In week 4 of class, we played a Role Playing Game (RPG) called Fiasco. This was an entirely novel experience for me as I’ve never played an RPG before. The goal of the game, after selecting your playset and defining relationships between characters, is strictly to come up with the best possible scenes with your group. I really enjoyed working with my team, especially since none of us knew each other. It added a little element of fun with the whole nothing-to-lose aspect. I would say that the session went well. It was full of a lot of hysterical laughs and smiles.

The most difficult part of the game for me was absolutely acting out scenes. I’ve never done much improv before in terms of performances, but I really had to think hard on my feet to avoid any awkwardness, or worse, being the person who the scene went poorly for. I noticed that I got tense at times when I wanted scenes to either continue rolling or go differently, but my improv skills weren’t up to speed to control the scene.

I really think that my younger brothers would enjoy playing this game. They love to come up with whatever they can, and to act out all the time, so I feel Fiasco may be right up their alley.

In our first week of class, we played a turn-based game called Ultimate Werewolf, where two teams were pitted against each other, the villagers, and you guessed it, the werewolves. Each “night,” the werewolves had a chance to get together and choose a villager to kill. Most times, this would work out, unless there was a specific villager who got to save that specific person. The game was interesting to me, as we got to talk amongst the entire group between night phases to try and figure out who was who.

This brought out the hardest part of the game to me, understanding how much information I could or should give out without identifying my own self. I felt that this directly ties into leadership, at least in examples I’ve seen in my own experience. Sometimes, you will possess information that could be of value to a larger group of people, but it may bring you more personal harm than good to share that information. These are conflicts that we will have to face on a recurring basis throughout the entirety of our careers.

I found myself less-than-likely to take risks in Ultimate Werewolf, I believe mainly out of fear of being “killed,” which is very much not like my genuine approach to leadership. If I believe in something, it is often shared or acted upon without fear of retribution from others.

I can very much see my family at home enjoying this game with some of my Aunts, Uncles, and cousins. With a level of familiarity within the group, I really think we would enjoy playing together.