Games That Teach – Pandemic and Articulation

Some games (even more recently) are cooperative and force players to work together against the game. It’s fairly obvious why this would be helpful. It teaches teamwork and cohesion and all that boring stuff they hammer into your brain at school. But what I want to talk about is how cooperative games, especially Pandemic, affect the way we talk.

pandemic cover

So in Pandemic you and your buddies are a team of researchers, scientists, doctors, and other people out to save the world from various diseases. You have to work together with your various skills to complete your task and ultimately save the world. It’s all a very noble game and is great to play with anyone as no one will object to the theme (I can just imagine someone who doesn’t want to save the world from disease screaming at you about something like a crazy person in a cop show).

To get all of this done requires a lot of communication. Now, I’m sure you have communicated with people before, possibly on a daily basis, but you never realize how vaguely you speak until you have a goal to accomplish with other people. I have made a conscious effort to make my speech more concise since I was at a job parking cars and had no idea what to do because of poor instruction. I would only realize several years later how well cooperative board games help with this.

First you have to make a plan.  This involves critical thinking skills which this game also helps build. Then you have to figure out everyone’s role in the plan and if they could be doing anything more productive. Then you have to communicate this plan to the other players. The plan must be well dictated so as to not confuse the the players and to allow them to also think about what would be the best thing to do. Since all of the moves in the game are fairly similar you have to be clear about which moves to make when. And since you can’t show the other players your hand of cards you must make sure they know exactly how many cards you have of what type. You don’t want to make a mistake and end up with a plan that is unelectable because of some miscommunication.

The skill to speak clearly and be understood is a great one to have. It is not necessarily a skill with any applied purpose but it is just useful. Like being able to walk doesn’t qualify you for a lot of positions, but it helps. Pandemic and other cooperative games will help you improve your coordination, leadership, critical thinking, and articulation skills. On top of all that, it’s fun. After playing several games I definitely feel like I can more clearly explain my plan to someone else or give orders in a workplace. To speak clearly and articulate concisely is a very useful skill and if you want to learn while having fun, there is almost no better way than with Pandemic.

Games that Teach – Poker and Managment

How good are you at managing your assets? If you’re not, there is a way to improve your skill for only a few bucks. That is by playing the game known as Texas Hold ’em (perhaps five-card draw if you’re not as original). How? Well, perhaps I will be able to explain to you. (I should note I’m very bad at poker and this is not written on how to win, but on how to manage money so you don’t lose as hard.)

Though we go pretty hard

Though we go pretty hard

I’m going to be explaining this from my point of view, as it is more simple for me to explain (or at least I think it is). The first obstacle you learn to overcome in poker is how to not throw all your money into one pot (if that’s your poker technique you should really not be playing poker anymore). Ideally you should have put aside the amount of money you are willing to lose and use that to play the poker game. If you have not done that you should stop playing and go do that. To learn how to manage one’s money properly you first need to learn how to establish a fallback. Once you have your fallback of cash that will hopefully get you out of the bad situation you got into in Vegas, you can begin playing the game with the money you think you can lose.

The third thing you’ll learn is that bluffing works best with a hint of truth. If your opponents can’t gauge when you’re dumping your money into something good or bad they’ll usually back off. That has very little to do with managing money, but it is kinda important in poker. The third management thing you’ll learn is how to handle your winnings. Many people continue to bet heavily after they’ve won a big round and end up bleeding cash until they’re down to a bare minimum. But if one uses their winnings to gain a few smaller victories and not one big one they’ll quickly find themselves farther ahead.

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This is literally the first photo I took on my phone

 

But the real trick with poker is to lose sustainably. You, as a player of poker, are going to lose. If you’re in a four player game you’re gonna lose about one out of every four rounds played, maybe more, maybe less. What one learns if one wants to continue playing poker is how to take advantage of their winnings and stall their losses enough to, at the very least, break even. This usually involves never going all in. But the most important thing is that you quit when you’ve lost. If you lose the money you set aside, don’t bring anymore into the game. Cooling off and restarting from a different angle is valuable in money, time, and overall life management. Poker is a great way to learn this, if one isn’t a habitual gambler, in which case you’re probably to far gone by now anyway.

I’m not really good at winning poker, but I’ve stubbornly stayed in the game as others have lost all their money. Some days I break even and some days I’m even up. But knowing your limits and how to manage your money keeps you in the game.

Games that Teach – Risk and Negotiation

So I think Im okay at Risk, the board game. Now, I’m not sure that Risk has really taught me anything I didn’t already know, but it has given me the opportunity to exercise some of my less developed communication and strategic skills.

So Risk is basically a push-your-luck style game masquerading as a strategy game. The game does require one to pace oneself or usually end up dead (best case scenario after overextending is a stalemate). I enjoy playing computerized versions of the game and I do fairly well at them. However I much prefer to play with live people in front of me. Preferably with them playing as well. This adds a whole new layer of depth to an otherwise simple game of probabilities and risk taking.

With other players, Risk can even become a co-operative experience (but only at times, as there is only one winner). Treaties are almost necessary to win the game. One player against 2-5 others is almost impossible. It’s to the benefit of both players to form an informal alliance as it allows them to either focus their forces elsewhere or against a common enemy. The problem comes with a fact I just mentioned, there is only one winner. It’s hard to keep a treaty when your “friend” is stabbing you in the back covertly. The fact that everyone is still technically against you makes diplomacy hard at the best of times. This problem is magnified by the fact that even if you are a great diplomat you can still lose the game if you’re not a good strategist.

Or you can just attack with overwhelming odds

Or you can just attack with overwhelming odds

But I’m not here to talk about Risk strategy, I’m here to talk about diplomacy. It’s really important in Risk to keep your opponents off your back. The best way to do this is obviously through a temporary alliance. This will work for the first couple games. But if you’re like me and you either win all the games or are at least a very strong opponent at all times, people will be hesitant on this front. Diplomatic skills are necessary to stay alive as everyone tries to kill you because they are bitter about losing the last game (which they have a right to be). In this situation, the ability to keep talking and playing up the strengths of other players while drawing attention away from your own is a great skill to have and develop. The player that messes up and says something that may break or make tense an alliance already held will likely end up losing. A losing player is also quick to make an alliance, especially with a very strong player.

Knowing when to talk, what to talk about, and who to talk to is a great skill that can be developed and honed in Risk. Learning to strategically begin peace talks and/or negotiate for a place is a very handy skill to have. Risk is a great place to learn it. Other games have rules against negotiation or complicated rules that could cripple the negotiating process. Risk is a blank canvas on which one can put almost any type of diplomacy. From threats to counter-attack, to agreements to not attack on a certain front, to a pincer movement on a common enemy.

Or perhaps simply divide up the world

Or perhaps simply divide up the world

Very few games offer the sandbox that Risk does, as other abstracted games of strategy have few player and no room to negotiate (chess, checkers, Stratego, etc.). Risk is one of those games that is much better with people face to face. You can bluff like in poker, you can bolster like in three card brag, you can threaten like in chess, you can fortify like Startego, you can be tactical like in checkers, and you can negotiate like in diplomacy. It’s great, there are enough ways to play that everyone you know can. Each time I play I feel like I learned something new about the people I played with. Risk can be a great tool for teaching compromise, strategy, and negotiation. And of course other things, but I believe it shines best as a version of diplomacy with luck. If you didn’t like if before because you thought it was slow, give it a try with a group of deal makers and I think you’ll have a much better time.

I gotta play a game now.