LudoVic is a generative AI persona we created using ChatGPT, available on openai.com. LudoVic’s voice was generated by the AI speech synthesis engine ElevenLabs.

The Ludogogy Podcast is the official podcast of Ludogogy Magazine. More about Ludogogy on linktr.ee/ludogogy
Hosts: Sarah Le-Fevre, Antonios Triantafyllakis
Coordination: Sarah Le-Fevre
Audio mixing and mastering: Antonios Triantafyllakis
Music: Funky Logo 04 by TaigaSoundProd
Free download: filmmusic.io/song/6721-funky-logo-04
License (CC BY 4.0): filmmusic.io/standard-license

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[ Download “Design Thinking - One Card Game” DesignThinking.zip – Downloaded 795 times – 102.55 KB

You can download Design Thinking for free, but making a small donation via Kofi will help to support Ludogogy, and make it possible for us to develop more games for download.

Design Thinking is a game about taking, and responding to a brief from a clent, which only requires the single card – and a few commonly found resources for your ‘design team’ – pens, yarn or string, beads and counters. Play it with your learners to sharpen their active listening skills, and as an introduction to an important aspect of Design Thinking.

The post Design Thinking One-card Game Download first appeared on Ludogogy.

You can download Meander for free, but making a small donation via Kofi will help to support Ludogogy, and make it possible for us to develop more games for download.

Meander is a game about Mindful Walking, which only requires the single card – and your imagination and willingness to play. You can play it in two modes. Question mode invites you to use the card and your walk to answer a question of significance for you, whereas Meander mode simply invites you to enjoy the experience of having your attention pulled from one thing to another as you walk.

The post Meander Download first appeared on Ludogogy.

“I am happy to play with friends”

“I am happy to play with friends.”  This is what a student who didn’t reach out to other friends told me. Someone might think ‘Playing with friends is normal, so why does he/she say “happy”?’. Someone might find it to be very easy to do this, but others might not. A board game is the right tool to fill this gap.

Why board games?

First, the board game is a live education tool. One round of board game play takes between ten minutes and two or three hours. There is a flow during gameplay. In the board game ‘Tiletum’, a player becomes a merchant, contracts to trade in wool and iron, and invests in the establishment of a marketplace and construction of a large-scale cathedral. In the Korean board game ‘Wawagol Excavation Team’ which is about making your own dinosaur by assembling excavated bones, a player becomes a good fossil excavator, perfectly assembles dinosaur bones, and tries to display these. So, one round of these board games is enough to gain an immersive experience of a small sub-section of society within a short time.

Second, board games help players to practice life skills. In the board game ‘Gem Traders’, they practice the skills of bidding at auction and negotiation, when trading gems and money. In the Korean board game ‘Cubo Saurus’, players have to consider the best choices for their card decks, from a large number of alternatives. This makes players adopt strategic approaches. Socialisation occurs naturally when players have to interact when playing together, as they gradually gain knowledge and direct and indirect experience of other players’ thoughts and actions.

Lastly, the board game is a mirror of the player themselves. During board game play, a hidden ‘persona’ can come out. For example, one player may be obsessed with winning, another may benefit from the experience of being in “someone else’s shoes”. In educational settings, this can be utilised by using the ‘recording method’, where scenes of participants’ playing are recorded without editing. All players can be observed, and the player reflects on himself or herself. This can aid personal development. So, board games can contribute to the internal growth of players.

The Power of Boardgames

Some people just play board games so that they can have a fun time. But a board game has a strong hidden power. Board games strengthen communication skills. During play, communication is a necessary factor. In the process of hiding or revealing the player’s thoughts and intentions, various communication skills are learned, such as summarising opinions, effectively delivering clearly and briefly, and recognizing other players’ intentions.

In addition, comprehensive thinking skills can be enhanced. One of the core competencies in the future of education is comprehensive thinking skills. People face momentous choices in life. However, if they only judge and decide using one or two factors, it will be regrettable. The more factors that are considered, the better chance they have to make the best choice.

During board game play, we analyze various factors which affect our choices. Based on this, we can practice comprehensive thinking and decision making. Through this process, the decisive capacity for life can be increased.

Third, people can experience cooperation and competition. The board game ‘Hanabi’ is a cooperative game to attain a common goal, while ‘Splendor’ is a competitive game to attain an individual goal. There is no definite ‘better option’ between cooperation and competition. We can experience both the joy of cooperation and growth through competition when we play. In this way, beautiful growth based on the success and failure of cooperation and competition can be attained.

Takeaways

There are many discussions about future talent development and education in terms of the 4^th industrial revolution. Also, there is much emphasis on required competencies such as creativity, autonomy, and responsibility for the future of society. Playing various types of board game can contribute to increasing the relevant competencies for the future. At school, a board game which is attractive like this can be approached and tried in various ways. Let’s play today!

The post The Power of Boardgames first appeared on Ludogogy.

You can find more about Peek, Evan’s speculative fiction card game, on spoke.flkr.com.

The Ludogogy Podcast is the official podcast of Ludogogy Magazine. More about Ludogogy on linktr.ee/ludogogy
Hosts: Sarah Le-Fevre, Antonios Triantafyllakis
Coordination: Sarah Le-Fevre
Audio mixing and mastering: Antonios Triantafyllakis
Music: Funky Logo 04 by TaigaSoundProd
Free download: filmmusic.io/song/6721-funky-logo-04
License (CC BY 4.0): filmmusic.io/standard-license

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The post Evan Raskob on Speculation first appeared on Ludogogy.

Most people have played games at some point in their lives. They can be table top games, card games, board games, playground games, video games, console games, or computer games. Most people have likely played hard games, easy games, social games, or abstract games. Mostly we’ve played fun games. But we’ve probably also played lousy games.

Some of us may have played small games, micro games, or pocket games. But, what about big games? How about Megagames? Megagames are one of the most interesting types of games around. They are part role-playing, part simulation, and part social game.

This article will review megagames. It’ll define what megagames are as well as the history of megagames. The structure of megagames will be explained as well as how role-playing and engagement occurs within the game. Player hierarchies are an interesting component of megagame structure and will be explored in greater depth. Megagames are administered by a certain group of people called “control.” Their engagement greatly impacts the player experience. Design aspects of megagames will be covered as well as how megagames can be used for games-based learning.

What is a Megagame?

A megagame is an interesting combination of different game elements encountered in other places. They involve role-playing, simulation, and social interactions.

Megagames combine all of this and on a large scale and introduce aspects of economics and politics into play. This is often represented in megagame components such as maps, charts, interlocking games, and overarching stories that join together to create a larger narrative. Players often take a large role in shaping the megagame experience through live action role-playing. As such the structure of the game is similar from play to play. But each new group of players bring a new narrative.

A megagame is a large scale game that contains different elements found in other games. Those elements include (but are not limited to) role-playing, simulations, social interaction, economics, and politics, which are combined into an overarching narrative. This combination takes place through other, smaller, interlocking games that occur concurrently within the megagame.

History of Megagames

If you haven’t heard of megagames before, then you might think that they’re a relatively new trend. But they aren’t and have been around since the 1970’s. Megagames trace their roots back to the British designer Jim Wallman and his connection to war games.

The first such megagame implementation was to expand wargaming to a larger scale. It was called “Memphis Manger” a Vietnam war game played in April of 1982.  The game accommodated about 30 players including designer Paddy Griffith.

The megagame idea began to grow from that point and future designers began to draw inspiration from other games. Not just game mechanics and structure; but rather theory; mathematical concepts; psychology; and sociology of game play.

However, the earliest megagames relied heavily on the conventions of war gaming and included miniatures, maps, and components representing units. Despite this, the development and structure of megagames has since expanded from that point into a more robust and developed structure.

Megagame Structure

Megagames adapt some concepts and structures from other games. Some of those include decision space of players as well as areas of agency. In megagames these become “private play areas.” Players use them to interact with other players and the game in order to achieve their own goals. In addition, there are public areas used to coordinate between these private play areas. This is where these seemingly disparate spaces of the megagame connect with one another.

For example a megagame could have a “private play area” called the high table. Players there are engaged in a hidden role negotiation game. In this game, the players must all come to a consensus as to who the “traitor” is. If players can select the traitor within three turns then all players (except the traitor) earn 1,000 money.  If the traitor escapes without being detected after 3 turns then the traitor earn 5,000 money and everyone else earns nothing. All players receive “hints” as to who the traitor is from players at another table called the “map room.”

This “map room” is another separate private play area that focuses on players engaged in an area control game. This area is called the “map room.”  In this game, players take turns rolling dice in order to determine if “armies” from one section of the map are able to defeat armies in neighboring sections. Armies are lost every turn. The only way to buy more armies is to purchase them… using the money earned by the players at the high table.

These games are connected through two resources: money and hints.  This represents just one small connection between these two private play areas in megagames. Structures such as these are seen in many different games. Megagames utilize some of these structures and use them as a framework. Through this, players can see how their actions affect outcomes in both their private play area as well as through the megagame at large.

Megagames also usually require a large amount of space. That space can be setup in a number of different ways. This includes gathering in a large central room with many tables to several smaller rooms where walls divide player groups.

In addition to space, megagames require a larger time investment than other gaming activities. Some board games can take 1-2 hours to play. Whereas megagames take between a few hours to a whole day to explain, play, and complete.

Role-playing in Megagames

The structure of megagames alone doesn’t define them. The players do. Every megagame will result in different outcomes based on player experiences, behaviors, actions, and motivations. As such, megagame players often role-play through their game play.

This is most often compared to LARPS – or live action role playing. Role-playing exists in megagames as a way for players to interact; communicate; and collaborate with one another in the game within its theme.

A specific distinction between megagame role-playing and LARPS is that megagames can be considered orthogames in their ability to create separate and unequal outcomes for teams and players. This means that there can be clear and decisive winners in the megagame. Whereas LARPS are more about the emergent narrative rather than the game.

This makes megagames more abstracted compared to LARPS. The theme in megagames is connected to their structure as well as through player roles. Players in megagames take on specific roles that can range from national governments, corporate entities, journalists, politicians, and military personnel. In these roles players act as their respective group through their interactions with others.

Player Structure & Engagement

Many games focus on some kind and degree of player engagement throughout play. Megagames are no different. Here players have to do more than compete with one another. Teammates must also communicate with one another; share information; broker deals, and make challenging decisions. 

The amount and type of player engagement is highly dependent on players and what they want to get out of the experience. This is also dependent on the scenario and the game being played.

Like its name, megagames require a large number of players. Few megagames require less than 25 participants. Some games require 25-80 players for a full experience. However, other megagames can have participants running into the hundreds.

Player interaction is an integral part of the megagame experience. This means that there needs to be enough action, agency, and options for games with these high player counts. That means that opportunities are necessary to keep players engaged throughout with meaningful contributions to game play.

Player Hierarchies

This player experience builds off the hierarchy of player interaction throughout the game. Some games will consist of several factions playing against each other. In turn each faction has a team of players with different roles, responsibilities, and decision making abilities.

This model of hierarchy makes it so that there are optimal zones of player interaction and agency at each step of the way. Creating a game so that one player is responsible for too many areas can be cumbersome, bothersome, and un-fun. By creating a hierarchy of responsibilities on a team’s roster, these activities can be subdivided and delegated. Players are able to exercise agency within the game that has a broad impact through this method. At the same time, they can make meaningful contributions to their team: fueling the social connections that players create through megagame play.

“Control” and the Megagame

A megagame naturally has many moving parts. Most board games can get away without the need for an impartial third party. More complicated games require more human input to support its structure.  Of course casino games have dealers, pit bosses, and floor supervisors. Even the original Kriegspiel had umpires. Of course professional sports have referees. Debates have moderators. As a result, megagames have “control.”

Control is a team of game masters and moderators that control the flow, structure, and engagement of play for players. They are responsible for managing operations of the game which includes (but is not always limited to) explaining rules, addressing situations, monitoring the game, and (even) making up some rules on the fly.

Some of the first controllers for megagames are their own designers. These individuals spend countless hours designing and printing maps; creating cards; making counters; and assembling them at the megagame site.

Having a “controller” is critical to megagame success. However, due to the structure of megagames, it is often necessary to break apart “control” into different sub-teams that manage different and specific areas within the game.

The need for this structure; impartial third party; and overall game master is crucial for overall success; engagement; and managing “last turn madness” that often accompanies megagame play.

Megagame Player Experience

Megagames are huge. They are designed in such a way that much of the player experience hinges on the social relationships and networks formed between players. Social networking happens in every megagame – it’s inevitable. New relationships are formed throughout play. No matter if that play is with, for, and against other players.

Megagames bring people together. They give players the unique ability to role-play in a setting bigger than a table top RPG. It provides them with the opportunity to solve some puzzles; cooperate with other teammates; and create an experience like no other.

The social relationships formed with and among players are often replicated by control members. Most of the time players are not aware of the schemes and storylines that are created behind the scenes of the control team and how their actions will affect game play overall.

However, the very social nature of megagames can be a source of challenge. Sometimes, language barriers; players abilities; and other accessibility concerns hider players’ abilities to participate fully within the game.

Despite this, players continue to return to play megagames for the player experience as this is not something that can be easily replicated elsewhere. Megagames tend to become a “destination” gaming event where people go to have a great experience.

That’s because megagames ride a level of player energy that incorporates aspects of table top games; war games; simulations; live action role-playing; and escape rooms in a unique and interesting combination. All of this is implemented by a unique team of controllers who play a significant role in shaping and crafting the game’s overall narrative.

Designing Megagames

Designing megagames is a challenging experience. The biggest challenge is creating something bespoke and customized for the experience the designer wants the players to have. In addition, designers don’t want to “overdesign” the experience by creating elaborate rules that would result in complex administration of the game for the control team.

Additionally, taking structures and mechanics from existing games could be a promising path for developing a new megagame. However, the process of integrating all of it under one title can be daunting and time consuming.

That means that creating megagames from the ground up can be easier and more straightforward than adapting existing games for a megagame format.  Existing games that were never intended to be megagames can difficult to transition into a modality in which player experience is prized over everything else.

Megagames for Games-Based Learning

Megagames are ripe for application of games-based learning. Megagames are a unique experience that encompass many different applications of simulations; role-playing; and social connection. All of which are great applications of experiential learning using games.

We may not think about megagames as applications of games-based learning. But the prominent use of student organizations like the Model United Nations or the Model European Union are ripe with examples and applications often found in other megagames. These include role-playing as different countries with different motivations and priorities as well as simulating different experiences, events, and incidents. These in turn require the competition and the cooperation between individuals and teams.

Additionally, military academics have used historical simulations and war games as a way to train and educate officers and leaders. The application of which requires the use of military tactics as well as politics, negotiation, and cooperation in order to influence the outcome.

Takeaways

This article reviewed megagames. It defined megagames as well as elaborated on their history and development. The structure of megagames were explained as well as how role-playing and engagement occurs within the game. Player hierarchies serve an interesting component of megagame structure and were covered in depth.  The “control” team of megagames were detailed in addition to how the expectations of megagames influence the player experience. Finally, design aspects of megagames were discussed in addition to how megagames are used for games-based learning.

This article was about megagames.  To learn more about gamification, check out the free course on Gamification Explained.

If you have enjoyed this article – consider getting yourself lifetime access to Dave’s Games-Based Learning Digital Library containing all of the content from the past two Games-Based Learning Virtual Conferences; past webinars and courses he’s created; as well as his complete back catalogue of articles; podcast episodes; and videos. And more content is being added all the time.

Readers of Ludogogy can get a $50 discount on this valuable resource by using this link.

The post What are Megagames? first appeared on Ludogogy.

Since this umbrella category is defined not in terms of goals (e.g. special education) or subject (e.g. STEM education), but in terms of a tool, it includes several already recognized or emerging forms. Some of the main types, without being exhaustive, are:

• Simulations (including military exercises, mock trials, business or medical simulations, etc.)
• Dramatic methods originating from Jacob L. Moreno (in particular: sociodrama, bibliodrama, playback theatre)
• Applied drama/theater methods (e.g. Drama in Education, process drama, improv-based education, Rainbow of Desire, Rollenspielpädagogik, etc.)
• Various role-playing exercises in corporate training
• Various initiatives arising from hobby/leisure games (e.g. edularp, educational tabletop role-playing, some serious games, some gamified classroom, etc.)

The Rainbow of Desire by Auguste Boal is available on Amazon

The pedagogical benefits of role-playing can be summarised as the following: Role-playing persons are acting and learning as a more open, more persistent, more courageous, and more experimental version of themselves.

Role-playing sensitizes you!

One of the most researched psychological features of role-playing is its sensitizing effect. The phenomenon known as the “role-play effect” in psychology shows that role-playing can lead to a more significant attitude change than simply communicating information. Role-playing leads to a change of perspective: We take on a specific point of view and become more sensitive and empathetic as a result.

Related research has also shown that we are more likely to embrace opposing views if we act them out and then become informed about them than if we do the reverse. This is utilized mostly by placing a role-playing exercise in the middle of a longer learning activity, between the briefing and debriefing phases. Role-playing is an ideal tool for eliminating preconceptions, processing vaguely familiar but complex information, and laying the foundations for further reflection.

Role-play empowers you!

In studying the effect of self-distancing, researchers have found that children are more persistent in repetitive tasks when they think of themselves in the third person E/3 (“Is Matt working hard?”) rather than in the first person (“How am I doing?”), and even more so when they identify themselves with a role model in the third person. In other words, children were found to be more focused and efficient when they approached tasks like “What would Batman do in this situation?” – hence the term “the Batman effect”.

Other researchers have found that forty percent of those who were treated as real pilots and asked to fly a military aircraft simulator experienced vision improvement, while none of those who were asked to pretend to be pilots and act out the task had improved vision. Recent research therefore suggests that immersion in ideal and positive roles can greatly enhance an individual’s performance, in contrast with simple pretend play.

Role-play enriches you!

Role-playing provides a strong alibi for experimentation and to break old patterns. It makes leaving one’s comfort zone easier, as it protects the self from shame. Many role-players feel empowered to behave in radically different ways, by using roles as a kind of mask to conceal that it is they who actually behave differently.

It is worth pointing out that the goal of many role-playing activities is not winning or being successful. As a result, it is optimal to experience tense situations, ethical dilemmas, and despised or seemingly suboptimal strategies without any real disadvantages or repercussions. In role-playing, we are free to theorize about encountered situations and to test our assumptions by trying out new behaviors. Experimentation with roles expands our role repertoire and develops players’ agency, personal versatility, and resilience. Role-playing also provides a method to explore and understand social structures or dynamic systems in the first-person mode, as a personal experience.

This is not to say, of course,  that role-playing is a cure-all. Nor does it mean that it is the best education tool – if it were, hopefully, everyone would be using it by now. Some of its long-established educational forms, such as Drama in Education, are proven to be effective in developing several key Lisbon competencies*, while more recent ones, such as the increasingly popular edularp movement, are currently building up evidence on their validity and reliability.

It will be exciting to see what the future brings in this field.

*The Lisbon Competencies are a set of skills and knowledge areas identified as essential for lifelong learning and personal development. They include: communication, information literacy, problem-solving, critical thinking, and self-directed learning. These competencies are intended to help individuals adapt to an increasingly complex and rapidly changing world.

The post Role-play-based education first appeared on Ludogogy.

You can find more about Slowik’s new initiative, LarpVenture, on larpventure.com, and about Larp Alchemy, where we met him, on nausika.eu/en/larp-alchemy.

The Ludogogy Podcast is the official podcast of Ludogogy Magazine. More about Ludogogy on linktr.ee/ludogogy
Hosts: Sarah Le-Fevre, Antonios Triantafyllakis
Coordination: Sarah Le-Fevre
Audio mixing and mastering: Antonios Triantafyllakis
Music: Funky Logo 04 by TaigaSoundProd
Free download: filmmusic.io/song/6721-funky-logo-04
License (CC BY 4.0): filmmusic.io/standard-license

Like what you hear? Become a patron of Ludogogy at patreon.com/ludogogy
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The post Marcin Slowikowski on Roleplaying first appeared on Ludogogy.

When we talk about ‘role play’ we generally refer to taking on an identity for a brief period:

1. We can role-play in a parlour game or board game where we adopt a persona in accordance with the rules.
2. We can role-play for the purposes of learning – you play a French shopkeeper so I can practice my French – or testing a scenario – I’ll be an investor while you pitch your business idea.
3. There is also ‘role play’ for the sake of acting out a sexual fantasy.

All three varieties of role play seem short-lived or in-the-moment activities, none to be taken too seriously.

‘Playing a role’, meanwhile, points at something more sustained. To ‘play the role of king’, for example, would extend for the length of a reign. That’s not a passing bit of role play. To ‘play the role of peacemaker’ might not last so long, but still suggests a greater and more serious investment of effort than ‘role play’ implies. The ‘peacemaker’ might also be the role that you default to in your family, for example, so that although the role never lasts long as an event, it is a position to which you often return.

Lying somewhere between ‘role play’ and ‘playing a role’ in life, is the idea of playing a role as an actor in a play. The play might be over in two or three hours, and yet the role is embraced with intent and commitment. To act in a play is to embark on something more serious than role-playing, but less serious than playing the role of peacemaker in your family on a recurring basis.

Despite the differences, however, there is something that unites role-play, playing a role, and acting in a play. They all require the self or the real person to stand aside, be suspended or become temporarily invisible. As with the wearing of a mask in some traditional drama, the true features are hidden while those of the character are put on display. The role comes to the fore; the self retreats or even disappears into the background.

The degree of disappearance varies. At one end of the spectrum, the true self is scarcely hidden at all. When a friend does an impression of a famous person – which is an everyday example of role-play – we don’t really lose sight of our friend in the process. We know it’s them even as their voice and mannerisms are momentarily altered. At the other end of the spectrum, there is method acting, whereby the actor becomes so consumed by their character that we might forget who the actor is. At the very extreme, we could cite cases in which an individual appears to be operated by forces beyond their control, as with speaking in tongues, diabolic possession, channeling, mediumship and automatic writing.

Even if the degree of reduction along that spectrum varies, the ‘self’ is always reduced when there is a role to take on. Philosophically speaking, this reducing of the self is notable because we tend to think of the self as the most essential thing about us. The self is the centre of who we are, the seat of our consciousness, the locus of all our experience, the sole entity to which each of us is identical. And so the fact that, during role play or the playing of a role, this essential and inalienable thing that we call the self can be fairly easily dimmed or switched off, suggests that the self might not be so essential or inalienable after all.

The point is that our ability to take on a role, however fleetingly, implies that the self is no more intrinsic to us than the role for which the self has made space. Perhaps the self is another kind of role. Our reliance on it, and its persistence, create the illusion of the self being inherent to us, but reliance and persistence are merely empirical qualities. Perhaps we ought to think of the self as a role with no self behind or beneath it.

The post A Philosopher’s Note on the Idea of Role Play first appeared on Ludogogy.

The History of RPGs

Tabletop RPGs have a rich history, beginning with classics like Dungeons & Dragons (D&D), and evolving with new systems such as Powered by the Apocalypse (PbtA), Belonging Outside Belonging, and Wretched & Alone. These games invite players to create characters, navigate intricate narratives, and address complex problems.

The experience is immersive and personal, fostering strategic thinking, cooperation, and empathy among players. These characteristics make such games ideal tools for exploring the complexity, ambiguity and, often, the lack of a clear ‘win-state’ which come with real-life ‘wicked’ problems.

Although traditionally, RPGs have focused on high-fantasy or Sci-Fi themes and have involved combat scenarios, the systems and narrative themes are largely independent of each other, allowing the mechanics of such games to be applied to any theme or narrative. Indeed, more modern RPGs have made moves towards more personal and ‘identity’ related themes, moved away from combat (and toned down the fantasy, or merged it with mundane reality), and made efforts to reduce the complexity of games systems, to lower the barriers to access this kind of play.

As a result, we see games such as Dream Apart (belonging outside belonging in a Jewish shetetl in Eastern Europe), Night Witches (Soviet airwomen from the Second World War) or Sagas of the Icelanders (the world of the sagas in Medieval Iceland). Such games are based in historical reality and culture.

Yet other games seek to create experiences which put you in another’s shoes. Logan is an excellent example of this – where the player rolls (and roles) their way through an alternate version of the game designer Logan Timmins’ own life.

Logan is a solo experience – something which is more available now than in the days when D&D was the standard. But identity-based narrative is also available for groups who want to explore these themes of inner life and one’s place in the world, together, in experiences such as Monsterhearts or Chuubo’s Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine.

Translating RPG Mechanics to Learning Programmes

From a mechanical and system perspective, there are many aspects of RPGs which lend themselves to adaptation to ‘wicked’ scenarios and themes.

For instance, D&D’s alignment system teaches players about moral and ethical complexities by assigning their characters a moral and ethical stance.

D&D’s character creation system is a detailed process that encourages players to consider their character’s background, personality traits, ideals, bonds, and flaws. This system can be applied in a learning program focused on diversity and inclusion. Participants could create characters with diverse backgrounds and traits, encouraging them to step into the shoes of individuals who may have very different life experiences from their own.

There is now such a wealth of RPG systems, that if the character creation process of one does not suit your learning application, you can surely find another that will. For example, if assigning numeric values to traits and skills, as in D&D, is not appropriate, then the more narrative-based character creation process of PbtA games, very well might be.

Additionally, D&D’s leveling up system, which allows characters to gain new skills and abilities as they progress, can be adapted to represent professional growth in an organisational context,or any kind of developmental ‘journey’. Participants could ‘level up’ by acquiring new skills or knowledge or even attitudes and values, thereby reinforcing the importance of continuous learning and development.

PbtA games, on the other hand, provide robust, flexible mechanics that can be tailored to diverse themes and settings, challenging players to navigate complex systems and scenarios. For example, in The Sprawl, a PbtA game centered around futuristic corporate espionage, the mechanic of ‘missions’ can be adapted to learning programmes, projects or even causes (such as tackling poverty or climate impacts). Participants could be tasked with ‘missions’ that involve navigating a complex environments and tasks, reinforcing the importance of strategic planning and collaboration.

Skill checks, another RPG mechanic, require players to understand the interactions of various systems to make strategic decisions. This mechanic can be mirrored in programmes designed to address wicked problems such as climate change. For example, learners could ‘roll’ to see the effect of certain environmental decisions, helping them understand the interconnectedness of environmental systems and the far-reaching consequences of their actions.

Another key mechanic, cooperative problem-solving, encourages players to work together towards a common goal, reinforcing the value of teamwork and collective decision-making. This can be translated into learning programs to emphasise the importance of collaboration in addressing societal inequality, or other issues. For example, a scenario could be designed where learners, representing different strata of society, have to collaborate to bridge socio-economic gaps and improve societal welfare. The fact that most of the game systems are ‘theme-agnostic’ opens up a wealth of possibilities to tackle more or less any scenario you wish.

The Benefits and Challenges of Using RPGs in Learning

The use of RPG mechanics in learning programmes brings several benefits. It boosts engagement levels, encourages innovative thinking, and fosters empathy among learners. However, the challenges are also considerable. Acceptance, particularly among those unfamiliar with RPGs, implementation complexity, and time management can be potential hurdles.

To mitigate these challenges, it’s crucial to introduce RPG mechanics in a gradual, comprehensible manner, ensuring that all participants are comfortable with this unique learning approach. This could involve beginner-friendly sessions and pre-game workshops to familiarize participants with the mechanics, and using simplified RPG systems to start.

The newer, often independently published, RPGs, are an excellent resource to go to find inspiration for creating simpler RPG experiences. Many of these have deliberately sought to lower the player overhead in the learning OF the game, which from a learning perspective enables us to more quickly get to the point of learning FROM the game.

In comparison with the hefty manuals and endless tables of stats associated with RPGs like D&D, many of these games are expressed very briefly – sometimes on as little as a single page, and yet with carefully thought-out mechanics are able to create rich and impactful experiences for players.

Itch.io is a site well-worth getting to know if you want to dig up some inspirational indie gems.

Takeaways

The vast, interactive world of RPGs offers exciting opportunities for learning and development professionals. RPG mechanics can be a valuable tool in our quest to understand and address ‘wicked’ systemic issues. However, RPGs are not a panacea; they represent one among many innovative solutions. The path forward lies in continually pushing the boundaries of games-based learning, seeking new and imaginative ways to engage learners and equip them with the skills and knowledge they need to tackle our world’s most pressing problems.

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