February 8, 2025

A Grognard’s view of Wargames According to Mark: An Historian’s View of Wargame Design

RockyMountainNavy, 23 January 2024

Wargames According to Mark: An Historian’s View of Wargame Design is a heavy book. I am not talking about the content (yet) but the physical weight of the book. Though roughly digest-sized in form-factor, the book noticeably weighs more than I expected. Printed in South Korea, the pages are semi-gloss and the end pages of the hardcover are a nice textured paper. There is even a ribbon bookmark included. All of which is to say that—on the outside—Wargames According to Mark was not what I expected. Happily, the unexpected carries over to the interior contents. I initially was leery to order the book because I expected it to be an (expanded) compilation of columns of “Clio’s Corner” written by Herman that previously appeared in C3i Magazine.

Though previous “Clio’s Corner” entries are included, Wargames According to Mark goes beyond presenting a simple compilation and instead provides deeply interesting insights into Herman’s philosophy of wargame design. Indeed, the book goes beyond where many other “wargaming design” books went before. If you are a grognard like myself, a hobby wargaming newbie, or even some level of wargame practitioner, Wargames According to Mark should be on your must-study list.

Heavy Herman thoughts (photo by RMN; click to enlarge)

 

Whether you are a wargaming hobby grognard like myself (playing since 1979) or a newbie just discovering the joys of the hobby, it is almost certain you already have—or shortly will—encounter a wargame designed by Mark Herman. Mr. Herman has designed over one hundred game titles, ”focused almost exclusively on military history” (Herman, p. 13). That count does not include the many wargames Herman designed for government customers of which only a few are mentioned in Wargames According to Mark. As of the time of writing this post, the highest ranked game on BoardGameGeek designed by Herman is Empire of the Sun (Wargame Rank #9) first published in 2005. All of which is to say that Mark Herman has a bit of some experience in designing historical wargames; experience they openly share in Wargames According to Mark.

 

Design by Herman

While Wargames According to Mark is a very recent book it joins a collection of other “wargame design” books written by denizens of both the hobby wargaming and the wargame practitioner worlds; James F. Dunnigan (who provided the first forward for Wargames According to Mark) wrote the first edition of their seminal Wargames Handbook: How to Play and Design Commercial and Professional Wargames way back in 1980 (a third edition published in 2000). Dr. Peter Perla (who wrote the second forward for Herman’s book) published their seminal book The Art of Wargaming: A Guide for Professionals and Hobbyists in 1990. Both of those books, and many other wargame design titles, tend to, 1) Advocate for wargames, 2) Provide a short history of wargaming, and 3) Share that particular authors wargame design process.

Wargames According to Mark takes a different, and frankly refreshing, approach to writing a “wargame design” book. As Herman writes in the Introduction:

Nevertheless, my goal is not to persuade, but to discuss how I think about designing wargames based on deep historical research. I think of wargames as interactive history. When I design a wargame I am trying to do several things, but first and foremost I am putting you into the historical narrative. Within that narrative I am balancing kinetic and psychological history. (Herman, p. 16)

Whereas many (most?) wargame design books focus on wargames that Herman calls “kinetic” history, Wargames According to Mark delves deep into that second “psychological” history connection to wargaming. Herman goes as far as to call psychological history, “the ‘art’ of design” (Herman, p. 16). Granted, Chapter 3, entitled “Nuts and Bolts,” certainly discusses Herman’s design process, but that chapter is but nine of 350-plus pages of the book. The core discussions in Wargames According to Mark start in Chapter 4, “Distilling History to its Essence with Smoke and Mirrors” and delve deep not only into Herman’s design process, but their unique philosophy of wargame design.

What follows in the rest of Wargames According to Mark is a deep (but never pedantic) discussion of various aspects of wargame design written in very friendly, unpretentious tone. The first few chapters (victory conditions, player roles, sequence of play, fog of war, movement, and combat results) are in many ways discussion of “classic” wargame design issues. Later chapters, like “Chapter 11: To Script or Not to Script, That is the Question?” or “Chapter 12: Designing Unbalanced Games or How to Create Strategic Surprise” get to aspects of wargame design that are often overlooked or at best vastly underappreciated. The last few chapters, discussing multiplayer games, political-military game designs, and “Bots” show that Herman’s design philosophy has evolved as the hobby has likewise done so. Some might argue, given designs like We the People: The American Revolution (Monarch Avalon, 1993) which introduced the hobby to the possibilities of card-driven games (CDGs), that Herman evolved the hobby themself. Wargames According to Mark will help you better understand where the state-of-the-art for wargaming design has been, where it is, and where it could go.

In the final section of Wargames According to Mark, Herman themself reminds us that this book is not a guide to designing a wargame:

While each person’s fingerprints are unique all fingerprints share common elements of swirls and lines. In the same manner while game designers use common design elements, they all have a unique way of assembling them. What I have described throughout this book is my personal design fingerprint, no more, no less. (Herman, p. 255)

 

Wargaming pantheon

In my personal library of wargaming books, I have three texts I consider seminal in the hobby. The first two, by Dunnigan and Perla, I already mentioned. I also consider Phillip Sabin’s Simulating War: Studying Conflict Through Simulation Games as a third member of my exclusive seminal text collection. Over the years, both before and after the Dunnigan/Perla/Sabin books were published, many others have written wargame-related books, some of which I highly recommend and others that, while maybe not as highly lauded by myself, are certainly still worthy of your attention. I am comfortable adding Wargames According to Mark to my small, select listing of seminal texts based on the wealth of insight Mark Herman shares with all of us. Wargames According to Mark will not turn you into a wargame designer overnight but if you are serious as a wargame designer, or even just a player who wants to understand what wargames can communicate, then Wargames According to Mark will help you design better wargames for play and appreciate in play what wargames communicate. Wargames According to Mark belongs in every wargamer’s library.

 

Books and Wargames Referenced

Dunnigan, James F. (2000) Wargames Handbook, Third Edition: How to Play and Design Commercial and Professional Wargames. Writers Club Press.

Herman, Mark (2005) Empire of the Sun: The Pacific War 1941-1945. GMT Games.

Herman, Mark (1993) We the People: The American Revolution. Monarch Avalon (Avalon Hill Game Co.).

MacGowan, Rodger B., C3i Magazine

Perla, Peter P. (1990) The Art of Wargaming: A Guide for Hobbyists and Professionals. Naval Institute Press.

Sabin, Phillip (2012) Simulating War: Studying Conflict Through Simulation Games. Bloomsbury Academic.

 


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9 thoughts on “A Grognard’s view of Wargames According to Mark: An Historian’s View of Wargame Design

  1. Rocky, Mark mentions his earlier book, Wargaming for Leaders, several times in the text so I just picked up a used copy for cheap online. I intend to read that one after this one. Best, Aaron

  2. “An Historian’s…”, in stead of “A Historian’s”?
    A bit of outdated British snobbery there, eh old chap? Par for the course in the pretentious, egotistical world of wargamers.

    1. Mark here, I consulted 12 professional editors and the consensus was the pronunciation changes the emphasis to the second syllable taking it from “A History”, to An Historian… sorry I followed professional advice.

  3. Maybe a stupid question, but I’m not a native English speaker. But for example in the sentence:
    “Dr. Peter Perla (who wrote the second forward for Herman’s book) published –their- seminal book…”. Do you mean he wrote the book together with Mr. Herman? If not, the sentence is confusing. Is this new English grammar that I need to know about?

    1. To be clear, Dr. Perla wrote The Art of Wargaming and provided a forward for Mr. Herman’s book.

      I make no claims to being a TOEFL teacher.

    2. Peter passed away, so it will have to stand as is, but he only wrote the forward, god rest his soul.

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