{"id":3770,"date":"2026-03-12T13:56:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-12T17:56:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/tabletop\/?p=3770"},"modified":"2026-03-12T13:56:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-12T17:56:12","slug":"gotw-reflection-decorum-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/tabletop\/2026\/03\/gotw-reflection-decorum-2\/","title":{"rendered":"GOTW Reflection – Decorum"},"content":{"rendered":"In this week’s class we played Decorum, a house-decorating logic game that will both make and ruin friendships all over the color of a lamp. In Decorum, players (up to 4 per game) are tasked with decorating the new house that they have moved into. But there’s much more to it than that. Each player is given a terms sheet in which they must follow. If not all terms are met on their sheet, they cannot be satisfied with the furnishing arrangement of their new house, and thus the round cannot end. The terms were a super interesting part of the game, as they encompassed each aspect of the game itself, including rooms, paint colors, furniture styles, and even pets (if playing with 2 players)!

When beginning our first round of Decorum, my group instantly ran into trouble. You see, the game calls for reactions after each move. If a move satisfies one of your personal terms, you love it! If it negates one, you hate it! And if it doesn’t mess with you at all, you are fine with it. This aspect of the game led to many fun and jovial moments in the rounds we played, with the title of “Difficult Roommate” being bestowed upon each of us at least once for not liking the green lamp in the bathroom or vintage curios in the bedroom.

The hardest part of Decorum actually has a very elegant solution. For our group, we kept running into people making the same moves that conflicted with other players’ terms. For example, one person’s terms may have said that they were forbidden from being in a yellow room, while another’s may have said that they had to have an entirely yellow floor of the house (odd design choice, but alright). This would lead to a back and forth battle where yellow was being placed and removed every turn, and no progress was being made. Decorum’s solution to this helped us tremendously, though. In Decorum, every 5 rounds allows for one of two things (depending on which story you’re playing and with how many people) – a house meeting or a heart-to-heart. In both of these scenarios, players are allowed to share one of their terms with another player. This allowed us to communicate the problem moves and make adjustments, eventually leading us to quicker rounds after a strategy was found.

Decorum is a great game to reference when discussing representatioms of leadership, as it encourages fulfillment with added community aspects. Leadership is not found in one’s ability to dictate others’ actions, but rather in one’s ability to work with the skills and needs of other’s to reach a common goal. In Decorum, you are doing exactly that. You must ensure your own needs (terms) are met, but in the process help others (your roommates) meet their goals and needs. On top of this, Decorum also encourages leadership qualities through its forced communication guidelines. With only limited phrases available, it forced players to make large impacts with little communication – something that can be seen in many great leaders across history. That being said, I believe that Decorum is a game that is for everyone, and one that brings people to a greater understanding of how other’s communicate.

Although it’s a game for everyone, the strategy within Decorum instantly reminds me of my friend Henry. I believe that he would love this game, as I know he has played (and loved) similar, non-team-based strategy games such as Ticket to Ride and still brings that game to social gatherings.

All in all, Decorum was an awesome experience, and I would highly recommend it to anyone looking for a challenging night in. Bonus points if you play it as you’re actually moving in with new roommates.","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In this week’s class we played Decorum, a house-decorating logic game that will both make and ruin friendships all over the color of a lamp. In Decorum, players (up to 4 per game) are tasked with decorating the new house that they have moved into. But there’s much more to it than that. Each player […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9519,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"_s2mail":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3770","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/tabletop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3770","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/tabletop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/tabletop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/tabletop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9519"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/tabletop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3770"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/tabletop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3770\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3771,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/tabletop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3770\/revisions\/3771"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/tabletop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/tabletop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/tabletop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}