Students have the option this summer to enroll in a new Humanities 3990 course with a nontraditional instruction method: games

The course, HUM 3990 “Global Cultures through Games” is offered on Fridays from 10:50 a.m. – 1:30 p.m. during the Summer 2025 term. The class was designed by Stefan Huddleston, a lecturer in the history and humanities departments. Huddleston said the class explores how different cultures can be understood through tabletop role-playing games. 

“For a very long time, a lot of tabletop and role-playing games were written about other cultures by people who weren’t from those cultures, predominantly by white men,” Huddleston said. “There were games about ancient Japan and there were games about Arabia and all these other places, but they weren’t written by anyone from those cultures.”

Ian Torres, a professor who teaches history and humanities classes at UCCS and Pikes Peak State College, will co-teach the course with Huddleson. “A lot of these games take places from real cultures, real moments, real history and kind of merge them with a little bit of fantasy,” Torres said. 

Huddleston seeks to educate students on the cultures that tabletop games are built around. During the semester, students will learn about various cultures and ways to ethically incorporate them into a game of their own design.

“Maybe it’s a tavern in a fictional city, maybe it’s a nation in a fictional world, maybe it’s an organization in a fictional reality that they have created and then they will use,” Huddleston said. “[They will use] what they’ve learned about other cultures and how to approach other cultures with respect and dignity to kind of craft this fictional area.”

Torres and Huddleston encourage every student to take the class, regardless of experience with tabletop role-playing games. “If students are coming in and they don’t know anything about [games], come on in,” Huddleston said.

Huddleston has been playing and writing for tabletop games since 1977, while Torres has limited experience in the genre of gameplay. The combined experiences of the two professors allow for a nuanced approach to the course.

“The hope we have as educators is that they’ll use this as a jumping off point and maybe that will spark something in them where they’ll want to learn more about the cultures that these stories are coming from,” Huddleston said.

The summer term allows students to complete required classes in half the time. HUM 3990, a required class for all students in the College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, runs multiple summer courses. 

Those interested in “Global Cultures Through Games” should enroll in HUM 3990 section H01 or H02. The course begins on June 9 and ends Aug. 2. Classes will meet in Centennial Hall, room 192.

If the summer course doesn’t work for student schedules, Torres and Huddleston teach a HUM 3990 class each fall that explores alternative histories of the world and seeks to understand how cultures would have been impacted if major world events, such as colonization, hadn’t happened in North America. 

Photo courtesy of Steamforged Games.