Malcolm Ocean's roamblog

September 1st, 2025

edited 2025-09-02 · open in Roam
        • can you think of a fun game/social experiment one could play where each player is handed a piece of paper that is supposedly just to share with them their role in the game, but it actually describes a somewhat different game (some mix of "different framing" and straight up different rules!) and somehow in the course of the game the players find themselves in confusing conflicts about this, but (assuming reasonably friendly and metacognitively aware players) they're able to sort it out to some extent, but not like, fully sort it out before the game is over, like usually still some ambiguity.

          think about it from a few different angles, and consider analogies with other games with secret info and complex win-conditions, like one-night ultimate werewolf. the game itself could be one where actually everybody can win but some players are led to believe that their win-condition will NOT be one that other players will tolerate. or it could be one where not everybody can win, or where each player believes everybody is working towards a collaborative win condition when in fact no such condition exists. you might consider analogies to real-world situations, whether office politics, war, family dynamics, sports, [add more items to this list], etc,

          consider all the different possible combinations of these kinds of variations, and come up with a sketch or two for each one, then critique each of the ideas, then present me with your best ideas, in the form of a set of different player-cards that would go together. note that the player cards need to contain the entire ruleset, because the whole point is that we're giving people these cards to read in order to understand the game, not just to hand them their role. but you can make a note before you write out the cards, of which rules would be 100% in common between the roles.
      • Activity
        • Explicit and implicit rules are an expression of every culture. It doesn’t matter whether it’s the culture of a country or of a company or of a department in a company,  rules regulate how we live with each other. Getting to grips with ‘foreign’ rules is the main issue at the heart of this learning project.
      • How It’s Done
        • It begins very simply. On each table, the participants warm up by practising how to play with specially developed dice and also get to grips with the rules of the game.  After a while, they are no longer allowed to speak and the game starts. After a brief period, some of the participants change tables. But what they don’t know is that each table has different rules on how to play the game! Unable to speak, they have to come to terms with the strange situation, i.e., either learn the new rules or ‘import’ their own. This ‘culture’ shock is a real eye-opener. The participants tangibly experience what it feels like to be in a new environment and what is needed to find your way around.
      • related but more anthropological
      • it's a good parallax / stereopsis / hyperobject game
      • literally creating a shared 3D reality based on each of the visionaries having a different projection of the whole thing
      • > Just like in the real world, building the FutureCity requires “Visionaries” and “Doers” to work well together. Each Visionary has a picture card containing the relevant information for their construction project, but they are not allowed to show their cards either to the other Visionaries or the Doers. The Visionaries must solely rely on clever communication to coordinate their plans with each other and with the Doers – because only the Doers are allowed to touch the building blocks they will use to construct the FutureCity. Only when all of the team members really coordinate properly with each other can the building project be constructed step by step according to plan. But, be careful, because the building blocks look different from the different perspectives. Just because the building block looks blue to one Visionary doesn’t by any stretch of the imagination mean it looks the same to another. This learning project is ideal for group sizes of 4 to 24 participants and can be adapted to suit the desired level of difficulty.
      • different multi-perspectival one, probably worse for any of my purposes
  • here's a simple team-building exercise version of the omniwin training game, where the details are specified but if the group fixates on the number (needed, or willing to pay) rather than the specific need, it will seem like a win-win isn't possible
    • has some interesting stuff about culture and negotiations
    • and there's some (apparent) incentive to not reveal information
      • although in fact zero actual incentive to not attend to the question of "what part of the orange, specifically, does each team need?"
      • tired: having a theme for your slide deck
        wired: having a bespoke ai-generated image fill each slide of your deck, with no overall coherence
      • what if we published, on a per-airline AND per-airport basis, the monthly number of lost and damaged bags? simple way to encourage quality, without adding regulations or requiring consumers to sue
        • QT donella info flows