As you are getting ready to kick off the fall semester, we have a record number of new and updated games to consider! Sprinkled among them are games that have been partially updated/released following the provisional Reacting 3.0 templates. This update to our curriculum promises to keep the work of our authors vibrant and ready to address the challenges of the contemporary classroom. If you have questions about the changes, be sure to check out our announcement blog post from Nick Proctor. The finalized templates should be coming early this fall, so stay tuned for more about the future of Reacting. In the meantime, onto the games!
NEW GAMES
The Gothic Crisis: Transforming the Roman World, 376-382
Set in the Roman Empire of the late fourth century, The Gothic Crisis asks students to negotiate the terms under which Gothic refugees from beyond the Danube River will be settled within the lands of the Roman Empire. In debating issues such as military obligations and legal status, players will explore the interactions between Romans and barbarians and the diverse ways of envisioning the relationship between barbarian and Roman identity. Meanwhile, players will compete for honors and status within their factions, navigate potential conspiracies, and confront the perpetual possibility of a Gothic rebellion against the Roman Empire.
Negotiating Peace at Westphalia, 1648
In Negotiating Peace at Westphalia, 1648, students take on the identities and victory objectives of European ambassadors to negotiate a resolution to the Thirty Years War. The 1648 peace congress in Westphalia was the first-ever secular peace conference in Europe and, like the war it concluded, it was larger, more complex, and more revolutionary than any that came before. Ambassadors will have to determine whether to end the war by apportioning territories and financial reparations or follow a new option: instituting an Act of Oblivion. They must determine whether to allow religious diversity to become permanent and how to define the “German Liberties” of individual estates in relation to the Holy Roman Empire. They address practical and philosophical disputes and work together to create a set of treaties that resolve the issues in the war and set up a European system where peace is assumed to be the normal relationship between monarchies and territories in Europe. Negotiations can be influenced by battles between armies still active in the field and by marriage alliances among members of Europe’s noble dynasties. Of note, this game is in Reacting 3.0 format! So be sure to check it out if you are curious about the future of Reacting.
Reform or Revolution? Britain in the 1840s
Reform or Revolution? Britain in the 1840s places students in the British House of Commons across six sittings, from Sir Robert Peel's accession to office in autumn 1841 to the Corn Law crisis of 1846. Each student takes the part of a real Member and pursues that Member's aims through Prime Minister's Questions, floor debate, and division, arguing the great questions of the decade: the Corn Laws and the price of bread, the income tax, the workhouse and factory labor, the place of Catholics and Dissenters in a Protestant state, the government of Ireland, and the Chartist demand for a democracy that does not yet exist. The Parliament they enter divides along fault lines that run through the parties rather than between them, since Peel's Conservative majority contains both the Liberal-Conservatives who follow his project of measured reform and the Traditional Conservatives who hold that a party elected to defend the land and the Church has no business reforming either away, while the Whigs split over how far reform should go and the Radicals share benches with Irish Repealers who deny Westminster's right to govern Ireland at all. Because party discipline in these years remained loose and Members crossed the floor on the merits of a measure, students must build coalitions issue by issue, finding allies across the aisle and opponents within their own ranks. Peel's majority of seventy-six means the opposition cannot defeat him, so a government this secure falls only when its own supporters abandon it. The game asks how a governing order reforms itself without tearing itself apart, what a Member owes his party, his constituents, and his own judgment when the three conflict, and how much of a political settlement's survival turns not on the justice of the arguments made but on who can hold a majority together when the votes are called.
Granada, 1492: The Capitulation of Granada and the Year that Forged Spain
In this game, students negotiate the capitulation of the Islamicate Kingdom of Granada to the combined forces of Isabel of Castile and Fernando II of Aragon, while also planning a spectacle to communicate to the people what has transpired. In the simulation, students grapple with the realities of macro-political changes in an age where religious identities, public spectacle, and royal diplomacy collide to produce new and unexpected outcomes. Meanwhile, a wide array of "International Opinion" characters shape the outcomes of the negotiations between the two sides – from Turkish Admirals and Mamluk travelers to Portuguese judges and English heralds, many voices will be heard at the fall of Granada.
Battling Partisanship: Progressive Democracy and the Drive for a Non-Partisan Unicameral Legislature in Nebraska, 1934
Politicians, lawyers, academics, union members, farmers, ranchers, and journalists (men and women, people of diverse ethnicity; descendants of post-Civil War settlers and more recent immigrants) gather to debate the constitutional amendment placed on the state ballot in 1934 by a citizen initiative led by the progressive Senator George W. Norris. The amendment would replace the Nebraska House and Senate with a non-partisan, one house legislature. This microgame recreates a debate in Omaha in which students will play Progressives, Conservatives, and Indeterminates (with members of both major parties on all sides) to debate the value of tradition and the necessity of political parties for the organization of the legislature. Could American democracy evolve or was it locked into traditions formed 150 years earlier? Could a smaller one house legislature provide more responsible representation for citizens than the complex two-house system? Did the legislature have to be organized by political parties that had used legislative rules for years to block reform? Or could it function more effectively by liberating representatives from party labels, national agendas, and party discipline so that they could concentrate on voicing the concerns of their constituents and negotiate across party lines? The debate transitions into a final vote on the amendment and a chance to discuss its consequences. More broadly, in the postmortem students could be asked to apply the arguments of the 1934 Progressives in Nebraska to the current U.S. Congress in order to consider how partisanship affects the legislative branch. Is it valuable to have the House and Senate serve as a check on each other’s actions? Do strong party caucuses help or hinder legislation? A second avenue would be to turn discussion to recent efforts by some states to stymie or slow walk laws passed by voters through the Initiative process. Does the United States really want to maintain the direct input of citizens in the democracy?
When Have Women Paid Taxes? The Roman Matrons' Protest of 42 BCE
It is 42 BCE in Rome. You are one of the 1,400 wealthiest women in Rome, most members of prominent families, influential but still legally unable to vote or fully control your own property. You have spent your entire life enduring multiple civil wars and urban violence in which the men of your family fought for power. Now the current leaders of Rome are demanding that women pay taxes to fund their civil war, which for many of you directly targets your husbands and sons and brothers.
Nearly all these women do not want to pay taxes. However, the conflict comes in debating the method of resolution: whether this problem can only be solved by pleading with the wives and daughters of the new rulers of Rome to influence their loved ones, whether women should instead vote to unify together as a group and publicly advocate for policy changes, or whether they should simply resort to violence and assassination of those who oppose them. It is thus a game of how, rather than why, change can be pursued. It also addresses a larger question of what rights women do and don’t have, echoing the original source text of Hortensia’s actual speech: If women cannot vote or serve in public office, why should they have the responsibilities of citizenship but not the rights? How or whether should one resist an increasingly autocratic regime? How much do you risk one’s personal safety for the greater good?
UPDATED GAMES
Enlightenment in Crisis: Diderot's Encyclopédie in a Parisan Salon
Defining a Nation: India on the Eve of Independence, 1945
- Game materials updated to provisional 3.0 templates, including pre and post game microgame workshops.
Reclaiming Bayreuth: The Battle for the Soul of Wagner
- Added in instructions for practice round game sessions.
- Included new score cards.
- Shortened primary source documents and included italics for better use in game.
- Fixed name cards.
- Corrected leitmotifs in role sheets.
1349: The Plague Comes to Norwich
- Gamebook updated to provisional 3.0 template.
Memory Reconsidered: San Francisco Pioneer Monument During the Culture Wars, 1991-1996
- Class sessions reorganized into Episodes, with order of activities rearranged.
- Individual victory objectives significantly revised.
- Added newspaper editor roles.
- Added new characters: Thomas Chinn, Andy and Michael Galvan.
- Added juries/committees to resolve certain side quests.
- Added more specific guidelines for writing assignments.
