BHSU Geek Speak lecture to discuss building communities, audiences, and worlds in gaming space

Managers of the Rocky Mountain Savages, a membership group that encourages gaming opportunities in a region the Rocky Mountains, Chris Fuchs and Christopher Landauer will visit Black Hills State University Thursday, April 11 as part of the Geek Speak Lecture Series.  Their lecture at 4 p.m. in Jonas Hall 110 on the BHSU campus in Spearfish is titled “Wizard, Fighter, Rogue: Community Building Through Gaming” will talk about the opportunities within role-playing games (RPGs) and the depth to which games can apply to human culture and tradition.

RPGs like Dungeons and Dragons have long been a fun pastime, but since their original conception, they have become much more than a simple tabletop game. One of the appeals of RPGs is the opportunity to take part in cooperative social events where friends and strangers gather to tell stories whose outcomes are undefined and unwritten at the outset of the game.

As the game progresses, players must take on different roles to be successful in overcoming challenges. Players each take on the role of a character who can be much like them or wildly different. Then, they use their imagination, the rules of the game, and the uncertainty of rolling dice to navigate the challenges presented to the group by the Game Master.

Landauer, a gaming engineer, says, “You can think of it like filming a movie live where each of the main cast has their own independent writer and the director keeps it all on track as everyone improvises their lines. There's a place for different strategies and different skill sets, so different folks are needed for the whole to work well.”  

One of the greatest components, according to Landauer, is the community of gamers that is created through many human cultural traditions. Oral history, storytelling, theatre, the epic, fiction and fantasy as a lens, improvisational comedy, and the power of communal laughter all play their own role in these role-playing games. 

The Geek Speak will take shape as Landauer and Fuchs discuss tropes they take on in the games they play and the cooperative strategies used to make those adventures successful and fun. They’ll also talk about the RPG hobby and industry and how to leverage the skills learned there in their lives and careers. Attendees will get a chance to experience communal cooperative story telling during the lecture and in more intense sessions afterwards. 

“We hope this lecture will inspire the audience to take on new and uncomfortable roles in their careers and lives, to build communities for entertainment and support around them leveraging the social skills inherent in gaming, and to join us in what is a really fun past time that survived an awkward youth in the 70s and 80s to be a really thriving and mainstream scene today,” Landauer says.

In addition to serving as managers of the Rocky Mountain Savages, Fuchs and Landauer are co-authors of “Buccaneer: Through Hell and High Water,” a resource book that gives players tools to integrate historical elements into their games, and hosts of the SavageCast podcast, where players can learn more about RPG rules, tips, interviews, conventions, and more. 

About BHSU Geek Speak: 
The Geek Speak lecture series, sponsored by the BHSU Honors program, features academic discussion and topics not normally discussed in the traditional classroom. The goal of the weekly lectures is to expose students and the community to diversity within the disciplines. All lectures are free and open to the public.
Upcoming lectures include:
•    April 25: Alex Lang: “Noise-Makers: Fascists and Music”
•    May: Honors Program Capstone Defenses

To read short descriptions of each lecture topic, visit www.BHSU.edu/GeekSpeak
For more information, contact Dr. Courtney Huse Wika, associate professor of English, at 605-642-6918 or email Courtney.HuseWika@BHSU.edu