Rising Tides

We developed Rising Tides, a 4-6 person card game that straddles the line between a traditional, casual card game and a piece of participatory theatre followed by a conversation. It can spark discussions about wealth and prosperity in America in a workshop or educational setting.

The game directly adapts the “Together Everyone Thrives” narrative into gameplay, first putting people into a competitive and hoarding mindset, then gradually inviting them to see the power of collective strategies around wealth. We originally thought that we would need two facilitators, one to play the “greedy few” from the narrative statement, and one to embody the spirit of the full statement itself. In playtesting, we discovered that the second role was counter to the intentions of the activity; the experience was much more satisfying, challenging, and engaging when the players were able to advocate, illuminate, and discover those ideas on their own.

Takeaways

• Audiences were overwhelmingly engaged and responsive to the exercise. They experienced everything from delight to frustration to somber self-reflection.
• We were curious to see whether players who intellectually might agree with the narrative would actually play in a values-aligned way. Watching folks wrestle with their own distrust of cooperation was fascinating; in only one game did everyone at the table finish with a winning hand. The game illuminates the assumptions and beliefs that keep us from “playing” collaboratively in our own lives, offering the opportunity to assess, adjust, practice, and maybe even change.
• A hypothesis we wanted to test felt true in the game: It’s not about sacrificing for the collective (in a very communist-coded way), but rather about realizing that your motivated self interest—your desire to win—is best served by helping the group win collectively. This is the piece of the narrative that we feel is most effective and broadly applicable across ideological lines.