Call for Papers: Seminar on Playing Roles

We invite proposals for presentations at the seminar organized by the Game Research Lab of the University of Tampere Hypermedia Laboratory.

The possible list of topics includes but is not limited to:

  • History of role-playing games
  • Theoretical analyses of role-playing in tabletop, live-action and online role-playing games
  • Case studies of role-playing games
  • Typologies and ways of interpreting role-playing games and game cultures
  • The social roles, structure and activities of player communities
  • Learning in and education with role-playing cultures
  • Technologically enchanced role-playing
  • Ludological approaches to role-playing games
  • The future of role-playing

The emphasis of the seminar is in role-playing activities in the said games. For instance, a contribution discussing merchant role-players in online games would be preferred to a contribution discussing the economics of online worlds. We strongly encourage submissions from graduate students. Early considerations from projects currently in progress are most welcome: The purpose of the seminar is to discuss and refine unfinished works. After the seminar, a printed publication may be edited from the final versions of the selected papers of the seminar, or they might be published within an electronic repository such as the DiGRA digital library.

The papers to be presented will be chosen based on abstract review. Full papers are submitted prior the event to all participants, in order to facilitate discussion.

The two-day event consists of themed sessions that aim to introduce current research projects and discuss the role-playing in various game game types. The seminar will be chaired by Research Director Frans Mäyrä (Hypermedia Laboratory, University of Tampere). Paper commentators include Craig Lindley (Gotland University) and Lisbeth Klastrup (ITU).

The seminar will be held in Tampere, Finland and will be free; the number of participants will be restricted.

Important Dates

Abstract DeadlineJanuary, 16th
Notification of AcceptanceJanuary, 27th
Full PaperFebruary, 28th
SeminarMarch, 30th-31th

Submission Guidelines

Abstract should be from 800 to 1.000 worlds + references. Abstract should be send to info-gamestudies@uta.fi as plain text only (no attachments). Guidelines for submitting a full seminar paper will be provided with notification of acceptance.

As the seminar is intended as a relatively informal forum for discussion, no strict length restrictions apply for the papers; the scope of the papers may vary from 3.000 to 10.000 words. If the selected works are published after the seminar, further guidelines will be provided in the editorial process.

The presentations held at the seminar should also encourage discussion, instead of only repeating the information presented in the papers. Tentatively every paper will be presented for 10 minutes and discussed for 20 minutes.

Contacts

firstname.lastname@uta.fi
http://gamelab.uta.fi/rpg-seminar/

Petri Lankoski, researcher +358 50 329 8536
Markus Montola, researcher +358 44 544 2445