The following is Part I of a three-part series on the experiential learning benefits of live-action roleplaying games such as Adventure Quest.
By Mark Hoge
Founder and director of Renaissance Adventures.
I’ve been a fan of roleplaying games (RPGs) since I was introduced to Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) in the late 70’s. As a teen, RPGs gave me a creative and social outlet I couldn’t find anywhere else. Throughout my 20’s, I played various RPGs as a hobby, and during that time I spent most of my summers working with children at camps and apprenticing with inspiring teachers.
When I discovered live-action roleplaying games (LARPs) in the late 80’s, I recognized their potential as an experiential learning tool for kids and teens. While directing summer camps from 1990-1994, I experimented with a simple Native American themed LARP using foam spears, daggers, and arrows. The impact on those kids made it clear to me that a well-run LARP or RPG can challenge kids in diverse ways – physically, intellectually, socially, morally, and ethically. The youth were passionately engaged in the LARP. They learned a lot about themselves and others. I discovered then that roleplaying is an incredible tool for learning cooperation, teamwork, decision making, creative problem-solving, and self-esteem. LARPs, run in a certain style, encourage and support self-confidence, cooperation, critical thinking, and communication skills, and the kids have a blast!
I moved to Boulder in 1995 and founded Renaissance Adventures with the dream to lead quests and inspire youth to learn through play. Since then, I’ve worked with hundreds of adult leaders and thousands of children and teens, co-creating a fun and inspiring experiential learning program through LARPs and tabletop RPGs.
Over the last twenty-two years of developing LARP experiential learning programs for children and teens, I’ve seen what works and what doesn’t. Listed below are a few of my discoveries.
1. Participants learn when they are wholeheartedly engaged
LARPs and RPGs have the potential to offer an exciting, engaging story that captures the attention and passion of participants. You can do this by including the following elements:
- Design the adventure to have a highly motivating plot – great tragedy will befall if the players do not act swiftly and effectively.
- Make it personal by passionately roleplaying those who are in need of aid, and potentially by tying the story into the personal history or actions of one or more players. Find ways for each player character to feel that they matter and they are needed on the quest.
2. Participants learn when they have frequent, impactful decision-making opportunities
LARPs and RPGs offer frequent decision-making opportunities that have a large effect on the characters, world, and story.
- Quest Leaders (aka Referees or Game Masters) can hold a framework for the adventure, but must be flexible to allow co-creation by the players’ decisions. When players’ decisions clearly affect the storyline, they realize how important decisions are. This educates the players in the power of decisions, and gives them a very real sense of personal empowerment in all aspects of their life.
- Players learn by experiencing the in-game consequences of their decisions while feeling safe to experiment, explore, and make poor decisions without real-world negative consequences. When a poor decision affects the storyline negatively, the players experience the effects and learn from mistakes without any real-world consequences.
In seeing how a well-crafted LARP is different than most standard RPGs, Consider the old-school gaming model of the dungeon crawls. The plot is often the same: open the door to the north; slay the evil monsters; get the loot; level up your powers; repeat. Not many decisions need to be made in that kind of adventure. Now compare it with a more complex situation that involves different political realms, races, and the conflicting needs and goals of diverse people. This more complex and realistic way of setting a storyline fuels an amazing, dynamic environment that requires creative problem-solving, ethical decision making, planning, and teamwork among the players.
For example: The Ridgeback Dwarves tell tales of how the goblins of the Amber Forest are vicious, cruel murderers. When the Questers investigate, they discover that the goblins are simply protecting their harvesting ground from the dwarves’ wood-cutting forays. The goblins eat the fruit that grow on the trees, and hunt squirrels. The dwarves need wood for their forges and hearth homes.
The example above is not complex – it is a very simple example. However, it gives the players the opportunity to perceive what’s really going on and to try to come up with a win-win negotiation for both races. A few solutions seem obvious when the goals are spelled out so clearly, but of course, learning the goals and motivations are a part of the learning process and the fun of the quest. If the players do not attempt to learn what is going on and think beyond what they are told by the Ridgeback Dwarves, they may charge in to slay the “murderous” goblins, akin to the typical old-school gaming model. The consequences for this blindly simple action – slaying the goblins – will create consequences that the players and dwarves must face. Perhaps a few goblin survivors escape and rally other, more fierce goblin tribes to take back the Amber Forest, and hunt down down the players in retaliation. Just think of the multitudes of lessons that participants can learn with this scenario.
Coming soon, Part II of the three-part series, exploring the diversity of challenges and emotional safety of Experiential Education LARPs.
At Renaissance Adventures, our live-action roleplaying games focus on the development of what we call "21st century skills." These are the kinds of skills that are important for kids to know in this day and age, and in fact are often unsupported in the school system or other institutions. The 21st century skills we are talking about are: ethical reasoning, fitness, fun, self-esteem, critical thinking, teamwork, and social skills. The acronym is: EFFECTS.
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