Writer Biography

R. Elle Smith received her Bachelor’s in creative writing at Utah Valley University and her Master’s in English with an emphasis in Culture and Composition at Utah State in 2022. She was the Department of English’s Graduate Instructor of the Year in 2022 and served as the Graduate Assistant Director of Composition in the 2021-22 academic year. In this position, she helped create the English 1010 and English 2010 curriculum. Currently, Elle is researching how to apply translingualism in the composition classroom at Utah State University.

This essay was composed in August 2020.

MY FELLOW PLAYERS AND I ARE sitting around a table when Cory grins with ominous intent. I know what is coming next.

“Roll for initiative,” Cory says with a devilish smile.

My heart rate increases a little at these words because this phrase has special meaning in this discourse community: Dungeons and Dragons (DnD). Cory is the dungeon master (DM), and he describes the world and events. The players, like me, explain how each character reacts to the story the DM tells. Players sit around a table, create characters, and roll dice, but overall, playing is about telling a communal story. Usually, I am a player, someone who brings a character to the story, but occasionally I have been the master of the tale, the DM.

Because DnD is a collaborative storytelling game, I could analyze many documents from this discourse community that would illustrate how they communicate, but I will focus on the character sheet. The fifth edition of DnD has a 315-page rule book, but only a fraction needs to be remembered by each player. That is where the character sheet comes into play. A character sheet organizes all the rules each player needs to know about their character and is essential in the storytelling element of the game. It contains information like how fast the character can run, how strong they are, if they can see in the dark, and what languages they speak. A player creates a character sheet mainly as a memory tool for themself, but it also helps the DM and other players keep track of what the player’s character can and cannot do. It also has personality and background details about the character, so it can lend insight into what that character will or will not do. The character sheet gives the creators of the game ethos, outlines the lexis of the community, and guides the player through the logic of the game mechanics, thus building logos. The character sheet demonstrates how the community values the rules of the game in building a collaborative story while also showing how important the flexibility to be creative is as individual players contribute to the narrative.

The exigence and ethos of the character sheet go hand in hand. At first glance, a 315-page manual makes DnD seem like an unplayable game. An outsider looking at such lengthy rules might question the creators of DnD’s ethos because that outsider might not trust that the game will be playable with so many rules to remember. The character sheet solves this problem by making the rules easy to understand and access while playing the game. The end of the guidebook teaches the player how to fill out a three-page character sheet, and the information therein is most of what the player needs to know. By making the rules easily accessible, the players and the DM can focus on the storytelling elements of the game. The creators made the character sheet to make the game more playable and improve their ethos by condensing the complex rules into an acceptable length. The character sheet emphasizes the rules, which are essential to follow in building the game’s story, while also making those rules an easy and fun element of playing the game.

While the character sheet contributes to the game’s ethos, it also outlines the lexis necessary to play it. In the cooperative story-telling employed while playing DnD, the player is often in a different world, and unique vocabulary is essential in building this world. The character sheet helps communicate the lexis that maintains this fantasy world. For instance, on the left side of the first page are values called attributes, which have numbers associated with them. The numbers tell how dexterous, strong, wise, healthy, charismatic, and intelligent that character is. The character sheet does not define the meaning of the vocabulary. For example, to find out how wisdom and intelligence differ in the game, the player would need to turn to the full 315-page manual or ask a fellow player. Instead, the character sheet associates the lexis with the specific stats of the player’s character. In this way, the character sheet serves as a quick guide for the player and the DM so that once they understand the lexis, the stats are a glance away. The ease of having these stats allows for the storytelling to continue.

The character sheet also explains the game to new players because its organization demonstrates the logic of DnD. For example, those attributes listed on the first page’s left side (e.g., strength, dexterity, etc.) are the first thing the player decides for their character. All the other information comes from those initial figures so the player can fill out the page from left to right. Once a new player has the attributes section filled in, they use those numbers to fill out the “skills” information. For instance, the “athletic” skill uses the “strength” stat. The character sheet can be used to teach someone the logic of the game and houses the stats of the character. When the character sheet does this “active” teaching, the game’s rules are still prioritized, but they don’t get in the way of actually playing the game. Instead, filling out the character sheet becomes an integral part of the creativity and flexibility that is so important to the community when they play the game.

Analyzing how the character sheet functions within its discourse community helped me understand how creating approachable information builds ethos. Also, making a simplified document that can stand in for complicated texts helps users understand the lexis of the discourse community and build logos. The next time the DM says, “Roll for initiative,” I’ll remember that the rules, storytelling, and creativity that make up the game are part of what distinguishes this discourse community.