The Big COINflip

Board wargames on modern irregular warfare

Brian Train Universite de Montreal

May 5, 2016

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)

War since 1945

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

Game as journalism

Game

as

criticism

The GMT COIN System

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

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

Merci beaucoup! Des questions?

• brian.train@gmail.com (me)

• https://brtrain.wordpress.com/game-links-and-resources/ (script, slides, more)

• http://www.gmtgames.com (GMT Games)

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)

Designs in “4-box family”