Jun 1, 2026
Get the free Core Drives in the Wild guide and see behavioral design applied to real products and services: professorgame.com/WildCD
Episode Summary
Eleanor Ross, Creative Director at Expert Theory and one of the youngest recipients of the National Training and Simulation Association's Top Under 40 award, breaks down how she designs wargames and simulations that put learners inside high stakes decisions instead of watching from the outside. She walks through the moment a Team USA group tried to buy Greenland mid game, the Logic, Function, Form framework she uses to build every simulation, and a year long Taiwan resilience exercise she ran for the Irregular Warfare Center. Listeners come away with two best practices that make any simulation stick, a debrief discipline and deliberate role reversal, plus a clear view of how AI tools now let a team produce news articles and role player materials in under ten minutes. Ross also makes the case that heavy topics like terrorism, invasion, and irregular warfare land harder when they are engaging, and that good design starts by deciding what people should feel when they walk out.
About the Host
Rob Alvarez is Head of Engagement Strategy, Europe at The Octalysis Group (TOG), a leading gamification and behavioral design consultancy. A globally recognized gamification strategist and TEDx speaker, he founded and hosts Professor Game, the #1 gamification podcast, and has interviewed hundreds of global experts. He designs evidence-based engagement systems that drive motivation, loyalty, and results, and teaches LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® and gamification at top institutions including IE Business School, EFMD, and EBS University across Europe, the Americas, and Asia.
Key Takeaways
- In an early Arctic simulation run as an alpha test for the Canadian Department of National Defense, a Team USA group went off script and tried to buy Greenland, a move no one had prepared for, which forced Ross to build the response live.
- Ross and her team at Expert Theory adjudicated that unplanned move and used their AI backend to produce news articles, tweets, and formatted materials for a role player in under ten minutes, a turnaround the wargaming community historically treated as impossible.
- Her Logic, Function, Form framework stacks design like a pyramid: Logic defines what players should know and feel on the way out, Function defines the actors and goals that get them there, and Form covers constraints like the 30 or 90 minute time box.
- A quality debrief is the most important best practice in simulation design, because the takeaways people carry out are set up by the structured discussion, not by the game itself.
- Putting participants in roles they would never hold, such as US military officers playing the Somali government or the US embassy in a Fort Bragg deployment game, forces the perspective shift that makes the lesson land.
- Ross builds her design philosophy on Rutger Bregman's Humankind and its claim that people are inherently good, using games to surface the nuances behind how opposing sides actually see themselves.
Topics Covered
- 0:00 - A wargamer who hates video games
- 2:59 - Inside a wargame designer's week
- 4:18 - When Team USA tried buying Greenland
- 7:45 - Why failure is a junior mindset
- 13:02 - A Taiwan resilience wargame for DOD
- 17:26 - The Logic, Function, Form framework
- 20:34 - Best practices: debrief and role reversal
- 24:30 - The books behind her design philosophy
- 26:33 - Perspective taking through languages
- 29:27 - Making heavy topics engaging
- 31:12 - Her favorite game: Votes for Women
- 33:01 - Building games in six minutes with Providence
Get the free Core Drives in the Wild guide and see behavioral design applied to real products and services: professorgame.com/WildCD
About Eleanor Ross
Eleanor Ross is Creative Director at Expert Theory, an AI powered simulation startup building immersive learning experiences for clients including the U.S. Department of Defense, Johns Hopkins, Duke, Georgetown, and Penn State. She designs and facilitates simulations that restore agency to learners by placing them inside complex, high stakes decisions, and her co-authored research with the National Counterterrorism Innovation, Technology and Education Center has shown that simulations measurably deepen learning while strengthening confidence, teamwork, and decision making. She chairs programming for the Women's Wargaming Network and is one of the youngest ever recipients of the National Training and Simulation Association's Top Under 40 award. Her work focuses on the Arctic and high north, irregular and gray zone warfare, and leadership.
Find the Guest Online
Mentioned in This Episode
- The Art of Wargaming by Peter Perla
- Humankind by Rutger Bregman
- Votes for Women, Eleanor's favorite game (by Fort Circle Games)
- Proposed future guest: Yuna Wong
- Proposed future guest: John Curry
- Providence, Expert Theory's platform for building games in minutes