A user interface can make or break a game, enabling a great game to shine or causing it to crash & burn. Learn how to spend your time & make good UI/UX choices across the game design lifecycle.
Description:
While we're often counseled not to waste time making our prototypes "pretty," overlooking UI and UX during prototyping can lead to playtests that are counterproductive, don't provide useful insight, or outright fall apart.
** GAME DESIGN ACADEMY ONLY EVENT / NOT INTENDED FOR GENERAL TRADE DAY AUDIENCE **
Practice, Practice, Practice (Iteration In Game Design)
Summary:
Discussion on techniques for rapid iteration in game design, and the importance of time in the lab.
Description:
Game inventor James Ernest (Cheapass Games, Crab Fragment Labs) has created more than two hundred original tabletop games and learned something from each one.
Protect your business from fraud with resources to improve security, spot fraud and online scams, and avoid cybercrime. Join Business Banking experts from Regions Bank to find out how.
Description:
With phishing, smishing, and elaborate fraud schemes on the rise, businesses are being targeted now more than ever. Protect your business from fraud with resources to improve security, spot fraud and online scams, and avoid cybercrime. Join Business Banking experts from Regions Bank as we discuss ways to protect your assets while banking smarter.
Quest For The Third Space: Using Tabletop To Forge Identity & Boost Emotional Wellness
Summary:
We'll explore how tabletop games create third spaces for self-exploration and community.
Description:
This interactive workshop explores how tabletop games create third spacessafe environments for self-exploration and community outside the pressures of home or work. Well discuss how games like Fluster and Decorum promote emotional insight through collaborative play. A key focus will be on how to set up your own spacewhether a library, coffee shop, or game storeas a third space where patrons can retreat for safety and connection, especially when their primary or secondary spaces arent providing that. Beyond entertainment, these spaces foster emotional wellness and inclusion. Participants will engage in gameplay demonstrations, debriefs, and explore the Third Space Integration Model to implement games as therapeutic interventions.
Questing For Knowledge: Aligning TTRPG Information-Seeking Behaviors & Academic Research Skills
Summary:
I map the Association of College & Research Libraries' Information Literacy Standards for Higher Education to information-seeking mechanics used in TTRPGs--it goes way beyond investigation checks!
Description:
Did you know that one of the most popularly searched questions for Matthew Mercer, Brennan Lee Mulligan, and Aabria Iyengar is about their notetaking and GM prep style? As a librarian, that tells me that people are interested in how they organize information in their games. This talk is meant primarily to help those who wish to promote TTRPGs for their information literacy benefits to be able to align common game mechanics with information literacy standards so that their proposals are strong, their campaigns empowering, and their assessments/evaluations easier to pinpoint. However--if you are new to information literacy standards or looking for ideas on how to make narrative exposition come alive in your world, please join me! Games really are the glue.
RPGs Go To College: Teaching The University's First Class in Role-playing Games
Summary:
Innovative pedagogy, creativity, mini painting, dungeon crawling, world-building, storytelling, teamwork, hands-on learning & fun! Lessons learned from teaching a Universitys first course in RPGs!
Description:
As part of a new Game Design & Development program at the University at Albany, Professor of Practice Michael Leczinsky developed and taught a 400/500 level course in role-playing games in the Spring of 2025. From the history of RPGs to active play sessions (synchronous and asynchronous), map-making, character building, and actively creating and presenting their own RPG, students were immersed in activities related to the field.
How do you bring all of this together in the course of sixteen weeks? What resources do you need? Are role-playing games considered a serious topic worthy of a place in academia? Should learning be fun?
Based on a model of experiential learning, constructivism and play, students were engaged in an opportunity to co-create, collaborate and make meaning in their own lives through the rich and interdisciplinary world of role-playing games!
Two educators share their blueprint for a successful RPG student summer camp, including the addition of a professional development component for teachers.
Description:
Four Years On. . . imagine a magical world where, over four days, students can choose to learn how to become a GM, or learn how to role play from a YouTube celebrity, or create their own set of dice, or build terrain, or develop an idea into a full-fledged adventure. . . and then finish every day with an RPG session led by a veteran GM. Add to this a synchronous workshop where teachers learn about best practices to create an RPG summer camp at their own school, then immediately move into observation of an example of the very camp theyre learning to build.
Role Playing Games As Community Building For Neurodiverse Audience
Summary:
Presentation and discussion of means, methods, and results of setting up a self-sustaining role-playing group (Dungeons & Dragons) within the Lynch Disability Resource Center at Loras College.
Description:
Role playing games are by nature a community based game, encouraging human interaction and community building within a low stress environment. This discussion will present the methods and results of setting up a dungeons and dragons campaign for new neurodiverse players, with the ultimate goal of creating a self-sustaining student run campaign with minimal cost to the students or institution. Discussion will include both the process and successes/failures of establishing this community as well as the growth of players both within the game and as a whole.
Roll For Adventure: Using Role-Playing Games To Increase Engagement With Library Materials
Summary:
Loosely inspired by Dungeons & Dragons, this 10-minute active-learning exercise is the perfect alternative to a traditional library tour or show-and-tell table at a community outreach event.
Description:
What happens when you take materials from your collections and turn them into a game-based learning activity loosely inspired by Dungeons and Dragons? You get an immersive and engaging experience for your participants, leaving them enriched and wanting to learn more about your collections and the history covered within. This 10-minute active-learning exercise is the perfect alternative to a traditional library tour or show-and-tell table at a community outreach event. Ideal as an icebreaker, team-building activity, or an out-of-the-box library tour, this activity has broad-based appeal beyond teens and children. Of particular interest to public and special collections librarians, this talk will show you how to adapt this activity with your library's collections.
Roll Persuasion With Advantage On Your Workplace Initiatives
Summary:
Become champions of role-playing and game-based learning in your organization by running low-risk pilots, building influence, and providing strategic examples that prove RPGs can equal ROI.
Description:
Tabletop and live action role-playing games are incredible learning environments for leadership, creativity, collaboration, resilience, and more. These are coveted skills in modern workplaces, but good luck convincing an executive team to enhance their ROIs with RPGs or replace their spreadsheets with character sheets. This session will empower you to become a champion for game-based learning in your organization by running low-risk pilots, building influence, and providing strategic examples that prove collaborative gameplay is a powerful business advantage.
This session is for educators who work in, or are interested in working in, professional learning & development in a corporate setting. Gabe Sopocy works at a global digital consultancy where they incorporate their background in transformative game design and copywriting to design employee learning experiences.