I'm here at the annual meeting of the Balaton Group (named after the Hungarian lake on whose shores we're gathered), watching teams of people from five continents argue about how best to transform a nation with an economy and social indicators similar to Nicaragua into a nation more like Sweden without destroying the environment.
They're playing Stratagem, a game developed by Dennis Meadows to teach the latest thinking on sustainable development. It's essentially a tool for learning how to win the Great Wager.
We've talked about serious games and how they can help us better understand the world, or indeed, even come up with new innovations for changing it. Stratagem is a hybrid board game/ computer simulation designed entirely to teach (the basics of the game are available as a PDF here). The purpose of Stratagem is to force you to learn 15 fundamental principles relating to systems dynamics in the real world, including issues like capital depreciation, diminishing returns on investment and the value of ecological services.
Players assume various roles, and aim to increase their country's supply of goods, food and energy over a 50 - 100 year time period. For each there is a hard path, based purely on investment and increasing production, and a soft path, based on efficiency and environmental protection. In addition, the time horizon of decisions players make (short- vs. long-term thinking) influence the results they get, as the game, much like the real world, is full of feedback loops and connected systems. Balancing a countries energy imports, foreign debt, population growth, social services, trade and environmental health turns out to be a very complicated and difficult task.
Dennis stands up and goes through the thinking behind the game (which is based on his work on exploring the limits to growth and research of his colleagues and various research institutions). He asks, "What is winning this game?" Again, as in life, there is no clear victory condition, and only an arbitrary finish line. Indeed, players are invited to agree on a victory condition, and debate what processes and decisions lead to their success or failure in achieving it.
It's not a flashy game: in fact, it's downright wonky. But if you are the kind of person who is trying to understand the kinds of big, systemic changes we face over the coming century, it's a valuable tool.
What I'd love to see, though, is a game which understands the development process, environmental limits and systems dynamics with this level of insight and real world experience, but combines it with both the passion of a game like A Force More Powerful and the beautifully immersive simulations of a Wil Wright game, and maybe threw in some ground level perspective like Village. In other words, it'd be great if Stratagem mated with some future-making tools.
