These days there’s a lot of nostalgia going around for things that seem to be counter to the main-stream forms of entertainment we surround ourselves with. Walk around the WolfPack Den and you will find a space filled with students playing Street Fighter and Smash Bros, but in hidden enclaves scattered throughout the college you will find a group of players rolling dice and fighting dragons and orcs in their minds, enter Nerds of the Round Table.

The Nerds are a club that plays tabletop games everything from DND and Traveler to board games. The advisor to the club, professor Victor Ramon, shed light how role-playing games offer many opportunities and experiences that video games don’t – among them being the social cooperative game play and immersion of the genre.

The general focus of the club is on providing a place for them to relax and connect with one another. The club provides a variety of experiences – you can play different board games each week, join in on-going role-playing games, talk about almost anything that interests you, and make new friends that share those interests.

The club traces its roots back to a group of nerdy students that hung out in the cafeteria and gamed together. When the WolfPack Den was set up, the group almost disbanded before they formed the club with professor Ramon.

Since then the Nerds of the Round Table have been meeting up usually every Friday afternoon and running games with each other and forming groups and going on all manner of adventures together. Many students play the role of game master and spend entire semesters with these groups, taking them to all manner of bizarre universes.

The Nerds have grown significantly over the past several years.  There was some question if the group that used to meet in the cafeteria would survive the remodeling of the first floor of the Truax Main Building, but the weekly game sessions started to bring people together again. We’ve gone from having less than ten people coming regularly to now closer to 15-20 people each week.

This has created real interest in having a range of games available each week and fortunately we’ve had enough experienced players who have helped make that happen. Show up and try out a game – you just might end up making some new friends and having some fun.