Category Archives: Games

Ladies And Gentlemen

Though we got off to a delayed and scrambled start, by the time we got to the second day phase we were all trying our best to figure out how to play and have some fun with the voices. We had fun trying to address each other in outrageous posh voices and attempt to understand our partners.

I started playing as just the gentleman, but then partway through, after it would have taken too much time to start over with the odd person playing the courtesan, a player playing a lady seemed to lose all connection and after several attempts to bet in touch with them I played the part of their lady as well until they could either return or time was up. I was pleased that everyone was so willing to work around misunderstanding parts of the game at first and relax together to have fun.

Leadership in this game was a little less obvious to me than in previous games. To me it came through in having to be able to trust your partner to pick up on your cues and pick the best choices. It was a balancing act of preparing and trying to make the most of your side and trusting that your partner will do the same.

Free Play 2

This weeks game play was a free play and my group of 4 chose to play Among Us. I actually downloaded the game as an app on my phone and found it pretty easy to use in this format. Our game play went extremely well and I think we all enjoyed ourselves. We played multiple rounds with different numbers of players each round. We had a chance to type in the chat with strangers and it kept us entertained.

The hardest part about this game was keeping it a secret when given the role of the imposter. Since we all were on the zoom call and chatted throughout the game, often I found myself almost giving away my role or having a hard time speaking when I was the imposter. I really liked that this game was easy to play and easy to learn. I did not know the rules of the game coming in to today and I learned within 5 minutes.

This game ties to leadership because you are part of a team. Whether an imposter or a crewmate you are responsible for making your team win and that requires leading your teammates to success. However, focusing on the enjoyment factor of the game, it was easy to learn and easy to play and allowed for us to chat with each other. If I were to play this game again I would invite my boyfriend to play. I think we both would have a laugh trying to keep it a secret of who is what and messaging others in the chat. Overall it was an enjoyable week!

Ladies and Gentlemen – Reflection 6

This week we played Ladies and Gentlemen. Honestly, it did not go as smoothly as I would have pictured. Tabletop Simulator made it difficult with all the moving pieces and we had a member drop out in the beginning, who was my partner. I decided to take the role of a gentlemen, simply because I am a business major and enjoy the stock market, so thought this role would suit me better than the lady role.

I think the hardest part of this game was moving all the pieces simultaneously. I think this part of the game would have been easier in person, but is very difficult over the web. I also think it would have been more enjoyable in person, reaching over each other to grab the resources, creating an exciting environment. What I liked most about this game the simplicity of the male character and how easy it was to learn his part. I believe the lady role was a tad bit more difficult, but I would like to try that role if I had the chance to play again. I think this game ties to leadership because you are taking on a character who is responsible for another person. Essentially you are leading a team of 2 to help each other succeed by being successful at the ball.

If I were to play this game again I would want my mom to play with me. She is a multitasker and enjoys a busy environment, so I think she would enjoy the environment this game creates. She also won’t take the time to learn an overly complex game and I believe I could teach her this game in a reasonable amount of time.

Week 3 – D&D

This weeks game play went well. We were missing one of our players, but things ran smoothly still. It was interesting because we have the chance to explore a town, which we hadn’t gotten to do the last 2 times. It made me realize the amount of freedom one has in the game and how they can really choose to explore anything they desire. Griff did a great job of helping guide us in decision making when we were stuck or confused.

The hardest part about this week’s game was the amount of decisions we had to make. While I enjoyed the freedom of exploring the town, I also felt it was challenging to decide what to actually do once there because I have never played this game before. I thought this hard decision making tied to leadership because leaders are often forced to make decisions for the group and they aren’t always easy. A leader may be making a decision in which they do not know all the effects or consequences of this decision, but consider all their options and choose which they believe will lead to the best choice.

If I were to play this game again I think it would be interesting to play with my brother and his best friends. They are a great group of guys who enjoy making jokes constantly. Because of this I think they would make the game enjoyable and constantly have me laughing. They have never played before and I think it would be nice to play with other inexperienced players as it is less intimidating. Overall, I had a positive experience playing D&D for the first time.

D&D Week 2

This week we played D&D again, continuing our game from last week. I thought this weeks game play went even smoother than last week. We defeated Cleric together as a team, which made us all work together. I had a better time this week as I began to understand a lot more of the rules and had a chance to start using spells. I liked using different spells as it kept me engaged in the game. The only thing I really don’t like about the game is that there are so many different rules it seems like it would be hard to really know all of them without looking different things up constantly.

The hardest part about the game is deciding what route to take. Being an indecisive person, having to make all these different choices is difficult for me. The open endedness of this game really allows for one to create their own story. I think this ties to leadership because a leader must make choices for a group. They are depended on to make a correct choice and lead the group to success.

I would enjoy playing this game with my sister. While she isn’t very into role playing games, she is very good at making choices. She has never been an indecisive person, so seeing her play this game would be interesting for me. I think she would enjoy being able to control the story line.

Incan Gold & Can’t Stop

In the fifth week of class, we played a pair of risk taking games, Can’t Stop and Incan Gold. Both games allowed for an interesting risk-reward system. From a mechanical stand-point, I would say both games incentivized risk taking much more than playing it safe, and while both approaches were certainly valid, there seemed to be a significant advantage to making riskier choices in gameplay.
The most difficult part of playing either game was knowing when to bail out and avoid further risk. In Can’t Stop, the instant gratification of traversing the game board is very tempting and the way the game was designed has made the feeling of defeat crushing regardless of how far in the game you are. With regards to Incan Gold, the power of the risk was even stronger, with the sort of “double elimination” or “two strikes” mechanic the game ran on. The desire to continue to compile points made the decision to go back just as much of a risk as moving forward, and I found that interesting.
In the game, and in my leadership, I find myself more likely to take risks. The importance of taking risks in my leadership style is exclusively for the sake of making the right choice as opposed to the easy choice. Overall, these are games I would actively recommend to any groups of people with contrasting personal philosophies or personalities.

Fiasco

In the second and third week of games, we played Fiasco. I thoroughly enjoyed the idea of the game, some of the most fun stories that are told are those of criminals and how their plans go awry, so I was excited to try and have a similar experience. I think one of Fiasco’s strengths is also one of the parts of the game that is hardest to master, that being the improvisational nature of the storytelling, with each scene and the direction of the story being entirely up to the players, with no facilitation from a designated game master. It was difficult to get into the flow of the game, but by the time my group hit the tilt, we seemed to have a pretty good grasp of how it worked.
For Fiasco, the ties to leadership are most prevalent in establishing the scenes in which the game is played. The player needs to take a lot of initiative in crafting their own game world and in establishing the story, there are no real rules for what you can and can’t do within a scene. It’s a very amorphous and free-flowing game, where the players’ choices will control not only the narrative but also the rules to some extent.
For the first week of Fiasco, the important task was to understand how one’s values would come into play over the course of the game. Over the course of the first session, I found more and more that I was allowing myself to play the character and set my own personal values aside. Personally, I am not someone that would engage in sports gambling or other types of acts, and yet I was perfectly fine to play the character of a bookie. I think the important thing to remember in the case of role playing games, like Fiasco, is to allow yourself to separate what you do from yourself because you are playing a character.
During the second week of Fiasco, the “tilt” took place. During the tilt, my character was taken hostage by organized crime. And while the game did not end well for my character from a consequences perspective, the flow of the game was greatly improved and expedited. Overall, my experience was incredibly positive. This is a game that I would recommend for team bonding exercises.

Week 8: D&D

I think overall playing D&D for the first time went relatively well. The hardest part for me was understanding all the different rules. The game itself is so open-ended, but there are certain rules one must follow. Our leader of the game kept the game moving and helped to ensure all of us understood what was going on, which made it more enjoyable.

I like that you get to create your character in this game, but I have already realized the character I created is not the best and if I were to go back and try to create another character it would be much different then the one I did create. What I don’t enjoy about the game is that it seems to require some creativity, which seems to be the trend for all role playing games. I think I struggle with these games as I am not very good at diving into the character I create. I am hoping as the next couple weeks of play go on I become better at this skill.

This game ties to leadership because you are becoming a character and must lead that character throughout the game. Particularly in our game play we had one character be in the front when we walked together and continually made decisions and lead us to where we ended up. This requires both strategy and intelligence.

I think my cousin would enjoy playing this game with me because she already regularly plays this game. When I told her we were starting this game in class she was thrilled for me to learn because no one in our family does play. It will be nice to be able to talk to her about it and relate and maybe even play together.

Lasers and Feelings – A One Page RPG

Again, the virtual environment made it harder to work together and off of each other’s energy, something important to RPGs, and boardgames in general. Unfortunately, it was also cut short by the end of class. Lasers and Feelings has a nice balance in character creation that was made even more evident by our choices in characters. We went with the given characteristics and spent time delving into our backstories before starting which definitely helped bridge the disconnect between our characters.  

RPGs completely depend on the GM and the willingness of the players to get as invested as possible. Something that I believe that was done extremely well for a group with less than two hours over a zoom call. We really did get into character and have fun figuring out how to interact with each other and the npcs. Most RPGs are cooperative and that is something that I personally really enjoy. Working together to figure out what was going on while working out our character’s personalities was really fun. 

Leadership in RPGs can be both obvious and not. As a player to be willing to trust a GM to put you in a situation where you, and the other players, have to figure out what to do in new situations, be in the shoes of a new character, and to find a balance between characters and players. A GM has to know when to let the players explore and how to feed them a trail. Lasers and Feelings had us create an outline of a crew and a ship and we had to work together to fill in all the actual characterization, and that’s I think is the idea behind RPGs, cooperative creativity. 

Week 6 – Free Play

This week for free play my group decided to play Incan Gold since we did not have a chance to last weekend. Overall, the game play went extremely well as everyone knew the rules of the game. Each player either won the game or came in second place which made it fun. We spent time talking about each others hobbies and found topics to relate on, which was interesting.

I like that this game includes both luck and skill. There is a certain skill to knowing exactly how much risk one should be taking. In fact, the hardest part about this game is knowing when to stop. I think it is really easy to get carried away and keep flipping your card saying you want to continue the journey. However, there are a lot of negative cards that will take all of your points away from you. I really do not dislike any aspect of this game.

I would recommend this game to any math teacher. I think this game shows the aspects of probability and could really enforce that idea to many students (and it is super fun to play!) I think this game ties to leadership in the fact that in order to play this game you must lead yourself to success. You have to choose the right time to make a risk in order to win!