The whole system on one page
The game, in full
Crews, roles, scoring, the steal, the last call and the season. Once you have run it twice you will never open this page again, but it is here for the first fortnight and for the day something goes sideways.
Crews
Four or five students. Formed off the seating that already exists, never by moving the room. Once a class has crews, those crews stay for the whole term at that school, even if you are only there one day in three.
- Four is better than five. Five lets one student hide. Four does not.
- Never split friends up to make it fair. A stacked crew winning by twelve is a better lesson for the room than a fair start nobody believes in.
- Absent students do not cost the crew anything. Say so on day one, or the crew punishes whoever was away and you have made an enemy for the term.
- A crew of two still plays. On a day with half the class away, merge them on the spot and carry the higher score across.
The three roles
Roles rotate every round. Announce the rotation once and then just say the role name when you need it. This is the part that does your crowd control for you.
| Role | What only they can do | What it solves |
|---|---|---|
| Speaker | The only person who may answer out loud. | Stops the shouting, and makes the loud student teach the quiet one instead of talking over them. |
| Scribe | The only person who writes anything down. | One pencil covers a crew of five. Nobody has to announce that they came with nothing. |
| Challenger | The only person who may call a steal or dispute a ruling. | Gives arguing a legal channel with a queue, so it stops being a fight with you. |
Speaker moves one seat clockwise every round. That is the only enforcement you need for the student who will not talk: they will be Speaker in three rounds, their crew needs them, and the pressure to have a go comes from beside them rather than from you.
The round
- Call the topic. 20 seconds. Read the SAY THIS line off the round card. The topic only. Never the question.
- Stake. 15 seconds. Fingers up: 1, 3 or 5. Point at each crew and say the number out loud so the room hears it counted. Once a crew has shown, it is locked.
- Work. Two to three minutes. Each crew hears only the question at the level they took. Walk the room. Do not answer questions about the content, answer questions about the rules.
- Call it. Two minutes. Speakers answer in crew order. Right wins the stake. Wrong costs one point, never the whole stake.
- The steal. One minute. Any crew that got theirs right may take a wrong crew's question for one bonus point. Challengers only. First hand up gets it.
Five rounds fills a 50 minute period with time to spare. Three rounds fills 30 minutes. If the bell is close, skip straight to the Last Call.
Scoring
| What happened | Score | Why it is set that way |
|---|---|---|
| Correct at your stake | Plus 1, 3 or 5 | The reward matches the risk they chose themselves. |
| Wrong at any stake | Minus 1 | A cheap loss. If a 5 cost them five, nobody would ever take a 5 again, and the whole thing dies. |
| Successful steal | Plus 1 | Small on purpose. It is a reason to listen, not a way to win. |
| Out of role | Minus 1 to that crew | The correction comes from their own crew. That is the point. |
| Last Call, final round | Bet anything up to your total | Keeps the bottom crew playing to the bell. |
Do not take points off a crew for behaviour that has nothing to do with the game, and never take a crew's whole score away. The moment the ladder can be wiped by your mood, it stops being a game and goes back to being you telling them off. The score is the one thing in the room that has to be straight.
The Last Call
Final round of every lesson. Announce it, because the announcement is half the effect.
Crews write their bet rather than showing fingers, so nobody copies the leader. A crew on 4 points can bet 4 and finish on 8. A crew on 22 who bets the lot can lose it. That is why the room is still in it with four minutes to go, and it is the single most important round of the lesson.
The season
Scores carry from lesson to lesson on one ladder sheet per class. One line per lesson, dated. Nothing else.
- Read the top three out at the start of every lesson. Twenty seconds, and it is why they sit down.
- Never reset the ladder mid-term. A crew that is fifty behind still plays, because the Last Call can move them and because nobody wants to finish last on a sheet that is still on the desk.
- Declare a winner at the end of term. A written note to their year adviser costs you nothing and is worth more to a Year 8 than anything you can hand them.
What to do when
A crew argues a ruling
Challenger only, one sentence, then you decide and it is done. If you got it wrong, say so and fix it out loud. That costs you nothing and buys you the next twenty rulings.
A crew is miles ahead and the room has given up
Run the next round as The Chain or Last One Standing from the modes. Both reset the field without touching the ladder.
You have run out of cards mid-lesson
Switch to Blind Stake and use the cards you have already run. You read the answer, they produce the question. Same content, completely different game, and they will not notice you are recycling.
The work left by the teacher has to be done
Run it as the currency. Twenty minutes of the set work, then the last twenty as STAKES, and the crew with the most completed work starts the game with a five point head start. They will do the sheet.