January 6th … the board game?

When we arrive on a cold night in January, we are communicated in the red team – that is, the team that will try Take over the US capitol and find Vice President Mike Pence.

Others are in the blue team and play police officers who try to defend the Capitol before the attack.

A man who is dressed as an uncle Sam appears.

“Welcome to Fight for America!“He says.

About 20 of us are here in Brooklyn to play a big war game-think about risk, but we also assigned a character that corresponds to a bit like dungeons & dragons. We will find out that it is January 6, 2021. We have lines and rows of hand-painted mini figures, a cube bowl and a measuring rod that shows how far we can move any role. We all get up, while we strategies strategies because the board – green lawn and marble levels – surrounds a detailed plasticreplica of the Capitol, which is almost 14 feet long.

The idea, say the creators, is a cross -party experience that teaches something about American democracy. But what?

“I thought it was a joke”

Fight for America! has been in development for over a year The American deputyAn artistic non-for-profit that describes himself as the “generator of creative content” that refutes America and Americans. The game was designed by Alessio Cavatore, which is known For table tops like Warhammer and the Lord of the Rings.

Although artistic projects are outside of his comfort zone, Cavatore agreed to design the game because he liked the intention: to promote dialogue. “Red and blue make an activity and speak to each other instead of demonizing the other as poorly,” he says in a conversation about zoom. “Let’s play a game and then entertain us. Let us talk about things. We may not change the opinion, but at least we get an understanding from the other side.”

Cavatore is based in England-Er is not in this workshop, one of the last large-scale test runs before the fight for America is officially opened in London in spring.

This Brooklyn test run is not necessarily a blue and red conversation – we play in a neighborhood that tends to Democrats. 92% voted for Harris in November. But Brooklyn Liberale are not the last audience, say the creators.

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The American deputy

“Our last goal is to bring it to the (United States) and to get involved in the game to have a conversation about the state of our democracy”. “The nice thing about playing a game is that it requires participation … and that is exactly that is democracy. Democracy requires participation.”

However, participation in this special game initially seemed to be some absurd. That was Korey Dowell’s answer when someone who worked on the game invited him to play.

“I thought it was a joke. I don’t want to play on January 6th, the home game. What is it, that is nonsense!” Dowell remembers thought. He was assigned to the blue team. “But then (the creators) explained to me that it was an art installation and I live nearby, so I said: ‘Let me come and do it.’ ”

“Maybe a historical first”

He is not wrong that it is an outlier. Most of the war games with cubes and mini characters deal with historical Wars, not about current events. They don’t often play a character. And they tend to be a few people at a table, not a few dozen at once.

I invited Naomi Clark to come into play and we are both assigned to the red team. She is a game designer and professor at New York University, where she leads the Nyu Game Center.

“I’m not sure if there has been a game like this. This is a really interesting and unusual event, maybe a historical first kind,” says Clark.

She points out that table war games began as training exercises for the Prussian army – they were simulations for the fight. Later they became hobbyist nuisance and finally like family games such as risk.

“Part of the interesting thing in games is that you can imagine all of this, what is the situation … it is a different way to study or look at the story,” says Clark. This means that a game on January 6th could initially appear Bonkers, but actually makes sense.

“Games are traditionally about fun, isn’t it? By that I mean pleasure,” she says. “But you not only have to produce pleasure more than a song or a piece, just a pleasure. You can also make us think or ask questions.”

Happy chaos

Fight for America! Is more than one game – it is a social event. There is an edge of the happy chaos, with beer and snacks that were pushed around on a car, many people who simultaneously play sketches with their dice and regular interruptions by the actor Dana Watkins, who plays the game champion dressed as uncle Sam on the video monitor Appearance, from a conservative broadcaster to the speaker from Nancy Pelosi.

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The American deputy

“Together we resist tyranny. Together we stop the theft. Together we result in America,” he tells the red team. Our mission, he says, is “Mike Pence”.

Each player has a character card that represents A real person who was in Capitol on January 6th. Dowell says he was Harry Dunn, an official of the Capitol Police. Clark plays as Elmer Stewart Rhodes III, a founder of the Swiss Confederation. I am Joseph Biggs, who was a leader of the proud boys at that time. We receive name signs – mine says “Joe”.

Every time I roll the cube, I think: what would Joe do?

Clark’s plan is simple: “Only pure aggression. I think when we find it, but something.”

Win it is everything

We withdraw, we attack. Every now and then one of the games Masters gives someone a card that gives them an advantage like tear gas. Or a tweet will come on the screen, and suddenly one of the teams gets a moral increase – or additional troop reinforcements.

In the further course of the game it has stopped being about how to feel about the storming of the Capitol and much more … How do we win?

Mcelroen, creator of games, says … yes, that’s the idea.

“The frame device is absolutely political, but it is a game, and that is metaphorically what America is at this point. It has become a game in which the win is the only goal, regardless of the tribute that appeals it” , he says.

The blue team hurls

Over an hour later it is clear that the red team has the advantage. Wave after the wave of mini figures in Maga hats, one that holds a baseball bat and one sword, approach the capitol levels.

“Hold the line!” Someone calls in the blue team.

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The American deputy

“You throw bike stands!” Uncle Sam warns.

Uncle Sam reminds the red team that their goal is to get into the Capitol – and to hang Mike Pence. He starts singing and the red team takes it up: “Hang Mike Pence!”

It is a shocking thing to hear in this deep blue part of Brooklyn.

And the blue team itself begins to feel discouraged.

“We were advised to fall back,” says player Julia White. “We lost some men. It’s extremely stressful.”

The red team, however, feels Great.

“Our men are at the Capitol’s door at this time,” says Clark. “It doesn’t seem as if Blue has a good chance.”

The final

There is a siren – the US Capitol was injured by the Red Team.

We are on a second game board in which we are looking for Mike Pence. And in contrast to January 6, 2021, the red team will find him.

“Hang Mike Pence”, some of the teams cheer again, led by Uncle Sam.

Then there is a turn.

“Team Red will vote now!” Uncle Sam says. “Vote to protect the Vice President … or vote to hang it up.” There is an unpleasant laugh. Do we vote as our characters? Or as ourselves?

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The American deputy

We look at each other. I am not sure how to do it for a minute. There is a lot around.

We choose no.

Clark explains her voice as follows: “I just don’t think they would have done it … Of course I could be wrong.” She adds: “At that moment I just think what do I really want this story? And I don’t really want to hang someone.”

After the vote there is a minute of pandemonium – a confetti cannon starts, there is music, the red team cheers – and then everyone becomes quiet to see the video monitors that suddenly play a band from January 6, 2021. Characters “are real people, and there they are on the screen. Storming the Capitol. Defend. Clark says: It’s sober. A bung. And, she says, that makes the fight for America! A certain kind of game.

“Some people call these accomplice games. Where they take on the role of someone with whom they would not sympathize in real life and see them from his point of view,” she says. “And then you look at it in real life and you are like ‘Oh, I just done that.’ ”

This is a discouraging way of feeling about human nature. But Dowell in the blue team says that after playing he has a different way of thinking about January 6th.

“I think the red side showed that the community is important. How, that is. This is the most tragic part that they are actually a community and they have come together to fight. So we need the community on the other Page. And maybe we will be together (A)?

It is a question, not a statement.

But then he says: “I still have hope.”

Audio and digitally edited by Ciera Crawford. Audio mixed by Chloee Weiner. Beth Novey website created.

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