Nesciamus – A game to explore values in society

We started the Nesciamus project because we wanted to internationalize the best practice approach of a tabletop RPG (Role-playing Game) that helps teach and foster values among youths and represen...

We started the Nesciamus project because we wanted to internationalize the best practice approach of a tabletop RPG (Role-playing Game) that helps teach and foster values among youths and represents a good example of best practices in youth work. About 7 years ago Dragon Legion developed the Necsciamus approach as a game you can play straight out of the box without having to learn a lot of rules, unlike typical role-playing games, and without a game master who needs to prepare the game. The game has become a success used in youth work to teach ethics and values, and place young people in theoretical situations where they can think and react. The strength of the approach is that youths can experience situations within the scenes of the game, simulating living and breathing them, as opposed to just talking about them. We were also interested in getting youths involved in the creation process. This allowed us to train them not only in using the approach to transmit values, but it also strengthened their creativity, and let them take ownership and impact youth work, all while being involved in an activity they enjoy. In the project we organized three workshop meetings, one in each country, in which we brought our youths together.

In a first step we translated the Nesciamus game from German to English. In a second step we created three new expansions, both in English and German. In a third step we prepared the new games for publication, we had them produced and towards the end of the project we disseminated the games through our network partners and through actively engaging a variety of youth groups. Each step was done as a workshop meeting, one in each country. We always ran the meetings as creative camps in which we involved young people. We trained them in game design and guided them in their creation of the Nesciamus game. Despite getting a lot of good results we also had to do a lot of writing and editing work between the meetings in order to get the games ready for publication.

Results can be seen on two levels: For the youths we involved in the project the results consist of the learning experience which is rather intangible. The youths now understand game design and how to use games in youth work. They have increased a lot of skills, such as language skills, writing skills, creative skills, teamwork skills, etc. They also have made the experience of taking responsibility for tasks in a project, leading teams, and working on a professional level with deadlines. The tangible results of the game are the games which we created. We now have 4 games that can be played as a campaign, one after another, or as solo games. These games are available in English and in German. We have been giving the games away (for free) to any youth organization and we have demoed the games at several events in Sweden (at Nordsken), in Iceland (at Midgard Con) and in Germany (at DreieichCon, at Stuttgart ComicCon and at DreamHack with plans to display the games at gamescom, at RatCon and at other events).