Theory and Practice of Game Design Syllabi - The Multiplayer Classroom: Designing Coursework as a Game - page 30

One game element not in the syllabus was a random factor. Many video games
rely on a random factor to make certain the outcomes of player choices and
actions are not always identical. A player may face mobs with identical statistics:
equal strength, the same attack, and so on. Yet the amount of damage an attack
might inflict is based on the computer version of dice rolls, just as it was with
tabletop games like Dungeons and Dragons .
I brought dice to class and rolled them to determine which individual students
and guilds would be responsible for the next class session s presentations. So one

student might be hit by their solo quest and their guild quest on the same day.
Another might not be chosen for either until very late in the semester.

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This worried me. Students like everything spelled out. I printed out calendars of
assignment due dates, the midterm, and when papers were due. They expected this.
How would they react to fate taking a hand in their higher education? We shall see.
I let them know they would be choosing and naming their avatars. Avatar is
another name for the character the player will direct throughout the game.
James Cameron took the name of his blockbuster film from this game concept.

Avatar

An avatar is the online representation of a participant in a game or social network.

This was the first act they would perform in an MMO. I expected them to
recognize exactly what was required of them. I also informed them in the
syllabus that they would be separated into guilds.

Guild

A guild is a community in an online role-playing game. Guilds can be made up of any number of
players, depending on the common goals and play style that guild members decide upon.

In the previous class, I had used the word team to describe a group of students
who would work together to write the video game proposal that was the final
project as before. Calling these teams guilds here was, like XP, an easy way to
map game terminology onto existing class elements.

I kept the roles on each team the same, along with their responsibilities:
designer, writer, producer, tech lead, art lead, and marketing. This was a missed