I ran a playtest today of a new game - It’s All Connected! - and it was a blast! The idea was originally a joke I made at a past playtest that was well received - I made up the rules on the walk to today’s event.. 

The point of the game is to create a conspiracy theory ‘crazy board’ - i.e. a web of alleged connections between different groups and individuals. Here’s what we came up with:

All you need to play is a newspaper and a chalkboard / whiteboard. You could also play with a cork-board and twine but we didn’t have those on hand.

For this test, I grabbed a copy of HAtCH Beat - an extremely local neighborhood newspaper. I thought about using the NYTimes but local news worked perfectly. I handed out pages of the paper and we took turns adding a few names, events, groups, and things onto the blackboard. Once there were a few items up there, we went around throwing out conspiracy connections and drawing lines between the different items.

The game was a blast and lasted less than a half hour. Our conspiracy theory centered on Mayor Ed Lee and involved the Long Now Foundation opposing affordable housing (so they have more leverage on their migrant works who are building the Long Now Clock).

I’m very pleased with how this turned out and aim to write up the rules and share them online soon!