Creating creativity

One of the most common questions asked when I am training creativity is how can we be more creative? I believe true creativity comes from a change in our mindset and we can all achieve that if we start by doing small things like changing our habits. If we are able to “break” from some routines, we will be on our way to being a master of creativity.

Start today by finding out what routines we have – and simply make changes. For example, just the other day I changed the way I exercised. I have been doing a 40min run around my neighborhood in a clockwise manner for the past 1½ year and have gotten very comfortable with the routine. I tried a shorter 25min run in an anti-clockwise manner the past week and noticed so many new and different things which spurred me to think of some new ideas for work (you might even meet some new friends!). Go ahead and try “breaking” your habits and share what will you do differently today!

#creativity #breakhabits #innovation #mentalagility #learning #different #jjfsThinkLab

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Running and breaking habits!

Creating creativity - with post-its

If you wanted to get your team to have a sparkle of imagination, why not just have some fun activities at work to invigorate the spirit? I remember the days when I was firmly stuck on the bottom of the corporate totem pole and was having a tough time trying to think of a innovative solution – I stopped “trying” to be creative and instead started playing with the rubber bands and paper clips that littered my desk. After creating a slingshot and other idiosyncratic items, I felt much energized. The break gave me the mental agility to think more creatively and allowed me creative freedom.

Another great way to energize through the day is to design “pranks” (we call them experiential activities) and cunning traps (work breaks) in a regular work day. Why? As we all know laughter and fun not only releases endorphins which promotes a sense of well-being, it also boosts your immune system. These physical effects charges up creativity so try a “prank” or 2 before your brainstorming session might be what the doctor ordered. How about blanketing an entire cubicle with post-it notes in the dead of night before work starts? What will you do?

#creativity #energizer #innovation #mentalagility #postits #cubiclelife #jjfsThinkLab

skillsfuture ssg creativity game session engagement

What will you do if you come back to work with your desk like this?

Creating creativity

If you wanted to get your team to have a sparkle of imagination, why not just have some fun activities at work to invigorate the spirit? I remember the days when I was firmly stuck on the bottom of the corporate totem pole and was having a tough time trying to think of a innovative solution – I stopped “trying” to be creative and instead started playing with the rubber bands and paper clips that littered my desk. After creating a slingshot and other idiosyncratic items, I felt much energized. The break gave me the mental agility to think more creatively and allowed me creative freedom. Please share what you can create with rubber bands and paper clips too!

#creativity #energizer #innovation #mentalagility #rubberband #paperclip #jjfsThinkLab

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Creating a slingshot with paperclips and rubber bands

Richard Garfield – designer of Magic: The Gathering

Richard Garfield is a game designer and mathematics professor who is known for creating the very popular card game Magic: The Gathering, considered to be the first collectible card game (CCG). Magic debuted in 1993 and its success spawned many imitations. Garfield oversaw the successful growth of Magic and followed it with other game designs. Included in these are Keyforge, Netrunner, BattleTech(CCG), Vampire: The Eternal Struggle, Star Wars Trading Card Game, The Great Dalmuti, Artifact and RoboRally. Garfield first became passionate about games when he played the roleplaying game Dungeons & Dragons, so he designed Magic decks to be customizable like roleplaying characters.

Magic: The Gathering is a tabletop and digital collectible card game that has approximately thirty-five million players and over twenty billion Magic cards were produced.

A player in Magic takes the role of a Planeswalker, a powerful wizard who can travel ("walk") between dimensions ("planes") of the Multiverse, doing battle with other players as Planeswalkers by casting spells, using artifacts, and summoning creatures as depicted on individual cards drawn from their individual decks. A player defeats their opponent typically by casting spells and attacking with creatures to deal damage to the opponent's "life total". Although the original concept of the game drew heavily from the motifs of traditional fantasy role-playing games such as Dungeons & Dragons, the gameplay bears little similarity, while simultaneously having substantially more cards and more complex rules than many other card games.

Magic can be played by two or more players, either in person with printed cards or on a computer, smartphone or tablet with virtual cards through the Internet-based software Magic: The Gathering Online or other video games such as Magic: The Gathering Arena and Magic Duels. It can be played in various rule formats, which fall into two categories: constructed and limited. Limited formats involve players building a deck spontaneously out of a pool of random cards with a minimum deck size of 40 cards; in constructed formats, players create decks from cards they own, usually with a minimum of 60 cards per deck.

New cards are released on a regular basis through expansion sets. Further developments include the Wizards Play Network played at the international level and the worldwide community Players Tour, as well as a substantial resale market for Magic cards. Certain cards can be valuable due to their rarity in production and utility in gameplay, with prices ranging from a few cents to tens of thousands of dollars.

#richardgarifield #experientiallearning #learnbydoing #skillsfuture #ssg #strategicgames #magicthegathering #gamebasedlearning JJFS ThinkLab

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There are over 20 billion Magic cards produced, do you own any?

Game designer showcase - Richard Garfield

Richard Garfield is a game designer and mathematics professor who is known for creating the very popular card game Magic: The Gathering, considered to be the first collectible card game (CCG). Magic debuted in 1993 and its success spawned many imitations. Garfield oversaw the successful growth of Magic and followed it with other game designs. Included in these are Keyforge, Netrunner, BattleTech(CCG), Vampire: The Eternal Struggle, Star Wars Trading Card Game, The Great Dalmuti, Artifact and RoboRally. Garfield first became passionate about games when he played the roleplaying game Dungeons & Dragons, so he designed Magic decks to be customizable like roleplaying characters.

In 1985, Garfield received a Bachelor of Science degree in computer mathematics. After college, he joined Bell Laboratories, but soon after decided to continue his education and attended the University of Pennsylvania, studying combinatorial mathematics for his PhD. Garfield studied under Herbert Wilf and earned a Ph.D. in combinatorial mathematics from Penn in 1993.

Garfield and Magic are both in the Adventure Gaming Hall of Fame. List of Notable Games:

1993 Magic: The Gathering

1994 RoboRally

1994 Vampire: The Eternal Struggle

1996 Netrunner

1996 BattleTech CCG

2002 Star Wars: Trading Card Game

2006 Rocketville

2011 King of Tokyo

2012 Android: Netrunner

2014 King of New York

2015 Treasure Hunter

2016 Robo Rally

2017 Bunny Kingdom

2018 KeyForge: Call of the Archons

#richardgarifield #experientiallearning #learnbydoing #skillsfuture #ssg #strategicgames #gamebasedlearning JJFS ThinkLab

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The game design icon - Richard Garfield!

Going back to the office and dreading it?

Get a creative session or energizer going! Get a productivity and creativity spark by engaging in some stimulating activities at work like a gaming lunch session or a breakfast energizer! Start work right!

#experientiallearning #creativity #energizer #boardgames #cardgames JJFS ThinkLab

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Get staff engaged with a creativity break or lunch gaming session

Fantasy Flight Games – Condottiere

Fantasy Flight started out as a publisher of European comics in the US. They weren't successful until they published the first edition of Twilight Imperium and have since grown to be the 5th largest publisher of boardgames in the world. They have in-house design, art, and development staff, but also are the US publishers of a variety of outside designs. They are known for their large quantities of quality components and flashy art style.

It is 13th century Italy. Trade is flourishing between the city-states and the Levant. Venice, Florence, and Genoa are all bursting with wealth. However, each city-state is also plagued with a weak national army, leaving them defenseless against invasion from their envious neighbors. Enter the Condottiere. As veteran English soldiers returned from the Crusades, Italy found itself with an influx of desperate and capable men. These hired swords were contracted to fight for individual city-states by an agreement known as a condotta. The most elite of these men were the mercenary leaders known as the Condottiere.

The object of Condottiere is to acquire four connected provinces in renaissance Italy. To do this players auction off different provinces on the board and bid on these provinces with a hand of cards representing mercenaries, seasons, scarecrows, and political figures. However, unlike standard auctions in which only the highest bidder loses their bid, in Condottiere every player loses their bid. Players are, in effect, bidding the number of troops they are willing to lose in order to win a province. However, several special effect cards shake the contests up and keep the players guessing.

This game is appropriate for teams looking to learn strategic planning, facing tough tactical decision making and also understanding the basics of auction strategy while playing this game.

#experientiallearning #learnbydoing #ffg #skillsfuture #SSG #gamebasedlearning #strategicplanning #tactical #auction #strategy @JJFSThinkLab

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Fantasy Flight Games – Legends of Andor

Legends of Andor is a cooperative adventure board game for two to four players in which a band of heroes must work together to defend a fantasy realm from invading hordes. To secure Andor's borders, the heroes will embark on dangerous quests over the course of five unique scenarios. But as the clever game system keeps creatures on the march toward the castle, the players must balance their priorities carefully. At the heart of Legends of Andor is its unique narrative, the linked scenarios of which tell an overarching story as the players successfully complete objectives. For each scenario, or "Legend", a legend deck conveys the plot of an ever-unfolding tale...one in which the players are the protagonists. A wooden marker moves along the board's legend track at key points during each scenario, triggering the draw of a new legend card, the introduction of new game-altering effects, and the advancement of the story's plot. In the end, the players must endeavor to guide the fate of Andor through their heroic actions, bringing a happy ending to their epic fantasy tale.

This game is appropriate for teams looking to learn empathy, a lot of tactical decision making and also creativity in story telling during the game.

#experientiallearning #learnbydoing #ffg #skillsfuture #SSG #gamebasedlearning #empathy #tactical #creativity #storytelling @JJFSThinkLab

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A Legends of Andor game

Fantasy Flight Games – Citadels

Fantasy Flight started out as a publisher of European comics in the US. They weren't successful until they published the first edition of Twilight Imperium and have since grown to be the 5th largest publisher of boardgames in the world. They have in-house design, art, and development staff, but also are the US publishers of a variety of outside designs. They are known for their large quantities of quality components and flashy art style. They have numerous games popular with gamers and these include numerous IP games like Marvel and Star Wars. We will be going through some of the top FFG games that you can use for your learning and training sessions.

In Citadels, players take on new roles each round to represent characters they hire in order to help them acquire gold and erect buildings. The game ends at the close of a round in which a player erects his/her eighth building. Players then tally their points, and the player with the highest score wins.

Players start with a number of building cards in their hand; buildings come in different colors, with colored buildings providing a benefit when you play particular characters. At the start of each round, each player has secretly chosen a character. Each character has a special ability, and the usefulness of any character depends upon your situation, and that of your opponents. The characters then carry out their actions in numerical order: the assassin eliminating another character for the round, the thief stealing all gold from another character, and so on. On a turn, a player may earn gold or construct buildings. In addition to points from buildings, at the end of the game a player scores bonus points for having eight buildings or buildings of all five colors. This game is appropriate for teams looking to learn empathy, some strategic decision making and also negotiating during the game.

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A game of Citadels in session!

Board Game Publishers – Fantasy Flight Games

Fantasy Flight started out as a publisher of European comics in the US. They weren't successful until they published the first edition of Twilight Imperium and have since grown to be the 5th largest publisher of boardgames in the world. They have in-house design, art, and development staff, but also are the US publishers of a variety of outside designs. They are known for their large quantities of quality components and flashy art style. They have numerous games popular with gamers and these include numerous IP games like Marvel and Star Wars. We will be going through some of the top FFG games that you can use for your learning and training sessions.

Some popular FFG games:

  • Twilight Imperium: Fourth Edition

  • Star Wars: Rebellion

  • Arkham Horror: The Card Game

  • Marvel Champions: The Card Game

  • Mansions of Madness: Second Edition

  • Star Wars: Imperial Assault

  • Citadels

  • Battlestar Galactica: The Board Game

  • A Game of Thrones: The Board Game (Second Edition)

  • Legends of Andor

  • The Lord of the Rings

  • Through the Desert

  • Fury of Dracula (Third/Fourth Edition)

  • Condottiere

  • Nexus Ops

skillsfuture ssg gamebasedlearning ffg fantasyflightgames

Some FFG games

Game designer series - Uwe Rosenberg – Le Havre

Uwe Rosenberg is a German game designer. He has become known mainly for his card game Bohnanza. He also designed Agricola, a game that dethroned Puerto Rico as the highest rated game on BoardGameGeek.com. Rosenberg is well known for the development of innovative card game mechanisms. Another main point of his work are the research-intensive games, that have peculiar historical events as their theme, and games that deal with clichés about men and women. Since 2005, he focusses on complex building games with an economic theme.

Le Havre: The Inland Port is a two-player game in which both players compete to become the richest harbormaster. How they do so? Players acquire resources, construct buildings and, after twelve rounds, score the total value of their buildings and their money in cash. Each round, a set of new, predefined buildings is added to the market. Both players now take turns by either building one of these buildings or by using an existing building's effects. To construct a building, players have to pay a certain amount of money and/or resources from their warehouse. Most of these buildings, in turn, allow to change the amount of resources on a player's warehouse board in a specific way when used. This is crucial to the game as players are restricted on how to fill or empty their warehouse. They have to combine and optimize these steps to max out the capacity of their warehouses. Players can even use their opponent's buildings, but they have to pay them money to do so. When a building is not used during a round, it steadily increases in worth as its effects can be used up to four times in subsequent rounds. But a building that is not used for too long has to be sold to the market for half its value! The game uses a wheel to track this status of each building in play.

#uwerosenberg #experientiallearning #learnbydoing #skillsfuture #ssg #economicgames #strategicgames #gamebasedlearning JJFS ThinkLab

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Game designer series - Uwe Rosenberg - Agricola

Uwe Rosenberg is a German game designer. He has become known mainly for his card game Bohnanza. He also designed Agricola, a game that dethroned Puerto Rico as the highest rated game on BoardGameGeek.com. Rosenberg is well known for the development of innovative card game mechanisms. Another main point of his work are the research-intensive games, that have peculiar historical events as their theme, and games that deal with clichés about men and women. Since 2005, he focusses on complex building games with an economic theme.

In Agricola, you're a farmer in a wooden shack with your spouse and little else. On a turn, you get to take only two actions, one for you and one for the spouse, from all the possibilities you'll find on a farm: collecting clay, wood, or stone; building fences; and so on. You might think about having kids in order to get more work accomplished, but first you need to expand your house. And what are you going to feed all the little rugrats? The game supports many levels of complexity, mainly through the use (or non-use) of two of its main types of cards, Minor Improvements and Occupations.

Agricola is a turn-based game. There are 14 game rounds occurring in 6 stages, with a Harvest at the end of each stage. Each player starts with two playing tokens (farmer and spouse) and thus can take two turns, or actions, per round. There are multiple options, and while the game progresses, you'll have more and more: first thing in a round, a new action card is flipped over. Problem: Each action can be taken by only one player each round, so it's important to do some things with high preference. Each player also starts with a hand of 7 Occupation cards and 7 Minor Improvement cards that he/she may use during the game if they fit in his/her strategy. Speaking of which, there are countless strategies, some depending on your card hand. Sometimes it's a good choice to stay on course, and sometimes it is better to react to your opponents' actions.

#uwerosenberg #experientiallearning #learnbydoing #skillsfuture #ssg #economicgames #strategicgames #gamebasedlearning JJFS ThinkLab

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A challenging yet strategic economic game - Agricola

Game designer series - Uwe Rosenberg - Bohnanza

Uwe Rosenberg is a German game designer. He has become known mainly for his card game Bohnanza. He also designed Agricola, a game that dethroned Puerto Rico as the highest rated game on BoardGameGeek.com. Rosenberg is well known for the development of innovative card game mechanisms. Another main point of his work are the research-intensive games, that have peculiar historical events as their theme, and games that deal with clichés about men and women. Since 2005, he focusses on complex building games with an economic theme.

In Bohnanza, you plant, then harvest bean cards in order to earn coins. Each player starts with a hand of random bean cards, and each card has a number on it corresponding to the number of that type of beans in the deck. Unlike in most other cards games, you can't rearrange the order of cards in hand, so you must use them in the order that you've picked them up from the deck — unless you can trade them to other players, which is the heart of the game.

On a turn, you must plant the first one or two cards in your hand into the "fields" in front of you. Each field can hold only one type of bean, so if you must plant a type of bean that's not in one of your fields, then you must harvest a field to make room for the new arrival. This usually isn't good! Next, you reveal two cards from the deck, and you can then trade these cards as well as any card in your hand for cards from other players. You can even make future promises for cards received right now! After all the trading is complete — and all trades on a turn must involve the active player — then you end your turn by drawing cards from the deck and placing them at the back of your hand.

When you harvest beans, you receive coins based on the number of bean cards in that field and the "beanometer" for that particular type of bean. Flip over 1-4 cards from that field to transform them into coins, then place the remainder of the cards in the discard pile. When the deck runs out, shuffle the discards, playing through the deck two more times. At the end of the game, everyone can harvest their fields, then whoever has earned the most coins wins.

#uwerosenberg #experientiallearning #learnbydoing #skillsfuture #ssg #economicgames #strategicgames #gamebasedlearning JJFS ThinkLab

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Game designer series - Uwe Rosenberg

Uwe Rosenberg is a German game designer. He has become known mainly for his card game Bohnanza. He also designed Agricola, a game that dethroned Puerto Rico as the highest rated game on BoardGameGeek.com.

Rosenberg first began to occupy himself with the development and mechanisms of games during his school years. During that time, he published a number of play-by-mail games, some of which are now available at www.omido.de. When he was a student, Amigo published his best-known game, Bohnanza. Since finishing his statistics studies in Dortmund, his main occupation is the development of games. In 2000, he founded the small publishing company Lookout Games. It published a number of expansions to Bohnanza, partly in cooperation with Hanno Girke. Larger projects were still published at other publishers, such as Amigo and Kosmos.

Rosenberg is well known for the development of innovative card game mechanisms. Another main point of his work are the research-intensive games, that have peculiar historical events as their theme, and games that deal with clichés about men and women. Since 2005, he focusses on complex building games with an economic theme: his first, Agricola, was released in 2007. As second game in this series, Le Havre was published in 2008.

Learning from Roleplaying games – Legacy of Dragonholt

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?

Legacy of Dragonholt is a narrative adventure game that creates a unique experience by blending aspects of roleplaying and adventure games, open world concept video games, and even Choose Your Own Adventure books. Unlike many games, Legacy of Dragonholt is not about winning or losing, but rather about the act of creating a story. Without the need for a Game Master, this game ensures that every player has the opportunity to shape how their adventure plays out while its intuitive gameplay means that you waste little time before jumping into your tale.

Before you first set out on your adventure, you must confront one of the most difficult questions in gaming: who will you become? Legacy of Dragonholt gives you the opportunity to play as one of six humanoid races that reside in Terrinoth: humans, elves, dwarves, orcs, gnomes, and catfolk. Next, you'll select a class, before defining your physical and personality traits, and scribing a personal history. Each of these features creates a multifaceted character and defines the types of traits you possess, which in turn affect how you will approach obstacles throughout your journey and how you'll contribute to your party. For an in-depth look at the character creation process, you may look at our previous article here. Once you've created your own unique character, you're ready to dive in to a narrative adventure unlike any you’ve seen before.

Once your journey begins, Legacy of Dragonholt combines two forms of gameplay between the comprehensive Village Book and the six quest books that provide the plotlines of your tales. Within Dragonholt Village, you will encounter many colorful characters, each with their own stories that progress and interweave regardless of your involvement. The world is yours to explore, but it is not yours to control. Like a real community, the places you can explore vary depending on when you visit, and your encounters with the locals change depending on your traits and past experiences. For instance, a bakery may only be open early in the day, and the baker themselves may take a shine to you if you’ve already met their cousin, or if they’ve heard of the great deeds you’ve accomplished earlier in your stay in the village. Outside the relative safety of the village, thrilling dangers and mysteries await that you can experience in six unique quests. You will investigate strange happenings within in the village and venture into the wilds beyond to journey through deep woods, delve into dark crypts, and confront creatures long thought dead. As you progress throughout the game you will find that, like your village experience, your quests also change based on your past experience, who you have or have not met, and how much time has passed. After all, if you learn that someone is in peril to the west of Dragonholt Village, they are not likely to wait patiently for three days while you explore in the east. Your actions have consequences, but ultimately the choice lies with you. You do not have to be a hero. This is your story, and it is yours to define.

#roleplayinggame #experientiallearning #learnbydoing #skillsfuture #ssg #teambuilding #empathy JJFS ThinkLab

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Learning from Roleplaying games – Spyfall

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?

Spyfall is a party game unlike any other, one in which you get to be a spy and try to understand what's going on around you. It's played over several rounds, and at the start of each round all players receive cards showing the same location — a casino, a traveling circus, a pirate ship, or even a space station — except that one player receives a card that says "Spy" instead of the location. Players then start asking each other questions — "Why are you dressed so strangely?" or "When was the last time we got a payday?" or anything else you can come up with — trying to guess who among them is the spy. The spy doesn't know where he is, so he has to listen carefully. When it's his time to answer, he'd better create a good story!

At any time during a round, one player may accuse another of being a spy. If all other players agree with the accusation, the round ends and the accused player has to reveal his identity. If the spy is uncovered, all other players score points. However, the spy can himself end a round by announcing that he understands what the secret location is; if his guess is correct, only the spy scores points.

After a few rounds of guessing, suspicion and bluffing, the game ends and whoever has scored the most points is victorious!

#roleplayinggame #experientiallearning #learnbydoing #skillsfuture #ssg #teambuilding #empathy JJFS ThinkLab

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Some of the Spyfall cards in the game - can be played f2f or virtually

Learning from Roleplaying games – Captain Sonar

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.

#roleplayinggame #experientiallearning #learnbydoing #skillsfuture #ssg #teambuilding #empathy JJFS ThinkLab

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Playing Captain Sonar

Learning from Roleplaying games - Betrayal at House on the Hill

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?

Betrayal at House on the Hill quickly builds suspense and excitement as players explore a haunted mansion of their own design, encountering spirits and frightening omens that foretell their fate. It is a tile game that allows players to build their own haunted house room by room, tile by tile, creating a new thrilling game board every time. The game is designed for three to six people, each of whom plays one of six possible characters. Secretly, one of the characters betrays the rest of the party, and the innocent members of the party must defeat the traitor in their midst before it’s too late! The game will appeal to anyone who enjoys a fun, suspenseful, and strategic game. Betrayal at House on the Hill includes detailed game pieces, including character cards, pre-painted plastic figures, and special tokens, all of which help create a spooky atmosphere and streamline game play.

#roleplayinggame #experientiallearning #learnbydoing #skillsfuture #ssg #teambuilding #empathy JJFS ThinkLab

Betrayal at House on the Hill characters

Learning from Roleplaying games

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. The first commercially available RPG game was Dungeons & Dragons published in 1974. The character building and story building systems in this game gave rise to the genre but other games have arguably perfected RPG gaming. Some of the best modern RPG tabletop games are also the most popular games out today:

•Gloomhaven

•Mage Knight

•Arkham Horror

•One Deck Dungeon

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?

#roleplayinggame #experientiallearning #learnbydoing #skillsfuture #ssg #teambuilding #empathy JJFS ThinkLab

playing rpg role playing games

Playing RPG role playing games as a team

Learning from Legacy Games – Pandemic Legacy

Legacy games are games that add some form of permanence to the game, where the game changes over time with each progressive gameplay. This could mean unlocking new content or it could mean modifying or destroying existing content. Either way, what you do during one game affects all future plays of that game. So the learning we can instill when playing legacy games is linking to business strategies and the potential impact of what we do. Systems Thinking is also a good subject to bring up as we have to consider future repercussions of our actions and plans that permanently change, and those changes affect other situations downstream – a cascading effect.

Pandemic Legacy is a co-operative campaign game, with an overarching story-arc played through 12-24 sessions, depending on how well your group does at the game. At the beginning, the game starts very similar to basic Pandemic, in which your team of disease-fighting specialists races against the clock to travel around the world, treating disease hotspots while researching cures for each of four plagues before they get out of hand.

During a player's turn, they have four actions available, with which they may travel around in the world in various ways (sometimes needing to discard a card), build structures like research stations, treat diseases (removing one cube from the board; if all cubes of a color have been removed, the disease has been eradicated), trade cards with other players, or find a cure for a disease (requiring five cards of the same color to be discarded while at a research station). Each player has a unique role with special abilities to help them at these actions. After a player has taken their actions, they draw two cards. These cards can include epidemic cards, which will place new disease cubes on the board, and can lead to an outbreak, spreading disease cubes even further. Outbreaks additionally increase the panic level of a city, making that city more expensive to travel to. Each month in the game, you have two chances to achieve that month's objectives. If you succeed, you win and immediately move on to the next month. If you fail, you have a second chance, with more funding for beneficial event cards.

During the campaign, new rules and components will be introduced. These will sometimes require you to permanently alter the components of the game; this includes writing on cards, ripping up cards, and placing permanent stickers on components. Your characters can gain new skills, or detrimental effects. A character can even be lost entirely, at which point it's no longer available for play.

#legacygame #experientiallearning #learnbydoing #skillsfuture #ssg #systemsthinking JJFS ThinkLab

#legacygame #experientiallearning #learnbydoing #skillsfuture #ssg #systemsthinking JJFS ThinkLab

A legacy game being played - watch out for spoilers!