“Monstrous Adventurers”: The racecraft of the Dungeons and Dragons imaginary

Carpenter, Benjamin J. J. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6535-0859 (2024) “Monstrous Adventurers”: The racecraft of the Dungeons and Dragons imaginary. Howard Journal of Communications, 35 (1). pp. 15-32. ISSN 1064-6175

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Abstract

This paper examines the use of racial categories within the tabletop roleplaying game ‘Dungeon’s and Dragons’ through the lens of racecraft as outlined by Karen and Barbara Fields. Examining D&D as an imaginary, I explore how its mechanics and fiction create categories of race through a process of profiling that produces sumptuary codes, perpetuates a racial hierarchy, invokes racialized accounts of biology, and constitutes a racialized gaze. Through stressing the continuity of this fictional account of race with real world racecraft, I analyze how the fiction of D&D fails to imagine beyond the condition of race. This fiction thereby operates as a mirror that reflects back to us the difficulties of thinking beyond such racial logics, reaffirming the need for continued critique and a reimagining of race.

Item Type:	Article
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Arts and Humanities Faculty of Arts and Humanities > School of Politics, Philosophy, Language and Communication Studies
UEA Research Groups:	Faculty of Arts and Humanities > Research Groups > Philosophy
Depositing User:	LivePure Connector
Date Deposited:	28 Jul 2023 08:56
Last Modified:	07 Apr 2024 00:57
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/92736
DOI:	10.1080/10646175.2023.2238194

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