Sam B. Nguyen | Sometimes Called Raethr ➡️ PAX East
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raethr.bsky.social
Sam B. Nguyen | Sometimes Called Raethr ➡️ PAX East
@raethr.bsky.social
180 followers 280 following 64 posts
He/Him/His || Viet American || Bi
Occasional Voice Actor and Singer
Frequent TTRPG Person
Communication PhD Student
Looking @ Race, Gender, and Rhetoric in (TT)RPGs
BLM. Free Palestine.
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raethr.bsky.social
An excerpt from a short paper I wrote, but never got around to fleshing out enough for a proper academic publication. It was inspired by the combat wheelchair, and uses that to interrogate ableist sentiments about linear growth, healing, and "correct bodies".
Conclusion: Ultimately, this rhetorical exploration of the statistics of Dungeons & Dragons is far from the whole of the conversation. Decolonial concepts of temporality, critical (dis)ability theories of health and healing, and critical deconstructions of cartesian duality could each be applied with greater depth to each of D&D’s ability scores to further discuss the ways that pre-existing colonial and cultural perspectives and ways of understanding the world format storytelling as it is processed and brought into being through D&D. TTRPGs function as lenses for storytelling, whose rules afford some narrative directions and obscure others. When taking these games as rhetorical texts, it is essential to consider how they are informed by their contexts; in the case of D&D, those contexts are grounded in colonial logics and animated by ongoing hegemonic mindsets. The ways that each of the statistics are cohered together into singular facets of personhood, placed on linear spectrums, and propelled into foundational structures of storytelling are situated not only in the monopoly D&D holds on the cultural imagination of TTRPGs, but also in the widespread colonial imagination that stories are told in. All TTRPGs create claims about personhood through their character sheets—or lack thereof. However, not all TTRPGs claim universality in the storytelling machine of the game. It is there that D&D stands out, from the attempt to extend the game into different settings and genres to the broad attempt by fans to construe characters through the lens of a D&D character sheet. As TTRPGs continue to explore ways to craft that personhood as a storytelling artform, it is essential to continue interrogating the claims which motivate foundational gameplay mechanics and narrative aesthetics.
June 4, 2025 at 4:03 AM
raethr.bsky.social
May 26, 2025 at 12:29 AM
raethr.bsky.social
Today, we're writing through TTRPGs and the rhetorical force (and empty promise?) of queer legibility
May 3, 2025 at 7:16 PM
raethr.bsky.social
I'm going to get lost in this one for a while, I feel
November 2, 2024 at 8:48 PM