The tabletop game that helps kids on the autism spectrum build confidence and social skills, one dragon at a time.
Latest Updates from Our Project:
Development Insight: SPARK
about 5 years ago
– Thu, Sep 12, 2019 at 12:45:23 AM
Hello and welcome to another Critical Core Development Insight!
Today we’re going to dive a little into the topic of understanding the skills needed to be a great game master. As Game to Grow began to expand and hire new group facilitators, we realized that we needed to be able to identify the qualities that make up a great game master. Eventually we settled on the idea that great game masters have SPARK.
This is a short excerpt from the Facilitator’s Guide:
Because of the special responsibilities a game master has in making sure the game is fun and challenging while the players are feeling supported and guided, a good game master has several important qualities. They have SPARK!
Spontaneity
Playfulness
Attunement
Restraint
Knowledge
Spontaneity
Game masters must be ready for anything. The game master is playing all of the other aspects of the game, and must respond to a player’s choice, whatever it may be. They must play every other character in the game that the PCs interact with. They must describe the outcomes of every player choice, no matter how unexpected. The game master must be flexible and responsive, sometimes coming up with brand new ideas and twists in the story in the blink of an eye.
Playfulness
As mentioned earlier, a game master is a player. Because a game master is responsible for so many aspects of the game, it is easy to get slogged into rules and numbers and character sheets, and end up focusing too much on following a prescribed narrative path instead of embracing the opportunity for play. Game masters must remember to have fun, and to cultivate that ethos with the players. If the game stops being fun for too long, it stops being effective.
Attunement
The game master must have a sense for what the players are thinking and feeling, often intuitively, and be able to ask when they aren’t sure. To be a good facilitator, the game master must check the emotional temperature of the room, adjusting challenge and pacing accordingly. Sometimes the game master may need to slow down or speed up, make a challenge easier or more difficult, increase or decrease the levity of a scene, and do most of it all in the moment.
Restraint
It is easy for a game master to take over. They are the ones who know, generally, where the story is headed, and they want the players to be successful. If they are not careful, game masters can provide too much support, jumping in to rescue players who are struggling, or railroad players into the decisions they’ve expected they will make. Game masters must trust the process and let the players share in steering the story.
Knowledge
The game master is the receptacle of knowledge about the game. They must be able to answer questions from players about the rules of the game, and also have the wisdom to make decisions when they aren’t sure about a specific rule. They must be prepared, knowing ahead of time what obstacles the players will face in the game, and they must know what parts of the story are important and where they be flexible. They must also have an understanding of their players so they can set up appropriate obstacles for them, encourage them, and challenge them appropriately.
The order of SPARK isn’t incidental . We believe that the order also describes the priority of each quality. Knowledge is important to be a great game master, but of all of these qualities, it is the least important.
For all of you game masters out there, I hope that you’re able to bring your SPARK to every game.
Warmly,
Adam Johns
Game to Grow Executive Director
Development Insight: The Foundation
about 5 years ago
– Fri, Aug 23, 2019 at 11:39:01 PM
Hello Everyone!
We’re gearing up for PAX West, and if you’re there you should definitely come by to say hi and collect your very exclusive Backer High Five! You can find us along with TableTitans in the 6th floor expo hall.
In the meantime we wanted to start a series of updates to share with you some of our progress and thoughts on our intentional design.
To kick off our Development Insight update series, I want to first share with you a little of the overarching goals and foundation for the big pieces of the Critical Core Kit.
There are three main components to the Critical Core Starter Set. The game itself, the Facilitator’s Guide, and the Module Design.
The Game:
We want Critical Core to be easy to approach for brand new game masters who have never played an RPG before. Ultimately, the goal of Critical Core is to make a roleplaying game system that is fun, easy to learn, and gives everyone the tools needed to start to explore other RPGs. It should have enough structure and understanding about how RPGs work to help them launch into other games. The Game Master’s Guide is designed to lay out the rules for game masters who have never played before, and give them a clear understanding for what playing a tabletop roleplaying game is all about. A lot of the things included in the Critical Core box are all about giving new game masters the tools that they need to get started, including dice, a GM screen, tokens for characters and monsters, a dry erase marker sheet, and a foldable grid.
We also want it to be approachable for new players. Often RPGs can be overwhelming for new players, and we want to streamline that process as much as possible. To help with that we’ve taken out the majority of character creation, relying on mechanically pre-made characters but with open backstories to be filled in by the players. We’re utilizing cards and streamlined character sheets for in-combat mechanics such as spells to help players be more aware of their abilities and available options without being overwhelmed by having too much information in one place.
Facilitator’s Guide:
The Facilitator’s Guide is a mix of tips and tricks for game masters, our philosophy and approach regarding neuro diversity, and some foundational tools for utilizing the game in a directly enriching way.
This is designed specifically for more advanced game masters, and game masters who have learned the basics of Critical Core and want to start to use it as an intentional tool for learning and social skill advancement. Sitting down at the RPG table with a positive and pro-social group is beneficial for building social competence, but can be even more so if the facilitator can be intentional about the kind of interactions and challenges being faced by the players. In many ways, this is where the most important pieces of Critical Core come in. This is also where we reveal more about our approach to the therapeutic application of role-playing games, and many of the tools that we use on a regular basis to help neuro diverse kids and teens build social competency through RPGs.
Module Design:
What makes these modules unique is more than just the outlined opportunity for building social competence within each module, but is the overall design of the module itself. In Game to Grow groups we don’t design worlds as much as we design storylines for the players to move through (and impact). The Critical Core modules are designed the same way, focusing on a specific story that the player’s characters are a part of. Rather than having a module that outlines each detail of the town or the specific knowledge of NPCs, it gives game masters the most important plot points and lets them fill in the rest as needed.
Each scene, or DOT, of the storyline is a specific encounter designed with a purpose in mind. Sometimes that purpose is to move the players forward in the plot by revealing new information, and sometimes it is designed to deepen the player’s interaction with each other, or with the NPCs in the storyline.
We use these same outline techniques for the storylines used in Game to Grow groups, and have found it to be an incredibly useful approach for helping to create a campaign that gives the game master the tools to engage players in a great story, while still giving the space for them to respond to the player’s input to make the world unique to their table.
With that in mind, in future updates we’ll describe more of the specific sections of the kit. I’m excited to share more with all of you.
Warmly,
Adam Johns
Game to Grow Executive Director
Announcements and Cons
about 5 years ago
– Thu, Aug 01, 2019 at 03:33:31 AM
Hello everyone,
We're working hard on development, but in the meantime you should check out these other cool things that Game to Grow is also doing!
GenCon
Game to Grow will be at GenCon this year in a really big way. We're one of the official GenCon charity sponsors! If you're going to be at GenCon this year make sure that you check out one of the many charity events that will be supporting Game to Grow, and swing by the Game to Grow booth to say "hi." Let us know that you're a backer and you'll get a special backer exclusive high-five!
Also, during GenCon we'll be doing a live charity game. The live game's plot line will be based in the Little Town of Tusk, the starting module for Critical Core. However, the game will be influenced by audience donations and is likely to quickly go off the rails with our special guest players; Adam Davis, Ruty Rutenberg, and Scott Kurtz. You can tune in live on twitch at 10:00 am on Sunday August 4th (https://tiltify.com/@gametogrow/gencon).
Game to Grow at GenCon
Life Cogs
Live games isn't the only thing that we're premiering at GenCon. We're very excited to announce that we're continuing to team up with the amazing Level Up Dice to bring you a brand new product. Life Cog hit point trackers!
Life Cogs
These things are seriously amazing, and give a very tactile and effective way for you to track your character's hit points at the table. The gears will be limited runs and collectible. You can get your backing gear and your limited edition Game to Grow gear when you come to the Game to Grow table or the Level Up Dice booth at GenCon. You can also check out a few more images at https://gametogrow.org/2019/07/31/introducing-the-lifecog/
The best part, a portion of the profit of every gear sold goes to supporting Game to Grow! So not only are you getting cool stuff, but you're supporting a good cause while you're at it.
PAX West
Last but not least, we'll have a table and be speaking on several panels at PAX West this year. We'll be teaming up with Tabletitans once again to have a table in the expo hall, and we'll be selling more Life Cogs at this event, too. If you're in Seattle for the expo come by the table to say hi, and make sure to follow us on twitter @gametogrow in order to get all of the updates on our panels throughout the weekend.
More updates to come. Stay Tuned!
-Adam Johns, Executive Director
Artwork Progress: Monk and Bard
over 5 years ago
– Tue, Jun 18, 2019 at 01:42:22 AM
We have a couple of quick artwork previews to share with you, our amazing backers. We're working on getting some initial sketches done for the barbarian, monk, druid, and bard.
Important to keep in mind, some of these things will change as we go forward, but we're really excited with how some of these sketches are coming together and wanted to share it with all of you.
Critical Core Monk
Critical Core Bard
Some of you may remember a different bard appearing in an update during the campaign. After some discussion within the team we've decided we want to go a slightly different direction with the bard. But don't worry that other amazing artwork will still be included, and will be adjusted to become the artwork for the rogue character!
Artwork by our wonderful and amazing Grant Griffin.
