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.

The post Roll for Change: RPG Mechanics & Wicked Problems first appeared on Ludogogy.

MyCelium started with a simple idea – prompted by a report on some research which shows that fungi can communicate using up to 50 ‘words’. I knew I wanted to work it up into a game – but didn’t have any expectations that it would be a learning game or have any applications beyond just being a bit of fun.

What has been really fascinating has been the way that emergent complexity has come out of the process of design. While trying to solve a design problem – how to organise it so the game ‘knows’ things that the the players do not – the various solutions explored revealed that the seemingly simple idea had a complex ‘Culture’ inherent in it.

* Unequal access to information means an unequal potential to gain power
* Being in the right place at the right time (luck) can influence your success
* Those who have the power (food) can dictate the culture
* Relationship building can pay dividends in access to information

That’s just a small fraction of the mechanic/strategy ‘pairings’ that have emerged as I’ve worked.

I do not feel that I have designed the mechanics of the game so much as discovered them, while exploring the way that these fungi might work.

The MyCelium game – once the feedback from this session has been incorporated and some rough edges have been thoroughly smoother, will be suitable for coaches and facilitators to use for learning outcomes around:

• Organisational Culture
• Communication
• Mitigating problems and enhancing opportunities
• Teamworking
• Etc.

The post MyCelium Playtest – June 8th first appeared on Ludogogy.

When I play games, however, there is a total shift in consciousness for me. This is about far more than the ‘fun’ that we all experience when playing a game we enjoy. Indeed, the same effect happens even if I’m not particularly liking a game.

The overwhelm vanishes. I lose awareness of the external stimuli that usually cause me problems, as my attention is totally taken by what is going in within the game. I no longer feel scattered, and feel completely able to ‘put aside’ all the ideas, or other thoughts that have been dividing my attention between them, until after the game is over.

Not a dearth, but a surfeit of attention

People with ADD are often seen as ‘not being able to sit still’, both figuratively and literally. But the problem is not one of lack of attention. The lived experience, at least for me, is the complete opposite. The issue is that attention is given totally to things that are currently interesting, to the exclusion of all else. If that is not what the person ‘should’ (often in the opinion of others) be paying attention to, their behaviour is characterised as ‘distracted’ or ‘inattentive’.

This article concerns my own experience, so I cannot speak for others, but when something takes my attention, that is total. It is not unusual to forget to eat, for example. This brings with it, respite from the overwhelm. Hyperfocus is, I believe, the natural state of joy, flow and happiness for someone with ADD. It happens in ‘ordinary’ life, sometimes, but with games, it is possible to have this state of mind, almost instantly, to order.

This tells me a number of things:

1. Games are ‘interesting’, by design, in ways that everyday life (frequently) is not.
2. It is possible to design experiences that can radically and instantly change someone’s mental functioning, including their perception of sensory stimuli, their immersion in activities and their emotional reaction to their own thinking.
3. Being ‘interested’ is not necessarily the same thing as ‘liking’ an experience.

Games are ‘Interesting’

Games are designed to hold your attention in a way that real life isn’t. Even learning games where the primary purpose of the game is to instruct have the very important subsidiary purposing of keeping people entertained. Indeed, many people believe that this is the only reason for using games in learning, as opposed to other delivery methods – this characteristic of ‘Engagement’. This is  not an opinion I agree with, at all, but that is another discussion, for another article.

This ‘interest’ is achieved in a number of ways, through pacing, through narrative, by allowing players to exercise autonomy and creativity, through novelty of experience, through other ‘gameful’ characteristic too numerous to list here.

And if this sound complex, it is. I believe that is in that complexity that ‘interesting’ emerges. For someone with ADD (well, me anyway) engaging with complexity triggers hyperfocus.

Experiences can be designed which give respite from ‘disorders’

The ‘Disorder’ designation of ADD is not something I accept about my experience, but the neurodiversity/disorder debate is something that is beyond the scope of this article. If a ‘designed’ experience, in this case a game, can give me respite from aspects of my life experiences which I find problematic, then this surely has implications for wider aspects of life beyond ‘leisure’ or even beyond ‘learning’.

You can be ‘interested’ without ‘liking’ something

Interest is often conflated with ‘liking’ something. And while it is true that I am generally interested in things that I like – the music of The Cramps, the creative output of the Dadaists, the films of Christopher Nolan, ‘interest’ is much broader than ‘liking’.

I didn’t enjoy spending four months day in, day out, building and re-building an incredibly complex spreadsheet (which probably should have been coded in C++ or similar) which modelled the marketing operations of a food manufacturer as a team game. I was, however, completely absorbed by it, such that I even dreamt about it.

When you think about all the things which people ‘don’t like’ about their lives and work, this again surely has wider implications for how designed experiences can utilise interest to improve our lot – even for people without the extreme attention issues of ADD.

Board Games vs Video Games

Personally, this effect is much more pronounced for me when playing board games. That is not to say that I ‘don’t like’ video games, or that I do not achieve a somewhat still mind when playing them. But there are pronounced differences. It’s true that I frequently have to play video games with the sound turned down (thereby often missing cues which might inform how I play), and that I do struggle with video games that require high levels of dexterity, to for example, achieve a particular manoeuvre. But the differences, for me, go way beyond these superficial distinctions. There is something ‘missing’ from the video game experience, which means that I do not get the same calming and quieting effect when I play.

I am sure that there are those who will have taken a much more academic approach to exploring this, but anecdotally, from my own lived experience, I have come to believe that there are two mani reasons for this. The first is the difference in the way in which you enter the ‘Magic Circle’ in a tabletop game versus the way it happens with a video game. The second, which I have already mentioned, is complexity.

The Magic Circle

The ‘Magic Circle’ of games is the space we enter when we play. Entering it implies acceptance of the different rules which govern the world of the game. So, to some extent, the magic circle can be seen as a kind of social contract, an agreement between players, to cooperate or compete until the game is over.

In terms of the premise of this article, however, the magic circle mainly represents a boundary between two distinct states of consciousness.

I believe that the reason that the experience of entering the magic circle is so much more profound with tabletop games than with video games, is because most tabletop games require preparation and setup which video games very often do not.

Picking up a controller or switching on a console is not the same thing. The set up of a table top game might involve playing pieces being distributed or positioned, a board being laid out, or even constructed and players positioning themselves, taking on identities and evaluating their starting options.

All of this has a sense of ‘ritual’ about which may serve to more clearly mark the transition from the real world into the magic circle.

The power of ritual

Outside of games, there are other ‘magic circles’, other practices, which are characterised by altered states, and which almost without exception include rituals, both to mark and facilitate the transition from one state to another. These would include shamanic practices, types of meditation and ‘magic’ of various kinds.

It is notable, for me, that where video games do allow me to achieve the same effect as tabletop games, they do involve this element of ‘ritual’ and setup. These are usually online RPGs, where there is a need to create a character, equip them and make decisions about what first steps to take before commencing play.

It would appear that including ‘ritual’ as an aspect of designed experiences can make them even more potent as vehicles for effecting change.

Holding Complexity

Where ritual is a way of facilitating transition into a different state, complexity provides a route to maintaining it. It is where prolonged ‘interest’ emerges. Modern tabletop games often have considerable complexity, requiring players to plan strategically, anticipate the actions of others and events within the game world, manage resources, comprehend copious rulesets, and chain decisions and ‘moving parts’ into ‘engines’ to progress within the game.

This creates a totally absorbing experience where there is simply ‘no space’ for distraction – ‘engaging’ for a neurotypical person, but for someone with ADD a welcome respite from cognitive ‘noise’ until the experience is over.

Gameful design of life, work and learning

In life and work, we often seek to make life as ‘simple’ as possible, reducing complexity where we can, to increase productivity or efficiency.

Could it be that we are ‘boring’ ourselves by doing this – reducing the potential for finding ‘interest’ even in the most mundane aspects of work, life and learning.  And if we can ‘design’ out interest, could we not also design it in.

The above just presents one small idea from the wider field of ‘gameful design’. There are many others. This is the concept of a ‘magic circle’ which features greater complexity than the ‘real world’ outside it. The entry into this magic circle should be marked and facilitated by some sort of ritual which clearly delineates transition.

What are the ideas that this sparks for you?

The post What Makes an Experience Interesting? first appeared on Ludogogy.

Theory of Change (TOC) was developed as a tool to address these missing elements in the design of change, and provide a framework to document, clearly, the path from the current situation to the desired goals.

As a visible reference of the design of the change, TOC can fulfil a variety of functions.

1. It provides a visible map to the change initiative, including milestones.
2. It creates a testable hypothesis for how the change will happen.
3. It provides a design for evaluation at the same time as it maps the steps to the change.
4. It communicates clearly the complexity of the process, and provides a document to which all stakeholders can give agreement.

The first step in creating a TOC is to work backwards from the desired endpoint and map outcomes that will logically lead to that goal, also drawing in the connections between these. Once that set of outcomes are decided, move backwards again mapping the outcomes that logically lead to those, and so on, until you have reached the current state. Outcomes will be added, deleted and amended many times, potentially, in this mapping process, and the discussions that stakeholders have while mapping are an extremely valuable part of the TOC process.

The next step is Developing Indicators. This is where the existing outcomes are ‘fleshed out’ with details which will be measurable. Each indicator seeks to answer the questions; Who will change? What proportion do we require to achieve for this to be a success? What is the measurement of success? When does this have to happen by?

The next step is to identify any assumptions that are inherent in the steps already covered. For example, if one of the identified outcomes is ‘Course graduates are ready to step into leadership roles’, it is possible that there is an assumption that leadership roles exist to be ‘stepped into’.

In a preceding step, outcomes were identified and connected with lines to show their causal relationship. In this stage these causal relationships are further examined. If an outcome can be connected to a later outcome (or end goal) with a solid line it means that one logically leads to the other without further need for intervention, for example, ‘learners attend course’ might logically lead to ‘learners gain attendance certificate’ but not necessarily to ‘learners gain qualification’. Such a connection would be connected with a dotted line to indicate that some intervention or evaluation needed to take place at this point to create a complete map of the change and how it will be achieved.

Theory of Change is just as valid a tool in the design of learning as it is in any other kind of proposed change, and can act as a very useful addition to the OOO (Objectives, Outcomes, Outputs) approach to learning design. There is a danger that many assumptions will creep into the OOO approach. One that is particularly problematic is the assumption that the achievement of individual learning outcomes will necessarily aggregate into the achievement of collective (organisational) objectives, without considering aspects which traditionally fall outside the remit of ‘learning professionals’. For example, these aspects might include, the agency (or lack thereof) of learners to implement new skills learned, the support, or not, of line management for new behaviours, lack of opportunity to engage in changed practices, and so on.

Using Theory of Change alongside OOO can alert learning designers and other stakeholders to these assumptions and other gaps in the chain of causality, allow appropriate additional measures to be put in place and thus give the learning initiative the best possible chance to appropriately contribute to the desired changes in an organisation.

As a design tool for learning, TOC can also obviously be a valuable aid when taking learning design into learning game design allowing us to map the complete and logical map of learning change onto the experiences we design into the games and gamification which support it.

The post Focus on… Theory of Change first appeared on Ludogogy.

Complexity in Creating Teams

The book is divided into three parts, logically taking us through the process of first, creating teams who will be equipped to deal with complexity, then identifying, assessing and adapting to complexity, and finally the practice of co-creation as a strategy to address complexity in a project, delivery initiative and in the whole organisation.

Although this book, as I mentioned, is aimed at software development teams, it has a number of applications for the reader of Ludogogy – learning professionals, games-based or otherwise, and designers of games or other playful experiences.

First, as a topic area. Learning Professionals working with organisations or with topics which involve complexity; climate change, racism and other systemic wicked problems will find models in here that are applicable way beyond the Agile team. For example, the section on Estimating Complexity by Liz Keogh would be an excellent addition to any learning session inviting learners to reflect carefully on the complexity of some aspect of organisational life – a change initiative or a project plan, for example.

Models and Practice in Complexity

Second, the book presents models and practices for working in design and development teams outside the software development arena, for example, learning and tabletop games design. Section 1 of the book is applicable to almost any team that is expecting to deal with some form of complexity – which describes most teams. The practices in this part of the catalogue address approaches to get the best out of the tendency of teams to self-organise (if not hindered from doing so). For example, Joseph Pelrine’s ‘Basic Model’ describes how the four prerequisites of a self-organising human system – which encompasses the team, its surrounding environment and those form outside who nevertheless have to interact with the team.

These prerequisites are: Critical Mass – the team must of a certain minimum size before emergent behaviour occurs; Diversity and Dissent – a diverse team avoids the evils of Groupthink and blindspots, an Environment large enough to work comfortably but small enough that people will necessarily interact; and Letting People Do It – Management get out of the way and let the team get on with it.

Complexity Control Knobs

Thirdly, for those of us actively involved in games design, this book provides excellent source material for game mechanisms and aesthetics. In the first part of the book, many of the practices are presented with accompanying ‘Control knobs’. These were part of what Pelrine originally offered as the ‘control knob’ analogy provides a way to think about deliberate design of the practices. For example, in the model above, the knobs which can be turned to find the optimum settings for a team are Team Size, Team Boundaries – who is in and who is out, and Roles. Minudel expands the use of the ‘knobs’ to the other, non-Pelrine, models in part one.

These even look like the kinds of controls one might get in a video game, and suggest, at least to me the way in which these models and practices could be implemented in scenario-based simulations and games which would allow players to test the efficacy of different approaches in a business or team setting.

Early in the book, you find a suggestion on how to approach decisions in a self-organising system, which has relevance to what we do when we design games, because what is a group of people playing a game if not a self-organising system? At the beginning of Part 3 there is a description of co-creation – also an important dynamic in collaborative games.

A Simple Format for Presenting Complexity

There is a standard format to the way that each of the practices is presented in the book. There is an overview which outlines in brief what the model or practice does. Then its Purpose is described, followed by an explanation of its Relation to Complexity (Theory). A fuller description of the practice/model follows, including diagrams and ‘control knobs’ (if applicable). Finally there is a section entitled ‘Practical Tips and Stories’ which includes ‘What now’ , ‘When’, How to’ and ‘What next’ tips, which give practical examples of the model in use, and stories which illustrate some or all of these in more detail.

The book also provide links to Complexity resources online and elsewhere and contains detailed biographies of all the people whose models appear in the book, so it is an excellent starting point for learning more about Complexity. But this book is most definitely focused in practice, so while the theory is there to a certain extent, the most valuable thing to be taken from reading this book is that you can immediately apply what you read.

Living Complexity is available at https://leanpub.com/livingcomplexity/ and with a discount voucher worth $6 at https://leanpub.com/livingcomplexity/c/DtFB1ESGuJn4

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