Argumentation: a game about how history works

Argumentation is a tool in the form of a storytelling card game that allows players to examine various theories of history. It is GM-less, for three to six players, requires no preparation, and take two to four hours. Players take on the role of underpaid instructors at a poorly funded liberal arts college, drinking burnt coffee in the faculty lounge and arguing about the nature of history between classes. They pose a series of great historical questions to one another, some counterfactual, others more abstract, which are answered using a selection of framing cards representing theories about the nature and function of the historical process. These include historical materialism, classical realism, dialectic idealism, Whig historiography, great man theory, paradigm shift, the fourth turning, negative conquest theory, and many others. Gameplay functions on a mixture of original rules, Apples-To-Apples mechanics, and inspiration drawn from Alex Roberts’ For The Queen.