Wargame Articles

'Black Games' John Curry Editor of the History of Wargaming Project

'Black Games' are a lesser known area of Military Conflict Simulations (a.k.a. wargaming). They are games that deal with harsh morale imperatives that may be seen by wider society as being in 'poor taste' or just unacceptable. There is a case for their use in military training, such as one side in the game planning to commit atrocities, in order for military and professionals to use gaming to explore strategies to mitigate such acts. However, they have also been used at universities to explore challenging areas of politics, such as gaming the actions of warlords in Africa, historians to better understand situations in the past and to create conceptual models, and even more controversially, their use has now spread to recreation.

The session would give examples of 'black' games as used by the military, educational, professional historians and recreation, with a view to exploring the less positive impact on the people involved in such gaming.

Introduction

Military Conflict Simulations (a.k.a. wargaming) have a long established history for military training tools [1], operational analysis and as a hobby[2] . They are integral part of society, for example in the armed forces and in the public sector, for example the current (2009) emergency planning exercises for pandemics. Such emergency planning exercises are modeled upon the military version of staff college exercises.

'Black Games' are a lesser known form of such gaming; sometimes they are also referred to as 'bad taste' wargaming [3]. They are games 'specifically designed to explore the unpleasant aspects of conflict. Most of these deal with areas not usually considered 'suitable' games, such as terrorists attacks, bombing of population centres, or the moral dilemmas arising from conflict'. There is an element of 'black game' inherent in practically all wargames because of the subject matter.

Military Black Games

Modern armed forces that are consistently projected abroad into conflict situations have to face difficult situations, often in 'battlefields' that are populated by civilians and public property that is vulnerable to collateral damage. This is frequently compounded by opponents who may be targeting the civilians and public property contrary to the 'rules of war' to win the conflict on the media front as opposed to on the battlefield.

Faced by the new battlefield paradigm, armed forces have developed games that involve some people playing the role of the 'other side' and their brief may include objectives such as committing atrocities. Such gaming is largely defensible on the grounds that appropriate preparation against a realistic opponent may save lives in actual operations.

Educational Black Games

Teaching about current national issues in Africa is difficult in education due to ideological debates, contested discourses and issues of Western power/ privilege. A published example of a 'black game' was by Dougherty (2003) Teaching African Conflicts [4] to American undergraduates. The classroom pedagogy was based on a committee game methodology; players took on real life roles where individuals and teams were given aims and objectives and each 'day' stated what they were planning to do. An umpire considered each sides actions and then arbitrated the outcomes. On occasions where players intentions conflicted, a simple dice roll was made to finalise which side was more successful. Many of these games involved challenging issues, such as players aiming to displace rival tribes, conceal evidence of war crimes and use the opportunity of conflict to commit crime on a grand scale.

There has also been a number of completely unreported games run on distasteful subjects in order to further understanding of the historians concerned.

A new company has launched a range of products called Global Conflicts. The first game was based on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and involves deciding what to report. The games features barely disguised accounts of real atrocities, collateral damage and propaganda (from both sides)[5] .

Recreational Black Games

Lead by the evangelical movement in the United States, role-playing games, epitomised by the genre of 'Dungeons and Dragoons', were subject to sustained attack on moral grounds. The key argument was that role-playing would encourage vulnerable people to delve into evil, such as devil worship. The evangelical movement's efforts were largely not effective in banning role-playing games, in particular against the 'Dungeons and Dragoons' role playing game. The failure of the evangelical campaign was probably the lack of relationship between the game worlds apparently being used and reality [6].

Empirical observation has shown there has been a rise of 'distasteful games' purely for recreation. Several of these games have been at major annual events in the UK at public shows.

The Effects of 'Distasteful Games'

Unlike many recreational games that are designed to reward pro-social behaviour, 'black games' are not designed to that end. There is some general research that can give insight into the impact of this genre of game.

The Artistotelian philosophy (cited by McCormick 2001 [7] ) 'proposes that participating in simulated immoral and violent acts erodes the individual's character, reinforcing virtueless habits. McCormick concludes that the cumulative effect of playing or even just observing violent/ horror games has a significant negative impact on personality development. This view may be challenged by others. Scott (1994)[8] 'there may also be individual differences in the effect of game-playing. Some people may be able to spend a great deal of their free-time playing arcade videos without any resulting aggression.'

Bensley and Van Eanwyk (2001) [9] summarised a number of theories about playing computer games may exacerbate aggressive tendencies.

General affective aggression theory: if players rehearse aggressive behaviour, this may lead to aggression based knowledge structures.

Cognative priming theory: players may interpret ambiguous behaviour as aggressive and respond accordingly.

Arousal theory: An arousing computer game may lead to aggressive people acting they way they did in the game.

Social learning theory: players observe and imitate behaviour models. They imitate this behaviour in real life in unconscious expectation of receiving game type rewards for anti-social behaviour.

Although there is some research basis for challenging 'distasteful games' on the grounds of undesirable impact on some personalities, it is unclear what can be done in an global uncensored world.

Note about the Author

He is the chief editor of the History of Wargaming www.johncurryevents.co.uk

Postscript

The academic research basis for supporting games research, such as board-games, computer games and wargames is very poor. Sadly, my article contained more references than anyone else's paper. The academics are largely trying to translate research in children's playing into the new modern genre of playing. E.g. how children play touch in the playground has little in common with playing World of Warcraft (media, age, virtual versus physical, international aspects etc.)

However, there is a new academic journal on playing multi-player games and the games companies are starting to consider blue skies research into what really makes people play their games (as opposed to near market research, such as how can we make them pay next month's subscription).

Notes

[1} For example the Prussian Kriegsspiels (1824), Verdy (1876) and Fred Jane (1906) Such as H G. Wells (1913) Little Wars.

[2]See the Wargames Handbook (1980) www.wargamedevelopments.org/index.htm

[3]Dougherty B. (2003)Teaching African Conflicts Active Learning in Higher Education, 4 (3) November, 271-283.

[4]See www.seriousgames.dk

[5] One of the source books to provide background information for the game, was called the 'Monster Manual'. The 3rd edition contained devils, demons, succubi amongst the 350 monsters in the book. It was clear that these creatures in particular had no theological basis and were simply interesting targets for the players to attack.

[6] McCormick M (2001) Is it wrong to play violent video games? Ethics and Information Technology, 3(4), 277-287.

[7] Scott D. (1994) The effect of video games on feelings of aggression, the Journal of Psychology, 129(2), 121-132.

[8] Bensley, L, Van Eanwyk J (2001) Video games and real life aggression: review of the literature Journal of Adolescent Health, 29, 244-257.