Continuing from last week, as I met again with the participants in my local library’s Dungeons & Dragons program, I followed up with them about moving towards running their own games. One of the participants, I know, is working on a leadership program (the Program Aide Award) with the local Girl Scout troop, and it made sense to me that the library gaming group would offer a laboratory through which to accomplish the tasks required for that award. I asked the group if they would be amenable to helping one of their own with that task; the response was favorable, so I will be working with said aspiring Girl Scout to see about how to address the required tasks.

This is not the first time I’ve had thoughts about other ways than as a good game to play that the TTRPG is useful. The genre informs some scholarship I’ve done (see this for a recently released example), and it serves as an impetus to the generation of more art than itself (see this for comments to that end, as well as what might pass for an example of art, broadly defined). It also suggested itself to me as a useful teaching tool, back when I had students; it has helped me to generate assessment items such as this, and it seemed to me to be a good fit for particular classes, as witness this and this. I’m sure there’s other utility to it, just as I’m sure that utility is not the only or even the primary measure of a thing’s value to me or to the world I inhabit.

For the Program Aide Award, the library game suggested itself as an available means of accomplishment due first to the fact that the aspiring Girl Scout already knows the group with which she would work. She also is in position to confer with the group’s leader and to assist with a meeting; I know few DMs or GMs who couldn’t use a hand keeping track of some of the paperwork involved in administering a game. Further, the aspiring Girl Scout could easily lead a single group activity; TTRPGs, being collaborative, do invite some rotating leadership, and any given player’s character can easily take point on any particular activity. (Indeed, administering games well necessitates presenting a variety of scenarios so that every player character can have a chance to be at the front of things.) And there would be opportunities to reflect upon and build upon that single-activity leadership to so something that serves as a useful step on the path towards running lasting games: running a one-shot game, which would be a full meeting (at least) of the local library game group. That one-shot would complete the award’s requirements, which I recognized and which the aspiring Girl Scout recognized, hence the request to the group for their assistance with it.

After the request was made, play proceeded. The party was able to enjoy a little bit of down-time, a layover that coincided with a local festival, which the players enjoyed. It is something of a breather for them, honestly; the harder part of the adventure is yet to come for them, with political entanglements that will need addressing and that will set things up for future games–because I do anticipate that the game will continue, at least for a time, and as the players develop, their challenges will also need to.

I still continue to be pleased to write TTRPG (and other) stuff for you; fill out the form below to get yours started!

Or you can send your support along directly!