| This thesis examines how players of Dungeons & Dragons interpret chance and negotiate
perceived luck through dice rituals and other symbolic practices during tabletop role-playing
game (TTRPG) play. Situated in cultural anthropology, the study treats D&D sessions as liminal
and performative social spaces where participants collectively manage unpredictability, sustain
immersion, and shape interpretation through interaction. The project is motivated by repeated
observations of ritualized behaviors surrounding dice use, including practicing with dice before
sessions, isolating low-performing dice, avoiding perceived verbal jinxes, and engaging in small
gestures or appeals to luck prior to high-stake rolls.
Although D&D includes formal moral systems such as alignment, observational and
interview data show that alignment is rarely invoked during moment-to-moment play and
functions primarily as a flexible narrative reference rather than a consistently enacted ethical
framework. This finding redirects analytical attention toward the informal practices players use
to interpret outcomes and regulate emotional responses to randomness.
Using a qualitative multi-method design, this research combines participant observation
in online play communities, sustained viewing of publicly available recorded gameplay, semistructured interviews and written questionnaires with adult players, and netnographic analysis of
public discussions related to dice rituals and table etiquette. Data was analyzed through inductive
thematic coding and interpretive analysis informed by symbolic anthropology, performance
theory, and anthropological approaches to ritual and play. Findings show that dice rituals operate
as recognizable social strategies for managing tension, shaping affective responses to success
and failure, and reinforcing group cohesion through shared humor, narrative framing, and
embodied interaction with game materials. By foregrounding superstition and ritual in
contemporary tabletop play, this study extends anthropological approaches to ritual practice in
hybrid digital communities and demonstrates how imagined worlds provide productive sites for
examining interpretation when outcomes remain unpredictable.
Keywords: Cultural Anthropology, Symbolic Anthropology, Dungeons & Dragons,
Ritual Practice, Player Behavior, Liminality |