SUMMARY OF GAME-PLAYING BENEFITS 1. In general, playing our game increases the player's intrinsic problem solving power. It increases his desire to solve hard new problems. It gives the player confidence to do so and the knowledge about how to do so. In addition, it provides practice and focused feedback. 2. It teaches mediation skills. 3. It teaches group leadership skills. 4. It teaches goal focusing skills. 5. It teaches the importance of a good first impression and how to create such an impression. 6. It teaches coalition building skills. 7. It teaches agenda setting and controlling skills. 8. It teaches information gathering, sharing, and bargaining skills and ethics. 9. It teaches problem framing skills. 10. It teaches consensus building skills. 11. It teaches the usefulness of objective criteria, standards of fairness and common ground. 12. It teaches brainstorming skills. 13. It teaches bargaining skills and how to make a good first offer. 14. It teaches trading skills. 15. It teaches skills for combining brainstorming with bargaining. 16. It teaches counseling skills. 17. It teaches interest and value clarification and prioritizing skills. 18. It teaches finalizing skills. 19. It teaches the difference among "issues", "interests", and "positions". 20. It teaches interviewing skills. 21. It teaches questioning skills. 22. It teaches argument making skills. 23. It teaches creativity and mutual gain making skills. 24. It teaches feed back skills. 25. It teaches relationship building and rebuilding skills. 26. It teaches convening skills. 27. It teaches implementation skills. 28. It teaches conflict resolution skills. 29. It teaches time management skills. 30. It teaches the multidimensional nature of problems. 31. It teaches the relativity of values. 32. It teaches the value-ladened nature of "facts". 33. It teaches democratic decision making at the grass roots level. 34. It teaches how to reconcile the tension between individual interests and the interests of the group or society as a whole. DETAILED BENEFITS OF PLAYING THE GAMES 1. Playing our game increases "DECKS" (Desire, Confidence, Knowledge, and Stamina). Giving players an enjoyable, manageable and memorable structure for approaching complex group problems and letting them use the structure to play the game two or more times increases their overall interest and capacity to solve real problems. The obvious structure of the game is empowering. In particular, the game teaches desire, confidence, knowledge, and stamina. 2. It teaches mediation skills. The structure of the game and the role of the team leader or pilot teach players an easy to learn framework for conducting complex, multiparty mediations. The team leader is a mediator committed to helping the good reach the best fair deal. 3. It teaches group leadership skills. Individuals clearly do better in the game if the group works well together. Each individual is encouraged to help the group perform more effectively in the role of team leader or as a player. The consequence of ineffective group performance becomes obvious during the scoring and debriefing phase of the game. The structure of the game helps players assume a leadership role when the team leader is not performing effectively. 4. It teaches goal focusing skills. The fast paced agenda of the game force players to focus and refocus or fail. The Matching Up and Finalizing legs explicitly ask the players to refocus. When they do poorly, their lack of focus becomes obvious during debriefing. 5. It teaches the importance of a good first impression and how to create such an impression. The Introductions leg of the game gives players a one minute chance to try out their first impressions strategy and to compare their own introduction to 7 others in the game. 6. It teaches coalition building skills. The Introductions leg gives the players a quick opportunity to begin to identify who might be their allies during the game. Each of the later legs reinforces or qualifies their first impression as players search for support for their Points in the final agreement. 7. It teaches agenda setting and controlling skills.