Mr. President and the Burden of History

GMT’s 2023 solitaire epic Mr. President: The American Presidency, 2001-2020 has my soul vibrating. I put off playing this thing for months as its complexity is wearying, even when just fumbling through the stacks of counter sheets and half dozen printed booklets. My first session took over an hour to setup. My first play nearly 10 to complete. But it’s absolutely dominated my thoughts. This is not a review of Mr. President. In some ways, this is not even about Mr. President.

Despite my fascination with this unique game, there is something at the heart of it that is unfortunate. Something that is not at all unique to this title. Overtly, it highlights how historical games are sometimes burdened with their adherence to verisimilitude. The history itself serves as a shackle, limiting creativity and serving as an excuse to diminish.

This groundbreaking release that is full of creativity, like many that have come before it, is sadly primitive in its ideology.

It would have been trivial to call this game POTUS or The President. Your character’s sex or gender is never a factor. The cover, illustrations, and graphic design – in all other respects – could have remained the same. But this did not occur. Because our President has always been a man.

I’ve read designer Gene Billingsley’s comments on the matter. I can understand how he carried this title through many years of development and now feels like he can’t let it go. I’m the type of person who tries to keep an open mind and I am sometimes known, perhaps inappropriately, to play the devil’s advocate in a conversation. I also find it useful to steelman counterarguments to my own views as well. You can see this in some of my reviews where I address points of contention. I’m having a difficult time steelmanning Billingsley’s argument. It’s a weak one. Being attached to something doesn’t excuse it. There is more work in adhering to this philosophy than in understanding and sympathizing with the opposite viewpoint.

There’s just no good reason.

Besides historicity.

Historicity is important. I’ve spent much time aggravated over details such as the M1-Carbine in Sergeants Miniatures Game being fully automatic when it should be semi-automatic. It is also painful routinely seeing games goof up geography or include mythical creatures that turn out to be fake Wikipedia entries. There’s a level of respect to all source material, including history and culture, that needs to be maintained.

While what I want shouldn’t matter to a designer with a vision, I don’t typically desire re-interpretations of historical details that undermine a period’s integrity. But this isn’t that. A woman has won the popular vote. Allowing for the player to assume the role of a woman President only barely qualifies as alternate history. This game is heavily predicated on immersing yourself in a role, a role which is being narrowly restricted under the guise of historicity. There’s an underlying sense that the notion of a modern woman President is far too unrealistic. In a game that’s explicitly a “what if?” story generator, the “if” can’t be a non-male President.

The problem here isn’t Mr. President. That’s just a symptom. The problem is that the larger historical and wargaming community have broadly agreed that premise authenticity is important, while outcome authenticity is less so. It’s something that’s not often discussed, just taken for granted.

Undaunted: Stalingrad is a prime example. A contingent of hobbyists complained that women in the game are far too prevalent in the makeup of the Red Army. But these same people have no issue with the German Wehrmacht steamrolling the Soviets and winning a decisive victory at little cost. Additionally, it’s perfectly acceptable if Pavlov’s house falls immediately after being fortified rather than remaining defiant for 60 days as it actually did. Likewise, no one criticizes Axis & Allies for allowing the Japanese to conquer North America. Or for Twilight Struggle to end in nuclear disaster.

There’s a general consensus that alterations to history can only occur as a byproduct of player agency within a certain set of parameters. This does not include altering details of the premise, unless that is explicitly the goal of the game such as in an alternate history title or of course in the genre of science fiction.

The reason why Twilight Struggle can end in catastrophe is because it’s a plausible outcome. We can reasonably see it so. In fact, Vasily Arkhipov’s valiant act just narrowly averted nuclear war. Of course it could have happened, and any reasonable person can see the merits in allowing that as a permissible outcome of play.

But a woman President in the first two decades of the 2000s is not plausible. At least, that’s the type of argument ingrained in the premise. Billingsley may not intend this, but to those on the outside looking in, the message is clear. We see similar points of contention whenever a minority or marginalized group is represented above statistical norms in historical games (see again, Undaunted). Often, it’s shameful and the historicity inadvertently serves as an excuse for a subset of vocal supporters to diminish others.

It’s disheartening.

In 2020 I discovered a video game called Escape from Tarkov. This multiplayer online shooter is the hardest-of-core. It’s brutal and innovative, with the team at Battlestate Games creating an entire genre with their work. Several studios have tried to copy the formula and make their own extraction shooters, but they haven’t found the same success. Escape From Tarkov has become my favorite video game ever made, and there’s nothing quite like it.

Yet every time I fire up Tarkov, I feel guilty. This is because Battlestate Games refuse to allow the creation of female characters in the game. COO and Director Nikita Buyanov has stated that this will never happen due to game lore and women not fitting the role of a military contractor. This is a game that allows you to mend broken bones on the battlefield, starve to death after 50 minutes of play, and rub Vaseline on your lips to reduce the crippling in-game pain effects from being shot. But a woman? That’s a bridge too far.

The truth is that certain things are held sacred, while other details are inconsequential. Premise authenticity is the former, where many designers and producers feel that you must start from a position of realism. And then it nearly immediately transitions to creative discretion. If the CSA end up winning at Gettysburg? Right-o. Interesting, even. Realism is constantly redefined or adapted to fit preconceived notions as well as the creator’s political and philosophy underpinnings.

Should I feel guilty playing these games? Is that useful? Is this important or am I just rambling into the wind?

I know I shouldn’t feel good.

I don’t want that sense of indecency every time I sit down to play Tarkov or Mr. President. I want to praise these games for their systems and artistry. I want to write about them and feel good by spreading their awareness. I want to be a fan.

I originally was going to include the spirit of this essay as a single point in my eventual review of Mr. President. After reflection, I felt it needed to stand alone as it’s an issue that supersedes that title and is endemic in the genre of historical gaming.

This philosophy of marginalizing in the name of realism needs to be spotlighted and challenged. Mr. President is not a mannerly title. We need to unshackle ourselves from the weight of manufactured authenticity. I’m not arguing that Combat Commander should have a woman on the cover, or that Napoleon should be black on the box of Through the Ages. But surely, women serving in the Red Army or occupying the office of POTUS is plausible, if not realistic. This is not so much alternate history as it is just plain decency.