Ever wanted to explore a computer model? The Adventures in Model Land system is your guide, using tabletop roleplay games (TTRPG) and your imagination.

The system introduces four additional ingredients to a roleplay game:

• A model – the combination of a computational or numerical model, a scenario, and the data required.
• The Model Builder (MB) – an additional role between the dungeon, or games master and the players who defines the rules of the model land.
• Worlding – The process of taking the model and using imagination to create a model land.
• A conceit – the reason why the players are interacting with the model land.

Central to the Adventures in Model Land system is that process of worlding. It guides the Model Builder through seven prompts: space, time, elements, parameters, life, and inhabitants.

Version 0.2 of the Adventures in Model Land beta can be downloaded for free from Zenodo here. The system is provided open source so you are free to use it as you like, with acknowledgement. We are keen to add games and examples to the document and share with the community, so please do let us know how you use the system – constructive feedback is also very welcome! Get in touch.

Adventures in Model Land was conceived by Chris Skinner, inspired by Erica Thompson’s Escape from Model Land. It has been developed by Chris Skinner, Erica Thompson, Liz Lewis, Rolf Hut, Sam Illingworth, and Jess Enright.

Origin:

Computer models exists throughout almost every part of society and directly influence the lives of everybody. We use them to help us understand and make sense of the world. We use them to simulate things, whether those things are real or exist within a game-world or the special effects of a film. Importantly, we use them to help us make decisions by making predictions about possible future.

We are limited in our knowledge of the real-world and by the power of computers, so to be useful computer models must simplify how the real-world works. In her book, Escape from Model Land, Professor Erica Thompson describes models as creating their own worlds, model lands, that are different from our own. We must understand these model lands in order to make use of the predictions made within them.

Whilst Erica’s book implores us to escape from these strange worlds, Adventures in Model Land instead invites you to explore their murky depths. Inspired by tabletop roleplay games, we are creating an open-source system to help people bring model lands to life and to take players on quests within them.