by: Joe St. Pierre ‘25

POV: it’s 1757 and you’re in the thick forests of Pennsylvania, negotiating land claims and secretly plotting to sabotage one of your colleague’s reelection campaigns. Or how about this: it’s June 1968 and you’re protesting the Vietnam War outside the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago. Or POV: it’s present-day at Pace University and you’re roleplaying some of the most well-known historical events in human history during Professor Bill Offutt’s Reacting to the Past course. In Professor Offutt’s historic roleplaying course, students get to roleplay three different historical events throughout the semester, receive a different role in each game, and get an honors credit at the end of the semester. With each role, you get a role sheet explaining your background, game objectives, and secrets that you’re going to want to keep to yourself! Each game also has an accompanying textbook that explains the background information you should know on the characters in the game and the event itself.

When I was looking for a class to fill my honors credit for Spring 2022, American Reacting to the Past (INT-299B) was one of the only courses that caught my eye for me personally. Having loved learning history in high school and as an AP U.S. History veteran, this course was right up my alley. It wouldn’t be until the first class that I learned it would be a roleplaying class. Bill’s roleplaying class had me equally eager to get started and crippling in nervousness at the same time. However, the supportive and enthusiastic climate that Bill and the students cultivate makes it okay to make mistakes and transforms performing in front of an audience from a nerve-wracking dilemma into a worry-free experience.

So far, I’ve gotten to play Richard Peters, a clergyman in the 1757 treaty negotiations between Pennsylvania and Native Americans, Senator Ted Kennedy in the 1968 Democratic Convention, and Men’s Swimmer Carlos Scott in the Title IX and college athletics debates. My favorite character was Richard Peters, who was a conniving and corrupt character on the inside but had to present himself as trustworthy and well-intentioned during negotiations. Going behind people’s backs to get what I wanted and occasionally getting stabbed in the back myself was a main part of the game. In the end, the main objective of this course is to teach you about historical events by putting you in a simulation of it, seeing what decisions everyone makes in real-time, and how those decisions change the outcome of the game. I highly recommend this to anyone interested in history or acting!