Books on Roleplaying Games

buzz · Apr 6, 2004

Scratch that. I found it.

Horsemen of the Apocalypse, by Jim Dietz

hong · Apr 7, 2004

diaglo said:
complete idiots guide to d20 roleplaying

That's not a very nice thing to say about the SRD.

woodelf · Apr 7, 2004

buzz said:
I'm suspecting it's the date; iirc, Fine wrote Shared Fantasy prior to 1980.

See, that was always my take. But then i gather from some of the Alarums & Excursions folks that there were already people doing "amateur theatrics" way back then. And i was a bit surprised to discover that MAR Barker's group was almost as gamist as the rest. Anyway, he did his fieldwork mostly in '79, IIRC, though the book wasn't published 'til '83--it's not clear when his other research was done, but it seems to have been in the span '78 to '80.

[Performing the Force]

I found it on Amazon, and have seen it come up as a scholarly look at gaming, along with other aspects of fantasy/SF fandom. I cannot speak to its quality, either.

Well, heck, if we're gonna branch out to scholarship about SF fandom, check out Enterprising Women and Doctor Who: the Unfolding Text. The latter is excellent, if academic in tone, while the former comes highly recommended, though i haven't actually gotten myself a copy yet.

Zander · Apr 8, 2004

diaglo said:
complete idiots guide to d20 roleplaying

That sounds like a good idea but I don't think it exists!

woodelf · Apr 29, 2004

Sorry for the thread necromancy, but i somehow didn't even see this post the first time around, and thought it deserved a response.

die_kluge said:
I would wager that Dragon magazine would have the best information that you would need. That involves scanning through 200+ issues for relevant information. You could get the Dragon magazine archive on CD-Rom. That goes up to issue 200, I think, or maybe 225.

In all those issues, i can remember one, maybe two, editorials that would be of use for an academic paper about RPGs. And those are both "maybes". Really, not much in Dragon about RPGs--it's pretty much all content for RPG.

I also wouldn't be surprised if Time or Newsweek had articles about Dungeons and Dragons. Check your college library for microfiche versions of these publications. Such articles would likely be very old.

And, if the ones i've found and read are any indication, not particularly well-researched or -written. I think i found one article in Newsweek once (probably around '90, give or take 2 years) that sounded like it had been written by someone who knew more about RPGs than having just watched one game for an hour. But still no more than anyone who's played an RPG couldn't write up themselves.

If you want something vaguely accurate from mainstream press, poke around NPR's website and see if you can find audio archive of a segment they did on either Weekend Edition, Morning Edition, Weekend All Things Considered, or This American Life (in descending order of likelihood)--i don't remember for certain which it was. I've got a copy on cassette tape around here somewhere, and it's a pretty good piece, fair and balanced, and with just the right amount of depth for a non-gamer, and only about 10min long.