EA - EA Taskmaster Game by Gemma Paterson

Link to original articleWelcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: EA Taskmaster Game, published by Gemma Paterson on December 4, 2022 on The Effective Altruism Forum.IntroductionThis is a post about a silly EA themed game I organised in London this year. All resources included in this post are free for you to use for your own EA events with the following caveats:If after reading this you have task ideas, please submit them here and they might be used in my next event: GoogleForm | EA Taskmaster 2023 Task IdeasIf you want to run one of these yourself, I recommend reading my thoughts and suggestions in the logistical points for organisers sectionIf you do run one of these, I would love to hear about it (and see photos ). Please get in touch - you can message me here on the forum or contact me on Twitter glpat (@glpat99) / Twitter.I had a fabulous time putting it together and the feedback from attendees was really positive so if this sounds like your kind of “organised fun” then I hope this post is helpful/inspiring. Thanks to Romy and Vania from the London EA women & NB meet-up who pushed me to make this my first forum post!The GameIn June 2022, I ran an EA themed game that was a mix between a scavenger hunt, the TV show Taskmaster and a party quest game. It was made up of 89 tasks (some EA themed, some just silly) to be completed by competing teams over the course of an afternoon.The idea was that there would be too many tasks for a team to complete in the time limit and they would have to do some task prioritisation. When I was thinking about what tasks should be included, I wanted a range of tasks that could be thought of in terms of scale, neglectedness and tractability, so that it would be a much lower stakes game version of cause prioritisation:Scale: There was a large variation in point values across the tasks, not necessarily in proportion to their difficulty. Also, some tasks were repeatable (with accumulating points) while others were one-offs.Neglectedness: For some tasks the points would only go to the team with the best entry or the points would be split between all teams that submitted. This incentivised completing tasks that no one else was completing.Tractability: There was a large range of task difficulty, with hard tasks not necessarily being rewarded with extra points.In fact, one of the tasks was to send in the best task prioritisation spreadsheet for the tasks in this game. As per the Taskmaster game show, final point allocation was at the discretion of the Taskmaster (me) and was based on ingenuity, grit and entertainment value.Huge thanks to my EA friends in London for helping me think of tasks. Also, shout out to the Party Quest spreadsheet for providing many of the fun non-EA themed filler tasks.I am conscious that posting all the tasks would spoil the game for potential players so I have provided a small selection of some of the tasks and submissions from this year’s event.Task examplesTask 24: Sculptor (2000 points)Construct the most beautiful trophy out of random objects and deliver it to the Taskmaster.The winner’s podium with the constructed trophies given in order of the Taskmaster’s preferenceTask 19: I’m Thirsty (800 points)Bring the taskmaster the best cocktail.The Taskmaster on her homemade throne graciously accepting her third cocktail of the afternoonTask 51: An Order From the Ministry (500 points)Create the silliest walkLess Miserables' excellent submissionTask 67: Very Culture, Much Topical, Wow (1000 points)Recreate a meme in real life and photograph/video it. The more elaborate the better.Task 68: Getting down with the kids (1000 points)Create an EA themed tiktokPink team's novel new approach to AI safetyStructure of gameThere were four categories of task which were based on how points are allocated.Winner take all: All the points were awarded to the team whose...