Jump to: 

• Target audience
• Anthology goals
• EDU content
• Organization
• Overall
• Find a copy

Note: because this is a massive anthology (534 page and 51 games), I am reviewing the document as a whole instead of individual games, like I would usually do, so the format for this review is going to be a bit different.

Target audience for Roll for Learning

Roll for Learning by Camilla Zamboni, Matthew Farber, and William Merchant is aimed at helping educators who are teaching across multiple subjects and age groups to find TTRPGs that will fit their classroom needs.  Most of the games in the anthology don’t require prior knowledge of TTRPGs to be able to understand, so this is applicable to both newcomers who are curious about using these types of games in the class and longtime fans who know the benefits but are looking for strategies to apply to a formal class setting.  

There’s great descriptions for getting folks up to speed on how TTRPGs can be applied in education that can be used both for the primary facilitator to understand game use or for them to use as supporting evidence when including the activity in classes.  

Anthology goals in Roll for Learning

Based on the descriptions at the start of Roll for Learning, the main goals of the document are to provide easy to use games with consistent formats and tools that make it more accessible for teachers to find what they need and to use multiple games.   It’s one common place where a ton of info can be found.

Generally, the games in this document:

• Are quicker to learn than large-scale TTRPGs (like D&D or Pathfinder)
• Have particular educational benefits
• Are accessible to newcomers and classrooms
• Fit in a class period
• Include supplemental info to help with implementation

Games in the anthology are also peer edited, playtested, and revised by the editors, and there’s a consistent content format (see organization section in this article) for each game.  This means there’s a baseline standard for the quality of the games included as well as some constants in structure for being able to navigate the document and find games that will help your particular class. 

There is also a section on safety tools that can be applied across all 51 games!  This helps to make sure player safety is being used and there’s one core place to find common safety tools between ALL the games so this info isn’t being repeated or needing to be relearned in different formats for each game.  If you plan on using a few games with your classes overtime, this helps both you and the students. 

I also like that there’s definitions for common TTRPG terms in the intro/general page as well since this helps to provide a common language between the different games, which I would say is another great goal, or at least unintended achievement, of the anthology.

EDU content in Roll for Learning

Games in Roll for Learning cover content for Kindergarten (age 5) through teens/YA (in the 15+ category).  For subjects, games are broken down into three categories: social-emotional learning (SEL), science-tech-engineering-math (STEM), and humanities.  

Age ranges and the core subjects are specified for each TTRPG and organized as such in the table of contents, so they’re searchable in the document.  

The games within Roll for Learning include a variety of foci and breakdown the specifications on these as well.  There’s “game-enhanced learning” TTRPGs, which are fun TTRPGs that are being outfitted to an educational setting, “game-informed learning” TTRPGs, which are ways to gamify your classroom by adding achievables like XP or tokens, and “game-based learning” TTRPG, which are TTRPGs that were designed specifically to teach something in particular.  Having all three means that you’ll get a variety to choose from and will have examples of each, if you want to come up with your own.  It’s also a great way to compare different types of TTRPGs to be able to see the benefits of each… i.e. game-based learning TTRPGs are great for a particular lesson, but sometimes you might want a game-enhanced learning TTRPG for a lighter more fun-focused Friday lesson or after school program.

Within the doc, there’s also cited technical and scientific references, where applicable, for supporting both the general material at the introduction of the anthology and the individual games, so you can look up additional content as well.

Organization in Roll for Learning

Roll for Learning has a general introduction to educational TTRPGs and a list of games organized by age range and subject matter.  I think these are kind of necessary for a document of this size (534 pages), so what I want to mainly focus on here is how the individual games are organized. 

Each game has a consistent format that outlines the following: 

• System used
• Game description
• Educational content
• Target audience
• Number of players
• Components required
• Estimated playtime
• Learning goals (if it is more in the game-based learning category)

This provides a REALLY clear summary of each game so you don’t need to read the whole document to be able to pick out the ones that fit best for you AND helps with having structure for being able to drag and drop more games into your class after having done the first one.  It also makes sure that each game contains the same basic elements of an educational TTRPG and that those points are outlined.

Overall thoughts on Roll for Learning

I LOVE seeing more educational TTRPG resources, and this is a fanatic standard to set for content, consistency, and accessibility of applied TTRPGs.  There’s lots of options for people to pull from, and there was a concerted effort to make this usable and helpful to others, that I believe has really paid off.  Everything was well structured, and the games that I did check out from the big list really fit the bill for being usable in a classroom setting.  If you’re an educator looking to implement classroom TTRPGs, I think this is an amazing tool both for basing classrooms around and for getting ideas for either making your own or implementing other games in your particular setting.

Find a copy of Roll for Learning

You can find a copy of Roll for Learning through the creator’s website!

If you’d like to look up other educational materials on TTRPGkids, check out the EDU section of the site here, which includes interviews with TTRPG educators, reviews of specific educational games, tips and tricks for use in the classroom, and a ton more!

And… if you liked this post, make sure to subscribe to the TTRPGkids monthly newsletter to stay up to date on the latest reviews, tips and tricks, game and podcast list updates, and more! Thank you for playing tabletop RPGs with your kids and sharing this awesome hobby with the next generation!