Human beings learn many of their most necessary social skills during childhood through play. Pretending to be an adult in such roles as firefighter, teacher or parent gives us an opportunity to experience a variety of real-world scenarios in a low-consequence environment. If, as a pretend firefighter, you let a pretend house burn down, you might play out a scene of interpersonal conflict with the angry pretend homeowner — but you won’t be fired or sued (unless it’s by a pretend tort attorney).
Role-playing is also a highly effective learning technique for adults. There are two problems, however. The first is that, as adults, we’ve become self-conscious about play. If we’re playing, we’re obviously not working. But this is a false distinction: the real question should be, are we engaging in activities that benefit us professionally and enrich the organization, to the extent that we can say it’s time and energy well spent while on the clock?
The second problem is that this self-consciousness has left our capacity for pretend and role-play rusty with disuse. That’s where games come in: they provide us with structure and mechanics that serve as a framework to engage in social exercises that can hone our ability to collaborate, persuade, and navigate conflict.
With that in mind, here are three games that can be used by teams of communicators to sharpen their skills, identify gaps in technique, and become comfortable with high-pressure situations that are common to our profession.
Superfight (Skybound)
Any PR pro who’s been in a pitch — whether it’s making a formal presentation to win new business, proposing a new idea to a client, or trying to interest a reporter in a story — quickly recognizes that, despite the absurdity of the debate, this is familiar territory. We’re often called on to make a convincing case for our side, and defend our claims against tough, probing questions. Superfight provides an opportunity to engage in this process where the conflict is leavened with humor; as well as a chance to see what it’s like to be on the receiving end of a dogged PR pro’s pitch.
Superfight is a card game based on the classic playground debate, “If these two fictional characters had a fight, who would win?”. Players draw cards that describe a person or animal (such as Abraham Lincoln, a robot or an alien) and abilities or weapons (such as invisibility, the ability to stop time while your eyes are closed, or a chainsaw). Two players then choose from the cards they’ve drawn, reveal their “fighters”, and try to persuade the other players that their fighter would win that match — for example, invisible Abraham Lincoln armed with a chainsaw vs. a robot made of guacamole who can mentally command animals. The combatants make their case, answer questions from the other players, and then the other players judge who wins. The winning fighter then battles the next player’s fighter, and so on around the table.
Werewolves of Miller’s Hollow (Asmodee)
If Superfight offers training in making your case in a high-pressure environment, Werewolves of Miller’s Hollow takes it to the next level. In this game for eight to 12 players, you take on the role of townspeople — but two of you are secretly werewolves. The werewolves are the only ones who know each others’ true identities. Each night, the werewolves devour an innocent townsperson while the other players’ eyes are closed. When everyone opens their eyes, the townspeople (including the secret werewolves) debate who among them is the hidden enemy, and “kill” one townsperson in hopes that they are one of the werewolves.
How does this help you at work? Werewolves of Miller’s Hollow is excellent training in working with another person toward a shared goal in an environment where the two of you must rely entirely on non-verbal cues and mutual trust to achieve your desired outcome. In a high-stakes meeting, you rarely get a chance to call “time out” and regroup with your team when challenged.
Hillfolk (Pelgrane Press)
For agency professionals, Hillfolk — and the DramaSystem rules which power it — provides a useful framework for clarifying and navigating the complex relationship dynamics between agency and client. (It can also be an excellent internal tool at any company for exploring power dynamics within organizations.) Using DramaSystem, an account team could roleplay scenes in which they engage with a fictional client and try to determine what the relationships are within the client’s organization, how to address different stakeholders’ needs (both expressed and implicit), and how conflicts can be resolved.
This pen-and-paper roleplaying game takes the basic structure of interpersonal conflict underlying fiction, movies and television, and brings it to the tabletop. The result is an easy-to-learn game that can be used to play out any dramatic story where individuals need something from one another: e.g., The Sopranos, Mad Men, Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones, or a Jane Austen novel. Players choose their characters’ desires (such as approval, forgiveness, respect or power), internal conflicts, relationships with other characters, and what they specifically want from the other characters. Finally, players finish creating their characters by completing the sentence, “My story is of a man/woman who…”
From there, the game brings the players together to create dramatic scenes of verbal conflict in which their characters seek to gain the things they want from other characters, while granting or withholding what other characters want from them. Maybe it’s Don Draper trying to win the Kodak account, or the tense verbal sparring in Breaking Bad’s dinner scene between Skyler, Jesse and Walt.
Have you used games as training or team-building exercises? Let us know in the comments, and recommend your own favorites.
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