Chestnut Lodge Wargames Group

Don’t Raise The Bridge, Lower The River…

Altering supposedly ‘fixed’ criteria in games Given the difficulty of getting some players (and even umpires) to read rules with varying impacts, I have been experimenting in some of my system design models with adjusting the ‘big reality’ rather than adding loads more – sometimes occasional – factors. That may read as just gobbled-gook so […]

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Some quick thoughts re: Old World Order

An interesting report about an interesting sounding game.  If you’re thinking of doing any more with the game it may be worth taking a look at Send A Gunboat, a megagame I did with Jim back in 1995 and 1996.  The handbook and gazetteer are available on the MM website: https://megagamemakers.uk/Makers/125/SAG2/ and may be of […]

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Numbers, Perceptions and War… The Importance of How Units *Think* They Are Doing vs Reality

  Or “Wow, That Was Close Fred….Fred?….” I have been doing quite a lot of intense reading on the ACW over the last few years, and it has increasingly struck me that many accounts of combat describe units either “…trading destructive volleys for an hour or two…” (inflicting significant casualties), or suddenly breaking in surprise […]

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Some thoughts on ” Exploring female roles in wargames/ megagames/ roleplaying”

by Brian Cameron I thought Deborah’s article very thought provoking.  As this is quit elong I thought I’d post it as a separate item rather than as a comment.  I’ve included a couple of extracts (marked in italics) from the article to make the context of my comments clear. Could I emphasise that this a […]

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Mind Your Language…Or It Is Are Not Raining Here Also

Kulture-crashes, Spilling Urrors And Alternate Mindsetz [With a fond nod to the brilliance of Tony Hancock…] I read an article recently about how each group projects its own values onto strangers (from an individual to full society level – bloody French…). All well known stuff. But this article was about if we would even be […]

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Summer Fling – A (half-remembered) debrief of Old World Order 1898

In the beginning, there was Watch the Skies 1898. This was a new variant of Jim Wallman’s tried-and-true Watch the Skies series of games, but set at the dawn of the 20th century and featuring aliens. By design, it was very high-level and strategic – counters representing entire fleets and armies, abstract economic abstractions and […]

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Under The Influence…

How To Connect NPC ‘Public Reaction’ To Legitimate Player Choices I noticed that there was a session at the conference concerning ‘influence’ in a game environment? Whilst this is a – potentially – giant subject, I thought I would mention an ‘extension’ to my Balkan Wars non-megagame family of systems which has a direct bearing […]

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Exploring female roles in wargames/ megagames/ roleplaying

CLWG Session for the Annual Design Conference 2020 Onside report by Deborah Southwell White middle-class women have come a long way. We still have a long way to go. In the last year, I have been at workshops where ‘ordinary’ young married white women have expressed their dislike of their body to the point of […]

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INFLUENCE IN WARGAMES

CLWG Session for the Annual Design Conference 2020 Onside report by Jim Wallman For this session I offered the following question as a starting point “Obviously shooting at someone is a direct means of influencing their behaviour, but in the modern world much is made of ‘influence’ as a means of changing your adversary’s mind […]

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Milmud Editor’s Report 2020 [Admin]

This is the Milmud Editor’s Report 2020 for the CLWG Business Meeting. I can’t be sure that I’ll be able to attend the meeting, but I’ll be with you in spirit if not. Editor’s Report 2020 Personally I’ve had an interesting year, having planned and run a major exercise for a potential no deal EU […]

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Military Muddling

Chestnut Lodge Wargames Group

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