The challenge of evaluating player experience in Tabletop Role-Playing Games

Abstract

Tabletop Role-Playing Games (TTRPGs) offer players the opportunity to form imaginary gameworlds and stories within them, create community, solve problems, and explore identity. Designers and researchers have tried to identify how aspects of TTRPGs facilitate collaboration, immersion, creativity, and more. However, there has been no attempt to develop a formal assessment methodology for player experience during TTRPG play. This paper argues that evaluating TTRPG players’ experience can provide vital data for Game Masters to improve on their future games, for players to reflect on their experience, and for TTRPG designers or event organizers to collect and compare data. As a first step towards developing such an evaluation method, we identify important dimensions of TTRPG play that can be meaningful to track and actionable to improve upon. Moreover, we review player experience dimensions and evaluation methods in digital games, and explore similarities and differences with TTRPGs.