Board games "Populists" & "Populist"

By playing this game, you will develop your critical thinking. This game will help you to become more aware of logical fallacies made by celebrities and opinion leaders. You will learn to analyse logical fallacies and how to refute them.

Get a copy of the game and become immune to logical fallacies!

OLDEST TRICK IN THE BOOK

Populists - as ancient as democracy itself!

They make bad arguments sound persuasive and appeal to our emotions & cognitive blindspots.

IT'S NOT ABOUT YOU

Too young to remember? Too old to understand?

Populists dodge the power of arguments and hide behind personal insults.

Don't let them!

What are logical fallacies?

Have you ever tried to twist the facts for your own benefit?

What do you usually do in these situations?

Have you ever tried using personal experience to make a generalization when you know that it was just an isolated case? Or maybe you have used a personal attack on your opponent to try to discredit them and shift the attention away from their argument?

While using these methods is not exactly lying, you have certainly committed logical fallacies in order to present information in a way that is beneficial to you. Together there are more than 20 different kinds of logical fallacies that allow information to be twisted to the benefit of a person or situation.

These techniques are used daily by politicians and celebrities to control their message and influence public opinion. This can quickly lead to it being hard to distinguish truth from fiction because logical fallacies can easily slip through the cracks if you have not paid attention to them before.

Role-play as a populist

The board game "Populist" allows you to enter the realm of dirty arguments.

The game consists of a collection of quotes from celebrities, politicians, and everyday situations.

Some contain logical fallacies, others do not.

The goal of the Voters is to tell the difference; the goal of the Populists - create chaos.

Your identity as the Populist will be hidden from the Voters.

It's up to you to convince your fellow model Voters that they should believe you. After all - you're just trying to help, right?

Become a master of logical fallacies

The collection of quotes represents the 5 most common logical fallacy types: Ad Hominem, Anecdotal Evidence, False Cause, Slippery Slope, and False Dilemma.

By playing as the vigilant Voter and the cunning Populist, you will naturally pick up on the dirty tricks used to make bad arguments sound good.

And do not worry. Potential tabletop disputes will be resolved by the Answers Book. Every quote in the game has an explanation as to why it contains a logical fallacy or not.

But please - just because you will get good at logical fallacies, doesn't excuse you from exploiting it for your own benefit...

Relatable education tool

Learning about critical thinking & logical fallacies in classrooms can become too... theoretical.

"Populist" uses gamification and pop culture references to make learning fun.

So far "Populist" has found its home in 127 schools all across Latvia. It's been used as an educational tool by thousands of students.

Teachers have described it as "informative", "bold", and "helpful".

Students have described it as being on fleek and flexing a bit too much.

If you are a teacher or a youth conselor, please reach out to us and we'll give you a copy for free.

GET IT NOW!

How can I use it at school?

With support of the British Council Latvia, Culture Ministry of Latvia and K.Adenauer Foundation we have provided lectures and workshops on logical fallacies & we have gifted the game to more than 100 schools in Latvia. To find out, whether your schools has a copy of the game, click here.

If you wish to use the game in your curricula, you will find this material very useful: it will help anyone interested to understand the game's idea and method. It gives insight into the value of critical thinking both in daily life and in professional development. You will also learn more about the concept of gamification, value of the critical thinking, media literacy, logical fallacies and more. The material in Latvian language can be found here.

You can also download the game here.

Methodical materials are created with the support of the British Council Latvia, Konrad Adenauer Foundation and Latvijas Finieris. Contents of the game are the sole responsibility of the Latvian Debate Association "QUO Tu doma?". Acknowledgements to Evija Goluba, Edgars Klētnieks, Rasmuss Filips Geks, Edgars Lapiņš (SkeptiCafe), Sandra Falka, Agnese Lāce, Pēteris Pūrītis, Artis Dubkevičs, Kristofers Borovskis, Henriks Bērmanis, Edgars Zaķis, Sintija Tarasova, Kristaps Auzāns, Mārtiņš Vaivars, Rūta Gabaliņa, Ieva Skrīvere, Lauma Vernere, Dārta Maija Zaķe.

About the game

The players are divided into two roles - Populists and Voters.

The challenge for the Voters is to be vigilant and think critically, recognizing and identifying the logical fallacies and telling the rest of the Voters, while also not mistakingly attributing a logical fallacy to a quote where there is actually none.

The challenge for the Populists is to deceive and confuse the Voters so they can't successfully recognize the logical fallacies. The Populists may lie or use other means to confuse the Voters during the game. You must be cunning, otherwise the game can be lost if the Voters realize that you are a Populist!

ts main goal is to make you think, critically evaluate and question the information you encounter every time you read social media posts and the news. By playing this game, you can expand your thinking so that you will no longer get fooled by what is said by society's leaders, celebrities and other people and learn to analyze even the most absurd ideas and refute them.

Populists iegāde

AWARD WINNING BOARD GAME

★ 1st place (Latvia) ★

★ Finalists ★

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