Connections Online – Practical Game Design presentation on Youtube
April 12, 2021 Leave a comment
Ludic Futurism
April 12, 2021 Leave a comment
April 11, 2021 1 Comment
Nick Mizer, who I first met in connection with the national conference of the Popular Culture Association several years ago (Bored of War… and News Paper Games) recently sent me an “Invitation to Collaborate” to the Bradley Tabletop Games Symposium, an online event to be held 21-22 May, 2021.
The Symposium is itself a collaboration between the Interactive Media Department of Bradley University and the Games and Simulation Arts and Sciences Program of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, where Nick is currently teaching. First, this event is quite welcome because it focuses on tabletop games; people have heard me often enough moaning about how the academic field of Game Studies is wilfully ignorant of its analog past and all it still has to teach. Second, this event is unusual because it is designed to be a collaborative event, a collection of events and sessions between the interdisciplinarian individuals involved in the field without the formal structure of keynote speakers, presentation of prepared papers, or scheduled fun-time events (that is, you’ll have to provide your own wine and charcuterie).
In wargames, a zone of control refers to the area of restricted movement and activity that occurs when two units become adjacent. As a theme for the first of these tabletop symposia “Zones of Connection” expresses our belief that bringing together a diversity of emerging voices and perspectives on tabletop games has much to offer through the connections that can be forged, interpersonally, emotionally, and intellectually.
Have a look at the invitation to collaborate document here Bradley Tabletop Games Symposium – Invitation to Collaborators and note that rather than submitting abstracts, they are asking for ideas for sessions (to be formatted as workshops, roundtables, panels and seminars but with as much audience participation as possible). If you have an idea for something you would like to participate in, let them know at the link in the document. Deadline for submissions is 26 April 2021.
To give you a further idea of what they might want to see, here are some topics of interest:
There must be something in all this to interest you!
Personally, I was interested in the speculative futures/ alternate histories topic and am considering submitting a suggestion for a session on that, related to this:
One thing that tweaked me while working on the games-as-journalism piece for the Eurowargames anthology was the section on games on hypothetical wars produced in the 80s, mainly on a Third World War. Regardless of whether you thought that was a farfetched event at the time, it did occupy a lot of interest – at the time. But over the last 10 years or so there has been a resurgence of new games coming out that study that same subject – a Soviet invasion of Europe in the mid-1980s (examples include the World at War series (2007 – 2015), Corps Command: Dawn’s Early Light (2010), Red Tide West (2014), Brezhnev’s War (2018), 1985: Under an Iron Sky (2018), Less than 60 Miles (2019), Red Tide South (2019), and The Fulda Gap: the Battle for the Center (2020)).
Nostalgia for an actual past that one remembers imperfectly is one thing. But nostalgic game design to commemorate a then-hypothetical future that is now a fictional past, it seems to me is a strange inversion of historiography indeed, and an additional twist beyond the approach taken by the designers of Twilight Struggle (where the disproved “domino theory” is consciously used in the game as the logic and incentive for players to act, within their roles as world leaders during the Cold War). So it’s a recreation of a hypothetical future from our past, but what kind of “retrofuturism” is it?
I can’t decide what it is; like always, it’s probably a little bit of everything, varying with the individual. It’s just something I’ve noticed and find perplexing, and while it’s pretty narrow I wonder if there are similar veins in other types of tabletop games.
April 7, 2021 Leave a comment
Tomorrow!
I’ll join Maurice Fitzpatrick on his podcast, with Brant Guillory and others to talk about the Connections franchise of annual conferences on professional wargaming – its past, present (online for now) and future.
The Connections Online conference is next week, registration is open, and the schedule and events thereto are filling up.
Hey, don’t forget I will be talking about the practicalities of game physical design with Mike Markowitz on Monday, April 12 at 1500 EDT!
Connections North (the Canadian variant) is in the past, the US conference is 22-25 June (special theme: Ethics in Wargaming) and the Connections-UK conference has been moved forward two weeks from its usual time (14-16 September). All will be online events, For The Duration Of Viral Hostilities. Meanwhile, keep up with developments on the Facebook group:
https://www.facebook.com/ConnectionsWargaming
March 25, 2021 Leave a comment
The Connections Online conference on professional wargaming will be a virtual event.
Details, registration link and a preliminary schedule are here: https://www.armchairdragoons.com/connections/
All core Connections Online events will take place from 12-14 April, each day 1000 – 1600 EDT(UTC -4). All core events will be recorded and available for future viewing.
A livestream of the conference and the recordings will be free and open to all, but you can register to get access to a whole lot more. A small fee of $5 will be charged to partially cover the IT expenses. Registration cost includes:
Oh, and what about those extended conference events you may ask? Well, from 10-18 April there will be many smaller focused events during and to either side of the core hours and dates. Details are still being worked out about these but will include game demonstrations, presentations, and activities similar to the famous “game lab” event where we work in small groups to brainstorm and explore how to game or model certain topics or issues, or general approaches to and utility of games and modelling.
If you are interested in serious games (and this term is definitely not limited to military wargaming!) you should check this out.
This is the latest addition to the Connections franchise of professional wargaming events. Connections-US, the original and American version of the conference will be in June and will also be a virtual event. I’ll post more about that later as details are firmed up. Readers of this and the Paxsims blog will know that there are also Australian, Canadian, Dutch and UK conferences along the same themes. I really miss these events in person, I’ve been several times to the US and UK ones and it’s an intense experience. Maybe next year we’ll be back to doing this sort of thing in person – though we have certainly proven the added value of doing as much as possible online, or making things available online.
Anyway, as part of this particular conference on Monday April 12 at 1500 EDT I will be doing a joint presentation with Mike Markowitz on practicalities of DIY game design. Mike, a really smart guy and a better public speaker than I, will talk about graphic design and I will talk about methods of self-publishing. Both are add-ons and developments of the talks we gave to the Georgetown University Wargaming Society recently, and you should watch these first.
Again, if you want to talk to us and ask questions you’ll have to register. It’s five bucks but you get a whole lot more than just us!
We hope to see you all there!
[ETA] Here is the Youtube link for the event…
January 27, 2021 2 Comments
[Edited to add: VCOW talk slides my slides VCOW talk 2 feb and my script. Thanks for listening in!]
I will be speaking at VCOW 2021: 1915-2000 (+0 GMT) Friday, February 5, 2021 via a Zoom meeting.
This is what they tell me I’ll be doing for about 45 minutes:
TWO SIDES OF THE COIN
In this presentation, Brian will speak briefly about his work in designing asymmetric games on irregular warfare and how this has contributed to the origin and development of the popular “GMT COIN” system. Brian co-designed A Distant Plain (Afghanistan 2003-13) with Volko Ruhnke and designed Colonial Twilight (Algeria 1954-62). His third game using this system, China’s War (China 1937-41), is currently under development.
I will be followed immediately thereafter by Pete Sizer, who frequently comments on this blog as “Pete S/SP”:
BOTH SIDES OF THE COIN: AN OVERVIEW OF COUNTERINSURGENCY GAMES
Based on research undertaken for a PhD this talk will look at the commonly fought but infrequently gamed issue of counterinsurgency and guerrilla warfare looking at those games that have tried to simulate this complicated environment.
Pete Sizer is a gamer of 30 years’ experience with an special interest in guerrilla warfare, counter insurgency and asymmetric warfare. He is currently doing a PhD in Wargaming at Bath Spa University, supervised by John Curry and Dr. Clifford Williamson.
Further details and how-to-join at https://wdvirtualcow.blogspot.com/ !
Remember this is UK time, so about 2 pm on the East Coast, and 11 am for me.
VCOW stands for Virtual Conference of Wargamers, the online version of the Conference of Wargamers, the annual event put on by my favourite crowd of madmen, the Wargame Developments (WD) organization.
Wargame Developments was founded at the first Conference of Wargamers, organized by Paddy Griffith in 1980 – so technically the event came before the organization that holds the event, but I believe they have had one every year since. It includes among its members some of the most interesting people I have ever met, from the standpoint of either game design or generally bustin’ out with creativity and good humour: Bob Cordery, Jim Wallman, John Curry, Russell King, and the mysterious Tim Price.
For more information see: http://www.wargamedevelopments.org
Also have a look at the WD Handbook here, for an idea of just how creative these guys are: Wargame Developments Handbook
Also, Wargame Developments has published its magazine The Nugget (slang term for a d10) for a long time – they are up to issue #332 now. Each issue contains discussion of games, after action reports, occasionally rule sets and think-pieces on wargaming. Back issues may be viewed here:
January 21, 2021 Leave a comment
The full programme for the Connections North conference (February 19-21, 2021) is now available!
https://paxsims.files.wordpress.com/2021/01/connections-north-programme-2021.pdf
The event is free but you have to register through Eventbrite. So far over 200 people from 19 different countries have signed up!
See you there!
January 1, 2021 Leave a comment
Announcing the opening of registrations for the Connections North conference, to be held virtually over Zoom during the weekend of 19-21 February, 2021.
CONNECTIONS NORTH is Canada’s annual conference devoted to conflict simulation. It is intended for national security professionals, policymakers, researchers, educators, game designers, university students, and others interested in the field of wargaming and other serious games.
Prior registration is required, but is free:
Themes to be addressed this year include:
A full version of the conference programme will be posted by mid-January. Online connection information and other details will be sent to all registered attendees a few days before the conference itself.
We hope to see you all there!
December 17, 2019 2 Comments
Well, another year has zipped by. A busy year too, though day job stuff dominated my busy:
Game publishing
Game design work and future publication
Work and or testing continued throughout the year on some of the following:
Conferences and conventions
Not so busy year on this front:
Writing
Near-meaningless digest of site statistics:
March 31, 2019 3 Comments
…is the name of my presentation at the Military Operations Research Society’s (MORS) event “Analysis of Urban Warfare”, April 2-5 2019 at Marine Corps Base Quantico.
I’m speaking on Wednesday afternoon but I’m putting my script and slides up here now, just before I leave home because I don’t know what kind of Net access I will have on the base.
The point of my talk is to take three civilian wargames on urban irregular war, and talk about how basic concepts for the situations and supporting research flowed into game mechanics. The three games are
Duration | Urban centre | Type of conflict | |
Tupamaro | 4 years 1968-72 | Montevideo
~1.5 million |
Low-intensity insurgency, frequent terrorism |
Operation “Whirlwind”/ Nights of Fire | 5 days 1956 | Budapest
~ 1.6 million |
Corps-sized operations against disorganized and unprepared insurgents |
“We Are Coming, Nineveh” | ~ 5 months 2017 | West Mosul
~ 600,000? |
Corps-sized operations against organized and prepared insurgents |
So here are the items:
script Studies in Concrete am 26 mar
slides (PDF) Studies slides am 27 mar
It’s going to be an intense three days – I wish I weren’t fighting off a cold right now. After that I will be in Washington for a day and a half, then back home to the usual three ring circus here….
While in Washington, I hope to check out the Compleat Strategist satellite store in Falls Church!
February 21, 2019 Leave a comment
Next mission: back to Quantico!
The Military Operations Research Society (MORS) is having a special “Analysis of Urban Warfare” event, 2-5 April at Marine Corps University. I’ve been asked to join the Analytical Tools working group, which hits on wargaming, so I’ll be presenting on some aspect of how urban combat’s been treated, in both my and other’s work. If all goes well, I may have a new playable thing to bring too….
Details here: http://www.mors.org/Events/Analysis-of-Urban-Warfare
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