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Playing Well

How to be a good teammate in Comrades & Chollimas: participation, listening, asking questions, handling disagreement, fair play at the vote, and learning from the session.

The rules tell you what you can do. This chapter is about how to do it well with other people. Most of it is M&M habit that carries over: build on ideas, listen, ask real questions, and accept the IM’s calls. A few parts are particular to this game, mainly fair play at the vote.

Building on others’ ideas

“Yes, and.” When a teammate offers a read, add to it before you argue with it.

  • “Yes, and the same address shows up on the shipping record.”
  • “Yes, and that would also explain the late bank change.”

If you disagree, say what you would check, not what is wrong with the person.

  • “I would want the ID check status before I point at hire 2.”
  • “I see the payee. What control would have stopped it?”

Active listening

  • Face the speaker and put the screen or phone down.
  • Reflect back the key fact: “So the ship-to changed after the ID check.”
  • Do not plan your reply while they talk.
  • Notice who has not spoken, and invite them: “What does SecOps see here?”

Listening matters twice as much in a game of competing stories, because a confident voice is not evidence.

Asking good questions

In a round you will often have one question for one hire and a budget for it: Question a hire costs one action and one lookup. Make it count.

Good questions here:

  • are about behaviour, process or money: “Which tool do you use to log in, and who installed it?”
  • have an answer the file can check;
  • would change your next move whichever way they answer.

Weak questions:

  • ask about a person’s origin, accent or looks (never ask these);
  • repeat an earlier question in other words;
  • ask the hire to prove a negative.
TipQuestion shape

“Walk me through” invites a story. “Which, and who approved it?” gives you a fact. A yes or no question is for the meeting, where you have 3.

Contributing your expertise

  • Offer, do not lecture. One or two sentences, then pause.
  • Explain in plain words. If you say “SSO”, add “single sign-on, one login for many tools”.
  • Connect to the case. “In my company the vendor payee form is separate from HR, so this could slip.”
  • Say when you do not know. “I have not seen this tool. Does anyone?” is a strong move.

Group dynamics

Share the floor

  • Keep turns short. In the Company chair, the best-fitting role acts, not the loudest.
  • If one voice dominates, ask the table for one read from each role before the vote.
  • If you are the dominant voice, hold your second action until a quieter player has used theirs.

Handling disagreement

Disagreement is how the table finds out whether it has a control or a feeling.

  1. State the claim. “I think it is hire 3.”
  2. State the reason. “Because of the payee.”
  3. Test it. “Which other hire has the same?”
  4. Decide the way the game decides: vote.

If someone is hurt by tone, the IM will step in. You can also say, “Let us go back to what the file shows.”

Your agency as a player

You can ask for:

  • The IM to restate the target before a roll.
  • A pause to read a card.
  • A short break if you need one.
  • The IM to explain a rule again.

You can also propose a move not on your list. The IM may call it a borrowed verb or say it needs another role.

When the IM says “not quite”

The IM may say a move is not plausible, or needs a roll, or belongs to another role. It is a call about the game, not about you. Ask: “What would make it work?” and move on. If the tier or a track surprises you, remember that the IM announces the change and keeps the cause for the debrief.

Fair play

Fair play is part of the rules, not decoration.

ImportantJudge the process, not the person

Nobody is a suspect because of an accent, a passport or a face. The satire in this game is the propaganda voice on the cards, never the people.

Everyone

  • Treat tells as behaviour, process and money. Never nationality, accent or face.
  • Say “persona”, never a nationality. Say “assessed” or “suspected” for real-world attribution.
  • Do not claim real workers are coerced. The case does not say it, and nor should you.
  • Do not use a phone to look up the case mid-game. Ask the IM, or spend a lookup on a Pull-log or a question to a hire.
  • Keep the table’s sealed material sealed: the persona, the bench card, and the other chair’s choices.

Comrades’ chair

  • Do not use real accents or impressions as part of the Persona.
  • Do not give real-world operational steps. Everything you do is fiction at the table.
  • If you draw a tell, play it as behaviour or process, not as a person’s looks.

Company chair

  • Do not accuse because a hire looks or sounds a certain way.
  • A video or appearance clip only opens a meeting. A cut needs a named control or a human cost.
  • Do not ask the cell what they chose.

Common challenges

“I feel like I am not contributing.” Use your role’s verbs. “I Look at the file and read the ship-to aloud” is a contribution. So is “I abstain”.

“There is too much to track.” Ask the Scribe, or the IM, what the tracks and the tier are now. You are not expected to carry it.

“I made a mistake.” Say so and name what you would check next time. Mistakes become insights, and a wrong call with a clear reason is the best material for the replay.

“I am nervous about suspecting someone.” The hires are fiction, and the file has no portrait. If a hire starts to feel like a real person, name that, and go back to the controls.

“I disagree with the ending.” Good. Read the process condition. The ending says what happened; the process condition says what you would repeat.

Learning from the session

  • Use the three-column note: What happened. Why it matters. What I do at work.
  • Keep a question journal: one line each for questions answered, unanswered, and ones you wish you had asked.
  • Pick one control to raise at work this month.

Your participation checklist

Before each round

During discussion

At the end of the session

What next