Games and cooperative story telling in education.

[Cynic]

This fall, I'm going to be volunteering at a school through a non profit called Citizen schools.

My current idea is to use board games, co-operative story telling or world building to teach kids to deal with things like resource management, resource conservation, team building and other skills.

So far I have three main things I was planning on using.

Cranium -- building team building or teamwork. Teaching them how to use different sort of material and mediums to express themselves.

Story cubes -- to teach story telling skills and to be quick on their feet and to make a new story/idea based on what was already presented to you.

Universalis -- to teach storybuilding but also resource management.


I'm on the fence on stuff like Munchausen. Do you guys have any suggestions on games to use? Also things to teach and introduce to high schoolers through the games listed above or other games.


Since Citizen Schools is a non profit that can't afford to deal with controversy, I've ruled out things like d&d, Vampire, etc.. as they may draw more ire and make it hard for raising funds.


edit: fixed tags. Thanks Maj.

[Maj]

On resource management: Settlers of Catan.

[Manxome]

Resource management and teamwork might actually be better demonstrated by fully-cooperative games, where it is "everyone against the system". Firstly, because allocating resources to deal with random disasters is generally quite different from using them in a zero-sum game against an intelligent adversary (and hopefully the random model is more applicable to real life). Secondly, because teamwork tends to be livelier and more straightforward when you don't need to worry about an enemy eavesdropping on your planning sessions (or backstabbing).

TTRPGs where all the PCs work together sort of fall into that category, but usually it's expected that the MC is making somewhat intelligent decisions on behalf of NPC adversaries, even if he wants the PCs to win.

The most popular cooperative board game on this forum is probably Arkham Horror, though that's kind of long (4+ hours) and complicated (even hardcore gamers often make mistakes after multiple plays). If you're interested, I could get you updated files for my game Darkest Night, which was inspired by AH, but is simpler and plays in about half the time; it may still be a tall order for non-gamers, though, and it doesn't have pretty artwork.

I've just purchased Yggdrasil and Ghost Stories, which appear to be shorter and simpler, though I haven't really played them yet, so my ability to recommend them is limited (also, the English translation of their rules isn't great, so you'd want to make sure to learn them in advance). Also, I've heard from several people that first-time players in Ghost Stories tend to lose pretty hard; I don't know if that would be a learning opportunity or would just make everyone quit. They both have pretty obvious resource-management mechanics, though.

I also remember playing a cooperative game 6 or 8 years ago titled Lord of the Rings (though I'd guess there are many board games with approximately that title) where all the players were hobbits and took turns playing cards with various combinations of 4 resources, which was also fairly simple to learn and might be a more popular theme.

Many of these might also serve as an excuse to give lessons in probability and statistics, if you were so inclined.

[Cynic]

Yeah, I looked at AH and I knew there was a simpler version of the game by some Denner but I couldn't remember which one. Thanks for the link. I'll look at some online websites that do cheap printing.

Really, I have a lot of free photo prints left. It might be simpler for me to go to CVS print it out as photos and then cut & paste them together. A nice glossy feel.

Maj: Settlers is definitely an option.


Also: I wanted to teach probablity, as well, but my mentor asked me to narrow my subject matter as I have limited time and a fairly large class.

So I'm basically sticking to the rather specific (read: not very specific except to my mentor) heading of social issues and useful skills...

[Manxome]

I do have an updated version and a bunch more heroes for Darkest Night that I don't think I've posted before; I'll try to upload all the relevant files tonight.

One thing I should note is that the most recent version uses smaller cards (1.6"x2.5") to meet the requirements of a small publisher I was trying to interest (actually, they are interested, but getting the artwork done is posing a serious problem). On the plus side, they're cheaper to print, and fit nicely on letter-size sheets without wasting space. On the downside, they're small, which means they're a bit harder to shuffle and to read. Will that pose a problem?

Also, I don't want to mislead you: Darkest Night is definitely influenced by Arkham Horror, but calling it a "version" of Arkham Horror is not really accurate. It's got a few mechanics in common, but also a lot that's completely different. And, of particular importance to organized play, you pretty much have to play Darkest Night with exactly 4 players (or divide 4 characters among however many players you have), whereas Arkham Horror at least claims to support anywhere from 1 to 8.

[tzor]

An oldie but a goodie would be Monopoly with the RAW (Rules as written). Especially the auction rules and the trade rules. Risk is also a good game if you add the elements of alliances as both form negotiation skills.

And there is nothing like a Mayfair train game (Empire builder, Euro rails, Nippon rails, India rails) for geographical understanding.

[Manxome]

Updated files for Darkest Night

Let me know if there are any problems or questions.

[Orion]

Nymph doesn't have base stats defined.

Child's Wonder has you lose 1 of some unspecified substance (orobably secrecy).

[Manxome]

The Nymph stat card is in Tokens 2.pdf, because that had extra space, and I would have had to add a whole extra page to Characters.pdf. Starts with 5 grace and 6 secrecy.

Child's Wonder should indeed cause secrecy loss, should be fixed now.

[Neeeek]

Pandemic is a pretty good cooperative resource management game.

Last Night on Earth is a good quasi-cooperative game (It's basically MC vs. players, but the players are a team, and the MC can be the teacher-type).

[ckafrica]

I've been looking around at using games in education and came across using MMOs like WOW for education. I don't have the links but it seemed rather interesting