Playing the Role
Updating team briefs for an upcoming session gave me a moment to reflect on one early surprise with Foom that keeps on surprising. When we initially designed the exercise, we established five different stakeholder identities that make up the five (human) teams: Users (representing the general public), Business (representing, well, business and large organizations using AI), Developers (representing interests of those making AI or tech around it), Policymakers (rule-setters at different levels) and Activists (representing groups advocating for particular values or outcomes on behalf of others). This was done to provide the tension of different motivations, needs, fears, objectives that need to be negotiated throughout the simulation.
We leave teams to self-define how they wish to inhabit these roles, but it was initially a lesser consideration in design of the simulation, as we focused more on the stimuli and mechanics of decision-making. We simply told early groups, “Play them as you wish.”
What we didn’t see coming straight out of the gate was the enthusiasm, detail, emotion, and even deviance with which participants approach these roles. This happens from the start as we poll for each team to briefly describe itself to others. The backstories begin. The embodiment creeps in. Even changes in voice. In fairly short order, participants lean heavily into their roles, some even choosing to position themselves as representatives of disparate, opposing groups within a single stakeholder team.
Why is this such a powerful element of the experience? We have a few early theories, some quite obvious:
It’s fun. Playing pretend is inherently engaging. Trading mundane work hours - status meetings, drowsy Teams calls, endless emails - for creative social simulation is an obvious win. The role-play element amplifies this when colleagues join in, whether stepping out of authority or into it, all facing shared risks.
The appeal lies in that edge between two types of uncertainty: the playful "Who am I and what happens next?" versus the challenging "How do I solve this escalating problem?" Foom deliberately explores this boundary, where not-knowing shifts from fun to unsettling as stakes rise and control slips away.
Image: Vaughn Tan — https://vaughntan.org/why-not-knowing-feels-so-hard
It fits the cultural frame. Role-playing has become a cultural foundation of our lives in 2025. While the war gamers of the 1960s played gin rummy and Monopoly on Saturday nights, today's strategists have likely experienced Sleep No More, Meow Wolf, or Gone Home. The senior decision-makers in their 50s today were the first D&D generation of the 1970s. The generations after them have grown up immersed in multiple identities - through RPGs, online personas, fandoms, and gaming (board gaming alone is now a $17 billion global industry). Social gaming, particularly among Millennials and Gen Z, exploded during the pandemic. The immersive entertainment sector is projected to reach half a trillion dollars by 2030. That’s a lot of time spent in- and out-of-home being someone different.
Multiple participants have compared Foom to an escape room or strategy LARP. This wasn't accidental. Immersive theater influenced Foom's design from the start, along with experiential futures and design fiction. The visiting research fellowship that incubated Foom began with a day split between a flight simulator and an escape room in an old jail.
It allows for creativity. Playing a role in strategic scenarios liberates you from everyday constraints. No legacy debts or functional boundaries. Being someone else grants freedom to be dogmatic, powerless, disconnected, or demanding. We've seen smart strategists inhabit roles as disengaged NPCs, caring far less about stakes than their advocates. We've watched mild collaborators transform into cunning activists. Changing roles changes your tool set, and can open up pathways of problem-solving that didn’t seem clear before.
It enables perspective taking. This role-changing also enables perspective-taking. We ask organizations to sort their participants into teams that will require them to play against type. A policymaker engaging as a growth-hacking business leader. A go-for-it technologist playing a highly ethical activist. Seeing decisions and decision-making from other perspectives can unlock a kind of empathy or understanding of others’ challenges, and provide a point of view that may not be accessible under normal circumstances.
You can leave it behind (if you want). Like its scenario workshop ancestors, Foom creates a safe space for creative strategic thinking, which can often mean facing the difficult or unthinkable. But you aren’t bound to that position. What happens in the simulation stays there, if you want. Or, it can, as we’ve heard happen, remain a touchstone or reference point for real-world discussions afterward. You don’t have to remain the rule-bound policymaker or nervous user or accelerationist startup leader when you leave the room, but you do take the insights and perspective with you. That’s the fun of it.
We’ll share more thoughts about what we see and what we learn from this part of Foom, as well as others, as we go.
