Tales for the Many: Process and Authorial Control in Multi-player Role-Playing Games

Multi-player Role-Playing Games form rare examples of interactive, collaborative storytelling systems, especially within the tabletop format. However, despite recent advances in the theory and general knowledge of the field, models of the operation of the storytelling process in multi-player non-digital role-playing games remains relatively unspecific. In this paper, a critical synthesis of the available theory is combined with observations from a series of experiments, in a detailed model for the gaming process.