On November 29th, Edgeryders is organising an event in which participants co-create a fictional world to explore how internet technologies might affect, and be affected by, different social and economic futures.
The event consists of sessions of different teams playing a card game that asks what our best future looks like, and what it will be like to live there.
The card game is not just designed to be fun to play, but to promote real world discussion about alternative systems of economics and government. Indicators and event cards act as the anvil players’ ideas are hammered against, showing how hypothetical societies might fare against real world challenges, and sparking conversation from the results.
Witness was never meant to be an online-only project. We’re looking for ambassadors to host local games around the world. As a host you will invite and engage players in the world of Witness, but you will also document the games and the discussions and ideas that arise from them.
What a host does:
- Download the game cards and instructions
- Invite colleagues at work, or friends to play the game
- Keep track of the score and the discussions had during the game
- Shares a thoughtful summary of what was discovered and learned (can be a text, drawing or even short video shot on your mobile phone).
Benefits of hosting a game:
- Discover and play with new ideas, imagining what sort of worlds and lives they might lead to.
- Connect with people who have the expertise needed to ensure the ideas are realistic, and posses the skills and networks needed to make them happen.
- Imagine your life within these potential futures, and help others to do the same.
Would you be a hi-tech monk operating vast 3D printers in a city-wide monastery? Or an artist, crowdfunding for ambitious public works projects in a giant anarchist collective? Or perhaps you just want to live in the woods, farming your own food, generating your own electricity.* Witness lets you ask what that might be like, but also, how it might happen.
Who is a good host:
- Open-minded, curious and a good listener.
- Sociable and good at engaging people to try new things.
- Interested in society, technology and/or economics.
Additional perks
As a host you also get a limited edition of the cards as a thank you.
How to register
Sign up to play the game.
We will send you an invitation to join a short video call where we show you how to host a game and can answer any questions you have.