Renee Pinkston

"This dissertation attempts to look at the tabletop role-playing game Dungeons and Dragons and dissect the work that this game does in multiple formats.  The game does not just consist of people describing what they want to do; rather, there is a plethora of resources and guides, books, manuals, fan art, and popular cultural references that go into describing what the game is, how the game is played, and why.  Since its creation in 1974 up to the most current edition released in 2014, changes in the text of the game play, art reproduced in handbooks, and descriptions of characters are evident.  These forms are not alone, but are hugely impacted by culture and society and the changes accompanied throughout time.  This dissertation seeks to examine those changes alongside D&D materials in order to discover those connections and the intimate way that history, heritage, and social ideals are reflected through each other along with how cultural forms such as D&D can shed light on paradigm shifts taking place in culture now."