RPG Theory from the Educative Viewpoint

[Bifi]

Hi Forge,

I'm teaching at the University and also currently attending a course on Paedagogics. For the topic of my research paper I chose "Inscenation Methods in Paedagogics / Roleplaying".

Obviously, roleplaying theory in this field would have to be a bit different from the contemporary RPG theory in the main function: instead of serving as an aesthetic enjoyment (or fun), its primary role is to provide education. I would very much like the community to help with the following:

- bibliography dealing with roleplaying for educative pruposes,
- the difference from RPG theory, be it in the area of Premise, G/N/S, stances etc.

Thank you very much
Bifi

[Jack Spencer Jr]

Hi, Bifi

First thing I did was look up "Paedagogics" because I am not familiar with that word. DIctionary.com did not have that word, but did have Pedagogics which is the art of teaching. Re-reading your post, I can safely assume this is what you are talking about.

But I'm a little confused what you are asking for. Are you asking about roleplaying used to teach or teaching roleplaying theory? I think you are asking about using roleplaying to teach, but I am not certain.

[Gordon C. Landis]

Another Hi (and welcome to the Forge!),

My problem-word was Inscenation, for which I found a philological (!?) definition ("Inscenation. Feeling oneself into a situation, including the situation created by an ancient literary work or the cultural context of that work. Imaginative sympathy with the object or period under study. Like all other ideas about antiquity, this learned familiarity should become increasingly accurate and reliable through continued contact with the evidence. Inscenation may be seen as the correction of expectation through experience.) and a lot of references to theatrical works (which seemed to say that, e.g., taking one of the old Greek tradgedies and setting it in modern Belgium was an example of Inscenation).

Bifi, in your context I'll assume it's something like "learning by imagining yourself in a situation."  I'm afraid I don't have many refernces to educational stuff in particular, but I have stumbled across a couple of bibliographies on the Web that might contain references of interest to you:

http://www.geocities.com/innocent_eric/Thesis/academicreferences.html
(which contains this reference that might of interest to the Forge in general  - Myers, D. (1999). Simulation as play: A semiotic analysis. Simulation & Gaming: An International Journal, 30(2), 147-162.  Alas, the article does not appear to be available on-line)

and

http://www.deepfun.com/Bibliography.html

Hope that's useful - and please let us know what you find.  I suspect that it may be quite possible to take what educational roleplay has learned and adapt it back into "fun" roleplay . . .

Gordon

EDIT:  While it apparently focuses on "business" education, http://www.towson.edu/~absel/ might also be of interest to you, and EDIT AGAIN I found this page http://ifets.ieee.org/periodical/vol_2_2001/discuss_summary_feb2001.html that literally discusses "Role Play as a Pedagogy."

[John Kim]

I would very much like the community to help with the following:

- bibliography dealing with roleplaying for educative pruposes,
- the difference from RPG theory, be it in the area of Premise, G/N/S, stances etc.

I have a page of links and an essay on the topic on my site.  The URL is
http://www.darkshire.net/~jhkim/rpg/whatis/education.html

I don't have a bibliography specifically for education, but I have a general bibliography of books about role-playing (as opposed to games themselves), at URL
http://www.darkshire.net/~jhkim/rpg/whatis/bibliography.html

The theory question is interesting, and I'd like to talk about it more at some point.

[clehrich]

Assuming the definition of Inscenation proposed already, you might try searching for the term "Immersion," which it seems to me is relatively similar.  Note the search engine here on the Forge, for starters.

Paedagogy is British spelling, or used to be, like encyclopaedia.

Chris Lehrich

[M. J. Young]

Find CARPGa through The Escapist (http://www.theescapist.com) and get in touch with them, particularly Paul Cardwell. I know that they're experimenting in the use of role playing as part of the teaching curriculum in public schools, and he probably has some resources.

Oh, and, Welcome to the Forge.

--M. J. Young

[Bifi]

Gordon, John, Mark,

Thank you for the extensive amount of resources you provided.

More to the terminology:
Yes, the main concern is to use roleplaying in Pedagogics (sorry, my English was British). (Or educate through roleplaying what is the same.) What is special is the audience - college students (19-25 mostly). Therefore roleplay can be used in conjunction with case studies, building problem-solving and negotiating skills, advocacy etc.

Inscenation - I didn't check the word in English but right it is a theatrical term. In this context it basically means railroading - i.e. having a clear pre-made situation, characters and scenario(s) of development. The moderator (teacher) wants the students to experience certain conflicts that he identified beforehand. What I would like to do is expand this view (shared narrative control etc.) and to provide a certain structure (theoretical framework, starting with structuralism and deconstructivism, to shared text analysis (thanks Chris) and specific RPG theory i.e. G/N/S, stances and the like).

Thanks again for the warm welcome.

Michal Sedlacko

[Daredevil]

Reminds me of a thread I started quite some time ago. Check it out.

http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=5562&highlight=educational

- Joachim Buchert -

[Alan]

Hi Michal,

Role-playing and role-playing game have several definiitions: they can refer to the kind of games we discuss here at the Forge, they can refer to theatrical exercises, they can mean certain computer games, and they can refer to teaching tools used by counselors and psychiatrists.  The mained shared element between meanings is the act of taking on a role.

I'm not aware of any role-playing _game_, of the sort we generally discuss here at the Forge, being used as a teaching tool. However, I know that role-playing is used in the way you're talking about in counselling and psychology.  These applications reduce the "game" aspect to a point where it would no longer be recognizable froma Forge stand point.

If you want to kow how role-playing is used as a teaching tool in counselling and psychology, you might want to contact people in those fields.  

However, if you want us to speculate about the application of role-playing games to teaching, I'm sure someone will be happy to.

[M. J. Young]

In a perhaps serendipitous coincidence, http://www.indie-rpgs.com/profile.php?mode=viewprofile&u=2228">Eero Tuovinen just mentioned over on the http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=10165">Calvinball Rules thread that he had developed and used a game to teach/learn Latin.

You might nag him for more on that; but it might be in Finnish, so you'll have to get him to explain it.

--M. J. Young

[Eero Tuovinen]

In a perhaps serendipitous coincidence, http://www.indie-rpgs.com/profile.php?mode=viewprofile&u=2228">Eero Tuovinen just mentioned over on the http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=10165">Calvinball Rules thread that he had developed and used a game to teach/learn Latin.

Yeah, I've been exploring using games as tools of learning for some time now. Didn't bring it up here because I actually don't have the kind of academic resources the original poster asked for, just my own observations. Being the kind of elitist I am, I tend to think my own theories and consideration quite sufficient :I Anyway, shortly about my work (if anything we do with roleplaying can be given that name):

My main interest thus far has been in teaching languages, mainly because they are a kind of a holy grail of learning: biggest part memorization, and nearly useless and non-rewarding until significant learning has taken place. Essential to culture, but hardest of all to learn. The same principles can certainly be implemented for learning other things, but I've still to prove even with languages that roleplaying is an efficient supplement for conventional learning, not to even talk about a main method. My recent work with applying Ars Memorativa into the system makes things hopeful in this regard, I imagine.

That said, the matter isn't a simple one at all, and it can be approached from several approaches. I've written to date three different roleplaying tools for learning, each with wholly different assumptions about the thing. All of these are still to be seriously play-tested, what with me living with weak and lazy people who couldn't get their asses up from playing D&D to save their lives ;)

The first one was Urbs Aeterna, which has been mentioned. It's designed for a Gm slightly better in latin than players, and with rules-mechanics that reward learning with character efficiency. The backdrop is symbolical modern fantasy in a Roman milieu, and the focus is in a somewhat scholarly study of the language, with clear in-game goals (like "I wanna learn to construct esse-sentences just to get some more use out of all these words I've already learned"). One could characterize the game as a gamist-simulationist exercise, with a focus on communication (in-game communication is either in latin or the teaching language, wholly depending on goals and social situation).

The second game I built was a more specialized affair in that I build it for two specific languages: Planet Linkola is a game for english speaking people who wish to learn finnish. It's predicated on a game master wholly conversant in both languages (which isn't too attrocious a demand in Finland, where many are). The interesting thing about it is that the basic resolution and character creation mechanics, though quite sleek (if I may say so), don't have any overt relation to the affair of learning languages. The game is a (seemingly) hard scifi campaign about colonization of a new world. In a 50'-60' future of techno optimism (faster than light communication, no drive, like Ender) a colony ship crash lands into a planet which proves to be habitated: over a century earlier now almost extinct people of Finns has colonized the planet using a mystical discipline (related to the faster than light communication humanity uses) to reach the planet from Earth. The planet is a natural paradise, and the people are scaringly competent in their own sphere (think Modesitt's Ecolitan series even). The players play assorted colonists who have to struggle to survive and learn the language of the aboriginals from computer archives and talking with them. Hardcore simulationism overall, if there is such a thing, but the simulation includes optimal learning conditions from ultra-intelligent teacher computers to simple users of the language.

The latest approach I've studied relates to learning japanese: Koburu Haragana is a game of mutual storytelling (no GM), where a group of people can learn japanese. The game consists of several "albums" with their related but individual rules, a continuous overarching plot and a clear pedagogic order. No player needs to know the language before hand. To finish an album the play group has to learn the key points of language it represents, otherwise their characters are in for a hard future: the game is set into a dystopian Japan after a war against the rest of the world. Japan is a protectoriate of the world government that has outlawed all national languages and significant cultural expression in interests of world peace, making English the lingua franca even in Japan. Player characters start as students (in a light-hearted student drama), but progress to desperate freedom fighters while revealing conveniently sized bits about the culture and language of the Japan that was, even uncovering magical girls from the sheian period, mecha from the war against the world, still living ninjutsu traditions in service and fighting against the world government and other helpful bits of Japanese pop-culture ;) The game has extremely abstract mechanics bonded to the learning content, and could be characterized as narrativist (Lord knows it's impossible to play in any other mode).

I understand that some great people here would be interested in seeing my games, and I'd love to publish them for your scrutiny. However, there's a number of reasons for not doing so right now, which I'll enumerate to curb questions: first, they are in Finnish (except Plante Linkola, which is of course in english, except the GM parts), and thus I'd have to take the time to translate. No big deal. Second, the games are rough playtest level. I'd prefer for you to think me an intelligent, sophisticated game designer, and for that goal I'll prefer to give you something almost-finished to chew. Third, much of the pedagogical content one would need to run these is still largely in my head; to tell it straight, I could run these myself (and intend to, when I find some real men to play), but to make them usable by others I'll have to write quite a bit about the meta-level assumptions and pedagogy gamemasters have to control to apply the games efficiently.

These games are extremely marginal in application, and I've designed them largely for pure search of knowledge. I have some projects that are probably of more interest to the player base at large, and I'll probably concentrate on them when I get to serious writing this summer (a goal being to publish some game of mine come winter). However, if there is a larger interest in pedagogy of roleplaying games (as evidenced by active discussion), I'll take the time in the spring and summer to polish Urbs Aeterna (most usable and easiest to finish) for your perusal. Deal?

To return to the larger issue at hand, I'll contrast it to the above: roleplaying has been used to some incompetent degree for teaching languages for a long time. At least here in Finland the basic method implemented in all books is short dialogues, where usually a young Finish boy or girl moves into the country in question and has simple dialogues with the natives. This is essentially roleplaying (or at least theatre) when the teacher assigns roles and students read these short dialogues aloud. Many teachers even remove the finished dialogue and let the students speak to each other in imaginary situations. This is nothing new, although I'm thinking of a much stronger and more revolutionary method with my games, hard core gaming as it were.

[Bifi]

Alan,
I was actually thinking that the RPG theoretical framework developed on the Forge and eslewhere could actually be (after some re-focusing and tweaking) used also for analyzing roleplaying as a teaching method (not roleplaying games or gaming them per se).

Eero,
thanks for your thoughts. Your games represent an already applied theory. I am more concerned in the framework (which you probably aslo had to formulate).

[Umberhulk]

The U.S. Military makes great use out of simulations for its training exercises from computer simulations to laser tag(MILES).  Also, in many training exercises (especially low intensity conflict scenarios) there are often soldiers playing the roles of civilians on the battlefield, local leaders, etc..  I'm sure if you search around the US Army websites, you could find a FM (field manual) that has some analysis on how this helps training.

[Bifi]

Hi all,
So OK, after a bit of work into the theory of roleplaying (games) in education (pedagogy), I came up with several observations (I will not present the theory as a whole since I have to yet tie it up) - in no particular order:

1. Social Contract. Obviously, the referee being the teacher, the students actually don't have much choice in declining playing (assymetrical power situation et al.).
The goal of the play is education (meaning build-up of skills or knowledge), fun is shifted to at least second place. One difference to "standard" RPGs would be also the potential for the presence of a non-playing audience (either non-playing students what I strongly discourage, or, "expert" audience - psychologist, expert in the field/setting of the game, other teacher/monitor/person assessing the performance of the players).
Finally, the form of the game is limited by the organization of the pedagogic process - the length of the "session" by the duration of class, spatial restrictions also play a role etc.

2. Character. Has not to have a defined personality. The role you play could be just that: a position, let's say, in a firm, or something similar. This has repercussions in the Sim and in-game/metagame division, since it hasn't to be trying to mimic interaction between characters per se, but it could be just Bob and Joe playing being executives.

3. Slight changes in the GNS. The application in education remains a but muddled for me as of now but one distinctive feature grasped my mind: authorial power, and how it connects to GNS. I use GNS for the sake of classifying games in order to find some typical archetypes and then will shift to GNS as modes.
In Sim-oriented games the players decide based on the information provided and within its limits, with no power to bring into play new elements or come up with previously unknown information. The game focuses on modeling reality, especially decision-making and impacts of decision on the development of the situation. Suitable for experiencing decisions in politics or international relations, business and commerce.
Nar games would be more about conflict negotiation, where for the sake of argumenting the players would be able to develop (story) elements not included in the game text. The game focuses on? Some cooperatively achieved result comes to mind, but I'm not sure.
Gamist games would be oriented more on the mechanics modeling reality rather than the reality (its modeling) itself. Games of power and political influence or market competition with clearly defined rules and victory conditions come to mind. The players actually compete against each other.

Actually, let's say that for an example we have a game of relations between three empires. It could be played using all three modes. Gamism would mean competition - gaining influence, power, wealth etc., while hindering others doing so. The educative goal could be fulfilled via color, or system, but probably mainly through situation or setting. Sim (let's say) stresses realism of the decision-making situation for the representants of these empires. For the purposes of education this is quite clear and actually widely used, the other modes are the ones not recognized. And I'm having problems with Nar here.

Sorry for the rambling and thanks for your comments.
Michal

[M. J. Young]

Actually, Michal, you're having a bit of trouble with all three agenda. Let me suggest that for the moment you abandon them and consider more how to focus your game on what you wish to accomplish; whether that proves to be more sim, nar, or gam, whether it winds up hybrid or supports drift, is something to consider after you've got more of the essential concepts in place. (It is not true of simulationism that players never create within the shared imaginary space, nor is it true that narrativism or gamism always do allow this. Also, whether modeling reality is necessarily simulationist or gamist is a red herring; it is typical for simulationist games to do so more rigorously, and for gamist games to have more flexibility in that regard to facilitate play, but all three agenda have a great deal of room for more or less of this.)

I think perhaps this might help your thinking a bit. What is it that you want the student players to learn?

[*]If you want the players to engage each other, or rise up against some obstacle, to overcome, and so learn about competitive systems, you will favor support for gamism. Games which attempt to teach about particular economic models would be particularly valuable here, but political conflicts and wars also fall in this category.[*]If you wish players to face difficult moral or ethical issues and propose ideas with which to handle these, you're headed for a narrativist game. Courses in ethics, politics, philosophy, and religion would probably favor such play, but it might be possible to use such play in history (replaying moments when such decisions resulted in major changes in the world) or civics/current events (discussing dealing with civil rights, discrimination, abortion, euthanasia, or other modern hot topics).[*]If the idea is to immerse players in a particular microcosm of the world, such as a period in history or a segment of society, simulationism might be the desired agendum. Again, history, political science, and subcategories of economics would benefit from such approaches to play.[/list:u]
I'm going to tell what I think is a cautionary tale.

In 1971 my American History I teacher decided to use a game in class to teach us about price fixing and late nineteenth century economies. One student played a farmer; the rest of us were divided into teams to play the railroads. It was supposed to be a simulation; we were supposed to learn that we had to enter into collusion to fix our prices such that every railroad could stay in business.

I made a few inquiries of the other players, and discovered that each railroad was designed such that if it did not get the contract within four turns, it would be bankrupt. I quickly realized that the way to win this game was to underbid my own costs, lose money on the deal four times in a row, and then be the only railroad that could still afford to put trains on the line. Exerting a great deal of pressure on my team, I managed to capture two contracts and lose one to a team that decided to take the load for free--and then the teacher ended the game, because "we weren't learning what we were supposed to learn".

But I always thought we were. I saw clearly in that game that if one could drive all the competition out of business, the resulting monopoly would be profitable at a reasonable cost to the consumer, limited by the fact that if prices went too high alternative means of transportation would be used (which was inherent in the rules--the farmer could transport his goods by wagon at a high cost unknown to us).

Although the jargon did not exist in 1971, clearly the game designer believed he had created a simulationist game that would cause us to learn some notions about nineteenth century economics; however, the particular mechanics of the bidding wars were necessarily gamist, and I, with a mind toward gameplay even then, quickly discovered how to exploit the system toward a victory for my team. The referee could complain all she wanted that I didn't "play right", but the fact remains that I worked within the rules to achieve the stated objective of the game, and would have won had she not terminated play prematurely.

This danger will exist if you attempt to create a game that supports multiple agenda. Someone will recognize that they can "play to win the game", and will do so if that's possible. This will disrupt your other priorities in most cases.

I hope this is helpful.

--M. J. Young