Wargames According to Mark

I am delighted to write a second foreword to Mark Herman’s book, even if I’m playing the proverbial second fiddle to Jim Dunnigan, who mentored Mark at Simulations Publications, Inc. (SPI) and played a huge role in sucking me into the Wargaming hobby and, ultimately, the wacky world of professional Wargaming. Although I knew of Mark from those early SPI days, I did not have the pleasure of meeting him until a game convention (Avaloncon, if I remember correctly) back in the late 1980s. I was working on my own book about Wargaming and went to the con primarily to meet Mark and ask him if I could set up a time to interview him for my own research. His very gentlemanly agreement led to a long-term friendship and even a professional collaboration, on our game War in the China Sea, created for the Office of Net Assessment in the Pentagon.

Working on that game with Mark gave me a chance to see firsthand how he started the process of designing a game. It was much like a whirlwind. Butcher paper and marker pens; a sketch map and a buckets-of-dice combat system. Not quite mixing paint for Picasso, but as close as I ever came to such an experience.

This book can give you a taste of that experience. It is a no-holds-barred dive into the mind of a true wargame-design master. Mark does not claim to provide here any sort of “right way” to design an historical wargame; instead, he focuses on describing his own approach, philosophy, and thinking about how he designs historical wargames. And that is really the heart of the matter. Mark is an historian, first, and his games concentrate on presenting the historical narrative—not only the paths actually taken in reality but also (and more importantly) the “envelope” of paths that could have been taken.

In the process, he discusses his views about the core ideas needed to translate that historical envelope into a game system that offers its players agency in the context of their simulated roles. Look at the table of contents. He starts with a brief description of his early background in the Wargaming business. Then he quickly presents a series of chapters ranging from how he uses “smoke and mirrors” (design tricks) to distill history into a playable representation of the key options facing historical commanders and presenting those options for players to decide among them, to the core elements in the toolbox, from the sequence of play to the adjudication of combat results. Throughout, he uses examples from his huge body of wargame designs to illustrate and illuminate his thinking.

If you are a fan of historical wargames—and especially of Mark’s games—you will find, as I did, that these mini stories are fascinating glimpses into the workings of one of the most creative and prolific wargame design minds since Dunnigan himself. And one of the most thoughtful and insightful. His ideas will help you understand better not only his own games, but also all historical wargames. And I would be greatly surprised if they did not inspire you to think about how you might find some of his ideas useful in your own wargaming, either as a player or as a designer. As he says at the end of his introduction, “I hope this book contributes to the community knowledge on how designing a game can be accomplished.” I think I can safely say that he achieved his goal.