Ludic Futurism
September 17, 2025 Leave a comment
Presentation given to a class at the University of Turin, 17 September 2025, on the design and portrayal of games on irregular warfare.
Script: Turin Ruzza class sep 25 -29 aug
April 25, 2025 Leave a comment
Today is Liberation Day in Italy, the 80th anniversary of the day in 1945 when the Partisans and ordinary people rose up in armed revolt and a general strike to overthrow the remnants of the Fascist government and the Nazi occupiers.
The picture above is from a commemorative event held at Polo del’ 900, an annex to the museum in Turin dedicated to the history of the Resistance where they put on the collective play of A Distant Plain in 2023. They are presenting From Strikes to Insurrection, a game about the Resistance movement in Turin designed by Mauro Mola, and which Giaime Alonge and Giuseppe Tamba plan to publish possibly this year… possibly together with my games Operation Canuck and Mastering Resistance!
September 18, 2024 2 Comments
“Mad Scientist” is a US Army initiative that was started a while ago to explore the future through collaborative partnerships and continuous dialogue with academia, industry and government. In that sense it is a bit like the Connections franchise of conferences, only in perpetual spasms and with its own Mad Scientist Laboratory blog.
A while ago they solicited some input from wargamers in response to the following questions:
Well, you know me, I can’t keep my mouth shut so I wrote some thoughts and sent them in, and now they are post #505 of the blog:
Thanks for the chance to say something!
The editor calls me “Canada’s doyen of wargaming”: I don’t know if they really meant that, or maybe they did – there was a real “mad scientist” named Doyen, a French surgeon who was remarkably nutty. (https://www.biusante.parisdescartes.fr/histoire/medica/presentations/doyen-en.php)
February 18, 2024 3 Comments
Over at No Dice, No Glory, Mitch Reed (now doing paid, day-job type work on wargaming for the Marine Corps) posts a very kind review of We Are Coming Nineveh.
September 11, 2023 2 Comments
script Giochi di clio 20 aug 23
Script for short presentation on insurgency games and How They Are Different, using A Distant Plain as an example.
Followed by collective play of A Distant Plain!
Organized by and through Istituto piemontese per la storia della Resistenza e della società contemporanea ‘Giorgio Agosti’ and two professors at the University of Turin, Giaime Alonge and Riccardo Fassone.
It is the first of a series of four talks; other designers include Paolo Mori, Andrea Angiolino and Glauco Babini.
Grazie mille for creating this event and for hosting me to do it!
And here is the Facebook post they made after the event, with some nice photos:
October 24, 2022 Leave a comment
I don’t have a lot of time to listen to podcasts but this is one from COL John Spencer at Modern Warfare Institute that is worth a listen.
Something to think about when listening to talk about “peer to peer combat”: it’s still going to be downright guerrillas-in-the-mist in BUAs of any size.
September 3, 2022 Leave a comment
Not long ago Tom Grant had an interview with me for his long-running podcast I’ve Been Diced!
Have a listen! I duck out about 1 hour 23 min, and Tom carries on and amplifies some of the points we talked about, particularly games vs. simulations, far more articulately than I’ve ever been able to. He even makes a Borges reference!
This is episode 78; I was on the podcast once before, back in 2011 for episode 20 where we talked about revolutionary and asymmetrical warfare. Here we are ten years later, still talking about irregular wars and simulating them, though I have more titles (and a new fixation, analog newsgames) under my belt.
February 28, 2022 Leave a comment
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky voiced Paddington Bear in the Ukrainian language dub of Paddington and Paddington 2.
Now:
(sorry, don’t know ultimate source of this graphic)
Meanwhile, the best digest of Ukraine war news and analysis I’ve seen so far is the daily campaign assessments put out by the Institute for the Study of War:
https://understandingwar.org/
Beats hours of futile doomscrolling and semi-conscious journalism.
November 6, 2021 3 Comments
At 2000 GMT Sunday November 7, Fred Serval will host a discussion between him, myself, Javier Romero, John Poniske and Tomislav Cipcic (sorry, I don’t know how to get the characters to show up!) on the topic of civilian victimization in wargames, and how it shows up or more often is merely elided. Habitues of this blog probably recognize all these names and the very good games they have designed that include this aspect of warfare.
Loose list of topics we will discuss:
– Introduction: presenting participants, why the topic is important, what is the panel’s objective
– Part 1: why should wargames represent civilian victimization? Forms of victimization, the risk of whitewashing history, limits of the ludic medium etc.
– Part 2 : how to depict those effects? The role of the player, the effect on the game’s dynamics, choices beyond pure strategy & player experience etc.
– Conclusion : final thoughts and opinion on future topics.
Hope you can join us, or have a listen after the fact!
March 19, 2021 1 Comment
Irregular warfare is an enduring, economical contribution to America’s national security, and will remain an essential core competency of the U.S. Department of Defense.
Yes.
Is what I said to myself when I saw this quote leading a post on War on the Rocks, from an annex to the new American National Defense Strategy document on the abiding need for planning and expertise on irregular warfare.
People have heard me bang on quite long enough that the American Army (the British Army too, for that matter, and the US Marine Corps even more so) has spent more of its history in fighting irregular campaigns and incidents than in “near-peer combat”, “force on force” or whatever you want to call it.
So it’s nice to see this home truth reflected, and advocated, and some conscious before-the-next-time thought put into it in “phase zero, that amorphous planning space where everything short of war happens.”
The blog post talks about five shifts in operational design to acknowledge irregular warfare:
The post is quite clever, and you should go and read it.
Bon Weekend a tous!
Further to my last, the Modern War Institute at USMA West Point has announced the Irregular Warfare Initiative, an ongoing set of activities (podcasts, a conference, fellowships) to preserve knowledge of irregular warfare and exchange ideas. It won’t be like the stampede away from knowledge like after Vietnam (see John Nagl’s “Learning to Eat Soup With A Knife”). This time it’s different. They promise.
brtrain 
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