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fiddlemath comments on Games for Rationalists - Less Wrong
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Zendo is often described as "Science: The Game." (More discussion here)
Lots of biases come up. You quickly learn to avoid positive bias if you play this often. You start to deal with confirmation bias and illusory correlation and neglect of sample size. Almost any bias that affects hypothesis generation and testing affects how well you play Zendo, and you can run through single rounds in as little as 10 or 15 minutes. I cannot recommend it enough.
If you're serious about using it for didactic purposes, have players work together, collaborating aloud. This way, you can cover some of the social biases, and have a clearer record of what people were thinking and when they thought it. (If you're really serious, record the play session, and show insight-generating clips as you go. When you play as the master, you get to see these all the time.)
I've wanted to try Zendo since hearing about it here on LW. Is there anywhere it can be played online? The obvious Google searches are failing me.
I like the idea of the players working together, too.
[ETA: A much simpler game that's good rationality training might be Clue. Drawing correct inferences on incomplete information gets surprisingly important if you're playing with reasonably good players, and it seems to me the skill should generalize.]
I'd actually argue that Zendo is simpler than Clue, just less familiar. Specifically, the gameplay mechanics themselves are about as simple as they can be, while still supporting the idea of "be a game of induction".
Actually, forums work out pretty well, and chat rooms (IRC, say) work excellently... because you can just use a family of text strings as koan space, instead of physical configurations. It's lacks some visual and tactile satisfaction, but it works online and is free. (Examples: on lw, on Board Game Geek, on the DROD forums.)
A misformatted link at the end of that?
Nope, just terrible editing. :j Thanks.