August is #RPGaDay month. Seeing that there are several different prompts for every day, and Twitter isn’t the best platform for the length in which I wanted to write, I decided to write my posts to my blog. And instead of writing 31 individual posts for each day, I decided to do them in weekly blasts, starting with this post for days 1 to 7.
Carrying it With You: Masculinity, Grief, and Table-Top Role-Playing in Disney/Pixar’s Onward
19 Sunday Jul 2020
Posted in Comment
A short reflection on Disney/Pixar’s 2020 film Onward, and its treatment of masculinity and the expression of grief.
Comrades: a Revolutionary RPG by W.M. Akers
22 Monday Jun 2020
Posted in Comment
Tags
Comrades: a Revolutionary RPG, Powered by the Apocalypse, Table-Top Roleplaying Games, W.M. Akers
Some reflections on Comrades, a table-top role-playing game about revolutions by W.M. Akers, and why I want to play the game in today’s political climate.
The Grand Finale of ‘Adventurers Wanted: Rebellion’ at the Edinburgh Fringe 2018
27 Monday Aug 2018
Posted in PhD Life
The last four hours of the Adventures Wanted: Rebellion show at the Edinburgh Fringe, 2018, and how it was a fitting end to the adventure that brought out the best of table-top RPGs.
Adventurers Wanted: Rebellion at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe
12 Sunday Aug 2018
Posted in PhD Life
Tags
Adventurers Wanted, Dungeons & Dragons, Gabrielle Hecht, Public Engagement, Table-Top Roleplaying Games
At the Edinburgh Festival Fringe this year, I was on stage as part of a show called ‘Adventurers Wanted: Rebellion’ a couple of times, which was a live play of Dungeons & Dragons, combining table-top role-playing with improvised story-telling. These are some of my thoughts on how I managed to make my PhD research dovetail with the character I played.
Hailsham Dark: Turning Kazuo Ishiguro’s ‘Never Let Me Go’ into a Table-Top Role Playing Game
24 Tuesday Jul 2018
Posted in PhD Life
Tags
Cthulhu Dark, Graham Walmsley, Jane McGonigal, Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go, Table-Top Roleplaying Games
Over the last two months, I adapted Kazuo Ishiguro’s ‘Never Let Me Go’ into a table-top role playing game, and I enjoyed myself immensely in the process. This is my account of what it was like adapting the novel, what difficulties I faced while GMing such a game, and what I gained from the whole thing.
Conpulsion Conspiracy 2018
16 Monday Apr 2018
Posted in PhD Life
This weekend, I was at Conpulsion, Scotland’s biggest and oldest RPG convention. While I was there, I had a wonderful experience running and playing games, and thinking deeply about the social significance of such games.
A World of One’s Making: Table-Top Roleplaying Games and Nerd Culture
16 Friday Mar 2018
Posted in PhD Life
Tags
Fan Culture, Fan Labour, Geek Culture, Henry Jenkins, J.R.R. Tolkien, Nerd Culture, Participation Culture, Table-Top Roleplaying Games
A couple of weeks ago, I got talked into trying out table-top pen-and-paper fantasy roleplaying games (in the vein of Dungeons and Dragons, but not quite the same). This post is a reflection of my experience of this kind of roleplaying, the meaning of nerd culture and how easy it is for a PhD student to belong amongst fellow nerds.