ARTICLES AND ANNOUNCEMENTS
by David Harris, Curriculum Development & Community Manager My first in-person Reacting event was the 2024 Game Development Conference at Newman University in Wichita, Kansas. Like many new Reactors, I walked away from the conference deeply enthusiastic for the curriculum and brimming with ideas for my own games. It was in conversations there with Nick Proctor that I first heard a magical word: “BLORG.”
A secret library of games beyond the posted library of games! A place where I could stake out my slice of the Reacting pie. And so, like many before me, I went home from the conference and prepared to make my first submission to the BLORG. Except, upon parsing its lines of excitingly titled games, I found one that was just like the one I envisioned! Stifling my disappointment, I reached out to the author, hoping to either get a copy of their game in development that I could use, or potentially explore c0-authoring it with them. However, weeks went by, and there was no response to my email. I wrote again, and continued to wait, but the months passed and still nothing. If my experience sounds remotely familiar to you, then you have some inkling of an idea why we are starting of 2026 with a hard reset of the BLORG. Simply put, up to now, the BLORG has been “dead” resource – only intermittently maintained by people outside Reacting Central – with little correspondence between its nearly 600 entries and games actually in development. The vast majority of entries functionally represent an idea someone had at a Conference, but never pursued any farther. When I sat down with Reacting Editorial Board Chair Kelly McFall to discuss the current state of the BLORG in Fall 2025, he estimated that fewer than one in twenty Level 1 entries ever made the jump to level 2, and only a slightly higher percentage of Level 2 entries made the jump to Level 3. We weighed trying to reorganize the current BLORG, which would have meant reaching out to hundreds of prospective authors and finding out the state of their entries. However, given the upcoming announcement of Reacting 3.0, an opt-out approach simply did not make sense. Even if a given author had continued work on their entry, the vast majority of Level 2 and Level 1 games would be completed under the 3.0 templates, introducing a whole new set of issues. And so, we decided that the best way forward was an opt-in approach through a hard reset.
To clarify, the old BLORG will remain linked on the website as an artifact of the Reacting 2.0 era, a place to go get ideas and potentially seek out co-authors. However, it will have no importance beyond being a window into the past of Reacting.
BLORG 2.0 is a currently a private document, which myself, Reacting’s interns, and members of the REB have been working on since last fall. BLORG 2.0 will be publicized to the community in early February 2026, after we catalog the initial flurry of entries that we anticipate will follow this announcement. If you have a level 3-5 game that is currently on the website or published – there are no additional steps you need to take at this point. However if you have a level 1 or 2 game under development for Reacting and have not been asked to re-submit already, we ask that you re-submit your game if you are interested in claiming a spot on BLORG 2.0 and continuing work on your project. As part of the BLORG relaunch, the REB has revised what it asks from authors at Level 1 and Level 2 to get an entry onto the BLORG. While these do not represent a fundamental break from what these levels have been historically, they do ask for a little more from the author up front. For Level 1, in addition to the basic game information (location, time period, player count, etc.) that we have historically asked for, we are asking for a 250-300 word description that summarizes the structure of the game and its content and skills-based learning objectives. The goal of requesting this is to ensure more games submitted for level 1 have been brainstormed beyond the initial “I have an idea” phase, and will ultimately conform with many of the pedagogical and accessibility goals of Reacting 3.0.
For Level 2, we are now expecting the submission of game files. These will not go up on the website, and will only be shared internally. Asking for them ensures that the author has a working prototype that can be evaluated for further development support by the REB.
The ultimate goal of the reset is to create a resource that is more useful to the community and supports the REB’s goal of fostering game development for Reacting to the Past As a Reacting member, when you visit BLORG 2.0 you can be assured that every project you see is “active.” If it’s a level 2 game, there will always be files you can use if you are interested and email the author. If you are an author, you can be assured that other Reacting members can easily find your project, and thereby find play-testers and co-authors more easily. Moreover, your game in development being on BLORG 2.0 represents more than a line of text on a Google Sheets document, but evidences a level of investment in your project from Reacting Central and the Editorial Board.
Going forward, if you have a level 1 or level 2 entry on the BLORG, someone from Reacting Central (probably myself) will email you twice annually – during the summer and at the start of the spring semester – to inquire about progress on your game. This can be simply an opportunity to touch base, or can lead into a more detailed conversation to discuss the game’s development and share resources, depending on what the author’s preferences. The REB hopes to make use of a living BLORG to identify games in progress that are beneficial to Reacting to the Past as a curriculum (such as covering an a under-represented topic, or being playable by larger classes), and support their accelerated development to the benefit of the entire community. Maintaining a living BLORG means there has to be mechanism for removing entries from the BLORG should the author stop communicating or stop development of their game for a prolonged period of time. The body that has the final say on this will be the Reacting Editorial Board, as that is the group best equipped to make rulings based on the inevitable extenuating circumstances that may arise in the course of game writing. Entries will be referred to the REB by the following policy guidelines: If you have a level 1 entry, and you are incommunicative for a year (two check-ins), then your entry will be referred to the REB for potential removal. If you have a level 2 entry, and are incommunicative for two years (four check-ins), then your entry will be referred to the REB for potential removal. These policies are not aimed to punish potential authors for having life get in the way, but once again, ensure that the resource remains a living document that ultimately helps more than hinders game development. There are sure to be many questions surrounding this reboot of the BLORG, and we welcome your feedback and thoughts. If you have questions or feedback about the policies surrounding BLORG 2.0 or game development in general, please email REB Chair Kelly McFall at reactingeditorialdirector@gmail.com. If you want to get in touch with me directly about submitting you entries to BLORG 2.0 or have questions about the submission process, you can reach me at david@reacingconsortium.org.
by Nicholas Proctor, Executive Director of the Reacting Consortium Since Mark Carnes began writing games in the late 1990s, Reacting to the Past has undergone significant changes. Some essentials have remained constant: the centrality of a clash of ideas, immersive roles, historical context, and the use of rich historical texts, have been and will remain hallmarks of the series. Encountering any of these elements has great pedagogical potential. Combined, they can be breathtakingly powerful.
And yet, many instructors and students express difficulty playing our games. This, combined with the onslaught of AI, declining reading proficiency, and various lessons learned from hundreds of playtests of existing games, led our Editorial Board Chair, Kelly McFall, and others to begin asking in 2024, “What’s next?”
To answer this question, he and I began gathering community feedback later that year. Together and separately, we conducted listening sessions at various conferences. What changes did people want to see? What was sacrosanct? What could we learn from the broader world of game design? We combined these thoughts with discussions that arose as the REB reviewed new games, ongoing conversations in Reacting’s governing board (RCB), online chatter, and many, many one-on-one and small-group discussions. What’s working? What’s not? What have people figured out? What challenges remain?
I gathered our notes together in preparation for a weekend-long retreat in October 2025, during which a dozen experienced Reacting instructors, drawn from across the community, created a series of templates. We then shared these with the full RCB and REB for feedback and editing. This ultimately yielded a draft document that we presented at the 2026 Reacting Winter Conference.
Going forward, the specifics will undoubtedly shift a bit – using them to build actual games is sure to reveal some rough edges, but I think the big changes have been made. Internally, we’ve been calling it Reacting 3.0 – new guidelines for games heading into 2026 and beyond that promise to keep our curriculum vibrant and relevant in the face of challenges both old and new. I’ve sorted the remainder of this blog post in an overview of the major changes we expect to implement going forward. ROLE SHEETS The first set of changes concerns the role sheets. These are the game materials players read most carefully. The elements of existing role sheets will all remain, but we’ve reorganized them to foreground the game schedule. This way, players can see exactly what they need to do during any given session in the game.
As part of this reorganization, we also decided to clearly define the difference between responsibilities and assignments. The former are tasks players need to complete for the game to function. These might include activities such as performing rituals to mark the beginning of gameplay, casting votes, or advocating for specific positions at designated points in the game. These are clearly integrated into role sheets.
Assignments – the artifacts instructors use to assess student learning and assign grades – often vary wildly in practice. At present, individual instructors tailor these to their students, curricula, and learning objectives. Few people use the “vanilla” options, which appear in the published game materials. Consequently, students become confused by conflicting instructions from their instructors and the game materials. We decided it would be better to share these as editable addenda to role sheets. The game would still come with default assignments, but making them addenda makes them easy to edit and customize. Vignettes The concept of Reacting is difficult to introduce. Since its inception, Reacting gamebooks have opened with second-person “you are there” vignettes. When they work, these little pieces of historical fiction draw you into the game. When they don’t, they are discordant and weird. Most often, according to surveys I conducted, instructors do not assign them. Consequently, in Reacting 3.0 their use will be strictly optional. They now appear only as handouts in the appendix.
In their place, there are two short new introductions to the game. The first, What Just Happened? explains the immediate event that led to the beginning of the game. The Thirty Tyrants have been cast out of Athens. Now what happens? The second, The World of the Game, describes the immediate situation of the game, e.g., the political, cultural, religious, social, and economic context. In clever hands, these could be written in the style of the original vignettes, so it may be possible for all sides of the Vignettes debate to walk away happy. PRE-GAME WORKSHOPS Workshops are low-stakes introductions to roles, mechanics, and ideas. This is a term from recreational LARP, but it is not a new idea; workshops are part of many of the earliest Reacting designs. Sometimes these take the form of pre-game faction meetings. Other times, they are one-shot microgames, like the Hermitage debate in Red Clay. Since most people find them useful, these introductory Workshops are now required to ease entry into our games. Like most game elements, there are provisions allowing individual instructors to opt out of using them if they prefer. Managing reading load Most faculty have noted a decline in their students' ability and willingness to engage with lengthy or complex written texts. This is particularly vexing because rich historical documents and thick descriptions of historical context are so fundamental to Reacting’s approach to the past. Determined to retain both elements, 3.0 suggests the following:
First, these readings should focus on the player in the game. This means trimming discursive passages and interesting (but nonessential) details.
For the historical context essay, we encourage simplifying the vocabulary and limiting the use of proper nouns to those that appear in the game itself. For the documents, we encourage separating texts into those essential to play the game (“core”) and those related to a subset of roles (“supplemental”).
For the documents themselves, headnotes should be longer, glossing of unfamiliar ideas should be included, and elisions should be judicious. One hope here is that reading a curated version of the texts in the gamebook provides actionable information. Ample subheadings make it easier to parse the readings. They should also make them easier to navigate for people using e-readers.
Finally, we encourage authors to do what they can to break the wall of text. Diagrams, line art, and illustrations all aid comprehension. UNCP will work with us to incorporate these into our games that go to publication. I purposely added a bunch of these to the manuscript for my forthcoming game about the Reconstruction era in Louisiana. They were very helpful in figuring out how to integrate these into the text.
As is the case with most elements of 3.0, some games already use this organization and include these elements, and to good effect. Reacting 3.0 makes these approaches into requirements. SCHEDULING WITH EPISODES In classrooms, Reacting games get chopped up and recombined in all sorts of ways. This is because of differences in the length of class meetings, expectations about speaking and oration, and variations in class size. Consequently, the schedule laid out in gamebooks rarely survives first contact with the reality of our syllabi.
Consequently, 3.0 breaks games down into constituent parts or “episodes.” These may or may not correspond to a classroom instruction day (“session”). They usually culminate in a decision. This refinement to our terminology will aide newer instructors in implementing our games in their classrooms. The IM must provide advice on how to combine these, but ultimately, the decision is left with the instructor.
To help visualize, here is a default schedule:
Here is a modification that emphasizes debriefing:
Here is a third that emphasizes setup: IM ADDITIONS
The Reacting 3.0 IM Template includes over a dozen small tweaks and optimizations. These stem from years of field experience by the people who put it together. The IM template will include significantly more direction, describing what should go where and why. This component also includes some significant additions.
Learning objectives are described in the 2.0 IM. In addition to describing those connected with content, the new version also asks authors to describe those associated with skills.
Every game picks pivotal moments, salient debates, and essential ideas. This means that they are historical interpretations. Consequently, the IM should now include a brief statement on the game's position in the historiography.
Instructors are sometimes surprised by the logistical demands that accompany certain games. These are never hard-and-fast requirements, but taking some steps ahead of time can optimize the game experience. Consequently, the IM should now include advice for pre-game preparations. Both what to do before the semester begins (What sort of classroom works best for this game? Are there particular props that aid the game? Do you need to build online resources?) and what instructors should handle two weeks before the game begins.
Other additions to the IM are components that many authors have already developed and included in their games. Given their positive impact in the classroom, these are now required. They include guidance on controversial content and suggested safety mechanisms to help players navigate through it. More general guidance that is applicable to all Reacting Games will be outsourced from the IMs to a document that we are tentatively calling the GM Bible. This document will be hammered out this year alongside the finalized version of Reacting 3.0.
Finally, as I mentioned above, there should be provisions for workshops. These might be faction meetings, which already appear in many games, dry runs of the game mechanism, low-stakes role-playing exercises, or microgames that help set the scene or debrief at the end of the game. Exiting the game: The Debrief Instructors regularly struggle with debriefing. Consequently, 3.0 asks authors to provide more guidance. Best practices in recreational LARP call for three stages of debrief. They begin with emotions. Players need to address questions like, “Who stabbed me in the back?” and “Why did I get executed?” Before they can exit their roles. This part of the debriefing might be best if it came immediately after the final episode of gameplay. To aid in “de-roling” authors might suggest a ritual or two, like tearing up name placards.
This can in turn lead into an intellectual debrief. At this point, players can step back from the action enough to think about the outcome of the game as a whole (rather than their individual fates), the clash of ideas, and the degree to which the game aligned with and diverged from history. The “What Actually Happened” and “What Happened Next” parts of the 2.0 IM fall here.
Finally, instructors should encourage their students to have some level of integrative reflection. This should help them connect their experience with their preexisting knowledge. TEARSHEETS "Tearsheets" are instructor-facing, quick-reference guides to game mechanics and specific episodes. They largely replicate information from the gamebook and IM, but in quick-reference form. No longer will you need to fumble around trying to figure out the odds for a tribute-gathering expedition! Bring the tear-sheet for the final session of Threshold of Democracy, and it is at your fingertips. Going forward, we expect game materials to make ample provisions of tearsheets where the mechanics call for them. NEXT STEPS We are close to finalizing 3.0, but some work remains. Over the spring semester of 2026, we will continue to refine the design based on community feedback. The most important source will be the handful of authors who are working to align their games in development with 3.0 standards. This is where the rubber meets the road. We expect that this will result in some judicious tweaking, reorganization, and editing, but I think the broad contours are set.
At the end of spring, the Reacting Editorial Board will take over. They will then decide how to interpret the templates, oversee their implementation, and decide how far to extend the grandfather clause for 2.0 games in development. They will also help to identify older games that would most benefit from new editions in 3.0 format.
I’ve taken the lead on this because, at some point, having one set of hands on the tiller made things more efficient. This should not obscure the fact that 3.0 is a set of standards created by the Reacting community. I sincerely thank everyone for the many hours they have put into making this significant step forward possible. While much has been accomplished already, making Reacting 3.0 the best it can be can only be accomplished through continued input from the Reacting Community. To that end, we welcome feedback, so if you’ve read this blog post and you have something you want to share, you are welcome to email it to reactingeditorialdirector@gmail.com. Otherwise, you can expect to hear more details about the final shape of Reacting 3.0 throughout 2026!
For the 2026 Winter Conference, we are featuring a series of interviews with the authors of Reacting Games being played at the event. For our third and final interview, Reacting Intern Jocelyn Edwards sat down with Dr. Joseph Sramek, author of Politics, Religion, and the Birth of the Public Sphere: England, 1685-1688.
So, first things first, how did you get introduced to the world of Reacting to the Past?
About eleven years ago, I had a class in the Spring of 2015 – Modern European History. I had about 30 students, nobody wanted to talk, and it left me really frustrated. So about mid-semester, I was looking at all kinds of primary source readers to try and reanimate the class, and one day the Norton textbook representative came by asking for spring semester orders. I said, “do you have anything for me?” She said, “Come to think of it, we carry this curriculum you might enjoy called Reacting to the Past.” She put me in touch with professors in nearby universities, I started emailing them, and next thing you know I was going to the summer conference at Barnard. I remember that summer the French Revolution and the American Revolution were both being played. By the end of that weekend, I knew what I was doing for my course, and the rest, as they say, is history.
For The Birth of the Public Sphere, could you give me a quick elevator pitch?
So, the game itself is an immersive experience set inside a coffee house. London, in the late 17th century, had about fifty of these. According to a scholar named Jurgen Habermas, Coffeehouses in many ways represent the birth of the public sphere – the concept of modern civil society. What you have here is the origin of modern, vibrant civic culture where people don’t kill each other for different ideas, but discuss them. This is coming in the late 17th century, right after those religious wars in Europe, and right after the problems England experienced throughout the 17th century. One king had been beheaded, another king overthrown, and you have a lot of turmoil. On the primary source end of things, I wanted a game that focused on authors like Hobbes and particularly John Locke, considering how normal he is nowadays to us. I wanted my game to capture an earlier moment when he was controversial.
What do you think makes the Birth of the Public Sphere unique in the Reacting library? What draws people into it?
We still need a lot of games to fill open niches in the Reacting library, like games set before the 18th and 19th centuries. We have a lot of games that are modern games, and in contrast my game covers early modern Europe. Additionally, we also need games in cultural settings – that really think about power and what power is. Games that feature less direct forms of power, or how the power is mediated and experienced by less elite actors. A lot of our games are male-heavy, so how do we get female roles into games? How do we get more historically marginalized voices in our games? Perhaps more cultural settings are the way to do that.
The last thing I would say is we need games with modular structures – kind of mix and match games. And one of the things that I did in my game design is that because it is a coffee house, it can be a versatile setting. When I was writing this game, I got some feedback from the community, from professors in English departments, that wanted to teach early modern literature in the setting of my game. It was also obvious that I needed to do something with early modern science because of the contemporaneous Scientific Revolution. It was a really low-hanging fruit to add that in.
So, I have created my game as a modular structure. There is a core group of characters, but only about 12-13 are needed in the game to get the basic debate going. As you go beyond those core roles, I have 50 additional roles which I divide into “character packs.” So, if you want to beef up your early modern science, I have science people. If you want to beef up your literature, I have people for that. If you want to talk about Empire, slavery, etc., I have characters for that. I want to model this for the rest of the community, as a way you can do games that could be used in multiple types of classrooms.
Of all the characters in the game, do you have a favorite?
It is so hard, I have a couple. I have always enjoyed the Marquis of Halifax, because he is such a moderate in a period of extremes. I also find the character of John Churchill, Winston’s infamous ancestor, fascinating. He famously switches sides, and I always like seeing what students do with his utterly pragmatic, principle-less personality.
What comes next? Any other projects or ideas you’re working on right now?
I am working on a game set in the UK that is called, Social Democracy Versus Market Liberalism in Britain, 1976-1979. I want to play with the idea of: “What if Margaret Thatcher never came to power?” When she becomes Prime Minister in the late 1970s, it is a sea change in economic policy. In the leadup to this era, John Maynard Keynes was a very prominent economic thinker, and many believed that the most important thing was to avoid unemployment – to avoid the Great Depression of the 1930s. Therefore, the government should step in to regulate the economy as necessary during times of economic downturn, such as during the late 1970s. But in real history, these ideas are toppled by more conservative ones, and Thatcher’s side ultimately prevails, but it is a narrow run thing. It is never as triumphant as her supporters seem to think it is. I want to explore this clash of economic philosophies and see how things might have unfolded had events played out slightly differently. If you want to try out Birth of the Public Sphere for yourself, and find out about the exciting changes coming in Reacting 3.0, be sure to sign up for the Reacting Consortium's 2026 Winter Conference!
For the 2026 Winter Conference, we are featuring a series of interviews with the authors of Reacting Games being played at the event. For our second interview, David Harris sat down with Dr. Linda Mayhew, author of Russian Literary Journals, which recently went to publication with UNCP this year.
I’ll start off with the most basic question, how did you get introduced to Reacting to the Past?
It was with Larry Carver and Paul Sullivan. Larry Carver was the director, the former director, of the program I work at in Liberal Arts Honors here at the University of Texas at Austin. And Paul Sullivan is the co-author of the Shakespeare and Marlowe game. And so Paul was, at the time, stepping down from his position in Liberal Arts Honors, and they wanted someone to come in and teach Reacting. They reached out to me about the position and said it involves teaching, come visit a class and see what you think. And I was like, okay, sure, I'm interested.
I still remember, sitting in that classroom – and it was 16 years ago – it was the Athens game, the student was the Herald, and she was had her pig sacrifice, and she was walking around the room sprinkling pieces of paper everywhere. And I was kind of confused, but so intrigued. And then, you know, there was just this amazing debate and discussion with the students, and I just kind of fell in love with that idea of constant interaction in a classroom.
So, to someone who's not really familiar with Russian history, what is this game about? What classes is it a really good fit for?
The game is really about different writers and trying to publish at a time when there is censorship and some intense debate about how Russia can move forward. So there's a lot of discussion about different political structures, the Russo-Turkic war, and how involved Russia should be with other countries and the issues that they have going on. There's a big discussion about how Russia relates to Western Europe, and so those are kind of all these things that are happening in the country right now.
And what the game is looking at is, how do authors, how do people talk about this or write about it when there is censorship and some of these things are not legal to publish about? You're not allowed to criticize the Tsar, or, you know, be very critical about anything that's going on. There's a list of rules that's something like 10 pages long of what's acceptable.
I think that people who aren't wanting to teach a class about Russia would still find use for the game if they're wanting to look at writing, that's the big thing. Almost everyone in the game is a writer, and so students in their roles have a lot of opportunity to play around with different kinds of writing. They can do editorials, they can do different kinds of creative writing. If they want to do poetry or short stories, there's a way to work that in. And then there's also traditional literary analysis or historical essays that students could do as well.
So it's really adaptable for whoever's using the game to like focus on some kinds of writing or the others, and the game book has all different all kinds of examples of those different kinds of writings in there for students to work on. But I also think it would be good for people that are wanting to look at literature in context or to place an influential author like Dostoevsky in a social, political, and historical context.
Do American students kind of struggle with adapting to writing under censorship as they have to do in the game? Or are there any other interesting student reactions to the social situation in 19th century Russia?
Well, it's we've had some interesting conversations with students who are making connections between what was happening in 19th century Russia and what's happening in contemporary Russia. You see the continued influence of religion, the clamping down on rights and things in contemporary Russia. You can see some clear parallels in that.
But the censorship, what I think is hard for students – I think the tendency is to see it like, “Oh, I'm not allowed to say this, so I'm just not going to try and say this.” And so as an instructor, you have to kind of nudge them. “But maybe, what could you say? That is a little bit of a gray area that you know – do you want to push the boundaries in that case?” And so that's something that they get to play around with.
So obviously, your game includes a veritable who's who of the Russian literary scene in the late 19th century, names that most people are familiar with, like Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy. But with that said, Who's your favorite character in your game?
I really like almost all of the female characters in my game, because those are people that aren't talked about as much. One of my favorites is Elena Shtakenshneider, who is the hostess of the literary salon – I just really like her. She hosting this literary salon and bringing all these writers together. So obviously she's like an important figure in that way. But she also wrote these huge, or very lengthy, at least, memoirs about her salon. Because they were like personal memoirs and she wasn't trying to publish them at the time, they weren't censored at all. But they're this great history looking back on how hard it was for writers to sometimes publish; how arbitrary some of those decisions were, how easy it could be to attract the attention of a committee that would reprimand you.
I also love some of the female revolutionaries, and I think they would be really fun to play, because they're just so dedicated to their cause. They’re willing to do just about anything for the larger goal that they have, for a more fair government, and a more equal Russia.
Speaking of doing anything to make a better Russia, as it were, how often do students try and assassinate Alexander II in the game?
Almost always there is always someone who has tries. The radicals try really hard to make that happen. And the game is designed so they have a good chance of success, because that is what was happening historically. There's a lot of information out there about the eight or nine different assassination attempts on Alexander II before they finally succeeded. But they can easily be foiled if they get infiltrated by people that are not sympathetic to their point of view.
So the way the game works, many of the radical revolutionaries are working very covertly, and they don't talk about what they're trying to do very often in class. They don't lay that out there for everyone, because they know if they talk about it, there could be a censor overhearing things who then flags them for something. So for some of the students, it is really a surprise when that assassination attempt happens that they weren't expecting it, because that hasn't been part of the debates.
Are you going to be the game author who finally writes the Russian Revolution game for Reacting?
I don't know. If I did it, I would sort of do it through like a literary lens. There is a game I'm helping co-author now that set in the 1905 Russian Revolution. And that's the Markov versus Nekrasov game that Chad Curtis is working on and Sungju Moon, one of his colleagues at Nevada State. I'm helping to translate some of the documents that aren't available in English, that are just in Russian, and then also add a literature component to what's really a game about statistics.
But that's the 1905 Revolution, so I don't know about the 1917 one. That may just have to remain the Reacting white whale for now.
Are there any other projects, Reacting or otherwise, that you are working on at the moment?
I have some other ideas for some smaller reacting games. There's one I’m working on about artists at the same time period that's called The Wanderers. That came out of this game, broadening to look at the visual arts – I just think it would be fun to examine the art from the period a little more.
I would also like to translate the memoirs of Elena Shtakenshneider more fully, because there's so much interesting information in there – I only ended up using small fragments for the game. And so I've been kind of playing around with the idea of translating all of that. I think her memoirs might need annotations for somebody who wasn't already knowledgeable about that time period, to help people appreciate all her references and literary connections in there. If you want to try out Russian Literary Journals for yourself, and find out about the exciting changes coming in Reacting 3.0, be sure to sign up for the Reacting Consortium's 2026 Winter Conference before December 21st!
For the 2026 Winter Conference, we are featuring a series of interviews with the authors of the Reacting Games being played at the event. For this one, Intern Kyla Toombs sat down with Dr. Rebecca Livingstone, co-author of Versailles 1919, to ask questions about the game and Livingstone's involvement with Reacting to the Past. Can you introduce yourself for me and tell me how you got involved with Reacting to the Past?
I'm Rebecca Livingstone, and I am a professor of history at Simpson College. I've been at Simpson since 2007. I got interested in Reacting because of Nick Proctor who is heavily involved in Reacting. During my first year teaching at Simpson, I was wondering ‘what is this Reacting thing?’ so Nick invited me into one of his upper-level history classes that was playing the French Revolution. He gave me a role to play – an Indeterminate, I think – with the students. I got killed pretty quickly…. But I was intrigued about this highly engaging pedagogy.
To someone who's unfamiliar with the Versailles Peace Conferences, what is the Versailles 1919 about and why should they play it?
Versailles 1919 is about the Paris Peace Conference that meets in 1919 to figure out the diplomatic conclusion to World War I. What is to be done to settle the war and ensure that such a war won’t happen again? The game centers on questions about the justness of war, the ethics of warfare, and what should be done with emerging new nations and establishing borders based on nationalism and national identity. There are questions of reparations and war guilt for this horrible war - who's responsible for the fact that ‘we’ had a war and do ‘we’ punish them? – and as a result, what agreements can nations to make waging war the absolute last resort for settling problems. The Paris Peace Conference challenges students to make decisions by consensus rather than simple majority voting. So it requires students to have to listen to each other as well as weigh different types of influence and power as they seek to find common ground.
The game involves the Great Powers – the United States, France, Britain, Italy, and Japan, but has a lot of smaller powers like smaller European states, newly emerging nations, and British dominions. It makes for a really interesting combination of actors debating what we expect for going forward. How should nations deal with each other when they have conflict? What role do these small nations play? Should we care about their opinion or not, or should we just go and make decisions because we're the ‘Great Powers’? So the Paris Peace Conference is dealing with a lot of these issues that are coming from the outbreak and waging of the war itself but also with questions of how to create a lasting peace.
Who is your favorite character in your game?
There are a couple of different answers. I like the Borden character. He's the Prime Minister of Canada and I'm Canadian. So I was excited to be able to write a Canadian into a Reacting Game.
But I think if I really had to think about my favorite character I can't pick just one; instead, I can pick a category - the delegates coming from the Small Powers, like Belgium, Canada, Poland, Czechoslovakia. They're trying to figure out who they are and who they can be in relation to the Great Powers. I like them is because of what their roles are; they're have the idea of ‘we have or want a nation state for our people and here’s what we think our people deserve’ but are rubbing up against what other nations want, particularly the Great Powers who are playing a sort of chess game and see these smaller powers as pawns in the larger game of re-establishing world order. They’re not Indeterminate roles as they multi-faceted agendas of what they want to achieve so I like the pluckiness that these small power roles embody. I also like how I’ve seen students play them, especially if you put some competitive students in these roles; if they want to win, they have to get their voices heard, just like the historical actors. And sometimes that is annoying to those playing the Great Powers, just like it was historically.
It's often said in design/creative spaces that you have to kill your babies. Was there a concept, character, or mechanic that you desperately wanted to be in the final game but didn't make the cut?
There's a lot of stuff that I cut because it's so complicated. There are so many different issues, and you have to make choices as an author. I could have students talk about this issue or that issue, but had to stop and ask if was really getting too technical, too in the weeds? Did it really serve the main purpose of the game? Or was it a mechanic that is just like, ‘yeah, that's fun’, but not really doing much else. Assassination is one of those game mechanics where students always ask, ‘can we kill people in this game?’ No matter what the game is, I always get asked that. I did think about it, but ultimately, sorry, no assassinations in Versailles 1919 – it just doesn’t serve the game as a learning tool.
Okay, are you working on any other projects, Reacting or otherwise at the moment?
I think every person who's designed a game or two has thought, ‘oh, I have an idea for that.’ I always have ideas, but I’m not always sure how to translate them into a game. I’ve been working on a project set later in 18th century Britain centering on questions of liberty and tyranny, but I am still feeling my way through it. I also have an idea for a British suffragette game. I think that there might be some other people that have games in the works on that though, but I don't know where they are in the process. But yeah, I've got an idea percolating about that. If you want to try out Versailles 1919 for yourself, and find out about the exciting changes coming in Reacting 3.0, be sure to sign up for the Reacting Consortium 2026 Winter Conference before December 21st!
A coup in progress during the playtest of Brazilian Constituent Assembly at the 2025 GDC
by Eduardo Magalhaes
While I teach Political Science, I was exposed to Reacting through my colleague in the history department at Simpson College, Nick Proctor. Intrigued by what I saw, I started using Reacting in my own classes at least 15 years ago. Soon after I started using Reacting, it was clear to me that the history of the 1988 Brazilian Constituent Assembly would make a good Reacting game. It provides several clear decision points regarding Constitutional issues, clear characters with a variety of perspectives, and was something that actually overlapped with my own life. My father was a Brazilian who was forced to leave Brazil after the military coup in 1964 and then returned with our family when the democratization process started.
I began working on the Game about five years ago, after Nick encouraged me to submit it to the Big List of Reacting Games. In 2022 a colleague in my department was teaching a Comparative Constitutions class for the first time, so I volunteered to let her use the Constituent Assembly game….even though it was barely a concept at the time. This self-imposed deadline forced me to actually develop some game logistics and character background. At around the same time, someone reached out to me from Jacksonville University for permission to use the game in his History of Brazil class. Again, I was able to add some additional clarity since I was essentially forced to!
That first version of the game was astonishingly thin. I had accessed the template for Gamebooks, so I tried to minimally follow that model. I had a brief overview of the game, an extensive timeline, but essentially no narrative whatsoever! In fact, the main element of that initial Gamebook was the basic framework of the game – the resolutions to be debated, the actors participating, assignments, and the schedule for the game. I did have some minimal descriptions of parties (so that students would at least have some sense of what their roles were about) and some vocabulary terms. There was only one core text, a few sample speeches, and a link to the Spanish constitution. While the game was usable, it was extremely bare bones at this point.
However, over the next year I was able to add much more detail to the logistics of the game, because to be honest, that was the part I was most excited about. I added more background information and had much more detailed role sheets – adding in detailed victory objectives. By 2023 I was far enough along that I was able to use a sabbatical leave to really dive into developing the game. Thanks to translation work done by my brother, I was able to dramatically improve the details – adding significant new elements and much more detail in the Role Sheets. This put me in a position to submit my game to the Game Design Conference this past summer, where I received even more feedback and guidance on improving the game. One of the other things I learned at the GDC was that the Reacting Editorial Board would be accepting submissions for consideration to be moved to Level 3 in mid-September.
So, when the semester started, I embarked on a feverish, two-week sprint to get the game as fully fleshed out as I could so that it would be ready to submit. It was the most intense writing experience I’ve had since the time I wrote half my dissertation in the two weeks before the deadline to submit it! And I loved every second of it.
When I first started this project, what I was most concerned about was that my Gamebook, Instructor’s Manual, and Role Sheets were not exactly in line with the template provided by Reacting. Ok, they were a long way from being in compliance with that template. So, the first thing I did was to create the table of contents required for the Gamebook and Instructor’s Manual – following the order and topics from the template. I thought it was going to be difficult to convert what I had done but it turned out to be much easier than I expected. Generally speaking, I either had to rename sections I had developed and/or simply move them to a different place.
Then I was in a position to flesh out (or create from scratch) the sections of the template that I hadn’t previously done (for example, relationships with ideas, etc. in the Role sheets). This actually leads to another great thing about this writing experience. While traditional research writing does provide some variety (you can go from working on the literature review to working on the conclusion), working on a Reacting Game gives you much more variation in the type of writing you are doing. When I was tired of working on the narrative, I could move to the game mechanics. When I was tired of working on the mechanics, I could work on the parts of the Role Sheets that were missing. This made it much easier to keep working because I was always able to work on something new and fresh.
By the day the submission was due (conveniently at midnight!), there was still a fair amount left to do. As I reviewed each piece – the Gamebook, the Instructor’s Guide, and the Role Sheets – I tried to remind myself how much I had added, rather than what was still left. I was also comforted by the knowledge that even if the game was not approved for advancing to Level 3, I would have made tremendous progress towards that goal (progress that I could continue pursuing while the game is being reviewed), and I would receive valuable feedback from the process and that I would be in a very strong position to submit the game again in January. This knowledge helped me to fight through those moments when I felt like quitting and just submitting what I had. By midnight (yes, I worked right to the deadline – just like when I was an undergraduate!), while I knew the submission was not perfect, I was extremely pleased with the final product.
Overall, I really enjoyed working on my Reacting game to get it ready to submit to the Reacting Editorial Board. If any of you have been reluctant to devote your time and energy to finishing your game – because you think it’s too far from being ready, or maybe you’re not sure it’s really as good as YOU think it is, or whatever – I would encourage you to make the effort. I think you will find that it is an extremely rewarding process and experience and well worth the sacrifice.
The submissions have been read. The judges have conferred. And we are now ready to announce the honorees of the 2025 Game Jam!
Before I make the big announcement, there are some people who need to be thanked:
Without further ado, the honorees are:
Every author will receive detailed feedback from the judges later today (check your spam folders!). The judges also wanted to collectively share with the community some impressions for authors thinking about writing a microgame:
Yours in ambitious gameplay,
Raymond Kimball
Reacting Microgame Coordinator
The Reacting Consortium has been joined for the 2025-2026 school year by two student interns from Newman University! Jocelyn Edwards is a sophomore studying elementary education, and likes to stay involved in lots of organizations both on and off campus. In her spare time, she loves to golf and bake delicious treats for her friends and family.
Kyla Toombs is a junior biology major with a focus on biomedical research. When she's not studying, she enjoys reading and movies, and is very excited at the prospect of experiencing more Reacting Games this year through her internship with the organization.
Both student will be active this year on a variety of behind the scenes projects, and you will likely see them at events this fall and spring. Be sure to give them a warm welcome to the Reacting community when you do!
by Kate Nicole Hoffman
I was nervous the morning of the trial. My college roommate wished me luck as I crammed my notes into my backpack, along with my copy of Plato’s Five Dialogues and the Reacting to the Past student handbook. I had spent the last week writing and rewriting my arguments, trying them out with friends, working on new angles. Today was the day, and I was eager for it to go well.
I passed some Thrasybulus Democrats on my way to the courtroom; they narrowed their eyes at me and turned back to their whispered huddle. Plotting outside of the classroom, as we all had these past couple of months. I was eager to get inside and consult with my own cohort. Although I would be the one speaking in front of the jury today, my remarks would be the culmination of our team effort, and our winning of the trial was essential to our objectives. In 399 BCE, Socrates was condemned to death for the crimes of impiety and corrupting the youth. Over 2,000 years later, we Socratics were getting another chance. Our objective: convince the jury that Socrates ought to go free.
It was strange, perhaps, to find myself here, and filled with enough nerves and excitement as to imagine that this was a real trial, with a man’s life actually at stake. I was a music major who was only taking this Intro to Philosophy class to fulfill a credit for the honors program. Not only that, but I had always been rather shy in classes – reluctant to speak up and preferring to share my thoughts and questions with my teachers in private. And here I was, notes clutched in my hand, walking up to the podium with my prepared speech in Socrates’ defense. They had been absolutely opposed to us Socratics from the beginning – I knew they wouldn’t be convinced. But I could potentially get through to some of the other factions and various yet undecided Athenian citizens. Assuming, of course, that they hadn’t already been bribed.
The leader of it all, Dr. Curry, smiled at me from the back of the classroom. He was taking a chance in offering such a nontraditional philosophy class as part of the honors program; even more so because it was his first time using roleplay as a method of teaching. But each week it became more obvious: it was working. How do you take a bunch of awkward freshmen with no experience in philosophy and get them to care about the work of oldies like Aristotle, Plato, and Socrates? Transport them into ancient Athens, give them characters and objectives, and let them see how philosophy was relevant to real decisions made in Athens, the threshold of democracy. We were learning the art of making and analyzing arguments in a way that was fun and contextualized. And we were all getting really into it.
I shuffled my notes up on the podium, gave a thumbs up to my fellow Socratics, and launched into my prepared arguments. There was something I was realizing: I was good at this. And not only that: I enjoyed it. I liked figuring out how to form a coherent argument, backed up with evidence and logic. I liked engaging in friendly debates with people who disagreed. I was beginning to see how such skills and endeavors could be useful, not just in the context of this “Athens Game”, but in life. In ways I could not have anticipated, this game was helping me to see myself as not just a student, but a philosopher.
In 399 BCE, Socrates was sentenced to death and forced to drink hemlock. In 2013 CE, to the cheers of my classmates, Socrates was acquitted. Granted, the win could be attributed more to chance than to my oratory skills (the vote was nearly tied, but the method for determining the winner, decided by drawing out black and white marbles from an urn, happened to fall in our favor). But even still, I couldn’t help but feel a stab of pride as I relayed the experience to my roommate later that night (“Yessss girl!!) The next week, the Thrasybulus managed, for strategic reasons, to convince enough of my classmates to vote me out of the Athenian assembly (Dr. Curry looked through the handbook in surprise – “Yes, I guess you are allowed to do that!”) Somehow, that felt like a win too.
It was easy for Dr. Curry to convince me to take another philosophy course after my experience with the Reacting to the Past game. I now understood what philosophy was, why it mattered, and what being a philosopher could look like. I took another course. And another. I eventually got a major. Just last year, 12 years after taking that first philosophy class, I graduated with a PhD in Philosophy. I am now actively working in the field.
My friends and I still talk about our experience with the Threshold of Democracy game. Besides being fun, incredibly engaging, and at times intense (not to worry – we all made up with our opponents when all was said and done), the experience gave us an opportunity to learn about both philosophy and history in a way that was contextualized and meaningful. Our roles and objectives, and our obligations to our teammates, pushed us to understand and engage with the art of argumentation and debate. The experience brought us together as classmates and propelled many of us into future philosophy courses.
Dr. Curry retired just this past month, after a long and very successful career of teaching and mentorship. His family solicited essays, remarks, and other forms of creative media to reflect and honor the role that Dr. Curry played in the lives of his students, colleagues, and friends. My contribution was a reimagined version of the Reacting to the Past handbook, located in our undergraduate philosophy department instead of Athens, with our faculty and students making up the various roles. Under the instructions for my own role, wherein imaginary students could play as my undergraduate self, I wrote: “You’re here to study music, but something about fiercely arguing with your fellow students about sparing the life of Socrates really gets you going.” Indeed, it did get me going.
I’m now at a point where I have the opportunity to consider how to teach my own philosophy courses. I think back to the 18-year-old version of myself, standing up at that podium, picturing that troublesome Socrates at my side. What about roleplay?, I ask, as I scroll through the Reacting to the Past website…
We are thrilled to announce the newest addition to the Reacting Consortium team. Please join us in welcoming David Harris, who is stepping into the role of Digital Resources Manager.
David brings a wealth of experience and passion and is committed to helping expand access to the Consortium’s active-learning curriculum. With a background as a high school history teacher, David is particularly interested in expanding the reach of the Consortium within secondary education, and his familiarity with running games in his own classes leaves him uniquely equipped to address these challenges and more.
In his role as Digital Resources Manager, David will be managing the online resource library, expanding the social media presence of the Consortium, and supporting new and ongoing projects and events. We are excited for the fresh perspectives and energy he will bring to our team.
When asked what drew him to the role, Harris shared: “Reacting to the Past is a curriculum I was first exposed to in college and had been looking for the opportunity to use ever since I became a teacher. Utilizing games like Kyle Lincoln’s Fourth Crusade or Emily Gray’s Augsburg 1530 made for some of my best moments teaching, and I look forward to supporting other teachers in implementing the Reacting to the Past curriculum in their own classrooms.”
David lives in Joplin, Missouri with his wife and two-year old son, and loves board games (in particular any designed by Cole Wehrle), reading the latest Cosmere novel, or trying to make a new dish in the kitchen. Please help us extend a warm welcome to David Harris – we’re thrilled to have him on board!
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