The University of North Florida has been awarded a $1.3 million National Science Foundation grant to develop and research a tabletop role-playing game designed to teach science and engineering concepts, the university announced.

The project will be led by Dr. Brian Lane, an assistant professor of physics and co-director of UNF’s Northeast Florida Center for STEM Education, and three other colleagues. Lane is a STEM education researcher and a third-party author for the Pathfinder tabletop role-playing game.

The project includes a team of tabletop game creators with STEM backgrounds, including Lane, from the University of North Florida, Michael Bennett, from the University of Colorado Boulder, Chelsea Hendrus, from Ohio State University and Patrick Morgan, from the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

The new game, Adventures with Emmy, is described as a Dungeons & Dragons-style adventure that incorporates STEM learning. The storyline features mathematician and physicist Emmy Noether as a central quest giver. 

Noether was a German mathematician who made many contributions to the field of abstract algebra, proving and discovering Noether’s first and second theorems. Lane said a huge reason she was chosen as the title character is for her first theorem, as well as her role in world history and as a woman in science.

“I had this idea that what if what if Emmy [Noether] was this quest giver in this society that was trying to pull together even more knowledge and look for even more common themes and common characteristics and more unification across the disciplines?” Lane said. “That’s what your character is doing is you are part of her Noether society.”

Game rules and adventures produced through the grant are expected to be released for free to the public, educators and developers after the project concludes in summer 2028. 

About the Game

Adventures with Emmy is designed to integrate scientific thinking directly into tabletop role-playing. 

“What Adventures with Emmy does is give you a framework for resolving those creative pathways that the players take,” Lane said. 

In the game’s setting, players are led by mathematician Emmy Noether, where characters are sent into unfamiliar worlds to investigate and report back. 

“She’s sending you out to these new worlds that need to be explored and made contact with,” said Lane. “And so you’re kind of catching that sort of excitement of the process of discovery.”

Lane said the game aims to capture the feeling of scientific exploration, even when the activity is fictional. 

“You are going on missions to, yes, rescue cities and retrieve artifacts and defeat dragons, but also bring back what you learned so that she can eventually put it together into an even bigger, even more comprehensive theorem,” said Lane.

STEM Fields and Players

As for what STEM fields the game will cover, Lane said the game will contain a lot of foundational fields, with the opportunity for advanced fields like medicine or biophysics to be expanded in the future. 

When players begin the game, one of the first things they get to pick when building their characters is their field. According to Lane, choosing your field is analogous to picking a class in traditional tabletop role-playing games.

“But instead of choosing fighter, wizard, cleric or rogue, you’re choosing between biologist, chemist, engineer, mathematician, physicist,” Lane said. 

Next Steps in Development

The next big step in the game’s development will be to play test, where people can play the game and give feedback, according to Lane. 

Lane said the first round of play tests will run from March 2026 through summer 2026. Then, Lane and his colleagues will use the feedback and observations from the tests to improve the game.

In 2027, a second round of play tests is planned, and a full game release in 2028.

“Assuming [the play tests] work out, assuming we get a lot of thumbs up from that, we’re looking at a full official release in Summer 2028,” Lane said.

Students at UNF will also have the opportunity to take part in play tests in March 2026, according to Lane.

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