Ludic Futurism
May 9, 2023 Leave a comment
Connections-Online was a couple of weeks ago.
Robert Domaingue and I made a presentation on the idea of “Red” as a prompt to creativity – how we think about Red shapes what we create.
You can see that Robert is by far the better presenter. Don’t miss my embarrassing coughing fit about 9:00!
The playlist of videos for all the presentations for Connections-Online 2023 is here:
April 13, 2023 Leave a comment
Coming next week: the 2023 edition of Connections Online!
As you can see above, the theme this year is “The Enemy Gets A Vote”, and most presentations will deal with some aspect of RED – Red teaming, Red watching, Red cabbage… there will also be demonstrations and plays-through of classical Kriegsspiel (the 1796 Italian campaign), Sebastian Bae’s very clever Littoral Commander, and more.
Main events are in the middle of the week (18-20 April) but there are also satellite events either side of that.
One of these is on 1300 PDT Saturday 22 April:
How to think About The Other- “Red” as a Creativity Prompt
Game designers and players Brian Train (hobbyland) and Robert Domaingue (ex-State Department) will talk about their thoughts on the broader concept of “Red” in games. Questions from the audience welcome.
Yikes, five people have signed up for that one already… have to get my imposter syndrome reaction under control.
Go here to sign up for the whole event (a paltry $5), and getcher badges (free free free)!
https://tabletop.events/conventions/connections-online-2023
[edited to add: the video of our talk has been posted to Youtube. Robert is by far the better speaker!]
November 24, 2022 Leave a comment
The complete archive of presentations made during the one-day Connections Online event on 19 October 2022 is now available:
My presentation on the QUICK is at the very bottom, at the end of a very long day for the people on the East Coast.
I’ll be reviewing these soon – great selection of topics.
I like the idea of a Reconstruction period political game, among others.
September 28, 2022 Leave a comment
Wednesday 19 October 2022: a one-day, all-day Connections Online project showcase for professional/practitioner game design. Each presentation will run 90-120 minutes and focus on a single use case of a game designed or adapted to professional military/ national security usage, including deep dives into the objectives/purposes, designs, mechanics, execution, and lessons learned from both the preparation and conduct of the games.
The event will be a single 12-hour event, with no overlapping presentations, broadcast over Youtube for people who register. All or most presentations will be made available to the public after review.
Here is the schedule:
Schedule (all times EDT)
| 1100 | MAJ Dan Warner | Decisive Operations |
| 1300 | UKFC | Take That Hill / (urban ops) |
| 1500 | Eric Price & James Sterrett / SAMS | Root at SAMS |
| 1700 | Roger Mason | TBA |
| 1900 | Andrew Olson / Matthew Kirchman | Malign / A Splendid Failure |
| 2100 | Brian Train | QUICK |
I will be giving a talk on the QUICK game, of course, and how it was designed and used at the 40th Infantry Division’s Urban Warfare Planners Course in July 2022. I’ll be at or near the end of the queue of presentations because of time zones: I am on the West Coast and need to get home after work to make the presentation.
Other presenters include two students from the Georgetown University Wargaming Society (Matt Kirchman on A Splendid Failure (Reconstruction in post-ACW US) and Andrew Olson on the Malign wargame design); Command and General Staff College student Dan Hauser on Decisive Operations and incorporating that game into the curriculum there; SAMS instructor Eric Price and the inestimable James Sterrett on integrating ROOT into professional military curricula; and a presentation of the UK Fight Club training game Take That Hill. Not sure what Roger Mason will be talking about but he’s always interesting to listen to.
Registration starts tomorrow (September 29). There is an event charge of $3 to cover their IT costs. Go here: https://tabletop.events/conventions/connections-online-showcase-2022
Hope to see you there!
[EDITED TO ADD]
Here is the link to the page with links to all the presentations made that day… some very interesting topics!
August 10, 2022 Leave a comment
The videos from the Connections North 2022 conference have been posted to Youtube.
One of them is me introducing a panel discussing “influence gaming”, with some remarks on two of my primitive efforts in that direction… Ukrainian Crisis and Kashmir Crisis.
April 12, 2022 Leave a comment
https://www.armchairdragoons.com/acdcons/connections/
Hey all!
Next week will see the 2022 edition of Connections Online, the second iteration of the purposely online version of the long-standing Connections franchise of conferences. As such it joins Connections-US, Connections-UK, Connections North, Connections Oz, and so forth in trying to create lasting, uh, connections between the hobby and professional wargaming worlds.
Core events are 19-21 April, with a series of extended events to either side 18-24 April.
The theme this year is “Developing Wargame Practitioners.” Panels on this topic include:
Lots of other things to see and do as well! I plan to attend events on Innovations in Hobby Wargaming, Wargaming Other than War, and Wargaming Politics.
Cost is $5.00 to attend the whole thing, everything else is free but you have to get a ticket to attend an event. Core events such as I have listed above will be posted on Youtube later, but the extended events will likely not.
Please plan to attend!
February 17, 2022 2 Comments
There is still time to register for the Connections-North conference happening this weekend!
It’s free, and online, and always interesting.
For general information: https://paxsims.wordpress.com/connections-north/
Link to register: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/connections-north-2022-tickets-238439548107
Conference programme: https://paxsims.wordpress.com/2022/01/23/connections-north-2022-conference-programme/
I will be chairing a panel on how games can model “influence operations” on Sunday the 20th… which operations are succinctly defined by Jim Wallman as, “doing stuff short of actually shooting people to get them to do what we want”.
How do we game social, political, and diplomatic influence in an age of digital communications and social media?
This is of central concern to all of us right now, as we are still working through a major episode and demonstration of all forms of influence operations by Russia, the United States, and practically everyone else who possibly could get into the act.
But of course, there is much much more happening because this is after all a Connections conference… so please come and join us!
April 12, 2021 Leave a comment
April 7, 2021 1 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 1 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…
brtrain 
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