Content area
Full Text
The Role-Playing Society: Essays on the Cultural Influence of RPGs Andrew Byers and Francesco Crocco, Editors. McFarland, 2016.
With The Role-Playing Society, Andrew Byers and Francesco Crocco turn the gaze of RPG studies outward. Works such as Jon Peterson's Playing at the World (2012) and Michael Saler's As If (2012) have made headway on the cultural background of roleplaying games, and numerous scholars, from Gary Alan Fine (1983) forward, have been tracing their diverse, ever-shifting cultural, sociological, and psychological features. Rather than focusing on what influenced the development of RPGs or on the analysis of existing games, they have curated a collection of studies that consider how RPGs have influenced other areas of culture. This outward focus makes Byers and Crocco's collection of interest not only to scholars of role-playing games but also to anyone interested in American culture more broadly.
Not all areas of RPGs' influence are covered equally, however. There is a strong emphasis on gaming in relationship with education and pedagogy, with half of the twelve essays touching on this topic in various...