Can you tell us a bit about yourself?  What’s your backstory? 

I’m Alex, and I’m a pre-K teacher and children’s librarian, and I utilize that in everything that I do.  If I’m doing a summer camp or presenting at a conference, I use all the skills that I’ve learned from this background, and if I’m playing role-playing games, I come at it from that early childhood education and literacy based model. 

How did you start with tabletop role-playing games, and do you have one favorite moment or character you’d like to share? 

I got into TTRPGs coming out of the COVID quarantine.  I work in a play-based preschool, which means that, typically throughout our days, we’re doing things like joining in games or finding fair ways to play.  It’s a lot of physical play, which we couldn’t do during quarantine.  We couldn’t share materials, we were doing social distancing… all that sort of stuff.  

I really looked at my world and how we could play effectively while also trying to follow the health practice that we had at the time, and TTRPGs came to mind.  

It was a way that we could play together while keeping a little distance and still be practicing all those skills that we want to build through free-play and child-lead play, but in a more controlled environment.  

Around the same time, I started something similar with my family.  We started playing multigenerational games, which was a great way for us to come together and process together.  We could be in the space together with a bit more guidance and structure to our time together. 

Oh, and my favorite moment… There have been so many.   One that sticks out the most with my family game was when we played one of our early games, and at the end, we were doing a little debrief.  I asked if everyone would do this again, and the little one, who I think at the time was 6, was like… NO. 

I panicked.  I thought we were having such a good time!  So, I used my social emotional skills to take a deep breath and then asked, “Would you play this game again… at another time.”

Then it was all, “Yeah!  Absolutely!  Let’s do it!”

It was a translation error that I think… moments like that are small miscommunications that happen to us all the time as humans, but, again, were distilled in such a clear and obvious way though the game and this interaction, so I can take away that I need to be more specific about these things. 

The 6 year old was definitely like… I’ve already been sitting for an hour… what do you mean you want to do this again? 

Yeah, kiddo was like… I need to get up and move!

It helped frame future ideas about how to play together also. 

You mentioned your pre-K class – can you tell us more about how you use TTRPGs with your pre-K class? 

I will pull out TTRPGs either when we are starting to get to know each other, or we’ve mixed our groups together, or it just seems like there isn’t a lot of deep play happening when we need to push towards that.  

I’ve learned so much throughout our journey, and I think the main thing is inclusion.  One of the main things we talk about in pre-school is that everyone wants to feel included. They might not want to play with you, but they want to be invited.   I think through our storytelling games, we live that in a way. 

I invite everyone to the table and usually get 1-2 kids to join right away, wondering what’s this new thing or is this the same that we did last week and can we build off of it?  Other people see that happening and want to come in and join, and everyone gets their character sheets.  There are also kids who don’t want to play and will keep doing what they’re doing, there are also kids who want to be near it… but don’t want to be involved in the classic way with the character sheet and sitting at the table. 

That has been the most interesting part for me – trying to find a way to include everyone in the way they want.  It’s a foundational life and play skill where it’s like… OK, you keep throwing paper airplanes at us, and that’s not working, or I ask if you want to play and you say no, but then you keep coming up to the table… What else can I do? 

It might be something like… we’re going to a birthday party on Mars right now, can you help make the decorations?  Or can you get us these colors? 

Finding a way to include everyone at the level that they want to be included and working on self-regulation skills through gaming and building any skills that we’re reflecting on is important.  Sharing is a classic example… Discussing it in the game lowers the stakes and lowers the pressure of whatever skill it is that we’re working on by allowing us to discuss via this imaginary world instead of something directly that “I” did “wrong”, as a learner. 

It gives that degree of separation to allow people to approach it without getting that initial sinking feeling of having it being personal. 

Yeah, it creates more of a safe feeling around talking about those things.  

So, StoryGuider was made because you reached out about making an SEL game for your class, and we’ve recently made another game together now called Learning With Leaflings.  Can you talk about the process a bit from your side?  This can be usage, adjustments, playtesting, design, etc – coming at it from the teacher standpoint instead of me coming from the designer standpoint. 

Absolutely!  Having the StoryGuider games that built on all of the skills from class, things like taking a deep breath or how to introduce yourself or inviting someone to play with you… they were so much fun and easy to pull out and reinforce a lesson we had just talked about.  Or we could introduce a new concept!

Talking with you through that process as your kid was a similar age to my class was fun too – being able to share how we each used it or talking about how in a group we added voting to what Sandy was going to do, was great.  It really inspired me how you were able to add in or change those elements or created the template that people could use to make their own adventures in the StoryGuider world, it set off my thinking about how games are made and how this can be even more focused and intentional. 

Then, I think I sort of left it for a while and had a bit less focus on TTRPGs in the classroom for a while but then was bringing them back in and realized… StoryGuider was incredible for those social-emotional skills, but the kids and I were now looking for something with more mechanics.  We wanted some chance of success or failure and some dice rolling to align with more classic TTRPGs versus the shared storytelling on its own.  So, I came to you with this idea!

I was sharing it to say “You could do this!”  And you invited me into the process, which… Everyone wants to be included!  It felt so good to be invited and to collaborate in a different way.  

Being able to bring it to my classroom too, being able to say, “I’m working with someone who makes games, and they want us to try this out… Can we try this game and share with them what we want in the game or explain why this is fun?”  To have that more critical conversation and critical thinking about what makes these games fun was a great way to bring that play to a deeper level with the kids. 

Yeah!  You were able to talk to your colleagues about it and loop them into it as well. You got playtesting feedback from your students and then also from your colleagues. 

It’s been fun watching other teachers come stand over the table and wonder why these kids are engaged in this… like… what’s going on?  

I feel like, on the whole, there’s two types of people.  There’s people who have never played TTRPGs and do not understand what it is with the story and all, and then there’s the people who played Dungeons & Dragons in college and only know an intense focused game.  Being able to pull in both groups of people and introduce and spread the love of this whole new world of TTRPGs with kids or sharing with parents too has been awesome.  It’s another way to add that skill-home connection for building those skills at school at home too, and vice versa. 

It’s so funny to talk to, especially, the people who are gamers or who have that history and share this perspective on it.  

It’s fun and satisfying because they know about D&D, but then you can say… there’s actually like… tens of thousands or tabletop RPGs out there!   It’s a whole genre!  Not just this one game.  It’s fun to explain that.  I’m fully with you on the joy that comes with that. 

Also the lightbulb that goes off when somebody realizes that what they’re doing in their very serious friends game is that same thing… it’s play.   That’s play!

Do you have a final shoutout, piece of advice, or statement before we sign off for our chat? 

There are thousands more things I’d like to talk about, but, really, I just want to encourage play.  I think that obviously in preschool, play is important, but, recently, I’ve run into educators that are like… oh, I know how to play with kids, but I don’t know if I play in my own life… I don’t know how to play!

Or, I’ll run into professionals who live their jobs and don’t necessarily have hobbies.  I just want people to play and realize that taking chances and doing silly things might not always be super fun, but it’s helping build neural connections and keeping our brains engaged.  It can be fun and rewarding and also strengthen our bonds with each other. 

My final shout out is to play!

That’s a great final shoutout!  Learning is supposed to be fun, and this kind of wakes it back up.  

I think curiosity gets trained out of us, either through job promotions or the educational system or algorithms, and coming to this game that’s like… you’ve gotta make a character and then, good luck!  Do what you want!  It’s just a way to break free and reinstill that curiosity.  

Well, thank you for the awesome chat!  It’s been wonderful working with you and getting to know you, and I appreciate you giving your take on these games and how they’ve impacted both you and your class!

You can find the games mentioned in the post, Learning With Leaflings and StoryGuider, by following the links on the respective game titles or by visiting the TTRPGkids itchio page: https://ttrpgkids.itch.io/

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