The Crown taxes the colonies act by act - and they never got a vote. Each faction decides round by round whether to bend (comply, petition) or break (boycott, smuggle, dump the tea) as the taxes escalate from the Stamp Act to the eve of revolution.
46 minutes
1 class period
6 roles
Core (4 roles), Full (6 roles)
6 objectives
17 standards aligned
Aligned to the CASEL framework's core competencies. These are the SEL skills students actively practice while playing.
6 roles across 2 factions. Each has different information, different goals, and different leverage. Click any role to see their background and what they are trying to accomplish.
You collect every tax; you never pay one. You balance two things you cannot both have at full strength: Treasury (the money you pull in) and loyalty (low Unrest). Tax light and you stay loved but broke. Tax hard and you fill the chest - but the powder keg climbs. You see the Treasury target but only a vague read of the colonial mood, so it is easy to push too far - exactly what Britain did.
Trade duties hit you HARD (highest exposure on the Townshend Acts). You can comply, petition, boycott, or - in the 7-8 game - smuggle. Historically you led the boycott, then broke it early when it started costing you real money. The engine lets you waver, just like the real merchants did.
Your exposure is medium - this fight is about principle, not just your own pocket. You lean toward boycott and protest, and you can rally other factions through the Committees of Correspondence (when factions act together, a boycott hits the Crown harder). When the moment comes to dump the tea, you are the ones throwing it.
Your exposure starts LOW and rises - you are the last to feel it, which is exactly why your turn matters. You want peace, so you lean toward comply or petition early. But you are the swing: when the Sons of Liberty win YOU over, or the Coercive Acts finally hit your interests, the whole room shifts. Watch the Proclamation of 1763 too - it fenced you off from western land you wanted.
The Stamp Act hits you HARDEST of anyone - it taxed paper itself. Whatever response you choose, your press MULTIPLIES its effect on Unrest (about 1.5x), because you shape what everyone else believes. You report the Boston Massacre: do you run Revere's furious engraving, or the calmer, truer account? Your headline moves the powder keg.
You pay the taxes, and you believe order is worth more than a fight. You lean toward petition over protest - work within the system. When Unrest stays low, history vindicates YOU: the colonies stay British and avoid a bloody war. Your scorecard surfaces that. You are the principled dissenting voice, not the enemy.
One click on the teacher dashboard prints a dossier for every role - background, goals, key facts, and their confidential briefing - plus the primary-source packet and a vocabulary sheet. Print them, or save as PDF, so each student reads their role on paper instead of huddling around one screen. The app still runs the votes and the action; the paper just carries the reading.
Every role includes real historical documents. Students read them because they need the information to make their case.
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