From Experience to Experiments in South African Water Management: Defining the Framework

A role-playing game (RPG), KatAware, was developed in the Kat River catchment of South Africa to support the negotiation process among water users on the allocation rules of the resource. Playing the RPG with local stakeholders exhibited some regularity in the behaviour of players, particularly on their attitude of defining binding agreements. These regularities were first formalized through a model of cooperative game theory (CGT), and then, to confirm the results of the model, tested by an experimental protocol. Both the model and the protocol were based and calibrated on the results of the RPG. The progressive simplification (decontextualization) required to bring the RPG into the laboratory suggested to explore the role of context (in our case water related issues) on players’ behaviour. The objective of this paper is to illustrate the process that conducted the research team from the experience in the Kat River to the first experiments to test the hypotheses exhibited in the experience and then to analyze the influence of context on players’ behaviour. Terms and concepts are clarified in order to provide a clear research framework in this new field at the border between experiences and experiments in social sciences for commons management.

From Experience to Experiments in South African Water Management: Defining the Framework

Abstract A role-playing game (RPG), KatAware, wa

Cooperative game theory, role-playing games, experiments for water management : experimental study of context effects on role-playing games outcomes

Les jeux de rôles constituent un outil d'aide à la décision participative et, surtout, à la formulation de problèmes, que l'on voit de plus en plus fréquemment mobilisés. Malheureusement, le sens à donner aux résultats de leur mise en œuvre est ambigu, les possibilités de répétitions étant faibles. Une approche pour en évaluer les performanc es et fournir des règles de construction assurant la pertinence des résultats peut être de contrôler l'effet du contexte sur les solutions obtenues. Le travail montre comment il est possible de décomposer ce contexte par dégradation d'un jeu de rôles (appliqué à un bassin versant d'Afrique du Sud) et recomposition de ses dimensions : illustration des instructions, communication, répétition des périodes et vécu des joueurs, l'impact de diverses modalités de ces dimensions étant testé expérimentalement (au LEEM - Laboratoire d'Economie Expérimentale de Montpellier). Nous évaluons l'effet des deux premières dimensions « illustration » et « communication », en comparant les observations obtenues après variation de leurs différentes modalités avec les résultats du traitement témoin où le contexte est abstrait. Nous montrons que l'ajout d'un contenu narratif aux instructions induit un bruit dans les comportements, d'autant plus fort que le contenu est détaillé. Cependant, un conte nu articulé autour de la problématique de « gestion de l'eau » n'a pas le même impact sur les joueurs (dans nos sessions : des étudiants) qu'un contenu pris en dehors du champ (dans notre protocole : le contexte de l'entreprise). Enfin, nous mettons en évidence également que l'argumentation des choix par les joueurs induit un meilleur apprentissage du jeu, faisant converger les décisions plus rapidement vers l'équilibre constaté dans le traitement témoin.Role-playing games are decision-making support tools and are used to help stakeholders' “issues wording” in resources management situations. Unfortunately, the results obtained after having run games sessions are ambiguous, as stationary replications of games sessions are difficult to implement. Control of the context influence on outcomes is a good approach to assess games performances and to provide rules that can be followed when building other games. After having simplified a role-playing game (applied in a watershed in South Africa), this study shows how a game context could be decomposed and re-composed according to its main dimensions: illustration of the instructions, communication, periods repetition, and players' experience, the impact of different levels of these dimensions being experimentally tested (at LEEM, “Experimental Economics Lab in Montpellier”). We assess the impact of the two first dimensions: “illustration” and “communic ation”, by comparing the outcomes obtained after having varied their levels with the ones obtained in the referential treatment. We show that addition of contextual elements in instructions produces a noise in behaviours, as much important as context is developed in details. However, “water management” context does not impact the players' decisions (when involving students in sessions) in the same way than other context chosen in another field (in our protocol: salaries in a firm). Finally, argumentation of their choices by players improve learning outcomes. Convergence of decisions until a referential equilibrium is faster when communication between players is allowed