Delta//Play: Roleplaying Games as Creative Practice

7-9pm (doors open at 6:30pm)

An artist talk with Alex Roberts and  Paolino Caputo that explores the visual metaphor of the delta as a way to communicate both the evolution of roleplaying games as a medium and how play emerges at the game table.

Collaboration
In 2023 Alex and Paolino began working together to make and play games in Victoria. With the goal of building relationships through play, they started RPG Nite, a free monthly drop-in roleplaying game social. For almost three years they have maintained a space for locals to gather casually in-person to explore new, weird, and wonderful roleplaying games. 
 
From 2024-25, Paolino was mentored by Alex to support their practice as it expanded further into RPG design. Throughout and beyond the mentorship, they have shared this knowledge with their community through a variety of workshops to support others throughout the process of making games of their own. They have a long term goal of building a thriving community of design and play, locally and beyond.

Paolino Caputo is an artist, advocate, and professional dilettante of mixed Italian ancestry living on unceded Lekwungen territories in Victoria, Canada. Their interdisciplinary practice focuses on intersections of queerness, play, ritual, disability, and desire. As part of their work they run community game events like RPG Nite, livestream games, and follow long, unnecessary trains of thought on their blog, PinkSpace. When not working on creative projects, you'll usually find them investing 80+ hours in a JRPG.
 
Alex Roberts is an educator, counsellor, and game designer whose games are known for their mechanical elegance and psychological complexity. She has taught counseling skills and game design across North America and Europe, most recently with the Universität Bonn Lab for Analog Games and Imaginative Play. Her first RPG, Star Crossed: the two player game of forbidden love, received the Diana Jones Award for Excellence in Gaming. Today she devotes most of her time to her clinical counselling practice, and delights in any opportunity to share her love of storytelling and play.