Running Credentials

An icebreaker for a first seminar. Each table becomes a delegation at a congress, introduces itself, and agrees a brief of three points, while a Saboteur sent by an outside power tries to slip a forged dispatch into it. It builds a sense of belonging in a room of strangers, and introduces ideas that come back later: recognition, credentials, instructions, and the record.

Set up a game Players’ rulebook Glossary

Before the session

Label the tables with letters in room order, so neighbouring tables have neighbouring letters. Tables with fewer than four people are joined to the nearest letter, and the merged delegation plays across the gap without moving.
Check the Wi-Fi with about 30 phones. Phones can use mobile data. A student without a phone can share a neighbour’s and agree with them on what to tap.
Choose the world. Bandung 1955 is the built-in congress. The practice world, the Harbour Summit, is invented and works well as a short first round to learn the rules.
Open three screens: the tutor screen on your laptop, the projector on the room screen (set the display to Extend, not Duplicate), and a test phone if you want to watch what students see.

The order of play (about 25–35 minutes)

Step	Time	What happens
Join	3 min	Students scan the QR code and tap their table letter. Anyone who would rather not speak can ask, privately, to be the Observer. You see the plan, including any merged tables, before you deal.
Introductions	5 min	Press Deal the tables. Each phone gets a seal and its table a banner. Students say their first name, their seal and their answer to a light question, then tap Done. The projector receives each delegation’s credentials as its table finishes.
Explain	2 min	Read the rulebook’s first section aloud, or show How to play on a phone. The key line: “press and hold your Private card, and keep it to yourself.”
The congress	10–15 min	Press Open the congress. Delegates put instructions forward, argue, check seals, call Summits and agree a brief. Late dispatches arrive by themselves. The timer never closes anything.
The Final Act	2 min	Press Close the congress. The projector shows every brief, forged points stamped with the power that planted them, and the tally.
The unmasking	3 min	Press Unmask the Saboteurs. Invite each Saboteur to tell the room how they played it. The Saboteur is the best seat in the game, not a shameful one.
Debrief	5–10 min	Press Show the debrief. The questions are on the projector and your screen.

Another round keeps the same tables and seals and deals new roles. Choose the world for it on the tutor screen: for example a practice round first, then Bandung.

Rehearse on your own

On the tutor screen, press Rehearsal tools. Only you see the panel.

Add test students: choose how many, which table (or spread them across the tables) and how they play. The server plays them a few seconds apart, by every rule a phone follows: they introduce themselves, put instructions forward, slip forgeries, check seals, call and vote in Summits, send Notes, and propose and agree briefs. Mixed spots a forgery about half the time, sharp about three times in four, trusting never. They never act for a real phone.
Open a test phone: a student’s view in its own small window, with its own seal. Press again for another. Seat test phones and test students at the same table to play a delegation from the inside.
The readout: phones real and test, the projector, briefs sent, forgeries planted, seal checks and Summits, and the time left.
Remove all test students before dealing, or press Restart game afterwards: test students don’t survive a restart.

What the phones enforce, and what they leave to people

The server enforces	People decide
Roles, instructions and the Private card reach only the right phone. The projector never shows a role before the unmasking. Slipped forgeries and genuine late dispatches arrive in exactly the same way. One seal check per delegation (a setting); a point stamped Forged can’t go in a brief. Summits: one per person, a limit per delegation, the accused can’t vote, 30 seconds, more than half to pass. A caught Saboteur can’t vote, propose or call a Summit. The Observer can’t call a Summit or propose, and is never dealt papers. A brief has exactly three points and is sent only when more than half agree.	Whether an instruction is genuine: “would our government really want this?” Who to trust, and who to accuse. Which three points matter most. The Observer stays silent. Nothing can enforce that but the room.

The server enforces

People decide

Roles, instructions and the Private card reach only the right phone. The projector never shows a role before the unmasking.
Slipped forgeries and genuine late dispatches arrive in exactly the same way.
One seal check per delegation (a setting); a point stamped Forged can’t go in a brief.
Summits: one per person, a limit per delegation, the accused can’t vote, 30 seconds, more than half to pass.
A caught Saboteur can’t vote, propose or call a Summit.
The Observer can’t call a Summit or propose, and is never dealt papers.
A brief has exactly three points and is sent only when more than half agree.

Whether an instruction is genuine: “would our government really want this?”
Who to trust, and who to accuse.
Which three points matter most.
The Observer stays silent. Nothing can enforce that but the room.

The Observer, and students who would rather not speak

The Observer is mute because of the role: present at the congress but without standing to speak. At Bandung, the phone tells them they represent a people the conference spoke about but who had no seat at it. They know who the Saboteur is, vote on Summits and the brief, and can send one Note naming two seals, one of which is a Saboteur. The server picks the pair, so the Note narrows things down but never settles them.

The seat goes to a student who asks for it privately, at delegations of five or more. If nobody asks, there is no Observer, unless you turn on a random one in the settings. Requests show on your screen only.

Debrief questions for Bandung

Every forgery cuts against a line of the Final Communiqué. The congress record (download it from the tutor screen) lists each forgery’s tell and the communiqué section every instruction paraphrases. The plot is game fiction: say so. The game makes no claim about what the United States or the Soviet Union did at Bandung, or about what any one delegation wanted.

Glossary

The student page is at /glossary. Whoever holds the host key can edit it on /admin.

Term	Meaning	In the game	Source
Recognition	How actors work out who counts in a system: the ritual, document or title that makes someone a member rather than an outsider.	The credentials ceremony on the projector, and every Summit: the table decides whose credentials it accepts.	The module’s Recognition thread (“Who counts?”), from the Architecture
Credentials	The papers an envoy carries to show who sent them and that they may speak for that government. Without them, an envoy can be refused a hearing.	Each delegation’s credentials are received on the projector once its introductions are done. A Summit that clears a delegate confirms their credentials.	Game term, tied to the Recognition thread
Instructions	What a government tells its delegates to press for, and what not to give away.	The dispatches on each phone. A delegation has more good instructions than places in its brief, so it must choose.	Game term
Communiqué	A joint statement issued at the end of a conference. It records what every government present could agree to publish, not what each of them wanted.	The Final Act on the projector: three points from each delegation, and none of the arguments behind them.	Provenance notes on the Bandung Final Communiqué, Week 10 primary sources
Bipolarity	A system organised around two great powers and their blocs, as the Cold War is often described.	The two outside powers pulling the congress their way, and the tally of how many points each got into the Final Act.	Week 10 reading list: the week’s system concept (Acharya 2016; Lüthi 2016)
Non-alignment	The refusal to join either Cold War bloc: the Third World project as a claim to be a third pole, not a periphery of the other two.	A delegation that keeps every forgery out of its brief has stayed non-aligned. The debrief asks whether the congress as a whole did.	Week 10 reading list: the week’s counter-concept (Acharya 2016; Lüthi 2016)
Sovereignty	A state’s authority over its own territory and affairs, which other states are expected to respect.	The instruction “Sovereignty”.	Bandung Final Communiqué (1955), Section G, principle 2
Non-interference	The principle that no state should intervene in another state’s internal affairs.	The instruction “Hands off”. The forgery “A word in the right ear” cuts against it.	Bandung Final Communiqué (1955), Section G, principle 4
Self-determination	The right of a people to choose its own government and political future.	The instruction “End colonialism”, and the Observer, who speaks for a people the conference discussed but did not seat.	Bandung Final Communiqué (1955), Sections C(1) and D
Collective defence	States agreeing to defend one another. The question at Bandung was whose interests such a pact served.	The instruction “Self-defence” and the forgery “A strong friend”: the hardest pair in the game to tell apart.	Bandung Final Communiqué (1955), Section G, principles 5 and 6(a)

Other congresses: worlds

A world is one congress, held as a JSON file and imported on /admin. Start from the Bandung world there, change it, and import it. A world has a title and scene, a list of delegations for the banners, two named outside powers, 12 to 30 genuine instructions (each with its source), 3 to 12 forgeries (each with {power} in its text, a tell, and the instructions it cuts against), and debrief questions. Every factual line needs a source.

Troubleshooting

A phone lost its place. Reload the page: the phone keeps its anonymous tag in the browser and rejoins as the same seal.
A student arrives late. They join, tap their table letter, and become a delegate with no papers who can still vote.
A table is stuck in introductions. Press Receive their credentials now on its card, or open the congress anyway: the button asks you to press twice.
Nobody has sent a brief. Closing the congress hands those tables to their Saboteurs. The button asks you to press twice.
A student uses a screen reader. Suggest earphones, so the Private card isn’t read aloud to the table.
Start again. Restart game clears everything but keeps the phones joined.

What is stored

Each phone’s anonymous random tag, seal, table, role, the instructions dealt, slips, votes, seal checks and briefs. There is no free text anywhere in the game, and introductions are spoken. Rooms are stored in the EU and deleted 24 hours after set-up. No names, student numbers, email addresses or IP addresses are kept.