Tag Archives: Leadership

T.I.M.E. Stories Week 2




Our group completed the puzzles and won the game! We worked together to solve the riddles and combined our different skills and ideas. In this experience it was important to realize when it was best to stick together versus split up. You have a limited amount of time units to complete the game. If you do not you have to restart or possibly lose the entire game. While we made mistakes and followed the wrong leads at times, we were the only group able to “win” in the time allotted.
T.I.M.E. stories require players to assume many different team roles. Sometimes certain characters are better fitted to tasks than others, sometimes you must pair up in order to complete challenges. There are moments when the entire team must be present to even begin a round, fight, objective. While there are certain situations in which one person became the natural leader, all players must use leadership, communication, and compromise to succeed. For example, to move to a different location the entire team must agree. My team generally did a good job talking out concerns or motivations with choosing locations. Even when there was discourse my group stayed respectful and calm enough to correct any mistakes made.
I believe this would be a great game for my friends or any friend group to play. It is dissimilar to most games I have played but I found it very enjoyable. It is complex and frustrating at times, but it is full of interesting twists and requires you to problem solve. I was lucky to play with such a great and cohesive team, but I believe this game would be fun to play with anyone who is willing to cooperate and make mistakes.

T.I.M.E. Stories

the end of class if you wish to submit one.
This week we played T.I.M.E. Stories. This roleplaying, dice-rolling, mystery game is an exciting group experience. You and your fellow players are undercover agents travelling through time. You inhabit the bodies of asylum patients in the 1920s where you are finding clues towards a time-altering event you were instructed to prevent.
The hardest part of this game was decision making. As a group you must reach a consensus about where to travel and in smaller pairs or even individually you must make choices that alter events. Some information could be bought with your precious time units and sometimes you had to trust the roll of a die to determine your fate. Our group did a good job making unified decisions and learning from any mistakes we made along the way. I think this contributed to the comfortable atmosphere of collaboration and learning throughout our gameplay.
In this game there was an official leader however most decisions relied on communication and cooperation from the entire team. Different characters possessed different skill sets and it was important to make sure the best suited person completed a task.
My one critique of this game was its theme. While I enjoyed the game immensely, it does perpetuate the ableist “crazy asylum” trope that can be harmful to the disabled and mentally ill communities. To some degree it is the reality of the time period in which you are playing, however it still pokes fun at stereotypes.
That being said, this game is great for a group of people and I could see my friends and I really enjoying this game. I know there is another story/setting which I would be interested in playing. The escape-room vibes made me think of a particular friend group and I would like to see which characters they gravitate towards and what decisions they make.

Blood on the ClockTower


This week we played Blood on the Clocktower. This detailed role playing game involved deception, planning, and organization. Having never played this game before, I struggled to keep track of each possible role. Not all roles in the game were present in our round due to the number of players, but most roles had the potential to be present. I was selected to be the demon’s minion. I was a poisoner who once per night could interfere with another player’s ability. There were two teams in the game, the good and the evil. Of course, we did not know who was on each team. The goal is to discover each person’s role and for the good, find the demon and for the demon, kill the townsfolk. The game is divided into night and day. During the night action occurs from poisoning, murders, and divine intervention. During the day the town could interact, find information, and vote for someone to be executed. There were additional complexities such as the role of the drunk who would believe they were a townsfolk and claim such, but in reality were not. When the demon is killed, the minion assumes their role. This happened to me in our game. It may be obvious from my scattered explanation that the most difficult part of this game was keeping track of all the details and changing information.Despite mixing up details I managed to feign innocence for long enough to win the game.
An example of leadership I experienced personally was when I completely gave away my status as an evil character in the second round. Rather than expose my allegiances, a fellow player let the mistake slip because he had made similar errors when he first played this game. He could have won the game early but instead he chose to help me learn without embarrassment or judgement.
I believe this would be a fun game for parties, however it would be helpful if at least one person playing was able to help with the rules. Maybe it would be beneficial to play a practice round to ensure that everyone understands the many roles. I personally had trouble with this, but I imagine this would get easier the more you play the game. Overall, this was an enjoyable experience and I would love to play again.

Decorum Game of The Week

I thoroughly enjoyed playing Decorum. I have not played many board games that had similar premises to this one. In this game the players are decorating a house together. Each player has specific design objectives they must reach and together the team must create a space that satisfies the needs of everyone. Rather than stating what you need, you must make sly comments and use compliments or passive aggressive comments to communicate your contentment with the current design. So while this game centers around communication, everything is indirect and thus you must try to keep track of each person’s specific reactions, comments, facial expressions, and body language. This game is deceptively simplistic and I remember one of my group members commented early on that we were going to complete the game within minutes of starting. In the end, we did not even finish the game despite having the entire class period dedicated to its gameplay.
There was not necessarily a designated leader in this game, but rather we seemed to divide into pairs who would work together. Throughout the game there were several heart-to-heart discussions in which we could share information with one other player. I am unsure what the best way to share information would have been, but we mostly shared with a partner who would then work to try to meet both of our needs when completing their turn. In some ways this was extremely advantageous as we could cooperate to progress further in each of our individual turns. At the same time, not having any information concerning the other pairs’ needs led to a lot of undoing of each pair’s progress. The frustration and miscommunication that resulted from this unequal information was the most challenging part, however it also seemed to drive our motivation to succeed.
Overall, I enjoyed this game because it was intellectually interesting because you had to keep track of many details and think about different possibilities in order to complete a “simple” task. There was unequal information however the goal is to work together rather than to sabotage one another. I think this game would be a useful exercise for people who do not know each other well but must work together in a group or on a project of some sort. It forces you to be aware of each other’s communication styles and be patient and thoughtful with each action rather than simply trying to do what will help you individually succeed.

Freeplay Game of the Week: Ticket to Ride

The freeplay game my group chose was Ticket to Ride. My favorite part of this game was actually the setup because our group was able to discuss the different rules that each of us grew up with. One group member had actually learned to play by the book rules, however the rest of us had learned family variations of the game. For this reason, Izzy (who actually knew the original rules) was selected to be the “leader” of the group.
To be completely honest, we did not finish this game. We were often distracted and caught up in conversations about our memories of family board game nights and catching up with each other in general. So Ticket to Ride was not necessarily the main priority of our gaming session, but coming together for board game night was the motivating factor that led us to connect with each other after it had been quite a while. So while I do not have an epic Ticket to Ride story to recount in the future, the game brought us together which I believe is equally valuable as an epic gameplay experience.
Most of our actual gameplay came through via setup, understanding the directions, and playing practice rounds. We did work together to help each other learn the “correct” directions as well as the ones we remembered from playing the game growing up. If we were to attempt this game again in the future, I believe we would be able to actually play a more substantial game of Ticket to Ride.
I learned that this game is more enjoyable than I had previously experienced. When I had plaed this game, it was in ginormous groups and the game took a very long time. Apparently, when played with only a few people this game is much less challenging. This makes sense but I had honestly been avoiding the game due to only playing it a certain way growing up. I believe this game is good for smaller groups and since it is such a classic game, it can be interesting to try out different “house rules.” I think that the less competitive version of the rules that my friend Jackie grew up with would be great for younger players or for casual nights where you want to encourage more communication over competition.

Fiasco! Conclusion

This week we finished our game of Fiasco! Once again the hardest part was getting the act started, but once we began the scenes flew by. Our scene pace was much faster in the second act, as we began to resolve the conflicts. This act was far more action packed and full of twists and turns. In the second act there are two twists selected ahead of gameplay. Our twists involved plans going wrong and someone going on an uncontrollable rampage. I think that we struggled a bit more with communication and pacing this week. Part of this was simply due to having less setup needed before getting into the game. As far as communication, I am not sure why we seemed less in sync this week but I’m sure it was just a natural variation in how we interacted.
As the story approached its conclusion, it seemed there were less options for how to manipulate the plot, however there were several surprise events. I loved the improvisation aspect of this game because it encouraged creativity and discouraged obvious endings. For example, there were many surprise double-agents in the second act of the game. It was fun to see how each teammate would respond to each other and the plot developments. In our specific case, it seemed everyone but my character was secretly involved in the illegal fur trade mystery that defined our narrative.
As we discussed at the conclusion of class, it can be difficult to navigate situations in which each person has a different opinion on how to proceed. This was not a huge issue for us, but there were some moments where our miscommunication was leading to a bit of frustration when we probably should have taken a step back to get back on the same page. We did manage to keep the game going, but in hindsight it may have been better to simply fully pause the game to have a conversation instead of trying to push through gameplay while explaining ideas.
Overall, I enjoyed this game experience and how every player had the opportunity to lead scenes. It allowed for every individual player to experience being an actor, director, script writer, producer, etc. This game encourages you to go out of your comfort zone and try new things. Teamwork is necessary and yet everyone gets to have a stake in the plot and major decisions being made. Fiasco highlights the importance of leading as well as being active listeners and followers. This game would be good as an acting exercise or a way to teach communication and the different roles in a team. While cooperation may not have meant agreeing on the same plot, it was important to be able to interact with one another to progress the story. I had a great time playing this game and getting to know my classmates!

Fiasco Week 1 Review

We played the role playing game: Fiasco. My group chose to play the Ice edition, however there are different “playsets” or settings to choose from. This game relies heavily on character building and player decision making. As is the case with many role playing games, the hardest part was actually getting started. When reading through the directions and setting up the game, it seems a bit overwhelming. Many decisions are made before gameplay occurs and these initial choices will impact the plot, characters, and relationships of the entire game. All this to say that game setup was a daunting task and I felt a bit unsure how to initiate the improvisation scenes.
Once we actually dove into the gameplay the experience was much less intimidating and seemed to flow naturally. I enjoyed the player interaction and the way that we bounced ideas off of each other to create a scene. It reminded me of the improv game “yes and” in which players do not reject each other’s ideas but rather add to and twist their interpretations. Some of my classmates expressed their preferences for games in which there is more randomness and less player decision. Personally, I felt like this game had randomness because you never knew how your teammates would react or interpret a scene.
Fiasco requires communication and cooperation between characters, while leaving room for individuals to create unexpected plot twists. One thing that makes this game unique, is the need for different players to take a leadership role depending on the scenario. This ensured that all players were able to take charge of certain parts of the overarching storyline. I believe that our gameplay went pretty well as we were able to trust each other and have fun with our situations. I believe this game would help with confidence in acting classes while making sure that all players got to design, participate, and lead certain scenes.

GOTW Reflection #3: Fiasco Week 1

Week three, we began playing the gm-less roleplay game Fiasco. For this game, you have no game board. All you need to play the game Fiasco is the main rulebook, some note cards, some dice, and an imagination. You and your friends (or anyone you decide to play with) will start the game with four six-sided black dice and four six-sided white dice. These dice determine the outcomes of a scene that you create. The goal of the game is to create a story that usually involves some sort of crime or dastardly deeds. With little guidance, the players must establish who they are, what they want, and how each of them is associated with each other. The game is split into two main acts, the tilt events, and the aftermath. By the end of a game of Fiasco, individuals gather eight fateful dice that determine whether they are victorious or if they go out in a burst of flames. 

            Our class played the game Fiasco over the course of two weeks. The first week we played it, we were tasked with attempting to finish the first act. I played in a group of four. At first, it was a struggle to get started. Due to there being few rules for how to start, we needed a bit of guidance. After choosing our setting, The Ice, we began to create our characters. My character was Pierro. He started off as a pilot who had crashed on Ross Island after running out of gas. He was bitter enemies with another character, George. On the other hand, he was indebted to another character, Edwardo, for saving him from the crash. We only made it through four scenes, but they were all quite amusing. Pierro was convinced to help Edwardo and his partner in crime to go save a penguin who had floated off on an iceberg. They help him fix his helicopter, and plan to find the penguin once they can get some gas into it. Little did Pierro know, they only wanted to save the penguin in order to smuggle it off the island. By the end of the class session, we were starting to get the feel of how the game worked. 

            The hardest part of the game was definitely getting started. Getting used to the mechanics was not easy. I am far more used to games with a firmer structure, so this was new. Even so, once we had our characters made, we all seemed to flow easily between each other. I believe we did a pretty good job, and we all had a bit of fun with it. I think I definitely needed to watch myself though, as I did find myself trying to guide people so that the story would make sense cohesively. Considering the lack of rules, it made it hard to know exactly what might happen. That was both thrilling and scary in a way. I think it opened up for a lot of laughs for our group. So far, I definitely think I like this game. Though, I think it would be more enjoyable if I played it with people, I know a bit better. For that reason, I would recommend this game to my friends Roai and Korben. We have all played roleplay games together before and have great chemistry when it comes to those types of games. I will certainly have to try it out with them sometimes. Especially Korben, he would love the chaos this game could foster. 

            As I implied before, I like games with more structure. The lack of rules made me feel a bit more anxious. Even so it did not ruin the experience for me, as I really do love the roleplay aspect of it. I am really excited to see how the story progresses next week. 

            When it came to leadership, I could see it lightly in each scenario. One could choose to set up the scene or give that power to the other players. For those taking on the role of creating the scene, they were taking on a leadership role. They would choose who and what was going on in a scene, like a director would. However, I also saw leadership in other ways. My group would usually vote for how a scene would end. Usually, when one person proposes a certain outcome (decided by giving the directing player a black or white die) the other voting players would agree. For myself, I often found myself leading in small ways, by guiding towards a more cohesive timeline for the story. At times, I felt bad for doing so, as I did not want to limit the other players’ creativity. Though I know this simply comes from my desire to create a storyline that can be followed. I do believe that this personal value of mine had an effect on how the game progressed. I also think it had an effect on how I played my character as well. Overall, it was a good time, and I definitely would like to play it again.

GOTW Reflection #1: Ultimate Werewolf

During the first week, we played a game called Ultimate Werewolf. It is a social deduction-based game where every player is given a hidden role based on the card dealt to them at the beginning. In Ultimate Werewolf, you either play on the side of the werewolves or the side of the townspeople. Many roles have special abilities that can be used throughout the game to gain the upper hand for a player’s given team. The goal of the townspeople is to find and kill all the werewolves. On the other hand, the goal of the werewolves is to kill townspeople until there is an equal amount of townspeople and werewolves. The game moves in a day-and-night cycle, where werewolves as well as certain other roles kill townsfolk at night. It is also during the nighttime that townsfolk with special abilities get to choose how they would like to use those abilities. During the day, all players debate the execution of another player who may or may not be a werewolf. In a usual game of Ultimate Werewolf, there doesn’t necessarily need to be an execution every day. However, for how we played it in class, due to the time restriction this rule was in place.

            The session we played in class was one of the biggest games of Ultimate Werewolf I have ever played. There were three werewolves and a witch. The townspeople were, of course, the vast majority. The role I received for this game session was Cupid. On the first night, I woke up and chose two individuals (or rather victims), to be lovers. The Lovers know who they are, and their fate is tied together. If one of the lovers dies, so does the other as a result of heartbreak. After the first night, I basically became a normal townsperson, who has no special abilities attached. Rather unfortunately, one of the Lovers was chosen to be executed during the first day, resulting in two townsfolk deaths. Following that day, each night the werewolves would choose someone to kill. Each day, we decided who to execute based on a majority vote. Throughout the session, the townsfolk found one werewolf and the witch. Many people were silenced and many people chose to stay silent. In the end, the werewolves won.

            The hardest part of the game was determining who to execute. There wasn’t solid evidence for many of the executions that actually occurred. Until we got closer to the end, many executions were on a whim or simply because we had to choose someone. There were also some individuals who had never played Ultimate Werewolf before, likely taking more passive roles as a result. However, when it came to execution, it often only took one person taking the initiative to make a decision for an execution to occur. Considering we all didn’t really know much about each other, we similarly had very little to go off of to point to one individual over another. Which leads me to how risk was taken during the game.

            I saw risk taken in several ways. Firstly, in how we executed people in the game. Every time someone was executed, there was a risk that it was a townsperson. With that risk in mind, no one wanted to point fingers – both because it could make them look guilty, and because no one wants to vote out people they don’t know. For the werewolves, leading the charge would put them at risk of being suspicious to the townspeople, so often they left that risk to them as they had more reason to search for the werewolves. They helped just enough to keep the target off their back while staying quiet enough to not be in the spotlight. One thing that really defined this game in particular, was the domino-effect-like pattern seen in the voting. When more than one individual proposed a vote, it was rarely challenged, and often quickly accepted by the majority. The more people who agreed to a vote, the less risk there was in also choosing that decision. One moment I saw a huge risk taken was when the witch tried to vote out the apprentice seer. By doing so, the witch would complete the task they needed to win. However, they also ended up being executed the following day when the apprentice seer was forced to reveal their role after execution. Those who spoke up often could take the lead in the vote and execute someone within reason. I believe that the ones who started votes were leaders in this situation, starting the chain to lead to an execution. However, without a bit of reason to it, and without followers, the execution would not go through. That being said, it was those who were willing to make a splash that were able to form a ripple.

            I have played many games like Ultimate Werewolf before. This was the first time I played with so many people – especially those whom I didn’t know. For that reason, being on the townspeople’s side, I played pretty aggressively when it came to voicing my opinion on votes. I personally didn’t like taking risks, even if we were inevitably forced to execute every night. Though I understood that it was necessary, I knew that doing an execution everyday cycle without evidence would result in us losing far more townspeople than werewolves statistically. Unfortunately, having the role of Cupid only seemed to make this fact a lot worse for this game in particular. One risk I did take was speaking up as much as I did. From my experience, that can be a double-edged sword in games like Ultimate Werewolf. Speaking up is necessary when not a lot of people are talking. However, talking too much can make you a target for werewolves who want to shut your mouth. On the flip side, townsfolk who see you speaking up and pointing the finger a bunch might think that you are a werewolf attempting to act like a townsperson. This actually did happen near the end of the game. I couldn’t think of a good defense for myself and ended up executed. On reflection, I should have tried revealing my role to defend myself. Either way, it was still a fun game. 

When it came to this game, I took the risk of being outspoken but often played it a bit safer when it came to voting for people. I would say this is fairly on point for how I approach leadership. I don’t like being in the spotlight, but often find myself filling in the gaps when I notice it is necessary. This game didn’t have many active speakers, which resulted in me speaking out more than I normally would in a game like this. At the same time, I wasn’t too keen on voting for someone without any reason behind it and often opposed a vote if I didn’t feel it held enough ground. On that note, I do believe that my friend Arden would enjoy this game. They are a very social person, and I get the feeling they would find the hidden roles fascinating. I’ll definitely have to invite them to play a game of Ultimate Werewolf with me sometime.

Game of the Week Reflection: Fiasco Part 2

The second part of Fiasco changes the game completely, and for the better. The design of the game was created with the intent of creating scenarios for the participants to react to and add to their playthrough.  Last week we started our stories as a group and acted out scenes to incorporate into our unique rehearsal.  Instead of repeating that, this week was all about performing the “Tilt”.  The Tilt is when the players use their dice, just like in the beginning, to select new components for the story.  Following that is Act Two, which is the same steps and turns as Act One but you incorporate your twists and new components.  Once that was finished you move on to the last and final step which is the Aftermath.  This is where each player counts their dice to determine if the character they played had a good or bad ending one at a time. 

The hardest part this week was determining how these new twists and alterations would be added to our story.  It was confusing already on how to continue our production with the “script” we’ve followed so far.  Adding more elements that drastically change it made it difficult and not easily coordinated to keep the narrative on the right path without getting overly ridiculous. However, the play session overall went very smoothly.  Since I’m not the only one twisting the story, my group members had pretty creative ways of having fun with it.  That means that friends specifically would be the best people to play this with considering there isn’t usually any filter that allows for more diverse gameplay.  I liked having multiple people being able to alter our playthrough how they wanted because building off their thoughts and ideas is what makes this game enjoyable.  That being said, I wasn’t a huge fan of how the aftermath was designed.  I personally feel the dice count determining the outcome of your character was lazy and rushed.  Honestly, I don’t know how I would fix it nor do I have a better option I just didn’t like that mechanic and felt that they could have improved on it a little bit more. 

Again, overall the session went very well and I enjoyed being taken down the path of our group’s ending and conclusion.  The way this part of the game ties with leadership is about the same way as the first part.  That is, being the leader in controlling the flow of the story and producing ideas for your group members to build off of.  However, this week had a slight tilt, dealing with the tilt itself and how to mitigate your decisions based on what else you needed to incorporate could also be part of it.  Being a leader means expecting the unexpected and solving problems like that without letting the setbacks get in the way of the flow.  Fiasco strengthens this side of being a leader and assists in the overall connection between the game and the players.