The latest book from Facet looks at how tabletop roleplaying games can be incorporated into school libraries.

And with a big-budget film 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.

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 can be traced back to ancient games of chess, but modern tabletop roleplaying 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 definitely 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 figures, colour-coded markers to determine spells being cast and a seemingly infinite 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 themselves, 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 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 students have become Game Masters themselves and the sessions now have standing-room-only observers who have created their own after-school clubs. Public libraries also have the space and the means to bring in new faces to their libraries by running tabletop roleplaying clubs like Dungeons & Dragons and it is an amazing outlet for creativity.

Therapy sessions

When I was researching my book, I spoke to a mental health therapist in North Carolina named Katie Lear who uses Dungeons & Dragons as part of her therapy sessions with teens. She said something that has stuck with me long after speaking to her – “When people see you playing games like D&D, they think you’re just playing a board game, but what you’re really doing is taking part in active therapy.”

I’ve had the pleasure of running library programmes for young people in both public and school libraries for over 15 years and I’ve never seen a programme as popular as Dungeons & Dragons. I am the Game Master for students twice a week at lunch, it runs for about an hour. For many young players, it becomes an important part of their week because they know for that hour they are going to be in a safe environment where they can be themselves without judgement. They know that they are going to laugh and have fun and be ridiculous and be listened to for those two hours per week, no matter how tough the rest of their week has been.

Skills away from the table

Tabletop roleplaying games ¬strengthen confidence, public speaking skills, organisation, empathy and creativity. I have students who, if you stopped them in the corridor this very moment would tell you that they don’t like to read. However, trust me when I say that they are in before school, break, lunch and after school poring over the D&D rulebooks, monster manuals and campaign books.

They have also created a strong friendship group, I believe it’s because D&D has provided them a unique school experience that they would not have had elsewhere. D&D has given, -especially to neurodivergent students who may struggle with ¬social interactions or anxiety, a place where they can feel welcome, express themselves the way they want to without fear of being ridiculed or judged. As a neurodivergent Game Master, I get a lot out of Dungeons & Dragons, for one thing, it removes what I call the “social barbed wire” from everyday life because everyone is there for the same reason, there’s no small talk or awkward ¬exchanges, we all know why we are there and what we need to do, which is have a lot of fun, really.

When thinking about running or hosting a tabletop roleplaying game, it’s important that the youth who have signed up are aware of how the game works. This is often referred to as “Session Zero” where you simply break down the basic etiquette and rules that you will establish around the table. These rules are up to you as the Game Master but for me, I -establish right away that our D&D sessions will not involve “player versus player” scenarios. This means that the players are aware that they need to work together to survive the world that I as the Game Master has created for them.

In my experience, letting players devolve into player versus player combat only results in hurt feelings, they are a team, and they need to look out for one another. This is one of the great things about games like D&D, it builds empathy and understanding.

Session Zero is also a time for you to help the players create their characters. I find that they really love writing backstories for their characters, drawing them, rolling the dice to determine how strong, smart or agile they are.

Decisions

When running a tabletop roleplaying game, you as the librarian must also decide what kind of game you want to play, do you have time to create your own world, or do you want to purchase a pre-made one (this is what I do!). Do you want students running the game or do you have time to run it themselves? When are you going to run the programme – during lunch or after school?

In a public library setting this won’t be an issue, but it will be important to decide what times of day work best and when it will draw the bigger crowd. You will also have to determine how many students you will allow to play, we have over fifty students who take part in our sessions, but this is because we have five teenage Game Masters who run sessions after school and at lunch at different points in the week. My suggestion is to start small with six students and see how it goes. Each session should not have over eight students in my opinion. It is also a good idea to speak to senior leadership and parents when starting a tabletop roleplaying game in case they have any questions.

Let’s Roll

I am very fortunate and excited to have written a book on this topic, it’s called Let’s Roll: A Guide to Setting Up Tabletop Roleplaying Games in Your School or Public Library and it has been published by Facet. The book is broken down into step-by-step practical advice on setting up and running tabletop roleplaying games.

It provides case studies from around the world by school and public librarians who run tabletop roleplaying games on a regular basis. It discusses how to approach senior leadership if permissions on running games like these are required. It also breaks down in detail resources required and how to run a session zero with your players. I provide a breakdown of how to run a session smoothly, how to deal with any behaviour issues, what you and your players should expect from a session and how to get the most out of playing tabletop roleplaying games in your library. I sincerely hope it is useful in setting up and running games like this, there is also a resources section providing shorter, faster alternatives to games like Dungeons & Dragons if you are feeling overwhelmed by it.

Lasting friendships

Ultimately, I thoroughly love running tabletop roleplaying games in the library because it is a very unique experience. My goal is for these students to look back and remember how much fun they had playing these games and to hopefully keep these friendships made around D&D for a long time. There have been a so many memorable events that have had the students on the edge of their seats, pacing the room in anticipation or howling with laughter that I couldn’t fit them all into this article.

Whatever kind of tabletop roleplaying game you decide to run the essential thing to remember is that it is supposed to be fun, it is supposed to be a catharsis, the least of everyone’s daily struggle. I hope that you are able to set up a tabletop roleplaying game in your library and that it is a rollicking success!

Buy Let's Roll now from Facet publishing

Published in Information Professional - March 2023