Teaching Diplomacy Through Play: How Interactive Games Bring Complex Ideas to Life

Diplomacy sounds formal until you try teaching it to a room of twelve-year-olds. Or twenty-two-year-olds. Or, frankly, adults. It’s a discipline built on judgment, nuance, negotiation, and constant adaptation – skills that rarely come alive through static slides and memorized definitions.

Working with OEDD’s Digital Innovations Program, where we run a 16-week cybersecurity and digital diplomacy track for youth aged 12–22, I saw that challenge immediately. The content mattered. The stakes were real. But the learning model needed something active, immersive, and memorable.

So I went back to the roots of how I’ve always learned and taught:
from legal binder games I sketched as a kid, to handcrafted lessons in South Korea, to today’s AI-powered simulations.

A Lifelong Game Builder

The first games I ever created weren’t digital. They were hand-drawn universes scribbled in legal binder folders with crayons. Characters, rules, paths, consequences — all built by imagination and held together by staples.

Years later, teaching in South Korea, the tools changed but the instinct stayed the same. I built classroom games with PowerPoint, cut-out cards, paper crafts, and whatever I could get my hands on. The goal was simple: get students talking, thinking, competing, and engaging with the language.

Now the tools have evolved again. Instead of crayons or construction paper, I’m using interactive web apps and AI to build diplomacy and cybersecurity simulations. But the principle hasn’t changed: learning sticks when students are active participants, not spectators.

Why Games Work for Diplomacy

Diplomacy isn’t rule memorization. It’s discernment, negotiation, and adaptation in a shifting landscape. Games naturally develop that mindset because they collapse the distance between decision and consequence.

They let learners fail safely, iterate quickly, collaborate under pressure, and experience the complexity behind diplomatic choices.

Game 1: Cyber Diplomacy Jeopardy

This one goes back to my South Korea classroom days — high energy, team-based, competitive learning. Students race through categories like:

• Cyber Incidents
• Protocol & Etiquette
• Internet Governance
• Diplomatic Roles

They learn terminology by using it. It wakes the room up instantly.

Game 2: Choose-Your-Own-Diplomatic-Adventure

Inspired by the RPGs that shaped my childhood, this branching storyline game puts teams inside a diplomatic scenario:

A cyberattack. A misinformation crisis. A treaty negotiation gone sideways.

Each decision affects reputation points and narrative outcomes. It teaches negotiation and strategic thinking in a way no static lesson ever could.

Game 3: Real-World Simulation Sprint

This is the closest thing to a diplomatic fire drill.

Teams receive a real-world–inspired incident and must rapidly:

• Analyze the scenario
• Identify diplomatic priorities
• Agree on a strategy
• Present a coordinated response

It trains quick reasoning and collective judgment — the core of real diplomacy.

From Crayons to AI

The path is almost comical when you line it up:

• Age 10: legal binder folders, crayons, imagination
• Early career: PowerPoint, craft paper, DIY classroom simulations
• Today: AI-assisted design, web apps, interactive group decision systems

The medium keeps evolving, but the mission has been consistent:
build experiences that teach people how to think, not just what to remember.

Why This Matters

Cybersecurity and diplomacy are no longer niche fields. Youth are already navigating:

• Digital identity
• Information ecosystems
• Social engineering
• Online conflict
• Cross-cultural communication

Games give them a safe microcosm to practice the mindset they’ll need in real life.

The Bigger Idea

We train pilots with simulators.
We train surgeons with simulations.

Diplomacy, with all its complexity, deserves the same approach.

Games let young people experiment, negotiate, misstep, recalibrate, and try again — the core muscle of effective diplomacy. And with AI, we can now build scenarios that adapt, scale, and mirror real-world complexity better than ever.

What’s Next

These are just the first three games. The goal is to build a full suite of digital diplomacy and cybersecurity simulations that meet youth where they are — interactive, collaborative, and built on choices that matter.

Diplomacy begins long before you enter a negotiation room.
It begins with how you learn to think.

And sometimes, the best way to learn it… is to play.