Playing Animal Farm: Designing a Dungeons & Dragons One-Shot for Pivotal Play and Learning

Premeet Sidhu's study presents "All Players Are Equal," a 30–40 minute Dungeons & Dragons one-shot adapted from George Orwell's Animal Farm, and tests whether learning can be deliberately designed into a non-digital tabletop role-playing game. The work addresses a gap in the literature, since research on pivotal play and game-based learning has concentrated heavily on digital games. Drawing on gamification, serious games, and game-based learning scholarship, the author argues that the binary between "leisurely" and "serious" games is limiting and that educational value can emerge naturally within entertainment-focused play. The design is guided by the concept of pivotal play, which extends Salen and Zimmerman's meaningful play to describe experiences that are appealing, memorable, and transformative beyond the session itself.

The design centers on agency, transgression, and death as its core mechanics. Testing used a research-through-design approach with 12 participants (seven men and five women, aged 18 to 40) across three in-person sessions of 25 to 35 minutes each. Playtests found the game logistically feasible and enjoyable, with the death of the "Dog" character emerging as the most memorable moment. In two of three sessions, players of the "Donkey" character chose silence rather than alerting others, diverging from Orwell's narrative, and participants reported internal conflict between their own choices and the rules printed on their character sheets, a tension the author identifies as productive for learning.

The study acknowledges clear limitations, including the absence of testing with participants under 18 and across cultural contexts, and the small, short-duration sample. Future work is planned in classroom settings, along with a revised free print-and-play version intended for educators in public education. The author notes that changes to D&D's Open Game License could necessitate a redesign to avoid copyright issues. The overall conclusion is that non-digital games can produce memorable, transformative learning experiences across contexts, and that continued experimentation is needed to identify new pedagogical approaches within tabletop role-playing.