Heather Shay, "Identity Building Among Role-Playing Gamers: Slaying Goblins in the Real World" (Bloomsbury, 2025)

About this episode

Heather Shay discusses the social and psychological benefits of table-top role-playing games and how they contribute to identity building among players.

In Identity Building Among Role-Playing Gamers: Slaying Goblins in the Real World (Bloomsbury 2025), Heather Shay draws from 19 months of participant-observation and 20 in-depth interviews with players. She found that gamers derive significant social and psychological benefits from table-top role-playing games-not least in that players often feel the hobby makes them better people. Playing these games allow players to depict themselves as good, moral actors through their in-game actions as well as by making the game enjoyable for their fellow players in real life. Table-top role-playing games also serve a psychological function by allowing participants to take imaginary risks with their characters, which in turn make them feel more alive than their everyday experiences allow them to. As they pretend to be fictional characters in fictional worlds, players use these games to create identities that make their lives more meaningful. Michael O. Johnston, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Sociology at William Penn University, where he focuses on the cultural and interpretive analysis of space, behavior, and identity. His work examines how built and designed environments shape social…

People in this episode

Guest: Heather Shay

Topics covered

• role-playing games
• identity
• social benefits
• psychological effects
• table-top gaming

Keywords

• role-playing games
• identity building
• social benefits
• psychological function
• table-top games

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Bloomsbury

Books & works: Identity Building Among Role-Playing Gamers: Slaying Goblins in the Real World, The Social Construction of a Cultural Spectacle: Floatzilla, Community Media Representations of Place and Identity at Tug Fest: Reconstructing the Mississippi River

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