World History Roleplaying Game

[pogre]

Hello,

I teach high school world history and have toyed with the idea of creating/using a roleplaying game in class. I currently use a number of games, but most of them are board games or modified card games. An example you might be familiar with is we use Diplomacy as an introduction to World War I. The use of games has been wildly popular and has increased our social studies scores. Enrollment in the World History Classes has trebled in the last two years alone! I want to take it further...

The roleplaying game I envision would start simply with characters in the age of the Fertile Crescent and progress through History. The course is heavily Western Civ and is a survey. I have had students often comment that they come to school because of something we are doing/playing in World History. If I could come up with a roleplaying framework that I use a little bit everyday - I was hoping it could really immerse students into the material cultures of the civilizations we study.

I'm not very familiar with the LARP scene, but I suspect there nmight be a rules set there that might be helpful. I am open to ideas, but try to keep the following paramenters in mind:

1. It needs to offer opportunities to explore civilizations of history.
2. It must be inclusive - no eliminating players.
3. FUN - of course!
4. If it could incorporate primary sources somehow - that would be great.

Any brainstorming you could help me with would be appreciated!

Thanks,

pogre

 

[fusangite]

I think what you're doing is a great idea. I heartily approve of Diplomacy a perfect activity for a high school history class. Sorry I don't have any ideas for the game you are looking for.

I'll just offer a caution, though: doing a game set prior to the 18th century may actually be too tough for students. It's tough for people at any age to really identify with the thinking or behaviour of people before the Enlightenment; and you might end up teaching a very distorted view of the world back then.

The reason Diplomacy is a great game is that the rules make you act like an early 20th century European Great Power. If you want to set a game in Sumer or Ancient Greece, you need rules that give the players an incentive to act like Sumerians or Ancient Greeks. For that reason, I'm really dubious about the idea that there could even be a generic game/system that you could use for different historical periods.

Material culture is important but so is mentality.

 

[the Jester]

I suspect that you are an awesome teacher.

 

[Lazybones]

While not RPGs, there are a number of high-rated board games over at www.boardgamegeek.com that deal with ancient history; I've heard good things about Tigris and Euphrates but haven't played it (I'm more into Settlers of Catan but it doesn't have much in the way of historical value).

I used to teach world history to community college students and think that creative approaches like this are great for breaking through the apathy barrier that many adolescents bring to the classroom.

 

[Tonguez]

I once did a class on 'Egyptian history' in which I put the students into groups of 5 and told them to create a character from Egyptian history but NOT the pharoah. They then were given land (a table) and had to go about earning gold and people with the goal that the team with the most people after 3 weeks would get to be Pharoah.

I took the role of High Preist to the gods and would introduce different scenarios - like War, Innundation of Crop lands. The students had to study what the Egyptian response to these things was and react accordingly (by way of a written report).

Earning gold - Growing Crops and Trade + Maths/Science
Attracting people - Housing and Lifestyles +Social Studies/Technology
Earning the favour of the Gods - Religion and Ceremony

 

[Tonguez]

On a more fantasy bent I once taught a class on the history of the Olympics when I had the groups create a new sport to be included in the first olympics. One of the groups came up with Unicorn wrestling by putting chairs on their heads and locking horns!

 

[SWBaxter]

The roleplaying game I envision would start simply with characters in the age of the Fertile Crescent and progress through History. The course is heavily Western Civ and is a survey. I have had students often comment that they come to school because of something we are doing/playing in World History. If I could come up with a roleplaying framework that I use a little bit everyday - I was hoping it could really immerse students into the material cultures of the civilizations we study.

I'm not very familiar with the LARP scene, but I suspect there nmight be a rules set there that might be helpful. I am open to ideas, but try to keep the following paramenters in mind:

1. It needs to offer opportunities to explore civilizations of history.
2. It must be inclusive - no eliminating players.
3. FUN - of course!
4. If it could incorporate primary sources somehow - that would be great.

Any brainstorming you could help me with would be appreciated!

Not sure I understand what you're looking for - do you mean students would roleplay people in a given civilization, or actually roleplay the leaders of the civilization and direct how they develop and expand?

If the latter - it's not really roleplaying, but Civilization (the board game, which predates the computer game) did most of that. Might be a bit on the long side for classroom use, but OTOH Diplomacy takes a while, too.

If I were to make something up from scratch, I'd probably use HeroQuest as a base. HeroQuest is a narrative role-playing game, in which traits are freeform and can enhance one another in appropriate situations, and conflict can be resolved using any appropriate traits. So expanded to represent countries or cultures, if one civilization is trying to establish economic domination over the other and the second civilization responds by raising an army, it'd be fairly easy to resolve that kind of clash. Because it's a narrative game, creativity in telling a story counts for a lot, which you could translate into "creativity in applying historical knowledge", so students who do their homework will have an edge.

 

[Arbiter of Wyrms]

SWBaxter beat me to it, but I've thought for some time that Sid Meier's Civilization (I'm really only familiar with the computer game) would adapt wonderfully to the classroom. Researching cultural advancements, exploring uncharted territory, building monuments, conquering other's cities - all of these seem like things that students could really get into.

 

[Capellan]

It's not a roleplaying game, but 7 Ages might be of use to you.

 

[Charles Rampant]

OGL Ancients is a D20 game with rules for all the ancient world cultures (well, those from Sumeria and egypt westward really). It has a moderately realistic (ie, you can parry) version of D20 but it only really supports Egypt and Greece in terms of monsters and background.

In terms of board games, I have heard of one where you control different cultures, moving through human history. So for one turn someone controls Rome, then the next they might control the post-rome Germans. It apparently takes far too long to be used in school (someone thought about it) but here is a link to a review of it, anyway.

Not sure if that is of any help.