The 4th game we played in EDL 290, was called Mysterium. In this game, one player acts as a silent ghost whose role is to lead the other players to the murderer by giving out ambiguous “dream” cards which are images made to aid in discovering the murder, murder weapon, and murder location. In this game there are 6 turns and during each of them the ghost gives each player a “dream” card and the player has to make a guess. The first turn a player has to guess who their person is, and if they guess correctly, the player will guess on the location on the next turn. But if they guess incorrectly, then they must wait to the next turn to guess again.

While the games itself is straightforward, the most difficult part is the interpretation of the dream cards. As they are ambiguous pictures, it is the ghost’s job to pick the right card that will lead to the player to make the right selection. The difficulty comes into play as the player does not know the reasoning as to why the ghost put that card down. The ghost could be trying to get the player to associate the colors with a certain subject, or a background/foreground image, or maybe the ghost did not have a good card so he just threw down a random one.

This is also where the leadership aspect plays in. Neither parties, the ghost nor the player, have a truly accurate understanding of what the other is thinking. As such this game places the burden on both players to think about and account for how the other is thinking and feeling. As a leader, one must do the same. One cannot be an effective leader without taking into account the feelings of others, nor can they reach their goal if they refuse to think outside of their own perspective.

I think that this would be a great game for professors to play. As a professor, one has the role to teach a certain subject to an entire class. The class, however, is not homogenous and consists of various students with various learning styles. To be an effective professor, one must be able to take into account that one strategy will not be universal and thus they must be prepared to take the time to try various strategies to fit the need of the student to reach their common objective.