An Historian’s View of Contemporary Wargame Design

Mark Herman will discuss his experiences in DoD and Commercial wargame design. The discussion will use examples focused on formerly contemporary topics from the Cold War plus two of his designs covering the opening of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and what will hopefully still be a hypothetical conflict over Taiwan.

Mark Herman (born November 1954 in Brooklyn, New York) is a prolific wargame designer known as the designer of the first Campaign / Battle Card Driven wargame, We the People. He was also the CEO of Victory Games (I). He started working for SPI on September 1, 1976. Herman was a senior partner for Booz Allen Hamilton and was a leader in the fields of wargaming, modeling, simulation, strategic planning, and analysis work. His 1983 design Gulf Strike, which covered the Iran-Iraq War and a US-led defense of Saudi Arabia, was used in the initial US analytic efforts at the beginning of the Gulf War in August 1990.

Host or Publisher Georgetown University Wargaming Society