Michael D’Alessandro
WAKE ISLAND – THE ALAMO OF
THE PACIFIC
Tbc any
The VCOW virtual battlefield
tour!
Jim Roche
NE OBLIVISCARIS
2 hours any
Ne Obliviscaris is the motto of
the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. It translates as Never Forget. A good
name for an Obituary Game. The game
explores the experience of young officers in the Regiment during the Second
World War. Players will develop their own story, using a pack of playing cards
to find what happens to them as well as a six-monthly history track. You may
find yourself in Palestine or Sicily; in Normandy or a PoW camp, according to
your choices. You may gain awards or ignominy, death or promotion. The final
output is your Obituary. Did you merit the London Times, or merely the Oban
Times?
Equipment required includes a
few printed pages, a pencil/pen, a pack of playing cards and a D6. A paper
cut-out glengarry will be sent to participants, but is optional.
John Bassett
PARIS, MAY 1968
2 hours 4-6
A matrix game on the 1968
événements that almost toppled President de Gaulle. La Beauté est dans la rue! Is Prime Minister Pompidou the loyal deputy
he seems to be? What's Mitterand's
game? When will Marchais punch
Cohn-Bendit? And will General Massu
order the French Army to save de Gaulle, a man he despises utterly?
All set in the Gauloises-tinged
Paris of Françoise Hardy and Simone de Beauvoir.
Lewis Griffin
WHOM THE GODS WOULD DESTROY,
THEY FIRST MAKE MAD
90 minutes 9-18
A narrative game to explore the
future of AI. Players, taking the roles
of a pantheon of planetary influences, will propose headlines charting an
unfolding narrative of AI development and impact. Jurors will assess headline
plausibility (conditioned on previously accepted headlines) and random determination
will gate which gets added to the timeline. Players compete for points based on
headlines which push plausibility, are well aligned to their planetary area of
concern and are well written.
John Curry
An
introduction to cyberwarfare
1 hour any
A lecture which will discuss
historical case studies, current practise, and the future of cyberwarfare.
David Burden
Vertical
Urban Wargame
2 hours 2-5
This will be a rerun of my 2023
session. It is an urban wargame in 10mm, with big multi-storey buildings and
limited sight lines, and all you get to see is what your street-level view
(delivered by mobile phone camera) tells you. The platoon commanders interact
by Zoom voice channel with the company commander, who gets to see nothing! I'd
like to do some data capture for the PhD so participants will be asked to sign
participation forms and provide recorded feedback during and after the game.
David Burden
Matrix
Game Simulation
2 hours any
Computer simulations let us run
military scenarios without players, whilst wargames are, of course, scenarios
with players. This session will explore whether recent and expected advances in
Large Language Models can provide the equivalent "simulation" for
matrix type games. As well as discussing the how's and (especially) why's,
participants will be invited to submit a matrix game prior to the session, and
as many of these as possible will be run by the AI (without player
participation) during the session, and the results discussed.
John Buckley
MIDWAY
1 hour any
Midway in context - Carrier
Operations and Tactics – an illustrated talk.
Ian Robinson
CASUALTY CLEARING STATION /
MEDEVAC
90 minutes 2-3
This will be an exploration of
the treatment of battlefield casualties. Each turn, a number of casualties are
incurred on the battlefield; the location of their wounds are determined, and a
triage level is assigned. Treatment begins after transportation to a Unit Aid
Post, at which a select number in need of urgent care are Medevac'd to a
Casualty Clearing Station. This is staffed by surgical teams, each working in a
dedicated operating theatre, with the current most critically wounded taken
through to surgery. The duration of surgery depends on the location and nature
of the wounds, but a random time element is also included, which models the
potential for complications of surgical procedures. After surgery, the
recovering wounded are given a hospital bed. The aim is to treat as many
casualties as possible during the game and prevent them from reaching T4 status
aka He's Dead, Jim. 1D10 and 1D6 are
needed (although Google dice does the job https://g.co/kgs/M7csi6E). The game will run off Google Drive and a Slide pack
which I'll provide.
