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[Witherweaver]

So, I have a friend that teaches math at a local high school.  (He's also the guy that introduced me to Dominion.)  He has a math honors section, and he called me up a couple of days ago and said that he had been pushing the kids pretty hard lately and wanted to do something different for the last week (or whatever) of the school year.  He wanted to explore some probability/combinatorics, but he wanted to do it in a way that was both hands-on and could be applied to the external world.  His idea was to introduce the kids to Dominion.

I think he'd take one or two periods to introduce them to the game rules and have them play against each other.  Then once they understand some of the mechanics, he could start introducing some calculations that could be interesting.  Or at least standard math calculations applied to Dominion.  Like, what your average money density is, what the probability of colliding terminals might be, what the probability of spiking $5/$6 on turn 3 or 4 is, etc.

There are only 8 students in the class, so it's pretty manageable to have everyone playing in pairs (using just Base and Intrigue, probably a couple copies of each).   My main concern was that the part of learning the actual game may be too rushed, and the math involved wouldn't be so tangible as it would if they were experienced with the mechanics.  But I thought it would be pretty cool for students to learn something fun, and also to get in the mindset that they should be using basic mathematical skills in their every day lives. 

Anyway, I thought I'd pose the idea to the community here and see what you guys think of it.

[Awaclus]

I think it is a good idea.

[2.71828.....]

Considering the number of math/computer science/nerds we have on this forum, I think Dominion would work pretty well in that setting.

[theblankman]

Definitely would work.  One thing you can do even after just one game is ask them "What's the most money you could have on your first turn, and what's the probability of getting that?"  (Before anyone says things about Noble Brigand or Baker, note the OP said they'd only be using Base and Intrigue, so the max really is $5 and our favorite edge cases to the 5-2 problem don't apply.)

[Voltaire]

I think this would definitely work, and I don't think the rules would be too rushed. I think we sometimes overestimate the complexity of basic Dominion concepts since we spend 99% of our time thinking about the crazy complex aspects of the game.

[AndrewisFTTW]

T1: "Billy, are you sure you want Scout? It's not a very good card. Ok then."
T5: "Billy I think you have enough Scouts now, maybe you should get a... what? Beggar? But..."
T8: "Now you see what happens when you don't buy good cards? Let's get serious. You should buy... huh? How'd you hit $8?"
T13: "Ok you got 5 provinces. Very impressive. But now surely you'll see that you can't sustain this for very.... another province. Ok."
T16: "Yes Mr. President it's true. I don't understand it either. He'll be there right away. Billy, the President would like to congratulate you personally for solving the nation's economic woes and bringing an end to world hunger. Who knew that Dominion would be the key that unlocked your incredible abilities? Good luck to you Billy, and godspeed.

[DG]

Just remind your friend to never mention the word venture.

[Robz888]

This is a great idea, especially for an 8 person class. Just use base and intrigue. Let them learn the game for a period and then start thinking about collision probabilities, big money average turn win, improving average hand money density with trashing, etc.

[Witherweaver]

Forgot to post here to thank everyone for the feedback.  I think he's going to do it, so I'll let you know how it goes.

Just remind your friend to never mention the word venture.

I'll tell him to assign Venture proofs as an extra credit.

He's just using Base and Intrigue, though.  Which I think is the right move.

[Burning Skull]

Just don't show 'em things like feeding the Princess to the Rats, Butchering a Peddler, storing Pearl Divers in the Death Cart etc.

[WalrusMcFishSr]

Later on he could introduce Alchemy, when they're ready to discuss quasi-symplectic gauge topifolds of order N (the natural generalization of the coin/potion system)

[Ratsia]

I think this would definitely work, and I don't think the rules would be too rushed. I think we sometimes overestimate the complexity of basic Dominion concepts since we spend 99% of our time thinking about the crazy complex aspects of the game.

I know one teacher who has been organizing a board gaming club for their students. That's not quite the same as using them for teaching, but his feedback should nevertheless be relevant for the question of how easy it is for semi-random students to grasp the rules of various games. The phrase "semi-random" is because we are here talking about students interested in maths, and in the other example about students willing to attend a voluntary (but school-organized) board gaming club. The club was primarily for kids around 15-17. The general impression is that one indeed should not attempt the most complex of games, but things like Peloponnes, Race for the Galaxy, Kingdom builder, Notre dame, and Dominion (a random set of games mentioned in the last few reports) have caused no trouble for the students, and in this group Dominion is definitely not the most difficult game. Many kids seem to have trouble paying enough attention to learn the rules themselves, but this will not be a problem here as the teacher can spend any amount of time teaching the rules just for this one game.

Another teacher I know has been using various board games during maths lectures, for roughly 14yo students. He has used for example Las Vegas and Liar's dice for teaching probabilities, apparently with good success but noting that some students do have trouble grasping even the simplest of games like Liar's dice. I guess this has a lot to do with the fact that some kids of that age simply are not that interested in anything that happens in the school... The same guy has had good success with a board gaming club already for 12-13yo kids.



On a more general note: Dominion is not, rule-wise, complex at all. I have never met a person who would not have been able to play it (at least almost) correctly after a few minutes of rules explanation, even though I'm often playing with people who need several clarifications and reminders for more complex games. A person completely unfamiliar with board games might have a bit more trouble, but as a general rule I would call Dominion easy to approach. Donald did a terrific job in making the wordings clear, which really helps, and the basic rules are very simple.

[Blueswan]

As a high school teacher myself, I would be very interested to hear how this goes. Unfortunately I don't teach maths, but I could pass the idea along.