I'm Dr. Sherice Ngaserin, the instructor for Games and Philosophy! I was a Theatre Studies student before my university days, and fell in love with tabletop role-playing games (TTRPGs) when I was finishing up my Philosophy PhD at the University of Michigan. I have always been grateful for my own philosophy professors from Yale-NUS College, who emphasised to me that philosophy should be lived rather than merely theorised. And outside of real life, role-playing games are where I have felt most free to explore big ideas from a first-person perspective instead of just turning over hypotheticals in my own head. 

When I was a lecturer at Yale-NUS College, I collaborated with Isa to create a Philosophy of Games course. We ran Everyday Philosophy, an original TTRPG where students roleplayed characters with their own personal philosophies over the entirety of the course. Now that I'm at NUS Philosophy, I'm excited to be working with Isa again for this course. I'm also thrilled to be including many previous students of mine from NUS and Yale-NUS as members of the team, and to be working with Yale-NUS Improv and NUSC Improv to bring our original world of Sophistia to life!

Hello! I am Isa, and stories are at the heart of everything I do.

For nearly a decade, I’ve been immersed in games and game design, driven by a deep passion for storytelling and the ways it shapes how we connect, communicate, and create meaning.

I am a co-founder and Lore Master at Lore Obscure - a storytelling and experience design studio specialising in narrative-led RPGs, creative workshops, and brand storytelling. We craft spaces where myth, character, and collaborative play spark meaningful transformation for curious individuals, creative teams, and culture-forward brands.

Dylan here! By day, I do managerial work related to heritage and archiving; Also by day, I sidequest by doing things like Improv! I graduated from Yale-NUS College, majoring in History with a minor in Global Antiquity. For this course, I coordinate the Improv roleplayers, especially featuring members of the Yale-NUS Improv & NUSC Improv Troupes (you can find them on Instagram @7starcendol @nusc_improv)! I’ve always enjoyed performing and participating in activities that bring joy to people, and I’m really happy that the students in the classes so far have thoroughly immersed themselves in the game sessions to have fun and learn about philosophy!

Ethan here, from the Double Degree Programme between NUS College and Waseda University. I am a fourth-year anthropology student from just next door. Very excited to be involved in a philosophy class! I’m the photographer for the class. Previously I’ve done event and documentary photography, as well as small scale exhibitions at the Objectif and the NUS museum. When Silver told me about this opportunity to help Prof. Sherice create some visual materials, I thought it was a great occasion to not only practice photography but also to learn more about the pedagogy of a class. This was a class like no other. The passion and enthusiasm goes beyond the classroom and engages everybody: before, during, and after. In no time, I found myself joining the rhythms of the games, going around, capturing the moments of fun, discovery, and all at the same time, learning. Education is whatever people dare imagine it to be. Not only can philosophy be fun, it is fun! 

Hello! I’m a Year 4 Philosophy major in NUS College, who’s planning to join teaching in the future! In the past, I’ve worked on planning games for 400 human beans as part of my college’s onboarding programme.

For the first iteration of Games and Philosophy, I’ve worked on planning milestones, ideating game materials, and procuring logistics– in short, I have a systematic and organised playstyle and I enjoy sorting information into neat little tables. My favourite part of the course is watching students reawaken a childlike excitement for play.

Hello, I'm Ryan! I’m a current master’s student at the University of Glasgow and graduate of Yale-NUS College, studying philosophy at both. I'm a game designer and writer for this course. I'm part of the team designing the mechanics of the games, tying philosophical lessons into them, and writing the characters that our incredible cast brings to life.

This class is the perfect blend of everything I’m passionate about: philosophy, games, roleplaying, and education! I’ve been doing improv and running roleplaying games for six years now. On the improv side, I ran numerous workshops for Yale-NUS Improv, founded two improv troupes, 7-Star Cendol and Kingfishy, and performed improv in five different countries. On the games and education side, I worked two jobs before starting my master’s program: running professional roleplaying games at Lore Obscure, and leading the curriculum team to write stories for a local chess school for young kids. 

I’m a firm believer in the power of roleplaying games as education. And I firmly believe in the importance of embodying the lessons we learn in philosophy, so that we can feel its impact on a deeper level. I love philosophy, I love improv, and I love roleplaying games! I hope to share a little bit of that joy with you all! 

Hi friends and soon-to-be friends! I am Wan Qi, a graduate of Yale-NUS College who majored in Philosophy and minored in Global Antiquity. When I am not figuring out what pre-Qin Chinese philosophers are getting at, I am either contemplating ethical dilemmas, particularly medical ones (I got my Bioethics certification from the Yale Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics in 2024), or exploring Buddhist history and philosophy. I worked as a Special Projects Coordinator under the Dean of Students at Yale-NUS College to bring fun-filled programmes to the students and am now working in the education sector. 

When I learned that Dr. Sherice was offering the Games and Philosophy course, I was stoked to help in whatever way I can because of the significant impact her pedagogy had on me when I was an undergraduate. Dr. Sherice introduced philosophy in such a refreshing and easily digestible way that it completely changed the way I approached philosophy henceforth. I hope I will be able to participate in the magic and show you that philosophy is not always a drag and can positively shape our daily lives for the better. See you in “class” — wherever and whatever that is!

I’m a Year 4 Philosophy major in NUS College, taking a Double-Degree in International Liberal Studies from Waseda University, Japan. I have had tutoring experience at random periods throughout my life, and completed an internship stint with MOE in my Year 4 Sem 1 in NUS. During my internship, I was helping out with the new Knowledge and Inquiry syllabus, and in the process, reaffirmed my liking for crafting syllabi and course content. While that was my door into this team, what made me stay were the people :D I personally loved playing games from a young age, but only recently started thinking about games and its relation to philosophy as a way of life via Dr. Sherice and my friends. Together with Joash and Dylan, I helped Dr. Sherice with the Playful Minds installation at the Higher Education Conference in Singapore, and that was where I met some of our other team members! 

Hello! I’m Tesha, a Philosophy PhD student at the University of Michigan and a graduate of Yale-NUS College. I took the first iteration of Philosophy of Games that Prof. Sherice offered at Yale-NUS and I really enjoyed the alternative teaching framework! Hence, I wanted to help out with subsequent iterations so that more can have the same enjoyable experience that I had! For this course, I help with researching and curating accessible readings for each of the themes. I am still trying to build a life outside philosophy (#worklifebalanceisimportant) and currently have taken up the hobbies of learning to play the violin and to cross-stitch!