More about Jenna on ninuan.org. Remember to support “The Far Roofs” on Kickstarter!

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
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The post Jenna Moran on Writing first appeared on Ludogogy.

More about Jason on Bully Pulpit Games.

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
Who should be our next guest? Let us know!

The post Jason Morningstar on Jamming first appeared on Ludogogy.

And that’s why I like to try and come at it from a gameful perspective. The primary reason being that games can make scenarios less scary and allow us to be more curious and creative instead of overwhelmed. The secondary reason being that games can externalise our thought processes which makes the job at hand feel much more manageable. Thirdly it helps us to see things differently, something we often need to do with writing a CV and getting out of our own head!

I’m going to take you through a case study about how we used Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) to rewrite a CV in a coaching space.

Rob* was in a job that he hated. He worked in the IT department and after 8 years there, people still didn’t get his name right. He felt undervalued, dejected and frustrated that he wasn’t being seen. It was a tough environment and his outlook wasn’t overly positive about the ‘what next’. As a result, the idea of updating his CV felt demoralising and uninspiring; he didn’t resonate with having any achievements in his role and he couldn’t see how his work would be relevant to getting out of his company and to what he really wanted to do – journalism.

Rob hadn’t shared a lot of what was happening for him at work to his friends and family as he was embarrassed about how he was being treated. It also really affected his mood which meant that thinking about it caused him to shut down. However, he wanted to make a change and decided to try out coaching, a safe space where he could share and explore how to improve his work life. One day, off the back of a coaching session with me, we identified that Dungeons and Dragons was a favorite game of his, primarily for the character creation, story arc and quests. A somewhat random fact but one that suddenly triggered in motion a connection between games and identity and ultimately, writing his CV.

For those that don’t know, a character sheet in D&D is something every player creates in order to play the game. This character sheet is essentially a CV for the adventurer world – it informs you (and reminds you!) of what inspires your character, what has affected them in the past, what their strengths are and what they believe in. It brings to life all the things your character cares about and as a result, you understand them which in turn informs the way you respond and react in the game when it comes to decision making.

And so, when we started to apply a new language to Rob’s CVs and saw it with a lens of third person creativity, a whole new world opened up. We started to layer the terminology and the awareness of Rob’s experiences to his CV. In short, we created a character sheet.

This was powerful for a few reasons:

1. We named his character. This allowed him to step outside of himself.
2. The character was something he could draw and therefore visualise. They held artifacts and wore amour that represented his values and his strengths. He started to feel a connection to them which meant he was kinder to himself.
3. It gave space to acknowledge what he already had to take his next steps.
4. It clarified what his quest was and therefore what skills he either needed to add to his repertoire or where he needed to put his focus.
5. When things had creative names and title, it made it feel much more fun which meant that he felt much more compelled to take action
6. He could redefine his identity – he was no longer what people at work made him feel – he designed himself in his own world where he could start to understand himself and make positive change.

Once we started mapping out the character sheet, it opened a floodgate of realisations. From here, the resistance to writing and updating his CV was reduced – he had a whole host of notes about who he was and what he wanted and he felt confident about translating them into CV speak. Through games, we had found a new way for him to identify with himself. And not only that, he had fun doing that!

Whilst a D&D character sheet can sound very specific, the concept of externalising your experience is a common coaching concept. Take a look at this character sheet template and see what identity comes out for you!

*Not their real name

The post Rewriting a CV through games – a case study 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.

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

But Luna Uni offers more than just writing. As we discover during this chat, it also unlocks Social and Emotional Learning, Critical Thinking and much more.

Michael is currently seeking playtesters and other interested folk, to get involved in larger scale testing and validation of the programme. You don’t need to be in the US – all are welcome. Get in touch.

Show & Tell videos will all accumulate at the Show & Tell Page as they are published. If you want to find out more about Luna Uni, Michael himself, and his other projects and work,take a look at his links page.

If you would like to appear in a Show & Tell episode, get in touch at info@ludogogy.co.uk

The post Luna Uni – An RPG for Mastering Writing first appeared on Ludogogy.

The use of artificial intelligence (AI) in learning and gaming design has revolutionized the way content creators approach their craft. AI-powered tools provide game and learning designers with efficient and effective ways to produce high-quality content that engages learners and gamers alike. In this article, we will focus on two AI-powered tools – Midjourney and ChatGPT – that can be used to create game and learning content. We will also look at the burgeoning development of third-party apps and tools which utilise, in particular, the various GPT models, and which provided highly-focused resources.

Check out Ludogogy Learning’s offerings around AI for Learning and Games Design

Midjourney is an AI-powered image creation tool that can produce various types of visuals which can be used in game and learning materials. ChatGPT, on the other hand, is an AI text generation tool that can produce text-based content in a huge variety of formats and contexts. Both these tools are capable of creating high-quality content in less time and with less effort. This post will explore the features and applications of these two tools in detail and discuss how they can be used to create personalized and immersive games and learning experiences.

First – The Pictures – Midjourney

Midjourney is an AI-powered platform that can create high-quality images for games and learning materials. The platform employs machine learning algorithms that can generate images based on specific parameters. Midjourney’s algorithms go beyond mere image manipulation by creating new, original images in different styles and formats.

Like most of the well-known AI tools, Midjourney is moving fast, and is constantly being updated with new modes and capabilities. In the last few months, for example, we have seen the addition of version 4 of the image generation algorithm, which generates images without many of the problems (long necks, double faces, general distortion) of the previous algorithms.

And where particular styles of artwork have proved to be popular, Midjourney has sought to smooth the path to creating quality images in those styles. The new Niji mode, for example, is especially designed for creating images with a Manga feel.

There are some limitations on size; a Midjourney image currently has a maximum size of 2048 x 2048 pixels. You can change the aspect ratio to make something of a different shape but still subject to the same size limit. Different versions have different limitations on size and which aspect ratios will work properly. But once you have a grip on that, the only other limitations are your imagination and your skill in creating prompts.

Midjourney can be used create different background images, icons, characters, and more. These images can be used in a variety of applications, including games, educational videos, e-learning courses, and instructional materials. My own experience of using Midjourney in learning game design includes:

• Realistic photographic images of people of various ethnicities, genders and ages for a diversity and inclusion game.
• Creation of photorealistic but ‘impossible’ exhibits for ‘:The Museum of Impossible Objects’.
• A tarot style deck of cards with illustrations which look like they have all been created by the same artist
• Illustrations for a high-fantasy style RPG game
• Cartoon style illustrations of modern office life
• Creation of an :asemic ‘alien’ script

Particularly useful in the context of game and learning design are the following capabilities:

• Being able to apply a consistent aesthetic across a large number of images – ideal for creating card decks
• Create images based on existing images, such as using a photograph for the basis of a new image of the same subject with a different theme
• Merging two or more images together to create a new image containing elements of all of them.
• Creating variations on a preferred image – for example dressing a character in styles of dress from different historical eras.

Midjourney allows you to choose from a dazzling array of art styles, image subjects and even replicates photography down to the level of camera and lighting settings.

It takes some effort to learn to use it really well, but the savings in both time and money in sourcing appropriate images for your projects will be well worth it.

Then – the Words – GPT and ChatGPT

ChatGPT is an AI-powered tool that can generate pretty much any kind of text-based content you require. The platform is built on the GPT3 family of large language models, developed by OpenAI, and seeks to create human-like text output.

Like Midjourney, there is a requirement to get to know the platform, and spend some time  learning to create effective prompts if you are to use it well, but the potential returns in automating ideation and content creation are life-changing for people working in learning and game design.

GPT3 is not connected to the Internet (GPT4, underlying the Bing bot, is, but is outside the scope of this article), but nevertheless, its training datasets were massive, even though it ‘knows’ little about anything since 2021.

So you can, for example, be reasonably confident that it will have read most well-known books, which underlies this great set of tips on creating lesson plans for English Literature classes.

One thing you do need to do carefully, when asking ChatGPT to output material you are going to use with learners, is to check for errors. Because of the way that ChatGPT ,and the underlying models work, which is basically like a very sophisticated predictive text model, it simply decides what word to write next, one word at a time. It is an illusion that ChatGPT deals in anything larger than words. It certainly does not have ’facts’ at its disposal, and will frequently produce factually incorrect information.

For example, this is (part of) what it output about the year 1974 in British politics:

The year 1974 was also marked by tragedy. In the four and a half years leading up to the next general election, a total of 17 members of parliament died. This included some of the most prominent figures in British politics, such as former Prime Minister Edward Heath and Labour politician George Brown. The loss of these individuals had a significant impact on the political landscape, as it meant that new leaders had to step up and take their place.

Although most of the rest of the output was just what was required, it incorrectly claimed that Edward Heath and George Brown died during the years 1974-79.

GPT and Games Design

In games design, this ’hallucination’ is maybe less concerning, as we are frequently creating output which is fictional in nature. However, the hallucination aspect of this tool should always be borne in mind.

ChatGPT can be used in many parts of games design and production, right from initial ideation to playtesting, and there is pretty much no limit to the formats and types of output it will produce, from outlines, to finished prose, poetry, dialogue and stage direction, computer code, and even knitting patterns in both text and chart format.

One obvious application is to produce text-based components for games including:

• Narrative such as backstory and scenarios
• Character sheets and playbooks for RPGs
• Plot summaries
• Rulebooks
• Card rubric
• Etc

You can even play games directly in ChatGPT, such as text based adventure games, narrative games, including shared storytelling between the bot and a human, and even more complex games with dice throwing and tokens involved – if you get the prompt right.

ChatGPT’s ability to ’remember’ what has gone before in a chat means that played games can then be re-output in alternative forms, and I have done this previously, getting such output as a third person re-telling of a first person RPG, a screenplay with dialogue and even a report on how the player displayed leadership.

As the captain of the Star Explorer, the player has shown effective leadership throughout the game. They were quick to take action when the ship’s sensors detected a strange object, displaying a sense of curiosity and adventure. They also demonstrated effective decision-making skills when faced with the situation of the abandoned spaceship and the critical state of its reactor. The player immediately calls their second in command to discuss the situation and then ask their own ship’s AI to produce a risk assessment and to suggest appropriate personnel to send over if the risks were acceptable.

The player also displayed a sense of caution and safety when they decided to tow the ship back to the nearest space station instead of simply continuing the mission. This shows that the player is willing to prioritize the safety of their crew and the ship.

In terms of areas for improvement, the player could have been more proactive in communicating with other ships in the vicinity for assistance before attempting to repair the reactor. This could have been an opportunity to seek help from other ships and potentially prevent the high-pressure situation.

Overall, the player has displayed excellent leadership skills and judgement and has effectively navigated through the challenges faced during the mission.

…or code to play the game from a command line

…or code which can be copied and pasted into Twine to make a branching scenario game

Where ChatGPT really excels is being given templates to work with and then being asked to complete those based on a theme or particular content. Here is what it produced when given part of a template for ‘Wretched and Alone’ games (This work is based on The Wretched, product of Chris Bissette and Loot The Room, and licensed for our use under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.)

And then given the prompt:

Using the following template can you write the ‘Who’ and ‘What’ sections of a Wretched and Alone game about working as a shelf-stacker in a supermarket:

This is what it output:

Who?

You are a shelf-stacker at a local supermarket, working long hours for minimum wage in order to make ends meet. You’re not sure how you ended up in this dead-end job, but you know you need to keep it in order to pay the bills. You have a few friends among your co-workers, but most of them are just as miserable as you are. The store is located in a rundown part of town, and you often deal with shoplifters, angry customers, and other hazards of working in a low-income area.

What?

This is a solo GM-less journaling game in which you will document your attempts to survive your job as a shelf-stacker at the supermarket. You will face a variety of challenges, from dealing with difficult customers to avoiding the wrath of your boss.

During the game, you will roll dice, draw cards from the deck and read their associated events, pull blocks from the jenga tower, place or remove tokens from cards, and write about your experiences in character.

Failure is the most likely outcome of this game. If the jenga tower falls, you’ll be fired from your job and will have to find another way to make ends meet. If you draw all four Kings, you’ll be caught stealing from the store and will be arrested; the last King you draw will tell you how.

To win, you must draw the Ace of Hearts and complete the task that it specifies by removing tokens from it over subsequent days. For a shorter, easier game, place the Ace of Hearts on the top of the deck after you’ve shuffled it, so it’s the first card you’ll draw. The task specified by the Ace of Hearts will give you a chance to improve your situation, whether that means getting a promotion at work, finding a new job, or escaping the grind of retail life altogether.

What’s Next – Third Party Integrations

The use of AI in game and learning design has many benefits. For one, it allows for personalized and immersive experiences, enhancing the overall learning or gaming experience. Midjourney and ChatGPT both play important roles in this process.

Because of the speed of production and the ease with which many slightly differing versions of something can be made, this really opens up the options for creating differentiated learning – which was well demonstrated in the video at the beginning of the article.

This personalization can lead to increased engagement and motivation, ultimately leading to better retention of information.

One of the most frequent criticisms levelled at the use of AI in creative work is that what is produced is derivative and not very creative – lacking the human ‘spark’. While this is true to a certain extent, it is also true that AI has the potential to increase creativity. The actual production of text-based content may be the least creative part of the learning or game design and creation process, and if that can be automated and speeded up, it frees human designers to focus on the experiences they want to create, and indeed in coming up with yet more creative ways of using the tools to come out with innovative output

And nowhere has this creativity been seen more than in the 300+ third party applications which have integrated with the GPT API to produce targeted tools which further enhance capability in very specific tasks. A sample of these which might be of particular interest to learning and games designers are:

• GPT for Sheets and Docs  an extension for Google Sheets and Docs which allows you pull input directly from GPT into your spreadsheets and documents.
• AI Dungeon – Play in AI-enabled worlds-now enhanced with Stable Diffusion images.
• Charisma – Storytelling powered by artifical intelligence
• AIChannels – a social network platform which allows collaboration with AI agents
• Debuild – Generative AI to build wep apps

Takeaways and Next Steps

Midjourney and ChatGPT are powerful AI tools that have the potential to revolutionise both the game and learning design process. This article has necessarily just scratched the surface of what is possible. If you want to know more, and attend some short course that are specifically targeted on AI for learning and game design, then check out Ludogogy Learning’s selection of upcoming courses which include all new material on using Midjourney and ChatGPT in your design process.

The post The Bots Are Coming – Let’s Have Some Fun! first appeared on Ludogogy.

I often spend ages tweaking the stats and using them to create a backstory in my imagination of how this character has become who they have, how they have pitched up in the location they are in, what drives them to adventure.

I favour magic users (at least when I am playing Dungeons and Dragons style games), so I will usually find that the stats profile of my characters are quite similar. They are low on Strength and Constitution usually, because all the available points have been allocated heavily towards Intelligence, to ensure a healthy number of spell points. A low-level magic user will need some strong allies who are willing to front the party and shield him or her, to ensure some chance of survival to be a higher-level magic user.

We roleplay in real life

And so it is in real life, we have our strengths and weaknesses, our specific skillsets, allies and competencies, which taken together, paint a picture of someone who is fit (or not so fit) to act in specific roles, or to carry out particular pieces of work. In life, this idea is often expressed as a ‘job description’.

The Job Description is actually a pretty one-dimensional way of describing what somebody is, as it only captures a narrow set of characteristics, which are usually (unless you are very lucky), desired by a third party to execute specific tasks.

As a (whole) person, you have many more characteristics and skills which are not relevant to this ‘job description’. In (the game of) real life you may often play with your ‘Project Manager’ avatar or character, but at other times you play your ‘Parent’ character or your ‘Drummer in a Ska Band’ character. Each of them prioritise different characteristics, skills, allies and activities. And you can ‘grow’ in each of those roles at different rates.

There is often friction because of the demands of the different characters on your time and energy. For example, the ‘Parent’ might not be able to develop as she wishes because the ‘Project Manager’ is impinging on her time.

The featured image of this article shows part of a character sheet from ‘The Game of You’ compiled by a 15 year old. The Character she wants to play is ‘In-demand Babysitter’. She is currently at Level 7 in her progress towards becoming the fully-realised babysitter she wants to become over the summer holidays – Level 20 in this game represents ‘the best you can be’.

It should not be assumed from this that the  ‘Game of You’ is only suitable for young people – just that I tend to use my nearest and dearest for trying out game ideas!!

The different characters which make up ‘You’

In an RPG, a player can have as many characters playing in different games and campaigns as s/he pleases

The ‘Game of You’ encourages you to play a game of personal and professional development, in which you can also play any of the characters that are significant to you, track their progress towards important development goals and (which is not usually a feature of ‘for fun’ RPGs), use what you discover about these ‘characters’ to explore balance and priorities in your life and growth.

The Character Sheet is the basis of ‘The Game of You’, as it allows players to create their own ‘character’ (or set of characters) in the style of an RPG. A pen and paper version is available, and a fully-functioning automatically calculating version will be posted on itch.io soon.

Today, I started to add the functionality of the ‘Quest’ sheet. The idea behind Quests is to reflect on the value of ‘learning’ activities to the development of your characters.

In an RPG we can experience from all sorts of activities, quests, combat, even ‘grinding’. From each of these we will gain experience points (XP), which are recorded for your character, and contribute to their levelling up.

RPGs (objectively) measure experience

In life, we similarly learn from everything we do, each project, each social interaction, every win (or failure) and yes – even the grinding. Learning does not only happen from ‘special purpose’ learning activities. The only difference between real life and an RPG, in this respect, is the enumeration. We do not, usually and habitually, enumerate our learning from experience.

Sometimes however, we are called upon to do so. When applying for a job, one of the purposes of a CV (resume), is to inform others about what we have learned from the experiences we have had, and how it might match to a potential role. Often that is expressed through length of experience, or through qualifications.

Roleplaying your CV

If you’re anything like me, updating your CV can be a bit of a feat of memory, and what you end up with never really describes all the nuances of how you have developed. Also, given that CVs need to be customised to each new opportunity, they are far from representative of your ‘whole self’

If real life were more like an RPG, each new experience would reflect in your ‘stats’, AND you would gather a ’quest log’ along the way, which would be a permanent record of the ‘value’ of any given experience to your permanent and professional development.

Quest Sheet attached to Character Sheet ‘In-demand Babysitter’ – by a 15 year old girlThe ‘Game of You’ Quest sheet links with the Character Sheet and updates your stats on the completion of your quest. It writes the ‘story’ of your quest to a quest log, and then clears itself, so that you can use it to record your next quest.

And because we never only have one quest on the go, or indeed, only have one character’s game underway, you can have multiple quest sheets attached to each ‘character’, and indeed multiple characters in play in the ‘Game of You’.

Your ‘Whole Self’ is more than your CV

But what about your ‘whole self’? In an RPG I can be playing several different characters in different games, and they can all have very different ‘levels’. In life, my experience in my different roles, works in much the same way.  I am a high-level Learning Professional, but a low level (at the moment) Plasterer and Bridge Player. Ongoing house renovation will ensure I level up pretty quickly in plastering (I may take a course to speed up that process), and I am hoping that I will soon get the chance to play at the Bridge club I have joined to polish up skills including ‘bidding’ and ‘finessing’, as well as adding some new allies to my ‘Socialiser’ character sheet.

Just like the variety of CVs you have to produce to satisfy the requirement of different job applications, your different character sheets will reflect ‘how well’ you are doing in developing growing in different important ‘character’ areas of your life.

The Future of the Game of You

The ‘Game of You’ is a work in progress, and is developing as an idea as each new component is added.

At the moment, there is an MVP (minimum viable product) of the Character Sheet. This will soon be joined by an auto-calculating version of the character sheet and linked Quest Sheet and Quest Log.

In time, it is envisaged that the full game will include:

• Spells /power ups – strategies and hacks that may not actually be magic, but feel like they might be as they impact your resilience, productivity and well-being
• Player dashboard – a summary of your characters, which can be used as an overview of balance in different life areas
• Quests which update more than one character
• CV (resume) templates based on character sheets
• Pre-loaded quests – pre-populated quests sheets, that for example, represent the XP and skills value of undertaking an accredited learning programme.
• Aspirational character sheets – representing the ‘gap’ between the ‘stats’ of a person you would like to model, and your own character, so you can work on that gap.

If you would like to get involved in developing this idea, maybe as a resource you could use with Coaching Clients, learning cohorts or for your own personal / professional development-get in touch at sarah@ludogogy.co.uk

The post The Game of You – Quests first appeared on Ludogogy.

The result, I hope, will not only be a whole load more fun than traditional goal planning, but will also be just as, or possibly even more effective, encouraging reflection on what really matters, in terms of skills, allies and resources, to achieve a medium to long term development aspiration, and providing an accurate (although subject to player biases about their own capabilities and effort), measurement of progress towards a valued goal.

More gameplay on the way

This is also just a starting point. This character sheet can be used on its own to track progress, but the logical next step is to link it with other sheets which will evaluate ‘Quests’ (think projects, training or other forms of experience) and allow them to update the characters vital stats and progress.

And because its an RPG style experience it also makes sense to include a ‘Spellbook’. This will contain all those pieces of ‘magic’ that work for you, focusing on aspects such as self-care, life (and work) hacks and learning from books/videos etc.

Finally, (for the moment), I think it will also be possible to create another template which will take information from all the above to create a ‘cv’ type character sheet which will allow you to display your experience and achievements in an easy-to-read format.

So for the moment, here is the Character Sheet, and only in a print format, for filling in with a good old-fashioned pen or pencil. It should be enough for you to do your initial character creation and calculate your current level and experience with regard to that all-important purpose. I’ll be honest, it’ll probably be tough to keep doing the calculations manually, on an ongoing basis, so you’ll probably want the spreadsheet pretty soonish, if the initial try out makes you think you might want to use this long-term.

The fully functioning spreadsheet version will follow in due time, and will be available on itch.io

Formulas for the pen and paper version

You might have noticed that the thing works slightly differently from an RPG character sheet – instead of adding to your stats when you level up, you update your stats, and your level and experience update accordingly. Think of your level as being a progress bar (going from 0 to 20) which shows how close you are to achieving what you want. With the character sheet alone that won’t reflect how close you are to achieving a task or project (you’d need ‘Quests’ for that), but it will show how prepared your character (ie You) is with all they need (skills, allies, equipment) for the tasks and projects you have in mind

With a spreadsheet, you will obviously be able to get much more complex calculations, not to mention fancier outputs, but for the pen and paper exercise, the following calculations will give you a good approximation to see your character’s current level.

Here is a typical D&D levels/experience table.

To discover your current level, simply take an average of all the populated yellow boxes. If you want to see your current XP, use the following formula.

xp of current level + (xp of next level - xp of current level) * (average - current level)

So for example, if the average you calculated was 6.75, you would be Level 6, but you would have achieved 75% (0.75) of the XP needed to get to the next level. This formula would calculate 75% of the difference in XP between Level 6 and 7 and add it to the XP for Level 6.

The spreadsheet will be a deal more complex than this but these simple calculations will give you a good enough idea to test out the concept of this character sheet.

The Quest sheet will follow in quick order, and the Spell sheet should be up and running by end July, early August – also on itch.

Happy Role(Real)playing.

The post The Game of You – Character Sheet first appeared on Ludogogy.

I love everything about this show, from the storylines, through the uncompromising female characters (especially the totally wonderful Erica), to the game that we who were there (in the 80s) can play, spotting the numerous visual references to films and TV from the era. School corridors shot from the same angle and with the same lighting as Nightmare on Elm Street, Teen Wolf basketball moments etc.

But what I love most of all is reliving my early monster-slaying days – not in the Upside Down, but on numerous kitchen tables and student bedsit floors. I even remember playing a few adventures featuring a Demogorgon, which as any schoolchild knows (if they have a copy of the Monster Manual, or the Deities and Demigods cyclopedia), is a Demon Lord from the Abyss, worshipped by the Ixitxachitl.

The Deities and Demigods cyclopedia is available on Amazon

And the stats mattered… so much. Even when not playing, there were deep discussions about all the numbers. Adventures were remembered and analysed not just as pieces of narrative, but as mathematical representations of an experience. Did this encounter yield too many (or too few) XP? Is that piece of equipment or spell over-powered? Should I distribute points to my character attributes differently to get the best from my character?

I still play, we I can find the time myself, and more importantly, when I can find others who also have the time (and inclination) to play a campaign. Like many adults who have an RPG past, I’ve tried the (easier) option of joining MMORPGs like World of Warcraft, but it’s not the same. Someone else has created the experience for me, and I am more a consumer than a creator. I want to feel the D20 in my hand, and experience the thrill of creating a story with others around a table while quaffing mead (or Thunderbird – being the closest proxy which the local beer-off could provide).

While D&D is not a Quantified Self (QS) game as such – you’re not playing yourself, for one thing – the mechanisms and experiences within RPGs have definitely informed the QS movement. This has not gone unnoticed and there are many RPG-flavoured QS and self-improvement apps and games out there.

Here are a selected few:

Chore Wars

Gain experience points for housework. This was a firm favourite in our house when my girls were a bit younger, and having just sparked it up after a few years away (for the purposes of writing this article), my younger daughter is showing every sign of wanting to start playing again.

This game allows you to create character with all the stats of a D&D character – strength, constitution, charisma etc., who can gain experience points (XP) and level up (at every 200 XP) through carrying out domestic chores. A Dungeon Master (DM) account allows you to create adventures and quests. Adventures are recurring tasks which can be claimed by a character each time they are performed, while quests disappear after being claimed once.

When creating an adventure / quest, a DM can name and describe it, as well as applying XP (usually the no. of minutes it takes to perform the task), the gold and treasure that may be found (and %age chance), and monsters that may need to be battled. They also specify which of the character stats is used in the task and at what level (low, medium, high).

Gold, treasure and monsters are largely window dressing that add to the RPG feel, although you could ‘spend’ gold on real-world treats, once you have accumulated enough – likewise with treasure effects. The character stats feature is the most interesting. On levelling up, your characters stats will be adjusted up, and, unusually for an RPG, down, depending on the adventures you have undertaken. This, to me, is the most QS aspect of this game, because it helps you to see how well you are balancing different types of activities.

I’m now chuckling at some of the treasure and monsters we came up with creating adventures back in 2011. For doing guitar practice, for example, my elder daughter had a 60% chance of discovering a Map of Carnegie Hall, and a 33% chance of encountering a Plectrum-spitting Tuna

Not to be confused with….

BBC Women’s Hour Chore Wars

Which was a survey carried out to discover the split between men and women in terms of who does the most household chores. The survey is no longer available, but you can still see a broadbrush overview of its findings.

SuperBetter

Jane McGonigal sustained a concussion in 2009, after hitting her head at work. Recovery was slow, and Jane suffered from suicidal thoughts during this time. As a game designer, she decided to create a game which would help her to recover and build resilience, and ‘Jane the Concussion Slayer’ was born.

This was later renamed Superbetter, and now exists as an app and website which uses evidence-based approaches to building resilience and aiding recovery from challenges.

Players are encouraged to specify their Epic Win and the Goal that win will help them to achieve. There is plenty of help to get you there, and the app presents you with daily challenges which will slowly but surely move you towards your Epic Win. You can enlist the help of Allies – people who will support you during your journey, and use Power-ups – quick and easy actions which will give you an instant boost. There is recognition that it won’t all be plain sailing, as Bad Guys, like persistent thought, or bad habits are there to get in your way. Superbetter also encourages you to list your Future Boosts – things that you have to look forward to.

Like Chore Wars, you are able to select predetermined ‘programmes’, or, more usefully, to create and edit your own entries for all elements of your Superbetter journey.

Jane McGonigal’s second book, also called Superbetter, details the creation of this game. It is available from Amazon.

Habitica

Back in 2012, I was busy working on the design of Habitochi, a habit-breaking / forming app based on Tamagotchi. Sadly, it never got beyond the design stage, ironically, probably, because of my own inability to maintain the habit of working slowly and steadily towards raising the funds to build it. It’s still a possibility, if anyone is interested, but, several people have beat me to it – including Blobby, MOTi, DailyPet, and indeed Habitica, to a certain extent. I’m not one for sour grapes, though, even though all of these post-date the Habitochi concept – that’s entirely my fault.

Habitochi is still a better name than any of these, though, right?

Habitica allows you personify (monsterify?) all your tasks, which can be habits, regular e.g. daily task, or to-dos into monsters which you have to fight.

It includes many of the features of RPGs which are the things which keep us playing. Doing what you should – regular maintenance of your habit, ticking of your to-dos will enable you to upgrade your avatar with cool new armour and other stuff. Not doing so will mean that you start to move backwards, and in particular it will start to damage your health. There is also the (highly) rewarding feature of random reward – the psychological strategy which underlies gambling addiction, and keeps up killing monsters in RPGs because we never know whether the next looted body will turn up some knackered leather boots or a mithril broadsword (yeah, right!).

There are also pets, and social challenges (*mumbles sub-audibly about Habitochi*)

But what is really interesting about Habitica, in terms of presenting a variety of ideas in this article, is that it is an open-source project, which means that it has a dazzling array of integrations with 3^rd party tools, some of which measure and track (the usual thing that people think of when hearing ‘Quantified Self’). Habitica can be integrated with e.g. Trello, Cloudflare Workers, Zapier etc.

Fill your (seven-league) boots!

Life RPG

I have become (sometimes, painfully) aware throughout life that not everyone is as interested in Dungeons (or, indeed, Dragons), as I am. If you have been reading this, and thinking, ‘I can see how this might work, but I can’t be doing with all the sword ‘n’ sorcery shizzle’, then LifeRPG is probably more up your (non-magical) street. It strips away a lot of the narrative while retaining the basic mechanics that help you to get (mundane) stuff done.

It is also, arguably, the most customisable of the solutions presented here. I would say that this has most in common with productivity apps, and co-opts the idea of XP to add that extra bit of motivation to ticking off the tasks and projects.

Some of the game-like features included in this app are:

Categorising projects by difficulty, importance, and by assigning a Skill to each one, enabling you to further ‘gamify’ your prioritisation. ‘Eat that Frog’, anyone?

Levelling up. Like any other RPG, XP allows you to level up. In LifeRPG there is not cap on the level you can achieve, you can enter your own title to go with your level.

Skill Stats. If you (optionally) assign skills to tasks and projects, those skills will be improved when you complete tasks. This allows you to see life areas (Stats) where you are performing well, and others which are lagging, indicating that you could do with more practice.

Momentum Bar – measuring your ‘stick-at-itness’. Your momentum bar will drop each day unless you recharge it by completing tasks.

Aside the game mechanics, LifeRPG also contains some useful features for a productivity app, including different databases for different contexts, e.g. work projects and home projects, and a project log.

Do-It-Yourself

These are the solutions which others have created for you, and which in many cases, have stood the test of time, and have thousands of raving fans. But what if you want to really customise your game of life. Several Game designers and productivity experts have proposed that you design your own games to do this. I have already written one article this month about Yu-kai Chou’s Real-life RPG ideas, now known as 10,000 Hours of Play.

In addition, here is a great resource from Reddit detailing a simple ‘Player Guide’, to create your fully-customised life game.

I am also working on Character and Quest design templates – owing a lot to Steve Jackson’s GURPS system, which will be posted here in Ludogogy as soon as they are done. These are geared towards achieving medium and long-term goals by focusing on attributes and skills (and mini-quests) needed to achieve them.

What Next?

Many of the apps and games mentioned here have been around a while, as RPGs themselves have been, so will we be seeing anything new from the genre. Well, yes. At least I think so. RPGs have been undergoing some changes recently, as I wrote about in Learning Powered by the Apocalypse.

These are RPGs without the stats and numbers, so perhaps the next step is the ‘Qualified Self’ (not to be confused with the ideas in the book of the same name by Lee Humphrys, which is about social media sharing of mundane everyday life details). Maybe the new kinds of RPGs can help us to learn about the qualities of our lives, rather than the quantities, relying more on creating narrative and eliciting emotions, than creating measurable data.

A game to play to explore this idea would be Logan, where the player gets to experience their own version of a series of events that actually happened in the game designer’s life – a game play experience that is at once empathetic and self-reflective.

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