RPG METHOD IMPROVING BUSINESS
GAMES
Paulo Henrique Pinho Oliveira
CEFET-RJ, Brazil
E-mail:p_h_oliveira@yahoo.com.br
Submission: 08/05/2017
Revision: 22/05/2017
Accept: 28/06/2017
ABSTRACT
The business game methodology is applied
for the best universities in the world and has been improved itself throughout
the years. Using simulated backgrounds, the players live some experiences that
could live in their professional future and take decisions to have success in
the game. As all research stream, business game’s evolution not only has to
prove your methods and benefits, but also has to know your criticisms. This
paper studies these criticisms about the teaching model, specifically the fact
that a round of decisions forces the student to take a decision, without he or
she realized the real necessity of it. A business game literature review is
needed so, and also about some parallel themes that could increase the
knowledge and identify news alternatives for the criticisms, mainly about the
role-playing-games method characteristics, proposing a new direction for the
following researches focusing the improvement of the learning based in games.
Keywords: business game;
role-playing-games; experiential learning; learning styles
1. INTRODUCTION
Nowadays,
most of all universities already agree that the teaching method based in
business games presents a significant gain in the development of the students;
either through participation in the team, the content presented or the
development of new skills. Several authors presented their researches
identifying different types of games that are used by the world, each type of
game focuses on developing a specific activity.
In
terms of Alves (2015), for example, there are many ways to classify the games,
one of them is presented by author showing the differences based in yours
origins: war games, role playing games (RPG) or business games. He classified
in this way:
·
War games: the players have to plan war strategies for
military units, sometimes it is simulating some historical facts and others is
about fictional wars. The main objective is destroy the opponent, each player
has to think about the best strategy during the rounds to have success.
·
Role-Playing
Games: Essentially, it is a interpretative game, the players
take a character to explore the game’s scenario. This method has some
similarities with a case study, when decisions still have to be taken and the
student will decide what to do. It is used to be the most loved characteristic
for the players about this kind of game, there are some unresolved problems and
the student has different ways to solve the situation. In addition, this game
model doesn’t have rounds to decide, the environment is exploit according to
the player’s decisions and the situations appears naturally.
·
Business games: it is a specific simulation, during a
limited period, about the corporative issues. For example, there are some games
focused in the supply chain problems, or others simulating the marketing
decisions, or even some others games that simulates the general complexity to
manage an organization. In this case, the players become business executive of
a fictional company, and the goal is take many decisions to have the best net
profit. This is the most used kind of simulator, in the universities because
the less complexity to create the simulation compared with the previous one,
when a situation is chosen to be explored by simulation, many others parameters
will be considered irrelevant like a background.
Santoro
(2011) wrote that choose the best teaching method is not a simple task, it most
consider the content, the lessons, the teacher and the students. The best
method is that most add good results in the student’s learning. However, the
benefits of this teaching methodology based in games are not a unanimity.
This
is not about discard everything the authors have written, but there are some
others authors that showed some criticizes, that should contribute to the
development and improvement of this teaching method. Fernando Pretto is one of them,
in his doctoral thesis presented some arguments about the possibility of have
better learning using a simulation that doesn’t have decisions rounds, in
others words, the critical point is the fact that in traditional business game
the player have to decide something in each round.
In
the same point, Patz (1988) was questioning about an open system model, when
the players must realize the real necessity to take a decision. Pretto’s
conclusion was favorable to the proposal model by the students, but the
quantitative results didn’t showed a real gain comparing with the rounds model.
The
point approached by Patz (1988) and Pretto (2006) shouldn’t be totally ignored,
because highlighted a very interesting possibility to improve the business
games’ results, mainly after the students support in Pretto’s research. The
question now is: How to do a game with these characteristics having a real gain
on the student learning? A possible answer is the RPG methodology, the open
system to be explored by the players should give a new level of learnings in
the game.
“The RPGs applications in business games had been
restrict and unpopular. Probably because it is very difficult to create all the
RPG rules, and the classroom usage is similar a case study or group dynamics.”
(Alves, 2015)
In the beginning, the solutions was
using case studies and some basic programs, according to Alves (2015), in the
end of XX century with technology development and the computer’s creation the
business games had the biggest opportunity to grow up as test platform to
analyze that unsolved questions. According to Gramigna (1993), the first
business game was the “Top management Decision Simulation”, created in the USA
at 1950 to improve the knowledge about financial area.
To clarify the concept, Goldschimidt
(1997) summarize the business games as a sequential exercise of taking
decisions, inside a structural model of an organization, where the players
become the company’s managers. The same author in another time said that a
simulation is the manipulation of a dynamic model, with the objective to
analyze the variables relations with player decisions (GOLDSCHIMIDT, 1983).
In others words, it is an analogy
that should be the most similar of the reality, to take a predictive analysis
about something can happens in the real world. The business games, or business
simulations, can be explained as mathematics models of determined situation of
business, that the players could manage your team during some sequential
rounds. (LACRUZ, 2004; BEPPU, 1984; ROCHA, 1997; TANABE, 1977; SCHAFRANSKI,
2002).
Rocha (1997) gave the credit of the
business games’ improvement to the study of operational research, mainly as an
increase of the complexity of the mathematic model becoming more realistic.
Another big contribution was the computer’s technology evolution, it allowed
the creation of many virtual simulations with the highest levels of complexity
it ever had.
Keys e Wolfe (1990) presented files
that, in the USA, in the year 1961 was created more than 100 different games in
the academy, allowing that more than 30 thousands executives were trained. The
same authors, in the 1980 updated that number to 1.500 games being used in the
universities and companies.
“During a
seminar in March 1996, at the First Conference about business game in Brazil,
the conference’s coordinator said that the most of the business games software
was in the USA or Europe, but there was some people beginning good Jobs in
Brazil, and with some international conferences happening in Brazilian
locations, the promotion of the method has been growing even in the business
market as in the educational world.” (PRETTO, 2006)
Falcão and Vila (2002) presented a
new way to classify the games in five categories based in its classroom
function: “Triggers and inclusion games” focused to integrate the teams;
“Reliable Games” to improve interpersonal relationship; “Creativity Games”
focused to connect the experiences during the games and the professional experiences;
“Management Games” simulate the corporative issues and decisions; and “Ending
games” consolidate the lessons acquired.
For Goldschimidt (1983), doesn’t
matter the category of the simulation or the classifications of each author, in
all situation is needed a mathematic model. The same author these models used
to have three main objectives: 1) represent a real system, or we can say an
ambience; 2) scenario analysis and its parameters; 3) the knowledge acquired
about the simulated theme.
Some authors as Hazoof (2004) and
Sauaia (1995), realized in your researches with the students of different
business games that the most important things to improve the learning process
and players satisfaction are:
·
Ability
of to adapt to new situations;
·
Capacity
to diagnose the problems;
·
Development
over the decision process;
·
Problem
solving.
Sauaia (1995), Schafranski (2002),
wrote about the student that participate of a simulation become an activity
part of the events, that wasn’t happening with the previous methodologies when
the students was only a spectator, now the student has feelings and emotions
during the rounds of simulation. However, the same authors highlighted that
this experience is not the reality, because the simulation has a controlled
environment with limited variables.
To begin a business simulation, and
start the taking-decision process, there are five requirements according to
Churchman, Ackoff and Arnoff (1957) mentioned by Santos (1992):
·
The
player has to realize the problem, and the necessity to do something;
·
An
objective definition for the game;
·
At
least two alternatives must be possible to solve the problem and achieve the
goals;
·
A few
level of uncertainty and doubts about the alternatives;
·
A
problem that looks like a real issue.
This point validate the main
objective of this paper that the traditional business games can lose one of the
essentials characteristics of the corporative issues when the player is forced
to take decisions in rounds, without had realized the real necessity to do something
at that moment of simulation. Engel, Blackwell e Miniard (2000) also confirms
that the beginning of the decision-making process is the recognition of some
necessity. The authors wrote that it only happens when the student realize the
difference of the situation at that time and the desired situation.
Based on all the previous concepts
it is possible to believe the characteristics of an open system offered by RPG
model, working together with a business model and enabling the players live the
best experience learning, even approaching different themes and lessons in a
university discipline.
At the beginning of the 70th, in the
USA, the brothers Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson did a crossover the war games to
an interactive game, where the players did not control hole army any more, but
now it’s only a character in the new game. Come up the first RPG “Dungeons
& Dragons”, it was about a medieval game as others war games, but with some
breakthrough ideas.
The game gave to the player the real
control of a character and a full fictional universe to be explored, based on
J.R.R. Tolkien writings. Over the years, new authors was emerging and new games
was created based on the literature, or history based or even based on mythology.
The first RPG based on science
fiction was created in 1977, “The Traveller” had real innovating parameters
with a new complex system of rules, with interstellar travels, intergalactic
market and combat. The main difference was the less stiffness on the
character’s rules, stimulating the players’ creativity without been limited by
many rules.
In 1988, Steve Jackson created RPG
GURPS (Generic Universal Role Playing System), presenting a rule’s compilation
that must be able to play in every scenario. The GURPS seems to be a good
alternative to be used by the Business RPG, suggested by this paper.
3.2.
RPG’s
characteristics
Every game must have at least a few
instructions about your rules, but the biggest difference between RPG and the
others is the complexity of the information detailed in the book of rules. For
an example, the most famous “Dugeons & Dragons” has three basic books
without them it is impossible to play. In these books, it’s not only a
handbook, but all the descriptions needed to understand the entire universe,
the history, geographic characteristics, economic, always full of details.
Another important characteristic of
these games are the character’s profile, these cards have the specific
abilities, gifts, weaknesses, and physical appearance in some games to allow
the player’s interpretation during the simulation. Some characters in the game
don’t have a human control, and the profile determines the behavior of these
characters.
To start RPG match is needed a
previous preparation of the moderator, when is shown the main information about
the scenario, while the others players must follow the instructions, and the
decisions are essentially free. According the players decisions, the moderator
presents the results of those actions and the environment evolution, and then
the game proceed based on the players decisions.
For Shick (1991), a real RPG book
must be an interactive story, and because of this point the author said that a
few games could be classified as a real RPG. He called of “almost RPG” the
board games that have pieces and cards guiding the player’s decisions. Taking
these arguments it will be harder to create a business RPG model with this
interactivity.
Another essential characteristic for
RPG is the quantitative decisions, in other words, the rules must be clear
about all the players and the model needs a logical thinking about the possible
actions. Initially this is not a problem for a business RPG thinking about
financial parameters of the organizations.
4. EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING
Before
the proposal of any new learning methodology, also in businesses games, it is
needed to better understand the human behavior and the learning theories:
“According to
the behavior, interests, attitudes, skills and knowledge that characterize any
human being, its essential to understand the learning process, because together
with the maturity are the most important influence to the human.” (CAMPO, 1987,
BIGGE, 1977 HILGARD, 1976, mentioned by PRETTO, 2006)
Kolb’s
theory (Kolb, 1984) about the experiential learning says that the behavior
changes happens when a person is totally engaged in an task, analyses it and
take a significant insight to apply in
your decisions to have good results. Kolb’s model (picture 1) is presented by
the four steps of the experiential learning cycle; however, it is important to
say that sometimes people doesn’t have all the abilities for each step.
Picture
1: Kolb’s cycle of experiential learning
Source: Kolb (1984, LOPES (2001)
It is
possible to realize a strong alignment between the cycle’s steps and the
benefits of the teaching methodology based in business simulations. This
association between the business games and experiential learning had already
mentioned by HAZOFF (2004), SAUAIA (1995) and SANTOS (1999).
The
vertical axis has the “concrete experiences”, what means the feelings about
real situations that person had already lived or felt; on the other side of the
axis there is “abstract conceptualization” referring to the ability of learn
new informations, rationally analyzed without emotional influences.
The
horizontal axis has on the right the “reflective observation” referring to the
situations that needs to been analyzed, think about the variables and available
alternatives; while on the left side of the axis there is the “active
experimentation”, referring to the situations to act without planning, follow
the intuitions.
4.1.
LEARNING
STYLES
Kolb
had used a survey, known by “Kolb Learning Style inventory”, that allowed the
categorization of the students with some similarities in their learning
processes, the author summarized that research presenting four generic learning
styles. In others words, through the personal preferences during the learning
processes the author had analyzed the behavior of each student. These four
styles are illustrated on picture 2, inside of Kolb’s cycle:
Figura
2: Kolb’s learning styles.
On the top-right, there are people
who prefers to learn with real experiences, most all need to realize how that
content will be used in the future. This kind of student needs a encouraging
teacher, because they like to “think out of the box” and usually have the most
creative solutions. That’s why they are called by Divergers. (KOLB, 1999A;
BOYATZIS; KOLB, 2001).
“An excessive polarization of the alternatives can
inhibit taking decision process of the Divergers; they seems to be better for
the service organizations or for arts. The underprivileged of this style have
some difficulties to realize problems or opportunities. ” (PEREIRA, 2005).
On the bottom-right there are the
theorists, or assimilators, they are people who takes your decisions based in
logic, but needs some time to a reflective analyze of the problem. The teacher
only needs to be near helping to understand some informations and the logic of
the situation. Usually they are scientist professionals. (KOLB; KOLB, 1999a, p.
5).
“If the assimilator characteristic was real strong,
the trend is to be always thinking and unable to apply the knowledge in real
situations. In contrast, the less assimilator style are unable to learn with
the mistakes and systematically don’t look for the problems.” (CERQUEIRA,
2000).
On the bottom left side, there are
the convergers. This is literally opposite of the divergers, they use the
abstract concepts to have a real experience. They are technical oriented
people, more practice than theory, the popular “trial and error”, these
students are more favorable to the simulations, or laboratory tasks. The
teacher must be coach for them, creating a good atmosphere to allow them to
take the risk, as the situation was real. (KOLB; KOLB, 1999a, p. 5).
On the top left, there are the
“activists”, they needs a real experience to take future decisions as active
experimentation. Most of all are people who prefer site activities, insightful
tasks, this learning style is very usual for the entrepreneurs who take the
risk with decision based on feelings not planning. The teacher must be a
facilitating agent to improve the opportunities, leaving the students to take
themselves the connections of the theory and practice. Usually they have leader
characteristics, practicality and propensity to take more risks. (KOLB, 1999).
5. A NEW BUSINESS GAME
It is always welcome on the academic
programs a new way to do business simulations improving the students
experience, the more realistic it’s possible. However, the proposal of a new
methodology based in RPG brings some inevitable questions about its
applicability, this is the main objective of this paper, start a new discussion
about the future of the business games.
The first question, maybe the most
important, is how to create a RPG scenario and rules simulating the corporative
issues, without lose the player’s freedom in action on RPG? Surely the
complexity of this proposal demand much more studies and lot of hours
developing the book of rules, but it doesn’t seem to be impossible to take some
concepts used by famous games as “SinCity” or “Tycoon”. These games created a
fantastic scenario to the players manage by themselves their city, or company,
with so many features that it seems to be free. As the time comes on in the
simulation, the problems or opportunities happens naturally.
A second question may be done about
the educational applicability and viability of this open model in the classroom,
in other terms, how to make sure that all the students have gone through all
the situations was planned? Certainly, the most important peculiarity of RPG is
the open scenario to be explored, and it should have a big effect on the
simulation time of each student to achieve the knowledge desired by the
teacher.
Maybe we can think about different
stages, with specifics goals through the main objective of the entire
simulation; the problem is that each student still have different difficulties
and time to solve all the problems and that is why the RPG methodology does not
look so good to replace the traditional business games, specifically to be used
in the classrooms.
Which does not mean discard
everything was showed, but in fact, it should stand a new applicability for the
business games thinking about gamification trends. It’s not so hard to think a
training program, medium or long term, that is based on RPG rules. According to
the players evolution the contents will grow together and more sophisticated.
At this point, we also can think
about a game specific created to be used as a continuous human resources
program, where the company could promote the organizational culture and give
challenges to some employees to improve a specific knowledge, replacing the
traditional training for a “connected training”.
Another question should be done
about the tools, some authors are board game fans and others prefers the
computer software. Each one have advantages and disadvantages, the board games
would allow more participation, maybe it would have more free decisions
stimulating the students’ creativity.
However, board games are not
indicated for big teams as the universities teams are. In addition, to
calculate all the variables and its effect would take much time and the game
would be less dynamic for the students. A software, even online or offline,
have a bigger advantage in the players capacity and the calculating process
agility.
The weakness is the complexity to do
a real open scenario, as mentioned in the previous questions, it must be have
many options and tools to get freedom feeling. Even in the mentioned games
(Sincity and Tycoon) the player has a restricted variety of choices, but they
are so many developed with so many choices that the player rarely thinks about
an uncover option.
At the end, a last question should
be about characters abilities, which are essentials for the RPG methodology. A
good possibility to do that is by using the learning styles to create a survey
to identify the player profile in the beginning of simulation. Each student
should answer the questions, identifying your abilities and weaknesses to be
improved during the simulation. This point would be very interesting for the HR
area, to analyse the development of each employee, and even a psychology
analysis for the promotions.
6. FINAL CONSIDERATIONS
The business game as teaching
methodology has already been established in graduation or postgraduate courses
all over the world, certainly these simulations continue to be improving, in
technological issues or in the variety of variables approached, and it is fact
that the academic community will be always looking for an upgrade of teaching
quality and better learning experience.
Due to this theme diversity, there
are many research lines that allow each one’s evolution in your way, in others
terms, we can say that while some authors will continue developing new war
games that have an important function in strategic training in a fictional
scenario. Others authors will dedicate the time to the software development,
adopting much more variables inside the business simulations.
The entry of RPG on the discussion
about business game means an interesting challenge, but also a good new
alternative to apply the game methodology. It a new filed that is opened to
teachers and academics, to plan games and more lasting training programs that
could be a guide to full training programs connecting the abilities acquired in
different courses.
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