The Ethnography Of Tabletop Miniature Game Storyworlds
1. THE ETHNOGRAPHY OF
COLLECTIBLE MINIATURE
GAME STORYWORLDS
Ethan Watrall, PhD
Assistant Professor – Matrix: The Center for Human Arts, Letters, and Social Sciences Online
Assistant Professor - Dept. of Telecom, Information Studies, and Media
Assistant Professor - Dept. of History
Patrick Shaw
Reactor Zero
2. TRANSMEDIA STORYTELLING
An era of entertainment media convergence -
narrative unfold across multiple media channels
and products.
Audiences have become information hunters and
gatherers, tracking down character information and
plot-points
Making connections across multiple texts within
the same storyworld.
3. STORYWORLD?
Multiple media channels are an opportunity to
create holistic storytelling realities in which
many different stories can be told.
Stories are bound together in a fictional reality
that is designed (and evolved) with continuity
and canon in mind.
The reality connects the stories together, and
is not only fed by the stories, but in turn feeds
the stories, making them part of a living world.
5. QUESTION: Do story products that exist
within a rich and compelling
storyworld provide greater
enjoyment for the audience
than story products that do
not.
6. RESEARCH FOCUS: TABLETOP RPGs
RPG materials - significant space is dedicated
to in-depth information that defines the game’s
Researchers focused study on HeroClix
Tabletop miniature RPG game produced by
WizKids Inc (www.wizkidsgames.com)
7. WizKids’ HeroClix games: Marvel HeroClix, DC HeroClix, Indy Heroclix
Other Wizkids HeroClix games: MechWarrior, Mage Knight, HorrorClix
8. The primary purchasable unit in the
HeroClix game is the Booster Pack.
Contains several random figurines
11. HOW HEROCLIX WORKS?
Each character has 4 statistics:
speed (how far the character can
move), attack (how likely the
character is to him another
character, defense (ability to avoid
attack), damage, and range (how
far away the character can attack)
As a character takes damage (damage is measured in
“clicks”), the base is rotated to reveal new stats
(reflecting the characters increasingly weakened state).
Each character has a finite number of clicks (depending
on how powerful they are) before they are KO’ed and
removed from the game.
12.
13.
14. STUDY METHODS
Mixed Methods: traditional ethnographic
participant observation and empirical survey
Primary Questions:
1. Do players draw upon meta storyworld
information during gameplay
2. When do players draw upon meta storyworld
information
3. How do players draw upon meta storyworld
information
4. What sources do players use to draw upon
meta storyworld information
15. ETHNOGRAPHIC METHODS
PHASE I: Interviews with gatekeepers (store
owners and WizKids judges)
PHASE II: Participant observation at two local
(East Lansing, MI) game/comic stores (GS1 and
GS2)
Each group was observed for 4 game sessions a
piece
PHASE III: limited number of open ended
interviews with select individuals from the
observed game groups
16. IN-GAME FIELDNOTES CODING
GAME STORE - descriptions and opinions of the venue
COMPETITION - comparisons of player skills
FIGURES - discussion of the figures themselves
GAME PLAY - events occurring in game, such as attack,
movement, or character elimination.
OTHER - Comments that did not fit into other categories.
PERSONAL - player's personal lives
RULE CLARIFICATIONS - debate about rules
STRATEGY - plans to produce a given game outcome.
STORYWORLD - storyworld information
TEAMS - Discussion of comic based super hero groups or
team
17. IN-GAME OBSERVATIONS: RESULTS
GS1
GS2
40
36
30
25
INSTANCES
20
14
11
10
10
5
4
3
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CODED OBSERVATIONS
18. OUT OF GAMEPLAY OBSERVATIONS: STORYWORLD
Outside of gameplay there were marked
difference between how players from GS1 and
GS2 discussed the HeroClix storyworlds:
At GS1, the discussion that took place
before, between, and after the game rounds
was dominated by the discussion of ongoing
comic book stories and associated
characters.
At GS2, the frequency to which players
engaged in comic book storyworld
discussions was comparatively lower.
19. OUT OF GAMEPLAY OBSERVATIONS: PLAYER MOTIVATION
1. Players at GS2 were motivated primarily by
competition
2. Players at GS2 were motivated by a desire
to optimize their teams for official WizKids
competitive events
3. Players at GS1 were motivated more by
entertainment and enjoyment
20. OUT OF GAMEPLAY OBSERVATIONS: VENUE
Very little “cross pollination” between venues
Those who regularly played at GS1 rarely played at
GS2, and vise versa.
The only instances in which there were large
numbers of players from GS2 at GS1 was when
GS1 held qualifier rounds for competitive games
that would place .
GS1 and GS2 were separate gameplaying
“ecosystems”
21. SURVEY METHODS
Original plan to administer survey to players after
gameplay proved to be too disruptive (survey made
available on web instead)
The survey provided information on demography,
playstyle, and media consumption
Provided a counterpart in terms of breadth to the
depth that naturally comes with ethnographic
observation.
341 survey respondents
22. SURVEY RESULTS: DEMOGRAPHICS
97% of respondents were male and 3%
of respondents were female
Average age of respondents was 29
Most respondents (64%) had at least an
undergraduate degree
23. SURVEY RESULTS: MOTIVATIONS
Participants played the games either for quot;funquot;
or quot;competition,” but generally not both.
96% respondents were primarily interested in
fun
50% respondents were primarily interested in
competition.
Negative correlation between fun and
competition (i.e. competition is not necessarily
the same as fun)
24. SURVEY RESULTS: GAME INTERESTS
“Fun” is positively related to storyworld interest
and character interest and negatively related
to interest in game mechanics (“crunch”)
Interest in competition is positively related to
interest in game mechanics
Interest in competition is negatively related to
interest in storyworld and characters
25. SURVEY RESULTS: PLAY EXPERIENCE
Players with more than three years of
experience have slightly stronger interest in
storyworld.
Other interests were not significantly different
between experienced and inexperienced
players
26. CONCLUSIONS
Based on ethnographic observations and empirical
survey, researchers made the following conclusions:
1. The degree to which players draw upon meta
storyworld information depends on their motivations for
play (fun vs. competition)
2. Meta storyworld knowledge is draw upon extensively
along the edges of the game
3. Comic preferences draw players to the game &
influence the figures they choose to play (or the
combination of figures they choose to play)
4. Individuals who have played longer have a greater
interest in storyworld
27. FUTURE DIRECTIONS
While this portion of the research is
concluded, the research model is extensible:
1. MMOGs (very similar model of gameplay
to tabletop RPGs)
2. Original IPs vs. licensed IPs
3. Any differences between genres (fantasy
vs. science fiction, etc.)
4. Different WizKids clix genres
28. THANK YOU
Ethan Watrall
Matrix: The Center for Human Arts, Letters, and Social
Sciences Online
Dept. of Telecom, Information Studies, and Media
Michigan State University
