Tag: game design

  • Book Review – The Stress of Battle by David Rowland (Part 1)

    Not exactly a book review, more of a synopsis of a great work of Operational Research by David Rowland. The Stress of Battle: Quantifying Human Performance in Combat is the end result of years of work by David Rowland and his team at the Ministry of Defence. Rowland was the father of historical analysis as…

  • Games on COIN

    This post is prompted by an excellent post by the guys at On Violence. You should read Capturing Australia! COIN is Boring Pt.3 to which this was my belated comment. My apologies for coming late to this one, I’ve been on leave for a couple of weeks now and being spending time with the family. I’ve…

  • CLWG July 2013 Game Reports

    There were five of us at July’s CLWG meeting, myself, Nick, Mukul, Dave & John. There were three game sessions presented: I went first with a two part committee game called “The High Ground” about the consequences of cheaper surface to orbit space travel; Nick presented an economics card game for educating people about markets…

  • Another side of the COIN

    I ran my game of being an Afghan farmer “The Other Side of the COIN” at the Chestnut Lodge Wargames Group’s (CLWG) annual conference yesterday afternoon. This was its second outing, you can see my onside report from the first run here. Since the last outing the game has developed further to address some of…

  • The Other Side of the COIN

    An on-side report of how the first run of ‘The Other Side of the COIN’ went. In all a fun day with a lot of useful positive feedback on how to make it better for the next time we play it, and there will be a next time.

  • Thoughts on an Insurgency Game

    An article I read in the New Scientist on why people got involved in the civil wars in the former Yugoslavia triggered some ideas about trying to run a game about the locals caught amidst an insurgency campaign. Farming Today, Fighting Tomorrow? This is a game to explore why people become insurgents (or perhaps not).…

  • Inspiration – Glencoe & Dinosaurs

    Inspiration struck not once, but twice! Got two outline games designs in my head, one of which I’m putting on next Saturday at the CLWG Christmas meeting.

  • CLWG Games Weekend 2007 Reports

    Offside reports from the 2007 CLWG Games weekend, including – Jim’s Breeding Idea – Siege of Yendor tryout – Religion in Brian Cameron’s ‘Hapsburg Ascendant’ – Onside report of my ‘Orange & Lemon’ – Jim’s ‘Blitz Firefighting’

  • Hot Blood & Cold Steel – onside Report

    This was a design session on how to do a WW1 skirmish game, focusing mainly delivering a participation game for Jerry Elsmore’s 50th Birthday con. I’d already done a first darft of the rules but wanted to talk through some of the principles about what I wanted to achieve. I found the discussion particularly useful…

  • Revolutionary Warfare

    When I played Andy Grainger’s A Month in Country I immediately thought of some of the parallels with the Revolutionary Warfare (RW) game that I have run myself a couple of times, although with only a few players. I would particularly like to re-do my Palestine game as the players I ended up with (well…

  • What you missed at the January meeting of CLWG

    The Chestnut Lodge Wargames Group (CLWG) January meeting (Sunday 9th January) was in Jim’s office near Holborn. This one had 14 members in attendance. When I turned up there was a promotion board going on for one of the characters in our long-running Starship Marine campaign (details of the campaign and a history of the…

  • CLWG December 1999

    What you missed at the Chestnut Lodge Wargames Group (CLWG) December 1999 meeting. The CLWG December 1999 meeting started from 12 at John Rutherford’s house and we played until after 9pm. Afterwards we chatted, with the aid of several bottles of wine, until almost midnight. In total we had 13 members at the meeting. It started…