Come find us at Game Night, Saturdays @ 7 PM in the English Building!

About US

Current Exec Board

Michael

President

Rose

Vice President

Tony

Secretary

Patrick

Treasurer

Ethan

Membership Director

Sam

Event Coordinator

Previous Exec Boards

History

The Illini Metagamers have been around since 2003, and the club has undergone many changes in that time. A portion of our history is listed in the drop-down below, but more can be found in a massive, living, community-made document found at the end.

Formation of the Illini Metagamers

Around the year 2003, a registered student organization (RSO) at UIUC known as the Technological Frontiers Society, or TechFront, (sources for full name of TechFront: source, source) was running DnD campaigns as club activities, and used the online forums on their no-longer-active website (source). Towards the end of 2003, an independent website was created for the Dungeon Frontiers campaign (source)1. Dungeon Frontiers was a single D&D campaign with a high number of players that sometimes utilized assistant DMs in addition to the main one. In Spring 2004, the website began transitioning to become an official RSO that internally referred to itself on the website as ‘Metagamers!’ (source).

Sometime between Winter to Summer 2004, The ‘Illini Roleplaying Network’ appears listed on the University’s RSO page (source). Around the Fall of 2004, the website domain was changed and the website homepage said at top ‘Metagamers!’ followed by ‘The Illini Roleplaying Network’ below (source). ‘Informational and organizational meetings’ were held on Thursdays, while games were typically played on Saturdays, though the DM was flexible to run their game on a different day if they desired. 63 people showed up to their orientation meeting. A ‘first game-day’ is described as occurring in the Illini Union, but they do not continue to use this location, as seen in later sources. Around Fall 2004, the website domain was updated again (source). At this point, this club used multiple TTRPG systems for their campaigns, including D&D, Shadowrun, Samurais, and the end of the world. The Foreign Language building became the location for Thursday meetings, whereas DMs typically ran their games on either Thursday or Saturday, at communications communicated through the forums (source, source, source). Around Fall 2008, the domain of the website was changed to its current address, illini-rp.net (source).

My Pedantic Footnotes:

1 The link provided for the Dungeon Frontiers website is for a capture at a date preceding the date for the TechFront ‘The Dungeon’ forums capture. However, text in the Dungeon Frontiers website capture references an earlier version of the ‘The Dungeons’ forum capture, implying that the forums have existed longer than the independent Dungeon Frontiers website.

Carpé Noctem

Circa 2005, the Illini Metagamers began a Vampire Larp, known as Carpé Noctem (source). Carpé Noctem lasted for many years, and is still listed among the active campaigns in Summer 2021 (source).

Metacon

The earliest mention of Metacon that I can find is for the Metacon hosted in Fall 2006 (source). There is also a full page explaining a later Metacon for Spring 2007 preserved by the WayBack Machine (source).

Logo

The logo of the Illini Metagamers has changed heavily over time. Before having a logo, the Illini Metagamers had an image of dice on the homepage of their website as early as 2008 (source). The first evidence of a logo that I can find is from the website in 2013, being a black d20 with the 14 face in the front, rotated so that the 14 is upside down, with the words “Illini Roleplaying Network” beside it (source). In a 2016 version of the club website, evidence of a new logo appears, the new logo being a black d20 now with a 21 right side up in the front and the edges made rounded (source).

During 2019, the Metagamers website got an update, and now featured a banner of a black d12 with a white outline and a 21 right side up in the front. Around the white outline is a much thinner, darker outline. Below the logo, the words “Illini Metagamers” are shown in white text. When the cursor is hovered over it, rainbow bars converge towards the center while rotating until the logo has a rainbow background instead of a black one. During this process, the words “Illini Metagamers” gradually transition from white text to a rainbow gradient (source). In the page’s HTML, the colors are referred to as red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet (source). This version of the logo became used for the icon of the club’s Discord server, seemingly since at least August 2020 judging from messages on the Discord server.

Though the logos likely existed sooner and may have been posted somewhere else before, on September 3, 2023, a new version of the club logo was posted in the #questions-suggestions-and-concerns channel of the club’s Discord server, showing two new versions of the logo very similar to the previous iteration from 2019. Both had the thinner dark outline around the white outline removed, with the second new logo design having the word “METAGAMERS” as text consisting of holes in an otherwise white geometric stadium that serves as a name plate. The shade of violet in the two new logos had been changed from #5c12af in the 2019 version to #5f17b1 in the newer versions, whereas the other colors in the rainbow retained the same HEX code.

At some point in time, despite previously having a generic image of dice, the icon for the Illini Metagamers on UIUC’s Registered Student Organization (RSO) listing via Campus Labs was updated to the new version of the logo with the name plate, although UIUC no longer uses Campus Labs to list its RSOs and I have not found a way to find the Illini Metagamers’ entry in Campus Labs via the Wayback Machine. On UIUC’s new RSO listing using OneIllinois, what appears to be the newer version of the logo without a name plate has been used as the icon since at least 2025 (source (links to the current page, not an archived version as no archive yet exists)).

Interaction with CUDO Plays

The Illini Metagamers has been in touch with local organization CUDO Plays for some time. The earliest mention of this interaction that I can find is in a post from Fall 2013, with a kickoff meeting in the Digital Computing Laboratory, notably during a time period when Metagamers met in the DCL (source).

Meeting Locations

In late 2006, club meetings began to be held in the English building atrium instead of the Foreign Language Building (source, source).

Around fall 2014, construction started in the English Building, and the Illini Metagamers had to relocate where they held their meetings. On sep 10, 2013, a post was made saying meetings would be held in the Union Basement from then on (source). On sep 28, 2013, a post was made explaining that the Saturday the 5th game night would be held in the Digital Computer Lab as part of a collaborative meeting with TechFront (source), and a post from October 12, 2013, detailed that game night would be held in the Digital Computer Laboratory from then on, sharing the space with TechFront (source). A post from feb 22, 2014, explains that the English Building is no longer under construction, and that game nights will return to the English Building atrium (source).

Mentions in the Media

On Feb 6, 2008, a Daily Illini Article was written about the club (source), and on Sep 12, 2011, another Daily Illini Article mentioned the club (source).

Club Campaign Massive Lore Doc

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