For this week’s game session, the class played the role-playing game Fiasco. When looking over the pre-class materials discussing the game, I was initially intrigued by the gameplay process. When going over the rules, I felt as if this game was creating a small self-made movie which was really interesting to me not only for the fact that I believe that I am a great “up and coming actress” even if it’s only in my head. What I really enjoyed about the game overall was the autonomy the game provided me to express my creativity and really stretch the limits to my imagination.

In this session, my group and I focused on setting up the game and completing Act #1. Initially, it was very hard for my group to get started. No one had ever played a role-playing game and not everyone had read or watched the instructions. Once we got over the first hurdle of finally understanding the game rules, we encountered another barrier which was getting everyone comfortable acting out their roles and using their creativity and imagination to mold an overall story. When this challenge arose I felt that I had to “Encourage the Heart” of my fellow players in order to encourage them to get into the game. That proved to be somewhat successful because we managed to come up with some sort of storyline that made sense. I even got a few of them to laugh however, I feel that if my team players came with a more open attitude and a little more motivation the first half of the game could have been more enjoyable for myself and everyone else.

When looking back at the first session I feel that my personal values of encouraging others and going against the grain and relinquishing my control to the other players came into play. I tried to give my other players the benefit of the doubt that we all have never played a role-playing game before however, I ended up feeling a little disappointed because my expectations for the game were significantly high before I chose my group of players to play with. Even though I was a little frustrated with how my group played the first half of the game I was determined to keep positive and to get to the end of the game which was finalized in the second week of playing Fiasco.

For our second in-class session, we focused our time around two specific games, Pandemic and Forbidden Island. Before we came to class we were instructed to read and view the video instructions so that we could dive right into playing the games as soon as class started. Now, before I looked at the directions, I assumed that they would be easy to understand. However, when I looked over the game rule book and the videos I was collectively confused and concerned whether I would ever understand how to play any of these games.

When it came time for class, the first game I decided to start playing was forbidden island. Out of the two games, the instructions for forbidden island were a little less daunting to me. I was joined by three of my fellow classmates who were also unfamiliar and confused by the game as well. After taking 15min to try and figure out how to play the game, we started off slowly but surely on our way to an amusing time. What I found to be most challenging for this game was the fact that neither myself nor my other classmates knew how to play the game, so collectively we found it a bit frustrating and confusing to play the game the right way.

Even though we were all new to the game we powered through it by encouraging one another and sharing the leadership within the group. when we were unsure about how to proceed one member would speak up and reiterate the rules of the game and give us the confidence we needed to complete the game.

When looking back at our gameplay in a leadership aspect, I would tie it back to encouraging the heart from the student leadership challenge. I feel that throughout my team’s game session we really tried our best to encourage one another to get through the game and surprisingly ended up winning the first round we played.

Overall, I enjoyed playing forbidden island and wouldn’t be opposed to playing it again. I think the game allowed me to build self-confidence and helped me understand that in times of uncertainty it is important to always keep a sense of encouragement in order to make it through difficult times.

During our first-in-class session, we played a game called ultimate werewolf. When I first heard that we would be playing this game, I was initially excited because this would be my second time playing. As I could remember from my first time playing, I did very poorly in the role that I held. With that in mind, I was determined to do my very best to win the game this time and redeem myself from when I played before. However, that was tested when I was finally given my role.

When I was assigned my role for this game, I was assigned as a cub wolf. Immediately when I saw this, fear entered my psyche. What I found difficult about this role was that instead of being with the majority of the other players as a villager, I was allied with only two other wolves who were trying to conceal themselves among the majority. What I also found difficult was that during the game I could not communicate with my other teammates. We could only communicate by pointing our fingers and keeping eye contact with each other ( the mask didn’t help either).

In the end, however, we somehow ended up getting rid of all of the villagers with only one casualty near the end of the game. When I look back on how leadership was incorporated within the game, I come to the conclusion that I had to work really hard to challenge the process. I really had to trust others to lead in the decision of who to eliminate and put my faith in them that we would survive the game session.

Overall, I really enjoyed playing ultimate werewolf. I feel that I really improved from my first time playing and found it really interesting to play in such a large group that my class had. It made the experience more challenging and fun. I can’t wait to play again!.