Has anybody tried to "not-wagame" Protest Marches, Riots etc.

[Mick_in_Switzerland]

Over the past year, we have had the Yellow Vest protests in France and the Democracy Protests in Hong Kong. In both cases, the protests have gone on for many weeks and months, sometimes peaceful and sometimes violent. Often both sides change their tactics from week to week and this changes public opinion.
There have also been huge, mostly peaceful, pro and anti Brexit rallies and climate change protests in London, England.

Has anybody tried to turn this into a wargame or rather a simulation? actually, I want to create a "not war-game".

I was wondering whether you could use rules like The Men Who Would Be Kings to simulate a small number of regular forces i.e. Police against an enormous number of irregular tribal forces i.e. Protestors.  TMWWBK has a section called Mr Babbage, which makes the tribal forces behave according to predefined rules. This allows the regular forces player to solo play against the tribal forces.

I am thinking of playing various scenarios with victory points based on objectives such as

• Protesters earn points for keeping areas (streets) closed for a number of turns
• Police win points for moving protesters from designated areas
• Both sides win or lose public opinion points based on their good or bad behaviour or reaction to it.

Does anything like this exist?

Thanks


Mick

[Ewan]

I'm sure that was a rule book and figures out called No Go Zone.

[Dags]

Aggro - the 70's Football Hooligan rules coild easily be tweaked

[robh]

There are a lot of "Area Control" boardgames out there that would provide a framework:
https://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgamemechanic/2080/area-control-area-influence

You would need to come up with the specific city street maps and such.

I think you could do a really interesting version of a game like Carcassonne for the larger social media organised riots.

In the past a few guys in my old games group tried playing lower level games (on the front line barricades) but they were just dark age wargames without anyone dying in battle, no real sense of context.

[YPU]

There are a lot of "Area Control" boardgames out there that would provide a framework:
https://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgamemechanic/2080/area-control-area-influence

You would need to come up with the specific city street maps and such.

I think you could do a really interesting version of a game like Carcassonne for the larger social media organised riots.

I agree it would make more sense at a slightly abstracted level.

Re-working carcasonne to be a-symetrical with 6mm riots and police would be interesting. Doing the tiles would be time consuming but awesome. Alternatively, you could look at single-player contagion style games, trying to stop the spread of a horde of zombies or disease has the same sort of tactical challenge. Of course personally I would prefer playing the riot.

[Ultravanillasmurf]

I'm sure that was a rule book and figures out called No Go Zone.

Warmacre.

The rules use the extended rock-paper-scissors mechanic.

The figures however sucked.


A Crooked Dice Man from 3000 for comparison.

[Ultravanillasmurf]

I am sure Jim Webster covered this sort of conflict, complete with escalation.

[Cat]

I thought hard about this quite a few years ago.  Came up with quite a few detail bits on escalating tensions, but never quite had the break through on what core rules could be created.
 
This process got launched when I happened upon a superb book, Crowds and Riots by Sam Wright, in the library stacks while I was doing research on a completely different topic.  The book went into my check-out pile, and I've since bought my own copy through https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?an=sam%20wright&bi=0&bx=off&cm_sp=SearchF-_-Advtab1-_-Results&ds=30&recentlyadded=all&sortby=17&sts=t&tn=Crowds%20and%20Riots

This book is must [and entertaining] reading based on actual field research.  The appendix on how to prepare for and survive doing field research is required reading for anyone planning their own sociological field studies!

[Mick_in_Switzerland]

Thank-you for all of the comments and suggestions.

I still like the idea of a miniatures game with "units" of protesters and police. I am thinking of it being a bit like a dark ages battle.

Perhaps the table would be a square grid map with certain areas having a high value e.g. the street in front of a government building and other side streets having a low value.

Protesters would range from family & OAP marchers (timid but also moving scenery blocking both sides), to angry but unarmed youths, up to organised & aggressive rioters in helmets, gas masks & shields.

Police could have units of standard non threatening police, passive riot equipped police, non lethal missiles, tear gas, snatch squads, cavalry and vehicles.

Both sides could set up barricades or fences.

I will think more about how this could work.

[Ewan]

https://offensiveminiatures.com/catalogue.asp?cat=Near%20Future

Some figures for rioters and police

[YPU]

If you want to try this on a larger scale with higher stakes (and more direct violence) there is the free solo wargame "Irish freedom" which does include mobs and irregulars of different levels. Its a map and chit game, but could do with some 6mm figure stands instead!

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/147372/irish-freedom

[Mick_in_Switzerland]

The Offensive Miniatures are wonderful but I am thinking more of bases of 10mm figures and N Guage vehicles.

Pendraken have Zombies and Survivors which would work as the crowds and rioters.  I think they also have WW2 partizans etc.

For the Police, I could use WW2 or modern soldiers and add Roman shields. I could also use WW1 cavalry.

Pendraken also have Landrovers, ambulance, modern armoured cars, etc

I will read up descriptions of the rules that you have suggested - thank-you everybody.

[fastolfrus]

Irregular Miniatures had a game in the early 80s (or late 70s) around the same time as they brought out Tusk! (mammoth hunting) but no idea what the rules were called. It was about the era when wargames shows used to get CND protesters attending.

[Mick_in_Switzerland]

I did some internet surfing and found that this will be relatively easy to do in N-Gauge as there are many items available for model railways including people and cars. Some items can be bought from China on Ebay for very low prices.

N-Gauge people x 100
https://www.ebay.co.uk/p/100-Model-Railway-Train-Scenery-Mixed-Figure-People-Standing-Sitting-N-Scale/1487621656?iid=281869399332

N-Gauge Police x 56
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/56Pcs-1-150-Scale-Mini-Plastic-Constable-Action-Figure-Multicolor-Police/163577728624?hash=item2615fe0e70:g:oeUAAOSwLgFcfKLN

N-Gauge Cars
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/100x-N-Gauge-1-150-Scale-painted-Model-Cars-for-Building-Park-Street-Layout/271492721738?epid=11022925899&hash=item3f363a2c4a:g:iKcAAOSwKKBbTHWw

I will have to experiment to see if I can mix Pendraken and N-Gauge.

[Vanth]

Hello Mick, there used to be an hex-and-counters wargame called "Corteo" (Protest March) back in the '70s that does  exactly what you are trying to achieve. I have it somewhere around the house, but I am afraid it is just in italian. It was heavily based on the political groups that were around in 1977 in Italy, where we had a very strong protest season, and it even got retired by the government at the time because it was alleged that march organizers used it to plan their tactics.
The board is of an imaginary city (the streets have uite humorous names in italian) but you can recognize some real life places, it features all the different kinds of police (urban, carabinieri, anti riot and so on) and a lot of different faction of protesters, from the more peaceful to the more aggressive. It has a number of scenarios where the police task is mainly to direct the way the march goes and avoid looting or riot, while the protesters have different aims from reaching a specific point (like the government building or the tv broadcast center) or disrupting the parade of some foreign leader (surely an evil dictator...)