Gaming our Worlds: Roleplaying and Worldbuilding

Featuring:

Professor Aaron Trammell (Informatics, African American Studies, Media Studies)

Dr. Brook Haley (Humanities Core), moderator

Are you a seasoned Dungeons & Dragons player, a curious novice, looking for ways to research games, or just want to watch nerds being nerds? Please join us for a conversation about worldbuilding in and with tabletop roleplaying games.

We will discuss how games invite us not only to create the worlds in which we play, but also to study how those game worlds can reflect and even affect the worlds each player inhabits. Professor Trammell will share his research methods and suggestions as current Worldbuilding students continue their own research projects.

Topics will include:

• Experiences with roleplaying games as creators, players, and scholars of games and gaming
• Challenges to traditional fantasy genres as ideologically prescriptive
• Academic research on game design and gaming communities
• Crafting research projects on games