Role Play is a simulation where participants act out their roles by interacting with each other. It is most suited as a supplemental activity during an in-person training.
What is a Role Play?
Role Play is a simulation in which each participant is given a role to play. Trainees are given information like a description of the role, concerns, objectives, responsibilities, emotions, etc. Then a general description of the situation, and the problem that each participant faces, is given to the group. For instance, the situation could be a strike in a factory, a managing conflict, two parties in conflict, scheduling vacation days, etc. Once the participants have read their role descriptions, they act out their roles by interacting with each other.
Why make a Role Play?
Role Plays helps people develop interpersonal and communication skills, learn conflict resolution, group decision making and to develop insight into their own behavior and its impact on others. For example, sales teams that continuously engage in role playing are more likely to outperform competitors who don't. Role playing builds confidence, develops listening skills and encourages creative problem-solving.
Creating a Role Play
- Start by clicking Edit Chapter in the chapter you want to add the Role Play in.
- In the menu "Add Content", select Role Play.
- You will now see a new content block, where you can configure your Role Play:
- You can now give a Title to your new Role Play.
- Then you can add an Image as well as a short description of your Role Play. This image and description will appear before a user starts the Role Play in your Moti.
- You edit the headline of your games rules in the How to play box.
- Then you write how the game will work in Description of game rules. This description will be the same for all users and roles.
- To start editing your first role, click 1 below your game rules description.
- You will now see a new form to configure the game for the first role:
- First you give a Role name for the role. You will see that the icon which initially displayed "1" at the bottom of the card, will not display the first character of the Role name.
- Then you need to provide an information card for the role. Each information card will have a Title and A short description. An information card will typically tell the user who picked this role what to do, what to observe, or any other information relevant to how to perform the role in the Role Play.
- If you enable Turn on evaluation bar, the user will be able to make an evaluation of a score between 1 to 10. This can be useful for a user with an observer role when taking notes or evaluating something during the Role Play. However, it can also be used for other roles where a step is to provide a score or a number. It's important to know that the scores are not saved or submitted anywhere, so users must keep the role play open to see their scores on an evaluation bar.
- Click Add New Info to add another information card. You can add as many information cards as you want for a role. Be aware that all the cards will display at once and on the same page for the user who picked this role.
- If you wish to change the color of the button a user will click to select this role, you simply change this at Select color.
- Click "+" to add another roles. You can add as many roles as you like. All roles do need to be filled by users during a Role Play.
- When you've added all your roles and information cards, remember to click Save to avoid losing this, and other changes you've made, in the chapter.
Congratulations! You have now created a Role Play block.
Planning is important when you are going to create a Role Play, and it can be a bit difficult to get started, and maybe even to understand how what you can do, or how it will look in the end. That being said, Role Plays are a great way for participant to interact as well as how to learn and behave in different roles. We've added a simple example below. This is a Role Play for three participants to practice and learn how to handle difficult conversations. There are three roles: Manager, Thomas (employee), and Observer (neutral 3rd party observing and taking notes. Below you will see how this Role Play appears to users in Motimate.