This type of game is characterized by players taking on the role of a fictional character. This group of games, also called RPG’s, are some of the most popular games ever made both on the tabletop and in video games. Modern RPG tabletop games have simplified the complex games that originally created the genre without sacrificing the freedom that make RPG games so much fun. So if you are keen to inculcate your staff with empathy, provide better customer service skills or trying out design thinking – role playing games are highly suitable. What other learning points can you think of if you included role playing in your training toolkit?
In Captain Sonar, you and your teammates control a state-of-the-art submarine and are trying to locate an enemy submarine in order to blow it out of the water before they can do the same to you. Every role is important, and the confrontation is merciless. Be organized and communicate because a captain is nothing without his crew: the Chief Mate, the Radio Operator, and the Engineer. All the members of a team sit on one side of the table, and they each take a particular role on the submarine, with the division of labor for these roles being dependent on the number of players in the game: One player might be the captain, who is responsible for moving the submarine and announcing some details of this movement; another player is manning the sonar in order to listen to the opposing captain's orders and try to decipher where that sub might be in the water; a third player might be working in the munitions room to prepare torpedoes, mines and other devices that will allow for combat.
Captain Sonar can be played in two modes: turn-by-turn or simultaneous. In the latter set-up, all the members of a team take their actions simultaneously while trying to track what the opponents are doing, too. When a captain is ready to launch an attack, the action pauses for a moment to see whether a hit has been recorded — then play resumes with the target having snuck away while the attacker paused or with bits of metal now scattered across the ocean floor.
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Playing Captain Sonar