IN DEPTH
Taking on new roles – tabletop games in the library
The latest book from Facet looks at how tabletop roleplaying games can be incorporated into school libraries. And with a big-budget fi lm of one of the most famous gaming franchises hitting cinema screens in spring, school librarian and author of Let’s Roll: A Guide to Setting up Tabletop Role Playing Games in your School or Public Library, Lucas Maxwell explains how to get started.
TABLETOP roleplaying games can be traced back to ancient games of chess, but modern tabletop roleplay- ing games appeared in 1971 with the wargame Chainmail which would eventually evolve into Dungeons & Dragons, which is what we currently run here at Glenthorne High School. In all honesty, you don’t need very much to get started with tabletop roleplaying games. You can play with pencils, scrap paper and of course dice. The dice are not your typical six-sided pieces (although you defi nitely do use them), they range from four to twenty-sided dice for the most part, with a few variants. Of course, you can expand your materials into maps, miniature fi gures, colour-coded markers to determine spells being cast and a seemingly infi nite number of other items. However, if you have pencils, paper, dice, some friends and someone willing to be the Game or Dungeon Master, you’ve got all you need.
The perfect setting
Libraries are the perfect setting for tabletop roleplaying games. School libraries are a place where students can come to be them- selves, feel safe, have fun and be part of a unique learning experience.
In my experience there are a large number of students very eager to get involved with
44 INFORMATION PROFESSIONAL
Lucas Maxwell (@lucasjmaxwell) is the Librarian at Glenthorne High School in South London. He is the author of Let’s Roll: A Guide to Setting Up Tabletop Roleplaying Games in your School or Public Library.
tabletop roleplaying games but they might not know where to start or they might feel overwhelmed by the sheer scope of it. By seeking out older, mature students who are knowledgeable of tabletop roleplaying games or who are willing to learn, or by nominating yourself as the Game Master, you will be inundated with requests to start a tabletop roleplaying club. When I started our Dungeons & Dragons club over three years ago, we had six year nine students who took part. Many of these
March 2023
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