http://www.consensus.net/
This has become popular, especially in more liberal groups and groups where people really want to have everyone on board. (This is the squishy alternative.)
Consensus is where at the end everyone is either neutral or agrees. The reasoning behind it goes something like this:
We believe that it is inherently better to involve every person who is affected by the decision in the decision making process. This is true for several reasons. The decision would reflect the will of the entire group, not just the leadership. The people who carry out the plans will be more satisfied with their work. And, as the old adage goes, two heads are better than one.
Formal Consensus is much more straight forward than Robert’s Rules. I hope to be able to explain the ultra basics in one column.
You have a small group 3-20 is easily doable. The larger the group, the more difficult it is to use this process. The more divided the group the more difficult it is to use FC as well. It works best with ideologically aligned groups. (Your political group would be a good fit where as your neighborhood group, which is geographically aligned wouldn’t be as much.) The official book (which you can download in pdf from the previous website) says that it is a better process for larger groups. I, having done both RR and FC in both big and small groups, strongly disagree. FC is better than nothing, but if you’ve got a hundred people use RR.
So you’ve got 10 people in your roleplaying group. You need to decide what game you are going to be playing tonight. Vampire, HOL, and GURPS have all been mentioned. Now what?
Theoretically, you need to present proposal. So someone scribbles GURPS on a piece of paper and hands it to the facilitator. (Instead of a chair as in RR, FC has a facilitator.) The facilitator then says that there is a proposal to play GURPS. There is group discussion. So half the people go shout “I forgot my GURPS character!” “We can’t play that.” “I don’t want to make a new character.” “I hate GURPS!” And the other half shout “GURPS is the best game ever.” “I hate Vampire! We have to play GURPS!” “My character is a chick!” “Hey! I’m a chick!” So you’ve got all these chattering things going on, there is discussion, the quality of which depends greatly on the quality of the facilitator to make sure everyone gets heard and that everyone waits their turn and the like.
Then people seem to be discussed out. (That’s right kids that’s all, you hope the facilitator does a good job.) The facilitator asks “Are there any unresolved concerns?” or “Are there any concerns remaining?”
In meetings I’ve been in there is a check to see if everyone agrees at several points, this makes it easier. One way to do this is thumbs up, down, or to the side. Everyone who agrees with the proposal does thumbs up, everyone who’s neutral or abstaining does thumbs to the side, everyone who disagrees or has additional questions and doesn’t want discussion to be over points thumbs down. Pretty straight forward. It’s a good way to check and see where people are at. So I recommend giving this a go. This is especially helps the facilitator to know what needs to be worked on, who needs to talk etc.
So there isn’t consensus on GURPS, so someone else shoves HOL to the facilitator. The facilitator rolls their eyes (because they are only a mediocre facilitator….gamer, not facilitator). There are lots of shouts from the group about how HOL is a lame game; how it’s not something you can play, and personal insults to boot. The facilitator asks for consensus, one person grins broadly and thrusts a body part triumphantly up into the air; everyone else, sheepishly toward the earth.
The facilitator suggests moving onto the other game suggested and coming back to HOL if there isn’t agreement on the next. Vampire. The facilitator asks for consensus and most of the people tumb up. One person who thumbed down says they don’t have a book, someone else doesn’t have a character. People offer to help resolve these issues. HOL advocate grumbles about the ordinariness of it all and sulks in a corner, but it’s fine with everyone else because said HOL advocate’s Vampire character is a sulker anyway. Facilitator asks for consensus again and everyone either thumbs up or thumbs to the side and so the decision to play Vampire is made and everyone is as happy as they’ll get.
In case you didn’t figure it out, I’m not a big fan of this method. It can be really great if you’ve got a good facilitator. So maybe the next column, I’ll talk about how this can work well.
