Role-Playing game StudieS This handbook collects, for the first time, the state of research on role-playing games (RPGs) across disciplines, cultures, and media in a single, accessible volume. Collaboratively authored by more than 50 key scholars, it traces the history of RPGs, from wargaming precursors to tabletop RPGs like Dungeons & Dragons to the rise of live action role-play and contemporary computer RPG and massively multiplayer online RPG franchises, like Fallout and World of Warcraft. Individual chapters survey the perspectives, concepts, and findings on RPGs from key disciplines, like performance studies, sociology, psychology, education, economics, game design, literary studies, and more. Other chapters integrate insights from RPG studies around broadly significant topics, like transmedia worldbuilding, immersion, transgressive play, or player–character relations. Each chapter includes definitions of key terms and recommended readings to help fans, students, and scholars new to RPG studies find their way into this new interdisciplinary field. Sebastian Deterding is a Reader at the Digital Creativity Labs at the University of York (York, UK). He has been an RPG player and designer for more than 20 years and has published ethnographic portraits of the German pen-and-paper RPG subculture. He is founder and organizer of the Gamification Research Network and co-editor of The Gameful World (MIT Press, 2015), a book about the ludification of culture. He holds a PhD in media studies from Hamburg University. See also: http://codingconduct.cc/. José P. Zagal is an Associate Professor with the University of Utah’s Entertainment Arts & Engineering program. He wrote Ludoliteracy (2010) and edited The Videogame Ethics Reader (2012). In 2016, he was honored as a Distinguished Scholar by the Digital Games Research Association (DiGRA) for his contributions to the field of game research. He also serves as the Editor-In-Chief of DiGRA’s flagship journal Transactions of the Digital Games Research Associ- ation (ToDiGRA). He received his PhD in computer science from Georgia Institute of Tech- nology in 2008. See also: http://www.eng.utah.edu/~zagal/. Role-Playing game StudieS Transmedia Foundations Edited by José P. Zagal and Sebastian Deterding First published 2018 by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 and by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2018 Taylor & Francis The right of the editors to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Names: Zagal, José Pablo, editor. | Deterding, Sebastian, 1978- editor. Title: Role-playing game studies: transmedia foundations / edited by José P. Zagal and Sebastian Deterding. Description: New York: Routledge, 2018. | Includes index. Identifiers: LCCN 2017035803| ISBN 9781138638907 (hardback) | ISBN 9780815369202 (pbk) | ISBN 9781315637532 (ebk) Subjects: LCSH: Fantasy games. | Role playing. Classification: LCC GV1469.6 .R64 2018 | DDC 793.93—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017035803 ISBN: 978-1-138-63890-7 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-63753-2 (ebk) Typeset in Bembo by codeMantra ConTenTs Foreword viii 1 The Many Faces of Role-Playing Game Studies 1 Sebastian Deterding and José P. Zagal PART I Definitions 17 2 Definitions of “Role-Playing Games” 19 José P. Zagal and Sebastian Deterding PART II Forms 53 3 Precursors 55 Jon Peterson 4 Tabletop Role-Playing Games 63 William J. White, Jonne Arjoranta, Michael Hitchens, Jon Peterson, Evan Torner, and Jonathan Walton 5 Live-Action Role-Playing Games 87 J. Tuomas Harviainen, Rafael Bienia, Simon Brind, Michael Hitchens, Yaraslau I. Kot, Esther MacCallum-Stewart, David W. Simkins, Jaakko Stenros, and Ian Sturrock 6 Single-Player Computer Role-Playing Games 107 Douglas Schules, Jon Peterson, and Martin Picard vi Contents 7 Multi-Player Online Role-Playing Games 130 Mark Chen, Riley Leary, Jon Peterson, and David W. Simkins 8 Online Freeform Role-Playing Games 159 Jessica Hammer 9 The Impact of Role-Playing Games on Culture 172 Esther MacCallum-Stewart, Jaakko Stenros, and Staffan Björk PaRt iii disciplinary Perspectives 189 10 RPG Theorizing by Designers and Players 191 Evan Torner 11 Performance Studies and Role-Playing Games 213 Sarah Hoover, David W. Simkins, Sebastian Deterding, David Meldman, and Amanda Brown 12 Sociology and Role-Playing Games 227 J. Patrick Williams, David Kirschner, Nicholas Mizer, and Sebastian Deterding 13 Psychology and Role-Playing Games 245 Sarah Lynne Bowman and Andreas Lieberoth 14 Literary Studies and Role-Playing Games 265 David Jara and Evan Torner 15 Learning and Role-Playing Games 283 Jessica Hammer, Alexandra To, Karen Schrier, Sarah Lynne Bowman, and Geoff Kaufman 16 Economics and Role-Playing Games 300 Isaac Knowles and Edward Castronova 17 Science and Technology Studies and Role-Playing Games 314 Rafael Bienia 18 Game Design and Role-Playing Games 323 Staffan Björk and José P. Zagal 19 Communication Research and Role-Playing Games 337 William J. White Contents vii PaRt iV interdisciplinary issues 347 20 Worldbuilding in Role-Playing Games 349 Karen Schrier, Evan Torner, and Jessica Hammer 21 Role-Playing Games as Subculture and Fandom 364 Esther MacCallum-Stewart and Aaron Trammell 22 Immersion and Shared Imagination in Role-Playing Games 379 Sarah Lynne Bowman 23 Players and Their Characters in Role-Playing Games 395 Sarah Lynne Bowman and Karen Schrier 24 Transgressive Role-Play 411 Jaakko Stenros and Sarah Lynne Bowman 25 Sexuality and the Erotic in Role-Play 425 Ashley ML Brown and Jaakko Stenros 26 Representation and Discrimination in Role-Playing Games 440 Aaron Trammell 27 Power and Control in Role-Playing Games 448 Jessica Hammer, Whitney Beltrán, Jonathan Walton, and Moyra Turkington Contributors 469 Glossary of Key Role-Playing Game Terms 477 Index 481 FoRewoRd Like many things in role-playing games (RPGs), this book began as an online discussion thread. In October 2012, sparked by Jon Peterson’s (2012) voluminous history of the ori- gins of Dungeons & Dragons, members of the Digital Games Research Association (DiGRA) Role-Playing Studies Special Interest Group mailing list debated why academic and fan schol- ars of RPGs often talked past each other unawares rather than building on each other’s work.1 Like game studies a decade ago, the discussion thread went, the study of RPGs was a dispersed network without a shared recognized ‘canon’ of texts and concepts. It needed a textbook that would bind people, texts, and ideas together into an interdisciplinary field. More than five years later, you hold this textbook in hand. Its authors include not just many participants of said academic discussion thread but also Jon Peterson. We are no longer talking past each other. From the first moment, we intended a truly integrative book: it would cover tabletop and computer and live-action and multi-player online RPGs and recognize other forms as well. It would represent Australian tabletop and Nordic larp and Japanese computer RPGs and other cultural specifics. And it would integrate perspectives from sociology and psychology, economics and education, literary studies and game design, academics and fans and designers alike. Achieving this goal required assembling an invisible college across the globe. In Atlanta, Georgia, in August 2013, we convened a workshop at the international conference of DiGRA, discussing and proposing topics a textbook of RPG Studies should cover and ideas for organiz- ing them.2 The circle of co-authors expanded and contracted, and although each individual chapter now carries a list of authors at the top, this book is really co-authored by all. Over months of collaborative online discussion and drafting and commenting, the initial jumble of ideas became first a unified list of topics, then a table of contents, then short, then extended chapter outlines. Many chapters would then be drafted by whole author teams, as no single person would hold an integrative view of the respective topic in their head. And every chapter went through three or more cycles of peer review and revision, gathering input and critique from the textbook team and outside experts. Draft by draft, revision by revision, we created our shared language and canon and map: a field of RPG Studies. Foreword ix Our first and foremost thanks therefore go to our team of authors, who bared with us edi- tors and each other through the better part of five years. We also thank our external reviewers for graciously donating their time, words, and insights. And we thank our spouses and families for their patience and support. And pancakes. Sebastian Deterding and José P. Zagal January 2018 acknowledgments This work was partly conducted in the Digital Creativity Labs (digitalcreativity.ac.uk), jointly funded by EPSRC/AHRC/InnovateUK under grant no. EP/M023265/1. notes 1 http://mail.digra.org/pipermail/roleplaying/2012-October/thread.html, http://mail.digra.org/ pipermail/roleplaying/2012-November/thread.html. 2 http://rpghandbook.tumblr.com/. Reference Peterson, Jon. 2012. Playing at the World: A History of Simulating Wars, People, and Fantastic Adventure from Chess to Role-Playing Games. San Diego, CA: Unreason Press.