Questions We Get Asked

Is there an online version of this game?

No. NSDM is heavily oriented toward role-playing and face-to-face interaction, and loses a lot of momentum and excitement when players can't get together in person.

Will you run a game for veteran players only?

While it would be interesting to run such a game, the numbers of players is the major issue. NSDM is a game that is better with a larger number of players and player cells. A game with 40 players and two or three cells, including experienced and novice players, would be better than a game with 15 experienced players and one cell.

We’d also rather not have to turn away a novice player, whose only opportunity to try NSDM might be on that day, because that game is earmarked for experienced players.

There are also some positions that I don’t like to give to experienced players. Most of you don’t find yourselves in the House of Representatives, for example: although I’ll occasionally put some of you in there just to seed the stream with piranha, I try to make the House mostly a novice player body, since they can’t do too much to damage the game, and while they can participate in the game they are also there to observe the game and see if they want to come back again (when they’re likely to get a more active position). Given that we usually need a House, I’m happy to have five-six first-time players to put in there.

Why don't you run NSDM as an historical game?

People often suggest that we use the NSDM format (national player-cell based role-playing) to run an historical game in some period of interest. Often mentioned are the 1930s build-up to WW II, the Cold War period from the Cuban Missile Crisis through the early Reagan years, the 7-Years War (typically known in North America as the French and Indian War, and also sometimes referred to as World War Zero), the Napoleonic era, and with State-based cells in a game covering the origins of the U.S. Civil War.

While these are all interesting periods and a version of NSDM within these periods could be fascinating, we shy away from it, at least for now, for three reasons.

1. The complexity of making such a game is usually not understood by the person making the suggestion. This would be a daunting task. For an historical period, we’d have to generate, for each national entity that would be a player-cell,
   1. a set of national cell mechanics (which change from nation to nation),
   2. a player list that includes the major political powers in the nation and that describes their relative power bases as expressed in terms of the cell mechanics, balanced appropriately to stimulate debate and to not marginalize any players,
   3. a player motivation for each position that provides the agenda and thought process of that position in sufficient detail to allow the player to play the position true to the priorities of the group that he/she represents (also integrated with the cell mechanics and the relative power bases),
   4. an expression of the Gross Domestic Product and the economic conditions (trade imbalances, accesses to strategic commodities, industrialization, education, labor pool, etc.) that affect GDP changes,
   5. SOME form of informational material on the status of the nation, for player education on the state of the State, and
   6. a military order of battle for that nation including the relative quality of the armed forces.

   We would also need to have much of the same information available for non-player cells, in order to facilitate their role in the geopolitical-economic-military machinations that will ensure in the course of the game.

2. Education of the player (and the controller) group would be essential, probably an order of magnitude more difficult that it is currently. With the existing game, the scenario begins by saying that it “is the world as you know it, except…” and then going into a relative handful of detailed exceptions. Most of the players understand current events to varying degrees, and while we always must do some educating, this is not particularly hard, and the reference material is widely available. With an historical game, however, we’d have to publish a large body of informational material on the world as it was, to the point of taking up a lot of player time to study it. We’d have to have large amounts of reference material on hand to look up information as new avenues are tried in the game. These requirements would be there even in a Reagan-era game, and would become extreme in earlier eras.
3. There are some serious sensitivity issues to grapple with. To be true to the philosophical forces operating in Germany in the 1930’s, for example, we’d have to pass out several player motivations that call for players to profess extreme anti-Semitic and racial-superiority viewpoints, to the point of tasking them to organize pogroms, round up outsiders and, eventually, construct death camps. While most would recognize the academic nature of this as an exercise, there are those who are not willing to accept this as part of a game. Similar sensitivities exist when dealing with slavery issues in a civil-war era game.

While these are not insurmountable, the task is daunting. Several years ago we ran a future game, set 10-15 years ahead. We quickly discovered that this was more difficult than just laying out the scenario of what’s happened in the intervening years, we had to project several of the nations ahead and come up with revised player lists and motivation sets. We decided after the game that, while it was an interesting exercise, it was not worth the effort that had gone into it, and discontinued the future-game as an initiative. An historic game would be much harder.

At the time of this writing, the NSDM staff is involved with 27 separate initiatives to improve the existing game (and making only slow progress – anyone who’d like to contribute some time to game design and development, contact us). We’ve decided that our time is better spent on improving the existing game than on developing an historical game. If someone else wants to take on the development of an historical game, we’d be happy to help, but for now, we have our work cut out for us with the existing game.

Is this game really worth 8 hours?

Absolutely. Unlike some games, there is no "waiting" period for you while someone else completes their turn. You're in the game the whole time. And, as some of our repeat players have noticed, you could use more than eight hours setting up political machinations and seeing them come to pass. Said one player "The Russian cell was just getting warmed up and reconquering most of eastern Europe when the game ended. It's hard to compress five years worth of decisions into eight hours."

How come you guys are so far from the food court?

That's where the convention planning staff put us. We try to get "good" rooms that allow us to play NSDM without being a disturbance to other games, with places to put maps and the overhead projector. But sometimes the convention planning committee or the convention hall itself doesn't place us in the most convenient area to access amenities like food. It's tough on us as gamemasters as well.

I've played before. Why do I have to sit through the introductory briefing again?

You don't. If you think you know the background of the game well enough to skip it, go ahead and wait out in the hall, or get a cup of coffee. Just make sure you don't miss any changes that might have been made to the game, such as new budget sheets or military movement updates.

Is there a tactics manual or something that tells me what I can do within my position?

Not officially. NSDM is run in a very free-form fashion. Rather than give you a list of things you can do, we leave it open to your creativity. Within reason (and reality), you are free to find solutions to the challenges that arise within the game and not get bogged down in a lot of dice rolling and rules-lawyering. A good preparation is a familiarity with international politics, the kind you get through CNN and the newspapers.

What do the Controllers and Game Directors get out of this?

Belive it or not, we actually enjoy the process of modeling a game after real-life events and situations. We run the games to see how well the models work. We hope the players can use the game to get a feel for how the decision-making process works, and how international political forces work to shape our world.

Can I run NSDM at my school/ local convention/ gaming group?

The National Security Decision Making Game is protected under international copyright law. This means that you cannot use the name or any of the associated documents (such as those available for viewing at this web site) designed for this game without the express written permission of Dan McDonagh.

Wargames in general are not copyright protected, so if you are feeling ambitious, you may design your own game structure and play mechanisms to simulate any aspect of politics or international events that you wish to demonstrate.

If you would like to have the NSDM staff come to your event, please read this brief note.

Players share their war stories.