When we were writing Dungeons & Dreamers, John and I spent a great deal of time whittling away various themes and ideas that just didn’t quite fit into the narrative. The best story that didn’t make the book was a long chapter I wrote about Richard Garriott’s mother helping a community build a prefabricated Children’s […]
So my summer project: to create The Downtown Writers Jam, an event that brings together a little bit of music, a little bit of writing, and a whole lot of attitude. I want to create a space for writers to leave behind the podium, and replace it with their soul. I want to create a place where we move the words from the page and bring them into the crowd.
A few days ago, I gave a lecture to at Eastern Illinois Historical Administration Symposium, a day-long conference that brings together museum curators and graduate students preparing to curate. During my talk, I mentioned the idea of using Dungeons & Dragons (or other role-playing games) as an outreach mechanism for museums, which are one of […]
**I’ve launched a Reddit discussion about how to incorporate RPGs and D&D at Museums. You can join the discussion there, or begin one here. I’ll recap it all in a few days.** On April 12, I was invited to give a lecture at the Historical Administration Program Association Symposium at Eastern Illinois University, a yearly […]
While writing the Second Edition of Dungeons & Dreamers, John and I spent a great deal of time discussing Part IV: A Darkness Falls (read this section for free), which deals with the socio-political issues related to computer games and violence. We wanted to make sure we treated the issue fairly and that we relied […]
I suppose had John and I really thought through Dungeons & Dreamers back in 2001, we might have considered creating a little cottage industry around the book’s basic premise. As we researched and then created the spider web-like narrative plot points that connected modern computer game developers with Dungeons & Dragons, we were continually struck […]
If you don’t completely love the fact that in Florida, a Republican congressional candidate faced a scandal because pictures of him LARPing hit the media, then I don’t want to know you. Of course it’s completely silly that this is even a story. I’m far more likely to trust somebody who can muster up the time […]
If you’ve been reading the blog (or part of the Dungeons & Dreamers Google+ page), you’ll know that we’ve been having a discussion about the importance of “role playing” in role-playing games. As a storyteller, I find the role play to be most important in any communal game. How people react to each other and […]
[View the story “Do Role-Playing Games Dream of Encompassing Rule Sets” on Storify]
I love watching Dungeons & Dragons and other role-playing games seep into the public consciousness. (Well, maybe not so much when South Park did it, like here or here.) The more we see the games depicted — even when depicted with its most nerdy roots — the more people begin to internalize the idea that these game […]
Outside my fancy and lucrative writing career, I’m also a professor at Ball State University where I’m the director of our Digital Media Minor, an online-only program that teaches students digital story development and design. We’ve spent a great deal of time searching for ways to make the program less individualistic, which is a problem facing […]
Last week, I wrote a post entitled “RPGs Get Creative” that focused on various ways role-playing games had become something more than just tabletop games. The storytelling and community aspects of those games lend themselves other creative fields, such as plays, television programs, and improvisational theater. In many ways, the idea that D&D and role-playing […]