Unfortunately the FigmentsOfFilaments Braille dice I bought through Etsy I can't recommend at all. This video illustrates why (beginning around 01:55): https://www.twitch.tv/videos/247980840
UPDATE 20180419 12:00 pm: Follow up email from seller. They recently bought a better 3d printer that should help, and they are open to making some of the suggested design improvements. I have asked them to email me when they have made those improvements, and I will gladly re-evaluate the improved dice.
UPDATE 20180419 11:00 am: I have been emailed by the seller. I have responded to the email.
UPDATE 20180418: Regarding my critique of the Figments Of Filaments product, and being unable to get support from the seller, one person on Facebook (apparently personally connected to the creator of the product) posted very emotional dissenting comments upset about my assessments.
More hopeful about the design and quality of the Braille dice from others we are receiving next.
Short summary:
Recommendations to creator for improvements:
In addition to my reviews of the products as I open them on the show (and we all share the first impressions as they happen), I will be taken the different Braille dice from different providers to our local "Nexus Center", which provides services for the Deaf, Hard of Hearing, and visually impaired community members. There I will ask people to proviude their observations of the different products, and I will report back to everyone what they say.
After the show (which is when I noticed the problems with the product), I tried to find a means to contact the seller, but they did not provide an easy method of communication, and after my third go round with etsy's technical issues, I gave up in frustration. I do not have much time to spend trying to track them down. Last week between school and work I put in over 136 hours!
All of the emails from the purchase were formatted like "transaction@etsy.com" or "noreply@etsy.com". When prompted to create an account with the existing email for the transaction, etsy's site responded that the email wasn't recognized, but when tried to create new account with that email, it responded that the email already existed, and when asked for password, it reported no such email.
The invoice doesn't include email, phone number, website or other means of contact (only postal address). So, between the lack of contact information, and etsy's technical issues, and my very VERY busy schedule, I didn't have more time to trying to find a means to contact the seller.
To be clear the review isn't about "shaming" in the least, it is a live show where I shared information on the fly, musing aloud and showing with the audience my observations of the product.
As an owner of 4 small businesses (1 of which is a non-profit), any business owner generally knows that you only get 1 chance to make a first impression with customers, that is life.
If the seller wants to reach out to me to replace/fix the issues, that would be great.
I share any product review follow-ups with the audience as well.
The video is just an honest critique not an attack in the slightest.
The product I received was highly flawed.
The burden of quality control is on the business owner or individual creator, not the purchaser.
I am glad to hear that you believe what I received is not a typical example of their product.
I had no other data to draw upon or share with our audience, other than the product I received.
If the seller happens to come across this review, and would like to address the design, manufacture, and support issues, I hope you find this feedback useful feedback. You are welcome to use any of our Contact options via web form, email, phone, social network: CONTACT US.
Happy Gaming!
Totally depends on the goals and audience. I have wrriten a fair amount on this topic previously, including for some specific populations (see References section).
With some populations some competitive games can be devastating to their self-confidence if they lose (ASD and others), while others, with proper guided processing, can get some real benefits win or lose (often most benefit from losing and then helping them process what they can learn).
Personally I prefer cooperative games because of the amazing things breaking out of so many rigid thought patterns that can be accomplished, when switching from zero-sum thinking to non-zero-sum.
ADD/ADHD Classroom Modifications: Gamification - Competitive vs. Cooperative
1994 - Cooperative games: a way to modify aggressive and cooperative behaviors in young children
An Overview History and Potential Therapeutic Value of Role Playing Gaming
Potential Benefits and Deficit of Role Playing Gaming
Therapy is fantasy: role-playing, healing, and the construction of symbolic order.
Original thread: https://www.alignable.com/insights/what-do-you-think-is-an-appropriate-relationship-with-a?_tid=122564
April 6th, 2018, their question: "What do you think is an appropriate relationship with a client/customer? Do you think that it is ok to be "friends" with the people that purchase your product or service? I know that I have a tendency to get emotionally invested in my customers, which causes me to sometimes go way past the spectrum of the services that we offer."
My answer on the fly: "This is a complex topic, and this format is not well suited for the level of complexity, but I will try to summarize.
It depends on your audience and discipline. Some people feel more respect and pay better attention to someone with a more professional mien, while others find better connection with a friendlier more accessible persona.
1. In our therapeutic settings, while "friendly" may help facilitate a more effective process, a "friendly relationship" within the scope of the client/therapist relationship is very different from "being friends". There are serious ethical (and potential legal) issues if going beyond just friendly professionalism. One should generally avoid doing so. If a potential client is already a friend, it is probably better to refer them to another professional you trust, even if it is a coworking therapist or employee, rather than trying to be your friend's therapist. Many disciplines have strict ethical codes definining and limiting relationship boundaries, and failure to stay within those limitations could lead to significant professional and/or legal consequences.
2. In our educational settings, there is still the prospect of an authority figure and significant power inequality of the relationship. Compound that with payment transactions, and especially if working with minors (or anyone significantly younger than yourself), or any protected populations, one must be very careful about this relationship. While friendly can greatly facilitate the learning process, you still want to keep clear lines of separation. There are fewer ethical issues with teaching with an adult peer friend wants to take your courses, than in a therapeutic setting, but still wise to keep a professional boundary, and try to treat all the students equally while within the classroom. It is probably not necessary to refer the existing friend to another instructor in most cases.
3. In other disciplines, such as our entertainment services, this is even less of an issue, though still separating your professional persona and style of interaction when "on the clock" with the customer, versus how you behave off the clock, should have some sort of clear delineation. You don't want to be sidetracked shooting the breeze with a friend that is paying you for a specific service. That could build resentment in not getting as good a quality of service as other customers, and may lead to them going elsewhere for a "more professional" service."
And my addendum here speific to role-playing gaming services.
This gets even more complicated with role-playing games, especially tabletop and live-action (LARP), and potentially computer-based.
I provide paid RPG services in all of the following contexts:
As well as unpaid RPG sessions.
In therapeutic settings I follow #1 strictly. Period.
In educational settings, I am more flexible as listed, but I took take on the "instructor mantel" clearly during the course times. It can take me a few minutes to switch gears into friend mode. I try very hard not to have bias when friends are in the classroom.
In paid entertainment/recreation settings, they may or may not be friends, but either way, they are paying for my professional best, so I need to be taking on the full role of the professional recreational facilitator and/or entertainer. This is trickier with RPGs with friends, since it is such a collaborative effort. I won't turn an existing free group with friends into a billable group. But if a friedn or others in my free groups want to join my professional paid sessions, I do the best i can to treat them as other paying players, and it is a different experience and persona than when running my casual at-home games with friends or gamer-friends. I generally won't eat during paid sessions (only during established breaks), other than initial ice breaking conversations and activities, I tend to keep the conversations and energy focused as closely on the game with as few tangents as possible. I have a more reserved though friendly professional persona, and do not share my personal life, or enquire about their personal lives in such settings. I am on the clock and want to provide them with the maximum, most efficient, deepest immersive experience (shooting for as much flow state for them), as possible. I try to keep us to a clearly defined and followed start, breaks, and stop schedule, etc. I will not go hang out with the customers/clients after the session, etc.
This is of course just a tiny portion of the tip of the iceberg of professional ethics issues. By no means all inclusive. I try to address these issues (and many others) in depth in some of my 77 courses on RPGs that I am (slowly) migrating all online at http://rpgedu.com
The non-paid game sessions, I tend to be more myself. There are more tangents and jokes between all of us. It is more laid back, and may often talk about divergent topics during breaks, etc. We may be eating during the game, etc. Our start, break, and stop times my be more flexible, etc. We may often go hang out and do other activities after the session, etc.
In general, I try to override the human biases that are often inadvertent and unavoidable if unaware of them, of in-group (friends) versus out-group (others/not-friends), in all but the "friends having fun free gaming/recreation" setting, knowing that such efforts are not by any means foolproof, but awareness, training, and practice, assessment, feedback, and iteration can help reduce those inherent biases. With permission, I generally video & audio record all game sessions, professional and friendly. This mostly helps me have something to go back and reference in preparation for the next session (since I juggle so many sessions). It also makes it possible to go back, and either personally (or have others), try to more objectively review the dynamics in the session, and then through discussion try to modify behavior in my future sessions.
Others may take many other approaches, but these are the parameters I use as guidelines, and encourage staff and others to take into consideration.
-Hawke Robinson
Founder & President, RPG Research & RPG Therapeutics LLC.
Washington State Department of Health Registered Recreational Therapist.
About Hawke Robinson: http://www2.rpgtherapeutics.com/about/staff/hawke-robinson
Original FB posting link: https://www.facebook.com/groups/372637609602703/?multi_permalinks=645324165667378&ref=notif¬if_t=group_activity¬if_id=1496609836154118
As far as just setting up the room/table, with video & audio recording of sessions, whiteboard, battlemats/tiles, miniatures, dice, pencils, markers, rulebooks, GM screen, character sheets ready, PC roster ready, adventure notes, lighting, background acoustics, etc.,
About 30-60 minutes to prepare.
If using the mobile gaming facility trailer, and assuming it is "ready to go", as above, _plus_ takes about 5 more minutes to prepare the trailer if no participants in wheelchairs, else about 10 minutes if participants in wheelchairs.
If an existing non-therapeutic/education ongoing campaign meeting weekly, about 30-60 minutes.
If a new campaign/adventure/group, many scores of hours.
If writing a new module from scratch, for example for Tolkien Moot each year, anywhere from 60 to 120 hours.
If an ongoing therapeutic or education campaign with specific measurable goals for participants to achieve, using existing modules I've created for that population in the past, about 1-2 hours of intake paperwork and initial assessments of participants per group, then about 1 hour of prep per participant initially, and then about 15-30 minutes preparation and progress assessment per session.
If creating an entire new program for a new population, anywhere from 20 to 200+ hours.
If using a published LARP, not creating my own from scratch, for smaller non-costume / non-boffer LARPS, and with a new adventure, about 2-8 hours.
For Costume or boffer LARPs that I provide the garb, innumerable hours, if they provide their own garb, for one-shots that I've run before, about 30 minutes preparation.
For ongoing LARP campaigns, about 45-90 minutes prep per session.
For computer-based group RPG (CRPG) sessions, if at my house and the computers are already up and running and up to date, then about 20-40 minutes.
If setting up in mobile facility for CRPG a few hours to move systems from home/office to trailer, and then setup for participants, and making sure all networking working correctly, server access working, etc.
If DMing a CRPG, for example with NeverWinterNights (oldie but a goodie), about 4 to 12 hours of scripting per 4 hours of gaming, the first time around, after that, very little preparation time necessary.
For guided Solo Adventure Books/Modules, about 10-15 minutes setup.
My working hypothesis has two parts, one, that the now inculcated social assumption about role-playing gamers and gaming drives away more "normal" people from the hobby and attracts the stereotypes because people are increasingly buying into the media and apocryphal stories the longer they are reinforced. The second half is because the gamers that fit the stereotypes are the rejects from the regular groups.
The "mature", "normal" players are already in their groups, that typically stick together for years, even decades. Generally the make up of the group only changing when people move and such. Then there is the percentage of role-playing gamer "floaters" that get kicked from group to group because of their various dysfunctions. These are the gamers that are most often seen in public as they go to pick up games at comic book stores, hobby stores, conventions, and new-member invites. Since they are so dysfunctional, they keep getting kicked out after a few sessions, and being the cycle again.
Meanwhile the "normal" gamers are happily meeting regularly at home or in closed game rooms, and most of the public never see the "normal" players, and instead generally just see the dysfunctional floaters.
Though occasionally some of the players I gamed with in the 70's, 80's, and 90's fit the stereotypes, MOST of those I gamed with were successful, well-adjusted, functional people, with none of the anti-social and dysfunctional aspects claimed about role-playing gamer stereotypes.
The research done on role-playing gamers (correlative and meta studies) shows the stereotypes generally disproved.
Most of the gamers I gamed with regularly didn't have any more trouble getting dates, girlfriends, wives/husbands, etc. than anyone else. They were from all walks of life and interests, and over the years most of them were professionally successful.
There are very few gamers I have gamed with (once they are adults) long enough to get to know more about their personal lives, that fit the dysfunctional, anti-social, unemployed, living in their parents basement stereotype.
Though everyone has various foibles and challenges, most of them did not map to the stereotypes any more strongly than other groups (non-gamers). That being said during about that time period, more recently about half of the gamers I have met since about 2004 to current have been fitting the stereotypes. I have had to move a few times over the years when I was building my professional career, including Utah, California, Oklahoma, Idaho, Washington, and elsewhere, and as I moved it took a while to put new groups together.
When I moved to Spokane, Washington, I began seeing a LOT of the stereotypical gamers. At first I thought it might be an issue with Spokane (I haven't completely ruled that out yet), but as I have gone to Seattle and elsewhere, I developed the aforementioned alternative hypotheses.
What do you think of these ideas?
Whatever ideas I have for developing testable hypotheses run into the problem of self-selection and selection. With enough funding it is theoretically possible to find a sample of people that do not go to conventions or books stores or public gaming venues but do game with friends, through random polling and selection datagbase services like InfoCo USA. But a lot of money would be needed to find a large enough sample size to make it testable. Once these non-prominent gamers were found, they would need to be wiling to undergo a battery of psych, demograhpics, and other assessments, and then compare and contrastd those with those in the "floater" category, vs. those just in public gaming venues and public sys, versus the general non-gaming public. So, this could be done, but would need real money and resources to make into an actual testable hypothesis: