Remember the Good Old Days?: Nostalgia, Retroscapes, and the Dungeon Crawl Classics

Abstract

This paper examines the use of nostalgia to construct fantasy adventure modules as “retroscapes” or idealized representations of the past. Specifically, I examine a set of Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) supplements called the Dungeon Crawl Classics (DCCs) created by Goodman Games between 2002-2008. Despite their recent publication, the DCCs are constructed based on an emergent visual style reminiscent of early TSR-era D&D from the late 1970s and the early 1980s. The paper concludes that the idealized retroscapes constructed by the DCCs are ultimately confounded by a discourse of past and present.