Current Crises, Future Games

You’ve spent years working toward a final peace accord. On the eve of signing a treaty, a fanatic splinter group from your opponent’s camp attacks one of your outposts with great loss of life. Do you ignore the attack—and violate the never-show-weakness principle that has guided all your military actions? Or do you risk the peace settlement and retaliate?

In the July 23rd edition of the Sunday New York Times there was an article in the Arts & Leisure section by Clive Thompson on computer games that deal with real world problems. One notable game was called Peacemaker, and it lets players step into the shoes of either the leader of Israel or the Palestinian people to try to resolve the Middle East trouble spot. The game was invented more as a teaching tool than as competition for Grand Theft Auto, but it sounded fascinating nevertheless.

It made me wonder: where are the board games dealing with real world topics? Why aren’t designers making games about the issues that will shape the future of world? Is it because they have no interest in designing them? Or do they fear that the market will not support games that lack little plastic trains, tanks, or dragons?

I refuse to believe that game designers aren’t up to the challenge of tackling thorny current issues. And I do believe that a game can be both a compelling simulation and educational (in the broadest sense of the word) at the same time. Hard-core wargamers are turning to Ed Beach’s Here I Stand because they like the multi-player competition and rich historical detail. But as they try to capture Vienna or debate Martin Luther or circumnavigate the globe, they get a lesson in Renaissance and Reformation history. (Of course, it may be that the type of person who plays Here I Stand is the type of person who doesn’t need a lesson in Renaissance and Reformation history, but that’s beside the point.) Later this year, Decision Games will reprint A Mighty Fortress, SPI’s original six-player game of Reformation conflict that inspired Ed Beach to create his masterpiece. Isn’t it odd that there will soon be two games of religious conflict in the 1600s, but no reasonably realistic games about the religious, political, and military conflicts of the 21st century?

Here are three suggested game proposals dealing with topical issues.

Oval Office
There have been a lot of games dealing with presidential elections, but none dealing with the mechanics and challenges of governing America from the Oval Office. In this two-player game, players become either Republican or Democratic presidents trying to implement their political agenda while dealing with the unexpected crises that wind up on the president’s desk. At the beginning of the game, each player looks through a selection of Republican or Democratic policy cards, and secretly chooses cards to be his primary and secondary policy goals.

During the average turn, each player can attempt to woo Congress, improve foreign relations, court the general public (to improve his poll numbers), or please various interest groups. Each turn, each player also draws three crisis cards, and selects one card which he can play on his opponent. Crises may be natural disasters, terrorist attacks, Middle East conflicts, flu pandemics, Supreme Court nominations, political scandals, or economic problems. Players must solve these crises as fast as possible because each unsolved crisis that lingers into the next turn saps the president’s popularity and final victory point total. Some crises can be solved without the cooperation of Congress, but often Congressional action is required. Getting Congress to cooperate can be difficult—because the opposing player also acts as the Congressional opposition. Mid-term Congressional elections are a litmus test of each president’s effectiveness—and an opportunity for each party to try to gain seats in the House and Congress.

Will you place cronies and lobbyists in positions of power and reap vast campaign contributions while risking the effectiveness of the government? Will you try to get a modest health insurance benefit through Congress, or will you go for the big victory points by trying to get a controversial universal plan approved even as the HMOs bankroll ads attacking your plan? Will you take unilateral action against that saber-rattling dictator, or will you try to get United Nation sanctions passed by a Security Council that is filled with nations jealous of American power? All these painful tradeoffs can be yours when you occupy the Oval Office.


NGO.
In this medium complexity Eurogame, players control non-governmental organizations trying to eliminate poverty and eradicate disease around the world. Players must balance their efforts to lobby governments, raise funds, and recruit volunteers with the necessity of sending aid workers to areas of the world that may be dangerous. Players choose weather to develop long-term projects that may have lasting results or to respond to the crisis of the moment. It’s all here: Irish rock stars, altruistic software billionaires, donor fatigue, famines, tsunamis, civil wars, and kleptomaniac third-world governments. Can you persuade western governments to increase their aid? Can you orchestrate a cease fire in a war-torn country? Can you provide malaria-preventing mosquito nets to Africa’s children? A consciousness-raising game that pays tribute to some of the most altruistic and courageous people on earth.


The Shape of Things to Come
A game of political, ideological, religious, and military conflict in the first half of the 21st century (in the same big-picture vein as Twilight Struggle). Players take control of the USA, Russia, China, the Islamic world, and (in a five player game) Europe. Each player gains victory points for increasing the prosperity of their region, but each player also has his own unique agenda. The USA gains points for increasing democracy around the world. Russia and China gain points for increasing their prestige and influence relative to the USA. The Islamic player gains points for religious expansion, acquiring nuclear weapons, creating a nation of Palestine, or removing outside influence from the Middle East.

Each player faces dilemmas that mirror real-world problems. The USA can strengthen international institutions that lessen the costs of dealing with regional or global crises, but this may put limits on American unilateral action. The Islamic player can unleash terrorism that reduces American or Russian victory points and hurts their economies. But terrorism also limits the prospects for Islamic democracy and prosperity (and can become a genie that refuses to return to its bottle). All the non-USA players can increase their democratic/human rights infrastructure as a way improving their economies, but democratic populations demand that more resources be spent on increasing standards of living. The USA player can degrade the American democratic/human rights index to improve its ability to fight terrorism, but this also weakens American prestige.

Event cards depict crises that are both threats and opportunities. These include: the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the struggle for Kashmir, Taiwanese independence, Chechen rebellions, North Korean saber rattling, AIDS in Africa, leadership struggles in Saudi Arabia, nuclear and bio terrorism, and the on-going energy crisis. Meanwhile, global warming is a ticking bomb that threatens to destroy all players unless they unite to take action. A moderate complexity game about the struggles that will shape our lives in the coming decades.