Exhibits Archive

It is always an exciting thing to have your personal hobbies suddenly become relevant to your work. But imagine my shock when I got asked by multiple teams here at The Strong Museum to run Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) games so that my colleagues could get familiar with the game in preparation for working on our Dungeons & Dragons: 50 Years of Storytelling exhibit!
While I have run multiple tabletop role-play games (TTRPG) for friends, I had only recently started dipping […]

Continue Reading about Teaching Dungeons & Dragons: Continuing the Years of Storytelling Published on:
February 28, 2025

A crack of thunder. The rattling of chains. Roars of monsters in the depths. A song to guide your way. These words stoke our imaginations and illustrate how stories are told via the evocation of sound. When people imagine playing a tabletop role-playing game (TTRPG) such as Dungeons & Dragons, they envision people in costume rolling dice, moving small, hand-painted figurines, and navigating sprawling maps of the dungeons that are being delved.
In addition to these material components, however, at the […]

Continue Reading about Role-Playing with Sound: A Sonic History of Tabletop Role-Playing Games Published on:
September 23, 2024

What does it mean to preserve the history of video games? This is something I thought about a lot when I started this work at The Strong National Museum of Play in 2006. My training in fields such as the history of the book and history of science convinced me that among the materials that needed to be preserved were not just the games themselves but also the work of the creators who made them. To that end we began […]

Continue Reading about Bruce Shelley Papers at The Strong Published on:
June 7, 2024

On the exhibit floor of The Strong National Museum of Play, somewhere between the Pinball Playfield and Sesame Street exhibits, there is a quote by Diane Ackerman: “Play is our brain’s favorite way of learning.” This quote resonates deeply with me as a Cognitive Neuroscientist interested in the relationships between brain and behaviour, as well as the numerous ways in which games and science interact. For one very special week in October 2023, I was fortunate to visit The Strong […]

Continue Reading about Stimulus Correspondences and Game Design: The Complex Case of Simple Simon Published on:
May 23, 2024

I was walking through the museum recently and passed the table of Mr. Potato Head toys, an area that has always been popular with guests. It was then that I unexpectedly heard a young child exclaim, “Mr. Tomato Head!” At first, I couldn’t stop laughing. I’m not sure if it’s my strange sense of humor, the idea of a dollar store knock-off called “Mr. Tomato Head,” or the image that formed of a family of vegetables with faces à la […]

Continue Reading about Why Stop at Potatoes? Published on:
December 15, 2023

If you have come to the museum recently, you may have noticed a new friend—or foe—outside. She is breathing fire and mist, with five different colored heads roaring as you press the 20-sided dice (d20) before her, and her name is Tiamat! An infamous monster from the tabletop role-play game Dungeons & Dragons, the Dragon Queen is now at The Strong National Museum of Play in the Hasbro Game Park. I thought it would be nice to formally introduce her […]

Continue Reading about Tiamat, the Chromatic Dragon, Has Landed in Hasbro Game Park Published on:
December 1, 2023

Video games have transformed the way we play, and The Strong National Museum of Play has long been at the forefront of collecting, preserving, and interpreting the history of gaming. Now, as part of a 90,000 sq. ft. museum expansion, guests have the opportunity to explore 24,000 sq. ft of new exhibits dedicated to video games. Among these new exhibits, ESL Digital Worlds: High Score provides guests with an unparalleled look at the historical and cultural significance of video games. […]

Continue Reading about Welcome to ESL Digital Worlds: High Score Published on:
August 18, 2023

Hip hop celebrates its 50th anniversary in August of 2023, and The Strong National Museum of Play is poppin’ and lockin’ into position to show our appreciation. Originating with the technique that DJ Kool Herc called “The Merry-Go-Round,” hip hop toyed with the time signatures of contemporary funk hits by extending the drummer’s solo on dance albums. In turn, hip hop crafted a borderless sonic landscape and established a new playground for innovation. Utilizing two turntables and a mixer, DJ […]

Continue Reading about Indelibly Marked: Crayons, Records, and Grandmaster Flash Published on:
July 7, 2023

Born in 1914, Dare Wright spent her early childhood with her mother, famed portrait artist Edith (Edie) Stevenson Wright. Edie treated Dare like a companion and the pair often created imaginary worlds through reading, writing, drawing, carpentry, and sewing. Dare loved to read Robin Hood, Grimms’ fairy tales, and The Lovely Garden, and she spent countless hours occupied by her dolls. Following Dare’s enrollment at Laurel boarding school in the fourth grade, Edith purchased Dare a 22-inch-tall Lenci doll on […]

Continue Reading about The Lonely Doll and Unconventional Connections Published on:
March 10, 2023