Video – Example Role-Play

Hi and welcome! In this video we will show you a short example of how a role-play can look. When we work with role-playing games we usually have three different parts to it: before we actually start playing, we always start out with giving information about the game, about the characters, we do some warm-up exercises, and we do some workshopping to really get into character; Then we start the actual game play where you play the scene; and finally, once we’re done, we have a short little debrief, where we will in this case focus a lot on the player’s emotions. The version you will get to see here is very, very short, that is the way we will work with them in general in this course. We like to keep them short to be able to also have other content when we do this in an educational setting. So I hope you will like it.

Hi! Welcome! I’m so happy you will join me today in a little role-play. This is Sarah and Kjell, who are the players of this game. So today we are doing a short little simple scene that is about conflicts. The scene is called “There is no I in Team”. You two will be playing students that have worked together in a class project, you are just going to get a new student joining your group slightly late, but there is some conflict going on between the two of you. So student A has been doing the majority of the work and is now confronting student B about this before the next meeting, where the new student will join. So that’s basically what we’re going to do, very simple, very short. So I would like to know, do you have a preference of which student you want to play, student A or student B? The one who has been present and doing a lot of the work or the other student? I can play student B. Then I’ll play student A. Okay, well, to get this going we are going to start with not using the names student A and student B, because that feels a bit stiff. So I would ask you to come up with a name for your character, and you can write that name, and choose some pronouns for your character, in the chat, so I can see it, and then you can also get to present it. So I’m playing student A. Student A is named John, and his pronouns are he/him. And I’m playing Brenda, student B, whose pronouns are she/her. Perfect! Okay, then we are going to start to get into it a little bit. So I will give you some things that I want you to think about that comes from your character’s perspective. So think about the conflict that you have between the characters and think about your character: Why are they invested in this conflict? What position do they have? And why are they invested in that position?

Then I would like for you to also think about what needs that underly this position, that they feel are threatened in this conflict. It could be security fun, freedom, belonging, or power, for example.

We will now move on to doing what is called a little “hot seat”, where I will ask you questions. You will get a question and you answer as your character, not as yourself. So you start to go into this role that you are going to play. So I would like to know, Brenda, how has this last week been for you? Well, you know it’s a little disorienting. I’m new to college and I’ve been trying to follow as best I can, but the teacher is going really fast, and there’s terms that are being used that I don’t understand. And how are you feeling for this meeting that you’re going to have now? What have you been told about the meeting? I really hope that John can help me, because I’m really confused and, you know, I’m the first woman in my entire family to go to college and so I feel like there’s a lot of weight on my shoulders to kind of do well, and it’s a little, it’s a little intimidating to work on this project with someone who’s clearly so confident and I’m feeling like maybe I’m not. Thank you! And now, I’m going ask some questions also to John. What is good to know is that John has not actually heard what Brenda said. So this is, we’re getting to know your character, but John doesn’t know about this. So John, you have a meeting coming up, how are you feeling about that? A little bit stressed really, because I’m very frustrated that this project is not moving anywhere unless I do the work that I do. Have you been doing a lot lately of the work? Yeah, I feel like I’ve been doing all the work on this project. I don’t really understand why, and so for this meeting I really want to get Brenda to understand that I can’t be, I can’t keep doing all the work. Like, she needs to put in some. Okay, thanks. Thank you. So now you got a little bit of feel for your character and where they’re at, this means we’re going to start to move into the actual scene. I will start the scene for you, and then when it’s done, I’m going to step in and say “Thank you we’re going to break the scene”, and that’s where we stop. So I will be the teacher starting you off. Okay everyone! You can now go out into your groups. You will have 30 minutes to go over this project together with your partner, thinking about what you need to get done to move forward. And I know some of you also will have new people joining your group next week, really looking forward to that, to see where you’re going to take your project. Okay, get going.

So Brenda, we need to talk about the project. Yeah, I realize that. And I’m sorry that I haven’t been contributing as much, I feel a little bit nervous that if I write something, that it’s not going to make sense, because I’m not sure I fully understand the theory, but you seem to really understand it pretty well. Well I understand it because I put in the work, there’s a clear connection here. I think, I don’t understand what’s keeping you back. Like, if you just try, if you just do some, then the rest of it, sort of, kind of, falls into place, because you understand what you’re working with. Like, I didn’t understand all this when I started working on it either, but I still did it. Well, I did try. I spent about 3 hours last night trying to write a paragraph, and I kept deleting it, because it just didn’t wasn’t coming out the way that, that, like, say, your writing is. And I’m really worried that maybe I’m not College material. Because this is my first semester and I feel really lost. I mean you’re here. Which means you got into college, that’s step one, right? And step two is, is work. I don’t know how to break this to you, like, you got to work. I have been working and working. And also, this is my, you know, I also have a job, you know. I’m not only just in school, and I would really appreciate it if you could help me a little bit. Just maybe we could go through the theory once again? And then I can try to do some sections? I don’t want to let you down, but also, I, I don’t know how to move past this block. Well the most certain way to let me down is to not do anything. Like, that’s letting the entire project down, right? So if you don’t want to let me down, you just got to start doing. And if you’re interested in the theory, I mean it’s in it’s in the project. I’ve written it in the project. You can read it, right? You’re using words that I don’t understand in the project. Like, I didn’t go to a fancy private school like you did. Like, I.. You know, we, we didn’t learn the term globalization in college, or in in high school, so it’s my first time even hearing this word, and, frankly, I feel like it’s a little bit unfair for us to be having to grapple with these complex things very early on. And I feel like maybe you have an advantage that I don’t have. And thank you! We are gonna break the scene here. Thank you so much for playing this. We are now going to talk a little bit about this experience. But before we go into how it felt for you to play this scene, I would love to hear a short little thing about what your character felt during this scene. So I would love for Sarah, could you tell me how Brenda was feeling during this meeting? Brenda felt pretty ashamed during the meeting, but also was starting to get angry. I think she was expecting for John to be more understanding and to be more supportive. And I think she started to feel like, yeah, really angry, that he wasn’t showing some compassion. Thank you. And Kjell, how was John feeling? John was of course frustrated going into the meeting, and he became more and more agitated because he didn’t come to this easy either. Like, it seemed like Brenda was assuming that he had all sorts of help, but he didn’t. So yeah, he was frustrated and got agitated by, she saying that he went to private school, which he didn’t, so yeah. Okay, thank you. Now I would love to hear how it felt for you as a player. How did it feel in your body when you played this scene? So Sarah would you like to start? Yeah, um, I guess, just as a woman who, you know, had to really fight to be recognized, and for people to acknowledge my work as good as men’s, there was some of that coming up when I was playing this scene. I feel like I’m on the other side of that for the most part, but sometimes it does come up in these kinds of dynamics, and so that was really present for me. Thank you for sharing that. And Kjell, how did it feel in your body? It did not feel good, because my initial thought when stuff like this comes up, of course I’m going to help, of course I’m going to be compassionate and understanding. So I was sort of forcing myself to not be myself, which can be a little bit jarring. Yep, we do in role-playing games sometimes play characters very, very far from ourselves.

Thank you so much for playing! If we were doing this as part of our curriculum, we would go even deeper into this, and connect it to the material in the curriculum, and talk a bit more about our experiences and how it connects to the curriculum. But as a teaser, this is where we’re going to start. Thank you so much!

And now you have an idea about how a role-playing game can look. I hope you find this example helpful. Usually when we do role-play like this, we also have mechanics for things like safety, and for deepening more into the actual role-playing during the game, but we didn’t do that here because we wanted to keep it short and sweet for you. We will talk more about those kinds of mechanics later in the course. With that I want to say thank you for watching, and I’ll see you in the next video.