it8-rules_en.md

#¨le Grand Jeu¨

A working example of situation oriented analysis for sustainable micro-economies,

through gamification and artistic methodologies

A table game allows to set a situation where concepts emerge from doing, players are by default considered as peers. We can simulate different conditions and behaviour emerge and get immediate feedback from the game environment. In a game all languages intermix, specialist terminology has to be translate, and stories emerge.

Le Grand Jeu (iteration 8)

¨Le Grand Jeu" is the name of a game designed in May-July 2016 by Federico Bonelli and Raffaella Rovida, and that finalised in a 4 days workshop held in Milan 10-14 July 2016 and perfectioned in another 2 iterations in Venice and presented last 11 of May in SALE Doks for Darkmattergames, a side event of Biennale 2017. The group of players includes artists, engineers, experts of design and planning, citizens and activists. The idea and the direction of the process came by to help design a situation where some narratives about the future of our society could be told, crafted and eventually discussed in a positive way. It is copyright with creative commons non-commercial sharealike 4.0 international.

An interesting historical precedent to this approach is included in the genesis of the world famous counterpart of Le Grand Jeu, MONOPOLI. Monopoli, that teaches traditional forms of capitalism to children since the ´30es had been originally developed to demonstrate the feasibility of socialist and progressive doctrines of Toureau. Developed and patented by a woman, Elisabeth Phillips, in 1903, was plagiarized and sent to Parker Brothers that exploited it. Is apparently the man that plagiarized it that substituted "mother nature" with "the bank".

The Game comes with a set of DIY components:

• The Board: The playing surface consists of a diamond shaped grid of triangular boxes, which we will call the network.

• Triangular shapes that fit every area on the network are named "Territories". If you put your area outside of the network you say that that territory is off the grid. Adjacent territories can transport matter without extra expenses.

• Currency: Blacks and Whites are the two the currency of the game translating wide concepts like white: money, cryptocurrency, resources, knowledge, etc.; black: pollution, loss of biodiversity, bad karma, depletion of resources, raise of entropy, etc. Energy accounting into money transactions allows to correctly model circular economy subjects.

• Dices: A 6-sided die: to rule probability, in particular chance events; the game master can decide to introduce for the fun of it more n-sided dices, but basically most things can be modeled with d6. Notation: 1d6 means "throw one dice of 6", 2d8 "throw two dice of 8" etc.

• The Wheel of Fortune: simulates an event that has, a priori, a clear distribution law of probability. Includes two types of events, the action of invent, enjoy and destroy. For particular purposes the distributions can be varied at the beginning of the game by the master

• The local economy is visible to everyone as it unfolds on the table. The public money in the game are left in the plate of the master. Is the plate were both black and white coins stay after they are "generated" by players activity. On this plate can operate the assembly, redistributing resources or deciding taxation schemes.

• The Functional Elements and the Line: Elements of Line of process organized for now in 4 lines: agriculture, animals, energy and logistics; and on 3 levels: procurement, production, 2.0. To each element is associated a production cost, a management cost and a yield. Element can be combined in lines of production, individually or cooperatively or under any other form of agreement. The master can extend this side in his presentation of the game whenever the game is organized to set a situation.

• Learn: is possible for any player to “learn” something. The process and its cost are modelled case by case from the master

• Enjoy: starts an activity that might cost but burns black

• Lands and Tokens: free representation and production of the Lands owned by players and of the Functional Elements acquired or exchanged to be placed on the Board. The gamers are also provided with building material (pongo or sticks and colored papers), and encouraged to build upon their territories what they have constructed as a line of process

• Means of transport, logistics etc. They can be simulated in the game and descrived as production lines. A physical representation will be made by the player to be put on the board and move.

• Master diary: to inspire and support the reporting of the Master including a Note-taking form, a matrix of Elements, a list of Events and a list of Victory rule for the table and for the tournament.

• Cards they are divided in two groups, cards that pertain to global events within chain of events that live outside of the players reach (like the hitting of a meteorite), that are called “le grand jeu events”. The second group of events are events connected to the general playing field, and are just “events” or “lucks”. Their function is to help the master to model the situation and also to move on the game creating turbulence and friction.

Set of basic rules:

Set-up: roll of dice to distribute lands, blacks and whites to the players. Is up to the master to decide how much land and resources our players have access to at the beginnig of the game. Es. 1d6 of Territories, 3d6 of white, 1d6 of black each.

Round: each player pays 1 white in the Common pot; this is the "expenses/taxes"; then “Invests” or “Learns” or “Calls the Assembly”; at the end he spins the Wheel of Fortune

Strategy: fee to create a cooperative production line 5 whites each Element; fee for player’s death double the black for all players.

According to the rule adopted to win we will develop the game in a direction or another. The rule is stated at the beginning according to the situation that we want to model. For example the more used is a) wins the player that after n tours (or for ex. 2 hrs game time) has the best balance between white and Blacks another can be b) wins who has more white, no matter the Blacks

in case of multiple tables wins the table that has less black

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The Game is facilitated by a Master that plays the wheel of Fortune, rules the creation of new Elements and laws, and report the strategies and dynamics arisen on the Diary. The Master should have a basic knowledge of physics, economy and enough creativity to nurture a plausible and fun game playing neutrally.

some key concepts for the master:

I am the chaos master 0. I keep notes

1. I shift information
2. I carve the situation and move it to the flow
3. I act upon space/time with perception altering technique
4. I hide or reveal elements at will
5. I give and take out weight to elements
6. I act with true intentions
7. i take the blame and responsibility
8. I can be you
9. To decide i throw the Dices
10. If i have no idea probability can be 50%

Some notes about what is a the Situation 0. The situation is the game field

1. Situations can not be meaningful if isolated
2. Morphic field hypothesis: connections between agents in situation and different situations is mobile and full of tunnels.
3. A situation is always in a place. The place is therefore an actor in the process
4. A situation has a duration
5. A situation has actors. No pure observer exist; a situation that is spied upon is a different situation from one that is not spied upon, no matter if those in the situation know or not about their observers.
6. A useful situation is temporary
7. A situation is useful to our aims when there is a third force that determines its end: for example a performance or a final presentation or a review

Some concepts attached to the process of transformation

0. Transformation is the element that describes the welcomed rise of complexity in a creative process
1. In transformation self organization is a good thing
2. Transformation is possible only in very strictly ruled systems with open situations
3. A reorganisation, ghestalt re-orientation or simplification maneuver that breaks symmetry of the problem is a very good thing
4. Quality is not Perfection
5. Self similarity
6. Feedback
7. Storicize, let stories live on, self selection of stories creates narratives
8. Lie: a good story is worth a change of perspective
9. A transformator is the working implementation of a transformation into a situation that is at the same time representing itself. This is media art implemented.
10. Minimalism is baroque of the lazy people