Instructions for NCPlenty LOOPS Game Moderators

 

Each player receives:

5 Game PLENTYs

1 pre-printed card to track trades

1 pen

 

 

Also need:
1 “offerings sheet” per group

Butcher paper

Marker

Noisemakers! (maracas, tambourines, bicycle horns, bells, whatever)

 

  1. Moderators hand out 5 game PLENTYs and a card to each player.
  2. The players from small groups (3 to 6 each).
  3. Moderators give each group a noisemaker.
  4. Each player writes their name on the back of their PLENTYs. 
  5. Each player writes down three things they would like to receive (“wants”) and three things they can offer (“offerings”) on one side of their card.  (There is room for more than three in each column, but that comes later…)
  6. Each person prices their offerings at 1, 2, or 3 PLENTYs per trade. 

[In the real economy we price our wants as well, but for simplicity it is assumed there’s no such thing as haggling!  You either pay the asking price or don’t.]

  1. The group spends several minutes introducing themselves and finding matches between wants and offerings.  The goal is for every player to have at least one person who is spending PLENTYs with them and one with whom they are spending PLENTYs.  This could be the same player for each relationship.  There is no limit to how many matches a player can have. 
  2. Chances are there will be some players without a buyer and/or a seller.  To fill in these blanks, players can:
    1. Make creative matches (e.g. “I wanted someone to teach me history, but if I had child care five times a week, I could spend time at the library reading history books.”)
    2. Come up with a new offering (“start a new business”) based on the community’s wants
    3. Come up with a new want (“recognize an opportunity”, or “fall prey to advertising”) based on the community’s offering. 

      These things all happen in the real economy, so why not?

  1. One player in each group volunteers to be the Accountant.  S/he writes down all the offerings in the micro-economy and the value being asked for each on the “Offerings sheet.”  If more than one player offers the same offering, use the average price.
  2. The moderators check to make sure the groups have established their relationships.  Once this has happened, they explain how the trading will work by walking the groups through one turn.

·        The players flip over their cards.

·        Play begins with the youngest player and continues to his/her left.  Each player may choose to trade one or more times, or simply to pass, on his/her turn. 

·        Whenever a player spends PLENTYs, s/he tracks what offerings were received in exchange.

·        Whenever a player receives PLENTYs, s/he makes noise with the noisemakers.  There is no need to track the PLENTYs.

·        There are only two goals.

1.      Make sure everyone in the group is getting to make noise fairly equally.

2.      Keep the noise going! 

·        The players in the group may need to get creative to fulfill those two goals.  What do you do when someone is running out of PLENTYs, or when someone is ending up with all of them and no one can afford his/her offerings?  Prices can be raised and lowered*, trade arrangements changed, new goods/services added to the market, etc.  Changes to values or additions of new goods/services should be recorded by the Accountant. 

  1. The moderators commence trading and check in with the different groups from time to time.  (Surest sign a group needs checking in is if the noise is infrequent…).
  2. The moderators declare trading over after roughly 15 minutes.
  3. The players in each micro-economy tally how many PLENTYs they have on hand.
  4. The Accountant lets each player know the last value of each offering which the players track on their card.  The players then determine “Total Value” by multiplying the final value of each offering by the number of times they received it.
  5. The moderators ask for a show of hands and track the numbers on the butcher paper (or white/blackboard, or overhead projector, etc.). 

    1. Who has no PLENTYs?
    2. Some but less than 3?
    3. 3 + but less than 5?
    4. 5 + but less than 7?
    5. 7 + but less than 10?
    6. 10+? 
    7. (If no one had zero) What’s the smallest number of P’s?
    8. What’s the largest?

 

 

    1. Who has a total “received offerings” value less than 10P?
    2. 10P+ but less than 25P?
    3. 25P+ but less than 50P?
    4. 50P+ but less than 75P?
    5. 75P+ but less than 100P?
    6. 100P+?
    7. What’s the smallest value of offerings anyone has?
    8. What’s the largest?
    1. Have each player add their offerings value and PLENTYs on hand together.   What’s the smallest?
    2. What’s the largest?
  1. The moderators ask for the Accountants to come up and write all the offerings available in their micro-economy.
  2. The players and moderators share their thoughts and stories from this exercise.