Modify a dice-based resource-management game to find the right balance. This hands-on session covers key design concepts: gameplay pace, sculpting randomness, and expressing theme with mechanics.
Description:
This hands-on game design session revolves around a 2-player resource-management dice game about rebuilding society after a global catastrophe. Balancing the pace and rhythm of this game simple system is surprisingly challenging. We will begin by finding the right modification for the core system - and then expand the base game with special characters and powers. Along the way, we’ll be engaging with a range of fundamental game design concepts and skills, including the iterative design process, controlling the chaos of randomness, and using game mechanics to express the personality of a game character. Join us for a practical session with real benefits for your game design.
** GAME DESIGN ACADEMY ONLY EVENT / NOT INTENDED FOR GENERAL TRADE DAY AUDIENCE **
Participants can attend to learn more about TT-RPGs, obtain info on the benefits of TT-RPG, and role play game content offered through VA.
Description:
Participants can attend to learn more about TT-RPGs, obtain info on the benefits of TT-RPG, and role play game content offered through VA. Players can explore identities, abilities, and process emotions through role play. VA clinics run their own "homebrew" campaigns to meet the needs of their population of Veterans, such as LGBTQ+ or folx with serious mental illness, to support Veterans' mood, social connectedness and communication skills. This session will include info about the great therapeutic RPG work being done at VA, followed by sample D&D gameplay and a facilitated time of personal reflection and discussion where players will be encouraged to reflect on their characters' choices and relate game play to personal lives. Please note, this is open to Veteran and non-Veteran players and will not be a formal therapy session.
Who Isn’t at Your Table Yet? Programming That Grows Your Gaming Community
Summary:
The secret to a thriving gaming community isn’t more game nights. Discover what kinds of events can build broader and more durable communities, and take home ideas you can apply right away.
Description:
Game nights and open play are the heartbeat of any gaming community. They’re where friendships deepen, skills grow, and regulars become family. But they tend to reach people who are already gamers. If you want to expand your community, welcome first-time players, or connect your space to the broader neighborhood, a different kind of programming belongs in the mix alongside them. This session explores how events where gaming is the conversation, rather than the activity, create the conditions for new people to walk through your door and find their place. Drawing on the Chicago Tabletop Gaming Association’s 2025 programming, we’ll unpack what worked, what surprised us, and what the patterns reveal about how communities actually grow. Retailers, librarians, and educators will leave with a practical framework and event formats ready to bring home.
World Building for Game Masters, Game Designers, & Authors
Summary:
Join veteran GM, Dr. Rich Staats, as he describes world design for Game Masters, Game Designers, and Authors. This classic seminar started as a for-credit course at MIT.
In this session we will discuss ways to design historical games that include difficult subjects.
** GAME DESIGN ACADEMY ONLY EVENT / NOT INTENDED FOR GENERAL TRADE DAY AUDIENCE **
Description:
Human history is filled with material that most of us would rather never existed. Yet, part of learning about our past is engaging in these very topics. This session will discuss how to engage difficult material. In the process of discussing the material we will also talk about different ways to engage challenging information through game mechanisms.
In this session we will discuss ways to design historical games that include difficult subjects.
Description:
Human history is filled with material that most of us would rather never existed. Yet, part of learning about our past is engaging in these very topics. This session will discuss how to engage difficult material. In the process of discussing the material we will also talk about different ways to engage challenging information through game mechanisms.
Writing, Running, & Publishing Table Top RPGs For Classrooms
Summary:
Create, write, pitch to publish, and/or run role playing games for classrooms. Incorporate academic pedagogy and role playing in dynamic, student-focused, interactive and collaborative modules.
Description:
With the proven effectiveness of classroom rpgs, challenge for game developers and educators in writing and creating for classrooms is to understand the most effective way to bring their understanding of games into pedagogy for different classrooms. Join two experienced university instructors with a combined 20 years experience teaching a variety of subjects at the university level from pre-medical coursework to bioethics to philosophy, as well as experience in academic publishing, as they introduce educators and game developers and publishers to creating and marketing academic pedagogical RPGs. Practical examples and frameworks for lessons structures will be provided. Practical ideas for pitching academic rpgs to academic decision makers, academic publishers, and students will be covered, as well as what rpg content and game design are effective in engaging students.
You Should Certainly Try - Making Actual Play Performances for Library Outreach
Summary:
This session shares how a the UNT Media Library built an audience-facing D&D show, how we integrated campus partners, why we made the choices we did, and what others can steal for their own spaces.
Description:
You Should Certainly Try is a behind-the-scenes look at how a university media library rolled initiative on an audience-facing actual play D&D show. This seminar skips the rule breakdowns and focuses on the real decisions: why actual play, why make it public, and how to stop worrying about budget and barriers so you can make something magical. Using Live D&D at UNT and The Hidden Stacks as a case study, we’ll talk honestly about what worked, what didn’t, what scaled, and what surprised us. Attendees will leave with realistic expectations, practical takeaways, and the confidence to decide whether they should certainly try something similar in their own space.
Join us for a lesson in miniature painting and how to host your own painting lesson and/or event for your class, store, or library.
Description:
Do you want to learn how you can host a miniature painting class, party, or event at your store or library? Two experienced teachers, who also paint, will guide you in painting your own mini elemental during the 2-hour session. You will leave with strategies to teach basic miniature painting to a group of new painters and will take home your very own miniature. Be ready to join us in painting during this event.
This hands-on design workshop is all about building worlds and systems together. First we will invent a fictional world and then figure out how to express its characters through game mechanics.
Description:
At the start of this hands-on game design workshop, we will co-create a small town that has been overrun by zombies. Using character relationships to scaffold our world-building, we will take individual characters and begin to design custom game mechanics that express their unique personalities. This multifaceted session provides useful tools for building out the details of any fictional world. It also addresses core game design challenges, including controlling the pace of a game and leveraging clever mechanics to express story and theme. Join us for an intense session where we all get to practice and learn key game design skills and methods.