How Columbia's Detect Nerd brings a love of tabletop gaming into live shows

Detect Nerd is casting a benevolent spell on Columbia.

Forged around common interests — namely, Dungeons & Dragons and other tabletop games — the local collective takes its preoccupations public. Detect Nerd hosts live-streamed campaigns, movie meet-ups and in-person events that, to hear its founders' descriptions, take the form of a real-time trust fall, involving a delightful alchemy of storytelling, improv comedy and community-building.

In all this, the group participates in a greater cultural shift, "retaking the word nerd," co-founder Doug Miller said.

"The Hydes of March," Detect Nerd's latest live one-shot — or single, self-contained experience — takes place Saturday night at Cafe Berlin. The game and its players will take central cues from a delightfully slanted view of Ancient Rome.

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Launching the 'rocket'

Detect Nerd spilled over from a series of D&D home games that counted Miller and co-founder Elizabeth Keach among its numbers. Its players eventually migrated in different directions, and the pair saw an opportunity to meet several distinct but interlocking needs.

Keach often encountered would-be tabletop players in search of teachers, or running up against what seemed like barriers to entry. Her desire to offer a sort of welcoming, 101-level experience, and a mutual interest in streaming campaigns, met the void created as these regular games ended.

If home games represented a table, Detect Nerd could be something different.

"Instead of a table, let’s be a rocket," Miller recalled saying.

The pair and their peers took this enthusiasm to Twitch, where they streamed campaigns. In scouting out broadcast hubs, a vision for live events crystallized, as the group's website notes. They also mounted screenings of nerd-adjacent films such as "Tron," "The Princess Bride" and, most recently, "The Secret of Nimh."

Keach and Miller looked to popular web series like Critical Role and Dimension 20 to internalize rhythms and production values, but a true Detect Nerd vibe has evolved with time and repetition.

Among their small but meaningful innovations: a tip jar that both pays venue staff and allows players to shape the game. Miller and Keach laughed as they recalled a table of 10-year-old boys who brought a stack of cash to one event and steered the experience into their own gleeful skids.

Even if audience members know little to nothing about tabletop games, Detect Nerd hopes to create an accessible atmosphere — and a good enough story — that leaves them entertained, Keach said.

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The pair think Detect Nerd can foster something comparable to a music scene, Miller said. He envisions a setting where old friends and new faces gather for an event and, as the players on stage become just one part of the equation, they spin off into their own conversations and home campaigns.

A never-ending story

Detect Nerd one-shots are character-centric, Miller said. Exposition and intricate plotting take a backseat as players spend the first half of an event introducing their particular idiosyncrasies before the game manager (often abbreviated to simply GM or DM, which is short for "dungeon master") directs the second half to a certain endpoint.

Game preparation offers jumping-off points and safe, satisfying places to land — with a great deal of latitude to roam and romp through the middle.

"The writing we do ... is more knowing where north is," Miller said.

The experience is less about the game managers imposing their creative will, and more about "providing a showcase for fun people to excel and engage with the audience," Miller said.

In the middle of a home game, players don't necessarily think about how much improvisation they're exercising, the ways they seek to "entertain and affect" one another, Keach said. Taking Detect Nerd before audiences, they began to fully reckon with — and enjoy — that aspect of the gaming experience.

Keach and Miller relish chances to be surprised by their fellow players, to provide them with character sheets, then sit back and take in whatever backstories, voices or traits they bring to the actual table. Active listening and collaboration become crucial.

"It’s like a writer’s room — but it’s a game," Keach said.

From within the game, players not only discover aspects of their temporary worlds but learn more lasting truths about one another.

Every character, no matter how fantastical, contains something of the player, Keach and Miller affirmed. Leading these sides of the self through obstacles and plot points, something in you responds to something in your fellow players. You look for ways to help them thrive, they said.

"You see them in it, and you see what they’re thinking about ... what they’re going through and how they’re conceiving themselves. What stories could I write that would allow them to explore that?" Miller said.

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This sense of solidarity and creative selflessness is born of vulnerability and moves toward trust, Keach said.

"That’s one of the reasons why we want to share the game with people — you can grow amazing friendships and learn a lot about each other just from playing a game," she added. "If you’re willing to be safe and inclusive and vulnerable."

Harnessing this sort of renewing — and renewable — resource, Keach and Miller convey a sense that there's an almost limitless number of stories Detect Nerd can tell with time. Recognizing how limited demographics limit possible narratives, they want to make the group as accessible and appealing as possible, they said.

And the pair craves more collaborators. They already have worked with VidWest, growing their capacity to capture these games. Keach and Miller hope to fold more artists and musicians into the mix, making live events multi-sensory.

And they're thinking about how to create distinct opportunities for younger players, who are already showing up at Detect Nerd events. Often they arrive in the company of grateful parents, glad to find a tangible way to support their kids' interests.

For all these ideals, Keach and Miller just want their audiences to have fun. They want their positive experiences at the gaming table to radiate into the crowd, making community and creativity seem possible.

"This is accessible to you ... we’re not doing anything complicated," Miller said of their message.

Saturday's event takes place at 7:30 p.m. at Cafe Berlin. Admission is free, but tipping is encouraged. Visit https://detectnerd.com/ for more information.

Aarik Danielsen is the features and culture editor for the Tribune. Contact him at adanielsen@columbiatribune.com or by calling 573-815-1731. Find him on Twitter @aarikdanielsen.

This article originally appeared on Columbia Daily Tribune: Enter the world of Detect Nerd, a Columbia gaming collective