGs). In particular, it provides a foundation so that the analysis of the individual case studies is clear. It uses literary studies and modern studies to read core TRPG gametexts, such as those of Dungeons and Dragons or Warhammer 40k. It also focuses on how fantastic space emerges during gameplay. Key also is how humanism and posthumanism can be rethought through a focus on what this books considers to be ‘realized worlds’. These are spaces of enchantment that occur at the intersection of the analog and digital, two elements critical in a process of posthumanization, or a way to rethink the discourses of trans-and-posthumanism.

Warhammer 40,000

Games Workshop’s Warhammer 40,000 (40k) intellectual property is a tabletop war game, but it also has developed a complex narrative that describes the imaginary realized world in which the game is played. This chapter examines key elements within this ‘lore’ as an example of how a cohesive realized world emerges. It focuses on a seminal ‘origins’ event, the Horus Heresy, that occurred roughly ten-thousand years prior to the current game setting’s timeline. It examines how key moments, such as the defeat of Horus and the wounding of the Emperor began as brief comments in sourcebooks but, through the work of authors within its shared universe, expanded into detailed narratives. It also focuses on a few other key moments, such as those detailed in the Beast Arises series and the Gathering Storm storyline.

Worlds of Darkness

This chapter examines the World[s] of Darkness’s most important gametexts within the context of the move from Gothic to cosmic horror. It utilizes literary and philosophical analysis of the Gothic, especially that of Fred Botting and Noël Carroll. Botting helps by posing a question of what sort of ‘spectral return’ we might see with a reinvigorated Gothic, while Carroll views ‘art-horror,’ or the horror derived from the genre of popular culture, as a key driver in how we have come to represent horror. This chapter works through the tensions of how a Lovecraftian-like cosmic horror displaced the Gothic yet acknowledges the Gothic’s persistence. It sees in the World[s] of Darkness’s TRPGs like Vampire: the Masquerade and Werewolf: the Apocalypse attempts at a renewed Gothicism. Yet, in the New Worlds of Darkness’s, the ‘God Machine’ emerges as a novel posthuman trope, one that hints at a machinic inscrutable entity far beyond any human understanding.