Math as Narrative in WoW Forum Discussions

Abstract

This worked example is part of a larger, ongoing project exploring the forms of cognition and learning that go into everyday game play in massively multiplayer online gamesonline videogames played collaboratively in simulated fantasy worlds. The data analyzed herein consist of a single post from a discussion forum that offers a mathematical model of a system in World of Warcraft and its justification. We use this example as a way to unpack what math reasoning looks like when it arises spontaneously as part of contexts with no explicit educational or mathematical intentions. Specifically, we examine how the author uses narrative structure as a way to organize a mathematical argument. We argue that, taken as a whole, this worked example illustrates the unstable nature of genres (if not whole domains) kept traditionally separate and distinct in formal academic institutions yet which blend and merge in everyday uses such as these. Here we see a blend of math with narrativetwo domains that could not be more adamantly held separate in educational environmentsnot as a mistaken byproduct of sloppy form but as a best-fit solution to the problem of building a rhetorically persuasive model not just for the self-styled Elitist Jerks who like to math things up from time to time but for the storytellers and general players too.