Gaming the Authoritarian System

Screen image from A Force More Powerful. (This image is not in the printed edition).

Almost every computer strategy game in the history of computer strategy games has been about waging war: building armies and deploying them to crush your foes. These games can be traced back directly to the earliest formalized military games run by the Prussian military in the 19^th century. These games of strategy are rooted in a system that is designed to resolve conflicts through violence.

A Force More Powerful breaks this tradition: it seeks to model nonviolent methods of resistance. In fact, it is aimed at a very specific audience: people around the world who wish to use nonviolent conflict to fight for reform. The groups responsible for AFMP are certainly qualified for the task. The game was produced jointly by Breakaway Ltd., the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict, and York-Zimmerman; a game studio, an education center dedicated to teaching nonviolent resistance, and the film company responsible for the game's namesake documentary, respectively.

In its basic structure, AFMP is not too different from other strategy games. At the game's outset, you are given a list of ten scenarios to choose from. The one that I played the most put me in charge of a student group aiming to end government corruption in an Eastern European nation. Other scenarios include such daunting tasks as desegregating a city, fighting for suffrage, and bringing down a dictatorship. (Also of note is that the game comes with a tool that lets players create their own scenarios; an indispensable resource for teachers.)

In each scenario there are dozens of different characters with different abilities, each of whom has their own political agenda, aspirations, and personality. Converting these characters to your cause can be the key to victory. For example, if a famous radio DJ supports your cause, then gaining the financial support of the radio station itself becomes easier. Organizations also exist as entities with political beliefs (a union may be pro-labor rights, while a factory may support lower taxes).

While the primary verbs of most strategy games are build, move, and kill, AFMP offers a startlingly different set of actions you can take to further your cause. These actions are referred to as "tactics" and are primarily based on Gene Sharp's Methods of Nonviolent Action. Tactics are broken into five categories. "Attack" tactics are direct action against a group or a person: a vigil, a mass protest, or overloading facilities. "Deny" tactics, such as boycotting, deny power to groups whose primary function is providing a service to the public. "Build Strength" actions involve fraternization with groups, recruitment of individuals, or even morale-boosting activities for the groups in your resistance movement.

"Defend" tactics are used when you are under attack: your movement leader may go into hiding or a self-imposed exile. Finally, "Communicate" tactics are for convincing neutral parties that your movement is legitimate and that your cause is worth fighting for. One of the more emotionally wrenching moments in the game is when you realize how asymmetric the tactics really are. While you are using nonviolent tactics, the regime you're fighting intimidates, tortures, and jails your characters.

As a learning experience, AFMP appears to do what it claims. Before playing this game, I personally knew very little about the specifics of nonviolent action. After playing, I can list dozens of tactics that a nonviolent movement can use to affect the status quo. But it's not just rote memorization. From the dynamics of the game, I understand that groups need to be trained in support and logistics in order to pull together a large rally — but they also need to be trained in nonviolent intervention to prevent rogue elements from turning a rally into a riot.

A unique learning tool is AFMP's goal system. When you choose a scenario to play, it's your job to set your own victory conditions, which is unheard of in most strategy games. When playing the corruption scenario, I decided that while freeing a jailed student would engender a lot of public support and media attention, the more important goals were kicking out the corrupt mayor and getting the city council to pass a resolution to fight corruption. By letting you set your own victory conditions the game forces you to think about what your movement is capable of realistically accomplishing given your resources and skills.

Scores of papers have been written debating exactly how effective games are as an education tool. But perhaps the greatest advantage that games have over other methods of education is that games can be compelling, and that people are willing to experience them over and over again. Before opening the box, I expected to play the game ten times through, write this review, and then never play it again.

I thought, "This might be a great training tool, but nobody would play it in their spare time: how could it stack up against a strategy game where you're planning a war?" But AFMP is, much to my surprise, a compelling game, even to an experienced gamer like me. Perhaps this is because it models a type of conflict we hardly ever see in video games.

I am far from an expert on nonviolent conflict, but I believe A Force More Powerful would make an excellent introduction to the basic methods and strategies, particularly for young people who have been conditioned through years of gaming that violent action is the ultimate source of power.

Organizations Promoting Games for Social Change:

Serious Games Initiative;
Games for Change;
USC Center for Public Diplomacy Games Awards

Additional Games:

Peacemaker (simulating the Israeli-Palestinian conflict);
The Climate Game;
Third World Farmer;
Food Force (trying to feed people after a disaster (a game created by the World Food Program));
Exchanging Cultures;
Global Kids Island.