Connections North 2024 AAR

The seventh annual Connections North interdisciplinary (war)gaming conference was held at McGill University in Montreal on February 17. Some 78 people registered for the event, a comparable turn-out to other recent year. The full programme can be found here.

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The first panel of the day offered critical reflections on matrix gaming. Matrix gaming has become increasingly popular as a quick and cheap method for both educational and analytical gaming. Is it overused? What are its strengths and weaknesses? What are best and worst practices?

Madeline Johnson (Canada Revenue Agency) started us off with an overview of what matrix gaming is, for attendees who might be less familiar with the approach.

This was followed by two in-person presentations, by Jim Wallman (Stone Paper Scissors) and Sean Havel (Defence Research and Development Canada), as well as four short pre-recorded contributions by Tom Mouat (Defence Academy of the UK), Joe Chretien (US Army War College, ret.), Catherine Jones (University of St. Andrews) and Carsten Roennfeldt (Norwegian Defence University College).

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Many excellent points were made by the presenters. There was broad agreement that good matrix games are heavily dependent on having “the right people in the room,” in terms of both expertise and diversity. There were some concerns that they are overused, in part because they are so easily developed and executed. Concerns were expressed about the potential effects that facilitators can have in distorting game outcomes. Finally there was considerable discussion of modifying the approach, whether as an ancilliary to other techniques, to increase analytical rigour (by introducing more structured systems or processes)—or, conversely, by adopting even more narrative-based approaches with even less formal structure. Underlying all of this was broad agreement that game objectives come first—only once you’ve decided on these, and also considered various practical considerations (participants, time, budget, etc.) can you begin to consider whether a matrix game approach is useful (or not), and if so how it might be used or adapted.

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The second panel, chaired by Stephen Downes-Martin (US Naval War College), explored gaming deception. Stephen also talked about the new wargaming deception working group, a collaborative effort by Connections US (which will have a session on deception at their 2024 Wargaming Conference) and the Simulation & Wargaming Study Group of the Simulation Interoperability Standards Organization (SISO).

Next, Alex Karasick (Canadian Joint Warfare Centre) offered some thoughts on how deception is modelled in wargames. Central to this was what he termed the “paradox of deception,” whereby the more formally you try to integrate deception into a game design, the less it works.

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I also presented some thoughts on the topic, drawing a distinction between “modelled” deception (in which deception is a game effect) and “executed” deception (in which one player is actually attempting to deceive another player). We are Coming, Nineveh! involves a bit of both.

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Finally, Scott De Jong (Concordia University) talked about his ongoing work on gaming deception. He emphasized the need to rethink how we conceptualize deception; to more fully examine the “grey ecosystem” in which disinformation is created, disseminated, rebroadcast, and accepted; and to think more about non-traditional spaces (including games and play).

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At this point, Connections North did something different—instead of another panel, we broke for an extended (3.5 hour) lunch break and “Connections North Expo.” The latter involved game demonstrations and displays from Archipelago of Design, Calian, Defence Research and Development Canada, HMCS Venture, Stone Paper Scissors, Concordia University, McGill University, and Sheridan College. In addition, students from my POLI 452 conflict simulation course put on a poster display session in which they discussed their serious gaming topics. This proved to be especially popular.

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Our last panel of the day, chaired by Ben Taylor (Defence Research and Development Canada) examined wargaming and policy gaming in Canada: retrospect and prospect. The various panelists—Philippe Beaulieu-Brossard (Archipelago of Design), Anthony Robb (Canadian Joint Warfare Centre), Julia Smith (Simon Fraser University), and Christian Caron (Canadian Army Simulation Centre and Calian) offered their thoughts on progress made, obstacles , recruitment and development, and diversity and inclusion. A lively discussion followed.

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I think there was broad agreement that despite progress, serious challenges remain, and that (war)gaming and other serious gaming in Canada often remains too dependent on the presence of a few sympathetic or knowledgable people in the right places, who are at risk of moving on, being replaced, or retiring. We also have a way to go in promoting in forging links across related communities, and in building greater diversity and inclusion. The medical simulation community, for example, is far ahead of wargamers in measuring educational impact and refining techniques—and yet we rarely interact. Manual wargamers rarely interact with digital game developers. We don’t do enough to reach out to game-adjacent methodologies, like red teaming.

We also could do more to encourage historically under-represented groups. Only 20% of our panelists at Connections North this year were women, down from 33% last year. However, we also have no travel support to offer, which makes it more difficult to recruit contributors. On the other hand, 37% of our attendees were women, perhaps the highest ever at any Connections conference. Most of these were students, so hopefully that is a positive sign in terms of growing the field and fostering new talent.

In the summer we will start thinking about Connections North 2025. If you’re interested in helping (or hosting), drop us a line!

Photo credits: Rex Brynen, Matt Caffrey, Mathieu Primeau (Via LinkedIn), Jim Wallman.