Play it Safe: Safety Tools for Your Reacting Games

Back by popular demand: this was one of our most well-received sessions at this year's Annual Institute, and we are excited to have Professor Allen White again share his advice, experience, and best-practices with the Reacting community.

Role-playing is a powerful way to activate student learning, connecting students to content and the characters they inhabit. Still, many Reacting games cover topics that may make the historical feel too close for comfort. Many non-educational role-playing games (RPGs) and live action role-playing games (LARPs) that deal with strong subject matter have developed tools to allow players to explore their characters while also respecting one another’s boundaries. In this virtual workshop, we will discuss and share a variety of safety tools borrowed from these communities and commercial products, advise when and how they can be deployed, and explore the use of tools with some role-play. 

Facilitator: Allen White is an Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Chemistry at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. He has been using Reacting for many years, and playing games for longer.