Trautwein / Alf / Hühn Planspiele - Anders denken

Kreative Ansätze, gelebte Wissenschaft
1. Auflage 2021
ISBN: 978-3-7526-8296-0
Verlag: BoD - Books on Demand
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Deutsch, 124 Seiten

Die Planspielmethode ist in vielen Kontexten wie Bildung, Beratung und Forschung fest verankert und insofern ein etabliertes "Denkmal". Dennoch ist sie nicht in Stein gemeißelt, sondern muss sich immer wieder neu erfinden. Themen wie Agilität, Digitalisierung, Interprofessionalität und neue Arbeitswelten erfordern es, die Methode neu zu denken, neue Formate auszuprobieren und den Einsatz weiterzuentwickeln. Im vorliegenden zwölften Band der ZMS-Schriftenreihe sind ausgewählte Beiträge von Referierenden des Europäischen Planspielforums 2019 enthalten. Die Beiträge bilden eine Vielzahl an Themen und Inhalten ab. So geht es beispielsweise um die Bedeutung der qualitativen Evaluation von Planspielen und um die Weiterentwicklung von Unterhaltungs- zu Planspielen, die zu Lernzwecken eingesetzt werden können. Weitere Artikel umreißen die Bedeutung von Rollenspielen im Planspiel sowie die Konzeption, Kommunikation und Umsetzung von erfolgreichen Wirtschaftssimulationen. Mit Globe wird ein multinationales Planspiel zur virtuellen Zusammenarbeit in einer Krisensituation vorgestellt, Lego® Serious Play® wird zur Themenfindung studentischer Arbeiten eingesetzt und ein Beitrag behandelt ein Planspiel, das zur Klausurvorbereitung in Veranstaltungen zum Qualitätsmanagement entwickelt wurde. Beschrieben wird zudem die Implementierung von Themen wie Industrie 4.0 und Digitalisierung in innovationsvermittelnde Lehrveranstaltungen. Dieser Band entstand als Kooperationsprojekt des Zentrums für Managementsimulation der DHBW Stuttgart mit der SAGSAGA, der Gesellschaft für Planspiele in Deutschland, Österreich und der Schweiz e.V. - einmal mehr ein Beweis der fruchtbaren Zusammenarbeit der beiden Institutionen.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Trautwein, Friedrich

Alf, Tobias

Hühn, Christian

Zürn, Birgit

Leseproben

From Entertainment to Seriousness

How to translate Entertainment Games into Simulation Games

1. Introduction

Today’s society is characterized by a large number of complex systems. Complex systems are systems constituted by many actors that must collaborate with each other to guarantee an optimized use of the functions of the specific system. This often is challenging, due to different priorities as well as divergent goals and complex and uncertain problems (De Bruijn, Herder 2009). An example of such complex system is the domain of biotechnology. Within this domain, the project T-TRIPP1 aims to contribute to a translation between scientists, risk assessors and policy makers to guarantee a safe development of innovative technologies. To be able to achieve this aim, innovative methods are needed. One of such innovative methods are simulation games that can be used to bring different actors together, and to analyse complex systems (Duke 1974).

The present paper is structured as follows: First, we describe the entertainment game Citadels (Faidutti 2000) and analyse its mechanics. After this, the transfer of selected game mechanics to the physical simulation game MachiaCELLi is presented. Therefore, we describe the development process of this game. Next to this, we describe the adjusted learning mechanics as well as the inclusion of a debriefing phase into the game play process. Finally, the paper concludes with a discussion of lessons learned and recommendations for future work.

2. Development of a simulation game

When designing a simulation game, one can apply various design approaches. One of such approaches is formulated as Triadic Game Design (TGD) Philosophy (Harteveld 2011). This approach distinguishes between the three worlds of reality, meaning, and play, when designing simulation games. Yet, TGD represents a rather high-level design approach. Our work aims at translating the valuable aspects of TGD into a practical game design approach. Based on these considerations, we identify three main categories for the development of a simulation game: an analysis of the 1) content, 2) game mechanics and 3) learning mechanics. We will describe all three categories in the following sub-sections.

2.1 Analysis of content

With the aim to understand the problem our simulation game should address, we developed the IDEAS approach (see Figure 1). IDEAS is an approach to guarantee a concrete problem statement as a basis for the development of a valid simulation game (Freese & Lukosch 2019a).

Fig. 1: Funnel of game design – IDEAS approach (Freese, Lukosch 2019a).

The IDEAS approach consists of four phases and several feedback loops. It describes the process of a problem definition from a broad understanding to a concrete one. In the first phase, we conducted semi-structured interviews with related experts to analyse current challenges in biotechnology. In the second phase, we discussed the results of the first step with our project partners and were able to derive a few problem statements. Third, as it is not possible to consider several problem statements in one game, we had to prioritize the problem statements with the aim to identify the most important one. Therefore, we used the MoSCoW approach (Clegg, Barker 1994) that distinguishes four categories: Must haves, Should haves, Could haves and Won’t haves. As a last step and with the aim to really understand the final problem statement in a more detailed way, we conducted a so-called gamestorm. This is a participatory brainstorm session with experts, in our case from biotechnology, again based on the Triadic Game Design approach (Harteveld 2011).

Our analyses, following the IDEAS approach, have shown that there is and will be deep uncertainty in biotechnology on technology progress and matching regulations. In particular, new technologies do not fit with current regulations because they are too strict, too old and cause too much paperwork. Scientists and policy makers will be the target groups of our simulation game. The purpose of the game itself will be to create awareness on current regulations, but to also get a better understanding of the different perspectives in biotechnology.

2.2 Analysis of game mechanics

For the decision on appropriate game mechanics for our game, we analysed existing entertainment games, like the board game Patchwork (Rosenberg 2014) and the card game Citadels (Faidutti 2000). In the game Citadels, players take a new role each round with a different benefit. These benefits are combined with regular actions to acquire ‘gold’ and building cards. Both resources are needed to develop buildings. When the first player has built eight buildings the game ends and points are calculated. The player with the most points wins the game (BoardGameGeek A n. d.).

The setting and story of the game is a fictional medieval backdrop where the players are leaders of a city and need to construct the most impressive buildings (Bradley’s n. d.). Players need to influence powerful characters to be able to pay for and construct their buildings. This character (or role) system is a very important game mechanic.

To understand the vital game structure, we will explain the basic player actions. Every round all players get to choose one out of two regular actions. The first possible action is to take two ‘gold’ from the bank. The second optional action is to take two building cards from the stack and choose one of them to keep. Then, the player can build one of his or her cards in hand by paying the required ‘gold’ and placing the card on the table. The game mechanic here is to collect ‘gold’ and choose to build buildings in turns.

Every round, before players can take turns to collect ‘gold’ and build, they need to choose a role. Each role has a special ability, which can be used once per turn. When choosing a role, depending on the amount of players, some role cards are discarded open and closed. Starting with the oldest player in the first round and with the ‘king’ role in the rounds thereafter, players pick a role. It is in this part of the game that players need to think of a strategy for the coming round and guess which player is which role if they want to defend, build or attack. The special abilities of the characters consist of making other roles skip their turn, stealing ‘gold’, taking more buildings cards, receiving more ‘gold’, building additional buildings, destroying other players’ buildings or defending him/herself from having own buildings destroyed. As said before, the ‘king’ role gets to choose a new role first in the next round. The king also functions as a facilitator, because he/she needs to announce all roles in order (which can be different from the player order around the table). The mechanics with the roles in this game are devising a strategy, guessing other players’ intentions and using special abilities to get the own goal.

Players get to choose which buildings they build as some of them have advantages for players or roles. Some buildings are very valuable and cost less than they are worth when counting points in the end. Some buildings have special effects that give players bonuses or are protected from destruction. Players get extra points if they build buildings from all different classes. Additionally, there are several buildings which are linked to a role, so that if a player has one of these buildings built, they will receive bonus coins if they chose that certain role in that round. The game mechanic is that players get to choose which buildings to build, to increase their points, income and abilities. These are closely linked to the roles the players choose, but also to which roles the other players choose.

The game mechanics of strategy, guessing intentions,...