(upbeat music) (camera clicks) (upbeat music continues) - Thanks for tuning in, I'm Ethan Neir.

Over 50% of US households own some sort of video gaming console, yet one college town's residents are still infatuated with tabletop and role-playing games.

More on that later, but first, we will talk with Southern Illinois University Professor Jeff Punske about the evolution of nerd culture.

Jeff, thanks for taking the time to sit down with me.

- Oh yeah, absolutely, it's great to be here.

- So let's start with D&D, kind of the king of nerd culture, in a sense.

It's its 50th anniversary as well.

We've seen kind of almost this cultural revolution with D&D coming back into the mainstream with things like its own movie and Baldur's Gate being a massively successful game, winning game of the year.

What do you think is the cause of that?

- I wish I knew exactly what caused all that.

I mean, I think there was always an interest in doing these types of things, but we saw the sort of growth in other types of media areas like "Stranger Things" and things like that and just the wider acceptance into the mainstream.

And now we're here where suddenly it's now more people play D&D than don't play D&D almost.

- Yeah, you're no longer like a social pariah for playing D&D in school.

- Yeah, I mean, not to age myself, but I went to high school in the '90s, and the kids that played D&D were not sitting at the popular table.

And I think that has changed entirely where most folks have engaged with some sort of role play or other types of tabletop gaming.

And I think that really, I think it speaks to something that maybe is a little bit deeper within us that we enjoy storytelling, we enjoy collaboration, and we enjoy sort of social structures that give us an opportunity to do that.

And I think D&D has also done a great job of making the game accessible.

- I know we could have an entire show talking about One D&D, but we aren't gonna do that and all the controversy that surrounds that.

We'll leave that for another show.

But you talk about the social aspect and about community.

Something that is kind of vital to gaming culture, especially in smaller towns, is the local game store.

And that does seem to be continuously threatened with the domination of Amazon and with COVID-19 decimating many stores.

As the space continues to shift, what do you think their place in all of this is?

- Well, I think, again, it is that sense of community.

I mean, Carbondale is an interesting town.

We have three local game stores in a relatively small population.

There are big cities that maybe only have three or four game stores.

So I think it speaks again to the sort of cultural happenings that are part of Carbondale, but also this nexus of sort of social interaction, this hub where folks know that they can show up, they can find a game, they can meet new people.

And I think that is something that Amazon can't replace.

- Yeah.

- And I think, you've mentioned COVID-19, and I think that was another time that really helped elevate the game to a certain extent, simply because people were finding that they were missing these social interactions.

You saw an explosion of Zoom games and other online games.

And then a lot of those moved to the tabletop once we were able to do that.

- Once we were all back in person again.

Now, how have things that have typically been considered niche, I know we were talking about your personal experience with D&D back in the '90s, but also stuff like Marvel Comics, that is now the biggest media empire maybe in the world, how has that become mainstream and changed the space?

- Again, I think it's just great marketing, how the MCU managed to bottle that and become this massive global media empire.

Disney money probably helps with that a little bit.

But yeah, again, just the shift in the culture from the kids that maybe weren't accepted to it being the sort of central, main way that we now interact with each other that's not sports, to be honest.

And I think it opens up this whole new avenue of folks to engage with each other and interact with each other.

'Cause now basically everyone's seen a Marvel movie.

- Oh yeah.

- So you can ask, "So who's your favorite Marvel character?"

And now people have an answer where maybe folks aren't into football or baseball or things like that.

So I think it does open up that gateway for folks to just have a conversation.

- Yeah, I'll agree as well.

I think they've done a great job including characters outside of the typical ones you would think of.

Like who thought 10 years ago that Rocket Raccoon would be a popular kind of figure?

- Yeah, well, I also think that they were forced to do that, 'cause they sold off all their popular characters to other media companies.

So they had to get creative.

But I still don't think they ever expected "Guardians of the Galaxy" and "Rocket Raccoon" to be this massive cultural phenomenon that it turned out to be.

But it did, so good for them.

- Now, bringing it back to campus and the local community, you run a tabletop gaming RSO here at SIU as well as you run Saluki Con, or help at Saluki Con, talk to me a bit about that.

- So to say I run the RSO wouldn't be accurate.

I am one of the co-advisors for this RSO.

And it is a student organization, the students run it.

I show up every now and then and say, "Good work, guys."

But they are really into building that inclusive social space for folks, teaching people how to play games, giving people the opportunity to learn about these different ways to sort of engage in that tabletop space, whether it be D&D or some of the myriad of board games and other types of things that have come out.

Again, sort of a similar explosion at the same time where over the last 20 years, the board gaming space has become this massive industry to itself.

But still a lot of folks, their experience with board games are Monopoly or Candy Land, Shoots and Ladders- - Sorry, yeah.

- Sorry, so just seeing the available options and seeing the ways in which you can engage creatively or learn about different social dynamics, different ways to learn about different topics as well.

'Cause a lot of these games cover things like history or biology and things like that in really interesting and creative ways.

So I love what they do, they do a great job.

They really try to do community outreach and they try to do student outreach to really sort of show off this space to folks.

And with Saluki Con, that's our big celebration of everything nerd.

And I think SIU is kind of special in that we've now built this annual tradition that we have essentially a Comic-Con on campus.

And it is, I think, a really special event, because one of this sort of nexus of sort of what we've talked about already with Carbondale being this sort of place of nerd culture.

I've heard a rumor, and I don't know it's true, that D&D was play tested, the first time it was play tested outside of Wisconsin where Gary Gygax was developing it, was in Carbondale, Illinois.

- Oh, wow.

- It's a rumor, I don't know if it's true, but it's part of our lure.

- We'd like to believe, we'd like to believe.

- It's part of our lure, exactly.

- Actually, let's wrap up our time here together.

What do you think the impact of having something like a convention in an area that can kind of be isolated at times is for a lot a people that maybe this is their only chance?

- Yeah, I think we are in this rural area and this is an opportunity for us to bring some like big city life.

It's never gonna be San Diego Comic-Con or some of the things that you might find in Chicago.

- Yeah.

- But we can still bring these types of events to both our students and our community and also give the community and our students opportunities to engage with each other and learn more about each other and have a hell of a lot of fun.

- Jeff, thank you so much for your time.

Now we have a short documentary on gaming revolution happening in the college town of Carbondale, Illinois.

- I wouldn't have met half of my best friends in the world if it weren't for game stores.

And that has traveled with me through all of the game stores.

- 'Cause this tends to be a nexus of like-minded people.

(upbeat music) - It's a place where everybody can belong.

- And feel welcome.

There's no discrimination.

You come in, we don't care what you look like, who you are, it's just about having fun with people.

(upbeat music) - I think that's a fundamental thing that a lot of people, especially adults, don't get, is that play dates don't have to stop when you're 12.

You can have a play date with your friends.

It just happens that you're playing Halo instead of Minecraft or whatever.

Or instead of playing make believe in the backyard, you're rolling dice and there's rules now.

Play is something that's so, so important and so vital in life just to have fun, have some spice.

I'd rather work less, play more, honestly, and live vicariously through these characters or these experiences and really expand my horizon and play and have fun.

That's the thing, sure you can get tired of Fifth Edition, you can get tired of Monopoly, but I don't think you can get tired of play.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) - I met my husband now in college, and his family was big into game nights and he taught me how to play Settlers of Catan.

And when he taught me that, I really enjoyed just the family time and togetherness of that activity.

And we have since just branched out and set up a huge, like a big collection of games.

And so it's just branched out from Catan.

I really enjoy, I think Fury of Dracula would probably be one of my favorites.

It's a co-op game for four players, and then the fifth player actually plays Dracula and Dracula is hidden over a map of Europe and you have to work together to try to find Dracula as he's turning other people in Europe into vampires.

And I really enjoy it because you have the co-opness of the game, which I like working together with people for a common goal.

And then there's also the one person who is against you.

And it's just always been a good time when we've played.

- I love games for a lot of different reasons.

I really like the aspect of the social ability to sit around with a table, have this sort of shared purpose with people and kind of work on, either be competitive or sometimes you're being cooperative.

(upbeat music) - One of the nice things about gaming is that it gives you a common thread for all people of all backgrounds and all places.

And so you can go to an area where you don't know anyone and sit down and play games.

That's why there are gaming conventions all over the world.

And so to go and meet new people and play the same game and see how they approach the game, it's a learning experience and a sharing experience.

And to me, that just goes to human nature in general.

- It's honestly just community, community, community.

I can't think of anything better I'd rather do with my free time than come to a game store, hang out with all the friends I've made along the way, and at the same time maybe get to punish some fools who think they're better than me.

- Over the course of the last seven years, we really reached out to different communities and that really gave me the drive to increase our membership.

And by doing that, we met a lot of different people, made a lot of good contacts with different libraries, conventions, and things like that.

So it just keeps me going, 'cause we want to keep growing and keep getting better and offer what we do to different communities.

- We started doing it with the community because community wise, it's a good way to meet people and you bring all types of people that we would probably never really get to meet in our normal circles through gaming.

We just get to meet all kinds of people.

- We really enjoy meeting the people and the connections that we make with everybody.

We go to a lot, we do the conventions in the area, and I mean, we meet people from all over.

The Greyhawke Gamers Guild is just enjoyable.

Community, friendship, fellowship, time that we get to have together.

- A friend of mine told me about this interesting game he had played in which some guy walked into a bar and changed into a robot.

This sounded really interesting, so I invited myself along to the next gaming session and started playing Dungeon & Dragons back about 1979 and have been playing ever since.

- It's beautiful that these games kind of facilitate friendships and community and relationships kind of wherever they are, while also kind of being this tight-knit thing wherever they are as well.

(upbeat music) - Well, for me, gaming was always an escape from the workplace, and so it was a way to be able to forget about the pressures of job and home.

And just to make friends.

It was something that I could share with my friends, and even though it's competitive, it's a little bit like Vegas.

You leave it at the table, you don't take it home with you.

- It allows people to escape.

It allows people to run away from problems for an hour or two, God forbid.

I mean, we live in such a way where a lot of stuff is wanting to escape, and you throw a couple cards down on the table or you roll some dice and that's a great way for people to feel better about their life and to enjoy a little bit of casual escapism and running away from the problems in the everyday.

- I'm sort of on the spectrum as far as like I'm not really a social butterfly, so it's a great way for me to get out of my shell and kind of force myself to be social.

Because otherwise, I'd just be sitting home all day just on my computer.

- For board games, when I'm watching a television show with my husband, we're not necessarily interacting, we're just sitting there watching it and then we'll talk about it afterwards.

But with a board game, there's communication, not even just about the board game.

We're talking about our day in between turns.

We're laughing about stuff that's happening in the game.

We're just communicating and interacting, which I think is a really good benefit in a society where we're all pretty obsessed with our screens and stuff.

So I really enjoy when we can kind of unplug and play some games.

- When you're playing video games, you got social skills on the internet, but when you're sitting down and playing with people, you learn how to get along.

And then, of course, you're learning new games.

It helps the thought process.

- I think there are two major things that are really, really nice about gaming.

First is, again, the social aspect, that you get an opportunity to either spend time with people that you really want to spend time with or you get an opportunity to meet new people, depending on the context that you're playing.

But also a lot of these games really force you to think in new and interesting ways, do problem solving, puzzle solving, all these different types of things, which really helps keep your minds engaged and active even when you're doing something that's more for fun.

(upbeat music) - Well, generally, a lot of the games out there are actually, like Magic and Pokemon, are both Mensa Select Games.

As is Dungeons & Dragons.

Because they help you with math, they help you with spelling, they help you with analytical thought, they help you with pre-planning.

So there's a lot of benefits to gaming.

- One of the things, when I was at John A. Logan, I started a game club out there, and one of the things that I enjoyed about that is using just some of the basic skills of math, problem solving, strategy, planning.

Those sort of things come around to real life applications.

And so that's one of the things that I love about gaming is the fact that it has applications away from the game table in real life as well.

- Yeah, I mean, of course.

The thing about, especially games where you have to paint the minis and stuff like Warhammer and all that is that's a massive time commitment.

Sure, you can kind of slap dash, throw 'em all together and have your gray guys on the table and kind of move them and play the game, and that's plenty of fun if you just wanna play the game, great, but personally, I like to paint 'em.

I like to really get to know them.

I like to put myself into them.

You're practicing technical painting skills.

You're practicing non-metallic metal.

You're practicing zenithal highlighting and zenithal painting.

You're practicing these crazy technical skills of glazing and washing and using inks and using oils and these incredible kind of techniques that I've learned from mini painting and applied to my actual technical artwork.

It's an avenue for creation.

And I think that's honestly one of the best parts about the hobby besides the play aspect of it, is that it at its core is a creative exercise.

(bright music) - It goes away for a while, but it tends to always come back.

The pandemic, for all the ills and things that it brought upon us, it brought a lot of people back to their hobbies and the gaming table.

And we have really seen a boom now in the gaming industry because people have had time away from their workplace and all the other pressures of life to re-delve into those things that they love.

(upbeat music) - The history of tabletop games is not something I'm an expert at, but I know, for instance, that there are ancient Greek vases that have pictures of people playing games on them.

So I think basically as long as we've been sort of in a society together, we've been doing games, and you can find other types of examples of this throughout the world.

I think we see the sort of initial sort of build of this in like the '70s.

And this is really where it's still very, very niche.

This is when D&D was first made.

It's when people are doing a lot of war games and things like that, but it's still a very, very niche, very small group of people.

That, of course, D&D gained some popularity and in the '80s you had the Satanic panic, which led to a sort of pushback against these role-playing games and stuff like that.

And then in the '90s and really in the early 2000's, that's when we see this big explosion of interest in both back into Dungeons & Dragons, but also into these more complex tabletop board games.

- Board games at that era were still primarily Aggravation, Monopoly, Sorry, games like that.

What we call Euro style games had not caught on in the United States at that time.

They would not become popular here until about the early '90s when a game called Settlers of Catan started getting popular.

(light music) - Well, if you don't foster local communities, who you gonna help game?

I mean, really wouldn't you want to have the best playground in your backyard?

And so why else would you want to foster other places first?

You want to have your home base and then expand it out.

And that's one of the great things.

And I've worked for a very long time to try to get the gaming community here in the Carbondale area together.

- I've had people say that Carbondale is kind of like the mecca of gaming for Southern Illinois because of the college.

- But Carbondale, SIU, really were kind of major nexus points in the early stages of the sort of modern renaissance of gaming.

- Well, as far as the gaming community here in Carbondale, there's certainly been times it's waxed and waned.

The one thing about a college town is you go through the cycles of people who come here, they graduate, they move on, but they don't leave that gaming behind.

Some of them carry it and spread it to other communities.

But your community may suffer for a little while.

I've seen children and grandchildren now coming to the game store in the Carbondale area to play games, and sometimes they'll know me and I won't recognize who they are when I'm at the store.

And so it's interesting, 'cause I just have to ask 'em, I say, "Who are you?

", and then they'll say, "Oh, well this is my father," or "He used to come to the store back in 1998 or '99."

And I'm like, "Oh, okay, I know who your father is" and stuff.

- You're never too old to play any game.

The endorphin rush is always gonna be prevalent.

- I have got people that come in and they're six years old and their parents, back when, and this makes me feel old, but their parents, they played Magic or Pokemon or D&D here back in the '90s and now they're bringing their kids in to buy the Magic, Pokemon or get them started on D&D.

- Oh no.

- No.

- We have people in their seventies that come to the group.

We've got little kids who come.

We've got games of all ages that we can play.

So yeah, it doesn't matter what age you are, you can come out here at any age and play.

- Yeah, there's games for everybody.

- No, you're never too old.

I think there's always gonna be something that someone can be able to play.

And I think you're also really never too young.

There's great games for kids.

It really is a hobby that can cover the entire age range.

- Never, never too old to play a board game.

The board games will always have an age for beginners.

And then I think for the most part they leave, it's always plus, it's eight plus, 10 plus, 14 plus.

But I don't think you're ever too old to learn something new and to have fun.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (camera clicks) (upbeat music continues)