Rolling for Change - Geek Therapy's Transformative Gaming Podcast

Rolling for Change is an idea we have been working on for quite some time now. The idea began shortly after I, (Woody) participated in a discussion with Josue over at his Geek Therapy podcast: http://www.geektherapy.com/podcast/episode-34-tabletop-therapy It was shortly after this exchange that I began thinking about how we could further develop this conversation. The goal was to create dialogue about the ways that the games we love touch our lives and initiate change. I myself had multiple experiences in my game play in which I identified that the game was encouraging a change in the way I manage conflict or social relationships, or even forcing me to develop an alternative point of view and correct course accordingly. This awareness lead me to believe that this happened for others as well, and being a good social scientist I went in search of answers. The consensus among gamers at various conventions, and in the literature indicated that this was not an isolated experience and that many were having life changing experiences within the context of the cardboard universe. This lead to a few presentations at local conventions. The biggest surprise was Dragoncon 2014. We had a standing room only group, and 50 people were turned away. That was some real proof that we were hitting a note that needed to be played. Another presentation was made at Gencon 2015. We had a smaller turn out, but it was still clear that this is a conversation that gamers want to have. So those are the auspicious beginnings of our little adventure.

We have 5 initial episodes and we are working on editing them and getting them out as quickly as possible. There is still a lot of format tweaking and planning to get this show ready for primetime. You may have noticed that audio is a little fuzzy and there is some disorganization…all to be expected. Rolling for Change is a newborn. He or she will stumble, make bad judgement calls, and generally make a mess, but with some care and effort we can watch RFC grow, and do all the cute and obnoxious things that babies do. As we do so, we invite you listeners to provide feedback, offer suggestions and talk about your experiences of games. The educational and psychological aspects of gaming will be discussed along the way, but the experience, the lived experience of gaming is what I believe offers the benefit. We are just looking for ways to talk about that experience.

If you are so inclined you can write to us at gamers@rollingforchange.com You can follow our twitter account @rollforchange and we will likely eventually stretch out to a BGG forum and a facebook group. Baby steps….baby steps.

Thanks for checking us out! Please rate us and comment so that we know you are listening. We have a lot more content coming and it’s only going to get better.

Keep rolling,

Woody