D&D in the Classroom

[dagenfire]

Hey All,
I have a group project to teach a portion of the Dale Carnegie book, How to Win friends and Influence People. The three points we are supposed to convey are in the section titled "Nine Ways to Change People Without Giving Offense" and they are:

1. Give the dog a good name: Give a man a fine reputation to live up to.
2. Make the fault seem easy to correct: Use encouragement. Make the thing you want the other person to do seem easy.
3. Making people glad to do what you want: Make the other person happy about doing the thing you suggest.

What I was wondering is if anyone had ideas for how to teach these concepts using D&D, or an RPG system in general. Thanks in advance for any thoughts!

 

[Nytmare]

I would imagine that role playing in general might be useful, but that any kind of RPG system would just add confusion to the learning process.

Even with a simple improvisational game, I think that the biggest risk is that you're not getting realistic reactions. You're either getting coached responses, people trying to be funny, or people being embarrassed and over thinking what they're going to say.

 

[nedjer]

Hey All,
I have a group project to teach a portion of the Dale Carnegie book, How to Win friends and Influence People. The three points we are supposed to convey are in the section titled "Nine Ways to Change People Without Giving Offense" and they are:

1. Give the dog a good name: Give a man a fine reputation to live up to.
2. Make the fault seem easy to correct: Use encouragement. Make the thing you want the other person to do seem easy.
3. Making people glad to do what you want: Make the other person happy about doing the thing you suggest.

What I was wondering is if anyone had ideas for how to teach these concepts using D&D, or an RPG system in general. Thanks in advance for any thoughts!

There are a few ways to go about this. I'm on mobile right now , which isn't much use. Post this evening when I get to a desktop

 

[nedjer]

@Nytmare 's approach seems sensible, as your audience is unlikely to have the shared expectations, skills and time to take on board a rule set, a highly imaginative context and the actual topic, i.e. effective persuasion.

Kind of like a present you can't see or get into because the paper's too thick and the sender used duct tape.

That said, if you're working with the same group for a while the options I'll suggest can quickly prime them for RPG play and the topic is easily translated into any context.

So imo:

Avoid spoon feeding and allow them to take ownership of their learning, i.e. introduce the topic, but don't list or hand-out the solutions/ 12 ways at the start.

Brief that you're going to put the class/ groups in the position of having to chose ways of trying to persuade people. Explain that this is as a way of getting the class to explore different approaches to persuading people and looking at what works and and doesn't work. )in effect, evaluate the 12 steps).

Drop the players into a real world situation/ hook. Something current, on-going and broadly relevant to everyone in the room - but fairly apolitical (to them). Immerse them in the topic through relevant infographics.

Give the players a team entity rather than separate roles. Then put them in some sort of crisis management or avoidance scenario where they are 'consultants' meeting to decide how to persuade/ advise someone/ an organisation/ a population of the need to make a change.

Offer them a wide selection of good and definitely not so good approaches/ options for persuading, (including the 12 steps), and ask the group/ s to discuss them and select those most likely to work in the scenario.

Ask them to pick the best and rate them on a scale. Then ask them to explain or justify their top choices - again in relation to the chosen RP situation

Only then identify the 12 steps and open-up discussion of how the choices made by the class compare to the steps.

. . . for a longer session they could be asked to arrange their order into a sequence of steps or a system.

If everyone gets caught-up in taking a role in a scenario-based situation - like persuading the Japanese energy minister to protect nuclear plants more in the future or persuading parents not to spy on their kids on Facebook - they'll be up for a deeper role next time out. Simple mechanics, e.g. Jenga or Scissors, Paper, Stone . . . and the much more RPG survival/ marooned scenario easily follow . . .

HTH