Master Storytelling Through RPGs: Play Shadowdark & Create Epic Tales!

Learners will explore storytelling and creative writing through Role Playing Games (RPGs) while adventuring in the imaginary fantasy world of Shadowdark. In the style of the classic RPG Dungeons & Dragons. This adventure is a twist on the Dungeons & Dragons starter adventure "The Lost Mines of Phandalin" by Wizards of the Coast.  

The following is a breakdown of the topics covered during the first four weeks of class.
 
February 19th, Week 1: Character Creation, role playing strengths and flaws.
	•	Introductions - Students will meet, discuss their Role Playing Game (RPG) experience (no experience is necessary) such as Dungeons & Dragons, GURPS, Star Wars and describe what they hope to learn from the class.
	•	Rules - As a group, we will create a set of rules to follow as we role-play through our adventure. Including communication tools used with each other, what type of language is allowed, how to be a team player, positive ways to play the game, and how to show respect for your fellow party members.
	•	Character Creation - This is the first session where we will create our characters. We will get familiar with the program and start to think about developing backstories for our characters.

Any questions outside of class can be posted in the class board during the week and depending when they are posted, I will respond during the week.

February 26th, Week 2: Classic Archetypes
	•	Next we look at our character strengths and flaws, and how they connect to character arcs. 
	•	We will meet several classic archetype NPCs (such as the mentor, the villain, the sage, the jester, etc.). 
	•	The roles of these NPCs are typically written into stories to push the characters through the story either towards or away from the

March 5th, Week 3: The story spine (Your story in two sentences).
	•	Situations, Protagonists, Opponent, Obstacle, Conclusion. 
	•	Character wants: to have something, to be something, to do something
	•	Crucible: is the obstacle that prevents the character wants 

March 12th, Week 4: Creating Vivid Settings (show don’t tell) 
	•	How storytelling uses showing and not telling, how to use description with our five senses without overdoing it. 
	•	How to write magic scrolls by showing and not telling 
	•	In addition, we continue to add more to our character backgrounds and make connections to the local setting or the plot of the story so far. 

The class will be conducted through Zoom. The instructor and students will use “theatre of the mind” with the beautiful artwork from James RPG Art to describe the scenes with the learners able to move their characters on the VTT to interact with the game. There will be mild violence and fighting monsters. However, all topics will be work-place friendly with no gore or adult-themed content. 

In our first session, learners will create their characters and their own background origin stories as they adventure. Students can join the class anytime as each class is an independent lesson. The instructor will lead students through an adventure and guide them through the storytelling techniques as the adventure unfolds. Learners will choose their interests class, ancestry, which may change as they encounter different scenes of the story. 
This is a teacher led class and students will participate by taking turns during each encounter of the story figuring out puzzles, riddles, and clues to solve the mystery of what happened to the Rockseeker brothers. Learner participation is required, and learners speaking freely among themselves (meta-gaming) is encouraged. The class is more about creating a story through RPGs. 

The characters they create could continue exploring and adventures in the future. There is no prior experience needed or previous knowledge of role playing games required. However, this introductory class is a prerequisite course for future adventures where learners will cover different storytelling techniques. 

This is a partially home-brewed version of the Phandelver adventure with a twist for those who may have played the adventure before. We will be starting out on the first session (session 0) by creating characters and covering safety tools. The adventure usually takes 5 to 8 sessions to complete but there is a whole world to explore after the dungeon is complete. Three to five players give the perfect amount of player interaction and game dynamics. 

You will need to log into the Zoom classroom, everything will be provided there. 

If you are just chompin’ at the bit to get started, feel free to create a character on shadowdarklings.net. 

But you don't have to, because characters are quick and easy to make. We will cover characters in the first session and develop them further as the adventure progresses.