Categories
dungeons & dragons writing advice

How AI is Making Dungeon Mastering Easier Than Ever

I run a Dungeon & Dragons campaign for four students that meets for two hours a day, two days a week. Our campaign takes place in my home-brew world, Migia.

I don’t have the time or the skills to map a logical geography for a whole world, so I used the open-source Fantasy Map Generator created by GitHub user Azgaar, a JavaScript wizard from Richmond, Virginia, to generate and tweak a world map for Migia. 

The generator allows you to customize place names, stylize the design, focus the map on political borders, biomes, cultural zones, religions, etc., and render it as a flat map, a 3D scene, or a globe.

From there, the Internet offers a plethora of D&D-focused generators to help me bring Migia to life. There’s the city map generator, the dungeon generator and cave generator, the random encounter generator, the side quest generator, the backstory generator, the NPC generator, the fantasy name generator, and a whole list of auto-roll tables that will generate everything from a “breakfast at a traveler’s inn” to “resurrection consequences.” On days I prefer rolling dice to pressing buttons, I head over to the D100 tables on DNDSPEAK.com for inspiration.

Tables from the Dungeon Master’s Guide

Generators have been around as long as D&D has. Computers may make them easier and faster to use by combining a slew of tables into one button push, but at bottom, most generators are just the lists of tables Dungeon Masters find in the official rule books or create on their own.

In other words, generators are not artificial intelligence but glorified spreadsheets.

Midjourney Bot To Create Images For A Campaign 

In September, one of my D&D buddies added the Midjourney Bot to our Discord chat server. You enter a few words in the chat, and the bot will create an original image based on your prompt using artificial intelligence and machine learning. 

I started using it to create images of non-player characters in the campaign.

Take the image of the harengon, for example (a harengon is a kind of rabbit-like creature). I prompted the bot to create “a ferocious rabbit standing on the edge of a cliff with a sword in her hand.” After about a minute, Midjourney Bot provided me with four drafts based on the prompt.

Four options for my harengon

From there, I selected the draft in the bottom right and told the bot to “upscale” it. A minute later, I had the final image of my harengon. The upscale added brush strokes and more detail across the entire canvas. I could have continued to tweak, but the image served my needs, so boom…two minutes after having the idea for a ferocious rabbit sword fighter, I had a picture I could base the doe on.

The results of my various prompts were interesting and captured the vibes I intended (e.g., “a female elf with long white hair and dark skin standing in the center of a cloud made from daggers”), but they lacked the details that I need to really dig into their characters.

Then I realized that I could use the word “portrait” in my prompts to force the bot to create more realistic images of my NPCs.

For the last few months, whenever I’ve needed an NPC for the campaign, I type a few words into Midjourney Bot that summarize the kind of character I’m looking for and add the word “portrait.” A couple of minutes and a few drafts later, I’ve got an image I can show my players to help them imagine the individuals they encountered during the campaign.

From Characters To Scenes

A few weeks after I started using Midjourney, I decided I could use it to create illustrations of the previous D&D session’s scenes.

Most D&D campaigns last weeks, months, years, and sometimes decades. When you sit down with your friends (or students) for a session, there’s usually a few minutes of recap (“Last time on Dungeons & Dragons…”) to remind everyone where we left off.

How much cooler would those recaps be if I could throw in an illustration or two of where they were or the monsters they were still facing?

Thanks to the Midjourney artificial intelligence image creator, my D&D campaigns became much more visual.

Craft Assistant (GPT-3) To Write Original Histories & Backstories

I use Craft to manage all the information I need for Migia. Craft is like a note-taking app on steroids. I discovered it a few months back (long after Apple named it the “2021 Mac App of the Year”), and it’s the first app in a long time that I loved using. I immediately converted 90% of my document-creating/managing tasks to Craft; months later, I haven’t looked back (I really should write a blog post about it; it’s so good).

A couple of weeks ago, the folks behind Craft added GPT-3 to the app, calling the feature the “Craft AI Assistant.” As Craft wrote in their announcement, “We believe that GPT-3, one of the most impressive AI systems ever built, which applies machine learning to understand questions and generate human-like text, has now reached the point where it’s more than just a novelty.”

I tried it out — “Generate a list of blog post ideas” — but didn’t really see a way to integrate it into my daily habits, so I moved on with my life.

But on Wednesday this week, I found myself behind the 8-ball for this week’s D&D session with my students. The adventurers were on a ship on their way to a pirate haven named Maroon Cave, about 200 miles off the coast. I knew a giant shark was about to attack them (I’d ended the last session by playing the theme to JAWS), but if they made it past the shark, I didn’t know what they’d find at the pirate haven.

With less than an hour to prep, I opened Craft, brought up the Assistant, and asked it to “write a 400 word history of a pirate haven named Maroon Cave.”

Craft AI Assistant writes a history of a pirate haven for me.

Within seconds, the Craft AI Assistant had written an entire history, explaining why it was named Maroon Cave (from the French word for “fugitive”) and why pirates were safe there. It also attached famous pirates such as Blackbeard to the history, provided details on two specific events that occurred there, and summarized what the cave is used for today (“a popular tourist attraction”).

I couldn’t use all of that in my campaign, but after a few tweaks (French became Elvish, for example, and Blackbeard became a goblin pirate queen; plus, I deleted the section on it becoming a tourist spot), it was perfect.

Next, I needed a popular location at the pirate haven, a tavern where the adventurers could go to find the information that brought them to the island in the first place.

After a quick stop at the tavern name generator, tweaked with the help of some students who were in the room with me, I asked the Craft AI Assistant to “write a biography of a dwarven woman who runs a tavern named the Tipsy Turtle on an island that serves as a pirate haven.”

The Assistant created a story that begins, “Lydia, or ‘Lyd’, is a dwarf who runs a tavern, the Tipsy Turtle, on Maroon Cave. The cave is ruled by the law of the sea – piracy. Lyd, however, brings a touch of stability to this dangerous place.”

First, note how it recognized I wanted the tavern to be on Maroon Cave. I didn’t tell it that. It picked up the information from the other notes in my app.

It continued the story, “She arrived at the cave roughly 15 years ago as the young lover of the infamous pirate queen, Captain Aurora. After Aurora’s disappearance, Lyda decided to stay on the island. Seeing the need and the potential for profit, Lyd decided to build a tavern, and it quickly became a popular gathering place for the locals, as well as for pirates who passed through.”

It wasn’t perfect. I had to edit, tweak, and create D&D-specific details for Lyd. I gave her a dwarven last name (Trueboots), determined her alignment, gifted her a few stats unique stats (+5 to Charisma checks), and figured out her personality traits. Still, by starting with the story created by the Craft AI Assistant, I turned what could easily take 30 minutes into a five-minute task.

From there, I popped into Discord, submitted a similar prompt to the Midjourney Bot that I gave to GPT-3 (“a dwarven woman who runs a tavern on a pirate haven”), and two minutes later, I had a portrait of Lyd to help my students bring her to life.

Lyda, the owner of the Tipsy Turtle

There’s a lot of controversy around these AI assistants. Artists and illustrators are rightly crying foul because the images the bots come up with have, at their origin, unique works of art that can be found on the Internet. They also work at a high enough quality now to replace the need for human illustrators and artists, and like the Luddites of yore, the skilled workers feel undervalued and dismissed.

Meanwhile, the word-generating AI bots will make teaching students how to write essays incredibly problematic. It’s too easy for an unscrupulous teenager to generate an original report on whatever topic their teacher asks for. These things can create titles (see the one that accompanies this post) or analyze the theme of The Scarlett Letter:

The theme of The Scarlet Letter is that of the consequences of sin and guilt. The novel examines how individuals respond to these consequences, and how societal norms dictate how we process guilt and the importance of justice. In the novel, Hester Prynne wears the scarlet A (for adultery) as a badge of her shame and is ostracized by her Puritan community for her actions. The novel examines themes of confession, repentance, and how the truth is often obscured by the judgment and prejudice of others. It also speaks to the power of secrecy and the importance of owning up to one’s mistakes in the face of public scrutiny. Ultimately, it reminds us that everyone is capable of sin, and that it is important to be forgiving and understanding instead of harsh and judgmental. 

– Craft AI Assistant

There are real consequences to these technological advancements, ones that will not always be helpful to humanity.

I get that.

But I’m also a busy and stressed Dungeon Master, and if these things can make that role more manageable and fun, then I’m ready to roll.

Categories
reviews

Top 5 TV Shows of 2022

My wife and I didn’t watch too many shows released this year. We caught up on old shows we hadn’t seen yet (e.g. Yellowstone) and chased them with faithful sitcoms (e.g. 30 Rock). Separately, I started a bunch of 2022 shows but due to … you know, “life” … I haven’t finished them yet (e.g. House of Dragons, Rings of Power, Sandman).

Of the shows I did finish, here are my top five.

5. We Need to Talk About Cosby

In 1965, Bill Cosby was already a successful stand-up comedian and was just about to become the first Black man in American history to star in the lead role of a nationally-broadcast television drama. He was also already a sexual assaulter.

By the time the accusations against the man who would become known as “America’s Funniest Father” came to light in 2014, Cosby had committed at least 60 instances of rape, drug-facilitated sexual abuse, sexual battery, child sexual abuse, and sexual misconduct. He had even terrorized young women who appeared on his massive hit sitcom, The Cosby Show, women those of us who grew up in the 1980s still remember seeing on TV.

In short, Bill Cosby was a monster.

In W. Kamau Bell’s documentary series for SHOWTIME, we learn the man’s history of violence, but we also learn the ways he contributed to the growth and development of Black America. Bell tells the full story in all its complexity, showing why Bill Cosby really is, as Philadelphia Magazine described him, “Dr. Huxtable and Mr. Hyde.

This is what documentaries were invented for. Bell doesn’t provide any easy answers. His series shows that humans are messy and complicated and can simultaneously contain the worst and best of our nature.

He was right. We need to talk about Cosby, which is why you need to watch this show.

4. The Bear

My wife is from the suburbs of Chicago. I’m from the suburbs of Boston. The first time our families met was at our college graduation party. Her father prepared Italian beef for everyone. After tasting it for the first time, my brother said (not within earshot of my future father-in-law), “Meh. It tastes like Steak-ummms.”

And thus was declared the regional war between Boston-style roast beef and Chicago-style Italian beef.

For the record, I love them both.

I also loved The Bear, FX’s anxiety-inducing series focused on the story of a world-renowned chef who inherits an Italian beef joint in Chicago after its owner, his older brother, kills himself. The series focuses on his attempts to make changes to the restaurant while also respecting its traditions and the people who work there, most of whom he’s known since he was a kid.

But more than just a workplace dramedy, The Bear explores panic and grief as the main character, his sister, and crew deal with the loss of the brother and boss who inspired, angered, protected, and loved them.

The casting is perfect, with no weak link among them, and the pacing of the episodes is fantastic, giving viewers just enough of each character to sense their heart and humanity without (d)evolving into an anthology show (see Atlanta).

Should you watch The Bear if you haven’t yet? Yes, chef.

3. The Legend of Vox Machina

Despite being a die-hard Dungeons & Dragons player and dungeon master (sometimes playing in three different games per week and going on five or six years of using D&D in the classroom with my students), I do not listen to or watch Critical Role, the most successful D&D-focused podcast on the Internet with Twitch episodes that regularly draw in half a million viewers per week.

Despite not knowing anything about the world or storylines of Critical Role, I thoroughly enjoyed their animated series, The Legend of Vox Machina, on Amazon Prime.

You probably know the basic plotlines of a typical Dungeons & Dragons campaign. A small group of adventurers go on a quest to kill a dragon, find a jewel, save a princess, stop the goblin king, etc. They use special abilities and weapons to overcome their foes, solve mind-bending puzzles, and avoid death-inducing traps. Plus, there’s magic.

But unless you’ve played a game of Dungeons & Dragons, you might not know the experience is typically wildly chaotic and filled with obscene language, rampaging violence, and a dragon’s hoard of double-entendres. On the other hand, players often care deeply about their characters, and they’ll genuinely wrestle with certain decisions, such as whether to sacrifice their character for a compatriot or go against their principles to avoid betraying a friend.

The Legend of Vox Machina does a fantastic job of recreating what it feels like to sit down at a table with some of your funniest and weirdest adult friends and play a game of Dungeons & Dragons. Combine its perfect tone with talented voice actors, a massively experienced dungeon master, and high-quality animation, and you’ve got an almost perfect show.

I can’t wait for Season Two.

2. Severance

First, it’s just nice to see Adam Scott working. I’ve been a fan since the 2007 HBO series Tell Me You Love Me (canceled after one season) and became an even bigger fan thanks to 2009’s Party Down (canceled after two seasons). When he showed up as a regular on NBC’s Parks & Rec in 2010, I thought the same thing I thought in 2022: It’s nice to see him working.

What’s better, though, is to see him working on something so good. Adam Scott’s comedy chops ingratiated him in the Adult Swim universe, which is fine but not something I watch much. His affability also led to a stint as a game show host.

But to see him as the lead character on a high-concept, expertly written, wonderfully cast, sci-fi-influenced, suspenseful drama that kept viewers surprised all season long was just a pure delight.

Of course, there was more to Severance than Adam Scott. He was joined onscreen by the always incredible John Turturro, whose character enjoys a heartwarming relationship with a character played by the surprisingly delightful Christopher Walken. The other two main characters — played by Britt Lower and Zach Cherry — round out our heroes, and each of them is given enough focus to make it a true ensemble. Then we get Patricia Arquette as one antagonist and the incredible Tramill Tillman as the other, both of whom brought so much tension to the screen.

Season One ended on a huge cliffhanger. I’m excited to see how its creator will surprise us next.

1. Reservation Dogs

This is simply the best show on television right now.

Every episode hits just right. Some of them make you laugh. Others bring tears to your eyes. Most of them do both. Each of the four main characters is perfect, and every supporting character makes you want a spin-off show that focuses exclusively on them.

Whether it’s an episode about a reservation police officer being accidentally dosed with acid and stumbling upon a secret society of fish-fuckers out in the woods or a bottle episode where the entire community rallies around a teenage girl whose grandmother and lone caretaker is dying in her bed, this series about four Native American teenagers dealing with the suicide of their leader and best friend is as good as it gets.

Several times during the season, my wife or I would ask the other, “Which character is your favorite?” And every single time, it’s an impossible question to answer. Each one is so freakin’ good and played so freakin’ well that to choose an answer would be disrespectful.

For example, one of the episodes this season focused on Cheese. His uncle (whom he lived with) got arrested for growing weed, so the state sent him to a boy’s home run by Marc Maron. Each of the characters in the boy’s home, including Marc Maron’s, was played perfectly by the actors, and they each explored the humor and the pathos of their small parts. Meanwhile, the actor who plays Cheese nailed every scene. The character is lovely and sweet without being cloying or losing his edge (gotta love a character who is thoughtful enough to introduce himself with his pronouns while also wearing a GWAR shirt) that at the end of the episode, it only makes sense to say Cheese is my favorite character.

But then in another episode, the actress who plays Elora pulls off a single moment — the moment when she realizes her grandmother has died (note the change in her expression at 1:07) — with such subtlety, grace, and…well, truth…that I made my wife rewind the scene and watch it again. How could she not be my favorite character?

But then there’s Willie Jack, whose depth, loyalty, and “realness” are unparalleled, not to mention Uncle Brownie, Big, Mose & Mekko, and all the wonderful aunties. How can a person choose a favorite from this incredible bounty of talent?

I will say, however, that I find myself giddy whenever we get a scene with the spirit guide.

I love this show, these characters, and these actors so much. And you should too.

Categories
dungeons & dragons works in progress

Two Adventures are Better Than One

I’m currently running two different games of Dungeons & Dragons. The first is for a group of seven teachers who use the game to connect with their coworkers and escape the emotional stress we all feel thanks to our day jobs. The second is for my daughter’s two goodfathers (as an atheist family [kinda], we opted for goodfathers rather than godfathers). One goodfather lives in Maine, the other in Michigan.

The first game — the teacher game — meets face-to-face once a week in the middle of the week for about four to five hours, depending on when we get started. It may sound dorky to some people, but it’s basically our poker night.

It’s a diverse group (for Vermont). At 42, I am not the oldest member of the group; we also have members in their 30s and 20s. Two women grace us with their skills as full-time members of the party, while another plays a tricksy gnome whose character allows her to jump in and out of the game whenever she has the time. Most of our group members have played before, but this is the first time for one of them.

We started with an original story set in an Eastern region of the Forgotten Realms. The story has had three major parts to it so far. The first tested the party’s mettle in battle by challenging to capture a hoard of weapons from a group of goblin bandits. They all survived.

The second part of the story required them to travel to a distant town to recover an unusual magical object. Two members of the party (one of whom was a goblin they’d captured during the first part of the story) were killed on the journey, but new characters joined them once they reached the new town, and they spent several days seeking out the unusual object. During one of those days, two young elvish girls (played by my daughter and the daughter of another party member) requested their help in rescuing their father, who had been kidnapped by mysterious men in red robes. The side quest increased the party’s knowledge (if only slightly) about the story’s main foes.

The third part of the story reminded them that every door can lead to their doom. Their exploration of a seemingly abandoned wizard’s tower cost them the lives of two beloved characters, but they also found three more characters, expanding their numbers while also altering the party dynamic.

The next part of the story is going to come from an official Dungeons & Dragons book. They’re currently traveling down a river to move from one town to another (at our last session, they were attacked by four powerful and aggressive oozes in one of the swampier sections of the river), but when they arrive at the next town, they’ll find a richly developed suite of characters written and presented by the makers of Dungeons & Dragons. I’ve never run a game out of an official book before, so this will be a first. I’m eager to see how it goes.

I built the campaign as I’ve built all my campaigns, using instructions provided by The Dungeon Master’s Guide, coupled with copious use of the Internet. I borrowed ideas from the history of the Forgotten Realms (as determined by the Forgotten Realms Wiki), made notes on interesting and/or influential characters (some original, some borrowed), created a hook to pull the players into the world, blocked their way forward with a series of rich and exciting encounters (some requiring more forethought than others), and voila, we were ready to go.

The game I run with my daughter’s goodfathers is different. First, we don’t play in person, nor do we play simultaneously; instead, we “play by post.” I write some stuff on a forum, they write some stuff in response, and once in a while, I require them to do a dice roll (for which they include a screenshot). After they roll, we deal with the result: I write some stuff, they write some stuff, and the story moves forward.

None of us have played by post before, so we have no idea how it will turn out or whether it’s something we’ll ever want to do again.

The second difference about the goodfather game is that we’re using it to jointly create an original setting we may someday share with the world, a setting solid enough to support any campaign a Dungeon Master might want to drop on it.

Not knowing exactly how to begin such a process, we agreed to a few basic principles and a few basic facts about the world, then decided to run a play-test. They both wanted me to DM, but all of us will build the world together. We’re just getting started, so again, we have no idea how it will turn out, but it’s a way to be creative with two of my best friends, so why not do it?

I’ve been DM-ing games off and on for several years now. I got a late start when it comes to playing Dungeons & Dragons, but now that I’m in it, I’m in it.

As Fluid Imagination moves forward into 2020, I hope to share more about what I’ve learned as a Dungeon Master, including how I’ve used it and/or hope to use it in my capacities as a teacher and administrator. I’ve created a new category on the blog, aptly titled Dungeons & Dragons, where I’ll file what I write, and maybe someday, it’ll be useful to someone else.

Also, one of Fluid Imagination’s most visited links has to do with using Dungeons & Dragons in the classroom, and I recently learned that I was quoted in an article about how Dungeons & Dragons can help kids develop social-emotional learning skills. If so many people are coming to check out Fluid Imagination thanks to Dungeons & Dragons, I’d like to give then a little more to read while they’re here.

Of course…any regular readers know I don’t do well with goals, so I guess we’ll see how it goes.

Categories
reviews

Top 10 Posts of 2018

Taking a stroll through Fluid Imagination’s statistics for the year, I figured I’d share the Top 10 Posts of 2018 (as determined by page views). They weren’t all written in 2018, but these were the posts that saw the most traffic.

Using Dungeons & Dragons in the Classroom
The overwhelming favorite, this post attracted more than a quarter of all the page views for Fluid Imagination this year, including a reporter who wrote a series of stories on the topic for KQED’s education blog, Mindshift, and a doctoral candidate who was writing a thesis on using games in classrooms. I don’t know if any of my readers tried to implement my method for using a role-playing game in their classroom, but hopefully it inspired at least one or two teachers to give a try.

Teacher Advocates “Students Go On Strike”
Written in the wake of the Parkland shootings, this post does exactly what its headline suggests: it advocates for students across the country to go on strike until Congress takes decisive action on school shootings. “The politicians need to stop running for re-election,” I wrote, “and start doing the job we sent them there to do: use their conscience to do what they think is best.”

Two Types of Stories
Originally written in 2011 (and one of the few posts that made the transition from the old site to the new), this post was inspired by a question that one of my high-school friends asked: “Do you buy that there are only two types of fiction stories: a stranger comes to town and a hero goes on a journey?” I wrote back, “Yes and no. But it will take me longer to explain.” This post was my explanation. Because it is a top-ranking result when you search for “two types of stories” on Google, the post continues to be a perennial favorite, even eight years after I wrote it.

I Am No Longer An Atheist
Published in early March, this post was a bit of a coming-out announcement for me. For the past twenty-five years or so, I’d claimed loudly and repeatedly to be an atheist, and while I tried not to be one of those atheists who look down on the global community of believers, I did not shrink from engaging with anyone interested in my atheism, and I stood my ground as a proud, public-facing atheist. But after a series of mystical experiences, I decided that “atheism” no longer fit my understanding of the universe. This post explains what I arrived at next.

Growing Up
Cross-published on Splimm.com, “the premier media outlet for families whose lives have been enhanced by cannabis,” this post tells the story of a night I got very high on marijuana only to have my five-year-old daughter get out of bed to ask for my help with an extra-sharp toenail. This post is one of my personal favorites.

Jack Straw from Wichita
In the days following the Parkland shooting, a boy from my town (and a former student of my wife’s) was arrested by the Vermont State Police for planning to go on a mass-shooting spree at a high school in the town next door. In this post, I used the case to argue in favor of abolishing prison time for individuals under the age of 25. And while it’s not one of the top posts of 2018, here’s the follow-up post I wrote to this one.

An Argument About Guns
Another post written a few days after the Parkland shooting, this post examines (in a very roundabout way) some of the points related to the highly-debated suggestion from President Trump and others that the best way to stop school shootings is to arm our teachers, administrators, and school resource officers — in other words, to bring more guns into our schools.

Happy Birthday to Me
Written on the occasion of my 41st birthday, this post tells the story of how I came to appreciate (after not doing so at first) the presents that my wife and daughter gave me: a desk-sized fan and a couple of bags of fun-sized Kit Kats.

The Obligation of Privilege
Written by an able-bodied, 41-year-old, cis-het, white man with an advanced degree and a full-time job, this post examines the concept of privilege, and more specifically, white privilege. It also answers the question: Once a white man admits to his privilege, what should he do next?

Free the Genius of Louis C.K.
This post desperately needs an update. Written roughly six months after the stand-up comedian admitted that he had, for over a decade, been exposing himself and masturbating in front of his female colleagues, I argued that, in the era of #metoo and #timesup, white, middle-aged men needed Louie to return to the stage because his comedic genius would force us “to stand and admit and attack our transgressions in a way that cuts to the quick.” Unfortunately, as we all recently discovered, Louie has decided to take his return to the stage in a different direction. Rather than examining his own moral failings (and by extension, the moral failings of middle-aged white men), he seems to have decided that, since people already hate him, he’ll make a career out of being hateful. In all honesty, I couldn’t be more disappointed.

Categories
education life

What I’m Teaching Now

One of the cool parts of being a generalist (a job which isn’t available in most school systems) is being able to teach a wide variety of subjects. This quarter, I’m teaching in five.

Advisory

First, and with the direct support of two of my colleagues, I participate in an Advisory of seven students. For those  who haven’t paid attention to the changes in pedagogical theory these past twenty years, “Advisory” is kind of like a mix between home room, study hall, and a workshop focused on the development of both personal character and intrapersonal skills.

Sometimes it looks like a bunch of people just hanging around a conference table. Sometimes it looks like a lecture by a teacher or an exhibition by a student. Sometimes it looks like a staff-supported homework club. Regardless of how it looks, it attempts to be an experiential practicum in community building: this is how you maintain a relationship in a healthy community.

Human Rights

The second class I teach focuses on human rights. I want the students to produce a video or audio-recording that connects at least one of the rights listed in the U.N.’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights with the biography of an individual or group of individuals who fought to declare or protect that right — but I’m still working on the best way to help them do that.

My ultimate goal is to teach them how to research the progression of a topic through time by analyzing the actions of real-life individuals who were crucial to the topic’s current status. I also want them to understand the ways in which the actions of individuals can influence the actions of an empire, which will hopefully strengthen their conception of what’s possible in their own lives.

I just need to figure out how to get them from point A to point Z.

I also have to teach this subject to two different sections, one of which meets for 90 minutes a week, the other of which meets for 45. Obviously, the latter section will need to go from point A to point Z while skipping over points such as E, F, and G.

Dungeons & Dragons

My third class is, once again, Dungeons & Dragons. This quarter, I am the Dungeon Master for a party of six students, five of whom have significant experience playing the game.

I’ve written previously about using Dungeons & Dragons in the classroom, so I’ll just say the difference this time is that I’m trying to create a campaign that requires the students to investigate, analyze, and report back on a series of diverse cultures. The students won’t be “adventurers” as much they’ll be “scouts.” There will be fights with monsters and magic and perhaps, if I get particularly inspired, the tracking down of a conspiracy, but the goal — the academic goal — is give them the experience of thinking critically and in an anthropological way about the concept of “culture.”

Basketball

The fourth class is Basketball. A colleague and I are trying to develop close to a dozen rebellious and poorly coordinated teenagers who don’t understand the rules of the game into a servicable (and fun-having) basketball team capable of playing in some kind of official capacity on behalf of our school.

We run two 90-minute practices per week; so far, we’ve had one. I have my work cut out for me, but I love basketball, and while I doubt my coaching skills, I don’t doubt my knowledge and passion for the game.

I’m hoping to get a whistle.

Military Tactics

The last class I have to teach (also with a colleague) is Military Tactics. The name wasn’t my first choice. I wanted to call it “Jedi Training,” but my colleagues convinced me otherwise, since “Jedi Training” would make the students think it was a Star Wars thing, and it most definitely is not.

Instead, it’s a The Men Who Stare At Goats thing.

If you haven’t seen the movie, The Men Who Stare At Goats is a fictional representation of a nonfictional account of true-to-life programs sponsored by various agencies in the United States military-industrial complex. It explores the nation’s real-life effort to create a team of super soldiers trained in the art of extra-sensory perception and capable of “remote viewing” and even “remote assasination.”

I haven’t read the nonfiction book that the movie is based on, so I don’t know which parts originate in reality and which parts are wholly fiction. With that being said, the movie presents one of the initiatives as the brainchild of a soldier played by Jeff Bridges, aka, “the Dude,” and based on a real-life lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army who, among other things, was part of the team that came up with the slogan, “Be All You Can Be.”

In the movie, the lieutenant colonel was given a mission in the early 1970s to explore the ways in which the wisdoms of the counterculture might inform the military’s ability to successfully complete a strategic and tactical mission. Eight years later (in the movie), the soldier returned with an operations manual and the intention to produce — with military funds — a battalion of warrior monks to be armed with countercultural principles, paranormal abilities, and the ability to generate peace when possible and deadly violence when necessary.

There’s a lot to be doubted about some of the claims of the First Earth Battalion, but its existence is not one of them.

My colleague and I have both reviewed real-life documents produced for the First Earth Battalion, and I’ve done several hours of research into its history. My colleague and I also possess many years of knowledge and experience informed by the principles of the counterculture, most extensively in terms of the music of the Grateful Dead but also in more academically inclined ways.

Our general goal is to produce in our six or seven students not only a fascination with what our government is willing to pay for when it comes to achieving a military victory, but also a rudimentary experience of going through the training, an experience that will be one part intellectual, two parts physical, and three parts spiritual.

I am least prepared for this last class, but one becoming a Jedi warrior requires you to sometimes close your eyes and trust in the Force.

The Other Classes

I have more than those five classes on my schedule. Most of the others are one-on-one, where I’m either serving the student in a project-manager capacity or the student is serving me in an internship capacity (with tasks related to the school’s marketing needs and benefits related to the student’s communication skills).

Finally, for the last block of the week, I have a class where I join four musicians in the school’s music studio for a forty-five minute exploration of the realm of improvisational sound. It’s ideally suited to cleanse the soul after a hard week of school.

Looking over my classes for the quarter, I thank whatever experiences and people led me to become a generalist. It really does make teaching a hell of a lot more fun.

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Using Dungeons & Dragons in the Classroom

This post is for teachers who are interested in using Dungeons & Dragons in the classroom. This is not to convince you that doing so is a good thing. There are dozens (if not hundreds) of articles on the web to persuade you of the educational value of roleplaying games; we don’t need one more of them.

But we do seem to need an article where a teacher takes the time to explain how he actually uses Dungeons & Dragons in the classroom — not the why, but the how.

I’ve been using Dungeons & Dragons as an educator for three years now, but until I started using it in the classroom, I had never played a single game. Two of my co-teachers used it one quarter, and I was lucky enough to share a corner of their classroom at the time. Through observation, I was able to learn the dynamics of the game without having to play the game.

The following quarter, I took over as Dungeon Master. It would be my first time at the table.

What I learned during my observation period was that Dungeons & Dragons is based on storytelling. It doesn’t really matter if you know the rules because there are plenty of ways to look them up, but it does matter that you understand the rules of storytelling.

For the past three years, instead of asking my students to learn about storytelling from reading works of literature, I’ve embedded them in the very fabric of it, asking them to make their own heroic decisions instead of reflecting on the heroic decisions of some third-party character. Through the effects of their actions on the story, they’ve experienced when narrative tension is working and when it is not; they’ve experienced the way a character’s motivations bring them into conflict with other people; and they’ve developed an appreciation for imaginative details, sensing when too much is too much and when too little is not enough.

In addition, playing the game increased their sense of self-worth. When their characters succeeded in the fantasy world, they received the same flood of accomplishment as their characters, which provided them with a visceral understanding of narrative catharsis and the chemical reward that comes from fulfilling a goal.

I didn’t do anything special during these first three years; all I did was play the game. I didn’t attach the game to any academic standard or break it down into a series of lessons. At the start of each course, I didn’t waste time explaining to the students why we were doing this. I greeted them as they walked in the door, opened our two copies of The Players Handbook (5th Edition), and asked them to follow the steps outlined in the book to create their first character. I didn’t ask if they knew how to play the game. I just told them to get started.

The first few times I ran a campaign, I found pre-designed quests on the Internet. I didn’t know much about campaigns, but I learned that there’s something called The Adventurer’s League, an official venue of Dungeons & Dragons. Restraining my search to campaigns that carried the seal of the league, I found enough (free) campaigns to get us started.

(The company behind Dungeons & Dragons recently launched a website called The Dungeon Master’s Guild, where players from around the world can share campaigns and resources, review each other’s work, and earn their reputation as DMs; you can think of it as an App Store for D&D — and it makes it a heck of a lot easier to find pre-designed campaigns nowadays).

After our first few campaigns, one of my students asked if he could be the Dungeon Master for our next game. I immediately agreed, told him how to find a campaign on the Internet, and a week later, off we went. This would be my first time playing Dungeons & Dragons from the characters’ side of the table. It was great. I didn’t push an agenda on either the DM or the other players. I simply sat with them as a peer and played the game.

A few months later, when I returned to the Dungeon Master’s chair, I didn’t want to use a pre-generated campaign. I had played enough times, I’d decided, to attempt a campaign of my own. I did not bring an educational agenda to this process. I imagined something I thought would be fun, and then I set out to create it.

At the time, I was reading several books on the French Revolution, and I decided to create a campaign where the player-characters would assist in a political revolution. I dressed the story in the obligatory accoutrements of medieval fantasy (instead of the peasants rising up against their king, a town of dwarves would rise up against their human overlords, the highest of whom would be a ). I then developed major plot points for the story and prepared a few battle encounters that I suspected the player-characters would want to engage in.

After about five or six hours of solid preparation, I was ready to lead what became a six-month long adventure. While the students didn’t have any homework, I found that I did. To stay at least a few steps ahead of them, narrative wise, I spent about an hour each week crafting the next few days’ worth of adventures. It was a creative prep for me, however, so it didn’t feel much like work — I wasn’t planning a lesson as much as writing a story. Prepping for class took time, yes, but the time it took was fun.

Last year, I taught two sections of Dungeons & Dragons. The first group had played together for a while, but the second included students who had never played before. To reduce my prep load, I taught my advanced students how to design campaigns on their own, showing them various topics in the Dungeon Masters Guide, advising them to consider the motivations of their non-player characters, and asking them to reconsider various details of their worlds, but mostly, I taught them how to be efficient with informational texts and how to stay a few steps ahead of their characters.

One student didn’t get to finish his campaign. Unfortunately, I’m only running one section this quarter and some of the players haven’t developed the social-emotional skills to be led by another student. So instead of letting him lead a campaign of his own, I am working with him on an independent project where he will prepare a campaign for publication on The DMs Guild. This student is a graduating senior, and I’m trying to show him how he can make a little bit of money if he’s willing to follow his passion.

The other section is a mix of experienced players and beginners, and because of that mix, I’ve decided to switch things up a bit. Instead of having the students spend the first few days with their heads in The Players Handbook (a necessary stage when creating a character), I’m going to have them play the experience of creating their characters.

I’m not going to tell them about any of the races or classes. I want them to birth their characters with their imaginations. If they imagine a crocodile with wings who can also weave magic, I want to honor that personification and ask them to honor it as well. We’re going to dramatize the process of developing proficiencies and skills, gaining gold and equipment, and earning the power of magic. They’re going live the experience of their backstories, and through that, they’ll learn how to develop themselves and their characters into daring adventurers. My students are rural and mostly poverty-stricken, but they’re going to experience, if only in their fantasies, the process a person must go through if they want something more out of life.

If you’re a teacher who is already persuaded to try roleplaying games in your classroom and you’re wondering how to do it, this is what worked for me: I simply sat down with the students and played.

Now, a little caveat. I teach at an independent school in Vermont, so I’m not accountable to the strict array of standards that apply to most public schools. My school’s standards include a large variety of social-emotional skills — e.g., cooperation, creative problem-solving, leadership, ethical decision making, the ability to empathize, etc. — and almost all of them can be satisfied by playing a standard game of Dungeons & Dragons. Thankfully, I don’t have a curriculum coordinator breathing down my neck.

But I imagine with just a hint of ingenuity that a motivated public school teacher could connect Dungeons & Dragons to whatever standards they are required to follow.

If you’re an English Language Arts teacher, I’ve asked my students keep a journal of their character’s adventures. I’ve asked them to write original backstories for their characters. I’ve quizzed them on their ability to find, read, and comprehend the sometimes-complex information in the text of their Handbooks. Dungeons & Dragons is a communications-based game; there’s enough in for the English Language Arts.

This year, as part of the experience of playing their backstory, I am going to ask each player to consider the social contexts of their hometown. They’ll decide on a governing structure for their town, detail its economy, and populate it with a greater or lesser sense of political diversity. Instead of analyzing existing societies, the students will create ones of their own.

My idea is to expand the range of skills the students develop by including a deeper connection to the social sphere. This will have the added benefit of increasing the academic value of the course because I’m targeting some of the standards my school has for Social Studies (most of which apply to any school’s standards for Social Studies).

The difficulty will be in integrating one character’s sphere with another and all the characters’ spheres with each other, but it’s necessary if they’re to experience the narrative catharsis previous students experienced. School starts tomorrow and I haven’t quite solved this one yet, but I trust the solution will come before its absence becomes a challenge (teaching, after all, does include a bit of faith).

But in the meantime, I’m just excited to get started.

I hope, sometime in the future, you will be to.