Tabletop Roleplaying Games as Procedural Content Generators Matthew Guzdial Devi Acharya Max Kreminski University of Alberta University of California, Santa Cruz University of California, Santa Cruz Edmonton, Canada Santa Cruz, United States Santa Cruz, United States
[email protected] [email protected] [email protected] Michael Cook Mirjam Eladhari Antonios Liapis Queen Mary University of London Södertörn University University of Malta London, United Kingdom Flemingsberg, Sweden Msida, Malta
[email protected] [email protected] [email protected] Anne Sullivan Georgia Institute of Technology Atlanta, United States
[email protected] ABSTRACT (D&D), an asymmetric game in which players take on roles as either Tabletop roleplaying games (TTRPGs) and procedural content gen- adventurers or the “dungeon master” (DM) - a specific role for a erators can both be understood as systems of rules for producing player who poses challenges to the adventurers[42]. However, there content. In this paper, we argue that TTRPG design can usefully be is a massive variety of TTRPGs, and a large variance in terms of viewed as procedural content generator design. We present several the types of role (or roles) that players take on. case studies linking key concepts from PCG research – includ- In recent years, there has been increasing interest in TTRPGs ing possibility spaces, expressive range analysis, and generative from game artificial intelligence researchers. This research ranges pipelines – to key concepts in TTRPG design. We then discuss the from work such as TTRPGs as a challenge for automated game implications of these relationships and suggest directions for future playing agents [39], to a rich space for AI-assisted tools [16, 33] work uniting research in TTRPGs and PCG.