How to Play
Sign Up
Create an account by making up a username and password and entering the Class Code your teacher will provide for you. If you don't submit an email for password retrieval, your teacher can look your password up for you.The Basics - How the Game Works
Each student is assigned randomly to one of five evenly-populated teams:
Cows, 
Hens, 
Horses, 
Pigs, and 
Sheep. (Students are highly encouraged not to discuss with their classmates what teams they are on, as someone knowing your team can make you a target to be stolen from.) Each team has three attributes that are shared as a team:
- Wealth
- allows your team to buy Influence and Security, and ultimately determines the winners of the game - Influence
- allows your team to make laws that affect who gains/loses Wealth, the effectiveness of Security, and other game rules - Security
- protects your team's Wealth from other players, as well as increases your ability to steal from other teams
Team Decisions
All voting is anonymous. Students may vote to spend Wealth on Influence and/or Security, as often as once per day (e.g. if a vote for Influence closes on Tuesday, another can open on Wednesday). When voting, students choose how much Wealth to spend on an attribute (1 Wealth = 1 Influence; or 1 Wealth = 1 Security), up to half their team's Wealth. The majority of voters who have voted for an amount determines the Wealth spent on an attribute. Votes conclude when all team members have voted. But if voting lasts more than one day with nobody voting, it will be automatically ended (so if team members are absent, your team doesn't have to wait forever for a vote to complete).Making Laws
Each day the teacher chooses to play the game in class, the game begins with the team with the highest Influence passing or repealing a law (determined by a silent vote by that team), chosen from a pre-determined list. In the event there is a tie for highest Influence (like on the first day), there is no law made. If your group is making a law, remember your law will remain in place even if you lose power, so you need to consider the possibility of your law benefiting a group other than your own.| Law | Description |
|---|---|
| Commodities | Daily Wealth is awarded as Influence or Security (chosen randomly) rather than Wealth. |
| Disproportion | The individual player with the most Wealth on each team earns 1 extra Wealth per day. |
| Happenstance | Successful stealing of Wealth is entirely random, not based on Security. |
| Isolation | The team in power cannot have Wealth stolen, but also cannot steal. |
| Meritocracy | Individual players earning a perfect score on a quiz or journal earn their team an additional 1 Security. |
| Philanthropy | The individual player with the least Wealth on each team earns 1 extra Wealth per day. |
| Prestige | The individual player with the most Wealth is worth 3 Influence for her/his team (rather than just 1 Influence). |
| Protection | The team in power has 1 extra Security for each team member when defending their Wealth. |
| Redistribution | Once per day, 10% of all Wealth is redistributed evenly among all teams, with the remainder given to the team with the least Wealth. |
| Restitution | A team that loses power steals 1 Wealth per member from the team gaining power. |
Balancing Attributes
The points students earn on journals and quizzes are "Wealth" they earn; so students are encouraged to read, study, and do well! (Even though Wealth is pooled per team, individual student scores on journals and quizzes are kept to later determine the top individual players.) Each team automatically earns Wealth once per day according to the following formula:[team bonus Wealth] = [total players in the class] / [players on team]
(so basically, the fewer members there are on a team, the more Wealth they earn)
However, Influence is opposite Wealth. The number of members on a team are added to a team's Influence (each player = 1 bonus Influence), so their chance of being in control and making laws is greater. Security protects Wealth, allowing you to buy more Influence and Security. Wealth determines the winners of the game. So this game is a tricky balance of Wealth, Influence, and Security that your team needs to figure out.
Stealing
Once per day, even on days when teachers do not play the game in class, students may attempt to steal Wealth from another team. If the student's team's Security is higher than the target team's Security, the student successfully steals 1 Wealth for his/her team; if the student's team's Security is lower than or tied with the target team's Security, the student's team loses 1 Wealth. Team and individual scores are not posted until the end of the game. However, team rankings for Influence are always shown (not with numbers, but in order of 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc.), so students know which team is making laws. This could perhaps help students figure out whose Wealth to steal...Changing Teams
Once during the entire game, a student can anonymously attempt to defect to a different team. However, the existing members of the receiving team need to vote to approve or deny a defecting student's request to join. (Voting team members will only see the defecting player's individual Wealth score, so they can determine if that player might be a good potential Wealth earner on their team.) If approved, that student leaves all current Wealth, Influence, and Security with his/her old team and joins the new team; if denied, the student remains part of his/her old team and loses his/her ability to steal Wealth from other teams, since he/she is now identified as a potential thief.Teacher Actions
On the days the teacher chooses to play the game in class, the teacher has the ability to:- Begin the game and randomly assign teams
- Offer time for the team with the most Influence to make a law
- Assign a journal prompt about the book
- Assign a multiple choice quiz about the book
- End the game and show the results