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Chemistry and Chaos: A Role-Playing Game for Teaching Chemistry

James D. Mendez*
Cite This: J. Chem. Educ. 2023, 100, 2442−2445 Read Online

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ABSTRACT: Chemistry and Chaos is a role-playing game that was developed to teach a wide
variety of chemistry topics. The game uses the traditional role-playing framework to present
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material in an engaging and interactive format. The students take on the role of a particular type of
chemist while the instructor guides them on an adventure to test their chemistry knowledge.
Overwhelmingly positive responses show that students were engaged in the activity and also self-
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identified learning gains.

KEYWORDS: First-Year Undergraduate/General, Humor/Puzzles/Games

“The rumbling from the hallway gets louder and louder until The narrative above is taken from a final encounter in
suddenly, the door to the lab crashes open and flies across the Chemistry and Chaos, a role-playing game (RPG) for learning
chemistry. In Chemistry and Chaos, students take on the roles
room. Charging toward you is the biggest rat you have ever of various chemists and go on an adventure. Like a typical
seen, and riding on top of it is your nemesis (Figure 1). With RPG,1 participants make choices to guide the story while
grim determination, you and your colleagues get ready; this is finding creative solutions to multiple problems. However,
going to require all of your chemistry knowledge to stop her unlike in a typical RPG, students do not fight monsters with
swords or magic. Instead, they use their knowledge of
and save the university.” chemistry to overcome obstacles.
Using games as education tools has existed for many years2
while also seeing increased scrutiny as instructors attempt to
find a novel way to teach complex topics.3 Most articles show
the benefit of such an approach with the focus shifting on how
to utilize them best and identifying the reason for their
effectiveness.4,5
In chemistry alone, numerous and varied examples of games
are used to teach chemistry topics.6 PChem Challenge uses a
familiar board game to make learning this difficult subject more
interesting to students and improve retention.7 Retrosynthetic
Rummy combines the classic tool of flashcards with card games
to incentivize repetition.8 While the previous two examples
focused on review, Organosliding has students make new
structures to identify new compounds and enhance spatial
reasoning simultaneously.8 In addition to these individual

Received: December 21, 2022

Revised: April 19, 2023
Published: May 12, 2023

Figure 1. Final boss in the “Rat Attack” scenario. Reproduced with

permission from jfrico (www.fiverr.com), 2023.

© 2023 American Chemical Society and

Division of Chemical Education, Inc. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jchemed.2c01235
2442 J. Chem. Educ. 2023, 100, 2442−2445
Journal of Chemical Education pubs.acs.org/jchemeduc Activity

Figure 2. Character cards for (left) a High School Chemistry Teacher and (right) an Organic Chemist. Original, full-size figures can be found in
the Supporting Information. Character art reproduced with permission from jfrico (www.fiverr.com), 2023.

results, gamification has been shown to both engage and

motivate students.9
■ GAMEPLAY
Setting Up
Chemistry games are not confined to traditional modalities;
several examples of digital games for teaching chemistry exist. The first decision that participants/students need to make is
One of the most recent, ChemCraft, combines fantasy and which type of chemist they would like to play: an organic
role-playing elements to teach organic chemistry.10 Another, chemist, a high school chemistry teacher, a graduate student, or
ChemCaper, targets a broader audience with an app available an analytical chemist. When played in a classroom setting,
on common mobile platforms.11 Several examples of “Escape multiple students will play as one class (character type),
Room” style review games have also recently been published. requiring them to cooperate on decision making.
By incorporating storytelling and a mystery element the makers The character sheets contain several types of information,
of ChemEscape12 and Chemical Escape13 found a novel way to including a short description of their chosen profession and a
engage students. list of skills and attributes (Figure 2). Students are encouraged
Chemistry role-playing games are not as prevalent, with the to read the description and develop a name for their character.
exception of some choose-your-own-adventure style activities Character sheets are available with and without predrawn
for remote laboratories.14−16 However, some examples of role- figures, giving students the opportunity to design their own.
playing scenarios exist in other disciplines but focus more on The descriptions include a discussion about the character
the role-playing aspects. In a recent example by Cook et al., attributes (more on that later) and a brief overview of the
students take different positions on various science policies.17 profession. These casual descriptions are designed to be an
Traditional fantasy-based role-playing games have also been introduction to professions these students may have never
helpful to other fields in encouraging open communication.8 heard of.
Chemistry and Chaos combines collaborative problem- Gameplay
solving found in many of the games described above with a Similar to other role-playing games, a gamemaster (in this case,
(hopefully) fun fantasy world. An instructor guides students the instructor) guides the participants through a particular
through scenarios designed to test their chemistry knowledge scenario. Each scenario is based on a specific topic in chemistry
and teamwork. Will they use their knowledge of thermody- with a unique setting. For example, the scenario “Rat Attack” is
namics to break out of a locked room, or will they find the acid designed as a review activity set in the tunnels under a fictitious
with a low enough pH to dissolve the door handle? Can they university. The instructor keeps things moving, but it is up to
distract the angry mob with chemistry terminology to escape, the students to make the decisions along the way. Students are
or will they have to fight them with improvised weapons based encouraged to improvise and come up with unique chemistry-
on chemical geometries? related ways to solve problems.
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J. Chem. Educ. 2023, 100, 2442−2445
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Figure 3. Lab of a rogue scientist. Reproduced with permission from jfrico (www.fiverr.com), 2023.

Certain events, such as a fight or overcoming an obstacle, profession. Alternatively, the High School Chemistry Teacher
require completing a problem. Most of these also involve has a different “Safety Conscious” ability that lets them boost
rolling dice and using an attribute to determine the difficulty of their resourcefulness for one round. Like many skills, these
the challenge. For example, the situation described below has could apply to multiple professions, but the teacher’s
the attribute Math Proficiency listed. Each student would roll a responsibility for children is highlighted in this case.
20-sided die and add their Math Proficiency to the roll. This Each game lasts approximately an hour, but this can vary
means our poor Organic Chemist with a +0 Math Proficiency depending on the player choices. For example, in “Rat Attack”
would not add anything, but the Analytical Chemist would add there are dead ends which require students to solve additional
4. While all the problems would be similar, the team with the problems and can add up to 15 minutes of play time.
highest total would receive the most straightforward issue and
the lowest would get the hardest one.
Fight the rats again (Math Proficiency)�Problem 4�
■ STUDENT FEEDBACK
Two versions of Chemistry and Chaos have been played across
With your backs up to the table, you realize there are four two semesters of introductory chemistry for the past two years.
bottles of arsenic trioxide, a rat poison. A note on the desk Early feedback from students was generally positive, with most
reads, “Use of this compound above 5% by weight is students appreciating doing something other than a “boring”
hazardous to humans”. I guess that means we better get as review. However, many students expressed an interest in more
close to 5% without going over. freedom of action and more reasoning for the chemistry
While the main goal is to work on chemistry problems, aspects, both of which were incorporated into the final versions
good-natured competition and levity are encouraged through- of the two scenarios.
out the experience. For example, if one of the players attempts Students in a first- and second-semester introductory
to pet the rat described in the scenario above, they get bit, chemistry course were given a voluntary survey with three
simulated by requiring them to keep their dominant hand Likert questions and a place for comments after completing the
behind their back for the rest of the game. scenario “Zombie Invasion” or “Rat Attack”, respectively. A
Visual cues and graphics are used to set the scene (Figure 3), large majority of the students either agreed or strongly agreed
but students are encouraged to primarily use their imagination with the statements “Playing Chemistry and Chaos was fun”
as the game progresses. Images for some scenes may also and “I learned something while playing Chemistry and Chaos”.
contain clues to future obstacles. The hanging wires in the lab Similarly, the vast majority agreed that “I would play another
shown in Figure 3 may be innocuous, or they could help stop a (different) round of Chemistry and Chaos”. There was no
monster later on. significant difference in the student responses between the two
Each character also has skills they can use throughout the scenarios, and the combined results can be seen in Table 1.
game. These skills have in-game functionality but also serve as Comments from the survey mirrored the generally positive
anecdotes about the different professions. For example, the results from the Likert questions. Many students mentioned
Organic Chemist seen above can ask another chemist for help the unusual format for a review: “Very cool and unique idea for
with one problem, emphasizing the collaborative nature of the a review” and “It was fun, and there was a good range of
2444 https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jchemed.2c01235
J. Chem. Educ. 2023, 100, 2442−2445
Journal of Chemical Education pubs.acs.org/jchemeduc Activity

Table 1. Student Responses to the Likert Survey (n = 26) Complete contact information is available at:
https://pubs.acs.org/10.1021/acs.jchemed.2c01235

Notes
The author declares no competing financial interest.

■ ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The character and scene images were created by jfrico (www.
fiverr.com). Greyson Cunningham assisted with the layout for
the scenarios and character cards.

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■ ASSOCIATED CONTENT
* Supporting Information
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ChemEscape: Redox and Thermodynamics−Puzzling out Key
Concepts in General Chemistry. J. Chem. Educ. 2023, 100, 415−422.
(13) Peleg, R.; Yayon, M.; Katchevich, D.; Moria-Shipony, M.;
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Gamemaster’s introduction (PDF) Y.; Huynh, R. M.; Luo, J.; Naghi, Z.; Link, R. D. Inter-Twine-D:
Character cards (PDF) Combining Organic Chemistry Laboratory and Choose-Your-Own-
Gamemaster’s guide for Zombie Invasion (PDF) Adventure Games. J. Chem. Educ. 2022, 99, 3964−3974.
(15) D’Angelo, J. G. Choose Your Own “Labventure”: A Click-
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■ AUTHOR INFORMATION
Corresponding Author
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(16) Warning, L. A.; Kobylianskii, K. A Choose-Your-Own-
Adventure-Style Virtual Lab Activity. J. Chem. Educ. 2021, 98, 924−
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James D. Mendez − Indiana University Purdue University (17) Cook, D. H. Conflicts in Chemistry: The Case of Plastics, a
Columbus, Columbus, Indiana 46131, United States; Role-Playing Game for High School Chemistry Students. J. Chem.
orcid.org/0000-0002-8961-3166; Email: mendezja@ Educ. 2014, 91, 1580−1586.
iupuc.edu
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