GAME RULES

Description: Play this option to learn about how organizations can use propaganda techniques to oppose, disrupt, or exploit beneficial parts of a community. Try this for a fun, thought-provoking take on guessing games like Apples to Apples.

Number of players: 3+

Supplies needed: Technique deck and Powers deck

Instructions:

1. Shuffle Technique deck and the Powers deck and put both face-down in the middle.

2. Deal 6 Technique cards to each player. Players should look at their hands. 

3. Judge: The person to the left of the dealer is the Judge for the first round.

4. Power for the Round: The Judge flips over the top card of the Powers deck and reads the card to the group. After reading the card, place it face-up in the middle.

5. Gameplay: Starting with the player to the left of the Judge and going around the table, each non-Judge player should select a Technique card from their hand that they imagine propagandists could use to oppose, disrupt, or exploit the Power for this round. Each player puts their chosen Technique card down in the center of the table and explains to the group why and how you feel that Technique could disrupt the Power card.

6. Judging: Once every non-Judge player plays and explains their card, the Judge picks the Technique card on the table they feel could be most effective in disrupting the Power card. Whoever played the chosen card collects the Power card for the round.

7. Collect the played Technique cards and put them in a discard pile.

8. Everyone who played a Technique card should draw a new card from the deck.

9. The player to the left of the Judge becomes the new Judge for the next round.

10. Repeat steps 4-9 until one player has collected 5 total Power Cards. That player wins the game.

Description: For a storytelling experience, these rules set builds on the first Destructive Propaganda rules to let people play multiple Technique cards at one time. However, not every Technique applies to every situation, so the Judge awards points based on the number of relevant cards you play.

Number of players: 3+

Supplies needed: Technique deck and Powers deck, a pad of sticky notes, pencils.

Instructions:

1. Shuffle Technique deck and the Powers deck and put both face-down in the middle of the table. 

2. Scoring: Give one sticky note and a pencil to each player. Players will use this note during play to secretly record people’s scores during play. Each player keeps their sticky note scoresheet hidden until the end of the game to reduce judging bias.

   • Casual option: Use one open single score sheet for the table.

3. Deal 6 Technique cards to each player. Players should look at their hands. 

4. Judge: The person to the left of the dealer is the Judge for the first round.

5. Power for the Round: The Judge flips over the top card of the Powers deck and reads the card to the group. After reading the card, place it face-up in the middle of the table where everyone can see it.

6. Objective: Play a series of Technique cards from your hand to tell a compelling story about how someone could use propaganda to oppose or disrupt from the Power for this round.

7. Bidding: Starting with the player to the left of the Judge and going around the table, each non-Judge player should declare how many Technique cards from their hand that they feel imagine propagandists could use to oppose, disrupt, or exploit the Power for this round.

8. Gameplay: Starting with the player to the left of the Judge and going around the table, each player puts their chosen Technique cards down faceup in front of themselves and explains to the group why and how you feel those Techniques could disrupt the Power card.

9. Judging: Once every non-Judge player plays and explains their cards, the Judge picks the Technique cards on the table they feel could most effectively disrupt the Power card based on each player’s explanation. The judge secretly records how many points each player receives for their round on their own sticky note.

10. Collect the played Technique cards and put them in a discard pile.

11. Everyone who played a Technique should draw a new card from the Technique deck back up to 6 cards.

12. The player to the left of the Judge becomes the new Judge for the next round.

13. Game Length: Repeat steps 5-12 until each player has judged for 3-5 total, depending on if you want to play a short, medium, or long game. 

14. Tallying Score: At the end of the game, everyone reveals their sticky notes and adds up the total scores for each individual player. The player with the highest total score wins the game.

Description: Communities possess more power to oppose propaganda than they might think. In this game, an influential group is trying to manipulate a community (represented by the players) using different media manipulation techniques (represented by the Technique deck). Together, you will find ways to overcome the techniques using the experience, hope, and strength that already exists in the people there.

Number of players: 3+

Instructions:

1. Shuffle Technique deck and the Powers deck and put both face-down in the middle of the table.

2. The dealer should flip over the top 5 cards of the Powers deck and place them face-up in the middle of the table where everyone can see.

3. The player to the left of the dealer goes first.

4. On their turn, the player flips over the top card of the Technique deck and reads the card to the group. After reading the card, the player decides which of the face-up Power cards could counteract that propaganda technique and tells a little story explaining their logic. Slide the Technique card face-up underneath the Power Card.

   • We encourage supportive discussion amongst players about whether the Technique matches the Power. However, the point of the game is to learn and be creative, not to be competitive or to negate other people’s ideas. 

   • Potentially modify the deck to coordinate the suites with generally matching categories for the power cards? Match the power cards to the face cards?

   • I think the point is to learn and play so we don’t worry about balance.

5. After playing one Technique, the player to the left of the person takes their turn.

6. Objective: Turns continue until the team puts three Techniques under a Power card to make a matching set. The team puts the matching set off to the side and draws a new Power card to replace the completed Power.

7. Victory: The team wins when they complete 5-10 sets of Power and matching Technique cards, depending on desired game length.

Description: Play this to learn about Media Literacy and Propaganda Techniques with your friends. Try this if you enjoy guessing games like Taboo, Codenames, or Catch Phrase.

Number of players: 3+

Supplies needed: the Technique Cards; a timer set to 2 minutes for Easy mode or 1 minute for Hard mode.

Instructions:

1. Setup: Shuffle deck of Technique Cards and put it face-down in the middle of the table.

2. The Clue-giver: The player to the left of the dealer is the first Clue-giver for the first round.

3. The Censor: To player to the left of the Clue-giver is the Censor for the first round.

4. Selecting a Technique: The Clue-giver two cards from the Technique deck. After reading the cards, the Clue-giver decides which card they want to play in this round. The Clue-giver shows their chosen card to the Censor and discards the other card face-down.

5. Monitoring: The Censor sets the timer for the round and watches the Clue-giver to make sure they don’t break the rules.

6. Guessing: When the timer starts, the Clue-giver tells clues, describes the Technique, and gives examples of the Technique to the other players, not including the Censor. 

7. Conditions: The Clue-giver cannot say the name of the Technique or its exact definition.

8. Failure: If the Clue-giver runs out of time or violates the Conditions, the Censor interrupts the Clue-giver and the round is over.

9. Success: If the players can guess the Technique on the Clue-giver’s card, the Clue-giver wins the round and places the Technique card in front of them on the table, face-up.

10. For the next round: The Censor becomes the new Clue-giver. The player to the left of the previous Censor becomes the new Censor.

11. Victory: Repeat Steps 4-10 until one player collects 5 Technique cards. That player wins the game.

Description: In this game, players share examples of propaganda techniques they have seen in the real world. I’m not sure how to gamify this process though, since how accurate an example of a Technique is subjective so I’m not sure how to judge that. We could use rules like Taboo where the idea of the game is to give as many examples of different cards as you can in 1-2 minutes. However, the question is – what happens when someone tries to score points using an unsuitable example, either because (Case 1) they haven’t learned about the technique yet or (Case 2) they are trying to exploit the rule system. Case 1 is a good learning opportunity to share knowledge between players but I’m not sure how gamify that while accounting for Case 2.

Number of players: 3+

Supplies needed: Technique deck  

Instructions:

1. Shuffle deck of Technique Cards and put it face-down in the middle of the table.

1. Deal 6 Technique cards to each player. Players should look at their own cards. 

2. The player to the left of the dealer goes first.

3. On their turn, a player can do one of two options: 

   1. If the player knows a real-life example for one of the techniques in their hand: place a card from their hand face-up in front of them on the table. The player then says a real-life example of that type of propaganda technique. 

   2. If the player does not know an example for any card in their hand: they can place a card from their hand face-up in the middle of the table. Any player can “steal” the card by offering their own real-life example of the technique. The first player to provide an example can then move the card from the center of the table to in front of themself.

4. The player then draws a new card from the Technique deck.

5. The person to the player’s left goes next.

6. Repeat this process until one player collects 5 cards. That player wins the game.