Introduction

The "PEOPLE GAMES", a series of "getting-to-know-you", conversation games, are copyrighted, with trademark registrations pending, and are the sole property of their author, Joseph Belotte, of Bethesda, Maryland.

These games, like any others, have specific procedures and rules. They are entities in themselves, as are other games such as tennis, chess, Monopoly, baseball, etc, and are not intended to be combined or intermingled with other things.

The Games were used in Parents Without Partners and in various local churches and were run by the newly formed Lifetalk Foundation, an educational non-profit organization.

For the above-mentioned reasons it is particularly important that a People Game leader understand the specific purpose and philosophy of the Games.

The basic purpose of the People Games is not to teach, but to foster and promote good communication among individuals.

First of all, the Games are meant to be fun. They are meant to give everyone an equal opportunity to communicate, to develop subjects of interest, and to promote meaningful, positive, person-to-person communication in a rapid and enjoyable way.

The basis of the People Games is not psychological or psychiatric; it is strictly philosophical. The Games are not "encounter", or "analysis", nor are they intended to be therapeutic. They are intended to develop free and easy communication.

The method of the Games is to provide a favorable atmosphere for communication. It does not "delve into" a player’s consciousness or subconsciousness. Instead, it "brings out" his thoughts through carefully selected, positively oriented questions. Thus, the player usually becomes more responsive, open, contributive, and satisfied as the game progresses.

Because the People Games do their job so well, and because the rewards of good communication are so invigorating, their popularity has grown and have continued to expand from one area to the next as fast as I could make the materials available. They have been used in PWP, in Singles Groups, in churches and in hospitals, and always with pleasant reports on their success.

I hope that you will find the Games interesting and that you will enjoy them. If you run them as directed in this manual, I have little doubt that you will.

My best wishes to you.

Joseph Belotte