Mad Chefs

Choose this exercise

Purpose: Test real-time risk assessment, spatial awareness, and evasive routing under active movement pressure.

Use it when: Use during athletic training, youth sessions, or outdoor retreats where the group needs active movement and light tactical problem-solving.

Skip it when: Skip when indoor space is cramped, floors are slick, footwear is unsuitable for running, or participants avoid physical contact.

Group arrangement: Open field with stationary good chefs, roaming mad chefs, and individual runners.

Timing: Playmeo suggests two or more 5-minute rounds; UWT allocates 15 minutes total across briefing, two 3-minute rounds, transition, and debrief.

Materials and tools

• Paper plates (one per runner, up to 24 plates total)
• Black felt-tip pens (up to 3 for good chefs)
• Red felt-tip pens (up to 2 for mad chefs)
• Four boundary cones

Before participants arrive

1. Mark a rectangular running boundary using four cones and remove all trip hazards.
2. Stack plates and separate black and red pens at the boundary line.

Say this to open

Welcome to Mad Chefs. Your goal is to collect food names on your paper plate. Good chefs write one food item on your plate each time you visit. Mad chefs tag you to cross an item out. Up to three people can wait safely in line at a good chef.

How to run it

1. Assign roles and explain rules 3 minutes

   Assign chefs based on head count: 8 to 12 players get 1 good and 1 mad; 13 to 17 get 2 good and 1 mad; 18 to 22 get 2 good and 2 mad; 23 to 24 get 3 good and 2 mad. Hand black pens to good chefs, red to mad chefs, and one paper plate to each runner. Good chefs scatter to stationary spots across the area. Deliver the opening script. State that good chefs write one food name per visit.

2. Run Round 1 3 minutes

   Start the 3-minute timer. Runners visit good chefs to receive one written food item per visit. Up to three runners may queue behind a good chef as a safe zone. Mad chefs tag unqueued runners with a gentle two-finger touch on the arm. A tag pauses both players while the mad chef crosses out one item. Empty plates take no penalty. When time expires, runners count their surviving food names.

3. Rotate roles and reset field 3 minutes

   Collect pens from all chefs. Pick new volunteers from the runners to become chefs. Hand black pens to new good chefs, red pens to new mad chefs, and spare plates to outgoing chefs joining the runners. Remaining runners keep their plates. New good chefs take stationary spots across the playing field while mad chefs step to the sideline. Check that all runners have a plate and all chefs hold a pen before starting.

4. Run Round 2 3 minutes

   Start a second 3-minute timer under identical rules. Good chefs write one short food item per visit and cap safe queues at three runners. Mad chefs keep a three-step distance from queues unless chasing an approaching runner. When tagged, runners lose one item. Call time at three minutes. Runners count the net uncrossed food items on their plates.

5. Debrief tactical choices 3 minutes

   Gather at the sideline. Ask two volunteers to share their surviving item counts. Choose two questions from the debrief list to ask the group: when runners decided to sprint rather than wait, what cues chasers used to pick targets, or how the queue cap affected paths. Take three brief responses from the group to close.

Debrief questions

• When did you decide to sprint across open space rather than wait in a safe queue?
• What cues did mad chefs use to pick targets among running players?
• How did the three-person queue cap change your running route?

Finished output: Individual tallies of surviving, uncrossed food items per plate at the end of each round.

Remote

This running tag game requires physical open space and immediate evasion. It cannot run online without abandoning the core mechanic. For an online tactical risk exercise, run a digital resource-trading simulation instead.

Hybrid

Hybrid delivery is not viable. Remote participants cannot share the physical tag space or safety queues with in-person runners.

Access and participation choices

• Participants may opt out of running by taking stationary roles as good chefs.
• Tagging requires gentle contact on the upper arm or shoulder only.
• Anyone may step off the field into the boundary sideline at any moment without penalty or disclosure.

If the session gets stuck

More than three runners huddle around a good chef to avoid tags.

Enforce the cap immediately. Announce that any fourth person in line is live and taggable.

Mad chefs hover beside a queue to ambush exiting runners.

Enforce the three-step exclusion buffer. Chasers must stay three steps back unless actively pursuing an incoming runner.

Terms used here

• Safe queue: A line of up to three runners waiting at a good chef where mad chefs may not tag them.
• Exclusion buffer: A mandatory three-step distance mad chefs must keep from a good chef queue unless actively chasing an approaching runner.