All Posts Tagged With: "Dungeons and Dragons"
A look inside gamers’ clubs on campus
Why study when you can kill goblins?
Pathfinder capture by Olivia Hotshot on Flickr
A few months ago, I was having dinner with a group of colleagues from a hiring committee, including the student representative. This student happened to be one I know fairly well. At one point during the meal she looked at me a little bashfully and said, “You know there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you for a while.” It made me nervous. I could tell something personal was coming.
“What kind of character do you play in D&D?” she asked. It turned out she had just started playing and had learned that I played in a game with other faculty members, so she became curious (answer at the time: Gnomish Paladin; answer now: Half-Orc Monk; oh, and, strictly speaking, its Pathfinder, not D&D).
Gaming of various sorts—board, video, role-playing—seems to have always been popular on campus. I remember hearing about gaming groups at the University of Waterloo when I was still in high school. It’s not surprising, given the number of nerds (I use the term affectionately) who tend to end up in higher education—including advanced nerds like me who end up in the faculty. Indeed, a quick survey of university websites finds gaming groups across the country. At the University of Victoria it’s merged with “tech.” Clubs are active at the University of Guelph and Trent too. Not surprisingly, given the imaginations of game enthusiasts, some clubs play games with their names. The Club at the University Regina—the Gaming Fellowship—gives a nod to Tolkien. Others revel in playful acronyms like the Association of Ryerson Role-Players and Gamers (ARRG!).
