Roleplaying Game Studies: A

Handbook
Sebastian Deterding
Hans Bredow Institute for Media Research
Warburgstr. 8-10, 20354 Hamburg, Germany
+49 151 400 300 44
s.deterding@hans-bredow-institut.de

José P. Zagal
College of Computing and Digital Media
DePaul University, 243 S. Wabash Ave, Chicago 60604, USA
+1 312 362 7115
jzagal@cdm.depaul.edu

ABSTRACT
The study of roleplaying games has remained a small and somewhat separate tradition
within game studies writ large. Yet roleplaying games arguably defined and influenced
many design elements of today’s digital games, and constitute a formational experience
for many influential digital game designers. This makes roleplaying games (and their
theory) interesting from a media historical perspective alone (King & Borland 2003,
Gilsdorf 2009, Peterson 2012). More importantly, the peculiarities of non-digital
roleplaying games as a socially shared effort of imagination, performance, storytelling,
simulation, and gaming have generated insights that have much to offer to the wider field
of game studies. The particular theoretical sensibilities and concepts borne from the study
of roleplaying games have, for instance, drawn attention to:

• different “aesthetic agendas” afforded by game mechanics and jointly produced by

players, e.g. in the “Threefold Model” and “Forge Theory” (Kim 2008, Mason 2004);
• the necessary framing work performed by players to produce and navigate various
levels of meaning in game play, as well as to the (re)production and negotiation of
relations and boundaries between “in-game” and “real life” events, e.g. in Fine’s
“frame levels” (Fine 1983);
• the design challenges inherent in emergent, collaborative storytelling, and fictional
transmedia worlds (Klastrup & Tosca 2004);
• the imaginative, pretend-play, embodied, performative, and theatrical dimension of
game play, including processes of identification, analyses of the relation of player,
character, and avatar, and their enmeshment in questions of identity (e.g. in the books
accompanying the annual Nordic LARP convention Knudepunkt starting with
Alfsvåg, Storrø & Hansen 2001);
• the differing affordances of various media within one game genre (pen and paper,
live action, computer, massively multiplayer online) (Hitchens & Drachen 2008).

Unfortunately, most publications in the field of roleplaying game studies remain

scattered, offering no easy access to central concepts, theories, and traditions for

Proceedings of DiGRA 2013: DeFragging Game Studies.

© 2013 Authors & Digital Games Research Association DiGRA. Personal and educational classroom use of
this paper is allowed, commercial use requires specific permission from the author.
interested scholars (Drachen 2008). At DiGRA 2013, we will convene RPG scholars in a
workshop to outline a handbook of RPG Studies. The idea for such a handbook and
workshop emerged from a discussion on the mailing list of DiGRA’s Role-Playing
special interest group (SIG), where it was met with enthusiastic support and endorsement.

Prior to the workshop, we will solicit suggestions for topics, authors, and structures of the
book from the Role-Playing SIG’s mailing list and an open online questionnaire. We will
put out a separate open call for participation, in which participants will asked to submit
brief conceptual position papers together with a potential table of contents. Submissions
will be juried, with a maximum of 20 participants to ensure efficient work on site. We
will collate and distribute the result of the submissions and open questionnaire ahead of
the workshop. During the workshop, we will mix open debate with playful prioritization
exercises to identify essential contents for the handbook. We will also use cardsorting
exercises to explore possible chapter organisations. Finally, we will collate author
shortlists, publication venues, sources of financial support, and next steps.

Keywords
roleplaying games, roleplaying game theory, live action role playing, pen-and-paper
roleplaying, computer roleplaying, massively multiplayer online roleplaying

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Alfsvåg, Anette, Storrø, Ingrid, and Hansen, Erlend Eidsem (eds.) (2001): The Book.
Knudepunkt 2001.
Drachen, Anders (2008): Editorial. Journal of Roleplaying Studies 1 (2008), p 1.
http://www.ijrp.subcultures.nl/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/editorial.pdf, last
accessed January 11, 2013.
Fine, Gary Alan (1983): Shared Fantasy: Role-Playing Games as Social Worlds.
Chicago, London; University of Chicago Press.
Gilsdorf, Ethan (2009): Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks: An Epic Quest for Reality
Among Role Players, Online Gamers, and Other Dwellers of Imaginary
Realms. Guilford: Lyons Press.
Hitchens, Michael, and Drachen, Anders (2008): The Many Faces of Role-Playing
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http://marinkacopier.nl/ijrp/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/hitchens_drachen_
the_many_faces_of_rpgs.pdf, last accessed January 13, 2013.
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theory/threefold/, last accessed January 10, 2013.
King, Brad, and Borland, John (2003): Dungeons and Dreamers. The Rise of
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Mason, Paul (2004): In Search of the Self: A Survey of the First 25 Years of Anglo-
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Peterson, Jon (2012): Playing at the World: A History of Simulating Wars, People and
Fantastic Adventures, from Chess to Role-Playing Games. San Diego:
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