Can tabletop games and story-telling adventures help your family learn? Is playing games really learning?
Michael Low, teacher and game designer, is Kickstarting Starsworn, an all-ages colouring book/choose-your-own-adventure game that builds literacy – and teaching kids to write using games at LuckOfLegends.com.
Geek Native offered the chance to talk about the overlap of the two, teaching and gameplaying, and Michael kindly agreed.
Firstly, let’s take a look at the campaign.
The campaign for Starsworn has a month left to run and is already funded, pushing through the first three stretch goals!
The Stranger Things Effect
More than a decade ago, I was running a class in Chicago and pulled out a twenty-sided die to introduce some randomness in an activity. Kids went wide-eyed, and one asked: “Mr. Low, do you play Dungeons & Dragons?” When I told them that I did, another student asked “can you teach us?”
I was flabbergasted. Since when had role-playing become cool, I wondered?
D&D is having a cultural moment – I have seen D&D references in everything from Stranger Things to the Amazing World of Gumball. And while the game itself may not be my favorite entry point for kids into the hobby, any entry point is better than none.
The educational benefits of gaming with kids – play-based learning – are many and well documented, but most research to date has focused on the idea of playing games with younger students. As any adult role-player will gladly tell you, RPGs are one of the most educational, creative, and social past-times someone of any age can take up – and for kids, they offer that rarest and most precious of experiences: a completely emotionally engaging and compelling activity where learning happens with joy.
That’s what led me to start designing and running game classes to help kids learn, and there’s potential there for revolutionizing how we think about education. In my classes, kids build their own worlds on Google slides, create characters, and write stories that shape their adventures together, effectively working as a writer’s room, acting troupe, and a crew of kids playing and laughing together.
But I’ve been teaching, designing games, and working with kids for decades; for a guardian or parent looking to start playing with kids – and even, as is becoming more common lately, being asked to play BY kids – where to start?
STARSWORN
I had a few design goals for Starsworn from the jump: first, I wanted anyone to be able to play, and learn as they went – zero prep or outside knowledge necessary. Second, I wanted to build up to more interesting mechanics and rules – what educators call “scaffolding” – as the game progressed. Finally, I wanted players to move from playing together to creating their own adventures, creating tools so parents and kids could start working on their own stories.
In Starsworn, players make a character – but unlike other games, there are no “stats”: what makes your character shine is both intuitive and teaches basic story-telling. “Lines” for each character define who they are, what they love, and why they adventure – even what they struggle with. This approach has helped students in my classes learn to analyze characters in books, recognizing characters’ Drives, Flaws, and Skills in books.
Story structure began with a simple idea: choose-your-own-adventure books. They were, for many, the first exposure to role-playing games; most video games, if we’re being honest, are just very fancy branching story trees, after all! Readers choose on a map where to travel or what class to attend, then turn to find a Scene they can play out. Scenes are broken into 4 sections: the “Hook,” “Explore,” “Moves,” and “Troubles & Triumphs.”
The Hook has two components: a lovely coloring book illustration (for folx who want a visual) and a read-aloud that’s short, evocative, and pitches the problem.
Explore the Scene gives some clear ways to build the drama – questions and suggestions for the players to develop things. Who’s there? What’s there? What’s happening? What if … ?
Making a Move might sound like PbtA, but it isn’t – Moves in Starsworn are just rough ways to deal with a problem: Fix It, use Empathy, Help, Get Physical, Cast a Spell, or Figure it Out. Each Scene offers a few ideas how characters might get involved and what they might try.
Troubles & Triumphs gives lists of outcomes – what might happen as a result of the Moves people make. These are all made to invite ideas, but not force things one way or another. It’s also helping cultivate a basic understanding of what “makes” a scene in a story game: a setting, interesting details, a problem, and some surprising and satisfying outcomes. Later, there’s a sheet for players to use to design their own scenes and put them into play.
As players continue, they’ll encounter advanced mechanics like Starsworn Powers and Drama Clocks, add Lines to their Story at the end of a Chapter, and be able to play new Characters they meet.
As a final way to help people learn the magic of role-playing, co-creator Daniel Hinds and the cast of Stories Podcast have produced an amazing series where heroes go on a parallel journey to the tales in Starsworn – all free to listen to and learn from.
What next?
We’ve got more planned! There’s a StoriesRPG podcast in the works, more chapters for new worlds, and a version of the game I use teaching at LuckOfLegends.com that will help teachers and parents build classes with role-playing games. If you’d like to know more about my approach, you can read up on my blog, watch a presentation, or sign kids up for a class. You can also read a review by the amazing Steph C of TTRPG Kids for more info!
And in the spring, I’ll be presenting with a cast of all-star RPG educators at SXSW Education, helping spread the word about the power of story games to teach – the biggest breakthrough stage for educational innovation for RPGs to hit in the states!
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