Zendo is often described as “Science: The Game.” (More discussion here)
Lots of biases come up. You quickly learn to avoid positive bias if you play this often. You start to deal with confirmation bias and illusory correlation and neglect of sample size. Almost any bias that affects hypothesis generation and testing affects how well you play Zendo, and you can run through single rounds in as little as 10 or 15 minutes. I cannot recommend it enough.
If you’re serious about using it for didactic purposes, have players work together, collaborating aloud. This way, you can cover some of the social biases, and have a clearer record of what people were thinking and when they thought it. (If you’re really serious, record the play session, and show insight-generating clips as you go. When you play as the master, you get to see these all the time.)
I’ve wanted to try Zendo since hearing about it here on LW. Is there anywhere it can be played online? The obvious Google searches are failing me.
I like the idea of the players working together, too.
[ETA: A much simpler game that’s good rationality training might be Clue. Drawing correct inferences on incomplete information gets surprisingly important if you’re playing with reasonably good players, and it seems to me the skill should generalize.]
I’d actually argue that Zendo is simpler than Clue, just less familiar. Specifically, the gameplay mechanics themselves are about as simple as they can be, while still supporting the idea of “be a game of induction”.
Is there anywhere it can be played online?
Actually, forums work out pretty well, and chat rooms (IRC, say) work excellently… because you can just use a family of text strings as koan space, instead of physical configurations. It’s lacks some visual and tactile satisfaction, but it works online and is free. (Examples: on lw, on Board Game Geek, on the DROD forums.)
Same for me. This mixes the clear concept of the logic puzzle with the movement and thereby draws attention away from the logic to other aspects. This reduces the chance that any deeper insights into the logic inferences occur (both by reducing the success of these inferences via the random element and via less concentration available at begin with).
Hrm. Suppose movement were fixed rather than random?
The movement does seem important to the game to me, if only because sometimes (particularly late in the game) you can infer things based on where your opponents appear to be heading. Or you can bluff people attempting to do the same.
Sure. And by doing so it could teach bluffing. But it really the other way around: You already have to know about bluffing to figure out that you could gain a small advantage by doing so. The games rewards such tactics too little. At least if you don’t play it more often. And if you play it more often all this moving around and doing a ‘straightforward logic puzzle’ has long lost any appeal and just eats time. Except when you do it in the background and the socializing around the game moves into the forground. But then any game would do.
I would second Eleusis as a great game for training logical thinking. If you haven’t played, at it’s core, its basically the 2-4-6 game, with one of the players allowed to make up more complex rules. I’ve played several times with my friends, and you would be amazed at how difficult it is to tease out even some of the simpler rules. For instance, I once played a game, where a player went through almost 2 decks of cards before realizing the rule was “Alternate Red/Black”.
Zendo is often described as “Science: The Game.” (More discussion here)
Lots of biases come up. You quickly learn to avoid positive bias if you play this often. You start to deal with confirmation bias and illusory correlation and neglect of sample size. Almost any bias that affects hypothesis generation and testing affects how well you play Zendo, and you can run through single rounds in as little as 10 or 15 minutes. I cannot recommend it enough.
If you’re serious about using it for didactic purposes, have players work together, collaborating aloud. This way, you can cover some of the social biases, and have a clearer record of what people were thinking and when they thought it. (If you’re really serious, record the play session, and show insight-generating clips as you go. When you play as the master, you get to see these all the time.)
I’ve wanted to try Zendo since hearing about it here on LW. Is there anywhere it can be played online? The obvious Google searches are failing me.
I like the idea of the players working together, too.
[ETA: A much simpler game that’s good rationality training might be Clue. Drawing correct inferences on incomplete information gets surprisingly important if you’re playing with reasonably good players, and it seems to me the skill should generalize.]
I’d actually argue that Zendo is simpler than Clue, just less familiar. Specifically, the gameplay mechanics themselves are about as simple as they can be, while still supporting the idea of “be a game of induction”.
Actually, forums work out pretty well, and chat rooms (IRC, say) work excellently… because you can just use a family of text strings as koan space, instead of physical configurations. It’s lacks some visual and tactile satisfaction, but it works online and is free. (Examples: on lw, on Board Game Geek, on the DROD forums.)
A misformatted link at the end of that?
Nope, just terrible editing. :j Thanks.
I always found Clue a bit pointless. The moving-around-the-board bit gets in the way of the otherwise straightforward logic puzzle.
Same for me. This mixes the clear concept of the logic puzzle with the movement and thereby draws attention away from the logic to other aspects. This reduces the chance that any deeper insights into the logic inferences occur (both by reducing the success of these inferences via the random element and via less concentration available at begin with).
Hrm. Suppose movement were fixed rather than random?
The movement does seem important to the game to me, if only because sometimes (particularly late in the game) you can infer things based on where your opponents appear to be heading. Or you can bluff people attempting to do the same.
Sure. And by doing so it could teach bluffing. But it really the other way around: You already have to know about bluffing to figure out that you could gain a small advantage by doing so. The games rewards such tactics too little. At least if you don’t play it more often. And if you play it more often all this moving around and doing a ‘straightforward logic puzzle’ has long lost any appeal and just eats time. Except when you do it in the background and the socializing around the game moves into the forground. But then any game would do.
It looks similar to Eleusis, which has the advantage that it just needs playing cards.
Anyhow I’d like to try Zendo. Thanks for mentioning it.
I would second Eleusis as a great game for training logical thinking. If you haven’t played, at it’s core, its basically the 2-4-6 game, with one of the players allowed to make up more complex rules. I’ve played several times with my friends, and you would be amazed at how difficult it is to tease out even some of the simpler rules. For instance, I once played a game, where a player went through almost 2 decks of cards before realizing the rule was “Alternate Red/Black”.