The Project
Experiential Learning Using Tabletop Role-playing Games
For many, the topic of politics can be difficult to talk about. If it is ever even brought into conversation, the discussion often devolves into ineffective, vitriolic arguments between people of opposing opinions. Turmoil in Thudor aims to solve this problem by helping represent politics in Dungeons & Dragons 5e and create a space for civil politics discourse.
Role-playing games like D&D allow for unique experiences that can help someone interact with the real world. By embodying a character in a fictional world, one can learn vital conversational skills and build empathy. Turmoil in Thudor seeks to harness this potential to help people learn how to have political discussions by having them confront political issues in parallel to the real world in a fantastical game space. Participants will then take what they learned in the game space and apply it to actual conversations in real life.
Dungeon Masters can use the resources of this website to run their own political, conversation-oriented games, whether by running our official one-shot adventure or building their own. Players are strongly encouraged to use our unique procedural background generator to not only inspire characters oriented for this game, but also explore mindsets different from their own and learn to see things through eyes they normally wouldn’t.
Why Dungeons & Dragons?
Some might say Dungeons & Dragons is not the best system for such a goal. Much of the game is centered around combat and solving problems with weapons and spells. That said, D&D still has plenty of potential for complex, in-depth role-playing that can teach people valuable skills. Additionally, its status as the most well-known and accessible role-playing game currently on the market means we can reach the largest number of RPG players. Configuring D&D for Turmoil in Thudor is a challenge, but a welcome one.
About the Team
Turmoil in Thudor is a student capstone project for the Digital Humanities and Social Sciences program at the Rochester Institute of Technology. Our development team consists of three DHSS students, with Evan Dine as the Project Lead, Quinn Foster as the Narrative Lead, and Dakota Hinchman as the Lead Researcher.
Our faculty advisors were also instrumental in the project’s development. Dr. Michael Brown of RIT’s Department of History gave advice regarding the module’s political themes. Professor David Simkins of RIT’s School of Interactive Games and Media assisted with the project’s game aspects and mechanics.
We would also like to thank Tiago Pinheiro for creating the fantastic art on our homepage. You can find him on ArtStation, as well as under @zacarovs on Twitter and Instagram.
Sharing & Licensing
We want this project to reach as many people as possible and welcome people adding and sharing their own ideas to the wider discourse. Therefore, Turmoil in Thudor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.