Quote Originally Posted by Jay R View Post
That's why I didn't recommend sticking to strictly written rules. I wrote:

"Speaking as an academic, I would strongly urge you to quote the definition of the DM directly from the D&D edition your paper cites most often. You can then go on to amplify it with examples and details relevant to your thesis, but the essence of a research paper is research." [Emphasis added.]
Would it be worth throwing in a survey to support this? I mean to actually demonstrate that the game as played departs from the game as written, rather than just an assertion?

Use a thread like this to design the survey to get a sense of the ways in which a game can depart from the defined way/style of running it then try and quantify it?