Game Club reboot welcomes all

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The revival of the Portland State Game Club, officially called the Gamers Republic of University Players, couldn’t have come at a better time as warmer weather approaches and students look for fun activities to participate in around campus.

The club, which focuses on tabletop and role-playing games, hopes to welcome new members to a casual environment where they can bring their own games and meet new people.

“It’s a safe way to kick back, meet new people, laugh and have a good time,” said Andrew Tarries, founder and former president of the club.

Tabletop games include board games, card games, dice games and any other game you can play on a flat surface. A role-playing game—or RPG as it’s known in gaming circles—is a game in which players take on the role of a character in a fictional narrative.

The club offers both general tabletop game nights and nights geared specifically toward RPGs.

Regular game nights are held every Thursday at 6 p.m. in the Viking Food Court in Smith Memorial Student Union. The club’s RPG nights, called “Play Games, Tell Stories,” are held sporadically on Wednesday nights from 6:30 to 10:30 p.m. on the second floor of SMSU.

“The RPG games are a little more involved…so we don’t do those as often [as] board game nights,” Tarries said.

Both nights are open to anyone, including non-PSU students, of any experience level.

“My priority with role-playing or storytelling games is to make it very welcoming for people that maybe don’t have a lot of experience,” Club Officer Joel Shempert said. “I want to make it very easy to drop in and feel that you don’t need to know a lot, make a big commitment or join a campaign; and then if people want to do it full time, that’s great.”

Keeping the club casual and open to anyone is something that officers say is new since the club’s reformation. They would also like to expand to include different themed nights.

Officer Griffon Jillson emphasized that members can pick games to play as well.

“Anybody who shows up is welcome to suggest or bring a game,” Jillson said.

Corvus D. Elrod, a “Play Games, Tell Stories” attendee, did just that.

Elrod, the creator of the tabletop storytelling game Bhaloidam, brought his game to the RPG night for fellow attendees to try.

The game was funded through Kickstarter, a website that helps users spread the word about their creative projects and receive funding for them. Elrod’s game features colorful gaming boards instead of character sheets and encourages people to work together.

“I don’t actually call it a role-playing game, because you work collectively on the story and kind of share characters,” Elrod said. “There might be one…you’re most vested in—whose interests you represent—but you really have the ability to move other people’s principle characters in your narrative.”

Elrod, who’s been gaming since high school, enjoys game nights because he’s able to view games from a completely different perspective.

“What I like isn’t so much the games themselves, [but]…to look at other systems and see how they differ from what designs I do,” he said. “I like watching people utilize those systems in ways that, sometimes, the designers didn’t expect.”

Along with trying out local independent games, members have the opportunity to be exposed to a variety of games they wouldn’t necessarily try otherwise.

“What I love about being a part of this group is that we are open to different games that we’ve never played before,” Tarries said. “I’d never done an RPG or storytelling game until these guys came along, and it was a lot of fun.”

The club hopes to hold an event to officially announce the rebooting of their club once they get a series of new games in. Until then, they encourage people to stop by and see what the club is about.

“We’re a bunch of gamers, and we’re here to play games,” Tarries said.

For more information on the PSU Game Club, visit their club page at orgsync.com/45342/chapter or contact them at [email protected].