by Gideon Marcus
My crowd can't decide what to take this semester, but we've narrowed it down to the administration building and the library.
~Judy Carne on Laugh-In
Last Spring, students and Afro-Americans formed an uneasy alliance at Columbia University, taking over multiple buildings in pursuit of several disparate aims. Black students and denizens of the neighborhoods surrounding the campus fought against the school annexing public spaces (specifically, the building of the new Columbia gymnasium in Morningside Park). Other students rallied against Columbia's doing research for the defense department—essentially an inside raid against the Vietnam War.
After assembling to protest, radicals managed to seize five campus buildings, where they squatted for nearly a week before New York's finest, the boys in blue, dismantled the makeshift furniture barricades one by one and dragged the occupiers to the paddy wagons.
This did not end the struggle—thousands of students boycotted classes in May, and Columbia President Kirk resigned in June after giving in to pressure not to press charges against the protesters. Hundreds of students due to graduate that month held their own, unofficial commencement on Low Plaza, in front of the Low Library—scene of clashes in the early stages of the occupation.
Last June, the Columbia Sentinel published a game delightfully titled, Up Against the Wall, Motherfucker!, inspired by a phrase uttered more than once throughout the event, sometimes in official channels. One of the game's authors is Jim Dunnigan, who wargamers will recognize as the fellow who wrote Jutland for the wargame company, Avalon Hill. The other is "Jerry Avorn", a name that is unfamiliar to me.
The game is simple. There is a map that represents Columbia's campus. There are eleven tracks representing eleven communities associated with the school. There are two players: the administration (whose power points are called Level of Administrative Will or LAWs) and the protestors (theirs are called Ratio of Activism Determinants or RADs). Each turn, first the protestors get RADs to place on a track. If there are any LAWs there from last turn, they can choose to clash. A succesful confrontation moves the Position Unit Counter (PUC) one space toward the winner's side. Each space has a point value, and at the end of the game (after twelve turns), the value of the points under the PUCs is totaled—whomever has more wins the game.
The number of LAWs afforded the administration goes up every turn; the radicals get fewer as time goes on. In addition, each turn, a player draws a card from the provided deck, usually increasing the LAWs or RADs provided that turn. There are more cards favoring the administration than otherwise.
Each turn, either side may attempt a board-wide clash rather than fighting for individual tracks. At that point, the titular "Up Against the Wall, Motherfucker!" is exclaimed, and the pieces of both sides totaled. This is a strategic move…or a Hail Mary pass.
Interestingly, the odds of victory in a clash go up as a side gets superiority…up til 4-1. At 5-1, the attacker has a 1 in 6 chance of losing all LAWs/RADs engaged! Presumably, this represents a bad-press atrocity that hurts the cause.
Janice and I got a copy of this game from a friend on the East Coast. Even though things are calm at Columbia University (may they remain so!) the memory of last year's events are fresh enough that it still feels timely. So we headed out for our favorite local diner and set up the game to play.
For our first bout, I took the radicals. I was quickly crushed, both by bad luck and a lack of understanding how to play. We switched sides, and had much more of a game of it. Indeed, Janice played almost optimally.
There really is only one strategy for the radicals—it's the administration's game to lose—and it still depends a lot on luck. At the start of the game, the point total favors the protestors by three points. And the PUC only moves down the track in the event of a clash. So it is in the radical player's interest to plunk down unassailable (for the moment) forces in a few key buildings. Let the LAW(s) come to them.
Now, this war of attrition still favors the administration, but if the radical player is lucky (as Janice was), favorable cards early in the game can allow a declaration or two of "Up Against the Wall…", moving PUCs and decimating (perhaps eliminating) administration presence. The university still has the advantage, but it might come down to a couple of risky 2:1 attacks on the last turn—each has a 1 in 6 chance of backfiring.
As for the administration player, strategy is simple: build up a juggernaut at key places and strike when you hit 3:1. Simple as that. All you need is to shift two points to get the lead.
In the end, Up Against the Wall, Motherfucker is more of a logic puzzle than a game. Once you've solved it, replay value is low. Janice suggested a variant where PUCs move each turn, regardless of whether there is a clash or not, so long as a player ends one's turn with the only piece(s) on the track. This gives more incentive to spread out one's pieces rather than squatting.
Maybe. I think I've had it. But I enjoyed the process, and as an educational tool, I think it's pretty nifty. If you can get your hands on it, give it a spin…if only for the chance to utter those five immortal words…
By the way, friends of ours published an even better article on the game in CrimethInc, and we strongly recommend finding a copy—it even comes with a spruced up version of the game!
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