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Theoretical Article

No. 3 (2022): The Master with a Thousand Faces: Game Mastering, Organizing, Plotting, and Running Analog Role-Playing Games

DM Habitus: The Social Dispositions of Game Mastering in Dungeons & Dragons

Submitted
April 28, 2022
Published
2022-09-30

Abstract

This paper discusses the situatedness of the Game Master, specifically the Dungeon Master (DM), in terms of practice theory. I use Pierre Bourdieu’s (1984) theory of habitus to create the notion of what I call DM habitus, or “deeply engrained habits, skills, and bodily dispositions” that result from the gaming experience that individuals in the Dungeon Master role enact to cement their role. I discuss how, instead of affirmative lines between the idea of “collaborator,” “storyteller,” and “divinity,” the authority granted to Dungeon Masters by the space of social production of tabletop role-playing games (TRPGs) provides them the ability to appropriate these distinct roles for the sake of preserving the social structure of the gaming space.

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