The Put The Player First Framework
One method for turning any growth challenge into a behaviour-changing game.
Short answer: The Put The Player First framework is a method for turning any growth challenge into a behaviour-changing game. It maps a transformation onto eleven elements and three principles, then, for a corporate team, becomes a concrete build-kit: four decision architectures plus the EPPA debrief loop. The Hero is the leader, the Monsters are the behaviours that fail under pressure, the Quest is a serious game, and the Weapons are the mechanics that make real behaviour visible.
Key takeaways
| Framework element | In a leadership development context |
|---|---|
| Hero | The leader or team going through the development experience |
| Monsters | The concrete behaviours that fail under pressure (hoarding, avoiding the hard conversation, optimising your own scorecard) |
| Big Bad | The systemic root that keeps spawning those behaviours (siloed incentives, a no-triage culture, fear of being wrong) |
| Quest | The serious game itself, an ordered set of challenges tied to specific Monsters |
| Weapons | The four decision architectures: scarcity, asymmetric information, interdependence, cascading consequences |
| Loot and Level Up | The measurable behaviour change, claimed through the EPPA debrief |
One framework, not a toolbox
Most development providers hand you a toolbox: a personality assessment here, a workshop module there, a coaching engagement somewhere else. The Put The Player First framework is the opposite. It is a single umbrella that holds the whole transformation in one shape, so nothing is bolted on and nothing contradicts anything else.
The framework rests on a simple claim: every meaningful change has the same bones. A person in a broken situation. Specific problems causing it. A path forward. Tools to use along the way. And rewards, external and internal, that compound as progress is made. Name those bones precisely and you can design a development experience that actually moves behaviour, instead of a course that gets completed and forgotten.
For an L&D buyer, the practical payoff is this: the corporate build-kit (the four decision architectures and the EPPA debrief loop) is not a separate product. It is nested inside the framework. The decision architectures are the Weapons. EPPA is how the Hero claims the Loot. One method runs from diagnosis to debrief.
The eleven elements, in business language
The framework is always filled out from the Hero's perspective. It groups into three movements: the World (the diagnosis), the Guide (who helps and why), and the Journey (where change happens).
The World: the diagnosis
- 1. The Hero is the person or team undergoing the change. In a corporate engagement, that is the leader, the cohort, or the cross-functional group you are developing.
- 2. The Broken World is their current reality while the problems are winning: the stalled initiative, the team at loggerheads, the high-potential who freezes when the brief gets ambiguous.
- 3. Monsters are the concrete behavioural obstacles. Not "poor collaboration" in the abstract, but "each leader optimises their own KPI and the company loses." Named, observable, specific.
- 4. The Big Bad is the systemic force spawning those Monsters: siloed incentives, a culture that rewards gut over process, a belief that being wrong is fatal. Leave it unchallenged and new Monsters keep appearing.
- 5. Paradise is the world after this set of Monsters is defeated. Not a problem-free utopia, just the state where these specific behaviours no longer have power. The next challenge becomes the next campaign.
The Guide: who helps, and why
- 6. The Guide is whoever or whatever helps the Hero: a facilitator, a programme, a system. The Guide has either walked the path or helped others walk it.
- 7. Superpower is what sets this Guide apart. Here it is the design discipline behind the games and the debrief: behaviour under pressure is the only data worth developing from, and knowledge transfers while behaviour does not.
The Journey: where change happens
- 8. The Quest is the step-by-step path from Broken World to Paradise. In practice it is the serious game, an ordered sequence of challenges, each tied to a specific Monster.
- 9. Weapons are the tools the Hero uses to defeat each Monster. In the corporate build-kit these are the four decision architectures (below). A Weapon without a matching Monster is dead weight.
- 10. Loot is the tangible reward: the visible proof of progress, the named behaviour a leader can point to and repeat on Monday.
- 11. Level Up is the internal shift. Loot is what you get; Level Up is who you become. Confidence under ambiguity. The reflex to triage instead of thrash. The instinct to optimise the whole, not the silo.
The Weapons: four decision architectures
This is where the framework becomes a build-kit. The Weapons that make a game reveal real behaviour are four design mechanics. Each manufactures the kind of pressure that a slide deck cannot, and each maps to a class of Monster.
- Scarcity. Not enough budget, time, or information for everyone to win. Forces trade-offs and exposes who hoards, who shares, and who leads. The Weapon against indecision and turf-protection.
- Asymmetric information. Each player holds a different piece of the picture. No one can act well without surfacing what they see and listening for what they miss. The Weapon against poor communication and the failure to separate signal from noise.
- Interdependence and alliance. One person's outcome is tied to another's, so progress requires negotiation, give-and-take, and coalition. The Weapon against local optimisation that sinks the whole.
- Cascading consequences. Early choices echo into later rounds. People live with their decisions, which builds ownership and makes the difference between a good process and a lucky outcome visceral.
EPPA: the debrief engine
A game without a debrief is an activity. EPPA is the loop that converts what happened on the table into behaviour change. It runs in four stages.
- Experience. Reconstruct what actually happened in the game, moment by moment, before anyone interprets it.
- Patterns. Name the behavioural tendencies the game revealed. The avoidance, the over-control, the retreat into compliance the instant stakes rose.
- Principles. Connect those patterns to leadership principles through the participants' own insight, not a lecture. The insight lands because they reached it.
- Application. Commit to concrete next actions, each with a named behaviour, a real situation, and a date. This is how the Hero claims the Loot and the Level Up.
EPPA sits inside the framework at the Quest and Weapons stages: it is the mechanism by which a leader walks out of the game with Loot (what they can now do) and a Level Up (who they have become). See how this powers a full programme in Decision Labs.
The three principles
The eleven elements give you a structure. Three principles tell you how to use it.
- Anything can be a game. Any situation, challenge, or goal can be mapped onto the framework. Getting fit, building a business, fixing a broken team: same bones, different Monsters and Weapons. This is what makes the framework a single engine rather than a one-off design.
- Put the player first. A good facilitator does not run the campaign they want to run. They run the campaign the players need. You start with who the Hero actually is, not who they "should" be, and build everything around that. It is also why the design starts with the team's real behaviour, not a generic competency model.
- Play the meta-game. Change the game when the situation changes. The Monsters that mattered six months ago may not be the ones that matter now. Step back regularly and ask whether you are still playing the right game. Last campaign's Paradise becomes the next campaign's Broken World. That is progression, not failure.
The framework in action
Each serious game is a complete instance of the framework, built for a specific Monster. The Quest changes, the Weapons are tuned, but the engine is the same.
- Bloom targets stakeholder and relationship management: treating different people in different ways while tending the whole network at once.
- Sticky Fingers targets communication and creative problem-solving under time pressure, with information split across the team so people must combine what each can see.
- Planetfall targets learning agility and acting on incomplete information: a repeatable process for situations you cannot fully control.
- Ripple Effect targets cross-functional collaboration and the local-versus-global trap, where each leader's rational self-interest produces a worse outcome for the whole company.
- Chaos in the Kitchen targets decision-making under uncertainty and triage: separating a good decision process from a lucky outcome when priorities collide.
- Welcome to Zombiepuram targets negotiation, influence, and coalition-building under information asymmetry, a flagship large-group experience built on competing factions and hidden agendas.
Get the framework, the games, and facilitation playbooks by email
One short email when there is something worth using: a new game, a debrief technique, or a behind-the-scenes look at a real session.
Common questions
What is the Put The Player First framework?
A method for turning any growth challenge into a behaviour-changing game. It maps a transformation onto eleven elements (Hero, Broken World, Monsters, Big Bad, Paradise, Guide, Superpower, Quest, Weapons, Loot, Level Up) and three principles. For corporate teams it becomes a build-kit of four decision architectures plus the EPPA debrief loop.
How does it apply to leadership development?
The Hero is the leader or team, the Monsters are the behaviours that fail under pressure, the Quest is a serious game, and the Weapons are the four decision architectures. EPPA turns what happened in the game into Loot and Level Up, the measurable behaviour change a buyer is paying for.
What are the four decision architectures?
Scarcity forces trade-offs. Asymmetric information forces communication. Interdependence forces negotiation. Cascading consequences force ownership. These are the Weapons that make a game reveal real behaviour rather than performed behaviour.
What is EPPA?
The debrief engine: Experience, Patterns, Principles, Application. Reconstruct what happened, name the patterns, connect them to leadership principles through the participants' own insight, then commit to concrete next actions with a behaviour, a situation, and a date.