Dungeons & Dragons & Design for Learning
GM a Classroom Encounter
Session Zero
You need to make your character. You need to pick a class, a background, roll for your stats, pick starting equipment, and find a reason to exist in this story. But you don't need to do that alone. Your GM and the rest of the party is a team and collaboration happens before the game even begins. Do we have too many spellcasters and no melee options? Will there be a lot of treacherous terrain to traverse so we can't neglect our Dex? Would it be wise to get some good armor early on just in case? A great story needs a great foundation, and this first meeting sets a team up for success - or at least some entertainment.
So where in a student's journey should the first day of class be? Are we starting in media res with a practiced scholar ready to take on another level of content? Do we start our adventure on day one, with our band of heroes meeting up in a classroom before setting off? Or can there be a session zero to make sure our challenge levels are balanced when the battles begin? I am not going to suggest there is a correct answer here, there are too many variables like the BBEG of standardized/AP exams and vertical alignment, but instead I want to stress the importance of remembering what foundation a course chooses to start with.
A majority of my courses are AP, so I have a strict deadline of early May to make sure my class is prepared for their exam. With this in mind, I feel the pressure to hit the ground running at the start of every academic year. I'll do some normal "first two weeks" checks like surveys and whatnot, but I can't say that this ever shapes the encounters I make the class endure, just my expectations for how they will play out. Do most students rise to the challenge? Of course! But the adventure doesn't feel natural for some of them, like if a GM took a random group of intrepid heroes into a sourcebook with no rhyme or reason. With the right party, it will still be fun! But it always begs the question of how much better it could be if bespoke.
Roll 1d20
The adventure begins! The adventuring party needs to enter the nearby ruins to find a precious artifact to fund future journeys, but the way in is blocked by some rubble. Never fear, the level 6 fighter Buzzarm, with a strength modifier of +4 can take care of that! The GM says that clearing the rubble is only DC 10, so mighty Buzzarm only needs to roll a 6 or higher to let the party through! Even with that confidence, that is only a 75% chance of success, not a sure thing at all! And even the strongest hero can fall victim to the critical failure of a natural 1 or be hit by an opposed nat 20.
This is what makes TTRPGs so fun! The element of luck and chance that permeates every decision keeps things engaging even for the most wizened wizard! Every encounter has risks! And the everpresent 5% of the 20 can make an amateur feel like they can take on any challenge! I want to bring this electricity to the classroom.
The chance of a critical failure can be scary, but fear can be motivating. Knowing that your character can fail at any moment adds a level of complexity to decision making that can be more impactful than any homework assignment. You can't just get stronger or smarter to beat chance - you have to become robust. You need to be prepared for any outcome. You need to become fault tolerant. That is, unless you know that failure is just as exciting as success! Some systems like Kids on Bikes explicitly compensate missed rolls, but even without a direct reward the storytelling opportunities of a kingdom's most charming knight failing a basic social interaction is a treat in and of itself.