Implementing Transformative Role-playing Games

Overview & Synopsis

This textbook explores implementation practices for running transformative analog role-playing games, such as transformative leisure, educational, and therapeutic applications. We foreground central considerations for hacking existing games, framing, scaling up existing designs, adapting to the needs of specific populations, creating functional groups, and working with stakeholders. Additionally, the textbook covers many practical considerations when producing and running logistics. Examples include project management, organizational teams, establishing the setting, character writing, location logistics, as well as tech, interaction, and sensory design. We offer suggestions for communication, casting, documentation, guiding player preparation, workshop design, and onsite logistics. Next, the textbook discusses different facilitation roles and responsibilities. We describe several skills associated with good facilitation and recommendations for working in different settings. Additionally, the textbook presents general principles for cultivating safer and more accessible transformational communities surrounding play. We discuss ways to address physical and psychological risks in implementation for both organizers and players, such as injury, psychological overwhelm, and inappropriate behavior in the community. The textbook also features theories connected to the play experience, including motivation, creative agendas, and labor. Then, we present several concepts related to transforming one’s self concept, social identity, relationships with others, and spiritual development through transformative play. We include various practical recommendations for working with preparatory activities, steering, bleed, different types of immersion, interpersonal dynamics, group dynamics, and gathering play experiences through feedback and documentation. The textbook closes with a chapter offering practical advice for playtesting, iteration, and conducting research on transformative play, including study design, ethics, data gathering, and analysis. We conclude with a list of studies offering empirical evidence for the affective, cognitive, and behavioral benefits of these games. We recommend also reading the first book in this series, Transformative Role-playing Game Design, edited by Bowman, Diakolambrianou, and Brind. This book was created within Empowering Game Design Education with Transformative Role-playing Games (EDGE), a joint Erasmus+ Higher Education Cooperation Partnership project in the Higher Education sector between Uppsala University, Dragons’ Nest, Avalon Larp Studio, Chaos League, and Turku University of Applied Sciences. https://erasmusedge.eu/