The board game—Overview · 2011-09-29 · The board game—Overview Presidential Race!c 1986 Jean-Claude Falmagne • Object and outline. The object of this board game is to be

The board game—Overview

Presidential Race c!1986 Jean-Claude Falmagne

• Object and outline. The object of this board game is to beelected “president of the United States”. A second place may beobtained as a vice president-elect on the winning ticket. In general,the rules of the game simulate the presidential election in the US inmany of its most important aspects.

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• This includes the primaries, the conventions, the financial implicationsof a political campaign, the role of the press and the television, etc.As in real life, the victory is achieved by first winning the nominationof a party at the conclusion of the primaries, and then the presidentialelection.

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The board game is of the Monopoly type. Here is the board.

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That picture was no very clear. Here is a more detailed one.

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And another one.

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The Internet—Overview

In the internet version, the board would be replaced by a map of the US.The current location of a candidate-player would be marked on the map.The current location of all the other payers would also be indicated. Aplayer would also have to possibility to display the most recent statesvisited by another player and all sorts of other info.

This map, together with the information regarding the potential voters foreach of the candidates-players, is probably the most expensive piece todevelop.

I will get to that map later on.

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The votes are collected either

• by visiting the states and making pretend political appearances andspeeches. (This is simulated in the board game by throwing the diceand moving the figurine representing the candidate along the sides ofthe board.)

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• Or as a result of purchasing, using fun (or real) money,“politicaladvertisements” in the press or on the television, which are alsotranslated into number of voters. These advertisement may be placedin certain states, and this would result in an increase of committedvoters in those states (for example to the tune of one dollar per voter).

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• Chance ? cards-events introduce unpredictable events which maya!ect the outcome of the game. These chance cards may be inspiredby events happening during a campaign.

• There are also black cards which are distributed randomly among theplayers. They represent possible negative campaigning. More on thislater.

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• Finally, the candidates (the players) may be asked questions by themoderator of a ‘debate’ or by the press while visiting a state. The roleof the moderator or of the press will be played by the system, whichwill ask the questions. They may deal with historical events or withfacts relevant to the current campaing when the players choose to playthis version of the game. A clever candidate using public financingmay conceivably compete with an ill-informed candidate with money.

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Two Possible Versions1 The participants replay a historically important past election, such as

the Lincoln 1860 election or the Kennedy-Nixon-Bird contest in 1960.In such cases, each of the players choses to play the role of aparticular historical figure.

So, the game has a clear educational value. It teaches some of thehistory of the US and its democratic institutions.

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Two Possible Versions1 The participants replay a historically important past election, such as

the Lincoln 1860 election or the Kennedy-Nixon-Bird contest in 1960.In such cases, each of the players choses to play the role of aparticular historical figure.

This identification is important because fake debates and pressconferences may be organized. Questions are then asked to theplayers, the content of which draws on real events of the time ofthese presidents. The outcome of failing to give a correct responsemay result in a loss of votes.

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Two Possible Versions1

2 Another possibility, perhaps much more exciting, is to play,vicariously, the current election. The participants play then the rolesof the current candidates. The events a!ecting the outcome of thegame are then recent events happening during the actual campaign.

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The board game—OverviewAbout the questions asked during a debate

The questions asked during a fake debate or a ‘press conference’ aremanufactured ahead of time by a team of experts. There is a large pool ofsuch questions, and the system cleverly select the right question to ask.From an educational standpoint, a debate can be viewed as an assessmentof a player’s competence in the subject, which can be American or worldhistory, or current events. In the case of a current election, these questionsmay also come from accounts in the press.

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There are four phases in the game:

Phase 1. The Primaries

Phase 2. The Conventions

Phase 3. The Presidential Campaign

Phase 4. The Election Day

The first two phases are omitted when there are only two players.

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Phase 1. The Primaries.

In the board version, the first player throws the dice, and moves hisfigurine an appropriate number of spaces in the clockwise directionalong the board. If the figurine lands on a primary state (those statesare marked with a red “P” sign), the player collects the number ofvoters indicated, in the form of one or more of his chips, which areplaced in the appropriate division on the map at the center of theboard.

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Phase 1. The Primaries.

For example, if the total of the dice is 9, the player places his figurineon the space representing New York state, and chips representing700,000 voters are placed on the division Middle Atlantic (in theboard version) or in the NY column (in the internet version).

Start

?New England Middle Atlantic

New York State 700,000 votes

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The Internet Game

About money in the internet implementation.

In the internet version, a player is initially placed in New Hampshire anddecide where she wants to go. How far she can go and how many statesshe can visit on a single turn depends upon various factors having to dowith how much money she has in her campaign fund, and how she wantsto use it.

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About Money


Anybody can join a game, up to n players, and play for free. Such playerscould be regarded as using only ‘public financing.’ They could travel ‘bytrain’, also for free. The drawback is that they could only visit one statecapital in a nearby state per day (that is, on each turn) to ‘give a speech’.So, such players have little power.

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About Money


But if the players using public financing are smart, they can successfullyrespond to questions in a ‘debate’ or while visiting a state. Think about“Wait! Wait! Don’t tell me!” or “Jeopardy.” Responding correctly—orfaster in the case of a debate—could also result in an increase of thepotential voters.

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About Money


To become more e"cient, the player can use their own money to purchasevarious ways of increasing their power. This money could be used to travelby plane or to lease their own plane. In such cases, the number of statecapitals visited on each turn increases.

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The ? cards

Getting back to the game.

In the board game, if the player end up on a ? square, the player takesthe top chance card, reads it aloud, and follows the instructions.These instructions are of various types (see the text). An example is:

The candidate has been endorsedby the League of Women Voters.

1,000,000 votes(To be distributed anywhere)

In the internet version, landing on a ? box would be replaced by moreor less random events. In the current election version of the game, theserandom events would be inspired by real events in the campaign.

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The ? cards

Text of some other ? cards.

• In a televised debate, the candidate states that, as president, hewould take as a major priority to drastically reduce the budget deficit.A panelist asks how this could be achieved without a reduction of thedefense budget. The candidate’s response is confused, but suggeststhat some social programs might have to be cut. [-200,000 voters]

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The ? cards


• Questioned by a reporter on his position regarding the environment,the candidate, tired by months of intensive campaigning quips that“When you have seen one redwood tree, you have seen them all.”This careless statement is widely quoted. Despite his popularity, thecandidate looses 200,000 voters.

[-200,000 voters]

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The ? cards


• It is discovered that some of the campaign contributions received bythe candidate from individuals exceed the maximum allowed by thelaw. The candidate must return those contributions (-$500,000). Thenegative reaction of the public determines the loss of 100,000 voters.[-$500,000 & -100,000 voters]

• In a televised press conference, in a response to a question by areporter, the candidate appears to confuse two countries in LatinAmerica. A follow up question is met by an evasion by the candidate.[-200,000 voters]

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The black cards

The black cards are important for the realism of the game because theyrepresent the aggressive-negative style of campaigning. They are randomlydistributed among the players.

Text of some black cards.

• As a senator, candidate X has been lavishly entertained by a wealthybusinessman, whose company has subsequently obtained animportant contract with the state of the senator. This information isleaked to the press, and candidate X looses 500,000 voters. (Theplayer can use this card against any other player.)

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The black cards


• The candidate clears himself of any wrongdoing. The story backfires,and the opponent looses 500,000 voters. (This card must be usedimmediately, as a reaction to a black card of another player.)

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The black cards


• The Committee for electing candidate X is fined $500,000 forimproper accounting of the campaign funds. (The player has theoption of using this card against any other player.)

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The black cards


• The plane of candidate X crashes. Candidate X is unharmed, but thedelay causes him to cancel his appearance at several political rallies.(This card can be used against any other player. It prevents thisplayer to play for two turns.)

This type of card is a powerful tool for players with littlemoney. It may be used against a wealthy player using a plane.This may lead the weak player to travel by plane for a couple ofturns and possibly catch up.

Etc. etc. The text of all the black cards is included in the copyrightedtext. Needless to say, more black cards can be created, especially in thecase of a game playing the current election.

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The Convention.

Phase 2. The Convention.

At the end of Primaries—after exacly 55 minutes of play—the blackcards which have not been used are returned to the bank. The playersare then told that they have exactly five minutes to spend whatevermoney they want in a last minute advertising in some states whichthey feel may be critical for them. This is done secretly andsimultaneously by all the players.

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The Convention.


At the end of the 5 minutes, the number of votes in each state foreach candidate is computed (in each party). The player with thehighest number of votes in a given state receives all the delegates forthat state.

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The Convention.


For example, a republican player with the highest number of votes inTexas will receive 228 delegates1 at the convention of the republicanparty.

1In reality, this “winner-take-all” rule is only used in some states. Also, we havesimplified the game in making the number of delegates at the conventions equal to thenumber of electoral votes. In fact, the number of delegates is twice the number ofelectoral votes.

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The Convention.


The total number of delegates is then computed for each player. Towin the nomination of a party, a candidate must have the simplemajority (more than 50% of the total). If no candidate has a simplemajority, ballots take place.

Rules for the ballots. The candidate with the smallest number of

delegates releases his delegates. A throw of the dice decides who of the

remaining players will receive these delegates. If there is more than one

candidate with a minimum number of delegates, a throw of the dice will

decide which candidate will release his delegates. This process is pursued

until one player has the majority. These rules must be adapted for theinternet version. (Maybe a “debate” at this time?)

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The Presidential Campaign.

Phase 3. The Presidential Campaign.

Each of the presidential candidates must then find a running mateamong the other players. So, some discussion between the players hasto take place at this time. All the votes cast remain assigned to therespective states. This means that the corresponding voters remaincommitted to the same candidate for the second phase of the game.

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Phase 3. Creation of an Independent Party and a Progressive Party.

At the beginning of the second phase of the game, two players notnominated (as a presidential or as a vice presidential candidates),have the option of running jointly on an independent or a“progressive” ticket. This may lead to some bargaining based on therespective strengths of the players.

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Phase 3. Some of the Rules for the Presidential Campaign.

• The votes are cumulated between the presidential candidate and hisrunning mate. The campaign funds are put in common.

• A presidential candidate-player can challenge at any time (on his turn),another presidential candidate-player to a debate. A player refusing todebate automatically looses 500,000 voters. When a debate has beenaccepted, any other presidential candidate may join the debate. Aplayer winning the debate receives 1,000,000 voters. Moreover, if thechallenging player looses the debate, 500,000 voters are taken from himand removed from the board by the winning player. A similar debatemay take place between vice-presidential candidates. Only onechallenge can be initiated by a player during the game.

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The rules for the presidential campaign are very similar to those of theprimaries, the main di!erence being that the votes are now cumulatedbetween the president and the vice-president candidates.

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The Election Day.

As for the primaries, the presidential campaign phase of the game stopsafter exactly 55 minutes. The players have then exactly 5 minutes to placeadvertisements in suitable states.

The computation of the electoral votes takes place exactly as in theprimaries.

So, the game would last for about 2 hrs. Our experience is that this timeis about right. We could introduce the possibility that, on commonagreement, the game could be stopped after the primaries and continuethe next day.

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The Internet—Development

The most costly development is the map of the US, which would display all the

information that a player may want to have. Here is a map displaying the current

location of the candidate (!) and all its competitors (!), with their names X, Y,

Z, etc. The candidate

X

Y

Z

W

T

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The Internet—Development

The map could display all sorts of information at the request of a player. For

example, here is a histogram of current polls in Wyoming. The player may have

to pay to get such polls (or not).

The candidate

X

Y

Z

W

TX

YZ

WS

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The Internet—DevelopmentA better idea: coloring the states on the map

We could also color each state of the map with a color intensityrepresenting the current dominant player for that state. For example, sincethe 2000 presidential election in the US, red is associated with therepublican party and blue with the democratic party. So, a state in whicha democratic candidate has currently a slight majority could be painted ina pale blue. Yellow could be used for a libertarian candidate, etc.

Clicking a button may result in a map in which the color of each state willrepresent the candidate ranked second in that state.

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The Internet—DevelopmentSome final thoughts

• In the board game, because it was di"cult for a player to keep track of what

was happening in all the states, the votes were cumulated in each of nine

electoral regions. These regions are indicated by the colors on the map.

Hopefully, for the sake of realism, we don’t have to keep this system for the

internet version. Or maybe this could be an option.

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Hiring consultants or aids

A player could use real money to hire an aid, an actual human being, thatcould help with the answers to some questions from “the press.” However,a corresponding amount of fake money would remain in an account forthat person, who could use it in another game. So, a competent playerwith no money to start with could accumulate money in an account andbecome a wealthy player.

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Mimicking the current campain

• In the ‘Current Election’ version, the beginning of a game couldperhaps mimic the exact day of the primary campaign if the gametakes place during that time. A game taking place January 20th coulduse the polls results of that day at the beginning.

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Restricting the use of money

• An important di!erence with an internet game like poker is that thereis no financial gain for the players. If we let people put all the moneythey want, the richest people would just win and the chances are thatthe game would become boring. There should be some sensible, wellmotivated limits to the money that a player can use in a given game.It should be possible for a sophisticated player investing only a coupleof dollars to become president by being clever: playing well, winningthe debates, and/or being lucky (random endorsement by importantpolitical entities). Of course, this is to be discussed.

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Using outsiders

• About the question asked to the candidates either by the press orduring a debate. Some of the questions may have be proposed byoutsiders. That is, the pool of possible questions may be enlarged bythe public. This applies both to historically important elections or tothe current election. Knowledgeable people may be aware of someinteresting facts with which questions may be manufactured. Thiswould a way to get people involved and interested in the game, evenif they are not playing.

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The End

Thank You!

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Documents

The board game—Overview · 2011-09-29 · The board game—Overview Presidential Race!c 1986 Jean-Claude Falmagne • Object and outline. The object of this board game is to be