Category Archives: Tracer Rounds
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.
There 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?
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.
The 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.
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. 
I’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.
Tracer Rounds – Writing Sucks
This is hard because…
Why is this so hard? Seriously – why is it so hard to coordinate the ideas, thoughts, and inspirations I’ve got in my head, and why can it be so hard to herd the cats of our staff into something resembling a similar direction? Hell, I’d settle for them heading within 180° of each other, just to keep from having to pivot to find them all!
This is hard because, well… it’s hard. And the first rule of Tautology club is the first rule of Tautology club. As a writing column I give my students once noted, “every time you sit down to write you get another chance to demonstrate how perceptive you aren’t.” Even with a bank of perfect ideas (and my bank is imperfect, I assure you) it still takes a lot of effort to block out everything else and just write. I don’t know how guys like Matt Forbeck and Jonathan Pembroke do it. It astounds me how productive they can be given everything that pulls at them. There are few people in the world I admire more than the professional writer, even if a good many of the ones I know actually have day jobs, or pensions. And given that I’m (a) older than Pembroke, and (b) he’s pulling in a pension, I’m pretty sure he’s got a sweeter deal than I do. The bastard.1
Part of the problem, of course, comes from the need to set aside dedicated time to work. In just the opening paragraphs of this column, for instance, I’ve restarted a video for my daughter twice, helped plunge a shower (long story) and fixed 2 lunches, not to mention the sideways glares I get from the family for “goofing off” when there’s more to be done around the house (like the Christmas tree I mentioned last week that’s still not down). Finding an hour is easy when you’re stuck at the car dealership getting the brakes worked on. Finding an hour when everyone’s home and iced in from school is not.
Tracer Rounds – My History of 4X Gaming
Rearranging history, one X at a time ~
Anyone that pays even half-conscious attention to GrogHeads knows that I’m a sucker for a good 4X game. Heck, most of the time, I’m a sucker for a bad 4X game. I can’t help it. They appeal to me in a way that no other kind of game can. And what’s odd, is that despite being a wargamer (albeit a bad one – another column for another time) it’s rare that I win 4X games by rolling over the world under my armored boot. There was one epic Civ2 game where I once played the Celts and conquered everything but maybe 1 city, and had every wonder you could build in the game in my clutches, but outside of that game about 15 years ago, I’ve rarely been the warmonger. (edit! I did conquer a bunch of the world the first time I played Venice with the Gods + Kings expansion to Civ5).
My love affair with 4X games predates the term, even. Alan Emrich is usually credited with coining the 4X term in 1993. My first foray into 4X gaming dates all the way back to 1983, with Dragon Magazine #77 and King of the Tabletop, a Tom Wham game about building your realm and crushing your neighbors. You had a “playing deck” full of critters you could recruit, along with cities, treasure, magic, and mines. You had another “land deck” full of lands you could draw to build your realm; and note to MtG players everywhere – the lands in KOTT way back in 1983 were swamps, forest, mountains, and plains (and deserts instead of islands, but go with it). You had mercenary characters to recruit, and monuments to build. Random events might bring on an earthquake or brushfire. And for a bunch of 6th-graders playing at lunchtime with each other, and occasionally their student teacher (here’s to you, Mr Blankenship!) it was a ton of fun.
