1. Introduction
[1.1] Fan studies has shown that the pathologization of fans stems from both a misunderstanding of fan values and a devaluation of fan works and cultures (e.g., Stanfill 2013; Bennett and Booth 2016). However, this impression still persists in spaces beyond the field, where cultural coverage remains fond of the screaming fangirl stereotype and fan works are often still considered with incredulity (Williams 2016). Even among fan communities, members may create and perpetuate hierarchies among themselves based on factors such as degree of affective attachment to a source text, level of knowledge regarding the source text, longevity within the community, and more.
[1.2] To our minds, what unites these examples is how they value the interplay between creator and fan—and specifically, where and how this interplay intervenes into fans' making of new texts. In the case of transformative fan works like fan fiction and fan art, the interplay between creators and fans is fraught with questions of authority and agency: Who is allowed to create fan work, whether legally, morally, or both?
[1.3] For fan fiction and fan art, this has changed somewhat in the last decade. From the corporate side at least, fans' creativity is welcomed primarily when it provides material suitable for marketing and publication but not when it functions as critical engagement. Or, as per Seymour's (2018) terms for fan art: when fan work is "homage" or limited "collaboration" but not when it is "intervention" (99). And yet, fan works that intervene into the fan object continue to proliferate, as do avenues for fans to enter professional avenues of production after creating different forms of fan work. To better understand this development, as well as its potentials and pitfalls, we suggest turning to a form less often considered in fan studies: analog games.
[1.4] Creator/fan interplay functions differently with analog games—that is, games with primarily material components, such as board games and tabletop role-playing games (TTRPGs)—than it does with fixed texts such as television shows, books, films, music, or even digital games. For one (very obvious) thing, creative play is already a requisite and expected part of fans' engagement with these analog texts. Unlike even video games, where a computational black box keeps players on ready-made procedural routes through the game (Bogost 2007), in analog games, the creator relies on players engaging with the rules (reading them, learning them, internalizing their value, and enforcing them among the group) for the game to be played as written. But because the notion of play is at the heart of engagement with analog games, this also leaves room for other types of creativity: improvement, expansion, and/or change. Consequently, analog games evidence a rather different relationship to the idea of creator/fan interplay, and this leads to a much broader range of possibilities for the forms these relationships take.
[1.5] To demonstrate, we offer a survey of creator/fan interactions related to the text(s) of analog games and draw from this to theorize what we are calling a spectrum of interplay. The different levels we suggest on this spectrum are not intended to be either prescriptive or entirely distinct but instead more of a continuum between a creator's mere awareness that fan works exist to a creator's drawing complete inspiration from such fan works. In one respect, this view continues the work of updating our understanding of fan interaction as primarily speaking back to authorized texts and their creators (as established by Jenkins [1992] and others). However, it does so not only in creating more gradients of interaction but also in the way it emphasizes the critical role that creative play (specifically, including the playful manipulation of texts and their elements both mechanical and narrative) takes in contemporary media, such as games. As Aaron Trammell (2019) has noted, "Considering analog games through the lens of fan studies leads to a number of critical questions" (¶ 12), and the question of creator/fan interplay, we believe, is one. In a moment when play has become a central facet of the media environment and ludic texts are becoming more central to today's media (Booth 2015a, 2015b), it behooves us to reexamine the models that define fans' interaction with the texts that often form their fan object(s).
[1.6] We begin with a definition and discussion of analog games—as distinct from both video games and other text-based fan objects—then move on to mapping out a range of analog game texts that we find indicative of the phenomenon described above. We focus on both board games and TTRPGs that have robust fan expansions—that is, fan-created paratexts or appendages to the original text(s)—as well as visible creator responses to these expansions. We organize these examples in terms of increasing consciousness and formalization—that is, how much the original creators are aware of the fan-created expansions and how (or even whether) they support their creation. Organizing interventions in this way reveals a spectrum that ranges from laissez-faire permissiveness to formalized rules of engagement, which we argue suggests multiple pathways to legitimacy (or not) for fan-created paratextual expansions of analog games.
2. Analog games, play, and creativity
[2.1] Analog games are those played in physical locations using material objects—a description used to distinguish them primarily from digital and video games, which are mediated equally by computational technologies. According to Analog Game Studies, analog games utilize materials such as "dice, cards, boards, pencil, paper, tokens, and/or performative elements" and thus constitute a broad category, encompassing "role-playing games, traditional games (chess, go, backgammon), parlor games, strategy board games, collectible card games, [and] LARP [live action role-playing]" (https://analoggamestudies.org/about/). Analog games are also a swiftly expanding market: In October 2024, the market for analog games was forecasted to grow about 10 percent in a five-year period ("Board Games Market—Focused Insights 2024–2029" 2024), and a 2024 Business Wire article notes that the valuation of the analog game market in 2023 was 21.07 billion USD, expected to reach 41.07 billion USD by 2029 ("Board Games Market Report 2024" 2024). Moreover, one of the key drivers identified in this market research notes how this genre responds to a "rise in demand for analog experience," a pastime that offers a "tactile, face-to-face experience that contrasts sharply with the digital world, offering a form of relaxation and connection that digital games and online interactions often can't replicate" ("Board Games Market—Focused Insights 2024–2029" 2024).
[2.2] What market research cannot fully capture, though, is the role of creativity in analog games and, by extension, among the players and fannish communities connected to them. Indeed, in their call for a reinvigorated subfield of analog game studies, Aaron Trammell et al. (2014) maintain of analog games that "the impetus is on invention as opposed to industry." Anecdotally, we may associate playing analog games with "following the rules"—that is, if you don't play the rules of chess, then whatever you might be doing with the chessboard and chess pieces just isn't chess. However, there are both procedural and practical challenges to this impression. On the procedural side, analog games lack the black box of video games, namely, the preprogrammed computational restraints that compel a video game's players to follow ready-made rules and story paths through even the most open-ended video game. Instead, analog games depend on players to first learn the rules and then enforce those rules among themselves, even as those rules and their rationale(s) may be spread across a wide variety of texts in more established games (Alberto 2024). On the practical side, research on analog games has shown that even where players intend to play by the rules, there is still a great deal of creative engagement with the text, resulting in solutions and play experiences well beyond what the creator might have expected players to experience or achieve (Booth 2021).
[2.3] In Board Games as Media, Paul Booth (2021) identifies the "ludo-textual" ways in which analog games synthesize the text made by creators with the actions undertaken by those engaging that text through play. Essentially, "the game system itself cannot be fully understood without player involvement and participation" (21). For example, textual components like meeples, boards, or rules may require player interpretation, and this may be compounded with newer/less established games (consider a board game released in 2023 versus chess and its extensive history) or of different genres (consider the openness of a TTRPG versus the constrained play of Risk).
[2.4] While there are many ways that ludo-textuality can manifest, perhaps the most significant for fan studies is the way that it can serve as a heuristic for examining creative engagement: that is, how analog game players may play with the boundaries of a game, specifically during the creation of new material. From a ludo-textual perspective, the boundaries of the game—both as a diegetic world during individual play but also more broadly as a cultural object played by many individuals in different spaces—can expand in different ways depending on the creative input of players themselves. Moreover, some of these ways certainly proceed well beyond the "rules as written," or alternately, RAW, to adopt a term from tabletop gaming.
[2.5] Yet for all this focus on interaction, creation, and transformation, "the notion that board gamers can be fans has been little interrogated" (Booth 2018, 428) in extant scholarship, even when it is present. Part of this complication stems from the question of "who exactly qualifies as a 'fan' once fan culture moves from the margins to the mainstream" (Click and Scott 2018, 1). In our cultural moment, is a fan any "avid, enthusiastic consumer of a media object (be it a television series, franchise, sports team, or celebrity)"? Or alternately, is "active participation in a fan community (either digitally or through real-world events like meet-ups or conventions) required to claim that title" (1)? In addition, the term is applied inconsistently. In tabletop gaming scholarship, for instance, terms like "TTRPG fans" are certainly visible, but it may be used akin to "subcultural groups" or "RPG enthusiasts," or else synonymously with "TTRPG players" (Huddleston 2022). Elsewhere, TTRPG journalist Lin Codega (2023a) credits "Fan engagement!" with the enduring popularity of Dungeons & Dragons (D&D): "Plain and simple, people started to care about tabletop role-playing games (TTRPGs) when fans started posting about playing D&D" and "it got popular because fans made it popular. D&D has its merits, but none so great or as impactful as its players." Likewise, analog game-related events such as GenCon, the convention famously attached to D&D, are also discussed and contextualized as fan events (Baker 2024).
[2.6] Yet as much as it problematizes, this slippage also offers opportunities. For one thing, it can gesture toward transformational possibilities, as seen with Sarah Stang's (2021) (re)reading of the female monstrosity embodied by D&D's evil spider-goddess Lolth: "While she has been celebrated by many fans who envision her in creative and interesting ways, D&D itself does not leave space for her to be redeemed, reclaimed, or identified with. Fans must do that on their own" (18, emphasis ours). Or, to Jennifer Cover (2010), those who play analog games also constitute a subculture (112), "interact with" and "appropriate" existing fictional worlds (112), gather in specific spaces to create or locate like-minded communities (117), and "[respond] to a text by engaging with it in a more productive way" (118)—though she also notes that individuals may participate in these activities to different degrees. This leads her to differentiate between "the community-oriented fan" who interacts with others at conventions and in play beyond a specific gaming group versus the "individual fan" who seems to stick with one group and/or one system (120).
[2.7] What we are noticing, then, is that discussions of analog game players as fans tend either to collapse definitions ("players are enthusiasts are fans" or "players are communities" or "players are gamers"), to use terms interchangeably (players = fans), or to lean into certain definitions of fan (they are a subculture; they form a cohesive community; they interact with texts in ways that produce fan fiction, etc.). Between this tendency on the one hand and the difficulty of pinning down a comprehensive definition of fan or fandom (Click and Scott 2018) on the other, it can become challenging to define precisely what an analog game fan might be.
[2.8] In recent work, we have theorized one potential explanation: There remains "an implicit assumption among gamers that hinges on the (continued) negative representation of fandom in popular culture (e.g., We are not mere fans of D&D; we are players of D&D)" (Alberto and Booth 2024, 16). Here, the logic runs, fans are emotionally (over)invested but not necessarily utilizing the game system and rules properly, while the latter focus on rules and lore as written. Of course, this binary is more constructed from received stereotypes than necessarily accurate, but it does reveal how collapsing terms and practices fail to truly treat both fans and players of analog games—let alone provide a useful starting point to begin looking at actual forms of amateur production.
[2.9] So where does this leave us, given the critical role of ludo-textuality but also the pitfalls of current discussions in fannish terms? To our minds, two questions arise: First, where, how, and why can we consider engagement with analog games as creatively fannish? Then second—and by extension—what do we make of creative engagement by other parties, especially when put into dialogue with the creators of those game texts being "responded to" (Cover 2010, 118)? Can this be one way of considering the question "In an industry that is primarily driven by cottage-publishing endeavors, how should the roles of media consumer and media producer be defined" (Trammell 2019)?
[2.10] The answers, we suspect, begin with the very nature of our subject: namely, playing games already entails some level of creativity. A standard definition of creativity notes that "creativity requires both originality and effectiveness" (Runco and Jaeger 2012, 92) or "novelty and usefulness" (Dow 2017). Similarly, creativity is a property of those who act (Gaut 2010). It would be impossible here to summarize the many decades of scholarship tying play to creativity, but there is a general consensus that "there is overlap among [cognitive and affective] processes" that occur in both play activities and creative activities (Russ 2014, 7). Moreover, as Mary Flanagan (2009) has noted, games can function as "means for creative expression" (1) as well as "instruments for conceptual thinking, or as tools to help examine or work through social issues" (1).
[2.11] Fan expansions of analog games occur in a space between these two more commonly studied forms. As Trammell (2019) notes, "for fan studies scholars, the interdependence between grassroots fan production and top-down corporate control is fundamental to what differentiates a fan from a consumer." Moreover, these texts comment upon professionally created games, often drawing from the impulses of pretend play, which results in fan-created paratexts that prove to be intriguing combinations of "homage, collaboration, or intervention" (Seymour 2018, 99) rather than intervening in just one manner. Accordingly, fan expansions of analog games are distinct from the connections among games, play, and creativity more commonly studied in other fields, as well as from the transformative fan works more commonly considered in fan studies.
[2.12] We suggest that players can be fans of specific game texts (e.g., Catan or Blades in the Dark), of game systems (e.g., the d20 system), and/or of particular play styles (strategic, cooperative, narrative-driven). However, players' fannish engagement(s) are not necessarily predicated upon positioning themselves as fans. Instead, we can find this positioning evidenced in fan expansions and initial creators' responses to them.
3. What are fan expansions?
[3.1] The vast majority of analog game systems have a main text, or what players would call a base game. In addition, many games include expansions, which are extra, optional components that change the gameplay experience in some way: altering gameplay rules, adding new resources, reflavoring lore, and so on. Most expansions are created by the designer of the original game or an authorized representative. However, a smaller subset are fan expansions, which are unauthorized expansions created by players of the base game (note 1). BoardGameGeek, the self-titled "definitive source for tabletop games," offers its own definition. Fan-created expansions are "non-commercial enhancements made by people other than a base game's designers or publishers. In other words, these are 'unofficial' works. The convention of adding ;(fan expansion for…); to the title field arose when the people behind Dominion expressed concern that unlicensed work might be confused with the official product line" (https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgamecategory/2687/fan-expansion).
[3.2] Fan expansions can be of various scopes, ranging from a whole new text detailing new rules that costs as much as the original game to a five-page adventure sold for a few dollars. Expansions in general—and thus, fan expansions as well—may also serve multivarious roles: a testing ground for players to develop their game design skills within another game's diegesis; a way to express affection for a particular game; a new interpretation or critical engagement with key points in a game; or a way to continue a game past when the creators have stopped or moved on to new avenues.
[3.3] Some companies embrace fan-made expansions, such as when "Space Cowboys…encouraged fans of the game to design and distribute their own fan-made expansions of the game, providing a 'how-to' guide with card specifications and game play dynamics on their website" (Booth 2021, 109–10). Other companies may be less enthusiastic or may only allow them under special circumstances; for example, Greater than Games—the maker of Spirit Island—has an entire page devoted to the rules of what fans can and cannot do (https://querki.net/u/darker/spirit-island-faq/#!.9v5ka4u).
[3.4] Ultimately, then, when we unpack the following spectrum of creative investment in fan expansions, we are actually describing how much players' creative—and specifically, fannish—engagement is put in dialogue with creators of game texts and how the creator responds to this impulse on the part of their fans. In what follows, we created and demonstrate a multimethodological investigation of exemplar games from both board game and TTRPG communities, using a combination of textual analysis and discourse analysis to uncover how game players and creators interact.
4. A range of responses to fan expansions
[4.1] There are far more analog games with fan-created expansions than we have the space to cover. However, we have identified a representative sample from our two areas of expertise—board games and TTRPGs, respectively—that we suggest demonstrate six distinct levels of interplay between creators and fans of analog games, namely:
- [4.2] Simple Awareness: The creator of the base game is, or has been, aware that fan expansions exist and has taken little to no action regarding them, either in positive directions (sanctioning or condoning) or in negative ones (forbidding or attacking them).
- Authorized Permission: The creator of the base game has made resources available for players to create their own limited-use expansions for the game.
- Narrative Framework: The creator of the base game has made the narrative basis of that game available as the foundation of fan expansions, and/or fans focus upon the narrative basis more than overt rules and mechanics.
- Limited Licensing: The creator of the base game has created licensing options for third parties to make, publish, and distribute their expansions upon the game. There are clear limitations to what parts of the base game may be used in this way, in terms of content (narrative and mechanical) and branding.
- Community-Minded Licensing: The creator of the base game has created licensing options that prioritize players as a community over intellectual property (IP) protections or commercial opportunities. There are few limitations on which parts of the base game may be used in expansions, in terms of content (both narrative and mechanical) and branding.
- Inspirational Framework: The creator of the base game has declared the base game open for inspiration and reinterpretation. There may be few limitations on which parts of the base game can be used in this way.
[4.3] Each level here both reveals and relies on different relationships between the initial creator and the players who create their own expansions of the analog game.
[4.4] A key consideration of fan-created board game expansions is the way they open up the game to new forms of play, which can be interpreted either as a new, exciting play style or as a critique of the original play style (or both). As Booth (2021) has previously discussed, here regarding the game Dead of Winter, fan expansions exist in the spaces where gameplay or narrative may fall short: "The gaps between the game, its sequel, and its expansion all allow the players to create their own stories within the world created by Jonathan Gilmour and Isaac Vega, the créateurs of the game. There aren't clear answers given to the questions raised in Dead of Winter, but merely openings in which players can construct their own meanings" (107).
[4.5] Fan expansions speak to the same type of gaps that Henry Jenkins (1992) discusses in his canonical Textual Poachers, where fans insert themselves in the "gaps in the narrative information…[their] speculations focus on kernels of excess information, background details tossed into ongoing stories" (103). Fans fill in the gaps by writing their own fan fiction, creating videos, and so on, that can, in turn, critique the original text by, for example, reshaping the narrative backstory of a villain to turn them into a hero or redefining the relationship between two characters. It's not that fans necessarily have to critique the original text but rather that in the process of augmenting what has previously been seen/read, fans implicitly add to their understanding of that shared textual universe and in doing so, alter their comprehension of the canon itself.
[4.6] Fan expansions, however, offer a style of creative critique that has professional implications. On BoardGameGeek, designers talk about how expansion design can lead to more professional opportunities (https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1868535/legalities-of-releasing-an-unofficial-expansion-fo). For example Randy Hoyt, owner and game producer at Foxtrot Games, has led game development for games like Lanterns: The Harvest Festival, World's Fair 1893, and The Fox in the Forest. He notes on that thread that "If it's [fan expansion] a really great design, the designer and publisher may be interested in working with you to refine it and publish it." This, he explains, is what happened with Codenames Duet, a popular two-player version of the already popular party game designed by Scot Eaton and then purchased by original designer Vlaada Chvátil. In this case, the game allowed two players to play (the original Codenames required three or more) and thus became a popular expansion that implicitly critiqued the original game while also augmenting it in a way that developed its potential.
[4.7] The fan expansions for the board game Horrified reveals the first stage of fan expansion: Simple Awareness. Horrified is a cooperative game in which players work together to defeat monsters. Four official versions of the base game exist: the original with classic Universal monsters (Dracula, Frankenstein's monster, etc.), a Greek monster version (Hydra, etc.), an American monster version (Bigfoot, etc.), and a World of Monsters (Cthulhu, the Yeti, etc.). Each game plays the same, so it's possible to mix and match monsters, and the opportunity exists for fans to create their own. On BoardGameGeek's "All the Fan Made Expansions So Far" page (https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2287215/all-the-fan-made-expansions-so-far), fans have shared their own fan-created monsters for the game. Contributor Issac Poe writes: "Tim Snider (gameagain) has created three new monsters for horrified [sic] (Phantom Of The Opera, Children Of The Damned, and The Fly) and is said to be creating two more (The Headless Horseman and The Blob) […] Not necessarily the most in-depth expansion but allows for more options when playing Horrified."
[4.8] None of these expansions have been officially authorized by publisher Ravensburger, but neither has the company attempted to shut the contributors down. And they could have the authority to do so: According to Schaeffer (2015) in a law article published by the American Bar Association, "board game developers and publishers have found themselves facing intellectual property (IP) issues with increasing frequency" (n.p.). While you can't copyright game mechanics, you can copyright the theme as well as the written rules, art, board, and other elements (Schaeffer 2015).
[4.9] Meanwhile, fan expansions for T.I.M.E. Stories clearly function differently than those for Horrified, and rather than Simple Awareness, game creator Space Cowboys has offered Authorized Permission. On their website, they have a "T.I.M.E. Stories Designer's Kit" (https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1D_E-U4sEACgq3w94SDW_Q9LegrKAB8yM), with branded assets available for people who want to create their own scenarios. These assets include the images that make up the iconography, the different cards, the board elements, and so on. Space Cowboys uses the Designer's Kit specifically to allow interested players to create fan expansions that look like the original product and might eventually become part of the Space Cowboys brand. That being said, many fan expansions for T.I.M.E. Stories still remain outside the professional sphere. For example, according to BoardGameGeek, the most popular fan expansion—Switching Gears—has 242 ratings, and 456 people claim to own it. Players can purchase a print-and-play version, or they can buy a preprinted version from designer Stephanie Pearce.
[4.10] Another example of the different levels of creator/fan interplay in board games can be found with Android: Netrunner, where the fan expansion has extended into a Narrative Framework. Originally designed by Magic: The Gathering designer Richard Garfield, the game was later rebooted by Fantasy Flight Games in 2012. In 2018, after Fantasy Flight’s license with Wizards of the Coast expired, the game was officially discontinued. As Garcia and Duncan (2019) have explained, however, "opportunities [arose] when the reins of control [were] placed in the hands of the Android: Netrunner fan communities." Soon, "the Android universe—including many of the characters, locations, and corporations within Android: Netrunner—persist[ed] in other in-print games, the Genesys TTRPG setting, and through novels. The transmedia narrative of Android does not end with the loss of the Netrunner license."
[4.11] What this means is that the fans have literally taken over the game: Netrunner is now akin to a Narrative Framework, where players draw on narrative units of a beloved storyworld (such as characters, events, locations) to create original fan expansions. A Narrative Framework approach may or may not make use of the original gameplay rules; instead, there is more focus on the fictional world. This focus means that fan-designers may be "straying from" the initial game's "predetermined structure and content" (Wilkinson 2022) in favor of custom storylines in the same diegetic space. (Worth noting here is that this idea of a narrative framework is both related to but also distinct from the more expansive frameworks visible with some TTRPGs, which may make use of the same mechanics as the original text but not necessarily the same storyworld or narrative devices—as we describe next.)
[4.12] Meanwhile, the TTRPG side of analog games has its own relationship with the phenomenon of fan expansions, though here the terms "homebrew" and "third-party" are far more common. Melanie Swalwell (2021), writing about gaming for 8-bit microcomputer systems, defines homebrew as "the development of games by users" (2); the term is used similarly in TTRPGs, where homebrew describes any material "made by players" rather than official producers and "just about anything you make or create can be homebrew—from items, spells, classes, and [home] rules to entire campaigns" (Spalding 2024). However, because homebrew is more esoteric and nondescriptive—and there is controversy over whether it describes just home games or also includes professionally published but still third-party materials—we have used "fan expansions" for this look at analog games at large.
[4.13] A highly visible example occurs with D&D, the most popular fantasy role-playing game. Anecdotally, D&D players know that no two games will play out in exactly the same way even when using official game rules and published material: player choices and role-playing will always lead to different outcomes. Likewise, D&D has a fifty-year history of releasing new editions with revised rules that supposedly streamline the game, and players have always been heavily involved in playtesting and refining (Peterson 2012). Beyond these circumstances, though, D&D players often create (or homebrew) their own adventures, complete with stories, monsters, and settings not present in official D&D materials, even if these new stories still make use of D&D rules like rolling certain dice or attributing specific character abilities. To accommodate this community practice, D&D's current parent company Wizards of the Coast offers what we're calling Limited Licensing of fan expansions through its Open Gaming License (OGL) and Systems Reference Document (SRD). The OGL is "a license agreement between you and Wizards of the Coast to access the core rules of Dungeons & Dragons through an SRD…created by Wizards in 2000 and has been used by the creator community since then to develop their D&D compatible products" (https://www.dndbeyond.com/resources/1781-systems-reference-document-srd), while the SRD is a document that "contains guidelines for publishing content" under that license. Essentially, the OGL functions as a legal contract while the SRD is a shortened list of core game rules and content that can be used this way (Arcane Library 2020) (note 2).
[4.14] This Limited Licensing on D&D's part differs significantly from our board game examples. For one thing, it supports an entire marketplace for third-party content, whose participants range from midsized publishers to small companies and even single individuals—some of whom are easier to characterize as fans than others, echoing Trammell's (2019) caution that "it would be a mistake to generalize [grassroots] interests as equivalent" to larger publishers. For another thing, this limited licensing also results in a plethora of fan-created texts (to the tune of several thousand options available on digital spaces like DMs Guild or DriveThruRPG). Additionally, these homebrew fan expansions evidence very different degrees of relation to the storyworld(s) of D&D: Some are clearly made with locations like the high fantasy Forgotten Realms in mind while others declare they can be used in any setting. Then finally, licensing implies and induces a more clearly commercial element, which can cause clashes with fans, as corporate actors decide their own interests are being threatened by fan-made works.
[4.15] The original OGL from 2000 was "a controversial new idea" in its own time (Dancey 2002), seen as a move to go "open-source" with D&D and thus prolong TTRPGs' relevance during the rise of digital games by promoting an economy of third-party creators (Leonard 2000). Despite the skepticism, the OGL worked well immediately. Albeit with some small changes over two decades, it "allowed a host of outside designers and publishers, both amateur and professional, new products for a game that remains entirely owned by Hasbro subsidiary Wizards of the Coast" (Codega 2023a), which in turn brought in new fans and supplied new material for existing fans. But in January 2023, a leaked draft of a new OGL revealed that Wizards planned to clamp down on this entire third-party ecosystem. Changes would update the OGL 1.0 to "no longer an authorized license agreement" (quoted in Codega 2023a), forcing publishers to completely redo their catalogs and distribution; it would also require anyone making D&D content to report it to Wizards, and anyone making a certain amount would be required to pay royalties (Codega 2023a). Although immediate backlash forced Wizards to retract the new OGL—and soon afterward they actually released an even more freeing version that made proprietary material Creative Commons—this example reveals key limitations inherent in the limited licensing model of fan expansions for analog games: namely, how it is unmistakably legal and commercial in nature. Thus, any changes made beneath the aegis of Limited Licensing treat dialogue and relationships with fans as necessary to the parent company's profit margins and brand image. Love of the game—such as it may be—comes second, even among charismatic game designers on social media or high-profile executives sent forward to apologize or take responsibility for snafus like the new OGL.
[4.16] Other types of licensing are visible in TTRPGs, almost certainly inspired by Wizard's approach but simultaneously working to improve upon it. For example, MÖRK BORG is a dark and apocalyptic fantasy TTRPG that offers Community-Minded Licensing—that is, a third-party license that prioritizes and encourages community over commercial gain or even open-source development. Creators Pelle Nilsson (Ockult Örtmästare Games) and Johan Nohr (Stockholm Kartell) "love community created content, hacks, adventures, monsters, tables etc.!" and offer a third-party license that "allows anyone to make stuff for MÖRK BORG and either publish it for free or sell it, without us taking a cut" (https://morkborg.com/license/). Players creating their own MÖRK BORG content can use the game's central Prophecy as well as "the names of creatures, locations and entities of the game world" ("Content 2"), and the game's "mechanics and game rules…may be reused and referenced freely" ("Content 3"). This license also exists in tandem with the MÖRK BORG Cult, a program for "selected, approved and curated MÖRK BORG content written by fans and laid out and illustrated by the MÖRK BORG team" (https://morkborg.exlibrisrpg.com/tags/mork-borg-cult).
[4.17] However, TTRPGs also present options that depart from even this kind of permissive licensing of fan expansions upon the core game. The most notable example here is Powered by the Apocalypse, or PbtA, which stems from Apocalypse World, a "fiction-first" or "storygame" TTRPG designed by Vincent and Meguy Baker in 2010. As Berge (2021) explains, PbtA "is not a branding or a mechanical linkage to [a game] system, but a mark of ludic etymology" (182). The term functions more as a "label" and an "unpoliced 'homage'" either to the Bakers' work or to other games inspired by them (182). In codesigner Vincent Baker's (2023) words, PbtA simply describes "games inspired by our original game Apocalypse World, and now games inspired by other PbtA games more generally." For the Bakers, "PbtA" is "a self-applied label"—any game can be called PbtA "if its creator was inspired by Apocalypse World or other PbtA games, and has chosen to call their game PbtA in turn."
[4.18] The Bakers do not require creators to even ask their permission when making PbtA games, only if using the logo or specific words from their initial Apocalypse World (¶ 12). Players can simply publish their PbtA games; optionally, they can share with the Bakers and PbtA community if they want. This expansive approach leaves most game mechanics—which includes distinctive elements like playbooks, moves, and 2d6+stat rolls (see Berge [2021] for more discussion)—entirely open for use. Simultaneously, though, a PbtA game need not use all or any of these conventions: it simply must be inspired by PbtA in some way.
[4.19] Thus, as Baker specifies several times, PbtA is not a game system; Berge's (2021) descriptions of "label," "homage," and "distributed legacy" (182) all suit very well. Within the spectrum of interplay, though, we would position PbtA as an Inspirational Framework: It provides identifiable supporting ludic structures that successors may build upon, but it does not mandate how—or even whether—these structures are actually used. It also does not require inspired games to draw on the genre or implied apocalyptic setting of the Bakers' Apocalypse World. In these ways, PbtA is also easily the most open, flexible, and permissive example of interplay between a creator who knows of the expansions being made to their analog game and the fans creating those expansions.
[4.20] The example games covered here represent just a sampling of the richness and wide-ranging possibilities for creator/fan interplay in analog games. Likewise, the different forms of interplay that our selection of games in this project exemplify—Simple Awareness, Authorized Permission, Narrative Framework, Limited Licensing, Community-Minded Licensing, and Inspirational Framework—should not be taken as the only forms of creator/fan interplay possible. These six are simply the most common and descriptive that we have encountered while working to theorize this spectrum at present, and we also find them a productive look at the richness of possibilities tied to creator/fan interplay in analog games specifically.
5. Conclusion: A spectrum of creator/fan interplay
[5.1] As we suggested earlier, looking at fan expansions of analog games reveals a spectrum of shapes and forms that creator/fan interplay can take. Moreover, these different shapes of creator/fan interplay each exhibit different degrees of permissiveness from the creator, perceived authority from the creator or base game text, and systematicity toward fan texts as a form of player engagement with the game.
[5.2] Since this has been a preliminary survey of the topic of fan expansions of analog games, there is certainly much more that could be done. For instance, a related factor to explore would be the degree of support that fan expansions receive from the base game's creator, on top of the permission, licensing, or other form of interplay. Explicit support, such as seen in how MÖRK BORG creators will repost and praise fan creations, may not be a material condition and will not necessarily impede or facilitate the actual production of an expansion, but it certainly says a great deal about whether that expansion will ever reach a greater audience beyond the fan-creator's own friends and existing personal network.
[5.3] At first glance, we know that it can be difficult to see the types of activities that analog game fans engage in as fannish; these activities "may be less obvious and less conventional than what fan studies has discussed in the past" (Booth 2021, 101), despite their use of distinctly fannish behaviors such as knowledge acquisition, identification role-play, and affective play (Booth 2021). We argue, however, that the consideration of analog gamers' activities—such as the production of fan expansions—can reveal intriguing forms of interplay between the creators and the fans of a fan object, as fan or player creative output intersects with creator control and authority. Indeed, analog games and their fan-created expansions reveal the existence of creative intersections that can enable, authorize, and support the production of fan texts in ways that complicate—and play with—traditional views of transformative works.