EDGE

Overview: Cultivating Transformational Communities

Welcome to Cultivating Transformational Communities! This course explores foundational concepts and practices to consider when community building around analog role-playing games for transformative impacts. Remember the concept from the Larp Design book that everything is a designable surface. As we have discussed before, engaging in transformative processes requires a lowering of vigilance and surrender to the process. Community design has a tremendous impact on participant feelings of safety and trust, which are necessary to establish and maintain not only during the game itself, but before, after, and between sessions.

In addition to lectures, discussions, and journals, you will also be role-playing scenarios related to crises in community management, designing one (1) autobiographical nanogame related to a social identity you personally have, and playtesting games designed by your group members. 

Most class activities are asynchronous, meaning that you will submit your work on specific due dates, but there are no assigned class times where you must log in. These activities are typically discussion boards, journals, peer reviews, and major assignments. 

Discussion forum engagement is the lifeblood of the course. Since we are all in different time zones, please post your initial discussions the night before the class day. Then, engage in the discussion forum by responding to at least two (2) of your peers in Ask a Question, Answer a Question format. See the Discussion Forum Instructions in the Unit for more information. 

• This course, you will also engage in mandatory discussion forums in a different Studium shell with students from two other universities. More on this below.

Reflection journals are viewable only by your instructors, although in many cases, you will also post assignments in the discussion board for your peers. In Reflection journals, you will consider the work you have read, watched, and discussed all week and tie it to your personal thoughts and experiences.

Playtesting and feedback sessions will take place over video conferencing within your peer group. We recommend Zoom, as Uppsala provides this software for free linked here. We will give you options for groups, but you will schedule meeting times within your group. Please try to be as flexible as possible with one another, as we are logging in from various parts of the world and have different schedules of availability. 

• You will spend one session role-playing and debriefing at least four (4) Crisis Management scenarios related to role-playing communities with your group.
• You will design and playtest one autobiographical (1) game with your group members during this course, which will be based upon a social identity you personally have.
• Each group member’s playtest should be a maximum of 1 hour — maximum of 45 min for game play and 15 min total for feedback.
• This process will take likely a minimum of 3 sessions: one meeting (1) for Crisis Management and two (2) playtest sessions of a maximum of four (4) hours each. Please plan accordingly.

Zoom Workshops for conflict transformation will take place three times in the course. In these synchronous sessions, you will connect with students in two other courses and practice skills using role-playing and other methods. If you cannot attend, you can do written work that day instead. Please sign up at the beginning of the semester so we can plan. More below.

Major Assignments are papers you will write for the class. The emphasis for these assignments will be creating your autobiographical nanogame, iterating upon it once, and grounding your design in theory.

Please familiarize yourself with the contents of the course including the syllabus, the calendar, and the units, then take your Orientation Quiz, which is linked in this Unit.

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Unit 1 Overview

In Unit 1, we will discuss the purpose behind cultivating transformational communities, as well as practices related to designing autobiographical games. By now, we have covered the importance of workshopping and debriefing in maximizing the potential for transformative impacts. However, our concern for this course are the frames around the frames — i.e. the community container setting needed to build sufficient trust in participants to engage, e.g., the community building practices around the game that support long-term transformation. While conscious container setting is not always present when players have transformative experiences in RPGs, we believe it to be essential to transformative game design practice. 

Thus, this course will discuss various topics related to role-playing communities including both problems can arise and ways to potentially address such issues. These problems can arise from powerful emotional responses to games; the marginalization of RPGs in academia; changing group dynamics and toxicity; social conflicts related race, gender, sexuality, and class; issues with equity, inclusion, and accessibility; harassment; and compromised organizer safety. While this course will not offer solutions to these problems, as many of them are endemic to human societies in general, we will explore approaches that communities have employed, as well as brainstorming our own. The ultimate goal of this course is for you to carefully consider ways to provide containment for the community that provides adequate support for players and organizers alike, especially when role-playing for transformative impacts.

Finally, this year, we have a wonderful Erasmus-funded opportunity to connect students and courses at three universities: Uppsala, Göttingen, and Groningen! You can read more about ROCKET here. We will be sharing materials on conflict transformation, engaging in discussion forums, and engaging in workshops over Zoom that will include practicing skills using role-playing games. This week, we begin, as you will engaging in discussion forums with students from undergraduate courses on Academic Writing and Intercultural communication. Most excitingly, if you would like to practice your facilitation skills, we can offer you the opportunity to do so during these workshops. (Facilitation would require 1-2 additional Zoom calls for onboarding). We are excited to expand our transformative play community to other universities!

In this Unit, we will cover:

• RPGs as Community Building Practices
• Cultivating Safer Communities
• Consensus Reality and Collective Consciousness
• RPG Groups as Transformational Containers
• Writing Autobiographical Games
• Crisis Management

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Note: Some of the materials below may not be available outside of this course. We are providing them as part of your education within this course. Do not distribute PDFs. 

Required materials:

Readings:

• Baird, Josephine, and Sarah Lynne Bowman. 2022. “The Transformative Potential of Immersive Experiences Within Role-playing Communities.” Revista de Estudos Universitário 48: 1-48.
• Bowman, Sarah Lynne. 2010. “Interactional Dynamics in Role-Playing Games.” In The Functions of Role-Playing Games: How Participants Create Community, Solve Problems, and Explore Identity. McFarland. 55-79.
• Stark, Lizzie. 2014. “Building Larp Communities: Social Engineering for Good.” Leaving Mundania, March 18.
• Wood, Laura. 2021. “Why Larp Community Matters and How We Can Improve It.” In Book of Magic: Vibrant Fragments of Larp Practices, edited by Kari Kvittingen Djukastein, Marcus Irgens, Nadja Lipsyc, and Lars Kristian Løveng Sunde. Oslo, Norway: Knutepunkt.

Videos:

• Bowman, Sarah Bowman. 2022. “Safety in Role playing Games Part V: Cultivating Safer Communities — Sarah Lynne Bowman.” Transformative Play Initiative, February 4.
• Kim, Yeonsoo Julian. 2019. “Writing an Autobiographical Game.” Nordiclarp.org, September 11.
• Leonard, Diana J. 2018. “Promoting Healthy Communities in Larp.” Keynote at the Living Games Conference 2018. Living Games Conference. YouTube, May 18.
• Murphy, Caro. 2018. “Creating Transformative Communities.” Keynote at the Living Games Conference 2018. Living Games Conference. YouTube, May 20.

Playtesting:

• Steele, Samara Hayley, Sara Hart, John Stavropoulos, and Sarah Lynne Bowman. 2016. “Crisis Management Workshop Living Games 2016.” Workshop at Living Games Conference 2016, Austin, Texas. 

Review:

• Bowman, Sarah Bowman. 2022. “Safety in Role playing Games Part I: Introduction — Sarah Lynne Bowman.” Transformative Play Initiative, February 4.