Task Chair General

Carl von Clausewitz in On War said: “Since all information and assumptions are open to doubt, and with chance at work everywhere, the commander continually finds that things are not as he expected.” The pressure to make decisions in a problem space where there is so much doubt is one of my favourite aspects of wargaming. In such a strategic environment where there are rarely “optimal” moves players are forced to draw on more than their pure analytic skills. Players need to have the courage to trust their intuition and their prior choices to best an opponent when randomness is involved in decision making. This article is about randomness affecting games, strategy games in particular. I am not trying to say that using randomness or not using it in a game's mechanics makes the game in question inherently better or worse. What I am trying to explore is the differences in random and predominantly non-random games and make a case against those who say randomness has no...