30 minutes isn't long enough to run a game of anything -- especially if you have to explain rules, and overcome hesitancy -- so that's out.
I think mgrasso is right that you should capitalize on the participants' own expertise.
Playing the "connections game" is, I find, a less reliable method of STIPS (Sudden Tim Powers Syndrome) than picking a theory and "proving" it. Perhaps the way to do it is something like: everyone puts in the name of one historical person from their area of expertise. Everyone swaps the names around. The goal of the group is to determine how many of those people were actually vampires. (Or Templars, but that won't work if you have a medievalist in the group. Plus, lay academics are more likely to know the signs of vampirism -- mysterious "death," nocturnal habits, blood fixation, etc. -- than Templarism.) I guarantee you that with a group of seven historians, you'll get two vampires, minimum.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2010-03-11 09:13 pm (UTC)I think
Playing the "connections game" is, I find, a less reliable method of STIPS (Sudden Tim Powers Syndrome) than picking a theory and "proving" it. Perhaps the way to do it is something like: everyone puts in the name of one historical person from their area of expertise. Everyone swaps the names around. The goal of the group is to determine how many of those people were actually vampires. (Or Templars, but that won't work if you have a medievalist in the group. Plus, lay academics are more likely to know the signs of vampirism -- mysterious "death," nocturnal habits, blood fixation, etc. -- than Templarism.) I guarantee you that with a group of seven historians, you'll get two vampires, minimum.