Swords prohibited at school?! 12 Kinaesthetic RPG activities you can do besides foam sword battles

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The Teacher-Gamer Revolution

8 min readSep 6, 2020

So foam swords won’t fly at your school or homeschool. What else could you do? Below is an exploration of a few other ideas that you can introduce in person (ideally) or online for students to do physically that will contribute to their overall #RPGsInSchools learning experience.

Some of these challenges can be just to feel what it’s like to wear things or sense what a certain amount of time is or to create what something looks like. These are very creative and sensing experiences, however there can also be full role-playing opportunities, like playing a tabletop RPG (online or in person) with gear on, in character, and in full wardrobe as an in-game event — see the Adventurer clothing outing challenge below.

Plan ahead by figuring out how to turn an in-game challenge into a test of physical feats that players perform to overcome as their characters.

Here are some different Kinaesthetic projects and challenges [Roll d12 for a random activity!]

1. Backpack challenge

2. Outfit challenge

3. Armor challenge

4. Full gear challenge

5. Adventurer clothing outing challenge

6. Makeup challenge

7. Combat round challenge

8. Rope and/or grappling hook challenge

9. Animal companion ceremony challenge

10. Hike time or distance challenge

11. Dance choreography challenge

12. Group salute challenge

Make sure that the gear, equipment, or weapons you create keep the air of cosplay and do not cross the edge of realistic. The last thing you want in your community is a misunderstanding or someone getting hurt. Please refrain from creating projectile weapons and making gun replicas (future, present or past).

Backpack challenge

Get or make a backpack and fill it with either the exact things your character is carrying or after determining the weight, load a backpack with the weight of your gear to see how it would feel to carry these things. Try walking around. Have a race either with another person with a pack or using a stopwatch and one backpack.

Outfit challenge

Get or make the outfit your character is wearing. See what it feels like to move around. To run. To climb a fence or to jump from different surfaces. Consider some things you are doing in your campaign adventure and re-enact the situation.

Armor challenge

Get or make the armor your character is wearing. Feel the weight of what you propose your character is wearing. Ideally you could find some chain mail or Kevlar armor to put on, but you can also make sand bags out of socks and hang them in a harness that players can try on over their shoulders so they can realize what 25 pounds or 11 kilograms feel like.

Same with a helmet. Maybe you can borrow a motorcycle helmet or kids can bring their bike helmets in and transform them for a day with face shields, etc.

What would it be like to wear that armor for one hour!?

Full gear challenge

Get or make all the gear you wear. This could be a culmination of other challenges. What is it like to hangout in this gear while trying to do something else, like walking from one place to another or when going to the farmer’s market or into a café or restaurant? Give students the chance to feel what it is like to walk in their characters’ shoes (boots or sandals).

Adventurer clothing outing challenge

Like the Full gear challenge, take the outfit you created for your character and wear it out to a cosplay event. Create an event and invite others to come or simply have your own private party asking players to role-play their characters in an event that is in the campaign.

This moves closer to Live Action Role-Playing. It gives players a taste of LARPing.

Players can carry weapons at your discretion.

Makeup challenge

Get some serious creature make up on and look like your character does. Make wigs! Make some elf ears and put them on with some hair dye! Apply some makeup that makes your face look more slender, gives you five chins or sports a 12 inch beard and mustachio.

Invite a makeup artist and hairstylist in to teach the students. Do everyone up for portraits or to do an outing.

Combat round challenge

What can you do in 6 seconds? [This is how much time or whatever is a combat round in your RPG] Get out a stopwatch and set up some scenarios that clarify what you can do in a combat round.

Go out to a football pitch or basketball court where distance is already indicated for easy reference and measure in 6 seconds:

[roll a d10 for a random challenge!]

1. how far can everyone walk, jog and run?

2. how far can everyone walk, jog and run with gear on or carrying a bucket of sand/water?

3. how far could you charge, leap, and execute a single wild attack?

4. how far could you charge and throw an object accurately?

5. how far can you run, pull a bandage out of your backpack, and wrap it around someone’s arm or leg? [ie: heal someone]

6. how far can you run, pull something out of your backpack, and exchange it with a friend for something else and put it back in your backpack?

7. how far can you run, pull something out of your backpack, and throw it? And to what accuracy? [set up a barrel, bucket, target, person, or use a basketball hoop]

8. how far can you run, pull out a cell phone, and send a text? [like activating an item or spell]

9. how far can you run, pull out a notebook and pen, and write a legible note

10. Other: ______________ [come up with your own!]

This gives everyone a much more realistic idea of what timing and accuracy we are assuming characters are able to perform tasks, skills and feats.

Rope and/or grappling hook challenge

When players say they are going to tie themselves together to get across a chasm… Get rope and ask players to tie themselves together. When they say they are going to make a harness and repel down a wall or climb up an embankment, give them the rope and ask them what knots they are going to tie?

Have them watch a tutorial, learn yourself to teach it, or have someone come in to teach tying knots.

There are climbing wall professionals, rope-course enthusiasts, and mountain climbers in most communities. Take a field trip or invite someone to come in and share rope safety and rope tricks.

Animal companion ceremony challenge

Devise and carry out what your ceremony would look like if you asked “Mother Nature” for an animal companion. What would you sacrifice? What would you offer? Like a person who asks for the blessing from a fiancé’s parents, what is it like to go into nature and commit to a relationship where you ask for an animal companion whose life you will share, protect, and cherish?

Write a poem in beautiful script. Draw a plan for a magic circle made of chalk designs. Carve the likeness of the animal out of a bar of soap or piece of wood. Prepare a special outfit or “altar” that is part of your summoning spell.

If this was a sci-fi game, then it might be: Design your robot and make a life-size or miniature version of it. In-game role-play a visit to the market where you will need to buy all the pieces of the droid.

Foam weapon replica challenge

Make your own weapons out of foam that are replicas of the weapons your characters use. Generally, I would encourage you to make foam melee weapons and not projectile weapons.

Also consider making weapons that are not perfectly realistic as you would never want to evoke fear or generate a dangerous misunderstanding in your community. I never allow the making of gun replicas.

Make sure that weapon creation is appropriate for your educational environment. My belief is that creating and simulating battles with archaic weapons gives students more respect for human fragility and pre-firearm historical reality.

Hike time or distance challenge

Children walk across a bridge made of 4 thick bamboo poles lashed together, drab green muddy river flows 15 feet beneath

Hike the distance your characters travel. This can be a simple hike of time or distance. Add in-game gear, weight, riddles, or physical challenges that mirror the campaign world the players are in.

Dance choreography challenge

Produce a dance that your group would do as a presentation when they busk in a village square or present themselves to the lord or lady of the land. It could also include music made by them or singing. Sky is the limit and really should be something inspired by the students not forced upon them. This could also be something that some students opt to do while others do something else.

Group salute challenge

Come up with a 30 or 60 second salute that your group would do just before they enter a challenge, as a presentation when they succeed at a challenge, or when they address themselves in a formal situation (such as to community leaders). It could also include music made by them or singing if they want and can be combined with other challenges above or with some of the alternate maker space activities from the Teacher-Gamer Handbook.

Authentic learning activities create real-world introductions

Put your learners in the hot seat so they understand how training is important. Who knows: by exposing students to these physical opportunities, some of them may develop an interest in one or more skills or hobbies due to this introduction.

Don’t forget that these challenges may be different for different RPGs.

Many adults have likely never done these things, so it is also fun to involve them. Get parents to help students do assignments, that way they spend more time bonding together with their kids and it is not just about sitting at a table reading, writing, and talking.

Also, make sure that the gear, equipment, or weapons you create keep the air of cosplay and do not cross the edge of realistic. The last thing you want in your community is a misunderstanding or someone getting hurt. Please refrain from creating projectile weapons and making gun replicas (future, present or past).

Have fun, engage learners and reform education to include RPGs in Schools.

Life. Skills. Adventure!