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World Simulation Rules Sandbox
NOTE: In Fall 2010 the simulation will occur in the Alumni Center at 8:15 am
* Props *
Money
Hard Power (Playing Cards)
Natural Resources (yellow notecards)
Land (Cereal Boxes with your culture’s name on it.)
Status Items
Mobility Maps (see below)
Cereal Symbolism
Fruit Loops and other fruity cereals = Rich, varied, and nutritious diet
Cheerios & Rice Krispies = Monotonous, not rich, non-nutritious diet
Cocoa Puffs = Luxury consumption goods (chocolate, coffee, tobacco)
THE MOST IMPORTANT RULE OF ALL
TRY. Please put your best efforts into making this simulation work. It will require a great deal of imagination on all of our parts. We have all learned a great deal about how cultures are integrated and interrelated. As each event occurs, do your best to “stay in character” and really act out what might actually happen in these different scenarios. If for some reason you are isolated with nothing to do and nobody to interact with, please try to imagine what you might do if you were actually a part of the culture you have created within this world system and find a way to interact with others. If this is impossible, use the time to discuss with your group how your culture might have changed given what has occurred so far. Consider all the different aspects of culture – infrastructure, social structure, and superstructure – and how they might have changed given the things that have happened to your culture during the simulation.
Setting Populations of cultures have been set to approximate world populations as of 1450 at the dawn of European colonization (about 400 million). World population will roughly double in each interaction, simulating the real world’s population growth (We will start the last round with 6.2 billion people). Throughout the simulation your own population may increase or decrease based on famine, disease, or shift to a new subsistence pattern (e.g. industrial agriculture would increase your “carrying capacity” and thereby increase your population tremendously). This will be indicated in your envelope at the beginning of the round.
Goals
* Understand the “structural power” of the world by simulating it in a form that allows us to see it all at once.
* Understand the many nuances and challenges of cultural change by experiencing those changes ourselves.
Basic Rules
There will be 4 sessions lasting approximately 17 minutes each. These 17 minutes are divided into 3 parts. * 11 minutes of interaction time * 3 minutes of “take account” time in which you “feed yourself” “pay your laborers” etc. (see below) * 3 minutes of “World News” by Professor Wesch
Each interaction will begin with each group opening an envelope providing the scenario for that particular interaction.
In order to survive, at the end of each session you must have a piece of food (cereal) to eat. This will require either land (a cereal box from which you can get food) or money to buy food from others. (Note: This rule does not apply to industrial powers as they are those few people in the world who never have to worry about having enough food to eat.)
To harvest your food, you need to collect cards that together total more than the number of people in your group. For example, if you have 12 people, you need cards totaling more than 12. You will need to trade with others to get the cards you need. At the beginning of Round 1, you will start with cards of all the same suit, but at the end of Round 1 you can only use cards of different suits (up to 4 cards) that must total enough to feed your group. In Round 2, you must gather cards of the same suit, but a different suit than you started with at the beginning of Round 1. In Round 3, you can only use cards of different suits again. Round 4: same suit but different from earlier rounds. This will become very challenging as trade routes and relations may become disrupted.
If your cards do not add up to more than the people in your culture, some people must starve to death and die. For example, if you have 12 people in your culture, but only get cards adding up to 10, 2 people die. Those who die STILL INTERACT IN THE NEXT INTERACTION, but they must move to a different culture / colony as a refugee. If there is nobody to take you in, we may set up a refugee camp.
Hard Power & The Rules of War (High Card Wins)
The cards used to feed yourself also represent your hard power.
Black cards can only be played at home. Only red cards can be used to attack others away from your homeland.
Each culture has a POWER X (an X drawn somewhere near your land). Whoever stands in the POWER X controls the land of the culture. (They do not control the people, but the people need to eat, so they may need to cooperate with the person who controls all the land.) You will want to protect your power X from invaders who can use hard power (higher cards than yours) to knock you out of the power X and take control of your land. Keep a high card ready to defend your power X.
A battle begins with somebody from one culture challenges the person standing in the Power X. Both sides quickly decide which card they want to play. At the count of 3 each side shows the other the card they are holding in their right hand. The side with the highest card wins the battle and gets to keep the card played by the other culture.
In case of a tie, no cards are exchanged and the power X remains in the control of whoever held it before the battle began.
Terms of surrender are negotiable between the two warring parties and may include a right to hold on to some hard power, money, land production rights, etc.
The winner occupies the land and will then act as a colonizer or occupier. The colonizer must keep one card at the X at all times to defend the land. This card may be kept hidden, so that others do not know how much force they are using to maintain power. Anybody (other colonizers or the locals themselves) may attack the colonizer at any time to gain (or regain) control of the land. (New rule: A colonizer must keep the card they won the land with on the power x for the remainder of the round or until they are defeated)
The colonizer can tax the people, take over the land ("plant" something else in the cereal box), force people into labor, force them to grow different crops, or kill them all (genocide). If genocide is committed, everybody in the killed culture must leave their land and become “refugees” in another nearby land. They must live out the rest of the simulation as a refugee in a foreign land.
ALLIANCES (new for Fall 2010)
Alliances can be made through whatever trades or agreements two cultures can make and will allow one culture to use a card of their ally. However, once an attacker moves into the power X, cards must be played within 5 seconds.
In the case of an alliance, each culture represented in the alliance can contribute a card. The total power of the alliance is the value of the lowest card plus the number of cards. Here are some examples:
3 cultures in the alliance play a 7,8, and 9. The total value is the lowest card (7) + the number of cards (3) = 10
10 cultures in an alliance play a 4,5,6,5,6,7,5,9,6,8. The total value is the lowest card (4) + the number of cards (10)=14
Face Card Values:
J=11
Q=12
K=13
A=14
Jokers are a surprise that will not emerge until later in the simulation.
Important Note: If you lose your original cereal and it is gone at the end of the round, it is gone forever. You join the World System and must find a new way to survive.
Mobility Each group can only move as far as reasonably possible given their technology with the exception that all cultures can visit at least one other culture.
Colonizers click here for additional rules and tips.
* Props *
Money
Hard Power (Playing Cards)
Natural Resources (yellow notecards)
Land (Cereal Boxes with your culture’s name on it.)
Status Items
Mobility Maps (see below)
Cereal Symbolism
Fruit Loops and other fruity cereals = Rich, varied, and nutritious diet
Cheerios & Rice Krispies = Monotonous, not rich, non-nutritious diet
Cocoa Puffs = Luxury consumption goods (chocolate, coffee, tobacco)
THE MOST IMPORTANT RULE OF ALL
TRY. Please put your best efforts into making this simulation work. It will require a great deal of imagination on all of our parts. We have all learned a great deal about how cultures are integrated and interrelated. As each event occurs, do your best to “stay in character” and really act out what might actually happen in these different scenarios. If for some reason you are isolated with nothing to do and nobody to interact with, please try to imagine what you might do if you were actually a part of the culture you have created within this world system and find a way to interact with others. If this is impossible, use the time to discuss with your group how your culture might have changed given what has occurred so far. Consider all the different aspects of culture – infrastructure, social structure, and superstructure – and how they might have changed given the things that have happened to your culture during the simulation.
Setting Populations of cultures have been set to approximate world populations as of 1450 at the dawn of European colonization (about 400 million). World population will roughly double in each interaction, simulating the real world’s population growth (We will start the last round with 6.2 billion people). Throughout the simulation your own population may increase or decrease based on famine, disease, or shift to a new subsistence pattern (e.g. industrial agriculture would increase your “carrying capacity” and thereby increase your population tremendously). This will be indicated in your envelope at the beginning of the round.
Goals
* Understand the “structural power” of the world by simulating it in a form that allows us to see it all at once.
* Understand the many nuances and challenges of cultural change by experiencing those changes ourselves.
Basic Rules
There will be 4 sessions lasting approximately 17 minutes each. These 17 minutes are divided into 3 parts. * 11 minutes of interaction time * 3 minutes of “take account” time in which you “feed yourself” “pay your laborers” etc. (see below) * 3 minutes of “World News” by Professor Wesch
Each interaction will begin with each group opening an envelope providing the scenario for that particular interaction.
In order to survive, at the end of each session you must have a piece of food (cereal) to eat. This will require either land (a cereal box from which you can get food) or money to buy food from others. (Note: This rule does not apply to industrial powers as they are those few people in the world who never have to worry about having enough food to eat.)
To harvest your food, you need to collect cards that together total more than the number of people in your group. For example, if you have 12 people, you need cards totaling more than 12. You will need to trade with others to get the cards you need. At the beginning of Round 1, you will start with cards of all the same suit, but at the end of Round 1 you can only use cards of different suits (up to 4 cards) that must total enough to feed your group. In Round 2, you must gather cards of the same suit, but a different suit than you started with at the beginning of Round 1. In Round 3, you can only use cards of different suits again. Round 4: same suit but different from earlier rounds. This will become very challenging as trade routes and relations may become disrupted.
If your cards do not add up to more than the people in your culture, some people must starve to death and die. For example, if you have 12 people in your culture, but only get cards adding up to 10, 2 people die. Those who die STILL INTERACT IN THE NEXT INTERACTION, but they must move to a different culture / colony as a refugee. If there is nobody to take you in, we may set up a refugee camp.
Hard Power & The Rules of War (High Card Wins)
The cards used to feed yourself also represent your hard power.
Black cards can only be played at home. Only red cards can be used to attack others away from your homeland.
Each culture has a POWER X (an X drawn somewhere near your land). Whoever stands in the POWER X controls the land of the culture. (They do not control the people, but the people need to eat, so they may need to cooperate with the person who controls all the land.) You will want to protect your power X from invaders who can use hard power (higher cards than yours) to knock you out of the power X and take control of your land. Keep a high card ready to defend your power X.
A battle begins with somebody from one culture challenges the person standing in the Power X. Both sides quickly decide which card they want to play. At the count of 3 each side shows the other the card they are holding in their right hand. The side with the highest card wins the battle and gets to keep the card played by the other culture.
In case of a tie, no cards are exchanged and the power X remains in the control of whoever held it before the battle began.
Terms of surrender are negotiable between the two warring parties and may include a right to hold on to some hard power, money, land production rights, etc.
The winner occupies the land and will then act as a colonizer or occupier. The colonizer must keep one card at the X at all times to defend the land. This card may be kept hidden, so that others do not know how much force they are using to maintain power. Anybody (other colonizers or the locals themselves) may attack the colonizer at any time to gain (or regain) control of the land. (New rule: A colonizer must keep the card they won the land with on the power x for the remainder of the round or until they are defeated)
The colonizer can tax the people, take over the land ("plant" something else in the cereal box), force people into labor, force them to grow different crops, or kill them all (genocide). If genocide is committed, everybody in the killed culture must leave their land and become “refugees” in another nearby land. They must live out the rest of the simulation as a refugee in a foreign land.
ALLIANCES (new for Fall 2010)
Alliances can be made through whatever trades or agreements two cultures can make and will allow one culture to use a card of their ally. However, once an attacker moves into the power X, cards must be played within 5 seconds.
In the case of an alliance, each culture represented in the alliance can contribute a card. The total power of the alliance is the value of the lowest card plus the number of cards. Here are some examples:
3 cultures in the alliance play a 7,8, and 9. The total value is the lowest card (7) + the number of cards (3) = 10
10 cultures in an alliance play a 4,5,6,5,6,7,5,9,6,8. The total value is the lowest card (4) + the number of cards (10)=14
Face Card Values:
J=11
Q=12
K=13
A=14
Jokers are a surprise that will not emerge until later in the simulation.
Important Note: If you lose your original cereal and it is gone at the end of the round, it is gone forever. You join the World System and must find a new way to survive.
Mobility Each group can only move as far as reasonably possible given their technology with the exception that all cultures can visit at least one other culture.
Colonizers click here for additional rules and tips.
mwesch |
Latest page update: made by mwesch
, Nov 12 2010, 7:21 AM EST
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About This Update
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| Started By | Thread Subject | Replies | Last Post | ||
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| zsymons | Cereal Symbolism | 1 | Nov 11 2008, 5:18 PM EST by jwilson6 | ||
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Thread started: Nov 9 2008, 8:28 PM EST
Watch
I've been hearing a lot of people talking about using something other than cereal to change the symbolism of money, resources, etc. I think we should stick to the cereal idea.
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| Haprker | Survival | 1 | Mar 28 2008, 4:08 PM EDT by mwesch | ||
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Thread started: Mar 25 2008, 5:48 PM EDT
Watch
So its possible for a few of your people to "die" and not the whole group?
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| Haprker | Question about rule | 2 | Mar 28 2008, 4:07 PM EDT by mwesch | ||
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Thread started: Mar 25 2008, 5:47 PM EDT
Watch
Is there a restriction on how early we can create alliances? (As an island group, I know we are not going to be the "winner" in the end, so we will have to combine forces to be able to stand a chance
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RulesNov112008.pdf (Adobe Portable Document Format - 169k)
posted by mwesch Nov 15 2008, 9:44 AM EST
Rules November 11th 2008
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