Role Playing Games (RPGs In the Classroom)
THATCamp CHNM 2012

Let’s DO this! I’m setting up a github org, list your github account (or make and then list your github account) and I’ll invite you to a github org I’ve set up for this. I will add folks on this doc as admins for https://github.com/rpgframework
Participants, twitter usernames + email addresses

• Adeline Koh @adelinekoh [adelinekoh@gmail.com] github: adelinek
• Gavin Craig @craiggav
• Nigel Lepianka @truexstory
• Laura Webber @lwebber
• Douglas Eyman @eymand
• Andrew Turner @ajturner – github:ajturner
• Weston Schreiber @WestonSchreiber
• Paul Logasa Bogen II @plbogen
• Aram Zucker-Scharff @chronotope – azuckers@gmu.edu – github: aramzs
• Larry Milliken @larrymilliken
• Erica Miller Yozell @emilleryozell
• Anastasia Salter @anasalter
• Amanda Visconti @literaturegeek / github: amandavisconti
• Gerol Petruzella @gpetruzella [gpetruzella@gmail.com] github: gpetruzella

Note to Participants: ^Perhaps add emails if you want to get involved with this so we can notify you of changes?

Original Proposal:

Role Playing Games (RPGs) in the Classroom: Fleshspace vs. Digital (A #THATCamp CHNM Session Proposal)

Posted on June 15, 2012

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We are being increasingly encouraged to “gamify” the classroom. Educators such as Cathy N. Davidson (Now You See It)(@cathyndavidson) and Jane McGonigal (Reality is Broken) have suggested that games can help engage students in deeper ways than traditional learning methods.
I’d like to discuss how we can best implement Role Playing Games, or RPGs, in higher education. RPGs are well suited to the classroom because of their structure, which encourages students to identify with their character and their game (and learning objective.) Some excellent pedagogical examples include Reacting to the Past at Barnard, a series of elaborate historical games where students roleplay real historical characters with the possibility of changing historical events through mastery of historical and cultural knowledge (for more information, see my blog post here), and the Practomime project, where Latin students have to thoroughly assimilate into the ancient Roman world to save the world.
The following questions may be of interest: how we can use digital tools to enhance these role playing learning efforts (course websites, wikis as “codexes”, social media for team building/knowledge sharing)? Further, how, and should, these role-playing become digital in form? Most successful classroom RPGs have been “fleshspace” based, where gameplayers meet in person. How can we use the digital to enhance the “fleshspace” experience, and to augment or transform it?

Blog response to session by Rex Brynen (@RexBrynen): on using simulations/RPGs in the classroom: http://paxsims.wordpress.com/2012/06/16/some-saturday-afternoon-thoughts-on-technology-enhanced-role-play/

Adeline Koh started session by going around the room with introductions, and what participants wanted to get out of this session.
She spoke about how she had just attended the Reacting to the Past Institute at Barnard, which focuses on a series of elaborate historical games, and was very impressed by the pedagogy. She wanted to know how we could use technology to enhance the RTTP experience, or perhaps to create a RTTP game.

• Reacting to the Past Pedagogy: http://reacting.barnard.edu
• Koh’s blog post introducing the reacting pedagogy: http://www.adelinekoh.org/blog/2012/06/14/reacting-to-the-past-an-introduction-for-summer-2013/
• Koh: We’re meeting at Parc Rittenhouse 27 June at 4pm for our first meeting to discuss putting together a RTTP introduction for interested faculty in Summer 2013. Email me if you’d like to come: adelinekoh@gmail.com
• Reacting Game Designers Handbook: http://www.amazon.com/Reacting-Past-Game-Designers-Handbook/dp/1460916905/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1339863449&sr=8-1&keywords=reacting+to+the+past+game+designer%27s

Article on identity/role playing (and videogames) that might be of interest:
http://currents.dwrl.utexas.edu/2010/waggoner_life-in-morrowind
Strategy for getting student investment in role-playing: Make creation of the game part of the game/experience. (Perhaps player creation within an established structure — like Dungeons & Dragons — so that energy is focused on player investment rather than game architecture and objectives.)

Bang–card game. Sheriff, deputy sheriff–everyone has a different role (no one knows what others is)
Cardless version: called mafia

Ran across this site ~plb : http://www.darkshire.net/~jhkim/rpg/whatis/education.html

Idea for RTTP integration: Create an augmented reality app, where if people view their characters through their phones, they get to see a different social code (dress, race, character).

Lo-fi way: having a badge

Aram: Public edited wiki that could change the virtual game–did it with python

Ideas: Have a newspaper on to report on what is going on the world– to mod the world
How other people have modded existing video games:

• Ethan Watrall: modding Civilization @captainprimate
• Rome Total War–history students modifying games to be historically accurate
• Rome Total Realism – http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/10/19/10-essential-total-war-mods/ and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rome:_Total_Realism

Laura Webber spoke about how she develops a RPG using Jane Eyre, where students become characters in the novel. The novel functions as a world, and characters are roles. Participant: use Jane Eyre to extract a rule set for the novel?

Gavin Craig: video games may not be able to replicate the flexibility of modes of instruction like RTTP, because games are restricted by their code.

Andrew Turner? : Can we reinvograte MUDs and MOOs for the classroom?

• → A still-active MOO: http://acadianamoo.org/ (“Acadiana is a virtual space that reflects the geography, culture and humor of Southwestern Louisiana”)

Other Ideas: Using existing open worlds to superimpose RPGs or structures onto.

• SecondLife (and Minecraft)
• Wiki-model: established structure that people can make changes too.
• Game where people wear digital costumes
• Angels Fall First Game – what of it exists – http://www.aff2aw.com/
• Could Twitter be used to play an RPG?

Idea: We need to establish a basic rule sets for establishing core mechanics–can be modded for both paper-based games as well as video games.

• What we really need is a core rule book for open source RPG systems in a classroom.
• Github type structure better than a wiki structure.
• This rule book will provide RPG Framework for classrooms,
• Also will provide rules sets and character characteristic sets that can be adopted
• Using character sheet questions as in Glorantha, see – https://docs.google.com/document/d/1GjkWHSZSGLfKmoWp8hMP26F3TuFzsfjmx6p37qIlK7o/edit
• Can also develop Worldbook sets that people can use and build off of.
• A set of options you can select for your character – this is a list of things Romans do, select one.
• How to define the art? Just dressup in person – have imagery incorporated into the docs.

Open Second Life: http://opensimulator.org/wiki/Main_Page

plb grumblings ~ Wiki things to think about. MediaWiki has support for book generation from articles (http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:PdfBook), security controls for preventing willy-nilly editing. The tools for the process are there already, github use would require creating the conversion and would end up in a group of small text files in github.

[Aram’s added argument – but Markdown can generate it as HTML and then we can pull it into any number of functions for creating eBooks, also it makes the structure of content much more transparent]

Open Role Playing Game Systems list: http://wiki.rpg.net/index.php/Open_Game_Systems#The_List:

From @anasalter: For an interesting example of role-playing via communal creative writing, check out Harry Potter– Alternity: http://www.blotts.org/alternity/ #thatcamp

Also consider culture of table-top gaming (and its associated pitfalls): http://www.kodtweb.com/

Perhaps have multiple ways to take turns? Not just dice, but other various points and point-gaining system.

Model beyond combat?

@anasalter: problems with d20 system–> which focuses on rule-mechanics rather than narrative

What are the rewards and how do we build them into interactions?

What do you build into the system to express and model the interactions and character properties?

What are the repercussions of actions and how do they propagate?

How do the answers to questions give your character bonuses?

A fantasy address book – take the character interactions outside of the classroom for those who want to keep playing.

Markdown docs on github – take MD to HTML – relative links?

Is there a negative status applied as a consequence of a conversations.

Using BUMP (for mobile phones) to figure out character interactions within a game. character interactions.

Create a fantasy address book!

University of Wisconsin: Games, Learning, and Society group:
http://www.gameslearningsociety.org/

Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals
http://www.amazon.com/Rules-Play-Game-Design-Fundamentals/dp/0262240459

Let’s START A GITHUB!

Source: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1kI_N6oRSUruAJix1TsnMyWZmWy-QaEe9yFFQZQn9JG4/edit