Role-Playing Game Studies: Transmedia Foundations

by Sebastian Deterding (Editor), Jose Zagal (Editor), Jon Peterson

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.

Genres: Role Playing Games, Games, Nonfiction

494 pages, Hardcover

First published April 24, 2018

Reviews

[Alper Yılmaz · Rating 5 out of 5]

An incomprehensibly comprehensive book, and a rock-solid foundation for whatever waters RPG studies decide to embark on in the future. Though it predates a few genre-defining works like Disco Elysium (as all genre-specific studies inevitably must), and though its scope doesn't really allow it to draw on insights from the RPG masterpieces in the videogame space, this book will likely yield crucial insights for anyone interested in RPGs as a whole.

[Gale · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was a fantastic resource for me when I was writing my research paper.

[Antonio Roda Martínez · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is amazing. It’s a great compilation about RPG that is going to be very useful for my PhD Dissertation. It’s in my top3 now.

[Ruth]

this is the bible and sarah lynne bowman is my jesus