This stance, by the way, is what makes me a bit twitchy over Poison'd.  It's not that the subject matter is nasty - that stikes me as odd rather than offensive - but that it appears to put pressure on cathartic content past the point of "Shit, man, that game was a fucking rollercoaster" and right into the region where I start to wonder if maybe it isn't more suited to use in therapeudic regimes where the patient needs to confront "being an awful person".

But, then, I haven't yet bought or read the game - just a few slices of actual play.  So I'm not actually sure just how strong the pressure, or how far it pushes.

As I've said before, I'm not going to discuss We All Had Names on this forum, as I understand it to be off topic. Anyone interested can contact me via e-mail.

If anyone's interested in discussing the subject of role-playing games and education, however, feel free to pop by the forum!

Is there anything you will discuss at this forum, or are you just dropping ads? Don't worry though, we don't mind discussing it without you.

Hey, McMurray, how did you end up playing 1000 Kings? How was it?

I started a thread a while back over at Story Games lookiong for a new game for my son and I (he's 6) and possibly my daughter (she's 3). Ben offered me a playtest copy so I snatched it. The game itself looks great, and play looks to be fun, but the aborted session is the only one we've played so far, and we didn't get very far along.

My son ended up with a magic pen that could draw anything he wanted and it would be real (kinda like Chalk Zone if you're familiar with kids' TV). The two went to a kingdom that was in the form of a resort hotel (aka the magical Nickelodeon Hotel) and they explored it for a while, including playing the "Jump off the 15' bunk bed and get caught by the really strong butlers" game. Shortly after this my daughter got bored and wandered off.

My son's mean streak kicked in and he drew some people then drew some painful situations for them. The butlers were upset and alerted the Hotel Manager / King, who came and tried to get him to stop. When the king went for the marker is when the cheating ended the game.

I still owe Ben a playtest report and game review, but I'd like to play an entire session.

It's a really fun, family-oriented, game. Character creation involves thinking up memories of why the other players' characters are Smart, Brave, Beautiful, etc. The game has a built-in time limit, so it's good to play with kids who want to go on forever in spite of the impending doom of bedtime, dinnertime, etc.

I wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone wanting to play games with their kids, although I think the conflict resolution system might be a little too fidgety. IIRC it involves rolling dice, removing ones and twos, and continuing until someone has no dice. Then you set some aside, keep some, and apply some as Wounds or Conditions to the loser, like "hated by Duke Ferdinand," "trapped under ice," or "Fell in the mud and laughed at." We never resolved a conflict though, so I can't be sure.

For adults I'm not sure. You have to know the people you're playing with fairly well, and not be afraid to compliment them. A new person to the group could end up with a blank sheet though, if nobody has any memories of them to share. It's definitely not a pick-up game for strangers, and might be uncomfortable for self conscious or introverted people to play.

Character creation as written lets you share a set number of memories to add to others' characters, and doesn't care how many people play. Because of it, characters could turn out unbalanced to start. Whether this matters depends a lot on the fairness radar of the player. My kids are very concerned with fairness, especially when they can easily see a numerical inequality, so I changed the system so that everyone shares exactly one memory of everyone else per stat.

It also meant we got to pull up more fun memories than we would have otherwise. Character creation and other points of the game involve saying something like "I know you're Smart because " so you start the session off with a nice warm fuzzy for everyone.

Quote from: James McMurrayIs there anything you will discuss at this forum, or are you just dropping ads? Don't worry though, we don't mind discussing it without you.

Heheh Sorry, I didn't mean it quite that way - it just seemed that this thread was going to be about everything but educational role-playing games.

Just to state my personal opinion: I am against forcing people to have fun. I'm also against trying to pretend something is for fun when it isn't. So when it comes to educational role-playing, I think that it should be A) voluntary, and B) have a clear agenda.

That being said, I think there's a lot of ways RPGs can be educational - both just in and of themselves, and as techniques for other learning.

Like the Pundit and others have hinted at, I'm pretty sure a lot of us foreign types have learned a lot of English from games - useful words like 'dexterity', 'paladin', 'beholder' and other commonly used terms. And, like it or not, being a GM does teach you a thing or two about group management, cohesion and team leadership, for example. (Not to mention how I learned everything I knew about the European map from playing Diplomacy - which isn't necessarily such a good thing, since Europe changed a fair bit since the 1800s or whenever that game takes place). My computer skills, my writing skills... to a great extent from writing RPG-related material.

Quote from: JDCorleyRoleplaying has been used as an educational tool in American schools for yeeeeeeeeeeeears.  It was my first experience with roleplaying. In the 7th grade, each of us in the American history class played a delegate to the Constitutional Convention. We each got a paragraph of background, a list of things we each wanted to see happen, and over four days of negotiation we had to hammer out various questions.

This is such an effective way of teaching kids to think for themselves, I'm amazed it's not being used more. I don't think we ever did this in school, although I'm pretty sure my teachers must have heard of these methods.

Quote from: Ian AbsentiaIn my opinion, roleplaying has a definite place in both therapy and education.  However -- and this bit is crucial -- it is not a "game" when used in either context.  Similarly -- and this is crucial, too -- when you're roleplaying as a game, it should be explicitly intended as neither therapy nor education, whatever therapeutic or educational benefit one may personally derive from the experience.

I sort of agree with this. At the same time, I'm not sure if what people intend a game to do always has all that much to do with what it ends up doing.

As an example, apparently the game Monopoly was made to "explain the single tax theory of Henry George". I'm not sure if people are playing that particular educational game right. Or, going in the other direction, I'm pretty sure the creators of Ars Magica didn't set off to find a way to make teens read medieval European history.

What people learn from, and do with, games is very unpredictable.

I realize I'm alone on this, but I'd like to see more games which could be termed "educational" like Grey Ranks (child soldiers) http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/13/13508.phtml or Steal Away Jordan (slavery) http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/13/13279.phtml (reveiwed by the OP) and the discussions specifically on the "craft" of running such games.

Regards,
David R

I did a roleplaying exercise with a Year 10 class about living under an authoritarian regime. As a game it was the crappiest thing (it was out of some educational supplement), but the kids enjoyed it enough to want to do it again, and they definitely thought about the issues. So I'd certainly like to see some educational material that would actually use some of the expertise in the RP community to make games that were thought-provoking and fun. Fun for me, that is.

I think any kind of educational roleplaying exercise needs to have someone (like a teacher in school) who can bring the facts to bear afterwards, to put the game in context. To use the holocaust game as an example, I think it's fair to say that anyone who claimed that they had a genuine insight into what it was actually like to be a holocaust survivor by playing through a roleplaying exercise is barking up the wrong tree: such an exercise can only ever let you explore your perceptions, and those of the other participants and the people framing the exercise as to what it would have been like to be in a concentration camp.

Going without lunch and sitting in the corner while a classmate shouts at you in a fake German accent can't magically infuse you with the knowledge and experience that survivors had; ultimately, only going back and reading the accounts of those survivors (or, even better, talking to one in person) can give you that insight.

Any educational roleplaying exercise is worthless solipsism unless it is placed in a broader context, and that means you need to have someone supervising it to inject important bits of information, and to put the whole thing in context afterwards.

I agree with Ian: we have to distinguish between roleplaying and roleplaying games.

Roleplaying may be a means towards several ends, but the only end of a game is fun. The fun may have other benefits along the way (fitness in football, improving a second language if doing an rpg with it) but those are side benefits, not the main end of a game - which is fun.

Roleplaying, and roleplaying games - different things.

If you make an rpg to educate me, I will hit you over the head with it, thus educating you as to what gamers think of being educated. If I want an education, I'll go to school with a qualified teacher. If I want therapy, I'll talk to a psychologist, rabbi or whatever.

I mean seriously, here's a game designer.


You going to take some education or therapy from him?

Quote from: Kyle AaronIf you make an rpg to educate me, I will hit you over the head with it, thus educating you as to what gamers think of being educated. If I want an education, I'll go to school with a qualified teacher.

But you wouldn't mind a qualified teacher using role-playing techniques to teach you things, right?

QuoteYou going to take some education or therapy from him?

Heheh I'm pretty sure Arneson could teach me lots... but about what, I couldn't say, I don't know the guy.

Quote from: WarthurI think any kind of educational roleplaying exercise needs to have someone (like a teacher in school) who can bring the facts to bear afterwards, to put the game in context.

You certainly need someone to frame the experience and put it in context, yes. And some student debate before and after. What I'm mainly (though not exclusively) talking about when I talk about educational role-playing is role-playing in a school situation, with a teacher leading the exercise with a certain goal in mind.

However, I can also see role-playing being used for self-tutoring, or semi-independent learning of skills - planning and game mastering a campaign in the Napoleonic era, for example, is a learning experience that can be done under supervision, but gives the student a lot of freedom and responsibility.

Quote from: WarthurI think any kind of educational roleplaying exercise needs to have someone (like a teacher in school) who can bring the facts to bear afterwards, to put the game in context. To use the holocaust game as an example, I think it's fair to say that anyone who claimed that they had a genuine insight into what it was actually like to be a holocaust survivor by playing through a roleplaying exercise is barking up the wrong tree: such an exercise can only ever let you explore your perceptions, and those of the other participants and the people framing the exercise as to what it would have been like to be in a concentration camp.

I think that you are talking against best practice as it's currently thought. In best practice, kids direct their own learning to a much larger degree. And perceptions are very important, especially for kids. Part of education is equipping them for making decisions in an increasingly complex world.

In fact, it's the facts that need to be put into perspective. I could chalk and talk about the Holocaust for weeks without making much of an impact. Two things helped me really get it through to the kids, though (different class to the other game). One was showing them the film made by the British of Bergen-Belsen (short on facts, long on gut-wrenching horror). the other was doing a roleplaying exercise based on Blue Eyes, Brown Eyes. I got some good essays out of them after that.