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Radio War Nerd #347 — War Board Games, feat. Brian Train (Patreon)

Published:
2022-09-25 20:12:05
Edited:
2022-09-25 20:12:46
Imported:
2026-06
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Guest: Brian Train, war board game developer 

Recorded: September 21, 2022

Risk is required playing for any budding war nerd. But real war board-gamers move on to the hard stuff. We talk to Brian Train, developer of dozens of war board games over 3 decades, specializing in gaming counter-insurgencies.

Links to Brian's work:-10 free board games-digital versions of Brian's games -buy Brian's print 'n' play games-Brian's ludography 

Previous RWN episodes on war games:-EP #217 - Video War Games, with Gunnar Hrafn Jónsson -EP #248 - War Game Development, with Maurice Grela 

Total time: 1:56:36

Direct link to this episode's mp3 here 

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Comments

Steve Mathews

Hey - I'm still wanting to send this to the game designers I know. Any progress on making it public? As I wrote before, it could gain you some subscribers...

Mark Ames

thanks for reminding

SammyG

Lets goo

John

Tactically & strategically, the nuclear option is a bad option for Putin. Strategically, it's a two-sided risk: * Ukrainians could become even more hardlined against Russia (existential threat) * The West will become more solid against Russia. That the West alliance would collapse is wishful thinking, in the same category as "the Ukrainians will throw us flowers as we liberate them from their evils". Moreover, China will back away. So strategically it has tons of risk. But tactically is also unviable. Tactically, nukes can be done 3 ways: * High in the atmosphere, as a warning. No tactical advantages there, just for show. * Nuke a city. Not happening at this point, obviously. * Small-weight nuke in the army. There's no big concentration of armies for that to be effective, the battalions are stretched. It will definitely blast a hole in the lines, but then so what? It will get covered back behind the lines (because small nukes have a small area effect) and the Russian troops will have to cross the contaminated area. In these circumstances, nukes are a desperation option. Maybe there will be something for show. But then the bluff will be called and Putin's out of options, short of actually starting WW3.

Brendan Mason

The designer of some of my favourite wargames(!) Looking forward to this.

A Patreon of the Ahts

I'm surprised they haven't done a live test deep in Russia. Just checking they still work, you understand...

Ger Dempsey

Genuinely read "Brain Train" until I heard you say Brian

Fr0id

I literally started yelling when I saw this episode come up. Speaking of tabletop war games, I would highly recommend the book Playing at the World. It’s a very in-depth look at how dungeons and dragons was designed, and how a lot of its weird assumptions about gameplay came from old naval war games. Also, tons of stuff about how fantasy writers contributed to its setting. I think John and Mark would love it.

Ander Pierce

Enjoyed the talk! Gotta find some folks who will play that Hezbollah Israeli conflict game with me :D

j

Great episode!

j

Colonial twilight is an excellent game!

Brendan Mason

Great interview! The COIN games make regular appearances on my gaming group's table. Volko Ruhnke, the CIA guy who oversees the COIN series, is interesting in his own right and regularly does board game-related interviews. If you ever did a follow up to this (great) episode...

ElGatoMalandrin

Journal of the Plague Year by Defoe is pretty damn boring. But still a good read

Steven Pennington

Toot toot all aboard the Brian train (thanks for this)

David Schilmoeller

The old Star Wars Customizable Card Game from the 90's has gained a second life on the internet. The cards have been digitalized by a dedicated group of players and the meta has actually continued to evolve as they release new 'virtual' cards. A steep learning curve, but completely free to play and fun to watch. https://gemp.starwarsccg.org/gemp-swccg/

Kevin Walsh

I've only played A Distant Plain a couple of times, but I would say that A Distant Plain portrays the Afghan government as one that loots the country in a way that subverts its own power (Patronage as a mechanic gets the Government victory points without offering any other gameplay benefit), and as being almost incapable of defeating the Taliban without the support of the Coalition, so I don't think Brian or Volko should feel too badly about it.

WarOn WarOff

Italy might become a rather dicey place with fascists in power again. Take care, John.

etienne

he's gonna have to revert to his Gionvanni Bretcherollo persona and write angry op-eds about how Berlusconi sold Italy down the river and whine about the temperature in the Po central valley

DominusCaveaVulpes

Hmm. Do I smell a War Role-Playing Games episode coming up . . . ?

Kars

If so, they should invite Daniel “Delta” Collins of Wandering DMs fame. He has an excellent set of OD&D house rules (OED) but more importantly, a wargame that lets you play out D&D battles at scale, called Book of War.

Kars

Or, of course, Jon Peterson, author of Playing at the World, who I am sure will have a lot of interesting things to say about the wargaming roots of D&D and by extension the entire tabletop roleplaying game hobby.

DominusCaveaVulpes

?? Wow. It all started off with historical miniatures rules in the first place, then the fantasy element was added, then the RPG was made. And now we've come full circle with yet more miniatures rules based on the RPG. How post-Modern can you get? No, I was actually thinking along the lines of RPGs that were/are set during times of war eg Recon, Colonial Gothic, Weird Wars, Behind Enemy Lines, GURPS' WWII line of supplements, etc.

Kars

Okay maybe not.

Demented Avenger

As alluded by someone wanting to grab Delta (aka Daniel Collins), this episode could have traction in the gaming community. If you want an episode to make available for free, this is it. I could see it being discussed on Tenkar's Tavern or Grognardia.

Steve Mathews

So...I loved this podcast and I want to send it to some serious game designers I know (Mark Herman and some of his friends) but I want to get your permission first. One or more of them may subscribe FWIW...

Demented Avenger

Oh, and as well as everyone recommending Playing at the World, see if you can see the documentary Secrets of Blackmoor. While technically it's a documentary on D&D co-author Dave Arneson and the origins of roleplaying games, the segments with Dave Wesely talking about Strategos by Charles A. L. Totten and the open-ended results are germane to this.

DominusCaveaVulpes

Maybe Merle Rasmussen, Paul Hume, and/or Bob Charette to talk about how they crunched real numbers to arrive at the stats for the guns and ammo they detailed in Top Secret and Aftermath, respectively.

Jason Thompson

This was excellent. I will definitely look for Train’s games. Like other commenters, I too am a D&D nerd and love Gary’s tragic story of the 1970s D&Der’s dead elf. The history of D&D and RPGs is interesting in that it rose out of wargames but generally it’s a rejection of wargames — the focus on story or individual roleplaying/power-fantasy over simulation, beyond the level of “how much damage would a bastard sword do relative to a longsword”. Generally RPGs, like boardgames, have gotten more and more streamlined and abstract and Heroic Story-focused and farther from Oldschool D&D, which had the “now you get to raise armies” high level endgame. Every 10 years or so D&D tries to bring back some kind of wargame variant but they usually don’t make much impact.

William

Lotta assumptions. Why would China back away? Why would the west be more solid against them? Wouldn't a small nuke on an army position be just as much of a warning as a high altitude one? Why is the NATO alliance collapsing in the face of a nuclear attack wishful thinking? Who's wishing for NATO to collapse here? My main overriding point is that you just seem to assume a lot of things arguing with yourself in your head and then presenting it as proof that your analysis is airtight. Whats stopping Putin from pulling what MacArthur wanted to in Korea?

William

"everyone knows how you win at risk, you just grab Australia..." Me: "damn, they know my secret?!"

John

You seem to have a horse in the race William and that makes you aggressive. Now, being aggressive is not inherently bad in and of itself, but it comes along with the cost of abandoning rationality. And why do we care about rationality really? That's because historically it has been the most effective way of calculating the future. So of course I make a lot of assumptions. That's because I do not have perfect knowledge of the present/past & I do not know the future. Assumptions are the key to any possibility of glimpsing at the future. The other alternative is to be a fan, in which case the future is no big deal - your team definitely wins. And since you know the future, it's easy to deduct back to the present. That's why you are so surprised that the West would be more solid. But if we were to be rational about it, it should be obvious why. This one was definitely the most safe assumption I made. Think over it again and if you want me to explain it in detail, let me know in a comment and I'll list all the reasons. In the meantime, here's a hint: If France dropped a tactical nuke in Kherson tomorrow and broke the Russian lines towards a Ukrainian advance to Crimea, would the Russian population support for Putin go up or down? All that said, nobody I know of is a seer. It could be that a tactical nuke would scare away the NATO allies and every leader would come begging to Moscow for peace and offer to make amends. But is it probable? Well...

radiowarnerd

maybe we should just unlock this episode for the public

Jimothy Realname

I'm gonna correct your guest, *Stubbs the Zombie in: A Rebel Without a Pulse* came out in, as I recall, 2005

Paul M

Australia is a good strategy if you're ok conquering one territory a turn (for the card), but in my experience, people know whatyou're doing and willing to attack it. I think a fortified South America is a good spot because you can launch into Africa and North America while avoiding the mess that is Asia.

Paul M

I've never played any of the COIN (Counterinsurgency) games, but I've heard good things. I know the war game-adjacent Root is influenced by that series.

JoR

Mark and John, would you two consider streaming/recording yourselfs playing a game of one of Brian's games? Maybe the Guerilla Checkers one? Might sound gimmicky but I think the fans would eat it up

Jason Thompson

RPG writer/designer Adam Scott Glancy is a patron of the show, I think! I wonder if Kenneth Hite would be interesting, as someone very knowledgeable about spy agencies, albeit usually also throwing in vampires or Cthulhu etc.

Jason Thompson

I had no idea that documentary even existed! Thanks for the recommendation!