Concluding Thoughts

In conclusion, we apply these takeaways to online course design practice to challenge assumptions about synchronous sequential course content and consider instead the possibilities (and potential pitfalls) of pedagogical design based on rhetorical pedagogies of embodiment in an exploration of asynchronous learning environments. For instance, a flexible course-world—rather than game-world—can allow students to lead the course learning experience in ways different from the instructor’s intended design, simply by deciding to jump from module to module based on their particular needs or interests at particular points in the semester.

Designing and delivering a course that allows students to move non-sequentially through a course would require instructors to approach their courses as, for example, a gamemaster would approach the authoring, directing, and refereeing of a campaign: as a mannerist in the Gorgianic sense of the term, open to possibilities of completing a quest (e.g., an assignment), a series of quests, or an entire campaign in unexpected or unconventional ways. The discussion of a GM-based pedagogical style in this webtext has emphasized student-player engagement as a key criterion for successful experiential learning, particularly as it relates to playing and learning well together.¹⁰ We see and have experienced some of the productive potentials of such an approach to course and curricular design that applies the mannerist styles articulated in the case studies in this webtext and applied in our own course design strategies.

One of the most challenging aspects facing instructors implementing the kind of GM/mannerist style of play and game design described in this webtext has to do with the labor involved to maintain the kind of sublime (White, 1987, p. 31) engagement that results in deep learning experiences, ones in which students and instructors are co-participants in a collective, rhetorical, and pedagogical act of invention. Invention, like the approaches of GMs and instructors, comes in many styles and each aim to develop aesthetic effects of engaged and experiential learning that lead to moments of surprise that open new modes of co-existing and co-participating in developing an effective learning community in the sense Ira Allen (2018) describes: a mediating role that functions at the intersection of doxa and invention, "a measuring apparatus" (p. 162) that accounts for both collective desires and the fulfillment of those desires (i.e., objectives, outcomes).

In closing, we offer a set of basic principles (a heuristic of sorts) of GM-inspired pedagogy as informed by games’ material rhetorics. Games matter, have matter, and continue to matter because they emphasize easily identifiable strategies, practices, and perspectives that can help students develop at every level of their learning. To create the conditions for effective game-based pedagogy and the rhetorical mannerism discussed in this webtext, we offer the following general principles for course and curricular design:

An engaged game-based course emphasizes collaboration and co-participation at all steps of the learning experience, from avatar design to party composition to structuring an adventure as an emergent and collective act of rhetorical invention. The GM strives to mediate among the varying desires of the community (students and instructor, collectively) in order to structure a fulfilling experience for all parties.
An online course delivery interface may be modeled on games’ material spaces to invite multimodal engagement and meaningful decision-making in an inclusive digital environment. Inspired by Metroidvania game designers and TTRPG GMs, instructors craft spaces that invite discovery and exploration through application of course content and skills to solve multifaceted problems, and that invite students to co-create maps of the space that reflect their individual learning experiences based on their chosen path for navigating the course material.
A reflective pedagogical practice applying game-based pedagogy emphasizes not the active or passive voice, but the middle voice, which White (1987) calls an alternative that fosters a sense of the individual and the collective "as a historical process" (p. 52), and is structured to open novel strategies for fostering capacities in speculative thought, invention, and design.

Footnote

^10. De Koven (2013) describes "the well-played game" like so: "We are having fun. We are caring. We are safe with each other. This is what we want. We are playing well together, even though we can’t name what game we’re playing. We are having a good time. We trust each other. There’s no doubt at all about our willingness to play. So there’s nothing, anymore, that needs to be established. We are who we want to be, how we want to be, where, here, now" (p. 13).