At Forty We’re Feeling Fine – Looking Back at Fine’s Frame Theory and Considering Its Ongoing Relevance in Educational Settings.

Board Game Academics, March 2026
Published in Vol 3. Issue I.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.70380/v9q3t7b1xk8m4

Maryanne Cullinan, PhD

INTRODUCTION

The surge of pop-culture awareness of table-top role-playing games (TTRPGs) has brought Dungeons and Dragons and other TTRPGs into the popular spotlight. This new interest includes these games’ usage in a variety of settings beyond the obvious goals of playing TTRPGs as a leisure activity. Along with the community of people playing TTRPGs for fun, there is an increasing utilization of TTRPGs as therapeutic interventions or as a learning tool. This is commonly known as applied TTRPG usage. Academic interest in applied use has increased as well. Yuliawati and Wardhani (2024) reviewed 51 recent academic papers on the applied use of TTRPGs as psychological and therapeutic interventions. They found that TTRPGs have benefits to players, including stress reduction, mitigating social anxiety and depression, and increased social skills. Pitt et al. (2023) similarly found that TTRPG play builds social and emotional skill sets in youth populations. 

Educators are also interested in harnessing the benefits of TTRPGs for the classroom setting. Although there are fewer published studies about the impacts of TTRPGs in the classroom than there are in the counseling space, a body of research is beginning to be established around the use of TTRPGs as pedagogy, including Brogan et al. (2025), Shoenburger (2024), and Galindo (2024), among others. Other indicators of this interest include Wizards of the Coast’s publication of Educator Resources, including classroom based lessons (2022) and the emergence of books such as Level Up Your Classroom (Cassie 2016), Tabletop Role-Playing Games in the Classroom: Infusing Gameplay Into K-12 Instruction (Watson 2025) and successful self-published books such as Roll for Learning: 51 Micro Tabletop Role-Playing Games to Use in the Classroom (Zamboni et al. 2024) and Adventures in Teaching and Learning with TTRPGS (Cullinan and Munro 2025). 

In previous research conducted in 2024, I interviewed eleven middle and high school educators from across the world who each used TTRPGs as pedagogical tools in their classrooms. Each of these educators independently decided to use TTRPGs in their classrooms, based on their personal experiences and observations of TTRPGs outside the classroom. They transformed a published TTRPG or created their own to meet their goals as educators (Cullinan 2024).

But why? Utilizing such a complex pedagogy seems like a massive amount of work for an educator to take on—creating/modifying a TTRPG game system, creating/gathering all needed material components of said game, and then teaching this game to their students. Yet these educators spoke passionately about the impact the games have on their classrooms and articulated that this impact on students went beyond the learning of content and into how students engaged with both the subject matter and each other. The educators described a shift in the depth of students’ learning and in social dynamics between them, both in and out of the classroom. 

 To understand why TTRPGs are positioned to have a uniquely powerful impact in the classroom setting, we need to rewind time back to the early 1980s and the work of a sociologist named Gary Alan Fine. Fine’s work gives us a theoretical framework to understand what is happening in the minds of student players when they participate in a TTRPG, and how that can be harnessed by educators to maximize student engagement. We can then use that understanding to build academic RPGs in a classroom setting that purposefully utilize the theories of Fine to capitalize on the benefits TTRPGs can give to students.

To that end, we will begin by discussing Fine’s theoretical framework, the later terminology that the TTRPG community developed to describe interactions between the three frames, and how this framework connects to more recent work on motivation, called Self-Determination Theory. Then we will discuss the reason why inter-frame crossover matters in a classroom setting, and conclude with the elements that should be present in any classroom TTRPG to maximize their benefit as learning tools.

Gary Alan Fine’s Shared Fantasy and the Beginning of TTRPG Research

Gary Alan Fine is an American sociologist and professor at Northwestern University who has researched and written ethnographies of communities representing a diverse range of small group activities. In 1983, Fine published Shared Fantasy: Role Playing Games as Social Worlds through the University of Chicago Press. The research for this book began in 1978 (Fine 1983). For context, this was only four years after the initial publication of Dungeons and Dragons (Gygax and Arneson 1974). 

Fine spent hundreds of hours observing TTRPG players and playing TTRPGs himself. Ultimately, Shared Fantasy highlights the complex social and community dynamics of TTRPG communities—creating norms, recruitment, addressing social disruption, role-playing, and navigation of challenging topics such as sexuality and violence (Fine 1983). All of these topics are still incredibly relevant in the educational, therapeutic, and recreational uses of TTRPGs. 

For the purposes of this article, we will limit our focus to Fine’s observations of players during gameplay itself. We will especially focus on his observation that playing TTRPGs is a unique application of multiple concurrent “frames of thinking,” one with very few analogous counterparts in any other setting.

Fine’s Frame Theory 

Fine observed that during TTRPG game play, players seemed to hold three distinct frames of thinking in their minds, and were quickly switching between them. Furthermore, doing so was crucial to both the individual players and the overall game’s success. 

Frame One—Player as Self

The first frame of thinking is the player as themselves. This is the frame of physiological needs—hunger, physical discomfort, out-of-game logistics, materials management, etc. Frame One is the standard frame of reference we spend most of our time in as physical human beings.

Frame Two—Player as Game Strategist

The second frame of thinking being done by players is that of a game strategist. In any formal game, people who are taking the game seriously are working to achieve a win condition. In this way, TTRPGs are similar to other games. For example, in soccer, the strategic frame of thinking tells players to work to get more goals than the other team, while still abiding by the established rules. In chess, short-term Frame Two decisions may result in losses of pieces, but this serves the longer-term goal of defeating the opponent. Sometimes the win condition is a collective one, where the entire group wins or loses.In TTRPGs, the long-term win condition might be to tell a satisfying story, while concurrently, a short-term win condition is to solve a specific puzzle or defeat an enemy.

Frame Three—Players as Fictional Character

One of the defining characteristics of the TTRPG genre is that players role-play a fictional character during gameplay. This means that they are playacting the part of someone who is not themselves and may have a different set of beliefs, experiences, priorities, fears, and physical characteristics than the player. In this frame, TTRPGs are similar to theatrical performances where actors inhabit a fictional setting, plot, and character. This frame invites players to act out the emotions and choices of a fictional persona.

The Interaction Between the Three Frames

Where Fine’s theoretical framework becomes particularly interesting is in the interactions between the three frames. There are a variety of terms that have been created by the TTRPG player community and academic scholars to describe both the way that the frames may intersect and how that may impact players and the game. 

These terms are useful because players often switch back and forth between the three frames regularly as part of gameplay, prioritizing one frame of thinking over the others as the situation calls for it. 

For example, a player might need to leave the game to go home to rest for tomorrow, but choose to stay until the end of a boss fight. (Frames One and Three). Or that same boss fight might be abandoned temporarily at the arrival of dinner, leaving the fiction in limbo so that the players can return to the table less hungry (Frames Three and One). Perhaps a player might make a choice that makes sense to the character in-fiction but does not make strategic sense (Frames Three and Two). Someone might choose to take a step back and allow a less strategic decision to be made by the team because they want to support an out-of-game friend’s choice (Frames Two and One). These terms can also be useful to educators when thinking about game creation and how TTRPG games work in their classroom.

Metagaming

The term “metagaming” emerged to describe when there is an interaction between the three frames that influences gameplay in a way that maintaining the fiction independently would not allow for.  This is primarily an unwanted interaction between Frames Two and Three. 

Because players are sitting around a table together to ease gameplay (Frame One), they may end up with knowledge as players that the characters they are playing (Frame Three) are not privy to. Metagaming describes a player’s strategic impulse (Frame Two) to use the knowledge they have as a player to inform what their fictional characters do next, even if that character would not be aware of that same information. For example, if within Frame Three, the fictional characters are split up exploring a house, the characters in the attic would not be aware of what the characters in the basement are doing. They would simply be too far apart to hear each other.

If the characters in the attic are being attacked by a ghost, the other players at the table would hear this interaction. However, the characters in the basement would have no reason to end their own explorations of the basement to help them without being summoned to the attic in-fiction. If the only character capable of dispelling a ghost suddenly decided to check on their companions for no reasonable in-fiction reason, this would be metagaming. Metagaming is discouraged because it can negatively impact the fictional stakes of the story. In this context, players are privileging the fictional frame (Frame Three) over the strategic frame (Frame Two). 

Above the Table/Above Game

Another term sometimes used by player groups is “above the table” or “above game”. This refers to a player purposefully jumping out of the fictional frame to ask a strategic or rules-based question or ask about a piece of information that the character would know or remember, but the player does not. In the interactions below, from the podcast The Adventure Zone (McElroy 2015), the fictional characters have encountered a prisoner at a wagon-racing mechanic shop. I have emphasized the in-fiction elements of the conversation in italics and the out-of-character interactions in standard text.

Merle: Hey, who’s the guy in the metal helmet?

Regular Jerreeeeee [sic]: Uh, let’s just call him a rare import. We, uh, we managed to secure him out of state and bring him in. It’s not exactly on the books, uh, but we paid a pretty penny for him. And, uh, I think he’s, uh, I think he’s gonna pay out big dividends out on the track.

Travis: Hey, DM?

Griffin: Yeah.

Travis: Just out of clarity, so I can write it down, is he like human-sized, ogre-sized–

Griffin: He is humanoid, um, but he’s about, uh, seven feet tall? Uh, big, big, and burly.

Justin: Oh my god, I know who it is. [Pause] It’s the bugbear. [gasp] It’s the bugbear!

Clint: What’s a bugbear?

Travis: It’s my hugbear.

Justin: His hugbear!

Travis: It’s Klaarg!

Justin: Klaarg! It’s Klaarg!

Griffin: You see a single tear run out of the eyeholes in this full metal helmet. (McElroy 2015)

The interaction noted above has both in-game and above-the-table elements. The exchange begins in-fiction (Frame Three), but Travis, the player, moves into Frame One to ask an informational question to help him better understand the fictional frame. Overhearing this exchange, Justin, another player, makes a logical leap in Frame Two, making a connection to who the prisoner is in-fiction and commenting on their characters’ previous Frame Three relationship with him. After this revelation, the group begins to transition back into Frame Three, when Griffin, the Dungeon Master, ends the episode on a cliffhanger. This ending is a nod to the Frame One and Frame Two considerations of running a serial fictional podcast and wanting to leave the audience wondering what happens so they will return next week.

Bleed

“… role-players sometimes experience moments where their real-life feelings, thoughts, relationships, and physical states spill over into their characters’ and vice versa. In role-playing studies, we call this phenomenon bleed (Bowman 2015).  Bleed is what causes fictional experiences, be they in-game battles or role-played conversations, to have emotional weight (Montola 2010; Hugass 2022). Bleed can be bleed-in, where the real-life experiences and emotions of the player impact character choices and emotions, or bleed-out, which is the opposite (Bowman 2015; Vorhees and Klein 2024). These bleed-in and bleed-out phenomena are utilized in therapeutic counseling settings (Roseblad et al. 2025) towards the achievement of therapeutic counseling goals.  But educators can use this phenomenon as well. The interplay and bleed between the various frames described by Fine inform how we can understand the impact of TTRPGs in an educational setting.

Considering Student Engagement Through the Lens of Self-Determination Theory

In the many years since John Dewey first wrote about the nature of learning in 1897, educators have noted that students learn better in social, engaging, problem-solving, reflective classroom settings. Students are not just fact learning machines but need to become functional adults in society. One theory that explains this need in more detail is Self-Determination Theory.

Self-Determination Theory (SDT) (Deci and Ryan 2008) posits that human psychological well-being and motivation for growth are centered around three main needs: autonomy, competence, and relatedness. That is to say that all people need to feel that they have some independence and control, an ability to do the things they are tasked to do, and a community that they feel connected to and accepted by.

Furthermore, SDT distinguishes between two types of engagement. The first is autonomous engagement, which is participation in an activity because it gives inherent joy or value, versus controlled engagement, which is participation in an activity to gain an external reward or avoid a negative consequence.  “… the more that students’ motivation is autonomous, the better their academic performance, the longer they persist, the better they learn, the greater their satisfaction is, and the more positive their emotions at school are” (Guay 2002, 87). These three intrinsic needs of autonomy, competence, and relatedness, and how they are met via autonomous engagement, can be useful when considering how TTRPGs can be used effectively in the classroom setting. This SDT lens gives us a better understanding of why Fine’s frames and the interaction between them allow for TTRPGs to be an impactful learning tool.

Fine’s Third Frame Breeds Opportunity for Autonomous Engagement

SDT researchers note that when students show initiative, they begin to constructively and independently contribute to their own learning ( Reeve et al. 2022).   The bleed between Fine’s three frames creates interesting tensions as students consider the game from multiple frames at once. This sparks new thinking and understanding in the players, allowing students to become the constructive contributors suggested by Reeve et al. Specifically, the bleed between the out-of-fiction Frame Two and in-fiction Frame Three is critical to understanding the true value of TTRPGs on autonomous engagement.

In Cullinan 2024, educators described their classroom games, the fictional worlds they created, and their observations of how the game influenced the content learning and social dynamics in the classroom.  In a standard classroom, apart from temporary group work, the success or failure of any one student does not impact the success or failure of another student on a long-term basis. We could consider the standard classroom as an individual game, where every student’s scores and experiences of the classroom are independent, or potentially in competition with each other. As such, each student’s Frame Two strategic considerations for their own in-class success do not include the success of other students, and do not actively further students’ relatedness to other students.

In a TTRPG classroom with a collective fictional story, the impact of the collective fiction in the Third Frame shifts the way students think about the Second Frame. It makes strategic sense to become invested in the other members of their group, or the overall classroom, because the characters’ collective success in the fictional game is impacted by the individual academic success of the players. The application of the Third Frame to the classroom setting changed the students’ outlook on how to “win” the class (Cullinan 2024). Working in groups (Cullinan 2024) or even individually (Cullinan 2025) towards a shared fictional goal in the game appears to have an impact on how students feel about each other outside of the game.  Furthermore, as students contribute directly to the content and direction of the fiction with their team, they are demonstrating competence, autonomy, and relatedness—autonomous engagement. 

Ultimately, teachers describe the collectivist shift in Frame Two, thinking of their students bleeding into the Frame One out-of-game interactions between the students (Cullinan 2024; 2025). They report students are kinder to each other, positively notice each other in non-game settings more often, and check in on each other more often (Cullinan 2024; 2025). Teachers found that this newfound collectivism in the classroom ultimately helped all students learn content, boost creative thinking in the long term, work better together, be more invested in their classroom community, and have greater social connections outside of the classroom. 

Therefore, TTRPGs in the classroom are breeding grounds for the creation of relatedness among students who previously did not have that opportunity. Their shared collective fiction, which they all have an autonomous hand in creating, and the competence that comes from progressing in that fiction, make for a much more motivating educational experience. 

Harnessing Frame Theory in the Classroom for Purposeful Pedagogy

Although games are fun and the ubiquity of both video gaming and sports shows us that many people love them, it is important to note that simply applying the format of an educational game or TTRPG to a classroom is likely not enough, on its own, to warrant the investment of time and effort on the part of the educator to develop such a game. Nor is the potential for fun sufficient to justify the instructional time invested by the educator and students into learning a game system.  Games can be incredibly motivating for students (Yu et al. 2020; Ansar 2023), but there is still work to be done to determine how to make educational games more effective tools for learning (Mamekova et al. 2021; Faust 2021). To justify the use of TTRPGs in the classroom, these games should not just be about student enjoyment; they must add something important to an educational setting.  Building on Fine’s initial observations that TTRPG players switch between three distinct frames of thinking quickly, it appears that the interplay between the three frames described by Fine is critical to the return on the investment of time and effort that it takes to create and maintain a TTRPG in a classroom setting.  TTRPGs have the potential to offer students a chance to practice skills they need to learn in addition to the academic content of a lesson. 

Key Components of a Purposeful TTRPG in the Classroom

SDT researchers (Jang 2022; Ryan et al. 2022; Slemp et al. 2024) note that across settings there is a strong correlation between interpersonal support for autonomous motivation in the thought leaders in an educational space and how successful students are in developing and maintaining that motivation. It is up to educators to create the spaces for their students to do this work.

Most of the educators interviewed about their classrooms have come to TTPRGs through their own positive gaming experiences in their youth and have experimented with TTRPGs in the classroom largely independently (Cullinan 2024). As such, they have identified what works and what does not through personal experimentation, and their experiences have a common thread that can help other practitioners develop effective TTRPGs for students. These basic conceptual elements should be present in all classroom TTRPGs to harness the power of inter-frame bleed for autonomous engagement.

1. Collective fictional stakes for the players are tied to in-class academic content/skills.

To trigger the shift in Frame Two, the student perception of how to be successful in the class, there must be collectivist fictional stakes in Frame Three. Without the collectivist stakes in fiction, there is little or no impetus to shift thinking (Cullinan 2024). This collective fiction can be very thin (Cullinan 2025) and still be effective, but there must be some type of collective goal. This allows for the increased development of competence towards that goal.

2. Time to work on and celebrate progress towards the collective fictional goal(s). 

Students must have clarity on what they are working towards in Frame Three to continue the plot of the game. They must also have a chance to celebrate their progress towards the goals or commiserate over a lack of fictional progress. This ongoing shared understanding of the collective fiction allows for ongoing bleed between the three frames and to develop both relatedness and competence.

3. Student agency in working towards the goal 

Frame Two is the strategic frame, and students need to have some autonomy for how they will work strategically to forward the in-game fiction. This could look like a choice on how to spend class time on work, spend in-game currency, in-fiction choices, or choices in how to demonstrate learning. The shift towards a more collectivist Frame Two does not happen because a teacher tells students to get along better; it happens because students have choices in-game that teach them that a collectivist stance is better for both the group and themselves as individual players. The autonomy creates the relatedness.

4. Out of game time that participants interact with each other 

One of the observations of the educators in Cullinan 2024 is that the in-fiction camaraderie between students shifted to a classroom camaraderie outside of the game, which then bled into social experiences outside of the classroom. Reflection and the development of game strategy/collective metagaming, and peer-to-peer support cannot happen without the time to do so. Students should have time in Frame One and Frame Two outside of fiction to see how the group is doing, prepare for future challenges, coach each other, and resolve differences. Ideally, these students will then see each other in other settings—the hallway, cafeteria, other classes, etc., to continue to develop this bleed into Frame One social relationships. In this way, students collectively develop competence, have a chance to do so with autonomy and by that, continue to develop their relatedness with each other.

These conceptual elements should be considered crucial when developing an educational TTRPG. It allows for the in-fiction experiences of the students to increase and impact their connections outside of the game.  Once these elements are established, educators can then choose specific game mechanics and foci to make the game as effective as possible for content delivery and skill practice (Cullinan and Genova 2022).

CONCLUSION

Forty years ago, Gary Alan Fine began the process of understanding the way players think when they play TTRPGs by naming and describing the three simultaneous frames of thinking that occur during gameplay. This work is still critical to our understanding of how TTRPGs today can be used in applied settings. 

In the following four decades, research by countless others has expanded our understanding, enabling novel, impactful applied uses of TTRPGs for healing and education. We can use Deci and Ryan’s Self-Determination Theory to better understand why the bleed between frames matters and how it supports autonomous engagement in educational settings.

For a long time, teachers came to this work individually. As researchers and educators dive into this work, it is allowing for increased competence and relatedness in the research community, as disparate practitioners create a body of research and best practices. Academic research on the applied use of TTRPGs as pedagogy in educational settings remains nascent, but the body of work is growing rapidly, suggesting that both the frames and their interactions enable learning beyond a typical classroom lesson and increase students’ autonomous engagement.

We must continue to research TTRPGs as educational tools, recognizing that the theoretical foundation of the interaction between Fine’s three frames is an important part of the value of this type of teaching. With this in mind, we can create meaningful game experiences for our students that capitalize on the in-game thinking that already occurs and utilize it to create powerful pedagogical tools that benefit students well beyond content delivery.

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