Category: Columns

Regular columns from the GH team

03/7/16

Tracer Rounds – Long-Form

Telling a story that needs room to breathe ~

One of the things I drop on my students every semester in an introduction to the idea of long-form journalism.  I already know that I’m the weirdo in most already-weird wargaming crowds in that I’m the one with the journalism degree, not the history/poli-sci/sociology degree, or an engineering background, but I do believe that long-form journalism, when done right, can be a powerful tool for telling real stories about real people.  And I wish someone would take the time for a solid, serious, long-form article about our hobby, and give it the same kind of exposure that other long-form articles get from big media.

tr-newspaperLong-form journalism is hard to do, as it takes a long time, and possibly a lot of travel, to thoughtfully explore a topic in that level of detail.  It takes time – which means “money” – to truly dig into the nuances of a topic, to get to know the people, to tell the stories that are necessary to understand how the topic affects people, and how it can matter to you.  Some of these stories, quite frankly, don’t matter one whit.  They are simply intriguing and interesting looks into the lives of something you thought was completely mundane, or never knew existed, or had no conception of.  But all are tales worth telling, when told well.

Long-form journalism isn’t simply an exercise in length, which can occasionally end very, very badly.  It’s an exercise in depth, which often requires length to achieve its goals.  And that depth doesn’t come from a deadline-induced chaotic dash to the presses to beat everyone else to the punch.  It comes from the thoughtful, methodical, and intelligent analysis of a situation, and that’s much harder to do in today’s world of aggregated-blog-posts-on-brand-name-websites-for-free world of “journalism” that’s taking over our public discourse.  And since it’s getting harder to do, it’s much easier to appreciate it when it’s done well.

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02/22/16

Tracer Rounds – New Wargamers Needed: Apply Within!

Evangelizing the hobby ~

Who was the last convert you brought into the (Dis)United Church of World Wide Wargaming?  Seriously, when was the last time you talked with someone about wargaming (or heck, even more broadly – strategy gaming) and they displayed enough interest to actually take a plunge and try a wargame, and then stuck with it, at least for a while?

Pacific Theatre in Axis & Allies 1942 2nd EditionIt’s an odd hobby we have, right?  There’s a certain barrier to entry just based on the level of detail in most of these games.  Put another way: there’s an amusing “how to choose the perfect board game” flowchart that’s focused on Eurogames, and to get to Axis & Allies you have to answer “yes” to the question “hardest rules ever?”.  And most of us consider A&A to be an entry-level wargame, right?

So we’re already starting off from a position of disadvantage.  Or are we?  In most cases, the level of detail in the rules is there for a reason.  These are complex phenomena that we are trying to quantify and get a handle on.  “Elegance” in wargame design is one of the highest forms of praise in that it indicates an ability to capture challenging and amorphous concepts in such a way that one can easily understand their effects on the battlefield of the game.  Morale, leadership, training, esprit de corps, and basic task competence on the battlefield are all difficult to assess, and ever hard to quantify, and games that can do so in a plausible mechanism are ones that tend to garner high praise.  So how do we explain that to a new player?

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02/15/16

Tracer Rounds – Cultivating Cultural Culturism

How does one “create” culture? ~

I was reading an ESPN column about the demise of Grantland, when this exchange caught my eye.

There’s an old saying — attributed alternatively to management guru Peter Drucker and auto executive Mark Fields — that culture eats strategy for breakfast. I’ve always felt that statement was off the mark because culture also eats strategy for lunch, dinner and snacks.

Now, part of what made Grantland the awesome destination for smart writing was the culture that the editorial team inculcated in the staff.  Grantland was a perfect example of how a great set of editors can mold already-talented and -established writers into a coherent voice that gives the reader a sense of the culture of the organization.

TR-puzzleThere are more ways to communicate the culture of an organization than just in the formal presence of that group.  There are the rituals they hold on to, the titles used among themselves, the recursive self-references that permeate long-standing organizations, and the attitudes they exhibit toward outsiders.  How is dissension tolerated?  How are new participants welcomed into the fold?  Are there demands for overt displays of allegiance?  How about voluntary self-identification?

While many of you are probably still chuckling over the idea that I actually teach a class about interpersonal communication, the idea that I also teach one on Media & Culture probably doesn’t seem too far-fetched.  We spend an entire hour on the first night of class just talking about the attributes that can define a culture, from language to food & music to geography to shared interests.  But how does it develop, and how does it manifest itself when it does?

This isn’t easy stuff, is it? Continue reading →

02/8/16

Tracer Rounds – Fakin’ It ’til You Make It

How The Impostor Phenomenon Gets In The Way ~

In my interpersonal communication classes, we talk about something called “the impostor phenomenon.”  (Now, let’s all just pause for a moment and marvel at the fact that they actually have me teaching a class about interpersonal communication and yes my wife is laughing her ass off right now but that’s neither here nor there.)  The impostor phenomenon is best summed up this way: even well-accomplished individuals sometimes doubt their achievements and fear being ‘outed’ as a fraud in areas in which they are no way ‘faking their way’ along.

TR-stuartThe impostor phenomenon hits me rather personally.  Let’s face it, I’m here helping run a wargaming site, and some people might mistake that for having some level of expertise in the wargaming field.  But my track record in the wargaming field has honestly been pretty spotty along the way.  I’ve legitimately had wargames in print that I sold through conventions and mail-order, but they were entirely self-published, so I never had to polish them enough to get them through a gatekeeper.  I’ve also legitimately had RPGs in print that were sold online and through conventions, and through a few brick-and-mortar stores.  But again, they were self-published and self-financed, and I probably lost money overall on them before the momentum dried up and let them languish.  Yes, I worked on a wargame project on for the NSA, but I was brought on to coordinate playtesting and tweak variables in an existing game engine, not develop from scratch.  We had a contract with NDU to create the GEMSTONE system, but after only a few iterations in use, it fell by the wayside, and I don’t think it’s even in use at NDU anymore with any other contractor.  Sure, I’ve written reviews for a bunch of places like Scrye and RPG.net and that other site, but I was never a full-time paid staffer with a regular deadline and set of responsibilities and all the trappings of the professional writing trade.  I’ve put together some events and presentations at game conventions (like the GrogHeads Central Command at Origins – product placement for the win, baby!), but they were always within the broader context of someone else’s event.

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02/1/16

Tracer Rounds – Another “Resurgence” of Military Wargaming?

The military wants to ‘get back’ to wargaming.  Are they serious this time? ~

There’s been a recent trend in the media covering some developments in the military that I hope or at least slightly heartening. I’ve started to see multiple articles here and there on well-respected online sites about the reinvigoration of wargaming in the military. tracer-wgI’ve written before about the way the professionals use wargaming and how it differs from hobby games and what is commercially realistic. That said, there is certainly some crossover between the two given that so many professionals are also hot scammers, or have been taught by them. (As an editor note, voice recognition just picked up “hobby gamers” as “hot scammers”; maybe Google knows something we don’t?)

There have been articles from the Marines, the Navy, think tanks, and high ranking DoD officials about ways in which the military can start using wargaming again. Part of this is being driven by budget constraints.  My hope is that at least part of this trend is being driven by explorations of uncertainty in our future conflicts.  This type of exploratory wargaming drove US naval innovations in aviation in the inter-war years, and has also been credited with the development of German blitzkrieg tactics around the same time.  So the track record exists of using wargaming as a forward-looking tool for examining doctrine and concepts.  It’s already known as a tool for training, even if a misunderstood one on a regular basis.  Again, I’ve talked about the uses of wargaming in a previous column, so I won’t rehash too much here, just go read the earlier article.

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