Choose Your Adventure

Ready to have Choose Your Adventure as part of your programming but don’t know where to start? Here are the steps for designing your own adventure.

1. Identify appropriate outreach events at your library.
2. Establish learning goals for this activity. What do you hope participants will learn and how will you assess?
   1. Choose 1-3 learning goals. For example: participants will learn about the library and its services, or learn one piece of history they didn’t know before. 
   2. Determine a method of assessment. For example: conduct an evaluation survey.
3. Research a subject in relation to the theme of the event.
4. Collaborate with colleagues and research which collection items fit.
5. As you research, think about what the adventure could be and if there may be anything potentially questionable about your adventure topic (for more on this, see the Considerations section on this page).
6. Create the adventure! Adventure design involves six components:
   1. Game Mechanics — What objects can players use? How do you determine the outcome of player decisions?
   2. Setting the Scene — The who, what, where, and when of the scenario.
   3. Identify Agenda — How many encounters? What is the meaningful choice players will have to make?
   4. Conflict — The players make a decision based on the meaningful choice that is presented to them.
   5. Resolution — What happens if it goes well or if it goes poorly? Prepare successful and unsuccessful outcomes for player decisions.
   6. The Wrap-Up — The adventure is over and it’s time to bring the players back to the materials on the table as well as provide additional resources.
7. Once collection materials and the adventure design are finalized, it’s time to decide on physical layout of the space.
8. Play test!
   1. It’s important to test the adventure out before deployment, as player perspective uncovers technical and design misunderstandings that can be changed before launch.

Check out an example from our How-To and Adventure Guides section of this webpage to see all the different facets of adventure design.

• Central Valley Adventure Guide (Word)
• Death Valley Adventure Guide Coming Soon
• Yosemite Valley Adventure Guide Coming Soon
• San Francisco Adventure Guide Coming Soon
• Pedestrian Race Adventure Guide Coming Soon

These guides offer pre-made adventures that you can modify or run as-is. The only thing you need to do is select materials from your collection to match the adventure. Sample pull lists of materials from the California History Section’s collections are included with each guide. For examples of flyers to put on display with your adventures (e.g. Rules to Play or QR codes for additional resources), please contact Dvorah at cslcal@library.ca.gov.

More pre-made adventures will be added, so check back often or subscribe to the California History Section newsletter, California Corner, for announcements of new additions!

Whether you’re designing your own adventure or running it in your next outreach or educational program, here are some things to keep in mind:

• Topic Choice — Working with history is messy.  It’s important to research a topic fully and determine if there is harm that, as a game designer, you may not be aware of. Trivializing real trauma that has happened in the historic past or simulating oppression, injustice, or violence for game participants is not recommended.
• Review & Revise — Review your topic choice with your supervisor and leadership. Revise your adventure according to feedback you get from playtesting prior to deployment.
• Safety Tools — Establish rules so everyone is respectful during gameplay. A sample of Table Rules is available upon request.
• Keep it Simple — Simplify game mechanics. Most people playing will have never played tabletop role-playing games before.
• Time Management & Self Care — Researching and creating new adventures can be a time-consuming process. You’ll want to start at least six months in advance before your event to balance with your regular duties. When running the activity itself, build in breaks and have back-up staff if doing back-to-back sessions. Establish a manageable staff-to-player ratio, e.g. four players max with one additional staff member to tag in as needed.
• Evaluation — After identifying learning goals, you’ll need to determine how to assess if these goals were met. For example, participants can fill out an anonymous survey to provide feedback. It is recommended to offer digital and physical surveys.