Congratulations to our newest PhD graduate, Dr. Giuseppe Femia, who successfully defended his dissertation, "Failure in Disability Game Studies." The dissertation supervisor was Dr. Neil Randall, and the readers were Dr. Jay Dolmage and Dr. Jordana Cox. The external examiner was Dr. William Joseph White and the internal/external examiner was Dr. Karen Cochrane. The defence was chaired by Dr. Richard Cleve.
Abstract
This dissertation observes the theory and praxis of disability representation situated at tabletop roleplaying gaming (TTRPG) media sites. The goal of this dissertation is to consider strategies for tabletop roleplaying game narratives and mechanics that transform the idea of disability, as an unnecessary disadvantage to be avoided, into an exploration of the challenges faced by the disability communities for the purposes of representation and performance-based advocacy. The main questions I answer are: How can we celebrate failure in TTRPG media without normalizing the pain and hardships experienced by the disability communities? How can we critique romanticized depictions of disability in TTRPG design while avoiding the common framing of disabled characters as inferior? How can TTRPG narratives and game mechanics exhibit methods of game design that acknowledge the diverse experiences of disability while still being critical of disabling politics and social injustice in the real world?
I observe disabling mechanics and representation in TTRPG systems and narratives, while contrasting and comparing them to disabling environments and public opinion. This is done through a retelling of ethnographic work where I hosted a TTRPG design workshop for neurodivergent individuals. I relay the participants' perceptions of, and personal experience with, TTRPG media and the artefact they came together to design. This experience will function as a narrative that structures the academic work I bring forward on subject matter broached through the workshops. I also observe and analyze the media artifact the participants designed as the result of the workshop, along with several gaming texts depicting disability themes.
This is followed up by a theoretical application of disability performance in TTRPGs, specifically with the intention of reframing the common conception of disability as a failure of the individual. While acknowledging how disability justice initiatives can benefit by being hosted in TTRPG spaces because of the affordances provided by the narrative structure and game mechanics to more general and specific intersectional TTRPG communities within, I show the range of applications and benefits for disability justice that have not previously been scrutinized.
My findings conclude that TTRPG media affords us the means by which we can re-approach and renegotiate our qualification of failure. We can embrace our play experience with the understanding that it has innate value as a human experience as opposed to the value of the experience being determined by its success. When it comes to us avoiding the normalization of pain and hardships experienced by the disability community, we can show a more complexly embodied portrayal to be transparent of the reality disabled individuals experience, as opposed to avoiding any unappealing depictions of disability altogether.
While developing the disability media literacy necessary to understand and navigate this topic should be the highest priority, especially for able-bodied and minded individuals. The diversity of disability requires that disabled individuals also develop this skill for disabilities they do not have firsthand experience with. This might be done by affording more room for characters with disability in TTRPGs that will in and of themselves provide certain critiques for disabling societal barriers and problematic depictions of disability. Our priority needs to be to immerse ourselves in progressive depictions of disabled characters in media and draw from them to improve our media literacy.
What this implies or suggests is that there is a necessity to continue creating more progressive disability media, in and outside of TTRPGs, to eventually normalize a more complex and realistic take of different varieties of disability so that we are not oversimplifying issues faced by the disability communities and putting greater emphasis on their innate value as human beings.
TTRPG game designers can only provide the tools and resources for the players with the hopes that they take their own methods of critique and activism into the game when they play it. By making room for game narratives and mechanics like these to be open ended, that in and of itself acknowledges the diverse experience of disability as we are not limiting the play in how they wish to portray themselves.