One of the things I really enjoy about teaching gamers in the gaming sphere is the feedback my group of mentors and I receive. There's always something new to cover and explore.
The new discord logo for the Welcome Wagon's group for mentoring new gamers interested in roleplaying. This project has blossomed into a full sized course online over the last several years and I'm quite proud of the impact it's had on the RP community on City of Heroes Homecoming servers.
In the four years I've spent organizing, taking feedback from attendee's and veteran players of the servers, and listening to fellow mentors over this time, we're launching a discord group to help roleplayers find their character voices, guide them through finding lore to base their characters concept off of, and teaching about the good and bad forms of RP that happen in the gaming spheres and what to do to avoid them.
Not only am I teaching others, I'm learning as well. Better ways to instruct, better ways to improve how to speak in group sessions, how to tame my anxiety when speaking with large groups of players, and learning to listen and absorbing what needs to be changed to adapt for what the community needs to stay united. It's not an easy task, but it's one I'm more than willing to stick with.
It takes a significant amount of patience to instruct a group of people clueless about what you intend to teach, and without significant amount of support, this project would have never gotten off the ground. I have Dimi1 and McSpazzy/screwbucket to thank for pitching in, and helping getting things on the road to progress. If neither of them had stepped up to offer to help, this thing would have crumbled and been buried in my attempts to help foster a stronger community through understanding.
I can't even begin to count the hours I'd spent observing and taking notes on my own time of poor playership behaviors and red flags in scenes that more often than not led to emotional harm to the player as a result in the scenes. This is something that many people might laugh at, but we often forget that words have a power all their own. What you say, how you say it, your expression and your body posture all makes a difference on how your tone is perceived in roleplaying.
It's very much a written form of ad lib acting without a full script, the golden rule of "And then..." is something that is sometimes forgotten in the gaming spheres. But having mutual respect for one anothers characters as like real people is often forgotten as well. It's what we teach that matters and helps keep the community together united.
If there's one thing I've had drilled into me from the start of this little project, it was the value of listening and learning to expand my own horizons. This project has not only helped me overcome my own anxiety with public speaking, but also learning to accept criticism, especially constructive criticism to keep building to improve. It's also taught me the value of education and educators in our communitys, not just within the gaming spheres either. Mentors, and teachers are irreplacable.