3 Key Methods to Scaling RPGs and Character Creation
Over the last few years, the question of how role-playing games (RPGs) can be scaled up for large groups keeps coming up from administrators. How can it go big without getting unwieldy? Such a great question and on the forefront of all teacher-gamers’ minds.
I would like to share my three method system that may not be perfect, but it does consider how to unfold the role-playing game process and procedure through an education frame. Meaning, teachers cannot afford to lose time, attention, and control of the learning environment, the way a normal RPG experience can be experimented with. So, although it might not be completely learner-centred and perfectly co-created, it gives new players a really grand overview of how creation can be done with lots of opportunity to discuss, ask questions, go off on little mini-explorations while staying ultimately on track to getting your RPGs going.
Usually an RPG at home, with friends, or with new players in the community has a social contract that is binding to a small group. Maybe in a homeschools or after school programs there is space to be messy about it, but in an official school or high stakes learning environment, we may not have the luxury. Nor is anything regarded as a pastime — even as an elective. We are looking for measurable outcomes and have curriculum goals.
Bringing RPGs into a learning environment, some would argue, takes the ‘magic’ out of the experience. I whole-heartedly agree that there is a risk involved, especially if
- the person implementing the RPG is not a certified teacher or teacher who knows how to run interactive lesson plans
- the person implementing the RPG is an inexperienced gamer
- too much is attempted at the same time
However, I also believe if done in the right way, it is better than not doing anything at all. And after 8 years of deploying RPGs in schools and various learning environments, I am confident that it can be done and with great impact, care, ‘magic’, and learning. Social Emotional Learning (SEL) and Project Based Learning (PBL) are crying out for RPGs in Schools… it just needs the proper Teacher-Gamers to implement them.
In a classroom, when you have over six learners — and most of us who teach 10 year old and older children, have somewhere between 12 and 30 learners at a time — it is difficult to keep the intimate feel of a role-playing game and the diverse possibilities of moving through the narrative at an exciting rhythm that builds and maintains the energy required to hold individual/group attention, boost intrinsic motivation, and stimulate satisfying social emotional growth of team cohesion. Not to mention a myriad of other things that can feel overwhelming when a teacher tries to accomplish too much in a learning environment.
So here is, at least at this time, my current methodology for scaling RPGs to beyond 6 students at a time.
Method 1 — The primary method — model through character creation
Bring learner-gamers tightly along a set of character creation activities that makes sure we have equal parts discussion, best practices instructions, alone time to write, pair time to compare, group sharing and questions. And then on to the next step of building the character. This I do for about 10 hours of class/learning time. I have outlined this process in great detail in the Teacher-Gamer Handbook as the “13 Step Character Build”. Here is a glimpse of what step 3 might look like:
Why I find this method so critical is that when we finally open up into the game, learners have already had multiple sessions and processing time to develop a world view about the game system and the world we have built together. Consider the opposite: if I gave them premade characters and just told them what their basic trope is, then they would not only be a cardboard cutout hero of someone else’s design, they would also have little idea of how the game works and how the world works. The results would be that it would be super teacher-centered. All the learners would be constantly asking me questions about the most basic things. The ten hour character build of activities has plenty of time for questions, but we are taking one thing at a time:
- What makes a great hero
- What type of character to play
- How different creature or races work in the game world
- How the local and global economies work
- What are jobs, skills and crafts related to the character and the economy
- How skill-sets work
- How core abilities work
- How belief systems work
- How technology or magic factor in
- What daily life is like
- What is the local and global geography
- Etcetera
By this method, we can bring players through the set up process and if need be, we can have 300 students in a stadium lecture class or even online and we can all be on the same page. Of course that would be super challenging, but if it was done tightly and we don’t try to rush things, it is “do-able”.
Method 2 — Teach learner-gamers how to GM right away
As we finish character creation, the only way from it falling back to ‘teacher-centered’ is to teach them all how to be game masters (aka GMs or DMs = Dungeon Masters). Otherwise, regardless, I will have 12, 30, or 300 players and I will be the only person who knows how to run the narrative. That might sound awesome, but it’s really not.
The thing is, most players want to play already, so the only thing I can do is either put them on a rotation with me as GM, which is a big juggling act, or I have to bring veteran players in as GMs or other people from the community as GMs. There is a loss of control here as you can imagine, but it does free me up to oversee different game sessions happening simultaneously.
Method 3 — Strategy of implementation — training teacher-gamers
For now, we are working on developing the “Teacher-Gamer” themself — a person who brings their passion into the classroom and inspires children/learners/students with this super power that they have and share. For me it is games, martial arts, creative writing, mindfulness and astronomy. The trick is that I fit those things into my main role as an English teacher. For another teacher it could be saxophone, tea, organic gardening, reptiles and photography. They could be teaching Spanish, biology, P.E. or history — it doesn’t matter.
The key is to make what you do playful. Get people to play along and find their own place, their own role, and meanwhile make what you’re doing be a model of what scalability looks like. So, when people look back at their learning, they see that your teaching was an expansive way of keeping education learner-centered.
Conclusion — more tools! Teacher-Gamer Podcast can help with that
So, to really pull it off, I recommend first building characters together to get into the game world and game mechanics, then in groups of two or three learners generate their own campaign experience — or give them a premade module to study and fortify. And teach them how to run a game. Easier said than done, but remember this is an overview. I also detail this in the Teacher-Gamer Handbook (TGHB). And finally, have learner-gamers rotate as DMs and as players in each others’ campaigns.
I am very open to learning more methods to produce larger scale RPGs in the classroom and across school boards. Please leave a comment and connect with us in any of the social media outlets listed below.
Each teacher-gamer has their own techniques and strategies, largely because they just went for it. And maybe it is time you do the same. It is my goal to make teacher-gamers’ offerings sound and profound, so more children grow up with RPGs in Schools.
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