Why The CIA Uses Board Games To Train Its Agents

CNN/Stylemagazine.com Newswire | 3/13/2017, 10 a.m.
Dungeons and Dragons, Pokémon card games and role-playing games are more than entertainment -- they're inspiration for the CIA.
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AUSTIN (CNNMoney) -- Dungeons and Dragons, Pokémon card games and role-playing games are more than entertainment -- they're inspiration for the CIA.

David Clopper, senior collection analyst with 16 years' experience at the CIA, also serves as a game maker for the agency. From card games to board games, Clopper creates games to train CIA staffers including intelligence agents and political analysts for real-world situations.

"Gaming is part of the human condition. Why not take advantage of that and incorporate into the way we learn?" Clopper said Sunday at a games-themed panel discussion at the South by Southwest Interactive technology festival. Clopper and other CIA officers discussed how the agency uses games to teach strategy, intelligence gathering and collaboration.

Clopper, who began making training programs based on popular tabletop games in 2008, described some of his creations for the CIA.

In "Collection," Clopper's first CIA game, teams of analysts work together to solve international crises against a ticking clock. His second title, "Collection Deck," is a Pokémon-like card game in which where each card represents either an intelligence collection strategy or a hurdle like red tape or bureaucracy.

For instance, a player could lay out a card to collect intelligence via satellite photos, but an opponent could block them by playing a "ground station failure" card. It's meant to mimic situations analysts might run into in their actual work.

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