Welcome to the first article about People Power, Insurgency in the Philippines, 1983-1986, Volume XI of GMT’s popular COIN series! This journey started almost as soon as the first COIN volume – Andean Abyss was released back in 2012. It was designer Volko Ruhnke’s third published design, and I was already a big fan of his previous contributions: Wilderness War and Labyrinth. I saw Wilderness War as another brilliant CDG (as he himself admitted, it was an adaptation of Mark Herman’s We the People) But it was with Labyrinth, where Volko modified the standard CDG mechanics, that Volko really showed me that he just wasn’t an adapter of popular game systems, but also an innovative designer willing to take risks and see them through. One of those risks I respect is the willingness to take on obscure topics such as the French and Indian War and even more precariously, the War on Terror. Colombia and the War on Drugs was probably an even more unpopular topic in the eyes of some, but I had read Mark Bowden’s Killing Pablo as well as watched the documentary that followed later so as far as I was concerned, I could not wait for the release of Andean Abyss.

So I was anticipating another CDG-ish game, but what Volko designed was light years ahead of my expectations. If you’ve played Andean Abyss, you probably know what I’m talking about, but he transformed the CDG mechanic from the basic Ops/Event-based card mechanic to the 4 Operations and 3 Special Activities/Event/Pass for Resources etc. This became the core engine that runs the COIN series. I was amazed by the system, and already the wheels started spinning in my head to apply that COIN engine to the Philippines during the Marcos era, as well as some other contemporary and modern insurgencies such as Peru, Nicaragua, Liberia, and so on.

That same year I was able to meet Volko face to face in Tempe, Arizona at the annual Consimworld Expo Monstercon, just as public playtesting for Volume 3 – A Distant Plain was getting underway. Volko and I hit it off right away, and he even showed me a sneak peek for the next COIN release – Cuba Libre. We continued our discussion on the future of the series, including his original plan of designing follow-on COIN games based on Portuguese Angola, Post 9/11 Iraq, among others. But as the next volumes would witness, Volko was responding to other designers’ desire to create COIN series games by modifying his approach to the series from one of a sole designer enterprise into a series of creative partnerships with other designers. This has broadened and deepened the series’ coverage and topic appeal, enhancing the quality of the product line with new ideas while keeping core system consistency and quality control due to Volko’s oversight, support, and guidance.

Only later did I realize that the Philippines during the Marcos era was also one of his original design ideas. Honestly, I must have blanked out, as I thought I had sprouted wings and flew around the convention hall at the time because I was in total disbelief that he was considering such an idea when I mentioned the possibility of designing a COIN game under his tutelage. Volko gave me his blessing, and it was off to get this idea out of my head into something substantial. I also got great encouragement from Volume 2’s co-designer, Jeff Grossman who gave me his story of how his fascination with the Mafia during the Cuban Revolution had inspired him to do the same thing. Too bad that the co-designer of A Distant Plain, Brian Train, wasn’t there, as I really respect and admire his designs. However, I did immerse myself into the ongoing playtest of A Distant Plain at the convention, and I have been involved with almost every playtest of a COIN game since then. I even labeled myself as GMT’s COIN “operator” and will not hesitate to teach anyone interested in playing this revolutionary series.

Currently released COIN Series titles from GMT.

Armed with an idea and bouyed by Volko’s and Jeff’s encouragement, I dove into this project headfirst, heeding Volko’s advice to start with the Factions and their Operations and Special Activities. I was thrilled, as I had already decided who the factions were going to be. I’m not going to kid myself or anyone else for what was or is the main driving force in the choice I made in regards to the topic: I was there. I lived through much of the Marcos era in the Philippines. Ferdinand Marcos was elected President of the Philippines a year before I was born, and he was removed from power a year after my family had emigrated to America. There’s some symmetry in that. Being here gave me an opportunity to look back and also from the outside without any assumed or presumed ideas on that phase of history which, really, marked my life. So, I knew who the 4 Factions were going to be: the Government, the Marxist-Leninist Communist Rebels, the Muslim Separatists, and the eventual victor in the 20 year struggle: The Opposition (as they were labeled back then – the political parties that opposed Marcos especially from the time he declared Martial Law in 1972). There was no need of a right wing insurgency similar to the AUC or Directorio. I was very enthusiastic because I felt that I was combining Factions from the 2^nd and 3^rd volume of the series, namely a despotic, right-wing dictator coupled with a grass-roots left-wing socialist movement (from CL) mashed with a Muslim-based insurgency (from ADP), then introducing a fresh concept – A non-violent Faction which ultimately came out to beat the rest. I thought that since the framework was already there, all I needed to do was to “copy” the concepts so that the game would have the identical roots to the first three games of the series, and then improvise where needed. I then hit the books to do research and even had a thumbnail of the map of the Philippines to get an idea on how I would separate the spaces and voila, all I needed was a catchy title.

Event Card featuring Imelda Marcos (playtest art).

Despite my enthusiasm for the project, I was necessarily grounded by the fact that the Philippines is a very obscure topic. Even during the research, I knew I had to choose events for the Event Cards that placed the country in the context of world events and history. Whether it was a state visit from a foreign leader, or a meeting with a celebrity, or even a commercial event like the Miss Universe Pageant, I had to set the stage. I decided that I could not ignore that the most popular cultural icon most people associate the Philippines with was the former First Lady, Imelda Marcos. Whether admired or derided, she is no doubt someone who brings attention to the subject of the Philippines, whether it be good or bad. So, I decided to name the game Iron Butterfly, because it seemed at the time to serve both as a metaphor that described both the conflicting but combined nature of her appearance and intentions as well as how the Philippines can be described as a whole.

I soon finished most of the preliminary design of the game, and was ready for showing it to Volko that same winter in his home state of Virginia. I was visiting family and he was very accommodating to meet and discuss my first attempt at a COIN game. After examining the game, Volko did not mince words: it really needed more work. At that time, he was working on his 3rd collaboration in regards to the next volume of the series: No. 4 – Fire in the Lake with a little-known designer in the gaming world, Mark Herman. Of course I jest, but little did I know that their game would signal the eventual demise of Iron Butterfly.

Iron Butterfly game map (playtest art).

After meeting with Volko, it was back to the drawing board. Looking back, I can see why it needed a whole lot of work. The game had LOCs and they were not defined very well in terms of the functions. The Event Cards had symbols that would confuse players not immersed in Filipino politics. There also were several game mechanics which served more as a distraction than something that would generate interest. For the record, they were the Governance Track (which affected the amount of US Aid),  a Prison Box (where the cylinders could end up), and finally, “Split” cards that weakened Factions due to infighting or an outright break from the faction’s central base (like the MILF card which actually stands for “Moro Islamic Liberation Front”). I modified some and outright eliminated others and then I was ready to take the game on the road for testing. I took it to game club meetings and game conventions during the following year, which included another jaunt to Tempe and one that would be my first and so far only time to attend: The WBC. And lo and behold, I got involved in another playtest with both designers of Fire in the Lake. I actually played more of FitL than I showed my own game to the public at that convention, but I can now say with some humility that I was awed and intimidated at the same time. I was a dwarf surrounded by giants in the hobby I love. Thus, a seed of doubt had been planted that kept sprouting. It was a quiet but persistent voice whispering that I had no business having a seat at the table with these industry talents. Yet, it was also a wake-up call, as I saw various ways in which my game needed to get better. Volko and I continued our discussion and even though I continued to chip away at the game to improve it, and almost all the people who had played Iron Butterfly so far only had good things to say – I continued to feel a sense of dissatisfaction with the design.

Volko and GMT continued to add COIN games to their product mix, and they all extended and expanded and even modified the series. In my view, both A Distant Plain and Fire in the Lake had broken the COIN mold of a single government player against three insurgent Factions. What implications did that have for my budding design? Another addition to the line was to have long-lasting repercussions; to the series and to Iron Butterfly. At that time, news was circulating inside the GMT design community that a new designer had a COIN series game. As I learned more about that design, it seemed a little odd to me at the time that someone was taking the COIN series out of the 20^th and 21^st centuries and setting it during the birth of the United States. The idea that COIN could be used as a platform to tell the tale of America’s own insurgency, the one that made the thought of our nation into a reality, was intriguing to say the least. Yet, even with my doubts about my design’s readiness, I figured that Iron Butterfly, perhaps due to all the work I put in, would be the next volume after Fire in the Lake (what we called “COIN Vietnam”). Imagine my disappointment then when Gene announced that Liberty or Death, designed by Harold Buchanan, was chosen for COIN Volume V instead. Disappointed as I was, I did some self-examination and concluded that this only meant that my game wasn’t ready and that someone else had something viable. I reasoned that Harold was tackling one of my favorite historical periods using my favorite system, so he deserved my help and support. I met Harold at one of the local conventions in the LA area and he immediately won me over. He’s smart and very affable and our hobby is better with him in it. As I’ll explain soon, he was very instrumental in the evolution of my design. I can even say that Harold is the midwife of the game People Power.

In the years during the design of Iron Butterfly and later, People Power, GMT founder Gene Billingsley never wavered in his encouragement, support, and friendship in this endeavor. One day at a special gathering at one of the bi-annual GMT Weekends at the Warehouse, we had what was at that time the most current or future COIN game designers all playing under one roof. Led by Volko, Harold, future designer Marc Gouyon-Rety and myself, we played a game of Iron Butterfly. Though the other designers didn’t say much at the time, I sensed their apprehension in regards to the flaws of Iron Butterfly. Volko was more direct, but also very helpful, as he saw that the Muslim or Moro faction was stuck in Mindanao with no measure of influence on the rest of the map board.

Personally, the Moro faction had always bothered me, presenting one glaring problem. No matter how hard I tried to find it, there was NOTHING in any of my resources both from books I had gathered or Internet data about conflict between the Communist forces in Mindanao and their Moro insurgent counterpart. I had been mesmerized by the ideological differences, which came at a head in the war between the Soviets against their Afghan Mujahedeen adversaries. There was even an Event Card I had included which describes Moro volunteers sent to fight against the Russians in Afghanistan. Surely, it must have carried over? Well, you can’t argue with facts or at least, evidence to the contrary. Though they weren’t partners or even allies of convenience, there is one tale where they both traded arms – they never fought each other even tacitly, not in Mindanao, not in the Philippines.

Then the thought occurred to me, if I was artificially arbitrating that idea in Iron Butterfly, what others have I been artificially adding to add to the game just to justify certain game mechanics and not historical content? Wasn’t I artificially grafting Operations and Special Activities from Andean Abyss, Cuba Libre, and A Distant Plain into Iron Butterfly to create a COIN game  and transplanting it to another locale instead of using that locale to showcase the COIN system? Essentially I was creating a clone of those games and just putting another face on it. I’d heard of Cuba Libre being described as a mini-Andean Abyss when it first came out but I disagree, as both had elements of a left-wing, right-wing insurgency, plus a criminal element taking center stage. Batista was operating under the realm of the Cold War but Samper, Pastrana and Uribe were not. But I had written Batista as Marcos, Castro and FARC as the NPA and the Warlords, and Taliban as the Moros. Fire in the Lake didn’t treat the VC as the FARC or Castro, they were the VC and the NVA were the NVA.  And both FitL and ADP also showed that allies on face value did not need to share the same goals, which did not fit my plan with Iron Butterfly. Liberty or Death showed me that the COIN series is not limited to only modern post WW2 insurgencies as Falling Sky and Pendragon (though at this stage, I had known it by a different name) have shown. Armed with that knowledge, I resolved to craft Iron Butterfly into something unique in itself that does the subject matter justice to COIN and vice versa. Gene had already set things in motion by giving me an advisor in that enterprise: Harold Buchanan.

At this juncture, I approached Volko with the idea of starting from scratch. As rich as the original idea for Iron Butterfly was, I decided that instead of telling the whole story of the entire Marcos presidency, I would concentrate solely on its downfall. In doing so, everything that would not disappear; would instead, shrink. One of the decisions was to make it the first three-player COIN game, in order to fix the “Moro” problem. This is where Harold made a distinct impact. He came up with two suggestions – run them as a bot but even better, unite both insurgent movements into one faction. He also came up with a solution to the Sequence of Play adjusted for three players, which I promise to relate in detail later on. Other than that, the decision to reduce the game’s scope also meant less Election (Propaganda, Winter Quarters et al) cycles, less cards, a smaller map, and even less spaces. This was the consequence of reducing a story that was 21 years in the making into just three years, with the Aquino assassination as the starting point instead of the election of Marcos. In doing so, virtually everything that made Iron Butterfly an elaborate project was downsized to something simple but not simplistic. Due to the decrease in size, scope, and playing time, I reasoned that the game could now serve as one of the introductions to the COIN series.

With that in mind, Iron Butterfly as a title, as much as I really liked the conflicting yet dramatic term (even though it also brings images of a certain rock group and song), had to be replaced. The spotlight and weight of the story had shifted from those in power to the adherents of democratic reform who not only toppled that “Iron” but also supplanted it. Without a better alternative and term that fits with the story it brought to history; People Power became the right choice.

That decision was roughly two years ago. Since then, I’ve made some adjustments in regards to certain Operations and Special Activities as well as Events. I’ve also added a Personality Card mini-hand which will only enhance the gaming experience as well as giving this historic event ample justice. It took a few more months to streamline the design, but it did pay off in the end. Once again, I made the game convention rounds and this time people really liked this version of the Philippines COIN game. Finally, I got that email from Volko and following that, a call from Gene. He gave me the green light to move forward toward P500 readiness, and suggested that I get a developer to help me helm the project. Without hesitation, two words came out of my mouth: Eric Harvey. He has a well-deserved reputation as a designer in his own right outside GMT, and he and I had collaborated on other projects. Eric was the one I wanted to partner with in this endeavor to develop and finish my game. He had never played a COIN game before, which I believed was a plus and not a negative, as he would approach the project without any set expectations or standards. He assisted me in editing the rules and they are now much sharper and clearer. He is also a talented graphics artist when it comes to game components and has already made a substantial contribution by replacing my hand-drawn map with a graphic masterpiece that can be seen on the game’s web page. It debuted last November at Harold’s annual SDHistcon with series creator Volko Ruhnke in attendance. The circle was now complete.

People Power playtested at SDHistcon (playtest art).

More People Power playtesting at SDHistCon.

Looking back now, I’m glad that Iron Butterfly wasn’t Volume 4 or 5 or ever released. I think in the end, it would have served no one, including myself. It took time for me to absorb many lessons along this road, but I learned that I needed to curb my enthusiasm and proceed with good common sense and accept that all good things come to those who wait. Understanding and perseverence are key. So, with Volko’s blessing, Harold’s contribution, Gene’s approval, and finally Eric’s assistance,People Power, Insurgency in the Philippines, 1983-1986 is now Volume XI of the COIN series!

Author: Kenneth Tee