Category Archives: Games

When Imagination Fails

When imagination fails …

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… peace will not prevail.

War seems to happen when all sides have exhausted their ability to think up imaginative ways of peacefully dealing with their conflict.  Seemed like a fitting title for a blog about miniature wargames and a useful counter point to my blog on gaming nonviolent direct action.

The periods I game tend to be:

  • 1980s NATO/Warsaw Pact land conflict in Europe (1/285th scale)
  • Classical/Hellenistic Greek and Roman naval conflicts (1/900 scale)
  • Babylon 5 star ship battles (~1/5000 scale?)

For now there won't be much here until I have more time.  Too many miniatures to paint in the little spare time I have.

By Will Alone, Current Affairs, Thailand

Thailand – 11 Days and Counting

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Thailand is 11 days into the (largely?) nonviolent attempt to overthrow the current government.  The government opponents escalated the conflict with an attempt to take over the Police HQ and various airports.  They continue the occupation of the prime minister's office building. 

The government reacted by attempting to arrest 9 protest leaders, and tried to evict the protesters from government buildings.

The prime minister said that he would not use force, but, after supporters of his party (which has support largely from the rural areas) attacked the protesters.  The BBC quote is "when a screaming crowd of government supporters – armed with sticks and slingshots – ploughed into a group from the PAD".  Street clashes resulted and the PM called a state of emergency in Bangkok. 

The military doesn't seem eager to get involved with police staying on the sidelines during clashes or attempting to keep the two sides apart.  I haven't had time to look up other sources than the BBC, so it is possible that the military and police are using harsher methods with government supporters since the military overthrew the previous government by the PM's party.

The foreign minister has left the government and the PM has called for a referendum that will "ask a range of questions including whether the
government should resign, whether it should dissolve parliament and
what people thought about the ongoing protests." (BBC)  The protest leaders opposed it, though considering that they don't want an elected parliament, it doesn't seem that surprising.

The BBC has pictures from the latest clashes.

By Will Alone, Games

A thought about what to update in By Will Alone

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Thankfully during my period of inactivity w.r.t. By Will Alone, my subconscious has been thinking.  One thing I need to add is some way to determine who "won".  My subconscious suggested that the winner of a confrontation should get a certain number of "victory" points.  If the winner resorted to violence, then the get fewer "victory" points as they used more violence to win the confrontation. 

The presence of media would serve to magnify the gain or loss.  If the winner was nonviolent, then their points would be magnified.  If they used violence, then the loss of points due to the use of violence would be magnified.

Another possibility would be to weigh the gain or loss depending on who is doing the reporting.  Media friendly to the government would reduce the loss of victory points due to its use of violence.  Media opposing the government would magnify the loss of victory points.

By Will Alone, Games

By Will Alone is Reborn

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Well it has been awhile since I last posted.  I decided that this blog should focus on By Will Alone, my miniatures game on nonviolent direct action.  As a result, I registered the domain bywillalone.org, and pointed it at this site.  Both bywillalone.org and www.bywillalone.org will get here.

So welcome to the reborn site.  Over the next few months I will update the By Will Alone rules and post occasionally about nonviolent direct action – where it is occurring, how to do it, where it might be applied, etc.  Enjoy!

By Will Alone, Strategy & Tactics

Escalating the level of nonviolence

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My son recently engaged in nonviolent direct action when he took over the bathroom after he was denied dessert.  I decided to escalate the level of nonviolence by threatening to deal with one's personal needs in his room.  He relented and I ended up reading him Saul Alinsky's retelling of the threatened O'Hare Airport Poop-in .  We both laughed very hard and a lesson was learned, hopefully.

By Will Alone, Games

1st Convention Game of By Will Alone

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After two playtests of the rules, I finally ran a convention game using the By Will Alone rules at Havoc XXIII. The rules can be found at the rules website. While pictures from the game are here.

A good time was had by all, but more remains to be done including:

  • polish the rule book;
  • improve the winning conditions;
  • possibly revise the conflict results to better deal with prolonged fraternization and the effectiveness of violence by authority forces;
  • write up scenarios.
By Will Alone, Games

By Will Alone rules / Havoc game playtests

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I'll be running a play test of my nonviolent action rules, By Will Alone, on Sunday, April 1st.  It will likely at my house. 

On Sunday, April 15th, I will be running a play test of my Havoc game, In the shadow of Gdańsk, at the Hobby Bunker in Malden.  Here is the game description:

Solidarność (Soldarity) rejoices its success at reversing Jaruzelski's attempt to impose martial law in Poland.  While coup plotters flee to the Soviet Union, the Warsaw Pact invades.  With NATO unable and unwilling to intervene, union workers and their allies ready
themselves to stop the onslaught with the only tools at their disposal: their wits and determination.

Please contact me if you would like to help play test the rules and/or game at jokeefe at(nospam) jamesokeefe dot org.  Thanks!