Role Playing & Table Topping in the Classroom
“Let’s tell a story together!” Deciding on a goal – What do you want to accomplish? Educational Standards? Team-Building? Social Skills? Just plain fun? What’s the Setting? Playing as Ourselves Alternate Present Setting Past/Fantasy Past Fantasy Future Choosing a role-playing system Representing your game: Theater of the Mind vs. Battle Maps Theater of the Mind…
Escape Room Games: “Translate or Die”
When it comes to teaching the Humanities, some topics just aren’t as interesting as others. In Psychology class it’s easy to spark student interest in the subject of mental illnesses, for example. The teenage attention span seems to shorten dramatically when it comes to drier topics such as “The Mechanics of Human Language.” What’s a…
Table Top Gaming With Students: Hero Kids
Meandering around on drivethrurpg.com can often lead to random and fabulous resources for game masters. Although the youngest students I work with are about 14, I’ve found value in exploring games aimed at younger demographics. Since roleplaying is, in the end, “make-believe with numbers” we can sometimes gain a new perspective from pondering a more…
Educational Games: 100 the Hard Way
What do you do when you want to teach about the topic of stress in psychology class but you don’t want to actually stress people out? You make a game that’s juuust hectic enough, juuust stressful enough, to get the job done without making anyone miserable! That’s why I made 100 the Hard way, a…
Educational Games: Ultimate Werewolf
When my students come into the classroom and the desks are all arranged in a gigantic circle, the response is pretty universally “Ugh. What’s THIS?!” We’ve got them conditioned to dread a change in room structure, because it usually means we’re asking themselves to do something social and uncomfortable. By the time we’re done with…
Tabletop Gaming With Students: Ten Candles*
*This is an amazing game that features story elements that are NOT intended for kids. If you are running this game with teens or younger, it will require adaptation. See below! Teaching the necessary skills involved in improvisational acting requires a wide variety of different games and exercises. One of the most difficult elements of…
Adventure School: Gaming in The Classroom 