Training Up, Messing Up, Leveling Up: A Mentorship Story Game

Many of us grew up loving choose-your-own-adventure stories. The thrill wasn’t just in the storyline twists; it was in the feeling of agency. Every decision shaped the story. Success, failure, disaster—it all came down to what you chose. That made it feel real.

So we asked: what if mentorship training could feel that way too?

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Mentorship Needs a Map: Why We Built It

When our team formed through Duke’s Emerging Leaders Institute (ELI), we naturally felt a strong pull toward mentoring as a topic. It made sense: being in an academic environment fosters a constant pull toward unknown waters and having a guide to help you navigate this environment makes for a much more rewarding experience. This appears to be felt at levels from near the top with administration leadership and faculty to us postdocs and graduate students who benefit or suffer from the mentorship resources available.      

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This delicate balance of finding good mentorship, building meaningful and productive relationships, and fostering these relationships in day-to-day interactions is extremely difficult to teach. Usually being a mentee and mentor is trial by fire; all you can do is do your best and learn from your mistakes as you go.

Outside of experience, we found some really great resources available to Duke trainees, primarily in the form of workshops, books, and tips. However, there’s a gap between static resources and the messy reality of working with other humans. We wanted to build something that gives people space to practice decisions, reflect on their feelings, and grow.

Building the Story Game

To turn that idea into reality we built a choose‑your‑own‑adventure mentorship game. Working as an ELI team, we sought a platform that could mirror the twists and turns of real mentoring. We chose Stornaway, an interactive storytelling platform. Its branching structure let us recreate the awkward pauses, unclear expectations and tough decisions that define real mentoring moments and let people decide what to do next. The choose-your-own-adventure game is divided into a mentor & mentee role‑playing game (RPG) that invites users to play through common scenarios from both sides of the table.

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Another important aspect of our project involved creating an accessible platform that could provide an easy-to-use interface for anyone in the graduate community to utilize the Mentor-Mentee training. Primarily, we hoped that our website could satisfy three objectives:

1. lower the bar for easy access to personalized and guided mentorship training,
2. provide context to the motivation for our project, and finally
3. extend beyond our modules to keep mentors/mentees accountable after completing their training.

Most notably, the last objective was accomplished through the design of two independent resources we refer to as Reflection Guides, standalone tools packed with practical strategies like “mentoring up” and sustaining long‑term mentoring relationships. These guides draw on insights from experts such as Dr. Steve Lee of Northwestern’s CLIMB program and researcher Dr. Linda Phillips‑Jones. 

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Playing the Story Game: How it Works and Why

Mentorship isn’t something you learn from a slide deck or a one‑off workshop. It lives in conversations, mistakes, and small moments. Our story game invites users to experience those moments in a low‑stakes way. By providing both mentee and mentor perspectives, it fosters empathy and encourages conversations about expectations, communication and growth.      

To set the scene for the mentee scenario: It's the day after your first big meeting. You’re excited: your first real project. But doubt creeps in. The expectations weren’t clear. You wonder: What does success look like? Did I ask the right questions? Am I even on track?

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From there, you choose what to do: Ask for clarification? Figure it out alone? Wait and see? Talk to a peer? Question whether you belong at all? Each choice leads to a different outcome and emotional tone. There are no “right” answers. Instead, the tool invites reflection: Why did I choose that? What emotion drove it? This is where working memory kicks in, anchoring the moment through action and emotion. And then comes the value: a tailored set of resources matched to the decision you made That’s how we designed this tool, as a bridge to help users find their way into Duke’s rich mentorship resources through lived experience, not just hyperlinks. Because mentorship isn’t something you learn from a slide deck. It’s relational. Messy. Emotional. The only way to really prepare for it… is to feel it.

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More importantly, it gives people the courage to acknowledge uncertainty. In academia, silence often stems not from ignorance but from the fear of being seen as unsure. By walking through a virtual scenario and then reflecting on it, users can name their feelings, build confidence, and find a path forward. 

As our team discovered, leadership isn’t about having all the answers. It’s about creating space for others to find their own.

Reflections from the Team

Alicia: My favorite part of ELI was leaving my comfort zone. I think a lot of the professional development I’ve done so far was in the name of a bigger goal, and while I think leadership skills are going to be invaluable in the rest of my career, I knew I could get away with not taking on this journey but decided to do it anyway. Every moment I learned more about myself and the other ELI participants was extremely rewarding. Seeing everyone grow, not only in aspects of leadership but in their understanding of themselves, was a unique and enriching experience. 

Yixuan: Leadership used to feel like a daunting word to me: something reserved for people who had it all figured out, who never made mistakes. It sounded like perfection. But through each session of ELI, I began to see leadership differently. I learned that leadership isn’t about having all the answers; it’s about asking questions, showing up with integrity, and being willing to grow, especially through failure. This shift in perspective will stay with me.

Valerie: ELI provided me with an opportunity to immerse myself in a space that not only encouraged but challenged my ability to utilize my professional development skills. Meeting individuals from all walks of life who were similarly pushing themselves to be better leaders and communicators was an amazing experience that inspired me to engage with unique perspectives, and I constantly came away with more insight than I had ever thought possible.  

Davide: Working on this project gave me a new lens on how people grow, not just through instruction, but through lived experience. As someone who’s used to approaching challenges analytically, I learned that in mentorship, emotions and intuition matter just as much as structure and clarity. Designing the demo also made me reflect on how often we get stuck in silence, not because we lack information, but because we fear being seen as uncertain. Helping others engage with that feeling, then find a way forward, felt personally meaningful.

Authors’ note: The images within this post were created using Dall-E. The feature image is credited to Shutterstock.

AUTHORS

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Alicia M. Bedolla, Ph.D.

Postdoctoral Associate, Anesthesiology

Alicia M. Bedolla, Ph.D. is a postdoctoral associate in Dr. Terrando’s lab in the Department of Anesthesiology. She was a first-generation college student at Berea College where she received her bachelor of arts degree in neuroscience before going on to a Ph.D. in neuroscience at the University of Cincinnati. Alicia’s primary research interests are in aging and neurodegeneration. Her current work is studying choroid plexus in post-operative delirium in the context of Alzheimer’s disease and aging. Outside of science, she enjoys bouldering, playing tennis, hanging out with her dogs and cat, and playing music.

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Yixuan Jiang

M.A. student, Graduate Liberal Studies

Yixuan Jiang is pursuing her M.A. in graduate liberal studies at Duke University while also working toward a certificate in east Asian studies. Her current research focuses on immigrant literature, postcolonial studies, feminist theory, East Asian literature and cultural studies. Passionate about education equity and reaching underserved communities, Yixuan has been actively teaching K-12 in rural schools. After completing her M.A., she plans to pursue a Ph.D. in literature to advance her academic and professional goals. In her spare time, Yixuan enjoys hiking, reading and traveling.

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Davide Schilirò, M.D.

Postdoctoral Associate, Transplant Immune Regulation and Tolerance Lab (TIRTL)

Davide Schilirò, M.D. is a postdoctoral associate in the Transplant Immune Regulation and Tolerance Lab (TIRTL) at Duke, working with Dr. Knechtle and Dr. Kwun. His research focuses on nonhuman primate models of kidney transplantation, investigating immunosuppressive regimens for sensitized recipients, tolerance induction, and xenotransplantation. Previously, he was a junior clinical research fellow in organ retrieval and transplantation at The Roy Calne Transplant Unit at Addenbrooke's Hospital and an anatomy demonstrator at the University of Cambridge. Davide finds transplantation uniquely inspiring for its unparalleled spirit of cooperation, where innovation thrives at the intersection of diverse expertise, and success is only possible through seamless teamwork and shared purpose.

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Valerie Tsao

Ph.D. student, Civil and Environmental Engineering 

Valerie Tsao is a second-year Ph.D. student in civil and environmental engineering, specializing in climate modeling and prediction with a focus on enhancing community resilience. Her research explores computational frameworks to deepen environmental understanding, including applying physics-informed neural networks for climate forecasting, investigating land heterogeneity’s impact on carbon emissions, and utilizing diffusion models to reconstruct atmospheric fields. Valerie holds an M.S. in structural engineering and geomechanics from Stanford University. Beyond academia, she enjoys experimenting with creative baking recipes, exploring new coffee shops, practicing Pilates, and immersing herself in a good book.