"Zones of Control - Perspectives on Wargaming" Topic

I can't comment on Dunn Kempf, but John has a number of games on his site link

I've got the British Army rules, but only read through. Lots of useful info, even if they feel very dated and it's interesting to see the very slight advantage given to British kit versus Soviet stuff. The edge for British troops is seen more in terms of doctrine and training.

Mulling this over whilst on holiday and doing some game design work recently, I stayed to wonder whether there is more overlap between professional wargames and recreational board games, less because of the medium and more because of the scale of representation. More focus on context for a battle and logistics, although looking at what is being done could well be worthwhile, particularly given the many different approaches to campaigns, for example.

Ben:

If you've been to Connections, then you must see that some of the overlap is also the designers doing both professional [military] and commercial wargames. [e.g. Perla] I would think that the scale of representation would all depend on the particular goals of the design and the resources available.

I do think that more could be taken from either though. As I've said before, I saw a presentation on a platoon level game at connections UK last year, as well as talk with someone who wanted to use elements from a very popular skirmish figure set to look at tactics. Simplicity of play when working with non-gamers is very important.

I have a question for you, particularly when you mentioned Chain of Command in another thread. Do you think that table top designers would/are accepted at Connections. Richard Clark felt otherwise two years ago, but that was the first conference, so the 'connections' were still new and forming.

I attended Connections once at Maxwell AFB in 1995. The guys I remember were Jim Rose (Big Time Software) and Joe Miranda. Jim Dunnigan attended but during the presentations he had a laptop hooked up to a LAN and was doing currency trading.

Most of the defense industry guys that attended were involved in high level logistical support simulations, stuff general officers would be interested in. I didn't get to know any defense contractors well enough to find out what they though of the gaming industry.

They are into the serious side of simulations, we're more in the entertainment business. I don't think they'll be impressed with your die roll modifiers or flipping playing cards to simulate realism or the fact you know the exact SS camo pattern for the Germans in December 1945. We would not be impressed with their data readouts or logarithms coordinating RORO shipment schedules.

I've been invited back but I didn't see any real reason to miss work and pay my own way to attend. It was interesting and glad I attended.

I'm in a discussion group led by Dunnigan that is almost all contractors doing DoD projects. I'm a lurker and there is not much activity. There are a number of academics that exchange ideas and discussions on trends with DoD. It's not something that would be interesting on TMP.

The high level simulation of the invasion of N Vietnam in 1973 that I participated in at HQMC is not something I'd design a war game around.

Wolfhag

Wolfhag:

Check your email. I *think* the Connections conference put on now is different than the one you attended back in 1995. Supposedly, these Connection conferences have been going on for five years in the US and a couple in the UK. Australia is having their first.

They are into the serious side of simulations, we're more in the entertainment business. I don't think they'll be impressed with your die roll modifiers or flipping playing cards to simulate realism or the fact you know the exact SS camo pattern for the Germans in December 1945. We would not be impressed with their data readouts or logarithms coordinating RORO shipment schedules.

Wolfhag:
I went to more *generic* conferences such as the Interservice/Industry Training, Simulation and Education Conference which is having its 50th anniversary this year.

link

Conference agenda link

Or the North American Simulation and Gaming Association Conference

Or the Serious Game Conference

You would meet military, education, training, business and commercial game designers there. There was a lot of effort to treat issues that were common ground rather than highlight the differences. If there is one thing I learned, it was that designing a simulation and simulation games all have the same components and issues, regardless of the content or purpose they are designed for.

McLaddie – excellent point on the designers, although I think there is still an emphasis there on hex and chit and there are all sorts of things that can be taken from other modern boardgames. Interesting to see the resurgence of Matrix Games too.

I was debating whether to go to Connections UK again this year, but mainly on grounds of time. I would say that Richard should consider it as last year there were several mentions of making more use of gamers as they're less likely to do what is 'approved' or 'expected' in a lot of simulations. There was also talk around the ease of adapting non-digital games compared to computer simulations.

Having played Chain of Command and enjoyed it, it was interesting that in many cases I thought there would be more 'to' the professional games, which is why I think it could be more of a two way street. There were a lot of attendees who had no wargaming background and some who do an awful lot of analysis. It still tended to come back to cards or a die roll though. I think the deadline is today.

Here's a report from Connections USA 2016 link

The author is a miniatures gamer too.

Ben:

Thanks for the link.Do you belong to Phil Sabin's "Simulating War" group?

Having played Chain of Command and enjoyed it, it was interesting that in many cases I thought there would be more 'to' the professional games, which is why I think it could be more of a two way street. There were a lot of attendees who had no wargaming background and some who do an awful lot of analysis. It still tended to come back to cards or a die roll though.

Yes, the military has found that complexity and huge wargame operations to be limiting experiences [surprise, surprise] and are moving back to exercises that get the job done less expensively and with more utility.

I don't belong to that one actually. EDIT: Just checked – I must have joined after getting the book. I've got his book and played RCAT a couple of times last year.

There were also references to the random factor in games. A senior officer walking into a room and seeing dice asked 'Oh, so we're playing D&D are we?' whilst another designer was asked to remove the dice and have a deck of cards, which went down much better.

Ah yes. The stigma of the dice. Clausewitz skewed it with his card game simile.

Something relevant I think link

Ben:
Thanks. Very interesting. I was using designing simulation games for the classroom in high schools and colleges in the 1980s for Educational Simulations and Educational Classroom Games. Did presentations to the International Studies School at Berkeley and History Department Sacramento State while still teaching high school.

Military educators and wargame designers have created games off and on from the time until now from what I seen. What seems to be missing is any cross-classroom/college grow. It is just an instructor here and there doing interesting things.

One thing I have noticed among military educators today is that brain and learning research and educational developments haven't reached them to any degree.

A wargame is serious in that it is, or should be, as accurate an attempt as possible to recreate, within the obvious limitations of time and space, some military operation of a past era. Indeed, as such it is becoming increasingly used in scholastic institutions of all kinds as a valuable adjunct to the teaching of history,…

That was written by Charles Grant in Napoleonic Wargaming in 1974.

One thing I have noticed among military educators today is that brain and learning research and educational developments haven't reached them to any degree.

Ben:
I should explain this comment. In the discussion you linked for me, I know most of the posters. Two comments will suffice. They noted that small groups were better than large groups in using wargames… This should be a given rather than an observation by one poster after all this time, particularly when they are educators or designing learning tools.

It was also discovered that it was much more effective to have students get a short read of the rules and introduce rules as they play rather than make the rules a study project before the game. This is brain-compatible learning 101, but they are just discovering it.

Huge amounts of research have been done on how we learn in the past 36 years, starting with PET, MRI and CAT scans. If we compare what we knew up to 1980 about how the human brain works and how we learn, and made that one inch. What we know now, in 2016 would be as tall as the Washington Monument.

The posters don't seem to have access to that kind of information, let alone using it. They are re-discovering the wheel.