MGSN and Game in Lab Events: Roleplaying Games, the Environment and History
The Manchester Game Studies Network is delighted to announce two upcoming events organised in collaboration with Game in Lab. We are taking part in Game In Lab’s international Roleplaying Games Conference series with two discussion panels that bring together academics and roleplaying game designers.
Dark Forests and Doomed Adventurers: Games and the Environment. Wednesday 5th May. 5pm – 7pm BST. Online.
This event explores the ways in which players create, encounter and interact with the environment in indie roleplaying games. This will be a panel discussion featuring award-winning roleplaying game designers from the UK and the US, including the creators of Cthulhu Hack, Cthulhu Dark and Trophy. Dr Nick Mizer and Dr Chloé Germaine will also present their research on the strange environments of roleplaying games.
Paul Baldowski. Creator of the award-winning Cthulhu Hack roleplaying game.
Dr Chloé Germaine Buckley. Senior Lecturer in English at Manchester Metropolitan University, and author of various works on the Gothic and Horror, as well as Deep Roots for Cthulhu Hack.
Howard David Ingham. Creator of The Shivering Circle roleplaying game and author of We Don’t go Back: A Watcher’s Guide to Folk Horror.
Kathryn Jenkins. Writer for Cthulhu Dark and Cthulhu Hack.
Dr Nicholas Mizer. Lecturer in Games and Simulation Arts and Sciences at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and author of Tabletop Role-Playing Games and the Experience of Imagined Worlds (2019).
Jesse Ross. Creator of the Trophy roleplaying game and owner of Hedgemaze Press.
Tickets are free and can be booked here.
‘Dice on the Nile’: Roleplaying History. Monday 10th May. 5pm – 7pm BST. Online.
This event investigates the use of Dungeons & Dragons 5e to engage with the history of the early Islamic world. We ask what challenges are posed by the use of historical settings in roleplaying games. What kind of ethical issues are involved in roleplaying characters from diverse cultural and historical locations? The panel features academics with specialisms in the study of Ancient History who have developed a unique setting for the popular roleplaying game Dungeons and Dragons.
Dr Jennifer Cromwell. Senior Lecturer in Ancient History at Manchester Metropolitan University, specialist in socio-economic history in Byzantine and early Islamic Egypt, in particular in village and monastic communities.
Alon Dar. PhD candidate at Leiden University, examining Egypt and Iraq before and after the Islamic conquests.
Dr Edmund Hayes. Postdoctoral researcher at Leiden University, specialist in early Islamic history, especially on Shi’i history, working on the relationship between fiscal policy and religious protest in early Islam.
Dr Grzegorz Ochała. Marie Curie Fellow at Leiden University, researching the history of the Nile Valley in late antiquity and the Middle Ages, whose current project centres on identity and memory in Christian Nubia.
Dr Eline Scheerlinck. PhD candidate at Leiden University, using Greek and Coptic papyri to explore the relationship between elites and local communities in early Islamic Egypt.
Tickets are free and can be booked here.
These events are supported by Game in Lab and Manchester Metropolitan University. Manchester Game Studies Network are looking forward to further collaborations with Game in Lab as we promote and share academic research on analogue games.