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Module Length: 90 minutes (1230-1400 hours)
Module POC:l l Last Revised: June 2017
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Course Learning Obiectives: At the end of this course, students will be able to:
0 Discuss the manhunting methodology in the context of a highly sophisticated manhunt for
a highly sophisticated target.
0 Execute and assess simulated manhunting and evasion strategies in a tabletop model.
0 Apply the manhunting methodology to chart an analytic and collection way-forward
against a high-value target on which the student has pre-existing expertise.
Module Learning Obiectives ("Key Takeaways"): By the end of this module, students will be able
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' Execute simulated hunting and evasion strategies in a tabletop model.
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Bridge-In and WIIFM: Now that you have seen the video, it is time to play the game! For the next
hour, half of the students will act as Chapo/The Cartel. As Chapo, you will have to evade the
Mexican authorities while fulfilling your personal and organizational needs. The other half of the
students will act as the Hunters, directing intelligence collection and police and Marina actions
against the Cartel. For each round of the game, the Cartel will make moves hidden from the
Hunters, and then the Hunters will make moves against the Cartel. The instructors wilol serve as
facilitators and referees to help guide you through the game. .
Don't get too bogged down trying to understand all the rules. The referee will assist you with any
questions you might have. .
Module Content: Students will play as many rounds as possible for one hour. For each round of
the game, the Cartel will make moves hidden from the Hunters, and then the Hunters will make
moves against the Cartel. The Hunters should uses the Manhunting Methodology in a deliberate
Approved for Release: 2017/11/27 C06712159
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and structured approach toward intelligence collection, target knowledge, and operational
support.
The referee will regulate the game play, but will also facilitate a discussion of strategies and
tactics. At the end of the hour, the students, referee, and facilitator will discuss how the game
played out.
Bridge-Out: Let's take a short break and when you return, we will switch sides and the students
will become the hunters. .
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Each game station table will have the Kingpin boards set up.
Each game station will have an instructor/facilitator playing the game, and an
instructor/facilitator serving as referee.
Each game station will have two copies of the Kingpin Player Aids — one set on the Hunters
side of the table and one set on El Chapo side.
S"'""*a~
Cartel Turn - 3 actions total, max 2 Chapo
Defense actions: '""
Place 1 Defense card
[SS costs 2 actions]
_ _ _ _ QR _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ..
0 Move 1 Defense card Q may move with 1 action a
E may move with 2 actions
Chago actions:
0 Move Chapo
0 Place 1 Needs disc at Chapo
(fulfill a need)*
'Max 1 disc action per turn!
Also — at any time desired
Draw new Needs ___
0
onto
Draw card from deck / 7 a legal Location "-/
P
informants Chapo can act or add defenses before Police act
(zcopies) Arrylomtion Cnrurntmuve
Provision: Chapo can hide once if hunters are onto him
Anyuxution azasyromove
300 Armed Guard: Hunters must uie_extra noiice to capture Chapo
$6 znpensin a as ma mmwe
Heavy Whapons Hunters must se extra police to capture Chapo
$5E1pms've B E 1-lardtorruvve
Fortified House Chapo can ev e imminent capture once
$$&nemv=' Gonnotmove
'
Police "Payroll" Police are less effective where Chapo is paying them
Iltqlies) Anyloculflsn Gzrmotnmve
COMSEC Intelligence collection against Chapo is less effective
(1 moist I AMM ww 0-wv
Disguise Chapo with some difficulty can hide if hunters are onto him
I Always with Chapo
Plastic Surgery Chapo pretty easily can hide if hunters are onto him
ss npamm I Army: with Giopo
r
Chauffeured Car Ch 0 gets around a locale to fulfill needs quickly
worry 5 Eosytomove
Helicopter Chapo can move without delaying other tasks
$$hpmsive Anylomlion B Eoiytomove
Airstrip 8' Plane Chapo when using a defense also hides anywhere
ss £xp¢mIve' Desert Carmntmove
A|l~Terrain Vehicle Gives {Shape axchance to evade imminent capture Myéfl or fr Enrsy to move
Escapa Tunnel Chapo can evade ca ture and/or hide once
(2 copies) $$£xn2mive Cnnnflfmvvt
Approved for Release: 2017/11/27 C06712159 ;
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Approved for Release: 2017/11/27 C06712159 SESQI7 (b)(3)
Hunter Team (from) Hunter Team mack»
_ -. - - - - - - - - - - _ - - - - -
Hunter Turn —
,. .,
p|3n Cqflggflon 0 Put blue & black pawns k 51 at any locations on map j it
O Put white pawns onto V
'
Nexu5'Supp°rt'°rLead ' - -_- 1'HE~ _ - - - -- - -- -- - --
D0 1
__—_ THEN_—_----—————-—
_ Resolve Police & Marina (any order) Remwe 'mam en": Each pawn" 0 Police Action — Each pawn, on a A-6 lg]
o On face-down Nexus flips it Cartel reveals 3
. 5.:;a2;;;;.:a;;;.:ai;;@@@; 1 'M~=~5~=~'~ed
it on a die roll of 4-6 or chapo hidde" there
0 On faee-up Nexus flips ?
" ' "' OR ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' '
1 i linked Support i EE """""""""""" Take out 1 Need or Defense there; " " " " ' Cartel reveals Chapo if hidden -7- ; Or, at Lead reveals there ("Uta card) /
1 linked hidden
Need or Defense I ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' - ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' " '
¢ Marina Strike
Same as above, without rolling ""' '# mam
Leads markers on cards show where $513' - - - - QR - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - --
Cartel has linked assets hidden At green pawn on map,
- — — - (oven) — - - - - - - — - - - capture Chapol ngQ
Each game station will have a copy of the Kingpin Rules of Play.
Approved for Release: 2017/11/27 C06712159
Are you done bending over for this b****?
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We Asked Game Designers If the CIA's El Chapo Board Game Is Any Good
By Michael Gaynor
March 30, 2018, 9:30am
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When you hear about the Central Intelligence Agency releasing a cache of declassified documents via Freedom of Information Act request, you probably envision sordid, heavily redacted tales of black ops sites and deep-cover spies. And sure, there's a little bit of that revealed through this series of FOIA requests by entrepreneur Douglas Palmer, but they're not real-life spies: this is the secret world of the CIA's board games.
The documents detail the set-up and rules for two of the agency's in-house tabletop creations, Kingpin: The Hunt for El Chapo and Collection Deck. In addition to rulebooks, there's also pages of components and materials for the enterprising gamer to print out and play on their own. But are these games any good? And how could they possibly help the work of agents and officers out in Langley? For some insight, I asked two professional board game designers, Jason Matthews and Dominic Crapuchettes, to read over the documents and give their opinions.
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Image: CIA
"There's good game design going on in there," Crapuchettes, designer at North Star Games, which publishes Wits & Wagers, Evolution, and more, said about Kingpin. The game reenacts the 2014 manhunt for drug lord Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán. It pits a team of "hunters" against "the cartel," as one group collects intelligence and deploys pawns representing law enforcement across a map of western Mexico, while the bad guys try to evade capture and keep their boss happy by playing certain cards and rolling dice.
Revealed in the FOIA documents are a handful of slightly revised rulebooks for the game, something that Crapuchettes points to as evidence of a careful and dedicated designer. "That's clearly from playtesting and caring about it and working hard," he said. "It's probably the number one thing you need to have a good game, is someone who loves games. And this clearly is done by people who love games."
Kingpin is co-developed by Volko Ruhnke who, when he's not serving as an "intelligence educator" at the CIA, is also known for designing several popular commercial board games, including Labyrinth: The War on Terror, 2001-?, and Cuba Libre. "We use a real-world historical case…to improve our analysts' own mental models of how to help hunt down such 'hard target' fugitives from justice," Ruhnke wrote in a statement included in the FOIA response.
Notes on the game design. Image: CIA
Jason Matthews, designer of politically themed games like 1960: The Making of the President, Campaign Manager 2008, and the exalted Twilight Struggle, believes Kingpin's game mechanics can work a valuable educational tool for a place like the CIA.
"I think it would compel new analysts to start thinking about interrelationships and countermeasures, and do so in a way that's both educational and fun." He thinks it succeeds at accomplishing the goal laid out in the game's introduction to "familiarize intelligence analysts with manhunting methodology."
But, Matthews says, it's clear that both games are for education first, and fun second. "If you were going to try and make them commercial games, they'd require a couple of rounds of refinement to increase the 'gaminess' of them, for lack of a better term," he says. "They're not focused so much on giving players the satisfaction of winning and losing."
Crapuchettes notices that education-first aspect in Kingpin's "referee" role, a sort-of neutral moderator that makes sure certain secret information like dice rolls remain hidden to the correct players. It seems to be meant to be played by an Agency instructor overseeing the game, rather than a player looking to have a good time. "If you had a group of friends that want to play, there's likely not someone who wants to moderate—that's probably not really the fun job," he said. "It'd be something you'd want an app to do."
Image: CIA
Another game revealed in the documents is Collection Deck, designed by CIA senior collection analyst David Clopper. In remarks accompanying the FOIA, Clopper compares his creation to collectable-card games like Magic: The Gathering, with players using a hand of "Collection Technique" cards to solve global crises like "Macedonia Ethnic Violence" and "China Cyber Warfare."
"In a strange way, even though it's a simple card game, it has more of a role-playing component," says Matthews, of Collection Deck. "When you play your cards out, someone can demand that you make up a story for how your cards actually fit together."
Role-playing, which bring to mind games like Dungeons & Dragons, seems a far cry from what you'd expect national-security officers to train with. The Defense Department has long been known for "wargaming," or simulations of battles that might involve moving troop figurines and counters across hexes and maps. But Matthews sees Collection Deck as evidence that role-playing, which values decision-making over rolling dice and placing counters, might be supplanting those more standard training games.
"I think ultimately they found that your capacity to play a wargame of the traditional kind was not as helpful as practicing the mental-muscle memory of making decisions under pressure," he says. "Because that's the skill that you really need. Someone else is going to figure out odds ratios and that sort of thing. The skill you need to practice is the one you need to make a decision."
So the experts agree, these games are pretty good, and succeed as educational tools. But how would they fare in the commercial retail market?
"I would never expect to see this on the shelf of Target or Walmart—ever," says Crapuchettes, who says he's bombarded with board game pitches constantly. But, he says, if someone brought his company Kingpin, he'd be interested in marketing it from the clandestine-agency angle: "If they said, 'Oh I work at the CIA and this is what we do,' I'd want to know more. Now there's a marketing hook that I can take to a wider group of people."
Matthews, too, sees a market for Kingpin, especially among the wargame/simulation crowd. The only drawback, though, is one you wouldn't expect from a game developed inside the CIA: it's not complicated enough.
"Most of the rules were contained in that game in five pages," said Matthews. "There are rulebooks for contemporary wargames that will go on for 50 pages."
It looks like the CIA needs to spend more time gaming.
Tagged:
Board GamesCiaDrugsEl ChapoGamingMotherboardTech
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