Therapeutic role-playing board game

Details Therapeutic role-playing board game Therapeutic role-playing board game

1999-02-02

2004-02-03

Layno, Benjamin H. (Department: 3711)

Amusement devices: games

Board games, pieces, or boards therefor

Piece moves over board having pattern

C273S236000

Reexamination Certificate

active

06685187

ABSTRACT:

FIELD OF THE INVENTION
A board game for therapeutic and recreational purposes, specifically, a board game with game pieces that are moved along a path of squares in response to the roll of dice and wherein players draw one or more of a plurality of different playing cards and then enact or improvise a situation based on the one or more cards drawn.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Robert Landy's role therapy method promotes the concept that “as role takers and role players, people become a cast of characters unto themselves and stumble toward ways to live among the contradictory pulls of their personae.” (Landy, 1994) Landy's role therapy method involves a number of treatment steps, including invoking, naming and exploring a role, and developing both function and alternative qualities in the form of sub-roles through puppet and mask work in an extended dramatization. This process incorporates role reflection whereby clients reflect upon quality and function of roles and relate the fictional roles to their everyday life. The distance of the role affords clients the safety to play out issues through these fictional roles. Improvised enactments, as well as projective techniques, offer clients the space to explore and move through roles; new roles can be recognized and previously denied roles acknowledged.
Landy's method provides the means to understand role in a system of organization or taxonomy. His taxonomy is a classification system of the recurring roles throughout the history of western dramatic literature. This taxonomy is a systematic arrangement of role type according to function, quality and style presentation. (Landy, 1994) According to Landy: “Clients who are able to invoke and name roles, to play them out and reflect upon them as parts of themselves, would be well within the normal range of functioning. Any significant deviation from this would indicate a truncated role system” (Landy, 1994).
Applicants offer an assessment instrument and treatment tool in the form of their enactment board game, ROLE THE DICE. ROLE THE DICE seeks to access a client's (or player's) current internal role repertoire evidenced by a series of spontaneous role play enactments, specified by role type, quality, and style presentation, and substantiated by self-reported reflection. Applicants employ improvisation as a projective means to give rise to one's role system and view the realm of play to be the ideal non-threatening place where creativity and exploration are honored. In this locale, ROLE THE DICE weds game playing with spontaneous improvisation to facilitate the exploration of role. The therapeutic goals of ROLE THE DICE are both intra- and interpersonal. As a therapeutic treatment tool, ROLE THE DICE desires to enhance communication and increases socialization among group members.
OBJECTS OF THE INVENTION
It is an object of the present invention to provide for a game apparatus and unique method of playing the game apparatus which can impart therapeutic results and cohesiveness in a group of players (or clients).
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a unique game board having a perimeter portion including a number of boxes or squares across which the players may move, which boxes or squares have indicia thereon. This indicia provides information from which the players will be directed to draw one or more cards providing a situation for improvisation.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a unique set of enactment cards for providing and describing a situation that calls for improvisation.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide indicia on the boxes or squares on the perimeter of the game board for providing other information including indicating which color enactment card to draw and/or indicating a particular action for the player to take and/or indicating which one or more additional cards to draw for providing an added dimension(s) to the situation that calls for improvisation.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a unique spinner having areas corresponding to actions to be taken by the player (or client), including actions requiring the player to draw from different types of card sets which provide an added dimension(s) to the situation that calls for improvisation.
These and other objects are further provided for in a unique method of playing the game apparatus, the unique method comprising the steps of: determining an order of play for the number of players; each player placing, in order of play, the player's piece at a start box or square on the game board; each player moving, in response to the operation of the first random selection means, through the boxes or squares of the game board to a landing box or square; each player responding to instructions, if any, on the landing box or square, until proceeding to a landing box or square which requires drawing at least an enactment card; drawing an enactment card corresponding to the particular indicated color of the landing box or square; based on the indicia on the particular colored landing box or square, if any, drawing one or more additional cards and/or operating a second means for selecting an action to be taken by the player; enacting the situation described on the enactment card based on added dimension(s), if any, provided by any one or more additional cards drawn.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
These objects and others are provided for in a game apparatus comprising: a first set of cards, each card of the first set of cards (enactment cards) bearing a situation that calls for an improvisation; a second set of cards, each card of the second set of cards bearing a role (villain, mother, lawyer, etc.) for the player (or client) to enact the situation in the role drawn; a third set of cards, each card of the third set of cards bearing a style or genre (musical comedy, soap opera, etc.) for the player (or client) to enact the situation in the style drawn; a fourth set of cards, each card of the fourth set of cards bearing a feeling (love, hate, etc.) for the player (or client) to enact the situation in the feeling drawn; a game board having a perimeter portion having a plurality of adjacently positioned colored (or having indicia of a particular color) boxes or squares bearing indicia, at least some of the boxes having indicia identifying one or more of the role, style, and feeling cards and at least some other boxes having indicia requiring moving player pieces or spinning a spinner; a first means to randomly select a number from a finite set of numbers (e.g., dice), which means is operable by each of the players (or clients); a plurality of player pieces for placement on and movement through the plurality of boxes on the perimeter portion of the game board; a second means to randomly select from a number actions to be taken by the player (or client) from a finite set of numbers or from a finite set of a number of actions (e.g., a spinner), which means is operable by each of the players or clients; wherein players commence and maintain play by moving player pieces around the perimeter of the game board in response to random numbers obtained by the player operating the random selection means and wherein the players are challenged to enact the situations read from the enactment cards along with one or more of the role, style, and feeling cards, if any, wherein the enactment card is chosen based on the indicated color of the particular box or square landed on and the role, style, and feeling cards are chosen based on the indicia of the particular box or square and/or by the second means to randomly select an action to be taken by the player (or client).
This and other objects are further provided for in a unique method of playing the game apparatus, the unique method comprising the steps of: determining an order of play for the number of players; each player placing, in order of play the player's piece at a start box or square on the game board; each player moving, in response to the operation of the first random

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