Media linguistic features of the tabletop role-playing game text

Shcherbakova Milena Viktorovna Lecturer, Department of the Russian Language № 5, Peoples' Friendship University of Russia named after Patrice Lumumba 117198, Russia, Moscow region, Moscow, Miklukho-Maklaya str., 6 milena_scherbakova@mail.ru Other publications by this author

Komlev Nikita Pavlovich Student, Department of the Russian Language № 5, Peoples' Friendship University of Russia named after Patrice Lumumba 117198, Russia, Moscow region, Moscow, Miklukho-Maklaya str., 6 npk001@mail.ru

Starting the study of the media linguistic features of a phenomenon, it should be pointed out that, according to the generally accepted linguistic paradigm, "the media text is the focus of attention in the study of media speech" ^{[12, p.11]}.  First appearing in foreign literature in the second half of the 20th century, the term "media text" has been actively functioning in the modern scientific community for the last three decades. T. G. Dobrosklonskaya, S. I. Smetanina, S. I. Bernstein, D. N. Shmelev, V. G. Kostomarov and G. Ya. Solganik made a significant contribution to the study of the phenomenon of media text ^{[3, 8-11, 20, 35-39, 45-46]}, the works of which can deservedly be considered a pioneer discovery.

Being one of the main media linguistic categories, media text receives different definitions, and time shows that the most "broad" definitions turn out to be the most successful.  In 1987, L. M. Maidanova managed to identify some features of the media text that are relevant to this day. Among them are "polyadressiveness" or "polyadressiveness", social orientation, polyfunctionality with an orientation towards informational impact, and most importantly, the properties of condensability (that is, folding to a short text) and situationality (attitude to the situation) ^[27]. Probably, the latter term is given here in the interpretation of A. S. Stern and L. N. Murzin, who characterized situationality as the attribution of a text to a fragment of non-linguistic reality ^[31]. For the media, such a fragment of reality is the circumstances that caused the creation of the text. They will also be associated with the main properties of the media text – mass character, collective authorship, hypertextuality, interactivity and multimedia, openness and integrativity, or polycode ^{[9, 23-24, 44]}. Obviously, in the above—mentioned work by L. M. Maidanova, the object of research was not called "media text" - the researcher used the concept of "newspaper text", which fully corresponded to the prevailing channel and method of mass dissemination of information at the time of publication of the article.  In general, at the dawn of Russian media linguistics, theorists were very careful about formulating new terms and borrowing English-speaking ones.

Thus, S. I. Smetanina does not formulate a definition of media text, but studies it in the context of culture "as a source of information about spiritual impulses and the material sphere of human activity" ^{[35, p. 78]}. V. V. Boguslavskaya devotes her research to "journalistic text" ^[50], T. V. Shmeleva conducts research on "media textta" ^{[48, p. 8]}, V. I. Konkov and M. Yu. Kazak, as well as D. N. Shmelev and G. Ya. Solganik operate with the concept of a "newspaper" text, which, however, has its own specifics and can be considered a kind of "progenitor" of the phenomenon we are studying ^{[15, 18, 38-40,46]}. If we turn to the works of the pioneers and pioneers of this field ^{[3, 38-39, 45]} and analyze the terminology, we can see that "media" and other English borrowings are not often found in them.  Nevertheless, this fact does not detract from the achievements of these scientists. Moreover, in various works that are important for media linguistics to this day and influenced the formation of media textology ^[11], linguists, when introducing new terms, faced the need to distinguish between certain phenomena, some of them partially or completely imply modern media text, while others remain independent concepts of humanitarian knowledge. These could be the following terms: journalistic text or newspaper, journalistic or newspaper-journalistic; media language or media text, media text. The relationship of the hyponymy of these concepts with the "news" text or, for example, with the "advertising", which later T. G. Dobrosklonskaya would single out as genres of media text ^{[10, p. 13]}, also left many unresolved issues.  The introduction of the lexeme "mediatext" was necessary for a number of reasons: not only to build the terminological apparatus of a relatively new scientific branch — media linguistics, but also to avoid logical confusion. The phenomenon, which is laconically designated nowadays, should have "crystallized", received objective grounds for existence and for its own name, partly borrowed from the English language.

Due to the increased role of Internet resources in mass media communication, the vast majority of media text production and distribution channels are located in the Internet space. In this regard, N. A. Kuzmina gives an interesting comment, suggesting using the term "web media text", which most fully reflects both the sphere of existence of the text ("WWW") and the "type of media channel" ^{[24, p. 255]}. She also justifiably criticizes bulky and tautological formations like "hypermedia text" and "Internet media text". A new synonym for "web media text" can be called the "digital media text" appearing in articles after 2020 ^{[28, p. 1014]}. Such an attributive construction also has a marker of belonging to a communicative environment. However, the recently appeared concept of "transmediatext" is reaching a new level" ^{[7, 22, 33, 43]}. It highlights the combination of interactivity, multimedia and multifunctional verbal web space. G. N. Trofimova considers this phenomenon within the framework of the "language of digital transmedia" ^{[33, p. 757]}, demonstrating trends towards universalization and convergence, which directly affects the linguistic "taste" and stylistic preferences of the audience.

Let's move on to consider whether the concept of media text really requires further expansion and adjustment. Let's turn to T. G. Dobrosklonskaya's classic definition: "Media text from the point of view of media linguistics is a consistent combination of symbolic units of verbal and media levels actualized in a certain media format and united by a common meaning" ^{[10, p. 30]}. When formulating the definition, she suggests focusing not on the search for genre specifics of the media text, but on the "format" (or "media format") due to its greater prevalence in the relevant field, as well as due to the universality of its application within the framework of various approaches to the description of texts. "When they say the format of a television channel, the format of a radio program, the format of a magazine, they mean precisely the stable connection of certain external features with stable components of content and style" ^{[10, p. 55]}. T. G. Dobrosklonskaya's correctness can be confirmed by a qualitative change in the field of functioning of the phenomenon under study: the lexeme "genre" was widely used during the years of the domination of physical media – printed, book and newspaper materials; however, when characterizing the media text, the use of the word "format" is advisable due to the modern features of its existence – otherwise an expansion of the term "genre" would be required. Nowadays, we can talk about the development of new formats within the already entrenched ones: this is a stream format as a kind of online broadcast, podcast format, story format, blog format ^{[52, p. 22],[49, p. 70]} or "blog format" ^[16], etc. Therefore, it must be recognized that at this stage, due to the expansion of media communication capabilities, The concept of media text is also expanding. Moreover, the mandatory presence of such a characteristic as format emphasizes the dependence of the media text phenomenon on extralinguistic factors: a new format for broadcasting text messages has appeared – the media text content of online text resources has expanded.

In this paragraph, as in the previous one, the format refers to a combination of formal and substantive aspects. It turns out that the release of this or that activity in the mass media, its presentation in a new format, gives researchers of media communications new food for thought, not only drawing attention to the substantive side of this activity, but also giving it an interdisciplinary perspective. This is what happened with the field of tabletop role-playing games. The emergence of the streaming format, or stream format (from the English stream – "stream"), made it possible to overcome the momentary, one-time and non-reproducibility (creativeness) of the role-playing game. Initially, the stream was created for "remote delivery of multimedia media products to viewers and listeners in real time" ^{[29, p. 77]}. Then, in order to adapt this format to the needs of a wide audience and thanks to technical capacities, streams began to be stored on platforms in the form of reproducible recordings, thereby providing the user with the opportunity to familiarize themselves with the content at any time (the most popular services are YouTube and Twitch).  Many stream videos even have a transcript – a text transcript generated automatically using a speech recognition system. The heterogeneity in this industry is interesting, probably due to viewer preferences: nowadays, some streams are already switching to the show format, others defiantly deny time or plot limitations, and others support multi-format.  According to M. D. Bolycheva, streaming broadcasting is "not just a separate type of broadcasting that is actively used by the mass media, but also a full-fledged socio-cultural phenomenon determined by the peculiarities of the digital era, the specifics of new forms of interaction between modern media and the audience, the special role of the consumer as a content creator" ^{[5, p. 160]}. 

The remark about the role of the consumer and the creator is especially important for the current study and deserves a separate comment. Firstly, the streaming format has the undeniable advantage of instant feedback, allowing the audience to react to what is happening on the other side of the screen, answer questions from the organizers of the stream, leaving comments directly during the broadcast. Sometimes the author even manages to selectively read the audience's answers and, in turn, respond to the desires of the audience (in the context of a tabletop role-playing game, this may be the choice of a plot twist, type of conflict, its denouement, the so-called "good" or "bad" ending for the characters). As a rule, the author's response is perceived by the consumer of the content as a great success or as encouragement, causes a violent emotional reaction, forming a sense of the user's own uniqueness, as well as involvement in the organizers of the stream process or the show as a whole. Viewers of a tabletop role-playing game at such a moment experience greater immersion in the gameplay, since the line between the author and the viewer is blurred, the distance between the speaker and the recipient is reduced, especially when addressing the commentator by name and in the second person. Psychologists have repeatedly noted that the possibility of an imaginary choice makes a deep impression on a person, which is actively used in many video games ^[4]. Secondly, a tabletop role-playing game is characterized by collective authorship, its authors are both the master (the host of the game) and the player, that is, all participants act as creators and consumers of content at the same time. "The creation of the story itself takes place right during the game, and the authors are both the players and the master," writes O. I. Nefedova in an article on storytelling in the board role–playing game "D&D" ("Dungeons and Dragons" – "Dungeons and Dragons") ^{[32, p. 101]}.

Before proceeding to the analysis of the linguistic specifics of the NRI narrative, it should be noted the relevance of the subculture of tabletop role-playing games both in the CIS and abroad. Currently, this subculture is so diverse that there are about three hundred official publishers that produce tabletop role-playing games based on hundreds of different game systems (List of tabletop role-playing games. Role-playing game-related lists: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 2024. URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tabletop_role-playing_games accessed: 22.02.2024). The most significant contribution to the development of this area was made by the game "D & D" – "Dungeons and Dragons". The appearance of this system in 1974 in the USA (authors Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson) It is associated in the public consciousness with the birth of the NRI movement as a whole. In the XX century, the beginning of quasi-medieval fantasy in the artistic direction of mass culture was laid – it is no coincidence that the original version of the game was released in this genre. The first live–action role-playing games ("LARP" - live-acting role playing game) began to be held around the same time. In the second half of the twentieth century, tactical board games called "wargames" (English "wargame" – a war game) first appeared, on the basis of which "D&D" was developed.

The rapid growth of the popularity of the role-playing movement in the CIS countries occurred due to the development of mass media. In the early 2010s, tabletop role-playing games remained a niche hobby, but since 2020, projects such as "Chicken Curry Dungeons" (shows on the Youtube platform), "Adventures are Coming", "Sneaky Dice" (channels on the Youtube platform) demonstrate the following indicators:

1) each issue of "Chicken Curry Dungeons" collects an average of 3.3 million views (23 issues in total);

2) The Adventures Are Coming channel has gained 120 thousand subscribers since April 2021;

3) the Sneaky Dice channel has gained 75.5 thousand subscribers since April 2021 (data from Youtube channels).

To reflect the growing popularity of YouTube channels dedicated to NRI, data was collected from the analytical website "Social Blade" (Social Blade. Social media analytics website. Raleigh, North Carolina United States. 2024. URL: https://socialblade.com / accessed: 03/01/2024), allowing you to track the dynamics of the increase in the number of subscribers (Table 1). In turn, the audience of these channels is proposed to be considered as a community of representatives of the NRI subculture, which most fully represents their general population.

Table 1. The number of subscribers of the most popular NRI channels on the YouTube platform

On average, the popularity of the most viewed channels increased by 278.2% over two years (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1. The growth lines of the number of subscribers of the most popular NRI channels on the YouTube platform

According to the results of a survey of the organizers of the largest NRI spaces "DUNGEON" and "Gate of Heroes", with the release of domestic game broadcasts on popular streaming platforms, the number of players in Moscow has increased 3 times over the past 3 years (sources: Interactive Adventure Theater "Gate of Heroes": official website. – Moscow, 2024. URL: https://heroesgate.ru / date of application: 02/22/2024. The club of tabletop role-playing games "Danj": the official website. – Moscow, 2024. URL: danj.Russian Federation date of application: 02/22/2024).

The most common concept of the game is the presence of several participants who verbally describe the actions of the characters under their control, while the game master ("GM" – game master) is responsible for constructing an imaginary game world and voicing the reaction to the actions of the players. Dice with a different number of faces are a common tool for evaluating the success of an action. Dice are necessary to introduce an element of randomness into the events taking place.  In modern NRI culture, it is customary to distinguish three schools into which game systems are divided: old school (oldschool), middle school (midschool) and new school (newschool). The main criteria for differentiation are, firstly, the degree of inviolability of the rules: in the games of the old school, the possibility and order of performing any actions are determined by the rules, in the games of the new school, the rules are the most flexible and reduced to the level of recommendations. Secondly, an important criterion is the level of concentration of the so-called narrative rights in the hands of the master (in games of the old school, most of the rights belong to the master of the game, in games of the new school, the role of the master is sometimes completely leveled).

Considering the media linguistic features of a tabletop role-playing game implies that the researcher has a text at his disposal, that is, a transcript of this game. Let's turn to the text of the American show "Critical Role" (2015 – present), similar to the aforementioned Russian-language channels (Critical Role. Weekly livestreamed show. 2024. URL: https://critrole.com/shows/critical-role/ accessed: 28.02.2024). The choice made is due, firstly, to the convenience of automating text processing, and secondly, to the fact that the participants of the "Critical Role" are professional voice actors. Thanks to the advanced functionality of the Youtube platform, the text transcript of most games is publicly available, moreover, it can be provided in different languages. However, the transcript data would not have been visible without preprocessing, so in order to structure the linguistic material of a large volume, automated data processing was carried out using algorithms written using the Python programming language. Structuring also provides an opportunity for further text markup that facilitates machine analysis of natural language. Thus, the research material can be found at the link:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GNPisg1ZDfJxq8QakfZ14cSXbhKxGNgE/view?usp=sharing

Let's turn to the consideration of the key categories of media text in relation to the verbal media accompaniment of a tabletop role-playing game based on the collected text material. Being an object of media linguistics ^{[24, p. 11]}, its basic category ^{[10, p. 26]} and the main form of interaction between the content producer and the consumer ^{[34, p. 98]}, the media text has a number of distinctive features. The analysis of media linguistic typologies and criteria for media text selection shows, on the one hand, the lack of unity of classification, on the other hand, a wide range of hypothetical features.

Let us turn to a number of generally recognized typological descriptions formulated by Russian media linguists – T. G. Dobrosklonskaya, N. A. Kuzmina, G. Ya. Solganik, N. V. Chicherina [8-10, 24, 36, 44]. " The specificity of media texts is determined, first of all, by the fact that they are designed for a mass audience," – this is exactly the feature Solganik emphasized mass characterization, calling it the first characteristic when formulating its own definition ^{[36, p. 11]}. Here he referred to the authoritative opinion of Y. M. Lotman on the fundamental difference between personal and mass communication ^{[36, p. 11]}. The transition to a different targeting of the text has a direct impact on the category of authorship. At first, researchers noted the combination of the author of the "private" and the author of the "social" in the personality of one person – the creator of the text ^{[37, p. 17]}, then it was already about the collective production of a media product ^{[24, p. 12]}, the presence of a "collegial" author (opinion of E.P. Prokhorov ^{[12, p. 17]}, N. A. Kuzmina ^{[24, p. 17]}), or, more commonly, –collective" ^{[1, p. 75],[10, p. 35],[44, p.162],[51, p. 325]}. T. V. Shmelev associates the complication of the category of authorship with an "increase in the number of voices" (according to M. M. Bakhtin), differentiating the level of manifestation of someone else's voice in the media text by complication of the first, second or third degree ^{[47, p. 11]}.

Regarding game communication, its mass character is due to the above-described emergence of new "genre formats" ^{[10, p. 40]}, their widespread distribution, as well as the entry of NRI into streaming services and their acquisition of elements of the show genre. Collective authorship is proved by analyzing the role of the consumer and the creator, whose interaction seems to be an actual phenomenon of postmodernism: the reader becomes a "participant in conditional communication" ^{[30, p. 85]}. Due to the instantaneous nature of feedback, the dialogical relationship between the author's "I" and the reader's is transformed, the author and the reader become "equal partners in the process of dialogical relations" when generating a game narrative ^{[17, p. 12]}, "I and the Other can change places" ^{[17, p. 12]}. The aforementioned leveling of the previously dominant master allows all players to act as equal authors of the game reality they create.

In the games we analyze, the interpenetration of the ideas of the author-master and the player-character is complicated by the addition of a spectator-commentator to their dialogue. "Mass media not only disseminate information, but also have a significant impact on their audience around the world" ^{[19, p. 23]}, and they often "repel the desires of the consumers of content themselves, especially on the Internet" ^{[32, p. 102]}. So, not without the influence of Internet commerce, it becomes possible to talk about a unique kind of collective authorship, which is no longer dialogical, but polylogical in nature. According to I. V. Yerofeeva, "the media text tends to synthesize and harmonize the individual and the social, it simultaneously opens up to the audience the unique creative potential of the author, "becoming like an autonomous personality", and demonstrates the originality of the national worldview, acquiring the features of a cultural model" ^{[13, p. 10]}. Indeed, thanks to the three-level collective authorship, the text of the NRI reflects an expanded range of images and allusions, references and precedent texts. The intertextual possibilities in modern games are already so extensive that they become the subject of a separate scientific study ^[42]. "D&D" in this regard, from the point of view of cognitive literary criticism, uses not only the phenomena of precedent, but also "mythological models" of different cultural traditions" ^{[32, p. 102]}.

The mention of the presence of various kinds of hyperlinks in the text of the NRI allows us to move on to the next feature of media texts – hypertextuality. Like most games in a quasi-medieval setting, "D&D" relies on classic fantasy-adventure plots, often with elements of detective, horror or mystery. All kinds of archetypes, stamps and cliches are widely used in the game, and from the point of view of onomasiology, almost every onym carries a hyperlink, usually to a literary work or cultural artifact, and sometimes to something locally known in the gaming community, for example, at a certain point in the previous game. In addition to hypertextuality, I. D. Fomichev and M. M. Lukin call interactivity and multimedia the key features of all media ^[25]. Interactivity, which is the interaction of participants in media communication, is characteristic of the NRI broadcast (it is illustrated above by the example of commenting on the stream). The contact established in this way between the author, the participants of the game and the viewer can be considered an interactive activity, an emotional and information exchange. The multimedia nature of the NRI accompaniment leaves no doubt: the media text can be perceived through different channels simultaneously – visual, verbal, auditory – as well as the perception of the game system. Even before the advent of digital technologies, game presenters used various images (iconic signs, maps of the area), sound effects, and music to decorate their narration. In other words, creolized text ("text consisting of verbal and non-verbal (image) parts" ^{[41, p. 9]}) has always been a means of deeper immersion in the game. Moreover, it can be argued that syncretism, which implies a combination of different forms of artistic creativity, and multimedia, indicating a variety of perceptual channels, became one of the first distinctive features of the NRI.

M. Y. Kazak adds to the list of I. D. Fomicheva and M. M. Lukina such categories as openness and integrativity, or polycode ^{[14, p. 323]}. The openness of the media text, according to scientists, correlates with the category of its intertextuality ^{[23, p. 16],[2, p. 110]}. The sphere of functioning of the media text as a semiotic phenomenon is a global information space, therefore it acquires the above–described properties, and also becomes polycode (integrative) ^{[24, p. 15]}. In turn, the NRI constructs a special semiotic system saturated with conventional signs, many of which can be decrypted exclusively within the gaming community. Thus, the assimilation of the rules of the game is complicated by a number of unfamiliar ambiguous terms, "false friends" of a beginner; the "threshold of entry" of new users into the community increases. For example, an "initiative" in "D&D" is an indicator of the sequence of moves in the battle scene. Among all the numerical values of the game cube, the numbers 20 and 1 are critical signs, "critics", after which a detailed description of the scene of success or failure follows. Changing the lighting or music informs the players about the beginning of a new stage, etc.

In the classification of N. A. Kuzmina ^{[24, pp. 11-17]}, several more signs of the media text relevant for the tabletop role-playing game broadcast to the masses are given: one-off and non-reproducibility; mediated communication and the special nature of feedback; production "on stream", the importance of technical means of broadcasting (its format), as well as an economic parameter.

All of the above is typical for the media accompaniment of a role-playing game. Thus, the mediation of communication by technical tools – modern computer resources – created the conditions for broadcasting media speech over the Internet, and then it became possible to popularize the so-called "genre formats" (stream, infotainment, etc. ^{[10, p. 40]}). The single-use and non-reproducibility of the game moment were overcome only thanks to the development of recording and transcription technologies, which made it possible to conduct this study. However, from the point of view of the game recording being in the information flow, these signs are still relevant – here we mean the momentary role of a particular release in the abyss of Internet content, complete subordination to the rule of transience of information culture phenomena. In modern realities, the economic parameter, closely related to the production of "on stream", occupies not the last place in the production of NRI, influencing both the content and the way games are implemented: due to the monetization of online platforms, the authors of game broadcasts began to think about retaining the audience's attention, which led to the introduction of elements of the genre of the show (the media text of the "third order" according to T. G. Dobrosklonskaya ^{[10, p. 42]}), the division of hours-long games into series, the appeal to the formats "shorts" and "stories", as well as to various marketing moves. The consumer demand for the continuation of the narrative served as the ground for the creation of sequels, prequels and other hypertext content in the fan segment. The nature of feedback has already been mentioned in the example with commenting, from which it can be concluded that its specificity, previously considered "delayed", absent or similar imitation of communication ^{[6, p. 102]}, is becoming more and more immediate these days, and the "postponement" of communication is reduced to ping time, that is, to a few milliseconds (ping is the period of time during which a message is delivered from a computer to the server, in our case it will be the time needed to deliver a comment from the addressee and to the addressee, from the commentator to the streamer).

So, the comparative analysis demonstrates a certain correlation between the transcript of the game and the media text. Moreover, both phenomena are characterized by the "revolving door principle" and the "principle of entering into a role" ^{[1, p. 75]}. The first implies the periodic repetition of the same information, the use of similar plots or similar structures to create the effect of novelty and significance of the message. As a result, new "mythologies of the linguistic personality" may appear ^{[1, p. 76]}. In fan discourse, these are, as a rule, fantasy, grotesque images, paremiological units, jokingly playful speech works, anecdotal stories. The second principle is a system-forming one in the NRI and allows the addressee to feel himself in the theater of "tabletop role-playing" actions, to feel his own involvement in what is happening.

Developing the idea that mass media texts, despite the apparent impossibility of reducing them to a single vector, still have common features, V. G. Kostomarov argued: "They are all equally unpredictable in content and equally designed for an unpredictable mass audience, contact with which is technically mediated" ^{[21, p. 188]}. The inability to predict the development of events is one of the main impulses that draw a person into the world of NRI and offer to realize any fantasies. The embodiment is achieved through modern technologies and even innovative neural network resources, which further stimulates the interest and involvement of players with a constant fluctuation between the game and the real, real and unreal, and such a fluctuation is characteristic of the metamodern culture.

Thus, the text of a tabletop role-playing game can be classified as media texts, which is proved by the correspondence of the main essential features of the studied phenomena.  Media texts include different forms of communication and different channels of information transmission, combining verbal and non-verbal; auditory and visual elements. The text of the role–playing game is full of descriptions of the world, characters, dialogues and rules - all of the above are the main game components, for the effective implementation of which a special, syncretic, "creolized" expression is required. Reflecting the interaction of all NRI participants, the text of the role-playing game is one of the main means of game communication, and it can be considered as a form of media text. But the text of the NRI itself becomes a media text only at the moment when it begins to be broadcast to the masses using streaming platforms with a transcription function – it is then that the possibility of textual "encapsulation" of the thought of the "person playing" appears, therefore, the possibility of reflexive analysis of linguistic material arises. In this regard, the NRI text reaches a new, "transmedia" level, implying a "transmedia narrative" as a narrative that develops in several environments, where "each storyline makes a special and valuable contribution to the overall narrative" (according to G. Jenkins). This new form of narrative activity makes it possible to move from "individual and passive consumption to collective and active entertainment" ^{[53, p. 35]}.