RPG Studies is an emergent inter- and multidisciplinary field where many disciplines converge. It delves into the nature of Role-Playing Games, particularly their tabletop (TTRPG) and live-action (LARP) kinds, and explores their potential applications.
The field has gained interest in the last two decades and started to consolidate as a discipline on its own around 2018, when the first major compendium Role-Playing Game Studies, Transmedia Foundation was edited by S. Deterding and J. Zagal at Routledge.
In their many forms, Role-Playing Games are attractive to disciplinary approaches as an object of study. Examples are many. Psychology looks to employing RPGs as therapeutical tools. Pedagogy and Didactics use RPGs to teach diverse topics such as History, Languages, and STEM from elementary school to higher education. Cultural Studies, Anthropology and Sociology investigate who plays RPGs, how we play them and why.
But an answer to the question of what is an RPG is still elusive. My research is focused on the Philosophy of RPGs, particularly their mythic, ritual, and symbolic features. You can read more about my research here.
RPG Studies are gaining inertia in Latin America. The Network of Role-Playing Studies Researchers (Red de Investigadores de Juegos de Rol in Spanish), or RIJR, is part of this effort.
You can look at their activities here.
Also, I design RPGs. You can look at my games here.