Ludoverse Lab: Jesse Burneko’s “Dungeons and Dilemmas” Weaves a Web of Moral Questions

The Ludoverse Lab completed the summer trilogy with Jesse Burneko and his Kickstarter Zinequest project titled “Dungeons and Dilemmas.” The core idea is to use the appealing format of the classic dungeon delve but to inject it with a hive of ethical puzzles for the characters to grapple with. Jesse gives us the tools to transform some of the bedrock components of fantasy rpg into perils that have an emotional and moral weight. I was impressed by the way that he avoids a heavy-handed approach: His puzzles raise a number of pressing questions, but it is up to the players to reason things through and to formulate a response. At one point, Jesse talks about his approach as an experiment: He provides the volatile materials and components, but it is the players who catalyze things and who decide upon the ultimate outcomes. 

I’ve edited our sessions, which you can watch by clicking the links below. The videos are long, but I provide text headings to give viewers an easy way to skip around.

• Part 1: Our first session, which involves a quick character creation, a review of the streamlined game engine (an rpg called Strain Basic), and the opening of the adventure.

• Part 2: Our second session, which involves confronting a vampiric mother, a demon child, and a ruthless bandit. Editing Note: I had recording problems with the start of this video, so we miss the introduction of the players. Of special note is the fact that Tracy Wazenegger, who teaches chemistry and global studies in Pennsylvania, has joined in.

• Part 3: A debriefing, where Jesse lays out the thought process and techniques driving “Dungeons and Dilemmas.” Note the rich and varied sources that he points to: Ann Radcliffe, Dogs in the Vineyard, and Bluebeard's Bride. That may seem like an unexpected trio of influences, but you definitely see their fingerprints on Jesse's project.

Teachers interested in leveraging roleplaying games in the classroom should especially heed Part 3. Jesse has a wealth of gaming experience behind him, and he has distilled and refined his approach. His explanation of how he pulls off the magic is lucid and organized, and he has a system in place which teachers and scenario designers can quickly leverage for their own purposes. 

One key feature of our Ludoverse Lab adventure that gave it teeth is the fact that the “monsters” were the outcome of tragic histories. Jasna, the vampire mother, for example, became a member of the undead as the result of an abusive marriage, and she is subsequently abused again—this time at the hands of a ruthless bandit who is exploiting her for her vampire children. And Various is a demon child who is now in a codependent relationship with his mother, whom he loves. We didn’t delve into the background of Tristan, the bandit, but it seems likely that his character was impacted from a life of destitution. 

These fraught histories are then tied to a “dungeon”—in our case a boarded-up keep which has been retrofitted to be a prison for the monsters and a hideout for the bandits. As a result, the dungeon is more than a physical place—it is a kind of shell inside of which are nestled layers of previous events. The architecture and layout of the building are intimately related to the histories of the characters and monsters who have resided there. 

Jesse thinks about room locations in terms of narrative nodes. In other words, an entry point into the keep is considered as the identifiable beginning of a sequence of events that will then be connected to subsequent events sparked by the passageways and rooms that radiate out of that entry point. The keep has a number of possible entrances, but in each case, Jesse reflects upon the spaces immediately connected to those entry points, and his dungeons take form through interconnected narrative nodes that will produce new pieces that can build on each other.

Jesse also has some interesting things to say about that old staple of the dungeon delve—the trap. In constructing a trap, Jesse thinks about the character who created it and the use to which it is put. He talks about these devilish devices as instances of foreshadowing. In other words, when the players encounter a trap, they should be confronting a concrete example of the personality that devised it. In the case of our adventure, the demon-child named Various created animated raven sculptures as a trap, and the nature of this obstacle was very different from the spiked pit-trap set by the ruthless bandit named Tristan. In both cases, the traps were reflective of their creators.

One other key to the success of “Dungeons and Dilemmas”: Jesse resists defining a “right solution” to the moral questions that spin out of his scenario. He notes in the debriefing that he is happy to observe different groups thinking through and resolving the moral problems in different ways. He is content to set up his adventures as engrossing experiences and springboards for reflection.

The Ludoverse Lab’s “Fantasy RPG Summer Trilogy” has given me much food for thought, and I’m looking forward to taking some of the ideas from Richard Ruane, Ryan Windeknecht, and Jesse Burneko into the high school classroom and the game club I sponsor. Expect posts in the coming months to provide you with updates. 

As always, I encourage comments and reactions to the Ludoverse Labs.

And what else can you expect from the Ludoverse heading forward? 

The school year has started for me, and I’m giving much thought to what COVID-19 means for those of us engaged in gamification and game-based learning. So I’m considering one or two roundtable discussions with other educators to talk about how we are modifying our approaches to deal with the world of hybrid classrooms, social distancing, and remote learning.

Partly as a result of the events over the summer, I’m also interested in delving into games that focus on the experience of marginalization. I know a number of roleplaying games where the players take on the roles of classes, groups, and fantasy races that are ostracized, demonized, or exploited. That might make for some interesting sessions in the lab.

Finally, I’m still hoping to pull together a summer workshop devoted to games in education. My idea is to create a dialogue between game designers and educators in a way that will provoke an ongoing conversation between these two groups. The world of COVID-19 has set up some obstacles for that project, but I’ll be looking for ways to overcome those hurdles.

Ludoverse Lab Summer Line-up: Fantasy Role-Playing in a New Light

For the Summer of 2020, the Ludoverse Lab will feature a fantasy trilogy. Interested educators are invited to be part of the adventure!

We will be taking games like Dungeons & Dragons and its kin into brave new worlds. The goal is to have some fun while exploring how these games can bring serious topics—topics crucial to education—to the front burner.

As an added bonus, sessions will be led by some of the most innovative designers and GMs in the field today.

Here’s the line-up:

• Saturday, June 6 and 13, 11 a.m. - 2 p.m. Eastern:  Richard Ruane, will be running a playset from his Barrow Keep project. He brings political intrigue, romance, and coming-of-age epiphanies into the fantasy rpg framework.
• Saturday, July 11 and 18, 11 a.m. - 2 p.m. Eastern: Ryan Windeknecht will be running World of Professionals, a hack of Dungeon World which he uses to teach students about moral systems and professional ethics.
• Saturday, August 1 and 8, 11 a.m. - 2 p.m. Eastern. Jesse Burneko is running a scenario inspired by his Dungeons and Dilemmas project, and he’s designing elements especially for the Ludoverse Lab. When you enter Jesse’s dungeons, you will be battling deep moral dilemmas along with the monsters. [Content warning: This game will deal with themes of pregnancy and possible harm to children.]

Hearken to the call to adventure. If you are a teacher who is curious or who is looking for innovative ways to bring games into the classroom, please reach out to me (robowist <at> gmail [dot] com) to reserve a seat at the table.
Please note: These are designed as “two-shot” adventures, meaning that you should sign up for both sessions within a given month.

Ludoverse Lab: Improvisational Play with The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen by James Wallis and Cheat Your Own Adventure by Shane Mclean, with the Pompey Crew Design Team

For this session of the Ludoverse Lab, we went after more lighthearted fare. Cheat Your Own Adventure and The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen are prep-less and GM-less games which challenge the players to think on their feet. Absurdity and inanity follows.

You can see the video recording of our session by clicking here.

I’ve lightly edited the video with headings used throughout to assist you in seeing how the gameplay develops. The video ends with some brief discussion about the games in education and the possible tweaks we would use to make sure all the students are involved in the mix.

Of special note is the contributions of Mikel Matthews, a drama and English teacher who also has deep experience in the improv acting arena. He gives us some useful instruction at the 59:00 mark as well as towards the end of the session during our debrief. Teachers who are interested in teaching role-playing and improvisational skills would be wise to take a look at what he has to say.

Cheat Your Own Adventure is freely available as a 2-page pdf on the internet. The basic idea is simple: One player starts a narrative about an adventurer using the second person (“you”) and takes the tale to a branch. The other players then propose options for the protagonist, and the narrative then passes to the player whose option is selected. The end result is a collaborative tale, and the players naturally fall into the idea of coming up with options that are attractive either because they are intriguing or because they will lead to hilarity.

It quickly becomes apparent in this game that the destination is less important than the journey. From the get-go, we swerve down paths that have little to do with the sorcerer Zalkir (whose name appeared in the title of our adventure) and more to do with introducing zany side characters and detours. When the narrative branches, the players at the table are challenged to come up with new directions for the tale. There were occasions when a player had come up with a good idea yet found someone introducing their idea before they could put theirs on the table, so we had to keep on our toes. It was also sometimes challenging to keep all the options in mind: You will see me constantly taking notes as an aid.

CYOA is a solid warm-up game that will inevitably lead to a lighthearted good time. It also has great flexibility in terms of the types of stories it can tell. For example, one might use the framework to tell the story of a press secretary who has to handle various gaffes and missteps of a President whom they serve. That would activate a great pun in the abbreviated title of the game—COYA. There are also clear possibilities of taking the narrative to more serious or dramatic destinations.

Baron Munchausen is a more refined game. Players challenge each other to tell tales, with the goal being to make your story more extraordinary than the others. The game really cooks when you use the challenge mechanic, which allows you to interrupt another player’s tale and ask them to explain or justify some detail.

The game has a curious competitive aspect, and one can consider strategy, but the rivalry side of the game is ultimately simply more veneer that exists to generate additional outrageous fiction. For example, if you challenge other players, your purse will surely dwindle, which seems like a bad thing. But in the final round of voting, you are giving your purse to the other player whose story you deem to be the most extraordinary. That means that having a small purse leading up to the end is actually a boon in disguise, since you will ultimately be passing fewer coins to a rival. Wallis has worked out a brilliant betting mechanic that rewards deep study: It valuable lessons into how an apparent strategic-competitive component can encourage the alert player to lean into the tactics and, in so doing, reinforce the underlying goal of the game.

One element that adds to the humor to Baron Munchausen is the atmosphere of false 18th-century propriety that the game encourages. Players are instructed to give themselves bogus honorific titles, and challenges are delivered with an affected politesse. The rule book is a delight to read and puts you in the right spirit. At some point in the future, I’d love to drill into the stylistic approaches of different rpg authors. There is great variety out there. If you wanted two writers worthy of close study who exist at opposite ends of the spectrum, I’d suggest comparing Ben Robbins to James Wallis. I admire both of them immensely, but for opposed reasons: Robbins is a master of clear, cogent precision, while Wallis is capable of delivering lush hilarity.

I’m gearing up to play Our Last Best Hope by Mark Diaz Truman, and I’m then going to set up a few more laboratory experiments for the summer. Announcements about those sessions will appear in the coming weeks, and as always, I’ll be looking for players to join me at the table.

Ludoverse Lab: Follow by Ben Robbins

For our most recent experiment in the Ludoverse Lab, I decided to play with fire.

I had already talked to players who blanched at the notion of bringing viral material into a game. The reasons for their reticence are easily understood. The coronavirus pandemic has touched everyone on multiple levels. The topic goes deep and hits on sensitive nerves. For many, the idea of playing with something so close to home is not what they are after in a tabletop gaming experience. They are understandably looking for games to give them some respite, consolation, and social connection in this bleak time.

I, however, am especially drawn to tabletop roleplaying games that will go hard after vital topics, and it strikes me that this medium has deep resources for probing into very real human situations. As a teacher, I’m interested in how we might use games in education to prompt our students (and ourselves) to reflect on our world, to consider how others might view situations differently, and to explore alternate “real-world” outcomes in a fictional space.

So, I gathered together three other intrepid, like-minded souls, and we played Ben Robbins’ Follow using the playset called “The Cure.” I recorded our session and edited it. You can access it by clicking here. [One note: I took out much of the character creation section to keep the length more reasonable and to cut to the chase.]

The players include a middle school science teacher, a high school math teacher, a college American literature professor, and me (a high school English teacher). It was a special joy for me to have in the mix a former colleague whom I hadn’t seen in years.

I find the opening of our session intriguing: You will see some anxious body language and nervous hesitations as we consider whether to take a more indirect route through some fictive distancing—by, for example, dealing with an epidemic in a futuristic or historical setting. Ultimately, we left the idea of dealing with a zombie infection or a medieval plague for another day and opted to set our game in the here and now. The coronavirus was directly in the crosshairs, and we played characters living in a small city in upstate New York which was starting to grapple with an outbreak among teachers at the local elementary school.

The idea of Follow is that the players take on roles of characters in a “Fellowship,” a group which is united by a common crisis or mission. It is clear from the playset of “The Cure” that Robbins was initially imagining a hospital, research facility, or laboratory as a setting. Our group expanded this setting so that it encompassed people across a city, and you will note that we had to tweak and mold the playset to fit our conception. Our characters included a prominent local business owner, a member of the city council, a hospital security, a dispirited pharmacy assistant, and others. The result is that we had a varied mix of “takes” on the infection, and we remained true to providing a fiction that focused on ordinary people navigating an unexpected crisis with wide-ranging personal and social impacts. In Follow, each player controls a major character and a minor character, and the major characters are involved in some personal entanglements: The major character sitting to you left has something which your major character wants, but which is being withheld. Given the more broad city setting for our Fellowship, we were able to leverage some of these tensions, while others were relatively unexplored. A more contained, pressure-cooker environment—such as, for example, a single hospital—might have afforded us more opportunities to bring more of those conflicted connections into focus.

As will be the custom with the Ludoverse Lab, the session ends with a roundtable debrief. These comments begin with reflections on our actual play experience and the game, and then we spiral outward to talk about possibilities for the classroom. Many of the points raised merit further exploration. For example, Lali considers whether a middle school setting would require a more indirect, less immediately realistic approach. We were also considering whether the game, which ideally involves 3-5 players, could be played (perhaps with modifications) in a classroom context.

Related to this question is Chana’s curiosity about how to approach role-playing with students, most of whom are new to the activity. I have some advice to offer in the recording. If one has the luxury of time, for example, one can work to build up to role-playing through experiences and assignments given early in the year. I have had 9th grade students play the game Microscope initially without the “Scene” component, but I end the game with a writing assignment which takes students through the nuts and bolts of constructing an effective, dramatic scene between characters. With that assignment under their belts, students are more equipped to step towards more freeform, improvised role-playing situations later in the year.

This consideration has led me to the perhaps obvious realization that the GM-less environment can make things more difficult for less experienced role-players. A GM can ask players questions (such as “What does that look like?” or “What is it about Mr. X that most annoys your character?”) and push them to flesh out role-playing situations. In GM-less games with younger students, I have sometimes adopted a pseudo-GM role to prompt the students to think more deeply about their role-playing.

Ultimately, what I need is to develop a “Role-Playing 101” lesson which would pull together many of the insights and techniques I’ve picked up through my years of role-playing. This is another area where the classroom is manifestly different from the organic hobby group. When my friends and I first took up role-playing games in my high school years, none of us knew what we were doing, so we just worked it out over many months of trial and error. In the classroom, a more targeted and efficient approach is required. I will have to add “Role-Playing 101” to my list of summer projects.

I will end by reiterating my invitation to educators. If you are reading this and want to participate in an upcoming Ludoverse Lab, let me know and I’ll happily reserve a seat at the virtual table.

The Next Experiments in the Ludoverse Lab: Call for Gamers

I’m planning three new sessions of the Ludoverse Lab starting Saturday, April 18. And I’m looking for a few more teacherly types to join me in my journey.

Tentatively, these will run from 11 a.m. - 2 p.m. EDT (UTC -4). The first and last of these Saturday sessions will feature story games where we will take on the roles of characters battling pandemics and striving to find a cure. Sandwiched between is some comic relief with a couple bonkers games about bluffing, boasting, and cheating.

I’m looking for teachers, administrators, and educators interested in participating in these game sessions. The idea is to experience a role-playing game and then to have a conversation about how the game and its mechanics might be leveraged for use within the classroom. If you would like to help out, you can send me a message or an email
( robowist ~at~ gmail *dot*  com )

Here’s the lineup:

Saturday, April 18: Follow by Ben Robbins using the quest playset titled “The Cure”
Saturday, April 25: The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen by James Wallis and Cheat Your Own Adventure
Saturday, May 2: Our Last Best Hope by Mark Diaz Truman

If you have any questions or want to join in the fun, let me know!