NEWS AND Announcements 

We are excited to report on the progress of the RTTP High School Initiative! In June, during the RTTP Annual Institute in New York, over thirty institute attendees convened to discuss actionable steps for integrating the RTTP pedagogy into the high school curriculum while maintaining the integrity of the games. Click here for the full meeting notes.

One step we took was to set up a shared google folder. We will use this folder as a "sandbox" of sorts where we will "play" with various iterations of teacher-generated resources. Our aim is to facilitate the adaptation and use of RTTP games and the associated pedagogies, while creating a collaborative community. Interested instructors can complete this form to request access to the shared folder.

Another step that we are taking now is to invite all interested teachers to a monthly Zoom during which we will be able to make important connections and discuss pertinent issues. The first zoom meeting is scheduled for Thursday, September 14th at 7 pm EST. With the exception of December when we will meet on the first Thursday (December 7), subsequent meetings will be on the second Thursday of the month at 7 pm EST.

You can register in advance for the first meeting on September 14th using this link.

We are also pleased to announce that Grand Valley State University is working on a grant to host a high school specific RTTP conference in Fall 2024 on their campus in Grand Rapids, Michigan. We will keep you posted as we learn more about this conference. In the meantime, the RTTP Consortium would like to offer some online programming similar to the Winter Conference targeted at high school teachers. They would run a game or two but would need experienced HS instructors to facilitate. We will discuss this proposal during our monthly Zoom meeting and on the RTTP High School Discord channel.

A huge thank you to everyone in the community who has offered support for the RTTP High School Initiative! We look forward to growing this community!

With the Fall semester fast approaching it's important to remember that our website hosts a variety of resources for instructors and game authors. Two new resources have been added to help Reacting members adapt to changes in the classroom and publishing.

ADAPTING TO ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Wider adoption of large language models by students has made it difficult for instructors to ensure that their students are doing work and developing skills. In addition to learning how to detect the use of AI by students, this document aims to help instructors incorporate it and restructure assignments to prevent its use.

RTTP Instructor AI Advice
By: Reacting AI Working Group

SECURING PERMISSIONS FOR PUBLISHED GAMES

Game authors will inevitably use copyrighted materials for their games. Whether it's a core text, translation, or illustration it's important to understand copyright and permissions. Jace Weaver, the RTTP Publications Liaison, has developed a tipsheet and has resources to help soon-to-be-published game authors manage permissions in their games.

Copyright and Permissions Tipsheet
By: Jace Weaver

You can learn more about Copyright and Permissions here.

COMING SOON!

We have more resources on the way that we can't wait to release! Stay tuned for materials designed to increase accessibility and promote safe gameplay.

FIND MORE RESOURCES

All of our materials for instructors and game authors can be found on our Resources page.

The summer is heating up and our wonderful game authors have been hard at work creating and updating game materials! Here are the latest files that you can use today!

We'll update this page as we get new files, check back later to stay up to date on the latest games and materials from the Reacting community.

New Files:

Game of Sages

New Level 3 Game!

From the authors: This game takes place at the end of the Warring States period in China, at a time when Qin state has already absorbed two of the previously existent seven states, and is threatening the remaining four states of Chu, Qi, Zhao and Yan. The simulation is structured as a debate amongst the four most influential philosophical legacies of the Warring States era: Confucianism, Naturalism, Legalism, and Mohists.

Grandsons of Genghis: The Mongol Kurultai of 1241

New Level 3 Game!

From the author: This game brings together the rival members of the Mongol royal family and representatives from across Eurasia to debate the legacy of Genghis Khan, appoint a successor to the Mongol throne, promote interreligious dialogue between Islam, Buddhism and Christianity, and plot where the vast Mongol Empire should expand next.

The Investiture Controversy: Church and State on the Road to Canossa, 1075-77

Pope Gregory VII (r. 1073-1085), riding high on reformist spirit, has progressively sought to expand the temporal power of the papacy and to bring the Western Church into stricter obedience to Rome. In the spring of 1075, Gregory issued the papal bull Dictatus papae, boldly claiming that the pope, and only the pope, had the power to depose both bishops and secular rulers—even emperors. When Emperor Henry IV (r.1056-1105) invested his chaplain Theobald with the episcopacy of Milan later that year, Gregory responded by excommunicating five of Henry’s advisors despite imperial investiture being a time-honored tradition. Tempers flared and a series of strongly worded public letters flew between the two men, bringing Western Christendom to a crisis point where it had to decide who held ultimate authority, St. Peter’s representative on Earth or God’s divinely anointed secular ruler of the Holy Roman Empire.

Christine de Pizan and the Querelle des Femmes, 1413

Christine de Pizan and the Querelle des Femmes examines the power, authority, and roles of women in the 1413 French court. Debates over misogyny in literature, legal theory, and political roles demonstrate the centrality of both women and gender to major issues in late medieval France. Two noble factions, the Armagnacs and Burgundians, negotiate the power vacuum left by the extended illness of King Charles VII, while two factions of authors, the Humanists and the Profeminines, publicly debate misogyny in legal theory and literature—Salic Law and the Romance of the Rose. Authors seek patronage from the nobles, while nobles seek the authors’ support—and to use authors’ skills to promote their own positions. The game is set during a peaceful interlude in the Hundred Years War, and an opening phase of the French civil war managed by Queen Isabeau of Bavaria. Meanwhile, Christine de Pizan, an influential author at the French court, engaged in debates about misogyny, morality, and the capabilities of women, and wrote a long defense of women in The Book of the City of Ladies, showing women’s abilities, power. Christine puts women and gender as issues at the center of game debates, and includes important female characters as roles. It has resonances for continuing debates about representations of women in art and political participation.

Ban the Jesuits: Jesuits and Their Opponents in the 1700s

New Microgame!

From the author: Jesuits, Royal Ambassadors, Archbishops, and members of the Crowd have gathered in Rome to decide the fate of the Jesuits. If they are banned, further decisions must be made about what happens to individual Jesuits and the Jesuit schools and property.

Evolution in Kansas, 1999

Updated Role Sheets, Instructor's Manual, and Handouts.

Diet and Killer Diseases

Updated Role Sheets, Instructor's Manual, and Handouts.

Climate Change in Copenhagen

Updated Role Sheets, Instructor's Manual, and Handouts.

Patriots, Loyalists, and Revolution in New York City, 1775-1776

Added Full Game's Role Sheets, Instructor's Manual, and Handouts.

Modernism Versus Traditionalism: Art in Paris, 1888-89

Added Dr. Mary Frances Zawadzki's "Femme Pack" with eight additional roles designed to add more female representation into the game.

Roman Prisoner Dilemma

(Formerly known as Egyptian Prison Game) - Updated files to meet new short game standards - June 2023

In case you missed it, this Spring UNC Press published three gamebooks for classroom use. Two newly published games and a second edition of a classic are now available to order through the UNC Press website: 

These books are available in print and e-book formats and we are excited to see them in the hands of students and instructors! Here's an overview of our newly published games which you can download the Instructor Manuals for today!

Greenwich Village Second Edition
By: Mary Jane Treacy

A New Century, A New America?

This game takes students to the beginning of the modern era when urbanization, industrialization, and massive waves of immigration were transforming the U.S. way of life. Suffragists are taking to the streets demanding the vote. What, they ask, is women’s place in society? Are they to remain in the home or take an active role in the political life of the nation? Labor has turned to the strike to demand living wages and better conditions; some are even proposing an industrial democracy where workers take charge of industries. Can capitalism foster an economically just society or must it be reformed, or even overturned? Members of these groups converge in Greenwich Village to debate their views with bohemians who seek personal transformations to create the new men and women of the twentieth century. The game asks which social changes are most needed, the ideals they espouse, and the best ways to realize their goals.  

View Greenwich Village Second Edition

Monuments and Memory-Making: The Debate Over the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial, 1981-1982
By: Rebecca Livingstone, Kelly McFall, and Abigail Perkiss

How do we remember a lost war?

When the Vietnam War drew to a close, the process of memorializing the conflict resulted in a tug-of-war over the national narrative of the 20+ year struggle. In the wake of devastating loss and in the midst of the continuing and ever-evolving Cold War, conflicting voices emerged in the creation of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. Such physical spaces offer insights into how the creators of those spaces constructed the past, how they intended for audiences to do the same, and how those meanings can be challenged. In this game, students will take part in the conversations and controversies that emerged as the nation grappled with how best to memorialize what was at the time the longest conflict in US history. As they engage in the very process of memory-making, they will work to reconcile the varied and often conflicting voices that emerged after the fall of Saigon. How do we create a national memory of the past? How do we move on from a lost war? How do we remember the dead, while honoring the living? How do we reunite a fractured nation? Who speaks to that nation, and who speaks for it? How does public opinion and public consciousness shape our understanding of the past? Whose voices matter?

View Monuments and Memory-Making

Democracy in Crisis: Weimar Germany, 1929-1932
By: Robert Goodrich

What happens when partisan ideology trumps compromise in a polarized Democracy?

At one moment in history all of the great ideologies of the modern West collide as roughly equal and viable contenders: Germany during the so-called Weimar Republic.  Liberalism, nationalism, conservatism, social democracy, Christian democracy, communism, fascism, and every variant of these movements contend for power in Germany. Though the constitutional framework boldly enshrines liberal democratic values, the political spectrum is so broad and fully represented that a stable parliamentary majority requires constant compromises – compromises that alienate supporters, opening the door to radical alternatives.

As delegates of the Reichstag, players must contend with street fights, trade union strikes, assassinations, and insurrections, along with intense parliamentary wrangling. The game begins in late 1929, just after the US stock market crash, as the German Reichstag deliberates on the Young Plan (a revision to the reparations plan from the Treaty of Versailles). They address these matters and more as the pressures of economic stress, political gridlock, and foreign demands mount. 

View Democracy in Crisis

*The original deadline of April 1st has been extended, all nominations are now due by April 15th.

Submissions are now open for this year's Reacting awards! Read on to learn more about these wonderful initiatives and how you can apply for them or nominate a deserving colleague.

Brilliancy Prize

The Brilliancy Prize seeks to recognize and publicize extraordinary creativity within the Reacting enterprise. Instituted in 2019, it’s presented to a particularly ingenious or creative idea or pedagogical practice that advances Reacting games, and comes with a $1,000 award, presented each year at the Annual Institute at Barnard College.   We would like to present the award at the Summer Institute at Barnard (June 8-11).

You can read more about the Brilliancy Prize and learn about past winners here, and if you want to apply, please send a letter of nomination (for yourself or someone else!) of no more than a three pages detailed description of the innovation being nominated and a rationale for why it is deserving of the award, along with any supporting materials, to current chair of the Brilliancy Prize Award Committee, Wendy Closterman at Wendy.Closterman@brynathyn.edu by April 15, 2023.

Dana Gorlin Johnson Fellowship

 The Dana Gorlin Johnson Fellowship is named in memory of Dana Johnson Gorlin, the founding administrator of the Reacting to the Past program. Without her work from 2002–while still an undergraduate student at Barnard–until 2014, the Reacting Consortium would not exist. You can read more about Dana here, as well as learn about past winners.

This fellowship is  awarded to a deserving faculty member, especially from a community college or public university, who best exemplifies Dana’s exceptional qualities of character and mind and who gives high promise of advancing Reacting. To apply or nominate someone for this award, please submit a two-page statement outlining the applicant's/nominee's previous experience with Reacting to the Past, as well as their potential for advancing the program, to Marina Maccari-Clayton at (mmaccari@utk.edu) by April 15, 2023.

There have been a lot of changes to our games in development! We're excited to announce some of the updates to our games and new games and files coming very soon. We'll update this page when new files are added or updated.

New Files:

Roman Prisoner Dilemma

Formerly known as Egyptian Prison game, updated Gamebook and Role Sheets.

Greenwich Village Second Edition

New Role Sheets, Instructor's Manual, and Handouts.

Updated tip sheet to help instructors prepare for the changes made in the second edition.

Democracy in Crisis: Weimar Germany, 1929-32

New Role Sheets, Instructor's Manual, and Handouts.

Monuments and Memory-Making: The Debate over the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial 1981-82

New Role Sheets, Instructor's Manual, and Handouts.

Ashoka: Becoming the Dharma King

Revised Files.

Ending the Troubles: Religion, Nationalism, and the Search for Peace and Democracy in Northern Ireland, 1997-98

Advanced to Level 4 with updated files!

Coming Soon:

Bacon's Rebellion

Moving to Level 4.

Grandsons of Genghis: The Mongol Kurultai of 1241

Moving to Level 3, will be published on Reacting Consortium Website.

The Investiture Controversy: Church and State on the Road to Canossa, 1075-77

Moving to Level 3, will be published on Reacting Consortium Website.

1349: Plague Comes to Norwich

Moving to Level 3, updated files.

Faculty at Grand Valley State University in Allendale, Michigan, have recently been awarded a grant that will help facilitate the use of RTTP at the High school level! Over the coming months, their consultant, Chris Jones, will gather and curate available teacher-created materials. When possible, we will make these materials available via the RTTP Consortium website High School page.

Mr. Jones and Dr. Anne Caillaud, Professor of French Language and Literature at GVSU, plan to facilitate a roundtable discussion at the RTTP Annual Institute at Barnard College June 8-11, 2023.

If you are a high school instructor and have created resources to help adapt Reacting to the Past games into a high school curriculum we would love to hear from you! Use this form to send your resources and tell us about how Reacting has been helpful in your classes.

Join us for the first West Coast Game Development Conference.  The annual event will be held from July 13-15 in Corvallis, Oregon, on the campus of Oregon State University.  The GDC conference provides engaging opportunities to discuss, collaborate, and gain insight as we create and teach using innovative pedagogy.  All ranks of experienced Reacting instructors (from one game experience to 100) are invited.  I am looking forward to sharing with you in the coming weeks information on our keynote speaker, game nights, and events planned to make this GDC a memorable experience.    

The registration website will go live in a few weeks, but the GDC Board wanted to give clarity on the registration cost for the conference.    

You can join the Reacting Consortium to have deeper engagement in a supportive community that engages students with imagination, inquiry, and engagement.  

If you have an idea for a game playtest for a full-length or multiple-day game, panel, proposed game, or presentation, there is still time to apply.  We have received a robust early response for game playtests.    

I am happy to talk with you about attending this Summer’s GDC in Oregon.    

Steve Shay  
2023 GDC Conference Coordinator  
steve.shay@oregonstate.edu  

Submissions for this year's Game Development Conference (GDC 2023) are now open! If you have a game that you're interested in having a game play tested or a working proposal that needs feedback, consider using the form below to apply:

SUBMIT YOUR PROPOSAL

If you're interested in learning more about where the GDC will be held and to stay up to date as more information gets announced follow our GDC event page!

Dear Reactors,

Reacting has found a way forward for its Short Games (defined as requiring 2-4 class sessions inclusive of prep time and debriefing) and Microgames (requiring only a single class session for all such activities). The Reacting Consortium Board recently approved the recommendations of the Reacting Short Games/Microgames (SG/Ms) Working Group*, which you can read in full here. There is now a lot of work to be done to make this vision a reality, but here are three things you need to know right now:

• None of the SG/Ms currently listed on the Reacting website are going away in the near future. We know many of you have plans for these materials in the next two semesters, so we are keeping that content in place until we have conversations with the individual authors (see below).

• Authors of new SG/Ms should use the new Frameworks to guide their development. Those Frameworks can be found in the Game Author Resources page of the website under Templates, and can also be downloaded using these links (Short Games / Microgames) We are working now to build the intake processes for new SG/Ms. Our vision is that there will be separate systems for Small Games vs. Microgames, but both will be scholarly peer review systems so SG/Ms can count for CV credit. We also hope to eventually have more robust templates to guide development, similar to those that currently exist for Flagship Reacting. Look for more information in the first half of 2023.

• Authors of current SG/Ms should look for outreach from us in the immediate future. We would love to have all of the SG/Ms currently on the website converted over to the new format, but we understand that this will require significant intellectual labor on the part of their authors. We will contact every currently hosted SG/M author individually in the next 30 days about converting their games to the new frameworks. Conversion will put the games through the intake processes mentioned in the bullet above once we establish them. Games whose author elects not to convert them will be annotated as such on the website and will likely be taken down at the end of 2023 (or earlier if desired by the author). We will explore potential ways to archive non-converted games for historical reference. Time permitting, we will also reach out to SG/M authors listed on the BLORG who do not have content on the website yet.

We know there will be additional questions and concerns about this effort as it moves forward. Please feel free to ask them in the Reacting Faculty Lounge or reach out to us individually as you desire. Let’s make great games together!

Ray Kimball, ray@42ed.games

Reacting Microgame Coordinator

Bill Offutt, woffutt@pace.edu

Chair, REB Short Games Subcommittee

*In addition to the two of us, Scout Blum, Nick Proctor, Maddie Provo, and Jon Truitt all served on the Working Group. We are incredibly grateful for their hard work and candor in the group!

GDR-MicrogameFramework-Dec2022.pdf

GDR-ShortGameFramework-Dec2022.pdf

GDR-SGMWorkingGroupReport-Dec2022.pdf