Málfríður - 15.10.2012, Page 20

20 MÁLFRÍÐUR
Recently, I have developed an interest in Role Playing
Games and their application in teaching; primarily for
teaching English, writing and literature . Role Playing
Games of the ‘pen and paper’ variety are my main
concern . – I almost entirely ignore computer RPGs, and
MMPORPGs, such as WOW (World of Warcraft) and
EVE Online; these are of course very interesting and
important cultural phenomena, but they lie outside
the scope of this present piece . I base this article on
relevant literature on the subject, action research on my
own practice (including a survey with my students),
and a small survey among role players in Iceland .
I will start by providing a brief introduction to the
history of these games, mainly focusing on Dungeons
and Dragons, and discuss the culture of RPGs in
Iceland . Then, I will outline some of the basic features
of the games and indicate how they may translate and
function in a classroom setting . I follow this up by dis-
cussing some examples of how these games have been
used in teaching, internationally and in Iceland . I will
continue by discussing my own experiments and stud-
ies in the field, and my future plans . Finally I will look
at LARP, especially Nordic LARP, an interesting out-
growth of this subculture .
In the documentary The Dungeons and Dragons
Experience, it is stated that ‘Dungeons and Dragons is
the unlikely descendant of European warfare’; and Role
Playing Games (RPGs) are descendants of Dungeons
and Dragons . Gary Gygax and David Arnesen pub-
lished the first rules for D&D in 1974 . They were war
gamers; played with miniatures on a map; but their
new rules introduced fundamental changes . They
shifted the players’ role from playing a general to an
individual hero; and they added fantasy elements to
Teaching English through Role Playing
Games
beginning an exploration....
Ármann Halldórsson,
enskukennari við
Verzlunarskóla Íslands .
the game – magic, and of course, dragons . Their inter-
est was not so much the ‘role playing’ aspect of the
games, but rather the tactics and battles . The basic
structure of D&D today is based on ‘campaigns’, each
campaign being made up of smaller ‘encounters’ . RPGs
are still very heavily tied up with fantasy and science
fiction culture and are primarily focused on battles .
This fact is much lamented by some, and the enormous
influence of D&D is a source of much heated debate
within the Role Playing community . As early as 1994
Andrew Rilstone complained “[D]espite there being
literally hundreds of different role-playing systems,
arcane expressions such as ‘3rd level cleric’ ‘experience
points’ and ‘lawful evil’ still represent a lingua franca
within much of the hobby” (1994) .
Dungeons and Dragons is, therefore, the inevitable
place to start when considering Role Playing Games
– but it is by no means necessarily the place to end or
indeed stay . Dungeons and Dragons has gone through
several changes, and currently a 5th edition is being
introduced . The basic idea has always been the same,
and the basic structure of the pencil and paper variety of
DnD is the template that Role Playing Games are based
on . There are two roles possible for individuals playing
DnD: players and Dungeon Masters . Each player plays
a character . The character information is presented on
a character sheet in the form of a descriptive text, but
more importantly, in the form of various statistics,
hit points being a very important example - if you go
below 0 in hit points you die . The Dungeon Master is
the other role, and she acts as referee, story teller and
player of all the NPC’s (Non Player Characters) . Thus
the role of DM is significantly more demanding than
that of player . The DM asks what the players want to
do, and the results of their actions are decided by com-
bining the results of dice being thrown and the player
and NPC statistics . This sounds complicated, and to
a certain extent it is, but in my experience it is fairly
logical and people are quick to catch on to the idea .
NPCs in D&D are primarily monsters which have spe-
cific sheets representing their abilities, and of course
hit points too . A typical gaming session would involve
4-6 players, and one DM, it would last some hours and
involve two to three encounters . A campaign would
then take a number of sessions – and after a campaign
is finished the characters increase their level (Wyatt et
al, 2010) .
In Dungeons and Dragons the ‘role playing’ can