Category Archives: Assignments

Game of the Week Blog Reflection (For Class on 2/10/2022): Mysterium

    Recently, our class got together to play Mysterium, a cooperative social-deduction game where the players take on one of two different roles, with one player as the “Ghost” and the one to six other players as the Psychic Investigators. At its core, Mysterium is a game all about communication, as the Ghost attempts to inform the Investigators who the suspects of their murder are and which suspect killed them, without being able to speak. Instead, the Ghost must use the intricate artwork on the dream cards they draw to try and hint to the Investigators which specific suspect, location and weapon that they are trying to find. It is this particular aspect that, as the Ghost, I found the most difficult. There were many times where I felt as if the dreams I had drawn simply did not fit with any of the items I was trying to help the Investigators find, but I still needed to give them something. At other times though, I thought that I had found the perfect card to give to an Investigator, something that would point them directly to the object I wanted them to guess, but they would then notice all of the details in the picture that I had ignored. In both of these situations, the Investigators were ultimately led away from the suspect, location or weapon that I was trying to indicate.

    The session as a whole was very much like this example, as while we did have some successes as a group, there were still many players by the end of the game who were unable to complete their set. I still personally attribute this loss to my general lack of experience with the game and my poor use of the dreams I was given, as there were many dreams that I handed out that simply led the Investigators more astray, or that failed to communicate what I intended. Of course, not all dreams led to failures, as some of the Investigators were able to complete their set within the given number of rounds. There was even one particular round where I found a dream that was perfect for a particular location, allowing that Investigator to guess their location with only one dream. However, for every large success, my session featured a similarly large failure, as one suspect took a very large number of dreams for their Investigator to find them. 

    However, while our session may have ended in a loss, I still feel that we could draw some interesting parallels between Mysterium and leadership as a result of it. While communication was easily the most difficult part of this game, I also feel that it is the part that this game shares the most in common with leadership, as having good communication with your team is very important for successful leaders. If a leader is unable to communicate exactly what their vision is with their teammates, there could be a large amount of confusion in what exactly the leader is asking their team to do, or what their goal even is. Similarly, if the Ghost in Mysterium is unable to use their dreams to effectively communicate with the Investigators, the Investigators will have no idea what the Ghost is actually trying to indicate to them, and will be forced to simply go off of their best guess of what the Ghost intended rather than the actual answer.

    Overall, despite our session ending in failure, I did enjoy my time with Mysterium. Being forced to turn strange, abstract artwork into a clue with a very specific meaning is a very interesting and fun concept, and I imagine with practice I might be able to better communicate with my Investigators just what my dreams are supposed to indicate. I would also be interested in playing the game again, but as an Investigator instead, so I can see how I do at the game when I’m trying to interpret the dreams handed to me rather than handing out the dreams myself. Not only that, but the experience of playing Mysterium has also helped me to understand just how important it is to have strong communication as a leader.

The Murder Mystery at Mysterium Manor

I love cooperative games. Even within the genre “cooperative”, there is so much variety in games. There may be players working in a team against other players as in Codenames or all of the players working together against the game itself as in Pandemic. However, as is the case for this Game of the Week, there is no enemy or clear adversary. In Mysterium, the challenge lies in communication — or lack thereof. One player acts as the Ghost, trying to get a team of Psychics to correctly deduce combinations of suspects, locations, and weapons to solve their murder. The challenge? The Ghost can make no sounds, give no facial expressions nor gestures, and must only communicate to the Psychics using a limited supply of cards beautifully illustrated with abstract images. It is up to the Psychics to figure out what messages the Ghost is trying to convey with these cards to solve the crime.

During class, I played the role of the Ghost, and I can say with confidence that having such limited communication with your teammates makes it really difficult to win Mysterium. That is also illustrated by the fact that there was a 0% win rate in class among the 3 groups. The Psychics are dependent on the Ghost giving them clues about the sets of suspects-locations-weapons, but the art on those clue cards are so colorful and detailed! Having to match the 7 clues in my hand to the 5 cards that the 5 Psychics had to guess while also paying attention to the other 6 cards I had the steer the Psychics away from… Creating a connection between the clues and the cards was hard enough. Knowing the Psychics had to figure out what my thought processes were for each clue made me squirm in my seat and hide behind my screen for fear of giving away too much information with my reactions. I think the hardest part of the game for me was biting my tongue while listening to the Psychics discuss what their answers should be. I wanted desperately to praise the players who understood my line of thinking, warn the players who got attached to the wrong details, and hint to one side of the table to look at the clues I’d given out to the other side.

When thinking about this game in terms of leadership, my mind keeps coming back to all of the things I couldn’t do as the Ghost. I couldn’t encourage my players for doing a good job. I couldn’t explain my thinking with misinterpreted clues. I remember watching in horror as one of my players guessed literally every other suspect than the one I wanted him to pick because I couldn’t say, “Let’s forget that last clue I gave you because I definitely gave you the wrong idea with it.” Playing a game with no communication really goes to show how important communication is for succeeding. Being able to clear up confusion verbally would have made the game trivial, yes, but applying this game to the real world, open discussion and being able to clear up previous mistakes is so very, very important.

I think Mysterium is a fantastic game. I recommend, however, to play it with family or a group of close friends first. Anybody who loves a game of Charades, loves beautiful art and aesthetics, and doesn’t mind waiting patiently for the Ghost to set-up or disperse clues would love this game. I suggest to play with a group of people you know very well first as an “easy mode” introduction to the game. You’ll know the thought processes of family and friends, and can get a handle on the rules of the game. Then, give it a try with strangers or acquaintances for an added challenge.

Game of the Week Blog Reflection (For Class on 1/27/2022): Ultimate Werewolf

This past week, our class got together to play a session of Ultimate Werewolf, a hidden role game where the players are divided into two teams, the Villagers and the Werewolves. However, as it is a hidden role game, none of these allegiances or roles are known from the beginning of the game, and this plays into what I personally believe was the most difficult part of the game, the beginning. Since no one had been eliminated yet, and no one’s role had been revealed, we had no information to go off of before eliminating our first player. As such, the discussions in the game’s early rounds often took very long to start, and had very little direction. However, as the game progressed and more information was revealed, discussions became easier to start and had a clearer direction to go off of. 

As for the session as a whole, I was given the role of the Seer at the beginning of the game, a role that is very powerful as they can determine which players are villagers and which are werewolves. As such, it was very concerning to me for the Villager team when the Werewolves managed to eliminate me in one of the earlier nights. My concern only grew as the game progressed, and the Apprentice Seer revealed themselves in an attempt to gain trust, an attempt that was then turned around entirely by the Sorceress pretending to be the Seer. After that point, things appeared very bleak for the villagers as they continued to lose more of their ranks, even if they had eliminated the Sorceress, until toward the end of the game when the Wolf Cub and one of the Werewolves had been eliminated. During the final round, the Hunter was chosen as the person the village was going to kill, and as their final act they chose one the last remaining Werewolf as the person they wanted to take out with them, which allowed the villagers to win the game! Overall, while I certainly did not enjoy being eliminated as early as I was, the game as a whole was entertaining, and it was interesting to see what conclusions people came to as the game progressed.

However, just what ties does Ultimate Werewolf have to leadership? I think that the ties here can be seen in just how discussions functioned, as the discussions tended to have one person in particular who “led” them, and this leader changed each round. This leader may have simply been the first person to speak up, it may have been the person who discussed possible strategies the villagers could use, or it may have been the player that had the most compelling reason for eliminating someone. No matter the situation that led to them becoming the leader though, doing so appeared to come with some risk, as they were often targeted by other villagers or by the Werewolves. Not only that, but choosing someone to eliminate is a risk itself, as eliminating the wrong person will shift the target that you placed on them over to yourself instead. I feel that this is an interesting parallel to leadership in the real world, as part of being a good leader involves taking risks, as only with those risks do you get closer to your goal. However, if those risks are not managed well, they may cause more harm than good.

Alongside this idea of risks and leadership though, I would also like to discuss my own play style for this game, or at the very least my plans for it as I was unfortunately eliminated rather early on. I was not planning on taking many risks unless I could be certain that they would lead to a positive outcome for the team. This was partly because of my role as the Seer, a role that I felt was very powerful since it could identify Werewolves with no doubts. As such, I did not want to draw too much attention to myself during the discussions unless I knew whether a target that was being discussed was a Villager or a Werewolf, and would then attempt to draw the discussion away from that person or toward them while trying not to draw too much attention to myself. Though, while I did not want to draw too much attention to myself as the Seer, this is actually quite similar to my usual level of risk taking. I am usually quite worried about taking a risk unless I am certain that the potential rewards are worth it. 

Overall, I certainly did enjoy our session of Ultimate Werewolf despite being eliminated rather early on, as even watching Social Deduction games like this can be quite fun. Not only was it fun though, it also revealed just inseparable risk-taking and leadership are, as being a leader both involves making risky decisions and drawing attention to yourself as a result.

Game of the Week Blog Reflection 1: Ultimate Werewolf

For the first week of class we all played Ultimate Werewolf in which I was only a villager. This complicated the game for me since I was one of the few players without any special abilities to use. On top of that I was targeted by Virginia Woolf meaning I would die if they were voted out. Due to these limitations I decided to play riskier and take a more active role in the discussion. I made a point to explain details and strategies that could be hard for new players such as always checking who is silenced to know if the spellcaster has died. I didn’t have any in-game ability worth trying to stay hidden so I figured that would be the most beneficial thing I could do for my team.

The session was an interesting game as one of the werewolves’ allies the minion was voted out first, but the seer was also the first to be killed. The sorceress tricked the villagers into voting out the apprentice seer but we quickly got them and one of the wolves out. There were also several rounds with no deaths which likely helped the village a ton. With no reliable information left to find werewolves the group mostly voted out whoever was silenced including myself. This is usually a bad strategy but unfortunately it is somewhat common. Since the spellcaster was in love with one of the werewolves everyone was reluctant to vote them out, but the hunter risked shooting them after dying which won us the game.

Ultimate Werewolf is a very popular game that I have played many times. SGC usually runs the game at all the League of Geek events and it always draws in a lot of players. Social deduction games are great both because of the puzzle of trying to figure out other players roles and because you get to lie. Lying and tricking other people in a safe environment just for fun can be a lot of fun. There is obviously the downside of dying early and having to sit out for the entire rest of the game. Even then though Werewolf can be exciting just watching it play out and seeing everything at night happen. I look forward to most likely playing this game again at Recon later this semester.

Campus Gaming Event: Metamorphosis Alpha

I was sitting in Armstrong back in early March when I saw an advertisement for the Western Center. They were looking for people to join their Metamorphosis Alpha roleplaying game, so I figured I would throw my hat in the ring. The DM of the group was The Western Center Coordinator, Billy Simms. We set up a time to make my character and explain how the game works. 

Metamorphosis Alpha is a D6 system set in the far future when humanity has left earth and lives on a gigantic spaceship. This ship has been drifting around a radioactive black hole for thousands of years, causing the humans to mutate into horrifying monsters that now roam the ship. My character was one of the lucky humans frozen in cryosleep and protected from a majority of the radiation. He was woken up and tossed into a vast wilderness section of the ship armed only with a plasma rifle and a knife. The party later discovered this area to be an old zoo. My character is named Atom, a moniker he gave himself after realizing he could adjust the space between his molecules, which grants him the ability to grow and shrink. Characters in Metamorphosis Alpha have eleven skills ranging from amazing to hopeless. The standard role in using a skill is d6, with a certain number of successes needed for the overall action to succeed. An amazing skill adds 3d6, a good skill adds 2d6, a competent skill adds 1d6, a weak skill subtracts 1d6, and finally, characters cannot attempt hopeless skills. Atom was a sniper and mechanic back on earth, so he was disciplined, knew a lot about technology, good with a rifle, and constantly alert. 

Since I joined midway through the semester, Atom first appeared as a threat to the adventuring party. He guarded a swan bridge and thought the party was his next target. Out of the bushes walked a humanoid venus flytrap (think the piranha plant from Super Smash Bros), an owl holding a futurist tablet, and a Gila monster wielding a vibrosword. The negotiations were tense, but they won over Atom with clever wordplay. From then on, Atom journeyed with the party battling mutated armadillos, robotic zookeepers, a holographic dinosaur, and a totalitarian turtle bent on taking over the zoo. 

I had such a good time that I decided to keep coming back each week until we wrapped up during finals week. This semester has been a really stressful one and so sitting down at my computer on Tuesdays from 2:30-4 and laughing with a bunch of people I’ve never met before helped me not get lost in the isolation that covid brought with it. Playing online RPGs like Metamorphosis Alpha has been an essential part of my Covid isolation survival, and I bet lots of other people felt the same way.

DnD Reflection

The allure of Dungeons and Dragons began all the way back at the beginning of the semester when we first designed characters. I decided to build a big red Dragonborn paladin of
Bahamut. Personally, I was most excited about this game because I play Pathfind on a regular basis and was tangentially familiar with the DnD system already. Everything revolves around your stats which come from the point buy system. I have never used it before as instead I have always rolled three d6s and totaled them together. From there we divided up into two adventuring parties based on our classes. My group had a paladin, rogue, and sorcerer who were there for two session and then a fighter and cleric who swapped out between them. We were hired by a dwarven merchant to protect his caravan from dangers in the forest.

Session one began with us pulling up to a crossroads with two dead horses in the road. On high alert now, we spread out to look for the source of danger. The rogue and the sorcerer found the trouble hiding in a few bushes off to the side of the forest while I carefully examined a cliff face for any danger. The goblins opened fire on us with their short bows, but being goblins missed nearly every attack against us. It was here the first proper bit of roleplaying immerged with a friendly rivalry developing between myself and the rogue. It was very similar to the back and forth between Legolass and Gimili. The challenge was to prove who was the best fighter between us. Little did we realize, the sorcerer would turn out to be just as deadly with her cross bow as I was with my hammer or the rogue was with her knives.

We made quick work of the goblins thanks to a critical hit and slashing blades until only one remained. As the paladin and moral compass of the group, I elected to offer the goblin its life and eternal redemption in the eyes of Bahamut in exchange for information on where the goblin base of operation. This goblin turned out to be named Maglub and became my squire, torchbearer, and student. I carried them in like Luke carried Yoda in the swamps of Dagobah. Maglub guided us through the forest and past a few traps that may have spelled out doom. The journey presented itself as great opportunity for roleplay as the other characters joked about how devote in my faith to the Great Winging One. Sesson one wrapped up with the rogue and sorcerer sneaking ahead to knockout and drown a pair of goblin senties while I taught Maglub about the tenants of Bahamut.

Session two began right where we left off, in front of the goblin lair. It was pitch black inside and only our sorcerer could see. She and the rogue lead a scouting party inside before they stumbled upon several wolves that were chained to a rock. They were by far the most dangerous threat to our group because they could actually deal damage to us. One almost killed me, but thanks to my divine healing, I pulled through. There was also a tied up captive in this chamber who shadowed us for the rest of the trip so we could keep them safe. Then came what I think was the most enjoyable part of the adventure: the trash shoot. The shoot rose 30 feet up into the cave to presumable the boss room. We thought it would be good idea for someone to do some recon so we could figure out what we were up against. Turns out that a bugbear was running this goblin gang. Once the rogue was about half way up the shaft, the bugbear decided that he would releave himself into the shoot. I was at the bottom to catch the rogue if she fell, but I think Bahamut smiled on me because I remained dry. The rogue was not so lucky.

We decided it would be better to go through the cave normally as our shortcut was now wet. This is when our sorcerer became a dead eye. She shot three goblins before they even knew she was there. The rogue took care of the other two within second and we were clear to approach the boss’s lair. We stormed in weapons drawn. I let loose my massive fire breath, the rogue threw a dagger, and the sorcerer shot some bolts into the fray. We left without a scratch on us. Victorious. The hardest part about DnD for me was getting the rules mixed up with Pathfinder. They are just similar enough for me to feel confident in a ruling and be wrong. I would recommend DnD to everyone. Where the challenge comes in is that it can be hard to find a group that you feel comfortable playing with. Once you do however, DnD can be a great experience for everyone involved.

Game of the Week Blog Reflection 12: Free Play

This week is a free play week, and I played Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege with my classmate Leon, this game is a 5 vs 5 FPS game, there are offense side and defense side, and there are lots of characters with unique skills on each side, each player can choose which character they want to use for this round before the game begin. Leon was very good at this game; his rank was at least at Diamond. During the class time, we played two games and he carried our team a lot, so we win both two games.

I think I like this game very much, because my favorite game CSGO is also a 5 vs 5 FPS game, so there are many similar parts between these 2 games, they are both competitive and required a lot of communications. However, the map in R6 is much more different than in CSGO. In CSGO, the buildings are not destroyable which means that enemies cannot make a hole on the wall and watch your team’s moving direction. In R6, you can even destroy a whole wall make the map totally different. So, I think the hardest point is the same as playing CSGO, it needs a long time to learn, otherwise, you will never be a good player in R6.

For the leadership part of R6, I think it is very important to communicate with each other. If at team has no communication, but the other team has, then the game will be like 1 vs 5 but not 5 vs 5, which means the team without communication would have a very high probability to lose. So, I think communication is the most important thing in this game, it will make 5 players a team, but not five individual players.

I think all of my friends who play CSGO with me will also like this game, because they are very similar games except the map.

Game of the Week Blog Reflection Week 10: D&D Week 2

This week, we played the game D&D, and this is my first game of D&D since I missed last week’s class, and I never played this game before, but I knew this is a very famous board game. So, I was very excited to play this game during the class session. During the class session, the DM helped me to insert my character, which is a monk, and I began my first adventure on D&D. We adopted three wolves to against the big Goblin, and we killed the big Goblin by one of ours ultimate.

I think the hardest point during I play this game is there are so many choices, and I do not know which I should choose. As a rookie to D&D, I think others’ experience might not be that good if they play with me, so I think this might be a part I dislike the game. However, for the game itself, I think it is very interesting, I can build my own character and I can create my own adventure story when I am playing the game.

For the leadership part of this game, I think it is most about the decision making. There are so many choices in the game and as a leader, you must think which one is best for your team. A good leader will always make the right choice for the team based on all the information the leader has. For example, in this D&D game, a leader can choose to fight with the boss directly or use some tricks to give the team advantages during the fight. If the team is under a good situation, then a leader might choose to fight with the boss directly, but if the team is not under a good situation, then the leader should think about what to do to make sure the tam can win the fight.

I think my roommate Steven will like the game, because he always like to make decisions and he did a good job on making right decisions in the past.

Game of the Week Blog Reflection: Free Play

This week we had the opportunity to pick which game we wanted to play for the duration of the class period and I picked Lasers and Feelings along with some of my classmates. Lasers and Feelings is a super quick role-playing game, the back story is that we are a part of a crew in outer space exploring and consorting with friendly and deadly aliens. Our captain of the spaceship is unconscious because he has fallen ill due to some unknown cause so we are left to fend for ourselves. I had a lot of fun designing my character, I chose to be an android doctor called Metallica who is better with feelings (such as intuition, seduction, diplomacy, etc.) and has the primary goal of continuing to be awesome.

In our gaming session, the crew and I were able to explore an old ship that has been sending out distress signals for years. Upon arrival, we found the entire crew slaughtered and only one android present claiming to be the captain but really was a spy sent to destroy the earth realm. Despite my best efforts to avoid violence, several crew members used their laser guns and laser lightsabers to kill the android, safely return to our ship, and blow up the other bloody ship.

I would recommend this role-playing game to everyone because it is super fun, low maintenance, and easy to learn/follow. Anyone can play it and it can be adapted to match the age and maturity of the players. Another thing I like is that it is quick and you don’t have to worry about remembering what happened in the last session. My favorite part of the game was witnessing Ian being hilarious and a great roleplayer, he really gets into character and that’s when you have the best experience.

D&D Week 3 Blog Reflection

Last week, we didn’t have class so we wrapped up the final week of D&D. We didn’t get to finish the quest but my team and I killed a lot of goblins and wolves so I would say it was a pretty successful journey. There were lots of laughs and even a couple of plot twists like me killing a goblin who was just a father trying to provide for his family. I enjoyed role-playing and interacting with my fellow classmates, we already agreed that going through modules together maybe something we do this summer.

After class, we had a really good discussion on if leadership is a person, a process, a position, or a combination of all three and if it ever ends. JS brought up a very good point that there is no definitive definition of what leadership is and it will look different to different people but none of us are wrong. In my opinion, I believe that leadership is a combination of all of the above but mostly the person. Someone could be a leader to others even if they don’t have the “leadership position” or “title”. I also think that leadership is very subjective because it will look different depending on the situation, I could be a leader of two different groups and be authoritarian in one but democratic in the other. Furthermore, I believe that leadership never fully ends. You may have leaders that step-down or pass the position on to someone else but people will never stop looking up to that person or using them as guidance. One could even be a leader after death through their legacy.

Overall, I would still recommend this game to everyone I know because it never gets old since the players are in control of the plot and there are different stories to choose from. This game is one of my favorite role-playing games and is up there with Fiasco. I look forward to seeing what we play in class next week for Free play!