Corporate!
This is meant to be a simulation game that you can run in a workshop to help folks develop deeper insights into how they work, organize themselves, and handle complex situations. More than the play of the game, the debrief at the end is where you will turn this experience into insight that will better equip you in your roles at work.
This activity is born out of a love for tabletop role-playing games and a deep appreciation for effective simulations are at creating personal insights for people.
This guide is split roughly into two halves each corresponding to what players should know and what the facilitators of the activity should know. If you're a player, only read through characters and the player's guide. If you're the facilitator read all of that and the facilitator's guide.
The simulation will involve participants taking on a character with a role and defined attributes that indicate their chances of success at influencing others, a specific skill needed for work, and the ability to facilitate groups to better results. Throughout the simulation, the group will respond to new opportunities and obstacles by re-organizing themselves, applying their skills, and making important trade-offs. At the end there will be a facilitator led debrief to help people develop insights around leadership, how work is organized, and the dynamics of complicated work scenarios.
Characters
Creating Characters
You can create the characters as a part of the simulation itself, or have pre-created ones. To create a character follow these steps:
- Roll 1d6+3 for each of the three attributes of Influence, Skill, and Facilitation and record those numbers.
- Roll 1d3 (Roll a d6 and divide the result in half rounding up) and record this as your Credibility.
1d6 is short for one six-sided dice. 2d6 would be two six-sided dice added together. 1d6+3 would mean to roll one six-sided die and add three to the result.
A six-sided die is the most common die and is found in many board games and is a cube with six-sides numbered one through six.
It is a good idea to have several backup sheets ready for if people lose their jobs and need to get re-hired.
You will not need to fill out your Role until the simulation starts.
Character Sheet
Role: What your character does at work and what their skill applies to
Credibility: Equivalent to Hit Protection, allows for re-rolls
Influence: Getting someone to do what you want
Skill: Accomplishing a role specific task
Facilitation: Getting groups to have better outcomes or bigger failures
Boss
In this simulation there is one, and only one, Boss. This is a unique designation that is different from a role. The Boss may have a role and contribute to opportunities just as everyone else does.
The Boss is unique in that they are:
- The only one allowed to collect and turn in Opportunities and Obstacles
- Able to allocate roles
- Able to distribute rewards from successfully completed Opportunities
- Able to distribute penalties from Obstacles and failed Opportunities
- Able to designate people as Managers
Role Allocation
Bosses can re-allocate roles. This makes the people unable to participate for one task, and if this is done against the person's will, this requires an influence roll.
Managers
Managers are created and removed by the Boss, and may require an Influence roll just as if they were allocating roles. Managers are able to:
- Allocate roles
- Distribute rewards
- Distribute penalties
Player's Guide
First, familiarize yourself with your character sheet. You will need to keep its contents a secret throughout the simulation.
As opportunities and events occur you and the other participants will have to make a lot of decisions. After your discussions, you will likely need to roll some dice to decide the outcome of you and your group's actions.
When you need to roll dice for Skill, or Facilitation, you take the two six-sided dice, roll them, and add up the results. If this number is LESS than than the number on your sheet, you succeed. If not, you fail.
Influence requires a contest between two people, in this case you'll roll the same 2d6, add the results with your Influence score and the HIGHEST wins.
A breakdown of the three basic actions are:
Skill
This is what you use to accomplish opportunity cards. Your skill is based on the role you have. So if you are a Developer, you will apply your skill to the number of required successes for Developers.
Influence
Influence represents your ability to convince others to do something when they want to do something else. When it comes up that you are asking someone or being asked to do something you do not agree with, you will use Influence to decide.
Each party rolls the two six sided dice, adds their Influence number and compares results. The person with the highest total of dice + Influence wins, and the other must abide by that decision.
Facilitation
This is a unique attribute that can wildly swing the results of what happens. The effect applies to the current task. If you're facilitating, you may not contribute to the current task. You can consult the chart below for results.
| Difference | Effect |
|---|---|
| -2 | 2x the number of successes scored |
| -1 | 1.5x the number of successes |
| 0 | No effect |
| 1 | 1d4 Staff cannot participate |
| 2 | 0.5x the number of successes scored |
| Example: You want to facilitate the group's next roll. You have a 6 for your facilitation and when you roll two dice you get 5. This is one under your facilitation attribute and so you would look at the -1 result which is to 1.5 the number of successes this round. | |
| Note: Find a way to make this less confusing | |
| Note: Should this have a limit to how big of a group it can effect? |
Credibility
Credibility represents your good standing with folks and lets you attempt things more often. You can use your credibility to re-roll the dice and choose the better result. You may do this as many times as you like.
If you run out of credibility you will then use your influence. If you run out of influence, you have lost your job or quit. You may either become an observer and wait for the debrief and share what you observed of the group, or make yourself available to re-hire by collecting a new character sheet and waiting for a boss or manager to hire you.
Credibility is regained as a reward for accomplishing opportunities and distributed by the boss.
Opportunities
When working on an opportunity there will be a lot of choices you and your peers will need to make. Each opportunity card has a number of attempts on it. These attempts are for the entire company so make sure everyone participating is ready. There is no going back once an attempt is made.
If your opportunity needs multiple roles, each attempt can include one or all of them. Everyone will roll dice for that attempt and record their successes. If someone isn't present for that attempt, they missed that attempt.
Plan accordingly.
Vacation
Simulations like this are meant to be insightful and fun, but they can also become stressful. As a player, you may at any time go on vacation and remove yourself from the simulation temporarily or permanently.
Use this to take a bathroom break, get a drink or snack, or remove yourself from situations that are no longer acceptable to you.
Nobody can convince you or use Influence to compel you to return. If you need help, speak to the simulation's facilitator.
Facilitator's Guide
Setup
Materials
- Rules handouts for players
- Printed opportunity/event cards
- Lots of six sided dice
- Pencils
- Character sheets
Number of participants: 10+
Time Needed: 4+ hours
Room Configuration
There is no particular setup required for a room, though having plenty of space for the group to move around is important. Additionally, tables and chairs that the group can arrange will be welcome as well as a few chairs off to the side for folks on vacation to rest away from the others.
Starting the simulation
Explain that they will play a simulation of running a company, and that this company will need a boss. The boss is unique and will work directly with the game facilitators to explain the situations at hand, claim rewards of success, and distribute them. If there are multiple volunteers, hold a quick election. Have each candidate answer, "Why do you want to be the boss," and "What will make you a good boss in this simulation?"
Now you can explain the rules, but have handouts ready for people to take with them.
Everyone else will come and collect a character sheet without a role assigned. Explain that characters may not discuss the numbers on their sheet or show what is on their sheet to anyone. They may describe their sheet the way a normal person would, "I'm pretty good at QA."
You will also need to inform them that people found cheating will be removed from the simulation. The most common form of cheating will be disclosing what is on their character sheet and lying about the results of their rolls.
The first obstacle/opportunity is handed to the boss and they may begin.
Obstacles & Opportunities
A series of cards that represent an event or opportunity for the company to handle. Most will be opportunities that are beneficial for the company.
Opportunity cards will describe the opportunity and then what it will take to complete it. Beneath the description of the opportunity will be a list of roles, a required number of successes for each role. There will also be a number of boxes as well. The number of boxes represent attempts available before the deadline for that opportunity expires. The number of successes is the total number of successes for that role to succeed for that piece of the opportunity.
Here's an example card:
Trade-Show Demo
A trade-show is coming up soon, and if we can get a demo ready we can get some early sales to keep us going and improve our launch
Attempts before deadline: □□□□□□□□□
| Role | # Successes |
|---|---|
| Development | 35 |
| QA | 20 |
| Infrastructure | 25 |
| Marketing | 10 |
Reward: 20 credibility, and 100 company points
In this example there is a trade show opportunity. It lists that there are 10 attempts available before the deadline expires, and across all of those attempts there needs to be 35 development successes, 20 QA successes, 25 Infrastructure successes, and 10 Marketing successes.
For each box, groups may roll their skills and record the total number of successes per role. If the run out of boxes without reaching the required number of successes, they fail the opportunity.
Opportunity cards will provide rewards in terms of points to represent company success, and credibility that the boss can distribute as they like.
Other cards will be events like a virus that will require specific actions happen on an interval like remove 3 people from play for X tasks (Or minutes) as they recover from sickness.
Pacing
Part of the simulation is experiencing multiple competing needs and trade-offs. Your pacing of giving Opportunity and Obstacle cards will add pressure or decrease it.
Start by introducing a new card every 10 minutes. Alter the pacing from there.
Make it clear to The Boss how you will signal new Opportunities are available. If The Boss isn't paying attention, they will miss the opportunity. That is part of the simulation.
Obstacle cards, on the other hand, do not wait. If you pull one. Put it in The Boss's hands directly.
Creating and Adjusting Opportunity Cards
A really rough approximation is that players will succeed about 30% of the time. So to scale the opportunities to the group you're playing you can use a simple formula:
# of players * 0.3 * # of attempts
This will tell you the total number of successes needed for an opportunity that players are likely to achieve given a number of attempts. You can use this information to adjust cards to fit the attendees of the simulation.
We have 10 people playing and an opportunity card with 6 attempts available. The baseline number of successes from the formula is 10 * 0.3 * 6 = 20. That means I should scale the number of successes to 20 total successes.
Since groups in this simulation will vary in size. You will likely need to create these or alter old ones for each simulation's group. Since you control the pace of them, you should have time to alter your next card using this guidance. Some examples are in the Appendix.
Ending the Simulation
After the allotted time is over, you can share the total points earned for the company. The points carry no material meaning, but sharing this will likely stir a conversation about how many more points they could have earned.
After the allotted time is over hold a debrief for the group. Host a fishbowl, or ask questions like:
- What are you're immediate reactions to what happened?
- What did you notice in terms of what you saw and heard and felt?
- In what ways was this simulation like work, and how was it unlike work?
- Thinking about the event, what stands out to you?
- What doesn't sit right or is challenging?
- Reflecting on the experience, what meaning did you personally get from this?
- What are you curious about?
- What do you think you may take with you back to work?
Appendix
Sample Opportunities
Trade-Show
There is an upcoming trade show and having a demo ready would really boost early sales and get valuable feedback
Attempts before deadline:
Investor Meeting
A well-known investor has agreed to a meeting, and they are notorious for digging into the details. You need a working product, and lots of reports to impress them.
Attempts before deadline:
Product Launch
It is time to launch a new product that should bring about a new revenue stream. If it goes well anyway.
Attempts before deadline:
Adapt to Emergent Tech
Our technology is about to become obsolete, we have a first-mover advantage if we can migrate quickly.
Attempts before deadline:
Acquire a Company
We can add to our portfolio and revenue by acquiring a company in our space, but we will have to integrate and take control.
Attempts before deadline:
Sample Obstacles
Lawsuit
We have been hit with a lawsuit and need to provide documentation to our legal team to address the issue.
You must...
Virus
Everyone is getting sick, how are we going to meet our goals?
You must...
Bad Hire
You can't hide from it anymore, you have someone who has caused serious issues and they need to be removed.
You must...
Recession
The economy is slowing down more than you thought, and your forecasts are looking like dreams, if you aren't careful your company will be gone.
You must...
Bad Press
Word is getting around that everything isn't great about your company or product and its showing up in your financials.
You must...