In this new blog series Drs. Michael Toomey, Andrew Judge, and Jenny Morrison (all University of Glasgow) explore how board games can be used as effective pedagogical tools to bring abstract concepts to life in the classroom. Each entry focuses on a specific game, outlining its mechanics, practical classroom applications, and any possible adaptions or limitations to its use within a standard seminar set up. In examining individual games, they aim to provide a support resource for educators seeking to experiment with games as part of their classroom activities, as well as engage critically with when and why we might use games within teaching. This month we continue with guest contributor Patrick Shea’s People Power, a game about political economy and conflict.
When I ask my students in the first class session in my Political Economy of Conflict course why conflicts happen, the answers tend to centre on power and territory. These answers are understandable, but they limit our ability to assess the motivations, strategies, and consequences for those involved in conflict. People Power: Insurgency in the Philippines, 1981-1986 is a board game that helps highlight the different political economy elements of conflict.
How does it work?
Designed by Ken Tee, People Power is part of GMT Games’ COIN (Counterinsurgency) series — a family of wargames that share gameplay mechanics across a range of historical conflicts. In this game, each player controls one of three factions: the Marcos Government, the insurgent New People’s Army (NPA), and the nonviolent Reformers. Each faction pursues asymmetric goals — the Government seeks territorial control and patronage, the NPA builds resistance through guerrilla operations, and the Reformers shift popular opinion through activism. Each turn, a card is drawn from an event deck that determines both the order in which factions may act and a historical event that players can choose to trigger. Factions that act on one card must pass on the next, forcing difficult decisions about when to act and when to wait. The game is organised into two Campaigns that culminate in Election Rounds, where victory is checked, resources are redistributed, and popular support can shift.
Guest Contributor to the Serious Play Review Board: Patrick Shea
Applications for teaching
People Power invokes many themes that arise in political and social science classrooms: governance, external support, social movements, and state capacity. Most importantly for my purposes, the game illustrates how different actors have distinct motives and pursue fundamentally different strategies. It also shows how violence can fulfil certain strategic objectives, and how it cannot accomplish others.
The asymmetric goals are the game’s most pedagogically valuable feature. The Government seeks patronage and foreign aid, the NPA builds parallel governance in areas of state absence, and the Reformers compete for popular opinion rather than territory. Players cannot win by treating the conflict as a single contest over the same prize.
Adaptations
The primary challenge with People Power is complexity and time. Even as the most accessible entry in the COIN series, the fact that each faction has its own objectives and unique set of actions means that rules explanation takes longer than a typical board game. A full game through two Campaigns will exceed two hours with new players.
Until now, I have only incorporated design elements from COIN games into a shorter, purpose-built simulation[1] that condenses asymmetric conflict dynamics into a format that runs in under an hour. Going forward, I intend to make People Power a recurring element of the course. The approach involves scaffolding the game across the semester: as students encounter course concepts — rebel governance, hearts and minds, the role of foreign aid — these are flagged as actions they will later perform in the game. The game also works well in teams: each faction involves enough strategic complexity that groups of students can debate priorities and collectively decide on a course of action for a specific faction.
For the first play-through, we will start with the first Campaign (election cycle) with instructor support and guidance. After a couple of weeks, with course content designed to complement the game’s themes, the students will take full control in the second Campaign. A reflective exercise after each session asks students to connect their gameplay decisions to the course material and reflect on whether their strategies changed between the two sessions as a result of the intervening course material. The goal is for the game to function not as a one-off activity but as a through-line that gives students a concrete frame of reference for the theoretical material.
For instructors with less time or inclination, a single guided session would be instructive. The game also lends itself to formative assessment: students could produce a short reflective piece connecting their gameplay decisions to course concepts, or compare the strategies available to different factions as a written exercise. These tasks work whether the game is embedded across a semester or used in a single session. Other games in the COIN series could be adapted to focus on other conflicts as well.[2]
Conclusions
People Power’s focus on asymmetric conflict and the interplay between violent and nonviolent strategies makes it a rich resource for teaching civil conflict and political transitions. The game is best suited to Honours and postgraduate students with some background in conflict research, international relations, or political economy. The practical constraints around time and complexity are real, but they reflect the genuine complexity of conflict. With the right course design, they become part of the lesson rather than an obstacle to it.
[1] The simulation was adapted from Stodden, William P. 2012. “Simulating Humanitarian Aid Decision Making in International Relations Classrooms.” PS: Political Science & Politics 45(4): 765–71.
[2] For example, students could play online using Rally the Troops, a free platform hosting a digital adaptation of Andean Abyss (the first game in the COIN series). Andean Abyss was designed by Volko Ruhnke, a CIA analyst and instructor who uses board games to help American officials understand the dynamics of the civil conflicts around the world.