The System Game

This is a group game that I was introduced to at a recent Buddhism/Deep Ecology retreat.  It can be used as an icebreaker, an energiser or as a learning tool.  The game is best for groups of 12 or more people.  It needs no props, just the willingness of everyone to participate.



Facilitator Instructions

• Ask participants to randomly scatter themselves throughout the room,
• Ask each individual to select two other people in the room, but to not indicate who those persons are,
• Let participants know that when the facilitator says “go” each person is to attempt to continually manoeuvre themselves so that they are always equi-distant from each of the two persons they have chosen,
• This does not mean that participants must be between the two people, so long as they are equally distant from each of them.

Allow the game to proceed for four or five minutes, then halt the game.  Ask participants to now choose two different people, again without indicating who those people are.

This time the facilitator tells the group that at some stage (once the game has begun) the facilitator will tap one person (it doesn’t matter who that is).  Once tapped, that person immediately sits down on the spot.  When other participants notice that one of the two people they are tracking sits down then they, too, are to sit down immediately.

Discussion

This game can stimulate discussion around the nature of systems, with some useful questions including:

• What happened?
• Could your movements be predicted?
• Were “you” a cause or an effect?
• Is there a difference between cause and effect?
• What happened when a small influence (one person being tapped) was introduced?
• How does this “game” relate to real-world systems?

We live within dynamic systems every moment of our lives.  This game enables us to experience a system very intimately.  It provides a catalyst to discussion about the nature of systems and what systems-thinking means for humanity, the world and everything.