Official RPG Research Website
East-Central Spokane Role-Playing Game Community Center Updated Hours:
West-Central Spokane RPG Research Drop In and RPG at Spark Central:
ABOUT RPG RESEARCH
100% Volunteer-Run 501(c)3 Non-profit Charitable role-playing game Research & Human Services Organization Providing the Benefits of Role-Playing Games & Community Programs Since 1977!
About Us
ROLE-PLAYING GAME COMMUNITY PROGRAMS
We have been providing the joy and benefits of role-playing gaming community programs since 1977 at libraries, hobby stores, schools, community centers, parks, online, and many other locations. Including wonderful relationships with Spark Central, School Districts, Parks & Recreation, and many others!
LEARN MORE ABOUT OUR COMMUNITY PROGRAMS
THE ROLE-PLAYING GAME COMMUNITY CENTER
The Role-Playing Game Community Center is a very accessible facility dedicated to providing the benefits of role-playing games (TRPG) to children ages 4 to 12, teenagers 13-17 years old, adults 18-64 years old, and senior adults 65-100+ years old. We actively support participation for people with mobility, grasping, vision, hearing, developmental, and other challenges.
MORE ABOUT THE RPG COMMUNITY CENTER
RPG RESEARCH'S KNOWLEDGEBASE
We Provide the World's Largest Free & Open Knowledgebase on the effects of Role-Playing Gaming. With over 10,000 content items and counting, including useful content available nowhere else in the world.
ACCESS THE KNOWLEDGEBASE
RPG SKILLS TRAINING FROM BEGINNERS TO MASTERS
We offer 20 levels of the most extensive free RPG training programs to our volunteers. See a summary of the extensive RPG training programs we provide for free to our dedicated volunteers. This free training costs more than $20k USD per level at other organizations.
LEARN MORE ABOUT OUR RPG VOLUNTEER TRAINING PROGRAMS
Dragon Talk Book by Greg Tito and Shelly Mazzanoble Includes Whole Chapter on RPG Research
We had a wonderful experience on the Wizards of the Coast Dragon Talk show hosted by Shelly Mazzanoble and Greg Tito. They recently published a book with some of their favorite guests and we are so honored and humbled to learn that they included us with a whole chapter about our endeavors! You can buy the book everywhere, here is a link to purchase it through Amazon. If you use the smile.amazon.com link and select RPG Research as your charity of choice, then a small percentage your purchase is donated to the non-profit RPG Research. Available as eBook on Kindle, Audio book on Audible, or as paperback. We are mentioned on pages 63 through 67 in the chapter "RPG Road Tripping with Hawke Robinson and John Welker".
Dragon Talk Book on Amazon.comROLE-PLAYING GAME COMMUNITY PROGRAMS
We have been providing the joy and benefits of role-playing gaming community programs since 1977 at libraries, schools, community centers, parks, online, and many other locations. Including wonderful relationships with Spark Central, School Districts, Parks & Recreation, and many others
This page provides a brief summary of just a few of our key community programs.
Our roots begin in 1977 through RPG Research's Founder and Executive Director, Hawke Robinson, known by professional peers, introduced at professional conferences and fan conventions, as "the Grandfather of Therapeutic Gaming. He has been tracking and involved in the therapeutic and educational application of role-playing games longer than anyone else.” -- Adam Johns, Game to Grow, Executive Director, Lead Facilitator, 2018.
Please see our Events Calendar Page for the most up to date upcoming programs.
See our Community Page for a list of other programs available from us, various partners, and other organizations that may be of interest to you in your region.
See RPG Research Program Photos with highlights from our programs.
Upcoming Programs
- Upcoming programs
- Brain-Computer Interface RPG (BCI RPG)
- Cooperative Open Music Jams
- Drop In & RPG Online
- Drop In & RPG Mobile
- Drop In and RPG Spark Central Community Center
- American Sign Language Study Group
- American Sign Language Role-Playing Game Group
- Drum Circles
- Drum Circle Facilitator Workshops
- GenCon (annual)
- Halloween with Cthulhu (annual)
- Paranoia New Year (annual)
- RPG Advocacy Training
- RPG Accessibility Training
- RPG Theory Training
- RPG Researchers weekly meeting
- RPG Research Archivists weekly meeting
- RPG Retreats (annual)
- RPG Tour (annual, sometimes several in one year)
- RPG Weekly Training for players and GMs
- RPG Workshop intensives for Players
- RPG Workshop intensives for Game Masters
- SpoCon (annual)
- TolkienMoot (annual)
- RPG Conference (annual)
Previous Programs
- Spokane County Libraries Drop In and RPG
- Spokane School District RPG programs
- GenCon Indianapolis and GenCon Online
- ZoeCon
- SpoCon
- TolkienMoot
- Northeast Youth Center (NEYC)
- Fantastic Fun For All: Extreme Medieval Sports
- Muscular Dystrophy Summer Camp: Battle Royale TRPG / Combat Boffer Larp and Quest Adventure TRPG / Larp
- Navos Mental Health (King County, WA)
- Eastern Washington University
- Washington State University
- American Therapeutic Recreation Association (Nevada and online)
- Pacific Northwest Therapeutic Recreation Association (Portland, OR)
- Washington State Therapeutic Recreation Association (Seattle Children's Hospital, Wenatchee, Cheney, & Bellingham)
- Spokane Play Therapy Community
- Boy Scouts of America
- Spokane Music Therapy Community
- PAVE Autism Spectrum families program (Seattle & Tacoma, WA)
- Campfire USA
- Domino Project ASD / PDD
THE ROLE-PLAYING GAME COMMUNITY CENTER
The Role-Playing Game Community Center provides tabletop role-playing games (TRPG) for teenagers 13-17 years old, and adults 18+ years old. During public access hours we offer the community multiple rooms and tables of role-playing games for a wide variety of interests, genres, systems, settings, play styles, abilities, developmental levels, and ages. See our long list of games we offer to the community.
Stories About the Wonderful Impact Our Programs Have On People
THE WORLD'S LARGEST FREE & OPEN KNOWLEDGEBASE ON THE EFFECTS OF ROLE-PLAYING GAMING
RPG Research's Knowledgebase is the world's largest free and open knowledgebase on the effects role-playing games for a wide range of populations from 2 years old through senior adults, and their potential uses to achieve recreational, entertainment, educational, therapeutic, and professional goals. With over 10,000 content items and counting, including useful content available nowhere else in the world.
Extensive Free RPG Skills Training for All Our Volunteers
Our volunteers receive freely receive the world's most comprehensive role-playing game training for players, game masters, and aspiring professionals. We offer 20 levels of training programs. See a summary of our RPG training programs we provide for free to our dedicated volunteers.
COMMUNITY RPG TRAINING WORKSHOPS
See the list of example workshops we periodically offer to the public as fundraisers. If you are looking for even more intensive training, based on our 45 years of research and evidence-in-practice, see the for-profit RPG.LLC's workshops.
ACCESSIBLE GAMING AND ACCESSIBILITY ADVOCACY
We are huge accessibility advocates, and do all we can to make role-playing games more accessible. Not only through training and adaptive devices in our community programs, but also in our active accessibility advocacy efforts to change the RPG industry to be more accessible. In addition to more accessible and adaptive equipment, when our volunteer staffing permits, we provide ASL RPG for the Deaf & Hard of Hearing (HoH), as well as adapted games for Blind and Visually Impaired.
BRAIN-COMPUTER INTERFACE RPG OPENSOURCE PROJECT
Imagine being able to play social, cooperative role-playing games with just your brain. The ultimate in accessibility, and potentially future enhancements to RPG immersion experiences. Join the opensource efforts to create the ultimate in accessible and immersive social, cooperative, online role-playing gaming, through the BCI RPG Project. All levels of interest are welcomed to help with the development, testing, QA, debugging, design, and more. Many of the volunteers are aspiring game designers/developers, currently in-school, or just graduated and need some real-world application experience. Lead by people with 30+ years of development experience.
LARGE VARIETY OF GAMES
We offer a huge variety of games. Ranging broadly tabletop, live-action, and electronic role-playing games. We offer an extensive range of:
Role-Playing Gaming for Health
Hero Trainer App
Free Game Rewards For Any Exercise.
Join thousands of gamers in earning free gift cards across all consoles and platforms.
Whether its transforming your hero by walking, completing quests, or competing in the Guild Leaderboards, the Hero Trainer App makes it fun to stay fit.
LIVE STREAMS AND RECORDED SHOWS
We offer a wide range of live streaming shows and recorded shows, including but not limited to:
ROLE-PLAYING GAME MUSEUM
Depending on donations and volunteer hours, we hope to have the new RPG Museum available by the end of 2022, or early 2023. This is costs us a small fortune to make the property secure enough, and environmentally controlled enough, to fully protect the huge RPG historical collection we have, and make it safe to open to the public. This costs to protect this rare historical collection, and the insurance for a museum collection of unique, hard-to-find, or irreplaceable items is extremely high. We need you donations more than ever just to cover the insurance to make our collection available to the public. We have thousands of items related to the history of all role-playing game formats, many of which are available no where else in the world! Additional donations will enable us to turn this into a fully experiential learning hands-on museum, not just a rare collection. How far we can take it, depends on you. You can help us make the museum better available to the public sooner by donating today!
EVERY DOLLAR YOU DONATE TO RPG RESEARCH DIRECTLY BENEFITS AT LEAST 3 PEOPLE IN THE COMMUNITY. DONATE TODAY!
Donate to RPG Research's Role-playing Game Research and Community Center today. Help us cover our rent, utilities, insurance, and operating expenses, and we'll do the rest. Unlike all too many "non-profits", we are 100% volunteer-run. This means we keep our administrative costs to the bare minimum and your donations really have a direct impact on helping us provide our programs that directly benefit the communities and people we serve.
None of our staff, founders, board of directors, or any other members receive any financial compensation, they all help as a labor of love because they see how powerfully positive an impact RPG Research has on humanity everywhere.
RPG Mobile - Mobile Accessible RPG Bus and RPG Trailers
Providing mobile role-playing game facilities through the RPG Mogile: RPG Bus and RPG Trailers.
Learn More About the RPG Mobile