BUZKASHI GAME DESIGN COMPETITION (BGDC)
"It's better to come home stained with blood than safe and sound as a coward."
- a Buzkashi player
Disclaimer: I do not claim to be an expert on Buzkashi. This brief background is presented to whet your appetite. Additional references are provided below. Do not feel constrained to stick to my summary in creating your design - rely on your own research to decide how you would game Buzkashi!
The Basics of the Sport
Buzkashi is a sport that has been played by the horsemen of Afghanistan for hundreds of years. Early forms are believed to have had virtually no rules. While modern government sanctioned games have attempted to impose some basic rules, the game often appears to be a free-for-all to foreign spectators. Buzkashi is considered the national game of Afghanistan. Despite attempts to modernize it, the game is still steeped in old traditions.
The essence of the organized form of Buzkashi is fairly straightforward. Teams of riders on horseback start circled around a sack or ball. After the starting signal sounds, each rider seeks to move into the circle and pick up the ball, ride off at a breakneck pace down the field and around a flag post, and then back down the field to deposit the ball into a white circle marked on the field.
There are some additional details that complicate the matter. For one, in the more informal game, it is said that any means short of guns or knives may be used to impede the rider with the ball. The rider carrying the ball will be constantly accosted by other riders attempting to grab the ball away from him. The riders carry whips which are used against the other riders and horses. Riders are often dismounted, but a dismounted rider may get back into the game on any riderless horse. Sometimes the fray will even enter the crowd or stands at the edges of the Buzkashi field! Injuries are considered to be part and parcel of the competition - ranging from whip lacerations to broken bones. Amidst the chaos and clouds of dust, you have a rough and tumble contest where the ball may be ripped away from a rider only to be dropped by the next, starting a new melee as the horsemen converge on it and try to pick it up.
It is no surprise that Buzkashi is said to require the highest degree of courage, horsemanship and physical strength.
There is one detail of the sport that may be objectionable to some, but please put on your anthropological hat for this and recognize that the game originated with rural peoples who would tend to view animals in a more utilitarian sense than you might. The "ball" traditionally used in Buzkashi is the body of a decapitated goat or calf which is soaked in water overnight to make it more durable and frequently stuffed with sand to make it heavier.
(My editorial comments: It seems that anyone who has ever played a game with a leather ball shouldn't be too critical about the "ball" used in Buzkashi. In addition, just as nobody is actually getting harmed in the conflict or survival boardgames that many of us regularly play with no qualms, no animals are harmed in the design and play of a Buzkashi game. However, if you absolutely must, feel free to "substitute" an appropriately shaped burlap sack or other contrivance as the "ball" in your game design. Something like this would surely be required if this sport eventually ends up in the Olympics. I won't editorialize any further on this point, and would ask the same in return. My hope is that this factual aspect of the sport would not put off any interested designers!)
Here are some common Buzkashi terms you will want to be familiar with:
chapandaz - These are the best riders as determined by success in prior games. They wear chapan coats and a fox fur hats.
boz - The goat or calf.
hallal - The Circle of Justice, the goal marked as a white circle on the field to which the boz must be brought to win or score.
buzkashi - The name of the game, sometimes seen with different spellings, is said to literally translate as "goat grabbing."
References in Film and Literature
To best understand Buzkashi, I would highly recommend that you see the ten minute game sequence featured early in director John Frankenheimer's film The Horsemen (1971), which is now available on DVD. While you may not care for the rest of the film, hopefully you will find the Buzkashi sequence worth the price of a rental - Roger Ebert remarked that it compared with the chariot race from Ben Hur. No matter how dramatic a photo you find online, it will not live up to watching the Buzkashi game portrayed in the film. Frankenheimer commented in an interview that actual Buzkashi players were used in the making of the film, noting that the riders just wanted to get out there and play the game the way they actually played it. The film portrays a Royal Buzkashi held in Kabul, and I have read that filming was done during an actual government sponsored match.
Frankenheimer's film was based on Joseph Kessel's 1968 novel The Horsemen (originally published in French as Les Cavaliers). While the book offers some background on Buzkashi, there does not appear to be much material about the sport that you would not otherwise be able to find online. One exception I noted is that Kessel describes the field having a triangular course, with two flags to be rounded before returning to the goal. The match in the book is between three teams of twenty riders each.
Finally, there is a brief Buzkashi sequence in Rambo III, but I don't think there is much to be gained from it. If you have the film sitting around, you might want to take a look, but it is nowhere near as exciting (or exacting) as the sequence from The Horsemen. Of course, nobody goes to a Rambo film for the accurate details, right?
All three of these sources illustrate that Buzkashi is not just an ancient sport. It was alive throughout the twentieth century, just as it lives on today (as described in the articles linked below).
The Nature of a Buzkashi Boardgame
The transitional nature of Buzkashi throughout its history offers quite a few options for a boardgame, card game, etc. Over time the sport has gained more structure and rules. Matches can be large or small. Attempts to sanitize the sport for Olympic purposes have toned down the violence, while the earlier versions have the flavor of a real (rather than made for TV) "ultimate" fighting competition. In light of Buzkashi's history of free form play, a designer will be left with some license to pick and choose which "rules" to include.
A simpler game could involve a straightforward race with the boz around the far flag and back to the Circle of Justice, with basic mechanics for stealing the boz away from other riders. On the other hand, a more detailed treatment could consider factors such as the advantages of skilled riders, quality of horses, whipping attacks, dismounted riders, riderless horses, riding into the crowds, etc. While there is a lot of chrome that can be incorporated into a Buzkashi boardgame, the challenge would be to avoid bogging down the game and losing the speed and excitement of the sport. Another challenge will be to incorporate the reversals of fortune found in the capture and loss of the boz without leaving players feeiling that their strategy is consistently trumped by the luck of the draw.
These comments only begin to touch on the numerous possibilities that the sport of Buzkashi presents to the game designer. It will be left to the ingenuity of the designers to choose what aspects of the sport they wish to highlight, as well as the proper mechanics and format. A look at existing sports games shows the amount of variety that is possible in the genre.
Reference Materials
I have compiled a number of links to articles and photos that may be helpful, both for background and as inspiration. Many of the photographs are particularly awe inspiring, and give you an idea of the "gymnastics" the riders go through attempting to grab or hold the boz. (Although none seem to quite rise to the level of the film The Horsemen - where you see riders leaning across another rider's horse trying to grab the boz away while galloping down the field!)
Please note: The reference page includes images which accurately depict the sport of Bozkashi. Contrary to some overstated reports, the field and players are not left heavily bloodstained from the boz (at least not in the photos I have seen). If anything, most of the competitors end up wearing their own blood. However, if photos of the carcass of a calf or goat would upset you, then this competition may not be for you. If anyone would be interested in a "sanitized" reference site, please contact me by BGG mail and I will put such a page together if there is sufficient interest. Thanks!
My Buzkashi Game Design Competition reference page is posted at:
http://www.themaverick.us/buzkashi/
Good luck!
Last edited on 2005-04-06 09:38:59 CST (Total Number of Edits: 4)
Posted Sun Feb 27, 2005 5:30 pm
damm! then NO "Monkey-Jockeys riding DOGS and Racing while being 'bet upon'!"? 
