Generation Analog 2021

Generation Analog 2021 is a proceedings volume from the Tabletop Games and Education Conference, edited by Torner, Jones, Chang, Condis, and Trammell and published by Carnegie Mellon's ETC Press. Originally planned for Gen Con 2020, the conference moved online in July 2021 amid the COVID-19 pandemic and the George Floyd protests. Its central thesis is that analog gameplay cannot be separated from the digital platforms and social forces that shape it. The fourteen essays are organized into four sections: Making and Materiality, Communities and Inclusion, Mediation and Role-Playing, and Legacies of Dungeons & Dragons.

Several contributions advance Game-Making Education, in which students design analog or digital games as a vehicle for learning any subject. Case studies from social science, literature, atmospheric science, and psychology courses report heightened engagement with readings and disciplinary skills, though the evidence is largely qualitative and instructor-reported, with a single controlled study (n=21, eighth-grade science) showing gains in intrinsic motivation. Other essays analyze hybrid adaptations of board games such as Gloomhaven and Magic: The Gathering, arguing that adaptation can be understood as a spectrum of mediating objects, digitizing game state, and codifying rules. Work on "keepsake games" and on digital character keepers examines how materiality, shared online artifacts, and everyday play rhythms shape player experience.

A substantial strand documents persistent demographic imbalance in tabletop gaming. Surveys and database analyses find that women and BIPOC individuals are underrepresented among players, designers, and cover art, with roughly 93% of top-400 BoardGameGeek designer-game pairs credited to white men. Respondents largely express a desire for greater diversity, and authors argue that inclusivity is both an ethical and commercial imperative. Related essays critique race-linked ability scores and fantasy ancestries in Dungeons & Dragons, examine anti-othering norms in a DMsGuild creator community, and propose horror roleplaying as a site for ecocritical play.

The volume also treats Dungeons & Dragons as a subject of sustained study, analyzing its encoding of religion, its treatment on the Forge indie design forum (2001–2012), and its hybridization with digital media, where 2020 survey data from 354 players found that 70.9% reported COV