Role Playing in Education

[Capricious Raven]

Hey,


I am interested in using role playing in my middle school creative writing classes and was wondering if anyone had any ideas about where I should start. I have always though character creation to be the best place to start, but I was discussing with a colleague who said that world building should comes first as the world and its culture are what determines the limits and personality of a character.


Do you have any thoughts on this subject?


I was also wondering if you think that irl role play or online forum role play would be easier for starters. Why?


Thanks in advance for the help.

 

[JayTee]

I had two immediate thoughts on this subject.


Thought the first: "This guy is going to get in so much trouble when the anti-DnD brigade comes knocking."


Thought the second: "The FATE system would be an excellent way to go about teaching kids about writing and world building.


I can elaborate on those if you want. In general though I urge caution and wish you the best of luck. For some reason TTRPGs still haven't gotten the level of public acceptance that, say, video games have, so you might be in for a hard time.

 

[Capricious Raven]

I am familiar with the DND system, but I have never worked with the FATE system. I would love to hear more about it.


Luckily, I work at a fine arts school and my administration has already given me the go ahead. If that survives parents... well we will see.

 

[Grin]

If the educational focus is to be on storytelling, I would personally consider going with something system-light and story driven. There's an RPG written by Jonathan Tweet called "Over The Edge" that has a perfect system for that. Besides being a "stat-less" system that encourages creativity, it also lacks the name recognition of games like D&D which should keep the more zealous parents off your back.


Another approach might be LARP rules, which are dice-less and slightly more portable.

 

[Capricious Raven]

Do you have suggestions for LARP rules that would work with middle school students?

 

[Grin]

I actually don't LARP so I don't know the individual "rules systems" per se. I do know that Vampire/Werewolf types use a system that relies on paper/rock/scissors, and I do know the setting puts a premium on social interaction.


That said, pretty much any off-the-shelf LARPing solution is going to need some modification for middle school, if only to nerf the combat rules. I'm pretty sure any middle-schooler that comes home and starts telling his parents how he defeated his classmates by using his backstab bonus is going to land you on the local news one way or another.

 

[Grin]

(Conversely, OTE's bare-bones system uses 6-sided dice exclusively, and its combat rules are all but identical to the rest of its rules, so it might be easier to adapt to your lesson plan better.)

 

[Capricious Raven]

I'll have to look into a couple. Thanks for the advice Grin!

 

[JayTee]

Yeah, it's the crazy parents and their "DnD is the devil" mentality that you really need to watch out for.


The FATE system is very rules light, and very much built towards narrative resolutions rather than the more typical "let the dice fall where they may" that most games have. There's a great deal of stress on outlining your character's Aspects (system term for short descriptors of a character) and the city they play in, and then providing a resource known as FATE Points that allow you to take advantages of those Aspects.


I think there is a free version online somewhere, but I'd have to go digging to find it. If you happen across it, give it a try, it should have everything you're looking for.