I’m running a series of related posts about in-class TTRPG examples/ideas, and this is part of the social studies section! Check out below for tips on how to structure a tabletop RPG around social studies classes for high school students in a lesson that looks at how laws are made through an immersive in-class acting exercise.

General structuring for teaching social studies with TTRPGs
TTRPG social studies lesson for high school students

General structuring for teaching social studies with tabletop role-playing games

First! If you’ve already read my TTRPG chemistry lesson articles (for elementary, middle school, and high school) OR the elementary and middle school social studies lesson post, much of this next explanation will be similar to the general structuring section in that post, and you can go here to skip ahead to the in-class example (the new part)!

Before we get to the example, we’re going to cover some general tips for structuring your game around a lesson or educational goal. Much of this will be similar to any subject that you’re teaching (not just for social studies lessons and not just for high school students). This means that if you’re here looking for general TTRPG classroom info, much of this can be applicable to any class, after school group, or game!

I’m covering this all before the high school TTRPG example because it is important to understand the basics for how the example is structured and why we’re doing things the way we are (so that you can take this material and extrapolate it for your particular students and lessons).

Setting your game’s educational goal(s)

When it comes to setting up intentionally educational TTRPGs, before you start coming up with plots and mechanics and even educational content, you first need to figure out what your goals for your students are since this is going to be what we want to build everything else around.

You don’t want to be trying to shoehorn a concept into an existing game or story idea that doesn’t really fit… and then losing the focus on what you want to teach.

Pick one to two core goals that you hope to accomplish with the tabletop RPG that you’re introducing to your class. What is the purpose of introducing this game?

For social studies classes with high school kids, these concepts could be something like “understand the long lasting impacts of key world history events” or “be able to explain core civic duties of a citizen” or “identify the catalysts for certain core events in US history”. There’s a range here with topics being broad to more narrow that will also build a foundation for future lessons, so think about your situation and pick a couple that work for your group and that you think could be helped by working into a TTRPG.

Paying attention to your game’s focus

Next, once you have your goal to build from, you’re probably going to start thinking of the game system that you’ll use and the story that you’ll make to surround the topic(s) you chose.

As you do this, make sure to keep the focus on teaching your goal.

If you pick a complex game system that takes several weeks to learn, you could be diverting your students’ focus and time from the core goal (learning social studies) and instead putting it on learning about this particular game system… which is not your goal.

For some subjects (like in this interview with D&D teacher Kade Wells), systems like D&D can be great for teaching English and reading because they require critical reading skills to understand, and it provides necessary motivation, so that system meets the goals of the class. I also show how, if the group knows D&D off the bat, it can be a very good medium for teaching classes as well, like in my middle school chemistry lesson post that uses D&D.

However, a lot of cases aren’t going to work the best with this, so I recommend to consider your situation and choose what works for you. In this example, I choose to go with a homebrew system that is more focused on the characters and their motivations so we can see how that would play off of a mock law proposal when learning about how bills are introduced, modified, and voted on. For randomization, I have a group randomization technique to simulate voting when there’s not enough players to fill in all of Congress, and that’s the only rolling done. You can also go full story mode as well (like this high school chem class example).

When you’re creating your adventure, watch the story as well. Keep your lesson modular (you probably don’t have time to get into a ton of lore and still keep it within a typical class period), so run quick one-shots or have a few short sessions spread out over a few classes… then end there. It doesn’t need to be a full epic campaign to get your educational goals across, and you want students focusing more on the educational concepts anyway. If you want to connect lessons, I recommend having a game that you can jump in and out of with each chapter or section you cover, so you have the flexibility to play the game with your class and also complete any necessary lesson plan requirements. In the one below, this could mean having a fantasy world with country and local governements with each lesson focusing on how a different level of government (with similar issues and ties to the overall world) would handle similar proposals.

Include multiple points of contact with the subject material in your TTRPG

If you look at stories ranging from fairy tales to present day children’s tv shows, when a new concept is being taught, it’s often presented at least three times (think of how The Boy Who Cried Wolf repeated its theme or how Bluey reiterates topics throughout the episode).

This is because we need to interact with something more than once for it to sink in. When teaching, you should also reiterate some of the topics a few times to make sure they stick and students have had enough time to process and absorb the material.

When you look at the example below, watch for multiple points of contact and how they drive the core goal home over and over. Also, watch how they progress from looking at individuals and their goals to introducing the broader political picture (and how complex it can become) to extrapolating on the even broader impacts (after the law is passed or fails).

Build your social studies class examples into each other and the TTRPG

With those multiple points of contact, you’ll also want to make sure that they are both built into each other (so they’re related and connected) and that they’re part of the story and/or mechanics that you have included in your tabletop RPG.

Tying them tightly into the game creates the connection that you’re looking for between your players and the material, and it’s the whole point of doing this! So, make sure that your story and your lessons match!

Now, this all can seem like a lot to watch out for, but it’s really a few very simple points:

Determine your educational goal
Keep your mechanics and story simple and focused on the goal
Use your goal at least three times
Connect your game ideas to the goal

To help show how to do this specifically for high school students, here’s an example lesson that teaches about how laws are passed at a national level in the US as part of high school civics lessons.

Example TTRPG social studies lesson for middle school kids (13 – 18)

Goals, context, and mechanics for your high school TTRPG social studies lesson

Context: Live example of passing a bill after covering the process from the educational materials in class. Time limit of 120 minutes (one full lesson period or multiple shorter sessions to represent debate sessions in Congress).

Goals: Summarized from the Michigan K-12 Statndards of Social Studies Civics section C3 (p121, 126); (1) understand the law proposal process at the fedral level and (2) understand the economic, social, etc factors at play in politics

Mechanics: Homebrew character RP focused with group dice rollling mechanics (for simulated voting)

Lesson(s): Create a cast of characters in a fantasy world political system, reflective of the US political system, and watch the process a bill takes before it can become a law

First point of contact: Character and committee creation

In this example, our first point of contact with creating the basics of our world and creating a character for each student, then dividing students up into roles that they’ll play in passing (or not passing) the proposed bill. Here, you’ll also come up with the bill proposal – a sample proposal is provided.

For this game, we’re going to inhabit a world full of dragons and magic… but not kings! We’ll have a political system like we do here, and we’re going to see how it works.

You are in the country Democrenor, and you are all elected officials or topic experts who will be participating in the evaluation of a proposed bill.

Democrenor is known for several things, including the wizard college, which recently was renovated after their a mishap with a student’s in-development extreme weather sheilding spell, the nearby protected dragon sanctuary and national park, which has been beset by a series of vandals since its establishment, and its position as a trading and adventuring hub at the center of the continent under its slogan “all roads meet at Democrenor”.

You will each play a particular part in the evaluation of a bill that’s being proposed: the implementation of a “magic tax” to be implemented for any and all magical use and items within Democrenor.

For right now, we’re going to assign each of you a role, and you’ll be creating a character as such. Your goal, as a student, is to try to satisfy your character’s key political stances or goals by the end of the activity, which will result in some extra credit. You may attempt to add to or modify the bill if you are on one of the committees.

You may allow students to choose roles, so long as they are distributed in a way that facilitates the activitiy (i.e. only one president, not too many subject experts, etc). You may also let students choose the city name or you can pick a different law – this here is just an example. It is also worth going over saftey tools at this point in case character creation gets dark (i.e. a student says their character wants to defund the dragon sanctuary because their parent was tortured and eaten by a dragon, and this does not sit well with other students), which you can find more information on here. The optional roles listed below are available if you have a large group and want to get into more detail about the process, but you can simplify it to just the required ones listed and still get the point across.

Roles (each student chooses one):

President (limit 1)
House committee members
Senate committee members
Opt: other House and Senate members
Subject matter experts
Opt: Speaker of the House, President of the Senate
Opt: Alignment committee
Opt: Clerk of the House, Secratary of the Senate

Character creation (each student fills this out):

Name/pronouns:
Background:
Key political stances or goals (choose 1-3):
Motivation for stances/goals:

Some example backgrounds to choose from can include but are not limited to: Magical shop owner, career politician, dragon researcher, retired adventurer, pet shop owner, mail person, teacher, student, attorney, park ranger, wizard, construction worker, author, big business owner, market vendor, tavern owner

Some example political stances or goals to choose from can include but are not limited to: regulate or deregulate magical use, fund or defund the dragon santuary, improve roads, reduce business taxes, increase school funding (either mundane or magical), reduce tuition rates, increase defences for the upcoming yearly elemental migration and subsequent storms, improve tourism, create a fund for retired adventurer aid, ban all magic, fund an initiative aimed at new magical discoveries, improve relations with a nearby trading partner

Second point of contact: Proposals, reviews, votes, and vetoes

Now, you’ll walk your class through the evaluation process for a bill! I’ll outline the steps here with some tips – this will take a long time for each step since students will be working towards conflicting goals or trying to add their own goals into the proposal. You may need to set a time limit to fit the requirements of your class.

While committees are debating, students, like the president, may not have much to do. They should be watching and you may want to assign them to take notes.

When it comes to voting, if you do not have enough students in your class to vote on the bill and seem like it’s a good feel, you can add additional members of Congress by rolling 1d6 and having a 1-3 represent a “no” and a 4-6 represent a “yes” during the vote. You may change the numbers (i.e. 3-6 is a “yes” if students make a particularly compelling argument or well assembled proposal).

When debating in the House, make sure there is some structure, time limits (i.e. 1-2 minutes) for statements, and a limit (i.e one modification) that each person can propose. When debating in the Senate, players can talk for however long they want and propose anything – if you have to cut them off for the class, it is a filibuster.

Follow the steps here and provide some time, as appropriate for your class, to address each one:

You, the teacher, propose the bill
The House committee members research and review the bill, call in subject matter experts to give their views, make modifications that they see fit, and vote on the new version of the bill
If that is approved, the Senate committee members research and review the bill, call in subject matter experts to give their views, make modifications that they see fit, and vote on the new version of the bill (note: to save time, you may want to have the House and Senate committees running in parallel)
If that is approved, align the proposals and Congress votes again
If that final version is approved by the House and Senate, send to the president for review
If the president approves, it is made into a law; if the president vetoes, Congress has the option to override with a 2/3 majority vote

If you want to add more nuance, you can include details about what happens with a pocket veto or get into the alignment committee and the process around the Cleark of the House, Secretary of the Senate, Speaker of the House, and President of the Senate. Introduction of these are not required to get the main process across, but they can help understand some of the process details.

Third point of contact: The aftermath

Once the bill is approved into law or reaches a point where it cannot proceed, have the class evaluate how this outcome affects their individual goals on their character sheet and the goals at large. See what they thought about the process.

Ask questions like:

Were your individual goals met? How so?
How would the outcome affect the wizard school? The dragon sanctuary? Overall commerce?
What other impacts does this outcome have?
Will this have impact to funding for various projects?
During the debates and committee meetings, did you learn anything new about the world?
Who had the most or least power in the process?
Was there a particular individual or individuals that were key to the outcome of this proposal?
Who had the most at stake here?
Was there anything frustrating about the process?

You may also add your own interpretations here afterwards to say what happens in areas that the students didn’t cover.

I.e. if the bill is passed, Democrenor has funds to rebuild areas damaged around the wizard’s college, there are fewer future incidents of magical damage, and there are more funds for improving roads and protecting the dragon santuary. However the overall economy declines due to decreased trade in magical goods from the increase in taxes, and magical research to protect from the incoming elemental season is put to an end (so the town is hit with a disaster). The neighboring city improves relations because they now become the hub for magical trade instead of Democrenor.

There could be more impacts than this, but it gives some examples. The point is to show that there can be a lot of impacts from one law and that it will affect more than what’s just on the surface.

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What’s shown here can be modified to fit your class and other types of lessons and other worlds and bills, and it’s meant to be a springboard for other ideas. There’s tons of variations on this one example too – you could use this for different political structures to show how the same bill would go through a different process or propose a differnet bill at a state or local government level. It all depends on your class goals.

I hope it helps to show a sample tabletop RPG lesson outline for either direct use in your classes or to spark some inspiration for other ideas, and let me know in the comments if you use this or have ideas of your own!

Stay tuned for future lessons as well – the next “Tabletop RPG Classroom” article will kick off a new subject series to help round out the examples and show how it can be scaled to fit the needs of older students.

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