“The die is cast” : Roleplay literature in society and at libraries

The role-playing game attracts a growing number of practisers. The aim of this master’s thesis is to examine role-playing literature as phenomenon in libraries through librarians´ attitudes. The paper is based on qualitative interviews with eight librarians: one personal interview with two librarians and six e-mail interviews with six librarians at different libraries. The paper starts with a definition of the term ”role-playing game”, its different categories and genres and a description of its background. We also discuss the debate about role-playing games and their position in society. We use Pierre Bourdieu’s theories about habitus, capital and taste and apply them to the librarians’ attitude towards users and literature. We place role-playing literature at the same level as popular literature. We describe the history of popular literature and the criticism against it and focus on fantasy literature. The scientific aspect of popular literature, in which we place role-play literature as well, has become more acceptable during the latest decades. The result of this paper shows that the librarians have a positive attitude towards role-playing literature at libraries and they feel that it can stimulate creativity and traditional reading as well as own writing. It can also attract people who don’t visit libraries regularly. The future of role-playing literature depends on the librarians’ willingness to familiarize themselves with the benefits and drawbacks of role-playing games and also how they market the games to their colleagues and the market of users.Uppsatsnivå: