In this section
@inbook{Zagal:2024:10.4324/9781003298045-3,
author = {Zagal, JP and Deterding, S},
booktitle = {Routledge Handbook of Role Playing Game Studies},
doi = {10.4324/9781003298045-3},
pages = {21--55},
title = {DEFINITIONS OF “ROLE-PLAYING GAMES”},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.4324/9781003298045-3},
year = {2024}
}
TY - CHAP
AB - Role-playing games (RPGs) are the most contentious game phenomenon: the exception, the outlier, the not-quite-a-game game. In their foundational game studies text Rules of Play, Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman acknowledge that their definition of a game considers RPGs a borderline case. When scholars, designers, and fans use the words “role-playing games,” they typically do not speak about all phenomena called “role-playing games” but usually refer to one of several clusters of phenomena, which we call forms. The empirical phenomena referred to as “role-playing games” are very heterogeneous, spanning different sociomaterial assemblages: joint talk and paper inscriptions, joint embodiment, and single and networked computing devices. Role-playing games is a word used by multiple social groups to refer to multiple forms and styles of play activities and objects revolving around the rule-structured creation and enactment of characters in a fictional world. However, because “role-playing games” is a social category created by humans, it has no unchanging, context-independent essence.
AU - Zagal,JP
AU - Deterding,S
DO - 10.4324/9781003298045-3
EP - 55
PY - 2024///
SP - 21
TI - DEFINITIONS OF “ROLE-PLAYING GAMES”
T1 - Routledge Handbook of Role Playing Game Studies
UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.4324/9781003298045-3
ER -
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