Simsoc: Simulated Society, Participant's Manual

Teaching Sociology [SIMSOC's] potential for stimulating the learning process is staggering....It continues to attract devotes. The options for personal modification and innovation are there. The applicability to various course orientations and subtopics is limitless...

Autorentext
William A. Gamson, the former President of the American Sociological Association, is also a former Guggenheim Fellow and Professor in Boston College's Sociology Department. He is the creator of SIMSOC and author of Talking Politics, The Strategy of Social Protest, and Power and Discontent, among other books.

Klappentext
SIMSOC: Participant's ManualSIMSOC (which is pronounced sim-sock and stands for simulated society) is a dynamic group simulation game that forces participants to cope with the daily problems of governing society. Assuming a variety of roles, the players grapple with issues like abuse of power, justice, diversity, trust, and leadership as they negotiate their way through labor-management strife, political turmoil, and natural disasters. SIMSOC imposes few rules and restrictions upon its participants. There is no programmed outcome. Success or failure is dependent upon decisions made by players and the creativity of the group. To be successful, players must utilize every basic social process from cooperation and reward to threat and punishment. SIMSOC will make participants ask questions about social control, and bring everyday experience and deeper understanding to even the most arcane social and organizational theory.Included in this Fifth Edition of SIMSOC's "Participant's Manual" are instructions for playing, materials for play, study questions based on participation, and selected readings about simulation games, leadership, and social processes. New to the Fifth Edition are additional size levels to accommodate larger groups, simplified rules, and readings by authors from Nicholas Lemann to Robert Putnam.Each SIMSOC participant should have a copy of the "Participant's Manual" and the instructor a copy of SIMSOC's "Coordinator's Manual," which contains additional materials needed for play and directions on how to set up and run SIMSOC. One "Coordinator's Manual" will be needed for each SIMSOC exercise of up to ninety participants. It can be obtained, for a $5.00 fee, bywriting, on letterhead, to: The Free PressA Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.Faculty Service Desk1230 Avenue of the AmericasNew York, NY 10020

Zusammenfassung
The official guide to SIMSOC, the dynamic group simulation game whose “potential for stimulating the learning process is staggering” (Teaching Sociology), in which players grapple with the challenge of governing society.

In SIMSOC, players confront issues like abuse of power, justice, diversity, trust, and leadership as they negotiate their way through labor-management strife, political turmoil, and natural disasters. Success or failure is dependent upon decisions made by players and the creativity of the group—and every game is a teaching tool.

To be successful, players must utilize every basic social process from cooperation and reward to threat and punishment. SIMSOC will make participants ask questions about social control, and bring everyday experience and deeper understanding to even the most arcane social and organizational theory.

Included in this Fifth Edition of SIMSOC's Participant's Manual are instructions for playing, materials for play, study questions based on participation, and selected readings about simulation games, leadership, and social processes. New to the Fifth Edition are additional size levels to accommodate groups of up to ninety participants with simplified rules and readings by authors from Nicholas Lemann to Robert Putnam.

Leseprobe
Introduction

You will shortly be participating as a citizen in a simulated society. If the society is to be a valuable learning experience, we will need your cooperation. Cooperation in this context means taking your objectives in the society seriously, We have tried to create a situation in which each of you has goals that depend on other people in the society for their achievement. Some of your goals will be held in common with other people, and some will bring you into conflict with others. Inevitably, some of you will do better than others in achieving your goals but, unlike some games, SIMSOC has no clear winners or losers.

You represent only some of the citizens of your society. Other citizens are present only in imaginary form -- that is, certain rules of the game are based on assumptions about the reactions of these imaginary citizens. Nevertheless, this is basically your society to do with as you like.

COORDINATOR´S ROLE

The coordinator´s role is kept to an absolute minimum once the society is in process. He or she will maintain the bank, receive forms, and carry out other tasks specified in the manual to make the game operate. If questions about the rules arise, the coordinator will guide you to the appropriate section of the manual and help you locate appropriate forms, but will not interpret ambiguous rules or advise you how to deal with situations arising in the game. The coordinator will do everything possible to avoid becoming enmeshed as a participant in your society once it has begun.

NATURE OF THE RULES

The rules in the manual are intended to represent certain "natural" forces in the real world rather than human laws. To ignore them by cheating simply renders the game pointless and meaningless. The coordinator should not be put in the position of having to monitor your observance of the rules, but should be able to depend on your cooperation to achieve the larger purpose of learning. The rules of the manual, as you will see, allow great leeway for you to add your own agreements and rules. The agreements that you make among yourselves are your own responsibility -- these represent human laws rather than "natural" forces. If a player ignores or refuses to comply with a rule your society makes, you must face the issue of how to deal with this behavior. All players have a responsibility to observe the rules in the manual to make the game operative, but it is a matter of individual choice whether one observes the rules that you may establish to govern yourselves.

In spite of efforts to anticipate various contingencies, ambiguous situations will inevitably arise. When more than one meaning of a rule is possible, the coordinator will refer the question to a group within the society for interpretation. The coordinator will be concerned only with those aspects of the ambiguous situation that affect his or her specific tasks as coordinator.

SUMMARY OF THE RULES

The rules that follow are detailed, but not as complicated as they first appear; you will discover this once SIMSOC is in process. A short summary of the rules is included here to give you a general sense of the nature of the society and the options available to you. It also includes page references so that later you can easily look up exact details as necessary. A careful reading of this summary is a helpful way to begin, but you should read the complete rules rapidly. Once you begin to play and attempt to achieve your goals, you will need to read various specific sections of the complete rules more carefully.

Simbucks

Simbucks are the basic currency in SIMSOC. Initially, they are held in a bank run by the game coordinator.

Region

All members of the society live in one of four regions.

Moving

A player may move to another region by paying a moving fee to the bank.

Travel

A person cannot travel between regions without having either a tr…

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