"Perhaps I should write about Up Against the Wall, Motherfucker!," I mused. "But of course they can't play this thing, since it's not only out of print but incredibly obscure, and basically no copies are available anywhere."
No problem; I emailed JFD and got his permission to put the game up here.
In one sense, Up Against the Wall, Motherfucker! is a truly exotic bit of esoterica -- a game on the Columbia riots, printed back in 1969 in the pages of the Columbia Daily Spectator, and designed by James F. Dunnigan, one of the finest and most prolific designers of board wargames.
But in another sense, you can argue that it is a seminal title: Up Against the Wall, Motherfucker! may well be the first commercial simulation game not on a military theme.
That is, military simulations for use in military training date back at least to the 18th century, and by 1969 think-tanks like the RAND Corporation and many businesses were using simulations of one kind or another, often computer-mediated ones (running, of course, on mainframes). And commercial wargames date at least back to Little Wars (1913), and by 1969 were a small but thriving market, mainly served by Avalon Hill. But commercial boardgames then, as today, tended to treat their ostensible themes as useful for marketing, but not as something that should inform actual gameplay.
In Up Against the Wall, Motherfucker! you play either as Columbia University's administration, or as the radicals who have seized control of Fayerweather Hall. You are attempting to influence the opinions of various stakeholders in the university -- students of different sorts, the alumni, and so on. Random event cards influence play. Ultimately, the side that gains the greatest sympathy on the part of university stakeholders wins.
It's not what you call a deep simulation; I suspect that Dunnigan, Avorn, and Glynn bashed this thing together in an afternoon, and probably played it only a handful of times before printing it. It's more of a goof than a serious game, and indeed, it's quite unbalanced -- the Administration will win, barring a lot of luck (and a well-timed Motherfucker Gambit) on the part of the Radical player. But of course, you can argue that this is realistic; only at Brown did student protests make deep and lasting changes in the way the university is administered (without, it should be noted, a riot).
The mere title of the game has proven somewhat controversial; when SPI published Chicago, Chicago (a game on the Chicago riots during the Democratic National Convention of 1968), there was an internal debate about whether or not to republish UATW,MF! along with it -- they decided not to, lest the title offend some subscribers. When Boardgamegeek first listed the game, some of its members objected, as well, and the title on the site is now censored. To me, at least, these objections seem rather hilarious, particularly given the existence of games such as Cunt.
JFD was purposefully cocking a snoot at Avalon Hill, in particular, his then-publisher. Eric "Papa" Dott, its head, went so far as to change the title of a game called "Grand Prix" to Le Mans because he feared how American shopgirls would pronounce the original title. You could get away with shit in a university paper that you certainly couldn't in anything like mainstream media. And JFD has certainly never objected to shocking; he not only funded SPI's early operations by stealing and reselling Ma Bell equipment from his dayjob as a security guard at one of their warehouses, but is perfectly open about that fact today (the statue of limitations having expired).
Up Against the Wall, Motherfucker! resonates well today with the punk aesthetic of modern indie gaming, and we're proud to offer you this important document in the evolution of modern games.
Fucking Awesome
Finally, a board game that my non-gamer friends will want to play.
Origin of name
I suspect the name refers to UAW/MF, an anarchist group that was involved in the occupation.
c.f.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Up_Against_the_Wall_Motherfuckers
UATW, MF
Actually, "Up against the wall motherfucker" was (and probably still is) a typical instruction by the police preliminary to an arrest. In other words, the Motherfuckers took their name from the same phenomenon, but Dunnigan was not naming the game for them.
Minor and major
A smaller point: I can't seem to download the cards. Is anyone else having this problem? It just comes out a blank sheet. Very disappointing.
A bigger point: The board design is very telling. Obviously, you can see where Dunnigan places the political will at the outset of the riot. The individual constituencies are quite interesting. "Middle-of-the-road" students sounds like a silent majority theory, which always makes me suspicious (surely, if a student didn't get involved in any capacity, they would be conservative in deed if not in ideology?)
What's more interesting is the numbers on the tracks. Notice that most constituencies are more influential at one end of the scale than at the other. The ad hoc faculty group is worth a lot more to the radicals than to the administration, whereas the alumni are almost powerless to aid the radicals but capable of doing much to aid the administration. It's interesting that the moderate strikers (again, silent majority?) can have more influence by joining the administration than by opposing it, and at the outset they do barely anything.
If I drew this board, I'd probably do it very differently. I would probably give most of the students very low numbers, perhaps 2 or even 0, for siding the administration, but not terribly high numbers for going the other way (5 or 7 at most); and do similar things for the administration supporters. I would also throw out Dunnigan's rule that combat ratios should be rounded in favour of the defenders. If you changed these effects, you would end up with a game that represents the conflict as much more polarised, and polarising. You would also implicitly suggest that students who refuse to strike surrender their power. Obviously these are my political and historical views. I'm really not so open to debating them, because it's not terribly relevant whether I'm right. What's important is that we realise this game is a text, and read it as such. In that light, it's very interesting historically.
Actually, the Motherfuckers
Actually, the Motherfuckers got their name from an Amiri Baraka poem entitled "Black People!" It refers to black on white violence, not the other way around.
"All the stores will open up if you will say the magic words. The magic words are: Up against the wall mother fucker this is a stick up!"