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YAKUATE An
improvisation role play game involving
active inference of roles in performance
Abstract This is a card game using music improvisation that relies on consciousness
of each player's specific role. The game requires 5 members as performers
and 5-10 people as an audience. Each performer is secretly given a specific
role in the ensemble and performs their improvisation according to that
role. The audience infers each role of all performers from the nature of
their improvisation. After the performance each performer informs the audience
of their particular role. The audience is awarded points if they guessed
the performers' roles correctly. On the other hand, performers can also
get points if their own roles are identified by the audience correctly.
However, if all members of the audience can correctly guess his/her role,
the performer cannot get any points. Among both the audience and performers,
respectively, the player who receives the most points is the winner. Rules The
game requires 5 members as performers and 5-10 people as an audience.
Performers are given their specific roles in secret and must improvise
according to these roles (they are not permitted to know the other players'
roles.) They can use any instrument they like, or they may choose to perform
without any musical instruments. The
audience must infer each role of all performers from their improvisation. Each
performer takes 1 card from a deck of 5 "role cards" that are
placed face down in front of them. After they take their cards, each
performer should secretly check which card it is. Performers cannot know
which cards are distributed to others.
Performers
can get points if their own roles are answered by the audience correctly.
However, if all audience members can identify roles of a particular performer
correctly, that performer cannot receive any points. Be careful not to
perform your role too blatantly. The
audience will receive the following "role description card" and
"answer sheet". First,
choose a single card for each performer from "performer A" to
"performer E", and confirm it with the performer and audience. The
audience should write down the names of each of the performers or the
instruments used in the margin under each cell of "performer A"
through "performer E" on the "answer sheet".
Now it's time to perform. The performance takes about three to five minutes. While watching
the actual performance, the audience should infer what role each performer is
given and mark the roles that seem to match each performer's performance. Each performer informs their own role to the audience after
the performance saying, "My role was _____". The audience raises
their hands if they were correct. The performer can get points for the number of hands raised
(However, if all hands are raised, the performer cannot get any points). The audience
receives 1 point for each correct answer (All correct = 5 points). In the audience and among the performers, respectively, the
player who receives the most points becomes the winner. (It's not a competition between the audience
and the performers.). You can also play by the following
rules: I have introduced two groups of rules here, but there are many other
possibilities, so please develop your own new rules.
You can download “Explanation of roles”, “role cards”，”Answer sheet” from Here
"role cards" for double-side printing Rule arrangement 1 This
is a rule that changes the balance of roles. The basic rule is to use each
"role card" of all 5 cards, but this rule changes the breakdown of
the 5 cards used in advance. For
example, the breakdown of 5 sheets may be "0 star performers, 0 My pace
performers, 1 attentive performer, 1 trickster, 3 hunters", "1 star
performer, 0 one's own performers, 4 attentive performers, 0 tricksters, 0
hunters" etc. Before
starting the performance, the breakdown of the 5 sheets is announced to both
the audience and the performers. The audience writes this information down on
the "answer sheet". Changing
the balance of the "role card" increases the difficulty of
answering, and you will be able to enjoy a variety of different types of
improvisation performance. Rule arrangement 2 This rule is to use 3 sets of "role cards" for a
total of 15 cards in order to increase the difficulty of inferring roles. First, each performer takes 3 "role cards". They may
have more than one card in the same role. Each performer performs all 3 of their "role cards",
one by one. The 3 "role card" sheets can be used in any order. They
can change roles at any time, but they cannot go back to the previous card.
The audience must infer every card of every performer. This is the same as the basic rules, but 5 to 10 minutes is an
appropriate duration of performance when using this rule. You can download
YAKUATE An
improvisation role play game involving
active inference of roles in performance Designed
by Daisuke Terauchi Card
illustration by Toshikazu Marumachi Dec.
2018 (English
translation in May 2019) |
