BARDIC INSPIRATION: MUSIC AND SOUND IN TABLETOP ROLE-PLAYING GAME COMMUNITIES AND ACTUAL PLAY FAN MUSIC

Quick with a song and a tale, bards ply their musical knowledge to inspire those who hear their stories. Tabletop roleplaying games (TTRPGs) such as Dungeons & Dragons depend on storytelling to inspire social interaction and imaginative play by embodying character archetypes such as the bard. Subsequently, scholars across disciplines have conducted research into how TTPRGs impact the literacy of its players. While there have been previous sociological and ethnographic examinations of TTRPG communities, I focus on how sound works to forge relationships between the players around the table and inspire further musical creation. Drawing definitions of literacy in media studies, music studies, and sound studies, my dissertation, “Bardic Inspiration: Music and Sound in TTRPG Communities and Actual Play Fan Music,” explores how practitioners of TTRPGs use and negotiate their musical and sonic literacies in the act of play. By conducting archival research, ethnographic interviews, and textual analysis, I examine how TTRPG practitioners represent, engender, and confront concepts of music, sound, and media in different portions of the games industry, player communities, and online spaces. I argue that music and sound, in its evocation in text, deployment in practice, and its creation in the TTRPG industry and fan community, are used by practitioners to shape understanding, craft experience, and forge connection through its multivalent nature. To accomplish this, I undertake a multidisciplinary approach in music studies, game studies, and media studies to reflect the complex and assembled nature of TTRPGs in the pursuit of larger questions on what music means to, what it carries in, and how it resonates with people in the moment of its sounding.