My prose was initially inspired by the article by John Desmond in which he was throwing out some wild ideas and asking if there was an interest in that chain of thought. I think there has always been interest, but the market shifts in where the investment perceptions make some activity more practical in different venues. Here I add to the collection of wild ideas.

INTELLIGENCE

Traditionally gamers stand over a big map in which we see entirely too much data ... how can fog of war be simulated without a big hassle & what technology can help? I have played in some great games in which this was the kind of question asked during the scenario design process.

Napoleonics Miniatures game with players prohibited from talking with each other unless our leader units adjacent & we turned away from the table and whispered. Cavalry units were sent carrying written messages to nearby commanders who could not read the message until leader unit touched cavalry unit. Sometimes when enemy forces mixed in with ours, agreed upon phony messages were sent without adequate protection, in hopes of enemy interception.

Message: Artillery will be in position to pulverize the ford by 1400 hours, when you had better not be in the target area. Secret plan: Cavalry will charge across the ford if the enemy appears to buy the Artillery message.

I can cite other examples of this kind of thinking, adding flavor to a game, but this e-mail is getting a bit long for my first hello.

What other aspects of a military campaign often get short changed in traditional games, perhaps because we do not see hassle-free ways to incorporate their complexity? Can event cards be combined with dice defining grid sections or specific military units? Lighting started a fire, clogging supplies for half a day. Mud slide blocks all roads for 1 week. Avalanche totals anyone adjacent to the mountains. Restaurant Cellar Cache found with enough food supplies for your unit for a week. Sanitation problem incapacitates whole unit medically for a week.

EVOLVING TECHNOLOGY

Many PC peripherals are experiencing price drops that put them into the affordability of many people, although not all work well with older PCs. Can we use this to enhance the choices of computer-aided gaming? In a later installment, I will talk about how we possibly could use Scanners, Digital Camera, Internet Threads, Holography.

SCENARIO BUILDING ACROSS INTEREST GROUPS

Game design which crosses boundaries of different groups of people and interests is a similar conceptual problem to the design of a multi-player PB_something other than face to face ... mail; phone; e-mail; internet thread. Different participants are comfortable with different rates of data volume & detail. Some moderators experiment with pricing so that people who want more dynamic economies & more troop movements pay more $ for more detailed model than opponents use. Is that fair? Can the chances for the lower level participants be sufficient to give them sufficient incentive to compete?

Many years ago I used to run Diplomacy tournaments with sides auctioned off & $$$ going into prize pot. Some gamers leaped right into the spirit of the added dimension while others were outraged at this contamination of a game system they loved in the unmodified form.

As traditional non-computer game interests transition to what goes on in the world of computer games & interacts with computer gamers who never had the appeal of the pre-computer versions, there will have to be some give & take to get benefits for different kinds of enthusiasts.

The type of interaction by folks in campaign games often create scenarios that might seem tailor made for face to face groups that want meaningful conflicts within a larger picture, but there are issues of translating scale of units, and degree of results - what units escape in what directions with what degree of combat ability & supplies intact & which side ends up controlling which strategic objectives & does this have any significance on the scale of the campaign game?

The emotional connection of the campaign gamers to the scenario being played out by the face to face group means that they are likely to overwhelm the entertainment value with all manner of requests.

Hold the bridges - reinforcements will need them; stay out of town - off-board bombardment will pulverize it; your job is to retreat carefully, planting mine fields & other traps, make enemy advancement as costly as you can - the strategic situation is that we are planning a major invasion in which it will be to our advantage to have these forces bogged down with you; take & hold the pass at all costs; take prisoners for questioning.

In reality, the face to face scenario players want to be able to react to whatever opportunities come their way. I am reminded of a naval iniatures tournament in which our mission was to stay in sight of a superior force, while avoiding ourselves being put out of commission - reason - our heavy forces were in transit & they needed radio communication with us to locate this force. Well, I won that round, skirmishing with the smaller enemy ships but zig zag making it difficult for the larger ones to get at me. Most players on my side did not follow the scenario, they dived in to do maximum damage before being sunk. Most gamers are like that. There is very little appeal to being below the top of a command structure with limited freedom of action.

Thus, there is an abundance of methodologies that can drive scenario creation for the face to face interests, but what might motivate the campaign gamers to let their confrontations be resolved by an actual game played out by their peers?

Some people just want an excuse to play something rather unrealistic, like the Seven Days in May miniatures scenario played on a mock up of Washington DC, in which each player's units reflected what some militaristic pressure group could gather up, from the days of SDS, Black Panthers, and Klan, all trying to control the next Consitutional Convention.

I mentioned Matrix Games. This is a game system for grand strategic topics like what caused the Asian Economic Miracle to Meltdown & what will be the impact of that on Chinese Democracy Movement. What does the growth of Nato have to do with Russia selling arms to India? However, there are people who use Matrix Games to generate scenarios for ancient & medieval games, where the troop movements are not accompanied by today's instant information.