Many thanks to Rachel Gorman, president of the Pacific Northwest American Therapeutic Recreation Association (PNWATRA), for having me present at their 2016 conference on "The Therapeutic and Educational Uses of Role-Playing Games (RPG) as Intervention Modalities for Individuals and Groups from the Therapeutic Recreation Perspective." I am very grateful for the opportunity.
Here is a link to the presentation file I used at the conference: PNWATRA-2016-RPG-Research-Presentation-1-20160128zzd-less-text-more-notes.pdf
Here is where I will link to the full audio/video version of the presentation (coming soon): ........
It was wonderful chatting with many TR folks I have not previously met. The keynote speaker, John Dattillo, Ph.D. (Penn State Professor), was extremely warms, supportive, and encouraging. He kindly autographed and gave me a complimentary copy of one of his books, "Facilitation Techniques in Therapeutic Recreation, Second Edition". He kindly autographed it with the comment: "Dear Hawke, Keep up your enthusiasm & positivity. Nice to get to know you. All the best, John." :-) Furthermore, John also very generously suggested the possibility, for the third edition of the book, of my writing a chapter covering RPGs as TR facilitation technique, following the template of the other interventions from the second edition text! I will definitely keep people posted if that happens.
Many thanks to the PNWATRA members that signed the Thank you card! Thank you Jason, Jonathan, Shayle, Shelly, Anoly!
The conference schedule was as follows (http://www.pnwatra.org):
2016 Annual Conference: "Bridging the Gap – Taking Recreation Therapy from the Clinic to the Community" (.65 CEUs)
Friday, January 29, 2016, 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM
Legacy Good Samaritan Hospital, 1015 NW 22nd Ave, Portland, OR 97210
8:00 – 8:30 Welcome & Chapter Update by Rachel Gorman, CTRS, PNWATRA President
8:30 – 9:30 KEY NOTE: A Leisure Education Service Delivery Model that Creates a Bridge between Community and Clinical TR Context by John Dattilo, Ph.D
9:45 – 11:15 ATRA - Moving Forward towards the Future By Dawn De Vries, DHA, MPA, CTRS (Live WebEx presentation)
12:40 – 2:10 Use Sensitive Terminology When Delivering Therapeutic Recreation Services Across Clinical and Community Contexts By John Dattilo, Ph.D
2:20– 3:50 Using Role-playing Games (RPG) as an Invention Modality By W.A. Hawkes- Robinson
4:00 – 5:00 Healthy Aging through Leisure Engagement Across Community and Clinical TR Contexts By John Dattilo, Ph.D
There were some technology struggles with the conference, I am glad I was able to help resolve some of those challenges.
Among typical administrative announcements, Rachel Gorman announced she is now a board member of the national ATRA. Congratulations Rachel!
ATRA President Dawn De Vries presented remotely via Cisco WebEx. Unfortunately the hospital's bandwidth was choking, so mid-way through her important presentation on the future plans of ATRA, her connection completely dropped. That was most unfortunate.
One topic discussed at length during Q&A sessions, was that most TR degree majors were "Discovery Majors", meaning that students only stumbled across TR degree by accident after already enrolled. When Dawn asked for a show of hands regarding how many people went to college for a TR degree in mind, I didn't see anyone else but myself raise a hand! This is a serious problem with marketing only to themselves, "preaching to the choir", rather than an effective and concerted campaign to market the general public effectively.
Rachel Gorman stated they are planning in the month of February, as "Recreation Therapy month", they have some videos and social networking campaigns prepared to hopefully help change this. I have also suggested a monthly, or at least annual, public Google+ Hangout / Youtube live interactive broadcast to make the general public more aware about what is RT/TR, as I do for my various conventions and societies. Hopefully they will take me up on my offer to help provide the technology to do this.
John's presentations were very good. He very effectively and succinctly summed up many concepts in Leisure Education and Therapeutic Recreation. I spoke with many other conference attendees remarking how beautifully he illustrated some fairly complex topics. The presentations were based on another one of his books (I am trying to get up to date information on that to post here soon).
My presentation still needs work. While I clearly have a strong body of research and information, my presentation duration and timing is still off. I only made it to the end of the TBI section of the presentation (2/3rds of what I intended) when I ran out of time. Unfortunately I was right in the middle of fighting food poisoning at the time of the conference & my presentation, so that probably contributed to my poor performance and threw off my timing. Since I don't have a recording, I can't more effectively critique the presentation. I am working to further improve the presentation. PNWATRA hasn't recorded their events previously. I asked if I could provide the recording technology, at least for my session, unfortunately they were not able to have their board decide to give permission to video record the presentation to share with others. However I am creating a video version of the full presentation, and will make it available once it is available (probably a week or so from now, stay tuned). I am going to try chopping the number of slides in half for the upcoming 17th annual Washington State Therapeutic Recreation Association (WSTRA) conference.
I don't have official numbers, but it looked like there were around 47 attendees. As I have commented in earlier posts regarding the demographic changes I have been seeing since starting to study RT/TR in 2004, the TR conferences seem to be the inverse in gender participation from my experiences of the overly-male-dominated tech conferences of the 90s. I counted only about 6 male attendees, all the the rest appeared to be female. Back in 2004, the TR classes at EWU were about 50/50 female/male, but by 2013, there were only about 2 male classmates in TR. At first I attributed that to the change in TR program leadership at EWU from John Cogley to Emily Messina, but now having attended the conference, I do not know if that holds outside of EWU. I don't know if ATRA or NCTRC has made such demographic information publicly available regarding their memberships?
I remember seeing something, I believe from NCTRC last year, that indicated about 90% female CTRS members. However all of the demographic reports on the NCTRC website are now missing. :-(
It indicates that survey respondents were 88.6% female and 11.4% male. Unfortunately without access to the earlier reports, I can't see if there is any useful trending information. Just some interesting observations of note. Yet another point regarding marketing issues in the TR profession.
It was a very enjoyable, information-filled, event. As a speaker, I was provided with a membership to PNWATRA, so now I am a (TR-related) member of:
Best wishes to everyone in their Recreation Therapy / Therapeutic Recreation endeavours!
-Hawke
Much of this document begins with preludes of personal experiences and observations of gaming since the 1970s onward, then later focuses on more semi-formal and formal research efforts (though not the fully formalized IRB research).
Use the table of contents to jump to the sections you are most interested in.
The information posted in this document is based both on personal and others' observations (most of which include thousands of hours of recorded RPG sessions), verbal feedback, and formal assessment forms from participants.
Scores of variables were taken into consideration and repeatedly tweaked to try to find some level of causal changes, but at this stage are probably only at best correlative, in the enjoyment levels of participants.
There are plenty of potential confounds here, and so every statement should have that taken into consideration that these should be further researched with more rigorous techniques.
However, implementation of these observations does seem to have lead to consistently higher assessment & observation scores.
I hope others find this useful for trying to optimize your own RPG setting. This was a non-therapeutic and non-educational setting, it was only for standard leisure activity of tabletop role-playing games.
Though some educational settings, and some therapy-related issues are mentioned in this article, while other articles focus on those topics, they are not the focus of this article.
Some of these considerations in this article include some higher functioning Autism spectrum participants, social phobias, disruptive personality types, etc.
While there are more scientifically rigorous studies listed, under way, and planned in the future for The RPG Research Project, this page is var more variable in formality, but may still have some useful data and insights to help others trying to find ways to maximize the RPG experience for participants.
Since this comes up pretty much every month, I will try to fill in the blanks to the huge amount of data gleaned over the decades. This article will hopefully, over time, provide many answers to people trying to optimize the experience for their players. This may eventually be merged into the FAQs section of the site.
Of course there are so many other variables, not the least of which includes the person that is the Game Master and the personalities of the players, which are just a few of the many confounds in trying to systematically narrow down correlative and causal effects from changing a key variable to try to maximize the results in the enjoyment reports/observations from/of the participants.
Throughout this document I am constantly referring to "Immersion" and "Flow" as two separate though directly related experiences. I am open to adjusting these terms, but they are what I have been using for some time. I am using these terms in the following ways:
The degree to which the RPG participant is engrossed in the activity.
This is measurable on Likert-style scales using a wide number of TR/RT assessment tools.
An optimal state of immersion that can lead to maximal performance by the participant.
This is trickier to measure, while there are degrees of flow, it is somewhat binary in different areas. The more one experiences each of the areas as "on" versus "off", the more intense the flow experience.
When the participant experiences all aspects as "on", they are most likely in the most productive and maximal performance state possible, with the highest enjoyment levels.
Here is a video providing some examples of Flow State experiences in sports and gaming: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dbtma-4qUl8
Apparently there is some debate about whether role-playing games qualify for achieving Flow state (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psychology)#cite_note-Finding_Flow-9 ). This is news to me. I only recently heard that there even was such a debate in a Facebook discussion with Darrin Coe https://www.facebook.com/groups/roleplaytheorystudygroup/permalink/1417935211583687/
My personal experiences, repeated observations, discussions with others, and formal assessments of participants, seem to indicate not only a strong sense of immersion, but intense flow state experiences. However, there are a LOT of variables that can prevent participants from experiencing this flow state.
Therapeutic Recreation / Recreation Therapy specializes in using recreational activities to achieve therapeutic and educational goals for clients. Immersion, and optimizing the experience for clients to increasingly experience flow state are core components for achieving these goals.
If you aren't familiar with flow, you may know it as "being in the zone" in sports. The main proponent of the flow concept is Mihály Csíkszentmihályi.
The key is to balance challenge, environment, participant abilities, intrinsic motivation, and many other variables, so that the participant has an intense, distinctive experience, and is at their optimal state of performance.
Here is a short video on Flow by Hawke Robinson:
The core components of Flow Theory, as quoted from a summary on Wikipedia:
"Jeanne Nakamura and Csíkszentmihályi identify the following six factors as encompassing an experience of flow.[2]
Those aspects can appear independently of each other, but only in combination do they constitute a so-called flow experience. Additionally, psychology writer Kendra Cherry has mentioned three other components that Csíkszentmihályi lists as being a part of the flow experience:[3]
Just as with the conditions listed above, these conditions can be independent of one another."
The image below is the most common model used to reflect all the variables that need to be perfectly balanced to get into the ideal flow, hitting that "sweet spot" in the center for maximal flow experience.
Quoting from Wikipedia's summary:
"Flow theory postulates three conditions that have to be met to achieve a flow state:
However, it was argued that the antecedent factors of flow are interrelated, as a perceived balance between challenges and skills requires that one knows what he or she has to do (clear goals) and how successful he or she is in doing it (immediate feedback). Thus, a perceived fit of skills and task demands can be identified as the central precondition of flow experiences.[15]"
Related to role-playing games, I have found a lot of variables can improve the likelihood of participants (including the GM) experiencing Flow more frequently and for longer durations. That is what most of the experiments from 2012 through 2014 were focused on. There are a lot of things that can "take a person out" of flow, or prevent them ever experiencing it. But based on the many leisure experience assessment tools I've used for RPG participants, everything listed for qualifying as flow experience was experienced repeatedly by all participants at one point or another. Sometimes everyone in the group experienced it simultaneously, while more often individuals experience it during key points on their own at different intervals than their fellow participants.
The list of variables is quite lengthy. If there are just a little "off" the participants can still have good flow experiences, but if they are considerably off mark, then it can completely prevent anyone from experiencing flow in the game.
Again these experiments focused primarily on tabletop RPG, but are to various degrees applicable to LARP as well.
Key variables to address:
The above is so subjective and difficult to specify (many papers unto themselves), but assuming a qualified GM, and cooperative players (though that wasn't always the case during these experiments, there was a little bit of a "weeding out" process of the most disruptive players that were unwilling to follow the code of conduct consistently), most of the experiments focused on environmental factors to increase the likelihood of flow experiences, that is what the majority of this document covers.
Different Interaction Patterns
Different activities interact with people and the environment in a variety of ways. These interactions have different effects on those involved. Role-playing games come in several different interaction styles. Generally tabletop is cooperative, combat LARP competitive, computer-based competitive, and SAB/M introspective. Elliot M. Avedon detailed 8 interaction patterns related to recreation and therapeutic recreation, from the behavioral sciences perspective, in his 1974 book "Therapeutic Recreation Service - An Applied Behavioral Science Appoach.".
Here is a summary diagram created by W.A. Hawkes-Robinson on those 8 interaction patterns, and how different RPG formats apply.
Created by Jacob Beard and Mounir Ragheb.
Cost: ~$1 per form (bulk pricing lowers cost, typically I bought in bundles of 25 for $20).
Reliability: .87 (overall alpha)
Not used to measure outcomes, helpful for gauging new participants background and interests as a starting point to reference for which program plans would map well to their existing or possible interests.
By Idyll Arbor, Inc.
Reliability: .80_
Assessment of leisure functioning, determine areas to improve, impact of services on leisure functioning, facilitate research on the structure of leisure programs to determine efficacy of outcomes.
By: Idyll Arbor
Reliability: .75+
Validity: .76+
Drawing upon Therapeutic Recreation / Recreation Therapy methodologies, and using some of their assessment tools, including some with better ratings in Reliability and Validity.
By: Jacob Beard and Mounir Regheb
Reliability: .85 - .96
Purpose: Measure the degree to which a client perceives their general "needs" are being met through leisure. Includes scales for:
Flow State Scale-2 (which measures flow as a state) and the Dispositional Flow Scale-2 (designed to measure flow as either a general trait or domain-specific trait). Jackson and Eklund created two scales that have been proven to be psychometrically valid and reliable.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1569186113000442
The intake process does include a significant amount of useful demographics information, including income, marriage status, ethnicity, gender, parental/sibling status, career information, residence locations, and much more. However, since we didn't go through an IRB process, we have to be very careful about what, if any, of this information is shared publicly. I will try to use more general numbers to play it as safe as possible, while still trying to provide some useful information.
Further building on the leisure/recreation assessment tools, using our in house assessment tool to determine what kind of gaming experience the participant has in all formats: computer-based, live-action, tabletop, solo books, etc.
In house assessment tools.Building upon the leisure/recreation interest assessment, based on their interest in existing media including books, movies, television, online shows, youtube, audio books, graphic novels, etc. Based on their interest in which genres they like from those media, while it is great to expose them to new things, it is a helpful starting point to know where they are coming from.
There are a number of methods for evaluating play / player styles. These can be useful in trying to match GM style with player style, and/or players within a group.
Though having everyone in the group, players and GM a like might seem the least acrimonious route, something may be lost in the benefits of the cooperative games if everyone is "the same", so having a variety of platyer types is not necessarily problematic, as long as they are not on extremes that have little-to-no tolerance for other types.
A group of hack and slashers may be perfectly happy with their hack and slash GM, while a story-socializer might be utterly bored with non-stop combat and lack of story, and would probably be better off finding a different GM and player group, and the same in reverse for a hack and slasher "stuck" in a mostly explorer group. However, most players are usually a mix of many types, and so it is mostly just for those players on the extreme ends of style/type preferences that these considerations become more important in matching the variables.
In house assessment tools. Drawing upon the Bartle Taxonomy of Players, assessing what combinations of play style the participant is likely to enjoy the most.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartle_taxonomy_of_player_types
Additional references:
http://mud.co.uk/richard/hcds.htm
http://matthewbarr.co.uk/bartle/
An in-house tool to determine if the player would derive more enjoyment from a complex system, a more detail oriented system, a system with more choices, or systems on the rules light, more free form, or with more defined but fewer choices (some find too many choices overwhelming), etc.
This is more true with gamers that cut their teeth on more complex systems than the very rules-light systems (doesn't seem to be generation/age as much as what they have become used to, though there is some cohort effect possibly there).
Depending on player experience and maturity, 4-5 players is the "sweet spot" for sufficient party size, variety of characters, intergroup dynamics, intragroup interaction, duration of "rounds", resolution of action in combat scenarios, availability of role-playing time, opportunities to create new out-of-game friendships, etc.
In the 1970s/80s/90s my sessions were typically 6 to 8+ hours. During the mid 1980s I ran 3 8 hour groups each weekend, 2 on Saturday and one on Sunday.
Only effective if meeting several times per week, at least twice per week. Works well if meeting 4-5 days per week.
If only meeting weekly,too little progress. Not enough time for immersion, shaking of the thoughts of the rest of the day, getting in the groove with everyone else, doesn't allow for real role-play, tends to allow only enough time to be much more mechanically focused, and doesn't relationship build as well.
With very few rare exceptions, if only run once per week, participants did not report developing out of game friendships. This held true with only 2 sessions per week as well.
At 3 to 5 sessions per week, some participants did report developing out of game friendships, and much higher enjoyment levels. At 4-5 sessions per week, some began reporting "flow state" experiences, albeit relatively brief compared to those reported in longer sessions.
If meeting at least twice per week, this is do-able. At once per week, it is noticeably better than shorter durations, and can slowly build camaraderie, and does allow for shorter role-play experiences instead of just mechanical RPG sessions. Requires a lot more rigid discipline to get everyone focused on the game as quickly as possible, and everyone needs to be very efficient in their responses. While more useful/effective than <90 minute sessions, pretty rare for participants to experience true "Flow state", and not at all consistently.
While sometimes out-of-game friendships developed from these sessions, this usually only happened if they were having at least 2-3 sessions per week. When run only once per week, there really wasn't time for out of game socializing, so few-to-none reported developing new friendships that lasted out of game.
This appears to be the best "sweet spot".
While longer sessions can increase the opportunities for more flow state experiences, the 3-4 hour session length seems to be "just right" for pretty consistently experiencing flow state at least once every session. With younger groups this may need to include 1 or 2 short 5 minute "physical breaks" to get up and move. This movement can still be related to the game to keep them focused, but doesn't have to be.
Also, after about 3-4 hours, most people need a longer (15-30 minutes) break to continue, but you don't want too long a break, else it will take longer to get back into the game.
This begins to get into the area that more "hard core gamers" seem to cherish, from about 6 to 8 hours or more. Some of the long term gamers felt disappointment with any sessions shorter than this. These longer sessions allow more time to socialize, get to know each other both in and out of game, and over time build some potential friendships that may continue outside of the gaming group.
Pretty consistently, people playing pre-generated characters had far less "buy in" for the adventure, and thus usually experienced far less immersion and were far less likely to report any flow experiences.
This was not a hard and fast rule however, some people grew into their characters with longer campaigns, even when it was so completely different from the type they would normally have made themselves.
Generally though, the best immersion experiences are from the players that were able to create their own characters. The least immersion was from players that didn't get to choose which pre-generated character they used.
So, there were multiple levels available:
Simple characters just fill in the key fields of the character sheet, and do not develop any intricate back story, any connection with other characters, etc.
Sometimes it is fun to just play a very basic, archetypal, straight-forward character, that isn't overly complex, and more of the focus is on the adventure story than on the character's background and connection with the campaign world.
Immersion and flow showed mixed results with simpler characters. Player type may have been the key component (needs further testing) determining which players experienced more/less immersion or flow using simpler characters.
Richer characters typically have a half page or more background information about their character's history, connections with the campaign world, other characters in the world, etc.
Results were also mixed regarding immersion and flow with these character types. I think this once again has to do with the Bartle Player Type. However, overall, reported immersion and flow experiences were noticeably higher than with the simpler characters.
These are more common at Pick-up Games (PUGs) in public areas such as hobby stores and conventions.
They can be a good (or terrible) introduction to the basic mechanics of the RPG process, but are typically lacking in many areas compared to the multiple-session adventures and campaigns.
These sessions were the most difficult for participants to experience deeper immersion, let alone flow. Usually the players are using pre-generated characters, rather than characters they made themselves.
For groups that we used characters they made at a previous session, the likelihood of immersion and flow went up considerably.
Using
This is probably the ideal for most groups. The interval allows for most people's busy lives, but is frequent enough that with just a short recap, most people remember the prior events fairly well.
Ideally the sessions at this interval should be around 3-4 hours.
Less than 3 hours is possible, but less likely to achieve
This is a tolerable distance between sessions, if the session length is at least 3-4 hours.
However, having to cancel a session, or a participant unable to attend, means an entire month will have passed, which leaves the group much more susceptible to dissolution. Very critical to not miss any sessions at this interval.
A longer recap of events is necessary to help refresh and get everyone on track.
Immersion is still pretty high, and chances of flow experiences still moderately achievable.
An easy, simple game system. The basic rules are very easy to pick up, make a character, and start playing within 15-30 minutes (5 minutes for more experienced players).
A very rules-light system initially, with the first 3 core booklets. Later add-on booklets increased options for possible complexity and choices, but by todays standards are still very simple.
The only big negative is there is a distinct lack of organization, and it can be difficult to find different parts of the rules quickly, until you have done so many times.
The current trend has been for RPG systems to focus on "rules light" approach, but they all seem to forget that the very first RPG was originally a very rules-light system, that although originally derived from wargaming, is completely open to narrative style ROLE-play, and is not a "crunchy" ROLL-play system.
This began to change with AD&D, and thus some people wanted the original experience, with some improvements, and thus BECMI was also created in parallel.
With the simplicity and abstractness of OD&D, it is very easy to use for any targeted goals, entertainment, education, therapy, etc.
A much more complicated evolution from OD&D, but also a much more organized and better logically linked system. A moderate-to-light rules heaviness, depending on how many optional rulebooks you add from later years (UQ, DSG, WSG, OA, Dragon Magazine, etc.).
Still a personal favorite of mine, it still gets a lot of flack for the charts, inconsistencies, and game "balance" issues.
For those that didn't like the added complexity of AD&D, and missed aspects of the simplicity of OD&D, as well as specifically targeting bringing in new players, the Basic rules are definitely that, very basic.
The Red Box , "...." version, has excellent solo tutorials for individuals to learn the system on their own, and then progress to running their first group.
Over time, additional rules and options are added as they level up through Expert, Companion, Master, & Immortal abilities.
I still very much like using BECMI. I tend to go many years between using it, but every time I do, both I, and those participating report experiencing a lot of the original "magic" of the experience of role-playing we all experienced "the first time".
Initially a very rules light system, it does (slowly) build in complexity, all the way to become a deity! But this gradual pacing is very accessible to participants and does not overwhelm most.
It works very well with a wide range of populations, including cognitive impairments. The step-by-step guides on how to play are very accessible.
I have to admit to only occasionally running or playing the 2nd edition of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. While it is much closer to AD&D1 than subsequent versions (D&D 3 onward being very different creatures), it really went into a high level of increasing complexity of optional rules. Of course, those are all OPTIONAL rules, so you can keep it to the basic core, and add only what you wish (as is true with any RPG system of course).
This is a system deserving of more research, but I have found a dearth of DMs wishing to run it.
Further research is recommended.
A whole new generation of players "cut their teet" on 3rd Edition Dungeons & Dragons.
Personally I never cared for this system, but it became the lingua franca in many areas. I found it sometimes impossible to form new groups with other systems, so had to start with 3.x to gather the people, and then I could slowly transition them to other systems and settings.
From 3.x onward, D&D becomes increasingly Anima/Comic-book/Super-hero like, and less like the old classic fantasy earlier versions of D&D were based on.
The concept of "Game Balance" constantly a motto for this generation of systems onward.
3.x is infamous for their "splat books". A long line of
http://www.spokanerpg.com/worlds-of-beru
I rarely allow running evil campaigns, due in part to the fact that they almost always devolve into PvP situations. A few more mature groups have handled it well enough that they lasted up to a year before the "authorities" managed to hunt them down.
http://www.spokanerpg.com/forum/rpg-group-discussions/248207091?b_start=0#224074808
There are a wide number of "ice breaker" techniques available in Therapeutic Recreation / Recreation Therapy (TR / RT) that all Therapeutic Recreation Specialists (TRS) are trained in. These help speed up the process of camaraderie building within groups for recreational activities.
Many of these techniques can be used prior to sitting down at the table, and after a game session, to build player relationships faster than the RPG segment might normally allow for.
Tuckman's Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing (& and optional Adjourning/Mourning) stages of group development definitely apply to RPG groups, but there are a number of "artificial" factors that can be implemented in a gaming context to accelerate the process, though be careful about skipping over too much of the storming process.
That is a lengthy topic of discussion, covered by many books, and not the purview of this section of this document.
There are a number of techniques in the RPG segment, however, that can be used to help facilitate the group cohesion and camaraderie building. This section elaborates upon these RPG approaches.
While rumors, bonds, background stories, etc. are all very helpful for facilitating bonding of new groups, the ultimate RPG mechanic I have found is the House Building Tools from The Song of Ice & Fire RPG (Game of Thrones RPG). This takes some time, it can easily take 1-2 hours for all new players, but I have now repeatedly observed, quite astoundingly, since it is a very group involved process (and if handled correctly, so everyone has buy in), creating even before anyone has started any of their own character creation, their own "House" that links all of their to-be-yet-created characters. At the end of this process, the bonding and in-group vs. out-group (The rest of the campaign world) formation is remarkably formed. I would say that this process easily jump starts the group bonding anywhere from 3 to 6+ sessions in about the time of just half a (3-4 hour) session. They create a party sense of identity, history, home base, political placement, etc. It is quite an involved process.
This is similar to Pendragon's mechanics.
The downside is though is it is designed only to work in the Game of Thrones setting. However, I have successfully modified and tested in a World of Greyhawk D&D setting, and had similarly remarkable bonding success. This was with a group of particular unruly teenages, 2 with formal ASD diagnoses, and 1 other likely on the spectrum though undiagnosed, and 2 others without diagnosed disorders, but being 15 to 17 year olds, riddled with many of the challenges of that age group.
I hope to next try to modify it to somehow work in a Middle-earth setting with the Adventures in Middle-earth (AiMe) Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition (D&D 5e Open license) expansion.
With a juvenile group, some on the Spectrum, that had been having repeated group cohesion problems, and repeated TPK's. I was asked to see if I could help improve.
Took classic AD&D 1st Edition Greyhawk boxed set, and AD&D 1st Edition characters/rules, and merged House Building rules from Song of Ice & Fire (Game of Thrones (GoT)) RPG to try to build camaraderie up front.
Then ran them through U1 - The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh. The party had considerably better cohesion and cooperative play, and functioned far better.
This section includes general observations over decades of experience with RPGs, as well as more specific measurable information from the 2012-2014 experiments.
I have completely different information regarding using online technologies to join disparate players.
We modified our various Codes of Conduct and participation rules based on those experiments, and had consistently higher scoring based on those many modifications, Including discouraging use of "disruptive" technologies.
Now, things like overhead/underboard dynamic digital maps, sound effects, music, that is a whole other story.
Those had mixed results, but often favorable (though very inconsistent, so needs more exploration). Sorry can't give a more formal report, but hope the high level is useful feedback for future consideration
Regarding technology in face-to-face-in-person tabletop RPG, even for the younger groups that liked tech, they generally consistently scored somewhat lower on sessions satisfaction when smart phones, tablets, laptops, etc. were allowed.
Even if they were strictly used for game related uses (look up rules, character sheet management, mapping, journaling, etc.), not only were the scores lower for the participants using the tech, it also generally was lower for the other participants in the group that were not using the tech (though less dramatically so). Looking through the videos, they tended be much more distracted, and not following the game play as well as their non-tech-using peers.
For those that were less disciplined, and kept texting, or Facebooking, etc. with their smartphones/laptops/tablets, assessment scores plummeted not just for the "offending" participant, but more consistently for the other players. For older players (30+ years old), technology had an even great disruptive impact, than those in the 12 to 30 year old ranges.
I have been experimenting with these technologies. Of course one significant problem is people being able to focus on the game at the same level, when they have all those wires hooked up to their head, fingers, chest, etc. I am hoping less obtrusive wireless options will make it easier and less invasive. For now, I've been using open source based hardware from Europe, such as the OpenEEG projects, and related open source software.
I hope eventually to have the funding for full implementation of this monitoring, then correlating with the audio/video recordings, and the enjoyment/flow assessment tools, to tie all the data together with the events in the game, and try to further optimize.
DM'd by Hawke robinson, run on The Spartan Show in his facility. All participants (Except audience) were in one face-to-face location: http://www.spokanerpg.com/adventurers-guild
Observations of the "Legends: Through Shadow" D&D 5th Edition Cos-play Live broadcast group on Twitch, hosted and DM'd by The Spartan Show: http://www.rpgresearch.com/blog/trpg-in-online-format-1
Participants were in multiple locations, rather than a single face-to-face location.
http://www.spokanerpg.com/archives/game-master-types
http://www.spokanerpg.com/archives/wil-wheatons-role-playing-dickery
Detailed background: http://www.rpgresearch.com/about/staff/hawke-robinson
Related to tabletop RPG:
Until very recently, I really didn't identify with the whole "geek culture" sub-culture. Though I did "geeky things" like computer tech/programming and role-playing gaming, and liked fantasy and some science fiction books and shows, I wasn't at all into comic books, or super heroes, or cos-play, etc.
Most of the people I gamed with in the 70s, 80s, & 90s came from a broad array of backgrounds, only some of which anyone would automatically identify as a "geek" or "nerd", etc. There were various "jock" types playing football, basketball, hockey, etc. and others that went on to become doctors, lawyers, welders, construction workers, cashiers, auto mechanics, race car drivers, career military from various branches, retired military, miners, etc. The ratio of female to male players was typically about 1:4, though we sometimes had groups that were half-and-half.
It wasn't until I moved to Spokane in 2004, and tried to form new groups, that I started to learn about this whole Geek Culture thing. A lot of my introduction to Geek Culture has been from my long term girlfriend since 2008, as she introduced me to Firefly/Serenity, the Whedonverse (Buffy, Dr Horrible, etc.), Felicia Day's empire (The Guild, Geek & Sundry, etc.), and much more.But I always feel like I'm playing catch-up with most of those that self-identify as "Geek" and part of Geek Culture.
While prior to 2004 I was somewhat of a "closet gamer" at work, due to concerns about the bias an stigma associated with gamers, I have since fully embraced the activity, including a license plate, "RPG", and bumper stickers, and of course creating websites and businesses focusing on the topic.
Around 8th, 9th, and part of 10th grade, I attended a school named "Realms of Inquiry - A school for gifted & talented children".
http://www.realmsofinquiry.org/
This was a terrific school, a vast improvement over Saint Ann school of the previous years ( http://ksaschool.weebly.com/ ), which in turn was a huge improvement over the deplorable Howard R. Driggs elementary experience ( http://schools.graniteschools.org/driggs/ ).
Realms really encouraged students to maximize their learning potential, had incredible recreational activities tied in to building self confidence as well as learning, and many other exceptional aspects.
This school may have further cemented my broad range of interests that would later lead down a path toward becoming a Therapeutic Recreation Specialist.
It was at this school that I had the opportunity to "teach" role-playing games 5 days a week as a regular class for around a month or so!
For more details see:
http://www.rpgresearch.com/blog/anecdotal-experiences-of-stigma-as-a-tabletop-role-playing-gamer
http://www.rpgresearch.com/about/and-so-it-begins
As is detailed in the overview for this section (the links listed), I wrote an 8 page essay for the English course, on current events, covering the growing backlash against role-playing games and gamers in the media and society. I scored an A, and the instructor liked it so much, she asked me to read it aloud to the whole upper class. Unfortunately this essay was probably lost long ago, I am searching through all my old boxes, "Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore", I fear it might never be found. At the time, though I had Internet/DarpaNet/ArpaNet access through friends at the University of Utah, research required using actual books and libraries, and I spent a considerable amount of time trying to find whatever (little) research was available, as well as media representations about Dungeons & Dragons and role-playing games in general. One notable piece is that in the 1982 movie "E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial" by Steven Spielberg, one of the opening scenes shows a group of teenage friends enjoying a role-playing game. There was no stigma attached to it, it just was kids having a pleasant social time around a game. The kids weren't stereotyped geeks/nerds either.
I recall being frustrated that there was very little research available on the topic of role-playing games, mostly just media hype, and the beginning efforts of Patricia Pulling and her organization Bothered About Dungeons & Dragons (B.A.D.D.).
I remember including a portion on a depiction of Donahue conflating devil worship groups and role-playing gaming, and a kid they had on the show that did a very poor job trying to explain things, only further exacerbating the issues.
I am keeping this section as a place holder in case I ever find the original essay. I don't expect it is any masterwork of writing, but I would love to see what sources I was able to dig up at the time.
Many of the girls, and a few of the guys in hough I ran into similar issues later at public schools as well) began mocking us during gaming sessions we had during lunch or other break periods. I thought they were ridiculous and just misinformed, generally didn't really care what they thought (though a little annoyed at their interruptions). I offered to show them the game (they of course refused). Later though, as the media became worse, the initially light mockery became more serious. Accusations began being made about "spells", "witchcraft", and "demon worship", etc. I became disgusted with their ignorance and wrote an 8 page essay on the topic for my AP English course. The teacher then had me read this to the entire school since the issue was getting especially heated in various communities. After that, some of the girls and boys that had been mocking before, took me up on the offer to let them watch or try the games. Some became casual or even avid gamers, others did not, but as as I know, most no longer harass those who game.
Later (either that year or the following, I forget which), as this was a small private school, we were temporarily without a theater class instructor, so the school converted the time slot to a study period until they could find a replacement drama instructor. I had the "crazy" idea to make that a role-playing gaming period that could fill the slot, especially since I saw a reasonable relationship to the theater period and role-playing gaming. I wrote up a formal proposal and met with the Headmaster, proposing to run a course on role-playing gaming during that time for anyone that wished to attend, until they had a new teacher. He tentatively agreed.
I was allowed to use the biology classroom (since it had the most large tables instead of just student desks, or floor space as the theater room only had), and setup several tables with different genres of games and systems. If I remember correctly they were:
We only had about 44 students from 9th through 12th grade (more in the lower grades), and during that month almost all of them joined us in the "class". I was overwhelmed by the response at first, and so had to learn to delegate to those that already knew how to RPG, to help run the other tables.
Everyone took turns as players and GM's (Game Masters), while I went around providing pointers, guidance, and demonstrations. It was such a blast! It was a shame when they hired the new instructor and I had to end it after only a month. As far as I know, no one in the school had anything negative to say about role-playing gaming afterwards.
When I was 13, I attended this summer-long camp, with a lot of horse-related activities as part of the draw. I went on many 5+ day cross-country horseback trips through mountains and more.
I also had the chance to introduce my cabin mates and camp counselors to role-playing games. It is also where I learned to juggle, which later had a ripple effect at Realms of Inquiry, and my teaching juggling there leading to Bobby going on to become a professional juggler.
... more details pending ...
Okay, maybe "Experiment" is too formal, it was definitely trying out different approaches at intensity levels of gaming. From around age 13 to 16 the time I spent gaming significantly ramped up. Somehow I still had time for the school (or working at the Lost Packer Mine during the summer), the school basketball team (I was always "center" due to my height), hacky sack, skateboarding, BMX biking, going to the local video game arcade, writing software programs, hiking, survivalism in the High Uintahs and out in the Utah desert, swimming, and much more.
For more details on the 3 AD&D World of Greyhawk groups I was running, see the section under Groups of this document titled: "Running Multiple Simultaneous Groups in the Same Campaign".
During one summer month, I had a friend staying with us (he was about 3.5 years older than I, most of my friends older than I). In addition to the multiple regular groups on the weekend that I ran (AD&D, MERP/RM, Twilight 2000, Thieves' World, Call of Cthulhu, Star Wars, ...), or the occasional groups I played in during the week (FASA's Star Trek, Doctor Who, Elfquest, Robotech, Car Wars, Paranoia, ...), this friend and I were running one-on-one sessions, sometimes with him as GM, other times I was GM. We started to wake up, have breakfast and begin gaming, and nod off gaming, to the point where it was something like 16+ hours of gaming on some days! We were having a blast.
It was also very different with the intensely long one-on-one sessions. Since they were almost daily, there wasn't much time to prepare ahead, so we were both greatly enhancing our improvisational DM skills, while still keep long-term coherence through an ongoing campaign. These skills were extremely valuable with regular groups, but actually much more intensely tested in one-on-one ongoing "binge gaming".
Besides using my own several campaigns with my own worlds (that would in later years merge into the "Worlds of Beru" multiverse setting, a favorite for one-on-one was the Thieves' World boxed set. The TW book series was still actively cranking out books, and we very much enjoyed the setting. While it worked fine with a gaming group, it really was an ideal setting for one-on-one gaming, with a rich setting of NPCs to draw upon.
At some point in the past, I had come up with the concept of "The Arena of the Gods", and had playtested it myself, but not with others. The concept was pretty straightforward. Your character arrived at this special arena on the Prime Material Plane (in the Greyhawke manifestation of the multiverse). And the PC could challenge any entity that was listed in the Deities & Demigods (at that time I still had the original with Cthulhu, Melnibonean, and other pantheons that were later removed due to copyright issues, unfortunately someone stole that book some time later).
The summoned entity would appear in their physical form this plane, with the specified stats.
The PC and entity would bandy words, allowing for some ROLE-play fun.
Sometimes they would come to an agreement other than fighting, but most of the time, it would sooner or later lead to them duking it out.
If the PC was victorious, that entity could no longer manifest their physical form on that plane (I later added a time limit rather than all eternity, anywhere from 1 year to 1,000 years, with 100 being the most common).
As for consequences to the PC, it depended if this was part of an ongoing campaign, or just a, "Hey, let's fight some gods just for some hack and slash fun for your high level character". If the former, then the PC could definitely die, or have many other consequences at the whim of the victorious entity. The the latter, then usually it "didn't count". They neither gained nor lost anything, it was just for fun.
Experimented with various group sizes, locations, multiple groups in same campaign, merging groups into one mega (20+ players) group, multiple DMs at same table, LARP, SCA, egg-timers for round duration control, ....
The Lost Packer Mine ( http://www.idahogold.net/tag/lost-packer-mine/ ) is a gold mine in the central Idaho mountains. It is a family-owned mine and I grew up working summers there, as did my uncle, & cousins. My grandfather (James Ivers III ) and great-grandfather (James Ivers II) worked year-round there, from a long line of mining, with my great-great grandfather a blacksmith and miner as well (James Ivers I).
The mine is located deep in the United States' second largest wilderness, the Frank Church - River of No Return Wilderness, near the Middle Fork of the Salmon River, with the mine around 7,000 to 8,000 feet above sea level, accessibly only by very rough remote dirt roads during a narrow window of the Summer/Fall, snowed in the rest of the year.
Because of the remote location taking at least half a day to get to any civilization, we worked 10 days on and 4 days off, often around 12-16 hours a day of hard physical (though rewarding) labor. One year, the crew wanted to see the Grateful Dead in Boise, so we worked 25 days on to get 10 days off. This is where I learned how cabin fever might have lead the "old-timers" to kill each other off. By the end of second week people were getting a bit snappish, but the end of the third week, most conversation consisted of short grunts.
At some point, around 1986/1987 or so, when my uncle (James Ivers IV) took over running the day to day mining operations from my cousin (Matt Ivers), on some slower days (sometimes after blasting there would be a good even lull since we couldn't go back in the mine until the next day), I proposed running the crew through a role-playing game session. I wanted to see how this population responded to this activity. I was heavily into Iron Crown Enterprises Middle-earth Role-playing, and most of them had read the Hobbit and/or the Lord of the Rings, so it was an accessible setting. Though 1 of the miners I think had not graduated high school (Woody?) and so reading was problematic for him.
I walked them through making their own characters and then for several nights, I GM'd them through a few hours of RPG fun. My uncle seemed both especially mocking but also especially into it, he (at 6'4" IRL) had chose to play a hobbit and he decided to use an extremely high-pitched voice when speaking as his character.
At the end of the ongoing adventure, while I don't think I converted any of them into becoming regular gamers, they had a better understanding of the game, and they admitted they did have fun, which after all is the whole point.
I think I still have the characters and notes from that adventure somewhere, so if I come across them, I will update this section with more details.
I could be mistaken, and this may be corrected later in consultation with friends of the time period, but as far as I can recall, I was either too busy, or too much in dire straights (homeless, broke, etc.) and didn't have any time for gaming during these years.
An entire (large) family of in-laws and their friends in a MERP campaign .... details pending .... observations of sibling and parental dynamics, religious preconceptions (Mormon), and more....
See the section under technology and using CuSeeMe to have a remote player join a local face-to-face tabletop RPG campaign regularly.
In October 2000 I moved from Utah to accept a job as Chief Technology Officer for a tech company in Santa Clara, California.
I was working 90 to 120 hours, so I didn't have any time for gaming, except for a short few months when it things were down to "only" 50-60 hours a week (it felt like a vacation), so had very limited time availability, but still managed to fit in a little bit of RPG play time. Some things interesting about the Silicon Valley population and gaming .... details coming ....
Due to many variables, including severe back injury working on one of my Internet radio towers during a snow storm in Malad, Idaho, leading to being bedridden for about 2 months, and catching severe Strep to compound things.
The early part of 2004 was spent mostly in rehabilitation from the events of 2003, but I did manage to run some games with my very young boys (ages 4, 6, & 8), using MERP.
In 2005 I started trying to form new RPG groups, and found it very difficult because everyone in Spokane only wanted to play wither Warhammer 40k wargaming or D&D 3.x (which I had never played).
I eventually caved and bought 3.x
Back around 2012-2014 I ran 12 groups for over a year with various controlled changes.
All groups completed various self-report assessments after each session. No therapeutic or educational goals were attempting to be accomplished. The primary focus was trying to figure out how to maximize player enjoyment.
These experiments did not go through any kind of Institutional Review Board (IRB), so though we have found the data extremely useful internally, it continued to be problematic publishing anything specific about any individuals. We learned a significant amount of information about how to get higher Likert style scale of their enjoyment scores. These scores seemed to impacted fairly consistently by changes in environmental factors, among others things (duration of sessions, frequency of sessions, game play style, game aides, etc.).
This time period was all in-office groups at the Monroe Street offices.
For more details on this hypothesis:
Being elaborated upon here: http://www2.rpgresearch.com/blog/what-tools-do-you-use-for-your-campaigns
I expect to incorporate that article into this document over time.
http://www.rpgresearch.com/blog/what-is-question-hypothesis-of-the-rpg-research-observation-group-1
http://www.rpgresearch.com/blog/approximate-group-demographics
http://www.rpgresearch.com/blog/biofeedback-and-rpg-research
http://www.rpgresearch.com/blog/gender-bias-in-gaming
http://www.rpgresearch.com/blog/trpg-in-online-format-1
http://www.rpgresearch.com/about/about-rpg-research
http://www.spokanerpg.com/forum/rpg-group-discussions/470390155?b_start=0#995057063
http://www.spokanerpg.com/forum/rpg-group-discussions
http://www.spokanerpg.com/forum/rpg-group-discussions/470390156
http://www.spokanerpg.com/forum/looking-for-gamers/961189118
http://www.spokanerpg.com/forum/world-of-beru
http://www.spokanerpg.com/forum/world-of-beru-group-6
http://www.spokanerpg.com/forum/worlds-of-beru-group-7
https://www.meetup.com/SCdA-RPG/
http://www.spokanerpg.com/forum/rpg-group-discussions/470390163/964522606
http://www.spokanerpg.com/forum/rpg-group-discussions/470390166
http://www.merpcon.com
http://www.tolkienmoot.org
http://www.spokanerpg.com/archives/game-master-types
http://www.spokanerpg.com/archives/rpg-sessions-code-of-conduct-for-the-spartan-show
Babylon 5 Group Formation through Meetup - https://www.meetup.com/SCdA-RPG/events/207984092/
Tolkien d20 3.5 Group Formation through Meetup - https://www.meetup.com/SCdA-RPG/events/101647222/
MerpCon III Article Review by Joe Mandala -
Example Evil Campaign - http://www.spokanerpg.com/forum/rpg-group-discussions/248207091?b_start=0#224074808
Tolkien Moot XII Live Streaming
Session 1 of 3 The One Ring RPG - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4fkfdIkZvg
Session 3, Jul 16, 2016 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIwIy6sTNI4
Tolkien Moot IX Live Streaming - Palantir of Weathertop
Session 1, Aug 3, 2013 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLK2OastfLw
Session 2, Aug 3, 2013 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jShIZ4Di5GU
Session 3, Aug 3, 2013 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bn2nV-nI3I
Day 3, Aug 4, 2013 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDnKOkDNy80
Last session, Aug 4, 2013 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjWqe4MJAVU
Tolkien Moot VIII 2012 Day 1 table 1Gaming Session Long Excerpts - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHg05XN0jms
Tolkien Moot 2007 MerpCon 3 Behind the Scenes and Miscellaneous - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qz_D1jShnaU
Tolkien Moot 2007 MerpCon III Excerpts and Final Adventure - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8sLpyl5SV0
Tolkien Moot 2005 MerpCon I Adventure Introduction and Excerpts with Chris Seeman and Hawke - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Y6nrwfqKGc
The One Ring Role-playing Game TOR RPG Tolkien Gaming Group:
D&D 3.5 with 2 Jet City Improv members (Google Hangout):
D&D 5e with The Spartan Show: Adventurer's Guild (Twitch):
Significant progress made today on all the paperwork to submit for approval from the Eastern Washington University (EWU) Instituational Review Board (IRB) to proceed with the study "Efficacy Assessment of Role-playing Games as an Instructional Technique within the Constraints of a University Academic Setting from the Neuropsychology Perspective".
This is really more of a template/pilot for a future improved study, and heavily constrained by current timeline and resources available. There are a ton of confounds due to the limited resources, but the design of this study includes documents to take into considerations approaches for creating a much improved version of this study in the future, pending available resources down the road.
The ideal version of this study would have multiple educational and testing sessions rather than just one educational session (ideally a 10-16 week period comparable to typical quarterly/semester course time period), larger body of knowledge, large sample sizes, many different instructors, many GMI lead RPG groups, far better controls and blinding. better apples to apples comparison (small class size to small game room size, large class size to large game group size, etc.), sefveral different classroom conditions (large classroom/auditorium lecture, small classroom (5 students 1 instructor), online learning, large RPG classroom, small RPG classroom, TRPG vs LARP vs CRPG vs SABM, and other settings). But due to the constraints required to fit this within the June 15th deadline, only 2 groups tested (standard classroom versus RPG classroom).
Here is some of the information still in draft form, but nearly ready for submission (there are dozens of other documents related to this project, but these are the portions of interest for the IRB and summarizing the plan):
PURPOSE: Assess if the constraints of a large class-size college course, eliminate or reduce the advantages of role-playing games as an educational technique over classical education techniques. Existing research indicates that the use of role-playing can enhance the learning process. Further research also supports that tabletop role-playing games can also further enhance the learning process. Most university-level academic settings do not have the luxury of resources to provide this educational technique for the majority of students. Most of the existing research using RPGs in educational settings has not been performed in standard college-level university settings with large class sizes, limited number of instructors, limited instructor-student interaction, etc.
Neuroscience theories support the possible reasons for RPG advantages to learning, since RPG’s provide deep-level processing, “why questions”, elaboration, distinctiveness, interconnectedness, often prior knowledge components, stressors similar to the testing effect and desirable difficulties, rich mental imagery, abundant cues for encoding & retrieval, knowledge in layers, gamification aspects tend to increase intrinsic motivation and interest, and the narrative core component, theoretically explain why research studies indicate that TRPGs provide significant advantages over standard lecture & rote techniques, especially for longer-term memory and creative applications of acquired knowledge.
Most of the research for RPGs related to education has been in elementary, high school, or adjunct/extracurricular settings allowing the more natural RPG environment to optimize the experience. Research indicates the optimal TRPG experience is around 4-5 players with 1 game master (GM), over a 3-4 hour period at least once per week, in a comfortable & quiet setting. Most academic settings do not have the luxury of resources to provide this form of educational technique on such a small group scale for the majority of students.
METHODOLOGY: Participants will be randomly assigned to either a typical classroom setting or tabletop role-playing setting to learn East Asian History material over a 3 hour course of instruction. Prior to the course they will complete a basic demographics questionnaire and baseline subject knowledge test about related East Asian History topics. They will then attend the 3 hour course. They will be subsequently tested on their comprehension and retention of information through a standard written and/or online (multiple choice, fill in the blank, etc.) course test immediately at the end of the course, and then retested a few days/weeks later to determine longer term retention.
Participants will be using coded identification (SONA), and if in classroom setting using randomly assigned nicknames, to protect anonymity. Participants will complete a basic demographics survey and baseline knowledge test on East Asian History related topics. Then be randomly assigned to 1 of 2 classroom/instruction environments/techniques: The two settings are either: standard classroom or role-playing game classroom course. Participants in classrooms will receive random nicknames to maintain anonymity during course instruction. Course instruction approximately 3 hours. Course material test immediately at course ending. Course material delayed retest several days to week(s) after course. Exit survey about course & experiment experience. There is a slight deception in that the participants initially are only told the study is on “Assessing Different Educational Techniques”, and omits the focus on assessing RPGs to reduce potential initial participant response bias. Participants are informed at the end of participation about the full title and scope of the study.
The classroom assigned group will be in a standard classroom with student desks, projector, and instructor providing verbal lecture, potentially with a slide show. Students are assigned alias nicknames in case they need to interact with the instructor to ask/answer questions during the course of the lecture.
At a separate time from the classroom assigned group, the RPG group(s) members will be in a room seated around a single boardroom style table. Group size will be no larger than 5 players plus the Game Master Instructor (GMI). If there are too many participants then multiple RPG group sessions will be scheduled to accommodate. Multiple groups would help improve data value. The GMI will cover the same lecture material as the classroom setting, but using a gamified narrative approach using a standard published tabletop role-playing game (AD&D 1st Edition Oriental Adventures game system). Players will be given a choice of player characters (PCs - the characters that the players will control within the game setting) to pick from. Participants will work cooperatively with each other while they play through the narrative game setting within the 3 hours, attempting to learn the information relevant to the course material. Players and GMI will use the names of the player characters to reference each other and maintain anonymity. All interactions are verbal, while seated around table. Participants will have character sheets, pencils with erasers, a set of polyhedral game dice. The GMI will be the instructor, narrator, referee, and performer of the non-player characters (NPCs) that the PCs will interact with verbally to unravel clues, overcome challenges, and learn the appropriate information relevant to the East Asian History course.
Here is the recorded video if you missed the show (1:17:12):
Transcript for Deaf, HoH, and Visually impaired screen readers (a work in progress):
Show Notes:
Show websites:
Hasbro:
Wizards of the Coast
Dungeons & Dragon
Dragon Talk
Show Hosts:
Greg Tito:
Shelly Mazzanoble:
Guests:
Hawke Robinson
John Welker
RPG Research website: http://rpgresearch.com
Definition of role-playing game (RPG): http://www2.rpgresearch.com/documents/wiki/glossary/rpg
Description of Tabletop RPG: http://www2.rpgresearch.com/documents/wiki/glossary/trpg
Description of Live-Action Role-Playing (LARP): http://www2.rpgresearch.com/documents/wiki/glossary/larp
Computer-based RPGs (CRPG): http://www2.rpgresearch.com/documents/wiki/glossary/crpg
Solo Aventure books & modules (SABM): http://www2.rpgresearch.com/documents/wiki/glossary/sabm
Role-playing gamer: http://www2.rpgresearch.com/documents/wiki/glossary/rpger
The Wheelchair Friendly RPG Trailer: http://rpgtrailer.com
Hawke's Radio, music, & talk shows:
Dragon Talk D&D News, going on in the D&D world:
John Welker's organized play site(s):
Zombie Orpheus Entertainment (ZOE):
Dead Gentlement Productions:
Did Greg's mother check out the episode? Any questions/comments she has? Did it help?
Greg played D&D with his young daughters, ages
Example adventures of little children & RPG adventures, Michael Tresca articles:
RPG Research LARP program for 2.5 to 5+ year old toddlers, general population and autism spectrum.
See Stuart Brown's book on the biological necessity of play in his book, "Play, how it .... "
More D&D News:
Get Smart, Cone of Silence. Maxwell Smart.
RPG Research is non-profit 501(c)3 charitable, 100% volunteer run organization.
RPG Therapeutics LLC
Citation: Paper in 2006/08 on number of studies .... (Kesler?):
Correlation versus causality. Definition links:
Correlative claims made about RPGs and/or RPG players, "gamers", the list:
Citation of study on analysis of media mentions of RPGs, and rates of neutral, positive, negative:
Claims of RPGs / D&D cause/increasing risk of suicide, or that gamers in general more likely to commit suicide:
Citations about much lower lower suicide correlations for gamers than general population:
Learned Helplessness definition link:
Meaninglessness definition link:
Play Therapy.
Hawke & John's registration numbers as Washington State Department of Health Recreational Therapist:
Egan, Ghost Busters II, experiment clip:
Study on meaningless & RPG gamers:
College students the most highly researched population (disproportionately so, and this causes problems with the results of research not taking into account the rest of the population that does not have college background).
Research on criminality of RPGers:
Research on violence tendencies and personality types of RPGers:
Research on Trait-based hostility responses to video game violence:
Type A Personality definition link:
Type B Personality definition link:
Research on RPGers & The occult/Satanism:
Causal research definition link:
Controlled edxperiments definition link:
Survey experiments definition link:
Controlled variables research definition link:
Control groups definition link:
Placebos definition link:
etc.
John's introduction to D&D / RPGs. His grandmother. White box set. John was 10 years old, 1977.
Hawke's initial experiences with RPG, D&D.
Quotations on needing more cooperative activities in TR, in textbooks and articles:
Kids need to cooperate not compete citation link:
Wheelchair basketball photos & links:
Uno cards for TBi links.
ATRA definition of Tr.
Measurabled, achievable goals.
Biopsychosocial holistic approach to TR:
Intrinsic motivation:
Extrinsic motication:
My explanation of TR: "quot....." video: ....
Drum circle workshop links & photos:
TR certification:
NCTRC
CTRS:
ATRA:
AMTA certification:
BC-MT:
Origin stories of TR & MT
Intervention modality...
ZOE video clip on flow state.
Mihalyi Cziksemtmihalyi on Flow:
Hawke's short video clip explaning about Flow state, embeded here:
Malow's Hierarchy of Needs pyramid, and link to explanation:
Enjoyment factor, hard work is now hard fun, more likely to stick to.
More positive attitude means not only better outlook due to sticking to it, but jest negative attitudes versus positive attiudes impact healing, chemically:
Citation:
TBI = Traumatic Brain Injury
Speech Therapy:
Discharge Transition planning, a key part of Tr training.
TR has big advantage of being trained for groups, most professional are single person traifning.
Ranchso Los amigos tage Ii definition:
Newer/other coma coherence stages:
Example program plan for TBI using RPGs from Hawke:
PDF by Hawke:
Program plan by RPG Research:
Video presentation on the above, embed video here:
Neuroplasticity definition link:
Organic brain damage definition link:
Physical Therapy definition link:
Music Therapy definition link:
Program, with videos, using singing portion of brain to regain speech:
TR RPG Transition / Exit plan examples:
Navos in-patient to out-patient youth drug rehab TR & RPG transition plan
Saint luke's TBI & SCI exit transition plan and RPG examples:
RPGs and Drug rehab & gang culture, new gaming peer group.
Navos Mental Health website link:
RPGs for treating Social phobias, etc:
Phobia exposure techniques: Flooding, and incremental:
John Welker's Uncle's games:
Research on experiences of Gender bias in the gaming Industry & COmmunity (since 2013):
Optimizing the gaming experience in general. Extensive research by Hawke being uploaded to massive document here:
RPGs for Deaf / ASL groups.
Vision impairment and RPGs.
ASL sign for CRIT???
PNWATRA:
Website link:
RPg Research blog entries links:
Audio/video/slideshow from Hawke at PNWTRA;
Professor Datillo bio link at Penn State:
Datillo's work on exploration and learning:
Hawke's essay on Cognitive Neursoscience of learning and RPGs:
Elaboration Cogneuro definition:
Distinctiveness Cogneuro definitio:
All 5 (6) senses:
Aphantasia definition:
Hawke writing chapter in the next edition of the book: Current version of the book:
The only other book on this topic from another author:
Professor messine at EWU change to Dattilo book when it is in there:
RPG Research 100% non-profit volunteer, 501(c)3 chartiable organization.
RPG Research volunteers page:
RPG Research volunteer sign up form:
Danielle Whitworth's profile on RPG Research:
Wheelchair Friendly RPG Trailer: website.
Photos of RPG Trailer with Greg & Shelly & Hawke & John:
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SpoCon:
RPG Research at SpoCon:
Fan Nexus:
RPG Research at FanNexus:
Spark Central:
RPG Research at Spark Central
RPG Therapeutics LLC: Formal training & certification.
RPG Education.com by RPG Therapeutics LLC: http://rpgedu.com
Students in Montreal, CA, U.K.
Ph.D. professional psychiatrists taking our programs to add to their toolset.
Autism spectrum & RPG.
How do people with ASD find out aobut RPG?
Program plan for ASD & neurologically normal toddlers, LARP 2.5 to 5 years old.
Photos:
Hawke started his 3 boys on RPGs at 4,6,8 years old.
ASD 8-30+ years old.
Z-Day program photos & links:
1940s ASD & others, skills dev program photos & links:
Tacoma, Seattle, & Other city's Zombie Walks:
The social skills development built into the RPG experience:
research links...
Strong facial/mood, body language, voice, recognition of other's moods for mind blindness for ASD & similar.
Player Archetypes.
Certified Player ARchetyp.
GM Archetypes
Wheelchair Friendly RPG Trailer:
RPG Bus:
RPG Trailer current version ifs prototype.
Fundraiser for ideal version: http://gofundme.com/rpgtrailer
See list reasons and FAQs about RPg Trailer: http://.....
Pros & Cons of current Prototype RPG Trailer.
Benefits of the Ideal RPg Trailer:
Facilitaties limitations & benefits.
Rural services, for undersereved & un-served areas.
We would lvoe to be asked to speak at GenCon
We would love to be asked to speak at PAX.
RPG Research as Accessibility Advocates for SpoCon:
Access for All Spokane:
John's contact information:
Facebook Page: SAGA:
D&D AL Spokane:
john@rpgresearch.com
John's profile on RPG Research
RPG Research Youtube:
Mist Hersoes:
Realtime artist
Interactive audience, XP acquire & spend
Jet City improv from Seattle
RPG Research
Volunteer Sign up.
Background check requirements.
Greg's reference to Tindr: ....
RPG Therapeutics LLC:
RPG Education:
RPGTrailer:
RPG Bus:
RPG Network.net:
Gofundme.com/rpgtrailer
Patreon for RPG Research for research & community programms: patreon.com/rpgresearch
Twitter:
G+:
ello.co:
Pinterest:
Instagram:
Linkedin:
rpgresearcher at gmail dot com
Dungeon Master of the Board Room
NWN Aurora Toolset, NWN Enhanced Edition coming release:
NWN powerful use for RPG Research:
@shellymoo
@gregtito
Dungeons & dragons.com website:
Dragontalk website:
D&D Twitch site: http://twitch.tv/dnd
D&D Youtube channel:
Two different groups requested my participation in WorldCon 73 (Sasquan) so as per request here is my short bio and schedule from August 19th to 23rd. I hope to see many of you there.
Also listed as W.A. Hawkes-Robinson.
Role-playing gamer since 1979. Game Master since 1984. Founder of the Eä Tolkien Society, Tolkien Moot, Other Minds Magazine, Middle-earth Talk Show, & Eä RPG. Founder of RPG Research & RPG Therapeutics LLC, studies on the therapeutic & educational effects of all forms of role-playing games (tabletop, live-action & computer-based).
Middle-earth (any system). Prefer detailed systems that do not interfere with role-playing.
Prefer ROLE-playing over ROLL-playing but do not like overly abstracted RPG systems.
Additional information:
Registered Recreational Therapist for Washington State Department of Health -
Nearing completion of Interdisciplinary Bachelors in Recreation Therapy, Music Therapy, Neuroscience, & Research Psychology at Eastern Washington University.