Role playing games have their start in the early 1970s, when wargamers, influenced by the workds of J.R.R Tolkien, Ursula K. LeGuin, and others, developed rule sets to allow for a free form gaming style that pitted an allied group of adventurers against a world designed by a game master, known in the earliest games as the dungeon master. Corresponding with the rise of the personal computer, these games represented a departure from the traditional competitive game in that they emphasized exploration of a larger world, long running story lines, characters that grew with each adventure, and a type of social interaction rarely seen before outside of improvisation acting groups.
Role playing games made an early move to the computer, and with the development of civilian computer networking, were soon bring people together from across the globe in shared virtual worlds. As one of the first and most successful convergent interactive media of the mdoern age, role playing games have become a significant social force both online, and in people's homes.
Despite being a significant money generating industry where millions of people are involved world wide in shared virtual experiences, little research is being done on the significant social, artistic, business, and technological issues that role playing games bring up. The goal of the Role Playing Game Research Society is to host undergraduate and graduate level research into all aspects of the role playing industry, to encourage serious scholarship into convergent media forms that use role playing games, and legitimize the scholarship studying the convergent medis field of Role Playing Games.
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Professor Steve N. Jackson, Advisor
Caleb Wheeler, President
Eric Rheams, Vice President
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