ADVISORY NOTE: CONSIDER EVERYTHING ON RPG RESEARCH AS A "REQUEST FOR COMMENTS" (RFC). AS WITH EVERYTHING AT RPG RESEARCH, ALL INFORMATION IS PROPOSED BASED ON THE LATEST RESEARCH AND EVIDENCE-IN-PRACTICE INFORMATION. WE WELCOME DIFFERING VIEWPOINTS, PERSPECTIVES FROM MANY DISCIPLINES, ALTERNATE THEORIES, AND ESPECIALLY _CONSTRUCTIVE_ CRITICISM AND FEEDBACK. AS WITH EVERYTHING AT RPG RESEARCH IT IS AN ITERATIVE BEST EFFORT APPROACH THAT GROWS THROUGH THE INVOLVEMENT OF MORE AND DIVERSE CONTRIBUTORS.

Diversity of Role-Playing Game Formats, Systems, & Settings

Our research and community programs support all roleplaying game formats:

• tabletop (TRPG aka TTRPG)

• live-action (LRPG & Larp)

• electronic (ERPG, audio-basd ARPG, computer-based CRPG), MMORPG, augmented reality AR-RPG, virtual reality VR-RPG, etc.). 

• hybrid role-playing games, a catch-all for every other variant of RPG that doesn't fit under the other three.

See the Hawkes-Robinson RPG Model for more information.

Assessment and Evaluation Process, Methodology, and Tools

We have an extensive review process that can take weeks, months, or even years to complete a full cycle through all our lab and field tests and peer review.

Due to the lengthiness of this process, this page is meant as a general guide and snapshot not a final determination. We are revising our tools and expect to be posting a more finalized listing in 2022. For now this page will have to suffice as a general guide but with the many caveats of significant revisions every few months.

There are many tools we use, see our Assessment Tools page. Many are well-established industry tools, some we have to pay significant licensing fees for their use and/or require extensive training to administer.  We also have some tools we have developed over the decades, are currently developing, or have on our wishlist to develop because we have not found other tools sufficient to meet all of our research and human services goals.

Two key tools created by RPG Research's founder Hawkes-Robinson and further revised by RPG Research and others, that are relevant to this page are the Activity Analysis Form for Role-Playing Games (AAF-RPG), and the Game Tiers Assessment Tool (GTAT).

The AAF-RPG scoring is appropriate for general populations, while the GTAT scoring is appropriate for at-risk, high-risk, and/or special needs populations including considerations for physical accessibility.

A brief overview of each are provided below.

Activity Analysis Form (AAF) & Role-Playing Games (AAF-RPG)

The AAF-RPG is designed to assess role-playing games "as they are" for the "general population" with no considerations for special needs populations, at-risk or high-risk populations, or adaptations.

We have been developing over the years (still very much in development) a revised Activity Analysis Form (AAF) that has far better validity and reliability coefficients than the the industry standards currently widely adopted by Occupational Therapy (OT), Recreational Therapy (RT) and Therapeutic Recreation (TR), Music Therapy, and other related professions. Unfortunately all of the industries use AAFs with terrible inter-rater reliability coefficients. Most of the sections in most AAFs we've evaluated score (at best) only 0.2 to 0.4, and many others are <0.2.  Our goal is to raise that to the minimum standard of 0.8+ in all areas of measure.

Additionally we are working on a role-playing game (RPG) specific AAF variant, the AAF-RPG to help professionals determine which RPG is the best fit for their goals. Whether you are a professional recreational RPG service provider for laypersons, an RPG entertainer, using RPGs in educational settings, or for the applied therapeutic use of role-playing games as intervention modalities and you need to know which RPG is the best fit for your target population, the goal of the AAF-RPG is to (eventually) provide a useful scoring that can be cross-referenced with various assessment tools, to create a "best match matrix".

Until these tools are further refined and meet the outlined requirements, to help people have a very broad idea of which RPGs are appropriate for higher-risk populations, and which ones may require more training and effort to implement, this page provides a very rough game tier list of RPGs, with 1 being the lowest barrier to entry and least challenge to use when working with at-risk/high-risk populations, and 10 indicating the highest barriers to entry and/or greatest challenge if considering for use with at-risk/high-risk populations.

(more details page pending)

Game Tier Assessment Tool revision 2 (GTAT2)

While the AAF-RPG (AAF-RPG) provides a detailed granular report about RPGs, it is geared for general population with no special need or adaption.

The GTAT2 is is designed with the assumption of at-risk or higher-risk populations, and determining which RPGs are “easiest” and “most appropriate” to use with such populations, and which ones require more advanced training and/or more adaptation to be usable safely with these populations.

The GTAT2 is a higher-level quicker overall asessment that is not as granular as the AAF-RPG, but should be useful for professionals as a general guidelines when trying to determine which RPGs to use in their programs/practice working with their at-risk or high-risk populations.

(more details page pending)

Why Game Tiers?

We rate games by a multivariate method with a lot of contextual considerations. These ratings are just very rough approximate relative high-level guidelines. Ultimately decisions are made on a case-by-case cross-reference matrix basis using assessment information about the participants, the desired goals, and then our data about which games are most effective for that population in general, plus specific strengths and weaknesses of the game/setting relevant to the participant's functional assessment and goals.

Please contact us for more details about whether higher number tiers are appropriate for your intentions and population goals.

Generally these broad tier ratings assume considerations for at-risk & high-risk populations. The "safety" issues are generally not a problem for the general populace, but are a concern for the at-risk/high-risk populations, and so are looking at the games from that perspective.

Generally the lowest number tiers (for example tier 1) are the most accessible and/or "safest" for the widest audience possible.

Higher number tiers (for example tier 7+) are more specialized and only appropriate for a smaller range of populations and goals, and have more significant considerations to be taken into account, especially for "at risk" populations to determine if they are appropriate for the desired population to use the game.

The larger the tier number, the greater the risk of something "going wrong" for at-risk populations, and/or the greater level of preparation and/or years of training needed by the GM, and/or player training before being able to run the game effectively and "safely" in a group setting.

Game Tiers do NOT directly correlate with Game Master Training Levels. A level 3 GM may be running a Tier 5 game for example.

ATTENTION GAME DEVELOPERS & PUBLISHERS: A very significant impact on Tier ranking, besides whether the content is age/developmental-level appropriate, is your game's "Barrier to Entry" for first-time RPGers. This is about how complex is it to pick up introductory version of the game as a first-time never-before played any RPG before, first as player by yourself and then as GM for your very first time assuming nobody to help you, and learn first by yourself through solo adventure learning (without relying on "The Mentor Model" that bottlenecks and plagues 99% of RPGs), and how easily you can GM your first group.

If you would like to learn more about the variables we considered in establishing this tier rating, see the notes at the end of this page for a partial summary with descriptions of each heading.

HOW GAMES ARE EVALUATED FOR TIER RATINGS:  (link to details pending explaining how these games are scored for tier ranking using our Activity Analysis Form (AAF) and other tools.

Overview Summary of Multivariate RPG Assessment for Game Tier Rankings

The following is just a small portion of the variables we take into account when establishing the game system/setting rating.

Game Name

Player Age(s) 

GM Age(s)

Chargen duration./

System complexity. If different versions of the system available (basic versus advanced), then separate ratings for each version, could even be completely different tiers.

Unnecessarily dumbed down, so doesn't raise up participants?

Accessibility considerations (long list): readability of font (dyslexia) (sans with large font and wide kerning will generally be "Best"), artwork/watermark behind text, 

Organization of book for first-time play, and later look-up referencing: does it have a robust ToC? Does it have an alphabetical index? Does it have a charts index? Does the order of chapters make logical sense in the flow of learning the game and later looking up content. Is content logical in where it is found, and easily found again through logical assumptions of where it should be?

Writing/editing. Is it well written and edited? Is it filled with typos? Does it require errata or community contributions or house rules to make it playable, versus playable as-is without modification? (some examples of some of the worst ones include Twilight 2013 (Twilight 2000 3rd edition) and Decipher's Lord of the Rings RPG).

Differential, distributed, in-game learning, Ramping up learning/vs. mass learning. Can learn on own to play. How well beginner set/intro helps first-time GM with running first session with other players.

Moral / ethical Ambiguity/clarity.

"Heroic-only" versus any "Alignment" play. The more it lends toward "evil" PCs, the higher the number on the risk rating for the tier evaluation.

Clearly defined parameters for adaptive vs. maladaptive behaviors & consequences built into the rules. (behavior guidance rules), versus having to rely on the story or GM fiat to enforce. 

Openness of creativity.

Level of violence detail.

Deadliness of system (this can actually often be a good thing to encourage non-violent solutions, whereas the more abstract less deadly systems encourage more violent solutions)

How much encourages vs. discourages violent solutions versus non-violent solutions.

Can start playing immediately versus long read through before actual play.

Session duration.

1-shots friendly versus campaign friendly, versus flexible.

Empathy development rules built in.

Camaraderie rules built-in

Game System | Setting | Player Ages | GM Ages | Chargen Duration | Overall System Complexity | Efficacy Distributed Learning | Dumbed Down? | Accessibility | Organization For 1st-time learning | Oragnization for reference lookup | Writing/editing | Moral/Ethical Ambiguity | Good-only? | Behavior guidance | Creativity openness | Violence detail |  Dissuades violence | 1st-time intro solo play start time | 1st time intro GM prep time | 1st tim/e intro GM/players start play time | Session duration | 1-shots | Mid-range | Long campaigns | Empathy dev | camaraderie dev | ...