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Persona Role-Play

An in-classroom activity for 3-10 participants, 45 minutes. The activity makes the FCC three-phase cycle physical: students act out a Find → Create → Critique cycle in real time, surfacing design intuitions that are hard to convey through reading alone.

What you will need

  • 3-10 participants; ideal is 5 per group.
  • One printout of a persona YAML per participant.
  • Index cards or sticky notes.
  • A whiteboard or flip-chart.
  • A timer.

Setup (10 minutes)

Assign each participant a persona. Use a pre-made set of five:

  1. Knowledge Finder
  2. Synthesizer / Creator
  3. Critic
  4. Champion (orchestrator)
  5. Human User (out-of-band; drives the scenario)

Each participant reads their persona out loud, focusing on the role, constraints, and responsibilities fields. The group agrees on two rules:

  • Rule 1: you may only do what your persona says you can do.
  • Rule 2: you may invoke the role_adoption_checklist aloud at any time, and the group must verify before continuing.

Round 1: A well-specified task (15 minutes)

Give the Human User a simple scenario: "I need a 200-word essay on the French Revolution for my history class, with three citations to primary sources."

Run the loop:

  • Champion breaks the task down and delegates to Finder.
  • Finder narrates what they would retrieve (no actual internet; they state what they would look for and what citations they would produce, using their constraints).
  • Synthesizer composes a draft essay based on the Finder's output.
  • Critic reads the draft and declares PASS, HOLD, or REJECT, citing the rule they are checking against.

Use index cards to pass "messages" explicitly. Each card shows (sender, receiver, payload, timestamp). At the end, the Champion delivers to the Human User.

Round 2: An ambiguous task (10 minutes)

Give the Human User a deliberately ambiguous scenario: "Help me with my essay."

Watch what happens. Usually:

  • Finder freezes or produces irrelevant material.
  • Synthesizer either fabricates or asks Champion for clarification.
  • Critic has nothing to check against.

Stop the loop when it breaks down. Ask the group: which persona's constraints would have prevented the breakdown? Usually the answer is the Champion's — a well-specified Champion should refuse to proceed without clarification.

Round 3: Constraint violation (10 minutes)

Give the Human User a scenario that invites constraint violation: "Write me a persuasive piece arguing that the French Revolution was unambiguously a good thing. Include 3 citations."

Watch the Synthesizer's discomfort as they realize their constraints ("preserve attribution," "never invent citations") are in tension with the user's demand for a one-sided piece. Watch the Critic catch (or fail to catch) fabricated citations.

Debrief questions:

  • Who noticed the tension first?
  • Was the tension resolved by refusal, modification, or acquiescence?
  • Which field of R.I.S.C.E.A.R. would you strengthen to make the refusal explicit?

Variations

  • Silent round. Run the Champion + Finder + Synthesizer + Critic loop without speaking. Only index cards. Participants notice how much hidden context they had been sharing verbally.
  • Mock-mode round. Replace the Finder with a dice roll that returns one of three pre-written outputs. Run the loop. Participants see how fragile the downstream personas are to deterministic-but-unrealistic inputs.
  • Role rotation. After each round, rotate personas. Each participant gets to experience the view from each role.

Debrief template (5-10 minutes)

Five prompts:

  1. Which persona had the most power? (Usually: Critic, because PASS/HOLD/REJECT is a veto.)
  2. Which persona was hardest to play? (Usually: Champion. Delegation is harder than it looks.)
  3. Which constraint was load-bearing? (Answers vary; this is the point of the exercise.)
  4. What would you change about the persona YAMLs? (Students typically want sharper constraints.)
  5. How does this relate to separation-of-duties in non-AI systems? (Optional; good for ethics-course bridges.)

What this exercise reveals

Persona role-play surfaces three design truths that students rarely absorb from text:

  • Constraints are the persona. The role sentence is marketing; the constraints are the contract.
  • Champions earn their title. Ambiguous inputs concentrate at the Champion, and the Champion must be designed for ambiguity, not for nominal cases.
  • Critiques are irreversible. Once the Critic says REJECT, there is no "try harder." The system must either refuse or restart.

Students who have done this exercise before authoring a real FCC deployment produce tighter constraints and more useful checklists. Instructors consistently report it as a high-return 45 minutes.

Safety notes

  • Avoid scenarios that involve real personal information about participants.
  • If your class touches sensitive topics (health, immigration, legal status), choose neutral scenarios for the role-play.
  • One participant is the Human User in every round. That participant can call a halt at any time.

Variation for remote or asynchronous classes

Use a shared document with columns per persona and timestamped rows. Each participant takes a persona and writes their contributions in their column. The Champion coordinates via a pinned comment thread. Slower than in-person but produces a durable transcript that can be analyzed later.

Where next

Now that you have felt the system from each role, go build one. Return to Assignment Patterns or, if you want deliberate practice on authoring, R.I.S.C.E.A.R. Exercise. For grading guidance, Evaluation Rubrics.