Mikko Saari
Finland
http://www.lautapeliopas.fi/ - the best Finnish board game resource!
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Thanks to Doug for naming me the Geek of the Week, it was fun. Now it's time to pass the torch on.
Our next Geek of the Week is Alfred Wallace. Check his profile at http://boardgamegeek.com/user/alfredhw and his excellent blog Musings, Ramblings, and Things Left Unsaid at http://tajmahalfred.blogspot.com/
Here's his bio:
Quote: I was born in 1977--my 29th birthday comes shortly after my reign as GotW ends--and sometimes it seems like I've been gaming the entire time since. I'm currently working on my Master's degree in history--specializing, for the moment at least, in Civil War military history--at Missouri State University in Springfield, MO.
I've been a gamer as long as I can remember. My dad gave me my first "real" wargame--Flight Leader--when it came out, and I took to them immediately. I never played them with anyone else; I used them like "interactive books" to kind of tell myself stories. (I still think of wargaming as a solitary pastime...)
When I was a sophomore at the U. of Texas at Austin (Go Horns!), I was introduced to Settlers--I was instantly hooked, and Euros (by whatever name) have been a passion ever since.
I started blogging in August of 2003, largely as a way to overcome a touch of writers' block (and it seems to have helped). After a while, Musings, Ramblings and Things Left Unsaid became known outside the tiny circle of friends (and somewhat wider circle of random visitors from Google), and is now bringing me what fame and fortune fifty hits a day can muster!
Few questions to start your week, then it's yours to take wherever you want:
- You've worked at a library desk. Share your best library anecdote! Also, how do you resist to urge to give snappy answers to stupid questions?
- You're a historian; wargames are obvious, when we're talking about games with strong historical elements. But are there any other games that you'd suggest to someone with an interest in history? I noticed you found Old Town inspiring.
- You do lots of solo playing, with your Gathering of One and all that. What are the best games for solo plays, and how much fun is that compared to multi-player games?
- How well war games in general present the historical situation they claim to cover? Which games would make the best learning tools for a history class?
- Two truths and a lie!
Have fun!
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Jim Cote
United States
Maine
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Grats, Alfred!
Your profile shows you own 1043 games. As I wipe away my drool, let me ask you this. You have such a wide variety of so many games. How do you choose what to play any more? Do you have only a small fraction of your collection that you actually play? Do you have a large number that are in "collection only" or "don't like enough to play" states?
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Alfred Wallace
United States
State College
Pennsylvania
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Howdy sports fans! Many thanks to my noble coblogger Mikko for letting me take my place among my august predecessors.
On to the first questions:
"You've worked at a library desk. Share your best library anecdote! Also, how do you resist to urge to give snappy answers to stupid questions?"
Ahh, life at a university library. I love it so. (I really do. It's a great campus job.) Best anecdote...most of my anecdotes are built on the delivery--funny voices, waving hand gestures, etc--but let's see here. There are a few good ones...
FACULTY MEMBER: What does it take to get the library to buy a book?
ME: Well, it's not an automatic, but if you fill out a request slip the Collections and Acquisitions department will certainly consider adding it to the stacks.
FM: Y'know, I really don't want the *library* to get it, so much as I want it myself. Is there any way, say, for the library to buy the book, and then I reimburse you?
ME: You want to buy the book?
FM: Yes.
ME: Have you...spoken with a bookstore?
(pause)
FM: You know, that's a good idea.
Another common kind of "customer" is the person who wants his or her reference desk attendant to be their for-free lawyer, doctor, accountant, etc. One time I was supposed to be a guy's lawyer. He comes in, and tells me that he's a convicted crack dealer out on parole (I think it was parole--or supervised work release, whatever--again: I'm not a lawyer). I am informed that parole is "lame," if not as lame as actual prison. Did I know of any way to avoid parole without, y'know, going back to The House? I told him that he should talk to a lawyer; I can't give legal advice. I was then informed that his lawyer sucked. I responded that even a bad lawyer is probably better than a good part-time ref. desk attendant. I ended up printing off some Criminal Procedure code for him, and he went on his relatively merry way.
Then there's the guy who came in with a stack of books, magazines, and printouts a good nine inches high. He puts the pile on the desk, and slaps it.
"I'm in big trouble."
"Oh?"
"I gotta write a ten-page paper, right? And I found all this stuff."
"Looks like you've found a lot of sources there!"
"Yeah, but...I haven't read it, see?"
"OK..."
"And the paper's due in about...four hours."
"Uh huh."
"Can you help?"
"No."
(In reality my last answer was longer, but "No" was the gist of it.)
I might think of some others later in the week...telling work anecdotes is one of my favorite pastimes.
As to your other question--"How do you resist to urge to give snappy answers to stupid questions?" First: That's a mighty big assumption there...Second, I have a great deal of patience with the "stupid" question born of ignorance (of, say, how the library or the databases work); I'll teach someone to fish (as the saying goes) all day long. If someone comes up and demands that I basically do their homework...not so much. (One time--I said I'd think of other anecdotes--a student came in, gave me a worksheet, told me it was her homework assignment and that she'd be back in an hour to pick it up. She picked it up as blank as we got it, of course. But don't think we didn't fantasize about faking answers for just a second.)
Next question:
"But are there any other games [besides wargames] that you'd suggest to someone with an interest in history?"
Old Town, as mentioned, is a good one. (If you're the guy with whom I placed a Marketplace order for it, get back to me. I want to give you money for it.)
First, I definitely invite other professional and postulant academic historians on BGG--Dr. Hummasti, Dr. Madden, et al--to chime in, particularly because as a grad student I'm trained to defer to my academic elders whenever the opinion of an historian is asked for.
With that out of the way...
Games by Martin Wallace (no relation) are good--at least the denser ones. Rigorous simulations? Heck no, but still theme aplenty to chew on. I also get "that feeling" from rail games--even crayon rails, but definitely also games like New England Rails and Silverton.
Back when I was going to be an historian of medieval economic history, I was always on the lookout for games about medieval merchant activity--and there are plenty of them to be sure. I loved to get into it, even though the themes were usually...not academically rigorous.
If you're interested in history, most euros that are themed on a topic that interests you can appeal--as long as you go in looking for similarities, not deficiencies.
Next up:
Solo gaming...
The best games for playing solitaire are either games with strong narratives (like wargames, adventure games, and the like) or are very puzzle-like. I can't imagine playing (say) Settlers solo--except, of course, in order to learn the rules. Die Macher, though, could work.
You lose a lot of the gameplay sometimes, certainly. Trading is kind of...weird, if not impossible.
What I miss more than anything else is the table talk. I play wargames for the narrative, but euros for socializing and competition. It's not as fun as playing with other people, but:
A. It's better than nothing, and
B. You get to try stuff out. "What if somebody does a strong VP strategy against someone with a strong money strategy?" (To make something up.) You can set up experiments.
Race games work particularly well, too...
How well do war games in general present the historical situation they claim to cover? Which games would make the best learning tools for a history class?
When I was at UT, I had a military history professor who loved to rail against wargames and wargamers. (We had it out once after class on the subject.) His basic criticism was that they were all fundamentally ahistorical and grotesquely oversimplified. (And I think he had heard of ASL.) I defended the hobby gamely at the time, but I'm coming around to a (much) softer form of his argument.
Wargamers sometimes talk about a game being "designed for effect" or "designed for cause." The former are in some sense "rigged" to ensure historical results--mandating weather changing on schedule, when reinforcements come in, and so on. The latter try to present the underlying structure and assume that the logic of the situation will lead to a plausible result.
I think most "DFC" games are more like "DFE" than we sometimes like to think. A lot of violence is done to the real historical situation in all games--just to make them more playable. In most ancients games, for example, the player (representing Alexander, Caesar, etc) has nearly telepathic control over his forces--which is nuts. Players have far more knowledge and power than their counterparts had. Some games take away some knowledge and power, but never enough (that is, never enough to accurately depict what was really the case).
That said, wargames have plenty going for them, too. For one thing, the good ones do a fine job of displaying at least the geographical, technological, and "manpower" situation--and that is by no means trivial. Others do a good job of showing other aspects of the battle. Good games tend to have a "thesis" about what drove the situation, which I like to grapple with.
If I were running a game for a classroom...some day long in the future, I'd like to take a class and run a team game of one of the Gamers' Civil War Brigade Series games, with me as an umpire. Written orders, the whole nine yards. The maps are great, and with a lot of people the bookkeeping wouldn't be a problem. I think with an umpire (me) handling the meat of the game, the rules could be kept to a minimum for the players. (And it's not as though their historical counterparts knew the "rules" and "combat results table" by heart.)
Once--in a Musings On..., as well as the blog--I described a theoretical wargame where the players were able to do high-level planning but virtually everything else was out of their hands. It'd be unlike just about any wargame out there--but quite like the obscure "Race for Space" by Rob Markham. Try to track that one down for an interesting historical simulation...
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Alfred Wallace
United States
State College
Pennsylvania
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Two truths and a lie, eh...
1. I'd much rather play Zombies!!! or War! Age of Imperialism than Tichu or Puerto Rico.
2. I wasn't always a history student, y'know. In fact, my first two published articles were in a science journal.
3. I've never owned a videogame console, but I read PVP, Penny Arcade, and VGCats religiously.
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Alfred Wallace
United States
State College
Pennsylvania
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ekted wrote: Grats, Alfred!
Your profile shows you own 1043 games. As I wipe away my drool, let me ask you this. You have such a wide variety of so many games. How do you choose what to play any more? Do you have only a small fraction of your collection that you actually play? Do you have a large number that are in "collection only" or "don't like enough to play" states?
Thanks for the warm welcome!
Yeah, it's a huge stack. I'll have to take a picture of the Game Room of the apartment...lots of plastic utility shelving.
For euros, pretty much every game I own is a game I like to play (given the right group/situation)--so picking's relatively easy...something jumps out that I haven't played in a while, or I've been really into lately. Usually, though, I let other people pick...I've always been That Guy who brought the games. Virtually every euro I own I've played at some point (if perhaps not my copy of it). I don't suffer too badly from the "too many kinds of peanut butter to choose from" syndrome.
I do have a few games that I'm not 100% keen on, but I know other people really like, so I have 'em around for that. Kind of like snickerdoodles: I don't like them, but I make really good ones (I'm assured), so when I bring cookies somewhere I usually have a batch of snickerdoodles, along with Cookies for Me.
(Now THAT'S a previously-unseen analogy on the 'Geek.)
For wargames...there are plenty of games I've never played, and no small number that I probably never will play. A lot of wargmes enter the collection because I see one and think "Hey, that's a neat situation, and I don't have a game on it already." And then it languishes--particularly magazine games, which I store in boxes so I don't see them, really, when I scan the shelves.
There are probably at least 200 wargames I could sell and hardly notice (except in the bank account area). But putting them all on eBay or the Marketplace...(shudder) That's a lot of work, and my time isn't entirely valueless...
(Plus, if I sold all those games I'd have to be deleted from that crazy "BGG Royalty" list from a few months back since I'd be under 1000 games.)
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Alfred Wallace
United States
State College
Pennsylvania
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Also:
I have an idea or two about who the next GotW should be, but I'd like to put out a call for suggestions. For instance, we've had a lot of bloggers lately; bloggers are cool, but who among the BGG/BGN/industry crowd would we like to hear about? Shoot me a PM or an email; don't respond here, please. I'd like to have the next GotW hammered out by, say, Wednesday or Thursday.
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Alfred Wallace
United States
State College
Pennsylvania
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For wargames as learning tools...
One advantage of doing a refereed system like I suggested is that it shows something that a lot of history books gloss over: The problem of communicating between the links in the chain of command. Lee and Meade were "in command" at Gettysburg; what did that entail?
I have a book of special games designed for use in history classes (kindergarten through grad school)...I'll have to give that a look for more ideas.
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Russ Williams
Poland
Wrocław
Dolny ÅšlÄ…sk
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The most crucial question burning in my mind is: Do you REALLY pronounce "an" instead of "a" like "an historian", "an hysterical", "an hotel", etc? What's up with that?
http://tajmahalfred.blogspot.com/2006/07/three-for-three-i-w...
Speaking of history, during your Civil War research does it often happen that you are reading old letters and diaries but the handwriting is impenetrably wretched? What do historians do when they simply can't tell WTF someone was writing?
I suppose I should also ask something game-related. When and how did you get interested in Go? How often (if ever) do you study go? How often do you play go (in person, on a "real-time" server, and on a "turn-based" server)?
And is it just me or do you also think "real-time" and "turn-based" are rather lame distinctions to apply to games like go (and most BGG games) which are inherently turn-based? If turns are measured in minutes or seconds (at "real-time" servers) or hours or days (at "turn-based" servers), they are still turns. I always thought "real-time" implies that things are continually happening simultaneously, e.g. "real-time strategy games", first-person shooters, etc.
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Andrew H
Australia
Brisbane
Queensland
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Surely an historian or an hotel is from French influence in the creation of the English language. In French the h at the start of many words is silent. on my honour.
Excuse my ignorance of all things Civil War (a massive oxymoron surely) but what would you say are the most important lessons to be learned from the American Civil War?
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Russ Williams
Poland
Wrocław
Dolny ÅšlÄ…sk
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Critical Mass wrote: Surely an historian or an hotel is from French influence in the creation of the English language. In French the h at the start of many words is silent. on my honour.
Of course the "h" at the start of "honor" is silent. But most speakers of American English seem to pronounce the "h" at the start of "historical", "hotel", "hysterical", etc, so "an" before them defies the normal conventions concerning "an" (i.e. that it is used before a noun which begins with a vowel sound instead of consonant sound).
So I suppose my question boils down to: does our honored GOTW really say "'otel" and "'ysterical" instead of "hotel" and "hysterical"?
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Brian Bankler
United States
San Antonio
Texas
Modified Limited Rampage!
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Congrats.
1) For someone who went to UT, the right hand side of your geek badge seems awfully suspicious. Care to explain?
2) So, a graduate history degree. Are you aiming for a life in Academia, so that you can be the absent minded professor in someone's reference desk work anecdote in 20 years?
3) How would you rate the competence of the major players in the Civil War?
4) From what I understand, there are a few 'types' of historians. The "Great Men" type believe that great men influence history, whereas others ("Sweep of nations") think that the trends are always there and just pull people along. I'm sure there are others (and that they have less interesting names). Are you in a camp? Which one?
5) What obscure area of history do you like?
6) If you could get a full refund, how much of your collection would you liquidate?
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Mark Jackson
United States
Fresno
California
Am I a man or am I a muppet? If I'm a muppet then I'm a very manly muppet!
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Congrats, Alfred... I wanted to ask Mikko a question, but I dinked out. Sigh.
You blogged about your tour of midwestern historical libraries (and the gaming that ensued)... exactly what were you doing on this trip?
My dad grew up in Springfield (and met my mom at SMS back when it was just SMS). Let's here a little about "culture" in SW Missouri - say, for example, have you been to Bass Pro? How about catching The Shepherd of the Hills production?
You've been asked to design a history game - where do you go from here?
Again, congrats - and thanks for playing!
mark
aka fluff daddy
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Alfred Wallace
United States
State College
Pennsylvania
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russ wrote:
It's totally true! I'm not sure what's up with that. For whatever reason, words with an unstressed initial "h" tend to drop the "h" when I pronounce them.
Quote: Speaking of history, during your Civil War research does it often happen that you are reading old letters and diaries but the handwriting is impenetrably wretched? What do historians do when they simply can't tell WTF someone was writing?
My advisor, Dr. Piston, wrote his dissertation on Longstreet (from which his book Lee's Tarnished Lieutenant was derived). At one point Old Pete got his right arm wounded and couldn't write with it...so for a while he tried to write left-handed. It looked like a seismograph printout, and was completely unusable...
Luckily, I haven't seen real scrawl yet. Right now, my major difficulty is reading these German letters and diaries I've found--they're in the pre-1941 script, first of all. Second of all, my diarist had only about a fourth-grade education...so once I transliterate it, it's still a mess. (It was described in the archive finding aid as being "in idiosyncratic German.") Plenty of English-speaking soldiers had lousy spelling and grammar too, of course, but I can puzzle it out since that's in my first language, rather than my third.
Quote: I suppose I should also ask something game-related. When and how did you get interested in Go? How often (if ever) do you study go? How often do you play go (in person, on a "real-time" server, and on a "turn-based" server)?
I'd played go a little bit in high school, but like many others I only started getting really into it after I saw the movie Pi. I don't play it nearly enough nowadays; I need to get back on the turn-based servers, at least. I also don't study enough...once I left Austin (sigh), go started dropping off fast.
Quote: And is it just me or do you also think "real-time" and "turn-based" are rather lame distinctions to apply to games like go (and most BGG games) which are inherently turn-based? If turns are measured in minutes or seconds (at "real-time" servers) or hours or days (at "turn-based" servers), they are still turns. I always thought "real-time" implies that things are continually happening simultaneously, e.g. "real-time strategy games", first-person shooters, etc.
Just another example of the pernicious influence of computer gaming on board gaming (ducks)...
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Alfred Wallace
United States
State College
Pennsylvania
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Bankler wrote:
1) For someone who went to UT, the right hand side of your geek badge seems awfully suspicious. Care to explain?
If you look reeeeeallly close, the little glyph on the end is a bear head with "SMS" underneath...Missouri State and Aggieland have the same school colors, sadly. (I'm probably applying to A&M for my PhD, though, so it may be really strange in due time.)
Quote: 2) So, a graduate history degree. Are you aiming for a life in Academia, so that you can be the absent minded professor in someone's reference desk work anecdote in 20 years?
My goal is to wrap myself in a nice, warm ivory blanket and live within the physical and intellectual bubble of academia for life. If the result is some idiot whippersnapper telling stories about me behind my back, that's a small price to pay.
(I should put that on my applications. Wait...no I shouldn't. If someone on an admissions committee in six months is Googling me and finds this, this is all in jest and I really want to be in academia for the enhanced library privileges.)
Quote: 3) How would you rate the competence of the major players in the Civil War?
How major is major? I think Lincoln did extremely well given his competing political and military constraints. (A flawless record? Of course not, but whose is?) Davis didn't do too well, but would Howell Cobb, Bob Toombs, or the other plausible presidential possibilities have done any better? I'm not so sure.
For the "Major Name" Generals, overall I give high competence marks to Grant, Sherman, Mede and Lee; less-high marks to Joe Johnston, McClellan, and most of the other AoP generals. Of course, I've spent most of my time in the Trans-Mississippi, so I'm grading "big name" Eastern generals against...oh...Sterling Price, Frémont...Joe Hooker looks pretty good sometimes. (But not as good as Curtis.)
Quote: 4) From what I understand, there are a few 'types' of historians. The "Great Men" type believe that great men influence history, whereas others ("Sweep of nations") think that the trends are always there and just pull people along. I'm sure there are others (and that they have less interesting names). Are you in a camp? Which one?
Plenty more camps than that. Virtually nobody believes a strong form of the "Great Man" thesis; some hold the strong "Structuralist" position (geography is destiny, etc), but fewer and fewer. I, like most historians, like to see how people (great and small) interact with, and change, the underlying structures.
There's a "New Military History" movement, which is usually dated from the publication of John Keegan's Face of Battle, which writes military history from the bottom up, rather than the top down. Much more of an emphasis on ordinary soldier experiences. Obviously there are pitfalls here, just like in traditional MH. There are always tradeoffs; you can't write everything, so you pick a perspective and exploit its advantages. I'm writing my thesis very much in the New Military History style, and I think it's proving very fruitful.
Quote: 5) What obscure area of history do you like?
I'm writing my thesis on military logistics--which is pretty @#*! obscure. I might not stay in that arena for very long though--not a lot of jobs out there, or foreseen. When I was a medievalist, my thing was customary law and how it affected the institutional structures of merchant activity. That's another surefire best-seller.
I'm sure I'll be able to track down another obscure field or seven as I go along...There are lots of fun intellectual challenges out there, and a lot of almost entirley neglected areas of history--even in the Civil War.
Quote: 6) If you could get a full refund, how much of your collection would you liquidate?
Probably around 300 of them--maybe even more. I'm on the lookout, actually, for one of those eBay dropoff places that doesn't have a minimum value requirement. (The ones I've found won't sell something unless they think it'll go for $30, which doesn't apply to a lot of the wargames I want to dump.)
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Alfred Wallace
United States
State College
Pennsylvania
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gamemark wrote: You blogged about your tour of midwestern historical libraries (and the gaming that ensued)... exactly what were you doing on this trip?
Thesis research--hitting archives and libraries, looking for diaries and letters from soldiers who fought in the campaigns I'm studying. It's great fun when you hit a rich vein...a long, tedious slog when you find that a diary you'd pinned hopes on has entry after entry saying "Marched."
In the Minnesota state archive, I said I was looking for Civil War materials. The archivist said he thought they would all be really interesting, but all they talk about is what they ate, what the weather was, and how the roads were. Oh, how I wish that was the case--I'm eliding over the battles themselves, so descriptions of fighting were boring for me, and since I'm studying food and roads that's what I was entranced by.
Quote: My dad grew up in Springfield (and met my mom at SMS back when it was just SMS). Let's here a little about "culture" in SW Missouri - say, for example, have you been to Bass Pro? How about catching The Shepherd of the Hills production?
I have been to Bass Pro--certainly awe-inspring, in its own way. I was last there looking for hiking boots...they have good prices, anyway.
I haven't made Shepherd of the Hills...or (shudder) the other big pilgrimage site, the Precious Moments Chapel:
http://www.preciousmoments.com/
Those things give me the jibblies.
What I do want to make a trip for is the George Washington Carver home, which is nearby.
Things in the area I really like...
I've made a few Springfield Cardinals games, played in beautiful Hammons Field (which is also where MO State's baseball team plays). The "Hammons" is John Q. Hammons, hotel magnate and major donor to MSU. I drive down John Q. Hammons Parkway. From the library I look out on John Q. Hammons Fountain. I see volleyball and basketball games in the John Q. Hammons Student Center. If I were an undergrad here, I might be living in John Q. Hammons House dorm. And there's more besides...
Cashew Chicken--the unofficial official food of Springfield--isn't my thing, but I do like Andy's Frozen Custard. St. Louis claims to be the frozen custard capital sometimes...but there's nothing as good as Andy's.
(I expect meyesme to chime in here if she happens upon this discussion.)
The Springfield Nature Center is pretty cool. Springfield is on the fringes of the Ozarks, which is just gorgeous country even to just drive through.
It's a nice city--I like it, way more than I expected to, frankly. It's growing fast, and it's not the tiny bumpkinville I think most St. Louisans expect...
Quote: You've been asked to design a history game - where do you go from here?
The first question, I think, should be to ask what the core elements driving the subject were. If it's a wargame, was the major feature technological development, command and control, intelligence gathering, or what? Whatever it is should get the most attention (if not the longest rules) when designing the game.
Then (again, for wargames) it's a matter of getting orders of battle and good maps--which, given the errata we've seen over the years, is harder than it looks. (It's hard for book authors sometimes, too.)
Then...I'm mostly out of ideas. Most of my game designs are pure vaporware.
Quote: Again, congrats - and thanks for playing!
Thanks--and you're welcome!
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Alfred Wallace
United States
State College
Pennsylvania
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Critical Mass wrote: Excuse my ignorance of all things Civil War (a massive oxymoron surely) but what would you say are the most important lessons to be learned from the American Civil War?
An interesting question, which could be interpreted a couple of different ways.
The tricky thing is that I don't study history looking for "lessons," really. I like history because it tells interesting stories and provides neat intellectual problems. I think the idea that understanding history can help us find our way forward--i.e., "Whoever fails to learn history is doomed to repeat it"--is pretty overrated. Conditions change so radically...that one-liner faces off nicely against another historical cliché--"You always plan to fight the previous war." If you really want the past to predict the future, you start seeing the past as an allegory of the present, which usually leads to confusion or worse. (As one person said when I was summarizing the Whigs and Democrats in the mid 19th century, "Who are the Republicans? Who are the Democrats? Who am I supposed to be rooting for here?" Not the way to go.) History can be pretty Delphic when it comes to giving us advice for our present problems.
If history helps us understand anything, it's other history, I think.
For instance. Studying the Civil War can help us understand how Americans thought of their communities--most companies were drawn from local communities and maintained close, official ties with them. I like studying the experiences of the German soldiers and communities in order to learn about the mid-19th century immigrant narrative. In academia, the Civil War is considered first and foremost to be an "era," which was dominated by a huge war. How did the behind-the-lines interact with the front? (To use slightly imprecise terms there, but you get the idea.) There's a lot of work to be done.
I also think that, while it's hard to use history to predict the future, it's still good at guiding how things got to where they are. After all, the Civil War--and especially the public memory of it--has had enormous influence on the political, social, and cultural events in the 140 years since. How did that happen? How did the "history" of the war become our popularly received "memory" of it?
The Civil War also saw a lot of technological change, a lot of stuff that would repeat in the next 100 years. Submarines made their first appearance, to mixed reviews. There was aerial reconnaissance, the first early machine guns, turretted ironclads, and let's not forget trench warfare and "continuous operations," which would dominate the wars of the twentieth century. Not to mention guerrilla warfare...
Why should people outside of the US study, or read about, the Civil War? (Or, rather, why might they want to?) Well, it's a ripping yarn, for one thing. For another thing, many of the aspects of modern warfare were presaged here. It changed the direction of American development in a lot of ways, which has had its myriad repercussions.
Plus it's history, darn it, and there's a lot left to know.
(Just to throw this out: I wish it were still called the "War of the Rebellion," but since most of the rival claimants to "Civil War" are obnoxious I guess I'm stuck with it.)
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Alfred Wallace
United States
State College
Pennsylvania
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The magic of Bass Pro, which Mark Jackson mentioned, might deserve a little explanation for a lot of people, so let me dwell on a phenomenon common to the region: the "Buses Welcome" sign.
As some of you may know, Springfield is about, oh, thirty miles north of Branson--the state's largest tourist draw and one of the largest such in the whole country. It's a town more or less devoted to tourism, particularly family-friendly tourism. It's not exactly the French Quarter. It's famous for its enormous, garish theaters, giving shows by various stars of the near or distant past:
http://www.yakov.com/default.html
http://www.petulaclark.net/home.php
http://www.casenet.com/concert/bransonroyclark.htm
...and so on. It's also chock-a-block with outlet malls, mostly along a few miles of US 76, AKA Country Music Boulevard, one of the busiest roads on earth during the summer peak season. It also has a large theme park, Silver Dollar City.
Springfield is also the gateway to the Ozarks, another huge tourist destination, with all the lakes, hunting lodges, and resorts. Between the two, there are lots--and lots, and lots--of charter buses cruising the area.
All over Springfield, businesses try to take advantage of the situation by proclaiming their parking lot's ability to house said buses. And come the buses do--to just about anything, it seems like.
My dad is a big car and tool nut, and we were in the Grizzly showroom where my dad was checking out the lathes, band saws, dust collectors, and whatnot:
http://www.grizzly.com/showroom_mo.aspx
...when a bus full of tourists (mostly from Pakistan, according to the bus driver) disgorged its cargo into the store. The cameras came out, and for about twenty minutes they were treated to...a tour of a showroom of light- and medium-industrial equipment.
An experience they'll treasure forever, I'm sure.
Anyway, the quintessential Springfield bus-tour attraction is Bass Pro Shops:
http://tinyurl.com/kflbm
The thing is powerful huge. Like the site says, there's an indoor waterfall, a big museum of various game fish and whatnot, a nice restaurant (which has, like most Springfield restaurants, an all-you-can-eat buffet), a huge boat showroom...it's enormous. I don't hunt or fish, so there's not a whole lot there for me, but it's still a marvel just to walk around. On holiday weekends, I get stopped on the street by people looking for the place.
...and the day before a hunting season opens...goodness gracious, the place is packed.
If you find your way out to Springfield, give it a look. Everyone else does, after all...
Grizzly, though, might be safely passed up unless you need a milling machine.
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Andrew H
Australia
Brisbane
Queensland
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Do you get many people asking the way to the QuickieMart or other Simpsons landmarks? How do you respond?
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Alfred Wallace
United States
State College
Pennsylvania
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Critical Mass wrote: Do you get many people asking the way to the QuickieMart or other Simpsons landmarks? How do you respond?
Y'know, I've actually never been asked that. I suppose I'd just refer them to the power plant, if it came to that...
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Jason Little
United States
Eden Prairie
Minnesota
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Congrats, Alfred! A well deserved GotW, if there ever was one. Revel in it while you can.
Since I've been fortunate enough to talk and game with you face-to-face before, there aren't that many questions that come up which I haven't already asked before ... but here are a few that came to mind:
1) What's a game you were completely surprised to find that you actually liked, after initial reservations?
2) How often do you let your personal knowledge of history influence your like/dislike for a historical wargame, ie, if it makes incorrect assumptions about troop placements, or do you more highly regard a game which covers a campaign you feel is overlooked, etc?
3) If you had to play a game for money, or to save your life, or whatever forced contrivance floats your boat, what would it be if it COULDN'T be Taj Mahal?
4) When are you swinging back to St. Louis for more gaming?
Ohh... and finals or not, there is simply no excuse for missing Geekway to the West 2007!! 
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Adam Escandell
United States
Austin
Texas
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A few questions. . .
First, how is it proper to address the Geek of the Week? Are you "your grace" or "my liege"? Second, on what part of your resume is it appropriate to list "Geek of the Week- July 2006": would it be prior experience or other?
Now some serious questions.
1. Which Quarto! piece do you feel best describes your inner Quarto! nature?
2. Describe the feeling of emptiness you felt in your life before your introduction to Quarto!, then the bliss of your first Quarto! experience.
3. Name 3 revelations you've had about the underlying fabric of the universe while playing Quarto!, thinking about Quarto!, or reading the literature of various Quarto! masters.
4. Why do you feel Tally Ho!! has not yet been recognized as one of the greatest masterpieces in gaming history? Some follow-ups: To what degree, on average, is a game improved by the addition of an exclamation point? Wouldn't a bear eat a bird, if it was hungry? And should the variant you called "Redneck Rules" be officially rechristened "The Cheney Option"?
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Alfred Wallace
United States
State College
Pennsylvania
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ynnen wrote: Congrats, Alfred! A well deserved GotW, if there ever was one. Revel in it while you can.
Thank you, sir!
Quote: 1) What's a game you were completely surprised to find that you actually liked, after initial reservations?
Two spring to mind. One is Nexus Ops, which I thought would just be a dumb Risk-like thing, but I ended up liking it a lot. It has just enough stuff to pack into its playing time. The other is Apples to Apples--when I first heard about it, I completely underestimated the chaos it could bring; I know people who would play that game completely stone-faced, probably, but I just avoid them...definitely not a game I'd want to play all the time, but I've enjoyed it.
Quote: 2) How often do you let your personal knowledge of history influence your like/dislike for a historical wargame, ie, if it makes incorrect assumptions about troop placements, or do you more highly regard a game which covers a campaign you feel is overlooked, etc?
I scale my expectations to fit the game's pretensions. If a game bills itself as "the definitive treatment" of whatever, I'm going to nitpick. If not...not so much. I'd forgive things in a game like AH's old Gettysburg that I'd steam about in, say, Three Days of Gettysburg or This Hallowed Ground. (Not that I have anything in mind; I've never played the latter two.)
It's kind of an "uncanny valley" situation--the more "realistic" a game tries to be, the more I notice how unrealistic it is.
If a game is on a very little-gamed subject, I start salivating. I love the little DTP companies--all kinds of weirdness.
Quote: 3) If you had to play a game for money, or to save your life, or whatever forced contrivance floats your boat, what would it be if it COULDN'T be Taj Mahal?
It might not be TM now; way out of practice. If I had to pick a game for money...hm. I might pick Through the Desert if we use closed holdings, since I'm a lot better at counting points in that one than most people. If we were counting on pure skill bringing me through...that's a toughie. I've had a good run at Torres lately; maybe that. Of course, it's been a long time since I've lost an in-person game of Amun-Re...but I've never won online (and am getting creamed on SBW as I type).
If my life depended on it, I'd probably go with The Pumpkin King. Surely my captors would just give up before I would, and if not, the game would surely outlast me.
Quote: 4) When are you swinging back to St. Louis for more gaming?
I'm thinkin' December...
Quote: Ohh... and finals or not, there is simply no excuse for missing Geekway to the West 2007!!
No doubt!
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Alfred Wallace
United States
State College
Pennsylvania
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yorick wrote: A few questions. . .
First, how is it proper to address the Geek of the Week? Are you "your grace" or "my liege"?
Each is acceptable in its proper context. In informal situations--i.e., when suit and tie is sufficient dress, not full tails--"your grace" or "m'lud" will suffice. For state dinners and the like, "my liege," with a brief scrape of the ground, is considered most proper. (SOURCE: BGG Table of Ranks, 14:2:viii)
Quote: Second, on what part of your resume is it appropriate to list "Geek of the Week- July 2006": would it be prior experience or other?
Don't think this isn't going on the CV. Gotta have something under "Awards and Recognitions."
Quote: 1. Which Quarto! piece do you feel best describes your inner Quarto! nature?
This assumes an immutability not only of one's own Quarto! nature, but of the Quarto! nature of the pieces themselves. The true Quarto! Master realizes that the Quarto! nature of himself, the pieces, and the universe is all one, changing as a roaring river and still as the lakes high in the mountains near Londhak Monastery.
Quote: 2. Describe the feeling of emptiness you felt in your life before your introduction to Quarto!, then the bliss of your first Quarto! experience.
To reflect on my previous life, it is as to view the confusion of a dog chasing its tail. At the first grasp of a Quarto! piece, it was as though I was born again, into a different world outside of the cares of this Realm of Noise and Light, and indeed time itself. Holding that short-light-square-hollow piece, I felt for a moment turned into Buddha contemplating the lotus blossom.
Quote: 3. Name 3 revelations you've had about the underlying fabric of the universe while playing Quarto!, thinking about Quarto!, or reading the literature of various Quarto! masters.
1. All Quarto! games are one
2. Playing Quarto! is, essentially, a prophetic calling
3. To be hollow is to contain multitudes
Quote: 4. Why do you feel Tally Ho!! has not yet been recognized as one of the greatest masterpieces in gaming history? Some follow-ups: To what degree, on average, is a game improved by the addition of an exclamation point? Wouldn't a bear eat a bird, if it was hungry? And should the variant you called "Redneck Rules" be officially rechristened "The Cheney Option"?
I don't think the world is quite ready for Tally Ho! just yet. Tally Ho! exists in the same cultural space as Tristram Shandy; groundbreaking, but we are not yet psychologically prepared to take the next step out of the cave, as it were. After all, it has bears...and hunters. That just blows people's minds.
For exclamation points, I think the only reason boardgaming hasn't taken over the entertainment market is that not all the games have exclamation points. I mean, would you rather play:
Trenchfoot
or
Trenchfoot!
Conversely, nobody would ever play a game called "Hey. That's my Fish."
It's the same principle as Broadway musicals. Which reminds me--if there are any musical producers out there, PM me. I have a great book ready for Full Metal Jacket! as the next movie-to-stage adaptation.
"Redneck Rules" rechristened "The Cheney Option"...let it be written; let it be done.
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Adrian Larson
United States
St. Paul
Minnesota
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Great! Alfred Won! GOTW!
Wow! I can't believe it. I actually know someone who is really, really famous on the geek.
Tom Cruise, Tom Hanks, Tom, Dick and Harry are mere mortals to you sir.
Come on, do they own over 23,39484,984,943,090.0092932823 games. NO! they don't. And I actually browsed all of them on the geek to. Took forever.
I'm your biggest fan you know.
Sign my autograph will you please.
Thank you! [runs away giggling like a school girl]
Later
Adrian
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Alfred Wallace
United States
State College
Pennsylvania
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Dator220 wrote: Great! Alfred Won! GOTW!
Wow! I can't believe it. I actually know someone who is really, really famous on the geek.
Tom Cruise, Tom Hanks, Tom, Dick and Harry are mere mortals to you sir.
Come on, do they own over 23,39484,984,943,090.0092932823 games. NO! they don't. And I actually browsed all of them on the geek to. Took forever.
I'm your biggest fan you know.
Sign my autograph will you please.
Thank you! [runs away giggling like a school girl]
Later
Adrian
Ahhh, me public.
Good playing games with y'all at the Source! Hopefully in six years or so UMN or Macalaster will need a Civil War historian, and I'll get to patronize the Source all the time...
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