eprintid: 10191835 rev_number: 6 eprint_status: archive userid: 699 dir: disk0/10/19/18/35 datestamp: 2024-05-08 15:48:48 lastmod: 2024-05-08 15:48:48 status_changed: 2024-05-08 15:48:48 type: article metadata_visibility: show sword_depositor: 699 creators_name: Wee, Kellynn title: ‘If it's held dear, it’ll get pushed through’: Transmedia narratives, play cultures, and soft canon in tabletop role-playing games (TTRPGs) ispublished: inpress divisions: UCL divisions: B03 divisions: C03 divisions: F22 note: © The Author(s) 2024. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). abstract: Transmedia storytelling is a strategy adopted by media franchises and brands to create participatory story-worlds for their consumers; it incorporates a range of forms, actors, and texts, all of which have varying degrees of narrative authority in determining the events that occur. This article focuses on tabletop role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons to show how play cultures in Singapore are shaped by transmedia storytelling techniques. In doing so, it makes two contributions to existing research: first, it shifts scholarly focus from game texts to player practice, showing how communities of play are created through players’ emergent usage of transmedia storytelling techniques. Second, it describes a player practice of soft canon, which I theorise as an approach to shared world-making that prioritises the emotional resonance of narrative details over a positivist accounting of narrative events. The concept of soft canon reveals a new perspective on how communities create and sustain intersubjectively imagined worlds. date: 2024-04-13 date_type: published publisher: SAGE PUBLICATIONS INC official_url: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/13678779241244407 oa_status: green full_text_type: pub language: eng primo: open primo_central: open_green verified: verified_manual elements_id: 2271420 doi: 10.1177/13678779241244407 lyricists_name: Wee, Kellynn lyricists_id: KJWEE58 actors_name: Flynn, Bernadette actors_id: BFFLY94 actors_role: owner full_text_status: public publication: International Journal of Cultural Studies pages: 19 citation: Wee, Kellynn; (2024) ‘If it's held dear, it’ll get pushed through’: Transmedia narratives, play cultures, and soft canon in tabletop role-playing games (TTRPGs). International Journal of Cultural Studies 10.1177/13678779241244407 <https://doi.org/10.1177/13678779241244407>. (In press). Green open access document_url: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10191835/1/wee-2024-if-it-s-held-dear-it-ll-get-pushed-through-transmedia-narratives-play-cultures-and-soft-canon-in-tabletop-role.pdf