English

Tabletop Roleplaying Games as Procedural Content Generators

Artificial Intelligence 2020-07-16 v2

Abstract

Tabletop roleplaying games (TTRPGs) and procedural content generators can both be understood as systems of rules for producing content. In this paper, we argue that TTRPG design can usefully be viewed as procedural content generator design. We present several case studies linking key concepts from PCG research -- including possibility spaces, expressive range analysis, and generative pipelines -- to key concepts in TTRPG design. We then discuss the implications of these relationships and suggest directions for future work uniting research in TTRPGs and PCG.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2007.06108,
  title  = {Tabletop Roleplaying Games as Procedural Content Generators},
  author = {Matthew Guzdial and Devi Acharya and Max Kreminski and Michael Cook and Mirjam Eladhari and Antonios Liapis and Anne Sullivan},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2007.06108},
  year   = {2020}
}

Comments

9 pages, 2 figures, FDG Workshop on Procedural Content Generation 2020

R2 v1 2026-06-23T17:03:46.330Z