Four Men in a Balloon: Featherstone, Gygax, Reiswitz and Barker

In yesterday's post I made a reference to Gary Gygax, major Von Reiswitz and Phil Barker. I'll explain, as promised.

More about this below...

As I discovered megagaming in 1993 I also came into contact with Chestnut Lodge Wargames Group in London and became a loyal but not very active member. But at least I get my copy of the club magazine, Military Muddling with reports on design sessions and I occasionally go to meetings, like the annual picnic or games weekend.

At the games weekend there's two days of game design sessions, with the evenings available for after dinner games. One of the few times I was around (in 1996) it was a good session of Four Men in a Balloon, where all the passengers had to make their case not to be the one thrown out this round. In this case the passengers were Don Featherstone, Gary Gygax, major Von Reiswitz and Phil Barker arguing their value to the wargaming hobby. And I represented the latter.

Phil was the second to be released after the major, but in the end Gary Gygax survived rather than Don Featherstone. It was something to do with polearms, I believe. I think that is a good indication of the mindset at Chestnut Lodge, with a heavy emphasis on role playing even in a miniatures game.

The guys even autographed my copy!

But the best after dinner game was the bard competition we had afterwards. The idea was that we were given an episode of the life of Harald Hardrada and then turn this into Nordic poetry, so with lots of alliteration, reference to mythical animals etc. Jonathan Pickles put up a copy of Snorri Sturluson's King Harald's Saga for the winner and that proved to be me.

I never read the full story, but it is obvious that Harald was a bit of a poser. He traveled around much of the known world, but always seemed to get into trouble and be forced to move on rather in a hurry. In the end he lost the battle of Stamford Bridge against Harold Godwinson a few weeks before the latter was beaten  by William of Normandy, later known as the Conqueror, at Hastings.

Harald's predicaments were of course part of the amusement, as the ´bards´ had to gloss over these inconveniences and portray them in a more positive light. In most cases I opted for outright lies rather than spinning the evidence. I suspect that my reward was more out of kindness to the foreigner who had come so far to join in the proceedings than on the basis of my superior poetic skills in a second language.

But coming back to yesterday´s theme it is interesting that although my memory is hazy, these games I remember much better than many regular miniature games. Just like I remember the Peasant´s Crusade game that Graham Hockley put on that weekend, which was a string of grown men weaving around a playground à la Polonaise, with every break in the chain signifying losses to the expedition. You can imagine that once we´d crossed a few obstacles our chances of ever reaching Jerusalem, let alone ´liberating´ it, were null.

That´s the power of fun for you.

How I love going to Chestnut Lodge

Sunday I joined a meeting of Chestnut Lodge Wargames Group, a rare pleasure because megagames and CLWG don't often coincide.
We had 3 great sessions, the first set in the A Very British Civil War alternate universe where Britain descends into vivi war after Edward decides to ascend the throne with Wallis Simpson as queen.
It was a tactical scenario by John Seaton on attempts by fascists and worker militias to capture the neutral borough of Croydon, including the important airport.
Next was a session discussing Muku Patel's design for an army group level game on the opening stages of WWI on the eastern front.
We discussed some design parameters (which period, what area, at what level of resolution, the character of combat on the eastern front (and how it differed from the west) and some mechanics (trading speed for combat effectiveness, effect of terrain, intensity).
Last was a meeting of the board of a large multinational discussing how it would make the best use of revolutionary new technology.
We faced several fundamental decisions. Given its cooperation with a superpower, how would that affect it's ability to trade with others? What was our window in which we were the sole owners of this technology, and how could we leverage this towards customers and competition?
A busy day with some fascinating insights, good discussion and inspiration

Jim Wallman, my favourite game designer

My game designing hero is Jim Wallman, a friendly guy from South London with a warped mind and the English sense of humour. He has a good grasp of (military) technology and history, of popular culture and of gaming. One of my fondest memories of him is sitting together on the ground in a wargames convention hall and trying to design a game on global crime networks.

Jim started out playing ith the likes of miniature wargaming icons Paddy Griffith and Donald Featherstone, then became involved in Wargame Developments, an innovative English game design group. Their foremost inspirations were miniature wargames and Kriegsspiel and the games mostly assumed pretty good knowledge of the subject to play. The club was a fertile ground for aspiring game designers and has done a lot in the development of matrix games for example.


Jim was one of the founding members of Chestnut Lodge Wargames Group in South London, which over the years has dedicated itself to the design of new games. I find it a very inspiring club of people that are supportive and critical of game design and I’ve played some of the most fun games ever there.

The range of game formats and mechanisms Jim has used is just astounding and he really uses the form he thinks fits the theme and approach best. They range from WWII company actions and samurai skirmish to 18th century English colonels leading their regiments and large scale space battles. Jim has put most of his game designs online for everyone to benefit and has been glad to assist and discuss with aspiring game designers and players like me. It's even led to a translation by an Italian group.

His designs assume that players don´t try to bend the rules and play ´historically´, mostly assisted by umpires. Also he doesn´t believe in complex rules, because player interaction is more important to him. A lot of effort is taken to give perspective through player briefings. Of course, the use of umpires allows rules to be kept to covering only the most likely events, and let wizard wheezes and exceptions be handled separately. As a result, Jim hasn´t designed many board games as he finds the medium too restrictive, but I´ve got a fine example below.


In the early 80s Jim also started doing megagames and over the years has designed and organised dozens of them. After a couple of years he and a couple of friends/designers set up Megagame Makers. In 2005 the organised their ‘hundredth’ megagame, The Last War, with about 150 players and umpires fighting WWII from January 1942 to the bitter end in two days. Search out their archive of megagames and stand in awe of the number of games they actually put on over the years, especially if you consider what a shitload of work these games take to organise. I’ll go deeper into megagames elsewhere.

And these are my favourite (non-mega)game designs of his:


Tank duel: a double blind tank dog fight. The teams are on opposite sides of a curtain with the terrain duplicated. They only see their own tank until the enemy gets into the line of sight. Both teams consist of commander, gunner, loader and driver (depending on tank type of course). The commander has to order each of the other crew members on direction, type of ammo use, firing etc etc. By keeping the pace of the game up it becomes extremely tense and fast, with most games done in under 15 minutes.

My worst session was against an experienced team that used an antitank gun. All the time I was wondering why they hardly gave any orders. Until they hit me while turning the corner.

Decapitation: a boardgame of the ‘Freedonian attempts’ to take out an ‘Evil Dictator’ before they invade his country to bring peace, democracy and prosperity. The Freedonians have intelligence teams on the ground and radio listening to pinpoint the dictator’s whereabouts, but the latter has a few stand ins to deceive them. Of course, bombing and cruise missiles can have collateral damage that will lower public support for the war. This game shows what is possible in designing and producing a game as it was ready before the Iraq war was over. The map is here.


The Universe: the Universe is actually a living background to a whole range of games, including a strategic campaign Humanity will Prevail (running for over 10 years now), pirates (erm… independent traders), space marines and ships’ crew role playing campaigns, large space battles, and sports.

The major polities in the campaign have gained an eerie level of realness over the years as players have added their political styles and popular cultures. Political summits are hosted, battles fought, propaganda wars waged and elections rigged.


I used to sort of rule the government of the postcommunist Sirian Socialist Republic, an egalitarian bureaucracy that has greatly expanded its robot workforce to lessen the burden of human labour. When not in a meeting, the SSR leads the opposition to the Evil Empire of Sol, unless distracted by piracy, terrorism, natural disasters, alien invasions or out of control AIs.

Do have a look. And enjoy!

This was posted earlier to Fortress Ameritrash