Being from Michigan myself, I was incredibly excited to see that Central Michigan Universtiy Press was publishing education-focused TTRPGs, and I’ve had the awesome opportunity to chat with Dr. Jonathan Truitt, Professor of Latin American Studies, about his part in CMU Press and what defines a scholarly game. The following is a write-in interview conducted between Jonathan Truitt from Central Michigan University Press (the interviewee) and Steph Campbell from TTRPGkids (the interviewer). This interview is posted with permission from the interviewee.

1. What’s your backstory (i.e. what cool stuff do you do/what have you worked on)? 

Central Michigan University Press is part of the larger Center for Learning through Games and Simulations (CLGS). The CLGS started as a faculty group effort about 12 years ago. A few of us had been using games in the classroom (off the shelf and built by us for specific learning goals). The CLGS formed to help others do what we were doing. As part of that effort we brought in the Institute of Play to train us on best practices. As we used more games in the classrooms our students wanted to learn how to use games in their future classrooms so we started thinking about curriculum designed specifically to support people who aim to bring games into their future career path (not primarily as game designers but more as educators [writ large, so Museums, HR, doctors any one who teaches] who wanted to use games in specific spaces). All of us who do work in the CLGS are also gamers and we don’t like games that aren’t engaging. Games we use in our classrooms need to be experiences on par with where we want experiences on our game table to be. They need to be engaging and having us thinking ahead and be excited to think ahead to the next steps. While we were doing this one of my games was presented, by a colleague, at Gen Con and one of the lead trainers for Wal-Mart picked it up and started using it to on-board people in Bentonville. We used that knowledge to convince Central Michigan University to allow us to create an academic press dedicated to scholarly peer-reviewed games. 

2. Can you tell us about what CMU Press is doing with games? 

Our initial aim for our games was to support academics who are building games so they can count toward their promotion in the same way their article and book publications would count. But we also realized that in order for it to work the games had to at least have a toe in the hobby market. They need to be games that some hobby players would also be interested in playing. To support having the games in classrooms all of the games in our Scholarship and Lore: Games for Learning Series have curriculum guides to support them. To our knowledge we are the only double-blind scholarly peer-reviewed tabletop game press in the world. Reacting to the Past does peer-review but they are classroom LARPs only. We are trying to plug all the other holes until another press comes along.

3. You publish scholarly games – what makes a game scholarly?  How is this different from other games?  (i.e. intentionality, curriculum guides, etc)

All of the games in Scholarship and Lore (there is another series coming) go through double-blind peer-review. There are always two peer-reviewers and sometimes three. The first peer-reviewer is a scholarly expert in the field of the game. They may not be a gamer, but they know the research that covers the field. The second is a game mechanics reviewer. They may not know the research but they know how to design good games in the hobby space. Many of our reviewers have significant followers and have won awards. The third reviewer (if needed) is someone who teaches the scholarship and plays a lot of games so has knowledge of game based-learning. This third one is optional because sometimes we have people in the first two categories who can do both rendering the third redundant

4. Do you have any advice for creators who are looking to make a pedagogical tabletop RPG?  

If you are toying with adding a game into your space, pick a topic that is doing the worst in your lessons and do that one (it isn’t going to get worse). As you start prototyping the game and playtesting it, bring your players/students into the equation. Let them know you are trying something new and that you need their feedback and help to make it better. This builds their enthusiasm and helps them learn from the iterative process. You also need to make sure that you reward engagement. If players come to you with an idea while engaged in your RPG if it is something feasible within the world of your game your answer should be yes. Embrace the ideas from “Play Unsafe.” To provide an example, I created a game on the Mexican Revolution. Students want to do things, like robbing banks so they have money to eat. I told the students they needed to do historical research on bank robberies during the revolution and tell me how they would execute them in a similar vein. While they did that I worked to figure out how it would play out within the larger game. The players/students became more invested in their learning and the game. The short answer is to be willing to shape the experience to reward the players. 

5. Any final shoutouts, thoughts, or advice? 

Have fun, play lots of games, especially games you don’t like that have lots of fans. Your players are going to be varied in their interests and you need to have something that will engage many, not just people with your interest. Also, don’t be afraid to make mistakes and get things wrong. You are making a game, it should be iterative, just make that a part of the learning experience. 

Thank you Jonathan for sharing your insights and telling us about the work that you’re doing! I’m looking forward to checking out some of your projects and seeing what you have soming out in the future!

You can find out more about Central Michigan University Press here:

https://cmichpress.com

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