Four Mother Mechanics: Agon, Alea, Mimicry, Ilinx

I divided the class at random into two teams: one represented President Obama, the government he was leading while seeking reelection, and his reelection campaign team; the other team represented Governor Romney and his campaign team. WHICH GAMING MECHANIC IS BEST SHOWN HERE?

The teams divided themselves into roles and tasks such as press secretary and vice president for which they were personally accountable (according to a rubric). WHICH GAMING MECHANIC IS BEST SHOWN HERE?

They would be called on at different times during the simulation to represent their team, give advice, or make decisions that would have the most dramatic effect on winning or losing. WHICH GAMING MECHANIC IS BEST SHOWN HERE?

I also published short news briefings to help each team understand the impact their decisions had on those numbers. In the middle of a lesson on something completely unrelated, I asked the class to divide into their campaign teams and then shared with them a news report that North Korea was making threatening military moves (including movement of nuclear weapons) against South Korea. The president’s team got a formal intelligence briefing from the CIA director. The Romney team got an informal, off-the-record briefing from a “Republican staffer” on Capitol Hill. Each campaign had only a few minutes to digest the information and make a decision before I forced them to respond not only to the crisis but also the ebb and flow of the political discourse. WHICH GAMING MECHANIC IS BEST SHOWN HERE?

This led to several new moments as the teams responded politically to what was happening in the simulation, how their counterparts were reacting, and what the simulated North Koreans were doing. We played this game over three class periods, with the direction being wholly dictated by the decisions of the players. WHICH GAMING MECHANIC IS BEST SHOWN HERE?