the big coinflip - wordpress.com · 2016. 4. 29. · strategic battlegroup arriba espana! battle...
TRANSCRIPT
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The Big COINflip
Board wargames on modern irregular warfare
Brian Train Universite de Montreal
May 5, 2016
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ANALOG AND DIGITAL
• Black-Boxing Syndrome
• Three levels of display of game ideology:
• Representation: of characters and events in the game
• Manipulation: what a player can and cannot do
• Motivation: how a player wins, and is rewarded or punished in the game
• Alteration: the meta-rules for changing the above (whoops, that’s four)
• Mystique of coding vs. the sensual banality of cardboard
• “If you can play them, you can design them.” (Dunnigan)
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War since 1945
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Scarcity of games on modern irregular warfare
The “indecency of recency” Critical/subversive of media portrayal of conflicts
Critical/ subversive of “normal” play of wargames
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Game as journalism
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Game
as
criticism
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The GMT COIN System
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Lines of attack
“Conventional” wargame “Irregular” wargame
binary, zero-sum opposition multiple though frictional
points of view/ factions
ordered situations chaotic and nonlinear game
states
rigid treatments of time,
space and force
flexible, malleable scales,
non-representational units
symmetry of information,
methods and objectives
asymmetry of these
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Victory conditions in A Distant Plain
Faction Opposed incentive Independent incentive
Taliban Raise opposition to the
government
Build insurgent
infrastructure
Coalition Raise support for the
government
Minimal presence in
Afghanistan
Government Consolidate military
control
Strengthen patronage
network
Warlords Keep military control
divided
Amass wealth
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Merci beaucoup! Des questions?
• [email protected] (me)
• https://brtrain.wordpress.com/game-links-and-resources/ (script, slides, more)
• http://www.gmtgames.com (GMT Games)
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Ludography arranged by family
4-Box
Algeria
Andartes
EOKA
Kandahar
Shining Path
Strategic battlegroup
Arriba Espana!
Battle for China
More Battle for China
Chit-pull, combat matrix
Autumn Mist
Balkan Gamble
Summer Lightning
Winter Thunder
“Other”, one-off systems
1848
Army of Shadows
Battle of Seattle
Binh Dinh '69
Caudillo
Chile '73
Civil Power
District Commander series
Green Beret
Guerrilla Checkers
Kandahar I
Land of the Free
The Little War
Operation Whirlwind
Palace Coup
Paranoid Delusions
Power Play
Pusan Perimeter
Red Guard
Somalia
Tupamaro
Uprising
Ukrainian Crisis
Virtualia
COIN
A Distant Plain
Colonial Twilight
Thunder Out of China
Between The Wars
Finnish Civil War
Freikorps
Konarmiya
War Plan Crimson
Based on other system
Balkan Gambit (Victory in
Normandy)
BCT Command Kandahar (JM
Staff Card)
Greek Civil War (JM Netwar)
Korean War Battles (F&M)
Next War in Lebanon (JM
Staff Card)
The Scheldt Campaign (JM
Staff Card)
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Designs in “4-box family”