Teambuilding with a wargame.
But there is in ‘ Wargaming’: How to create a teambuilding session out of a wargame.
It is in the interest of companies to invest in their employees in order to make a team of people work more efficiently together. For that purpose, lots of team building sessions are held every year in as many forms as one can imagine. Basically the teambuilding session, in whatever form, combines the performance of tasks and social skills by individuals which add up to a greater part. This can be a very physical exercise as a survival run, creating dinner together or strolling along a city by GPS while answering questions. It is usually something the participants have not done before and surely have not done it in the company of those present. (I’m sure many readers will have some experience in this area: in a previous job, I once played Quasar with my work compatriots. It didn’t end well... Ed.)
Competition creates drive and friendly animosity between teams as other resources and talents are delved into than in the usual working place. As a team is suddenly plunged into an exercise they have not experienced before, they will have to rely on their personal traits and will be stimulated to cooperate. Team building should entertain and engage people.
ENTER THE MODELS
The idea of playing wargames in teambuilding sessions came to us during a friendly battle at my place. We
noticed that our opponents were not working together anymore and were playing each for themselves. No coordination whatsoever. We combined our forces and defeated them in detail. At the time I was studying Military History at the University of Amsterdam and so the idea got shelved, but – after graduating – we picked up the idea again. What if we could use wargaming in order to build teams? After all, as Peter Perla, a scholar with many years of work in wargaming, mentioned in his speech at Kings’ College: ‘Wargaming entertains, for it stirs the imagination, wargaming is a learning experience, for it triggers the intellect and wargaming engages, for it stimulates the intuition.’ These are precisely the ingredients any team building session should have.
As wargaming is not as popular in The Netherlands as in some other areas, we had to find a way to make this idea stick. In the words of Peter Perla: ‘Wargaming is about making decisions in a competitive environment and dealing with the results of those decisions in that same environment.’ When playing wargames one does not really think about it in such abstractions, but it is true. And we all had our moment when we recall after a battle lost: ‘I should not have done this or that!’
Decision making, or, learning to make decisions based on incomplete information, is a theme that goes down well in corporate circles. As every manager knows, most of his or her decisions are based on gut feeling, or intuition, as information is often scarce or flawed. Just like soldiers in a combat situation or a wargamer deciding his or her next move. Thankfully, we are just playing games, so the consequences of a wrong decision will, at the utmost, lose us the game and not money or lives.
THE BASICS
As we are dealing with customers who do not have the slightest inkling of what a wargame is, we had to come up with rules that would on the one hand present choices for the players and on the other hand be fairly simple to explain and really easy to get in to. When teambuilding the participants want to start playing right away and they do not want to have an education or history lecture. That said, as gamers we do use a lot of military jargon. We talk in battalions and brigades, sections and platoons and most of us know our stuff when it comes to historical events. Your average co-worker, does not.
PERIOD
We chose the Napoleonic period for teambuilding for four reasons.
◗ Firstly, it is long ago enough that sentiments probably do not occur with the players as, perhaps,
a World War Two scenario might trigger unwanted emotions: we assumed that no one would want to play with the Germans.
◗ The second reason are the uniforms. French troops are predominantly blue whereas the British will be red. There might be some Brunswick black or Nassau green but the uniforms should be instantly recognisable for the players.
◗ Thirdly, warfare in the Napoleonic period is fairly linear. That means you can have two sides facing each other across the battlefield or, in our case, the conference table.
◗ Lastly, a degree of 19th century romanticism still clings to the battles of this period. This helps in engaging the players.
SOME RULES
We needed rules that were easy to understand and thereby quick to explain and those rules would have to be flexible enough to give room to any unorthodox ideas that people might come up with. Thinking out of the box should be allowed, after all. We thought that Black Powder would be more than suitable for that, but... it was not. Black Powder is a wonderful set of rules but it is full of wargaming elements that we wargamers might take for granted but which do not make any sense at all to the uninitiated... ‘What do you mean, a saving roll? I just hit him with my cannon! He’s dead, obviously!’ That sort of thing!
Apart from those issues, players do not remember all the rules explained to them instantly, so dice rolling for initiative, the number of moves and other friction should be made instantly clear. This led to the development of the so called BelloLudi Commander Dice. A 20-sided dice with a B, 0, 1, 2 and 3 markings (see below). When making a decision, the dice is rolled and it is known instantly to all the players how successful the order given will be executed.
CARDS
Another thing to remember is that we had to keep the players engaged in what they are doing. We noticed that players having to wait for their turn would doze off a little while other people played their units. We developed a set of cards to counter this: ‘interrupts’ if you will. The idea is that every player gets a card. The card could be good or bad. Good cards go on your own units and bad cards go on your opponents units. And there are commander cards that can negate the effect.
Apart from being an addition to every rules set I know, they help to keep the players involved as they have yet another choice to make: Do I play this card now or keep it in my pocket for a more opportune moment? Do I help my colleague with my card or keep it for myself, or do we give all the cards to the general? Do the players consult their colleagues about the cards? Apart from keeping the players engaged in the game, it says a lot about how the team that is working.
And so, the BelloLudi rules were born.
SETTING UP
The setting up of the game is usually determined by the time slot a customer will have available for the game. We can deliver anything from a couple of hours in the evening to an all-day event. As most customers do not have much time available we usually set it up first.
So, when participants enter the room, they are usually in awe of the sight they are seeing: rows and rows of brightly coloured soldiers on display with banners as well as a model village in the centre of the table. The set-up of the gaming table is fairly simple as it has to be build up quickly and afterwards packed away quickly. In addition, you do not want to have too much terrain when playing with people who never experienced a wargame before. Extra terrain causes additional rules and we have to keep those to a minimum.
We use a large cloth of six by twelve feet for ten players and two of those monsters for ten players on each side. It gives just enough room for ten brigades. We place a village in the centre of the table and two sets of hills on either side. Furthermore we roll out some roads and plant some trees on the table and with that minimum of terrain, the stage is set.
CHOOSE YOUR WEAPONS!
We ask them to make teams or let them pick a coloured chip out of a bag in case if randomising is okay and then we ask them who the commander should be. Without them knowing, they are already at the (team) work part of the event, even at this stage. As the team are embarking on a project which most of them have not done before, it is interesting – from a teambuilding point of view – to see how they make their first decisions playing this game. Do they pick the manager to lead them? Or do they do a quick inventory to see if there is anyone present who has some experience with this sort of game? This will give information on how this particular team normally operates.
Each player is given a brigade to command. Brigades consist of either four infantry battalions and a cannon (around 100 hand painted figures!) or three cavalry squadrons and a cannon. The cannon is purposely included into the brigade as it enables the players to do something in each phase of the game. Even when muskets are out of range or there is no one to charge, they can still fire a cannon in the shooting phase. We also give each player a BelloLudi Card. It is all about engagement.
FIRST ORDERS
If you have the time, make the players create a marching order. This will determine when and where the brigades will come upon the table. It will also force the participants to consult one another and interact with each other. The brigades will enter the table in marching columns as this is a meeting engagement. If you are pressed for time, make sure you put the miniatures on the table beforehand and already in line. We found that moving from line to column is a difficult exercise and will create traffic jams and confuse matters. It is fun though to see people struggle. When the brigades are put on the table, allow the players to make a command roll and move their troops in order to avoid traffic jams.
As I mentioned earlier when talking about the size of the events, we have miniatures for up to 20 players ready now, but are still expanding. Another way of hosting more players in bigger games is to insert a command structure. With one player being the commander in chief and others perhaps divisional or corps commanders. In that way you can build up another level of team building.
THE SCENARIO
Part of what makes this hobby great is the fact that there is a narrative (see Chris Birch’s comments on this matter in the Last Word section of this magazine Ed.).
So, when playing and teambuilding, you will have to provide a story of events that lead to the battle they are fighting today. As with all good stories in history we have to start with a date.
The date for this battle is set on the 20th of June 1815.
Two days after the Battle of Waterloo the Prussian and Anglo-Dutch armies are marching on Paris. The emperor Napoleon Bonaparte has escaped and word is that he is rallying his troops for an all or nothing battle at the gates of Paris. As the allies are approaching Paris from the north, a French army that was assembling in the Somme area is marching toward the enemy. It is their job to cut the lines of communication of the AngloDutch army so that Napoleon can focus on the Prussian menace. The task for the British is to prevent this. The French are fighting for survival, the Allies to complete the job they have begun at Waterloo. The armies meet near the town of Beauvais, just north-west of Paris.
It is off-course a ‘what-if?’ scenario. It never happened but our players probably do not know that. And as with all great lies, there are enough truths in this scenario that players find it perfectly plausible!
SEALED ORDERS
But before we do all that we give the chosen commanders a sealed envelope containing their orders. The orders are the same for both armies, but they do not know that. The orders are to capture the village and the adjacent hills. This will ensure that the armies will come to grips with one another. As you might have noticed the table is quite large, but in a conference room there is usually enough room to manoeuvre. In order to get to grips with each other fast, we give the units a generous movement rate. Infantry will move at twelve inches and cavalry a eighteen inches per order. Players can be in melee in just one turn: it is all about choices. As you are experienced gamers, there’s no need for me to tell you that you can adapt all these ranges to your favourite rule system and distances.
ENDING THE GAME
If we have run out of time sooner than we establish a clear and present victor, then – at the wrap up – we give points for each objective taken, each brigade destroyed or broken and each battalion shaken or broken. This will usually give some points difference and declare one side the winner for the day.
When teambuilding with wargames you will have to be able to lose a few paradigms as a wargamer. Remember that the people you are playing with are not wargamers and they are there to learn something about how they interact as a group or individual. The game is a means to an end, not an end in itself. ■
LINKS
The author – and further rules information can be contacted – via: belloludi.nl