Adventures in Model Land: Using tabletop roleplay games to explore the abstract worlds of numerical models

Good modelling practice is founded on both understanding the limitations and assumptions of models and the clear communication of these. This includes appreciation of the impacts of modelling choices and how things might be different if other choices were made. Often the audience for this communication are non-modellers who will need to make decisions based on the information provided by the modeller. There is a need for creative approaches and tools that can translate technical and abstract concepts into something meaningful.

Games, including tabletop roleplay games (TTRPGs), immerse players within imaginary worlds. Although they might resemble the real-world, they have differences that enable smooth gameplay, player immersion, and for narratives to advance. For example, they might have boundary limits to the explorable world, or approximations of time to focus on the most interesting elements. In this sense, numerical modellers and games developers have a shared experience when simulating ‘realities’.

Thompson (2022) introduced the concept of ‘model lands’ – strange worlds that are created by our models, which share some characteristics of the real-world but also many differences. We argue that model lands and game worlds are functionally the same but with different usefulness’s. We present the Adventures in Model Land framework, an open-source resource for numerical modellers that uses world-building methods from TTRPGs to bring model lands to life in an explorable way. Originally proposed as a fun activity, the methods are being developed into a toolkit to help modellers communicate the details, assumptions, limitations, and uses of their models with non-modellers.