StarPower (game)
| Players | 12-35 (18-35 recommended) |
|---|---|
| Setup time | < 30 minutes |
| Playing time | About two hours |
| Random chance | some 1 |
| Skill(s) required | negotiation, basic math |
| 1. In service to the educational goal of the game, chance and skill have a smaller impact on the game than players are initially led to believe. | |
StarPower is an educational game for ages 12 to 25, designed by R. Garry Shirts for Simulation Training Systems[1] in 1969.[2] [3] The game combines chance and skill at trading to establish a score. Players are assigned categories based upon their relative scores, with the highest scoring category being able to change the rules. The game is designed to illustrate the behavior of human beings in a system that naturally stratifies them economically or politically.
Contents |
[edit] Play
Players draw chips of different value out of a bag without looking into the bag. They then trade chips with other players under a special set of trading rules. If they get a certain combination of chips, the value of their individual chips are increased. They are told that the three persons who "earn" the most points will be declared the winners and that may want to do well in this first round of trading since in subsequent rounds of trading those with the highest scores will be able to draw from a bag of chips that is enriched with higher value chips than those with lower scores.
At the end of each round, players are assigned one of three groups and given an associated badge based on their score. The top scorers are Squares, the middle are Circles, and the low scorers are Triangles. After they have been formed into three separate groups, each group is given bonus chips to allocate to one or all of their members. The assignment of the bonus chips is made by the group according to a special set of rules. If any Circle or Triangle earns more points (because they have received bonus points) than a person from the group above them, then that person is "promoted" into the higher group and the person with the lower score is "demoted". Promotions may occur if a group gives a single bonus chip to a member of the Circle or Triangles but more often a promotion only occurs when the group gives all of the bonus chip to one person in their group with the hope that that person will represent their group's interests once they get in the higher group. After the second round of trading, group membership is again readjusted based on points earned through trading, but generally little mobility occurs since, as mentioned in the introduction to the simulation, the players in the Square group draw from a bag with a higher percentage of chips of higher values, while the Circles and Triangles draw from a bag with higher percentage of lower scoring chips. In other words, the rich get richer. Once the bonus chips are again distributed and assigned by the group, group membership of the groups is again adjusted with "promotions" and "demotions" It is then announced that, "because the Squares have worked so hard, they now have the right to make the rules for the game. Any group may suggest rule changes, via written message to the Squares but the Squares may accept, reject, ignore or modify any such suggestions. "Quote from the Starpower Director's Guide"Meadows, Donella (1986-12-04). "Why Would Anyone Want to Play Starpower?". http://www.sustainer.org/dhm_archive/index.php?display_article=vn151starpowered. Retrieved 2007-05-14. (Date is date of first publication, not release to the web.) </ref>[4]
Key to the game's educational effectiveness is for those running the game to withhold details about the true nature and implementation.[5] That the purple squares can change the rules is only revealed to players when the ability is added to the game.[4]
Starpower is by design a very unbalanced game. Game designer James Wallis has gone so far as to describe the game as "broken" "by all conventional standards of game design."[2] The unbalanced nature of the game reduces its replayability. Shirts views StarPower as more of a simulation than a game and as a result does not view replayability as an important goal. Power of Leadership (POL) is the next generation of StarPower, also designed by Garry Shirts. It was published in 2003.[6]
[edit] Typical results
One commentator writing for the Sustainability Institute claimed that square players typically rigged the game to benefit squares, circles strove to become squares at which point they began to act like squares, and that triangles became angry and then apathetic, only becoming interested at the possibility of cheating or revolution. At the end of the game, the squares seldom see the oppression they engaged in while the circles are viewed as sell-outs by the triangles and as incompetent by the squares.[7]
Another commentator notes similar results. The squares create oppressive rules that make it difficult for lower groups to advance.[8] Lower groups turn to cheating.[9] The commentator also noted the lower groups becoming apathetic.[10]
The official site for the game lists eight lessons that StarPower teaches, mostly focused on the results of inequal distribution of power. [3]
[edit] Notes
- ^ Fowler, Sandy (2001-10-26). "Tribute to R. Garry Shirts On the Occasion of Receiving the Ifill-Raynolds Award". http://www.stsintl.com/business/tribute.html. Retrieved 2007-05-14.
- ^ a b Wallis, James (2007-05-13). "Things to do in game design #1: cheat". COPE: James Wallis Levels With You. http://www.spaaace.com/cope/?p=50. Retrieved 2007-05-14.
- ^ a b "StarPower". Simulation Training Systems. http://www.stsintl.com/schools-charities/star_power.html. Retrieved 2007-05-14.
- ^ a b (Mukhopadhyay 2004)
- ^ "Much of the impact of the experience on players depends on the deliberate misinforming of participants as to the nature and outcomes of the game." Woods, Stewart (11 2004). "Loading the Dice: The Challenge of Serious Videogames". Game Studies. http://www.gamestudies.org/0401/woods/. Retrieved 2007-05-14.
- ^ Shirts, Garry; Bernie DeKoven (2006-10-20). "Guest Wisdom from Garry Shirts". Bernie DeKoven, funsmith. http://www.deepfun.com/2005/10/guest-wisdom-from-garry-shirts.html. Retrieved 2007-05-14.
- ^ Meadows, Donella (1986-12-04). "Why Would Anyone Want to Play Starpower?". http://www.sustainer.org/dhm_archive/index.php?display_article=vn151starpowered. Retrieved 2007-05-14. (Date is date of first publication, not release to the web.)
- ^ "This particular play of the game was typical. After a very short time, the top group made increasingly oppressive rules, reducing or even eliminating any changes for the others to succeed and move up the hierarchy." (Feld 1997)
- ^ "The members of the lower groups responded to the hopelessness of their fate in a variety of ways; some hid their cards or themselves; others ran away; still others directly refused to follow the rules, and some of them even seemed to dare the top group members to make them." (Feld 1997)
- ^ "As participants came to feel that there was essentially nothing that they could do that would lead to 'acceptable' levels of rewards, they increasingly tended to withdraw and/or act in hostile ways." (Feld 1997)
[edit] References
- Feld, Scott L. (1997-03). "Simulation Games in Theory Development". Sociological Forum (Springer Netherlands) 12 (1): pp. 103–115. doi:10.1023/A:1024608707275 (Available online: Feld, Scott L. (03 1997). "Simulation Games in Theory Development". Sociological Forum. http://www.springerlink.com/content/?k=Simulation+Games+in+Theory+Development. Retrieved 2007-05-14.)
- Mukhopadhyay, Carol C. (2004). "Starpower: Experiencing a Stratified Society". What's Race Got to Do With It?. http://www.whatsrace.org/pages/starpower.htm. Retrieved 2007-05-14.
[edit] External links
- StarPower - official site
