Organized by Brunswick teacher Jared Fishman, this seminar will focus on HMGS Next Gen, Inc’s work using a gamified approach to leadership and corporate training. Throughout the seminar, Jared Fishman will share the methods he’s developed to train people to think more decisively, reflectively, and build their skills by using games as a pedagogical tool. More specifically, Jared will share testimonials from employees from the Department of Cultural and Historic Affairs in Passaic County, NJ, who have been working with HMGS Next Gen, Inc since September 2023. Over the course of five months, Jared has worked alongside and consulted with Director of Operations Kelly Ruffel in an effort to build a more productive and professional work environment. Ultimately, while games are fun, they also have a power unto themselves to draw out the best in people, and often unlock hidden skills. Jared will outline all the benefits of a game based learning approach for use in the professional world, developed over his nearly 20 year career.

Jared Fishman is the co-founder and co-director of HMGS Next Gen, Inc, and host of the “20 Sided Gamified Podcast”. He is a familiar face in the world of education and game design thinking. Currently, Jared is a teacher at Brunswick School, in Greenwich, CT, where he teaches Modern World History and a history elective entitled, “History of Warfare”.  Moreover, he serves as the advisor to Brunswick’s Model UN team, which regularly takes part in conferences at Princeton and Georgetown.  Previously, Jared worked at the Hackley School, in Tarrytown, NY. He served as a grade level dean, authored elements of the history curriculum, and was the architect of Hackley’s popular “Strategy Game Club.” Jared has been bestowed numerous honors in his career, including the Mary Lambos Award for Teaching in 2014 and the Davidson Chair in History, a position he held from 2016-2020. Jared's classroom experience has set the foundation for his belief that games support critical thinking along many different avenues, from the classroom to the office. He has organized and facilitated several conferences on the subject, entitled “Role Playing, Games, and Simulations in the Humanities Classroom” and has presented at various HMGS, NASAGA, and other game related events. In each presentation, Jared has demonstrated the real world benefits that game related thinking can provide. In 2019, he and his teaching partner Michael Canterino won the NASAGA “Rising Star” award for a role play simulation entitled “Drawing a Line in the Sand: Exploring Leadership Through the Lens of Popilius.”

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When Napoleon looked over the frozen fields around the Pratzen heights, what did he see? Did he think of his army primarily in terms of battalions or regiments or brigades or divisions? How did he imagine the battlefield or the limits of his own command? Historical games often ask us to embody specific decision makers in the past, but to what degree should we let their subjectivity guide the models we use to design our games. In this talk, Cole Wehrle will consider how historical games have dealt with questions of perspective in the past and consider what designers stand to gain from wrestling with these subjectivities.

Cole Wehrle is an ex-academic who decided to abandon the lucrative field of Victorian studies in favor of game publishing. He works as the creative director at Leder Games in Saint Paul and is best known for the award-winning game Root, which uses a children's book aesthetic to explore the politics of police states and insurgency. Root and its expansions have sold hundreds of thousands of copies and have been translated into nearly twenty languages. He is also the cofounder of Wehrlegig Games with his brother Drew Wehrle, which handles the publication of his historical games which cover subjects related to his academic work including state formation in 19th century Afghanistan (Pax Pamir) and the rise and collapse of the British East India Company (John Company).

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EVENT LINK: Join Zoom Meeting https://georgetown.zoom.us/j/93992007310

Navy Captain (Ret) Xavier will discuss how the Brazilian Navy and the Brazilian Navy War College leverages wargaming. He will outline the origins of their wargaming efforts, the focus of their wargames, and some of their clients in Brazil. He will also discuss their Wargaming Simulation System, international wargames, and their future plans.

Alexandre Tito dos Santos Xavier is a Navy Captain (Ret) as well an Instructor and a Research Specialist in Wargaming at the Brazilian Navy War College. He wrote some articles about wargames and he is the author of the book “Unraveling the Wargames: an introduction to the subject” that is the only book in portuguese language in Brazil about professional wargames. Prior to this position he spent 36 years in active duty in Brazilian Navy with commands in navy ship and naval base. He had a two years tour in US Fleet Forces Command and one year tour in UN Interim Force in Lebanon.

EVENT LINK: Join Zoom Meeting https://georgetown.zoom.us/j/92607981640

Rear Admiral Luis del Carpio will discuss the history of Wargaming at the Peruvian Naval War College and his experience designing wargames for military and defense education.

The introduction of wargaming techniques in military education has a long tradition around the world improving the way to learn the planning process and the development of tactics, doctrine and war plans. The use of games also provides the possibility to learn new concepts and how to confront hypothetical situations. Rear Admiral del Carpio will discuss of Wargaming at the Peruvian Naval War College and describe his experience using and developing wargames and games to teach military and defense concepts.

Rear Admiral Luis del Carpio is the Director of the Peruvian Naval War College. He is graduated from the Peruvian Naval Academy Class 1992, and he attended the submarine officers’ course in 1994 / 1995. He attended the Engineering Submarine Officer’s Course at German Navy in 2000. During his career he served at the Submarine Force in different units, he was Executive Officer and Commanding Officer of the submarine BAP “Angamos” and participate in two deployments to the United States supporting the Diesel Electric Submarine Initiative Program. He is also graduated from the Naval Command College Class 2015 at the U.S. Naval War College and holds a Master degree of International Relations at the Salve Regina University, Newport, Rhode Island.

The world is becoming increasing urbanised, and the “urban triad” of complex man-made terrain, a human population and supporting infrastructure offers a host of evolving challenges to any military contemplating operations in the urban environment. This session will present an overview of the work so far on my PhD in wargaming urban conflict including: a (very) brief history of urban conflict; a consideration of some of the key characteristics of modern urban warfare (and how those are challenged or reinforced by events in Gaza and the Ukraine); an initial analysis of existing urban wargames and an outline of the urban wargames that I have been working on so far. The presentation will end by examining the issues of civilians, civilian infrastructure and civilian livelihoods in urban conflict and urban wargames.

David Burden has been a wargamer and creator of wargames for around 50 years – although ironically not for the 10 years he spent in the British Army. David founded Daden Limited in 2004, working mainly in virtual reality and conversational AI. Whilst working with the UK MOD to automatically generate social media to support urban wargames David developed a wider interest in the issues of urban conflict and how they could best be wargamed. David started his part-time PhD on wargaming urban conflict at Bath Spa University under Dr John Curry in early 2022, and is currently researching the unique features of urban warfare and how it has been wargamed in the past. Alongside book research and interviews David is also designing new wargames looking at different aspects of the urban challenge. David is an ex-Royal Signals officer, a Chartered European Engineer, a TEDx presenter, and is also series co-editor for Taylor & Francis on their Metaverse Series of books.

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In this workshop, the innovative integration of formal scientific experiments with experimental game mechanics will be explored, focusing particularly on wargames. The discussion will revolve around how traditional wargaming elements can be effectively utilized in scientific settings to enhance experimental outcomes. We will delve into the additional benefits of incorporating game mechanics into formal experiments, what modifications are required in traditional gaming styles to facilitate scientific inquiry, and the potential of this interdisciplinary approach to reshape experimental research.

L. Berke CAPLI

Levent Berke Çaplı completed his undergraduate education in the field of "Economics and Political Science" at the University of Essex in England. He completed the SAVBEN Technology Management Master's Program at the Turkish Military Academy and in 2019, he obtained his master's degree in Technology Policies from METU with his thesis titled "Behavioral Economics and System Engineering-Based Serious Game Development Methodology." Currently, he is pursuing his doctoral studies in the field of Social Sciences at the University of Edinburgh. In 2016, Çaplı became the Founding Chairman of the NATO Cyber Defense and Gamification Research Committee (SAS-129) making him the youngest-ever chairman of NATO. He is currently leading the SAS-172 Multi-Domain Warfare Game Research Task Group. In 2023, he received the NATO Early Career Award for his contributions to the SAS-129 Research Group.

E. Ada SAYIN

Ada is a law graduate from the University of Strasbourg, France with an avid interest in defence. She has coordinated the Women in Command Project, funded by US Embassy Ankara, NATO Public Diplomacy Division and supported by NATO Chief Scientist’s Office with KizBasina (Just-a-Girl) NGO. The Hybrid Threat Rising game was created under Ada’s lead which became Turkey's first game dealing with hybrid threats, the first game to be developed to train women leaders and the first game to be designed and led by a woman. The game also obtained the International Serious Play Awards’ Golden Medal and won the MS&T Awards of 2022. Following the final design, she led the design for the Humanity in Crisis Module. She also won the Women in Defence UK - Women in STEM award in 2022. Ada is also acting as a Design Team Lead for the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism (GIFCT) Crisis Working Group to design a TableTop Exercise working with world’s leading social media tech companies and worked directly with representatives from Meta, YouTube, Tech Against Terrorism, FBI and many more since 2022. She then became the co-lead of Fight Club International’s Türkiye Chapter (Fight Club Türkiye) and a member researcher to the NATO STO’s SAS-172 Research Task Group on Multi-Domain Operations Wargame. Lastly, she is to become the youngest ever Task Group chair with the SAS-HFM-ET-FH on Inclusion of Generation Z+ to Defence Organizations.

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Saga is a wargaming system based on the need to fight for information within opaque and complex information environments. Intelligence will come in many shades of grey; it might be complete, it might be partial, it might be misinformation or disinformation. Games are multi-sided with teams being formed of players from any type of role needed for the scenario (e.g. military, influence, cyber, economic…). Throughout the game they must combine their arrays of skills to pierce the fog of conflict and uncover their adversaries’ actions and intentions. Saga uses a number of novel design elements to combine the flexibility of seminar and matrix wargaming with the benefits of analytical wargaming. Thus, it has minimal set-up time and intuitive adjudication methods, but it captures all game data and supports a myriad of post-game analysis methods.

Peter Williams is a Research Specialist in Wargaming at the Defence Science and Technology Group (DSTG) in Australia. Prior to this position, he spent over 15 years as a Land Operations Analyst; working on collecting data from wargames and analysing the outcomes in order to measure the impact of emerging capabilities and concepts for Defence. Thus, he developed an unnatural tendency to make every wargame an Analytical Wargame. Over the past few years, Peter has focused his designs on sub-threshold conflict; exploring ways to model the grey zone and levers of conflict which lie outside of open warfare. He has developed three serious games on the topic so far and is desperately hoping to make a good one sometime soon. Outside of professional wargaming, Peter likes Santorini, Abyss, Diplomacy, Mordheim and Thunderstone Quest. (And a billion other games.)

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Wargaming was instrumental in the development of the U.S. Navy's tactical doctrine. Doctrine was a new concept in the Navy of the early twentieth century. As ship captains and formation commanders explored how best to foster collaborative action beyond the range of visual signaling, they used wargaming to identify what was possible. By reinforcing these lessons with exercises at sea to determine what was tactically feasible, they developed more sophisticated approaches to handling ships, formations, and fleets. This synergistic relationship between fleet exercises and wargaming began before World War I. After that conflict ended, the Navy's approach became increasingly systematic, prompting the creation of a learning system that aided the introduction of new technologies and more sophisticated tactics. By the eve of World War II, the Navy was well-positioned, not only to fight but to learn rapidly from combat experience, because of its wargaming experience.

Trent Hone is a Vice President of Technology and Product Innovation with ICF International in Reston, VA. His Learning War: The Evolution of Fighting Doctrine in the U.S. Navy, 1898–1945 explained how the U.S. Navy harnessed learning mechanisms to accelerate victory in World War II. Hone’s article, “U.S. Navy Surface Battle Doctrine and Victory in the Pacific” was awarded the U.S. Naval War College’s Edward S. Miller Prize and the Naval History and Heritage Command’s Ernest M. Eller Prize. Hone’s latest book, Mastering the Art of Command: Admiral Chester W. Nimitz and Victory in the Pacific War, is a detailed examination of Admiral Nimitz's leadership during World War II and describes how Nimitz used his talents to win crucial victories against the forces of Imperial Japan, seize the initiative, and execute an offensive campaign that created the conditions for victory in the Pacific.

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Generative AI imagery is a tool that is increasingly available and used by a growing audience, including game designers. At the same time, the proliferation of generative AI imagery has met with very vocal and negative pushback from parts of the game design community. In this presentation, Ian Brown will discuss how he used AI imagery in his "#Maneuver_Warfare" card game; how its use specifically supports his game design philosophy; and considerations for why the issues on generative AI imagery are not so black-and-white as critics would suggest.

Ian Brown is a retired Marine helicopter pilot, and currently works as a wargame analyst for a private company. He has run podcasts and written extensively (in both fiction and non-fiction formats) on professional military education, military history, future warfare, and yes, wargaming. The views he will present are his own and do not represent the views of any other company or entity with which he may be affiliated.

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War is an infinitely complex endeavor waged over vast spaces by entities composed of hundreds of thousands of human beings. Wargames need to be teachable in an hour and managed by two humans. This requires compression. But what does that compression do and how does it shape our understanding? This talk will use examples from history to show how wargame rules impact how we view conflicts and build narratives that we may not be able to consciously see. From terrain modifiers to information flows, it will challenge assumptions and offer solutions to help better capture the complexity of war.

Sasho Todorov is a D.C. based attorney with a strong interest in military studies. He engages in both casualty and logistics data projects as well as conflict mapping. His work can be found online, as well as in the upcoming book: The Battle for Kyiv, by Christopher Lawrence.

In this webinar, we explore how international corporations use game-based approaches to support their strategic transformations. From using game-based war room sessions to test strategic options to the use of leadership simulations to sharpen critical leadership competencies. We look at inspiration from Prussian thinkers like Carl von Clausewitz and von Moltke and the tradition of ‘Kriegsspiel’, and we dive into resent cases from industry leading corporations.

Ask Agger. He holds a Master's degree in Political Science from the University of Copenhagen and have more than 20 years of experience as a change management consultant and executive advisor. He is an expert in storytelling, strategy execution, leadership development and the design of game-based tools for training and engagement. Ask heads the Copenhagen-based change agency Workz (www.workzchange.com) and his favorite wargames include Flat Top, Twilight Struggle, Empire in Arms, Diplomacy and Twilight Imperium.

Project lead Dr Luke Hughes talks about design challenges in creating “Burden of Command” which Forbes characterizes as "...aiming to be an Interactive Band of Brothers." Burden strives to give players a tactically credible, emotionally authentic, and historically respectful experience as they Captain a US infantry company from Morocco to Hitler’s Eagle Nest. Burden draws heavily on the deep tactical boardgame tradition that started with Squad Leader but also integrates modern narrative and digital gameplay techniques. Join Luke for a discussion of how that marriage is working out!

Dr Luke Hughes received a PhD in AI (Yale) and an MA in Neurophysiology and Psychology (Oxford). Luke was a research lab head for Accenture and has considerable public speaking experience (three times on ABC Nightly News and many public and client talks). Luke’s Dad was a WWII vet and Pulitzer Prize finalist historian. Luke marries his consequent deeppersonal interest in history, technological skills, and psychological training to look at battlefield psychology and leadership through his current game project “Burden of Command.”

Natalia Wojtowicz will present about the design choices made in the latest game about protests in Belarus, I'm Not Afraid. She will discuss the selection of elements, balancing of mechanisms, difficulty of making things simple and depiction of the dictatorship. In this talk, you will hear about choosing the topic, and how to bring it from an idea to the table.

Natalia Wojtowicz is a lecturer in wargaming and cybersecurity at the Hague University. She is teaching wargame design in the Safety and Security Management Programme, where she draws from her books on Wargaming Experiences. Previously, she worked for NATO, where she developed new formats responding to current challenges. Since then, she has been working on innovation in wargaming, contributing to many volumes, including Forging Wargamers. In 2023, I'm Not Afraid, a game about Belarus, was funded on Kickstarter. You can follow her on twitter @Wojtowicz_N .

This webinar is focused on discussing the various ways that Digital COTS Wargames can be used to augment Professional Military Education. It will explore the Marine Corps' Wargaming Cloud in support of MCU (Marine Corps University) Fight Club and Matrix Games Portfolio within. Various levels of use from Enlisted personnel to Operational level training will be discussed. Conversations about the advantages that digital wargames provide to PME for learning adversary capabilities. Tactical Fitness gained through human opponents from reps and sets will be explained.

Kevin Williamson is a Wargame Subject Matter Expert currently working at Marine Corps University in support of Professional Military Education. Kevin is a veteran of the US Armed Forces with experience in Logistics and Gunnery with a strong passion for Civilian-Military joint learning. Kevin spends his free time playing various wargames and spearheading USA Fight Club digital wargame efforts with an emphasis on translating Tactical Decision Games to digital COTS Wargames.

Cooperative games, where all players work together as a team, and solo games have become increasingly popular in the board game community. Many of these require the players to defeat rules-based opponents. Implementing Artificial Intelligence for these opponents is a particular challenge in tabletop games, as players need to execute the steps to determine what moves will be made. The limitations of complexity, component count, and player engagement create serious restrictions on the design of these automatons. This presentation will survey the history of these opponents since the 1960’s, and how clever design has enabled increasingly robust AI's that are capable of challenging and surprising human players.

Geoff Engelstein is an award-winning tabletop game designer, whose titles include Space Cadets, The Fog of War, The Expanse, and Super Skill Pinball. He is also a noted podcaster as a contributor to the Dice Tower, the leading table-top game podcast, with a series on the math, science, and psychology of games, and the originator of the long-running Ludology podcast. He has published several books on game design, including Building Blocks of Tabletop Game Design. He teaches Board Game Design at the NYU Game Center.

This presentation introduces the concept of megagames, large boardgame-RPG hybrids that can accommodate from 30-200 players. Megagames have been designed for everything from recreational use with participants taking on the role of nobles in a fantasy setting like Westeros, or generals and diplomats in Napleonic Europe, to more serious uses for government and education purposes. The presentation will includes examples of past megagames to show what they're capable of, and also provide resources for running and designing your own megagames (whether recreationally or for serious purposes).

Rob Grayston is a resilience professional and game designer. He lives in Nottingham, England. His website is www.robgrayston.co.uk.

GUWS will be hosting an open game day on July 22nd. Feel free to bring your own games! The event will be hosted in the 55 H St. NW Multipurpose Room. Note: food will not be provided.

People outside of Georgetown are welcome to join us! Slots are limited. For more information or questions, please contact Sophia Chang at sc2085@georgetown.edu.

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GUWS will be running a general game day at 55 H St. NW, Washington D.C.. You are free to bring your own games! Note: food will not be provided.

People outside of Georgetown are welcome to join us! Slots are limited. For more information or questions, please contact Sophia Chang at sc2085@georgetown.edu.

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GUWS will be running an Operational Wargame Series Game on July 8th at the 55 H St. NW Multipurpose Room. Nick Wernert will be facilitating the event. Note: food will not be provided.

People outside of Georgetown are welcome to join us! Slots are limited. For more information or questions, please contact Sophia Chang at sc2085@georgetown.edu.

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Celebrate the Fourth of July with the Georgetown Wargaming Society at the 55 H St. NW Multipurpose Room!

People outside of Georgetown are welcome to join us! Slots are limited. For more information or questions, please contact Sophia Chang at sc2085@georgetown.edu.

Sign Up Here

This talk with situate commercial historical board wargames within the context of colonialism. The talk will explore the means through which postcolonial perspectives are being achieved through contemporary designs, what can be gained from these perspectives, and why they are likely here to stay. The talk will also explore the origins of the postcoloniality in wargames.

Maurice Suckling has spent over 25 years writing for video games, including Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel, Killing Floor 2, and Civilization VI. He now designs commercial historical board wargames, including the 2021 Charles S. Roberts Award-winning Chancellorsville: 1863. He holds a PhD in Creative Writing and an M.A. in Global History. He is an Assistant Professor in the Games and Simulation Arts and Sciences program at RPI in Upstate New York, where he teaches and researches on games writing and historical simulations.

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-postcolonial-turn-in-commercial-historical-board-wargames-tickets-536491168527

Description:

Colin Marston and Graham Longley-Brown will summarise the forthcoming UK Ministry of Defence Influence Wargaming Handbook. The purpose of the Handbook is to explain how wargaming can be used to examines influence. It also explores how influence effects might be better represented within wargames. Affecting the behaviours of target audiences is central to all defence and security activities across the continuum of competition, which spans cooperation, through rivalry and confrontation, to armed conflict. At present, the representation of influence and behavioural effects in our methods, techniques and data is poor. Developing methods and techniques, including wargaming, to represent effects below the threshold of war, such as influence effects, is a high priority. Wargaming is recognised as, ‘a powerful tool…that can deliver better understanding and critical thinking, foresight, genuinely informed decision-making and innovation.’ While that is certainly true of ‘conventional’ wargaming, typified by force-on-force and kinetic activity, the representation of influence effects within wargames is of more variable quality. Wargaming is particularly suited to examining influence – but it must be done well or it carries risk. ‘Influence wargaming’ is an evolving discipline that needs to be developed. It is essential that influence effects are better represented within wargames to inform our understanding of the information environment and, in particular, audiences.

Bio:

Colin Marston is a Senior Principal Operational Researcher at the Defence Wargaming Centre (DWC), which is part of the UK MOD’s Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl). Colin has designed, executed and analysed a range of wargames across defence and security, and he was a co-author of the UK MOD Wargaming Handbook and has authored numerous articles on professional wargaming. Colin was deployed as an Operational Analyst in Afghanistan and Iraq, and he served in the Army Reserve (Infantry). He is a Fellow of the OR Society (FORS) and has a BSc (Hons) in Physics with Astrophysics. In addition, Colin is a co-founder of the Connections UK professional wargaming conference.

Graham Longley-Brown has wargamed since aged six. A British Army Officer since 1986 (and still in the Reserves), he has used wargaming for professional purposes throughout his career, often as a lone champion for the technique. He was the UK Joint Services Command and Staff College Directing Staff Subject Matter Expert for wargaming from 2000-2002. Since leaving the Regular Army in 2003, Graham has consulted on all-matters professional wargaming. He has designed and delivered wargames at UK, European and Gulf State Staff Colleges, for the UK Army (at all levels), RAF, Royal Navy and Royal Marines, the NATO Joint Warfare Centre, UK Force Development and experimentation, Dstl, the American, British, Canadian and Australian Armies Programme, the Royal Brunei Armed Forces, the Pakistan National Defence University, the US Army in Europe and others. He is the leading developer of the Dstl/Cranfield Rapid Campaign Analysis Toolset (RCAT) manual simulation. He is a published author on professional wargaming: he was lead author for the MOD Wargaming Handbook; wrote the Course of Action Wargaming section for the UK Army's Planning and Execution Handbook; and his own Successful Professional Wargames: A Practitioner’s Handbook. He is a co-founder of Connections UK.

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/influence-wargaming-handbook-tickets-524664865737

Kat Schrier will talk about designing games for empathy and compassion, and how we might use games to make our world more caring and compassionate.

Dr. Karen (Kat) Schrier is Founding Director of the Games & Emerging Media program at Marist College. She is also the CEO of PlatyPlay, LLC, a consultancy that focuses on using games for inclusion, learning, and care. She wrote a book on this emerging field, We the Gamers: How Games Teach Ethics & Civics (Oxford University Press), and is the author/editor of over 100 published works. Previously, she was a media producer for Nickelodeon, Scholastic, and BrainPOP. Dr. Schrier also consults as a Game Designer for the World Health Organization (WHO). https://www.karenschrier.com/

Dr Aggie Hirst (King's College London) will explore how wargames are used to teach service members using immersion & competition.

Since 2014, calls to expand the use of wargames and simulations in the armed forces have emanated from the highest levels of the US federal government, specifically via the Defense Innovation Initiative (DII) and the Third Offset Strategy (3OS). In the ensuing wargaming renaissance, a small but committed wargames community of practice (CoP) has been empowered to proliferate their craft across the military’s strategic planning, professional education, and tactical/operations training regimes. Combining 100 hours of original empirical data - gathered with pioneers and practitioners at US military wargames, CPXs, and school-houses - with a new theory of deconstructive play, Dr Aggie Hirst's forthcoming book provides a new critical analysis of the use of wargames to produce soldiers in a digital age. In this talk, Dr Hirst will argue that prevailing analyses fail to grasp the nature and depth of the power of pedagogical wargaming. By promoting a non-reflexive immersive state and cultivating a drive towards victory conditions, she will argue that gaming has subject-producing properties. She explores Hans-Georg Gadamer’s claim that far from the player playing the game, the game plays the player, and offers a new conceptualisation of play - ‘deconstructive play’ - suggest how we might better ensure player agency and expose and explore games’ aims, assumptions, omissions, and politics.

Dr Aggie Hirst is Reader in International Relations Theory and Methods in the Department of War Studies at King’s College London. Her research is situated in IR/political theory and critical military studies. She has published widely on play, games, and the military wargaming renaissance with International Studies Quarterly, International Political Sociology, Critical Military Studies, and Review of International Studies, and she is author of The Politics of Play: Wargaming with the US Military (forthcoming, Oxford University Press). In addition, she is co-author of a new textbook, Global Politics: Myths and Mysteries (forthcoming, Oxford University Press), which takes a critical pedagogical approach to theorising international politics.

Link: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-politics-of-play-wargaming-with-the-us-military-tickets-415461174557

Game designers can spend dozens, hundreds or even thousands of hours perfecting game mechanics. Rarely is such care given to crafting a quality scenario that both helps and guide your players to meet your design goals. In this presentation Mr. Bond will cover the importance of objective-based scenario design and his own scenario design method.

Bio: Michael Bond is a technical analyst working at the intersection of military technology, modeling and simulation, wargaming, and East-Asia. His research interests include force modernization, naval warfare, PLA modernization, wargaming, and modeling and simulation. The views expressed in this brief are his own.

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/scenario-design-or-how-i-ruined-my-perfect-wargame-with-a-sloppy-scenario-tickets-581291246767

Join the Georgetown University Wargaming Society (GUWS) for a special session to playtest original wargames designed by Georgetown University students. We need players to serve as playtesters for their original wargames for their Basics of Wargaming Course, taught by Professor Sebastian Bae. 

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSccchevMpXlDNmUiK0f_d6qKe3zDi_HaJ4Tytw0GD1XlWrvlw/viewform

Join the Georgetown University Wargaming Society (GUWS) for a special session of Flashpoint: Taiwan Strait, a modified educational matrix game about conflict and regional strategy in East Asia! The game will be run by the Women of Wargaming at the Center for Applied Strategic Learning, the National Defense University's wargaming and exercise development team. Players of all experience levels are welcome.

Bios:

Dr. Selma Gomez Orr serves as an Assistant Wargaming Fellow at the National Defense University (NDU). Dr. Orr brings experience from a variety of positions in both the public and private sectors. Within government, she has served as a White House Fellow and foreign affairs officer at the U.S. Department of State. As a management consultant, Dr. Orr has specialized in operations consulting for large service firms. She has also taught quantitative methods in management using case-based experiential learning in undergraduate and graduate school programs, in both the U.S. and overseas.

Ms. Ginger Seip-Nuño is a Wargaming Assistant at the National Defense University’s Center for Applied Strategic Learning (NDU-CASL).  Before joining CASL in November 2022, she was a publications director for a cyber thinktank, an independent researcher, college instructor, and a freelance writer.  Ginger has a background in English, international relations, intelligence, and Geographic Information Systems (GIS).  She is an unapologetic life-long learner who loves creating unique ways to examine complex problems. 

Ms. Charlotte Lathrop is a Wargaming Assistant at the Center for Applied Strategic Learning at the National Defense University. Previously, she worked at various international development organizations on countering violent extremism, and monitoring and evaluation. In addition, she was a designer for a health technology company and a Middle East think tank. She received a Masters of Science in Conflict Studies from the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Ms. Anya Bolden is an intern at the National Defense University’s (NDU) Center for Applied Strategic Learning (CASL). She is currently a student in the Georgetown School of Continuing Studies Masters in Applied Intelligence program. She has a Bachelors in History from Rutgers University, with a minor in Critical Intelligence Studies. Ms. Bolden is also a long time hobby gamer.

Register: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSc2NczKZuv-8gLLOJvgl8ii5WZ5J-tPy1qN6nir9Q5Tiv5Tag/viewform

Join the Georgetown University Wargaming Society (GUWS) for a special session to play Littoral Commander, an educational military wargame exploring future tactical combat in the Indo-Pacific. 

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSd9tktPr5BCwZilUxutfvRq5fiEa7yDpBflC4B9_U54dLk5Ug/viewform

Join the Georgetown University Wargaming Society (GUWS) for our social game night. We will be featuring a wide range of  commercial and professional titles. Players of all levels are welcomed. So come join us for games, pizza, and good company.

Register: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdOkq4Xe5LakAUgNqe4B4Y76ZQoIfhjyGlCnVScW5Tl9Xr_Dw/viewform
In the Thomas & Dorothy Leavey Center, 1560 Tondorf Rd, Washington, DC 20007, USA

To paraphrase Helmuth van Moltke, plans rarely survive contact with reality. But plans that are practiced and improved with the goal of creating flux capacity - the flexibility to deal with the unexpected in a quickly changing world - are far more likely to help organizations survive crises and lead to more successful decisions. Milena Rodban will discuss how she helps organizations tackle difficult questions, practice business continuity/crisis response plans, and make better decisions through the use of interactive simulations.

A long time fan of the GU Wargaming Society, Milena Rodban is a geopolitical risk consultant and interactive simulation designer working to help organizations make better decisions in complex operating environments. She was most recently a Senior Advisor at the National Risk Management Center within the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, working on systemic cyber risk reduction. Prior to that, she served in several senior security roles within the private sector. Milena is a Georgetown alum, and always happy to speak to student audiences about working at the intersection of tech and geopolitics.

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/flux-capacity-interactive-sims-for-decision-making-in-complex-environments-tickets-473114166207?aff=ebdsoporgprofile