Analog Game Studies

[jric...@gwdg.de]

There's a new academic journal joining the IJRP on the field of RPG studies:

http://analoggamestudies.org/

It is edited by Evan Torner, Aaron Trammell, and Emma Leigh Waldron. Of the three, I've only heard/ read the name of Evan Torner previously, also regarding academic research on RPGs. Based on the information on the journal's homepage, the other two are doctoral students researching tabletop rpgs and larp, respectively. The journal has three focal areas: documentation, analysis, and experimentation & design, with each editor curating one of these groups.
The inaugural issue has an editorial essay justifying the journal, as well as five more essays, all addressing pen & paper RPGs or LARP.

Quoting from their "about" page:

"Analog Game Studies is a journal dedicated to the academic and popular study of games containing a substantial analog component.

The goals of the journal are:
• to provide a platform for the documentation and analysis of games that use dice, cards, boards, pencil, paper, tokens, and/or performative elements.
• to provide peer-review services and help cultivate an interested audience for such material.
• to encourage the development of analog game studies theory and methods across disciplines.

Scholarship on role-playing games, traditional games (chess, go, backgammon), parlor games, strategy board games, collectible card games, larp and similar material will be the central focus of our journal."