Recently, I was invited to be one of the featured presenters at a regional conference for the Midwest Pop Culture Association And American Culture Association. It’s a conference for academics who study popular culture and how it relates to the world, and for some reason they asked me to come give a talk on gaming. Since they agreed to my request to wear a kilt, I said yes and put together a presentation about how the essence of collaboration that is inherent in role-playing games changes the nature of them. To demonstrate and get the academics hands-on with the topic, I ran a game for the entire audience, illustrating points from the presentation with scenarios using a simple game system. It went pretty well and they let me set up a camera in the back of the room to get it on video. So here is part two of the presentation for your enjoyment.
Don’t worry, it won’t be too high-brow at all. It uses clips from the Gamers and Gamers 2: Dorkness Rising, and one of the very first things the academics did in the scenario was to mutiny against the NPC captain. Ahhhh gaming….
Update: Here is a link to part 1 of the video.
If you aren’t able or don’t have time to view the video, here is a link to the presentation online, as well as the materials for the simple RPG I ran.
Web Version of The Presentation
Powerpoint Version of The Presentation
