MUSE LOG: Cooperative Games    
 Cooperative Games7 comments
picture25 Jan 2004 @ 02:17, by Tom Bombadil

Unlike most games which require players to focus their efforts trying to bankrupt someone or destroy their armies, and basically try and get rid of one another, here are a couple of unusual games in which players must work together if they are to survive — there are no individual winners, all players win or all players lose:


Earth Game
Players look after Fictional Nations, managing resources and solving the emerging problems. You have to be quick thinking and compassionate to deal with rapidly changing circumstances. What to do? Try Consultation, Trade Agreements, Economic Communities, Training & deploying Peace Armies to cool out conflict, Planetary Meetings... The game is won when Earth's problems are solved. The game is lost if you allow a World War to break out.

Lord of the Rings
Lord of the Rings is a co-operative game where the object is to destroy the Ring while surviving the corrupting influence of Sauron. Each player plays one of the Hobbits in the fellowship, each of which has a unique power. The game is played on a number of boards: the Master board indicates both the physical progress of the fellowship across Middle Earth and the corrupting influence of Sauron on the hobbits, and a number of scenario boards which detail the events and adventures of particular locations. Progression across the boards is determined by playing cards (many of which represent the characters and items of Middle Earth), and the effects of corruption are represented by a special die. The game is lost if the ring-bearer is overcome by Sauron, or won if the ring is destroyed by throwing it into the volcanic fires of Mount Doom.

The New Civilization Network
In the making?

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7 comments

25 Jan 2004 @ 04:04 by shawa : Tom?
The New Civilization Network is being played directly at the NCN member Area. :-)
The very best part of it is that it is not a game, it is reality.  

25 Jan 2004 @ 04:08 by jazzolog : True, But~~~
how cooperative is it? Does everyone make up his/her own rules? And what happens to a person who loses?  

25 Jan 2004 @ 18:41 by swan : Losing is just a prospective
from my prospective there are no losers. We are all winners.  

26 Jan 2004 @ 13:40 by Sellitman @69.33.46.10 : Shawa?
The New Civilization Network is bigger than the NCN member Area. :-)
Real is as real does.

NCN is no more and no less real than any of the good people out there thriving to make our world a better place. The people at Abundant Earth (the promoters of one of the cooperative games in the post above) offer, in their words, "a wide variety of environmentally sensitive products and services for people who want to make a difference in the world." Those games are about the spirit of co-operation and the delicate balance between competition and cooperation, between fair play and justice and exploitation and abuse of these for personal gain. A very NCN kind of exploration, if you ask me. NCN encourages it through its member—and non-member—areas, while Abundant Earth and other creative people out there are promoting such an exploration through games and other means.

Interestingly, Earth Game comes with this word of caution:
"We don't protect children from not making it to the summit or completing the space voyage. Our games are designed to offer realistic challenges. But the cultural habit of competing and confronting runs deep. Some players end up fighting the game itself. We suggest that you'll get better results learning how to get along..."

NB: I am sure your remark was about NCN and was in no way intended as a "put-down" to Tom's entry or to cooperative games or the value (educative, therapeutic) of games in general—I thought the subject deserved to be expended a bit and your comment made a good starting point.  

26 Jan 2004 @ 16:30 by Hanae @69.33.46.10 : NCN, RP and thoughtful speech
What is real? How real do we really think we are and how many "me" are there? Are we acting like whom we are or are we acting like whom we are acting when we act like whom we think we are when we act like whom we are? Role Playing games (RP) can be an expending experience. Can be disconcerting too, at times.

Sanya has a friend who in RL is quiet and shy. When he starts playing his rogue, though, look out. He's hyper, chattering a mile a minute, playing practical jokes, and cracking everyone up. When he plays his ranger, he's calm, level headed, and the sort of guy who gives great advice. When he's on his cleric, he is THE MOST ANNOYING PERSON ON THIS EARTH with a martyr complex from hell. His personality appears to change depending on the character.

Myself, I know that bard, who is a boisterous and fun loving half-elf following the god of trickery and I have met that wizard who is a dark elf and remains relatively secluded from people and reserved... he also has something of a power complex, but he's learning what he can't touch with spells... hasn't kept him from trying at times though.

But regardless of whom people think they are or what role they think they are playing, I think one of the things many folks are looking for, here, is thoughtful speech.  

26 Jan 2004 @ 17:05 by bombadil : Hehe Hanae
I can see the appeal. Those RP Rogues/Rangers/Clerics/Bards/Wizards perpectives of yours remind me of Edward Debono’s Six Thinking Hats school of thinking. The hats are useful visualization tools to help sidestep the ego and provide a nonjudgmental path to decision making.  

28 Jan 2004 @ 11:34 by bombadil : Working Together
These are some of the projects that NCN members are engaged in. The focus there is on taking specific cooperative action and achieving tangible results.  

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