When college students think of the word “gaming,” one of the first things that comes to mind are video games. One student organization is taking the word there and far beyond.

When one walks into a gaming guild meeting on a typical Friday night, they might find an intense Halo battle going on in one room, a Dungeons & Dragons session going on in the next, as well as a discussion of the following day’s anime group gathering. They consider themselves hobbyists of all sorts.

The guild is one of Oakland University’s oldest and most well-followed student organizations in terms of continued membership, according to the website. Many past graduates still return for the group’s meetings.

One of the more recent initiatives of the guild has been a Halo workshop for girls.

“Girls get a little bit better learning from other girls,” Gaming Guild secretary and workshop teacher Heather Marttila said, a graduate student majoring in software engineering.

She knows how complex the game is, especially for people that have never played first-person shooting games before.

“I was running around going ‘I can’t shoot anything,’ ” Marttila said, referring to the time before she discovered she was better playing with an inverted aiming mechanism. “That was one of the first things I tested all the girls on: ‘can you shoot normal or do you need inverted?’ “

Because the Guild caters to such a variety of different interests, the mission and structure of the group is pretty fluid.

“There is no set structure,” student guild member Ed Hong said. “The members are left to do more or less what they want (within the group setting).”

An example of the group’s wide domain would be the activities of its anime offshoot, which meets on Saturdays to discuss their mutual interest in Japanese animation.

“We’ve had anime since roughly the formation of the club,” Marttila said. “We would host anime meetings which allowed people to discuss and watch animes they enjoy and learn about new series. We also encourage members to work on their own anime/manga projects and ideas.”

In addition to its get-togethers, the guild hosts a variety of conventions throughout the year, including the recently held Michigan Pinball Expo as well as Michicon and Wintercon of Metro Detroit Gamers.

It is not necessary to be familiar with any particular game to be part of the guild, as members are willing to show the ropes to anyone who is willing to learn. The organization has only one goal in mind.

“(The) gaming guild allows for OU students to not only play a variety of games,” Marttila said, “but to have a place where they can go to relax and meet other people who also enjoy gaming.”

The gaming guild meets Fridays from 4-7 p.m. in Lake Michigan and Lake Superior B in the basement of the Oakland Center. The anime offshoot in not scheduled to meet during the summer.