Boardgaming after the fall of Kabul: player and designer (re)engagement with A Distant Plain

ABSTRACT

During summer 2021, the world watched the swift and, for some, surprising collapse of Afghanistan’s government. However, a Taliban victory was always a possibility for players of A Distant Plain (ADP), a boardgame about insurgency and counterinsurgency in post-9/11 Afghanistan. These events inspired many ADP players, and its designers, to (re)engage with the game, thus providing scholars with a unique opportunity to investigate in real time how historical practice occurs within the popular culture space. Utilizing primary sources, this article demonstrates that contemporary history games – those which depict current events or open-ended, unresolved periods, rather than ones designed to model what is seen as ‘settled’ history – are uniquely subject to external, out-of-game interventions which may prompt reevaluations of their assumptions and models, since players and designers are repeatedly challenged by changing circumstances to integrate new data into how they perceive and consume the historical representations found therein. These games are therefore exceptionally suited to engendering genuine and ongoing historical practice, through the use of evidence, argumentation and debate, retrospective reassessments, and counterfactual analysis. The broader discipline will greatly benefit from taking a more inclusive view of popular history by paying greater attention to historical games of this type.

KEYWORDS:

• Historical game studies
• contemporary history games
• boardgames
• popular history
• historical practice
• online communities and Afghanistan

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1. From the Latin ludus, meaning ‘game’ or ‘play’.

2. The term ‘contemporary history’ is used here in a manner similar to Johnes (2011) and Durmaz (2012) to refer to the recent past and ongoing historical processes in the present.

3. For a detailed discussion on the distinction between ‘accuracy’ and ‘authenticity’, see McCall (2017, 2018a) and Chapman (2016). This article follows the approach taken by Copplestone (2017), who effectively combines the two.

4. A card-driven-game is one in which gameplay occurs primarily by deploying cards from one’s hand to affect conditions on the board. For historical games, these cards are based upon actual or speculative events rooted in the past.

5. ‘Jihadist’ is the in-game term used.

6. Because this article is directly focused on the players and designers, this is a very brief overview of what is a deep and complex game, rather than the innerworkings of the game itself. See ADP’s “Rules of Play’ (Ruhnke and Train 2013b) and ‘Playbook’ (Ruhnke and Train 2013a), which includes its ‘Design Notes’. Key in-game terms (e.g. ‘Operations’) are capitalized to identify them as such.

7. Modified from Train and Ruhnke (2016, 524).

8. Such as Antley (2017), Copplestone (2017), and McCall (2018b).

9. Train was far more active regarding ADP than his co-designer, who, instead, actively took part in debates over his solo project, Labyrinth. Therefore, this article focuses almost exclusively on Train’s responses.

10. For a sample of excluded material, see: ‘Seven Pillars of Taliban Wisdom’ (https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1284923/seven-pillars-taliban-wisdom, posted 14 December 2014), ‘NP Warlords – Coup?’ (https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2588382/np-warlords-coup, posted 26 January 2021), ‘A Distant Plain 2003–2004’ (https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2392701/distant-plain-2003–2004, posted 22 March 2020), and ‘Afghan Altercation (Space-Biff!)’ (https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1225249/afghan-altercation-space-biff, posted 25 August 2014).

11. Such as ‘Any chance of back-Dating the game ?’ (https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1089797/any-chance-back-dating-game, posted 19 December 2013) and ‘Beyond the Amu Darya: Afghanistan 1979–89’ (https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1676845/beyond-amu-darya-afghanistan-1979–89,posted 22 November 2016).

12. Such as Theel’s (2021) review, discussed below.

13. Found at http://talk.consimworld.com/WebX/.1dd70f84 (2012).

14. Foundathttps://discord.com/channels/695953626023329794/695956558777024543 (2020).

15. Riccardo Rinaldi post #1,114 (Consimworld.com/WebX/.1dd70f84, 16 August 2021).

16. Linked by Train on his personal blog.

17. Mathieu(https://discord.com/channels/695953626023329794/695956558777024543/876477133407531049, 15 August 2021).

18. MrSkinny (https://discord.com/channels/695953626023329794/695956558777024543/869294881842032701, 26 July 2021).

19. TGLS (https://discord.com/channels/695953626023329794/695956558777024543/877678647882960896, 18 August 2021).

20. TGLS (https://discord.com/channels/695953626023329794/695956558777024543/869314174247923793, 26 July 2021).

21. Chaos-Goat (https://discord.com/channels/695953626023329794/695956558777024543/876906349206859796, 16 August 2021).

22. SeleniMar (https://discord.com/channels/695953626023329794/695956558777024543/876907083159728128, 16 August 2021).

23. See, for example, Boardgamegeek.com (2017; 2018; 2019; 2020).

24. Steven Apergis post #1,109 (consimworld.com/WebX/.1dd70f84, 15 Aug 15 2021).

25. Mathieu (https://discord.com/channels/695953626023329794/695956558777024543/876477133407531049, 15 August 2021).

26. Steven Apergis post #1,109 (talk.consimworld.com/WebX/.1dd70f84, 15 August 2021).

27. Riccardo Rinaldi post #1,114) (consimworld.com/WebX/.1dd70f84, 16 August 2021).

28. Maurice (https://discord.com/channels/695953626023329794/695956558777024543/876478498808692746, 15 August 2021).

29. These discussions also occurred on Consimworld.com and Boardgamegeek.com, but those found on Discord.com were the most extensive. Therefore, this section focuses only on this one.

30. Commissarmelvin (https://discord.com/channels/695953626023329794/695956558777024543/876933362823102524, 16 August 2021).

31. Commissarmelvin (https://discord.com/channels/695953626023329794/695956558777024543/876485352402067506, 16 August 2021).

32. Chaos-Goat (https://discord.com/channels/695953626023329794/695956558777024543/876934549987291166, 16 August 2021).

33. Mathieu (https://discord.com/channels/695953626023329794/695956558777024543/876487771336896512, 15 August 2021).

34. Tanelorn (https://discord.com/channels/695953626023329794/695956558777024543/876455528367263754, 15 August 2021).

35. Commissarmelvin (https://discord.com/channels/695953626023329794/695956558777024543/876929502566051911, 16 August 2021).

36. Mathieu (https://discord.com/channels/695953626023329794/695956558777024543/876485079596171275, 15 August 2021).

37. See, for example, Chaos-Goat’s and TGLS’s posts during 17–18 August 2021 (https://discord.com/channels/695953626023329794).

38. See commissarmelvin’s, ripred42’s, and Tanelorn’s back-and-forth posts during 16–17 August 2021 (https://discord.com/channels/695953626023329794).

39. See, for example, commissarmelvin’s and Chaos-Goat’s posts during 16–17 August 2021 (https://discord.com/channels/695953626023329794).

40. See, for example, commissarmelvin’s citation of Politico’s poll of Afghanis (https://discord.com/channels/695953626023329794/695956558777024543/877189772202889226, 17 August 2021).

41. See, for example, Tanelorn’s, toot toot toot’s, and ripred42’s posts on 16 August 2021 (https://discord.com/channels/695953626023329794).

42. This was mostly undertaken by the anti-withdrawal camp, unsurprisingly, but TGLS and Baron raised the question of whether other presidents would have done anything differently in posts during 16–17 August 2021 (https://discord.com/channels/695953626023329794).

43. Gian Carlo Ceccoli post #1,069 (talk.consimworld.com/WebX/.1dd70f84, 22 January 2018). Also see Boardgamegeek.com (2014).

44. See, for example, boardgamegeek.com (2021c, 2021h, 2021f).

45. @Tcaalaw raised this point in Boardgamegeek.com (2021h).

46. TGLS (https://discord.com/channels/695953626023329794/695956558777024543/874296231185240074, 9 August 2021; https://discord.com/channels/695953626023329794/695956558777024543/876120111113699348, 14 August 2021).

47. Train (2022) said something similar regarding the possibility of updating his other game Ukrainian Crisis, which only covered 2014 crisis in Ukraine from the Maidan Revolution to the First Minsk Agreement.

48. Brian Train post #1,110 (talk.consimworld.com/WebX/.1dd70f84, 15 August 2021).

49. Brian Train post #1,112 (talk.consimworld.com/WebX/.1dd70f84, 15 August 2021).

50. Ostensibly, the Warlord player never even bothered to show up.

51. This author would like to thank an anonymous reviewer for this analogy.

52. This author would like to thank another anonymous reviewer for this insight.

53. This is the in-game term used.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Thomas Ambrosio

Thomas Ambrosio is a professor of political science at North Dakota State University. His research interests include historical game studies, authoritarianism, authoritarian diffusion, critical geopolitics, and the domestic and international politics of the former Soviet Union.