From Tabletop to Screen: Playing Dungeons and Dragons during COVID-19

Abstract

Media reports suggest that the tabletop roleplaying game Dungeons & Dragons saw its biggest year to date in 2020, with many such reports touting the interactive and social benefits for people facing COVID-19 lockdowns. This paper explores the reported challenges and benefits of playing D&D through teleconferencing hardware and software, and the experience of using virtual tabletops. A thematic analysis of a sample of Reddit threads discussing player experiences of transitioning D&D to remote play during COVID-19 social distancing was undertaken. The findings highlight a variety of player attitudes and preferences towards playing D&D remotely. The data suggest a mostly negative sentiment towards playing D&D online for groups that had transitioned from in-person to remote play. Loss of in-person socialisation was identified as an important contributor to a poor play experience, but groups would persevere with remote play to maintain social relationships, suggesting that, for many players, D&D serves an important social function beyond mere play. Some avenues for future research are identified.

You teach me and I’ll teach you: The role of social interactions on positivity elicited from playing Pokémon GO

“…Nonetheless, some researchers have posited that social interactions occurring purely within virtual, digital contexts such as video games lack affordances (e.g., facial expressions, physical proximity, and tone of voice) available in face-to-face settings, which diminish players' affective benefits from such social interactions (Nesi et al, 2018). Other inherent limitations of digital environments (i.e., potential anonymity and asynchrony of interaction; Wellman & Gulia, 1999) may result in superficial relationships and poorer interaction quality, with the caveat that technological advances have made it more possible for players of console-based games to use voice chat or video-conferencing to communicate with one another (Scriven, 2021). Nonetheless, some previous work suggests that the social interactions within traditional online console-based video games may be insufficient to engender positivity (Ryan et al, 2006).…”

“…Thus, Pokémon GO is unique in that it facilitates players' face-to-face interaction, which provides players with physical cues such as tone of voice, subtle facial expressions, and body language (Berger, 2013). These face-toface interactions between players occur outdoors, which is relevant given recent findings that, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, some players prefer to be physically distanced when playing games, which would typically mean virtual interaction (Laato et al, 2020;Scriven, 2021). Pokémon GO has even been suggested to have potential utility in helping Japanese youth with extreme social withdrawal to leave the house and interact with others (Tateno et al, 2016).…”

“…This provides players greater access to interpersonal cues (i.e., physical proximity, body language, subtle facial expressions, and tone of voice), that may allow for richer interactions and lead to players deriving greater affective benefits from such interactions (Sherman et al, 2013). Even while advances in communication technology allow for richer social interaction in traditional gaming environments than have previously existed (Scriven, 2021), it is likely that AR games like Pokémon GO provide additional affordances in meeting the social needs of players.…”