Bringing LRG into the Classroom

By Tim Holliday | Teacher, Game Designer, LRG Lover

Heroes falling short. Villains pulling on our heart-strings. And the strategy that separates players from legends. My students investigate it all, as I bring the world of Live Reality Games into the classroom.

I’m a historian, a writing teacher, and (of course) a reality TV nerd. So, I spend a lot of time thinking about storytelling. Whether it’s piecing together fragmentary archival evidence, teaching the art of logical coherence, or interpreting narrative arcs in my favorite reality shows, stories are central to everything I do.

It was only a matter of time before I found the LRG community, and I’m so glad I did. Like many of us, I was doing LRGs before I knew they were a thing; I was playing Survivor and The Mole with my friends way back in high school. (Yes, I still have the tapes, and no, they will never see the light of day!) Even when I started The Mole Ohio in the summer of 2019, I had never heard the term “LRG.” Fast forward to 2026, and we’re preparing for our seventh season, and many of my closest friends are people I’ve met through producing this game.

LRGs have become so important to me that I’ve brought them into my classroom. One of the writing seminars I teach is about the cultural history of reality TV. In it, my students learn about (among other things) how reality TV creates narratives following identifiable logical structures—the triumph of a hero, the downfall of a fallen angel, the redemption (or not) of a villain, and so forth. But those narrative formulas are part of what makes reality TV so compelling. Reality shows are like the folktales of our time, relying on (and sometimes subverting) these time-honored tropes.

A significant part of reality TV’s cultural impact is sustained by “fan labor”—social media posts, YouTube reaction videos, and of course, LRGs. My students have the opportunity to follow along with my own LRG (and others), and can use it as an accessible case study of how narratives emerge in reality TV, how stories are told, and how audiences are engaged. They watch the latest season of The Mole Ohio and create “edgic” charts tracing the contestants’ narrative arcs. Along with their charts, students include brief write-ups about each player’s trajectory through the season. For example, one student summarized a player’s approach to the game as “very strategic from the beginning. Focused a lot on building alliances with other contestants in hopes it would help him, but at times made them more suspicious of him.”

(N8 and Matt (The Mole Ohio 2024) sharing their observations with each other. Still from video by Ben Wood)

Another student described a contestant’s chaotic gameplay by remarking that he “played the villain in a way that I actually wanted him to stick around and continue to cause chaos rather than being a villain I wanted to see eliminated.” Responses like this point to our enduring fascination with loveable villains—the characters we love to hate. And the phrase “played the villain” is a crucial one. Even though we know reality TV is heavily produced, we sometimes conveniently forget. Compared to reality TV, though, LRGs are more easily demystified. This helps remind students that the folks we see on reality shows (or LRGs) are both characters subjected to the editing process, and people with feelings and lives outside of the game. By watching The Mole Ohio and other LRGs, students learn to be careful not to conflate the two.

For my students who’ve watched it, The Mole Ohio has served not only an instructional purpose, but also a unifying one, fostering a sense of community in the classroom. Just like how shows like Survivor and The Traitors have formed the subject of “water cooler talk,” my students who have followed along with The Mole Ohio have shared their reactions with each other. In the fall of 2024, after the premiere of a particularly tumultuous episode (the third episode of The Mole Ohio 2024, when Richard tried to bribe another contestant to leave the game in his stead), a student walked into class, set her bag down, and exclaimed: “I just watched episode 3! That was wild!” As “wild” as Richard’s gameplay was, another student wrote that “although he was very strategic and appeared two-faced at times, I didn’t see him as a negative/villainous character. I think he just knows how to play the game.”

(Richard (The Mole Ohio 2024) tries to bribe his way back into the game, as the cast and crew look on in shock. Still from video by Ben Wood.)

Moving forward, I’m excited to see what my students have to say about The Mole Ohio 2026, as the game continues to evolve.

---

Tim Holliday is a Philadelphia-based historian and critical writing instructor. An Ohio native, he is the executive producer of The Mole Ohio. Follow The Mole Ohio on Instagram (@themoleohio) and Youtube (https://www.youtube.com/@themoleohio).