The year is 1912, and Francisco Madero is president of Mexico. Players work to shape Mexico in the image of their revolutionary character while trying to keep Mexico from descending back into chaos.
Description:
Just last year Madero and his top general ousted the long-standing president (some say dictator) Porfirio Díaz, who is now in exile. But the country is far from stable. A basic cultural rift between elite and the poor portends a sequence of tumbling revolts. Participants are assigned historical roles that are charged with stabilizing Mexico and preventing further civil war. The goal is to reform Mexico and make it a better nation for all of its inhabitants—but Mexicans and foreigners worry that without a firm hand, Mexico’s governance might spiral out of control. At what cost will progress come?
Archduke Franz Ferdinand has been assassinated by a Serbian terrorist! Do you have what it takes to navigate your country through the resulting international crisis?
Description:
June 28, 1914: Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, has been assassinated by a Serbian terrorist! Now two alliance blocs--the Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy, and the Triple Entente of Great Britain, France, and Russia--stand arrayed against one another. As a leading statesman of the period, do you have what it takes to navigate your country through the resulting international crisis? Will you prevent a war from breaking out? Or will you manage a victory that will bring your soldiers "home before the leaves fall"?
Archduke Franz Ferdinand has been assassinated by a Serbian terrorist! Do you have what it takes to navigate your country through the resulting international crisis?
Description:
June 28, 1914: Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, has been assassinated by a Serbian terrorist! Now two alliance blocs--the Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy, and the Triple Entente of Great Britain, France, and Russia--stand arrayed against one another. As a leading statesman of the period, do you have what it takes to navigate your country through the resulting international crisis? Will you prevent a war from breaking out? Or will you manage a victory that will bring your soldiers "home before the leaves fall"?
Reacting to the Past - The French Revolution - VIG
Summary:
Peter Adkison will run this larp-like event set in the French Revolution. This event features a ruleset developed by Mark C. Carnes, professor history at Barnard College for use in the classroom.
Description:
Rousseau, Burke, and Revolution in France, 1791 plunges students into the intellectual, political, and ideological currents that surged through revolutionary Paris in the summer of 1791. Students are leaders of major factions within the National Assembly (and in the streets outside) as it struggles to create a constitution amidst internal chaos and threats of foreign invasion. Will the king retain power? Will the priests of the Catholic Church obey the “general will” of the National Assembly or the dictates of the pope in Rome? Do traditional institutions and values constitute restraints on freedom and individual dignity or are they its essential bulwarks? In wrestling with these issues, students consult Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Social Contract and Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France, among other texts.