Game Master Spike Leva poses with a Dungeons and Dragons set at the Lansdale Public Library ahead of a special game program he will host starting in Jan. 2025. (Credit: Lansdale Public Library)
New tabletop role playing game library program designed to advance teen literacy
The red dragon rears back its head to breathe a stream of flame! The barbarian leaps with their ax raised, the ranger firing two arrows with deadly precision.
The wizard conjures fireballs and lightning bolts, while the cleric calls upon the power of the divine to smite their foes.
But remember to keep it down: this is a library, after all.
The Lansdale Library is launching a brand-new Roleplaying Game (RPG) Program this month, aimed at middle- and high-school students in the area.
It is more than just a game: it is a means of improving literacy, encouraging further learning, and bringing kids together.
The RPG Program lets middle- and high-school kids take the role of brave adventurers in a fantastical universe, undergoing quests to fight monsters, solve mysteries, and save the world.
One player, the Game Master, acts as the game’s referee and the story’s narrator, playing as the monsters and foes the adventurers must face.
The game itself is played using a set of polyhedral dice, pencil and paper, and a lot of imagination.
Tabletop RPGs trace their modern origins to Dungeons and Dragons, created by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson in 1974. Forty years later in 2014, Dungeons and Dragons Fifth Edition was published, launching a renaissance for the hobby and for the brand. It has led to the popularity of shows such as Stranger Things, the rise of “live plays” such as ‘Critical Role’ and ‘Dimension 20’, and even a blockbuster film in 2023, Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves.
However, the program’s supervisor Spike Leva, taking the role of Game Master, will not be using the traditional Dungeons and Dragons Fifth Edition rules.
Wizards of the Coast, the company that develops and publishes Dungeons and Dragons, released a Revised Fifth Edition in September 2024. Due to this change, Leva has decided to create his own rules system to use for the program.
Leva’s version, built on the free-to-use Source Reference Document rules for Fifth Edition, simplifies and improves many existing rules, and adds new ones, all aimed to make for the best storytelling experience for kids.
Preferring to avoid apps, AI, or other digital tools, our program’s supervisor will encourage his players to do the same.
“My grandfather played using pencil and paper, plastic dice, and his imagination, and that still works for me,” says Leva.
More than just being a fun activity, the RPG Program also looks to fulfill some of the literacies of the PA Forward Star Program, in particular Civic and Social Literacy.
“If kids spend enough time pretending to be heroes helping people,” explains Leva, “then they are much more likely to go out into the world and help real people.”
Besides this lofty goal, the program encourages social interaction and community engagement, two of the stated goals of Civic and Social Literacy.
Leva believes that through the program, even more literacies can be introduced to young adults. A tabletop roleplaying game requires a degree of skill in reading, writing, and math, fulfilling Basic Literacy, and the challenges adventurers face require critical thinking, a core aspect of Information Literacy.
“In the right hands it’s more than a game,” states Leva, “it’s an educational tool that encourages kids in their studies and inspires them to learn more. That’s what it did for me when I first started.”
The first adventure of “Season 1” of the Lansdale Library RPG Program is scheduled to begin on Saturday, Jan. 11, at 12:30 p.m. The Game Master encourages those interested to apply in advance at lpl-rpg.carrd.com, in order to make their own adventurers for play.
We hope to see you at the Lansdale Public Library for this exciting and unique program! For more information visit lansdalelibrary.org or follow “Lansdale Public Library” on Facebook.
