Free Games Rules

I do more than just wargames, there are a host of other types of games that I design and run, mainly at Chestnut Lodge Wargames Group (CLWG).

Despite the 'wargames' in the title the group runs and plays a host of different political and economic games as well. The group is very much activist focused, and has a far higher level of participation than most groups do. Partly this is down to the requirement on membership that each member must write at least one article for MilMud (the club newsletter - Milmud Archive) and put on at least one game each year.

I've been a member of CLWG since, I think, 1994 or 1995. I do know that it was the Spring games weekend following the megagame “Death of Fascism” when I joined, but I'm not too sure of the actual date. In the just over ten years I've been in the group I've been the admin officer, games organiser and milmud editor. I'm pretty sure I've done at least two terms in each of those posts, but again I haven't been counting. I've also designed and run a fair number of games, some of which I still have the rules/briefings electronically (there were a few games and some design sessions that were done without pre-prepared briefings and never got written up effectively afterwards, so not everything is available).

I get lots of ideas about games but never quite enough time to actually sit and write them up and do the other necessary preparations for running them. This means that there are some half-finished, or just started projects that lurk in the games folder on my hard disk. One day I will return to them and finish them off.

• Scotland 1689 - In reality there are two games here and one of them has already been run at CLWG back in August 2005. The 'Glorious Revolution' as some people call it was a bit more contested in Scotland than in England, although the extraordinary high level of apathy amongst the population was probably pretty similar. I have gamed (as a 3/4 finished play test) the Highland Campaign of Viscount Dundee ¹⁾ and I think that there is probably some mileage in gaming the Convention²⁾ which decided that King James VII had forfeited his crown and that it should be offered to Prince William of Orange.
• The Other Side of the COIN - what makes people become insurgents? Loosely based in modern Afghanistan it is a look at things from the peasant farmer point of view rather than the insurgent or government forces.