Reimagining narrative and literacy through tabletop role-playing games: a multimodal activity system approach

Purpose This paper aims to reimagine narrative in English language arts (ELA) through tabletop role-playing games (TTRPGs) by framing them as sites of multimodal, collaborative storyworld construction. It challenges print-based models by showing how narrative emerges through play, tool use and shared authorship. Design/methodology/approach As a conceptual paper, it integrates cultural-historical activity theory and multimodal social semiotics to theorize narrative as an emergent, participatory process shaped by semiotic resources and social interaction. Findings This paper introduces narrative models for solo and multiplayer TTRPGs that account for recursive meaning-making, distributed authorship and the stabilization and revision of shared storyworlds. These models illustrate how semiotic inputs and outputs circulate to generate narrative, offering a new lens for understanding literacy as a process rather than a product. Research limitations/implications Although theoretical in nature, the paper proposes a framework for future empirical work on narrative participation, mediation and power in classroom gaming contexts. Practical implications The framework supports ELA pedagogy that values improvisation, collaboration and multimodal expression. By making narrative architectures (rules, genre defaults and division of labor) visible and revisable, educators can design for disciplinary aims while using student-created artifacts as authentic assessments of understanding. Social implications The framework positions students as recursive co-authors of narrative, enabling them to interrogate dominant story logics and collaboratively imagine more just futures. Originality/value This paper extends narrative theory to analog game spaces and provides original models for understanding storytelling as multimodal and tool-mediated. By advancing a multimodal activity system approach to story construction, it contributes to ongoing conversations about critical gaming literacies, narrative theory and English education.