Working Group Connections US Wargaming Conference 2018 National Defense University Washington DC In-Stride Adjudication Working Group Chairs Merle Robinson Stephen Downes-Martin Working Group Gordon Bliss, Rex Brynen, Deon Canyon, Stephen Downes-Martin, Arius Kaufmann, William Lademan, Jason Li, Ed McGrady, Robert Mosher, Peter Pellegrino, Peter Perla, Merle Robinson, Chris Weuve The content of this document represents the opinion solely of the contributors and does not represent the policy of any organization. Working Group members maintain full and exclusive intellectual property rights over their contributions. Any errors, misrepresentation or misinterpretation in this document are the sole responsibility of Stephen Downes-Martin. Contents 1 Executive Summary ............................................................................................................. 1 1.1 Mission .......................................................................................................................... 1 1.2 Process .......................................................................................................................... 1 1.3 Emergent Perspectives ................................................................................................. 2 2 Working Group Papers ........................................................................................................ 3 2.1 Introduction to Working Group Papers ....................................................................... 3 2.2 Review of Working Group Papers from an RPG and Miniatures Perspective ........... 5 Gordon Bliss 2.3 USMC Next Generation Wargame Adjudication ....................................................... 13 William Lademan 2.4 Challenges of In-Stride Adjudication ......................................................................... 23 Ed McGrady 2.5 The Impact of Rules, Information and Time on In-stride Adjudication ................... 47 Peter Pellegrino 2.6 Swarm Gaming Approach to Organizing In-Stride Games ........................................ 65 Stephen Downes-Martin 2.7 Peeking Behind the Curtain: In-Stride Adjudication from a Player Perspective...... 81 Jason Li 2.8 Dealing with Problem Wargame Participants ........................................................... 91 Merle Robinson 2.9 View from the Hobby World .................................................................................... 105 Peter Perla 2.10 From POL-MIL Gaming to Dungeons & Dragons ..................................................... 117 Rex Brynen 2.11 White Cell Needs Bad Dungeon Masters ................................................................ 127 Arius Kaufmann 2.12 In-Stride Adjudication during Transnational Security Cooperation Wargames .... 135 Deon Canyon 2.13 Lessons from Umpiring Modern World War II Reenactments ............................... 149 Robert Mosher 2.14 Do Not Forget the Fundamentals ............................................................................ 165 Christopher Weuve 3 Workshop Notes .............................................................................................................. 171 4 Combined Bibliography ................................................................................................... 181 1. Executive Summary 1.1 Mission 1. Produce a work in progress theory and practice resource for the wargaming community in response to the demand for in-stride adjudication. 2. Recommend research directions for extending the state of art and science of adjudication. 3. Engage the broader wargaming community in addressing the research issues raised by the demand for In-Stride Adjudication. The working group was deliberately given a broad mandate, with “in-stride adjudication” described as “adjudication such that play proceeds continuously with little to no pauses imposed on game play by the adjudication process – play and adjudication occur simultaneously”. This description was deliberately broad to ensure divergent thinking and avoid limiting the discussion prematurely. Flexibility and disagreement on the interpretation of “in- stride adjudication” creates better initial insights into the subject. 1.2 Process In February 2018 we recruited a working group from as diverse a range of experience as possible without making the group too large and unwieldy. There are obvious gaps in experience (such as legal for example) that we would like to fill during later efforts. We were successful in covering the following non-exhaustive and frequently overlapping domains of gaming related expertise: ➢ DoD ➢ Historical Reenactment ➢ Industry ➢ Dungeons and Dragons ➢ Pol-Mil ➢ Role Play ➢ Intelligence Community ➢ Hobby Gaming ➢ Theater Security Cooperation ➢ Mega Gaming ➢ Education ➢ Players and Adjudicators ➢ Theory ➢ Practice The group then followed a standard three-stage normative process: Stage 1: Starting in February 2018 each member of the working group worked alone and wrote a paper on any aspect they chose dealing with in-stride adjudication. Stage 2: During the five months preceding Connections US 2018 each member of the working group then collaborated by commenting on each other’s papers and refined their own using a shared google folder. During the Connections Conference we ran an open workshop. A subset of the working group papers was briefed to the workshop, who then discussed the papers in small subgroups of five to eight people facilitated by members of the working group. We collected the workshop participants’ notes. 1 Executive Summary Stage 3: We invited the workshop participants to review all the papers in the shared folder, to think about the subject during the week following the conference and to submit their own papers and additional comments and notes. Two people joined the working group by submitting their own papers. Working group members commented on the workshop participants’ notes, and continued commenting on and refining their own papers based on the discussions during the workshop and comments received from participants after the workshop. During the month following the conference the working group chairs with the assistance of the working group examined the papers and workshop notes for perspectives and insights, refined their papers, and created the working group report. 1.3 Emergent Perspectives The working group produced a broad range of useful perspectives related to “in-stride adjudication”. They are neither exhaustive nor exclusive, so they should be researched and experimented with in multiple combinations. Other perspectives will no doubt surface when we include other areas of expertise (such as legal for example) in the working group. ➢ Definition of “In-Stride” o Intent behind the demand for simultaneous play and adjudication o Deviations from an ideal of no pauses in play while adjudication proceeds o Tradeoff between complexity of adjudication and introduction of pauses in play ➢ Player agency; what they do, when and how they do it o Distinction between players playing the game versus supporting the game o Importance of player decisions versus the reasons for them o Types of prediction occurring during and after wargaming ➢ Psychological perspective on In-Stride Adjudication o Impact of opacity versus transparency on trust between adjudicators and players o Cognitive biases of individuals and groups and their effects on play o Empirical approach to best practices for In-Stride Adjudication ➢ Implementing In-Stride Adjudication o Effect of different types of wargame on implementing in-stride adjudication o Organization of wargames to achieve the intent behind the demand o Effects of established game design principles on in-stride adjudication ➢ Experimentation with different approaches to in-stride adjudication o Trade-offs between intent behind the demand signal and quality of adjudication o Use of models, simulations, and displays to support in-stride adjudication o Effect of group dynamics and group process pathologies on in-stride adjudication Details for each of these perspectives are contained in the individual working group papers which follow. 2 2 Working Group Papers 2.1 Introduction to Working Group Papers Although many of the working group know each other, the different perspectives and wargaming environments they wrote about both interested and surprised their colleagues and the discussion between them was vigorous, mutually informative and clarified significant disagreements on several key issues. ➢ Gordon Bliss provides an overview of the working group papers from Role Playing Games (RPGs) and refereed (hidden movement) miniatures games perspectives. ➢ William Lademan provides the USMC demand signal for in-stride adjudication (for their purpose built wargaming center currently under construction), which is a specific service demand signal for a current program to go with the continual demand from the DoD for more and better gaming decisions within the limited time available to game. His paper backs up the demand signal with a theoretical analysis of several interesting wargaming concepts such as “wargame at the speed of thought”, “maneuver of knowledge”, and “reflexive warfare (and deception)” combining into “an integrated, multi-domain information warfare strategy” that requires in-stride adjudication to wargame and provides concrete requirements for in-stride adjudication. ➢ Ed McGrady lays out a spectrum of discontinuity in play created by different game designs and their adjudication methods and argues for a specific seam on