Aired on WGBX, UHF Channel 44, The Game is a foreign policy simulation show. The purpose of the game is to teach an understanding of the problems diplomats face in crisis situations, and the pressures under which they must make vital decisions.

Six teams, each composed of five ministers, each representing Six countries, try to settle the crisis situation through discussion and negotiations. The TV cameras focus on one team, Transania, except during formal statements. The audience participates actively as Transania's advisors, simulating the country's political elite.

I had joined the game late, but even so was caught up in the excitement immediately. The format of the game was explained: first each team makes a policy statement -- "action choice" -- to Control, in which no lies are allowed; then a world TV statement, in which truth is optional; and finally negotiations, during which the teams can talk to each other.

It was easy to fall into the trap of believing the myths we created for world TV. Once Transania claimed they had shot down a New Zenith plane, and had captured the pilot. Five minutes later they "discovered" that it was really one of their own planes they had hit by mistake, but by that time New Zenith had accepted the "truth" of their accusation, and was claiming that it had been a Hamil plane with New Zenith markings, flown by a New Zenith defector.

There is a strategy planning period in between each step of the game, and this is when the TV audience gets to take part. Questions are posed by the Transanian ministers, and the political elite is asked to phone in their decisions. Transania generally follows their advice, making them active participants in a real sense. And the television viewers get almost as involved as the players: the one time when their advice was disregarded, they phoned in and demanded impeachment of their ministers.

The fact that their voice really made a difference in the game seems to have attracted an audience which included many high school students, a group normally resistent to the inherently passive TV learning experience. Each week one or two members of the political elite, usually high school students, were invited to read a policy statement to the Transanians.

Ideally the audience watches the show in small groups, and discusses each stage of the game, calling in their decisions. Success with the teenage audience has led to proposals for using televised simulations in high school classroom situations.

The simulation was written by Martin Gordon, an employee of ABT, Inc., a Cambridge research firm. He said that WGBX's innovation of audience participation made little difference to a basically difficult job. The problem is trying to direct the action of the players without denying them the right to make free decisions.

Gordon then explained how the historical perspective restricts the possible outcomes of the game: "The situation must be analyzed with respect to what kinds of actions the real countries involved were reasonably open to take. Transania stood for Russia, New Zenith for the U.S., Nordo for India, Inland for North Korea, Outland for South Korea, and Hamil was Red China. Even though there were six teams, each with four policy choices, there actually were only ten or twelve separate possible outcomes."

Since a general war situation brings the game to an inevitable end, Gordon told me that he tried to avoid any such decisive results. An outcome which keeps the game going, such as large indecisive battle instead of a clear-cut victory, is therefore his preferred choice.

Debriefing

After the fourth game in the series, we had a general debriefing. Many of us felt that using the same four action choices throughout the month had been very restrictive. Transania was indignant that her proposal to divide Hamil between herself and New Zenith could not be considered because it was not one of their four policy choices. The proscribed actions limited creative thinking, and prevented original solutions to the situation.

Gordon defended his game by reiterating that simulation is speculative history, and that nothing can be done out of the historical perspective. In real situations there are often only a few alternatives open to the involved countries, and it is this which puts such great pressure on diplomats; in order to simulate the real situation, there must be some restraints.

The idea of simulating situations in order to better understand them has a long history of its own. The earliest simulated game is chess, which began in India in the 7th century. The U.S. government became interested in using foreign policy gaming in the 1950's. As training for foreign service officers, the game technique was not a great success. However, the Foreign Policy Association, a foreign affairs adult education group, found simulation gaming useful in giving amateurs some empathy for the professionals. FPA thereafter loaned their copyrighted game to GBX. Simulation is not only useful in foreign affairs; Harvard Business School and Harvard Law School both use a form of simulation in their programs.

Unfortunately, simulation is a difficult and costly process. Writing a simulation takes one man about a month and costs from $9,000 to $10,000. For any participants, there is also an enormous outlay of time: CLUG (community Land Use Game), a business simulation game, has been played for as long as nine hours at a time. All these factors makes it hard to offer such a game to the public; the expense alone limits its availability to all but wealthy organizations.