About

Tabletop Simulator Setup

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Introduction

This game is set in Syria as four real-life refugee families must work together by supporting each other to work through their path to asylum. As each family story is different, players will receive a family story card to learn about their characters and their successes and tragedies while immigrating out of their war-torn country. The objective of the game consists of each player rolling a dice to move their characters through their board. If they land on a face, they will receive a trauma card with a tragic event detailed, from here they will have to skip their turn to recover or utilize their resource pack received once landed on the tent. With the question mark spot, they will receive either a good or bad event in which they must work off of. The players must save all family pieces by making it to their destination in order to have a successful game. The more family members you can get across to asylum the better but the main goal is to get as many pawns across to asylum as you can. The uniqueness of the game lies in the fact that the players do not know what will happen to their characters and they must work together to ensure as many family members make it to safety.

Narrative

The game narrative consists of the family stories and real-life refugees set as characters in our game. Giving our players real stories will help them create a deeper level of empathy, understanding, and attachment to the game story and premise.

Before the game starts, each player will be given a character card that contains a quote from the refugee and their background story. Throughout the game, the players will work through some real events that have occurred to these refugees.

Play matrix

Mechanics

This game is targeted towards people of all genders and locations ages 12 and up as this is a heavier topic to discuss. As there are four main characters, there can be up to four players. Each player is assigned one character alongside their story and 5 pawns. The 5 pawns represent each family member, therefore being 20 pawns in total. To begin the game players will roll a dice and the highest roll starts with the next turn going to the next family to the player right. Players start with one family piece in play and if they roll a six then one more family pawn can enter the board with players having the possibility of having all family pawns on the board. Players must move throughout the board using the dice to determine how many spaces to move. If you land on a face, called a trauma spot, players must take a rest for the day by skipping a turn, or use a resource pack to help them recover and keep their following turn. If the player lands on a tent, they have arrived at the resource location and they receive a resource pack which they can use later on to either save themselves from a situation, or give to another family when they are in need. If you land on a question mark, they must pick up an event card. This event can be positive and help them, or negative and affect their situation. Note that there is one red event card that the players must watch out for which states that there has been city-wide bombing, unfortunately meaning the game is over. This is to represent the glooming anxiety refugees face on a daily basis while enduring their road out of their country. They do not know when or if it will happen, but it is a reality they must face. For the game to be considered a success all family members would cross through the board to asylum. This is why it is important to help each other by sharing resource packs.