Designing for Schools / Drew Mackie

In Issue 7 Walter Oppenheim described the use he had made of SPI and
other manufacturers' games for teaching history in secondary schools.
Particularly he mentioned the problem of using games the complexity of
which make them good simulations but which the average history pupil
finds hard to grasp. It is this problem which I wish to consider here.

For some time now I have been designing teaching games in planning and
architecture and it is only recently that I became interested in
wargaming through playing both Avalon Hill and SPI games. Last year this
interest blossomed into the formation of a company to design and sell
historical simulations - thus was born Warthog Games. The first game we
have put on the market is "Bonnie Prince Charlie" - a military and
political simulation of the '45 rebellion - and in the first month of
its commercial life we have already encountered the problem posed by
Walter Oppenheim - how do you design a game which will be complex enough
to please the wargaming market and yet which can be used with varying
ages of schoolchildren to teach history? Our answer to this has been to
produce a "teaching pack" for "Bonnie Prince Charlie" which allows the
game to be played in a simple form by a class of about 30 pupils.
Although the overall simulation is simplified the new rules allow the
simulation of aspects not present in the commercial wargame.

For example, in the "straight" wargame version of "Bonnie Prince
Charlie", battles are resolved using a tactical matrix system which
emphasises "outguessing" and does not use a die roll. In the classroom
game battles are considerably simplified so that a die roll largely
determines the outcome.

On the other hand the simulation of problems of communication and
command is more sophisticated in the classroom game as messages take
"days" to travel from commander to commander.

In our opinion, the solution to Walter Oppenheim's problem is not merely
to simplify but to change the game so that it is more appropriate as a
teaching vehicle n the classroom situation.

How successful this may be we don't know yet but we are currently
playtesting this approach with schoolchildren at Torry Academy in
Aberdeen.

An example of the opposite approach is a game which we have in the final
development stage at this moment. This is a simulation of the process of
a military coup in the fictitious country of Calagrande. Although
designed as a political game for five players, it is about to be used as
a demonstration of "agency role analysis" - i.e. the study of the
structure of political and informational relationships within units of
society - in this case the armed forces of a small country.

The "clip on" pack we are designing for this allows considerable
sophistication of the basic game along with an increase in complexity.
The expanded game will play with around 25 players at the ISAGA
conference later this year and can there after be used as a teaching
tool for sixth form students or in universities.

Thus we hope that we can produce "packs" which allow a teacher to adapt
a game either "upwards" towards greater detail and complexity for the
senior years or to adapt "downwards" for younger or less able pupils.

The basic message, however, is clear. To be successful in this you are
better to start with a good simulation which can be adapted rather than
an overly simple one which can't. In this way (particularly if packs are
geared to the school curriculum, reading lists etc.) the designer can
provide a flexible tool for use at several stages of educational
development.

("I.S.A.G.A." stands for the International Simulation and Gaming
Association.)