Whether you are an organizer wanting a fun way to brainstorm new tactics or
a group of friends plotting to take over the world, get the creativity flowing with the Picture
This! Tactics Game.
Overview
The object of the game is to
come up with the most entertaining and thought-provoking descriptions of social movement protest tactics
in response to hypothetical social injustice scenarios. Players decide on a social injustice scenario
and each round take turns creating fun, inspiring, or wacky tactics in response.
NUMBER OF PLAYERS: 3 - 6
AGES: 12 and up
Each card indicates three constraints for you to follow in designing a
tactic:
-
A Point of Intervention – a point along the system
creating your hypothetical social injustice where you will intervene with your protest tactic
(see Points of Interventions section below)
-
A Medium – what form the protest tactic must take
-
An Emotion – the emotional reaction your protest
tactic is intended to evoke in the public viewing your tactic
Picture This! Card Deck
PICTURE
THIS!
Point of Intervention
RAPID PROTOTYPE
YOUR IMAGINATION
Medium
Emotion
Click to get new card.
PICTURE
THIS!
Point of Intervention
RAPID PROTOTYPE
YOUR IMAGINATION
Medium
Emotion
Click to get new card.
PICTURE
THIS!
Point of Intervention
RAPID PROTOTYPE
YOUR IMAGINATION
Medium
Emotion
Click to get new card.
SETUP
Each player will load this webpage on their device. It will serve as the
player's deck of cards throughout the game. The page displays best on larger screens.
Before you start, all players agree on the campaign
scenario to be elaborated during the game. The campaign should have an injustice, either
stated or implied, and a desired outcome. For example, “Cancel student debt at a community college.”
Consult the campaign scenarios handout for ideas.
Read the Points of Intervention descriptions as a group.
Each player takes a turn reading one of the points of interventions out loud. Consider what these points
of intervention may look like in your chosen campaign scenario.
THE PLAY
Each player clicks on all three cards displayed on the page, randomly
generating a new card in each of the three positions.
Each round, one player plays the role of the judge while the other players
compete to have their tactic/intervention selected by the judge. After each round, the judge role shifts
to the person to the left. Always to the left.
The judge plays an important role. To start the round, the judge presents a
development in the campaign scenario. This could be a routine development that adds context or depth to
the scenario (“Community college board says that student government association and community college
president must provide a debt cancelation plan before the board will consider it”). Or a challenge,
complication, or twist (“College president’s offices raided by the FBI, reason unknown”).
Each round, players get a campaign scenario (or development in a single
campaign). The timer is started and each player quickly develops a tactic using one of
their three cards. When the time is up, each player reads their card outloud and briefly explains the
tactic. The judge listens and chooses the the tactic they like best. The person whose tactic is selected
wins a point.
Each player then clicks on the card they played that round to generate a
replacement card. The next campaign scenario is read alowed and the next round begins, with the judge
role now transferring to the player to the left. Always to the left.
WINNING
The first player to 3 points wins.
Points of Intervention
POINT OF PRODUCTION
A place where things are made. Factories, crop
lands and schools. The realm of strikes, picket lines, crop-sits, etc. Interventions
here are often about leveraging labor power or impacting profits.
POINT OF CONSUMPTION
Places where people are in the role of customer.
Stores, restaurants, online spaces, TV/movies etc. Sometimes the only place that an
audience has a physical interaction with systems we are changing. The realm of consumer
boycotts and markets campaigns.
POINT OF DESTRUCTION
A place where something is destroyed. Dumpsters,
mines, clearcuts, landfills, jails, etc. Interventions here are often about stopping the
bad.
POINT OF DECISION
Anywhere there is decision making. Corporate HQ,
polling places, townhalls, city council meetings, slumlord’s office, etc. Interventions
here are often about challenging the assumption of who is a legitimate decision maker.
POINT OF ASSUMPTION
Challenging underlying beliefs/ control
mythologies. Could also be actions tied to cultural moments or pop culture trends. Or
prefigurative actions such actualizing alternatives.
Example Campaign Scenarios
To start the game, all players will agree on the campaign scenario, which
will be elaborated during each round of the game. Choose one of the scenarios below or make up your own.
Win union representation at your job and end unfair treatment by management.
Pass a city bill funding drug rehabilitation and ending criminalization of addiction by
city police.
Shut down plans to build an oil refinery or fracked gas export terminal in your
community.
Win streetlights in a city neighborhood.
Stop the construction of border walls in your region.
Win the construction of a rent-free housing complex.
Stop the construction of a new jail, prison, or detention center in your region.
Win city funding for worker-owned businesses.
Stop the deportation of a friend, family member, or neighbor.
Win state funding for tenant-owned neighborhood development.
A different take on campaigns
SpaceX is colonizing Mars. As martians, your objective is to stop SpaceX and
reclaim your land.
Captain Hook wants to privatize never never land and push out the never land
pirates in order to turn it into a theme park.
Tom Nook is using the villagers to develop deserted islands so that he can
attract wealthier settlers and kick out villagers. Reclaim your island from Nook Inc.
Ernesto de la Cruz is eyeing the neighborhoods of the Land of the Dead
residents whose memories are fading. Their intention: “revitalize” the neighborhoods by building condos
and mansions. Stop them and win permanent protection for the sector.
Win a change of rules so that everyone in the land of the dead can visit the
land of the living on the Day of the Dead, regardless of whether their photograph is placed on an altar.
Order a physical Picture This! deck for workshops and group work:
Based on Picture This! by
Center for Story-based Strategy